Ah, we had our first shipping-related reviews. I was wondering when that might happen. Detailed reply after the chapter, since no one wants to read a giant A/N before the story.
"You've had quite the eventful weekend, haven't you?" Ozpin peered over his spectacles at the four problem children. "Hundreds of thousands of Lien in damage to the Vale docks. At last count, no fewer than fifty-seven casualties, a dozen of them fatal." He paused to let that factoid sink in. "That is not to say you were wrong to defend yourselves and your friends, or to try and bring a criminal to justice. Such is our duty as Huntsmen, and loss of life is sometimes unavoidable. Nonetheless...I hope you all understand the gravity of what happened tonight."
Jaune looked horrified. The poor boy had had a baptism of fire, but Ozpin believed he would come out the stronger for it. His ancestor, after all, had been thrown from the life of a simple farm boy into the fires of the Great War, and gone on to be one of the heroes of the age. Blake stared at her lap. The reincarnate had some idea of what she was feeling. He knew what it was like to fight your former comrades; he'd been battling one such person for millennia now. Yang mostly kept her composure, though her expression still turned rather grim. He credited Taiyang and Summer for that. Raven wouldn't have cared at all, merely dismissed it with her usual survival-of-the-fittest schtick. Sable only clenched his jaw. A harsh young man, that one, or at least he played the part. Ozpin was vaguely reminded of a young James Ironwood, though James had never had such a temper.
"Professor, I take full responsibility for this." Blake said softly. "If I hadn't been...overcome with emotion and rushed in, none of this would have happened. The others, they only joined in to save me." She gestured at her teammates. "I will take any punishment you see fit."
"You can't expel her!" Sable said sharply. "Yes, Blake was somewhat reckless, and it's a shame about the property destruction, but we've done the public a service, haven't we? Fifty-seven fewer White Fang around, and now we know Roman Torchwick's been helping them steal Dust!"
"Mr. Schnee, I am quite aware of what I can and cannot do." Ozpin rebuked him, taking a sip of coffee. "But rest assured, no one will be expelled today. Blake, you will serve detention every day for the remainder of the semester. Do not so recklessly endanger yourself and your peers again, lest the consequences be more severe."
All four students relaxed a bit. "Very well." Blake nodded stoically.
"Ah, and Sable?" Ozpin smiled benevolently, drinking more coffee. "I'm giving you a detention as well."
"What?!"
"Why, Professor? He didn't know what I was going to do!"
"We Huntsmen are meant to be the protectors of the world. A light in the darkness, bringing hope and peace to people's hearts." Ozpin lectured. "Now, does shouting death threats in combat befit such a person?" To be fair, it might be a valid tactic for rallying a village against Grimm, but he really didn't need the news to report his students were running around Vale threatening to kill people.
"How does he even know about that?" Yang whispered. A good question. They might be a tad disturbed if they realized how many cameras he had around the city. Sable still looked ready to argue, however, so Ozpin added a few more choice comments. "On an unrelated note, I've also been curious as to what happened to you on the Forever Fall trip. Team CRDL's injuries were not particularly consistent with being attacked by an Ursa, and Mr. Winchester had a very interestingly-placed burn mark."
"A detention seems fair enough." Sable choked out. Yang looked quite pale as well. Yes, the Forever Fall had cameras too. Many things about life got old after thousands of years, but hinting that he knew much more than he let on was always entertaining.
"Good to hear. Well, I've kept you from your beds long enough. You may go." Team SJBY left the office. A fascinating group, that one, despite the distinct lack of silver-eyed prodigies. They'd just been through a turbulent breakup and an explosive reunion, all before their first semester was up. And with Miss Belladonna's little secret still unresolved, he foresaw many twists and turns ahead. Whether they would go down in Beacon history as a spectacular success, or an equally spectacular failure, remained to be seen.
Well. He had more pressing things to deal with, like the mountain of paperwork that had come of their dockside adventure. Sweet gods, but Beacon's insurance provider was not going to be happy...perhaps that was not the right phrase. He was, after all, one of two people on the planet who had met the gods, and they had been anything but sweet.
"Welp, that could've gone worse." Yang yawned. The adrenaline of the search, the fight, and the interrogation had well and truly worn off. The four of them stumbled through deserted halls towards their room.
"Yeah..." Sable sighed. "Jaune, we can't really tell the staff about your transcripts problem, so I'll just give you a detention myself."
"Can team leaders even give detentions?" Yang asked.
"Well, I'm doing it. Write 'I will not falsify my credentials' and 'I will not leave the team without permission' a hundred times each, we'll call it even." Jaune did not respond. "Something's still bothering you, isn't it? Spit it out, before you run away again!"
"Ah..." Jaune rubbed his hands together. "So, are we not going to talk about the fact that we killed twelve people, or what?"
"Look, I highly doubt you were personally responsible for any of them. No offense." Sable said. "And besides, they were White Fang members. I say Remnant's better off without them."
"That's cold, Icy-Hot. Gods damn." Yang muttered. "Look, Jaune, I'm not thrilled about it, but shit happens. It's a hard-knock life we've picked, and Huntsmen don't just fight Grimm, you know? I think Uncle Qrow's ganked a few people in his day. Doesn't usually talk about it, unless he's drunk enough..."
"She's right." Blake said in a small voice. "Don't blame yourself, Jaune. If anyone's to blame for this mess, it's me."
"All's well that ends well, Blake. But geez, what's your beef with those guys, anyways? Did you do all that crazy shit because those cops said they might have robbed that Dust store?" Yang let out a little laugh of incredulity. "I still can't believe you tried to throw hands with everyone like that!"
"Oh man, you should've been there." Jaune chimed in. "Torchwick and the Fang showed up, and then Blake got all upset about them working with a human and jumped right in. It was wild!"
"Huh?" Sable looked surprised, and mildly disapproving. "Really Blake, that's what bothered you about the whole thing? Granted it's a bit unexpected, but I'd think all the theft and murder was bad enough!"
Blake looked very shifty all of a sudden. "I...it's a long story." Conveniently for her, they arrived at their room. "Look, I think we all could really use some sleep and—MY BOOKS!" she suddenly shrieked, noticing her empty shelves. "What have you done?! I told you to keep them safe!"
"Easy, easy!" Yang patted her on the back. "Icy-Hot, where did you stick them? I think they were under the bed...oh yeah, there they are! No worries." Blake sagged in relief and collapsed onto her bed, snoring lightly. Yang gave the stack of 'adult literature' a dark look. "Damn, I forgot all about that. Trust me, Jaune, you do not want to know."
Sable rolled his eyes. "I suppose questions can wait. Get some rest, everyone. And Jaune, if you must angst over the morality of our actions, do it in the bathroom and don't wake the rest of us."
Jaune shrugged and sank onto his bed. It was hard to feel too guilty when you were this tired. The clock read two in the morning on Monday...he'd only been gone two days and a few hours, but it felt like a month. Wait, Monday?
"Uh...don't we have to get up for class in a bit?"
"Oh, fuck!"
In the end, Blake managed to stall the inquisition for a whole week. Thank gods for her detentions limiting her time around the team. She wondered if Ozpin had arranged it like that on purpose; if so, she owed the man some coffee beans. It gave her plenty of time to contemplate the thin ice (no pun intended) she found herself on. She'd really said too much in front of Jaune, huh? Yes, it wasn't weird at all for a human girl to take offense over the White Fang's employment policies, of all things.
Sadly, Saturday eventually rolled around, and Miss Goodwitch had better things to do than supervise detention all day. So here she was in their room, prepared to finally divulge the supposed truth of her 'beef' with the White Fang, as Yang put it. They were only waiting on their leader to arrive.
"All right, let's get started!" Sable walked through the door. Blake suppressed a gasp of dismay when Weiss followed him in. "I thought it was just going to be the team?" she asked hesitantly.
"It's easier this way." Sable shrugged. "If we're talking about the White Fang, Weiss deserves to be in on it. For gods' sake, she's probably number two on their kill list, after our father—"
"There's no need to be so dramatic." Weiss eye-rolled. "I hardly think the White Fang keeps a master list of everyone they want dead. It'd have to contain every human in Remnant!"
Oh, she would be surprised. Adam kept a list, at least. Sometimes he recited it before he went to sleep, which was sort of disturbing. Jacques Schnee was at the top, followed by the overseer who'd branded his face long ago...at least until Adam 'crossed him off', so to speak. Weiss Schnee was in the top ten, last Blake had heard, and Blake herself might very well be on it now. Sable had never made it in; Blake had a feeling this would annoy him greatly if he knew.
Well, back to the matter at hand. That particular tall, black-clad, blue-eyed, angry, overly intense, vengeful young man with a facial scar was in her past...wait a minute. Blake swallowed hard. Oh, that parallel was going to keep her up at night.
"I think you're making her uncomfortable, guys." Yang noticed the trepidation on her face. "Blake, you don't have to force yourself if it's too personal."
"It's fine. I'm a bit concerned as to your reactions, yes. But as my teammates...and Weiss...I think you deserve the truth." Somehow, Blake did not choke on the sheer bullshit of that last sentence. Well, from a certain point of view, she was about to tell the truth, albeit a very selective subset of it. From another point of view, she was about to lie her ass off. "How much do you know about the history of the White Fang? Of what they once were, compared to now?"
"I've read a few history books in my life." Weiss said drily. "I'm aware it was originally intended as a peaceful faunus rights organization, if that's what you mean. Not that it makes their current disgraceful state any better."
Jaune nodded. "Yeah, essay for Oobleck, remember?"
"Right. As you know, then, the White Fang was originally meant to foster unity between humans and faunus." No lies there. "Participation was not restricted to faunus, in the beginning. Humans sympathetic to the cause of equal rights were permitted to help as well." Also true. "My parents...were involved with the Fang in those times. But as the group became more extreme, they were forced out. They retired to the remote village where I grew up." None of those statements were false, either. Being High Leader of the White Fang certainly qualified you as 'involved', and she'd never said her parents were humans.
Jaune gasped. "So that was why you called them brothers! I was so confused!" Blake nearly had a heart attack. So he had heard her ill-considered comment after all; thank gods she'd gone for a lie so close to the truth. It would have been impossible to reconcile that with the generic 'White Fang killed my dad' backstory. "Because you thought there was still good in them, and you wanted to bring them back from the Dark Side!"
"I...kind of?" Blake said. "I mean, I do believe in faunus rights still, and I guess I was hoping the organization my parents fought for still existed." She sighed heavily. "And I was wrong, Jaune. They've got no principles left. Seeing them do grunt work for some common thief, a human thief at that...I lost control. Sorry again."
"No, it's all good!" Jaune's voice cracked slightly. Was he going to cry again? "Gods, I had no idea...I'm sorry I thought you were a racist!" Damn it, could he stop saying things that made her look bad? Fortunately, everyone seemed to just ignore it.
"So they kicked your folks out, and let Torchwick in?" Yang remarked. "Hell, no wonder you were pissed."
"That's quite the tale." Weiss seemed unsure of what to say next. "I...I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised you feel that way, considering your tastes in literature..."
"What?!" Blake exclaimed. "You—you read my books?" It was bad enough that Sable and Yang had apparently gone through her stash, but now the heiress to the SDC was talking to her about faunus erotica. Blake had never expected to think that sentence in her life, which was rapidly descending into situational comedy.
"No!" Weiss's face lit up like a hot iron. "I mean, yes, we did, but only to see if we could find out where you'd gone! It was Ruby's idea! Look, it's not exactly my...thing, but to each her own, right? I'm not going to, um, kinkshame you over it—"
"Shut up, Weiss! We agreed to never speak of that!" Yang shouted in panic. Blake buried her face in her hands. Sweet gods, she was going to spend the rest of her school days known as 'that faunus fetish girl'. The indignities she suffered to keep her cover!
"That's it?" Blake realized her leader had been the last to comment, uncharacteristically. "You were worried I'd hate you because of your parents? Was that why you avoided me all semester?" Blake flinched. "Don't look so shocked, I'm not blind. You think I didn't notice how you always sat on the other end of the table? How you barricaded yourself with books, every time we were alone in the room?"
"Sorry..." So he'd noticed that, but apparently didn't question why she wore her bow constantly. She'd take what small mercies she could. Then again, pretty much everyone in this school wore the same outfit every day, so maybe it wasn't strange to him.
Sable scoffed. "Don't bother apologizing. I've got thicker skin than that. At least you didn't accuse me of eating faunus children, or something."
"Wait, what?!" Jaune exclaimed.
"To be clear, we don't eat faunus children." Weiss reassured everyone.
"Anyways, you're worrying for nothing." Sable continued. "Clearly they weren't dedicated to exterminating humans when your parents were in. And even if your parents did do something bad, I'd be no better than those scum, to hold it against you!"
Oh? Was...was that meant to imply something about his own parents, or had she misunderstood? Weiss seemed to pick up on it well; she raised a pale eyebrow at her brother, but the moment passed quickly.
"Look at us, talking through our problems like normal people!" Yang broke the tension with an attempt at humor. "Remember when we almost had that fight, the first day of class?"
"I said to never mention that again!"
"Yeah, but I mean, look how far we've come!" Yang said. "And all it took was beating up a shit-ton of terrorists to bring us together. We should really do it more often."
Sable had a rather predatory gleam in his eye. "Now there's an idea!"
"Sable, no." Weiss smacked him. "Not when we've got finals to study for, at least."
Finals seemed like an anticlimactic way to end the semester, but no one was complaining. Weiss, Sable, Blake and Ren had all received top marks on their written exams. Ruby had done respectably considering she'd missed two years of coursework at Signal, while Jaune had passed, which was a victory by itself. Nora had shocked the world with a solid B+ average, beating out Yang and clinching RRWN's placement ahead of SJBY on aggregate. Hanging around Ren 24/7 meant some study habits rubbed off, as it turned out. Needless to say, Yang was rather relieved to be spending the two-week break back at Patch, instead of at Beacon with her leader.
"You guys sure you don't wanna come visit?" Ruby asked. "We could have a Team RRWN sleepover at my house! Jaune, you can come too!"
"What are Blake and I, chopped liver?" Sable muttered.
"We couldn't possibly impose on your father like that, Ruby." Weiss said loftily. "And I don't feel it's safe to leave Sable unsupervised."
"HEY!"
"Don't worry, Ruby. I'll still be here when you come back, promise!" Jaune gave her a thumbs-up. "And an Arc always keeps his promises! Well, except when I promised my transcripts were legit...okay, from now on, an Arc always keeps his promises!"
"Right!" Ruby took a deep breath. "So, uh, it's been an honor to lead you all, have a nice break and then let's...uh...kick more butts...yay team, go team, okay bye! I'll bring back cookies!" She and Yang ran off to catch their airship. Yang chuckled something about how it was bold of her to invite a boy back to her place, to which Ruby squeaked in protest, and then they were gone.
"Whew! One volume down, who knows how many to go!" Nora flashed a peace sign towards the sky, as if posing for an invisible camera.
"It's called a semester, Nora. And we know perfectly well there are seven more. Four years and two semesters per year, remember?" Ren said patiently. Six teenagers began walking back towards the school buildings. Pyrrha would doubtless have hung around them as usual, but she'd taken a ship back to Mistral yesterday. The atmosphere already felt chillier without the cheerful sisters around.
"Is everyone else staying?" Jaune asked. Seemed Ruby and Yang were the only ones with stable home lives to go back to, which was pretty dang sad, come to think.
"Nora and I don't really have anywhere else to go." Ren informed him. Jaune stammered apologetically. "Yes, that was how Ruby reacted too. No need to apologize."
The twins looked at each other. "Yes." Weiss said bluntly. No one felt like asking for an elaboration.
"My home village isn't on the airship routes." said Blake, as the others looked expectantly at her. "It would take more than two weeks just to get there and back."
"It's that remote?" Jaune said in surprise. Her parents must really have wanted to get away from the White Fang. Being a week's travel away from civilization was hard to fathom; it would be nearly impossible for help to come in time, if the Grimm attacked. No wonder Blake was so skilled. They probably had children fighting as soon as they could walk. "Where?"
"Um...it's on a small island to the east. Boat service only." Blake said vaguely. "You wouldn't have heard of it."
"Psst, Jauney!" Nora sidled up to Jaune at the breakfast table. "You busy today? Want me and Renny to hide you from the big bad wolf?" It was a generically pleasant summer morning, about halfway through break. Ren was quite happy with how things had gone so far. There had been no more acts of terrorism, tiresome interpersonal dramas, or mysterious explosions (Nora's explosions could hardly be called mysterious). Hopefully, it was a harbinger of a more peaceful second semester to come.
"Just call me Jaune, please? Cardin was the only one who called me Jauney, it was sort of creepy." Jaune looked up from his bowl of Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes. "But no, Sable's off doing something with Weiss today. I was thinking I might practice on my own later." To nobody's surprise, Jaune's partner had insisted on keeping up their training schedule during break, something about how 'years of combat school won't make themselves up'.
"Oooh, you could hang out with us!" Nora suggested. "Ruby asked us to take care of you while she's gone, you know!"
Ren sighed. "Nora, you weren't supposed to tell him that part." But it was true that their leader had been rather invested in Jaune's emotional well-being since the docks incident. Neither of his teammates still at Beacon were really the warm and cuddly sort, and while Weiss could be amiable enough on a good day, she wasn't exactly the blond boy's biggest fan.
"Sure, why not?" Luckily, Jaune didn't seem offended by Nora's offer of pity friendship. "I mean, we've never talked much, but no better time to start. Do you want to play games or watch a movie, or something?"
"Heck yeah, let the Team JNR bonding commence!" Nora pumped her fist. "That name's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"
"Come on, come on, come on! DAMN IT! AAAAHHH!"
"Sable, shut up!" Weiss snapped. Her misshapen attempt at a summoning glyph disintegrated. "I'm trying to concentrate!" Trying to summon was hard enough without her brother screaming in her ears. "See, this is why it doesn't work for you, you lack the proper emotional discipline—"
"Like you've done any better!" Weiss's eye twitched. She had no comeback for that. The last and arguably most spectacular of the Schnee glyphs still eluded them both. Nonetheless, she owed it to her ancestors to keep trying...and besides, it would be humiliating if Sable were to beat her to it.
"I don't see why you'd want to be calm for this, anyways." Sable theorized. "I mean, would you want to come back from the grave and fight for the person who killed you? Maybe you've got to yell a bit to make them obey."
That sounded wrong on so many levels. Weiss was pretty sure Winter's summons were merely copies, not the enslaved spirits of dead Grimm. Grimm didn't even have souls to capture! Although that brought up a rather dark hypothetical; was it possible to summon a human or faunus via glyph? Winter had never said their 'defeated enemies' had to be Grimm. Then again, it would probably be impractical as well as ethically dubious; without Aura they'd be inferior to the lowliest Beowolf. Unless they could have Aura, but that raised some very uncomfortable metaphysical questions. Maybe she could ask in her next letter, in a carefully worded way of course. It wouldn't do for her sister to assume she was planning a murder spree.
"That's completely stupid, and I'll prove it." Weiss lifted Myrtenaster once more and took a deep breath. Another flickering summoning glyph appeared on the ground. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH—"
"Hey, hey! Tone it down, will you?" A beret and a pair of sunglasses poked through the door, attached to a girl's head. "Not that I mind y'all getting feisty, but we're trying to get work done next door!" Another girl peeked around her, rubbing her long rabbit ears gingerly.
"I'm sorry!" Weiss said in mortification. She recognized the girl as the leader of a second-year team, though she couldn't recall her name. Just her luck that some upper-years had heard her screaming like a lunatic. "This idiot insisted that our...one of our techniques would work better if you shouted, and I had to prove him wrong, you see..."
"You're good, Schnees. And yeah, I know who you are. Seriously, your teams and Nikos are the only freshmen anyone talks about." The girl waved a gloved hand. "Coco Adel, by the way, leader of Team CFVY. And the bunny's Velvet Scarlatina...say hi, Velvet." The rabbit faunus waved at them.
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance." Weiss said, years of etiquette training kicking in. "Hey." Sable grunted, years of etiquette training wasted.
Coco didn't seem to take offense. "Oh yeah, I've been meaning to thank you for dealing with that Winchester kid. Not a peep out of the guy since you gave him the old pants-on-fire treatment." She clapped her teammate on the back. "I told you, Velvet, sometimes violence really is the answer!" Velvet chuckled nervously.
"I have no idea what you mean." Sable grinned at the older girl. "Winchester set himself on fire when his mace went off by accident. Burn Dust is quite dangerous if improperly handled, you know how it is."
"Heh, of course." Coco nodded at him. "Not bad fashion sense either, I see. I think we'll get along! If you were a girl...never mind." she sighed. "Well, I'll let you get back to training. Peace out, you crazy kids."
Weiss blinked. Something had seemed rather off about their conversation. Was it that Coco Adel had all but ignored the heiress in favor of her brother, or that she'd actually praised Sable for setting someone on fire? It was entirely backwards from how things went in Atlas. Then again, they were not in Atlas anymore, as Ruby's leadership position proved abundantly.
"Well, back to work!" Enough self-pity. This was what she'd wanted, wasn't it, the chance to be judged for herself and not her name? To prove she was the superior Schnee due to her merits, not the title Father had pinned on her. "Let's...let's take a break from summoning, for now." But something else still nagged at her, as their swords clashed.
Why had her summoning glyph actually lasted longer when she yelled at it?
"Okay, wasn't expecting this, but it's cool too."
They were not playing games or watching a movie. Ren, Nora and Jaune stood on a cliff overlooking the Emerald Forest—the same cliffside they had launched from months ago, as a matter of fact. The launch pads were still on the ground, overgrown with grass.
"We're back where we started! Neat, huh?" Nora gazed into the forest. "This here is the pad I launched off! You can see the ruins if you squint...and that was where I smashed that big bird's head in. Good times!"
Jaune laughed awkwardly. He stood on the cliff's edge, peering into the verdant depths below. "Yeah, it was a bit less fun for me. Nearly went splat right away. Man, it was real dumb to try this without Aura, wasn't it? I still have no idea how I survived." He rubbed his buttocks in reminiscence.
"Indeed, indeed!" Nora nodded sagely. "But now you've got your Aura, you've got training, so if you had to do it again, you'd do better, don't you think?"
"I guess? Why do you ask?"
"All righty!" Nora raised her hammer. "Second initiation begins NOW!" She slammed Magnhild onto the ground behind Jaune, sending the poor boy sailing off the cliff.
"WHHHYYY?!"
"NORA!" Ren said reproachfully. "What do you think you're doing? Quick, we have to save him!"
"It's therapy, Renny!" Nora cackled. "Now remember your landing strategy, Jaune-Jaune!"
Sun was bored. Very bored. It was now three weeks since the docks battle, and after that lunatic fever dream, a cheeky bit of shoplifting and hide-and-seek with the cops just didn't excite like it used to. Plus he hadn't seen any of the ten other people he knew in Vale (technically, Torchwick made eleven, but he didn't count). Not Penny, not Jaune, not Blake...not even the Schnees. He'd probably used up all his random encounter luck in that single weekend. Darn it.
Well, at least it beat sitting through those snooze-fests that Haven called classes. And taking finals...shit, was that going to be a problem? It might be a little troublesome if Team SSSN's leader got a zero on all his exams. In hindsight, he probably should have thought of that earlier. Hopefully Neptune would think of something with that nerd...sorry, intellectual brain of his.
Jaune panted heavily, rivers of sweat running down his face. He was ten feet above the ground, sword jammed into a tree trunk. A trail of broken branches littered the forest floor behind him. In moderate shock from his unexpected launching, he'd tried to deal with gravity the same way he dealt with everything else, by blocking it with Crocea Mors. And...it had worked surprisingly well! The trusty shield had plowed through branches and boughs like a champ, until he was moving slow enough to anchor himself without dislocating his shoulder.
"See! I knew you had it in you!" Nora landed nearby with a loud boom. Ren corkscrewed around a tree, still shaking his head. "Now get down and tell me about your family!"
"Huh?" Jaune yanked his sword free and dropped to the ground in a crouch. He barely felt a thing, but his younger self would've probably broken an ankle. Aura really was something, wasn't it? "What's my family got to do with this?"
"I'm trying to psycho analize you!" Nora said impatiently. Jaune pressed his backside against the tree with a yelp. He didn't know what that meant, but it sounded incredibly unpleasant.
"Nora, it's pronounced psychoanalyze." Ren corrected. "Jaune, a psychologist might ask you about your background, to try and understand the root of any problems you're having, but I'm not sure Nora is qualified—"
"Psh! I read a book about this! I can do it! Lay it on me, Jaune-Jaune!"
"Um...okay?" Jaune said hesitantly. "So I grew up with my mom, my dad, and seven sisters. Honestly it was kind of boring, nothing too crazy happened to me. Until I came here, obviously."
"Mmhmm! And your dad didn't want you to learn about Huntsman stuff, right?"
"Yeah...that was part of the reason it was so boring, I guess."
"I see, I see!" Nora stroked her chin thoughtfully. "It all makes sense now! So, your insecurities stem from your father refusing the chance to prove yourself! You respected him, but at the same time resented him for not allowing you to choose your own path."
"That's...that's probably true, actually." Jaune said thoughtfully. He'd always figured that Dad just loved him too much to put him in danger, and there was nothing wrong with that, right? But now that he'd spent a few months in the real world, he did hold it against him a bit. Remnant was dangerous, filled with Grimm and criminals and terrorists, and he hadn't been ready. If only Dad had taught him a few more things, he wouldn't have embarrassed himself so much! "I guess I can't let that keep on bugging me, huh?" There really was something to this psychoanalysis stuff!
"And you've spent your life surrounded by women who were forbidden to you." Nora continued on. "Which adds to your sense of emasculation and sexual frust—"
"That's disgusting!" Jaune shrieked. "I-I don't want to do that with my sisters! Never!"
"Nora, what book did you read?" Ren said, aghast. "Oh gods, it was Freud, wasn't it? I am so sorry Jaune, you get used to this stuff eventually..."
"How many more days, Yang?" Ruby whined, legs kicking at the air. Some break this was turning out to be. Grounded for the whole two weeks? And no weapons? Dad was going way too far! Even if they had tried to fight eight Bullheads full of terrorists...and launched themselves in their lockers...and totally trashed city property...
"Eight? Nine? I'm losing count." Yang groaned. "Seriously Rubes, did you have to mention crashing the Bullhead? That probably got us an extra week!"
Ruby winced at the memory of that particular lecture. Dad had read her the riot act the for attempting to operate a motor vehicle without proper certification, promised grave consequences should she so much as touch a moped without getting her permit first, and then done the same to Yang for not stopping her.
"Girls?" Dad knocked on their door. "You've got visitors—"
"Eeeee!" Ruby sprinted to open it in a burst of petals. Taiyang held out a scythe and a pair of gauntlets with a fond smile. "I missed you! I missed you!"
At least she was allowed two hours a day with Crescent Rose. Dad wasn't a monster!
"Well, okay." Nora said, slightly abashed after Ren lectured her on the impropriety of insinuating sexual attraction between close family members (a rather important lesson, considering the two sets of siblings in their friend group). "So what happened to you next, Jaune?"
"I, er, met Sable. We walked around for a bit." Jaune recalled. "Then he realized I didn't have Aura and yelled at me a lot...let's not re-enact that part...and then a bunch of Beowolves showed up."
"Aha! Grimm!" Nora snapped her fingers. "You should fight some Grimm next! Renny, we need to get sad!"
"Nora, I don't think that's—"
"Sad thoughts only!" Nora closed her eyes. The energy seemed to drain right out of the girl; Jaune swore she was muttering one word over and over, something like 'Kuroyuri'. Nora sniffled. "Awww..."
"GRRRRR..."
Four Beowolves burst from the foliage. With a sigh, Jaune raised his sword and shield and prepared to fight for his life again. He seriously couldn't believe that summoning ritual had worked. He guarded against a swipe of the closest one's paw, and impaled it right through the throat.
"Break a leg, Jaune!" Nora cheered. She sounded like she was up in a tree, though Jaune's gaze remained fixed on the Grimm. Never take your eyes off the enemy...he still remembered the time Blake had pulled the old 'Look over there' trick and promptly kicked him in the face. Those boots hurt, dang it!
"Don't distract him." Ren chided. "Show us how much stronger you've become, Jaune."
Jaune nodded. Despite the three wolf abominations in front of him, he found himself smiling. Crocea Mors lashed out in a silver arc.
"Die!"
Blake typed away on a computer, deep in the bowels of the Beacon library. Amber eyes stared tiredly at the screen.
Soft as a feather, Sakura put her brush to the paper. Her violet orbs gazed upon the page...
Yes, she was using her break to write degenerate fanfiction, rather than do something productive like investigating the White Fang. It had been a stressful first semester, all right? She just had to finish this one scene, and the chapter would be about done. There was a convenient gap in the narrative here, and she'd already touched on most of the other characters.
The second semester wasn't looking much better. There was a decent chance her current teammates would go on the warpath against her former ones, which was not ideal for keeping her secret identity, you know, secret. Of course, it wouldn't be too surprising if a human girl failed to uncover any White Fang activity...thereby letting them carry out whatever they were plotting unimpeded...ugh.
Ethical conundrums sucked.
Jaune rubbed his stomach. "I don't feel so good, guys. I think that might have been too many pancakes."
"There's no such thing!" Nora declared. Empty plates littered Team RRWN's room, the remnants of their 'victory snack'. The girl herself showed no sign of slowing down, swigging syrup straight from the bottle in between bites. Jaune forced himself to look away, lest he be sick again.
"There, now." Ren said soothingly. He reached under his bed, pouring something from large thermos. "Here, drink this." He offered Jaune a glass of some murky green liquid.
"Jaune." Nora said, all cheer suddenly gone. "I warn you, do not drink that, for the love that all that is good on Remnant."
"Don't be so melodramatic." Ren said mildly. "It's a home remedy. Good for indigestion."
Nora's sudden dead seriousness was a tad concerning, but Jaune chose to accept the drink. It was probably just one of those medicines that looked and tasted gross but helped you in the end. Ren had a good head on his shoulders, as far as he could tell, and Jaune trusted the boy not to feed him anything too vile. He slammed it down in one go.
Oh...oh no...
"BLARRRRGH!"
"Oh, hello Weiss." Ren said nervously. He, Nora and Jaune blocked Team RRWN's door, holding their sleepwear and toiletries. "You know, I was thinking it might be a good day to have a sleepover with Team SJBY, in order to get to know each other better—"
"What did you do?"
"Hmm." The dorms at Beacon were...not really meant to fit six people; the fact that there were only four beds was a dead giveaway, for starters. Weiss eyed Yang's empty bed covetously. "Now, on the topic of sleeping arrangements—"
"DIBS!" Nora hefted Ren in her arms and leapt onto Yang's bed. She wrapped her limbs around her not-boyfriend like a King Tajitu and began snoring loudly. Ren's pink eyes looked helplessly out at them. "Er...I think I'm stuck here."
"Come on! The heiress to the Schnee Dust Company can't be sleeping on the floor!" Weiss scanned the room for a choice target. "Arc, give me your—"
"Stand your ground, Jaune!" Sable ordered. "I won't have some interloper taking our beds from us!"
"Maybe...maybe we could set up bunk beds." Jaune suggested.
"First, that sounds incredibly structurally unsound; second, I had bunk beds as a kid, and it was awful." Weiss cast a dark look at Blake's bookshelf, and Jaune's onesie, before walking over to Sable's bed and pulling off the covers. "Move over."
"Fine. Get in." Weiss just stared at him. "Are you actually going to—"
"You're not kicking me out, and I'm not some child who's scared of cooties." Sable said defiantly. "If you've got a problem, the floor's open."
"I—you know what, this just dumb." Weiss settled in next to her brother. "Well, good night, everyone."
"Remind to never play chicken with you guys." Jaune flicked the lights off. "Good night." And another day at Beacon Academy ended.
"Wait..." Blake murmured drowsily. "Isn't Pyrrha's room empty right now...?"
Longest chapter yet, and it was mostly fluff...I got a bit carried away with the break sequence. The show just skips it, but I kind of wonder what went down back at Beacon. Ren, Nora and Blake obviously didn't go home, I doubt Weiss or Jaune did either.
So, on the topic of ships, this will not be a very ship-centric fic. Never wanted this to be a fic where OC waltzes in and easily wins over the author's favorite girl/boy, plus I have no confidence in my ability to write a serious romance (I say that like I have confidence in my ability to write anything). Though some of that stuff is inevitable, especially around Dance season. Even considering that, the Blake Route is a serious long-shot at the moment; Sable doesn't even know what species she is, which is not a great foundation for a relationship. I'm actually curious as to what made someone think I was going for it.
Considering the nonsense that happened that the docks, having zero White Fang die would have stretched disbelief, even for a humor fic, while having everyone angst about 'bah gawd these hands have killed' wouldn't really fit the humor tag. My handwave is that the students who've trained their whole lives to be Huntsmen accept that they lead violent lives, and some people are going to end up snuffing it. That might even be canon, it's not like RWBY felt much guilt about yeeting those White Fang off a high-speed train.
Seriously, how did Sun not flunk out of Haven? Their academic standards must be incredibly low. It's almost as if they've got a Grimm sleeper agent for a headmaster.