Jaune slowly managed to open his eyes. His face was throbbing and he felt like he'd been hit by a train. All around him he could hear echoing footsteps, it didn't help the headache Randal had given him. The blonde knight sat up. He found himself in the locker room.

"Oh, you're awake." Randal said. The mercenary turned teacher was pacing back and forth in front of Jaune. A wooden sword in his hands.

"Ugh." Jaune groaned, his entire body in pain. "What happened?"

"You lied to me." Randal answered, sounding surprisingly calm for a man who knocked out his student earlier. "I hit you, you went out like a light."

"How long was I out?" The aforementioned student asked.

"A while. It's two A.M. You've got classes in another seven hours."

"I… do?" Jaune asked, sounding hopeful. "Does that mean…?"

"No, I'm not going to tell anyone." Randal assured him. "You're lucky I was there. Team CDNL lives on the top floor of that building, did you know that? If I wasn't there to get them to keep their mouths shut, who knows what could have happened?" Jaune shuddered at the thought.

"Where's Pyrrah?" Jaune asked.

"Where else would she be? I sent her to your room after I knocked you out." Randal smiled. "She must really care about you, she was practically begging me not to tell anyone after I knocked you out. Said you had a lot of potential, and that you just didn't see it. Frankly, I gotta agree with her there."

Jaune breathed a sigh of relief, and his face turned a shade redder, thinking about the Spartan praising him like that. Now he just needed to prove himself worthy of that praise.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I got a class to prepare for." Randal pointed to a door behind him. "That's the way out. Get some rest, you're gonna need it." Jaune managed to get up onto his feet and started walking over to the door.

"Thanks man, I won't forget this." He said as he passed the professor.

"That class, by the way, is yours." Randal replied before slamming the hilt of the sword into Jaune's stomach, causing the knight to fall back, clutching his gut in pain. Randal threw the sword away, it clattered to the ground next to Jaune. "Did you really think it would be that easy? If you want to leave, you gotta hit me with that stick first."

Jaune was too busy groaning in pain on the floor to reply, but he grabbed the sword with one of his hands.

"Why are you doing this?" He groaned.

"After I told Pyrrah that I wasn't going to tell anyone, she explained to me what had happened." Randal said, still pacing back and forth, scowling at the young man at his feet. "Turns out you were being a nieve little piece of shit." He stepped over to one of the unused lockers, opened it up, and removed a wooden shield and another sword. He tossed the shield to Jaune, letting it clatter to the ground at his feet. "She offered to help you, and you practically spit in her face." He slammed the locker door shut, and slowly started walking to where Jaune was getting to his feet. "And so, now I'm the one who's going to train you."

"How many times do I have to say it?!" Jaune shouted. "I don't want your help! I'll do this-" He was cut off when Randal hit him with his wooden sword.

"A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link, Jaune." Randal said. His voice was calm and cold, but his eyes showed what he was really feeling. He was enraged, his eyes burning with an intensity Jaune was likely to never see in anyone else's. "And who do you think is your team's weakest link? Who is the one bringing your team down?"

"I am." Jaune replied.

"Correct." Randal nodded. "Now, get over that delusion that you can do this on your own. This isn't a fairy tale Jaune. There's no princess that needs rescuing, there's no wise old man with a big beard, there's no evil empire that needs defeating, all there is is you and your team. And if you don't stop living in that land of make-beleive, then you'll wind up getting people killed."

"But-" SMACK! There wasn't as much force behind it this time. Randal knew his student was beginning to crack. He was about to break... he just needed one last push.

"Jaune, I know how you feel. That feeling that if you can't do it on your own, it's not worth it. I felt like that for a month after I left Beacon last year. I felt that I had to provide for myself and my little sister and that accepting help from anyone was admitting defeat to myself. It was admitting that I couldn't keep her safe, and at that point in my life, she was all I had left." He picked up the shield and handed it over to Jaune. "I was just living a dream, same as you are now. It's time to wake up."

Jaune stood there, contemplating what Randal had said, but eventually he took the shield from Randal's hand.

"I just have to hit you once, right?"

"Yeah, but good luck with that." Randal smiled as he brought his sword down on Jaune who hastily tried to block it with his shield.

Unnoticed, a pair of glowing red eyes watched the two young men prepare for the war that was to come.

The next day was a nightmare to the two young men.

Try as he might, Randal couldn't stay awake in class. He just kept nodding off as Proffesor Port gave his lectures, and apparently nobody thought to wake him until three periods later. He fell back to sleep ten minutes later, but wake up a few minutes later, and this suddenly became a pattern until he gave up, claimed he was sick and went back to his room for some much needed sleep.

Jaune on the other hand, had it even worse. He didn't even make it to class because his injuries from last night sent him to the nurse in the morning, half his face was swollen, and his entire body felt like it was on fire when he so much as twitched. Even with the advanced medicine at the nurse's disposal, it took three days for Jaune to come back to class.

And there we go! Another chapter done! Probably not my best work, but meh.

As you can tell, Jaunedice was a little different here, and Forever Fall will be different too. *Starts Giggling* I've been wanting to get to this point for a long while.

By the way, who else is excited for the RWBY game RT is putting together? Don't beleive me? Monty tweeted about it so go check it out.

I do not own RWBY, that honor goes to the awesome people at Roosterteeth and Monty Oum.