It was the start of the weekend and Jaune was walking around Vale.

It had been a week since he started learning at Beacon and he was already tired. He was still trying to get used to it, so he decided to find a way to relieve some of his stress by getting Hamburger.

Hamburger… Hamburger… Hamburger…

That was the only thought that went through his mind right now. He just wished his father was here to eat with him. He called his father if he wanted to meet up and eat Hamburger, but things got hectic at the forge. Alas, Jaune walked alone on the street of Vale.

He didn't have much problem being alone. He likes his friends, even Weiss, but they could be too much sometimes.

"… For the last 3 months, Vale had an increase of 15% in its crime rate compared to last year's crime statistic…"

The sound from the screen in one of the town's electrical store suddenly caught Jaune's attention. This feels oddly familiar.

"… Vale Police Department's Chief, Matt Stern, stated that the number of criminals in Vale have been increasing and two had been identified to still be on the run from the authorities…"

The screen then showed a picture of two people, one male and the other female.

The male was tanned-skin. His hair was long and brown in color, the same as his eyes. The most prominent aspect of his appearance was his goatee. This was Yuma Yagi.

While the male was tanned, the female was pale. Her short hair was grayish blue, covering her right eye. Her eyes were the same color. This was Trifa Argi.

There was other information regarding the two at the bottom of their profiles; Same age, Faunus, etc. Both of them were associates for each other's crimes and both of them had quite the kill count on their heads.

Jaune sighed. Criminals are increasing more and more each day.

Jaune shook his head, trying not to dwell on the subject. He came down to town in order to relieve his stress, not to gain it. Chanting Hamburger in his head, he strode towards the Hamburger restaurant, a land where dreams came to life!

Only for him to bump into someone.

"S-sorry! I didn't-!" once Jaune saw who he'd bumped into, his eyes slightly widened.

It was a woman, probably a bit older than he was. Her hair was black in color and styled in side swept curls. Her eyes were amber-colored, similar to Blake, only more alluring. With her heels, she was almost as tall as he was. She wore a tight black dress which complimented her perfect- Nope! Nope! Not focusing on that!

"Um…" Great, now I'm finding it hard to construct my words! "I-I'm sorry… I wasn't looking were I was going… I…"

She giggled a bit at that. Cute! "There's nothing to apologize for. Though, I would hope we don't bump into each other again."

"U-um" Oh my God… She's so cute, I can't stop my heart beating! Stop that, heart! "Y-y-yeah! I-I promise I will t-try to not bump into you again!"

"You're so adorable when you stutter," she touched his chin with her slender finger. It was a quick touch but the lingering feeling it left sent shiver down Jaune's spine. "If we meet again, hopefully, it will be in better circumstance."

Then, she walked away, leaving behind a shaken Jaune.

ARGHHHHHHHH! Calm down, heart! Calm the fuck down!

He took a deep breath and exhaled. He took another deep breath and exhaled. Once he got his heartbeat calmed down, he looked back towards the woman. She was already far away from him but even from a distance, he could see how she swayed in her walk.

That woman's too dangerous.

He turned away from her figure and tried to erase the way she walked from his mind. He then focused his thought on something else. Something that gave him pure happiness. Something that-

He drooled. Hamburger…

He continued his walk towards the restaurant, leaving behind the thought of that unknown woman at the back of his mind.

O - O - O - O - O

Jaune now walked happily down the hallway of Block D building, skips in every steps he took.

Yo ho! Yo ho! Hamburger's for me! Never before have I taste thing so delicious! Yo ho! Yo ho! Hamburger's for me!

Once he was in front of his dorm room's door, he calmed down his heart. Who would have thought a simple hamburger would made a man so happy. Once his heart calmed, he opened it.

"Hello," Jaune greeted the people inside, which consisted of Ruby, Pyrrha, Yang, Nora and Weiss.

"Hey, Jaune" Ruby greeted from the top of her bunk bed which she shared with Blake. "You look happy."

Happy? Jaune thought, no realizing he still got a huge smile plastered on his face. "Oh! He he… Just got back from Hamburger… That's why I'm… Happy," he answered nervously, scratching the back of his neck.

"Hamburger?!" Ruby exclaimed, eyes wide. "Why didn't you invite me?! I wanna go so bad!"

He put up his hands defensively, "S-sorry! I-I didn't know you wanted to go… S-sorry… Maybe next time?"

She pouted. Adorable. "Fine… Next time, you'll let me join you! And you're paying!"

"Wait, what?"

"You heard me. Next time we go, you're treating," she said, crossing her arms with a defiant smirk. "Consider this your punishment," Her Yang is showing.

He just sighed, he wasn't in the mood to be arguing, especially with Ruby. Well, it wouldn't hurt for me to treat her, I guess.

"Sure," he gave her a small smile. Her smile widened at that. She jumped down and started hopping in place, showing her blatant happiness to the occupants of the room. His smile widened as well at that. Her happiness sure is contagious.

"By the way, anything happened while I'm out?" he asked all four of them, excluding Weiss because she was studying at her desk which she shared with Pyrrha.

"Yes, actually," Pyrrha was the one to answer. "Professor Goodwitch came to visit our room."

Aunt Glynda? "What did she come here for?"

"She said we and another room will be having lessons at Emerald Forest on Tuesday. She said we will be having Semblance Training and Grimm Combat Training along with two other teachers," she answered.

Semblance and Grimm Training, huh? Hope Aunt Glynda won't embarrass me in front of everyone, Jaune thought. "Okay… Who are the other teachers?" he asked.

"First, we got Professor Port because it involves Grimm," Obviously. "The other one is a surprise, however. She also said he isn't technically a teacher."

So, the other one isn't a teacher. A full-time Huntsman, probably. Maybe he's there to talk about his experience. That'll be interesting.

"What about the other room? The one we're going to be having these lessons with?" he asked.

"Oh, it's the room across from us," with that, Jaune paled. Of all the rooms, it had to be Cardin's. He really thought the world truly hated him. Sure, it gave him a Semblance, but it also gave him all these problems in exchange for that gift.

"What's wrong, Jaune? You look pale," Pyrrha commented.

"Huh?" Jaune waved his hand around nervously. "N-no! No! No! No! I'm not pale at all! What makes you think that?! Ha ha ha ha!"

"Hmm? If you say so," Pyrrha go back to her bed, continuing on her reading.

"Oh! I can't wait to work on my Semblance!" Yang exclaimed from the top of her bunk bed. "My Semblance is already pretty strong but with more training? It's definitely going to be a lot stronger!"

"Yeah!" Nora shouted her agreement from the bed underneath Yang's. Following Nora, Ruby also exclaimed her excitement as well.

Everyone's excited to work on their Semblance. He looked down on his hands, eyebrows furrowed.

"SHOW ME WHY YOU DESERVE TO BE HERE!"

I need to figure out how to use my Semblance without breaking my entire arm. If it continues, it will be a nuisance rather than a leverage during battle. The question is how do I minimize the side effect while maximizing the power?

He softly sighed. I still haven't done any training on my Aura usage and now I have to worry about my Semblance. This is gonna be harder than I thought.

"Oh!" Nora suddenly exclaimed. She looked inside her bag, looking for something. When she found it, she went to Jaune while hiding said something behind her back. "Here!"

When he saw the item she was holding, his eyebrow perked up. "A helmet?"

It was a sallet helmet. A helmet that had been used by the soldiers of Vale during the Great War. He had one back home, an armor used by his ancestors for generations.

"Yup! Ren and I went to Vale this morning as well and I found this in one of the shops there. I remembered you wore armor during our Entrance Exam and thought you will like it. Also, it's cheap, so I bought you one! Tadaa!" Nora said, ever so chipper.

He took the helmet from her hands and inspected it. The color scheme for the helmet did matched his armor's. It was also quite light in his hand, so it probably won't hold him back too much.

"Thanks, Nora. I appreciate it," Jaune said, sincerely.

"You're welcome, Fearless Leader!" Nora saluted, gaining a good chuckle from him. Don't ever change, Nora.

She walked back to her bed while Jaune still looked around the helmet in his hand. While he did that, he noticed Weiss was shaking in her seat.

"So… Noisy…" she snarled quietly.

"He he… Sorry about that," Jaune apologized to her on behalf of the people that participate in the conversation.

He sat on his bed while thinking about the class he would have at Emerald Forest.

Things are going to be interesting.

O - O - O - O - O

"Cinder… Glad you can finally make it."

Cinder Fall closed the door of one of the rooms in Junior's Club. "Mercury, you know I don't like sarcasm, right?"

"Too bad," Mercury Black replied with a smirk. "What took you so long, anyway?"

Mercury hair and eyes are gray in color. His usual zip jacket never left his body only without the armor. His pant was black, sash draped over it. His boots were also black-colored.

"I took a stroll around Vale, to see what's the fuss is all about. A Mistralese like myself actually found it quite dull," Cinder said. "But I did bump into a cute boy along the way. I guess that's a plus."

"A cute boy, huh? Didn't know Cinder Fall can actually compliment other people's appearance beside her own. I am shocked!" to emphasized on how shocked he was, he placed his hand on his heart.

"Please… I only call him cute. Not much of a compliment if you ask me," she explained.

"Okay, I heard enough," Roman Torchwick decided to chime in into the conversation, letting his presence be known to the other occupants in the room. "As much I would have love to see two people banter with each other, we have a task at the moment and for once in my life, I want to take it seriously."

His orange hair was bright with long bangs covering his right eye. His eyes were dark-green eyes and his black eyeliner was clear for everyone to see. He wore a red-lined white suit with long black pants as well as shoes. He had a small gray scarf around his neck. His bowler hat was the most prominent aspect of his outfit.

"Fine," Cinder sighed. "How many we got?"

"Henchmen? We got more than enough. We got enough of our peer with us at the moment, but I will try to recruit more. Neo will join us later and give more intel on this mission of ours," Roman answered.

"Why are we trying to have more people, anyway? That'll lessen our cut in all of this," Mercury chimed in into the conversation. "Junior's men? I get it, he'll pay them himself. The rest, though? The only reason I agree to all of this is because I was promised a lot of lien."

"You don't have to worry about the lien, Mercury," Roman answered his question. "We're only going to recruit street-level thugs who think they can be big shots. Trust me, the moment they got in, they won't follow us out. Right, Cindy?"

"For a first mission together, I don't want to risk too much," Cinder said. "We are trying to send a message, not go to war with the Huntsmen. At least, not yet."

"You better hope your… Master's message is worth putting our life on the line," Roman said, pointing his cane to her.

"Trust me, it is worth it."

O - O - O - O - O

It was already night time, and everybody was already asleep, excluding two people; Reese and Cardin.

Reese was laying on top of her bunk bed while Arslan was quietly sleeping underneath her. Reese wished she could have some sleep, but her mind and eyes were on Cardin.

Cardin was outside at the balcony, staring at the moon. He was quite all the way, not mouthing a word. Reese wondered what was going through his mind at the moment for him to stood there by the railing for 30 minutes straight.

Probably thinking about the next lesson. He could also be thinking about his family. I want to say Jaune but that seems like a reach. Oh! He might be thinking about his girlfriend he left back home to pursue his career as a Huntsman-in-training!

Unsatisfied with her unanswered question, she got down from her bed and went outside, closing the slide behind her.

"Hey, Card," Reese greeted him, facing his back. "What'cha doing?"

"Nothing," Cardin replied, still not facing her.

"Really? Doesn't look like nothing to me," Reese skipped her way towards him, stopped beside him to look at the moon as well. "Pretty, huh?"

"Yeah," Cardin once again replied, not saying much.

They bot stood quietly, admiring the beauty that was bestowed upon them by the moon. The light reflected from it glistered the skyline of the kingdom, giving it a serene view.

"Sorry to bother you, Card, but I got to know," Reese said, silence fleet from the atmosphere. "What's been bothering you? I know you're kinda broody but I wanna know why. There must be a reason for it, right?"

"Bothering me, huh?" Cardin sighed. "I guess I'm not really that good at hiding it, huh?"

"Nope! At least, not for me," Reese said. "You're usually held yourself great but when it comes to your emotions, we can really see. You're either glaring or brooding. No in between."

He chuckled at that, "I guess so."

Silence took over once again and Reese patiently waited for Cardin to answer.

"Do you remember my goal for coming here?" she nodded. Who would've forgot about that? He basically made most of the students his enemies. Not to mention, he sounded pretty arrogant too, so that's a minus.

"I just think it'll be harder than I expected."

At that moment, Reese learned something about Cardin. He wasn't just a boy that took pride in his skills. He wasn't just a boy that took pride in his goal as well. He wasn't just prideful for the sake of being prideful.

He was a prideful boy that would admit of his limits.

"Don't worry, Card," Reese said, giving him a big warm smile. "I'm sure you can pull through whatever life throws at you!"

Cardin looked back to her, giving him a small smile. The first smile she had ever gotten from him. A smile she would engrave to the back of her mind.

"Thank you."

O - O - O - O - O

Hello!

Hope you enjoyed reading this chapter far more than me writing it! This took too long to finish. I was a bit discourage to continue writing for this story, don't know why though. But, alas, I pulled through and finished writing this.

In this, we now know that a week had passed since our MC started Beacon and he was already feeling tired from all of it. It is to be expected, of course. Trying to adjust in a new life can be quite hard for some people, especially people like Jaune. So, Jaune took a stroll down at Vale and meet our future antagonist, Cinder. Their first in many of their upcoming meetings.

Now, we got three people who will be with the students; Glynda, Peter and another Huntsman. Jaune will finally get input on some of his friends' Semblance since he was at the medical room throughout the rest of his class.

The meeting of the baddies. Something's about to go down. Before you ask, yes. I'm taking the USJ storyline.

Finally, we got some Cardin moment and oh my God! He's not totally a prick! Take that canon Cardin! As we can see, Cardin's prideful nature is clearly inspired by Bakugou's but he's not as prideful as him. Bakugou took longer to acknowledge his weakness while Cardin, in this story, could admit it quickly. They also showcased their anger differently. While Bakugou's anger is explosive, Cardin's is cold. I will definitely dive deeper into Cardin's prideful side and his anger.

Have any criticism? Please, by all means, leave a review. Criticism is always welcome.

Again, thank you for reading.