Ch 66: Jaunedice (4)

Several days after her failed conversation with Jaune, a gloomy Pyrrha is staring out the window in her dorm room at a dark, rainy night sky.

"How come Jaune gets home so late?" Nora asks as she bounces on her bed, already in her pajamas.

"He's become rather scarce since he started fraternizing with Cardin." Ren agrees as he finishes his maintenance on StormFlower.

"That's weird... Doesn't he know we have a field trip tomorrow? We need our rest!" Nora twirls in midair so that she falls back on her back on top of her covers.

"I'm sure our leader knows exactly what he's doing." Pyrrha says with a trace of anger in her voice. Ren and Nora look at each other but decide not to comment on it. Ever since the two of them got back after Oobleck had held Jaune after class, Pyrrha seemed to be mad at Jaune for something, but neither of them would tell Ren or Nora why.

"Mmmm... I guess so." Nora agrees and lets the matter drop.

Unbeknownst to the three inside the room, outside their door, the one they were just talking about was listening in on their conversation through the partially open door. As Jaune hangs his head and closes the door, a cheery voice calls out to him from behind.

"Hey, Jaune!" Startled, Jaune turns around to see Ruby standing behind him in her pajamas.

"Long time, no see! Did you lock yourself out again?" She giggles and asks.

"Oh, uh, nope! Got it!" Jaune raises his scroll to show her and attempts a laugh, but it comes out sounding forced.

"So! Where have you been lately?" Ruby asks, curious about why she hadn't seen him much over the past four days. He had even skipped Ray's massage session after their last hell training.

"I, uh..." Jaune tries to come up with a believable excuse, but after floundering for a moment, he gives up and hangs his head.

*Sigh* "I messed up." He admits, "I did something I shouldn't have, and now Cardin has me on a leash, and Pyrrha won't even talk to me, and… Haaaaaahhhh, I'm starting to think coming to this school was a bad idea."

Jaune presses his back to his door as he slides to the ground, depressed and gives voice to his greatest fear, "I'm a failure."

"Nop*e!" Ruby refutes his conclusion, popping the 'p' at the end of her one-word answer in the best of her family's traditions.

"Nope?" Jaune looks over at her, confused.

"Nop*e!" Ruby confirms and then clarifies, "You're a leader now, Jaune. You're not allowed to be a failure."

"But... what if I'm a failure at being a leader?"

"Hmmmmm… Nop*e!" Ruby thinks about it for a moment before giving the same answer.

"You know, you're not the easiest person to talk to about this kind of stuff." Jaune chuckles lightly as she sits down next to him.

"Nop*e!" Ruby smiles at him and pops her 'p' even more.

"Jaune, maybe you were a failure when you were a kid..." Jaune groans at Ruby's words and sinks lower to the ground, "... and you might've even been a failure the first day we met!" he groans again and goes lower still, "But, you can't be one now. You know why?"

"Uhh, because…?" Jaune tries to come up with an answer, but before he can, Ruby answers her own question.

"Because it's not just about you anymore." Ruby reminds him pointedly, jabbing her finger at him to drive home her point.

"You've got a team now, Jaune. We both do! And if we fail, then we'll just be bringing them down with us." Ruby stands up and adopts a power pose with her hands on her hips as she looks down at Jaune.

"We have to put our teammates first and ourselves second. Your team deserves a great leader, Jaune. And I think that can be you." She walks over and opens the door to her room with a small wave as a slightly inspired Jaune watches her in awe.

"Have a good night, Jaune!" Ruby enters her room and closes the door behind her.

A bit further up the hall, a proudly smiling Ray is peeking out from the dark crack in his partially open door. [She has grown up so well!] Ray couldn't be more proud of the growth his twin had experienced in these brief five and a half weeks since they had arrived at Beacon.

With renewed energy after his talk with Ruby, Jaune pushes himself to his feet and turns to the door, ready to face his team. However, before he can turn the knob, his scroll beeps, signaling that he has received a new message. Jaune pulls it out to look and sees that it is a voice message from Cardin.

"Hey! It's your buddy, Cardin! I know you're probably busy with that Dust project I gave you, buuuut I'm gonna need you to go out and get me a bag of Rapier Wasps." Jaune lets out a small, terrified gasp as he hears what Cardin wants him to get. "And make sure they've got some really big stingers! It's important, so don't screw this up!"

Sighing heavily, Jaune takes one last look at his door before turning to trudged back down the hall.

The smile on the peeping Ray's face changes to a contemplative frown as he watches Jaune leave. [I hope I didn't make a mistake by pushing events to occur this soon. Don't disappoint me, Jaune.]

Thanks to Ray pushing Pyrrha to help Jaune, these events were unfolding a little over a month earlier than he estimated they had in the anime. Ray had pushed things to this point and then backed off to let them run out on their own momentum in the hope that it would result in Jaune accepting help sooner so he would be stronger and more prepared for the coming danger. But if he had made a mistake and Jaune's feelings for his friends and team weren't strong enough yet…

Ray solemnly closed his eyes and shut his door, deciding to trust in his friend. All he could do now was trust.

[Still… fate is a funny thing. Who would have imagined that even though everything is happening so much sooner, it is still so similar? Even the decisive field trip and subject of the triggering history class with Dr. Oobleck are the same. I should make sure to study the mechanics of fate closely in the future. It's fine this time since fate is on our side, and I've decided to roughly go with the predetermined flow of it, but that won't always be the case. If I don't want to have any regrets in the future, I better learn how to manipulate even fate itself to my advantage.]

######

"Yes, students, the forest of Forever Fall is indeed beautiful. But we are not here to sight-see. Professor Peach has asked all of you to collect samples from the trees deep inside this forest, and I'm here to make sure none of you die while doing so." Glynda was leading a group of first-year students, including teams RWBY, JNPR, and CRDL, all of whom were in their combat attire, through a forest with bright red leaves covering the tops of the trees and blanketing the ground making everything, but them and the grey tree trunks, a vibrant fall red. Ray is not among them since it is Wednesday afternoon, and he has an Aura Manipulation class to teach.

Once they are deep enough into the forest, Glynda stops the group and turns to face them. At the back of the group, Jaune, who is trying to keep up while carrying a large grey case with six large glass jars stacked on top of it, ends up bumping into the back of Cardin. The bully turns to growl at Jaune, who attempts to feign innocents by turning his head away and whistling.

"Each of you is to gather one jar's worth of red sap. However, this forest is full of the creatures of Grimm, so be sure to stay by your teammates. We will rendezvous back here at 4 o'clock. Have fun!" Glynda finishes her instructions and sends the students off.

While Ruby and Yang smile at each other, glad of this chance to get out of the academy, though it would have been even better if Ray could have come with them, and start walking away with their team and the other members of Team JNPR, Jaune tries, noisily, to sneak away from Cardin.

However, his blackmailer catches him by his hood and pulls him back, "Come one, buddy - let's go!"

Jaune miserably looks up at his team as Ren and Nora are already walking, or in Nora's case skipping, deeper into the woods while Pyrrha looks back at her pitiful teammate sadly. Dropping his gaze before he can catch her eye, Jaune turns around and meekly follows after his tormentors. Pyrrha sighs in disappointment as she watches him go before continuing after Ren and Nora.