AN: Hey, guys. I actually never expected that I'd get another chapter done so quickly, but here we are. It is a little shorter, though.

So, I wanted to go into a little bit more detail about some of the other stories I thought up and want to issue as challenges.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses X RWBY: After the Battle of Garreg Mach at the end of the school phase, Sothis uses her power in a panic to teleport female Byleth, sending her to Remnant by accident, which results in them physically separating. They are found by Team RWBY.

Tales Series X RWBY: A crossover that has several characters from different Tales games be born on Remnant, and sort of follows the plot of the series.

Pure RWBY fic: A story where Jaune meets, is trained by, and falls in love with Amber before the events of Volume 1.

Should I release these as writing challenges as stories with one chapter as the description, or should I put these on my bio which is currently empty? Let me know.

Anyways, on with the chapter! Enjoy!

Chapter 22

Ruby never thought a sparring match could be this hard to watch.

Jaune was in the middle of a match against that jerk Cardin, and sadly for her friend, he was getting his butt kicked. After losing his shield, he had tried to for some reason press his sword against Cardin's mace and try to overpower the boy that was twice his size.

"This is the part where you lose," Cardin taunted.

"Over my dead—"

Jaune was interrupted when Cardin drove his knee into his stomach, causing the blond to fall to his knees. The buzzer rang just as Cardin was about to slam his mace down on Jaune, and Ruby shook her head in disappointment. Since Cardin learned that he couldn't win against Yang, who he still held a grudge against, and his early attempts to go after Ruby instead didn't pan out for him, Jaune had sadly found himself as the most frequent target of Cardin's bullying. Whenever he couldn't go after Velvet, that was. Jaune had been challenged by Cardin several times over the past few weeks, and lost every time. It was obvious that these sparring matches were more for the sake of Cardin using Jaune as a punching bag than actually training, but Ruby had also noticed that Jaune had made precisely zero improvement after all these losses.

It was frankly a little worrying.

"Mister Winchester, that's enough!" Miss Goodwitch said loudly, and Cardin reluctantly backed away from Jaune. "Students, as you can see, Mr. Arc's Aura has now dropped into the red. In a tournament-styled duel, this would indicate that Mr. Arc is not longer fit for battle, and that the official may call the match." She looked down disappointedly at Jaune, who was pulling his scroll out of his pocket. "Mr. Arc, it's been weeks now. Please try to keep track of your Aura during combat. Gauging it will help you decide when it's appropriate to attack, or when it is better to move to a more defensive strategy. We wouldn't want you to get gobbled up by a Beowolf, now, would we?"

"Speak for yourself," Cardin said.

"Detention again, Mister Winchester," Mom said from the sidelines, causing Cardin to throw his arms up in anger. "Next time you decide to imply that a classmate's death would make you happy…well, don't, but if you do, make sure we can't hear you."

"Look, you—"

"Finish that sentence and it'll be another day," she interrupted. "You know, I'm starting to think that you just like spending time with me. Why else would you get yourself detention every other day? I will have to remind you, though, that I am married." That got a few people to chuckle before Miss Goodwitch cleared her throat.

"Thank you for dealing with that, Professor Branwen," she said, and Mom nodded in response. She turned back to the rest of the class. "Remember, students, the Vytal Festival is only a few months away." That reminder got everyone excited. "It won't be long before students from the other academies start arriving in Vale, so keep practicing. Those who are chosen to compete in the combat tournament will be representing all of Vale. Now, class dismissed!"

Students started to pile out, but Ruby noticed Jaune still sitting on the floor of the arena, his head hung in shame.

"So!" Nora said loudly to her friends from her own team and Team RWBY, as both teams were eating lunch. "There we were, in the middle of the night…"

"It was day," Ren corrected without missing a beat. Only about half the people gathered were really listening, but Ruby kept glancing over at Jaune, who was looking down sadly at his food without really eating any of it.

"We were surrounded by Ursai…" Nora continued.

"They were Beowolves," said Ren. Ruby didn't hear the rest of the story, as she had instead started really paying attention to Jaune.

"Jaune, are you okay?" Pyrrha asked, bringing the rest of the table's attention to the blond.

"Huh?" he asked, snapping out of his daze and looking at them. "Oh, yeah. Why?"

"You really don't seem like you're okay," Ruby said.

"Guys, I'm fine. Seriously! Look!" he tried to flash the single most forced smile Ruby had ever seen in her life. His attempts to look cheery were ruined, though, when his eyes wandered to behind them. Ruby looked and saw Team CRDL gathered around Velvet, laughing at her while she stood there nervously. She could hear Yang growl at the sight of him, and Ruby just found herself hoping that he didn't try anything with the poor girl.

"Jaune, Cardin's been picking on you since the first week of school," Pyrrha pointed out.

"Who? Cardin Winchester?" Jaune asked, in a tone that seemed to indicate he thought they were being silly.

They totally weren't.

"Nah, he just likes to mess around! You know, practical jokes!"

"Where I'm from, that's called a 'bully'," Ruby said. Why on Remnant was Jaune trying to downplay this?

"Oh, please!" Jaune responded with a scoff. "Name one time he's 'bullied' me."

"There was that time he knocked your books out of your hands," Ren said.

"And the time he opened your shield as you were walking through the door and got you stuck," Ruby continued.

"And then he launched you out of a rocket locker," Pyrrha finished.

"He did what?!" Yang asked.

"I said just one time," Jaune said weakly. "Besides, I didn't land far from the school."

"Jaune, you know if you ever need help, you can just ask," Pyrrha said.

"Oooooooh!" Nora said excitedly, standing up with a wicked grin on her face. "We'll break his legs!"

"I'm in!" Yang said, cracking her knuckles.

"Guys, really, it's fine," Jaune said, still brushing them off. "Besides, it's not like he's only a jerk to me. He's a jerk to everyone."

"OW! That hurts!" the group heard, and looked to see Cardin violently pulling on her rabbit ears.

"Not so tough without your team, are you, freak?" Cardin taunted.

Ruby and Yang were out of their chairs before he could even finish his sentence

"Hey, Dickface!" Yang shouted, her eyes turning red. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Mind your own damn business!" he barked back, giving another tug on Velvet's ears.

"Let her go," Ruby growled.

"And what are you gonna do about it?" he asked, giving her ears yet another tug.

"This!" Yang said, and without warning, grabbed hold of his, um, privates and started squeezing, freezing him in place and making him let go of Velvet. Ruby instantly used her Semblance to grab hold of Velvet and speed her towards the table where the others were.

"Well, what do you know?" Yang asked sarcastically. "You have balls after all."

"What are you idiots doing?" he asked his team through the pain. "Get her!"

"How do you expect to beat all of us, I wonder?" Pyrrha asked, having brought the rest of both teams, except for Jaune, who was just watching, and Ruby, who was making sure Velvet was alright. The rest of Cardin's team backed up in fear.

"Now, are you ever going to bully Velvet again?"

"F-Fuck you," Cardin managed to get out. Yang squeezed harder.

"Wrong answer!"

"Y-yes! I'll stop!" He cried out, and Yang let go, causing him to fall to the ground, holding his groin in pain. He quickly picked himself up and ran off, his team following close behind.

"You crazy bitch!" he yelled back behind him.

"Are you alright?" Ruby asked Velvet after Cardin and his team had left.

"I think so," the older said, gently rubbing her sore ears. "You guys didn't have to do that."

"Don't worry about it," Yang said, as the group had returned to their table. "The prick had it coming."

"Besides, we're friends, right?" Ruby asked.

"We don't know each other that well," Velvet pointed out.

"Then, let's get to know each other," Yang said. "Sit with us from now on."

"The rest of your team is more than welcome to join in, as well," Pyrrha said.

"Thank you," Velvet said after a second, finally smiling.

"Yes!" Oobleck said, zipping around the room as usual, making it difficult for Blake to keep up. Well, it would be if she didn't have cat-like reflexes. "Yes, prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution, more popularly know as the Faunus War, humankind was quite, quite adamant about centralizing Faunus population in Menagerie."

That term, "Faunus War", was the term the humans used to describe it. The Faunus all referred to it as the Faunus Rights Revolution, but the humans tended to refuse to call it that.

They didn't want to imply that the "animals" had a point when they started that war.

"Now!" the professor continued. "While this must feel like ancient history to many of you, it is imperative to remember that these are relatively recent events! Why, the repercussions of the uprising can still be seen to this day!" Boy, was he right. "Now! Have any among you been subjugated or discriminated because of your Faunus heritage?"

Blake wanted to raise her hand, because she absolutely has been, but that would defeat the purpose of wearing her bow, so she kept her hand down, and just sent a sympathetic look to her fellow Faunus, Velvet included, whom had also raised her hand.

"Dreadful! Simply dreadful!" Oobleck said, shaking his head sadly. "Remember students, it is precisely this kind of ignorance that breeds violence. I mean, just look at what happened to the White Fang!"

Blake bristled at the mention of the group that she had devoted so much of her life to. She wasn't sure she would like where this conversation was going.

"Now!" he continued. "which one of you young scholars can tell me what many theorize to be the turning point in the third year of the War?" Weiss raised her hand. "Yes?"

"The battle at Fort Castle," Weiss said proudly.

"Precisely! And, who can tell me the advantage the Faunus had over General Lagune's forces?"

"Hey!" they heard Jaune pipe up from out of nowhere. Oobleck zoomed over to his desk in an instant.

Seriously, how does he do that?

"Mr. Arc! Finally contributing to class! Excellent! What is the answer?"

Jaune had clearly not been paying attention, and Blake rolled her eyes when she saw Pyrrha attempting to pantomime the answer for him by cupping her hands over her eyes.

"Uh, binoculars!" He finally answered, and Blake, Weiss, and Pyrrha all facepalmed while the rest of the class laughed at him. At that point, he would have saved himself a lot of embarrassment if he had just admitted he didn't know the answer, but no, he had to go full-steam ahead straight off a cliff.

"Very funny Mister Arc," Oobleck said in disappointment. "Mr. Winchester! Perhaps you would care to share your thoughts on the subject?" Blake was certain that everyone already knew his thoughts, and he was probably going to just say it since he still hadn't seemed to learn that racism is bad.

"Well, I know it's easier to train an animal than a soldier," he said in that usual smug tone.

"You're not the most open-minded of individuals, are you, Cardin?" Pyrrha chimed in.

"What? You got a problem?" he asked her.

"Yes," Pyrrha replied simply. "But I also have the answer. It's night vision. Many Faunus are known to have near-perfect sight in the dark."

Color Blake impressed. Time to bring it home.

"General Lagune was inexperienced, and made the mistake of trying to ambush the Faunus in their sleep," Blake continued from where Pyrrha left off. "His massive army was outmatched, and the general was captured." She turned to look at Cardin. "Maybe if he'd paid attention in class, he wouldn't have been remembered as such as failure," she finished with a smirk. After all, one of Branwen's lessons was about learning everything you could about your opponents and not make assumptions, a lesson that Cardin seemingly refused to learn, like most lessons. He started to stand up, clenching both his fist and his teeth, before the professor interrupted him.

"Mister Winchester! Please take your seat." Jaune started laughing at seeing his bully get reprimanded, but then Oobleck zipped over to him. "You and Mister Arc can both see me after class for additional readings." Jaune slumped sadly. "Now! Moving on!"

The remaining members of Team JNPR that weren't in trouble exited the classroom, when Pyrrha stopped them.

"You can go on ahead," she said to Ren and Nora. "I'll wait for Jaune."

She didn't have to wait long, as Jaune exited the classroom only a few minutes later, only to be roughly shoved to the ground by Cardin. She ran up to her partner, sending a glare at the bully's back as she helped him up.

"You know, I really will break his legs," she said, prompting Jaune to sigh. It would be so much easier if he could just defend himself.

Hold on. Why couldn't he?

"I have an idea!" she said suddenly, grabbing his arm. "Come with me!"

Pyrrha brought Jaune to the rooftop of the dorm building, looking out over the night sky of Vale. Jaune walked up to the edge.

"Pyrrha, I know I'm going through a hard time right now, but I'm not that depressed," he said, looking over the edge, confusing Pyrrha. "I can always be a farmer or something."

"What? No!" she said suddenly, pulling Jaune away from the edge. "That's not why I brought you up here! Jaune, I know you're having a difficult time in time in class and you're still not the strongest of fighters, so…I want to help you."

"What?" he asked.

"We can train up here after class where no one can bother us."

"You think I need help?" he asked, his tone almost accusatory.

"Well, yes. Jaune, everybody needs a little push from time to time. It doesn't make you any different from the rest of us. You made it to Beacon. That speaks volumes of what you're capable of."

"You're wrong," he said, turning around from her and lowering his head. "I don't belong here."

"That's a terrible thing to say! Of course you do!" She countered, surprised at just how low his self-esteem was.

"No, I don't!" He shouted angrily, turning back around to face her. "I wasn't really accepted into Beacon," he said, the anger leaving his voice.

"Wh-what do you mean?" Pyrrha asked.

"I mean I didn't go to combat school, I didn't pass any tests. I didn't earn my spot at this Academy! I lied! I got my hands on some fake transcripts, and I lied!"

Pyrrha couldn't believe what she was hearing. He had faked his way in? Then why did he not seem to be trying if he knew that there was such a huge difference between him and his peers?

"But…why?" was all she could ask him.

"Cause this is what I always wanted to be!" he shouted. "My father, my grandfather, and his father before him were all warriors! They were all heroes! I wanted to be one, too. I was just never good enough."

"Then let me help you!" she insisted, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"I don't want help!" he shouted, swatting her hand away. "I don't want to be the damsel in distress! I want to be the hero!"

How did he expect to get better if he was rejecting her help? Didn't he realize that nobody became strong on their own?

"Jaune, I—" She tried to explain that to him, but he wouldn't let her speak.

"I'm tired of being the lovable idiot, stuck in the tree or frozen solid while his friends fight for their lives! Don't you understand? If I can't do this on my own, then what good am I?" Pyrrha tried to reach out to him again, but he pulled back. "Just…leave me alone. Okay?"

"…If that's what you think is best," Pyrrha said quietly, unable to keep the hurt from her voice.

Jaune almost instantly regretted how he handled that. He could tell that Pyrrha was upset with him, but what could he do now to fix it?

A chuckle brought him out of his thoughts, and filled him with dread. He turned around saw Cardin of all people climb onto the roof.

"Oh, Jaune," he said.

"Cardin!" Jaune said in alarm.

"I couldn't help but overhear you two from my dorm room." Oh, come on! "So, you snuck into Beacon, huh? I gotta say, Jaune, I never expected you to be such a rebel."

"Please, Cardin. Please don't tell anyone!" Jaune begged.

"Jaune, come on! I'd never rat on a friend like that," Cardin said.

"Friend?" Jaune asked in confusion. Since when were they friends?

"Of course!" Cardin said, easily trapping Jaune in a headlock. "We're friends now, Jauney boy! And the way I see it, as long as you're there for me when I need you, we'll be friends for a long time." He unceremoniously dropped Jaune, who started gasping for breath. "That being said, I really don't have time to do those extra readings Oobleck gave us today. Think you could take care of that for me, buddy?" Jaune said nothing, and Cardin grinned. "That's what I thought." He headed back over to the ledge to go back into his dorm room. "Don't worry, Jaune. You're secret's safe with me."

As Cardin disappeared over the edge, Jaune could only sit there in despair.

What have I done?

Ozpin was in his office, doing paperwork, when he received a notification from his computer that someone from the Council wanted to speak to him. He sighed and accepted the call.

"Hello, Ozpin," the voice on the other end greeted.

"Councilor Winchester," he greeted back. The man he was speaking to was Jayson Winchester, long-time member of Vale's Council and father of resident troublemaker Cardin Winchester. "To what do I own this…pleasure?" He asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Well, I was at home, eating dinner with my wife, when my son sent me a curious message. Apparently, a student has been giving him trouble lately."

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Ozpin said calmly.

"Then let's get right to it," the Councilor said. "I would like to talk to you about a girl named Yang Xiao Long."

And Daddy Winchester has entered the fray. I named him Jayson after the Blue Jay, since Cardin was named after the Cardinal, among other things. Fun fact: Blue Jays are HUGE assholes. They don't build their own nests, they just invade another bird's nest, smash up the eggs, and start squatting. So, pretty fitting to name Cardin's father after a bird like that.

I also always hated how Jaune treated Pyrrha in that scene. It's further evidence that he had absolutely no idea what being a Huntsman actually requires. Seriously, he apparently thought that everybody else got strong all by themselves and never had any help. If that was true, then what would be the point of having teachers at Beacon?

He's just so damn stupid.

As always, thanks for reading, and I'll see all of you next time.