Giant-Slayer (Volume 1)

by NeoNazo356

Because a universe without stories is just empty space, I offer you this one-of-a-kind epic saga about love, life, loss, and everything-in-between; with heroes, villains, and everything-in-between THAT. In loving memory of Monyreak "Monty" Oum (Born June 22nd, 1981; Died February 1st, 2015). Like so many others, I will keep moving forward "for there is no futility even in death."

25. Fight, and Fight, and Fight Some More!

Hoooooly shit. This chapter turned out way longer than I thought it was going to be. Way more descriptive fight scenes than I was aiming for, but I like how things turned out, so if you enjoy gratuitous amounts of violence, this is the chapter for you.

*GIANT-SLAYER*

The following day, the first three classes were more hectic than usual. All the teachers put theirs', and the students', noses to the grindstone as they rapid-fired facts and trivia into their students' heads to prepare them for the finals they would have the following day. Assuming people slacked off on their studies, then any last-minute studying would enable them to barely scrape by with a passing 70%. Though most of the teachers stressed that poor grades in the first semester would negatively impact their ability to carry out missions for both grade and profit later on.

And then came Glynda's class, where the Final, more about fighting than knowledge, was being carried out prior to the other three finals the following day. Something about how if they got the most-physical part of their finals out of the way quickly, they'd be able to put more focus into their studies tomorrow, and not have to worry about mental fatigue from three overarching tests negatively impacting their Live Combat class' grade.

Of course, a big difference was that the Final was taking place behind the school in one of the larger training grounds. It was a large, flat grassy plain with tree lines off to the side, most-frequently used for recreational purposes like soccer or football when the dedicated fields were already occupied. A number of flatbed trucks with canopies were also wheeled off to the side, and that was when Glynda began explaining how their Final for this course would work.

"Alright students, this training field has been divided into quarters to triage the testing of four students at once. While each of you will be starting out in the middle, do not hesitate to move beyond your designated lot of the field if deemed necessary, as in the real world, your peers will have to accommodate others fighting around them," Glynda explained as she gestured out to the field, which had orange lines spray painted across it, divvying up the football field-sized space into quarters.

The woman tapping a few buttons on her Scroll, the darkness of the canopies on the flatbeds began to light up, and figures began stepping out. It only took a passing glance to recognize that the machines taking to the field were a batch of the school's Training Androids, Atlesian Knight-130s, a line of combat android that was quickly growing obsolete with whisperings of Atlas rolling out a new model sometime this year. The repurposed models were painted all-white, and the reds of their optics were replaced with blue, giving them a friendlier feel. On their left arms they had metallic kite shields, and running the length of their shields were standard long swords in built-in sheaths.

"For the first part of your final, you will each be facing a single Training Android. Their parameters will be set to slightly-above your own current skill level. While I would not advise you to hold back against them, retrofitting them for training purposes represents a significant investment on our parts, so restraint is appreciated. That being said, if your fighting style is counter-intuitive to a taking-prisoners format for combat, don't hesitate to eke out the amount of force you deem necessary. There is money in the budget to repair Training Androids, so don't hesitate in this first test, which will represent a fair amount of your final grade," the woman lectured. "The first Team up will be…"

*GIANT-SLAYER*

The first Team to take the first part of their Final for this class was Team Cardinal. Being along the bottom-tier of that-years' freshman class, if only because the rest of their peers were so much more exemplary in comparison, their fights were less than spectacular, nothing to really write home about, though the lot of them passed without any major complications. Apparently, getting the stuffing kicked out of them on a frequent basis by a Faunus, who happened to be the object of their scorn, was a good motivator to work out to avoid said stuffing-kickings.

After that, Team Juniper took to the field. Best-to-worst, were Pyrrha, Nora, Ren, and Jaune.

Pyrrha fought with sword-and-shield, and while the AK-130's movement speed exceeded her own, her skill exceeded its-own, and she handily won after disarming it… then dis-shielding it, and then kicking it over before placing a knee to its stomach and placing the point of her rifle to its visor, Glynda calling the match if only to save expensive hardware. Re-attaching arms was a simple thing, but re-wiring the CPU and other sensors was not, and the blond always got bitched-at by the tech department for any repairs to needlessly-violent destruction they had to repair.

Nora, as usual, went in with hammer swinging. The machine tried to block with its shield, and while it admirably held its ground, the moment it changed from a defensive to an offensive stance, it received a grenade-assisted hammer blow to the chest. The AK-130 did not come back down for several seconds, and when it did, Glynda knew it would require a full overhaul.

Ren was more surgical in nature, using his Stormflower to pepper its shield with bullets as he strafed around in circles, slowly closing the gap between them. When it slashed at him with its sword, the teen redirected the attack with the blades on his automatic pistols before leaping over it and kicking it upside the head. The machine staggered as it re-oriented its gyroscope, but by the time it did, Ren had gotten inside its guard and handily decapitated it with a cross-slash.

After that, Jaune mustered his courage, and through unimaginable odds, managed to win the day by handily, looking totally badass as he-

"Ah ha! Hahaha! WAH HAHAHA! Man, I can't say that with a straight face!"

Dammit Deadpool! Here too?

"Hey, you're the one dragging your feet on Young Justice: The Hunter, and this totally isn't shameless self-advertisement or anything. When're you gonna write in me hunting down the MC like some kinda animal?"

Eventually! For the time being, stop messing with the narrative! Ahem, as I was narrating…

Jaune's fight was… less-than-less-than spectacular. He rushed headlong at the machine, screaming what they assumed he assumed to be a manly battle-cry, and brought his sword down only to meet a shield. Jaune fervently attacked, trying to strafe it, but none of his attacks could bypass the kite shield, the Training Android almost lazily swatting aside sword strikes with its own sword. Jaune exhausted himself pretty quickly, and got a shield bash in the face that sent him tumbling across the ground. Glynda looked like she was contemplating whether or not to lower the difficulty setting even further, but instead opted to leave things as they were, letting the Training Android attack as it was. When the blond's Aura reached the 50% benchmark, the machine stopped and stepped back. Jaune thought this an opportunity to attack, but a slight telekinetic nudge from her riding crop sent Jaune tumbling to the ground, sword and shield flying out of his hand.

"Mr. Arc," Glynda said walking up to him. "If you wish to try again, I can lower the difficulty setting even further. However, know that unless you improve your… abilities," she said trying to find the proper word for… whatever it was the blond had been doing. "You will only drag your team down in the Vytal Festival. Worse over, someone could get killed someday. Also, you will not receive full points for your final in this class."

Jaune of course wilted under the woman's gaze and words, all of Cardinal, and Jack, were laughing at his poor showing. Pyrrha, Ren, Blake, and Yang were all neutral, while Ruby and Nora encouraged him from the sidelines. Weiss on the other hand was totally nonplussed by the results of the one-sided battle. Deciding to get back up and try again, Glynda lowered the Combat Androids' setting to the lowest difficulty level, but even then, Jaune barely passed the first part of the test, Cardin in particular laughing at his sweat-drenched expression of fatigue.

After that came Team Ruby, Jack's surname taking up the middle initial of RWBBY in the fully-abbreviated team name, that did not require any changing. Ruby of course happily explained the change to her instructor, but made the mistake of saying that Jack was like the filling for a Ruby & Weiss and Blake & Yang sandwich, completely missing the connotations those words had. Yang laughed it off, Blake only coughed nervously, while Weiss sputtered in outright denial.

Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, the fighting began.

Ruby, with a manic glee rivaling Nora's, punched a golf ball-sized hole through her respective Training Android, shield and all, and the shortest fight of the first round by far.

Weiss was more methodical, summoning a Glyph beneath the feet of her opponent and sending it soaring into the air before binding it in place with mini-Glyphs, then running along a line of Glyphs that boosted her speed. An empowered rapier strike to its neck ended the fight as swiftly as it began.

Blake began the fight by raising her cleaver, swinging low and sending a crescent of Aura-powered pressurized air at her opponent. The machine raised its shield and blocked, losing a few inches but still standing. Blake then closed the gap between them, putting it on the defensive with her bullets, only to be slashed in retaliation. However, the Blake that was slashed disappeared like a mirage, and the machine raised its shield above its head when the proximity sensors caught her presence up above it. Blake's fervent slashes with both weapons put the machine on the defensive. Leaping back, the Faunus shot her kama-gun forward before drawing it back, the blade sinking into the back of the Training Android's head and dropping it to its knees.

Yang opened up with a salvo of shotgun blasts, her opponent raising its shield and blocking, backpedaling a step for every two that Yang took. Once she was on top of him, she proceeded to beat the living daylights out of it, shield beginning to dent and buckle under the constant assault. The machine retaliated with a slash, and while Yang thought she dodged, a severed hair made her go red-eyed, and she proceeded to beat the robot with her fists and shotgun blasts until it was left as an unrecognizable heap on the ground. However, she only lost the tip of a single hair, so her "Rage Mode" only lasted a few seconds.

Not that she needed any more than five mind you.

Then came Jack's fight, which was done separately from the initial Team RWBY. The AK-130 set to fight him was slightly bulkier than the others with more armor plating, and a little bit taller. Likely for second-years to use. The sword and shield looked heavier, and given Jack's reputation, it showed that the thing didn't die almost immediately as it was fired at by buckshot and slugs. The Faunus then ran at his target, who made a wide swing which the Faunus pounced over. His arms grabbing it below the armpits, coiling his core, he threw the machine head over heels when his own feet touched the ground. The machine was disoriented, and Jack was able to close the gap once again. Slipping behind it, the Faunus grabbed the machine by its midsection before turning it over, leaping high into the air and spinning before placing his feet under its arms and its legs under his armpits, the spinning piledriver dropping the robot right onto its head and breaking it in half at the waist, its lights dimming at the moment of impact.

"Jack… What the hell was that?" Blake found herself asking as Jack stepped away from the mangled heap of robot he'd left half-buried in the middle of the field.

"That, my lazy and antisocial teammate, was the Spinning Tornado Piledriver. I learned it after getting caught in a cyclone while piledriving a bear," Jack answered.

" . . . That is the most awesome thing I've ever heard!" Nora whooped.

"I call bullshit," Weiss deadpanned. "There's no way that really happened."

"I also back-hold-wrestle bull sharks, but I don't see any of you calling bullshit on that," the Faunus said with a half-lidded gaze, the thinking ability of most there utterly destroyed as they tried to imagine how one would even go about doing something like that.

" . . . That is the second most awesome thing I've ever heard!" the perky orange-haired girl whooped.

The majority of Team DIRJ was still a few days away from a full recovery. As such, they would have to make up this final at a later day. Though even then, it'd still be a mad scramble to get caught up after their… incapacitation after week one.

*GIANT-SLAYER*

After a brief recess, even more AK-130s were rolled out onto the fields. These had a mix of arm-blades and SMGs mounted in place of their hands. Glynda went on to explain that in this scenario, they would simulate the fighting of multiple opponents, and while they would not be penalized for their decrease in Aura to the red zone, how well they fought in-proportion to the damage they received would be graded; essentially how much Aura they "exchanged" for each Kill, if-any. The numbers of course would not be consistent for all students, as some of their styles warranted greater numbers for proper testing than others, in addition to their respective fighting ability, while others took a "fight smarter not harder" approach.

Like before, the field remained triaged into quarters, and the members of each Team were arranged in the center where the four corners met, back-to-back-to-back-to-back with their respective Training Androids arranged across from them in a phalanx.

Strangely enough, Team Cardinal was slightly above unremarkable. Against his 15 opponents, Cardin's shockwave-inducing mace mowed through them really quickly, while his heavy plate armor lessened the strain on his Aura when it came to tanking shots. Russel used several Dust variants in his twin daggers, ranging from Red, Cyan, White, and even Yellow, using acrobatics and fast footwork to stay ahead of the 12 he'd been assigned to fight. While the bullets from Dove's Hallstatt sword didn't have a lot of stopping power, he proved to be plenty deft with his weapon of choice, even capable of using the recoil to redirect his sword slashes mid-swing, moving faster than his 14 opponents could react to. Sky used the length of his halberd to keep his 13 opponents at bay, and those he couldn't close the gap on, he used its rifle-like capabilities to fight, even though they didn't have nearly the same stopping power as the Crescent Rose.

After that came Team Juniper.

The Invincible (-Except-Against-Jack-Braxton-but-That's-too-Hard-to-Say-in-Conversation) Girl, Pyrrha Nikos, made an excellent showing against her staggering 25 opponents. As an opening move she threw out her shield and ricocheted it between the heads of nearly half her opposition, and were they Human, their teeth would've been rattling in their skulls before getting their brains blown out by her rifle. She then switched between sword and lance styles, the prior to move in, the latter to keep her foes at bay. She moved so swiftly and gracefully, it was almost as though the enemy's blows were moving around her, her acrobatic kicks and spins making full use of every muscle in her body, her ponytail and waist-cape fluttering behind her like in the wind.

The fact that Nora's 18 Training Androids were all bunched together in a phalanx from the get-go did not bode well for them, as it only took a few of her grenades to scatter their ranks, and as they picked themselves back up, hammer blows to the head with her own natural strength, regardless of her deceptively small frame, was enough to put any of them out of decommission after a single blow. Suffice it to say, none of Nora's sparring partners were going to be getting back up any time soon. Or ever, with how she went leg-breaking-nutso a couple minutes in.

Against his own 16, Ren was much more surgical about it, using speed and acrobatics to avoid the initial volley of gunfire, before moving in and severing limbs with the blades on his automatic pistols, before filling them with point-blank fire, his veritable ninja skills keeping him out of harms way. Like watching water flow around rocks in a river, his blows were deceptively powerful, utterly destroying his opponents, though a couple times he was interrupted during the spool-up for his more hard-hitting techniques. His teammates would later learn that he abstained from using his Flame Sword Guns for this test because using them put an enormous strain on his body, and the "ammo blocks" he used in each one were expensive unto themselves.

Jaune's fight… even against 10 Training Androids on the lowest difficulty setting if their sluggish-in-comparison movements were any sort of indicator, did not go as swimmingly as… any of his peers. He made a valiant effort of storming the initial volley of gunfire, shield soaking up the hits for him, but the moment he raised his sword to strike one down, screaming at the top of his lungs, a Training Android came at him from the side and slashed into his exposed flank, biting into his Aura. Things went steadily downhill from there as he proved completely incapable of fighting ten marginally-skilled opponents at once. His only saving grace was his rather large pool of Aura which kept him in the fight for a good while, but without defense to back him up, a Tank, that larger-than-average Auric reserve did not make. In fact all it did was drag out the inevitable until Glynda decided she'd seen enough and ordered the Androids to stand down.

"Oh gawd…" Jaune panted as he fell to his knees, felling like he was about to hack up a long with less than a quarter of his Aura remaining as the exercise finally came to an end… a good twenty minutes after the rest of his team. Those that stopped mid-strike returned to a standing and ready position, superficial damage on their armor plating, three robots taken down for the blond's troubles from the lucky hits he was able to score to vital areas.

The cheers that were sent his way largely lacked any form of enthusiasm. Like trying to start a car engine with a dead battery and no distributor cap, the whole of Teams Ruby and Juniper just couldn't find it in themselves to be sincere in their applause. Team Cardinal at the least was honest as they openly mocked and jeered at him for yet another hilarious butt-kicking-receiving, but what hurt the blond the most wasn't their laughs, but Weiss' utter dismissal of him as she lazily filed her nails, having stopped watching after nine minutes and eighteen seconds. Sure, Ruby and Nora tried to congratulate him, saying he did "a really good job", while Blake and Ren were good sports about it and offered him some applause, but their smiles didn't reach their eyes, not in the slightest. Off to the side, Jack held up four fingers while cryptically mouthing- "At a minimum."

It was one thing to survive in a forest full of Grimm with sheer dumb luck and a world-renowned young-champion holding his hand. It was quite another to fight under a dozen combat-ready Androids with zero backup.

That Cardin had been running him ragged the past week didn't help matters in the slightest, but it wasn't like he could complain. Well, not like he could complain anyway.

Once the latest batch of dead robots was cleared from the field, which in a show of irony was done by yet more Training Androids, it was finally Team RWBBY's turn to take to the stage, though like before, Jack would have to take his separately because the field couldn't be effectively triaged into fifths.

Ruby, against her 18 opponents, started strong by biting the blade of her scythe into the ground, cocking the bolt-action of her sniper rifle and took out three opponents within seconds, before disappearing in a blur of rose petals to avoid the retaliatory fire. The training she'd been doing with Jack had borne fruit, as through her new ability to manipulate the "Vectors" she projected from her body, was able to make sharp turns and bends with her Semblance she hadn't been able to do before, zig-zagging faster than the eye could follow. Coming to a stop, another twist of her "Vectors" enabled her to get the same kind of speed going with her scythe as she would firing it for the recoil, though since she was still new to it, she over-extended herself, and would've gotten hit by a blade-slash if she hadn't tucked into a ball and rolled away. By merit of her speed and the size of her weapon alone, it only took a single slash to each opponent before everything in her section of the field had been split in half, torsos and severed robot arms scattered throughout the field.

Weiss' fighting style, less hard-hitting and more surgical in nature than her peers', warranted a headcount of 15 Training Androids. Stabbing her rapier into the ground, a pillar of ice rose in front of her, blocking the opening volley quite handily. Her blade alight with Red Dust, she leaped into the air before doling a series of horizontal slashes that melted lines of ice through as she fell. Blade then becoming alight with White Dust, the now-concussive force of her weapon's swings sent the slabs of ice sailing through the air, some of her opponents crushed while others were able to combat roll out of the way. Racing along a line of Glyphs, her blade became alight with Gold Dust, and in a deft swing, a thin whip of lightning crashed through all her remaining opposition in a wide arc, their lights sparking and paralyzing them as she leapt up and "touched" each of them through the necks, dropping them where they stood.

Blake, set up against 17 Training Androids, rushed forward before sending the sickle part of her Gambol Shroud screaming through the air, the whirling blade taking one of their heads off before they managed to return fire. Blake picked up the pace, strafing her opponents and occasionally boosting her speed with a Shadow. Suddenly veering right and closing the gap, she decapitated another one with her cleaver before snapping her sickle out and sending it flying, yanking it off its feet and spinning it around before throwing it into a row of Training Androids, the black-haired beauty running straight at her enemies and leaping above their heads, her cleaver extended as she split their heads in half down the middle like a black-and-purple buzzsaw. Using her pistol to quickly pick off the SMG-wielding units with headshots amidst acrobatics, she then attached her cleaver to her pistol, and in a new one she'd been working out since fighting Jack, whipped out her cleaver in wide arcs with her ribbon like a kusari-fundo, the weight of her heavy-hitting weapon, while unwieldy at first, cleaving through enemies like butter once she got some momentum going at-range.

Yang's first move against her 26 opponents was to blast her shot-gauntlets at the ground, launching her into the air, the sun's rays causing her hair to glow an even brighter shade of gold before she descended from on high, the force of her first impact causing the ground to ripple sending Training Androids stumbling left and right. Her ammo coated in Yellow Dust, she sprayed the enemies nearest her with a flurry of buckshot rounds, the granules dug into their armor glowing bright yellow before suddenly exploding, scattering armor, servos, and circuitry in all directions. Nearly half her opposition snuffed out by the rapid-fire barrage of gunshots, the busty girl ejected her Ember Celica's shells before loading in new belts with a flourish, the carousel magazine locking over the rounds before she began firing White Dust slugs from her knuckles, each Dust round exploding with the concussive force equivalent to a speeding truck. After one of them thought it was a good idea to mess with her hair… let's just say their warranty ran out really quickly.

"Is it wrong that I'm kinda turned on right now?" Nora asked putting a finger to her chin as she watched Yang rip out an Android's leg out of the socket before beating it to death over the head with it.

"I'm… unsure what to say?" Pyrrha said as she watched the blond repeatedly punch another Android where its genitals would be. She then grabbed its shoulders before kneeing it in the face, its head sent flying clean off.

"Nora, if it makes you feel any less-weird about your arousal, I have a raaaging boner right now," Jack said without an ounce of shame as Yang broke another one in half over her knee.

"You're certainly… honest about what turns you on," Ren said stepping away from the Faunus.

"Ooh! Ooh! Does that mean I have a lady-boner?" Nora asked, also without an ounce of shame.

"Sure, why not," the Faunus said with a shrug while others around them blushed.

"Sweet! We can be boner-buddies together!" the orange-haired girl said with a grin as she threw an arm over his shoulders.

"If you were a dude, I'd have to say 'No homo'," the Faunus said as he found himself cheek-to-cheek with the potentially-psychotic hammer-wielding girl.

"-and that!" Yang growled red-eyed as she punched out the last robot's lights, her arm impaled through the Android's face and sticking out the back of its head.

"Well… That was a thing," Blake said as she watched Yang rip her arm free, a CPU held in her hand before she dropped it like a mic.

"So, did you talk about anything interesting while we fought?" Weiss asked.

"No!" Pyrrha and Ren both shouted red-faced, while Nora and Jack looked thick as thieves.

"Ooh! Looks like the next fight's coming up!" Ruby whooped as another batch of Androids hopped out the back of a truck.

"Jack…" Glynda said getting the Faunus' attention. "I hope you'll find the current number of opposition to be… adequate," she stated as a grand total of thirty Training Androids marched into the field. That was five more than Pyrrha's, and unlike her, his weapon barely transformed. Of course, given his whole body was a weapon… "While I'm sure you think you could handle more, thirty is the upper-limit for a single student."

"Oh don't worry about a thing Professor," Jack said with a smile, the animosity he once held for her before seemingly forgotten. "Thirty will be plenty enough for me to spread my wings," he said as he cracked his knuckles.

"Is that why you're abstaining from using your weapon this time around?" the blond-haired professor asked, noticing Nora cradling "The Ripper" in her arms like it were a child.

"Glynda, sometimes you just gotta go for style points. Hoo-ah."

"There there, Rippy. Mommy's here. Killing-time soon~" Nora cooed as she stroked the axe in her arms.

Like that wasn't disturbing in the slightest.

"I… see…" the professor returned in the face of the Faunus'… enthusiasm at unarmed combat. She also worried about Nora's enthusiasm, but that wasn't important right now. Anyway, Jack didn't lack for confidence or skill at least. Not like that one boy whose presence she questioned more than ever after having to use the lowest settings ever since they started using Training Androids with the freshman class. It really was the only way to create completely unbiased opposition as a testbed for student's skills.

Once Jack had taken to the field, his arms hung loosely at his sides, fingers curling and uncurling as a bird suddenly screeched from up above. A tone like flute music sounded out of nowhere, a tumbleweed of all things rolled across the ground between them. It seemed that based on their elevated difficulty setting, Jack's batch of Training Androids were waiting for him to make the first move.

"True pain isn't something that runs through the body. It is something that pierces the heart, and constricts it without limit," Jack muttered to himself like a mantra, only Yang able to connect words to the movements of his lips. "Thirty-Percent Full-Cowl!" he suddenly roared, his skin gaining a reddish tint as a crimson flame-like aura exploded from his body, dirt and grass scattering in all directions as his muscles bulged and his power spiked.

Cue One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 OST – Battle at the Speed of Sound

The AK-130s recognizing the sudden spike in their target's Aura, those with the appropriate firepower leveled their SMGs at him and fired, a veritable wall of bullets sailing towards him. Jack bent his knees, the heels of his feet rising from the ground before he suddenly shot forward, a loud *BOOM* echoing through the air as the sudden burst of speed scattered the bullets away from him. Drawing his right arm back, he lunged forward at the center of the opposing formation with a powerful right straight, a loud *CRASH* ringing through the air as the first Android's head was punched clean off its shoulders, crumpled like a tin can. He then reached out and grabbed the Androids closest to him and slammed their heads together, a geyser of hardware and hydraulic fluid spewing into the air from the impact.

Another Android with SMGs took aim at him from behind, but the Faunus back-flipped over the shots, landing behind his attacker. Before it could turn to face him, Jack grabbed its wrists from behind before planting a sandaled foot on its back, ripping the arms free before rounding on the two blade-wielding Androids behind them and bashing one apiece, the bludgeons utterly destroyed, while the Androids' heads flew clean off. Cartwheeling to the side as gunshots flew through the air where he once stood, the Faunus zig-zagged toward his next target, weaving around gunshots before front-flipping through the air in a tight ball, uncoiling at the last moment for a devastating double-kick that caused the Android's insides to spew out its back. Kicking off of what was left of the gun-wielding Android, arms across his chest, the Faunus' claws popped before he slashed out, two quartets of air blades flung from his claws as they wrent the air in front of themselves, splitting four unfortunate robots into fifths.

Their remains tumbling to the ground, three blade-wielding Androids ran at him from all angles, ready to uncross their blades at him. A dark glint shining off his fangs as he smirked, Jack stood his ground with his arms extended, whirling dizzying at the last moment with a spinning clothesline double-lariat, his fists and forearms causing metal plating to bend and buckle under the force of the blows, the speed of the movement creating a momentary vacuum that juggled his opponents before scattering them in mangled heaps that, were they human, they'd have been dead before they hit the ground.

Bullets screaming toward him, the Faunus launched himself off the ground before kicking off the air, spinning in the air before slamming into a pair of gun-wielding Androids that happened to be standing too close together with a spread-eagle body splash. Bouncing off the ground from the recoil, a blade-wielding Android rushed at him, Jack smacking the blades aside before leaping up onto its shoulders and wrenching its head from its shoulders, tossing it into the air before bicycle-kicking it over his head and into the faceplate of another blade-wielding Android that tried coming up from behind him.

Shifting his feet on the ground, he was off in a shot via Shundo, and in a move taken right from Ruby's own playbook, he began spinning in a corkscrew to the point he was nothing but a blur of color. The difference however was that Jack had his arms crossed ahead of himself, the sun's light glinting off of his black claws as he drilled through three gun-wielding and two blade-wielding Androids, the lot of them split in half and their bifurcated pieces scattered by the gale-force winds. A veritable deluge of parts and hydraulic fluid followed

The next wave consisted of two blade-wielding Androids zig-zagging around one another as they made their way towards him, the last four SMG-wielding machines strafing them and firing at him. Jack ran toward the blade-wielding machines, ducking and weaving around sidelong shots with the grace of a feline dodging automatic gunfire, wrapping his claws hands around the backs of their necks and using them as meatshields the moment he got close. Weathering the storm of rounds that he failed to block, once the torrent of gunfire ended, he delivered powerful slash attacks that bifurcated his mechanical adversaries, turning the two into quarters before chucking each piece at the remaining Androids at such force they looked like Siamese twins gone horribly wrong.

That only left one final blade-wielding Android that rushed him from behind in a full clip, and in a move that surprised everyone, the Faunus whirled on his opponent and bit the opposing blade. As the Android recoiled in what could only be the mechanical equivalent to shock, pieces of its arm blade clattering to the ground, Jack stepped into its guard and kicked it in the knee, breaking its leg backwards before karate-chopping it over the head with such force, its head was crammed into its own torso.

And all of this happened in less than two minutes.

OST END

The last Android falling to its knees, Jack's fiery aura dissipated and he slouched over, hands on his knees as he caught his breath. His muscles burned and his bones ached, but the smile on his face was unmistakable; it'd been way too long since he'd violently dismembered something, even if it was only a bunch of training Androids. Off to the side, everyone was slowly picking up their jaws from the ground as they stared at the mangled and maimed remains of over two-dozen training Androids, the ground stained with blood-like hydraulic fluid. The place looked like a movie set from one of those post-apocalyptic flicks where humans would fight armies of robots.

"Is anyone else turned on right now, or is it just me?" Yang found herself asking out loud as she tugged at her collar, the heiress off to her right retching slightly at the blond's flushed expression as she fanned herself. Ruby had stars in her eyes, particularly when he used her "Ruby Rocket" with his own Jack-brand twist, while Blake coughed awkwardly.

"I liked it when he broke that one's leg," Nora said with a chipper smile.

"Nora, behave," Ren told his longtime friend. Off to the side, Pyrrha closed Jaune's gaping mouth if only so bugs wouldn't get in. As the cleaning crews moved in to sweep up the carnage, the red-heads thoughts wandered.

'Jack stated at the fight's start that he was using "thirty percent". If that was roughly a third of his full power, and he came out with barely a scratch on him, that just begs the question…' Pyrrha thought to herself as Jack walked up the hill to rejoin the others. 'How strong is he at full-tilt, when he isn't holding anything back?' she thought as Ruby ran up to him and handed him a towel, excitedly pestering him with questions while Yang threw an arm over his shoulders and congratulated him on the major skidplate-kicking he'd just dished out. 'Wait a minute…' the red-head thought as she drank in the Faunus' appearance. 'Jack never removed his weights!' she realized after a few seconds, eyes widening at the revelation. 'Weighed down with nearly two-hundred pounds of extra weight and he can still move like that… Just what kind of training did he put himself through?' she thought as she remembered how effortlessly he moved through the air and across the ground, and wondered just how much damage he could squeeze out of that "thirty percent" without his weights.

While she hated being objectified, both in aesthetic and athletic capacities, she couldn't help but admire (read: ogle) his muscular build. The way they rippled as he moved, the way they coiled and flexed as he put them to work, the sheer power that radiated off him as he fought. She marveled at the countless hours he must've spent every day in his youth to get that strong, and wondered if he'd share some of his tips with her.

And then… there was Jaune.

Her feelings for him hadn't changed, even after that ground-breaking revelation the week prior. They were just… being tested right now. Sure, he was kind and honest and sincere in his efforts, but like Jack had said, it didn't change the fact that he'd lied his way into Beacon, and taken away someone else's future for the sake of his own hubris. And when you compare his musculature to Jack's, there was no comparison. Sure, he was tall and he had muscle on him, but he possessed neither the strength nor flexibility Jack seemed to possess in spades. Not to mention the confidence, which Team Cardinal seemed to have sucked out of the blond in recent days.

Thinking back to Jack, it was just so… difficult at times to approach him, so all she really knew about him was second-hand from watching Team Ruby's interactions with the older teen. She guessed that his motivation for getting strong was firmly built upon the desire to avenge his mother and sister who, as he so vocally described, had been violently murdered by racist humans simply "because". His thoughts on the matter bordered on homicidal, and the red-head shuddered to imagine the mental modality of any hypothetical offspring between himself and Nora (who was still cradling and stroking "Rippy" like a child), but his family was murdered, right in front of him! She could give him a little leeway on that, because if her mother, or even a sibling had been murdered in cold blood, there was no knowing how far she'd be pushed.

And then there was the time after the fact. He said he spent "a year" in Skyrim, one of the most inhospitable continents on all of Remnant. Simply living there was a challenge unto itself, so at the minimum, the monochrome-haired Faunus could probably handle temperature extremes in a way none of them could even touch. And then there was what she learned from Weiss during their chats in the library as they studied for finals. In addition to being a Bishoku-ya, which was made painfully obvious by the smell of cherries coming out of Ruby's room that morning before breakfast, there was also the fact that he was a Sweeper who if stories were to be taken even with a grain of salt, went after B-Rank criminals with the intent to capture them alive, something arguably more difficult than the work of a Bounty Hunter, which was essentially just a glorified term for hitman for criminals that jumped on their bail. He also didn't go to a formal combat academy, so the possibility existed that his fighting experience alone simply eclipsed those of formally-schooled students to the point that a formal education wasn't even a factor. Those that lived in the Frontier did tend to be stronger than those "coddled" within the safety of their own Kingdoms as Ozpin had so plainly put it during his visit to her hospital room.

Redirecting her thoughts to her blond teammate, who was being made to play water boy to Cardin and his flunkies, despite being only a few feet away from the water cooler. Most would think that whatever Cardin had on him, which she suspected her fellow red-head had overheard as well, and what the blond was being made to do, would be "punishment enough". However, Pyrrha worked really hard to get into Beacon, so she could understand some of Jack's ire when thinking that someone grossly unqualified simply waltzed their way in right from under everyone's noses without putting in an equivalent amount of effort and hard work. She wasn't sure how much would be "enough", or what could even be done in this situation, but even if she was being a hopeless romantic, star-struck by the first guy who treated her like a normal girl, unimpressed by the glitz and glamour that was becoming of a celebrity lifestyle with sporting and merchandise deals, she wanted to think that he'd be able to rise above this hurdle and become a better person for it.

'I'll give Jaune a little more time… He at least deserves that much,' Pyrrha thought as she rejoined her team.

"Well, that was fun," Jack said wiping some blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "What's next?"

*GIANT-SLAYER*

After the cleaning crews took to the field to pick up what remained of the Androids sent to the slaughterhouse, Glyna ushered everyone back into the arena where they normally conducted classes. Some were exhausted, others were dead tired, while others had worked up a good sweat, and they welcomed the transition from the hot outdoors to the cool climate-controlled indoors.

"Alright, students. All of your final evaluations for this class have been tabulated, and your report cards will be out in a few days. However, don't think that just because most of you passed this class with flying colors, that you get to relax just yet. You still have three finals and a fieldtrip tomorrow, and the Vytal Festival is only a few months away, so I don't want to see any of you slacking off," Glynda lectured. "That being the case, there's just enough time leftover for one final exhibition match, which will be decided by the student in this class with the greatest disparity between win/loss ratio," she said looking down at her scroll, the students up in the stands wondering who was going to fight now. "…Jack Braxton, please come down," Glynda announced after a minute, the Faunus' eyebrow raising. "In the end, it came down between yourself and Pyrrha Nikos, but you had two points more than her in your GPA."

"Congratulations," Pyrrha replied looking over her shoulder with a smile.

"Hey, like Glynda said, there were only two points separating it. It could've very well been you called down," Jack replied with a smile as he got up from his seat, vaulting over the railing before hopping onto the stage. "So… Will the results of this exhibition match affect my final grade or what?"

"No. It's just in good fun," Glynda said shaking her head.

"Alright… Well… How does that work?"

"Simply put, you will have completely uninhibited choice over any single or group of individuals you wish to face in combat," Glynda answered. "It could be a single individual, a single individual from each team, a team as a whole, or even all teams if you're so inclined."

"I'm compelled to ask why," Jack stated.

"This is mostly done so that no questions between potential rivals remain unanswered," the blond replied. "Anyone in this room is fair game. Your call. Like I said, this is an exhibition match, and the results won't affect yours or anyone else's grades in the slightest."

"Hmmm…" Jack hummed as he raised his finger to the stands, his arm panning side to side at the scattered Teams. "I'll… piiick…" he hummed as he passed RWBY, JNPR, and CRDN, the latter of which threw themselves to the ground like they were dodging a sniper's laser sight. "You," he said pointing directly in front of him, gasps of shock sounding through the classroom as the end of his finger pointed directly at Professor Goodwitch's impressive bosom.

"Excuse me?" the woman asked with a raised eyebrow, wondering if she heard him correctly.

"I'll. Pick. You," Jack repeated, jabbing his extended finger at her with each word. "You said anyone in this room is fair game, and I pick you."

"When I said you had your pick of anyone in the room, I didn't mean-"

"Huh, waddya know," Jack cut her off. "A Human that can't keep their word as soon as things don't go their way. Typical Human nature," he huffed, once-forgotten animosity returning to his tone. "Then again, it's not like I should be surprised or anything. Human history is filled with making promises, and then breaking those promises five minutes later when they don't feel like keeping them anymore. Just like the Iron River Impasse at the start of the Faunus Rights Revolution."

" . . . Fine. If you want to fight me for this final exhibition match… that's fine," the woman bit out, angry at how she couldn't refute his claims. Faunus were promised equal rights after the last war, but most-everyone was dragging their feet with those equal rights formally-promised. Part of the reason that the White Fang had gotten so much traction. Especially since five years ago when they'd suddenly been emboldened to upheave the then-current leadership. The Iron River Impasse was especially bad because the Faunus at the time were promised a ceasefire, but when they were crossing the Iron River Bridge, they were instead attacked from both ends and systematically slaughtered down the middle.

"Great," Jack said with a smile as he began to crack his knuckles. "It's been a while since I've fought a strong opponent."

"Didn't you face Ms. Nikos a couple weeks ago?" the blond woman asked as she drew her riding crop from her boot.

"Pyrrha's skilled, that much can't be denied. But when it comes to raw stopping power, and I haven't really faced anyone quite on my level since coming here," Jack said as he did some stretches while the clock went down. "I guess I'd gotten spoiled on fighting real monsters before coming here, so that's why I asked to fight you instead of one of my peers. They just don't have the same kind of bite I've grown accustomed to during my training."

"And who exactly would you be comparing yourself to?" Glynda wondered in all honesty. Jack was a registered Atlesian citizen by birth, but because most of his travels took him through the Frontier instead of conventional channels, travel records couldn't accurately extrapolate where he lived and trained, or for how long. That was why his background check had so many holes in it, yet still met the minimum requirements.

"My mother, my father, my godfather, my aunt and uncles, that kabuki guy my uncle knows, every person I trained under in Skyrim, anyone who ever took me under their wing out in the Frontier, Eva, my rival, Rory the Reaper..." the Faunus listed of until he ran out of fingers. "Basically everyone I've ever met whose ability outstrips mine in one if not all capacities," he answered singing their praises, those in the audience wondering what kind of monsters they were if Jack said their abilities outstripped his own. And how many could he have listed if he had more fingers? "Oh, and wild animals. Can't forget them. Wild animals made of succulent meat are way tougher than Grimm."

"I see," the woman hummed in contemplation, deciding to look into the Faunus' named associates and family at a later time. "If you're still tired from your previous fight, I'm willing to give you a brief recess. It's no problem at all."

"I just need a pick-me-up and I'll be good to go," Jack said patting down his pockets before finally finding what he was looking for. "Ah ha! Here we go!" he said holding up a familiar style of polished-silver flask, this one with a familiar skull/fist embossed on the front. When he exaggeratedly threw his head back to drink heavily from it, a spike of ire rose out of the pit of Glynda's stomach as she was immediately reminded of a certain someone she hated for deeply professional and-completely-non-personal reasons. However, when she caught sight of the red juice trickling down the corner of his mouth, and the fragrant aroma that hit the air, she realized instead of alcohol, it was cherry juice. Hide & Cherreek if the pungent aroma was anything to go by. "Whoo! I feel that!" he whooped as he shook his head before stuffing the flask back into his pocket, his ears perked up as were his eyes. "Alright, let's get this party started!" the Faunus whooped as he got into a fighting stance, a grin on his face as he bounced on his heels, the final seconds of the clock ticking down to the start. "Show me a good time, Professor!"

"I intend to," she barbed back, only to flush slightly as she realized how that could sound out-of-context.

"C'mon, Jack! Kick her ass!" Yang whooped.

"Represent!" Ruby cheered. "Give her the Ruby Rocket!"

Like that didn't sound dirty in the slightest.

"Fight wild!" Blake said waving a little Team RWBBY flag.

"Give her a good thrashing!" even Weiss found it in herself to cheer as the buzzer went off.

Cue – Blazblue OST – Rebellion – Ragna's Theme

As the match began, Glynda raised her guard. If Jack wanted to fight her so badly, she'd respect that wish, and give him the fight he asked for. Tightening her grip on her riding crop, waiting for an attack, instead of moving straight into an offensive, Jack closed his eyes and deeply exhaled, before slowly opening his eyes, displaying a completely vacant look on his face. Like the lights were on but nobody was home.

His hands pushing down in front of him as he exhaled, his left hand suddenly came up and around in a circular motion, moving down and then back up across the right side of his body, his index and middle fingers extended. That same arm moving up and over his head, his right arm went across his body in a similar circular motion, like-fingers extended as well.

'Those movements…' the woman thought as she observed the circular motions he made with his arms. 'They could be some kind of distraction, or-'

Jack suddenly brought his fingertips together, and the hairs on the back of her neck beginning to stand on end, Glynda threw out her weapon, a spinning purple Glyph appearing before her as Jack extended his left arm forward and the other back. At the moment his arms fully extended, a discharge of blood-red lightning leaped from his fingertips, slamming into her barrier faster than the eye could follow. The woman's brow twitching as blood-red light spilled across her barrier in front of her, she felt her Aura steadily going down until he attack abated. She felt a chunk of her Aura had vanished. Not a big chunk. But a chunk nonetheless, finding herself with 91% left, while the attack had cost Jack twelve percent of his own.

Glynda didn't have long to contemplate the exact nature of how the Faunus threw a bolt of lightning from his fingertips, because a moment and he was running towards her, fists in front of his face and his elbows out leaving his center wide open. Before she could think of why he was approaching her so openly, he suddenly stuck up his thumbs, and in a move that confused her even further jabbed them into his armpits betwen the Bicep and Triceps Brachii. Whatever he did must've hit a set of pressure points, because his muscles suddenly swelled within his sleeves, even without the aid of his Semblance. The right corkscrew that followed hit her crossed arms, a great deal of weight behind the blow as she was sent skidding back, arms rattling. Seeing him coming in with a left, she raised another Glyph in front of herself, a deafening *THUD* ringing out as his blow struck home. That one blow soon turned into many as he unleashed a blitzing of blows upon her guard, dozens of blows raining with the force of a jackhammer and slowly whittling her Aura down.

*Crack*

Green eyes widened as Jack's continued rain of blows began to make cracks in the normally immaterial barrier. As one crack turned to two, and two into four, the professor realized just why Jack's blows were doling out such force. It was his weights! The Faunus was still wearing them, yet despite the extra fifty pounds on each arm, he was still able to rain blows with that much ferocity. It took her only a few seconds to realize that whatever form of Knocking he'd used on his arms, had radically increased the flow of blood and therefore oxygen to the muscle fibers all throughout his arm, though by the heavy breaths passing his lips, this was taking its strain on him as much as it was her.

"Don't quit on me now Goodwitch!" Jack said as the strength of her barrier reached a critical juncture. "I'm just... getting... started!" he shouted as he leaped into the air and twisted his body, a powerful heel kick shattering the barrier completely before that foot kicked off the air and he roundhouse kicked with his other leg, Glynda crossing her arms at her ribs and blocking a hit that would've broken ribs, her arms once again rattling as the added weight of Jack's weights added further power to the strike. Skidding back, Jack didn't ease up as he ran into her guard once again, the woman crossing her hands toward the ground and slowing down the force of an uppercut aimed at her chin, only for Jack to spin around and dish out a devastating corkscrew hook to her unguarded cheek, teeth rattling as the devastating hit sent her tumbling away. Wiping a bit of blood from where she bit her cheek, Glynda leveled a glare at her opponent as she flipped back onto her feet. "C'mon, teach! Flash me the goods!" Jack said running towards her, fists raised in a boxer's stance.

'I can't tell if making that sound dirty was his intention or not,' Glynda thought as she backpedaled, sacrificing smaller Glyphs to weather the storm of Jack's weighted blows as his brutal offense forced her onto the defense. The blows he'd been able to connect had each taken out chunks of her Aura, but she knew he couldn't take the offensive forever. His blows were beginning to slow, and he tire. Then again, that could've been a ruse to make her drop her guard.

Those suspicions proved to be correct as the Faunus shifted his feet before appearing behind her in a blur. Years of experience allowed her to feel the subtle shift in air pressure, and when Jack delivered a high roundhouse kick to her shoulder, Glynda was able to catch it, using his momentum against him to wrench his remaining foot from the ground before throwing him into the air. A burst of her Telekinesis sent the Faunus sailing even further, his back slamming into the barrier with a loud *WHAM*, bodily dropping to the floor.

"You know, I've been doing pretty much all the work here. It'd be nice if you put in a little effort too instead of just lying there," he said rushing at her.

'Okay, now I know he's doing that on purpose,' Glynda thought as she whipped out her riding crop. Charging her Aura, at the last moment she threw a telekinetic wall his way, the Faunus looking like he was suddenly struck by the fist of an invisible giant. Though thrown back, he spun in mid-air before scraping the ground with his claws, sparks dancing as he came to a stop before lunging at her again, a zig-zag of smaller Shundo allowing him to close the gap once again.

Sending a flurry of hooks, swings, and jabs her way, the teacher furrowed her brow as she timed telekinetic bursts in time with Jack's strikes, repelling each one and bringing the fight to a standstill. When he attempted to maneuver around her in a burst of speed, she was always ready for him, a burst of TK sent his way without even looking, or a grapple seizing his limb before bodily throwing him away with a Semblance-enhanced throw.

Another minute into the fight and the Faunus lunged at her, Ruby whooping out loud as he began to spin, a veritable blur of color as he drilled through the air towards her. Throwing her riding crop out, the Faunus' forward momentum was halted, the air humming as a purple outline pulsed around him, his spinning eventually grinding to a halt before he found himself helplessly floating in mid-air. Bunching up his legs and kicking the air behind him, ringlets of smoke were discharged at his footfalls, pushing him forward before Glynda brought her crop down, the Faunus brought low with a deafening *THUD*, laid across the ground spread eagle. Digging his claws into the ground and pushing up against the invisible force pushing him down, Glynda's riding crop glowed brighter as she put more power into her Semblance, the purple outline around Jack's body intensifying as he was pushed down with ever greater force.

"Give up. You're not strong enough to get up from this, tired as you are," Glynda said as she continued to pin him to the ground with her Semblance. She didn't need to beat him, just put him in a position where he couldn't fight anymore. "You've already passed my class with flying colors. You've more than earned your A-plus," she tried to reason with him, both of their Auras steadily dropping as she continued to use her Semblance, and he tried to push back against her. This went on for several seconds, before his eyes suddenly widened, a smirk pulling at his face a moment later.

"Who said I needed to get up?" Jack asked as he extended his claws. Aura glowing around his hands, in a series of rapid arm movements that clawed at the ground in front of him, a cloud of dust was kicked up momentarily obscuring him from view. The sound of scraping and grunting visible from within the cloud of dust, by the time it settled, Glynda's opponent was no longer there. Only a mysterious hole that was burrowed into the floor.

"What?!" Glynda gawped in shock as her opponent disappeared from sight, her grip on him fading the moment she lost sight of him. Jack suddenly appeared again, bursting up through the ground a couple meters away, leaping up like some kind of land dolphin before digging into the ground, shimmying below the stage once again. The process repeated multiple times, Jack's comings and goings too quick and too random to stop him. Within a few minutes, around a dozen holes and tunnels had been dug underneath the arena, with Jack no longer in sight. 'This stage was made of reinforced concrete, yet he dug through it like soft dirt…' the woman analyzed as she tried to listen for any sign of her opponent. She sure as hell wasn't going to look down there. She'd seen enough cartoons as a child to know how that would play out; she did not want the end of a shotgun staring her in the face. 'He can't come at me from the sides or above, so all that's left is-

The next moment a pair of clawed hands burst through the ground, grabbing her by the ankles before harshly pulling her downward. However, instead of finding herself buried up to her neck like she assumed, she instead found herself stopped at waist level, or rather, just below waist level. Seeing how she was still above-ground, the woman planted her hands on the ground and tried to push herself up. However, whatever it was Jack had done, he had really wedged her in there.

Jack suddenly burst up from behind her, and at that moment she knew that she was at his mercy. However, instead of an attack when she was at her most-vulnerable, her opponent began rapping of all things.

"I like big butts and I cannot lie, you other brothers can't deny, that when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face you get sprung! Wanna pull up though, 'cause you notice that butt was stuffed. Deep in the jeans she's wearin', I'm hooked and I can't stop starin'~"

At this the woman's face lit up like a Christmas tree, suddenly feeling as though everyone's eyes were locked onto the very object that Jack was rapping about, which looked slightly more plump with how she was being squeezed by the hole she'd been dragged into. What made it even worse was that some of the guys in the audience were singing along, and looking over her shoulder, she could see that Jack was dancing in place, his waist up poking out of the hole. There weren't any rules against dancing because some moves were dance-like or used for coordination purposes, and she couldn't penalize him for singing because that too was used in combat, either for rhythm or concentration.

That being said, she wasn't about to take her butt being the butt of a really bad joke lying down.

Coating herself in a telekinetic barrier, she turned herself around, and face to face with her opponent, fisted the front of his hoodie before bringing them practically nose-to-nose.

"What's the matter?" she asked with a smirk as he clammed up. "Cat got your tongue?"

The reddening of his amber eyes showed saying that was a mistake.

"Don't you talk about my mother that way!" he growled angrily, Jack fisting the front of her shirt before rearing his head back and drawing her forward into a powerful headbutt, a loud *CRACK* ringing through the area as everyone winced at the skull-bash. The woman's ears ringing, Jack hauled her out of the ground before picking her up by the back of her clothes and cramming her headfirst into the first hole he'd dug. The next moment he put the part of her that was above-ground over his knee, subjecting her to many an open-handed slap, those in the stands gasping at the scandalous nature of what was going on, others wincing at the loud *SLAP* that accompanied each hit.

However, after the fifth slap, purple light began to radiate around Glynda and from the other holes, the room falling silent as the ground rumbled and an eerie hum filled the air. Jack scrambled away, and not a moment too soon, because the ground around Glynda exploded upward, taking massive chunks of the stage up with her. Massive chunks of cement floating around her like heavenly bodies, the woman's face was bright red, eyebrow twitching wildly, and whether her visage was caused by anger or embarrassment, was hard to determine.

"So… If I'd used your kinky riding crop back then instead of my hand, would you be more, or less angry?" Jack had the audacity to ask, a large chunk of cement larger than himself his answer. "Totally worth it!" he whooped as he dodged the chunk of rock, which burst into smaller chunks. Running the perimeter of what was left of the stage, an irate Glynda floating on high like some kind of vengeful goddess sent chunks of cement down at him like meteors, the Faunus dodging each one as their shadows told the story.

Eventually, Glynda seemed to calm, as instead of pelting the Faunus who had spanked her in front of her students with cement, she began to fill in the hole she'd upturned. By the time she was done, while the ground was noticeably uneven, all of the tunnels were now gone. Obviously, Jack's words and actions were meant to get under her skin, throw her off her game as he tried to get a rise out of her. It was the oldest trick in the book and she wasn't going to fall for it.

"So… You going to give me detention after this, or detention-detention?" Jack asked as he waggled his eyebrow, the woman bending and twisting her riding crop as she attempted to retain her calm. Technically, it wasn't against the rules to strike a person with an open-handed slap during Live Combat class, and there certainly weren't any restrictions against such attacks being dealt to the derriere either, anywhere, even below the belt was fair game, just frowned upon.

Like that one tiger Faunus who had a habit of naming fighting moves after heavenly bodies, the Sirius Butt-Kicking being one-such move.

'I can't let him get to me,' the woman told herself as she adjusted her glasses and breathed out through her nose. Even with Aura, her buttocks still ached, and she wondered whether or not certain restrictions would have to be put in place after this. He had literally put a teacher over his knee and given her a spanking. This was going to seriously impact her credibility among her students, and God forbid someone was recording just then.

"So… About that detention-detention?" Jack chuckled. "Will I be doing homework, or… something else?"

'Fuck it. He got to me.' "HAH!" she roared as she flung her riding crop out at him, a purple ripple of air in front of him sending the Faunus flying backwards.

"Alright! We're back in business!" he said with a grin as the air around him changed, past pretenses dropping as he kicked off the barrier and shot back at her, clawed hands held at his sides. Stomping down on the ground, jagged purple cracks spread across the floor from where Glynda's foot had fallen, the ground rumbling before chunks of concrete rose barring Jack's way. With clawed hands he slashed through all obstacles, clouds of dust rising up in his wake. Glynda ripped more chunks from the floor, and raising them high, brought her riding crop down, sending them plummeting to the ground with the force of a meteor shower. The entire room rumbled under the force of the barrage, an impressive cloud of dust kicked up.

The room falling silent, granules of cement clattered across what remained of the stage floor. Eventually, the dust began to settle, revealing a ruined-yet-again stage, and in the center of it stood her opponent. Jack's arms were crossed in front of himself, a metallic glint shining under the dust and granules that caked most of his form, a veritable rock garden of concrete and cement at his feet. A moment later and he released the breath he'd been holding, coughing dust out of his lungs as he caught his breath in the momentary lapse of fighting.

"My turn," Jack said ominously as he widened his stance.

Holding both arms forward, his left arm was above his right, the back of his left hand facing up, while the back of the right was facing down. Glynda, on her guard for whatever new trick Jack might throw her way, was prepared for when Jack reappeared behind her, but not when he zipped around her, appearing and disappearing within arms-reach of her person multiple times. At the moment her eyes lost track of him, he suddenly appeared right in front of her, arms held in the same posture and knuckles ghosting her torso.

Amber eyes widened in the stands as Jack's arms flinched forward in a single explosive movement like a piston, a high-pitched ringing-like whine sounding through the air as both Glynda and Jack were blown off their feet; Glynda from the column of air shooting past her body, while Jack was sent back from the recoil. Glynda's short flight through the air came to an end as her heels scraped across the ground, a small telekinetic burst behind stopping her before she hit the edge of the stage, a burst of pain ripping through her body and staining her teeth red as she coughed blood. Jack on the other hand was able to backflip in mid-air and come to a stop more-easily. However, while Glynda only coughed up a small amount of blood and had remained standing, Jack had fallen to his hands and knees, vomiting a liter of the stuff onto the floor in front of him with a sickening *SPLAT*.

"Damn… Looks like I haven't grown," Jack muttered between ragged breaths as blood trickled down his arms, his sleeves up to the shoulder turning dark red as they became saturated. Ripping his sleeves away, revealed that a number of the scars across his arms had re-opened, rather violently at that, and that what wasn't bleeding had bruised an ugly shade of purple.

'Haven't grown?' Glynda repeated his words in her head as she wiped the blood from the corner of her lip, her insides feeling as though she'd been hit by a raging semi. 'Who on Remnant could he be comparing himself to that he'd think he hasn't grown? That hit could've killed anyone else.'

"Well…" Jack panted as blood began to dribble down his arms and onto the floor. "Seeing as how that backfired really badly, and we're both nearing our climax," he said as he grabbed the remains of his sleeves from the floor. "I guess I'd better wrap things up," he said as he shakily rose back to full height. Aura flowing out of his hands and into the bloodied cloth, a crimson colored mist began to rise from the detached sleeves, that which was stained by blood glowing a baleful red as the air around him grew cold. "Pain…" he muttered, so lowly that only Glynda could hear. "This is why I fight…" he chuckled darkly as his eyes snapped open, now glowing the same baleful red as his sleeves. "HRAAAAAGH!"

Crossing his arms over his shoulders before snapping them across his body with a roar, two large crescent blades reeking of blood screamed through the air towards her. Bringing up her riding crop and summoning an Auric barrier, the first blade was stopped easily. However, when the second collided with the first, it grew into a larger X-shaped blade, and sparks began dancing off her guard as Jack's own Auric construct ground against hers. From beyond the barrier, Glynda saw Jack cackling madly as he whipped with his bloodied sleeves more and more times like whips, blades large and small screaming through the air as they began to pound against her barrier. Some shattered, while others added to the X-shaped blade before her, forming a net of Aura mixed with blood if the smell was any indicator.

Just when it seemed like the net-like array of blades was finally going to dissipate against her barrier, Jack did something completely unexpected. Balling his bloodied sleeves into a ball, he lazily tossed it through the air, the red-stained cloth sailing through the air before it unfurled above her head, the two pieces of cloth landed atop her head with a wet *splat*. The coppery smell of blood filling her head as his blood ran down her hair and onto her shoulders, the woman subconsciously retched, and that single lapse in concentration was all that was needed for her guard to fall, the bladed net-like array ripping through her guard and splashing against her body, her clothing ripped to shreds while her Aura protected her body.

Ripping the bloodied tubes of cloth from her head as she wiped the blood away from her face with her sleeve, she saw her student clamp his left hand around his right wrist. His blood, instead of dripping onto the floor, instead began to move up, coating his right arm up to the bicep in a thin gilding of blood-colored armor that conformed to his every muscle and scar, reflecting a baleful red light as liquid filled with Aura hardened into semi-rigid hexagonal tiles.

A moment later and the ground at his feet exploded, right arm drawn back. The Faunus leaping into the air, while she didn't make the mistake of looking up into the lights, blood-stained bangs fell in front of her eyes, momentarily blinding her as Jack threw his right fist forward, a ringlet of air breaking in his fist's wake with a deafening *Boom* before a cloud of dust and dirt was kicked up once again, obscuring both fighters from view.

Seconds dragged on, but eventually the dust cleared. Glynda's eyes, which had shut in the wake of bloodied bangs, looked on to see a thin shaft of black metal interposed between herself and her opponent's knuckles. Jack's armor-laden fist stopped mid strike, Glynda's eyes panned to the right, seeing Ozpin standing by her side with his cane-sword in one hand, Beacon-issued mug in the other. Her opponent leaping backwards, a ragged breath tore its way past his lips as his right arm fell limp at his side, platelets of armor falling away before liquefying on the floor staining it red.

"You should be careful, Jack," Ozpin said as Jack let the last of his armor fall through his fingers. "An attack like that could really hurt someone."

And he wasn't talking about only Glynda. There was a lot of blood on the ground that wasn't hers.

"It's called Live Combat Class," Jack said with shaking legs as he fought to remain standing. "Hurting people's kinda the point."

"That may be the case, but you'd already lost the match before that final blow was struck," the silver-haired man said as he pointed to the scoreboard. Glynda's Aura read at 32%, while Jack's Aura had fallen to 23% at the last minute.

"Huh... Guess I never noticed," Jack panted out. "That was a good romp, teach. It hurt like hell, and I'm really tender, but I had a great time. I hope we can do this again sometime."

"Okay, now I know you're doing it on purpose," the woman leveled a sigh his way as she brushed her bangs from her face.

"Doing what on purpose?" Jack asked before a shit-eating grin pulled at his features. "Why Ms. Goodwitch, you naughty girl you. That's one dirty mind you have there if that's how you chose to interpret my words. Hehe-ow, it hurts to laugh," he said as he wavered on his feet.

"Jack!" Ruby cried out as she ran up to the stage. "Jack, are you okay?"

"He painted half the stage with his own blood! Of course he isn't okay!" Weiss said as she tiptoed around the stains on the ground.

"What could possibly drive you to do this to yourself," Blake said gesturing to the sorry state of his arms.

"We can grill into him later. Let's get him cleaned up before he gets infected," Yang said dragging him over to the edge of the ring and sitting him down. Opening the aid kit she brought from the locker room and dousing a cloth in alcohol, she shoved a pencil between his teeth before she began rubbing his right arm down, his teeth biting into the wood while Blake proceeded to put cream and bandages over the wound, Weiss and Ruby doing the same for the other.

"It's rewarding, isn't it?" Ozpin asked taking a sip from his mug as Glynda used her Telekinesis to get as much of the Faunus' blood off her body, hair, and clothes as she could. "Shaping the next generation I mean."

"I never taught him to fight to the extent he became a detriment to his own health," Glynda said as she watched the team in front of her grill their most-recent teammate. They weren't really angry, just concerned for his well-being. Treatment he never would've found in Team DIRJ now that she thought about it. "I doubt he's taken anything I've taught into consideration with the way he fights."

"He's had a lot of people hurt him in his past," Ozpin stated as the last of the scars on Jack's arms got covered up. "It's only natural he would fight that way."

"Yes, but still..." Glynda said fighting the urge to rub her sore bottom. 'It's as though he knew just how to make it sting the most...' she thought idly, a small blush forming on her cheeks as she remembered what it felt like to be treated that roughly by the opposite sex. Most men were too intimidated by her to even try anything, yet here was one of her own students, making her blush like a schoolgirl as he touched her in... places. "I'm not even sure what that was he used at the start," she said as Yang and Ruby pulled Jack's bandaged arms over their shoulders and dragged him out.

"If you're referring to his Auric Lightning, it's understandable you aren't immediately familiar with it. Techniques like that have faded into obscurity in recent decades, and few people still practice the old ways when point-and-fire weapons like guns are so much faster to learn and master." *Sip* "However, I didn't expect to see a practitioner of it at Beacon, let alone in this Kingdom. Moves like that you'd sooner associate with the Frontier in Mistral, or even Vacuo."

"Auric Lightning? Was it an Arte? I didn't see him use any Dust during those circular movements," Glynds stated thinking back on the fight. The recordings alone would need several playthroughs just so she could determine what to do with him when the Vytal Festival came around. After all, it wasn't like all of Team RWBBY could enter the 4v4 matches.

*Siiiip* "As you know, aura is divided into two halves; light and dark, positive and negative. However, much like the concept of Yin & Yang, the two are irrevocably tied to one another, one unable to exist without the other. Attempting to separate these energies creates an imbalance, a vacuum if you will. When those two opposing energies come crashing back together, as the light and dark constituents become whole once more, a force not unlike lightning is discharged," the man explained. "Spiritually, one has to embrace both their inner light and darkness wholeheartedly, meaning those who deny and are unable to accept their own negative aspects as truth cannot hope to use this technique. Mentally, it involves a complete absence of emotion and peace of mind. I imagine instead of meditating in the midst of battle, he merely used his Intuition as a shortcut. There's nothing wrong with that though, however, only those who have fought many battles can trust themselves wholeheartedly toward their body's own instinctual response to external stimuli, both tangible and untangible, as opposed to the use of conscious thought."

"That boy is entirely too skilled to merely be a freshman. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's sophomore-year at least," Glynda said with crossed arms, thinking back on how he'd filled his own blood with Aura and turned it into armor. A highly-advanced technique that was normally used to stem the flow of blood. "It's as though he's spent the past decade learning to fight and nothing else."

"Well, that boy is the Demon of Whitechapel. He's bound to have a few more moves under his belt than some of his peers," Ozpin told Glynda without changing his expression. In response to Ozpin's words, the woman blinked once, then twice, then thrice-over, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. No sound came out, unable to find the right words for half a minute.

" . . . Excuse my trespass," Glynda said after the words did come. Reaching over to the headmaster and taking the mug out of his hand, she put the rim of the cup to her lips before tilting her head back. A good mouthful later and she turned to the side, spiting it out with a loud- *FFFFfffft* "The Demon of Whitechapel!?" she cried as she uncharacteristically flipped out. "The Sweeper who left an entire Frontier town filled with rogues and ne'er-do-wells on the brink of death in less than a week?! Mr. Braxton is that Demon of Whitechapel!?"

"To be fair, he had help on that one, he didn't cause all that damage on his own. And it's not like any of them went past A-Rank. Mostly B-Rank with a single High-B that was well past his prime," Ozpin replied as he took the bug back, finding it now empty. "His work on the Mission Boards over the past couple of years is part of why I let him into this school, despite his lack of formal education in the field."

"Speaking of which, about Mr. Arc's records…" she said thinking back to the blond's admittedly poor showing of force.

"Mr. Arc's poor performance thus-far will catch up to him eventually," Ozpin said as he walked off. "Whether he overcomes this hurdle before him, or not, is up to him. For the time being, let us wait this out, see where the die falls."

"I can't help but feel you know something that I don't. About all those boys," she said pulling up the profiles of Jack Braxton, Jaune Arc, and Lie Ren on her Scroll. Unlike most of the male applicants that year, instead of needlessly fluffing their applications with accomplishments that meant very little, the three of them instead put the absolute minimum required for entry and nothing else. The problem with Jaune's records was that they were a bit stale, like someone had cut-and-paste other students' records together.

"If you wish to know more about your own pupils, open up to them. Be their friend," Ozpin suggested with a kind smile, thinking back to the time he first became a teacher, years before he became Headmaster.

And got to get rid of those god awful drapes in what was now his office.

"Maybe you could get away with something like that, but I can't exactly pull a young man under my tutelage aside without it looking suspicious," the woman huffed. "How the Council was willing to overlook you inducting Ms. Rose into this year's freshman class two years early is beyond me."

"Provide a little lip-service, and you can get them to do just about anything," the man said as the corners of his lips curved up in a mischievous smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

*GIANT-SLAYER*

The following evening, Jaune Arc… He was feeling… Well, he was not "Okay", as much as he would've denied it before.

Cardin didn't waste any time twisting the blond's arm with the oh-so-delicious blackmail he blurted out; of his own volition no less. After becoming the bully's bus boy for all three meals, he barely interacted with his own team outside class. And with all the homework and studying he was being made to do for Cardin, who had been sitting pretty for the past week while his gopher did all the heavy lifting, the blond was too-tired by the end of the day to even talk to his team.

Of course, the silence probably hurt more than any words that could've been exchanged. Every night when he entered the room, he'd look to Pyrrha, his partner, his friend, only to get the stink-eye from her before she turned away and excused herself to the bathroom. With how thought-provoking Jack's words were, it didn't take the blond too long to figure out that Pyrrha had somehow found out about his falsities as well, and decided to distance herself from him.

And how could he blame her? Despite his words being harsh and hurtful, everything Jack said was 100% true, and he had zero room to object. No matter what arguments, petty or otherwise he came up with, all of his reasoning would've been more lies piled on top of other lies. Everything he'd supposedly accomplished before coming to Beacon was a lie!

He didn't think about it at the time he handed in his (falsified) transcripts to the front desk, but not only was he stealing time and resources from the school, forcing Beacon to waste them on what was quintessentially a "lost cause", he also stole someone else's slot at coming to Beacon. For all he knew, it could've been a natural-born prodigy, or someone who cried and sweat and bled for three years non-stop in order to even qualify for Beacon… and he stole that chance away from them. And now that he thought about it, that meant that everyone who would've been saved by that one person, who rightfully earned their way into Beacon, was now put in harm's way because he effectively threw them under the bus for his own sense of glory. He, who wasn't even remotely qualified to shine Cardin's boots, let alone attend Beacon.

Which, by the way, he was also being made to do by Cardin.

And it wasn't like he could just back out of this either. Even if he did decide to turn himself in so the torment would end, "four dudes at a minimum from any position" be-damned, whatever punishment he had waiting for him, Cardin would make monumentally worse after losing his newest flunkie. His father, Henry Beaufort Winchester, who in olden days would've been a Bishop, had a seat on the Vale Council that had been held by the family for generations. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that whatever punishment the system eked out for him originally, Cardin would've gotten the system to triple it with a few pretty words to his father. And if that wasn't bad enough, Cardin's father was a graduate from Beacon, so the man could very well take this as a personal affront on all the effort he put in to get into Beacon all those years ago, and decide to make an example out of the floundering blond so no-one would ever think of doing what he did ever again.

And it wasn't just him that'd be feeling the heat. His entire family would be completely discredited by this scandal as well.

Every dream for the future his sisters had planned for themselves… If word of this got out, no-one would trust any of them, to do anything. It'd completely destroy them! His mother had, rightfully now that Jack's words echoed through his mind, expressed concerns and even doubts about him going to Beacon with his paltry skill-level. All of which he'd promptly ignored before going to the bad part of town with his life's savings so he could buy less-than-legal documents from a less-than-reputable individual for less-than-altruistic reasons.

And his father… His father would probably disown him!

Even if by some miracle he managed to squeeze by Cardin and his father, his father was a Beacon graduate as well. As a child the blond grew up on his father's stories about all the hard work he put into getting into Beacon, most of those stories accompanied by scars he got before having his Aura unlocked. It went without saying that his father more than earned his place at Beacon. And to find out that Jaune had essentially spit and trodden upon all that hard effort, dragging his family name through the mud in the process, a stain on their reputation that would never be removed, well… He'd be lucky if the man disowned him.

Almost every member of his family, other than "Little" Louise who god bless her soul, in all her innocence already saw Jaune as the hero he postured himself to be, had expressed doubts and concerns about him going to Beacon when he sprung it up on them weeks ago. And like a pig-headed ass he'd ignored all of them, thinking that he knew better! That they were wrong and he was right!

'Why… Why did I think lying my way into Beacon was going to be okay?' the blond thought to himself as he trudged his way back to his room from Cardin's place, having dropped off the last batch of schoolwork for the evening and shined his last set of boots. 'Why did I think that everyone was going to be cool with it?' he thought as he reached for the doorknob, Jack, and Cardin's, mocking laughter echoing through the insides of his skull. Waving his Scroll over the lock, he quietly cracked the door open-

"How come Jaune gets home so late?" Nora asked. Based on the sounds of creaking bed springs in the background, the excitable girl was probably jumping on her mattress. Again.

"He's become rather scarce since he started fraternizing with Cardin," Ren went on to say, the bona-fide ninja's words weighing heavily on him. And why wouldn't they? Ren managed to fight one of Beacon's top dogs to a standstill. And win! Come to think of it, did Jack bleed on all his strong opponents?

"That's weird… Doesn't he knew we have a field trip tomorrow? We need our rest!" she proclaimed as she landed loudly on her bedsprings.

"I'm sure our leader knows exactly what he's doing," Pyrrha bit out. Jaune didn't have to see her face to know that she was angry. Probably scowling.

"Mmmm… I guess so," Nora said, the blond hanging his head as he closed the door.

"Hey, Jaune!" Ruby said out-of-nowhere, the girl giggling at his startled reaction. "Long time, no see! Did you lock yourself out again?"

"Oh, uh, nope!" he said raising his Scroll and attempting to laugh. "Got it right here… Yeah…"

"So! Where have you been lately?" the girl asked innocently. If the blond didn't know any better, he'd have thought that Ruby was "Little" Louise's twin sister at times.

"I uh…" he said trying to come up with something, only to sigh and lower his head. "I messed up. I did something I really, really shouldn't have, and now Cardin has me on a leash, Jack is laughing at me behind my back, and Pyrrha won't even talk to me and…" he sighed heavily through his nose. "I'm starting to think coming to this school was a bad idea," he sighed as he pressed his back to the door and slid to the floor. "I'm a failure," he said in depression.

"Nope!"

"Nope?" he asked looking up at her in surprise.

"Nope! You're a leader now, Jaune. You're not allowed to be a failure."

"But… What if I'm a failure at being a leader?"

"Hmmm…" Ruby hummed as she tilted her head in thought for a moment. "Nope!"

"You know…" Jaune laughed out weakly as she joined him on the floor. "You're not the easiest person to talk to about this stuff."

"Nope!" Ruby said with a smile, Jaune leaning further into the door some more. "Jaune. Maybe you were a failure when you were a kid…" Jaune groaned and sunk lower to the floor. "And you might've even been a failure the first day we met…" she went on, groaning and sinking to the floor lower-still. "But you can't be one now. You know why?"

"Uhhh… Because…?"

"Because it's not just about you anymore. You've got a team now, Jaune. We both do! And if we fail, then we'll just be bringing them down with us," she said getting up from her seat, hands on her hips as she spoke. "We have to put our teammates first, and ourselves second. Your team deserves a great leader, and I think that can be you," she said walking over to the door. "Have a good night, Jaune!" she said going inside.

Ruminating over the younger girl's words, Jaune was suddenly filled with confidence. Pushing himself from the ground, facing the door, ready to face his team, and Pyrrha, just as he was about to turn the knob, his Scroll beeped in his pocket. Opening it up, he saw Cardin's contact number, a message playing for him.

"Hey! It's your good buddy Cardin! I know you've probably been busy with that Herbology project I gave you, buuuut… I'm gonna need you to go out and get me a bag of Rapier Wasps," the red-head had said, the blond gulping in the present. "And make sure they've got some really big stingers! It's important, so don't' screw this up!"

The Scroll closing, Jaune wearily hung his head, the surge of energy once flooding through his body and spirit screeching to a grinding halt as he turned away from the dorm. A minute later when he got outside, his Scroll rung again. The blond groaned, wondering what Cardin wanted now, only to be surprised when he saw it was Jack on the other end of the line. And on a video call to boot.

"Heya, Jaune! How's my favorite juvenile delinquent doing?"

"What do you want Jack?" Jaune groaned. The guy just loved rubbing salt in the wound, didn't he?

Oh wait, his mother and sister had been violently murdered. Of course he loved rubbing salt in people's wounds.

"Oh, just thought I'd give you a little something," Jack said as he fiddled with his Scroll on his own end. "You'll probably notice that I've sent you a nice sum of one-thousand Lien to your account," the Faunus said. Jaune opened up another window, and true to form, his account had one-thousand more Lien than it did a few minutes ago.

"Okay, but whyyyyy?" Jaune asked with a raised eyebrow, wondering just why he was handed one-thousand Lien. Sure, this was probably small-potatoes for a guy who got a hundred-thou at the beginning of the year, but still…

"Oh Jauney-boy, this is just basic insurance," the Faunus said. "Don't. Fuck. Me. Ever."

"I can guess why you grate on people's nerves sometimes," the blond muttered out. The smile and tilt of the Faunus' head he saw on the other end of the line did not inspire confidence in terms of his own future wellbeing.

"Glad you understand so well," Jack said with a smile. "Byyyyyyye…" he bid farewell super-fucking cryptically as the video on the other side slowly faded to black, before cutting out altogether.

'Oh god, I'm so fucking hosed,' Jaune whimpered to himself as he walked off to get Cardin's Rapier Wasps. The blond thought back to what he'd had for dinner that one fateful night, because he must've been high as a fucking kite to think that doing what he did to get into Beacon was a good idea.

It all seemed so perfect into his head. Lie his way into Beacon (for the greater good), catch up to his peers, become a big hero, pick up a cute girl in a dungeon somewhere, become high school (college?) sweethearts, graduate, get married, and do heroic things to tell the grand kids about. But now that he was really here, failing his team, whipping boy for his peers... When even the guy making those false transcripts began poking holes in your plan, it was probably a good idea to listen to him... which he didn't...

"How the hell will I even catch those fucking things," Jaune groaned as he headed for the edge of campus, remembering something about a nest of Rapier Wasps out by the soccer field.

Tomorrow was going to be hell, he just knew it. Still, at least things couldn't get any worse.

For all he knew he could be allergic to the stuff he was being made to get.

*GIANT-SLAYER*

OMAKE:

"Hey Jack?" Ruby said to him the moment he came back from that phone call he said he had to make.

"Yeah Ruby?" the Faunus asked as he sat on his bed.

"Level with me here," Ruby said as she slowly leaned towards him, their noses practically touching. "Are you a superhero?"

" . . . What?" Jack asked once he processed the question, Weiss parroting his statement while Blake looked up from her book, while the conversation-to-come had Yang's undivided attention.

"Are. You. A. Super. Hero?" the red-tipped brunette said in full seriousness, hands on her hips and cape fluttering in the wind from the cracked window.

" . . . Why do you ask?" Jack wondered with a raised eyebrow.

"You shot lightning out of your fingertips, and you didn't use Dust! What else am I supposed to think?!" Ruby asked exasperatedly as she flailed her arms above her head. "Waaaaait…" she hummed as she leaned towards him again, their noses literally touching now. "Was that…" she said looking from side to side, ignoring the other three spectators. "Magic?" she whispered as though she were discussing some big conspiracy. Weiss, Blake, and Yang all fell out of their respective beds in response to that outlandish statement.

"No, Ruby. That wasn't magic," Jack answered with a completely straight face.

"Then what even was that?" she asked. Her answer came when Jack leaned over the side of his bed and began fishing for something underneath. A couple seconds later and an old hard-cover book was tossed to her. "Bending the Elements within One's Self?" she asked reading the cover. The cover itself was an unassuming shade of brown, and on it was the silhouette of a man meditating, a ying-yang symbol set within his abdomen. "What's it about?"

"Spirituality mixed with martial arts," Jack answered.

"You had me at martial arts," Yang said taking a seat on Jack's bed.

"Can we just go to bed already?" Weiss asked. "Our written finals are tomorrow, on top of that trip to the Foreverfall Forest, and I want to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."

"That sounded really racist," Yang deadpanned.

"Just go to sleep," the heiress bit out. The lights going out a minute later, everyone crawled into bed, whatever exhaustion they felt after the day's activities lulling them into a blissful slumber, the end of the first semester right around the corner.

" . . . "

" . . . "

" . . . "

" . . . "

"Hey Jack?"

"What now Ruby?" Jack, and everyone else, groaned.

"What was that other thing you did? Was that magic? Or does that make you a superhero?"

"Those were Blood Artes. Now go to sleep or I'll hit you with my Knocking Gun."

"That sounded kinda dirty," Weiss blanched.

"How big is your Knocking Gun?" Yang asked cheekily.

"Play your cards right and you might find out," Jack replied with a grin that glinted off the moonlight.

"Just go to sleep," Blake yawned as Jack rolled over.

"And keep it in your pants," Weiss bit out.

"Why would Jack keep a gun in his pants?" Ruby asked innocently. "That seems like a safety hazard."

*GIANT-SLAYER*

Originally this chapter was going to be put AFTER the end of Jaunedice, but take place before with an "EXTRA" prefix in front of it. But then I realized that'd mess with the flow of the story too much, so I thought of a way for Glynda's final to take place before the others' (or Professor Peach's at the least), and I finally found a way.

With "How I Got These Scars" and the chapters leading up to it explaining a fairly large portion of Jack's backstory, I now feel more comfortable having Jack fighting someone on Glynda's level and winning; though just to be CLEAR, she WAS holding back a considerable margin, and there are damn good reasons Jack can't go 100% balls-to-the-wall, so it isn't like at-present he'd be able to win if she were going in for the kill too.

Most stories with OCs (if you can even CALL them that half the time, most of it they're just an already-established character with a new name and outfit slapped on) tend to make them too powerful from the get-go, or make them too-powerful too-quickly with a disproportionate amount of effort put in on their part. Since Jack's growth as a fighter has been cultivated through pretty much MOST of his life, the Killing Bites being his "crucible" that forged him into the individual he is today, I'm hoping that his rate of growth and now-current portrayed strength is believable.

And I'll state once again, Glynda was holding back. Glynda didn't want to hurt Jack too badly after the injuries he's accrued from Nora, Ren, and Weiss. Jack on the other hand fought (as) full-kilter (as he could) because he knew that if he didn't, he wouldn't be able to land a hit on her. Think of it like Team 7 against Kakashi. They were so radically outclassed that if they held back, they'd never be able to hit him. Like Level 1 Adventurers trying to fight a Level 50 Field Boss with Speed-Buffs.

Anyhow, in case I haven't said it before, I'll say it again: After Foreverfall, ALL-ORIGINAL CONTENT! WHOOOO!

It's heavily-implied in Volume 3 that the Vytal Festival takes place in the fall (ironic or unironic?), and that AFTER "The Fall", several months pass leading into winter of that year. I'm thus able to infer that the Vytal Festival was ORIGINALLY a harvest festival, and with commerce at its highest, illegal fighting tournaments became legal, and thus the Vytal Festival was born. Given several months are likely to have passed from the beginning of the year to the Vytal Festival, Glynda herself saying it would be "a few more months" until the Vytal Festival, it'll be quite a while until "The Stray" and "Black and White", with Volume 2 taking place just-after.

This means there's a lot of room in the narrative for character development.

How Volume 3 ended (as shocking as I assume it was for most people) may or may not influence how Giant-Slayer plays out in these regards. Even BEFORE "Battle of Beacon", I'd already had SOME idea of how I wanted things to play out, given how the Vytal Festival prior had been going. There are a LOT of new variables in this re-telling of Monty Oum's RWBY (may he be happily making web-animations for angels), so don't be surprised if things turn out slightly differently. I use the term "slightly" rather loosely, since I have no idea HOW MUCH I'll change things up. For all you know, things could be better, or much, MUCH worse.

Anyhow, I hope you continue to enjoy my work, and if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or even grievances, please don't hesitate to put them down below and hit the Send button.