Chapter 4: Team DARN's Studying Techniques
"And so, thanks to both parties' hard work, the Treaty of Vale was signed, which marked the end of the Faunus war." Professor Oobleck explained to his class, rushing to write down notes on the board for his students to take down, and the students frantically scribbled down in their copies. All that is, except for DARN.
Drew was staring across the room, blushing and grinning like an idiot as he stared at team RWBY. Richard was cradling his head in his hands, recovering from a night of drinking. Nina was in fact scribbling in her notebook... scribbling doodles of small stick figures and animals. Richard took out ruler out of his bag and was measuring distance his books were form the edges of his desk. For tidiness' sake.
"Team DARN, are you paying attention?" Oobleck asked, now standing in front of their desk.
"Nope!" Nina chirped honestly, causing all the other students to giggle and the other members of her team to glare angrily at her.
"Miss Crusher, tell me, on what date did the battle of Fort Castle take place?" Oobleck questioned.
"A Monday!" she answered, completely serious. Again, most of the class laughed.
"Mister Roland." Oobleck moved to the next student.
"Sir!" Richard stood up, attentively.
"What was the main reason of General Lagune's failure at the battle of Fort Castle?"
"I do not know!" he replied formally. Again, the class giggled.
"I see." Richard sat down. "Mister Heartly?"
"Huh?" Arin looked at his teacher through his fingers.
"Approximately what size was the Faunus Resistance's army?"
"Hell if I know..."
"I see... and Mister Naywing?"
"Y-Yes!" Drew nervously stood up.
"Why was Laurel Flosion chosen as a the Faunus representative during the signing of the peace treaty?"
"Uhm... well... because... she had cat ears and cat ears are cute?" he answered. Once again, the rest of the class laughed at his ridiculous answer. All except one student.
"I see, so you students aren't up to scratch with your history..." The high-paced professor concluded.
"We... aren't that bad, are we?" Drew pleaded.
"You'll have to prove it to me then." Oobleck smirked.
"This is gonna end badly, isn't it?..." Arin sighed.
"Tomorrow, on Saturday, I'll take the four of you in to take a test on chapter 8."
"Nailed it~!" Arin cried in sarcastic happiness.
The door of DARN's dorm swung open. The four teammates walked in, tired and exhausted after a long day of school. Nina immediately ran to her bed and pulled out a metal cage from under her bed, which she has decided shall house Moonmon during their school days. Richard sat down on his bed and pulled a small notebook and pencil. He flicked though the pages ans started scribbling. "3:40: arrive back at base..." Arin immediately dropped his bag at the door and made his way to the team's mini fridge.
They all left Drew standing in the doorway. "Uhh, guys?" Everyone turned their heads to their leader, momentarily stopping their activities. "Shouldn't we, y'know, be studying? Y'know, for the test."
"That is an appropriate suggestion." Richard agreed.
"I call Moomoon as my study partner!" Nina held her baby wolf high in the air.
"Unacceptable! A Beowolf is insufficient when it comes to these matters!" Richard bellowed in response.
"Well, despite these two's hysterics..." Drew sighed then turned his attention to Arin, who was still snooping about in the fridge. "Shall we get to work?"
"Like hell I'll get to work with you!" Arin pulled his head out of the box and stood tall above Drew, wearing a frown. Arin was always grumpy, always frowning. But this one was different to his usual uninterested, judgementive look.
"Ah... You're angry, aren't you?" Drew concluded, stroking his chin like some mastermind detective who had deduced a problem.
"Well done Holmes! What else can you tell me?!" Arin grabbed a can of beer from the fridge's door and violently closed the door shut.
"Well, the most recent event that would indic-"
"God! Shut up!" Arin smacked his leader on the head. "It's because of you idiots that my Saturday is ruined!"
"Hey now, you didn't get the answer right too!" Drew countered.
"Indeed. You are as much to blame as the rest of us." Richard decided to add to the conversation.
"Yeah, but if it wasn't for Ditsy-Ass McGee over here, we wouldn't be in this situation!" Arin gestured to Nina, who was caught up teaching the important dates of the Faunus war to Moonmoon. Moonmoon just growled back at her.
"So what? Get mad at her." Drew suggested.
"She isn't the only one of yous who's a total pain..." Arin's eye twitched in frustration. "Remember last weekend?"
"Oh yeah... Richard made us do that 'Mandatory Hall Monitor Duty' thingy."
"Don't act like it was nothing! He made us stay up for 24 hours to make sure that 'no one was wandering the halls at night'!" Arin mocked Richard's voice.
"Oh yeah..." Drew chuckled. "And then the teachers came and punished us for, ironically, wandering the halls at night."
"And Nina! The Saturday before that, she made us all help in giving that stupid dog a bath!"
"What did you say?" Nina turned to face Arin, her face and voice emotionless and her eyes dead.
"And you..." Arin pointed at Drew, contempt written all over his face. "Whining me to give you the answers for our homework, making me watch all your childish cartoons, and getting me involved in some stupid plan for that stupid Ruby chick!"
Drew flinched, feeling Arin's jabs hit home. "H-Hey! Those ideas would've worked if not for you not giving a damn!" He yelled back, starting to turn angry. "And they're not cartoons, they're anime..." he pouted.
"It was my fault?! Face it you idiot! There's no chance she'll even speak to a freak like you!" Arin grabbed his bag and opened the door out of their dorm. "I'm going to go study, but not with you morons!" He violently swung the door closed.
Drew trembled in rage, but eventually grabbed his bag and exited the dorm. "Fine then, you asshole! Be that way!" He cried at his partner down the hall. He then stormed off in the opposite direction.
Nina and Richard were left in the room, stunned as to what just happened. Eventually, Nina broke the silence. "Drama bomb~..." Richard shook his head disapprovingly.
Arin was lost. He only ever walked to the classrooms that he had classes in, and any free time he had to explore was taken away from him by his teammates. Realising this made his anger boil even further. Still, after storming away from his team, he seemed to have wandered to a place unknown to him. He recognised it as a dorm building, but he didn't know which one or what floor he was on. Seeing a door that was unlike the team room doors, he opened it in hopes of finding out where he was. It opened out into a roof terrace.
He was about to turn back until he realised: 'Hey, this looks like a good spot.' He closed the door behind him and walked over to the edge. He dropped his bag behind him and sat down, letting his feet dangle off the edge. He reached into his bag and pulled out the can of beer, clicking it open and taking a sip. 'Stupid Drew, stupid Richard, stupid Nina...' he cursed silently. 'Well, it's good to enjoy a bit of time on my own for once. And this view's kinda nice.'
"What are you doing here?" Arin heard a voice from behind him call.
'I just had to go and actually enjoy myself for once, didn't I?' Arin turned his head to the entrance of the roof and saw a girl with long, ruffled, blonde hair, a light brown coat that was buttoned around her waist with a yellow shirt underneath, and black shorts that were held up by a belt. Arin just turned his head to look off the roof at the view. "Nothing you need to concern yourself with." he answered back, acting uninterested.
The girl's eye twitched in irritation at his remark. "Y'know, you aren't allowed to be up on the roof. Perhaps you need some discipline..." the girl smirked as she cracked her knuckles.
"Go ahead then. You probably aren't as strict as Richard..." Once again, the girl grew annoyed. She marched over to Arin, grabbed him by the head and forcibly turned his head to look at her. "Owowow..." Arin mumbled.
"Hey. Who the heck are you?" she asked impatiently
"Arin Heartly." he answered, not wanting to provoke the girl, now knowing her strength.
"Arin, I don't exactly appreciate your attitude..."
"Calm down there Yang, I'm not insultin' you or anything."
Yang let go of Arin's head and back away slightly in fear. "How... how do you know my name?" she asked with a confused look.
"Are you kidding? Drew never shuts up about your team. With how much he yabs on and on, there'd probably be some problem if I did manage to forget." Arin chuckled as he took another slug of his can of beer.
"Wait, what?" Yang asked, not understanding him.
"Oh right, you don't know. My partner, Drew, has the hots for your leader Ruby, and keeps goin' on and on about her and everything related to her. It's pretty annoying." Arin explained.
"Where is he?!" Yang yelled, smashing one fist into her other palm, her hair blowing from her aura and her eyes turning red.
Arin chuckled at the sight. "Don't worry, don't worry. He's too much of a wuss to make a move."
Yang relaxed with a sigh. "Jeez... wait a minute. The initial for you name is 'A'. And the initial for your partner's name is 'D'. And I remember you from this morning... You're part of team DARN, aren't you?"
Arin flinched at the mention of his team's name. "I-I'd rather not be associated with those people..." he nervously blathered as he tried to avoid eye contact.
"Oh?" Yang chuckled, wearing a mischievous grin. "Why not? Aren't you proud of being a member of one of the most infamous teams in Beacon?" she teased.
"Shut up about them!" Arin screamed as he writhed in embarrassment. "I'm not in their annoying little posse anymore! I'm out! I'm done! I'm leaving those idiots!" he declared, then huffed, looking over the view off the roof.
"You're leaving them? Can you even do that? Part of the whole 'Team' thing is that you're stuck with them."
"Well, it's... kind of a long story." Arin explained, rubbing the back of his head.
Yang walked over to the edge and sat down with Arin, letting her legs dangle off the side. "I'm listening."
Drew was storming through the halls of school aimlessly, losing his sense of direction due to his anger. He eventually came to the classroom in which they attended Oobleck's lesson earlier. He opened the door violently and inspected the area. After seeing it deserted he marched down the steps and sat in the front row. He set his bag down beside him and pulled out his history textbooks, flicking through the pages until he came to the chapter they were studying. 'Stupid Arin... I'll show him!' Drew passionately smacked the table and stood up, tall and proud. "I'll show him that I'm smart enough to gain Ruby's l-lllll... affections!" he declared, forming a slight blush towards the end of the sentence. He sat back down and intensely stared at the pages of the book, attempting to absorb the information on the page. Remembering the names of important figures, reciting dates of important events, memorizing locations of certain battles. He eventually closed the book.
"I see, I see." Drew said to himself, as if an old man who had just read a newspaper. He then slumped down on the desk. "It's no good..." he sighed in defeat. "I can't remember a word of it." He sat up and stared at the book on the desk. 'Maybe Arin's right... I am just some moron. I can't even study one small chapter in a book when I'm super focused.' He held the textbook in front of him, staring at it and contemplating. 'And... maybe he's right about Ruby too.' His eyes looked to the ground. 'Maybe... I have no chance with her at all...'
Drew's thought was interrupted when he heard the door to the classroom open behind him. "Oh, sorry. Am I interrupting something?" A chirpy voice asked. Drew turned around to see the girl of his dreams standing in the doorway.
'God, Buddha, Zeus, Thor, Iron Man, Maria, Rose and Sina, whatever God exists out there, I thank you!' Drew squealed with joy in his head, but on the outside he was turning as red as a tomato. "N-n-n-no! O-o-of course you aren't! W-why would y-you be?" Drew frantically answered, waving his hands about in exaggerated gestures.
"Uh... okay." Ruby said, letting a bead of sweat drop down from her head. She began to walk down the steps.
'Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Ohmygod! What is she doing here?! Wait... a boy and a girl meeting in a classroom after school all alone. Is this some sort of romantic encounter?!' Drew monologued with fireworks firing off in his head.
Ruby walked down one of the long tables behind Drew and picked up some books lying on it that Drew hadn't noticed. "I just forgot some of my books from earlier.." she admitted, embarrassed. She put them in her bag.
"O-oh! Yeah, of c-course! W-why else would you be here..."
"Oh, did you forget yours too?" Ruby inquired, noticing the books on his table.
"What? Oh, n-no! I-I'm just studying. For that test..." Drew answered, avoiding eye contact in shame.
"Test? Oh yeah! You must be part of team DARN, aren't you?" Ruby clicked her fingers as she put two and two together.
Drew flinched in the mental pain. ' 'Must be'? She doesn't even recognise me off the bat...'
"Wait, doesn't your whole team have test?"
"Y-yeah?"
"Why aren't you studying with them?"
"Ummm..." Drew once again diverted his gaze to the floor. "Me and my partner had a fight, and we stormed off..." he shamefully admitted.
"That it?" Ruby asked with a puzzled look.
"'T-that's it'? Well..." Drew re-chose his words, not expecting Ruby's response. "It was kind of intense..."
"How so? It couldn't have been that bad, could it?" Ruby asked, sitting down in the chair, properly listening to her classmate's problem.
"Well," Drew also sat down in his chair in front of Ruby. "He said that I whine, I'm childish and that I have stupid ideas for..." Drew stopped explaining, realising who he was speaking to. "And other such things..." he mumbled, blushing deeply and averting his gaze from the girl.
"Hehe, I understand where you're coming from." Ruby chuckled.
"Y-you do?" Drew asked, confused.
"Yeah! When I first met Weiss during the initiation, we kept arguing and fighting and getting in each others' way, and even after the initiation, she'd keep getting mad over little things. It's hard being treated that way when you're the leader." Ruby rubbed the back of her head as she smiled.
"That's so sad!" Drew hysterically yelled as tears gushed out of his eyes like waterfalls.
"C-could you stop that? It's kind of creepy..."
"S-sorry." Drew stopped the crying, feeling embarrassed.
"But, at the end of the day, it just didn't let it bother me, and eventually, she warmed up to me, aaaand... yep." Ruby concluded.
'So... Ruby went through that stuff too?...' Drew then suddenly shoved all his books back into his bag and stood up, startling the young huntress. "Ruby!"
"Ah! Y-yes?" she cautiously answered, unsure of what he's going to do.
"I promise that I'll definitely Ace this test and gain Arin's respect!" Drew triumphantly declared, moving his arms in various poses around his torso for emphasis.
"Umm... o-okay." Ruby replied, somewhat panicked. "Uh, why are you promising me this?"
"Because making a promise with somoeone is a surefire way of raising a flag!" he explained, slightly blushing.
"What? What flag?"
"I can't explain right now." Drew grabbed his bag and made his way to the door. "See ya later, Ruby!" he farewelled as he ran through the doors.
"S-see you..." Ruby quietly waved, not sure that he heard her. "Wait, how does he know my name?"
"And then today: Nina pretty much bad-mouthed the teacher and got the whole lot of us into trouble!" Arin ranted, looking off into the view over the edge. "And that kinda was the tipping point... because I had an argument with everyone about it. And now I'm just kind of... confused." he sighed, guilt evident in his voice. "Yang... thanks for listening to my..." he turned to face his new found friend who had become suspiciously silent, to see that she had lain back and drifted asleep, snoring loudly. "Hey! Don't fall asleep!" Arin yelled, kicking her foot to jolt her awake.
Yang jumped as she awoke. She sat up and yawned loudly. "Did I sleep? Sorry, you must have been boring me."
"That's not what you're supposed to say to someone!" Arin screamed in frustration.
"Relax, relax." Yang chuckled. "I get the gist of it. So your team's incompetent, big deal! Everybody at school knows that by now."
"Easy for you to say, you don't have to live with them."
"Maybe not... but that doesn't mean everyone's team always runs things smoothly either."
"Don't let Drew hear you say that. He wouldn't know what to do if he found out that the Great and Powerful team RWBY actually acted like normal people." Arin joked sarcastically.
"It's true. Weiss is constantly acting high and mighty, Blake is super unsociable, and from what you told me about this Drew guy, Ruby seems just as naive as him." Yang explained.
"Okay, definitely don't let him hear you say that."
"But in the end, they aren't all that bad. And if you just go with it, things will be easier, y'know?"
"Sooo... just accept them and move on? That seems kind of simple." Arin sighed at the advice.
"Accept them, become friends with them, trust them, whatever, I 'unno." Yang shrugged.
"Trust them?" Arin paused for a moment and stared into space. A memory from a couple of years ago crawled out of the recesses of his mind. It was of his time in the military, and an old friend of his. Arin stretched his left hand over his body and touched his right shoulder. "Jeez... Looking back on it, I was pretty much a whiny-ass bitch this morning."
"Hmm?" Yang, who had been staring down the edge of the building while Arin remained silent for a minute, turned to face him. "You say something?"
Arin pulled his legs up from off the side and stood up. "Y'know what Yang? Thanks. I think I learned a lesson from our little talk. I think..."
"Ah, you're welcome." Yang halfheartedly farewelled, then raised her fist and pointed it to Arin. "See ya." she farewelled.
"Yeah. See ya." Arin picked up his bag and then smacked his fist against hers and then made his way to the door.
"Okay then! Who was the human general that fought in the Battle of Fort Castle?" Richard loudly asked.
"His name was... Billy Bob!" Nina answered. Though her attention was divided as she was trying to balance a sleeping Moonmoon on her head.
"This is truly hopeless..." Richard fell to his knees in despair.
The door of their room swung open violently, revealing Drew with his eyes on fire. "Where's Arin?!" he passionately asked.
"Don't know. Alright, next question:..." Richard flicked through his textbook.
"Do I really have such a small impact?" Drew sobbed to himself, fully entering the room.
"Hey." Drew heard a voice call from behind him. He turned and saw Arin standing in the doorway.
"You!" Drew turned back to his rage and marched over to his partner. "I have something to say to you!"
"Me first!" Arin interrupted Drew. He diverted his gaze to the ground and he shoved one hand in his pocket and rubbed the back of his head with the other. "I... I'm sorry about earlier." he shamefully admitted. "I didn't mean to call you a freak or anything. I guess I was just in a bad mood today and said some things I shouldn't have... And that goes for you guys too." Arin called to the two team members further back in the room. "I'm really sorry."
"The flag has been half raised!" Drew triumphantly declared, confusing Arin.
"W-what are you talking about?!"
Drew calmed himself down before answering. "Arin, I know you apologised and everything, but you were right. I'm not as good of a leader as should be!"
"That... isn't exactly what I said, but okay."
"The point still stands. I was on my way to promise you that I'll become a better leader in hopes that you'll accept me, but you already did! So the flag's half risen!" Drew explained.
"Actually, I was more confused about that 'flag' thing. What is it?"
Drew shoved his hands into his pockets, tilted his head and looked off into a corner of the room, grinned mischievously and blushed slightly. "Nothing much..."
"I'm starting to remember why I got angry at you..." Arin sighed.
"Oh yeah! And that other promise!" He turned to the rest of his team. "Everyone! Let's study for this test together!" he declared.
"I guess I have to study anyway..." Arin shrugged with a smile.
"Finally he starts making sense." Richard nodded.
"Yay! Yay! We're all a team again!" Nina cheered. Moonmoon opened one of his eyes due to the racket, sighed, and fell back to sleep.
The Next Day...
The four members of team DARN were seated in separate seats in the front row. Each had their test sheets in front of them and were anxious to start. Professor Oobleck stood at the front of the class with a stopwatch in his hand. "You have 30 minutes to complete the test." he explained to the team. "And your time starts... now!" He clicked the corner of the stopwatch and everyone picked up their pens.
'Alright Drew, remain calm...' Drew reassured himself. 'You and everyone studied hard yesterday, which was conveniently not written in. You can do this!' Drew glanced over to his teammates to see how they were doing. Richard was writing down answers extremely fast, with great tenacity in his eyes. Nina had one of her eyes closed with the other looking down at the paper, and swirled her pen in the air, almost as if she was aiming to see which question she'd answer first. And Arin seemed to be doing quite well. His eyes were focused on the paper and his pen was scribbling down answers. Drew recalled how he had trouble with some parts of the chapter yesterday. 'Alright. I'll have to try my best too!'
"Time's up. Please put your pens down." Oobleck announced. All the students dropped their pens and let out a sigh.
"Thank god it's over..." Drew cried in relief. "I barely understood a word..." Oobleck rushed in a flash to each of their tables and picked up their sheets.
"Well, how did you do?" Arin asked his friends.
"You'll find out right now." Oobleck answered as he rushed to all the students' tables and placed their tests back on their desks. Everyone looked at their respective sheets to see a series of ticks, Xs and their result at the top.
"Did... did you just correct all of these... right now?" Arin asked, somewhat scared.
"Yes." Oobleck answered naturally.
"Okay, y'know what? I don't care anymore. This school's filled with so much weird stuff that I'm not surprised." Arin grabbed his sheet and made his way to his teammates. He checked his test on the way. "A C+, huh? I'm actually pretty fine with that." Arin smirked to himself.
As he got to Drew's seat, he noticed that Drew was both smiling and tearing up as he read his test result. "I did it, Arin..." he managed say. He stood up and shoved his piece of paper into his partner's face. "I Aced it!" He declared, his tears pouring out at full force now.
"A D+?! You idiot, you didn't ace anything!" Arin yelled.
"I know, but... this is the highest grade I've gotten since I came to this school!" Drew smiled.
"That isn't something to be proud of!" Arin sighed, but then patted his partner on the head, letting him have his moment of victory.
"Hmph! Good to see that you two at least passed." Richard approached them.
"Well, what did you get?" Drew asked expectantly.
Richard held up his sheet to his teammates, revealing an 'A' written in red ink at the top. "Nothing less should be expected from a man of my level." he proudly declared.
"Well, aren't you modest?" Arin said sarcastically, while Drew applauded lightly, genuine impressed.
"Hey guys! How'd yous do?" Nina rushed over to her friends.
"I was perfect!" Richard showed his sheet to her.
"Oh~ Well done." Nina congratulated.
"And? What was yours?"
"Better then you." Nina smiled, holding up her test to show an 'A+' written on the top.
"How'd she do that?" Arin whispered to Drew. "She barely studied at all last night."
"I guess that's just her thing. Having enough skill that she doesn't need to put any effort into it."
Richard fell to his knees. "How... You're just some slacker... How did you get better than me?" he mumbled, his voice shaking.
"You okay there?" Arin asked. "Do you... need a moment, or something?"
"Nina..." Richard got to his knees, slowly but determined. "I swear... one day, I'll get a better score than you!" Richard intensely declared to his partner.
"Okay!" Nina shrugged, then began to skip out of the classroom.
"That girl is a mystery." Arin shrugged.
"If I may, Richard." Drew approached his friend. "I enjoy your determination, but if you were to go up against her now, she'd crush you."
"W-what do you mean 'crush me'?" Richard questioned, confused.
"It's because your 'light' is too weak. But I can help."
"Huh?" Richard's jaw fell to the ground. "I refuse to believe so! You got the lowest score out of all of us! How can you help me?"
"Because I am a supporting actor, a shadow. But a shadow will become darker if the light is stronger and it will make the white of the light stand out. As the shadow of the main actor, I will make you, the light, smarter than Nina." Drew explained.
Richard stood still for a minute, trying to make sense of what Drew just said. Arin then lightly hit Drew on the head. "Don't listen to him. He's just quoting one of his idiotic cartoons again." Arin reassured his teammate.
"Get it? 'Cause he uses a basketball..." Drew weakly explained.
AN: Well, that's another chapter finished. A bit longer than I anticipated, but I wanted to give character development to these two. It feels good to get this out, I feel like I'm finally writing at a better pace. By the way, 'Laurel Flosion' is just a name I came up with for questions that Oobleck would ask.
But first, I need you guys' opinion for a minute. I intend to give each character in DARN a character development arc, and I'm stuck between doing Arin's first or Richard's. Say who's arc you'd like to see first.
I know someone said they would've preferred to see a bit of action, and I'm sorry that this chapter's pretty much just talking and development.
Anyway, please leave a review saying what you liked and didn't like. See ya!
