Chapter 5: The Power of Being Born Under the Atronach is Making the Cat Cry

"Being racist is a crime and crime is for faunus."

— 11 —

"It seems like in a way it was—I don't like using the word trauma, that's a loaded word," she says, my Army mandated therapist. She's a social worker, and this is our first private session after a somewhat awkward group therapy session. "But from this young age, you were forced to be an adult. You've always made yourself to be the responsible one."

"Growing up poor, there's no real choice," I half-heartedly tell the woman, staring up past her at the action figure of Sigmund Freud on her desk. He's got Kung Fu grip and only a mild cocaine addiction! "Same way for my father and mother before me. There was a time my grandmother was so high off her ass and abandoned by her family that my own mother had to play mama to that trainwreck of a woman who somehow squeezed her out of her vagina."

I suppress a sigh."I dunno. Mom always wished she could give us a childhood, the same one she never had. But I'd always get panicky every time she had to spend money on me. Money spent for toys or gifts or god-for-fucking-bid doctors on me, was money not spent feeding my siblings. To this day, I get anxious receiving gifts."

The doctor with the same first name as my aunt smiles meekly. "I think that's what I see when you do this. You try to be so responsible, and when you go blackout, the child you've suppressed since you were six years old comes out. You don't have demons, you simply have a child. The child you never got to be."

"So anyways, that's why my Oedipus complex is for dogs," I told the doctor Beacon was providing me, a kindly social worker in her mid-thirties, perhaps, with a name like some obscure Russian color. "It makes sense. See, my mom was a bitch, and I don't want to sleep with my own mother, so the next thing was just to have a thing for dogs. Dog faunus just really do something for me, you know, doc? Actual bitches."

The woman nodded, taking down notes. As much as I tried to push her, she didn't really fight me. She reminded me of my days doing improv theater in college. Yes, and?

It wasn't that I didn't take this seriously. I didn't, but that was beside the point. It was the fact that if I actually tried to explore what drove me to be the way I am, I'd get sent to the loony bin.

See, I was a 19-year-old college student with a pathological phobia of carbohydrates, then I remember being a 15-year-old dealing with superpowers and a bitch that stole my dog. Then I was 24 years old with two years in the Army under my belt. I have absolutely no idea which of these personalities and memories are real, which are false, and which I'm currently just making up to fuck with you. Also all of you are fictional anime characters.

You can kind of see why that wouldn't help me. And why there's pretty much no way to get to the root of what's fucking with my head. This is a problem I basically have to solve on my own, bootstraps and all.

Besides, at least for one of me, I knew the root of my problem. Growing up in abject poverty in Meth Florida, abusive alcoholic father, no male role models growing up, a brief stint as an cringey-as-fuck fascist trying to figure myself out, being an accidental narcissist unable to realize my actions hurt other people, drinking to get drunk just to get away from my own head, and a pathological need for responsibility and the respect of those above me.

Everything else was just some brain fuckery trauma. The kind of shit you're not here to read about it, and I'm not here to discuss unless I can make a joke about it.

"And has your interest in faunus been because you perceive them as being outside of social norms, and yourself never quite fitting in either?"

"Doc, I been with chicks of all colors. Hispanic, Black, Filipina, White. I get along with everybody if you give me the chance. As Huntsmen, you have to learn to fight beside brothers in arms of all colors and fur."

She didn't ask what some of those terms meant. Which bothered me. I was kind of hoping she would. I liked to think that all of these alien terms made me sound foreign and mysterious.

"Which is why the headmaster notes you have such problems getting along with people. I suppose you just get along so well it's on a level they can't understand."

I sat up, no longer kicking my feet up on the coffee table. "Pretty much, doc. Although I really haven't gotten the chance to get to know any faunus. I mean, my partner is, but she doesn't think I know that. She's trying to pretend she's human for some reason and I don't care enough to to argue."

That did seem to catch her interest. But then again, so did the clock on the wall.

"Well, Mr. Arc, I think the day has been rather enlightening in ways you hadn't intended," she said.

I looked her in the eyes. "I know. I fully expect you to interpret my non-compliance in some kind of psychoanalysis way. And then later come back to me telling me that you done learned more about what I didn't say than from what I did. I know how this rodeo goes."

"And that's called metagaming. You're telling me what you think I want to hear."

I snerked. "Please. Save it for our next session. This time next week?"

She frowned deeply. "Yes. But first I want you to report to the laboratory. Get some blood work and urinalysis to make sure you're actually staying clean."

"I'm still good when it comes to amphetamines and benzodiazepine, right?"

She took off her glasses and rubbed them on her blouse. "Croaker informed me of what he had to give you when you went through withdrawal. When we see that in the blood test, we'll know. But more importantly, we want to make sure your liver is healthy."

I stood up and stretched. "Honestly, I'd call it more of it dyinger than a liver. You know I only started drinking like maybe a month or two ago?"

In any case, downstairs there was actually a toxicology lab. Beacon had a surprising wealth of resources when it came to student health, physical and mental. All of it perfectly free to students, and in cases like mine, mandatory. Imagine if I actually had to pay for medical services. That's why I joined the Army, in fact. Ain't like I got no more bread after I blew it all on booze and drugs.

I didn't piss hot when I filled the cup. And when it came to all of the blood work, I sighed and was ready to get my arm stabbed in the bloodworks room.

"And how are you doing this morning?" the lab tech asked, bored. Not that I could expect much from a blood work labbie at this hour.

"I'm alive," I said energetically, using my default response to this age-old dumbass question, "which is my gold standard. Don't know what it's like being dead, but that's why I pray at night—so in case I ever find out, hopefully it do be gucci."

I sat down in the chair before I realized who I was talking to. "Wait, Croaker? But you're the chief doctor!"

"Physician," he corrected, unnecessarily strapping my wrist down with a leather strap. "I don't do enough around here to justify my pay. I like picking up side jobs to stay busy around campus until we know the freshman class isn't likely to just horribly die on us again. Old man Oz won't even let me leave school grounds until then."

"Back that up a second. What do you mean again?"

"Besides, do you really want the nurses who hate you to be stabbing you in the arm?"

"Normally, no. But I don't trust you. You looked at Ruby weird and she's only fifteen."

He held up his scroll. It was showing a picture Deputy Headmistress Goodwitch suppressing an almost sadistic smile. "Would you trust me if I showed you this secret creepshot I took of Goodwitch laughing at the video Ruby took of you?"

"I feel emotionally conflicted on several levels."

"Good. Keeps you on your toes." Croaker stabbed my arm with a little needle attached to surgical tubing. "Never lose that feeling."

"Already starting to lose feeling in my arm. Do you really need that much blood?"

He deliberated for a moment. "There's a couple of tests they want to run on you. In theory they just need one small blood sample. But because my predecessor was an incompetent jackass and I have a clinical allergy to paperwork, technically every single one has to be done with an individually fully-filled blood sample."

I couldn't tell if that was bullshit or made perfect sense. A thought hit me, though. "Same predecessor of yours who was actually here when Summer Rose attended Beacon?"

His dark blue eyes regarded me for a moment. He put another little wire into my arm, taking even more blood out. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"A feeling. No way you were here twenty years ago when Ruby's mom musta been. But you were still awful interested in Ruby."

His expression was even. "If you're implying what I think you are, then no. At my age, there's nothing more disgusting than you teenagers." The sheer gag in his tone convinced me he wasn't lying. Not about that, at least.

"Y'all want me to stay sober, y'all gonna get me a-figurin' things. Why were you lying to her?"

He kept taking more vials of my blood. Jesus just how many tests were they doing? "I simply knew her mother about a decade ago."

"Around when she died mysteriously?"

The big man cocked a brow at me. He hooked up a third needle into my rapidly shrinking vein. More and more blood.

"It was about her eyes. Silver eyes. That's the thing you really pressed her on," I said. Truth be told I didn't know the first thing about what that meant or why it made Ruby special. No joke, I just knew they were probably some anime bullshit because I once joined a RWBY RP and maidens and silver-eyes were banned for being so horribly OP.

"What's eyes got to do with anything?" he said slowly. Dangerously.

"You tell me."

"Nah." More vials of blood.

"Hey, uh, doc? Thassa lotta blood. Like Jesus Lord a' Mussy."

"I believe," he said evenly, "now's a good time to inform you I never swore the Hippocratic Oath, because I never went to medical school."

"Wait, so you're a fraud!"

Blood, blood, and more blood. All these in these cups beside the chair. Croaker kept taking more and arranging them in rows like little soldiers in formation. "The old man hired me because I was the best at practical arts. The battlefield is a hell of a teacher."

He raised that zombie-stitched hand of his and tapped his temples. It was impossible to miss once you got a look at it. The skin was the same dusky olive tone as the rest of him, but it looked like someone had cut most of his fingers off, and part of the hand, and arm, and then sewed them back onto him until they functioned.

"But wus that gotta do with Momma Ruby? It the eyes again?"

"Just a woman who helped me get my semblance," he said. "I simply owe her more than I gave. Figure I'd look after her kid too, since somehow she's here and no one told me."

Finally, he seemed to have enough of my blood. He unstrapped me from the chair. On reaction, I tried to lurch forwards. Everything felt cold. I got to my feet and then immediately collapsed onto my gym bag.

"Gah. Fuck, fuck you, doc. You did this on purpose."

He whistled. "I look forwards to our next session here, Jaune Arc."

"The spots in my visions have spots!"

"I'll ring up one of your teammates to drag you back to the dorms, then."

— 12 —

Blake sighed, holding Jaune up. While not a big man, he was half a foot taller than her and strapped for battle. Plus he wasn't helping himself much either. He looked drunk, barely able to walk. His eyes rolling around a bit too much.

"C'mon, Jaune!" she grunted.

"Stop being such a baby," Weiss intoned, holding Jaune up by the other arm. "Can't believe just a little bloodwork and you're like this!"

"Hit war mucho sangre, chica," Jaune slurred. "The doc do be on that succ."

"Stop butchering our language. Just say he's terrible, Jaune," Weiss said. Then: "Hey! Watch where you put your hands!"

They were halfway to the dorms and yet a world away.

"No, be verbing is a verb tense y'all don't have in English or whatever we speaking," he said, standing up a little taller. "Habitual Be. Refers, uh, refers to an ongoing state of being or repeated action over time. The doc sucks, he be on the succ. Grammatical difference."

Jaune did that sometimes. He almost sounded like he knew what he was talking about. But, in Blake's experience, it was only about stupid things or something she was pretty sure he made up. This one, though? She did herself sometimes use it, though she had never had it explained to her. It was an occasional faunus thing. Him knowing it and using it struck Blake as just weird.

"If'n helping me offends ya so much, coulda just gotten someone else to do it," he said.

"Shamrock is off playing cards somewhere and we were forced to do it," Weiss huffed. "Teammates, remember? Some-fricking-how."

"Cards? Oh, yeah. Cards girl. Think she likes me. Coulda gotten her to help, too. Though I suspect she'd bad touch me when I passed out."

Blake dragged Jaune forwards. "Her? Ugh. Don't remind me."

"Y'all familiar?"

Her mouth was a slit. "Yeah. First night at school. Tried saying we were sisters in the. Ugh. The 'Itty Bitty Titty Committee.' I locked her out of the building and haven't seen her since. Little creep."

Jaune laughed. "Sounds like her. No wonder we get along."

Blake rolled her eyes. "Yeah, no wonder."

"Kinda girl who'd probably accept an invite to a strip club," Jaune said dreamily. "I still remember going to one with an old Army bro. You gotta go to the nice ones with the hot girls. Were this pair of lesbians came there with us and it was—"

"Jaune!" Weiss snapped. "I don't wanna hear about you and a bunch of naked faunus."

"Why do you just automatically assume they're faunus?" Blake retorted with a sneer.

"We talked about this back at the café. Naked animals dancing for money. It's gross."

"You're gross!" Blake hissed. "Who do you think you are? Those poor girls are so desperate they're on stage, dancing naked for strangers!"

Jaune's head lolled side to side, watching the two argue. "Actually the girl in my lap was a local college student. Bandz a made her dance, and we talked philosophy and tiddy. I bet there's a Huntress here probably doing that to pay for school, too."

"Shut up!" they both yelled at him.

He licked his lips. "It's a class thing. Socioeconomics. We just need to eat the rich and redistribute wealth. Democracy ain't the same as, uh, like whatever this is."

Blake grimaced, looking away at the CCTS tower. "I mean, kinda."

Weiss looked so tired. "Great. You're communists now. You do know a failed economic system is just suicide, right?"

Jaune started wagging a finger. In a singsong, he went, "Down with the bourgeoisie, eat the rich, sodomize the land-owners, impale all people who have more than 25 Lien in their pocket, literally murder all human beings regardless of their political beliefs."

"Ah. White Fang. Now it makes sense," Weiss said, eyes so narrowed they were almost anal. "Now everything makes sense."

Blake coughed. Her cat ears twitched under her headband. She had to use her shoulder to try to readjust it. "That's not what the White Fang are about. At least, not what they were."

"Like you're an expert." Weiss scoffed. "I thought you hated them. You were so insistent we fight them."

"Because they were committing crime and hurting people."

Weiss made a sweeping gesture with her hand, as if to say no fucking duh. It made Blake's skin itch. "My point exactly! Just a bunch of angry animals."

"Stop calling them that!"

"Animals. Animals, animals, animals!"

Blake's blood boiled. She wished she had claws like her father. She'd rip that bitch's throat out. Animal was the worst word some human could say to a faunus. Calling them less than human, instead of equal. Just beasts of burden. Talking to Weiss made Blake almost want to understand Adam and his hatred, that SDC brand that had burned out his eye.

But she was at Beacon to do better. To be a role model to faunus kind. To actually help and save people. You'd never be equal to a people who hated you as monsters and terrorists. Blake wanted to earn respect, earn her place at the table. Not be some house pet or terrorist. That was the third option. Don't bend over for humans, but don't lash out. Be everything they say you can't be and prove them wrong.

But Weiss? Weiss?

"Ugh!" Blake screamed, loud enough to make Jaune wince. "You're such a brat! A prissy little brat raised in an ivory tower. Do you have any idea what it's like to be faunus? How many of them have your family killed in factories and mines, Weiss? Huh!"

"Do you have any idea?"

Blake almost did it. Almost yelled yes! and removed her hairbow headband. Gave up the entire ruse she'd been playing. Her eyes kept twitching, trying to stand at attention and push the headband off. But no. Not here. Not with people like Weiss and Jaune. People who didn't even respect her thinking she was a human, let alone some faunus to subjugate, to get naked at some strip club.

"Thought so," Weiss said primly. "So stop acting like you do. Your bleeding heart will only hurt you, Blake. We have to be better than that as Huntresses. Better than our peers. Above all that. That's what separates us from normal people."

Blake glowered.

Jaune sighed, wrapping the arms around their shoulders tighter as if to bring them together. His stubble scratched at her face. "Blacks and Whites at it again. Cain't y'all just see it's just rich people trying to divide the working class?"

"She's never worked a day in her life," Blake mumbled, staring at anything but her bastard teammates.

"That's rich, coming from you," she said with a mocking laugh. "You'd never last a day in my shoes."

"Oh, yes," Blake said, rolling her eyes. The door to their room was just there. Just a little further. "How would I ever live with all that money and the servants and private tutors?"

"I wouldn't last a day in high heels either," Jaune muttered. "But I can try. I can make them high heels work, biatch."

"Could you not disparage women for just one day, Jaune?" Weiss demanded, fishing for the keycard to their room. "I've literally never met anyone as sexist as you."

"Bitches ain't nuthin' but tricks n' hoes, and I need to spread this gospel," he said with a mocking species of smirk. "But y'all two cool. We should do some more team stuff until you like me."

"You could maybe start by being less of a pig?"

Blake somehow suspected that was anti-faunus.

Shamrock was in their bed when the girls finally got back, frowning down into their wallet. "Yo. Have a good night?" they asked.

"Not now, Shammy. Mmm the waifus are restless right now," Jaune said. He tried to get away from the girls and they let him. He stumbled and fell face-first onto his bed. "It's awful. I'mma need a GoFundMe for new legs 'cause I can't stand these hoes."

"What did we just tell you, Jaune?" Weiss huffed.

"I know what you mean. Bastards cleaned me out of everything I had tonight," Shamrock said, idly kicking their feet. They sensed the mood from Blake and Weiss, and that seemed to bother them. "What's wrong tonight?"

"I need a shower, is what," Weiss said, storming off to claim the bathroom before anyone could stop her. When Blake turned back, Jaune was already half-naked and trying to unravel his tightly made bed.

"Shit's cold," he said. "Too much racial class conflict holy war in the air."

Shamrock gave Blake a concerned look. "Weiss can be a bitch, huh?"

"I heard that!" Weiss shouted through the bathroom door.

"Go back to being naked and leaving us alone!" Jaune shouted back, eyes closed. "And gimme back my skin care products!"

"I don't see your name on them!"

Blake buried her face in her hands as she sat on her bed. Her ears kept twitching. Her partner was a sexist bastard. Her teammates were a genderfluid gambler and a racist rich bitch. Was this really what she wanted? Was this really why she left the White Fang to attend Beacon? Her life had felt like it was falling apart for the longest time. She thought Beacon would fix things. Would put things back together. And now everything was in complete freefall.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Nothing was supposed to be like this. It was wrong. Just fucked up! For a moment she was even wondering if Adam had a point, that abusive, manipulative fuck!

Wrong, wrong, everything was just so wrong!

She couldn't hold back the sniffles. The sob was even harder. But she had to be strong. Couldn't let this get to her. She was Blake Belladonna! Gods, what would Dad say if he saw her now? She couldn't stop the image of Adam smiling at her, feeling vindicated. It made her want to hit something so bad. To just run away and—and—and—

She felt Shamrock's arm around her shoulder. She looked up and saw Jaune there instead, looking paler than ever, and naked but for underwear.

"Don't touch me!" she snapped, shoving him away. He fell down easily, laying across the foot of her bed. He looked more confused than he normally did, which was saying a lot for an alcoholic who couldn't even remember her name most days. Blake sniffled and wiped the tears away on her arm.

Jaune sat back up, just sitting beside her. Shamrock was on their bed, looking a couple inches shorter, but giving Jaune dangerous side-eyes. As if they'd snap up and drag Jaune to an early grave if he tried anything.

Wringing his hands in his lap, the boy said in an oddly soft, un-Jaune-like voice, "I… Yeah. I know, Blake."

"Know what?" she half-laughed, half-sobbed.

He shook his head. "Nada, really. I ain't finna pretend I do."

"Then shut up and don't try!"

Jaune regarded her sadly, which somehow only pissed her off more. "We're pardners. Even if I don't know shit, I, like, I gotta do all I can for ya, girl."

"Your all needs a lot of work, Jaune."

His demeanor didn't change. He just looked to the ceiling as if searching for an answer from on-high. "This ain't the life you promised yourself, right?"

She recoiled slightly. "You don't know anything about me or my life."

A sad smile with too many teeth. "Had a buddy try to off heself once. I knew what were going on, but wouldn't ask him about it. He once asked me if I'd be there for him if he needed me after the fact. And I just grinned and told him no. Said that I hoped I could go to his funeral one day, knowing that I coulda done something to prevent this."

"Work on your motivational speaking," she said, scowling.

"Second that," Shamrock said, a dangerous edge to their voice.

He shook his head. "No. Because it got the idiot to break out laughing. First time he smiled in a long time. Had him write a letter to the girl who broke his heart and made him want to end it all. He asked her to read it. She did. Then we shared a cigarette as we burned the letter together. It was so surreal, our different backgrounds, brought together as partners in a combat school. Me a white boy from methland Florida, he a lightskin from Portland. Er, faunus. Half-faunus, I mean. But we still like brothers over shit."

"I know it's different. For us guys, ribbing on and friendly bullying is how we show affection. That's how we care. But sometimes, that's not enough. I just knew he didn't need a shoulder to cry on. I found out he was in the hospital from a chord around his neck when I was in the hospital too. Blackout drunk and claiming I wanted to kill myself because I felt like a failure. I ran away from the problems of home, and failing to deal with them, them same problems followed me in my heart. Broke me for a night too, the moment I let it raise its ugly head.

"So I know what it feels like, Blake. Can't run away from the shit that hurts. You just gotta look it in the eyes, laugh with your friends at it, and kick in the teeth of its stupid, smiling face. And what we all need to get there is different for us all. Helps me to get on my knee and talk to the Man from Galilee. Each of us can do this, but each his or her own way,"

"I don't know what you're saying, Jaune."

He compressed a sigh, and forced a smile. "I don't care what your demons is. I ain't nobody's personal Jesus. Frankly, I don't wanna know if you're not wanting to tell us. But even if you think I'm some sexist fascist, I wanna be by your side for it all. Push me away because I deserve it, but I won't give up on you. Weiss may be a bitch, but she ran away from Atlas too, y'know?"

He was… almost kind of getting to her. Fuck it, but he kind of was. Like a puppy with autism licking the air because it can't figure out you're too far away to lick.

"Doesn't make what she says right. And it doesn't excuse what you do, either."

Jaune shook his head, running his hand through his three-day-old stubble. "Nope. But when the chips were down, she still fought beside you that night at the Dust store. We all did. They was your demons and even if we fought, we were all there. That's a promise I make, chips go down, we're all here for you, Blake. We may not be your favorite people, not even really your friends, but we got your back no matter what. Ain't that right, Shamrock?"

Shamrock nodded slowly. "Jaune's an idiot and you girls never do anything but fight, but, yeah. Team BASS and all that."

"Team BAdaSS," Jaune said, nodding. He hesitated before putting a hand on her shoulder. She fought off the urge to shove him away again. "If shit's too much for you, say it. Run away somewhere safe for a spell if need be, y'know? Ain't nobody gonna fault you doing what you need to do. But never forget at least I got your back, as clumsy as I be. We'll hear you out. Help you out. Care for you not like some child, but as our sister in arms or something."

He looked away, cheeks looking rosy. The blood pooling in them made him look a bit woozy. "We all suck at this. But, yeah. Kinda embarrassing, but there it is, Blake. You and me against the world. Prove those fuckers wrong about you."

Her eyes narrowed. "Wrong about what?"

His smile was just a little knowing. Her cat ears felt hot. She didn't like it. He sensed that and just winked.

"Don't give up on us, and I'll die for you. I mean that. I think we all would. It's the least I can give back at you for not killing me yet."

"Yet."

"That's the spirit," he said, wagging a finger at her. And she noticed she wasn't crying anymore. When had she stopped?

Jaune stood up and stretched, hands at the small of his back. "So. Yeah. Team. We there for you. So long as you at least tolerate us, the extra mile is all for you, girl." He let out a breath, wringing his hands. "Sound good?"

Somehow, she was able to smile. Just the barest thing. Jaune was still an asshole. But, she didn't know. For a brief moment she felt a spark of hope. Like for the first time since being accepted to Beacon, she might have some control over her own life. It wasn't enough that she felt good, exactly. She still really hated Team BASS. But, she didn't know.

"Maybe," she said, noncommittally.

He grinned, eyes wide. "Maybe is a baby who always says yes." A couple steps back and the naked asshole fell back into his bed. He stared up at the ceiling.

"I swear, if your next words are a cheesy pick-up line…"

"Nah. I still hate you and you hate me. Would still die for you, though. Because that is true friendship."

She huffed, rolling her eyes. "Sure thing, Jaune. Sure thing. You're still a piece of shit."

"Would you have it any other way?"

"Yes. Emphatically, yes."

"Attagirl," he said, tucking himself now. He didn't seem able to speak much more than that.

Blake just sighed. It was all she could do.

Tonight had been one hell of a night, and not even for any reason that felt like it should have. Nobody had died. No one had gotten hurt. Or, well, looking at Jaune, she corrected herself to nobody she liked had gotten hurt. Nowhere near as bad as the night of the Dust robbery.

But, yeah.

Helluva night.

She just wanted today to end so she could focus on why she was here at Beacon. Really here. To show the world they were wrong about faunus. Prove them wrong in the best sense, as a true hero, standing up for faunus and the little guy all as a Huntress.

Right now? Stupid and annoying as things were? She didn't know. But she felt like it might be alright.

Just might be alright.