Author's Note:
Play.
Nice.
That is all.
[/]
"Your armor is interfering with my Jaune-smooching privileges," Weiss griped as her boyfriend set her down in front of the pedestrian gate into Beacon proper. The aspiring knight shrugged - a movement exaggerated by the large steel pauldrons on his shoulders - as he held up his Scroll to the gate to gain entry.
"I'm sure you'll figure it out," he said absently, as the pair made their way onto campus.
Weiss crossed her arms in annoyance. "Well, I suggest that you get creative with solutions."
"Well, that sounds ominous." One of the first relationship lessons that he'd learned was that a cranky, pent-up Weiss was to be avoided at all costs.
"It was meant to."
He turned to her, a smile on his face. "I'll make sure to factor in girlfriend needs for the armor I'll commission after being knighted.'
Weiss huffed. "See that you do."
The sun was low in the horizon and the stars had risen as the couple reached the dormitory building. "We'll have to see what the others want to do for the weekend," Jaune mused.
"Well, they are the last two days before the second semester starts. I'm sure that we'll think of something to do as a team of friends," declared Weiss.
Then Team RWBY's door slammed open and Ruby stormed out, a furious expression on her face. The younger girl's hands were clenched into fists as she stomped into the hallway.
"Uh...Ruby?" Weiss asked, cautiously. "Are you well?"
Ruby paused as she realized that two of her friends were looking at her with puzzlement and concern. "I'm…" she let out her frustration with a huff. "Can we go talk somewhere, Weiss? I'm having an argument with Yang, and I could use some advice."
"Of course." She turned to Jaune. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
"Sure thing." He leaned down to her to try to kiss her goodnight, when his visor fell down, obscuring his face.
Weiss made a face. "I'm going to throw that stupid helmet in the trash." She lifted the visor and planted a quick kiss on his cheek before stepping back to join her partner. "Okay, let's get some hot chocolate, and you can tell me what's going on," she said to Ruby. "Goodnight, Jaune."
"Bye, Jaune!" added Ruby. The two girls left him in the hallway as they went to the hot chocolate vending machine set up in the common area of the dormitory building.
Weiss sipped the steaming cocoa as she sat down next to Ruby. "So, what happened today?"
Ruby fidgeted. "Well...has your big sister ever been a little...too protective sometimes?"
"I can't say that she has. I think it's because there is such an age difference between the two of us. It is a little strange that Winter has been brought on as a sort of tutor for us, but I can imagine that it would be even more awkward if she had been another student, let alone on the same team."
"I guess that makes sense. It's just...I'm only two years younger, and Yang acts like I'm just a little girl sometimes."
"It's just part of being a big sister. If my little brother were here, I'd probably have a hard time not treating him like a little boy, even if he were to be my team leader."
Ruby quirked an eyebrow. "You have a little brother?"
"I do. He's a little younger than you are, and very annoying."
"So...what would you do if you walked in on him doing something that you thought was...inappropriate?"
"Inappropriate? How inappropriate do you mean?"
Ruby blushed. "I was helping Penny with her repairs, and that meant that she...took off her clothes." She couldn't quite meet Weiss's eyes.
It took all of Weiss's considerable training in deportment to refrain from snorting her cocoa. "Could you...elaborate?"
"It's not what you think!" Ruby raised her hands in a plea. "It's just, you know, maintenance. Honest!"
Now it was Weiss who raised an eyebrow at her partner. "So Yang walked in on you while you were…'playing doctor' with the robot girl?"
Ruby gazed off to the side, her cheeks burning. "It was just maintenance," she murmured, sounding more as though she were trying to convince herself than her partner.
"Of course," deadpanned Weiss. She sipped her cocoa. "Truth be told, I didn't know that you liked girls that way."
"I don't!" Ruby protested, before pausing to consider it. "I mean...I don't think I do? Or did? I mean, I didn't think that I liked guys either, but then I met Jaune and he was all...you know. Then I thought that I just liked certain guys, but then, the more time I spend with Penny, the more she makes me feel the same kind of way that Jaune did, and it's just...why does this have to be so confusing?"
"I don't know what to tell you," Weiss commiserated with her partner. "I guess only you can determine what works for you. How does Penny feel about it?"
"That's just it!" Ruby wailed. "I can't even tell, because she's just universally awesome all the time, so I don't know if she's just humoring me or if she feels the same way, or if she even can feel the same way, or what!"
Weiss chewed her bottom lip as she considered the situation. "Well, the key to any kind of relationship, whether it's friendship or something more, is communicating. I know it will be difficult for you, but you will need to work up your nerve and ask Penny how she feels. She may not even know either. So don't get your expectations too high, but don't rule anything out without cause either."
Ruby sighed. "I guess this is the sort of thing that Yang should have been talking about with me. Instead, when she saw us, she just kinda flipped out, and dragged me to go tell on me to Uncle Qrow."
"Oh, that must have been a sight."
"He just asked if either of us had done anything the other wasn't okay with, and when Penny and I said we didn't, told Yang that he had real problems to deal with."
"That makes sense. We saw him earlier today. A woman he knew was attacked on the road, and Jaune, Sir Roland and I got her to the infirmary here at Beacon."
"Oh," Ruby paused. "That would explain why he was so tense-looking today. Maybe your sister could pay him a visit? A-wink?" she finished with an exaggerated wink of a silvery eye.
Weiss narrowed her eyes at her partner. "I'm not dignifying that suggestion with a response. At any rate, I'm guessing that that's what set off your argument with your sister?"
"I...may have said some mean things to her," admitted Ruby. "I was just so angry! I told her that she was just jealous that I'm making friends here at Beacon, while everyone here is just getting annoyed with her."
"That is a bit harsh," Weiss said, her tone diplomatically-neutral.
"So, we go to cool off a bit, and Yang comes back with this portrait of herself that some guy painted for her."
"Really?"
"I know, right?" Ruby huffed. "Yang gets emotional, and when she does, she's easy pickings for gross boys who want to do gross boy stuff to her butt."
Weiss's mouth worked for a moment as she struggled to decide where to even begin with that statement. "...Didn't you just say that you had a crush on Jaune?" she finally asked, keeping the topic well away from the subject of Yang's butt and any male intentions pertaining to it.
"He's not a boy," protested Ruby. "He's a Jaune. There's a difference!"
"Of course there is. Jaune is a man," Weiss replied, a dreamy smile on her face.
"Don't rub it in. Anyways, I tried to warn her that this guy is a dilhole, and she gets mad at me!"
"Wait, how do you know that this guy is a, and I quote here, 'dilhole?' Did you meet him?"
"Well, no," Ruby admitted sheepishly. "But I don't trust him. Yang gets into an argument with me where I hurt her feelings, and some stranger just happens to know what buttons to push to get an in with her? My dilhole sense is tingling."
Weiss blinked. This conversation had certainly taken a turn. "Wait. How do you know that you aren't doing to Yang what she did to you which started this whole altercation?"
"Well, that's different. Penny's, you know, Penny. She's about as sinister as a puppy. But boys? They always have a...a alterior motive. Usually pertaining to butts."
"An 'ulterior' motive," Weiss absently corrected her partner, once again opting to ignore Ruby's strange fixation on butts, and boys' designs upon them. "You know, your sister is a beautiful girl. It's entirely possible for her to have attracted benign romantic interest. You do understand that, right?"
Ruby sighed. "It's just, you know, none of them are good enough for her."
"Trust me, I know the feeling there. But you don't want her to be like my sister, do you? All alone, with no life outside of her work, trying to convince herself that she isn't actually lonely?"
"If that's how you see her, then why are you so opposed to her flirting with my uncle?"
"Because he's a no-good drunk who is too old for her." Weiss said, blunter than Nora's hammer.
Ruby recoiled. "Wow, rude," she muttered. "That's still my uncle, you know. Why do you have to be so mean?"
"Deal with it," Weiss replied, as cool as ice as she sipped her hot chocolate once more.
Ruby huffed. "It's just a good thing that it isn't up to you, then. Maybe you should talk to your sister and try to find out what it is she sees in him."
"And maybe you should also understand that your sister's affairs aren't up to you either," Weiss retorted.
The two fell silent for a moment.
"Can I shoot him if he turns out to really be a dilhole?" Ruby finally asked.
"I don't think the rules work like that, Ruby."
"Drat."
[/]
"Hey, where's Pyrrha?"
Jaune had no idea that Nora's simple question would set off an hour-long quest to locate his missing partner. She wasn't at the training room, she wasn't on the roof, she wasn't answering her Scroll, and she wasn't getting a snack from the cafeteria. Finally, Jaune hit upon the idea of simply asking her mom if she had seen her. He set off to Miss Nikos's office, stopping to knock politely at the door. The woman cracked open the door.
"Hello, Miss Nikos," Jaune said politely. "Have you seen Pyrrha?"
"She's sleeping," she said, her tone hushed. "There was something bothering her, but she wouldn't tell me what it was."
That took Jaune aback. Something was upsetting his partner, but she wouldn't confide in her mother? From the way Pyrrha had always spoken, she and her mother had always seemed extremely close. What in all the world could have Pyrrha acting this way?
"Do you mind if I come in and just...wait for her?" Jaune asked. "We've all been worried about her."
"Oh, that shouldn't be a problem. Just try and keep it down - poor thing's been worked up, and should get a little more rest."
With that, Medusa stepped aside to allow her daughter's partner entry into her office. Pyrrha lay curled up on a couch to one side of the room, having rolled herself in a blanket to the point where she had reformed her customary slumber burrito, with just her face sticking out of the wrap. Her mother gently sat on the edge of the couch, stroking her red hair.
Jaune sighed, then took out his Scroll, a complicated process that involved pushing up the riveted faulds on his armor so that he could access his pants pocket. The thick leather of his gauntlets' gloves made typing on a Scroll near impossible, so he pulled off his right gauntlet, tucked it under his armpit, and began typing out a message to his team. He let Ren know that Pyrrha was with her mom, was upset, and that Jaune would stay on the scene until he could figure out what was wrong. With his message sent, he pocketed the Scroll, put his gauntlet back on, and adopted the same kind of loose stance that he had taken so many times before when doing guard duty in Atlas.
"Can I get you a chair?" Miss Nikos asked, her voice muted so as to not wake up her daughter.
"Thank you, but no," answered Jaune, at a similarly hushed volume. "I'll just wait until she's up and ready to talk."
"That could be some time."
"I can sleep standing up."
Medusa did a double-take at that. "Really? How did you come about that skill?"
"Would you believe 'in the army?'"
They fell silent after that, the only sound in the small, quiet office being Pyrrha, as she began to snore. Jaune let his mind wander. For the life of him, he couldn't think of what could have spooked Pyrrha to such a degree. In the meantime, there would undoubtedly be more missions on the way with this upcoming semester. He hoped that his friends' hard work in training would be enough to keep them alive and safe. That woman in the road - one of Ozpin's agents? Had she been caught out? Maybe, but that wound was just bizarre. He'd never seen its like before. He was officially turning eighteen tomorrow, so even if Ironwood came after him, he could claim immunity to the Atlas draft as an adult citizen of Vale. He hoped Weiss was able to help Ruby with whatever it was that was bothering her. Weiss had frowned as his armor had rebuffed her amorous advances. While it was funny in the short term, in the long term, she really would pry him out of it by any means necessary. She was, after all, a girl who was both used to getting what she wanted and had access to several highly-destructive weapons. The thought made him smile. Weiss in general. Weiss...
Jaune really could fall asleep standing up.
When he heard women's voices whispering, he snapped back to full awareness, his reverie put to an instant halt. The early morning sun streamed through the window.
"And you just left him standing there?" Pyrrha whispered to her mother.
"He was waiting for you. Maybe you can tell him what's been bothering you?"
"Mother, I-"
"I know."
Jaune figured that it was best to let them know that he was awake at that point. "So, Pyrrha, want to talk about what's going on?"
She fixed him a wary look from the confines of her burrito. "First, why were you sleeping standing up?"
He shrugged. "Seemed like it would be a while, so I took the opportunity to rest a bit. We were worried about you, you know."
Pyrrha's expression fell. "I don't deserve to be worried about."
"If that's intended to make me not worry, it's not working. I'm not leaving while you're like this, you know."
"My mom can kick you out of her room."
"Oh, it's no trouble," Medusa helpfully chimed in. "Do you prefer bacon or sausage with your breakfast?"
"Mo~om!" Pyrrha buried her face into the couch cushion. "Betrayal!" Her wail was muffled by the thick cushion.
The elder Nikos reached down to ruffle her daughter's hair. "I'll be back," she said. Before she left the room, she caught Jaune's gaze and held it for a moment. Jaune nodded in acknowledgement, and she departed the room.
A silence reigned in the small room. Finally, Pyrrha looked up from her burrito. "Jaune?" Her voice was soft.
"Yes?"
Pyrrha took a moment to gather herself. "How do you...how do you cope with being ashamed of yourself?"
Jaune took a deep breath. "It isn't easy. I try to keep in mind that every day is an opportunity to do better. That I owe a debt to those whom I wronged. While I can't change what I did, or bring them back, I can try to serve others and make it...well, if not 'worth it,' exactly, then at least not as lopsided a trade." He frowned. "What's this about, anyway? You haven't done anything wrong."
"That's where you're wrong, Jaune. I…" She fell silent, unable to look him in the eye.
Pyrrha looked back up as she heard her partner's armor clanking. Jaune squatted down to meet her at eye level. "Pyrrha, whatever it is, you can tell me. We'll figure out how to make it right, I promise."
"Don't make promises you can't keep," she muttered.
"Well, let me know what happened, so I can make an informed choice."
"I…" Pyrrha sat up and took a deep breath to steady herself. "I...I raped Yang."
Whatever Jaune had been expecting Pyrrha to confess, that was not it. "What?!" he blurted out, in complete shock.
"I'm a horrible person, Jaune," Pyrrha cried. "I don't deserve to be at Beacon. I don't deserve to have friends or a mother or…" she sobbed.
Jaune just stared at her, his jaw hanging open. "I...what?" he asked, helplessly.
"I can't tell my mother," croaked Pyrrha. "You know how my father was, and I...her...it would crush her to know that I'm a monster. Just like him." With that, Pyrrha broke down in tears.
Jaune could not have been more stunned than if Pyrrha had confessed to being the secret Queen of the Grimm. He supposed that the strictly proper thing to do would be to go to the authorities, but he just couldn't square the girl that he'd come to know at Beacon with the sort of sexual predators that he'd seen...in action, back in Atlas. He owed her his life. Didn't he owe her the benefit of the doubt as well? But what of Yang?
It occurred to him that, in some rural parts of Vale, a knight could well be appealed to as a local officer of justice. He would need to exercise his investigatory skills in order to discern the truth. Without the truth being brought to light, justice could not exist. As such, he needed to stow his shock and find out exactly what happened.
"Pyrrha," Jaune began, his tone carefully calm. "I need you to tell me what happened with you and Yang. It's very important."
"Jaune…" Pyrrha brought her crying under control. "I...we met up for a practice match. She wanted to prove which one of us was best. We fought, and I had her up against the wall, and…" her face colored. "She was just so...I just...I kissed her, but it wasn't...I mean…"
Jaune waited patiently for Pyrrha to compose herself. After a moment, she continued her explanation. "It was wrong of me, Jaune. I wanted to...to win over her, to...it was like...a fight, but with...kissing and the, the other things… I realized what I was doing and I just ran away. I fled from her, like a coward," Pyrrha finished, miserable.
It took a moment for Jaune to figure out where to even begin unpacking what his partner had told him. "I need to talk to Yang, hear what she has to say about it," he finally said. He stood, locking eyes on the despondent Mistrali girl.
With a nod to Pyrrha, Jaune turned and left the room. He was stiff and rickety as he clanked down the hall, a consequence of staying the night sleeping on his feet, in armor. His first order of business was taking care of a desperately-needed shower.
It was going to be one of those days, he could just tell.
The weight of his responsibility pressed on him more heavily than even his thick armor ever could. Where would his team go from there? He needed to talk to Yang, that much was certain, but...what would he do if she told him that she'd been afraid of Pyrrha's overwhelming presence, if she was frightened and violated by someone she'd thought of as a friend just...surging onto her?
Jaune let out a deep breath. He needed to sort out of his priorities. Pyrrha had saved him from himself. Never, not once, had she ever gave any indication of giving up on him, so how could he give up on her? But if she really was what she thought she was... There were so many different factors that he had to balance, including the very real facts that Pyrrha was the single best fighter out of the lot of them, and that they were preparing for all-out war in the near future. But, how could they function to their fullest potential as a team when Pyrrha had lobbed such a bomb right into the middle of them all?
His friends had never given up on him...but then, he hadn't had Laurel Spott on his team either. As horrible as it was, none of his victims still lived, and the cold hard truth was, if somehow, Spott had escaped and defected like Blake...well, it would be incumbent on him to remove himself from the situation.
Ultimately, he decided, his highest priority in this situation would be to ensure that Yang felt safe and was able to depend on the rest of the team. As much as it would hurt, if push came to shove, Pyrrha could be reassigned elsewhere to put her talents to use in the war to come, but if Yang agreed with Pyrrha's assessment of the situation, keeping his partner in the team would destroy team cohesion.
Sometimes, there were no easy answers to be found. They could only do the best that they could with the cards that they were dealt. He would need to talk to Ren about this as well, to make sure that their team was ready for the impact.
He sighed again. What else could he do? Sir Roland had told him that justice, as such, didn't occur naturally. It was something constructed, something created by the collective efforts of people to elevate their communities from the primal savagery of the state of nature. Not for the first time, Jaune wished that he could be put on trial for his actions while under the General's...well, "care" wasn't quite the proper word, was it?
No matter Ozpin's words, Jaune still felt as though he was ducking responsibility for what he'd done in Atlas. There was a great deal of public trust tied up in the institution of knighthood, but how was he to uphold that trust when his hands were stained with blood?
How could he begin to fix this?
[/]
Winter's great secret, one of several that she endeavored to conceal from cadets, soldiers that had been under her command, and especially her little sister, is that she was very much not a morning person. She took great pains so as to not allow her antipathy for all things morning to show in her appearance and demeanor, ensuring that she was well and truly caffeinated before even taking the risk that anyone could see her in anything less than her full, resplendent glory.
The former soldier was in a liminal state, somewhere approaching the realm of decent, but without having fully departed from the dregs of early morning-ness. As such, she drank a positively unfortunate amount of coffee, black, and as strong as the finest baristas in all the land could distill the mighty bean. Winter was just about at the state where she didn't want to stab anyone.
Then, a knock upon her door.
Winter sighed, then double-checked her hair to ensure that it was neatly tied in a bun before rising to answer the knock. Whoever it was either had news of the most critical variety or else was too ignorant to know that she was not to be approached for trifling matters before at least seven in the morning. She would adjust her level of hostility accordingly.
She opened the door to find a cheery Penny smiling happily at her.
"Salutations, Miss Winter!" the android girl chirped. "Is it not a lovely morning?"
Winter decided that it would be poor form to murder the girl. She was just too adorable to kill. Instead, she sighed wearily. "Good morning, Penny. Is there something amiss?"
"Oh, I merely have need of your experience, Miss Winter. A term came up in conversation with Friend Yang yesterday, and I remain unsure as to its social connotations!"
"And this required you to ask me at this hour?"
"Indeed!" Penny continued to beam her megawatt smile.
All Winter could do was to just sigh once more. "Very well. What is it?"
"What is a 'skank,' and why would someone say that I am one?"
[/]
The mood in Team RWBY's dorm room was awkward, to say the very least. Yang had hung the portrait of herself on the wall, and would glance at it from time to time with a happy little sigh. Weiss, for one, thought that that was just a tad vain, but she kept that opinion to herself after consideration of the sheer number of mirrors, large and small, that she herself owned. Everyone deserved to feel pretty, after all.
Blake was distant...well, more distant than normal, which was saying something. It was obvious that she was preoccupied with something, but she was reluctant to discuss what it was that was bothering her. Ruby was trying to make amends with her sister, who seemed as though she wasn't quite ready to make nice just yet.
So, par for the course for a quartet of teenagers living together.
Still, Ruby, bless her heart, was doing her best to mend the rifts and bring her team closer together as they sat down for breakfast in the cafeteria. The other three girls jumped as she slammed a white binder down on the table. "Friends! Sisters! Weiss!" she announced.
"Hey!"
The heiress's protest was ignored, as always. In the meantime, Jaune, Ren and Nora made their entrance, sitting down across from their sister team, as always.
"Four score and seven minutes ago, I had a dream," Ruby declared, her tone grandiose. "A dream that, one day, the four of us would come together - as a team - and have the most fun that anyone has had, ever!"
Weiss narrowed her eyes in suspicion as she realized where her missing binder had disappeared to. "Did you steal my binder?"
"I am not a crook," Ruby lied, her hands in v-signs. "Here, I've put together all of my ideas in one easy-to-read compilation. So, we go through it and find out what to do?"
"Hey, Yang," Jaune interjected. "Before you guys run off today, can we talk in private for a moment?"
Jaune realized he was in trouble when the blonde bomber shot him an evil grin. "Why, Jaune, I just knew that it was only a matter of time!" She flipped her hair over her shoulder and struck an exaggerated pose. "Sorry, Weiss. It's not my fault that I'm irresistible."
"That's not - " Jaune tried to interject, as Weiss scowled.
"Such scandal!" Yang continued, her tone breathy.
Ruby, her expression deadpan, tried to regain control of the conversation. "Excuse me? Awesome plans, right here! As I was saying -"
"Heya kids." They looked up as the familiar, slightly disheveled form of Qrow Branwen approached their table. "Ruby, Yang, got some news for ya. Turns out -"
"You!"
Winter Schnee stormed towards him, a meek Penny in tow. She no longer wore the uniform of an Atlesian Specialist, opting to wear an off-shoulder white blouse, navy blue waist cincher, grey slacks, and knee-high black riding boots. She also wore a look of utter vexation as she marched towards the veteran Huntsman.
All par for the course - and kinda hot to boot - but for the life of him, Qrow couldn't think of anything that he'd done to piss her off lately. He pointed to himself. "Me?"
"Yes, you," Winter snorted. "Is there a particular reason why you've taught your nieces to make such foul and unsubstantiated attacks on poor Penny, or shall I put it down to you simply being a bad influence on them?"
"Uh…" Qrow blinked, genuinely confused. "What?"
"Such articulation," snarked Winter. "The point is that your uncouth niece -" here, she jabbed an accusatory finger at Yang - "referred to Penny as, and I quote, 'a robo-skank.'"
"Really, there's no need to cause such commotion on my behalf." Penny wrung her hands together nervously.
"You're worth making a commotion," Ruby assured her friend. "But seriously, can we get back to my awesome plans?" Alas, the poor girl was ignored as her sister rose to her feet.
"Well, maybe she wouldn't get called a robo-skank if she wasn't skanking around my sister!" Yang snapped, pointing a finger of her own at Penny, who was still half-hidden behind Winter..
"Oh, like you're one to speak of such matters,' scoffed Winter.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Uh-oh," Ruby whimpered.
Winter merely arched an eyebrow as she pointedly traced her gaze up and down Yang and her short-shorts, midriff-baring tiny tube top, and low-cut leather jacket, the gesture positively dripping with contempt. "Do your parents know that you dress like...that?"
As Yang's eyes flashed red, Qrow attempted to intervene. "Woah, hey," he began, holding his hands up to placate the angry women. "Let's, uh, keep cool, yeah?"
"Yeah," Yang added, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "Keep cool." With that, she scooped up her bowl of Pumpkin Pete's breakfast cereal and hurled it at Winter in one smooth motion. From the ease of long experience exchanging culinary projectiles with her younger sister, Yang had imparted just the right amount of tilt to the throw to ensure that the open side of the bowl splashed Winter full in the face.
The entire table sat in shocked silence as the bowl of cereal slowly slid down the former Specialist's face. As the bowl fell away, Winter's milk-soaked and be-flaked face bore an expression of incandescent fury.
"Oh dear," murmured Penny, who, by this point, was sorely regretting ever having said anything in the first place.
Winter grabbed the first item that came to hand, an inexplicable banana cream pie, and threw it right into Yang's smirking mug.
"Nora!" Ren shouted. She looked at him, puzzled.
"What?"
He blinked, as he realized that, for once, it was everyone else wreaking havoc around him. "Sorry. Force of habit."
"Ah hell," Qrow muttered, as Yang, half-blinded by sugary confectionary, returned fire with a bowl of biscuit gravy, only to miss Winter and splash the younger Schnee sister with the gray, savory sauce.
Jaune leapt onto the table, the weight of his armor making the table shake with the impact. "My friends," he began. "We have our differences, but let us not escalate our disagreements -"
He was pelted from all sides with whatever food came to hand. A head of cabbage - thrown by a booing Nora - bounced off of his helmet, with one of the leaves getting caught in his visor and waving proudly atop his head like a leafy crest.
"...I'm feeling a little attacked here," he griped.
"Jaune, sweetie?" Weiss, pulling off her earrings as gravy dripped from her hair, spoke up, her voice artificially saccharine. "Do step aside, babe. There comes a time in every young woman's life when she needs to throw down."
The aspiring knight looked around, realized that he had no chance, and stalked off while muttering to himself about crazed women.
The Schnee sisters began their assault on the uncle-niece team of Qrow and Yang, while Jaune sulked in the corner and tried to clean the food dripping off of his armor. Winter launched herself at Qrow, prompting the veteran Huntsman to smirk at her predictable choice of target. He pounded on the table, sending a plate into the air, catching it and spinning into a stylish throw. For her part, Winter executed a textbook powerslide underneath the dish-turned-discus, springing up to swing a baguette at Qrow.
In the meantime, Yang faced off against her teammate. While the blonde double-fisted whole roasted turkeys to serve as meaty boxing gloves, Weiss brandished an entire marlin, whirring the piscine creature's bony snoutblade in an elaborate flourish.
"I can understand if you wish to surrender now and beg for my forgiveness," boasted Weiss. "After all, I'm armed with a...a fish," she finished, with a shrug.
Yang cocked an eyebrow. "Who even orders an entire swordfish for their breakfast anyway?"
"My swordfish!" Blake cried, her adorable kitty ears lowered in mourning.
Ignoring their Faunus teammate, the two girls circled one another warily, with Yang bearing a slight grin and Weiss's eyes narrowed into dangerous, glacial slits. Predictably, Yang made the first move, leaping into action with her be-turkeyed fist cocked back to deliver a decisive blow. Weiss recognized the opportunity and brought her right hand, her off-hand, from behind her back, revealing the bottle of ketchup that she clutched.
"Have at thee, dunce!" The heiress crowed in victory as she clenched the center of the plastic bottle of ketchup, creating a cloud of condiment that caught Yang full in the face. The brawler shrieked and flew right past Weiss entirely, unable to clear the ketchup from her face and hair while her fists were encased in their roasted turkey prison.
Weiss struck a pose, taking a moment to gloat over her triumph. "Weiss is victorious on all fron-ack!" A roasted turkey, launched from Yang, hit her directly in the nose. Weiss dropped her swordfish - prompting a cry of outrage from Blake - and cradled her abused face. "Why does everybody hit my nose?" she wailed piteously.
Yang cocked her fist back, as she wiped the ketchup from her face with her free hand. "Because it's so big a target that I can literally hit it with my eyes closed?" she offered, smirking.
That prompted a gasp of outrage from the heiress. "That's...that's not true! Jaune, tell her that that's not true!"
Jaune coughed awkwardly, attempting to very carefully choose his next words. "I wouldn't call it big, necessarily, it's just a very...classically Atlesian nose."
"Jaune!"
"Would calling it 'aquiline' help?"
Weiss actually stamped her foot in childish fury. "Jaune, get your big metal butt over here and defend my honor from this reprobate!"
"Hey, no fair!" protested Yang. "Blake, come protect my honor!"
"You haven't got any," came the immediate sardonic reply from Yang's cat Faunus partner.
"Shit, you're right," Yang admitted. "Still, get over here anyway?"
"Why should I?"
"Because Little Miss Eagle Beak over here dropped your swordfish on the floor, remember?"
And so it was that Blake and Jaune found themselves dragged into the Great Beacon Food Fight. Nora, thrilled that everyone else was being crazy for once, simply cheered them on as she merrily ate her pancakes with a big happy grin, while Ren could do nothing more than stare in shock as Winter and Qrow dueled with a baguette and a large tube of pepperoni, respectively.
"Why am I not surprised that you opted for the largest tube of meat that you could find?" the former Specialist japed, as she parried an overhead chop and riposted with a thrust that harnessed the hidden power of baked goods.
Qrow had a glint in his eye as he canted his head to one shoulder to avoid the yeasty thrust. "What can I say? Got a lot of experience handling my spicy meat."
"Yes, I'm sure that your own meat is the only that you've had cause to handle for some considerable time."
"Expertise like this takes a lot of practice," he grinned as they locked into a corps-a-corps.
"Had we but a bit of mustard and some cheese, we could make a sandwich," Winter mused.
"Yeah, sure, then after you make me a sandwich, you could go fetch me a beer while you're at it."
She scoffed in his face. "Hardly. After you make me a sandwich, I'll have you attending to my feet after a long and wearying day of breaking my foot off in your sorry ass."
"Such language, Ice Queen!" Qrow pushed her back, breaking their lock. "Won't someone think of the children?" he mocked.
The pair backed away to give Blake Belladonna room to skid to a landing after having been launched across the cafeteria by Jaune. She kicked up a link of sausages, wielding them like a rope dart and wrapping it around Jaune's arm. Unfortunately, she forgot that Jaune was much larger and stronger than her, and the aspiring knight yanked her towards him with a mighty tug. As soon as the way was clear, the former Specialist and secret operative continued their battle.
Meanwhile, Ruby continued to pout that no one had wanted to hear about the super awesome plans that she'd spent so long thinking up. "This is so stupid," she griped.
"Cheer up, Ruby!" Penny gamely attempted to raise her spirits. "At least our friends are having fun."
The words had scarcely left the robot girl's mouth when Weiss drew upon the power of her Semblance to summon an arm of her Arma Gigas. The powerful construct slammed into one end of the dining table upon which Yang had leapt, sending the blonde catapulting through the air. Unfortunately, that also sent a cavalcade of food crashing down directly onto the head of poor Ruby, knocking the binder out of her hands and sending the pages of her plans scattering into the mess of dishes, sauces and spilled drinks.
Penny saw Friend Ruby's large, silvery eyes water up with tears as she saw her efforts ruined. Ruby had introduced to her a great number of wonderful, powerful emotions, feelings that Penny had cherished as proof that she was a real girl after all. But seeing Ruby cry conjured up a new feeling, one which was both completely foreign to the robot girl's experience and decidedly unpleasant. Emotional Resolution Heuristics analyzed the situation, and the custom Make Ruby Happy action analysis subroutine that Penny had quietly created and installed in her operating system informed her that the best way to both make the unpleasant emotion cease and put a smile on Ruby's face would be an over-the-top display of the capabilities that Ruby had helped restore to her.
Tenderly, she reached over to touch Ruby's cheek. "Don't worry, Ruby. I'll make them stop, in my own particular idiom." Her emerald eyes took on a sharp gleam as she activated combat protocols. "I'm food fight ready!"
A few feet away from where Ruby and Penny stood, Jaune heard the robot girl's declaration, and paled, as he was one of the few who knew what she could do if pressed. Ignoring Blake completely, he turned and tackled his girlfriend - earning one of her indignant squawks for his effort - and covered her with his armored body underneath a table.
"Wow tiger, right here in the cafeteria?" Yang snarked, a melon in her hand reared back and ready to be hurled.
"Uh, Yang?" Blake's normal monotone wavered as she saw Penny stride into the center of the cafeteria.
"What?"
Yang followed her partner's gaze to see Penny - silly, harmless Penny! - levitate into the center of the cafeteria with honest-to-goodness rocket boots. Even Qrow and Winter's duel sputtered into silence as the robot girl crossed her arms across her chest.
Winter lowered her dueling baguette as she warily eyed her charge. "Er...Penny?"
Penny threw her arms back open, sending wires shooting from her splayed fingers. The wires drove into the long wooden dining tables with such speed that they dug deep into the wood, hooking into the thick wood and allowing the robot girl to spool in the wires and heft ten tables up into the air at once.
Yang had a sudden, deep, and overwhelmingly bad feeling about this. "Um…"
With the whir of powerful servomotors, Penny began rotating in place. The tables attached to her wires spun through the air like the blades of a propeller, whipping food around the cafeteria in a raging storm of food, a downright culinary cyclone. Soon, all the belligerents in the room were swept up in the caloric tempest, save for Weiss and Jaune, who were pinned down by the weight of his armor. As suddenly as it had begun, Penny's storm came to an end, the girl fully retracting her strings and allowing the food, furniture and friends to all drop to the floor with a great squishing sound.
When Penny's boots set down, the rocket thrusters cutting out, an eerie silence fell over the room for a moment, before Nora, having finally finished her pancakes, began clapping and cheering. Percival, for his part, was having a little doggie field day with all the spilled food, his golden tail wagging with giddy joy.
"That was awesome!" Valkyrie cried, as she bounded over to her fellow ginger. "Do you need a new best friend?"
"I love having friends!" Penny chirped. "But while we can be friends, I'm afraid that we can't be best friends, because Ruby is my best friend!"
Ruby squealed in the background.
"That's fair. Renny's my best friend. But we should hang out too!"
"Yay!" Penny glomped onto Nora.
"Hugs are awesome!"
"I know, right?"
As the defeated belligerents of the Great Beacon Food Fight slowly began to collect themselves from the culinary cataclysm what had overtaken them all, Glynda Goodwitch stormed into the cafeteria, her fists clenched at her sides and her shoulders hunched with stress and annoyance.
"What. Happened." she gritted out between her clenched teeth. Her gaze immediately set on Nora. "Miss Valkyrie. Why am I not surprised?"
Nora scratched the back of her head. "Would you believe that I actually had nothing to do with this?"
Glynda's green eyes narrowed into emerald slits. "No."
"Hello, Professor Goodwitch!" Penny interrupted. "Please do not blame Friend Nora for this, for it was I who won the food fight!"
"You did this?" the Mistress of Beacon Academy canted her head. "Did you...did you have a glitch?"
"Of course not, silly! Er, ma'am," Penny swiftly corrected herself as Glynda's expression soured even further. "The Make Ruby Happy action analysis subroutine informed me that, when Friends Yang, Weiss, Jaune, and Blake, as well as Miss Winter and Mister Qrow, had their food fight and ruined Ruby's papers, the way to make her happy would be an overwhelming display of force, using capabilities restored by Ruby herself."
"You...you have a subroutine dedicated entirely to making me happy?" Ruby asked, a little stunned.
"Of course I do! You are high priority to me." Penny canted her head as Ruby flushed. "Your heartrate has elevated. Are you well?"
Nora grinned. "D'aaww. That's so sweet, and gay."
"Ruby always makes me happy, so I'm always gay when we're spending time together!"
Glynda coughed, hoping to change the subject, and also to keep Ruby Rose from hyperventilating. It was then that Qrow and Winter emerged from the pile of upturned tables.
"Well...that just happened," muttered Qrow. He winced as he heard the telltale sound of a bitchy Glynda approaching. "Aw crap."
"Why am I not surprised to find you involved in this debacle? And you, Miss Schnee, clearly need Qrow mitigation training."
"She started it," Qrow muttered. Winter detonated again.
"Excuse me?!" She took a step towards him, but as she did, one of her heels inexplicably broke. She stumbled towards him, and Qrow reached out to catch her by the upper arms. Qrow did a double-take and his heart skipped a beat as she looked up at him. With her surprise, Winter's eyes were large, her gaze soft, like a doe. Her hair had come undone, cascading down her back like a shroud of moonlight, that one lock of wavy hair teasing him to smooth it behind her ear. Though her muscles were toned, her skin was impossibly soft and smooth.
Winter flushed as she stared up at him. Was he always that tall? Without the scent of liquor clinging to him, he smelled...surprisingly nice, a subtle, masculine scent mixed with gun oil. Though the hands on her arms were large and rough with callouses, his grip was gentle, almost tender, and as she looked up at him, she suddenly found, to her shock and dismay, that she had a powerful, irrational urge to nuzzle against the stubble on his face, to feel its roughness against her.
"Ahem." Glynda coughed, and the brief moment was lost, the pair almost falling over to put distance between each other.
"Er, thank you, for the...assistance," Winter said, with as much grace as she could muster while balanced on a mismatched pair of boots.
Qrow scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Don't thank me. My Semblance...makes bad things happen around me."
"It's merely a boot heel, easily replaced," she assured him, her tone oddly soft for her.
"Are you two done having a moment, or shall I return later?"
All heads turned to see Headmaster Ozpin, casually leaning on his cane a few feet behind Glynda. His amusement was evident as he slowly took in the devastation of the cafeteria around him. "You know, flirting was a lot less destructive back in my day."
"Uh…" Qrow tried to think of something to say, some quip or excuse, but his mind was too occupied, so he just shrugged. "I got nothin'."
Glynda just pinched the bridge of her nose, and with a wave of her riding crop, she began telekinetically righting the overturned furniture in the dining hall. In the meantime, Ozpin ambled over to the assorted students, chuckling as he saw the cabbage leaf waving proudly from Jaune's visor. "A new sigil for the House of Arc?"
Jaune just stared at him, puzzled. "Huh?"
Weiss reached up and gingerly plucked the leafy crest from his helmet, giggling as she handed it to him. His face fell as he realized that he'd been going around with produce on his head for who-knows-how long. "Not, uh...not so much, sir," he said, sheepishly.
"Right. Well, I merely wanted to stop by to wish you a happy birthday, and to give you this." He handed over a small plastic card with the Beacon Academy logo on it. "It's my understanding that the annual Weapons and Armor Convention is in town, and thought that it might be appropriate to contribute some discretionary funding towards equipment and upgrades." Ozpin allowed himself a small, lopsided smirk. "Of course, there is a set limit to those funds. You are, after all, still a teenager, and I don't think that the taxpayers of Vale would appreciate funding, say, an inebriated joyride in a main battle tank."
"It's your birthday?" Weiss asked, as the rest of their friends gathered around them. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"Why, is that important?" asked Jaune. He had that look of earnest consternation on his face again, the one that, when combined with another reminder of how deprived his upbringing had been, never failed to break Weiss's heart. She reached up to put her palm on his cheek, only for his visor to fall again. Weiss growled with annoyance and finally just pulled the damn thing off of his head, to give her proper access to her Jaune.
She touched his cheek, quietly feeling pleased at the beginnings of stubble on his face - whatever business he'd had with his team last night, it had clearly kept him from shaving. Maybe she should hide his razor for a while. "When someone has a birthday, it's customary for friends and family to celebrate, as a way to show them that they are important to them."
"Yeah!" Ruby added.
"Oh. I'm sorry," he apologized.
Weiss smiled at him. "Don't be. You didn't know. Oh, and don't forget to thank Ozpin for his generous gift."
"Oh, right! Thank you, sir," said Jaune, dutiful as ever.
Ozpin waved him off. "It's a small gesture, nothing more."
"So, want to check out the Convention with me?" Jaune asked his girlfriend. Weiss pondered for a moment, before the proverbial light bulb lit up.
"I have an idea," she began. "Why don't we bring Ruby and Penny with us? You could have someone to share your interests, and I could commiserate with Penny, before we go and have a nice dinner together.."
Ruby blanched, trying not to panic. "Is that, like, a d-date?"
"That sounds wonderful!" Penny chirped. "Friend Ruby, would you like to go on a date with me?"
Weiss walked over to her partner and nudged the Ruby-shaped statue that had manifested in her place on the cafeteria floor. "This is the part where you say 'yes,' you dolt!" she whispered.
"Yes!" blurted Ruby, far too loud, and literally jumping in place in her excitement.
"Excellent!"
Glynda clicked her tongue. "As adorable as this all is, I'm afraid you won't have the time for such things while serving your detention for today's food fight."
"Aw, don't be like that!" Yang protested. After seeing how thrilled Ruby was...well, maybe she had overreacted. "It was my fault. I said something mean about Penny, which she didn't understand. Miss Winter didn't take that too well, and after an argument, I threw the first dish. It wouldn't be right to punish them for something that I did."
Glynda steeled herself against Xiao Long's violet puppy-dog gaze, but then made the mistake of looking over at the other students, as Weiss, Jaune, Ruby, and even Penny gave her their own pleading looks. She struggled not to swear. "Fine. Very well. Consider this a one-time birthday amnesty, Mister Arc."
"Thank you, Miss Goodwitch!"
She tried to ignore the various youthful words of gratitude as the students, recognizing their chance to make a break for it, filed out of the cafeteria. However, the two older troublemakers had no such protection.
"And where do you think you're going?" she asked Qrow and Winter, stopping them in their tracks.
"Uh...away?" Qrow answered.
Glynda crossed her arms. "Well, thanks to the intervention of the Headmaster, the students have effectively got away with this. You two, however…" Glynda turned, and with a flick of her wrist, telekinetically brought over two mops and a bucket. "I want this cafeteria cleaned before the students report for lunch, understand me? And keep your hands off each other, or I swear, I'll dump the both of you in ice water."
Winter swore. See, this is why mornings were best avoided.
[/]
"I literally can't believe we got away with that," Yang snickered as the students beat a hasty retreat from the dining hall.
"Hey... thanks for making sure we were free to...to go out," said Ruby, flushing as she finished.
Yang grinned and yoinked her sister under her arm, causing the younger girl to flail about ineffectually in her grip. "Aw, I'm just making sure my little sis has the best first date ever," she said. "Hey," she said to Penny, her tone softer. "I'm sorry I called you a skank. I guess I was a bit...too much sometimes."
"Does this mean we're friends again?" Penny asked brightly.
"Were we ever not?"
"Splendid! I promise I'll do my best to make Ruby happy!"
"Yeah, you do that."
Jaune coughed. "Hey, Yang? Before we all split off...well, I'm going to need to talk to you. And Ren as well."
"Huh? About what?"
"Pyrrha."
Jaune felt an icy grip around his heart as Yang dropped her sunny little dragon smile at the mention of her name. "What about her?" she asked, her tone flat.
"It's about what happened yesterday. Ren, I need you there because I'm compromised."
"Wait, what happened yesterday?" Ruby asked.
Nora pulled up on them. "Yeah, is this why Pyrrha ran off?"
Jaune sighed. Well, he'd screwed this up before he'd even started. He supposed that, if nothing else, it would be best to rip off the bandage in one go, so the team as a whole could figure out what to do. Given that Ruby was Yang's leader as well as her sister, he really should have included her as well. Between that and how miserably he was failing at trying to address this by himself, all he could do was trust in his friends. "Listen," he said, speaking to Yang. "Whatever happens, I want you to know that ensuring your safety and well-being is my highest priority."
"Just spit it out," Blake said, concerned for what had happened with her partner.
"I...this morning, Pyrrha confessed to me that she had...sexually assaulted Yang. Yesterday, in the training hall."
Well, that had the predictable effect, being a series of shocked gasps and permutations of the phrase "What?!"
Yang stared at him, her jaw open. Slowly, everyone else stopped to look at her. Yang shook her head. "Uh...no she didn't."
"She...she didn't?" Jaune's heart practically stopped in his relief.
"No! We were sparring together, when she pinned me up against the wall. I did some light flirting, and then she was just on me in a super-hot makeout session. Then she looks like she saw a ghost, dropped me right on my butt, and ran off!"
Weiss looked at her teammate curiously. "So you're not...hurt?"
"I'm not mad that she was on me, I was mad that she stopped! Not even a word! Just up and gone!"
A silence fell over the teens as they digested the huge bomb that they had just defused.
"Still, she should have asked before doing anything," Blake pointed out.
"I mean, yeah, but it's not as if I haven't been wanting her to throw me against a wall for weeks now."
"Yang!" Ruby shook her head.
Jaune found himself seated in the grass, holding his head in his hands, just overwhelmed with relief. "Look...you need to tell her. She thinks she's the worst sort of predator, and she's an emotional wreck. If you really don't feel threatened by her, she's in her mother's office."
"And when you do talk to her, remind her to ask before...doing anything with anyone," Ren added.
Yang chuckled. "Well, I guess that explains why she beat feet. I'll go set her straight, and meet Ruby to help her get ready for her first date."
"Sounds like a plan."
The blonde bomber waved goodbye to her friends as she set off towards the faculty offices. Jaune sank his face into his hands.
"Are you okay?" Weiss asked him, kneeling down next to him.
"I...I had no idea how I was going to handle that. I was torn between my duty to justice and the debt of gratitude that I owe Pyrrha."
"That's why we handled things as a team," said Nora. "We're all in this together, right?"
"That's right," added Ren. He took a deep breath. "Incidentally, I have no idea how to handle that either. Actually…" he shook his head as a thought occurred to him. "I should probably catch up with Yang, and make sure that her talk with Pyrrha doesn't get...out of hand."
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Ruby agreed. "I should come with you too." She flushed as she looked at Penny. "Um...see you later today?"
"Of course! I look forward to our socialization activity!" Penny pulled Ruby into a tight hug. The two dorks waved cheerily as Ruby trotted off to catch up with Ren. The android girl then beamed brightly at Weiss. "Thank you for your invitation, Friend Weiss!" With that she glomped onto the heiress, who squawked in indignation.
That squawking only increased in intensity as a burst of rose petals coalesced into the grinning form of Ruby Rose. "Yay! Everybody hug Nice Weiss!"
"There are two of them now!" Weiss wailed. Jaune just shook his head as he noted that, despite her protests, she was latching on to Ruby just as tightly as Ruby latched on to her and Penny.
Then Blake snapped a picture, her face in a little kitty grin. "You have fun with that," she called out to her teammate as she walked away. "I've got my own thing to do today."
"Come back! Save me! Jaune! Rescue me from these...these cretins!"
Jaune contemplated for a second. "Nah. It's good for you."
"Jaune! Jaune, why?" Weiss laid on thick with the dramatics.
"Okay, gotta go!" Ruby dashed off again in her floral burst.
Penny canted her head as she thought of something. "Friend Weiss? Friend Nora?"
"Yes?"
"What's up?"
Penny fidgeted. "How does one prepare for a date?"
[/]
Pyrrha started as she heard a pounding on her mother's door. The former champion had no idea what to expect. Really, with what she told Jaune, she wouldn't be at all surprised to find a Huntsman on the other side of the door, or possibly a team, to take her in for her crimes. Still, she wouldn't hide from the consequences of her actions, and could only hope that her stoic dignity could salvage some of the damage that she had done to her mother's family name. She was just glad that her mother was in the garden, and wouldn't see her arrest in person.
The pounding resumed as Pyrrha made her way to the door, preparing to surrender everything that she was, everything that she had achieved, in order to face justice. She swung open the door…
And a red-eyed Yang Xiao Long was waiting for her.
Pyrrha blanched. "Yang…"
The blonde bomber pushed Pyrrha back inside the room, kicking the door closed with her foot. "Are you fucking stupid?!" she snarled, without preamble. "You fucking told Jaune that you sexually assaulted me?!"
"It's the truth…" Pyrrha said, wilting in the face of Yang's fury. She deserved every bit of it for what she had done.
"No it isn't! We got worked up, got a little rough, things got hot. Then you dropped me like I scalded you or something, and you run off like you saw a Geist! What, did you realize that you were macking on annoying, stupid Yang and realized your mistake halfway in?"
"I...what?" Pyrrha shook her head. "Yang, what I did to you was wrong, don't you see that? I wanted to...to dominate you, to take you and...why are you biting your lower lip?"
"Because that's freaking hot as all-get out!" Yang ran her hands through her hair in frustration. "What, do you need a formal invitation? 'I, Yang Xiao Long, hereby give you, Pyrrha Freaking Nikos, permission to step on me.' Is that clear enough for you?"
Pyrrha stared at her friend, stricken. "Yang, how can you...are you trying to shield me from the consequences of my actions?"
Yang's hair began smoldering in her vexation. She took a deep breath to try to calm down. "Let me explain this to you, in small words. I'm not mad that you pushed me against the wall and kissed the hell out of me. I'm mad that you stopped and then ran off without a word, beyond your usual 'I'm sorry' spiel."
The Mistrali girl sat on her mother's couch. "Yang...I need to tell you something. It's something that I've only ever shared with my partner." She stared down at her hands. "The reason that there is no 'Mister Nikos' is because...well, my father, whoever he was...he forced himself on my mother, and the result is...me."
Yang's hair extinguished, and her eyes turned back to their normal lilac shade as she raised a hand to cover her mouth, her expression one of shock.
"I don't like to talk about it," Pyrrha said, her tone subdued. "So what happened yesterday...the feelings, the desire to conquer and take and force you to submit...those were the impulses that must have driven my father to...do what he did. The only legacy he left me. So those things about me that you found attractive...those are the worst parts of me. Those are the parts that I need to bury. To lock them away, so deep that no one can ever know, where they can't hurt anyone." Tears welled in her eyes, and began streaming down her face. "I am a monster, Yang. No better than the Grimm we train to fight. All I can do is to set that monster against the others, to try to make something worthwhile come out of this...walking crime." She shook her head and stood, walking past Yang and opening the door, stopping before she left.
"I'm sorry."
"Pyrrha." Yang's tone was subdued, stunned even. "I've never heard a Grimm apologize."
"Such a high bar I've cleared. I can't be with you, Yang. I can't let this part of myself loose, not ever again."
With that, Pyrrha was gone.
Yang walked out into the hallway, dazed at what she'd just been told.
"Yang?" She looked over to see her little sister, with Lie Ren in tow.
"Is...everything okay?" asked Ren, his tone cautious. To be fair, if they had come to blows, Yang wouldn't want to have to step between Pyrrha Nikos and a raging...herself.
Yang shook her head. "No. I mean, I'm fine, but Pyrrha needs help. She said...she said that she's no better than the Grimm."
"What?" Ruby's hands flew to her mouth. "Why would she say such a thing?"
"That's...not for me to say." Yang looked at Ren. "She needs you, and Jaune as well."
Ren nodded. "Right." Awkwardly, he put a hand on Yang's shoulder. "We'll do everything we can to help her. I promise."
Yang smiled, a small, sad little thing. "I've seen it. After what you've done for Sir Rusty, I don't doubt you'll pull through."
"How can we help?" asked Ruby.
"We'll need a little space to work this out," Ren told her. "Beyond that, I'm fairly sure that you being your normal self is a cure for depression in and of itself."
"I can't tell if you're joking or not, and that frightens me."
"This is my happy face," Ren deadpanned, his face in its usual stoic mask.
That actually drew a slight snicker from Yang. It was the first sign that maybe, things could be all right.
[/]
Blake was no stranger to slipping into tight spaces in the course of her work, but she'd be lying if she said that she'd ever expected to be infiltrating her own school. Ozpin had provided her a list of visiting students from Mistral's Haven Academy, along with the locations of the rooms in which they were staying. She had slipped into a janitor's closet and worked herself into a crawlspace for running power conduits and AV cables.
The former White Fang operative was just glad that she wasn't claustrophobic. She half-crawled, half-wriggled down the way, checking her progress with the dorm level blueprints on her Scroll. She reached the first room, one belonging to Team ABRN, and silently peered through a small AC vent just off the floor.
"I just really want another crack at Nikos," one of the students, a tall, dusky and heavily-muscled woman said to her fellows.
"And what makes you think this time would go any different from all the times before?"
"Because I'm twice the warrior I was back then!"
"Yeah, but you gotta remember, she's been training too, and her partner is somehow even more OP…"
Blake carefully, silently removed a small device from her pocket and affixed it to the AC grate. It was a microphone and camera, half the size of the nail of her pinky finger. Between the small size and its innocuous location, it should successfully feed surveillance into the Headmaster's system. As Team ABRN debated the feasibility of taking on the powerhouse duo of Pyrrha Nikos and Jaune Arc, Blake slipped further down the crawlspace.
"Dude. Just shoot your shot already."
Blake paused at the room belonging to Team SSSN. Strictly speaking, it was probably unethical to use her mandate from Ozpin for the purposes of peeping, but...well, c'mon. Look at that!
Sun Wukong was casually doing upside down crunches on a bar that he'd installed - no doubt against the rules - across the door to the dorm's bathroom. He had shorn his shirt entirely, and a thin sheen of sweat made the muscles of his back and abdominals glisten in just the most fascinating way. Meanwhile, another boy, no doubt one of Sun's teammates, was fixing his blue hair in front of a mirror, giving his reflection the finger guns.
Ew.
"I would, but it's like...she's amazing, dude. Like, just the coolest! Blake's super smart. I wouldn't be surprised if she knows everything about everything. And when she's driven to do something, her eyes are like...like molten gold pools of...awesome."
Blake flushed as she heard Sun heap praise onto her. Well, maybe she could stay a little longer…
"Dude, you need to work on your lines, tighten 'em up a little. Get 'em polished and smooth," the other boy said.
Please. Blake much preferred her paramours earnest and sincere over oily and rehearsed.
"I dunno, Nep, I don't think she'd care about that. I read about it in one of the books she gave me."
See? Much better. Sun just earned himself one secret kitty smile the next time she saw him.
"Anyway, what about the other girls? I was thinking of seeing if I had a chance with that little white one on your crush's team."
"Weiss?" Sun burst out laughing.
"Hey! What's so funny about that?"
"You know that dude that beat Pyrrha Nikos?"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, Weiss is dating him. Good luck on that one, dude. I promise to scrape up enough of your remains for a burial."
"...Okay, so maybe not then," the blue haired boy conceded. "Wait, if he's dating Weiss...does that mean that Pyrrha's single?"
Blake winced, especially in light of that morning's shocking revelations. Oh, that would be a disaster in the making.
"Actually, I think she is," Sun said thoughtfully. "My hat is off to you, man. Points for balls, if nothing else."
As the conversation moved on to more inane boy talk and less of Sun singing of her virtues, Blake silently placed the bug and moved on. One of the teams, Team CNEM - somehow pronounced "Cinnamon" - was composed of fourth-years, practically Huntsmen and Huntresses already. A tall boy with silver hair was casually stretched out across one of the beds, while a stunning woman with hair as black as night and a criminally-short red dress consulted her Scroll for something. The other half of their team was absent, and there was no conversation, so Blake silently placed the last of her bugs and began silently working her way backwards down the crawlspace.
She extricated herself from the crawlspace, and as she sat in the janitor's closet, she sent a message to Ozpin, stating that all Haven teams had their rooms under surveillance. After a moment, she received confirmation that the bugs were active and sending audio-video signals as intended. Blake stretched, working out a kink in her back. With work done, maybe she had time for play, and she could tease Sun for a bit.
Not that she wanted to see him, or anything. It was all part of her espionage work, after all. Honest.
[/]
Jaune sat on the edge of his bed and pulled out his Scroll. After selecting one of his contacts, the image displayed a graphic informing him that the connection was being made, and a moment after that, he saw Rowan peering back at him.
"Hey, Rowan. May I speak with your grandfather?"
"Oh, sure thing." The brunette girl held the Scroll away from her face as she hollered. "Hey, grandpa! Jaune needs to talk to you!" After a moment, during which the familiar sound of Sir Roland grumbling grew louder, Rowan looked at the Scroll again. "Okay, here he is."
"Thank you."
Jaune smiled as the cantankerous old knight held up his granddaughter's Scroll.
"Well, boy, what is it?"
"I'm afraid I won't be able to come by this afternoon," he said. "Ozpin is sending me to a weapons convention in town, to resupply and upgrade."
"Resupply and upgrades? Sounds like the sort of thing that would only take you an hour, two at the most. I'm guessing this has something to do with the girl?"
Jaune coughed awkwardly. "Well, sir...yes. Yes it does. Weiss saw it as an opportunity for a date, since it's my birthday, and that apparently holds a lot of significance to normal people."
Roland just grunted. "Fine, fine, go on then." His eyes narrowed at the unspoken plea in Jaune's expression. "All right, you can take the damn armor off when you go, but it comes back on as soon as you get back to Beacon!"
Jaune just continued to silently plead, his efforts joined in by Percival, who hopped onto the bed to sit next to Jaune and also fixed the old knight with big, sad, puppy dog eyes, man and pup forming a united front. "Godsdamnit, stop that! Fine, you can take it off now and put back on tomorrow morning, but so help me, if you aren't in top bloody form tomorrow, I'll have you running the quintain, on foot, in full harness until you drop, do you hear me?"
The squire grinned, letting the old knight's bluster run off him like water from a duck's back. "Yes sir, thank you sir."
"There you go, all unbearably smug," grumbled Roland. "Getting soft in my dotage, I swear. Go on, have fun, boy. Happy birthday and all that. Oh, and you can tell the Princess that she's welcome. Now, how do I turn this thing off. Girl!" he shouted for his granddaughter. "How do you turn this blasted thing off?"
Jaune smiled broadly as he ended the call and put the Scroll back in his pocket. He dropped a hand to fondly scritch his pup behind the ears. "Has anyone ever told you that you're the best?"
Percival barked happily.
Jaune stood and began taking off his armor, one piece at a time, affixing them onto his armor stand. With that done, he stripped off his boots, trousers, and linen shirt, tossing them all into the small auto-wash that Pyrrha had bought for their team. He stretched languidly, free of the weight of his armor, before hopping into the shower. As he finished, he found that his razor had mysteriously gone missing - maybe Ren had needed to borrow it? He rubbed the stubble on his cheek experimentally. Perhaps missing one day of shaving wouldn't be so bad, and Weiss wouldn't mind him being a little scruffy for their date.
He chuckled to himself as he imagined how Weiss and Nora were getting on with helping Penny prepare for a date, of all things. No way that that could end well.
[/]
"Your hair is so pretty!" Nora gushed as she brushed the synthetic girl's hair.
"Thank you!" chirped Penny. "My father worked hard on developing the nanostructure that makes the fibers just as soft as human hair!"
"I don't know what that means, but neat!"
Weiss entered the room with a bagged dress. "I believe that this should fit you. The real challenge was in finding the shoes to match."
Nora snorted. "The girl has rocket boots! What other shoes could she possibly need?"
Weiss rolled her eyes. "Forgive her, for she knows not what she says. Here, let's get you into this dress." With Penny's input, Weiss had procured a new dress for Penny to wear on her date. It was a simple, lime green sundress with a black belt and a large ribbon on the back, pretty and appropriate for a wide variety of settings. Both of the human girls had been unable to hide their curiosity as Penny had unceremoniously stripped off her normal attire. While Weiss wasn't exactly sure what she had been expecting - some sort of obviously mechanical apparatuses, or great seams between rigid segments of her body - at a casual glance, Penny's body was almost indistinguishable from that of a human being. Well, as sure as they could tell without removing her undergarments, and Weiss wasn't that curious. Really, the only major tell, besides her increased weight relative to a human girl of her size, was the thin seam, almost like a scar, that ran up her "spine," which Ruby had mentioned was some sort of maintenance access hatch.
As they watched, Penny finished putting on her new dress, and socketed her backpack - which she'd explained contained her weapons - into its customary place between her shoulderblades. No telling if trouble might strike on their night out, after all. Nora and Weiss shared a glance as they watched Penny inspect herself in the mirror.
"So...what do you think?" Nora ventured.
"I love it!"
Weiss, having had more than enough hugs for one day, gracefully sidestepped away from the enthusiastic robot girl, and bore witness to a truly epic clash of the titans as the pair of orange-haired girls tried to outdo one another in the bone-crushing hug department. "Okay, that's enough…" Weiss said, alarmed by the sounds of creaking metal and squishing organs.
The two broke apart, with Nora panting for breath and Penny needing to manually readjust her spinal alignment.
"For the record that was both adorable and terrifying to witness," quipped Weiss.
Nora grinned through her panting. "That's...quite the snuggle you got there."
"Your physical strength registers far beyond the human norm!"
"Damn...straight it does."
"I am surrounded by dolts," Weiss lamented. She gingerly placed a hand on Penny's shoulder. "If you need any advice about this sort of thing, don't hesitate to let me know."
"Okay! Thank you for your assistance in this endeavor!"
Weiss's Scroll chimed. "It looks like Ruby is on the way back here with her sister in tow. Would you like to stay here?"
Penny canted her head as she contemplated. "The impact will be greater if I come back to pick up Ruby. Fear not, for I will return!"
"Very well."
"Yeah, I gotta go too," Nora said, having finally restored her breathing to normal. "We've got a team meeting, to deal with...you know, everything."
"Ah. Good luck with that."
"I know, right? It's like everyone's gone nuts but me." Nora winced as she saw the look of trepidation on Weiss's face. "I'm sorry. I'm sure Jaune's going to get better. I mean, how can he not, when you're taking such good care of him?"
Weiss just fidgeted with her hands. "I'm sure you're right, Nora."
"Just you wait. It'll be back to our regularly-scheduled, everyday brand of crazy in no time!"
Penny excused herself while her two friends were conversing. It was about time for her daily 'lunch' with her other friends. While she didn't eat, it was still nice to sit and talk with them. Penny never imagined that one day, she would have so many friends that she would have to balance out spending time with them all!
She hummed happily to herself as she left the student dorms and entered the building where faculty members were quartered. She cheerily waved hello to Miss Goodwitch as she passed by her in the lobby. Even the overstressed Deputy Headmistress seemed unable to maintain her typical irritation in the face of unrestrained Penny-ness, and she waved back. Penny walked into an elevator, and waited to be taken to the proper floor.
When she opened the door to Fria's small apartment, Winter had already arrived, and brought takeout containers of food and had begun setting the dining room table, which was set against a large window that showed the city of Vale in the backdrop. "Hello, Penny," Winter greeted her. "I do hope that you will refrain from repeating this morning's cafeteria devastation at this meal."
"But Mister Qrow isn't here for you to throw yourself at," Penny said. From anyone else, it would have been a catty retort, but from Penny, she earnestly thought that that would be the difference.
Fria cackled in glee. "Ha! Told you you should've just pinned the boy against a wall and had at him!"
"It isn't like that!" wailed Winter, sounding exactly like her younger sister for just a moment.
"Isn't like what?" Medusa Nikos took off her hat as she entered the apartment.
Winter just buried her face in her hands.
"Oh, breakfast this morning was just exciting!" chirped Penny. "Miss Winter flirted with Qrow, I won a food fight, I made more friends, and I have a date!"
"I did not flirt with Qrow!"
"But there was mutual banter during your fight, and when he caught and held you, I found that you had an elevated heartrate, dilated pupils, and olfactory sensors picked up trace amounts of self-produced human sexual lub-"
"Penny!" Winter shrieked, horrified.
"What?"
"You can't just...just reveal such personal, intimate details like that!"
"Why not?"
"Because it's humiliating!"
Penny canted her head. "Why? I worked hard to decipher those human biological cues, so that I could understand why Friend Ruby acts the way she does with me. She makes me happy, and I want to make her happy too. Mister Qrow makes you happy, and you make him happy, so why be ashamed of it?"
"She's got you there," Medusa pointed out as she began scooping noodles into the three bowls set at the table.
"No she does not!" Winter insisted.
Fria, meanwhile, just enjoyed the banter of the younger women around her. "Maybe don't go in-depth on a lady's particulars," she advised Penny. "They can be a bit shy about these things. But you?" She said, indicating Winter. "You're in serious denial, girl."
"No I am not!" Winter flushed as she realized that she sounded exactly like a schoolgirl denying a crush. She crossed her arms and sulked.
Medusa just shrugged as she slurped her noodles. After swallowing a mouthful, she smiled sweetly at Winter. "Well, it's your life. If you don't snatch him up, maybe I will."
"You can't!"
The older woman cocked an eyebrow. "Oh? Why not?"
Winter flushed as she fished for excuses. "Because...because he's been hurt before, and I don't want someone else to do that to him again."
"So you care deeply about him."
"It doesn't mean anything! It's what any decent person would do."
"Speaking of decent people, why do you think that I'm a threat to him?"
"I...that is...you don't know him as well as I do," she fumbled. "He's actually quite sensitive, so knowing when to tease and when to be sincere is important. When he lost his friend on that mission, he was obviously hurt and felt guilty, so I…" Winter broke off as she realized that she was implicating herself.
Medusa didn't say anything. She didn't have to, instead merely sipping her drink in victory.
"Fuck, I have feelings for him," Winter admitted. "What am I going to do?"
Penny beamed as she shared a look of victory with Miss Nikos. She had friends, and fun, and laughter and even romance. Who could ask for anything more?
[/]
Qrow wasn't "soft," no matter what his sister claimed. He just wasn't a dick. Well, he wasn't a dick all the time. The dick-dom came and went as necessary. Still, it was the idiot kid's birthday, and it just so happened that Qrow had something to give that wouldn't cost him a dime. So, he knocked on Team JNPR's door and waited for the kid to answer.
There he was, the goofy Tai-lookin' bastard. Looked even more like him with the Beacon Academy uniform on. Still, Qrow wasn't there to reminisce.
"Uh, hello?" the kid greeted, unsure as to his purpose there.
"Hey, kid. Oz mentioned it was your birthday, and you're going to Weapon Nut Con with Jailbait, Shortstack and...shit, I didn't think of one for the robot girl. Zaps? Clanky? Nah, not mean enough. I'll workshop that and get back to you on that."
"I do believe that you were getting to the point?" prompted the kid.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." He reached behind his back and pulled out Shiro's rifle, recovered along with his body as they fled the scene outside Mistral. "Look, Shiro was my friend, and he loved this gun. Named it Vera. I'm not one for this kinda gun, and he would have hated to see it just collectin' dust, so...here. Take it. Customize it with all the bells and whistles, or whatever."
Jaune instinctively reached for the weapon, before catching himself. "Are you...are you sure? After all, he was your friend, and this is all that's left of him."
"Just take it, kid," Qrow repeated. "It's not doin' me no good, and honestly, just makes me sad when I see it."
"Well, if you're sure about this…" Jaune took the rifle and unfolded it to its full form. He checked its weight and ergonomics. "I'll use it well," he said, as he folded it back up.
"Yeah, you do that. And happy birthday, kid."
"Thanks, Qrow."
Qrow reminded himself that he wasn't soft as he walked away. Nope. He was a stoic, cold-hearted professional, nothing but shotgun shells and whiskey in his veins. He paused to take out his flask, when his Scroll chimed. He pulled it out, reading a text message from Winter.
I require your presence to facilitate the resolution of an issue that has gone unsolved for too long. Meet me at your airship. - Winter
Huh. Knowing Snow Angel, that could mean anything from requesting his help for a top-secret mission to her being annoyed at someone else and needing someone to fight her for a bit.
Sure thing, Snow Angel. Be there ASAP.
If nothing else, she was always good for a laugh. Or a cuddle. Admittedly, that was new, but...it wasn't the worst thing. She was surprisingly warm and gentle, when she felt like it.
As he made his way to the hangar, he never realized that he'd forgotten to reach for his flask.
[/]
Weiss had finished changing into a tight sheath dress of white silk with red roses, and was affixing earrings made of depleted Fire Dust crystals that Jaune had taken from Cardin Winchester, when Yang and Ruby returned to the dorm. Yang whistled.
"Damn, Weiss-cream, Jaune's gonna faint when he sees you."
Weiss clasped a matching necklace around her neck. "It never hurts to put in a little effort to make an impression," she said, her gaze on Ruby communicating the message of 'you should do this too' to the younger girl.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Ruby muttered. "Still, it's Penny. She wouldn't care if I showed up in a burlap sack!"
"I know, but it at least shows that you care enough to make the effort."
"Fine, fine," Ruby groused as she went to retrieve the red dress that she had brought with her for the Vytal Festival Ball.
As she disappeared into the closet, Weiss looked to Yang. "Hey. Are you sure you're okay?"
"What do you mean?"
Weiss struggled to find the right words. "With Pyrrha. You don't need to put up a front with us, or for Ruby. None of us will think any less of you if you really don't feel safe with -"
"Okay, stop," Yang interrupted. "I marched right up to Pyrrha and basically asked her to step on me. I'm not afraid of her. I'm more than a little ticked that she got me going and then ditched me, but I'm not lookin' to press charges or anything. If anything, she's messed-up and overreacting. Me? I'm fine. I'm like the wind, baby."
Weiss looked unconvinced, but decided not to argue. "If you say so."
Yang's Scroll went off and she took it out to look.
Hey, Yang. This is Merc, the painter guy from Mistral? Was wondering if you wanted to hang out this afternoon.
Yang grinned. "I mean, I got options," she said. "I don't have to put everything on hold for Pyrrha to get her stuff together."
"What's that?" Weiss asked.
"That painter boy asked if I wanted to hang out," Yang said, a little smugly. "If Pyrrha doesn't want me, that's her loss."
[/]
Jaune's normal clothes had finished in the laundry when his teammates burst in. At this point, they were all fairly well accustomed to him being either nude or near-nude, so he didn't even bother going into the bathroom to change. He wore tall, brown leather riding boots, tight denim pants, Weiss's red scarf as a sash with his belts, and his white linen shirt.
Nora peered at him. "Hmm. Nice, but it needs something."
"Like what?" he asked.
She grinned as she began loosening the laces on the front of his shirt, leaving a deep, open v-shape, criss-crossed with laces, that exposed much of his broad, muscular chest. "There!" she proclaimed. "Perfect."
"Huh. Guess I'll take your word for it."
"Trust me, your little snowflake is gonna melt."
Pyrrha stood quietly by her bunk. Jaune frowned as he saw her face. "Pyrrha? Are you...are you okay?"
"...You told them," she said.
"Don't blame Jaune for that," Ren was swift to say. "You put him in an impossible position, Pyrrha. What were you thinking?"
Pyrrha shrunk in on herself. "I...I wasn't."
Ren sighed. "You are lucky, you are damn lucky, that Yang doesn't see what you did as an assault. She would have every right - every right - to go to Ozpin and get you expelled."
"I know…"
Ren sank onto his bed, greying out as he used his Semblance on himself. He sighed, deeply and wearily. "Why are you doing this to me?" he asked, his tone sharp. "You think that I need this? Your partner is still recovering, and needs help, and you drop this on us now? You run off, scare us half to death, and when he finds you, all you have to say to him is that you're a rapist?" He greyed out, again, as he struggled to keep control, and Nora wrapped an arm around his shoulder to try and comfort him.
"Ren…" Pyrrha wanted to apologize for what she had done, to him, to Jaune, to the team, and to Yang, but she couldn't find the words.
"You got damn lucky," Ren repeated himself. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "All right, here's the deal. As long as Yang isn't reporting you to Ozpin, then we won't either. As long as I'm in charge of this team, you are not going on any recreational trips to Vale, and you are absolutely not allowed personal sparring sessions unsupervised, never again. Especially not with Yang. As long as Ozpin has me calling these shots, then that's how I'm calling this one." He looked around at Jaune and Nora. "Does that...does that sound fair to you two?"
"I mean...does it have to be for forever ever?" Nora asked.
"When Jaune's back in charge, it'll be his call," answered Ren. "Incidentally, Jaune, please recover quickly, as I think being in charge is going to literally kill me."
"I'll do everything I can to convince Ozpin to reinstate me," Jaune said. "And for what it's worth, I think you're doing a good job as leader."
Ren just laughed bitterly. "Sure. Keep repeating that enough times, and it might even become true."
"It is true," Jaune replied. "I trust your judgement more than my own right now." He clipped Ascalon to his right side, Crocea Mors to his left. He collapsed Shiro's rifle, Vera, to carry it at the small of his back.
"Are you going somewhere?" Pyrrha asked her partner.
"It's his birthday," Ren answered. "He didn't tell us because he literally didn't know its significance. Ozpin gave him some funds for weapons and armor upgrades, and he and Weiss are making it a double-date with Ruby and Penny."
"Really?"
"Yes." Ren deadpanned, his expression somehow becoming more neutral than neutrality itself. "You would have known if you had left your self-imposed exile and joined us for breakfast."
Pyrrha winced. "Oh, um...happy birthday, Jaune. Sorry about...everything."
"We'll figure out a way to fix things," he told her. "Just a little bit better every day, right?" He checked his Scroll. "Well, it's time for me to go. Are you guys going to be okay?"
Nora grinned. "Oh, we'll be fine. We're going to have a movie night!"
Jaune quirked his brow. "A movie night?"
"Yup! Tell him what we downloaded, Ren!"
Ren shot Pyrrha a downright evil smirk. "I figured that we'd start off with 'Principles of Consent,' then move on to 'Oh No, She's Hot: The Complete Jock's Guide to Appropriate Behavior.' We'll move on to 'Ask First,' and then finish up with 'Keep Your Hands to Yourself: Lessons in Workplace Etiquette.'"
Pyrrha's expression, already fairly low, had just fallen with each title that Ren listed off. Jaune just shook his head. "See? You've got this leader thing in the bag, you'll be fine."
Nora waved as she walked over to the microwave, intent on making some popcorn. "Bye, Jaune! Have fun!"
"Sure, you too," he said, heading out the door. "Oh, and Pyrrha? I think you should tell them about your father." The door shut behind him before she could answer. A couple of strides took him across the hall, to his girlfriend's team dorm. He knocked on the door and waited. After a moment, it cracked open, and he saw the lilac eyes and familiar mischievous smile of Yang Xiao Long.
"Yoohoo! Who is it?" she called out, in a sing-song tone.
"Come on, Yang, you know it's me. I'm here to pick up Weiss."
Yang pretended to think it over. "Hmm, I don't know. I mean, Weiss has a boyfriend, yes, but he always clanks like pots and pans wherever he goes."
"The armor comes off, Yang."
"Yeah, see, that's not the sort of thing that her boyfriend would say. He's normally all like 'blah-blah-blah, duty, blah-blah-blah, honor, blah-blah-blah, tradition," she mocked, deepening her voice to imitate him.
"That doesn't sound anything like me."
"It sounds exactly like you!"
"Just tell Weiss I'm here would you?"
"Mmm, nope," Yang disagreed, shaking her head. "Since you clearly aren't Jaune, I'm afraid that I can't release Weiss into your custo-" Yang was cut off as the large arm of Weiss's Arma Gigas reached out, grabbed Yang by the scruff of the neck, and tossed her back, squawking, into the room.
"What gives?!" the blonde complained from where she'd hit the floor.
Weiss opened up the door fully, just managing to stow her annoyed expression before facing Jaune. She had let her hair down, the snowy locks cascading down her back, and in place of her tiara, she instead wore a large red rose woven into her hair above her left ear. She hid a pleased little smile at how Jaune was wowed by even her casual appearance. Weiss Schnee always dressed to impress.
"You look amazing!" he gushed, taking in the contrast of white and red with her dress, her hair, her red heels, and her jewelry.
"Oh, this?," she replied, casually tossing her hair over one shoulder, and pretending that she hadn't compiled entire portfolios of looks for dates ranging from 'casual' to 'height of Atlas society.' "Just something I threw together. But thank you anyway." She absently reached out to touch the part of his chest that his shirt left exposed. "And you're not so bad yourself," she growled, relishing the chance to see and touch him without thick steel plates in the way.
"Yeah, Nora said I should leave part of the shirt open. I guess she was right?"
"Eeyup," answered Weiss, still stroking his chest. Between that suggestion and her help snagging Jaune's razor for her, she owed Nora a favor.
"Penny should be here soon. Is Ruby ready?"
Before Weiss could answer, she heard Penny give her customary greeting from a way down the hall. "Salutations, friends!"
Jaune waved. "Afternoon, Penny. You look nice today. I didn't know you even had another dress."
"Oh, I didn't!" chirped Penny. "Friend Weiss procured it for me, so that our excursion will be optimized for fun and maximum socialization quotients!"
"Socialization quotients?" Weiss echoed, confused.
"Just roll with it," Jaune murmured. "Well, that was nice of you to help," he said to Weiss.
"Oh, it was nothing," she said. She turned around and called for her partner. "Ruby? Your date's here!"
"Ah! I'm coming!" Ruby Rose, clad in her dark red and black attire, clopped awkwardly in her heels. She almost tripped, and was saved only by the timely intervention of her partner. "Okay, can we have a serious discussion about how you manage to fight in these things?"
"Elegance, deportment, and a natural, effortless grace," said Weiss, lying outrageously about the number of hours that she spent just practicing how to walk and otherwise function in heels.
Silver eyes narrowed at her. "Yeah, I call hacks," Ruby muttered.
"I don't know what that means. Anyways, aren't you going to say hello to Penny?"
"Oh, Penny! Um, hi! You have a new dress! And...shoes!"
"Thank you, Ruby! I do have those! And you look lovely as well!"
Ruby flushed. "I, uh...I mean…"
"Here, take her," Weiss said, offloading her babbling partner onto Penny. Ruby squeaked, and almost fell again, before Penny offered her arm for her to hold on to. Weiss and Jaune held back a bit to watch them, with Weiss figuring that Ruby had the right idea, and taking Jaune's arm as her own. If she happened to smirk at the feel of his muscles under her arms, and at how his breath quickened when she pressed her chest against him, well, those were merely side effects. Wonderful, wonderful side effects.
She giggled as she saw the dorks made small talk. Penny had sensed Ruby's nervousness, and got her talking about the weapons companies that would be there. "They are both adorable and a disaster, and I'm here for it," she said.
"You know, some people could say that about us."
"We're not a disaster!"
"Remember that time I blew up a dock. Remember that one? Oh, and it was your family's property too."
"Well, maybe you're a disaster, but you're my disaster."
"Speaking of disasters," Penny said, turning her head just a tad too far over her shoulder to address them. "If all goes well, your sister will be formalizing her relationship with Mister Qrow as well!"
"What?!"
"Isn't it exciting?"
[/]
Qrow entered his hangar to find Winter pacing nervously in front of the Corvid's Claw. "Okay, Snow Angel, what's goin' on?"
She came to a halt, hands fidgeting in front of her. That was odd. Winter was always either entirely composed, or in a fight, there was no in between with her. "It has recently been brought to my attention that there are certain...things going on, things that I have missed. And, in order to rectify the situation, and live a full and well-rounded a life as possible, I...need you," she mumbled, looking away and unable to meet his eyes.
Qrow, for his part, was very confused. "You need me...to do what?" he slowly finished.
"I need you to keep being Qrow. I need you to keep pace with my worst impulses. I need you to keep making me laugh with your juvenile humor and immature antics. I need you to keep showing me that sensitive side that you hide from everyone else. I need you to somehow, in defiance of all logic and reason, keep being the most dependable person in my life. And I really need to know if there's any chance that you're feeling the same way too, or if I need to go hide and pretend I never said anything."
"Huh." He scratched the back of his head. "You know, you can do a lot better than me, right? You're young, talented, driven...your story's just ramping up, while me? Well, I'm winding down. I'm not good for much beyond fightin', drinkin', and sneakin'. What I don't get is what someone as amazing as you sees in a dusty old bird like me."
Winter looked at him then, that familiar flame back in her crystal blue eyes. "No one is allowed to hurt you, Qrow. And that includes Qrow."
"Heh. Well, I've been doing that for years."
She marched up to him and got in his face. "Then maybe it's time for you to stop."
Qrow could only spread his arms out helplessly. "What do you want from me?"
Winter grabbed the lapel of his shirt and pulled him towards her. She nuzzled up against the stubble of his face and neck, openly inhaling his scent, before she whispered into his ear.
"Everything."
He pushed her against the hull of his airship, as she challenged him with her eyes, a feral grin on her face.
He kissed her.
[/]
"Miss Rose, you're simply brilliant!"
"I concur, which is why Cinnabar Ballistics is willing to offer you a lab position, with signing bonus!"
"Shove off, Allen, I saw her first. Miss Rose, Aka Arms Associated is willing to offer you access to your very own workshop, with full creative control, and possibility of recruiting your own team to develop and test weapons!"
"Eat shit and die, Bob, we both know you aren't authorized to make that sort of offer."
"Excuse me, gentlemen - and I use the term loosely - but as the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, I must insist that you refrain from harassing my partner." Weiss had stepped in to intervene as Ruby, who had innocently discussed some of the weapons and upgrade ideas that she had kicking around the ol' noggin, had managed to draw a small crowd of recruiters who recognized her brilliance, and were about ready to come to blows in order to recruit it for their respective companies.
The crowd dispersed across the convention floor after that, with none of them willing to cross the SDC. And if they misunderstood 'partner' as 'business partner,' and not 'monster-fighting partner,' well, that was on them.
"Thanks, Weiss," Ruby said. "I just wanted to help, but they were all 'rawr, sign a contract right now!'"
"Businessmen," Weiss said, patting Ruby on the shoulder. "They're always involved in their own game, and they can't see the effects that they're having on other people."
"Hey, what happened?" Jaune and Penny approached, with Jaune carrying some packages in his arms.
Weiss popped up and kissed his cheek. "Oh, nothing much. Ruby just drew some attention with her ideas."
"Oh yeah?"
"Of course she did! Ruby is incredibly intelligent and creative," said Penny.
"Thanks for letting me borrow Penny," Jaune said to Ruby. "She scanned the stuff to make sure that it was all structurally sound. Wouldn't want this to break in the field, right?" He noticed that Weiss had a box under her arm. "Hey, what's that?"
"I got you something, as a birthday gift."
"Oh, you didn't need to do that."
"Yes I did, you goof. And I think you'll really like it. You can open it at dinner."
"Okay, okay, I will allow you to spoil me," Jaune relented. "Only a little, though. Still trying to become a knight."
"So, what did you buy?" asked Ruby.
"Oh. Well, I bought a rifle that mechashifts into a sword, and I'm giving that to Ren. I owe him for all that he's done for me, plus for what he's done for the team. I got Nora a pair of pistols that have chainsaw blades on them -"
"What?" Weiss interrupted him. "You're giving a chainsaw to Nora?"
"No, of course not. I'm giving two chainsaws to Nora, one for each hand. Try to keep up."
Weiss made a choking sound that was equal parts terror and outrage.
"So why those weapons?" Ruby asked, curious.
"Well, they're used to working together. Ren skirmishes and positions the enemy for a big hit. The problem is, Ren has a hard time dealing enough damage to finish off a major enemy on his own, and Nora needs some backup weapons that are quick and not so tiring to use, in the event that she gets caught up on a long slog. I got Weiss a main gauche with a built-in heavy pistol, Yang some high-explosive shotgun rounds, and for Blake, I got a rechambering kit, so her gun can do more than inflict Cringe Damage."
Jaune and Ruby snickered at that. "What's...what's this 'cringe damage?'" asked Weiss.
"Oh, it's just a slang term for when a weapon doesn't have enough oomph to it, and the end result is just kinda...cringe," Ruby explained.
"Jaune, you didn't have to get me something," Weiss protested. "You spent most of your birthday gift on everyone else!"
"I mean, I did get some things for myself as well," he said. "A conversion kit for the rifle that Qrow gave me, and some odds and ends that will help me drop Hazel if I run into him again."
Weiss frowned at the mention of the man who had injured her Jaune. "That's assuming that I don't kill him first for hurting you."
"See? Now you'll have a gun and another way to stab him. You can stab him and shoot him at the same time!"
She paused as she contemplated his point. "I am now okay with you buying me that," she announced.
The group came to a halt as they saw a crowd gathered around a display. "Oh, yeah, that," Jaune said. "Even if I hadn't already spent some of the money on Ren and Nora's stuff, there was no way I'll ever be able to afford that."
"Afford what?" asked Penny.
"That."
As they watched, a holographic display began. "Silaris Defense Solutions is dedicated to producing the finest armor anywhere in the world. The secret to our strength is in our patented materials science breakthroughs. We weave sheets of carbon nanotubes with diamond Chemical Vapor Deposition technology, then fuse them together on a molecular level with intense bursts of Gravity Dust. The end result is a material that is, pound-for-pound, the strongest in Remnant."
The crowd gasped as the video showed a technician place a breastplate, one made of a grey material with an odd, yellow sheen, onto a stand, then ran to safety, releasing a Queen Lancer. The Grimm fired its stinger at the breastplate, but the appendage shattered against it. The second test involved running a main battle tank over it, and still the armor held its shape. Finally, they sent a Goliath in full charge running towards a wall made of the material, with different camera angles showing that it was indeed just an ordinary wall. The Grimm smashed itself against the wall and collapsed, Grimmsmoke rising from where its tusks had violently rammed themselves into its own body.
Then the salesman - who was also the same technician from the video - put the breastplate from the video on a stand and fired a handgun at point blank range into it. The bullet hit with a dull thud, crushing in on itself, and falling to the ground, leaving the armor piece entirely unmarred.
"As you can see, these are impressive results. This is why Silaris Defense Solutions is making an open call to investors, so that we can begin producing this material on a large scale.."
The crowd began dispersing as the presentation came to an end. The salesman was despondent. "The people who are interested don't have the money, and the people with the money don't have the interest!"
"Excuse me," Weiss said, politely. "Would you happen to have a rough estimate of how much it would cost to produce a suit of armor of that material?"
The man sighed. "As much as I would love to take individual commissions, I'm afraid that we don't have the capital necessary to produce on a scale economical enough for individual buyers."
"Ah. See that's where I might be able to help, and where you might be able to help me." Weiss's grin was downright predatory. "My name is Weiss. Weiss Schnee."
[/]
Yang cocked her fists, grinning at her new sparring partner. "So, do you actually fight, or do you just sweet talk the Grimm to death?"
"Do you think it would work?" Mercury tossed his silver hair back. "But for me? I got those trick kicks. For the ladies." He did a quick routine kicking and spinning before coming to a halt with his leg raised and cocked, sending a cheeky wink Yang's way.
"Well, show me what you got, Slick."
[/]
The vidscreen on the Corid's Claw sprung to life, as Headmaster Ozpin placed a call to his long-term right-hand man. "Excuse me, Qrow, have you seen my emergency backup mug? Glynda swears she -"
He stumbled to a halt as he saw his long-term right-hand man entwined with his newly-recruited left-hand woman, the both of them stark naked, and apparently, each one was attempting to, er, seduce the other into a coma.
Ozpin shut off the screen, allowing the apparent couple their privacy, and was quiet for a long moment. "Well," he said to himself. "It was always going to end in one of two ways. At least they'll get it out of their systems."
If nothing else, Ozma had always been a believer in the phrase "make love, not war."
[/]
Weiss hated that she had to do this. She hated it with every fiber of her being, but as much as she hated Jacques Schnee, she loved Jaune Arc more. So it was that she had her three companions entertain themselves with their new purchases, while she made a brief detour to the CCT station. She took a deep breath to steady herself, and punched through to her father.
"Good day to you, father," she said, executing a perfect curtsey. "I come to you with news of potential opportunities here in the Kingdom and city of Vale."
The ghostly image of her father steepled his fingers as he regarded her. "Is that so?"
"Indeed. While engaged in my studies abroad, I have made many contacts-" contacts, never beloved friends, she reminded herself -"who in turn, have their own links to the industries here in Vale. In particular, Silaris Defense Solutions has developed a composite material of startling resilience, yet they lack the capital needed to put the material into production. Why has General Ironwood not offered a contract to them?"
"The illustrious General has decided to adopt a design philosophy of quantity over quality. It makes little difference to the SDC, as we can mass-sell cheaper units to the Armed Forces at exclusive rates. I fail to see this so-called 'opportunity,' that you speak of."
Weiss allowed herself a little smile. "The General is just one man, and Atlas, great as it may be-" never forget to heap praise on Atlas, the Schnee name, and Jacques himself - "is one nation of four." She felt it prudent to refrain from mentioning some of her ideas for development in Menagerie to ease their population crunch with advanced, safe high-rise buildings, and feed into the lie that there were four nations, not five. "What I can tell you is that Vale very much has a demand for an entirely different design philosophy, and they will pay a premium for high quality. With our resources, we can supply that demand."
Jacques stroked his chin. "And what sort of demand, specifically, do you have in mind?"
"High-quality airships, for one, which could supplement your own fleet. I've seen the Silaris material deflect the stinger of a Queen Lancer. Imagine if air traffic never need to worry about losing ships to lancer swarms. That alone would increase annual profits on Mistral trade by perhaps as much as fifty percent!"
"Eighty percent, at the least. We lost an entire convoy on that route last month."
"My point exactly," Weiss inclined her head, while internally, she steeled herself for the callous things she was about to have to say, and get Jaune the protection that he needed. "Furthermore, I have become...quite close to one of the up-and-coming young aristocrats in this nation. He is in training to become one of the Knights of Vale, a storied order that still commands respect and fascination here." Please forgive me, Jaune. I love you. She displayed a picture of Jaune, as he stood proud in resplendent in Prince Alain's armor.
"How involved are you, and why should I care?"
"Besides the prestige of his name - his family was royalty in the old kingdom of Sauvignon Blanc - he is a powerful warrior and a charismatic leader, and I see great potential in him. In a year, he'll effectively be leading the entire student body by force of personality. In five, he'll be commanding a new generation of knights. In ten years, with me guiding him, his people will be clamoring to place a crown upon his brow." And the prospect of his grandchildren being actual royalty will do more to motivate my father than anything else that I've said so far. I would love you if you had no name at all. Please believe that, Jaune.
"And what is a king without a queen?"
"Just so. Not only will such a match bring more prestige unto the Schnee name, but, from what I understand, General Ironwood's behavior has been erratic of late. Diversifying into Eastern Saunus can provide some...buffer, in the event that his behavior worsens and threatens to bring us down with him."
Jacques leaned backwards in his chair. "When you left, I thought you would be wasting your time with frivolous activities. You've surprised me. Not only are you startlingly well-informed, but you've made a match better than what I had planned for you, and you've demonstrated forethought and cunning as it pertains to matters of the SDC. If this is what a short time at Beacon has done for you, I may consider sending your brother there as well."
And never forget that your position is never secure, even when being praised, Weiss thought.
"Thank you, father," Weiss curtseyed again, showing deference even as she wanted to scream at him about some of the horror stories that Blake had shared with her. "Time away from Atlas has granted me greater insight, and only now do I find myself understanding the value of your lessons." And massage his ego.
"Very well. You have my approval for the deal with Silaris Defense Solutions. This provision - a suit of armor for a man? I'm assuming that this is for your prince?"
"Yes, father. Beyond my own charms, demonstrating the material benefits of an alliance with the House of Schnee can help reel him more completely under my control. We'll sell the Valeans their own culture, and they'll love us for it." Weiss wanted to wretch as those words left her lips. Sir Roland would never forgive her for such words. Jaune would be right to run screaming from her if he heard her speak that way, but simply telling her father that her heart would be crushed for forever if Jaune died when she could have protected him would be worse than saying nothing at all.
She felt hideously sullied as she bid farewell to her father and left the CCT Station. When she returned to Jaune, Ruby and Penny, they had finished swapping out parts of Jaune's new rifle for the new parts that he had purchased.
"It works!" Ruby cheered. "It's an aftermarket Hard Light Dust Projection Rifle! Jaune goes pew-pew once again!"
"One last stop before we go," Weiss said, putting her arms around Jaune and kissing his cheek.
"You're spoiling me outrageously," Jaune said, ruefully allowing his tiny girlfriend to drag him around the convention floor. He quirked a brow as he saw that they were approaching the Silaris Defense Solutions booth. "This again?"
"Mmmhmm." Weiss nodded to the man running the booth, who practically fell over himself to greet her. "Ah! M-Miss Schnee! What has your father said?"
"Congratulations. Your company now has all the financial backing you'll ever need. You'll find the details on your Scroll."
The man looked like he was about to faint. He looked back and forth from his Scroll to Weiss, as if expecting the message to have changed in the seconds between.
"Now, I do believe there's the armor commission to discuss?"
"Oh, of course, Miss Schnee, right away."
Jaune stared at Weiss in awe. "Weiss...how did you do this? What did it cost you?"
Weiss hugged him tightly. "You almost died because your armor wasn't strong enough," she said. "Please. Let me protect you, the only way I can."
"I...okay." Jaune stepped back, and allowed the man to start taking his measurements.
The armorer shook his head in disbelief. "She just upended the entire material sciences industry in this hemisphere, in a half-hour, and all to keep you safe. If you don't mind me saying, sir, you're the luckiest man in the world."
Jaune gazed at the beautiful miracle worker who had just moved mountains for his sake. "Yes. I do believe I am."
[/]
Chapter Endnotes: Silaris Armor, is, of course, a riff on the Asari armor upgrade for the Normandy SR-2 in Mass Effect 2. Even the process of making it was the same. I'm not a scientist, so I haven't the faintest idea of if that is at all accurate, but "kickass armor made from diamonds and SCIENCE!" was awesome, so in it went.
If you catch a reference from DBZA or Castlevania, rest assured that it is a reference, and it is intentional. Because I love those shows so much.
I wanted to show the characters' strengths in different ways. Anyone can stab a Grimm, but how many can manipulate a technocrat into altering the entire global material science industry over a phone call?
Pyrrha done goofed, and she knows it. Blake does sneaky things. Mercury picks up Yang on the rebound.
Qrow and Winter were either going to have a hideously bloody fight or an epic bang session. It's a toss-up to see which will be more destructive to Beacon grounds.
You know, a lot of the Penny stuff I wrote before the Volume 8 finale, and going back to re-read it made me sad.
Lots of character drama and set up here. Action coming soon.
So, where was I? If you're one of the people who doesn't like when I have a fireside chat with the audience, please note that this chapter is ended - as indicated by the bold text - and that you can click away now.
Right. So, after the last chapter dropped, I got quite a few comments that genuinely upset me. Not comments about plot or characterization, mind you, go nuts on that. But personal attacks. Now those are nothing new - Some of the shit I got for "Falling Snow" is the stuff of fucking legend - but I remind you all that this is my hobby. Something that I do in my free time, when I'm not working, for fun. The moderation on this site is garbage. Can I wade through messages and comments calling me a pedo because I'm transgender, or wishing for me to suffer an early and gruesome demise? Yes, but it isn't exactly a grand and dandy time, you know? (I only mention the transgender issue here because of its relevance to "Falling Snow," by far my most-read story, and how hate over that story bleeds over into the comments for other stories.) I can flag the people sending the PMs, but odds are, they're just burner accounts, and the guest messages pop up for moderation, and I don't want to delete, say, WearyCurmudgeon's comments out of hand (make a friggin' account, Weary!) So I gotta read at least some of the comment in question, and then, yep, yep, there it is.
So I said 'Fuck it, I'm not having fun.' I went and did a playthrough of Fallout: New Vegas, built a cosplay lightsaber, played the FF7 Remake, just generally cooled down and returned to write when I felt like it. I've never asked a single cent from any of my readers for exactly this reason: if I'm stuck on deadlines, and stressing over turning in work on time, then it isn't a hobby anymore, it's a job. A poorly-paying job, like an internship, but worse, because it's screwing up something you loved to do. If I'm not feeling creative on a story, I can put it on hiatus. If the site itself is draining me, I can just go and do something else altogether, because I never took anything from anyone. So yeah, I took a break and decided to resume the story in my own time.
And then, lo and behold, anonymous hate comments, but these ones made sure to specify that while they hate me, personally, and everyone like me as a demographic, they were also surprisingly complimentary of my writing, and wanted more of it. That threw me for a loop. Like, if someone said to you "Fuck off and die, but before you do, can you finish this story? I'm a huge fan. You motherfucking degenerate."
Just...weird. So I decided to write some other stuff instead, and get back to this when I was sure that I had regained my temper such that the opening A/N wasn't a rant that began with "All you delirious motherfuckers, listen up." I know that I'm not exactly well-mannered either, after all.
And I know that that's not most of you slinging shit my way, but even a small fraction of shit in your sundae ruins the whole thing, you know? I do enjoy the interactions with readers, discussing plot on PMs, ranting at Weary to make a friggin' account already. I love to write, and I love discussing my writing with people.
Don't force me to take my toys and go home, okay? I like sharing my daydreams with people.
Next chapter will be out much sooner than this one was. Oh, and I'm working on "Falling Snow" again as well. Hope that you'll be there with me.
-Mahina
