The Accident
Cardin was grinning as he swung his mace at Jaune, who barely managed to get his shield in place.
With the blow blocked he was sent flying back, but thanks to his training from Ren he was able to flip to his feet rather than land on his back and scramble to his feet just as Cardin reached him again.
Instead he had bought space from his opponents attack, and at the cost of barely a sliver of aura.
Better yet, he had been able to grab Crocea Mors from where it had fallen earlier in the fight.
And this truly qualified as a fight, unlike his early efforts where he had been lucky if he lasted half a minute.
That said, he was still losing aura at a higher rate than Cardin; he might have more aura but Cardin dealt more damage per blow as well, and tended to avoid attacks rather than take them on a shield, giving him a certain advantage. And when he was hit, it was usually on his armour which, he had learned, took less aura to protect.
A glance at the scoreboard, his aura and Cardins both in the yellow, was all it took for Cardin to leap forward and land a solid blow before he could shield himself.
He was thrown back, landing outside the arena with his aura in the red, the match lost twice over.
"The match goes to mister Winchester," professor Goodwitch announced. "Mister Arc, you have shown a lot of improvement and it is good to see you take onboard my advice to be aware of your aura. My advice is for you to learn to check your aura without leaving yourself open in the same manner. Mister Winchester," she started, turning to face him, "I have warned you before about trying to showboat rather than taking your opponent seriously. I appreciate that you took this fight more seriously than previous matches, but you still took more hits than you should have." She turned to face the entire class again. "We don't have any time for further matches today, but there is something I have to tell you. It is the start of the weekend, and so Vale is open to you. The headmaster has informed the council of our... more unusual students, and they have arranged matters to allow all our students to visit the city if they choose, as long as they behave themselves in a manner befitting students of Beacon. Dismissed."
Jaune groaned as he forced himself to his feet.
Each fight against Cardin turned out the same. He had managed to eke out the occasional win again some other students, but Cardin was just too strong.
"You keep improving. Perhaps you really are serious about this," a voice said above him, and Jaune was shocked to see it was Cardin, who was actually offering a hand to help him up.
"Of course I'm serious," Jaune snapped. "Would I be here if I wasn't?"
Cardin pulled him up. "The way I've seen others here behave?"
He walked off, mace on his shoulder, quota of being nice apparently used up for the day.
"Jaune!" It was a familiar voice calling him, and he sighed as he turned to face her.
"Hey Ruby."
"I was so sure you were going to win that one! Next time for sure, right?"
"I don't think it was nearly as close as that. Hold on, I'm not giving up," he immediately defended himself, seeing Ruby about to get his case about letting anyone have the win against him rather than giving it his all, "I was just hoping to get more training before facing Cardin again."
He had been somewhat surprised when Ruby and her team first started approaching him after the trip to Forever Fall, but had soon gotten used to it. And after all, with their teams, plus URBN, spending most of the trip together, with the other teams withdrawing from those with Grimm (probably unconsciously given what they were like in Beacon), it was only natural that the teams had grown closer.
"Hmmph. Well, we were about to head into Vale anyway, and I wanted to see if you wanted to come."
"Sorry, but I've got to do some extra studying, so I'll probably be stuck looking around for libraries or bookshops, and if you aren't looking for any-"
"That's alright, as long as you come with us next time."
"It's a deal. See you round Ruby."
She smiled, clearly not too upset about it, before dashing off to her team.
His team was close to two others, he was actually managing to hold his own in spars, and Cardin was no longer targeting him so badly.
Things were really looking up.
[]
Things were looking down.
She had suggested the team head into Vale because one of the major draws Beacon had possessed was the chance to head into town each weekend if she wanted, rather than being limited to when her dad was willing to take them, and this was their first opportunity.
Sure, she had been to the city just a few weeks ago, and Beacon was good about letting them restock regular ammo they had used, but this should have been a chance to truly experience the city.
Sure, things had gone well at first, with them heading through the main parts of the city, even if people seemed nervous about Drei, but then Weiss had suggested they head to the docks.
She was rich wasn't she, Ruby had thought to herself, so she should know about unusual places in the city.
There was nothing like that here.
"Why did you bring us here?"
"The Vytal tournaments coming up," Weiss tried to defend herself, "I wanted to see what the city looked like before it got going."
"Nah, you wanted to scout out any arriving contestants. Isn't it a bit early for that? I mean, Beacon has barely started the year."
"Not all of the academies start at the same time, and I know for sure that Shade is in the middle of its break."
"Shade... wasn't that the Vacuan academy?"
Weiss was about to respond, when the sound of a disturbance on one of the docked ships drew their attention.
They watched, open-mouthed, as a monkey faunus (judging by his tail) jumped ship, dodging some men in uniform, and ran down the street towards them, before suddenly spotting them (or more likely Drei) and dashing down a different alley.
"After him," Weiss called out, only to be overruled by Ruby.
"No, Drei stay. We need to set a good example for Drei."
Weiss turned to face her, about to berate her team leader, before pausing. "Quite correct," she decided. "If we were to chase him with Drei it would be easily misconstrued. And we cannot leave Drei behind. I was mistaken in my belief as to the best course of action."
"Excuse me," someone behind them, presumably off a ship, said to them, "could you help me find-"
The stranger, a scorpion faunus as it turned out, froze as the team turned to face him and he caught a sight of Rubys face or rather
"Accursed silver eyes," he cried, leaping towards her, tail poised to strike.
Ruby let out an eek, diving back, which wouldn't have done her much good if it wasn't for Drei leaping into him from the side and causing the strangers attack to go off course, his tail striking deep into the ground.
Yang wasn't much slower than Drei, placing herself between him and her sister, deploying Ember Celica as she prepared to teach him why targeting a group of Huntresses (in training plus Drei) was a bad idea, while Weiss fell back, desperately looking round for anything she could do to help.
The stranger tensed himself, clearly preparing to attack, but his tail was trapped too tightly and kept him functionally trapped as Ruby shakily got to her feet.
He was speaking some kind of deranged monologue the entire time since he saw Rubys eyes, but none of it was clear enough for them to understand.
"Wh-what should we do?" It was Ruby asking the question, her confidence in the role of leader shaken by the unexpected attack.
"We-ell, if he's trapped here, we should probably just call the police and let them deal with it," Yang began, only for the madman to break free and prepare to attack once more.
Yang started to launch a counterattack, to hit him before he could get near Ruby, only for that plan to be derailed as a vaguely familiar voice called out.
"Tyrian, no!"
The faunus immediately complied, managing to go straight from launching himself forwards in an all-out attack to standing in an innocent posture as the speaker, who Yang now recognised as Salem, approached. With an authority figure, even one as questionable as Salem, present and the maniac stopped, she halted her own attack, but remained ready for if he should attack again.
"Tyrian," Salem began, "what did I tell you to do?"
"To wait at the docks until you found me, my goddess," he replied in an innocent tone, completely at odds with how he just been acting.
"So why did you launch an unprovoked attack on a group of students, one including a Grimm?"
"B-but, the silver eyes-"
"That I've told you how many times not to concern yourself with?"
"B-but she was with a Grimm-"
"And what did I tell you about how to behave while in Vale?"
"B-but my goddess..."
Salem groaned and pressed against the bridge of her nose, as if to stave off a headache. "And they questioned my plan to lock you in the tower. Fine, Tyrian, you will come with me, and this time do as I told you."
She turned to lead the insane faunus away.
"W-wait a minute, he attacks my team leader and you just tell him off like a child and take him away without doing anything about it?"
Salem turned to face Weiss. "Would you prefer I leave him in the city? Or send him somewhere else on his own? And who says he isn't going to be punished?" Her eyes flashed as she spoke, making it clear that Tyrian was going to regret his actions.
The group watched as the faunus trailed after Salem, whimpering like a dog that knew it had behaved particularly badly. Things had not gone as they had expected in any way.
[]
Team URBN had decided to take the opportunity to head into the city themselves, even if they had spent most of the time split up into the pairs they formed in initiation, what with Blake heading into a bookshop with Russel following as he apparently needed someone around to look after him at all times, leaving Pyrrha wandering about with her team leader, just taking in the sights.
It was quite an experience for her, seeing as Vales architectural style was very different to that of Mistral.
She wasn't overly surprised at running into team RWBY, except that they weren't acting their usual, lively selves.
She hesitated, not sure whether to try to start a conversation with them or not.
She didn't really have any experience with friends, not even enough to be sure whether she could consider the team as being her friends.
The decision was taken out of her hands when Ruby spotted her and called out, cheering up immediately.
"Oh, hey Pyrrha!"
"Hey guys, what's up? You don't quite look like yourselves."
"We were attacked by someone, someone connected to Salem."
Pyrrha blinked. "Not the sort of thing you expect from coming into the city. But... connected to Salem?"
"She wasn't involved in the attack," Ruby assured her, brushing off any such concerns, "in fact she got him to stop."
"That's a relief. I guess it explains why you're out here, by the docks."
"Oh no, that was all Weiss trying to scout out competitors in the tournament."
"Hey!"
Yang started laughing, clearly starting to get over the earlier scare. "Hard to argue with the truth, Weiss. Anyway, why are you over here Pyrrha? It seems odd for you to be at the docks."
"It was my partners idea," Pyrrha began, before pausing. "I think... er..."
She stopped.
The Ursa hadn't been leading the way, had he? But it definitely wasn't her idea to head this way...
Why had they come here anyway?
[]
Salem had finally been forced to literally start dragging Tyrian after her, but nonetheless they had reached Ozmas office.
He raised an eyebrow as he saw them.
"You haven't come to talk very much, so I guess you must have something important to discuss."
"Yes," Salem responded, doing her best to avoid snarling, "you could say that. Due to your insistence that I stay here I was forced to call Tyrian here," she indicated the faunus she had been dragging, "in order to keep him from causing trouble."
"My goddess I-"
"Silence!" Spending the time to keep Tyrian in line had demonstrated that she could still get a headache. Even with all the changes she had undergone thanks to the gods. "Thanks to some extra paperwork you-"
"I think that was Glynda."
"-insisted I finish I got to the docks late to meet Tyrian, only to find that, because of your delays, Tyrian had taken the chance to attack a group of students, which I had managed to prevent for many years now."
"Wait, he attacked my students?"
"I stopped him before he could do any damage."
"Nonetheless this goes against the terms of the agreement we made-"
"But I am willing to overlook it if you agree to a few new terms of mine."
Ozma frowned. "I do not see how I am supposed to be responsible for breaking our agreement."
"I made it clear that I would need to manage the situation around certain of my allies carefully, and any interference would make you responsible for any damage caused."
Ozma paused. "I suppose I have no choice. But there are limits to what I could do about Tyrian. He did make an unprovoked attack-"
"Not even I could convince him to allow himself to be arrested."
"-the only way I could protect him would be if he were employed at Beacon."
"Tyrian is mostly just good at combat. Have him assist Goodwitch with lessons. And any paperwork that you would give me goes to him."
"P-paperwork!?"
It seemed Tyrian had finally learned what fear was like.
"Indeed. You did need to be punished after all."
Ozma sighed. "Anything else?"
"Yes, as we were heading back into Beacon we ran into a strange girl who decided I was her friend. Said something about how she had been told 'a stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet', and introduced herself as Penny... something."
"I think that James said something about a student visiting from Atlas by that name..."
Salem glared at him. "I am not the sort to befriend random girls in the city. Fix this."
AN: Unusually I managed to write this chapter soon after publishing the last chapter of my previous story, which took long enough to finish that it probably feels like this chapter was delayed. Part of the speed comes down to the elements I had already planned, like the Penny makes friends with Salem whether she wants it or not or professor Callows (which I had thought of mentioning in a previous chapters note as though it was just a joke but didn't get round to) or even the Pyrrha doesn't kow how she's begining to understand the Ursa. I decided to skip over Forever Fall because nothing too major would happen there without the problems from Cardin, and I'm not exactly confident about writing a section that just serves to build up a groups friendship.
There will be further consequences from the dock scene, just not quite yet.
And finally, as nobody seems to have noticed, I just thought I'd mention how fun it has been, finding Grimm fairy tales to give chapters names (when I don't just work the word Grimm in). There are quite a few that will be just perfect.
