Chapter 3 – The Jaune on the Train

Ding dong, ding dong!

The final bell for the day rang, and as soon as it did, "Jaune! Hey!" Velvet was standing by the classroom door waving at me. What does she want now?

I walked over to her while avoiding classmates that were still gathering books, sliding out their chairs, and running over to their friends. As I got to her, I noticed she was not standing alone. Next to her was a girl with long, beautiful white hair.

"Uh, do I know you? I feel like I've met you before." I said as I approached the two of them.

"Ugh. Why do I have to talk to this peon, Velvet?" The girl grunted.

"Hey, c'mon. You haven't even given him a chance yet," Velvet jammed her elbow into the girl's side and she jumped a little, "Jaune, this girl is very influential and will be the key in helping you!"

"Helping me?" I pointed at myself in confusion. "Help me how?"

"Ugh. My name is Weiss Schnee. Heiress to the Schnee Music Corporation." Weiss flipped her hair back.

"Oh! That's why you look so familiar!" I exclaimed in a sudden outburst. "I didn't even recognize you off of the TV screen!"

She took a step back. She looked absolutely disgusted with me. I don't know if it was how I was acting, but back in my hometown, we weren't accustomed to meeting rather famous people.

"Anyways, Jaune. Weiss here is going to help you understand exactly what you need to remember about the incident that happened all those years ago!" Velvet said in an excited tone. She was definitely enjoying learning about something that doesn't involve her.

"Wait, how is she supposed to help me?" I asked.

"Really? You haven't figured that out? I was backstage on the exact night it happened in your Podunk, backwater town," Weiss spit out every adjective she could think of that could describe an awful place to live in, "and I can tell you exactly what I remember."

"That would actually help. Thank you!" I smiled as warmly as I could.

Weiss grimaced at me and turned away. How cold was this girl exactly? "Just because I know what happened, doesn't mean I'll help you willingly."

"What?" I took a step back. What a bitch.

"If, and only if, you can successfully get Yang Xiao Long to step down from Student Body President to Vice President in the upcoming election, then I will help you." Weiss pointed her index finger at me. Her declaration of war against Yang Xiao Long posed as a rather odd and unnecessary divulgence in the strategy at hand. But…

"If it means you'll help me, then I'll talk to her about running for VP instead of President." I grit my teeth and delivered the words begrudgingly.

"Perfect! The election is in two weeks! Better act quickly!" She strolled away in a very happy manner.

I turned to Velvet, who looked rather pleased with herself, "and what is this supposed to gain? Now we have to take off two weeks to secure information from her."

"Don't worry about it, Jaune. We can still work on opening your mind to remember what happened back then," She raised a finger to her lips, "but for now, maybe you should do some talking with Yang." And with that, she grabbed my wrist and yanked me down the hall.

"Uh, Velvet? Where are we going?" I was beginning to get worried.

"We're going to talk to Yang. The election race starts tomorrow, so we're going to tell Yang now what we want her to do!" Moments later, we stood outside of the student council's room. "Be cautious. She has a bit of temper." Velvet pat my head as if saying goodbye.

"Oh, now you tell me?!" I gawked.

Velvet knocked twice on the door and we waited. It felt like an eternity before the door opened revealing a rather busty girl with long yellow hair. There was no need to even question who this was.

"Yo! You need something?" The girl asked us.

"Yang Xiao Long, right?" I asked her.

"That's correct." Yang nodded in agreement.

"We have something rather pressing to discuss with you." Velvet stood in before I could say anything.

"Hmm? Is that so? What is it?" She folded her arms across her chest.

"We were wondering if you could maybe run for VP in the upcoming election." I got the words out as quickly as I could.

"What?" Yang uncrossed her arms and her lilac eyes slanted. Wait, were they lilac? They look kind of red now. "Are you saying you want me to downgrade myself?"

"No, Ms. Xiao Long, that's not what we're trying to say!" Velvet raised her hands, prepared to block any oncoming attacks. "We're trying to say that we think your wonderful leadership would help someone else. Besides, we all know that the VP in student bodies are really the ones that pull the strings. The president is just a figure head." Yang did not look persuaded by Velvet's words.

"Yang, what exactly would it take for us to convince you that this is a good idea?" I stepped forward, finally taking charge of the situation for once.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe punching yourself in the gut and a good slap to the face." Yang said in an aggressive tone.

I breathed in and raised my fist. And with one swift motion, I punched myself in the gut. It was so hard, that it knocked the wind right out of my lungs. I was hunched over for a few seconds. I stole a glance away from the floor and saw that Yang's eyes were now wide with surprise and Velvet's were the same. I straightened my body, then raised my right hand, and slapped myself across my face. It stung for a few seconds, and after it went away, all I heard was Yang laughing.

"Oh my God! I didn't know you'd do that!" Yang began to wipe tears from her eyes. "That was truly hilarious!"

While I was still panting and gulping down gallons of air, I choked out, "so, do we have you convinced?"

Yang was still laughing so hard, but she managed to put a nod into her laugh attack. "You're really something else! What did you say your name was?"

I groaned a bit, "Jaune Arc…" I managed to get out before cringing in pain, "my name is Jaune Arc."

Yang stopped laughing as hard and reached out her hand, "well, Jaune, I'm willing to entertain the idea." I grasped her hand and we shook on it. "Please, come inside the student council room. I'll grab you something to drink so that you can," she paused to laugh, "re-cooperate."

I sat down at one of the tables in the rather large and accommodating room. I never thought that our school would have such a large room just for the student council. Velvet came inside and sat down across from me. She twiddled her thumbs as Yang looked around a cabinet.

"Jaune, there's something I've been meaning to tell you since school let out. About earlier." Velvet started to bring up the incident at lunch.

"Yeah, what was going on? I'm still finding it hard to wrap my head around it." I balanced my chin in the ball of my hand while looking at Velvet. Is she finally going to explain some things that she was talking about?

"Well, yeah, I don't know why that started to happen, but I wanted to apologize for punching you in the face and sending you to the nurse's office until like the last period of the day." Velvet smiled innocently. The kind of smile you'd normally want to shrug off something and pretend it never happened.

"Thanks, that explains everything." But I'm not you. "I just want to know why all the sound cut out and why the awful ringing came in and where it came from. Is Pyrrha okay? I mean, she looked like she was in pain, too."

"The sound cut out? Ringing?" Velvet looked genuinely confused at what I just said. "Well, whatever happened, it's fine now. Pyrrha went back to her dorm short after that because she wasn't feeling well. I'm going to go visit her after we're done here."

"Well, I guess that's as close to answering my questions as you're going to get. You never answer them directly and just normally end up making more questions than necessary." I sighed heavily.

"Oh, come off it. You're just as confused as I am." Velvet rolled her eyes and had a half-smirk on her face.

"Okay, I've got water and some raspberry iced tea. Which would you prefer?" Yang returned with drink suggestions.

"I'll take some of the tea, if you don't mind." Velvet raised her hand.

"Water, thanks." I answered.

"Alright, coming right up." Yang brought back a cup of water and a cup of tea to the table. She placed the drinks accordingly and sat down with her own drink at the end of the table. Her's looked to be a more colorful drink than either water or tea. She propped her feet up on the table and then turned to me, "Now, Jaune. Why should I exactly move down to the VP position. Is there anything for you to gain from this? Are you running to take my place?"

"No! Of course not!" I started to say but Yang cut me off before I could explain further.

"The girl here said that the VP pulls all the strings, maybe you just want a little bit of excitement in your life." She had a look on her face that was a mix of perversion and mock. "I am kidding, of course. You don't look like that kind of type." What even is this girl? "Well, whatever reason, I'm more inclined to agree." I'm sorry, what? "You see, the current girl that's running for president is my younger sister."

I cut her off in surprise, "wait! Weiss is your sister?"

"Her? Ew! No." Yang recoiled in disgust at even the thought of Weiss being her younger sister. "Ruby is my sister. She's currently the only one running for president and no one seems to be in the VP position. So, I figured it might be good to let her take over and I help her if necessary. Really, I just needed the extra push for it to happen." This is definitely going in our favor. "But what's this about Weiss?" Yang leaned inwards towards us with a serious look on her face.

Velvet looked at me with a 'fix this' look on her face. I looked over towards Yang and thought quickly, "well, I think it's just better to tell the whole truth rather than dance around it and lie." I inhaled deeply and exhaled quickly. "We needed Weiss to help us with something and the only way she would help us is if we talked to you about becoming VP. We don't know her motives for this, but this is all she asked for us."

I braced for a storm of fury from Yang, but all I got was a quizzical look from her as if she was trying to read my face. When she decided she was done she sighed, "well, with that princess, there's no telling what her motive is. I will still agree to step down from presidency to VP, but if Weiss tries to run for the president position, I will campaign heavily for Ruby and assure her victory. Do I make myself clear?" Basically, what she was telling us was 'get in my way and you'll pay'. We both nodded our heads in agreement. "Good, then we have no problem."

"Thank you, Yang, for listening to our odd request." Velvet chimed in. "We're so grateful to have a president like you running the student council."

"Aw, it's nothing." Yang put her arms up behind her head. "Now, I think you both have stayed after pretty long enough. Go ahead and find the Ice Pop Queen and let her know that I will partially comply to her wishes."

Yang escorted us out of the room and closed the door behind us. Velvet and I started to walk down the hall and went straight to the music room. There was no guarantee that Weiss would be there, but we wanted to try anyways.

"She's not here." Velvet sighed in disappointment. "Where do you think she could be?"

The possibilities raced through my head of the girl's whereabouts. There was the possibility that she had already gone home, but that wasn't an idea I wanted to think about completely. I pushed it to the back of my mind and continued to think. "Why don't we just check all of the spots here? She might have gone home, but I want to hope that she's still here."

So, we both split up. Velvet gave me her number and decided to go check out the gym, the courtyard, and the classrooms on the west side of the building. I decided to check the roof first. If there's any trope that I know well, it's that there's always going to be someone hanging out on the roof. I just need to hope it's Weiss.

I headed up the flight of stairs from the second floor past the third floor and finally to the roof. I grabbed the door knob and started to turn it when I heard singing. It was a soft and sweet melody that nearly pulled me into a trance.

The singing went: Mirror, tell me something, tell me who's the loneliest of all. Mirror, tell me something, tell me who's the loneliest of all. Fear of what's inside me, tell me can a heart be turned to stone?

Then silence. I opened the door to see that it was in fact Weiss singing. She looked right at home up on the roof and in a complete trance. I stepped out onto the roof and closed the door as quietly as possible so that I could continue hearing her sing. At that point, she had begun to harmonize with no one, as if she could hear music exclusive to her. A sound that was all inside of her head.

Then she continued: Mirror mirror what's behind you? Save me from the things I see! I can keep it from the world, why won't you let me hide from me? Mirror mirror, tell me something, who's the loneliest of all? I'm the loneliest of all.

As she completed the song, I began to instinctively clap at the beauty of her voice. She was instantly knocked out of her trance, completely embarrassed as she turned to face me. "JAUNE?! What're you doing?!" She was flustered and blushing a beet red. After calming down a little, she sighed, "how much did you hear?"

"Uh.." I couldn't get more than a stammer out, but that was enough to tell her.

"That song isn't out yet to the public. Nobody knows that it exists except for the company and me…and now, you." She tried to act coldly, but she was still incredibly embarrassed. "What do you want." She reeled back towards me.

"I just, uh, came to, uh, tell you that we, like uh, convinced Yang?" I stammered even more than usual.

"Hmm. Take what you just said, now take out the 'uhs' and the 'like' in there. Correct grammar is the only way to be a functional human." She rolled her eyes.

I cleared my throat and tried again, "I just came to tell you that we convinced Yang to step down from the president position."

"Oh?" She was shocked. "Well, good." She tried to recover and act like it wasn't surprising or that I had already seen her shocked, "I never really doubted that it would be that difficult." She failed.

"Now, why is it that you wanted her to step down from president position?" I thought it was my turn to start asking her questions after her series of non-stop inquisitions.

"That's very simple." She started to say, but then started to blush again at the thought of her answer, "it's only because my friend wanted to run for president and I didn't want Yang to be in the way."

"Your friend? Wait, you have friends?" I should have worded that better because that sounds about as insulting as what Velvet and Pyrrha said.

"Why, yes! I do, as a matter of fact. Where do you get off," Weiss was about to explode with every bit of anger she had inside of her, but I put up my hands as a way of saying 'I didn't mean it like that'. She cooled off a little and looked at me with her piercing eyes. "I'll bet you're wondering two things right now."

"In fact, I am. I'm wondering what you," I stopped and thought about what she said, "wait. Two?"

"Yes, two." She continued. "You're probably wondering who my friend is. The one who wanted to run for president. And what I know about your hometown."

"Well, yes, I would definitely want to know more about what happened in my hometown," I began, "but I would also like to know who your friend is. This might be a wrench in the plan all together."

"The friend is a very simple answer." Weiss turned to face away from me because I could tell she was blushing again. "My friend is a freshman girl named Ruby. There, happy?"

"Whoa? Really? That actually does make me happy!" I made sure she could hear the excitement in my voice. "That's the girl that Yang wanted to succeed her as president! I mean, they're sisters after all."

"Really? I didn't know they were sisters. Ruby never talked about…I guess she assumed that I already knew, I guess." Weiss shifted the tip of her foot around in a swivel.

"So, wait, she never told you that Yang was her sister? Have you never been over to her house before? Never hung out outside of school?" I started to become more interrogative.

"No. We never got the chance to hang out outside of school. Because I'm always supposed to be busy. Every single time the final bell rings, I'm supposed to be ready to go home and do everything that's been told to me. I don't have the chance to do it, no matter how much I would like to." Weiss was starting to break into tears.

"Weiss, you don't have to unload everything on me. I understand that you don't have the luxury of doing fun things. As a talented pop icon, you have to be on a strict schedule and I get that," I was starting to say, but Weiss cut me off again.

"Do you? Do you get it? Or are you only saying that to make me feel better." Weiss was on the defensive again. She waited a little bit and I realized she was opening her fists into number format. She appeared to be calm now. "Jaune, thank you for doing what you said you would do. Now, I'll keep my end of the deal and tell you everything about your hometown." I was starting to be relieved, "but, we need to find your friend first. I'm sure she'd want to hear all about it. And we need to go somewhere private." She looked around nervously. "I'm not sure the rooftop is a good fit. We could be overheard."

"By who?" I was confused.

"By anything." She responded.