Jaune and the others were waiting to be called on stage and have their teams formed. They made it back up the cliffs with little issue and by now, Jaune's aura was high enough so that he didn't need Ren and Pyrrha to help him walk anymore, much to the disappointment of Pyrrha. He was nowhere close to being battle ready but it was better than nothing. Ozpin had just formed Team CRDL and they were leaving the stage as Jaune was going up. The leader, Cardin Winchester, gave him a look as they walked by each other. Jaune raised an eyebrow in question but then shrugged it off. As they were on stage Ozpin continued with the ceremony.
"Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos and Lie Ren. You four retrieved the white rook pieces and from this day forward, shall be Team JNPR. Led by Jaune Arc."
"Wait, what?" Jaune asked in disbelief.
"Congratulations, young man." Ozpin said with a grin. Before Jaune could say anything, Pyrrha gently punched him on the shoulder with a smile and Nora pulled Ren and him into a bear hug. Pyrrha looked on with a small smile before Jaune wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into it. She was shocked but enjoyed it none the less. Afterwards they left as Ruby and the rest of their group went on stage. Jaune gave them a smile and waited to hear what was coming next.
"And finally, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long. You four retrieved the white knight pieces and from this day forward, shall be Team RWBY. Led by Ruby Rose." Ruby and Weiss were both shocked by this while Yang wrapped her sister in a hug.
Jaune smiled at his first friend at Beacon, before bringing his fingers to his lips and whistling. "Go Ruby!" She looked over to him and smiled nervously. At that point Ozpin dismissed all the first years, they were going to go to their dorms as Jaune was stretching. "Man, today was something else. I'm gonna sleep like a rock." He chuckled and looked to see everyone giving him a look. "Uh, what?"
Ruby just stared at him. "You said you'd tell us about your Semblance, Jaune."
Jaune looked at everyone and sighed, "Okay, okay. But let's go outside and enjoy the rest of the day." The rest agreed and went into the courtyard. Along the way, Pyrrha was noticing Jaune subconsciously rubbing his upper left arm.
"Are you okay, Jaune? You're rubbing your arm."
Jaune looked at her then at his arm before sighing. "Yeah. I'm fine Pyrrha. I just lost my rerebrace when the Beringel hit me. It was a gift from my teacher and it feels wrong that it's gone."
"Oh. Well, maybe your teacher will send you another?"
"Not likely." Jaune said sadly. Pyrrha was going to continue but noticed that Nora and Ren seemed a bit saddened by what he said. She decided to leave it alone for now.
They found a tree off by itself and all sat down around it. Jaune sat with Ren on his right and Pyrrha on his left. Nora sat beside Ren while Ruby and her team sat across from them. Jaune took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts. "Okay. Simply put, my Semblance allows me to absorb a small amount of an element and then manipulate it."
"Can you go into detail?" Ruby asked him looking a bit excited.
Jaune smiled and continued, "Sure. The way it works is that when I want to use an element, I absorb a certain amount of that elements energy. I then mix the energy into my aura and when that process is complete my eyes shift to a different color and I can manipulate the element. Also, I can only absorb the five basic elements: fire, water, wind, earth and lightning."
"So, you can just absorb energy from the earth? That's pretty badass." Yang smiled at him.
"Sorry but no. I can't absorb the literal elements energy. Their too…raw. The energy is too strong and unpredictable. If I tried that my body would tear itself apart." Everyone besides Nora and Ren were shocked but Jaune shrugged. "Maybe I'll be able to down the line but at this point I'm not ready for that. So, I used another method."
"Dust." Weiss said with confidence.
Jaune nodded to her. "Exactly. The energy in dust is more manageable for me to use. That's why each one of my swords use it. Although like you saw, I can still run out of dust. So, I need to be careful."
"So how did you do some of that other stuff? Like that disappearing thing and taking all those hits?" Ruby asked curiously.
Jaune thought for a second. "I don't think I should tell you. Can't give away all my secrets to another team." Ruby gave him some puppy dog eyes. It was the cutest thing Jaune has ever seen but it had little effect on him. "Ruby, I grew up with seven sisters and Nora." He jerked his thumb at her. "I'm immune to puppy dog eyes and pouts but I'll give you points since yours is by far the cutest." Ruby pouted and blushed slightly, Jaune chuckled. Everyone was shocked about the seven sisters thing but before anyone could ask anything, Jaune spoke up. "Do you wanna know about my Semblance or my sisters? Can't do both." He smirked and no one said a thing.
"Okay then. As I said earlier, my aura mixes the elemental energy into itself and because of that, my body gains a boost to a physical attribute of mine. But, there is a weakness to each one though."
"Like what?" Pyrrha was curious of any short comings of her partner.
"Well, when I absorb earth my body becomes heavier but because of that my durability goes way up. But the weight slows my movements down, as well."
"That's how you took those hits from the Death Stalker and Beringel with little protection. And why you didn't dodge the attacks." Jaune nodded. "What else can you do?" Pyrrha asked.
"When I absorb wind, my body becomes lighter and that increases my stamina but also decreases my durability. That one is better for quick attacks or keeping a distance."
"That's what you used to save us when we fell. Is that why you got hurt?" Weiss asked, she tried to sound professional but Jaune could hear the subtle guilt in her voice.
"Yup. It allowed me to reach you two in time because of my lessened weight and wind manipulation. But we were too close to the ground for me to slow us down. My aura absorbed most of the impact but because my durability was low, I got hurt a bit more than I usually do." He saw Weiss look guilty before he added with a shrug "But, it wasn't bad. Had worse in my training."
That made Weiss feel a bit better and then Ruby chimed in. "How did you get to Weiss and I when the Death Stalker attacked?" She asked, brimming with curiosity.
Jaune smiled. "Oh, that's what lightning does. My body becomes so charged with electricity that my speed goes off the charts. Although, due to the speed I'm moving at, I get a bit tunnel visioned." He chuckled. "Ran into a lot of things when I was learning to control it." Ruby smirked at that.
"And throwing me across that chasm?" Blake asked, saying something for the first time since the teams were made.
"That's what fire does. It increases my strength many times over but my body gives off such a high amount of heat that my stamina goes way down."
Yang looked at him with interest. "Huh, small world."
Jaune was curious but decided to continue with his explanation. "Finally is water, it allows my reflexes to go up. So I can dodge attacks at the last second and come out fine. That's what I used to stall the Beringel. The trade off is my strength goes down." He leaned back and looked up at the sky. "Aside from that, the only other weakness to my Semblance is if I switch between too many elements too quickly, my body will experience fatigue until my aura stabilizes again." He looked to everyone. "Any questions?"
Everyone was quiet for a second before Ruby thought of something. "Jaune?" He looked at her. "When you saved me from the Beringel, you had two different colored eyes, why?"
"Oh, that's because I was using two elements in conjunction." He said casually.
Pyrrha looked at him in shock, "You can do that?"
Jaune nodded. "Yup. Only do it when the situation is serious though." They all looked at him with a question but he beat them to it. "When I have an element mixed with my aura, it uses my aura at an accelerated rate. Nothing too serious considering my aura reserves but it's something I don't prefer to do. When I quickly switch between elements, I use my aura 1.5 times than I normally do with one element until it stabilizes. But when I use two in conjunction, each one of my eyes take on a color but my aura is used twice as fast. I also gain both the positive and negatives of using each of the elements so it can be risky at times."
Everyone nodded at that and was quiet until Blake brought up a point they were all curious about. "What about all that ice? How'd you do that?" they all looked at him expectantly. He sighed again and thought on how to explain it.
"You see ice is what I refer to as an 'advance' element. To use ice, I have to have both wind and water elemental energies inside me. Once that happens, I use my aura as a catalyst to fuse the two energies together. But when that happens my body has to release a decent size wave of energy of the new element to make sure I don't get overwhelmed. That's why I didn't use it until you guys were outside then blast radius." He breathed and took a second. "Because of that, along with the fact my aura is used 2.5 times faster than normal and my body has to deal with a few repercussions, I don't use it unless it's life or death."
Everyone was quiet again. "Why'd you do it?" Jaune looked back at Ruby. "We'd you fight that Grimm by yourself and why did you go so far to kill it?"
He didn't want to answer until he saw the worried looks he was getting from all of them. "I knew even if we all ganged up on it, we still wouldn't win. My plan was to hold it off until you guys were safe then retreat. But I miscalculated and got hurt and you stepped in, Ruby." He looked down. "When you got hurt…a part of me snapped. All I could think about was saving you and killing that Grimm. That's what happens when people I care about get hurt." He looked back up at her with a smile. She blushed and looked down. Yang saw this and that reminded her of something. She decided since he was answering questions that now would be a good time.
"Jaune, you said a relationship between you and Ruby wouldn't work and then told me practically the same thing when I was teasing you. Why is that?"
Jaune froze and everyone got quiet. Ren and Nora were looking at Jaune with concern while everyone else was looking at him with different levels of curiosity. Jaune didn't want to talk about this. Not at all. He was about to say that but something stopped him. Something inside of him wanted to get this out in the open and stop bottling it up.
He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. "I didn't mean it the way most of you think. I'd be lucky to be in a relationship with Ruby or Yang. Or any of you for that matter." He looked down and missed the varying level of blush of each of the five girls. "But it's just that I…. can't." They were all stunned by that.
"What do you mean by that, Jaune?" Pyrrha asked.
He didn't say anything, just kept looking at the ground in front of him. Ren placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay if you're not ready yet, Jaune. You don't have to push yourself."
Nora got up and knelt behind him and wrapped her arms around his upper torso in a comforting hug. "Totally. They'll all understand." They all looked at the three before looking at each other.
Jaune shook his head slightly before continuing. "It's okay. I can do this." The two of them nodded but didn't move, they were going to support him in this. He took a deep breath before speaking, still not looking up. "Our teacher took us with her wherever she went, she thought if we stayed in one place too long our training would become lax. Because of that, we couldn't form and long lasting friendships and romance was never an option. We didn't care because we always had each other." He placed a hand on top of Ren's and brought his other up to gently hold Nora's arm. "Every so often we'd return to our teacher's home village and everyone there knew us. It was our home. There was a girl there, our only friend outside the three of us. She was great." They could see a small smile on his face. "We were close and eventually our friendship turned to more. We were together even though we could hardly be together. But we somehow made it work. Eventually, we called it off on good terms because she was gonna set off on her own journey. But we promised we'd get back together when I became a Huntsman and her journey was complete." He went quiet for a little bit. "A few months before we came here, we went back to our home. I asked if anyone heard anything from her." He started shaking slightly, Nora held him a bit closer and Ren shifted closer to him. "They found out that when she left she was attacked by bandits and they could never find her body."
Everyone was looking in horror at him. None of them knew what to do or say.
Jaune took a shaky breath. "I know she's gone. But for some reason a small part of me holds onto the hope that she is okay. And that part of me won't let me grieve, to cry for her. I can't even fully accept that Amber is dead!" he nearly shouted the last part. He was still looking down with his eyes closed now and shaking badly. But no tears fell. He wanted the pain to stop. He didn't want to look up, to see the pity that he always sees.
He felt a hand placed on his shoulder. He slowly lifted his head and opened his eyes to see Ruby standing in front of him with teary eyes. Her eyes held no pity but they were eyes of someone that had felt similar pain. She knelt down in front of him and hugged him tightly, burying her head into his chest right below Nora's arms."I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Was all she said before she started crying.
Jaune was at a loss. And with little hesitation he held her close and put his head on top of hers. That's when the tears finally fell. The dam had broken and there was no stopping it. But he didn't want it to, all he could do was hold onto Ruby and cry. Nora had her head buried into Jaune's back and was also crying for her friend in pain. Ren was still next to Jaune, still there for him but he didn't cry, he had to be strong for the one that was always the strong one. The rest were just staring at Jaune. The guy that for the last day was always happy and in a fight was a natural born leader, strong and determined. None of them realized the pain he was in and now seeing him grieve and cry was so surreal. Finally, Pyrrha had enough, she scooted over next to him and wrapped her arms around his neck before she buried her head into his shoulder and cried her own tears for her partner. Yang soon followed suit and went to Jaune's other side. Ren got up and stood behind Nora to put his hands on her shoulder to comfort her as Yang sat down in his spot and wrapped Jaune, Nora and Ruby in a hug before she buried her face in his shoulder and cried as well. Weiss and Blake didn't know what to do, so they just decided to sit close in case they were needed.
They stayed like that until Jaune slowly stopped crying and started to calm down. Eventually he lifted his head and looked at all of them. "I'm sorry about that but thank you guys. I really needed that." He gave them a weak smile. They all just looked at him and gave him reassuring smiles.
Ruby then looked up at him. "We're friends Jaune, that's what we do." Jaune weakly chuckled at that and slowly everyone did as well.
When they all stopped, they untangled themselves and started heading to the dorms. They were soon pleasantly surprised to see that their rooms were next to each other. The two teams wished each other a good night before going into their rooms. Team JNPR than started unpacking and taking showers. Pyrrha had the last one before Jaune, as she was coming out he made his way in and noticed her hair was down. "You look good with your hair down." He mentioned to her. She blushed and he went and took his shower. He dried off and got dressed in his shorts and tank top. He then got out of the bathroom and they all decided to go to bed. Jaune was both physically and emotionally drained and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Jaune was then woken up a few hours later by someone lightly shaking him. He opened his eyes to see Nora standing beside his bed. He sat up and rubbed his eyes before whispering. "Nora, what's wrong?"
She looked down nervously before looking up at him. "I had that nightmare again." Nora had nightmares on occasion, on those occasions she usually would sleep with Ren. But this specific nightmare was a recurring one and Ren couldn't help her with it. Jaune nodded, he shifted over in his bed and held the blankets open for her. She got in and laid beside him and as soon as he covered her, she buried her head into his chest. He slowly started stroking her hair to calm her.
"It's okay, Nora. Ren and I are fine. We're still here."
She nodded weakly. "I know. But you really scared me today."
"I'm sorry for that. I made it out okay though, we all did. So, don't dwell on it. Can you do that, for me?"
She didn't say or do anything for a second before she nodded again. "Can I sleep here for the night?" She said without removing her head from his chest.
He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "Of course." She fell asleep almost immediately after that and Jaune soon followed her lead.