*Notices current crop of reviews for previous chapter
This number is insufficient! The RNG Gods are displeased...
Just joking. Here is a chapter.
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"Who are you? It is a valid question is it not? The obvious answer would be "Of course I know who I am! I'm me after all!"
That would be where you were wrong. The people in Vale might be satisfied with such a wishy-washy answer, the accepting fools that they are. The people in Mantle would decry you as indecisive and unwilling to give yourself to their cult of a kingdom. The wanderers of Vacuo would ignore you because they would not care about your identity, only what you could provide them.
We are from Mistral! We are not the individualist hippies of Vale. We are not the Duty-filled puppets of Mantle and we are not the disorganized rabble of Vacuo!
We value honor! We value Progress! We value family! We value Ambition!
In Mistral, You can achieve anything if you are willing to work for it!
These dull nitwits are here to try to take everything from us. Everything that makes us Mistrali! We are here today to show them the value of the question we ask besides Who are you!
Who are you and what do you want?!
I Personally want a cat..."
-Excerpt of Julius Arc's speech at the Battle of Colour. The speech got 6/10 from most soldiers, citing its two-hour length as its main flaw.
"His literary masterpiece could have come together in just an extra five minutes."
-Mistral soldier at the speech.
"Sorry, I lost interest when he started shouting about cats."
-Misplaced Mantle soldier at the same speech.
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At Beacon, Saturday was universally known as a day of rest. It was a day that the students did what students did after a week of fighting and studying. Some, like a white haired heiress, had decided to finish up any work from the week in order to have a relaxed Sunday. Others like a black-haired reaper, enjoyed their day outside in the sun and as far away from books as possible. Some students took refuge in the Beacon library while others prepared for a night out to the city of Vale. Even the teachers themselves had slowed down, enjoying the lack of lessons to teach and new work to mark.
JNPR, however, was not doing anything like their peers this Saturday. While the students of Beacon relaxed and rested, the four members of JNPR were sitting in an airborne Bullhead with a particularly ecstatic professor.
"Why, This was a most splendid idea Jaune!" Professor Port almost yelled jubilantly, practically vibrating in his Bullhead seat. "It isn't often that students ask their professors to go on a Grimm hunt in their time off! I have to simply commend your sense of adventure!"
"Yeah. Adventure..." Jaune sullenly said, hunched over in his own seat and trying to not expel what was left of his breakfast all over the professor across from him. The Bullhead was large enough for JNPR to all sit comfortably on one side of the aircraft while Professor Port sat on the other. For a trip to Forever Fall, it was perfect for carrying both the impromptu hunting party and the oversized cages the eccentic professor had brought with him. Of course, for Jaune, there was only one problem.
He was on an AIRcraft. Specifically in the SKY in an AIRcraft.
To say that his motion sickness was acting up again was an understatement. So with all his effort, he tried to keep his light breakfast inside him during the, hopefully, short air trip into Forever Fall. Throwing up on a Professor and your team was not a suitable thing for an Arc to do unless it was on purpose after all.
"Frankly, I'm surprised that it was your team who decided to hunt some of the most dangerous creatures in the world. In your free time no less! I had expected either Ms Rose or Ms Adel to ask again before you did Mr Arc."
Jaune grunted as his stomach did another flip in response to the slight shift the Bullhead made and it seemed that Port took that as a sign to continue rather than the inner turmoil that worried both Ren and Pyrrha who sat on either side of him.
Nora, on the other side of Ren, remained oblivious to her leader's distress and was focused on every word the Professor was saying. Either that or the miniature beowolf in the cage above the Professor's head but Jaune wasn't really in the right gastrointestinal state to find out.
"To be honest, I hadn't even imagined that anyone in your team, besides Ms Valkyrie, of course, would have actually volunteered to come along. Both Ms Nikos and Mr Ren are more reserved and well, you haven't really shown the... Interest in such things." Port coughed awkwardly.
Jaune just hummed in agreement, he understood what the Professor was trying to say without saying it. That was literally the first thing you learned how to do in the Mistrali court and he knew that he wasn't exactly good at any fighting. Having no interest to train with his sisters at a young age, he only had basic training that normally only prepared him so that he could defend himself until the vastly better trained Arc Warriors could help him.
Thus his technique was perfect for staying alive, not actually winning one versus one fights and it showed in Combat classes. Pyrrha's training with him helped but they only started on Monday, definitely not long enough to feel confident in going out and challenging Mankind's greatest foe to a fight.
"Practice makes perfect, Right professor? I thought it would probably be a good idea to get our team some early experience hunting them." Jaune said, trying hard to be convincing despite the nausea he was currently feeling.
"Aha! What a splendid idea for a first-year team! Why, I remember in my first year..."
It was right then that Jaune tuned the professor's speech out, his battle with airsickness immensely more interesting to the young Arc. He didn't like misleading the professor to what JNPR were actually doing, but in the end, it was easier to convince Professor Port that JNPR's expedition was a simple Grimm hunt than a complicated dive into an enchanted tomb filled with Grimm or something like that.
Jaune guessed it would be a type of hunt, because of the rare Grimm inside those tombs that often fight would-be adventurers who try to get at the Arc relic inside.
The only two professors Jaune could imagine being interested in that would be Professor Ooblek and Ozpin...
And both would rather go with team RWBY...
Jaune wasn't dumb. If it came to who the Professors would want to delve into an ancient Arc tomb, they would choose RWBY over JNPR every time. RWBY were one of the toughest teams in terms of combat strength in the first year. While not the best at strategy or tactical knowledge, their combat ability was a sight better than most teams on the first year and they probably could take more dangerous missions than others in their year. That coupled with the fact that no one outside of Mistral even believed in the Arc Blood Seals on most tombs, meant that a mission like that would likely be RWBY's last.
No, he wasn't hurting anyone by lying this time. Hunters with decades of experience had died to just the first set of rooms when they didn't have an Arc with them and no one was going to believe him that he needed to be there.
This was saving people's lives.
"Well. It seems that our stop has arrived." Port suddenly said, his serious tone ripping Jaune from his internal musings.
If you had asked the occupants of the bullhead, it would have looked like Jaune had transitioned from inside the Bullhead to outside, bent over an unlucky bush in a mere second.
A few seconds later, with his bowels sufficently voided, he stood up straight to see Port hauling the beowolf cage on his shoulder and dragging the excessively large cage out of the bullhead with his bare hand, leaving the whole of JNPR dumbstruck. Maybe there was something to his stories after all?
The moment was broken when Port yelled to them.
"Alright. Goodluck JNPR! I will be nearby but this is your own hunt, with your own Prey! Don't be afraid to call for help if you need it. Jolly Cooperation is one of the central tenants of being a huntsman after all!"
The last JNPR saw of Professor Port before he disappeared behind the trees of Forever Fall was a view of his back with a mini beowolf and giant cage in tow.
It was a few seconds of processing the scene before Jaune turned to his team.
"Alright, shall we go get that relic before Port realizes we don't have any hunting equipment?"
With an enthusiastic yell from Nora and a pair of smiling nods, JNPR moved deeper into Forever Fall.
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It took less than ten minutes for JNPR to get to the place where Gnarl had arranged to meet Jaune and only a minute more for the gnarled goblinoid to arrive. When he did, Jaune noticed that Gnarl was standing noticeably straighter and was walking more confidently than when he had seen him on Monday. Gnarl was still hunched over and moving at a slow walk but it was noticeably faster.
Good. It looks like he did manage to get better from his fall. I would have felt terrible if I had hurt someone so old. Jaune thought to himself.
"Hello, Gnarl!" he called out.
"Greetings, Master!" Gnarl greeted as he got close enough. "Ohhh. It seems you have managed to gather some followers Sire. A most excellent move."
"Master?" Ren asked, turning to Jaune with a perplexed look.
"Sire?" Nora asked with an equally perplexed look.
Pyrrha said nothing as she just stared at the diminutive creature, a look of confused interest on her face.
"Look, guys. I'll explain just now," Jaune said in a tone that hoped that Ren and Nora weren't going to make a big deal out of it. "It's a long story."
"Yes," Gnarl said, a talon rubbing his chin. "The history of the Arc family is a rather long story. The last I checked it had about thirty volumes of scrolls filled with bravery, cruelty, action and my personal favorite, familial distaste of friendly woodland creatures from questionable magical forests. I am hopelessly out of date with the current volumes, however. Oh, how I do hope that they kept up the standards of writing in the later volumes..."
"It got significantly more detailed" Pyrrha all but whispered, surprising Jaune. She had actually read about his family? "The Arc family had a sudden increase of members one generation and that spawned a spinoff series on its own."
"Oh, That is good news! I always enjoyed reading the interpretation of the writers after experiencing those Evil deeds for myself. Reading it straight from a single biased perspective is going to be delightfully misleading." With that, Gnarl turned around and began walking away. "However, it is unfortunate that we are running out of time. Come along sire! Your destiny awaits!"
"Don't read Volume fifty-seven! Ozymandias wasn't exactly the most Interesting Arc to record!" Jaune shouted after the retreating Gnarl.
As Gnarl walked deeper into the forest, Jaune turned to face the extremely skeptical looks from half of his team.
"He isn't a faunus, Jaune..."
"It's a really long story guys..."
Ren took a step towards him, staring into Jaune's eyes with an intense look on his face. He stared back, he really going to tell them...
It was just really hard without his premade flow charts...
"Okay," Ren simply said, returning to his relaxed posture. "Let's go."
With that, Ren left after Gnarl, Nora in tow, leaving Jaune and Pyrrha standing across from each other.
Even though he had only known her for about two months, Jaune could tell she was really uncomfortable.
"So... You know who I am?" Jaune asked, oblivious to how Pyrrha's eyes widened at him speaking so suddenly.
"Well, Yes... I didn't realize at first, but I figured it out..." Pyrrha answered, rubbing her neck out of nervousness.
Jaune sighed.
"I guessed you would. You are from Mistral after all..."
It was only a second of silence but it was long enough to feel like a year of it.
Are things going to change now that Jaune knows that I know about him?
Pyrrha really hoped that wasn't going to happen.
She had a hundred apologies to make, all the way from keeping her knowledge a secret to not treating him like the Inheritor that he was.
She felt her mouth open but the hundreds of words that she wanted to say, apologies for keeping a secret even after she had asked him to be honest with her, didn't leave her mouth.
"I'm sorry." were the words that Jaune used to smash her train of thought like a rampaging rock giant.
"What?" her mind elegantly supplied.
Looking at Jaune, she was completely surprised to see sadness clear on his face.
"I looked you up after the first day," Jaune said, her heart sinking at the words. "You won the Mistral tournament, Legally! I'm an Arc, I'm supposed to take notice of achievements like that. Instead, I had no idea who you were and you had no idea who I was, which I loved. I felt as if I went and explained who I actually was after not even knowing that you did such an amazing thing would have made you sad. The Nikos family is amazingly close to the Arcs back in Mistral, and I didn't even know about one girl who pretty much broke the record books. For that, I'm sorry.
Pyrrha couldn't believe it. He was sad because he didn't put her on a pedestal like everyone else? That he didn't think she was too good to be friends with?
"You don't need to be sorry about that, Jaune, it isn't-"
"No, Pyrrha. I did it because I was selfish too. People tend to act differently around Arcs. It's okay but when I got here, I really enjoyed being... Just Jaune. Not Jaune Arc, son of the rulers of Mistral. I enjoyed how real talking to Ruby was. I enjoyed the fact that no one took constant glances at me and I even enjoyed how casually Weiss rejects my "advances", even through the disappointment. If she knew who I actually was, I really don't believe that she would have said no."
Pyrrha remained silent, her head spinning. Jaune had the same problem that she did. People would have got close to him to simply be close to an Arc. While people unconsciously pushed her away as they saw her as unattainable, he would have to deal with people trying to get to know him because he was an Arc and not Jaune. Even people who like him for him would have a veneer of deception to them as the tried to constantly remain on his good side.
At Beacon, he didn't have to worry about that. He could be Jaune and people would react to who he was instead of
"The only people who were honest with me growing up was my family and one or two friends. Coming to Beacon gave me an opportunity to have that with everyone I met and I didn't want to give up that chance with you..."
You weren't worried about putting me up on a pedestal. You were worried that I would have done that to you.
Pyrrha couldn't say that she wouldn't have either. If she had known that he was an Arc at their first meeting, she wouldn't have seen the awkward, competent boy that he was.
She felt a smile form on her face. Was it any more perfect that they both were worrying about the same thing? Except he had shown her that he wouldn't do that, it wasn't in him to.
He had no idea what she would have done.
"I had the same problem," she surprised herself by speaking. "I've been blessed with incredible talents and opportunities; I'm constantly surrounded by love and praise; but when you're placed on a pedestal like that for so long, you become separated from the people that put you there in the first place. Everyone assumes I'm too good for them - that I'm on a level that they simply can't attain. You not knowing who I was... It was amazing. When Weiss had cornered me, I had believed such things were going to be everyday at Beacon but meeting you, a Mistrali, an Arc who didn't know who I was changed that.
So I guess what I'm saying is, I won't put you on a pedestal if you won't."
She held out her hand for a handshake. It was only a moment until he took it, relief clear on his face. She didn't ignore the warmth she felt from his hand.
"Thank you, Pyrrha. Don't worry, you are too awesome for me not to talk to like the likable person you are."
She didn't react to the color that she knew was forming on her cheeks from the sheer sincerity as they went after the rest of their team and Gnarl.
A part of her complained that it wasn't where she wanted to be, but it was definitely on the way.
They both didn't notice how they held each other's hand for just a second too long.
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AN: You lucky people. I had too much inspiration for this and decided to make another chapter.
I do ask you guys to tell me your thoughts about these chapters becasuse in all honesty, I read them as I write to stay motivated.
It might sound needy but Its more to keep me focuses on writing than playing overWatch.