Baptism By Fire

by tacticaldoge

After the fall of beacon and death of their friends, Jaune and the remaining members of JNPR joined Ruby for a quest to track their enemies. Fighting grimm along the way, Jaune thinks he is useless in the team so he opted to temporarily leave. What will await Jaune in his journey to find an answer and meaning for his life as their enemies grow in numbers.

1. Prologue 1

*Author: With the load of ideas circulating in my head about what will happen after the end of Volume 3, I decided to write this. The MC of this FanFic will be Jaune, I won't be focusing on other character too much and will introduce some new characters if the plot I create of requires it. I waited until i finished the prologue and chapter 1 to post this. Now will I continue this? I don't know, I'm in college and I might not have a lot of time. Maybe depends on the reception of these first chapters*

*This starts right after the end of volume 3*

After the incident in vale, Ruby took Jaune's team to go to Haven to look for clues of Cinder and their enemies.

Jaune, Ruby, Ren, and Nora are traveling down the forest path. As they went further, they spotted a pack of Grimm. The group slowed down and discussed what they should do.

"Okay, I don't think we can get pass them without them noticing", Jaune concluded.

"Let's just attack them it'll be easy. There's four of us", Ruby answered.

"There might be more, if we are not careful we might attract more Grim in the area"

"Don't worry Jaune we'll take care of this"

"I'm hungry! Let's go already! After this we will need to have a pancake bre…", Nora suggested.

"…We only have a week's worth of pancake supplies…and we already ate about half of it", Ren interjected.

"Ugh don't worry Ren we will have opportunities to resupply along the way"

"Okay, just keep in mind, if we cant handle the number of Grimm we need to run away", Jaune proposed a plan.

After the group unsheathes their weapons, they immediately charged into the fray. Jaune started running towards the pack of Grimm, he looks at his left and right sides and noticed that his team already left him in the dust. Ruby, Ren and Nora are already taking care of most of the Grimm. Realizing this, Jaune slowed down then stopped. He just watched them as he realized he is not already needed.

Later that day the group stopped at a rocky terrain, resting their baggage on the rocks and take a pancake break.

"Jaune, Nora's eating too much of our supplies how long will we get to a town?", Ren asked.

Jaune reaches for his backpack and brings out a map, unfolds the map and lays it down a flat rock.

"The port we are heading to is…here", Jaune points out a shore on the map.

"We will pass a town of travel alongside this road, but it will take us 3 more days", he points out an outline of a road.

"We ARE chasing after our enemies. Either we starve before we get to the port and resupply, or we take more time to travel the longer road", Jaune presented some choices.

"Take the long road. I can fight blindfolded, without dust, or without my weapon. But never hungry, and Ren, you don't like me when I'm hungry", Nora answered.

"I agree, I don't want Nora causing me headaches", Ren insisted.

"Hmm, Ruby what do you think?" Jaune calls Ruby.

"Huh? Ah it's ok let's take the long road", Ruby answered.

"Then it's decided", Jaune folds the map and places it back in his bag.

"Jaune, don't you think it would be easier to use your scroll? Cuz I dunno it seems easier to just search the net", Nora asked.

"We wont be always at the mercy of good scroll signal reception. So bringing a map will be handy. As for the map, I got it from my childhood friend. Never really had a chance to use it in Beacon"

"Let's go, we can't waste anymore time", he says as he stands up.

*Author: Decided to split this into parts. 1600+ words in one go is too much*