"Yo, where's Vomit Boy?"

Another week of combat class was in the books. Team SJBY had posted a 3-1 record this time, capped off by Yang's comeback victory against Nora. Down to the yellow, she'd landed a complex sequence of grapples and smashes right out of a fighting game to take the other girl from zero-to-death...er, 60%-to-red. As for their one loss, well at least Jaune was making progress! He had dodged most of Russel's attacks, and even managed to score a hit or two before going down. Yes, this had been their best week as a team, not that it was saying much. It would be better if Jaune would show his face soon, so they could head to lunch. Fighting made a girl hungry, and cheeseburgers were on the menu today. But five minutes after class ended, Yang's fellow blond was nowhere to be seen.

"I saw him in the locker room." Sable informed them. "Probably taking his time in the shower. I don't think even he could possibly get lost in there!"

There was a distant rumbling sound, much like Bumblebee's engine revving up. Through the window, they saw a locker shoot out of the boys' locker room and vanish into the sky. The SBY of the team shared mutual looks of disbelief. No. He could not have just...how was that even possible...

"I'll call him..." Yang said weakly, digging her Scroll out. She barely processed the sight of Cardin Winchester coming from the direction of the lockers, passing by them with a satisfied grin.

"Uh...hi guys...blaaarrrgh..." The sight of Jaune's shaky, poorly lit face greeted them, before he opened his mouth and the screen turned a sickly greenish-yellow.

"What the hell?!" Yang nearly tossed her Scroll out the window on pure instinct. Blake and Sable looked equally disgusted. She hastily turned off the video feed. "Where are you, Vomit Boy? Don't tell me you're in that locker that just launched!"

"Yeah...that was me..." groaned Jaune, voice somewhat muffled. "Let's just say, some stuff happened...not sure where it's going..."

"So you got shut into your own locker, and launched somewhere random?" Blake sounded amazed. "How?"

"Uh...I guess I'm just clumsy like that...heh..."

"You can't expect us to believe that! The launch controls are on the outside, you cretin!" Sable yelled into the Scroll. "Either someone did this to you, in which case I'm going to kill them, or you did on purpose, in which case I'll kill you—"

"Look, uh—AAAH! IT'S GOING DOWN! I'M GONNA DIE! AAAAHHH! AAAAAHHH! GODS, FORGIVE ME! I DON'T WANNA GO TO HELL FOR FA—" A loud crashing sound came through the call. "—iling my Grimm Studies quiz...whew..."

No one knew what to say to that. Blake and Sable's faces both showed grave disappointment. Admittedly, it hadn't exactly been the most dignified response to imminent death, especially for a Huntsman-in-training. Yang thought it was kind of cute how his grades were what he worried about in his possible final moments, though. What a good little Vomit Boy he was.

"Great, you're alive." she finally said. "Send us your location and we'll come save your butt, all right?"

Of all the places in the city he could have landed, it had to be the Vale Municipal Dump. Jaune's locker sat in a crater of its own making, half-buried in garbage. The stench was enough to make Yang gag from twenty feet away. This was what they were missing lunch for? Though at this point, she'd thoroughly lost her appetite.

"Are we...are we just going to go in?" Yang wanted to hurl at the mere thought. She managed to hold it in, though. It wouldn't do to get tagged with the nickname 'Vomit Girl'.

"No! Absolutely not!" Sable stared at the trash heap for a moment, then flicked his sword. A wide bridge of ice formed over the landfill, and the three of them carefully walked onto it. Very carefully. Yang did not want to imagine falling into the mess. She'd probably need to take a bath in hand sanitizer and burn her outfit along with several layers of skin to ever feel clean again. Soon enough they had reached the locker. Their leader said something to Blake, and Blake threw her ribbon out like a lasso, wrapping the locker tightly. All of them helped pull, and the locker rose out of the garbage, tipping over onto the ice.

"Ahh! Not the crusher!" someone screamed from inside.

"Calm down, it's us!" Yang reassured him. "Can't you...like, cut your way out of there?"

"I tried! This thing's tough!" Jaune admitted. "Let me out? Please? The combo's four...twenty...sixty-nine..." he finished in an embarrassed tone. Well, their lockers were meant to keep their belongings safe in a Huntsman school, so presumably they were made of tough stuff. That, or Jaune didn't have enough strength in those noodle arms of his. Probably both.

"Blake, can you have one of your clones open it?" Sable asked, sounding almost nervous. Oh gods, Yang did not want to think about what foulness might lie within that metal coffin.

Blake shook her head. "My Semblance is mainly for evasion. The clones can't really act on their own." She too stared at the locker apprehensively, nose wrinkled.

"Fine, I'll do it myself! I'm not a coward!" Gritting his teeth, Sable rolled up the sleeves of his suit jacket and climbed onto the side of the locker. Yang had never been prouder of their leader than that very moment. Click-click-click! The locker door popped open. A new, nauseous smell filled the air, adding to the stench of garbage already there.

"Holy crap! The sun! Freedom!" Jaune babbled, kissing the ice bridge in gratitude.

"Stay away from us!" Sable retreated to a safe distance. "And we are going to have words about how you ended up here, believe me!"

"Mmph..." Jaune did not reply, for his lips had frozen to the ice.

"Ahh! I'm so sorry!" Ruby's forehead crashed against the table repeatedly. "I knew Cardin had it out for you, and I should have said something and then maybe you wouldn't have thrown up again and gotten sent to the landfill and oh gods I'm such a bad friend, no wonder I didn't have any back at Signal—"

"Ruby, it's not your fault." Jaune said gently. "I mean, I did kind of beg you not to tell anyone."

"Live and learn Rubes, live and learn." Yang said sagely. "Thing about friendship is, sometimes you gotta do what's best for someone, even if they don't like it. Like this!" She snatched several cookies off Ruby's plate and replaced them with a helping of her own salad. Ruby pouted. Yang turned back to her team. "Anyways, I think we should put something in his bed. An offer he can't refuse, like in that one movie! Except I don't really want to chop off a horse's head, so maybe a dead fish?"

"How is giving him free fish going to solve anything?" Blake was perplexed. Yang cast a look at her partner's tuna-laden plate.

"Only you would be happy about finding a fish in your bed, I swear."

"We could blow him up in Dust Studies!" Sable suggested. "I doubt that moron can tell the difference between Earth and Fire Dust."

The target of their increasing violent ideas was a certain orange-headed, bird-themed jackass. After they returned to Beacon, Jaune had cracked like an egg under the tortures of the Schnee Inquisition. Sable had harangued him for being so lacking in dignity that he would let some jerk push him around for weeks without sticking up for himself (the irony of that statement was apparently lost on him). That done, they'd moved on to formulating revenge plots at the dinner table. Team RRWN and Pyrrha watched with slight alarm. It was nice to see the often fractious team not trying to kill each other, but mildly concerning that they might be trying to kill someone else instead.

Nora, however, was not alarmed in the slightest. "I know!" she said, in a helpful tone of voice. "You should break his legs!"

"That's...a bit direct, but it'd definitely send a message." Sable looked thoughtful. "Of course, we'd have to deplete his Aura first, but that shouldn't be too difficult given the difference in skill; the real difficulty would be hiding it from the teachers since the noise and subsequent screaming would be quite noticeable..."

"Is bodily harm your answer to everything, you brute? You'd be expelled for that!" said Weiss. "Just go through the official channels, won't you? I checked and forcibly launching someone in a rocket locker is definitely against the rules, it's covered under 'Misuse of School Property'—"

Yang scoffed at that. "Don't be such a wet blanket, Weiss-cube! I dunno what Atlas was like, but the teachers aren't going to babysit us. At least that's how Signal was. You want to be a Huntress, you learn to handle this stuff on your own!"

"Um...do we really have to get back at him?" Jaune piped up. "I mean, I feel like I should get a say, since, you know, it's my honor you're trying to avenge and all. I don't think it's worth you getting in trouble over..."

Blake shook her head. "We can't just do nothing. What if he'd launched you into the middle of the Emerald Forest? You could've been badly hurt. Or worse. Though I don't think violence is the answer here. I say we start by delivering a strongly worded letter, or protesting outside his door..." she started muttering. "...if that doesn't work we can escalate to minor nonviolent acts of theft or sabotage...and then we nonviolently bomb his...uh..." Blake abruptly stopped talking, and took great interest in her sandwich.

"All right, that's, um, pretty imaginative." said Yang awkwardly. "But we're trying to help out Vomit Boy here, not, y'know, start a terrorist organization?"

"Besides that, it's not about your honor, it's the whole team's!" Sable said firmly. "If someone messes with us and gets away with it, what's that say about the team, hm? And it's been going on since the first week! Winchester probably thinks we're a bunch of—"

"Losers and freaks, the lot of you!" Everyone's heads snapped over to the source of that shout, where a rabbit faunus girl was getting her ears yanked by the Winchester in question. His three lackeys stood by, laughing in a stereotypically sycophantic manner.

"Where's her team? Don't they care that they're being insulted?" Sable turned to his partner. "You want be like that rabbit girl, Jaune? Letting him pull on your—"

"She probably doesn't want to make it worse by fighting back!" Blake said with surprising heat. "It's not as if being attacked by a faunus would improve his opinion of them."

"Well, that's stupid!" Sable pounded the table for emphasis. "I know his type, and that whole turn-the-other-cheek, pacifistic schtick doesn't work on them! They're like animals, you've got to put them in their place first before they learn to respect you!"

Nora pumped her fist, an eerie grin on her face. "YEAH! You'll break him! Ooh, and then he can be the team pet and you can teach him to sit, and fetch, and use the litter box!"

At those pronouncements, the whole table fell into uncomfortable silence. Blake seemed particularly disturbed, her face turning several interesting shades of gray. Weiss merely sighed and muttered something about edgy teens.

"Well then." Pyrrha coughed, breaking the silence. "I presume you've already asked Cardin to stop, then? And he refused?"

"Oh." Yang blinked in realization. "Uh, whoops?"

"Oi, Winchester!"

Cardin scowled as he spotted the black-and-yellow team heading his way. Pretty Boy and Blondie in the lead, Bow Girl and the weakling trailing behind. Team Strawberry. What a wussy name, a Huntsman team named after a fruit. Not one of them wore red either.

"What do you want?" He'd been hoping to kick back for a few minutes before Oobleck's class, but seemed like that was out. What a pain in the ass. Russell, Dove and Sky moved to stand behind him, like the good little minions they were.

"Leave my partner alone." Schnee said bluntly. "I don't know what your problem is, but you're declaring war on the wrong team."

So Jauney-boy had finally snitched, huh? What a shame. It'd been such good sport, tripping and poking the idiot behind his team's back and watching him squirm. Considering how his leader normally treated him, Cardin honestly couldn't say whether it was cowardly or surprisingly brave of him. Maybe it was the locker incident that did it? Okay, that had admittedly been...quite an escalation from the usual, but the guy was practically asking for it, gawking in front of his empty locker like that. It was a proud family tradition, for gods' sake. If there was a locker, it was a Winchester's job to shove a nerd into it!

"Not at all!" Cardin said with a faux-friendly smile. "Just toughening up Jauney-boy for you, you know? I feel for you, really, having a weakling like that on the team!" He decided to twist the knife a bit more. "Thought you'd appreciate the help. You're probably busy, figuring how out to beat that little girl next time!"

"That little girl is my sister!" Yang Xiao Long jabbed a finger into Cardin's chest. "Ruby would wipe the floor with any of you punks!"

"And you think we want your help? With our skills, we're perfectly capable of toughening him up ourselves." Pretty Boy sneered at him. "Why don't you worry more about the four weaklings on your team?"

"What's that supposed to mean, huh?!" Cardin yelled. Like hell he was going to let some ponce say that about Team CRDL. His team was the one everyone was afraid of! Even that carrot-eating, long-eared freak didn't dare hit back, and she was a second year.

"Hey, we aren't weak!" Sky blurted out.

"Shut your mouth, Lark!" Schnee roared. Sky flinched and fell silent. Dammit Sky, stay in line! Useless bastard crumbled like tissue paper whenever he tried to do anything without Cardin backing him up. At least he knew how to follow orders and not give any lip. "See, that's what I mean! You're a bunch of second-rate Huntsmen and you always will be. Nothing but a step for someone better to climb over!"

"You're a bully, Cardin." Blake Belladonna stepped forwards. Unlike her teammates, her voice remained as calm as ever, but something about her eyes made him take a half-step back. "Only good at hitting people too nice, or too scared to fight back. And I warn you, we aren't."

"Tell him, Blake!" Xiao Long added, cracking her knuckles. "Leave Jaune alone, you hear? Or they'll be calling you Lose-chester when we're done with you!"

"Yang, that was terrible..."

Cardin clenched his fists. So Jauney-boy was going to hide behind his teammates now, was he? Much as he wanted to give them a piece of his mind (said 'piece' being a whack to the head with his mace), he wasn't delusional. He'd seen everyone fight in combat class, after all. "Tch. Whatever. Less work for me." he gritted out.

The Schnee looked smug. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it? I suppose you're smarter than you look."

"Later, Cardy-boy!" Xiao Long gave him a mocking little wave. Team SJBY took their seats, as the class bell rang.

Cardin seethed. No one talked to him like that and got away with it. Team CRDL's honor would be avenged, no matter what.

"Urgh..." Done repainting the red leaves of Forever Fall with his vomit, Jaune stood up and wiped his mouth. Very carefully, Blake handed a him a bottle of water, and he gratefully rid himself of the aftertaste.

"Holy crap, we were only on the airship for ten minutes!" Yang said, half amazed and half disgusted. "Icy-Hot, does your company happen to make pills for that?"

"I'll order some when we get back, this is getting ridiculous." said Sable. "Imagine if we drop into some settlement under siege, and Jaune just pukes on the Grimm?"

Jaune sighed. Well, there was another thing that had to be done just for him. Objectively speaking, things had turned around for him the last few weeks. Cardin hadn't laid so much as a finger on him after the team's little intervention, content to merely glower at him when he passed by. Insulting and threatening him had apparently been an effective tactic, if somewhat less than heroic. His training was going smoother than before; it only left him feeling half-dead half the time. In his last spar, he'd actually brought Sky Lark into yellow Aura before going down!

But gods, was a moderate defeat against the second-weakest student of the year really something to be proud of? He wanted to go back in time and punch his younger self (only a few months younger, but it felt like a lifetime) in the face. There was a saying about stupid people being too stupid to understand how stupid they really were, and gods damn it, that had been him. In hindsight, that 'Noob to Huntsman in 6 weeks! Combat Schools hate it!' video series he'd ordered? Probably a scam. At least their current assignment was simple enough. He couldn't mess up with poking holes in trees and filling jars. Right?

Pyrrha followed Teams RRWN and SJBY over to a dense clump of trees. Hefting her spear, she made a surgically precise hole in a promising looking trunk. Red sap dripped out, like blood from a mortal wound—goodness, that was morbid. Where had that even come from? Looking around, she saw Ren pass Nora a filled jar, having neatly pierced his tree with one of Stormflower's twin blades. Well, she supposed it made sense for Ren to help his friend. A hammer and grenades were not exactly suited for this job, as she doubted Professor Goodwitch would be pleased if they obliterated the forest. The others cut their trees open with their various edged weapons, or in Yang Xiao Long's case blasted a hole in it with her shotguns.

"Nora." Ren sounded annoyed. Nora was now holding a suspiciously empty jar, her face smeared with sticky red stuff. Pyrrha smiled. That was typical Nora for you. The fact that she could say that of another person...her friend...had been a pipe dream mere months ago. Gods bless Ruby for that lunch invitation. If only Pyrrha had met her before initiation, she could've stuck a spear through the girl's hood and claimed her for a partner—

"Nora!" Weiss joined in. "Professor Peach is relying on us to collect this sap, you can't just drink it! And that hasn't even been pasteurized yet, you could catch some horrific, tree-transmitted illness!" Well, maybe not, it would be a bit mean to leave Weiss on her own. Despite the failed recruitment attempt at initiation, the heiress had been nothing but respectful to her. Perhaps a bit too respectful, still. At least she hadn't tried any more cringeworthy pick-up lines.

"Don't be a party pooper..." Nora giggled dreamily. "You should try some, Weiss! Better than pancake syrup!"

"No, I'm..." Weiss gasped in shock. "Nora, you got my name right!"

"I did? YES! I DID IT! Man, it's hard telling twins apart!"

"Um, that's only supposed to be for identical twins?" Pyrrha ventured. Friend though she might be, Nora's mind remained a puzzle in many regards. "Which...they're not."

"Not on the outside! But who knows which one's wearing her skin?" Nora stared creepily at Weiss. "I swear it's all in the eyes...I'm gonna need more sap for this."

"Don't eat any of ours until we have four jars, alright?" Ruby put her leader foot down. None of them wanted to think too hard about the other thing Nora had said. "After that you can have as many jars as you want.."

"None of ours, huh?"

"Nope! Not it!" Pyrrha's jar shot into the sky, a black glow surrounding the lid, and landed at the top of her tree.

"Aww..." Nora stalked towards the other side of the grove, where the other team was gathered. The four of them seemed a bit unnerved by the sheer hunger in her gaze. "Back, you beast!" Sable brandished his sword threateningly. "Team SJBY, tactical retreat!"

"Whew." Yang wiped her forehead, the distant cries of 'SAP!' finally fading away. "I think we're safe!"

"Just got to wait until 4 o'clock then?" Jaune put his sap down, thinking that the whole mission had gone quite well. He'd gotten a jar on his own, only made a fool of himself once, and not a Grimm to be seen! Maybe successfully filling a jar with sticky red stuff was a bit of a low bar, but hey, baby steps. In hindsight, he really shouldn't have tempted fate like that.

Their only warning was the faint whoosh of something flying through the air; a moment later there was the sound of shattering glass and his teammates yelling in surprise. Something heavy hit him from behind and made him stumble. Jaune whirled around to meet a sight straight out of a slasher film. One of Blake's clones was fading, coated head to toe in some red substance. Sable's white cravat and lower face were dyed red, making him resemble a vampire with poor table manners. Yang looked as if someone had dumped a bucket of blood over her head; her normally blonde hair now matched Pyrrha's in shade, and red rivulets ran down her face. Even her eyes had turned red...wait a minute...

A moment after that, something hit him in the face and his vision turned red. He could feel his skin and eyes burning, a sickly sweetness filling his nostrils and forcing its way into his mouth and down his throat...gods, that was sap, the same stuff they'd been collecting. How Nora could willingly eat that stuff was beyond him. As he desperately wiped his eyes clear, Yang let out a wordless scream of fury that left his ears ringing.

"WINCHESTER!" Sable bellowed. "You and your friends are dead! TEAM SJBY, ATTACK!"

The team charged in the direction their leader pointed, up a grassy ridge towards four familiar figures standing at its top. Yang was already a third of the way up. More jars sailed down at them. A hail of bullets and ice shards intercepted the sticky missiles in mid-air, and the bursting sap cast an eerie red glow over the battlefield. One load of red poison headed right for Jaune's face, but he was able to save himself by bringing up Crocea Mors just in time. Holy crap, how much sap did they have? The quiet of Forever Fall was shattered by the sounds of gunfire, breaking glass, and people screaming. Jaune screamed along with them. As strange and terrifying as it all was, gods did he feel alive! Was this what the War had been like for his ancestor? He pictured Louis Arc assaulting some hilltop fortress at the head of an army, carrying the very same sword and shield, and bombs exploding all around.

With Yang threatening to overrun CRDL's position, Cardin shouted something to Russel. The mohawked boy, looking rather petrified, fumbled a small cardboard box open. A horrid buzzing filled the air. Jaune recoiled as some of the biggest wasps he'd ever seen came pouring out.

"BUGS WON'T SAVE YOU!" Yang roared. Behind her, Sable raised his sword. Most of the swarm disintegrated in a pillar of fire. Jaune's heart nearly stopped when the survivors made a beeline (no pun intended) for him, cruel stingers aimed right at his face. Gunshots rang out and the wasps were shredded, wings and legs flying everywhere. He gave Blake a grateful smile.

Their defenses failing, CRDL turned tail and abandoned the ridge. "Damn cowards!" Yang shouted after them. "Come back and take your beating!"

"Yang!" A yellow glyph shaped like a clock's face formed under the girl. Sable gave her a nasty smile. "Get them."

Two minutes later, the Battle of Forever Fall ended in explosions and even more screaming.

"I warned you not to declare war on the wrong team!" Sable gave Cardin's prone form a kick. The forest around them was a picture of carnage, littered with splintered, burning tree trunks and dazed bullies. "Seems like you're too stupid to understand that, so we'll just have to send a stronger message this time."

Jaune's blood ran cold when his leader pointed his sword at a very sensitive part of Cardin's anatomy. "Sable, no! Don't do it!" He tried to push the sword down. "It's not worth it!"

"What do you—hey, I wasn't going to castrate him! What do you take me for?" Sable looked indignant, while Cardin sagged in relief. "Just teach him a little lesson." Red powder streamed from the sword's Dust chambers, floating lazily through the air, and then it ignited. Cardin yelled in shock as his crotch caught on fire. "OH MY GODS!" Jaune cried out. "That's too much!" Blake looked on, her eyes wide.

"He'll be fine Vomit Boy, he's got Aura!" Yang watched with a savage grin on her face to match her red eyes. "That'll teach him to leave. The. Hair. Alone."

"GRRRRR..."

"Big Ursa!" Russel sounded panicked. He, Dove and Sky attempted to drag themselves in the opposite direction, despite their Yang-induced concussions. Jaune took a deep breath and raised his shield, placing himself between the bear Grimm and his teammates. The Ursa roared, bringing up one massive paw as Jaune braced himself. He mentally went over his stance, tightened his grip on his sword and shield, planned out his counterattack...I can do this, I can do this...

"I got you, Vomit Boy!" The Ursa's paw was deflected to one side with a crunching sound. Another blow from Yang's fiery fist, and the giant bear's head exploded. "No need to thank me!"

"Well, I think we're done here." Sable addressed Cardin, who was still on the ground, merely smoldering now. "A shame, what that Ursa did to your team. Good thing we were here to save you, wasn't it?" Cardin nodded frantically. "There won't be any more problems between us, will there?"

"No trouble! I...I promise..." Cardin said shakily. Satisfied, Sable turned away. Yang came up, eyes back to purple, and slung an arm around her leader's shoulders.

"Well, things got a bit sticky there, didn't they? That speed glyph came in clutch!" She ran a hand through her matted hair and grimaced. "Ugh, this crap is going to take forever to wash out. At least there's no need to worry about that jerk ever again, eh Icy-Hot?" The hot-tempered pair left the battlefield, a spring in their step despite the mess they were covered in. Blake followed, silent and seemingly lost in thought.

Jaune lingered behind, staring down at Cardin's pale and frightened face. It was hard to believe he'd ever been scared of that boy. The bully looked like such a nervous wreck that Jaune just felt sorry for him. And it was all Jaune's fault, wasn't it? If he hadn't been too scared to stick up for himself, his team wouldn't have had to stand up for him and Cardin wouldn't have had a reason to throw sap at them and...it made him feel sick to his stomach.

Wait a minute, that wasn't the guilt. The sap he'd swallowed on accident wasn't sitting right with him, and his face itched something crazy. Gods, was he allergic to the stuff or something?

"Hrrrrk..." Jaune bent over, and threw up. Again.

Cardin screamed.

Ah yes, the old "make the asshole more likeable by having him fight a worse asshole" plot device. Except I'm not entirely sure Cardin is the worse person between the two...at this point, I kind of feel for the guy, not as a person but as a character. In canon and about 90% of fanfics (this one included) he's really nothing but a step for the protagonists to climb over.

Hopefully Yang going along with it all didn't seem OOC. Girl gets vicious where her hair is concerned.