A/N: Welcome back! This chapter came fairly easy to me, and I dare say I have a surplus of story now. WPF has broken 5000 views and 50 favorites, which I have to say feels pretty cool. This is normally the part where I go on about the actual story, but have you read chapter 48 of Not This Time, Fate? Hot damn, that was good. It'll be a sad day when NTTF stops, it was the first fanfic to really hook me. Enough fanboy-ing over Coeur, on to chapter seven, and thank you for reading!
Jaune had just put down Crocea Mors when he heard Nora drag Ren from their room, screaming "Pancakes!" The door closed behind him, and he knew it was now time to face his next great battle.
"Jaune. We must talk." Violette sounded calm, you'd never think she was furious by her tone. He'd known her long enough to know different. He sat down on his bed, and Violette took the chair in the corner. Jaune spoke first.
"I'm sorry, Violette. Running out on all of you was cruel, not explaining myself was cruel. I shouldn't have done that to you; you were worried about my safety, and I was being selfish." Violette seemed a little surprised by his admission, looking back at him, her mouth slightly open.
"I know I should have stayed in touch, but I didn't, and that's my fault too. I don't have an excuse for that." Quiet stretched as his sister considered, he wasn't sure what.
"You'll go back when you can, won't you?" He nodded, "Why? Why do you want to endanger yourself like this, Jaune?" She was a little indignant, but she kept hold of her voice. She always kept everything under control, while he wore it on his sleeve.
"I… I left for Beacon for the wrong reasons, Vi. I wanted to be a hero, somebody who could live up to the family legacy. I would help people, but for myself; I wanted to help them to show myself I was good enough.
"Now? Now I want to help because doing less would be cowardly. I can help people, so I need to help them. Not because it would stroke my ego, but because someone else needs a hand. I'll go back to Beacon because the world needs people to fight the Grimm, and I'm not afraid. I'll go back because there are people out there who want to do terrible things, and I can help stop them. I'll go back because my friends need me, and I won't push them away." A cramped and cold locker. A weeping girl. Jaune snapped back into reality.
Violette was staring at him.
"What if we need you, Jaune? What if we need you home, need to know you're alright? Do you know what it did to us, knowing you were at Beacon? We were terrified, Jaune."
"But you don't need me here, Vi, you want me here. You want me safe. I can do some good for the world out there, I can help people! I want to, I need to. People actually need me, and I can't let them down."
"But you can let us down? What, you think that Nikos girl actually needs you, Jaune? Just because she's hanging off your arm like an extra sleeve doesn't make her more important than us." That was one step too far.
"Don't talk about Pyrrha like that, you don't know what she's been through. What we've been through." It was a cold anger, one he'd only felt a few times: toward Cardin, the woman in Beacon Tower, now his sister. Vi didn't take note, apparently.
"She's probably the one who put you through whatever 'it' is, Jaune. Those three aren't friends, Jaune, friends wouldn't put you in danger."
"But family should just lock me away in a safe little room? Tell me give up on my dreams? They have my back, Vi! They stood up for me!" His sister finally snapped.
"Don't take that tone with me over your little girlfriend, young man!" Vi was on her feet and Jaune felt himself get up.
"I'm not a little kid anymore, Vi! I haven't been since I watched a friend die." Vi froze in place. "Her name was Penny, she was one of the nicest people I've ever met, and she died at Beacon, Vi. I'm not a kid anymore, not after I've had to save someone life, my partner's life. Not after someone died because I did what I wanted to instead of what I needed to. Not after I watched my second home get burned to the ground and overrun by Grimm. Not after watching a friend missing an arm hold her comatose little sister. Not after spending three days in a refugee camp, an ear to the ground to see if someone else I know isn't coming home anymore."
His sister was frozen in place, as bad as Pyr in the arena. He felt hi trembling, and he was amazed he hadn't been screaming.
"I'm not a kid anymore, Vi. I have people relying on me, depending on me! I'm not allowed to fall to pieces or mope around about how angry my sisters are, I have people who need me. Need me to be a lifeline for them." He stopped, took a few deep breaths, and tried to bury his emotions. It wouldn't do to walk up to the team looking like a mess. They needed him in control. She needed him.
"Vi, until you get that I'm not the Jaune that left, we're not going to be able to bury the hatchet. But I want to, I want us to be okay." He walked up to his sister, and gave her a quick hug. "Let's go get some breakfast, and I'll tell you all about Beacon." His sister didn't move.
Jaune stepped around her, and headed out the door. Just as his mother and Pyr stepped out of Blanche's room. His eyes met Pyr's, his mind finally registered Vi saying "your little girlfriend", and he broke away from his partner, following his mother downstairs.
"Not the time, Jaune, really not the time."
The dining table was a massive thing, unsurprisingly, and Jaune took a seat to the left of the head. Following the instinct of hundreds of meals, Pyrrha sat down next to him. Mrs. Arc had joined Rogue and Marron in the kitchen, where Ren had been observing, and the four began to carry out breakfast. It was only when she noticed the odd look Rogue was giving her that Pyrrha realized the Arc household may have a seating arrangement. She made to stand up, but Jaune leaned toward her.
"It's fine, Pyr, don't sweat it." Plates of toast, eggs cooked several ways, small stacks of pancakes, and various fruit were laid across the table. Pyrrha settled back in her seat while Ren and Nora sat next to her, the remaining Arcs surrounding them. Mrs. Arc coughed politely to get their attention.
"We don't sit down together for every meal, so don't worry, but this one is a special occasion. Jaune is back with us, and while the circumstances behind it may not be pleasant, having him back is." The whole table bowed their heads in solemnity for a moment, before returning to the meal at hand. Mrs. Arc waved a hand, and declared: "Alright, dig in!"
Hands flashed across the table, snatching up bread and swiping fruit. Nora had taken two of the pancake stacks all for herself, while Rogue had half a dozen hardboiled eggs, of all things. Pyrrha set her jaw and struck with precision honed from years of practice, securing a shortstack for herself, as well as filling a small bowl of mixed fruit. Rose left the table, scampering off to the kitchen. As the chaos of plating leveled out, conversation took up. Team JNPR, of course, was the main focus.
"So," Noire began as she put down her eggs & toast, "why don't you tell us about yourselves, how'd you all end up on a team?"
Nora slurped down a pancake virtually whole, as she was wont to do, and began full tilt. "Ren and I are from Anima! We met years and years ago and we've been best friends ever since! We wanted to help people and everyone knows how helpful Hunters are and so we decided to try that! We spent years living with a hermit in the hills of Anima, learning his secret fighting technique."
"We trained with a few retired Hunters we met in our youth." Ren corrected.
"Eventually we snuck into Vale and did so great on the Beacon Admission they flew is to the school on the spot!"
"We hitchhiked after missing our original flight, then passed the test the last day it was offered."
The Arcs seemed to have followed about half of what Nora said, but had caught on to the theme.
"When initiation started, we were dropped from a plane into the Emerald Forest!"
"We were launched from a cliff."
"I got stuck in a tree, but I managed to find Ren after he had just finished fighting off 10 Beringels on his own,"
"It was one King Taijitsu."
"And then we hitched a ride on an Ursa, made our way to the ruins, and ran into Jaune and Pyrrha and Team RWBY! Well, they weren't team RWBY yet, no one was a team, but the girls who would be Team RWBY were there and then we fought a Deathstalker the size of this room and RWBY fought a Nevermore just as big!"
The table looked to Ren to correct Nora, but he kept eating his oatmeal. A few of them looked a little pale.
"A-and you, Pyrrha?" Rouge asked hesitantly.
"Oh, well I'm from Mistral. My mother is a retired Huntress, and she inspired me to follow in her footsteps. She trained me until I was old enough to go to a combat school: I attended Sanctum Academy. I had a short career in Mistral's tournament ring, but put that down when I left for Beacon. I met Jaune the morning of initiation, and then we met up again in the forest and became partners. Then, everything Nora described… happened."
Jaune snorted at her brief description: "By 'met up', she means 'saved Jaune from his dumb plan'. The first half on Initiation wasn't my best day."
Rose hustled back into the room, carrying a carton and box.
"True, but you led the team when we fought the Deathstalker. You thought fast and got three strangers to listen to you in a combat situation, and it worked perfectly. You don't give yourself enough credit."
"You mentioned a combat school? Jaune didn't go to one, it sounds like Nora and Ren didn't either. How was that?" Mrs. Arc's question was fairly innocuous, and Pyrrha supposed there were worse things to latch onto.
"It was four of the worst years of my life, I was either jealously hated or put in a gilded cage," Pyrrha did not say. Instead, she settled for: "Similar to Beacon, though far less advanced. Weapon training, sparring with students. Very like a normal school really, but with additional focus on the body. Many graduates become soldiers or police, even athletes." The girls nodded politely at her explanation, except for Rose. Rose was intently looking at her breakfast. She looked up to Pyrrha, then back down to her food, then back up.
Slowly, with a level of drama she had to respect, Rose hefted her cereal box and turned it to face the table, knocking on the wood to draw attention. Jaune's sisters stared, and Pyrrha felt the blood drain from her face, before she buried it in her arms.
Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes, with star fighter Pyrrha Nikos posing on the front.
Silence reigned over breakfast. Pyrrha wanted to run away until her feet bled.
Marron broke the silence, eventually: "Sooo, how successful was that tournament career of yours, Pyrrha?"
"I should have seen this coming, I knew we usually had Pumpkin Pete's!" Jaune chided himself silently, watching his partner raise her head quickly from the table. She looked about as embarrassed as Jaune felt.
"Actually, Pyrrha doesn't really like talking about her fighting career, so if we could…?" he gave his mother a look he hoped manage to capture the message "Can we please move on to another topic before my friend dies of mortification?" Amazingly, Claire seemed to catch the message, and gave Rose a pointed look until his sister reversed the offending box. Jaune felt Pyrrha's knee bump his in thanks, and he struggled to think of something to keep the attention off her. "Ding!"
"So, guess who wore their onesie at Beacon?"
His entire family stared at him slack jawed. It was as if he just declared his intentions to become the Prince of the Grimm. "Humiliate myself in defense of my team, the classic Jaune plan!" Rouge cracked first.
"Jaune, please tell me you didn't. Please tell me my big brother is playing some sick joke on us." He shook his head solemnly, and she buried her face in her hands. "I can never visit Beacon now, never. They might think I'm you." Noire, Verte, and Rose started to laugh lightly, but Rogue and Marron were just the right age to feel humiliated by proxy.
"Why did you even pack that?" Marron accused. "What made that seem like even a remotely cool idea, Jaune?"
Ren coughed, and for a moment Jaune thought his adopted brother was going to rescue him.
"Jaune also wore a dress to the Beacon Dance." Verte was practically falling over laughing. Rose did fall over laughing.
"Vale! I can never visit Vale now; they would absolutely think I'm you." Rouge griped, strangling the air between them.
Eventually, his family recovered, and breakfast continued on, with JNPR telling his family about the less dangerous parts of Beacon. Verte and Rose were absolutely enamored by Nora's stories, and she even made Professor Port sound interesting. Rouge and Marron decided that a full inquiry into embarrassing things Jaune did was necessary, while Noire and Violette very unsubtly grilled his team for information about what he had been up to, if he'd been in any trouble. In a show of solidarity, no one brought up Cardin, and the worst things to come out were Jaune's low combat scores.
Then Nora brought up Weiss.
His family sat, entranced, as Nora ran them through an incredibly precise history of all Jaune's attempts to ask out Weiss, periodically checking Ren to make sure Nora was on the straight and narrow. She was.
"After he finished the song, Weiss said 'No' and just shut the door on him!" Vi rolled her eyes, Rouge and Marron started laughing.
Jaune wasn't sure where, but he knew they would never find Ren & Nora's bodies.
He'd have Pyrrha help, it'd be a bonding experience.
Post: I do wish that I could select three tags, because comedy is just as important as drama in this story, even if it is ultimately an Arkos tale. I worry it could be a little too jarring shifting from something like Jaune's talk with Vi to less serious matters like breakfast, but I've always enjoyed an up-and-down emotional flow. Props to the reader who saw Pumpkin Pete's coming, that was a scene I've been dying to write; the brave hero nobly throws himself to the wolves to save the damsel in distress!