A Mother's Fury

In her months at Beacon Academy, Jeanne Arc had faced down, bullies, Grimm, armed combatants, tests, and even Aunt Glynda's detention. But nothing could compare to what she faced today. She and Jaune sat in the school's library, watching the screen that said 'Transmitting' as she waited for her impending doom. No, she couldn't think that way, she had to be brave, she had to stand her ground.

The screen flashed, and the familiar face of a pale-skinned yellow-eyed woman appeared. The woman's eyes widened, and her mouth opened into a wide smile as she let out a gasp.

"Oh my goodness, is that my oldest child?" Her mother spoke.

"H-"

"The one who went missing eight months, two weeks, and five days ago?"

Jeanne sunk into her chair.

"It's been so long! I can't wait to tell your younger sisters that you are alive and haven't been eaten by Grimm."

She went lower.

"Mom, I think she gets it," Jaune spoke up. "I don't think you have to belittle her."

"What, me? Belittle my eldest child?" Their mother placed her hand over her chest with a gasped. "I am truly glad my eldest child isn't dead, in fact, I'm proud that she managed to survive being thrown off a cliff into a Grimm-infested Forest with no aura by a madman who believes Trail by Fire is the best way to see if you're worthy of training!"

The pair jumped as their mother slammed her fist on the table with a yell of the last word.

"I'm glad you're not dead from the impact of falling from the sky, being picked off by a Nevermore, eaten by a pack of Beowulf's, or anything of the other horrible things hidden within that forest of death. But It's okay, you sent me a single letter that arrived three weeks after you vanished in the middle of the night, so it's fine. No phone call for nearly a year, its whatever. No email? Who checks emails anyway? Not even another letter, no, that's too much to ask for."

"Mom."

Jeanne was nearly on the floor from their mother berating her so much so that she was nearly out of sight of the camera. Their mother let out soft sigh, her eyes staring down at Jeanne.

"Jeanne," She braced herself for her mother's words. "I'm glad you're safe."

"I'm sorry, Mom." Jeanne shot back up into her seat. "I'm really, really sorry."

"You should be." Another sigh came from their mother. "I'm very disappointed in you, Jeanne, and yet I'm also very proud of you."

"P-proud?" Her head tilted in confusion.

"You're not the same little girl who left here that day, are you?" Their mother's frown was replaced by a small smile. "You survived, you grew, and you're here. And seeing how you two aren't on an airship returning home and inside of Beacon's dusty old Library, I'm assuming you've talked your brother into agreeing you should stay?"

She nodded, and their mother could only just sigh.

"Why am I not surprised, your brother has always been on you and your sister's side over mine," She playfully rolled her eyes. "Well, that was a waste of an airship ticket. So, how did she change your mind this time?"

"I beat up her friends."

"Heey!"

"Of course, you did." Their mother rubbed her temple lightly. "So beating up three huntsmen in training-"

"Seven," Jaune corrected.

"Eight!" Jeanne corrected her correction. "I was there too!"

"I barely beat you up."

"You swung one of my friends into me!"

"Then she beat you up, it wasn't me."

"Alright you two," The mother stopped her two eldest. "So, I am assuming they all did well enough to impress you?"

"I guess, I was mostly focused on Jeanne and her tactics. She is a really good team leader and was able to get her teammates to listen." Jaune explained.

"And I assume these friends are sneaking around in the background?"

Jeanne's head quickly shot around to see Nora and Ruby duck down behind tables where she still had a clear view of them.

"I can see you both."

"No you can't!" Nora yelled. "We're hidden better than the others!"

"Really gonna rat us out like that?" She heard Yang shout from behind a bookcase.

"Yang!" Jeanne yelled.

"They're not… alone." Pyrrha slowly came out of her, as did all her other friends.

"I… Should've had saw this coming, But not from you four." Pointing out Pyrrha, Ren, Blake, and Weiss. "You're supposed to be the good examples of our teams!"

"I take that to mean you're a bad example?" Her mother spoke.

"No!" She quickly turned to her mother with a big smile. "I'm a great example."

"Your grades say otherwise." Jeanne turned and glared at Weiss.

"Anyways," Jeanne spun around fully facing her friends. "This is my mother, Joan Arc."

They all leaned in slightly to look at the screen to see a near-perfect copy of Jeanne but with short white hair, bright yellow eyes, and slightly aged up.

"My oh my, what are the odds of you making friends with children of Summer Rose, Raven Branwen, and Alexander Nikos,"

Ruby, Yang, and Pyrrha couldn't hide their surprise at hearing their parents' names come from the woman.

"And here I was thinking I was the only one to have a child be the mirror image of myself. The female gene is very dominant on Remnant."

"You knew my mom?" Ruby asked.

"Of course, Team STRQ was part of the reasons I have non-stop headaches today," Joan giggled. "Always in trouble, and being their upperclassmen, it was always up for my team and me to help them out. Although, Little red, I do have a question."

"Me?"

"Well, the other one is tall red." She smiled at Ruby. "Tell me, if your father named, Taiyang or Qrow?"

"Ewwww gross, Uncle Qrow? No, never!"

"So, I am guessing Tai?" Getting a nod from Ruby, Joan clapped her hands and fist pumped. "Haha, told you, Arty."

The yellow eyes of Joan drifted over to Yang. "I have to assume your father is also Taiyang?"

"Is dad that obvious?" Yang spoke up.

"To be fair, your father was the only one dumb enough to try with Raven, No offense."

"None taken."

"And you know my father?" Pyrrha spoke up.

"Of course, Pyrrha." Her eyes widen at hearing her own name come from the woman. "That bumbling oaf you call a father was my partner at Beacon, has he ever told you tales about someone he calls Ruler?"

"He has."

"Hi, I'm Ruler." She looked the red-headed girl up and down a bit. "You've grown so much since I last saw you, you were barely knee-high. I used to bring Jeanne and Jaune to visit your family all the time."

Jeanne and Pyrrha looked at each other in surprise.

"You two did not get along when you were all together, Jeanne didn't like the idea of you stealing her brother at that age."

"Mom!" Jeanne, red-cheeked, quickly put an end to her telling embarrassing stories.

"What? It's true, I have pictures."

"Noo nononono!" Jeanne interjected before her mother could go for her scroll. "Those don't need to be seen."

"Oh, I should tell your aunty Glynda to snap photos of you if she is no longer horrified to answer the mountain of emails and death threats I've sent."

"Mom, you didn't."

"Of course I did, she knows what she did, and one day she will face a Mother's fury. After all that I did for that girl, she betrays me like this? For that old man."

"It's not Miss Goodwitch's fault."

"Miss Goodwitch?" Joan scrunched her face. "What happened to you calling her Aunty?"

"I'm at school, we have to be professional," Jeanne answered. "Plus, she doesn't want people to think she would give me special treatment."

"She isn't?"

"No!" She threw her hands. "If anything, I feel more targeted!"

"Good." Joan smiled at her daughter. "Now, could you wake up your brother for me?"

Looking to her left, Jeanne found her brother passed out in his seat, even with all the noise around him, but after years of living with her brother, she knew how to wake him.

"Opal, No! That's Jaune's room!"

The boys eyes shot up, standing from his chair. "Opal, you bet-!" He stopped himself seeing that he wasn't home, he just crossed his arms sitting back down.

"Mom wants you." Jeanne gave her twin a little smug smile.

He turned to look at his mother, who was giving him the same smile as his sister. "And now that you're back with us, when will you be returning home? I plan on making your favorite dish for you."

Both of their faces dropped as Jaune sucked his teeth in.

"Yeah… about that."

Jeanne and the rest of her team, as well as Team RWBY, had returned to Team JNPR's room after Jaune told her he'd deal with their enraged mother. She felt horrible about leaving him like that, but once a blood vessel blew in their mother's eye, they both knew if she spoke up, their mother would come to the school and set it on fire.

"So… I'm sure you all have questions."

"… I may have one or two…" Pyrrha said, sitting to Jeanne's left.

"Yeah, like why your family hates Beacon and Ozpin so much?" Yang said from the desk she was sitting on, much to her team's leader's dismay.

"Yang!"

"Come on sis, I know you want to know too."

"Still, Rude." Ruby stuck her tongue out at Yang, who returned the favor.

"It's fine," Jeanne smiled at Ruby before looking at Yang. "And my family doesn't Hate Ozpin."

"Could've fooled me," Weiss interjected.

"We have a strong disliking for him," Jeanne let out a sigh. "My mother and brother believe he is the cause of a lot of my family's problems."

"If it's too personal, Jeanne," Pyrrha started, but Jeanne cut her short.

"It's fine, after all of what guys have done for me, the least I can do is explain what's going on." She gave them a weak smile. "So, my mom and dad used to… work, that a good enough word, for Ozpin. Every once in a while, he would come by to give them a mission. Normally, mom and dad trade-off, but sometimes they both had to go, and would leave us with our aunt. Professor Goodwitch."

"How come you didn't tell us you were related to Goodwitch?" Nora asked.

"Because I'm not supposed to, and she's not really my aunt. But she and my mother are like sisters, and I just always knew her as my Aunty." Jeanne couldn't help but smile. "She would always come to visit as we were growing up, but once she took the job as Duty Headmistress, work became too much, and she couldn't visit as often. That was also around the time, the incident happened to my mother."

Jeanne looked around the room, seeing everyone just watching.

"During one of the missions for Ozpin when me and Jaune were about ten, both mom and dad went out, and… when Dad brought Mom back home… she was hurt… badly." Jeanne's eyes drifted down. "She is paralyzed waist down and doesn't really have the strength to do much for long periods of time. So not only can she never be a Huntsmen again, but she also really can't get any job."

"Wow… Yeah I can see why she wouldn't like Ozpin." Yang crossed her arms.

"That's not the reason she doesn't like Ozpin." Jeanne looked back up and they could see the anger on her face. "The reason we don't like Ozpin is that he still asked my father to keep doing missions for him, offering sums of money, and my dad took them, and he kept taking him until one day my dad didn't come back."

"Oh…"

"Then, to put the final nail in the coffin, he tried to recruit Jaune to beacon when he was fourteen." Jeanne let out a little chuckle. "Jaune got so mad at him, that he tried to beat him with our mailbox."

"That's just terrible, Jeanne, did he do anything to try and make it right for your family?" Blake asked, sitting on the bed across from her.

"He did pay off our house, which helped a bit. But we're a large family of nine. We had bills to pay, mouths to feed, clothes, school supplies, gifts for holidays, the list just goes on. Mom was trying her best to work, doing odd jobs, helping at shops, but they never lasted long because of her condition."

She let out a small smile.

"So… Behind our mother's back, Jaune and I decided to get jobs to help, well I got a job to help out, Jaune couldn't get hired because he was known as the angry kid that fights everyone… So he took Huntsmen missions."

"Isn't that illegal for him to do?" Weiss questioned.

"Yeah… but no one was going to say anything as Jaune was really good at it." Jeanne reached up and fidgeting with her braid. "When mom found out, she was livid, but she couldn't stop us. Jaune would take more and more missions, sometimes four or five in a day. Hunting down Grimm, bandits, whatever, it reached a point where it became pointless for me to work, and to get mom off our backs, I went back to school full time."

Jeanne's head dropped as she let out a sigh.

"And this is when Jaune started to get the name, The Hound of Arc," She nearly spit the words out. "The Human Grimm, The Mad Dog, and many more. And Jaune just accepts them."

"Why would they call him names if he's helping so much?" Nora asked.

"You've seen his semblance," Another sigh. "Madness Enhancement, they called it. The angrier he is, the stronger, faster, and tougher he becomes. But the angrier he is, the more he loses himself."

"What do you mean?" Ren looked to Jeanne, who looked to Pyrrha and Yang.

"You two fought him the most, did you notice any changes during the fight?"

"Besides the fact that punching him felt like boxing a brick wall?" Yang joked.

Pyrrha was thinking hard about it, she was so set on winning she didn't really focus on him.

"He got easier to hit." Ruby answered. "When his eyes were glowing and all that smoke was coming off him, he wouldn't dodge or block."

"Bingo." Jeanne smiled at her fellow leader. "He becomes reckless, dead set on beating whatever his anger is focused on to the point he no longer cares if he must break himself to do it. He's gotten better, but the damage is done, all anyone sees is the hound, even Ozpin."

"Man… I… didn't know you had it so rough, Jeanne." Yang rubbed the back of her neck.

"I mean, I didn't talk about it. Plus, I'm not the only one with family drama, and things are fine back at home, and… that's why I thought I could leave." Jeanne said, poking the tips of her pointer fingers together.

Jeanne felt an arm wrap around her, looking over, she found Yang sitting beside her. "I'm sorry, Jeanne."

"Don't start a pity party, I'm fine."

"Not that, I'm sorry for… you know… being mean to your brother." Yang rubbed the back of her neck, trying her hardest to cover her shame. "I was completely out of line, Jeanne I'm sorry."

"I need to apologize as well." Said Pyrrha. "Is there a way we can make it up to your brother?"

"Nope," Jeanne said as plainly as ever.

"That wasn't the answer I was expecting, why not?" Yang asked.

"Jaune is… not going to want to talk to you… he feels bad," Jeanne said. "He kinda blames himself for everything and took a lot of what you all said to heart."

"But we were wrong," Ruby said.

"He doesn't see it that way, you all were on my side, and he wasn't. That's all he'll see, him standing against me, no matter how much I'll tell him otherwise." Jeanne played with her braid as she looked down. "He probably also thinks he ruined some of our friendships because he beat us up."

"What? Why would he think that?" Nora asked. "Besides, he trying to make you come home, he's been really cool."

"This wouldn't be the first time Jaune scared people away from wanting to hang out with me. Back home, people still see him as dangerous, an unstable bomb, they didn't trust their kids around us. Also didn't help that Jaune would beat up anyone who messed with our family."

"If you don't mind me asking," Ren started. "How did your brother's semblance come to be?"

"What do you mean?" Nora asked.

"Like how we learned your semblance by you getting stuck by lightning during our travels, some semblances are discovered as soon as your aura is unlocked, sometimes great deals of stress actives them, and others can be activated by a freak accident."

"Oh, like the time Yang nearly got expelled from school by throwing a kid throw a wall, and we learned she had Burn."

"I think you're over-skipping the first half of that, Ruby," Blake spoke up before looking at Yang.

"I told him not to pull my hair." Yang smiled. "But I can see Ren's point, my eyes were burning red for like two days after I found mine."

The whole room turned to Jeanne.

"… Well… It's a story."

Hey, It's me. I just wanted to tell you all that Fanfic has changed some things, so if you want emails, you have to Opt-In so they will send you updates when your fav and follows are posted. I don't know why, I am just a messager. Anyways, leave a Review, they are very helpful. Until next time.