Plotting Against Fate

The whiteboard in Team RWBY's dorm room was now filled to the brim with a list of events that were supposed to happen during their time at Beacon. From the dance with the CCT break in, to the tournament. There were a bunch of question marks for potential branches that would be made if they changed stuff.

"So maybe catching Roman early wouldn't really end with the results we need." Blake started.

"But he is still dangerous and we SHOULD stop him before he does any more damage." Ruby added while walking into the room, her hair was styled more like how it was when she was in Atlas.

She had a few stares. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing. Just interesting to see you actually took a liking to that hairstyle." Yang chuckled.

"Of course I like it! I like to think it makes me look more like a dashing hero!" she confidently put her hands on her hips, earning an eye roll from the others. "Anyways, back to the topic at hand. I'm thinking we should catch Roman before things get bad. We make sure he lives. The last thing I think any of us want to think about is Neo hunting to kill us again." she sighed.

"Ditto on that one." Yang rubbed the back of her head.

"We'll just put Roman behind bars and he should stay out of the picture so long as he's not on any Atlas airship." Ruby affirmed, writing that down on the whiteboard now.

"What about the White Fang and Adam?" Blake asked.

Jaune raised his hand now while Ruby just sighed. "We're not in a class right now, you can just talk."

"Can I bring my team in on what we're doing?" he asked. "I think they have every right to know what happens. Especially Pyrrha."

That immediately brought the mood in the room down. "We really gotta be careful about who we tell." Weiss admitted. "I think your team is a safe bet, but I'm not sure how they'll react. They'll probably think we're mad."

"Maybe not." Jaune argued back. "What about Ozpin? Surely he's likely our best bet to get any leeway on this."

"Jaune, Ozpin's secrets haven't been outed yet, and who knows how he'll react when he finds out we know what we know." Yang argued.

"Well we should still respect our agreement, even if we haven't made it yet here, for no more transparency. Look, we could tell him all we know and-"

"And then the enemy will likely have their own way of knowing this. Remember that Headmaster Lionheart was compromised by the enemy?" Weiss then brought up. "We could warn him about that too, but I just don't know if there's any way we could reasonably make this work with him directly involved from the start and without proper evidence. Even if we know all that we do."

"So you're saying we should gather more intel before approaching Ozpin?" Blake crossed her arms.

"I think it'd be the safest way to handle this, since Ozpin is still secretive with everyone." Weiss concurred.

Looking at the clock, Ruby immediately set the marker down and pulled the sheets back over the whiteboard. "Time for class by the way."

"Yay…" Yang let out an unenthusiastic groan as she hung her head while following after her.

Dr. Oobleck's class was going about the same as it always had, with him speaking a million miles per hour and the students struggling to keep up. Even hearing it a second time, it was easy to miss stuff.

"Now, which one of you young scholars can tell me what many theorize to be the turning point in the third year of the War?" Dr. Oobleck asked as Cardin blew a spitball at the back of Jaune's head which made him sit up suddenly.

"Mr. Arc! Glad of you to volunteer!"

Jaune glared back at Cardin who whistled innocently. "Oh right… The battle at Fort Castle right? The Faunus's night vision is what gave them the advantage there."

"Correct!" Dr. Oobleck declared. "Perhaps if General Lagune paid attention in his studies, then he wouldn't be regarded as one of history's worst generals." he glanced at Cardin. "Mr. Winchester, if you think I didn't see you harassing Mr. Arc, you're mistaken. See me after class for additional readings."

Cardin snarled in anger as Jaune was about to laugh, but then remembered the same consequence befalling him, hindsight certainly was an advantage here as his gaze fell back to his textbook.

As everyone left the lecture hall, Jaune quickly approached Pyrrha. "Hey Pyrrha."

"Oh, hey Jaune." the redhead offered a friendly smile to him. "Something the matter?"

"Yeah, I was wondering if we could talk later… Does the roof of our dorm building sound like a good spot?" he asked.

"Oh um… Sure! I'll be sure to let Ren and Nora know where we are." Pyrrha walked off ahead of him as he let out a sigh.

"Whatcha up to now?" Ruby asked, leaning over, startling Jaune with her surprise appearance.

"Oh um. I'm just trying to set things in motion with Pyrrha, ya know?" he explained. "I was so damn oblivious before… I figured that I'd try to be more direct with my approach this time, and not be too late."

"Oh well. Good luck Jaune. I hope it works out for you." Ruby smiled. "My team and I are gonna go over what to do next."

She then left and Jaune took a deep breath before following after his teammates.

Cardin, who was lingering behind the door of the room, finally pushed it open and raised an eyebrow. "So Arc has a thing for Nikos, huh?"

Pyrrha stared out at the night time Beacon with a smile on her face before turning to face Jaune who closed the door up to the roof behind him.

"So what did you want to see me up here for, Jaune?"

Scratching the back of his head, Jaune took a deep breath. "I wanted your help. I know I still have room for improvement, so I was thinking that maybe you could help me improve my form and strengthen myself in combat better-"

"I'll stop you right there, Jaune." Pyrrha crossed her arms. "You seem different, and not in a growing type of way. When I met you… You had a more childlike personality to yourself and didn't understand a thing. Now you're helping everyone upgrade their equipment and holding your own in a fight? Was it all just a trick to fool us into thinking you're slower?"

"No, it's not that, Pyrrha. It's-" he didn't quite know how he'd mention this to her here. "Look, if I told you, you wouldn't believe me. There's a lot you don't know, and I want to be as transparent with you as possible."

He took her hand now, feeling some tears notably start to well up in his eyes. "Pyrrha. I…" he looked down. "I guess any good place to start would be my transcripts… They're fake." Jaune confessed which earned widened eyes from Pyrrha.

"Jaune… I-... Who are you? Are you even really someone I should be trusting?!" she glared at him.

"What?! I am! I'm here to help! I want to help, Pyrrha- I know things about you about-"

"Stop." she held her hand out in front of him and looked him in the eyes with tears. "You're starting to sound like every other guy who's tried to approach me that only cared about my status as the Invincible Girl."

"Pyrrha, it's not that I-" before Jaune could explain himself more she ran off, while he stomped his foot on the ground in frustration. "Dammit!" he ran a hand through his hair. "Way to go Jaune. I should have just told her right away instead of just… Building the conversation up. Oh who am I kidding, she wouldn't have reacted any better."

He began to walk towards the exit when suddenly he heard some noise behind him.

"Oh Jauney boy…" Cardin smiled deviously.

Jaune's eyes widened now as he took a step back from Cardin. How could he have forgotten that this was going to happen tonight?! Not to mention, he made the exact same stupid mistake he did before.

"You and I have a lot to talk about. Unless you'd like me to come forward to Professor Goodwitch with your dirty little secret." he taunted now while dialing on his scroll for the rest of his teammates. "You're going to ensure my team gets all passing grades this semester."

Commentary: OOF, this could have gone better for Jaune, huh?

Already some relationship issues with Jaune and Pyrrha happening. Which I do think this is more realistic for how this sort of scenario would play out, if Jaune was aware of Pyrrha's feelings for him from the start.

The big issues here are that he's trying to speed it along too quickly and he's not acting like the same dork that Pyrrha fell for in the original timeline. He clearly looks up to her in reverence to the person that molded him into who he is in the original timeline, and she's more or less interpreting that reverence as the same type of hero worship she's been dealing with her whole life.

As for RWBY's stance on Ozpin? It's kind of a precarious one, since there's other factors to really consider with telling him. If they tell him, he could tell the other headmasters, if they tell him about Leo being a traitor that only speeds along Ironwood's paranoia and potentially leads to an international incident between Atlas and Mistral. Telling him all they know also just spells potential disaster on other fronts, especially if they know his secrets and he might not want those to be at all public.

Point is, Team RWBY isn't in too much of a rush to get into the politics of matters and would rather just directly act where they can for the time. What comes first for them is thwarting Cinder before she can accumulate any more power. But, they still do need some immediate help.