Breakneck Pace

"Should we help him?" Blake questioned her team, worried at the sight of Arthur who was currently trying to eat his sandwich with the added difficulty of several incredibly heavy weights wrapped around his arms, the same weights around his legs and chest.

"No" Both Ruby and Yang quickly replied, Knowing that helping him would be the equivalent of suicide.

"Nice to see you two care" Weiss mocked with a snarky tone as she filed her nails.

"Oh, no don't get us wrong, we care, a lot. But there's a difference between caring enough to help someone and weighing the potential risks of helping said person. And in this case, the risk is too much, we would consider it if death was the repercussion, but our mom is scary when she goes drill sergeant and we are not stupid…" Yang answered as she looked to her sister who was stuffing her face full of cookies "I think?" she muttered.

"Ohohoh! Arthur! Tell us a story!" Nora excitedly shouted appearing next to Arthur who was still trying to lift his hand far enough to eat his food.

"Can I not?" Arthur asked, his arms trembling at the effort being exerted to eat. His eyes focused squarely on the delectable sandwich he had spent the morning making.

"Fiiinnnneeee" Nora whined as she slumped against the table, for about a second before she bolted upright with an 'Aha!' expression as she began to regale a story from her travels with Ren.

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"Dozens of them!" Nora screamed, jumping onto the table, being thoroughly ignored by most of the people at the table except Yang, who was captivated along with Pyrrha and Ruby who had been politely listening but then turned to look at Jaune who was playing with his food.

"Two of 'em" Ren corrected as Nora continued

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

Sighing Ren said "She's been having this recurring dream for nearly a month now."

"Jaune? Are you okay?" Pyrrha questioned, worried at her leaders lack of appetite, her question snapping him out of his daze "Huh? Oh, yeah! Why?" He questioned.

"Sure… because playing with your food is really showing us you're okay" Arthur snapped, finally taking another bite of his sandwich before his arms fell onto the table with a loud thump. His arms dragged down from the weights and his lack of forethought. 'Goddammit' he cried in his mind.

"He has a point" Blake admitted "You have been playing with your food for the last twenty minutes"

"Guys, I'm fine. Just a little distracted." He answered, his gaze falling onto the team led by Cardin who were currently surrounding a particular brown-haired bunny girl. One of Cardin's lackeys using his hands as makeshift rabbit ears to mock her.

Arthur's gaze also fell onto this scene, his arms halfway to his mouth with the little that remained of his lunch in his grasp. Yet he suddenly didn't feel hunger as he shakily placed his sandwich onto his plate.

"You guy's keep eating, I've got to do something" Arthur said as he slowly pushed himself up from his seat.

Tilting her head Ruby asked "Are you okay? There's not a bug going around is there?" she questioned, wariness and worry in her voice.

"I… guess you could call it a bug" he muttered as he turned to team CRDL who were now pulling on Velvet's ears. Behind him he could hear Jaune trying to tell everyone that Cardin wasn't only a jerk to him but to others as well.

"Let her go Cardin" Arthur ordered, taking slow lumbering steps towards Cardin, each step bringing a loud bang with it.

"Oh, you, let me just pull harder!" Cardin said as he began to forcefully tug on Velvet's ears.

"Ow! Please let go!" Velvet pleaded tears beginning to form in her eyes.

"Cardin, let, her, go. I am seriously not in the mood today" Arthur said with a tired sigh.

"And why should I! It's just a beast! As good as a Grimm! And I will treat it as such!" Cardin screamed, letting go of Velvet's ear as he turned to Arthur, rage evident in his expression.

Arthur lifted his arm, placing it in front of Velvet and pushing her behind him as he responded "You really are worse than scum, you know?" the disgust not hidden in his voice.

"Says the bastard who can't fight for a damned!" Argued Cardin, now butting his chest with Arthur's in an attempt to intimidate him.

"Says the guy who was turned into a eunuch by the 'bastard who can't fight for a damned'" Arthur mocked a sneer evident on his face.

"Oh, you are dead!" Cardin roared as he threw a fist at Arthur's face, neatly connecting with his jaw, causing Arthur to stumble to the side a little.

"Arthur!" Both Ruby and Velvet exclaimed, Ruby quickly stood from the table but was stopped when Yang placed her hand on her shoulder and shook her head "Yang!" Ruby argued "Let him figure this out" she said.

Velvet on the other hand quickly moved to Arthur's side to try and prop his body up before he fell over, but her efforts were unneeded as Arthur quickly caught his footing and straightened out his body.

"Ow, that hurt." Arthur mocked, with a wide grin; evidently, he wasn't hurt as Cardin too understood this, his face boiling in rage "mind hitting the other side, need to get a tooth out, it's been hurting for the last week"

Cardin clenched his fist throwing another punch, this time to Arthurs stomach, his fist connected with a loud meaty slam, causing Arthur to take one step back.

"So much for cheap dental practice" Arthur muttered, standing up straight again.

"You done yet Cardin? Or do you want to keep going?" He questioned with a tired voice.

"Arthur! Please just go! I don't want you getting hurt!" Velvet begged whispering to Arthur

Turning his head slightly to look at her Arthur let out a small smile, "Nope, can't let the cute bunny get hurt now can I" Arthur whispered, his grin getting bigger at Velvet's blush as she quickly hide her face by burying it into his back.

"…Add her to the list" Ruby told Yang, who quickly pulled out her Scroll and began typing away into it.

Cardin began to growl as he raised his fist once again for another punch. As he threw his fist forward his body froze mid attack "What the!?" he yelled as he began to struggle against his invisible confines.

"I believe that is enough" Came the stern voice of Glynda Goodwitch as she walked over to the two, her riding crop held in her right hand, raising it before bringing down into her left palm. "And why, pray tell, are you fighting in the dining hall, of all places?" she questioned, her voice stern and demanding.

"Let, me, go!" Cardin roared his struggling intensifying, "A little help here!" he ordered from his teammates, but they just shared a glance before shrugging their shoulders showing there was nothing they could do "Useless, pieces of…" he was about to say but was stopped as his jaw also stopped moving, the same feeling wrapping around his jaw that was around his arm.

"Language, Winchester." She said her riding crop pointing at Cardin, her voice not hiding her scorn.

"And you, mr. Fielder. The only reason I permissed your little excursions with Summer Rose was because I expected her to teach you how to fight, It seems I was wrong in my estimations of her as she seems to have taught you little in my absence" Glynda sneered

"Sorry, ma'am, but I didn't fight back for a few reasons, none of them having to do with Summer's tor… Training." Arthur retorted.

Glynda squinted as she stopped slapping her riding crop onto her palm "And what would that be?"

"Well, for one" Arthur began to slowly lift his arms which were trembling on their way up "I'm sort of struggling enough to stand as it is" his legs trembled to show their agreement with his statement. "And two, I'm really tired…" his arms fell bringing his body with them slightly before Arthur stopped himself from lurching over completely.

"Also, it's not like Cardin can do much to me without his mace, if we were fighting barehanded last time I could have probably won without getting a bruised lung in the process" Arthur explained getting a growl from Cardin in response, finally having gotten function in his arm and jaw back, two of his teammates grabbing his arms white the third was wrapped around his waist, each struggling to keep him from attacking Arthur.

"You seem to have become quite… cocky, in the last week" Glynda said with a smirk "Well, let's put you up to the test then, you have combat training tomorrow morning, I expect you there. I shall contact Summer and inform her that you will not be training with her tomorrow." Glynda turned to Cardin, and mr. Winchester, for assaulting a student outside of a proper combat arena you, along with your team shall be serving two weeks of detention, Professor Port has been looking for a few good scribes, I'm sure you can make yourselves useful" her tone now mocking along with a hint of pity. "You are dismissed" she said, turning away and leaving no room for argument from team CRDL as she left the dining hall.

"Huh, she seemed happy" Arthur muttered, watching Glynda exiting the room, using her telekinesis to pick up the dropped utensils and placing them back onto the tables or into the cleaning receptacles for cutlery and plates.

"This isn't over" Cardin growled as he pulled his arms from his now downtrodden teammates who immediately began to hold their heads and began walking towards the door. His teammates already feeling the oncoming headache of having to listen to another one of Professor Ports Peculiar Perils, as he had come to call his stories, having been very chuffed with himself when he had come up with the name during one of his lessons.

"Are you okay!?" Ruby said running up to Arthur, her hands reaching out to his face, turning it to the side to see if he was injured, letting out a sigh of relief that there wasn't any bruise, let alone reddening of the skin.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Now, you want, to let go before everyone gets starts gossiping?" Arthur said, shaking his head in an effort to escape Ruby's light grasp.

"Arthur, at this point, its public knowledge, everyone has already been gossiping about the 'girl with the engagement ring'. And it's not like Ruby tries to hide it" Yang said with a smirk, walking up to him followed by the rest of team RWBY as well as team JNPR.

"Well done with Cardin" Pyrrha politely said "Not many would put themselves out there like that, especially for strangers" she added.

"Oh, we're not strangers" Arthur said as he tried to turn around to look at Velvet, his attempt failing as Velvet kept her head firmly planted against his back, her body moving with Arthur's, not allowing him the chance to even see her extremely red face.

"Velvet? You okay?" Arthur asked as he put his hands against his temple and forcefully turned his head almost one hundred and twenty degrees with a sick crack in the process which didn't seem to affect him, but did everyone else who had been watching as most members of team RWBY and JNPR along with a few bystanders quickly placed their hands over their mouths at the grotesque sight of Arthur's head turned at an unnatural angle, that would kill anyone but an owl Faunus.

"Holy, shit! Arthur what the fuck!?" Yang screamed staring in horror at the morbid sight

"Y-yeah! What she said" Jaune piggy backed.

"That, is, so, cool!" Nora shouted, sparkles in her eyes as she jumped forward but was stopped as a queasy Ren grabbed her and prevented her from jumping forward.

Ruby and Weiss had nearly fainted at the sight that followed the sound, while Blake and Pyrrha had seemed unfazed by both the sound and sight, only having flinched at the suddenness and Arthurs willingness to do it.

"Side effect of using the Bravos chamber" Arthur succinctly explained, turning his head back to Velvet who had flinched and let go of him when she had heard the familiar cracking of his neck, reminding her of a certain incident with a level four combat bot she had seen Arthur go up against.

"Why would you use it then!?" Weiss screamed out, she was quickly ignored as Arthur introduced the shy rabbit.

"Anyways, this, is Velvet Scarlatina"

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Alternate Chapter names: [The man, the myth, the Eunuch... and his goonies] [Demi Owl] [Weight of the world]