It's another day at Beacon Academy as Glynda stands off on the sidelines of the Amphitheater. She looks to the left side of the battlefield to Team JNPR with their weapons drawn and asks, "Contestants, are you ready?"
"Yeah.", Jaune quickly yet sternly replies as his three teammates nod in response.
Glynda then looks over to the other side of the arena to Team SAPR, who also have their weapons ready, and Sapphire nods before saying, "Ready when you are, Professor."
The Professor gets a slight smile at the sight of these two confident leaders before returning to her usual cold self and raising her hand up into the air. "With that, let the battle commence! Begin!", the tall blonde exclaims from the ringside before a loud buzzer sounds through the arena.
Nora quickly transforms her hammer into its grenade launcher form and launches three pink grenades at the enemy team, missing them while laying down an almost pinkish smoke screen.
"Reginald! Defensive barriers!", Sapphire orders, to which the boy nods and says, "Got it, Boss." The silver-colored boy quickly unleashes his wires, whirling them through the smoke and creating a web of threads to prevent their approach.
"Alright, Pyrrha, Ren, covering fire!", Jaune exclaims as he leads the charge towards team SAPR. They give their leader a quick nod before transforming their weapons into their gun forms and opening fire upon the group.
"Reginald!", Sapphire quickly exclaims to which the boy quickly replies, "On it!", and tightens his wires in such a way that the wires form strong walls that block their shots.
"As expected! Reginald used his threads to block our attack! This means he has to use a combination of his threads to make sure that the mesh walls are strong enough to block the shots! That means that he doesn't have enough to keep up a large barrier around his whole team, which would leave an opening!", Jaune strategizes as he rushes in to take advantage of the chaos.
Sapphire looks to the confident leader as he makes his way towards her team, sensing him through the smoke before exclaiming, "I'm not gonna give up that easy, Jaune!", and parrying his downward slash with the sword in her mouth. She goes to slash at him with the swords in her left hand, but he manages to push himself back with his sword and block the attack with his shield. The power from the impact is strong enough to force the smoke around the two warriors away, revealing a slight grin on the boy's face.
"Wait, where's-", Sapphire begins to think before looking up to the sky to see Nora flipping through the air.
The girl is happily flipping through the air with her hammer before she finally pulls its trigger and goes hurdling down towards them. "We have you now, SAPR!", Jaune thinks with a grin on his face as he sees the surprised expression on Sapphire's face.
His confidence quickly fades when Sapphire's bewildered look suddenly turns into a confident smile. "Jasper! Eyes to the sky!", the one-eyed warrior exclaims, to which Persi calls out, "I've got her!"
With a twirl of his shotgun, it quickly transforms into its axe form, and as he lowers the blade to the ground, Ash steps on top of it. All of team JNPR is left baffled by this when Persi uses his inhuman strength to hurl Ash straight at Nora like a human cannonball! As the two fighters head straight for each other, Nora swings her hammer down at the boy with a slightly crazed smile. Ash quickly shifts out of the way of her attack, causing her eyes to widen in disbelief before the boy quickly kicks her down into the ground.
"He dodged midair!? How's that possible!?", Jaune exclaims as Nora crashes into the ground. The boy sees an odd shimmer in the air and when he focuses a slight amount of his aura into his eyes, he manages to see that Reginald's wires are lightly wrapped around Ash's torso! Jaune quickly forces the blue-haired girl back, shoving her swords away with a bash of his shield before muttering under his breath, "So he's using his threads to improve their movements..."
"Oh, so you've figured that part out already, have you?", Sapphire asks with a cocky grin on her face.
"I'm a bit smarter than I look.", Jaune confidently replies to her cocky grin before taking a more defensive stance, placing his shield in front of his body for protect as he holds his sword above the top of it.
"Ash! Reginald! Time to go all out! Let's put them on the defense!", Sapphire orders and Reginald lets out a cheer, saying, "Finally! The good part!"
Ash suddenly lands next to the black-haired boy before saying, "Understood, switching to more offensive tactics." He suddenly rushes in, dodging Ren's and Pyrrha's bullets as he moves at an unbelievable speed, his legs coated in his aura as he rushes them down. Ren sees this coming and slashes at the boy with his knives, but Ash manages to block the attack with his sheath.
"Ren!", Pyrrha exclaims as she shifts her weapon back into its javelin form, preparing to help the boy. Before she can, however, Reginald slashes the ground with his wires coated in Earth Dust and making a tall wall between the two as he says, "Sorry, I can't let you do that. If you two were to gang up on Ash, that'd just be bad. Don't worry, I'll keep you from getting bored."
She quickly turns and reacts just fast enough to Reginald's incoming wires to block his wild slashes with her shield. This, however, forces her to back up against the newly formed stone wall, causing the boy to let out an excited laugh before saying, "Come on Pyrrha! Aren't you supposed to be the best fighter from Mistral? Show me a good time!"
As he says this, Pyrrha manages to deflect his wires with her shield before rushing in towards him. He sees this and only grins as he surrounds himself with a whirling wall of wires, shouting, "There's the confident fighter I was looking for! Show me what you've got, Pyrrha Nikos!" The two fighters rush head first at one another before finally clashing, Pyrrha trying to stab through Reginald's wires, but instead getting her weapon caught in the hurricane of wires around the boy. He greedily grins at the situation, thinking he has the advantage, but Pyrrha just smiles back as the javelin quickly transforms into its rifle form and she unloads three shots.
Reginald manages to dodge the first two bullets, but gets hit in the shoulder with the third one, to which he loses seven percent of his aura. "So that was her plan... Get her weapon stuck in my wires and shoot me at point blank range...", Reginald growls in his mind with a stern scowl focused on the red head. His scowl quickly turns back into a grin, causing the girl's confident look to switch to concern as he says, "You're not the only one who set up a trap." He quickly clenches his left hand and wires quickly wrap around Pyrrha's right arm, binding it to her weapon. "Time for a counter attack!", Reginald exclaims as he hurls Pyrrha up into the air and slams her down into the ground back first.
This fractures the ground under her while also causing the girl to lose fifteen percent of her aura in the process. Reginald happily grins over at the girl as she kicks herself off the ground, landing on her feet like a professional, and as he sees this he warns her, saying, "You should really be taking this seriously. If you don't, I might just get bored and obliterate you!"
As Nora finally manages to get up from her fall, she looks over the arena to see everyone else on her team is already fighting. She lets out a surprised gasp and says, "Everyone else gets a partner but me!? This is so unfair!"
"I guess that makes two of us.", Persi says to her as he drags the head of his axe on the ground, making a metal scraping noise as he walks towards her.
Nora just smiles at him and says, "I've always been a fan of big things! Hopefully you know how to treat a lady. Now, let's dance!" She rushes towards the boy, propelling herself forward with a shot from her hammer as she swings the weapon around her, building up more and more force with each spin. As she comes down on the boy with a mighty downward slam of her hammer, he blocks the attack with a powerful upward slash from his axe. The impact of the two weapons' heads clashing sends a ferocious shockwave through the air, stopping only when it hits the barrier around the arena and stunning the students watching this all unfold.
"They're really going at it down there, huh?", Yang notes as she watches the match, unable to take her eyes away from the battle. "He's moving much faster than he usually does in our training sessions. I never thought he could be that quick.", Yang thinks as she sees Ash perfectly parry Ren's hail of bullets before unleashing a few of his own aura swords and rushing the boy down oncemore.
Ruby gives her sister a quick nod and adds, "Yep, Sapphire's never been the kind of person to hold back, especially in a full on fight like this. And it looks like her team's a lot like her when it comes to that."
"You could say that again. But what's really surprising is how well JNPR is holding out.", Blake replies, impressed by their skill as she continues to watch the fight over reading the open book in her lap. As she says this, Jaune manages to approach Sapphire with his shield up, blocking her Dust blasts before swiping down at her with his sword.
The azure warrior manages to block the attack with the sword in her mouth however, following this by trying to counter attack with her other swords, slashing at him from both sides.
Rolling backwards, Jaune manages to evade the attack somewhat as he just barely gets grazed by the tips of her blades and loses three percent of his aura in the process. "You're definitely getting better, Jaune.", Sapphire complements the boy as he recovers, standing firm on his own two feet with his shield up.
With his shield ready and confidence radiating off of him, Jaune shoots back at the warrior, "Right back at ya."
When she hears this complement, Sapphire's eye begins to glow with her furious blue aura, and after a few seconds she lets out a chuckle before saying, "Looks like things are gonna get interesting."
Jaune just gives the girl a confused look before glancing up at the monitor. His eyes widen when he sees Ren's aura just dropped down to twenty percent, to which he jerks his gaze over to the boy, seeing he's standing exhausted a few feet away from Ash, who doesn't seem to be the least bit effected by the battle. "You fought well, Ren. You almost managed to match my speed, that's commendable.", Ash complements the dark-haired boy, causing Ren to give him a slight smile as he replies with, "I'm not done here yet."
This is all interrupted when they hear Nora exclaim, "REN!", and her fury turns to Persi. She quickly unloads a volley of grenades upon the boy, unleashing Hell on Remnant on the boy.
Through the hellfire, Persi barely manages to dodge her attacks as he approaches her with his axe, ready to cut through her defenses. As he goes to swing at her, she launches another grenade at the ground, creating a smoke screen to cover her presence, but also losing twenty percent of her aura from the point blank blast.
Persi, caught off guard and with the smoke making his eyes water, covers his mouth and violently coughs, thinking, "What the- Where did she go!?" Before he can fan away the smoke, he's met with a swift hammer to the back, which sends him flying across the battlefield and out of the arena, eliminating him.
The buzzer sounds and Glynda announces, "Persi Pumpkin has been eliminated.", as the boy lays on the floor defeated.
Sapphire's eye widens in disbelief and she thinks, "What!? That..that isn't what I saw!", as she grits her teeth in frustration. She rushes towards Jaune oncemore, thinking, "I have to even this battle. I can't be pulling any punches, even with him."
As the frightening warrior unleashes her swords, quickly slashing at Jaune from all angles, the blonde frantically blocks them while shouting, "Pyrrha! Go back up Ren! Nora, you handle Reginald!"
Pyrrha hears this and quickly retreats from her battle with Reginald as the boy growls, "Hey! Where the hell are you going!?" He goes to chase after her with his wires, but has to pull them back when he sees three grenades coming flying at him. He weaves the wires around, blocking the explosives before they can get close enough to him and he shifts his focus to Nora, who's reloading her grenade launcher. "So you're the one who ruined my fun. How annoying. I guess I'll have to settle for you then.", Reginald grumbles as he looks to the ginger with an irritated glare, to which Nora transforms her launcher into it hammer form and launches herself into battle.
As Pyrrha reinforces Ren, she slashes down at Ash from behind and Ren attacks him as well, slashing at him from the front. Much to their surprise, Ash quickly draws his sword and blocks both of their attacks, blocking Pyrrha's javelin with his sheath while blocking Ren's blades with his sword. "He..blocked us both!?", Pyrrha thinks, baffled by this before Ash suddenly creates a small blade behind his head and launches it at her. Pyrrha quickly loses five percent of her aura when the blade grazes her face as she retreats back a few feet to make some distance between the two.
"Pyrrha, watch out for his other swords! They appear almost out of nowhere!", Ren warns her as he also retreats, putting some distance between himself and Ash.
Outnumbered and outgunned, Ash quickly tosses his sheath up into the air and as it twirls up in the air, he catches it at the other end and rushes towards Pyrrha at a remarkable speed, catching the girl off guard.
Ren sees this and tries to lay down covering fire for her, but Ash deflects the attacks with his Dragoon, not even looking back to see the path of the bullets yet somehow still managing to block them. When he gets close enough to Pyrrha, he slashes at her and she dodges back at watches as he uses his sheath instead of his sword to attack her.
The redhead quickly moves around Ash before regrouping with Ren and asking, "Any idea how to approach this?"
"None, he's deflected and countered everything I've thrown at him so far. I haven't even been able to land a solid hit on him.", Ren reluctantly replies as Ash observes them from a far.
"Persi was eliminated, so I will have to be certain that I do not let my team down. I will be sure to eliminate you two swiftly.", Ash says as he sheaths his Dragoon and returns to a draw stance.
Ren readies himself before whispering to Pyrrha, "Keep on your toes, this is his fastest stance I've seen so far."
"Now, let's see if you can touch me.", Ash says before his legs glow with his grey aura and he suddenly vanishes.
Pyrrha's quickly confused and she looks around for him before seeing he's already behind them with his sword drawn. "When did he-", she begins to think before the buzzer cuts her off. Her eyes widen in disbelief as she looks up to the monitor to see Ren's aura is down to one percent!
The boy sheathes his blade as the buzzer sounds and he mutters under his breath, "One target eliminated, moving on to secondary target."
As Nora sees Ren was eliminated, she starts to growl under her breath, causing Reginald to only laugh at her. "What? Getting angry? Good, show me that emotion!", Reginald happily suggests to her as his wires whirl around her.
She does her best to block them, but they nick and cut her over and over again, dealing five percent of her aura in damage. "If you don't start fighting back, I'll end up slowly whittling you down, Valkyrie! Come on already! Show me that crazy side that eliminated my partner!", Reginald calls out to her, to which she finally snaps.
The ginger raises her hammer up into the air and with a furious battle cry slams it right into the ground, sending herself flying up into the air and helping her escaping his cage of wires. Nora keeps pulling the trigger, causing herself to spin violently through the air as she builds up even more momentum as she falls down at Reginald.
Reginald, though he should be worried, only smile at this and shouts, "Yes! Show me what you can do, Valkyrie!", as he weaves his wires around, creating an impenetrable wall around himself.
The hammer-wielding girl lets out a furious roar as she slams her hammer down with all her might, clashing weapons with Reginald and sending a powerful shockwave through the arena. She only grits her teeth in frustration at the sight of her weapon stopped by Reginald's barrier. "Looks like it wasn't enough, huh!", Reginald gloats before unleashing his wires on her, trying to cut her, but she only pulls the trigger on her weapon again, sending both of them flying back and blowing off ten percent of Reginald's aura.
As she backflips away, she manages to stick her landing as she lands with her hammer resting on her shoulder. "Had enough yet?", Nora confidently asks the boy, but Reginald only lets out a confusing laugh. Suddenly the boy puts his hands together, seeming to pray as he says, "There truly are Gods in this world! If you're listening to me, thank you both very much for this wonderful sight I've seen blessed with today!"
"What are you-", she begins to ask before the boy points at her and says, "I honestly expected better panties, but as my father always said: 'Panties are all equal.'" As Nora hears this, her face turns red with embarrassment and he continues, saying, "But really? Pink? Could you choose a more girly color?"
"Mister Wolfe! Though I do have faith that this kind of strategy is very effective on the battlefield, I will not have any of it in my classroom, understand? Talking about a woman's undergarments is simply inappropriate!", Goodwitch shouts his name before scolding the boy, to which he only laughs and says, "Fine, but I'm still saving that one in the spank bank."
Sapphire simply growls under her breath as hears this, saying to herself, "I'll have to have a talk with him later...but for now, I have my hands full." With her mind back on the fight, the azure swordswoman rushes towards Jaune with her semblance activated, seeing every movement he'll make before he can think about making them. "He's going to-", she begins to think as she observes every movement of his body before finishing, shouting, "There!"
With a swipe from the two swords in her left hand, she manages to knock away his defenses with a well placed combination of Wind and Fire Dust, causing a small explosion that knocks the shield off his arm, leaving him with only his sword to defend himself. "This is checkmate, Jaune!", Sapphire exclaims before unleashing her powerful blades upon the boy. The inexperienced warrior surprises her as he's quick enough to block a few of her aura boosted strikes, but ultimately takes all of his aura in one powerful combination of furious slashes and burns, leaving him with only ten percent of his aura left.
The buzzer quickly sounds and as Goodwitch announces his elimination from the match, Jaune's left baffled, looking up at Sapphire from the ground, thinking, "So this is the strongest fighter from Signal Academy, the only person to ever beat Pyrrha in a fight... She really is strong."
"Now to deal with her.", Sapphire growls to herself as she rushes over to Ash's side to help fight Pyrrha.
Unleashing a full on assault on his enemy, Ash launches wave after wave of his aura blades down on Pyrrha, forcing the warrior to block whichever ones she can't evade as the two fighters circle one another, looking for an opening in the other's defenses. When Pyrrha's aura starts to fail her, Ash finally sees this as the opening he needs and quickly shoots out five more swords before rushing towards the crimson warrior, using his blades as cover for his assault.
Pyrrha slashes down the blades with her javelin, shattering them as the metal blade makes contact with the boy's aura attacks, but she's forced to block with her shield when Ash launches his Dragoon at her, flicking the guard of the sword with enough force to launch the blade at her like a deadly projectile that bounces off of it and flips up into the air. The mummy boy uses this opening to sidestep around the girl and unleash a powerful bash from his sheath onto Pyrrha from behind, taking her aura down ten more percent.
The crimson-haired girl goes to counter attack him, but his Dragoon finally comes down and lands in his open left hand, allowing him to block her attack with his blade as he counters with his sheath. Pyrrha manages to block his sheath with her shield, but is surprised by when she's slashed across the back. She quickly glances back to see Sapphire behind her with her swords twirling in her fingers. "She's already beaten Jaune!?", Pyrrha thinks in a panic before being cut down to five percent of her aura from a series of slices from the two swordsmen. The buzzer sounds yet again and Glynda announces that Pyrrha is officially eliminated.
As Nora battles against Reginald, he manages to wrap his wires around her, binding her arms and legs together as he suspends her mere inches in the air. She goes to pull her trigger, aiming to fire off a shot to free herself, but she's met with two blades to her throat as Sapphire says, "I don't think so."
Nora gives the threatening leader and her partner a nervous laugh as she looks back and forth between the two. "Welp, I give up.", she admits as she drops her weapon in defeat.
"Nora Valkyrie forfeits, so team SAPR wins the match!", Goodwitch announces and as Reginald releases the girl from his wires, causing her to land on her feet. As they all walk out of the arena, joining their respective teams, Goodwitch announces to the class, "That will be it for the day, class. I was quite impressed by everyone's performance today, especially you Mister Arc. In all honesty, I didn't expect you to make it this far this year, but it would appear I truly underestimated you."
With classes over, team JNPR and SAPR sit down across from one another as they eat their lunches in the cafeteria. Persi sits down next to his partner with a sigh before looking to his team and saying, "Sorry about that guys. I got careless."
"Don't worry about it. You tried your best and that's all that matters.", Sapphire tells him as she waves her fork at him as she chews her lettuce.
Reginald nods and adds, "It was a dangerous strategy, but a damned good one if you ask me. Who expects you to blow yourself up as a distraction?"
"See? He thinks it was a good idea!", Nora points out as she turns to Ren, who only shakes his head in disapproval.
Ash glances over to Persi and suggests, "You should work on your defense more. You already have an outstanding offense, but it means nothing if you're easily caught off guard and cut down."
As the teens hear this, everyone seems to give him confused looks as the mummy looking boy simply returns to his meditation before Jaune says, "Well, I'm glad that everyone seems to be getting along again. I was worried we'd have drama at the table every day or something."
"Did someone say drama?", Yang asks as she sits down next to Ash, disrupting the boy's concentration as she lazily drops her tray next to his. They all glance over to her and see she's also brought the almost all of her team with her, with the exception of Weiss of course, who join the other teams at the table.
Ash simply returns to his meditation as he asks, "Is Weiss still refusing to speak with Ruby then?", to which Yang lets out an exhausted sigh.
"I don't know what's gotten into her, but she's been even ruder than usual, if that's even possible. Since we went to the Forever Fall, she refuses to talk to any of us. She's really getting on my nerves.", the blonde replies as she stabs into her meatloaf with her fork.
Ruby and Blake sit across from the blonde and to Jaune's left as the girl in red says, "She's refused to interact with us at all for the past few days. She's been sitting across the room from us during all our classes, not coming home after classes, she won't even look at any of the messages that we send her over our scrolls, it's that bad..."
"That's a Schnee for you. They think they're still right even after they've been proven wrong.", Reginald notes before taking a sip of his water to wash down his fries. As he does this, he hears Persi growling under his breath, and when he looks over at his partner, he sees out of the corner of his eyes that Cardin is bullying Velvet again. The brute aggressively tugs on the poor bunny girl's ears, pulling them in separate directions as he looks on with a sadistic smile, though his teammates only look on with worried looks.
"Jaune...", Blake suddenly says as she turns to the boy, causing him to jump slight before turning to her to see what she wants. She gives the blonde leader a worried glance and begs him, saying, "Could you please do something to stop him? At this rate he's going to tear her ears off..."
"I-I can't... I'm sorry.", Jaune replies as he looks away from the dusk colored girl, frowning at his own reflection in his glass, causing the girl to shift her glare to him.
"Why not?", Blake snaps back as her request shifts into a demand and her gentle gaze turns into a stern glare.
Glancing up from his food to the girl, Jaune looks back down at his plate and softly replies with, "It's too soon. This deal that I have with Cardin isn't even a week old and if I start pushing for him to stop hurting people I don't have any relationships with, he'll likely snap and get us both kicked out. I can't do that."
Unable to just standby and do nothing, Persi growls under his breath and fires back with, "Well, we can't just sit here doing nothing!", before going to stand up, but stops as his partner pulls him back down into his seat.
Persi glares over at Reginald, who only gives him a cold glare and says, "You're not thinking straight, Persi. If you go charging in, you'll only get yourself in trouble."
"Then what would you do then? Just sit here and try to look up her skirt?", Persi replies in his rage, but Reginald just chuckles at this.
The thread weaver reaches into his pockets and pulls out a lighter, to which Pyrrha give him a confused glance. "Even though I can easily bet Velvet has a nice pair on right now, that's not what I'm interested in. We need to be a bit more precise with our movements here. We can't risk starting a big fight, but that doesn't mean we just do nothing. I can piss him off a bit, but you better be ready to move when the party starts.", Reginald replies as he pulls a pack of cigarettes from his inner vest pocket.
Pyrrha gives the boy a concerned look before asking, "Cigarettes? You do know those things will kill you just as quick as the Grimm, right?"
Reginald lets out a slight chuckle as he lights himself a cigarette and says, "Well, these aren't exactly your everyday ordinary cigarettes Pyrrha. Let's just say they're my little ace in the hole..." "Boss, are you alright with this?", Reginald questions his leader as he glances over to her, to which she nods and says, "As long as you keep it clean and don't get yourself in too much trouble, do what you must."
With that said, Reginald happily grins as he stands from his seat before winking at his partner and casually walking over to team CRDL's table. When he reaches the team of bullies, the boy takes the cigarette out of his mouth and taps some of the ashes onto Cardin as he mockingly says, "If it isn't Team Chicken! How've ya been? Haven't seen too much of you guys since the Forever Fall trip!"
Cardin glares over at the boy, seeing the irritating boy's grin before getting blinded by a puff of smoke to the face. Cardin quickly reaches out to grab the boy, but Reginald manages to pull back quick enough to avoid his grasp. "You little-", Cardin begins to growl before Reginald cuts him off, saying, "Oh, what is it Cardin? Can't catch little old me so you have to resort to beating on helpless girls? How pathetic~ I guess that Ursa did more than knock your mace off the cliff, it also took your manhood. If you're really this weak, do you honestly think that you have any right to call yourself a huntsman?"
Furious with the boy's mocking, Cardin growls back, "Well if I'm so weak, then what right does someone who refuses to fight have to come to a school built around fighting? You wanna answer that wise guy?"
The tyrant is left surprised when a familiar voice tells him, "More of a right than some racist pig like you!", and when he turns around, he sees Blake and Persi helping Velvet, guiding the Faunus girl over to RWBY's table.
"Where do you think you're taking her?", Cardin growls, furious that he was tricked so easily.
Persi quickly fires back, "As far away from you as possible, ya fucking sadist."
Cardin chuckles at this and shrugs as he says, "Well, who really cares about you filthy Faunus anyways? You're all just a bunch of toys for me to use at my leisure."
"What makes you think you can just do these kinds of things to her!? I'm sick of it!", Yang shouts as she stands up against Cardin and his racism, slamming her fists on the table as she stands from her seat.
They're all surprised when they hear a familiar, cold voice say to them, "Well, it's only natural after all." Yang quickly glares over at the source to see it was Weiss, who just got her lunch and searching for a seat. "Though his behavior is definitely boarish to say the least, the fact that Velvet didn't stand up to him is because it's in her blood. But I guess I shouldn't expect you of all people to know that, Yang.", Weiss explains, causing the blonde to growl in her rage.
Yang quickly gets in the heiress' face, grabbing the girl by her dress shirt and growling, "And what exactly do ya mean by that? Are you calling me stupid or something?"
Weiss isn't phased by this in the slightest however and simply replies, "No, just ignorant. Most of these studies were done in Atlas, so they probably aren't too well known here in Vale. It's simply childish, misguided thought that anyone in their right mind would put Faunus on the same level as humans when it's scientifically proven that they aren't. That's why people like the White Fang devolved into tantrum throwing babies that had to set fires and kill innocent people to get things done. They're nothing more than animals if you ask me."
Yang and Blake are both left speechless when they hear their teammate say this, their eyes widening in shock and disbelief as Persi just growls at the snow-colored girl and takes Velvet to the safety of their friends' table. As Yang tightens her grasp on the pale girl, she shouts, "How could you think that!? We're supposed to help people, no matter who or what they are! And you're just gonna sit there and call them animals!? That's...that's just wrong!"
Weiss quickly shoves Yang away with an aura powered push, breaking the blonde's grip on her shirt and as she adjusts it back to acceptable standards, she scolds the blonde, saying, "I guess you're just another one of those simpletons who just refuse to accept the truth then."
As Ruby speeds out the door, using her semblance to move as quickly as possible, Sapphire finally puts her two cents into the conversation as she stands up from her seat and walks over to the group. As the azure warrior stands in front of the snow-colored princess, she looks down at her and tells the heiress, "If that's how you really feel, Weiss, all I can say is 'wow.' As a member of the Schnee family, you have a lot of influence over those that look up to you, yet you can't even see what's wrong with what you're saying about Faunus as a whole. Honestly, I'm disappointed."
As Weiss hears this, she reels back in slight shock at the unbeatable warrior's comment as her hands begin to tremble a bit, but Cardin takes a step towards Sapphire, saying, "Weiss knows what she's talking about, you one-eyed freak. She's easily one of if not the smartest person in our class, so I don't think you should be talking to her like that. If you keep this up, I might just use you as my next punching bag."
"I'd like to see you try.", Sapphire growls as she glares over at the boy with her fist clenched tight, ready to wail the boy if he so much as blinks at her the wrong way.
Sensing the tension has risen far too high, Jaune quickly moves in between the two leaders and says, "Alright, that's it. Back off Cardin, I mean it."
Cardin just growls at this, clenching his fist as he tells his 'old friend', "You can't protect your little friends forever, Jaune."
"He doesn't have to. Well, at least not while we're still here.", a voice calls out from the cafeteria entrance and when they all look, they see it's Coco, who's brought the rest of her team with her. As they walk into the cafeteria, Ruby walks in behind them, out of breath and gasping for air as she holds onto the doorway for support. "So I heard you were bullying my little bun-bun, Mister Winchester. Now, we can't have that going on now, can we? If you want someone to spar and train against, how about you try your hands against our boy Yatsuhashi here? He's more than interested in having a nice light scuffle with you~", Coco says as she and her team walk over to Cardin, causing the boy only to glare at them in frustration.
Cardin goes to say something but stops when he feels a stern hand on his shoulder, to which he quickly turns to see Russel looking to him before shaking his head no. "Screw you guys, I have money.", Cardin growls before storming off with his team behind him, but the argument doesn't end there.
Weiss lets out a sigh of relief and says, "Finally, that boar left. He's about as temperamental as those dirty Faunus.", much to Coco's confusion.
"The dirty what now?", Coco asks with a confused glance at the girl as she looks over her sunglasses at Weiss.
Weiss claps her hands together happily before saying, "Coco, you're originally from Atlas as well, correct? Then you know about the Faunus studies as well? Tell them I'm not making them up and how they prove Faunus have natural submissive tendencies towards humans."
"Well, I'm from a more southern part of the continent and I lived most of my life here, but I guess that kind of counts. But to answer your question, yeah, I know about the studies, but that doesn't mean I agree with them.", Coco answers her 'little sister,' causing the girl to pout in disappointment.
Reginald chuckles at the girl's expression and adds, "Besides, don't you think that using those studies is kind of cheating? Your family's company did fund them after all. They're full of all kinds of bias and one-sidedness."
"How could you be so openly racist!? We're talking about an entire species here! And you'd just label them as animals because your rigged studies say that because Faunus look like animals, that they're clearly animals!?", Blake exclaims as she moves to fight Weiss and her racist attitude.
As she meets Blake's stern gaze with a scowl, Weiss quickly bites back, "It's science! Have you seen the White Fang? Have you seen what they've done!? They're nothing more than animals that only know how to lie, steal, and kill to get what they want."
"The White Fang are simply a group of misguided Faunus, they don't represent them as a whole.", Blake quickly replies, earning a shocked look from the heiress.
"Misguided? They want to wipe Humanity off the face of Remnant!", Weiss shoots back, to which Blake quickly replies, "So then they're very misguided! Either way, that doesn't give you the right to call all Faunus filthy, disgusting, or anything else for that matter." "Oh yeah? What about that filthy ape from the boat? That degenerate fleebag was breaking the law and stealing, so would you call that a prime example of your idea of 'Average Faunus,' Blake?", Weiss mockingly questions her teammate, causing the dusk-colored girl to growl with frustration.
"Stop it!", Blake explodes, causing the whole cafeteria to go silent. Blake marches towards Weiss as she growls, "Stop calling him a filthy ape! Stop calling him a degenerate fleebag! He's a PERSON!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, would you like me to stop referring to the trashcan as a trashcan or this table as a table? That's what he is, Blake, get over it.", Weiss sarcastically replies, only infuriating the Faunus supporter even further.
"Just stop it Weiss!", Persi growls, as he marches towards her.
"What are you going to do, bear your fangs and claws like the animal you are? You'd just be proving me right.", Weiss quickly fires back, causing the boy to take a step back, to which the girl grins. She points to him as she turns to Blake and says, "See? Natural submissive behavior right before our eyes."
"Hardly, that's just Persi showing the last bit of self restraint he has left. But I guess when you have such a big head like yourself, you have to take everything you see as evidence that you're right all the time, huh?", Reginald mocks the thick-headed girl as he drops his burnt out cigarette in Cardin's drink and rejoins the discussion.
"Ooo, I better watch out, huh? He might go berserk and run off to join the White Fang like those other filthy Faunus.", Weiss sarcastically adds, growing sick of Reginald's teasing.
Blake finally snaps when she hears Weiss' childish comment and shouts, "You're such a brat!", before marching off back to their dorm.
As Blake leaves, everyone's left in shock and Weiss chases after her, saying, "Where do you think you're going!? How dare you talk to me, Weiss Schnee, like that!? Come back here you!"
"You're just a judgmental little girl!", Blake shouts back, not even turning around as she continues on her path.
Their argument continues back and forth throughout the entire school, following the group of teens all the way back to team RWBY's dorm room with members of both RWBY and SAPR chiming in, trying to show Weiss their point, but to no avail. "I don't understand why this is causing such a problem!", Weiss exclaims in her frustration as the sun begins to set and the orange beams of light start to beam in through their open window.
Persi quickly growls to himself before shouting back at her, "That is the problem!"
"You do understand that you all are defending an organization that hates Humanity, don't you? They're a terrorist organization full of thieves and murderers! The Faunus of the White Fang are pure evil!", Weiss tells them all, to which Ash chimes in for the first time throughout this discussion, saying, "There's no such thing as 'Pure Evil,' only those who see different lights in the darkness."
Blake quickly stands from her bed with her finger pointed at Weiss as she says, "Why do you think the White Fang hates Humanity so much!? It's because of people like Cardin, people like YOU who force the White Fang to such drastic measures!"
"People like me!?", Weiss asks, offended by her statement before Blake fires back, saying, "You're discriminatory!" "I'm a victim!", Weiss shouts back at her, desperately trying to defend herself. The heiress takes a few steps towards the window and looks out towards the now set sun, seeing the starts start to come out as she says, "Do you want to know why I despise the White Fang? Do you want to know why I particularly trust these, these fleebags!?" "It's because they've been at war with my family for years. War, as in actual bloodshed. My grandfather's company has had a target painted on its back for as long as I can remember. And ever since I was a child, I've watched family friends who loved to hear me sing disappear, butlers never returning with their warm smiles and kind words, board members who'd always tell me jokes and stories...executed...an entire train car full of dust..stolen. And every day my father would come home more furious than the last, and that made for a VERY difficult childhood.", Weiss admits dramatically as she pounds her fist against the window seal in her rage.
Ruby goes to comfort her with a gently hand on her shoulder, but Weiss slaps it away, shouting, "No!" The princess swiftly marches over to Blake and growls, "Do you want to know why I hate them!? It's because they're nothing to me but a bunch of liars, thieves, and murderers!"
"Well maybe we were just tired of being pushed around!", Blake exclaims, catching everyone off guard and leaving them dazed.
Reginald is the first to recover from the shock, only glaring over at the suspicious girl as her eyes widen in horror at what she just admitted to. "We?", the boy questions her as he releases his wires from his gloves. As she sees the boy's glare burning bright with his fury, Blake goes to rush out the door, but Reginald seals it shut with his wires, saying, "So you've been a member of the White Fang this whole time. I should've picked up on that sooner."
Blake frantically looks around at her teammates and as Yang simply mutters, "Blake?", the girl rushes past the blonde, shoving her into Reginald as she seems to speed towards Weiss. Weiss, unarmed as she left her Myrtenaster on her bed, puts up her aura and prepares for the worst, but only gets shoved away as Blake leaps out the open window.
Yang rushes to the window, shouting, "Blake, wait!", as she reaches her hand out for the girl, but can only watch helplessly as her partner rides down the side of a nearby tree to the ground and runs off, not even taking a second to look back at her.
As Blake runs around the side of the Academy, she finds herself at the main courtyard standing in front of a great statue of a team of Huntsmen standing on top of a defeated Grimm. She looks down at a plaque on the statue, which reads, "Together we stand united as one to fight a common enemy. That is what true strength is." As she reads this, tears start to well up in her eyes and she takes out her signature black bow, revealing her black cat ears to the twinkling stars above. The girl holds the ribbon in her hand as she wipes away the tears in her eyes with the other.
To her surprise, a kind voice calls out to her, saying, "I knew you'd look better without the bow.", to which she turns to them and smile.