Chapter 58- Rally Cap
"Aww, I want more." Nora complained.
"Well this probably isn't the last season." Ruby pointed out.
Jaune nodded, "Yeah, it's just the end of the recollection trilogy."
"When the trilogy ends I'm curious to know if anyone liked the blood gulch chronicles more." Weiss commented.
"Absolutely! ...less depressing." Nora sighed.
"The trilogy isn't over yet, you can't decide that now." Weiss explained.
Nora shrugged, "Play it Jaune!"
"Rally Cap" appeared on the screen with the theme.
"Does anyone know what a Rally Cap is?" Weiss asked.
"It sounds like a cap you wear to a rally." Ruby suggested.
Nora's eyes widened, "Or a cap you wear to rally!"
"So only guesses." Weiss sighed.
"Why do you want to know?" Yang asked.
"Blake can guess what happens from the chapter title, It's prudent for me to be able to do it too." Weiss explained.
"I can't always guess, only if it's obvious." Blake explained. "And by the way, I don't know either."
Jaune looked between them incredulously, "Wait really? It's a sports thing! It's when you wear your team's hat inside out or backwards to get your team to come from behind and win."
"Wait wait wait wait!" Nora held up her hands, "You know sports? You're Jaune!"
Ren leaned over, "Anything to add Jaune?"
Jaune narrowed his eyes in Nora's direction, "I have seven sisters, one of them had to be into sports."
Nora giggled, "I'd like to meet her."
Weiss cut in, "Back to the title, Blake? Any guesses."
"Remember! If you're right then you spoiled us and I won't forgive you for it!" Nora crossed her arms.
"Yeah!" Ruby agreed glaring at Blake.
Blake gave each an amused glare, "They're going to turn their helmets backwards and charge into battle."
Nora gasped, "That's a great plan! Never-mind I hope you're right! They'll be like horses with blinders!" Nora grinned.
Fade in to Caboose standing in front of FILSS
FILSS: "Alarm. Incoming recovery beacon. Level Zero. Alarm."
"Not level Alpha?" Jaune muttered with his eyes narrowed at the screen.
"Could be nothing." Yang shrugged.
"Or foreshadowing." Blake countered.
Caboose: "Oh no!"
FILSS: "Incoming recovery beacon. Level Zero."
Pyrrha smiled, "There's the motivation Blake."
Blake nodded, "I knew they would be motivated to follow them, I was just wrong about what the motivation would be."
"I think it's better this way." Pyrrha added.
Cut to Doc driving Wash and the Meta across a snowy field animated.
Ruby gasped, "it's animated! Look!"
Yang grinned, "Yes! Good eye Sis."
Jaune nodded, "Everything looks animated, not just the warthog."
"The background looks in game." Ruby squinted.
Cut to in game driving up to Church's body.
Yang leaned back, "There's in game."
"It looks better." Weiss commented.
Washington: "There he is. Something doesn't seem right here. Stop the car."
Blake nodded, "It's obviously a trap."
"Well of course! Tex basically said it last episode!" Nora laughed.
Blake sighed, "I meant from their perspective. A recovery beacon goes off and they only see a lone body? Where's everyone else?"
Doc: "Stop?"
Washington: "I don't like this. How did he get hurt, why isn't anyone helping him?"
Blake nodded, "Exactly, and look at the Meta, he's looking up at the cliffs."
Meta: *something*
Washington: "You're right, this is a trap. Those walls there, perfect for a sniper. We walk in to where he's hurt and suddenly, we're boxed in, nowhere to go."
"You were right again Blake." Weiss commented.
Blake shrugged and nodded.
Doc: "You think the Reds are tryin' to ambush us?"
Washington: "The Rheds? Hahaha! No. This is an actual military tactic. We drilled it all the time in training. No, whoever set this up is a Freelancer."
Blake frowned, "Wait…"
Doc: "Yeah, but if a Freelancer set this up, wouldn't they know that you guys were Freelancers, and that you would recognize this as soon as you saw it?"
Blake chuckled, "Knew it." She mumbled.
Washington: "What? No, you're overthinking it. That's just-"
Lights start to turn on in a perfect circle around them with one missing.
"Right where she wanted them." Yang laughed.
Blake nodded, "She knew exactly what they were going to do, I wonder if she has anything else planned?"
Washington: "Oh, son of a bitch."
The missing circle lights up.
Doc: "*sigh* Told you so."
The everything explodes, the jeep goes flying and all their weapons drop to the ground.
Ruby gasped, "Look! They lost all their guns."
Yang grinned, "You know what that means?"
"Hand to hand combat!" Pyrrha grinned giddily.
We cut to Caboose approaching the Reds
Caboose: "Sargeant, Sargeant."
Sarge: "What do you want, Blue?"
Caboose: "I need your help."
Pyrrha smiled.
Simmons: "Our help?"
Caboose: "Yes, Church is hurt, they must have gotten to him and Tex."
"This is the first time Caboose has been this worried." Pyrrha commented.
Grif: "They got Tex? Good, that just means she won't be able to beat the hell out of us any more."
Caboose: "No we have to rescue them."
Grif: "Rescue them, are you nuts? No-one told them to leave, they're on their own!"
Nora growled, "Coward meanie."
Caboose: "But they'll die! Sargeant please."
Nora looked to Pyrrha, "Aw sorry Pyrrha, this episode Caboose is really sad."
Pyrrha smiled and chuckled, "Thanks."
Grif: "Uh hey dude, I don't know if you've picked up on this yet, but if you wanna convince Sarge to do anything, I don't think the best argument is 'The Blues might die if we don't.'"
Sarge: "Cowboy up Caboose, I'm comin' with you."
Nora gasped, "What, Sarge is going to help! This is amazing! Sarge is going to kick Meta's and Wash's ass!"
Pyrrha chuckled, "I uh d- it's possible."
Grif: "What?"
Sarge: "I said, I'm helping him."
Blake smiled, "This is great, I never expected Sarge to do anything like this."
"Me neither." Weiss added.
"Awe you guys don't give him credit, Sarge hates the blues but the enemy of his enemy is his friend." Nora grinned. "Besides, he can still hate them."
Grif: "Who, the blue guy? Why on Earth would you ever help a Blue for no reason?"
Sarge: "We need some weapons. How'd your equipment test go, Simmons?"
Nora laughed, "Ha! He just ignored him."
"Sarge is taking charge." Pyrrha smiled glancing at Jaune before looking back to the screen. "Normally he just yells orders."
"Isn't that just what taking charge is?" Nora asked.
Ruby and Jaune shook their heads.
"There's more to it than that." Jaune explained.
Ruby nodded, "Yeah, I can yell orders but certain people don't follow them." Ruby glared at her team.
"I outrank you." Weiss shot back.
"Not officially." Ruby grinned.
Simmons: "About as well as you would expect."
Sarge: "Heuh, that's too bad."
Grif: "Well I'm not going, and you can't make me. You quit, remember? I don't take orders from you any more, and besides, this whole command structure thing was bullshit anyway. We all know that now."
Ruby gasped, "Wait are they going to split!"
Jaune frowned, "I hope not, I like Red team. They're not my favorite but they're in the top two."
"There's only two teams." Weiss pointed out.
Jaune chuckled, "Exactly."
"Grif is prepared to leave them behind." Blake commented.
"We always knew he was lazy." Weiss added, "Now he doesn't have to stay."
Sarge: "I'm not tellin' you ta go. I'm not even askin'."
Grif: "You're not?"
Sarge: "Nope. I'm goin'. That's it. You wanna come, come on. But I don't expect you to. Simmons will probably tell you that statistically, some of us will probably die."
Simmons: "All of us."
Jaune laughed, "Always the optimist."
The inspirational music turns up
Sarge: "All of us will probably die. But that's not what's important. Let me ask you two a question: You ever wonder why we're here?"
Everyone gasped
"They're bringing the question back!" Jaune grinned.
"It's amazing how that little conversation has had such a huge impact on the show." Ruby commented.
Grif: "..."
Simmons: "..."
Grif: "Um, it does seem to be one of life's great mysteries."
Jaune and Ren laughed.
"That's exactly what he said to Simmons." Pyrrha chuckled.
Sarge: "No, I mean you! What are you doing here? You always act like you wanna quit, but hell, you could've left whenever you wanted. No-one would have stopped ya. So why are you here?"
Nora's face was practically glowing as she heard Sarge speak, "Whow h-he's giving Grif an inspirational speech!"
"He'a rallying him." Blake pointed out.
"I never thought about that, Grif really could have left a while ago. There's no one to stop him." Jaune commented.
"Play it. I want to hear his answer." Ruby ordered.
Sarge: "And you, Simmons."
Ruby silently sighed in her head.
Simmons: "Me?"
Sarge: "You say you wanna be in charge. They would have given you your own squad a dozen times over. You know it, and I know it. But you're still, here."
"Simmons getting his own squad? He's the smartest on red team but when he led them he didn't do it very well." Weiss commented.
"But he still could have gotten his own squad, and maybe with them he would have been a good leader." Pyrrha pointed out.
Sarge: "And you Tucker. As much as I hate to admit it, you're actually good at being a soldier."
Tucker: "I am?"
"He is! He actually is! He beat CT, he's probably the best fighter out of the other Reds and Blues." Jaune gasped.
Sarge: "I know you like to make your rude comments, pretend like it all doesn't matter. But an entire alien race chose you to be their hero! So why are you here?"
"Wow, Tucker has come so far." Jaune smiled.
Weiss nodded, "He's still a bad soldier in my mind. But he's the best of the worst and that's ...somewhat respectable."
"And he tried to be a good dad." Pyrrha added.
"They're all changing. I thought for so long they were stagnating. Only Church has had real development until this." Blake grinned.
"Grif and Simmons secretly like being on Red team and want to be there. Tucker has become somewhat of a hero and a great soldier. They've all changed." Ruby smiled.
"What about Caboose?" Pyrrha asked.
Sarge: "And Caboose…"
Cut to Caboose.
Sarge: "Uuhhh, it's good to see you."
"What? Nothing?" Pyrrha growled. "He brought Church back, he asked them to go rescue Church, he's come from a caring soldier that accidentally killed his teammate to a much more caring person."
Nora however, instead of being offended, laughed.
Caboose: "Thanks. I'm really enjoying the speech so far."
Pyrrha snorted, "Always nice no matter what. I'm enjoying to speech too."
"So am I." Nora grinned. "Sarge is awesome."
"I never expected this, it's incredible." Blake smiled.
Sarge: "Maybe you're all here because this is the only place you fit in. Maybe you're here because you don't have anywhere else to go. Maybe you're all here, because deep down, you want to be here. The reason doesn't matter. What matters is that you're here! For all we know, Tex and Church are dead. That means we're the only ones who know what's happened; the only ones who can prevent them from covering it up. So the way I figure it, these Freelancer guys, wanna use us, take us away from our families, and send us all over the dag gum galaxy just to test if their agents are ready for the big fight? Well, I guess I'm interested in showing 'em, exactly what a big fight is all about. Time to clean the slate. So I'm not ordering you to go. I ain't even askin'. You do, what you gotta do Private Grif."
Everyone sat in awe as Sarge spoke, captivated by his speech and thinking about themselves and why they were here. Not daring or wanting to interrupt.
"Wow, I think deep down they want to be there." Pyrrha smiled.
"Me too, I think they're actually friends." Ruby grinned.
Nora laughed happily, "Sarge has such a way with words."
"It's amazing, there's so much he said that I never thought about. What about their families?" Jaune asked.
"We only really know of Grif's and some of Simmons's. Grif's mother worked for a circus and we met his sister. Simmons has issues with his father" Ren explained.
"His speech makes me wonder why we're here." Weiss commented.
"We already talked about why we're huntresses." Blake pointed out.
"And huntsmen." Jaune added.
"You're outnumbered boyo." Yang laughed.
Weiss shook her head, "No no, I mean why are we here. Watching this show."
"Well...we like the show?" Yang shrugged.
Weiss sighed, "I know that now, now we like the show. But I'm not just here to watch the show, I probably wouldn't watch this by myself. I'm here with you because I like being here with all of you."
"Aww Weiss." Ruby smiled.
"Don't push it Ruby." Weiss snapped.
Ruby giggled, "Well I'm here for the same reason, I like the show for a lot of reasons but I want to be here and watch it with all of you."
"I think we are all here for the same reason." Ren smiled, "This past year we've grown so close as friends and teammates, it's nice to relax together."
"Yeah!" Nora grinned, "I mean it'd probably be a lot of fun finding a big Ursa and selling its hide as a rug but I mean… Watching Sarge is pretty cool with all of you."
"It's nice to have a story we all know." Blake explained with a grin.
"It's also nice to be a fan with you all." Pyrrha laughed with relief. "I can be a fan of this show all I want. And I'm glad I have some fellow fans."
"Aww that's sweet Pyrrha, you can be a fangirl around us." Yang laughed.
"Now I wouldn't go that far." Pyrrha laughed with a blush.
Jaune laughed, "Don't tell my sisters I said this but, I'd rather watch this with the seven of you than the seven of them."
"We don't have their numbers." Nora shrugged. "Yet" She whispered to Ren who chuckled.
Grif: "Hhh, I'll go get my car keys."
Nora laughed, "Yes! Sarge got Grif to do something without yelling at him! Sarge is the best sergeant!"
Pyrrha nodded, "His speech was very inspiring."
Ruby nodded, "Yeah…*coughs* and no one can out me for stealing it because no one else knows the show exists."
Sarge: "Ah, alright then. Let's move."
Simmons: "I don't think a jeep will get us there soon enough. But I think I know what we can use."
A guitar riff picks up as they all file into a room
Simmons: "This!"
"Aww they aren't going to show us." Nora complained.
Grif: "Who the hell is gonna drive that? ...Why is everyone looking at me?"
The screen faded to black.
"That is hands down the best episode." Nora grinned, "This trilogy is definitely better than the blood gulch chronicles."
"Still too early to decide." Jaune chuckled. "I wonder what it is. Any guesses?"
"None at all, I can't get Sarge's speech out of my head." Yang commented.
"And after learning everything from the blood gulch chronicles was just another scenario." Pyrrha shook her head, "He was able to ignore it and rise above."
"Scenario three, I wonder what the other scenarios were." Blake commented. "They present a great opportunity for spin offs."
—Professor's SS— Not Canon
"What an inspiring speech if I do say so myself, and I do." Port grinned.
"I have to agree, I cannot recall a better speech in Remnant's recent history." Oobleck commented.
Ozpin chuckled, "Dr. Oobleck, 'why are you here?' Is your favorite question to ask students."
Oobleck nodded, "It works to properly reinforce why they want to become huntsmen."
"I have always admired that strategy of yours Bart." Glynda commented, "I've always noticed the students who went on missions with you perform better in combat class."
"Yes yes, their vigor! They strive to achieve their goals!" Port smiled. "It's always inspiring."
Ozpin looked to his friend, "And what do you think about his speech?"
Ironwood looked up from deep in thought, "Forgive me but I may use elements from the speech on my own to the troops. They need to remind themselves why they fight."
Professor Port let out a boisterous laugh, "No forgiveness needed James!"
Ozpin nodded, "I think what we can all take away from this is that it is important not to lose sight of what drives us."
Dr. Oobleck nodded, "Yes indeed."
Ozpin smiled to himself, it's always important to remember why I fight. Never again will I fall into another state of depression and inactivity. I have the maidens to thank for that. Ozpin's smile grew at the fond memories of the four women.
—Criminals SS— Not Canon
Mercury and Emerald sat in silence, contemplating Sarge's speech.
Mercury looked down, I am here because I had nowhere else to go. I killed my father and they showed up a moment later. It made sense, it felt like it was meant to be. But why am I still here? He looked to Cinder and smirked, Cinder and her boss Salem. That idiot Torchwick is right, no one can stop her. She's going to change the world and in her new world, I will be on top. I'm right where I'm supposed to be.
Emerald looked up to Cinder, she's why I'm here. I had nowhere else to go and she was there for me. I'm here because of her, and wherever she is. I want to be there. Emerald smiled. She's… She's like family. The only I will ever have, she's been more of a mother to me than my actual mom. Emerald smiled.
Cinder stealthily looked between her two subordinates, her own little pawns. That's right, you're here because of me. You need me, you want to be here. Cinder chuckled to herself. Why am I here? Power. There is nothing I will not do to achieve it. And unlike that idiot 'Meta' I will think. Power is my addiction, I hunger for it. But I like that hunger, the longing. It gives me focus.
Cinder smirked, "An interesting little speech, it would be a shame to not watch it's result."
—Salem's inner circle SS— Not Canon
Salem smirked, "An interesting speech."
Tyrian laughed, "Why wonder why you're here? If you're not doing something because you love it you're in the wrong place."
Watts chuckled and huffed, "You should apply for a job at Beacon, I'd recommend guidance counselor."
Tyrian growled before laughing again, likely imagining the destruction he could cause. He laughed louder after Watts cringed from Salem's glare.
Hazel simply grunted ambiguously.
"It's important not to lose sight of what drives us." Salem smiled. "You know why you are here. But always remember, the path to your own desires is only possible through me."
The room grew silent, with only a chuckle from Tyrian.
Salem smiled, her point made. "Now then, let's continue."
As always what did you think of the chapter and what RvB spin offs would you like to see? Personally I'd like to see more of Locus, Felix, and Siris. I want to see Locus and Felix change for the worse and know what happened to Siris.
