Back at Beacon:
Classes for team RWBY were… awkward to say the least. Heck just waking up was awkward and uncomfortable. For once Ruby was actually the first to get up instead of lazing around until the last minute. Just as she got done getting dressed the rest of her team woke up. Usually Ruby is the most talkative out of all of them, but today all she said was a "Good morning" and left them alone. Seeing Ruby's spark gone... it was upsetting. The rest of her team knew it was their fault.
During classes, Ruby lacked her usual charm. She kept her eyes down into her notebook and the teacher only. She refused to look at anyone else. This did not go unnoticed by the teachers and students. Some friends of Ruby would try and approach her and ask what's wrong, but she gave them a fake smile and said she was fine. It seemed the only good side that came from this was she actually taking notes.
Combat class was possibly the worst. Goodwitch decided to do team against team, which made fighting pretty awkward for them. Ruby didn't call out any moves; she only focused on the people attacking her. This made it so it was really only one team versus four huntresses in training. Again, this did not go unnoticed by Goodwitch.
Even NPR could see that Ruby wasn't behaving naturally. During lunch, the two teams still sat together and talked with each other, even if it wasn't as loud as they used to. Again, Ruby avoided eye contact with her team. She only gave one or two word answers whenever they asked anything. Meanwhile whenever NPR asked a question she answered as she usually did, full of energy and joy. NPR would often get quick looks at the rest of team RWBY when she did this and they saw how hurt RWBY was.
Pyrrha actually wanted things to stay like this. She said something about "feeling the pain Jaune felt when they ignored him," or something like that. Ren and Nora however, knew better. They wouldn't watch RWBY slowly crumble. They weren't filled with vengeance like Pyrrha was. SO they did what they thought was the best thing to do. They told Ozpin about the predicament, both of Ruby's and Pyrrha's.
Ozpin told them that he planned of talking with Ruby due to getting many reports of Ruby's peculiar behavior. He then told them that he will have a talk with Pyrrha about her attitude. This made Ren and Nora happy. Even with Jaune gone they just wanted things to go back to the way it was.
All of this leads to Ruby talking with Ozpin right now. She sat across from his desk as he took a slow sip from his mug. She was called to his office an hour or so after classes have ended, and she had no idea why she was called here. She squirmed a little nervously in her chair.
"Professor Ozpin," she mumbled. "Am I in trouble for something?" Ozpin put his mug down and let out a small sigh. Ruby had no idea how to take that development.
"Not with me," Ozpin started. "But I believe you are with your team." Ruby's eyes widen for a second at the realization of her summoning. It then turns into a small frown. "Miss Rose, you are very close with your team. Why is it now that you seemed to have grown a distaste for them, even your own sister?" Ruby let out a small huff.
"I'm mad that they don't trust me." Ozpin raised an eyebrow to this. He has seen them talk and fight and knows that they all trust her, even after Weiss's complaint about leadership. Perhaps it was on a more personal level.
"Would you care to explain?" Ruby looked back at Ozpin. He had comforting look on his face. It was filled with patience, as if he was saying "You can take as long as you need to."
"Well… NPR and my team have been trying to contact Jaune after you… expelled him." She mumbled that last part, but Ozpin heard her. Expelling Jaune was possibly one of the hardest things he's ever had to do. However, the boy kept insisting on it as he didn't want to taint Beacon's reputation any longer. His words, not Ozpin's.
"That's good," Ozpin said with a smile. "I'm glad to see that you're all still trying to stay connected with him going to Shade." That last statement pulled Ruby's heartstrings.
"Well… the thing is…"
With that, Ruby began telling Ozpin everything. How she and her team decided to ignore Jaune, how they felt upset after he left and didn't talk with anyone, how they somehow got his scroll number despite him changing it (She kept the details vague for obvious reasons.), and finally how Jaune didn't seem to want to talk with them.
"… to make matters worse, my team didn't even tell me what they were thinking when I wanted to talk with him."
"What do you mean?" Ruby again shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"Well… they told me they thought that Jaune wouldn't want to talk to us. What makes me mad was they told me after I had to see the text that said that."
"I see…" was all Ozpin said. He looked like he was wrapping his mind around something. After thirty seconds of silence Ruby saw a glint in his eyes. Before she could ask about it, Ozpin dismissed her. "Thank you Miss Rose, you may go." As much as Ruby wanted to ask what he was thinking, she knew better than to be disrespectful to her elders. She nodded her head and then took her leave.
"Oh and Miss Rose," She took one last look as she got in the elevator to see Ozpin pull up something on his computer. "I'm sure your team had their reasons for not telling you there opinions. The best course of action would be to talk to them." He gave her one last nod. Ruby reluctantly gave a nod back. When the elevator door closed, Ozpin looked back to his computer and clicked the call button on the contacts name. The computer rings a couple of times before a familiar blue haired headmistress came up. She was wearing her usual White T-shirt and black vest attire.
"Hello Oz," She said. "How can I help you?"
"Belinda," Ozpin gave a curt nod. "Can I ask a personal favor? It will involve Jaune Arc."
Back at Shade, a few hours earlier.
Jaune let out a tiny groan and slowly opened his eyes. His vision was dark and blurry but as the seconds pass everything becomes much clearer. "Told you he'd wake up," he heard Dew say.
"Dammit man," He heard Octavia complain. "Couldn't you have just stayed knocked out for like, five more minutes?" Jaune slowly rises, but feels stiffness everywhere in his body. He notices that he is laying on the bleachers. He groans a little again and sits up. He looks around the arena and sees people chatting and starting to walk towards the door. Seeing as how no one left yet he had to assume the bell didn't ring. To his left he sees Octavia giving Dew what looked to be a ten lien bill.
"You feeling all right dude?" he heard behind him. He sets his feet to the ground and looks to his right to see Nebula giving him a small smile.
"I feel like I got chewed up and spat out by an Ursa," Jaune commented. "So no worse than usual." This got a small giggle from the purple haired leader.
"Are you sure?" he heard Gwen asked him. He turned to the black haired girl.
"Relax, I've taken worst."
"That doesn't help me calm down!" Gwen's voice had risen a bit. This caught her team off guard as she never raises her voice. This did not go unnoticed by a couple of other students. "If I would have known that you were weaker than you let on, I wouldn't have gone through with the trap!"
"Why do you think I didn't tell you?" Gwen glared at Jaune who sighed and rubbed his head. "Gwen sacrifices have to made in order to win sometimes."
"As true as that is," another voice said, causing the five students to freeze with a small tinge of fear. The voice belonged to Mr. Jett who had climbed up to the bleachers. "There is the point where you are making unnecessary sacrifices. Especially with the fact that you turned your aura off mid-fight." All of team NDGO went wide eyed at that last statement and looked at Jaune. He had a sheepish smile on his face. "NDGO, leave Mr. Arc and me alone for a minute." NDGO noted Mr. Jett's tone, and it was not a pleasant one. They gave Jaune one last sympathetic look before heading to the door.
"You noticed that huh?" Jaune asked as he rubbed the back of his neck. He is then met with a fist pounding on his head. He grabs his head and lets out another groan of pain.
"What were you thinking?!" Mr. Jett lectured. "There's a reason we have the aura-in-red rule. It's so students don't pull a stunt like that! You could've gotten yourself…" Jaune could see that Mr. Jett was having a hard time getting the sentence out. "You could've gotten yourself killed."
"Mr. Jett," Jaune started. "I had disarmed her. The most she could have done was beat the crap out of me. I've gotten enough beatings back at Beacon where I can take a few punches. Besides I put my aura back up in time before the trap went off."
"And if you didn't?" Jaune tensed when Mr. Jett asked that question. "What if you couldn't surround your body fast enough and it didn't block the shock? What about if she had one of Gwen's knives hidden behind her? What if she tried to gouge your eyes?" Jaune couldn't think of any good responses to those questions. He let out a sad sigh and hung his head. How could he have been so dumb!? What kind of idiot would turn off Aura in the middle of a fight?
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Mr. Jett giving him a concerned look. "Look, I will give you points for using a tactical mind, but there are some plans that should never be put in motion. hey may work in theory but in practice it can end up being the biggest mistake ever. Understand?" Jaune gave a nod but looked to the ground. "I'm just glad you decided to experiment here than on a real fight." Jaune felt a little better after the small praise. "Now… since your wounds seemed to have gotten worst, I'm afraid I can't let you participate for the next week in class. Take the time to learn more about your semblance and control it." Jaune perked up as he heard this. "You seem to waste a lot of aura when you use it." Jaune looked back up to this teacher and he could see the smile underneath the scarf. "Oh and don't forget about the rocket locker either."
"Yes sir," Jaune said with a full smile. Mr. Jett gave a nod and went back down into the arena. Jaune Made sure he had everything he needed and went over to the door, ready to get ready for the next class. He walked up to NDGO who were conversing amongst themselves.
They noticed Jaune and let him join in the conversation. "Hey man, you all right?" Nebula asked.
"I'm fine. He definetly gave me some things to think about."
"Good, cause I'm not healing your broken ass anymore," Dew said with a smug grin. "I got enough on my plate as it is."
"What did I do to make the white mage mad?" Jaune pointed his thumb at Dew. Nebula let out a stifled laugh as the other girls looked at him confused.
"What's a white mage?" Octavia asked. When Nebula was done laughing she pretended to wipe a tear away.
"A White mage is basically a healer in a game," She explained.
"Figures the nerd of our group is the only one to get it," Dew teased. Nebula punched her in the arm causing Dew to rub it.
"That's what I thought." Jaune smiled at NDGO's antics. Just as he was about to bring up another topic, Jaune heard his name being called from behind him. He turned around to see Marston, the guy from his dust study class walking up to him. Now that a desk wasn't covering him, Jaune could see what Marston had on him.
He was still wearing the cowboy hat with the feather and the sleeveless blackish blue vest with the Tan shirt. This time his satchel was strapped to his side. Jaune saw the two holsters strapped to his belt on both sides of his hips. Each were holding a medium sized revolver. He was wearing dark blue jeans with leather boots. This guy just screamed "Western" to Jaune.
Marston goes up to Jaune and sticks his hand out. "Clayton, Clayton Martson," he said. Jaune shook his hand and told him his name. "Nice to officially meet you Jaune. Thought I'd say a few things to ya."
"Uh… sure," Jaune said a little uncomfortably. Clayton seemed polite, but when he was getting eyed by the guy in Dust class it gave Jaune the assumption he didn't like him.
"First, that was a helluva match. Won't lie, with what my leader's been telling me, I thought you'd keel over in the first minute." Jaune let out a nervous chuckle, yet he could still feel anger burn in his chest. Why does everyone think he's weak? "But I can see now that he's just letting his emotions getting to the best of him like usual. Can't wait to fight you myself." Clayton held out his arm, waiting for Jaune to make a move. When Jaune realized what he wanted, he hit Clayton's forearm with his own, forming an X with their arms.
"Thanks Clayton," Jaune said with a grin. Clayton gave a small nod. He looked over his shoulder and around as if he was seeing if someone was watching him.
"And uh… keep this between you and me." Jaune nodded his head and leaned closer. "I think my leader wants to fight you but not for the reasons he claims." Jaune cocked an eyebrow.
"Who is your leader anyway?" Clayton pointed his thumb to a familiar looking bull faunus.
"Malcolm is." Jaune's eyes widened at that fact. "I'll see you around Jaune." With that Clayton left Jaune to his thoughts. How could the impulsive Malcolm be the leader to someone like Clayton? Seemed weird but Jaune shrugged it off. As Clayton was walking back to his team Jaune noticed that he had two extra revolvers in holsters on his backside.
"Well I can see that you starting to get popular," Octavia said to Jaune. Jaune let out a small laugh and shrugged his shoulders.
"Don't ask me how," Jaune stated. "It seems everyone either hates me or likes me. Very little in between."
"Well… you're a nice guy," Gwen said as she rubbed her arm. He gave Gwen a smile as a thanks for the compliment, causing the Gwen to give a small shy smile back.
"Wow dude," Dew said sarcastically. "Making our girl blush. Don't you know she has a boyfriend?" Gwen's blush went deeper as Dew teased Jaune. While the teasing wasn't directed to her, the fact that she was suggesting that Jaune was flirting with her made the black haired girl more embarrassed. Even Jaune grew a deeper shade of red.
"Yes I did," Jaune stated matter-of-factually. "And you know what Dew, you can-" Before Jaune finished the bell rang.
"Welp gotta go to class. Bye~!" With that Dew disappeared faster than a speeding bullet. Gwen was still left a blushing mess, Jaune got red with anger, Nebula was comforting her black haired teammate, and Octavia was laughing so hard she coughed halfway through.
As the four of them continued to talk and walk to their next class, Jaune realized that he and Octavia were in the same class next. The two of them say goodbye to Gwen and Nebula and headed to grimm studies. As they got into the classroom, Jaune remembered what Mr. Jett said about the rocket locker. They took a seat and Jaune asked for help with the locker.
"Sure I can help you man," Octavia said. Jaune smile.
"Thanks Octavia," he said. "I could use the help."
"You could use a lot of help for a lot of things," A familiar voice joked as it took a seat next to Jaune. Jaune looked and saw Roy waving at him. "What's up dude?"
"Hey Roy." The two fist bump and talk with Octavia. Jaune asked if Roy would help Jaune with his locker, but the older students said that Hatsume, the upperclassmen that taught him how to engineer stuff, needed him for a special project she was working on. After Roy gave his answer, the bell rung and class begun.
The rest of Jaune's classes were fairly uneventful. In Grimm studies they just reviewed grimm they learned last semester, most of which Jaune knew about. However he actually learned more about grimm in this one session than he did at all of Port's classes. It was a nice change of pace. However, Jaune learned a creepy tidbit about Mrs. Devana. Apparently, from what Octavia and Roy told him, she was extremely bloodthirsty when it came to fighting grimm. From the undertones which she used when discussing Grimm's weaknesses, he believed it and that freaked him out a bit.
In language class with Mr. Ezra, he had to group Jaune with the people he had to learn vacuan with. Wallace was in this class, stating that he found it unnecessary for his first few years here until he had no idea what the bandits were saying which made gaining info a lot harder. Ever since then he's been taking this class. He promised he'd help Jaune out if he ever needed it, which Jaune was thankful for.
Finally, in science class he had Brawnz in that class with him. Mr. Young's class was probably the most boring for him. Again it was just review and it was stuff Jaune already knew about. He practically fell asleep in class. Which caused Shadow, Mr. Young's wolfdog, to nip at his leg to keep him awake.
When the final bell rung for classes to be done, Jaune said goodbye to Brawnz and headed straight over to the arena to get his rocket locker. As he made his way there, he found Octavia walking on her way there. "Hey Octavia," he called out.
Octavia turned toward him and gave a small smile. "Hey," she said back. The two began talking about how their day went. Apparently Octavia had to turn down three guys who tried to ask her out. Jaune was starting to notice a trend between the girls of NDGO and guys asking them out. Mostly it did not end up going well for the guys.
"So any ladies catch your eye blondie?" Octavia asked. Jaune blushed at the sudden question. Sure some did. Hell practically every huntsman in training he met was model status. Even so…
"Maybe, maybe not," Jaune answered. "Besides if I do, who would go out with me ya know? That'd be a good characteristic." Jaune spread his arms out as if he was revealing something. "'The girlfriend of the Beacon fraud!' Got a nice ring to it huh?"
"Dude will you shut up about being the fraud of Beacon already?" Octavia's tone was half joking and half serious. Jaune let out a sigh.
"I already know what you're going to say. Most of BRNZ gave me the same shtick as well." Octavia turned to Jaune. He was looking at the ground, a somber look was on his face. "It's just… it's hard for me to think I belong here when for nearly a month I've been told I don't belong anywhere near huntsmen academies, ya know?"
Octavia could tell that Jaune was taking it a little hard. She put a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up. All she did was give him a smile. Not words of encouragement, just a small smile. Jaune appreciated it. He could only take so much encouragement before he began to think people only did it to make him feel better, not that they believed it. Something as simple as smile was all Jaune needed.
The two eventually made their way to the locker room. Jaune could see various lockers missing from students who obviously wanted to keep them in their rooms. They found Mr. Jett, as he was sitting at one of the benches looking at his scroll.
Jaune cleared his throat, causing the teacher to look at him. "Aw good," he said. He got up and stretched a little bit. "I see you brought Miss Ember with you. Is it just you two?" Jaune and Octavia nodded their heads at the same time. "All right then." Mr. Jett knocked on one of the lockers, causing a small echo to fill the room. "This one's yours. Don't kill yourselves trying to get it to his room."
"No promises," Octavia joked. Mr. Jett let out a low hum and then waved goodbye. The two students stood in front of the locker, somewhat dreading the fact that they have to carry it up a couple flight of stairs.
"Shall we?" Jaune asked. Octavia nodded her head and the two of them got in front of the locker. Jaune slowly tilted the locker over and set it on the ground. "All right, you grab the front end, I'll grab the bottom."
"Sounds good to me." Octavia bends over and grabs her end while Jaune grabs his end. "Okay, one, two, three!" The two students groan as they lift up the locker. While it wasn't that heavy, it was still a metal locker with rockets attached to it, so it had some weight to it. The two slowly carry it out of the locker room and make their way to Jaune's dorm room.
About halfway through the two of them decided to take a small break, as their arms were getting tired and they were breathing quite heavily. They were in the first floor common area of the dorms. Some people were annoyed that they decided to take a break right there but didn't do anything aside give small glares and annoyed mumbles. As they rested Jaune looked at Octavia.
"Hey," he started. The red head was sitting on the locker, the same as Jaune, but she turned her head toward him. "Thanks for helping me with this. I appreciate it." Octavia gave Jaune a small smile.
"No problem dude," she said. "Besides with the way you handle yourself you'd probably end up back in the infirmary again."
"Ha ha," Jaune said, sarcasm dripping heavily in his voice. After another minute of resting, Jaune got up and let out a sigh. "All right let's get back to it." Octavia nodded her head and got to her side of the locker. Jaune counted down and the two began moving it again. However, halfway to the stairs a male voice called to them.
"Hey, need a hand?" the voice said. Jaune looked and saw someone he recognized from combat class coming over to him. He put his hands on the locker and help took some weight off the two students.
"Thanks," Jaune said.
"Hey after seeing you kick Maria's ass into next week I'll do almost anything to return the favor." Octavia raised an eyebrow at this.
"You have beef with her or something?" Octavia asked the guy.
"Doesn't everyone? The chick's been screaming about how she's better than everyone ever since she got lucky and beat a fourth year and a second year. Someone needed to teach her a lesson."
"So why wasn't it you?" Octavia asked. While Jaune was thinking the same thing, he had the decency to not say it out loud. The guy chuckled.
"Like I said, she beat a second year and a fourth year. Only an idiot would try and fight her after those two wins." Jaune glared at the guy as they continued up the stairs. He let out an awkward chuckle. "No offense."
"Well he isn't wrong," Octavia said. Jaune looked over at her with a somewhat hurt expression. "Jaune don't take it the wrong way, but you do tend to be impulsive from time to time."
"Even so, from what I hear it tends to work out with you in the end. Not a lot of us can say the same thing." Jaune had a small smile on his face. Little praises like this are something he liked the most. Not to mention he learned a weakness about himself; something he can improve on.
"Thanks guys," Jaune said with a grin. "Now then, let's just get this into my dorm. I don't want to spend all day on this." With a nod the trio continued to carry the locker.
Once they were outside of Jaune's room the three of them set the locker down and all let out breaths of relief. Jaune nodded to the first year who nodded back. The two shook hands and said goodbye to each other.
Jaune goes to the door and tries to unlock it. Once he does the two practically dragged the locker into his room, too tired to even lift it anymore. When they brought it in, Jaune collapsed onto one of the four beds in his room. From passing out in combat class, to having to lug his locker to his room, all he wanted to do was rest. He removed Crocea Mors and tossed it onto one of the beds.
Octavia decided to rest and laid onto one of the beds too. She let her right leg dangle off the side of the bed as she let out a sigh. As she laid there she took a look around the room. Again, it looked pretty empty aside from the dressers and beds. Sure there were some clothes thrown about here and there but other than that it was still just a regular room. It didn't have any personal touches, and that made Octavia a little upset. She wasn't someone who liked the look of blank walls. Blandness kind of annoyed her.
"Hey dude?" She called. Jaune let out a grunt to let her know that he was paying attention. "When are you going to decorate this place?" Jaune sat up in the bed he was laying on and stretched.
"Whenever my furniture gets here," he answered. She looked over at him and he looked at her as he laid back down. "I'm not sure when it will be here but I'm hoping it's soon. All though I won't lie I'm kinda nervous about how I want my room to be."
"How come?" Jaune turned to his side to face Olivia. He rests his head on his hand.
"Well I just have a lot of moving around I have to do with everything and I want to get rid of two of the beds in here since it's literally only me. Not to mention I'm not really sure how I want things arranged you know?"
"I get ya." Octavia looked back up at the ceiling. "I'm not a girl who likes… blandness. At the same time if something just doesn't have a good…composition I think is the word I'm looking for, it makes me furious." Jaune lets out a small chuckle.
"So if I purposely make my room ugly looking you'll get mad?"
"I will stab you if you purposely do it just to tick me off." The two share a laugh. A moment of peaceful silence passes before Octavia speaks again. "Seriously though, I'll help you with your room dude." The two of them look at each other. Jaune sees the warm smile on Octavia's lips and he smiles back.
"Thanks Octavia," he said.
"You can call me Oct you know." Jaune looked at her and saw that she meant it. He smiles.
"All right then." Jaune felt his scroll buzz and took it out of his pocket. He looked at the new message that arrived. As he read it he slowly got up and out of his bed. Olivia saw this and sat up.
"What's up?" she asked. Jaune pocketed his scroll but she saw that he had a smile on his face.
"You ever heard of the phrase 'speak of the devil and he shall come'?" Octavia nodded her head. "Well it turns out to be true." He flashes her his signature grin. "My furniture is here. I hope you aren't going back on your word."
Octavia let out a moan. "I just want to lay on your bed all day and relax. DO I have to keep my word?" Jaune snapped his fingers at her.
"Up. Let's go." The two chuckled and began to exit the room. Jaune took out his scroll and dialed a number. When Octavia asked who was calling he said "Brawnz." after a few seconds of rining someone picked up the phone. "Hey Brawnz… I'm doing fine. Mind if I ask you a favor?" there is a moment of silence. "Okay if you or anyone else on your team isn't busy can you meet me at the front door of Shade? I have a favor to ask… It might take an hour or two… okay I'll see you there." With that Jaune hung up his scroll. He turned to Octavia and walked backwards. "Good news, you aren't the only helping."
"Thank the gods," Octavia said. she took out her own scroll and pointed at it. "Should I call my team to help or…?"
Jaune shrugged. "Up to you. We should have enough but I'm not saying no to more help." Octavia nodded her head and dialed her friends' number. As she talked to her friends, Jaune turned forward again, a big smile on his face. For some reason, he felt like he was on cloud nine. Maybe it was the fact that he finally got to work on his room. Maybe it was because he had friends here that are going to help him. Whatever it was, Jaune liked it.
To be continued.
BetaReader: TheShadowOfZama