A/N: The people have spoken! Ladies and Gentlemen, Olive.

X

-Olive-

"Olive Arc, I believe you know my rule against sleeping in class."

Without removing her face from her desk, she reached into her hoodie and extracted her braid, waving it around as if it were a hand. "I'm not sleeping, Professor Grape."

"Hm." The rather rotund man, very befitting of his name, sniffled as he wiped his hand across his handlebar moustache. How that man could believe that he looked good with it, she'd never understand. "And I suppose you've been paying attention to the entire class, young lady?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you're up to date on the readings?"

"Right again, sir."

"Then, please, tell the rest of the class what I was about to tell them."

She finally raised her head and stood up, making sure to project her voice just enough to reach everyone. "The Penny Fish, named after the daughter of the scientist who discovered them, can be found in the Polendinian Trench fifteen miles inland of Atla's eastern coast. During the winter months, they migrate from the trench to the ocean due to the cold weather; some say that the sight of their long and dedicated voyage is simply sensational. Will there be anything else, sir?"

Another sniffle. "That will be all."

She sat down and reapplied her forehead to the spot she'd been keeping warm, pleased that she was able to put the smarmy man in his place for the third time this semester. Thanks to having to repeat her seventh grade year, she'd decided to learn all of the eighth grade material in her free time. While her grades were now near-perfect, it came at the cost of an ever invasive boredom during her school day.

Sour Grape had started to babble again. Was that dismissal bell going to ring anytime soon?

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Oh! Well, that worked out perfectly. She grabbed her books and left for her locker, ignoring the glare that Grape gave her as she walked past his desk. Within a few minutes, she was equipped with her light backpack and on the school bus set to take her home. She was only alone there for a moment, as Jade quickly sat down next to her and Sapphire turned to face her from the seat in front. "You seem satisfied with yourself, Ollie."

"I'm happy any day that I'm able to put Sour Grape in his place, Saph. Good luck with him next year."

Jade rolled her eyes. "I wish you wouldn't antagonize him like you do. It's only gonna make our classes harder."

"When he started the school year by saying 'I heard about the little Arc with an attitude problem,' he brought it all onto himself." She slipped an X-Ray and Vav comic from her bag and opened it to the fifth page. "Besides, his class isn't even that hard. You two will be juuust fine."

"Whatever you say, Olive." Sapphire turned to sit in her seat, but just as quickly spun back around. "By the way, are we actually having an Arc Council later?"

The Arc Council. A sacred meeting that is called to gather when serious, potentially life-altering issues arose. The name is a bit of a misnomer, however, and doesn't actually include all of the Arcs living in the house. Just the teen and pre-teen girls. "Indeed. We'll convene as soon as Lavender and Plum come home, and will probably have another after Jaune and Weiss leave for the dance tomorrow."

Jade put on a thoughtful expression. "A 'before and after' regarding this Pyrrha girl and Jaune?"

"Close, but not quite; it'll actually involve Pyrrha, Weiss, and Yang altogether... although I think we already know Lav's stance about this."

Sapphire did her best Lavender impression, putting both hands on her hips. "'Oh, just when will Yang and Jaune get together? I may only be ten, but I know true love when I see it!' I swear, I don't understand why Lav only acts like a good girl around Yang."

Olive could only shrug. "Who knows? Personally, all I want is for her to give Pyrrha a fair chance."

Jade tugged on her hood. "Speaking of Nikos, when are you gonna return Jaune's Pumpkin Pete hoodie to him?"

"Never! It's comfy." The fact that the Pyrrha that Jaune was going to the dance with was THE Pyrrha Nikos had blown all of the Arc girls minds, but with Weiss and Vermilion as her sources she had no reason to doubt that it was true. An All-Star athlete destined for the big leagues. She couldn't help but wonder if the cereal box did her looks any justice.

The bus ride to and from school was usually pretty short, and that day was no exception. When the trio made it home and made it inside, they got right to work preparing for the Council: Sapphire got some chips and dips ready in the living room, Jade got some fresh notebook paper and pens to take the minutes of the meeting, and Olive set up the "security" camera to watch for Jaune and Company's arrival. Security was in quotation marks because it was really only one of those toy video cameras for kids that wanted to play "Spy", but the range on it was decent enough that she could point the camera to the driveway from the room she shared with Sapphire and Jade.

When they came home, the camera warning would give them just enough time to scatter and pretend that they were playing a board game. The dummy game of the day was Battleship.

Just as she told the twins, when the not-twin's bus dropped them off the meeting began with all due haste. With gavel in hand, Jade intoned, "Arc Council Fifteen, Part A now in session."

Bang!

Olive started talking first. "We need to come to an understanding in regards to Jaune and any potential girlfriends. First, are there any questions?"

Plum raised her hand. "Olive, what are your personal thoughts about Weiss? Do you think that she's going after Jaune, or is it looking to be a two-person struggle between Yang and this Pyrrha girl?"

She twisted her braid around her finger as she thought. "It's hard to say. Whenever I catch Weiss staring at him, she isn't giving him an 'I want you' look. It's more like... guilt? She feels bad about something, and I can't quite figure out what."

Another hand went up, this time belonging to Sapphire. "Here's a theory: what if it's regret instead of guilt? You know, 'I shot him down a year ago and now I wish I hadn't since I now know he's a good guy.' Not that you can blame her for the initial rejection given, you know, the song he sang."

Lavender scoffed. "Too late, she missed the date, now it's up to the hands of fate. Also, I want to bring up Yang's weekly visits to Pyrrha today."

Confused looks were shared, but the question was asked by the eldest member. "To what end?"

"To let her know that she missed her chance, too; a-duh."

Palms met foreheads all around the table; leave it to Lavender to be petty about things. Plum tended to agree with her on most matters, but this time even the older not-twin could only say, "Lav, that doesn't make any sense."

"Of course it does!" The only response they gave was pointed stares, so she deigned to elaborate. "Look, Weiss confirmed that this is the same Pyrrha Nikos that's been setting international records since she was fourteen, right? The go-getter to end all athletic go-getters, yes?"

"Yes, and?"

"And she's liked him for a couple years, with Vermilion confirming that she and Jaune knew each other as kids, yes?"

When the older four only stared at her blankly, clearly not seeing where she was going with this, she threw both of her hands into the air in exasperation. "Hello?! How can a girl known for being the definition of competitive on the track be so... slow in asking a guy out for a date!? Either she isn't actually interested in him, or there's something wrong with her!"

Jade, the most logic driven of the collected five, performed her role of clearing any misunderstandings from the discussion. "Please tell me that you have more to your point than that. It could simply be that we don't have all of the information about their relationship."

"Alright, how about this: she said in some of those press interviews that she's going to make being an athlete her career. Therefore, she's gonna be a globetrotter, traveling all around the world and leaving Jaune by himself for long periods of time!"

Jade shook her head. "Flawed thinking. Yang told us that she wants to be a boxer; so not only would she be traveling constantly, she'd even be coming home bruised and beaten. Did you ever think about that?"

Silence was Lavender's answer, proving to everyone that Jade had hit the nail on the head. Temporarily defeated, the youngest Arc sat back down and angrily shoved some potato chips into her mouth. Olive sighed and said, "Look, I'll make you a deal. We won't go out of our way to bring it all up, but if Yang naturally comes into the conversation we won't try to hide it. Okay?"

"...Fine, whatever."

"Good." That was likely to be the best response they'd get, so Olive took it as-is and marched on. "Now, romantic feelings or not, do we all agree to treat Pyrrha just like we do Weiss and Yang? Friendly, honest about ourselves and all of that jazz?"

A round of nods. "Awesome, onto the last thing we'll have time for, then. This morning, I caught Jaune receiving a message from that Crystal girl and him smiling as he replied to it, so it's safe to assume that Mystery Girl finally got the guts to respond and apologize. The question is: do we try to discourage him meeting with her again, or let this topic go for now?"

"Screw 'er." Plum's answer was immediate and vehement. "You just don't do that to people. If it turns out she was in a coma or something, fine, but otherwise she needed to get into contact with him Saturday if she was gonna miss the date. Sunday at the latest if it was a family emergency."

Olive and Lavender nodded, though Sapphire visibly bit her lip in hesitation. Jade observed everyone the room and spoke accordingly. "It appears to be three-to-one in favor of discouragement. The motion passes."

Bang!

Olive turned to look at the security camera. "They aren't here yet, but we're still pretty short on time. Let's call it here."

Another round of nods and the Council split apart in anticipation, with Olive herself going back upstairs to put away her little spy kit. Just as she removed the camera from the window, she saw Jaune's truck pull into the driveway and another, unidentified car park on the street.

Well, well, things worked out perfectly for her once more. Putting away the equipment, she returned to the living room and started up a round of Battleship with Sapphire as they waited for Jaune and company to walk in. They'd just set up their ships when the tell-tale sound of the door opening grabbed their attention. First was Jaune himself, the brother with whom she shared an uncomfortably close likeness. In the minds of most who knew her, she was visually Jaune if he had the three B's: braid and B-cups, that is.

Darn the Arc family genetics.

Next was Weiss, already looking comfortable with the home she was returning to. Her arrival and pseudo-adoption on Wednesday had been quite the surprise, no thanks to Jaune deliberately not giving them a heads-up, but all of the Arc children (even Lavender!) could admit that the Schnee girl had inserted herself quite comfortably into their lives. Olive particularly enjoyed finding a personality as snarky as herself in the older girl.

She hadn't been lying when she told the Council that she was unable to get a trace on Weiss's feelings towards Jaune; but, at least in her own mind, she could admit to enjoying the thought of Weiss as a possible sister-in-law. Trailing a few feet behind Weiss was the lady-of-the-day, however, so Olive took her eyes off of Weiss and examined the new arrival.

She determined quite quickly that the cereal box did not, in fact, have a thing on the genuine article. With her slim-yet-fit body and shocking red hair in a ponytail, Pyrrha Nikos looked every bit the goddess of speed one commentator anointed her as. Jaune made the usual introductions, though only she and Sapphire were in the room right that moment, so Olive reached forward and shook her hand. "I'm glad to finally meet Jaune's childhood friend. I was never sure you really existed, even with big sis vouching for you."

Pyrrha gave a light chuckle. "I'm pleased to meet you as well. I often wish that I hadn't needed to move away all those years ago; but I'm here now, I suppose."

Olive made to respond, but Pyrrha continued speaking as her eyes traveled a little below her neck. "I must confess that I didn't expect to see that picture today."

Huh? She looked down in confusion only to realize that she was still wearing the Pumpkin Pete hoodie. Whoops. "Forgot I had this on; sorry-"

And then she had an idea, and couldn't fight the encroaching grin. "-although, this isn't even my hoodie. Did Jaune ever tell you about how he collected the fifty boxtops to send in?"

A twinkle of amusement entered Pyrrha's eyes as she sat down on the end of the opposite sofa. "No, I don't think that he has."

"Olive, please don't do this to me." She ignored his pleas; she was a shark, and there was blood in the water now.

"At first, it was just because we all liked the Pete mascot; it's a cute little bunny, after all. But then you got your face put on the box, and I think that Jaune was just so proud of you. It was adorable." She reached over to pinch his cheeks; he slapped her hand away, but there was no denying his increasing blush.

Pyrrha herself was a little flushed, but she also took the opportunity to tease Jaune. "Why, Jaune! You never told me about that in your letters."

Jaune buried his face into his bookbag as he took the seat beside Pyrrha. "Because it's embarrassing!"

"Really?" Weiss sat down next, looking just as amused as Olive felt. "Wanting to support your childhood friend isn't a bad thing in the slightest. I know! Olive, why not pass the hoodie back to him? We can take a picture of them together."

Olive's grin got even wider; she really liked having Weiss around. "That sounds perrrfect. Here you go, Jaune! Oh, and can I use your phone to take the picture? You can send it to Pyrrha that way."

After unlocking it, Jaune traded his phone for the hoodie, his face getting even redder all the while. Sapphire and Weiss were both doing the best they could to restrain their laughter, so Olive took it upon herself to be the photographer. "Come on now, you two. Don't be shy~"

Jaune pulled the garment over his head and looked at the girl next to him. "Are you okay with this, Pyrrha?"

"Very much so, Jaune." She was beaming, obviously pleased with the sudden turn of events. She scooched closer and leaned her shoulder against his. "Aren't you going to smile? They're about to take the picture."

"Right, right." He applied a bit of weight in return before looking at the camera with his trademark goofy grin. Jaune still looked a bit flushed, but it only added additional cuteness to the whole scene. "Ready whenever."

"Alrighty! Three, two, one-!"

Click! "It came out great! I'll go ahead and send it to Pyrrha's phone, so take a look." With the press of a few buttons, the image was transferred via Multimedia Message and Olive made to return the device. As she hit the home button on his phone, though, she noticed that he had a notification of a new message from Beaconbook. Was it...?

While the others were distracted, she clicked the app notification and read the message.

Crystal: Yes, I'll be at the dance; but I don't think we should have our first meeting there because you said that you'll be escorting your friend. I hope the two of you have a wonderful time!

Just as she suspected; still, at least the Mystery Girl was letting Jaune go with his proper date. And if Olive had her way, things would stay just like that. "Here's your phone back, Jaune."

"Thanks. But I'm going to get you back for embarrassing me like this."

"I know, but believe me when I say that I'll be bringing this moment up for years." She made a mouth-click and finger-gun gesture. "Love you, Big Bro."

At that moment, their mother came out of her room and happily surveyed the scene. "Hello. You must be Jaune's friend."

Pyrrha stood up to go shake her hand. "Yes ma'am. My name is Pyrrha Nikos, and thank you for having me over today."

"My goodness, all of my son's friends get so formal when they meet me. Please, call me Juniper."

"Yes ma- Juniper." Pyrrha returned to her seat next to Jaune. In some ways, seeing Jaune with a girl on each side of him was quite the sight.

Her mother must've agreed, because Olive heard her mutter, "He really is turning out to be like his father. There'll be a line of broken hearts soon, I can just feel it."

Olive tilted her head. Just what did Dad put her through? Before she could ponder it any further, Jaune stood up and said, "Well, I'm gonna get ready for work. I'll be back down soon."

"Before you go, son, I need to ask a question."

"Sure, what is it?"

Rather than ask Jaune the question, Juniper Arc turned to Pyrrha and said, "Pyrrha, how would you like to see my son's baby pictures?"

She perked up. "I'd like that very much."

"Noo!" The apple red shade returned to Jaune's face as he darted upstairs to avoid the impending emotional torment. All of the females present broke into raucous laughter, and Sapphire left to fetch the appropriate photo albums. She soon returned, bringing Plum and Lavender along with her. The former was eager to meet Pyrrha, while the latter was almost resigned to it. As if meeting Jaune's date to the dance meant acknowledging her existence in his life.

Olive sent her a glare; they'd agreed to play nice. Lavender caught it and sighed before giving a subtle, curt nod back. Message received: she just hoped that she would obey.

-Weiss-

The day had already turned out to be quite fun. Her collusion with Olive had yielded positive results for Pyrrha and Jaune, and she'd been able to laugh the whole way through. A win for all involved.

They were going through the Arc photo albums, and Weiss had to admit that every one of the children were adorable when they were small. Jaune's blue bunny onesie, floppy ears included, was a particular favorite between Pyrrha and herself, leading Sapphire to pull open a hidden tab within the binder and extract copies of it. A fun day, indeed.

Oddly, Lavender had proven to be unusually sullen and withdrawn. If Pyrrha asked a question she'd answer it, but outside of those times she seemed to be unwilling to engage in the conversation. Was something the matter?

Juniper had excused herself, saying that she felt a little tired, and they happened to be nearing the end of one of the more recent albums when Pyrrha stopped and put her finger on a particular photo. "Is this Yang?"

Weiss leaned forward to get a good look. In the picture was: Jaune, sitting on the front porch and performing some unknown song; Sapphire, looking as if she were stomping in time with the music; and one Yang Xiao Long, evidently bemused as she watched the show. Across from her, Lavender confirmed the photo with her own eyes. "Ah, I took that one over the summer. Jaune plays out on the porch every Sunday, and we like to listen to him perform. Sometimes, if we know the song, we'll sing or dance along with him."

Pyrrha's eyes never left the image; it was as if she were burning it into her memory by force. "And Yang appeared to watch and listen as well?"

Lavender gave an honest smile for the first time the entire afternoon. To the average eye, it would be like any other smile; but to Weiss, who had spent years dealing with Whitley, her father, and many unscrupulous businessmen, her expression had an edge of nastiness to it. "Oh, yeah. Yang found our house by accident in the spring semester, though I don't remember the date. Ever since then, she's been coming by every week to have fun with all of us."

"E-every week?" The athlete seemed to falter a little.

This... This was all wrong. Weiss suddenly felt as if the afternoon had taken a giant step backwards. She started to speak. "Pyrrha, I'm su-"

But the youngest Arc wasn't done. "Well, not every week. I think she's missed two... or three, maybe? But, yeah, pretty consistent. And last week- OOF!"

Olive sent her elbow into Lavender's side with a distinct lack of subtlety, but the damage was done. Pyrrha looked up, surprise written all over it. "Last week? What happened last week?"

Plum cleared her throat before Lavender could answer. "Jaune had a problem, and Yang helped with it. That's all."

"Hey, guys, so I'm about to go and..." Jaune returned to the living room right at that moment, his talking coming to a halt as he took everything in. "...Why does it feel like somebody died?"

Pyrrha opened her mouth, but closed it and shook her head. "It's okay, Jaune; we just got caught up in the moment. Will you be back soon?"

"Probably not for a while. Fridays are pretty busy for the restaurant. Sorry we couldn't hang out some more today; but if you want to stay for dinner, Jade's cooking today. I promise that it'll be good."

A brief moment of silence as she thought about it. "I think I'll take you up on that offer, thank you. Have a good night at work, Jaune."

She offered him a smile, though Weiss knew that it was a fake one. Jaune returned it regardless and bid farewell to the group at large. Pyrrha's smile dropped the second Jaune locked the door. Weiss felt like she should encourage her somehow, but wasn't sure where would be appropriate to start.

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Pyrrha took the decision out of her hands by turning to her and asking, "Weiss, can I talk with you for a minute? I need some advice."

Oh. Oh dear.

X

Poor Pyrrha... Bad Lavender!

You all may be wondering why Lavender turned nasty so quickly. To me, Lavender, and to a different extent the "Arc Council", kind of represent the danger of the Shipper mentality: when events don't go their way, things sometimes get ugly.

Everyone, you're all entitled to your opinions; but what's wrong is bashing other people because they disagree with you. Show Ships are not life or death matters.

Soapbox over. I hope you enjoyed it, and I'll see you next time. Have a good day/night!