Hello my dear readers, I am back with a brand new chapter for y'all. This is going to be a slower one, more talk heavy than most of my chapters so I would like to know if you thought I did everything well enough and if you like the characters and concepts I am introducing. Please leave your feedback as I really appreciate any advice on how I can get better. Anyways favorite, follow and leave your reviews like always my friends.
Jaune woke up the next morning with a slight yawn, blinking the tiredness out of his eyes she shuffled around some as what he was lying on was was lot more comfortable than Cashmere's couch as he sat up and moved to get out of his bed he looked around at the dorm with a happy smile on his face. He was finally here at Beacon, the efforts of Ruby and Yang were not wasted on his noodly self. As the blond stepped into the bathroom to take a shower he heard his partner and Ren start to rise themselves, he noticed they seemed to be a bit more at ease than yesterday was well. Something else to keep watch of he guessed.
Jaune let out a pleased sigh as he felt the hot water of the shower head caress his skin once more, washing off all the dirt and grime from initiation and making it all flow down the drain. Cashmere's place had running water sure, but the poor students could not afford to have it heated during things like showers so this was a nice contrast to that. The boy made quick work of his shower however, a habit drilled into him during the summer as a way to save money wherever they could living in the slums. As the young man stepped out and started to dry himself off he thought again on how lucky he was to have met Ruby, thanks to her it led to his live being more of a success than he would have ever dreamed before. When Jaune's body was nice and dry, he put on a fresh pair of clothes and left the door open for Ren to hop in before one of the girl's could.
"Sorry ladies but I know for a fact that Ren will take a quicker shower than both of you." He grinned at his female teammates as they groaned some, Pyrrha laying back down on her bed and Nora jumped up to get some morning stretches in. Jaune guessed she needed to get her energy out somehow and prepare for a day of exercise and combat training. "Also after Ren is done do you mind if I walk down to the cafeteria with him alone? I want to get in some 'guy bonding' time with him when I can."
Nora nodded, but looked at him uneasily. Jaune was worried that he had just messed something up again before her face broke out into its usual beaminging grin. "Alright fearless leader, but I better get double pancakes and syrup for breakfast as compensation for following these orders!" She gave him a mock salute before Ren walked out of the bathroom, steam following him as he went to his bed to gather his pants and shirt for the day.
"What was that about double pancakes? Nora you are not making threats on the first day are you?" Nora shook her head with a joyful nope before she started whistling a happy little tune as she went to take her own shower. As soon as Ren was dressed, Jaune took his arm and led the young man out into the hallway so they could chat some.
"I just kinda promised her the breakfast when I asked for some alone time with you to just talk things out so yeah. I hope that would not cause too much problems with her, I think you might be the only one capable of calming her down in the entire school for now."
Ren let out an exasperated sigh before shaking his head at his leader. "No it will be fine, we have combat class second period so she can get out the energy there... I just feel bad for her opponent. I have seen young Ursa run away from her like that, anyways you wanted to talk to me about some things?"
Jaune chuckled at the mental image of the ginger haired girl chasing terrified grimm with her giant hammer before continuing with his conversation. "Yeah, I just kinda noticed that you and Nora clearly know each other, but she seemed reluctant to separate from you like this. That and I noticed her joy was a bit more...Palpable? Genuine I don't really know how to describe it but it happened after Lila announced you were both part of the extended Arc family now."
Ren let out a soft chuckle at that, surprised that his seemingly oblivious leader was so observant of their behaviour. "Yes, that comes from our childhood." He paused some and looked at Jaune, debating on weather not to reveal their full past but in the end decided to keep it secret until they knew each other a bit better.
"Me and Nora are orphans who grew up together, always depending on each other as I was all she had and vice versa. So as we grew older and things got more dangerous, we started to grow more protective of the other in a natural fashion. As you can tell, Nora is the kind of person to wear their emotions on her sleeve and be passionate about them and she doesn't like it when I am out of sight where she can not help me when I am in trouble. I suspect the only reason she allowed this was because you proved to be capable yesterday. With the family thing, it was simply a case of us not having anyone that cared about Nora or I for the longest time so to hear that called out was a nice surprise."
Jaune continued to walk on towards the cafeteria in silence, taking in this new information and trying to think of how to deal with it. He just shrugged and decided to let them develop naturally as friends and hopefully Nora would be good with this kind of thing from the outset.
"Alright, thank you for telling me Ren. Sorry if it was rude for me to just bring that kind of thing up out of nowhere. I just thought you would provide a better explanation than her for this particular incident. Shall we hurry of to breakfast though? I am absolutely starving right now."
His new friend chuckled before nodding and going along with his leader to the great cafeteria of Beacon, where fluffy pancakes were created and surprisingly good cafeteria food lie. When the pair of bros arrived they soon found themselves seated with team RWBY through their connection with Jaune. The group of teens chatting away as they ate their own particular breakfast foods. Everything was relatively peaceful in the cafeteria until one hyper and crazy girl all burst into the room, focused on the table where one blond doofus was currently chatting with Weiss about the best places to get high quality dust cheaply.
As teams CCAB and CLER walked into the room, Jaune stopped his conversation as a chill ran up his spine. A deeply rooted survival instinct telling him to run and quickly to avoid death by embarrassment. Though it was already much to late for that as he was tackled from behind by one purple streak of sister.
"Jaune! I can't believe you made it to leader, I am so proud of you!" Jaune let out a yelping gasp as Lila came upon him suddenly. The girl hugging him tightly to her body in a clearly loving and affectionate way as she let out a proud little squeal.
"You really did show up everyone's expectations of you and I really am proud of you... Though you still might not want to call home for a little bit as mom and dad were supremely pissed at you for running off like that with Coerca Mors, no one could believe you were that damn rebellious. Except for me and Celia of course but you already knew that." As the girl ran her mouth, the color of Jaune's face changed from a healthy peach to that of a cooked lobster before Lila finally noticed the team of girls and Ren staring at her. Releasing Jaune from her hold to speak to everyone else, the young man let out a gasp and took in deep breaths of air.
"Oh are you his friends? Man two days in and you already have four beautiful young ladies in your company? Where was this lady killer side of you back in Patch? Oh yeah it was buried under the mountain of awkwardness and dopy that is my little brother. Anyways, how are you all? I am Lila, Jaune's big sister and Beacon's resident sharpshooter." Lila spoke to the group with a cheery sense of optimism as Jaune recovered from her assault. Ruby, while being socially awkward was eager to befriend someone close to Jaune but still unfamiliar to her a bit of a gray area if you would. She waved at her as she finished off a bite from today's pastry, a jelly donuts.
"My name is Ruby Rose, nice to meet you?" Ruby's introduction was cut off by Lilia's intense stare in her direction. Almost as if she was judging her on some level. "And I have been eager to meet you for some time now? Jaune is easily my best friend but I still don't know many of his family members...Any of them really." Ruby spoke carefully, trying to find something in the conversation she could latch onto, weapons, stories, cute animals, anything would do now really.
Ruby was then thrown into a minor state of shock as Lila jumped over the table and gave her a tackle hug, thankfully having Yang as a sister had trained the petite girl how to rightly respond to this as the flowed with the tackle, using the momentum to spin around and land close to where she was before.
"Thank you, thank you so much" Lila stared into Ruby's eyes as she spoke and looked at the girl again, yep this was definitely the girl that she had heard about through Cashmere during their talks over the last few weeks of summer. Jaune had raved on and on about the two young women who were his only real friends before then according to the rabbit.
"Your... Welcome? But I have not really done anything if you are talking about the tackle thing, just something that I had to learn with Yang's forceful hugging you know?" Ruby let out her awkward little statement with a bit of hesitation, not quite sure how Lila would respond to her shyness. Just before Yang could get up and get into the Arc's face for jumping onto her sister Jaune waved the girl down wordlessly. He felt like Ruby needed to hear his sister's next words.
"No you have literally done everything in my book. Ruby was it? You... You believed in my brother and gave him a chance to succeed where as far as he knew, the world had rejected his dream outright. You are the one that unlocked Jaune's aura right? Because if you are I can never thank you enough for that. When Jaune came home that day for the first time in a long time I saw some hope that his dream was alive again. My baby brother was finding something to be passionate about again." She hugged Ruby again, this time it was more heartfelt. Lila was never one to hold back her emotions or thoughts, so she just did what felt natural.
"Thank you so much for allowing any of this to happen, I don't know what I would do if Jaune ended up like our parents wanted him to be instead of the courageous young man I knew he could be." As she spoke, Lila turned to who she believed was Yang and gave her a glomping hug as well. "You helped as well right? Trained my clumsy guy to hold a sword straight or something like that?"
Yang, unsure of what to do here or the correct response. Just nodded, a light blush on her own face from the sudden praise and thanking from Jaune's sister. "I did not really teach him stuff with a sword, it was mostly just sparing and like a basic workout regimine. He did literally everything else either with Ruby or on his own." She let out an awkward chuckle as Lila nodded and she turned back to the recovered Jaune as Nora decided to make herself known by slamming into the seat next to Ren, causing the calm young man to bounce a bit while sipping his tea tranquilly.
"And you, what the hell was with the armor stuff? I heard all about it from Cashmere and Ciel after initiation but really? You had to hide something so cool from everyone for so long? I demand to see it as soon as possible as your older sister. Until then your girlfriends are going to hear all about your past." She grinned like the devil as she brought out her scroll.
At this Jaune gasped and glared at his sister, his eyes full of playful contempt and Nora just grabbed her pancakes to enjoy the show with a meal. "You wouldn't dare... I thought you had promised to never show those to people outside of family."
Lila's playful smirk conveyed her thoughts perfectly as she brought out her scroll and went to the gallery and back a few years. Unnoticed by everyone in the tension of the moment, Pyrrha had sat down next to her partner with a simple fruit salad. Her naivety betraying her as she wondered how things got so tense on the second day at beacon. "Try me, like I said last night. I consider all your teammates to be family like I consider CCAB and from Cashmere's connection to Velvet, CVFY to be our extended family. That promise will not save you now!"
With an evil laugh, Lila clicked onto a picture of a younger Jaune, his pure and adorable eyes smiling up at the camera with a blinding grin. The mere sight of which made the table of girls erupt into a chorus of awws as Jaune tried to make himself look as small as possible. Now, the picture of himself at a young age was not enough to cause this reaction. It was when his female companions noticed the attire he was wearing and erupted into squeals of joy that he knew his life was over. It was a picture of him as a flower boy at their uncle's wedding in a small dress and a clip in his hair that made him look distinctly cute and feminine. The laughing continued however, as more pics came of the wedding and how the innocent Jaune was living it up as flower boy.
Jaune groaned aloud in embarrassment as his sister subjected his entire table to a whole slideshow of embarrassing moments from his childhood, a faint smile gracing his lips as this happened however. Glad to be around people Lila was comfortable sharing that information with. Soon the revelry was interrupted by the bell signalling an end to their meal of grains and fruit and the two first year teams got up to move out Lila calling out to them in the meantime as she herself bounced back to her team, joining a young man with silver hair as she did.
"Hey you little brats! Come out to Vale this saturday, at the Noble Gases hotel ok? Us second years have a fun surprise for ya tikes! I promise it will be beneficial for all involved." The bubbly girl chuckled some as she waved off the teams before turning to the boy and starting up another conversation with him.
Waving back with a nod, Jaune let out a big sigh once they were out of sight of his elder sibling . "Man I love her so much but, but she can be a handful to deal with sometimes you know? Older sisters can be so damn embarrassing."
Ruby nodded enthusiastically as Yang just put her arm around her friends shoulder. "Well that is our job . We get a handbook with instructions as soon as our younger siblings are born and are told to follow it to the letter. I don't know anyone that does not follow it within the older sibling spectrum."
Jaune looked to the girl with a questioning eye, ignoring Weiss's huff of indignance and mutterings about winter, maybe she was thinking about holidays already? Questions for later he assumed. "Really? Because Ceil never does that kind of thing to me, nor do I do those things to my younger sisters, at least to that extent."
Yang let out a mock gasp as she let go of her sunny haired friend. "Two older siblings who do not follow the code in the same family? This must be some kind of blasphemy to the nth degree!"
Laughing off Yang's attempt at humor Jaune broke out into a little bit of a jog wanting to get to his first class soon to start getting the first piece of formal training he would have ever received. "Come on guys, we want to sit together right? Then we gotta get there soon as I can, to Professor Oobleck's class."
The rest of his team just shrugged some before starting to pick up the pace to match their glorious leader, team RWBY, followed suit Blake albeit reluctantly as she was pulled along by her partner who was all smiles at this point.
The small crowd of teenagers soon arrived at the door of one Dr. Bartholomew Oobleck, Jaune taking the brave first step in grabbing the doorknob and opening it for the twin teams to flood into the room. Weiss insisting that they all sit in the front to get the best source of information from the esteemed doctor who seemed happy to see his newest students arrive so early but said nothing before class began. Taking a deep sip of his coffee, he began with a loud cough to get the student's attention.
"Good morning to you all my little saplings. Today is a great day to start one's education in the fine subject of history. Now I know that many of you see the act of studying and looking at how we all came to be here as something boring and uninteresting. Wanting to get with the slaying of grimm and messing around with your companions, I must say nay to all of you who doubt the fascinating world of history and I hope to prove that all to you during this one class session alone." As the doctor spoke, he seemed to zip around the room some, making sure that everyone from every angle could hear him as he did so. The thermos of coffee in his hands never even risking to spill a drop as he spoke without missing a beat.
"Now, I will not go down onto you with the importance of studying history as you have likely been through it a million times at this point and if there is one thing I hate more than anything, is repeating myself endlessly with nothing changing in the people I am talking to. I hope that the reasons I choose to study history will become self evident in time within my classroom. Anyways, I know you younger men and women are only interested in weapons, battle and the like so I hope that today can be enlightening. Now who here would be interested in speaking about their own weapon and its history and why it is so important to you as a person?"
Oobleck burst out into a cheshire grin as he saw the entire class's hands shoot up straight, that question always hooked them it seemed. Personal history was one of the most explored subjects of all. "Then would one volunteer come up to the front of class and tell us a brief summary after showing us what it can do? I promise that this will lead to something much more interesting for the rest of class to know."
In a shower of rose petals, Ruby was up in front of the class with Crescent Rose in its compressed form, shifting it out to the full size in a few seconds she proudly displayed it. "This is my sweetheart, Crescent Rose. She is a fully functional combat scythe that also acts as a high impact sniper rifle. I designed and built her myself during my first year at signal, she is made up of a stainless steel-titanium alloy to prevent rusting and give my baby a good amount of strength. With a black iron-obsidian blade mix that I created myself, Crescent Rose can cut a grim in half like it was butter, with one of the smoothest mechashifts on record for something of such complexity."
The cheery girl was just hoping when she was talking about Crescent Rose, nodded before he too dashed to the front of his class, the light glinting off his glasses as he spoke to everyone. "Most excellent summation Miss Rose, I assume that your ahem "sweetheart" does not have too much history due to you being in training but that was still something that any budding history buff would have loved to heard. Now you mentioned that your precious weapon is mecha shift right? It can go from one form to another right?"
Ruby nodded, her face clearly curious as to why he was asking this. As the good doctor spoke up not a second later, Jaune felt like his teacher was staring right at him as he spoke the next words. "Well as you all know, mechashift weapons can only have two to three forms at maximum do to their nature of all the interlocking and connecting parts. What would you say if I could inform you of a type of weapon that has a near infinite amount of possible transformations and forms depending on the user?"
At these words, the entire class seemed to move forward in their seats. Eager to hear about this new, mystical kind of weapon that they had never heard about until now, and why they were not given the option to make them back in their combat schools. Jaune himself, felt the weight of Corca Mors grow heavier on his hip as spoke.
The teacher's smirk never disappeared as he spoke aloud. "This kind of weapon is extremely difficult to make, in fact only seven of them have ever been recorded with popular use do to this. As people saw it more beneficial to just make mechashift weapons instead as they usually filled the job well enough. These weapons, crafted during the Great War have been dubbed aurashift weapons by the historic community"
And there we go, again please tell me if you are fine with me introducing new concepts like this into the world of RWBY as we know it.
