I wrote this out of boredom and a want to practice dialogue and writing in a place where long term planning isn't as important. I will update this as I feel like it, and probably will at least once. Characterization is probably rather off, especially for Pyrrha, but hey. Writing exercise.
Ah, bliss. Flowers were blooming, paper airplanes were flying, students were napping. Truly another day in the lovely, sedate history classroom at Beacon Academy. The low drone of the professor was just barely more audible than the low roar of students' whispers.
"Psssst! Pssssst! Jaune!"
Jaune Arc groggily peeked up after a ball of paper hit him out of dreamland to see his fellow team leader frantically trying to tell him something from two rows ahead.
"Hnrg?"
"Jaune! Hasn't Oobleck been really, really weird today?"
Come to think of it, normally Oobleck was much too loud and kinetic for anyone to fall asleep in his class, and those who did were swiftly tapped to attention by Oobleck himself. Jaune still was half asleep, and processing Ruby's energy would frankly take much more than he had right now.
"Huh?"
Ruby broke out a flow chart, easel, and riding crop from somewhere before standing up.
"You know, he looks kinda… sad. And tired. And he only drank six cups of coffee so far. That's twelve less than he normally does! I counted!"
Yang took the moment to wake up.
"Ah, ugh. We aren't presenting, right, Rubes?"
"No Yang, we're not!" Ruby stated, much too loud.
"What's with business Ruby then? And why isn't Oobleck yelling at you? Normally he-"
Oh Oum don't finish that statement.
"Cares a latte. Eh? Eh? I'm here all week."
"Yaaang~"
"Rubes, if you don't sit down you might end up grounded."
"Yang that one didn't even make sense."
"You don't have to understand my genius Rubes, just bask in it. Now, spill."
Nora leaned over Ren to hear better, while Weiss slammed her pen down, grabbing Ruby and Yang's ears and pulling them down.
"Shut up you two, I can't hear Doctor Oobleck's explanation on the diverse cultural impact of pre-kingdom civilizations."
"But Weiss!" protested Ruby, "Professor Oobleck seems sad."
With a loud crash, Nora fell over the desk onto Dove, who buckled with a thud, allowing Nora to tumble over and recover on her feet. Jaune, Pyrrha, and Ren let out a collective sigh, reaching below their desk for their paddles.
"8. I think Dove might need to go to the nurse though." Jaune winced with sympathy pain.
"5, your footing could be better," flipped Ren.
"10. Keep working on it, but it was a good recovery," concluded Pyrrha.
"Miss Valkyrie," Oobleck snapped to attention, unable to ignore the total clamor which landed on his lecture floor, "is there a reason for why you disrupted my class?"
"Ah professor-" "Doctor" "doctor, uhh, I was trying to listen closer."
"To my class?"
"No. Ruby was talking and I wanted to know more."
It was Team RWBY's time to join JPR in collectively face palming.
Ruby stood up, "Professor-" "Doctor." "Doctor, I was, ah, wondering if anything had you feeling down."
With that, Oobleck exploded.
"Asamatteroffactclass,Iamincredibly, increasingly, immensely, infuriated. Anabsolute,no, anunbelievablyheinioustragedy, greaterthananytoeverbefallourgraciousAcademy, hasstruck." He inhaled, collected himself, and began talking once more at a fast, but comprehensible pace. "Look at this class. This is a shard of a pre-Four Kingdoms era, jewel encrusted vase. See the proto-Remnant script, the intricate carvings of ancient conflict with Grimm, the crisp cooked claywork? I had procured this invaluable artifact on loan from the Vale Ancient History Museum and was planning an expedient exploratory expedition to the ruins it was found in. Of course, I showed it to you yesterday, should any of you have been paying attention."
Jaune may not have been wholly conscious yesterday, but, with little face to save, decided that he would rather risk sounding dumb(again) than sit through the class confused.
"Profess- Doctor, not to be rude, but wasn't the vase yesterday more, how do you say it, not shattered into shards?"
"PRECISELY my boy. Someone, somehow, broke into my office and destroyed my precious pottery collection and nothing else. I warn you all, whoever has done this will be punished, severely and to the full extent of my abilities. This is no laughing matter! I will offer a hefty lien reward to whoever captures this most dastardly denizen. Anywho, did I happen to mention that one of the main quirks of the ancient, pre-Four Kingdom era artwork was, if you can see how these shards piece together, the large lack of masks depicted. Despite the bone masks so prevalent on boarbatusks and beowulves, these specific pots tend to show largely exaggerated,moreemotivefacesandfeatures,evenoccasionallydepictingGrimmwithweapons,despitenosurvivingsourcesdepictingGrimmholdinganysortoftoolduringthistimeperiod. Beforeclassends,Iwouldlikeyoutounderstand…"
And with the lecture resuming with Oobleck's usual, impassioned self, Jaune descended back into a light rest.
"Ok Team RWBY, Team JNPR, do you know why I have gathered you here today?"
Ruby Rose finally had a use for the brown plaid cap she brought to Beacon. It wasn't a particularly good hat, and she didn't really like hats at all, but it fit the mood, and was a good enough hat.
Yang passionately waved her hand, but the fearless leader RWBY knew her team better than to subject them to Yang's puns when Blake would be able to summarize perfectly fine. Quite great deducting there on Ruby's part.
"Blake!"
"Is it because class just ended and we all were waiting for you to put away the flow chart?"
"Astute observation detective, but no! Yang!"
Weiss groaned, accepting her fate. Blake resumed reading her book, not needing to listen to what happened next.
"Is it because Professor-"
Doctor Oobleck, still in the room, yelled, "Doctor!"
"Doctor Oobleck was quite ~despresso~."
Weiss groaned again, as it was worse than she thought. Normally Ruby would congratulate her sister on her creativity at least but not ever pun can be a winner.
"Yes, it is because P- Doctor Oobleck was so broken up over his pots."
Blake looked up from her reading.
"Just like his pots."
"Just like his pots," Ruby agreed.
"Just like your heads," Weiss stewed, "if you don't stop cracking jokes and start doing something productive. Like studying the notes I know none of you, except Pyrrha, took."
Pyrrha put her hand behind her head.
"Weiss… I didn't take notes. I was too busy seeing how long it would take Nora to fall."
"I wish I thought to break his pots," Nora added unhelpfully, "I wonder if it's like breaking legs."
Ruby clapped her hands once, bringing attention back to her.
"Anyway, us eight will solve the mystery! Who's with me?"
"Why should we go solve a who broke in? Let the teachers do it, you need to study," the perennial killjoy Weiss grabbed Ruby's ear.
Undeterred, Ruby continued, putting a bubble pipe in her mouth.
"Some of you may ask, why us? It is because we are cool. So cool, we have to do it. It's like a secret mission that only we can do. Except not secret. And anyone can do it. I have a plan."
Nora was sold. She had a monocle already on, and put on some weird accent. Chances were, Ren would be dressed up like a butler to keep with Nora's "motif" or something later.
"And what would the plan include, oh great and powerful Ruby?"
"Well, Nora, Teams, we will put a vase in the courtyard. Then, when someone comes to break the pot, we will jump out of the bushes."
"And break their legs?" Nora practically was bouncing.
"And we break their legs. It is a win-win. Easy, and we'd just be sleeping anyway so it isn't like we miss study time."
"What are we calling this plan?" Jaun said, ready to jump on board.
"Ummm." Ruby was stumped.
"Operation Break Their Legs?" Nora suggested.
"Operation Pot Bust?" Yang added.
"We will name it later! I, as your glorious leader, declare it so."
Weiss sighed again.
"Are you sure you aren't just pushing it off so you can have more time to think of your own name for it?"
The silence was deafening.
Just a note, for those of you wondering what this is supposed to be, it's a cross with Legend of Zelda. I really love the characterization of Link as a gremlin who gets places he shouldn't be, breaks your pots, and runs. His reincarnations date back as long as if not longer than Oz, but all the average person knows of him is from that one time all their cookware got busted up in the middle of the night without a trace as to the culprit.