Second Semester

Remnant: January 2947 A.D. (After Dust)

Earth: January 2014 C.E.

Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY.

"Welcome back," I said, greeting David as he stepped off the air bus. He was the first one back at Beacon, having arrived a day early.

"Good to be back," he replied. "How was your break?"

"...I'd rather not answer that just yet." We turned towards the building where our dorm was and started walking. Yours?"

"Fine, but my father had to work so I didn't get to see much of him."

"Oh, where does he work?"

"A place called White Fox Research."

"So that's who I saw!"

"What?"

"White Fox pays for my tuition here in exchange for letting them study me. They have me come in about twice a year these days so they can try new things with me. I saw someone who looked a lot like you while I was there, but I didn't stop to chat. I guess that must have been your father."

"Maybe." We had arrived at the dorm. I buzzed us in with my scroll and David started to unpack. "So, there's a rumor going around about you..."

"A rumor? About me?" I said, faking surprise. "You don't say! I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! David, there's always rumors going around about me. Rumors about where I'm from, rumors about why I'm two years older than everyone else, rumors about things I've supposedly done with my Semblance, and rumors about who I'm supposedly dating. This is nothing new."

"This rumor's a little different. It involves Conrad from CLVR."

Oh. I hadn't expected word to spread so quickly. "And?"

"And it says you challenged him to a duel, then proceeded to utterly destroy him."

"And you want confirmation on this?"

"Yes."

"In that case, yes, it happened," I said.

"Right. Why did you do it?"

"Why do you think?"

"Well I can think of several reasons, four of which I've already heard."

"And these reasons are?"

"The first one is that you were standing up to him for someone else."

"I suppose you could interpret the situation that way, he was bothering a bat Faunus when I challenged him," I paused for a moment. "But that's not why I did it."

"Second reason, that he annoyed you one too many times and you decided to teach him a lesson."

"That was the excuse, but not the reason."

David looked at me oddly, then continued. "Third reason, you did it because you wanted to, and that you secretly enjoy beating people up."

"No. I thought you knew me better than that."

"I thought I did too. Fourth reason, you were worked up about something else and Conrad just happened to be there."

"David, Yang's in the hospital."

"Oh."

"Yang is in the hospital with a fifty percent chance of survival, at best. Ruby is an absolute mess. Weiss is taking care of Ruby, and Blake is nowhere to be found, most likely doing her 'alone' thing." I glared up at David. "How do you think I'm feeling?"

"Kevin, that still wasn't like you. I know you, or at least I thought I did. You don't take out your problems on other people."

"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do." I looked away. "People have layers, David. What do you see when you look at my first layer?"

"A cynical, sarcastic, and obnoxious geek who enjoys annoying people."

"Very good. Now what's next?"

"A leader who's determined, brave, clever, and cares deeply about his responsibilities and the people around him.."

"I might quibble a bit with some of those points, but generally, yes. So what's the third layer? What happens when I get tired of being those people? When I no longer have the strength to keep up the image?"

"I'm not sure I follow."

"David, the reason I pay so much attention to responsibility, the reason I care so much about people, is because I know what I am without those things. Without something holding me back, I'm a vicious, violent person. When I fought Conrad, I let the monster slip its chains just a bit. I shouldn't have done it, I shouldn't have let it happen, but it did. I'm just glad I got it back under control before I seriously hurt someone."

"So you have a temper. So what?"

"No. Yang has a temper. Lily has a temper. I have a monster."

"If you do, I've never seen it."

"No," I agreed. "You haven't seen it. I work very hard to keep it under control, because if I don't, people can and will get hurt." I took a deep breath. "Rebecca carried her demons on the outside. Mine lives on the inside."

"Kevin, everyone gets angry at times. I doubt you're anything special."

"David, you've seen me angry. It's not that bad. The most I do is yell a bit. This is something different."

He stared at me for a moment before responding. "Alright then, I'll believe you."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry if this causes you any trouble." I paused for a moment. "How did you hear about this so soon anyways?"

David gave me a look that bordered on insulted. "I hear everything. In this case, I heard it from Dawn, who heard it from Nyx, who heard it from a friend, who heard it from a team mate."

"You have an information network?"

"I like to maintain an awareness of my surroundings. When my Semblance isn't enough, I find other solutions."

"It's a good thing you're not into blackmail then."

"Probably," David said, smiling faintly.

"Speaking of which, could you not tell the girls about this?"

"They're going to find out about it sooner or later."

"I know. I'd just rather they hear it from me."

"If you're sure."

"Yeah, I'm sure. Thanks, David."

"So your dad works for White Fox?" I asked. We were in the cafeteria, eating dinner.

"Yeah, his primary focus is on archaeology, with a side interest in lingual development."

"Huh. I wouldn't have thought White Fox would be interested in that sort of thing. They always seemed more like a tech company to me."

"They're a research firm. They have one of the largest databases in the world, along with some of the most advance computational abilities. They handle all sorts of things."

"Part of that sounded like it came from a brochure," I said. "So, lingual development? I wouldn't think there'd be much call for something like that in Remnant."

"It is rare. My father is one of maybe two dozen linguists in Vale, with maybe fifty world wide."

"Makes sense, smaller population combined with a much narrower field, at least compared to my world. So, what's your father do for White Fox?"

"Primarily translations of old manuscripts and carvings. He's almost never called in for anything that's less than a thousand years old."

"Interesting. Maybe I'll stop by to talk to him next time I visit White Fox. I wonder how he'd react to the fact that my world has hundreds of languages?"

"I have no idea. Probably demand a demonstration."

"Well, I do know German, although I wouldn't call myself fluent exactly."

"What does German sound like?"

"Guttural, harsher than English, it always sounds like the speaker is angry."

"English?"

"My world's name for the language we're speaking. English actually started as a pidgin language that evolved from a combination of French and German."

"So, could you say something in German?"

"Sure, what would you like me to say?"

"Um, how about something simple, like the table is brown or something?"

"Der Tisch ist braun," I said. Then I grinned. "Oder etwas."

"You said your world's version of this language developed from German?"

"Yeah, a lot of the words are similar, to the point of being almost the same. The grammar is a bit different, and the conjugations can be a nightmare, but the languages are very closely related."

"I noticed that. Most of the words sounded similar, although that last one threw me off a bit. Etvas?"

"It's spelled with a 'W', it means 'something'."

"A 'W'?"

"Pronunciation's a bit different. 'W's are 'V's. German also has a letter we don't have, and three modified versions of vowels. "

"That sounds needlessly complex."

"Only because you grew up speaking English, which is widely regarded as being one of the easiest languages to learn, albeit one of the hardest to master. German's actually fairly simple compared to some other languages."

"Huh. My dad would love you."

"Sorry, but I think Ruby has first dibs on adopting me, given that she might as well have already done so."

David chuckled. "I saw that. She was all over you when they visited."

"Did you see Weiss glaring at me too?" I asked.

"I saw Weiss glare at everyone."

"Point. But still, she glares at me every time Ruby hugs me."

"And this supports your theory about Weiss being a tsundere?"

"Yep."

"By the way, what language is 'tsundere' from anyways? It certainly doesn't sound like a word in this language."

"My friend, tsundere is from Japanese, the language of a place known as Japan. Modern day Japan is known for a few things: Technology, Anime, Video Games, and Really Weird Shit."

"Really Weird... I don't want to know."

"No. No you do not. 'WTF Japan?' is a very common phrase."

"Um, do you have an example that won't send people running?"

"Well there's some really weird anime. One involves robots coming out of a kid's forehead for...reasons. I'd try to explain, but I didn't really get it myself."

"Ooookay then."

"Yeah," I paused for a second. "How did we end up on this topic again?"

"I don't know, and I'm not sure I want to."

"So, seen any good movies lately?"

"Well there was this one about a group of elite hunters..."

A/N: Yeah, this chapter really does not connect with itself at all. On the one hand, depressing news and an actual explanation for why Kevin kind of hates himself. On the other, talking about weird Japanese stuff. (If you don't believe Japan does some really weird things, go look it up. Japan does weird things.)

To Cyborg, Yang's Semblance, or at least my interpretation of it, is not defensive in nature. It does nothing to make her any tougher. What it does do is boost her strength based on the damage she's taken. The rough mathematical formula I use for this is if Yang at full Aura is strength of 1, then her strength when damaged is 1/whatever fraction of her Aura is left. In theory, this means her strength is pretty much infinite at zero Aura, although in reality there is an upper limit. However, that upper limit is pretty high. In this case, Yang's last strike before passing out from her wounds hit with the force of five or six tons of dynamite, utterly obliterating the Behemoth. For reference, the most powerful non-nuclear bomb ever created by the US (Russia supposedly has a bigger bomb, but hard information on said device is scarce) has a blast yield of eleven tons of dynamite. The things you learn while writing fan fiction...

Oh, and the machine guns have always been there. Molnair and Talon each have a pair of built-in machine guns, giving Kevin a total of four. Each one can be fired independently in both semi-automatic and fully-automatic modes, with a maximum firing rate of two hundred rounds per minute each. They use small caliber Dust rounds that are fed by a belt system from the magazines contained in the upper arms of the weapons. However, because Kevin prefers melee combat, they don't see that much use.

To the anonymous guest, that is a question best left for another story.

And now, a brief explanation of what happened with Team CFVY, and why Coco is teaching instead of killing Grimm. CFVY spent some time as an elite Hunter team, during which time Fox and Coco got married and Velvet and Yatsuhashi got engaged. Three years ago, Coco and Fox decided to have children, so they retired from active Hunter duty. While Coco teaches at Beacon, Fox is a stay-at-home dad, keeping track of their rambunctious two year old son Miles. (Anyone who gets that reference gets a cookie. Unless Ruby eats them all. Again.) Meanwhile, Velvet and Yatsuhashi are still active hunters and have been engaged for the last six years. Various people have tried to get them to set a date for their wedding, but they seem to be in no hurry to do so. They will be making a brief appearance or two later this semester.

That's all for now, see you all next chapter.