This is starting to become less and less fun with each chapter, and I'm not just referring to this fic either.
Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth, and man are they enjoying playing our heart strings like fiddles.
Bálor would sigh happily as he tore into another meat kabob, grateful that he had found the stand stuck away in a far corner of the fairgrounds, he didn't even mind that the others around him were talking loudly as they discussed RWBY's victory and the awesomeness that came with it.
"Should've known you would find a place to lay low, definitely a Charging Wolf at heart." A lovely female voice would speak calmly as she sat down next to him, holding up two fingers as two glasses of cola were slid her way. "You've done well for yourself Baby B…"
The wolf would drop the kabob he was eating from as the cold realization dawned on him, there were only two people in his life that would ever refer to him by such a silly name and the first was probably cavorting with her teammates. "I'm not going back Sis, I may not belong here at Beacon much these days but at least here I won't be killed on sight." He would drum his fingers on the counter in irritation before throwing down some Lien and preparing to leave, scanning the area for any more members of the old squadron even as the woman would stand up and place a hand on his shoulder.
"You can calm down Bálor the others aren't here, some bigwig demanded that they take out a Schnee Factory or three in the desert since everyone at Atlas is distracted with this tourney. Leaving me to hitch a ride out here and-" She wouldn't get a chance to finish her sentence as the cloaked woman would be forced to catch his fist with one hand before wrapping him in a choke hold and dragging him off to a more private clearing. "Geez, I figured that you still had a short fuse but this is just stupid!" The woman would lower the hood of her cloak by shaking her head slightly, before using her free hand to relieve Shadow Waltz from its sheathe and gently kicking him away.
"That doesn't belong to you!" The irate Faunus would whirl around to find himself face to face with a rather tall lynx-Faunus, her platinum blonde hair hanging just past her shoulders as sea green eyes stared back into his amber ones. "Give it back Memilora!" The wolf Faunus would whimper as the taller woman kept the black blade well out of his reach, even as he tried to jump and grab it. "I hate that you're a fucking Amazon-" Bálor would yelp as Memilora brought Waltz's hilt down on his head.
"Hey! The Amazon's are a proud warrior race, and I will NOT have you insult them you little shit!" Memilora (or Memi, as close friends referred to her.) would watch as her adopted young brother rubbed the top of his head with a sly smile before admiring the blade she had taken from him. "Not too shabby little bro, weight's a little heavy on the hilt but you could use the workout." The lynx would toss his weapon back to him, grinning proudly as the wolf caught the blade without looking and re-sheathed it.
Clearly this time at Beacon was paying off well for him.
"Why the heck are you even here Memi, I doubt the higher-ups would volunteer a team of assassins to compete in the Vytal Festival. Pretty sure you guys would clean house anyways." The amber eyed young man would watch as his older sibling merely rolled her eyes and gestured for him to follow her back to the fairgrounds, leaving the young man growling at his unanswered question. "Honestly sis I've been doing great since I left home: I finally ditched the headphones, the stupid wrestling mannerisms, I even had a girlfriend for a bit."
This would cause the fair-haired Faunus to raise a curious eyebrow at that last statement as she held up two fingers once again while perusing the bare bones menu. "What do you mean "had"? 'Had' implies that you managed to fuck it up somehow." Memi would look over at the wide-eyed wolf Faunus as she drummed her fingers along the countertop in a similar manner whenever he was annoyed, it was a clear sign that he should phrase his answer very carefully. "W-well you see sis, it started out right as rain: Long romantic walks, tender moments, ya know all that wonderful stuff." The silver-haired young man would eye the lynx cautiously as she carefully sipped her drink and awaited the end of his tale. "It turns out that in the end we just weren't compatible, you should know how that goes sis. I mean you've expelled more cadets from your unit then any commander in the history of Vacuo, it's actually kind of a miracle that I managed to make it through."
Memi would nod quietly as she slid him a meat kabob and watched him tear into it happily, making sure to watch carefully as he finished every last scrap of it before speaking. "Yes, it truly was a miracle how you managed to survive my basic training drills. Walking hot coals barefoot, commando crawling under barb wire, and let's not forget my favorite daily activity: The Circle of Death." The few Faunus brave enough to sit around them would instinctively give her a wide berth, the more cowardly individuals suddenly asking for their bill or outright bolting at the menacing vibes the lynx was emanating. "I enjoyed watching my bloodthirsty little cub mercilessly beat the daylights out of his opponents while having the confidence to hold himself to a respectable standard." Memilora would sigh and pull out a fistful of Lien out of her pocket before placing it gently down next to her empty kabob skewers before standing up slowly from her stool and walking over to her adoptive younger brother and placing a hand on his shoulder. "And yet you're telling me that you just. Weren't. Compatible?" The grip on the young man's shoulder would tighten painfully as the wolf Faunus bit his lip to avoid screaming in agony, her nails digging through the Academy uniform. "I taught you better then that you little idiot! You ingratiate yourself into the environment, adapt to the situation and earn the trust of your peers!" The feline Faunus would hiss suddenly as a flurry of rose petals flooded her vision before feeling a blast of cold air hitting her face, soon Memilora would find herself face-to-face with the heiress of the SDC and a peculiar little crimsonette-haired girl. "And just what do these two idiots want?"
"I can't believe you were right about the mutt being in trouble, there's no way you could've possibly known that without having some kind of Faunus hearing." Weiss would fold her arms and stare at the lynx Faunus cautiously without flinching. "This woman, she's definitely not the type to be trifled with..I can feel it in her gaze, she's about as father is on a GOOD day." The heiress would watch as her partner walked over to a clearly pained wolf-Faunus and gently helping him to his feet as the young man blushed visibly, the second Faunus noticing this as well and letting out a slight hiss of disgust before raising the hood of her cloak and sauntering off. "You're a disgrace to the Vacuan military, and to Faunus in general." The three of them would watch as the cold-heated female soldier walk away until finally disappearing from their sight, Ruby would look up at her silver-haired friend with a frown before deciding to break the silence with the most obvious of questions.
"You okay?" The little red hood would examine her silver-haired wolf friend closely and frown noticing the gashes in his uniform, wishing that she could do something to help mend the wounds.
"The only thing wounded here is my fucking pride little Rose-" Bálor would stop and shake his head as he took a shaky breath. "Sorry about the language ladies, I just don't like it when my past decides to make a visit." Weiss would raise a curious eyebrow at this statement, watching as the wounds slowly turned from bright red to a pale salmon and finally settling back to his normal skin tone. "I don't get why your aura doesn't kick in faster, if it were Ruby or I who had contracted those wounds they would be mended in seconds." The pale-haired young woman would watch his expression harden somewhat before his amber eyes fixed themselves upon her. "What, you've got a problem with what I'm telling you?" The wolf Faunus would sigh and bury his hands in his pockets as he did before letting himself relax and put on a lopsided smile, causing the normally stoic Huntress to frown quizzically.
"No princess, in fact what you said about aura would be on point: Depending on the strength and volume of one's aura minor wounds are at best a minor inconvenience, but I was trained differently back in Vacuo. We used our aura to maximize our destructive capabilities in the event we were ever faced with a threat, be it Grimm or Human." Weiss would shake her head slowly as the wolf finally went silent, knowing better than to let the information she had been given rattle her in any way. "You really expect me to believe that you can use your aura to become some walking manifestation of a one man army? Because if that's the case then I call horseshit!" The heiress would march up to him and glare him down to the best of her ability, waiting for the amber-eyed young man to start snarling and lash out in anger. "You're had plenty of opportunities to use this so-called super strength to completely cripple ALL of Team CRDL, end the fight with Blake without even breaking a sweat, and do I dare even mention that blasted assassin situation!? Why not use this Godlike power then?" He could feel Ruby's grip on his uninjured shoulder tighten, a silent plea for him not to lose his cool and attack her partner and friend.
"First of all Weiss, it's nowhere near Godlike levels of power..at best it's at least twice the power of an experienced Huntsman, say someone like Ruby and Yang's dad. As for why I haven't used it..the simple truth is that I can't." This would earn him a snort of skepticism from the wealthy Huntress, who seemed even more irritated then before the conversation had begun. "You have every right to look at me like some kind of a liar Weiss but Ozpin and Goodwitch have had every medical test they could think of on me and even they can't figure out why I can't fully draw out my aura!" The crimsonette's grip on him would tighten once again as his body tensed with anger, instead he would roll up his sleeves to above the elbow as various puncture marks would be visible. Ruby would gasp audibly at the sight while the heiress remained deathly quiet in anticipation of some tear-riddled explanation. "For the last six months I've been put through a sick gauntlet of never-ending blood tests, EKG scans, ink blot tests, and about every other stereotypical medical exam you girls can think of, to say I'm incredibly tired at this point is an understatement." The trio had since begun walking toward the arena as he had continued to talk, although Weiss continued to keep a skeptic frown upon her face.
"Have you slept much since we got back, or have you been busy working on our you-know-what?" She would notice the sword sheathe and the intricate pattern built into it, wondering how he had managed to craft the design amidst all of the various other issues he had posed during the design phase. "I mean I could've come down to the forge and given you a hand, I did build Crescent Rose after all." Ruby's cheeks would rouge with pride and adoration for her precious weapon which was resting safely in its own holster of sorts.
"I'm aware of that my dear and as much as I wanted to at times during construction, I needed to do this on my own." He would look over at a visibly annoyed Schnee with a bit of a carefree smile before taking one of their hands in each of his, only to have the pale-haired girl pull away with a huff while Ruby's blush deepened visibly. "Besides, how can I look myself in the mirror and call myself an honest-to-goodness Huntsman if I were to go into battle with a weapon I didn't craft myself." Bálor could feel Ruby's hand squeeze his own abnormally hard, even as she kept a pleasant smile upon her face. "Design phase obviously being the exception of course!" He had yet to reveal that his Shadow Waltz pretty much stood as the antithesis to the Variable Sword that the two of them designed together, often spending long nights arguing over basic things like sword length, weight, and at one point even the color of the blade itself.
Weiss would groan as the two of them continued to talk excitedly amongst themselves, their pace beginning to slow as the duo got wrapped up in the conversation. "As much as I hate to break up the mutual love-fest between weapon geeks, we really need to pick up the pace before Team JNPR's match begins!" The heiress's stern voice would kill the frantic but happy discussion outright as the human-Faunus duo immediately reached for Weiss's hands before giving her a chance to protest.
"Gun it Rubes!" The wolf Faunus would grin as his crimsonette-haired comrade would use her Semblance to propel the three of them forward.
Meanwhile Blake and Yang would be standing outside of the arena as they were more or less forced to wait for their missing teammates, but this would be the least of the feline Faunus's worries as the normally talkative and outgoing brawler was abnormally quiet for the entirety of the walk over. "Alright, what happened this time? Did he finally go off the deep end and insult your hair, because if that's the case I'm really wondering how he's still breathing." Sure it was a lame duck joke, but her partner always had immense pride in her gorgeous golden locks and heaven help the poor soul who messed with a single strand of it. But the lilac eyed Huntress would continue to stare off into space as she was lost in her own thoughts, leaving Blake to shake her head and deliberately stand in front of Yang and clap her hands loudly in front of the blonde's face to shock her back to reality. "Yang, what in the world is the matter with you? You've been acting out of sorts ever since we won earlier."
The pun-loving pugilist would sigh and shake her head as she leaned against a nearby tree and frown in thought. "Things have just been weird between we and Mercury lately, up until the last few days before the Vytal Festival we would always be together and if we couldn't do that we always messaged each other back and forth." Yang would ball up a fist as she stared at her feet, as thoughts of the silver-haired rogue ran through her mind which unfortunately brought up the other individual in her life who sported similar hair. "Hey Blake…what do you think of Bálor, as a person I mean?"
This question clearly caught the feline Faunus off-guard for a brief moment before shaking her head absentmindedly, crossing her arms and closing her eyes in thought.
"He's a little bit on the obnoxious side, stubborn, had an unhealthy obsession with wrestling until recently, is prone to outbursts of random anger-" Blake would stop talking once she sensed something whizzing by them at a fast pace. "Umm, I think Ruby and Weiss just passed us by. Either that or we've got some very strange wind patterns going on today."
Yang would sigh and start walking into the arena with her partner following behind with a quizzical expression on her face before noticing the scent of another Faunus nearby, her hand quickly reaching for Gambol Shroud only to remember that it wasn't on her after the fight. "What the hell is going on, and why can't anyone else sense this?" The feline would shake her head and continue her walk into the arena, quickly finding the rest of her team sitting in the seats reserved for participants as Professor Port began to announce the participants for the next match.
"Team JNPR of Beacon versus Team BRNZ of Shade!" The crowd would roar loudly in anticipation of the upcoming bout, even Ruby would be cheering happily.
Memilora would sigh as she strolled through the forest surrounding the fairgrounds, having observed the comings-and-goings of the four individuals connected to her adopted sibling. "They're nothing too special, trust me when I tell you that when the big boss gives us our cue…we can take them out." On the surface, she would be talking to herself like someone who'd gone mad. "For now, the little dunce believes I'm here for a friendly visit and that no one from Vacuo has him in their crosshairs." One by one cloaked individuals would appear in the trees above her, one of them clutching a stuffed bunny to their chest as if the world were about to end.
"Personally if it were up to me, I would've just dragged him back here and given him a well-deserved blanket party. But orders are orders, and we are to wait until given our instructions." The lynx Faunus would remove a Grimm mask from behind her back and carefully place it over her face, obscuring the devilish smirk playing across her face.
This chapter was a certifiable nightmare to go through, it figures that the one time where I get to ignore the show's Canon and focus on what I established in previous stories is when my oh-so-glorious Depression kicks in! If this chapter isn't up to snuff for what you're used to from me, then I understand and accept it. This isn't the first time my so-called mental state decided to wreak havoc on my writing and it won't be the last, I did have to rewrite a portion of Weiss and Ruby's involvement to edit out further villainizing of everyone's favorite heiress. Granted, outside of "Addiction", she and Bálor aren't exactly going to be besties after what went down throughout Conversations but fuck it. Even bitter rivals could learn to be civil for the sake of a mutual friend.