Cover art - Mike (Had my trial today. I'm sentenced to twenty years for the murder of Mike. The judge had no evidence on me, except for all the eye-witnesses, the bucketloads of CCTV footage, and the shirt I was wearing saying 'Yes, I Killed Mike. It Was Me!'. The whole system's corrupt, man)

Chapter 15 - Epstein Didn't Kill Himself

Cardin's words rang like a bell in Jaune's ears. "What?" he asked, completely stupefied.

"I made it all up!" Cardin yelled again. "Of course I made it up! You were never turning into a faunus, and you sure as hell aren't one now! I was messing with you!"

Cardin's words were loud, but Jaune was having a hard time understanding them. He looked desperately at Blake and Pyrrha. Blake looked as confused as he felt, whereas Pyrrha still had her head in her hands. Neither of them looked ready to tell Cardin he was wrong.

"I don't… I don't understand," Jaune murmured.

"You're human, dumbass!" Cardin snapped. "You've always been human!"

Jaune's brow furrowed. "No, I don't believe you," he said. "I can't be human, because I've been acting like a faunus for ages now."

"Dressing up like a girl doesn't make you a faunus! It makes you a dickhead!"

"I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about all the other stuff, like waking up in trees, seeing red dots and fighting over fish. Only faunus do those things. How do you explain that if I'm a human, Mr Human-pants?"

Cardin looked like he was about to have a heart attack from sheer frustration. "Faunus don't do those things! They're freaks, but they do have some standards! I was the one doing those things to you!"

"You were?"

"Yes! I was the one putting you in those trees! I was breaking into your room and sticking you up there while you were asleep!"

"What about all the red dots?"

"I was following you with a laser pointer! That was an obvious one!"

"And my craving for fish?"

"I waved a fish under your nose while you slept, so that you'd like it on a subconscious level! Yeah, that's right! I know what 'subconscious' means! I'm crazy smart!"

Jaune's head throbbed as he felt the walls of his reality tremble under Cardin's information. He knew better than anyone that his past activities were the result of him transforming. Then again, it was strange that Cardin was always present for all of them…

"I see what you're doing," Jaune growled. "You're trying to confuse me! Well, it'll take more than trickery to shake my resolve."

"Oh, you're confused alright! But don't blame me for all of it. Half of this shit, you did all by yourself!"

"You cannot fool me!"

"I'm not trying to anymore! I'm calling the joke off! You're the one stretching it out!"

"You were the one who told me I was changing! Don't deny it! You said it yourself that I was transforming into a faunus!"

"I know what I said! I was lying!"

"But that doesn't make sense! Why would you lie about something like that? What's the point?"

"Payback!" Cardin hissed. "I only told you all that crap because I wanted to freak you out as revenge for that party!"

Jaune cocked his head. "What party?"

"That stupid party you threw making fun of me because of what happened at combat practice!"

Jaune paused to give himself a moment to think. His eyes lit up when the memory came back to him. "Oh, when I whooped your butt," he chuckled. "Yeah, good times. I nearly forgot about that."

"You didn't beat me!" Cardin snarled.

"I'm pretty sure I did. That was a fun party too."

"This is why I did what I did!" Cardin cried. "I wanted to take you down a peg for being such an annoying prick! And you know what? It worked! You should've seen yourself!" He then said in an overly high-pitched voice, "Waaah, I'm turning into a faunus! Somebody help me, waaaah!"

Jaune cringed from the bully's impression of him. "I don't sound like that," he pouted.

"You're so easy to fool, Arc," Cardin sneered. "All I had to do was say a few science words to you, act like you were some kind of monster, and you did the rest. I had you scared shitless for those days and I wasn't even trying. The hardest thing for me was to stop myself from laughing every time I saw you."

"This all sounds like a pretty elaborate prank," Jaune said. "With this kind of effort, you could be my arch-nemesis or something. You're telling me you planned this whole thing?"

"No, not originally," Cardin grunted. "My original plan was just to kick you in the balls when you weren't looking. But then I saw Blake bite you, and I knew I could work with that. I just didn't expect you to fall for it so easily."

Jaune did his best to look like his entire worldview wasn't falling apart in seconds. He started to laugh madly. "You almost had me there. But as if I would believe the lies of a dirty stinking racist like you! I am of the free-thinking faunus, and my existence will not be denied-!"

"Ask Blake if you're a faunus!"

Jaune raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"You don't believe me? Fine. Go ask an actual faunus if I'm telling the truth."

"Now why would I do that? I already know I'm a faunus and so does she."

"Really? Is that why she's looking at you like your a lunatic?"

He turned to Blake. Jaune gulped. Cardin was right - she was looking at him like he was a little bit crazy. If he was going to get a straight answer from anyone, it'd be her. He needed her wisdom once again.

"Blake, am I a faunus?" he meekly asked.

She blinked. "Um… did you think you were?" she said awkwardly.

"Kinda."

"Well, um… no. No, you're not. Sorry?"

And just like that, the final piece of reality shattered into meaningless pieces of pure pointless.

He half-expected the whole world to just vanish before his eyes. That he would wake up somewhere else, having just been awoken from a dream. The firm ground beneath his feet told him that this was still real life, just not his interpretation of it.

As his mind went into a panicked frenzy as it processed the truth, all of his misplaced confusion, terror, pride, and spirit manifested into one word.

"Huh," he said.

"There, you see?" Cardin said. "If you won't believe me, believe her."

Jaune clicked his tongue. It was an interesting experience for him, having his whole perception of life be pulled out from under him. He felt strangely calm about it. It was probably the shock. He had a feeling he'd be screaming at some point later today.

"So, I'm not a faunus?" he casually asked.

"No!"

"This was all just a prank?"

"Yes!"

Jaune sniffed. "Fair enough."

Cardin looked like he was about to explode from his carefree tone. "Fair enough?" he roared. "That's all you gotta say? I made you look like an idiot for days in front of all your friends, and that's the best you can do?"

Jaune shrugged.

"You are the absolute worst! I know I can be an asshole, alright? I bully people, I pick on those weaker than me! That's who I am! There are two kinds of people in this world - bullies and victims! We all have our parts to play, and I'm playing mine perfectly! But you? You suck! Your reactions are all wrong! Get angry, throw a punch, piss your pants, just do something!"

"I got one more question," Jaune said, ignoring his rant. "If this was all a prank, then why are you telling me about it?"

"Because now you're enjoying it! You've taken my fun and turned it into something weird! If I knew you'd twist this into some kind of freaky fetish roleplay, I never would've done this in the first place!"

"Ah."

Cardin let loose a bellowing howl and nearly punched a wall. Jaune took some degree of enjoyment from his anger.

"You're lack of commitment pisses me off!" Cardin raged. "I'm fucking finished! I can't do anything with you! You are the worst victim in existence!"

"Sorry."

"Oh, you will be! Except you won't be, because I'm done with you! You stupid, worthless, freaky, skinny, little…"

"You okay?"

"No! That does it! I'm gonna go find some toddlers and steal their candy! Maybe they'll understand what it means to be a doormat! If I ever see you again, Arc, I'm not gonna do anything about it! You sicken me!"

With his point made and his voice on the verge of breaking, Cardin thundered out of the room, leaving them with peace and quiet again.

"Ohhhhhh," Blake said after a while. "So wait, when you told me that you were becoming a faunus… you meant that in a physical sense?"

Jaune swallowed. "... yeah?"

Blake held his gaze in silence for a few seconds, then collapsed onto the floor laughing.

"You should have said something!" she hollered. "I could've told you right from the start that that's impossible! Turning into a faunus? That's brilliant!"

He couldn't stop his face turning red despite his composure.

"I think I'm gonna pee! Like, what would that even make you? A werefaunus or something?"

"... that might have been the terminology I used," he mumbled.

Blake's entire body spasmed. Her laughter increased to the point where it robbed her of her voice. Jaune stood still and waited for it to end, feeling very silly. Very silly indeed.

After two solid minutes of non-stop laughing, Blake slowly managed to stand up again. Her trembling knees prevented her from standing up straight. "I'm sorry," she giggled. "I shouldn't laugh. This must be a real shock to you."

Jaune shrugged again. "Eh, probably will be at some point. But I've had an existential crisis before. This isn't much different from when I found out that there's no Santa."

Blake's expression softened. "Oh, Jaune, I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "This is my fault. I should've noticed beforehand that something was wrong. Had I known, I would've told you the truth sooner."

"Don't worry about it," Jaune insisted. "I guess Cardin had us both fooled, huh?"

"I guess."

"You absolutely sure I'm not a faunus? Not even a little bit of one?"

"Nope. You're as human as they come. I can spot a faunus a mile away."

"Really? How? Can you sense their aura, or can you smell them out?"

Blake rolled her eyes. "No, silly. You haven't got any animal traits."

"Oh... yeah, that makes sense. I was waiting for them to grow at some point."

Blake gave a little snort.

"Ah well, it's not so bad. The main disappointment to me is that I won't get night vision. I was looking forward to that. It would make playing hide and seek way easier."

"It really does."

"It's not like too much has changed- OH MY GOD, MY LIFE IS A LIE!"

He hadn't meant to scream the last part out, but the words had been forced out of him, like something had reached down his throat and pulled them out.

Blake backed away. "You alright?" she asked.

Jaune cleared his throat. "I guess that must be the shock subsiding," he chuckled. "Sorry in advance if I do that again."

"We'll take you to a doctor."

"Yeah, might need one."

"What do you wanna do about Cardin? Want me to beat him up? I can do that thing to his arm that I did to Adam's."

Jaune smiled. "Thanks, but I think we should only reserve that for actual criminal masterminds. Attacking a few naysayers just because they don't like people who are different… it's not the faunus way."

Blake was surprised for a moment, before a proud smile broke out on her face. "Damn right it isn't," she agreed.

She held out her hand and Jaune shook it, squeezing it tightly. Even though many things in his life was proving to be false, at least he knew that his friendship with Blake was still absolutely real.

"Speaking of that, I've just realised something," Jaune said. If waking up in trees, fighting over fish and chasing red dots isn't typical faunus behaviour, then how come you do that?"

"Because Blake is weird," Pyrrha said, speaking up for the first time in ages.

Blake looked like she had been slapped. "Hey, I'm not weird!" she gasped.

"Yes you are," Pyrrha said. She was no longer covering her face. Her tone was as expressionless as the look on her face. She was staring at the wall, not making eye contact with them. "Even Nora thinks you've got some loose screws, and she thinks 'getting high' means swallowing gravity dust. We didn't say anything because we thought you were just shy. But no. You're definitely weird."

Blake flinched. "Ow. That's not very polite, Pyrrha."

"I don't want to be polite. I want to be honest."

Blake stuck out her tongue. Pyrrha didn't react.

"Actually, there's still one thing I don't understand," Jaune said. "Pyrrha, you must've known that humans can't turn into faunus by getting bitten by them, right?"

Pyrrha's jaw clenched slightly for a second. "Yes, Jaune, of course I knew that. Everyone knows that."

"So then why did you play along?"

She turned her head slowly to look at him. "Why… you ask me why?" she said in a quiet voice.

Jaune found himself paralysed by the look in her eyes. There was a cavalcade of emotions burning behind those emerald orbs. He saw anger, frustration, embarrassment, desperation.

Hunger.

Desire…

"Because I... will do literally anything... TO GET YOU TO NOTICE ME!" she bellowed.

She threw herself at him like a pouncing tiger. A single yelp escaped Jaune's lips before they were enveloped by hers. The two of them were knocked to the floor. That didn't stop her. She was already starting to remove his clothes along with her own, never taking her mouth off his for a second.

As Jaune felt her tongue swirl in his mouth like a sock in a washing machine, he knew he had to make a decision: question why she was doing this, or go along for the ride.

He didn't realise his hands had already moved their way down to her ass until his fingers squeezed champion booty. Her moan was like music to his ears.

He made his choice.

[/]

Blake stood shocked at the sight before her. It had all happened so fast. Jaune and Pyrrha had become servants of lust, kissing and groping each other with vigorous passion. And they were doing this right in front of her. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

By now they were almost completely naked. They were both bare-chested but were too busy dry-humping each other to worry about their pants just yet. The sounds they made bounced off the walls of the room. Someone would surely hear them. They were so careless. So… fascinating…

Blake bit her lip. Her legs clenched together tightly. Maybe she should stick around and watch for a bit, so that she could believe what she was seeing.

She pulled up a chair and observed. This probably wouldn't be as saucy as her books, but it'd do. Oh Gods, it would do.

Jaune temporarily stopped smooching Pyrrha to look at her. "Uh, Blake?"

"Hm?"

"Could you, um, give us a little privacy?"

"Oh, sure." She stood up and locked the door behind them, then sat back down again. "Carry on," she said.

"Blake?"

"Yes?"

"You're still in the room."

"It's my room."

"... fair enough," Jaune said, then immediately went back to servicing the girl on top of him. Blake sat back grinning like a fool at the sight of two young, toned, spirited naked bodies doing all kinds of marvellous things to each other.

Okay, maybe she was a little weird.