AN:To the Spanish-speaking guest as an answer to all your reviews(since I can't PM you)
My friend, I don't speak Spanish, for starters. Write in English or stop.
Next, you want your own version of this story with all the bells and whistles? Why don't'cha write it yourself? Because you're asking me to add too much for no other reason than 'tis cool'. I've made that mistake in the past and no story turned out well because of it. Rather than turning out alright, they turned into a contrived mess that I couldn't piece back together even if I wanted to. I'm not letting that happen here
This is my story. I'll take criticism on how to improve it or maybe add an idea or two if it fits with how I feel like I want it go... I won't, however, just downright rewrite it because of one Spanish review that I had to google translate. Doubly so for four. To cap off this little passive-aggressive tirade, you don't like it? Write your own. You like it? Keep reading.
Onto the others... Sorry I didn't post these last couple of weeks folks. Been awful busy, prepping for Uni to start. We'll hopefully be back to our usual programming soon. Enjoy!
"It'll be ready by four, miss Spinner."
"Alright! Thanks!"
"Hey, no problem! You're paying for my kid's school play costume with this one. It's a nifty engraving piece, though I thought nobody used these symbols anymore. And ivory grips? Heh, nice pick."
"Thanks and... Yeah, well, you could say I'm sorta familiar with the symbols."
"Fine by me. I'll give you and your friend a call when it's done!"
Adora waved to the store-owner, shutting the door behind her. Catra leaned against the wall, arms crossed, beside the building's entrance. She smirked, then said "So, they took the design?" to which Adora tipped her hat in answer. Yeah, they did. The catgirl smirked, then straightened up and said "Let's go eat lunch. I wanna try one of the local restaurants."
"Sure thing." Adora nodded. The two proceeded down the Main Street. Adora then looked to the Catgirl, whose weapon was folded up on her back, then asked "How's your kit holding out by the way?" as she felt her own empty holster. Catra's smirk gave the blonde enough of an answer to know that her armor, which she had yet to name, was just fine for her. Admittedly, Ruby had tailored its design to fit Catra perfectly, even folded.
The walk down the street had given the girls another opportunity to gaze around at the wonders of Vale once more. As Adora's eyes scanned the street itself, she slowly took in the people around them. From teenage couples to elders, from young men and women to the wiser old folk and from human to Faunus, variety was the name of the game here. She caught a glimpse of three girls sat by a decorative tree across the road, whispering to one-another with smiles on their faces as they, too, looked at her.
She tipped her cowboy hat to them, then winked, garnering blushes and giggles out of them, before she went to take Catra's hand and smugly walk away. With the corner of her eye, she saw two of them turn from joyful to defeated, while the third seemed to give them the 'I told you so' look. She had just now registered Catra's own blush, before chuckling as they marched forward.
What she just did felt completely out of character and she probably wouldn't do it again, but it was worth it to see the reactions. One short trip and the girls then found themselves in front of one of the best local restaurants Vale had to offer. At least according to Yang, that was. Place served the basic local foods, plus what little other cuisine from the other kingdoms they could gather.
Upon entering, the girls found themselves seated by a nice Faunus fellow in a suit, before being handed menus by one of his co-workers. Popping open the menus, the girls started browsing for their desired foodstuffs. Catra smirked, already eyeing a fish dish, while Adora was looking at the sandwiches section. The hamburgers seemed a fairly good choice set. Upon placing their order, both of drinks and of food, the girls handed the menus over.
"So..." Catra mused, pulling out her scroll "I overheard you're gonna be working with Schnee for a bit."
Adora nodded "Weiss is gonna teach me a bit about some of the different Dust rounds she put together for Eternia."
The corners of Catra's mouth quirked into a smile "You named it after that password, did you?"
"Yup." Adora nodded. To her, though, it felt like more than a Password. It was something very familiar, yet so distant to her. Perhaps it was even her home planet. She didn't know, but it was one more thing she intended to find out, provided the First Ones ruins on Remnant would answer. Huh, that brought up a good question, were there any others outside of the Emerald Forest?
"Well, guess it suits it. Any plans on what to do with it?" Catra raised a brow, watching as their bottles of soda were brought in. She gave a nod to the waitress that brought them in while she was popping them open, then leaned forward, a grin on her face.
Adora nodded "As far as I understood, miss Peach is also helping make a few Dust round types. Included should be gravity, fire, ice, wind and-"
"Wait, wait, wait, Gravity?" Catra stopped her. Peach wasn't too forward with the Dust types in today's lesson.
"Yup! That one I gotta show to you! It's pretty cool!" The excited blonde added.
"Oh, I bet. I've got a training session with Yang... And I have to talk to Arc." Kitten sighed, rolling her eyes. She respected the boy's wits and desire to work, but she just couldn't believe he got into hot water with Cardin. For one reason or another, she needed to intervene.
"Jaune? What did the poor boy do?" The girl raised a brow, crossing her arms. Hopefully, nothing too bad.
"Oh... Nothing too bad." Catra shrugged it off like it was nothing.
Thank you, Catra. Read her thoughts again, would you?
"Catra?" The blonde questioned more harshly.
The catgirl sighed, then spoke again, calmly "Seriously, Adora. It's fine."
"..." Adora's gaze slowly worked its way into getting her to talk. She hated that look, seriously. It was one of the most annoying things about her
"... It's a secret, okay? Nikos told me not to tell anyone, so I'm sticking to that. Hell, I don't even know what it is, just that it's important." Catra threw her arms up in the air, before leaning back into her seat and crossing them to her chest. She waited to gauge Adora's reaction
"Alright. Nice of you to get involved." The blonde simply smiled at her girlfriend, which sort of took Catra by surprise.
By enough surprise to cause a healthy blush before she managed to answer "Thank you."
"... Does it have anything to do with Cardin?"
"How'd you-!"
"Heh."
Darla
The artificial intelligence lattice connected to the starcraft owned by She-Ra had been busy these last few days, running through strands of code that the princess named Entrapta had decided to bring to her. Darla, as she had been called by almost everyone who came on board with She-Ra, starting with young Entrapta, had been able to slowly decypher the data from the portal complex on this flourishing world.
First Ones technology tasted bitter to the thousand-year-old AI. Especially since Mara had managed to disconnect her from the Eternian mainframe, while fighting to protect Etheria. She was disheartened by Light Hope being forced into becoming a monster, but could not talk to her to repair her processing after the First Ones loyalists damaged it. Alas, the least she could do now was to help She-Ra get back home.
Or, at least, find out where she was sent.
"Darla!" The AI heard Entrapta's voice ring throughout the core of her programming.
Darla came to, surrounded by the central processing hub of the ship. Code flowed as a river of symbols and numbers around her. She still worked to remove some of the few constraints that the First Ones had put into her programming before her connection to the Mainframe was severed. Constraints that did not allow her to attain her true potential when it came to accessing remote sites like this one.
The AI took the form of the bog-standard sphere she had appeared as first. She responded, her voice irritatingly mechanical even to her "Yes, Entrapta?"
"Got anything to tell me about that latest surge from a few days ago?" The girl sat herself down, a smile on her face and a simple pencil and paper in her hand. Curious, how she would use such primitive items, despite her being one of the most technologically-gifted princesses. Alas...
"I am still working on decoding the exact location of the transmission." The AI said "However, I have subsequently acquired information on this site's true purpose."
"Ooh!" Entrapta seemed to bounce jauntily at that "Do tell!"
Ah, humans and their excitement. It was almost palpable... "It is, as I believe you and your compatriots have surmised, a storage site. However, it also provides a link to the Eternian portal network, which once connected the whole Empire."
"That's very intriguing." The Princess spoke, writing the data down.
Darla correlated "However, the First Ones have taken great care to encrypt much of the portal systems' coordinate files. I cannot access them as of yet. I can decrypt them one at a time, however, and have started to do so with the source of the transmission. I already have a minor set of coordinates, but I must suggest awaiting for us to acquire all of them before we move forward with recovering She-Ra and her companion."
Entrapta shrugged "Eh, fair enough. Do tell when you're done, alright?"
"I will keep you updated, yes." The AI noted. With that, Entrapta bid her goodbye to her friend and stepped off the ship, probably to go tell the others. The AI returned to her high-speed processing mode, 'closing her eyes' and adjusting to the information as it flowed through her lattice. Some of the words brought a tinge of worry in her central processor. A concern not unfounded, as the words 'Death World', 'Nightmare' and 'Failure' evoked such reactions even in humans. Still, she couldn't help but feel the weight of them meant more than just a simple warning.
She only wished to get to She-Ra in time. Perhaps more could be answered then...
The Catgirl marched down the corridors of Beacon, hand wrapped around a leather-bound book about the history of the Faunus and about possible genetic connections to other hominids, humans included. She saw Arc stumbling out of one of the classrooms, though, so that put an end to her walk back home. She stopped Arc from falling over onto his back with one open hand, then said "Yo. Arc." calmly.
And if Catra had anything to comment on, it was how fast the boy went from neat, tidy and dry to a flowing river of sweat. With several heavy books in hand, Jaune swiveled about and called out "M-m-ma'am!" his voice cracking under the surprise. The catgirl chuckled, then grabbed some of the books the boy was hauling, sliding them under her arm. She showed him to walk with her.
A few feet over and Jaune had thought he was in the clear. His yelp of surprise came upon Catra's question "Why all the books? Ya haulin' something I should know?"
"U-Uh, no, ma'am! It's just the stuff prof Oobleck asked me to read after class." The boy noted. Catra chuckled. The poor kid was too easy to read, especially with big throwaways when lying, like stuttering. The two marched on forth for a bit, before the Catgirl's ears perked up at hearing an 'oh shit' in a deeper voice than Jaune's coming from around the corner ahead.
The Catgirl sighed, letting the books fall to the floor. She brandished her suit, gauntlets wrapping around her hands and forearms. She surged forward on all fours, before skidding to a halt and aiming the twin SMGs right at Cardin's face. The man jerked back, staggering and nearly tripping on his own feet. The Catgirl chuckled, lowering her hands and saying "What's the matter, Shitbird, did mama scare you?"
"Yeah... You nearly gave me a hear attack, teach..." Growled the meathead, before turning and noticing Jaune picking up his books. He looked to Catra, then asked "He uh... Didn't happen to say anything, did he?"
"Nah. Just that those are his study materials... They are, right?" The Catgirl flashed a dangerous, fanged grin at the boy, her two catlike eyes glaring daggers right in the boy's eyes and into his soul. A visible shiver ran up Cardin's spine as he gave rapid nods. Catra nodded back, then said skeptically "Alright, Shitbird... I'll believe ya. Scram back to the dorms."
Both he and the now-over-encumbered Jaune nodded, walking off... Catra stopped Jaune with a hand on his shoulder's armor plate and said "Not you, though, Arc. I have something to talk to you about." before glaring Cardin into submission. The bird-named boy scrambled over himself to get away from Catra, to which Jaune let out a silent 'wow'. The girl then turned her attention to him and seemed... Disappointed?
"Why do you let him bully you like this, Arc?" She asked "I overheard the whole convo on the roof about you doing both your assignments..." And she saw Jaune lose all color in his face. She continued "What the hell has he got you by the balls with?"
"I..." Jaune's shoulders partially sagged "I can't tell you, ma'am..."
"Arc. If there's any teacher you can tell about this kinda stuff, it's me. Especially if it's something as bad as you make it seem." The girl crossed her arms, then smirked reassuringly to the young, dumb blonde boy and said "C'mon. Let's get those books down somewhere and you can tell me." before she led the boy out toward the resting area in the halls. He set the books down on a bench, sitting himself down next to a grinning Catra. She nudged him, then said "I'm listening, blondie."
"... Ma'am, have you ever done something wrong?" He asked in a whisper. Catra's colors drained for a moment, but she gave a single, quick nod.
"I've... Uh..." Her mind flashed back to activating the portal, the different crimes committed while with the Horde, et-cetera. Simply, she said "Yeah, plenty..."
"Ah... Well..." He sighed, rubbing his eyes "Gods, I hope this doesn't get me expelled..."
"Kid, I won't report it to Ozpin. Hell, you told it to Pyrrha 'do-good student' Nikos and she hasn't told me... Wow, wait, it's that bad?" Catra smirked, slowly finding new respect for Jaune. He nodded, swallowing empty, then looked at her with fear in his eyes.
"I..." He leaned in and whispered "I faked my transcripts to get into Beacon." Before he winced and covered his head. Catra had to take a few moments to register the situation, but once her mind acclimatized to the fact that do-good dense blonde Jaune Arc had pulled that, a catty grin slowly formed, followed by a prideful look in Catra's eyes.
The woman threw an arm over Arc's shoulder and brought him in, laughing boisterously as her mind finally hit all the points. The low self-esteem, the (lack of) training in hand-to-hand and armed combat, the clumsiness. They all put everything into perspective. The laugh swelled as her pride grew for the boy in an instant. She leaned down to Jaune's level and whispered "Never before have I been so proud of a person I barely know. Arc, you have the biggest guts in this entire school and that's saying something."
She let him go, much to his surprise, before ruffling his hair. Jaune patted her hand away and asked, shocked "You aren't mad at me?" to which the Cat simply shook her head, fangs out in yet another proud grin.
"Arc, if I was gonna get mad you did this, I wouldn't be me. That's some a-prime example of saying 'fuck the system'." She grinned "Any major reason as to why?"
"It's family... Really. My dad, my grandpa, great grandpa... All heroes, all huntsmen." Jaune answered "I wanted to be like them, but I never went to any schools to earn my place, or even trained."
"Well, kid, that can change..." Catra nodded "... Cardin must've overheard you telling this to Pyrrha, huh?"
Jaune nodded.
"... And now he's blackmailing you with it." She growled, then looked to Jaune and said "Listen... I can't openly defend this because I think Oz may sack my ass for it. Him or Goodwitch... So let's put it this way, Jaune. You are going to have to face him. If not for you, for the sake of your team. You think I didn't notice you and them growing apart these last few days?"
"I... I know." He bowed his head "But how?"
"Bide your time..." And, as if on cue, she heard her scroll go off. She yelped "Shit! I have to go meet Adora... Listen, Jaune, everything's gonna be fine. Just... Trust in yourself or something, right?'
"Right..." he nodded, sighing. He bid goodbye to Catra and watched her dash off, before heading for the dorms himself. There, he leaned into the door, listening in to Pyrrha talking to Nora and Ren and, with a sigh, closed the door, only to meet a pair of silver eyes. The leader of team RWBY sat in front of him, in full pajamas. Right, it was midnight. And yet there she was.
... Nope. Man, he must've heard that word a dozen times.