Disclaimer: RWBY is an animated series created by Rooster Teeth. The cover image for this story is a screenshot from the Volume 8 opening.

Now that I've decided on a long-term goal, I should actually find out what it takes to become a Huntsman. The four major Academies each have a four-year curriculum that begins at age 17. Applying to a Huntsman Academy generally requires attending a Combat School for four years beginning at age 13.

I clumsily opened up the scroll's calendar app to see if I can learn Jaune's exact age. It looks like Jaune Arc was born on July 21st, 63 CE and it's currently August 5th, 67 CE. Jaune apparently starts kindergarten on September 3rd.

Why are they using the Gregorian calendar, anyway? That's another uncanny coincidence between Remnant and Earth. And I guess the "Common Era" only began sixty-seven years ago? A quick search reveals that CE refers to any year after the Vytal Peace Accords, which ended the Great War. I quickly closed that browser tab before I went down a rabbit hole reading about history.

So Jaune is currently four-years-old. That means I have to suffer through nine years of normal school before I can start learning to become a monster-slaying superhero.

…Alright, fine. Admittedly, getting access to super powers might have contributed to my decision to become a Huntsman.

With my research completed, I cleared the scroll's browsing history and turned it off before tracking down Jaune's mother to return it to her. I found her on the living room couch watching television with Lavender and Amber. The baby was asleep again, so I kept my voice down.

"Thanks, Mommy!" I whispered as I set it on the coffee table in front of them. I scurried off back to my room to get to work on forming a plan for the next few years. I pulled out a sheet of paper and got to work.

For the foreseeable future, I'll study Jaune's family until he begins preschool. I should probably get to know the people that I'm going to be living with until I go to Beacon in thirteen years.

Once I start attending school, I want to do well enough to get access to advanced classes. If I have to spend years going over basic subjects, I'm going to go insane. On the other hand, I obviously don't want to let it slip just HOW intelligent I am compared to my peers. A four-year-old being able to do advanced math and science might raise some red flags.

I'll go to regular school until I complete seventh grade (by the American system, which Vale uses for some reason) before attending a Combat School. Theoretically, I could wait until then to receive any training, but I'll see if Jaune's father is willing to train me at all before then.

In the meantime, I need to get Jaune's body in good condition. Wait, that sounds really bad out of context.

What I mean is that I'll need to improve my diet and begin exercising. Strength training before puberty is a bad idea, but I can at least improve flexibility and stamina. Stretching and jogging should be fine, right?

Tomorrow, I'll try asking for a healthier breakfast. I never want anything even remotely related to Pumpkin Pete in my mouth ever again.

Jaune Arc's Master Plan:

1. Observe my family to maintain my cover until I begin school

2. Improve my diet as soon as possible

3. Do well (but not TOO well) in school

4. Improve my overall fitness before I enter puberty

5. Receive combat training from Jaune's father as soon as possible

6. Begin strength training once I reach puberty and risk of injury decreases

7. Enroll at a Combat School at age thirteen

8. Enroll at Beacon Academy at age seventeen

My thoughts were now thankfully on paper. Not in English, obviously. My notes being discovered would be pretty disastrous, so I wrote them in a mixture of French and Japanese with a bunch of obscure references to Earth knowledge thrown in there. I was probably being paranoid, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Speaking of Earth knowledge, I used a separate sheet of paper to list the weird similarities between Earth and Remnant. I'll need to do more research to figure out how my world and this one are connected.

In fact, I finally remembered why the town I'm in, "Domremy," sounds familiar. It was Joan of Arc's hometown. Things are getting seriously uncanny here. Should I start worrying about being burned at the stake?

Whatever. That's a problem for future Jaune. Present Jaune is going to continue interacting with the real Jaune's family to accomplish step one of the plan. I resigned myself to another day of childish games and retraced my steps from yesterday to get to the playroom.

The next morning, I tugged on Jaune's mother's apron to get her attention before breakfast. "Mommy, can I have something other than Pumpkin Pete's for breakfast?"

She raised an eyebrow but nodded. "Sure, sweetie. What do you want?"

After eating a banana and some oatmeal, I followed the twins to the living room to watch television with them. I'll try asking for more reading lessons later today. For now, I'll see if Remnant has better kids' shows than Earth does.

It turns out that children's television is terrible no matter what world you're on.

My schedule was pretty much the same that entire week. I played with Jaune's siblings and got more reading lessons. On my seventh day in Remnant, Jaune's father finally returned from the mission he was on.

With a trained Huntsman back in the area, we were allowed to play outside again. With more room to work with, I can begin improving my general fitness by running around and playing.

I also think it's a good idea to let Jaune's dad know that I'm planning on being a Huntsman. He probably won't take a four-year-old seriously, but I can at least get any surprises out of the way.

After a bit of searching, I found him watching television in the living room with Jade and Saphron. He must have heard me somehow, because he looked up at me as soon as I approached.

"What is it, Jaune?" he asked.

I cleared my throat to seem more serious. "Dad, I've decided to become a Huntsman when I grow up."

He furrowed his brow. "Being a Huntsman is very dangerous, Jaune. And you shouldn't be making these kinds of life-changing decisions until you're older."

Jade bounced up off the couch and said "I'm going to be a Huntress too! That way I can protect Jaune just like you did."

Jaune's father rubbed his temples and sighed. "You're as old as I was when my father began training me, Jade, but I won't let you make a big decision like this so suddenly. Huntsmen put their lives on the line every day. Why don't you think about this more?"

Jade shook her head stubbornly. "Dad, being a Huntress might be dangerous, but so is living in Remnant! We got attacked by Grimm just last week!" She looked down at the ground and clenched her fists. "I don't want to just be a bystander if that happens again. I want to protect our family!" she shouted as she glared at her father. I could see tears in the corners of her eyes.

As she spoke, her voice got louder and louder until she was practically shouting. The rest of Jaune's siblings were silently watching the argument as it took place.

After almost thirty seconds of eye contact between the two of them, Jaune's father finally sighed and looked away.

"You're really passionate about this, huh?" he muttered. He turned his head to look at a portrait on the wall of a tall blond man in a military uniform covered in medals. Maybe it was one of Jaune's ancestors? He stood up walked over to place his hands on Jade's soldiers. "Alright, Jade. I'll start training you. But I expect you to give this everything you've got. Understood?"

Jade wiped the tears out of her eyes and hugged her father. "Okay, dad. I will."

While they were having a tender moment, I awkwardly stood by and watched. That was an incredibly emotional exchange, and I felt like even more of an outsider than usual.

Eventually, Jaune's father turned to look at me. "Jaune, you're still too young to even think about being a Huntsman. If you're still serious about it when you're eight like Jade, then we'll talk. Am I understood?"

"I understand, Dad," I said with a fervent nod.

He looked at me for a bit longer with an unreadable expression on his face before looking down at Jade. "Alright, honey. When I said I expected you to give this your all, I meant it. We'll start your training right now. Meet me in the backyard in five minutes. It's time to whip you into shape."

Jade nodded before running to her room to presumably change into workout clothes.

Jaune's father turned to look at that painting again, and I took that as my cue to leave.

I was halfway back to my room when Saphron waylaid me.

"So you want to be a Huntsman, huh?" she asked with crossed arms.

I nodded in response, and she frowned.

"Well, you shouldn't. It's way too dangerous, and you're too young."

I guess I was correct in assuming that she was the protective type. "I won't be young forever…" I grumbled as I brushed past her to get to my room.

The next three weeks blended together, honestly. I played with my "siblings" almost every day. I stopped feeling like a creep after a while, and I gradually got used to putting up with so many children. It might be the Stockholm syndrome speaking, but they were starting to grow on me.

I'd prefer if there was less forced crossdressing, though.

I also got to watch Jade's training, which looked pretty brutal. Jaune's dad had her running multiple miles per day as a warm-up before teaching her how to use a sword. He had her start with a wooden sword but told her she would be training with a real one once he was sure she wouldn't hurt himself.

Huntsmen apparently design and build their own weapons, but it's an Arc family tradition to start training with the ancestral family sword, Crocea Mors, before creating a custom weapon. I added it to the "Earth coincidences" list because I think that was the name of Julius Caesar's sword.

According to Jaune's dad, the sword was originally used by "my" great-great-grandfather, Julius Arc (yet another coincidence), in the Great War. Julius had been a general and a war hero who fought in the army of Osborne, the last king of Vale.

I decided to try running with Jade to improve my overall fitness, but she easily left me in the dust. Four-year-olds do not have the ability to run far or quickly. Instead, I focused on light jogging and stretching.

While Jade was lying on the ground gasping for air in between exercises, I took pity and brought her some water. Today looked even tougher than usual, and she has clearly running on fumes.

After she gulped it all down, she hopped up off the ground and pulled me into a sweaty hug. "Thanks, Jaune," she said. She released me and gave me a massive smile before resuming her training with renewed energy.

Jaune's father, who had watched the whole interaction, smiled after her. "When you have something to fight for, there's no limit you can't break," he softly said. He gave me a warm smile and added, "If you still want to be a Huntsman, I hope you find something to fight for too."

My reading lessons were progressing very well. I "learned" nearly as fast as Jaune's mother taught. Following her directions perfectly the first time would be too suspicious, so I threw in a few (hopefully convincing) mistakes.

Her schedule was understandably busy given that she was a stay-at-home mother raising eight children, so I decided to see if any of my—uh, I mean Jaune's—siblings would be willing to "teach" me.

The first person I asked, Saphron, agreed instantly. I blinked at her.

Chuckling at my surprised expression, she leaned in to conspiratorially whisper, "Who do you think taught Marine when she came asking for extra reading lessons?"

Huh.

Speaking of Marine, I decided to ask her for lessons too. She's the sibling that I've spent the least amount of time with by far (excluding Amber, for obvious reasons). When I asked her for reading lessons, she shot me down almost as quickly as Saphron agreed. Fortunately, I had prepared some lines in advance.

"Why should I waste my time teaching you? I have other things to do, you know," she frowned.

"Well," I began, "you're really good at school, right? I'm starting school soon too, and I want to be smart like you!"

She seemed pleased by that statement, so I moved in for the coup de grâce. "Plus, I head on TV that teaching something makes you better at it. You're not wasting your time; you're improving your skills!"

And with that, I had a third person "teaching" me. Obviously they weren't actually teaching me anything, but being taught by three people is (hopefully) a good explanation for the speed that I'm "learning" to read.

Before I knew it, it was time for school to start. Domremy was a small enough town that there was only one school in it that covered everything from kindergarten to high school, which meant that all of the Arc children were going to the same place. The whole family crammed into a minivan to make the trip from the outskirts of town where we lived.

In the middle of the drive, Mom asked- I mean, Jaune's Mom asked me a question to pull me out of my daydreams.

"So, Jaune, are you looking forward to starting school?"

"Yeah!" I lied. Honestly, I was expecting kindergarten to be terrible. I'm obviously still worried about being discovered, but I've made it a full month without Jaune's own family noticing that I'm not actually Jaune. If I can fool them, I can fool a teacher who has plenty of other students to focus on.

When we finally pulled up to the school, we all filed out of the car and got pulled into a group hug by Jaune's mother before being herded into the building where we were all split up and shepherded into different rooms.

Domremy wasn't exactly a large town, so there was only one pre-kindergarten class. Soon enough, I was in the room that would serve as my prison for the next year. The teacher, a woman in her forties, was sitting at a desk and looking through several papers. She also had green hair. In fact, several of the kids in the room had unusual hair colors. Is that normal for Remnant?

I guess I shouldn't be too shocked about weird hair, given that two of my classmates are Faunus. There's a boy with ram horns and a girl with dog ears. Two Faunus in a class of what appears to be sixteen students makes sense; Vale has a Faunus population of around one in eight.

Some of the children looked like they were on the verge of tears, probably because they already missed their parents. These kids would need to learn independence at some point, but this is probably a big deal for them. I sighed and walked over to try and cheer them up.

Before I could open my mouth, the teacher finally noticed the sad children and started doing her job.

"Hello, everyone! Welcome to the start of your fun adventure in school! My name is Miss Arbor, and I'll be helping you have fun and learn at the same time!" she said with a beaming smile. "Why don't we all sit in a circle and introduce ourselves?

One we had all dutifully sat down, she started speaking again, the gigawatt smile still never leaving her face. "Tell everyone your name, your favorite color, your favorite game to play, and what you want to be when you grow up. I'll start, okay? My name is Poire Arbor, I like green, I love hide and seek, and I always wanted to be a teacher when I grew up," she chuckled. "And guess what? I did become a teacher! Now it's your turn! Let's go around the circle this way!"

I tried to pay attention to all of the introductions, but I got distracted when I noticed that everyone here had color-related names. Is that a Remnant thing too? I just assumed the Arc parents did it to tell all of their children apart.

When it was my turn, I did as instructed and introduced myself. "I'm Jaune Arc. I like blue, I don't have a favorite game, and I'm going to be a Huntsman."

I wasn't the only one who said "Huntsman," so I didn't turn any heads by saying that. Once everyone had introduced themselves, Miss Arbor stood up and clapped her hands.

"Now that we all know each other, why don't we start the day off with some games?"

All the children cheered, and I silently wept. This was going to be terrible.

I was right. It was terrible.

Author's Note: The next few chapters are going to be featuring several time skips before Jaune makes it to Beacon (which will tentatively happen in Chapter 7). On top of that, he's already made a few ripples by indirectly inspiring Jade to become a Huntress.

If you're curious what Jaune's siblings look like, I used the Arc family photo from V06E07 as a reference photo. Saphron (orange shirt) is the upside down one, Jade (green shirt) is making a pose on the right, Mocha and Tawny (brown shirts) are the ones making faces on the left, Marine (blue dress) is the one in glasses, Jaune is obviously the only boy, and Lavender (purple overalls) is the one sitting by Jaune's mother. Amber is off-screen because she's a baby.

(First published on June 5, 2021)