Day x+y+3053
So, the plan to change as little as possible is shot to hell now. Sam hated it, and if that wasn't enough, Ruby decided that I needed to be more social, and that was pretty much the end of that.
I've gone over with Sam just how what we should do in the future. Ideally, we want to prevent the fall of Beacon entirely. Barring that, we want to prevent Cinder from getting the powers of the Fall Maiden. If I can't even change that, then at the bare minimum I want to save Pyrrha and Penny.
Those are our priorities, in that order. The problem that we have is that we actually have next to no resources to achieve this plan. I'm seriously reconsidering the idea of anonymously giving Ozpin the information on the future that we have.
Pros:
Ozpin has access to better resources than we do, basically can call up any huntsman at any time.
Qrow is a great scout, since he can actually turn into a crow, allowing us to find the bases of operations of our enemies.
Ozpin has much more experience at leading than Sam or I do, and will likely come up with better plans.
Cons:
Unsure if it will actually matter at this point. Entire police force of Vale unable to find Roman Torchwick.
Even if Cinder fails, there is likely a contingency plan in place to make Beacon fall anyways.
Not sure why Salem doesn't just tell all of the Grimm in the immediate vicinity to attack Beacon anyways. (However, Ozpin might know)
… Well, it seems kind of obvious that Sam's going to have to approach Ozpin himself about the information soon. Keeping me as a backup for the knowledge is still our strategy going forwards, so Sam won't be mentioning me.
If Ozpin for some reason doesn't do anything or believe us, our first move will be to somehow get placed on team RWBY's first mission, and hopefully we'll be able to stop the train before it crashes a hole in Vale's outer walls. Then we need to let Ozpin and Ironwood know about the virus spreading through Atlas' forces.
Then-
"James, come ON! We're gonna be late for class!" Sam shouted from outside our room, interrupting my journal session.
It'd been a bit more than a week since Ruby had beat me in a spar. I still haven't really bonded with anyone besides Ruby just yet, but that's mostly because we're all trying to get into a good schedule now that we're at Beacon.
"Sam, if I don't get this done right now, I'm never going to get it done." I reply calmly.
He peeks inside and sees that I'm still in my school uniform. "What are you still doing in your uniform?! It's our first day of sparring! Hurry up and get changed!"
I wave him off, still writing in my journal. "Just one more minute."
"We don't have one more minute! Class starts in two!"
I sigh in exasperation, then activate my Semblance to a 10:1 dilation, blitzing through the last few sentences of my journal and then zooming to the bathroom to change. This all happens in just under half a minute, after which I am next to Sam in my combat gear.
"Happy? I even remembered to pack a bunch of dust knives like you asked."
Sam simply glares at me, before turning around and sprinting towards class. I follow right behind him, knowing that I probably did need to hurry.
"And now we're going to be tired for our fight. Thanks a lot James." Sam snarked.
"Oh please. You're just under Pyrrha's skill level. The odds of us losing a fight are practically zero."
"-And next, team JS will be fighting team CRDL. Fighters, please come down to the sparring ring." Professor Goodwitch announces.
Sam glared at me. "I hate you so much."
I refused to meet his gaze, choosing to instead look at the floor dejectedly as we walked down to the sparring ring. While I didn't know much about the rest of the team, Cardin Winchester was a minor antagonist in the show, good enough to be in the Atlas tournament, and because of that, someone who had an absolutely MASSIVE grudge against Sam (who had beaten him twice in said tournaments).
So yeah, this wasn't going to be fun for us. I know that Pyrrha was able to take them out with minimal use of her Semblance, but Pyrrha's Semblance is pretty freaking good in a fight. Sam could probably take on the entire team himself if he really had to, but Cardin had already fought Sam twice already, so he knew a lot of Sam's tricks. I was still pretty confident in our victory, but if we won Cardin would only get angrier at Sam.
We took our places at one end of the arena, and faced off against team CRDL. Cardin sneered directly at Sam and hefted his mace over his shoulder. Sam simply narrowed his eyes right back at Cardin. He wasn't the biggest fan of the other boy either, having remembered his actions from the show.
The rest of Cardin's team seemed to dislike the two of us almost as much as their leader for whatever reason. I close my eyes and sigh. This was going to be a pain.
Professor Goodwitch shouts 'begin' and their team takes off after us like four miniature rockets. Sam and I immediately jump back and start launching projectiles. Most don't take, but hey, that's our main form of attack. We're feeling out our opponents, seeing what works and what doesn't. Unfortunately, all we learned was that our opponents won't just take hits from knives and bullets to the face.
… Actually, that's a lie. We've also learned what their strategy is. Cardin was going straight for Sam, whereas the other three were going straight for me. In hindsight, I totally should have seen this coming, but for now I need a quick way out of this mess before I get triple-teamed. I leap backwards, dropping a few daggers as I do so. Sam quickly sees what's happening, and shoots his shotgun behind in order to propel towards Cardin at absurdly fast speeds. I see him land a flying kick right before I hear the sound of gunfire and instinctively roll out of the way, activating the dust that was in the few daggers from before.
One knife had gravity dust in it, which pulled the three together. The force wasn't very strong, but it was enough for my purposes. It made sure that they were all within about five feet of each other, perfect for the rest of the trap. The next knife to trigger was filled with steam dust. I used to use water dust for this trap but recently realized that steam dust was more ideal and hurt more.
The steam dust let out a large cloud of, well, steam. While the scalding temperatures of this steam probably didn't do much to my opponents, it was only meant as a set-up for the final part of my trap. The final two knives were filled with lightning dust, which violently exploded and sent electricity through the entire cloud of steam.
I'd remembered doing something like this in a game back on Earth, and wondered if I could replicate it. While the steam cloud doesn't keep the lightning going indefinitely, it amplifies the lightning and almost guarantees that it'll hit everyone within it.
I briefly glance at the big screen, looking to see how my the aura levels of my opponents were. Two of them seemed to get hit hard, having lost somewhere around a third of their reserves, but the final one had only lost about a quarter. Still, I was satisfied with those results.
I saw movement coming out from my right, and see Cardin zoom in my direction. I lean back to avoid the enemy leader, while quickly slipping a knife onto his belt as he passes by. It happens so fast that no one even notices that I just reverse-pickpocketed Cardin.
The flying enemy leader seems to distract the other three members for a split moment, which is enough for me to send another knife at each of them. Unfortunately, it seems that they were able to react in time. The one with the sword-revolver shot a knife out of the air, the dual-wielder deflected his with one of his swords, and the guy with the axe-shotgun spun his axe around in front of himself to deflect the projectile.
Luckily, those weren't normal knives. They had been knives filled with ice dust, encasing their weapons and attached arms in ice. This still works in my favor, since now those two fighters are temporarily out of commision as they attempt to free their arms from the ice. I had been aiming for complete encasement, but this would have to do. For the time being, I was only fighting the guy with the sword-gun.
He fires shot after shot in my direction. Unfortunately for him, I'd gotten so used to deflecting bullets by this point that it was too easy for me to simply block the shots with my sword and sheath.
As I blocked his projectiles, I stole a quick glance at Sam's fight. He had started to bust out his dust manipulation. A small pinchful of dust, amplified by his Semblance, turned into a large lightning bolt that Cardin barely managed to dodge, leaving him open to a few hits from Sam's sniper rifle.
I turned back to my opponents. It looked like the guy that was just shooting me realized that I could deflect anything that he shot in my direction, so he began rushing towards me for a melee fight. I look past him and see that his two teammates are making disturbingly quick progress on freeing their limbs from the ice that I had hoped would permanently take them out of the fight. I quickly throw a lightning knife at the axe-wielder, but he just rolls out of the way.
I am suddenly on the defensive from the enemy that had decided to attack me at close range. My reflexes scream at me to use my Semblance, but I know that I shouldn't. Not only do I not want to give a hint that I even have a Semblance, but I also want to see how I compare to a normal hunter-in-training without it.
He's definitely fast. He jumps towards me and does a powerful overhead swing, which I wisely turn my body to the side to avoid. I follow with a quick blow from my katana, holding out my sheathe to block the inevitable counter. What I was not prepared for, however, was the point-blank gunshot to the chest that he let loose. My aura sprung to life automatically to deflect the attack, which still managed to push me back a good few feet.
I grunt in surprise, and barely managed to deflect the other shot that immediately followed the first.
Right… So this guys' sword is actually much more dangerous up close than far away… But he'll need to reload eventually. In that case… I thought to myself, planning how to take on my opponent.
He charged me again, and I ducked to the side again, seemingly attempting the same tactic as last time. However, just before he was about to shoot me, I ducked low and cut open the ammo pouch hanging on his belt, spilling his bullet all over the place. I quickly disengage from him, kicking his ammo all over the floor as I do so.
He grits his teeth, and realizes that it would be incredibly impractical from now on to recover any more bullets. I briefly look behind him at the other two, and unfortunately it seems that they've almost managed to free their arms from their frozen confines. I would need to wrap up my fight with my opponent fast.
I hear a 'boom' noise, and then feel something hit me from the side, which hits me so hard that I drop my weapons. Sam had been launched at me, sending me and him tumbling across the floor. I shake my head and disentangle him from me, looking up just in time to see Cardin rushing in fast with his mace. I quickly pull Sam with me and dash out of the way, barely avoiding the shockwave that his mace leaves in the wake of the impact.
I activate my Semblance to give myself more time to think up a plan. Two members of their team are still incapacitated, Cardin is directly in front of us, and the guy with the sword-gun has no ammo left in his sword, halving his efficiency. If the two of us gang up on Cardin to get him out quickly, and then follow up with the sword-gun guy, we'd be fighting with even odds.
Alternatively, we could end them all in one go. It just so happened that Sam and I had come up with a tactic that would work perfectly here. It's incredibly expensive and has limited usage in real combat, so I'm not terribly upset that everyone's going to know about it.
"Sam! Overkill!" I shout.
He looks at me with a questioning look, obviously wondering why the hell I've decided to use this strategy. The name is fairly descriptive: no matter who we're fighting, this is completely overkill and completely inelegant. There's no real finesse to this tactic, and it only really works when all of our opponents are incapacitated. He's probably wondering how the hell I'm planning on incapacitating the remaining two enemies, but he shrugged.
"If you say so." He responds.
Immediately following his response, the two of us rush towards the two members of CRDL that still had ice on their arms. The other two members following in our wake. I push my coat to the side and quickly unhook the clasp of one of my knife belts. Sam and I move to either side of the two enemies that we're rushing, and I activate the knife that I'd stashed on Cardin earlier, which is filled with gravity dust, clumping all of our enemies into one place and knocking their heads together, dazing them slightly. This is the all the opening that Sam and I need though, and we enact our plan.
I head clockwise around all of them, passing one end of the knife belt and grab the other one. Once we're on the other side, Sam shoots his shotgun behind him, and I activate my Semblance.
As Sam moves past me, he lets go of his end of the knife belt, and grabs my arm. I quickly re-clasp the two ends and then let go, deactivating my Semblance as I do. Once we're sufficiently far away, Cardin's eyes widened in dawning realization, but it's too late. I detonate all of the knives on the knife belt.
It's a little hard to explain what happened next. I'm going to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what all of the dust on that belt is. However, considering that I've recently started loving gravity dust, that was probably why it was an implosion instead of an explosion. As it stands, a fireball filled with lightning surrounds the members of team CRDL. I watch the aura gauges up on the screen as they rapidly deplete. Cardin apparently has a ton of aura in reserve, as his isn't dropping as quickly as his teammates.
Three of them have their aura in the red now, so they're out of the fight. However, Cardin still has about a third of his aura left, so he's still in the fight. He's on the ground, reeling from the overwhelming dust attack, but he's still in the fight. He rips the belt that's wrapped around his team and starts to get up. At this point, Sam starts pelting him with shots from his rifle while I close the gap to keep him away from Sam.
He takes a swing at me while kneeling on the ground, hardly flinching from Sam's bullets. I hop backwards and leap towards him, intent on keeping him on the ground. Instead of me doing that however, he merely swings his mace back and knocks me away from him at a ridiculous speed.
I smashed into the wall with enough force that it took out a huge chunk of my aura reserves. Not enough to drop me into the red, but still quite a lot. I quickly sprang to my feet and noticed that Cardin had just managed to do the same. Sam was continuing to pelt him with bullets, but they didn't seem to be doing much to his aura anymore, which was odd.
Either way, it was obvious that Cardin's eyes were only on Sam. That was something I could take advantage of. I threw three dust knives to intercept Cardin's path before he hit Sam, and Sam managed to notice. He shot a quick burst of shots at my knives as they flew through the air, which seemed to confuse Cardin, judging by the enraged expression on his face adopting a pair of furrowed eyebrows.
He must have realized what was going to happen just a moment too late however, as he quickly whirled around just as three ice knives impact his body, freezing him completely solid almost instantly.
Professor Goodwitch cuts in then, announcing the end of combat. "Very good. That's a victory for team JS. Team CRDL, could I please ask you to free your leader from the ice before I give out comments? Mr. Winchester will almost certainly attack either member of team JS the moment he's free."
Groaning, the rest of our opponents gradually rise from their spots on the floor that they were laying on only moments before. All of their aura levels were dangerously low, and I only just now realized how close we'd come to seriously hurting them. Yeah, shouldn't use that technique against people we want to live. Especially not if I manage to get more dust knives added to my arsenal.
I hear an impact, and notice that Cardin's hit one of his team members after they'd freed him from the ice. He looks around frantically before he spots Sam and I. He snarls, and takes a step forward, but Professor Goodwitch speaks up before then.
"Mr. Winchester, the match is over. Please put your weapon down." She reprimands.
He narrows his eyes at the two of us, before he grunts dismissively and lowers his mace. He pointedly looks away from us, keeping his gaze on the professor.
"We'll start with team CRDL. I will be frank. Your starting strategy was relatively sound. Your leader has fought Mr. Scott before, and knows that he can hold his own for a while. While that was happening, if the other three managed to eliminate Mr. Smith, then the match would suddenly become a four versus one, which is a much more favorable situation. However, it became readily apparent that you were not using this strategy because it made sense."
She shook her head disapprovingly and her gaze sharpened. She looked directly at Cardin and it was obvious that what she said next was primarily for him.
"Let me be clear, for this applies to all of you. My class will NOT be used to settle grudges, it will NOT be used to get 'payback', and it is most certainly NOT a chance to let out anger towards your fellow students. IS. THAT. CLEAR?"
Nods all around the room, but Cardin's was slow and didn't look very sincere.
"If I feel like you disobey that rule at any time during my class, your team will instantly be forfeit for that match and your grades will reflect that loss. You will not receive any feedback from myself and you will be denying yourself and your team the chance to improve." She paused for a few moments to let that sink in. "Now, Mr. Lark and Mr. Thrush. The two of you already know what you did wrong. Blocking an enemy's projectile is usually a bad idea, and you have just seen why today. While blocking bullets is fine, throwing knives and larger projectiles can hold much larger dust payloads, as you saw today. In the future, such things should be dodged rather than blocked."
She looked down at her notes before nodding. "Outside of that, the four of you did reasonably well. While your fight might have ended quickly, that was through no fault of your own. Your opponent's unconventional tactics caught you off guard, and I expect all of you to have learned from that."
Great. Now people are expecting every trick that I pulled today… So most of them are gonna be harder to pull of in the future. Hooray for me… I thought to myself, dreading the rest of my year's matches.
"Now, onto team JS. Because of team CRDL's initial approach, the two of you immediately separated from each other, which considering your small team size, I would consider the action a mistake. If you had both been working together, Mr. Scott likely could have taken advantage of the opportunity Mr. Smith provided by freezing two of his opponents. In addition, most of Mr. Smith's traps may have affected Mr. Winchester. Something to keep in mind for future matches."
"Furthermore, while I will acknowledge that you managed to take out your opponents impressively quickly, I would like to advise the two of you, Mr. Smith especially, to try not to use up so many resources in the future. I am aware of how much dust goes into those knives of yours Mr. Smith, and I know that your usage today is not sustainable. If you cannot win your matches without consuming as much dust as you have been, perhaps consider changing up your style of combat."
"Outside of that, the two of you did admirably. I had my doubts that you would be able to take on a four-man team, but you did. Please show me more of your teamwork next week when you have your next match. All of you may be seated."
And with that, we went back up to where the rest of the class was viewing the remaining battles. Once we sat down, I turned to face Sam.
"See, that wasn't so bad, right?" I asked.
"All of my hate." He responded dryly.
"So, I still don't really get how the heck your gun works Sam." Jaune said.
We had all gathered up in the library. Sam, Pyrrha, Weiss and Blake were working on homework whereas I was playing some board game I'd never heard of with Ruby, Yang, and Jaune. Nora had run off to do her own thing, and Ren had reluctantly followed to make sure that 'thing' didn't involve mass destruction.
"I mean, you didn't have to reload, and when you shot James' knives, it didn't just knock 'em out of the air, so… What gives?" He asked.
Sam shrugged. "Well, it's a fairly unique gun, though apparently Atlas is starting to mass-produce them, so you might see more like it in the future. It doesn't shoot normal bullets though, just my aura. Ya see, with enough practice, you can project your aura to shoot out a kinda force. My gun just projects it. Only downside is that they don't know how to shoot out dust bullets yet, so I have to count on James to set me up with his knives, or throw out the dust myself."
"Wait, then aren't you using up aura every time you shoot?" Pyrrha asked, curious about Sam's weapon herself.
Sam nodded. "Yeah, but it's hardly anything. I barely even notice it. Even my shotgun doesn't take much out of me, so it's an okay trade."
Weiss nodded affirmatively. "Indeed. Sam was actually one of the first testers for the system in actual combat. He received it just before his first tournament." She said, sounding proud of her friend. "He did so well that Atlas has since moved production of aura-based weaponry to their highest priority!"
"Wow, good job Sam!" Ruby congratulated Sam.
Sam smiled sheepishly. "I think Weiss might be exaggerating just a liiiitle bit. You see -"
"Nope! I have it on good authority that General Ironwood himself was pleased with what he saw from your performance in the tournament, especially since your weapon was extremely ill-suited for one-on-one combat. He was very impressed by your performance." Weiss interrupted.
In response, Sam flushed a tiny bit and buried himself deeper in his homework. "It wasn't THAT impressive…" He muttered to himself. "I still lost…" Everyone had a small chuckle at Sam's expense.
Then Ruby's attention returned to the board, and her eyes widened, and then looked at me in betrayal. "James! Why~" She whined.
I shrugged. "Sorry Ruby. I figured out pretty early on that with my cards I wasn't gonna win, so I figured I might as well take down whoever takes me out of the game with me."
The board game in question was a risk-style game featuring the world of Remnant. I had a large section of Vacuo, but because of Vacuo's climate, the game developers figured that they wouldn't have a whole lot resources. Because of that, and because Vacuo's desert made traps even deadlier, I simply trapped all of my territory to high heaven, since I didn't own the entire lands of Vacuo, and thus couldn't get the large bonus from it.
"Y-you big meanie!"
Yang chuckled. "Looks like it's just you and me now Jauney boy. C'mon! Let's get the REAL game started!"
Jaune simply chuckled nervously. "Um… Sure?"
In about two turns, both Ruby and I were eliminated. I got up and stretched my arms above my head. "Well, that was fun, but I think I'm gonna go walk around campus for a bit. See you guys later."
Everyone nodded absentmindedly and responded with their own goodbyes. Except Ruby, who simply sent one last glare at me before I left. As I started to walk away, I heard Sam, who must have realized why I was really leaving.
"Wait, James! You're-" He started, but I simply turned on my Semblance and speed-walked out of there.
What Sam was going to finish saying was that we had initially gone there together to work on Professor Port's essay assignment, but we got distracted when we ran into RWBY and JNPR. I genuinely hate Professor Port's class, so I'm not really putting much effort into his assignments.
The man was useless as a teacher. He always seemed to be surprised and disappointed when class ended in the middle of one of his stories, which implied that he wasn't keeping proper track of time AND he wasn't able to tell us what he initially wanted to tell us. He didn't teach us much about the Grimm (although occasionally his stories will explain how he managed to kill specific ones), and on top of that, he still hadn't assigned a textbook, so when he references page numbers for the assignments, no one has any idea what the actually hell he's referring to.
It was just a little bit frustrating.
I felt a tap on my right shoulder, and looked to see who was there. I heard a giggle from my left, and saw that it was Ruby.
"Hehe! I got you!" She chuckled.
I smiled at Ruby's playfulness. It had been a lifetime and a half since I'd had friends like Ruby. Don't get me wrong, Sam was great and all, but we didn't spend much time together just 'hanging out' since Remnant. It'd mostly just been training and planning, but considering what's coming up… Well, it's a little justified.
Doesn't mean I didn't miss talking with a friend just because though.
"So, what's up Ruby? I figured you'd want to play another round after Jaune and Yang finished."
Ruby groaned. "Ugh, they're gonna take forEVER!" She exclaimed. "Jaune's kinda good, and Yang loves that game, so I dunno if they'll even get to finish before tonight…"
I shrug. "Hey, Ozpin must have picked him as a leader for a reason, right? He seems like he's got an okay head on his shoulders… When Weiss isn't in the picture."
Ruby flinched at those last words and chuckled sheepishly. "Yeah… He's uh… A little obsessed."
I gave Ruby a deadpan expression. "Ruby, Weiss has actually asked Sam to intervene. She's actually mentioned the fact that he's meant to be her bodyguard. You KNOW how much she hates that, so she's probably pretty close to just stabbing Jaune."
"Oooh… I didn't think she'd be that upset…"
"To be fair, the bouquet of flowers in the middle of the dining hall followed by the love poem while squatting on one knee may have been a bit too much."
Ruby nodded with a sigh. "Anyways! Let's go back to my team's room! I've got some new games!"
She then proceeded to grab me by the hand and drag me back to her dorm room at ridiculously high speeds, leaving behind rose petals and dazed passerby in our wake. I had planned to use this time to figure out how Sam and I were going to handle future events moving forwards, but, well…
That could all wait.
Ruby was having a ton of fun playing games with James. They had been playing for a few hours now, and it had started to get pretty late, but they were still having fun.
She had clicked well with James. The two of them were pretty socially awkward, and very rarely knew how to talk like regular people. James just flat-out hadn't talked to people for most of his life, and Ruby… Was Ruby. If it didn't involve weapons, killing things, or heroics, she wasn't really that interested.
Philosophy? Beat up the bad guys. Easy.
Politics? Who needs 'em. She'll just go kill Grimm. Then she won't need to deal with evil, evil politics!
Boys? Well, she used to think they were yucky, but Jaune, James, Sam and Ren seemed alright. She wasn't sure why Yang was so obsessed with boys though. That was just weird. Ruby knew about relationships and stuff, but she just didn't see what Yang saw about them.
After all, in all the stories… She shook her head of those thoughts. She needed to focus! James was winning!
"Come on, Come on! I'm not losing to you! Just a little more… There!" She said, catapulting James' character into the sky and executing a finishing combo on him, depleting the remainder of his health bar.
James hung his head in defeat and let out a deep breath. "Ugh. I was so close that time. Come on, I just started playing today! Couldn't you give me a break here?"
Ruby hummed in triumph over James. "I was! That was my worst character!"
James simply put his head in his hands.
"Serves you right! That'll teach you to beat me at battle for Remnant!"
"Ruby, I didn't beat you! I just took you out with me! Heck, if anything you lasted longer than I did!"
Ruby was about to respond when there was a sudden knock on the door. "James, come on out! I know you're in there! The essay's due tomorrow! You need to work on it!"
James and Ruby's gazes met momentarily, before James shrugged and grinned mischievously. He went to the nearby window, opened it, and leapt to the adjacent window, which was his and Sam's room. Ruby giggled at James' antics before opening the door to the hallway.
"Oh, hey Sam! How's it going? What'd you need?" Ruby asked, a large smile on her face.
Sam could immediately tell that something was going on. He looked around the room, and saw that James was nowhere to be seen, even though he had heard his partner's voice in the room just a second ago.
Sam sighed. "Alright, where's he hiding?" He asked.
Ruby simply giggled again. "Hiding? What're you talking about? Nobody's hiding here!"
Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head, walking into the room. "Suuuuure they aren't. I guess I'll just have to look myself."
He started by looking under the beds (even if it was an obvious hiding spot, that didn't mean that James wouldn't use it, just because it was so obvious), then in the closet, the bathroom, under the beds again… Then Sam started getting really desperate, searching on top of the beds, behind the TV, in the bathroom again…
His frantic searching was interrupted by Blake walking through the door. She quirked an eyebrow at seeing Sam in their room and Ruby sitting on her top bunk watching Sam dart around the room, slightly panicking.
"Sam? What are you doing here?" Asked the black-haired girl.
Sam whirled around to look at Blake and let out a sigh of frustration. "Oh, it's you Blake. Sorry, I was looking for James. He still hasn't finished his essay for tomorrow and I could have sworn that I heard his voice in here."
"Um, I just saw him going down the hall towards the library…" She said. "Maybe you just missed him?"
Sam looked confused at Blake's question, and looked like he was about to respond, when something clicked in his head. Ruby's giggles intensified into full on laughter - now complete with snorts! - at Sam's dawning comprehension on what just happened.
"SON OF A-! GAGH!" Sam shouted.
Ruby had to start clutching her chest from the laughter, and she rolled off of her bunk. She was literally rolling on the floor laughing, and didn't look like she was going to stop anytime soon.
Sam flushed brightly and glared at the redhead on the ground before stepping over her and moving past Blake. "Thanks Blake. I'll see you around. I've gotta go hunt my tormentor now."
Blake looked down at Ruby, who still couldn't keep in her laughter, and back at Sam, who was disappearing down the hallway towards the library, then back at Ruby. She shrugged. She had already finished the paper, so she decided she just wasn't going to bother figuring out whatever just happened.
(break)
So, turns out when you don't care about a class, and you have a Semblance that lets you write three times faster than a normal human being, you can write a really bad paper really, really fast.
Considering the fact that Grimm studies was basically independent studying at this point, and I'd already gone out of my way earlier in life to fight as much Grimm as I could, I had a pretty decent understanding of how the more common Grimm fought, which was what the paper was all about. Don't get me wrong, I was nowhere near an expert on the subject, but I figured the paper was probably at least a C-, which in my mind meant 'good enough'.
But what really made me happy was that I was done by the time Sam got to me, panting from the obvious exertion of getting here from our dorm. He glared venomously at me, to which I merely grinned in response. I waved the paper I had just finished in front of his face, and he snatched it out of my hands. He quickly read through it before groaning.
"James, why?! This is garbage! Like, more garbage than mine!" Sam asked.
I shrug, displaying my apathy for how good my paper is. "Look, I'm already putting more effort into my homework than Professor Port is putting into his classes. He seems like a nice guy, but I might as well be teaching myself the material."
Sam seems to want to argue with me about that, going so far as to open his mouth, but his argument seemed to die halfway out of his mouth. He sighed.
"Yeah, you're… Kinda right. Still, you can do better than this!" Sam replied.
"Why bother? Not like doing well in this paper's gonna help with what's coming our way." I argued back.
"Look, I get that we've gotta be prepared, but there's other stuff going on in our lives."
I nod. "I know. I spent half the day with Ruby instead of planning out the future. Cut me a little bit of slack here."
Sam groaned. "James, come on. We're in school. You need to take this seriously or else you could get kicked out."
"Nah, I'm not doing that badly. If they don't kick Cardin or Jaune out, there's no way that they'd kick me out." I flinch, realizing how that might have sounded.
"James…"
"Sorry, didn't mean it like that. I know that Jaune's smart, but he didn't exactly get in… Legit. Ozpin obviously knows that, and hasn't kicked him out. If that isn't enough to get you kicked out of Beacon, I don't know what is."
Sam sighs, but reluctantly nods. "Yeah, I guess. Come on, it's getting late. Let's go back to the dorm."
"Sure thing."
As we walk back, we walk into a few people that Sam's met. They stop and say hi, most of them starting up a conversation with Sam. This happens everywhere Sam goes. He insists that he's not that popular, but no matter where I walk with Sam, there's always a ton of people that want to just stop and talk to him.
Not that there's no reason for it. Sam's a pretty friendly guy, and pretty funny to boot. Add in the fact that he's won a tournament in Atlas, as well as his bright green and yellow hat that makes him stick out like a beacon, and he attracts people to him like moths to a flame.
Because of that, the five minute journey back to our dorm takes us half an hour, and the sun had already set by then.
I spread out on my bed, slowly getting under the covers before thinking about the day. We did well against team CRDL, who might not be as bad as they were in the show. They hadn't been bullying Jaune, which was a nice improvement… Though it made me wonder if that would hurt Jaune in the long run. Their harassment was what helped Jaune seek out Pyrrha's training and his fight against the Ursa in the Forever Fall helped give him the confidence he needed to be a team leader.
But if it meant that CRDL were nicer… And well, I can't really argue that Jaune SHOULD be bullied, but… Maybe our interference helped? I mean, all of their energy seemed to be focused on Sam, so maybe they wouldn't be so awful to everyone else?
I was wrong.
Sam and I had our trays, and were heading towards our usual table with RWBY and JNPR, when we saw team CRDL pulling on the ears of a rabbit faunus.
"Hey, these are real!"
"Hah! Look at this freak!"
"Ow! Stop it! That hurts!" The girl responded.
I glance over to Sam, who seemed to be pretty mad at the situation.
"Hold my lunch." His tone offered no argument, and I took the tray that he handed to me, happy to simply watch the future chaos unfold.
Sam simply marched right up to Cardin, his gaze determined, and his fists balled up at his side. Cardin was very lucky that we weren't allowed to carry our weapons with us in the hallways, otherwise I have no doubt that Sam would have blasted him out the window with his shotgun by now.
"Cardin." Sam ground out, announcing his presence to the members of team CRDL.
They all turned around in an instant. Cardin growled seeing Sam there. "Oh, hello there Schnee dog. What's the matter? I figured that you'd be happy to join in on the fun here."
"Unlike you, I don't go around bullying people!" Sam retorted.
"Oh, that's rich. You think this is a person? She's just an animal, Scott. I figured with your fancy Schnee tutoring you'd have figured that out by now."
"Cardin. Let. Her. Go. Or else."
Cardin grinned manically at Sam's statement. "Or else what? You don't have your special gun here. No dust from your master. You're nothing more than a pathetic little piece of sh-"
"So, what's your name?" I asked, interrupting their chat.
The two blinked, and looked over to me, and then their eyes widened in shock when they realized who I was sitting next to.
While those two were making a scene, I took the opportunity while everyone's attention was taken away to remove the faunus' ear from Cardin's grasp. (I'd replaced it with a hash brown. I kinda figured that would have given me away, but somehow it hadn't.)
"U-um… I'm Velvet. Nice to meet you!"
Sam grinned at me, and I nodded back at him. Cardin looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel, but I ignored it.
You see, while we weren't allowed to bring weapons with us, there was no rule against carrying dust around the school, and for Sam, dust was WAY more powerful than his gun. And I'd just moved away Velvet, who would have been collateral damage.
"You know, I've always wanted to do this." Sam said, holding out his hand, which just so happened to be holding a small vial of gravity dust.
"Shinra Tensei" Sam intoned. It didn't actually do anything, I figured Sam just made it sound cooler.
Either way, the sheer force that collided with team CRDL did seem reminiscent of the technique with the same name. The team of four went FLYING out the window and actually collided with the other side of beacon, leaving imprints in the stone wall there.
Sam grinned viciously at the hole in the wall that the team of bullies had just left out of, satisfied with the punishment that he had left them with.
"Weiss, your friend kinda scares me." Yang said after a few moments of silence.
Weiss merely gave a smug smirk in response, knowing that her best friend was among the best of the best. He grew up with her after all, was there any question that he would be anything else?
A/N:
Long-ish update time brought to you by poor time-management, poor judgement skill, and generally me not making the right decisions, so life is hitting me like a freight train right now. That, and my muse just wasn't having that fight scene. If this is incoherent, that's because the last quarter or so of this chapter (including the AN) were all written around 3 in the morning, because that's just when I found the inspiration to write.
Anyways, first fight scene of the series that lasted for more than 1000 words. Thoughts? I'm not the best at fight scenes, so I don't know if what I wrote was pretty good, but I'm not confident that it was.
Seeing some interactions between Ruby and James, the advertised pairing of the story. Don't expect a romance overnight people. It's gonna take a while.
Also, I'm having a seriously hard time writing Ruby. I'll do my best, but I'm just not finding it an easy task.
Oh yeah, Naruto reference. 'Cause I've been wanting Sam to be able to do that since I figured out that his dust powers are freaking ridiculously powerful.
Finally, the previous chapter was really buggy going up, so if you haven't read chapter 5, it's been up for a while. It just might have not been live when you received the notification.
Anyways, reviews:
RikuKage - Yeah, that's not happening that way. Honestly, it would make no sense for Ruby to realize that James is that kid. Like I said, he's got a pretty average appearance, (Brown hair, white skin, no real distinguishing features) so she wouldn't recognise him after so long.
That being said, it's not like that's never going to be made known to her. It'll happen… Eventually.
Just Passing By - I'm not terribly familiar with Rick Riordan's works. I read Percy Jackson and the Olympians series when I was in Elementary school, but I don't own the books and haven't read them in a long time. If you're talking about putting something like (Ruby P.O.V) at the start of each line break, I kinda hate that. Also, I only really have two narrative modes: first-person (which is always James) and third-person omnipotent (which is usually either focused on Ruby or Sam). Hope that helps.
Also, I'm aware that some characters aren't the most accurate. Unfortunately, as I previously mentioned, life is kinda kicking my ass right now, so I don't really have time to go back and watch seasons 1-3. I watched Pyrrha's fight with CRDL for this chapter, but that's it.
dandyrr0403 - Well, I hope you liked this chapter. James is unfortunately likely to be pretty secretive for quite some time moving forwards, so sorry about that.