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I, Jaune: Or, Underpowered Alcoholic Makes Huntsman School Noticeably Worse [RWBY]

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Orion Ultor said:
...Yang and Ruby are just going to love that, aren't they?
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Yang will hate Jaune irregardless. I doubt she's ever going to come around to Jaune, since it'll mean admitting she was wrong about him period, which she isn't gonna be keen on even with the few more times they chat together. Ruby is a bratty but supportive little sister type in any case. The way I wrte Ruby is a bit childish, but very emotionally intelligent, a wierd mix of good with understanding people and some social anxiety all the way. The people who are gonna flip are Indigo and Saffron Arc. And Taiyang. But that's a story you'll read in about July I think. Already written tho.

pingas plight said:
me and Jaune: Our goals are beyond your understanding.
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Normal SI: "Hmm, today I will save the world and sleep with at least one waifu."

Jaune!SI: "Hmm today I will try to apologize for my mistakes and get to know the people I've hurt and redeem themselves in their eyes, because their thoughts and opinions matter to me. Also the girls around me are literal children and there's nothing more gross than 17-year-olds, so miss me with that romance shit. Time to lift weights."
 
Normal readers: hmm today i will catch up on a story
Me: hmm today i will no-life an entirely new piece of literature gold despite the 300+ stories i havent even touched in a year that i forgot about
 
Many years on this site have taught me to be extremely wary of SI stories, but for whatever reason, this reads as one of the most true SI's I've read. The main character has significant flaws which matter in character interactions, as well as concrete reasons to change within the story. Given how many words are in the story so far, some trogs might complain "wHeRes tHe pLoT???" but I'm enjoying the gradual progression, because you're doing more than enough character interaction and development to make up for it.

Keep up the good words bby
 
Preturabo said:
Many years on this site have taught me to be extremely wary of SI stories, but for whatever reason, this reads as one of the most true SI's I've read. The main character has significant flaws which matter in character interactions, as well as concrete reasons to change within the story. Given how many words are in the story so far, some trogs might complain "wHeRes tHe pLoT???" but I'm enjoying the gradual progression, because you're doing more than enough character interaction and development to make up for it.

Keep up the good words bby
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Part of me likes to think I'm almost writing a middle finger to most SIs. SI is a deeply flawed fuck and hurts people, then realizes it and has to fight a war of inches to redeem himself and help himself and other grows as people from this, no power fantasy need apply. Of course, maybe that's just my ego. I got a bit of one sometimes. But the idea is broadly "The SI needs to grow and change as a person to help those he's hurt by being a complete jackass." I don't read many stories where the central conflict, especially in RWBY, is people needing to grow and change to become better people. That sort if is the plot. The B-team that is Team BASS has no real interest or concerns with the main plot stuff with Cinder and Roman or whatevers. The characters are the story.

It's a shame there's not more out there like it. I just write what I'd like to read and can't find, broadly. And I wanted something funny yet heartfelt about growth and overcoming your own flaws to progress. I air all my dirty laundry writing as Jaune, because it's as much me self-reflecting and trying to dig myself out of a black pit I'd drunk myself into, as I am trying to make something interesting to read. To study and deep dive into Blake and Weiss, whom I originally didn't like, and get to know them and respect them. It's just my own little quirk as a writer. I really like introspection and character growth. Emotions from how invested you are in who these people are. Including, hopefully, the fucking trainwreck that is Jaune.

I think it also helps that character driven dialog is something i feel really strong as when it comes to writing,

V3 here is mostly 3rd person since I wanted to pull back a bit from Jaune. Show off the wider world around him. Show the people he's affected and his influence on the world. And give other characters their own rich inner lives and thoughts.

So yeah. I've got lots more written and waiting to come. I just wrote a chapter last night, thinking "Lemme just do a couple words before bed aaaand that's over 3K words and it feels like a complete part of the story, fuck."
 
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Hey boss-man do you think that after the fall of Beacon Jaune and/or some of his team might follow Ruby on their quest once everyone stops completely hating each-other?
 
this is just a little thought i had that is unlikely but felt like sharing it. i am in the belief that since the aura and semblance is a manifestation of the soul Jaune has two semblance because Jaune (OG) had a very large aura reserve and the ability to share his reserve with others, while we have not seen Jaune's (Our) Aura limit in combat but when he got his aura everyone who had one was knocked out and so i thought that if both of them do really still exist at the same time could both of their abilities be used?

Also i think that our Jaune has the Semblance of aura stealing.
 
Erithemaeus said:
Can we get a reason as to why the thread was shut down for a bit? :V
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The ways of the staff are mysterious. We are not to question, only to wonder and pray. Thread's free again so that's all I can really say or do with myself. Just vibe, listen to Tyler, the Creater, and continue serving this Extra Duty I've got irl for my shenangains.

But now do you think this gives me an excuse to say "I lived, bitch" and change my name it Punished d'Orléans? Because that'd be awesome. Shame I never played MSG.

Broldakka said:
Hey boss-man do you think that after the fall of Beacon Jaune and/or some of his team might follow Ruby on their quest once everyone stops completely hating each-other?
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If anyone survives, maybe. Jaune and Ruby get a long just fine. But this story isn't going to go that far at all. Probably going to end in I, Jaune V5, since I'm nearing finishing V4 in writing. Which is going to end around the middle of RWBY V2, I feel. Not much further than the dance and Team CVFY in Lower Cairn. I feel the best place to end this story is when Team BASS comes together, and Jaune has friends he's helped and supported to decide he's worth standing up for too. A mutual team thing of friendship.

Broldakka said:
this is just a little thought i had that is unlikely but felt like sharing it. i am in the belief that since the aura and semblance is a manifestation of the soul Jaune has two semblance because Jaune (OG) had a very large aura reserve and the ability to share his reserve with others, while we have not seen Jaune's (Our) Aura limit in combat but when he got his aura everyone who had one was knocked out and so i thought that if both of them do really still exist at the same time could both of their abilities be used?

Also i think that our Jaune has the Semblance of aura stealing.
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Truth to be told to this, I'm not terribly interested in Aura and Semblance of Jaune. This story might have its root in Wormfic, but thematically it's its own thing, and Jaune himself doesn't have much care for exploring the supernatural like that. It's not a power fantasy type story, more a story about introspection and talking to people. Getting to know characters and understanding them. So unless the Semblance and Aura can he used for some worldbuilding and relating to characters, it's a secondary focus at best. Maybe more like a myth arc in the background.

But Jaune's Semblance and three souls defs has some touches of the Old Magic. It's what Ozpin senses and what really bothers him. It'd be something I'd explore in a more theoretical I, Jaune 2 which I feel would be boring to read, as it'd be more like normal RWBY but screwed up due to Jaune's antics. I want to deep dive into our characters, not focus on superpowers, power testing, power exploration, and all that. Part of the reason most of V3 here is 3rd person is so I can skip boring bits and focus more the thoughts and feelings of people beyond Jaune.

Over on SB and FF, this story's title The Context-Insensitive Semblance, which is probably an artifact title from when a Semblance was going to be a more important idea. Then I joined the Army and got way more interestring stuff, for me, I could focus on and write about.
 
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Volume 3, Chapter 6
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 6: It Go Halle Berry or Hallelujah
    "Everybody gon respect the shooter
    But the one in front of the gun lives forever."

    — 13 —​

    "DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING UNLESS IT HAS A STICKY NOTE."

    I pulled the note off the door, frowning as I looked it over. I was in a small room just past the elevator, near the topmost floor that it would let me go. The headmaster's secretary, a woman named Smiles who had the unenviable position of being the most average-looking woman I'd ever seen since coming to Remnant, had directed me here. My student ID made the elevator work and got me up this far, at least. Beforehand, most every other possible option in the elevator had been locked off. Though as a final petty fuck you, I sent the elevator to go up to Ozpin's office after I had left.

    I opened the door the note had been guarding and suddenly found myself going through a powerful sense of déjà vu.

    Racks on top of racks. I couldn't recognize any of the designs, nothing from Cisco or Juniper brands, but I recognized rows of routers. Complete with long trays that looked like servers mounted haphazardly together into rows upon rows. The background roar of a powerful air conditioning unit keeping the room chilled enough to warrant a jacket. The last man out had turned off the lights, leaving only a dim red color from illumination around the floor. It reminded me of Space Mountain over in Disney World for some reason.

    I imagined there would have been more light coming in, if it wasn't the evening. Someone had once told me that the CCTS tower here was tall enough that if someone were to watch the sunset at the ground floor, and then take the elevator to the very top, they would get a chance to witness the sunset all over again. While I wasn't quite up at that level, which I was pretty sure was a touristy observer deck in any case, it did feel like that. I could see the very tips of the sun on the horizon, through the massive windows that encircled one wall of the room like the Seattle Space Needle.

    My head felt a little foggy this high up. Not counting my time stationed at an Army base nearly a mile high, this was probably the highest I'd ever been in my life. Also not counting drugs.

    It felt a little weird to think up here. Almost like I hadn't gotten a chance to air my thoughts in a long time like this. Coco Adel probably had something to do with that

    I'll be real with you, sexual harassment wasn't something I was used to dealing with. And no, I don't count that time I went to a gay club looking for free drinks. You can't call it sexual harassment when you were deliberately setting yourself up for it.

    Gave me this sensation that I was getting a taste of my own medicine. Weiss had claimed there hadn't been a moment around me when she hadn't felt perved on. And with the vague exception that the sleeve I was wearing, Jaune, did seem to have a physical thing for her, the idea of anything like that with any of my teammates utterly disgusted me. But it did make me wonder just what kind of shit I had said and done during those black spots in my memory. All of the holes between showing up to the initiation, and the old man forcing me to go sober.

    I walked forwards, through the little valleys of servers and routers, trying to find the soldiers who were stationed here with me. I've been given the impression that there were two men who worked up here, both soldiers of different armies. I didn't really know why that was. But then again, in my experience being used for the exact same thing, soldiers could often do the highly precise and expensive work worth a six-figure salary for the price of a couple of peanuts. And given that I'm pretty sure the CCTS tower was a government project, either from the local kingdom or from Atlas, it made sense they would want to keep a couple of soldiers on hand to work it. But I wasn't finding anybody with me. The entire floor seemed abandoned, just me, the air conditioner, and the hum of electronics.

    Until I finally found a desk with another sticky note.

    "Good job. You didn't get lost. Go to the lab and do it. Everyone has to. If you fuck up, you're gone. <3 — LSgt Ozrick."

    Lab? What the fuck lab did you want me to do? And what the fuck was an LSgt? From the context it had to be some kind of rank, but none that I was familiar with. Some kind of sergeant was the best I could come up with.

    Given the context of the note, I had the distinct impression I was being fucked with. Like someone was trying to haze me. Or, now that I thought about it, I was being set up to fail. I had to imagine two soldiers being told that some seventeen-year-old kid was going to come help do their job would be offended by the idea. If this lab was some kind of test, it was probably something I was designed to fail.

    There was a note on the next desk. It listed instructions on how to find the lab, signed by someone named Tsgt Eschweiler. That one, I think I knew the rank. It was an Air Force rank where I was from, E-6 technical or tech sergeant. The equivalent to a staff sergeant in the Army, or for trivia's sake the former name of Army E-7s before we changed the term to Sergeant First Class. The more German name made me think that this was the guy from Atlas. Might explain his more direct, matter of fact nature. And the lack of any emojis in his note.

    There was also the fact that, on a technical level, that was a family name of mine. Kind of. Long story short, a couple of my Eschweiler ancestors were probably Nazis. One of them has a page on Wikipedia for helping enable war crimes as a Catholic priest. My grandmother had been a whore. Like, I mean, she spread her legs for anyone with a dick and a couple of bucks to rub together. We are talking hotdog down a hallway level of slutty. Including one time with a Brazilian man with an alarmingly German accent, who accidentally became my grandfather and then completely ghosted her when she got pregnant. This same woman would later go on to marry a Jew, so I guess at least she wasn't racist.

    My own proclivities with women had taken after that grandma. But Simone had said she forgave me for everything, which I had to presume included youthful indiscretions. Followed by murder.

    She had it coming on both accounts.

    I grabbed the second sticky note and followed the instructions through the dark corridors and server racks. Bumping my toes only twice in the dark, and only breaking one shin on a coffee table on the way, until eventually I found the so-called lab. A handful of papers and scattered RJ45 cables littered the little area, a standalone rack not connected to anything else with a couple of routers and what I had to presume were taclanes, aka KGs, little mobile encryption devices I had some familiarity with. You know, that thing they taught us for about two hours back in the schoolhouse, during the night we were told we were going back onto day shift, and were rushed through it all. Because God sure does love us military intelligence systems integrators.

    I sat down and looked over the paperwork and instructions, ignoring the passive aggressive sticky notes telling me not to plug anything into the actual systems. The gist of it was that they wanted me to make a working manual server connection between all the systems, through a patch panel, and encrypt it and then decrypt it through the two taclanes.

    They obviously expected this to be some high-level shit that some wet behind the ears teenager would utterly fail at.

    What they didn't expect was that I was an expert at this exact fucking task. The assholes at my old job had actually made me the guy in charge of doing this kind of thing after I had accidentally been way too fast at doing it. In the Army, if you accidentally prove that you're good or something, they punish you for it. The first step, however, was building a manual network. Deciding on a netmask and—

    My scroll buzzed from the table. I had kind of forgotten I'd had it. At my old worksite, you had been utterly forbidden from bringing in outside electronics like this.

    Indigo: hey bitch how deyednshun​
    ​
    You: Indie, I literally do not know a single scroll that does not have auto correct. You are literally spelling wrong on purpose.​
    ​
    Indigo: no​
    ​
    Indigo: but really hows it going I think today your staring​

    I sighed, idly texting her between setting up a /29 CIDR from within the first router to use as a framework for the rest of the network. It would fit the handful of systems I was going through. The console cable and the way to use a laptop to make it all work was about what I would expect, with a couple of Remnant-unique caveats that took a moment to learn. But in a fit of passive aggressive helpfulness, the two soldiers who apparently ran this operation had actually left an instruction manual on the counter. And I knew more than enough to abuse the instructions for all they were worth.

    You: At least the Wi-Fi here is great. I'm all alone in the top of a tower, with about a billion Lien worth of equipment. It's a really abstract punishment.​
    ​
    Indigo: video call me​
    ​
    You: What?​
    ​
    Indigo: dumbass u have awsum signal and my fingers hurt from typing call me​

    I decided to internally name this router Superfly before fishing around on the options of my scroll to figure out how to do a video call.

    A moment later and I had the call going. I set up the phone—scroll—I might be in my old workflow zone, but I had to remember that this was not Earth, and I needed to use the right terms. So I set up my scroll on the table, so the camera hopefully pointed at my face.

    For my effort, I got a face full of Indigo's boobs. She poked her scroll and it just fell over. Then she appeared to give up trying to mount it, and just held it up, giving me a dopey smile.

    "Heya, Jaune," she said happily. "What the fuck kind of detention did they give you? At least back in my day, the teachers would spank you and then you would wonder if it wasn't a sex thing and if that was why you were into some weird shit when you got older."

    Coming from anyone else, I kind of would have brushed that off. Given that she was my older sister, and more importantly I intellectually thought she was hot even if my body thought oh fuck hell no, all I could do was shiver.

    "I take it all back, Indigo. I can totally tell you why I'm acting weird, and it's all your fault," I said. It took me a moment to probably get my accent right. A vaguely generic Midwestern American accent. If I sounded a little too Southern, it would be weird.

    Alabama incest vibes, yo.

    She frowned at me. "What are they even making you do? Looks like some nerd shit. I guarantee you that's not my fault that you know nerd shit. Remember that time I was dating that boy, and it turned out he was your bully, and at first I didn't mind that he kept shoving you into his locker, but then I realized that that was awful of me and—"

    "Why do most of your stories about me also involve your boyfriend at the time?"

    She shrugged, and apparently spun around in whatever chair she was sitting in. "My point is, the day of the locker should have stopped you from being a nerd. I guess I failed you."

    I got up to set up the next router. I was going to name this one McTibbins because that word sounded funny to me. On a very annoying note, none of the routers here seemed capable of running fiber optic. And now that I thought about it, I didn't see any fiber optic in this entire building. Just the equivalent of RJ45 or whatever. Picture your standard ethernet cable, the one you plug from your computer into your modem to get direct internet access. That's the kind of cable I'm talking about, more or less. Fiber optic is a little more complex, but a lot more high speed, since it literally uses light itself to transmit information. You can actually test fiber optic cables by putting a laser up onto one end of the cable, and seeing if, after all the spiraling and maneuvering, the laser came out visible on the other side. If it did, that meant the cable was operable.

    I legitimately had to wonder if this vaguely future fantasy with hints of cyberpunk world of Remnant was actually a lot less technically advanced than Earth in some regards. I knew their security best practices were shit if some asshole like me could basically hack into the programming using nothing but a bowling alley terminal. On Earth, cyber and network warfare had been on the very cutting edge of technology, and my unit in the Army was uniquely designated as a hybrid signals and intelligence battalion specifically geared towards network warfare. We routinely had active encounters with the Russians, whose mastery of the Adidas tracksuit made them a formidable adversary in the battle for cyber security.

    Indigo snapped her fingers, which made a weird sound through my scroll speakers. "Jaune! Little brother. Baby dick!" She whistled. "Back here in the real world, kid."

    I shook my head, and just continued working on the router. "As if you knew anything about my dick."

    She made a face, arms folded. "Of course I do. Seven sisters and one brother, and not enough hot water for all of us to shower separately. I still have those pictures of you as a baby in the tub. As soon as you get a girlfriend, I'm going to send all of them to her. Got to keep you safe from them girls." She winked.

    "This is exactly why I'm not going to name you my kid's godmother."

    Indigo gasped, pressing her cheek up against the camera. "Don't you keep my future nieces or nephews away from me! Who else are they going to blame for all of their emotional problems later on in life if not me? You? You couldn't emotionally-traumatize-a-child your way out of a wet paper bag!"

    I legitimately had to pause at that and just kind of stare at her. Just kind of blinked, squinted, and felt my soul leave my body. "Well luckily for any potential future descendants, the last woman to grab my ass was about an hour ago and she was gay."

    Indigo whistled. "Wow. So all it took for her was one squeeze to realize she'd prefer titty. I mean, every girl's been there. But damn."

    I made a so-so gesture. "Honestly, it was more like platonic sexual harassment. I believe she has adopted me as her new little brother."

    "That bitch!" Indigo hissed. "Tell me her name so I can slander her all across social media!"

    For some reason, the idea of Remnant having social media struck me as both completely ridiculous, and yet entirely in character with millennials and zoomers of all worlds. Apparently three things were inevitable in the course of human civilization: death, taxes, and the invention of Facebook by notorious CIA agent Mark Zuckerberg.

    I fixed up wiring my two configured routers together and worked on connecting to a third through a patch panel.

    "Coco Adel. But she's taller than you, so be careful."

    Indigo looked away, furiously typing at something. Given past experience, I'm sure that that suddenly annoyed look on her face was because she had spelled every single one of her words incorrectly and Google had committed seppuku.

    "The fuck kinda name is CFVY. Coffee? That doesn't even make sense," she said. "How the fuck you going to complain about my ability to spell when this is what you have to compare me to?"

    "Wait, wait, wait, hold the phone. How do you know that?"

    She gave me a look like I was retarded, and turned her scroll towards the screen of a computer. Even in this world, phone cameras didn't play nice with LCD screens. It looked like she was on some website called HuntsHub. And after ascertaining that this was not a Huntsman themed porn site—I had seen those and thoroughly not enjoyed them—I realized that this was some kind of mix between a forum and a Wikipedia or something.

    "Gotta admit," Indigo said thoughtfully. "Coco has some really good style. And I am technically still single after kicking my last boyfriend into the pool." She tapped at her chin. "You think if we got married, she would be happy to become your actual older sister? I wouldn't mind having some eye candy like that around."

    That was so bad I had to gag, forcing me away from setting up the taclane. "Please don't ever marry my older female bully."

    "I'm feeling like you're challenging me. Are you challenging me? You know I can't resist a challenge, Jaune."

    Unable to concentrate on actually fixing up the call between this taclane and its brother, I instead navigated to a different tab on my scroll. If I googled or whatever the fuck it was called for Coco Adel, this link was the first for her name. It genuinely did look like a Wikipedia article, or maybe something like one of those fan wikis. Complete with a little sidebar displaying her photograph and a bit of trivia including her height, hair color, and the name of her weapon—the barely pronounceable Gianduja. Apparently she was a graduate of Pharos Academy, a native to Vale, the official leader of her team, and was naturally right-handed. The actual article didn't have too much to say about her story. More like an elongated version of a Pokedex entry. Some of which I wondered how exactly the writer knew, before I noticed that the last edit had been made by an account named Cocoa_Better, and realized it must have been Coco herself.

    "I wouldn't want you to marry someone who makes cringy edits to her own Wikipedia article," I said with renewed disgust.

    "Wiki what?"

    I shook my head, and went back to connecting the two taclanes. "This website. HuntsHub. It seems like an ego project for people."

    She gave me a mild look. "So you mean you're not the person who does your own article?"

    "I have an article?"

    Indigo shrugged. "I think they have a bot or something that automatically makes entries for the new freshman year teams, because I refuse to believe someone that nerdy exists to do it themselves. People edit them as they go. I think the biggest one this year is some girl named Pyrrha. Seems she was a big deal over in Mistral. Your page mostly just says you're the leader of team BASS."

    "Who the hell cares about what I'm up to?"

    She spun around once more in her chair, before leaning back. She was wearing some kind of tight night outfit that made her boobs uncomfortably visible. I didn't like it. "You're all basically celebrities. The future generation of heroes with mysterious powers out there to save the world. You know, before you get yourself killed. Dad's got a really big page, too. It's actually how I learned how to pronounce Crocea Mors, the family sword you stole from the fireplace."

    I glanced at my left arm, where I still had my shield mounted in its retracted form. "I wrote my name in it, so now it's my shield by law. Plus I licked it."

    Going back to my computer terminal, I found that I was able to successfully SSH from the first router all the way through the other systems, through both taclanes—traveling across red and then black side networks—and log in to the router at the very end without needing to manually connect my computer to it. But pinging didn't work. I was convinced that that didn't actually make any sense, but that technology was basically voodoo and this was par for the course in my daily operations. I guess I just had to set up IP forwarders for that. Pretty much just telling it that if it wanted to find a certain router in the network, based on its ID, to go through one of its ports in that direction. And if it had no idea what to find, what direction to send all traffic by default.

    I had once tried explaining it to a sailor coworker when I was in charge of doing the lab in my workshop. "Say you're trying to find Paul, but the only person you know is Peter. An IP Forward with a default route says that if you don't know who to ask in order to find Paul, you ask Peter. Thankfully, Peter knows, because his IP forwarders point directly to Paul. So by sending your question to Peter, trying to find Paul, you get sent on your way to the right person."

    "You might as well just piss on your sword to claim it then," Indigo said. "Either way, Dad's going to kick your ass next time if he ever sees you again."

    "If."

    She frowned deeply, looking uncomfortable. Indigo folded one of her legs and bounced her foot idly. "Don't say that. You're coming back home one day. I mean, think of the Holiday. Where are you going to go during the semester break?"

    "If I go back home, what's going to be there for me except people who wouldn't recognize me?" I shook my head. "I don't even know any of they names no more, for all intents and purposes."

    Indigo went quiet for a moment. "Saffron says she's going to be there for the Holiday. A lot of our sisters are. You might be an idiot who somehow learned technology and is growing that weird pube beard, but you're still Jaune. Still our little baby brother." The smile she tried was an uncomfortable expression. "Would be kind of wrong if our little baby brother Jaune never came home."

    I stared at my screen as the final ping went through. The entire laboratory network was working, all on a neat little network, all talking to itself manually. Focusing on the completion made it easier not to think about Indigo.

    "Jaune's dead," I said softly. Able to say it at my screen, and not to her face. "I killed him. Now all you've got is the asshole in front of you wearing his skin."

    Part of it felt good to admit. To just say out loud what had happened. Even though I know she wouldn't believe me. Even though I had directly couched it in terms of a metaphor. Hiding the painful truth, admitting it to her like this, in plain sight.

    Jesus but was I a piece of shit to one of the only people in this world who cared about me. Because Indigo didn't really care about me. She cared about Jaune, and I appeared to be Jaune. She would probably want to kill me if she knew the real truth, if she actually believed me when I told her it.

    Hell, I wanted to kill me too. But I had gotten over those urges during my first couple of days here. Around the time I survived the attempt, and earned the temporary name bowel blaster.

    Indigo sighed. "Ouch. I think I cut myself on that edge of yours." But even she couldn't bring herself to make that remark sound snappy and sarcastic. It just sounded like she was going through the motions. Aggressively pretending everything was all right when everyone knew better.

    I looked at the clock. Jesus Christ it had gotten late. No way my detention was supposed to last this long. More to the point, what the hell was Indigo still doing awake at this hour?

    I had to ask. "Shouldn't a girl like you be at partying on a Friday night like this?"

    She made a puffy face at me. "What'd be the point? Am I supposed to just get drunk and have some stupid fun time thinking you're out here suffering without me to make it worse?"

    I snorted, laughing. "You're the worst little sister I ever had."

    "I'm going to saw off your legs just to make us eye level!" she threatened suddenly.

    I looked at my scroll, right into her eyes, and smiled. I allowed myself to glow with my Aura, lighting up the dark surroundings of the server room. Turning it on still felt like using a muscle that shouldn't exist. The closest I could think of was phantom limb syndrome. My Aura was always active on some level. Always a functioning part of myself, but one that, unless I was using it, felt like it wasn't really there. Phantom limb. But when I reached for it, I could feel it. It wasn't warm like I expected. Wasn't like a full body hug or a cowling or whatever.

    It was more like the feeling of being aware of a hole in your chest, and that something was filling it up. A keen awareness that you were coming down from an existential drug high, and that only your conscious will was keeping yourself from crashing. That was what using Aura felt like.

    "It's going to take more than just harsh words to break my walls down, Indie."

    And that feeling of the crash came in full when you let it go. It was why it was so hard to let go. I couldn't do it, not fully, not unless I was distracted proper. I let it burn at the fringes of my consciousness, little more than a vague frisson in the corners of my perception.

    Indigo hissed inwardly and swore. "Of course you would get a force field, you stupid invincible asshole. Just for that, I'm going to find new and creative ways to emotionally abuse you."

    I smiled, not letting the Aura leave me. If I looked really hard, I could almost see a vague reflection in the screen of my scroll. So faint it was almost like willing myself to see spots in my vision. But it felt comfortable. Like riding a nicotine high, no actual effect, but comforting knowing you've got it in you. And detrimentally noticeable for its absence.

    Only for my smile to fade as someone behind me said, "Wait, what the fuck? Why the hell are you still here at this hour? Holy shit, if you broke something, we're going to fucking kill you!"

    I turned around, and saw the two soldiers. Wearing different outfits entirely. The one speaking was labeled Ozrick, Royal Army. The other one, wearing an entirely different uniform labeled Eschweiler, Atlas Army, was just standing there holding a bucket of fried chicken.

    "Talk to you later, little sis," I said, and let the call last just long enough for her to yell in protest before I killed the connection.

    I pounded the enter key on my computer, sending the ping all the way through the network. "The lab works. I can remote in from one router all the way past the taclanes into the last one. You two can both go fuck yourselves. I'll be here tomorrow to show you dipshits how to actually do your fucking job."

    I grabbed the last drumstick from Tech Sergeant Eschweiler's bucket of fried chicken on my way out. Motherfucker didn't deserve the delicious dark meat.

    a/n I lived, bitch. We now return to our regularly scheduled Jaune.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Volume 3, Chapter 7
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 7: It's Called Hentai and It's Art [ASMR] [F4M] [NSFW]
    "This is filth. FILTH!"

    — 14 —​

    Getting home late on a weekend wasn't something I was used to. Mostly because the past weekends I had, Fridays included, been all alone with nowhere to go. The rest of my team had been in detention. And I had to wonder if they always came back this late, or if I had just really been working until this ungodly hour of my own accord.

    I opened the door, and jumped a little as I saw Blake. She was sitting on her bed, nestled somewhat under the covers, using her sparse pillows as a backrest. As soon as our eyes met, she gave me what I almost imagined was a smile, and folded her book shut, which, with those cat eyes of hers, probably meant she was able to read with just the moonlight. Blake removed her earbuds, and said in a whisper, "Your timing's awful. You're ruining the best part of the book by being here."

    I removed my shirt and tossed it onto my bed. Working on my socks and shoes, I said in the same whisper, "Ah, got to the porn part?"

    "It's not porn!"

    I gestured vaguely. "That's the one I bought you way back when. You really think I didn't skim through the good parts?"

    Blake curled her legs up into an almost fetal position, glaring at me. "So that's why this part of the book is sticky."

    I laughed, only to cut the noise off shortly as I glanced at Weiss. With little cucumbers over her eyes, there was no way she could hear us with her headphones on. Some kind of local equivalent of Beats by Dr. Dre or whatever. Knowing her, it was probably some kind of self meditation guide for how to best be a racist. Remember to use the hard R. Only cool kids use the R. People say nice things about you when you disparage the poor.

    Meanwhile, from my experience, Shamrock was one hell of a heavy sleeper. She, right now. I basically needed to invoke chemical warfare to get her up.

    Opening the little closet to find the part I had cordoned off for myself, I paused. I went through some of my outfits and other miscellaneous accoutrements. There was something hiding under a couple of my bags. I hadn't really gone through most of them. A waste of space, mostly. Objects I figured were mostly sentimental from the vague blurriness I felt at the corners of my perception whenever I held them.

    I felt the ghost of Coco's hand slapping my ass as I pushed one of the duffle bags aside. There, resting at an odd angle on the ground beneath them, was a guitar. Mine. I searched my mind, and recalled that Jaune in the show had once tried to seduce or ask Weiss out by playing the guitar at her.

    You can't be a well-rounded Huntsman if all you do is hunting stuff.

    The thought came with such clarity that I half expected Coco to appear beside me, the newest in my long repertoire of psychoses. But it was just a particularly pertinent memory, like those of Lisa.

    I looked down at my hands. They weren't as soft as you might imagine. A couple of curious calluses suddenly made a lot of sense. I only knew how to use my sword and shield because of the inherent muscle memory of this body. And while my grandfather had taught me a little bit how to play acoustic guitar, that had been a subjective decade ago.

    "Think you could play?" I mumbled under my breath to Jaune, reaching out my hand to take the guitar.

    "What?" Blake asked.

    I emerged from the closet, carrying the guitar. "I said, you could just get the audiobook version. Less sticky. Easier to fall asleep to."

    In a weirdly soft voice, almost like she was complaining in church, she said, "Wasn't trying to fall asleep."

    Setting the guitar down beneath my bed, I looked over my shoulder at her, frowning. "Then what?"

    She didn't meet my eyes. "Detention didn't last this long for us."

    Oh.

    We didn't say anything for a moment. We let the words hang like aerials.

    I swallowed. "I… appreciate that."

    Blake scrunched up her cheeks, as if about to retort something. Claim that it wasn't for my sake. That a part of her wasn't worried I had been out late doing something unknown. The whole tsundere shtick. Instead, she just nodded.

    "Yeah," she said.

    "Yeah," I repeated.

    Neither of us knew how to continue the conversation.

    About a subjective couple months or so ago, I'd had a girlfriend. The story had played out the same way it did with most women in my life. Stole her heart. Then done my own thing with her as a secondary concern. Until whatever we had had together died just as quickly as it showed up. Accused of being cold, distant, and unemotional in the long term. It had been her story all along, and I was ruining the plan.

    Until I murdered her.

    I sat on my bed, pressing my fingers into my eyes until I saw spots. Eric had the same problem. When it came to people, I didn't really get them that well. No, that's not correct. I understood and got along with people exceptionally well. Some of them even genuinely liked me as a person. It's just a matter of digging deeper into that, that it fell apart. Women especially. What the fuck do you do when it comes to girls after you get along with them? We date. We sleep together. And a month later she never wants anything to do with me.

    Already, every time we spoke, I had this feeling like Blake would start seeing right through me. Every time things got heavy, she would realize part of me was going through the motions, scrambling through poor excuses, and reveal that I had genuinely no idea what the fuck I was doing or saying.

    I had been out late for my own reasons. Trying to prove to a bunch of military fucks that I could compete on their level. And here Blake was, staying up late, just to make sure I actually got back. It was a small thing. It was subtle. It proved her care was genuine.

    What the fuck could I do to compete with that? This wasn't how I thought about dealing with people. I was still thinking of some kind of grand gesture to finally win over Weiss to my side. To make her view me as a person like Blake did.

    I needed a drink. Badly. To knock the thoughts out of my head, and clock me out to sleep all the same. Made me wish I hadn't spit out the scotch all over Qrow. That had been a week ago, nearly, and I still wished I had swallowed. It was that feeling you got whenever you got dehydrated and couldn't take a drink, you kept thinking of moments in your past where you took water for granted.

    "Jaune?"

    I looked up. She had crawled out of her covers, reaching out a hand in my direction on all fours. I made myself smile.

    "I don't take myself too seriously, do I?" I asked.

    The question seemed to take her off guard. She sat back down, legs folded beneath her. "Depends. Is not-serious Jaune going to call me 'Mittens' again?"

    A hot flush of embarrassment crossed my cheeks. I shook my head.

    She pursed her lips in concern. "Then, I don't know. Is something bothering you?"

    My eyes went to Weiss. Blake seemed to interpret that as an answer, and nodded.

    "I don't know, either." She offered me a kind of half smile, tilting her head a fraction.

    I sighed. "Met some girl did today named Coco who was trying to tell me I was taking things too seriously. That was half of my problem. But the whole time, I kept thinking." I shook my head, still pressing fingers into my eyes. "When I didn't take anything seriously, just drowned myself in a black hole of hedonism to make the pain go away, I was an unrepentant asshole and I made the people closest to me hate me. For fuck's sake, Blake, I unironically like you now. I know that sounds really dickish in me, but you're cool. I just—" I compressed a noise in my throat. "Getting to know you, I feel—"

    I threw my hands. "Fuck! I'm just shooting myself in the foot. I'm not making it better. I'm probably just making you feel worse."

    To my immense surprise, she crawled back up onto all fours. And with an almost cat-like butt wiggle, jumped across from her bed onto mine. None of our beds were particularly far apart in this little room. We had tried sectioning off little corners to ourselves, but I didn't like that because it made the floor plan look like a swastika. Not that that symbol actually meant anything in this world, but still.

    Blake sat up beside me. I could almost feel the heat radiating off her body. "Hi," she said, and I ran my tongue along my gums, unsure how to respond.

    "I think it's kind of funny," she said, tucking her black hair behind her ear. "All of these speeches you try doing, and you still suck at them. You think you'd be good by now, but you're not."

    I grimaced, and she just laughed. Only to quickly stifle it Weiss shifted in her sleep. But given that the girl wasn't waking up, we kind of just resumed.

    "I think," she said slowly, "There's a difference between taking things too seriously, and losing yourself in a black hole. I have that problem too. I just, I don't know, I just get so fixated on something being wrong that I can't stop thinking about it. I think and I think and I think and it just turns into an obsession. Until I—"

    She gave me this kind of fake smile that legitimately made me uncomfortable. Twisting her head around sideways to look up at me like something out of an old horror movie.

    "I wanted to kill him, you know?" she said softly. I had the feeling I was about to star in a snuff movie, the way she was looking at me. "Cardin, I mean. I just kept thinking about how much of an asshole he was, how much I hated him, how he got away with bullying a girl because she was born the wrong species, and no one cared. It felt like only I cared, and she hated me for caring. And the only reason you cared was because I cared and—he was on the ground, and I wanted to kill him so badly. Just nail him to the ground like they do on the frontier. And the only thing that stopped me was you."

    I nodded slowly. "You had a look in your eyes. I didn't know what we were thinking, but I didn't like it. Looked like something was hurting you. The kind of face you'd make before you got drunk just so you wouldn't second-guess yourself before doing something you know you'd regret sober. I would know."

    Blake swallowed, the smile going with it, thank God. "I just kept thinking and then what? What if I did what I wanted to do, what I thought would feel good, and then what? Where did I draw the line? What separated me from what people like the White Fang are doing?"

    "Nothing," I said.

    She ran her hands through her hair, stopping to finger at her hair bow. Where her cat ears would be. "And then what?"

    I reached out a hand, and then stopped. I didn't know what I was doing. Maybe going on some old chauvinistic instinct. "And then you would have still been my partner, Blake. He wasn't worth it, but you are. Even if you didn't agree with me, I still woulda done everything I could for you. Promised I'd always be there for you."

    She looked at my hand, and then back up at me. And then leaned against me, our shoulders touching. It wasn't any kind of romantic connection, nothing of that nature. Blake was just leaning on me for support, literally and metaphorically. And I had to admit, I enjoyed the human touch. In a very real sense, it felt like something I needed. I leaned back into her, until our weight supported each other just sitting there. Her head against my shoulder. My eyes forward but seeing nothing.

    "Everybody says that," she sighed. "You're the first person dumb enough that I believe them."

    "Thanks, you too."

    She laughed. This bleak little sound like the chiming of bells without anything inside them, clinking against each other in a dying breeze. "I been thinking about it ever since that day. I don't think I really understand you. But I don't think I really understand myself either."

    The way she phrased that didn't slip by me. A slight word order that I would use. Like the way I spoke was infecting her. I smiled.

    "I know you're the kind of girl who would want to kill someone, want it really badly, but could never do it. And forced to make that choice, would rather abandon everything in your life than forsake your morals."

    She was quiet for a moment. "When I was growing up, my mom told me to never wear my heart on my sleeve. People would see that. They would use it against me. So I should keep my heart buried deep in my chest where it belongs. Where even if it bled, it would just be internal. Just be my problem."

    I adjusted my shoulder, trying to make it a little bit more comfortable for her head. "My mom punched me in the face because I got drunk and then I wandered off into a swamp and bit an alligator. We have a lot in common."

    She didn't want to laugh, but it came out anyways. "You always know the perfect thing not to say, and then you say it anyway. I hate you, Jaune."

    "Would you rather me just be a sad-sack punching bag?"

    Blake gave me a serious expression. "But that's what I mean. What you were talking about earlier, that is. There's a line between being so serious it's an obsession, and knowing when to be, I don't know, I hate saying it like this, but a human being."

    "You're no less human than I am. Probably more so. I stand by that." I sighed. "My older sister, Indigo, called me while I was working. I work through my detention. Up there in this IT server room in the CCTS Tower." I pointed upwards at nothing, unnecessarily. "And all this time, I couldn't help but think that I wasn't the same boy she thought she knew, the boy she loved as a brother. I'm just some fuck-face wearing his skin. I'm Jaune, but I'm not. The same person that my sisters and my mother and potentially my father knew, raised, and love, I'm not him. And every time Indigo tries to be there for me, part of me just, I don't know, it can't handle it. It feels like she's faking being nice to me, because that is just who she is, how she expects herself to behave around the boy named Jaune Arc."

    She put her hand over mine and squeezed. "I saw… people back there. In the hospital, I mean. This cowboy, this soldier, and you. And then there was you you."

    Reflexively, I flinched away. She held her position, letting me take my hand away. But she kept leaning against me. After a moment, I sat back up, unwilling to let her just fall without my support.

    "Yeah. That."

    She took a big breath, puffing up her chest. In a masculine tone with a nasal twinge to it, she said, "Ah don't me done care none bout ya girl's problems. Ya girl ain't fidna talk about it, I don't me will hear me hwat. But I is me a-there for her all is same."

    I couldn't help myself. I broke down laughing. "Just what the fuck was that, girl?"

    She punched me in the shoulder. "I'm pretty sure that was an exact quote from you."

    "I don't sound me like that none!"

    Blake gave me a look so flat that it achieved true level and ruined Morty's life. "Yeah-huh, you do. And if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. There's things I don't want to talk about. Believe you me, as a frayed bundle of neuroses pretending to be human just the same as you are, I can understand. The least I can do is respect that back, Jaune. You're kind of my only friend like that."

    I looked away, my eyes going to Weiss on her bed. She had rolled over slightly, knocking her headphones off.

    "You're kind of my only friend, period."

    "Yeah, what he said." She winked. "Gosh, I hate you. How come every time we talk we get all mushy feely girly?"

    "Because deep down you can sense that I know how to paint my nails and you don't."

    "Pfft! No one paints their nails better than my dad. Who do you think taught me?"

    "I think your dad might be gay."

    Blake gasped, her hands going to her cheeks. "Oh no! How am I going to tell his wife!"

    And there I was again, laughing with Blake. It took me a while to compose myself. Mostly because I was trying to keep my laughter quiet, which we both seemed to agree made it only funnier.

    "Thanks," I managed to say. "I don't know. I feel like we didn't really accomplish anything, but I still feel better."

    She rolled her eyes. "Pretty much sums up every conversation we have these days. I'm getting pretty sick of these heart-to-hearts. Maybe next time we talk, how about we just call each other names? But not Mittens. That one sucked."

    "But I liked Mittens!"

    She stuck her tongue out at me. "Never gonna happen." Blake stretched out her arms over her head and made a little moan. All before getting that look in her eyes like a cat about to make a jump, staring at her bed.

    I grabbed my bunched up shirt and threw it right over her head as she made the jump. She made a noise in the back of her throat as she completely missed and face planted into the ground, sliding under her bed.

    Blake stood up in a huff and bared her teeth at me. Before throwing her shoe right at my face.

    I let out a little yelp as it hit paydirt. Only to realize that the quick glow of my Aura had blocked it.

    From her bed, Weiss inhaled deeply. Blake and I both realized we were probably about to wake our teammates up. So we settled in for just flipping each other off—I started it, and she reluctantly returned it with two fingers raised. All before we settled into bed ourselves for the night.

    And you know what? I honestly couldn't even tell you what the hell she and I had talked about this entire half hour or whatever. But for the life of me, I felt better.

    Maybe, just maybe, with all the effort I had put into trying to fix myself, Blake and I did deserve each other. As shitty, awful, mentally handicapped friends who consistently made each other's lives worse, but still friends.

    a/n Anyone else ever notice Jaune is shirtless in like half of his scenes in this fic? Literally Mr. Fanservice. Victim of the female gaze.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Volume 3, Chapter 8
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 8: The Hollow
    "I would jump off a cliff to prove a point."

    — 15 —​

    Weiss remembered the first time she had ever questioned if what she and her family did was wrong. After her older sister Winter had left for Atlas Academy proper, she had found her mother in her study crying into a bottle of wine. It had become something routine, almost.

    "Mommy?" she tried, only to picture her father scolding her for using that kind of language. The hem of her dress felt somehow bunched up. She'd straightened it out, along with her spine and posture.

    "Mother?" she tried again. Prim and proper. Even for just a little girl with her face poking through the great doors into her mother's study.

    Her mother had looked up, tears in her eyes. Before she saw that angry, almost hateful look in her eyes. A wounded animal in a cage, fed from table scraps and the mockingly thrown peanuts of passersby.

    Weiss had frozen, staring. Trying to figure out for all the world what she had done wrong. Winter was off to do great things. Her father had suddenly stopped talking about his eldest daughter, so that meant she wasn't doing anything bad for him to scold. If Winter was doing great, and mother was sad, then that had to mean that Weiss had done something wrong.

    Her mother caught her own expression, and down what was left of her wine. "Hey there, little snow pea." All said with the kind of forced tenderness mother always tried. It always came across as fake and vaguely distressing. She would have preferred if Mother had just kept things together like Father always said a Schnee had to.

    A Schnee was the storm. They were the ice and the cold. That's what the family meant.

    Weiss saw the way her mother was trying to be warm and friendly. She had slammed the door shut, so no one would ever see a Schnee acting wrong.

    She didn't have another even halfway serious conversation with her mother after that for the better part of a year. It's why for a time, she stuck so close to her father. Shadowing him and learning. With her older sister Winter gone for the Army, Weiss was the future of the SDC. Which meant she was the future of the family. The future of this world.

    It was why she was there on that fateful day following her father as he somewhat uncharacteristically invited her to a meeting. "The proper place to learn form and function among the right people," as he called it.

    The Schnees were there. Alongside the Blumens of IG Farben, an industrial biochemical company. Her father had set her on a few awkward dances with its heir, a boy named Oleander whom Weiss suspected didn't have a working face, the way he was always so blank.

    The SDC, IG Farben, Hartmann Flugzeugwerke, and other old companies with equally old Mantle names save for their common modern-day acronyms. Their leaders had gathered together to meet with the recently elected Ironwood.

    She still remembered the dress she wore that day. Blue with red highlights. Something she would never wear again, as it was common for her more formal attires. It matched the furniture a little too well. Taking 'children should be seen and not heard' to its logical extension of being both silent and invisible.

    "Gentlemen," the tall general with a face like chiseled stone had said as soon as he entered the room. Weiss had perked up immediately, seeing Winter beside him.

    Her father had only frowned deeply. As if taking the sight of his eldest daughter as a personal insult. In hindsight, Weiss recognized it as a kind of power play. But at the time, she was just happy to see her sister, and upset she had to remain silent.

    "Yes, yes, Ironwood," IG Farben's ancestral leader had said, not recognizing the minor family politics at play. "The old Reichskanzler was far faster on the uptake than you. But we all came at your request. Exactly how do you intend to win our support today?"

    General Ironwood had paused, an amused look on his face. His arms were behind his back in a position halfway towards parade rest. "Support? Oh no, you misunderstand this. You're here together to ensure we are all on the same page." He spread his hands magnanimously. "As of now, the Kingdom of Atlas is revoking your labor contracts. All indentured laborers are now property of the realm, and are hereby released from contract and oath. You will not be compensated. Attempts to resist or circumvent shall result in your liquidation."

    It was all so many big words for Weiss. She looked first at her sister, who was only giving a kind of victorious little smile. Whatever was going on, it was something good. Winter had a better head on her shoulder than anyone Weiss knew.

    "You what?!" her father had demanded, standing up so fast that his crystal glass of Patch Scotch toppled to the floor and shattered. "Are you out of your ice-picking mind, James?"

    The General sucked on his lips mildly, shaking his head. He looked pleased in a way he couldn't properly show off. "My predecessor is dead. His ruinous policies, I intend to murder. That's why they elected me Chancellor of the Realm and not your generously funded patsy."

    "This is absurd," her father had said so viciously that Weiss unconsciously felt the urge to bring her knees to her chest. The only thing that stopped her was when her older sister looked over at her and smiled.

    Whatever was going on, Winter was darkly satisfied. And she always knew what to do. Always knew the right thing. And if this was the wrong thing, why was she so happy?

    "How dare you try to tell us what to do!" her father had spat. "You're no king!"

    The General had looked unconcerned. "That's right. My army murdered the royal family seventy years ago. We're stepping back by the will of the people to sort out the mess you've made of our realm. Like the old monarch, you threw in your lot with the wrong horse. No one has ever been beyond our reach. I intend to make it very clear why yours was a fatal mistake. But I trust men as intelligent as you to not make them in the future. Adjust accordingly to the new market of the Zollverein. Do I make myself understood?"

    Weiss screwed her eyes up at the memory. Right now, here at Beacon, she simply brushed her hair to the side and pressed her ears against her headphones. Letting the soft music act as a sort of home remedy for a headache.

    Certain artists and genres had effects on her. It was as much physical as psychosomatic. It happened days since the incident, and she kept having intrusive thoughts about her past. The men she had tried so hard to escape by coming here. They had shown up in her dreams when she was passed out from what the unofficial reports were describing as a massive CCTS microwave burst. No one exactly had answers, but the prevailing theory was that something in the communications tower had broken, and sent intense radio waves down across campus. The more sensitive students and faculty had been knocked out by it until a brave Atlas technician had fixed the mechanical error.

    She was vaguely aware of the dangers of intense radio communications. Once upon a time, she had visited a military base, overseeing some of her company's delivery to the soldiers. She had watched the soldiers load up special Dust into their communication equipment, located in a sort of compound that the captain in charge had certainly referred to as the Wurstbude, the bratwurst shack. Apparently if you left sausages or other meat too close to the equipment, the microwave radiation would literally cook them to a crisp. It was recommended you turn the equipment on and then run away really fast.

    Given the impossible power and importance of the central CCTS Tower at the heart of Beacon, one of the four great towers that enabled instantaneous global communication, she supposed the theory was accurate.

    She hoped the incident wouldn't give her brain cancer. Maybe that was the source of all the annoying thoughts she'd had during her dream while passed out. An oddly clear, clinical dream that didn't fade with time like most.

    "Is this seat taken?" a woman asked, snapping Weiss out of her reveries. She was partially thankful for it. Those thoughts were becoming more and more intrusive. Another part of her was offended. She'd come to this spot in the library to be alone.

    Without detention anymore, Weiss was admittedly a bit at a loss to figure out what to do with her time. She'd always been the kind of girl unable to get anything done if she had an appointment, at, say, four p.m. Part of that had been inbuilt, and another just a fact of life for a Schnee. Her father ensured her life was busy, and barely under her control. Singing lessons in the morning, followed by dancing, private lectures with her tutors. The only real act of rebellion had been getting her rapier and practicing with it. Until she'd convinced her father to consider working with it to be a good addendum to dance. Probably why she found the two acts so intrinsically linked on an almost spiritual level.

    But when she blinked away her thought to see who it was, she nearly did a double take. Pyrrha Nikos. Winner of the Mistral Regional Tournament four years running. The star of the current freshmen year. And the girl she would have killed for to have as a partner instead of that weird Shamrock person.

    "I'll take your silence as a no," Pyrrha said, taking a seat. She wasn't dressed in her school uniform or even her armor. Not that she really had to. Just something casual, a sweater tied around her waist. Weiss herself didn't exactly have anything casual like that. The best was the outfit her father had jokingly called Snow Pea, since her normal dress was still in the laundromat after getting hit by flying food.

    "Hi," Weiss said, perfectly on time and elegant.

    Pyrrha side-eyed her. Before just kind of shrugging it off, not bringing attention to it. "I see you here a lot, Weiss. That's your name, right? We've only spoken about twice before, and I'm not sure you ever gave me your name."

    The girl had a way of making Weiss feel distinctly out of place. Just calling attention to the basic facts of her surroundings. It had something to do with her voice. She sounded older than she was, and she was no more than seventeen. Weiss knew that for a fact. She also knew that it would only be about seven months before she was eighteen, a fact she only knew regretfully. In doing her research for potential future partners during the night before the Initiation, Weiss had stumbled across a HuntsHub thread about the upcoming freshman class here at Beacon, and apparently learned that a non-insubstantial group of fans were keeping detailed calendars of when the girls of the freshman class would turn eighteen. A bunch of creeps, one and all.

    Back in the real world, Weiss shrugged. "It's quiet here. At least usually. Most of the time in my room, I can barely think."

    "Not used to teammates?" Pyrrha asked. "I admit it was a little odd myself. Back at Sanctum, we actually had dedicated rooms for ourselves, sort of. The team I had back then, the only part of the room we shared was a common area with a little kitchenette. It's taken some adjustment to get used to one giant bedroom."

    Weiss scowled. "You can say that again. It's bad enough with a couple of girls with you. I've got a boy and a half in my room."

    "Shamrock and Jaune?"

    How did she know everyone's name like that? Knowing Weiss, she could understand. She was a big deal. But the only other team that Weiss herself could name was VYPR, mostly because it was where her dream teammate Pyrrha had wound up. Other teams didn't exactly matter on that level, and it didn't typically come up in conversation for her. So either Pyrrha had an exceptional memory, or spent way too much time doing background research.

    Weiss shook her head. "I suppose. But I don't really want to dedicate any brain cells to them. They've taken up enough so far."

    Pyrrha gave her a small frown that looked somehow concerned and painfully motherly. At least, that's what Weiss imagined motherly looked like. Not that she had much experience receiving. "Trying to get away from them?"

    "Pyrrha, I'm flattered you care," she said with a bit more hostility than she had intended, "but my team is my business."

    "A business you're avoiding," she said with a raised eyebrow. The girl shook her head and took out the book from her backpack. A textbook authored by none other than Professor Port himself. There had to be some kind of business sham going on with that at the school. "But I suppose it really isn't my business. I don't know why, but people like to include me in it. Jaune did, trying to get me to help him figure out his Aura. I think it's slowly turning me into a more nosy girl."

    Weiss folded her arms across the table in front of her. "Well, he figured that out."

    It had been impossible to ignore. She had seen it last night when she had been trying to sleep. Jaune came in late and for some reason Blake was still up, as if waiting for him like a sailor's wife. She had expected Blake to do the reasonable thing when he tried to talk to her, and tell him to shut up or go away. Instead, the two of them had talked together, sharing a moment that Weiss was entirely positive she wasn't supposed to see. Up until the moment Blake threw her shoe at the boy, and he deflected it with an honest-to-gods Aura.

    She had expected Pyrrha to act surprised. To ask how it happened. So that Weiss could tell her that she had no idea, but that it had to have something to do with Blake. The two of them somehow connecting despite the impossibility of getting along with Jaune.

    Instead, the girl gave Weiss a look. "So is this my business again or am I supposed to just nod along?"

    Weiss grimaced. "I'm not sure being passive aggressive suits you, Pyrrha."

    That at least, did manage to get a surprised look from the girl. "Huh. Sorry. I've been wearing a lot of hats these days since becoming team leader."

    "You weren't a team leader back at Sanctum?"

    She shook her head. "No. Probably for the best. The only thing I really focused on back then was myself. I had my team to consider, but they weren't exactly permanent like they are here. Most of the time once you reach your academy, those three people you live with, you spend a lot of time with afterwards."

    Weiss stared at her hands. "I don't think mine is going to be one of those times. I can't really imagine myself spending any more time with my team than I have to. That's why I'm here, not with them." She paused. "Am I oversharing? I feel like I'm oversharing right now."

    Pyrrha opened her book, pulling out a tab she had to use to mark a page. "A little. But it's my fault. I'm pretty sure I opened up a can of worms bringing up your team."

    Weiss looked away, gazing out at the fairly sparsely populated library. Not many people were here on the weekends. There was a computer lab, but for some reason the connection on those machines was very slow, and the room was intensely hot. "It's my fault, really. Half my team gets along. Meanwhile, I can barely even talk to my partner."

    "Shamrock?"

    "Yes. They've got something going on with them. Not very open to talking. I've never really met anyone like them."

    "You're using the singular they," Pyrrha noted, fingers idly drumming on her book.

    Weiss nodded. "It's weird. I don't really understand it. Something to do with their Semblance. They're kind of like a, um. I think there's a word in Mistrali for it. Not exactly a boy or girl, but also are when they want to be. Wakashu."

    Pyrrha blinked. Eyes wide, seeming like she was searching for the words to reply, she ran her hands through her long red hair. "That's… okay, wow. First of all, that's an incredibly vulgar word. Second of all, incredibly outdated. And third, if you're using it like how I think you are, an incredibly reductive Atlesian simplification of a complex sexual topic even in its own case."

    Weiss held up her hands. "Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean to be offensive. Shamrock can be a boy, or they can be a girl, or they could be neither, and I'm pretty sure they come with all the parts. Not intersex or hermaphrodite or… I'm sorry, this is just getting weird. You see why I have trouble talking to them? I can't even describe their basic condition of life without apparently insulting everyone around me."

    The redhead frowned in thought. "Yes. Very cool of you to apologize for colonial misappropriation of Mistrali customs."

    She got the distinct impression that Pyrrha was mocking her. She bristled. "You're from Argus. Your people conquered Mistral. We have the same ancestors, if you go back far enough."

    Pyrrha gave just the barest hint of a smile. And Weiss realized she was being screwed with, not out of any sense of malice, but more just as a distraction. It felt odd, thinking Pyrrha had any kind of friendly, playful side. She just seemed like the kind of person who would work herself to death every day, never smiling or laughing.

    "And to the Glory, the spoils," Pyrrha said.

    Weiss squinted. "What?"

    Pyrrha shrugged. "Afosíosi sti dóxa. It's an old Argus joke based off something Megas Alexandros once said, I guess. Something you say before a fight. I've yet to hear it in Vale. Always makes me feel like when I'm sparring here, the other person is somehow being rude or spiteful. But I've come to learn that it's just a culture thing. I know it's really not my place to intrude, but maybe that's something to do with your team. You are from Atlas. I've met my fair share of your people."

    Which made a lot of sense to Weiss. Atlas operated a massive military base out in the Argus harbor. Even though she had been joking about the old faux pas word colonialism, it wasn't that far from the truth, given Atlas' influence over the northern Mistrali city-states and tribes.

    "A lot of you are slow to adapt," Pyrrha said cautiously.

    "In certain contexts, that could be considered a rude assessment," Weiss said slowly, poking her tongue into her cheek.

    "I'm on a team with two girls from Patch and a Heartlander," Pyrrha said. "Coming from the North, I've gotten way more than my fair share of accidentally rude assessments. And also questions about being able to score Ruby free cereal. But much like how I'm not willing to give her early-onset childhood diabetes, I'm also not going to get upset because of a little clash of culture and personality."

    Weiss let out a breath, and found that she was idly poking at her own fingers. "It's not my fault my teammates are either antisocial or one step away from Communards. I've tried, believe you me. Shamrock doesn't really seem to connect with me, Blake gets upset at everything for no reason, and Jaune is a creep no one likes."

    "Someone likes him enough to figure out his Aura."

    "Blake does."

    "Teamwork starts with being able to listen," Pyrrha said.

    Weiss didn't reply.

    "I know I wouldn't be able to work with someone like Ruby if I wasn't able to listen to her. Not that she always says the most important things, but just being able to goes a long way."

    Weiss thought of the conversation she overheard between Jaune and Blake. If she hadn't known any better, she would have said that they somehow became an item while she wasn't watching. They had been able to talk with each other, and they had been listening. It felt like whatever it was, something about Coco and Cardin, it had been important to them. Weiss couldn't think of a single conversation she had ever had with Shamrock on any level besides superficial. Just going through the motions that humans are supposed to make with each other.

    Had any of her conversations with anybody been any different? She tried thinking back to Atlas, to trying to speak to her family. It had felt just as fake. Coming here to Beacon, she had been trying to escape that. Reinvent herself. Not totally, she still wanted to be the best there ever could be. But a different best. Yet even here, it felt like she wasn't really talking with Pyrrha. The girl was just talking at her, and Weiss was a passive observer.

    She stood up slowly and sighed. "Yeah." Simple, basic, defeated. Why the hell was she even at Beacon?

    She swallowed hard. "I'm—yeah. Thank you for the conversation, I suppose, Pyrrha."

    The girl said nothing, just silently watched as Weiss left. She was probably happy to see her go. It wasn't like anyone actually wanted Weiss.

    — 16 —​

    You: Hey, do you have a moment?​

    Weiss stared at her scroll. She felt like a character in one of those teen dramas, the ones idly texting a boy and hoping for a response. Weiss was such a great teammate that she had absolutely no idea what her partner got up to in their free time. She had left the room earlier, getting frustrated by the way Blake and Jaune were just being idiots together.

    "I'm telling you, this is the best way to get down on the ground," he had been saying. "It's all about four points of contact. Two-count motion."

    "All I said was that I lost a bobby pin. Then you just suddenly turn into a robot and get down into a push-up."

    "It's the most effective way!" he whined, repeating the motion into what was admittedly a push-up position, before getting back up to his feet. "I can get up and down in less than a second!"

    "But what if you want to get down on your back? How are you supposed to get down if you want to sleep on your back if that's the only way you know how?"

    "Well, obviously, that requires butter."

    "Butter?"

    He nodded seriously. "Just get a butter knife, put some on the rock hard abs that I'm working on, and as soon as I get down I'll flip around onto my back butter side up. The perfect plan."

    Weiss couldn't stand it. Part of her just couldn't watch it. So she had left. Tried to find time to herself in the library or wherever really. Putting on her headphones and listening to the construct vocaloid Lapiné. She was a proof of concept and then released to the people. It didn't hit the same way as something like Weiss' own singing, from the true heart. But she was able to keep notes longer than a living human could. It was the closest Atlas had to its own endemic pop music, a field typically otherwise dominated by the cultural power of Vale. Atlas had technology and military. Mistral had old psychospiritual techniques and a rich history. Vacuo had the power to make people forget it existed. And Vale had financial domination and disco.

    Finally, after pacing back and forth, her scroll buzzed.

    Shamrock: explain what's wrong. 10 words or less​

    Weiss just kind of stared at her scroll. How exactly do you respond to something like that? She let her fingers do the talking on the hard light screen.

    You: Want to hang out?​

    Her fingers betrayed her. She couldn't help but sense that her question had come across as desperate and creepy. No explanation. No place to hang out specified. Hell, Weiss didn't even really know how to hang out. When she pictured it in her head, all she could imagine was just standing in a room with Shamrock, doing their own thing separately in proximity.

    The text reply came quick.

    Shamrock: You did it in four words. I'm proud of you​
    ​
    You: Is that a yes?​
    ​
    Shamrock: Kinda busy​
    ​
    You: With?​
    ​
    Shamrock: Taking all of Jack's money. You don't play cards. It's cool​

    She couldn't help but remember the time at lunch when Shamrock had offered to teach the girls how to play cards, and Weiss had soundly rejected them.

    She thought back to Pyrrha's face. She imagined explaining to her why trying to connect with her partner had failed. And the thought of the redhead just frowning at her, judgmentally shaking her head, made Weiss' heart hurt. Especially when she considered how easy Jaune and Blake seemed to be able to do it. It felt like they could just talk about anything and it would just click in a way that Weiss could not comprehend.

    Have you ever done something really bad? Screwed up in such a colossal way that as soon as you saw the dominoes start to fall, you realized you could never take it back? Looking at the text she got from Shamrock, that sinking feeling in her heart escalated. A deep well that she couldn't entirely articulate.

    It made her think back to her baby brother, Whitley. She hadn't even said goodbye to him, not really. She had simply passed him off to her butler, asking him to relay a message that she only half-heartedly felt. She thought of her mother, sobbing and drunk in her chambers. Trying so desperately to connect to Weiss, her little snow pea.

    And the way she had slammed the door shut and ran away.

    Her scroll buzzed one last time.

    Shamrock: Maybe later I'll have time dunno​

    Weiss deserved this.

    A thousand miles from home, and karma had finally caught up to her.

    She couldn't help but laugh, a single, worthless noise bubbling up from the back of her throat.

    She wondered how her big sister, Winter, was doing. There, in service to Atlas, she had seemed happy. Like she had found purpose, a family. What the hell had Weiss found but a dark pit and a shovel to keep digging?

    And just like back home whenever she got this feeling, where else was she supposed to go but back to her room and face down into her pillow? To just wait the day out until tomorrow broke the spell and she forced herself to wake up. The weekends were especially bad like that. Even back home. At least here during the normal days, she could lose herself in class work. Focus on learning this and that. Drown herself in studying until she was tired and bleary-eyed. Everyday the same as the last, but you could at least lose yourself in the monotony.

    She paused at the door to her room, of course. There was a noise coming through the other side. She held the key to the room, and pressed her ear up against the wood. She imagined she must have looked completely ridiculous. But it was definitely there. For a fraction of a moment she was afraid she was hearing beds scratching. That, if she had walked in, she might have found Jaune and Blake. It's not like she knew what they did on an average weekend either, except for Jaune having apparently replaced the team in weekend detention in the later afternoon and evening. But it wasn't that time yet.

    But instead of feeling like a complete voyeur, she heard what sounded like guitar. Was someone in there playing music? She listened again for a moment, trying to pick out the notes or the lyrics. All she got was mumbles. For one reason or another, the individual rooms in Beacon were fairly sound insulated. And so, with a feeling like she was about to walk in on something she shouldn't be seeing, she unlocked the door and opened it by a crack.

    He was there on the bed, shirtless as he always was. Jaune, with a guitar in his arms. She remembered when she first saw him, his eyes unfocused, barely looked like he could dress himself, all scraggly looking like something had just crawled out of a gutter. She was pretty sure he had been drunk. The very first thing he had ever said to her was Damn, girl, are you a school? Because I want to shoot a couple kids inside you. Before breaking out laughing, and leaving her feeling like she needed a shower. Since then, he had lost a bit of weight, and then put it back on with just the barest hint of muscle. She was surprised how just a couple of push-ups in the morning had seemed to make his shoulder look a little wider. Coupled with the scars running across his body, if she hadn't known him, she might have almost said he looked like a Huntsman.

    But she did know him. And if not for the melody he was trying for, she would have probably just left him there. The last thing she wanted to do was be alone in her bed with him in the room. The idea alone gave her uncomfortable goosebumps.

    But she kept staring at him, his back to her. Jaune was rocking back and forth, playing something bizarrely in the key of B-flat minor, using what she thought was a 6/8 time signature. She thought, because he wasn't doing it very well. Every other couple of notes, he would mess up.

    He swore under his breath. "They's your fingers. Why can't you do this, Jaune?" he asked the empty room. His accent always made it sound like he was gargling gravel.

    Jaune laughed at himself, shaking his head. "Yeah. Poppy taught me a little bit. Apparently he played guitar in a CCR cover band after getting out of Vietnam."

    At first, Weiss wondered who he was talking to. But then, that was obvious. He was just talking out loud to himself, coaching himself along. It was common enough among anyone practicing something. Only a little bit weird, but then, she would be a hypocrite if she said she'd never done it during her dancing or singing or sword fighting lessons.

    Jaune sighed and tried again. This time, he managed to hold the melody longer before very obviously hitting the wrong strings. He grimaced, and then tried the same bars again.

    Part of her really wanted him to nail the melody. It was weird and interesting and somehow entirely alien to her. B-flat minor, in the words of one of her tutors, was a naturally dark note, something you only use to express the feeling of being alone in a barren world. Listening to him get it right for just that moment made her swallow.

    But of course, he messed it up. Gritting his teeth, he looked up, slowly nodding. And then adjusted his fingers again. "Maybe try singing it?" he asked. Then he snorted. "No. I can shoot, do the Argentine Tango, and funny third thing, but singing?"

    Jaune groaned. "Alright, alright, I'll give it a shot."

    So, feeling like a voyeur, she watched him restart the melody. He managed to get it down so that it sounded correct to her, before stopping and starting again. This time joining it with a kind of mumble singing voice.

    "Run, desire, run. Sexual being," he said, rocking back and forth as he played. "Run him like a blade to and through the heart."

    He actually managed to continually nail the melody, his fingers moving artfully. Well, with the sloppiness of an amateur, but getting the notes right to her ears.

    Until he tried to keep a longer note, alongside his voice. "Screaming feeEeEEEeed—"

    Weiss couldn't help herself. She grunted in pain as his voice broke horribly. He hadn't been very good at singing anyways, but this was just painful.

    Jaune immediately stopped, his eyes snapping up and around towards her. She saw his Aura in the back of his baby blues, this faint no-color glow that made her feel incredibly uneasy. He looked just as shocked to see her as she was.

    For a moment, she panicked. She had no idea what he would do or say. She knew she'd be creeped out if someone was just watching her sing topless in her room when she thought she was alone.

    "You were off pitch," she said. "Your voice." Her own voice sounded hollow to her. Incredibly forced. She just wanted Jaune to go away so she could fall face down into her bed alone.

    But as he stared back at her, she braced herself. She didn't know what she expected, but knowing him, it would be something rude, something offensive, something vulgar. The kind of comment that would make her skin itch. She'd heard enough of them before to have started making a list. Although he had pretty much stopped that ever since the night of the Dust store. After she and the rest of the team had flushed away his alcohol and drugs. Right before him and Blake had suddenly become best friends.

    Instead, the boy looked thoughtful, and then nodded. "You know how to sing?"

    The question sent a shiver up her spine. Especially with the way his Aura was in his eyes. Like the light reflecting off the back of a camera lens. He asked it like he was sure of her answer. As if he knew exactly what she would say, and would know if she was lying.

    Setting herself, freezing her spine solid like any good Schnee could, she opened the door and fully entered the room. Weiss wouldn't let him intimidate her like this. "I do."

    He glanced over his shoulder, in the direction he had broadly been looking when talking to himself. Whatever he was looking for wasn't there, and his attention went back to Weiss as the door closed behind her. She suddenly felt very alone in the room with the boy.

    Idly, he strummed a couple of notes on the guitar. "Figured me so. I'm just getting into this guitar stuff. It's kind of, uh, kind of like a forgotten memory I'm trying to access. It's been just so long. I thought maybe singing with the song I'm trying to play would help me keep my notes."

    She folded her arms cautiously. "It did help you keep the melody. But your voice ruined it." For this sudden, inexplicably irrational moment, she felt like she was being too hard on Jaune. Not that he deserved her going soft, the way he had acted almost the entire time she had known the drunken fool. But right here?

    "I've just heard a lot of music," she admitted, sounding like the words were crawling out of her throat against her will. "My father made sure I could sing in opera. It's a popular way to show off in Atlas."

    "Have you done so recently?"

    Without thinking, she touched the scar over her left eye. "Not exactly."

    "So you're rusty at your talent too," he said, giving her a boyish smile.

    "I wouldn't exactly say rusty." Weiss didn't want to meet his eyes.

    "Do you think you could help me?"

    "What?" Her thoughts turned to the last time he had asked her for help. It had been what felt like a month ago. She had been training on her own, practicing with her sword, when he had come into the gym smoking a cigarette. And all but completely belittled her in an attempt to bully her into teaching him how to fight a little better. Going as far as to try to use her feelings towards her father as a weapon against her.

    After she'd told him to leave her alone, she'd needed hours to calm herself down. To stop from shaking at the memories of her father. And the thought that he somehow knew that much about her.

    This didn't feel like that. This didn't feel like he expected to win anything. Like he was counting on her just serving his interest as a matter of course. And in a very real sense, this wasn't something like that. This was just a hobby.

    Jaune ran a hand through his short blond hair. "I, uh. I know I really haven't been a good teammate. Honestly, probably the worst. If you don't want to, that's cool. I can't fault you for that. But, I don't know. I'm trying to practice this guitar, maybe sing a little better. And if you can sing, maybe you cain't help ya boy out with some tips? It'll be like the world's worst duet."

    He kept nervously tapping on the wood of his guitar. Anxiously waiting for her to respond. Instinctively, she wanted to reject him. To tell him to piss off and leave her alone. Not to include her in whatever stupid game he was playing.

    But then she thought back to Shamrock. She thought of the way that this idiot boy had somehow managed to make friends with Blake, and the two of them sharing that personal moment over something Weiss couldn't understand.

    She felt her mouth drying out. She rubbed her left eye on her sleeve, the scar itching. Her heart was beating a little faster.

    "I…" The words wouldn't come out.

    Jaune nodded. "Yeah, I'm sorry," he sighed. "Shouldn't have asked. Probably don't want to be wasting your time on me." He laughed, but there was no humor in that sound.

    "No!" she said, and then cringed inwardly onto herself. Until she felt like a hunchback for a moment there. In a more measured voice, she said, "I mean, no, Jaune. Do you, y'know, do you know how embarrassing it would be if it got out that my teammates couldn't, uh."

    Trying to make it sound boastful and proud just came across as fake and hollow. It only made the entire thing more painful. She put her hand over her mouth and breathed through her fingers.

    And all the while, he kept watching her. Not like he was trying to undress her with his eyes like she kept expecting him to do. But it was this almost sympathetic look. There was no pity to be found, just someone who understood. It grated on her.

    She wanted to offer to help. Wanted to be the bigger person between the two of them. But she just couldn't find the words. She couldn't bring herself to say it. Not to him.

    Jaune licked his lips, and started playing the guitar again. "Screaming feeEeEeed—"

    She held up her finger. He began the bars again, and this time she said it with him, "Screaming feeeeed me here. Fill me up again."

    His voice still wasn't entirely on key, but he was following her lead. She knew instinctively from the way the melody was arranged exactly what would sound best from a voice here.

    Jaune started again. And this time, both of them sang the line in tune together.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Volume 3, Chapter 9
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 9: Putting the U & I Into Suicide
    "Are people becoming more annoying or am I becoming more angry?"

    — 17 —​

    Weiss groaned. "Do you have to do all of that yelling inside? It's too early in the morning. I can still get another hour of sleep in before class."

    Jaune brushed his hands together. "I don't want to go outside today. It fuckin' wimdy."

    "Wimmmd," Blake intoned, just going along the way Jaune butchered the language. She was perched upside down on her bed, just watching the room and talking with her partner.

    He gave her an impressed look, and she only shrugged. Then he laughed.

    He looked back at Weiss. "Es fühlt mir zu windig. Mag ich's nicht."

    She frowned at him intently. It sounded a lot like a backcountry Solitas tongue. Not that she or anybody of any social standing spoke that old slop. While most every region had its dialects and old remnants of language—Koine from Northern Mistral or even Valais in Vale—you mostly only saw those in bits and influence on local accents. It was weird to try to actually form a sentence out of them. And in any case, if he was speaking that language like the way he ruined this one, it was almost certainly wrong.

    She looked over to her own partner, currently Jetson Shamrock. Idly laying on their bed, texting someone on their scroll. And for the briefest moments, felt an angry surge of jealousy. Shamrock had a problem with her. A lot of people did. But after what happened last night, texting with them, she couldn't help but feel like part of it was her fault. The one time she recalled Shamrock really trying to connect with her, she had shot them down, citing cards as being beneath her.

    She still couldn't believe what she had managed to psych herself into doing with Jaune of all people. And she really wasn't prepared for him to talk to anybody about trying to teach him to sing properly. Or that, in the end, he got her to sing a song with him that she was pretty sure was about sex and drugs.

    Her thoughts once again turned against her will. To her sister smiling, meaning it was the right thing. And her Father raging, proving that it was the wrong thing. Forcing her to choose, to decide who was right, and who was wrong between people who were never wrong. Her little brother, Whitley, and how she told her butler to tell the kid that she'd be back for him one day when she was a Huntress.

    Weiss screwed her eyes shut, willing the thoughts to go away. Things were going to be different at Beacon. They hadn't been so far, but being able to connect with that creep Jaune had been a start, however uncomfortable.

    When she opened them, Jaune was standing above her, one hand in a pocket. Leaning slightly to one side, a concerned look on his face. She wondered if the boy would ever wear a shirt if he had the option. He probably thought he looked cool and attractive, showing off his scars.

    "Hey, Weiss, you mind doing me a solid today?" he asked, and in the background she saw Blake frowning over at the scene. His tone reminded her too much of when her mother had called her Snow Pea.

    But then again, no, he wasn't doing that. She had to remind himself that he might be a bit of an overeager puppy, but at least he was trying to make an effort. Singing with him, however cringe-inducing, had proved that. She had to believe she could start somewhere, even if that meant starting from the bottom of the grave she had dug herself since coming to the school.

    Weiss pointed up at Jaune with an exaggerated, sarcastic slowness. "Best I can do for you is a liquid. Take it or leave it."

    That was progress, right? That was her making an effort to be personable. Just so long as he didn't ask her to teach Blake to sing too. She figured she would die if anyone knew what happened between the two of them the other night.

    "Great," he said, sitting down on her bed hard enough that she bounced up. Not that she would have kept laying there with Jaune that close to her. "How do you feel about sushi?"

    She scowled at him. But then forced herself to relax her shoulders. "I suppose I like raw fish as much as the next girl."

    "I like it more than you," Blake called out, sounding oddly unhappy.

    Weiss had this feeling like Blake was trying to start something with her. Part of her thought that without Jaune to unite the team in hatred, everyone was slowly turning against her. Everyone except for Jaune, weirdly enough. She wouldn't let Blake drag her down to her level. Because once you let someone do that to you, they could engage you on a level playing field where they had the home advantage.

    "Why are you asking about sushi?" she asked, teeth grit. It was always something with her like this. She genuinely could not make herself fully relaxed when talking to Jaune. Not unless she was sniping back at him. But that wouldn't be the correct course of action. She had to be better than that.

    A Huntress had to be better.

    Jaune gave her this dopey, boyish smile. "So I've scrounged me together some money by selling drugs to underprivileged children," he said. "And I'm fixing to take the team out for some sushi. My treat. Team building shit."

    "I can pay for my own food," she said, crossing her arms.

    He shrugged one hand, letting it flop to the side with the motion. "Irrelevant. Although it might have to take place on a Thursday night. Y'know, since my Fridays and weekends are kind of taken up right now. I just want to know if you're in."

    She regarded him for a long moment, and he just kept smiling at her. She found herself unconsciously rubbing her arms as though she were out in a Solitas wind without a jacket. "I… maybe."

    "Maybe is a baby who always says yes," he said seriously.

    "Stop saying that," Blake added, idly kicking her legs at nothing. "You do it every time someone tells you maybe. If she doesn't want to go, leave her."

    For some reason, Weiss bristled at that. "Well maybe this baby is saying yes!" Oh God, it felt horrible just saying that. She could feel herself cringing against her will. She was going to have nightmares for weeks about how she actually said that out loud.

    Blake's sourpuss face was something to behold.

    Jaune looked like he could barely contain himself. Like he had just won the lottery. He stood up suddenly. "Hell yeah! Nobody puts baby in a corner!"

    "Is that supposed to be a reference?" Weiss asked dubiously.

    "More of a cliché. I couldn't tell you me where it from. Either from baseball or a cartoon. Cartoon feels right to me."

    Weiss sighed. "You're how old and still watch cartoons?"

    Jaune looked around the room. "Iunno, your guess is as good as mine how old I am."

    "Seventeen. We are all seventeen," Blake said, and he very pointedly ignored her.

    Weiss had no idea why she was doing this to herself. She kept telling herself that she was going with the flow or something, like only dead fish do. If this was what having friends was like, well no, she had seen friendship in movies and operas. This felt more like—honestly, she didn't really know the word. It was kind of like mint toothpaste, something she had hated growing up, but something you had to get used to until you eventually liked it. They didn't make adult oriented chocolate flavored toothpaste, after all. Although she had once seen bacon flavored toothpaste, which was an abomination in and of itself.

    If she believed in a God, she would have said that right there had been her first proof that mankind had killed him.

    Her second proof would have been winding up on a team with Jaune.

    Speaking of which, the boy stretched his arms over his shoulders. "Sweet deal, anyhow. Now we just need you to convince your partner to come with us." He winked. "We're counting on you."

    "Wait, what?" Weiss asked, but the boy was already on his way to the other side of the room. Seeming to just completely ignore her, his hands in his pockets.

    Blake raised her head when he got near. He extended a hand and pushed at it, and she rolled over unhappily onto her stomach. "Hey!" she called out, but without any real anger or heat.

    Yeah, those two were definitely sleeping together. Weiss made a mental note to buy some antibac disinfectant to spray across the beds and bathroom.

    Right after she dealt with her partner, Shamrock.

    — 18 —​

    Figuring out where Shamrock spent their days after class was an effort in and of itself. It really wouldn't do to see Weiss asking around after her partner like some jilted ex-lover trying to find out who her old boyfriend was dating. But through poking around, and asking around the topic, she managed to figure out where Shamrock was via Jack, because of a girl named Yang.

    Kind of. The entire thing was stupid. She didn't really know who this Yang was, other than that she was on the same team as Pyrrha. And apparently she was friends with a boy named Indigo Jack, this incredibly tall, incredibly good looking student who was always twirling a butterfly knife. He was a member of team ICWN. He hadn't really seemed keen on talking with her, happy to just give her a run around with double speak, saying nothing. So, long story short, after class, she met another member of the team and tried asking him.

    Some boy named Cielo with distinctively Mistrali eyes. Also incredibly tall. So many of the boys here made Weiss feel small. She imagined it would be way worse if not for her heels. Without them, even girls like Ruby, Pyrrha's partner, might have the height advantage on her. She shivered at the thought.

    Height envy aside, that was why she was currently asking Cielo where to find Yang.

    "Look, I don't know where she is. I just know where I don't want to be at any given time in relation to her." Cielo looked at the rhinoceros beetle currently buzzing its wings on the back of his hand. He took that into consideration for some reason. "And right now, I know that between the hours of five and eight PM, I absolutely do not want to be anywhere near room 407 of the student center."

    Weiss made a face. "That's a very specific time frame and location you just know to avoid."

    Cielo shrugged. "I have a lot of very useless and specific superpowers. Most of them sound cool in principle, but couldn't stick the landing. Like juggling. I tried learning that back at Sanctum to try to impress the girls. But Mistrali girls are really mean. All I got for my efforts was getting shoved in my locker. And then they took my balls!"

    Weiss' scar itched. "I'll take that into consideration, I guess. Never learn to juggle."

    So. Aside from losing a couple of brain cells from that conversation, she did eventually manage to track down Shamrock from the information.

    She figured arriving towards six would be better. Fourth floor, near the game center, in a generic room which could be a conference room or anything else someone needed. The Susebron Student Center was lousy with spare rooms. It had made things a little awkward to navigate, especially after she paused to briefly watch Jaune and Coco Adel talking about tattoos in the student center's bagel shop. Those two really were friends. Wow.

    She came into room 407 to find the group laughing.

    "No, no, for real," the tall boy with the indigo eyes was saying. He threw down his cards on the table. "I will literally look you right in the eyes as I stab you in the back."

    "Oh, please," the buxom girl with the rather luxurious golden curls of hair said. Yang. "You need some pretty long arms for that. And nobody's got arms that long. Not even Long Arm Johnson, and he had really long arms. Thus, the name."

    Jack lit up with his indigo Aura, a butterfly knife appearing in his hand. The metal of the blade just kind of twisted and bent, elongating in the blink of an eye. The power of his Semblance. A moment later, he was using the flat to poke Shamrock on the top of his hat from across the table.

    "That's cheating!" Jet Shamrock said, fanning himself with his hand of cards. "Stop cheating."

    "What are you going to do, find the guy who can stop me?" Jack asked. "What was his name again, Johnny McDoesn'tExist?"

    "I can be anyone you want me to be, baby," Shamrock said, winking. As Weiss watched, Shamrock leaned forwards and his face became visibly more feminine. When he, now she, spoke, even the voice matched a woman. "Daniela McDoesn'tExist, at your service."

    "Hi!" Weiss said, mustering all of her courage into one brave word.

    The laughter stopped instantly, three sets of eyes coming to stare at her. She instantly had the distinct impression that she did not belong here. That she shouldn't be here. That nobody wanted her. Least of all in this place.

    "Oh hey, ice queen," Yang finally said, more amused than the other two looked.

    Weiss' first instinct was to protest. To fold her arms together and argue that she wasn't some ice queen. But looking at the other two in the room, that feeling inked away like hard copy under a faucet. No. That wouldn't be right. If anything, it would just encourage them. Prove that they were right.

    She took a breath to study herself. She was a Schnee. She was the cold ice that broke apart the nations. She wouldn't let Jaune intimidate her, so she wouldn't let them do it either. Freezing her spine solid, and standing as tall as she could with her heels for support, she crossed the room and sat down at the table.

    "So. I heard you three were playing together," she said. "Would you mind if I joined?"

    Shamrock scoffed, adjusting her tophat. "It's cards, Weiss. You said it yourself, a Schnee would sooner be caught dead than playing."

    Oh, right, that. She felt herself deflating. She had said that in no uncertain terms when the Shamrock had offered to teach the girls to play rummy, whatever that was. Just brush it off and away like so many flakes of snow on a new dress. It wasn't like she could take back what she had told Shamrock. Thinking of Pyrrha's face, it was an effort of will not to shrink in on herself and give up.

    A Schnee didn't play cards. It was almost a point of pride, that bit of stubborn ignorance. Like not bothering to learn or know any common Mantle jargon. Although part of that, she suspected, was because her father was originally from Vale.

    She swallowed. "Then, today, I guess I'm not a Schnee," she said, feeling more than a touch woozy all the sudden. "My name is Weiss. Deal me a hand."

    In her head, that had sounded strong and bold. Facing the howling wind with a grim certitude that you wouldn't let it beat you. Out loud, everyone seemed to find that somehow hilarious. Her hands became fists as they rested over her lap beneath the table, trying to steel her heart as they laughed. It wasn't like she could just ignore it. No one really could. Not that it mattered like this. Not when I'm not a Schnee.

    "I say we let the ice queen play," Yang said, reaching out a hand to pat Weiss on the back so hard she nearly coughed. Weiss was not a fan of the touching. It wasn't something you did in Atlas.

    "I can buy in," Weiss said, trying not to sound too desperate. "I know how this works. Betting and gambling. And I'll win."

    The boy sitting across from her, Jack, held up his left hand. He was holding her wallet. "I mean, it does feel hefty."

    Weiss inhaled sharply. In Atlas, nobody carried a purse. They might be part of the high fashion in Vale, but they struck her a little too creepily feminine and vulnerable. And they presented an obvious target. Her combat dress had pockets for a reason. And as she patted herself down and came out empty, her mouth dropped.

    "Did you really grab my butt and steal that!?"

    Jack regarded her without concern. "You a bitch with no ass. And just like one," he said, flexing her wallet, "you ain't got shit."

    Weiss made an indignant noise. "Agh!" First reaction was to defend her body, but there was no real way to do that without it getting weird. My personal trainers ensured that I was always in peak physical condition, and I inherited my mom's best traits! Just, ew.

    She looked around for support. That kind of sexist language was the exact kind of thing she expected from Jaune alone. Yang or even currently Shamrock had to be offended by it too, right? They'd jump down his throat for this. But the other two girls didn't even seem to care. It didn't bother them in the least bit.

    Jack tossed her back her wallet, and she found it was empty. He kept flicking his wrist, her credit cards and lien flashing between his fingers with every motion. Atlas might be a nearly cashless society, but paper money was still worth something in Vale. It was their currency, after all.

    "Honestly, between what you have here, it's a little more high stakes and all the cash we three got on us total." He considered his friends, before looking with concern at Shamrock, who was glaring at him. Was her partner about to defend Weiss?

    "What?" he asked.

    "Yang, you saw that too, right?" Shamrock asked sharply. "One of those things wasn't a credit card. It was an ace!" She threw down her hand on the table, revealing three of them.

    Yang flipped up the card she had face down on the table, and frowned. "Oh, that son of a bitch."

    "I don't know what you're talking about," Jack said easily. With such a practice smoothness that Weiss would have believed him if not for the two girls approaching him with malicious intent.

    "Hold him down, Yang!"

    "With pleasure!"

    Shamrock grabbed Jack's arm and tried pulling it down. He was a lot taller than her, taller than Yang. "Gimme!"

    Yang grabbed his other arm and twisted, showing him forward under the table. "What else are you hiding in your sleeves!"

    "Help, help!" Jack yelled, throwing Weiss' wallet and all her money across the table. "I'm being pinned down by two women and not in the way I like! Please, no, not in front of the ice queen!"

    Weiss had no idea what she was watching. She didn't know if she should intervene, or just keep sitting there baffled.

    Shamrock snatched an ace from Jack's pocket. "Gotcha! See? A fifth ace."

    And just like that, the two girls got off him. Jack just looked angry and petulant. "I was saving it for a special occasion, like my birthday."

    "Cough it all back up, Jack," Yang said smugly.

    The boy compressed a sigh, before sliding back a handful of lien across the table to the two of the girls. He didn't look happy, but he didn't look angry. Almost like this was just part of the game. If someone had tried holding down Weiss like that, she imagined there would have been a lot more blood involved in the aftermath.

    Yang turned to Weiss and grinned. "Hey, look at that, the game's been reset. You want in?"

    "She doesn't know how to play cards," Shamrock said.

    "Awesome! I love winning."

    An empty beer can clocked her across the forehead. Yang yelped, falling backwards in the chair she was leaning in. She flared her Aura and bounced off the ground, coming right back up to her feet, fists clenched. "Jack!"

    The boy pointed at Shamrock passively, who simply shrugged.

    Every moment that passed, Weiss felt more and more like she genuinely did not belong here. Like she was intruding on something personal in a way. The same as she had been when she watched Blake and Jaune talking on his bed together. Her scar itched.

    "I'll deal!" Weiss made herself say, putting down some lien on the table.

    Everyone looked at her, as if surprised to find she were still there. "You will?" Shamrock asked.

    Feeling a smile a creep across her face, Weiss said, "I've done my research. There's several really informative videos on the topic on VidTube. Fifty-two cards in a deck, plus two jokers. The royalty is at the top where it should be. And if I connect four chips, I win." The smile got bigger As she set a little hunk of metal and plastic on the table. "I even bought a card shuffling machine!"

    Shamrock facepalmed and sighed. Yang just laughed.

    "Huh," Jack said, collecting up the cards the girls had thrown down plus the ones from the river at the center of the table. "Didn't know those were real. How'd you even get one?"

    "It's simple," Weiss said primly. "Money can be exchanged for goods and services."

    Yang squinted. "Was that a joke? I feel like that was a joke but no one's laughing."

    Shamrock looked at Jack dubiously, and made a gesture with her left hand. Jack snerked, and it made one back at her. Before holding out the deck of cards to Weiss. Well, holding was a bit of a misnomer. He flicked his wrist and produced one of his butterfly knives. After twirling it through his fingers so fast that Weiss was sure he was going to sever one of them, he set the cards down on the flap of the blade and elongated it towards her with his Semblance.

    She took the deck from him, cards that had seen far better days. The ones in the video she watched didn't have the occasional coffee stain on them and looked far more pristine and white. She pulled out her scroll to read the manual on the card shuffler, before loading the deck up, half on one side of the machine, and half on the other.

    Shamrock made another gesture at Jack as Weiss touched the button to make the machine work.

    "Sign language?" she asked hopefully, trying to fill the air with human voices and conversation again. It was getting weird with everyone just kind of staring at her in disbelief.

    Jack flicked his fingers on the necklace he wore around his neck. "More a good luck charm."

    Weiss made a face, trying to figure out what he meant. Did he mean the gestures, or his necklace? If the latter, then she hadn't asked, and didn't really care. But then again, Jack sounded A bit like one of those smooth talking gangsters from an old Valean crime movie. And Shamrock dressed in a decidedly Valean fashion. She thought that if the hand gestures were a good luck sign, then maybe it was superstitious. Maybe it was religious in a way. Vale was still pretty lousy with religions and the occasional cult, at least by the standards of Atlas.

    She perked up. "Oh! It's Voodoo!"

    Shamrock cringed, looking more angry than anything else. Weiss had the feeling she had said something like the word Wakashu again. It was bad enough that Shamrock's physical features altered, becoming a lot more androgynous.

    "You could call it that," they said in a voice like they would never call it that in a million years, deepening as they became a bit more masculine.

    "Vaudou," Yang supplied helpfully. "'Voodoo' is kind of a loaded word."

    Jack shrugged a hand. "It's the converts that are always the most zealous."

    "You all believe that stuff?" Weiss asked, suddenly feeling intensely like she didn't want to be here. More than usual, in any case.

    Yang snerked, blowing air through her lips. "No."

    "Alhumdulillah, heathen," Shamrock said to Yang, but without any heat. More a tired sound. That was a word from Vacuo.

    "I didn't know you were religious. Or that you were from Vacuo?" Weiss said, pitching her voice to make it a question. She removed the fully shuffled deck of cards from her machine. "Wait, how is someone from Vacuo into, uh, Vaudou."

    Shamrock removed their hat, clutching it oddly tightly to themselves. "They were the only people who took me in when I came to Vale. There was a priest I met named Cemetaire as I was suffering a case of lasting regret. Gave me his hat as a kind of gris-gris."

    Weiss… genuinely did not have a response to that. At all. Religion wasn't something she really knew a lot about. For all intents and purposes, for the last eighty years, everyone in Atlas had been an atheist. When Mantle had tried to control emotions in a totalitarian effort to safeguard itself against the Grimm, the old gods of the North had been on their chopping block. After that whole incident sparked the Great War, which they lost badly, religion had never fully recovered.

    The only thing God is, is a number you can count to, her father once told her, repeating the old Atlesian saying.

    She knew there wasn't a way she could engage in this without probably insulting everyone at the table. She'd already done so badly enough calling it Voodoo, a religion that she admittedly associated with superstition and zombies. Taking a breath, and trying to will the conversation and its thoughts away, she tried dealing cards to everyone else at the table.

    This was a part she had prepared for. The one even her father had helped train her for, though he would have never known. Card games, from what she read, were all about the subtle misdirection. Being able to read your opponent, without them being able to read you. And Weiss was an expert at reading people. You could tell a lot by a man by the cut of a suit jacket, whether it was Valean silk or of a Northern Mistrali cut. Whether the way the woman laughed at the man whose arm she was holding was out of a sense of obligation, or she was really enjoying his company. Which rich older man was sizing her up, figuring her a good match for their sons.

    Her eyes focused intently on Jack. He had an unbuttoned black denim jacket with a couple of sewn on patches. One of them was some gibberish in Mistrali, and another was a little white XO with a little heart in between the letters. It made him look like someone who tried to look his best with meager means. And if she had any doubts that he came from a poor background, his shirt gave it all away. It was a black t-shirt displaying a pair of mighty white antlers with a red star between them. Illegal in Atlas to show, it was an old Communard symbol, the emblem of the socialist cause the world over. The white antlers represented unity with nature, while being stronger than and above it. The red star was the Guiding Star, a red light in the sky which had guided mariners and Huntsmen to their destinations since time immemorial. Follow it and you will never be led off the right path. It was one of the only stars you could see in the night sky past the light pollution of the kingdoms. Given the way he had been hiding the ace in that jacket, she assessed Jack to be a boy from the mean streets who would do anything in his power to win, legitimate or otherwise.

    And then there was his face. Uh, it didn't look calculating or thoughtful like she had suspected. Instead, he just looked somewhere between baffled and expecting her to do something. Shamrock, who was completely silent as the rest of them, had that expression too.

    Yang, though? If Jack talked like someone out of an old gangster movie, then Yang looked like one. With sharp Mistrali eyes that seemed to scan the whole room. She was the kind of girl Weiss could imagine sat in the corner of your local diner, one leg up to her chest because she thought it looked intimidatingly relaxed, and refused to tip the waitress. With a tight, mostly black outfit with some yellow accoutrements, showing enough midriff that it would probably get her thrown out of any polite party, the somehow easy-going smile felt at odds with the rest of the girl. Given the vaguely golden dragon shaped coloring along her black pants, she could almost imagine this girl as an up-and-coming member of the Yakuza. And she was giving her the kind of look to match.

    Weiss swallowed. She could see why that Cielo boy had a complete aversion to Yang. The people here were all one tough crowd, really. You'd need several nutcrackers to break their shells.

    "What," Yang deadpanned.

    "What do you mean, what?" Weiss asked, self-consciously tugging at the hem of her combat skirt. She had given everybody six cards. Twenty-four currently in play. That was how you played cards. She'd seen the video tutorials!

    "We're playing tonk," Yang said dubiously, folding her hands across the table.

    "O…kay?"

    "So what's keeping you?" she asked. She gestured at herself. "What, see something you like, ice queen? Distracted?"

    Weiss stammered. "I'm not—what are you—huh?"

    "I think she's just bluffing us," Jack said decisively, slamming his cards down on the table. "Go fish! I invoke the right to a thumb war."

    Weiss inhaled sharply, standing up. "O-okay! Do you have any sixes?"

    Jack grabbed his cards. "Go fish. Remove one article of clothing!"

    Yang whistled. "Ooh, strip tease this early? I didn't know you were into the risqué, Weiss cream!"

    "What?!" she shrieked. "I, uh—uh, um, ah!"

    Shamrock calmly looked at their cards, and then set down one in the center of the table. "Uno reverse. You all have to help me get dressed tomorrow morning."

    "Damn," Jack hissed seriously. "Your whole suit?"

    "The whole kit and kaboodle."

    Jack snapped his fingers. "But I'm allergic to kaboodles!"

    Yang gave a single barking laugh of victory. She had this scary look in her eyes. "Oh, you three are so cute. But you see." She made a gesture towards the bridge of her nose like adjusting a pair of glasses. "With my pair of queens, I sink your battleship!"

    Shamrock gasped, sinking to their knees in despair. "But how?! How could such a pathetic deck defeat me!"

    Yang raised her hands with mocking laughter. "Fool! For you see, my uncle's deck has no pathetic cards!"

    Weiss screamed. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON!"

    Yang shook her head, tsking her tongue. "Like the call girl I am, I've screwed you all, so pay up." She reached her hands across the table towards the nearest piles of money.

    That didn't explain anything! In fact, it made it worse! Why would any girl talk about herself like that? Some role model for young girls aspiring to be Huntresses she was.

    "Oh, I'll call you, ying-Yang girl," Shamrock said, using a card game term. She set down an unopened can of beer on Yang's hand, pinning it in place.

    Yang laughed, pulling back her hands with the can of beer in them. Weiss looked around, and suddenly everyone had beer.

    "Fuckin' with you, Weiss Schnee," Jack said. "Up high, fille."

    She scrambled to catch the underhand throw. Only realizing once she was holding it, that it was beer. She didn't drink as a rule. The only people in her life who did, she didn't really want to associate with. Jaune and, more painfully, her mother. But everyone else just seemed to pop the tabs and drink, not chugging, just casually having it with them and their game. Weiss couldn't bring herself to do that.

    Self-consciously rolling the can between her hands, Weiss asked, "So, that's not how you play cards? I don't have to strip naked to make friends with you?"

    "Like I'd play anything that got me topless around Jack," Yang said with a sideways smile.

    "Yang Xiao Long is right," Jack said, holding up his scroll. It was a really expensive looking model and definitely wasn't the Beacon-issued one all students were given to use. "I'd take pictures and sell them to the highest bidder."

    "You do know I'm seventeen, right?"

    "You do know I have absolutely no morals, right?"

    "Touché."

    Shamrock laughed. Then, after a friendly sigh, said to Weiss, "I mean, if you want to, you still can. I've been in enough public showers to know it's only awkward for the first person to undress."

    "I'd prefer to keep things awkward," Weiss said. "Thanks."

    "We gonna tell her how to actually play, Jetson Shamrock?" Jack asked. It was kind of awkward the way he used their full name. Weiss got the impression that he did it just in case she didn't know what to call them. Maybe the same on Yang's behalf, too. It was weirdly considerate.

    Shamrock took a drink of beer, and sighed in pleasure. The expression they aimed at Weiss was overall a lot friendlier than she was used to. "Nah. We usually play tonk, not whatever thing we were just making up back there. Rules are simple. Everyone gets five cards, and your goal is to be the first to discard them all. That's when you say Tonk! and win. The dealer is supposed to start with a face out from the discard pile, and we all get rid of ours in spreads. It's kind of like rummy. I did offer to teach you once."

    Weiss looked down at her drink for a very long time. Among the elite of Atlas, wine and the occasional brandy were the drinks of choice. Personal taste notwithstanding. Her father had an entire set of crystal decanters just for fine Patch Scotch. And unless you were Mother, not something you indulged in outside of social niceness. That was kind of a thing. A lip loosening tonic for greasing up social interactions. If you didn't drink anything, you weren't part of the negotiations, the dealing, the conversation. She looked at the tab to open the can, and realized that she only knew how to open the beer can because she'd been watching the others. Soda had been bad for her diet, and she had been banned from it most of her life.

    I want to be part of them.

    She popped the can open. Although she admittedly had to use a bit of her Aura to avoid snapping a fingernail. She took a probing sip, and instantly gagged. "Agh! It tastes like piss! I thought Vale had an affinity for craft beers that tasted good!"

    "Yeah," Yang laughed. "If you're some hipster yuppie trying to show off. Or my dad, back when he was in his microbrewery phase."

    Shamrock gave Weiss an oddly apologetic look. "I had the same reaction the first time I drank. Alcohol was outlawed in my part of Vacuo."

    Weiss tried drinking again, and just coughed it all up. How could someone like Jaune just chug the stuff and feel nothing? She groaned unhappily, pushing the can to the side.

    "How do I play tonk?" she demanded. She was drinking with them. Not exactly laughing yet, but she felt more part of this group of friends than she had when she first walked in.

    "You start," Jack said, "by losing. Until we're owning your ass like SDC slavery."

    She wanted to bristle. She wanted to sit up straight, freezing her spine like a Schnee and tell him off. That it wasn't like that. Not anymore, at least. She wasn't ignorant of the way her father ran the business, but it wasn't…

    How was she supposed to reply to something like this? Jack was a bit of a chauvinistic jerk. A lot like Jaune, if less creepy. How did people like Yang and Shamrock put up with that kind of behavior? It was like nothing fazed them. And, if anything, they found Jack funny. The way Jaune could only wish he was.

    What would Jaune say if he were me?

    The thought was nearly alien, intrusive. But that idiot had always been able to come back with some insulting quip whenever anyone tried sniping at him. Never really letting anything bother him in any way that showed. And apparently, it was a large part of how he and Blake talked with each other. Like friends.

    Weiss looked at the pretty boy straight in his indigo eyes. "That's a tall order, boy. You know that unless I can feel the tears of the children who sewed my dress, I don't even want it."

    For the span of what would happen a heartbeat if the organ were pumping right now, she felt a cold sense of horror. That instead of being amused, they would take her that face of value, and they would hate her. They would assume she was just the same as her father was. Of course the girl would take after the man who raised her.

    Instead, Shamrock snorted. "I thought your closet smelled funny!"

    Yang took up the cards, not offended at all. She shuffled them artfully between her fingers. "Shamrock gave you the rundown. You sure you're really up to learn?"

    Weiss shook her head. "No. I'm up to win."

    "Now that is a tall order," Jack said, looking up from his scroll.

    "Says the giant Communard," Weiss hit back with.

    He glanced down at his shirt. Jack did something with his eyes towards her that she liked so much it made her incredibly uncomfortable. "C'est la lutte finale."

    Yang made a face like she was no stranger to the look Jack made there, and found it really tiresome.

    "And when I win," Weiss continued, trying to rally herself after whatever the hell Jack made her feel with his eyes, "Shamrock, uh, you're going to come with us to get sushi on Thursday! Whole Team BASS effort."

    Oh God, she really was going along with Jaune's plans. She felt so stupid. But for some reason, it felt like the appropriate measure to take. If she could earn Shamrock's respect here with cards, then maybe she could hitch her lot to whatever Blake and Jaune were doing. Actually work on building up her partnership, and her team, into being the well-oiled machine that would one day be the very best here at Beacon.

    Just so long as no one heard her say that out loud. Because she was pretty sure they would think she was retarded. Her cheeks felt flush even suggesting it. But, she told herself that was because of the stupid alcohol and nothing else.

    Totally.

    "And when you win, you're going to buy me that sushi," they said as Yang dealt the cards. She turned over one of the cards to form what Weiss was pretty sure was the river.

    "Wait, if I'm winning, why am I paying?" Weiss asked.

    "'Cause it means you have my money." Shamrock shook their head and leaned over towards Weiss. "Anyhow, the goal here is to reduce your hand by matching streaks of cards. See? I've got…"

    And that was how Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, the most powerful corporation on Remnant, learned a very important lesson—the value of cheating at cards.
     
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