The Fall of Professor Arc
/
/
Disclaimer and Dedication:
Dedicated to Coeur. Thanks for the stories, and the countless ideas. You've only yourself to blame, you know!
Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY. 'Professor Arc' in particular is the brainchild of Coeur. If you haven't read it already... why are you here?
/
/
The rest of Team RWBY wasn't brave enough to face the battlefield lest they be turned into ammunition, and so those left behind simply hid in the infirmary as the occasional shout of pain or frustration echoed. They also ignored the desperate knocks and pleas of Yang when she managed to reach and claw at the door.
"She sounds rather upset," Jaune noted as Glynda let loose another harsh scolding of some flaw in Yang's form.
"She's just frustrated since she realized she was going to have to wait a few more years," Tsune said easily.
"Huh? What for?" The mentally sixteen-year-old asked.
"Oh, nothing," Tsune said, waving it off. "You'll understand when you're older."
"You don't have to treat me like a child, you know," Jaune groused.
"I know," Tsune said, but didn't apologize in the slightest.
"It kind of fits, though," Blake mused from her spot sitting cross-legged on a bed. Jaune tried not to peek, and managed out of love for his Solar Flare. "Professor Arc was bit more…" she tried to find the word.
"Professional?" Tsune offered.
"Mature?" Weiss suggested.
"Cool," Ruby sighed, but looking dreamily at Jaune none the less.
"I was going to say 'better with the ladies,'" Blake claimed, "but those work too."
"Well, such a deficiency can be overcome," Weiss said. "I'm sure with a bit of tutoring and re-education, he will be as capable and composed as he ever was. In fact," Weiss began to volunteer, "I-"
"Was I good?" Jaune interrupted, wanting to know. "Good with girls, I mean?"
It caused a pause, which Ruby took full advantage of.
"Yeah!" Ruby chirped. "On my first day, I got yelled at by Weiss who was being crabby over an accident-"
"I wasn't crabby!"
"-and you helped me up and were my first friend at Beacon! So I'm a girl, and you were good with me!" Ruby said, a slight blush on her cheeks as she hoped he'd get what she was trying to say.
Jaune smiled before reaching over and tousling her head at the adorableness of it. "Not quite what I meant," he said, making her droop so slightly, "but I wish I remembered it, Ruby," he said, cheering her up a bit.
"Well, let's make new memories together!" Ruby declared, boldly plopping herself beside him on his bed. "You can be my best guy friend!" She said. 'Only' meant 'best', right? And 'guy' was synonymous with 'boy', so…
"Sounds like stiff competition," Jaune laughed, unconcerned with her proximity even as she tried to adjust her seating closer to him. "Did I do well with any other girls?" He asked the remainder of the audience.
There was a moment of awkward, fidgety silence as Blake and Weiss declined to answer and Tsune just looked bemused as she tried not to laugh. It was Weiss who had the idea of how to change the topic to a better direction.
"Excuse me, Professor," she began politely.
"Call me Jaune, please," Jaune answered instinctively- not realizing how similar he sounded to all the other times he'd ever made the request.
"Alright… Jaune," Weiss tested, willing to drop it the title now that he was a fellow student of sorts "I've always wondered but never dared ask, but… what is your type of girl?"
A completely different sort of silence spread across the room- and outside in the hall, where the sounds of fighting suddenly stopped.
Jaune flushed a little at the topic and suddenly being the center of attention. "I'm, er, that's - that's to say… I'm not sure I should say," he hemmed.
"Ooh, ooh, ooh, please Jaune?" Ruby begged, leaning over and doing her darndest to look adorable.
Without heroic willpower worthy of the Professor he was, Jaune caved and told her what she wanted to know.
"I like blondes," he admitted.
There was a thud on the far side of the door, like two heads hitting a wall.
"Bustier is better," he continued, and Weiss looked down at herself in disappointment even as four softer thuds hit the outside wall even harder.
"But it's really the hair. There's just something about long hair, you know?"
Weiss and Blake nonchalantly fingered their own. "I think I know," Blake said, considering her own profile.
"So you're saying your ideal type is a busty blonde with long hair?" Tsune tried to clarify.
There was another thud from the outside, and a faint "Hah!", and then a faint scream as Yang flew far away.
"Well, it's less about the length and more about the… I don't know, maturity?" Jaune said, gesturing. "Someone a little bit older who you can rely on? If a mature blonde asked me out, I'd say 'yes' in a heartbeat," Jaune admitted.
The thud happened again, and again, and again and again and again before finishing with a faint "Damn it!"
Beside him, Ruby alone looked downcast as she looked down and saw… well, not long locks of blond hair, and nothing else to brag about yet.
Maybe Tsune saw her and had pity, or maybe Tsune had her own sadistic motives, but the Beacon nurse shook a finger at him. "That's rather petty, Jaune," the faunus tutted. "Are you telling me that if any other girl approached you, you'd turn them away?"
Jaune waved his hands in denial. "Of course not!" he objected. "Any girl is good if they're good!" he said, covering for low standards with a tautology. "Like, black hair is a close second!" he said.
"Really?" Ruby asked, perking up slightly along with Blake.
"Really," Jaune said. "You know what they say- black is better."
"Better than what?" Blake wanted to know.
"White," Jaune said. "I like older, but not that old!" he laughed, not noticing the shaking Schnee or the immature tongue Blake shot at her teammate. "But nothing beats a youthful ponytail," he continued. "The way it restrains the hair, giving a sense of youth mixed with maturity and self-control… better than wild, uncollected hair," he said, still not noticing the turnabout in taunting between the two girls.
"So it's all about the long hair, huh?" Ruby asked, wistfully passing her fingers through her own choppy, boyish cut.
"How long is long enough?" Tsune wanted to know, considering her own just out of curiosity.
"Well… at least touching the shoulders," Jaune said. "There can be something charming about a short cut too, as long as the ears are hidden," he claimed.
"You don't like ears?" Blake asked meaningfully.
"I love cute ears," Jaune denied with unexpected fervor. "I just think they're best as hidden treasures to be uncovered, like so," he said, gently brushing away Ruby's hair from behind to expose her ear. "That answer your questions better?" he asked.
"Ye-ye-yes!" Ruby stammered, glad her face was hidden from him.
"Completely," Blake answered, bashfully looking down even as her- did her bow just twitch? Huh.
"Quite," Weiss agreed, fingering her own ponytail with a smile.
Tsune opened her mouth to answer, but there was yet another thud from outside the room. Jaune took the opportunity to finish his thoughts.
"Really, the only type of girl I wouldn't like is one younger than me," he said. "That'd just be weird, you know?"
Tsune barked a laugh at how the mood of all three girls fell at once. Sensing a feeling of great relief and victory on the far side of the wall, the secret sadist decided the best sort of misery could come from cheering others up.
"Well, lucky for you you're sixteen now for all intents and purposes," Tsune reminded. "Thanks to your amnesia, there are years of girls you wouldn't have considered before."
It was beautiful. There was another thud and suppressed scream so strong that dust vibrated. Two radiant suns, black and white adorned, lit up- and then a third as she too realized what it meant.
"I'm sixteen!" Ruby realized, as if undergoing a great and amazing revelation.
"No you aren't!" Weiss objected a bit too quickly. "You're just fifteen!"
"She's just fifteen," Blake echoed to Jaune in a confidential tone.
"Only for a few more weeks!" Ruby claimed. "Then it's my birthday!"
"Congratulations in advance!" Jaune applauded. "I would have forgotten all about it! Is there anything you'd like for your sweet sixteen, Ruby?"
"We'll be the same age," Ruby said, somehow understating her anticipation.
"Well, yes, but that's not something I can really give," Jaune began.
"And we'll be classmates and close friends from day one," she continued, excitement building.
"Well, I hope so, but a gift should be something more-," Jaune replied at the same rate.
"And I'll help you train late into the night," she narrated, voice quickening.
"Okay, see, I should do something nice for you," Jaune tried to explain.
"Until one night we decide to go to the forge and make something magical, just the two of us-!" her voice raised.
"What? Make what? A weapon?"
"-AND IT WILL BE THE JUST THE START OF OUR LEGEND TOGETHER AS WE-"
In a simple motion Tsune leaned over and jabbed an overly long needle- one big enough to pierce through aura- into Ruby's arm. In a matter of seconds the girl lost steam, rubbed her eyes, and fell against Jaune with a contented, dreamy smile.
"Tranquilizer," Tsune answered the unspoken questions. "Excitable Hunters are more common than you think," she explained.
"Is there any chance I could buy-" Weiss began.
"No."
"Money won't be an issue-" she tried again.
"Money can't buy the joy of jabbing people with needles," Tsune denied.
"Huh. She must really be looking forward to her birthday," Jaune laughed even as he helped lay Ruby down on the bed beside him. "Still not sure what she wants for a present," he said.
"Just bake her some cookies," Blake suggested. "She'll love you for it." Then again- "On second thought, she doesn't need the sugar."
"Maybe," Jaune conceded, petting the already-snoring Ruby, before looking back at Blake and Weiss.
"Well, now that you know my type," he said, looking at the girls, "what sort of guy interests you?"
/
/
Author Note:
This was a surprisingly fun chapter to write. Mostly because of Ruby, but Tsune is great.
Also because of shipping. And you get a ship, and you get a ship, and you get a ship... no ship is too weird. Except for the person who shipped me and Coeur. That was weird enough to spark a discussion- and maybe a story? Who knows.
Made a minor change to chapter 4- a joke that fell off at some point, and I can't believe I forgot to put back in. Points for finding it, but it's nothing major.