His scroll is ringing.
Why is it ringing? Nobody calls him… like, ever. Jaune peels his face off his desk and stares blearily into the laser keyboard projecting from his scroll. Yes, that red light hurts. Yes, it is probably a good idea to look away.
{Ouch.}
He waves his hand in the general direction of the scroll, swiping right to pick up the call. "Mmmphm?"
"Good, you're awake."
He doesn't recognize the voice. "Wfu rrr uuu?"
"It's Sky Lark. Russel tells me you're the boss 'round these parts, Boss."
A tiny voice in the back of Jaune's mind screams that now would be a good time to hang up and try to forget this encounter ever happened. The other curious half revels at the admission of subservience and pushes it one step further. "Sit rep?"
"Excuse me?"
"Situation report, sorry." He yawns, rubs his eyes, and wonders just why he's talking to a guy obsessed with flipping skirts. Maybe now it's time to hang up?
"A little bird told me that Weiss Schnee is not in her bedroom. Shall we go ahead?"
The tiny warning voice gets a little louder. "Huh?"
"There are no signs of activity in the heiress' personal suite. Shall we scour the scene for incriminating evidence?"
His mind is slow to catch up. Why is he so slow? Wearily, he takes a peek at the time.
03:44.
{HOLY MOTHER OF MONTY, IT'S A PANTY RAID.}
He's wide awake. He's wide awake and staring at the pages and pages of FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF that his forehead typed out in the hours since he fell asleep on his laser keyboard. And hovering above his half-finished essay is the grainy image of Sky Lark, the pervert he barely knows, crouching on a tree branch and barely visible in the dead of night. "The heck are you doing?" he snarls. Confused. So confused. What is going on here? He didn't order the strike. Why would—
Lark rolls his eyes. "Let it be known to all that this was actually my idea," he hisses. "But certain members of my squad are unwilling to proceed with the operation unless they have your blessing, Boss." His lips curl into a snarl at the word.
"But what are you even doing?"
"What does it look like?"
{HOLY MOTHER OF MONTY, THEY'RE GOING ON A PANTY RAID.}
"B-B-But… this is Weiss Schnee we're talking about. Are you really willing to…" He gulps and draws a finger across his throat.
"If it means toppling the Ice Queen from her frosty throne," Lark responds in all seriousness, "then that is a risk my men and I are willing to take."
Jaune almost tears up at the man's bravado… before abruptly remembering Something Really Freakin' Important. "The queen has pawns!"
"What?"
"She's not alone! She has… a friend. A scary friend. You… should call off the hunt?" The tone of his statement curls up in hopefulness.
"The Cat?" Lark laughs. "I think we've got her covered. She'll be keeping her legs crossed for days after we're through with her."
A two-ton ball of uneasiness thunks into the bottom of Jaune's gut at that. His first (and only) impression of Sky Lark was of the guy stalking Velvet just so he could flip her skirt. If that doesn't scream Creepy Predator Pervert, then what does? "Uh, Lark, what are you plan—"
"Well, god of chaos, thank you for your approval," drawls Lark over his shoulder at unseen masses. "We shall strike forth into the heart of Schnee in the unholy name of Jaune Arc!" And with that, he hangs up.
For a beat, all Jaune can do is stare at the time in shock.
03:46.
03:47.
03:48.
{HOLY MOTHER OF MONTY, THEY'RE GOING TO DIE FOR A PANTY RAID.}
{And in your name, no less.}
{SDFKALHFIDOAPFINVLDFKRUEI NOOOOOOOOOOO.}
A whine sounds from his feet. Zwei noses Jaune's sheathed sword into his foot, then plops down his fluffy butt and wags his tail eagerly.
Yesssss. This calls for action.
Action. Armor. Crocea Mors.
Shoes. Hair. Smile!
The mirror in which he is practicing his I'm-totally-innocent-and-am-actually-on-your-side-so-please-don't-kill-me smile flies out the way as the closet door it's hanging from slides open, allowing Miltia to tumble out of her hammock. "Wassa gon on?" she mumbles up at him.
Jaune freezes. He totally forgot she was there. Does she even need to sleep? Then again, if it really is true that she shares an energy pool with him, it's probably best that she does take a break. Maybe he'll try experimenting with that later—like giving her sedatives and seeing if he can pull all-nighters without a hitch—but now is not that time. Now is the time to save his own face and maybe save Blake in the process too, though he really doubts Blake needs any saving no matter how many perverted mooks she has to go up against. "Nothing."
[I can read you like an open book.]
{That's not fair.}
[My, my, Jaune.] It's hard to describe what a foreign presence rifling through your short-term memory feels like, but it's definitely weeeeeird. "Never a dull moment with you, huh, Jaune-y boy?" she declares, pulling herself to her feet. "What do they mean by incriminating evidence though?"
Jaune glances at her and is shocked to see she's already in full combat gear (if one can call a red clubbing skirt and thigh-high heels fighting attire). But the claws sitting atop her wrists—and the bloodthirst in her eyes—denote that she means business. "You're… you can't."
"Are you kidding? This is the perfect opportunity to get the slip on the rival company. We'll sneak in under the cover of all those perverts. It's perfect!"
"We? I'm going to prevent the perverts from going in!"
"Wait, you didn't order the panty raid?"
"Aieeeeee!" Jaune leaps behind Miltia at the sight of Yang Xiao Long crouching on his windowsill. "Whatareyoutalkingabout."
"Word travels fast," winks Yang, swinging her legs into his room and bouncing her heels against the wall. She's swapped out her flashy browns and yellows and covered up with a more muted, cream-colored getup. Still doesn't look very sneaky. His eyes are drawn straight towards the thin slice of leg peeking out from the small space between her bicycle shorts and black stocking straps. "You of all people should know."
Memories bounce through his skull in a frenzy—{box box killing intent box panties box}—until they funnel down into a final thought: "Incriminating evidence."
Her grin spreads into a full Cheshire smile, a teasing glimmer in the moonlight. "What are you talking about?"
Miltia's quick to catch on (or maybe she's picking thoughts straight out of his head). "You're the one who ordered the panty raid."
Yang glances at her as if noticing her for the first time. "Well hello there," she grins. There's something off in her eyes though that throws him for a loop. "You're looking… lively. Are you a regular?"
Jaune reverses positions with Miltia, shoving the smaller girl behind his body. "Uh, nah. No? No. She's just here to warn—"
"Is that jealousy?" Miltia challenges.
The woman smiles again. Again it doesn't reach her eyes. "Welp, this is the part where I bow out before you expose my entire life story," she smirks. She leans backward and Jaune's heart jumps into his throat as she drops out of sight. "Bye now."
An unexpected wave of urgency washes over him. Every second that he stands here means another moment in which Lark and his minions are closer to breaking down Weiss' door, in which Blake (oh, let's face it, it's probably Lark) is in danger, in which Yang gets that much closer to rocking the boat so much that she tips it over and everybody's drowning in the ocean, where he'll be the first to sink once they all find out he's a human. And this analogy is getting away from him.
Like Yang is getting away from him. And getting closer to a fantastic fire-and-ice explosion between Weiss that could very well encase the entire campus in a giant block of ice.
He snatches up his scroll and gallops towards the window with only a vague sense of what he's doing. For just a second, a neon green blip flashes on the release mechanism. It's all the affirmation he needs to plant his hands on the windowsill and vault himself, parkour-style, out into the open air.
If only he knew how to actually parkour. The window is a lot smaller than he imagined. In focusing on pulling his knees up to his chest so he doesn't body-slam the wall underneath the window and topple head over heels into the brush below, he forgets to duck his head and rams his big nose into the glass. The momentum of his curled lower body carries him into several tight backflips—thirteen in total, in fact—before he splats upon the grasstop and explodes into a moaning tangle of limbs and wounded pride.
A green shield blips to life around him, like, ten seconds too late, before flickering out of existence.
Miltia alights on the grass in a graceful crouch. Jaune wants to tell her to shut up when she offers him a hand up; but she simpers quietly instead and doesn't say a word as he gets to his feet. It's not like Penny can sense his ire through his scroll, but he glares at the device with utter betrayal anyways.
A notification pops up with a flash of green: a campus map covered with a smattering of dots. Right outside of Dragon dormitories is a blinking golden star, and halfway across campus is a white snowflake.
"Apology accepted," he mumbles.
"Mm? Did you say something?"
"We're headed there," he points hurriedly.
"Where?"
Miltia leans over his shoulder. She's awfully close to him like this, her hair tickling the back of his neck, something soft creating pressure on his shoulder blade. His body responds accordingly, only for the response to be brutally murdered with a psychological revulsion. Like, {yes, yes, girl body. But NO she's like your daughter.} Which then enters the territory of {this is kind of messed up.}
[Tell me about it.]
Jaune gives her the strongest side-eye he can muster. "Let's not ever talk about this again."
Teasingly, Miltia wraps her arms around his neck and deliberately pushes into him. A shudder of disgust literally travels from his body into hers, and she bounces away from him as if repelled by a magnet. "You made me… about myself, that is so…" She slows down in thought before gazing up at him through her eyelashes. "Actually sort of interesting. Wanna—"
{NO EW STAHP.}
"We should try being separate people," he growls, backing away from her. His eyes flicker down at his map and immediately catches sight of the red dot that appears from underneath the moving golden star. Symbolism, totally. "You go do your thing."
His companion has the grace to look ashamed. "Eh, too far?"
"Talk about it later," he barks, setting off a brisk jog. Totally messed up. Deal with it later. Catch up with Yang, protect Blake, warn Weiss. Not necessarily in that order. And… there's somebody important missing. A partner in crime. A—
He has to stop for a second to gape at the glowing thing above him. Like a gigantic neon green crystal twirling ten feet above his head, mysteriously illuminating the scenery for a good fifty feet radius. Never mind that it follows his every nervous twitch and could literally drop at any second and cleave him from head to toe with a point that sharp. Where in Monty's name did the giant pointer come from? Who's following the signal?
The rotation of the crystal abruptly speeds up before shattering into shards of dissipating energy. Almost simultaneously, a comet of rippling crimson cloth streaks through the trees and rustles to a stop above. Together, Penny and Ruby slam into the sidewalk before him, literal mirror images of each other.
"Crimson Terror, reporting in for duty!"
"Black Canary, always here to help!"
It's been… maybe six hours since he saw them last. When the two had first met. He doesn't feel the need to voice this, however, at the proud gleam in Ruby's eyes—so much like a puppy seeking affirmation that he wants to reach forward and ruffle her hair. Then he gives in and does anyways, and the way she literally pushes up into his hand and lets out a little squeeee as he pets around her quivering silver ears causes a tiny part of his heart to melt with the sheer Adorable. At least, until he catches Penny's calculating gaze and snatches his hand away immediately.
"The Black Canary's already a thing, y'know."
Penny crosses her arms. "While I am well aware of this fictional character, I also am aware that your culture places a very strong emphasis on color as a means to express one's individuality. I stand by my decision."
"…Are you a natural blonde? Or black haired?"
"…I could be."
"What's that supposed to mean? Actually, never mind. Thanks for the map, by the way. I take it that you and… the Crimson Terror…"
"Yes!"
"…are aware of the situation already?"
"The panty race!" squeals Ruby.
"Yeah, we're going to—ehhh?"
"We are racing for the panties," Penny elaborates helpfully. She reaches around to the back of ear and activates a device that unfolds around the side of her head to rest before her eyes: a visor that lights up with the campus map. "Status update: we are currently in dead last." She pauses a moment. "Mm-hmm. Second to last, actually. A new contender has entered the competition. I will add his presence upon the master map as a cardinal-colored X."
Cardinal-colored… cardinal… "C-Cardin? Isn't he… well… not-straight?"
"Hence the X," Ruby chirps helpfully.
"Ah, that's beside the point!" he facepalms before peeking at the two girls from between his fingers. "Look, don't panty raids usually happened in the laundry room? It just seems more… safe."
"The greater the risk," Penny responds wisely, "the greater the reward."
"This is a combat school and we haven't had a major throwdown in a while. It's about time somebody decided to break some legs." Ruby innocently pats the folded scythe hanging from her hip.
A glance at both their expressions reveals that they are completely serious about their input. He facepalms for a second. "With how HUGE this is getting, Weiss would have to be gagged and bound on the other side of campus to miss out on half the school breaking into her private dorm. What is she even doing? Do you have a visual on her, Penny?"
"Assuming she is not running an underground SMBD dungeon, she is most likely meditating at the Lake of Zen. I am currently hacking into the school's security system. Please hold."
"Penny!"
"Urgent: first contact has been made. Lark's team has finished disabling and/or dismantling Schnee security measures. Suggested course of action?"
Ruby pipes up before Jaune can quite comprehend what's going on. "The flying one!"
Despite the uninhibited excitement in her silver eyes, Jaune's gut feeling tells him that he really doesn't like this plan. His mind says that Lark has already won and that it's time to go home and finish his essay. Still, some stupid part of his inner psyche surges to the front and asks, "What's the flying one?"
Without a word, Ruby crouches slightly and swipes Crescent Rose from its resting place. In the seconds it takes for her back to fully straighten again, her weapon unfurls in a mechanical whirl of moving gears and clanking locks. She carries her momentum into a turn, bringing the butt of the scythe in a smooth upward arc at Penny's back. Without a single backward glance, Penny takes a tiny hop back onto the oncoming scythe, crouches, and leaps. An additional gunshot rends the relative peace of 4:00 AM and provides Ruby enough centrifugal force to reduce Penny to a singular twinkle in the night sky.
It's so smooth that it might as well have been a practiced move. Jaune's amazement is short-lived, however, as Ruby continues into another turn.
{NononononoNO—}
Let it be said that the butt of Crescent Rose does not, in fact, possess the usual attributes of a scythe butt, but instead features its own tiny little blade probably meant for non-lethally hooking and dragging unwilling targets back with range or something. Either way, this is not something Jaune wants stabbing into his side should he stay in place. So he jumps because the fastest way to dodge. At the weapon's current speed, he should sail right up and over it.
He should have expected the following gunshot that triples Crescent Rose's velocity.
Hard metal parts jab into the soles of his sneakers. He bites down on the screamed curses, even as Melanie's fancy footwork kicks in and automatically adjusts his positioning so he doesn't twist an ankle upon take-off.
Frankly, he's had enough experience with flight to last a lifetime. After his stomach realizes it shouldn't still be hanging around Ruby and catches up with the rest of his body, Jaune could even call this unnatural occurrence… enjoyable, even. He just has to trust Melanie's muscle memory to guide him to a safe landing and enjoy the ride in the meanwhile. He can see most of campus from here. Most of the city of Zodiac, in fact. He thinks maybe that airfield over there, the one under construction, is where Weiss's ice tower was a few weeks ago. The moon glimmers off the Lake of Zen; he must be subconsciously avoiding the body of water where he lost a week of his life or something. It looks like a peaceful place. Maybe he should visit in times when the action gets a little too much. Somewhere down there, Lie Ren's probably on the move. He seemed pretty dedicated to his job when they first met. Would do anything for Weiss. And who was the second guard again? The scary one with the bull horns. The both of them are probably waiting to lop off Lark's head, any second now. And if Yang's going for this, then Sun's probably following, right? Directors vs Directors, huh.
Is it saying something when it feels like a lot of the major events in Jaune's life behind the walls of Menagerie have been so heavily influenced by the Heiress Schnee?
Something stings against his cheek, little legs scrabbling feebly before succumbing to fatal impact. Jaune smears it off with one hand and grimaces. (Neptune's goggles would be great here.}
So the trees are getting bigger pretty quickly. His body's already shifting to land feet first, but by all estimations it looks like he's going to land in a tree.
"PENNY."
A spread of green tiles blossom before him, crawling outward in a half-sphere that shields him from leaves and branches and, in an explosion of splinters, was probably the trunk. More hexagons spring to life as he bounces to the side in an uncontrollable dive, impacts the ground, and bounces again. Using the sword hilt as an anchor, Jaune plants his feet into the back of Crocea Mors, releases the shield from its storage within the sheath in time for the third bounce, and successfully sleds over rough and screaming terrain until he finally grinds to a halt.
He takes a moment to bask in the glorious fact of no broken limbs and whatnot. It feels good, not having a concussion. Seems like he landed in a soft flower patch too, judging from all the shredded white petals flittering through the heavy blanket of fragrance that coats his area. {Not bad. Not bad at all! Score one for Jaune Arc.}
Without night vision, he can't exactly pinpoint just begins to slow-clap behind him. "Very nice, very nice. You did all the work for me."
He scrambles to his feet, scooping up sword and shield and frantically glancing around. {Voice is somewhat familiar. Get them to talk more.}
"All part of the plan," he laughs somewhat breathlessly. Hazarding a glance behind reveals the four or five bodies plowed into soft soil of what had been a garden, judging from the collapsed fence. Rays of moonlight pierce through broken branches to illuminate every fluttering petal that drops the unmoving bodies. Back to focusing on the speaker: female, just a little bit of smug condescension in her tone. An upperclasswoman?
"Is your vision really that bad?" the woman muses. "Must be the outfit."
A figure steps into the moonlight. Dark brown clothes, mostly, accented by bandoliers for a belt and shoulder strap. All those bullets, though, and she only has a suitcase to show for it… well, if you aren't counting the sheer amount of presence that she carries. This brunette has authority; he doesn't doubt it for a second. And just in case he wasn't sure enough, she flips her scroll out to show her credentials: Coco Adel, Student Council Master-at-Arms.
{Just your luck: breaking into Weiss's garden and massacring civilians right in front of law enforcement.}
"Not every day you see a flying faunus take out your opponents for you," she grunts, folding her hands across her chest. The way her suitcase moves at this action—that is to say, maybe half a centimeter—implies that the airspace about it has suddenly transformed into syrup or that it is really, really freakin' heavy. "That's not going to get you off the hook in my book though. What are you doing here?"
"If I said I was here to stop the oncoming panty raid, would you believe me?"
Coco snorts in a very unladylike manner, then completes the image by spitting a really impressive loogie onto the nearest unconscious pervert. "You and half the male population."
Jaune hesitates a moment, fiddling with his scroll. Penny did upload a campus map for him—but she outright told him that she hacked into the school's security system and is tracking the locations of dozens of students, presumably through the scrolls they're supposed to take everywhere. It'd be really helpful to the head of the student disciplinary committee, but that also brings up the question of how did you get a hold of this info?
Serendipitously, Coco's scroll buzzes with static before a deep rumble pierces the awkward silence between them. "Yatsuhashi to Coco. Requesting immediate aid for a reported raid near Tortoise dormitories."
Surprised, she fingers an earpiece before giving it up. "You're a big guy, Yatsu," she barks, though she's already moving out. "Don't tell me you're having trouble."
"Don't want to screw up the underground dorms."
"Fine, I get it." She shoots Jaune a glare over her shoulder. "Don't try anything your mom wouldn't want you doing, yeah? Prove to me that Velv's faith in you isn't just because you're actually a prude. Or a virgin. Or gay."
She's gone before he can splutter a protest.
"She'll only be gone for a few minutes," Penny pipes up three seconds later, "before she realizes I emulated Yatsuhashi Daichi's vocal tones and behavioral nuances to create a distraction."
"I… what?" She is literally standing behind his left shoulder. He's more surprised at his lack of surprise than of her (usual) unexpected appearance. "Penny…"
"It is likely that she already suspects the falsification. I was only able to compile audio intonations from recorded phone interviews and a few grunts and cries, either from battle rooms or from his personal bedroom—"
"Oooooooookay, thank you very much, Penny." He glances at the destroyed garden one more time, then turns in the general direction of where he presumes Weiss's room to be. He automatically double-checks with his companion. "Where's Ruby?"
Penny appears to consult the map on her visor, though her troubled expression denotes frustration.
"Is something wrong?"
"I appear to have lost service in this particular region of the map," she frowns. "Which is quite unfortunate. We may have to advance through Weiss's security measures without an active-time map."
"Didn't you say Lark already disabled… whatever they were?"
"Depends on the arte. Without my constant monitor, we have no way of telling which ones are still dead and which ones have reactivated."
"Meaning?"
Penny smiles at him. "Use your brain."