Jaune rockets to his feet, instantly alert as a new bout of adrenaline thrums through his blood. "Penny? Are you the one with the sh… shield…" He trails off once he's noticed his Chameleon friend has vanished from sight. And the biggest reason iggest why she'd do so is because…

"Jaune!" shouts Russel, his head peeking over the lip of the adjacent warehouse roof.

Jaune had the uncontrollable urge to throw something heavy and possibly pointy at the intruder's face. He mentally pats himself on the back for resisting.

"You, sir, are quite the Lemming. I mean, not only do you have girls falling all over you…" Russel's voice trails off as a note of wishful jealousy enters his tone.

A tall stranger pops up behind the Thrush and graciously finishes his sentence. "I didn't think you'd see us waving you down, but Russel's faith in you wasn't unfounded—I mean, you practically landed on top of us!"

Russel's chest swells in pride at the compliment. "Well, I figured that, as a Lemming, Jaune here has plenty of experience jumping off cliffs…"

Not just one, but two unwelcome intruders. The stranger even has spiral horns that hug both sides of his head. "Uh, who's he?" Jaune asks warily.

Russel bounces to his feet and claps his companion on the back; a little too roughly, because the blow almost knocks the freckled boy off the rooftop. "Ack, sorry. Um. This is Marco! He graduated 7th in his class at Trost Academy—he's a pretty great fighter!"

The new guy rubs the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, I wouldn't say that…"

"He's a dual sword wielder! He's totally trained to take down titanic Grimm by—"

"That'd be really great if we had two swords," Jaune cuts in irritably. Really, he needs to talk to Penny. Actually, he needs Penny to escort him back to school, preferably within a nice, magic, green force field.

Sure, he smuggled himself into Menagerie to learn how to fight and survive and uphold his family legacy. Light knows how much the Arcs need it, after Roman's stint with breaking the law. Light knows how much he needs it, the wimpy son of two heroes of the peace. Will running for his life through a gauntlet of bloodthirsty faunus with his hands tied to these two new strangers teach him how to succeed in a survival-of-the-fittest world? Jaune thinks not.

"He can substitute baguettes for swords!"

{The Facepalm is strong in this one.}

"He can!" Russel insists upon catching Jaune's expression of disturbed disbelief. "Anybody can, if you really concentrate your aura through it."

Marco puts a hand on the guy's shoulder and smiles disarmingly. "I appreciate your faith in me," he smiles, "but I'm not sure I like the idea of smacking faunus in the face with my breadstick."

"But it's food! The worst that could happen is that you accidentally shove it down someone's throat and they decide not to swallow and choke on it instead."

"I, uh, saw a bakery down the block," Jaune suggests in a stroke of genius, "while I was flying inside my neon green forcefield. The one I can't survive without."

In the awkward pause that ensues, in which Jaune desperately hopes that Penny is still around and listening, a small tumbleweed bounces in from the street and down the alleyway.

"So," he continues, "let's split up. You two go over there… and I'll wait for you here. Alone."

Jaune's heart sinks as Russel opens his mouth to protest; but Marco saves the day by nudging Russell in the lower back with his elbow. "Com'on. If I'm defending myself with baguettes, you've got to use something equally embarrassing."

"What? I-I can't do that! What kind of pastry can I use to replace daggers?"

"I don't know. We can look for donuts or something."

"Hm, that could work. Oo! What if I got one with jelly in it and then 'accidentally' squirted it in their eyes?"

As soon as their voices die away with distance, Jaune hisses, "Penny!"

"I am always glad to assist you by any means necessary, Jaune."

"You! You. You, you, you." His mind is flashing through all the green forcefields that saved him in the past. "That forcefield—thatwas you?"

"I… I am sorry. You seemed to be unaware of your aura, even under Weiss' extreme duress. I could not stand by when she threatened to… what is the phrase… pop your cherry."

"What—"

"I acted without first asking consent," she continues. "For that I apologize."

"When did Weiss ever threaten to pop—"

A curtain of air bubbles swirling about him. The nightmarish image of an ice queen spontaneously forming a piston of ice beneath him, pushing him straight up towards the unyielding underside of a frozen lake surface. If that forcefield hadn't manifested just then, he would have been flattened, cherries and all.

The thing is, all this time, he'd thought it was because of the vial of Dust Miltia had given him. That was the only thing that he could think of at the time. That was the only weird thing that had happened to him before—

No. Wait. Weiss wasn't the only one who broke school rules by visiting him in the prep room before the duel. Penny had appeared out of nowhere before Weiss. And… she'd hugged him. For an uncomfortably long time. Just long enough to… to what?

And if Penny's behind his energy shields, what's the purpose of Miltia's vial? Why did she give it to him that first day of school? Is it related to why he seemed to be the only one who knew about her existence?

Speaking of not existing, why does Penny feel the need to dissolve into thin air whether somebody else swings around? It's like she's hiding from faunuskind… not supposed to be here…

But the most important question of all: "Penny… I thought guys were the ones who did the cherry-popping."

"Is that so? I do suppose that, no matter the gender, the popper should preserve at least one cherry of the pair so that the pop-ee may still pass on the family genes."

"What are you even—never mind. Penny, can at least see your face?"

"I wish to remain anonymous due to your legacy."

"Legacy? What—" For one breathtaking moment, he's irrationally terrified that she knows about the Arc Legacy. The whole 'heroes keeping the peace' shtick. His heroic, human parents who visited Menagerie on a regular basis before war broke out.

"You are an agent of unpredictability and chaos, correct? In keeping up appearances, this forcefield must appear to be entirely of your doing."

He's never been more relieved to hear somebody associate him with chaos.

"It does," adds Penny, "draw from your aura as well as mine, anyway. I might add that you will not miss it due to the fact that you already possess abnormally high quantities of it."

"The shield… it comes from me? How?"

"In the same way that your companions are searching for inanimate, wheaty weapons through which they can channel their aura, a small minority of beings are capable of passing one's semblance onto an animate subject. This requires quite a bit of energy on my behalf, but I am able to give you my ability for a short period of time."

"How? The Lake of Zen—I was underwater!"

From the tone of Penny's voice, he's sure she's blushing. Maybe that's why she's choosing to remain camouflaged. "I… apologize for the inappropriate length of time to register your scent. Your pheromone secretion was significantly below the average faunus output, and thus a disproportionate duration was required."

"Huh?"

"You do not smell."

"Oh. Well. As long as you save my cherries, you can hug me as long as you want. …Thanks."

"In every way possible, it is my job to ensure your success."

It takes Jaune a bit longer to figure out what's unusual about her oft-repeated phrase... {ah, she just said job.} "Hold on. Do you have a boss?"

A pause, in which Penny doesn't reply for a very long moment. Jaune's ready to yell at Russel again for intruding, but Green Mohawk is a no-show. The ball of tumbleweed returns from the alley to the street before Penny cheerfully remarks, "Hm. It sure is windy today."

{That was probably the worst dodge ever.}

But he gets the message: she doesn't want to say. So he doesn't pry. Who's he to question somebody who's only helping him? Right?

Right?

"Your acquaintances have acquired their wheaty weapons," Penny informs him, "as well as some breakfast. Russel is especially eager to deliver a bun from your oven."

"My what?"

Penny's gone silent again, which is when Russel careens around the corner gleefully.

"Hey Jaune! Eat my cinna-buns out!"

Jaune feels like he's missing something when Russel giggles every time he takes a bite out of the proffered cinnamon roll (with extra cream). The three of them eventually finish up breakfast and begin the trek back towards the Academy. They're jogging up an unoccupied street when Marco pops an unexpected question: "So why do you decide to come to combat school?"

Jaune's reply is less than suspicious. "W-w-why do you ask that?"

If alarm bells are going off in Marco's head, he certainly doesn't show it. Instead, he just smiles cheerfully and says, "Just curious. See, I'm a Sheep, and most of my family doesn't see the point in me going to a battle academy when we just got out of a war."

Jaune frowns. "Then why did you come?"

"Because, the way I see it, we might have received the rights as faunus that we deserve, but we went about it the wrong way. If we'd stepped in before White Fang began bombing, then maybe the Battle of Fort Hospice could have been prevented."

The Sheep takes a moment to stare wistfully off into nowhere, which gives Jaune ample amount of time to stew in resentment at the name of White Fang. It'd pretty much suck if he blew his cover just because he let the emotions fly in a meaningless conversation with relative strangers about faunus extremists. Extremists who splintered his family life a couple years ago, sure… but he keeps his mouth shut.

Unfortunately, the ever-oblivious Russel fills in the silence with tactless comments: "The White Fang didn't do anything that Vale didn't already have coming."

"You really think so?" Marco questions neutrally.

"Yeah! Really, we should have backed up the White Fang before Vale started herding us into Menagerie. The Thrushes lived in Mistral way longer than some of the humans, y'know."

"But bombing their walls? Deliberately releasing Grimm into smaller cities? You don't target towns that can't fight back to get the right kind of attention."

"But it was still the attention we needed," Russel says defensively, "even if it started a war. If that's what it took to change the status quo, then so be it."

"See, as a Sheep, I have to disagree. My Clan is traditionally healers, right? Nobody wins when it comes to war. Attacking unarmed civilians was just as bad as attacking Fort Hospice."

"White Fang attacked first," Jaune adds gruffly.

Russel cowers slightly at his unexpected aggression and relents, "Um. That's a legit point, sir! White Fang doesn't score any points for being honorable. But seriously, un-bloody rallies and protests only go so far, sir. Sometimes we need a little blood to get the point across. Violence in, ah, moderation." At Jaune's increasingly livid glare, he shrinks into himself even more. "I'm s-sorry, sir. Should I shut up?"

Jaune opens his mouth. He wants to talk about his childhood friend running away from home six years ago to join the faunus fanatics. He wants to mention how his brother lost his girlfriend to the terrorist group, how he became a different person, how he enlisted in the army and renounced the family name. He almost blurts that his mom's been missing-in-action for five years after a neighboring villa was overrun with Grimm thanks to a White Fang attack. How her face is just a blur, nothing but a loving smile. Like the blur of silver racing through his memories, a faunus foster sister with yellow eyes and silver ears and her nose stuck in Grimm's Fairy Tales.

"You mentioned earlier," inputs Marco carefully, "that your family was kicked out of Mistral, right? White Fang did just as many things that they never bothered to apologize for."

And just like always, Jaune jumps on the opportunity to do nothing. He shuts his trap and shuts off those memories, and soon enough, they fade into the fog of the past.

It's less painful that way.

After that unexpectedly deep conversation, Jaune's got a less-than-favorable impression of Russel. Marco, though… he is probably the nicest, most empathetic faunus whom Jaune's ever met. An all-around great guy.

As soon as the trio steps out onto a major roadway, some sort of wall slides over the mouth of the smaller street behind them, blocking it from access. A garage door at the far end of the arterial opens with an ominous grinding, revealing a revving monster of a vehicular machine.

"What i-i-i-is that?" stammers Russel.

Having grown up in the isolated countryside, Jaune recognizes it almost immediately as a combine harvester. As an automaton meant to reap grains and such, though, the revolving reel up front really shouldn't need teeth that sharp. He vocalizes this information to his companions.

"It doesn't harvest fruit?" Russel's voice manages to come out even shakier this time around.

Negative.

"So I'm going to guess that the puddles of dark red underneath the harvester part of the machine aren't made of grape juice…"

Marco takes a step backward as the machine revs to life. "I think… we should run."

"Yeah, let's do that," Jaune agrees, turning tail and running into a sudden manhole. A sudden manhole without a cover that swallows only his right leg so that he racks himself on the edge of the hole.

"Eeep… I'm pretty sure this wasn't here a second ago…" he squeaks through the pain.

He's still whimpering when Russel grabs one arm and Marco grabs the other. Together, the partners haul Jaune out of the hole and drag him onto a sudden bike rack.

"AAAAUGH what are you doing? Stop!"

"I-I-I'm pretty sure this wasn't here a second ago!" stammers a flabbergasted Russel. Nerves seem to have shrunk the size of his brain, because he tries to resume their forward momentum, regardless of painful bike rack, and figuratively rake Jaune over the coals. Which could be literal, if the burning pain in his crotch is any indication.

"Yeouch! I said stop! Save the cherries!"

The sound of hundreds of bladed teeth striking the asphalt in such a quick succession of chinks and clinks quickly blends into a metallic scream as the mutated combine harvester bears down upon them.

Marco yanks Jaune to the side, out of Russel's grasp, and slides him smoothly off the offending rack. "It's a surprise obstacle course," he gasps, as if that can explain everything. "Really, all you can do is run and hope that nothing randomly—"

Of course, the universe chooses to demonstrate with a metal safety cone that rockets out of the ground right between Marco's legs.

Correction: was. Marco was a great guy.

"He's a goner!"

"I'm a goner!"

The tip of the safety cone had been maybe three inches higher than Marco's waist. Though Jaune had been racked three times (he'd encountered two loops of the wave-style bike rack before his transports realized the danger), Marco has just suffered a direct hit. Even as Russel attempts to heave both Jaune and Marco to their feet, Jaune knows: Russel is going to have to choose.

"He said it himself, Russel. We have to ditch him!"

Russel chooses now, of all times, to not be a blubbering coward. "No! We have to save Marco!"

The combine is practically on top of them. Over the scream of bladed reaping teeth, Jaune yells, "Why?"

"Marco is super popular—think of all the grateful fangirls!"

"Look at me, Russel." Jaune grabs both of the Thrush's shoulders for good measure. "You can have my harem."

Marco was just too good for this sinful earth.

Several city blocks later, Jaune has only managed to keep it all in because Russel is still freaking out.

"Gone," Green Mohawk whimpers over and over. "Half of him… gone, just like that."

"It was probably just a trick of the light," responds Jaune shakily. "…Probably."

He forces his feet to take steps forward, expecting any minute for the monster combine to explode out of a nearby house, or a surprise street sign to shoot out of the ground and pierce him between the legs, or… something. Either way, he has to keep moving uphill towards the school. It doesn't matter that Russel looks like he's trying to retch up the balls he was forced to cut off himself and swallow during their wimpy runaway from the cruel senior trap. It doesn't matter that there's a lump in Jaune's throat from the loss of Marco (though it might also be the hardboiled egg from breakfast making a reappearance, or the family jewel he had to dishonorably sacrifice when they ditched Marco and ran.) None of it matters. The only goal that Jaune has currently is to reach school (hopefully with Penny's intervention if she still has the energy for it), collapse into bed, and hope that none of Marco's best friends (or worse, fangirls) hold grudges against him for the rest of eternity.

His ears are so trained for surprise attacks that he catches onto the familiar voice just in time. It's above him; he manages to screech to a halt right before he enters the edge of her vision, hiding behind the nearest parked car.

For half a second, he considers letting Russel run into certain death; after all, the Thrush now expects a full harem of ladies from Jaune, or at least a masterful demonstration of the each and every technique of pervihood in the near future. But then again, Tifa could easily spot him next to Russel and would probably kill Jaune as well, just for kicks. Or punches. That's pretty much the only reason why he reaches out and clotheslines Russel to a halt.

"Ugh," growls the deadly enemy on the rooftop directly across the street. "I can't believe we have to fight in these uniforms."

Jaune peeps around the car, just to confirm that the voice does in fact belong to the infamous Tifa. He'd watched videos of the Top Ten Duels of Initiation; while he and Weiss had ranked #8, the fistfight between Tifa (in a ridiculously jigglerific gainaxing getup) against Akihiko (a half-naked caped guy) had been so fast and furious (and indecent) that they'd ranked at #4.

Tifa is wearing her uniform, thankfully. If she'd still been wearing her stripperific combat outfit, he probably would have spontaneously combusted right then and there. She also doesn't have that fancy blue gauntlet on her punching fist that he'd seen her with when he'd first met her; however, he doesn't doubt that she could knock him and Russel seven ways to Sunday with just her bare fist.

Russel curiously takes a peek around Jaune's shoulder. He doesn't even get a question out before twin streams of blood explode from his nostrils the moment he catches sight of the well-endowed girl having difficulty fastening the top button of her jacket. At the rate he's going, Jaune won't be surprised if Thrush passes out within the next five minutes… which would give him a good reason to leave Russel for dead. Especially since the pervert has all the self-preservation instincts of an overripe tomato. A swollen, overripe tomato that's about to explode everywhere messily.

{That… that allusion got away from you.}

Okay, forgot about grossness. Game plan: he'll just wait here until Tifa moves on. If Russel bleeds out, well, that's one less White Fang cult member.

He uses the car's sideview mirror to keep track of the girl, making very sure to keep his eyes on her face and her face only… despite his fan following, he's definitely not a pervert. It's not like he's spent the last twenty chapters coincidentally catching panty shots from all the girls he's ever met. Definitely not an expert in the matter at all.

Tifa's jacket buttons looks like they're going to explode off at any second.

Russel abruptly squeals. Jaune rounds on the guy. "Shh!"

"Ouch," Green Mohawk whimpers, rubbing his eye. He holds out a large brown jacket button. "Did… did she just hit me…?"

The car's bumpers hit the pavement as Tifa lands atop the vehicle with such force that she blows all its tires. {That… muscle… mass...} "Whoops," she coos, her voice literally dripping with such artificial sugar that Jaune chokes and is momentarily paralyzed. "Here, let me hit you properly this time."