Woah woah woah! Save that stuff for the NSFW thread!
Sorry! I get a bit too excited sometimes, you know? Plus, I'm a perv. It's in my nature.
-Mercury decides, ya know what? Fuck Cinder. He's an assassin, damnit. He can't make money if the entire world is dead. So how does he become a double agent?
I imagine as
any good assassin does. Business!
He finds someone rich, explains what's going on, and tells them to hire him. As an assassin, so long as a contract is made, he is obligated to fulfill it.
Cinder never made a contract with him. It was more of a demand than a deal. He's not obligated by business practices to actually help her, only self-preservation... something he's used to going against, as an assassin.
At first, he tries going to the only other "bro" in the two teams Cinder has Emerald scoping out. He doesn't want to go to Ren as Nora seems liable to crush him immediately. And as confident he is on taking her, he doesn't want to risk ot when there's another option.
So he goes to Jaune Arc. He takes him aside with an excuse of getting help with a girl or some other "guy talk" excuse. Then he explains the situation he's in, and how he'd rather not get Ozpin involved otherwise he's liable to get himself killed.
So Jaune takes him to Weiss and the two tell her everything. She... eventually... agrees to help, and makes a contract with Mercury. Though, she also suggests informing Ozpin.
Mercury caves, but says he can't go with them, because if he goes to Ozpin then Cinder will get suspicious and it might just blow this whole thing up.
So, Jaune and Weiss decide to at least go along with Mercury's original excuse of "helping Jaune get a girl" to cover their asses. Weiss sends Jaume to tell Ozpin, while Mercury heads back to Cinder.
Cinder asks him what he was doing, and Mervury says something along the lines of "I was getting annoyed watching the idiot bumble and flail around trying to get the Princess' attention. So I set them up. Even if it doesn't work out, at least he'll be less annoying for a bit."
Cinder and Emerald both take that excuse as reasonable, and lose suspicion. Until eventually Ozpin and his Illuminati ambush Cinder, Emerald and Neo.
Mercury gets to gloat at them a bit.
Luckily for Neo, Mercury
had mentioned to Jaune how Roman and her weren't working with Cinder willingly. So Jaune was able to talk Ozpin into giving them some leniency. Jaune knows they're criminals, the bad guys, but he can also figure out that there's bigger fish to fry and also they didn't exactly have a choice.
Thanks to Jaune's sincere explanation and pleas, Ozpin is able to convince James to go easy on them. Cinder is the most important one to grab. Emerald only cares about Cinder, not Salem. Mercury ratted them out, so he gets paid to help the Ozluminati. Roman and Neo will either run away from Vale, go underground for a while, or join the Ozluminati.
So woth the Fall of Beacon foiled, Jaune and Weiss get together and join Ozpin's club. Neo slowly slips herself into their rationship as Jaune's mistress, as Weiss simply cannot handle his stamina. Roman likes Jaune, despite his goody two-shoes thing, because he pulled their asses from the fire and is making Neo happy.
Mercury gets training from Qrow and gets paid to assassinate Salem's minions (hell yeah).
Ozpin gets to call Salem and gloat to her, because he finds her reactions to him winning to be the
funniest shit ever!
-What if Cardin and Velvet were childhood friends?
Velvet used to be a tomboy. She had a nickname, and Cardin thought that was her name. He didn't even know she was a girl. Velvet moved away suddenly and Cardin thought his best friend abandoned him.
That's why he's racist. He's angry at his best friend, and doesn't know hlw to handle it. So he lashes out.
Velvet feels like shit for being unable to say goodbye or going back to see him later. So she accepted his bullying as punishment.
After Jaundice, Cardin apologized to her and Velvet realizes that he doesn't recognize her. So she apologizes for abandoning him.
Cardin is supremely confused. Abandoning him? What? He doesn't even know who she is!? How could she...
Then he figures it out.
Cue all the anger bursting out. He screams at her, he wants to punch her
so badly but he doesn't want to hurt so, so he punches a door or wall or something. He just screams and shouts all his pent up anger out.
Then comes the sadness. Once all his anger is dried up, all he's left with is the gnawing of depression. The uestion of "why"? Being the son of a council member, he never had any friends as a kid. Everyone was too scared of his dad, or only wanted an "in" with his father.
Velvet was the light and joy in his life. Someone he could be happy to be around. Someone he could play games with and just... around her, he could just be a kid.
When she abandoned him, all that went away. He fell into a depression, ended up in the wrong crowd and becane a delinquint. He took his anger out on faunus and others. He was not a good person.
Because he never really had a normak childhood, he never knew how to handle his emotions. They boiled and festered inside until the sadness became anger, which slowly became
hate.
But he could never hate her.
He bullied her specifically because she reminded him of his old friend, which is ironic because she
was his old friend.
The whole reason he became a Huntsman-in-Training was so he could take his hate out on the Grimm. Legally and withpit repercussions. He hated the faunus for what his cgildhood friend did, but Cardin also hated himself for holding such hate in his heart... so he tried refirecting his hate to Grimm. It was somewhat successful, but seeing Velvet just dragged up all his painful memories and he hated her for it.
He bullied Jaune because the blond kid reminded Cardin of how he used to be. When he had her by his side. So he hated him too. Just being near either Velvet or Jaune caused a bubbling, sizzling pot of hatred to rise up beneath his skin. When both were nearby, he felt like he was sweating magma with how hot his blood ran.
But it was Jaune who saved his life, and by accepting him the Arc created a path that allowed him to overcome his hate. If Velvet had revealed her identity before Jaune saved him, he'd probably never be able to forgive her.
Velvet sees his aching heart, the bottomless resevoir of emptiness in his soul. She explains why she disappeared.
Grimm attacked her family's village. The one she lived in before moving to Vale and meeting him. So her family rushed to move back to the village, to help it recover and rebuild. Her family was full of Huntsmen and Huntresses, after all.
She wanted to be like them because she saw them save her old village and restore it. She wanted to be a hero who her best friend Cardin could look up to. Because she knew, when she got older, that the beating of her heart when she thought of him wasn't the feelings between friends...
It was
love.
So... Jaune saved Cardin's life with acceptance and friendship. While Velvet saved Cardin's life through kindness and love.
It wasn't immediate, but Cardin slowly ft the emptiness inside him shrink. It shriveled up and died. And all that was left was happiness and love.
While Velvet had told Cardin about her feelings first, it was Cardin who confessed and asked her to be his girlfriend... and perhaps, if she wants, in the future she could be his wife and the mother of his children.
Velvet, of course, accepts his confession and they get together.
Velvet's team were originally skeptical, but they eventually decided (after Velvet scolded them for doubting her precious Cardin) that they'd support them completely.
Cardin's team were fine with it from the beginning. But were uncomfortable after learning about Cardin's past and feelings. They also realized that was why a
lot of Grimm attacked Cardin during initiation. That's why only a few Grimm other than the Deathstalker and Birb attacked RWBY & JNPR, everything else was drawn to Cardin.
But Jaune is the first other than CFVY and CRDL to congratulate the two. Followed closely by Nora, Ren and then Pyrrha... then it was Ruby, Yang, Weiss and finally Blake.
After that, pretty much everyone knew and congratulated the two.
Then Cardin and Velvet were incredibly sweet and wholesome. And Cardin was
dangerously protective of his future wife (he was already set on it happening, and so was Velvet).
Super wholesome shit.
