62 Ch 61: Jaunedice (2)

"So! There we were in the middle of the night-"

"It was day." At lunch the day after Cardin beat up Jaune, again, Nora was telling the gang a story, and Ren was calmly interrupting her with corrections while playing with his cup.

"We were surrounded by Ursai-"

"They were Beowolves."

Yang was listening with rapt attention, resting her elbow on the table and her head in her hands as she listened.

"Dozens of them!" Nora screamed, slamming her palms on the table as she stood up from her seat.

"Two of them."

Yang seemed to be the only one enjoying the story, however. Weiss was filing her nails without a care, and Blake was absorbed in her book while Jaune was picking at his food absent-mindedly, and Pyrrha and Ruby were watching him with concern. Ray had stayed back to help collect and sort the tests from their last class and was still getting his food.

"But they were no match... And in the end, Ren and I took them down and made a boatload of Lien selling Ursa skin rugs!"

*Haaaa* "She's been having this recurring dream for nearly a month now." Ren explained as Nora sat back down, arms folded with a smug look as if her dream had really happened. Pyrrha, however, is more interested in the current state of her leader.

"Jaune? Are you okay?" She asks him, the concern evident in her voice.

"Huh? Oh, yeah! Why?" Jaune snaps out of it and turns to face her.

"It's just you seem a little…" Ruby moves her hands in front of her in small circles as she tries to find the best way to say it, "...not okay." she finally settles on pointing at him.

"Guys, I'm fine. Seriously! Look!" Jaune tries to reassure the rest of his team and Team RWBY, who were all now staring at him by giving them a thumbs up while laughing nervously through his big toothy grin. However, he was soon distracted by the sight of Team CRDL encircling a very uncomfortable little Faunus girl with white wings on her back and long blond hair with a perpetual cowlick that looked more like she was 12 than 17. Cardin and his team were crowding around her so she couldn't escape while laughing at her and making fun of her appearance.

Her team was seated a few tables away, watching their teammate helplessly. Their leader, a Human male with short spiky black hair and black eyes, was gritting his teeth as he focused on fiddling with his weapon, a silver shield with a large green Dust crystal in the center. The other two members of their team were girls. One was a Faunus who, unusually, had both a bushy raccoon tail and round raccoon ears poking out of her long chestnut hair, and the other a Human with dark blue hair tied up by two blue ribbons in curly twin tails and had violet-blue eyes. They were balling their hands into tight fists as they tried to bore holes into the boys bullying their friend with their glares.

Unfortunately, they were one of the weakest teams and couldn't stand up to Cardin and his team, who were ranked near the top of the middle portion in raw combat power. If they tried, they would only get bullied as well. Jaune's situation where he got beat up during sparring every day made it clear to everyone that there were ways they could torment those weaker than them without breaking any rules. They could only sit there and watch, hoping they would grow bored soon.

"Jaune, Cardin has been picking on you since the first week of school!" Pyrrha says, seeing him clench his fist like he wanted to hit something, or someone.

"Who? Cardin Winchester?" Jaune asks as he quickly unclenches his hand and tries to wave Pyrrha's comment off, "Nah… He just likes to mess around! You know, practical jokes!"

"He's a bully." Ruby declares decisively.

*scoff* "Oh, please! Name one time he's 'bullied' me." *Hehe* Jaune protests.

Everyone at the table immediately flashed back to several incidents that had happened this month, like an incident just two days ago. Jaune was walking through the halls on his way to class when Carden walked past him and knocked his books out of his hands. After that, he continued walking with his arms spread wide like he was saying, 'See what I just did. Aren't I the coolest?' while Juane could only grumble as he bent to pick up his books.

Or the incident last week. When Cardin passed Jaune just before, he went through a doorway. As he walked by, Cardin clicked on Jaune's sheath, causing it to extend into shield form and get stuck in the doorway. Jaune ran headlong into it and had to struggle for almost an hour, groaning, "Come on…!" the whole time, before he could get his weapon unstuck and clear the doorway.

But the incident that stuck out the most in their memories was what happened on their very first day, shortly after the commencement speech, when Glynda had taken all the new students to the weapon locker room to store their weapons and armor.

######

"Each of you will be assigned one rocket-propelled locker to store your weapons and extra armor. Additionally, your locker can be sent to a custom location based on a six-digit code." Glynda was explaining to them all.

Hearing this, Cardin glanced over to see Jaune standing between him and an open locker. Before Jaune can react, Cardin pushes him into the locker and slams the door shut.

"What?! No, wait, wait! You've gotta get me out of here! Please! Don't! Don't! Don't do it!" Jaune begged, but Cardin ignored him as he started pressing random buttons on the keypad. With a burst of blue flames igniting from the base, the locker, with Juane in it, soared into the sky. As the rocket-locker flew away, you could faintly hear Jaune crying "Ahhh, cooome oooooooon…!" over the roar of the engine.

######

"I didn't land far from the school!" Jaune attempted to laugh it off as he could tell by the looks on his friend's faces what they were remembering.

"Jaune, you know if you ever need help, you can just ask." Pyrrha once again tried to be a supportive friend.

"Ooooh!" Nora stood up and presented her idea with a huge, diabolic grin on her face, "We'll break his legs!"

"Guys, really, it's fine! Besides, it's not like he's just a jerk to me; he's a jerk to everybody." Jaune tried to reassure his friends.

The laughter from Team CRDL grows louder, and they all look over to see Cardin tugging on one of the Faunus girl's wings.

"Oww! It hurts!" she cried with tears in her eyes.

"I told you it was real." Cardin ignores her and continues to laugh.

"What a freak!" Russel Thrush, the mohawk on Cardin's team, laughs and says.

"Please, stop…" the little girl tries to turn around and beg, but with a firm tug from Cardin, several bloody feathers are ripped out of her wings. Freed from her tormentor's grasp, the little girl abandons her plate with a mountain of food on it and scurries away from them to her teammates, diving into the bosom of the other Faunus girl to hide. Cardin and his team consider following her and continuing their game for a moment before they see that they would have to go past where a glowering Team RWBY was sitting. Knowing those girls wouldn't let them pass after what they had just done, Cardin wipes the feathers and drops of blood off his hands and sits back down.

"Atrocious. I can't stand people like him." Pyrrha spits out disgusted.

"He's not the only one…" Blake agrees, still glaring at Cardin's back. [I should have kicked him harder.]

"It must be hard to be a Faunus." Yang sadly leans her head on her hand. Disliking the status quo, but not sure what she or anyone can do about it. Her brother has been trying to crack down on racial discrimination and bullying in general, handing out detentions left and right to anyone and everyone he could catch. However, it didn't seem to be doing much good. Sure, after the detention they would all try to avoid doing anything to get themselves another detention with him, but that just meant they were smarter about how and where they did it so that they could avoid getting caught. None of them actually stopped.

Later, after getting up from their table, Jaune looks back at his friends who are still talking and finishing their lunch before moving on to throw away the trash on his tray, feeling sad and alone. In his depression, he fails to notice the sinister smirk on Cardin's face as he watches his shame heavy walk.