So, was watching Jacksepticeye's Let's Play of the RE2 remake and I had a sudden thought: what would happen if you tried shooting at the zombies' arms or lower jaw? Would they be blown off without the zombies actually dying from the shots? If so, would it affect their ability to attack the player? Seeing as their attack animations are entirely reliant on them grabbing you and biting, I just have to question if the developers planned for such a possibility. Can anyone confirm what does happen if this is the case? Again, just suddenly had this thought and now I'm terribly curious.

Would do it myself, but I don't have a PS4 or Xbox1 sadly, heh. Had considered buying a PS4 but am holding off until DMC5 comes out before truly questioning if I should. I say 'should' because well, between my job, reading new novels, writing this fic and my novel, and playing FGO, amongst other personal obligations, I don't quite have as much time as I'd prefer to sit down and play consoles anymore, though I sure as hell miss doing so. But yeah, really considering changing that just for DMC5, ha ha.

Anyways, onto the chapter!

Chapter 5

Weiss wasn't one to be easily impressed, in part due to a veritable lifetime of people trying to worm their way into her family's good graces through a number of means. And as one who trained rigorously in order to earn her father's permission just to even apply to Beacon, this difficulty in being impressed started to apply to her fellow trainees here.

And when one Jaune Arc had spoken so openly, even brazenly, about not wishing to fight the arrogant Cardin, she'd definitely not been too amused by his attitude, though his unintended putdown of Cardin's lack of ability had been something to inwardly chuckle over.

However, what had followed after that, when Jaune had decimated Cardin while giving him advice the entire time, she'd been struck completely silent, just as everyone else had been. And so, for what felt like the tenth time thus far, she'd had to change her opinion about him.

She'll say without any shame that her initial impression of the blond teen hadn't been too kind, what with how he'd reeked of sweat and had brushed off Pyrrha's and her status. It hadn't helped that he'd first prevented that little Dust mishap before even that and though she'll admit that she had been at fault, no one much less her liked having such mistakes pointed out.

In addition to that, his lack of any visible notetaking throughout classes so far hadn't exactly wowed her in regards to his dedication. Plus, he was somewhat awkward during conversations sometimes, making it hard to even consider having a proper talk with him.

However, he'd made a few very poignant statements in the brief time she's been in contact with him, hinting at a certain wisdom that she found herself admiring almost.

And now… now, without a doubt, she and the rest of the class knew that his words from before the spar hadn't been some boast but instead a statement of fact, nothing more or less. That he'd so thoroughly won while clearly handicapping himself by using just one of his swords only made his victory that much more amazing.

And for the past few days, his 'fight' with Cardin had been a hot topic among the students of Beacon, if only due to the behavior Jaune had demonstrated during the fight.

After all, to give one's own opponent advice and to even make the whole point of the spar focused on helping them improve… it certainly wasn't something Weiss had seen before.

Everything she's ever learned to do, be it in the form of academics or combat, it had been through numerous tutors that always praised her no matter how good or bad she'd done, or it'd been her sister, who'd made sure to harshly pound into her several valuable lessons about being on a battlefield.

And one of these lessons had been to never trust anything the enemy may do, for it could merely be a smokescreen, something to cover up a much more sinister action behind the scene. This was a lesson she'd intended to carry over to any and every spar she took part in during Beacon.

All for the sake of her own growth and more importantly, for the sake of ensuring victory.

Yet, Jaune had gone against this lesson she'd learned. What she and the others had seen had been exactly what they'd got. He'd fought not for his victory over Cardin but for Cardin's improvement.

It simply boggled her mind and made her ask questions… but not about herself. Rather, she was asking herself questions about the blond who'd led her onto this path so abruptly.

Just who exactly was Jaune Arc? For what purpose did he do what he does? He's gone out of his way to help numerous members of Beacon's faculty and after the spar with Cardin, once her teammates as well as Jaune's own had stopped questioning him about his performance, he'd actually stopped a few of the people that had also sparred that day to offer them some advice too, something that had thoroughly bewildered everyone even more than they'd already been.

It truly was a selfless thing to do.

But that's the thing – it was too selfless.

Again, she asked silently, just what does he gain out of all this?

So utterly perplexed, she even paused during her notetaking just now to even outright glare at the blond teen, who sat just a row ahead of her. Sure enough, as professor Port spoke on and on about his escapades from long ago, Jaune sat there, upright and listening intently to what the man had to say.

Inwardly, she could only sigh.

She could ask herself such questions all she wanted, but she knew she wouldn't get anywhere doing such a thing. Not like Jaune had been too forthcoming with answers to such questions anyways when they'd been asked by the others these past few days. Weiss highly doubted she'd get true answers if she did bother asking him; not like the two of them were closer than the others, though she was now completely certain that Jaune couldn't care any less about how well anyone knew him or vice versa.

Oh well, if nothing else, that spar had sparked a definitive change in Cardin. Though still boisterous and quick to anger, he didn't quite fly off the handle as often as he did during the first week of class nor had he bothered to engage in any of the pathetic bullying antics he'd clearly enjoyed doing during the first week too. Indeed, whenever he wasn't chatting with his teammates, he seemed almost contemplative, a welcome change from before.

It was also especially amusing how he made a genuine effort to avoid being around whenever Jaune walked by, clearly fearful of the blond even when said blond had even called out to him politely once or twice since their spar.

Alas, as terribly interesting as this all was to dwell on, Weiss knew she couldn't afford to dwell on it for too long nor too intently.

For at the end of the day, she still had herself and her team to think of. And although she'll admit that Jaune made some good points about what competition and the like, she still wasn't one to merely settle for second best.

Just because he spouted some truly profound things didn't mean she herself was going to suddenly turn over a new leaf.

Besides, the Vytal Festival would be held here in Vale and although that was still a long time off, preparing for it this early wouldn't hurt.

So, with a light huff, she took up her pen and renewed her notetaking… all while making sure ignore the more audacious feats the professor claimed to have performed.

Surely, he must be embellishing… right?

The rest of the day comes and goes at a brisk enough pace, something Pyrrha was grateful for. And something she'd been even more grateful for was the lack of loud whispering being done around her about her status, at least when compared to before.

And she had her partner/leader to thank for that.

Speaking of which…

"Care for a bite, Jaune?" she asked him.

He shook his head gently. "No, it's fine. Thank you though."

It's been a few days since his spar with Cardin, meaning it was now the end of the week and leaving them free for the weekend. And Nora, ever the adventurous one, had managed to rope them all into heading into Vale for dinner somewhere.

Having found a nice little seafood place with lobster tail that was to die for, team JNPR had quickly gotten comfortable, Nora more so than the rest of them, gobbling down food like it was going out of style. As for Ren, he sat by his longtime friend, patiently holding a water in hand for when Nora inevitably bit off more than she could literally chew.

This was the first time she's ever gone out with anyone she dared to call friends and so she's made it clear she'll be footing the bill, something that had made Jaune look a little uncomfortable but she'd made sure to make it clear that it wasn't a problem for her – being a champion with multiple sponsorships came with its financial benefits.

That said, wow, the amount of food Nora was putting away was really frightening. Just where did it all go?

That aside, though…

"You sure? I don't mind sharing, Jaune." Seated next to the blond, Pyrrha had been hoping for the umpteenth time to truly get to know him and the others better since most of the time spent during these first two weeks at Beacon had been simply getting organized in their dorm and adapting to the class schedule and the like.

Plus, with how much gossip was now stirring about her teammate and leader, having some time in a nice and friendly place to talk had been an all but impossible thing to get.

Until now.

He gently waved her off. "It's okay. I'm good with what I have," he said kindly, taking some small bites of his own plate, something she'd already forgotten the official name of, but had plenty of fish involved.

She frowned, though she did her best to keep it hidden. This wasn't quite going as intended so far, even if it's only been a short while since they got here and ordered.

She truly wished to know more about him and Ren and Nora, but asking them outright seemed oddly rude to her, plus her time as a celebrity in Mistral had sort of conditioned her to acting certain ways in public, something she'd been learning to fight against now that she was in Vale.

"W-Well then," she began. "Before we continue our meal, how about a toast? A toast to us making it through the first two weeks?" Pyrrha sounded a bit unsure there, hence why it came out as a question rather than a statement like she'd intended.

However, it still had the desired effect.

"Oooh, let's do it!"

Ah, thank God for Nora, she thought as the auburn-haired girl hefted up her large glass of soda, her eyes gleaming.

Ren smiled lightly and Jaune blinked once or twice before smiling as well and lifting up his own drink.

"Cheers!" the four of them said after holding their glasses up in unison and clinking them together, Nora doing so with a bit more force than was needed. Thankfully nothing spilled and they all took a drink.

"Uh!" Nora had an expression of mild disgust on her face after taking a large gulp. "Renny, did you really bring your health shake?!"

"It's healthy," he stated with a hint of defensiveness to his normally calm voice. "And tasty, I'll have you know."

Nora's expression begged to differ. "I'll stick with soda, thanks. Way better than that thing!"

Ren now looked mildly annoyed but sighed, not bothering to argue any further. Clearly this wasn't the first time they've had such a conversation, Pyrrha silently noted, especially since the two of them sported silly little grins on their face, Nora again more so than Ren.

"Health shake?" Jaune spoke up, sounding intrigued. "What exactly is in it?"

Ren turned to their leader, his own pink eyes a lit ever so slightly with joy. "Oh, you know," he began, trying to sound totally casual. "Just some herbs and vegetables, nothing too out of the ordinary."

"Meant to improve bodily functions, right?"

"Correct."

"…Would it be alright if I have a taste?"

Ren thrust the drink over to Jaune so quickly that Pyrrha half-expected it to spill right out of the cup, such was Ren's excitement. Accepting it politely, Jaune took a brief sip of it and blinked slowly a second later.

"What do you think?" asked a quiet but hopeful Ren.

"I like it," Jaune said with a small smile as he handed it back to him. "Uhm, if it's not too much a bother, think I can have it sometime in the fut-?"

"Whenever you desire," Ren answered before Jaune even finished, the normally calm and almost sloth-like teen looking more excited and emotive than Pyrrha has ever seen him be so far. He then turned to her. "How about you, Pyrrha?"

He held the cup towards her, allowing her to get a good look at the dark green and almost bulbous liquid it seemed to be. The color combined with the smell she was getting from it now that it was this close to her was almost enough to make her pale and gag.

"A-Ah, no, I'm fine," she answered sheepishly.

"Mhm, a wise one, you are," Nora said in a comically serious tone. Ren shot her a mildly offended look, but gracefully accepted Pyrrha's refusal and kept the drink to himself.

"At least Jaune has been enlightened…" he murmured almost childishly.

The almost sulking tone in which he spoke was enough to make Pyrrha giggle a little bit and Nora to outright bark with some laugh. Even Jaune, normally so serious, seemed entertained.

The four of them dug into their meal some more, enjoying the large portions that it provided. And as they did so, some small talk naturally began at some point, casual and enjoyable.

This combined with the previous scene was enough to relax Pyrrha enough to finally ask what she'd been meaning to know.

"So," she began. "Now that I think of it, we… we really don't know too much about one another, do we? Think we should clear the air on that, yes?"

Okay, she thought, that hadn't quite been said how she'd wanted to say – a bit too direct for her liking and inwardly, the feeling of relaxation was replaced with something akin to panic.

Thankfully, none of her friends seemed to take any offense.

"Yeah, yeah!" Nora eagerly agreed. She all but stood up and pointed a finger at her. "Pyrrha! What are your three sizes?!"

Having been about to take another bite of her food, Pyrrha nearly ended up choking. "E-Excuse me?!" she sputtered in a shrill voice.

Nora just laughed. "Ha ha, sorry, my bad, my bad~." She grinned cheekily. "Just wanted to see how you'd react."

Then Nora rounded onto Jaune. "But yeesh, shouldn't you be the one to kick this off, oh fearless leader? You're the leader, after all."

Jaune paused, looking so utterly stumped that it became hard for Pyrrha to reconcile his current look with that of the intense and outright dominant appearance he had during initiation as well as his spar with Cardin.

"That's… an excellent point," he muttered, looking towards the ceiling in thought before bowing his head. "Sorry."

The seriousness with which he said that was enough to make Pyrrha feel awkward.

But not Nora or even Ren.

"Bah, stop being so uptight!" Nora said with a little laugh. "Ren already fills that niche!"

"I prefer the term 'calm,' thank you very much," Ren drawled in his own defense.

Their words were enough to make Jaune pause yet again, then nod slowly. Once again, he had the look of someone who'd just been enlightened, something that only had Pyrrha wanting to question so very much.

Her partner really was an enigma and it was really starting to eat away at her.

But hopefully, this afternoon would mark a change in all this.

And so it began, a round of generic questions for every one of them, questions such as what their favorite color was, when their birthdays were and where they grew up and so on.

The longer it went on, the more Pyrrha couldn't help but feel as if she'd been whining over nothing.

From the little info given thus far, it became clear to her that Nora had once been an orphan girl that had to scrap by just for food before Ren and his parents had entered her life… only for Ren himself to be orphaned not too long after they'd met, sticking together because they'd been the only ones they could rely on until joining Beacon.

As for her partner, he'd lived in a fairly simple town not too far outside of Vale, close enough to still afford some measure of protection from Grimm and enjoy some of the more common luxuries she was aware of, such as comics, movies and even video games. However, that didn't mean they'd been completely unbothered by the Grimm or occasional bandits… and it'd been around that particular bit that Jaune had clammed up a little more than usual.

She could only gulp quietly when he'd stopped talking at that part, the blond having paused to trace the scar on his face.

That must have been when he got it… and judging by what he's revealed so far, it seemed like he'd been particularly young when it had happened.

To think this whole time, her only real woes aside from the usual teen angst had simply been the troubles of her fame. She knew intellectually that such a 'don't be sad, others have it worse' mentality was extremely faulty, but that knowledge sure wasn't stopping her from feeling that way right now anyways.

"I… I'm sorry," she said quietly, the remnants of her food having gone cold as she'd gone without a bite this whole time.

An awkward silence was born between them all and it was almost enough to make her slink down in the booth, only for Jaune to be the one to break it.

"No need to apologize, Pyrrha – you couldn't have possibly known about any of this," he began, looking to her softly. "Life is… well, it's life. It's full of twists and turns and doesn't always play fair. It simply is what it is and it's up to people to decide how they react to things. Some break down from the tragedy life heaps on them, others don't. Some go through trials and tribulations that not even others in their same situation go through or vice versa. But that all said, just because there are those who don't go through the same things as others doesn't mean their own struggles, however they choose to define it, are any less valid."

He then motioned to Ren and Nora, his soft smile now looking a bit humorous. "For example, I bet Nora here would be the only one of us to consider it a true tragedy if syrup suddenly stopped existing."

Nora, having been caught up listening to Jaune's words so far in silence, gasped comically. "No, don't even joke about such a terrifying thing!" She made a dramatic show of gripping Ren's arm tightly. "Did you hear that Ren?! Jaune would wish such horrors upon me!"

Ren quietly chuckled. "Perhaps such a 'tragedy' would be exactly what you need to eat a little healthier in the morning."

"Traitor!"

Pyrrha giggled slightly at first, but then devolved into a brief fit of laughter. "I… yes, you're right, Jaune. Thank you for that."

"You're welcome," he said, nodding. "Though I have to say, figuring out all that just from relatively minor details like where we lived and family details… your intelligence is only outdone by your combat prowess."

The redhead blushed a bit. "T-Thank you…"

Nora, always so quick to change her temperament, looked at her and grinned slyly. Pyrrha looked back and glared childishly, knowing her fellow female well enough to guess that she was just waiting to tease her.

Nora, still latching onto Ren, merely huffed in good humor and backed down, allowing Pyrrha to focus back on Jaune.

"Umm, but that all said, I do hope your family was alright in the end." She then turned to Ren and Nora. "And I also hope the two of you were okay this time… sorry if I brought up any bad memories."

"It's fine. As Jaune said a moment ago, life is what it is," Ren began. "It can be full of sadness and hardships… but it can also be full of joy and wonder. Besides, Nora and I have each other… and now we have you and Jaune."

Jaune nodded in agreement. "Likewise. Though we've only known each other for barely two weeks, I do wish we can all rely on one another… and that you three in turn will rely on me."

Ren gracefully accepted. "Thank you." Then yet another one of those small smiles of his appeared on his face. "Just know you can't rely on Nora when she's on a sugar rush."

Jaune chuckled and from where she sat, Pyrrha giggled. "I think we already know that."

"Why so many jokes about me?!" Nora whined dramatically.

"I think it's because you're just a convenient target," Pyrrha answered with a slight grin.

"Bah, you're all just jealous of my awesomeness!" Nora huffed.

"…Heh."

Pyrrha along with the R and N of their team turned to Jaune when he chuckled just now. Him chuckling by this point wasn't anything new, but it was the almost wistful way in which he'd done so that got their attention.

Immediately noticing all eyes on him, he scratched the side of his face sheepishly. "Ah, it's just that this kind of reminds me of back then, when I still lived with my family. My sisters and I were always joking around with one another… whenever they weren't making me into their little helper…" At this memory, a rather forlorn expression overcame Jaune, but there was also a hint of exasperation in his features too. Evidently, he was remembering something embarrassing.

Rather than press him about his forlornness, not wanting to make the conversation too awkward and serious again, Pyrrha chose to ask him something else. "Ah, come to think of it, you've referenced your sisters here and now before… just how many do you have?"

Probably two, Pyrrha silently reasoned.

"Seven," he said casually.

Her mind promptly shutdown and rebooted a few times.

"S-Seven?!" she stuttered out.

Oh my… that was… quite a few more than she'd been expecting.

So, wait, if he has seven sisters, then with him that naturally makes eight children…. O-oh wow…

Her surprise over this (minor) revelation was internalized.

Nora's, however… not so much.

"SEVEN?!" she shouted, mouth agape. Other patrons at the restaurant nearly leapt out of their seats from how sudden and loud she was, but she paid no mind. "Your parents must have been in bed twenty-four seven to have had them plus you!"

Normally, by this point, Ren would've tried to keep Nora a little quiet, but the boy was looking a little shocked himself by that number.

Jaune, for his part, merely smiled in mild embarrassment. "Yes, my parents… even now, they're rather 'enthusiastic.' And they want just as many grandchildren from all of us too…"

He drifted off at that, looking genuinely troubled by something.

His state truly was something to comment on, what with how suddenly he seemed to switch between calm and mild to sullen and dead serious.

However, Pyrrha's brain still refused to work properly for her to really notice this.

"E-Eight children… doing it just once doesn't necessarily result in pregnancy…" she muttered under her breath to no one but herself. "S-S-So, for them to have eight… just how 'active' are they…?!"

Her thoughts were drifting towards a territory not normally meant for such pure hearted people.

It would take her quite a while before snapping herself out of these thoughts. Even then, for the rest of the night, she had a hard time looking into Jaune's eyes.

Dinner came and went over the course of a few hours. Such was how invested team JNPR had been in simply talking with one another.

Despite the awkward start to it all and how the conversation would sometimes get far too serious, Jaune could readily say that he enjoyed it.

All things considered, it was… well, it was really relaxing, actually. Calming. It was normal.

Exactly as his parents would've wanted.

"Though I still have a long way to go on that front…" he mumbled.

"Hmm? Something the matter, Jaune?" Pyrrha asked from beside him as he and his team made their way out of the restaurant and to the bullhead docks.

"Ah, no, just talking to myself. Ignore me."

Pyrrha glanced at him momentarily with mild interest – only to suddenly turn a little red in the face and hastily look away.

Jaune glanced at her, confused. Was she feeling sick? He was painfully tempted to ask her if this was the case, but refrained in the end, though just barely.

After all, now of all times wasn't exactly a good time to be acting as he normally did.

It'd make his family sad if they somehow learned of this… not that his general disposition didn't make them sad enough as it is.

Alas, he couldn't help it. Ever since that day, his top priority in life had been to help people, to smite 'evil.' Although this in and of itself wasn't something his family was against, it was the sheer lengths he went to in order to help, the dangers he so willingly threw himself against in order to eliminate threats that had them so worried for him all the time.

More than once, they've tried to make him change his ways, but doing such was all but impossible – getting him to stop with such actions would be like telling him to live a hundred years without eating, drinking, or even breathing. Such was the unfathomable intensity of his urges to help others and destroy 'evil.'

To call said urges all-consuming was honestly an understatement. Suppressing or ignoring it simply wasn't possible for him, hence why he was always helping someone.

Of course, this meant that he had little in the ways of freedom outside of his self-imposed tasks, and by all rights, he really should be upset over this… but the thing too is that ever since that day, his own sense of priorities had been horribly altered to a similarly ridiculous degree.

Don't get him wrong, it was rather saddening how little like a 'normal' person he was, with many of his former hobbies and interests no longer holding much meaning to him, but at the same time, his own warped mentality meant he didn't really regret the change he's gone through all that much.

That said, he knew logically that his family had a good point. For all the strength and experience he's gained over the years, for all the people he's helped, he was only one person with his own life. To so completely ignore himself in favor of everyone else was a truly horrific thing to do.

And so, he'd promised them to attempt one thing in particular: to help himself. To learn, if only slightly, how to be like everyone else.

To go and hang out with others.

To kick back and relax by himself reading a book or playing a video game or taking a damn cat nap.

To have relationships, perhaps even fall in love and eventually have a family of his own.

In other words, learn just how to enjoy life for what it was.

Sadly, this was proving to be a lot harder than it should be. Even though he remembered with great detail all of the things he used to do as a kid, even though he's seen for himself what others his age and older do to just unwind, doing it himself now was unnaturally tough. It was as if his very soul refused to commit to the action.

And he knew exactly why.

Once again, he was placing his own urges and his other priority above that of his family's wishes. His desire to find a true purpose to concentrate all his energies on was honestly taking up too much of his efforts, funnily enough.

Or maybe not so funny.

Subtly, he eyed his teammates/friends, watching how Nora was dragging along Ren while Pyrrha tried to get the girl to calm down a bit lest she really yank his arm out of its socket.

With the attention off him, Jaune grimaced.

Merely by looking at them, the urge to protect them, even outright shelter them while he did all the work, was rising up within him. This was something he fought down as harshly as he could. As they and team RWBY have pointed out last week, they all came to Beacon well aware of the personal risks to them and were nonetheless eager to meet the challenge anyways. To try and protect them as though they were defenseless would be the same as spitting on their aspirations and efforts and that wouldn't do, not at all.

Same thing went for everyone else at Beacon, really, but he was having a hard time reconciling this fact of life with his mentality.

"I really need to get my act together," he mumbled, the gentle breeze of the cool night air carrying his words away it seemed like.

This right here was his real problem. His urges were such that he was focusing on helping everyone all the damn time, his own mind and very soul trying to pull him in so many different directions simultaneously that it wasn't even remotely funny.

Hence his personal desire to find a way to consolidate things. If he could just find a singular thing to fully focus on, to wholeheartedly dedicate himself to, perhaps he won't be acting like such a scatter-brained idiot.

Easier said than done, sure, especially with how many people needed help every moment of every day, but even he knew that if this kept up, he was going to burn himself out and die before he probably even turns 30.

Nonetheless, he almost relished the challenge, for it was something he wasn't simply doing for others, but rather for himself too, a first in a long time.

Yes, that's right – he was going to help himself. Maybe not in the same way his family would prefer, but it'd be a step in that general direction, so that counts a lot.

Still…

"Is there even anything out there I can truly focus on?" he whispered aloud, pausing for just a minute in his walking to look up at the broken moon in the sky.

Naturally, looking at the moon provided no answers to his question, not that he'd been expecting any. Would've been pretty comical if it somehow did, though.

If nothing else, the breeze sure did feel good. He could bring himself to enjoy that much in this moment.

"Jaune! Come on! The last bullhead will be leaving soon!" Pyrrha called out from afar. She, Nora, and Ren, had gotten rather far ahead during the moment he'd stopped, it seemed.

"Right!" he answered and jogged lightly after them, the three waiting for him to catch up.

"…Are you alright?" Pyrrha asked as he caught up, her and the others now jogging along at a brisk pace in order to make it to the bullhead. His expression must have been rather serious just now, yet another thing he really needed to work on.

"Yeah," he answered, his expression softening a little. "Just got caught up in my own thoughts again, is all. Sorry for worrying you."

Pyrrha shook her head. "We're partners… and friends. If you ever need any help, you can always rely on me or the others, okay?"

The words she spoke were simple but oh so heartfelt… and they were words he'd never really heard before, so used to doing things on his own out in the frontier. It was almost enough to make him trip over his own damned feet.

But he was able to keep himself from doing so and instead smiled genuinely. "Thank you. That means a lot."

A lot more than she and the others will ever realize, Jaune pondered to himself.

He found himself enjoying the run back to the bullhead after that. Not because of any training benefit it may have provided him, however small…. But rather, because he was finding himself enjoying this time spent with his friends.

Maybe his promise to his family wouldn't be as difficult to fulfill, after all.

Roman Torchwick let out a long sigh after taking a drag of his cigar. It always hit the spot.

And now more than ever, he sure needed it.

The past few weeks have been a real pain in his ass, so just being able to kick back for a solid hour or two, puffing away on his cigars really helped with calming him.

Especially since, once his little self-given break was up, it was back to the drawing boards. Yaaaayyyyy.

…wow, even for him, that dragged out 'yay' had absolutely reeked of sarcasm. But hey, could anyone blame him?

After all, it wasn't super smooth criminals such as himself (pssh, yeah right, like anyone else was as smooth as himself) got coerced by some enigmatic woman into essentially being her crony. One that basically did what he always did anyways, just for different purposes.

That his 'employer' felt no need to give him all the details beyond what he needs to know at any given time was even more aggravating.

That he also now had to get help from the White Fang of all people was even worse. Seriously, those dirty animals had nothing but shit for brains, which made sense since that's all they seemed to spew when opening their mouths anyways, what with the whole 'oh, humans are at fault for our suffering' spiel they have going on. Seriously, just how pathetic. They think that, what, just because life shat all over them that suddenly they got the right to be going around killing humans out of some perceived self-righteousness?

Pfft, screw that noise.

Also, it especially didn't help that, for all their talk of being badasses, the White Fang grunts he'd been lent to carry out his operations were less than incompetent at what needed to be done, save for the exception of that Perry guy, probably the only animal of the dirty bunch that Roman would dare claim to even remotely like or respect.

Oh well, at least his 'employer' was hot. Not like it counted for much given how dangerous she was and all that other jazz, but hey, he had to take what he gets right now.

"But man, to think I'd go from bigtime thief to glorified errand boy… man, what a fall," he mumbled to himself as he finished up his cigar, throwing it aside after one final puff.

Getting up and stretching, he then grabbed his cane, Melodic Cudgel, and began to make his way back to the main room of his little safe house here, the room where he primarily put together his little plans.

Only this time around, the plan wouldn't be so little.

For the past few months, he's been forced to hit numerous Dust shops throughout the kingdom of Vale as well as various transportation routes for Dust shipments, all for the sake of whatever master plan his boss had in mind. Things had gone smoothly enough with this, if rather tediously, until semi-recently, when some of the boys he'd been lent from Junior ended up getting thrashed and captured by some punk kid, a veritable pipsqueak whose whole outfit pretty much blared 'I'm a huntress trainee!'

He'll reluctantly admit that Little Red had some moves on her, but she still irked him. Unexpected variables always did, more so when they had a chance to really botch his plans. It was only thanks to his boss that he was more or less able to get out of there safely.

And though he'd been able to make off with quite a bit of Dust that day, it hadn't quite been as much as he'd have liked. Not only that, but because of that one encounter, he's had to reluctantly cut back on what shops he hit and when due to that blasted huntsmen academy now being in session for the new semester or whatever, which meant having to be more cautious about trainees or even actual huntsmen and huntresses screwing up his operations.

But now, things were to be different. In just a few weeks, more like a month really, a large shipment of high quality Dust would be shipped here to Vale, courtesy of the SDC. Roman knew this thanks to some contacts here and there in various supposedly 'safe' places as he was sure civilians probably thought of them as.

Currently, he was putting together a plan on how to collect all that Dust, which was guaranteed to have far better protection in place than the measly Dust shops he's hit so far. This meant more weeks being spent preparing in advance and more manpower in getting the Dust and getting the hell out of dodge.

Given that said 'men' were those White Fang mutts, well, Roman's confidence in the upcoming operation wasn't exactly at an all-time high, but it was his boss' orders, so he didn't really have much room to disagree here, not if he wanted to keep breathing.

The only good thing to come out of all this is that at least he'd been sticking one to the SDC, those pretentious pricks.

Again, he had to take what little pleasures he could when they came along.

"Just a damn shame I have to suffer through so much stupidity just to get to that point, though," he said with a bit of intentionally dramatic flare.

Ah well, couldn't always expect everyone that worked for him to be as much of a criminal genius as him.

Now then, he thought silently as he entered the 'planning room' as he liked to call it, it was time to get to work.

Not quite as long as previous chapters, though it very well could've been if I'd bothered to expand a bit more on the JNPR dinner scene, but I felt it best to leave it as is. While small talk serves the purpose of revealing more about their personalities and background in a more tasteful fashion, well, it's all been shoved down our throats so much by fanfics in general that it's reached the point of physical pain, or so I feel. So, I felt it best to spare you guys that minor trouble. Hope you understand.

That said, the primary point of that scene was to better establish the growing friendship between them all as well as further expanding on Jaune's motivations a bit more in the following scene without giving too much away just yet, though I'm sure most of you can make a damn good guess as to how he ended up that, ha ha.

And as you can tell, the plot will be picking up just a bit more from here thanks to the Torchwick scene, though it will still be a little while before it truly starts to change things up from canon. But when it does, oh man, I know for certain now that you'll all get a kick out of it.

Until next time, everyone. Take care!