It's super weird to stalk someone's profile after they favorite you, and then see a fic you beta'd for on it.

Also, I totally didn't put editing this chapter off for… 14 days.

Also also, longest chapter yet. They just keep growing.

A Battle Fantasy in Remnant

Chapter Four

"Just accept help already!"

-]l[-

"Damnit, Jaune! When I say duck, duck!" Lance's words echoed around the forge room as he lowered his still-smoking rifle, a concerned look on his face as he gazed at Jaune.

"And I told you that yelling 'Duck!' at someone after shooting the round doesn't work! I'm not as fast as NoLegs is!" Jaune's retort was surprisingly fast for someone collapsed against a wall, having been blown into it for what must've been the fifteenth time.

Ruby nodded from the sidelines, taking in the slight crater in the wall behind Jaune. "He's right, you need to give at least a second of warning before shooting your friends—otherwise how will they know to use the combo move?"

"That's gonna be terrifying when used at full power," Jaune muttered, glancing at the wall behind him and taking the moderately sized dent that his body had left. Dusting himself off, he went to stand by his friends.

Lance, Ruby, and Jaune (whenever Ruby had a say in the matter, at least) were common attendees to this room, having spent the past week and a bit upgrading weapons (on Lance's part), teaching people how to make explosives (Ruby), and being obstinate on not needing upgrades (Jaune… though if you asked him, he'd probably say he was being tortured with how often he went back to his dorm bruised and bloodied by some Dust explosion).

The current project that the trio was working on was modifying Lance's bullets to include various forms of Dust. So far it had been a pretty simple project, simply needing to create new bullet molds and test out the various amounts needed per Dust type.

It was much simpler than their previous project—that of Ruby learning to use more Dust types with her weapon. While seeing the girl dart around with her scythe trailing lightning behind her was impressive, it would've been even more so were Jaune not always needing to run from her

—being the only person in the room slow enough for her to hit consistently, and the best practice dummy with his rather absurd amounts of Aura for his age. Sure, he had consented to it, and the two others were perfectly willing to get hit by him whenever he created some new weapon or attack, but still, it grated, being the slowest, if not weakest in the room by such a margin.

"Just try to give me a bit more warning, okay? I get enough of this from Cardin…"

Ruby's eyes immediately darted to stare at Jaune, concern clearly visible. "Jaune…? Do you need anything?"

"Ah, nevermind. I need to get back to my dorm anyway, it's getting late." Jaune brushed off Ruby's concerns, head down, hands fiddling with a pair of Ice Dust crystals.

"If you're sure… just let us know if you do need anything, we're your friends."

"Of course…" He stood, shoved his hands into his jean pockets, and left the room, the door swinging closed behind him.

"He's lying, you know that?" Lance took a seat on one of the many tables scattered throughout the room, fiddling with a Dust bullet. "I know what it looks like, and I'm sure you do too."

Ruby glanced at him despondently. "Yeah, but what can I do? If he doesn't want our help, then we can't force it on him."

Lance shrugged. "True, but trust me on this, just having people willing to help you and who will talk is often enough."

The conversation paused for a moment as Ruby digested his words, before she shot to her feet with a grin. "I got it! I'll call the plan: help-Jaune-out-if-he-needs-it, and I'll recruit everyone—my team, his team…"

"Yeah yeah, I get it. I'll talk to Matt about it. Just keep in mind that we can't force this upon him, at least not with how it is now. He needs to make his own choice in the matter."

"Of course. It'll be for an emergency!"

"Good. Now get some sleep, brat. Your team is probably missing you, considering how late it is."

Ruby let out a gasp as she glanced at her Scroll, seeing the time. "Then you also need to get back too, right?"

"Pfft, you think Matt goes to sleep before four A.M.? Nah, he's probably roped Anna into playing some crappy RPG, and Natz is studying."

"Studying for what? Homework isn't due for a week."

"How to summon a tsunami more effectively."

"I think you might need sleep more than I do."

"Shut up, Rose. I don't need your sass in my life."

-]l[-

"You should take Pyrrha up on her offer," Ren whispered, glancing up at Jaune as the blonde entered their dorm room. "At least, if I had a four-time tournament winner offering me help, I'd take it."

Jaune let out a sigh at Ren's words, slowly closing the door. "I know… it just… doesn't sit right with me to admit defeat so soon."

"No one will hold it against you, if you accept her help… no one that matters at least."

"..."

"Just think about it, that's all I ask. This team needs its leader."

"...I can do that much."

-]l[-

Jaune rose from his slump, shield at his side, Crocea Mors held protectively in front of himself, and prepared for one final assault on Cardin. He knew he couldn't win this—not this low on Aura and energy, and probably not even if he had changed things up at the beginning of the spar.

Even still, he had to try. A yell escaped his lips as he charged at Cardin, turning into a yelp as the still-undamaged boy took a step to the side, dodging Jaune's attack and returning fire with an underhand swing of his mace.

Jaune managed to get his shield up in time to catch the blow, but the strength behind the attack sent his shield flying away from him, just as he went flying onto his backside. Leaping to his feet once more, sword held in both hands, Jaune let out a roar as he charged for his final attack.

Cardin, damn him, easily blocked the attack with his mace, before forcing Jaune into a strength contest, pushing down against his smaller frame.

"This is the part where you lose," Cardin spoke, pushing even more aggressively against Crocea Mors.

"Over my dead—" Jaune cut himself off upon seeing Cardin's face. His instincts screamed—honed from over a week of Lance trying to kill him—and Jaune threw himself to the side… or tried.

Credit where credit is due, Jaune made it far enough that what Cardin had intended to be a crotch shot instead slammed into Jaune's right leg. An attack that, while not holding the completely debilitating effects of the intended, would still have been enough against the tired and weak-in-Aura Jaune to throw him to the ground.

But instead of bringing Jaune to an easily defeatable state, Cardin's attack instead struck home on Jaune's right pocket. Not the home to his Scroll—for that was one of his belt's many compartments, nor the home to his spare bandaids—that was his left pocket. No, what the right pocket held was far more dangerous than either of those objects.

Held within that pocket, were the same two shards of Ice Dust that Jaune had shoved in there two days previous. Forgotten about, yet still volatile.

And, as Jaune had been learning over the past several days, Dust had two major effects when attacked. One elemental, and one explosive. Suffice it to say that there was now a moderately sized ice sculpture in the middle of the combat stage.

"...The match is a draw," Glynda announced, a sour tone present in her voice as she glowered at the two frozen boys.

"Well, he did better than I expected, at least," Lance muttered from where he sat in the stands, surrounded by teams MALN, RWBY, and NPR. "He did last for nearly fifteen minutes."

Beside him, in the no-man's land between the three teams, Ruby glanced back at him. "Yeah, I suppose. Still… I suppose I just want to be able to help out my first friend."

-]l[-

"And remember, the Vytal Festival is only a few months away," Ruby heard Professor Goodwitch repeat to her as she exited the classroom. She really wanted all the students to know, Ruby guessed.

Her schedule was free until lunch, and so Ruby was hoping to make it to the dining hall early, get the cookies before they were all gone! A few minutes could mean the difference between getting cookies, or being stuck with Yang feeding her broccoli!

As she hurried through the hallways to lunch, thinking of the previous class' events, she paused for a moment, leaning against the wall to listen to the conversation through a nearby classroom door.

"That was my win, and everyone knows it!" Ruby heard Cardin say,

"Yeah! The only reason Goodwitch called it a draw was because of Jauney's luck with that Dust. Besides, aren't Dust crystals banned from spars?" Ruby only vaguely recognized this voice as one of Cardin's teammates, though no name came to mind.

"You'd think that Jaune would know better than to win by now… I guess we'll just have to remind him."

Just as Cardin finished speaking, the door that Ruby had been leaning nearby began to open slowly, and, with a flinch, the girl sped away with her Semblance. A few seconds later and Ruby was hallways away at the entrance to the cafeteria. Automatically, she walked inside and took her spot in line, but her mind was no longer focused on the cookies, but was instead focused on the problem of Cardin and Jaune.

'It might be time to put plan-help-Jaune-out into action.'

-]l[-

"I hereby bring the inaugural meeting of the 'Help-Jaune-Out' committee to order!" Ruby slammed her fist down onto the table, before flinching and glancing behind her shoulder in fear at the sounds of other students falling silent and staring at her. Coughing slightly, she turned back to the table abashed, before continuing quieter. "Any objections?"

Immediately, a hand was raised. "Yes, Jaune?" Ruby called on him.

"Uh, can I object on the grounds that I don't need helping out?" Jaune spoke falteringly, as the entire population of the table turned to gaze at him.

"Nope!" Ruby grinned in response. "Any other objections?"

A pause, as Jaune formulated his thoughts, before he raised his hand once more. "How about on the grounds of this not being a good conversation for the lunch table?"

Ruby opened her mouth to answer this as well, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her, and Ren took over. "Would you prefer if Nora told us about her dreams instead?"

"Ooh! Do you mean the one about Ursai and Ursai rugs!?"

At the sound of Nora beginning her tale, Jaune lowered his hand, returning to eating, a resigned expression on his face. "Objection lowered."

"Wonderful," Pyrrha took over the conversation, sliding into place beside Ruby. "It wouldn't do any good for our leader to be unwilling to accept advice and help. We might have to teach him a lesson…"

"Break his legs—oh wait. Sorry, Fearless Leader, I thought we were talking about Cardin."

Jaune gulped, both at the unintended threat as well as the mention of his bully.

"Nora has the right intentions, if the wrong way of showing it." Natalie was the third to take a seat across from Jaune, and it was clear from the way the other team members were closing in around him that he wouldn't be avoiding this conversation. Even NoLegs had found a place hanging from a chandelier above the table.

Seeing no way out of the conversation, Jaune conceded defeat. "Alright. I'll listen."

And then began the interrogation—err, conversation. Spanning everything Cardin had done to Jaune from shoving him in the hallways, to stealing his dust, even when he attempted to launch Jaune with his own rocket launcher, an attempt that was thankfully foiled by Matt having already stolen the thrusters to every single locker.

It took nearly ten minutes to convince Jaune of the bullying that was occurring, but eventually the tag-team of Natalie, Pyrrha, and Ruby was successful to get him to talk about it. The teams were about to settle into planning when from across the dining hall they heard the sound of a student being bullied.

"Oww, that hurts!"

Immediately, the three teams turned in their seats to see Cardin and his team making fun of a Faunus upperclassman, Velvet, if Jaune remembered correctly. They were pulling on her ears, the Faunus pair, as well as making rude comments.

"Despicable…" Pyrrha murmured, glowering at Cardin—an action shared by Blake, just a few seats away. "I can't believe the teachers just let him do that!"

"Not just the teachers, Pyrrha," Matt yawned, standing from the table, and meandering over toward where CRDL sat. "The students aren't doing anything about it either."

"Well, it's not like we can. Goodwitch is so strict, getting into a fight at any time is liable to get us expelled," Jaune muttered. "The only reason Cardin gets away with it is because of his unnatural ability to know exactly when Goodwitch isn't looking."

"Well," Matt shouted back, already halfway to CRDL. "Sometimes you gotta break some rules to keep your morals intact… not that I'll have to break any rules today. Cardin?"

The boy in question glanced up as his name was called out, and grimaced at the sight of Matt. "What do you want, sword boy? Here to get expelled for starting a fight?"

"Nah, just warning you to look up. NoLegs got a bit irritated at you."

Cardin's eyes widened, and he rocketed his gaze up, only to see NoLegs falling from the ceiling, riot stick held in one hand, and shield on the other. Cardin didn't even have time to curse before the cat was upon him, Cardin falling onto his backside, and NoLegs riding him to the ground like a surfer.

By the time Cardin had regathered himself, there was a police baton held to his throat and a cat glaring into his eyes. A harsh meow sounded, and the glare intensified, the baton being jabbed into his throat.

"He says to not antagonize those stronger than you," Matt helpfully translated, a grin present on his face at the situation.

"...Stronger than me? You mean the cat?" Cardin made an attempt at struggling while he spoke, but was quickly dissuaded by another jab from NoLegs.

"No, we all know that NoLegs is stronger than you—not that that's hard—he's talking about her." Matt gestured to where Velvet was standing a few meters away.

Cardin spluttered at the implication. "You think that Bunny here is stronger than me?"

"Huh? Where's the thinking? I know she's stronger than you—you just seem to be ignoring the facts. Anyways, I have other places to be, people to train, things to steal, so I'll just leave you with NoLegs' last words. 'Don't try anything.'" With that, Matt turned and walked away.

Cardin meanwhile still had a cat on his chest, and was busy trying to get NoLegs off. "Hey, kitty-kitty," he murmured, gesturing with a piece of fish away from himself. "I'm sure that Blondie was just speaking out of his ass, right? You wouldn't hurt dear Cardin would you?"

The moment those words left Cardin's mouth, he regretted them. NoLegs turned his gaze's intensity from an 8 to an 11. His normally cheerful and round eyes narrowed, glaring into Cardin's, and within a moment, some kind of blackish-red aura was literally leaking from his eyes.

Fear shot into Cardin's veins, and he jerked to a stand, doing his very best to throw NoLegs off of him, yelling all the time. "I yield! I yield!"

In the hallway outside of the dining hall, Matt shared a high-five with the suddenly-present NoLegs before the pair walked off, their team following behind them.

-]l[-

That evening, when Jaune arrived for his 'argue-with-Ruby-about-upgrading-his-weapon' session, there were more people than just Ruby and Lance there.

...Well ok, not that many more, just Matt and Pyrrha, but it was still more than Jaune was used to seeing.

"I thought we finished the conversation about bullying at lunch?" Jaune said as he stepped into the room, closing the door behind him to contain any possible explosions. Sounds faded as the door clicked into place.

"We finished… most of it," Pyrrha answered with an apologetic smile. "Matt and I are just here to talk about your training, and your time with Ruby and Lance was the easiest time to catch you."

"...'My training?'"

This time it was Matt who answered the question. "Yeah, Pyrrha here dragged me into it, since I didn't have anything better to do. Basically we just want you to get stronger so that you're uh…" he looked Jaune up and down. "Stronger… yeah, let's go with that."

A growl entered Jaune's voice. "Am I not strong enough for your liking?" Pyrrha made to answer, but Lance—whom Jaune had honestly forgotten was in the room—took it instead. "Frankly, yeah. You're a team leader now, what strength you had before isn't enough anymore."

"What does being a team leader have to do with it? If anything, shouldn't that mean I don't have to be as strong? Besides…" his voice became bitter. "I'm practically a failure anyways, so what does it matter. Ozpin should've made you leader, Pyrrha."

"Nope!" Ruby popped up beside Jaune and placed both her hands on his shoulders. "You're a leader now, Jaune. You're not allowed to be a failure."

"But what if I'm a failure at being a leader? I faked my way into the school Beacon!" Jaune burst out, causing Pyrrha to gasp and make to step forward at his words, but a hand from Lance stopped her, his look saying 'Trust me.'

"Nope!" Ruby was unfazed by Jaune's revelation.

"What's that supposed to mean!?"

"Jaune, maybe you were a failure when you were a kid... and you might've even been a failure the first day we met! But, you can't be one now. You know why?" Ruby spoke with passion, her eyes gazing into Jaune's, unwilling to let him look away.

She didn't give him a chance to answer. "Because it's not just about you anymore. You've got a team now, Jaune. We both do! And if we fail, then we'll just be bringing them down with us. We have to put our teammates first, and ourselves second. Your team deserves a great leader, Jaune. And I think that can be you. So please, let Pyrrha and Matt help you." She held her position, hands on Jaune's shoulders for a moment longer until he let out a slight smile and laughed. Only then did she back away.

"Well... when you put it that way, how can I refuse?" Jaune straightened his back, and stared resolutely at Pyrrha and Matt. "When do we start?"

"Tonight, at training room seven. But first, Jaune, you need to tell Nora and Ren about how you got into Beacon. It may not matter to me, but they deserve to know."

"Alright. I'll tell them back at the room," Jaune accepted.

"Oh, no need, they're just waiting outside for us to finish talking," Pyrrha strode over to the door, and opened it, letting the remainder of team JNPR enter before closing it again.

And so Jaune told them.

Naturally, they didn't care whatsoever.

-]l[-

Jaune toweled off his sweat, as he sheathed his sword and exited the training room, Matt behind him—the bastard didn't even look winded. Jaune's training had been going on for just over a week, with Pyrrha working on Jaune's technique, and Matt on his stamina and search for his Semblance. Normally they would've trained for another half-hour before stopping, but today there was a field trip to look forward to—a trip to Forever Fall if Jaune remembered correctly.

"You're getting better! You're stronger than some of the foes I've faced already, and I'm sure you'll get even stronger!" Matt slapped him on the shoulder, a blow that Jaune winced at, bruises flaring from the hit.

"Eeeeehhh," Jaune groaned. "If you say so…"

"I do! You could probably defeat a bush now!" Matt ignored Jaune's concerned expression at his statement, simply continuing his walk. "Anyways, time for you to catch the Bullhead to Forever Fall."

Jaune checked his scroll, which disagreed with Matt's words. "What? That's in just over an hour, we have plenty of time."

"Oh yeah!" Matt exclaimed, as if he just remembered something. "I had Nora change your clock to be an hour slow. We have… five minutes? Better run fast, Jaune!" And with that, Matt took off, vanishing within moments.

Taking just a moment to take in the position of the sun, Jaune realized he had been duped, and burst out after Matt. "Damn you!"

"Think of it as training!" Matt's voice carried back to him.

-]l[-

"Nora! Stop eating all the sap! We'll never get done at this rate," Jaune grumbled as he tapped another orange-leafed tree, handing a full jar of sap to Pyrrha who stood with a bag of them. Across the clearing was team RWBY, much more efficient in their sap-gathering efforts—mainly thanks to not having Nora—and completing the triangle was team MALN, each with their own unique ways of harvesting sap.

...Jaune wasn't saying that stabbing the trees with a saw wasn't a good way to get the sap… but he wasn't saying it was, either. Strangely, Jaune hadn't seen the fourth team of their year at all, CRDL having seemingly disappeared. In fact, Jaune noted that CRDL had been avoiding being in the general vicinity of MALN at all for the past week. He supposed that NoLegs was really quite scary, but it was still a surprise to Jaune that they had actually stopped with the rampant bullying.

In fact… Jaune had seen neither hide nor hair of Cardin the entire field trip. He had tossed one last jar of sap to Pyrrha—finishing up the pair's quota—and was about to ask his team their thoughts when a series of crashes sounded through the red leaves. Immediately following, Jaune recognized the voice of Cardin shouting out in anger, and glanced in the direction of the commotion. "Do you think we should go check it out?" he asked the group.

"Nah," Matt declined. "It's just NoLegs reminding Cardin not to be a bully… apparently he was trying to set some kind of foe on us, but NoLegs foiled his eviiiiiil plot. Now they're playing a game."

Matt's words were punctuated by the crash of a tree falling over, and Jaune could've sworn he saw NoLegs flying through the air, jars of sap somehow held in his hands.

"Well, Matt… If you're sure."

"Of course! Would I lie to you—wait, don't answer that. Anyways, NoLegs won't hurt him. He'll be fiiiiiiine."

-]l[-

Omake after the Author's Notes to make up for the lack of fighting in this chapter.

I… don't like this chapter. Might be because Jaunedice is irritating to write, and even more irritating to try and write well, might be because I was really tired when I wrote most of this. But :shrug: I hope it's good enough. Next up is The Stray and Black and White.

I toyed with a lot of different things this chapter, giving Cardin a semblance (as the reason he never gets called out for his bullying), having NoLegs eviscerate CRDL on-screen, having Jaune and Pyrrha have their rooftop chat, but in the end I settled with the workshop chat, and I feel that it worked out pretty well. I basically quoted Ruby word-for-word with what she says to Jaune, but let's be honest, that was the best part of Forever Fall pt. 1, and like some of the best dialogue in Volume One, so how could I not include it.

Anyways… Eh, I went through it right before posting as a final edit, and it's… okay. Not my favorite chapter, but it'll do. Don't expect another chapter this month, or until late September at the earliest. I'm participating in my first gift exchange on Ao3, w/ the r/NarutoFanfiction folks, so I'll be focusing on actually writing for that, and then I need to finally update my other fic.

Anyways, till next time. If you enjoyed, favorite, if you want to read the latest chapter as soon as it is posted, follow, and if you have something to say, please leave a review!

Oh, and Skeletalrepublic wanted to know how Coffee and Revival spells work. I'm not entirely sure yet, but I do have plans.

Omake time! (Translator's note: Omake generally refers to a small sidestory, often non-canon. In this case, I'd consider it S-Canon, using the Star Wars system, so I may contradict it at a later point.)

-]l[-

Team MALN's spars pt. 1
Matt vs Weiss

This one probably happens twoish days after chapter three.

Weiss began the match by launching herself with a glyph, flying toward the air straight at Matt who simply stood in the starting zone, fiddling with his Aura monitor, sword still sheathed.

Click!

Weiss' rapier, Myrtenaster spun slightly, a vial of blue Dust being selected by its wielder, and a moment later Weiss sunk the tip of the rapier into Matt's shoulder. Her eyes met Matt's, right as he began to raise a hand toward her, and then she pulled the trigger, Dust enveloping Matt, before freezing the boy into a statue.

Yanking her blade back, Weiss took a step back to admire her handiwork. After seeing just how badly NoLegs had beaten Blake she had been very concerned upon getting this match. However, seeing the boy's Aura meter show up blank (causing Professor Goodwitch to simply mutter, "Don't kill him.") had certainly raised her confidence.

And, if the complete and utter ease with which she had just defeated the boy showed anything, it was that his showing during the initiation was complete and utter luck. With that thought, Weiss turned to Professor Goodwitch and awaited the match verdict.

Professor Goodwitch herself was visibly shocked at the outcome of the match, but her professionality came through, and within moments she was speaking. "And the winner is—"

Crack…

Weiss' eyes darted back to her frozen opponent at the sound. It certainly wasn't impossible to shatter her ice, but to do it while frozen solid? That would be a feat.

And a feat it certainly was.

The moment she heard her ice shatter, Weiss was protecting her eyes with one arm, protecting herself with Myrtenaster, and backing away from Matt. By the time the shards of ice stopped flying, a few seconds had passed, easily enough time for any warrior to have reached Weiss and attacked her. So why hadn't her opponent?

Lowering her arm, Weiss gazed across the stage, eyes widening as she took in exactly what Matt was doing.

When he had raised his arm during her attack, she had thought he was protesting the action or some equally idiotic action. No, if her eyes weren't deceiving her, Matt had been yawning, and had been politely covering his mouth.

And then, nearly five seconds after freeing himself from the ice, Matt finished yawning, and moved his hand from his mouth to his back, grabbing the handle of his blade. Whipping it off his shoulder it was displayed to the class to see—a long red handle connected to a small orange sphere… and then nothing. No blade, nothing.

"My bad. I didn't sleep enough last night," Matt stated, before the rod of metal in his hands straight up ignited in flames, forming a massive longsword, easily as tall as the boy wielding it, made entirely out of some form of hardened fire.

And then Matt struck back. He didn't move as fast as NoLegs, but when he moved it was with purpose. He kicked off the stage, a slight puff of dust emitting as his legs left the ground, and he flew through the air toward Weiss, who only had the state of mind to move her blade into a guard position.

Not that it did any good, consider how Matt wasn't even aiming for her in the first place. No, for Matt was targeting the ground at Weiss' feet. His massive blade dug into the wooden floor, scorching it as he did so, and for a moment, Weiss thought that perhaps he had missed.

And then a massive spike of ice erupted from the stage beneath her. It would've full-on impaled Weiss were it not for her Aura, and even then said Aura was immediately depleted to the red.

And even as Weiss listened to Professor Goodwitch call the match in favor of MALN's leader, Weiss' thoughts had only one target.

Matt had just taken her down with a single attack, an ice attack no less… and he had done it with a blade of literal fire.

What the hell.