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If you want your name on the lists of my stories and videos, head over to P a t. R e . o n and search for the Temple Walkers. Just let us know you're from Fanfiction, alright? There's a thousand of you, so a dollar a piece would really add up and help me a lot! Once I reach five hundred Supporters of any value over a dollar, I will make a concerted effort to put out a chapter of something once every three days at the very slowest.
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Black sheep, failure, dishonored, a waste of time and talent.
Huntsman, successful, honored and skilled beyond.
Six labels, three things Jaune was expected to be and three he was called as. Some others fit him, he was far more than just talented by any metric, but these were the most important of any and all he could possibly deal in.
Not to Jaune, of course, labels meant little to him.
No, he didn't care about these, but his family did. His family, who demanded he train his natural talents to be a fighter. Now, at the ripe old age of seventeen, he was standing in a Bullhead, trying desperately to keep the contents of his stomach located inside his stomach rather than on the nice, clean, carpeted floor. A task that was steadily proving harder with each passing moment.
A stewardess passed by, and he accepted the not so subtly offered medicine and water, both meant to ease the tumbling of his stomach. She started rattling something off about allergies, but he waved her away. He had none, and his Aura would prevent it becoming a terrible problem anyways. Unlike his blasted tumbling stomach, which persisted even while medicated and drowned in water.
He hated Bullheads with an immense amount of passion, and anything else that flew through the air for that matter. And he wouldn't be on the blasted thing if not at his family's insistence that he go to Vale. Or, rather, to Beacon for Huntsman training. Arguing against that hadn't been remotely successful, he'd essentially been told to go or get out, and Ansel was a frontier town. An unarmed man, even a proclaimed prodigy, did not survive unarmed on the Frontier.
So he'd given in on that front, after hours and hours of arguing over several days of headaches and annoyances, and had ten thousand Lien in a sealed envelope shoved into his hands. Nothing to sniff at for most Frontiersman, but a negligible amount for a renowned Huntsman like his father. And an irrelevant amount for a family of known and successful Hunters, when his sisters were added into the mix. The amount to get him to Beacon, and pay tuition, and get books, and pay for meals was staggering to most. To his family, it was a triviality.
And that frustrated him to no end, in a variety of ways.
When he'd finally agreed to go to Vale - and damn if he hadn't made sure his language was quite clear on him going to Vale - they all proven be ecstatic at him finally 'giving in to wiser council for the good of all'. More like the good of the Arc name, he'd thought at the time and barely choked back down in the face of the smiling, insufferably happy family. Not because they were happy, that wasn't what bothered him.
It was that they were happy to have forced him into something he didn't want, for their own reasons that very evidently didn't include Jaune's benefit.
The only solace he had was what he felt on his back and forearm, settled comfortably on his right shoulder blade and attached to a leather vambrace on his left arm. A simple enough broad-axe, with a small spike on the back of it and a curved, wooden handle wrapped in soft but sturdy leather like his vambrace, and a collapsible round-shield made of bronzed steel, both from his grandmother's days in Mistral, fighting Grimm and bandit alike for little to no reward beyond hot meals and enough Lien to keep herself maintained and her weapons strong. The axe could be recalled using the shield itself, which had a directed magnet of Atlesian design that would pull it using the axe-head. Recalling the weapons without getting slammed into by metal debris, or missing the catch and sending it flying past you.
Reminders, to Jaune at least, of what Hunters ought to be. Standing for the weak, not for their own wealth or glory. And most certainly not what his family had become after her passing,years past in service as a Hunter to protect a village against bandit tribe known as one of the most powerful, but one who his father wouldn't speak about much. Out of sorrow for her loss or simple pride, or anything else that could motivate the selfish Arc patriarch, Jaune didn't know.
And he could barely muster the energy to care about it.
Regardless, he had the weapons and every intent on putting them to good use, at least eventually. It might be his pride, but he felt that he had no need of Beacon and certainly no desire to add Beacon's name to the list of Arc laurels. He had cut down every Grimm he'd ever encountered, and knew the ones he hadn't well enough to feel confident in dealing with them.
And he luckily had the other half of beginning a successful, independent life. That being his own savings,and the money foisted on to him. The former was next to nothing, the latter was the substance. And would be plenty for him to dip out of the Bullhead docks and vanish, off to live his own life. First to the docks to buy his way onto a ship to Mistral, or near enough for the job, and then wherever the Grimm and the wind took him. Free, helping the innocent, all in his own way and on his own will.
A perfect life, planned as perfectly as he could hope.
Until he stepped off the Bullhead, stretching and looking around, and heard a steely, "Mister Arc." On instinct and reaction at being addressed, he turned, a frankly gorgeous woman with a clipped pace and hard, if immensely attractive, features practically stalking towards him as she spoke, "Your parents contacted Headmaster Ozpin about you. Given the lateness of your enrollment, they expressed concerns that you may not find the way in time. I was sent by Headmaster Ozpin to retrieve you."
"I-I could have found my own way." He responded after a second, shifting his posture and crossing his arms, forcing his attention from her bust to her eyes faster than she should be able to catch, and feigning a confused offense. "I don't need a babysitter coming out her to walk me home."
"Yes, well, they disagreed and I am here regardless." She held out a hand, and added, "Headmaster Ozpin also wished me to collect the money for tuition, supplies, and the like while I already had you."
A hand moved to his pocket where the envelopsat, and he grimaced. He needed it, or he was stuck, "You just want me to give you that kind of money? I don't even know who you are."
"That is… Fair, I suppose." She sighed, fishing a small badge out of her bust while Jaune not-so-subtly watched and hoped for a peak at hat was under that tight looking outfit. She handed the badge to him, and he looked at it as she spoke, "I am Headmistress Glynda Goodwitch, of Beacon Academy. I serve as a combat teacher and a financial advisor and manager in addition to that role. Which means that you would be paying me the tuition, so I can ensure it gets filed properly in time for Initiation. In just a few days time I might add, if you are still hesitant to trust me for some strange reason."
After another second of thought, he sighed and pulled the envelope out of his pocket, handing it and the badge back together in his unarmored hand, "Sorry, Missus Goodwitch, I was just being cautious. I hear about us frontier kids getting tricked in the big Kingdoms all the time, you know?"
"There is nothing to apologize for, Mister Arc, you are simply being cautious. Were it only the case that half my students were as prudent and cautious as you." She smiled, half diplomatically and half seemingly genuinely approving. "And no 'Missus', young man. I am as yet unmarried, and you will address me as Miss Goodwitch or Headmistress. Understood?"
"Yes, Ma'am." He clipped back, the woman nodding her approval and turning to lead him away without a word.
Within ten steps she was talking, or lecturing rather, about Beacon's history and his own pedigree and records, thankfully paying more note and even credit to the latter than the former.
Something Jaune almost appreciated as much as her frankly criminal legs, or at least those criminal boots of hers. Black leather, with fine stitching along the seams and at the backs of her knees, well made so that her long strides didn't wrinkle the fitted leather as she practically strut through the streets and seemed to simply pretend the gawkers watching the way her hips moved with every step or the way her bust bounced gently simply didn't exist. His eyes drank in every inch of the tight boots hugging her legs, roaming up along the thin leggings she wore and further up, to the firm rear only a foot away from him.
She coughed politely to grab his attention, looking over her shoulder with a small smirk, and he averted his eyes to look around the city as they made their way. His feigned innocence didn't fool her, and he knew that.
After a moment she chuckled, looking back forward, "There's no harm in looking, so long as you know your place and show me the respect due once I am your teacher. I'm far too used to young men leering at my rear end to find it the most evil thing in the world. If it bothered me, I wouldn't dress as I do."
Of course, his eyes didn't linger on her ass, even if it look like carved granite had merged with soft velvet and had a love child named 'Goodwitch's rear end'. No, they ventured further south, where firm leather lung to firmer muscles on long, lean legs the black material tantalisingly teasing what lie underneath, and the feeling of his hands on the leather, feeling it and the flesh under it moling to his fingers.
Eventually though, they reached Beacon's Bullhead docks, a smaller version of where he'd landed owned and run by Beacon solely for its staff and students. They waited for a couple minutes before Goodwitch spoke, "Ozpin wished for me to speak to you, before we headed to Beacon."
"About?" He asked, snapping out of his reverie and fantasy and turning to look at the blonde. She raised an eyebrow and he grimaced, "About what, Miss Goodwitch?"
"About your coming here." She answered quietly, voice still echoing in the practically abandoned waiting area. "It isn't a far leap to see you don't want to be here. Your father personally calling to request a favor, and asking that you be escorted here? Initially by Ozpin himself? That couldn't and didn't come from nowhere. The most likely answer, we feel, is that you were made to come here."
"They… Refused to let a prodigy go to waste, they said." He explained after the longest second of his life, debating whether he should trust this to her. Eventually, he'd decided the information couldn't really hurt him so why bother? "It was either come here to be trained, or get kicked out of Ansel with nothing but the clothes on my back. And no axe, either."
"A death sentence." It was phrased as a question, but not stated as one. Regardless, he nodded and she swore, "The Arcs are known for being uncompromising, but threatening that is just… Utter madness."
"It's why I'm here." He agreed, nodding simply and shoving his hands in his pockets. "They made threats I wasn't willing to call them out on, so… Now I'm stuck here, against my will to the extreme."
"Then… Give Beacon a year." She suggested, looking up as a Bullhead spun slowly in the air and began to descend to land. Theirs, he had to guess. "Give us a year, let us… Convince you to stay at Beacon. If you don't wish to, we can find some other path for you. You don't be the first to choose a… Less regular method of making your way in the world."
"What would that entail?" He asked, the woman shrugging. Either because she didn't know or didn't care, he couldn't tell, but she seemed a kind enough person. Surprisingly so, considering her outward appearance and appearance.
"Normal items of a Hunter's lifes. Hunting Grimm, hounding dangerous, Aura enabled criminals, scouting our regions, security or sensitive locations or even expeditions into Grimm territory, all those sorts of normal things." She summarised earnestly as the Bullhead touched down on the raised platform before them, giving him an almost sultry smile and dipping her eyes down for the shortest second of his life, "As well as potentially more… Intimate and personal matters."
"What…?" But she was gone, quickly making her way up the ramp and into the unusually large Bullhead, stopping at the top for only a moment to smile over her shoulder at him knowingly and duck into the Bullhead before he could actually say anything or do anything more than blink and look down.
The small tent in his pants drew a large blush from him and, adjusting it and trying to ignore it altogether, he climbed aboard the Bullhead itself as well.
Maybe Beacon wouldn't be terrible after all?
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