Intermission

Welcome to the Intermission for "The White Knight!" We're at the halfway point for his story - don't quote me on that if it's not exact, ya cheeky buggers - so I thought it would be good to include some non-canon Omakes and discussions of story elements. I'm going to open with something that a great many reviewers asked for: a harem story.

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The "The White Knight" Harem Special Spectacular!

Jaune staggered through the pouring rain. The wind lashed at him, the storm making it impossible to see more than a foot in front of his face. Over the hill, above a castle, shone a light, a Beacon, to light the way! A beacon shaped like…

"The Grail!"

Jaune forced himself through the storm and reached the door to the small castle and began pounding on it. "Open the door!" he shouted. "In the name of the gods, open this door!" He kept pounding until the heavy wooden door swung open.

He stepped inside carefully. Somehow, despite the door opening, there was no one in the entry chamber. "Um...hello?"

"Oh, hello!"

A short woman with bright orange hair, who was wearing a long gown of tight white lace, stood before him. She struck a pose, one that emphasized the curve of her hip and pushed her breasts out towards him. "Hello, brave and handsome knight. Welcome to the Castle Anthrax."

"The Castle Anthrax?" Jaune asked, his head canted in his puzzlement.

"Of course." She walked forwards and took his arm. "May I know your name?"

"Oh, right, where are my manners," apologized Jaune. "My name is Sir Jaune...The Chaste."

"And I am Nora," the short woman replied, leaning forward with a hungry look on her face. "Just Nora." She started as a thought occurred to her. "Oh, but you are simply soaking! Come, we must get you out of those cold, wet clothes!"

"Well, a little warmth would not be remiss," muttered Jaune. "Still, I must make haste, for I believe that my quest is at an end."

"We've no experience with handsome young knights and grand quests at Castle Anthrax," Nora told him, guiding him up a circular staircase. "We are but eightscore young women, all between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two and a half."

Outside the castle, in the pouring rain, Winter Schnee crossed her arms in annoyance. "I'm twenty-seven! That's not old! I'm a sexy, sword-swinging freaking goddess! This story is bullshit."

"There is precious little to do here," Nora explained. "Dressing...undressing...knitting exciting underwear…"

"Is the Grail far?" Jaune doggedly persisted. "I need to - "

"Oh, hello!" "Hello!" "Ooh!"

Jaune's protests fell away as he entered a large room, one populated by beautiful young women in gauzy nightgowns. "Uh…"

"Oh, but you are wounded!" Nora said, eyeing a small cut on his leg. She hustled him onto a bed and then clapped her hands. "Doctor Yang, Doctor Blake!"

At her command, two giggling young women, one a blonde and the other a ravenette, both of them rather busty, popped up and began tugging at Jaune's clothes.

"They're doctors?!" Jaune asked, incredulous.

"Well, they've had the...proper medical training," Nora said, not quite making eye contact. "You may practice your art," she said before slinking off.

Jaune held his shield protectively over himself as 'Doctor' Yang raised his surcoat over his waist and began working on unfastening his belt. "Is that really necessary?"

The buxom blonde planted her hand on his chest, shoving him firmly down onto the mattress. "Please. We're doctors."

"There is no time for this!" Jaune fought off the grasping hands of Yang and Blake and scrambled awkwardly off the bed. "I must find the Grail! It is here, I know it is!" He ran away from the two young women, blushing as he averted his eyes from the many beautiful young women who surrounded him.

The harried knight skidded to a halt as he entered a corner and saw a young woman standing nude in a copper bathtub. She held her long white hair over her small, pert breasts. While she was slender and gamine, he was still drawn to the feminine curve of her hips, which in turn led his gaze to the glistening white curls between her legs.

"Oh, hello," she said, smiling brilliantly at him. "Would you like to join me?"

Poor Sir Jaune, his composure hanging by a thread, lost the plot entirely at the sight of the nude, white-haired bathing beauty. He stammered out several apologies at once, his tongue tripping over itself as he stiffly staggered away, his arousal pulling his trousers tight against him.

"Where is the Grail?" He wailed. "The Grail, where is it?"

He nearly ran into another short, orange-haired girl. "Nora!"

"Oh, I'm not Nora. I'm Nora's sister, Penny."

"Whatever!" Jaune snapped. "Where is the Grail?!"

Penny blinked large, guileless green eyes. "Of what do you speak?"

"The Grail!" Jaune grabbed Penny by the shoulders, shaking the small woman. "I've seen it, shining above the keep! Where is the Grail?!"

"Oh…" Penny's face fell as she realized what had happened. "Oh, naughty Nora! Wicked, evil, naughty, bad Nora!"

"In. The name. Of God." Jaune panted. "Where is the Grail?"

"Oh, Nora lit the Grail-shaped beacon," explained Penny.

"What."

"The Grail-shaped beacon! Oh, but it is a most dreadfully-effective way to lure in handsome, wandering young knights." Penny led the shocked and somewhat dazed knight away by the shoulders, back into the main chamber of women. "It is a wicked thing that Nora has done, and she needs to be punished. And here at the Castle Anthrax, we only have one punishment for lighting the Grail-shaped beacon: you must tie her down and spank her."

"Spank her?!" Jaune echoed, his tone strangled.

"Yes," Penny confirmed, matter-of-factly. "You must spank her thoroughly. After that, you may deal with her as you please. And then," she hesitated as she gathered her nerve, "You must spank me as well."

"And me!" volunteered Blake.

"And me!" Yang pushed her way to the front.

Soon, the entire chamber was filled with beautiful young women all imploring Sir Jaune to spank them. "And after we have all received a good spanking...the oral sex!" Penny announced, to raucous cheering from all the girls.

"Well…" Jaune said, blushing as the white-haired beauty stepped into the chamber in a gauzy nightgown that clung to her glistening body. "I suppose I could stay a little longer…"

Just when Sir Jaune's chastity was at its greatest peril, the heavy wooden door to Castle Anthrax flew open. Sir Ren led Sir Cardin, Sir Wukong, Sir Neptune and Sir Sage in their great and daring rescue of their wayward companion.

"Sir Jaune! We've come just in time!"

"Oh, hello," Jaune murmured, slightly dazed.

"You must come with me," Ren commanded, as he and his fellow knights interposed themselves between Sir Jaune and the nubile temptresses, with their feminine allure and their offers of oral sex.

"I mean, I have this lot handled," retorted Jaune.

"Yes, let him handle us!" Penny cried.

Ren ignored Penny entirely. "No, you must flee, brave, sweet Sir Jaune!" He started to physically drag Jaune away, with the other knights keeping the horde of women at bay as they attempted to follow them.

"Come on!" Jaune protested. "I can whip this lot single-handedly! There's only a hundred and sixty of them!"

"Yes! Let him whip us single-handed!"

"No, Jaune! We must make haste!"

With that, they dragged Jaune out the door, the heavy wooden door slamming shut behind.

"Ah...shit," Penny swore.

Outside the castle, Sir Ren and the knights continued to drag Sir Jaune away. They completely ignored Winter, which just made her even angrier.

"Mahina, you ignorant slut!" Winter spat at the author, incandescent in her impotent fury. "Only a complete creative bankrupt would plagiarize Monty Python!"

The author reminded her that, as an 'M' rated story, there was nothing stopping her from making the next omake or deleted scene a lovingly-depicted account of Weiss giving her virginity to Jaune, the young knight outright plowing her sister like the fertile fields of spring.

"Why you -"

The wind carried the sound of Weiss squealing and demanding that Jaune give her more, her voice underscored by the steady, rhythmic plapping sounds of Jaune's nuts slapping against Winter's little sister's bare, soft, snow-white ass.

Winter stormed off, her boots squishing in the mud, utterly unable to retort against the author's bullshit. The sounds faded, as the author had proved her point.

In the meantime, Jaune continued arguing with Sir Ren, to no avail.

"It's too perilous," declared Ren.

"Well, I'm a knight too, you know," argued Jaune. "So let me go back in there, and face the peril."

"You can't! The peril was too great!"

"Can't I have just a little bit of the peril?"

"No, my friend. We must make haste!"

"...I bet you're gay."

"No I'm not."

A/N: Yeah. I know. Trust me, it needed to be done. There are rules, you know.

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Baby Fever

Weiss set aside the reports that she'd been reading as she heard her cry. The work on deciphering the new mineral that her miners had discovered was continuing apace - her scientists informed her that the properties of the rock, which they called "radiation," was equal parts dangerous and promising. She'd gone through great effort and expense to hire a specialist, whose Semblance negated all poisons and toxins, to lead the study efforts, and from her findings, they were developing methods to both protect the workers and potentially harness the phenomenon for energy.

It was so revolutionary that Weiss had been contemplating renaming the company from the Schnee Dust Company to the Schnee Power Company.

Still, that was the future. For now, she had an even more pressing job to do.

"How's mommy's hungry little snowflake," she cooed as she gently lifted her daughter from her crib. While their son had been a fairly routine pregnancy, poor little Whisper had had a struggle to even come into this world. Whisper Schnee was a premature birth, but even then, it had been difficult on her. Weiss had needed an extended recovery time in the hospital while their daughter had had to be incubated. Winter and Medusa had come to help poor Jaune, who was in panic with worry for his wife and daughter, take care of their six-year old son, Nicholas.

There would be no more children born of her body, but Weiss didn't mind as much as she thought she would. With her little silver knight and her precious snowflake, Weiss and Jaune felt that their family was complete.

Weiss smiled as she opened her shirt, giving her daughter access to her breast. She sat back down, sighing as she fed her child. Poor Whisper was still so small. "Eat, baby," she murmured. "Grow strong for Mommy and Daddy." She relaxed as she shared the quiet moment with her daughter. Her home office at Chateau d'Arc was comfortably appointed, and the view allowed her to see the bustle of the small town that had arisen in the shadow of her husband's ancestral home. She couldn't really blame them, since fewer places were as safe as a place under the watchful eyes of the Champion of Vale.

Today was the first time that Jaune had left their home since the birth of their daughter. Weiss had basically shoved him out the door, as he was driving her just a little mad with his fretting over her and the baby. Still, she knew that he wouldn't venture far from home, especially since he'd taken Nicholas with him.

She had just shifted Whisper to her other breast when she got a text on her Scroll. Jaune was back in town, and he'd be home soon. With one hand, she messaged Jaune to meet her in her office. Whisper had finished her meal, and Weiss had buttoned her shirt back up by the time Jaune knocked on the door to her office.

"Come in," she called.

The door opened, and her husband entered, tall and strong as he always was, his hair and beard still shining gold. He had his hand on their son's upper back as he led him into her office. Nicholas Arc was an energetic, playful little boy. She had been a little thrown when his hair had borne just the hint of his father's hair, a barely-perceptible blonde shade. Of course, Jaune had been unbearably smug that their firstborn had disproven the notion that the Schnee coloring was invariably dominant. Nicholas bore her grandfather's name and his father's family name. True to the prediction Sir Roland had made in their teenage years, the son of Weiss and Jaune was practically born in the saddle. Talos simply adored the boy, and Nicholas had never had a day where he hadn't gone to speak with the horses.

"Hi, Mom!" Her baby boy chirped as he bounded over to her, with the clumsy enthusiasm of a puppy. He skidded to a halt as he saw that his mother held his sister in her arms, and he was much more careful in hugging her around her shoulders.

"Hello, sweetling. Did you have a good day with your father?"

"Yeah! He let me ride on Talos with him! We didn't see any Grimm, though."

Weiss shared a knowing look with Jaune, who hid his smile. He'd stayed back with their son while another knight had ridden ahead, making sure the road was clear. It was his way of getting their son used to a knight's duties while keeping him safe. He was such a good and attentive father to their children.

She smiled as he kissed her, his beard tickling her. They both ignored their son's outraged expressions of disgust. "And how are my favorite girls today?" Jaune asked.

"Oh, same old," she answered. Just fed Whisper before you got here. The doctor said she's nearly at weight, so you," she said, punctuating her statement with a boop on his nose, "can relax."

"Impossible," he said.

The scene faded to black, and Weiss woke up.

She was confused, disoriented at first. She didn't recognize where she was, and worst of all, where was her baby?! After a moment, her equilibrium was restored. Weiss didn't have a baby. She was a teenager, staying in an empty dorm in Beacon. She was with her husband - boyfriend - where they had spent the night after celebrating his eighteenth birthday.

Right.

Right.

She sighed as she leaned over Jaune and gently kissed his cheek before snuggling back down next to him. It was a dream, she was sure, but it absolutely felt so real.

It was insane. If her sister, or one of her friends, had come to her with her own story, she would have suggested an overactive imagination, perhaps courtesy of the pizza that Ruby had had her eat.

It was insane.

But even here, even now, when they were only mere hypotheticals, Weiss loved her children. She loved them, she couldn't wait to meet them, and she would fight against anything that would prevent her from bringing them into this world.

Weiss just basked in the feelings of warmth and love as she slipped once more into slumber.

A/N: Didn't want to put this in, as it would raise metaphysical questions about Weiss seeing the future and whether it's set in stone, the implications for self-determination and causality, so on and so forth. But I wanted to write something wholesome.

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On Ironwood, Mercury, and the Horrific Shit in This Story

My depiction of General Ironwood, and the crimes committed at his behest, has been, by far, the single most controversial element of this story. When I started out writing this story, I had an idea for an experiment in plot structure; I would open up with Ironwood having Jaune committing an atrocity. From there, so I thought, the readers would be all like, "Saith whaaaat? Why is Ironwood acting this way? I'm totally gonna keep reading and find out!" And then I'd feed more information, leading up to the POV reveal scene where we find Ironwood, utterly broken in body, mind, and spirit, making a choice that would damn himself. And then the readers would be all like, "Woah! That was totally awesome! You're so cool, Mahina, and a good writer!"

Yeah, that, uh...that didn't work out that way, to say the least. If I had to rewrite this entire story, I would probably put that scene as the prologue. Oh well.

So that was the structure, but then there was the extremity of the crimes, which was another shocking development. As I said in the chapter endnotes for "Hero," every horrible thing that Ironwood had done to Laurel Spott, the captured White Fang member, was something that people in our own world have had done to others. I took the lyrics of the song "Hero" as a threat. Ironwood would do anything - anything, any. Thing. - if he thought it would help him defeat Salem. It's why I suggested that, taking the cracked mindset of Ironwood at the end and giving him twenty years to just stew and plot and scheme would result in some heinous shit. And the kicker is, he doesn't even truly hate the Faunus, not the way that I had Cardin's dad hate them. Ironwood just found them a useful tool, escalating the violence to the point where he was indispensable to Atlas. All that the White Fang insurgency accomplished in Atlas was to help Ironwood reach the point where he might as well be its dictator.

All the power of the Kingdom of Atlas is concentrated in the person of General Ironwood. I upped this by utilizing the Aura Transfer Machine to horrific purpose. I found the idea of Ironwood thinking "you have power, but only I can really use it to its true potential" to be so very fitting for his character. He'd have given himself the Maiden powers if he could have.

Jaune points out that this is tremendously wasteful and tactically inefficient. Ironwood stands as a stark contrast to Jaune's arc. Jaune's journey is about learning to have faith. Now, I don't mean faith in the theological sense. What I mean is that Jaune is learning how to have faith in his teammates and friends, faith in Weiss both as his lover and as a Huntress, faith in his new mentors, faith in the people he defends, and ultimately, faith in himself. Ironwood lost faith. He lost faith in his ability to contend with monsters without turning himself into one in his own right. He lost faith that Glynda would be able to love him after his cybernetic reconstruction - he never even gave her the chance to try.

To be absolutely clear, Ironwood's cybernetics didn't make him a monster. Ren and Blake are getting some chrome to help manage their newfound disabilities (CyberBlake 2077!), and that doesn't make them evil. Penny is entirely cybernetic, and she's a cinnamon roll. No, Ironwood became a monster when he renounced his own character. And that's the tragedy of Ironwood. Salem fucked him up good, but she didn't make him abandon Glynda, murder Saphron, raise Jaune as a soulless killer, or commit the atrocities that he did. That was all on James.

And he knows it.

This brings us to Mercury. While Ironwood has a sort of 'tragic grandeur' to him, a villain born of a normal man who sought to contend with beings of godlike power and lost himself in the process, Mercury is a much more mundane sort of evil. That actually makes him even more disconcerting. After all, the odds of you, dear reader, ever meeting an Ironwood in the real world are remote, to say the very least. But every woman has a story of a Mercury.

Mercury is the sort of charming, affable guy who uses one hand to play with your hair as he flirts, and uses the other hand to slip a roofie into your drink. He is, above all else, a dedicated, specialized predator of human beings. He knows to stalk, to gather information, to assess other people for their weaknesses, and he knows how and where to strike to inflict the maximum damage in the shortest amount of time. That's what an assassin does. The main reason he hasn't yet overreached and been caught is because his professionalism as an assassin outweighs his sadism as a predator - barely.

An anonymous reviewer took umbrage with my characterization of Mercury, stating how it diverged from canon. Does it really, though? What do we really know about him? Professional assassin, trained by his father, who he killed, fight left him with prosthetic legs, Dad slucked up his Semblance, recruited by Cinder. That's about it. Sure, he has minor moments of camaraderie with Emerald, but if he was offered the opportunity to make her Semblance his own, making him stronger in the process, would those moments outweigh that desire?

Would it?

I don't know. And you don't know, either. Not yet, at least. We'll see what happens with Emerald's 'redemption arc' in canon, and how that affects her relationship with Mercury. But honestly? My story needs more villains in it, and while some of the foes that Jaune and company will contend with are OCs, I don't want to rely entirely on new characters. Mercury fills a niche nicely.

I don't write this to hate on Ironwood or Mercury. I don't write this to be shocking, or edgy. I write this because I'm fucking haunted by the things that I know. I've conducted oral history interviews with survivors of the Pinochet regime. They didn't have tails to be cut off, but everything else that I had Ironwood do, real people have done to real people, in our world, and the same sort of imagination that lets me write lets me see it. And I'm still holding back. I've seen photos of otherwise ordinary Americans, respectable pillars of their communities, posing proudly with their families before the swinging bodies of people that they've murdered. I've seen microfilm newspapers cheerily describing the carnival-like atmosphere as a mob drags one of their hapless neighbors out of a jail cell to lynch him, because who needs trials, right? Otherwise normal Americans, who would hold down their jobs, go to church, wave hello to their neighbors, and raise their children, would hack off pieces of lynching victims and sell them as souvenirs, then go right back to their otherwise normal lives.

Mary Turner.

Even with the litany of horrors that I've discussed or incorporated, I cannot bring myself to write of what they did to her, to her husband, and to her unborn child.

And that's just American history. I haven't even touched on such charming examples of human decency as The Rape of Nanking, the hideous conditions of slaves in Brazilian sugar plantations, anti-Jewish pograms - Nazi Germany didn't invent that shit, they just mechanized it - or the numerous atrocities involved in European colonialization of Africa.

The point is, there is nothing that I can do about any of this, save to remember these things. But this story isn't history. I can change things. I can emphasize that the horrors and cruelty that we inflict upon one another are not teleological inevitabilities, the invariable result of an unchanging human nature. They are contingencies, the end result of choices that we make. Instead of Faunustown being razed to the ground, a hero puts a stop to it before it even gets started. That hero actively decided to start doing good, to oppose atrocities instead of committing them, and he was able to do that because, at the core of it all, was an act of empathy, of recognizing the humanity in what everyone else, even himself, had thought to be a soulless killer.

Empathy, compassion, and even faith in one another. That's what this story is all about. And maybe it's insane. Maybe we really are condemned to embrace our baser impulses, over and over again, ad nauseum, until we finally, mercifully, go extinct. Jaune's line as he looked at the discarded torches of the mob - "I thought better of them. I really did." - might as well be the epitaph of my entire education as a historian, where somehow, impossibly, my faith in humanity keeps getting just obliterated, over and over again, but still refusing to stay gone entirely. It's such a small thing, just a little pinprick of light in the smothering, overwhelming darkness, but like Ozpin said, there's an infinity of difference between one light and none.

"The White Knight" isn't glorifying the darkness. It's yearning to fight it.

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Horsing Around

It was a lovely autumn day, one that Weiss had opted to spend with Jaune at Sir Roland's horse ranch. She had ridden the lady's riding palfrey that that poor woman had owned, a lovely mare of a sweet disposition that Weiss had taken to calling "Gossamer." The mare had, after all, needed some exercise, and Weiss had enjoyed trotting around with Jaune and his massive Destrier, Talos.

"See, Nora? They're just animals," Ruby said, leaning on the fence with her other friends. They had come to pick up Weiss and Jaune to go out for a team dinner, and maybe help Nora overcome her phobia of horses while they were at it. She was coming around, slowly, the more she saw that they were, in fact, just animals, with babies and personalities, and were not horrifying monsters in any sense.

"I guess," Nora murmured. Well, it was something, at least.

"Oh come on, they're not that bad," said Yang. "Look, Weiss's horse is smiling, even!"

Weiss and Jaune had dismounted and were leading their horses slowly in circles to cool down. True to Yang's words, Gossamer had pulled her lips back in some kind of odd, horsey grin. Suddenly, there was some kind of commotion, as Jaune sensed something with his stallion, and he grabbed Weiss and quickly backed away from the two horses.

"What's happen - oh my gods!" Ruby shouted, as it became abundantly clear what was bothering Talos. The teenagers watched in equal parts horror and fascination as the stallion mounted the mare, and the pair began to go at it.

Jaune and Weiss walked over to their friends, Weiss's red face buried in her hands. "Uh...sorry…" Jaune chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head.

They watched in silence for a moment before Ruby spoke up. "Is that what Jaune does to you, Weiss?" Ruby asked. "I knew boys wanted to do gross things to girls' butts!"

"That isn't...that isn't the horse's anus, Ruby," Weiss explained, from behind her hands. "It's possible to have sex from behind and it goes into the vagina."

There was a pause.

"Are you sure?" Ruby asked.

"Yes!"

The group fell silent again, the only noise coming from the rutting horses in the yard.

"Are guys...you know, are they as big as that?"

"Yep," said Ren, while at the same time, Nora answered "Nope."

Ren shot his girlfriend a look of utter betrayal.

"Well, maybe a guy who's a horse Faunus would be hung like that," Pyrrha mused.

At once, everyone looked at Blake.

"That's...that's just a stereotype," Blake muttered, her own blush rising.

The silence descended again, and this time, no one spoke up until the horses had finished their mating.

"Well, this has been the single most awkward experience of my life," Weiss finally said. "We should go...collect them and finish putting them in their stalls."

"Right," agreed Jaune, and the pair made to approach the horses.

As she led Gossamer to the stalls, Weiss just shook her head at the mare. "Well, I hope you're happy," she said. "I mean, honestly. You couldn't have held off until it was just me and Jaune there? You had to invite him to mount you in front of all of our friends?"

The horse just huffed at her.

"Oh, don't give me that," said Weiss. "It's just not ladylike, you know! When I invite Jaune to mount me, I at least have the common decency to ensure our friends aren't around first!"

Meanwhile, Jaune held a very different conversation with his own horse.

"Dude. Nice."

Talos agreed.

"Still, probably not a good idea to just have at it in the yard like that." Jaune looked at his horse, who had an expression of extreme dubiousness on his face. "Well, I don't know either!" he protested. "It's something Weiss says, some weird woman thing about 'privacy' and 'decency.'" He shrugged. "Still, happy Weiss, happy life. Something you'll need to learn, since she won't accept any bad behavior from you now that you're mated to her horse."

Talos looked alarmed.

"Well, you should have thought of that before mounting her new mare. Especially if you got Gossamer with a foal."

Talos looked downright panicked.

"Yep. Still, I'm sure she'll train you to be a proper consort to Gossamer, and an attentive sire to any foals she might have from you."

Jaune laughed at the look of open resignation on the Destrier's face.

"It's not so bad. You may even find that it suits you better than just going around, mating and leaving."

Talos looked as though he very much doubted that.

When the horses were brushed down, fed, and housed in their own stalls, Jaune met Weiss at the entrance of the stables, walking out with her on his arm.

"Think there will be a little foal kicking around in a few months?" Weiss asked.

Jaune shrugged. "Maybe. I'll make sure to let the hands know."

Before they reached their friends, Weiss grinned, popping onto her toes to whisper in Jaune's ear. She smiled in satisfaction at how his face reddened and he shifted his walk to accommodate his reaction to her suggestion.

Gossamer wasn't the only one who knew how to rile up a stallion.

A/N: This was just a silly piece, with just the sheer awkwardness of the situation. And the ridiculousness of Weiss and Jaune suggesting that their horses not act like, well, horses. The "odd horsey grin" that Gossamer made is called a "Fleischmann Response," and it's an indication that a mare is looking to mate.

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"The White Knight" Fight Tiers

Alternative subtitle: "Let's Start a War in the Comments Section!" So, this section is a discussion of where I rank the characters as fighters, in tiers, for the story "The White Knight." Allow me to repeat - for the story "The White Knight."

Aside from Salem's tier, a character that is in a higher tier isn't usually untouchable by a fighter from a lower tier. This isn't like Dragonball Z where two characters are fighting roughly equally, one powers up to a higher tier in a half-hour long powerup sequence, and then that character can just shrug off everything that the now lower tier character can throw at them. Combat is messy, and there are a lot of factors in play, like fatigue, injury, the environment, or sometimes, sheer dumb luck. The ranking is to demonstrate who would be more likely to win the majority of fights relative to lower-tier characters, not a guarantee. Especially if a bunch of lower-tier fighters gang up on a single higher level fighter.

Okay? Okay. Lemmee get started.

"Fuck You, I Win" Tier

Salem

Physically fighting Salem, in the context of this story, is 'you lose.' Period. She wiped out a literal, actual army, herself, with minimal effort. Beating her in a straight-up fight is nigh-impossible for normal humans or Faunus, and even if you could, she would regenerate soon after anyway. Contending against Salem in conventional force of arms is a futile effort...but there could be an unconventional way to defeat her.

Ozpin used to be in this tier, but he's been weakened by successive incarnations and especially the creation of the Maidens.

Ultimate Badass Tier

Ozpin, Maidens (in their prime), Ironwood (post-Aura Transfer), Hazel Rhineheart

These characters are aberrations to the natural order. Ozpin, beyond his magical power and clever development of magitek to compensate for his weakening (dat cane doe!) is also the beneficiary of a violation of the Experience Problem. An experienced fighter would be, hands-down, the better fighter...but in "The White Knight," age is absolutely a factor. At eighty years old, Sir Roland, for instance, isn't as good a fighter at the time of the story as he was thirty years previous. Putting him in the field would be insane. Instead, his experience is put to better use training younger, fitter successors. Ozpin, on the other hand, periodically reincarnates, allowing him to continue accumulating experience in younger bodies. He's seen it all. He's done it all.

The Maidens, of course, are women imbued with magical power from their progenitor, Ozma. Actual, honest-to-goodness magic is an Outside-the-Context Problem for typical fighters in the setting. An experienced, Elite Operative tier Huntsman, who had a touch of magic himself, almost killed a Maiden who just came into her power, in that awkward, vulnerable time where she ascended. They are powerful pieces on the board.

Ironwood has bootstrapped himself into someone that, in his own mind at least, is capable of taking on these demigod figures. Ozpin sees him as essentially a patched-together effigy of The First Race of Humans, like a twisted caricature reminiscent of his now-gone race. The question is, how many souls can Ironwood harness to his will, and what happens when he finally comes face-to-face with Salem again? As a footnote, Ironwood takes Semblances based on (1) how useful he sees it in a fight against Salem, and (2) if he can actually get his hands on the carrier of the Semblance. He saw Marrow's Semblance as being uniquely powerful enough to take on the strain of harnessing it. Elm, on the other hand, is probably safe. Because her Semblance sucks.

Hazel is just a freak of nature. Ozpin sorely regrets losing him as a soldier against Salem, and moreso that he's been suborned by the enemy. The man's Aura, both in its size and the speed of its regeneration, was unprecedented...before Jaune. After Jaune's Aura was fully restored and his Semblance discovered, Ozpin believes that Jaune could, with time for his personality to mature and stabilize, and with additional seasoning as a warrior, reach parity with Hazel. He's determined not to repeat the mistakes he made with Hazel with Jaune.

As a footnote, Ozpin believes that Ruby Rose, with her silver-eyes, could reach this tier, or even higher, for the very specific task of wiping out Grimm. Salem has always been careful to cut down or otherwise cripple Silver Eyed Warriors before they reach the full extent of their power. Jaune is the protagonist of this story, but in terms of Ozpin's strategy, his role is to protect Ruby until she is ready and then clear the way for her, as Ruby is the true win condition.

Elite Operative Tier

Qrow, Winter (Pre-Maiden), Glynda Goodwitch, Tyrian Callows, Taiyang Xiao Long

This tier is about as skilled and powerful as a normal human or Faunus can become. This is also the tier of the very best of the old Knights of the Vale, like Jaune's father or Sir Roland in his prime.

Qrow's Aura is nothing to sneeze at, and his Semblance can be useful, but what really sets him apart is both his experience and his creativity in a fight. He's just plain capable. The shapeshifting magic gifted to him enhances that capability, and can allow him to carry out missions that others simply can't.

Before inheriting the powers of the Winter Maiden, Winter Schnee was already an extremely capable fighter, both as a pure swordswoman and with her extremely versatile hereditary Semblance. She pretty handily beat Clover, who, in her desertion, took her place as Ironwood's right hand. Weiss idolizes her older sister, and aspires to become as capable a Huntress as Winter.

Glynda is just nine-hundred thousand percent done with all this bullshit, and is powered by sheer irritation. In seriousness, her Semblance is powerful and versatile, and she pretty much holds Beacon together by sheer bloody-mindedness.

Tyrian has a deeply-ingrained predilection towards violence, and throws himself into the fray with reckless abandon. He is a highly-lethal combatant, and utterly unpredictable in his madness.

Taiyang isn't quite back to his old self yet, but as he shakes the rust off to protect his family, the Glorious Sun Dragon will reignite, burning brighter than ever.

The Prodigal Youths

Pyrrha Nikos, Penny Polendina, Jaune Arc, Adam Taurus, Cinder Fall (Pre-Maiden), Mercury Black

These are characters that display both extreme current capability and the potential to grow even further. They could klep out of Beacon entirely and actually do very well as Huntsmen and Huntresses from the word go, but they're kept out of the Elite Operative tier due to their relative lack of real-world experience and the potential to make errors due to their youth and immaturity. As good as they are now, more time and training will make them even better.

The three actual Beacon students are in a rock-paper-scissors situation. Pyrrha's Semblance just shuts down Penny's everything. Jaune wants absolutely no part of a fight with Penny. And since their fight, Jaune's Aura is stronger and he discovered his Semblance, giving him the resilience to outlast Pyrrha and put his tactical acumen to work to beat her.

From a meta perspective, the fun thing about Pyrrha's prowess is the dramatic irony of it all. Pyrrha thinks her mom is kinda nutso for suggesting that the gods gifted her with her talent for battle. We, the audience, know that the gods are actually a thing in the RWBY setting, and have been known to muck about with mortals before. Is her talent an example of that? Or is it, as Pyrrha thinks, something she inherited from her unknown biological sire? Or maybe she's just that damn good because she's just that damn good? Irrespective of its origins, Pyrrha's talent is formidable. In a neutral-ground, straight-up, "Round One: Fight!" duel with Winter, Pyrrha would have actually put up a pretty good fight against her, possibly even eking out a win. But wars aren't fought as duels, which Winter taught her via Zappy Doom, and that illustrates the difference in the two tiers more than any other example.

Penny is fascinating, because her potential is only limited by the technology at her command. Even at less than her best, she is devastating as a force on the battlefield. She is the youngest and the most inexperienced, but she has highly flexible and adaptive programming that allows her to adjust to combat conditions on the fly. While not strictly applicable at this point in the story, her synthetic nature means that she, like Ozpin, can gain experience without being burdened by age. (Give me a moment to cry about Penny's fate in canon. Poor Penny!) She just needs replacement parts and maintenance, and she is more durable than any human or Faunus could ever hope to be. She is, however, vulnerable to cyberwarfare attacks, though her own expertise in that field is considerable. Having gained the logistical support of Weiss Schnee and the unorthodox creativity of Ruby Rose working on her modular body, the sky is literally the limit for Penny Polendina.

Jaune is Team Good Guys' answer to Hazel Rhineheart. Not only is he an absolute tank, but the newly-discovered evolution of his Semblance means that he makes his team more resilient as well. Not only is he a powerhouse in his own right, but he is a force multiplier for his allies. He can overextend himself with his Semblance, but that limit is still rather forgiving. Jaune bucks Huntsman tradition by carrying multiple weapons for a variety of situations, something that he encourages his teammates to do as well, and his versatility, resilience, tactical skill and leadership make him the perfect field commander for Ozpin's forces.

Adam Taurus is probably my most controversial placement here. Taurus is a Huntsman-killer. He's highly lethal, vicious, and his Moonslice Semblance is uniquely dangerous. However, he is also inherently unstable, and his performance varies wildly depending on his ability to focus. Furthermore, his Semblance requires him to have a weapon in hand in order to function. Unlike in canon, Taurus has allowed Doctor Merlot to alter him, and that could well have volatile effects in the future.

Cinder Fall is quite similar to Adam Taurus in that her performance can vary wildly depending on her focus. She is highly skilled and utterly without empathy. Her sadism can actually make her less lethal, depending on the circumstance, as she can find herself unable to resist 'playing with her food' as it were.

Mercury Black, unlike the previous two, is highly in-control of his inherent sadism, with his cold professionalism winning out over his desire to gain perverse satisfaction from inflicting pain on others. He is a more-than-capable martial artist, but what elevates him above his peers is his skill in bypassing a fight before it even begins, taking out human and Faunus targets with precise, lethal strikes before they can raise their Aura. Even when caught flat-footed by Penny's synthetic nature, he was able to think quickly and escape, mitigating his defeat by preventing his capture.

As a footnote, had Ruby gone to Beacon at seventeen, with a couple more years of maturing and training, she would have been at this level as well.

The Standard Huntsmen

Shiro Wan, Heather Shields, Doctor Oobleck, Professor Port

This tier represents the more typical Huntsman. They may not make headlines, but they are quietly competent and experienced.

Professor Port was definitely taking his life in his hands going out on missions at his age. In the next chapter - and this is no great spoiler - Ozpin consoles Ruby by telling her that, while Peter was many things, he wasn't stupid. He knew that there was a good chance he wasn't coming back from that mission, but he would have been much more satisfied dying in the line of duty than slowly fading away, waiting for the day when his heart would finally give out and kill him. As an aside, to critics, a sudden, sharp blow to the solar plexus can disrupt the heartbeat, which is how Adam dropped him. Then Port, in a display of sheer, manful badassery, started it back up and took Adam out of the fight. Like a boss.

Oobleck was the victim of circumstance. Protecting Ruby Rose was the absolute highest priority, and she was chained to a bolted-down chair, in an enclosed room with a giant armored murder monster gorilla that was hopped up on steroids. Under other circumstances, he would have backed off, to fight it on more favorable ground, studying it to devise a method for him and the girls to kill it safely. Those were not those circumstances, and as such, he took a swing, overestimated how much damage he would do to it, and died for his error. Note how, when fighting another Enhanced Beringel, Jaune used his spear to harry it from a distance while Pyrrha and Nora enacted a plan to kill it. They had the time and space to keep it at bay while the girls maneuvered to kill it.

Look, Shiro was trying his best, okay?

Talented Students

Team RWBY, Team CFVY, Team SLVR, Ren, Nora, Sun Wukong

These students, while not as outrageously powerful as Pyrrha, Penny, and Jaune, are still a cut above the typical Huntsman student. Just as the Prodigal Youths are separated from the Elite Operatives by experience and refinement, the Talented Students could probably pass as mid-level Huntsmen and Huntresses as-is, just needing more experience and maturity to reach true parity.

Ozpin expects them to eventually max out at Elite Operative tier, barring Ruby Rose, whose particular circumstances have been discussed above.

Typical Students

Teams CRDL, Team ABRN, Team BRNZ, Sun's teammates, the majority of unnamed students in the background

More normal students, who can reasonably expect to reach Standard Huntsman level. There may be a "diamond in the rough" who could reach Elite Operative Level...but probably not.

A Note on the Illusionists

I had a hell of a time ranking Neo and Emerald on this tier list, because their abilities are so utterly disruptive to the way fights work in the setting. Their abilities can enable them to contend far above their weight class in terms of carrying out their objectives, and can be game-changing if used strategically. Their straight-up fighting abilities are capable, to be sure, but their unique abilities are the real draw. I would honestly be tempted to list them as Elite Operative tier, just for how absolutely potent their Semblances are alone.

As a footnote, Medusa Nikos would also be considered an illusionist, albeit one with a much more limited Semblance. She is also an absolute non-combatant. She's a former nun with a neat trick, not a trained fighter.

This, then is the combat tier list for "The White Knight." Let no one say that I don't put thought into the power scaling of my story, ya cheeky reviewers, you.

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Shooting Their Shot

Pyrrha tried not to sigh as she sat on a courtyard bench and watched Yang go by, chatting with her sister. Pyrrha had fought a duel against Arslan, from Haven Academy, and while she was similar to Yang in some ways...she just didn't feel that spark, that fever that had set her blood on fire when locking gazes with the fiery blonde brawler.

As soon as she had realized that, she'd just shut Arslan down, summarily thrashing her with as much haste as she could without making it aware that she was bored. Pyrrha had been polite - she'd never failed to be polite - but she could tell that Arslan felt disappointed that she hadn't been able to give the Champion the better fight that she'd been craving.

After that, a blue-haired boy from Haven - the partner of Blake's 'totally not a crush' friend - had asked her on a date. Pyrrha had told him that she would consider it, if he fought a duel with her. That he had agreed had actually surprised her, and made her wonder if he was brave or foolish.

Then, before their fight, he had made a comment about keeping her hands "above the waist."

Foolish it was, then!

She'd stormed up to him, clobbered him to the ground with her shield, then kinda stomped on him for a while until he conceded defeat.

An anti-spark, as it were.

Maybe if Jaune were single, she'd be all over that, but as it was, he was just deliriously happy with Weiss, and Pyrrha would never be so low as to try to come between them. And Weiss didn't seem the sort to share, to say the very least.

Watching Yang walk away, Pyrrha lost the struggle to keep from sighing. While Pyrrha had been victorious, she hadn't beaten her. Yang had been defiant, wild and untamed, unconquered. Just the memory of that look in her burning red eyes set Pyrrha's heart racing, and she crossed her legs tightly.

Gradually, she got herself back under control, relaxing once again. She sighed again, tossing her head back and groaning in frustration. What was wrong with her?

"Hey, Pyrrha!"

The Champion of Mistral lolled her head over to regard her teammates approaching. Nora, of course, greeted her loudly, with unrestricted glee, while Ren merely waved silently at her.

"Hello, again," she said as she pulled herself to sit upright. "How are you two?"

"Oh, we're fine," Nora said, with a sly little smirk. "But you look like you're pining over Yang."

"I'm not pining," denied Pyrrha, who had absolutely been pining.

Nora sat down on the bench on one side of her, while Ren sat on the other. "Now, why don't I believe that?" Ren asked.

"Because you're just unkind and unneighborly," snarked Pyrrha.

Nor reached over and booped her on the nose. "Well, you've been picking fights with people," she reminded her. "You know, most normal people don't use combat as a dating app."

"I think we all know that I'm not normal," Pyrrha said, smiling sadly.

From her other side, Ren gently took her hand. "Maybe you're a little too hard on yourself," he said. He began gently rubbing circles in her palm with his thumb.

Pyrrha hummed. "That feels nice," she murmured. "Would you be so good as to get my shoulders?"

"Sure, thing."

Pyrrha turned to face Nora, allowing Ren to unlatch her bronze collar, baring her neck. She felt herself practically melt as his strong, clever hands worked tension from her neck and shoulders. Nora smiled as she took up her hands, resuming where Ren had left off.

"Do you think that maybe you're looking in the wrong place?" Nora asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Ren added, from behind her. "If you're conflicted over the feelings that your primal fight with Yang brought up, then maybe you should try something else."

"Something more grounded," suggested Nora. "Maybe with people who know you, and can take a more...balanced approach?"

"The thrill of the fight, mixed with more calming introspection," Ren took up, smoothly working his hands up and down the sides of her neck and down her shoulders. "Someone who can push you to the brink and pull you back from it."

"Do you...do you really think it could work?" Pyrrha asked, her breath hitching as Nora put a hand on her thigh.

"Well, Ren and I have talked it over," said Nora, lightly tickling the bare skin of her thigh. "And we think that, yeah, it probably could."

"I suppose it's worth at least trying…" murmured Pyrrha. She smiled brightly at Nora before standing up from the bench, latching her collar back around her neck. "Thank you," she said. "You guys are the best."

"Well, we're pretty fond of you as well," said Ren. "So, would you -"

"I should go see if Yatsuhashi would be willing to spar," Pyrrha interrupted. "I know he's insightful and kind, but I'd like to see if he could light that spark as well."

Nora's smile had frozen on her face. "...What?"

"Thank you both for believing in me. I'll let you know how it goes. So long!" she sang as she strode away, her long boots clicking on the sidewalk.

Ren and Nora sat together in silence for a moment.

"Well, shit," Nora swore, kicking at a pebble on the ground.

"It was worth a shot, I suppose," said Ren, wrapping an arm to console her.

A/N: That idea just came to me and cracked me up. It didn't fit in the story itself, with the dynamics that came about from Pyrrha's issues with Yang, but the idea of Ren and Nora inviting Pyrrha into a polyamorous relationship and Pyrrha missing the point entirely amused me.

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Deleted Scene: Talk About Owned

They ran down the tunnel, following the two thieves that were their only hope of escape. As they entered the ruined subway station, they came to a halt as they heard the roar of a chainsaw. A massive masked Faunus stood, blocking the entrance, with a large chainsaw in his hand, clearly intending to keep them from escaping.

"Ah, hell," Roman swore. "Knew it was too good to be so easy. Neo?"

"I have this," Pyrrha said, stepping forward. She waved her hand and a black Aura enveloped the chainsaw. It tore itself out of the Faunus's grip, spinning off and digging into one of the concrete walls. Its wielder looked back and forth between his weapon and his hands, as if unsure which had betrayed him.

He looked up at the sound of a short, sharp whistle.

"Nighty-nighty, ya filthy animal." Roman bashed the unfortunate man in the face with his Melodic Cudgel, shattering the White Fang mask. The Faunus tipped onto his back and Roman kept up his assault, bashing the man over and over again until he stopped squirming.

"Hoo!" Roman exhaled, flipping his hair back as he stood. "What?" he asked, looking at the stares of all the assorted teenagers around him. "You have no idea how long that asshole has had that coming."

A/N: That little scene wasn't removed because I thought it wouldn't fit or something. I was kinda blitzed on medication when writing "The Last Stand at Mountain Glenn," and literally forgot to include it.

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WinterVision

Winter sipped her coffee as she walked the grounds of Beacon. Thus far, her...abrupt change of employment was pleasant enough, but if she didn't get some soldiers under her command and an enemy to destroy soon, she might find herself getting dangerously bored.

"Winter!"

She smiled down at her baby sister, the adorable little chibi girl hopping towards her like a bunny. "Hello, sister! I'm neglecting my studies!"

Winter rolled her eyes.

"Good morning!" Sure enough, Weiss was joined by her ridiculous boyfriend, a chibi in clanking armor. Winter narrowed her eyes dangerously at the boy, who, of course, failed to understand his mortal peril.

"We're going to go off pretending to be ready for an adult relationship! Even though we're both literally children!" Weiss cheered.

"I just do whatever she asks, even if I don't understand it," admitted Jaune.

Winter just sighed. "Well, just be careful."

"Oh, Winter. Your sage warnings fall onto the deaf ears of the impossibly young," Weiss shook her head. "Come on, Jaune. There's time aplenty to pretend to be doing something productive, before I invite you to have your way with me in an entirely inappropriate manner!"

"Yay!" The chibi knight clanked as he followed dutifully after his girlfriend.

A small black bird landed onto the chair next to her. "You should probably go easy on hitting my stash for your morning coffee," the bird advised.

"Oh, is that what this is?" Winter mused.

"Yep."

"How bad is it?"

In the bird's place sat a man, his irritatingly-handsome face rugged with the stubble that she just loved nuzzling against.

"Uh...well, you just said that out loud, for one," Qrow mentioned, awkwardly rubbing his chin. "Also, you kind of just narrated everything you said happened since you started drinking your coffee, again, and didn't realize that you were doing it."

"That would be a problem," Winter mused.

"Glad you think so."

"Weiss and her boyfriend are well, then?"

"Given that you were growling threats at a salt and pepper shaker? Yeah, they're good."

"Qrow, your booze is the stuff of legend."

"Yeah, I know."

"The hangover is going to be murder, isn't it?"

"Eeyup."

"Stay with me?"

"Yeah. Sure."

"...Even if I vomit?"

"Yeah. Even then."

"I should have claimed you as my own years ago."

"You should lay down, Snow Angel."

"You should lay on me, Bird Brain."

"Uh,"

"I like when you lay on me. You're highly cuddle-able."

"...And you're hopeless at holding your liquor."

A/N: This was going to originally be a little nod to RWBY Chibi, but then I thought it would be funny if a curious Winter tried a bit of Qrow's booze, and went on a fantastic voyage, of love and wonder. He's got that good shit. This also seems like a good time to remind the readers that all of these omakes and deleted scenes are non-canon as to "The White Knight."

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On the Origin of OCs

So, I was super nervous about making original characters and making them fairly prominent in the story. I've had people tell me that they hate when OCs appear in stories, ever, at all, so I strongly debated creating them and having them in the roles in which I've used them.

Medusa Nikos was the most prominent. I've been relieved that her reception has actually been very positive, especially since I reiterated that she isn't the same woman who was probably Pyrrha's mother in canon. Creating Pyrrha's backstory meant that her mother was extremely prominent in her life. I wanted to have Clover catch up with Winter and company in Argus, a reasonable place for that to occur, but I thought it would strain credulity to have Qrow swoop in out of nowhere. Winter needed somewhere to bunker down and call for help to evacuate her, and then I thought that it would be a good place for Pyrrha's mom to come in. As I thought "how is her mom going to hold off the fight long enough for Qrow to get there?" I figured that there were a bit too many family member OCs who were Hunters or former Hunters. I thought it would be a nice change of pace to make an absolute non-combatant, just to emphasize that being a strong female character isn't necessarily the same as being a violent female character. So from there, I thought to have her scare them off with a Semblance, and that led to Medusa, and there we go.

I kinda had to take her along, to keep her safe from retribution, and the similarities to Taiyang - single parent, tragic past, even gardening - meant that it was great fun to ship tease, long before they ever actually met. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that they would get together. I could just as easily have Taiyang make a crack about Ruby dating a "vending machine," and set off a conflict between himself and Medusa, who pretty much adopted all the kids.

Just don't get too comfy. Muahaha.

Sir Roland, I think, hasn't had any pushback, mostly because it makes sense. Jaune needed specialized equipment and training to assume the mantle of knighthood. While his ancestor, Charles d'Arc le Magne may have been a knight, Ozpin is not, and while he could train Jaune in the skills, it wouldn't have the same legitimacy as a squirehood, even an abbreviated one, from the acknowledged Knight-Commander of the Knights of Vale. I imagined Sir Roland as being like Obi-Wan Kenobi if Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader really had been two entirely separate people. One can easily see ol' Ben getting petty and posthumous revenge on his mischievous Padawan by sharing tales of his misdeeds to Luke. And like Obi-Wan and Luke, Sir Roland makes it clear that his time is over, and the task of rebuilding the Knights of Vale is on Jaune's shoulders.

His granddaughter, Rowan, is highly minor, but humorous in that she's openly horny for Huntsmen. Which, to be fair, is understandable.

Cardin's father, Sir Grandon Winchester, was designed to showcase the depths to which the dregs of the order had fallen, as well as being a subtle contrast to Ironwood. See, Ironwood doesn't actually hate the Faunus, not the way that Sir Grandon did. The existing White Fang insurgency just made for a useful wedge to exploit in his objective to concentrate the power of the Kingdom of Atlas into his own hands, and escalating it with his atrocious provocations ensured that that violence would continue, frightening the elites of Atlas into granting him even more power and authority. Ironwood actually has no discernible ideology beyond seizing power to defeat Salem.

Sir Grandon actually believed the dumb shit that came out of his mouth.

I know that the Internet likes to believe that anyone spouting bigoted shit is seeking to get a rise out of people, or posturing in an attempt to be controversial and edgy but there really are dumb motherfuckers that are actually one-hundred percent serious about their small-minded fuckery. Sometimes an asshole really is just an asshole.

I have more OCs planned for future chapters. Villains for our heroes to contend against, potential recruits for Jaune's new Knights of Vale, and a few regular people trying to make their way in the death world that is Remnant. I hope that they'll be as well-received as the others have been.

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Deleted Scene: Strike of the Assassin

Mercury hid behind the corner as he stole into the infirmary. This was the ward where the target was being kept. He frowned as he saw a group of four students, a team, gathered in front of the target's door.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" asked one girl, who had sea-green hair and her back to him, standing next to a boy with spiked blonde hair. Another boy, with raspberry spiked hair, answered the girl.

"I think she'll pull through just fine. The important thing is that our classmates are back safe."

"I can't believe Port and Oobleck are gone," said the last of their number, a girl with purple hair under a large purple hat.

Mercury sneered. Time was of the essence, and he didn't have time to wait for these fucking idiots to shut the fuck up and go away. If they didn't move soon…

"That was some crazy stunt JNPR pulled," raspberry boy said. "Think we could have held out as long?"

"You would have run out of Dust," joked sea-green girl.

All right. Time's up. Time to die.

Mercury stole up behind Sea-Green, and with the ease of hard-won experience, snapped her neck. Before the crack had faded from the air, he had stiffened his fingers into claws and tore the throat out of the boy she had been standing next to. Purple-hair, her eyes wide, hadn't the time to register what had happened before Mercury grabbed her arm, planted his metal foot against her forehead, and pulled the arm while pushing forward sharply with his foot. Her neck snapped, and that just left Raspberry, who had some kind of fancy Dust jacket that let him create weapons to hand.

Unfortunately, that took way too long for Raspberry. Mercury kicked his leg out from under him then literally chambered a side thrust kick, blasting him across the room and tumbling behind a desk.

Mercury Black had dispatched Team SLVR in seconds.

He slipped into the target's room. He needed to retrieve her and rendezvous with Emerald before the bodies were found.

A/N: I had originally planned to kill off most of Team SLVR, with Sinmin (Raspberry) surviving to join Jaune as a recruit Knight, questing to find and defeat Mercury as revenge for his dead teammates. I decided against it, as the sudden and brutal death of most of a team would clash just a bit too much with the rest of the tone of "Accolade."

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But is it Migratory?

Jaune returned to Sir Roland, massive Destrier in tow.

"Well, good for you, boy," the elderly knight congratulated him. "But it'll be some time before you can ride him."

"Sir?" Jaune asked, confused.

"For now your mount is….this!" Sir Roland held up a coconut, which had been neatly split in half and cored.

"Um...what?" Jaune could only ask helplessly.

"Until you prove yourself to my satisfaction, you will go around clacking these together," Sir Roland, with great and stoic dignity, informed Jaune. He clacked the coconut shells together, and they did sound uncannily like horseshoe-clad horse hooves on cobbled streets.

Jaune just sighed as he took up the coconut shell, and dutifully clacked as he went along.

A/N: I apologize for nothing.

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Endnotes: So, I hope that you enjoyed these goofy little scenes and the discussion of the characterization and plot points of this story. "The White Knight" has been an intense story to write, and I'm glad that so many people have been able to see something of value to it.

There's going to be a bit of a break before this story updates again - the next chapter of "Falling Snow" is almost done, I have a half-a-chapter of "Across Worlds" that needs to be finished, and I have some lighter one-shots that I've been kicking around. I hope that you'll be patient, and that you continue to enjoy my work, just as I've enjoyed sharing it with people. As of the writing of this Intermission, "The White Knight" has 1,205 favorites, is on 3 separate communities, and has 110,556 views, making it my second-most read story. I'm always blown away that other people read and enjoy my work, and that's what makes it so rewarding a hobby. As mentioned, this is about the half-way point of the first story in a planned trilogy, "The White Knight," "Knight Errant," and a third story whose name is yet to be determined. I can't wait to share the rest of the story with you all.

Love,

Mahina