A/N:
Welcome BAAAAAAAAAAACK to RWBY: The Selection!
The holiday season is upon us, my dudes, it is Christmas Eve's eve, and between all the family, friends, zoom calls, finals (which I CRUSHED btw), shopping, wrapping, praying, and rereading the entire Harry Potter series (I have no regrets) it's been a phat minute since I posted.
So! A quick recap: Jaune Arc, Prince of Remnant, is hosting the Selection, a competition where he attempts to find love that's basically the bachelor (the season finale of which aired last night, and I have my opinions). Twelve girls are remaining. In the last few chapters, Jaune went on a group chat to the beach where he and his dates were unexpectedly ATTACKED by a Sea Feilong. Team RWBY fought it off like the badasses they are, and Oscar nearly drowned, but he was saved last minute by the little voice in his head.
Is Oscar okay after the Sea Feilong attack? Are the other contestants okay? Is JAUNE okay? What will happen on the next date? What is Salem's plan? And will ANYONE find love in this competition that's supposed to be about FINDING LOVE? Read on to find out :)
But first, replies to reviews! :D
To RavellAqim, thank you for the review! Maybe the real Ozma has been here all along ;) I always appreciate how you ask great questions, although I can't always answer them in these replies. There's some more stuff with Salem to come later on, and (in my hiatus) there's also some plotting for some character arc-ing for her in the fic (get it? Arc? Get it?) so I don't want to say TOO much on Salem, but I think you're right in that it would be pretty impossible to control and monitor all Grimm everywhere. Oscar protection squad for life. XD. Thank you again and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
To TheReckless1One, thank you! FARMBOY has returned and Ozma with him! Similar to Ravell, I LOVE your questions. They give me great ideas, but I don't want to answer for fear of any spoilers. I will say Neo and Roman may make an appearance, but if they do it'll be later (think Final Six: Elite level of later). Criminals can come from any caste, but they are generally frowned upon by society ;) although Salem does love chaos and destruction, let's be real... Thank you again for your praise, and thanks for standing by on the next few chapters, hopefully it'll be worth the wait :D
To HelpingHand, thank you for the review! And OH NO, a MAJOR missed opportunity there on that pun! That's GENIUS omg. Can I edit a chapter? I'm going to retroactively say that Yang's bikini bottom had "Bad Ass" written on it. The chapter never said otherwise. I love it and I love your comment. Also poor Oscar, honestly. He deserves love. He deserves kindness. He also deserves better than what's happening in Volume 8 because I CANNOT y'all.
To AgainstInfinity7, thank you for both of your reviews! I'm not sure you'll read this, but I really appreciate your feedback, both on Chapter 10 and on Chapter 56. I do think I have a tendency to focus on the characters over the plot, especially at this point in the fic. There is plot stuff brewing, but it's mostly under the surface right now. This is more of a conglomeration of fluff, angst, and drabbles with some "OOOOOOOOOH" plot hints at the moment. In short, it's a Selection AU XD. I'd urge y'all to keep in mind that it is only week 2 (and also that I write in a very slow-burn fashion), but also I want to be transparent and say that a good amount of this is going to be drabbles, fluff, and angst. This fic isn't perfect in any sense of the word, but I am pretty happy and proud of the content I'm putting out :) I do appreciate your feedback though, and it did encourage me to take a step back and do some serious planning for the plot going forward. A deeper plot is something that a lot of people have expressed interest in, so I did some more work on it for the future, but I don't want to raise mega-high expectations, and, at the moment I hope you enjoy this fluffy, angsty, character-focused AU for what it is. I do appreciate your review, and, if you're still reading, I hope you enjoy the next chapter!
Once again, please review with any thoughts, comments, questions, concerns, reactions, favorite RWBY characters, Volume 8 thoughts (although those may be better PM'd to avoid spoilers), and all that excellent jazz.
Without further ado, enjoy!
Chapter 62: Coco
Coco could not believe that she missed the action of the beach group date. When the contestants returned to the Women's Room, all she heard was Ruby's frantic retelling of how they defeated a massive Sea Feilong. Her story involved weapons, lots of sound effects, and many, many hyperboles.
"That's not even remotely how that happened," Weiss cut in at several points.
"Yes, it is!" Ruby protested.
"No, it's not,"
The two continued to argue, and then Ruby continued her story. Yang collapsed on the couch beside Coco, and Blake and Reese sat down elsewhere, but Coco only had eyes for Velvet.
She wanted to ask if Velvet was okay. What did Velvet see happen? Did Velvet fight? Was Velvet hurt? But every time she opened her mouth to ask, Ruby cut her off with another screeching sound effect.
"And then, with the four of us all on one glyph, staring the Grimm down-"
Ruby's excited chatter was cut off by a knock at the door. Velvet, who was closest, turned and opened it.
One of the Arc twins (Coco never bothered to figure out who was who) handed Velvet a date card. Coco raised her eyebrows. Delivering the date cards was normally Oscar's job. Did that mean he was hurt? Had he not returned with the rest of the contestants?
Too shy to read the paper aloud on her own, Velvet handed the paper to Pyrrha.
"It's a group date," Pyrrha announced. Coco rolled her eyes. Of course the first thing Prince Jaune would do after a near-death experience was write another date card. "There's no poem or pun this time. He's probably still worried about Oscar… but it's for Ilia, Ciel, Emerald, Coco, and me,"
As if on cue, everyone turned to Nora, the only name not on that card and thus, the only girl left for the one-on-one on Saturday. Nora raised an eyebrow. "Does this mean I have to wake up early tomorrow?"
Pyrrha laughed. "I suppose it does. Well, I'm going to change. We're supposed to meet him in thirty minutes down in the theater,"
Coco snapped back to look at Pyrrha. "Thirty minutes?!"
"That's… that's what he wrote,"
Coco's jaw dropped, aghast. How was she supposed to pull together a show-stopping date ensemble in under thirty minutes? Questioning Velvet would have to wait. This was a fashion emergency.
Coco darted from the room, giving Velvet a quick hug on her way out and mouthing the words "talk later." Velvet nodded, rubbing her arm.
"How can any self-respecting guy only give a girl thirty minutes to prepare for a date with him?" Coco thought as she rifled through her closet. "Is he insane?" Her closet was a good deal fuller than the rest of the girls', as she had brought three suitcases worth of clothes with her. Finally, she selected a short, black dress with gold accents, and completed the look with a coffee-colored leather jacket. She considered taking off her sunglasses to view the movie, but decided against it. Style over convenience was Coco's motto. If she could fight a Grimm in heels, she could watch a movie in shades.
Coco was fashionably late to the theater, per usual, but she didn't mind. It allowed her to make an entrance just before the movie started. Even though Coco didn't care much for the affections of the Prince, she still cared about her image. The more people noticed her, the better. Coco loved attention.
"Love your dress," Emerald commented as Coco sat down beside her. "Who's the designer?"
"Coco Adel," Coco replied with a smirk.
"The movie's about to start," Ilia hissed as the opening credits came on screen. She did not seem impressed with Coco's entrance, and Coco was about to snap back at her when the title music started. Instead, she settled into her seat, rolling her eyes and tossing a strand of coffee-colored hair out of her face.
The movie was dreadfully boring, some cringy romantic comedy with hardly any action scenes. It was about a girl who moved into a big city and found herself in the middle of a love triangle between a successful but abusive businessman and a dopey but kind hotdog-man. The combination of two heterosexual love interests, the lack of any meaningful drama, and the atrocious depiction of Faunus made Coco decide, after fifteen minutes of watching, that she had had enough.
"What a complete waste of time," she thought, watching the girl stumble into the hotdog-man's arms. "I could be training right now, or designing new outfits, or comforting Velvet after the encounter with the Sea Feilong."
She grabbed her purse. No one had ever ditched the Prince on a date before, but he seemed far too distracted to notice her absence. Coco stood up, the seat snapping back its original, folded position behind her, and walked out of the theater without looking back.
"Thank goodness that's over," she thought, rolling her eyes. She wondered if someone was going to come bounding out of the theater looking for her, but decided she didn't care to stay and find out. Instead, she started up the stairs to the Women's Room, hopeful that Velvet was inside.
"Is the movie over already?" demanded Weiss when Coco stuck her head in the door of the Women's Room. She, Ruby, Yang, Blake, Nora, and Penny all seemed to be in the middle of an intense-looking board game.
"No, I got bored, so I walked out."
Weiss gaped at her, astonished, but Yang gave a thumbs-up. "Nice,"
"Any idea where Velvet is?"
Blake bit her lip. "She said she was going back to her room. I think it's been a long day."
Coco nodded and left. She walked upstairs to the hallway that she shared with Velvet and, previously, Neon. The castle was relatively quiet for a Saturday afternoon. She passed a few servants going about their duties, a few Huntsmen standing guard, and Princesses Daffy and Daisy, with mischievous looks on their faces.
"Velvet?" Coco asked, knocking on the door quietly. There was no answer.
"She went to the gardens with Yatsu," said a voice inside her, and Coco jumped. She activated her machine gun and spun around, her heart pounding. Fox Alistair stood behind her. One of the Huntsmen present at the dancing lessons, Fox was largely a mystery to Coco. He was blind, and a terrible dancer, but he was funny at times. They'd shared a few conversations, but none that were particularly meaningful. She didn't know where he was from, or why he had come to the Isle of Tenebris. And she certainly didn't know that he could do that.
"What did you just do?" She thought, furious.
"Sorry," he replied, smirking, "it's my semblance. I can send messages to people's minds. Sometimes talking just takes too much energy."
Coco sighed. "Well, you didn't have to scare me like that,"
"No, but I'm glad I did. It was pretty funny."
Coco's eyes narrowed as Fox grinned. "Where did you say Velvet went?"
"She seemed down when she passed Yatsu and I on duty, so Yatsu offered to escort her to the garden. Anything to get us out of patrol."
"You didn't go with them?"
Fox shrugged. "Pretty-looking flowers don't exactly do it for me."
Coco snorted.
"Speaking of flowers, aren't you supposed to be on some romantic date with the Prince?"
"I ditched him. I don't much like watching things on a screen."
"Looks like we have that in common."
Coco rolled her eyes. "The gardens, you said?" Fox nodded. "Right, I'm going to go find them."
"Mind if I join?"
Coco crossed her arms over her chest. "I thought you didn't much care for flowers," she said out loud.
"I don't," Fox replied in her head, "but I do care about finding Velvet and Yatsu, especially if there's Grimm out there."
"You care about Velvet?" Coco thought, not intending for Fox to pick up on that one. It was kind of a harsh question, but after being vividly reminded that anti-Faunus discrimination was still alive and well, Coco was shocked that a pair of Threes like Fox and Yatsuhashi would favor a Seven Faunus like Velvet.
"Are you kidding? She's my favorite contestant." He paused. "No offense,"
"None taken," Coco smirked, "I think she's mine too."
