Chapter Text
“I’m sorry, you want me to what ?”
Ruina Nivis was sitting in the office of one Professor Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon Academy. She had just transferred here from her home for the last year, Haven Academy. She’d been warned ahead of time that the only team with an open spot would mean she would have to repeat the first year with them, she was prepared for that. What she wasn’t prepared for was Ozpin telling her she was going to be the leader of said team.
“You know Miss Nivis, when we go through great trials in life it isn’t uncommon for us to lose faith in others, in systems, even ourselves.” The man with silver hair took a sip from his mug.
She pleaded with her eyes for him to stop right there.
“However I believe that these trials can ultimately lead to growth, if we are put in a position to learn from them and make use of that experience.”
Her fox-like ears flattened as she was tried in vain to push away the memories of the train. She didn’t want to think about that, not right now, not ever. She focused on the ticking of the clock in Ozpin’s office, which was itself a sort of clock tower. She tried to count all the gears she could see through the clear floors and walls. It helped and eventually she managed to look back up at her new headmaster.
“Ruina, you are by far the best choice to lead this team. Please, give yourself a chance.”
“Professor, it’s just …Okay, I know I’m a good tactician, but all this team morale and being responsible for others business- it doesn’t sound like me.” Besides, if she had to be responsible for others then she’d have to hold them to her standards, and that wasn’t something many people were up for.
“You forget that this is a first year team. Very few team leaders are properly prepared for all aspects of leadership, that is why we have leadership courses.” He adjusted his tiny glasses before continuing, “All you need is the spark of potential and your own will to better yourself and others, we will provide you with the rest.”
Well that made sense, of course they wouldn’t expect every leader to be a natural. She was good at classes, she could probably learn what she needed to do the job. Was she really considering this? Well it wasn’t like she had another option. None of the other Huntsman Academies had any team openings right now and they had passed the time for initiation, so she couldn’t just start over anywhere. Beacon was her only choice if she wanted to continue her life’s goal of becoming a huntress.
“...Okay.” She finally responded.
“An excellent choice, Miss Nivis. Now if you’ll stand to the side of the door there I’ll have your new team brought in.”
Ruina nodded and got up from her chair. She walked over to where the professor had indicated. From this position if her new team didn’t look directly to their sides upon entering they would likely not see her. It seemed Professor Ozpin had a flare for the dramatic, trying to do a big reveal. She supposed that ‘dramatic’ fit the man and his academy quite well. Beacon’s tower was simultaneously the tallest building in Vale, the primary CCTS tower for all of Remnant, and his office. Situated in the middle of the Beacon Academy grounds, which were certainly much more grand than Haven. Yeah, dramatic fit.
The soft ping of the elevator arriving brought her attention to the doors which were sliding open. From those doors strode three teenagers dressed in what she assumed was the Beacon Academy uniform. A black suit with gold trim for what looked to be the one boy, and a black blazer trimmed in gold over a pleated red plaid skirt for what appeared to be two girls.
She barely managed to catch a strand of pink in the boy’s otherwise shaggy black hair, it was nice to see someone who wanted to express themselves a bit. The shorter of the two girls had orange red hair and was actually fairly short, probably about her height at 5’ flat. She was cute and had a certain presence to her that made her seem larger than she was. The taller of the two girls was of course also quite tall, and recognizable. Most people would recognize Pyrrha Nikos on sight from all of her televised appearances or perhaps from her image plastered on products of any number of her numerous sponsors. Ruina, however, had reason to recognize the girl on a personal basis.
How had she forgotten that Pyrrha was dead set on attending Beacon? That was the whole reason that Ruina had been able to get into Haven a year early. She should have remembered that she would see her old rival at Beacon, though she never would have expected to end up on the same team. Looking closer at Pyrrha though there was something about her that was off.
She looked rattled.
“Students, thank you for joining me.” The headmaster said formally.
“Professor,” Pyrrha responded, “...are you sure there’s nothing that can be done for Jaune? He’s worked so hard this semester and he’s come so far from where he started.” The other members of the team stood solidly with her, backing her up with their presence alone.
“I’m sorry Miss Nikos, I’m afraid my hands are tied. I hope you can understand that I too am loath to lose a student with so much potential as Mr. Arc.”
The two girls of the team wilted at the headmaster’s response. The boy rested a hand on the shorter girl’s shoulder for comfort. The team must be pretty tight knit, hopefully that didn’t make things too awkward. Not that things could get much more awkward than being on the same team as Pyrrha.
“Now, we must trust that Mr. Arc will find his own way while we move forward on ours. To that end I would like to introduce you to your new teammate and leader, Ruina Nivis.” Ozpin gestured behind them and directly at her. “Together you will be Team Raven.”
Ruina grinned at the wide eyes of Pyrrha as they all turned to look at her.
“Hey Nikos, fancy meeting you here.” She started.
“Ohmygosh she’s so cuuute! ” The orange haired girl shouted, “Ren, Ren, look at how cute she is! That tail looks so soft and cuddly!”
‘Ren’ put his hand on the girl’s shoulder again, “Don’t overwhelm her, Nora.”
Ruina hadn’t noticed herself get into a defensive stance, but it certainly made sense. ‘Nora’ had that look like someone about to fling themselves at someone and suffocate them with a hug. Granted, there were worse ways to go than suffocation by a cute girl, but she had a job to do here and dying wasn’t part of …that …plan…
Shit, not again.
Okay breathe. In for seven seconds, then out for another seven.
Her eyes were looking all over the room for an escape route. Elevator was the only door, would take forever to get here. Jump out the window?
“Are you alright?” A boy’s voice, asking her a question, Ren was in front of her all of a sudden. She took a step back away from him. Breathe and count damnit.
In.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Out.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
She managed to focus on the floor, she watched the gears turning, still counting with her breathing.
Eventually she managed to look up to see Ren and Nora standing a respectful distance away. Nora looked worried, she couldn’t read Ren’s face. Gods, twice in one day, She’d been getting better damnit. She felt exhausted.
“I’m okay, thanks. Kind of a lot for one day, I guess.” She tried to make the smile she gave them as genuine as possible. She hoped it worked.
Ren just nodded at her. Nora sighed in obvious relief. Behind them she could see Pyrrha discussing something with the headmaster. She wanted to snoop, but she really was tired.
“Do you want a hug?” Nora offered.
She paused to think. A hug sounded really nice, but this girl was practically a stranger.
“She gives remarkably good hugs.” Ren added.
Another moment to consider, “...Yeah. A hug sounds pretty nice, to be honest.”
“Yessss! Come to Nora.” Nora stepped forward and wrapped her in a very warm and surprisingly gentle hug.
The hug was immensely comforting, easily within her top ten hugs. Ruina really enjoyed hugs and just being close to another person. Really the only reason she was defensive at first was because they were strangers and Pyrrha was one of them. Pyrrha’s presence always managed to put her on guard. On guard also meant that she’d start over analyzing things as well, all of her training kicking in due to the mere presence of her rival. Now to top it off she got triggered too. She hated this, how broken she was.
Her thoughts having drifted so made the hug less appealing, so she let go of Nora and gave her a smile in thanks.
“Anytime you need a hug, you just let me know. I got you.” Nora said with a warm smile.
“Thanks… that really gives me hope that we can make this team thing work.”
Nora’s smile faltered for a moment before she answered, “You betcha.”
“...sor are you sure an exception can’t be made?” She heard as she started to tune into Pyrrha speaking with Professor Ozpin.
“Quite sure, Miss Nikos. Being on a team is about learning to work with others, even ones we may take issue with or have…” he paused to take a sip from his mug, “...history with.”
She could see Pyrrha’s shoulders slump. Wow, she’d never seen Pyrrha so off before, this was a whole new side to her. The Pyrrha she knew was always focused in the face of an enemy or perfectly composed in the face of the media or the public in general. This girl looked hopeless, resigned ...defeated.
Holy shit this is what Pyrrha looked like when she lost. The idea that Pyrrha could lose was nearly foreign to her, Sure she might have hoped to beat her in the past, but that hope had been quickly pushed aside. Who would have thought that the thing to defeat Pyrrha Nikos would be some school rules? The idea almost made her laugh. The Invincible Girl no longer.
“Jeez, Nikos, you look like someone stepped on all of your hopes and dreams.” She said.
Pyrrha turned to look at her with a glare. Crap, she hadn’t meant it to be that mean.
“Er, I just mean maybe …lighten up? It’s really not the end of the world and…” she swallowed, “maybe we can get along?”
Pyrrha eyed her for a long moment, looking her straight in the eyes. She was trying to evaluate her, looking to see how honest she was being?
“Perhaps.” Pyrrha eventually answered.
“Excellent.” Ozpin smoothly cut in, “Now why don’t you show Miss Nivis to your dormitory. Remember that you’re only excused from classes for today, you’ll all be expected to return to them tomorrow.”
The four of them gave their sounds of compliance and turned to go. As they started to enter the elevator though Ruina turned to look at the headmaster once more.
“Thank you for the opportunity Professor, I really do appreciate it.”
“Of course, Miss Nivis.” He responded with a smile.
The four members of the newly christened team RRVN made their way across campus. Nora spent most of the time talking about Beacon and all of its perks with a funny story sprinkled in. Ren regularly interjected corrections to the stories as Nora had a penchant for wild exaggerations. Pyrrha kept silent the whole way, her face back to its usual composure.
They made a stop to grab her uniform and suitcase before making it to their dorm building across campus, going up the stairs to the second floor and into a long hallway. Everything looked extremely uniform, it might be the most nondescript hallways she’d ever seen.
“Aaaannd here we are!” Nora made a grand gesture toward the next door on their left. “This is our room and right across the hall is team RWBY. You’ll meet them later, they’re good friends.”
Ruina nodded and brought her scroll up to the pad next to the door, a quiet beep and a green light indicated the door was unlocked. Opening the door she walked in a few steps and took in the room.
Her first impression of the room was that it was kind of ...bare. Sure there were plenty of books, okay there were alot of books on multiple wall-mounted shelves, but aside from that the walls were bare of any decoration. The beds were laid out in a boring arrangement against the far wall with the heads against the wall. There was a window in the middle of that wall with a short bookshelf below it. On that bookshelf was the only sign of someone actually living here, a pair of pink headphones.
“Love what you’ve done with the place,” Ruina snarked, “the headphones really bring it all together.”
“Yeah well, Ren and I did a lot of moving around before we made it here, so we don’t have a lot of stuff.”
Oh. She’d heard that story before, people who lived in the wilds, moving around all the time. It was a rough life. Combine that with one of their team members leaving and you get a pretty empty room. Still, Pyrrha shouldn’t have any shortage of money from all of her sponsorships, and so she should have more than ...nothing. The headphones didn’t look like the type Pyrrha would own, she tended more toward red and gold or brass colors. Something was off about Pyrrha, she was different.
“Ahhh, right that makes sense.” She paused to scratch at the back of her head awkwardly, “So uh, which one is mine?”
“Oh, this baby over here!” Nora said as she once again extravagantly threw her arms wide, presenting the bed to the far right.
Smiling gratefully she pulled her suitcase to the corner bed and started to unpack her things. She set her spear, Schédio, in the corner and then started unloading her personal items. She set her books on languages on the bookshelf above the desk closest to her bed, It looked like it was supposed to be her desk judging by it lacking in anything on the desk itself. She pulled out her book on ancient Mistralian and set it on the desk itself, she wanted to brush up on it with Pyrrha on her team.
Basic school supplies, like paper, pens and notebooks made it onto the desk as well. Her scroll charger went in the outlet that was blessedly close to her bed. A framed picture of her dad for the desk, earbuds on the bed, small jewelry case on the desk. She unpacked quickly and efficiently. Clothes in the huge shared closet, meds and toiletries in the bathroom. The shower looked decent and was one of those combined bath and shower things. Taking a bath might be nice, maybe she should get some scented bubble bath for that?
“How’s the water pressure on the shower here?” She asked as she stepped out of the bathroom.
“Who cares about the water pressure when it’s ALWAYS HOT!” Nora practically shouted.
Ren shrugged and Pyrrha ...ignored her again.
Her ears twitched at Nora’s exclamation. It didn’t hurt like some people thought, but it was surprising. She mentally shrugged it off, it wasn’t a big deal. There were more important things to think about, like what to do with the rest of her first day. She was all done unpacking and they had the rest of the day free.
“Well I’m all unpacked and we have the rest of the day free, anyone wanna join me for some training?” The rest of her team blinked at her in surprise, “Er …or we could get to know each other?” That was the right thing for a leader to do, right?
“Ooohhh, yes! Okay okay, let’s all sit in a circle and we can introduce ourselves and say something we enjoy.” Nora said, excitedly sitting on the ground and pulling Ren down with her.
Ruina looked at Pyrrha, who seemed to be taking her time in sitting down. She pointedly shrugged at her and took a seat across from Nora.
Once Pyrrha had sat down, still a little rigidly, Nora started them up.
“Okay, I’m Nora Valkyrie, she/her pronouns, my favorite food is pancakes and I’m Ren’s partner.” Nora smiled.
Ruina smiled and nodded in appreciation at the inclusion of pronouns.
Nora seemed to think she meant something else though, “W-well not ‘Partner’-partner, just like, combat partner!”
That was ...weird.
“Wait, I forgot about partners, does that make me Pyrrha’s…?” She asked carefully.
Everyone turned to look at Pyrrha, her composed face was up, “Yes, I suppose it does.” Pyrrha answered. She sounded neither happy or unhappy about that, it sounded forced to Ruina.
“My name is Lie Ren, but please call me Ren. He/him pronouns for today and I enjoy cooking and self-improvement.”
“Right, I’m Ruina Nivis, seven- er, eighteen now, and I use she/her pronouns.” She’d almost forgotten she turned 18 just two months ago, “I like dueling, dancing and dead languages.”
“The three D’s, huh?” Nora said.
“Sometimes four.” She winked. A moment later she cringed on the inside. She wasn’t here to flirt. She didn’t need that sort of distraction. She was here to learn and get better. She had to be better.
“Domination, huh? The cute ones are always the kinkiest.” Nora smoothly replied with a laugh.
Ruina couldn’t stop the giggle from escaping her mouth. Well, at least Nora had a good sense of humor. She’d hate to be stuck with a team that didn’t know how to crack jokes while training. They had a lot of training ahead of them, or they would if she had anything to say about it, and jokes were a good way to keep the spirits up. Even the least motivated people could stick to training if their spirits were high enough.
They’d been laughing for a good minute now and even Ren had cracked a smile. There was something still off with Pyrrha, though. She wasn’t laughing or smiling, just …sitting there.
“How ‘bout you, Nikos?” She asked.
Pyrrha ducked her head a little bit, “I didn’t think it was necessary, seeing as everyone here knows me already.”
“Well why don’t you tell us how you two know each other then?” Nora asked with a smile. That girl could smile all day it seemed.
“I must admit to being curious, myself.” Ren added.
Pyrrha looked to her expectantly.
“Nope, I already took my turn, this is all you.” Ruina leaned back, propping herself up with her arms.
“Well, Ruina and I went to Sanctum Academy together. For all but my last year, at least.”
“What happened in the last year?” Ren asked.
“Ruina was accepted into Haven Academy a year early.” Pyrrha answered with her voice still level.
“Ohhhh, so she’s like Ruby!” Nora chirped.
“Ruby?” Ruina asked.
“Ruby Rose. She’s the leader of team RWBY.” Ren answered.
“She got in two years early for stopping a dust robbery by some big shot criminal in Vale.” Nora added. Ren and Nora sure seemed to complement each other well, nearly finishing each other’s sentences.
“Huh, two years early and a team leader too? I’ll have to meet this girl.” She sounded interesting- and talented, probably a good sparring partner. Though she had Nikos to spar with now so she didn’t need to hunt so hard for sparring partners. At Haven she’d had to really look hard for good sparring Partners. Only a couple of them had really managed to provide her with much of a challenge, Arslan and Sun came to mind.
“We’ll likely see team RWBY at lunch, soon.” Pyrrha added.
“Wait a second ...if you got into Haven a year early, what are you doing here, on a first year team?” Nora asked with what seemed like mock suspicion.
She cringed, dropping her head and feeling her ears wilt backwards, “I’d rather not go into details but ...I started my second year and needed to transfer. Your team was the only one that had an opening.”
She braced herself for the questions for more details ...but they never came. Ren just nodded his understanding, while Nora gave her a sad smile. Pyrrha was the one who looked most curious, it seemed that was enough to pull off her mask. She looked at Ruina with what seemed to be genuine concern. It wasn’t too often students needed a transfer. The Academies didn’t like to do them unless absolutely and reserved them for extreme situations. Situations like losing part of a team. The rest of her team seemed to have a guess about her situation, it was the most common reason, after all.
“Right, well…” She desperately grasped for any reason to escape this awkwardness, “You said something about lunch? How soon is that?”
“Oh, if we leave now we’ll only be a few minutes early. Maybe I can get them to make a batch of pancakes…” Nora mused or… schemed was probably the better way to describe her. She looked like she had a comically evil scheme cooked up.
“Nora, you can’t have pancakes for every meal.” Ren admonished as they all got to their feet.
“Watch me.” Nora replied with an evil grin.
Beacon Academy had a nice dining hall. Sure the design was very ‘modern’ but that was just kinda Vale’s aesthetic. Not quite the ‘future’ look, like Atlas, but not ‘traditional’, like Mistral. She let the rest of her team take the lead into the dining hall where they went straight to a table in the middle of the massive room. Lunch hadn’t started yet, so they couldn’t grab anything and had to kill time waiting.
Ruina sat on the end of the bench, bouncing a leg idly. It wasn’t that she was bored, she just needed to do it to be able to focus right now. The rest of her team were going on about some recurring dream Nora had been having. She smiled and laughed at Nora’s wild exaggerations, followed by Ren correcting her. Pyrrha even cracked a smile a couple of times. Pyrrha was still being cold with her, but that wasn’t that new for their ‘relationship’. Still she worried that if it continued on like this it would make being on a team together annoying and counterproductive.
Eventually the cafeteria itself did open properly. Nora was not able to convince them to make her any pancakes, so she settled on an obscene amount of burgers, hot dogs and fries. Ren had actually brought his own ‘lunch’ in the form of a questionably colored smoothie. Pyrrha got a salad with chicken and a bunch of vegetables that she didn’t even recognize. Ruina herself went with some grilled teriyaki chicken on a bed of rice, a salad on the side. The food looked pretty good, all in all.
A few minutes into their meal, during which Ruina tried very hard to ignore the awkward sounds from Nora, three girls sat at their table straight across from them. One wore a red cloak on her uniform and looked a bit young, not that she was in a place to judge. Another had black hair with a black bow tied up in it and a bulky black belt around her waist. The last had a huge mane of blonde hair and hadn’t added anything extra to her uniform, as many others seemed to.
“Hey guys, who’s this?” The blonde girl asked right off.
“Oh, this is Ruina, she’s the new member of our team.” Nora answered, “Ruina, this is Yang and that’s Blake and Ruby.”
She waved with a smile, “Nice to meet you.”
The three girls seemed to deflate a bit at the announcement but recovered well enough to say hello as well. They must have been friends with RRVN’s old team leader. Hopefully they didn’t treat her as coldly as Pyrrha had been. She’d really prefer to get along with these people she’d be spending the next few years with.
“Where’s the Ice Queen?” Nora asked.
“Ah, she stayed behind to talk with Professor Oobleck about some extra credit assignment or something, again.” Ruby answered.
“I still don’t understand why she continues to do that, her grade is already the highest in the class.” Pyrrha commented
That peaked Ruina’s attention, someone else who was serious about their grades. If there was one thing she herself was better at than Pyrrha it was academics. Back at Sanctum Pyrrha seemed happy to sit at an A- average, with her combat scores carrying a lot of weight. Ruina accepted nothing less than an A+ for herself, she had to be better, had to prove herself. If this girl was also serious about her grades she might be a fun rival or a nice study buddy.
“So what are you guys up to today?” Yang asked around a mouthful of food.
“Yeah, I noticed you weren’t in class today.” Ruby added.
“We were excused from classes today due to Ruina’s arrival.” Ren answered, possibly because the other three of them were busy chewing at that moment.
Ruina finished swallowing her food, “Well I managed to get settled into the dorm already. I was thinking of trying to get some training in for us, I wanna see what my new team can do.”
She noticed Blake raise an eyebrow at that from behind the book that she hadn’t put down the entire time. She realized now that Blake hadn’t said a word since she and her teammates had arrived, another quiet type?
“Oh hey, Ruby, you’re team leader right? Is there any sort of protocol for renting out a training room or something? I know Haven had something like that for Team Leaders to manage.”
“Oh, yeah! You can actually do it through the Teamspace app on your scroll. If you’re a leader you should have an extra tab for reserving the use of facilities and equipment.” Ruby answered with a bright smile.
She nodded and opened her scroll to check out the Teamspace app that she remembered Ozpin mentioning. It was indeed already on her scroll and she could see what was available to reserve for today. It seemed both the advanced combat training rooms were booked for today, in addition to the indoor combat training rooms. Luckily it seemed outdoor training arena #4 was available for the next 6 hours. She supposed that would have to do for today.
“Alright,” She turned to her team, “team RRVN has outdoor training arena number four booked for the next six hours.”
Her team looked …put off by this statement. Nora looked shocked, while Pyrrha had both eyebrows raised, Ren looked …okay Ren didn’t look put off, he was just looking at her. To the side she could see that the members of team RWBY looked similarly surprised. Yang was giving her a look like she was trying to figure her out. Ruby looked truly surprised, mouth hanging open and all. Blake had put her book down and raised her eyebrow, again.
Before she could comment on their surprise, however, they were interrupted by a large boy with orange hair, wearing some boring grey armor. That was her first clue to the value of him as a person, everyone knew armor didn’t help unless your aura was down. And if your aura is down then you were more likely than not to be exhausted already, to the point of not being able to function well in that armor. It was really so much smarter to just go without and save what energy you could for trying to escape if your aura broke.
“Wow, I didn’t think you could get worse than Jauney boy for your team, but now I see you got a literal animal .” The boy commented.
Oh, a racist and a bully too, this guy was just ticking all the boxes for ‘terrible human being’. She rolled her eyes and ignored him, her usual response for racists.
“Cardin. Leave.” Yang said with the obvious sound of a threat.
She looked up at that, noticing that every single person around her looked ready to fight this asshole right here, in the middle of the school cafeteria. Now admittedly she was new to Beacon, but she figured the rules about not fighting other students outside of sanctioned fights were still a thing here. Still, to be safe she turned around on her bench to keep her legs free and able to react.
“You know, when I turned your leader in for those transcripts I figured I was doing your team a favor, getting rid of the dead weight. Now though, I’m almost sorry, I mean look at this freak.” Carden reached out at the end and grabbed one of her ears.
Now her ears weren’t as sensitive as some Faunus’, and she had activated her aura, just in case. Still she wasn’t about to tolerate someone grabbing her and that could clearly be construed as an attack. So she defended herself.
Springing up from her seat she summoned a small black glyph under his right heel, affixing it to the floor. In the same motion she launched herself upward high enough to slam her palm into the bottom of his jaw. The surprise was enough to get him to release his hold on her ear. She then put all of her aura into her strength and shoved.
With a comic flailing of his arms the bully ‘tripped’ and fell backward, slamming his head on a table bench behind him. Not what she intended his head to hit, but it would do well enough. She released her glyph before anyone could notice the odd way his heel was still stuck to the ground.
“Don’t touch me, asshole.” She glared at him.
Cardin scrambled to his feet and scurried away like the coward he was. Granted they had him outnumbered 7 to 1, but he was still a coward. So she could infer that Jaune was their old team leader and Cardin had been responsible for getting him expelled. Granted he’d still forged his transcripts, so it wasn’t entirely on Cardin. The guy was still clearly an asshole and a bully and she felt pretty alright with knocking him down a peg.
“That …was …AWESOME!” Nora screamed. “Ren, did you see that?!”
“Yes, Nora.”
“That was pretty badass.” Yang gave her an approving nod.
Pyrrha looked …conflicted. She seemed to want to say something, but then thought better of it. Typical Nikos, always holding back. She wondered if Nikos was always like this with her team or if it was just because of the whole replacing her team leader thing. She decided that she’d sit down and try to get things back to normal.
It took a few minutes for everyone to settle down. She tried to explain to Ruby how to do the palm uppercut she had done, when the girl asked about it. She could tell it wasn’t quite getting absorbed, though. Yang asked her if she had much hand-to-hand training and she explained that she just knew some fundamentals that she learned at Haven. Nora wanted to have an arm wrestling contest, which she turned down, explaining that she really wasn’t that strong unless she put a ton of aura into it. Nora immediately offered to help her with strength training, which she accepted. No reason to turn down an opportunity to get stronger, literally in this case.
She caught Pyrrha’s eye for a moment, “So …that was the guy?”
Pyrrha winced, “Yes. That was Cardin Winchester. He learned about Jaune’s forged transcripts and spent most of the semester blackmailing him.”
“Wow,” Ruina was surprised at just how awful this guy was, “what an absolute shit.”
“Mmm,” Pyrrha hummed in agreement, “Just when we thought we’d gotten him out from under Cardin’s thumb, Cardin went public with the information.” Her face fell and she looked on the verge of tears, “Perhaps if it hadn’t been made public then Professor Ozpin could have done something, but… with it public we suspect he was forced to keep up the image of the school. All at the cost of Jaune’s hopes and dreams.” She did cry then. A single tear from the corner of her eye.
Ruina swallowed hard. She’d never seen Pyrrha like this, so uncomposed, so raw. Her heart ached in sympathy. She felt guilt for taking Jaune’s place. Even if he’d forged his transcripts, he’d obviously survived initiation and been accepted by these people around her. It seemed unfair for him to be expelled over such a technicality at this point.
“For what it’s worth,” she started with the most apologetic face she could, “I’m sorry. That doesn’t sound very fair.”
Pyrrha gave her a weak smile, then turned away, seeming to try and regain her composure.
Just about everyone had finished eating by now, but there was still half the lunch period left over, according to the rest of her team. It seemed everyone had forgotten their surprise over her training plans for their team, which was fine with her. It would be easier to get them to go along with it if they realized they had forgotten to voice their doubts. They probably weren’t used to a very strict training regimen, based on their initial reactions. Well they would have to get used to it with her leading. They were here to become Huntsmen and Huntresses, and you don’t do that without a lot of hard work.
“Hey there Weiss cream, you finally made it.” Yang’s greeting pulled her attention from her thoughts.
Approaching their group now was a short girl with white hair, the same shade as hers, tied up in an off-center ponytail. She had pale skin and blue eyes, a very slim and elegant figure. She managed to pull off being really pretty, instead of just cute, despite her stature. The sight gave her hope that maybe she could pull that off herself, if she tried. Belatedly she noticed a scar over the girl’s left eye and wow, her eyes looked really pretty ...and really familiar.
“Oh, Weiss, this is Ruina, Juniper’s new leader. Er, actually what’s your guys’ team name now?” Ruby asked.
Wait, Weiss?
The girl reached her hand out for a handshake, “Weiss Schnee, a pleasure to meet you.”
Weiss. Schnee.
Shit.
“Schnee?!” Ruina pulled her outstretched hand back before she could touch Weiss.
“Yes, is that a problem?” Weiss asked haughtily.
“No- yes, fuck. Shit shit shit. I have to go. I’m going.”
This couldn’t be happening. What was Weiss doing at Beacon?! What the actual fuck? She couldn’t deal with this for four more years. How was she supposed to deal with-
Weiss
She rushed out of the dining hall, moving into a jog and even an all out sprint. Couldn’t deal with this. Couldn’t deal with that girl. Why was this happening? That girl was supposed to be in Atlas with her perfect life and racist family. Why was she at Beacon?
She had to get away from her.
Across the campus she sprinted, paying no attention to where she was going.
Had to get away from-
Weiss.
She shook her head to try and get the thought out of her head, but it wouldn’t go.
Schnee.
She had to get away, she couldn’t deal with this.
She slammed into a closed door, pounding her fist into it before she shoved it open.
Weiss Schnee.
Her sister.
Fuck.