UPDATE: Basically, Chapter X has no number until I get to that point in the timeline. Ignore the first couple sentences.

Author's Note: Okay so I fiddled with the timeline abit and released the chapter that takes place AFTER this one BEFORE I posted this. To clarify, the order of chapters is the order in the timeline, so this takes place BEFORE the next chapter, and I will continue releasing the chapters that take place before it until I get to the point in the story where that chapter takes place. It will only be a few more chapters before we get there, but it may be a short while.

Anyway, I was going to delay this chapter a little more as this takes place on the Monday after the dance, and as the dance is not really over in the main series, I was ready to wait so I could keep it tied to it. I decided to just screw it and release these when I have them and not worry too much about linking to the show exactly. Hopefully that means I can get chapters out a little faster, but it will likely be a chapter a week for now.

I have been working on this chapter since I posted chapter 4, so it took me a while to get it how I liked it, especially since Nora is a bit weird for me to write. Now that I've got a better idea, hopefully she will be slightly easier in the future. Anyway, without further ado, Chapter 5(chronologically)

Ren was having a weird dream. It was night time. For some reason, he was fighting dozens of ursi with Nora. The pair easily decimated the large number of Grimm, which was pretty easy to do. As soon as they felled the last ursa, Nora started skinning them, bundling the skins onto her back. Then, the setting suddenly changed to a market in town, Nora holding a handful of lien.

Ren woke up to Nora bouncing on his stomach. "Nora, get off me."

"Okay!" Nora leaped off his bed, then spun around and bounced in place, waiting for Ren to get out of bed. "Do you know what today is? Because I know what day it is. It's Monday the 18th, which means either there is a full moon, which I doubt, or it's your birthday! At least I think it is. It is your birthday right? Did I get the wrong month again? Awwww. If I got the wrong month, then that means I made the cake for nothing which means…"

"Nora." Ren said, sitting up and stretching in place.

"Yes Ren?"Nora immediately grew quiet, waiting for Ren to tell her what he wanted.

"You got the right month. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to have breakfast before sweets." Ren said, getting up and walking to the bathroom to take a shower.

Ren quickly showered and dressed, then headed off to the cafeteria, Nora in tow. When they got there, Ren noticed that Jaune and Pyrrha were sitting together, eating breakfast. As he got closer, he noticed that they both had their eyes closed. 'Weird.' Ren decided to just ignore it, and went to grab breakfast.

By the time he got back to the table, Jaune and Pyrrha had opened their eyes, and finished off most of their respective meals.

Ren sat down across from them, and almost immediately, a hyper-as-ever Nora assaulted his side.

"Reeeeen! I've got your caaaaake!" Nora practically squealed.

"Do you even remember our conversation earlier?" Ren said, with a slight sigh "I said breakfast BEFORE sweets."

Nora was completely unfazed and replied "That's the beauty of it! Your cake IS breakfast!" As she said this, she pulled a decent sized cake from behind her back, which was, surprisingly, not a cake. Nora placed the decent stack of pancakes, syrup and all, onto the table in front of Ren and quickly jabbed a candle in the middle.

"See? Isn't it just sooooo cool?" Nora paused before blabbering on again "I came up with the idea just yesterday! It's great cause you can have it like a cake, but it's not sweet like a cake. I know you don't really like sweets too much, so it's perfect. Plus, pancakes are kinda cakes as they are named pan-CAKES after all!" Nora gave a quick giggle before moving to light the cake.

Pyrrha quickly grabbed the lighter from the spaz, saying "Why don't you let me do that?" Ren gave her a look that said 'Thank god' and gave a long sigh. "Alright, let's get this over with." Ren said, waiting for his teammate to light the candle.

Just as the candle caught fire, the unexpected happened: Jaune pulled a guitar from under the table and started to play the opening chords to the birthday song, just as RWBY exploded out from under the table, startling Ren. Everyone started singing the traditional birthday song everyone from Vale knew by heart. A few teams from the tables around them joined in, not really knowing what was happening.

As the group finished the song, Ren leaned in and gave a small puff to extinguish the candle, but almost as quickly as it went out, it reignited. Ren gave a slight look of bewilderment before he realized what had happened. Nora was slapping her legs laughing, joined by Yang once she figured it out.

"A trick candle! Good one Nora!" the blonde brawler gave Nora a quick high-five and continued laughing.

Ren frowned slightly, and then gave a small smile. "Funny Nora. Not as funny as every other time you've done this, but still, funny."

"PRESANT TIME!" Nor shouted in Ren's ear, effectively deafening him for a few seconds.

Nora quickly pulled out a small box wrapped in pink paper. She handed it to Ren and then proceeded to jump up and down where she stood, clapping her hands together.

Ren carefully peeled the paper off and opened the box. Inside, he found a pricy looking pin with Nora's symbol on it, centered in the middle flower of Ren's symbol. Nora's symbol seemed to be made of one single gem, somehow cut in just the right places to form the hammer/lightning bolt combo.

Weiss looked flabbergasted, knowing full well how much a piece like this would cost. She opened her mouth slightly, about to ask how Nora could possibly afford it, when Ren gave her a look that said 'Don't ask' and she snapped her jaw closed. She still looked perplexed, but decided to humor him.

Pyrrha pulled out a moderately sized case, and put it in front of Ren. "This is from Jaune and me. We figured you could use it." She said, waiting for him to open it. When he did, he found a whole kit, made specifically for cleaning and maintaining Stormflower. "I saw that you use some older pieces and had to use some multi-purposed cleaners here and there, so Jaune and I went into Vale and got some specialized cleaning fluid, along with some brushes to clean the firing mechanisms and a small whetstone kit to sharpen the blades."

Ren looked up to his teammates and gave a small, polite nod. "Thank you, I'm sure it will come in handy." He said, closing the case.

"And last, but not least, here's our gift!" Ruby pulled out a medium sized box, sloppily wrapped in red paper. "We all pitched in, some more than others." Weiss gave a slight nod "It certainly helps being the heiress to a multi-billion lien corporation." Ruby rolled her eyes "ANYWAY, here you go. We asked Nora to get the right size, which in hindsight may not have been the best idea but I think she got it right."

Ren gave a small nod "We do most of our shopping together, so we know each other's sizes." He replied matter-of-factly.

Yang perked up at this "Oh really?" She made sure to waggle her eyebrows at him, making him blush slightly.

Ren decided to ignore his lewd friend and started dismantling the ball of paper that was team RWBY's gift. "Who wrapped this?" he asked, flabbergasted how this much paper could be used for one box.

"Ruby insisted. It could be worse, trust me." Blake responded, their whole team knowing full well how bad her present wrapping could be, shuddering when they remembered her Christmas presents to all of them.

As Ren finally got down to the box, he opened it to find a jacket, very similar in style to his, but this jacket was a deep black with pink designs running over it. It also had his symbol on the right tail, again in pink.

"Thank you, guys. It looks great." Ren said, admiring the precision stitching on the designs.

"It's more of a formal jacket, so you can wear it to the school dances." Weiss said, before being interrupted by Yang. "Yeah! It's perfect too as it'll match Nora's dresses!" Yang again waggled her eyebrows at Ren.

Ren just sighed and folded the jacket back up to be placed in the box.

Ren started to pack his things together, hoping to move them out of the way before Nora initiated the last phase of her usual party template.

"You're not leaving yet are you Ren? There's just one last thing to do to make this a REAL party!" Nora shouted, an evil looking grin spreading across her face. Ren sighed and slumped back down into his seat.

As she pulled out Magnhild, everyone's faces paled. Jaune moved to stop her while the rest of his friends took cover. "Nora! You know there are no weapons allowed in the cafeteria!"Jaune yelled, reaching out to grab the high powered weapon out of the hands of the crazy person who wielded it.

Ren, on the other hand, knew exactly what Nora was planning and put an arm on Jaune to stop him. "It'll be fine." He said, pulling Jaune down to sit next to him. "Just keep your head down."

Nora pointed Magnhild in grenade launcher form to the ceiling, scaring every table around them, making the students run for the exits for the second time that semester.

Nora fired her weapon shooting a normal grenade with the pink heart on the tip, arcing the shot slightly. Just as the grenade reached it's apex, it exploded, but it was not the usual, pink sparkly explosion of her standard grenades. As team RWBY stuck their heads out from under the table to see what was happening, multi-colored confetti rained down on them.

Everyone was utterly confused, while Ren sat there with a smirk on his face. "What? Did you think I'd let her fire a live grenade in the cafeteria?" Ren said, looking to Jaune. "Two years ago, Nora realized she could make custom confetti rounds for her weapon, turning it into her own personal confetti canon."

"Well at least she didn't bring the roof down. You know, because it's a party?" Yang said, followed quickly by a collective groan.

Neptune and Sun stood just a few tables from their eccentric friends, Sun with his usual wild grin plastered on his face, Neptune glaring daggers at Sun. When the confetti round went off, Neptune had been coated in confetti, while Sun merely had some in his hair.

"Why do I hang out with you people?" Neptune said, trying to brush as much confetti off of him as he could while maintaining his death-glare.

"Because we're awesome." Sun said, jogging over to meet his friends.

UPDATE 9/15/14: Apparently I can words like I can girls (not well), so I fixed a few typos in the A/N.

I've got another chapter ALMOST ready, but it's not the next one, but the one after the next. I need to link the end of this chapter to the beginning of the next, which I may do by making a long chapter, or I may just make another chapter, but I'm not sure which to do just yet. I do want to have my friend look it over as well, as it'll be a somewhat more important chapter (yes, we're getting to actual important plot parts soon) which shouldn't take TOO long.

I have a few days off of work and I was forced to drop my classes (coming up with bullshit answers for only 12 of 22 questions on the first exam is no way to pass a class) so I've got more time on my hands, as well as less stress.

I also ordered parts for my first PC build (YAY!) so that will be ready in about a week, so I will soon have a nice, actual workstation to sit down and write.

So, until the next chapter, grit thy teeth and await Thursday!

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