Another day, another chapter. This chapter will be the start of a two-parter. I'm still wondering about the future chapters of this story and its plot.
Anyways, leave a review if you want to and Remember, Stay Epic! :)
Chapter 5 - Strays & New Faces
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Today was a nice day for the streets of Vale, decorated just in time for the Vytal Festival.
Balloons and streamers of yellow, green, and red are proudly on display and Teams RWBY and TIWF are strolling through it all with an awed Weiss Schnee in the front. A sign is being put up by an elderly shopkeep with big red words that reads, 'WELCOME TO VALE!' for all the foreign newcomers from their respective kingdoms of Remnant.
As they were walking through the streets, Ruby saw TJ holding both his Wolf Claws. "Hey TJ, what are you doing?" Ruby curiously asked TJ.
"I'm seeing if the transforming function works." TJ answered.
He put both his Wolf Claws together as the clip connects them, turning them into a single double-bladed katana.
He then moved them forwards until a click was heard, making the edges face each other and the backs away from each other. A chamber opened up on the handles revealing Lightning Dust chambers. Royal blue armor covered the backs of the Wolf Claws as electricity danced all over the sharp edges, turning the Wolf Claws into a single-handed railgun.
"Nice." TJ complimented.
Weiss raises her arms in excitement. "The Vytal Festival! Oh, this is absolutely wonderful!"
"I don't think I've ever seen you smile this much, Weiss." Ruby says as she frowns a little. "It's kinda weirding me out…"
"How could you not smile? A festival dedicated to the cultures of the world! There will be dances! Parades! A tournament! Oh, the amount of planning and organization that goes into this event is simply breathtaking!" The Schnee Heiress replies being more jubilant, despite her partner's discomfort.
Yang sighs and crosses her arms. "You really know how to take a good thing and make it sound boring."
"Shut up!" Weiss yelled at the blond brawler.
"Y'know, I thought since she's dating Ice she would be nicer." Fire thought out loud.
"Well she's mostly the same after she and I started dating really. But she's nicer to me when we're alone." Ice explained.
"It doesn't matter. Besides, this place is beautiful." TJ said, looking at the decorated streets of Vale.
"I'm actually wondering. What did you guys do when you first came to Remnant?" Ruby asked, curious about Team TIWF.
"Well, before we joined Beacon, we were freelance men for hire." TJ explained. "Mostly freelance assassins and mercenaries. We quit that job a week before we accepted Ozpin's offer. During the time we were freelancers, we traveled all over Remnant."
"One time when I was in Atlas, I created a game that's popular throughout Remnant." Water told the girls as they stared at him in disbelief. "Just because I joke around a lot doesn't mean I'm dumb. You've probably heard of it. It's called Card Wars." (Hehe. Adventure Time!) The girls' faces then turned into shocked expressions.
"Wait! You've invented Card Wars?!" Ruby exclaimed, shocked that one of her friends invented the game.
"The number one game that everyone plays all over Remnant?!" Weiss asked, also shocked that she's near the creator of the game. She never told anybody but she was intrigued and curious that some random person created a highly advanced and popular game from her home kingdom. She never played the game before though.
"That's right!" Water answered. "It was my favorite game back home so, I wanted to share it with all of Remnant to enjoy."
"You were addicted to it." Ice pointed out. Water glared at Ice as TJ and Fire snickered a bit.
'Funny, charming, caring, and smart too?! Oh I've got to make him mine.' Yang thought to herself as she stared at the blue boy. When she met Water, she slowly started to like him more and more to the point where she developed a crush on him.
Now she just needed the right moment to confess to him.
"Can somebody remind me why we're at the docks though?" Fire asked as Ruby covered her nose, with the former doing the same as well.
"Ugh, they smell like fish." Ruby grimaced.
"Reminds me of the beach though." TJ said, ignoring the smell.
"I've heard that students visiting from Vacuo will be arriving by ship today, and as a representative of Beacon, I feel it is my solemn duty to welcome them to this fine kingdom." Weiss stated in a formal manner.
"She wants to spy on them so she'll have the upper hand in the tournament." Blake abridged, the rest of them nodding in agreement and understanding.
"You can't prove that!" Weiss huffed.
"Weiss, earlier I heard you saying that you were planning to spy the upcoming students." Ice pointed out.
Weiss just huffed again, yet Ruby was looking elsewhere, more importantly, down the next street.
"Woah." At Ruby's answer, all attention was drawn to her gaze, which was met with the dust store, the windows smashed, doors busted off its hinges, and was closed off with tape around the scene. It was certainly unorthodox for a robbery.
"What happened here?" Ruby asked the officers who were checking out the crime scene, keeping her gaze upon the ruined shop.
"Robbery. Second dust shop to be hit this week. This place is turning into a jungle." The cop explains as he walks over to his partner.
"They left all the money again." Another cop said.
"Yeah, it just doesn't make a lick of sense. Who needs that much Dust?"
The second cop shrugged. "I don't know, an army?"
"You thinking the White Fang?"
The second cop removed his sunglasses. "Yeah, I'm thinking we don't get paid enough."
"The White Fang." TJ said, getting the other team's attention. "Now that I think about it, I remember that they sent some psychopath to get me and my brothers to join. But when we declined, he tried to kill us."
"That's what we get for letting our tails loose." Water shrugged.
"Hmph! The White Fang." The Ice Queen says with disdain in her voice as she crosses her arms and points her nose in the air with her eyes closed. "What an awful bunch of degenerates!"
Blake arched a brow. "What's your problem?"
Weiss turns to her teammate. "My problem? I simply don't care for the criminally insane."
"The White Fang is hardly a bunch of psychopaths." The black cat Faunus retorts, crossing her arms with a serious look on her face. "They're a collection of misguided Faunus."
"Yeah, they actually wouldn't be bad if it wasn't for their new leader's way of thinking." Fire said, trying to defuse the situation.
"Misguided? They want to wipe Humanity off the face of the planet!" Weiss angrily yelled at Blake who also returned the favor, both ignoring Fire.
"So then they're very misguided. Either way, it doesn't explain why they would rob a Dust shop in the middle of downtown Vale!"
"Hmm…Blake's got a point. Besides, the police never caught that Torchwick guy I ran into a few months ago…maybe it was him." Ruby offered her opinion.
"Makes sense. I mean, we did encounter him a couple times before we met you guys and we also stopped a few of his robberies." Ice said, agreeing with Ruby.
"That still doesn't change the fact that the White Fang are a bunch of scum. Those Faunus only know how to lie, cheat, and steal." Weiss retorted much to Blake's growing anger.
"That's not necessarily true." Water said.
"Hey, stop that Faunus!" A voice can be heard yelling.
As the teams overhear the cry for help and rush over to investigate, a Faunus is seen running down the length of the boat and leaping onto the edge as the two sailors are about to apprehend them.
The Faunus was a tan-skinned boy with short spiky light-blonde hair with blue eyes. He wears two red wrist bracers over black fingerless gloves and an open loose-collared white jacket with no shirt underneath, displaying his muscular physique. He also wears blue cargo pants tied up with a white belt. He wears white bandages on his legs and has a chain hanging from the belt loop on the right side of his pants. He sports black and yellow sneakers and wears a black cord with a round pendant bearing his emblem. His most notable trait is his monkey tail, the same color as his hair, swinging behind him.
The monkey Faunus jumped on top of a street lamp and hung there by his tail. He pulled out a banana from somewhere on his person and happily ate it.
"You no good stowaway!" One of the sailors yelled at the Faunus.
"Hey, a no good stowaway would've been caught, I'm a great stowaway!" The faunus retorted.
"Is that…?" TJ trailed off as he recognized the Faunus.
"Sun?" Water finished.
"You know him?" Ruby asked the two boys.
"Yep." TJ answered. "His name is Sun Wukong. Me and Water met him one time during the time we traveled all over Remnant and let me tell you, he's fun to be around y'know?"
"It's true." Water nodded.
Sun then came running past them, but not before winking at Blake as he ran past. He disappeared around the corner as the two cops chased after him in hot pursuit.
"Well Weiss, you said you wanted to see the competition and there he goes." Yang stated matter-of-factly.
"Quick! We must observe him!" Weiss declared as she took off running. Teams R_BY and TIWF followed.
They quickly followed him around another block, with the girls losing sight of him as he vaulted over a fence. Weiss was the first to round the next corner, crashing into someone along the way.
Drat! We lost him!" Weiss shouted as slammed her fist on what she thought was the asphalt.
"U-um, e-excuse me." A voice nervously called out to Weiss.
Weiss looked up to see a 5'7" boy standing in front of her. He had brown, messy, unkempt hair that faded into a teal color at the tips and he had heterochromia, for his left eye was bright green while his right eye was electric blue. He wore an orange long sleeve shirt under an open brown steampunk overcoat that reached to his waist and had teal accents. He wore black jeans, and copper brown boots that appeared to be made of metal. He had a brown steampunk tophat on his head and on the hat are goggles with orange lenses. He had a cobalt blue bandana tied around his neck with a print of his emblem on it. Behind him were two orange-yellow fox tails with white tips on them, indicating that he was a Faunus.
His emblem was a blue metal gauntlet slamming onto the ground with its open palm as electric blue bolts shot in every direction from the area of impact. However, on his bandana, the emblem was black.
"C-could you get off my friend please?" The boy asked.
Weiss looked down to find herself on top of a peculiar girl.
She appeared to be 5'5" in height. She had short, rather curly orange hair that came down to her chin with a small cowlick on top, and she wore a pink bow on the back of her head. She also had bright green eyes, light skin, and freckles. She wore an off white old-fashioned styled off the shoulder blouse with frill detailed trim and frill flared cuffs that half covered her hands alongside copper button detailing on the lower parts of her sleeves.
She also sported a short gray pinafore dress with golden trim on the hem alongside four light green stalagmite styled stripes on the lower half of the dress, two on the front and two on the back, accompanied by two matching colored circles above the tips that had a stripe that ran around her waistline, with golden outlines, and a detachable black and light green collar. She also wore a pair of black thigh-high leg pieces that seemingly were attached to black shoes. The leg pieces had a single green stripe up the sides that appeared to light up.
Weiss quickly jumped to her feet when the girl smiled an unnaturally wide smile at her.
"Salutations!" The girl greeted jovially with a wave while she's still on the floor.
"L-let me help you." The boy offered. He picked the girl up by her shoulders and helped her to her feet. "N-now g-greet them again properly." The girl nodded to the boy before facing the two teams.
"Salutations! It's a pleasure to meet you! My name is Penny and this is my friend, Tyler!" The girl, Penny, told the two teams. As she turned around to see Tyler, he was no longer there. "Forgive him. He's shy around new people that aren't my friends. He's also socially awkward." She told them as she faced them again.
"Y'know, Tyler kinda reminds me of Tech. Only he looks different." Fire whispered to TJ.
"I'm sure it's just a coincidence." TJ whispered back.
"Hi Penny, I'm Ruby." Ruby introduced herself.
"I'm Weiss."
"Blake."
"I'm TJ."
"My name's Water."
"It's nice to meet you, I'm Fire."
"My name is Ice."
"Are you sure you didn't hit your head?" Yang asked, earning a smack from Blake. "Oh, I'm Yang."
"It's a pleasure to meet you."
"You already said that." Weiss stated, her left eye twitching.
Penny paused in thought. "So I did!"
Weiss was thoroughly uncomfortable now, so she made to leave. "Anyway, we need to get going now. Sorry for bumping into you."
"Take care, friend." Ruby said as she left with her team and TIWF, leaving Penny on the side of the road.
"Wow, she was…weird." Yang remarked as they went back the way they came.
"I don't know, she seemed to be excited and positive to me." Ice pointed out.
"Whatever. Now, where did that Faunus riffraff run off to?" Weiss asked only to find Penny suddenly standing in front of her.
"What did you call me?" The redhead asked as she leaned in close.
Weiss and Fire were both dumbstruck on how Penny was able to move so quickly.
"O-oh! I'm sorry, I really didn't think you heard me!" Yang stuttered with her apology.
"Not you," Penny replied. Instead, she walked up to Ruby. "You!"
Ruby nervously chuckled. "I don't think I-"
"You called me 'friend'! Am I really your friend?"
Ruby looked at her team for support. All of them were animatedly signing her no, while Team TIWF shrugged, unsure of what she should say.
"Um, sure. I-I guess?"
Team _WBY looked at her completely flabbergasted as one collapsed to the ground. Penny, for her part, was absolutely overjoyed.
"Sen-sational! We can paint our nails, try on clothes, and talk about cute boys!"
Ruby leaned over to Weiss who was brushing herself off. "Wow, is this how I was like when you met me?"
"No. She is far more coordinated."
"So Penny, what are you doing in Vale?" Yang asked.
"Me and Tyler are here to fight in the tournament, we come from Atlas." Penny declared with pride, earning a look of surprise from Weiss.
"Wait, that boy? He looks like he would run from Grimm instead of fighting them." Weiss said in disbelief.
"Well Tyler is a special case," Penny explained. "He's a half-faunus. His father was human while his mother was a Faunus. He was raised in Vacuo where he met his first best friend. He was involved in an accident with one of his inventions resulting in him being fused with a robotic skeleton, making him half-robot. One day, General Ironwood was on a mission in Vacuo when he stumbled upon Tyler training and working on a few of his impressive inventions out in Vacuo. Ironwood was so impressed and amazed by Tyler's intellect and skill, that he offered him an invitation to join Atlas, and he accepted. He assigned Tyler to be on my team and told us to make sure he feels welcome and that no one picks on him. We became good friends shortly after."
Weiss was astounded, impressed and intrigued about Tyler. She decided when she would get the chance, she would like to see his skills. The others were also amazed by the story of Tyler. Weiss then realized something. "Wait, you're competing in the tournament?" She asked.
"Indeed I am. I am combat ready!" Penny answered with a salute.
"Forgive me, but you hardly look the part."
"Says the girl wearing a dress." Blake interjected dryly.
"It's a combat skirt, thank you very much." Weiss retorted.
"Yeah!" Ruby appeared beside Weiss agreeing with her as they shared a perfect low five without glancing at each other. Fire then came to a realization.
"Wait a minute, if you're here for the tournament, does that mean you know Sun?" Fire asked.
"Who?" Penny asked in confusion.
"He means the filthy Faunus from the boat!" Weiss exclaimed, answering Penny's question.
"Why do you keep calling him that?" Blake asked angrily.
"Excuse me?"
Stop calling him a degenerate, stop calling him filthy! He's a person!"
"Oh I'm sorry, do you want me to stop referring to this trash can as a trash can? Or this light post as a light post?"
"Stop it!"
"Stop what? He clearly broke the law. I bet if you give him enough time, he'll end up with all those other Faunus in the White Fang."
"You ignorant little brat!"
"How dare you talk to me like that! I am your teammate!"
"You're a spoiled little girl who has no clue how the world works. You trying to brand him as a terrorist solely by his species just proves how hateful and racist you really are!"
"So you agree with me! That the White Fang are a bunch of terrorists!"
"That's not what I said and you know it!"
"Maybe we should leave…?" Yang asked her sister and Team TIWF hesitantly.
"You guys go back to the dorms, I need to have a talk with Penny here." Water said.
As Ruby, Yang and TI_F returned to Beacon as the monochrome duo argued, Water stayed behind in front of Penny.
"So why did you want to talk to-"
"I know you're a robot."
…
Penny was shocked by what he said as shown by her face. And so, she could only say this, "How did you know?" Penny uttered quietly.
"Part of my skills allows me to see people's souls allowing me to see their memories and true intentions. And since Aura is a manifestation of one's soul, it was quite easy. When I saw your memories, I saw a few memories involving you with your limbs detached."
"It is true." Penny admitted. "I am the world's first synthetic human capable of generating an aura." She looked around to see if anyone was around before detaching her arm, showing glowing green lines and bits of circuitry.
"Penny, you're more real than that." Water said sincerely. "Sure you're a robot but you have emotions, a soul, things robots don't have. You're more real than you know it."
"Oh Water, do you really mean that?" Penny asked hopefully.
"Yep. We've only just met a few minutes ago, but you're a great friend."
"Sensational! You're a really great friend too!" Penny squealed as she hugged the boy in front of her.
"You're welcome but let's keep this conversation a secret okay?" Water asked, returning the hug.
"Of course!"
"See you later, Penny." Water said as he went back to Beacon, Penny waving goodbye at one of her new friends.
Water had arrived at Beacon and was walking through the halls as he came across the rest of his team in front of their dorm room.
"Hey guys what's up?" Water asked as he stopped in front of them.
"We've been waiting for you. Blake and Weiss still haven't stopped arguing." Fire explained.
At that moment, Blake rushed out of her dorm room, getting the boys' attention. She then sprinted through the halls. "Blake? Hey wait up!" TJ ran after the disguised Faunus.
The rest of the team went into Team RWBY's dorm room. "What just happened?" Ice asked.
"Blake and Weiss were arguing and I think Blake just revealed she was a Faunus." Ruby explained.
"She'll probably be going back to the White Fang." Weiss sneered, looking away.
Ice could no longer take it and his emotions just spilled out. "What is wrong with you!"
"Excuse me!?" Weiss was slightly taken back by her boyfriend's sudden outburst, but quickly recovered and glared at him.
"Why must you jump to conclusions, accuse them, and not listen to their side of their story!?" Ice asked angrily.
"It seemed pretty obvious that she was a spy from the White Fang!" Weiss retorted.
"Maybe if you listened to what she had to say then you would know the truth!"
"That she's a White Fang spy?"
"No! What in the world is wrong with you!?"
"Nothing! Why are you siding with Blake!?"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
The whole room fell into silence as Yang covered Ruby's ears at the swear, and Weiss was stunned silent.
"What is with you? You're acting discriminatory towards Faunus. The reason they hate humanity is probably because of people like you. Would you just leave me if I was a Faunus?" Ice asked angrily.
"I-" Weiss tried to answer.
"I thought we had something, Weiss," Ice interrupted. "I thought you were different from your family, but I thought wrong. You'd even throw our relationship out the window if I was a different race. I thought I fell in love with you because you were different from your dad, but I was wrong, I guess it just runs in the family." He then turned to leave the room.
He then said something that made her heart sank and regret what she did. "What would Daniel say about you?" He asked. He then left the room leaving everyone in complete silence.
The silence broke when Weiss just broke down on the floor, her hands on her eyes as she cried her eyes out.
"That was kinda…harsh." Fire pointed out.
"I'm sure Ice is just going through a lot." Water suggested. "I'm sure they'll make up…someday." The two of them then left Team RWBY's dorm room.
TJ had been chasing Blake for a while now and soon after, he saw her standing in front of the statue in the courtyard.
"Blake!" TJ called out to her. "There you are. What happened?"
Blake turned around to face him, giving him a clearer look at her. She took off her bow revealing her cat ears as the ribbon was in her hands.
TJ then realized what happened. "Let me guess, they found out your secret?" He sarcastically asked.
Blake just nodded.
"Don't worry, I know a place where you can stay." Blake walked up and followed him, both unaware of the set of eyes watching them.
Later, TJ had taken Blake to Vale at the entrance of an abandoned warehouse. He opened the door revealing four beds with stained sheets, ripped bean bag chairs, a few dusty arcade machines, and a few desks with old blueprints and empty dust containers.
"Sorry about the mess, it's been awhile since me and my brothers used this." TJ sheepishly admitted. "We tried living here one time but an accident involving an ice sculpture demolished those plans."
As Blake looked around the warehouse, she noticed something that surprised her, a Beowolf. However, it appeared to be different.
Its size appeared to be that of a small dog. Its markings were also a different color, a cool blue instead of a normal red. Its eyes also appeared to be blue. Right now, It's just sitting there…menacingly.
"Oh, Blake, meet Wilfred, don't worry he's friendly." TJ reassured her.
"What is he?" Blake asked.
"No idea." TJ admitted. "He's probably a rejected Beowolf. One day, me and my brothers were setting up camp somewhere when all of a sudden, Fire found Wilfred being beat up by his old pack. We killed them and realized that Wilfred didn't want to kill us, so we took him with us." TJ explained. "And the best parts, he can't die and when his limbs or head gets chopped off, they get reattached by a black tendril."
"I suppose that's cool but please keep him away from me." Blake requested, uncomfortable by the small Beowolf pup.
"I'm sure It'll take you some time to get used to him. Along with Odwin. I have no idea where he is though."
"Who's Odwin?" Blake asked.
"Oh, he's another one of our pets. He belongs to Water." TJ answered. He then noticed something on one of the arcade machines. "Oh, there he is."
Blake looked to see where TJ looked and her eyes widened in a bit of surprise and fear.
Standing on an arcade machine that said 'Sonic & Knuckles', was a pitch black owl with white feathers on parts of its torso making it look like a skull. It also had a white beak. What Blake was seeing was an owl Grimm, called an Omen, which was dangerous for two reasons.
One, it was terrifyingly intelligent, and two, it can flash its eyes and paralyze anyone that looks at them. Luckily the effects can be nullified if you're wearing sunglasses.
However, this Omen looked a bit more different than its original counterpart. The ear tufts on it faded from a black, to an ocean blue. Its eyes were also ocean blue instead of a Grimm's normal red.
"That's Odwin." TJ said, introducing the Omen, Odwin, to Blake. "And just like Wilfred, he's friendly too. Although he has a weird habit and interest sitting on people's heads."
Just to prove a point, Odwin flew off of the arcade machine, landed on TJ's head and sat on him.
"Hoo." Odwin then flew off to another part of the room.
"As I said, it'll take a while for you to get used to them." TJ repeated from earlier.
He then made his way to one of the beds he cleaned up and laid upon it. "Night Blake." TJ said. He then drifted off into sleep.
Blake also made her way to the other bed TJ cleaned and laid upon it as well. She couldn't sleep for a while but soon, she drifted off into sleep as well too.
Well that's it for that chapter. Btw I'm getting a part time job for the summer meaning I won't have much time to work on more future chapters. You can thank my aunt for forcing me to get a job.
…I FUCKING HATE MY AUNT AND I WISH SHE COULD SUFFER FOR ONCE!
…Sorry, I just wanted to release all that anger she built up inside me for forcing me to get a job and this feels like my only outlet. I didn't mean any of that.
Anyways, leave a review if you want and remember, Stay Epic! :)