"What on Remnant happened here?!" We heard a voice ring out as we trudged out from the tree line, recognizing it to be (unfortunately) that of Lilly Azura. She and a shorter girl in orange, who I assumed was her partner, were standing at the cliffside. Looking around, I could see what they were talking about.
Everything was just DESTROYED. Like, the kind of destroyed you get when you and your little brother play "Bionicles VS. LEGO People Castle". It looked like a goddamned warzone, and the bridge -
"Yo, where the fuckin' bridge go?" said Jac.
...Shit. We were gonna have to walk all the way around, weren't we.
Lilly must have heard Jac yell, because she turned around to look at us. Instead of glaring at us like she usually did, though, she went all bug-eyed; her partner seemed to share her sentiment.
"What...what on Remnant happened to you?" Lilly's question was directed almost exclusively towards Cas, and I'll tell you why. See, while she may not like us in general on account of our association with Yang, she doesn't hate us all equally. Her Boiz Hate List goes kinda like this:
First-Most = Me, because I:
1) Say dumb shit all the time
2) Have a near-perfect record against her in sparring
3) Told her she was "super-duper hot" and asked her out...in the middle of a sparring match (coincidentally, that was the one time she ever beat me).
Second-Most = Woodie, because he
1) Is most often seen around Yang
2) Tries to debate everyone (her included) about dark, edgy crap that nobody cares about
3) (Jokingly) called her a racist one time because she disagreed with him in one such debate, which made her mad because she thought he was serious (I think she later figured out he wasn't, but she still definitely thinks he's annoying).
Third-Most = Jac, because he
1) Is a walking dispensary of stale memes
2) Has a stupid-looking haircut and flaunts it
3) Is basically just dumb in general; nothing spectacular, though.
Least-Most = Cas, because he
1) Is reasonable and doesn't do anything annoying
2) Trained under Goodwitch, who Lilly apparently really admires
3) Complimented her on tactics or something one time, which I guess was a big deal for her.
BOIZ-HATE-LIST-COMPILER'S NOTE: Despite all that Cas has going for him, Lilly's still kinda standoffish around him, as he is a friend of Yang's. I think she feels more sorry for him than anything, for which I honestly don't blame her at all. I also think she might (might) have a modest crush on him, for which I, uh...well, no offense to Cas, but let's just say I don't really understand her line of reasoning...
So as you can see, Cas is the only one of us she'll go out of her way to interact with. He knows this, and so has become our de facto ambassador to her.
"Oh, uh, we fought a King Taijitu," he said, then regarded his drool-soaked form. "And, uh, I fell in the water."
Lilly raised an eyebrow, looking us up and down. "Wow...must've been a pretty big one."
The rest of us finally had the good sense to take a look at ourselves and holy lord, we were fucked up! I'd thought that Lilly looked kinda rough, but then I looked into my scroll and saw this HUGE red mark all across my face - must've been from getting smacked into that tree branch during the fight with Meerungeheuer's shadow copy thing. My armor and clothes were all scratched and torn up, too. Woodie's entire front was PLASTERED with dirt and mud, and Jac looked like a splinter pincushion.
Anyway, Cas went, "Oh, god, it was huge!", and we all backed him up. He can be pretty theatrical when the need arises, so that helped.
"Huh." Lilly seemed skeptical; I'm not sure what she thought actually happened, but there was no way she'd guessed correctly. Hell, she'd probably think we were batshit crazy if we told her the truth! In any case, she visibly dismissed the matter. "So...guess we'll have to dig out the relics," she said, motioning towards the smashed temple.
"Nah, we already got ours," said Jac, and we showed them our relics, which we had managed not to lose during our fight due to plot convenience. Lilly seemed even more bewildered; it was then I noticed that her partner was staring at me the entire time. At first I thought it was because I am super smecksy, but then she pointed at me and said something to Lilly, to which I heard her respond, "Wait - really? With him?" The short girl said something else that I didn't understand. "Yeah, that sounds like something he'd do," Lilly said back. "Don't worry, though - you dodged a major bullet back there."
I was extremely confusion for a second before I suddenly remembered what happened at the end of Chapter 2:
"Uh...m-my name's Honey - "
"NO!"
Oh, yeah. And that was when I screeched and Naruto-ran into the woods.
Now I felt a little more bad, 'cause now she probably felt sad and rejected - but then I didn't. Because if she was my partner, that would make me sad, because then I wouldn't be on a team with the Boiz! And that would be a catastrophe beyond all imagination.
Also, yeah, Lilly was right - that girl (what was it, Hailey?) probably did dodge a major bullet. A super smecksy one to be sure, but major nonetheless.
So anyway, we just kinda stood there until we collectively realized that we could just head back, since we had our relics.
"K, see ya," said Jac, and we all turned around and left. Neither of them responded...at first. But then we suddenly heard Lilly yell:
"You cheated?!"
We stopped dead in our tracks and turned back around, putting on looks of incredulity. I saw then that Lilly was looking right at me. Ah, shit - of course she'd have figured out what I was doing from her partner's story! In fact, knowing her, it had taken her long enough already. She's mean, but she's smart, too. Thankfully, I don't think she realized it was all of us -
"Cheating? What?" said Jac. "Naaaaww...we wouldn't do that!"
Way to go, Jac. You're a real genius.
"All of you?!" I think something short-circuited inside our blue-clad friend at that point. "You - oh, for the love of - I can't believe you! Oh, wait - actually, yes I can! I should've known you'd pull something like this!"
I whispered how she knew to Jac, who cursed in frustration before saying, "I mean, though...what's she gonna do, yell us to death?"
"Did you guys really think you were gonna get away with this?" She kept yelling. "You know they've got cameras recording everything, right?"
Wait, hold up...what did she just say?
We all looked at each other, very unsure of what to do at this revelation.
"Uh...they have cameras...?" Jac said, very slowly.
"YES!" Lilly looked like her head was about to explode. "Were you seriously not paying attention?!"
Apparently not as much as we'd thought.
We were still very unsure of what to do, so I said, "So, uh...now what?"
Nobody said anything for a few seconds. Then:
"Uh..." said Cas, clearly searching his vast mind for a brilliant plan. "...Run away?"
"RUN AWAY!" shouted Jac. So we all ran away, screaming and shouting "RUN AWAY!" in general asynchrony.
Now, I had long abandoned any notion of attraction, much less that of any romantic intentions, towards Lilly since finding out she disliked me for dumb reasons. So obviously, I totally checked her out as we made our escape. I didn't really worry about her noticing, though.
At that point, I think she was too dead inside to even care.
So anyway, we kept running until Lilly and, uh...Harley? Yeah, I think it was Harley...until they were out of sight. We kept running after that, but then Cas said, "Wait, what are we running from?"
Well, that was a pretty good question, so we had to stop and think about it for a minute. After debating why exactly we were running away, we determined that we had no friggin' clue why. So we just started walking back to Beacon. It was pretty quiet. Leaves were rustling. Birds were chirping. Woodie had a big smile on his face. The wind was -
Wait a minute. Woodie, smiling?
That is NEVER a good sign.
"Hey, Elias," said Woodie.
"Wat?"
"..."
"..."
"Suuuuper-duper hot..."
"Goddammit." Of course they'd noticed me disobeying Jesus again.
"Hey, Lilly," Jac said in a poor imitation of me, "You wanna like...date me?"
"That's not what I said!"
"You wanna go make out at...YEETZ?" said Woodie. "I get a DISCOUNT there!"
"I'm gonna kick your ass, Woodie."
They laughed at my expense for a while, and then we all just kinda went quiet again for no reason.
"Hey, E," said Jac after a bit. "Got a question for you."
"What is this question?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Superduperhot - "
ANYWAY, we got back to the auditorium. Same deal as yesterday, except now we were gonna get team names. Yay!
We met up with Yang, who'd ended up partners with this black-and-white girl we didn't know. Apparently her name was Blake. Which was weird, because that's also Cas's brother's name. Apparently, they'd gotten teamed with Ruby (nice!) and the mean Weiss Schnee girl (not so nice). We exchanged epic tales of Initiation (minus our little extra-dimensional adventure), and it turned out that their team had, in fact, destroyed the bridge. Yang and Ruby got a lot of noogies for that one.
Finally, we got started. A bunch of teams with kids we either didn't know or didn't care enough about to mention came up. The first team with someone we knew had Russel Thrush and these three guys who looked like they were from Gauntlet Academy. Russel was always kinda weird; I remember that one time when he tried to beat up Woodie for some dumb reason. Woodie clobbered him, of course, and Russel's hated him ever since then. He'd be someone to watch out for; hopefully the rest of the newly dubbed Team CRDL wouldn't be too bad.
Pyrrha Nikos's team came next. I didn't recognize two of them, though I briefly remembered seeing the leader the other day with Ruby - the blonde guy in armor and jeans. He looked kinda squeamish, which I understood - being on a team with Pyrrha, and all. That's gotta carry some weight. They got the (admittedly very smecksy) name of Team JNPR.
Then Lilly's team came up. The standout among them was this one guy named Randy, who had on this KICKASS armor and helmet. I made a mental note to fight the guy one day. It was my DESTINY! ...Anyway, Lilly ended up being the leader of Team LHSR. Not too shabby a name, I guess. Hopefully she'd be nicer to them than she was to us.
Then Yang and Ruby's team came up, and they were called...Team RWBY.
"Oh, God, poor Ruby," Cas laughed.
"...led by Ruby Rose!" said Ozpin.
"Oh, God!" Cas laughed even louder. We all clapped and cheered anyway. I screeched loudly, and Woodie smacked me over the head.
In all seriousness, we were a bit unsure about Ozpin's decision there. Why make the awkward 15-year-old the leader? I mean, it was better than Mean Weiss Schnee, but still...would Yang really have been a worse option?
Then I realized that yes, Yang would definitely be a worse option. She would lead them into destruction and chaos, just like Woodie would us if he were our leader. If there's one thing my mentor Parsnip taught me (besides to go for the balls and/or eyes), it's that you never, EVER put the brawler in charge.
Finally, at LONG LAST, Ozpin got around to the most important moment of the day.
"Jacobin Fells, Elias Greene, Woodheart Rhine, Cas Magent."
We all ran up to the stage, sunglasses on and radiating the full power of our combined badassery out towards the stunned crowd. Jac had a big, friendly smile on; I was as smecksy as ever; Cas had his typical air of slightly smug indifference; and even Woodie looked tough and cool with his arms crossed, instead of edgy.
"The four of you retrieved the black rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as..."
Four timpani drumrolls worth of suspense filled the room; we were too much for them to handle! Oh, yeah - screw all those other teams, we were the Boiz! And we are LEGENDARY -
"Team JWCE."
...
...
...
Juice...?
What the FUUUUUU-
Oh, you'd better believe the whole auditorium busted out laughing. Even over everyone else, I could hear Yang just hollering uncontrollably. I mean, that, I was okay with. Ruby too, I guess. But the WHOLE SCHOOL? Hell, nah. I didn't dare look out into the crowd, for fear of seeing the expressions on Lilly and Mean Weiss's faces.
Jac took off his aviators. He still had that smile frozen to his face, but his eyes contained the burning rage of a hundred suns, so it kind of made him look like Pennywise the Clown. I probably looked like I felt, which must have been some form of shell shock. Woodie didn't even look edgy or brooding, just clinically depressed. Cas looked indifferent, but we knew he was as dead inside as the rest of us.
Professor Ozpin came to shake our hands. Jac took it and pumped it hard, but he didn't look at Ozpin; he just kept staring out with that scary Pennywise smile of his. I just kind stared into nothing when I came up (which is actually fairly normal for me anyway, but I digress), but I caught a brief glimpse of the headmaster's face. His lips were pursed to an excessive degree...as if he was trying very hard not to laugh.
Oh my god, that motherfucker did it on purpose.
Sonofabitch -
Later that day, Team JWCE - wait, no...the Boiz went up the elevator to Professor Ozpin's office. The door opened, and we went in. Ozpin swiveled around in his chair, and apparently couldn't hold back a smirk. Goodwitch, who was also there, seemed to be in slightly better control of herself.
"Ah, Team...JWCE," the headmaster said, clearly trying not to laugh. "How may I help you?"
"Yeah, uh, about the Team JWCE part," said Jac. "It's kind of, uh...well, no offense, but it's a pretty ass name!"
"That was fairly offensive, Mr. Fells."
"OK, well..." Jac had to pause to rethink what he was gonna say. "That said...could we try and come up with a different name? 'Cause, you know...everybody's gonna laugh at us if we're called Team 'Juice'."
Ozpin raised his eyebrow.
"Look," said Cas, stepping in for Jac. "We understand if this was the only name you could think of for our particular combination of initials, but I think it's safe to say that we're a fairly smart bunch." And by that, he meant himself. (Maybe Woodie, too, but I wouldn't have bet on it.) "So, I think we could quite easily save you the added burden of choosing a new name for us. You don't have to do any more work, and we get to not be the laughingstock of the whole school." He gestured out to everyone in attendance, but mostly to Goodwitch, obviously hoping she'd take his side. "I'd call that a win for everyone, wouldn't you say?"
"Perhaps," she said. "But, I think that you are all forgetting something."
We stared blankly like idiots, because we were.
"You see, Mr. Magent," said Ozpin, leaning back in his chair, "I know very well there were other options for your team name. Furnace (FRCE), for instance, or perhaps Conifer (CFER) or Greenfinch (GRFC); I'd even briefly considered Fudgesicle (FWGC), though that seemed a bit of a stretch in my opinion. But the fact of the matter is: the four of you cheated Initiation!"
Oh. Right.
"I'm honestly not even sure how you thought I wouldn't notice, which thus begs the question of how any of you made it into my school in the first place...but, here we are." He took a long gulp of coffee before continuing: "You may consider this your informal punishment for violating the spirit, if not necessarily any actual rules, of my initiation process. If you have any further complaints, may I then direct you to Professor Goodwitch."
"And if you'll allow me to shed some light on the situation," Goodwitch added, "I really wanted him to pick Team Fudgesicle."
Suffice it to say, we did not have any further complaints.
"Now," the professor said, "One more thing: did any of you, by chance, attempt to sabotage my cameras? The ones focusing on your team went inexplicably offline for a short period of time, and I would very much like to find out why."
We all looked at each other, knowing exactly at what point those cameras must have gone off.
"Uh..." I said, deciding to tell (some of) the truth, "We didn't actually know there were any cameras until we ran into Lilly Azura, and she told us about them."
"Well, that explains a lot about your plan," Oz grumbled, but then he got a strange look on his face. "So, then...however did you manage to defeat the monster that attacked you?"
"Well..." said Cas, "After it almost ate me, I used my Semblance to force its mouth open, got out of there, and then Elias used his Semblance to help me kill it."
Ozpin didn't seem entirely convinced, but then he nodded his head and waved his hand. "Thank you. You are dismissed...Team JWCE."
Dammit...it was gonna be a long-ass year.
It was only later, as we descended down the elevator shaft, that I realized something critical.
"Guys...when Ozpin asked about, uh, 'Sammy'...he didn't refer to it as a Grimm, didn't he?"
Cas stared ahead. "...Oh."
It was clear that Ozpin knew more than he was letting on - probably a whole lot more.
What the damn hell had we gotten ourselves into?
