RWBY: Crossroads of Light and Dark

Chapter III: Pride and Prejudice

A/N: This covers various small events that happened at different times between chapters nineteen and twenty-two of POLAD. Because each event never formulated a full chapter they were scrapped but referenced to later in the story.

Valethornia Courtyard

Viridian shrunk as another blow landed on him. This was currently his thirteenth beating he had been on the receiving end of. His team, or rather Roanos had just finished mopping the floor with another team of students during mock battles. Everyone knew Roanos was too strong to take on so they opted for the torture and torment of Viridian. Doubling over from a knee to the stomach Viridian cried out in pain and raised one of his hands in a gesture asking for mercy while begging the students to stop hurting him.

"Look at the freak. He can't even beg like a normal person." One of the tormentors laughed.

"Duh duh duh, stobbit!" another one mocked, imitating Viridian's speech.

The deaf teen couldn't understand what was being said as all the sound he perceived only came back to him as a dull buzzing thump. It was their expressions that allowed him to understand he was being made fun of. The sick twisted grins and smiles. The way their mouths formed the shapes need to mimic his way of speech. Every sign of body language was over-exerted and Viridian could do nothing but blush deeply feeling the heat of embarrassment on his face and ears.

Curling into a ball Viridian tried to shield himself as the bullies began to stomp and kick at him. Please let this stop soon. Get bored and leave me alone! Viridian thought to himself. Suddenly he felt himself lifted from the ground and staring in one of his tormentors' face. The boy had a look of pure hatred expressed on his face which only caused Viridian to try and back away.

"This is your own fault for being such a fucking freak. You and your freaky team should all just go fucking die." the boy spat as he lifted Viridian before slamming him onto the ground.

Viridian coughed violently as he writhed in pain from the impact. He had tried to avoid going out in the open where he had been caught numerous times before. The bullies however had spread out and cornered him this time. Looking up at the sky Viridian felt his vision fading as he was lifted up once more.

Now comes the pièce de résistance. Viridian thoughts passed through his mind at a slow pace as he slipped further into unconsciousness but he knew from the way his body was being handled that he was being taken to the flagpole. Suddenly pain erupted throughout Viridian's body, shocking him out of the semi-conscious state he had been in.

Looking around Viridian saw Roanos fighting off his tormentors. The larger boy had engaged the entire group by himself. Viridian saw Roanos shoulder check somebody in the chest before jumping and delivering a powerful side kick to another. One boy tried to run but Roanos grabbed him by the collar of his shirt before lifting and throwing the unfortunate person into three others.

At this point others also tried to escape from Roanos but were stopped by the reach he had over them. Roanos was able to grab four other students with two in each hand by their clothes before he began to beat the ever living hell out of them. the few that had escaped his wrath didn't even look back as their companions became victims to Roanos's wrath.

Roanos showed little to no restraint as he slammed his targets into anything he could from the flagpole, to the floor and even each other. Viridian had shakenly gotten to his feet and moved a safe distance away. He could only watch in awe as Roanos made little work of the bullies. When they group of teenagers had been dealt with and left as little more than blubbering and bleeding sacks Roanos turned to look at Viridian.

"Sable says you have to stay by me from now on. You're too fucking weak to protect yourself." Roanos stated before walking past Viridian.

Realizing that his deaf teammate wouldn't have been able to understand anything he said Roanos groaned, almost like a roar and turned back to his teammate. Viridian only looked back with a blank stare. Roanos quickly tried to sign what he meant, repeating the message as he did so.

Viridian's expression in response to the message was as Roanos expected it to be. A mixture of embarrassment and self-pity that Roanos didn't have time to deal with so he instead grabbed Viridian by the shoulder and began to lead him away from the scene of violence.

Viridian allowed Roanos to direct him while silently vowing to himself that he'd get stronger.

Locker Room

Jett ran out of the shower area first with Roane right behind him. In front of them the two teenagers saw a group of seven boys with dark expressions on their faces. Without a word the group charged at the duo, leaping the benches that separated them.

Jett, being the faster of the two ORCJ members engaged in combat first. He propelled himself forward with a high knee to one of the targets' face there was a sickening crunch as the boy's nose broke from the impact of the blow. Either he had tremendously low aura or he hadn't recovered from whatever training he had participated in. Either way Jett wasn't going to let up on an easy win as he manipulated the wind currents around his body to perform a spin kick from the high knee and throwing his target backwards.

As the boy crashed into a set of lockers the remainder of the attacking group surrounded Jett. Their mistake in doing so was that some of them left themselves exposed to Roane. The larger Team ORCJ member barreled into two of the strangers and knocked one to the side while the other was pinned beneath him.

"Get off me you faggot!" the boy cried out as he tried to punch Roane away.

"I'm going to enjoy this more than I should" Roane spoke aloud as he began to punch away at the teenager's face.

Although Roane's frame was smaller and not as stocky as the teenager beneath him, the huntsman-in-training knew how to use gravity and momentum to his advantage. Striking out he landed a savage combination of blows against the teen before locking his target in an armbar. With a tug and massive application of pressure Roane heard the arm break before letting go and getting to his feet to deal with the others who had decided it was ok to attack Jett and himself.

The group was down two members as Jett took on three of the remaining members and Roane dealt with the other two. The boy Roane had knocked off to the side was on his feet in a matter of seconds and charging him while another had broken away from the main group to assist. Roane braced himself as the two homophobic teens crashed into him at the same time, activating his semblance and seeing the truth in their movements to better defend himself.

Off to the side Jett currently had two of the boys in headlocks underneath his arms while the third one was being kicked away. With his semblance, Jett was able to keep his foes off-balance as he dealt with each of them. Spinning around with his captives, Jett threw one of the teens into the one that had been kicked away while the other one was lifted into a standing position and head-butted.

Although he was dazed from the attack Jett didn't let it stop him from roughly kicking the teen in his grasp straight in the chest and backwards into the shower area. With another threat down Jett turned to face the two boys who had tumbled together. At this point however they were joined by two new fighters. Jett smirked with only a hint of nervousness about him.

"I'm all for a good brawl but you guys don't think this is overkill?" Jett asked as the quartet charged him.

Before they could clash however all combatants were frozen in place, held by some unseen force.

"What the hell is going on in here?!" an instructor cried out.

The teenagers all looked at one another and offered no explanation.

Roane knew that the others would never admit to being wrong so he took the initiative.

"My friend Jett and I were the ones under attack." Roane answered.

"What started the altercation that put you in a position to be attacked?" the instructor asked releasing the invisible bonds on Roane and allowing the boy to face him.

"That faggot thought it was ok to be a fucking faggot!" one of the boys yelled.

The instructor looked at the teenager in question. The expression on his face was dark and dangerous enough to stop a charging Ursa dead in its tracks.

"What did you just say?" the instructor question with a dangerous tone in his voice.

"Roane is a fag-" the boy was stopped before he could finish the slur as he was slammed face first into the ground.

As the boy was slammed repeatedly Roane noticed that there was thin wire attached to him and everyone else which explained the restraints. After being slammed roughly a dozen times the instructor finished and raised the bruised and bloody student into the air.

"We do not tolerate that kind of language at this academy. Roane Grant and Jett Volus, I want you both to report to the Headmistress office so that this incident can go on record." The instructor told the Team ORCJ members as Jett was also released from his bonds.

The two teens nodded and then went to their lockers and got their clothes out to get dressed before leaving the locker room. Walking towards the headmistress's office Jett began to smile as he playfully shoved Roane. Roane looked at his teammate with a confused expression in response causing Jett to laugh.

"Was that not the greatest thing you've ever done or what?" Jett asked as he laughed.

Roane smiled and shoved Jett back and began laughing alongside him as they continued down the hall.

Academy Recreations Hall

Taz Argent hung around the bulletin board with a couple of other faunus students. The young man was bored and looking for something to do with the group. So far they hadn't found anything exciting. Looking over the various activities Taz pointed to one before one of his friends reached up and grabbed it.

"This is an ad to help clear out a couple of Creeper Grimm packs. Taz you cant be serious." the female who had taken the notice down asked her friend.

"Hey, we are limited to what we can do because of our year and how early the term has started. At least this way we're doing something semi-fun." Taz argued.

The female, who had dog ears just sighed loudly. One of the other faunus students, a large muscled teen with bear ears and a small tail looked at the two of them and snickered.

"Well if you two cant decide, why don't we do this one." he suggested showing the group a notice for helping out at a bakery.

Taz and the other three students in the group all looked at their bear friend with looks of disbelief and disappointment.

"Alright then, moving on." a freckled male with a thick mane around his head and neck stated pulling down two more notices.

"These two are super close to one another and have us doing something cool." he told the group.

"It's cleaning, they want us to fricken clean." the dog-eared female from before spat with a frown.

"Yea but look at the locations, city hall and the combat stadium. Imagine all the neat shit we'll get to see that isn't open to the public." the boy tried to hype up his suggestions.

Taz shook his head in disbelief. Why was it the academy, which was training them to be bad-ass killing machines had opened the extracurricular activities bulletin board to the city for citizens to post various odd jobs? This question never seemed more apparent to him than now as he and his friends looked for something.

There were few activities he could do outside of working with Team MTAL and a lot of these requests allowed him to do them. While he liked his teammates and got along well with them, Taz also felt a bit singled out not only for being the only male but also being a faunus. The discomfort was small and he never let it show, instead he would take some time to himself and hang with other faunus students who could relate to his issue.

As his group was deciding what to do Taz felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and was instantly alerted to danger.

"Get down!" the fox faunus cried out as he and the other faunus dropped to the floor.

Students in the hall who hadn't been in on the attack also dropped. the air was filled with the sound of gunfire but instead of bullets flying they were paintballs. The intended targets had been various groups of faunus students and those unfortunate enough not to have dropped were peppered with the projectiles.

Taz clenched his teeth in anger as he began running towards one of the paintball gun-wielding students. Tackling the person to the ground Taz activated his semblance and sent a current of energy through the person, paralyzing them before taking their weapon and extra ammunition.

"Don't cower in fear. Fight back! Show them our Faunus Pride!" Taz cried out as he opened fire on the anti-faunus students.

The faunus students rallied behind Taz and began to attack their tormentors and were even joined by some of the human students who had been caught in the crossfire. Spinning around Taz pulled his weapons trigger but found it was empty and dove off to the side to reload as paintballs flew all around him. He felt the sting of paintballs hitting his body but didn't let it stop him as he started fighting another student.

Punching the student across the jaw, Taz soon began to wrestle for control of the gun before kneeing the student. Ripping yet another weapon away Taz opened fire on the previous owner until they stopped moving, mostly due from the shock of how many paintballs were fired upon in such a short period of time.

Taz took the time to reload this one before running over towards where his friends were at. he saw that they two had armed themselves and were hiding behind a bulletin board while occasionally returning fire to the other students. By this time it was hard to tell who was being oppressed and who the oppressors were. The sound of paintball guns and occasional cry of pain filled the area as those without weapons made their way to safety and those with continued to fight.

The entire altercation lasted no longer than seven minutes as the headmistress burst into the area causing everyone, human and faunus alike to drop their weapons immediately. The headmistress was livid and if looks could kill, Taz was certain everyone here would be six feet under.

"Clean. This. Up. Now." the older woman spoke in a cold deliberate tone.

The students then sighed in relief, they had thought she was going to do something horrible to them.

"Don't sound to happy, after this i'll still have to punish you all." she told them before turning to leave.

"We should've just gone to the bakery." Taz heard his bear-eared friend say as the headmistress left. The other members of the group looked at him befoire picking up the guns and emptying them on him.

A/N: Various things that happened that I couldn't find a good place to put in the main story.