Note: Kleptomaniac Yang is a reference from episode nine when Yang is holding items that don't exactly look like they belong to her. Some fans theorize that she stole them, but that was probably just prop recycling.
._.
After the group was yelled at by Glynda (still muttering about how she was unable to find Bartholomew) a second time while Ozpin pretended not to hear her, several other teachers of Beacon were pulled into this and were forced to help in case the headmaster escaped. Peter Port was one of these teachers, along with some other staff members that they weren't too familiar with. They were to remain in this unnaturally crowded room of fold-up chairs in downtown Vale until the meeting was over.
Despite being yelled at by Glynda to go, none of the staff were doing anything to actually help things run smoothly. They were all busy on their phones, or creating lesson plans for their next classes. Ruby understood that; they had their own things to do. But she thought it would be nice if they even bothered to at least keep their boss away from the free coffee on the side, and to (maybe) get him up on stage so he could admit he had a problem.
To encourage their headmaster, the members of team RWBY and JNPR- Glynda told them those were their real team names- decided to get up on stage and shout out their own problems even though they weren't required to.
Ruby went first despite the fact that she didn't have any problems that were too serious like Pyrrha or Yang's. As she glanced at the crowd before her, she saw their teams, the staff, and then people who were pretending to have addictions so they could eat the free food. So she started talking about something that was somewhat relevant.
"Every day for every meal I eat cookies," she began speaking in front of the group. "Sometimes one, sometimes ten. Now that I think about it, that's all I ever really eat. But there was this one time- yesterday- when I was trying to eat my plate of cookies, and suddenly a banana hit me in the face. I still don't know what that was about, but when I woke up there was an explosion and the school was on fire."
She meant it when she said that she had no clue. There were multiple rumors running about who was responsible for this. Jaune claimed that Cardin did it, whereas Cardin insisted that the culprit was actually Pyrrha, the spear-weilding blood thirsty maniac. But Ruby knew Pyrrha was only trying to get rid of just Cardin, so that couldn't have been true. However, Pyrrha did glance at the headmaster and say "it was him," but Ruby found that hard to believe, even as Ozpin tried to make his exit while claiming that the banana-flinger was in fact Roman Torchwick.
"That poor girl!" Nora burst out into tears suddenly. "She shouldn't have had to been put through such a terrible ordeal!"
Ren looked to his crying friend tiredly. "Nora, we were all there when it happened. And it wasn't as bad as what happened to Cardin, who got hit with a pancake, had carrots shoved up his nose, then broke his hand very painfully and was almost assassinated by Pyrrha."
Nora was unsympathetic. "Meh," she shrugged and stopped crying. "He deserved it."
"He didn't even do anything that bad though," Ren told her.
"Not yet," Yang muttered from where she sat behind them.
They weren't sure how to respond to that. Every once in a while, Yang would say stuff like that ("not yet" or "you'll see") and they wouldn't know what she was referring to until it actually happened.
"Are you psychic?" Nora questioned.
Yang glanced up from the video playing on her phone. "I wish I was," she answered.
Ruby frowned. "Er, should I just stop there? You guys are kind of talking over me…"
"Yeah you guys, respect the speaker," Pyrrha said while typing away disrespectfully on her phone. "Be quiet so I can focus on stalking Cardin's twitter."
She felt like she should talk more about the recent disaster that started with one banana, but it wasn't like the audience was really listening. She stopped there and let Weiss take the stage.
Between Jaune and Pyrrha was an empty seat, so she took it. Pyrrha had given her spear its own seat but gave it up so Ruby could sit down with them. As Ruby sat, she noticed that Pyrrha was cyber-stalking Cardin on both her phone and laptop. Seeing this, Ruby tapped her on the shoulder and told her to put them away. She didn't understand why Pyrrha was so intent on harassing Cardin, but she was setting a bad example for anyone who could see what she was doing. She had the screen too bright and was staring too closely at it! Furthermore, she hadn't taken a break in the last ten hours.* Enough was enough.
When Weiss was certain that the impressionable teachers weren't listening, she began talking. She didn't want to seem like was anything less than a perfect student, but had told Ruby that she (much to Ruby's surprise) had something to confess.
"…" Weiss nervously looked at the staff in the back of the room. Then she looked over at where their headmaster stood by the refreshments for some reason. "Okay," she took a deep breath to prepare herself. Despite trying to appear calm, she blurted out her confession: "When I first came to Beacon, the headmaster gave me three weeks of detention because I said coffee was terrible. I have to spend those three weeks trying to take care of his coffee tree plants in the Emerald Forest, which are swarming with Grimm constantly. I think this caused me to turn into a total bitch and ever since I've been trying to get revenge on the headmaster by putting unused toilet water in the coffee brewer every time I see one. It's become a bad habit; I don't even think it's that funny anymore! It's kind of disgusting and I need to stop."
There was a silence. At the mention of "coffee tree," Ozpin had stopped what he was doing. While Weiss had spoken too quickly for most of the audience to comprehend, he had caught on right away. He dropped his coffee mug, shocked.
"Ms. Schnee, that is eighteen weeks of detention!" he shouted. "How dare you try to poison me with your bad coffee."
Weiss had clearly been busted. "But-"
"Eighteen weeks! Good lord, now this batch is ruined," he complained. "Thank god I make my own coffee at the school." He put down his coffee, no longer trusting its quality after hearing Weiss's confession. "Poor Glynda though. I wonder if I should tell her." He thought about it, then remembered that the only reason he was wasting his time here was because of the woman in question. "Nah," he said, shaking his head. "I don't even think she'll believe me."
Following Weiss was Blake. Having caught the headmaster's attention, there was more pressure on her to set a good example. Their goal was to have him get up on stage and admit his problem (because according to Wiki How on breaking addictions, this was the first step). Hopefully by the end of the day, Ozpin would take this first step and they could go home.
Not wanting to look directly at the audience, Blake took out the flashcards she had prepared earlier for her speech and began to read off of them. "Hello my name is Blake Belladonna and I excessively read and write fanfiction. I'm also part cat and am a former terrorist but that shouldn't really matter because this does not define who I am. I bet most of you aren't even listening to that last part I said there about me being a former terrorist. But anyways, I-"
Jaune cut her off. "I have a question!" he shouted. He was suddenly holding a notepad and pencil, having been taking notes. He stood so everyone could see who was asking. "Do you write smut?"
Pyrrha was appalled by his audacity but equally curious. "Jaune! That's so rude!" she gasped. Then she took out her phone again, ready to research Blake's possible posting account. "So… do you?…" she coughed into her hand, embarrassed. "Do you publish it online? Er- the explicit content, that is?"
Without an ounce of shame, Blake nodded. "Yes, my account is NinjasOfForbiddenLove on FictionsOfFans. net."
Then Blake put away her flashcards, tossed them into the nearest recycling bin, and took a seat quickly so the next presenter could go.
Yang was that person. "So," she drawled. "A lot of you guys may have noticed, but um, I steal other people's belongings." To distract herself as she tried to think of what to say, she began to brush her hair with a hairbrush that Ruby didn't recall belonging to her.
Nora spoke up. "Isn't that my hairbrush?"
"…No." Yang continued to brush her hair despite the blatant lie.
Yang left the stage, being replaced by Jaune.
"Okay, so I don't really have any addictions," he started off, "so I'll just talk about my problems. Especially regarding Cardin Winchester, the bully who hasn't really bullied anyone yet and I'll discuss how he (sort of but not really) has a problem instead."
As Jaune did this, Ruby's attention was drawn to the side where Ozpin was loudly snacking on chocolate covered espresso beans and drinking the coffee again despite Weiss's earlier confession. Weiss was annoyed by the noise to the point where she snapped and stood, glaring accusingly at the headmaster as she stormed over.
"I thought you said the batch was ruined," she glared.
"I can't help it," he said. "I'm really desperate for coffee right now."
Weiss looked tempted to slap the coffee-products out of his hands. "And why is that?"
Ruby watched as her sister got up again, sneaking around the crowd to make her way over to the refreshment booth. She had stolen someone's purse and crept up to the table. Although Ozpin was close by, he didn't notice as she began to stuff the goods into the purse.
"Because someone stole all of my coffee supply. I think it was the Grimm, but no one seems to believe me," he answered honestly. "Say, do you know any Grimm that can talk and or has a tendency to steal coffee-related products?"
Weiss and Ruby observed in silence as Yang took the rest of the coffee pot, shocked as even Ozpin didn't notice.
"… No sir," Weiss mumbled. "Good luck with that."
Jaune meanwhile continued with his problems. "And then as I began to hum the cup song during lunch, Cardin ran up to me with a milkshake in hand and shouted: 'Milkshake!' I screamed in terror as he proceeded to recite the lines of Kelis' song, Milkshake. I remember him shouting 'And damn right, it's better than yours!' as he slammed the beverage onto my head. Then there was this other time, when-"
Nora dropkicked Jaune, who went flying off of the stage.
"My turn!" she cheered. The cheerful girl turned to face the audience. "I like trains!" she shouted.
Jaune dejectedly shuffled over to the snack table, taking one of the remaining donuts left out for the guests. Ruby left her seat to join him, being able to relate to his situation in that things randomly hit them from the side and knocked them over.
To their surprise, Ozpin decided to be a respectable figure of authority for once.
"Don't worry Mr. Arc, when I was your age something very similar happened to me," he consoled the sulking student.
Jaune looked up from his donut. He had been counting the sprinkles in order to focus on anything that wasn't his previous humiliation, while Ruby had tried to help by saying the wrong numbers along with him.
"Really?" He tried to recount the number of sprinkles, having lost his place. "One…"
"Seven!" Ruby interrupted mischievously.
Jaune pointed at the next sprinkle, trying to focus on his counting. "Two…"
"Forty eight," Ruby grinned.
"Three…"
"Negative five."
"How can you have negative five sprinkles?!" Jaune was getting distracted very easily.
Ruby picked off five of the colorful sprinkles and ate them.
"Yes, something very similar happened to me when I was your age," Ozpin repeated himself as he mysteriously reminisced.
"… You already said that," Jaune pointed out. "So did you really?"
Ozpin nodded. "Yes, really," he said but didn't elaborate.
Jaune waited a few moments for the explanation, but he impatiently asked: "What happened, then?"
Ozpin blinked. "Oh," he shook himself out of the memory. "Well you see, I started drinking coffee at your age-"
Jaune was confused. "How does this relate to me being dropkicked?"
"No, I was listening to your story about the cup and the milkshake," Ozpin clarified. "And when I said drinking coffee at your age, I actually mean that I was bottle-fed coffee when I was a baby," he went on. The group of three (Yang had left while claiming she was going to go steal the blue phone booth outside) sat down on the floor near the refreshment table for story time. Ozpin sat down as well with his coffee mug, and continued. "As I grew up, people wondered why I smelt like coffee beans at every given time of the day. Even my deodorant and shampoo were coffee scented. But then one day someone in my school told me that he didn't like coffee."
Weiss raised her hand. "Did that person take a drink of some other kind and slam it on your head like what happened to that guy?" she asked, pointing at Jaune.
"Not exactly," Ozpin said. "After politely and respectfully listening to that person's complaint, I went home. Then I got the cane that you all see me using today, and returned to school and violently hit them in the face with it!"
They gasped.
"Oh my god!" Jaune exclaimed, horrified that their headmaster would do such a thing.
"I know," Ozpin agreed with Jaune's shock. "You're probably surprised that I didn't push that person out of a plane at 30,000 feet in the air like I wanted to do. But don't worry, I did that one year later."
The group had nothing to say regarding this information. They weren't even sure if it was safe to speak, so they let Ozpin go on with his story which didn't really relate to Jaune's situation. Ruby thought that most of this story was ridiculous and was probably false. Most likely Ozpin was exaggerating his need for coffee while trying to win the sympathy of his staff and students so he could go home. Nothing about his claim sounded believable, but there was no way for them to prove that this didn't actually happen.
"At the time my weapon of choice was a coffee mug that could transform into a gun to shoot my enemies and a knife to spread butter on my toast in the mornings. Or stab non-coffee believers, but whatever. Same thing." He shrugged as if this wasn't a problem, which it was. "But I found that using a cane was equally useful. Did you know I sometimes stir my coffee with it? I've been relying on my cane ever since. We've had many adventures together, me and my cane and my various but equally deadly coffee mugs."
Everyone in the room had stopped what they were doing. The teachers sent along with the group had stopped what they were doing, and on stage Ren wasn't even able to get to the mic as his turn came along.
Not knowing whether or not Ozpin's claim was credible or not, the occupants of the room still recognized that the headmaster of Beacon had a problem more serious than anyone else's. They quickly swarmed him, forcing Ozpin to get up on the stage even as he tried to cling to the coffee machine to slow their efforts.
"What's happening?" Ozpin asked, genuinely confused. "Why am I up here?"
Peter Port answered the question for him. "Not to be disrespectful sir, but you clearly have an addiction to coffee. It's time for an intervention."
Ozpin attempted to deny this. "No, I'm not addicted," he lied. "I've only had twenty four or so coffees today. That's the least amount of coffee I've had in days."
"You have a problem," Blake told him, "It's okay to admit it."
"I don't have a problem," Ozpin said, while drinking his twenty fifth coffee on stage.
Ren backed up Blake at this. "No, sir, you really do have a problem."
Ozpin didn't put his coffee mug down. "Fine," he said, "I will talk up here if that satisfies everyone."
With Ozpin willing to admit to his coffee addiction, the supervisors and attendants of the meeting sat down on the available chairs. However, some of the fold up chairs were missing, so half of the group was forced to sit on the ground.
"Allow me to explain myself," Ozpin began seriously. "I look among you, and all I see is wasted energy."
I feel like this has already been said before, Ruby thought to herself. Something about this line sounds familiar.
"Energy you could be using devoting your lives to the great coffee gods," Ozpin finished. "That is all."
Then he attempted to walk off the stage and leave. However, the crowd became angry with his attitude and forced him back on the stage.
"What? Did I say something wrong?" Ozpin was annoyed that he had stay here when he could be doing other more important things.
"You recycled your speech during initiation, sir, and to top it off you just insulted us as you brushed off your coffee addiction," Peter Port explained.
Ren took out his phone while the teachers prevented their employer from escaping. "That's it. We're calling Glynda," he told the headmaster, and began to dial the woman in question using a number one of the teachers had given him.
"Nice try," Ozpin said, "but I technically did admit to my problem so she won't be able to do anything about this."
While Ren explained the situation to Glynda, Ozpin managed to get away from the teachers. He ran out of the room, pushing several people out of his way. After a quick debate, the teachers decided that it wasn't worth the effort to try and stop him.
As the teachers had already given up, Ruby went after their headmaster to make sure he didn't do anything illegal again. She followed him outside, where she found him approaching a blue phone booth** that had been (somehow) taken from its spot across the street and placed in a pile with other miscellaneous items labeled "Yang's sweet loot."
Ruby wondered why Yang had stolen a blue phone booth of all things. What was the point in doing something so pointless? But as Ozpin opened the door to the phone booth, a girl with short orange hair tumbled out.
"Salutations!" the girl exclaimed.
Ozpin stepped around the strange girl with orange hair and bright green eyes, entering the blue phone booth as he ignored her. The girl looked to Ruby, who instinctively began to back away.
"Uh, hello," Ruby greeted. She had a feeling that this person wasn't supposed to be here. She didn't know why that was, but her presence felt out of place.
"Do you remember me?" the girl questioned, getting up from where she was lying on the floor. "What's today? Is it the Vytal Festival yet?"
"Er, no," Ruby shook her head, "that's months from now, sorry."
"Golly gee willikers," the girl exclaimed. "I was sent too far back in time!"
Ruby looked at the blue phone booth that the girl had stumbled out of moments ago.
"Excuse me?" Ruby didn't understand what has happening here. "Did you just say you went back in time?"
The girl nodded. "Indeed! I happened to stumble across a blue phone booth a while ago from my perspective, when I was simply going to call you to ask if you were in possession of duracell AAA batteries. However I have discovered by accident that the phone booth is actually a time-travelling machine, and became quickly sidetracked as I attempted to return to my time in fear of creating a paradox."
Worried that Professor Ozpin would use this alleged time-machine to his advantage, Ruby dropped the conversation there and went after the headmaster. She opened the door to the phone booth, and found a room much larger than she had anticipated. Inside, Ozpin was messing with some of the buttons while trying to find what she assumed was more coffee.
"Wait, don't touch that!" Ruby shouted, the strange girl from the future following her inside. "There isn't any coffee in here!"
Ozpin looked up from the button he just pushed. "I know that," he told her. "But someone left a note in here telling me to push buttons and so I did," he responded, showing her the note he had found inside the "phone booth."
"Someone else wrote that and told me to let a guy with a coffee addiction use it," the girl beamed. "I didn't recognize that person, but he didn't appear to be very important."
After she said this, the door opened and in entered Peter Port. "What's this doing here?" he asked, and then looked at the occupants of the room. "Oh, are we going to do a time skip?"
In response to that, Ozpin pushed a button. A loud grinding and whirring sound was heard and suddenly Ruby wished that she had never agreed to go to Beacon Academy early.
"Splendid!" the girl exclaimed, excitedly grabbing Ruby's hands. "Now I will be able become your friend much sooner from your perspective in time!"
Ruby blinked. "I become your friend in the future?"
"Your BEST friend," the girl answered.
Ruby felt like that was a lie, but she went along with it.
"I don't even know your name though," she told the girl. "You never introduced yourself."
The time-travelling machine brought them into the future as the loud sound came to an abrupt stop. They wandered outside, finding themselves in Vale at the time of preparation for the festival. Back in the time she was supposed to be in, the girl turned to Ruby and smiled.
"You can just call me Penny."
._.
*I don't think that's the problem you should be addressing, Ruby.
**That's the time traveling TARDIS from Doctor Who in case you haven't caught on.
I was going to do this kind of chapter anyways, but Penny's arrival (as of episode 15, "The Stray") makes things easier. We all know the series has done a couple time skips, but now instead of several we're just doing one. This is going to be the only time skip I ever do, so if there's another jump, I'm going to have to see what I can do rather than posting boring filler. Hopefully there won't be another time skip over months (or worse, years) but if there is I will deal with it.
Next chapter: The group learns that time traveling can have negative consequences, Ruby manages to foil yet another one of Roman's robberies, and Yang acts more and more suspicious.