The morning of our field trip, we all got up bright and early, save for Jaune who appeared to have significantly less energy than usual. We ate our breakfasts quickly and met Professor Goodwitch to head out to the forest of Forever Fall for our field trip.
Just as we were about to head out, I walked up next to Jaune to find out what was going on.
"What time did you get back to the dorm last night?" I asked him.
He laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. "Around seven. I got lost in Vale." He said quickly.
"Yeah, that's what I told everyone else. No offense, Jaune." I added.
"Meh, none taken." He said with a shrug.
Goodwitch approached us from Jaune's side.
"Mr. Arc, would you please carry the jars needed for today?"
"Y-yes, ma'am." He responded nervously. It was no secret amongst us that he was terrified of miss Goodwitch. Mind you though, I couldn't exactly say I wasn't afraid of her either, especially after the whole 'Cardin' incident.
"And Mr. Taren." She turned her gaze to me. "Professor Ozpin informed me about your detention reduction as well as your counseling sessions with Professor Port. In this case, you will only need to attend detention for the next two weeks on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so long as you attend the counselling sessions. If you don't, I expect to see you in detention."
"Yes ma'am." I nodded. Wow, counselling with Port or detention with Goodwitch? There was no competition as to which I would be attending. Port will probably just babble throughout the whole session anyways. I thought with a smile.
The fourteen of us walked down to the forest, which I had to say, would make a pretty good place for a vacation spot. Nice and sunny, great view and relatively quiet, aside from the grimm of course.
Goodwitch was talking about collecting the tree sap as she walked. Every so often I'd take a look back at Cardin, but he avoided my gaze as best he could. Nice to know that my lesson sunk in. I thought.
Goodwitch stopped suddenly and faced us. "Each of you is to gather one jar's worth of red sap. Stay with your teammates as the forest is filled with the creatures of grimm. You will all meet me here once you have collected the sap."
We all nodded at the Professor and split off into our groups, with me and my teammates close to team RWBY. After I grabbed a jar, I looked around.
"Hey Pyrrha?"
"Yes, Joe?" She replied.
"Where's Jaune? I don't see him." I looked at the champion, who almost looked… depressed?
She put on a smile and looked at me from the tree where she was gathering sap. "He's around here somewhere. Probably just helping out someone else. You know how he is."
I nodded back. One day, that guy's niceness is going to get him killed.
After a few minutes of sap gathering, which unfortunately had to be repeated several times thanks to Nora's apparent addiction to the stuff, the remainder of my teammates and RWBY regrouped with a jar of sap in everyone's arms.
Suddenly, Russell from team CRDL sprinted out of the tree line yelling something about an ursa, and straight into Yang.
"Where?" She demanded. I wonder if she ever thought about becoming an interrogator? I thought as the mohawked-haired boy pointed from where he ran from.
"Back there, it's got Cardin!"
"Jaune!" Pyrrha said concerned.
"Yang, Blake, go get Professor Goodwitch." Ruby ordered her team.
Pyrrha looked to Ren and Nora. "You two, go with them. There could be more." She said as she held Milo in her right hand and her shield with her left.
"What about Weiss and me?" I asked them both with Castor and Pollux's blades extended.
"You should come with us." I nodded at Ruby, who then took off towards where Russell had come from.
The four of us stopped near a clearing where Cardin was knocked to the ground with an ursa towering over him and Jaune a few feet away from him.
I retracted my blades, crossed my arms, and watched, hoping that the bear-grimm would at least give Cardin a few good scratches.
What I saw instead though, was almost unbelievable had I not seen it with my own eyes. Jaune moved faster than I ever thought possible and blocked the hit from the ursa that was obviously meant for Cardin. The creature knocked my team leader away and refocused on him. Jaune went on the offensive and sprinted towards the ursa as it charged right back at him. Everything seemed to slow down as I saw Jaune make a move to decapitate the grimm and his shield was suddenly raised, with a black aura around it. The hit from the ursa was blocked and Jaune managed to take the creature's head off with one clean swipe.
"Uh, what?" Ruby said, voicing my thoughts.
"How did you…" Weiss spoke up.
"Well, Ruby has her speed, you have your glyphs. My semblance is polarity."
And to think I haven't even discovered mine yet. I thought. "Magnetism?" I asked, to which Pyrrha nodded as she turned around.
"Wait, we've got to tell them what happened!" Weiss declared, gesturing to Jaune and Cardin.
"We could." Our resident champion started. "Or, we could just keep our little secret."
I shrugged. "Sounds good to me, as long as Cardin stops picking on everyone. Be they faunus or human." I said as I walked back towards where we dropped the jars of red sap.
When we returned from our field trip, I remembered the counselling session with the pot-bellied Professor Port. Great, one hour about more of his famous 'exploits' I thought with a groan. Reluctantly, I headed down to Port's classroom where he was already standing in front of his desk.
"Ah, Mr. Taren." He greeted me. "I was starting to think that you weren't going to be coming."
"I thought about it, Professor. But then I remembered my alternative option and decided that this would be better." I stated.
"And what was the alternative?" He asked.
"Detention with Professor Goodwitch." I replied.
He let out a hearty laugh. "I would've done anything to avoid the alternative, my boy." He said with a smile beneath that moustache.
At least he's got a sense of humor. I thought.
"Anyway, how about we get started?" He asked me. I nodded back and he sat behind the desk he never used during regular classes, gesturing for me to sit down in a chair that had been placed in front of it.
I took my seat and waited for him to start. He clasped his hands together and just looked at me.
"So, how do these sessions usually start, Professor?" I asked. His smile disappeared and he held a serious expression on his face.
"Mr. Taren, I will get right to the point. Post-traumatic stress disorder is not something that one simply brushes off. An individual must deal with it as soon as possible in order to function properly in society, let alone in a school where you must remain focused one hundred percent of the time or die."
The words he spoke shocked me. Wow. Who knew that Port had a serious side behind those tall tales and that huge gut? I wondered as he continued.
"The first step in recovery where I studied is to face your fears. Professor Ozpin told me that you have been having nightmares since initiation day. Why don't you tell me about them?" He asked me, his tone never changing from serious.
"Well…I…" I tried to spit out the horrors but I just couldn't. I couldn't think of their faces lying on the ground with pools of blood around them.
"Mr. Taren." Port's voice took on a more comforting tone. "Take your time. This isn't something that can be rushed or tackled with force."
I took a deep breath. "Would you like to hear about my most recent one?" I asked him, keeping my gaze on the wooden desk.
"Yes."
I regaled him with my most recent nightmare about seeing Andrea being bitten in two by an ursa and her saying the word semblance, which took a lot longer than it should've due to the fact that I broke into tears more than twice.
After I finished telling him about the nightmare and had tears streaming down my face once more, Port waited for me to regain my composure before he spoke.
"Mr. Taren. You fought as well as you possibly could've to protect your friends that day. Yourself and Elias were separated and there was nothing you could've done to save him. As hard as it may be to believe, death is all around a huntsman and it is their duty to deal with it, whether it targets themselves or the ones we love."
"I know Professor but…" I started.
"Joseph. Do you think that if your friends were here now, that they would approve of your grieving over them?" He asked me.
I shook my head. "No sir. Andrea would tell me to get a grip, Denara would probably say something encouraging and Elias would probably give some smart-ass comment." I said with a chuckle as I looked up at Professor Port, who smiled back.
"I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. I suggest you go back to your dorm and get some rest." He told me.
"Thank you sir. I will." I said as I got up and headed to the closest restroom first to check my reflection in the mirror. I didn't want my teammates to see me with bloodshot eyes. I rubbed some cold water on my face and caught my breath as I calmed down and headed back.
That night, myself, Nora and Ren sat in our dorm as Ren made more of his legendary pancakes.
"So why do you guys think Jaune was with Cardin in the forest in the first place? You don't help out someone who's been picking on you since day one." I asked my teammates.
"Joseph, I think it's better that you just leave it alone." Ren declared, not looking up from his frying pan. "Some questions are better left unanswered."
"Besides," Nora piled on. "If Jaune wanted to tell us, he would." At least I'm pretty sure that's what she said. I really couldn't tell with her mouth being full of pancakes.
"Alright then, I'll leave it alone." I finished my pancakes, washed the dishes and waited for Ren to be done in the kitchen before showering, changing into my sleepwear with my gauntlets on, and going to sleep.
I woke up again in sweats again sometime during the night with this nightmare featuring the demise of Elias and the horrid vision of a king taijitu biting through his metal armor like it was paper, and flinging away his body like it was a pebble. Again, I was too late to save my friend and again, when I went over to his body to check if he was alive, I heard the word semblance.
Why does that word keep coming up? I asked myself. I decided to just let it go and tried to go back to sleep, to no avail.
Two more weeks passed by in this same fashion as I attended detention on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with the counseling sessions on every other day, having nightmares every night. Another Sunday rolled around when I heard that Blake had run away from team RWBY.
"Why do you think she ran?" I asked Jaune as him and the rest of our team was seated in the cafeteria across from where team RWBY would usually sit.
"Honestly I have no idea. Ruby said that Weiss mentioned the White Fang and then she just ran out. The whole team's been looking ever since." He said digging into his lunch. "Oh! I just remembered." Jaune declared as he swallowed a mouthful of his ham sandwich. "Joe, the project you wanted me to do is finished."
I grinned like a madman at the news. "Thank you so much, Jaune. Where is it?"
"Better yet, what is it?" Nora asked excitedly.
"It's up in the dorm right now. I'll show it to you both after lunch." Jaune said smiling at our bubbly teammate and myself
I smiled and nodded. "Sounds good." I reached into my wallet and pulled out a hundred lien and gave it to my team leader. "That's for the fabric, the time you put into it, and for putting up with me so far."
Jaune started to push the five notes of twenty lien back towards me but I stopped him by extending my right blade and letting it hang down where he could see it.
"Jaune, if you give me back that money, I'm going to have to hurt you." I said with mock seriousness.
Jaune sighed at me. "You really are impossible, you know that?" He said, putting the money in his own wallet.
I retracted the blade and went back to my lunch. "Yeah, I know." I said with a smirk.
Jaune, Nora and myself finished lunches first and under Nora's influence, Jaune took us both back to the dorm to reveal the project I wanted him to do.
Jaune unlocked the door using his scroll, pushed it open and went over to his desk where he opened up one of the drawers. From inside it, he picked up a hard leather, half-face mask the same shade of green as the wolf-twin's hair with a light blue scale image of my gauntlets with the blades extended and crossed over each other on the left cheek of the mask and showed it to Nora and me.
"So? What do you think?" Jaune asked as he held up the mask.
"It's everything I could've hoped for, Jaune. Thank you." I said with pure honesty. I now had something to remember the twins by as well as my symbol. "I'll wear it with pride. Thank you for sticking with the same shade of green I showed you." I said as he handed it over to me.
"Yeah well, even if I wanted to, I don't think I would've changed it. The color looks good enough as it is."
I looked at Nora who had been silent this whole time as she gawked at the mask.
"How about you, Nora? What do you think?"
"I think it looks nice." She said indifferently.
"You were hoping for something else, weren't you?" I asked with a smile.
"Maybe." She declared.
I just decided to let her curiosity go and I went down to the locker room to put my new piece of equipment along with the rest of my armor.
I closed the door to my locker and decided to head back to the cafeteria to see if Ren and Pyrrha were still there. On the way though, I ran into Velvet in her Beacon Academy uniform again and accidentally knocked her to the ground.
"So is this going to be a recurring thing?" I asked with a smile as I helped the rabbit faunus to her feet.
She took my hand and smiled back as she stood up. "You're just lucky that you're bumping into me and not Yatsuhashi." She replied.
I tilted my head slightly. "Who's that?" I asked.
I saw her smirk. "One of my teammates. Would you like to meet him?"
I shrugged back. "Sure, I don't have anything else planned today. How about you?"
"Well my team has to prepare for a mission that we'll be going on soon but otherwise, no."
"Alright then, lead on." She nodded and led me down Beacon's long hallways and up a flight of stairs to what I could only assume was her team's dorm room.
Velvet unlocked the door with her scroll, making it beep and was about to knock when I heard a male voice say the words: "Come in."
Velvet sighed as she opened the door. I looked around and saw that her team's dorm was about the same as ours. Four beds, four desks, a kitchen, a bathroom and a window directly across from the doorway.
I heard the shower running and saw one of the desks occupied by someone with dark skin, red clothes and either really dark red or black hair who was reading a book with his finger tracing along the lines.
"Fox, how many times have I asked you not to do that?" Velvet asked the guy at the desk.
"Around fifty." He replied, turning in his chair with a smirk on his face and his arms crossed.
Velvet sighed again and I waved at Fox. "Hi, my name's Joseph." I said, looking at his white eyes.
Fox looked in my direction. "Fox Alistair. I'm blind by the way." He said bluntly.
"So being blind must make your other senses more acute." I stated. "That's how you heard Velvet unlock the door." I stated.
He gave another smirk. "Being blind has its perks."
"Anyway, Fox." Velvet spoke up. "Do you know where Yatsuhashi is?"
Fox flicked his head towards the bathroom. "Trying to clean off the grimm blood from the last extermination."
"Thanks. What about Coco? Do you know where she is?" Velvet replied.
"Right behind you, bun-bun." I heard from the doorway. "You mind telling me why the guy who put a hole in Cardin's shoulder is here?"
We both turned around to see the fashionista standing in team coffee's doorway with a left hand on her hip and her right hand gripping a handbag. Velvet started to stutter but I decided to answer for her. "I bumped into her in the hallway and she offered to introduce me to Yatsuhashi."
Coco scoffed and readjusted her glasses. "Any excuse to bring back a guy to the dorm huh, Velvet?" She said walking past us and sitting at her desk to read.
I felt my cheeks heat up immensely and I turned to Velvet who was also blushing hard.
Straight for the boyfriend-girlfriend thing? Really? I thought as a human giant emerged from the bathroom wearing a long-sleeved robe with a huge amount of armor on his left shoulder and a black muscle shirt underneath. He also had a pair of metal bracers on his arms as well as short black hair.
Velvet looked up from her feet and saw the giant. "Hey, Yatsu." She called to him.
"Velvet." He said with a smile and a nod. His expression grew serious as he saw me. "And who are you?"
"Relax, big man. If he wanted to hurt her, I would've killed him already." Fox said from his book. Must be a Braille book. I thought.
"My name's Joseph Taren." I said with an extended hand, hoping that he wouldn't break my arm.
"Yatsuhashi Daichi." He replied with a smile and returning the handshake. I held in a yelp of pain from the guy's death grip as best I could. "I heard that you're the one who took it upon yourself to get even with Cardin Winchester." He said as he released my hand.
"I would've done it first, but you beat me to it." Fox declared.
"And I would've beaten you to it." Coco said from behind her book. "Nobody messes with my team and gets away scott-free."
"So I take it that none of you are big fans of anti-faunus actions?" I asked.
"Nope." They said in unison except for Velvet, who just looked at her feet.
"But I have to give you credit, kid. I heard that your gauntlet plunged into his arm whereas mine only would've given him a few big scratches." Fox said.
"You have gauntlets too?" I asked the blind man. He turned around in his chair and nodded directly at me.
"Mine are just bladed and it sounds like yours fire explosives as well as have retractable swords." He said.
"I think you two should spar some time. See who's better with their blades." Coco said with a wide smirk as she addressed her blind teammate, who smirked back and nodded.
"Coco, you know that wouldn't be fair!" Velvet interjected. "Joseph's a first year, whereas we're a year ahead of him!"
I looked around the room at the second year students. I knew that if I agreed to the match that I'd get my ass kicked, so I have no idea why the hell I said yes.
"Great!" Coco said excitedly. "But it'll have to wait until after we're done our mission."
"When are you guys leaving?" I asked.
"Tomorrow morning." Velvet replied.
"That soon? Really?" I asked the rabbit faunus, to which she nodded. "How long will you be gone?"
"Ozpin said for about two weeks, depending on the amount of grimm that are in the area of the village we'll be defending." Fox spoke up.
Wow. I had no idea why, but the idea of Velvet being away from Beacon hit me kind of hard. In an effort to calm my subconscious, I made the boldest move I have ever made in my life.
"Hey Velvet? Can I have your number in case you want to talk at all?" I asked her.
"S-s-s…" She probably would've continued stuttering if Coco didn't interrupt her.
"It's either 'sure' or 'sorry', Velv. Spit it out." She said with a laugh.
Velvet took a deep breath. "Sure, I would absolutely like to talk with you sometime while we're on mission. Coco's usually only focused on the mission, Yatsuhashi will keep on asking if the defenses are up and Fox will probably just sit there reading that book so my teammates aren't exactly conversationalists." She said with a small laugh as she took out her scroll and showed me her number.
I typed it into my own and sent a message saying hi.
"Alright then, I guess I'll see you around, Velvet." I said as her scroll buzzed in her hand. "Nice meeting all of you." I said as I made for the door. "And Fox!" I called back before exiting the dorm room. The blind man turned to me with his hands on his knees.
"Don't go easy on me." I said with a smirk.
He laughed out loud. "I wasn't planning on it." He said as he spun back around in his chair. I left team CFVY to their preparations and made for the cafeteria.
I sat by myself because Jaune and Pyrrha were probably sparring together; Ren and Nora were most likely studying in the library and team RWBY was still unaccounted for.
As I ate my dinner, which consisted of a rare steak, mashed potatoes and corn, my mind constantly kept going back to Velvet.
Why do I feel so comfortable around her? Is it because she's a faunus? Maybe Cardin was actually right and I actually do love any girl who's a faunus.
I continued to slowly pick away at my dinner until team RWBY came in and sat across from me, each with their own individual meals. They sat in order with Ruby and Yang taking the ends and Weiss and Blake in the middle.
"Where have you guys been all day?" I asked the four girls.
Weiss and Blake just looked at each other and shared a friendly smile that I've never seen on either of their faces as Ruby ate her dinner.
Thankfully, Yang spoke up. "Team meeting." She replied.
"And what about Blake running away?" I asked. "Was that part of the 'team meeting' as well?"
Yang sighed back. "Joe, we'll tell you and the rest of your teammates more about it later."
I nodded back as I continued to eat my steak.
"So what have you been up to all day, Joe?" I heard Ruby ask.
I shrugged. "Not much. I accidentally bumped into Velvet again today and I met her team and Jaune finished a project I wanted some help with."
I saw Yang get a massive smirk on her face. "I guess you have to meet your girlfriend's friends before you meet her parents."
I groaned in frustration. "Velvet is just a friend okay, Yang? She's not my girlfriend and I don't think that she'd like to be even if I asked her."
The brawler kept smirking at my response. "Alright then, what about the project that vomit-boy did for you? What was it?"
It was my turn to smirk. "I'll tell you when you tell me about that 'team meeting'." I replied.
"Fine. But get the rest of your teammates together. I'm only going to say it once." Yang said.
"Alright, we'll meet in your guys' dorm."
"Why ours?" Weiss interjected.
"Well, probably because I don't want to hear you complain about Nora's cleanliness for three hours." I stated. Everyone else thought it was a joke but I was pretty serious.
I finished my meal and left the four girls to talk amongst one another as I headed back to my dorm for some sleep. I changed into my sleepwear with Castor and Pollux still on my arms and went to sleep. Strangely, however, I awoke the next morning with no nightmares.