Scheme-Scheme-Fight!

Jaune and Neo approached The Club from a back alley, her semblance giving them both neon green hair and matching eyes while shifting their clothes to match the suits Junior's goons always wore. He'd topped off her aura after she had brought them down, making sure she was able to cover them and also ready to get them out if they had to bolt.

The guard at the back door waved them in without comment, and they made their way down a narrow hallway to an old circular stairwell, the metal rattling a little as they went up. It was about the most basic of security precautions, but Junior had gotten sensibly paranoid after he'd figured out part of Neo's semblance.

Stairwells that are too thin for more than one person to go up an down... metal that rattles when in use... not impossible for someone invisible to go up and down, but too dangerous to risk.

"Hey~ey." The Malachite twins drawled in unison when he reached the top, the pair standing guard outside of a closed security door.

"Look who finally showed up." Militia gave him a flirty little grin, batting her eyes a few times. "We missed you~"

"You never visit anymore." Melanie purred. "We were starting to think you didn't like us."

"Militia, Melanie." He sighed, absently grabbing Neo by the shoulder as she started to stalk forwards. "I see you haven't changed. They inside already?"

"Junior is." Militia shrugged. "The peacock is late, as usual."

"Of course. Mind opening the door?"

"~aww... no kiss for us?" Melanie puckered her lips as she did so, then smirked as Neo almost vibrated with irritation. "Oh relax, you know we just like to tease, we wouldn't touch your man-toy."

"Not without permission at least." Militia cooed.

Neo huffed, the closest she could come to making a disgusted sound. She shook him off with an irritated motion and stomped past the pair and into the room, leaving Jaune to glower at the twins. They both smiled at him, each planting a hand on one hip in their usual bizarre level of synchronization.

Shaking his head, he walked forwards as well, adjusting his sword's sheathe to block one hand and batting aside the other when they both tried to smack his ass when he moved past.

"Evening." Junior grunted as he entered, shutting the heavy door behind him. The information broker and gang leader was seated behind an old wooden desk, a glass of whiskey sitting untouched beside a small mountain of paperwork. "Grab yourself a drink, Torchwick will be here sooner or later."

"Thanks." Jaune replied, noting that Neo had already draped herself across a couch. She gave him a nod to indicate she wanted a drink, and he wandered over to the mini-bar to fix her something. "You know what this is about?"

"I know that he's got offers to make both of us." Came a slightly tense reply, "But he's been cagey about the details."

"Of course." He sighed, mixing soda and rum before wandering back to the couch and giving Neo her drink.

She sipped at it as he settled down beside her, the leather couch all but molding to his body. The sheer comfort of it tried to lull him to sleep almost at once, even with the coffee that he'd downed before they'd left. Teaching, it turned out, was a surprisingly exhausting affair, at least as far as his mental faculties went.

True to his prediction, after the debacle that had been the first team's effort, Ruby had led her team to a near-success. They'd gotten to Neo within fifteen minutes, Ren using some kind of unusual semblance to hide them from the Grimm, letting them bypass several Ursa entirely. He and Nora had acted as a diversion while Ruby and Blake had come at Neo from the sides.

His partner had knocked Ren and Nora around but had gotten tangled up in Blake's odd weapon thanks to Ruby literally running in circles around her with it. They'd managed to drag her most of the way back before they'd run into a Beowolf pack, and she'd squirmed loose in the confusion. He'd called the training there rather than have them chase her around for another thirty minutes, and had them all run through the same self-improvement thoughts before dismissing them with passing grades.

He'd still felt rather bad for team one though, especially Ilia. She'd been the first, and so far only, person seriously looking for counseling and self-improvement... and he'd been the one who'd named her team. It was a flimsy attachment, he'd admit, but he couldn't deny he'd started to show them bits of favoritism in Glynda's class over the last couple of weeks.

Doesn't help that Nora grabs you every time you go into the cafeteria and makes a fuss if you don't sit with them. Jaune sighed, letting his head fall back. Just hope that things calm down with them all now... and that tomorrow goes better.

Glynda hadn't quite gushed in their post-class meeting, but only because such a thing was beneath her dignity. She evidently thought he'd given them the precise amount of eye-opening tough love that they needed and that he was a natural professor. That had made his guilty soul writhe a little, bouncing between a bit of pride and hope that he had done something right for once, and uncomfortable as he remembered the horrible expression on Pyrrha's face.

Even Yang hadn't taken his admonishment as badly as she had, and Yang had been the one he'd honestly been the most annoyed with. She'd looked embarrassed, sure, but also thoughtful, like she'd understood what he was telling her and was honestly thinking about it.

Pyrrha had looked like she was in shock the entire time.

Poor girl is a mess. He'd seen enough screwed up people, teenagers, adults, whatever, in Vaco to know someone hiding issues behind a cheerful smile when he saw it... but he had no idea what could be bothering her. A real counselor may have been able to puzzle it out, or find a way to gently talk about it... but he wasn't one. I'm basically stuck hoping that she shows up and explodes at me like Ilia did.

Neo gave him a none-too-gentle elbow, and he shook his head sharply. This wasn't the time to be thinking about that, as much as he wanted to help. Tonight was for the real work that could save far more than one upset girl.

Jaune focused on nothing in particular, straightening his back out and clearing his head. By the time Roman showed up, a good twenty minutes late, he felt ready to deal with the situation.

"Good to see you on time." Junior grumbled when the twins shut the door behind him, "As usual."

"I had to lose a couple tails." Roman replied idly, electing not to get himself a drink but instead lighting a cigar. "Seems like my employer really wants to keep tabs on me these days."

Junior frowned. "Freelancers?"

"PI's, actually." The thief shrugged, "Two of the cheaper ones in town, guys who really should have known better. They weren't anything close to good enough to shadow me."

Jaune felt his fingers twitch at the implications of those sentences. Roman had either killed them personally, or more likely, he'd lured them into ambushes and let his people deal with them. "Get to the point Roman, what are we all doing here?"

The smoldering cigar stabbed in his direction, "Kid, what have I told you about banter? You really gotta relax more."

Neo made a quiet scoffing sound and gave him the finger.

Roman just chuckled, his cane clicking on the floor as he walked to an armchair, nudged it a bit so he could see all three of them and the door, then sat. "All right, brevity then. Let's talk about Cinder Fall, my new... boss. Junior, care to give them your little notes?"

"Yeah, why not." Xiong exhaled, settling back and folding his fingers together. "I spent the last month tracking down every bit of public data on her, and she's clean. Way, way too clean. No arrests, no black marks, no publicity, not so much as a traffic ticket. Did more digging and came up with her records."

He reached out, tapping a few commands on his desk's keyboard, and a display promptly appeared above it. The woman in the picture was... Jaune would freely admit, incredibly attractive. Pale skin, thick black hair that coyly hid half an eye and cheek, and a confident smirk on patrician features that made her look a little Atlesian.

"Graduated from Haven without distinction, exact middle of her class in fact." Junior continued, "Took on a few missions in the tundratic region of Anima, then returned to get a degree in political history from a small college in Wind Path. She took on a temp position as a Professor at Haven last year when one of their regulars was injured on a mission, then vanished."

Jaune frowned, leaning forwards. "How much of it is fake?"

"Everything before her tenure at Haven." Came the reply. "And yeah, I'm sure. Mistralian forgers have this obsession with leaving maker's marks in their backstories, and she's got a couple of keys I recognize. Nothing you could use to expose her, but neither of the guys I tried to reach out to picked up their scrolls."

"They're dead then." Jaune blew out a breath, rubbing at his hair when Junior nodded. "So what the hell is she doing in Vale?"

Roman held up a finger, "Ah-ah, that's not the right question. The right one is what is she doing with the White Fang, and what do they need several tons of dust for? She's not a faunus, so the follow up is what are they even doing working with her in the first place?"

That... was a better question, actually. After a couple of moments, he came up with the obvious answers; nothing good, and because they had a mutual goal.

"And why the hell did she need to work at Haven for?" Junior added, waving a hand, "She was there, I got news articles about her."

Roman gave them both a hard look, "Think its related to whatever you two are doing at Beacon? She after the same goal?"

Jaune tensed for a moment, then forced himself to calm down and think through it. After a few moments he shook his head, "Doesn't track, it's not a long enough time period, and there would have been some kind uproar after she left. Or at the very least some kind of major disturbance at the school, like a teacher recall, or unusual numbers of huntsman being called in suddenly. Was there anything?"

There was a chuckle from Junior, "Just teenage boys writing into the gossip mags to complain about losing their eye candy."

Neo snorted derisively, tossing her drink back before flicking her fingers through a few quick motions in his direction. The other two men glanced at him for a translation, but he waited until she was done before nodding and speaking aloud, "She says Cinder was playing up the sex-appeal vibe pretty hard when she listened in on you two. Wants to know if that's normal, and just what the hell she did to scare you."

"She... plays with it to play with you." Roman said after a moment, puffing on his cigar. "She likes the attention, likes burning the stupid bastards who try to get close. And I mean literally burning them, her semblance is some kind of fire manipulation... and she's got one hell of an aura reserve."

Neo pursed her lips, but the thief clammed up after that. He was clearly not about to recount what was obviously a humiliating situation for him, leaving them to wonder just how bad it had been.

"Apart from that," He continued after a few more pulls from his vice, "She's got two kids at her beck and call, younger than you lot, that she uses to chauffeur her around."

"I'm still checking on them." Junior provided.

Roman waved a hand, "But that's not what you two are here for. I don't give a rat's ass about most of this city, and if she wanted to murder those uptight Council assholes I'd be first in line to help... but you don't need a mountain of dust and terrorist help for that."

"You think she's after something bigger." Jaune grimaced as he worked it out, "Something that's going to damage everything, and put you at risk."

"I've seen what happens when a city falls to the Grimm." He replied flatly, "It ain't pretty, and you can't do business in a ruined wasteland. I'm as likely to get killed as the next guy, more than just likely if this bitch decides I've outlived my usefulness... and I'm obviously opposed to that."

Neo nodded slowly, then pointed at him before gesturing at herself and Jaune. The silent question was clear; what do you want from us?

"Told it would be mutually beneficial. I need time to figure her plan out, and time to work on my escape options." Roman leaned back, "And I need her to not suspect I'm draggin' my feet on purpose."

"Ah." Jaune nodded, "You want us to intervene in a heist and fight you off before you get much of anything."

A glove hand rose as if he was pointing a gun at Jaune, "Bingo kid. She knows I'm too good for cops or security to stop me, and it's not like the military hunts down criminals in their spare time. But if a Professor from Beacon happened to be nearby, for totally unrelated reasons... and just happens to notice a bunch of incompetent terrorists wandering around... well, that's just too damned bad."

Roman inspected his cigar for a moment, smirking a little. "And for you... you get to stop and almost catch Vale's most wanted, just bad luck that I get away. You'll still help capture a whole bunch of White Fang in the middle of an obvious dust theft, a veritable paragon of virtue and duty. A true inspiration to those brats and huntsman alike."

The sheer sarcasm he put into the last pair of sentences made Jaune snort quietly, settling back to think about it.

It's not a bad plan... not sure it's a great one, but it might be workable. If it works it stalls this Cinder's plans, whatever they are, buys us time to try and find our relic, and removes us from any kind of suspicion...

That could work out even better than they'd hoped. Once they quit and then came back to steal the Relic there was always the obvious problem that they'd be suspects no matter how carefully they planned their exit. But if they were renowned heroes in the city, people who'd fought against a terrorist plot... they'd be above suspicion, or at least above it to the point where they might get a cursory interview yet nothing more.

And admit it, part of you still wants to be known as a hero. Still... it's not a bad plan, the only risk here is that it's going to bring us to this woman's attention.

He shared a glance with Neo, who pursed her lips and made a 'maybe' gesture.

Jaune nodded lifted his own hands, asking her if the risk would be better if he was the only one involved. She could lurk nearby just in case, but stay out of sight unless it became actually necessary.

Neo considered that... then nodded slowly.

The discussion moved quickly from that point on. Roman gave the time and location, the northern end of the Valean dockyards exactly thirty days from now, and left them to come up with their own reason for being in the area. They'd nodded, and all four had traded the numbers for a new set of burner-scrolls, and then they'd left to try and get some sleep before their class too-early the following morning.

Sunday passed in a tired blur to Jaune. His second class went... more smoothly than his first. Teams FRST, MINT, and CRDL all failed to catch Neo but they all at least had reacted better to having their membership scrambled than RWBY and RAVN had. Mostly they'd fall in on a spectrum between his first attempt; he hadn't scored any of them as high as Ruby's team, but he hadn't scored any of them as low as Ilia's either.

The only problem had been that they'd been far less able, or willing, to identify their faults and areas they could improve on their own afterwords. He'd had to do far more prodding and lecturing, and more than a few had gotten defensive about their decisions instead of sitting back and thinking like Yang and the others.

Probably because they didn't fail nearly as horribly...

He was probably going to have a harder time reaching some of them, especially since there was an extra bit of fallout that he hadn't anticipated... though in hindsight he really should have.

"It's a stupid policy." He grumbled over his coffee, "Why do we need to make the team's composite grades visible, and rank them publicly?"

"It fosters competitive spirit and competition." Glynda replied, sipping at her tea. "Thus encouraging constant improvement."

Jaune narrowed his eyes at his usual ally, not used to being on the opposite side of an issue from her. "You mean it fosters division, bragging, and feelings of superiority."

Tsune and Oobleck were being of no help, both sipping coffee and flicking their eyes back and forth like they were watching a tennis match, and Peter was openly grinning beneath his mustache as he observed from a nearby couch. Peach, wiser or hungrier than the others, simply focused on eating her breakfast.

"Such feelings fade when they are knocked down by the other teams," She countered, "We are here to train warriors, to make sure they know that they must always train and strive to be better."

"At the cost of making half of them arrogant beyond all reason?" He set his cup down, crossing his arms. "Starting fights between teams?"

Glynda pushed her glasses up slightly, making them flash in the light. "We cannot coddle them."

"I'm not saying we coddle them," Jaune protested, "I'm saying we don't need a giant billboard with their grades on it."

"I cannot help but notice you only complain about this now, after your class's grades have been added." She noted, "And that you had no such complaints before today, Mister Arc."

He narrowed his eyes, "I have no complaints about your combat rankings being public, Miss Goodwitch, but I do not believe the others, particular team-based averages, should be. It's not like knowing their Grimm Studies grades matters."

"All of their grades are relevant to inspiring them to improve."

Jaune scoffed and waved a hand at Peter, "How does everyone knowing they're passing Grimm Studies inspire competitive spirit? They all know they're passing, he never grades anything!"

Peter promptly choked on his coffee, pounding on his chest as he wheezed. "L-lies! Lies and slander!"

Glynda turned and gave the rotund huntsman an arctic level glare, then dismissed him in favor of returning to Jaune. "I believe we should agree to disagree, but I do not see the policy changing."

He made a disgusted sound, but sipped more of his drink, wordlessly conceding her point. At the edge of his vision he saw Tsune's tail start wagging happily as she held a hand out, and Oobleck rolled his eyes before pulling a few cards of lien from his pocket and handing them over. He made sure to glower at the both of them, which only made her tail wag harder while Bart gave him a disappointed look.

Like you'd do any better debating her, jerk.

Things settled down into the usual Monday morning malaise after that, everyone trying to get enough caffeine into their system to survive the day's coming events. As per normal, the others wandered out one at a time, Glynda pausing to pat him on the shoulder as she left; the closest she would come to saying that there were no actual hard feelings between them.

He'd nodded in reply, smiling a little as she departed.

That had left him and Bart as the last ones present, but before either of them could speak Ozpin had bustled into the room like a man on a mission. "Ah, Bartholomew, Jaune. Just the men I wished to see."

They both blinked at him, and then at the half-dozen thermoses carefully held in his arms.

"Ok..." Jaune tried, "What about?"

Ozpin ignored him, walking around them both to the nearest table and carefully depositing his cargo there. He set up them up in a neat line, and then carefully unscrewed their tops. "There has been a theft within the school. I require your assistance in locating the perpetrator."

He felt his back tighten a little as his mouth went dry, thankfully Oobleck stepped up before he could. "A theft? What kind of theft?"

"Of this." A hand waved at the drink-ware in front of him. "Over the weekend, I have found ten thermoses of teacher's coffee.. emptied, replace with a poison so foul I cannot describe it."

...oh. Jaune settled back, then remembered that he needed to look grave and not smile. He'd evidently found one of Neo's surprises, and hadn't cared for the experience. She would be entirely too pleased with herself. "That's... unfortunate."

"It gets worse." Ozpin replied, utterly serious. "Four bags of grounds were taken from the pantries last night, that amounts to nearly thirty percent of our current stock. Given the prices involved, it is also a significant amount of lien, and a significant portion of our kitchen's budget."

He idly remembered opening their pantry this morning and finding several such bags within it, and a note from Neo indicating she needed it to stay awake on her late night searches. For some reason he'd thought she'd actually ordered it herself, maybe from Sol.

I must have been half asleep still, not thinking rationally.

"I hold our staff above reproach, but I need you both to be on the lookout among the student body, especially yourself Mister Arc." The Headmaster's eyes bored into his, "Any student who seems to suddenly develop unusual wealth, or rumors of the teacher's coffee being made public should be reported at once."

...there really is a coffee black market, isn't there?

"Mister Arc, I understand that this may not seem serious." Jaune started and winced as he realized that Ozpin had caught him zoning out, treating the Headmaster as he would one of Peter's stories. "But I can assure this is far more important than it may seem. Beyond the defense of our special blend, this is a sign that one of our students has elected to go beyond merely pranking one another. Many of these cups were cleverly hidden throughout the dorm and library, and it would have taken a great deal of research and effort to locate them."

..Neo found them inside of a week.

Bart nodded quickly, "It is most likely an older student, one who knows the buildings very well and has had plenty of time to notice any circumstances where we availed ourself to the reserve thermoses. You said they replaced the teacher's brew and then returned them?"

Ozpin seemed to shudder. "They did. It was likely intended as a prank of some kind, one of particularly poor taste."

Jaune had to fight down a snort, the Headmaster had likely meant that in both meanings of the word. Neo is going to laugh herself sick.

"The return of said thermoses likely indicates over-confidence, amateurism, and a childlike desire for amusement." Bart continued, sounding serious... but giving Jaune a slight roll of his eyes when Ozpin turned away. Right, he's got his own private stash of coffee, he's bullshitting as much as I am. "It is probable that they have not yet graduated to full criminality, but catching them early and educating them is our best approach. We will both, of course, keep our eyes open, right Jaune?"

"Right, of course. We'll, uh, keep an eye out."

"Good." Ozpin nodded once, "I have the complete faith in both of you that we will find the student responsible."

...I choose to believe that you're just sane pretending to be insane. Jaune sighed as he rose, making his excuses and promises that he'd help search for the missing coffee before he left for his office. Maybe I should look up the long-term effects of Mistralian Nirvana intake, and see if I can find Neo some tea to drink instead...

Weiss fought the urge to rub at her temples as team RWBY left Grimm Studies and headed to lunch. For some reason Professor Port had actually given out real coursework, and warned them that it would assuredly count against their grades. None of them had been sure what that had meant, but she'd taken one look at the questions and been startled to see them actually relevant to... well, Grimm Studies.

Maybe he's about to retire and Professor Arc will be taking over the class...

She allowed that pleasant fantasy to linger for a while, then remembered that it could leave Miss Neopoliton in charge of Group Tactics.

No. Just no.

"Hey! Yang! Weiss! Over here!" Weiss blinked at the shout, everyone looking around until they caught sight of Fiye Young waving at them from outside the cafeteria. The redheaded boy was easily tall enough to look over everyone else, and as usual only seemed to notice the pair of them. "They updated the team scores with Professor Arc's new class! Nice job taking those jerks down!"

"...oh boy." Ruby muttered quietly. "We better go check."

She nodded, following her partner with the others to one of several screens outside of the building. Fiye grinned at them, already having the first years' information up, nodding at it. Weiss ignored him, and his follow-up effort to get her or Yang's attention, in favor of reading the information.

Sure enough, the original three grade columns, Combat, Combined Academic, Grimm Studies, now had a fourth companion tacked onto the end; GT&E. The team names fell in rows beneath it, sorted from top to bottom by their average grade in every category. Since everyone was passing Grimm Studies, it had really just been a comparison between their Combat Rankings and their overall academic grade.

Team RAVN had held the top spot almost since the start of the week thanks to Pyrrha's dominance in the ring, with the others doing well enough to keep them clear of any challenger. Weiss had been proud to note that Team RWBY had held a similar control over the Academic grades, with RAVN and MINT vying for second place.

"We weren't that far behind them overall." Blake noted quietly, "Jaune's first grade was just enough to push us past them."

Weiss pursed her lips as she noted it. In almost direct contrast to the Grimm Studies score next to it, pretty much every team was hovering just above failing in the new class. "Seventy even, they only received a sixty six... third behind MINT."

"You probably got a way higher score in our team than anyone else." Yang muttered, careful not to let a lingering Fiye listen in. "Don't think he flunked you like you asked."

She winced. "Apparently not..."

Fiye, unfortunately, chose just that moment to butt in. "Did you just crush it on Saturday or what? Oh man, don't tell me you actually caught her!?"

"Sort of." Ruby replied absently, missing Yang's attempt to tug her away until it was too late. Weiss winced again... the last thing you wanted to give someone like Fiye was attention, it made him think he actually wanted to talk with him.

Not that he was bad guy... those few times she'd deal with him one on one she'd found him reasonably intelligent, and while definitely male, was not nearly as much of a lech as Cardin or Sky. He was just... a follower, someone who always wanted to be around the top of the social hierarchy, wanted whatever prestige he thought he could get from being associated with them.

She'd had to deal with enough of those people back in Atlas, thank you very much.

How he ended up the leader of Team FRST, I have no idea... Oh, he seemed to keep them together socially very well, but their grades and skills were easily the worst in the year and they seemed to have little prospects of improvement.

"You gotta tell us how you did it!" He gushed, focusing on Ruby. "I bet even CRDL will want to hear, we never even got close and I was on a scratch team with Dove and Russel!"

Weiss cleared her throat, "We need to get our lunch, thank you for bringing this to our attention."

"Sure Weiss, I'll tell the others you're on your way over!"

They wall waited until he was gone before Blake sighed, "Please tell me we're not sitting with them today. Yang, I know they're your friends, but I'm really not in the mood."

"Yeah... I... me either." Yang shared a glance with Weiss, who nodded in return. "I was... thinking... maybe we should sit with RAVN today."

To Weiss's shock, Ruby abruptly disintegrated into rose petals from her place in front of the screen, almost instantly re-appearing in front of her sister. "You mean it!?"

"I..." Yang glanced at her again, and got a helpless shrug in return. "Yeah, Rubes, I mean it. We talked after class on Saturday, and... I told them we'd try and start fresh, you know?"

"Really!?" Her partner's voice squeaked high enough that Weiss winced. "This is great! Come on, sooner we can get food the sooner the best teams in Beacon can sit next to each other and swap awesome stories of awesome!"

She opened her mouth to try and ask her to calm down, only to have a hand grab her wrist and nearly yank her off of her feet as Ruby dragged her into the cafeteria.

Ilia had gone into the day with her usual set of expectations; it would be a normally slow Monday, classes would be dull, and team RAVN would spend the day with only each other for real company.

The world, apparently, had other plans.

"Heya Ilia!" Ruby cheered as she dropped her tray next to her, silverware rattling on the plastic as she collapsed onto the bench. "We're sitting next to you guys today!"

Ilia opened her mouth, then turned around to see the rest of Ruby's team walking their way and looking far more awkward about it than Ruby had. Behind her, she heard Pyrrha offer a confused, "Um... you are?"

"Yang said she wanted to." The younger girl smiled, clearly over the moon to finally be spending time with both sets of her friends at once. "Isn't that awesome?"

"I... guess?" She offered, still a little in shock. No one sat next to team RAVN at lunch. Hell, not even the upper years. The sole exception was Professor Arc and his partner on those rare moments where they ate in the cafeteria instead of their rooms. It was practically a rule of Beacon.

I mean, I know we had kind of a moment on Saturday, and she told Pyrrha they'd restart... but this is kind of fast.

"Pyrrha... Ilia." Weiss Schnee greeted, taking the spot on Ruby's other side. "Good morning."

Ilia was too busy blinking, but Pyrrha managed a confused sounding, "Good morning."

Since they were at the end of the table, Yang and Blake had to move around the end to sit on the other side, moving past an also confused Ren and Nora to sit down next to them. Whatever olive branch was being offered between the two teams was apparently not being extended from Blake to her, however, since her old friend kept Yang between her and Nora and almost immediately pulled a book out of her bag to hide behind.

Same old Blake... The sight of that stupid ribbon poking up above the pages made her eye twitch, and she quickly looked at Nora instead.

"Sooo..." Ruby tried when the silence became awkward, everyone on RAVN glancing at each other and wondering what was going on, while everyone on RWBY seemed to be searching for something to say. "What have you guys been up to?"

"Well..." Ilia offered, "Port's class was the same as usual, so... not much. Nora was just telling us a story though."

Nora gasped as if she'd only just remembered. "That's right! I was right in the middle of it! Gah! Now I have start all over again!"

"A story?" Yang at least tried to sound interested. "What ab-"

Two hands slammed into the table, startling everyone. "So, there we were, in the middle of the night!"

"It was day." Ren corrected absently.

Nora snapped an arm around Yang's shoulders, pulling the suddenly wide-eyed girl almost cheek to cheek with her, her other hand spread in front of them as if she was drawing a curtain back. "We were surrounded by Ursa..."

"They were Beowolves."

"Dozens of them!"

"Two."

"They all swarmed us at once!" The hand closed into a fist and rocked the table again as she released Yang as quickly as she'd grabbed onto her. "We had no way out! Ren screamed at me, he told me to save myself! I told him I would never leave him, never!"

Ilia bit her lip as the other team, sans Ruby, got their first real exposure to Nora. Blake had lowered her book, and Weiss was staring blankly while Yang had bitten a finger between her teeth as she fought not to laugh.

"I drew Magnhild and swung it, crushing them as they came on, standing over Ren while he cried!" The boy in question buried his face in his hands and groaned, "Then, just when all hope seemed lost... just when the Grimm came for me... I was struck by... lightning!"

"She reloaded." Ren muttered, bound by some kind of duty to relate the actual story.

"Supercharged by my awesome semblance, I let out a titanic roar!" Nora abruptly surged to her feet, planting one foot up on the bench as she flexed both arms. "In the end they were no match for my awesome thews! And we made a boatload of lien selling Ursa skin rugs!"

Ren sighed, lowering his hands as his partner dropped back into her seat. "She's been having this recurring dream for over a month now, it gets worse every time."

Ruby broke into peels of laughter, actually grabbing onto her arm as she giggled. On her other side, Pyrrha lasted a few seconds longer before breaking out into an entirely genuine belly laugh, collapsing against Illia's other side.

Ilia felt her cheeks heat up a little as the two girls half-draped themselves over her, but was pretty sure she kept her freckles from shifting color. Of course, even if she had, she was pretty sure no one would have noticed because Yang abruptly let out a cackle. "I guess those Ursa couldn't bear the sight of your thews!"

Nora's mouth widened, then she grinned. "Oh my gods! Was that a pun!? That was unbearable!"

"Sorry~" Yang all but sang back, "Guess you'll just have to bear with me!"

"No! No!" Weiss all but shouted, rocketing to her feet, "We are not doing this!"

"Aww..." Yang sighed, but there was a grin as she leaned closer to Nora. "Guess we butter stop before the Weiss-cream melts."

"Yeah, we'd have to-" Ren calmly put a hand over Nora's mouth, not that the girl seemed to notice because she kept talking before giggling at a pun the rest of them thankfully missed.

"Aww, come on, we're bonding! It's not like-" Blake abruptly muzzled Yang as well, making the blonde roll her eyes.

"Thank you Blake." Weiss sighed. "It is awful enough dealing with that in our dorms."

"As do we." Ren nodded in agreement, "Though normally pranks rather than puns. I'm not sure which is worse."

"Puns." The heiress replied flatly, her eyes taking an almost haunted expression. "Definitely puns. When she runs out of them she moves on to dad jokes... I'm sure she could defeat even Pyrrha if she could figure out how to weaponize them."

Yang abruptly knocked Blake's hand away, grinning in Pyrrha's direction. "Pyrrha! I-"

"What the heck is this?" Ilia felt her rising mood shatter at the sound of Cardin Winchester's voice, and Pyrrha and Ruby finally shifted away from her to stare as the tall boy strutted over. "What are you four doing hanging out with those losers? Don't tell me you feel bad for taking their place."

Beside her, Ruby's voice turned cooler than Ilia had ever imagined it could go. "Cardin, we're having lunch with our friends. Go away."

Cardin sneered at her, "Friends? Since when? Xiao-Long was telling us all how stuck up she thought Nikos was just last Friday, can't have changed much over just a weekend. Especially when they dragged your grades down with them in Arc's class."

Ilia let her skin ripple to red as the asshole tried to break them apart, right when they'd started to relax around each other. She felt Pyrrha flinch on her left, while her eyes saw Yang's jaw clench, her words barely intelligible. "Cardin... knock it off."

"We all heard it, all saw it, don't bother trying to cover it up." He grinned. "Look, I get it, you're trying to be all generous in victory and all that, but come on. You can't seriously say you'll ditch your old pals for a barbarian, a stuck up rich girl, a bookworm, and a colorful little animal."

Something snapped in her head at the last three words, and she only vaguely heard Pyrrha Nikos actually swear, offering a quiet but utterly heartfelt, "Oh shit.."

Cardin continued, though his voice had become odd, like he was talking from a great distance away. "Or were you looking for a pet?"

Everything went red.

Ruby's world spun as Ilia shoved her backwards, surging past her in a rush of bright scarlet and yellow. She felt startled at how fast the faunus girl was moving, but felt less bad about her butt hitting the floor when she saw Weiss grab at Ilia's legs and miss entirely.

Trays and plates went flying as Ilia simply took three long steps down the table and threw herself at Cardin. He seemed to panic at the last moment, as if he hadn't believed what he was seeing, and he let out a surprisingly loud yelp as the pair tumbled back onto the ground.

Ruby scrambled back to her feet as shouts and calls started to come from all over the cafeteria. Farther down the long row, the rest of Team Cardinal shouted their leaders name, their own food and books going into the air as they raced down to help him. All around the upper years rapidly backed away, getting clear of the mess that was starting.

"Ruby!" Weiss shouted, "We have to restrain them, can you-"

"Move it!" Nora's bellow interrupted her, and Ruby snapped her head around in time to see the orange-haired girl imitate Ilia and simply sprint right down the top of the table, kicking food into Blake's face as she ran past.

She got to the fight at the same time as Russel, and before the boy could try and drag a snarling Ilia off of Cardin, he was hit by her teammate in flying tackle. That seemed to set off the rest of the first years, one of the girls from Mint shouting that RAVN was trying to kill Cardin.

They didn't hear what he said! This is bad!

All they must have seen was Ilia attack him when he came over to see why RWBY was with RAVN instead of at their usual seats in the middle of everyone else. Then, after the apparently unprovoked assault, Nora had come flying in to back her up when his teammates did their jobs and tried to help him.

We've got to stop this before it gets worse!

She swallowed and tried to come up with a plan, "We have to-"

Pyrrha simply kicked off from the table, did a somersault above Ruby, and landed in a roll before also charging into the fight. Dove and Sky saw her coming and frantically tried to back up, all to absolutely no avail as the champion came at them without any such hesitation. Both promptly starting yelping in pain and shouted insults as punches and kicks drove them back.

"Ren!" Yang shouted, drawing her attention back to see the quiet boy standing near where Ilia had been, calmly rifling through her bag. A moment later he drew out her dust whip, calmly tossed it to Ruby who bobbled it for a moment, and then rolled up as his sleeves as he started towards the increasingly chaotic melee as well.

Ruby stared at him, then at the weapon in her hands, and then at his back. While she was busy gaping, Ilia was thrown free of Cardin by main strength, tumbling back towards Ren. He caught her by an arm and her belt, spinning in a circle to reverse her momentum before throwing her back towards her opponent as if it was move they'd practiced a thousand times.

Cardin let out another yelp as he was again hit with her full weight, the pair kicking and struggling on the ground once more.

"Ruby, give me that!" She jumped a little as Weiss grabbed the weapon, struggling with it, "Ugh, I need the dust!"

"Oh! Gimme!" Ruby grabbed it back, quickly turning it around. Ilia had let her help do maintenance on it more than once, and they'd batted around ideas to increase the cartridge count to something like Myrtenaster. Two quick pulls, and... "There!"

Weiss blinked at her, then at the two sticks of yellow dust in her hand. "How did you know... nevermind, stay behind me, I'm going to try and-Yang no!"

Ruby felt a pitiful wail come out of her throat as her sister sprinted down the others side of the tables, leaped clear over Nora as she tried to strangle Russel with his own tie, and then planted her feet between the fight and the oncoming people from Mint and Frost. The first couple saw her, and tried to stop as she held her hands up, but the ones behind them knocked them right into Yang, and then a second fight promptly broke out as her sister retaliated.

"We.. we have to help!" Ruby felt her small hands ball into fists. "We can't stand here. Weiss, Blake, are you with me?"

Weiss stared at her as though she'd gone insane, and a glance at Blake showed the dark haired girl still seated, her mouth open and skin pale beneath the mess of food stuck to her features as she stared at the confused mess.

"Guys!" She tried again, "We have to-"

A hand fell on her shoulder, one much, much larger than Weiss's. "Stay put Ruby."

Ruby jerked her head up, hope hammering along with her heart. "Jaune!?"

Professor Arc's lips were set in a thin line, and he didn't say anything as he walked past her, his partner idly walking up beside Ruby and stopping. The pair watched as Jaune approached within a few feet of the fight before lifting a hand to his mouth and letting out a piercing whistle. Most of the fight paused at once, everyone twitching at the sound and jerking their heads around to find its source.

Most of them got pretty pale and froze in place.

The sole exceptions were the two who'd started it, Cardin and Ilia rolling back out from under a table they'd ended up under, the pair colliding with the professor's legs. They didn't seem to notice at first, Cardin struggling his way on top and bringing his fist back.

Jaune caught it.

Cardin struggled for a moment, glancing up... and then he also froze. Ilia needed a moment longer, but Ruby could tell when she figured it out because her skin went from furious red to a terrified green.

"I see we're having an eventful Monday." Jaune noted in the absolute silence that followed, his voice all the scarier for being his normal, happy sounding self. "You've managed to make a mess of the cafeteria."

No one moved. Ruby wasn't sure some of them were even breathing.

"Nothing to say?" He asked. "Didn't think so. I want all of the first years to put your books up against the wall, and start cleaning... quietly if you can. Glynda and I will discuss what do you with you all after."

Everyone flinched at a whip cracking sound, then turned around to see Miss Goodwitch's weapon clasped in both hands as she glared at them all. "Get. To. It."

No one disobeyed.

So we go from schemes, to a bit of light comedy, the start of reconciliation, and then... Cardin. Good job breaking things dude, we can always count on you.

For those looking to discuss things about this story in more detail, I am active on the professor arc forums here on FF (there is a thread for this story there; just search "Professor Arc" in the forums section), and would be happy to discuss things further there. A few general notes based on the last rounds of reviews;

Regarding Neo's past actions and current thoughts; we will only get flashbacks from Jaune's point of view, and the unreliable narrator trope is always in affect in all of my stories. He does love Neo, and that may leave him positively biased in terms of how he views her actions. As far as why Neo is set on assisting him... she has her reasons, and I will say that they don't entirely coincide with his.

Regarding Yang, and to a lesser extent Pyrrha/Ilia/Weiss/etc; I am trying to portray them as the teenagers and flawed humans that they are. They're not always, or even very often, going to act based solely on rationality. I'm hoping this is coming through correctly, and from the responses it seems like it is.

Pyrrha, as the last two chapters have hinted, is not a terribly healthy person mentally, and to some extent, neither is Yang. Some of that is spoilery territory so I won't go into more here, but again, I'll respond on the forums with what I can if you wish to ask.

Please read and review, criticism is welcome, flames not so much, as usual. Reviews are my lifeblood as a writer.. every-time my email goes off with a review it makes me want to write more, so please take the time to leave one. Guests can leave them as well, and it only takes a minute, so please. Even if it's as simple as "I enjoyed it, please continue."

Thanks, Kat