So, yeah. Now I have detention with Professor Port, the location of which he stated would be a "surprise". Not sure if that's good or bad, but I'll live.
Me and Ruby left Port's office and headed out of the classroom.
"Uh..." She barely made eye contact. "S-sorry about, uh..."
"Huh? Oh, you all good. I got you in that whole mess anyway, so I guess I'm the one who owes you an apology."
Ruby seemed to realize this for the first time. "...Oh yeah, you did, didn't you?" Then she glared at me. "You know, I think Weiss is the one you should really apologize to."
"Oh, we'll see about that," I scoffed.
"You made her look bad in front of everybody!"
"Well, hey - it was either her or you, and I sure as hell know which one of you I like better," I said. "Besides, I'd say that Weiss didn't need my help with that anyway. I mean, treating your leader and teammate like crap is a far worse look than doodling in class, don't you think?"
"Well - yeah, but - "
"Look - I'll admit, I deliberately trolled Weiss. If she's got beef with me, she can take it out on me all she wants, and I won't complain. But don't try and paint her as the victim. This is the same girl who told me before Initiation that you don't belong here, and I haven't seen any change in that so far."
"...Alright. Just, please don't start any more fights with her, okay?"
"Sure thing. Ball's in her court on that one."
So we left the classroom. Our teams were waiting for us outside, except for Weiss, who had apparently stormed off somewhere. We had about twenty or so minutes between Grimm studies and combat class, so the rest of RWBY went looking for Weiss while we went to find a vending machine or something. Well, we couldn't find one, and then we got lost because we're stupid, so we gave up and decided to just head straight to combat class. We got there a few minutes before Goodwitch opened the doors, and it turned out there was a vending machine right outside the friggin' classroom. So we all got a soda except Woodie, who got two sodas and like five protein bars because he's a fatass, and we just stood there chilling. CRDL was there too, and Jac talked a little with their leader, Cardin - who, by the way, was WAY bigger than I remember him being at Initiation. What was this guy - like, six-foot-seven? He kinda gave off Chad vibes, but other than that he seemed alright. He even laughed when Jac told him about how Woodie beat up Russell (who just kept glaring at us the whole time).
Anyway, the doors opened and we all went in. We sat a row behind the front, and RWBY sat in front of us again. Goodwitch talked about some stuff, then said that only the leaders were gonna fight today. That sucked; I really wanted to fight somebody. Ah, well...at least I'd get to watch Jac fight.
Speaking of, Jac got called up first to fight Team JNPR's leader. He jumped onto the stage thing, pulling out Malacandra in sword form. The other guy, John, had this old sword/shield combo that looked like it was straight out of the Great War. Pretty cool, except the wielder himself looked pretty underwhelming, despite being Jac's height. Of course, I suspected that he was doing that on purpose so that his opponents underestimated him; it wouldn't have been the first time we'd come across a tactic like that. Jac apparently thought the same, as he wasn't letting his guard down.
"Begin!" said Goodwitch.
Immediately, Jac rushed forward, swinging his blade about in a swift, powerful strike at John's head. This may have seemed like a pretty poor move on the offset, especially considering all of the other options he has at his disposal. Now, Jac can hit really hard and fast with Malacandra, but it's heavy weight means it's not the greatest weapon for mounting a sustained melee defense; certainly, he wouldn't be able to keep up with a much leaner and lighter weapon like John's simple arming sword. And the fact that John in particular used a shield means that Jac's only option for winning a melee fight, that being knocking his opponent down with a few strong hits, wouldn't be viable; he'd be able to deflect all of Jac's attacks with ease.
Of course, Jac knows all this, because he's not nearly as dumb as he lets on. (Well, except when he is.) I knew from experience that he had no intention of engaging in a drawn out melee slugfest. What he was actually doing was enacting his go-to strategy for dealing with defensive tanks: bait them into their defensive mindset with a few heavy attacks until they turtle up, then dance around them with his rocket boots while pelting them with ranged attacks. This tactic is actually so effective that back at Signal, Jac was known as "The Tankbuster", and it's all because he knows how habits work. My mentor Parsnip taught him (well, all of us) that getting into a regular habit is like rolling a marble down a well-worn groove: once it gets rolling, it's almost impossible to get out of the groove. So suffice to say, what Jac was probably expecting was for John to deflect his first few attacks without issue, then hunker down behind his shield and brace for more, leaving Jac plenty of room to exercise his tried-and-true strategy.
What Jac was definitely not expecting was for John to catch that first hit with his shield, get completely knocked off his feet, and land on his face ten feet away.
We were all just like, "...Wha?" Strangely, nobody from either RWBY and JNPR seemed surprised like everybody else in the combat room.
Jac stopped attacking and just kinda stood there looking confused. "Uh..." he said, "You all good there?"
John muttered something I couldn't hear and got up, then ran at him...without putting his shield up in front of him. He swung wildly at Jac, who just stepped out of the way and sent him flying with a rocket boot kick. John did this kind of somersault thing before landing on his face again.
Team CRDL started laughing and jeering at John, who was scrambling to pick up his sword that he'd dropped. The three of us just kinda looked at each other like, "What the hell is this guy doing?" Jac sent the same look in our direction. Was this kid really that friggin' bad? I mean, it's one thing to be below the average like I used to be, but this? This was just a whole different level of incompetence! How in the hell did a kid with John's apparent lack of fighting aptitude get into BEACON FRIGGIN ACADEMY?!
Probably because his daddy's rich and bribed Professor Ozpin, we all agreed silently among ourselves. At this point, John had gotten back on his feet, though seemed understandably more reluctant to charge again. Jac just stared at him quizzically, seemingly not quite sure what to do about this kid. Finally, Woodie lost his patience.
"YEET 'im!" he yelled. "YEET, YEET, YEET!" Cas and I started chanting with him.
I think now's a pretty good time to explain Jac's Semblance, now that it's suddenly become relevant and Cas has given me implicit permission to do so.
Jac's Semblance is called "YEET". It's like Cas's Semblance "Rhomboids", except he conjures 3-inch spheres that he can hold in his hand. He can throw these spheres, whereupon they detonate with force proportionate to the amount of Aura he puts into each one; this in turn depends on how hard he throws them. A gentle toss means they pop as harmlessly as a soap bubble, whereas a throw worthy of a major league baseball pitcher (and Jac has actually taken throwing lessons from one!) can blast a good-sized car right off the road. Like Cas, he can also infuse the spheres with Dust, the impact of those depending on how much Dust he puts into it.
The thing is, though - he can only throw his spheres if he says, "YEET!", or some other short phrase related to throwing stuff. Hence, why his Semblance is called "YEET".
Anyway, Jac grinned and gave us the thumbs up. He stared John down, silently daring him to charge again. After a few seconds, the kid lost his nerve and ran at Jac...and he still wasn't putting his shield up! Dumbass.
"Catch," said Jac, tossing a sphere up in the air towards John.
"Huh?" John went, slowing his charge and staring at the arcing ball like an idiot. At this point, I wasn't even surprised that the doofus fell for it. Quickly, Jac produced another sphere and filled it with fire Dust; I didn't hear him, but I knew he whispered "YEET" as he YEETed it at the ground right where John's feet were.
"WAAUUUUGHH!" John screamed as he was blasted twenty feet in the air and went flying clear off the stage, limbs flailing all the way. The entire auditorium just exploded laughing, us included. And not even the on-purpose "HA, HA HA!" that Woodie and me like to do - we were legit laughing. The buzzer sounded, of course, and Jac won. Goodwitch made everybody shut up, and then gave a post-match lecture where she basically just told John to put his friggin' shield up. Jac came back just dying of laughter and sat down with the rest of the Boiz. The rest of the class was fairly uneventful. Cardin went up against this kid we didn't know and won. Then Ruby went up against Lilly, and if you wanna know how that fight went, then go read "In RWBY's Shadow" by TheGoose2012, you uncultured, heathen scrub! Go to my profile and look in my favorite stories, you'll find it in there. Seriously - if you haven't read it yet, then put this story on hold and go read it. Now.
Anyway, the rest of the fights were boring, and the other teams suck anyway, so I won't go into them. Class ended, and we all got out of there.
"Man," said Jac as we entered the hallway, "I'm still all stoked to fight now. Gotta bust me some tank." He formed a sphere in his hand, then crunched it back into nonexistence.
I saw Team LHSR at the vending machine, and noticed that Randi had a spear and shield - the perfect tank setup.
"You know, I bet Randi over there would wanna take you up on that," I said.
"Huh? Who's that again?"
"Oh yeah, you haven't met her," said Woodie. "She's the tall one on LHSR. Armored chick."
"Yeah, we ran into her this morning," I added. "You want a tank, I think that's as big a challenge as you'll get. She's hardcore."
Jac looked over at her. "That her over there? Faunus, wolf ears and tail?"
"Yeah, that's - " Woodie stopped mid-sentence. "Wait...what did you say?"
"Uh...Faunus? Wolf ears, wolf tail?"
"Wait - that..." Woodie looked over at Randi and saw that, indeed, she had wolf ears and a tail. "B-but...no, it - that's not - you can't - "
Me and Jac looked at each other in confusion as Woodie continued to sputter. Randi apparently heard him (he wasn't exactly being quiet) and looked over in our direction, so I waved hi. She walked over to us, which Lilly didn't seem happy about but otherwise did nothing to stop her.
"'Sup," I said coolly. Jac introduced himself.
"That was quite a fight you had there," Randi said with a smirk.
"Oh yeah, man," Jac laughed. "Really close fight there. Just barely won that one."
"Yeah," I said. "Seriously, tho, what's up with that John guy?"
"I'm not quite sure," said Randi, and then she looked at Woodie and spoke a little louder. "Though, I think his name's actually Jaune, not John."
"Oh, really," I said, also loud enough that Woodie heard. "Jaune, not John - got it!"
But Woodie was apparently too busy staring at Randi and mumbling incoherently to care.
"...You aight, Woodie?" said Jac.
"Is something wrong?" said Randi.
"She...the...it..." Woodie pointed back and forth at her ears and her tail.
"What - something on my tail?" Randi turned sideways, swishing said tail and making a show of looking backwards. "I don't see anything."
"But - but it's not - you can't - " He kept pointing. Honest to God, we didn't have the slightest clue of what the damn hell he was talking about - but that wasn't gonna stop us from screwing with him.
"Woodie, it's really not nice to point at people," said Jac.
"Yeah," I added, "I think you're hurting Randi's feelings."
"No, it - it's not allowed - "
"What's not allowed?" said Jac. "Wearing cool armor? Being a wolf-Faunus?"
"Wowww," I said, jumping on that last bit. "You know, I thought you of all people knew better than that, Woodie. But I guess I was wrong about that all along. I guess you're just...racist!"
I think that gave Woodie a brain aneurysm or something, because his words devolved into gibberish. Randi, for her part, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself.
"I'm real sorry about Woodie," Jac said. "He's just such a racist, isn't he?"
"It would certainly appear that way," Randi responded with faux-disappointment. "That must be why he's so upset - he simply can't stand the thought of my existence as a wolf-Faunus." She shook her head. "A shame; I had thought we might be friends, too."
I noticed a strange, sly look in her eyes, and something told me that she knew exactly why Woodie was freaking out. Well, I was dying to know what in the damn hell that was, but I figured it could wait until later.
"Speaking of friends," Randi said to Jac and me, "I think my partner Smit will want to meet you, since you are friends with Yang."
"Why's that?" said Jac.
"Let's just say he's made his intentions with her very clear."
We looked at each other. "Hoof," I said, "Yeah, he'll wanna talk to us, alright. Can't guarantee we'll have good news for him, though."
"Oh?"
"See, the thing is - " Jac said as we started walking back towards the rest of LHSR. I say "started", because we made it, like, two steps of the way before we heard:
"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" Woodie hollered for all to hear. "Y-you can't have - it's not - " And he started sputtering some more insane nonsense.
"I can't what?" said Randi, this time unable to hold back her smile. "Exist? Am I truly so offensive to you?" She twitched her ears and swished her tail.
Woodie made one final, grand gesture at her before screaming out to the heavens:
"IT'S AGAINST THE RUUULES!"
Jac and I winced as everybody in the vicinity cringed with the wave of agonized confusion rippling out from my partner. Thankfully, it lasted only a few seconds, but it turned out to be the least of our worries. For one, I realized that I still haven't explained Woodie's Semblance yet, which is a big problem - especially since at this point, it's come into play twice in two chapters (possibly more, if you consider our interactions with Weiss). And for two, Lilly was understandably upset that somebody was screaming at her teammate.
"What on Remnant are you yelling about?!" she yelled, traces of Woodie's hysteria in her voice as she stomped over to us.
"Hell if I know!" I said, correctly assuming by her glare that she somehow thought this was my fault. "Ask Woodie! He's the one screaming about bullshit."
Lilly turned her glare to my partner, who had since dropped to his knees and was staring blankly ahead. It took a few seconds before she seemed to realize that she couldn't hope to make any sense of him, which meant that she was a normal, sane person. She just shook her head and sighed.
"...Let's just go, Randi," she finally said. "These guys are nothing but trouble."
"Bruh," said Jac. "What'd I do?"
Lilly looked at him as if to say, You know what.
Jac looked back at her like, No I don't.
Lilly looked back at him like, Well, then you're a moron.
Jac looked back at her like, Bruh.
Then the two girls went back to their team. I saw Randi briefly look back at Woodie with that same sly look, but it was different this time. I couldn't quite piece together what it meant, but that didn't bother me all that much. I mean, I can read basic emotions, but when it comes to girls and their subtler gestures, I'm not nearly -
Goddammit, I still haven't explained Woodie's Semblance, haven't I.
Alright - his Semblance is called "Impression", and it's not what you'd think after just hearing the title. Basically, Woodie can influence the emotions of others to his liking, just by talking to them. Now obviously, he has to say words that could realistically make someone feel the way he wants them to; for example, if he wants to make someone feel encouraged, telling them that they suck will nullify the effect. Woodie's Semblance also works on anyone who can hear him and who thinks he is communicating with them, so if he doesn't want to hit innocent bystanders (like he accidentally did with Lilly's teammate last chapter), he has to specify who he's talking to.
Now, I know what you might be thinking: "But what if you know about his Semblance? Wouldn't that make it not work at all?" Actually, no - his Semblance doesn't get any weaker if you know what he's doing. If he wants to make you feel angry, you will feel angry. That's just it, though: he can only influence how you feel, not what you do with said feelings. So if you know he's trying to manipulate you, you're basically already on your mental and emotional guard, and it's that much harder for him to get whatever it is he wants. That said, Woodie's Semblance is really hard to detect, because there's nothing flashy about it. It literally just looks like him talking, with usually only one person noticing anything adverse - that being, feeling abnormally strong emotions.
Besides all of that, there is an unfortunate side effect to his Semblance: if he's not in control of his emotions and gives voice to them, like he just did a minute ago, then everybody who can hear him will feel how he feels to some degree. Jac, Cas, and I are used to it since we hang around him all the time, but everybody else usually just has to suffer.
You know, it's kind of ironic; this is the sort of Semblance that would make a person edgy like Woodie, because they'd be constantly worried about how they make other people feel. You'd think he'd be the shy, introverted edgy type who never expresses themselves, but nope - he literally could not care less. In fact, I even think he secretly likes superimposing his feelings on everybody else. But no, he's not edgy because of his Semblance; he has other reasons for that. Whether or not those are good reasons is debatable in my opinion, but that's an entirely different chunk of text block that I won't get into.
Anyway, I said earlier that my teammates and I aren't very affected by Woodie's outbursts like everybody else...but now that I think of it, Randi didn't seem very fazed, either. Hmm...either she's very good at masking emotions, or there's something else at play. I personally think it's the former, because that would make her super badass.
While I was thinking about that, Cas suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
"Where were you?" I said, startled.
"The bathroom." He looked around at the mildly unsettled students, who were beginning to vacate the area. "I have a strange feeling that this was Woodie's fault."
"Yup," said Jac.
"Huh. Elias say something stupid again?"
"Actually, no," I said. "He got all freaked out about Randi for some reason."
"Randi..." Cas muttered. "Who's that?"
"Tall girl on Team LHSR. Kickass armor, can't miss her."
"Oh right, the Faunus girl with the wolf ears and the - " Cas stopped short, then looked at Woodie. "...Seriously? That's what this was all about?"
"I's...i's agains' th' rules..." Woodie muttered, somehow still in shock.
"Good God, Woodie - get the fuck over yourself." And Cas slapped him in the face with a spinning Rhomboid. Woodie suddenly seemed okay after that, and got on his feet.
"Aight," said Jac. "Y'all wanna get lunch?"
That sounded pretty good. We were about to head that way when Yang, Ruby, and Blake walked up to us.
"Hey," said Yang, "Any of you guys seen Weiss? She's been avoiding us all day."
We hadn't, actually. Now that I thought about it, she'd sat kind of distanced from the rest of her team during combat class.
"Damn," said Yang. "Well, guess we'll have to keep - " Blake tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the restrooms, which Weiss had just walked out of. "Oh."
Ruby called out to Weiss, but she kept on walking, much to her disillusionment.
"I'm gonna go talk to her," Ruby said, shooting us an accusatory look before running after her.
Woodie and I looked at each other, then at Yang.
"This might get ugly," I muttered. "You two go on ahead to lunch. I think Woodie and I have some business with our favorite alabaster fiend."
What will happen next? Will Ruby and Weiss make up? Will Elias and Woodie help matters, or just make things worse? And what could Randi's sly glances possibly mean?
Well, you're gonna have to wait to find all that out, 'cause I'm gonna work on my other fic now, seeing as I haven't updated it in a month. K, bye.
