Leon Alexander Gates
-----
Even before Jaune Arc got his ass handed to him, Alexander knew that wimp was nothing more than a sack of meat in metal.
Slow, sluggish, and painfully obvious, every move Jaune made went without any sort of plan, and his opponent, Cardin Winchester, chipped at his Aura with an ear to ear smile.
The knock-off knight locked his sword against the shaft of Cardin's mace and took a knee to the gut, dropping him. The leader of Team CRDL chuckled and reared his weapon high, but the buzzer sounded.
"That's enough." Goodwitch stepped in and the lights flickered over the stands. She met eyes with Jaune. "Mister Arc, it's been weeks now. Please refer to your scroll during combat. Gauging your Aura will help decide when it is appropriate to attack or when it is better to move to a more. . . defensive strategy."
Jaune checked his scroll for the first time, and his shoulders slumped.
A light laugh escaped from Goodwitch. "We wouldn't want you to be gobbled up by a Beowolf, now would we?"
Despite her attempt to ease the mood, Jaune grumbled and hung his head at the joke that did more harm than good.
After Goodwitch reminded them of the upcoming field trip to Forever Fall, Alexander joined his team and their friends in the dining hall like usual.
Mostly everyone was sucked into Nora's ridiculous tales while Ren corrected her without fail, Weiss gave herself a manicure for the entire hour, Blake pulled her nose out of her book to steal nervous glances at Stiofan from the opposite end of the table, and the First Guard did the same, breaking from Nora to glare at the booklover every now and then.
Alexander poked at his half eaten tray of food and nudged it away to spare room for his elbow.
The day would've been the same as any other if not for Jaune daggering his peas as if it was Cardin Winchester, the bane of his existence ever since he stepped foot inside the school.
"So there we were," Nora lowered her voice and narrowed her eyes, "in the middle of the night."
"It was day," Ren said without looking up from his lunch.
"We were surrounded by Ursai," she continued as if he didn't say anything.
"They were Beowolves."
Nora shot out of her seat. "Dozens of them!"
"Two of them."
"But they were no match!" She puffed her chest and beamed. "And in the end, Ren and I took them down, making a boat load of lien selling Ursa skin rugs."
Ren sighed. "She's been having the same dream for nearly a month now."
With Nora's overly exaggerated story finished, Ruby and Pyrrha shared a look, uncertainty masking their faces.
Pyrrha placed a hand on her partner's shoulder. "Jaune, are you okay?"
A couple seconds passed before he snapped from his food killing trance. "Huh? Oh, yeah. Why?"
Ruby played with her fingers. "It's just that you seem a little. . . not okay?"
Everyone stopped what they were doing and watched.
"Guys, I'm fine." He flashed a dumb smile and a fake thumbs up. "Seriously, look!"
Not one person blinked.
"Jaune," Pyrrha hardened her gaze, "Cardin's been picking on you since the first day of school."
"Who? Cardin Winchester?" He scoffed and waved a hand. "Ah, he just likes to mess around. You know, practical jokes."
Ruby frowned. "He's a bully."
"Oh, please. Name one time he's 'bullied' me."
Each one of them listed one time Cardin bullied him, and Pyrrha finished it with the time he was stuffed in a rocket propelled locker and shot into orbit.
Jaune blew his lips. "I didn't land far from the school."
Pyrrha looked him straight in the eyes. "Jaune, you know if you ever need help, you can just ask."
"Ooh!" Nora jumped and threw on a feral grin. "We'll break his legs!"
"Calm down, Nora." Roderick pulled her down. "Let's not go that far."
"Look, mate," Cooper bit a french fry, "if you ever need my help, I could mess around with that daft bloke and they wouldn't even know."
Stiofan nodded. "Jaune, if you ever need someone to look out for you, there is nobody more suitable than I."
"I concur." Weiss gestured to her watchdog. "He's been trained by the finest of my family's First Guard. Best bodyguards in the whole world, might I add."
"Guys, really," Jaune said and prepared to leave. "It's fine. Besides, it's not like he's only a jerk to me. He's a jerk to everyone."
Did Jaune not understand the difference between friends and assholes? Everyone else knew he needed help. Was it pride keeping him from accepting it? Alexander's given him plenty of chances to stand on his own. He better do something soon or else he would step in and, like Nora said, break some legs.
Laughter blared across the dining hall where Team CRDL surrounded a rabbit Faunus.
"Ow, that hurts! Please stop!"
The accented voice punched the side of Alexander's head. It belonged to the photographer he met the other day, the person Team CRDL currently surrounded.
Alexander marched over, ignoring the questioning stares from his company at the table.
"See," Cardin tugged on a rabbit ear, "I told you it was real."
Sky Lark laughed. "What a freak."
Alexander squeezed Cardin's wrist, forcing him to cry out and let the photographer go.
Team CRDL scurried and took positions behind their leader as the entire dining hall went silent, every pair of eyes fixed on them.
"You again?!" Cardin pulled away and shook his hand. "I let you off the hook last time, but now you're really gonna get it."
Alexander checked on the photographer sniffling and running a sleeve across her face behind him.
"Hey!" The bully gripped his shoulder. "Where do you think you're looking?!"
He shoved him into his team's arms.
The rest of Alexander's team leaped out of their seats, but he raised his hand, stopping them and earning himself shocked stares.
"Mate, are you sure?" Cooper said.
He nodded.
Cardin laughed and slapped his fist against his palm. "Wow, I didn't think you were that dumb."
"Yeah," said Dove. "What chance do you have against all of us?"
Alexander scoffed. "Better than three dicks trying to squeeze into the only asshole you got."
The insult hit the dining hall hard, forcing some natural reactions Alexander found amusing. Team CRDL fumed; Blake and Ren choked on their drinks; Roderick, Stiofan, and Jaune's jaws dropped; Weiss, Ruby, Pyrrha's faces burned a bright red; and Cooper, Yang, and Nora doubled over in a fit of laughter.
Cardin threw a wild haymaker. Alexander moved, tugged his collar, and kicked his legs from under him. Sky Lark and Russel Thrush worked together in a combination of kicks and punches. It wasn't any trouble. They were trash shots, anyways. He grabbed Sky's wrist and used him as a shield to block Russell's kick, lodging his foot in his own teammate's groin.
"Oh, man. I'm so sor—ugh!"
Alexander rammed Sky's head into Russell's groin and tossed them both over a table.
Many of the males in the room cringed, hands covering their lower parts.
Dove swiped someone's tray, tossing food at bystanders, and swung it with the efficiency of a sword. Alexander made sure to stay out of his reach, leading him towards the leader as he got up, and ducked. Cardin turned at the perfect moment. The tray hit him full, crumpling it in the shape of his face.
Alexander grabbed the dumbstruck Dove, slid him along a table, and out the window at the end of the row.
Cardin peeled the tray. Teeth bared, he growled and tossed his fists like a punk who didn't know better. Best let him run his course and make sure to not get caught in the way. No need to try anything. With enough time, assholes like these usually took themselves out.
The back of Alexander's leg brushed against a table bench. Cardin lunged. He dropped and leaned to the side, letting him sail into a plate full of fresh spaghetti.
A round of laughter roared all around.
CRDL's leader slammed his fists and lifted out his tomato sauced face.
Alexander snatched a handful of his hair, slammed him back into the noodles, shattering the ceramic plate to pieces, and slid him off the table and into his two other teammates holding their groins on the floor.
The dining hall erupted in a massive cheer and pelted Team CRDL with an extra serving of food as they tried to limp away.
Alexander brushed everyone's praise aside and placed his handkerchief in the photographer's hand. She gazed awestruck, but before a single word could flick off her tongue, he went for the nearest exit and left the building.
-----
Once classes were over, Alexander was supposed to go to the gardens.
However, that quickly changed the moment Goodwitch chewed his ass out and slapped it with four detentions and a week long suspension from the gardens.
He knew the consequences of his actions, so no point in crying over it.
There was only one other place he knew that was as secluded as the gardens, and not before long, he made himself comfortable on the dormitory rooftop.
Vale was a nice change of pace.
The sun here had the common decency to not roast people alive, the lack of sand saved him the trouble of turning over his boots and brushing his food; and if the uniforms, big-mouthed professors, and constant noise went away, it would've been perfect for his homeschooled ass.
Alexander picked the forget-me-not he took from the Beacon gardens out his vest pocket and twirled it between the stars of the night sky.
At least up here, he could enjoy his time up here without anything to bother him.
The door creaked.
Or so he thought.
The way the doorway jutted from the wall prevented him from being spotted around the corner.
If he tried to leave, whoever was there would spot him. That'd make things awkward for everyone. Gotta stay quiet, too. From the shuffle of their feet to every word they said, the slightest noise was on high blast up here.
At first it sounded like some random couple going on about love until their voices got clearer; it was much more worse.
Jaune and Pyrrha were talking about their feelings.
Somebody kill him now.
The flame haired warrior drilled words of encouragement into her partner's thick head. It didn't matter what she said. He wouldn't listen and further put himself down out of ego and frustration.
"You made it to Beacon," she said, her tone full of praise. "That speaks volume of what you're capable of!"
"You're wrong. . . I-I don't belong here." Jaune's voice dipped almost out of Alexander's hearing.
"That's a terrible thing to say, of course you do!"
"No, I don't!" He took a ragged breath before continuing. "I wasn't really accepted into Beacon."
Alexander sat at full attention.
There was a few seconds of silence before Pyrrha responded.
"What. . . What do you mean?"
"I mean I didn't go to combat school! I didn't pass any tests! I didn't earn my spot at this academy! I lied! I got my hand on some fake transcripts, and I lied."
Her breath hitched. "But why?"
"Cause this is what I've always wanted to be!" Jaune said in a mix of worry, desperation, and a sliver of hope. "My father, my grandfather, his father before him were all warriors! They were all heroes! I want to be one too. . . I was just never good enough."
Pyrrha pushed for him to accept her help, but his stubbornness refused to have any of it.
It didn't take long for her heels to clack louder until they were silenced past the door.
The new found information was a good reason for Alexander to beat the knock-off knight into early retirement. It made perfect sense why Jaune wasn't a capable fighter who didn't know a thing about Aura. Becoming a Huntsman was no game, and he'd be more of an idiot to believe he could play this role without coming away unscathed.
Proper training and knowledge were the basics; the wannabe warrior didn't have either of those.
"Oh, Jaune," a new voice said. "I couldn't help but overhear you two from my dorm room."
Alexander peeked around the corner and internally groaned at the sight of Cardin climbing the edge of the building.
The leader of CRDL pulled Jaune into a tight headlock and shoved him to the floor, blackmailing him into doing his bidding. It took a lot out Alexander to stop himself from interfering. If he did, it would be doing more hurting than helping. That talk with Pyrrha made it perfectly clear Jaune's pride wouldn't allow it.
Cardin laughed and climbed back down, leaving Jaune alone to pound his hand on the floor and stomp away.
-----
Roderick Hill
-----
Thanks to Cooper taking his sweet time, Roderick used the public washrooms to shower and change into his pajamas.
At least on the way out, he met with Ruby who had the same problem because of Yang.
She told him the story of the time she thwarted a wanted criminal, Roman Torchwick, and his gang from robbing a Dust shop in Vale, the main reason why she got advanced two years early into Beacon.
"And then what happened?" Roderick said.
Ruby jumped and threw her arms wide. "Professor Goodwitch showed up in the nick of time to protect me from the explosion!"
His mouth fell open. "Goodwitch was there?"
"Yeah! And she was so cool!" She touched her chin and furrowed her brow. "But she was fighting this other person who was with that Torchwick guy. Couldn't see their face, but whoever it was was strong enough to hold back the Professor. If it wasn't for that person, then the airship they escaped in would've been taken down."
That scared him.
Huntsmen and Huntresses were the best warrior's Remnant had to offer. If there were people out there who could go toe to toe with them, it meant his future job got a lot harder.
They turned the corner of the hall where their rooms were and found Team JNPR's leader hanging his head in front of his door.
"I think Jaune locked himself out again," Roderick said.
Ruby bit her lip. "Wanna bet?"
He grinned. "You're on."
"Hey, Jaune," she said and jogged to him. "Long time no see."
"Yeah, where have you been lately?" Roderick caught up and tried to remember the last time he hung out with the guy.
A week ago? Close to two?
Jaune glanced to the side. "I, uh. . ." He closed his eyes and sighed. "I messed up."
Roderick gestured to the door. "Does it involve you locking yourself out again?"
He showed them his scroll. "Got it right here."
"Anyways," Roderick said and ignored Ruby's haughty stare stinging the side of his head, "what's the problem?"
"I did something I shouldn't have and now Cardin's got me on a leash, and Pyrrha won't even talk to me. . ." He sighed again. "I'm starting to think coming to this school was a bad idea." He leaned on the door and slid to the floor. "I'm a failure."
From personal experience, if Pyrrha gave anyone the silent treatment, not only was it bad, it was scary. Bad enough to be a failure? That was taking it too far.
"Nope," Ruby said.
Jaune looked at her. "Nope?"
"Nope. You're a leader now, Jaune." She held up a finger and puffed her chest. "You're not allowed to be a failure."
"But what if I'm a failure at being a leader?"
"Mmm. . . Nope."
He scratched the side of his cheek. "You know you're not the easiest person to talk to about this stuff."
She fell to the floor next to him. "Nope!"
Short, simple, and sweet. Cute.
Ruby wore the mocking expression of a dignified woman beyond her years. "Jaune, you may have been a failure when you were a kid."
He groaned and slumped lower.
"You might've even been a failure the first day we met."
He sank lower.
"But you can't be one now." She grinned. "You know why?"
"Uh, because. . ."
"Because it's not about you anymore." Ruby poked his nose, and Jaune almost jumped out of his jeans. "You got a team now Jaune. All three of us do. And if we fail, then we'll just be bringing them down with us. We have to put our teammates first," she stood and opened the door to her room, "and ourselves second. Your team deserves a great leader, Jaune. And I think that can be you. Have a good night, you guys."
As she shut the door behind her, Roderick blinked.
For a fifteen year old, she sure had a surprising habit of making him forget it. A little over a month as leader and she's already giving words of wisdom. Was she the main character of a show or something?
Jaune tore his eyes from Team RWBY's room. "Do you think she means it?"
"If it makes you feel any better," Roderick slid next to him, "I don't think you're a failure."
"Gee," his head pressed against the door, "thanks."
"Remember when you took down that Death stalker?" He chuckled and punched his arm. "You took command and led your team to victory. Do you think a failure could do something like that?"
"Well," Jaune grimaced and shrugged, "I guess not."
"Even if you aren't the best, then be the best you can be."
"How can I be my best when all of you guys are really strong and use these really cool powers that let you do awesome things?!" He buried his face in his arms. "I can't stand up to that."
If there was a trophy for the most depressing guy in the world, he'd hand it over to him.
Roderick took a deep breath. "I'm gonna tell you a secret."
Jaune perked, surprise stuck on his face. "You what?"
"A secret." He checked the hallways and made sure they were clear. "Just don't tell anyone. Pyrrha's the only other person in the school who knows, so you don't have to worry about keeping it from her."
"Do you really trust me with something so important?"
To be perfectly honest, Roderick didn't know if he could. They might be friends, but they weren't close enough to share these kinds of things and be comfortable about it. Although, if it helped, he guessed a little faith in the blonde knight wouldn't hurt so much.
"By cool powers you probably mean Semblances," Roderick said. A person's innate personal power, either passed down through a family line or manifested to represent themselves. How many times did he run through the books to memorize that? "You're right. It really does help to have one. Ruby's super speed, Weiss's glyphs, Pyrrha's polarity."
"Polarity?"
"She's pretty much a human magnet."
His expression enlightened as if everything began to make sense. "Oh."
"From what I hear," Roderick fiddled with his necklace, "getting them comes naturally once you start using your Aura a lot."
"Gee, that sounds—wait, what do you mean by 'from what you hear?' "
The sudden weight in the air was suffocating.
Jaune's eyes widened. "You don't mean. . ."
Roderick nodded, only slightly embarrassed because Jaune shared the same problem.
"So, when you killed that big rhino thing in the Emerald forest, and every time you fought in Combat Class. . ."
Roderick let out a dry chuckle. "Like I said, be the best you can be."
Jaune's arms fell flat, and he gazed at the wall as if it suddenly changed colours. "Doesn't that get, you know, pretty tough?"
"Don't be dumb." He closed his eyes and recalled the words his brother lent him whenever things got tough. " 'Life will always get in your way, but what matters is how you face it. Either lay there and cry or stand tall and be a king.' "
A silence passed between them.
"Wow," Jaune said. "That's. . . Do you think I can do that?"
"That's up for you to decide, man." Roderick patted his shoulder and opened the door to his room. "But personally, I think you've already got it in you. All that's left is to haul it out and show everyone what you can do. See you tomorrow at the field trip, Jaune."
"Hey, Roderick."
He paused at the threshold. "Yeah?"
For the first time since they started talking, Jaune broke a toothy grin. "I just wanted to say thanks."
Roderick smirked and shut the door, knowing he'd rest easy for the night.