Jaune Arc: The All-Rounder

by Karmealion

When the illustrious Arc family attempts to raise their only male heir, Jaune Arc, as a sheltered and genteel high society type, he rejects their efforts, trains on his own and then runs away at the very first opportunity. Watch as an absurdly undertrained but clever Jaune, changes his name, makes several female friends, and attempts to make it in Hunter society. Jaune/Harem

7. Chapter 7 - Culture Shock

I don't own anything related to the RWBY franchise

---

Chapter 7 - Culture Shock

---

6 Months after Jaune's escape from Arc Castle and 1 year before his flight to Vale...

The atmosphere in the Military briefing room that Jaune found himself entering was chilly, not in the physical sense, but rather like he was inside of an ancient and potentially haunted mausoleum. Almost every chair in the room was taken up by a teenager around his age, give or take a year, and they were all staring intently at him as he moved among their numbers. Only after he found a seat near the back of the room and as far from the holo-screen display as possible did anyone look away from him.

Due to the contents of the scroll message that had briefed all of them on when and where this meeting was going to take place, Jaune could actually understand why none of the teenagers sitting around the room wanted to speak, move or do anything. The message they'd all received had demanded that they all begin comporting themselves as if they were Atlesian nobles, which was going to be a big problem for a lot of the young men and women taking part in the mission. Atlas's elites have an unbelievably strict set of etiquette governing when and under what circumstances they may approach, talk to, and become familiar with other people, and while all of these teenagers were trying their very best to emulate that etiquette, it was obvious that they were doing so merely by doing nothing at all...

Jaune could sympathize to a point, but since he was quite literally raised on Atlesian etiquette, he wasn't going to have any problems navigating all of the social conventions. On the other hand, he seriously didn't want to stand out, so he rested his hands on his lap, sat as straight as he could in his chair, and prepared to stare at the distant wall for however long he was forced to wait.

When the door to the Boardroom finally opened up again, it was General James Ironwood himself that walked through the threshold with a completely neutral and unconcerned expression on his face.

Every single person in the boardroom immediately stiffened until you could see the cords in their necks rippling beneath their skin and the muscles in their arms bunching up. While it was true that Jaune did feel his asshole clench up just a little bit, Atlesian nobles are trained to have good poker faces from a very young age, and he was no exception. Of course, he did allow himself to gulp purely for the sake of fitting in, but otherwise he kept his expression calm.

Ironwood scanned all of the amassed teenagers both slowly and thoroughly, but Jaune didn't think that he was imagining it when the man's eyes lingered on him for just a single moment longer than the rest of them. He didn't like it... If the General wanted something from him then that was fine, but Jaune could little afford to stand out in any capacity, so he could've done without the special attention.

"It appears that everyone present is already attempting to adhere to the strict social conventions used by Atlesian Nobility," Ironwood remarked as he moved to the front of the room and stood behind a lectern. "That is good. That is appropriate. You've all been informed that this assignment will be to protect and follow young heiress Schnee as she completes her concert series, which of course means that you must be either welcome in her presence or completely invisible to her as a human being. For most of you, this means that you will bow politely when you are addressed, and then do as you are bid before leaving her to herself. Not all of you will be so lucky. With that in mind, I've forced one among your numbers to undergo very strict etiquette training. He will be the point man that will interact with the heiress on everyone's behalf, as well as a coach that will bring the rest of you up to speed..."

All of the females in the room instantly looked like a huge weight had been lifted off of their shoulders, while at the same time all of the boys looked immensely disappointed. Weiss Schnee was absurdly popular in Atlas as a singer songwriter, but that wasn't what had these boys looking like their birthdays had been cancelled. Even Jaune, as closeted and insular as his life still was, was aware of just how attractive the young Schnee heiress was. Of course, now that Ironwood was referencing having put someone through etiquette training, he suddenly knew exactly why the military man had given him that meaningful look...

Tell us Mr. Freeman," Ironwood began in a wry tone of voice. "What kind of behaviors can we expect from Weiss Schnee, who we will all refer to under the codename "the Heiress" from this point forward.

When ironwood's eyes tracked over to Jaune again, everyone else in the room turned to look at him as well. This was exactly the kind of scrutiny that Jaune had been trying to avoid, but at the very least the General had made up a lie to explain his familiarity with court etiquette, and that would make dealing with his peers far more convenient.

While completing a long indrawn breath, Jaune nodded his head as if he were thinking very carefully. Then he stacked his hands on his lap as he scanned the rest of the room's occupants with his eyes. "Atlesian nobles are of the opinion that they're the best of the best, both genetically and in the sophistication of their upbringing, and every single move that they make throughout their entire lives reflects that belief. The belief is so ingrained, it transcends arrogance and becomes something else entirely. It's a way of life. It's a mantra. They comport themselves with absolute dignity, absolute courtesy, absolute self control, and to do otherwise is considered a fatal error in judgment. The reason I'm describing the way that these Atlesian Nobles live their lives, is because it's directly relevant to how you must behave around the Heiress if you desire her approval. Weiss Schnee won't understand why you have a smudge of dirt on your shirt or a three o'clock shadow. She won't be able to conceive of a world where you would be ten seconds late to work under any circumstances or performing any less than your absolute best in anything that you do. She will expect cool, competence and absolute professionalism from all of you even though you'll all be working normal, blue collar Stage-Hand jobs, and she will never, ever thank you for anything that you do. Atlesian nobles have hundreds and hundreds of servants. They don't just ignore them because they consider themselves above them, which they do. They also ignore them as a matter of practicality. Remembering hundreds of names and faces is a nearly impossible task..."

With noticeable hesitation in her body language, a young woman sitting across from Jaune slowly raised her hand, and he nodded at her to go ahead.

"If we are expected to be completely silent and efficient... How will we interact with Ms. Schnee at all? I mean, how will we keep tabs on the heiresses' different plans and actions."

"In every Atlesian home, there is a head Butler, and this position is far more important than the name might lead you to believe," Jaune explained, while giving the girl a nod of approval. "A Noble family's head Butler is the go between, between the Noble family and the support staff, and he or she oversees almost all of the interactions between the two groups on a day to day basis. Oftentimes the person filling the head Butler role within a Noble house is actually a Noble him or herself, but in a far lesser capacity or from a family in decline."

"You will be filling that role in this instance Mr. Freeman," Ironwood immediately pointed out in a no nonsense tone of voice. "The Heiress will be unused to working with the general public so she'll be looking for an unofficial 'Butler.' You will step forward when that happens and ingratiate yourself with her..."

Every single person in the room knew right away that this was an order and not a suggestion...

"Yes, Sir, I understand, Sir," Jaune slowly replied, as that was the only appropriate thing to say under the circumstances.

"Good," Ironwood returned with a clipped nod of his head. "Now let's talk about why any of this is necessary in the first place... Our spies have indicated that the White Fang's most notorious assassin is intending to target one of Atlas's most visible and influential young Noble heirs during an upcoming moment of vulnerability... Weiss Schnee fits the bill a little too perfectly to ignore...

---

1 year later, 20 hours after Jaune crosses the ocean to Vale...

A little over four hours after getting away from that man named Qrow and his two young female minions, Jaune finally pulled himself out of Anvil colony's surprisingly expansive and well maintained sewer system and began making his way towards the docks. He had to identify a Mistralian ship, and he had to do it soon. He also needed to eat something soon or he was going to pass the hell out. This whole "me against the world" thing wasn't allowing Jaune to have three square meals and a bed very often...

On the way to the docks, Jaune made do with some roadside hot dogs and a bottle of sports drink. The only problem with the ready made meal was that he was kind of a health nut at heart, and eating nothing but processed food was causing him some anxiety. Either way, he had the energy to move again and that was all that mattered.

While leaping clear over the chain link and barbed wire fence encircling the docks, Jaune wondered just who it was that designed most civilian security systems. They always featured walls that were low enough to aura leap over, cameras within plain sight and guard patrols that were as predictable as the sun in the sky. If any one of those things were improved, Jaune might have hesitated before sneaking around the shipyard. As things stood, he leapt from building to building in the cover of shadows and couldn't detect any opposition in any direction...

And that was the moment when one of the slats of the warehouse's roof splintered and broke under Jaune's weight, his right leg dropped through the inexplicably rotten wood up to his knees and his eyes immediately widened in alarm.

"I think it's about time we talked kid..."

Before Jaune could cry out or move even a single inch, a length of chain wrapped around both of his wrists and the sharp end of a scythe was pressed directly against his jugular. His attacker had moved so quickly and skillfully, he'd managed to pierce the tip of his blade well within Jaune's aura field, which was freaking him right the hell out because he'd thought doing that was impossible! Shit! Damn! He was caught. What's worse, he was helpless. Dammit...

"Don't even try the armor," the man that the girls had called Qrow growled out in an annoyed sounding voice. "That little stunt you pulled earlier could've hurt my nieces and it made me look dumb. I'm not feeling charitable."

"I didn't make you look bad! You did that yourself! You're a criminally negligent, hypocrite and a terrible role model," Jaune spat back in a moment of out of control disgust. "It was your decision to suddenly attack me! It was your decision to involve those girls."

"All those things may be true," Qrow allowed in a glacial sounding voice. "But that doesn't change the fact that I'm not feeling... gentle."

"I couldn't care less about how you feel, bounty hunter." Even as he said those words, Jaune attempted to draw just the thinnest line of nanobots up the inside of his thigh. Then he stopped when the scythe pressed against the flesh of his neck.

"Enough of that," Qrow barked in a no nonsense tone of voice. "I can act far faster than you can kid... Besides, I'm not a bounty hunter. I'm a school teacher..."

In all his life, Jaune had never heard anything quite so ridiculous. This man was a criminal, bounty hunter, mercenary and or raider. Nothing else could possibly fit a character as gin soaked and sloppy as this guy. Almost against his will, a derisive snort was ripped from his mouth.

"I resent that," Qrow replied in a voice that was almost but not quite amused. "I even have tenure and a good relationship with the PTA. Now... What are you running from?"

Despite himself, Jaune was surprised that this Qrow guy was repeating this particular question. If the man didn't know the circumstances of his life, then why was he targeting him in the first place? Craning his head just a few millimeters, Jaune attempted to look back at the man who was currently holding a blade to his neck. "My circumstances are none of your business. You either know exactly who I am and are an amoral opportunist, or you don't know me at all and you're an uncommon breed of psychopath. I have no interest in trading life stories with either of those people."

"Oh? And what's to stop me from cutting open your neck," Qrow asked in a feral sounding whisper.

"If you're a psychopath... nothing," Jaune replied, in an eerily resigned tone of voice. "I'm not a skilled sensor, but I can feel your aura with what abilities I do have. Vast... Highly concentrated... You're an A rank at the very least. There's very little I could do that would be effective against someone of your level. On the other hand, if you already know what I'm running from, then you're bluffing because I'm worth more alive."

"That's a pretty interesting response kid," Qrow replied in a voice that may or may not have actually contained approval. "You're trying to make me drop my guard again and you're trying to blind me with greed at exactly the same time. You're definitely a wily one, I'll give you that. Now lets see if you can detect the truth in someone's voice when you hear it... I reacted poorly back at Frank's... I didn't know anything about that high tech armor of yours, so I overreacted when you marked me and bolted. The only reason I caused you misfortune with my Semblance was to slow you down until your aura ran out. My real intention was to keep you from stowing away on one of the two ships that were leaving for Mistral. You see, I've actually done the whole "being a fugitive on the run" thing once or twice myself in the past, and I wouldn't wish that life on anyone. You don't need to put yourself through all of that kid. I promise you, I am not here to return you to Atlas..."

Jaune hated himself for the full body flinch that followed Qrow's use of the word Atlas, both because of what it revealed to the scythe wielding man and because he managed to nick open the flesh of his neck upon the man's blade. As a small but steady rivulet of blood started seeping down into the chest of his hoodie, Jaune clenched his teeth and he waited. He refused to give this man any information that he didn't already have. The fact that he was talking about Atlas was damning, but it also wasn't a confirmation. There was a chance that Qrow didn't actually know who he was...

"I have a work associate named Ozpin," Qrow continued in a slow and steady tone. "He informed me that he managed to scare you off back at the Astro Balta military base, and he was interested in knowing why you reacted the way you did. According to the info that we've received, you, Jaune Arc, are gallivanting around the world on the Arc family dime, and they want you returned so that you can return to your responsibilities. It's becoming rather obvious to the both of us that their story is a load of crap. Both Ozpin and I want to know what's really going on. You should've realized by now that the Arc family has no real authority over here in Vale. Depending on what you say, we might even be inclined to help you..."

For about half a minute, neither of them moved. Jaune didn't react at all and Qrow seemed perfectly happy to wait. Finally, when he realized that the situation wasn't going to change until he said something, Jaune released a heavy sigh. "It does appear that you aren't one of my family's agents. I might explain why I'm running, but not until I've stopped the bleeding from my neck. You have my word that I won't try to escape as long as you aren't a threat."

"Then we have a deal," Qrow replied as he pulled the scythe away from the boy's neck. "Come with me. I don't keep a First Aid kit at my home, and I don't want to answer a million questions at the Hospital. We're going to have to go to Signal Academy.

"I don't need first aid," Jaune clarified as he pulled his leg from the warehouse roof, rose to his full height and turned around. "I can use my armor to close the wound and then my aura to heal it. What I need from you is a little bit of trust. I'm not trying to attack you by activating my armor."

After several seconds spent giving "John" a very cagey look, Qrow finally nodded his understanding.

Over the next half a minute, Jaune drew some nanobots up from his wrists and had them create a choker of sorts around his neck. After disinfecting his wound, the nanobots started compressing the torn flesh together. With that accomplished, Jaune focused on having his aura rearrange the cells of his body, moving platelets and collagen into the area to clot the wound, and then filling the gap with granulation and connective tissue to regenerate his skin. Having an active aura generally leads to about a week's worth of healing happening in only a day. When Jaune consciously uses his aura to heal however, a month's worth of healing can be accelerated to take just a little under a minute and a half.

While rapid regeneration is definitely a handy ability to have, it still wouldn't have made Jaune a popular addition in a high ranking Hunter team. Not with the existence of military grade regen medicines that can accomplish similar feats in just fifteen minute's time. Still... In an emergency, Jaune was capable of acting as a very effective field medic, a fact that had come in handy more than a few times in just the last year.

"Nifty," Qrow drawled out in a persistently sarcastic sounding voice. In a direct contradiction to his tone, the man was staring at Jaune's newly healed neck with a noticeably curious expression on his face.

While Jaune had decided to trust this Qrow guy for now, that trust was mostly due to the fact that the man easily could've knocked him unconscious by now and he hadn't. It wasn't a solid foundation for any kind of relationship, and it wasn't enough to make him share anything beyond the bare minimum. Qrow's obvious curiosity regarding his Semblance would have to wait for some other time. In the end, Jaune only nodded that he was ready to answer questions as he allowed the nanobots to flow back down into his wrist bands.

"Now that you aren't in need of First Aid, you're going to catch a ferry with me," Qrow ordered as he gestured down the length of the docks towards a small beachfront area. In the direction that he was pointing, two ant sized teenaged girls appeared to be waiting for a boat. They were the same blonde and black haired girls from the attack earlier in the day.

After leaning his head to the side and arching an eyebrow almost into his hairline, Jaune finally decided to use his words. "Your name's Qrow right?"

"Right, Qrow Branwen, Professional Huntsman, school teacher and lady killer," Qrow offered, crossing his arms in what was supposed to be a very macho fashion.

"Well, Qrow... While I'm willing to extend my secrets to you and Headmaster Ozpin out of necessity, that doesn't mean I intend to involve two unrelated teenaged girls." Outwardly, Jaune's expression didn't change, but it was clear that he wasn't going to bend on this.

"Get over yourself," Qrow scoffed in an amused sounding voice. "I spend the last two weeks of every summer on Patch island with my nieces. Those girls are waiting for me. You, on the other hand, appear to need an out if the way place to crash. If you promise not to cause me any problems, then you can come along."

For the second time in less than a minute, Jaune arched his eyebrow. "You're not concerned about having some strange boy near your nieces?"

After just a split second spent thinking about that question, Qrow started laughing like a lunatic and it appeared that he was having trouble stopping. He slapped his knees and pointed at Jaune's face as if he were the funniest joke the man had ever heard. Then, nearly thirty seconds later, he finally ran out of steam and straightened back to his full height. "Uh yeah, that was a good one kid. Even if the girls' didn't have an extremely overprotective father, those two would tear you to pieces within a minute flat. Besides, you're not necessarily unknown to me. You're an Arc, which means you're the wholesome, corny, gentleman type, basically by default. Ruby will own you both body and soul by the end of the day."

Jaune didn't like the sound of that. He didn't like the sound of it at all.

---

Between the suit that had been completely destroyed during the pirate raid on the Jango and the Hoodie that he'd just bled all over, Jaune was basically out of conventional clothing. He still had the foundation suit, but it was distinctly military looking, which of course made it a no no. What this meant, was that Jaune was pulling on his very last t-shirt even as Qrow dragged him down the boardwalk towards the dock. Unfortunately for him, the t-shirt was something that Penny had bought for him during the outing where they bought her her very first wardrobe. It was a white t-shirt that had a teddy bear carrying a sword and shield printed on the front. Penny thought that the teddy bear was his spirit animal or something. Jaune thought that it was both humiliating and heartwarming, which is why he'd brought the t-shirt along to use as pajamas. Despite the warm nostalgia that the t-shirt brought him, it only took one look at Qrow's poorly concealed amusement to know that he looked ridiculous.

"This is for the best," Jaune said in retaliation to Qrow's amusement. "You wouldn't want me seducing your nieces after all."

"Dead as a doornail, kid," Qrow replied with a grin. "You have no idea." With a wave of his arm, Qrow gestured for Jaune to precede him out onto the dock.

"Uncle Qrow!" The smaller girl in red exclaimed for the second time that day. Then she became a blur of extreme speed, generating a blast of wind that almost knocked Jaune right off his feet. As he caught his balance and turned to the side, he saw that the girl was hanging on the older man's outstretched arm and chattering at him in an animated voice.

"That's an unbelievably lame t-shirt," Qrow's blonde niece casually pointed out, as she strode up from the end of the dock.

"Uhhh yeah, I suppose it is," Jaune replied, in a somewhat flat tone of voice. "My name's John Freeman."

"I know who you are," the blonde responded in an indifferent tone of voice. "You're the kid who dropped a warehouse on us."

"I reacted to the fact that the three of you were attacking me," Jaune pointed out in return.

"Yeah, that's uncle Qrow for you," the blonde allowed, along with a small shrug of her shoulders. "I still think bringing down that entire building was a douchie thing for you to do, especially with someone as young as Ruby inside." Yang pointed off in the distance, where the younger girl was playfully batting at Qrow's side.

"Don't you think you're being just a little bit... unreasonable," Jaune asked, as he leaned back against a nearby railing.

"Nope. I think that attacking my little sister automatically makes you an asshole," the blonde replied, while crossing her arms under her chest.

"I see. You think I'm a lame, douchie, asshole," Jaune repeated, in a very cool and unemotional tone of voice. "Well then... I think the wisest course of action is that the two of us have nothing to do with each other." With that said, Jaune walked about fifteen feet down the dock and turned his attention towards the ocean. He thought he might see one of the local ferries as a small dot out on the horizon...

"So you're not going to apologize at all then," the blonde called out, in a voice that contained rising amounts of frustration.

"No. No, I don't think that I will," Jaune called back as he continued to scan the horizon. "I don't know why you think I should be groveling to you, but I don't owe you a damned thing, and I don't care about your approval."

When Jaune heard a pair of knuckles cracking off to the side, he felt an intense desire to roll his eyes. Apparently, this blonde girl was far better at dishing out abuse than she was at receiving it. Well, there was nothing that he could do about that and some people just weren't designed to get along. The girl hadn't approached him overflowing with goodwill in the first place, and he refused to play her little games. Besides... The blonde was being just as big a hypocrite as Qrow had been just twenty minutes earlier, without even the benefit of the man's self awareness.

When Ruby and Qrow stopped goofing around and walked back over to the dock, it was to find a seemingly oblivious black haired boy being stared at by an extremely angry blonde.

"Uhhh kid," Qrow hedged, as he looked back and forth between the two teenagers. "We haven't even exchanged names yet. How'd you manage to make Yang this angry?"

"I'm not quite sure what you're talking about," Jaune replied with a lackadaisical shrug of his shoulders. "The blonde girl over there approached me to explain why she thinks I'm a bad person. In return, I've proposed that we have nothing to do with each other."

"Yang!"

Turning to look at the blonde girl, Jaune arched an eyebrow at her. "Pardon?"

"My name's not 'the blonde girl,' it's Yang!"

"The time to introduce yourself was two minutes ago," Jaune replied with a small shake of his head. "I hardly see the point in you doing so now."

Yang's mouth bobbed open and shut as if she couldn't quite believe what she was experiencing.

In the moments that followed Yang and "John's" 'introduction,' Qrow pinched the bridge of his nose to stop the headache that he felt coming his way. This was exactly why he kept his distance from Atlesians...

---

1.25 Hours Later...

The ferry ride was quite a bit longer than Jaune originally thought it would be. They'd already been at sea for over an hour and yet according to the other passengers they were only two-thirds of the way to Patch island. Thankfully, the ferry had its own little restaurant, inside of which Jaune was making up for two days of lost calories. He had a large roast beef sandwich, mixed vegetables, a salad and a paper bag full of cookies sitting on the booth table in front of him. There was a bit of a problem however... A pair of silver eyes under a fringe of black and red hair were peeking up over the adjoining seat and staring down at his cookies.

"Do you want a cookie Ruby?" Monty help him, Jaune couldn't handle the starving puppy dog look in the younger girl's eyes.

In just a split second, a streak of red dashed in and out of the booth, leaving behind a table littered with rose petals. One of the cookies was gone. Brushing a rose petal out of his salad, Jaune attempted to return to his food. Then he couldn't. A pair of silver eyes were staring at him again, this time from the side of the booth.

"Would you like to join me Ruby?" Seriously. What was with this girl? Jaune had eight sisters at this point. He had no idea how Ruby was this disarmingly adorable given the tolerance that he'd built up.

Once again a red streak blurred its way into the booth, but this time a girl wearing a red and black battle dress ended up sitting across from him. Putting down his half eaten sandwich, Jaune motioned towards the cookies. "They're yours if you want them. They came as part of a larger deal."

"Aren't you... angry at me and my sister?" Ruby seemed hesitant to ask the question for fear that she'd lose her cookies, but she was curious enough to ask anyway.

"I'm not angry at either of you, no," Jaune responded along with a small shake of his head.

"But you and Yang..." Ruby didn't seem to believe him.

"A person's words should only be able to hurt you if you like them, or value their opinion," Jaune clarified between bites of his sandwich. "I don't know your sister. Her opinion holds no value to me."

"Then why did you tell Yang to stay away from you?" The girl had a cookie in hand at this point, but it looked like she wanted an answer before she'd indulge.

"This afternoon I dropped a building on you all," Jaune began without any preamble. "I did so because at the time, I thought you three were the paid goons of a group of people I'm trying to avoid. Qrow acted as if he was Frank, the owner of that Dust and Munitions shop, in order to ambush and interrogate me. I noticed that he was lying to me because of the way you greeted him, and then I ran for it. While moving at speeds that I've never seen anyone move before, you tried to knock me out, then when we were in that scrapyard, I finally managed to sense just how high a level Qrow really is. I was afraid, Ruby. I thought I was running for my life. That's why, when the three of you entered that warehouse, I did what I considered necessary. Does it sound to you like I was playing around? Does it sound to you like I had an overabundance of choices?"

Ruby had a cookie in her mouth at this point, but she shook her head enthusiastically.

"When we met on the docks earlier, Yang immediately called me an asshole for potentially putting you in danger," Jaune continued, while spearing some more salad on his fork. "I could tell right away that Yang wanted me to apologize, so that she could magnanimously forgive me. There's a reason why I refused to give her what she wanted. Yang may not actually know what she was trying to do, but she was trying to establish dominance over me. Our relationship from that point forward would always have been one where I was trying to make up for having wronged you girls. I come from a culture where that kind of manipulation is taken extremely seriously, which is why I'm not inclined to take part in her games."

"So you don't dislike Yang, you just refuse to be manipulated," Ruby summarized between cookies.

"Well, yes and no," Jaune replied with a shrug. "I also just don't encourage rude people to spend time with me."

"Rude," Ruby repeated in an enquiring tone.

"The very first thing that Yang said to me was that my t-shirt is lame," Jaune replied after swallowing the last of his sandwich. "Even if what she said was supposed to be constructive criticism, and I seriously doubt that it was, she has no right to judge me or my clothing. The fact of the matter is that this is the only shirt I currently own that isn't shredded, burned or covered in blood, and it was a gift from my little sister."

All of the sudden, a blond girl rose from the far seat of the adjoining booth and marched out of the restaurant.

Reaching across the table, Jaune immediately took back the half eaten bag of cookies. "I'm not sure what you hoped to accomplish by asking me those questions with your sister present. Why didn't you tell me that Yang was there?"

"I... We both thought you knew," Ruby defended in a completely sincere tone of voice. "We walked in just two minutes after you. You couldn't have missed us."

"Except I did miss you, and now I've become far more involved in Yang's personal affairs than I want to be." With a sigh, Jaune returned the bag of cookies to the younger girl. "My apologies Ruby. This is my fault, not yours. I shouldn't have talked about your sister behind her back."

"What are you going to do?" Ruby was clutching at the cookies like a lifeline now, as if they were about to be torn from her again.

"I don't know Ruby," Jaune admitted, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes. "I highly doubt any apology I make would mean anything to your sister. She knows that I meant every single word that I just said."

"You might need to loosen up just a bit while you're here in Vale," Ruby suggested in a super supportive tone of voice. "Earlier today, Yang would've been just fine with you calling her an asshole in return. She knows that it was us attacking you and not the other way around. She just worries about me and wanted to vent her frustrations."

In the moments that followed Ruby's words, Jaune let his forehead drop to the wood of the table. He was currently experiencing culture shock in the extreme. This sweet and innocent little girl was telling him that he'd have gotten along better with her sister if he'd verbally abused her... Jaune couldn't even imagine himself doing something like that...

---

After disembarking from the ferry and entering the island colony of Patch, Qrow immediately guided Jaune to a local department store. While the selection was less than inspiring, he did manage to buy some low quality Dust, some dry foods, a water filter, a few cheap t-shirts, a few black tank tops, some shorts, a pair of jeans and a half decent pair of running shoes. He also preemptively bought a cooking pot, a tent and a sleeping bag, because he was under the impression that Yang and Ruby's overprotective father was going to want him at a distance.

Qrow was highly amused.

Ruby appeared to be confused by Jaune's over the top preparation.

Yang was ignoring anything to do with Jaune.

Soon enough, the four of them arrived at the westernmost outskirts of the colony, where a large wooden cottage style house was nestled into the bend of a shallow but energetic river. It was a very picturesque location, with a wood splitting stump, a stone lined well, and a pit for campfires, even as the house clearly had full amenities like water and electricity. Jaune immediately knew that he was going to enjoy whatever amount of time he was allowed to camp out on the property.

"You're coming with me," Qrow suddenly called out right after Jaune put down his belongings on the grass. "We're going to use my step brother's landline scroll to contact Ozpin, and then you're going to tell us your story."

---

Ruby watched Qrow drag off John, then she looked over at Yang and sighed. Her older sister was still acting all sulky, which was just out of character enough to be annoying. "He's a Gentleman Yang," Ruby suddenly called out in a tired sounding voice. "Like, a real one. He doesn't yell or curse at people like we do here. When I told him that he should've just called you an asshole in return, he was literally shocked."

"So what? Where he comes from you just write people off as not worth the effort just a minute after meeting them?" Yang wouldn't even meet Ruby's eyes now.

"But you weren't trying to be friends with him," Ruby pointed out incredulously. "You aren't friendly with any of the local boys. I'm pretty sure the only reason you're angry at John right now is because he beat you to the punch."

"That's not..." As Yang's denial died in her throat, she turned away and kicked a rock into the river. "I do have male friends," she suddenly called out loud enough that her voice echoed across the clearing.

"Oh yeah, like who?" Ruby was smiling at this point because her sister was finally pulling out of her sulk.

"Andrew Nimitz and Scott McDonald," Yang listed off as she turned back around and crossed her arms.

"Both those boys call you boss and stand at attention when you call out to them," Ruby responded with an amused shake of her head. "You do remember John saying that you were trying to dominate him right? I think he's got the right idea. I've never met a boy that you treated as an equal."

"I respect dad and Qrow," Yang pointed out, in a subdued tone of voice. "They're both men."

"Umm Yang," Ruby replied in a somewhat pitying tone of voice. "Dad and Qrow are both S ranked Huntsmen... If you have any self preservation instincts at all, you have no choice but to respect them..."

Turning away from her younger sister's undeniable logic, Yang released a frustrated groan across the water.

After patting her sister on the shoulder, Ruby started to unpack John's tent and sleeping bag. She wanted to get on the boy's good side so that he might show her that armor.

---

"And that's how I ended up working under Dr Polendina and General Ironwood," Jaune finished with a small arm flourish. He'd just run Qrow, Ozpin, and Ruby's dad Taiyang Xiao Long, through his life story, as well as the circumstances behind his escape.

"Very interesting," Ozpin drawled, as he drew a coffee towards his lips. "You're not afraid for your life..."

"I'm afraid I'll end up locked in a very comfortable and well appointed dungeon, with aura suppression collars on every one of my limbs," Jaune confirmed with a nod. "I'm not sure how my relatives were going to have me run the family from captivity, but I do know that I was never going to leave Arc castle."

"Well... On the one hand, I'm legitimately relieved that the Arcs aren't secretly running an evil organization," Ozpin mused in a quiet voice. "On the other hand, you have my sympathies Mr... Freeman. Both obsession and delusion can run strong in Hunters, but I've never heard of it becoming a family affair before."

After nodding his head in understanding, Jaune rubbed a hand through his hair and thought of his reply. The fact of the matter was that he legitimately believed Ozpin and Qrow had no intention of selling him out to the Arc family. Why? Because he wasn't tied up, unconscious and in a crate heading to Atlas, that's why... Qrow and Taiyang were both S rank. That much was obvious. There was no trick or trap that Jaune could pull to surmount the difference in strength between those two men and himself, so if they wanted to send him back, then he'd already be on his way... He wasn't, and that made his response somewhat simple. "While I bear the members of the Arc family no ill will because I consider them sick rather than evil, I will never willingly go back to that castle. You have expressed a willingness to keep my identity a secret. If that's the case, then I'd be grateful for an opportunity to attend Beacon academy."

"I suppose I could let you take part in one of my preselection exams," Ozpin allowed with an amused grin on his face.

Off to the side, Qrow was both shaking his head and rolling his eyes. It was apparent that the black haired Huntsman thought Ozpin's idea was a waste of both time and resources.

"You plan on having the boy spend the next two weeks here with Qrow, am I right?" By this point, Taiyang was staring at Jaune.

Ozpin, Qrow and Jaune started staring at Taiyang in return, as they took in the intense emotions that the man was failing to conceal. Taiyang had a problem with Jaune spending time in his home. The frustration was spilling into both his eyes and the set of his jaw.

"If that's the case, then give the boy to me until the semester begins," Taiyang continued, with a feral smile growing on his face. "I'll take him outside of the colony walls for a patrol route that I'm scheduled to complete, and we'll get some training in. If the boy makes it to Beacon in time for initiation, then you'll know for sure that he deserves to be there."

While Ozpin just sat there with an amused smile on his face, Qrow leaned in towards his step brother and whispered in his ear.

After just a few moments passed, Taiyang nodded just the tiniest bit.

Pulling away from Taiyang to look over at Jaune, Qrow just shrugged his shoulders. "Tai's right Jaune. He's a close quarters combat instructor at Signal Academy. You could benefit from the one on one training and Ozpin would definitely take his word for it."

Jaune spent the next few moments looking back and forth between the malevolent looking blond man and the man who'd held a scythe to his neck just a half a day earlier. This wasn't good. Qrow currently looked like the reasonable one... Of course, if taken at face value, Taiyang's idea had some real merit. The problem was that Jaune didn't understand Mr. Xiao Long's motive for wanting to have him alone in the woods. In the end, he didn't reply at all. He just continued to stare at the two of them.

"The boy can sense your conflict of interest Mr. Long," Ozpin pointed out in Jaune's stead. "He doesn't understand the animosity that's visibly leaking out of you, which is why he doesn't trust you. You're going to have to be honest with him. He's not your normal naïve Signal student."

For several very long moments, Taiyang just continued to stare at Jaune as if he was waiting for the boy to crack. Then, when he didn't move or say anything, the blond man suddenly snapped. "There's no damned way I'm leaving you here with my daughters, especially with Qrow as a chaperone! He can't be trusted to keep your sweaty hands away from my girls, so you're coming with me!"

As appalling as Taiyang's accusations were, they were at least something that Jaune could understand. As his reservations slipped away, he started nodding and a satisfied smile grew upon his face. "I look forward to training with you Mr. Long."

"Well, alright then," Taiyang growled out, as he rose to his feet and moved to a small bar near the kitchen. "Go set up that tent of yours and make sure that it isn't missing any pieces. That'll be your home for the next two weeks."

With a small bow at Ozpin and a small helpless shrug towards a very amused looking Qrow, Jaune turned and walked out of the room. When he emerged out the back door of the house, it was to find his tent already erected and waiting for him about five meters away from the fire pit. He also saw two girls sitting next to an already started campfire, where they were roasting marshmallows with some fire blackened sticks.

"Thank you very much for assembling my tent," Jaune called out, as he walked up to the two girls and the log that they were sitting on. "Was the tent missing any pieces?"

"No problem and no, it's good to go," Ruby assured with a small dismissive wave. "Come. Sit with us."

Due mostly to the fact that he didn't want to crowd the girls on the log, Jaune rolled over a large stump of wood and then sat down atop it cross legged.

"I was wondering if you'd let me see your weapons," Ruby announced after several quiet moments passed. "I'm kind of a... weapon enthusiast..."

Reaching back over his head, Jaune unsheathed his sword and unstrapped his rifle-shield. It was only after handing over the two weapons that he noticed Ruby's look of disappointment and understood what she really wanted. "You're more interested in my armor than my weapons, aren't you?"

A rapid nod and an eager smile was all the answer that Ruby needed to give.

After unclipping the black metal band resting around his right wrist, Jaune hefted it in his palm and held it out to Ruby. "This, along with the other three bands on my other limbs, are what I've started calling reactive nano armor. I have no idea what the Atlas Military will call the armor if it ever makes it out of development, but it very well might be the future of Grimm hunting as we know it."

Picking up the metallic band from John's hand, Ruby looked at it from several different angles, as if she was looking for a button or a catch,

"I can see that you're looking for seams or catches, which would make sense if the armor was a mechashifting device," Jaune prompted, when the younger girl started looking defeated. "The reason you won't find any levers or moving parts in that band is because they're all far too small to be seen with the naked eye. That band contains hundreds of millions of self repairing little robots."

"If that's true, then how do you control them all," Ruby asked, her body bouncing around with renewed enthusiasm.

"Well technically the nanobots are supposed to be controlled using a very, very sophisticated computer," Jaune explained, as he reached out, touched the band and coaxed some of the nanobots to cover his forearm. "That computer is exactly the reason why this armor only exists inside of a lab at the moment. The computation power required to make this number of robots complete specific objectives with any amount of coordination is astronomical, and that's without taking into consideration how fragile the human body is and the fact that I'm moving while using it. Right now, I'm the only person in all of Remnant that has a working prototype of this armor."

"How did you get your hands on top secret Atlesian tech, and how do you make it work for you when the military can't? I don't see you lugging around some kind of massive supercomputer or anything." Up until now, Yang had attempted to stay out of the conversation, but there was no one else around to talk to and she was curious.

"At first, I was loaned the armor specifically because I can make it work," Jaune explained, with a small shrug of his shoulders. "The Atlas Military wanted to see what it could actually do, so they were quite happy to see me make use of it. In the end, I was given the armor to keep because I made myself useful as a researcher and as a problem solver."

"You didn't answer how you make the armor work," Yang pointed out when John lapsed back into silence. "I also want to know what a problem solver is."

"I make the armor work by using my Semblance, which I don't explain to people that I just met," Jaune replied with yet another shrug. "When I call myself a problem solver, I'm mostly talking about miscellaneous tasks that my armor can help make safer."

"Oh oh, can you give us an example of a miscellaneous task," Ruby called out from the sand at John's feet. At some point during the last minute or two, she'd moved even closer so that she could poke at his newly armored hand.

"Well yes, but I don't want to give you girls the wrong idea," Jaune said with his unarmored hand pressed up against his chin. "I've done a ton of very mundane tasks such as ship breaking, toxic waste removal and animal control featuring venomous spiders and snakes. These jobs are considered of low priority for highly trained Hunters because they don't involve fighting the Grimm, but they're still dangerous tasks not suited for your average civilian. I've also completed several more serious assignments like VIP protection or bomb disposal. My reactive armor can deflect most forms of ballistic weapons fire without a problem and while explosions still send me flying, the suit helps hold my body together. Long story short, for the length of time that I have the aura required to harness it, the armor allows me to complete exceptionally dangerous tasks in a relatively safe manner. Once the Atlesian Military found out about my ability, they offered to let me earn the right to keep it."

"Isn't that a little... unethical. You're what? Sixteen, seventeen years old? You couldn't have been more than fifteen at the time." Yang looked like she was harshly judging the Atlas Military at the moment.

"Yes, I was only fifteen," Jaune admitted, while watching a small vortex of smoke trail up into the sky. "On the other hand, I was a fifteen year old that had the ability to survive dangers that could potentially kill dozens of normal civilians. So far as the upper ups in the Atlas Military are concerned, my abilities preserved life by limiting risk. To be honest, I was eager to take part... Without the armor, my Semblance isn't well suited for combat."

"So you're a cheater then," Yang pointed out, with an unmistakable note of satisfaction in her voice.

"That's so rude Yang," Ruby squeaked out, as she angrily rounded on her sister.

"I'm not so sure to be honest," Jaune replied in a weary sounding voice. "It's possible that I might be considered a cheater. If I am, it's only because there's a fundamental flaw in how Hunters are evaluated. I want to destroy the Grimm. I want to do my part to protect society. If I use any and all of the tools at my disposal, including methods that are unavailable to most other people, does that make me a cheater? Ruby here can move faster than a Dust round, and she can think fast enough while doing so to see what she's doing and react to what she's encountering. She has a completely awe inspiring Semblance the likes of which the world seldom ever sees. Tell me Yang. Is Ruby cheating when she uses it?"

"No but, it's her Semblance," Yang argued in a slightly flustered voice. "It's a part of her."

"Ah, I see, you're a puritan of some kind," Jaune returned, as he took in the blonde girl's well toned physique. "You don't think weapons and armor should be taken into consideration when determining how strong a Hunter is. You probably feel that way because you're still relatively powerful even without them. You must have a power type, close quarters Semblance."

In order of appearance, Ruby had looked mad at her sister, bashful at John's praise and then interested in the arguments that he was making. Now she was enthusiastically nodding her head again.

Yang didn't look anywhere near as happy as Ruby. She had her arms crossed under her chest again and a sullen expression on her face. "So what if I do? I think a Hunter's true strength is revealed when their weapons fail them and they're forced to make do. Being able to pull through when the chips are down is the difference between an F rank and an S rank."

"That's a romantic notion I suppose," Jaune offered, in an indifferent tone of voice. "My issue with that idea is that Hunting shouldn't be treated as a method to prove how tough you are. It's about getting the job done to eliminate a threat. If you want to be the best fighter in the world, move to Mistral and compete in the arena. If on the other hand, you want to be an effective Huntress, gear up, armor up, and be prepared for anything."

"You think you're more of a Hunter than I am," Yang growled, as her eyes turned an eerie red color in the twilight.

"I think we're very different people, with very different opinions," Jaune replied, in a cool but even tone of voice. "For example, I'm of the opinion that I'm not a cheater."

For the second time in less than five hours, when Qrow walked up to join everyone at the fire, it was to find Yang angrily cracking her knuckles as she stared at the side of "John's" head. For the second time that same day, Jaune didn't seem to care or even notice. Shaking his head, Qrow grabbed a stick from next to Yang and pierced a marshmallow onto it. There was a chance that he might have to provide some supervision after all, but it wasn't going to be for the reasons that Taiyang feared.

These kids needed a referee...

---

When the morning sun heated the inside of Jaune's tent up to intolerable levels, he crawled out of the sweaty mess that he'd made of his sleeping bag, grabbed a tank top, some shorts and his shoes, and made his way over to the river. After dunking his face and hair into the water, Jaune leaned back on his heels and took in the day. Beautiful... Patch really was a beautiful place. It was sunny, warm and extraordinarily green compared to Atlas's more northern geography, and yet the sea air was refreshing against his skin. With a contented smile on his face, Jaune dropped back to his butt in the grass and started completing some leg stretches. It had been a while since he was last able to get some exercise in, and he was eager to return to business as usual.

After opening up a workout timer app on his scroll, Jaune set it down and started slowly jogging across the clearing. Due mostly to the fact that he'd grown up a prisoner, Jaune was an expert at making use of whatever space or obstacles he had available. In this instance, it meant that he was going to complete a beep test for his morning cardio workout so that he wouldn't have to leave the area and risk getting hunted down by Qrow.

The Beep Test app on Jaune's scroll would begin to slowly beep, speeding up as time went by, until the beeps were happening at extremely fast intervals. The point of the test was that he needed to run across the entire clearing between every two beeps, until he ran out of air or was too slow to keep up. There was no beating the test, because it continues to accelerate until it finally becomes completely impossible. Jaune considered himself in excellent shape because he could make it to level twenty without having to access his aura.

The reason that Jaune preferred to exercise without using his aura is simple. Aura is a force multiplier rather than a true substitute for muscle. The amount of speed or strength that a Hunter is able to use is usually proportional to the amount of muscle conditioning that they have as a baseline, which is then augmented by the amount of aura that they're capable of channelling throughout their muscle tissues.

Of course, little Ruby's Semblance contributes significantly to her strength, and Semblances in general make predicting strength based on body type nearly impossible...

The reason that Jaune tended to look at the matter of strength gain as if Semblances don't even exist, is because his Semblance doesn't immediately bolster his baseline attributes. Unless he makes use of his reactive armor, his Semblance would never just magically provide him increased speed or strength. What it could do, is make him far more durable and allow him to heal his torn muscles immediately after a workout. Hypothetically, Jaune could exercise a dozen times in a single day without having to stop, just so long as he has the aura, calories and nutrients necessary to heal himself.

Of course in the meantime, the problem with relying entirely on his armor to boost his physical stats was exactly as Yang had described just the night before. Try as he might to think ahead and prepare for every eventuality, Jaune wasn't always going to have all of his tools and weapons on hand when he encounters danger. Even though the nanobots were both durable and self-repairing, the act of self-replicating generally took about a day to complete and it required that he stack all four bands together in a stationary position. A day was eventually going to come that he'd have to fight without his armor. What this meant more than anything was that he needed to continue improving his speed, his strength and his martial arts.

The only reason that Jaune hadn't conceded Yang's point the night before was because he refused to give the girl the satisfaction. While he liked to think that he was mature, it was this kind of pettiness that proved he still had a long way to go. Either way, he was about to push his body to the limit, which would serve as a half decent punishment.

A little over fifteen minutes later, sweat bounced off of Jaune's forehead as he quickly dashed from one edge of the clearing to the other. At only level fifteen, he was already beginning to have trouble keeping up with the beeps because of the grass and sand that made up the clearing. He wasn't all that frustrated with the added difficulty, because the lion's share of his future Grimm hunting was going to happen in forests or wilderness settings. It was for the best that he become used to moving quickly on uneven or slippery terrain. With that in mind, Jaune grit his teeth, dug in and pushed for just a little bit extra.

For another two minutes, Jaune flew back and forth across the clearing at what amounts to a dead sprint, just barely managing to beat the beeps that would eliminate him from the exercise. Unfortunately, in his haste, he suddenly slipped when he tried to turn around and he tumbled across the grass into the base of a tree.

"Pffft!..."

Even from the flat of his back, it didn't take very long for Jaune to figure out who the owner of that feminine scoff was. There was only one woman living here that was determined to disrespect him... Pushing himself back up to his feet, Jaune immediately jogged over to his scroll and ended the beep test recording. He was using this task as a smokescreen to conceal his real intentions. If possible, he wanted to avoid having another argument with Yang, and for the most part that meant just not interacting with the girl. For that reason, as soon as he closed the app on his scroll, he dropped to the ground and began driving himself through his daily allotment of push-ups and handstand push-ups.

About ten minutes later, when Jaune was finished with his various push-ups as well as a very long drawn out plank, he immediately rolled onto his back and began a marathon of crunches and sit-ups. As he continued to push himself through every single exercise that a person can perform without the benefit of gym facilities, he began to hear the clickety clack of a jump rope off in the distance. Yang was a close quarters type fighter, which probably meant that she put herself through a mixed martial arts workout every morning. If the girl weren't such a pain in the ass, Jaune would've loved to shadow her through her workout to see what he could pick up. Then, when he was finished with a long series of lunges and squats, he turned in Yang's direction and realized that joining her would be impossible.

The girl was barely wearing anything...

Yang Xiao Long was wearing a sports bra type top and spandexy shorts, but both articles of clothing were so damned tight they looked like they were painted on. The girl's revealing attire, plus the fact that her extremely impressive breasts were bouncing up and down, forced Jaune to look away to preserve his modesty. Oh he could complain about Yang's domineering personality all he wanted, but if the girl managed to catch him pitching a tent in his shorts as he stared at her bouncing rack, he'd deserve all of the abuse that she had to offer. Even just the single moment that he'd spent watching her body bounce up and down hadn't gone unnoticed.

Yang didn't stop skipping her rope when John looked over at her, but she did arch an eyebrow at him as if to say the words "pervert much?"

After rolling his eyes at Yang's annoyingly superior smirk, Jaune filled his water purifier and rested it on top of a nearby log. He also rebuilt the fire from the night before so that he could fry himself an omelette. The one perishable foodstuff that he'd gone out of his way to buy the night before was a twelve pack of eggs. Between last night and today, he'd polish off all of the eggs, and then he'd be in much better shape to handle whatever Taiyang had to throw at him. This whole "not knowing when or where he was going to get his next meal" thing, was starting to get a little bit old...

As he waited for his frying pan to warm up, Jaune walked over to a nearby tree and began hauling himself through several sets of pull-ups and muscle-ups using a low lying branch. When he was about halfway through the pull-up portion of his workout, he started hearing rhythmic pounding noises coming from somewhere behind him. It seemed that Yang was striking a punching bag, judging by the distinct thwacking noises that it was making as well as the sound of feminine grunting. Four minutes later, when Jaune was finally finished all of his muscle-ups, his curiosity finally got the better of him and he looked back over his shoulder.

For the second time in less than ten minutes, Jaune was forced to immediately avert his eyes to keep himself from staring.

Yang had the punching bag flat on the ground, where she was straddling it and raining punches down on its defenseless leather body. She was performing a completely legitimate mixed martial arts, wrestling and striking drill, and yet her revealing clothing made her actions seem unabashedly perverse. At this point, Jaune was becoming increasingly certain that Yang Xiao Long was teasing him on purpose... Well... fine.

Two could play at that game...

After walking back to the door-flap of his tent, Jaune dragged out his travel pack, from which he collected a toothbrush, some shampoo and a shaving kit. Then, after cracking some eggs into the frying pan, he suddenly pulled his tank top up over his head and dropped it into a nylon bag. Jaune spent the next few minutes grooming himself, half naked (presumably to keep any shave gel, toothpaste or soap from dropping onto his clothing) and stirring the contents of his breakfast.

It was a little bit against his nature to just assume that he was attractive to the opposite sex, but Jaune was definitely a muscular guy and this Yang girl appeared to be the type to appreciate that sort of thing. He also didn't have a choice in the matter. There was no damned way that he was going to let Yang rile him up without receiving some form of retaliation... When he was finished shaving his face and his food was removed from the fire to cool, Jaune slowly stretched his arms to the sky and then quickly turned around to look in Yang's direction. Hah!... gotcha! He'd managed to catch Yang checking out his back, arms and shoulder muscles. Without a second thought, Jaune raised an eyebrow at the girl as if to say the words "pervert much?"

Unfortunately for Jaune, it was during his single moment of triumph that Taiyang Xiao Long walked out onto his back porch and caught the two of them staring at each other. First he saw his eldest daughter wearing essentially nothing and straddling a punching bag like she was riding it dirty. Next he saw this generation's Arc male sitting on a nearby log, half naked, damp and artfully disheveled as if he was posing for some kind of Huntsmen calendar. Over the following two or three seconds, Taiyang's overly paranoid, dad brain, arrived at all of the worst possible conclusions, causing all of the humanity to suddenly drop away from his features. By the time the older man finished marching over to stand in front of Jaune, he'd slipped right into scary Huntsman mode, and was looking down at him as if he was a particularly disgusting form of Grimm.

Looking up at Taiyang's tightly clenched jaw, furrowed eyes and white knuckled hands, Jaune started to realize that he wasn't dealing with a rational, reasonable human being at the moment. With that in mind, he dropped a hand into his bag, dragged out a dark grey t-shirt and slowly drew it up over his head. While he didn't want to move too quickly and make himself look guilty, it was important that he get rid of the reason for the man's anger ASAP...

"Qrow told me that you can heal any injuries that I cause you during training," Taiyang began in an extremely cold and clinical tone of voice. "How true is that? How serious an injury can you fix?"

"I can heal any wound to my skin within just a few minutes, but only if I don't bleed to death first and my body contains all of the resources that a healing person requires," Jaune hedged in an uneasy tone of voice. "For the most part, that means my body needs water, calories, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C and Zinc. I've never tried to regenerate lost organs or limbs, and I don't think it's wise to start experimenting with amputation." Jaune fervently wished that that last explanation hadn't been necessary, but he really didn't like the current direction of Taiyang's thoughts.

"That'll be good enough," Taiyang announced with a distinctly feral smile on his face. "Pack up your camp, and then make a trip to the general store. I want you to buy all of the vitamins, protein powder and first aid kits that they have in stock... All of them..."

After accepting the wad of lien (money) that was being pushed into his hand, Jaune turned away from Taiyang only to catch sight of a very amused looking Yang. It was immediately obvious that the female brawler knew exactly what kind of conclusions her father was currently jumping to, and she knew exactly what the S ranked Huntsman was going to do about it. What's more, she didn't look the least bit sympathetic. Then, during the next few seconds, Yang's lack of concern for Jaune's safety was made even more apparent, when she gave him a slow but salacious wink followed by a kiss to her palm that she blew in his general direction. It was official. Yang was actively trying to get her father to bury his body in the woods. She was quite literally giving him the kiss of death...

With a short growl of frustration, Jaune completely dismissed Yang from his thoughts in order to focus on something far more important. Despite the fact that an unbelievably furious Taiyang was staring a hole into the side of his head, Jaune took his sweet ass time eating his breakfast. The scrambled egg that he'd just finished cooking was more than likely going to be the last nutritious meal that he got to eat for quite a while. He refused to miss out on good food just because his new "trainer" was a psychopath.

Twenty very quiet minutes later, Jaune and Taiyang left the house to briskly walk towards the market district of the colony. From a distance, it may have looked like the two of them were hitting it off, due mostly to the fact that Taiyang had his hand resting on the younger man's back. What that observer would have missed was the fact that the older man's fingers were digging like fish hooks into the meat of the teenager's shoulder...

---

2 Weeks Later...

The passenger transport that was scheduled to fly from Patch Colony to Beacon Academy idled in the middle of the airfield, gassed up and ready to fly. A disorganized group of nervous and excited seventeen-year-olds stood around near the intake gate, fussing over their bags and belongings in a vain effort to keep themselves occupied. Standing amongst all of these future Beacon students was an unexpected addition, as fifteen-year-old Ruby Rose had been scouted a full two years early by Headmaster Ozpin himself, after she managed to foil a dust robbery. Due mostly to the fact that she was younger, smaller and far less confident than the older kids standing all around her, Ruby was hiding her face within her hood and was sticking to her sister's side like a burr. Even from a distance, it was obvious that Yang wanted to shake her arm to dislodge her little sister, but she was just barely keeping herself from following through with the impulse.

As the time until takeoff grew shorter and the in flight crew started to board the airship, Yang started grinning down into the dark recesses of Ruby's hood. At this point she had a very "I told you so" look upon her face.

Ruby, in turn, finally pulled down her hood, but only so that she could pout disapprovingly at her older sister. Earlier in the week, Yang had finally revealed how she'd pissed off their dad just moments before the man dragged John off into the wilderness. Yang kept joking about how John was going to be scared off by their dad and would never even try to attend Beacon's initiation. Ruby wasn't so sure. While John had been a little too honest about both his feelings and weaknesses to ever be called a tough guy, he definitely wasn't someone that Ruby would call soft either. Even Yang had been forced to admit that the boy's morning workout was extremely thorough and miles above what was expected from a Signal Academy student. Whether John's conditioning would be enough to help him survive their father, Ruby didn't know...

A cheerful chiming noise and a bright indicator light on the wall announced that it was time for everyone to file up the boarding ramp and into the airship. Soon enough, Ruby and Yang were settling down into a pair of chairs at about the midpoint of the airship's passenger compartment. Ruby managed to snag the window seat due to a mixture of quick movements and sneakiness. In the end, she needn't have worried. Yang was far too interested in the people around them to care about what seat she'd end up sitting in.

Yang found herself people watching the various students sitting around them, checking to see if anyone had experienced a growth spurt or upped their training or anything. So far there wasn't much to see. None of the teenagers sitting around them appeared to have done anything but hang out and play video games all summer... Suddenly and surprisingly, Yang found herself thinking about John, training outside of the colony's walls with a man who visibly wanted him to suffer... Up until now, she'd been saying that the boy was an idiot who deserved every single second of the abuse that he was receiving. Now that she was reunited with the laissez-faire mediocrity of the kids from her old school, she found herself feeling just a little bit more charitable. At the very least, John knew that he needed to continue pushing himself if he wanted to become a Huntsman...

And that was the moment when John Freeman's body exploded right through the trunk of a small tree ringing the airfield, and bounced ten meters across the tarmac. Thankfully, the boy managed to maneuver his fall so that he landed on top of his shield, but as he continued to slide, he left a comet trail of concrete dust and sparks in his wake.

Taiyang Xiao Long blurred out of the forest a split second later, and dropped to the ground a meter in front of John's sliding body to throw a high velocity kick directly at his approaching head.

With a gasp, dozens of students swarmed towards the closest windows.

Launching to her feet, Yang smooshed Ruby's face against the glass in her desire to take a closer look.

While the boy was nowhere near fast enough to dodge Taiyang's kick, John did manage to roll to the side enough to get his shield in between his cheek and the man's foot. Of course that didn't change the fact that for the second time in less than five seconds, he ended up being launched clear across the tarmac, but at least this time he managed to drag his sword across the concrete to land on his feet and then skid along the ground. Even after using his sword to decrease his momentum, John still left a trail of melted shoe rubber in his wake, but he did manage to stay on his feet this time and raise his shield in front of his body. Then his eyes widened as his face took on an unmistakable look of sudden realization, and his shield clattered to the tarmac so that he could begin frantically gesturing towards the airship.

It didn't immediately work... For a little over a second, the blond haired Huntsman continued to advance on the black haired boy, and he continued to yell and point towards the airship...

Finally, when there was only a meter or two remaining between the two of them, Taiyang suddenly seemed to realize exactly where they were, at which point he immediately halted his Terminator-esque advance towards the boy, and a sheepish expression grew across his face. Rising to his full height, he straightened out his shirt and then nodded his head as if everything had gone exactly as he'd planned.

No one was fooled.

As a group of airfield security guards ran up and circled around Taiyang, the teenaged boy in their midst slowly picked up his rifle-shield and then leaned drunkenly against the pommel of his sword. The boy was visibly weaving from side to side in what was hopefully advanced exhaustion rather than a concussion. Either way, John looked like the wrath of the Gods, and he clearly wasn't paying attention to anything beyond staying on his feet. Finally, after about two minutes of Taiyang proving who he was by displaying his Hunter credentials, one of the security guards motioned for John to go ahead and board the airship.

All of the teenagers that were already present on the airship watched as the young man sheathed his blade and rifle-shield, repositioned his beaten up backpack and trudged woodenly across the airfield. The closer the boy walked towards the airship, the worse he managed to look. His rifle-shield was a dented dull grey color as all of the paint on its surface had been completely shorn away, his clothing was a patchwork of holes and rips to the point of being nothing more than rags, and his body was a mass of newly collected welts and bloody little abrasions. John Freeman looked like he'd just survived a colony ending Grimm swarm, and no one sitting on the airship knew what to make of it.

---

After dragging himself up the boarding ramp that was attached to the short range airship, Jaune took a moment to try and fix his appearance. He needed to make sure that he didn't look like a crazy person if he was going to make a good first impression with his future classmates. There was a problem though... He was... a mess, and there was very little that he could do about it.

Jaune had been mentally and physically worn out long before that last second "training exercise," and all of his newly bought clothing was damaged beyond repair. Needless to say, Taiyang had been an extremely intense trainer, even after he'd finally calmed down about Yang. Every single way that a man can inflict injury upon another man had been carved into Jaune's body through their nearly constant spars, which of course meant that he'd also improved quite a bit at healing himself. Just thinking about some of the injuries that he'd taken over the last two weeks, that he'd then been forced to fix for himself, had Jaune shivering.

Closing his eyes, Jaune leaned back against the wall and forced himself to take several very deep breaths. He had a new awareness that he hadn't had just two weeks earlier, and the new knowledge was stressing him out. Up until recently, Jaune had always believed that a Hunter's aura field made them mostly impervious to cuts or blunt force trauma until the person generating it finally ran out of aura. He'd been wrong. Back when Qrow ambushed him, the man had somehow managed to force his scythe right inside of his aura barrier, and Taiyang had done the same thing over and over again in the two weeks since.

Apparently, all the technique required was that the attacker manage to continually press a weapon or fist against a single space on their victim's aura shield, and then deliver a hard blow with no build up whatsoever. It was an extremely difficult application of strength to pull off, but when it worked out it made it possible for someone to inflict real physical damage on a fully aura armored opponent. The idea wasn't so different to the bone breaking technique that Jaune already knew, but it was far more difficult to perform because of the extreme speeds that aura using Hunters tend to move at. Jaune already knew for a fact that he'd end up practicing the technique in the months to come. He needed to be ready for anything if he was going to remain free of his family...

Then Jaune was surprised out of his thoughtful stupor when the hatch into the ship popped open and two familiar girls stepped out to stare at him.

"His training was even more violent than I warned you it'd be," Ruby commented, without even looking aside at her sister.

"He is alive though," Yang countered, in a voice that sounded just the tiniest bit contrite.

Straightening off of the wall, Jaune nodded towards the sisters as if he was wearing a three-piece suit rather than bloody rags. "Hello again. I'm happy to see you both. If it would be acceptable to you two, I have a favor to ask of you."

Yang arched a surprised eyebrow at Jaune, presumably because she expected him to be angry at her. She was right. He was. He really, really was... On the other hand, that particular emotion was taking a back seat to matters of much greater importance. "If possible, I'd like you two to put on a performance for me once we enter the passenger compartment," he began in a very casual voice. "I'd like you to act as if the fact that I look like an escapee from an Atlesian prison mine is no big deal."

After a moment spent staring at Jaune and digesting his words, both girls abruptly nodded their heads in understanding and acceptance. Ruby was visibly willing to be both supportive and helpful. Yang looked more like she was going to begrudgingly help out of a sense of obligation.

"Thank you both," Jaune acknowledged, with a nod and a weary smile. Then, after gesturing for the girls to precede him, he followed them into the passenger compartment as if they were some kind of entourage. Both girls were holding easy smiles on their faces and were motioning for Jaune to take an empty seat across the aisle from them. They most likely wanted to make their father look less insane even more than they wanted to make him look normal, but Jaune appreciated their efforts nonetheless. The ploy wasn't entirely successful, as dozens of teenagers stared at every step that the three of them made, but their scrutiny was nowhere near as intense as it could've been, and for that Jaune was grateful.

Soon enough, Jaune was strapping himself into an empty seat at about the midpoint of the compartment, and easing back into it as if it was the fluffiest king sized bed on Remnant. He immediately started meditating so that he could quickly recoup some of his diminished aura and heal his wounds, but he was distracted when a small hand started poking at his shoulder.

"Why weren't you using your armor just now," Ruby whispered as she crouched in the aisle to get closer to him.

"About twenty minutes after we left your house, I did try to use my armor," Jaune began in a somewhat listless voice. "For the length of time that I was able to use my armor at full strength, I could fend off your father's attacks or at least shake off the damage that they caused. Too bad that effort left me completely exhausted less than four minutes into our first training session."

"Ah, ohhhhh," Ruby let slip as she realized something that should've been obvious. She hadn't made the connection between how draining John's reactive armor was and how demanding her father was. Taiyang Xiao Long would've made John spar with him countless times every single day, and he wouldn't have allowed the boy to use aura exhaustion as an excuse to skip out. In hindsight, it was only common sense that John's reactive armor would need to be put aside for the length of their training. It also meant that whatever John's Semblance was, it had been rendered completely worthless from an offensive standpoint.

"Did our dad spend the entire two weeks beating on you like what we just saw," Yang asked, from her seat just behind Ruby.

"Uhhh, well, yes and no," Jaune allowed after thinking about it for a bit. "Your father was completely horrified by how unprepared I was for Beacon, so yes, he was brutally strict and unforgiving with me. On the other hand, I was eventually able to convince him that I'm not making advances on his eldest daughter, at which point he stopped threatening to make me disappear."

"If that's the case, then why was he trying to kick your head in just now," Ruby questioned, while gesturing out the window.

"Ahhh. That was my own fault," Jaune admitted with a rueful little smile on his face. "About half an hour ago, I finally ran out of patience with Taiyang's demands that I protect Yang from the boys over at Beacon. In the end, I snapped and said something extremely unwise."

Due to the fact that he had his eyes closed and was attempting to meditate again, Jaune didn't immediately realize that the girls were waiting for him to continue his story. That's why his meditation was ruined a second time by Yang poking at his cheek. "Can I help you," he asked as his eyes snapped back open. "I'm in extremely rough shape at the moment, so I wouldn't mind a chance to rest."

"Tough. I want to know what you said to my dad." Yang's eyes were on fire now. She was clearly angry that her dad would try to make someone spy on her social life.

"I told him no of course," Jaune snorted out in a completely incredulous tone of voice. "I can't think of literally anything more tedious than trying to meddle in your social life. I told your father that he was overprotective to the point of insanity, based on guilt over his own actions as a teenager. He clearly didn't treat his female classmates with any respect whatsoever back when he attended Beacon, which is the reason why he doesn't believe any other boy can do better..."

"I can see that making our dad angry," Yang allowed in a somewhat relieved tone of voice. "I've never seen him quite that out of control though. Are you sure you're not holding out on us?"

Both girls noticed that John really was hiding something when he suddenly turned away from them and acted like he was falling asleep. Soon enough, both sisters were poking at his shoulder and cheek in tandem, refusing to let him rest.

"Yes, I said something else that angered your father, but I don't wish to share it," Jaune finally admitted in a harassed sounding voice. "Look, I've been enduring a nearly constant state of exhaustion and injury for the last two weeks. In the end, I said something both rude and uncalled for to your father. The next time I get the opportunity to speak to him, I'll apologize for losing my temper. Until then, I'd appreciate it if I could get some rest..."

"That seems fair," Ruby chirped, as she zipped back over to her seat and looked out her window. "It sounds to me like we'll be leaving for Beacon soon anyway. The thrusters are cycling through their preflight."

With one last curious glance in John's direction, Yang pulled out her scroll and started playing some kind of video game.

By the time the airship left the ground, Jaune was already asleep, having given up on healing his body until he had the aura necessary to do so.

---

Authors note:

It's generally around this chapter that I start receiving PMs from people that are furious with me for making one or more of their favorite characters do or say unkind things.

If at all possible, have some patience with me, as this story will develop every character over time including what circumstances led to them acting the way that they're acting.

Thanks

Karmealion