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THE UNEXPECTED TEAM

ACT I - THE PIECES

CHAPTER XXIII - SPEAK TO ME, EXCALIBUR.

Ozpin watched in silence as the mechanical gears in the cane's handle began to slowly gain speed, whirring faster and faster until the entire panel was glowing with a bright sapphire hue that would've strained the eyes of one not used to the light, but the aged man looked completely unfazed by the changing of the weapon. The Cane's handle turned into a more hilt-like appearance and the cane's body sharpened to a point, the rapier-like blade then began to emanate a bright sapphire glow, the same as the cane's dust chamber.

"I'm sorry father," he murmured, "I have no choice. I'm sorry your weapon to protect the world has become something so tainted by darkness. I'm sorry that I didn't hide the pieces well enough."

Ozpin pointed the sword gripped in his hand outward, "Ostende mihi fragmenta de Excalibur."

The blade of the weapon he held glowed brighter and brighter, until a small shining energy displayed the form of seven different shapes. The first three identified as the cane-sword currently creating this image, the sword Crocea Mors and the gauntlets Draco Bracchius. Blessing, Ruler and Destruction respectively. Those he knew the locations of, and he was confident in the location of Ruler for now, but Destruction did present an interesting problem. Thankfully, it seemed that the one who possessed it didn't truly understand the depths of its power yet. Mimic, Rapidly and Transparency all possessed no changes. All comfortably rested where he'd lain them so long ago now.

"So," he murmured, "Destruction is the next piece to be set on the board."

That understandably made Ozpin nervous, it was the one piece he had been reluctant to create. It's destruction power, as the name implied, was unmatched. A brunt of the original Excalibur's destructive capabilities had been stored in this piece and in the wrong or depending on how you viewed the situation, right hands this weapon could reap chaos all across Remnant and short of a fully mastered Ruler, it was unmatched by any other single weapon in the set. Even his own piece, Blessing, didn't stand much of a chance against it.

Sighing, Ozpin deactivated the weapon and it returned to its cane-form, its handle immediately gripped tightly, the man's knuckles almost became pale white under the force he was applying. He needed to keep Destruction out of the enemies' hands but he couldn't expose himself, it was quite the dilemma, but- maybe he didn't have to intervene directly. If he could get Destruction first, there wouldn't necessarily have to be a fight involved.

He lifted his scroll and selected a contact from the list, it rung out for a bit than a voice carried through the speaker, "Oz, what's going on?"

"It's to do with the delicate matter we discussed a few months ago. I think our enemies are making a move toward finding the next one."

"That's unfortunate, I'm assuming you want me to put a stop to them getting their hands on it?"

"That would be appreciated. Yes, I'm predicting they'll send the current piece wielder they have on their payroll to make sure that any interference is stamped out. I'd advise caution when going up against him, the weapon's true power is still dormant but you cannot take unnecessary risks. The focus has to be on stopping them from gaining a new piece, only collect the gauntlets if it is safe to do so, understood?"

"Yeah, Yeah, I got it. You worry too much."

—-

—-

"That was so good!" Nora exclaimed.

"Cookies are the best!" Ruby chimed along happily.

"We're doomed," Jaune said darkly, "Did you really have to give them sugar rushes this late at night?"

"Would you rather have either of them test their weapons on you?" Ren asked him quietly.

"...Good point."

Jaune was sure they'd avoided disaster with that one, he wasn't entirely sure how his new 'Full Counter' worked but there was a good part of deduction on his part that involved the assumption that the power of the moves Crocea Mors reflected increased the power of whatever collided with it when it was sent back. He shuddered to think what one of the grenades from Nora's weapon might do if the counter move gave it enough of a juice up. The thought of being expelled from Beacon because he countered a move was hardly the ideal thought. Imagine being kicked out for property damage and not even being responsible for the original attack!

Still, a sugar high Ruby and Nora was still a difficult subject and Jaune could only pray to the gods that the damage from this was much more minimal than he thought it might be. He decided there was ultimately only one course of action to make Ren pay for his transgressions.

"That smirk is worrying me," Ren vocalized.

"It shouldn't except since they're your team-mates, it would be wrong for me, as the leader of another team to interfere should the two of them get out of control."

Ren visibly paled, "You wouldn't."

Jaune shrugged, turning round and he started to walk away, "I have seven sisters, Ren. There's not much I wouldn't do to avoid sugar-charged young women. Later."

"Wait, where're you going?"

"I should probably get back in my dorm before curfew," Jaune said quickly, and Ren bristled a little bit when the topic was broached, panic already taking hold in his dark eyes.

"Jaune-"

"See you later!"

Ren felt his face fall a little bit at the back of his departing friend and fellow leader, Jaune had always been a good source of advice and a big help when it came to situations like this ever since the two of them had been given the role of leader on their first day at Beacon, but here he was abandoning him to his fate in Ren's hour of need! For a situation he undertook to help Jaune in the long run!

A loud crash interrupted his thoughts, forcing a loud sigh out of his mouth.

He would get Jaune for this.

He swore it.

Ren quickly gathered himself together and headed off in the direction of the sound, already coming up with the best ways to calm down his team-mates. Ruby and Nora were both very excitable and usually it was easy for him to navigate their sugar highs but unfortunately, he'd found his way into a situation where they were both hyped up and no doubt encouraging each other further which would make this situation at least fifty times more complicated to handle. They had avoided a mass level of destruction of school property in the end, but at what cost?

It proved to be just as difficult as Ren had been predicting. When he'd finally steeled himself enough to enter the dorm room, Weiss was curled on her bunk bed, looking like she was actively avoiding whatever happened to Ruby and Nora. For once, Ren found he had no disagreement with the route she'd taken. If he wasn't the team leader he probably would've done the same as her and waited for everything to blow over. Unfortunately he didn't have such luxuries as the Schnee Heiress did and so, he would have to push through to the best of his ability.

"Ruby? Nora?" he tried gently.

"RENNNY'S BACK!"

He had anticipated Nora's exclamation, having known her for the many years he had, he could handle the most excited parts of her personality that most wouldn't be able to and even when she was at the height of a sugar high, Ren had faith that he knew her well enough to eventually calm her down. That didn't mean the time between now and then would be any easier of course, but it was something.

"REN!" Ruby exclaimed excitedly.

And Ruby Rose was another conundrum. He hadn't known her for nearly as long as he'd known Nora but thanks in part to the girl's bubbly personality once you got past her social awkwardness, the two of them had become very close in a surprisingly short amount of time. Unexpectedly, a third voice joined the fray, but Ren recognized it just as easily as he'd recognized the rest. Weiss.

"Please calm the two of them down, I tried and It was about as useful as you'd imagine and if you can't do anything about it then I suppose we're both in for a wild ride until they run out of energy and reach the crash of this sugar high."

"I'll figure it out," Ren assured her, though he sounded a lot more confident about getting a result than he felt, that's for sure. The trick was to go the route of calming down Nora first since he was good at it and then, he could get Nora and Weiss to help him get Ruby to calm down as unlikely as it sounded. He figured it at least had to have a tiny chance of working.

—-

—-

Jaune returned to ABYN"s dorm room shortly after his conversation with Ren and once the door was closed behind him, he breathed a sigh of relief having narrowly avoided Nora and Ruby's sugar high antics. That would've been a disaster. After the sugar high incident of the Arc Family that saw Jaune with four sugar high little sisters at once, he had no intention of reliving the experience at Beacon and at the hands of two incredibly powerful fighters at that. No, he was much better off staying away from all that and focusing on his own team. In theory, he could've given the assistance to Ren in helping the girls calm down because in part it had kept him out of further trouble but in the long term that would serve neither of them any purpose.

For instance, the teams were due to be given missions by the staff eventually and what if Ren was forced to deal with a situation like this out in the field and Jaune was nowhere to be found? As their Team Leader, Ren needed to be able to navigate all the quirks of his team and this was just one of the things he would need to figure out how to do. He was almost a hundred percent certain that he already knew how to navigate Nora's highs and lows thanks to the many years they'd spent together, but Ruby was his team mate and learning to have that level of closeness to all your team-mates was the paramount responsibility of a leader.

That wasn't to say Jaune's own Leadership experience was going entirely smoothly in its own right. He'd made progress in his combat abilities greatly since the group had begun training together and he owed a great deal of his progress,, almost all of it to not only his team but to team LVWR as well. He knew better than anyone how screwed he would be if he didn't have their help. His new ability was a testament to how much those around him had helped him in his pursuit of growth.

"I can't believe you left him to it," Yang said, cutting off Jaune's train of thought, but she was wearing a large smirk on her face and Jaune had to imagine it meant that she wasn't angry at him for leaving Ruby to deal with such things on her own, but Yang had wanted for Ruby to start relying on more of those around her and not just default to Yang all the time so perhaps in her mind she saw this as a good thing but in a different way to the one he did.

"He'll have to figure it out sometime and now is as good a time as any other," he conceded.

"I think Jaune's right," Pyrrha contributed, though Jaune noted that her face was firmly rooted down onto the scroll screen in front of her and it didn't look like she would be fully giving her team-mates her full focus for a while. The game had taken hold of her once more. He could see movement on Pyrrha's screen and quickly deduced that she'd gone back to playing Ninja Madness and no doubt it had been nearly as soon as she was sat down.

"We've all used the showers, so it's free for you to take."

"Right, thanks Blake."

The girl in question had her nose in a book, the cover of which Jaune didn't recognize. It was all depicted in Kanji, and as someone who hadn't learned to, Jaune had no idea what he was reading. He decided not to press Blake for answers and instead grabbed his towel and Pajamas then headed into the bathroom.

The shower Jaune took was a quick one, the last of his strength seemed to be finally leaving his body thanks to how much of himself he threw into the battles with Weiss today. His aura hadn't depleted all that much since it was only a fragment of power compared to what it must've taken to fire that thing off. He didn't fancy falling asleep before he reached his bed though so he quickly went about washing himself and drying off, then dressed himself and left the Bathroom once again.

The young Arc had fallen asleep nearly as soon as his head had hit the pillow.

Morning came quicker than Jaune would've wanted. The beaming sunlight poured into the room aggressively and a groaning Jaune could only shove his hand in front of his face in the attempt to block out some of the fierce light.

"B-Blinding!" he exclaimed.

"S-sorry!"

The stutter aside, a long drawn out apology like that could've only belonged to one person. Jaune knew that Pyrrha would probably take a lot of his words to heart and that it was better to offer advice than chew her out. She was someone who hadn't had a lot of friends from what he understood so gentle guidance was the best approach as the other route was likely only to make her shut down from whatever was being said.

"It's okay, Pyr," he assured her, "Just wake me up before you open them, okay? At least then I can be prepared for it."

"Okay Jaune, thank you for not getting upset about it."

"Not to worry, but we'd better wake the other two up," Jaune said through his grogginess, "I need coffee and I doubt they'll wake up in time to eat before class if we go to the cafeteria without them."

"Good call," she agreed.

After Yang and Blake had been woken up, the four tired members of Team ABYN made their way down to the cafeteria. Along the walk, the group seemed to have unanimously agreed that the time for talking was not this. The exception to the rule was Pyrrha who looked fully awake and filled with a brightness that Jaune wasn't sure he could fully put into words. Aside from the nothing inside his mind though, he didn't comment on it. Right now, his mind was focused on only one thing.

Coffee.

—-
—-

"Next up, we'll have Cardin Winchester and Jaune Arc."

Jaune felt the color drain out of his face. A Rematch? Already? Surely, she's joking. Shouldn't we fight other people to get different experiences fighting variations of opponents? He should've been annoyed by the smirk on Cardin's face, he should've been more confident since he had just gained a new ability, but Cardin effectively was only a close-range fighter and hadn't used any ranged attacks that he'd seen since they'd been at Beacon and while, granted it hadn't been many times the two had interacted but his mace didn't seem like it had any mecha shift capabilities, so - in other words - Full Counter was going to be useless against him.

Swallowing a breath he didn't know he was holding, Jaune finally got to his feet and silently walked around the platform to approach the locker room behind it to fetch his armor and Crocea Mors along with it. It was on his way to this locker room that the Knight realized he had a decision to make. An incredibly tricky decision at that. In his recent training matches he found that he was a lot faster in combat when he forewent the shield part of crocea mors and focused primarily on his offensive capabilities. Would it be wise to forego the shield now too? After a moment's deliberation Jaune decided it would be better to bring the shield with him. Without his full counter ability being of much use in this battle he would need some kind of defense capability.

He wasn't such a fool that he thought he could stand toe-to-toe with Cardin on an offensive front so early in his journey through the combat world. Not having his shield with him for this fight would be the equivalent of shooting himself in the kneecap before the match even started. Once he'd put his armor on and strapped Crocea Mors into place, Jaune returned to the main part of the Battle Room.

The Room was largely silent when Jaune re-entered the room, Cardin had already changed into his armor in the red side's locker room and was gripping his mace, grinning across at Jaune and the Knight noted an almost feral quality in the expression on his bullies' face. He was determined to change it.

Today would be the day that Jaune Arc finally wiped that smug smirk off Cardin Winchester's face in front of their entire year level. He'd been working so hard and while he was in no delusions about the disparity of their strength, this duel was not a battle of strength it was a battle of wits. Whittling down Cardin's aura to red seemed impossible at his current level but all he had to do was force Cardin out of the ring and he would win all the same.

Jaune slid the sword out of the folded shield, then it unfolded and he ascended the steps onto the platform without uttering so much as a word.

"You may begin," Goodwitch informed the two of them.

Jaune didn't react the same way he had during his first battle, his eyes maintained a focus and there was no reach out in desperation, no demand for his weapon to help him. His entire focus was on Cardin and the battle ahead. Jaune did chance a glance down to the blade out of curiosity and got the confirmation that the blade was still the same color it had been when he had first held it. He was on his own.

And he wouldn't have it any other way.

Cardin moved in rapidly and took a violent swing at Jaune's head, but the white shield that bore the twin crescent symbols of the Arc family rose to meet the bludgeoning end of the mace, preventing it from making contact with the Knight and Jaune held his stance.

"He blocked him," Yang said quietly from her seat to Pyrrha and Blake, it was an obvious statement, but there was a strange noise that felt like hope in Yang's voice. Perhaps their training had paid off more than they thought it had. It was still early days but Jaune had blocked such a powerful opening and without anything but his own power.

She had, of course, had fait in him the entire time, but to see it for herself brought a smile to her lips.

"So he did," Blake answered, her lips quirking up into a rare smile of her own, she too knew how far the leader of ABYN had come in such a short time and this was only a little proof of how much he'd improved since his first battle with Cardin.

"After that new power of his manifested," Weiss said quietly to them from behind, "You're surprised by this? We may not get along all the time, but Arc's got this one."

Of course, Ruby and Nora weren't so quiet about things and shoted down to the platform in perfect unison and very loudly, "Kick his Butt, Jaune!"

"Miss Rose! Miss Valkyrie!"

"Sorry!"

Jaune followed up his block with a slash from Crocea Mors, but by the time the blade had come around to make its strike, Cardin had already leaped back out of the firing range and started advancing again this time with a strike aimed at Jaune's other side and this time, instead of blocking it with his shield, Jaune eased his body slightly to the side and brought his sword down to guide the bludgeoning end of the mace away from his body. This continued onto the next set of moves from the two with Jaune alternating between his sword and shield to block all of Cardin's incoming strikes. The sequence was impressive and the battle developed such a flow in movement and speed that one could almost accuse the two boys of choreographing the entire thing.

One huge strike with the side of the mace and Jaune finally forced back a little, creating some distance between the two of them. Jaune hunched over a little, breathing heavily and was a little taken aback to see Cardin doing the same when he looked across the stage at his opponent.

"Not bad Arc," Cardin was forced to concede, "Didn't know you had that in you. 'Fraid you're still nothing compared to me though. You've got a long way to go before you enter the same realm as me let alone the same league."

Cardin hit the head of Executioner against the ground and the dust crystal inside shattered, Cardin's body became encased in a soft red glow and he charged in, sprinting right for Jaune without a trace of the former lightness he'd possessed. The bullying snark had disappeared for this first time and Jaune felt a panic raise up the back of his neck at that sudden increase of power! Was this Cardin's Semblance?

His-How?

The glowing boy impacted with the other and sent him flying transversely across the floor, he slid back over the platform and fell over the edge, dropping down to the floor below.

"And the winner of this match is Mr. Winchester."

End Chapter.

Well, ladies and gentlemen we're slowly getting our ability back to write this story and while this chapter doesn't feel the best executed to me I still feel like it got what I wanted conveyed onto paper and we can only get better from here, but I feel like this is a big improvement on what I put out recently so I'm not going to be too hard on myself..yet anyway.

I don't quite have time to answer the reviews I've gotten with this update but if you have any questions, I urge you to private message me!

To answer this in advance and no doubt curb a lot of people asking about it. Yes, Jaune losing here is the decision I made. He's come a long way since starting his training with his friends but it's only Jaune's second fight that has stakes behind it.

Though his skills are improving he's nowhere near ready to take on someone with as many years experience as Cardin has and it made sense to me that Cardin didn't need even a fraction of strength to beat amateur hour Jaune the first time.

The fact that Cardin took the fight this time more seriously than their first encounter is enough for me to show how much Jaune's improving without instantly tossing him up to god-mode. That will no doubt come as we delve deeper into the secrets of Excalibur but I rewrote this fight several times because I knew so many of you were waiting to see Jaune winning this rematch but I'm afraid it's not quite time yet.

Well that's all I have for today, thank you so much for reading this chapter and I hope you'll review!