Disclaimer: RWBY is an animated series created by Rooster Teeth. The cover image for this story is a screenshot from the Volume 8 opening.
Age 4; 1 Month after Jaune Starts School
It's possible that I didn't think things through.
My parents have apparently just returned from parent-teacher conferences, which I completely forgot were a thing.
My academic progress isn't the issue here. Our "lessons," if they can even be called that, are laughably simple (for obvious reasons).
The problem is that children are terrible.
By the end of my first day, I could already tell how bad school was going to be. The teacher is condescending, and my "peers" are beyond childish. Seriously, Lavender is a year younger than me, and she's leagues more mature than these brats. The past month has not improved my opinion of them even remotely. The teacher was at least more bearable once she realized that I already knew everything that she was supposed to be teaching me.
Again, my problem is with the children. They're whiny, gross, rude, and already xenophobic. The two Faunus kids in the class are already being excluded.
Whenever my parents or siblings ask if I'm making any friends, I lie through my teeth. The last thing I want is for them to realize how much of a misanthrope I'm being.
Gah, I keep thinking of Jaune's family as my family. I understand that getting into character as Jaune is a good thing, but it still feels weird to think of them like that without meaning to.
Confusing feelings aside, the fact remains that I have no friends. I don't like the children, and a good portion of them don't like me. Not because they somehow sensed the inherent wrongness in me; no, they just noticed that I hate them.
All of this brings me to my current situation, which involves worried and disappointed parents.
"Jaune, sweetie," my mother began. "Miss Arbor told us today that you've been having trouble making friends."
That… might be a bit of an understatement, given that I despise every single person in my class. I shrugged at her. My teacher had snitched, and I didn't exactly have any proof to the contrary.
"I know going to school is difficult, but you should at least try to make some friends," my mother said. "I promise that you'll enjoy having more people to play with. Just try, okay?"
I grumbled but nodded. Looking like a sociopath would be pretty bad, so I'll at least make an attempt.
The next day, I launched Operation Friendship and walked over to the two Faunus kids in the class. Amandine was a girl with dog ears, and Aspen was a boy with ram horns. They were ideal friends for me to make; the social isolation that our xenophobic classmates forced on them meant that I could avoid large-scale games and gatherings.
Also, I felt bad for them. It broke my heart a little whenever I saw them get sad over being excluded.
Fortunately, interactions between children were simple enough that I could just walk over to them and say "Hi, let's be friends."
The look of hope on Amandine's face managed to replace the fake smile on my face with a genuine one.
Age 7; 1st Grade
I had finally defeated Kindergarten, and I never wanted to think about it again.
My friendship with Aspen and Amandine continued, and I got a front-row seat to the discrimination that Faunus faced. During a class field trip to Domremy's tiny museum, some random adult walked up to the three of us and told me that I shouldn't spend so much time with animals. Amandine burst into tears, so I punched the guy in the balls and ran away to hide behind our teacher to avoid retaliation. The grateful smiles on Aspen and Amandine's faces made the inevitable detention and grounding worth it.
Back on the home front, my training was progressing well. I could run a 5k in about 20 minutes, and I bugged my mother to sign me up for gymnastics lessons to improve my flexibility and agility.
Saphron had started high school a year ago, but she was still a responsible big sister at home.
Jade wouldn't be entering Combat School for another two years, but she was pretty skilled at the sword and shield fighting style that our father was teaching her. Somewhat annoyingly, she was still overprotective of me.
Mocha and Tawny were still absolute menaces and demanded pranking supplies at every birthday like a blonde, female version of the Weasley twins. In an attempt to steer them to use their powers for good, I suggested that they take a look in Saph's chemistry textbook. This was naturally a huge mistake, because they got ahold of a chemistry set and started making their own pranking supplies.
Marine was at the top of her classes with perfect grades. She was somehow even more antisocial than I was, but she seemed to tolerate Aspen and Amandine. I was thankful that my two friends would still have a social circle once I went off the Combat School.
Lavender was still a huge mama's girl, but she also had a huge circle of friends. I could tell that she was a natural socialite. Just like with Marine, I made sure that Aspen and Amandine were on good terms with her.
Amber finally got old enough to become a person instead of a glorified pet, and I had somehow taken the position of her favorite sibling, presumable because I treated her with respect and didn't baby her. She even started trying to emulate me as much as possible. To our father's chagrin, this included wanting to be a Huntress.
Age 8; July 21st
Today was my eighth birthday. When my parents asked what I wanted for gifts, I told them that I wanted combat training. It took a bit of needling on my part, but my father finally agreed to start training me. Amber asked for training too, but Dad told her to wait until she was eight like I did.
The next day, he put me on the same brutal workout that he put Jade on all those years ago. But unlike Jade, I had already been exercising to the point that he upped the intensity to match my current level of fitness.
When I was finally exhausted, he presented me with a training sword. As I took hold of it, I felt my destiny calling. The blade itself might be wooden and dull, but it had a metaphorical weight to it. It represented my future; a future spent defending the weak from evil and punishing the wicked. A future where I would never be helpless again.
The blade also had a physical weight, presumably to get me accustomed to the heft of a real sword. I appreciated the effectiveness of the training, but my arms felt like jelly and I could barely lift the damn thing.
Age 8; 2nd Grade
After breezing through my homework, I had an afternoon to myself. I'd like to be training right now, but Dad was off on a mission and Jade was at a friend's house, and I don't know any other Huntsmen in town to bug for training.
Although… I thought as my gaze drifted to the family computer. Just because I don't know any Huntsmen doesn't mean I can't get lessons…
So I might've gone a little overboard and sent out about forty different emails to various Huntsmen Academy professors and Combat School teachers, but I managed to get a decent number of responses. It turns out Huntsmen instructors are perfectly willing to tell eight-year-olds how to become killing machines. Peter Port, a Beacon professor, practically sent me an essay on Grimm hunting and training tips.
I also looked around for videos of actual Huntsmen combat. Remnant had tons of tournament fights, but even as a novice I was able to tell that they were being overly flashy to impress the crowd. The Vytal Festival tournaments, on the other hand, had plenty of serious fights to show me how Huntsmen using swords and shields could deal with various threats.
Now this I can work with.
Age 9; 3rd Grade
Today was the day Jade went off to Combat School. She had been training for five years now and had her Aura unlocked three years ago, so she was as prepared as could be. I had no doubt in my mind that she would be at the top of her class.
She was going to Polaris Academy, a small combat school in Domremy that drew in applicants from many of the small towns south of the city of Vale. I was fully expecting to go there too once I turned thirteen.
When I told Jade that I was proud of her for making it this far, she pulled me into an aura-enhanced hug that nearly broke my spine before she finally let go.
Yeah, she'd be just fine.
Age 10; 4th Grade
I've been on Remnant for six years now. I suffered through Kindergarten, dancing lessons, forced crossdressing, and a complete lack of privacy, but today it will have finally been worth it, because today's the day.
Today's the day I get superpowers.
Dad had led me to a clearing in the woods away from the house. He brought Crocea Mors and nothing else with him. When we were far enough away that we couldn't see the house, he handed me the ancestral blade had drop to one knee.
I placed the sheathed tip of Crocea Mors on the ground and bowed my head. I looked like a knight swearing an oath, honestly. I'm a little surprised he didn't bring his own sword to tap my shoulders.
My father stood in front of me and placed his hand on top of my head and spoke words that had been passed down for five generations as the clearing lit up with the faint glow of his Aura.
"For it is in our legacy that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become paragons of duty and heroism to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul, and by my blade salute thee."
and then
there
was
fire
A blinding white light surrounded me, but I was in too much agony to focus on it. It felt like my entire body and another part of me that I only just now noticed were boiling. Through my agony, I could see my father collapse in exhaustion.
The clearing disappeared as my vision faded into pure whiteness. All of a sudden, a pitch-black tendril that I somehow knew represented my soul flowed out of me to stain the white soul before me. As the light in front of me faded into grey, the pain doubled in intensity and I felt my consciousness slipping away.
"Jaune! Wake up, Jaune!"
All of a sudden, I was conscious. I was flat on my back with my father shaking me awake.
"Dad?" I groggily asked. "What… what happened?"
"I… I don't know. I unlocked your Aura, but you have… a lot of it. We Arcs generally have a large Aura capacity, but yours is even larger than that," he explained. "Unlocking someone else's Aura is draining, especially if the person has a large Aura capacity."
"Is it supposed to hurt that much?" I asked.
"No," he frowned. "And you shouldn't have fainted like that either."
Uh oh.
He looked at me for a long moment before shaking his head. "Let's head home for now. We can try using your Aura tomorrow. If you have any more issues, we're going to see a doctor."
I nodded meekly and followed him back to the house.
Come to think of it, that feeling of my soul boiling felt vaguely familiar. I think it might've happened when I first woke up in Jaune's body. I'm obviously pretty worried about the state of my soul, but actually going to a doctor specializing in Aura might out me as a body snatcher.
I'll have to figure this out on my own.
Age 10; 6 Months after Unlocking Aura
I was no closer to figuring out what was up with my soul, but having Aura was amazing. All of my physical abilities improved, and I could perform superhuman feats. I spent so many hours meditating on it to draw out its full potential that Jade and Dad got weirded out.
They're the weird ones. I don't understand why everyone doesn't spend so much time training their soul magic.
Now that I had a built-in force field and enhanced regeneration, I was finally allowed to train using Crocea Mors instead of a training sword. I was getting pretty good, too. I sparred with Jade and Dad occasionally; I always lost, but they both agreed I was better than they were at my age.
Jade finally got around to making her own weapon instead of just using Crocea Mors. She designed a morning star mace named "Punica Mors". It was a pretty vicious weapon, honestly. I pity anyone that gets matched up against her in a fight, especially after she added a shotgun to the handle on her kite shield.
The rest of my siblings are doing well, too. Saphron even won some poetry competition in Vale.
I'm kinda surprised that she hasn't come out of the closet yet. I mean, seriously. Her poetry would make Sappho blush.
Wait a minute…
Saphron… Sappho… Lesbians…
I guess I have one more thing to add to the weird coincidence list.
Age 12; 2 Weeks before 6th Grade
Saphron is going to college.
She's not going to a university Vale, though. She won a scholarship for her poetry and is going away to an art school in Atlas of all places. She also told us she was gay, which is apparently much more socially acceptable on Remnant than it is on Earth.
Anyway, we had a big party with an extremely tearful goodbye. I'll fully admit that I cried a lot. My siblings have really grown on me, okay?
Age 12; Spring Semester of 6th Grade
I think I've started puberty. Jaune is a bit of a late bloomer, because I'm one of the last boys in the class to hit it. For something that I've been looking forward to for a while, it's been a bit of a mixed blessing.
I'm glad I can finally crank up my physical training with much harder workouts, but I forgot how annoying some of the other parts of it are. I still don't remember how old I had been before I was Jaune, but I had to have been at least sixteen, because I have vague memories of what puberty entails.
Puberty involves acne, voice cracks, clumsiness, and unwanted erections.
Fuck my life.
Age 12; First Week of Summer after 6th Grade
Jade unfortunately discovered her Semblance.
Normally, this would be a good thing. I obviously want my sister to be able to defend herself.
The problem is that she discovered it while we were sparring and hit me so hard I flew through a wooden fence.
Jade's imaginatively named Semblance, Shockwave, lets her create a… well, a shockwave whenever she lands a hit in melee. It lets her increase the force of attacks (which I gained firsthand experience with when she blasted through my guard like my shield wasn't even there) by creating a blast of force from where her attack lands. Once when she was sparring with both Dad and me, she hit Dad's shield and made a shockwave so large that it knocked me down when I was five feet away from him.
Age 12; 2 Months Before 7th Grade
While I was taking a day off from training by visiting Aspen with Lavender, a news story on television caught my eye. The White Fang, a Faunus Rights organization, had apparently undergone a change in leadership. Ghira Belladonna, the leader and founder, was stepping down to become the new Chieftain of Menagerie. His farewell address called for a continuation of peaceful protest, but his replacement was Sienna Khan, who was allegedly an advocate of violent resistance.
Aspen didn't seem to notice the implications of that, but I could see just how worried his parents were. I just hope the White Fang don't get too violent.
Author's Note: Lot of time-skips this chapter. I also did a lot more "telling" than "showing" this chapter, but if I wrote scenes for everything that happened, this chapter would be about 50k words. And in case any of you get worried, don't expect the Faunus kids to have a big role. I'm not a fan of introducing lots of OCs.
Jaune will be arriving at Beacon in Chapter 6. I know I said Chapter 7 last chapter, but I overestimated how long the childhood arc would be.
And yes, there is a reason for Jaune's weird Aura.
And as always, I appreciate all feedback, positive or negative.
(First published on June 19, 2021)