Hey everyone! Took me long enough for this, eh? Actually, this was ready yesterday night, but... well, shitty WiFi connection can do that to you. I hope I make up for the long wait! And no, Ruby won't appear yet.

Predictably enough, Jaune had fallen out of his bed.

What hadn't be predictable was that something was now helping him up. Or rather someone.

Jaune was pretty sure of a lot of things in life. One of these things was that he was pretty sure no one on his team had invited anyone over on their first night. Maybe Nora, but yet again why was he being called master by this guest? Another thing he was sure of was that whoever had spoken was young, very young, he could tell by the voice.

Using his fighting instincts, he freed himself from the owner of the voice's arms, and turned to face him. Or at least that's what he told himself. In reality, all he did was flail uselessly before being released and crashing to the ground once again.

He had woken up early. It was the only explanation for why the day was so awful already. Waking up early must've created a disturbance in the universe's fabric and the Gods had sent whoever was talking to kill him or to put him back to sleep, and solve the problem. There was no way an actual freaking knight was standing right before him, wearing a full plate of all types of armour.

As Jaune picked himself up from the floor, he realized that the knight before him was far shorter than he'd initially thought. Five feet six at most, the man donned a light grey full armour, and what little wasn't covered by the metallic plates was protected by the underlying chainmail. On his head there was a large steel helm with only a horizontal for the eyes and several vertical slits for breathing, much like the robots in the cartoons. He also wore a long worn brown cloak that reached his ankles. After releasing Jaune, the figure had crossed his arms on his chest, and he was tapping the floor with his right foot in impatience, the metalling boot booming every time. It was bound to wake someone up…

"What is going on here?!" growled Weiss, sitting up straight on her bed. She stopped for a second to look at the armoured man standing in their dorm, and then looked at the time. She sighed. "Arc, whatever you did, it's too early to deal with your idiocies."

"I advise against speaking in such a manner about my Master, Lady Schnee," boomed the man, turning to face her. The voice was no less thunderous than the first time, but this time Jaune felt like something was different. Before, he had felt like it came from everywhere. Now, it was coming specifically from the man's mouth. "As I can and will defend his honour with the force of arms, if the situation were to call for it."

Weiss blinked before frowning, a snappy retort ready on her tongue even so early in the morning, but Nora happened before anyone could do anything else. Awoken by the voice, the bubbly hammer maiden stretched like a cat before her eyes zeroed in on the knight, who to his credit just took a step back.

"Oh my Oum, who's that?!" exclaimed the girl, launching herself from the bed and starting to zip around the man, who appeared to be confused. "Are you our Fearless Leader's guardian angel, come to help him during his time in Beacon?! Or maybe are you his alter-ego?! No, wait, are you his evil twin, come to get revenge for having been in his shadow all your life?! Are you?! Are you?! Are you!?"

"Nora, stop, I think you're just confusing him." Ren's calm voice spoke up from his bed, the boy still laying motionlessly on the mattress, probably not ready to face the day so early. He merely turned his head toward them. "Please, tell me this is all a joke, and we don't have a problem this early in the morning?"

"I don't know!" exclaimed Jaune, freaking out again, gripping his hair as he stared at the knight. "Are you a joke?! Did Cometé prank me again?! Or was it Ciel?!"

"Please, restore your calm, Master," said the knight, holding up a hand. "As I am no joke nor prank. My name is Sir Jekyel D'Or Arc, Grand Commander of the Lost Army during the War of Dust."

Nora's eyes sparkled. "He's a real knight! Ooooh, did he fight in the Great War?!"

Weiss, instead, huffed. "He's an imposter," she stated plainly, all eyes focusing on her.

"I fear your words rang untrue, Lady Schnee, as I speak no lie and I act not mendaciously," replied the knight, Jekyel Arc. "I promise you I am truthful, and an Arc never goes back on his word."

"What tells us you're even an Arc?" scoffed the heiress.

"He is," responded Jaune. "His name starts with a J, and his second name is in the Arc's original language."

"Just because his name starts with a J?"

The boy shrugged, helplessly. "It's a good way," he confirmed before groaning and turning to the man. "Not sure what the War of Dust is nor what the Lost Army is, but if you're a relative, please next time call instead of barging into my dorm."

"Arc," sighed Weiss, pinching the bridge of her nose. "The War of Dust is the oldest war we know of. When Dust was first discovered."

Silence fell over the room as the man rubbed the back of his helmet in a very Jaune-like way. "Well," he said. "This is awkward."

"Wait, what?" asked Jaune. "The oldest…?"

"So old we only have legends about it," confirmed Weiss. "And this is why he must be an imposter. Now leave, whoever you are, or I will be forced to call the professors."

The knight raised his hands defensively. "W-Wait!" he exclaimed, removing his helmet. Under it appeared the face of a young man, around their own age, max two years older. He had dirty short black hair and an unkempt beard. His brown eyes seemed nervous as he gently laid the helmet on Jaune's bed. All in all, he did not look like Jaune at all. "I… It's his Semblance," he continued, pointing at the blond knight, who was still freaking out internally.

That made them all stop.

"I mean, I can't be sure," added the brunette. "But it must be."

And just like that, Weiss snorted. "That dolt can't have unlocked his Semblance already."

"Listen, it's the only thing that makes sense!" The knight passed a hand through his hair. "Because I distinctly remember dying, and being far older than I am now."

"Oooh, you remember dying?" asked Nora. "How was it? Can you tell us what's after it?! How is the Afterlife?!"

"Nora, stop," sighed Ren.

"Okey dokey!"

"So, let's sum this up," stated Weiss. "You died during the War of Dust, and somehow you're back to your younger days, in this room, because Arc here has awakened his Semblance?"

"I think so."

"That's one of the stupidest things I've ever seen," she bluntly claimed. "I don't believe it."

"Then test me," he offered. "Ask me something I could know only if I really took part in the war."

"Who won?"

"I said I died during the war, I don't know how it ended," he sighed. "You should ask something I could know."

"Fine," huffed the girl. "Who was at the lead of the third army, how was his army called, and who his troops were?"

The man's face soured up, and for a second Jaune feared he'd start swinging… even if he did not have any kind of weapon on himself. "His name was Hydwart Vitrén, called the Merciless. He commanded the army of the North, called the Snow Blizzard for their colours. His troops were trained soldiers, and he was fighting to keep all the Dust for himself."

Weiss frowned but nodded. "One question is not going to prove your truthfulness," she reminded him before continuing. "How many sides there were during the war?"

"That's a trap question," noted Jekyel. "Sides or armies?"

Weiss looked marginally impressed at that. "Both."

"There were two sides, obviously. Us, who fought for the free trade of Dust, and the Northern League, who wanted to keep Dust for themselves, uncaring of how many lives it could save from the Grimm." His eyes darkened again at the mention of the other side. "But there were more than ten armies. Three of them were in the League. Eight other armies were with us. The League had the advantage of the Dust but we had the advantage of numbers."

"Final question, and then I'm bringing you to the Headmaster for explanations," warned Weiss, eyes narrowing at the second right answer. "Who fought at the Battle of Mistral?"

Jekyel blinked. "What is Mistral?"

/-/

"So… Jaune has actually unlocked his Semblance when he was sleeping?"

The eight of them were sitting at a table in the cafeteria for lunch. The first morning of classes had gone more or less like they had expected… for Team NBLS, that is. All of them paid attention in class, some more than the others, and they hadn't had any problem with lessons. Team JWVL, on the other hand…

While Nora had been… well, Nora… the others had been a bit too distracted to actually concentrate in class. Weiss had volunteered to fight in Grimm Studies, sure, and Jaune was pretty sure the final skewering of the Boarbatusk had been some sort of message for him, given the glare that had accompanied it. But the three non-Nora members of the team had had their minds occupied with something else. With the knight Jekyel Arc having been brought by Ozpin, they had been left to wonder what was going to happen next. And if that hadn't been enough, Jaune had passed the whole morning on his Scroll, looking up everything he needed to know, from Aura to Semblances, from weapons to academic subjects. It was a lot.

They had told their friends everything at lunch, even if Ren had to restrain Nora from overly exaggerating everything like he always had to. And since Weiss was still doubtful, it had fallen upon Jaune to narrate their glorious tale to everyone else… minus his unceremonious fall from the bed, of course. Their sibling team NBLS listened to the whole story with impassive faces, that was kind of to be expected. Discovering a Semblance in an Academy literally full of people with superpowers wasn't something out of the ordinary. Jaune was pretty sure that even the janitors there had their Aura unlocked, a Semblance, and a Huntsman license.

"So… let me sum this up," began Sky Lark, the only male of Team NBLS. He was a blue-eyed boy of medium height, a few inches shorter than Jaune, who had shoulder-length blueish grey hair. Apart from Jaune and, from a certain point of view, Pyrrha, he was the only one in their teams to wear armour. "You're all freaking out because Jaune here has apparently discovered his Semblance in the form of a young man in his late teens that keeps saying he's over ten thousands years old… right?"

"That about sums it up, yeah," nodded the blond knight. "Although I wonder how long it'll take for Ozpin to find out who he is or what did I do."

"Then, forgive me for my bluntness, I don't see the reason to be so worried." He raised a hand to stop any possible reply, especially Weiss's. "I mean, Ozpin's taking care of it now. Why don't you focus on your classes and your first day at Beacon?"

The three non-Nora members of Team JWVL exchanged glances before Ren turned to the bluenette. "I suppose you are right, but this doesn't mean we shouldn't worry about it as well," he said. "Even if Ozpin is in charge of this now, and if this is really Jaune's Semblance, we will be involved in this."

"Relax, man," snorted Sky. "I'm sure Ozpin has this under control."

/-/

"And… And… ahah… and then Esmer said `We'll attack at midnight`, and… and one of the foot soldiers replied `Sir, it's one in the morning!` And we all burst out laughing!"

The two men bent over, holding their stomachs as they howled in laughter. Ozpin choked on his mirth a little before he straightened, wiping a tear from his right eye. "A-And do you remember that time at Riverbrigde Gap?" he asked between gulps of air.

Jekyel thumped his chest to try and stop the laughter. "T-The one… ahahah… the one where the enemies… built their entire camp on the bridge except for the commander tent?!" he replied between chuckles. "And then we broke the dam further up the river and their whole army was washed away?!"

"You should've seen the face of the commander as he watched his whole legion being swept away in a second!" Ozpin wheezed out, and the two old comrades cackled again.

/-/

"Yeah…" drawled Ren, not entirely convinced. The bell chose that moment to rang out and the eight of them sighed as they stood up. "You might be right, but I can't help but feel like we've just gotten in some serious trouble."

"Oh, come on, it's just a Semblance!" exclaimed Yang, the only other blonde of their group. "Besides, I've seen weirder ones. Blake! What's the next class?"

The black-haired girl sighed as she checked the timetables. "In the afternoon we have two hours of Grimm Fighting Class, and a fifteen minutes break, and then two hours of Combat Class."

"Sweet! Lots of combat today!" cheered the blonde before Nora joined her in her celebration. "We're so gonna kick your butts!"

"We shall see on that, Xiao Long," huffed Weiss, eyes blazing.

"We do have the advantage," noted Blake. "We have Pyrrha, who is a famous champion and arena fighter. Yang says to be very strong herself, and Sky says to be able to hold his own. I may not be the strongest person myself but my Semblance makes it easy to avoid any kind of attack."

"While you only have Nora, a chaotic heavy hitter, Ren, a martial arts master with very little stamina, you yourself, with much versatility but very little endurance, and…" Everyone turned to Jaune, who sighed. "Jaune… whatever his fighting style is."

"Sword and shield combo," the knight replied tiredly. "No ranged. It's a family heirloom. As for combat, I'm pretty much dead weight."

"Oh, come on, there's no need to be so self-deprecating," snorted Yang, jabbing his shoulder and wishfully ignoring his wince. "You made it to Beacon, you must be great! Beacon accepts only the best."

Jaune cleared his throat nervously. "Y-Yeah… it's just that…"

"Jaune has next to no combat skill," bluntly stated Weiss. "He's been accepted as a special student by Professor Goodwitch." Everyone looked at her strangely. "What? If you only had thought of checking your teammates' Beacon database entry, you would've known that."

"Wait, Beacon data-what?" asked Yang, confused.

"Beacon Student Database, or Beacon Database for Students' Management," sighed Weiss, shaking her head. "It contains many details about our peers, so for us to know who we will be fighting alongside in the field."

"Beacon Database… for Students' Management?" A slow grin spread on Yang's face. "I knew it! Ha! `Good witch` my boots! She should be called `goodbitch`!"

"Care to explain the insult?" asked Jaune, a tick mark clearly visible on his forehead.

"Beacon Database for Students' Management! BDSM!" Yang laughed at her own pun while everyone else groaned, although they secretly agreed with her: it was a really unfortunately choice of words. Jaune would need to have words with his aunt about that.

"What does it say?" asked Blake, interested.

"Grades, discipline, extracurricular activities, groups or clubs, weapons, fighting styles, Semblance if known, Aura reserves level, and a picture of the student," Weiss listed off flawlessly. "It is only natural for an Academy as prestigious as Beacon to have such methods of identification."

"Although that's not really fair…" mumbled Jaune, his eyes locked onto his Scroll as he checked out the database. "I mean, not everyone here has a recorded Semblance, yet they've been training for years, so it's very unlikely it's because they haven't unlocked it yet, so it means they're hiding it. They have a `secret` advantage against their opponents…"

"Since when are you so knowledgeable on Aura and Semblances?" asked Weiss, raising a perfect eyebrow. "Yesterday you seemed pretty clueless."

"I… looked up some stuff, okay?" He laughed nervously as he remembered the thousands of links he still had to check out. "I-I mean, Professor Port's lesson seemed to be mostly just introduction of himself, so… I thought to make good use of the time I had."

"That's…" He winced, ready for the insult. Weiss's coldness was one of the things he had learned that morning. "…actually smart of you," she admitted grudgingly, not really finding any reason to berate him. Sure, he hadn't been paying attention but he had focused on improving himself. Still not smart or impressive enough to make him a good leader, but that was beside the point. He would never be better than her, so it was obviously he would never be a good leader. She should've taken that place. Still, he had used his time wisely instead of just listening to the bragging of Professor Port. "But I still wonder how could you not know in the first place," she finished with a glare.

There. Jaune sighed. He'd been a fool to hope she wouldn't have had something to say about it. He would talk to her… but later. Not until the mess he had gotten himself into… or at least, his Semblance had gotten him into… was over and done for good. Having some kind of knight rambling about a war no one could remember was a handful on its own, without adding arguments with cold heiresses.

"It's… a long story," he replied evasively. "But s-shouldn't we be going to class now?"

"I guess you are right," sighed Weiss, as if admitting such a thing went against her very nature. "We shouldn't be late on our first cla-"

Ding.

"Please, may Jaune Arc of Team JWVL report to the Headmaster's office immediately. Repeat, may Jaune arc of Team JWVL report to the Headmaster's office immediately."

Ding.

"-ss," finished the girl. She gave him a pointed glare and waved him off. "Go, it's probably for that guy we found in our dorm anyway. Just try to come back before Professor Goodwitch reports you missing."

"I'll try, see you later!" Jaune bolted off toward the Beacon Tower. 'Pretty sure auntie wouldn't do that, though. If anything, she'd tell me to try and be on time next class.'

He barely heard Weiss's haughty hmphf as he darted off to answer the summon. He promptly got lost, asked for directions, and got lost again. A polite janitor pointed him in the right direction, and he finally reached the elevator's doors.

He honestly didn't know what to expect, he just hoped for it to be something helpful, or at least something that would assure his worries.

/-/

Well, in a way, it had assured his worries.

Had he been an anime character, he was pretty sure he would've sweat-dropped at the scene before him. Glynda Goodwitch, the one who should've been teaching class at the moment, was pinching the bridge of her nose like she always did when she was exasperated with him, but this time he hadn't done anything to earn her irritation. Instead, the nuisances were the two men at the table.

Jekyel and Ozpin.

The two were loudly snoring on the Headmaster's desk, both of them having drunk their asses off over war reminiscences. Ozpin still held his latest glass of Vacuan Whiskey in his right hand, and he was apparently using his laptop as pillow. Jekyel had instead face-planted onto the table's wood and remained there, unmoving, with drool seeping out of his semi-closed mouth. Jaune blinked as he took in the scene.

"Have you found out who is he?" he asked the first thing that came to his mind.

"Yes, yes we have. Apparently, he is really Sir Jekyel of Arc, Hero of the Lost Army of the War of Dust," sighed Goodwitch before rounding on him. "But you, young man…"

Jaune took a step back. No… no… nononononono!

"Oh gosh, look at you! You've grown so much!" the woman gushed as she examined him, forcing him to turn so she could have a look at his hair. "Ah, you look so different from your father yet I can definitely see his kind personality in you! I've missed you so much, dear, why haven't you called to tell me you were applying for Beacon?! I was so worried during Initiation… I had half an idea to send fourth year students to protect you as extra credit!"

Jaune secretly rolled his eyes. Yep, that was Auntie Glyn alright. Overly-affectionate and all. "It's good to see you too, Auntie, but I'm kinda worried about Jekyel. Why is he here if he's really fought in the War of Dirt?" he asked. He got the name wrong but whatever, he didn't care. "I mean, shouldn't he be…"

"Dead?" offered his aunt. "Of course, silly, he should. But that's where your Semblance comes in!"

"My Semblance… but shouldn't Semblances manifest only months, even years after the unlocking of Aura?" he asked, thinking back to what he had read on his Scroll. "I mean, I got my own Aura unlocked yesterday, how could I have unlocked my Semblance already? It doesn't really make any sense."

"Because that's not actually true. Sit down and listen because this will be important in case you need to tell the others about it." She heedlessly pushed Jekyel off the chair and onto the floor with a loud thud, and offered the chair to him. Then she pushed off Ozpin and sat down at his desk, leaving the two drunks to sleep their highs off on the hard cold floor. "The point is that what you've read on your Scroll is not completely true."

"How do you know I read it on my Scroll?" he asked, bewildered.

"Sweetie, you couldn't have read it anywhere else. You didn't visit the library, either, so mine was just an accurate guess." She gave him a sweet smile before continuing. "A Semblance usually cannot be unlocked, it can only be found or discovered. Do you know why?" He shook his head. "Because there is nothing to unlock. A Semblance is always unlocked, and may even activate before you even realize you have it. It is common for Semblances to be `unlocked` ever since the very day of Aura awakening. It is just not known to the user."

"Why don't we know of them instantly, then?" asked the boy. "Why do we have to `discover` them?"

"To this day we still don't have the answer to that question, sweetie." The woman intertwined her fingers similarly to how Ozpin usually did. "The point is that you haven't found out your Semblance yet, but it has already activated. My guess is that you will discover new powers of your Semblance's in the future. At the moment, we have a rough understanding of what it currently does."

"That is?"

"Don't be hasty, I'm about to tell you, mon petit soleil" smiled the woman, pinching his cheek affectionately. "As I already told you, Sir Jekyel died during the Last Stand of Vytal."

"Wait, Vytal?" asked Jaune, puzzled. "I thought Vale's continent wasn't named Vytal back then."

"No, it wasn't. It was named such because of the Last Stand. The Lost Army was destroyed, down to the last man, but they held on enough for their allies to arrive and destroy the Northern League's united armies. The war was won… even if no one of the champions of Vytal survived to tell the tale. Unfortunately, few great heroes survive the wars they fight." She saddened for a second before sighing and shaking her head clear of those depressing thoughts. "Sir Jekyel was one of those heroes. He died fighting, and although he does not remembered the Afterlife, there is little doubt about that… no matter how strange the methods to gather said information have been." She was back to exasperated for a second as she glanced at the unconscious Headmaster. "What we know is that his soul definitely left his body."

"But then…"

"Hush, sweetie, I am telling you, you just have to be patient." She gave him a caring smile. "As I said, Sir Jekyel's soul left his body… but has apparently found a way to come back, somehow. You, or rather your Semblance." She reached out and tapped his chest, right where his heart was. "Your Semblance called his soul back to this world, probably because your blade, Crocea Mors, was originally his blade. He said that the armour he's now wearing is the same as the one he died in, although he was well over forty at the time and now he seems to be just nineteen at most."

"We think this to be just a side-effect of your Semblance. It replicates the clothes in which the soul has died, and brings them closer to your own age, probably because it's your Semblance," explained the woman. "We still don't know the details, but we think his soul to be linked to your weapon. Or, at least, that's how he explained it. He claims to still remember his name, but also to know that his name now is… `Crocea Mors`."

"C-Crocea?"

"Indeed, that is very strange," Glynda agreed.. "I understand that you are overwhelmed at the moment, sweetie, but I do not have nearly as much time as I wish I had. I am already delaying classes, and I've asked Professor Port to hold Combat Class in my stead until I could take over. So I have no time."

/-/

"Blah, blah, blah blah, blah, blah blah blah, blah blah, blah blah blaaah blah, blah… blah blah…"

/-/

"We will keep track of any new functionality of your Semblance's, but you need to know one more thing about it," Goodwitch continued, unaware of -or maybe just pointed ignoring- the extreme psychological sufferance that was being inflicted upon the other students by her `substitute`. "Sir Jekyel apparently wasn't surprised by Dust nor airships nor cars nor anything. We think that some of your memories might have passed onto him to help him adapt to this new world. Although, when we interrogated him about your past, he claimed not to know anything, so it might be something at a subconscious level rather than a real memory. So don't be surprised if he isn't shocked by our advanced technology. Is all this clear, sweetie? Do I have to repeat?"

"N-No, I think I get it…" He thought about what he had just said for a second. "No, okay, I don't get it, explain it again."

Ignoring what sounded very much like cries for help coming from the arena, Goodwitch sighed and smiled as she began to repeat everything anew.

Poor students... and poor Jekyel and Ozpin, they'll get killer headaches tomorrow.

Anyway, I hope you like this explanation. Jaune is not giving a new soul to his weapon, he's basically calling another soul and linking that to his weapon. Still OP but what can I do about it? I needed this Semblance to write this story!

EDIT: I received a couple of reviews pointing out that Ruby is not the avatar of Jaune's weapon. I beg your pardon, I forgot to add this explanation. The summary is probably a bit deceiving, but Ruby won't be Crocea Mors's Avatar. Instead, Jaune will forge a new weapon, Rubis du Soleil (thanks to lordrednight for the name!) and Ruby will be the avatar of THAT weapon. I haven't been clear thus far, so let me say this: we won't see Ruby for two more chapters! I was planning on having her appear on ch4 or 5, so you'll have to wait a little. I hope now this is clear. Again, I apologize for the misunderstanding.

Until next time,

Khor Evik Vlakhavlakh.