Tannum "Cooper" Oakwood
-----
From the start, Cooper knew school would be trouble.
Beacon was a nonexistent item in his bucket list as a matter of fact. Willingly shipping himself to another continent to learn a bunch of stuff he already had a good grasp of wasn't exactly his idea either. (Probably should make a note to not ask the old buckaroo for any more fancy tips about better life choices.)
The academy was clearly a mistake, yet despite that notion, the merry band of blokes and gals he so humourfully acquired along the way drilled doubt into Cooper.
He knew better than to go against his instincts, though.
Indulging in snippets of bliss like that always caused him more aches and pains than he could handle. Just ask the orange haired male with an ego that outweighed a whale. He could tell the same tale, give or take a jail big enough to match his flamboyant scale.
Besides, the company of others was never really his thing.
Smack dab at the middle of the academy, Cooper stood before Beacon Tower and searched for the building's top.
The glowing green lights with those rotating cogs made it quite easy to find.
One would say it was like a beacon. . .
Anywho, Cooper was ready for a chat with the Headmaster sitting on that high horse. If things went according to his intentions, then after riding the lift to Ozpin's office, he'd have to make another stop at the CCT room at the base of the tower.
A single call to the old buckaroo would set things in stone.
"Alright," Cooper blew out his nerves, "no turning tail now."
"If you do that," a cold hand combed through his furred appendage, "how am I supposed to play with your wonderful tail?"
Cooper screamed and jumped behind the nearest bench, heart thumping in his ears.
"Salutations, Cooper, my friend." Penny saluted and beamed way too innocently for his liking. "How are you doing this fine day?"
"How am I doing?" He hopped over the bench and jabbed a finger into her metallic arm. "Arrhythmic, thanks to you."
Her neon green eyes clouded in a robot's equivalent of worry. She grasped his shoulders, leaned far too close, and yanked his nose into her forehead.
"Yeow!"
"That's terrible!" She dragged him away from the tower and passed several puzzled people. "We have to find a professional. Do you happen to know where we can find the nearest meat mechanic? I'm no good when it comes to fixing real people."
He rubbed his nose. "You mean a doctor?"
For a second, Penny went quiet and still as of common sense shocked her motherboard.
"Oh, right," she said. "That's what they're called."
"Look," Cooper freed himself, "I was being sarcastic earlier. There's nothing wrong with my heart."
She stared. "So. . . you're really okay?"
"Other than my nose," he gave it a squeeze, "nothing is out of sorts."
"Well, in that case," she peeked around him, "may I play with your tail?"
Cooper took three steps back and curled his lovely appendage inside his shirt. "That's a definite no-no."
Head tilted, Penny placed a finger on her chin. "Is it because you'll scream like a girl?"
"Scream like a—" His cheeks burned. "I'll have you know that was a strategic cry for help."
"Really? That's interesting news." She giggled and flicked up a finger. "Until now, to the extent of my knowledge, I thought only females could reach vocal pitches as high as yours. Are you a woman?"
"To clarify, I am definitely a man." He hid beneath the brim of his cap and held up a hand in hopes she'd understand it meant stop. "I happen to have a sensitive tail, alright. Now, let's forget about this and never talk about it again."
"No can do!" Penny tapped her noggin. "All the information I receive gets stored in here where I can freely analyze it whenever I want."
'Please,' thought Cooper. He groaned and facepalmed. 'Someone save me.'
"Cooper, you there, man?! We wanna to talk a bit!"
Cooper cursed his rotten luck.
"Is that Roderick?" Penny pointed down at a set of stairs. "I think that's Stiofan, too. We should let them know where we are."
Cooper mustered the strength to haul her heavy frame all the way past the dining hall and into a spacious marble pavilion.
There were two fountains in the pavilion: a big circular one in the center and a smaller trough shaped one with a lion head on the single wall. The other sides consisted of a series of spiral columns and archways with scruffy plants lazing about directly above the arches. Stone pedestals housed flowers lining the knee-high walls, and between every two pedestals, a table and chairs decided to pop in.
Elegant and a bit high-class; Weiss and Stiofan would fancy this place.
"I don't think they saw us." Cooper doubled over and leaned against the big fountain. "Radek sure doesn't know when to bloody quit."
When he turned, the pull of a pin on a terrible weapon gobsmacked him.
Penny stood there holding a grenade of curiosity. She moved closer. He backed away. They matched step for step, speed for speed, and for the love of all that was good, would it kill her to stop acting like a heat seeking missile locked onto his face?!
Then, the worst thing happened: Cooper's rump kissed the wall.
"Cooper," she said and clamped his shoulders, "why are we running from your teammates?"
Cooper couldn't gather his thoughts thanks to how uncomfortably close their noses were to touching.
"I-I, well, uh. . ." He leaned over the trough of the lion fountain and sighed. What was the point of hiding it anymore? "Look, things happened between the lot of us, and I'm not so sure how to go about it right now."
Penny stood straight, hands clasped behind her, and smiled per usual. "Why not talk about it. That's what I'd do."
"It's not that simple, darling," he said and watched the lion spew water at the trough.
"Does this have to do with the fact that you're secretly a criminal?"
"Yes, yes, it does." He searched for his own reflection through the bubbles and waves. "My secret got out and. . ." His world came to a grinding halt, and the white of his eyes bulged to enormous proportions in the watery surface. "How did you know that?!"
"Duh," she pointed at his rump, "your tail."
Cooper's jaw dropped. "You can't be serious?"
Unless there was paper stapled to his trusty tail labeling him as a no good crook, he refused to believe that logic.
"I recognized it from a list of bounties Mister Ironwood made me memorize. Its size, shape, and fur pattern are very similar compared to a photograph of an unidentified raccoon Faunus causing all sorts of larceny in Mistral." She proudly held her hips and puffed her chest. "According to my analysis, that thief is you."
The cruel claws of misfortune herself ripped the wind out from Cooper's lungs.
For every job, he made it a habit to conceal his face, change clothes, and stay clear of whatever neighbourhood he'd hit for months on end if necessary. Not a single soul ever figured him out, and when he finally left his thieving life to start fresh and moved to the Kingdom of Vale, everything was still dandy.
Faunus were more openly accepted in Vale, crime rate was low, and the daily news usually stayed confined to each respective kingdom, meaning not many locals would know diddly squat about Mistral's raccoon thief.
Nothing could've possibly gone wrong. . . until now.
Cooper licked the dryness cracking his lips. "H-how long have you known?"
"Since," Penny smiled wider, "we went to the docks."
His innards rolled. "And you're fine knowing what kind of person I am?"
"That's fine by me." She went over to the edge of the pavilion and fancied the low wall for a chair. "I've never had many friends, so I'm very familiar with being alone. That's why when you and Ruby decided to be my friends, I was very happy."
He sat next to her and ogled the broken moon glistening above the evening sun. "I'm surprised you didn't collect and hand me over to a cop on a silver platter."
"Don't be silly. You wouldn't fit on a silver platter." She grasped a column, fingers strained as if they tried to strangle the marble. "I did think about giving you to the police, though."
Acid shredded its way up his gullet. "You what?"
"My programming is supposed to calculate every outcome of any situation I encounter and decide the best course of action, so my initial impulse was to report you to the authorities." Remorse glazed over Penny's eyes. "I'm not sure why, but the thought of doing it really hurt, and I'm designed not to feel pain."
This was the closest Cooper would get to seeing a robot cry, and suddenly, his problems didn't fare as much.
"Yet," Penny continued, "it reminded me of the moments we shared that are still new in my database. I. . . don't understand what these strange feelings are, and it won't go away—not even when I'm told to keep my distance from everyone."
He took a moment to process what he was hearing. "Darling, what exactly are you—"
"After I ran into both you and Ruby," she touched her chest, "I revealed my very, very, important secret, then we made a promise to never tell anyone." She grasped his hands and shined like the happiest person on Remnant. "That's when I knew, despite not being a real girl, my friends are genuine."
An oddly fuzzy feeling inside Cooper's tummy made him forget how language worked.
Ruby said Penny had a heart and soul. Call him a skeptic, but the idea of that was a tid bit mad at the time. As of now, though, after hearing and witnessing the purity and honesty of her words, he was a full on believer.
No hunk of hollow metal could do that.
"Um," Penny waved her hand in front of his face, "are you broken?"
Since Cooper so graciously received a special gift from a beautiful soul such as hers, what kind of gentleman would he be if he didn't return the favour in full?
"Penny, what have you been talking about this whole time?" Cooper said and grinned like a fool. "From the way I see it: you're the most authentic person I've ever had the pleasure of meeting."
An array of emotions malfunctioned across her face.
"Sensational!" Penny popped up and dinged his nose against her metallic chest. "Oh, Cooper, that's so kind of you!"
Cooper ignored the fact his cap was knocked loose and that a good dose of pain reinjected itself into his nostrils again.
"And this is the most comforting hug I've ever had in my life," he said against her solid bosom.
"As much as I would like to speak more with you," she let him go and checked the sky, "I have a curfew, and it's getting rather late."
"Can't have the General throwing a fit now, can we?" He rubbed his throbbing nose and returned his cap to its rightful place. "This talk's been enlightening."
"You're welcome, Cooper, my friend. I hope things work out in the end." She saluted and walked away but suddenly stopped. "Oh, in case it helps, my father always tells me to have a little faith. I'm not exactly sure what it means, however, I think you might know what to do with it."
As Penny waved her goodbyes, Cooper took a gander at the water cascading from the lion's maw once more, forming small ripples in the pool held by its buddy of a trough.
"Faith, huh?" He checked his reflection in the water and easily found those devilishly handsome features this time around. "What the heck? Here's to it."
Cooper tapped the lion's snout for extra luck and flicked his coin in the air.
-----
Leon Alexander Gates
-----
Alexander was cursed.
No matter how many times he tried to avoid it, somehow—someway, there was always a bran muffin set aside for him in the dining hall, laying in wait and ready to strike the moment he set foot past those doors.
Now here he was, entering the elevator of the dormitory with the cursed piece of baked batter in his hand. Alexander didn't have the heart to throw out a perfectly good piece of food, yet at the same time, he had no appetite for it either.
What was he supposed to do?
Once the elevator door opened to his floor, Alexander cringed at the mind grating voice paired with the scratching of strings rattling the halls.
He followed the noise, turned the corner, and sighed at the source.
Outside of Team RWBY's room, Jaune strummed a guitar while using the vocal power of a dying goat to serenade Weiss out to the dance.
Look at this dumbass.
Wait a minute.
Alexander held up his muffin, and the best idea he ever had stuck to him like glue.
A quick call set his plan in motion.
When Jaune pulled out his scroll, Alexander marched over and snatched it. Jaune gawked. Alexander stuffed the muffin in his mouth before he could say a word, opened Team JNPR's door with Jaune's scroll, and tossed him inside.
From Team RWBY's room, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang looked at him as if he pulled a rabbit out his ass.
Weiss cleared her throat and did a little bow. "Thank you, Alexander. Your actions will be remembered."
Alexander grunted and moved on.
"Hey!" The heiress poked her head out of the room. "Where are your manners? I just showed you some gratitude. You're supposed to say something nice back. At least look at me when I'm talking to you. Hey, stop." She huffed and stomped the floor. "Don't make me go over there and give you a— "
Alexander entered his room and shut the door behind him, and like the past three days, he was greeted by a wave of glum.
"Oh, you've returned, Alexander," Stiofan said and peeled his nose out from his notebook. "Did you happen to see Cooper on your venture?"
He rolled into bed, hands tucked behind his head. "I don't remember being his babysitter, Ua Binn."
Sulking in a pillow, Roderick shifted his head enough for his mouth to show.
"At least try to act concerned, man," he said. "He's still your partner."
"He's got space and half a brain. Let him figure it out."
The leader exhaled. "Is that really what you think?"
Alexander closed his eyes and let the question simmer.
Cooper ignored their voices, declined their calls, sat as far away from any of them as possible in class, and vanished from whoever tried getting close. He stayed within arms length yet out of reach, pretending like they weren't even there.
What an asshole.
There wasn't much they could do about it either. If Cooper really was a criminal, evading them must be nothing compared to the cops, so to save themselves the headache, it'd be better to hold off and wait for when he stops running and figure things out from there.
"He'll come when he's ready," Alexander said. "For now, I say leave him be."
Knocks rocked the door.
Stiofan answered, and Team RWBY barged past him.
"Sorry there, Stiofan," Yang said.
Stiofan sat up, sighed his problems away, and returned to the desk.
The smug corners of Weiss' mouth stretched once she locked eyes with Alexander. He paid even less attention to her than Jaune does to Pyrrha, much to her annoyance.
"I hope you guys don't mind us intruding?" Yang plopped onto Roderick's bed and tugged him next to her. "We need your help, Roddy."
He blinked. "With what?"
"With her," Yang said and pointed a thumb back at a disheveled Blake struggling in Ruby's flimsy hold.
"Blake's really been stressing out a lot ever since the incident with Torchwick." Ruby lost her grip but blurred and shut the door before Blake could escape. "We were hoping you guys could talk sense to her."
"I already told you three," Blake tried to get past Ruby, "I don't have time to relax."
Yang hauled her by the scarf. "Hold it right there, partner. Say what you're thinking about to the boys. I'm sure it'll work out."
Blake leveled a glare at the blonde for a moment and ultimately resigned.
"If it means I can get back to work, then fine." She took a seat at the desk beside Stiofan. "Let's get this over with already."
Listening to what she had to say stirred conflict within the six other people in the room, stewing into an near hour long debate.
Maybe following Cooper's lead wasn't such a bad idea after all.
"Like I said," Blake touched her brow, "we should make Cooper tell us what he knows about Torchwick."
Roderick crossed his arms. "I told you to save it for later. Right now, we need to talk some sense into Cooper."
"We saw what happened in Vale." Her tired eyes narrowed. "Cooper may have the answers I need to takedown Torchwick."
"Blake," Stiofan placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, "it would be best to picture a more soothing subject."
"Yeah, like, have you decided about going to the dance we talked about earlier?" Yang puffed with pride. "Me and Weiss will make an extra effort in making it totally awesome for you."
Team CFVY came to mind.
Coco and Velvet were supposed to plan the event after returning from their mission, but since it's been a week since their scheduled return, the job went to the replacements: Weiss and Yang.
Whatever problem they snagged, he hoped they'd come back safe.
"Forget about that." Blake shot up. "Who has any idea where Cooper could be?"
"As we mentioned before," Stiofan said, "none of us know."
"That troublemaker could be hiding anywhere." Weiss scoffed and lifted her chin. "I say we should ignore him as well. To be frank, I'd rather not be seen anywhere near that criminal."
Did the heiress enjoy being a part-time bitch?
"Not this again, Weiss." Roderick groaned. "Come on, he's your friend, too. We can't leave him."
"He's a thief. And if I recall correctly, he admitted it himself. Don't tell me none of you heard it."
Roderick's mouth opened and sealed shut.
"Thief or not, it's like what Rod said." Ruby straightened and held up a finger. "He's our friend and we're not leaving him."
Weiss massaged what must have been a migraine.
The two leaders bumped fists.
Despite the optimism, whenever Ruby thought no else was paying attention, her expression sank, and the sheen in those silver irises faded. She was the most worried here other than Roderick, and Alexander pierced through her better than a bullet.
"Look," Yang pointed out the window, "since he's still hanging around campus, I'm sure we'll run into him, eventually."
"Yeah!" Ruby threw her arms in the air. "We'll catch him before he knows it."
"All that aside," Weiss clapped her hands, "we should focus more about our classes and less about people who steal for a living. If we keep acting distracted like this, not only will it affect each of our grades, it will also draw attention from the professors."
"Who cares about that?" Blake wandered between Roderick and Cooper's beds. "People's lives are at stake!"
Alexander had enough, and for the first time since Team RWBY arrived, he spoke.
"Blah, blah, blah," he said. "Quit it already, Belladonna."
Six heads swiveled in his direction.
"I believe to have misheard you," Blake said through her teeth. "Could you repeat that, Alexander?"
"Why can't your annoying ass catch a damn hint?" He sat up and returned the glare behind his draping blonde locks. "Just shut up and take a nap."
"Please, don't speak." Her fingers curled. "Your silence is loud enough as it was."
"In that silence, I listened." Alexander went over and towered above her. "Everyone wants you to leave it alone for now, or is digging your own grave that important? That bow must be cutting the blood flow to your brain. Cause last I checked, people preferred pillows and beds rather than tombstones and coffins."
Blake fumed.
"Glad to know the matter of life and death isn't important to you, Alexander." She whipped a finger at the door. "The threat is real and it's out there ready to hit us without warning. Torchwick. The White Fang? If you don't quite get it, then let me make it clear—"
Alexander clamped her mouth and shoved her into Roderick's bedside table, knocking several objects to the floor.
Gasps filled the room.
Blake pried at his fingers, lashing out and punching his chest. He budged as much as anyone would from something weaker than a mosquito bite.
"What's clear," Alexander said, "is when your lips stop flapping, you're pretty useless."
"Alex," Roderick said and approached him like a wild animal, "relax, man."
He ignored him and lowered himself to her level. "Let me ask you this: Why should the enemy fear you when you can't do jack, Belladonna?"
Blake's breathing quickened, sleep deprived ambers shivered underneath his gaze.
A hand squeezed Alexander's wrist, vise tight.
"I suggest you let her go." Stiofan's pupils sharpened. "I do not wish to regret my future actions."
Yang cracked her knuckles. "Yeah!"
If either of those two came loose, it'd spell more trouble than any of them would prefer.
Alexander snorted and let go, and Stiofan ushered Blake behind his guard.
"Okay. . ." Roderick wedged herself between them. "All this talking is getting us worked up. Why don't we take a break?"
Look at that. They did have good ideas.
Alexander took the advice and left.