In the clearing of the Emerald Forest, silence reigned for a long, long moment.
Then, that silence was broken by a single, piercing cry.
"What?!" Weiss shrieked, stepping behind Jaune out of long-ingrained instinct.
Blake glared at Jaune. The Faunus girl looked poised to flee at the first sign of an attack. "You said you would let me go!"
He crossed his arms over his armored chest. "And I did. I never said anything about keeping your affiliations secret. Assuming, of course, that your past affiliations remain in the past, you should have nothing to fear, no?"
"Uh...who are the White Fang?" Ruby asked, looking back and forth between her crush and her new teammate, confused.
"Tell her, Jaune," Weiss ordered, her eyes narrowed into glacial slits as she glared at Blake. "Tell her exactly who they are."
"The White Fang are a transnational Faunus ethnic insurgency that operates in small, isolated cells so as to preserve organizational security for their asymmetrical warfare operations. The loose structure means that the goals of each cell can vary wildly, from conducting economic sabotage against the Schnee Dust Company specifically, all the way to the advocation of total human genocide. While they are found in all the Kingdoms, their primary focus has been on Atlas for some time now."
Silver eyes blinked. "What."
"They're terrorists, Ruby," Weiss spat. "Filthy, murdering terrorists that Jaune will put down like the animals they are."
"Don't call us animals, Schnee!" Blake sneered, her hand drifting to her sword.
"Ah-ha!" Weiss pointed forward over Jaune's shoulder. "See how quick she is to turn to violence?"
"At your provocation." Ren stepped forward between the belligerents, his hands held up. "Let's remain calm here. No one's putting anyone down today. Now Jaune, how do you know that Blake here was a member of the White Fang?"
"Blake Belladonna's parents founded the White Fang, or at least the largest faction under the banner, as a -"
"My parents are pacifists!" interrupted Blake. "Political idealists! They are not murderers!"
"...As a political protest movement to protect Faunus from discriminatory laws and business practices," Jaune continued. "According to intel, Blake broke off from her parent's faction and fell in with a man named Adam Taurus, who is a dangerous and violent man."
They waited for Blake to protest Jaune's summation of this 'Adam Taurus,' but as her gaze fell to the forest floor, she could not.
"Blake was identified by SDC security cameras that recorded the theft of Dust from in SDC train in Forever Fall - "
"That was you?!" yelled Weiss, incensed.
"Where she split off from Adam Taurus. Blake enrolled at Beacon with no alias. She was even wearing the same outfit that she's wearing now, though without the black bow on her head, to conceal her Faunus traits. Cat ears, if I recall correctly."
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Ruby and Nora gasped in anticipation. "Can we see them?" Ruby asked. "Little kitty ears sound so cute!"
Blake sighed. "Maybe later, Ruby. I...the goal for the train job was originally just to make off with the Dust. Resupply ourselves at the SDC's expense. But...we thought that the train was operating by robots. It wasn't. That...that didn't deter Adam, who ordered me to set off the explosives anyway. I...when I had an opportunity, I detached the other cars, and fled the White Fang. I…" The Faunus girl fell silent.
Weiss frowned as she realized that Blake's account matched up perfectly with internal SDC documentation, which described detached cars filled with sequestered workers and deactivated explosives. Slowly, she made her way out from behind Jaune. "I...I believe you. Those workers, their accounts match what you said exactly. Thank you for sparing their lives." A wry grin crossed her face. "You still owe us for the Dust, though, and the robots you destroyed."
"Send an invoice to Adam Taurus," Blake deadpanned.
"So...are we all friends again now?" asked Ruby, her tone quietly hopeful. "No one's going to, you know, start shooting, right?"
Blake frowned. "There's one thing I don't get, though." She jutted her chin at Jaune. "Who are you, that you know all of this?"
Jaune sighed. "I...suppose I should be as truthful as you have been. My name is Jaune Arc, and for most of my life, I was raised to be the perfect soldier. My first kills were White Fang who had come to abduct and murder Weiss Schnee as part of Operation: Snowfall. We were fourteen years old." Jaune's fist clenched at his side. "For all the Grimm that we've seen here, the worst monster in the Emerald Forest is myself."
"Jaune, that's not true!" Weiss grabbed his arm.
"It is. You...you don't know what I've done, Weiss."
"You protected me!"
"Weiss...I didn't want you to know, because...I couldn't bear the thought of you looking at me like a monster. I've killed hundreds by my own hand, more indirectly. I've cut down Fang who had thrown down their arms and begged for their lives. I've done...even worse."
Despite herself, Weiss took a step back, away from him.
"...I don't think you should hang out with this guy anymore, Ruby," Yang said.
Jaune hung his head low. Weiss steeled herself and returned to his side, reaching up to cup his face and lift it back up. "What changed?" she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.
He took a deep breath. "General Ironwood trained me from birth to be the perfect soldier. He had an idea to create a sort of super soldier - I'm not too clear on the details - that he called the Vanguard. And I was his ideal candidate. But...the Vanguard does not know fear. I was afraid to lose you. The Vanguard does not know love or hesitation. But...The General held his last evaluation, and called Ozpin to see a demonstration of both my capabilities and my...conditioning. His last order to me was to put a bullet in Percival."
Weiss gasped, and Ruby snatched up the dog protectively. "Not the pupper!"
"I knew that...you would never forgive me," he said to Weiss. "To kill the only thing in this world that loves me unconditionally, without fear or judgement. It would break your heart, and that...I couldn't do."
"Jaune…"
He sighed. "It was supposed to be inconceivable for me to disobey a direct order from The General. I mean that in the most literal sense. I was meant to be literally mentally incapable of disobedience towards him. He decided that I was ruined for his purpose. He snapped my rifle with his own hands, and tore off my uniform, telling me that he had no use for failures. After everything I had done at his behest, I was just...discarded."
"And then Ozpin asked you to come here," Weiss finished for him.
"That he did. He told me of my family, showed me the legacy that they left behind."
The silence was heavy and oppressive in the clearing. Pyrrha looked from her partner to Blake, unsure as to what she could say. Yang had her arms crossed, still waiting to see if a fight would break out after all. Finally, Ruby spoke up.
"The White Fang, this Vanguard thing...that's who you were," she said. "But you both realized that you couldn't be those people anymore, right?" The small redhead walked over to Blake and took her by the arm, walking her over to where Jaune and Weiss stood. "You're both here to do good things for people. To make things better than they were. Bad people wouldn't do that. Bad people wouldn't have had the strength to say that they weren't going to do it anymore, and you both did. Every day is an opportunity to make things just a little bit better than they were before, and if you do that enough times, then you'll be better than who you were before, I just know it! And we'll be with you, with both of you, every step of the way!"
Slowly, a warm smile, a true and genuine smile spread across Jaune's face at Ruby's unbridled optimism, one of the few that Weiss had ever seen grace it. He looked up from Ruby to see his Faunus counterpart regarding the girl with a similar expression, and then down at Weiss, who extended a hand to Blake Belladonna.
After a second of awkward hesitation, Blake accepted the gesture, shaking hands with the Schnee heiress.
"It occurs to me," Ren spoke up. "That neither of you may be entirely culpable for your previous actions. Both factions involved exploited your youth and innocence to wage war against each other."
"It's disgusting," said Pyrrha. "Neither of you had a chance, really."
Beside him, Weiss laid her head on Jaune's shoulder. "I'll need to speak to Winter about this. She always had a soft spot for you, and this...this explains much."
"You guys need some serious therapy," Yang pointed out.
"Yaaaaang!" Ruby griped to her sister. "We're so close to making this okay!"
"Ugh, fine." Yang uncrossed her arms. "Just, no acts of supervillainy around my sister, okay?"
"As you say," agreed Jaune.
"Can we get out of the forest now?" Nora asked. "I'm hungry."
[/]
Following the ceremony, where Teams RWBY and JNPR were officially formed, along with other first-year teams at Beacon, Ozpin asked Jaune for a private word in his office.
"That was quite the conference we witnessed in the Forest back there," Ozpin began, after sipping from his ubiquitous mug. "I'm pleased that you were able to open up to the rest of your friends, as well as Miss Schnee. I myself would have chosen a different time to confront Miss Belladonna about her past - preferably somewhere with comfortable seating and air conditioning - but it worked out, I suppose. Ruby Rose made for a surprisingly strong orator there at the end, don't you think?"
Jaune nodded. "She's a nice girl. When my mother was killed, she was apparently pregnant with a younger sibling to me. I wonder if I would have had a little sister like Ruby. I suppose Ruby is the closest I'll get to ever finding out what that would have been like."
Ozpin nodded, then sipped his mug again. "As long as you're feeling some fraternal protectiveness towards Miss Rose, I suppose I should get around to why I've asked you here today."
Jaune sat up military-straight. "Sir."
"There are forces at play that the common student body are unaware of. You've begun piecing together some of the elements of this...shadow war that is being waged unbeknownst to most people in Remnant. In the future, I have plans for you and your friends, roles that you will play to protect the people. What I can tell you for now is that Ruby Rose has the potential to develop abilities beyond those of the typical Huntress, and that our enemy will be most interested in that. To that end, what I would ask of you is to provide a...diversion. To seek a place of prominence to keep the enemy's eyes on you, and away from Miss Rose. Nothing too drastic, mind," Ozpin said, his hands raised. "Merely feel free to...flex some of your capabilities. Make a splash, as it were."
"As you say," Jaune agreed. "As it turns out, I have some ideas that I had been planning in any event."
"Well. Feel free to have a little fun with this request."
[/]
It felt strange to wear the Beacon Academy official uniform. Truthfully, it didn't feel much like a uniform at all, being a fitted suit and vest with shiny black loafers, the sort of garb that Jaune had never worn before. As it was, Ren had to show him how to tie his tie properly. Jaune, for one, felt that the neck decoration was some sort of purpose-built strangulation device to ensure compliance among its wearers. It took some convincing otherwise before he allowed the small tie that comprised Percival's school uniform to be tied around the dog's neck.
His first morning as the leader of Team JNPR began quietly enough. He woke at 0500, taking care of his hygiene concerns before going on a run with Percival. Returning to the dormitory at 0600, he saw that his teammates were still asleep, so after a quick shower and putting on most of the Beacon Academy uniform - the hell sense did a tie make? - he put on a truly massive pot of dark coffee.
By that time, Nora had woken up, lured by the mystical scent of the mighty coffee bean. "Is...is that coffee?" she asked, her turquoise eyes glistening.
"It is. Feel free to have some, just please leave enough for me to take a cup to Weiss across the hall."
Nora grinned, mischief at hand...but then she paused, looking from the coffee to Jaune, and then over to the bed where Ren lay asleep. "I...no thank you," she said, her tone soft. "I get hyper when I drink coffee, and I don't want to be trouble again."
"I see. Thank you for your restraint," Jaune said. "We'll find a constructive outlet for your energy, Nora. If you wake up a bit earlier, we could get in some morning exercises together. Would that help?"
The mischievous smile slowly returned, and Nora patted Jaune fondly on his cheek. "Oh, you poor, sweet, stupid little boy. You don't know what you've just got yourself into."
Jaune sighed wearily. "Leadership is sacrifice, as they say. In the meantime, let's wake up our sleepy partners and see about breakfast, yes?"
Nora had some method of waking up Ren, which involved straddling his chest and staring at him until he had agreed to wake up and make pancakes. Jaune didn't think that that would go over as well with Pyrrha, so he approached her bed and gently pushed her shoulder.
"Pyrrha. Pyrrha, it's time to wake up."
The redhaired champion groaned, pulling the blanket tighter over herself. "Nuuuuu. Is cold."
"Come on, Pyrrha. We have much to do this morning."
She began slowly spinning in place, wrapping blankets around her like a protective cocoon. "Nuuuuu."
"Pyrrha. This is unbecoming of a warrior of your prowess."
The Champion of Mistral began to snore, safely ensconced within her Burrito of Comfort.
Jaune released a sigh of frustration. Ren and Nora had gone into the bathroom together, and the running shower told that one or both of them had started bathing. Jaune looked around the dorm room for some method of waking up Pyrrha that didn't involve hurting the girl. Finally his gaze settled on Percival, who panted happily with a wide dog grin.
Pyrrha yelped and jumped a foot off the bed when a cold wet dog nose touched the center of her back.
As Pyrrha blearily mumbled out increasingly-impossible threats upon his person, Jaune poured a mug of coffee, adding cream and two sugars, just how Weiss liked it. He carried the steaming mug across the hall and knocked politely on Team RWBY's door. It was...nice, not having to rely on intermediaries to arrange a brief tryst between them, or having to sneak out of barracks. He had all the freedom in the world to bring his girlfriend a cup of coffee in the morning, for no better reason than he knew she'd appreciate it.
Jaune could get used to living like this.
He frowned as he realized that it was taking some considerable time for one of the four members of Team RWBY to answer the door. He knocked again, and was about to make a third attempt when the door burst open, revealing a frazzled-looking, red-eyed, tanktop-clad Yang Xiao Long.
"What?" she snapped.
"Good morning," Jaune greeted her politely. "I brought some coffee for Weiss."
"Ugh," Yang griped, slouching in exasperation. "You're one of those."
"One of what?"
"A morning person," Yang spat out the phrase as though it were the most dire of curses. "Anyways, your princess is still asleep, Sir Rusts-a-lot, so unless you're gonna toss that coffee on her, you're outta luck."
Jaune cocked an eyebrow. "Still? It's almost oh-seven hundred. Is she ill?"
"Unless being bitchy is fatal, she's fine. Now go away so I can go back to sleep."
"Well, fair enough. Still, the first class is at oh-nine hundred. Don't cut the margin too close."
"Whatever, Dad." She peered at him again. "Ew, you even kinda look like my dad. Go away and be proper somewhere else." With that, Yang slammed the door in his face.
When Jaune returned to his dorm room, Ren was cooking pancakes, Pyrrha was in the shower, and Nora had set Percival onto Pyrrha's bed, apparently to ensure that she couldn't return to it. Jaune poured Weiss's coffee into a thermos, to keep it warm for her, and then sat down to a comfortable breakfast with his team.
"Hey, why isn't there butter on your pancakes?" Nora asked around a mouthful of food.
Jaune shrugged. "Butter isn't very healthy, you know. I'm to be temperate in all of my habits, so it says, so eating properly is important."
Ren's eyes lit up. "If you're interested, I have some herbal supplement drink recipes that I've been meaning to try. They're supposed to boost the immune system and aid in digestion. I would be happy to share some with you when I get around to mixing it."
"I would be interested, thank you."
"Ugh!" Nora plopped her head onto the table in despair. She looked over to Pyrrha, addressing her as if the two boys weren't present at the table. "You'd think that having another Ren, but blonde, would be awesome! They could take their shirts off, rub oil onto each other and wrestle, but noooo, instead it's all discipline and yucky grass drinks."
Pyrrha blushed as red as her hair at the mental image that Nora had conjured for her. "Oh my…"
"There's no reason why the two have to be mutually-exclusive," Jaune pointed out, causing Nora to drop her fork in shock. "I'd be happy to share my expertise in grappling."
"And I have plenty of heated massage oil. While Aura can mitigate muscular injury, proper massage can reduce the need to draw upon it to remain healthy."
Jaune nodded in appreciation at his fellow boy. "See, Nora, taking care of responsible matters doesn't mean that we can't incorporate your ideas into our schedule. We can make sure that you and Pyrrha can get involved as well, make it a team exercise."
"Oh...oh my!" Pyrrha buried her burning face in her hands at the accidental innuendo coming from the hapless young leader.
"I take back what I said," Nora cackled. "This is gonna be awesome."
[/]
Jaune tried very hard to resist the urge to despair at Professor Port's Grimm Studies class. The burly man meant well, to be sure - though Jaune would have to have a word with him about the appropriateness of flirting with students a fraction of his age - but while his stories did have useful information in them, they were buried under a deluge of irrelevant detail and fits of bragging. Port was a terrible storyteller. All around him, his fellow students were losing the battle to pay attention, even Weiss, who had taken to glaring at Ruby in between taking long gulps of her thermos of coffee.
Well, might as well get started drawing attention to myself…
He raised his hand. "Excuse me, Professor Port?"
"Ah yes, what is it, Mister Arc?"
"While stories have their place sir, a practical demonstration towards the beginning might help these students better visualize the points that you're making, don't you think? I see that you have a Boarbatusk captured in the corner over there. Would you mind awfully if I demonstrated how to kill it for the class?"
"Oh-ho! Eager to get to the action, are we?" Port's mustache rippled in amusement. "Very well. It's been too long since I've had an Arc in action in my classroom. Go get changed into your gear, and we can begin the demonstration."
"That won't be necessary," Jaune waved him off as he strode into the center of the classroom, standing at parade rest.
"You mean to fight a Boarbatusk unarmed, and in your school uniform?"
"No. I mean to kill a Boarbatusk unarmed and in my school uniform."
Jaune's statement, delivered with the calm assurance of one who felt fully capable of such a feat, caused whispers to break out amongst the watching class.
"Very well, Mister Arc." Port moved to the captured Grimm's cage. "Students, this is an excellent time to remind you of Beacon Academy's first-rate infirmary and medical personnel, who you will see in action shortly. Good luck, Mister Arc." With that, Port opened the cage and the porcine Grimm charged out to attack Jaune.
Jaune was unphased, and if anything, a little bored. As the creature leapt through the air at him, he snatched his hands out, quick as a viper, and grabbed the Boarbatusk's larger, outer tusks. He crossed his arms and, with a quick jump, spun horizontally in the air. The Grimm's head, forced over with the momentum that Jaune had redirected, twisted sharply, and the crack of snapping bone echoed through the auditorium. Jaune released the tusks as his feet touched down, sidestepping to allow the Grimm to crash to the floor.
"Always make sure to confirm the kill," Jaune spoke up for the benefit of the class as he casually strode over to the Boarbatusk's corpse. The porcine creature's back was to the floor, as was its face. Jaune grabbed the outer tusks again and planted a foot in the creature's underbelly for leverage. With a grunt, he twisted and pulled, tearing the Boarbatusk's head off with a great ripping sound.
"As you can see, the Boarbatusk attempted to use said tusks to gore," he began to lecture, tossing the head over his shoulder as he paced. "This individual must have been young and inexperienced, seeing an unarmed man as an easy target. More experienced individuals will open with a spinning dash attack. The underbelly is a weak point for this particular species of Grimm, and as I demonstrated, the outer tusks can be utilized as leverage to force it over. For those of you whose melee weapons emphasize the thrust over the cut, be aware that Boarbatusks have been known to force themselves further up impaling blades to attempt to gore the wielders. To this end, consider adding barbs or even bars on your weapons to hinder their progress. If you can scout a group of Boarbatusks ahead of time, shaped charges on the ground are an efficient and effective way to kill large numbers of them at once." He was pleased to see that his classmates had begun taking actually useful notes.
Port clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm glad to see that the Arc family hasn't lost its touch!"
Jaune nodded. "Sir."
As he began to make his way to his seat, one of his classmates asked "Friggin' who are you, man?"
A true knight should always be humble. However, Ozpin had asked him to draw attention, and stating the truth wasn't necessarily bragging. "My name is Jaune Arc," he said. "And I've never lost a fight to man nor fucking beast."
The whispering increased as Jaune calmly sat back down. Weiss, for her part, fixed Ruby with a superior look. "See, that's what a real leader looks like."
Jaune frowned. What was that about?
[/]
His next class was Oobleck's history class, which Jaune found much more enjoyable, at least once he'd explained to the Doctor that he was having a hard time keeping up with his rapid speech. Oddly, none of the other students had ever thought to simply ask the man to slow down before.
"Now, who can tell me why General Lagune lost the battle at Fort Castle?"
Jaune raised his hand, and Doctor Oobleck called upon him. "While the simple answer is that the general failed to account for Faunus nightvision while staging his nocturnal assault, the full context is greater than that. First, while all Faunus possess nightvision, others possess enhanced sensory perception relative to baseline humans, particularly those with additional ears. Furthermore, the combination of enhanced perception and mobility relative to humans in certain Faunus, such as cat Faunus with additional ears, means that certain Faunus scouts could traverse terrain that their human counterparts would never even consider as potential methods of egress, and carry out reconnaissance and even sabotage unbeknownst to the human commanders. Ultimately, a commander who is ignorant of the capabilities of the forces arrayed against him will be doomed to failure. This is also a strong argument for mixed-race integration in a modern military."
"Excellent answer, Mister Arc! Your father would be pleased to know that you've not neglected the scholastic arts in your training."
"Thank you, Doctor, but the question pertained to military matters. Had the question referred to more peaceable cultural interactions between humans and Faunus, I doubt that I would have had much of value to add."
"Pfft." Cardin Winchester scoffed from the back of the class. "That's a lot of big words to say that it's easier to train an animal than a soldier."
"And yet you yourself remain so poorly-trained compared to my dog," Jaune retorted, earning some chortles from the rest of the class. Percival panted happily where he sat at Jaune's feet.
Winchester scowled. "Don't know why you're so proud of yourself, Arc. If your family were better at fighting Faunus, they'd still be around today, right? Way I heard it, the Fang went south and killed every last one of them, 'cept for you. What, were you hiding in your mom's skirts or something?"
There had been only a very few times before where Jaune had ever come close to losing his temper. When those words left Cardin's lips, Jaune was on his feet in a flash, a snarl on his face.
"Oh, what's this?" asked Winchester. "You wanna go?"
"The next time you speak ill of my family will be the last time you speak at all," Jaune thundered. "Hold your tongue or I will tear it from your throat."
"Oh yeah? You and what army?"
"I am an army."
"Boys!" Oobleck shouted. "This is a place for scholastics, not violence. Mister Arc, please return to your seat."
Jaune exhaled as he sat back down. Weiss patted his arm in sympathy.
He seethed as the lesson continued. As the lesson came to an end, the bell rang and the other students began filing out. "Mister Arc, a word if you would?"
Weiss kissed him on the cheek. "I'll see you later," she promised, before taking her leave.
Jaune sighed. "I apologize for my lack of professionalism, sir," he began. "Learning the circumstances of my family's death...I am surprised to find how strong those emotions are."
"That is only to be expected," Doctor Oobleck said. "You understand, I'm sure, that simply assaulting Mister Winchester in retaliation for his words, disgraceful though they may have been, would be beyond the pale, even for a combat school."
"As you say, Doctor," Jaune agreed.
"However, there are...alternative means of addressing grievances. Old, old rules, rarely invoked yet never repealed." He placed a thick, black-leather bound on his desk, gesturing for Jaune to take it. "I suspect that you will find such alternative means within the pages of this book. Now, I had planned on asking you for a word after class, even before that...unpleasantness with Mister Winchester. You see, I was a friend of your parents, and after meeting you and learning of the survival of one of their children, I needed to find some old photographs to show you."
"Sir?" Jaune couldn't hide his curiosity. For all that he'd learned by reading his mother's diary and his father's manual of chivalry, there was still a great deal that he didn't know about his parents.
"This is one of your parent's old team at Beacon - Team GOLD." Oobleck laid the first photo onto his desk. "This is your father, Guillaume Arc, Gil to his friends." Jaune's father, clad in steel plate, looked much like Jaune himself, though he was shorter and a bit stockier in the build, and his eyes were a brilliant green instead of blue. "He was our leader, my partner, and the finest man that I've ever known. Of course, you can recognize this young rapscallion standing next to him," he said with a self-deprecating chuckle. The younger Bartholomew Oobleck was somehow, impossibly, even more gangly and awkward-looking than his adult self. The third member of Team GOLD was a tall, tanned lion Faunus girl, wearing a long skirt, cropped top, and a pair of long steel razors on her forearms. The girl had a big, toothy grin as she'd grabbed Oobleck by the shoulders. "Nala Lionheart," he explained. "Close combat specialist, and...an old flame, one extinguished far too soon."
"I'm sorry, Doctor," Jaune commiserated.
Oobleck offered a sad smile. "Of course, for a historian, letting the past lie is...taxing. At any rate, our final member was Diane Blancfleur, your mother." Jaune's mother had been a tall, willowy woman in white, with sandy brown hair adorned with a crown of white mountain flowers. It was startling for Jaune to look at a photo and see his own cerulean eyes gazing back at him. She had her hands on her hips as she rolled her eyes fondly at Nala Lionheart's antics. "Your mother was always there to keep a lid on her more...excitable teammates," Oobleck said. "We were so young," he said with a sigh. "And now I'm the only one of us left, the only one who remembers them."
"I...I don't know what to say."
"The life of a Huntsman is fraught with danger, of course. We fight the Grimm, we fight criminals and bandit murderers, we fight for the people of Remnant…" He looked up from the photos and locked his gaze on Jaune. "But never forget this: we also fight for each other."
Jaune fell silent as Oobleck brought out another photograph. "This is the last photograph that your parents sent me." His parents had obviously aged a bit since their Beacon days. Diane Arc was a bit thicker in the hips, and Guillaume had begun to show some gray hair at his temples. Four young girls were arrayed in front of their parents, with the eldest, a girl named Saphron, attempting to emulate her mother's poise and the three younger making faces towards the camera. And in Diane's arms was…
His parents looked down lovingly at the infant Jaune Arc.
Jaune couldn't breathe. His vision swam, obscured by tears welling in his eyes. Oobleck put his hand on his shoulder.
"It is through passing that we achieve immortality," he intoned. "Through this we become paragons of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance, and unbound by death. Your family lives on in you, Jaune. You are their living legacy, their love, their honor, all their spirit made flesh. Your parents and sisters always loved you, Jaune, from your first breath to their last, and beyond. Never doubt that."
After a few moments, during which Doctor Oobleck was polite enough not to say anything, Jaune regained his composure. "Do you...do you mind if I take this?" he asked, his voice hoarse, as he indicated the Arc family photograph.
"Of course not. Take it, and the book, and never forget that you are your parents' son."
[/]
Glynda Goodwitch pulled him aside before her Combat Class. "Arc. Do I have to worry about the safety of my other students in this class?"
"No, ma'am."
"Good. I understand that your previous training was...intense, to say the least, but I am hopeful that we can teach you to use your abilities in a more...humane fashion."
"As you say, ma'am."
"Take your seat, Mister Arc."
Jaune had left his spear in Team JNPR's dorm room, as he hadn't yet had the opportunity to take it to the workshop and fix whatever had caused the mechanism to lock up. As had long been tradition, the Headmaster and some upperclassmen had attended the first class of the year, so as to get a good look at the incoming freshmen.
When Weiss had fought against a green-haired archer girl from Team SLVR, they had all cheered for her and offered words of encouragement, but Weiss had snapped at Ruby specifically, causing the girl to wince and withdraw on herself. Jaune frowned as he saw Weiss once more berate Ruby for no particular reason. Weiss and the archer girl, Vella, drew to a draw. Teams RWBY and JNPR had clapped politely and welcomed Weiss back among them.
"I could have taken that fight if someone hadn't been distracting me!" Weiss snapped, sending a venomous glare towards the younger girl. Ruby whimpered.
"There's no call for that," Jaune admonished the white-haired heiress. Her head snapped to look at him in disbelief, but before he could continue, Ozpin stood and whispered something to the Deputy Headmistress.
"Our final match for today will be Jaune Arc and his partner, Pyrrha Nikos, both of Team JNPR." The pair nodded to each other and made their way to the arena. Pyrrha drew her spear and Jaune used Crocea Mors to offer a traditional salute.
"You ready for this?" asked Pyrrha.
Jaune's expression was grave. "I'm going to push you," he said. "I'm going to push you harder than you've been pushed for a long, long time. Take this seriously."
Though taken aback, Pyrrha's surprise gave way to a predatory smile. "Well, don't threaten a girl with a good time."
Up in the stands, Weiss, still sulking from having been called out by her boyfriend, huffed. She did not care for that line of conversation at all.
"Begin."
Before the word had even fully left Goodwitch's lips, Jaune pushed off in an Aura-enhanced leap towards the Champion of Mistral. He made a great, double-handed cleave as he landed in front of her, forcing Pyrrha to deflect the strike away with her shield, riposting with an over-the-shoulder thrust from her spear. Jaune dodged the stab with relaxed ease, merely tilting his head to allow the razor-sharp spear head to stab harmlessly into the air.
Jaune found the weakness in her style and began taking it apart. She allowed the backswing of her sword to go just a bit too wide, for the sake of aesthetics, so he used his shield to push against the inside of her arm and force it even wider, sending her into a spin to recover. When he struck low, her shield guard was a touch too low, so as to allow cameras a good look at her face, so he bashed said face with his elbow, the bronze armored elbow cop rattling her enough to allow him to get off a vicious backhand with a gauntleted fist that knocked Pyrrha to the ground.
Pyrrha shook her head to clear it and grinned.
They clashed again, the ringing strikes of metal upon metal blending together in a single resonant chime. Jaune frowned as he felt a stab pull just a hair too far to one side, while his shield was pulled down a fraction of an inch. He retreated from her, then disengaged completely.
The murmuring, which had been steadily building since seeing this no-name nobody take on Pyrrha Nikos and get off several good hits on her, increased in intensity, moreso once he sheathed his sword into his shield. While he'd put up a good fight, better than most, there was no shame in yielding to the Champion of -
Jaune tossed Crocea Mors out of bounds, and, before his flabbergasted peers, began shedding his armor as well, leaving him clad in only his buckskin tunic, pants, and boots.
Pyrrha froze with indecision. Jaune had clearly sussed her out and was prepared to counter the strength of her Semblance. Should she press the attack and reveal that there was good reason for one to shed their steel when faced with the Invincible Girl, or play along and keep the secret?
Jaune raised his fists and bounced lightly on the balls of his feet. Then, he charged.
Pyrrha fired off two quick shots with her rifle, forcing Jaune to somersault in zigzag lines before he pushed himself into a great leap towards her. Pyrrha barely got her shield up in time, and by the gods, the force that he'd put into that punch made her shoulder ache. She sent out her spear in quick, vicious stabs, but Jaune flowed around them, his arms windmilling in broad, but controlled, movements to keep his balance as he pivoted and sidestepped in place, making a mockery of her efforts to stab at him. Up in the stands, the unarmed specialists sighed in appreciation of as fine a wushu stylist as any they'd ever seen before.
Finally, Jaune saw an opening, and slammed his forearms down onto Pyrrha's collarbone, dropping her to one knee and forcing her nerveless fingers to open and release her weapons. The arena floor itself cracked under the force of the blow.
That was where the fight began to get ugly.
As Pyrrha reeled from the strike to her collarbone, Jaune drew back and sent a rising left hook directly into her liver, hitting the girl so hard that her knee and foot left the floor. From there, he grabbed Pyrrha by the head and arms and hurled her to the arena floor, ending the sequence in full mount. The Champion of Mistral saw stars as Jaune got off two picture-perfect ground-and-pound slugs, great heavy blows that sent the back of her head crashing against the floor. She quickly got her arms up to protect her face and used her long legs to put distance between herself and her vicious partner, before pulling into a roll.
The pair wrestled briefly, with Pyrrha using her quickness to slip between his legs and stand behind him - she wanted no more of that ground-and-pound, thank you kindly - and she attempted to lock her grip around her torso. Jaune, however, was able to thrust his hips down and forward, aiding his hands in breaking her grip, allowing him to execute a standing switch to get behind Pyrrha and lock his hands together in a grip around her midsection. He pulled in vacuum-tight to her, bending his knees low to drop his hips below hers.
In the stands, Weiss would have objected to the rather...intimate positioning of the pair, but for the fact that Jaune then pushed up with his legs and slammed Pyrrha, head-first, into the arena floor via suplex. Pyrrha rolled backwards to get to her feet, just in time to catch a vicious rear roundhouse kick. The breath was blasted from her lungs as she was folded in half around his shin, and then Pyrrha was sent rocketing across the arena. She hit the floor once, bouncing into the air before Jaune, who had immediately pushed off into a leap after her, caught her face in his palm and smashed her head into the arena floor so hard that it dug a furrow in the marble.
"Is this it?" he yelled, as he viciously slammed the back of her head into the ground.
"Stop!"
Slam!
"Holding!"
Slam!
"Back!"
For as long as she could remember, her conventional skill at arms had been enough to carry her through nearly any fight, and for those vanishingly few where it wasn't, she had been able to employ a subtle use of her Semblance to put her over the edge. But now, as each slam caused bright flashes in her vision, Pyrrha recognized that it wouldn't be enough. Jaune had told her that he would push her, and holy crap had he done that. It occurred to Pyrrha, in that moment, that she had been stagnating, and had been for years now. Because there were so few who could match her - or at least, few who had fought in the professional circuit - she hadn't been truly pushed to her limits and beyond in...gods, it felt like forever.
Somewhere along the line, Pyrrha had forgotten what she was.
She wasn't a mascot, some pretty face for the stupid brands that wanted to use her to make a quick buck.
She wasn't a celebrity, whose validation was found in the simpering adoration of fans who had little or no appreciation for the girl behind the myth.
She wasn't even the champion, the tournament fighter who fought as much to put on a show for the entertainment of others as to test her skill.
No. None of those were who Pyrrha Nikos truly was.
Pyrrha was a warrior.
A warrior cared not about what her agent would think about the aesthetics of her fight. A warrior cared not if legions of those ignorant as to the nature of battle would think about the fairness of her Semblance. A warrior used all of the tools at her disposal, to the greatest extent that she could, to achieve victory.
Her Semblance answered her call, and she erupted from the crater, using her polarity to fly into the air and hover several feet above the crater.
"Finally," Jaune said.
Pyrrha literally threw herself at Jaune. Her feet never touched the ground as she sent a blistering flurry of punches towards him, forcing him to backstep rapidly to keep from being overwhelmed. She pursued him through levitation, when it occurred to her that she had other weapons to bring to bear as well. Her Semblance acted as a third and fourth limb as she sent her spear and shield whipping around him. Jaune could only turtle up and dodge the best he could, the blade tearing his buckskin clothing to ribbons around him. Pyrrha spun into a heel-dropping wheel kick that sent Jaune to the floor, before wrenching herself in midair and executing a beautiful flipping kick that caught his chin and rocketed him into the air. As the coup-de-grace, she whipped her shield at him before rocketing up in magnetic power.
Jaune caught the shield in midair, spinning in place before tossing it behind him and pushing off of it to rocket towards her in turn. As the two neared each other, Pyrrha prepared to strike, only for Jaune to turtle up once again. They flew past each other, and the warrior maiden prepared to turn around for another pass when -
Her head snapped back at the irresistible pull on the back of her head. Her hair! He had grabbed her hair! The jarring impact forced her to drop her magnetic grip on her own armor, and she was helpless as Jaune Arc shot towards the ground.
With a scream of effort, Jaune hurled her into the arena floor with all the fury of a meteor strike.
The impact blasted a deep crater in the center of the arena, sending dust and debris flying into the air. As the haze cleared, Pyrrha, on her back in the middle of the crater, shook her head and tried to rise once more.
She stared down the barrel of her own rifle.
Pyrrha attempted to reach out with her polarity, but while the rifle flickered black once, then twice, she could summon the power no more. Still, she was Pyrrha Nikos, and she would not yield so easily, not when she felt more alive than she had in years!
She forced herself up on shaky legs and staggered towards Jaune. His eyes widened and for some reason, he tossed aside her rifle just as she slugged him across the jaw. It didn't carry the world-destroying power of her previous blows, and she nearly lost her balance and fell over in her dizziness, but she wasn't down just yet! She hit Jaune with a right cross and then a left to the body, and was preparing for another punch when a pink aura grabbed her arm, holding her back.
"Miss Nikos!"
Slowly, the pounding of blood faded from her ears, and she could hear the absolute roaring of the students in the auditorium. She blinked, clearing her head. "Miss...Goodwitch?" she panted.
"The fight is over, Miss Nikos," the combat instructor said, her voice stern. "I called it in favor of Mister Arc fifteen seconds ago, after that slam broke your Aura."
What?
Pyrrha looked at the monitor, and sure enough, her Aura was completely drained, while Jaune's was flickering just barely above red.
"I understand that you got...carried away," Goodwitch said. "But I must ask you to refrain from striking students after the match has concluded."
She flushed. "Of course. I'm sorry, Miss Goodwitch. And to you as well...Jaune?"
Pyrrha realized, for the first time, that Jaune was more nude than not, the remains of his clothing hanging in tatters from his body, exposing generous expanses of cut, glistening muscles that shone with the sheen of his sweat. He was bruised and battered, and he was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, but he still stood tall and proud.
Pyrrha's face went red. "I'm sorry!" she called out, in her classic Pyrrha fashion, her blushing face hidden behind her hands.
"Now, for the evaluation," the professor began. "Miss Nikos, while I applaud your novel application of your Semblance, you spent lavishly of your Aura, and still prioritized aesthetics over practicality. Had you stayed close to the ground and continued to pummel Mister Arc, you would have carried this bout." The teacher then looked pointedly at the absolute ruin of the combat arena, with the craters and cracked tiles, and the absolute frenzy that was the student body. "Mister Arc...I...where do I even begin with this? Have you anything to say for yourself?"
"Yes, ma'am," Jaune answered. "My name is Jaune Arc, and I still haven't lost a fight to man nor fucking beast."
"Language, Mister Arc!"
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"I hear that he tore a Boarbatusk's head clear off, and told Port to stick it up his ass!"
"I heard that he's actually a hidden prince, come to reclaim his crown through conquest."
"Pfft, who cares about that when he's over there like raw sex in a suit?"
"I'd want him to pull my hair! Rawr!"
Weiss was of two minds as it came to the abrupt, meteoric impact that Jaune Arc had made on the student body on Beacon. On the one hand, Jaune was amazing, absolutely amazing, and for the first time, everyone else was seeing how amazing he was for themselves. On the other hand, if one more of those thirsty bitches tried to cop a feel on her Jaune, well, she couldn't be held responsible for what she did.
That was why, as soon as Jaune had returned from the locker room following his fight with Pyrrha - who was now Threat Number One in Weiss's estimation - Weiss had made it a priority to stick to Jaune's side like a pretty white little barnacle. She was even more annoyed to discover that this didn't dissuade girls from approaching her Jaune, being particularly put out at lunch, when that Vella girl had shyly asked Jaune for advice for her next fight.
What was her boyfriend doing, giving advice to someone about how she could have beaten her?
Jaune seemed oblivious to both the archer girl's shy crush on him as well as the mounting vexation of Weiss, which reached its peak when Jaune sent the green-haired girl on her way by complimenting her on her use of her legs to fire her bow. Though he had never said as much out loud, Weiss knew that Jaune had a thing for legs, and the notion that he would be appreciating another girl's legs - especially while she used them to take potshots at her! - infuriated the heiress. Vella had smiled brightly before practically skipping off, where the rest of Team SLVR greeted her with thumbs-ups.
"Thank goodness that's over with," Weiss muttered, while Jaune began to dig into his roasted chicken cutlet and steamed vegetables.
He swallowed his food before asking "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong? How can you even ask me that?"
"Guuuuuys!" Ruby Rose zipped over to them, with a plate full of food. The rest of their teams followed suit, with Pyrrha sending off a couple of students who had tried to offer condolences over her first documented loss.
"What do you mean? This is the most amazing I've felt in years!" Pyrrha had said. "There's more challenges to overcome! My growth isn't over yet! Who cares about some silly record compared to that?"
Pyrrha and Ruby were all smiles as they sat down to eat, with Ren, Nora, and Blake joining them soon after. "That was amazing!" gushed Ruby. "You were all like 'crash-boom-pow!' and then Jaune was all like 'I'mma take off all my stuff,' and then he went 'rawr, I am the smashy-monster, and then Pyrrha learned how to fly, and it was just! So! Awesome! Team RWBY, we need to get our first team training session scheduled, ASAP! I'm thinking tomorrow afternoon at -"
"What good is training going to do when we're led by an idiot child?" Weiss snapped.
"Hey!" Yang stood up, her eyes red. "You've been mean to her all day, what's your friggin' problem"
"I just wanted to help," Ruby muttered sadly.
"My problem is that I trained too hard for too long for my efforts to be made a twisted joke under her."
"You never even gave her a chance!" Yang yelled.
"How can I, when she's constantly acting like some upjumped -"
"Weiss," Jaune interjected.
Her mouth slammed shut with an audible pop as she stared at him. "Jaune?"
He hesitated as he considered what to say. On the one hand, he was terrified that she would take his words too harshly, and that that could cost him the best thing that had ever happened to him. On the other hand, he was sworn to tell the truth, and that included hard truths that she might not want to hear. He was also sworn to defend the innocent, even if it was from emotional abuse.
"You're embarrassing me," he finally said, hoping that Weiss would forgive him.
Crystal blue eyes flew wide. "What?"
"Is this how Winter taught us to carry ourselves?" he asked, his cerulean gaze boring into her. "To take out our frustrations on others, to berate and abuse our comrades? Do you know how much I sang your praises to Nora and Ren before you arrived? 'An angel,' I called you, because all that you had shown me before now was kindness and gentle compassion. Where is that now? Why have you made a liar out of me? You're upset because you weren't named as leader? Tough. All soldiers need to learn to follow, just as I did, and just as Winter did. I would expect you to accept your assignment with dignity and grace, like Winter taught us. Ruby is younger than us, so you should be supporting her with your knowledge and experience, making an example for her, not...putting on this sad display. As Hunters, we are called upon to serve others, not our own egos. If you can't understand that, then perhaps you should return to Atlas."
He shook his head and stood up. "I'll see you all back at the dorm," he said, addressing his team. "And Ruby, if you're feeling up to it, I'll be in the workshop working on my spear at fourteen-hundred hours, if you'd like to work on it with me. Percival, on me." Jaune tossed the remains of his chicken - boneless! - to the subdued pup before walking over to the trash. He threw away his tray and took one last look at the devastated heiress before he walked out of the cafeteria.
He hoped he hadn't just destroyed his relationship with Weiss, but it needed to be said.
Jaune spent an hour alone in the dorm room, absent-mindedly stroking Percival's fur. What would he do if Weiss left him? For so long, his entire personal life had revolved around her. He retrieved the photograph of his family that Doctor Oobleck had given to him. One way or another, he was building a new life for himself. Jaune wanted Weiss as the core of that new life, but...he wanted the sweet, genteel girl he'd known in Atlas, not this spiteful, cruel brat that he'd met here in Beacon. How would his father handle such a situation?
He wished that he could have known the man, to have benefitted from his wisdom, to have seen an example of a healthy romantic relationship in the form of his mother and father, who were so visibly, demonstrably in love in that picture. He loved Weiss, he truly did, but he couldn't remain silent when she was so obviously in the wrong.
Jaune sighed as he picked up his spear and made for the workshop. Yang Xiao Long was waiting by the door, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Miss Xiao Long," he nodded politely.
She rolled her eyes. "If you're gonna be all dorky, can you at least call me something awesome, like 'Dame Firepunch' or something?"
"As you will, Dame Firepunch."
"That was a joke!"
"As you say, Dame Firepunch."
Lilac eyes narrowed. "...Are you teasing me?"
"I would never, Dame Firepunch."
She grinned. "I'm proud of you, man. By the way...Ruby will be along in a minute. But before she gets here...thank you, for standing up for her. It couldn't have been easy going against your girlfriend like that."
He sighed. "I require no thanks for doing what's right, Miss Xiao Long."
"Gods," she said, looking at him in wonder. "You really are serious about this whole knight thing, aren't you?"
He raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"You really are something, you know that? It means a lot to Ruby that someone stood up for her. Well, someone that isn't me, at least. Sorry, Sir Rusts-a-lot, but if your missus had kept running her mouth, she would have got her clock cleaned."
"...Please refrain from punching my girlfriend," Jaune deadpanned.
She flashed another bright smile. "But anyways," she dropped the smile and shifted uncomfortably. "I just wanted to apologize for what I said back there in the Forest yesterday. About Ruby not hanging out with you. I guess...you had a pretty rough time of it. What matters is who you are now, like Ruby said."
Jaune shrugged. "It's good and right for you to look out for your little sister. I...I had sisters, who I never knew. Four older sisters, who were killed along with my parents. I would hope that they would have looked after me as you do for Ruby. And I had another sibling on the way, and when Ruby speaks, the way she is, the innocent hope that she embodies, well...it's almost like getting back the younger sibling that I never knew."
Yang winced. "Oof. Sisterzoned."
"Sister...zoned?" Jaune asked in confusion.
"Oh. Right. Uh, Ruby kinda has a huge crush on you, ever since you pulled her out of that crater. She's trying hard not to show it, but she took it hard when the Ice Queen showed up and dove into your arms."
Comprehension dawned on his face. "Ah. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You didn't do anything wrong, and sometimes, dealing with disappointment is just part of growing up. One thing that I can't protect her from."
Jaune nodded to Yang, then walked past her into the workshop proper. He put on the proper safety equipment, then set about pulling apart the spear.
"Hey, Jaune!" Ruby popped in, carrying a large jug. "I brought my special solution for you, made it extra strong!"
"Right." Jaune nodded before returning his attention to the spear. "There seems to be some corrosion lodging the haft in place right...here," he said, indicating a spot.
Ruby began emptying the jug into a trough. "Right. Let's get a good soak going. I have another bottle, if you want to do your sword and shield too."
Working together, the pair were able to loosen the corrosion on the spear enough to eventually disassemble the entire weapon and submerge the pieces in the solution. While Jaune began submerging Crocea Mors, Ruby polished the spear to a fine, gleaming finish, gasping when the patina of time wore away and revealed the true beauty of the metalcraft beneath.
"Ruby? What is it?"
"It's...it's beautiful!"
Pattern welding was a process in which two types of steel of differing carbon contents would be forged together. When polished, the finished steel would reveal waving patterns of darker and lighter steels, rippling like water. The spear that Jaune had recovered from Chateau d'Arc had been pattern-welded with white steel and Mistrali bronze, something that Ruby hadn't even realized was possible. The end result was a striking piece of stark beauty, which took Ruby's breath away to behold.
Jaune was finishing up work on Crocea Mors, sharpening the blade to hair-shaving sharpness. While it had a core of Mistrali bronze, neither sword nor shield had been pattern-welded in the manner that the spear had. It was still a gleaming masterwork of the armorer's craft, and as Jaune gave the blade a test swing, it sang in the air with audible sharpness.
"Jaune, look, there's an inscription!"
Sure enough, as Ruby had cleaned the patina over the main grip section of the shaft, an inscription in elegant text had become legible. Jaune peered over Ruby's shoulder to read it. "If ye be worthy, wield me in defence of the innocent. -Ascalon," Jaune read. "That must be the name of the spear.
"That's so cool!" Ruby gushed. "This must be one of the first mechashifting weapons ever! I fixed the buttons for you," she added, as she expertly reassembled the spear. "If you push it forward, just the blade comes out," she demonstrated, effectively turning the weapon into a sort of short sword. "If you push it backwards, the shaft comes out halfway," she again put words to action, rendering Ascalon into a short javelin. "And finally, if you push it down, it extends all the way!" At this final press, the spear resumed its longer, more familiar shape. "I'm sorry for not giving these weapons the love that they deserved at first," Ruby apologized. "These weapons are absolutely amazing, Jaune! Simple, but put together just so...magnificently!"
Jaune took up Ascalon with reverence, feeling a bit of worry that he was unworthy to handle such a relic. "Thank you, Ruby," he said. "I'll make sure to put them to use in a way that would make my ancestors proud."
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Jaune returned to his dorm room soon after. He showed off Ascalon and the fully-restored Crocea Mors to his teammates, who were duly awed by the unique craftsmanship of the ancient weapons, before assisting Ren with dinner.
Afterwards, Ren had offered to massage his back, arms and shoulders with the massage oil, which a grateful Jaune had eagerly accepted, stripping down to just his uniform pants. He wasn't sure why Nora and Pyrrha were giggling over in the corner as the quiet Mistrali worked on loosening his aching muscles. It occurred to Jaune that he didn't understand how women worked in any event, as the earlier fiasco with Weiss had demonstrated.
Women are strange, Jaune concluded.
After his massage, Jaune hopped into the shower while Ren extended his services to Pyrrha. For some reason, Nora had found that development to be somehow vexing, the hammer girl practically hovering over the pair like the blade of a guillotine poised to drop. Jaune figured that that was merely further evidence for his "women are strange" hypothesis, and ignored it.
As Jaune settled down to sleep for the night, his Scroll chimed. He saw a message, containing a video file from Yang. As he watched, he saw Weiss giving some coffee to Ruby and helping her with her studies. Turning the Scroll off with a smile, he gave one last pet to the sleeping Percival, and let his head drop onto the pillow.
Thus ended Jaune Arc's extremely eventful first day of school.
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Chapter Endnotes: Those of you who know the mythology behind Saint George will get where I'm going with Ascalon immediately. Of course, I used to panic that people could predict elements of my stories, but after seeing the unholy mess that was the end of Game of Thrones, I realized that subverting expectations for the sake of subverting expectations is no way to tell a story. "The White Knight" draws a lot from traditional chivalric romances and Christian mythology, so predicting plot elements may not be too difficult. The value is in how well I can tell that story.
Some of the stories disagreed over whether or not Ascalon was a sword or a spear. This being RWBY, I made it both. It's still really simple compared to most RWBY weapons, though.
They bashed things out with Blake right away. This alters things, but, well...Blake is gonna Blake, you know? Their conflict isn't over, just in detente.
Ozpin is more proactive in his defense of Beacon than in canon, and has begun overtly grooming the gang - especially Jaune - into the next generation of his Inner Circle.
A lot of chivalric romances include a lady given the name or appellation of Blancfleur, so I made it Jaune's mom's maiden name.
Nala Lionheart is Leo's deceased older sister. Poor Oobleck is the last of Team GOLD left alive. I made him a friend of the main character's family because I just really like Doctor Oobleck, okay?
We take Pyrrha Nikos. Strip away the extraneous corporate stuff and the romantic obsession with Jaune, and what are we left with? I posit a warrior. Something must have got her involved in fighting to begin with, right? So here, free of needing to be Jaune's minder, I basically gave her the mindset of a Saiyan. This is both exciting and terrifying to contemplate.
The fight between Pyrrha and Jaune was a bit more over-the-top than I normally write combat. The RWBY setting is one where the characters do perform impossible feats, what I affectionately refer to as RWBY Anime Bullshit Logic. I tried to display that alongside the brutal combat.
I head-canon Team SLVR as being a first year Beacon team, partially because we need more Beacon characters, but also because I for real didn't realize that they were fan-created by Mark Zhang, and thought that they were actual RWBY characters. And Vella is so cute!
What's the difference between a knight and a so-called "simp"? A knight is respectful and kind to women, but will stand up to them and tell them that they're wrong if need be.
I gave Jaune Trevor Belmont's boast, on the grounds that I fucking love that show.
Incidentally, would you readers prefer one long novel told in three acts, or three separate, shorter stories? Let me know in the reviews!
Hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Love,
Mahina
