Here's the chapter!
Reviews:
Guest - I can only say that probably emotionally.
X3runner - I'm glad you liked it and Jaune's crew's name is JNWR (January) for now. As for YU-GI-OH! decks; I mostly play Gren maju and Cyber Dragon decks. I enjoy putting a huge monster on the board and winning in a single battle phase.
adislt - The honest answer is that I didn't entirely thought it out. (I'm sorry.) For the in lore explanation, on top of being discouraged by the gods from looking into it most if not all shamans actively kept their distance away from him because of his nature as a parasite that absorb souls. I will try to give another explanation in the story for that in the next Arc.
Gamelover41592 - Thanks?
Yet another town stood before them, though with how big it was calling it a city would have been way more accurate. The walls of the port city towered over the small group of four huntresses in training and two young shamans as they looked at the huge city with determination in their eyes.
It was the place towards which Lyserg's pendulum was pointing and if they wouldn't miss Jaune and the rest inside then they should be able to finally meet Summer again.
Ruby couldn't allow herself to wait for any longer. After years of living without her and more than a month of searching, it finally felt like reunion with her mom was within her grasp.
The thoughts of seeing her mother again were so prevalent in her mind that they almost made her forget about the fall of Beacon.
She would solve the Beacon issue later. Right now it would only needlessly cloud her mind and obstruct her from doing the most important thing at the moment.
"Are you certain that they are here?" Ruby was brought out of her mind by a skeptical question her partner asked their green haired guide.
Normally she would have rebutted Weiss for being unnecessarily rude towards the person who only helped them but this time even she couldn't help but be wary of the direction they received.
They have already visited many villages under the assumption that the people they were looking for would be there only to find nothing and the place they were looking at was a port city with only one real land entrance. She believed that they could be forgiven for being a bit doubtful at this point.
"If they aren't here then I led you astray and my pride as a dowser can be considered shattered." Lyserg rolled his eyes. "There's no chance they aren't here. Now let's stop wasting time and enter the city. I certainly want to avoid missing them once again because of being too slow."
"He's right, Weiss." Yang said. "We are only wasting time by being doubtful at this point. Let's go meet my mom again. I'm sure our reunion is going to reignite our spirits! Get it?"
A bunch of loud groans and a single loud chuckle accompanied them as they moved through the gates of Argus.
Somehow, despite the particularly terrible moods they all had since they had learned of the fall of Beacon, Yang didn't stop making her terrible puns. No, that wasn't necessarily correct, she had stopped making terrible puns for a few days but after some encouragement from Chocolove who tried cheering them up with his awful jokes she had quite quickly went back to making terrible puns.
"You guys just don't get the art of comedy." Yang said while shaking her head after passing by the entrance guard of the city. "Choco's the only one here who can match my humor."
"You said it, Yang!" Chocolove said while doing a fist bump with Yang.
"I genuinely pity anyone who isn't able to match your type of humor." Weiss groaned loudly. The poor heiress was the one who always reacted to the puns the worst.
Unlike Ruby who had her entire life to get accustomed to the puns from her sister or Blake and Lyserg who simply were way too stoic and focused individuals to be affected, the Schnee heiress had nothing to protect herself with from that atrocious humor.
"You're just jealous that your jokes aren't as good as mine." Yang said smugly.
"Trust me Yang, if there was one thing I was jealous of you it would never be your jokes." Weiss shook her head tiredly before looking at their guide with a desperate expression on her face. "Please tell me that my brother and the rest are nearby. I would give anything to have this already over with."
Lyserg carefully shot out his pendulum to look for their friends in response. Unlike almost all the previous times it didn't point towards the same direction anymore, instead it shifted quite a bit to the side.
All of their eyes widened in excitement, if the pendulum changed it's direction so much despite them moving so little the target it was pointing at must be near.
"They are close!" Ruby said in excitement before intermediately rushing off in the direction the pendulum was pointing at.
"Wait a moment, please." Lyserg stopped the silver eyed huntress with the wire from his pendulum before she could get too far. "Before we go there and invade their rooms you might want to check the time."
The young leader tilted her head in confusion. It shouldn't be that late yet, they arrived here just a few minutes after waking up so unless all of them slept until evening it should still be somewhere around midday.
Quickly relenting and checking her Scroll to see the hour even if only out of curiosity, she intermediately understood what the green haired dowser meant upon seeing the clock.
It was barely four in the morning. Jaune and the rest were probably still asleep and if they knew anything about Nora they would most likely not be awake for the next seven or so hours.
They've become so used to waking up and moving out early to catch up to their friends that Ruby forgot that most normal people weren't up and about before at least six in the morning. Honestly, the lack of people on the streets of the relatively large city that was Argus should have clued her in on that a bit earlier.
"Yeah, I guess it could be a little problem." Ruby said awkwardly before asking. "Does anyone here know of any good places to spend time here?"
"Nope." Yang said, popping the 'p'.
"I've never been here before." Weiss answered.
"It's my first time here as well." Blake added.
"My dowsing abilities only allow me to find the specific people and objects I'm looking for." Lyserg shrugged and Chocolove merely shook his head.
"I figured." Ruby slumped her shoulders as she heard the answers. They likely wouldn't be meeting with her mother before eight in the morning meaning that they had at the very least four hours that they had to wait for and with nothing to do and her mind constantly drifting towards her mom and the reunion that was about to happen those four hours would feel like days.
"There's a nice park in the city center if you are looking for some way to spend the time." A kind voice suddenly said from behind, startling the young team leader.
"Ahh!" Ruby screamed while quickly turning around to see the person who snuck up on her. All of her companions merely slowly moved their heads towards the new person in the conversation.
There, right next to them, stood a tall girl who wore the most bland and unassuming clothes there were. Her hair was long and red, while her eyes were almost emerald green, she also gave off this familiar feeling that made Ruby think that she should recognize the person before her from somewhere.
"Hello again." The red haired girl said politely with a wave of her hand.
"H-Hello?" Ruby said awkwardly, trying to greet the tall girl. The familiar feeling in her continued as she really felt that she should be able to recognize the polite girl. "Do we know each other from somewhere?"
Ruby winced a little after saying that. Why did she ask that? Of course they had to know each other. If they didn't then the tall girl wouldn't come to greet them out of nowhere, especially not so early in the morning.
Damn her social awkwardness!
"Well, I took part in Beacon initiation for one." The girl tilted her head, curiously eyeing the younger girl who couldn't help but shrink under her gaze.
"Oh, uhm..." Ruby frantically looked at the girl before her trying to remember anyone like her from the initiation. "It's a pity that you didn't pass, I guess? We probably would have been the bestest of friends if you only stayed in Beacon."
Yeah, that was certainly a way to not reveal that you have no idea with who you were talking. There was no way the familiar looking red haired girl would realize. It had to work, uncle Qrow taught her that method!
A giggle escaped the familiar looking girl as she moved back a little and held her tummy.
"I'm sorry?" Ruby more asked than apologized.
Uncle Qrow had lied to her!
"Ruby, you idiot, that's Pyrrha Nikos!" Weiss waved her hand at the laughing girl. "She passed the initiation perfectly but left the school right after because of not finding a teammate and having more important issues to deal with."
That explained the familiar feeling she was feeling while looking at her. Ruby might not have interacted with the famous invincible girl much back before the initiation but she wasn't ignorant enough not to know about the four time Vytal festival champion, even if she personally focused more on the weapons than the fighters.
To be fair though, who was ignorant enough not to know the invincible girl.
Pyrrha's laughter gradually subsided as the invincible girl wiped a single tear from under her eye. Ruby had to say, if she was a bigger fan of the girl then she would have paid quite a lot to have that laugh recorded, it wasn't often one could see the invincible girl herself dropping her always kind persona to laugh a little.
"Don't worry about that." Pyrrha said between the small giggles. "It is quite refreshing to be able to meet someone who isn't immediately asking me for an autograph or a handshake for once."
"You are welcome and don't fret. I won't worry." Ruby nodded with all the strength and confidence a person who couldn't see their awkwardness would have.
The silver eyed girl politely ignored the small cringes and groans her traveling companions were making behind her. The traitors wouldn't even save her from the last bit of embarrassment that could be easily avoided.
"Ignoring the second-hand embarrassment my team leader is giving me." Weiss mumbled under her nose thinking that Ruby wouldn't hear. "What brings you here, Pyrrha? We are on a family search of sorts but none of us expected to encounter you here today."
Pyrrha blinked a couple of times at the Schnee heiress question, acting as if the answer to that should have been rather obvious.
"Argus is my home city, I live here." The invincible girl said. "I have to say, I'm surprised you didn't know about that considering that it's basically public knowledge at this point and you likely did some research about me back before the initiation of Beacon."
Now it was Weiss's turn to be embarrassed about something and Ruby couldn't help but revel in that feeling. Did that make her petty? Possibly, but beyond that it felt amazing to not be the one embarrassing themselves in front of others for once.
It made her feel like she was the normal one this time.
"W-Well, forgive me for asking a stupid question then." Weiss stuttered a little before lowering her head lightly in apology. Even the smallest of mistakes made her act so serious during the apology.
Sometimes Ruby really had to wonder if being the Schnee heiress was worth all of that.
"Geez, Weiss-Queen, you really need to learn how to chill out a little." Chocolove said while making finger guns.
The frankly terrible pun at Weiss's expense earned a lot of loud groans from others and a small snort from Yang followed by a click of her tongue and murmuring something about needing to be faster next time.
A shiver ran down Ruby's spine, the last thing they needed was for Yang and Chocolove to turn their pitiful attempts at puns into a competition. She could already imagine those hurtful puns following every sentence in their conversation.
If there was a personal hell for her then it would be that.
A quiet snort from the side suddenly broke the expected reaction from everyone. Ruby's eyes widened in fear as she slowly moved her head to look at Pyrrha once again. There was no way that snort actually came from her, right?
It was simply impossible. No sane person could laugh at those terrible jokes. Ruby had to be hearing things from all the excitement that was building inside her because of being about to meet with her mother.
That had to be it!
Sadly the reality once again betrayed the poor Ruby as the quiet snort steadily turned into a full blown laughter. Pyrrha Nikos, the invincible girl herself, the person whose weapon was the second greatest weapon she had ever seen, was laughing at a joke so terrible that Yang had considered it funny.
It was official, the world was about to end. She didn't even have the chance to reunite with her dead mother though considering that everything's about to end it didn't feel that horrible.
"See?! She understands our humor!" Yang and Chocolove shouted at the same time with smug expressions on their faces before laughing in glee at finding someone who considered their jokes funny.
Ruby groaned as she grabbed her head in despair, Yang was going to act smug around them for the next couple of weeks. There wasn't a day in which she regretted not returning after the fall of Beacon as much as she did today.
"If you think that's good then wait until you hear the joke about the black cat in a white alley. Trust me that one will be Cathartic!" Noticing a prey that would be willing to listen to her jokes, Yang, like a seasoned predator, briefly stopped her laughing to tell another pun.
To the surprise of nobody and the despair of everybody, Pyrrha's laughter only increased in intensity. The willing prey had walked into the mouth of its predator and the bystanders around her suffered.
All the normal people in their group looked at Ruby with pleading eyes, they knew that their tired groans weren't going to accomplish anything anymore. The only response they got from Ruby was a look of compassion, there was nothing she could do either.
"Alright, alright, let's stop with the jokes for a moment. All of our companions for some reason treat it like a punishment!" Chocolove added with a wide and annoying grin on his face.
The young silver eyed huntress wept in despair into her hands as Pyrrha exploded in laughter for the third time. Out of all the things she had expected to encounter upon arriving in Argus this hell was not one of them.
Not only were her sister's jokes in stereo, they also now had an audience.
Ruby had no idea how she was going to survive the next couple of hours until they reunited with her mother but she knew that it wasn't going to be easy.
...
About an hour later...
...
The main park in Argus was unexpectedly quiet. There were barely any cars speeding by and the number of people here was so small that Ruby couldn't help but wonder if they weren't in some secret location in the city.
During her still relatively short life, Ruby had seen many different parks and outing places yet it was the first time she saw such a quiet park in a town that wasn't Patch.
It could have something to do with her living most of her life within the borders of Vale and Patch where most of the time people were as common as they could be but she couldn't stop marveling at the sight of such an empty place in the middle of the city.
It was almost like she wasn't in a city at all.
"I remember hearing an awesome joke about boomerangs some time ago but I don't think I can remember it now." Yang shrugged at Pyrrha's inquisitive look, "Oh well, I'm certain it will come back to me in a moment."
A sigh left Ruby as she was once again reminded of the pun marathon her sister and Chocolove were going through right next to her. For some unexplained reasons those terrible jokes never stopped making Pyrrha laugh.
She didn't want to sound too pessimistic or rude but she was starting to suspect that the reason why the park was so empty was because Yang and Chocolove scared everyone away with their terrible puns.
It might be a little far-fetched but with how loud they were being right now, it was a real possibility that they couldn't ignore.
"Please end me." Weiss groaned while holding her head in pain.
"Don't be like that Weisscream." Chocolove started and Ruby could already see Weiss looking at him with cold fury in her eyes. "I think it's a perfect moment to cool down a little."
Before her parter could grab her Myrtenaster and go on a murderous rampage that would hopefully kill at least one of the pun makers, Ruby quickly jumped from the bench she was sitting on to separate Weiss from the rest of her companions.
"How about we stop with the puns for a few moments?" Ruby asked with an awkward and hollow chuckle. "There will be plenty of time for that later and we've just met Pyrrha for the first time since Beacon initiation. I'm sure she would like to talk about something else with us, right?"
The silver eyed huntress didn't even try to hide the hopeful tone in her last question. They've been listening to those stupid jokes for the last hour or so, at this point she would literally prefer studying history to listening to anymore of them.
The desperate look in Ruby's eyes was thankfully enough for the invincible girl to relent and stop encouraging Yang and Chocolove to make more puns.
"I'm sorry about that." Pyrrha said with an embarrassed fake cough into her fist before shifting a little. "These jokes were so entertaining that I didn't realize how rude I was acting."
Ruby relaxed a little after she heard the apology, if she wasn't so tired from all of the puns then she would have remarked how nice it was of Pyrrha to apologize for that and said that she didn't have to say sorry. Unfortunately all of her compassion for the red haired girl was drained away by her laughing at Yang's and Chocolove's jokes and making them say more of them.
She wasn't in the mood for being overly nice to the red haired girl who made her suffer like that anymore. Especially not after the girl admitted to thinking that those jokes were entertaining.
"Don't worry about that. It's not an issue at all." Weiss said through a strained smile. Apparently she wasn't going to drop the politeness even after surviving all of those horrifying puns.
Ruby patted the back of her partner sympathetically. The unfortunate Schnee heiress deserved all the pity and compassion she could get.
"I'm glad that everything's fine then." Pyrrha said with relief. "Although I have to say, Ruby's right about me wanting to talk about something else, I do want to ask for what reason you came to Argus."
"We are looking for a friend that should be somewhere around here by now." Ruby said quickly after seeing a chance to get away from Chocolove's and Yang's puns. "Well, I say friend but we didn't really talk much earlier and the main reason we are looking for them is a bit different but the goal's the same."
Pyrrha slightly tilted her head in thought while looking at the young huntress in training. Whatever she was thinking about it had to be something meaningful based on how focused she was.
"Pyrrha?" Ruby asked, feeling a bit uncomfortable under the invincible girl's gaze.
"If you need help with finding someone then I'm pretty sure that I could help you and if I'm not enough then I could ask my teacher for help." Pyrrha offered. "She's quite into spiritual stuff and an expert when it comes to accomplishing unbelievable things."
After hearing the offer, the entire team RWBY took a glance at the green haired dowser that had been guiding them towards Jaune and the rest for the last couple of weeks. With Lyserg willing to assist them they didn't really need any additional help.
"Yeah, we don't need help with finding them." Yang said as she leaned back a little. "We already know where they are, all that's left to do now is wait for them to wake up and meet them somewhere in the city."
"In that case forget I said anything." Pyrrha said.
"Actually, I would like to learn a bit more about that teacher of yours." Lyserg said curiously before any of them could do anything in response. "I'm interested in the spiritual side of things as well and I believe it might be an interesting experience to meet another person with the same passion."
Everyone of their small group looked at the green haired dowser in surprise. Out of all of them, Lyserg was the one everybody least expected to be interested in Pyrrha's teacher. Especially since he was capable of finding anything he wanted with his pendulum on his own.
"You want to learn more about Lili?" Pyrrha asked, just as surprised as everyone else.
"Hm." Lyserg nodded. "We still have more than three hours of free time so I think it would be nice to meet that Lili person. Who knows, she might even be able to find the Tribes Village I will be searching for immediately after delivering all of them to their friends. The chance is small but it would never hurt to try."
Ruby opened her mouth wide in realization. She had forgotten that Lyserg's end goal wasn't finding her mother and instead it was moving further in the tournament. Considering that the boy didn't have a chance to look for anything related to the Tribes Village during their travels, he probably was starting to get concerned about finding it.
For some reason though, the moment the words 'Tribes Village' left Lyserg's mouth, Pyrrha frowned a little. It was subtle and the invincible girl quickly returned her expression to normal but Ruby, watching the conversation from the side, was able to notice that.
"Oh, and what is that 'Tribes Village' you are looking for?" Pyrrha asked with a weirdly stiff polite tone. "I've never heard my teacher mention anything like that so you might want to look somewhere else for that."
"It's an unimportant location that I wanted to visit lately. Nothing too particular you or your teacher should be worrying about if you didn't hear of it earlier." Lyserg answered with a smile so fake Ruby wondered if it was a mask.
The tension quickly grew between the scarlet haired huntress in training and the green haired dowser for some reason, making everyone on edge and worried a fight would break out in any second.
"Who cares about some irrelevant Tribes Village, I would love to meet with the teacher of Pyrrha Nikos herself!" Weiss said loudly as she got in between Lyserg and Pyrrha. The young Schnee was so wrecked by the earlier puns that she lost her self-preservation instinct.
That or she simply was too tired to even entertain a thought of a fight happening near her. With how desperate for rest Weiss looked right now it could be either one of those reasons.
"I-" Pyrrha stuttered as she turned to look at the Schnee heiress.
"I'm with Weisscream on this one." Chocolove said casually, ignoring the quiet growl Weiss directed at him right after he said that. "I remember watching some of the tournaments that you won back when I was still in vale. If that Lili person is your combat teacher then I certainly wouldn't mind meeting her."
"Well, if you say so." Pyrrha said with a bit of uncertainty. "But I have to warn you, she's quite an eccentric person so don't be surprised if we end up having to fight some wooden dolls to meet her."
"Wooden dolls?" Some of them asked in confusion.
"Just make sure to be on guard, okay?" Pyrrha sighed.
"Got it!" Ruby nodded, happy that they now had something to do other than whatever they had been forced to do earlier.
Besides, how much worse could Pyrrha's teacher be compared to all the weird and powerful shamans they saw at the beginning of their journey through Mistral. It was hard to imagine anything threatening when compared to Lyserg's wire replica of Mantle being destroyed with a single shot from an empty gun by that blond haired man with white clothes.
There was no way anything could go wrong.
...
A short walk later...
...
It was uncanny how desolate and unkempt Pyrrha's teacher's house looked. Despite being in an alley filled with dozens of different buildings one could still effortlessly point at a single unusual one out of them and correctly guess that it was Lili's house.
Why was it made out of wood? Ruby could understand if they were in some small village where there was simply no way to properly build a solid house but in a huge city like Argus it should have been harder to make one of wood than it would be to make one of stone and bricks.
Ruby wanted to complain and say that it didn't make any sense but considering that she was currently on a search for her mother that was dead for almost as long as she could remember, she kinda lost the privilege to say what made sense and what didn't.
She was starting to miss the short time she was at Beacon.
"Here it is." Pyrrha said as they approached a door that barely hung on its hinges. "I'm sorry for the bad state of the building. No matter how many times I try to convince my teacher to fix it a little she always dismisses it."
"Bad state is a little bit of an understatement." Chocolove said as he looked upwards to see how the higher parts of the building looked. "Is it even sanitary to be around? It looks like it could fall on our heads at any moment."
The young shaman's words prompted Ruby to look up as well to see what he was talking about and upon seeing how the top half of the building looked she could only agree with the dark skinned boy. The walls were literally patched up with old wooden planks and she was pretty sure she could see at least two windows being completely shattered.
How could anyone sane live in such conditions.
"It probably isn't safe." Pyrrha admitted with a wry expression. "Sadly my teacher never really cared for the safety or cleanness for that matter. At least not when it came to her house."
"So that's the place of the person who trained you, huh?" Yang said, a bit dumbfounded. "Tell me, was she the type of person who would throw you at the wild horde of Grimm and call it a training?"
Hearing her sister's question, Ruby also turned towards Pyrrha with curiosity in her eyes. She would be lying if she said that she wasn't curious about the training the invincible girl herself had to go through to win four tournaments in a row.
A quick glance to her side reassured her that she wasn't the only one curious about Pyrrha's training regime.
"Don't be silly, Yang. Training like this works only in movies." Pyrrha giggled a little at the blond brawler's question before rolling her eyes a little. "I had to go through something way more tough and dangerous than some Grimm horde."
"Wait, what?" All of them asked immediately after hearing Pyrrha's words but they got no answers as the invincible girl already stepped forward to knock on the door.
Three thump sounds echoed through the alley as Pyrrha slowly knocked on the door. For such a fragile looking door the sound that came out of knocking on it was surprisingly loud. Maybe it had something to do with the room right behind it?
A brief silence followed the echoing knocks as all of them waited for the response from the only resident of the building. Weiss started to raise one of her hands a little to suggest that the Lilirara wasn't home.
"Come in!" Luckily before the Schnee heiress could do that a loud voice called out from inside of the house.
"This time without an ambush? It's so rare of her not to do that, if it was any other day then she would have probably sent her dolls at me already." Pyrrha mumbled to herself thinking that nobody would hear.
Ruby blinked a couple of times when she overheard the invincible girl. Why would anybody expect an ambush from someone if they were only visiting? It wasn't like she got here for another training session.
With a steady yet weirdly wary movement Pyrrha carefully opened the door before instantly stepping to the side. If Ruby didn't know any better then she would have thought that Pyrrha was expecting an attack here.
"Is everything alright?" Blake asked.
"No attack here either." Pyrrha whispered to herself before quickly snapping back to reality and answering. "Yes! Everything's perfectly fine and I certainly am not worrying that my kind teacher will send her murderous wooden dolls at us!"
The silver eyed huntress narrowed her eyes at the invincible girl in suspicion, she might be misinterpreting things a little but she's fairly certain that Pyrrha was lying to them just now.
"Hm." Blake hummed, being as convinced of Pyrrha's words as her silver eyed leader.
What sort of crazy person were they about to meet?
"Anyway, let's go inside now!" Pyrrha said quickly changing the topic before awkwardly dashing inside the house. "Make sure to watch out for any possessed objects flying at you!"
Team RWBY looked questioningly at the shamans of their group only to receive two shrugs from them. Despite Pyrrha's warning they simply didn't see any spirits flying around let alone any Over Soul that would be moving any objects at them.
With the reassurance about the house's relative lack of any ghosts all of them boldly entered the wooden building. If they were really about to be attacked by some possessed dolls then with two powerful shamans and four skilled huntresses in training they would easily deal with them for sure.
The inside of the house was dimly lit. It wasn't completely dark as they could see where they were going but it clearly wasn't lightened up by an artificial light from a Dust lamp or any other lightening system.
There were a couple of candles illuminating the house though.
"I see you brought guests this time, Pyrrha." A voice startled them from behind.
"Ah!" Ruby screamed as she turned around and instinctively readied her weapon.
As it turned out it wasn't necessary to do that as the only thing the slightly older lady did was casually stopping the Ruby scythe with a thick wooden staff. A smile was on Lili's face as she carefully observed the young silver eyed warrior.
"You've got the spirit kid." Lilirara chuckled. "I must say it's been some time since the last time I saw eyes as silver as yours. Tell me, are you related to the old lady Maria? She called some time ago saying that I should expect some guests from her."
"Ah, uhm." Ruby shifted awkwardly a little while hiding her Crescent Rose. "I'm not. It's the first time I've heard of her, sorry. Does she have silver eyes as well?"
"Not anymore." Lilirara said wistfully before moving past them to greet her disciple and sit down on a chair.
"Good morning, teacher." Pyrrha said while on guard. "I hope you don't mind that I brought a couple of acquaintances to meet you. They were quite curious about you after hearing that you taught me how to fight."
"Don't worry about that, if they wanted to meet me then it would have been quite rude of you to refuse anyway." Lili waved her hand dismissively. "Although, I have to say, I'm surprised that you brought two shamans to me as well considering that I warned you to watch out for them yesterday."
Team RWBY shook a little in surprise after hearing what Lilirara said. As far as they were aware it was incredibly rare for ordinary people to know about the spiritual side of the world and shamans. They certainly didn't expect Pyrrha's teacher to know of them.
Paradoxically the only ones who weren't affected by Lilirara knowing of shamans were the two shamans of their group themselves. They've been able to see five different spirits following directly behind the older lady since the moment they saw her.
It didn't take a genius to realize that those ghosts were her guardian spirits.
"Why are you lot surprised?" Lili asked upon seeing the expressions of the team of young huntresses. "Their guardian spirits are literally following right behind them, it would have been weird if I didn't know they were shamans."
"We're sorry for the uncouth reaction, miss." Weiss bowed her head a little. "It's just that-"
"You didn't expect me to be shaman too?" Lilirara asked knowingly.
"Yes." Weiss admitted a bit ashamedly.
"I guess it makes sense if you haven't had too much exposure to the hidden side of Remnant yet." Lilirara grumbled to herself before speaking louder. "Let me give a small warning then. Don't be surprised if you see a lot more shamans like me around this time in Argus. That accursed tournament is in its second round and people are already arriving to the border cities in search of that damned Tribes Village."
Ruby had to recoil a little after hearing Lili's warning. She was well aware of the Tournament for quite some time now but it was the first time she had ever heard someone talk about it in such a spite.
It was almost as if Lilirara hated it for merely existing.
"You seem to dislike the Shaman Fight and the Tribes Village quite a lot for a random shaman in a port city like Argus." Lyserg narrowed his eyes at the older shaman. "Does it mean that you know where the village is?"
The tension rose as Lyserg moved his hand to grab his pendulum in case of a fight and Lilirara raised one of her eyebrows at the young dowser while carefully observing the boy at the same time.
"Don't even bother trying to get the directions from me, kid." Lili scoffed. "I won't be sending you there. The tribes will kill you the moment you enter the village, exactly like they had been doing for the last couple of Shaman Fights. It's just a question of which tribe is going to kill you this time."
"W-What?" Lyserg asked in confusion at Lilirara's words.
Unfortunately for the young dowser, no answers came from Lilirara as she turned her gaze away from the green haired boy. Everyone could clearly see that the shaman lady disliked the topic of Shaman Fight a lot.
"Let's talk about something else then." Ruby suggested awkwardly. "How about you tell us the origin behind Pyrrha's weapon? I always wanted to know from where she had got the idea to combine three different types of weapons."
A subtle smile adored Lilirara's face as she started answering Ruby's question.
With the tension between shamans in the building temporarily subsided but not forgotten, the time started to quickly fly by as the conversation they had tackled many different less and more interesting topics.
...
Two hours later...
...
Jaune, his older sister, and his friends had just left another popular bar without finding anything about the whereabouts of Lilirara. They weren't searching for long yet today but they have already visited three different popular locations with the hopes of locating Lilirara.
Sadly, they didn't find a single clue as to where she might live yet.
As it turned out it was a lot harder to search for a single specific person in a large port city than it was in a village or a small town. There one could always expect for everyone to know everyone but here not even ghosts knew of Lilirara and considering how many people lived in Argus, Jaune couldn't blame them for that.
"Don't be so down just yet, Jaune. We haven't even visited a quarter of all the popular places where that Lilirara person might be visiting often." Saphron said cheerfully before raising her arm up with as much energy. "There's an entire day before us!"
Saphron was happy simply because she had the chance to spend some time with Jaune again and as long as he was here it didn't matter what he was doing she would always be cheerful.
Jaune sighed lightly at his sister's antics. To be perfectly honest, they didn't want to take her with them on their search as she not only didn't have any idea why they were looking for Lilirara in the first place but she was also constantly making it harder for Jaune to later slip away and continue competing the Shaman Fight after learning of the Tribes Village location.
Unfortunately for them, Saphron was quite an early riser and with Nora being incapable of waking up before eight in the morning it became impossible for them to sneak on their search without alarming her.
As such they were currently walking in a rather huge group of eight people counting their guardian spirits. Though with them unable to comfortably talk with the spirits because of Saphron refusing to believe in the existence of anything spiritual there might as well have been only five of them here.
"Yeah." Jaune said with next to no energy in his voice. "There's so much more for us to explore."
It wasn't hard to notice Jaune's lack of enthusiasm so it didn't surprise anyone when Nora acted on it by energetically grabbing one his shoulder, shaking him a little and pointing towards one of the restaurants with a grin on her face.
"Your sister's right, Jauney! You cannot be so glum when we only just started searching." Nora shook her head and chuckled a little after reading the sign on the restaurant she was pointing at. "Let's go to that pancake house before us, I'm sure that some good fluffy pancakes are going to brighten you up immediately!"
Jaune wanted to protest and say that eating pancakes was something that would rather cheer up Nora rather than him but his objections were quickly put down by Ren looking at him with pity and understanding. There was no way for him to decline Nora pancakes and all of them knew it.
In the end he could only give in and accept Nora's suggestion to go to a restaurant. He did expect to be forced to do that at some point and it wasn't like they couldn't afford to waste an hour or so to eat so it wasn't that bad.
She could have at least not phrase it like she was helping him with that decision though!
"Alright, we will go to that pancake house for breakfast, Nora." Jaune rolled his eyes before gently swatting Nora's hand from his shoulder. "Also, next time when you want to eat pancakes please just tell us that and try not to make it appear like it's solely for my sake."
At least Nora had the self awareness to pretend to be embarrassed at being called out. It would have been almost believable too if it wasn't her acting like that, Nora's capable of anything but being embarrassed.
"You don't have to call out your friend in front of all of us you know, bro?" Saphron stepped forward and ruffled Nora's hair. "Please excuse my little brother for that, he can be dumb like that sometimes. Now let's go get some pancakes, I'm paying!"
Of course it was his sister who believed that look from Nora, she didn't know them well enough to know of everyone's personalities. The mischievous grin on Nora's face right after his sister stopped looking at her told him more than enough to know that she was going to take advantage of that lack of knowledge.
Jaune wanted to stop Saphron and say that they would pay for themselves, he really did, but just when he was about to try that, something incredibly quick collided with him and tackled him to the ground.
As he was falling, Jaune saw that the thing that collided with him was a young dark haired girl that bore striking resemblance to his guardian spirit. It had to be Summer's youngest daughter, Ruby if he remembered her name correctly, and soon he was once again laying on the ground while a girl who just tackled him held him down.
Apparently it had become a trend when he wasn't looking. At least this time the person who was on top of him wasn't crying like his sister had.
"I've finally found you!" Ruby shouted, getting the attention of everyone around them.
Rushed footsteps were the only sounds that could be heard as everybody looked at them with dumbfounded expressions on their faces. Well, his guardian spirit looked more shocked than dumbfounded but her circumstances were a bit different in this situation than everyone else's were.
"I can't believe you abandoned such a cute girl, Jaune." Saphron's words broke through the silence as six more people arrived on the scene.
A loud groan was the only response Jaune could give as his sister misread the situation. The more he was in Argus the more he wished that Maria pointed them towards someone who lived elsewhere.
And cut!
I'm kinda unsatisfied with this chapter to be honest, it feels like it had more fluff in it than plot. I guess something had happened though.
I might not be able to update for the next week or two so don't panic if you don't see another chapter next Friday. I will still try to write something but don't expect too much.
On a sidenote: I started another fic that I would occasionally update. It's also a Shaman King crossover although this time not with RWBY.