"Come on, come on, come on!" the meatheads chanted, watching Yort lift a heavy-ass barbell. He tensed all his muscles, clenched his teeth, and with an incredible effort of will, straightened his arms over his head. "A hundred!!!"
The barbell was immediately dropped to the floor, nearly smashing through the mats and the gym's foundation, and Yort himself fell to his knees. A satisfied smile broke out on his sweaty face, he raised a trembling fist to the ceiling, and roared for the whole neighborhood to hear:
"ONE HUNDRE-E-ED!!"
The meatheads immediately hoisted him onto their shoulders and started chanting his name. The rest of the students sat on the benches in the distance minding their own business; they had long stopped being surprised by anything like this. Just a regular PE lesson, just the teacher throwing another "who can lift this heavy-ass piece of shit a hundred times" competition, just Yort taking first place again. Business as usual.
The giant who proudly bore the title of Physical Education Professor approached the winner. He was such a jacked dude that he had almost lost his humanoid shape due to the mounds of muscles that looked more like growths or tumors. Dark blue veins bulged like little rivers on his dark skin, and his shaved head perfectly reflected the light and Yort's grinning mug. Mons Shalibi was literally a "mountain of muscle," without any embellishments or exaggerations.
Along with his profession as a PE teacher, he was also the library caretaker. Well, not him personally, but his mysterious "alter ego," which looked like a scrawny fifth-grader with huge glasses. Almost no one had seen this second personality of his, as it was very shy and disliked crowded places. That's why it spent almost all its time in the library.
To be honest, Egrer doubted the existence of some other Shalibi, especially one so drastically different from the usual one. Those who claimed to have seen him with their own eyes often contradicted each other. Their testimonies sounded a lot like the ramblings of a drunk farmer claiming he was abducted by aliens and anally probed. Just background noise.
"Badass!" Professor Shalibi rumbled, flashing the braces on his teeth. "Top marks to Yort Alnen! Good job, kid!" He turned his mighty torso toward the wimps, some of whom couldn't lift that thing even once. "And you guys are not badass! You're losers!"
"How dare he?" Weiss hissed, exactly like she hissed during every PE lesson. "Not every combat style has to be based on brute strength."
"I'm afraid he won't understand you. It's pointless to say that to a guy who has steroids instead of gray matter in his brain," Egrer said, and they both chuckled.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ruby looking jealously at her team member spending time with someone else, and so demonstratively at that. It seemed he was being blatantly used to express a "yuck" towards the leader of RWBY.
After that conversation, Weiss acted like her usual self. As if everything was just like before, and he didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. After all, Egrer had said a lot of things back then...
"Here's a joke," he suddenly said to test something. "A meathead shows a doctor a completely black tongue. The doc asks: what happened? And the meathead answers: I accidentally spilled a kilo of protein powder on fresh asphalt." The humor was far from the quality Weiss was used to in high society, but she still laughed. One could only guess whether these were genuine emotions or just another jab at Ruby.
Definitely the latter.
"It's funny to you, but I'm embarrassed," Jaune mumbled, completely failing to grasp the depth of the situation. He had simply and unpretentiously wanted to show off in front of the girls, but when he saw exactly what he had to lift, he got scared and didn't even try. And now he regretted his choice.
"Don't worry about it," Magenta put a hand on his shoulder. "None of us stood a chance, it doesn't mean you're weak."
"If you compare it to the shape you were in when you came to Beacon, right now you're an absolute beast," Egrer chuckled. "Keep training, and someday you'll be able to lift that heavy-ass piece of shit."
"Even Pyrrha couldn't finish this challenge," Illmond noted, staring at the female students in their sports uniforms. A faint smile touched his face; he was glad his former rival had failed, even though he himself had shown much worse results.
Egrer noted this curious fact and jotted it down in his imaginary notebook, which had already grown to the size of a terminal AIDS patient's medical chart. So, he likes watching his rivals fail... A very unexpected discovery, Illmond had never been this malicious. Maybe Pyrrha is on some kind of blacklist of his? This was also worth writing down...
"Whatever," Jaune waved it off.
"Is it really whatever?" Weiss asked with a smirk, then also decided to cheer him up, but in her own signature way. "If Nikos couldn't pull it off, then you shouldn't even hope for a result ten times worse."
Such psychological help only hammered the final nail into the coffin of his self-esteem. Jaune was already very depressed and insecure today, and the words of his beloved "Snow Angel" only made everything worse. And usually, he didn't even pay attention to all her jabs.
"I wouldn't be so categorical," Egrer noted gently. "Pyrrha is definitely the best among us, but not at everything. Yort is strong at lifting, Blake could probably rival her in agility, and Ruby in speed."
"As if that changes anything in his situation," Weiss snorted, and the slightly cheered-up Jaune plunged back into gloom.
A disgruntled Egrer nudged her in the ribs with his elbow and whispered in her ear:
"Don't finish the poor guy off, you could've actually helped."
"That's exactly how I'm trying to comfort him," she sincerely whispered back. "I mean, the sooner he realizes he's the worst, the better it is for him."
"If this is how you help, I'm terrified to imagine how you harm. Come on, comfort him." Weiss snorted but took his words to heart. She decided to change her "friendly support" tactics.
"Jaune, just don't chicken out next time, that's all. It's better to try and fail than to sit on the sidelines and regret it later."
In response, he just gave a defeated wave of his hand. Jaune constantly wound himself up over nothing even in his normal state, and right now things were really bad. Whether this was an identity crisis or just a bad mood, the fact remained—the depression was obvious.
Plus, he was clearly avoiding his own team, which was why he sat down with Majesty, which also spoke volumes.
Something had happened in his team, some kind of rift. Or he was just ashamed to look them in the eyes. Or maybe there was something else important here that was escaping Egrer's notice. After all, he didn't live in the same room as Jaune to study his specific quirks inside out. He needed to ask Pyrrha or Ren for advice; they definitely must have noticed something.
"Hey, Jauney boy!" Cardin called from the other end of the gym. His team, as always, was right next to him. "Run and get us some water."
"Is this asshole still trying to bully you?" Egrer scoffed. "Fuck off, you prick!"
"Uh..." Jaune dragged out, his eyes darting around the gym, "I... I'll go."
"Where to? I didn't tell you to go."
"I'm just gonna take a walk. Tired of sitting in one place."
"Alright then." Egrer shrugged, but something kept bothering him. Just in case, when Jaune had already walked away, he addressed Cardin again. "You do realize that if anything happens to him, Nora will break your knees, Pyrrha will~"
"Oh, shut your trap, what the fuck are you gonna do to me?" the bully interrupted, and amidst the laughter of his cronies, calmly continued kicking a ball.
"What a scumbag," Egrer grumbled, crossing his arms. Here he was, delivering a badass threat, and this degenerate didn't give a single shit!
"An absolutely uncultured person," Weiss agreed.
"A villain," Magenta muttered.
"A leech," Illmond added.
Everyone agreed that Cardin was an asshole. And who disagreed? Only the same kind of assholes as him, and there were none of those on their teams. All the scum of the first year had gathered in Team CRDL.
Egrer had a lot of acquaintances, both good and bad, but he managed to find an approach to almost everyone, managed to understand them. But the ones he could never understand were people like this. It was as if it was vital for them not just to dominate someone, but to demean and mock them. As if they would die or lose their honor and self-respect if they didn't fulfill their daily quota of scumbaggery.
Of course, there were probably reasons for this kind of behavior: a bad family, a bad environment, a rough childhood. But to Egrer, all that was no excuse. He also had a rough childhood, not the best parents, and a bad environment, but that didn't stop him from being friendly and responsive. Quite the opposite, it was because of these hardships that he became who he became. Therefore, he could never understand such people. And he hated them passionately.
Jaune returned to the gym, but headed not back to them, but toward Cardin.
"Wait, what?" Egrer stared wide-eyed at this scene. He thought he was having hallucinations or this was just a stupid dream, but no! Jaune handed Cardin a bottle of water! Just like the guy had asked! The rest looked just as bewildered. "Alright, give me a sec."
He hurried over to Team JNPR, or more specifically, to Pyrrha.
After that heart-to-heart conversation about Illmond, Egrer had been avoiding her company even more than before. Not out of fear of angering the Crimson Fury, but so as not to get angry himself. Every time he looked at her, he saw a person whose cheat-like Semblance had ruined his friend's life. Of course, she didn't mean any harm and it was just sports, but holding back the growl threatening to escape wasn't getting any easier.
But together they were helping Jaune throw off the yoke of a loser and fight back against Cardin. So if anyone understood what was going on here, it was her.
However, before Egrer could even make it halfway, the PE teacher blew his whistle.
"We're playing dodgeball! Splitting into two teams, captains decide who goes where, and our captains today are Yort Alnen and Yang Xiao Long! Line u-u-up!"
All the students lined up in a straight line, and the captains tossed a coin to decide who picked first. Yang won.
"Pyrrha," she said without hesitation. And so it was every PE lesson: if someone managed to snag Pyrrha, there was at least an eighty percent chance their team would win. The data was accurate, as it was calculated by a certified oracle who was currently thoughtfully examining the lineup.
Yort realized that winning with raw strength was no longer an option and he needed to smartly pick a nimble team. His eyes widened, clearly using his Semblance.
"Eg, get your ass over here."
"Yes, sir." Egrer playfully saluted.
"Mmm..." Yang hummed, scanning the lineup. "Nora."
"We'll break their legs!" the redhead happily bounded over to her.
"You," Yort pointed a finger at Ruby, "you've got a speed Semblance, right? Move over to me."
The drafting lasted a few minutes, and ultimately, they were left with the few unathletic people who were always chosen last by the rule of lesser evil. Weiss was clearly unhappy with this outcome and that she was at the bottom of the list along with Jaune, Magenta, and the guy with the mohawk from Team CRDL. Russel, his name was, apparently. The captains took a long time deciding who to pick among them, but Professor Shalibi rushed them and said that if they didn't finish dragging it out, he'd assign the wimps himself.
"Madge, you're with me." Yort made a summoning wave with his hand.
"I knew you'd pick me!"
"Weisscream, if you'd be so kind." Yang playfully beckoned Weiss with her finger.
"Call me that again, and in public at that..." she hissed the end of the phrase too quietly.
"Which of these two twigs should I pick?" the Vacuan revolutionary leader in exile whispered to himself. His appraising gaze darted between Jaune and Russel, like a vivisector picking a rabbit for experiments.
"Do they have equal chances of helping us?" Egrer asked quietly.
"On the contrary, both of them will only make things worse."
"Wow. Well, if it makes no difference to you, take Jaune."
"Which one's that?" Did he forget him again? This wasn't even funny anymore...
"The natural blond, one of a kind in the whole country, right?[1]" There was still no recognition in Yort's eyes, but he understood who exactly Egrer meant.
"Hey you, pipsqueak." The Vacuan revolutionary leader in exile poked a finger at Jaune. "You'll be on my team. Don't fuck up, got it?"
"Y-yes."
"Break!" the PE teacher shouted, and the teams scattered to their respective halves of the gym. "Dodgeball isn't just rolling a ball around, it's a brutal game of survival, dammit. Don't hold back and hit with all your might!"
Yang's team smiled cockily; they had gathered the heaviest hitters of the first year right there: Yang herself, Nora, Pyrrha, Cardin, and a few meatheads whose names Egrer didn't know. This power was truly overwhelming, but what's the point of strong throws when you lack the reaction time to keep up with the movements of more agile opponents?
In Yort's team, they didn't just have agile people, but those who actually had Semblances granting mobility. Ruby had super speed, Blake had clones, and the others, while unable to boast of anything similar, had combat styles that heavily relied on nimbleness. So, Egrer reckoned, his team would be the one to win.
"We're playing for points! Taking out a private is one point, I give five for a captain. If anyone steps out of bounds," Professor Shalibi drew his foot along the white chalk line marking the borders of the upcoming battle, "minus one point. And remember! In sports, there are no enemies, only rivals!" With these words, the PE teacher threw a sturdy leather ball to each captain and blew his whistle with all his might.
Both Yang and Yort immediately tried to take each other out first, but the balls met in the center of the court with a thunderous clap. They bounced off each other, and while one flew up to the ceiling, the other rolled right to Jaune's feet. The initiative was on their side, but the blond simply didn't know what to do next.
"Fucking throw it!" the captain barked.
"Throw it to me, Jauney boy!" Cardin held out his hands. "We're friends, right!" The strangest thing was that Jaune did exactly that, and without hesitation. The bully caught the ball and hurled it at the most sluggish and valuable target—Yort.
"What the fuck are you doing, you blond little shit?!"
"Hey, watch your fucking language!" the PE teacher yelled. "And no playing favorites, got it, twig?! We stand for fair sports!"
Almost the entire team rushed to the captain's defense, trying not even to intercept the projectile, but at least to cover Yort with their bodies. From the outside, it was unclear who in that mess had been knocked out of the game, but Professor Shalibi unerringly identified the selfless hero and told him to leave the court.
At the same time, the second ball came down from above, landing right in Pyrrha's hands. With one precise throw, she hit Magenta in the legs, making her somersault over herself and hit her head on the floor.
"Sorry!"
"It's fine," the butterfly answered, crawling off the battlefield on her haunches.
But even on the losers' bench, it wasn't safe. Balls frequently flew wide or ricocheted off unsuccessfully dodging students, so soon barricades were erected there, built out of mats and stacked benches.
Yort smacked a ball that came flying at him, and with a supersonic crack, it hurtled toward Nora. She tried to catch it, but the impact was so strong that the projectile simply slipped through her hands and smashed into her head. Taking a juicy blow right to the forehead, she bent backward into a bridge and touched her own heels with the back of her head, flying all the way to the wall. Nora weakly raised a hand with a thumbs-up, then gave a fake wheeze, stuck out her tongue, and "died." In retaliation, Yang knocked out two people with one throw: the ball bounced off Ren's shoulder and hit Blake in the chest.
"Badass!" the PE teacher rumbled. "Six to five... oh wait, not badass, five to five." Blake let the projectile pass through her body and dissolved into thin air. It was a clone, and the real her was already standing at the other edge of the court.
Over time, the gym filled with rose petals due to Ruby's Semblance. She used it almost non-stop, dashing across the court at impossible speeds, and just a minute later the entire floor was covered with a red carpet. She purposely ran along the very edge of the enemy's half of the gym, so the whirlwind of petals would blind her opponents, preventing them from aiming or dodging.
The only ones not participating in the combat frenzy reigning all around were Egrer and Jaune. The former was terrified of stopping for even a second; he jumped back and forth, did mind-boggling somersaults, and spun like a top, even when both balls were with his team. The sight of the terrible bruises on those who had been knocked out, their painful groans, and sometimes even screams, forced him to keep spinning non-stop. But his strength was already running out.
And it was like this every single motherfucking PE class, without exception.
Jaune, on the other hand, was just incredibly lucky: either he'd accidentally bump into someone and put them in the line of fire instead of himself, or he'd trip at exactly the right moment. Even Illmond showed more participation in the game. He hung around behind everyone, but if a ball rolled by, he'd pick it up and throw it back, even managing to accidentally knock someone out.
"Russel!" the PE teacher yelled at the guy with the mohawk. "Minus one point, get back on the court!"
"Sorry!" he said, more to his angry captain than to Professor Shalibi.
Yang's hair flared with bright yellow flames, and her eyes turned red. Egrer shuddered in terror, because she was looking right at him.
"Let's see how you run from me now!" She tossed the ball into the air and, with a punch, sent it flying in his direction.
Breaking the sound barrier, the projectile crossed the court in a fraction of a second, and if Egrer hadn't started doing a backflip in advance, he would have taken it right in the face. Instead, the ball knocked Yort, who was standing behind him, off his feet.
With a stifled wheeze, he flew several meters, knocked down a couple more students like bowling pins, and plastered into the wall. A second later, the huge body of the Vacuan bandit slowly, as if in slow motion, peeled off the wall and crashed senseless onto the floor. At the point of impact, there was a distinct dent that exactly traced the contours of his body.
"What are you doing?!" Ruby yelled. "You were supposed to take the hit, not set up the leader!"
"Are you shitting me?! I would've died!" Egrer pointed to the wall, where cracks were slowly spreading. From being so close to his own death, he caught a second wind and started hopping around even faster than at the beginning.
"Five points to the meatheads' team!" the PE teacher announced. "Meatheads: nine, nerds: five!"
Yang cockily blew the smoke off her fist, satisfied with the unexpected result of her punch. Her team let out a war cry, and only Weiss stood on the sidelines, refusing to participate in what she considered this bedlam. She clearly felt above all this, and the game of dodgeball had already quite exhausted her both physically and mentally.
"Don't give up, guys!" yelled Jaune, who a second later crashed into Blake and dragged her down to the floor. A ball flew right over them. "We can still win!"
The "nerds" team was not in a hurry to lose heart even without this passionate speech, quite the opposite in fact. Before, they had to cover the sluggish Yort, but now nothing restricted them, and they were able to show their full potential. Plus, there was much more room to dodge, and they utilized this space to the fullest. One by one, the heavy hitters from Yang's team were eliminated, and eventually, only she, Pyrrha, and Weiss remained. The score was tied.
Here the standoff reached a deadlock—the remaining players on both teams were too agile to allow themselves to get hit. Well, except for Jaune, but he was always saved by chance.
Egrer personally didn't give a shit about winning; he just wanted to survive until the end of the lesson in one piece, because Yang had definitely made it her goal to get revenge on him for that duel. He just kept doing somersaults, rolls, spins, and other dodges, not caring about anything else.
But Illmond, unwilling to accept a draw, started fussing and went to the front line. Very soon, Pyrrha stepped up against him, also having gotten seriously into the game. If before she had taken pity on them, hitting with half strength and not aiming for the head, now the supersonic cracks made the walls shake and heads ache. The flame of past rivalry flared up between them again, and bloodthirsty smiles appeared on their faces.
With a continuous ringing in their ears, the other players sluggishly tossed the second ball to each other on the sidelines, like kids in a wading pool. None of them had the strength left for active movements, but they wanted to win equally badly.
And then, finally, the bell rang. Egrer stopped and breathed a sigh of relief. From all the acrobatics he was pulling, his head was spinning, and he could barely stand on his feet.
"Draw!" the PE teacher yelled, but Yang didn't stop and with her last bit of strength made a final throw. The ball flew over the timely-fallen Jaune and struck the relaxed Egrer right between the shoulder blades.
"Ugh..." he groaned, seeing his own boots right in front of his face. He had crashed into a stack of blue mats, his ass sticking up in the air while he stood on his shoulders.
"Hold up, hold up, friendship fucking wins." The PE teacher picked Yang up by the scruff of her neck like a kitten.
"But I hit him! We were so close!" She kicked her legs more for show and soon calmed down.
Meanwhile, Egrer, suffering from the unexpected blow to the back, somehow managed to flip over and stand up. His back hurt so badly, as if... as if Yang had slammed him with all her might with a heavy leather ball. Finding beautiful analogies here was simply pointless; there were none in the whole world.
"Are you okay?" an overly anxious Magenta ran up to him.
"I'll live. Help me up."
More than anything in the world right now, he wanted to stand under a cold shower and then lie down somewhere. In this desire, he was united with the entire class, and with their last bit of strength, they trudged to the showers, boys to the left, girls to the right. Egrer blessed the architect of Beacon, who placed them right next to the gym so they didn't have to walk far. He wouldn't have survived such a forced march.
Climbing into an empty stall, he turned on the cold water and curled up into a ball on the floor. He had no strength left for anything more energy-consuming; that damn game had drained all the juice out of him. Only when Egrer was completely freezing did he walk out from under the shower with the gait of the living dead and wrap himself in a towel.
The rest had already washed and were now changing into the academy uniform. Although in reality, most of the guys were taking their time discussing the dodgeball game, flashing their muscles, and some even started wrestling. And it was like this after every PE class.
Some meathead who went to the weightlifting club with Yort approached him. He was covered in tattoos from his neck to his heels, and he looked maximally masculine, though he was still far from Professor Shalibi's level.
"Is that a bunny? In a flower meadow?" he poked Yort between the shoulder blades.
"Yep, cool tat, ain't it."
"Nah, kinda girly. You should look at min~"
Yort didn't stand on ceremony and just socked him in the snout. The meathead, looking dumbfounded, flew backward and easily smashed right through the wall with his body. Everyone stared at this scene in bewilderment, looking back and forth between the hole, obscured by a cloud of dust and small pieces of concrete, and a very pleased Yort.
In complete silence, interrupted only by the running water, a couple of bricks fell from the newly formed passage.
Egrer already had a premonition of an imminent summons to the headmaster, but since Magenta was their leader, let her deal with it. Meanwhile, he began to dress quickly; his thief's intuition told him that the faster he left the crime scene, the higher his chances of getting away scot-free.
Judging by the girlish squeals coming from the hole, the ink-covered meathead had landed straight in the girls' shower. A sound of impact was heard, and he came flying back, smashing another hole in the wall. A red footprint was clearly visible on his face, and a goofy ear-to-ear grin served as a signal to the rest. A whole crowd immediately ran up to him.
"What did you see?"
"Was Yang there?"
"Make a tier list of the girls!"
"What a lucky bastard, this is a typical situation in any harem anime," Illmond grumbled, stepping between Yort and the wall leading to the girls' shower. "Yort, hit me!"
"Ha, I'm not giving you that joy." He gave him the middle finger. "Tough luck, you 2D-loser."
"Eg, order him to hit me!" Egrer also gave him the middle finger, and then the basement dweller came to an absolutely idiotic decision.
With a yell of "Fine then!" he took a running start and jumped through the hole in the wall himself. With this, he signed his own death warrant, and even if he survived the next couple of minutes, Goodwitch would slowly and painfully flay him alive. An inglorious end for an inglorious pervert, serves him right.
He even felt a tiny bit sorry for poor Magenta, since she would be the one to take the flak as the official leader. But on the other hand, she had to get used to taking responsibility for the group's screw-ups. This would be a valuable lesson for her.
Sprinting out of the showers, Egrer breathed a sigh of relief; he was safe now. Very soon teachers would come running at the noise, and it was better not to risk getting caught in the crossfire.
"Oh, hey, Jaune." The bright idea to leave that bedlam had crossed more than just his mind. "I thought you'd stay with the rest to interrogate that meathead."
"I have seven sisters, and I know perfectly well what you're supposed to do in situations like this. Do you?"
"No, I have intuition." Miss Goodwitch and Professor Shalibi ran past them, each darting into the shower of their respective gender, after which screams of pain rang out. Male screams. "See? If I'd stayed there, death would be waiting for me. Or maybe even detention."
"I think you have your priorities a little mixed up..."
"You don't know what the caretaker is capable of. Here's a piece of advice: don't get caught! And if you do end up in detention, tell him you're an █████████-███████ ███████-████████[2] and you hate Faunus and women. Chuckler will go easier on you."
"Got it." From his tone, it was clear he wouldn't be using that advice. "We-e-ell... I should probably go."
"Where to? Not to your new friend, I hope? He's gonna be busy for a while, so how about you and I take a walk instead." Egrer tried to soften his voice, but even Jaune understood what the conversation was going to be about.
He simply gave a doomed nod, finding no strength within himself to resist or even say a word to the contrary. He already didn't care. The fighting spirit with which he used to tell Cardin off every day had completely died out.
They stepped away into a small nook that Egrer had spotted during his detentions. From here, you had a great view of the hallway, yet from the hallway itself, this spot was practically invisible—perfect for a private conversation. Once, Illmond had slept here for several hours, successfully hiding from Chuckler, so they wouldn't be found easily.
"Alright, what the fuck are you doing?" Egrer inquired with deceptive calmness.
"What's wrong?" Jaune tried to play dumb.
"Everything is wrong. Since when the hell did you start acting like Cardin's servant? Before today, things were going pretty well. Did he threaten to beat you up?"
"N-no, I just realized that he's not actually that bad. So we became friends."
"Jaune, a couple of days ago this evolutionary mistake was yanking a cute bunny girl by the ears. In the middle of the cafeteria! This moron has no brakes, no honor, and lacks the slightest hint of a brain!" Egrer threw up his hands, no longer holding back his voice. "And now you're feeding me lines that he's not that bad?! Spill it, or I'll call Pyrrha... no, I'll call Madge, and she'll chew you out completely for saying something like that."
"Not Madge!" Jaune was horrified. Her ability to shame even someone like Cardin was already known throughout the academy. "I got it."
"Well?"
A brief silence hung in the air, during which the bully's victim gathered the courage to talk about his problem. As if Egrer were an angry parent who saw his kid with bruises after school.
"He found out," the blond looked around and started whispering, "that my transcripts are forged."
"Right... Tell me everything, from the beginning."
"Yesterday I told my team about it..." Jaune began hesitantly, as if afraid of Egrer's disapproval.
"You did the right thing. It's better not to lie to friends about stuff like that."
"Everything was awesome. Pyrrha even promised to help me brush up on my sword skills, and in general... she took it the calmest of all."
"Yeah, she definitely knew already. You came to a Huntsman academy without your Aura unlocked; that's like going to med school to be a surgeon with amputated arms. Even an idiot would suspect something was wrong."
"Is it really that obvious?" Jaune blushed and hid his face in his hands.
"More than. Anyway, what happened next?" Egrer pressed impatiently. "How did Cardin find out?"
"He was probably following me and overheard our conversation. Today before breakfast he just caught me alone like usual. Out of habit, I told him to screw off, and Cardin... said he'd tell the headmaster everything if I refused to 'be friends' with him."
Egrer breathed a sigh of relief and even let out a small chuckle. Jaune immediately frowned in offense, and he had to quickly explain his upbeat mood.
"The headmaster knows all of us by sight, he won't expel you. Three-quarters of my team have forged papers, and he knows about it. So you don't need to worry about that."
"And what if Cardin tells the other students? The real ones? They'll definitely be outraged that someone like me is studying with them. They've spent their whole lives preparing to get in here, and I just bought the right papers. I'm terrified to even imagine what they might do to me."
The smile vanished from Egrer's face. The situation was looking bleak.
"Didn't think about that..."
It wasn't even the reaction of the students themselves that was scary—Egrer doubted they would actually do anything terrible—but the uproar they would raise. If the fact of the forged documents became public knowledge, people would realize that instead of trained fighters, fraudsters were stepping up to protect them. Then the headmaster really would have to expel Jaune; they simply wouldn't leave him a choice.
What a hassle... but I can't just leave him alone with his problems, can I?
During all this time, Jaune had managed to become the fifth member of the pack, and like a good leader, Egrer couldn't just ignore his situation. And as a friend, either. So he had to think.
"Even saying your signature 'fuck off, you prick' isn't an option here anymore. But I've got a plan."
"What is it?" Oh, how he perked up instantly!
"I'm sure a scumbag like him has a little secret too; we just need to dig through his dirty laundry, heh-heh." Egrer began to whisper conspiratorially, leaning closer to Jaune. "So, how well do you know the daily routine of these motherfuckers? I need all the details..."
The plan was as simple as Needle-Pierce compared to Ruby's combat scythe: sneak into Team CRDL's room when Cardin isn't around and search the place thoroughly. Burglary was something Egrer was guilty of back in the orphanage, so he didn't feel any particular anxiety about committing a crime. Jaune, on the other hand, would have gladly refused this scam, but his desperate situation pushed him to desperate measures.
***
Jaune stood lookout by the stairwell landing, listening intently. He was ready to give the signal at any second, and then bolt if someone suddenly started coming up. Meanwhile, Egrer was hacking the electronic lock to Team CRDL's room.
Hacking it carefully and manually, not relying entirely on a program like last time. Right now, leaving no traces and being as invisible to the system as possible was essential. During the hacking of that Bullhead, there was a valid reason to rush, plus there was a flimsy but still existent excuse—saving Ozpinopus. But what could he say to Goodwitch if she found out he broke into someone else's room? It was unlikely she'd sympathize with Jaune's problem and this method of solving it.
The lock's construction was quite simple, nothing the former thief couldn't handle. The panel where you swipe a Scroll was pried open, and a cable ran from it to Egrer's Scroll, where its owner was rapidly typing something.
They had about half an hour for the whole thing while Cardin was training in the arena with his guys. A lot of time, actually.
The burglar wiped the sweat from his forehead. For some reason, he felt like one of the teachers was about to show up, or maybe even a whole SWAT team. It had been a very long time since he'd felt such an adrenaline rush from committing a crime, and he had almost forgotten what it was like. He had to suppress a sharp pang of nostalgia by force; Egrer reminded himself that there was nothing good about his past if he had to resort to things like this.
Finally, the electronic lock made a sound as if a Scroll had been swiped across it, and the door opened. Without another word, Egrer screwed the panel back in place and stepped inside, giving Jaune an encouraging nod.
"What a shithole." He shook his head disapprovingly. It seemed they'd literally have to dig through dirty laundry.
Someone clearly tried to clean up here from time to time, but no one really cared about cleanliness. Clothes were thrown on chairs, a desk was chaotically littered with writing supplies, and dirty socks were stored in the corner. It smelled faintly of sweat. This room was the complete antithesis of Team Majesty's room, and Egrer only re-convinced himself that without his neatness, they'd be living in a pigsty like this one.
A punching bag hung from the ceiling, which he punched in passing just because, heading toward the nearest bed. An oversized hoodie, which would fit perfectly on Cardin, lay on it, so there was no need to guess whose bed this was.
Egrer smiled in anticipation and started with the most cliché spot—sticking his hand under the bed. Luck smiled upon him on his first try; from the dark depths, he pulled out a porn magazine. Unfortunately, there was nothing special in it; if there had been some kind of perversions like coprophilia, that could have been used for counter-blackmail. But as it was, nothing serious; even if he snitched to Goodwitch, she'd give a reprimand at most. Useless.
Under the mattress, however, he found a few books, which Egrer surprisingly recognized as "Sailor Sun" manga. Cardin turned out to be an anime fan! No wonder he hid the manga much better than the magazine; the "cool guys" in his team wouldn't understand that. Unless, of course, they were secretly anime fans too.
He couldn't find anything else in the bed, so he had to look for less obvious places to hide something.
There was a bookshelf in the room, and it actually had books on it: a space saga spanning seven volumes whose spines formed a complete picture, the fantasy novel "Lord of the Necklaces," a couple of thick manuals, and small, thin magazines. Egrer quickly thumbed through the entire assortment but found nothing inside.
He pondered and stood in the center of the room. Where would he hide a terrible secret about himself if he were Cardin? Something so terrible that if others found out, he'd have no choice but to run?
The most logical option would be to either destroy it or bury it somewhere outside Beacon. But in that case, the search could take years.
Having searched other parts of the room, he found nothing shameful or criminal. Just a room belonging to regular bullies, nothing special. Unless they hid their secret stashes somewhere under the floorboards, but taking up the floor was clearly not an option. It would make too much noise, and if Jaune sounded the alarm, it wouldn't be possible to hide it in a second.
Feeling frustrated, Egrer exited the room, slamming the door behind him. Jaune jumped at the sound.
"Find anything?"
"Nothing." It was a real shame to crush his budding hope. "But hey, don't get upset; if he doesn't have a dirty secret, we'll just frame him. We'll drag his reputation through the mud so thoroughly that even if he tells everyone about you, no one will listen to him."
"And how are we gonna do that?"
"No idea," he shrugged. "But it's worth a shot, right? I mean, do we have any other ideas?"
"Yeah, we don't have any options anyway. Cardin is going to take out all his lost time on me, and when he gets bored of me, he'll just turn me in, and that's it. This isn't what I dreamed of..."
The despair grew with his every word, and Egrer patted him encouragingly on the shoulder.
"I won't give you up to him that easily, don't worry. I'll bust my ass, but I'll pull you out of this. Come on, let's go, you need to calm down."
After the recent fire, the second-floor lounge looked a bit worse for wear, but the kitchen took almost all the damage. The entrance to it had been blocked off by yellow tape for a few days now, but no one had even started repairs. Nor an investigation into what started the fire.
"Don't mind that, that was Cardin," Egrer said with a goofy smile, noticing Jaune's questioning look. "Tried to cook some eggs, can you imagine? What a loser. Take a seat, make yourself at home."
"Thanks." He sat down in a slightly dusty armchair. This lounge hadn't really been used by anyone before anyway, since everyone preferred sitting in their rooms, and after the fire, people had only been here once, and those were the electricians.
"And now we're gonna think about how to pull off our devious plan." Egrer put on an inspired expression. He had absolutely no idea how to approach this task. None whatsoever.
Plant cigarettes or alcohol on Cardin? Maybe steal something very valuable from someone and slip it into his backpack? But even if it worked, it felt kind of petty. And framing him so severely that it risked getting him expelled from Beacon was going too far.
That was cruel even toward someone like him. But if they couldn't come up with anything else, they'd have to resort to it.
Moreover, if these devious schemes suddenly came to light, they could be the ones kicked out of Beacon. Especially since Egrer was already on Goodwitch's radar; she definitely wouldn't play nice with him.
"Eg," Jaune called out, "why are you babying me so much? I still haven't paid you back for the transcripts, and you keep bailing me out over and over. Except you don't help me with homework."
"I don't do it out of principle; I'm definitely no help to you there," Egrer chuckled. However, he quickly grew more serious. "And I'm helping you because we're friends, and friends gotta have each other's backs. Don't think that just because I helped you, you absolutely owe me a favor in return. I mean, yes, obviously you do, and if something happens, I hope I can count on you. But you don't need to torture yourself over it, acting like you're some ungrateful bastard."
"But that's exactly what I am. Listen!" He waved his hand, stopping Egrer from delivering a comforting speech. "I'm constantly relying on you and Pyrrha. Without you, I wouldn't have gotten into Beacon, and without Pyrrha's help, I wouldn't have survived Initiation. And now you rushed to help me without hesitation. I'm sure Pyrrha will join in soon too... I wouldn't be surprised if she corners me somewhere again today and pours my whole soul out."
"It's a good thing you have such wonderful friends, right?"
"For me—yes, but for you guys, I only create problems. I don't like it, but I just can't give you anything in return. I just can't."
Egrer sat down next to him, on the armrest of the chair.
"You know, I feel something similar myself. The feeling that I'm a total scumbag who can't give anything to the person I owe everything to. I'll tell you even more—I betrayed him."
"Really? You understand?" Jaune didn't want to show his joy, but he couldn't control his tone of voice.
"Yeah. My adoptive dad... is very demanding." Egrer didn't want to go into unnecessary details, but if he really wanted to help, he would have to slightly open up about his past. "And I couldn't always live up to his expectations. Not to mention that he wanted me to follow in his footsteps, and I was against it. In the end, I just ran away, and caused a huge scene doing it. And he's the one who pulled me from the bottom, fed me, clothed me... He's a massive asshole himself, and I didn't like his plans for me one bit, but that doesn't excuse my actions. I'm the one who ditched him, and my dad never actually did anything bad to me."
"What does he do for a living?"
"Uh... He appraises all sorts of trinkets," the retired thief lied shamelessly, hiding a smile behind an innocent scratch of his nose. "An appraiser, goes hither and yon, buys some stuff, then sells it. Boring, you gotta admit."
"Yeah. My dad is a Huntsman. Or rather, he used to be one."
"Oh... I'm sorry," Egrer dragged out. "You know, when I lived in the orphanage, I also lost someone~"
"No! You got it wrong, he started a family and renounced his duty as a Huntsman. It's just retirement!"
"Oh, why'd you scare me like that?" Jaune scratched his cheek awkwardly. "Is that why you decided to become a Huntsman? To be like your dad?"
"Probably... Honestly, I don't even know myself anymore. We have a lot of Huntsmen in Ansel in general," he started explaining disjointedly. "Did I mention I have seven sisters?"
"Yeah, you did. Always wanted a little sister, it must be fun living with seven at once."
"Actually, it's not as cool as it looks from the outside. Especially when there are so many of them." Despite his words, Jaune smiled. But a second later he grew somber again. "In the family, I'm almost the youngest. Can you imagine the protective bubble I was kept under my whole life? I probably just wanted to prove that I could be independent, and my dad's example was the first thing that caught my eye. I really could have become absolutely anything to prove my independence, even a janitor. Looking back now, a career as some farmer doesn't seem like the choice of a weakling or a loser to me."
"If your dad is a whole Huntsman, why didn't he teach you?" Jaune gave him a weird look. "Sorry, that's a stupid question with an obvious answer. Did you try asking other Huntsmen? You know, when you got turned down?"
"Of course." He sighed heavily. "But in Ansel, they're all either burnt out or already retired. Some on disability, some started families and gave up their duty like my dad... and some just couldn't return to the fight after the death of a comrade. My enthusiasm only annoyed them, they repeated the same things my dad told me: 'it's dangerous,' 'there are plenty of other heroic professions: firefighter, rescue worker, doctor,' 'don't fill your head with nonsense,' 'it's too late for you to train,' 'being a Huntsman is very dangerous,' 'you could die, it's no joke,' 'think about your loved ones,' 'peaceful professions are good too'."
Jaune suddenly cut himself off and fell silent, but Egrer knew for a fact that he could have added about ten more points to that list without even thinking. He had heard these excuses so often that they were permanently etched into his subconscious.
"I just wanted to be needed," Jaune continued after a brief pause. "Saving people is a useful thing, and if you get fame and honor on top of that, it's totally awesome. Eg, if it's not a secret, tell me, why did you become a Huntsman?"
"Alright, revelation for a revelation, that's only fair. You see, when I was a kid, I was, well, a thief..." Egrer stopped fearfully to gauge his reaction to these words. It was very important to him what Jaune would think.
"Wow." He definitely hadn't expected his friend to have been a criminal, but fortunately, he wasn't in a hurry to leave.
"Do you know what a favela is? A district for Faunus, usually destitute and full of crime. And in Mistral, that place is worse than in any other kingdom—just a network of tunnels in a mountain where those who don't have enough money to live on the surface reside. Aside from a couple of clinics, an orphanage, and a half-abandoned school, there's nothing there. Don't think I'm fishing for pity," Egrer suddenly said, "you just need to know this for context—I didn't become a petty thief out of boredom."
"I'm sure you just had no other choice."
"Exactly, glad you understand. Of course, I never liked that life, and when I got the chance to get out, I took it. But I didn't enroll in Beacon to become a Huntsman and atone for my sins or anything like that. I don't feel any remorse about my past; I just want to play music, it's that simple. I don't have any noble reasons, except maybe to gain fame and try to change the attitude toward Faunus, but honestly, I don't even know how to achieve that. I just need a diploma to perform for a wide audience. Shallow?"
"I don't even know anymore. Maybe I would have said that before, but right now, that reason doesn't seem any worse than the others."
"Oof, I feel so much better." Egrer smiled broadly and patted Jaune on the shoulder. "I haven't talked about this with anyone in almost three years, it's nice to vent sometimes. What about you?"
"Me too. Thanks."
"No problem, buddy, we just made each other's burden a tiny bit lighter. See, you're not that useless after all!" he said with a laugh, holding out his fist.
Jaune bumped it without hesitation. He definitely felt a lot better.
[1] Nikolai Baskov’s “Natural Blonde.”
[2] ultra-right fascist-monarchist