It was hard to keep track of the events that came about within the last few days and the gravity of their actions were more then clear; but Ozpin, Ironwood and especially Glynda were more then willing AND determined to spell it out for both Team RWBY and for Jae first thing in the morning, the very next day.
"You caused a disturbance and a traffic collision in downtown Vale during the Atlesian demonstration!" Ironwood snapped at Ruby with the stern focus of a general while the smaller girl felt herself wilt under his presence.
"I didn't mean to, those soldiers just started chasing me and my friend…That truck came out of nowhere!" Ruby protested as what her and Penny did end up getting chased by Atlas Soldiers into the street, if it wasn't for Penny jumping in; then Ruby would've been hit by a truck.
"Look, there's no need to be upset with her…Perhaps if she was given a chance to explain, maybe we can find out why it was." Ozpin explained, trying to keep things neutral in terms of understanding and reprimanding the students for what they did.
"And while we are on the subject, what is this that I hear about you four tearing up an overpass? That caused untold damage to other vehicles, road repair and not to mention damaging what was supposed to be a discretely transported prototype." Ironwood added with a pointed glare to the group.
"With all due respect sir, it wasn't really our fault that it got destroyed." Jae spoke up as he wasn't eager for everyone to be doled out only blame for stopping Torchwick making a bad situation worse.
"Yeah, why not ask HOW someone managed to get their hands on your super secret project rather then getting mad at us for being there to stop it from hurting people!" Yang agreed with him as she likewise agreed that it wasn't fair for them to get in trouble.
"The issue which we are punishing you for is NOT about saving people." Glynda assured them with understanding but she changed back to stern almost as quickly; "It's about the fact that all five of you were out in a dangerous area of Vale where none of you were meant to be AND engaging with a violent criminal without the aid of a teacher, law enforcement OR a professional Huntsman."
Jae flinched a little, he knew that she wasn't exactly wrong but it still didn't change the fact that it sucked knowing that saving people kind of broke the rules for them.
"Taking on the Paladin in the way that you had done, those were the acts that I would expect of a Huntsman and Huntresses but I would advise you save those types of heroics for when you graduate and I can assure you that you will be receiving a punishment for this." Ozpin mentioned, giving them some credit and the right affirmation but still reminding them that they weren't above the law.
"What?!/Come on!/That's hardly fair!" Rang out the protests of Yang, Jae and Ruby who all seemed to agree on the unfairness.
"General Ironwood has insisted that the five of you be barred from the Vytal Festival Tournament for your actions." Ozpin began to explain himself before Ironwood spoke up.
"And rightly so! This is meant to be a punishment for disobedient students, Oz…Not a free pass!" Ironwood grumbled with a displeased look on his face.
"Need I remind you that these are MY students, James…Not your's, this is a school, not a military base." Ozpin pushed back as he gazed up at Ironwood with an insistent tone. "So rather than barring you all outright, I will be putting you all through detention leading up to the Vytal Festival's end but I will offer to have your punishment lessened with some…Community service." Ozpin explained to the Five.
"Community Service? You mean like picking up trash?" Ruby asked in confusion as she was a little relieved that her and her team were spared from the barring.
Glynda stepped forward with some sheets of paper and handed them out to the group; "Team CVFY were meant to be organising the dance in a few days, however they have yet to return from their extended mission so if you feel like being charitable for the evening, we can waive the detention while you prepare."
——Present Day——
The quiet echoes of footsteps rang out in the empty and hollow chamber as Ironwood was following Glynda into the lower depths of the school to meet up with Ozpin; "Are you sure he's down here?"
"James, if he's not in his office then I can assume he's down here…For what exactly, I don't know." Glynda assured him as they saw the silver haired man at the end of the hall.
Ozpin was deep in thought as he stared at what looked like a broken weapon on a pedestal. It looked old in design and on top of it looked like an old greatsword made out of a bizarre hybrid of stone and metal; it had a leather wrapping around the hilt with a runic design along the middle of the shattered blade that had broken off halfway and made it look like a forked dagger, the centrepiece for this broken relic was a grim looking face etched into the hilt-guard that almost felt like it was watching them.
Ironwood and even Glynda looked shocked that such a thing was here as it didn't look like anything they had seen before; "What…What is that?" Glynda asked quietly as she looked like she was going to touch it but felt frozen in place.
"A bygone relic from the past; It is named Rebellion…Back when the Demons tried to assert their place on Remnant, the Demon King Sparda had wielded this weapon when Humans began to fight back against them." Ozpin explained the story as both Ironwood and Glynda were listening intently, the history behind the Demon King itself was a barely discussed thing but with the possibility of a Demon making a return, that seemed reason enough for Oz to start elaborating. "With that sword in hand, he fought for 5 days and nights with the ferocity that could truly label him as a Demon King; but while the man who would later rule over Vale fought his own battles elsewhere, another hero took their life in their hands to fight back against Sparda and after a lengthy battle…That man was one of the first recorded Demon Hunters in Remnant's history and the man who killed the Demon King: Gildo Arc."
"The Demon King's Sword…." Glynda whispered as she eyed it with both awe and trepidation; "You've kept this here and never told us…Why?" She turned to face the Headmaster with a newfound concern; if such a powerful relic was hiding under the school in tandem with the Relic of Choice in such close proximity, that spoke volumes to the implicated risk.
Ozpin sighed; "I had honestly hoped that I could leave this here to crumble into aged dust…But with our recent discoveries with Mr Cielo, it's starting to linger more in my mind…After the Great War when Beacon was founded, Gildo gave this sword to the first headmaster in the hopes that with the trained warriors around it, it could be used by someone worthy enough to keep it safe along with the Relic."
"But it's a dead weapon from a forgotten time, why would you need it to be kept under such secrecy?" Ironwood asked as he was still unsure why something that seemed so archaic would be guarded as such.
"There are rumours surrounding the sword itself, whether it was when Sparda himself wielded it or the sword's own magic itself; one speculated that this sword could grant unimaginable power to those worthy enough to have the will in wielding it…But another states that this sword is the only weapon that was powerful enough to kill a Full-blooded Demon…With such stories surrounding it, I didn't want to take chances if someone found it in the hopes of it being true…Let alone give "her" the opportunity to grab it for herself." Ozpin admitted; "But one thing I did notice in a book I came across while I researched this sword…It had been mentioned in a fable that the sword will awaken itself in the presence of another Full-Blooded Demon."
"And you suspect that if we put Mr Cielo in its presence? That something would happen?" Glynda asked, even though she was used to Ozpin's vague answers; she had to admit that it made her worry for Jae since he was still a child in her eyes.
"That I don't know…and I don't want to take any risks. It's been unresponsive for decades and right now we need to be preparing for the Vytal Festival first and waiting to hear a response from Qrow regarding our…other investigation." Ozpin finished the conversation with a finality that came with being a headmaster; "Whether Mr Cielo is a Full-Blooded Demon or something else, I do not wish to add more worry to the young man's mind; He is still trying to understand himself as a person just as much as we wish to understand what he is."
——Meanwhile in another Dorm——
While Ozpin and the other teachers made their plans for defending against whatever threat was coming their way; a second group were bringing their own plot to life in due time. "So, you all understand what we have so far?" Cinder would ask as she looked like she was doing some needlework.
"With what we know about Nikos after I "sparred" with her, you should have no problem figuring her out…and beating her." Mercury mentioned; Prior to their talk, Pyrrha Nikos was being watched during her training session when she went up against Mercury. It looked like a standard training test with an abrupt forfeit to most people there, but for the likes of Cinder and Emerald; it had been a way to get a scope of her abilities and how to counter.
"It's not about beating an opponent, it's about taking away what they have and breaking them…Emerald, do you remember the plan for the other one?" Cinder mentioned as she drew the needle across for another stitch.
"Yeah, Tomorrow in the next practice match; I'll volunteer to fight him and see what I can get from him." Emerald agreed as she looked up from her scroll; "But do we really need to target this guy based on what a petty thief with sticky fingers said?"
"Man, the view must be great in that glass house of your's…" Mercury grumbled with a voice that was dripping sarcasm, something that earned him a pointed glare and a disgruntled huff when he looked up towards her from his pushup; "We've been working alongside someone who helped Cinder steal the Fall Maiden's power….And you think that a race of people who did exist a long time ago is the crazy part?"
"And if it's true and he IS a Demon? He could go feral and lose control….Kind of li-" Emerald was gearing up to argue back at him but stopped herself when she saw Cinder lifting her hand to silence them both.
"Enough, you two…head to your rooms, tomorrow we enact our plan…One way or another." Cinder reassured them as she lifted up the fabric that she had been working on to show off a sparkling dress that was fit for a ballroom. "And if what Torchwick said turns out to be true…Salem would be MORE than happy to see him kneeling at her feet." The would-be villainess thought to herself as she started talking about what the next step was.
—The Next Day—
"Hey Blake!" Jae's voice called out to the black haired girl as she listlessly walked past him and the others without so much as a glance back, concerned about her from the last few days; Jae wasn't going to let her go without an explanation as to why none of them had seen her outside of classes.
"What do you want, Jae….I'm busy." Blake grumbled as she turned around to face him. Things had been quiet since they had stopped Torchwick and the White Fang, however what she had discovered at the rally plus what he said to her at the docks; it became rather apparent just how much all of this was affecting her. her uniform looked like normal but she looked like she had been stretched out; Blake's hair was more dishevelled and her gold eyes now had some rather harsh looking bags under them.
"Jeez Blake, what's happened with you?" Jae asked with concern; "None of us have seen you in days and when we do, you've just…shrugged us off." He mentioned as he tapped his foot; "I get it if we couldn't do our study sessions but no one else seems to have seen much of you at all, no one in your team knows about what's going on with you… you don't even show up to help us with the dance stuff…"
"I'll tell you what I told Sun; I'm too busy for a stupid dance, I'm too busy right now to humour you by looking up ancient history that may not even be true and I'm too busy to be focused on school stuff while there's something much more dangerous out there." Blake growled with a rather terse look on her face, stepping back and narrowing her tired looking eyes.
"Blake….Have you even stopped to take a break or eat something?" Jae asked as he started to get more worried with her less than amicable tone and that was more than enough reason for him to look out for her; "Look, I know the Torchwick stuff is dangerous but that can wait!" He reinforced the point as he gently grabbed her shoulders; "You NEED to slow down! Everyone's worried about you and it's starting to be obvious for the teachers."
"I already told you….I. am. fine! There's no time for any of us to be fooling around, Yang and the others are more fixated on getting this dance made up and YOU want me to go rooting through myths and dumb make believe stories just so you can do some weird kind of soul searching!" Blake snapped at him; the lack of sleep and her almost obsessive desire to stay on track made for a very harsh combo but Jae wasn't going to give up, especially since it was exhausting Blake like this.
"Blake, you need to understand…We're not doing this because we want to ignore everything, we're doing this because you and the rest of us need to slow it down! If you keep firing on all cylinders like this then it's going to affect more then just your grades…." Jae made one last desperate attempt to try getting through to her but found himself getting frustrated out of concern when she started to leave and grabbed her hand to try emphasising the point. "Blake, please listen to me!" He started to talk but she cut him off entirely as she yanked her hand free and gave him an angry look.
"You're not listening to ME! We could be in danger and no amount of studying or dancing will stop whatever's coming but no one is understanding that! If none of you are going to be taking what I say seriously then I'm just going to do it by myself!" Blake yelled at him before storming off, leaving Jae feeling a mix of frustration and sadness as he felt like he messed it up.
With a deep sigh and a resigned look on his face, Jae began making his way to class without realising that someone had been watching him from behind a corner.
—Later, in Goodwitch's Class——
"Alright students; since this will be the last training session that you will undergo before each of you go on a shadowing mission with a trained Huntsman, I have watched you fight and train to improve over this time so I have no reason to doubt that any of you are ready." Glynda explained as she grabbed her clipboard; "Now, seeing as we're down to our last few groups of individuals so I think we ought to start with….Mr Cielo…You are one of the last few on the list and with Ms Belladonna not participating, I think that perhaps…"
"I can do it." Emerald offered as she raised her hand; earning the curious look of both Jae and Glynda as she volunteered.
"I see…Emerald, was that right? I don't see a reason why that can't happen, will the both of you please enter the arena." Glynda agreed as she tapped on her tablet to make Jae and Emerald appear on a bigger screen while the two got centre stage.
Emerald watched him carefully even as they stepped into the ring and pulled out her twin weapons; "Try not to make this too easy~"
Jae chuckled as he summoned up his sword; "Trust me, I'm not gonna be joking around with this." He retorted as he then got into a defensive stance and watched Emerald for her first moves.
Emerald started off with a quick flurry of swipes with her blades as she tried to push him on the back foot; noting that even though he had the one blade, he was still stronger then he looked and he had a solid block.
Jae waited until both of her weapons clashed with his and then pushed off of her with his own; rushing forward with a quick sweep of his sword and following up with a backwards elbow.
"He's got some moves…though I can definitely tell that he's holding something back…maybe I can coax it out~" Emerald thought as she thrust her right weapon forward to make him backstep from her and then followed it up by swinging her blade into it's chain form to get extra range on him.
It took a split second but Jae sidestepped around the vertical swing and tried to use his sword to deflect each one; "Man, she's good! Long and short range makes this dangerous with the sword alone…But I can't risk freaking people out."
"Better focus!" Emerald taunted him as she quickly whipped the chain forward and hit him in the chest to knock him backward.
With a heavy wince and another duck under her swing; Jae was getting overwhelmed by Emerald's surprising speed plus her quick changes between wide swinging chain attacks and close range strikes made it difficult to get a bead on her as she toyed around with him. "Uh kid…you might wanna up the ante, I'm not sure what this chick can do but you're gonna need to improvise if you don't wanna get cut up…" That same voice from before rang in his head as Jae ducked under another swing and brought his palm upward to strike at under Emerald's chin.
"Working on it! But if I do, people are gonna get freaked out when they realised Cardin was right about my weapons." Jae mentally pointed out as he pushed forward on Emerald as their weapons clashed.
"You are only embarrassing yourself, a warrior should use all of the tools at their disposal…You needlessly cripple yourself by denying your strength and your assets, allow me to show you…" Another voice echoed in the back of his mind; There was a sudden wave of energy rushing through his body like he had downed several shots of coffee and with a swing, he pushed Emerald back like it was nothing.
"What the…Okay, that's new…" Emerald was more confused that Jae suddenly got a pep in his step now, thinking it was a second wind; "So now you're deciding to take this seriously?"
There wasn't an answer as the two got more fevered in their fight; the students in the stands were getting more excited as they saw Emerald showing her stuff and Jae starting to look more focused.
Pyrrha was impressed to say the least; she noticed that while his Aura strength was a slow improvement, his physical abilities more than made up for it and seeing Jae getting stronger as he fought made her respect him that much more. "Maybe I should ask him…If he hasn't asked anyone else already…"
The truth was that since Jae started to feel more confident in himself and with his abilities; it started to…show; The other students around him were often impressed when they saw him training himself with his sword and when he took his studies seriously, he had noticed that a fair few people were staring at him and whispering but he shrugged it off since most of the times, the whispering was for a different reason and chalked it to standard habit.
Emerald made it her point to keep an eye on him and decided to try taking him off balance while she had the chance; bringing one blade down and another blade up to attack him in a vertical scissor movement while lunging in.
Jae glanced downward and upwards; with the two voices in his head yelling at him to dodge backward or forward, he brought both hands up and in a brief moment there was a glimmer of light and the sound of four blades clashing with each other.
There was a collective gasp and a hushed conversation between both the Beacon students and the transfer when they saw that Jae's sword had disappeared and in it's place were what looked like pincers grasping Emerald's weapons in their grip. Glynda watched the match and was about to call a halt when she saw the weapon's features and Jae's body make that reaction but decided to hold on to see what happens from this, "So what Cardin said WAS true…just not in the way that he said it was."
"Vajra…Jae, what are you doing?!" Pyrrha would look alarmed as she realised that Jae's worry about getting caught out would end up being true as she recognised the katars on his wrist better than anyone else.
"So you have more then one weapon instead of a transformable…let's see it." Emerald said as she was now intrigued with his new show."
With that proclamation of keeping it going was enough for Glynda to allow it to continue as both Emerald and Jae began to move faster now; Emerald could finally act more nimble then she did against his sword while Jae could have more swiftness with each jab and swing of his arms.
Once he switched out his weapons, Jae felt like he weighed like practically nothing. His body was swift to jab and even faster to backstop, dodge and otherwise evade Emerald's swings, with enough momentum built up to avoid her; he rushed forward to land a double fisted strike.
"I forfeit!" Emerald declared as she watched him slow down to stop and the lights slowly came back on; "You're pretty good."
"And like that, Jae Cielo wins the bout." Glynda announced as a green tick appeared on Jae's face icon as his aura showed in the yellow while Emerald's was in the green. "You did remarkably well too, Ms Sustrai." She added as the bell rang for the end of classes and for the day. "And remember class, the Dance is tonight and you have your evaluations on Monday so do not overdo it….There will be no excuses." Glynda reminded everyone as the other students filed out with a buzz of excitement; both at the prospect of the dance and at the revelation of Jae's surprise weapon.
"Did you see it?"
"Yeah, it looked like one of those Deathstalker claws."
"You think he has others?"
"I don't know, but you think he's open for a date to the dance?"
Jae however was briskly walking away from the others as it dawned on him what had happened; It wasn't fully but his secret was now out in the open and he wasn't sticking around for the questions that followed. "Okay, don't freak out…You activated Vajra on instinct, no big deal…Just calm down and take a deep breath…It's not like anyone's gonna judge too harshly, they're just gonna think it's a new weapon you made…that just so happens to look like a Grimm.." Jae tried to mentally calm himself but found himself distracted when he felt someone tap his shoulder.
"So, that was an interesting match~" A sultry voice could be heard as Jae turned around and found Cinder looking at him with a slight smirk and a glance up and down at him; "You really are full of surprises."
"Oh hi, Cinder was it? I remember you were on Emerald's team, right?" Jae mentioned as he recognised her from when he bumped into her; "Yeah, it was a pretty intense match…Emerald's really good in a fight." He said to compliment her.
"Indeed; though I must admit that you are pretty good too." Cinder mentioned coyly as she flicked her hair; "You shouldn't forget that either." She mentioned as she got closer to him and watched as Jae began to get nervous.
"I-uh…What are you doing?" Jae asked as he could feel his body squirm in anxiety at both the fact that this cute woman was in such close range and being the subject of praise. "L-Look, if you just wanna talk…then we can, just back up a little please…" He would stammer as he was more then a little anxious with someone he barely knew being face to face with him.
"Isn't it obvious? You're a pretty talented guy, Emerald said you gave her a good challenge in that fight….Plus I've seen you in other classes and when you were training." She mentioned casually; "I'm asking you to take me to the dance, you've proven to be quite the talented man…That and I really like a man who's good with his hands~" Cinder purred as she stared into his eyes with a playful sense of hunger, she knew that Demon or not; Jae was a pretty good catch and if he was going stag then she was gonna jump on the chance.
Jae was feeling his mind running at several hundred miles an hour as he realised what she was wanting; that was one thing but the fact that she was doing so in such an aggressive manner was overwhelming him. "I….I'm sorryIjustneedalittleair!" He stammered out frantically as he managed to get free from Cinder's influence and rushed out towards the courtyard, leaving Cinder to watch his disappearing figure round the corner with a rather confused expression.
"Not quite the reaction I was expecting…But rest assured….I will make him mine~"