Author's Notes
This chapter will earn me some enemies. Not because of the content, but because of the pacing. I'll be forthcoming here: Forever Fall takes three chapters. Why? A combination of natural break points, the meta pacing of publishing the chapters in a timely manner, and the current state of my buffer.
I can expand upon this in the end of chapter A/N.
Chapter 19.1: Forever, Pick a Season
As she exited the bullhead, the dried leaves that eternally covered the ground of Forever Fall crunched underneath her boots. The mission was insultingly simple: collect sap from virtually any tree in the forest. Deal with any Grimm stupid enough to wander into them. The Grimm population in Forever Fall has always been small and weak. The most dangerous thing a student could encounter was an Alpha Beowolf or an Ursa Major.
Forever Fall was the perfect mission for little, icky first years. Sufficiently far away from Beacon to feel like an actual field mission. Close enough for reinforcement to arrive on a moment's notice in the odd chance something goes horribly wrong. Simple enough for the students to complete while still requiring them to take it seriously lest they allow an easy A to slip their grasp. Battle was not the main purpose of the field trip. Survival skills, basic leadership, efficiency, following orders; these were the true goals of the yearly Forever Fall trip. That, and restocking Beacon's supplies of natural sweetener. Sure, the sap had some scientific and medicinal uses, but let's be real: the amount collected went way beyond that scope. Ozpin liked to indulge every now and then on the sap to sweeten whatever he was drinking. Glynda herself was guilty of it.
And yet every other year a student manages to mess things up. Was this one of the good years or one of the bad ones? Did Miss Adel mess up last year? That sounds like a thing she would do.
"The forest eternally shrouded in seasons' dusk, Forever Fall. Hello, old friend."
"Is that a phrase from one of your porn books?"
"They are not porn books," Ms. Belladonna snapped at Mr. Arc, "…and it appears in three books."
"You've been here before?" That was Ms. Rose.
"Eh. Once or twice."
'As part of the White Fang,' Glynda thought. Of course, the girl didn't know she knew. Oz decided to allow the girl to believe she kept her secret. Better than having her run off in panic.
"If there's a Forever Fall, is there a Forever Winter?"
Glynda had to force herself from not rolling her eyes. Wasn't Ms. Kamizono from Atlas?
"The mountain range in the northwest part of Solitas is known as Forever Winter," Ms. Schnee informed the class.
"What makes it any more wintery than the rest of Atlas?"
"Solitas," Ms. Schnee corrected Ms. Valkyrie, "and the mountains are shrouded in a never-ending blizzard. It is a meteorological phenomenon that has left scientists baffled for decades."
"Cool," Ms. Xiao Long said. Everyone else groaned.
"That's pretty metal," Mr. Thrush commented.
"What about Forever Summer?" Ms. Rios asked.
"Oh. Oh. I know that one," Ms. Mino said while raising her hand. "That's a beach on the southern edge of Vacuo, where the desert meets the ocean. The temperature there works like clockwork all year-round, with the lowest point always the same at midnight, the highest always the same at noon, and the gradual change in-between always constant and at the same rate. It also never rains, but never suffers from draughts. It's a very popular tourist spot. Probably the only good tourist spot in Vacuo."
"So," Ms. Kamizono started counting with her fingers, "if Fall is in Vale, Winter in Atlas, and Summer in Vacuo, does that means Spring is in Mistral?"
Glynda froze. Then pinched the bridge of her nose. Why hadn't she connected those dots before? Everything about this conversation reeked of one of Oz's lapses in judgment. The ones he was so fond of reminding them of, what with 'making more mistakes than any person alive' and all that.
Unaware of her minor internal crisis, all students turned towards the local, four-times Mistrali champion Pyrrha Nikos, looking for answers. Ms. Nikos was taken aback by the sudden attention, but shrugged, the answer unknown to her.
It was Mr. Ren who came to her rescue. "The flower garden in the old imperial palace. It is known as Forever Spring and it is said the flowers there are in full bloom throughout the entire year, regardless of the weather or season."
Ms. Mino raised her hands, crossed them behind her head, and stretched. "Remnant is such a weird place when you think about it."
'You have no idea,' Glynda thought. "Very well, students, each team is in charge of filling a dozen of these jars," she said while pointing at boxes with six jars each. "You will have until tomorrow at zero eight hundred hours to meet your quota. As you read in the briefing," her eyes narrowed at a few teams, "and those that didn't, seem to be realizing now, you are expected to set camp and use your survival skills. Grimm population in the forest consists mostly of Creeps, Beowolves, Ursai, and small Nevermores. Keep in teams and protect each other. Send a distress signal with your scroll if you find ANYTHING out of the ordinary, including other types of Grimm. Do I make myself clear?"
Mumblings resembling affirmatives were heard from the students.
The crack of her whip broke the mumbling. "Do. I. Make. Myself. Clear?"
Before anyone got a chance to respond…
"YES! Sir Ma'am Goodwitch, Sir!" Ms. Kamizono snapped into a military salute.
A beat of silence passed by, before being broken by the girl's combat pod.
"Mytyl, is that proper Hunter vernacular?"
"Well- oof."
Glynda didn't allow the girl to respond before telekinetically sending a box hurling towards her, which Mytyl managed to catch. "Stop loitering and get moving!"
-o-
"Why didn't you read the briefing!?" a voice shrieked.
"Why didn't YOU read the briefing," another tried to defend herself. However, it was clear the counterargument was weak and brittle.
"I am not the team leader, you dimwit. I. Did. Not. Receive. A briefing!" Weiss snapped back.
Ruby raised her arms over her face, trying to cover herself from Weiss's harsh words in vain. "Don't yell at me," she cried.
"I WILL YELL AT YOU HOWEVER MUCH I WANT!"
"Now, now, Weiss Cream," Yang tried to play peacekeeper. "It was an honest mistake. It happens. It's ok. We can survive just fine-"
"Oh really?" Weiss interrupted. "You can make a camp without camping equipment? You know how to?" She walked up to Yang, invaded the blonde's personal space, and glared directly into the blonde's eyes, tiptoeing to gain an ever-so-slightly but much needed height that her heels weren't quite capable of providing. She hissed, "because let me tell you, I don't. I don't have the foggiest idea how to do that and I'm not about to start a forest fire because of it. "
"Erm-" Yang squirmed.
Weiss glare intensified. "Of course, you don't. What about you, Ruby?"
"Pfft, sure. Of course, I know. Who do you think I am. Ha… ha. I'm Ruby Rose. Survivalist Extraordinaire!"
Yang covered her face, hoping to disassociate herself from Ruby.
Weiss, in turn, looked at her young leader, from head to toe and back, her anger replaced with utter disbelief. "My god, you have to be the worst liar I have ever met. I didn't think it possible to lie so bad. What about you, Pyrrha, do you know how to make a camp?"
Pyrrha, eyes wide and staring Ruby down, maintained her poise better than Weiss and smiled. A little too widely. "No idea. Not much need to learn that stuff in the tournament circuit. I'm open to suggestions." She never broke eye contact with Ruby and that made the darker redhead squirm.
"Have you guys tried to lay down on the floor and die?"
The four members of Team RWPY turned to look at Mytyl sitting on top of her box of jars, who, alongside the rest of KVKC and the entirety of JNBR, had first row seats to Team RWPY's meltdown.
"Am I right in thinking you read the briefing?" Weiss said while shooting another glare at Ruby, for good measure.
"Of course, I did," Mytyl said brightly, "who do you take me for? Ruby?"
"Not cool," Ruby muttered despondently.
Mytyl waved it off. "Yeah, well, we are not in Forever Winter, are we?"
"Damnit, Yang!" Ruby cursed.
"Why me?"
"Lucky for you," Mytyl sprang up, "Weiss is my friend. And lucky for her, I am friends with a survivalist extraordinaire. The real deal, not the Ruby-brand knock-off."
Weiss scanned over the rest of Team KVKC and Team JNBR, wondering who was Mytyl referring to. "Continue," she said carefully.
"Lumen, play drum underscore roll dot l-d-a please." At Mytyl's command, a drum roll started playing from the little combat pod. After a few seconds, Mytyl skipped towards the survivalist extraordinaire and started jazzing her hands. "Applauses, applauses."
Weiss raised an eyebrow. "Arc? Really?"
"Right in one! You really are smart!" Mytyl laid the sarcasm thick. "When KVKC and JNBR discussed this trip, we discovered Jaune has the most camping experience out of all of us. Combined! Or at least the most experience with the least aid."
Weiss appraised Jaune with surprise. "That's… impressive. Why do you have those skills?"
Jaune did that nervous tick of laughing and scratching the back of his head. "Would you believe my seven sisters excuse?"
"Seriously?" Weiss had a hard time believing it.
"We were similarly skeptical," Blake nodded wisely.
"Dad took us camping a lot. Enough times that at some point he taught us how to survive if we ever find ourselves in the wild without equipment."
"And that relates to your sisters how?" Weiss asked.
"Turns out the reason we camped a lot was because my parents felt suffocated in their own home with eight children running about. When we became older and could camp by ourselves, they would often push us outside to camp close by ourselves. Dad called it 'training camping'. Let's just say they weren't as subtle as they thought they were."
The last bit had a good portion of the group scrunching their noses.
"You discussed this mission without inviting us?" Ruby suddenly asked, genuine hurt in her voice.
Jaune shifted in place uncomfortably "We did invite you."
"Huh?"
"Yeah," GV spoke up, "twice a week. Since the beginning of classes."
Realization dawned upon RWPY. The KVKC and JNBR joint sparring sessions.
Pyrrha brought a hand to her chin in thought. "You know, I'm starting to think this has all been karma's way of punishing us."
"Don't you think karma is being a little excessive?" Yang asked.
"You do have Weiss on y-ow!" GV was stopped midsentence by a swift kick from Mytyl to his knee.
"Hush. You have me and Copen on your team and we're fine."
"…Is your family as bad as-OUCH!"
"I said hush! That's a leader's order!" Mytyl commanded, one of her legs pulled back in preparation to deliver just punishment. GV, for his part, opted to follow orders and sulk a bit. That had her relaxing her stance. "At any rate, we should build camp first, then start collecting sap. Jaune, you lead the camping effort. Anybody who is not building camp, be on lookout for Grimm. We can figure the details as we go."
Jaune snapped into a salute. "YES! Sir, Ma'am Kamizono, Sir!"
Mytyl stared at Jaune. "By the end of this trip, you'll rue that, Arc."
-o-
"Weiss," Yang whined.
"No!" came the sharp reply from the heiress.
"But Weiss. You heard Jaune. We need food. They didn't bring enough provisions for an extra team."
"I know what he said!" Weiss looked at Yang's arms. "If you want to kill that rabbit, do it yourself."
The critter in question squirmed in panic, trying to weasel its way out of Yang's iron grip, to no avail. The WPY of Team RWPY were on Grimm patrol, but Jaune told them about keeping a look out for food. He probably meant something like nuts or berries. But they found a rabbit. And it was too cute. Yang couldn't bring herself to harm it. Weiss refused to even consider it. And Pyrrha…
"Who's a cute little bunny! Who's a cute little bunny. You are. You are."
The bunny continued squirming.
She was an animal lover. Who knew? Pity that Yang had her hands occupied. A video of Pyrrha cooing at a cute rabbit would have set her for life. People paid more for less.
"Let's just go back to camp. Jaune should know what to do." And wasn't that something. Suddenly Jaune Arc was the expert. Yang supposed it took all kinds of people to populate the world. It wasn't long before the three girls made their way back to the clearing they claimed as camp, which was starting to take an admittedly good shape.
Yang let out a low whistle. "Officially color me impressed." And it was impressive. Four tall tents stood by the side. Sturdy looking things that looked like they could survive through a hurricane. A campfire flickered happily under a pot with some broth. Yang was particularly thankful for the fire. Nobody in Team RWPY knew how to properly start one. Hell, they hadn't known about the need for dry wood. The non-leaders of KVKC and JNBR sat around the fire, preparing for their actual mission of collecting sap, making sure all jars were in proper order and accounted for.
Jaune, Ruby, and Mytyl were having a team leaders' meeting further back. Their words didn't carry all the way to the campfire, but it was clear they were taking this seriously. Too seriously some might say. Nonetheless Yang felt a glimmer of pride upon seeing her sister being so diligent.
"You caught a rabbit?"
RWPY's, minus Ruby, sat down before addressing Kohaku's question.
"Yep," Yang said, "does any of you know how to cook a rabbit?" The object of Yang's hunger intensified its panicking to no avail.
For her part, Kohaku shook her head in disbelief, picked up some clean bowls, proceeded to pour three servings of broth, handing them over to Yang, Weiss, and Pyrrha.
"Jaune was messing with you. We do have enough food for all of us. He made sure to prepare in case something happened."
"Oh, thanks the gods," Yang exclaimed in relief, giving the rabbit to Kohaku in exchange for a bowl. "I was not looking forward to skinning the rabbit."
"I can do it," GV offered. "Rabbits are pretty tasty."
As if it could understand Yang's and GV's words, the rabbit started squeaking in panic. Kohaku's grip wasn't any less weak than Yang's. "Ren, could you, please?
Without further explanation, Ren placed a hand on the terrified rodent. Almost immediately, it calmed down. In fact, Yang could have sworn its brown fur looked a little bit duller and gray.
"Neat trick. Semblance?" Yang ventured a guess.
"Good guess," Kohaku said, petting the now calmed critter while Nora tried to feed it some of the vegetables they used for the broth. Kohaku closed her eyes and placed her palm on top of the rabbit's back. The critter froze for a second, before continuing munching as if nothing happened.
"Guess we can rule out living beings," Kohaku muttered.
"Not quite," Copen said, "it is entirely possible it just doesn't work on animals. Or they must have aura unlocked. Or any one of hundreds of stipulations. Or maybe the effects are not noticeable. Maybe you doomed that rabbit to die in the next forty-eight hours."
Kohaku shuddered. "Don't even joke about that."
"What are you guys talking about?"
It was GV who answered Weiss. "Copen and Mytyl have been helping Kohaku and Jaune figure out their Semblances."
Yang's scrunched her face. "You don't figure out Semblances. They just… sort of happen."
"Yes and no," Copen explained. "We are stabbing at the dark here, running them through common types of Semblances. Shrouding body parts in aura consciously, injecting their aura into things," at this he pointed at the rabbit, "meditation, and such. The problem is that there are so many variations. Maybe you need to mold your aura a certain way. Or a requirement must be met. If they have a Semblance like Nora's? Nothing short of being struck by lightning would help us figure things out. They could even have used their Semblance already and just didn't notice."
"Exactly!" Yang exclaimed. "Wouldn't your time be better spent not worrying about it? There's no guarantee your Semblance will be something you can just discover like that, if you discover it at all."
"It's not like we spent every waking hour trying this," Kohaku said. "It's just something we do once a week and on our spare time. And is not like Jaune and I have much experience with aura, so it's good practice anyways." Noticing the approaching team leaders, Kohaku offered the rabbit to Jaune. "Jaune! Rabbit. Aura. Go."
Jaune raised an eyebrow, looked at the rodent, and shrugged as he put a hand on its head. After a few seconds… "Guess nothing happened."
"You don't know that," Mytyl commented. "You could have doomed that rabbit to die in the next forty-eight hours!"
Kohaku narrowed her eyes. "Copen said the exact same thing."
Mytyl shrugged. "Assume everyone has an insta-kill Semblance so that you're prepared for the bastard that actually does.
"Hey, my uncle says the same thing!" Ruby said.
"Anyways," Jaune dragged the conversation back into more important matters, "due to certain people lacking preparations," – Ruby coughed by his side – "we needed to rework sleeping arrangements. We also worked out how we are tackling sap collecting and watches during night."
With a few taps and flicks from their scrolls, the leaders sent the information to their team.
"Impressive. One would think you guys are team leaders or something. Oh, look, Weiss Cream, you're with Rubes and me in a tent."
Weiss pushed Yang away and out from the air she was currently breathing. "So, I see… Copen, Mytyl, and Kohaku. Makes sense. Nora, Ren, and Pyrrha. Ok…" Weiss tilted her head. "Jaune, GV, and Blake?"
Most eyes fell on Blake, the girl sharing a tent with two boys. She just shrugged. "Admittedly, we get along well enough. Originally, we kept it simple and had partners sharing tents. GV doesn't occupy too much space, so I don't mind."
"Is that a short joke?" GV asked incredulously.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Blake evaded the accusation. "Seems like Nora, Yang, and Mytyl are holding the fort while everyone else goes to collect sap."
"Alright, we get to laze about!" Yang pumped a fist into the air.
"Woooo," Nora agreed.
"Didn't you just picked the loudest of each team and told them to stay behind?" Weiss asked the leaders. Both Yang and Nora stopped mid-cheering.
"That's exactly what we did," Mytyl nodded solemnly. "It's harsh, I know, but one of KVKC had to take the fall and as a team leader, is up to me to lead by example."
"If we keep the rabbit and name it Velvet, would it be more racist or funny?"
Everyone looked at GV.
"It's a legit question."
"We are not keeping the wild, short-lived rabbit, Gun," Ruby ruled.
"Aww," Pyrrha deflated.
Author's Notes
This (the fic) got bigger than expected. That can be said for the entire fic. We are twenty chapters in and we're just getting to Forever Fall.
Taking a bit of inspiration from College Fool's "The Knight of Lancaster" fic. Specifically, how Forever Fall is not a one-day thing and how Jaune is a competent camper.
Anyways, rundown!
This fic's (re)name: A bit of a tangent from this chapter. Originally this fic was called RWBY: The KVKC Chronicles. The name was inspired by how the full name of Luminous Avenger iX is Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX… despite being primarily a Copen-centric game. Fun fact: in Japan, the name pulls a Nomura and calls it White Steel of X: THE OUT OF GUNVOLT. But I digress.
Back on topic. From this chapter on, I decided to drop the "RWBY" part of the title. I was focused on other things, but recently, while idly thinking about where this story is going, I realized the title is an artifact. A leftover from this fic's meta history or noise from the writing process. From back when RWBY was actually a team. However, I changed my plans midway when I had Blake interact with Jaune and GV and loved the dynamic. Thus, teams RWPY and JNBR were born. And I forgot to update the title. Oops.
Besides the fic's previous name, another artifact is how, in the first four chapters, each member of KVKC meets with a member of Team RWBY. Mytyl-Weiss/GV-Ruby/Kohaku-Blake(sort of)/Copen-Yang. That is harder to fix. Still, Blake is a more important character than Pyrrha, so it works out. If you follow RWBY's canon, is hard for Blake not to be important. She and her past are the driving force on the protagonists' side for the first two volumes.
Pacing: Like I said in the intro. Sorry. Forever Fall takes place over three chapters. Kind of. You'll see the numbering convention recognizes this. They are short chapters and I'm dividing them mostly to give myself some time. I don't write fast and while I have a healthy buffer of chapters, I post them faster than I write them by following a weekly schedule. In fact, I am planning to take a break after I finish with Volume 1. Not a long break, but enough to build up my buffer again. That said, I'm thinking of posting Forever Fall's trifecta over two weeks rather than three.
Forever Insert Season: I just had this idea and thought it was funny. Four magical places located where four magical girls reside. I wonder…
Jaune and Kohaku: I haven't touched upon it since I mentioned it several chapters ago (and retroactively in one of Kohaku's letters to her sister), but here we have a quick look at how their semblance training is going. Jaune has no luck since his semblance requires A) Other people's aura to be unlocked and B) Invade other people with his Aura. The immature thirteen years old in me wants to use the word "penetrate" and mentally go 'hue hue hue'. Alas, I'll have to do with explaining the joke.
Invading aura, as you might have guessed, it's a hard line the Kamizono twins are not keen to explore. For a canon example of how horrible an idea testing a Semblance on someone is, recall Cinder using her Scorching Caress on Pyrrha.
In the case of Kohaku, she HAS activated her Semblance, both onscreen and offscreen. Although onscreen is retroactively after I ironed out the details later on. She just didn't notice because she doesn't know what she is looking for. And since there was nothing to see, it's not something I felt the need to write. More of a note of mine to keep records of what's happening.
drum_roll point lda: LDA is not an actual file format (afaik). I just came up with 3 words that sounded like they could be used for an audio clip and came up with Lossless Digital Audio. Also, gotta love FFnet seething hatred for links. I cannot write the proper filename because it considers it a link.
Pyrrha: In this fic, Pyrrha is… weird. Wildly differing from her canon, she plays the "funny man", alongside Yang, to the relatively "straight man" Ruby and Weiss. If she were the focus of this story, I would explore how Yang's influence caused this change. But she is not and writing it would destroy the already perilous pacing of this story.