A/N: This chapter has a severely underplayed RvB character in it.
Jaune awoke in a darker room, with stone walls and no windows.
He attempted to move, but couldn't. Opening his eyes, he saw he was tied to a chair, wearing a white t-shirt and his jeans.
He noticed a metal door in front of him. It was one of those heavy duty ones, with the slot on top for people to peek in/out, and heavy screws around the frame.
'Where am I? What happened?' He thought to himself.
His thoughts were interrupted, when the door began to open… rather noisily.
Two figures walked in, one was making small clinking noises, like glass against stone, the other was silent, but it's silhouette look rather lanky and awkward.
The clinking one spoke. It was definitely a she, "Hello, Mr. Arc… Let's get this straight. I talk, and you answer. You talk… and I get angry."
"And I won't like you when you're angry?" He asked, smirking.
She was instantly in front of him, face inches from his own, and she smacked him, hard.
"As I was saying. You can save yourself a lot of time and pain, if you simply answer my questions quickly and concisely. OR, you can prolong your stay with us, by being belligerent and cocky. Your choice."
She held out a hand to him, motioning for him to speak.
"Tempting… Tempting… How bout I go with… up yours, lady."
The woman stared at him… he could see her eyes blaze with almost real fire, before turning to the figure behind her.
"Give me fire dust. A crystal." She ordered, and he saw the person pull one out and hand it to her.
"Let me make this clear. I will accept absolutely ZERO lip from you, Mr. Arc. Students with such a mouth will be punished…. Painfully."
Suddenly, everything exploded into white light, and he heard someone talking.
"He's coming out… get him some pain relievers, NOW!" Someone was shrieking.
'Weiss?' He thought hazily
"Here. This should do the trick."
'No… That's Ren…'
"N-Not too m-much!"
'Um… the bunny girl?'
The white light began to condense into a super bright ball, then was pushed away.
His vision resolved to a blur, and he could make out three people standing over him, one was white, one was dark, and one had two long things on it's head.
"Wha-" He attempted to speak, but someone shushed him.
"Shhh… no talking. Not that you can anyway, but you don't want to aggravate things." The darker one said.
Jaune decided to just lie there, in the now very comfy bed, and let the pain killers do their work in peace.
Pyrrha, Yang, Ruby, and Blake entered the room.
The redhead was the first to gasp at her teammate's condition. As had been said, Jaune's injuries weren't as bad as they previously thought, but were still… scary.
"He's awake, but resting." Weiss said from a corner, "We fitted him with the speech program… I was at fault when I said 'text to speech'. The technology is a bit more… advanced than that. He will have a program… talk for him, in a way. The program taps into his brain, and says what he wants to say. There's also an override, in case the program crashes or he wants to manually input words. Along with the fact that it's a program, it has a small measure of it's own personality… It's weird, I know, but I don't know enough about the circuitry to do anything about it. Another addition is that it can sometimes project a small avatar… the company who made this either thought it was more fun and family friendly, or watched too much TV. Before you got here, we let him choose an avatar to use." Weiss explained.
"What did he choose?" Yang asked.
"A program avatar called "Theta"… the avatar is a little odd, and has the thought processes of a smaller child, but Jaune… He thinks having 4 younger sisters gave him a bit of a caring nature, and he likes the fact his program would be like a smaller kid. And honestly… that program is the most personable of all of them."
"What others are there?" Pyrrha asked, seeking to distract herself from staring at Jaune's damaged body.
"There's Program Alpha, he's… kind of a dickhead… Then Delta… he's not that bad, but…" She dropped down to a whisper, "he beat me in an argument…" Returning to normal volume, and waiting after Yang stopped snickering, she continued, "Havent really tried Eta or Iota, but the next one, Epsilon, is kinda weepy and crazy… kept referring to his memories. The last three were… a little scary." Weiss finished.
"How do you know all of this, Weiss?" Ruby asked.
"Let's just say I know the company very well." She answered as Jaune opened his unbandaged eye.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Weiss shot him a warning glance.
Rolling his eyes, he tapped a nearby computer screen, and an odd voice eminated from the computer.
It was like a child's voice, but doubled.
Although initially creepy, it lost it's creepiness with one sentence.
"Yay! I'm back! Oh… new people… Mr. Arc… are they nice?"
Jaune rolled his eyes again and gave an exaggerated nod.
"O-okay… new people scare me…" Theta whispered.
"It's okay Theta… why don't you come out and meet my friends?" Weiss coaxed.
"I..I don't know… you scare me too, scary Ice lady…"
Yang's laughter drowned out Weiss' no doubt unkind retort.
Jaune laughed too, but it was quickly cut off by loud coughs.
"Jaune, you should take it easy…" Pyrrha warned, also smiling.
"Theta, right?" Nora said from behind them all, startling them.
"Yeah, that's my name."
"You sound familiar… like an A.I. I once heard of…"
"A… I..?" Ruby asked, confused, "What does the 'A' stand for?"
"Artificial." Weiss replied, somewhat exasperatedly.
"Oh right… And what does the I stand for?"
"Intelligence." Her girlfriend answered again.
"Ooohhh…"
"What does the A stand for again?" Nora asked, becoming confused herself.
"Wait, you should know… you made the original statement!" Weiss growled, getting a little angry.
Nora stared at her, then burst into laughter, "Ha, I know! Just pushin' your buttons! Cuz, Oh Man… I love pushing buttons!" she proceeded to make beeping and booping noises.
Theta laughed for a second, then stopped abruptly, "Hey guys… you seem pretty cool… but Mr. Arc says he's a little tired. Can you guys come back later?"
"Sure, Theta. Rest well, Jaune." Pyrrha said, and followed her friends out the door.