A/N: Hey everyone, I'm back! The last week was awesome, got me NieR: Automata (That game is like, amazing, totally recommend,) and now, after resting and planning, time for me to bring up chapter 1 of Vol 2! I hope you all enjoy Vol 2 as it rolls on, and I will see you all tomorrow!
"Good God... Why me?"
Those were the words Perci uttered, for the most part, sitting in the cafeteria with the rest of her team, as well as ACMM, eating lunch peacefully. It was just about the beginning of their second semester in Beacon, and for the most part, sans small scuffles between people and the sort, the two teams managed to get some time for themselves, relax, and enjoy their time with each other's company.
So far, Perci had her large plate mostly finished. She held a chewed out rip in her hand, leaning back in her chair, rolling her eyes as Leila gave her a stern glare, her own plate consisting of nothing but vegetables and dairy products.
"Because, Perci, we do not appreciate the murder of animals. The Lord has given life to all of us as equals, and taking another's is a grave sin." She replied swiftly, returning to her meal in small, rapid bites. As part of her religion, Leila led a vegetarian lifestyle, and seeing Hue was a herbivore Faunus, and Jin was... Jin, Perci was left as the only meat eater in an entire time of freaking tree huggers.
"Of course, this goes beyond just faith and tradition." Hue continued, eating slowly and chewing her meal carefully. "There are several scientific studies that heavily discourage the consumption of meat products. Eating vegetables alone will give you all the nutrients you need on a daily basis."
"Yeah! Mama told me that I should only eat plants!" Jin, trying to join in the conversation, exclaimed from her seat, unlike the rest of her team, her fork was entirely clean, and she had no knife next to her, seeing as no one of them trusted her to handle sharp objects. Of course, she didn't mind, eating with her bare hands, almost like a cave person.
Perci grumbled, rolling her eyes again, as the slight sound of a snicker caught her attention, turning her head over to look at the members of team ACMM, sitting across them, and enjoying their own mean. Unlike Jin's team, all of ACMM enjoyed all kinds of food, though Copper for the most part barely ate anything, sipping on some water, after already finishing her meal of nothing more than a single pancake, which she didn't even finish all the way through. Perci looked up, to see Undine barely able to hide her laughter, Ash grinning to herself while slicing up some more steak, and Melody sipping some water, trying to avoid Perci's direct gaze.
"...And what's so funny, Fish face? Mind explainin'?" She asked her, giving Undine an unamused look. She didn't have the patience, nor the nerve, to deal with Undine's bullshit laughter.
The fish faunus giggled for a while longer, finally calming down with a large gulp of juice. She looked Perci in the eyes, one side of her lips curling upwards. "Oh, I dunno... Just, hearing you four bicker and argue about this sort of shit really make me laugh..." She rolled that last word on her tongue for a while longer, as if trying to instigate her friend, laughing as Perci started to grunt and grumble to herself.
Ash swallowed her meal, leaning forward, and looking at the annoyed delinquent, a hint of mischief gleaming in her eyes. "She got a point you know. It is sort of adorable." She concluded, tapping Melody on the shoulder, bringing her attention back to the group's conversation. "Ain't that right Mel?"
Melody, caught in some daydream for the most part, snapped back to reality, looking at the group flustered and confused. "Hmm-wha-who? Umm... Yes?" She tried to guess the correct answer, only to receive some laughs from the rest of her team, as well as Perci, who's mood got lifted by the small event. She straightened up in her chair again, taking her fork, and stuffing her mouth full of some more meat, barely chewing on it before attempting to swallow a literal mouthful at once, slightly choking before drowning it with water, helping her wash it down.
"Perci, please..." Leila couldn't help but turn her head to the side at the gross display of human vulgarity and poor eating habits. "At the very least, cut your food into smaller pieces before you really choke yourself."
Perci shrugged again to her words. "Eh, bite me Nun. I do what I want!" She chuckled loudly, twirling her fork in her hands. Suddenly, she lost control of it, and it slipped through her fingers, flying and planting itself in her legs, sticking in. "Ah, son of a fuck!" She quickly pulled it out, assessing the damages, only to see the fork merely pierced her skin, wounding her lightly. She turned her attention to Leila again, this time putting her best impersonation of puppy eyes. "Hey, Leila..."
Leila raised a hand, stopping Perci before she could finish her sentence. "Fine... I'll heal you. But you have to swear to me to cease being so reckless with silverware." She got up, Perci nodding repeatedly before she stood by her side, putting both hands on the open wound. "O l'rd, prithee guideth thy holiness through thy humble s'rvant" She gave a small prayer, her semblance triggered by her faith and call. Her palms began to glow lightly, as Perci could feel the wound on her leg slowly closing in, returned to the point before the incident. However, despite that, the holes in her suit were still apparent.
She nodded in gratitude to Leila as she returned to her seat, to continue her meal proper. "Thanks, Nun. Shame you couldn't do anything about the suit..." She sighed, twirling the fork in her hands again, though slower this time. "...Oh well, guess I'll saw it together when I'm back at the dorm."
From there, as the group settled in to finish their meal, a certain silence fell upon the group. A silence that carried with it, to a degree, a topic that until now they didn't discuss. A subject that, on some level, they didn't WANT to discuss, but would have to. Each of them knew it well. What they saw at the industrial district a few weeks prior... Since then, they barely mentioned it, each for her own reasons. Regardless, with the advent of their second semester in Beacon Academy, a certain need to see things though fell upon the group. So far, it was time to rest.
That time was soon to be over.
Ash was the first to clear her throat, putting down her silverware after fully finishing her meal. She eyed the remainder of the team and JPLL quietly, sighing after a while with muffled grunt. "Alright... I think it's time we talked about that." The rest already knew what she was going to say, and everyone besides Jin, who was lost in her pretty little world, turned their attention towards the detective.
"What's there even to say?" Perci replied first. The rest kept their attention of both of them, quiet so far. "I'm still not even sure what the fuck that thing WAS. What matters is that it's dead, and done with." She tried to conclude, Ash cutting her by clearing her throat.
"And then what, huh? What happens if this happens again? We have no idea who did it, WHY they did it, and most importantly..." Her mood grew more and more somber, as her face lowered, looking grim. "We don't know if he could do it again."
Perci quickly came to interject. "Oh please. The barrel was destroyed and done with. There's no way."
"Oh yeah? And who's to say that was the only barrel he had? Who's to say that he won't try summoning grimm a second time into the city?" Ash became more and more resolute in her stand, physically standing up in front of them. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm not gonna sit quietly while some... MADMAN goes around, summoning grimm straight into civilian areas. If none of you are going to do something, I don't care. I'm going to get to the bottom of it." She spoke vividly, and clearly. Her voice contained not a single hint of doubt in her actions, as the mystery was both too fascinating for her to skip out of, and the fact that people's lives were at stake meant she couldn't let herself be held back.
Second to rise, almost a few seconds later, was Leila. "Indeed. The Lord did not create these lives for us to ruin. Whoever they are, even if they cannot do it again, they must be brought to justice. Such is the divine law of the Lord." Her gaze was cold and distant. Leila only had one thing on her mind, and one thing alone, and was justice for the atrocities caused by the cultist.
"...You know what?" Undine looked at them, smiling. "I think you're right, Ash. We can't let something this dangerous go around, and cause havoc. So yeah, I think I'll stick around for this one too." She joined the others on her legs. In all honestly, she didn't quite care for the mystery or for justice, but the adventure was gonna be packed with action and awesome moments, she was sure of it. After that, she looked over to Copper. "You're gonna join us too, right C? Seemed like you weren't affected by that guy's semblance thing, right?"
"Indeed." Copper quietly stood up. "I possess the power to negate the madness he emitted. I am vital to this mission, and will assist in any way I can." She gave a curt bow, returning to sitting again.
"You do have a point." Now, it was Hue's turn to join the fray. "If I allow this to go on, the chaos that would ensue would hinder my research and progress. I'll help out as well, with my mind if not my combat skill." Ash gave her a thumbs up, as well as a smile, Hue nodding back in response. While her intentions weren't as pure as some of the others, an extra pair of hands was always welcomed.
Melody stared at the rest of her friends, each standing up and pledging to help in this mystery and investigation. While some parts of her were screaming at her to decline, and back down before she could get hurt, something else stirred inside of her as well. So far, in her life, she was never one to take direction action against something like this. She was almost always the first to just run away, and back off.
And she wanted to change.
"Alright." She got up, shaking lightly, to the surprise of the others. "I-If all of you are going to fight these things... Then I'll join too!" She called out, trying to mask her own cowardice, only to receive another pat on the back from Ash, who nodded in gratitude. Melody smiled gently, sitting back down as quickly as she got up.
Perci looked at the rest of them. Each with her own reasons, and yet, now standing as one in the face of this would be threat. Now, that Melody agreed to help them out, she knew she didn't have much of a choice if she still wanted to keep a good impression. She slowly got up, putting a hand on the table and leaning on her arm. "Alright, alright... if ALL of you are going to do this shit, I'll tag too. Happy now?" Her face turned towards Leila and Ash.
"Just... Peachy." Ash snickered as she answered, Perci giving her an angered glare, before groaning at the horrible pun. Regardless, she stood up, staring at the group, now a part of whatever mess they were going to get themselves into.
"Yeah!" Jin jumped in her seat, actually pushing the table back from her sheer size. All of them were caught off guard by her sudden action, and while waiting for her to speak about something none of them understood, she instead simply looked at everyone standing, smiling just as radiantly as she ever did.
As the entirety of the eight of them agreed on what to do, they sat down, satisfied, returning to their meals. All, with the exception of Leila, who remained nervous to a degree, a tad worried. Perci noticed her gaze, recognizing what it meant, and whistled sharply to get her attention. "Oi, Nun. Somethin' up?"
Leila only nodded her head, pointing with her head to another table, where a group of students in Haven uniforms were sitting down. There was a large, almost primal looking lion faunus with a giant axe strapped to his back, as well as a lion's mane, guzzling down meat even faster then Perci. A quiet boy with pearl white eyes, eating in petite bites, trying to relax, as well as a short, androgynous looking person, sitting on what seemed like a bubble. However, none of them mattered to Leila at the moment, compared to the last person of the team. A thin, tall girl, her posture straight and tall, almost like she was royalty, eating while looking at Leila's direction.
Or at least, that was the feeling Leila got, considering the girl had a large, opaque porcelain mask, covering the upper side of her face, hiding her eyes, as well as nose and ears, behind a clean, white mask.
She couldn't get a good reading on this person whatsoever. Her face was generally pointed towards Leila, but beyond that, the mask made it impossible to say anything about her. Leila couldn't help but avoid staring back, thinking it was rude regardless, turning back her attention to her teammates. "Hmm?" She acknowledged Perci's question, tilting her head and quietly returning to her meal. "Yes. I am... Fine." She stuttered a bit at the end.
Perci quickly caught on, looking at the team from Haven. By their age, they were clearly at least third years, if not fourth years, each of them a potential threat. "...They lookin' at you funny?" She asked, clenching her fists together. Leila quickly gave her a fierce, almost angry glare.
"Perci, no. My worries are my own. I will not let you ruin the cafeteria with a fight." She shut her down as quickly as Perci came to act, utterly refusing to allow such mayhem to occur on her watch.
Perci, getting the hint, rolled her eyes, leaning back with her arms crossed. "Whatever... It's not like I was gonna do anything drastic anyway, but have it your way I guess." She sighed, trying to pass some time until the rest of the teams finally finished their food, Perci herself already full and sitting with an empty plate in front of her. While she would usually take her plate and leave the others to their own devices, for some reason, she felt like sticking around for a bit, if only to see if Leila would change her mind. "Besides, it's not like something's gonna happen, ri-"
Before she could even finish her semblance, Leila's face was already submerged almost entirely in what could only be described as an aerial pie.
Before Perci could burst into laughter herself, she realized what was going on: A full on scale food fight, seemingly starting from another table, filled the cafeteria, chaos reigning. She quickly got up, not even bothering to take her tray with her. "Welp seems like my time here is UP! I ain't gonna get this suit dirty!" She darted out, running through the now battlezone, doing her best to dodge the remains of food flying around. Around her, the rest of the students who realized it was probably not a wise idea to stay in this mess, read, almost all of them, hurried in droves out of the hall, to the safety of the outdoors.
Stepping outside, Perci looked back, only to see the rest of her team followed suit, as well as ACMM. Leila was first, bursting out of the hall with pie in her hair as well as a stained robe, with Hue dragging Jin out by force, as no one was gonna clean that hair if it got too dirty. After her, Ash, Melody, Undine and Copper rushed out, looking at as only teams RWBY and JNPR, at least from what any of them could tell, stayed inside, various shouts of battle filling the hall.
After seeing one of them being launched out the roof high into the air, Perci lifted her hands, turning to the dorms. "Got one thing to say about that, people." She spoke up, before coming to walk away. "Fuck this shit, I'm out!" She started humming a certain tune, walking away backwards, before bumping into someone behind her.
"Oi, watch-" She turned around, looking at this would be asshole, realizing that it was the one and only Ozpin, as well as furious looking Glynda, behind her. "It..." She quickly jumped back, putting some distance between herself and the headmaster, watching them step inside, seemingly to discipline the mess. A short minute after, as well as one Yang Xiao Long falling back to the ground, the chaos mostly dispersed, Ozpin and Glynda stepping out.
"Ms. Valiére, can we please have a quick word?" Ozpin called her, and having no other option, she stepped towards him, hands in her pockets, while the rest of her team and friends decided to wait for her.
"What is it?" She asked, impatience in her voice. "You better not say what I think you're gonna say..." She only took one glance inside the cafeteria to know that this wasn't going to end well. While Glynda managed to fix the broken tables and holes in the walls and roof, her semblance did not, alas, magically cleaned everything. Juice was still plastered all over the back wall, cans, sauce, and mashed food covered the floor, and even the tables, fixed ones included, weren't all squeaky clean. In one instant, she realized that he was serious. "...Nope! I ain't cleanin' that fucking shit! Fuck that!" She protested, fiercely defiant to the idea of cleaning someone else's mess.
Despite her protests and cussing, Ozpin kept a cool demeanor. "Well, unless you want to get your little arrangement sorted out, I am afraid you don't have another choice in the matter." He explained. "The council didn't like your little escapade last semester, and decided to impose some community service hours as punishment. Which means..."
"Oh, you gotta be FUCKING KIDDING ME!"
It's been about thirty minutes since Perci was forced to clean the mess left behind in the cafeteria. While Ozpin promised her that the others wouldn't go unpunished, she had this distinct feeling that he was full of shit, like everything else in the fucking room. The sleeves of her suit were rolled up, both pants and shirt, and she was holding a mop, going over the same patch of filth over and over for the past couple of minutes, trying to get it as clean as she could. One thing she learned in her life was to do a good job at something you're forced to do, even if you hate it, to make sure you don't have to do it again. While working on the floor, she heard a knock on the door, turning her head in seething anger, expecting Ozpin to come over to check on her progress. The gigantic painting in soda still waiting for her on the wall, she walked over to the door, cussing loudly over and over, finding new and improved ways of threatening someone with death.
To her surprise, however, it was Leila, now cleaned after the pie fiasco, stepping in carrying a mop and a bucket of water and soap of her own. She came inside, walking closer to Perci. "I have come to assist you in cleaning the cafeteria." She explained briefly, soaking her mop in water. Before she could start cleaning, however, Perci blocked her movements, parrying her mop with her own.
Perci gave her one, simple glare. "Alright, spill the beans, Nun. What gives?" She asked. Under no circumstance would she believe Leila would willing come to help her, out of the goodness of her heart, despite how holy she thought she was at times.
"I'm only here because the place is filthy, and I eat here every day. So, I decided to come and help you clean this mess as quickly as possible." After she had spoken, Perci backed down, stepped back and looking at the stains, still covering the area. She still had a long way to go, and while it was still odd for her, having Leila around to help certainly won't make things any slower.
Perci shrugged, returning to the meticulous task of making the cafeteria habitable again by anything that wasn't an animal. After a while of silently cleaning the area, not a sound passing between the two, Perci finally lifted her head, a question on her mind. "Oi, Nun."
"What is it?" Leila didn't meet her gaze, still focusing on the floor tiles, making sure each of them had her reflection in them before moving to the others.
"I gotta ask..." Perci paused, taking a deep breath. "How are you so... Well..." She tried to come up with a proper term, or at least, one that wasn't insulting or demeaning. "...Clean?" It was something that Perci couldn't quite fathom. She knew people. She knew people very well, in fact. She's seen all sorts of little shits go around Vale, each more rotten than the last. But for some reason... She never saw Leila do even a single thing wrong. She always got to class strictly on time, woke up for her prayers exactly on the mark, cleaned after herself, made sure to help anyone in need she could. This sort of niceness was something Perci usually attributed to weakness, or just outright idiocy.
"If you mean how am I not a ruffian like you, the answer is simple." Leila stopped cleaning, looking back at Perci with a cold gaze. "The Lord guides my actions. I follow his words, and his Scriptures, and I follow them to a tee. That is all." She kept it rather brief, continuing to clean.
"Yeah but like," Unsatisfied with her answer, Perci put the mop back in the bucket, walking closer to the nun. "What do you GET out of it? No way you'll put up with a book telling you how to live your life if you didn't get SOMETHING from doing it, right?" Believing her logic to be sound, she pressed her question. This was, of course, the one thing she knew for certain in her life. At the end of the day... It was all about reward versus risk.
By now, Leila stopped cleaning as well. Hope glimmered in her eyes, thinking this might be her chance to show Perci the light. She straightened her back, turning to her teammate in full. "That, too, is simple Perci." She started to explain once more. "The Lord is our creator. Our guide. He leads us towards the afterlife, of eternal peace and happiness. But, to attain that peace, one must face many trials before they are allowed into his garden. And so, I have dedicated my life to follow his rules and laws. That is the only way." She ended on a gentle, soft smile.
"Oh yeah?" Thinking back to her own life, Perci quickly turned to frowning. "And what about people like me, eh? What do I get, eternal fire and punishment or some shit?"
Sensing the anger in her tone, Leila quickly reacted by shaking her head. "Oh no, nothing of the sort. Those who are deemed unworthy will simply be reincarnated into the world once more, to live another life, until they are ready to move to the afterlife." She tried to make it clearer for her. "At the end of the day, it is up for each of us to do their very best."
"Well, you know what I think?" Perci, while less angry, was still in a foul mood. She didn't like this idea. Not. One. Bit. "I think that everything you just said is bullshit. The only one who gets to tell me what is right or wrong is me. And any god out there that THINKS they're better than me better be ready to get my fist up there ass."
Seeing her chance lost, Leila shook her head. She knew, in some place, that she couldn't actually convince Perci to become a convert. "Regardless of that... The Lord loves each and every one of us. You too, Perci." Now, finding some peace in her heart, Leila resumed cleaning the floor, while Perci took a piece of Velcro and started to tend to the wall painting, removing it slowly.
Another knock was heard on the door, as a rather young man, at least in his thirties, entered the cafeteria. He looked at the two of them, two thick rimmed glasses around his eyes, as well as short, very well kept yellow hair. "Perci, Ozpin requested you stop cleaning for now and attend your therapy." He told her, waiting by the door.
Perci groaned for a bit, putting down her Velcro on one of the tables, walking over to the door. "Yeah yeah yeah, just give me a second asshole." She gruffed, passing by Leila. "Yo, I gotta go with the doc for like an hour. Can ya hold the fort until I come back?"
Leila nodded, keeping her gentle smile. "Alright. Just go ahead, I'll clean what I can before you return." She then tuned out the rest, focusing on the floor again, looking over for just a second as Perci went outside with Dr. Topaz Engany to his small office in Beacon's main building, for her therapy session.