"Jaune, make sure to come back home by dinner!" The voice of a woman shouted as a blonde-haired teen ran out the front door of a brick house with yellow shutters. The teen wore a pair of blue jeans along with a black hoodie with an orange interior. Strapped to his chest was a white chestplate while his hands were covered in fingerless gloves. His blue eye were full of excitement at doing some training. Strapped to his hip was sword with a white and gold sheath.
His name was Jaune Arc and in three weeks, he'd be heading off to the combat school of Beacon in order to become a huntsman. Frankly, he knew that he was completely unprepared for the combat school as he had to get falsified transcripts from very illegitimate sources which he had to track down. It was extremely satisfying when he got his transcripts which he turned in to Beacon as he had been accepted into the prestigious school afterwards.
He would definitely follow in his family's footsteps of being a hero. As Jaune left the house and ran off to the woods, he let the thoughts of being a hero enamor his mind. But as these thoughts passed through him, he had the growing feeling of doubt that if he failed, then his family would look terrible.
The trek he made through the woods was one he had been taking for the past few weeks in preparation for his time at Beacon. It was quite peaceful here when he was away from everyone else. He did have to be careful of the Grimm that wandered the forests, he hadn't seen any yet, but that didn't mean that they weren't out there waiting for him. Jaune hid his fear under a sense of bravado as he thought about what he would do when he got to Beacon.
He had to be cool, that was a given. If not, then people might easily see through his act and kick him out of the school. Jaune also wanted to possibly get a girlfriend while he was at Beacon as while there were plenty of girls in his village, all of them ignored him in favor of huntsmen-in-training compared to the useless blonde that he was. Jaune would show all of them when he became a hero! He'd be amazing at it.
With a hop over a log, Jaune made it to a clearing where a stump of a tree about five feet tall remained. On it were scores of nicks in the wood from Jaune practicing on this stump. It was quite amazing that his sword barely retained any scratches from this training.
Jaune unsheathed his sword while also unclipping his sheath from his belt and pressing a button on it, expanded the piece of metal into a shield. Jaune ran at the stump and began hacking at it repeatedly. Each hit against the wood gave Jaune some confidence at his fighting ability. Now all he needed was a real opponent to train against and he would be a master in no time.
It was thirty minutes later after hacking at the stump that Jaune stabbed his sword into the ground and rested his back against the stump in the ground. Even with this training, Jaune felt that he wasn't going to be good enough to be a hero. Even his parents were surprised when he got his acceptance letter. They didn't even believe that he was going to ever be accepted into an academy and originally thought that he was going to do something else with his life.
It was here that Jaune pulled off the backpack attached to his back and set it in his lap. He unzipped it and pulled out some water which he greedily drank. Jaune stood back up and decided that he would go back to some more training when he heard a growling in the woods.
Jaune stood ridged and listened for the growling which was followed by twigs breaking. When his fears were proven right, Jaune pulled his sword out of the ground and ran away from the area. Even though he was armed, Jaune had no real belief that he would ever be able to take on the Grimm that was making that noise. His skills were extremely limited which disappointed him.
As he crashed through the woods, the growling grew louder and was followed by a stomping from the Grimm's paws galloping into the ground. Jaune went around a tree and hid. He was so stupid for coming out this far from his house. What was going through his mind when he thought that he could survive out here without any combat experience?
The sound of the Grimm passing him by gave Jaune some peace of mind as he waited a few more seconds before he would leave his hiding place. This was quickly cut short when the tree he was hiding behind was broken in half by the Grimm's paw which missed his head by half a foot. Jaune quickly ran once more with the sound of the Grimm on his heels.
When he ran through the woods, Jaune found a river that was passing lazily by the woods. Jaune thought about continuing to run, but he quickly made up his mind and jumped into the river where he then swam down under the water. The river didn't have a strong current to it and it was only a few feet deep, but it would have to do otherwise he'd get killed by the Grimm that was chasing him.
Jaune guessed that it was an Ursa since they seemed like a Grimm large enough to break a tree in half. Guess that explained the random stump that he'd been training on. Jaune had no wish to be found by the possible Ursa, so he started swimming with the current of the small river until he felt that he could no longer hold his breath.
With a burst of water and a quick gulp of air, Jaune's head came out of the river and the blonde swam towards the muddy bank and pulled himself out. He really hoped that he would be able to find his way back to the village. It would not be a pleasant experience to be out here after dark.
The mud on the riverbank certainly did a lot to dirty his clothing and armor. Jaune was going to hate having to clean the mud off all of his things afterwards, but right now it was worth it. He couldn't hear the Grimm anymore.
Jaune walked away from the river bank and back into the woods where he quickly tripped over some object and fell into some mud with a shout. Life really just hated him, didn't it? Wiping his face of mud, Jaune pushed himself back onto his feet and looked down at what had tripped him. It was spherical in shape which Jaune pulled out of the mud that it was in.
He noticed that the object was perfectly spherical in shape which easily meant that this thing wasn't normal. After wiping the mud from the object, the blonde noticed that the object was pure black, and yet it shined like a jewel. Jaune wiped the rest of the object off and the same black sheen now seemed metallic in nature. He was about to pocket the thing but realized that he couldn't, it was stuck to his hand. When he pulled his hand out, he saw that where once the sphere had been perfect, it had now become something like metallic water that covered his palm.
As it did so, Jaune tried desperately to wipe the substance off while blue fire surrounded his hand. He had no understanding as to what was happening, only that it scared the hell out of him since the substance wouldn't come off his hand and somehow the blue fire on his hand didn't burn. Instead, the black substance finally dissolved into his hand and Jaune felt something inside of himself just activate before he lost all consciousness and his world faded to black.
When Jaune pulled his face from the ground, he thought himself thankful that it was still daytime as the world around him was still bright. He quickly looked at his hand to see that the black substance which had been on it had now disappeared, much to his happiness. In all actuality, Jaune thought that the stuff might have just been something that was made up in his mind. This set his fears back if only slightly.
When he pushed himself off the ground and onto his feet, he looked down at his clothes which had hardened mud now clinging to them. Jaune sighed before reaching into his pants to pull out his Scroll. He quickly realized that he left his Scroll back in his backpack at his training stump. This caused Jaune to sigh in annoyance at how such a simple day had turned into one which was now complicated.
"Life just hates me, doesn't it?" Jaune asked himself as he walked back to the river and started walking up it in an effort to make his way back to where he had originally jumped into it. This was solved quite quickly when Jaune saw the destruction of a few trees in the area. It easily tipped him off that this was where he was chased.
With a quick scan of the woods, Jaune made his way by backtracking the destruction until he eventually ended up back at the stump where his bag was. With a smile, Jaune picked the bag up and walked back to his house with the thought of success in his mind. When he made it to the front door and entered, he found his mother looking at his with some disappointment in her eyes.
"Jaune Arc, do you know what time it is?" She asked.
"Still daylight. I made it back home in time, didn't I?" Jaune asked with confusion.
"It's seven in the night. You said you'd get back home before it became dark out. I was worried and I know, you were training, but there are still Grimm wandering the woods." Jaune looked up to the sky to see that it still seemed like daytime, the only difference was that the cracked moon was floating high in the sky. Jaune didn't understand what was happening.
"Yeah. I got it." Jaune replied.
"And you look filthy. Get yourself cleaned up first and then come down for dinner." Jaune's mother ordered. Jaune complied and went to the bathroom while also stripping off all the mud-caked clothes from his body. Jaune looked at his right hand and just thought about what had happened earlier. Was that really a dream? Or was it real?
As he stepped into the shower, Jaune then turned his thoughts to Beacon. He was going to need to focus on training if he wanted to stay with the other students in terms of skill. If he didn't, then he'd be found out and kicked out of the school just as quickly as he came in.
When Jaune stepped out of the shower, an idea struck him and so he went to the light switch and flipped it off. Without any lights in the room, it still looked as clear as day to him. Jaune flicked the lights back on and the only real difference was that now the lightbulb was lit above him. "What the hell is happening to me?"
It was two weeks later when the blonde stood before the bulkhead that was taking students off to Beacon, in his mind he felt that this would be a mistake as he knew he had some air-sickness. He just hoped that nothing happened which could cause his air-sickness to occur.
Jaune quickly walked into the airship with the other students and dropped off his suitcase with other clothes and such. After finding his way up to the main deck, Jaune went to the windows of the airship to look down at the ground still below him. This would be a definite change of pace which he would accept.
It had also been two weeks since Jaune found out that he had the ability to see in the dark. It was strange at first, but the ability had been quickly growing on him all the same. He tried reading up on it online, and he found out that faunus had this ability. This confused the teen as he knew for a fact that none of his family were related to the faunus in any way.
Still, at least one more advantage for him…
It was four minutes later when the airship finally took off and Jaune felt the chronic motion sickness that he had usually felt affect him. His stomach began to roll as his breakfast began fighting its way out of Jaune. Eventually Jaune realized that he couldn't hold back his breakfast and began heading towards a wall in order to lose all sense of a full stomach and dignity.
He was unable to do so as he bumped the chest of a busty blonde girl and vomited all over her boots.
One indignant shout and a myriad of apologies later, and Jaune found himself on the railing of the airship trying to deal with the embarrassment of vomiting on a girl. He figured out quickly that he wouldn't be able to live that little misadventure down. The best he could do was try and fade into obscurity.
Yeah, being invisible would be a great ability at this moment. It didn't help that other students kept on giving him all these looks, as if her was some pariah. Then again, he certainly would be seen as a pariah if they ever found out that he faked his way into Beacon. His dream of becoming a hero would also be shattered if it ever happened, so the best case scenario was to fake everything that he could do until he was able to do it for real. That meant a lot of training on the side would be needed.
Maybe you should try and not act like an idiot. The voice in Jaune's head stated. Jaune wished that he could follow what the voice was telling him. As it was, there wasn't much that he could do. It really seemed quite pitiful that he was talking to himself. It had been a big occurrence during the past few weeks. But the voice in his head at least didn't talk to him that much.
It was perfectly normal to hear voices in one's head after all.
Jaune sighed as he knew that it was just wishful thinking. He really had been shocked at first when he began hearing a voice in his head, but he kept it to himself. He didn't bother telling his family about it as he suspected that the minute they heard him say 'voices in my head' he'd be sent to a therapist (or an asylum) which would destroy his dream.
You know I can hear all of what you're thinking, right? You have way too much self-doubt coupled with multiple instances of self-deprecation. The voice stated.
"Whatever. I'm not crazy." Jaune replied.
You're the one with a voice in your head. Not really my right to judge you.
Jaune really didn't understand why he was hearing a voice in his head. The only thing that he could think was that he hoped that his own mental health wouldn't affect his performance in Beacon. From the window of the airship, Jaune watched the ground pass below him. Every second on this ship was just one step closer to making it to Beacon, and one step closer to his goal of being a hero.
Jaune looked down at his hand a held it in a cupped position. There was one thing that he found out last week. It had been when he was thinking about his excursion to the forest the other day and that had been how that black ball in the woods had sunk into his skin. It had been an accident, but that accident had led to a few hours of entertainment.
Jaune concentrated and within a few seconds, black liquid poured out from the pores of his skin and formed into an orb in his hand. With a quick squishing motion, Jaune crushed the orb in his hand which caused it to sink back under his skin. This had been one of tricks that Jaune had learned over the past week. He could also form some basic shapes with that metallic liquid, but he still had much to learn about it.
For instance, why was it that the orb wouldn't leave him alone? It kept on coming back to him no matter how far he threw it. After a while, Jaune had given up his efforts on getting rid of the annoying thing and had instead tried to deal with it. That was when he had first figured out that he could make shapes with it.
Maybe here at Beacon he would figure out more on this orb. Until then, he just had to keep testing himself in order to find his limits.
That reminded him of the fact that he had somehow gotten more stamina over the past two weeks. It was quite shocking at first, what with him being able to easily run a few miles when before he could barely run just one.
Still, it was going to be an exciting year for Jaune, he would just have to keep moving forward and eventually everything would work itself out. Until then, he just had to deal with a voice in his head and the abilitiy to see in the dark.
Yeah. That was a short chapter, but the idea seemed quite interesting to me. If any of you have ever read the Night Angel Trilogy, then you'd figure out the badassery of what I've just done. If not, well, you'll figure it out eventually.
Until then, hoped you liked. Stay frosty my friends.