Sorry about the gap between updates, but I've been writing for profit this past month, trying to get a book out to ease up on the whole financial pressure of my last year of college and whatnot. So if you like my work(s), please consider supporting my book! The Business of Creation is a fluffy and wholesome collection of short stories in which the gods' process of creating their fantasy world is examined from the very moment of its beginning, and you can support it by moseying on over to my profile page and the link there to buy a electronic copy from one of several sites, or by just leaving a five-star review to boost the book's prominence in its category. The more profits it brings in, the more time (and less stress) I have to work on fanfiction!

On the laughable-but-should-still-be-accounted-for chance that I actually get to the chapter where they talk to Jinn before V9 starts airing, I'm going to hold back on my updates, because this is obviously being written in the hiatus where Team RWBYJ (& Neo's) statuses are unknown and we have no idea what canonically happened when they fell through the void. I'd like to at least bump elbows with proper canon, hence the holding back of posting Jinn's chapter until we get a canonical explanation for just what the heck happened.

On Ren's disdain for Port bragging about a Beowolf kill, Monty Oum called Beowolves the "slimes" of RWBY, aka the weakest enemy to face, so Ren, whose home was destroyed and parents killed by a Nuckelavee, would probably have Opinions about Port boasting about such a low-level kill in his class. There's also some inconsistency on whether Wind Dust is green or white. I'm dodging the question by saying that it can be both, hence the combination of white and presumably-reddish Dust in Nora's grenades causing their distinctive pink color, which does not correspond to any known Dust type.


Beacon slept. First-year students, newly arrived in the academy of their dreams, sprawled over the beds in their dorms in varying stages of disarray and exhaustion, depending on how hard they'd fought in the prior initiation –or enjoyed themselves at the after-party hosted by the school.

Jaune Arc, hair still a little damp, having sacrificed his bunny onesie for a hoodie and some jeans with a single tear and a shudder of regret, unlocked and opened his door as quietly as he could manage. Considering all that he'd gone through in Atlas, tiptoeing around technology and his teammates wasn't that new, and he paused for half a second to glance back, making sure the others were still asleep. His eyes briefly lingered on Pyrrha, dressed in a matching pair of buff-colored long-sleeve pajamas and pajama trousers, her hair sprawled everywhere on the pillow, before he shook himself and turned away again.

The key to sneaking was to not look like you were sneaking. Jaune had learned that ages ago, when the worst he had to worry about was one of his seven sisters catching him creeping downstairs to have a go at the cookie jar or something, so that he wouldn't have to fight what often felt like a pack of starving wolves for his meal. If he was tiptoeing ostentatiously around, anyone on Team JNPR that woke up and caught him would've known instantly that something was wrong, whereas if he just tried to move quietly, didn't seem tense and wary, it could be argued that he was just going out to get some air, or train, or whatever.

If he didn't look suspicious, they wouldn't be suspicious.

He kept that in mind as he moved as quickly and quietly as he could across the hall, then double-tapped gently against Team RWBY's door. It creaked open just enough to reveal Yang's suspicious eye, before she raised an eyebrow expectantly.

"Uh, I'm not a mute psycho assassin." Jaune whispered as quietly as he could, and Yang nodded, satisfied with his identity –and ability to speak– as she pulled away from the door and let him slide inside, before shutting the door behind himself as quietly as he could.

"Emergency huddle!" Ruby whisper-shouted into the pantomime microphone of her Scroll light, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room, before placing her Scroll on the ground in front of her. Blake and Weiss were already sitting on either side of her, and Jaune joined them with Yang, folding up his long legs and trying to take as comfortable a position as he could on the bare floor. Team RWBY had already jury-rigged their precarious bunkbeds, he noticed, and gave a bittersweet smile.

"I don't think we need a light, Ruby." Blake said, reaching over and flicking it off as they were plunged into a much sharper darkness, with only the light of the moon coming through the curtained windows.

"Uh, yeah, but not all of us are Faunus, you know." the vaguely Yang-shaped lump of darkness on Jaune's left whispered.

"It doesn't matter because we're not looking at anything, and we don't want even the whisper of ordinary suspicion or attention that a light will bring." the Weiss-shaped shadow on his other side said crisply. "Right, well, first order of business: outlining our plan going forward."

"Broad strokes only." Ruby insisted. "We need to be flexible, because we saw how trying to stick to one plan pretty much ruined everything in Atlas."

"We need to find out what happened to us without alerting Neopolitan that we've come back in time to this point." Blake whispered. "Ideally, by asking Jinn, because that means that there won't be an extra question for Cinder to ask in Atlas."

"Depending on what Jinn answers, we also need to figure out what and when we'll tell Ozpin." Jaune added. "Because we'll probably all feel pretty stupid if Jinn says this is a dream or something and all we need to do to wake up to falling through that void again is pinch ourselves or something. Ow- hey!"

He flinched away from Yang's viselike fingers.

"Well, that doesn't work." she snickered quietly, letting go, before getting serious again. "Jaune's right, though, we have no idea of how real this is or isn't. Blake said it last night, if Ambrosius called this whole do-not-fall thing a 'dire warning,' why the fuck hasn't anything dire happened? This is pretty much a dream come true for us, minus Neo, and even then I guess she's happy, since Torchwick isn't dead. Did the Staff guy just say that because it was like Penny and he didn't really know what would happen, and he figured better safe than sorry?"

"He said that we were either much smarter or much more foolish than we realized, when we asked him to use the space within the Vaults as the central location." Weiss said. "That points to some knowledge of what using that space would mean, both for us and for him. Furthermore, the paths within the Vault could all just as easily have been a single large platform ringed with portals. The fact that they existed as paths to begin with, and there was space between them to fall, suggests a design or a meaning that we are not aware of."

"Okay, so we're all pretty much in agreement that we should visit Jinn." Ruby whispered with a decisive nod. "She's the Spirit of Knowledge, so no matter what happened to us, she'll know what it is, since its already happened for us and is therefore in the past. Plus, that'll erase a question for the bad guys to use, if things don't go the way we want and they somehow get their hands on the Lamp."

"Which brings us to the next problem." Jaune sighed, folding his arms. "Getting Raven Branwen to help us out."

"I can maybe use my freebie to get a favor from her." Yang whispered, but she sounded doubtful. "Qrow told me about that, that Raven'd save me once, but after that I was on my own. It happened when we were all trying to stop that train that caused the Breach –Neo kicked my ass and I guess was about to kill me, but Raven showed up and she left. That hasn't happened yet, so I guess I still have my one chance."

"We can open with that." Weiss said, and her whispery voice grew sharp. She had, after all, been raised to take over a business, and knew better than any of the rest of them how to broker a deal. "I was in Raven's camp, and I heard her talking with me and Yang. All she really wants is to avoid the conflict between Salem and Ozpin –which is ridiculously futile, but nevertheless her goal. Since none of us are willing or able to give her what she wants, and we don't have anything she needs, our bargaining power is going to have to lie strictly in the domain of what she fears."

"Threatening a bandit queen with Maiden powers and a teleportation Semblance." Blake commented glumly, and his eyes growing steadily more used to seeing in the dim moonlight, Jaune saw a shift that was probably her palming her chin. "You sure?"

"Absolutely. What do we have to offer her?" Weiss whispered back. "Money? Power? Connections? She either has it already or isn't interested in it coming from us. Unless we're going to rely on the kindness of her heart –the kindness of a murdering, thieving bandit, may I remind you– there's no reason for her to strike a deal with us, especially not one with so much risk and so little reward attached. We need to give her something that's worth her sticking her neck out for us, and we don't have any positive reinforcement like that, so we'll have to use negative reinforcement. Open the Vault for us, or we go right to Ozpin and Salem and tell them that she's the Spring Maiden."

"That could maybe work." Yang said, her eyes brightening. "Even if Raven does decide to throw down with us, we'll have a –you said insurance, right Blake?– we'll have insurance, maybe somebody on the outside or at home that calls Ozpin up if we don't come back. Under those circumstances, she won't even start a fight. Raven's powerful, but she's too focused on threat assessment to take any risks that she doesn't absolutely have to."

"So let's say that we have someone go into her camp –Yang and Weiss have been there, and I know it's supposed to move, but they can't move that far if they have tents and luggage and things– let's say Yang, at least, goes into her camp, and says 'Hey, open the Vault for us, because you owe me that one save and I'll trade it for this.'" Jaune whispered, slowly shaping the idea with his hands. "And if she says no, then Yang can go 'Open the Vault, or we tell Ozpin and Salem where you are and what you are.' The rest of us will be back in the City of Mistral or something, and if Yang and whoever's with her doesn't call back within a certain time limit, we go straight to Ozpin."

"We'd have to explain to him how we know she's the Maiden." Ruby pointed out, and there was a general hum of thought.

"You can lie and say that she visited me once and told me." Yang whispered with a dismissive shrug. "It doesn't matter how we drag her into the fight, just that we do, because once she's in, she's got to be all the way in or she'll die."

"Fair." Weiss murmured. "So we probably have a way to ensure that Raven Branwen opens the Vault for us. How are we going to even get to it, though?"

"Lionheart had this thingy that he put in the chains looped around Jinn's statue." Yang said, and started to circle her hands to show them how big it was, before realizing how dark the room was and giving up. "Uh, I didn't get a really good look at it, but it was small. Small enough to fit in a pocket."

"Anybody that can pickpocket, say 'aye'?" Jaune asked with a weary sigh, expecting the silence that he received. "And by anybody, I mean Blake."

"Different area of expertise." Blake whispered, sounding apologetic. "I was –I thought I was a revolutionary. Robbing convoys and hacking Atlas security, yes. Physically swiping something from someone's pocket, not so much. I mean, I'm probably better at it than you guys just by virtue of having seen more pickpockets at work, but I'm nothing like an expert, especially when I have no idea what I'm looking for or even where he keeps it. Yang?"

"He pulled it out of his front chest pocket or something." Yang whispered, flapping her orange pajama tanktop in indication. "Up by the pecs."

"His lapel, you absolute barbarian." Weiss muttered in exasperation. "'Up by the pecs' indeed."

"Oh go suck a caviar roll, Ice Queen."

"Uh, guys?" Jaune asked, waving his hand slightly to interrupt the duo. "Focus on the whole averting Fall-of-Beacon-and-general-catastrophe thing?"

"Yeah, we need to focus." Ruby said firmly, if still very quietly. "Okay, so none of us know how to lift the whatever-it-is from Lionheart. But it's not like we have to go get it right now, right? Ambrosius never said anything about a time limit to whatever's going on. This isn't like Atlas, where what's going on is right on top of us and we need to deal with it or people die. We have time to figure this out."

"Ruby's right." Blake murmured. "Depending on how long this takes, we can learn to pickpocket. And there's also your…other idea…"

"I bet you money that Neopolitan knows how to pick someone's pockets way better than any of us ever could." Ruby whispered fiercely. "I mean, she's a criminal, right? And stealing things like Torchwick does is what she's best at. She's got an illusionary Semblance, for crying out loud! Imagine how easy breaking into the Vault would be if we got her on our side."

"If we got her on our side." Yang pointed out. "I dunno, Ruby, we've already got enough to chew on with Raven. I don't want to go adding enemies, because you can be sure as fuck Neopolitan wants nothing to do with us."

"Ruby does have a point though." Jaune whispered. "Forget pickpocketing, Neopolitan stole the Lamp from me and Oscar and the others in Atlas right in front of our faces. Her thievery skills are off the charts as far as we're concerned. She's strong, and she'd be a good ally to have if we somehow managed to get her on our side."

"Maybe we can pursue both lines of thought." Blake said. In the darkness, Jaune could see that she had woven her fingers together and flattened them, resting her chin on top of her intwined hands as she stared thoughtfully at the inactive Scroll. "We learn how to pickpocket on our own, and you, Jaune, built a rapport with your team, so we have a Plan B if things go wrong. At the end of the semester, we can purposefully trigger the docks fight, because as we discussed, Neopolitan will probably be there to protect Torchwick from Ruby and Penny. We can try to have a talk with her then, and if we manage to convince her, arrange a meeting. We don't tell her what we want to do or when we want to do it, and offer her a chance to prove her loyalty at that meeting."

"And the meeting can be when we go to Mistral, so we can take her with!" Ruby crowed, her eyes lighting up. "And then after she sees what Jinn has to say, she'll definitely be on our side, because Salem wants to destroy the whole world and Neopolitan will have to deal with that whether she wants to or not."

"Assuming that she's willing to assist us, her Semblance would definitely come in handy if Raven decides to double-cross us." Weiss murmured. "Remember, Raven did try to get the Relic at Haven, and I can't say that we would be enough to fend her off, even if we used both teams –after all, we wouldn't dare kick up much of a fuss for fear of alerting Lionheart and the rest of Haven."

"Right, okay, so here's what we got so far." Yang whispered, flicking on Ruby's light again as everyone winced and squinted, before she rummaged around and laid a piece of paper out on the floor near the light, starting to scribble. "Step one, we all train like mad until the end of the semester. Step two, we make sure Ruby and Penny are where they were the first time around at the docks, and someone tries to get Neo on our side. Step three, during the semester break, at least Team RWBY goes to Mistral and I either ask or blackmail Raven into opening the Vault for us. Step four, we swipe the key thing from Lionheart and open the Vault. Step five, we ask Jinn…uh, shouldn't we think of a specific question to ask Jinn before we actually ask it?"

"She does seem to give a lot of information for even vague questions, though." Ruby murmured thoughtfully, touching one fist to her mouth. "Still, um…"

"Why, or how, have we found ourselves here after falling from the Central Location created by the Staff of Creation, Ambrosius?" Weiss suggested. "Assuming for the sake of argument that as Jaune suggested, this is all a dream or a vision, asking why we were dreaming would necessitate an explanation, which we could then at least reverse-engineer to create a solution."

"Maybe just a 'How did we get to this point?'" Yang asked.

"Assuming Jinn is still as…forgiving as she was when we first met her, we could weave two questions into one." Blake whispered. "Why are we here and how do we get back?"

"You want to go back?"

Everyone paused and looked at him as the words slipped out, and Jaune winced.

"I, I just…" he stammered, before trailing off and looking down, his posture slumping.

"We know." Weiss said, and her eyes were soft with understanding as she put a hand on his shoulder. "You of all people would have the most riding on that decision, I think."

To go back to a world where Pyrrha –Pyrrha– was dead and gone and he had Penny's blood on his hands, or stay here and leave Nora and Ren to the horrific, lonely fate of being the only remaining members of Team JNPR, leave the entire rest of the world to a fight that he and the others were the best suited at winning. Could he be that cruel? That selfish?

He thought of Pyrrha's giddy smile as she had readied for bed earlier tonight, so caught up in the euphoria of sharing a dorm with her first friends, and shuddered.

"I think that's a decision that should wait until we hear what Jinn has to say." Ruby whispered, and her voice was a little sharp. She had been Penny's first friend, after all, and she had seen Pyrrha die. "We don't know what's going on, and like I said before, we've got time. We can always argue it out after."

"Step five, ask Jinn why we're here and how do we get back." Yang muttered, scribbling it out. "Step six, deal with whatever answer she gives. Step seven?"

"Depending on the kind of answer Jinn gives, and if we decide to stay in whatever "here" there is, we should talk to Ozpin." Ruby said firmly. "If he tries to wave us off as stupid kids, we're going to make him take us seriously, but we've got to warn him about what's coming."

"On the off-chance that he thinks you ate an acid cookie or something and doesn't listen to a word we say, we can take the Lamp with us back to Beacon and invite him to ask Jinn if we're lying or not." Jaune suggested. "Or we can tell him to take it up with Raven, who is actually the Spring Maiden, and warn him to stay away from Lionheart."

"I would think that he would listen to us without that, if we gave him enough details." Weiss said with a grimace. "I don't like the idea of pulling that much mess into our plans."

"Step seven, if we decide to stay in whatever reality this is, tell Ozpin that we come from the future and Beacon's fucked if we don't do something." Yang noted aloud, her pencil scratching over the paper. "Step eight, deal with the fallout of that. I mean, assuming Neo's on our side and Ozpin starts making obvious moves, won't that make Cinder suspicious of her leaking their plans?"

"If we get Neo on our side, we should give her…and Torchwick…an emergency out." Blake whispered, her face twisting with dislike as she reluctantly named the latter criminal. "Something like a safe house, a place they run to and wait if things get bad. That way, if things do start falling apart, we won't lose them or their loyalty."

"Assuming that the news that we come from a future version of our reality leaks out past Ozpin, we're going to need to think of what to do." Weiss groaned, rubbing her temples. "Actually, we're going to need to figure out what we want to do in general. What are our goals here?"

"Kill Cinder." Jaune and Ruby volunteered in unison. Ruby laughed sheepishly.

"We want to stop the Fall of Beacon. We want to thwart Salem as much as we can." she continued in a whisper. "If we start picking off her pawns, she shouldn't be able to do much. Divide and conquer is her favorite strategy, right? Uh, I remember bumping into Cinder when she was pretending to be a student from Haven, and she broke into the CCT during the dance, so maybe we can like, assassinate her during one of those two times."

"If we've told Ozpin by that point, he'll probably arrest her the moment she enters the school." Blake pointed out, and Ruby winced.

"Oh, well, yeah, but like…"

"He'll probably kill her too." Jaune said flatly. "Remember, she's not just one of Salem's agents, she has half of the Maiden power. You didn't see what I saw –he's got the ex-Fall Maiden in the basement on life support. He was gonna rip her Aura away and stuff it into Pyrrha just so that Cinder wouldn't get it when the poor girl finally died."

"Okay, so assuming we tell Ozpin and he doesn't pull an Ironwood, that's Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald out of our hair, with Cinder dead and the other two arrested until the end of forever." Yang whispered, making a note. "That leaves Torchwick, Neo, and Adam that we'll have to deal with in Vale."

"Assuming Neo isn't on our side." Ruby whispered back, and Yang huffed.

"As far as Adam goes, I could pretend to have a change of heart and come crawling back to him, and we could set up an ambush." Blake murmured reluctantly. "I have no idea where he'd be before the Fall of Beacon, but I know the channels to go through to find out, and he still expects me to be weak. Reliant on him. He'd probably come expecting at least the possibility of a trap, but he wouldn't expect us all to be Huntress-level fighters."

"Okay. Step nine, waste all our enemies in a blaze of fire and glory." Yang whispered, making a pleased sound as she finished the last of her list. She passed it over to Ruby, who read it, then handed the list to Jaune. Everything seemed in order, though they would undoubtedly flesh the plan our more later, when they had more ideas to add to it.

"For now, our game plan is to lay low and grind for skills." Ruby whispered fervently, staring into everyone else's eyes as he lowered the paper. "That means learning how to pickpocket and planning how to deal with all the baddies, and that means you, Jaune, need to get the rest of JNPR up to our level. I'm talking team-building exercises and training until all of you drop, because they need to be Hunter level or close to it by the end of the semester, when we need their and your support."

He mimed a lackadaisical salute.

"Until then, we should all be thinking about how to deal with Cinder and everyone else after we tell Ozpin about what's going to happen, and we should be trying to seem as normal as possible so Neo doesn't see that we've also come back." Ruby continued. "Jaune, you can plan too, but I think that this means that you should go to ground and be with your team more than us for the next few weeks at least. Uh, I can research how much time new friends are supposed to be spending together, and we can use that to plan more sessions between you and between all eight of us."

"Nobody should write down anything they don't want being found." Blake whispered sternly. "Especially not on anything electronic."

"Please keep an eye out for any inconsistencies you notice." Weiss added. "I don't think that Neo will change anything, or that our new decisions will alter that much in the way that time will flow, but I don't want to get caught by surprise."

"We'll pass messages to you, but Ruby's right, Jaune, you should stay on the outs." Yang whispered, looking over at him. "Stick with your team. Make 'em stronger. Build your old friendships. Get a foundation of trust under everyone before you start dragging them over to have fun with Team RWBY, or you start ditching them in favor of us."

"Right, right, I get it." Jaune muttered, rubbing the back of his head. "Well, uh, I guess I'll see you guys in class, then."

"See ya then, big guy." Yang whispered, reaching over with an arm to pull him into a hug. That started a deluge from Ruby, Weiss, and Blake, which ended in a hug pile of all five of them just sitting and holding themselves together on the ground, trying not to shudder or start crying, trying not to sob audibly as they thought of all they were about to do, how separate they were going to be.

They let him go.

Jaune stood up.

He left.


The beds at Beacon were…nice.

Ren was more used to sleeping out under the stars and camping in a bedroll, although perhaps not in the recreational sense that people always thought he meant, so the sensation of a mattress and a duvet was…different. Not bad, just markedly different.

He smiled slightly as he glanced aside and saw Nora groggily coming to herself under the beeping crescendo of an alarm clock. He had always been quietly confident that she'd find him, of course, because Nora did anything and everything that she set her mind to, but the thought of being separated from her still was like a knife to the heart. Not being on the same team was unimaginable, not being partners was unimaginable. She'd been with him through everything, until she was the other half of his whole and he wasn't anyone in particular without Nora by his side. It had been relieving beyond measure to hear her voice as he was dusting himself off from dispatching the Grimm, enough so that the rest of initiation was a bit of a blur.

His team was…nice.

Ren would hold off judgement on that until later, but Pyrrha Nikos was certainly someone he'd heard of before, and aside from the combative edge that she brought to the team, she also seemed both polite and self-effacing –nothing at all like a celebrity. Jaune Arc, their leader, was…a bit hard to get a read on. In a lot of ways, he seemed like an overgrown puppy, not quite sure of where to put his feet or what to do in a social situation, but out there in the field dealing with Grimm, and when he was suggesting how they might arrange the dorm room, he was implacable, like he was suddenly flexing a steely strength and wisdom that was otherwise hidden beneath inexperience or modesty. It was Jaune who mentioned that he was going to set the very loud alarm that was doing a commendable job of reanimating Nora –no small task, first thing in the morning.

And it was Jaune who hadn't batted an eye at the things they'd brought with, the cooking utensils Nora insisted that he buy for the dorms that they'd have, the way she insisted on having a bed next to his –everything. Jaune was very polite and very accommodating, making sure everyone got settled in and asking if they wanted a shower, before taking his last and blasting both the pipes and the fan at full volume. Nora had immediately leapt up and glued her ear to the door, saying she wanted to know if their leader was hiding how he was a "total perv" (Pyrrha had turned red), but Nora hadn't heard anything untoward before Ren pulled her away, though she then insisted that there was muffled screaming coming from inside and immediately switched her theory from "closet pervert" to "closet serial killer," painting a lurid and absurd tale about how Jaune had (somehow) lured a victim in there and was slowly strangling them to death with a wet bath towel.

Ren had ignored her. Their leader seemed to be a nice young man, and if he wanted to scream alone out of hysteria or elation in the shower, then that was his business. Assuming Nora wasn't blowing things entirely out of proportion again, at least Jaune had the decency to try and keep it quiet.

Jaune hadn't said anything about it when he'd come back out of the bathroom, either, and Ren had shrugged it off, content to go with the flow of things so long as Jaune wasn't actually a serial killer and Ren wouldn't have to trip over the legs of a corpse in the morning when he went to brush his teeth.

Nora, of course, bounded into the bathroom as soon as she was cognizant again, and was voluble in her disappointment that there was only a soaked towel for "evidence" as to Jaune's murder most foul. Ren looked over at the other male with slightly narrowed eyes, wondering just what kind of reaction he would have to Nora's antics. This would be a test of his leadership and his personality, as it were, because no matter how much Ren lov- cared for Nora, he knew that she was a lot to deal with, and some people weren't morning people. If Jaune tried to put her down, there would certainly be some friction in the newly-formed Team JNPR.

"If I was gonna kill someone, I wouldn't do it in the dorm bathroom, Nora." Jaune sighed, scratching the back of his head. "Or use a wet towel as a weapon. I do have a sword."

"Aha! I'm onto you, mister!" Nora crowed, bouncing back into the room and jabbing her finger in their leader's face. "Why would you keep your sword in the dorms unless you were waiting to select the perfect victim and strike while their guard was down!?"

Long experience kept Ren from struggling or even outwardly reacting as Nora slung an arm around him and pulled him close.

"Well, you won't get my Ren, you hear?! He's strong and he's smart and he sleeps with one eye open!"

"I don't think Jaune's the sort of person to kill his teammates." Pyrrha said from across the room, smiling gingerly, like she wasn't quite used to the flow of normal banter and wasn't quite sure if she was "allowed" to jump in.

"So you've got an honor code, huh?" Nora sniffed, letting Ren go again as he straightened up and she put both hands on her hips. "Well, maybe you won't go after your brothers forged in blood, but there's plenty of other people to murder in the school! We'll find the meanest, toughest, evilest bastard in Beacon, and then break his legs! It'll be our first team-building activity!"

Jaune and Pyrrha laughed awkwardly, before Jaune straightened up a little and looked at the clock.

"A-actually, while we're all here, I was wondering if we could have a little talk before we get to class." he said, eyes briefly meeting Ren's before flicking over to the other two. "After we've all gotten ready, I mean."

Ren blinked, then nodded quietly, and looked to Pyrrha. "Do you want the bathroom first, or may I?"

"Oh, um, go right ahead." she said, gesturing gracefully at the door before folding both hands in her lap, for all the world like a clockwork doll programmed to keep the same pose. She didn't look like she was used to a lot of the normal activities that came with, well, being casually around people, and Ren wondered if Jaune knew how much work he was going to have to take on with his team, with one socially-awkward celebrity and two former travelers who hadn't spent more than a few months in any one location since they were children. Classroom culture wasn't exactly something any of them knew, and Jaune practically radiated the aura of someone who had lived the settled life. Ren was willing to bet money that Jaune had grown up with suburban potlucks and his mother pinching his cheeks while calling him a "handsome little man."

Still, they all cleaned themselves up and got into their uniforms, and at Jaune's nudging sat two and two on the beds, facing each other, before their leader took a deep breath and placed his hands on his knees.

"Okay, we're all new to Beacon, and we're all new to each other." he said without preamble. "We're going to get to know each other in class and stuff and as we spend time here, but I want to go over some introductions and, uh, ground rules first, right here, right now. We're a Hunter team now, and that means we're supposed to all have each other's backs, no matter what, and we can't do that properly if, say, Nora has a pathological fear of women in ponytails and Pyrrha's wearing hers all the time. I'm not saying we should all talk about our deepest traumas or something, but we should lay out the groundwork for what we do and don't expect from each other and from Beacon, and why we want to be here."

Ren nodded appreciatively, along with Pyrrha, as Nora scoffed and folded her arms.

"I do not have a fear of ponytails! Nora fears nothing!"

"Let him speak, please." Ren said as he noticed Jaune preparing to say something again. The blond nodded his gratitude, and Ren nodded back as Jaune straightened up and pulled his shoulders back.

"Right, so, I guess I can go first. My name's Jaune Arc, and yeah, it's that Arc family. My father, my grandfather, and his father before him were all heroes: i-it's kinda a lot to live up to, to be honest." He rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish grin. "But I always wanted to be a hero too. I trained a lot so I could become a Huntsman, a-and I lost some people along the way. People I cared about. People I loved. People who were Hunter trainees, just like me."

Ren's fist clenched by his side as Nora's face went shadowed. Jaune looked at the ground and didn't say anything for a moment, Pyrrha looking at him in concern, before he took a deep breath and continued.

"But that only made it more important for me to keep moving forward. There's so much darkness and evil in the world, if we just give up and hide away from it, we're giving up the only chance of hope we have. That's why we always have to keep going. I didn't come to Beacon to get good grades or win the Vytal Tournament –I came here to learn as much as I can about protecting as many people as I can." Jaune looked up at them all again. "I'm probably going to push you guys hard. I'm talking training like you've never trained before, because I've learned that the Grimm and all the evil people out there don't care that we're students. We're not Huntsmen and Huntresses-in-training to them: we're Huntsmen and Huntresses, and they're going to come after us as such."

Grimm, Ren could understand, but he wondered who had come after Jaune or his old friends, for the blond to talk about this so passionately. It was obvious that he'd been attacked by a human or a Faunus foe sometime in the past, and it was equally obvious that the attack(s) had not been bloodless.

"I don't want us to be unprepared for that. I don't want to lose teammates to that, not again. So everything I do, as your leader and as your teammate, is going to be trying to make us all stronger. If I start pushing too hard, I want you guys to let me know, but otherwise, I'm going to be making you as strong as you can handle." Jaune gave one of his sheepish smiles. "We've all got flaws, and I want to help you conquer them, as a team, so we can all grow past them together. It's what- it's what my old friends did for me."

He coughed into his fist.

"So anyways! Um, that's what I'm going to be doing and what I want at Beacon, and I expect you guys to tell me if I'm pushing too far or too fast. In return, I'll try and make you the best, strongest, smartest Huntresses and Huntsman this side of graduation. Either way, I'll always have your back. A-and that's all. Pyrrha, you wanna go?"

"I…yes." the redhead said, blinking a little as she came out of the intensity of Jaune's speech. "Ah, as you all probably know, I'm Pyrrha Nikos, and I…I came to Beacon because I was sick of it."

She swallowed and looked them all tentatively, as though shocked by her own daring, and Ren gave her a slow nod. Nora, always less subtle, gave her a huge grin and a thumbs-up, and Pyrrha smiled slightly, looking encouraged.

"I, I've been blessed with incredible talents and opportunities; I'm constantly surrounded by love and praise…but when you're placed on a pedestal like that for so long, you become separated from the people that put you there in the first place." she continued softly, looking at her hands folded in her lap and fidgeting. "Everyone assumes I'm too good for them –that I'm on a level that they simply can't attain. It becomes impossible to form any sort of meaningful relationship with other people. I've always known I was meant to be a Huntress, but I…I couldn't face being a Huntress alone, even if I had another team at Haven. So I left Mistral and came to study here."

She looked up and offered them all a brighter, much more genuine smile.

"I don't want to be just your teammate, I want to be your friend. I want to form meaningful bonds with you, and be someone you can count on. I want to be part of your lives. I don't want to be some celebrity that you were lucky to get on your team. You're all such amazing, genuine people, and I- you're better than me, in that regard. I was lucky to get on a team with you."

"Damn straight." Nora said, shooting her some fingerguns, and Ren nudged his partner with his elbow. Pyrrha giggled a little, covering her mouth with one hand.

"I don't have any, um, phobias or anything." she continued. "I just want to be treated normally, so if you do that, everything should be wonderful. Um, Nora?"

"Right!" Nora clapped her hands together with concussive force. "I'm Nora Valkyrie, partner to Lie Ren. We're orphans and we've been together forever –well, not like together-together, just together!– so we already know how to work and fight as a team better than anybody else at Beacon! Why do we fight, you ask? Duh, because the Grimm! Like Jaune said, those evil critters are crawling all over Remnant, and someone needs to deal with them, with a hammer!"

She grinned and smacked her fist into her open palm.

"That's me, I've got the hammer, and I'm smacking those Grimm down like whack-a-mole! I'm the Grimm exterminator! The Grimminator!" She leaned eagerly over the edge of the bed. "You say you've got special heavy-duty training for us, Jaune? Bring it on! I'll take everything you got and spit it back out at the Grimm like a firestorm! Team JNPR will raze those bastards to the ground and then all go out for pancakes! We'll be unstoppable!"

She cackled wildly, and Ren waited it out with supreme patience.

"So yeah, that's me." Nora said cheerfully, sitting back on the bed with a slight bounce. "You want someone's legs broken or some Grimm skull crushed, I'm your man. Well, not a man, a lady, but you get the idea, right? Oh, oh, but me and Ren come as a package deal, so I suppose you get a man anyway!"

"Sounds nice." Jaune said with a slight smile, while Pyrrha just looked confused, obviously inexperienced at keeping up with Nora's usual rapid stream of dialogue.

"Lie Ren. I'm Nora's partner, as she explained." Ren began after a moment to make sure that Nora didn't have anything else to say. "Like her, I believe that a Huntsman's highest calling is to get rid of as many Grimm as possible, so that they can protect other people and other lives. I want to become stronger than I am now, and I will bow to your leadership in that regard."

He inclined his head slightly towards Jaune.

"Nora and I have been alone together for some time, so I will also ask your patience in learning to be on a team with other people." he continued. "Other than that, I believe I have no problems or emotional hangups to discuss with the team."

Pyrrha looked a little discomfited by his short speech after she had been so raw and open, but then, unlike her and Jaune, Ren's motivations were tied to highly personal details and past traumas that he was not yet willing to share. He was willing to learn and grow with his team, and if Jaune was half the leader that he promised to be, he would eventually come to learn the full story on his own.

"Right, well, that's introductions out of the way." Jaune said with a sharp nod, and rubbed his hands together. "Uh, after classes today, I think we should go out to one of the training rooms and really get a feel for each other's fighting styles. That way, we can slowly build up a training regimen that'll play our strengths and our weaknesses off against each other and help us all improve. I'm talking Semblances, preferred attack styles, preferred teamwork, everything. We're going to grind it out until we become as close to Hunter level as I can damn near take us."

Ren nodded once as Nora giggled, before reaching over and grabbing his shoulders, shaking him slightly in her excitement. Ren understood the feeling –if Jaune could deliver what he promised…well, it would make both Ren and Nora very happy. He remembered the crushing, terrible feeling of being too weak to save his family, and it had been what pushed him to become as strong as possible, so that it would never happen again –not to him, not to anyone else. Jaune's promise of becoming stronger, of becoming Huntsman level before he ever left Beacon, was very enticing.

If he could pull it off. Jaune was a first-year student like them, and although Pyrrha Nikos was very skilled, there was more to being a Huntress than merely being able to win a fight.

"Speaking of which once again –weapons and Semblances." Jaune announced, looking around at them. "I've got a sword and a collapsible sheath-shield. They were handed down to me from my great-great grandfather, and I'm thinking of giving them a Dust upgrade. My Semblance is Aura amplification –I can boost my Aura or someone else's, which means I can also boost Semblances and someone's healing. I can't remove scars, though."

"Ah, my weapon is Miló." Pyrrha said as Jaune looked to her expectantly. "It's a mecha-shift with three forms, those being javelin, rifle, and one-handed short sword. I use it in conjunction with my shield, Akoúo̱. I, um…my Semblance is polarity, metal manipulation through magnetism. I don't like to use it overtly in fights, though, since it's so flashy. Better to have an ace in the pocket."

"My weapon is StormFlower." Ren continued as she trailed off and looked at the others expectantly. "It's a pair of automatic handguns with collapsible sickle blades under the barrels. My Semblance allows me to mask negative emotions, whether my own or others."

"Well, my weapon is Magnhild, and it's a combination war hammer and grenade-launcher!" Nora crowed, leaning past him. "Loaded with six high-quality Dust cannisters packed to the brim with Wind and Combustion and with a designated ignition timer after they're fired! You saw me during initiation –it can fuck up an alpha Grimm at fifty paces, and it'll obliterate the smaller ones clean away! And if you want me to run distraction, I can stagger my fire so they explode before impact! It is the best in anti-Grimm technology and everybody should have one –well, not everybody, its mine after all, my special war hammer that I made all for me-"

"Semblance, Nora." Ren said patiently.

"Oh, uh, right –my Semblance is High Voltage, and I can charge myself up with electricity to hit harder!" she said, bouncing in place again. "I can channel it directly into my muscles, and use that to hit harder, and in a pinch I can create my own volts, but that takes a ton of Aura so it's basically worthless. But anyways, you hit me with enough Lightning, I can crack an Ursa skull in a single hit and smack some Beowolves right into the atmosphere! Still stings like a bitch, though, so I don't use the heavy-duty stuff that often."

"R-right." Jaune nodded, looking discomfited for some reason, before he ran his fingers through his bangs and looked at the clock. He did that a lot, actually –playing with his hair– and Ren wondered if it was some kind of nervous tic. "Well, I guess that's us sorted. I can reserve a training room for us after class, and we can start getting used to each other's fighting styles. For now, though, I guess we go to breakfast."

Ren nodded, and he got up with Nora, heading for the door with the rest of their team. As it closed and automatically locked behind them, the door opposite theirs swung open, and Ren blinked a little to see the girl from initiation (Ruby…?) pop out of her room as well. Though she'd donned the Beacon uniform, she'd kept her distinctive bright red cape, and Ren saw the familiar flicker of great cheer in her eyes as she looked towards them and saw who was coming out into the hallway with her.

"Hallway neighbors!" she cried happily, pointing at Jaune, and he grinned and pointed back.

"Hallway neighbors!"

Ren didn't need to hear Nora's slow, sharp, excited intake of breath beside him to know that she had just immediately pegged this Ruby girl as a kindred spirit and new best friend until the end of all time and space. Nor did he need her grabbing and shaking his arm in mute excitement, but that was exactly what he received.

"You! I know you from initiation! Team RWBY, right?!" Nora finally chimed, bouncing forward and grabbing Ruby's hands. "What your team did to that Nevermore was amazing! You practically wasted it even without my help! I mean, not that I wouldn't have helped or anything, it's just, did you see what that girl Blake did?! Swoosh! Bang! Right up into the air and hanging onto an Alpha Nevermore's leg with her knees! That was sooooo cool!"

"Thank you." the aforementioned girl said as she slid out of the room with the rest of her team, and Ren's instincts twitched, honed by long years of traversing the wilderness with Nora. This girl moved too quietly to know when she had shown up, and long practice at defending his and Nora's meager possessions from other travelers told him that he should keep an eye on her to make sure she wasn't a threat.

He shook the nagging feeling off –yes, she was undoubtedly light-footed and sneaky, but that didn't matter here, because this was Beacon and no one was going to try and shake him and Nora down for the Dust they carried. Blake was fully capable of buying her own damn Dust, and had no reason at all to try and mug her fellow students. Her silent way of moving was an asset, because she was an ally.

Perhaps this whole "adjusting to civilian living" thing will be more difficult than I thought. Ren thought with a near-silent sigh as he moved down the hallway with the others, Nora pouring her tales into an equally-chipper Ruby's ear. The rest of Team RWBY trailed along, Weiss looking fully ready to murder someone for a cup of something caffeinated and strongly disinclined to let anyone exist in her direction, the tall blonde (Yang?) slinging her arm around a startled-looking Pyrrha's shoulder and rattling on about the breakfast foods that Vale had and that she had grown up with. Blake trailed behind everyone, her ears pricking up at every sound, and after a few seconds of watching Ren solidly identified her as someone else that had been raised either outside the kingdoms or in a highly combative environment. He didn't want to be a racist and assume White Fang, but…

"Do you think you'll be able to make your magic pancakes here at school?" Nora asked as she broke into his train of thought, grabbing his arm and shaking it again, and Ren blinked thoughtfully. They had bought the equipment, but the school might be…iffy…about allowing students to cook in their dorms. One wrong move could set the building on fire, after all, and starting a dorm fire around Hunter trainees, many of whom undoubtedly had raw Dust in their possessions, was a recipe for disaster. True, Ren would be careful, but accidents could always happen…

"We'll see, Nora." he said after a few moments.

"Aw yeah! Pancakes! You know, guys, Ren's pancakes are to die for…"

Her captured listeners nodded and hummed in all the right places, and Ren felt a tangible weight lift off his heart. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad. His team leader had immediately accepted and adjusted for Nora's foibles, and Pyrrha had been nothing but accommodating so far, but they were his team. They were expected to get along for four years at least, since they'd be risking their lives together, but Team RWBY had no reason to indulge in Nora's antics. And yet here they were, laughing along with her and meshing with Team JNPR seamlessly, just like they had at initiation.

No one pestered him to start up a conversation, no one pointed out how quiet he was compared to Nora, and no one commented on how close he was with Nora, wink-wink, or worse, hit on either one of them. He was accepted as part of the group but left to do his own thing, and Ren found himself contemplating his breakfast with a slight smile as the chatter from his excited teammates and…perhaps…new friends, washed around him.

He could get used to this.


Grimm Studies was…oh, there was a word for this…

Stupid!

Exceedingly, excruciatingly, stupid.

Ren sat in his chair with folded arms as Professor Port blathered on and on about the Beowolf he'd hunted down in his youth. A Beowolf, when everyone in this class could probably take down a Beowolf without even using their weapons. One finger restlessly tapped against his sleeve, a tapping that was growing ever-faster and more annoyed as Port blathered on and on and on about the hunt that had taken place when he was a child –this man who now had grey hair! There was nothing useful in this story, no helpful hints to younger Huntsmen, no advice, no education-

He glanced over in surprise when Jaune –rather than Nora– touched his knee. His leader's blue eyes met Ren's, shadowed with concern, and Ren smoothed over any irritation that must have been showing on his face.

"You okay?" Jaune asked.

"I'm fine."

"You don't look okay." Jaune whispered under the groans and shuffling of the class, and Port's incessant talking. "Let me guess, you didn't sign up to Beacon to learn about the mighty past of Peter Port?"

A bitterly amused huff whisked out before Ren could stop it.

"This is supposed to be Grimm Studies." he muttered, and Jaune nodded, sighing and cradling his jaw as he planted an elbow on the table.

"Tell me about it." he said, still with that in-class undertone. "I never realized how much of a waste of time this was before."

That's right…Jaune had lost fellow Hunter trainees to Grimm, before he came to Beacon. Ren remembered that now. It must be almost as annoying for Jaune to hear this was it was for Ren. The two of them knew better than anyone how it felt to be out there fighting Grimm: they didn't need this blustering old windbag to warn them about the dangers of what they faced. They knew. They weren't here to listen to tales about past exploits, they were here to learn from older, tougher Hunters on how to survive and help other people, how to identify Grimm and deal with them efficiently.

Ren unbent a little, and he leaned towards Jaune.

"If the rest of his class is like this, we should add Grimm studies to our practice." he murmured, and Jaune nodded, his expression rueful. Nora's excited hiss made Ren glance over, only to see her palming her chin and looking at them with sparkling eyes.

"Ren, you've found your first bromance." she whispered, and dabbed at her eye, like she was moved to tears. "I never thought this day would come…I'm overwhelmed! Now kiss!"

"I'd rather not." Ren said.

"Wouldn't that ruin the whole "bromance" angle?" Jaune asked at the same time, flexing his fingers in air quotes.

"Its true love!" Nora insisted, banging her fist down on the desk as quietly as she knew how. "Stop trying to get in the way of your heart, Jaune, and let the bromance flow through you, as you become one with the-"

Pyrrha coughed quietly, making all three of them straighten up and look towards the front, just in time for Peter Port to regard the class as a whole with what looked like a benevolent grin. It was hard to tell under the mustache.

"So, who among you believes themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?"

"What was he talking about?" Nora hissed out of the corner of her plastic smile.

"Pretty sure he wants one of us to demonstrate our skills." Jaune whispered back, looking significantly more natural. Perhaps he was used to getting called out in class?

"Jaune's right. And I believe he has something that he wants us to fight?" Pyrrha murmured, pointing to a rattling square cage on the floor.

Hmm. Perhaps Port wasn't as useless as Ren had initially thought. Capturing a Grimm alive was a hell of a lot harder than it looked, as was keeping it alive in captivity. Most threw themselves against the walls of wherever they were trapped, trying to get out and attack the surrounding humans, until they bashed themselves to death. It looked like Port had solved that by giving this one a slightly-too-small cage, so that it didn't have the room to gather momentum and do any real damage as it lunged about inside –though that also meant that the man had been able to stuff a Grimm inside this cage, which was in itself no mean feat.

Well, it wouldn't be alive for much longer.

Ren raised his hand.

"I volunteer." he announced to the classroom at large, beating out the others who had all also raised their arms, and Port guffawed.

"Well then, let's find out!" he said, swinging his arm in enthusiasm, before gesturing to the cage as it rattled and shook. "Step forward and face your opponent!"

Ren stood and made his way down the tiers as Port began a long and meandering explanation, leaving to change into his combat outfit and get his weapons. When Ren returned to the center of the floor, the class had awoken slightly, and watched with interest as he withdrew StormFlower and waited for Port to unleash the Grimm.

"Go Ren!" he heard Jaune yell from the upper tiers.

"KICK ITS ASS, RENNY!" Nora shouted in agreement, and Ren felt the corner of his mouth curl upwards slightly. It was impossible that Nora wouldn't shout encouragement at him, but still, having her so vocally support him once again, without hesitation, was an affirmation all its own. It was a little, subtle reminder that they were always together, like a single bright flower creating a pop of color in an otherwise plain yard. He caught these moments in the quietness of his heart and rested with them, in the dark hours just before he fell asleep.

"Do your best!" Pyrrha added, and Ren caught the hesitation under her cheer, an almost audible second-guessing. Given what she had said at their team meeting this morning, he figured that she was having insecurities about saying such a thing to him when she was a world-renowned champion fighter. Was it patronizing? Ren could almost hear her think. Did he take that wrong?

He glanced up to the tiers were his team were sitting, and gave them all a slight smile. Pyrrha looked encouraged, and Nora grinned and sent him a thumbs-up. Jaune, however, flicked his eyes towards the cage nervously, and Ren quickly refocused, slipping his fingers over the triggers of his guns as he settled into a battle-ready stance. It was nice to have a leader with priorities: Jaune clearly remembered that there was a Grimm nearby, and he wasn't about to let a training incident turn deadly due to Ren's distraction.

"Alright!" Port guffawed again, hoisting one of the most impractical weapons Ren had ever seen –it looked like a combination between a blunderbuss and an axe– above the cage. "Let the match, begin!"

He swung it down and broke the lock, and Ren only had seconds to react as the Boarbatusk inside saw him and snarled, charging forward. It hadn't gone into its spin, however, so Ren waited until the very last second, before hooking StormFlower around one of the prominent tusks and whirling, trying to throw off the Boarbatusk's balance and its charge all at once. He succeeded in the second, but not the first: this one was heavier than the Grimm he had dealt with before, and though Ren's half-completed move jerked it around in a circle, it stayed on its feet, scrabbling at the ground –and leaving StormFlower jammed in its tusks as Ren staggered. Ren was thus left at close quarters with the furious Grimm, and his own feet slid backwards on the floor as the Boarbatusk jerked its head and squealed in outrage, trying to push him back.

"Ho-ho!" Port said from the sidelines. "A bold young man, to grapple with his prey directly!"

Shut up, old man. Ren thought with the faintest twitch of his eyebrow, as the angrily-squealing Boarbatusk pulled him back and forth across the classroom floor, his feet alternatively stumbling and dragging as they grappled for control over both his weapons and the Grimm's head.

"Ren! It can't charge from close up!" he heard Jaune shout. "Use one weapon to control it and the other to kill it!"

"I'm trying!" Ren grunted back, though he was grateful for the advice. He thought he saw an opening and quickly twisted his left-hand weapon sideways, jerking the Grimm's head up, and he unhooked his right sickle and quickly opened fire in the same movement, emptying the barrel down the Boarbatusk's snarling mouth with a rapid chitter of Dust. The Boarbatusk squealed again, weakened but not dead, and this time Ren was able to jerk it around by the tusk still entangled with StormFlower, flipping the thing onto its back, before burying the sickle of his right-hand pistol into the Grimm's unprotected throat.

Muted applause rippled through the class as the foul black creature began to dissolve, and Ren stood up with a huff as Nora, irrepressible as always, gave a loud whoop from the tiers of seats.

"Bravo! Bra-vo!" Port cheered, swinging his arm again. "It appears we are indeed in the presence of a true Huntsman-in-training! I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today, however. Be sure to cover the assigned readings –and stay vigilant! Class dismissed!"

"You okay, Ren?" Jaune asked as he hustled down the stairs with the rest of Team JNPR, carrying Ren's bag for him, and Ren raised an eyebrow as he took it.

"I can take a single Grimm on my own." he said, and watched something flicker in the back of Jaune's eyes. Remembering their conversation of that morning and trying to be mindful of his teammates' boundaries and trauma, Ren added "But thank you for your concern."

"Yeah, well…" Jaune laughed sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head –and then he yelped as Nora punched his shoulder. It was playful, but that didn't mean that it wasn't hard.

"Aw, don't worry about us!" she piped, grinning as the four of them started off for their next class. "We're a lot tougher than we look, especially Ren! Doesn't he look delicate?"

"You are not tricking me into starting a bromance with him, Nora." Jaune deadpanned, and Nora groaned in childish defeat as Pyrrha hid her snicker behind a hand. Her eyes met Ren's, and he offered another ghost of a smile, mutely accepting her amusement at the joke involving him and inviting her into the group. Pyrrha's half-covered smile broadened, and there was a slight skip to her step as she walked down the hallway with them.

"Spoilsports! Spoilsports the both of you!" Nora cried, recapturing his attention. "I'm Ren's number-one girl friend –but not like, girlfriend girl friend, I'm a friend that's a girl and I'm his top friend that is a girl– and he needs a number-one boy friend! Uh, that's also a boy that's a friend, not necessarily a boyfriend, though if you're into that I super wouldn't blame either one of you, you guys would make a really cute couple, it'd be totally amazing! Wouldn't it be cute, Pyrrha?"

"I-I'm still getting used to having friends, Nora, I'm not sure I should be giving advice on romantic relationships…" Pyrrha said with that brittle, half-uncertain, shy smile of hers, and Nora snorted.

"You can say they're objectively cute! Say they're objectively cute, Pyrrha, or I can never be friends with someone who has such bad taste! Say it!"


Nora had rapidly decided that she and Ren had gotten the best team in the entire history of forever. Everything was going so perfect! Pyrrha and Jaune were nice, everyone was chill, and Team RWBY looked like they were shaping up to be some really interesting friends.

Equally interesting was their oh-so-mysterious team leader. Ren said he was fine, but Nora knew better. (Unless he meant fine in the "fine as hell" sense, in which case Nora would shed a tear and sacrifice her lifelong crush to the bromance he deserved.)

No, something was up with Jaune. Not that he wasn't a great guy –he was totally a great guy– but Nora had a great nose for trouble, and she was in the process of sniffing something out now. When she'd glued her ear to the crack of the bathroom door last night, before Ren had been a spoilsport and dragged her away, she'd definitely heard a hint of screaming, something at the high and muffled key that showed whoever was doing it was at the end of their rope, wearing out their vocal cords, and also pressing their face into something. Why? Why was their glorious team leader making that noise?

Ren said it was nerves or something –that Jaune was either super stoked about getting into Beacon or letting out some hysteria because he'd thought he couldn't get in. That was a good story, but Nora didn't buy it. Jaune could have just as easily screamed into a pillow, and it wasn't like it was weird or anything, to have a brief burst of nerves. Why was he trying so bad to hide it? Why was it worth hiding?

Nerves weren't worth hiding.

Therefore, it wasn't nerves, and that meant that their scraggly team leader had a different reason for screaming, and Nora would not rest until she figured out why.

She'd spent most of today thinking that over –what did their team leader have worth hiding? Did he have a super embarrassing geeky crush on Pyrrha, and he was worried about her finding out? That theory didn't really bear weight –Jaune treated Pyrrha pretty normally, all things considered, though once or twice Nora caught him looking at her when he thought no one was looking at him with a really weird expression on his face. It was vaguely…sad, but also full of conflict.

Why was he conflicted about Pyrrha Nikos? Pyrrha was the kind of painfully honest person that got fleeced for fifty Lien the moment they stepped outside their smarter friends' radius. Most of her life was online for the reading. Everything about her was worn on her sleeve, as it were, not just her heart. What did Jaune Arc, self-proclaimed country bumpkin trained without the benefit of a Hunter school, know about four-time Mistral champion Pyrrha Nikos, that made him make that face? Following that, what did he know that he wasn't telling her or anyone else? Why wasn't he telling her or anyone else?

Ooh, it was a tangled gods-damn problem, and Nora spent most of class worrying it over in her head.

Had Jaune been some kind of friend or relative to Pyrrha, sent back from the future to avert her horrible fate? No, he'd be more clingy and panicky, and he would have known Pyrrha, and she him, since obviously a future savior didn't do any good if he got sent to a time period he hadn't been in.

Okay, but what if Jaune was secretly some kind of incredible badass, and for whatever reason, Pyrrha's family had wanted to send an undercover bodyguard with her to Beacon? That would explain the conflicted, saddened expression on Jaune's face –he wanted to make friends, but Pyrrha was his mission and his superiors probably discouraged that. He also probably felt guilty about lying to her and pretending like he was just a normal student, and wanted to tell her the truth.

Note to self, get them to make out at some point to test this theory.

Pyrrha really needed to loosen up, after all, and what better way to loosen up than to have a fun spin-the-bottle type game with her team? It'd be a good way for them all to break the ice with each other, and hey, if the bottle landed on Ren and he chose her, well, sometimes the gods were just. It wasn't like Nora would complain about that. It was practically a win-win! Nora and Ren got to fake a kiss, and she could figure out what was going on with Pyrrha and Jaune by the way they reacted when they tried to smooch each other. A perfect plan!

Okay, okay, but what if Pyrrha really resembled one of Jaune's old, dead fellow trainees? That'd make total sense! Every time he looked at her he'd get smacked in the face with the remembrance of whoever he'd lost, but he knew that Pyrrha was a different person and felt bad about unconsciously projecting onto her. That'd explain the sad, the conflict, the not-talking-about-it, everything!

So yeah, by the time classes finished out for the day and Jaune took them down to one of the sparring rooms, Nora was practically bouncing off the walls with her eagerness. She wanted nothing more than to test out all the little theories she had formed, while also walloping her fellow Hunter trainees into the ground. If Jaune secretly was an incredible badass, he'd be a really good fighter, right? Nora obviously needed to test that, along with seeing just what her noodly leader could do. He talked a big talk, but could he walk the walk? Could he really get them as far up the chain as he promised? Could he, a fellow first-year, seriously train them up to be Huntress and Huntsman level?

Jaune busily tapped away at the control screen to the arena, bringing up all their Aura gauges and setting it to tournament settings –as soon as they went red, they were out, whether or not they could keep fighting.

"Okay, um…" He cracked his knuckles and turned around to face them, looking oddly apologetic. "I swear I'm not being an asshole with this, but I want to start off with you all coming at me at once."

Nora blinked, and as she glanced to the rest of her team, she saw them blinking too. Pyrrha Nikos glanced at her and Ren before stepping forwards, looking uncertain as she half-raised a hand at their leader.

"Jaune, are you sure that's a good idea…?" she asked, not mentioning why it was a bad idea, like the unbelievably sweet girl that she was. Nora liked Pyrrha –it took a strong soul not to get corrupted by the fame and fortune of championship, but Pyrrha was nothing but humble kindness all the way down. Nora couldn't wait to paint their nails together and talk about boys.

"Yeah." Jaune drew his sword and swung it back and forth in his hand, expanding his shield. "I know we talked about our weapons and stuff before, but I want to get a feel for how you fight. Don't worry, I, ah, I should definitely be able to hold out for at least a little bit."

Nora still had her reservations, but Ren nodded sharply, once, before pulling out StormFlower.

"Ren…?" she asked, and he immediately focused on her, sending the same familiar thrill through her nerves as his quiet, focused eyes rested unflinchingly on her face.

"He isn't going to try and win the fight." Ren explained as Pyrrha moved towards the ring. "So it doesn't really matter if we pummel him."

"Oh. Oh! Okay." Nora said, perking up as she drew and unfolded Magnhild. "Just as long as he doesn't expect to win against all three of us at once. That would be silly!"

And also a very good indication that he was a secret undercover bodyguard sent to protect Pyrrha for reason or reasons unknown, Nora added silently. She had her eye on Mister Jaune Arc, possible secret agent/time-traveler/traumatized teen that he was. After all, once she identified the problem, she could help fix it! Her team leader had another thing coming if he thought he could get away with having personal problems on Nora's watch!

"Right, so…" Jaune heaved a deep breath and brought his shield up, all the normal gawky vacillation dropping out of his eyes as they became razor-sharp and deadly focused, drifting from Nora, to Ren, to Pyrrha as they surrounded him. "To knockout, Aura drop, or yield. Come at me all at once."

"HiiiiiyAAAH!" Nora didn't need any more encouragement than that as she lunged at him with her hammer cocked back for a swing. This was Ren and her's usual pattern –Nora went in for the kill, and in cases where they weren't trying to kill, she focused on pummeling their opponent into submission as Ren wove into their blind spots and struck where they were least expecting it. A human enemy was guaranteed to focus more on the screaming girl swinging at his head with a huge hammer than her quieter companion, who had already slunk around behind, and if Nora didn't finish them off, then Ren certainly would while they were distracted.

Jaune, however, seemed to know exactly what they were doing: he raised his shield to catch and then shunt Nora's hammer to the side, bleeding off her force and adjusting momentum without committing to a bodylock with her as he turned aside in the same moment, his sword flicking out to bat Ren's pistols away as Ren came in behind, and Jaune finished the flawless move with a kick to Ren's ankle as her partner stumbled and hastily backed away.

Nora adjusted her grip on Magnhild warily as she and Ren backed up to give Jaune some space. That lightning-quick rebuttal was unnerving, not to mention how he had pegged both of their styles almost instantly. Jaune took a step towards Ren, but then he was forced to bring both sword and shield up to defend himself as Pyrrha came in, hammering away at his defense with a series of flowing, deadly attacks with her weapon in short-sword form. She was hacking away at Jaune in a way that Nora recognized in a moment was distracting, rather than an actual attempt to get past his guard: Pyrrha was forcing Jaune to keep his shield up and his attention focused on her, giving Nora and Ren an opening.

She met her partner's eyes and nodded, and they split away from each other, angling to attack Jaune from opposite sides and behind. Ren didn't fire his guns –this was a sparring match and Dust was expensive as hell, not to mention that getting shot with Dust rounds hurt a lot– but he certainly would've if this was a real combat scenario, and Nora saw that Jaune knew that as the gleam of activated Aura skated over his body. Nora came up for a swing for his head as Ren ducked low, angling out with his sickles, but then Jaune's legs tensed as he jumped back, and the three of them –Nora, Ren, and Pyrrha– almost crashed into each other as they stumbled and there was a brief tangle of limbs and weapons.

Nora tried to pull her hammer up and back for another swing, but gasped aloud as, rather than retreating completely, Jaune's shield then crashed onto the back of Ren's head, making him stumble and fall to his knees.

"REN!" Nora howled, hefting Magnhild and swinging with reckless force as Jaune arched his body out of the way. He kept backing up as Nora swung her hammer at him again and again like a berserker, using the momentum of each (missed) strike to cock her back for another as she switched the grips of her driving hand. She caught Pyrrha skating along her periphery, going to engage Jaune on another angle, and smiled grimly as the head of her hammer whooshed through the air, going for a hit that would fling spit from Jaune's mouth and drive him to his knees. This was personal now. Nobody suckerpunched Nora's partner and got away with it.

Instead of arching backwards, though, Jaune stepped forwards and dove under Magnhild as he curled up into a ball, and Nora's eyes widened as he came into her range in a tight roll. Was he trying to knock her over? She was braced well, it wouldn't work-

At the apex of his roll, Jaune launched his feet out, catching Magnhild in a powerful kick that ripped it right out of Nora's hands. The flying hammer narrowly missed Pyrrha as Jaune then crashed into Nora with much less control, sending them both to the ground in a heap, but with the champion focused on dodging and Nora caught sprawled on the ground with a very pointy elbow in her ribs, Jaune could afford to take that moment of lost control.

Ren, though, had apparently recovered and was coming in clutch, and Nora grinned despite her wheezing as his footsteps tapped rapidly over the floor. Her glee was lost in a squeak as Jaune grabbed her and rolled over so that she was on top, making Ren flinch and pause just before he drove his sickles down into what was now Nora's chest rather than Jaune's. Nora grinned sheepishly up at her partner.

"He's kinda kicking our asses, huh?" she asked, before Jaune's knees were jabbed into her back and she was flung forward, crashing into Ren.

As the training duel continued to wear on, between her panting breaths and her swings of Magnhild, Nora was definitely bumping her "secretly a special agent" theory up to top billing. Jaune fought like no first year should ever fight: his technique was absolutely watertight, without a single extraneous flip or stylish spin in sight. Every single movement was focused and targeted, and it was damned tricky to try and catch those movements being telegraphed before Jaune hit. He was like a ruthless machine, striking hard and fast at their weakest points and watching them with blue eyes that had gone cold and blank with focus. In those eyes, only the fight mattered, and winning that fight was a matter of course.

Even when Pyrrha tried to help with her Semblance, it didn't do much good. Catching at Jaune's sword or shield, trying to freeze them in midair, that just made him drop his weapons and keep going, fighting with barehanded punches and kicks before usually grabbing one of them and throwing them into Pyrrha to distract her, or hitting Ren and Nora hard enough to keep them out of it as he ran to engage her himself. Even when Nora used her Semblance on herself, trying to charge up her muscles to become faster, stronger, Jaune just took those hits and kept coming. His Aura was monstrously strong, and Nora remembered whimpering as she looked at the readout and saw them all reading on the lower end of yellow, while he was still on a healthy green. The middle of green, too, not the end of it that was verging onto yellow.

It wasn't fucking fair. Nora hadn't fought anyone or anything this hard or this long in her life before, and she was soaked with sweat and almost gasping by the time Jaune shrugged Magnhild aside one times too many and his sword came crashing down on her Aura-protected neck. Her Aura slipped into the red as a buzzer noise sounded, and despite the stinging ego that came with being beaten, Nora lowered her hammer and staggered to the verge with something almost approaching relief as Ren was summarily knocked out of the ring beside her with a yelp. Pyrrha lasted longer than either of them, and at least it wasn't a deadly blow that got her, but a long slow slugging match between her and Jaune that chipped away at their respective Auras with a hundred blows and slashes. Pyrrha's Aura dipped first, and she was left to lower her sword and shield, panting raggedly, as Jaune did the same, his Aura finally having dipped down into the yellow as Pyrrha's flared red.

That fight had been incredible. All four of them were left like preparatory-school first-years, exhausted, muscles burning, soaked with sweat, the only sound in the room their desperate gulping breaths as they tried to suck in air and get their bodies to start working again, to stop feeling lightheaded and loose-limbed as Pyrrha and Jaune bent over their knees and Nora and Ren slouched where they sat draped over the bench.

"Wow." Nora finally gulped. "Wow. Okay, how the heck do I get as good as you are?"

"Lose someone because you're not good enough to back them up." Jaune panted distractedly, sweat dripping off his nose.

Any levity in the room was instantly cut dead, and Nora winced.

"O-okay, um, ah, I mean, I didn't mean it like that…" she mumbled, looking around for something to distract them with. Anything!

"That was incredible, Jaune." Pyrrha said as she came to Nora's rescue, bringing her head up as her ponytail dangled down off the side of her neck, sweat making it one shade darker than its usual vibrant crimson. "I'm very impressed."

Jaune moved to sheathe his sword, even that quick and practiced movement looking rubbery and shaky, and waved his free hand at the same moment he collapsed his shield.

"Its fine." he wheezed. "Its fine. Normal knees."

"Hah." Nora snorted through her nose, looking at Ren and twirling a weak circle around her ear with one finger. Normal knees, her fine hot ass. Those were super-special-ops-bodyguard knees, and Jaune wasn't fooling anybody with his lame excuses.

"Right. Okay. Uh, we should probably get some water and go over that." Jaune said as he seemed to catch his second wind, and he and Pyrrha staggered over to the bench with the sort of half-drunken gait you saw on sailors as they came on shore for the first time in weeks. Nora obligingly scooted over just a little, and the four of them grabbed their respective water bottles and started chugging.

"You guys are good." Jaune said when he had drank his water almost to the bottom and splashed the rest of it over his head and face. "Especially you, Pyrrha, but- well, you don't need me to tell you that."

Pyrrha definitely didn't. She looked the least winded of any of them, and she was recovering fast as she looked at the ground and smiled shyly, obviously pleased with the compliment and even better pleased by how modestly Jaune framed it.

"What we –and I say "we" because I'd be fighting with you guys under normal circumstances instead of against you– fall down on is teamwork." Jaune continued. "Nora, you and Ren fight really great as partners, but you're too focused on each other. Whenever one of you gets hurt, the other starts acting a lot more reckless, and you kinda left Pyrrha to do her own thing most of the time, rather than integrating her into your attacks. Pyrrha, you didn't even try to work with them."

"I thought this was supposed to be an assessment of our fighting styles?" Ren asked, still a little out of breath, and Jaune blinked, then grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I-it is. I'm getting to that." he said. "Pyrrha, you're a great analytical fighter. You look for openings and exploit them, and even if you didn't try to work with Ren and Nora, you still tried to understand their styles and work alongside them to beat me. Ren, you and Nora work as a unit: Nora tries to pummel the enemy into submission, and you weave in and out of her attacks to try and hit them while they're distracted. That's, again, really great teamwork, but if either of you have to fight alone it starts to fall apart. I'm not saying you're helpless or anything, just that if you fight something smarter than a Grimm you're definitely a lot weaker on your own."

"What's smarter than a Grimm but dumber than people?" Nora asked skeptically, flopping back to lay on the bench. "And if you say 'Faunus' I will launch you straight through the walls, mister, your badass skills notwithstanding."

"Gods, no." Jaune said, and when she opened her eyes to squint at him his expression was just as appalled as his voice. "I meant-"

He glanced aside and suddenly seemed to think better of whatever he was about to say.

"W-well, there are some Grimm that are a lot, a lot smarter than the ones you usually come across. Even Alpha Grimm." he finished. Nora cocked a brow, wondering what brought that on, and mentally filed one more bullet point under the mystery that was Jaune Arc. Had he fought a super-smart Grimm that was trying to kill Pyrrha? Ooh, what if Pyrrha's horrible fate was becoming some Grimm-human hybrid, and Jaune was trying to prevent that?

"Uh-huh…" Ren had obviously caught that odd bit of byplay as well, but was much more willing to let the oddity slide than Nora was. "So what you're saying is, we need to focus on fighting as individuals and as a group."

"Yup." Jaune said. "And showing off and whatnot is cool in the tournament ring, but if you're gonna be a real Hunter, you need to drop the theatrics. Bad guys just take that as an opening to kill you."

"Like Team RWBY." Pyrrha said. "They were quite polished, as a matter of fact. That girl, Blake? The moment that Nevermore showed up, she was taking steps to deal with it in the most efficient way possible, and trusting her partner and her teammates to back her up. They didn't really show any of the…typical flare, of students our age. Whoever taught her and the rest of her team must have been quite good at drumming that out of them."

Jaune gave a slightly uneasy laugh, and Nora grinned, nudging his leg with her knee.

"Hey, c'mon man, we're gonna be just as good as they are." she said. "No all-girl team of yahoos is gonna beat out Team JNPR! With your super-awesome training and our incredible strength, we'll overshoot them in no time!"

"Sure, Nora." Jaune said with a huff, smiling faintly at her encouragement. "Sure."