So What? (RWBY)

Autumn

"This... Is where Amber is." I glance up at Ozpin, before noticing the girl in this odd contraption that made little to no sense whatsoever. A computer, and... Amber?!

I immediately start rushing over to her, not seeing her in several years of course, as it had been so long I ran over to her, noticing she had her eyes barely opened, yet as she saw me, I notice them open ever so slightly more. It's indeed... Amber. 

"Amber! It's me!" I yell out to her, blinded by excitement. Her face barely changes into a smile yet its just as clear that this action took a lot of energy out of her. Despite this, she smiled, as I barely was in her view, I darted towards her and stopped moving as I saw the horrible state she really was in. "W-what happened to you... Amber?" I know she can't respond, but just thinking of what went on is already such a terrifying thought in my head. Amber nodded her head towards her weapon, not really saying much to most, but enough for me to understand. 

"You want me to take this?" I ask her as she gives a simple nod. I walk up to her weapon and wait for Ozpin's approval. "She's telling me to... take her weapon." Ozpin and Glynda look a bit confused, but Ozpin nods. "Well then, take it I suppose." He says in his usual lighthearted yet serious tone, making me still slightly uncomfortable as I note his piercing gaze towards me. It's not meant to intimidate, but its simply his resting face.

I walk over to her staff, something truly beautiful in design. the ice and fire dust crystals at the end, the tight and comfortably weighted wooden carved staff is truly amazingly designed, and its my turn to wield it. She taught me everything she knew with the staff but the fact that its no longer hers is truly... Incredible, yet depressing at the same time. I shall make sure to treat this with more care than I ever did my own weapon, as this isn't my weapon, and it will never be my weapon. It will be mine and Amber's weapon, that's the only way I would ever have it.

"Thank you." I say to Amber before looking at her for another solid minute, unfortunately there's not much communication she can really do in her current state, I just watch her intently.

"Whoever did this, they'll pay... I promise you that." I say to her with more determination in my words than I could have ever given her before, I truly didn't know how good I had it with her until I lost her... And I promise I won't let it happen to anyone ever again.

--The Next Day--

I wake up to the sounds of knocks at my door, as per usual I just lie down, hoping it'll go away and leave myself to my endless thoughts. However after a few more knocks I realize either its a friend of mine, or someone's got the wrong room, either way its worth checking out at some point.

"Who is it?" I ask tiredly, still comprehending all of this maiden nonsense. "Me!" I hear a voice of a young girl asking worriedly, I quickly realize its Ruby and I have some explaining to do about the new weapon in my room. "Come in!" I yell out to her, allowing her entrance as soon as she hears, and she waltz's right on in like she owns the place. 

"Hey Gra- Oh my god what is that new weapon?!" As expected, Ruby quickly bounced off the ground and moved at a rapid pace to the weapon's location, trying to get a good look at the new tool. "It's an old staff, looks gorgeous doesn't it?" I say with a slight chuckle as I pat Ruby on the head in a protective manner, something I've grown more accustomed to doing. This spunky scythe wielder at least seemed okay with it, and if she likes the pats, its not bad right?

"It's really pretty! Where'd you get it?!" My smile lightly falters but the mood stays the same. "An old friend, one very dear to me to say the least." Ruby smiles innocently, clearly she's either to young or too naive to understand what I mean by this. "Ooh, mysterious, I like it!" I chuckle at her innocence and smile softly. "It's quite a beautiful weapon though, these ends can fire off dust energy as if it were like... bullets or something. It's quite the work of art and I'm proud to be in possession of it to say the least." 

Me and Ruby continue chatting for a bit, until I remember her whole conflict with Weiss and such. 

"Hey, what happened with you and Weiss anyways?" Ruby gives me a beaming smile, so clearly some sort of acceptance came from it. "She promised to be a better teammate, and just grow to accept that she wasn't given the role of leader, by the way... How did you know about that?" Ruby says while giving me a curious look, as if it wasn't actually beyond obvious that something was going on between the two of them. "Ruby... Even if I didn't have a chat with Weiss, with how she walks around and presents herself, its not like it wasn't obvious something was going on between you two. It's not like we're preschoolers here, some of us do know what context clues are." I give her a playful nudge and she pouts a little, before smiling at me. "Fair enough Gray, just thought we were more uh... Secretive? In the shadows? Um... Can you give me a better word for it?" "Maybe try the word discreet out for a change, it flows much better." 

After a while, Ruby says her goodbyes and I go to walk up to the balcony, I hear Pyrrha and Jaune talking so I decide to do a tiny bit of eavesdropping. In the end I have gathered three things. Jaune has no clue how to use a weapon, if that wasn't obvious already, and also Jaune cheated his way into school. The rest of what they spoke about was already pretty clear. 

"She's right ya know." I say while walking up to Jaune. "Gray?! Were you eavesdropping on me and Pyrrha's team meeting?!" Jaune yells out, clearly already irate from the previous conversation he and the red-haired spartan had just shared.

"That is not important, but yes, I heard everything and I have no intentions on telling anyone what I heard. But what is important is your pride." Jaune nods and smiles at me. "See! Someone gets me-" "No you dimwit! Your pride isn't what's important here, the fact that you're letting your pride dictate your decisions is." Jaune looks surprised at my sudden outburst, but I calm myself down and sigh. " Jaune, you can't expect to learn on your own. Weapon skills don't come in a day, or a week, or even months. People here have spent their whole lives training, hell even I have spent the last 12 years of mine practicing. You're clearly out of your element and that's fine, you just need to learn to accept help." 

Jaune huffs and looks at me. "You're just saying what Pyrrha told me." "What happens if you're on a mission and you're assigned a post to protect a group of people Jaune? You don't have Pyrrha to help you, you have your strength and your wit, and from what I've seen, you're severely lacking in strength with a weapon. You have heart, but not skill." I look up at him again. "You have to understand that when you're training to be a huntsman, you have to be humble, willing to learn, not prideful and egotistical." 

"You don't understand, you have all the skill and talent you could want, you wouldn't ever understand just having nothing." He says, clearly defeated but he wants to fight back. At his words my smile droops completely into a sad frown.

"Jaune, when I was 4... My entire family was wiped out by the white fang. Not just my mom and dad, my whole family. My cousins, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, whatever you want to call it. Anyone I was related to was at my home and the entire place was ambushed, I had no family. Just a small blue handgun with some dust rounds, and that's it. I knew how to use it of course, but I couldn't fight. I just ran for my life as my entire family died, until I found a woman... Such a caring woman she was, who happened to work at a local orphanage. She used to be a huntsman, graduated from Haven Academy and then moved to Vale. Her name was Laves and she was a relatively young woman who knew how to fight. I told her I wanted to protect people, and since then, I had been training with swords and staffs and guns to practice." 

Jaune was completely radio-silent, but he looked guilty as I continued. "So you see Jaune, I learned from losing everyone, and that was what drove me to learn. I use my abilities to help people out of trying to prevent terrors like that again, and you need to understand that taking help when you need it isn't an act of weakness, but an act of strength." 

I flash him one more smile as I walk off into the back into the school and head to my dorm.