Before anything else, I own nothing but the original characters, and content therein related to them. RWBY is owned by RT, and any mentioned creator's work belongs to them, and them alone. Rest in peace Monty, your vision lives on in us all.

CHAPTER 10

Clayton and Ruby had made themselves presentable, and came back downstairs. "I don't get it. Ozpin's some sort of collective hive mind of past souls he's merged with, that just hops bodies when he's done with the old one?" Clayton asked. "And everyone's ok with this? No one sees that as a fundamentally horrifying thing? Being cursed to leech off one human after another since the dawn of time?" Clayton asked. Pyrrha looked as if she had something to say… And truthfully she did. What Ozpin spoke of while in Oscar's body sounded like what he asked her to do to herself to become the fall maiden. Aside from being an incredibly painful attempted transition, the knowledge that she was actually guaranteed to not be the same person was terrifying… But she didn't have the heart to speak up.

"I assure you Mr. Sanguis, the process is not one I've ever enjoyed… And it is not something I can control…" Ozpin said. Clayton's unease, as well as many of the less vocal of the group regarding the matter, did not subside. Rot decided to keep quiet on his musings for the moment. He did not need to speak his mind yet. Ozpin had only been back for a week at most. If he recognized him, then so be it, if not, Rot was one of the many faces in the warband he'd fought in a decade ago.

The next day, team RNNJRS was in the middle of observing and participating in a spar… It was interesting to say the least. Most people assumed that Ruby had no skill at hand to hand combat since she always relied on her weapon to do most of the fighting for her… Somehow Ozpin seemed to forget who her boyfriend, sister, and father were… Hand to hand experts. She couldn't out punch any of her family by any means, but going up against Ruby thinking she was some 5 foot 8, buck 70 girl with no way to protect herself was the right way to get your ass kicked… As both Oscar and Ozpin found out. The old man had much more experience that was true, but he was using the body of a boy much younger and smaller than Ruby and quickly learned how it felt to be hit by a Xiao Long-Rose family right hook with a leather belt wrapped around her fist.

Clayton actually laughed when he saw Ruby knock Ozpin over, as the belt trick was something he'd taught her. "That was… Impressive, Miss. Rose." Ozpin said, before letting Oscar take back control.

"Aww it was nothing. You grow up around fighters, you learn to fight." Ruby said with a shrug.

Pyrrha turned to Jaune. "Are you ready to try unlocking your semblance?" She asked. Jaune looked over to Pyrrha, and sighed. He wasn't confident he'd be able to do it tonight, but the encouraging look Pyrrha gave him was more than enough… Besides, Pyrrha seemed… Well, now that he actually knew what to look for, hot and bothered. He had a feeling whatever bumps and bruises he received would be repaid later.

"Alright, who am I fighting this time?" Jaune asked. Clayton stood up and cracked his neck. Jaune's heart sank.

Later, Clayton and Ruby went down to the sparring room to get Oscar. It was almost time for dinner, and he'd been practicing with his heavy cane all day. Clayton whistled sharply as he and Ruby stepped into the dojo. "Soups on kid, hang it up." Clayton said. Oscar looked up at the two, and sighed.

"I was just about done anyways." He said, as Ruby spoke up.

"You're doing well… You ever fought before?" She asked. Oscar shook his head.

"Skeet shooting tiny nevermores and the occasional creep, but that's it. Nothing like this though." He shrugged.

"You look like you're better than you give yourself credit for." Clayton said, crossing his arms.

"Thanks I guess… I've only had this cane for a few weeks, but it feels like I've always had it." Oscar said, looking down at the weapon. "How do you two handle all this?" Oscar asked before the two could walk away. "I mean… I knew I wanted to be more than just some farmer, but all of this? Who'd choose this life?" Oscar asked, as he collapsed his cane. Clayton let his arms go slack.

"The blindly brave, the insane, or the broken. Nobody becomes a huntsman because they have an easy life." Clayton answered.

"But, how can you be so confident? You almost died getting here, the world is on the brink of war. How are you ok with this?" Oscar asked as calmly as he could. Clayton shrugged.

"I… We, Clayton and I, we've never been ok with anything." Ruby started. "My entire family has been huntsmen and huntresses. And when I lost my mom, I knew what I wanted to do would be dangerous… But that's never stopped me… I accepted a long time ago that death is an occupational hazard… It's something I'm not afraid of… But other people getting hurt is something I can't stand. Which is why I keep on fighting." Ruby said looking up to her boyfriend for his part.

Clayton sighed. "I was found in a tree in Anima by my adoptive parents as an infant, and to tell you the truth, I've never met another ape faunus. Sun Wokong was about as close as I ever got, and he was a monkey. I'm not mixed race, I got tested to check, and that brought a lot of problems with it." Clayton started.

"What do you mean?" Oscar asked.

Ruby chuckled mirthlessly. "Believe it or not, faunus can be plenty racist against other faunus… Animal stereotypes, assumptions about certain behaviors… And Clayton's a gorilla faunus… Gorilla's are one of the closest ancestral cousins between humans and actual animals…" Ruby trailed off.

"So when you're an ape faunus, what are you really? Human? Faunus? A natural mix? Throw in dating a human, and you're outcast by almost everyone." Clayton said with a chuckle.

"The two of us have been harassed, assaulted… Kids at Signal tried to do things to me, and kill Clayton… But we bounced back. Like we always do." Ruby said, grabbing her boyfriend's hand.

"I guess that makes you two braver than I am." Oscar said with a frown.

"Na, we're just fuckin' nuts. You're the brave one here Oscar. Nobody hurt you, no one forced you to make this choice. You did it on your own, dumb as it might have been." Clayton said with a smirk.

Oscar looked up at the two, and smiled. "I'll be up for dinner in a minute." He said, as the two turned back to the stairs. "They really are insane, you know." Ozpin said from inside Oscar's head.

Author's note.

I can't be the only one who thinks the teams, and in my fic Pyrrha especially, sees what Ozpin is forced to do as a kind of cosmic horror, right? Like suppressing or fundamentally changing someone's personality and giving them memories that are not there own is basically inducing psychosis, and on top of that there is an aspect of actual possession going on.

So, Ruby while bad at hand to hand isn't completely useless. Remember the four fang grunts needed to restrain her, and the one who's eye she fucked up?

More lore for you all. There is a massive glaring weird spot with the faunus. We've seen, cats, dogs, bulls, deer, some birds, a bat, fish, foxes, chameleons, crocodiles, monkeys, all that good stuff. We've seen tails, ears, horns, claws, extra appendages, spider silk glands. Then there's the secondary and tertiary traits, like the increased sensory perception they have, some being smell, others being hearing, or some form of night sight/better visual range, and all the behaviors/stereotypes... But for some reason, we don't see apes. Why though? Sun is about as close as we get because he's a monkey, but that's primates which includes both monkeys and apes, not specifically the great apes or more scientifically hominids, I.E. Orangutans, Gorillas, Chimpanzees, AND Humans. Even then we don't see any other monkeys either. So what gives? Did RT just forget that other species of great ape besides humans exist? Clearly not, because they made the Beringel, a corruption of the scientific name for the Eastern Gorilla, (Gorilla Beringei,) more specifically the Eastern Lowland Gorilla, (Gorilla beringei graueri) which is the biggest subspecies of gorilla. (Fun fact that's the same species I decided to pull Clayton's faunus traits from.)

So again why no ape faunus? Well, with the gap in lore, I decided to add a little bit. Ape faunus are just incredibly rare, endangered you could say, like real life gorilla's of all types. In RWBY there's no such thing as a species made endangered by humanity, so likely Anima has a lot more natural apes running around, but for some reason less ape faunus. Why? Human and faunus racism like Clayton experienced, or is it something more sinister? Might hint drop later. ;)