A screen was projected in a darkened room.
"Monsters."
"Demons."
"Prowlers of the night."
With each title spoken by the mustached man, picture after picture of more and more monstrous Grimm were displayed from the crawling Creep to the flying Griffons, the ruin they brought to the scattered towns and villages that fell to their relentless onslaught, the wreckage of a failed battle against them in shattered weapons and tattered armor. More pictures of devastations were shown, going from primitive ancient drawing found preserved to modern photographs that captured every detail of the monsters in near nightmarish detail.
If one was faint hearted, the very images of the Grimm could be just as bad as them being right in front of you.
"Yes, the creatures of Grimm have many names but I merely refer to them as one: Prey. Haha!" Professor Port's booming laughter served to jolt some of the students who had been late risers and had chosen to doze off in his darkened classroom. The lights of the room turned back on at the press of a button on his Scroll. He set the device on his desk behind him before turning to face the class. "And you shall too! Upon graduating from this prestigious academy, you will find no Grimm ever enough to call itself a match for your strength! Of both the body and of the mind! Now, as I was saying: Vale, Vacuo, Atlas, and Mistral. These four Kingdoms serve as bastions of prosperity and security against the threat of the Grimm. Creatures that love nothing more than to tear down humanity and all we've accomplished. Yet the four Kingdoms prosper despite the tireless efforts of the Grimm. How do they do such a thing? By relying on Huntsmen and Huntresses trained here at Beacon and the other three academies. All of you sitting before me have decided to take on a formidable foe, one without equal, and one who will show no remorse on the fields of battle you will find yourselves on. This foe I speak of? It is the very world itself!"
Port's exuberance and boastful voice made the students stare at him.
Most had never heard the battle against the Grimm described as a fight against the world itself.
"The world will show no qualms to striking you when you are tired, when you are hungry, when you are already injured. It will drag your mangled body into the darkness and maul what's left!" Some students suffered a bout of nerves, others experiencing actual nausea as their minds painted a visceral image for them.
"Of course, that would happen only if I wasn't here." He folded his hands behind his back. "With my tutelage, you'll learn everything you need to know about every Grimm you'll face out in the wilds. From the ragged Geist to the savage Beringel. I cover it all." He chuckled. "Why I can recall a story I've told before: A young mustached Huntsman fresh out of the academy! Wanting to prove his worth to the world!"
Attention waned as Professor Port began one of his infamous stories, something the First Year students had been warned of but hadn't believed until this very moment. The dawning horror of some kept them attentive longer than others.
"…with only a mustache comb to combat the winged terror the Huntsman threw himself upon it with…"
Ruby did her best to take notes. When she wasn't sketching out upgrades to Crescent Rose, some practical and others simply outlandish flights of fancy, or just drawing out a weapon she had seen in general. It kept her awake at least. Weiss, seated next to her, noticed her efforts and could find nothing wrong with them so nodded in approval of her team leader. The Professor's story was rather outrageous and growing harder and harder to follow. She was making great effort in finding anything useful in what he was saying on her own, Ruby was spending her time productively at least. Unlike her other teammates.
"…with a great roar, the Ursa was upon him but didn't expect the nose hair trimmers he remembered dwelled in his back pocket…"
Yang gave no such effort from where she sat on the other side of Weiss, had propped her head up on her arms before rather blatantly falling asleep. Blake had at least entertained the idea of taking notes like her team leader before Port's story had begun to stretch beyond any aspect of believability, had led to her taking out a book to read while he prattled on and on.
"…not knowing how his foes had done so, the Huntsman fought to reach where his trusty slipper…"
Ruby glanced around the lecture hall and spotted JNPR further down the rows of seats. Nora was busy drawing something and showing it to Ren, Ruby could vaguely recognize something like a catapult that looked to be launching giant pancakes at syrup covered Grimm, Ren was gently trying to talk Nora out of whatever her explanation involved, Pyrrha's eyes were focused on Port but she didn't seem to be all there, and Jaune was avidly copying down everything Professor Port was saying, nodding along to it even.
"So, with his mustache comb once more in his pocket, the Huntsman set off to his village with his dreaded foe defeated at last. And thus I conclude my tale with a message: A true Huntsman must be honorable! A true Huntsman must be dependable! A true Huntsman must be strategic, well-educated, and wise!" Professor Port seemed finish, his eyes searching the students. More than a few had to be subtlety nudged awake by their seatmates, a few simply didn't bother and kept sleeping. An entire team seemed to be asleep against each other towards the back actually. "Who among you believe themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?"
"I do!" Jaune was smiling with his hand raised.
"Oh? Care to put that claim to the test?" Port rose an eyebrow and earned a nod from Jaune at the question. "Very well! Get changed into your combat gear. Your foe will be awaiting you here." At the push of a button on his Scroll, the back wall lowered and revealed a medium sized sparring arena. Placed at the opposite end of it from the class seating was a steel cage, the door the only thing holding back whatever Grimm let loose a roar from behind it.
"You got it!" Jaune happily rose from his seat, headed off to ready himself for whatever fight lied ahead.
He received more than a few stares at just how chipper he was.
"Students, feel free to converse among yourselves until he returns." Professor Port picked up his weapon from the desk. The combination of an ax and a blunderbuss drew eyes, Port's story and theatrics making most not even know the weapon had been there. "I have to go ready the prey."
He chuckled before he headed off into the arena he had revealed.
"OH! I can't wait for this!" Nora seemed to have decided to switch her focus from her doodles to the upcoming fight. "I haven't seen Jaune fight before! Is he good? Is he bad? How many of those swords can he use?" She turned to Pyrrha for answers. "Huh? You've got to tell me!" She grabbed the redhead, shook her in her seat. "Tell me all about it! Please! Pretty please? I need to know!"
A dazed Pyrrha was unable to answer any of Nora's current demands. Ren laid a hand on Nora's shoulder.
"Give her a moment." He managed to get her to let their teammate go, Pyrrha still dazed from just how enthusiastic Nora had gotten with her. "I'm sure our leader is more than capable of taking on whatever Grimm is inside that cage." His zen-like aura waned for a moment. "At least I hope he is."
"Jaune is a good fighter." Pyrrha kept an eye on Nora incase she lunged for her again. "He'll beat whatever Grimm Professor Port has in that cage."
The cage shook when Professor Port banged on it. The Grimm roared louder within, thrashed inside of its confinement.
'At least I hope.' Pyrrha didn't vocalize her worries.
Down below, Team RWBY was having a similar conversation.
"So…what can we expect from Mr. Swords?" Yang quizzed her sister for details.
"I didn't really see him in action any more than what you saw." Ruby looked lost for a moment. "He has Gravity Dust in his swords and they can combine. Depending on the Grimm, the difference maker could be either which one he uses or his Semblance. It makes him more durable than a lot of other people, lets him get back up from a hit. Not like yours Yang but it's definitely something he uses to his advantage." She shrugged in the end. "We'll just have to watch him and see how he does."
"Well, that's just boring." Yang sighed as she leaned back in her seat. "I was hoping you would tell me that was all a really big gun or something." She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. "If they're really all just sword, that's pretty boring."
"There is nothing wrong with a focus on swordsmanship." Weiss was surprised at the spark of indignation that came to her at Yang's comment. "Perhaps you should try and learn something from this fight. Being a hand-to-hand fighter, you're at a natural disadvantage against someone like him and should be taking notes."
"Nah." Yang waved away Weiss, drew out her Scroll. "I sparred with my uncle all the time back on Patch. I know how to fight." She selected her game of choice. "I'll mop the floor with Jaune if I ever needed to."
Weiss shook her head at Yang's dismissal but didn't disagree. If nothing else, Xiao-Long's skill shouldn't be underestimated.
Jaune stepped into the room sometime later, dressed in the same outfit he had used for Initiation, and stood across from whatever Grimm lied in the cage, Professor Port at the side of it. Poles rose out of the ground and created a barrier from Hard-Light Dust on the edge of the arena, would keep the Grimm and any errant shots from damaging the classroom at large.
"Go Jaune!" Nora shouted from up in her seat, Ren and Pyrrha's words of encouragement much more subdued compared to hers. Jaune smiled back at her, Pyrrha, and Ren before he focused on the fight at hand.
"Step forward for it is time to face your opponent!" Professor Port's boisterous voice drew all eyes to the arena. He struck down with the ax on the other end of his blunderbuss, breaking the lock keeping the beast back.
The door of the cage dropped to the ground and a King Taijitu immediately lunged out of confinement towards Jaune.
Both the black and white heads hissed once Jaune stepped out of the way of its lunge, both hands reaching behind him. A glow spread from the gold and white bracers he had on his arms and two swords came to his hands. One was the two-handed sword he seemed to treat as his primary weapon and the other seemed to be his main secondary, the large partially hollow sword.
In the act of calling them to his hands, he swung them through the air in front of him, releasing two bright yellow waves of Aura to keep the King Taijitu back. He examined it as it coiled in the arena, both heads watching him.
"Never fought one of these before." He seemed to consider something before the two-handed sword in his hand shifted. It rose slightly before it split open down the length of the blade, revealed a steel framework inside that locked the now separated halves out. Jaune's eyes shined as his Aura engulfed him and the blades in his hands.
He attacked with a swing from the hollow sword in his hand, another yellow wave of Aura sent towards one of the heads of the King Taijitu only for it to dodge out of the way. The white head promptly lunged towards him with its mouth open to swallow him whole.
He jumped out of the way, a pulse of yellow Aura coming from his foot as he did so.
"That's so wasteful." Weiss shook her head, earned a look from Ruby. "He's using his Aura to propel himself, unleashed at the last second of his foot being on the ground." She clarified for her team leader.
"But if his Semblance refills any of his Aura that he uses, he can keep it up. It plays to his strengths and tries to cut down on his mobility weakness." Ruby turned her eyes back to the fight.
"That just makes him overly reliant on his Semblance to fight." Weiss ignored the look sent her way by Blake and Yang. Her style of fighting was fundamentally different from Arc's. His was wasteful while hers was anything but, refined through years of training and drilling.
If her use of her Semblance was akin to a surgeon's skill with a scalpel, Arc's was nothing but a sledgehammer breaking down a wall. The only reason he could even make use of such a bullheaded method of fighting was entirely because of his ability, gained no true benefits from it like her skills with Myrtenaster were supplemented by her Semblance and Dust. Without it, in Weiss's eyes, he was likely a poor fighter who only knew how to wildly flail around with his swords.
The black head of the King Taijitu lunged for Jaune only to be repelled by another wave of Aura from his hollow sword. The white head watched as the black head retreated for now with a hiss, both moving to attack Jaune from two sides, either crush him in their fangs or crush him between their joined bodies.
Jaune ignored the attack coming for him. He struck down with the open two-handed sword in his hand.
"Ah, interesting." Professor Port continued to observe from the side of the cage, close to laughing at what the Arc had done.
A sharp blade of Aura had severed the Grimm into two. Both thrashed at the pain while Jaune closed the two-handed sword, a purple glow coming from the hilt before the sword in his other hand was added to it, provided a much heavier edge to the sword he could now wield with both hands. Aura continued to glow along the sword in his hand and Jaune before he threw himself towards the black half. The Grimm hissed at him, red eyes focused on the student in hatred before it lunged to attack him.
"Break its legs Jaune!" Nora cheered on her leader from her seat, Ren seemingly about to speak to correct her before he stopped and only shook his head with a smile.
"Yes, he should break its legs."
Pyrrha's eyes stayed locked on her team leader as the white half of the Grimm lunged at him, knocked him out of the air before he could cut down the attacking black half. He recovered by the time he hit the ground and landed on his feet at least. His Aura likely too a blow but, from the glow around him, his Semblance had undone the loss. He reached behind him to draw another sword to his hand, it being one of the two saw-toothed and edged longswords on his back. He considered the separated Grimm as they aimed to encircle him before he cut through the air with the longsword, unleashed a wide wave of Aura towards the white half of the King Taijitu.
He succeeded in leaving it daze once it failed to dodge, would leave it unable to attack him while he went on the offensive. Jaune charged towards the black half of the Grimm, another hiss and another lunge from the Grimm answered by another wave of Aura from the longsword to its open mouth. It was nearly thrown to the ground from the impact, left dazed if nothing else, and Jaune used another burst if Aura to fly off of the ground and to the head of the creature of darkness.
His combined two-handed sword and hollow sword cut the Grimm's head off.
"He's so boring to watch fight." Yang sighed in her seat, laid her head down on her arms once more. "You should ask if you could give him a gun or something Ruby." She suddenly perked up. "Oh! How about you turn one of his swords into a crossbow? That would look cool too!"
"He's not boring." Ruby shook her head. "He uses what he has to fight as best as he can. He doesn't want to be exciting."
"He's a capable fighter despite his peculiar weapon." Weiss agreed with her team leader. "While he should incorporate a better ranged option to his arsenal, his fundamentals are above average."
"Wow. High praise coming from you." Yang had dropped her head back down on her arms. Jaune attacked the remaining white half of the King Taijitu and managed to defeat it much the same as the black half. A wave of Aura had thrown it to the ground for Jaune to charge the monster and cut off the head.
"WOOHOO!" Nora was loud in her seat as Jaune finished off the Grimm.
"Excellent work young man." Professor Port nodded to him. "A peculiar strategy of yours but it seems to have paid off in the end."
"Ha, sorry about that. I just never fought one of those things before. I wanted to see if it would still be around if I did that." Professor Port only stared at Jaune for a moment once he explained himself.
"You have a curious mind and the initiative to act on such a thing." Professor Port turned to the class as a whole. "That's all we have time for today I'm afraid. Your Scrolls will have your assignment due next class as well as some additional reading you'll need to have done by then." A groan came for some at such a thing even as Professor Port laughed. "I'll make Huntsmen of the lot of you yet. Mr. Arc here has proven he has the initiative to face the unknown and learn from it, shows the making of a future Huntsmen."
"Ah, thanks."
Professor Port chuckled.