Chapter 11: "I'm sorry, wanna dance?"
Later that day, the team returned to find the two had concluded their discussion and were acting normal again, or what passed as normal.
"I heard you say you know Sun?" Lee asked, to which Alice's reply was to go off on a tangent about how awesome and attractive he was, and how she met him.
She was being harassed by some weirdo, and eventually Sun stepped in and beat his ass, when the creep's friends stepped in Alice and Sun fought them off, destroying Alice's table in some restaurant, a few weeks ago. Alice was thrown out of the restaurant and told to go home. On her way to a different restaurant, the young guy met up with her, after having stole her plate of food from the eatery, so she wouldn't be hungry. Over a short period of time the two began dating.
"Our history goes a little further back than that." Lee smiled remembering how friendly Sun was to him, he even taught Lee how to make and use his weapon. "He is a good guy, Neil." Lee adds, after his story.
"He could be the fucking Messiah for all I care, just as long as he stays out of my way, and out of my sister, we're cool." He promised to his partner and sister. "Besides, I've got bigger fish to fry" Neil added opening the door to see Pyrrah, standing in front of him. "Evenin'!" He greeted, faking a happy tone.
"Neiless, is this a bad time?" She wondered, with Jaune standing behind her, gingerly.
"Not at all." He lied shutting the door behind him, before walking away with them.
"Did anyone else giggle about the 'Out of my way out of my sister comment' that he said?" Jude wondered opening a vanilla coke.
"Mind your business, Jude, Aziz, Carriette." Alice mocked.
Speaking in between his near convulsive laughter, Josh realized "Holy shit, dude, your name is Judas Iscariot!" Lee laughed just as hard, eventually forcing Alice to join in. Jude simply flipped off his three friends and the picture of his parents, on the nightstand behind him.
"When was that party supposed to be?" Josh wondered, dressed up as the Joker, holding a box of green hair dye.
"You're really going all out for this thing, aren't you?" Lee wondered, watching as the boy shook his head in agreement.
"And speaking of 'All out', I've gotta go hit up Naktus, to see if he can find me any Joker-esq props, and to say hi, because I haven't seen him for a few chapters." Josh added, getting changed into his street clothes, wondering how his friend was fairing.
Pyrrah asked Neil what happened to Blake, but he told her he didn't want to talk about it.
"All you need to know is that I made her mad, the rest is between us." He explained, trying to leave his explanation as vague as he could. "We'll work it out." He decided, knowing he should at least apologize to the girl. The trio walked to some small room with only a dark grey carpet, a flimsy door, and a light source.
"You two seem like a good couple." Pyrrah, added, closing the door behind them.
"We're not a couple," He objects "we were just going to go to a dance together." He decided, figuring Blake would never love someone like him. Perhaps it was modesty or insecurity or perhaps their relationship was merely platonic. Whatever style they had, it was most likely endangered.
"I don't want to seem nosey, but you two are my friends and I feel that I should try to help you out." Pyrrah decides offering some advice. "I believe you should make amends, if you were in the wrong, but if she was wrong, forgive her and move forward... that's all I have to say." She concluded changing the subject and telling her troubled friend that Jaune needed a sparring partner. "You seem to work well with ruthless aggression, I think that could be just what Jaune needs." Pyrrah decided, knowing Jaune was more docile than Neil, even when he was angry.
"Wait, THAT'S what you called him here for?" He gasped, backing away from the challenge. Pyrrah stood, blocking the only exit, while Neil agreed and removed his clip from the pistol and checked to make sure the chamber was clear, for added safety. "I can't do this." Jaune pleaded, being pulled away from Pyrrah.
"You'll hafta learn sometime." Neil promised. "There will be many people who get carried away and use their anger to give them strength, they get so mad, they become their own undoing." He explained, before telling Jaune one important thing. "The smart soldier is the one who makes it out alive." Meaning that the boy must be strong as well as intelligent, or else he will either be crushed, or outsmarted, by his enemy. "I'm already pretty angry, so I guess we could..." Neil motioned, putting up both of his fists to let Jaune know what he was talking about.
"Okay. Uh, what do I do?" He asked, beginning to arm himself. While Jaune wasn't looking, Neil punched him in his gut, knocking the wind out of him.
"I'm not going to let you prepare." Neil informed, telling his friend that he needed him to be unprepared, because it made him easier to beat. In this lesson Neil taught the boy whatever he could. Though seemingly ignorant, Jaune did have the will to learn, and learn he did.
Walking back to his dorm, after the training session, Neil spotted Blake and Lynn. The Irish girl called Neil over, and said but one word, before walking away from the two of them, "talk". Scoffing, Blake called her friend's name, but she simply waved her hand, without even looking back, to signal "I'm ignoring you, bye." Blake simply looked at Neil, waiting for him to say something.
"I'm sorry, Blake. I didn't mean for it to sound racist, I just didn't like him, because..." He struggled to complete his sentence, so his sister concluded it for him.
"'...I'm a TOTAL prick, who is obsessed with my little sister's safety.'"
The two became silent, after realizing Alice and Sun were with them, during the conversation.
"I understand. I shouldn't have been so quick to jump to conclusions." She admitted, as her ears moved, catching the boy's eye. "I'm also sorry I hit you." She added, moving her ears to show sorrow.
"I understand I can be an ass sometimes..." He began to admit.
His sister, having realized his words, asked "What do you mean 'sometimes'?"
With a sigh, he continued, asking her to forgive him for being too hasty with his words, and threatening her friend, an apology which was accepted by both Blake and Sun.
"I can't blame you, it's nice to see that she has such a devoted family member." Sun admitted, shaking Neil's hand.
"Sooo..." Sighed Neil, walking with Blake. "...you still wanna go out?" He asked, prepared for the worst, yet it never came. Instead, the girl smiled and said yes. The two laughed and talked, during their lengthy conversation, Pyrrah crossed their path, waving hello from a distance. Raising both eyebrows to say "How about that?", Neil waved subtly.
"It's over before it's begun!" Declares Josh, selecting a character in a fighting game, while his opponents, Lee and Jude, did the same, and while they did that, Sun and Alice played rock paper scissors to determine who played winner.
The night of the party arrived. Weiss was stuck with Yang, while her friends went to check out other students' costumes. She noticed Jude who talked with Josh, and dropped in to say hello. Jude was dressed as Joel, from The last of us, for he bore some physical resemblance to Joel, emphasis on some. Josh wore his, perfected, Joker costume complete with playing cards with the supervillain depicted on the Joker card. Approaching the two she changed her mind, and changed her destination, telling Yang to inform the boy that she wanted to talk to him by the punch table.
Leaving Yang and Josh alone, he went to meet her.
Staring at the girl, dressed as a witch with a miniskirt and a rather large witch's hat, Josh simply looked at her while she looked at him, both were silent, allowing the music to play while they looked at each other, then to their side, then to their shoes, then back to each other.
"So, a witch, huh...that's cool..." He commended, with a nod, feeling shy. After looking around, again, he asked, "Your friends abandon you too?"
With a happy smile Yang agreed. "Yea. Also, I was going to be something else, because a witch just seemed too typical, ya know?"
Agreeing, Josh pointed out Nora. "Yea, she had chose to be a witch too, but I give her credit, because she changed it up and went with the battle witch approach, and instead of a broom she decorated her hammer, and incorporated that into the costume." He commended. "But she also tried to combine the term 'Battle Witch', which just gave her 'Bitch', so she just stuck with 'Battle Witch'". He continued, laughing with Yang.
"It's a good thing this is a costume party, otherwise you'd be considered a hobo, unless you meant to come looking like that." Weiss satirized, handing the boy a cup of punch.
"Because of the character design, I'll take that as a compliment, Snow Weiss." He joked, noticing her Snow White outfit. "And at least my costume resembles the one it's based off of, yours, on the other hand, is a far cry from the real Queen's." Explains Jude, having worked for her and her husband as a child. He began to explain the queen's attire, in great detail, before mocking Weiss' frail imitation.
"You...how do you know that?" She gasped looking at the young man, unaware that he was, in his childhood, a servant of Queen White, he would entertain her, clean for her, and do other miniscule tasks, one of which was ordering her outfits.
One day, his cousin, Benson, served the Queen an apple, given to him by an oddly dressed man who called the boy over to his stall, telling him that he was a Traveling exotic fruit salesman. He noticed that Benson seemed too rich to be like the other kids, so he decided to ask a little bit about him. After finding out that he was shopping for food to feed the royal family, he offered Benson a vibrant, red apple that seemed to have a faint golden aura about it, the salesman explained that it was picked from a tree that was birthed by a stream filled with minerals that made the apples big, bright, and healthy. Just one apple would help the eater's skin become shiny and clear, it also aided in hair growth that was sure to keep the woman's hair as youthful and vibrant as the apple.
The salesman seemed to know all about the fruit, and where it came from, backing up his story with scientific facts, the likes of which the young ward had never heard. Persuaded by the man's words, he bought two bags of five for a few pounds.
"Now remember lad, one a day, for five days will keep the King and Queen alive and well!" He promised, however Benson would soon find out that it only took one apple to make a drastic change.