Chapter 2: Assembling The Perfect Crew

To my only desire… The beast of possibility… The symbol of hope… I wouldn't use any of that to describe me. I just think it sounds cool. And props to you if you think it's cool sounding too. Also, pencil in another mark for references made, if you're keeping count. I seriously doubt all of you guys have found them all. But, if you want to be the very best, like no-one ever was… then you should probably put that reference I just made on the score sheet. Next to the previous one. It's just like a game of bingo, except with no prize! Unless you count wasted time as a prize. Which you shouldn't. Anyway, let's just get to the story.

xxx

Friday was normally supposed to be a day to enjoy the fact that school was off for a few days. But, considering that weird nature of things in and involving Beacon Academy, that feeling was diminished for a certain group of people. If anything, the approaching weekend was a sign to Teams RWBY and JNPR that something was either going to get crazy, or absurd, or crazy absurd.

So, when they walked into the Beacon Academy Theater that afternoon, all of them were fully accustomed to being involved in some sort of weird event or plan. Which made them the PERFECT people for the job.

"So… You got the message too?" Ruby asked, immediately diving into one of the front-row seats of Beacon Theater.

"Yep… I mean, I we had nothing to do today, so we thought 'Why not?'," Jaune replied, absentmindedly picking at a loose thread on his hoodie as he sat down.

The whole gang was there. Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren. In other words, the only people Velvet knew outside of her team that she considered friends.

"Well, this better had be important," Weiss grumbled, sitting next to Ruby. "I had things I wanted to do this evening,". Truth to be told, Weiss didn't really have much of anything to do that day. But, that was pretty much the beauty of it. All she was planning to do was spend her time trying to relax with Ruby, in an effort to try things Ruby's style. Plus, cuddling was something she was looking forward to as well. Her ironically planned relaxation was ruined, to be short.

Yang let off a snort at that statement. "Ha! What, planning on organizing your dresses by color?"

Blake and Ren paid no mind to the obvious joke, Nora and Jaune snickered slightly, Pyrrha jabbed her boyfriend with her elbow to get her to stop, and Ruby looked genuinely baffled.

"I thought you did that the other day?" Ruby asked earnestly. Nora snickered louder at that.

Weiss huffed and pouted, slightly reddening with embarrassment. It hit her pretty hard at how Yang was able to call her out on that, without even knowing she did that. That girl sure knew where to throw punches. "I… Err…" she trailed off at Ruby, before turning her attention to the giggling Yang. "Shut up, you blonde buffoon!"

"My my my, secrets are coming out today!" Yang laughed.

"Oh, are we playing the Secrets Game?" Nora piped up, excited.

"No, we're not, Nora," Ren flatly pointed out, completely uninterested in this tomfoolery. It was the afternoon, and he hadn't had his daily calming tea. Or rather, his fifth dose of daily calming tea. With the company he kept, he pretty much needed to drink that much relaxing tea water.

"Aww… I wanna hear secrets…" Nora disappointedly sighed, the air being let out of her proverbial balloon.

"Me too, ginger. Me too," Yang happily sighed, her laugher wound down. Now that was a good, small laugh. Just the right size for a quickie. No, not in that way. Minds don't belong in the gutter.

At that moment, Velvet walked into the theater. Just as she'd hoped she would see, all the people she had summoned were there. Excellent!

"Hello everyone!" the bunny girl greeted as she waved, walking towards the front of the stage. She had on her useless brainy-glasses, she had her script ideas, and she had her acting crew. She was READY to get started.

"I'm glad you guys could make it!" Velvet continued, adjusting her glasses by the bridge. Her intention was for the lenses to catch the light from the ceiling and briefly glow. Naturally, life isn't filled with anime clichés, so that gesture was entirely pointless.

Weiss, skipping the formalities, decided to cut right to the chase on behalf on everyone. "So, what do you have for us?"

Velvet, of course, took that comment in a completely different manner. "I can't believe you're so ready to get to work! Well, don't you worry, friend! I've got a WONDERFUL opportunity for us!"

"…Right. Well, mind telling us what it is?" Weiss replied, eyeing Velvet as she took her place in front of the assembled teams.

Taking a deep breath, Velvet proudly announced what here intentions were. "I've brought al of you here to make…"

"Pause for dramatic effect…" Velvet thought in her mind.

"A commercial," she finally got around to saying.

There was a beat among the assembled team members. Velvet was absolutely enchanted. Everyone must have been so in awe of the gift all of them had been given!

"…You could've just emailed us that…" spoke up Yang.

"Yeah," Weiss bitterly agreed.

"Right," Ren also added.

Velvet awkwardly scratched her head. That… wasn't the real reaction that she had in mind. Well, that wouldn't stop her from keeping up the spirit!

"I-it'll be just like the old times! When we made the music show!" Velvet exclaimed.

"Someone fell from the rafters towards the end, remember?" Ren bluntly pointed out.

"…Aah," was all Velvet managed to squeak out.

"Yeah, but it was Cardin," Nora added. "Nobody all THAT important, right?"

There were murmurs among the other gathered hunters/huntresses in training. "She does have a point…" Ruby rather audibly whispered. Even Ren couldn't argue with his ginger-headed friend's argument. Only Pyrrha really showed some concern about it, and that was only because of long standing moral convictions. Be even she had to admit deep down inside herself that Cardin deserved to have his legs broken from that fall.

"Look, you guys, I'm really asking for your help here! Pleaseeeeeeeeeeee—" Velvet started to drag out.

"We'd be glad to help, Velvs!" Ruby tried to say over Velvet's increasing pitch.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—"

"We said we'd help!" Blake yelled covering up her sensitive cat ears.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—"

"Please, stop! We'll help!" pleaded Pyrrha, also covering her ears.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—"

"WE SAID WE WOULD DO IT!" Weiss frustrated roared over Velvet's annoying screeching. That managed to get everything in the theater to shut up, up to and including the rats in the walls.

Velvet clasped her hands together, pleased. "Excellent!"

"Promise to never do that again," flatly requested Ren.

"Deal!" Velvet crisply replied, brushing aside the second-most annoying sound in the world she had just performed. "Now, I have here with me a few ideas for the shoot… If you could pass that around for everyone to look at, that would be great."

At that, Velvet took out a folded piece of notebook paper from her hip pocket and passed it to the nearest person. As Team RWBY got to look at it first, Velvet decided to keep on talking about her thoughts on the commercial shoot.

"So, what I want out of all of you is passion. Drama. I want you all to give your all on this project. I want you to melt that screen with your sheer acting talent!" Velvet hammily declared.

Just as soon as Velvet finished her ranting, Yang immediately raised her hand. "Yes?" Velvet asked.

Yang briefly checked over the list before getting to her question. "I, uh, noticed that you put down some stuff that, er, makes no sense. Mind explaining that?"

"What things in particular?" pressed Velvet.

"Like, what's 'BDR' supposed to mean?" drawled out Yang.

"Oh, glad you asked!" Velvet perked up. "We're gonna Break Down Racism! BDR!"

The room's confusion was palpable. There was a large mixture of confusion and… Well, just plain confusion, actually. It was the only real reaction to have at that… caliber of a statement.

Noticing this, Velvet decided to clear a few things up. "Okay, okay, I get it. This is a radical new idea. But, think about it! We can really touch the minds of all the impressionable people with such a message! Nobody will harass anyone, Faunus and races of men included! …Preferably Faunus…"

"…This is an ad for the school, right?" Jaune blurted out.

"Yes, it is. Weren't you listening?" Velvet answered back.

Blake couldn't help but scratch at the base of her cat ears under her bow. That whole spiel kinda didn't fit with a school advertisement. Like, at all. She would try to understand the leaps of logic that required Velvet to come up with an anti-racism message for academy commercial, but she knew she stood no chance at getting it at all.

"Uh… And how are we going to do that?" Blake couldn't help but ask.

"Easy! You're the person I had in mind!" Velvet gleefully pointed out.

"…Can I not do it?" requested Blake. She really didn't want to be all over television, considering that her old White Fang comrades might recognize her. She was more than willing to have a small part, not to be the focal point of something that will be broadcasted everywhere.

"Well, who else can we use…?" Velvet thought out loud. "Ren? No offense."

Ren narrowed his gaze. "Offense taken."

Velvet brushed off his comment as she continued to rattle out her thoughts. "Well, we could just use a set of animal ears from a costume shop…"

"That would make it even more racist," Jaune noted.

"Well, we either stick with a real Faunus person, or we find something as a replacement," Velvet sighed, having given up on that train of thought.

"Fine, fine!" Blake interrupted, annoyed. "I'll do it. Just don't make it too bad, okay?"

"Oh, yay!" Velvet exclaimed, her excitement rushing back through her veins. "Now we're cooking with gas!"

Everyone winced at that forcibly-delivered slang. Velvet either didn't notice or care.

"Now, if all of you could follow me, I have snacks in the club office for you all—" Velvet began to say, before being cut off by Ruby. A red blur zoomed out of the theater and down the hall, only leaving a small bunch of fluttering rose pedals where she sat.

With a weary sigh, Weiss got up out of her seat. Snatching the ideas list out of Yang's hands, she marched over to Jaune and tossed it into his lap. "You can read it on the way. We should probably catch up with Ruby before she eats everything with sugar in it."

Weiss' logic was irrefutable. There was no doubt that Ruby would eat pretty much everything that Velvet had in her office. And a Ruby on a massive sugar rush was something that nobody wanted to deal with.

Taking after Weiss' lead, the rest of the assembled group followed the Schnee girl out of the theater. As for Velvet, she couldn't help but walk with a slight spring in her step. This was all so exciting! This was even better than sex! Well, as far she knew. She didn't really know the exact feeling, and she doubted that her… utensils used in that stead were an accurate representation.

But, that was neither here nor there. What was the most important right now was that Velvet had the right people she needed to make the best damn piece of film ever. Oh, and stopping Ruby. That was probably important too.

Still, that didn't take away from Velvet's overwhelmingly positive feelings at all. She had the highest of intuitions that this was going to be great. And, once she explained everything to her team later, it could only possibly get even greater.

Right?

xxx

Foreboding! Except not really. This is only the build-up to the good stuff, after all. Think of this chapter like the wrapper of a delicious candy treat. Now, you have to peel it back to get to the rich flavor inside. Well, unless you have a habit of eating wrappers. Don't worry, I won't judge you on that. But, I will judge you if you eat rappers. People probably shouldn't be eaten. So, let me know how it tasted and where to find a good price on human meat. Maybe in a review. Or, better yet, use the reviews section for something useful. Like leaving a review. Shocking, right? Anyways, I'll just leave you to it for now.

This is The Draigg, and I'm signing off for now!