A/N: Back again. No big action scenes this time around, just the fallout from the previous chapter whilst carrying on with canon events. See you at the end, enjoy the show.
Also, thank you so much for 500 Followers. I hadn't even projected this story hitting that milestone by the end of the year, so this truly warms my heart and blows my mind that I already have so many people here just reading my ramblings and crazy ideas.
Ruby was in an awkward position, she could clearly see Fenrir was in a bad way from the way he was holding on to the side of his chest and wincing in pain, yet when she tried to offer him support, he simply brushed her arms aside and growled out a quiet "I'm fine" before shuffling himself forward on trembling legs.
Silently, the cafeteria watched as Fenrir struggled to keep up with Glynda's long strides but followed after her anyway. Cardin simply stood in disbelieving silence, before a second, scathing glare from the veteran Huntress kicked him back into gear and he got moving.
Unfortunately, just before leaving, Cardin shot one last hateful glare towards the Rabbit Faunus.
"You and I" He sneered, his nose still leaking blood "We're not done".
Velvet visibly shuddered, fighting the urge to hide behind someone bigger than her as Cardin finally left the area.
"You okay Velvet?" A quiet voice to her left piped up.
Looking down, Velvet saw Ruby gazing up at her with concerned eyes. Slowly, the whole cafeteria started to come back to life, people milling about to and fro, most of them furiously discussing the Superhuman fight they had just seen between first year team CRDL, and the leather wearing, midnight-haired Grimm known as Fenrir Lupus.
"I… I'm okay Ruby" Velvet spoke in what she hoped was a comforting way, trying to dissuade any lingering worries in the younger girls mind.
Even though Velvet felt anything but okay.
She had initially felt cold terror grip her soul when she had first seen the Alpha stalk towards her as she was being bullied once again by Cardin and his group.
And then, when he had started fighting them off, and he had turned to her and spoke in perhaps the softest tone she had ever heard him speak in…
"It's alright… this won't take long".
…She had felt, strangely comforted by his words. Some small part of her mind told her after he had spoken with such conviction in his voice, that he would come out the winner, even as he was being beaten into the ground she had still felt hopeful, certain of his victory.
And then her emotions flipped right back around to terror as she watched Fenrir snarl and shout right in Cardin's face, claws poised and ready to carve flesh from bone. After begging him to stop, he had turned his eyes towards her, and Velvet felt paralysed as she locked eyes with the Grimm.
His eyes, that burning, crimson red. The eyes that only a Grimm could have, flaming with hatred and malice, bored right into her very being and left her feeling completely powerless under his gaze.
All of these conflicting emotions created a mess in the poor Rabbit Faunus's mind and left her feeling more uncertain about how she felt towards the Alpha, than she had felt before the whole fiasco even started.
Whilst Velvet was stuck in a conflict inside her own mind, Pyrrha was glaring at the doorway Cardin had just walked out of. Closing her eyes and shaking her head, she turned back to the others and spoke her mind.
"Atrocious, I can't stand people like him".
"He's not the only one" Blake said as she narrowed her eyes, a different breed of contempt lying hidden beneath her golden eyes.
Yang simply let out a long sigh and crossed her arms.
"It must be hard to be a Faunus".
Meanwhile as the girls continued to talk amongst themselves, Ruby found herself getting increasingly more distracted and concerned as all around her, people started to talk about their Grimm friend.
"Did you hear what that monster said?".
"Talking about how he's killed Huntsmen. Acting like he was proud of it, makes me sick!"
"I've got to get out of this school! I don't care, I'm not going to be in the same building as that PSYCHO!"
All around her, Ruby could almost feel the disgust in the air as Fenrir had just inadvertently painted an even bigger target on his back.
"You don't think Fenrir will be kicked out for this, do you?" The small red-head asked aloud to her teammates.
Yang grimaced "At this point Ruby, I think wolfy will be lucky if he isn't killed for this".
"Saying… what he said at the end certainly didn't put any good will in his favour, that's for sure." Weiss added with a slightly disturbed look.
Because she honestly was unnerved by Fenrir's words, how he'd talked about killing, murdering Huntsmen and Huntresses like it meant nothing to him.
It reminded her once again that under the surface, their wolf Faunus friend was in fact a rage filled, hate riddled killing machine that most definitely had blood on his hands.
Off to the side, Jaune watched as his friends talked amongst themselves, and then his head lowered to stare at the floor forlornly.
Because while everyone else was worried or revolted by the Alpha's behaviour, Jaune only felt envious of the Grimm.
"Because he didn't hesitate" Jaune reasoned with himself "He saw Velvet was in trouble and he just moved. Even beaten and bloodied he didn't back down. Me… I saw, and I did nothing, what does that say about me if a GRIMM can do more than me".
His mood quite effectively lowered, Jaune let out a quiet sigh and walked off, away from the cafeteria, away from his teammates.
And futilely, away from his own tumultuous emotions.
….
Cardin had been taken into Glynda's office first, leaving Fenrir waiting outside, pacing the floor in steadily rising anger, his tail whipping behind him and his hand still tightly gripping the side of his chest.
He was furious, livid, because he could feel the deceit emanating from the other side of the wooden door in front of him. No doubt, Cardin was currently spinning some web of lies that would make him out to be just an innocent victim who was attacked by Fenrir for no reason at all.
"And she'll believe it!" Fenrir sneered, his fangs glinting in the midday sun as he bared his teeth to the world "She's been wanting me out of Beacon since day one. Well fine, I don't care anymore! If she won't listen to the truth, THEN I'LL JUST BEAT IT IN TO HER STUPID SKULL!"
As Fenrir's thoughts started to yet again grow twisted and sadistic, that soothing voice echoed through his mind, and instantly brought Fenrir back to reality.
"Stay calm" It whispered "Your anger is what constantly gets you in to these situations, if you stay calm, you can come out of this unscathed. You know the truth of what happened, so tell the truth, you can't do any more than that."
Fenrir let out a low growl of aggravation, that quickly transitioned into a hiss of pain as his rib once again stabbed at his sides.
"Aaagghh shhhiiii…"
It wasn't completely broken as Fenrir had initially assumed. It was more like a hairline fracture upon closer inspection, but that didn't mean it didn't still hurt like hell.
"Really hope this heals soon. Can't be dealing with this irritation all day".
Speaking of irritations, Cardin chose that moment to exit the Blonde Huntresses office, his face as angered as a thunderstorm as he slammed the door behind him.
The two locked eyes, Cardin scowling whilst Fenrir did his best to remain as neutral as possible, despite the fact that he still held some lingering rage towards the brown-haired brute.
"Don't think that this means you're better than me Dog" Cardin jeered "The next time we face each other, I'll have my mace, and you'll have nothing. We'll see if your feeling so big and strong then".
Having said his piece, Cardin stalked off not even looking behind him. Good thing too, because Fenrir's face was slowly shifting into a vicious scowl that would give a grown man nightmares, a vein visibly pulsing on his forehead.
"Mr Lupus, inside now!"
Glynda's voice called out from inside her office, breaking Fenrir out of his anger induced haze, and instead replacing his ire with dread as it was now his turn in the hot seat.
"Uuugghh… Lets just get this over with".
Purposefully going as slowly as possible, Fenrir plodded into the moderately sized office that was practically Glynda's second house at this point in her life.
But then, Fenrir stood fully upright, eyes wide as he realised Glynda wasn't the only occupant of the room.
"Oh for Oum's sake. What, what did I do Oum, what did I do?! Did I eat your dog? Why have you Gotta be like this to me?!"
"Take a seat Mr Lupus" Ozpin spoke gravely, his eyes staring through the Alpha above his tinted glasses. His face was set in that combination of extremely tired and moderately disappointed that just drove Fenrir up the wall.
"Stop looking at me that way! I don't owe you anything, YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER!"
Shaking off his agitation, Fenrir gingerly sat down in the simple, wooden chair. Both Glynda and Ozpin took note of how Fenrir was favouring his right side, leaning across the chair in an awkward position.
"So, would you care to explain your side of the story?" Glynda cut straight to the point, her face professionally neutral.
Fenrir scowled, the tiniest growl escaping from his lips as he already felt his anger flare up.
"What's the point, you've already made up your mind" He snarled.
Glynda visibly frowned at Fenrir's hostile posture.
"Comments like that certainly won't help your case Grimm, neither will losing your temper"
"Nothing I say will change your mi…AAGGHH!"
Fenrir had made to stand up to get closer to Goodwitch's face, but the second he rose up from his chair, his chest flared up in pain and he sat right back down, tightly clutching his ribs.
"You are injured" Ozpin stated matter-of-factly "If you aren't up to talking right now, we can take you to the infirmary".
Fenrir rubbed at his chest, before turning his angered face towards the headmaster.
"It's nothing!"
Squinting, Ozpin could see a tiny wisp of black smoke starting to dribble out of the corner of Fenrir's mouth.
"Fenrir" Using the Grimm's first name snapped Fenrir out of his staring match with the two veteran Huntsmen "You need to calm down. If you can't even attempt to explain yourself without losing control of your own emotions, then we have to assume that what Mr Winchester told us, was in fact the truth. And that certainly won't bode well for you".
As he talked, Ozpin gestured to the corner his own lips. Fenrir looked off to the side and realised with a start that a tiny trail of inky black smoke had started to come out of his own mouth. Furiously clamping a hand around his mouth, Fenrir tried to get his heartrate to slow down and get his mind to focus.
His Aura was but a sliver of what it normally was, meaning he was still in the danger zone. Closing his eyes, Fenrir focused on his breathing and tried to clear his head of any lingering fury.
"That's it, stay calm" The soft voice whispered soothingly, acting like a wave of cool water, dousing the fires that burned away in his core "Keep a level head. Explain your side of the story, they'll know you speak the truth".
Slowly, Fenrir's muscles finally relaxed, and his face lost some of its tension. The black smoke started to evaporate in the air, until it disappeared completely. The Alpha let out a slow exhalation of air before looking back up to the two professors, his eyes fully back to their dark blue.
Nodding, Ozpin turned to look at his assistant head and gave her a slight nod, an indicator that it was safe for her to proceed.
"Okay, lets try again" Glynda muttered aloud, looking almost as exhausted as the headmaster himself "What, in your own words, just happened in the cafeteria?".
Fenrir still felt like he'd just be written off the second he opened his mouth, the world had been freakishly unfair to him the past month, why should it stop now. Still, he had to try, if for no other reason than to get Ozpin to stop looking at him like he'd let the older man down somehow.
"I don't know what you expect from me Ozpin, but I know its too much for me to ever meet".
So, as calmly as he could, Fenrir recounted everything that had happened in the cafeteria not a few minutes ago.
From him simply sitting and talking with teams RWBY and JNPR, to seeing team CRDL harassing Velvet and pulling on her ears.
He even told them about how he had initially hadn't wanted to fight, fearing that he would only get himself in trouble, or worse ganged up on and killed by every student in the room. Finally, he told them about the fight itself, as best as he could remember it at least. Finally, Fenrir told them about how he'd openly threatened Cardin and had come very, VERY close to losing his grip on his self-control.
"If Velvet hadn't stopped me" He grumbled quietly, annoyingly unable to meet Ozpin's eyes "You wouldn't have gotten the chance to ask him what happened".
Glynda and Ozpin both shared grave expressions as Fenrir bared all to them, the wolf Faunus too worn out to even try to lie.
"I just wanted to get Velvet out of there" Fenrir said, almost forcing the words out as he grit his teeth in agitation "What they were doing… It wasn't right! I couldn't just stand there and let them do what they want".
That gave Ozpin a little more hope, knowing that while he had been a tad too aggressive and vicious in his approach, Fenrir's anger had come from a good place this time around.
"A desire to protect, now where does that come from I wonder? Another side effect of Ruby's Aura being grafted onto his body, or does this perhaps stem from his own heritage of wanting to protect the planet from what he deems to be the 'true monsters'?"
As Ozpin thought to himself, Glynda continued to frown sternly at the now silent Beowolf.
"Letting them bully Miss Scarlatina is unacceptable in your eyes, but threatening to brutally mutilate and kill them, whilst talking about how you have in fact KILLED Huntsmen and Huntresses in the past, is completely acceptable to you?"
Fenrir wanted to argue against Glynda's remark, but truthfully, he couldn't argue her logic. Talking about how Cardin was in the wrong for what we did, whilst also screaming literal bloody murder, did look a bit hypocritical on his part.
All was quiet for a while, before Fenrir finally worked up the nerve to look at the Grey-haired man who had been completely silent for a long time. At last, the Headmaster finally spoke.
"Firstly Fenrir, I'd like to say I believe you completely when you say you had no intention of starting a fight, I also believe you when you say that Mr Winchester and his teammates were the true aggressors in this fight. So in short, I thank you for your honesty".
Both Fenrir and Glynda widened their eyes at Ozpin's words, though Glynda recovered faster as she reluctantly, had to agree with her superiors words. The Grimm had been completely honest with them, though after Cardin's… fanciful story and what she already knew of the brutish leader of team CRDL, she was weirdly more inclined to believe the Alpha Beowolf.
"However" Ozpin continued, and Fenrir felt his sense of hope crumble away along with it "Professor Goodwitch is also correct in saying that doesn't make what you did right or the best course of action. I know you still view humanity as… a nuisance, but you can't have those views anymore, or at least display them so publicly, it will only make peoples distrust of you even stronger, give them all the more reason to attack you. As much as you wish it were the opposite, the fact is that kind of behaviour simply will not be tolerated in this academy".
With every word from the headmaster, Fenrir felt his mood sink further and further into the pit of his shoes. He was unnerved by just how ashamed he felt as he listened to Ozpins slightly saddened tone.
"Stop it! I… I shouldn't feel like this, you're just another human, so why do I feel like I've let you down?"
"In the end, the details of your punishment will be handled by Professor Goodwitch, but I will say this to you Mr Lupus" Ozpin stated, the firm look in his eyes telling Fenrir he would say this only once "You cannot let this happen again. If another situation like today arises, you either notify a teacher, or you try to take down the situation passively. As of now, you are too violent and ill-tempered to be allowed to fight, you cannot be trusted to not take things too far. If something like this happens again, and you lose yourself to your rage, well Mr Lupus, I'm afraid their will be only one outcome to that scenario. And you already know what that is".
"Exile, maybe even my death"
Fenrir stared down at the floor, his expression sombre, unable to look the older man in the eye. In just a few moments, the Alpha had gone from feeling the rush of victory over beating down Cardin and his goons, to now just feeling guilt-ridden and slightly sick.
Fenrir muttered, almost silently, his ears flat against his head and his tail wrapped tight around his waist. But both Ozpin and Glynda caught what he said.
"Yes sir"
There was quiet for a moment, Ozpin not entirely sure what to think of the Grimm calling him 'sir', but eventually both parties got hold of themselves and Glynda moved to wrap up this discussion.
"Grimm, you will come to my office everyday for the next two weeks for detention and additional assignments. Be thankful that's ALL you're getting; Cardin's punishment is much longer than yours. Now that will be all, you may leave".
Seeing no reason to stay, Fenrir slowly got back to his feet and walked out of the claustrophobic office. Just before he left though, the Beowolf looked behind himself and narrowed his eyes at the Blonde Huntress.
"I have a name" He whispered bitterly "Please call me by it"
And with that, he left, unlike Cardin, closing the door gently behind him.
…
Looking at the time, Fenrir saw he had a few minutes before afternoon classes began, so he decided to take his time and mull over his thoughts as he walked towards Ooblecks classroom.
"All in all, that could have gone a lot worse, I suppose" He reasoned with himself "But Ozpin and Glynda are right in saying that my anger keeps getting me in trouble. But what am I supposed to do then? My anger is all I've ever had, I can't just give it up".
As Fenrir walked through the bustling corridors, another hot spike of pain lanced through his side, causing him to hiss in pain and clutch the wall to stop himself from falling to his knees. A few people gave him some odd looks as they passed by him, but nobody even asked if he was okay.
Looking down at his ribs, Fenrir caught the sight of a dull, blue glow emanating from underneath his clothing. His Aura was slowly starting to replenish itself, and as it did, it made steady work of repairing his damaged ribs.
"Huh… I suppose this borrowed Aura of mine does have its uses… when it isn't attacking me that is"
Figuring it best to just let the blue glow do its thing, Fenrir straightened himself up and carried on walking forwards, the pain in his side slowly starting to ebb away.
"I need to be careful from now on. I'm on thin ice, I can't make any more mistakes like today, or it's over for me".
Not long after, Fenrir finally found himself inside Doctor Ooblecks classroom. Scanning the room, Fenrir eventually caught the familiar faces of Blake and Pyrrha and made to move towards them.
And then he stopped, unsure if any of them would even want to speak to him after what they saw him do.
But then, the scarlet-haired spartan noticed his half-hearted approach, and actually waved him over.
"Fenrir" She called out quietly, looking at the uncomfortable Grimm with concerned eyes "Are you okay?"
Realising he now had no way out of this, Fenrir groaned quietly and quickly sat down in-between Blake and Pyrrha.
"I… I'm okay" He spoke softly, trying to not be noticed by anyone else, the last thing he wanted to be feeling right now was everyone else's negative emotions towards him "I've got detention for the next two weeks, but I think I got off easy considering…"
Pyrrha let out a sigh of relief, even Blake seemed to lose some tension in her face.
"Well that's a relief, Ruby will certainly be glad to hear that you won't be leaving us anytime soon"
Fenrir nodded silently, looking forwards at the clock hanging on the wall.
"How's Velvet?" Fenrir turned to ask Blake.
"She's a little shaken up" Blake spoke bluntly "But if you want to know really badly, you can just ask her yourself, she's in this class too"
"WHAT!"
Fenrir yelled, then immediately ducked down to avoid the questioning glances from the students around him.
"Why is Velvet here?!" He whisper yelled, fists clenched tight.
"She has some catch-up work to do for professor Oobleck" Pyrrha spoke in a soothing tone, attempting to calm the now clearly panicking Grimm "If you catch her after class is over, maybe you could try to apologise to her, I'm sure she'd understand".
Fenrir ran his hands through his black and blue hair, looking more and more frantic with every passing second.
And then he felt a light pressure on his shoulder. Looking to his side, the wolf Faunus saw Blake leaning forward, her hand on his shoulder, shaking it lightly.
"You're overthinking things. You managed to apologise to Weiss Schnee and she, of all people, forgave you. This will be no different from that".
Fenrir stared down at the hand on his shoulder, before letting out a long puff of air, and got hold of himself.
"Right, sure"
Having settled down, Blake removed her hand from his shoulder and put on her usual air of quiet indifference.
Fenrir drummed his fingers across the wooden desk, looking around awkwardly, before finally working up the nerve to say what was on his mind.
"By the way, thanks for… you know, not letting Goodwitch cut my head off. You didn't have to do that".
It pained him, having to show gratitude to Humans, and yet a small part of himself was glad he'd done it.
Pyrrha smiled happily at the Grimm, acknowledging his thanks, whilst Blake just gave him a far more sly smirk.
"That was painful for you to say wasn't it?"
Turning to look at the cat Faunus with narrow eyes, Fenrir tried to scowl at the girl, but was unable to stop that weird wobble from twitching on his lips.
"Very, do not expect me to do it again."
Blake let outa quiet huff that may or may not have been a chuckle.
"Of course".
With all that settled, the three turned to face the front, Fenrir closing his eyes and once more, feeling that strange warmth in his chest that he felt oddly comforted by.
"Yeah, could have been much worse".
…..
Not long after, the rest of teams RWBY and JNPR came into the class, and each of them had come up to Fenrir to ask how he was and whether or not he was being executed tomorrow. It was truly alien to the Grimm, having this many people inquiring into his wellbeing.
Not that he hated it, it was just… strange to him.
"These Humans are truly strange creatures"
Both Yang and Nora made comments about how much they loved Fenrir kicking CRDL to the curb and Fenrir didn't even try to hide as he puffed out his chest in renewed pride.
That thing had taken a battering over the past several weeks, it would drink in whatever praise it could get.
Weiss lectured him on how reckless he had been and how he should count himself lucky that he had gotten off as softly as he had. The Alpha had no argument there.
Ren… was Ren and just nodded to him. Fenrir just responded in kind.
Ruby was a bit more reserved than her sister but seemed equally joyous that her Wolf friend was okay. Before leaving, Ruby whispered into his ear that she thought what he did was pretty cool too.
Jaune… oddly enough simply asked if he was okay, and when Fenrir assured him he was he just nodded and walked off, head hung low, not even meeting the Alpha's eyes.
"That was weird. What's up with him?"
Subtly probing at Jaune's emotional state, revealed that a very sudden wall of negative energy was surrounding the blond boy.
A wall of envy.
At first Fenrir wondered, what could Jaune possibly be envious about regarding the Beowolf. Then he remembered, he hadn't been the only one who had seen Velvet being tormented.
"Ahh. Well, that's going to be something I'm going to have deal with quickly. Don't need that on my conscience".
This was all nice and everything. But as more and more people came into the classroom, Fenrir was treated to his usual, constant jabs of negative energy drilling away at the back of his skull.
Only worse now.
Some people actually, openly threatened him as they walked by. The language some of them used was… colourful.
Pyrrha shot him a worried look, fearful of his reaction. Fenrir merely shook his head, sighed through his nose and didn't even look back at the retreating students who had told him how they'd corner him when he'd least expect it and 'Get some well-deserved justice'.
Fenrir had no time or energy for any of them. Their words were just empty air to him, why would he ever be intimidated by that?
Then Velvet showed up, that got a livelier reaction out of the tired Alpha.
The two saw each other almost immediately and froze like they'd just been encased in ice.
Velvet looked just as fearful as before.
But then, she took a seat in the front row, just underneath where Fenrir was seated.
Fenrir stared down at her in confusion, but she didn't turn to look up at him. He wanted to talk to her, explain himself and at least try to make amends to the older girl.
But then that softer voice kept him seated.
"Not now, there's not enough time. Wait till later, when you can talk to her without having to hurry".
So, Fenrir stayed in his seat, though he didn't feel good about it.
Finally, just a few minutes before the bell was due to ring, Cardin and his gang strode in.
Fenrir very pointedly looked at the floor until they had passed by him. He didn't know how he'd react if he so much as looked at the brainless thug, so he thought it best not to take any chances.
Fortunately, Oobleck himself came speeding in not a few seconds later, and when it came to the green-haired professor, you had to be completely focused on him at all times or else you would miss a whole term papers worth of information. The man had a mouth that wouldn't stop for anyone.
So Fenrir got a break from the negative energy surrounding him, because everyone else was now trying desperately to keep up with the history professor.
The lesson this time around, was apparently going into something called the 'Faunus Rights Revolution', which apparently, was a massive conflict between Humans and Faunus that occurred sometime after the Great War.
Whilst Oobleck continued to zip around the room, constantly downing shot after shots of coffee in between breaths, Fenrir watched out of the corner of his eye, Jaune slowly losing his grip on the conscious world and drifting off to sleep.
"Bad idea Jaune" Fenrir thought to himself "I did that once, woke up to Glynda standing above me. That was… unpleasant".
"Yes! Yes prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution, more popularly known as the Faunus War" Oobleck carried on, speaking a mile a minute "Humankind was quite, quite adamant about centralizing Faunus population in Menagerie".
"Ah Menagerie, that's where I came from. At least, that's the lie Ozpin tried to spin back when I was just Fenrir Lupus the Wolf Faunus, and not Fenrir Lupus the Grimmborn".
Oobleck gestured to the giant map behind him, using a pointer to show where exactly Menagerie was located underneath all the layers of graph paper and newspaper clippings Oobleck had just left on the map.
Finally looking at this landmass that Fenrir had heard a lot about but never seen, known as the place that housed more Faunus than any other continent, the Alpha only had one thought on his mind.
"It looks so… small".
Indeed, Menagerie was the smallest of all the continents. And apparently, Humanity had wanted to take all the Faunus on Remnant and place them here.
"That would not have been a pleasant way of life. Amazing that Human's would reject such a valuable asset simply for the fact that it is different from them".
It was points like this, that reminded the Grimm just why he despised Humanity as much as he did. Not only were they greedy, they were incredibly self-destructive. It made him wonder if the Grimm were actually needed, maybe they should just wait a few years and let the Human race blow itself up.
"Now! While this must feel like ancient history to many of you" Oobleck continued "It is imperative to remember that these are relatively recent events".
"That's true" Fenrir mused, his mind trying to sift through all of the information he had only recently acquired "The Faunus war started what… Forty years ago? Lasted five years altogether. A lot of people here might have Elders who were alive at that time".
"Why the repercussions of the uprising can still be seen to this day!"
Oobleck took another long chug from his seemingly bottomless cup of coffee, and zoomed back to the centre of the room, the Alpha already feeling a migraine building up behind his eyeballs from trying to keep track of the Green-haired man.
"Now! Have any among you been subjugated or discriminated because of your Faunus heritage?"
Fenrir blinked at that sudden question, before looking around the room to see what the reaction would be.
A small collection of hands rose up into the air, some slower to rise than others. Fenrir turned to stealthily look at Blake out of the side of his eye. Turns out, Blake was also staring at him and the two shared a knowing look.
Neither of them raised their hands.
"I'm dealing with a very different type of subjugation. It would be unfair to the Faunus if I lumped my problems in with theirs."
Speaking of Faunus, Fenrir then brought his eyes downwards to see what Velvet would do. The Rabbit Faunus looked around fearfully, before timidly raising her own hand.
"Hhhmmm" Fenrir grumbled, shaking his head slightly "Someone like that, doesn't deserve to feel that kind of isolation. Wait what!"
Fenrir shook his head, his thoughts turning very bizarre. There were no innocent Humans, he'd always believed that.
Still… some people Fenrir realised, maybe weren't as guilty as others.
"Dreadful, simply dreadful" Oobleck remarked, shaking his head "Remember students, it is precisely this kind of ignorance, that breeds violence".
Fenrir nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with that statement. Humans were nothing if not ignorant, it's what made it so easy for Fenrir to sneak up and attack them in the past.
"I mean, I mean, I mean just look at what happened to the White Fang" said Oobleck.
Fenrir's brows furrowed in confusion. He'd never heard of the White Fang, though he suspected they had something to do with the Faunus.
Suddenly, Fenrir felt a massive surge of very, very dark energy pulsing out from his right. Looking to the source, Fenrir saw Blake staring ahead with an expression that Fenrir couldn't even begin to describe.
Anger… guilt… regret… pain…
All of these emotions, swirling around that dark maelstrom in Blake's centre, that also existed in Weiss's centre. Every time Fenrir saw these dark wells, he found himself becoming more and more intrigued by their presence.
He wanted to unravel them… find out just what they were.
But then he'd shake himself out of it and reason that it was simply none of his business.
"I do not care, you will not make me care" The Alpha recited to himself, cringing at how that mantra felt more and more hollow every time he said it.
"Now" Oobleck called out, snapping Fenrir out of his stupor "Which one of you young scholars can tell me what many theorists believe to be the turning point in the third year of the war?"
"Wait for it" Fenrir counted down the seconds in his head, knowing a certain Heiress was just a row above him.
"Yes?"
"The battle at Fort Castle" Weiss responded dutifully.
"Precisely!" Oobleck confirmed, whilst Fenrir felt like slapping himself in the face.
"Oh right, that battle with the stupid name. How did I forget that?!"
"And, who can tell me the advantage the Faunus had over General Lagune's forces?"
Fenrir searched through his memory. He'd only read this book recently, he remembered how the Humans suffered a crushing defeat in this battle, but how?
"Hey!"
The silence was broken by the sound of Jaune letting out a startled yelp. Looking down in confusion at the scraggly Blonde, who had a few minutes ago, been fast asleep, Fenrir spotted a tiny wad of paper skittering along the floor.
And Cardin holding his hand out… as if he'd just flicked something.
"Uh oh" Fenrir frowned.
"Mr Arc!" Oobleck shouted as he teleported right in front of the half-awake boy "Finally contributing to class! This is excellent! Excellent! What is the answer?"
Jaune was like a deer caught in headlights as he frantically looked around the room, trying to find a way out of his situation.
To his left, Fenrir saw Pyrrha start to shuffle in her seat, subtly trying to get her team leaders attention.
"Uhhh… The answer…" Jaune floundered, Oobleck staring directly at him "The advantage… Of the Faunus… had over that guys stuff…"
Whilst Jaune continued to stall for time, Pyrrha started making some rather bizarre hand signals next to the befuddled wolf Grimm. First pointing to her own eyeballs, then cupping her hands around her eyes. At first didn't have a clue what the girl was doing, but then his mind clicked and put the pieces together.
"Oh right, the general tried attacking them at night. That was the big mistake".
Deciding to help out the spartan with her charade act, Fenrir pulled open his own eyelids and looked round the room exaggeratedly.
"Um, B-binoculars!"
Turns out all that miming was for nothing.
A chorus of laughter erupted at the boy's answer, with Cardin being the loudest and most obnoxious of them all, whilst Pyrrha simply placed her head in her hands and sighed in exasperation.
Fenrir took it a step further and slammed his head on the table.
"Jaune… just… How did you get that so incredibly wrong?"
"Very funny, Mr Arc" Oobleck sighed, not looking the least bit amused. Turning his attention towards the raucous laughter, the history teacher called out to the boy above where Jaune was sitting. "Cardin! Perhaps you would care to share your thoughts on the subject".
Fenrir had to seriously fight back the urge to audibly groan.
"No! Not that twit, what makes you think he has anything interesting to say?"
"Well" Cardin spoke, sounding quite bored "I know it's a lot easier to train an animal than a soldier".
"And I was right, nothing interesting at all".
Fenrir wanted to lay into Cardin all over again, just his voice was enough to set him on edge right now. But surprisingly, Pyrrha actually beat Fenrir to the punch.
"You're not the most open-minded of individuals, are you Cardin?"
"What? You got a problem?" Cardin said angrily.
"Several!" Fenrir snarled, his blood already starting to heat up as he felt his patience diminish rapidly.
Thankfully, a firm tug on his elbow by Blake, kept him rooted in his seat.
"No, I have the answer" Pyrrha responded in a far calmer manner, now looking towards the bespectacled professor "Its night vision. Many Faunus are known to have nearly-perfect sight in the dark".
Cardin growled lowly as Pyrrha had effectively shown him up. Following on from the Scarlet-haired girls answer, Blake carried on explaining how exactly the Humans lost that particular battle.
"General Lagune was inexperienced and made the mistake of trying to ambush the Faunus in their sleep. His massive army was outmatched, and the general was captured".
Fenrir saw Cardin get more and more frustrated, and because he was incredibly petty, he decided to add on top of Blake's statement.
"The General was young, but he had already established connections with higher-ranking officers and commanders" Fenrir said, his gravelly voice carrying throughout the whole room "When the Faunus captured him, they forced him to reveal many secrets and battle strategies that the Humans were planning to use on the Faunus. That is why this battle was considered a turning point, because from then on, the Faunus knew everything their enemy knew, and were able to keep one step ahead of them".
Oobleck nodded to the three of them, a tiny smile on his face.
"Quite correct you three!"
Looking to his side, Fenrir regarded Blake with a look of mock wondering.
"You know, apparently it didn't take all that much to get the general to start talking".
Blake saw what Fenrir was doing, and blatantly looked directly at the Brunet glaring at the both of them.
"Hmmm, you might be right Fenrir. Perhaps if he'd paid attention in class, he wouldn't have been remembered as such a failure".
A resounding 'Ooooo' followed Blake's sly jab at Cardin, who in turn actually started to rise out of his seat, fists clenched and teeth grit. Fenrir simply gave the boy a very sinister looking grin, his fanged teeth gleaming with malice.
"Mr Winchester! Please take your seat" Oobleck called out tiredly, bringing Fenrir's good mood down just a tiny bit.
"Shame, at this point I'd gladly take the chance to teach that moron another lesson in knowing his place".
Whilst Fenrir and Blake continued to look mildly pleased with themselves, Pyrrha shook her head at the two and attempted to look reprimanding, but the attempt was ruined by the smile she wore.
"Behave you two" She muttered, to which Blake merely shrugged and Fenrir whispered a simple "Nope".
Fenrir's ears swivelled on his head as he caught Jaune sniggering to himself, no doubt happy that most of the humiliation had been taken off himself for his earlier blunder.
But like a judge's gavel, Oobleck was there immediately to remind the boy of his own errors.
"You and Mr Arc can both see me after class for additional readings"
That brought Jaune's amusement right back down to earth as the boy let out a pained groan. Fenrir looked down at the young Arc and shook his head. He felt bad for the boy, but there wasn't really a whole lot he could do for him.
"This isn't the first time this has happened to you Jaune" Fenrir reflected "I know you said you want to live up to your family's name, but at the rate you're progressing, it doesn't seem like that'll happen any time soon".
"Now! Moving on!"
And just like that, Oobleck had bounced right back into his usual routine of zipping all across the room, and Fenrir could no longer afford to waste any brain power fretting over Jaune.
Though he did spare one final glance at Pyrrha, who as expected was looking at her leader with worry written all over her face.
Fenrir… couldn't think of anything that could help ease the girls worries.
…..
Sometime later, the final bell of the day rang out across the academy and Fenrir was finally able to relax his exhausted eyeballs. Ambling his way out of the classroom, the Alpha joined the throng of students leaving to go do whatever they did at the end of the day.
On his way out, he spied the tell-tale, long, brown ears of Velvet swiftly manoeuvring her way through the crowd, and he felt his stomach twist in on itself as he realised what he was about to try and do.
A part of himself told him not to bother, he'd burnt his bridge with the Rabbit Faunus when he'd shown his true face in the cafeteria, when he'd bared his teeth and roared in fury at everyone around him.
"It's not over" The soft voice spoke firmly in his mind, silencing his doubts "You can come back from this, but you need to act now".
Shaking off his uncertainty, the Alpha dug deep inside himself and channelled the fires that burned away inside him, using them to fuel his courage to at least try to fix his relationship with the older girl.
"The Grimm do not back down from anything! I am a Grimm, and I shall face this head on!".
"You go on ahead. I'll wait for Jaune."
From behind him, Fenrir turned and saw Pyrrha addressing Nora and Ren, who simply both nodded and carried on their way. After watching them go for a few seconds, Pyrrha eventually realised she was being watched and turned to stare directly into a pair of navy blue orbs.
The two just observed one another, Fenrir giving a slight look towards the door to professor Ooblecks classroom, and Pyrrha giving a look behind Fenrir's shoulder towards the steadily retreating second year. Then the two simply gave each other a nod before both turning towards the places they were going. That simple nod, conveyed all the two wished to say to one another, with no words needed.
"Good luck"
With that out of the way, Fenrir upped his pace from a slow walk to a brisk jog, his longer strides making short work of catching up to the smaller Faunus.
"Velvet!" Fenrir blurted out, before his mind could try and stop him again.
Velvet visibly froze, her shoulders shooting up to the sides of her head, before she painfully slowly, started to turn back to face the Wolf Grimm. Immediately upon eye contact, Fenrir felt the waves of uncertain apprehension come washing off of Velvet's form.
Taking a breath, Fenrir steeled himself and pressed onwards.
"Listen… Velvet, I have to tell you somethi…"
"Wait!" Before Fenrir could really get far in his apology, Velvet suddenly cut him off. Looking around the hallway, the girl suddenly walked right up to Fenrir and whispered up at him "Not here, too many people around here who don't particularly like you".
Looking around himself, Fenrir did indeed spot a few people standing around in the hallway and giving questioning glances towards the two of them. Gesturing for the larger man to follow her, Fenrir simply shrugged and trailed after the girl.
Eventually, the two of them made their way outside and towards a section of the courtyard that was very out of the way.
Velvet spun round to look Fenrir directly in the eye, something Fenrir might have found intimidating if she wasn't fidgeting uncomfortably in place.
"So… you're a Grimm" Velvet eventually opened her mouth.
"Yes"
"An Alpha Beowolf"
"Yes"
"Are there others like you?"
"No"
"And you're sure you're not just some Human with Grimm blood, or some Human-Grimm hybrid?"
That last question actually got a small chuckle out of the Beowolf over just how absurd it was.
"No, I was born a pure Grimm, this is a… recent development".
Velvet nodded to herself, before she scrunched up her nose that Fenrir couldn't help but compare to her Rabbit counterpart.
"You couldn't have been made by Ozpin though" Velvet questioned aloud, unaware of the panicked look on the Grimm's face "If you'd been made in Beacon, Ozpin would never have let you go into Vale by yourself, we shouldn't have met in that alley".
Velvet looked up at Fenrir with a scrutinising glare, noticing how sweat was starting to form on his forehead.
"Ozpin didn't make you, did he? You're not an experiment".
Fenrir floundered for a few seconds, before sighing, remembering he was a terrible liar, and simply gave a tiny grin to the chocolate-eyed girl.
"Clever" He remarked "No, I am not an experiment. I'm an accident, I don't fully understand what happened myself, but it involved a pit of Liquid Dust and a chest wound from Ruby that was filled up with rose petals".
Velvet processed this information, before letting out a quiet 'Oh'.
"That explains why you two kind of have similar hairstyles, just different colours".
Fenrir blinked in confusion, before he actually took a second to think about it and realised that himself and Ruby did kind of have a similar look going on where their hair was concerned.
His just looked a little wilder.
"So" Velvet continued, looking a bit more pensive than before "When we met in that alley…"
"I had only been like this for a few days" Fenrir finished up "That was the first time I used my Aura. I'm… still working on that".
Velvet nodded to herself, before her expression turned deadly serious, actually throwing Fenrir off a bit.
"Have you killed people?"
Fenrir frowned, he figured this question would come at some point.
"Yes" He said quietly.
Velvet looked down at the floor, her eyes a mix of emotions. Before long however, she looked back up at the quiet Alpha.
"Have you killed anyone since becoming… this?"
Fenrir shook his head "No, If I did, Ozpin wouldn't hesitate to kick me out of this school. I can't go back to my own kind looking like this, so I'm stuck here".
Silence again. Fenrir stood like an incredibly awkward statue, Velvet merely looking unsure about where to take the conversation after the heavy subject they had just discussed. Soon though, Fenrir resolved himself again, to do what he came here to do.
"Velvet… I'm sorry" Velvet looked up in surprise, Fenrir merely held his hands up as he kept speaking "I never meant for you to see me like that, in the cafeteria. Ozpin told me it would be best if I kept my true form a secret, but I… I just couldn't keep my temper under control"
Fenrir took a step forward, thankfully Velvet didn't back away and Fenrir spoke in as low a tone as he could muster, unconsciously making his voice rumble in the back of his throat.
"I was only trying to stop Cardin from attacking you" He said gently "You didn't deserve what he was doing to you"
Velvet was taken aback slightly at the pure sincerity that subtly twinkled in Fenrir's dark eyes. She was still slightly uneasy around the dark-haired, giant of a man, but seeing that look in his eyes.
She suddenly found herself a little less afraid of him.
"Well… I suppose umm" Velvet looked a little unsure and Fenrir was afraid that this had maybe all been for nought. Only for Velvet to then look back up at him with a shy smile "It was… pretty cool watching you fight those guys all by yourself, so I guess you can't be all bad".
Fenrir felt it again, that unexplainable warmth in his chest that just made him feel at ease. Then Velvet looked at him with a pleading gleam in her eyes.
"But, just promise me that from now on, no matter how angry you get, you won't kill anyone. You're better than that now".
Fenrir was uncertain if he could keep such a promise. He was born to kill, made to be a weapon of death. Still, looking at the Rabbit girl right now, the Alpha couldn't bring himself to say no.
"I… I'll do my best".
Velvet had hoped for a more solid answer, but she supposed this would have to do. Suddenly, Velvet let out a tiny chuckle that caused Fenrir to tilt his head in confusion.
"So, I guess this makes us even huh?" Fenrir just shook his head, so Velvet elaborated "I helped you out in Vale, you helped me out today".
Finally getting it, Fenrir let out a huff of air.
"Heh… I suppose it does".
The two stood in comfortable silence, any lingering tensions between the two flowing away like water down a stream, before Velvet took note of the setting sun behind the Grimm and remembered she had somewhere to be.
"Well, listen I Gotta go. I promised Coco I'd come straight to her once classes were over. She heard about what happened to me".
Fenrir grimaced "I suppose I'd better watch myself then?"
Velvet smiled sheepishly "Probably for the best".
With that, Velvet turned and started to walk away. Just before she got out of earshot however, Fenrir remembered something and called out to the girl before she left.
"Velvet!" He yelled "Please, don't tell anyone about my true origin. Ozpin said it might cause a panic, if people knew I was an accident and not controlled".
Velvet gave a slight nod and a smile.
"Sure Fenrir. I'll see you later" And with that, she was gone with a wave.
"Bye" Fenrir said quietly.
The Grimm stood in place for a moment, before giving himself a passionate fist pump and shutting his eyes in relief.
"YES! Yes, thank Oum. That could have gone so badly".
"See? What did I tell you?" The soft voice echoed in Fenrir's mind, with pride in its tone.
Coming down from his brief euphoria, Fenrir suddenly sobered up as he remembered the promise he had just made to the Rabbit Faunus.
"Don't kill. Hhhmmm… I do not know if that's a promise I can really keep Velvet, I do not know what the future holds for me, and killer is in my blood".
Looking down at his clawed hands, Fenrir gradually tightened his fingers into balled fists as his face hardened in resolution.
"Still, for your sake, I'll do my best to keep my word for as long as I can".
Having nothing more to do here, Fenrir figured he'd gone through enough excitement for one day and started the long trek back to his storage space.
…..
Meanwhile
"You two have been struggling in my class since day one!" Oobleck admonished the two remaining students sitting in front of him, one lounging back in his seat looking disinterested, the other looking like he was on the verge of putting his head in his hands and hiding from the world "Now, I don't know if it's a lack of interest or just your stubborn nature, but whatever it is…"
Oobleck took a long sip from his limitless coffee mug, and then slammed it down on his desk dramatically.
"It stops now!" The professor said firmly "You've worked hard to gain entrance to this school, and we only accept the best of the best, so! I expect you to act like it".
With each word from the bespectacled man, Jaune felt his shame hang on his conscience like iron weights, his face crestfallen and his head low.
"Worked hard… Best of the best. Well I know there's one thing I'm good at, lying through my teeth to everyone around me".
"History is important gentlemen!" Oobleck continued "If you can't learn from it… You're destined to repeat it. Pages 51 to 91! I want an essay on my desk by next class! Now! Run along."
And with an audible whoosh Oobleck left his classroom, off to who knows where, and Jaune simply groaned at the idea of even more work, packed up his stuff, and left the room.
On the way out however, the poor boy was roughly shoved to the ground by the large thug behind him.
"OOHF! OW!"
"Heh" Cardin chuckled darkly, before carrying on his way like he didn't have a care in the world.
Jaune was slow to get back to his feet, a part of him debating whether or not he should just lay there, forever, and see if anyone would even notice. But then a pair of firm hands hooked themselves underneath his armpit and brought him back to a standing position.
"Ah!"
"You know, I really will break his legs" Pyrrha said, semi-seriously as she glared at the back of the brown-haired bully.
Jaune merely sighed and looked down at the floor morosely, realising once again, that Pyrrha, his partner, had once again seen him fall flat on his face and look utterly pathetic, unable to even try to defend himself.
Pyrrha looked down at the boys dour expression and felt her mood lower along with his. But then, her face brightened up as a figurative lightbulb went off in her head.
"I have an idea!" Pyrrha then switched out her grip on his arm to on his wrist, as she practically dragged Jaune through the air as she ran off to the spot she was thinking would be a perfect place to put her plan in motion "Here, come with me!"
"AAUHA!" Jaune yelled in surprise as he was lifted off his feet, unable to stop Pyrrha from dragging him off to wherever it was she was going.
…..
Elsewhere
Turns out Fenrir couldn't just retreat to his room as he had wanted to, because he had detention for the next two weeks. A fact Fenrir was quickly reminded of when Glynda came striding towards him in the hallway with a face of a thousand thunderstorms.
After several hours of slow, menial labour involving polishing various cabinets filled to the brim with various trophies and awards that both Beacon academy and its Alumnus had won over the years, Fenrir slowly stumbled back to his room in the early hours of the evening, praying that he would never see those shiny pieces of metal for as long as he lived.
"I don't know who this team STRQ are supposed to be, but could they have not been so damn good at EVERYTHING!"
So drained from this task, Fenrir didn't even notice a group of first years glaring at him from the sides of the corridor until one of them lobbed a paper ball at his head.
Fenrir looked at the group with a disbelieving eye, but the students simply turned and walked, seething at him all the while. One of the boys stood in place for a moment longer and just continued to try and set Fenrir on fire with his mind.
"Watch yourself Monster!" The boy sneered, before turning and catching up with his companions.
Fenrir quirked an eyebrow in confusion, but then he looked down at the crumpled-up lob of paper and realised he could make out something had been drawn on it, not text but a picture.
Leaning down and picking up the ball, Fenrir unfurled the forlorn piece of paper and looked at the image in full. What he saw, caused him to feel torn between sighing in annoyance or growling in rage.
It was him… impaled on a sword and blood spurting out of the wound. Underneath, the words 'When your back is turned" were scrawled in black ink. The picture would have been disturbing to most people, and admittedly the level of detail on this drawing did unnerve the Alpha a little.
"Oum, that's a lot of blood".
But Fenrir simply and calmly tore the piece of paper into little pieces and carried on his way. Still, that image did bring an issue Fenrir had been thinking over back up to the surface. The sword, it reminded him of his fight with team CRDL earlier that day.
"If even one of them had had their weapons, that fight would not have gone in my favour, no question about that. There's a target on my head, it's only a matter of time before one of these Humans grows too bold and tries to attack me in the open. And if they have a weapon… It'll be the end of me".
Fenrir pinched the bridge of his nose, his mind full of indecisions to the point where he had to stop and lean against a pillar outside the library, just to recollect himself. As he stood in that empty corridor, his mind brought up an indisputable fact, a fact he had been trying to ignore for some time now, but by this point it was foolish of himself to keep denying the obvious.
"As I am, I will never be strong enough to fight these students, should the incident ever occur. I need to get stronger… I need a weapon. But what?"
Fenrir knew he did not posses the skill necessary to wield something like a sword or axe competently. Jaune was probably better than him in that department. And a gun required aiming and precision, something Fenrir was unsure he even had in this Human body.
"And then there's the matter of my Aura".
Try as hard as he might, the Grimm could not figure out just how to utilise this 'Power of the soul' in anyway that didn't attack his own body. Any texts he'd read on the subject said that when a persons Aura was unlocked, their abilities just came naturally to them, no extensive training was really required to master it, it was just something the user intrinsically knew.
Not helpful to the Beowolf.
Thinking on it further, Fenrir wasn't even sure where he could get a weapon from. In his brief time in Vale, Fenrir hadn't come across any shop that looked like it sold weapons, so even finding a weapon looked like it would be a problem.
"What am I going to do?"
"Aaaawwwuuuhhhhaaaaa… I am done with schoolwork for today. No more please!"
A squeaky yawn snapped Fenrir out of his reverie and he turned towards the source of the commotion had been Ruby stepping out of the library, looking utterly exhausted. It didn't take long, even in her tired state, for Ruby to notice that she was being noticed, and she quickly spotted the Grimm, brooding up against a pillar and looking as annoyed as usual.
"Oh, Hi Fenrir. What're you doing here?" Ruby greeted cheerily.
Fenrir for his part, was too caught up in his thoughts to give Ruby any kind of answer, and so he jus turned to look out the nearby window, the moon beginning its slow ascent into the dark blue heavens.
"Fenrir? You okay?"
The Grimm shook himself out of his depressing thoughts and stood himself upright, off the pillar.
"I'm fine" He said bluntly "What are you doing down here this late?"
Ruby furrowed her brows at Fenrir's sidestepping of her question, but she figured it best to just answer the moody grump.
"Weiss wouldn't let me into my own dorm room until I finished this essay for Professor Peach. Unbelievable right?"
Fenrir gave an incredulous look toward the smaller girl, but when he saw she was telling the truth, he shook his head and crossed his arms.
"That… does sound like something she would do"
Fenrir had been on the receiving end of this kind of forced education from the chilly heiress once already… Never again.
"Anyway" Ruby continued, stretching her arms above her head "I'm done now so I'm gonna head back, you wanna walk with me?"
"Sure" Fenrir replied, figuring it a better idea than just standing around in a dark corridor, doing nothing.
With that, the small Huntress and the gigantic Grimmborn, walked off towards the student dorms together. Ruby engaged in conversation with Fenrir, telling him about random topics or events that just popped into her head, whilst the Alpha was simply content to listen, interjecting with comments or answers whenever he felt like he had something to add.
He'd found that that was a position he had quite snugly fit into amongst the group of Humans he disliked the least in Beacon: The listener.
As they were walking along however, Fenrir's mind kept pestering him about his weapon problem. It just wouldn't go away, but then Fenrir caught sight of the folded-up Sniper/Scythe resting on the back of Ruby's hip. That weapon was lethal, and that wasn't just the Beowolf's bias talking, he'd seen what Ruby could do with it in the sparring ring.
"Maybe… Perhaps Ruby might be able to help me out with my problem here".
"Ruby?" Fenrir asked when their was a gap in the conversation.
"Hmm?" Ruby turned to look at the Grimm with an inquisitive smile.
"Where… would I have to go, to get a weapon?"
Ruby stopped dead in her tracks, hitting Fenrir with a blank look. Fenrir looked back at Ruby, wondering what on earth she was doing, before she let out a loud guffaw of laughter.
"You don't buy your weapon" She explained "Not if your aiming to become a Huntsman or Huntress. Every student here built their weapon themselves, well except for Jaune, but he inherited his from his grandfather. He didn't just go down to the store and pay for it, that's cheating".
Fenrir felt his prospects of getting a weapon of his own evaporate into nothingness at the silver-eyed girls words. The one thing he knew even less than using a weapon, was how to build one.
"I've never built anything in my life. That's a Human thing, not a Grimm thing!"
"You build your own weapons?" He asked weakly.
"Yep" Ruby responded peppily "I even made my sweetheart Crescent Rose all by myself"
At this, Ruby took her signature weapon off her hip and hit the switch to rapidly unfold the thing into its massive Scythe form. Fenrir stared up in awe of the giant, curved blade. He hadn't seen Ruby's weapon up close before, not since… the incident.
"You made that?" Fenrir asked in genuine amazement.
Ruby felt herself grin in pride as the Beowolf looked at her weapon with a wonderous sparkle in his eye.
"Yep, my own personal combat Scythe".
"It's also a customizable, high impact sniper rifle"
Ruby's eyes widened at Fenrir's sudden, rapid response, and Fenrir gripped at his skull as if he'd got a sudden headache.
"Dammit, not again!"
"Uh… yeah, it is" Ruby eventually stuttered out awkwardly
"Sorry" Fenrir muttered in slight embarrassment "That… happens sometimes".
"What does he mean by that?" Ruby wondered to herself.
"So…" Fenrir got out, before Ruby could attempt to ask him more about his sudden outburst "Where did you build that… thing?".
"hey!" Ruby scolded "Her name is Crescent Rose, remember that please. And I built her at Signal, the combat school I was at before coming to Beacon".
"You built it… her at a school?" Fenrir was a bit confused by the desire by Ruby for him to refer to an inanimate piece of metal as a 'her', but at the stern glare from the smaller girl, he figured it would be for the best if he just went along with it.
"Yeah, all the combat schools and Huntsmen academies on Remnant have their own forges and workshops for students to make their own weapons and armour, even Beacon has one".
"Huh" Fenrir nodded in intrigue as Ruby folded her weapon back up into its compact form and reattached it to her hip.
"Do you know where the forge is here?" He inquired.
"Oh yeah sure I can show you where…" Ruby responded, and then slowly came to a halt. Fenrir wondered if Ruby was okay, before the girl came surging back to life and zoomed right up to the Grimm's face.
"Fenrir!" She yelled, suddenly full to the brim with excitement "Do you want to build a weapon?"
"Uh...geh...huh...ummm" Fenrir babbled, completely thrown off by the small red-heads sudden enthusiasm "I was thinking about it, but I don't know how to build a…"
"I could help you!" Ruby cut him off again, looking more and more like a hyperactive child "I know lots about weapons, I'm kind of a nut when it come to this stuff, I could show you how it all works and help you decide what would be a good choice".
Fenrir was overwhelmed, he really hadn't been considering recruiting Ruby's aid with making a weapon, he'd been planning to just go to the forge and see if anything would strike his fancy. Now though, seeing Ruby practically glowing with eagerness to help him, it caused to Fenrir to start to feel excited himself.
"If Ruby really built that giant Scythe herself, then having her help me could be a huge advantage towards making my own weapon".
"Sure!" Fenrir exclaimed "I'd be happy to have the help".
Ruby started hopping up and down in barely contained enthusiasm, and then she leapt up into the air in a miniature explosion of Rose petals.
"YES!" She yelled suddenly zooming all over the place like a ball of pure, uncontained energy "Oh this is gonna be incredible, we'll build you such a cool-looking weapon, no-one will want to fight you. Ooh, what do you think it should be, a big axe? A hammer? Maybe a sword, no two swords… No THREE SWORDS! Oh and of course they have to have a gun, a cannon, or maybe a grenade launcher".
Fenrir's eyes started to spiral as he struggled to keep up with Ruby's sudden burst of energy.
"Uhhh Ruby? Weren't you tired just a second ago?"
"Sleep can wait!" Ruby spoke loudly, suddenly right back in Fenrir's face and tightly gripping his hands "We've gotta show you the forge right now! Get your weapon started right away, come on!"
And before the poor Wolf Demon could even try to protest, Ruby was darting through the corridors… dragging Fenrir, a man who was a full head and shoulders taller than her, and taking his feet out from under him in a flurry of petals.
"WAAIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!"
Fenrir wailed out as he was sent flying through Beacon Academy, one thought on his mind as he watched the scenery go flying by.
"What have I just gotten myself into?"
…..
"Pyrrha, I know I'm going through a hard time right now, but I'm not… THAT depressed".
When Jaune had finally been able to get his feet back under him, Pyrrha had led him up to one of the more open rooftops of Beacon academy, the central tower where the headmasters office was located directly in front of them.
As of yet, Jaune did not know exactly why his partner had brought him up here, but after looking down at the long drop beneath his feet at the edge of the roof, the scraggly teens mind had kind of just jumped to the worst-case scenario on impulse.
"I can always be a farmer or something…" He muttered off to the side.
"N-no!" Pyrrha yelled, frantically pushing jaune away from the roofs edge to assuage his out-of-nowhere notion "That's not why I brought you up here!"
Pyrrha took a moment to steady her breathing, and then when she was sure she had calmed down, she told Jaune about her plan.
"Jaune, I know you're having a difficult time in class" She spoke plainly "And that you're still not the strongest of fighters so… I want to help you!"
Pyrrha finished up this statement with one of her winning smiles that she had perfected from years of fighting in and winning combat tournaments.
"W-what?" Jaune had a face of disbelief as he struggled to process what Pyrrha was saying.
Pyrrha's smile faltered a bit, but then she quickly brought it back as she gestured to the open space around them.
"We can train up here after class where no one can bother us!"
"You think I need help?" Jaune asked, his tone slowly changing to a more accusatory one instead of disbelief.
"N-no! No, that's not what I meant" Pyrrha faltered again, realising that Jaune did not appear to be as on board with this as she had hoped.
"But you just said it" Jaune responded.
"Jaune, everybody needs a little push from time to time" Pyrrha reasoned "It doesn't make you any different from the rest of us. You made it to Beacon, that speaks volumes of what you're capable of!"
There it was again, that assurance from other people that he had earned his place here, that he was already a capable fighter. But the more Jaune heard those words, from the people he liked to think were his friends, the more the lie just sounded more weaselly in his mind.
"I can't keep doing this" He thought to himself "Not to them… Not to her"
"You're wrong" He whispered, his head low "I-I don't belong here"
"That's a terrible thing to say" Pyrrha admonished "Of course you do!"
"No, I don't!" Jaune retorted a little louder this time.
Pyrrha just stared at the Blonde sadly, wondering why he was being so adamant on not belonging here.
Unfortunately, she got her answer not long after.
"I wasn't really accepted into Beacon" Jaune finally forced out.
"Wh-what do you mean?" Pyrrha asked, unsure as to wherever or not she heard Jaune right.
"I mean, I didn't go to combat school! I didn't pass any tests!" Jaune listed off what he meant, growing more and more frustrated with every word "I didn't earn my spot at this academy! I lied! I got my hands on some fake transcripts and I lied."
Pyrrha was in complete shock, this had not at all been what she was expecting when she came up to the roof just now.
"What? But, why?" she asked breathlessly.
"Cause, this is what I've always wanted to be!" Jaune exclaimed, gesturing to the academy behind him "My Father, my Grandfather, and his father before him were all warriors! They were all heroes! I wanted to be one too."
Jaune's brain started to traipse through some dark memories, of the first time he'd tried fighting with a weapon and failing miserably, of all the times his sisters just utterly trounced him at everything. To the time when his own father had told him that he just simply didn't have that 'Fighters instinct' within him and said that maybe a fighter just wasn't what he was supposed to be.
"I was just never good enough".
"Then let me help you!" Pyrrha exclaimed, trying to see if she could salvage this conversation into something more positive.
But Jaune wasn't having any of it as he shoved Pyrrha's offered hand away.
"I don't want help!" he yelled "I don't want to be the damsel in distress! I want to be the hero!"
"Jaune! I- "
"I am tired" Jaune cut her off "Of being the lovable idiot, stuck in the tree while his friends fight for their lives! Even Fenrir, the Grimm, the LITERAL WALKING MONSTER is already doing a better job at being a warrior than me, don't you understand!? If I can't do this on my own… Then what good am I?"
Pyrrha made to move towards Jaune and at least attempt to comfort the Blonde, but Jaune simply backed away from her and turned his back to her.
"Just, leave me alone. Okay?"
"If that's what you think is best" Pyrrha eventually responded sadly, before slowly walking towards the door that led back to the inside of the building and disappearing from sight.
Immediately upon her departure, Jaune felt the bitter sting of regret make its home in his conscience. He hadn't meant to come across so aggressive to her, but he had just gotten too caught up in his hectic emotions.
"I have to do this by myself. If I can't even do that, then I'll just end up being even more of a burden on my friends".
Jaune started to make his way off the roof himself, when all of a sudden, snide laughter cut through the silence of the night like a hot knife and Jaune felt his blood instantly freeze to ice as he recognised that voice.
"Oh, Jaune…"
"No. No no please not him, anyone but him!"
Jaune turned his head back towards the roofs edge, hoping against hope he was imagining things.
Sadly, this was not the case.
"Cardin?!"
Indeed, there Jaune's tormentor stood, looking far too pleased with himself to mean anything good was about to come out of this conversation.
"I couldn't help but overhear you two from my dorm room" Cardin spoke cockily "So, you snuck into Beacon huh? I've got to say Jaune, I never expected you to be such a rebel".
Jaune felt cold terror grip his heart as he realised that his biggest secret had just been heard by one of the last people he wanted to hear it.
"Please! Cardin, please, don't tell anyone!"
"Jaune! Come on!" Cardin spoke in a mock hurtful tone, as if he was offended by what Jaune was implying "I'd never rat out a friend like that!"
"Uh, a friend?" Jaune asked dumbfoundedly.
Suddenly, Cardin grabbed jaune in a headlock, squeezing on the smaller boys throat.
"Of course! We're friends now, Jauney boy" Cardin said far too sinisterly to be considered genuine "And the way I see it, as long as you're there for me when I need you, we'll be friends for a long time".
Cardin finally let go of Jaune's head and the Blond fell to the floor, gasping for air and massaging his throat.
"That being said…" Cardin continued looking condescendingly down at Jaune "I really don't have time to do those extra readings Dr Oobleck gave us today. Think you could take care of that for me, buddy?"
Cardin roughly tousled the smaller boys hair. Jaune remained silent, he knew the position he was in and he knew there was no point in trying to worm his way out of it. He'd been caught, and now he had to suffer the consequences.
"That's what I thought" Cardin sneered as he walked away and made to start climbing back down to his window "Don't worry jaune; Your secrets safe with me".
And with that, Cardin's head disappeared beneath the roofs edge, and Jaune was left with nothing but a cold sense of dread nestling in his gut as he knew that he had just been blackmailed into being Cardin's lackey.
Staring up at the moon, Jaune only had one thought on his mind.
"What have I just gotten myself into".
A/N: And there we go, Jaundice is done and Fenrir's finally getting his own weapon. Most of you guys and gals have made your predictions on what you think Fenrir's weapon might be, but now that we are finally here, I'm eager to see if your opinions have changed in anyway.
Leave your reviews as always and I will see you in the next chapter, which I might actually be able to get out before the end of this month.