A/N: This chapter seriously didn't want to be written. Must be the homework that I've started getting. Yeah, I'm a uni student now. Dunno how that'll effect my upload schedule, considering it's a writing course. You'd think I'd have more motivation, but you would be mistaken.
He was woefully unprepared to be dealing with something like this only a few weeks into the school term.
No words had been exchanged the two of them for what must have been over a minute. Blake had broken eye contact ten seconds in, scanning the room up and down for what Jaune could only presume were alternate exits. The defeated slump of her shoulder a handful of breaths ago told him all he needed to know; there was no escaping a situation like this.
There was nothing he could see that was inherently wrong with the Faunus. Cynical as he could be, his eldest sister had really summed it up for him the best less than a year prior, after a spectacular failure at trying to make him feel better about the glacial pace of his training.
"The only person you hate is yourself. You'll get there, don't worry about it."
Of course, it had been somewhat paraphrased and in an entirely different context, but the message was the same. Unlike many people he had come across, Jaune could say with certainty that he did not hate, nor did he hold any ill will towards Faunus. The White Fang? Yes, they were terrorists, but humanity itself wasn't judged by examples that could be fished from the bottom of the barrel.
He couldn't judge every parent against Father Arc. Whatever spite was within him was wishing that he could, but that discussion was deep and dark and went places he didn't want to think about.
Even so, that hadn't helped him towards making any progress, considering the person he'd found himself in this situation with was Blake. Her inarguably being one of the most beautiful girls currently attending their first year at Beacon (not that the silhouettes were putting up much of a fight in that regard, but he digressed) did very little to ease the painful awkwardness that had plagued him his entire life, nor did the look on her face that conveyed the message of her serious consideration towards either committing a murder or breaking down a wall.
He could think of nothing to make all this go away. A promise to never speak of it was just asking for trouble. Ignoring it entirely and pretending it had never happened was possibly viable, but was that even fair to the goals Blake herself had admitted wanting to move towards? She wanted acceptance for what she was, so perhaps his best option was to offer it.
"I cheated my way into Beacon."
Or he could go ahead and say that. It was basically the sentiment he wanted to convey in the first place, except it was nothing like what he had been going for. Story of his life.
At least if he was reading between the right lines, this wasn't about to get him kicked out.
Joy.
XxX
Cardin could feel the grip he had on his sanity slowly loosening.
This had never been a problem for him before he'd decided he wanted to attend combat school. Sure, he loved fighting, and maybe occasionally he took things a little too far, but that was just because he was a complete asshole. Before Beacon, he never would have brought his own mental health into question.
But everything changed when the coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) attacked.
No matter how far he went, it would always be there, remaining in the corner of his vision regardless of what he did. Whenever he closed his eyes it would haunt his dreams. Every time he looked in a mirror, there it would be, mocking him over his shoulder and disappearing as soon as he had turned around.
It would always be there, lurking just out of his reach whenever he was within a stone's throw distance of a Faunus. If the rest of his team ever wondered why he would flinch and walk past that rabbit freak with his head down, they didn't question it.
His temper, already shorter than that annoyingly happy farmer child, seemed to reach its peak faster and faster as the days passed. His leg muscles had grown far stronger with all the running away he'd done whenever the coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) would disappear from his vision, only to fly around the corner and barrel towards him. He'd escaped unscathed so far, the cup always veering off course to strike a student who was in some way being an asshole to another student (either human or Faunus, the ceramic mug didn't seem to capable of differentiating between the two, despite the marked differences), but he knew better than to grow complacent.
His balls had only just stopped hurting. That trip to the nurses' office on Russel's insistence had been down and out the most awkward thing that he'd ever been forced to endure. Only now could he walk without a limp; to let his guard down for even a second could be to lay down his life as forfeit.
It was only in Oobleck's class where the coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) would vanish from his sight, would leave him free to his own devices. All he would get was a single History lesson before he was forced to worry once more, a couple of hours freedom at most.
He wasn't proud to admit that he'd let his guard down. When he had tried to re-enter the room and retrieve the pencil he'd accidentally left behind, the coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) had completely blindsided him. He hadn't been aware that his voice could reach that level of pitch or volume, but it had, and he had almost been entering the Emerald Forest before realising the coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) had no longer been on his tail.
The climb back up the cliff left him wondering how he'd descended it without noticing in the first place. The temptation to just skip Dust Theory altogether and just go to bed ridiculously early was thrown away upon realisation that he couldn't possibly afford tardiness in that class if he didn't feel like being kicked out of the school for poor attendance, and thus, here he now was, walking down Beacon's corridors with his entire body twitching like a junky desperate for their next hit.
At least the coffee cup (front the on flower blue pretty a had that) was behaving itself in the corner of his vision, leaving him be as he traversed the school. A small mercy considering he'd missed a good half the class in session and didn't currently have the mental acuity to come up with a plausible excuse. "I was being chased by an arguable sentient wannabe tea cup" didn't seem too likely to work.
But even so-
"Ah, Mister Winchester. Fancy running into you here."
Cardin almost ignored Oobleck's voice entirely. Sure, now that the man hadn't been hopped up on whatever he claimed was coffee for the last two weeks, he was a decent educator that may have actually been worthy of a smidgen of respect, but he just didn't have it in him to care. He could have laid claim to his indifference being due to the man's unfortunate Faunus sympathising behaviours; he would just need to get past the mental exhaustion first.
Too bad for him, then, that Oobleck was currently in possession of a coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) that suspiciously resembled his stalker.
A lump of ice that was approximately the same size as the bruises that had been decorating his groin for the last little while slid into his stomach, landing with an audible thud against his intestines. Oobleck glanced around in confusion for a moment, before shrugging and leaning against the door he'd been standing in front of, the coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) bouncing up and down as he fiddled with it.
"How fortunate that we have come across one another." The words may as well have been swimming through concrete in an attempt to enter his ears; all Cardin could hear was the cries of the thousands upon thousands of children that would always seem to start up whenever he came across solid evidence that he was sharing space with that damn coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front). "I've already sent word to the teachers for the classes you have today, perhaps you should return to your dorm and rest for now. The stress of a new school years gets to everyone eventually."
Cardin nodded along to the dismissal. In reality, he was actually doing absolutely everything in his power to both remain completely still and keep the coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) in his sights at all times. Regardless, he'd heard what had been said, and so began to back away slowly, his steps slow and measured enough to be found on a professional Huntsman in the process of retreating from a horde of sensitive Grimm.
The coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) climbed higher, Cardin's head following it like a puppy entranced by a toy, except the puppy was vastly more horrified and the toy was a needle filled with anaesthetic at the vets'. The coffee cup (that had a pretty running gag on the front) drifted past Oobleck's face, Cardin's eyes remaining on it until it was suddenly gone. Conditioned by fear and experience, he almost managed to turn around, catching sight of Oobleck's eyes a fraction of a second before he had managed the first step towards a full retreat.
"Ozpin sees something great in you, Mister Winchester. You would not have been allowed into Beacon otherwise." Cardin stood transfixed, his waist twisted at a painful angle as the coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) began to orbit Oobleck's head. The good doctor's eyes were back to that shade of brown, their intensity uncomfortably familiar. "Your family name has bathed in blood not belonging to Grimm for generations. Perhaps it is time to think about whether yours is a legacy worth upholding?"
Oobleck blinked, and the effect was lost. Blue eyes regarded Cardin with something akin to boredom, the coffee cup (that had a pretty flower blue on the front) nowhere to be seen. With nothing but a nod, he turned around, silently pushing the door he'd been leaning against open and disappearing into the classroom beyond it, the door shutting with nary a sound behind him.
It took precisely four and a half seconds to realise something important, and a further six to finally do as he had initially been told.
The coffee cup (that had pretty much tortured him up to this point if you really think about it) was nowhere to be seen.
The smile didn't even leave his face when he passed a couple of Faunus holding hands.
The boy who pointed and laughed at his dopey expression received a coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) to the back of the head.
XxX
Yang Xiao Long was currently a woman on a mission.
It wasn't a sanctioned mission; she hadn't even left the grounds of Beacon Academy in order to undertake it. It had also not been the result of an order, perhaps it could even be considered as the complete opposite.
Ren and Nora had left her to her own devices long ago, after Nora had seen something shiny down an adjacent corridor and chased after it. The grip she's had on Ren's arm meant he was coming along for the ride unless he found a way to detach it, and green mixing with red was just too suggestive for this time of year to bother whipping StormFlower out.
Maybe she had lost some time. That worked out perfectly. Given the circumstances, any time she could add to this specific endeavour could only ever be a good thing…
~2 minutes earlier~
"I'm sorry, you're just not my type."
The silhouette did nothing but stare. The silhouette couldn't ever do anything other than stare. The silhouette led a tortured existence. The silhouette had no mouth to scream, no hands to grasp the future, no eyes to see and no emotions to feel. The silhouette was a hollow husk shaped vaguely like a human, nothing to separate it from the Grimm that it had attended this academy to learn to kill.
Yang smiled, the expression making her look vaguely queasy. "It's just that I like my men with more…"
Muscles.
"Character."
She meant muscles.
The silhouette stared at her. The silhouette could do nothing but stare. Cardin chose that moment to run past, screaming his head off. A familiar coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) tore after him, bouncing at impossible angles in its pursuit.
The silhouette began to move away. The silhouette didn't use its feet. The silhouette didn't have any feet. Only outlines and arguable sentience.
Yang watched as the silhouette melted into the background. That was the one advantage the silhouette had in life, being able to show up at any point of time with little to no explanation. Never was the silhouette late to class. Never did the silhouette leave a high-five hanging. The silhouette was literally the greatest thing to ever walk Remnant. Grimm would line up and bow down to the overwhelming might that was the silhouette's sheer allure, should their soulless shells even hope to survive exposure to the sheer divinity of the silhouette's empty countenance.
"Sheesh, you didn't have to crush the guy that like, Yang."
By the sheer beatific grace of having been within the silhouette's presence for any amount of time, Yang didn't bat an eyelash as Nora dropped down from the ceiling, Ren under one arm and her face set in a disapproving frown.
"Gary was already two-dimensional, Nora. I doubt he can even feel pain." Through the use of ninja reflexes, a tap on the elbow, and world class level gymnastics did Ren free himself from his best friend's hold, shaking his head once to return the streak in his hair from a dust covered gray to its regular pink. "More on the point, I still doubt that Jaune has taken to hiding within the ventilation system."
"This isn't your scene…" part of the corridor's décor muttered under its breath. No, wait, my apologies, it was another silhouette. So hard to tell these days.
Everyone present ignored it. As they should.
Yang glanced between the two teammates, her neck almost creaking as she glanced through the door she had been holding open the entire time. Professor Port seemed unsurprisingly completely oblivious to the fact that she hadn't entered yet. Ruby waved at her, taking a moment out of her busy schedule of stacking books atop her head. Sitting right beside her sister, Weiss very pointedly stared towards the front of the classroom, tilting her head towards Yang's direction a second later and cocking an eyebrow ever so slightly.
The door was lucky to remain on its hinges after transferring all that kinetic energy to the wall. The last thing Yang saw before the threshold was sealed away was Ruby's utterly betrayed look. It was almost enough for her to give up this one chance at freedom and actually enter the classroom.
Almost.
"You know what, Blake isn't around here either. I'll help you look; maybe they're somewhere together?"
The trio glanced at one another before launching into the laughter equivalent of a golf clap. Except Ren, but he was laughing on the inside. Maybe.
Yang blinked back to the present, glancing around suspiciously in order to make sure nobody had noticed the fact that she had been walking into a wall for however long she was out of it. The corridor she had found herself in, along with being abandoned, had the added accidental benefit of housing the History classroom, which was all well and good in her eyes.
Any moments spent around Oobleck were a potential goldmine of comedy. He almost managed to make learning anything other than how to crush a Grimm's skull with laser vision seem interesting. He was pretty close, though, only having to lose the shirt on a more regular basis until he reached that level.
"…No, no, this is fine-"
"…Well, maybe a cut below, but still-"
Yang paused her steps, her neck slowly twisting like an owl until she was facing the door to the History Classroom. The incriminating piece of wood said nothing as she crept up to it; a wise decision, seeing as the voices beyond the door were doubtlessly Blake and… Jaune?
They were holding a conversation? How… unlikely.
"…Gotta think for a second… nobody can know-"
"…Kicked out… family'll never let me live it down-"
Yang frowned minutely. She'd heard the stories Jaune had told Ruby about his family from Ruby herself, a holdover from his status of being the first friend her little sister had made at Beacon. From what she could tell, they were all basically as close to one another as she was to Ruby, which was saying quite a lot. Though how many sisters had he said he was in possession of? Five, or something insane like that?
This all probably would have made a lot more sense if Yang could actually hear all that was being said.
"…Trust me… fine… deal?"
"…Doing… for you… Not too often, deal."
Yang's brain was an interesting place on the best of days. In keeping with typical human cognitive abilities, coming to conclusions was something desired, even if they happened to be wrong. It was easier for the mind to trick or lie to itself into thinking that it knew what was happening around it, even if it was so entirely off kilter that it couldn't possibly hope to be taken seriously.
Crouching in front of that door, a hand over her mouth to withhold the utter shock she was feeling as her brain leapt to a hilarious conclusion, Yang was being faced with a new scenario. The tones of voice being used beyond that door were recent, the words and secrecy speaking to those neurons that overheated whenever they thought back to that one time Yang had opened a Ninja's of Love novel.
"Oh my…" Stumbling away from the door like it was a guy who had just vomited over her shoes on the initial ride into Beacon, Yang removed her hand from her jaw, letting it hang for a scant moment as her thoughts made an attempt to organise themselves.
Never let it be said that Ms Xiao Long was a paragon of logical thinking. Considering she had made a job out of punching nursery rhyme villains to death with metal gloves, the entire opposite could have been argued.
Ren had just been turning the corner when Yang announced her findings.
He promptly turned on his heel so quickly that he drilled a small hole in the ground.
"Blake… is a pimp."
One of the birds flying past a nearby window actually stopped in order to give her a flat look.
"Or maybe a drug dealer." The silhouette beside Yang offered.
Nobody listened to it.
As they should.
XxX
There are actually hints as to what I'm making Oobleck's Semblance in this chapter. It may be ridiculously overpowered, not that it'll really matter in this story. Also, enjoy the butterflies as they begin their journey overhead. It'll only get worse from here.
X
