Disclaimer: I own nothing of RWBY.
Slate
By: Imyoshi
The day finally arrived.
Today of all days Jaune Arc planned to reveal his Aura manipulation skill to everyone.
Practice and determination fueled his nerves. After nearly two months of preparation, training, and planning, he finally felt confident enough in his abilities, and what better place to test his might and show off than none other than Professor Goodwitch's combat class—in front of everyone he knew or mocked him! Oh! His blood pumped feverously throughout his body. The anticipation burned, almost killing him. It hurt to even think about waiting any longer. No? Wait? That was just Nora poking him in the arm with her fork.
Her syrupy-free fork.
Such a shame, he believed she would've gotten over the fact that he won her pancakes by now. Not like he hadn't earned them. Counting all those specks of dust particles took forever, yet, even after losing their little wager, that she insisted, Nora persisted on poking him with her syrup-free fork every chance she got, and she had many opportunities. Like in the morning, when he walked out of the shower, but her poking went up a few notches during breakfast.
Eh? Her leader shrugged while finishing off the morsels of one of Nora's pancakes. Till this day he would never understand Nora and her crazy antics, or why she loved these plates of flour and milk so much. The thoughts that went on in that girl's head forever remained a mystery to this Arc. Such other puzzles included girl talk and what colors matched with what.
Sitting with only his team for a change, he chewed confidently through his remaining lunch, not deterred by his bubbly teammate in the slightest. An impressive feat all on its own, the delicious taste of pancake helped, second to Ren, of course. His friend was built to last and survive the apocalypse when it came. Dealing with Nora twenty-four seven had its perks.
"So... Jaune?" Pyrrha beamed, enjoying the taste of her salad and ignoring the way Nora kept jabbing away at their leader. She was positively thrilled. Very rarely nowadays did he partake in lunch. She missed him. "You seem to be in a good mood. Anything you wanna tell us?"
"Yeah!" Nora added, hesitantly grabbing a forkful of her salad. She slowly tasted a healthy leaf before quickly spitting out in disgust. How could anyone eat this stuff? Poison! "Are you finally going to reveal how you cheated on our bet?"
The rest of the team sighed; Nora kept saying that every day for the past couple of months and wouldn't drop it. Ironic considering today was the last day of her pancake-free punishment, but she refused to leave it alone for the death of her. Literally! She occasionally surprised-tackled Jaune out of nowhere, demanding he admitted to fraud. Admit to cheating on their little bet! Admit to anything that would paint him the bad guy.
Of course, he never did.
The shark-like smirk he offered for her futile efforts never helped either.
Grabbing Nora's fork before she jabbed their leader for the two-hundredth time that day, Ren calmly spoke on his behalf. "Nora, how would Jaune know how many specks of dust were in our room unless he counted them all?"
Lie Ren had long since accepted that their leader did, in fact, count all the specks of dust in their room—as absurd as that sounded, and to the rational thinking member of the team, it sounded Nora-level ridiculous. There was no point fighting it.
"I bet he found the number in my diary!" Nora accused him without reason, proof, or anything, reaching again for her trust fork.
Ren promptly stopped her, holding the fork away. "You don't have a diary, Nora."
"Isn't that convenient?!"
Jaune watched them bicker, highly amused at their dynamics. Sometimes, when he was sure neither of them was mindreaders, he wondered when those two would get together or together-together as Nora so elegantly put it. Took a complete and utter dolt not to notice someone else's interest. Hn? Wonder why Pyrrha had her Hello Again Smile?
Beep! Beep!
Hearing the telltale signs of the dismissal bell, everyone in the Mess Hall quickly hurried to finish their meals and head to their classes. Team JNPR not any different, even if Nora hovered somewhat closer than he felt safe with, after all, he saw the subtle—not subtle—way she hid her second fork in the folds of her combat skirt. Plus, the devilish gleam in her eyes did squat to quell his suspicions.
Either way, it failed to dampen or sour his mood. Jab! Jab! Jab! Nora was so going to get it later.
Entering Professor Goodwitch's classroom, his found quickly found their seats at the center of the room with them noticing their leader's mysterious, confident stride. Even his posture appeared stronger with his back straight and arms trembling with unknown vigor. None of them have ever seen their Fearless Leader act like this before in combat class. Regularly, fear stalked their leader like a shadow whenever he entered this class. Never this.
Never bravery.
Nora peeked down at her fork. Maybe she should stop poking him before something awful happened?
Not noticing his team's concerned looks, Jaune, for the first time since attending this academy, planned to volunteer to go first for sparring practice. Crocea Mors remained at his hip, but he had no intention of using it. Aura already coursed through his power, flowing through his body with a healthy dose of heat. Nerves sprung to life, and his heart thumped powerfully in his chest from the Aura control.
Granted, he wasn't entirely confident in his ability to win, but couldn't ignore the fact that when he held Excalibur, his strength and agility felt on a whole different plane compared to when he used Crocea Mors only. It was numbing to think about, Crocea Mors should've worked for an Arc, but it never felt right to wield. He needed a weapon that he could control and not one that he couldn't, such an idea only led to an early death. The why must the good die young cliché wouldn't get to him.
No way, no how.
Waiting for Professor Goodwitch to finish whatever it was she was doing he tried to soothe his nerves. No reason to act so crazy. That job belonged to Nora. Oum forbid he stole something else of hers. Besides, he needed to focus. Not worry about the impending wrath of the misguided Valkyrie.
"Quiet down, students." Professor Goodwitch demanded, pushing her glasses into place. The room immediately settled down. "As you're well aware, combat class is about pitting you against one another in a friendly spar, but today things are going to go differently. Today you'll be heading to Emerald Forest to fight off an increased number of Grimm with this being an excellent opportunity to practice and help reduce the number of Grimm in the vicinity." Goodwitch began walking out of class. "I will be grading you based on your team's performance. So please, do not get yourselves killed."
If anyone accepted the threat seriously, then the professor couldn't tell as they rejoiced at the idea of having class outside today. Some fresh air and deadly, soulless Grimm slaying did the body well, but as the students hurried out, Jaune remained behind the group, frozen in his seat, grin gone. What was he to do now? A simple solution was to wait a day, seemed like a practical idea. Then again, a grade hung over his head, and his marks weren't the best. Professor Goodwitch already thought of him as the bottom of the last class.
Oh well!
If not in class, then Emerald Forest. He should be able to show off there.
…
Scratch that. Showing off in Emerald Forest was a no-go.
The sight amused him, made him sigh with a chuckle. Funny, downright hilarious actually, how one little thing was all it took to ruin someone's day. Just one little thing.
Seriously? What point was there to owning a blade of Aura if it couldn't hit the giant Nevermores flying over his head? Thank Dust they paled in comparison to the one they fought during initiation, but miracles aside, sword versus bird nine times out of ten ended up in the bird's favor. No question! Jaune Arc just so happened to be on the losing side of that gamble.
Of course, to add salt to the wound, everyone else had no problem hitting the Grimm in the sky with their guns and vials of Dust. Two things of which he had the misfortune of not possessing, not like he knew how to use Dust. All the leader had on him was Crocea Mors and his hidden Aura blade. Neither held the ability to hit a flying Grimm or any airborne target for that matter unless he fancied throwing the Crocea Mors because Excalibur would fizzle out before reaching the dreaded birds. Again, the little things had the potential to ruin a person's day.
Hanging his head in defeat, the leader sighed as he watched his teammates take down a few Nevermores. Passed them, he distinctly saw Team RWBY finishing off their round of Grimm, using their weapon's gun form, and Weiss using her seemingly endless supply of Dust at their disposal. Watching the display of skill irked him. It left a sour taste in his mouth.
"Damn it." Jaune cursed, running toward his team. At the very least he could provide support and guidance for them. So far Excalibur's chances of seeing action today were gone. "I'm useless here."
Catching up with his team, he silently watched as his partner shot down a Nevermore with Ren and Nora handling their own. Their weapons were switched over to long-range, and again he felt out-of-place at Beacon, clicking his teeth. Again he felt isolated. An outcast among a crowd of powerful fighters. A liar and a cheat that didn't deserve to be here.
Gripping Crocea Mors stubbornly, he narrowed his eyes at the monstrous sky. No doubt about it!
He needed to forge a long-range weapon.
...
Ever since that fateful day, Jaune Arc learned to use Doctor Oobleck's class to his advantage since he first started brainstorming. He had gone all out on his notes, adding footnotes, endnotes, and tidying up sections that lacked proper labeling. The noodle even added diagrams of Excalibur and the sphere of Aura, breaking down the caption into easy to understand figures. The little things for anyone Aura challenged. The dork even wrote an index page that regularly expanded and faced issues of being rewritten, a problem dealing with Aura discoveries.
Not bad for a slacker.
The Arc furthermore had an idea page filled to the brim of worthless and dead-end projects that went nowhere real fast. Like his mismatch quest to form a cube out of Aura. That wasn't happening, no matter how much willpower and mental focus he threw at the task. Nope! Some goals were impossible with Aura. How Excalibur came to be was partially unknown to him, but he figured that was one of those better not to know things and thanked Oum for throwing him a break.
Now Jaune rushed sketch an idea he had for a gun, before promptly crossing out the design in haste and frustration. Why he never thought of constructing a handgun out of nowhere remained lost to him. Oh? Wait! He remembered precisely why, because he didn't know how.
The sad truth was he knew nothing about gun creation, thermodynamics, physics, or anything relating to a firearm except for it fired bullets. None of that stopped him from attempting a new design after another, but they all ended up more or less the same, a blemish in his Aura notebook in both failure and ink.
Throwing passion and hate into it, he scratched his head while sighing, trying for the life of him to unravel this problem. Meanwhile, Nora sat above him, interested in what her Fearless Leader's up to with a growing gleam. Seeing passed his mop of unkempt locks made it impossible, but she positively knew he wasn't paying a lick of attention to Professor Boring's lecture. How unfair. Not like she blamed him, but how come Ren wasn't on his case for being lazy? If she so much as doodle once in class, he put a stop to that and forced her to take notes, but Jaune? Go right ahead! Doodle to your heart's content. Forget notes.
It was a conspiracy against her.
Maybe he was holding his secret—cheating techniques—to how he counted all that dust, or worse, recipes for sugar-free pancakes? Maybe her leader would force her darling Ren to make those yucky pancakes instead of his flawlessly flipped, fluffy brown clouds? Revenge for poking him with her reliable fork all those times? No! She wouldn't allow that. She would show him.
Nora wasn't going to let her dumb leader beat her so effortlessly! She was—!
"Nora..." Ren whispered, seizing the top of her head in a dominant move. He forced her attention on the fast-moving professor. "You're supposed to be taking notes, not scheming up ways to prank Jaune. Start writing or I'm not making you breakfast tomorrow."
Nora pouted. An empty lie, Ren wouldn't dare let her starve, but his voice still held this edge of mild disappointment. Now he kept his attention trained on her, increasing the blood flow in her cheeks from the way those pink eyes glared into her soul.
Gosh, darn it! Now her leader made Ren mad at her, too! Mark her words, this wasn't over Fearless Leader!
...
Sigh.
Pyrrha watched her partner skip dinner as he stalked away, by himself, toward their room, a slight frown adoring his signature go-with-the-flow nature.
She wanted to follow, maybe entice him to eat with them instead, but there was a slight pout, an angry stomp in every step he took and she didn't want to intervene. Not again. His body actions spoke louder than words. They spoke of needing alone time.
The champion wasn't so clueless she had noticed how out-of-place Jaune felt during combat class. Seeing how inadequate he felt today probably struck a nerve, even worse considering whose nerve it hit, much worse. Heartbreaking. She couldn't begin to imagine how he felt on the inside. All his emotions must be jumbled up together in a tangled mess.
Just when she thought he was getting better, getting back to his old self, disaster struck without warning, and Jaune had been so excited to fight, too. She saw it! Her friends and teammates saw it! Even a few other students bore witness to it. The moment he had waited for had been stripped out of his hands before he noticed before he properly grasped and seized the moment by the Boarbatusk's horns.
To be shoved back down after getting up must be so hard, for it to happen twice must prove a harder challenge, yet, her leader appeared determined. That much was true. Determined and focus. This setback would only push him further on his path. At least she hoped. Honest to Oum, hoped. Because this invisible distance he kept from his team reminded her too much of the still fresh Cardin memory, and even if Jaune looked far better than before, he nevertheless acted far too secretive for her tastes.
For now, she would suck it up and keep him on his toes with their training regime. Perhaps throw in some grappling and stronger evasive tactics. Anything to further his progress and not hinder him.
Not again.
...
Lie Ren wasn't blind.
It was clear on Pyrrha's frown that her thoughts were mixed and jumbled, and the perpetrator of this single act was their leader and his recent secretive motives.
Jaune Arc entered Beacon Academy off being a liar, no two ways about it. No matter how much Ren wanted to forget that, he couldn't. Others probably thought that was a noble goal when his dreams were to become a Huntsmen, but in reality, it was almost selfish and problematic. Considering the notion that their leader kept secrets from them wasn't difficult to accept, harmful or not. This Lie knew a thing or two about keeping secrets locked away. Ren didn't even think his leader knew that keeping secrets could hurt the ones around him. Based on the past behavior of their leader, without a doubt, Jaune had a habit to lock himself away from others when something positively negative happened. Other times he shouldered the weight of it on his shoulders.
It was easy to fall back into old habits without realizing it. The Cardin fiasco was a prime example, and even his lack of skill was another that pushed Jaune to hide again. Two vital factors that happened side-by-side with each other that shut him down. Only this time, Jaune didn't look exhausted or withdrawn but instead appeared to have a positive outlook on the situation, which made it troublesome for Ren to conclude whether his leader hid secrets because he felt discouraged or for a different purpose altogether.
However, between all the facts, what Ren knew he could guess accurately was that something negative affected their leader recently, made him question something about himself. No one fell back down onto bad habits from a genuine motive. There would be no reason to. No safeguard needed. That was what confused him. Because when Lie Ren thought long and hard about it, Jaune Arc was a person prone to self-doubt.
Self-doubt could have such odd effects on a person. From pretending everything was normal with denial, to being consumed by grief and sorrow until the pressure was too much to bear, the possibilities were endless. Although, somehow, someway, his leader might've figured out a way to channel that doubt and turn into results. In the end, it wasn't too hard for the ninja to imagine Jaune hiding, having years of experience watching Nora slip on various forms of masks throughout their closed past made his emotion reading skills advanced compared to everyone else, but even he was getting mixed signals here.
Now the final question, did he call him out on it? Would he force Jaune to talk and reveal to them the problems he faced?
No.
Ren had demons of his own to worry about, and he wasn't going to force someone to reveal theirs because of boundless curiosity.
Besides, Jaune must have his reasons—everyone always did. Even if his leader was hiding something, it seemed like he was trying to make the most of it. Best to let Jaune figure things out on his own accord and not push him, unless necessary.
Good or bad, it didn't matter.
"C'mon, Ren!" Nora latched onto his arm from behind, smile bright and unwavering. "Our food's not gonna eat itself!"
He peered down at his plate of healthy food that Nora's hated and then hers, tilting his head slightly in an amusing way. "You forgot to get your vegetables... again." Nora pretended not to hear that, unlatching herself away from Ren's arm, and sliding over to Pyrrha with a slight bump on the hip.
He followed a minute after with a second plate of vegetables for a distraught Nora and half-amused Pyrrha. Pyrrha's half-amusement turned into a stifled giggle as Ren was forced to spoon feed Nora her vegetables, promising for his leader a day out on Vale if she behaved herself. How he would manage such a feat was yet to be known, but Pyrrha didn't doubt him.
After all, Lie Ren got Nora to eat her vegetables.
...
Another day, another afternoon alone in his team's room, skipping dinner.
Jaune stood in the center of the room, trying to fire a ball of Aura away from his palm, but no such luck. The sphere refused to leave his hand, ignoring Remnant's gravity, no matter how much he focused on it. Whatever focus or force he tried applying added nothing to the overgrowing problem. Sheer willpower alone wouldn't overcome this barrier. This crude experiment, this idea of a projectile, was the results of trying to manipulate his Aura into a gun-like weapon. He figured, after convincing himself, that since he created a blade out of Aura, using Aura spheres as a projectile—a shell—should be a walk in the park, metaphorically speaking.
How wrong he was.
If anything, it felt like being flung back to square one all over again!
The leader never noticed until now, but the Aura balls in his hands floated a constant distance away from his palms, stationary at a fixed height, no matter where he moved them. Strange how he never noticed these things until forced to find solutions around them. Ah! Live and learn. Such was the way of life for an Aura manipulator.
Perfect.
Giving up on making the orbs fire out, he mindlessly twirled them around his palms, finding it amusing that this form of control once stumped him. Ah, the little things. His mind drifted to the guns his team, and Team RWBY used, using some of the models as a reference point.
First, he pictured Pyrrha's weapon and its semi-automatic rifle mode. He imagined its form and how she used it, definitely a long-range weapon with its scope and barrel size, and maybe he could find a way to make his Aura fire such a distance, but then he was shaking his head at the idea. Long-range and he didn't sound right, he doubted he could hit a target like Pyrrha. Unless they stood still for him, it wouldn't work. In other words, long-range firing required a level of precision, concentration, and skill he knew he didn't carry outright. Maybe over time, but not now.
Next, he thought about Nora's grenade launched and promptly stopped there before his mind derailed any further.
No—just no!
Lastly, he pictured Ren's weapon gun form. The sloth used automatic pistols that were versatile for close to mid-range combat, a deadly combination of blades and guns, and most of all, easy to use, and quick, too. A better and more optimal weapon for his taste palate.
Huh? He stopped twirling the spheres, snuffing them out of existence except for one. Silently, he stared at the ball, thinking heavily on Ren's weapon-type and its pistol-shaped design, and the more he stalked the idea, the better appealing it got.
"A blade that's also a gun?" Jaune mumbled, reminiscing the days he used his hands as makeshift guns as a kid. Good times. Could it be that simple? Crazy? Sure. Simple? Well, that was all up to him. He already pulled off the impossible once. "Okay! Let's give it a try!"
Absorbing his Aura sphere—knowing he needed some form of ammunition—Jaune formed his hand into the child-like gun of the past. His pointed his index finger out with his thumb up, placing the rest of his fingers to fold into his palm, resembling that childish firearm from the youth of many.
Slowly, he gathered his Aura toward the tip of his index finger, studying the ball of white burn brightly away it. He felt the aura channeling and condensing within the edge of his finger. A pair of rings—resembling his family's crest—danced around the sphere, serving as a belt or something more. He had never seen those before. The sight was magnificent and breathtaking and quickly becoming unstable before his eyes.
Suddenly, the control slip, something snapped, things he never experienced with Aura happened, and he attempted to stabilize his Aura. Nothing worked, and the sphere abruptly exploded in his hand, thrusting him back against the wall of his team's room with a compelling force.
"Ah!" Jaune cried, sliding down onto the floor. There wasn't any pain, and he quickly got up, busy staring at the tip of his finger with confusion and anticipation to worry over damage. "What was that?"
Progress.
He quickly tried again with the same results as before happening. No matter how hard he worked, or how many times he threw his soul into it, nothing stopped the sudden loss of control or recoil damage that happened every instance he failed. Not only that, he had other issues to deal with, none of the Aura came back, none of it! The Arc felt his Aura slip out of his body upon the recoiled explosions, dipping into his reserves each time. Nothing like Excalibur or the Aura balls with those being absorbed back into his body upon being willed away. Aura didn't come back this time.
In other words, he could only practice this technique so much before utterly exhausting himself of his Aura reserves.
He hated the idea. He hated the consequences. He hated it all, but it made perfect sense. If he was trying to expel Aura as ammunition, what else would he expect? He hated it, but couldn't do anything about it. It worked against him in terms relating to practice and training, but that was an incentive if anything. Now he had a reason to figure it out quickly. A real bummer, but results required sacrifice, and he was more than willing to pay the piper if it crafted him the weapon he craved.
Trying once more, he glowed in a hue of snow, aiming at the wall with his Aura destabilizing at his fingertip. Instead of taking another explosion to the face, he calmly drained the sphere and flickered the power gone. This time the Aura came back to him, but hardly soothed his troubled mood.
Flexing his fingers, he glared down at his hand, moving each finger experimentally. Concentrating, his snowy hue burned with Aura separating away from his palm to efficiently form a sphere in the dead center of his palm. The process was straightforward, and he puzzled over it quietly, wondering what could've possibly gone wrong. Aura, hand, childhood gun. Somewhere in between all that, he missed a step.
Maybe some backtracking might help?
Forming Excalibur, he gazed long and hard at the Aura blade, tilting it as if the answer remained hidden somewhere in its subtle glow of heat. Was it weird the brightness didn't affect him anymore? Oh well. He swung the sword for good measure, wanting to get some practice swings in to get the blood pumping. Instantly he noticed the difference in feel. The Aura of his blade compared to the makeshift gun he experimented with might as well be on two different wavelengths. Sword and firearm were exclusively different, that was for sure, and then it hit him.
The Excalibur was a sword. Not a gun.
Yes! Entirely different weapons. He knew how to handle a sword, most of the mechanics behind it, and how holding one felt, but this Arc had zero experience messing around with a firearm. How it fitted between the fingers was beyond him. His family never needed the use of such a weapon. A family of warriors carried shields and swords, like Crocea Mors. Arcs were hack-and-slash. So they never saw the need—or foresight—to teach any of the older Arc children about guns. Not when they wielded swords in battle with fierce grace. At that point, there wasn't a use for them. So wrapping all that up together, a handgun had more mechanics behind it than only design and durability.
Figuring out some of the problems, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
Jaune pondered over his next move, moving to stare out the window and at the moonless night. "What to do? What to do?"
Moments later, he huffed and willed away Excalibur, sighing at the obvious answer. When one needed knowledge, then one needed to learn about said knowledge. Jaune Arc's problem centered around firearms, so he must learn the inner workings of guns before attempting to create one. Plain and simple!
Back to square one indeed.
…
Five minutes in the library.
It only took those five minutes for Jaune to learn that he understood absolutely nothing of what the Scrolls were talking about when trying to explain the mechanisms and thermal power behind a firearm. So many confusing words. None of them made any sense. Seriously! How did Ruby enjoy this stuff? It hurt his head to read.
Wait for a cookie monster second! Ruby!
Of course, the milk-loving reaper! If anyone could dumb down the process of gun stuff for him, then it was his first friend.
"Perfect!" Jaune sighed happily, walking toward Team RWBY's room with a kick in his step. "I'll just ask Ruby to explain this stuff to me! Shouldn't be too much of a problem, I hope."
Who was he kidding? Ruby nerded-out when it came to weapon stuff. Knowing her, she might glomp his arm and refuse to let go unless he accepted her help. Which worked out fine for him, but still, as he neared the dorm room, he couldn't help but feel like he forgot something. Something vitally important as he knocked on their door—crucial to his survival. It irked him, biting him on the head like a severe headache, and for the life of he couldn't figure it out. When a fellow blonde opened the door, automatically grinning at the fresh meat, he choked.
"Oh? Hey, Jaune! What's up? What brings you here?"
Great. Yup! He forgot about Ruby's older, stronger, overprotective sister, Yang Xiao Long. The very same older sister who hated all things corruptible near her precious baby sister, including guys. Especially guys, which Jaune Arc was, a guy, a cardholder of the evil Y-chromosome and all things corruptible. Asking Yang if he could talk to Ruby might lead to some drama. Friends or not, Yang sometimes behaved like a protective lioness, but he didn't hold it against her. He had little sisters too!
If there ever was a time to play the suave charm, now was that time, if only he had his trusty guitar, El Diablo, to back him up.
"Hey, Yang!" Jaune greeted with a simple wave. So far, so good! He was cooler than ice. Colder than Weiss even. "Can I speak to Ruby alone?"
Damn it? Why did he say alone? Bad choice of words, Arc! Maybe Yang missed it?
Without a doubt, she didn't, and full baby sister alert signals went off in her head, alerting to the possible contamination from the male species. It might be a minor threat, but a warning was a warning, and her Uncle Qrow warned her to watch over Rubes. Even Vomit Boy had the potential to corrupt their Ruby with his dopey, noodley charm. No one was purely innocent. Pity, too, she liked Jaune. Still, the friend card allowed for some leeway, some.
"Why, Vomit Boy?" Yang leaned forward, eyes piercing. Even though she was grinning, he saw the fire burning within those eyes of hers. A hint of undertone underneath her teasing tone alerted him to rephrase the question. "Jaune?"
"I was hoping if she could explain to me how a gun works? I was thinking of making one for—!"
"What?!" Before Jaune even finished the question, Ruby appeared out of thin air in a wisp of rose petals, breaking passed his personal space, seizing the threads of his hoodie in a vice grip of ecstatic joy. A certain spark burned in her eyes as she impatiently tugged his hoodie. "You're making a gun?!"
In his defense to Yang's fiery smile, he tried to push away, but to no such luck. Ruby stubbornly held on, stretching the thread with hunger. Giving in to the situation, he slowly answered her question with his voice only slightly cracking.
"... Yes?"
"Oh! Oh! Can I help you build it! Please! Oh please say yes! Say yes, Jaune!"
Looking between Ruby and Yang, he sighed miserably. Oum, why him, this was going to hurt him way more than it was going to for Ruby. Even if he knew Yang wouldn't do much, not unless she saved every personal insult and beating for combat class, he knew to hurt Ruby's feeling would activate Momma Bear Protocol, aka, tear Jaune apart mode. She would probably only scare him with a simple warning, but that wouldn't make it any less intimidating.
Bracing himself, he summoned all his courage. It was nowhere near enough. "No."
Time passed slowly, and Ruby gradually went from pure unrestrained happiness to withering depression. Yang was immediately on him when Ruby's lip wobbled with her threat levels for Jaune going from minor to medium in the blink of an eye. When the whimper came, all bets were off. She might have been impressed with his resistance to Ruby's adorableness if she wasn't so clouded by righteous fury. Maybe dad was right. Perhaps she did have anger problems that tended to let things get out of control.
None of that mattered right now.
"Look! Just let me explain!" Jaune cried out with Yang hands around his shoulders. His arms were out in total surrendering fashion with his nervous smile all he had as a weapon.
"You got ten seconds to explain!" Yang warned with a sickly sweet smile. Whimper! "You got five seconds to explain!"
"I just want to know how to make a gun!" Jaune answered, sweating a little. He needed to keep his secret intact. "But I don't want anyone to help me because it wouldn't be fair! Everyone else made their own by themselves. I want too as well. I felt useless today during Professor Goodwitch's class... I only need to know the basics of making one. That's it!"
The ticking-time-bomb didn't release her grip, but neither increased it. That had to count for something? Please count for something! It was all he had at the moment, well, that and his amazing smile and winning personality, but best to drop that.
Holding him still, Yang looked over to her sister. "Ruby, it's your call."
Ruby adorably toughened up and glared at him. Beneath his cruelty, she saw the earnestness behind that goofy grin and understood what he said. Wanting to create a weapon was something everyone accomplished by themselves. Jaune wasn't asking for a handout, only for help on the general understanding of guns. As a budding-learning weapon master, Ruby couldn't let his sudden passion for gunsmithing die by her sister's powerful and unforgiving hands.
No matter how mad she still was at the blond dork or how tempting the offer sounded. Curse her hero's heart! Well, maybe a little? No! No! Bad Ruby! No hurting friends.
Hurting friends was wrong.
Ruby sighed. "Let him go, Yang."
Yang did, but not before giving Jaune an I'm watching you look and disappeared back to their dorm room, leaving the two leaders alone in the hallway. An awkward silence fell over the corridor, and neither of them spoke a word, hiding in the silence as socially awkward leaders did. Finally, though, Ruby broke the silence first, brave in the face of awkwardness.
"So?" Ruby stretched, rocking back and forth on the soles of her combat boots. "Why the sneaky? Why not just ask your team for help?"
He chose his next words carefully, deliberating sugaring his personality. "I want to surprise them! Show them their leader isn't weak! And if I was going to ask anyone for help; it's going to be Remnant's number one weapons master!"
"Aw! You're trying to butter me up." Ruby mocked with her hands to her chest.
He tilted his head, leaning closer. "Is it working?"
She fought to hide her smile, playing with the hem of her combat skirt. "Maybe."
Grinning now, he paused in his buttering to lock eyes onto Team RWBY's door. Fear iron gripped his heart. "So? Any reason Yang was about to tear my body in two?"
She pouted, arms thrown to her sides. "Ugh! She's always like that whenever some boy wants to hang around me. Her and my dad. Plus, she's protective. It happened all the time at Signal." Ruby laughed. "Don't fret, she wasn't really going to hurt you, I think." That did little to nothing to settle his nerves. "Yang just likes to show her fists, but you're Jaune, so you should be fine."
Ignoring the condemnation, he peered toward Team RWBY's door and pictured how easy it would be for Yang to reach him with his team's dorm right across from his theirs. "I don't feel any safer at all."
"You also threw up on her shoes..." Ruby added as an afterthought. "Those were new boots. She's probably still a tiny bit mad at you for that."
He sighed, despair settling over his thin smile. There was always something to put him down. Yang holding a tiny grudge was just one of them.
"She hasn't forgiven me for that yet, that happened months ago!"
"New boots, Jaune!"
"Okay, okay, that's fair!" Jaune relented, grinning now at the memory of his seven sisters and when it came to new clothing. He then tucked his hands into his pockets, being confident again. "So, can you help me, Rubes? I only need to know the how and why behind guns. Something I'm pretty sure you know all about!"
The milk lover acted like the choice required real brainpower to consider, before nodding in a vigorous speed. "Okay! How about we get started on how a gun shoots its bullets. Essentially, you apply pressure to a projectile..." One long explanation later. "And that should do it!" Ruby finished the basic lesson of Weaponry one-o'-one, smile innocent. "Any questions?"
Yes. Many.
Restarting his brain, he fumbled and laughed awkwardly, cocking his head to the side, pretending he understood all of that when in reality he only paid attention to the crucial parts of the gun's internal dynamics when it came to firearms. Mainly, the five essential points on how a revolver loaded, aimed and fired.
The trigger, hammer, chamber, barrel, and handle were all the notes he took immediate notice to, storing away their functions for later writing and testing. Furthermore, he had to worry over the power of the weapon, the force and action release mechanism but believed his willpower attributed to dissolve those issues. Beyond that, he learned what he needed.
"Yeah, I got it!" Glad to have finally got the information he wanted, Jaune quickly hugged the hooded girl in a surprise sneak-hug, grinning like a complete fool. "Thanks, Rubes!"
He headed back into his room, clueless to the burning red on Ruby's cheeks. The girl tried to calm her beating heart down, not understanding why her heart raced the way it did. Her body felt warm. Maybe she was getting sick? Yeah! That made perfect sense! Some bed rest and liquidy fluids should eliminate the pesky problem.
Deciding that bed was her top priority, she opened the door to her team's room, still flushed. When she pulled away from the handle, Yang, and oddly Weiss, both fell from the sudden loss of the door, becoming a tangle of limbs on the dirty hallway carpet.
"Yang? Weiss?" Ruby tilted her head in total confusion. "What are you two doing?"
...
Fortunate for him, when Jaune entered his team's room, his teammates weren't there to intrude on his training, but judging off the time, dinner ended, and they would be here soon. He might only have one chance to practice tonight, so he must hurry. Remembering what Ruby taught him, he glared down at his palm, turning it into that childlike gun, except he didn't immediately charge any Aura into it.
Not yet.
"Alright. First things first, the trigger." Jaune huffed, breaking down the components of his hand. His force of will would have to act as the trigger, so he scratched that one off the list. "Second, the hammer!" Another factor of will mechanism to cross off the list, but Aura still needed to store and build up somewhere, or else he lacked ammunition.
His sight shifted over to his thumb, and he glared at the finger. Racking his brain, he shrugged. The appendage wasn't serving any real purpose, so he shifted it down within his palm and concentrated some Aura on it. The buildup effect of his Aura was immediate, centering there almost instantly, whirling like a burning fire.
"Huh? That covers the hammer, and next should be the chamber?" Since the chamber held the ammunition, he figured that primarily meant him as a whole, but paused at the idea. "Hn? This might be a problem."
Forcing Aura out of his body as projectiles sounded dreadful. Concentrating and channeling the Aura wasn't complicated, but the process moved too slowly. An ineffective method of using a gun in battle. The heat of battle favored the side who struck first, not the other way around. Change of plans, he needed to find another way to fire his weapon, but without delay. Aura must be stored somewhere else for easy access.
Glaring down at his hand, he blinked at the size of his palm, noticing that he could probably store two or three spheres of Aura at once inside. Whether or not he could force the Aura to be pushed inside all factored into his level of control. However, calling him confident now would be a gross understatement.
Whelp! Time to see if had what it took! Concentrating intently, he glowed in the dark room, and formed two Aura balls in one hand and tried to force them into his palm. The process was a new one, demanding control he gave little practice over. Draining away his Aura was one thing, storing it into a pocket space within his palm was another thing entirely. Things shuffled. Power fluctuated. Doing the opposite of summoning Excalibur, willing the Aura to bend inside his hand, pushed against his practice skills. Not only that, but he had to take into account storage, shape manipulation, and discharge, all of which turned out to be a living nightmare all its own, but he remained determined, breaking through that barrier standing before him with relentless passion and drive.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the spheres broke apart above his palm, turning into specks of Aura bits that moved from outside his body to inside. When it was said and done, he narrowed his eyes, unable to shake the sensation of his hand feeling full. Not much concern overshadowed him, but the feeling stayed, resembling that of sleeping Aura condensed into the space of his hand. Truthfully, they barely fit inside his palm, pulsating with life in heated bliss, but it was practically easy to manipulate once he managed it.
Like breathing.
For now, he knew his hand was stuffed, overfilled to the brim with two spheres of Aura. Could he overcome that wall and increase those numbers further? Only time would tell.
"Great! I got the chamber down!" Jaune laughed, concentrating on the two Aura balls hidden within his handgun. "Next is the barrel!" Index finger out! "Well, got that covered! And finally the handle!" Which meant his middle, ring, and little finger. "Perfect!"
Eager to test out his Aura gun, he aimed at the forest facing the wall, near the window, grinning like a blind fool. Results were immediate. Aura flared in his hand, and he felt an orb travel pass from his thumb and through his index finger, but then it stopped outside his index finger, becoming unstable very fast.
"Not again!"
The leader swiftly began draining away his Aura and relaxed his hand as the danger of blasted recoil died down. A breath of relief passed his lips as the sphere of Aura was halfway gone, glad to avoid another explosion to the face, but he wasn't paying enough attention to his hand. His middle finger was the first to relax and connect with his index finger by a push of lingering movement, creating a chain of events that would forever shape him into the Huntsmen he dreamt to be.
He would never forget the results of what happened next.
The unstable ball of Aura suddenly sharpened and condensed into a tighter sphere with those two glowing arc rings orbiting around it, before it fired straight forward and through the thin wall of Team JNPR's room, outside into the moonless night sky. By the time he regained his wits, the shining light of Aura long since passed, leaving nothing behind but a hall in the drywall. He was beside himself.
"What? How! What the heck! How in the—?"
He, without a doubt, had trouble believing it and stared down at his hand in frozen awe. Fortunate smiled down upon him, having frozen his movements, along with hand, in a state of suspension of fear with this gifting him the chance to see the state of his hand. He discovered his index and middle finger touching with the rest of his other fingers still locked in place.
None of it made any sense.
Ignoring the smoldering hole in his team's wall, for now, he studied his hand, trying for the life of him to figure out what just happened. Immediately he realized a chunk of his Aura, some resting in his palm, was missing. Good. That meant the storage idea worked, leaving him only to figure out the mechanisms behind it. Being a man of action, he settled to test this state of hand formation outside the window this time and repeated the process with critical resolve.
He aimed his arm out. The moonless night greeted, and he focused his second sphere of Aura through his palm, copying the movements in acute precision. It traveled again to his index finger, except this time the Aura formed between his index and middle finger, contracting down into a small sphere with two arc rings circling one another, always making something resembling that of a perfect circle, like a belt of dust particles.
His eyes narrowed. He was in control this time and decided not to fire his second round. This time he favored studying the subtle difference between the versions of handguns with Aura critical eyes, moving the gun closer. He remained unafraid of its firing power, even with the sizzling hole in the wall to demonstrate its destructive force and blinding velocity.
The Arc hummed, this one was a head-scratcher. "Doesn't seem like much changed, well, except for my middle finger, but why?"
He knew full well every detail mattered. Aiming at the infinite atmosphere, he controlled his Aura and discharged the handgun, eyes further narrowed as he observed the way it soared through the sky with a tail of sparkling white particles of dust following it like a shooting star.
He lost sight of quickly. A part of him wondered just how far it was destined to go.
The other part was focusing on his other palm, knowing two balls of Aura remained storied inside. A quick shuffle later and he was aiming at the faraway forest. He paused, took aim, and fired at an enormous tree near the forest edge, close to Beacon but still out-of-bounds of what was considered safe territory. He knew that tree. A few scorch marks could be found on that excessive plant, courtesy of Excalibur.
The forest served its purpose well, keeping him away from prying eyes while the security system remained untouched without students fighting out there during initiation. He did anything, including fighting in a non-populated section of the forest, to keep another Cardin problem under the table. Anyway, he aimed his hand above the tree, taking into account gravity and the wind like Ruby drilled into him to the best of his mediocre skills, but when he fired his Aura, it soared straight above the tree with a trail of fading white indicating its direction and landed exactly where the edge of his thumb formerly aimed. All this put his thought process on overdrive. What happened to gravity? What happened to other hazards? The sphere of Aura soared through the air but hadn't fallen prey to any of the warnings Ruby gave him.
That was strange.
Maybe a fluke? Maybe more? Interested in this new development, this time he aimed as close as possible to the tree, eliminating range and gravity out of the equation with the edge of his thumb centered right in the middle of the bark. Upon firing, he was thrilled and shocked to find the ball of Aura soaring through the air, wind and gravity resistance nonexistent, hitting the tree dead-center from where he aimed, if not off to the side from his lackluster aiming. The bright, fiery explosion that followed after turned out to be just a delightful bonus.
He leaned out the window, blinking in fascination. "That's weird? It doesn't seem like Aura's at all affected by gravity or wind? Hn? That's good to know."
There was a chance he could he be dead wrong. Science wasn't regularly exact, but he completely overlooked that, focused back on his hand. He wondered—questioned—why his middle finger made such a difference? Why? What made that second finger correctly fire the weapon? He hadn't done anything different this time. Just point and fire.
Nothing new.
"Let's see." Jaune turned his hand back into a gun with only his index finger out, aimed at the wall, not intending to fire, merely observe. He added his middle finger and took into account the added weight it gave. "Could that have something to do with it?"
Most likely not, Aura was weightless.
Annoyed, he sighed, yawning out of tiredness. It felt like he was thinking much too hard on this. He got the darn Aura gun to work, that should be more than enough to satisfy his goal, except it wasn't, not remotely close.
Call him insane. Make fun of him. Poke him with a sharp stick. It made zero difference. He just wanted to know why it fired with only both fingers and not the one before jumping up for joy. Maybe this was how Ruby felt whenever she wondered how other people's weapons worked? Except his mind pondered over Aura. Perhaps this was just his Aura complexity that grabbed him in an ironclad grip and demanded answers to the questions he couldn't comprehend with his limited Aura palette.
He tried to recall some of the things Ruby told him. The five parts of a revolver and whatever else she mentioned struck, but for the darn life of him, nothing remotely rang a bell. Nothing clicked. Nothing!
Monty Oum, help him.
He shook his head in irritation, followed by leaning out the window on both his arms, trying to piece together his thoughts jumbled up in the endless horizon. The only issue, he was having a hard time doing so while having to blow away stray strands of his hair getting stuck in his line of sight from the harsh winds. A constant struggle with no end in sight.
They wouldn't budge.
Shaking his head again, the hairs remained in place, right between his line of sight—or as Ruby had stubbornly put it—right between his crosshairs. Funny, he didn't think his Aura gun had crosshairs—?
Crosshairs! Aiming! The line of sight! That was it!
He stood up quickly. Crosshairs! By Dust that might be it! Hoping to test out his theory, he moved too hastily, hitting his head on the window's top half with a nasty bump. A silent curse later and the pain faded away.
"Thank you, Aura."
Back to his sudden realization! The leader reformed his hand back into a handgun staring intently at his index finger, finally putting the pieces of the puzzle together. His index finger wasn't the barrel it was the crosshairs! The aiming! It was his middle finger that was the barrel of the Aura gun! No wonder it always blew up in his face! The Aura never had anywhere to fire out. Between everything else he learned of Aura's unpredictable nature, it made the most sense.
"Finally!" Jaune laughed, jumping into the air. "It all makes sense now—!"
Click!
Pausing his Aura fueled rant, Team JNPR's leader turned around to see his fellow teammates enter the room. Commonly, they wouldn't pay too much attention to their leader when the day was close to ending, wishing to enter dreamland, but the opening in the wall forced all their attention to him and stunned them to muted stillness. Even the ever talkative Nora Valkyrie failed to make a sound.
Simply, utterly lost.
Their eyes shifted back to Jaune and the hole a few times with no one saying a single word, until finally, Nora was the first to break the tension in the room, folding her arms in glum and pity annoyance. Ren took the brunt of the blame.
"Oh! I see! Our Fearless Leader can make a hole in the wall anytime he wants, but when I do it, it's a problem?"
Ren said nothing. Nora was indeed right. He calmly retreated with a boop to her nose, using her petrified silence to slide behind Pyrrha. He remained unaffected by her traitorous gawking. Speaking of said champion, she resolved to figure out the mystery of the hole-in-the-wall.
"Jaune?" Pyrrha walked over to the now cooled hole, grabbing bits of the drywall with her fingers. "Why is there a hole in our wall?"
"Ah!" Jaune searched for an excuse, playing it cool in the face of accusation. "... I tripped over one of Nora's grenade canisters, while holding Crocea Mors, and my sword went right through the wall? My bad."
Smooth.
Later, Jaune Arc didn't know what hurt more? His Arc pride for destroying part of his team's room or the fact that they believed him and thought he was just that clumsy. Couldn't they have at least shown a glimmer of doubt?
...
Eyes fluttered open to a bright sunny date. A leader sat up, surprised to find his team missing from the room with the hole covered with a poster. A poster he was positive belonged to one Nora Valkyrie. Who else but Nora owned a banner that had a sloth wearing a crown with a caption titled Sloth King with its minions bowing down to it? Who else could even find a poster like that and bother buying it?
If that wasn't enough the darn thing tied the room together well flawlessly, against his better judgment, and added some variety to their sleeping corridors? Now Team RWBY wasn't the only team with character. Why did it have to be a Sloth King poster that said that? He preferred not to know.
He huffed. Best to start his day. Checking the time, he found he slept way later than usual. A strange occurrence for he hadn't felt overly exhausted yesterday? A few yawns and sighs here and there, sure, but exhausted? Even weirder, he found it increasingly odd the girls beat him up. Ren he understood, but the girls were notorious heavy sleepers, like Team RWBY. If they could sleep the day away, they most definitely would.
Glaring at the poster where a hole was supposed to be, memories of last night came rushing back, and it all slowly began making sense. He must have drained the hell out of his Aura reserves the previous night with his failed and successful Aura experiments, ultimately exhausting him to a state of weakness? Meaning, he needed work on his Aura reserves.
Could prove problematic in the future.
Glad that there were no classes on Saturday; he got dressed and headed for the Mess Hall for breakfast, but he paused before leaving the room and went to stare out the window to see where he fired that ball of Aura last night. He was contemplating whether or not to skip breakfast and proceed to check it out the damage, and seeing as there were only a few students outside so far, he settled on running to inspect the tree. Fewer witnesses and whatnot to notice him leaving Beacon.
Besides, if he was desperate enough, he could always steal some of Ren's healthy nutrition bars. Not the best tasting stuff, but it was jammed pack with vitamins and other essentials for a growing Huntsmen, or at least that was what the box said. He should know, he gave it a quick peek after digging it out of under his bed. Psh! Like hiding it with the dust bunnies was going to stop him. It reminded him of Ren's silly orange-scented shampoo that he tried to hide vigorously. Not like Jaune planned to call him out on it.
He used the stuff, too.
...
Jaune reached the edge of the forest in minutes with the help of Aura. He found the tree with ease, interested in the crater behind it with dirt and gravel scattered across the forest floor. Checking the damage done, he rubbed his hand on the oak, scratching against marks created by Excalibur, mentally noting things to add into his Aura notebook. Like the small sense of heat, he felt on the edge of the crater, even hours after he fired the weapon. Strange how he found no scorch marks to accommodate for such heat nowhere on the tree or surrounding plants. If any existed during the collision, the impact scattered away the evidence.
Everything so far made him grin with his confidence rising. "Whoa! The Aura ball must've gone straight through the tree and smashed against the dirt. Unbelievable."
Wishing to test out his Aura gun again, he transformed his hand in the correct form and aimed at a tree next to him. He charged his Aura, took aim, and discharged the shell of Aura through the oak. The sight was breathtaking and watching the ball of Aura cut through tree after tree until he lost sight of it made his smile grow. As he witnessed the sphere piercing through each tree like Crocea Mors cutting through butter, he couldn't help but wonder why it stopped short on the ground.
Illogically, he assumed the ball of Aura would've passed right through the dirt. After watching the orb rip through trees, it sounded like the proper conclusion to make. Not to say he was disappointed, just oddly curious, to the point he was repeating the experiment in a quest to learn and discover without a moment's rest.
These discoveries needed to researched and cataloged.
Time to experiment! Aiming another shot at the ground beneath his feet, the Aura ball, upon collision, exploded in an explosion of power and forced him back a few feet. Earth traveled everywhere, and he shielded his eyes from the glowing blast. When everything was said and done, a smoldering crater remained with remnants of ash and soot around the rim of the hole, an ensign was left behind, that showed the heat and destructive power of Aura.
He paused, leaned down, and blinked questionably at the damage. "Okay, so Aura can go through trees just fine, but not through dirt? That's just plain weird, but nothing bad."
Weird or not, it was another puzzle to solve.
Time to experiment again! Reloading his hand with more Aura spheres, the leader glanced around, wanting to test his power on another substance rather than dirt and trees. His search led him to an enormous boulder in the middle of the clearing. Perfect! He aimed, but just as he was about to fire, an Ursa Minor and Ursa Major jumped out from behind the rock and lunged straight at the stationary knight.
"What the? Where did you guys come from?!"
Running off pure instinct, he unknowingly fired his Aura gun right through Ursa Minor's face, stumbling a few feet back from not properly footing himself. He watched the ball of Aura cleave the right through the Grimm and crashed upon the boulder behind it. The bear Grimm fell, dead before even hitting the floor, given a background of boulder destruction that drained the remnants of Aura from his handgun's ammunition.
What an awe-inspiring way to go.
He sadly had little time to awe at the destruction, more preoccupied with momma bear quickly approaching. A pity, too, he wanted to inspect that boulder to see why his Aura sphere didn't pass right through it.
He side-dodged a claw meant to cleave him in two, barrel rolling on the floor to create some distance. The fact that this was an Ursa Major and not any other Grimm ticked him off for one reason and one reason only. The first time he had figured it a fluke and nothing more. After all, everyone missed spotting a walking behemoth strolling through the forest every once in a while, but two times?
"Seriously!" Jaune yelled, hands out. "I don't get it! You're big and scary! Where the heck are you all coming from and why can't anyone see you ten feet away? I should be able to hear your footsteps!"
Yes. Jaune Arc was the embodiment of mad and annoyed Things Grimm—these bear Grimm—how on Remnant did he not notice them sneaking up on him? Happening once was fine, but twice, thrice if he felt like counting the one he killed separately! So wrong on so many levels. Things big as his team's room moved as quietly as a mouse. The Cardin fiasco he understood being distracted at the time, but not this one. Ursai sure loved blond, goofy knights. What? Was his noodle personality tasty? Was he indeed a noodle like every person claimed him to be? Did bears like noodles?
It was a damn conspiracy! A conspiracy!
Jumping back from a big claw about to crush his body, he landed a few feet away as the Ursa Major pulled its paw out from the floor, leaving a menacingly looking crater behind. The Grimm then growled at him, getting onto all fours and preparing to rush toward the stunned knight, drawing its claws on the dirt.
Adrenaline finally kicked in. He reacted to the situation and switched to a defensive stance, too determined to live to be scared of the growling beast. Besides, he had beaten two already, why not add another to his count? Three was the charm, at least he hoped that was how the saying went.
Heart pounding loudly in his ears with his beat strong in his chest, and blood warm with anticipation, there was a small trickle of sweat forming on his arms as he reflexively attached his hands together and quietly concentrated on his Aura to connect and stabilize.
Smirking, he glared playfully at the Grimm. "Well, I did want to use Excalibur on a Grimm yesterday. And I can't see a better opportunity than now. And really, you're not leaving me with a lot of choices. Don't blame me."
Roaring, the Ursa Major lunged forward at a frightening speed, closing the distance between them in no time. Jaune merely breathed in a breath of caution, concentrating his Aura to form Excalibur. The white light was brighter than ever before, shaping nicely between his fingers, and only one single thought invaded his mind throughout the whole earth-shattering ordeal.
I so need a cool catchphrase!
Blinded by the sudden intense light, the Ursa Major missed its claw swipe and fell forward from the useless momentum. A searing pain ran up its arm seconds later, enticing a roar. It swiped toward the direction of the attack, unable to still see. The Grimm hit nothing but hot air, and the pain returned from a sudden nasty slash on its abdominal area.
The Grimm cried out in pain and jumped back to get a better look at who or what attacked it. Luckily for it, the earlier bright light had lessened to the point it wasn't so blinding anymore, and whatever had attacked it was standing no less than a few yards away from it with a glowing object in their hand.
"Wow?" Jaune whistled. "That looks like it really hurts?"
Sure. Okay! He acted somewhat arrogant in the face of this monster. He knew that, but after seeing how easily Excalibur cut through the Grimm's hard skin and knowing he brought down one Ursa Major already, well, it gave him one hell of a confidence boost.
Pointing the Aura blade at the monster, he swung it for good measure. "You know, this is the first time I've ever used the Excalibur on something other than a tree before. Thanks for volunteering."
Growling at the lazy taunt, the Grimm pushed back the pain for now and charged at him yet again, following its instincts to avoid that stick of light in its prey's hand.
The leader dropped his cool stature. He instantly focused his Aura throughout his entire body and held Excalibur up to his chest in a defensive stance that Pyrrha drilled endlessly into him. The muscles in his body stretched. They properly adjusted and expanded to his finely tuned Aura control with a rush of adrenaline and instincts overtaking him. Then his snowy Aura settled close to his skin in a protective layer of armor.
Time to see all that Aura practice and grueling training with Pyrrha finally pay off.
Using his free hand, he created an Aura ball and stored it within his palm, dodging to the side from a charging Grimm. The added boost from his Aura pushed him. Made him move faster. Footwork danced! He rolled out of the way of another charge, thanking his Aura for making a difference in the fight. Then when the Grimm missed, he went for another slash for the Grimm's head, only to fumble by a hair.
Then the Grimm went for a counter. Sharp claws swiped down upon him, but he raised Excalibur to block the sharp claws. The Aura sword didn't bend or break beneath the sheer magnitude of the attack, but the opposing strength proved tremendous as his knees buckled under the increasing weight of the Ursa Major's arm. Even the earth bent to the Grimm's sheer power, cracking beneath the soles of his shoes.
Advanced aged worked for the Grimm. Using the advantage of its weight, the Ursa Major swiped its other arm toward Jaune, who was struggling against its claw, attempting to claw the human's gut out. Stuck, he instinctively raised his free hand and formed his Aura gun, firing at the Grimm's arm at point-blank range with the stored Aura ball.
Fire!
It went right through the Grimm's arm. The hapless thing howled in severe agony from a searing burn before releasing him from his earth prison. Not letting the chance of freedom go, the Arc moved forward and delivered a cut that ran a deep gash across the Grimm's stomach. He then attempted to aim for its legs, but the monster, fighting off the pain, used its sharp jaws to latch onto his arm before he finished the move, biting down excessively hard.
"Arg!"
Jaune gritted his teeth, feeling the Grimm's teeth sinking into his arm. This fight needed to end now! He quickly formed a sphere of Aura with his free hand, condensed it, and prepared to shoot the Ursa Major in the head. However, the Grimm tugged harshly on his arm, forcing the sphere of Aura to crash against the Grimm's body instead, and during this crucial moment, he wondered for a brief second what he had possibly accomplished.
Explaining the wonders of Aura came hard. When he breathed the power pulsated. When his emotions got the better of him, it reacted. If he were to describe the sensation of holding a ball of Aura in his hand, the description, in his best personal words, as containing a globe of unimaginable wonder. After all, only something entirely unimaginable explained the extraordinary event right before him.
Power. The sensation of burning power coursed before him. Feeling the ball of Aura connect with the Grimm's body burst in a frenzy of heat, he felt his Aura tear apart the Ursa major in a parade of rage and power, before launching the Grimm across the battleground. Dust covered the area upon the Grimm crashing against several trees, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. When the dust settled, and the forest quieted, nothing remained of the Grimm except for its comatose body.
Effectively, the battle ended in the Arc's favor.
Speechless at the astonishing display of power, he breathed, not noticing that his arm remained mostly fine from the Grimm's bite with only his hoodie's threads taking any real damage. Anticipation kept him still as he waited for the Grimm to get back up but soon realized that it was down for good when it began turning into a heavy mist of black ash.
That was it? He won? He won! Laughing, he wiped his forehead in relief.
"Whoa! That was crazy! I actually won!" Jaune sighed tiredly, willing away Excalibur and breathing heavily from the Grimm encounter. His adrenaline was starting to die down, and he took a slow step back, checking his surroundings before making a hasty retreat back to Beacon. "I can celebrate later. I better get out of here before any more of those Grimm show up."
As far-fetched as it was, it was the first time he had seen a Grimm near the edge of the forest—very less two—since he had started training there, and Jaune wasn't too keen at seeing another one anytime soon. Knowing how terrible his luck was, more might come for him, especially Ursai and their love for blond noodles, an outcome he preferred to avoid at all cost, even if he wanted to study the secrets of what just happened.
He could figure out this Aura discovery later.
...
When Jaune returned for breakfast, he found his team sitting with Team RWBY, enjoying each other's company. He saw Nora devouring pancakes at an unnatural speed—guess with the wager ending, she was making up for lost time—and Ren was warning her to slow down before she choked. In the end, she choked anyways, proving his warnings useless. Didn't stop her from attacking the defenseless morsels a second time.
Needing to keep his secret a secret for a grander effect during Professor Goodwitch's class, and bragging rights, he planned not to reveal the Grimm encounter. No matter how awesome it was. At least not yet. They probably wouldn't even believe him if he did tell them, except for Nora, but that still meant little. Knowing her, she would take over the story and throw some things that never happened into it, her own personal spin. So he couldn't reveal to them the deadly battle he fought only moments ago.
Selfish? Maybe! Still! Jaune Arc wanted to prove to everyone he belonged at Beacon Academy. Showing he had the skills to be welcomed with the results of his Aura training and not just the efforts of others. Maybe even live up to his family's name in the process? So a little secrecy never hurt anyone.
Grabbing a quick breakfast from the selection, he headed over to his team, ready to talk and waste the day away with his friends, when out of nowhere Ozpin's voice echoed throughout the entire Mess Hall.
"Hello, fellow students of Beacon." Ozpin smiled, sipping some of his coffee as he entered the Mess Hall. Every set of eyes was on the Headmaster as he hummed to himself in a delightful tone with Professor Goodwitch pinching the bridge of her nose in slight annoyance.
"Ozpin, don't you have something to tell the students?"
"Oh!" Oz jumped, sipping ever more of his delicious chocolate beverage. She wondered if he did that on purpose. "Thank you for reminding me, Glynda. Students, may I please have your attention?"
Looking across the Mess Hall, Ozpin stomped his cane down one time on the floor; and the echoing thud shook all the nerves of the students there. He then smiled an innocent smile.
Not good.
"The Vytal Festival will soon be upon us."
Author Notes: Rewritten.
