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"Ruby, wait up!"
The girl turned to me as she was leaving class. As I caught up, she said something to the rest of her team, and they quickly walked off towards the cafeteria.
"What's up Jaune?"
Despite the lecture we'd just had on Beringel anatomy, she was smiling brightly. I smiled back.
"I think I might need your help again."
"Oh my GOD! What did you do to Crocea Mors? Is he okay? Do we need to go and see Bernard?"
The words were fired off at the same rate Coco's minigun fired bullets, and it took me a moment to gather myself.
"No! Crocea Mors is fine." I couldn't help but chuckle at the way she almost deflated in relief. "Who's Bernard anyways?"
A blink, another blink.
"What do you mean 'who's Bernard?' He's the one that upgraded Crocea Mors!"
Who? Oh, the guy from Bearing Arms!
"His name is Bernard?"
"Yeees?"
"Well excuse me, no one introduced him!" I couldn't help but feel that it wasn't exactly my fault that I'd never learned the guy's name. After all, they'd started working on Crocea Mors almost immediately, and it hadn't looked like there were a lot of opportunities to have a chat in the middle of that whole process.
"Never mind." I said, trying to get this conversation back on track. "Pyrrha's feeling a little down and I wanted to do something fun to cheer her up, you know, all of us together."
"Oh, that sounds fun! What did you want to do?"
"Okay, so this is the plan…"
Riiiing Riiiing
My alarm went off like a bomb, startling all four of us while we sat in the dorm and relaxed after classes. It had become a necessity, mostly due to the patrolling we did at night and the exhaustion that came with it. So, we had taken to just decompressing every so often.
I usually spent that time either in the forest, in the music room or in the dorm. Weiss, on the other hand, spent most of her free time either in the dorm or in the Beacon gardens. I wasn't sure where her fascination with nature had come from, but I had to admit that she knew some really beautiful spots here at school.
Blake liked to spend her free time reading when we weren't spending time together, which she mostly did in the dorm or in the library. Occasionally, she would read in the music room while I played music, but most of the time we spent together was occupied by other matters.
I could feel the goofy grin stretch across my face, and nothing I did could stop it when my eyes panned over to Blake, who had dropped her book due to the loud noise.
Lastly, Pyrrha either trained, napped or read poetry. It wasn't what I had expected from the championship fighter, but whatever floated her boat. Looking over at her, I could see that she, too, had dropped her book onto her bed.
With my silly grin still on my face, I shut the alarm off and turned to address my teammates.
"It's game time!" I said, much to their confusion. They all looked at me like I was a bit ill, but after a moment, Weiss caught up and understanding dawned on her face. My grin somehow widened even further, and I continued. "Team VLYR has challenged us, team BASN to a game night. They insist that they are the superior team. Now is the time to show them what we're made of, to show them who's boss!"
My dramatics were met with mixed reactions. Weiss looked like she was barely restraining herself from making some snide comment. Blake gave me a little smile, half exasperated, half amused at my antics. And Pyrrha, well, she still looked sad, her lips perfectly straight instead upturned as I had gotten used to seeing.
I wouldn't let that stop me, though. And I rolled off my bed, standing before them. "It is time! MARCH!" I went and opened the door, pointing for them to go through it. On the other side of the hall, Ruby had already opened her own dorm's door for us, and inside I could see the board of Remnant lying ready on the floor.
Weiss, looking like she'd swallowed a lemon, stood from her bed and walked through the door, much to my other teammates' confusion. It was for the greater good, though. A pleading look got Blake to do much the same, and then I was left with only Pyrrha. The redhead was still on her bed, and I shot her a smile.
"Come on, it'll be fun." And then my smile sharpened somewhat. "And if you don't come, we might lose. Can't have Bastion losing to some second-rate team like Valor, can we?"
I ignored the shout of "I heard that!" From Ruby sitting across the hall, and almost sighed in relief when Pyrrha stood up. The frown that had become a fixture on the redhead's face vanished for a moment, replaced by that smile that I'd come to miss, and I grinned at her.
"You know I'm going to make you eat those words, right?" Ruby said when we got across the hall.
"We'll see."
And then we played. Remnant, only having space for four players at a time was played in teams. We all partnered up with our regular partners, so it was Weiss and Blake in Atlas, Pyrrha and I in Mistral, Nora and Ren in Vacuo and then finally Ruby and Yang in Vale. And of course, we all immediately allied with the rest of our teams, unwilling to lose to the other.
The only issue was that, well, Ruby and Yang were good. Like, really good at the game. I didn't know which one of them was making most of the decisions, or if it was both of them, but they were almost singlehandedly winning the game for their team. They, with some troops form Nora and Ren were completely stalling a combined offense from my entire team and somehow still tearing up the Mistrali countryside.
Looking at my cards, though, I saw an opening. I leaned close to Pyrrha and whispered my idea to her. When I drew back, I caught a hint of a smile on my partner's face, though it vanished quickly, before she nodded. On that front, at least, I felt like I was making some kind of headway.
During the game, I'd seen the redhead smile a handful of times. Not a lot, by her standards or anyone else's, but considering the fact that I hadn't seen her smile once in the last two days, it was progress.
I slapped down my card, relishing in the concerned look Yang sent at the Smugglers of Wind Path. I grabbed two of her own cards, one of which contained a Hurricane, which disabled her air fleet and nautical vessels. The other wasn't all that useful in this situation, but it might come in handy later.
With their biggest advantage in dealing with Atlas gone, I was free to attack them, as retaliation would overextend them and leave them open for Blake and Weiss to sweep through their continent.
The game ended with Weiss and Blake winning in the end, beating out Nora and Ren in a final clash over Vacuo. And just like that, team BASN ran away with the first victory of the night, much to Ruby and Yang's dismay. We played for hours, games of Remnant, Pictionary and Nora even taught us a card game called Durak that she'd learned from a man they'd met while traveling.
It was apparently a popular card game in the region around Mantle, though I'd never hear of it before now. It was fun, though, and the dorm was filled with laughter and shouts of dismay when people lost, which only made the others laugh harder. And through it all, I saw the redhead sat next to me smile and laugh along on occasion.
Well, as far as plans went, this one hadn't gone so badly.
Blake POV
"See you guys later!" Jaune said, standing in the doorway as he left to go on patrol with Weiss. Looking to my left, I locked eyes with Pyrrha. Emerald and amber met for a moment before the other girl glanced away.
I sighed. Jaune might not have realised why Pyrrha was upset, but it was no great mystery to me. The longing glances she shot at the blond when he wasn't looking weren't exactly subtle. And, well, when she suddenly seemed very sad and withdrawn while simultaneously avoiding me and Jaune, it wasn't very hard to guess that she'd finally confirmed that we were together.
And, well, I wasn't sure what to do about it. On the one hand, Pyrrha was clearly into my boyfriend, and that wasn't exactly something I was happy about. On the other, I cared about her too. She had accepted me when she'd discovered my past. Simply judging me on the kind of person I was now and the person I was trying to become, instead of who I had been back when I'd been a member of the White Fang.
I wanted her to be happy. So, it was a damned shame that I wanted that same thing. And I'd beaten her to the punch.
And Jaune, well, he wasn't helping. The goal for tonight's game night had become more than clear when he did his best to involve Pyrrha in every activity, especially when she began looking down. His intentions were good, but he was only confusing the redhead more.
He just wanted to cheer up his friend, but she didn't want to be his friend. She wanted something more, something he couldn't give her.
The problem was, I wasn't sure what to do about it either. Things would be so much easier if I didn't care about Pyrrha at all. I could just tell her to back off and comfort Jaune when his friend inevitably drifted away, unwilling to subject themselves to watching their crush get it on with someone else.
But I couldn't do that here.
"I'm sorry." I said, drawing Pyrrha's emerald orbs back to my own.
"You're not."
She wasn't wrong. I wasn't sorry for my relationship with Jaune. It was the best thing that had happened to me in a long while, even if I wasn't sure if I deserved it. What I was sorry for was that it made her sad. I didn't exactly need to explain that to her, though, not if that look on her face was any indication.
"Is there anything I could do?"
"No. I just… I just need time."
She looked like she'd swallowed a lemon as she said it, her face falling back into a sad frown when she finished. The redhead fell back onto her bed, not even bothering to change into her sleepwear, simply curling up under the covers and facing away from me.
I changed into my sleepwear quickly, a simple T-shirt and shorts and sat down on my own bed. After getting under the covers, I risked another look at Pyrrha's back.
"Pyrrha?"
"Hm?"
"I'm sorry."
"I know." The whisper had an odd sort of finality to it.
Wow, a bit short, but definitely a chapter that needed to happen. Next, we'll be getting to the real meat of the second act of the White Fang Arc. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed, and let me know what you think.
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As always, have a good one!