In the next few weeks, I continued to attend Professor Port's counseling sessions after classes, which I found helped a little bit. I still slept with Castor and Pollux on my arms at night, but the nightmares were less frequent. I also texted back and forth with Velvet while she was on mission. Blake told all of us that she was a faunus, to some surprise of mine and everyone else acted indifferently. Thankfully, Goodwitch got me into the rotation for sparring in classes and as hard as it was, I showed restraint to all my opponents, even if they were my friends. I managed to win against Weiss, Ren and Jaune, but my other friends managed to beat me senseless. I learned a hard lesson when I fought against Yang though: Don't mess with her hair. One of my blades accidentally nicked her golden locks and she just went berserk, leaving me with more than a few bruises.

Our teams were eating our breakfasts at separate tables for today due to all the exchange students arriving from other kingdoms when I decided to phone Velvet to see how she was doing.

The scroll rang about four times before I heard a male voice pick up.

"Hello?"

"Yatsuhashi?" I asked.

"Yes. Who is this?"

"It's Joseph. The first-year student from Beacon?" I tried to jog his memory.

"Ah, yes I remember now."

Thank Oum he remembers me. "Where's Velvet?"

"In the shower right now." He replied.

"Okay then, just tell her I called to say hi." I said, trying to keep the disappointment hidden in my voice.

"I will. Goodbye."

"Wait, Yatsu!" I called into my scroll.

"Yes?" He sounded exasperated.

"Just…keep her safe. Please?" I have no idea what made me say that. Sure Velvet was my friend, but she was also a second-year student. She wouldn't have gotten where she was now if she wasn't capable of taking care of herself.

"I will." He hung up.

I pressed the end call button on my scroll and put it back in my pocket as I saw Nora holding a pie in her hand, aiming towards team RWBY.

"Nora, wait!" Ren tried to stop her, but she looked away at her partner and I guess the pie went to the face of an unintended target, Weiss Schnee.

I'm getting the fuck out of here. I thought as I sprinted towards the exit. After slamming the doors to the cafeteria closed behind me, I saw a food fight already emerging. Goodwitch is not going to be happy about that. My attention was distracted when I heard a very familiar voice.

"…And the best part is, she's a faunus!" I looked over to see my cousin Sun walking towards the cafeteria with his teammate, partner and friend Neptune walking beside him. "But that's a secret."

"You never were very good at keeping them." I said with crossed arms and a smile as they approached.

"I- yeah, I guess so, but then again, you never could lie to save your life." He retorted.

I shook my head and gave him a brotherly hug. "It's good to see you again, Sun. You too, Neptune."

Sun quickly returned the hug and looked at me up and down. "You've grown since the last time I saw you."

"Well considering the fact that was over six years ago, I should hope so." I replied.

"But since when do you wear your weapons over top of your uniform?" My cousin asked me.

I looked at Castor and Pollux on my arms and clenched my fists to repress the reason why.

I took a deep breath and looked in his eyes. "It's a long story that I'd rather not tell."

He just nodded back at me and changed the topic. "So why didn't you tell me that you were attending Beacon? We could've met at the docks."

I looked at him confused. Sun really wasn't that much of a fan of flying which only meant that he meant the boat docks. I sighed. "You stowed away again?"

He smiled and feigned innocence. "Little old me? No, that's ridiculous." He said with his hands raised defensively.

"Neptune, did he?" I asked the other blue haired boy, his hair a few shades lighter than mine. We had only met once or twice, but he seemed like a pretty good guy and I had to admit, he pulled off his hair color a lot better than I did.

"Yes, he did." He stated, glaring at his teammate.

"Anyway, we're here to see team RWBY. Are they in there?" Sun asked, gesturing to the cafeteria.

"Yeah, but you might want to wait for a while." I replied.

"Naw, come on Neptune, I really want you to meet these guys." Sun failed to heed my warning and went in anyway with his best friend in tow.

I just smiled and shook my head again. Hope Neptune doesn't get anything on that nice jacket of his. I thought as I headed to the library to study.

A few hours later, the rest of my teammates and team RWBY entered the library and RWBY played that weird board game while we studied.

Well… myself, Ren and Pyrrha studied while Nora slept and Jaune read X-ray and Vav comics. A few pieces of the game that RWBY was playing occasionally flew over to our table but we managed to dodge most of them.

"S'up, losers?" I heard Sun ask.

I looked up from my book and saw Sun standing behind Blake at the table where the four girls were playing their game.

"Well, if it isn't the king of abs himself." I replied with a smile.

Ruby looked between Sun and myself as she figured out the connection. "Sun, do you and Joe know each other?" She asked.

Sun nodded back at the little red reaper. "He's my cousin. My mom's sister's son."

I laughed at the expression on Ruby and Yang's faces as they tried imagining Sun and myself as cousins.

"I may not be a monkey's uncle, but I am a monkey's cousin." I said, my smile growing.

Sun shot me an annoyed look. "Very funny." He said sarcastically. I just kept smiling and returned to my book as Sun introduced Neptune to team RWBY.

The next day, we got another influx of exchange students from Haven. Only three of them though, which I thought was pretty strange. Ruby told me that the team leader's name was Cinder and she usually hung around with a grey haired guy and a mint-haired girl.

"But who's the fourth member of their team?" I asked Ruby as she performed maintenance on Crescent Rose down in the armory while I cleaned some of Cardin's dried blood off the blades and added more grenades to Castor and Pollux.

She shrugged her shoulders as she adjusted the scope on her weapon. "I don't know. When I ran into her, I only saw the three of them there. Maybe the fourth one was just out sick for the day and couldn't arrive on that day. You saw Sun and Neptune, but did you see the rest of their team?" She asked me.

"Alright, good point." I replied. Still, Cinder looks a little bit old, even if she's a fourth year student. I shook the thoughts from my head and focused on not trying to blow myself up while I loaded the impact grenades into my gauntlets.

"Hey Ruby?" I asked.

"Yeah?"

"Have you noticed how Pyrrha's been acting around Jaune?"

"No, I haven't. Why? Is something wrong?"

I thought for a minute before answering. "It's not exactly what's wrong, it's more of what isn't happening. I think that Pyrrha likes Jaune and with the dance coming up this weekend, she's just been acting kind of strange around him lately."

"Maybe she's trying to get Jaune to ask her to the dance?" She offered.

"Could be." I nodded at her. "Although if that's the case, why doesn't she just straight up ask him?"

Ruby put down her weapon and looked at me. "Joe, you know what Pyrrha's like. She doesn't push anyone towards anything, she only offers her help. She lets people make their own decisions and leaves it at that."

I smiled at the red hooded girl. "You know, you're pretty insightful for a fifteen-year old."

She smiled back. "I try."

The next day, I was sitting in the library trying to study, but my focus was constantly being broken by the fact that I had texted Velvet last night before I went to sleep and she hadn't texted back. Normally, she was very prompt when we messaged each other, but it was unusual for her to not respond.

What if something went wrong with the mission? I thought. What if they got overwhelmed?

I was shaken out of my thoughts by Pyrrha's sudden appearance at the table across from me.

"Hello, Joe."

"Hey, Pyrrha." I replied.

She looked at me for a couple seconds with a worried expression. "Are you alright?"

I looked up from my book at the champion in her usual day-to-day clothes/combat gear.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Well when I walked up you just seemed distant, like you were focused on something other than your book."

I sighed. I guess there's really no point in keeping it a secret. "Can I tell you something a little personal, Pyrrha?" I asked as I closed my book and leaned back in my chair.

"Of course, we're teammates. You can tell me anything." She said with sincerity.

I smiled. That was something I quickly learned during my time with team JNPR. Beneath Pyrrha's warrior exterior, there was a caring, kind person, not just Pyrrha Nikos the invincible girl.

"Okay, you know that team CFVY has been on a mission for some time now, right?" She nodded back. "Well, I've become really good friends with Velvet and I'm afraid that something might've happened to her and her team."

"Joe, they're a team of second-year students, I'm sure they're fine."

"I keep telling myself that same thing, but I texted Velvet last night and she hasn't responded back!" I said loudly, earning a shush from the librarian.

Pyrrha clasped her hands together and breathed deeply. "Joe, as much as I hate to say this, there's really nothing you can do until they return from their mission, which I'm sure that they will."

I sighed again. "Okay, I guess that you're right. But I just can't fathom losing another friend at Beacon. First it was Andrea, and then it was Elias, then Denara. If I lose another friend, I'm afraid that I actually might go insane." I replied.

"Just be patient. She'll be all right." I nodded back, still not completely satisfied with her answer. "Why the fixation with Velvet though? Do you have feelings for her?"

I looked back at Pyrrha, her own words just now sinking in to her own mind.

"I-I'm so sorry, Joe I didn't mean…"

"It's all right, Pyrrha." I cut her off. "I've actually been asking myself the same question lately and I think that the answer is yes."

Pyrrha held a look of relief on her face as she replied back to me. "So you like her?"

I nodded back. "Yeah. I don't really know what it is about her, but I just seem to find her more attractive than any other girl." I said honestly.

Pyrrha flashed me a smile and returned to her books, but something was off about this smile compared to most of her regular signs of happiness. She almost seemed jealous.

I guess now's a better time than any. "Pyrrha?"

"Yes?"

"You have feelings for Jaune, don't you?" I stated rather than asked.

Pyrrha started blushing and she avoided eye contact as she spoke. "I-I-I don't know w-what you're talking about." She said innocently.

I looked at her with a sincere expression. "Pyrrha. It's all right. I know that with the dance coming up and with nobody else asking you, I know that Jaune's been on your mind lately." Pyrrha sighed at me. "I just want to help." I added.

She took a deep breath and looked back up at me. "He's been going after Weiss though and I don't know what to do."

"Oh." Well that's a little bit of a wrinkle. I thought with a slight frown. "I guess all you can do is wait and hope for the best. I was going to ask Velvet to the dance but if she's not back by then and Jaune doesn't ask you, I'll accompany you if you'd like." I offered.

She smiled back at me. "Thank you Joe, that's very kind of you."

I nodded. "Anything for a teammate."

After we studied together and compared notes for about an hour and a half, I then decided to walk around Beacon to get some fresh air. I packed up my books and headed down to the dorm to drop them off before my walk.

When I passed team RWBY's dorm room though, I distinctly heard Sun's voice. I decided to knock on the door and waited. A few seconds later, Ruby poked her head through the doorway.

"Ruby." I greeted her with suspicion. "Did I just hear Sun's voice from your dorm?"

She avoided eye contact as she replied. "Yeah, Sun was hanging from the tree just outside our window and he just dropped by to say hi."

I just shook my head. "I'm sorry about his behavior. If you want, I can talk to him and ask him to leave you guys alone." I offered.

"No, no, no. It's fine. He's not causing any trouble." She replied quickly.

"Okay then, I guess I'll see you later, Ruby." I said as I turned to enter my room.

"Later!" I heard as she slammed her door shut.

Sun's going to find himself in a boatload of trouble if he tries to hit on any of those girls. I thought with a chuckle as I set down my books on my desk.

I spent the rest of the day walking around, meeting a few new exchange students and checking out some areas of Beacon I hadn't seen before.

The weekend rolled by surprisingly quickly and I noticed that Jaune still hadn't asked Pyrrha to the dance yet, much to her sadness. I was getting even more worried that he wouldn't when I noticed Jaune continuing to step up his efforts in order to get Weiss to say yes to going with him.

Pyrrha was gearing up to go to her regular training session with Jaune up on the roof while I decided to take Ren up on his offer to teach me those meditation techniques.

"Breathe deeply and let all conscious thoughts leave your mind." Ren told me as I sat on my sleeping bag with my eyes closed. I complied and tried to get everything out of mind but the only things that stayed were my worries about Velvet and Pyrrha's conundrum with her partner.

I sighed, exasperated and opened my eyes. "Forget it Ren, I don't think I'm going to be able to concentrate until Velvet's back." I said as I stood up and sat at my desk with the chair facing the rest of my teammates.

"Very well then. We'll continue when she comes back." He nodded at me as he picked up a book.

I nodded at the stoic boy and turned my gaze to Pyrrha, who was loading up a backpack with water bottles.

"He still hasn't asked you yet, has he?" I said to her, already knowing the answer.

She sighed and kept her back to me. "No, he's still focused on Weiss." She said dejectedly.

"Can I just beat him up until he says yes?" Nora asked as she jumped on her bed.

I just shook my head and chuckled lightly at Nora's usual brutish attitude.

"Probably not the best idea, Nora." I replied with a smile. I returned my gaze back to Pyrrha, who was now heading for the door. "Pyrrha, if you want Jaune to ask you to the dance, you're going to have to be straightforward with him, otherwise he'll just keep going after Weiss." I stated bluntly.

Her hand stopped just short of the doorknob as she turned to face me and put on a small smile. "Thank you Joe, but I think that Jaune will get the message eventually."

With that, she left to go train with her partner and I let out an exasperated sigh.

"Jaune's not going to ask her unless one of us goes up to him and tells him to." I said to Ren and Nora.

Ren looked up from his book at me. "Joe, I think that it's best if you left thing up to fate."

"Renny!" Nora yelled at her partner. "We have to do something! I don't want to see either of them be sad for the whole year!" She said with a pout.

"I'm actually with Nora on this one, Ren." I interjected. "We've got to do something. They obviously have feelings for each other and I can't really see Weiss and Jaune ever getting together."

Ren let out a sigh and returned to his book. "If you guys want to do something, go ahead but leave me out of it. I sincerely believe that fate will sort things out in good time."

"Okay then, any ideas, Nora?" I asked.

Nora put a finger on her chin as she thought. "We could lock them both in a broom closet together until they say they like each other."

I sighed. "Maybe try something a little more subtle, Nora?" I pleaded.

"Okay." She thought for another moment. "We get Ozpin to tell them that they like each other."

I let out another sigh. From behind his book, I saw Ren shaking his head.

This is going to take a while.

After a few hours of discussing ways to get Jaune and Pyrrha together and finding no viable solution, we both decided to call it a night and go to sleep.

I found myself walking around Beacon again, this time at probably one or two in the morning as I was dressed in my regular clothes but without my gauntlets. As I strolled around the statue in the middle of the grounds, I heard a familiar male voice.

"VELVET!" I heard the voice scream. It came from the forest of Forever Fall, so I sprinted in that direction.

As I ran into the red woods, I found Fox fighting off three ursa majors at a time, holding his own against the three monsters easily. He moved like lightning as he slashed at each of their stomachs, causing them to bleed profusely and eventually drop to the ground dead with a deep thud.

I rushed over to the red and brown clad fighter, out of breath and worried for Velvet.

"Fox, where's Velvet? Where's the rest of your team?" I half asked, half pleaded with the blind badass.

"We got split up when a nevermore attacked. Velvet went north, Coco east and Yatsuhashi to the west."

I nodded at him and immediately ran north, leaving him by himself. As I ran, I encountered the clearing where Jaune saved Cardin, and found Velvet lying there, blood pooling around her small figure with several Alpha beowolves feasting on her corpse.

I felt tears in my eyes and I fell to my knees, horrified at the scene in front of me. When I awoke, the tears did not cease their flowing. I looked around the dorm and saw the clock on Ren's nightstand that read 3:21. I decided that I wasn't going to get any sleep for the rest of the night.

I silently got up, dressed in my day-to-day attire and headed down to the gym in an attempt to turn my grief into rage.

As I hit the bag filled with sand in the gym, I kept psyching myself into more of a fit of rage rather than a pit of sorrow.

Those beowolves tore her apart. You were going to do the same damn thing to them weren't you? You would've taken your blades and severed their limbs one by one until they were left suffering on the ground, wishing for death to come. I thought to myself.

I performed punch after punch, throwing in a few kicks for good measure, imagining the sandbag as the Alphas that tore apart Velvet in my dream.

They just devoured her and they had no idea that you were there. I went through the whole procedure about what I would've done to the grimm and I thought I saw the sandbag getting smaller, but paid it no mind.

I hit the bag over and over again until a voice from behind me caused me to stop.

"Trouble sleeping again, Mr. Taren?" Ozpin asked me from the doorway of the gym, his coffee mug still in hand.

I stopped and turned to face him. "Another nightmare, yes." I said in between breaths.

He took a swig of whatever what was in his mug and looked at me. "You got larger." He stated.

I looked at him, confused. "I haven't been working out that much, Professor. I didn't think that it would show."

He just shook his head at me. "Mr. Taren, do you know what your semblance is?"

"No." I replied.

"Well I think that you may have just discovered it. While you were hitting the sandbag, your height grew to rival that of an Alpha beowolf. However, when I called your name, you shrank down to your normal height." He stated.

Is that really what my semblance could be? "Do you have any proof of this, Professor?"

He nodded back at me and pointed to one of the security cameras. "I should be able to pull video surveillance from that camera and it will show that your height did in fact, increase."

"But if I got bigger, than shouldn't I have gotten stronger as well?" I asked him.

"Mr. Taren, everyone's semblance is different. I don't know what the exact conditions of yours is until you explore it further." He looked outside one of the windows and saw the sun beginning to rise. "I suggest that you get back to your dorm. Your teammates will be wondering where you are."

I nodded at Ozpin and started heading back. When I got to the room, I saw Ren clad in a pink towel and Jaune sitting beside him on his bed with Nora in her pajamas reading a comic book in her own bed with her headphones on. I decided not to question the situation and I went to the shower to wash away the sweat and tears that had accumulated over the past few hours.

By the time I got out and changed into a new dark blue t-shirt with black jeans, Jaune was gone and Pyrrha was just staring at her desk.

"What's up?" I asked everyone.

No one answered me for quite a while until Pyrrha spoke up, her voice shaky and filled with sadness. "I gave Jaune advice on how to go after Weiss."

My eyes shot open and I was fully awake now. Pyrrha! How could you do that? You know that Jaune has feelings for you! I screamed in my mind. I looked over at Ren and Nora in disbelief, who both nodded at me. I guess if it's what she wanted to do, there's nothing I can do to stop her. "That was very nice of you, Pyrrha." I stated, trying to lighten the mood.

"Thank you, Joe." She replied back, her gaze not leaving her desk.

I spent the rest of the day helping out Weiss and Yang set up for the dance tomorrow night. I arrived at the ballroom to find Weiss yelling at a dejected Ruby about tablecloths and Yang carrying a massive speaker.

I walked over to Yang. "Anything I can do to help?" I offered.

She shook her head. "Not unless you can get Weiss to stop being so…so…"

"Weiss?" I asked with a smirk.

She laughed. "Exactly." She turned her head to examine their work so far. "Weiss! I thought we agreed! No doilies!" Yang yelled as she stomped her foot in anger. I dodged out of the way of the argument between the brawler and the heiress and sat down next to Ruby.

"Something bugging you?" I asked the normally jovial reaper.

She nodded from her slumped down position in her seat. "Blake's not going to the dance."

"Why?" I asked.

Ruby was about to say something when I saw Yang put a hand on her sister's shoulder. "Blake's just focused on other things right now, but don't worry. She's going." She said with a smile.

Okay, nothing to worry about there. I thought suspiciously as Sun and Neptune walked in.

"Hey, Sun." I greeted my cousin.

"Hey." He replied with a nod. He turned his gaze to the girls. "You ladies all excited for dress up?" He said with a smile.

Ruby looked up slightly. "Not if Blake isn't going." She stated.

Yang looked back down at her sister. "Ruby, don't worry about it. She will be at the dance tomorrow."

"You gonna wear that to the dance?" I asked Sun, pointing to his normal clothes.

"Duh." He replied sarcastically. "What else?"

I looked at Weiss. "What do you think about that, Weiss? Suitable or not suitable for the dance?" She just facepalmed. "Alright then, Neptune, can you maybe pick out something that would make this guy at least halfway presentable?" I asked my fellow blue haired man.

Neptune just shrugged. "I can try, but it's going to be pretty damn hard."

Weiss let her arms drop to her sides as she sighed. "Thank you, Neptune, you'd be doing us all a huge favor."

I laughed at my cousin's expense while he just glared at me.

"No problem, Snow Angel." Neptune said with his signature 'lady killer' smile as he called it. I looked at Weiss to find her blushing.

Damn, talk about things that happen once in a blue moon. I thought.

I left to let the Sun, Neptune, Ruby and Weiss converse with each other as Yang and myself left the ballroom.

"So do you mind filling me in as to why Blake's not going to the dance?" I asked.

She just shrugged as we walked. "It's a long story." She replied.

"Okay then, I'll let you do that and I've got to go and shop for a decent suit in Vale. See you at the dance, Yang." I said with a wave of my hand as I headed down to the docks.

"Yup." She replied, returning the wave.