Chapter Two: Astral Academy

While not all of the potential students at Beacon could say they've lived dangerous lives, many of them still liked to believe they could spot a potential threat. For most of them, this was mostly true. Some of them were even sharp enough that they could spot dangerous individuals in a crowd but for some reason, this masked boy dressed like a desert dweller was something of a mystery.

Everyone seemed to get different reads on the boy. To most students, he looked like some sort of transfer student, as harmless as the rest of them. To some, he looked like a kid trying to stand out of the crowd, one who constructed a persona to try to gain recognition, and as such, probably not too dangerous. But to a handful of students, they could see he was deadly.

He walked with a certain dignity, as if he had been trained to be an aristocrat. He always seemed aware of his surroundings despite the chaos caused of crowds of students moving in. But the most unsettling thing was how he always seemed to catch the people staring at him.

None of the students knew this better than Blake Belladonna. The masked boy had caught her eye as he stepped off the plane, his tattered brown cloak stand out amidst all the students who had cleaned up and dressed for their first day at beacon. There was something familiar about him.

As she watched him from her perch in her tree, he turned and looked directly at her. Her auburn eyes met yellow lenses of his goggles, and she froze. He looked directly at her, directly into her eyes, and tilted his head slightly. The shape and tint of his goggles gave him a vaguely insectoid look, and, for what felt like an eternity, Blake couldn't help but feel like she was being sized up like she was prey. At least until an explosion in the distance grabbed both of their attention.

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Knowing when someone was watching you was fairly standard in Jaune's old line of work. After all, if you couldn't tell if you were being watched, then odds were you wouldn't have to worry about it much longer, due to the fact that people generally find corpses unentertaining. But to see a familiar face here was a pleasant surprise.

Seeing the faunus girl stirred up a few memories of some past jobs. He couldn't help but wonder if she was still with her group. Probably not. She was here, after all. He smiled as he saw the look on her face as her caught her. People always make such interesting expressions when you catch them watching you, from in a tree, far away.

As much as he enjoyed watching her squirm, an explosion distracted him, and when he looked back, she was gone. He shrugged and made his way towards the explosion. The lack of panic it caused was somewhat odd, but whatever caused it would probably be interesting, to say the least.

As he approached the source of the explosion, the first thing that caught his eye was a familiar red cloak. The second thing he noticed, was the young girl wearing it, the same gray eyed girl that tried to see his face. As he watched people walk around her, ignoring her like she was a piece of the scenery, he couldn't help but sigh. He approached the girl, and offered her a hand.

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Ruby was surprised by the hand being offered to her. It was clad in black leather with a metal plate on the back and studs on each knuckle. The forearm was wrapped tightly in a length of chain. She looked up and saw the same mask and goggles she tried to look beneath on the plane.

"Are you okay ma'am?"

His voice was soft, in contrast to his appearance, but it held a hint of concern. Hesitantly, Ruby took the hand and with a surprisingly gentle touch, the masked man helped her to her feet. Surprised by the unexpected help, and a bit embarrassed from having to be helped up after exploding, she couldn't help but blush a bit.

"O-oh, yeah. I'm fine. T-thanks."

"No problem. Just doing what I can to help, ma'am."

"Umm," Ruby couldn't help but scratch the back of her head. "Please don't call me ma'am. My name is Ruby. Ruby Rose."

"Oh, well, my name is Jaune Arc. It's a pleasure to meet you Ms. Rose."

Ruby couldn't help but sigh. This guy was all business, it seemed.

"Just call me Ruby."

Jaune nodded, then just stood there. There was an awkward silence. Jaune may know how to fight men and monsters, but he possessed no knowledge of casual conversation, especially with the fairer sex. Unsure of what to do, he decided to walk away. After all, if you walk away from a conversation, it ends, right?

What Jaune didn't expect was the girl to follow him. This was new to him, and it made him feel sort of nervous. They walked for a bit, wandering the campus in silence before Ruby spoke up.

"So, I have this." She took out a scythe/sniper rifle combo weapon. "I made it myself, though I think I may have gone a bit overboard in designing it."

Jaune looked at the weapon with a scrutinizing eye before responding. "Interesting. It's an impressive mixture of ranged and melee weaponry. What caliber rounds do you use? .308?"

Ruby beamed. She loved it when people took an interest in her weapons. "Nope! .50 cal."

Jaune's eyes widened. "Seriously? Wow. I didn't expect such a small girl to use an anti-material rifle."

After that last, Ruby couldn't help but pout. "Hey! I'm not small. I drink my milk."

Once again, Jaune wasn't entirely sure how to respond. "Oh. Of course. I apologize, Ruby."

Seemingly placated by his apology, Ruby nodded before asking, "So, what do you have?"

"Well, I have a sword and shield, but I think you'd be a bit more interested in this."

Jaune reached into his cloak and pulled out something. It was a rather odd looking hand gun. It actually looked like a small rifle. Its barrel was longer than most pistol barrels, and instead of the clip loading into the hilt of the gun, if attached in front of the trigger. The clip itself was a .50 caliber sniper magazine.

"I call it, the Con."

Ruby looked at the gun and when "Oooh. A custom hand gun! That thing must pack quite a kick."

Jaune nodded. "Yes it does. I remember the first time I used it, the recoil sent the gun flying back into my face. It hit so hard that I was out like a light. When I woke up, my forehead was practically one big bruise. That wasn't fun."

Ruby giggled as Jaune shared his experience with her, and Jaune couldn't help but smile.

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The rest of the day had been uneventful. Jaune caught a red-haired girl looking at him, and the headmaster's speech had been a bit less inspiring than he thought it would be, but overall, not much of note happened.

As he looked out across the hall from his spot against the wall, he sighed. He could still feel many different pairs of judgmental eyes staring at him. They were probably wondering why the masked freak hadn't changed into something more comfortable to sleep. He really didn't care what they thought, after all, it's not like he expected too many of them to last that long. People like them rarely did in places like this. They came in full of confidence and dreams of being heroes, and either left broken or dead. He'd seen it too many times before, and it rarely ended well.

He looked over and saw Ruby glancing at him every now and then and smiled. It was nice to make a new friend, but he worried for her. He then spotted the blond haired girl from the plane, Ruby's sister, from his understanding, looking at him with a wary eye every now and then. She was beautiful, he would have to admit, but it looked like she didn't like the look of him.

The next person to catch his eye was the faunus from the tree. She sat there reading her book, at least until Ruby tried to initiate a conversation. She was another one he would have to keep an eye on. He seriously doubted that she recognized him, with the mask and all, and that suited him just fine. It was one less thing to worry about.

Once again, his attention was pulled away from her by a loud noise. This time, it was a white haired girl complaining about how loud Ruby was being. It was another familiar face. Weiss Schnee, the daughter of one of his more frequent employers, Sturm Schnee. He desperately hoped she didn't recognize him. If word got back to her father about him being in the same school as her, things might get… awkward.

As things began to wind down, Jaune began to drift off into sleep. He doubted it would last long, but he would need rest for whatever test Ozpin had for them tomorrow. As he began to slip out of consciousness, he found himself hoping, probably in vain, that, for once, his memories would leave him be. Unfortunately, life is rarely that kind.

Authors Note: Well, here's chapter two. I hope it set things up and flesh other things out a bit. I apologize if the dialogue is a bit unnatural. I feel like I have trouble making it flow. Once again, thank you for reading, and any constructive criticism or advice on how I could improve would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading, and hopefully the next chapter would be out soon.