I own nothing
"Who are you, kid?"
"I'm not a kid!"
"Really? You look pretty small to me."
"I just haven't eaten in a while."
"Well... My name is Roman Torchwick, I can fix that little eating problem you have."
Sometimes, Jaune questioned Raven's training methods.
She was pretty adamant that he had to go out into the world and get his own experience. That Professor Port's lessons taught that the best way to learn is to do stuff yourself, which made his class was invaluable.
Raven knew Port, apparently he wasn't that much older than she was.
Now that was scary.
Jaune knew that the older people got, the more the years blended together... so Raven was probably exaggerating—but really?
There was no way.
Port, and Jaune's being nice, was ten years older than her, at least.
...or Raven found the Fountain of Youth.
"-I got a microphone, sir!"
Jaune snapped out his thoughts and stared at the Faunus staring at him proudly, a microphone in hand.
He was pretty sure that Raven didn't expect him to become an event planner when she sent him out in the world to 'gain experience'.
"I said 'microphones'! That means plural!" Jaune felt bad yelling at the Faunus, but damn... he never realized how tough it was to plan an event.
The Faunus scurried away.
"Roman," Jaune called into his radio, "where are you?"
"Makeup."
This was the White Fang.
Yeah, the fucking White Fang was putting makeup on.
This was all Raven's fault.
"I need microphones!" Jaune yelled as Faunus worked all around him. "We need two more microphones and I want those lights shining in the next minute! I don't have night vision like the rest of you!"
Jaune heard a yell as a Faunus fell from the rafters above.
"That was the light guy, right?" Jaune looked at a Faunus by him. "Was that the light guy?"
"I... I think."
Jaune grabbed a coffee cup off a box and angrily threw it into the ground.
Stupid Raven making him spy on stupid Torchwick who is making him do this STUPID PEP RALLY!
"Somebody clean up this coffee!" Jaune yelled as he stormed off. "I need to learn how to light a stage!"
He looked to his side and saw a bunch of Faunus struggling to pull the special 'event' in.
"Roman," he called into his radio, "is the logo on the Paladin?"
There was silence for a few moments.
"I thought you were handling it."
"What!?"
"Uh... sorry kid. But I can't do much of anything, don't want to ruin the makeup."
Jaune let out a small scream.
"We are all terrorists here! Why do we need makeup!?"
"...humans, are the worst! Case and point."
Damn, Roman could talk.
Jaune let out a breath at how smooth Roman was in front of a crowd. He knew that if he had to talk in front of a crowd he would be jelly, but that was why he was in the shadows shining the light on Roman.
The show was pretty damn good from up in the rafters, he could see the audience reactions to Roman's speech.
"...they're all to blame for your..."
Jaune wanted to groan as he scanned the crowd, noticing a certain monkey Faunus talking to a certain cat Faunus.
Fucking Blake! Just let it go!
Stop trying to do... to do whatever the hell she was doing!
Jaune didn't know Sun very well, well except for he has gunchucks (Yang would be proud of that, he knew), but he was fairly certain that Blake was dragging the kid into issues bigger than all of them.
Literally! The mech was massive!
Jaune's attention was pulled from the back of Blake's head to Roman, who just unveiled the giant robot.
The logo of the White Fang was painted crudely on the side, but Jaune thought he did pretty good for the situation he was in.
"And thanks to my... uh... employer, we managed to snag a few from the shelves..."
Jaune raised an eyebrow. He was pretty sure Roman was the one to steal the mechs, what did Cinder have to do wit-
Well... they were all heavy duty robots just created by Atlas—maybe some Cinder Fall was necessary to hold off the biggest military in the world.
Jaune cringed as Roman mentioned the operation in the south. He couldn't even warn Roman about the Blake and Sun, not without ruining the presentation.
...or without the White Fang killing the two students—he couldn't allow them to die.
He waved at Neo, who looked at him with her dual colored eyes.
The Arc pointed at the crowd and mouthed 'trouble' to her. Luckily, Neo was a master at reading lips, having to mouth words all the time, and understood.
Jaune sighed as Blake drew her gun and the lights all went out.
"Don't let her get away!" he could hear Roman yell.
Jaune let out a miserable groan.
"We didn't even get to pass out the free food! It's gonna go to waste!"
"Roman! What the fuck!"
"Kid, you've been too vulgar lately... calm down."
Jaune angrily glared at his radio as he ran.
"You took the mech!"
"So? I wanted to take it for a spin, I've been itching to use it."
"They're gonna break it!"
"It's the prototype, we got like twenty good ones at base."
"We could have twenty good ones and one shitty one!"
"Kid, I'm doing this to keep the kids away from us. A single ass beating and then your friends won't try to fight us anymore, you want that!"
"But when they beat the significantly weaker prototype they're gonna get overconfident!"
"Meh, who cares? This thing rides like a dream!"
Jaune just growled as he ran faster.
He stopped in the middle of a road and started to run down it, taking a deep breath as cars approached him.
Jaune jumped in the air and flew through the wind shield of a car about to hit him. He let out a small moan of pain as he quickly righted himself and grabbed the steering wheel that the scared driver let go of.
"Get in the back seat or get out!" Jaune yelled as he started to push the driver.
The driver was cowering, so Jaune reached over him and opened the door—getting into the drivers seat as he shoved the driver out.
"That's what you get for not wearing your seat belt!" Jaune yelled as the man he shoved rolled across the ground.
They weren't going too fast—Jaune was sure the guy would be fine.
"Now... how the hell does driving work?"
"Jaune, help would be nice."
Jaune quickly grabbed his radio, keeping his eyes on the road.
Roman was throwing cars around like they were toys... it was tough for a first time driver.
"What?"
"The blonde one! You know, with the big ti-"
"It's Yang! Please stop!"
"Yeah! She's on a motor bike with a kid who's shooting me!"
Jaune gave no acknowledgement and managed to maneuver his way onto the highway Roman was on. He floored the gas, feeling a pit in his stomach as he weaved through traffic.
How does he stop this thing?
Jaune was snapped from his thoughts as he saw a kid around his age shooting Roman from a motorbike.
Luckily, Yang was trying to stay behind Roman, it wasn't too difficult to catch up with them.
"Hey!" Jaune yelled through his window as he pulled up and drove next to Yang's motorbike. "Can you stop!?"
The blue haired boy looked at him and shrugged.
"Sorry! It' just-" he gestured to Roman "-there's a big robot!"
"That's my boss! He's an idiot!"
Yang took her eye off the road to look at him. Her eyes widened as she noticed his cloak form.
"Neptune! He's the guy from the docks!"
Jaune rammed them before they could take action.
Yang's bike 'stumbled' from the hit, but she managed to stabilize and pull ahead of Jaune's stolen vehicle
"Shoot him!" she yelled to Neptune.
Jaune quickly swerved to the side to avoid a giant laser to the face.
Unfortunately, he lost control and crashed right through the guard rail.
His car plummeted to the ground below.
Jaune awoke with a gasp.
He started to panted heavily as his stomach churned.
"What the... what?"
"You know, I can't do this too often," Salem spoke in his mind. "I can do it maybe once every day or two."
Jaune looked at his body and noticed shadows retreat into his cloak.
"Salem!" he cried in pure joy. "I love you!"
He looked over to his side and noticed the burning husk of his (stolen) car a few meters away—she had saved him from being inside of that.
"I double love you! Marry me!"
"You got guests," Salem said as Jaune shakily stood up.
Jaune looked up and noticed two people crash into a small pond next to him.
There was a girlish scream.
The blue haired boy, Neptune, flew out of the pond and ran at least thirty feet away from it.
"Holy shit!" he yelled. "Why did we land in the water!?"
Jaune noticed Sun surface from the water and swim to shore.
"Better than the ground!" the Faunus yelled as he looked up to the highways above them. "Well, we should catch up with them."
"How do we get out of here?" Jaune asked, startling them. "The only thing I can see is that pond. You'd think they would build something underneath all those highways... like stairs or something."
"You!" Sun shouted as he pointed a finger accusingly. "You're that one guy from the docks!"
Jaune rose a hand and waved.
He also checked if his hood was still one, which it was.
Magic cloak was awesome!
Jaune sighed as Neptune and Sun drew their weapons.
"Can we... not?" he asked. "I'll buy you... I dunno, dinner? Dinner if you stop! That sounds good, right?"
"You can't tempt us!" Neptune yelled, before shrugging slightly. "I mean, you can... food sounds nice..."
"Neptune! Think about how happy the girls will be if we capture this guy!"
Sun's words sparked a fire in Neptune.
"Sorry, cloak guy! But we got some very nice ladies to impress!"
Jaune sighed as he drew Crocea Mors.
"You know," Jaune started as he looked at Neptune, "for a guy whose name is Neptune and holds a trident... it's kinda ironic you're afraid of water."
"I am NOT afraid of water!" Neptune refuted. "I have no idea what you are talking abou-"
Neptune yelled in shock as Jaune rammed him with his shield.
The Arc ducked underneath a swing of Sun's staff and rolled to his side. He quickly raised his sword and blocked a swing from the Faunus.
Jaune raised his shield and blocked a shot from Neptune's trident—it could transformed into a gun!?
He noticed the endings of Sun's staff opening up to reveal ammo inside of it.
Jaune jumped away to avoid being blown up.
Sun and Neptune both rushed him, coming from both sides.
Jaune stood still and waited.
A simple step backwards made the two teammates ram into each other.
"Ow!"
"Dammit Sun!"
Jaune span around and smashed Sun with a roundhouse kick. Neptune rushed him and stabbed at him, Jaune blocked it with his shield and pushed the trident to the side. He grabbed the shaft of it and pulled it towards him, making Neptune stumble towards him.
But Jaune had no follow up. He headbutted the blue hair boy in a moment of quick thinking.
Raven's apprentice groaned slightly.
A headache was better than stabbing one of RWBY's friends...
Sun suddenly hit him in the back of the head, making his headache even worse.
Jaune felt his vision darken, but stayed up and turned around. He managed to block a swing of Sun's gunchucks with his shield, feeling his arms ache at the force of the hit.
Keeping his shield up, Jaune started to run forwards, ramming the Faunus and sending him stumbling back.
He had no time to rest, he grabbed Sun and whipped around. He threw the monkey boy into Neptune and ran towards the crumpled pile.
He kicked Sun's head like it was a soccer ball.
Payback was a bitch!
Jaune felt Neptune's hand wrap around his ankle and drag him down. The blue haired boy threw a punch into his face as he fell. They rolled around the ground, throwing hits every once in a while.
Jaune grunted as he felt his face sting—they were fighting like children!
Suddenly, an idea hit the Arc.
Jaune grabbed Neptune by the collar and punched him in the face. Neptune retaliated by punching him in the ribs a few times. Jaune grabbed the teen by the shoulder and threw him to the side.
Right by the pond.
Neptune's eyes widened as Jaune grabbed him by the hair and pushed him towards the water.
"Shitshitshitshitshit!"
"I'm gonna throw you in if you don't stop!" Jaune yelled threateningly.
He felt bad, it was a cheap trick and he knew it.
"Okay!" Neptune yelled desperately. "I'll stop! I surrender!"
Jaune looked over to the unconscious Sun and let out a relieved breath.
"Now," Jaune started as he backed away from Neptune, "you gonna refuse dinner now?"
Jaune rushed towards Yang and barreled into her before she could punch Roman and Neo.
"Kid!" Roman said happily as Jaune walked towards him.
"Really Roman? You broke the robot" Jaune asked angrily as he stared at the broken mech. He then looked at Yang. "Oh, and I like the eyes, they definitely run in the family."
She glared.
"It was the prototype!" Roman defended, not caring about his comment to Yang in the slightest.
Jaune growled.
"I got into a car accident trying to save your ass!"
"I appreciate it! Actually... no, I really don't."
"You!" Ruby yelled accusingly, pointing a finger at him.
"That monkey guy did the exact same thing," Jaune commented thoughtfully.
Team RWBY glared.
"What did you do to them!" Blake yelled as she glared.
"I beat them up and bought them dinner," Jaune said as seriously as he could. "And I know what you're thinking, and it's a yes, I actually beat them up... it wasn't just dinner."
"Who are you!" Yang yelled. "Take that hood off and show yourself!"
"Showing myself defeats the point of wearing a hood at all!"
"He's right," Ruby whispered to her sister.
She shot Ruby a betrayed look.
"Are we done stalling?" Jaune asked Neo, who shrugged.
"Stalling for what?" Weiss asked.
Jaune gave no reply as the three figures suddenly shattered like a broken mirror. There was a humming noise as a Bullhead started to hover past RWBY, Roman and co watched from inside of it as they flew away.
"Damn," Yang muttered as they left. "I couldn't ask him about mom..."
Jaune woke up still queasy.
The combination of both the car and the Bullhead was deadly.
He stumbled into the kitchen of the safe house he was in searching for anything to help.
"Hey kid!" Roman called as he watched something on his scroll. "It's noon, you slept for a while."
Jaune downed a cup of water and looked at him.
"What are you doing? You're usually doing... Roman stuff."
Roman shrugged.
"I do this a lot, but not around you. I'm here because we didn't have our celebratory ice cream party, an op isn't finished without one."
"Was that considered an op?"
"I don't think so, but Neo does... little sugar addict."
Jaune looked around and noticed Neo sitting on a couch across the room, she was absently watching the television as she ate from a bowl of ice cream.
"Ever heard of Pyrrha Nikos?" Roman asked as he stared at his Scroll. "A video just came out of her beating the crap out of an entire team at Beacon."
"She was my partner," Jaune said blandly. "You knew that."
Roman didn't respond.
Jaune walked over and glanced over Roman's shoulder.
Pyrrha was being... well Pyrrha.
Ass kicker extraordinaire.
Jaune didn't recognize who she was beating the pulp out of, but he recognize some people as the camera, which was a Scroll from the student section, panned towards a cheering group of kids.
He sighed as he noticed his friends.
"Are those who they replaced me with?" he asked as he noticed a girl and a boy. "I don't think the void I left requires two people..."
"You don't know them?" Roman asked. "They're close to Cinder."
Jaune's eyes widened.
"Yeah," Roman answered his unasked question. "She is infiltrating Beacon... and no, I have no idea why."
Safe to say, even the ice cream party didn't help Jaune's mood.
Jaune wondered down the streets of Vale, keeping his head low as he traveled.
Since the White Fang didn't need anything and Cinder's little mission wasn't until another six days, Jaune had a few off days.
And since he didn't have a Scroll, Roman didn't keep an eye on him—the criminal giving him a curfew of four days instead.
Jaune wondered over to a payphone and picked it up, dialing a number he had memorized.
It was answered instantly.
"What," Raven answered.
"I'm good for four days."
"I have a mission"
"...alright."
There as a pause.
"Wait..."
"Yeah?"
"I'll have a colleague pick you up, she'll continue your training."
"Who is it?"
"Not over the phone."
Jaune sighed at Raven's paranoia.
"Have I ever heard of her?"
"Yes."
Jaune rose an eyebrow, but didn't bother pushing—he knew Raven never used names over the phone.
"Will I get a mask?"
The Grimm mask would look so cool with his cloak!
"No."
Damn...
Jaune sighed.
"I have one more thing," he asked.
"What."
"This is gonna be offensive..."
"Do you think I care about offensive?"
Jaune swallowed a lump in his throat.
"How... how old are you?"
There was silence.
"I mean... you said you and Port weren't that far apart and I jus- pleasedon'tkillmeI'msorry!"
There was more silence.
"Stop wasting my time."
She hung up.
"Well excuse me Miss 'do you think I care about offensive'! Please hang up after how good of a conversation you gave me with your one word answers!"
There was a giggle behind him.
Jaune turned around and saw a person in a thick white cloak, female if the voice meant anything, and a height much shorter than Raven's—she was maybe Weiss' size. Her face was hidden by a hood.
"Who are you?" Jaune asked, forgetting all his father's advice on talking to ladies.
"Your contact," she said cheerily.
Jaune's eyes widened.
"That... that was fast."
She giggled again, handing him something as she did.
"What is this?" he asked.
"Your first training exercise," she explained, confusing him.
It was only a... purse...
Oh shit.
She lifted her head, revealing a rather familiar face.
"HELP! THIEF!"