Chapter 62 – Summer Intern

Team Job wrestles with the idea of their latest client switching which side of the business she's on.

"Ohhhh, that man!" Ruby cursed angrily. "That…That primeval pumpkin! That glorified goblin! That wicked, worthless witch!"

"We passed by a scary costume store on the way here," Neptune explained to Team Job as his girlfriend ground her shoe into their floor.

Jaune tried once more to insist that he wasn't badly hurt, but Ruby wasn't hearing a word of it. His plan had only ever been to pre-empt making Qrow the bad guy by showing off his wounds, not turn Ruby against her uncle.

Though he really did beat the crap out of me. It's not like he stopped after I got the black eye.

And he really did force me to fight him.

Also, he really was being a primeval pumpkin.

"Don't you guys worry," Ruby seethed at Jaune, though he knew the anger wasn't meant for him. "I can't unpunch Jaune, but I can promise that my uncle's voicemail is going to be filled with as many angry scroll calls as you can fit into it."

"Thanks," Blake said. "Now…I don't want to sound like a money-grubber, but we did complete the mission, so we, uh, kinda need to get paid."

Jaune had showed Ruby the picture of her mother's grave, and she'd been quite pleased about it, which was a weird thing to think about out of context. Of course, in context, it made a whole lot more sense – Ruby had accepted that her mother was dead and had grown up without her for many years, so the gravestone was all that remained of her in her daughter's eyes. Seeing it well cleaned, perhaps the best it had been in years, was a source of peace for her.

"Don't you worry about a thing," Ruby said. "I went to the bank as soon as you guys said you did the job. A job well done by Team Job – hey, you guys should use that!"

"Several slogans are under consideration," Jaune said, trying not to sound condescending. It was difficult when he'd thought of something similar a while ago and had just been too lazy to implement it.

Ruby handed them a much larger duffel bag than they were used to receiving. "Twenty-five thousand lien, as promised."

Jaune accepted the bag, but he was too curious about its contents to not peak inside.

"It's all there," Ruby promised.

"She wouldn't underpay you guys," said Neptune from the side, slightly offended.

"Not, it's not that," Jaune said, sifting through the smaller than expected denominations. "Ruby, i-is this in ten lien chips?"

"Well…yeah." Ruby tilted her head. "I wanted to make it a big bag of money cuz it's way more fun like that, ya know?"

Jaune zipped it up and handed the money to Blake. He was tempted to point out that hundred or even thousand lien chips existed, almost as much as he was tempted to remind Ruby that Team Job accepted ten different formed of electronic payment (including bank transfers, which Ruby could have done from her bank instead of taking the time to pick up physical money that Team Job would only have to put back into the bank), but he held his tongue. Ruby was a sweet kid, and there was no need to bash her for being who she was.

"I suppose this concludes our business," Jaune said. "If you wouldn't mind, please leave a positive review on our website. Small businesses like Team Job live and die by clientele reviews, and –"

"Say less, fam." Ruby already had her scroll in hand and was tapping buttons rapidly. "Imma leave you the greatest review known to the history of mankind."

"And the Faunus, Ruby," said Blake.

"…yes, of course, and the Faunus, Ruby," Ruby added, typing text onto her scroll. "Alright, there we got. Submitted." Looking up from the device, Ruby met their gazes with a broad smile. "You guys really were great. I'll be sure to come around if I ever need my security to be consulted again."

"Babe." Neptune nudged her. He seemed to be getting quite experienced at that. "The thing?"

Ruby's eyes widened. "Oh, right! S-So, were you able to…to…"

Jaune waited patiently for the request, but it never came. They'd completed the mission to Ruby's standards (even if it had inadvertently cost him his physical health and gained him a free lesson from a pro-huntsman teacher), so he had no clue what else she might have to ask about.

"To…?" Velvet asked as Ruby turned as bright red as her namesake. "Ruby?"

"To…To…Togiveanymorethoughttotakingme – *GAAASP* – onasasummerinternatyourteam?"

Jaune gave himself a second to translate the young girl's words into slow. "You…oh, right, you asked about internships with us. Back at the doomsday bunker place."

Truth be told, Jaune actually hadn't given it much thought; in fact, he'd completely forgotten about the request. Back when they'd run their first joint mission, Ruby had offhandedly asked about a place for her with Team Job as an intern during Beacon's summer break. It had been a byproduct of her feeling just a bit too impressed with Team Job's financial freedom and illustrious resume of missions and blurting out the simplest desire she could think of – to be a part of that.

I didn't tell her no, but I think I made it pretty clear at the time that it was unlikely. There's a lot of reasons why it wouldn't work, starting with the fact that she's a huntress and we're not. Truthfully, I'd mostly just dismissed it from my mind and assumed she did the same.

"I'm really sorry, Ruby, but we –"

"Jaune," Velvet said quietly.

Jaune sucked in his lips. "– but we haven't yet discussed it as a team. However, I can assure you that we will. Thank you for reminding us of your request."

Ruby nodded and looked at Neptune for reassurance, which he gave her in the form of his own curt nod.

"Okay. I'll head out. Hope to hear from you guys soon, right?"

"As soon as we can," Jaune promised. "Thanks for the work, Ruby. See ya round."

Once the hunters were gone and only the security consultants remained, Jaune wasted no time in turning towards Velvet.

"I know," Velvet said, pre-empting the complaint Jaune was about to make – or maybe Blake, for her mouth was open as well, and she was a known cynic. "But there would be some benefits. At the very least, it's something we shouldn't dismiss out of hand."

"Velvet," Blake murmured. "I know they –"

"Guys, I get a say in this too," Velvet said. Then, her smile dropped a little. "Er…I…actually and contractually, I don't, do I? Well, it's my professional opinion as a subordinate that –"

"We'll talk about it," Jaune promised. Contract or not, Velvet was a part of the team.

She doesn't get to make the call, not when Blake and I are the ones who technically control the company and its finances, but it's something she deserves to be heard out on.

"There are more perks to not hiring her than there are to hiring her," Blake said, stating her case first. "We know that Beacon hates us. Sad, but true, and the fact of the matter is that if we start poaching hunters – especially those Ozpin has a personal close eye on because they're prodigies let into Beacon early and put as team leader – then Beacon might actually find the courage to try and get us shut down. That can't be worth another set of hands, or worth making Ruby's day, no matter how cute she is."

"It's more than just Ruby," Velvet said. "Having a huntress on the team, an actual licensed huntress, would open a lot of doors for us. Ruby can actively browse the mission boards and sign up for jobs on them."

"She won't have a license if she joins us this winter," Jaune pointed out, recalling Ruby's words from before. Provisional licenses were given to first-years at the end of that first-year mark.

I don't want to get caught up in an argument between the two of them, but we need to keep it factual.

"No, but she can browse them using the Beacon system, and Team Job can notify the towns, villages, or whoever it is that we're cheaper," Velvet said. "And trust me when I say that folks'll jump at the chance to hire a team with a real huntress for the price of three security consultants."

"It won't be the price of three security consultants," Blake said. "We'd have to pay Ruby, meaning our rates would need to rise."

"She'd be an intern," Velvet said nonchalantly.

Jaune raised an ethical eyebrow.

"We'd just pay her less, I mean," Velvet quickly corrected. "She'd be paid in experience."

"She's more experienced than us," Blake said. "Well, than Jaune and I."

"Than Jaune and me," Jaune said reflexively, earning a stink eye from his partner. "Sorry."

"I still think it's a good idea," Velvet said.

"And I'm not so sure." Blake turned to him. "Jaune?"

Great – the dreaded tiebreaker. In spite of having tried to stay out of the conversation, all attention was now on him, and someone was going to be let down by Jaune in particular.

Jaune would've liked to have made this choice by minimizing the unpleasantness and pleasing them both, but there was no way in this dichotomy. It was either say yes and let Ruby in or say no and don't let Ruby in. Half-measures would go nowhere.

The obvious solution was just to state his own true opinion, but Jaune didn't exactly know his own true opinion. Basically, he didn't even have one on this matter. Sure, he wanted to get Ruby, his good friend, on the team. Sure, he wanted the problems that Blake had brought up to never arise. But which did he want more?

What…What do I think?

"I think…"

Both of the Faunus stared at him eagerly. Jaune wasn't sure if they were curious to hear his tiebreaking verdict or if both assumed that he would surely side with them.

Jaune sadly frowned. "…I think we shouldn't hire Ruby. As an intern."

The sadness on Velvet's face was immediately enough to prevent Blake from showing any pleasure at having been sided with. "Sorry, Vel."

"It's fine. I get that…there are a lot of reasons to not hire Beaconites."

"It's not that," Jaune said. "I disagree with Blake, personally. If we pad Team Job Security a bunch of huntsmen and huntresses with licenses, it'd probably do the opposite of what she's thinking. Ozpin would see the three of us dropouts as the coordinators of real hunters, and them as the ones who did the work. He only ever feared Team Job because he fears the public reaction to false hunters, be they successful or failing. If we bloat the team with licensed folks, the public will think of Team Job as a bunch of hunters with three unlicensed interns, not the other way around."

And therein lay the true reason Jaune couldn't get behind it. Hiring Ruby as an intern would mean that they had chosen to start hiring people, and Jaune hated that idea.

He liked the dropout energy they had. He basked in the fact that Team Job wasn't some rich, high and mighty team of pros who could pick and choose their missions. They were all the same, all three of them – desperate kids who had no one but each other to rely on. They all knew what was at stake here, and that was why they had to keep Team Job alive. It was both their survival and their baby at stake her (not Velvet's literal baby – the metaphorical one that the company was to the three of them).

If we hire Ruby, do we hire the rest of her team? She mentioned other teams she's friends with. Do we hire them? And there's Velvet's team to consider – I'm sure they'd want a spot with their former member.

Team JB was originally Jaune and Blake. Then, the two losers found a third failure and became Team JVB, which was linguistically disgusting but not the worst name a team had ever seen. Jaune did not want it to be Team JVRYVRCFYB.

And even if they found another student of Beacon who'd gotten the boot, Jaune wasn't sure he'd wish for him or her to join the company. As he'd said before to Blake one time, he wasn't keen on making a team where he didn't personally know everyone. Team Job was a trio, and they were friends.

Maybe it was petty of him to deny Ruby a spot solely out of a desire to keep their three-person dynamic and not flood the team with others, but their three-person dynamic was just fundamentally better, in his opinion. Velvet was the muscle, Blake was the brains, and Jaune was the face. Each person on the team knew who they were.

"I guess we'll call Ruby," Velvet said glumly.

"Let's wait a little bit," Blake said. "If we're denying her, we might as well make it look like we had to think it over for a longer time."

For the rest of the day, Jaune tried to take it easier. Velvet had to go to her doctor's appointment, so Blake manned the front desk while he chilled in the backroom. He considered reading the book he'd picked up on semblances, but he ultimately decided that even that might be too exhausting. His body was healing itself at its accelerated pace from the scrapes and wounds Qrow had inflicted on him, and the best thing he could do was let it.

It wasn't like he needed to read to occupy his mind, at this point. There was plenty to think about.

For one thing, the free lesson he'd gotten had come at the cost of increased scrutiny, no doubt. Branwen had forced the issue, so Jaune didn't blame himself, but it was indubitable that the bird-named man would fly back to his old chum in the academy and call it in. Team Job would be surely blamed, as they were for everything, solely on the basis that they were themselves and not Beacon.

Their debt was still outstanding, but Jaune was hoping that they might actually be able to pay it back before the first month passed. If they could, the interest wouldn't actually accumulate, and they would only have to spend what they'd originally owed. One more mission, maybe two, and it would be all clear.

It's not like we aren't a profitable company or something. We were actually doing really well even before we got the airship and all that cash. It was a slow climb, but we consistently turned a profit on every mission, and they came in regularly.

Time would invariably change that, though. Velvet was now probably somewhere like six months pregnant. That gave Team Job a solid three months to squeeze everything they could out of her before she had to take time off in the form of maternity leave.

It was strange to think about, that they might just lose her from the team altogether. Not permanently, but it was difficult to imagine Velvet carrying her baby into battle against the Grimm in a papoose. She would have to take some time off – a lot, in fact, since she was a single mother.

But she won't be alone. The baby is hers and hers alone, but I do kinda feel like it'll be my…godchild or something, I don't know. Blake's, too. We're all gonna pitch in to make sure she's okay, because that's what teams do. It'd be unfair of me to describe how important our intra-team dynamic is and then just leave Velvet behind the second she stops contributing. In any event, she's practically carried the team through the past few missions. We'd have been steamrolled by Grimm at the sex club if not for her carving them apart, and she also fought Tyrian and the teleporter guy better than Blake or me.

And when she was gone…when she stopped carrying…

But I'm better, now. I'm improving, to the point that I've probably ceased being a burden and started being an asset. I carry my weight, and maybe sometimes even push us over the edge into a victory.

And it isn't like Blake isn't training and getting stronger, too. All three of us are teenagers, just starting our journeys. Every day we do this, we get a little bit better. Beacon may be Vale's sole huntsman academy, but it doesn't have to be the only school from which a young warrior can learn.

Mission Complete: Ivy Removal

Client Review: These guys are literally the best in the business! I hired them to brave through undiscovered, Grimm-infested terrain and conduct a high-stakes assignment that endangered their very lives, and they conducted the job with surgical precision the likes of which has never been seen before on Remnant. Also, the team is exclusively comprised of gigachads and/or gigachadettes. HIGHLY RECOMMEND! And the Faunus Ruby. [5/5 stars]

Current Holdings (lien): Ⱡ 34,035

Current Debt (lien): Ⱡ 50,000 at 20% compound monthly (7 days)

Current Holdings (assets): Job Hunter airship, 10 handcuffs, 3 taser stun guns, long range tracker and console, tent, 3 binoculars, basket of disguises

Current Holdings (realty): Team Job office (Vale branch)

Employees: 3

Coming Soon: The Right Words

Blake's extensive vocabulary fails her when an unexpected quintet of people arrive at her office.

Author's Notes

Intern Ruby was originally going to be a more dedicated story arc, but it was still going to end in her not getting the job (the chapter was going to end with them all agreeing to say no, but then late at night Jaune would be reading up on how to hire interns before putting the book down and going to sleep, leaving it on an open note). However, it went nowhere either way, so I scrapped it altogether.

Edit: Ignore all that. I spoke in anger, Rat's Nest. Intern Ruby arc is being planned and will probably be added after chapter 101, when the main story is over and individual chapters are added one at a time as I write them.

If you don't get the review, reread the portion of the chapter where Ruby is typing it up.

Sorry for the uneventful chapter. There was really nothing more to add, and I'd rather avoid much more pointless filler.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!