V.C.: Hey everyone! Welcome back to more Heroes of the Omniverse!
Phoenix: Yes, welcome back. This chapter is an interesting one, to say the least.
K.N.: Hopefully you'll all like it. Make sure to review and tell us what you think.
Frostwing: With that said, let's go ahead and start reading.
Disclaimer: We do not own RWBY or Ben 10. Enjoy!
Chapter 7: Cardinal Showdown
The next morning was hectic for everyone in Team JNPR's dorm room. They had all stayed up late, swapping stories and facts about themselves that they felt comfortable sharing, like Jaune revealing the sheer size of his family and telling some stories of them or Pyrrha retelling stories of her times in Mistral.
Following this, Nora somehow managed to sleep in for an extra hour or two the next morning, which meant extra sleep for everyone else in JNPR.
However, as Jaune and Pyrrha soon learned, that was a curse in disguise. As they quickly found out, Nora became extremely upset when she, or anyone for that matter, slept in.
She didn't see a point in wasting a single second of the day and got very angry when the rare occurrence of her sleeping in happened. She was swinging her hammer everywhere and even landed a few hits on her teammates, much to their anger and agony.
It was a miracle, but the other three members of her team managed to survive Nora's rampage long enough to get to the cafeteria. Turns out their survival cost them several promises of pancakes being made on Jaune and Ren's part.
They all then met up with RWBY. The quartet of girls were a bit curious about their friends' antics.
"Hey, where ya guys been?" Yang asked in curiosity and slight, well hidden, worry.
"Sleeping." Jaune muttered while glaring at Nora in annoyance as she ate her pancakes. "Nora threw a tantrum because we woke up late, and we had to calm her down. Apparently, an extra hour of sleep is a big no-no for all those who live within Miss Up-at-Dawn's domain. "
"Ah, okay." Yang shrugged loosely. "Just making sure my pals are alright. Right Ruby?" The blonde turned to face her sister, then noticed Ruby's tired expression. "Woah Rube, what happened to you? You look like someone drained the life outta ya."
Everyone turned their gaze to the sleepy Rose as she jumped in her seat, waking herself up and slightly panicking. "Nothing! I just had a bad night, that's all!" She quickly defended herself.
In truth, Ruby could hardly sleep last night. She was too worried about what she had learnt about the White Fang. Like Jaune, she too had sought out Ozpin's advice.
Alas, the Headmaster was away for the weekend and wouldn't return until next Monday. To make matters worse, that would be when the group was scheduled for a field trip to the Forest of Forever Fall. This meant that they would have to wait even longer to seek help from Ozpin.
'What do we do? There's no way to know what they could be up to. Especially if they know about the Omnitrix. I guess I'll have to keep an extra close eye on Jaune for his sake and possibly everyone else's sake too.' Ruby thought while staring at the blonde Omnitrix wielder in question.
"Are you just going to blatantly stare at him all day or start being open about your relationship?" Ruby jumped at the sudden question from Weiss. The heiress gave her silver eyed partner a rare smirk, one that could rival Yang and made the blonde in question proud.
"W-what?" Ruby blushed a bright pink while looking down in embarrassment as her partner's statement registered in her mind. "We're not in a relationship. How many times do we have to tell you guys that?"
"You two still insist on playing dumb?" Pyrrha asked, ignoring Ruby's question. "We're not against you two being together, you know. Well most of us aren't at least." She shot a quick glance at Yang when she realized quite what she had said.
"Hey, I gave them the okay and quit threatenin' him," Yang raised her hands in defense then offered a mischievous grin. "Now I'm just teasing them to death. It's not that I trust the blonde idiot, I just can't keep them apart. it's kinda gotten outta my hands. Besides, he's growing on me."
"Great…" Jaune groaned while slamming his head into the table. "Could this get any better?"
"Not sure, we'll just have to wait and see." Nora answered deviously, earning looks that varied from evil grins to raised eyebrows and well-hidden smirks. Jaune was grateful the table was currently shielding his face, otherwise his flushed pink cheeks would be on full display for all of them to see.
Luckily for him, everyone returned to their breakfast after that embarrassing moment. When they finished, everyone started going their separate ways. Pyrrha and Ren dragged Nora off to the library so they could get her to do her homework while Yang convinced Weiss and Blake to come train with her.
This left Jaune and Ruby alone, still sitting in the cafeteria. Jaune had his head in his arms, looking as though he was about to doze off to sleep. Ruby, meanwhile, looked to be contemplating something. Letting out a sigh, she gently poked the blonde knight.
"Jaune?"
He groaned again at the sound of Ruby's nervous voice. 'Your timing is perfectly awful, Rubes.' "Yes Ruby?"
"Can we go somewhere more private? I need to talk to you about something important." Ruby rubbed the back of her head while looking away in embarrassment.
Jaune blinked, startled by her word-choice. 'Is she gonna confess or something?' His cheeks burned at the thought of that happening. 'Probably not, you dumbass. Quit being an idiot and answer her already.'
The blonde knight recomposed himself before nodding shakily. "O-okay, where at?"
"I think you know." Ruby didn't want to say it out loud because it was embarrassing. But Jaune knew exactly where she was talking about. The roof of Beacon Academy.
Twenty minutes later the duo was sitting side by side on the rooftop, looking out at the clear blue sky. No one thought to look up and see the duo atop Beacon, just like Jaune figured they wouldn't back on the first day. It helped that everyone else was too busy attending to last minute tasks that had been pushed aside until Sunday forced them to stop stalling.
"So, they know." Ruby said, finally breaking the silence, knowing that they couldn't just sit around and glance at the sky all day.
Jaune frowned, nodding to Ruby's statement while glancing down at his left arm; rolling up his sleeve and stared at the watch he was starting to think was a curse. "Yeah...I guess so."
"What do we do?" Ruby asked the blonde watch bearer. Her question was one that they both had pondered long and hard since learning of the White Fang's involvement the day prior.
"I…don't know." Jaune confessed. "I had hoped Ozpin would be able to help, but he's not here right now. And we won't get a chance to tell him until after the field trip tomorrow. We're kind of on our own for this one. For now, at least."
"Plus, we have to deal with Cardin." Ruby rolled her eyes at the thought of the brutish brunette bully. "What do we do about him? We can't really have him holding us up forever, so we should probably do something. Should we just tell him to get lost and risk him telling others about us and Ozpin?"
"No, that wouldn't work." Jaune shook his head. "Risking that is risking Ozpin kicking both of us out."
"Why do you think that? He clearly has an interest in us." Ruby pointed out.
"Yeah," Jaune nodded before sighing. "But think of it like this. I'm a liability. If everyone knows I have the watch, then that draws unwanted attention. If it goes around the school, it'll get out to everyone else. Then people who want the power will come for me and everyone will know why. That'd make the school a target."
"Isn't it already one with the White Fang knowing you're here?"
"It is," Jaune admitted, looking down in guilt. "But at least right now Ozpin can keep me here. It's safe; the White Fang have no real way in. If the Omnitrix became public, other crooks might figure something out and get in. After all, the security so focused on keeping out the White Fang specifically. Heck, we might even have to deal with other classmates. It'd be a big enough problem in the public eye that Ozpin will have to let me go, even if he doesn't want to."
"You've had a lot of time to think about this, huh?" Rub raised a brow in curiosity.
"Yup." Jaune nodded while looking out into the clouds. "When you have secrets that mess with every aspect of your life, you tend to think a lot about what would happen if they get out."
"I guess that makes sense." Ruby sighed while frowning deeply. "Then what do we do about Cardin?"
Jaune scratched his chin in thought. Cardin may have been a pain in their rears, and maybe he wasn't a very pleasant person. But truth be told, Jaune sometimes wondered if Cardin was just misguided and needed someone to show him the right way in life.
"Maybe we could befriend him and show him that what he's doing is wrong?" Jaune offered, trying to voice his ideas about Cardin simply being misguided.
"I don't know if that's possible," Ruby hesitated, thinking over Jaune's idea. 'Maybe Jaune could be onto something, but…' "He seems pretty set on being a jerk to everyone." Jaune couldn't help but agree with the silver eyed girl there. But still, it might be their only real option.
"Yeah, but it's worth a shot. We can't really let Cardin rat us out or keep blackmailing us, so we need to try something."
"You're right." Ruby nodded. "I guess we'll try things your way then. After all, there has to be some good in him, right?"
"I sure hope so." Jaune smiled, then an idea came to the blonde of when they could face the brunette. "Tomorrow, at the Forest of Forever Fall we can drag him aside and talk to him. If we have to, then we'll fight him or something. One way or another, I'll get him to leave us alone. You have my word on that. And an-"
"An Arc never goes back on his word, I know." Ruby smiled as Jaune rolled his eyes.
Ruby's expression suddenly became hesitant. She cautiously approached her next thought. "Speaking of fighting... We need to talk about your training."
"What about my training?" Jaune gave his hooded friend a curious look.
"Well…" Ruby hesitated again for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to go about saying this without potentially making the blonde feel bad about himself. "We need to speed things up."
"Speed things up?" Jaune's face screwed up in confusion. "What do you mean by that?"
"You need all the help you can get if you're going up against the White Fang." Ruby stated firmly, wanting to ensure that Jaune understood what she meant. "They're really dangerous, and there are a lot of them. Not that you would be fighting them alone, of course. But even with the help of everyone in our circle of friends, you still need to improve. Plus, there's also the Vytal Festival coming up, and you'll need all the help you can get if you wanna go anywhere past round one."
"I thought I was improving." Jaune frowned, ignoring the mention of the Vytal Festival once again but making a mental note to ask what it really was at a later point.
"You are," Ruby smiled reassuringly at the blonde dork. "But not fast enough to deal with what may lie ahead. So, I think we should start training more than in class and with Ozpin. You know, just us two?"
"Okay, I think I get it." Jaune sighed, not sure if he should feel worse about himself since Ruby felt that he needed even more help than before, or if he should be happy that Ruby was being considerate enough to think about what he needed considering she was in just as much danger as he was with the White Fang after the Omnitrix.
An excited look appeared on her face and a glint showed in her eyes that Jaune thought was adorable. "You and me could sneak up here when we get some free time and practice combat! I could even get some sword tips from Weiss to help train you with that stuff!"
Jaune hesitated, noticing a glaring issue with this plan. Neither of them knew about the inner workings of a certain watch which was to blame for most of the craziness in their day to day lives. "What about the Omni-."
"Don't worry about it!" Ruby cut off the nervous watch bearer, knowing exactly what he was about to bring up. "We'll leave that stuff to old Ozzy. Now c'mon! We have training to do!" She leapt to her feet and dragged the blonde over to a area of the roof further from the edge.
'Why do I have a bad feeling about this?' Jaune asked himself as he noticed Ruby readying herself for a training spar. 'Oum give me the strength to survive this…'
From that spar, Jaune learned a very valuable lesson about his hyperactive friend. Ruby Rose did not believe in going easy, even while practicing. Sure, she would never attack someone if they were down, but in her opinion if you were moving and relatively unharmed then you could continue to fight.
After finishing their duel, which of course Ruby had won, Ruby turned to the exhausted Arc and smirked. "Not bad, Vomit Boy. Your off-the-fly strategizing and basic striking are going smooth. But you still need work on blocking attacks and tracking your enemy."
"I understand." Jaune nodded slowly, taking mental notes on where his needed improvement lied. "Thanks."
"No problem," Ruby shrugged casually. "Just remember that blocking can sometimes be better than attacking, I know I forget that a lot. Also, NEVER take your focus away from your opponent. One second of distraction could kill you. Ya got that?" Her smirk grew slightly as Jaune nodded once more. The knight then let out a large sigh of exhaustion while stretching.
"I think that's enough for today, dont'cha think Ruby?" Jaune asked, hoping she would agree so that he could go and take a nap after staying up all night following JNPR's team building activity.
"Eh, I guess," The scythe wielder yawned while stretching her arms over her head. "I could use a power nap, I barely slept last night cause of our little message from the White Fang."
"I here ya, I was glad when Nora slept in. It gave me a little extra time." Jaune sympathized. "I'll see ya tomorrow." He went to leave the roof, stopping briefly to hold the door and wait patiently for Ruby to catch up and then quickly run past him shouting.
"Bye Jaune, see you tomorrow!"
Jaune shook his head at the energetic girl, even when tired she still maintained her normal enthusiasm. He didn't linger on this for long as he walked back to his dorm, his mind was focused on sleep and possible outcomes of tomorrow's events at the field trip.
The Next Day; The Forest of Forever Fall:
The students of Beacon Academy glanced in awe at the beautiful eternally autumn forest. Professor Goodwitch noticed where the students' attention lied and reminded them that they weren't here to sightsee.
While this happened, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren noticed Cardin grab Jaune by the neck and yank him away from the group, heading somewhere deeper into the forest. The trio saw an annoyed and upset look was noticeable on the knight's face. However, the others also failed to notice the shadow of a familiar red/black haired girl follow them.
"Should we follow them?" Nora arched a brow, glancing at her fellow teammates. Both paused for a moment before Ren shook his head.
"Jaune said he did not need our help with handling Cardin. We should respect his wishes and not get involved."
Pyrrha and Nora both frowned and shared a look. Neither could think of a loophole in Ren's logic, but they also didn't like the idea of not helping their friend if he was in need, whether he wanted to admit it or not.
Meanwhile, Cardin along with the rest of his team had cornered Jaune in a nearby area surrounded by large, thick trees that hid all actions behind them. "Arc, you've been slouchin' on my work." Jaune gulped fearfully at the tone of anger and accusation in Cardin's voice.
"W-what? N-no! I've been doing what you asked me to do for weeks!" Jaune winced in pain as Russel punched his right shoulder. "Oww..."
"Lies! He asked you to do his homework! Instead you've been trashing it by putting in no effort!"
"Russell," Cardin glared daggers at his partner. "I thought I told you not to hurt him. We ain't here to beat the shit outta him. We're just supposed to talk."
"He needs to be taught somehow." Russell emphasized his point by punching the dork again, this time in the gut. Jaune groaned out in pain once more as Cardin pushed his teammate away and Russel glared at him.
"Shut up! You don't speak unless asked, got that ya weak little blondie?" Sky snapped at the down huntsman-in-training.
"Yeah!" Dove exclaimed. "No one wants to hear you try to weasel your way out of a butt whoopin'."
"ENOUGH!" Cardin bellowed as he slammed his fists into two nearby trees. He let out a breath and glared at his teammates, seeing that he had scared them. "The dork doesn't need to get beat by you idiots. I think I can talk to him by myself, without fighting."
Before any of them could continue this argument, a voice spoke up, startling the quartet. "Back away from the blonde doofus." Team CRDL blinked before turning back to see a lone Ruby Rose glaring at the four of them.
"Ha! Is that supposed to be a joke?" Sky laughed, not noticing the slightly fearful looks of his teammates. "Listen kid, run off and go find your mommy while us adults handle our business."
Ruby didn't obey Sky's order. She instead chose to stand her ground and pulled out her weapon in gun mode. Sky pulled out his own weapon and got into a fighting stance. Rather than getting into a fight, like he expected, Ruby shouted an order at him.
"DUCK!" Sky instinctively obeyed the girl's command, then looked behind him as Ruby shot at a large black creature.
The Grimm, known as an Ursa Major, was a large black bear-like creature with bone plating covering its body. It let out a large, feral sounding roar that sent Russel, Dove, and Sky running and screaming like small scared children.
Cardin, however, smirked at the Ursa Major and stepped forward, blocking Ruby's route of shooting it.
"Winchester! Get out of the way!"
Cardin shook his head, having no intention of listening to the silver eyed reaper. "No way, I can take this thing-WOAH!" The beast swiped its paw at Cardin, narrowly missing what would have definitely been a fatal blow.
"Jaune!" Ruby shouted out, hoping he could leap into action before Cardin got himself killed.
"I'm working on it!" Jaune responded while trying to come up with a plan. He assessed his enemy and saw how Cardin was in a bad situation. Knowing his own skills, Jaune realized he wouldn't be able to fight such a powerful Grimm.
'Unless...' Jaune glanced at his left wrist before darting behind some trees to hide from Cardin's sight. The blonde quickly activated the Omnitrix and turned the dial a few times before slamming down the faceplate on a helpful-looking alien's shadow.
He was enveloped in a flash of golden light that died down to reveal a crimson red humanoid creature who appeared to be made of crystals. He had two long, sharp points in his back and a sharp head along with golden yellow eyes.
He appeared to wear a black full bodysuit with a golden belt and a single purple stripe going down the right side of his chest. The Omnitrix symbol was located on his upper right chest.
"Woah, this guy looks kinda cool." Jaune remarked in a deep, rumbling tone. He chuckled to no one in particular before grinning and turning to face the Ursa Major, which Cardin was still trying and failing to run from.
"Now let's see what Diamondblood can do." He shot a diamond shard from his left hand to draw the Ursa's attention away from Cardin. It snarled angrily before ripping the shard out of its arm and throwing it aside, only to growl in pain as a second shard was shot and entered the exact same arm as before.
"That's right, come to me ya big stupid teddy bear!" Diamondblood taunted the Grimm in an act of bravery. The outraged Grimm came furiously charging at full speeds toward the Petrosapien. The bear-like creature rammed into the alien and sent him flying into a nearby tree.
The Grimm went to turn back to its original target, thinking it had taken care of Diamondblood for good. It tensed in slight pain as it felt a diamond shard ricochet off its bony armor.
The Ursa turned back around to see Diamondblood cut through the tree he had been stuck to by slamming his hand to the ground, causing a pillar of razor-sharp diamonds to rise and tear the tree to shreds.
"That all ya got?" He smirked at the enraged Grimm. "And here I thought you Grimm were supposed to be tough."
The Grimm let out a roar of feral rage before charging at him once more. But this time, the beast had claws at the ready and looked fully intent on ending the Petrosapien.
While Diamondblood was busy facing the Ursa, Ruby ran over to Cardin and made sure he wasn't seriously hurt. "You okay?"
"I'll live." His glance drifted to the fight between the Ursa and Diamondblood. "So, that's what the watch does, huh?"
"Wh-what?" Ruby asked nervously before trying to cover herself. "I mean, uhh, I dunno what you're talking about Cardin." She let out a nervous laugh as Cardin smirked.
"Yeah right. Jaune disappears in time for this really cool guy to pop up and help us. I don't work for old man Schnee as a Dust scientist, but I'm not a complete idiot either. So, the watch turns Arc into a shapeshifter? Interesting to know."
"Actually, it turns him into aliens from outer space!" Ruby blurted out in a moment of hyperactivity. She covered her mouth as her eyes widened to the size of saucers.
"Oh, I see," He smirked as he saw the look on Ruby's face. The brunette turned back to the battle and noticed Jaune was currently pinned to a nearby tree that was covered in super-sticky sap. This left his movement limited. "Looks like he could use a hand or two."
Ruby blinked in surprise. "Huh?" She turned and gasped at the sight of her close friend struggling to survive against the large Grimm. "What do we do?"
Cardin offered an arrogant smirk. "I don't know about you, but I'm gonna use my awesome semblance." With that he walked over to a pile of the fallen diamond shards and knelt in front of them.
Ruby watched in awe as he took a handful of them and somehow absorbed the material from the crystals. In a matter of seconds, he had completely covered his body in the same material as the Petrosapien species. Cardin rose to his feet and turned his fists into hammers. "C'mon Red, let's kick some Grimm butt."
Diamondblood managed to free himself from his sappy prison by sending a shockwave of diamond shards around the area. This not only destroyed the tree, but also sent the Ursa flying back with several shards littering its torso.
It slowly rose to its feet and bared its fangs at the alien. Diamondblood simply smirked and beckoned it to come at him by moving his finger back toward himself.
The Grimm raced for its target, fully intent on ripping him apart once and for all. However, Cardin managed to surprise it with a powerful swing of his hammer-fists into the beast's side. This sent it straight into a punch from Diamondblood.
The Petrosapien then turned his arms into blades again and sliced off the Ursa Major's damaged arm, causing immense pain. The Grimm snarled hatefully, which was just the distraction needed.
Ruby jumped in from behind and opened fire on the Ursa Major, killing it by landing multiple shots to the head and where its arm used to be.
"Nice job Arc," Cardin smirked at the surprised Diamondblood who, while in a panic, went to say some sort of lie to cover himself. This came just in time for the Omnitrix to activate and scan the Ursa's DNA before powering down. Which left normal old Jaune Arc caught red-handed.
To Be Continued…