Jaune sighed, his head currently resting on his arm, sitting with his team and Team RWBY in the cafeteria for lunch. Nora was going on about some recurring dream of hers, Ren chiming in with corrections on the details she'd originally told the team. His eyes slowly closed, Jaune tempted to get a small nap in while he had the time. The last two weeks had been harder on him than any other time in his life, now that he was participating in late night training two to three times a week with the teaching assistants. At least it was helping bump his combat course grade a bit, even if some nights, he considered trying to ditch again. In all honesty, he just hadn't been brave enough to try it after the first time. Feeling a nudge, he sat up, yawning. "Huh?" he asked, looking at his partner.

"Jaune, are you okay?" Pyrrha asked, looking at him with concern.

He noted both teams had gotten quiet, all of them looking at him, while he shrugged, giving a tired smile. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

"You don't seem okay," Ruby answered. "And you seem tired."

Jaune once again shrugged, shaking his head. "I'm just...adjusting to the training still. Getting homework done is a little more harrowing now, but not too bad."

"And Cardin picking on you since the first week of school isn't helping that, I'm sure," Pyrrha noted with a frown. Said tormenter, in fact, was loudly laughing, him and his team currently sitting around Velvet Scarlatina just a bit away.

Jaune gave a rather forced laugh, dismissing Pyrrha's statement with a wave. "Nah, he's not picking on me, he just likes to mess with people, is all. You know, practical jokes." With that forced laugh came a forced smile.

"He's a bully, Jaune," Ruby said, frowning at Jaune. "There've been lots of times he's picked on you. Like the rocket-locker."

"Hey, now, I didn't land all that far from the school!" Jaune defended. "In fact, I even managed to make it back on my own." This, he said with a bit of pride, for some reason. "That extra credit Mr. Max and Mr. Winchester managed to set up for me has...well, it's been more helpful than I'd thought. If a bit painful." Jaune stood up with his now empty tray, planning to drop it off at the bin. "And as for Cardin, well...it's not like I'm the only person he's a jerk to."

"Ow, that hurts!" The teams' attention was now drawn back to Velvet and Cardin, the latter currently gripping one of Velvet's rabbit ears and pulling on it. There were looks of disgust from JNPR and RWBY, while Jaune felt his hands tightening on the edges of his tray.

"See, told you they were real," Cardin laughed, giving the ear a yank.

"What a freak!" Russel exclaimed, holding his stomach as he laughed.

THWAP

The sound of hand meeting shoulder silenced the laughter. Cardin turned his head with a sneer to see Max standing behind him, smiling down at the young man. "Thank you so very much, Cardin, for volunteering your time and your team's time to keep me, Atin, and Ms. Goodwitch company in detention for the next week," Max said, while Cardin slowly let Velvet's ear go. "Ms. Goodwitch has been oh so very bored to tears, of late. This may just help her perk up a bit." Velvet stepped away, while Cardin stood up, a nervous smile on his face.

"Oh, Mr. Force. We were just pallin' around, nothing harmful," Cardin spoke, his hands animated as he tried explaining the situation he and his team had been caught red-handed in.

"I mean, the video seems to speak otherwise." Atin walked in from the kitchen where he had been recording the incident, knowing Max would break up the fight before one could get started.

"In fact, it's looking to me like you harassed an innocent Faunus over her ears. Now is that what it looked like to anyone else?" He looked around, hoping a member of team CRDL would be dumb enough to speak up. Regrettably they were not.

"Well, if you boys will just follow us, we'll go ahead and get you nice and comfy in Ms. Goodwitch's office to get your discipline squared away," Max commented, turning around and motioning for the team over his shoulder. Behind him, Cardin was scowling, but he followed nonetheless.

Atin fell in behind team CRDL, making sure none of them tried to slip away. "You boys should be excited. You get to try something new! During your detention, you will experience the new mandatory racial sensitivity training."

Weiss gave a brief snort, "Well, it seems those two can be useful for something besides cookies and translating."

Max strode into Goodwitch's office, tempted to just leave them there, and explain why the resident teacher assistants had just dragged them in. "Ms. Goodwitch, afternoon. I have here four bullies, ready for detention. They were harassing a second year, Velvet Scarlatina, yanking on one of her ears and I believe the word 'freak' was thrown out there, as well," Max said once Goodwitch had turned her attention towards him. That attention was now on Team CRDL, her eyes narrowed. "Atin and I just happened to be in the cafeteria at the time and Atin was collected enough to record the incident while I went in to break it up."

Atin hit the play button on his scroll, tossing onto the desk, opting to remain silent and let the evidence speak for itself, literally in this case. The members of team CRDL began to look more nervous as Goodwitch simply watched the short video, a small frown turning down the corners of her face.

Goodwitch handed Atin his scroll back, then stood up. "Well, it's a good thing we have free seats then," she said, walking over to her door and opening it. "Mr. Force, Mr. Winchester, I believe I can handle things from here. Thank you for bringing this incident to my attention."

Atin left the room, gesturing for Max to follow him out. "Ya know, I almost feel bad about this. Almost. I only wish that I could break their knees. Or maybe give them cement overshoes. That would slow them down for a while." Atin turned the corner, shaking his head.

Max snorted, clearly amused. "I just hope this doesn't make things worse," he replied. "There's a good chance this could make things harder on Jaune. Or maybe Cardin just isn't so easily deterred. We won't really know until it happens. Least we finally got that oh so vaunted proof we would have needed back home."

"Justice is served. Besides, now the other teacher's will be keeping an eye on it as well. And we probably won't need anything other than the word of a few students next time we want to nail them to the wall, so that's always nice. Anyway, I have to go play translator for Oobleck. See ya later." Atin began heading off not wanting to be late.

"Yeah, you have fun with that. I get to go check the cages for Port. Whoopee, I guess."

While Max went the other way, Atin continued on to Oobleck's room getting the scroll ready to record so that he could print out the lecture notes for the ungrateful little monsters. They had completely ignored the tip jar, thinking it was another of his 'jokes'.

"Yes! Yes, prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution-more popularly known as the Faunus War-"Oobleck began to lecture the students on the importance of remembering history, especially recent history.

Oh look, Jaune is taking yet another nap. Maybe I should ask Qrow to take it little easier on the kid, extra combat training won't do any good if he fails out of the normal classes. Atin continued looking over the class, knowing that Oobleck would deal with any sleeping in his own time. Wait a minute. This feels familiar. Cardin should be a dick right about…now.

As if on cue, Cardin flicked something at Jaune's head, an unpleasant smirk on his face.

Shit, that's moving pretty quick. He must have really chucked that thing. Hang on, is that an eraser he threw? That asshole, those things really hurt. Wish I could have done something to stop it, but I'm not fast enough to even try stopping him.

"OW!" Jaune snapped awake, rubbing the back of his head, turning to glare at Cardin.

"Is there a problem Mr Arc?" Oobleck once again seemingly teleported around the room, appearing in front of Jaune's desk.

"Uhhhhh, no sir. No problems." Jaune looked warily at Oobleck, hoping that was the end of it.

"Then maybe you could finally try contributing to class! Tell me, what was the key advantage the Faunus had over General Lagune and his disastrous assault?" You could practically feel Ooblecks glare at the less than model student.

"Sure thing…the uh…advantage that he had over the Faunus was..." Jaune looked frantically around the room, hoping for some help from a classmate. Pyrrha quickly cupped her hands over her eyes, hoping he would get the message.

I'm pretty sure the answer is night vision, but I have no idea how Jaune is supposed to get that from what Pyrrha is doing. I could help him, but that would be way too obvious to the students and Oobleck. Sorry Jaune, but main character status won't help you this time. Atin simply stayed seated, knowing there was nothing he could do at the moment to help the boy out.

"The answer is…binoculars! Yeah, they had binoculars!" Jaune did his best to seem confident in the answer. Pyrrha slumped in her seat and slapped a hand over her face.

"No Mr. Arc, that is not correct. Perhaps if you paid a little more attention, you might know the answer. Cardin, you seem to be having quite the chuckle there, so surely you know the correct answer!" Oobleck sipped his coffee, waiting for answer.

"Well I know it's a lot easier to train an animal than a soldier," Cardin sneered from his seat in the middle of the class.

"Cardin, you've been warned about remarks like that once today, clearly your current punishment isn't enough. I'll be speaking to Miss Goodwitch about adding another week of detention to your current slate, in addition to whatever the Professor deems necessary." Atin finally spoke, glad to be able to keep things from going any farther.

"Cardin, see me after class. We will be having a discussion about your behavior in my class. Now, moving on!" Oobleck continued to sip his coffee, moving on with the rest of the Faunus War.

Jaune looked over the edge of the roof. "Hey, Pyr, I know I've complained a bit about being stressed out lately and I'm starting to feel depressed, but, uh...I'm really not feeling that depressed…" he said, rubbing the back of his head. Pyrrha had dragged him up to the roof after class for some as yet unknown reason.

Pyrrha looked at him, confused for a second, before suddenly gasping and yanking him away from the edge. "Jaune! That is not why I brought you up here!" she exclaimed, looking flustered. After another second, she calmed down, clearing her throat. "I know that you're already doing training with Mr. Max and Mr. Winchester...but, I'd like to help train you here on days you aren't doing that extra credit! I can help you with learning how to use your sword and shield!"

Jaune looked at his partner before looking down. "You think I need that much help?"

"No! No, that's not what I meant, Jaune."

Jaune looked up at her, looking hurt. "But you just said as much."

Pyrrha's hands fidgeted, her eyes looking at Jaune's. "Everyone needs a push from time to time, Jaune. That doesn't make you different from anyone else. The fact that you made it into Beacon speaks volumes of your capabilities!"

Jaune turned away, his voice lowering slightly. "No, Pyrrha. It doesn't. I don't belong here."

"That's a terrible thing to say, Jaune! Of course you do!"

Jaune's hand clenched into a fist briefly, before he turned around. "No, Pyrrha, I don't! I lied! I don't belong here, because I never earned my way here! I didn't go to combat school, I didn't pass any tests. I got my hands on fake transcripts and lied my way into this school and somehow lucked my way through initiation!"

Pyrrha looked sincerely confused now. "J-jaune?"

"All of this...all I ever wanted, Pyrrha, was to be a Huntsman." Jaune turned back to stare out at the campus. "My father, my grandfather, and his father before were warriors, heroes! I wanted to be that, too, but I was just...I was never good enough…"

Pyrrha walked closer to Jaune, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Then, please, let me help!"

Jaune shrugged her hand off. "I don't want any more help, Pyrrha. I'm tired of being the lovable idiot, always in distress, I want to be the hero, just once! I'm already doing that extra credit crap, but that seems more like an excuse to just have someone else beaten up other than Mr. Max and Mr. Winchester!" He kept his back turned to her, letting out a heavy sigh. "I just...Pyrrha, just leave me alone...alright?"

"If that's...really what you want, Jaune…"

He listened to her footsteps grow softer. He turned to look at the door once he heard it shut. He snapped back to the ledge when he heard a low chuckle and saw Russel hanging on the ledge. "Well, what a surprise!" Russel said. He held up his scroll in one hand, waving it a bit. "Bet Cardin'll get a kick out of that little convo. I'm sure he'll have lots to talk to you about tomorrow, Jaune." As Russel disappeared from sight, Jaune felt his stomach start to twist with dread.