Cardin

It was warm. Surprisingly warm for the time of year. You would expect a seaside city to be a bit cooler, but today was just one of those days. Hot, humid, and no breeze to cool anything down, I was beginning to sweat. Many students were inside, and there was barely anyone outside other than myself. As I sat on a bench in the front gardens of beacon, fiddling with a 100L card between my fingers, I had to admit it was a blessing in disguise. No-one important would be around to see what happened. Even if this was the least suspicious part of my plan.

Though, the sweat could also be from the nevers from what was slowly becoming the most criminal thing I've ever done in my entire life. All of my bullying, discrimination, and intimidation would pale in comparison to what would go down within the next forty eight hours. But if everything went according to plan, there would be one less thorn in my side to worry about. And without their leader, team JNPR would be crippled and never be a threat again.

I hated to admit it, but Jaune was an apt leader. His combat skills were lacking, but when it came to strategy and leadership, especially on the fly, he was one of the best in our year. There was no doubt in my mind that given time Jaune would become an excellent leader and would lead his team in countless victories across Remnant.

Which was why he had to go.

As the son of a member of the Vale Council, there was a lot expected of me. To represent my family. To glorify the name of my father. Most of all, I was expected to be the best in all of Beacon because of my heritage. I would be the strongest fighter. I would kill the most Grimm. Out of everyone, my team would be feared and respected the most. So I needed to get rid of the competition. Even if he was nowhere near strong enough to be a threat yet, Jaune needed to go.

The sound of footsteps drew me from my thoughts, and I grinned internally when I saw who it was. I had placed myself strategically to make sure that anyone who decided to head into the city today would have to pass by me. The reason? It was the weekend, and the weekend ment shopping for most students who didn't decide to hide in their dorm all day. That obnoxiously loud team RWBY had already headed into Vale earlier that day, the Schnee muttering something about wanting to see the docs having nothing to do with spying on any incoming competition. This time however it was Jaune who walked by, a slight spring in his step. Usually I would tease him about his weird antics that he did for almost no reason, but today I knew what it was about. Thanks to a little digging from my… hired help, I had learned that one of the Arc's favorite pastimes was to read comic books. It also just so happened that today one of the most popular comic series of late, Zex-ray and Fav or something, had just dropped its most recent chapter. No doubt the Arc knew this and was headed to the city below to grab his copy.

Exactly what I wanted.

"Hey, Arc!" I called as I stood from the bench. He stopped and turned, obviously startled at being called out written all over his face. He reigned it in quickly as he realized who exactly had called out to him, and fully turned to face me.

"Hey Cardin," Jaune said almost too chearily. "What can I do for ya?"

'Die' I muttered mentally, but withheld and instead said "Not much actually, I just wanted to give you something."

I grinned and handed him the 100L card I held. He examined it before looking up to me, obviously confused.

To diffuse any suspicion he had, I chuckled. "It's something I've been meaning to give you for a while. When I was a kid, my father told me to make sure I never owed anyone a favor. Ever since that incident in Forever Fall," both of cringed at the memory, though for probably different reasons, "I've felt as if I owed you my life. You did save me from that Ursa Major after all."

Jaune laughed a little and scratched the base of his neck, his face glowing red. 'Is he embarrassed?' I snorted mentally. He looked like he was about to say something but I continued before he could.

"It's not too much. If I drew too much at a time from my allowance account, my father would start to question what I was using it for. It would only be a matter of time before he found out what had happened between us, it would stain the family name and he would probably cut off my allowance for a year at least. This should be enough for you to take your team out for some food, or get a small upgrade or tuneup for your gear."

He looked hesitant, and started to hand back the Lien card. "I can't accept this Cardin. A huntsman shouldn't take money from people for saving their lives. It's not the right thing to do."

I frowned. I'd forgotten about Jaune's extreme sense of justice. "Thank think of it as an apology for all that I did before Forever Fall." I put my hand up, stopping Jaune from handing back the money. "I owe you at least this much for what I did. Regardless of what you think, I'm not taking that back. It's yours now. Do whatever you want with it."

He stared back down at the card before pocketing it. "Than thanks Cardin. I've got to head into Vale right now anyways. I think I know just what to use it for."

"Right, I'll see you later Arc." I grinned before turning to walk away. After a few steps I peeked over my shoulder to see him walking to the docs again. I stopped and watched him until he stepped into a waiting Bullhead. Hopefully, this was the last time I would see the idiot leader.

My hands began to shake, and I clenched my fists. I was nervous, even if there was no reason to be. Jaune would have no idea what was happening until it was too late, and if everything went smoothly there was no way the coming events could be led back to me. I took a deep breath to still my nerves before reaching from my scroll. I speed-dialed a number and waited for the other end to pick up. When it did, I spoke before anything could be said.

"This is Gold Eagle. The target has the tracker. Phase two is a go." Without waiting for a response, I disconnected from the call.

I smiled as an old saying came to mind. 'What you don't know can hurt you, Jaune.' I thought as I watched the Bullhead lift up and head towards Vale. There was nothing truly wrong with the Lien card I had given him. If it had been a fake card he would've known as soon as he tried to use it that something was wrong. However, there was a small tracking chip within the card. Currently, my hired help would be moving in to pick up the Arc and take him to a secluded place before the final phase of my plan went into motion. In a mere twenty-four hours, I wouldn't have to worry about the Arc getting in my way any longer.

Jaune

I sat still in my seat as the Bullhead made its way into Vale. Ren had recently taught me a method of Aura meditation that would combat my motion sickness. I hadn't really had the time to see if I had been doing it right until now, so I figured I'd try it. As I closed my eyes took deep breaths in before slowly letting it out and focusing my Aura, I thought about what Cardin had said when he had given me the Lien. It was a good live value, to make sure you never owed anyone anything. If you looked at it another way, it really meant to pay your dues early before it could come back to bite you. It was a good philosophy, but it felt a little strange hearing it from someone like Cardin.

He was a bully, simple as that. Even in the short time I had know the Huntsman in training, I could already tell a lot about him he was just that simple. He liked being feared. He was strong, and he used that to his advantage in every possible way. If you were in his way, you would be pushed aside in every possible way. If you were stronger than him, he would find a way to outsmart you if he could. If you were smarter than him, he would beat you up. If you were more popular than him, he would find a way to make almost everyone hate you. It was just the type of person he was. He wanted to be at the top of the food chain, and would make anyone higher than him rue the day they were born.

Which was why I was being so suspicious about the Lien card he had given me. He wasn't the type that just gave money to people. Hell, he was the type of guy that took money from people. As long as he was on top of the food chain, he never needed to owe anyone anything. There was no way the card was safe. It was probably fake, or was a 5L made to look like a 100L. People could do that, right? I felt my stomach flip at the thought, and focused more on my Aura and breathing until the Bullhead landed.

It was a long five minutes until the Bullhead set down at the special docs that Beacon had in Vale. As soon as the doors opened I was up and out of the metal death machine. I would never understand how people could walk around and socialize in those things without suffering extreme vertigo. The ones that like to look out the windows were especially crazy.

But as the nausea left me and I was able to move on my own two feet again, my mind went back to the problem at hand. Before I went anywhere else, I needed to make sure the card wasn't fake.

I walked up to the first food stall that I saw coming from Beacon's docs, a noodle called A Simple Wok. An old man was washing some bowls and I waved him over.

"Hey could you check this card for me? A friend of mine gave it to me as a birthday present but he likes to play pranks on me sometimes. I just want to make sure it's not a fake or anything." I lied as I handed him the card.

He looked at me almost suspicious, though it was hard to tell because of his almost completely closed eyes, before taking the card and giving it a look. He swiped it through his register before giving me a satisfied grunt and handing it back.

"It's good then?" I asked, to which he nodded. "Great. Thanks for your help. Have a nice day." He waived as I stepped out of the food stall.

So, the card wasn't a fake. I still felt unsure about it, but it was a gift and I wasn't going to squander it. With a shrug, I made my way down the streets of Vale towards the comic shop. 'I might as well stop by the Huntsman armor shop too' I thought. 'I could use this money to get some better armor, or at least more than I've got now.' I made a mental note to stop by the noodle stand for lunch. It had smelled really good there.

"The Vital festival! Oh, this is absolutely wonderful!" I heard a familiar voice ahead of me. I looked up to see team RWBY not too far in front of me. Weiss seemed to be excited about something, which was causing the rest of the team to give her some weird looks.

"I don't think I've seen you smile this much Weiss," Ruby said. "It's kinda weirding me out."

Weiss turned and began to go on a rant about how great the Vital festival was. It was amusing to see the Ice Queen so happy for once, though it seemed to be at the expense of the rest of her team as they looked less than pleased about the sudden history lesson they were receiving. 'I might as well say hi, see what they're up to. They look like they could use some help getting out of Weiss's rant. Her spontaneous history lessons are famous for a reason after all.'

As I took a step towards them, something grabbed me from the shadows of an ally. A wet cloth was shoved to my face, and before I could even see the face of my attackers, my world faded to black.

I woke to a bucket of cold water. One moment there was nothing but the darkness of unconsciousness, the next I cold, wet, and wide awake. And yet I still couldn't see anything, though that could easily be blamed by the cloth I could feel around my eyes. In panic I tried to reach up and remove the cloth, but I quickly discovered my hands had been tied to the back of the chair I was sitting in.

"Well looks who's up. Rise and shine butter cup."

I turned in the direction of the voice, but there was no way to see who had spoken. My mind immediately went into overdrive, trying to figure out who I knew that had a voice like that. It was deep and loud, obviously that of a man's, with a small hint of Vacuo mixed in. It didn't take long to realize I didn't know anyone with a voice like that, and I quickly began to panic.

"W-who's there? What do you want from me?" I internally cringed a little at the typical blind and scared hostage questions, almost like something out of a bad action movie.

"Calm your tits." Someone spoke from close behind me. This guy sounded almost as if he couldn't be bothered by my freaking out and just wanted to go home. "There's nothing you have that we need or want. Someone just really hated you and asked us to take out the trash. Think of us as your friendly neighborhood mercenaries."

I knit my eyebrows in confusion. "So, you're not the white fang?"

The first voice chuckled, before exploding into full blown laughter. The second, as well as an previously quiet third voice joined in soon after. "You hear that Hawk?" The second cackled. "He thinks we're a part of those mangy mutts." It took almost a full minute for the three to stop laughing.

The third voice seems to calm down the fastest and quickly directed itself to me. He sounded somewhat nasally, like you'd expect of a nerd who's almost too quick to kiss someone's ass. "Kid, you couldn't be further from the truth. None of us here are faunus, and Oum knows we'd sooner be dead than caught supporting those fleabags."

The three of them kept chuckling before a door nearby slammed, I could only assume, open and someone walked in.

"What's so funny? I could hear you from outside the warehouse."

I jolted up in surprise when I heard the only voice that I recognized. Although, it wasn't a voice I could be happy to hear.

"Cardin?"

I could hear his smirk. "The one and only, Arc. Good to see you're finally awake. We can get things moving now."

There was some sort of sick enjoyment Cardin seemed to be getting from seeing me tied up. And what did he mean by 'get things moving'?

"Falcon, go make any final preparations on the Bullhead. You'll head to point A in twenty minutes. Owl, make sure the virus is ready to run and all systems are in place to bounce the signal. We don't want our location to be found as soon as we air. Hawk, rough up our friend here a little. Should give our audience a bit of a shock when they see him. Make sure it hurts. He's got a large Aura pool so don't hold back."

There was a chorus of "Sir's!" from the two younger sounding voices as steps carried them away in different directions. The first, older voice gave a deep chuckle as a few steps carried it closer to me. There was the sound of cracking knuckles before what felt like a boot implanted itself into my chest, sending me swiftly to the ground.

Carden laughed darkly. "You all know the plan. I'll be heading back to Beacon. People will get suspicious if I'm gone too long. Give me a heads up before you start."

'Pyrrha!' I thought, but before I could say anything else a foot found itself in my side once more. My Aura took most of the impact, but I felt a rib bruise under the pressure and I sucked in sharply. Coughing, I choked out a few words.

"Cardin...why?"

There was another sick laugh before the sound of heavy footsteps came my way. They stopped right before my face.

"You want a reason?" He asked sarcastically. "Maybe because I hate your guts. Maybe because you don't deserve to be a Huntsman, and this is just my way of getting you out of Beacon. Maybe you were just a thorn in my side that needed to be removed. It doesn't really matter though," A boot to the face broke my nose. "'cause when all this is over, you'll just be another statistic." A maniacal laugh moved away from me.

"You'd be surprised by how many students have died in the Emerald forest." Carden said, the shutting of the door behind him echoing around the room.

Pyrrha

To say I was worried would be an understatement. Jaune had been gone for almost a full day now and wasn't responding to any calls or messages. It wasn't inherently unusual for a student to get stuck in Vale for a day. Sometimes one could lose track of time and end up missing the last Beacon Bullhead. That had happened enough times to Yang on her weekend excursions to some late-night club. Other times if a student had somehow lost their Scroll, their form of identification to get into Beacon from its special docs, they'd have to wait for someone from Beacon to come get them. A team member or a teacher would usually suffice. That required the aforementioned student to get in contact with someone on campus and Jaune had- as Nora had eloquently put it, been MIA for over a day now with no contact whatsoever.

Yang had said I was worried for no reason and that it wasn't unlike "Vomit Boy" to have probably just lost his scroll and was probably passed out at some hotel somewhere. I blushed when she had said it was cute how worried about him I was. He was my partner and team leader, I was sure I had plenty of reason to be worried if he was missing for an extended period of time.

My secret crush on the blond swordsman had nothing to do with it. At all. Period.

I sighed as I picked at my food. It was lunch now and nothing much had happened in the day. It was still the weekend, so there were no classes to worry about. I had already completed most of my assignments and anything that hadn't been finished yet wasn't due for another week. I had already spent two hours in the training hall beaten on practice dummies until I got bored, and then had spent another hour maintaining Miló and Akoúo̱. I had convinced Ren and Nora to go into Vale with me to search for Jaune, but Nora had demanded Lunch first. I had agreed, as Nora was nothing if not insane when denied her food, but found it hard to eat myself.

I glanced up at the sound of team RWBY joining us at our table.

Ruby was the first to say anything, cheery as ever. "Hey guys. Any word from Jaune yet?"

I shook my head. Nora paused the natural disaster that was her eating to greet our sister team while Ren gave them a small smile.

"Oh. Well, let us know if you hear anything." Ruby smiled at me before focusing on her own food.

"Come on Pyr, don't be so down." Yang sat down next to her sister, Blake to her left and Weiss next to Ruby. There seemed to be a little tension between the black and white huntresses, but it seemed to be controlled at the moment. "I'm sure he's fine. What's the worst that could happen?"

I sighed. Yang was right, and I was probably just worrying too much. However, Weiss seemed to have an answer for Yang.

"Well, he could be dead in an ally or ditch somewhere."

My stomach fell at the words. All present at the table turned to look at the heiress, Ruby's face paling while Blake just gave her a blank look.

In contrast to her sister and her partner, Yang was seething. "It was a rhetorical question princess, you weren't meant to answer it. And even still, you could've chose a better answer."

Weiss raised her hands in defense to the looks she was getting. "Hey, it's still a possibility. We shouldn't just ignore it, even if it's the least desirable option. I may not like the dolt, but even I hope it hasn't come to that. However, I won't be too happy if he comes back from all this just to flirt with me some more."

No matter how bad it sounded, she did have a point. While unlikely, and extremely undesirable, it was still a possibility.

I felt my scroll go off in my uniform's pocket, and with somewhat contained excitement I quickly reached for it. Was it Jaune? Was he alright? Where was he? Did he know how worried I was?

However, my hand paused before even touching my scroll, and I looked up in confusion. All across the dining hall Scrolls were going off. Ruby had already pulled out her scroll and was looking at it in mild fear. Yang was looking around the hall while reaching for her own. After all of us had pulled out our scrolls we looked to each other, the same question written on everyone's face.

'Should we answer it?'

With a quick glance at each of us, Yang nodded. We pressed the answer button at the same exact time...

"Hello ladies and gentlebrats of Beacon Academy!"

...and were greeted by a bird-headed man.

"It's nice to see you all answered my call. Though I bet you're wildly confused. 'What the hell is this?' you must be thinking. 'How did this crazy masked man get a hold of my scroll number? Why is my buddy right next to me getting the same call?' 'Who's the bad man in the mask?'. Well before I answer any of your questions, let me ask you one of my own. How many of you…" the masked man stepped back from the camera and made a dramatic gesture to something or someone behind him.

There was an audible gasp throughout the hall, a few "Holy shit's" and "Oh my Oum's" could be heard as well. Ruby almost dropped her scroll at the sight, and Nora nearly choked on her food.

"...recognize this man?" The masked man finished.

Sitting in a chair, beaten, bloody, bruised, with his hands and feet tied to a chair, was Jaune. His mouth was gagged, and the eye that wasn't swollen shut stared at something off camera with a mixture of surprise, fear, and rage.

"Jaune!" All of us, even Ren- quiet as he was, shouted at the sight. A few people around the hall could even be heard saying his name in surprise. The bird mask man looked back to the camera, and if we could see his face I had no doubts he would be grinning.

"Ah, so I see you do. And I see his appearance had the desired effect. Now then, some introductions are in order. You may call me Hawk. Most of you already recognize our guest here, but for those of you who might not have met him yet, this is Jaune Arc. Freshman hunter in training, leader of team JNPR, partner to Pyrrha Nikos, and an all-around failure at just about everything."

Not a word was uttered in the entire dining hall. Everyone was too stunned to speak. It took everything I had in me just to look at the reactions of those at the table. Ren was uncharastically shocked, and I could see barely contained rage in his pink eyes. Nora wasn't even looking at her scroll, choosing instead to bury her face in her partner's shoulder. Team RWBY wasn't faring much better either. Yang's hands were shaking, her eyes glowing a bright red. Blake was staring at her phone in mild shock. Weiss had a hand to her mouth, probably in an attempt to muffle her earlier gasp. Ruby the worst. He entire body was shaking, and it looked like it was taking everything she had not to cry right then and there. Before anyone else could do much of anything, Hawk started talking again.

"Everything I've just said about Jaune here is probably already known to most of you. But there's something very few of you know, if only his team knows, about dear Jaune here. A secret that could greatly change your opinion about the blond screw-up you see here."

"No!" I nearly shouted before I caught myself in time to only be heard by our sister team, all of which glanced at me in surprise and confusion. Something squeezed my hand, and turned to see Ren and Nora looking at me. Ren gave another squeeze to my hand before looking back to his scroll, Nora this time watching hesitantly.

"Something that many of you might have said in passing but never knew how close you were to the truth." Hawk continued.

"Jaune doesn't belong at Beacon, in more ways than you could possibly imagine."

I'm back!

Gawd. Word of advice. If you're a Senior in highschool who's going to college right after you graduate, don't try to write some sort of book or fanfic right at the start of your first semester. I knew college would be hard, but holy shit I suck at time management. I know I said this would be out way back in September. That didn't happen, and for that I'm sorry. Due to a mixture of assloads of homework, classes, work, and some writers block, I never ended up getting around to writing out this chapter.

Thankfully, it's winter break right now. And I get a month off from school. Of which I have two weeks left of at this point. So I was able to get this written, and boy was it fun. I really do enjoy writing, so once I got started on this (about two days ago) I wasn't really able to stop. I had this finished sometime yesterday night and took today to edit it (might still be a mistake or two in there, my editing skills aren't the best when it comes to my own writing). It would've been out yesterday if fucking CARDIN wasn't so hard to fucking WRITE! I am very much a 'Jaune' guy, as in if you knew me IRL, there wouldn't be much of a difference between me an him. Except he probably looks better... anywho yeah, so because of that writing Cardin, a bully who has very little character development besides him being an ass just to be an ass, took some time. Coming up with motivation for him to do this and the how and when he would do it was annoying as well. So that took some time. Hopefully what I came up with works.

In term's of timing, if it wasn't obvious enough this is supposed to be right around "The stray" episode. That little bit where Jaune sees team RWBY before he gets nabbed is the scene from the first minute of the episode. Jaune's disappearance will change up the plot a bit (duh, it's not like he's an important side character to the story or anything. Pfft.) so there's going to be a rain check on Blake's own reveal. It will be included, but it'll be a bit different. Trying to figure out how much I want to change it. I've got a few ideas.

With that said, most of this story is going to be told from Jaune and Pyrrha's point of view with the occasional addition of Cardin or anyone else convent at the time in the story.

On a completely different note, HOLY SHIT 126 FOLLOWERS! Three of you guys in the past week or so. Like what the hell. You guys are amazing. And only on chapter one.

Let me know what you guys think of... well everything at this point. The format, where you think the story is going, why I chose the cover pick I did, etc. I suck at transitions so I wanted to go with that TITLE format 'cause it made changing to each character easier as well as 100% obvious who the story was being told by at that point. I haven't seen this style used before in anything else I've read, and I've spent an unhealthy amount of time on this site, so I thought it might be fun to try.

But yeah, that's it for now. I might throw up a few edits onto ch 1 in the next day or so as I spotted a few fuck up I had that I didn't see before. As I'm still on break, I'll try to get ch 3 done before the next semester begins. Emphasis on TRY. Cross your fingers and send me your power, but don't hold your breath. It also looks like I'll have more free time this semester from looking at my schedule, so there hopefully won't be a four or five moth space between the next chapter (or ch3 and ch4 for that matter assuming I can get 3 written within the next two weeks.), especially because the fun is just about to begin. I figured I'd end this on a cliff hanger because I'm an ass like that.

Lastly, how many of you guys know or play Warframe. I've had a story bouncing around in my head for a longer time than I've had this one in there and It's a lot more planned out than this one is. I don't plan on starting another story any time soon, but I figure if I can get into a pattern to keep this one up constantly, it wouldn't hurt to try to add another one. So yeah, lemme know what you think about that. Won't happen anytime soon, just want an idea if it's wanted or not.

So yeah, drop a review and at least follow if you haven't already. I like to see how many people are waiting for me not to be a fucking slacker and just write already. It's good motivation. Shout out to Dante197 who followed as I was writing a few days ago. Real kick in the ass to get this finished.

Rant over. Happy new year. I'll see you guys in the next one.