I actually made multiple chapters for this new story to give myself some buffer room for once! It's like I'm an actual author now or something! When last we left our not-so-young hero he was getting his ass kicked by an enraged blonde...No, not a super Saiyan. Yet. By the angry stepsister of a certain rose who doesn't know any better.

Let's just hope that he doesn't get 'too' big of a zenkai boost after this.

"Why. Can't. I. Hit. You?!" Yang Xiao Long asked a very good question. To who it was asked is still up to debate but that hardly mattered at the moment. She wasn't exactly in the listening mood.

Meanwhile, I was slowly...Very slowly, but surely reading Yang's patterns and was ready to start my counterattack. Left jab, right gut punch into a left uppercut. I just barely dodged to Yang's exposed left side and gave her a swift kick to the ribs, letting a small smile come to my face as she winced slightly…

Until I remembered her semblance and my smile turned into wide-eyed fear as Yang's hair started to glow a fiery gold color. Audibly gulping I prepare to use my semblance for the first time to try and pull a Neo.

At least until Ruby decided that this fight was unfair and crashed into Yang's legs at top speed from behind. Durable as the blonde berserker was, getting hit by a rose-covered missile at vehicular speeds would trip up pretty much anyone.

"Come on Yang, Slate's still tired from Grimm hunting earlier so he can't fight right now. Nice dodging by the way!" Ruby gave him a thumbs up while Yang recovered her bearings.

"Wha- Grimm hunting?... Damn it, Rubes." She muttered the last words to herself, realizing what the situation really was. She gained a sheepish look and rubbed the back of her hair. "Sorry about that kid, my sister needs to learn the meaning of phrasing."

I glared at her a bit before sighing. My pride nearly got the best of me and made me lash out there. My own weakness and this child looking down on me because of my new body's age being an effective combo.

"It's fine, no harm no foul. If anything this just proves that I have a long way to go, I could barely keep up with your moves while you were enraged. And even when I got a lucky shot in it didn't do much damage." I said, disappointment and embarrassment in my voice. The Saiyan pride was harsh when damaged. I needed to get used to these new powers. Fast.

"A teenager with modesty? I never thought I'd see the day. Just don't be so hard on yourself kid, you did fairly well for someone who was supposedly exhausted after a Grimm battle." An older voice came from atop the staircase. The lightly bearded form of Taiyang smirking at the two kids and secretly old fart.

"Thanks but I'm not the type to make excuses. I'm well aware of my own weakness and I plan to correct that. My name's Slate by the way." I introduced myself, though with how loud his daughters were he probably already knew that.

"I heard. The name's Taiyang Xiao Long, now may I ask why my daughter found a kid in the middle of a Grimm infested forest doing 'magic tricks' and who had enough skill to rival a signal student. Just call it professional curiosity little lady." He tried to be cool.

"I'm a guy." Immediate deflation. That's going to be both annoying and funny to keep doing. "Don't worry, you're the third person in your family in a row to make that mistake." Yang's reaction to his true sex being particularly funny. The firecracker went from friendly to downright aggressive the moment she realized that her baby sister was hanging out with an unknown boy.

"I was training. I'm entirely self-taught and plan on attending beacon soon" My goal seemed to be just crazy enough to get their jaw to drop. Was it really that shocking? Granted I wasn't that strong right now, but I can fix that quickly enough. And I'm a damn sight better than Jaune was at this point.

"Damn, that's a pretty big goal you have. Little Yang over there is going this year and she's what? 4 years older than you?" If he were being honest both of his daughters could probably make the cut, but he wasn't too sure about this random kid.

"Why dream if you don't dream big? Besides age doesn't matter, only merit. I've already been accepted and have had my transcripts approved... Barren as they may be." No former education, no previously displayed combat skills. Yet they were still accepted through mysterious means. Thanks, mysterious goddess.

"Is that right? Honestly, what is Oz thinking nowadays? This kid is even younger than Ruby." The middle-aged man muttered to himself, sure the kid was apparently pretty good. But there were reasons why Beacon was the world's number one hunter academy.

"If he got this good on his own I can see him going to Beacon. Not gonna lie, it's going to be nice to have a fellow martial artist in my year." Yang backed me up, likely as an apology for jumping him so quickly off of a misunderstanding.

"Martial artist? I guess you can call me that, but it isn't exactly my specialty." I didn't want to specialize either. Why be a martial artist, swordsman, or wizard if you could be all of them? I'm going to go all Skyrim up in this!

"A generalist? That's quite the rarity nowadays, kids always want to be a flashy master of their respective art. It's good to see someone that understands the need for versatility. A jack of all trades rounds up the masters of one." Taiyang approved, though he didn't quite get what Slate was going for.

"Jack of all trades? You think too small, I don't plan on settling for mediocrity. Mark my words, by the end of my first year I'll be the best student in every class!" His Saiyan pride was going on full blast and he didn't see a reason not to go along. Like he said before, why dream if you don't dream big?

"...Sooo coool! B-but you'll have to settle for second place when it comes to weapons. I'll be the best when it comes to that, enjoy your first place while it lasts, when I go to Beacon in two years it's all mine!" Ruby exclaimed with stars in her eyes before stating her own goal, directly challenging both myself and every other student of her future school.

"Hah! If we're doing this then you'll have to settle for second place in combat classes too. I'll be the number one fighter at Beacon, count on it!" Yang joined in, stating her own goal. Did I just create an anime rivalry? Too bad Pyrrha's also gonna be in our year, guess Yang's gonna have to settle for the bronze.

I smirked, this could be fun. Nothing like a little competition to get my new blood pumping again. "Challenge accepted, now if you all don't mind I need to get going. Need to find an apartment or something, snow is cold. Cold is death." He muttered before opening the door only to find a small wall of snow blocking his path…

"Guess you're staying here for the night. Patch snowstorms are pretty rough, being an island close to the Grimlands and all." Taiyang explained the sudden shift in weather...I need to get up to date with this world's history and geography. Stuff like this can get people killed. Last I checked this island was close to Remnant's equator yet it gets this kind of weather...Crazy.

"If you'll have me. All this means is that I'll be getting to know my three new friends a bit better." Nothing that could be done about it. Even if I did know the metabolic manipulation technique why waste the effort when you could accept a friend's hospitality?

"Three? You don't mind being friends with an old war dog like me?" Taiyang joked, a bit surprised at being considered a friend from a kid his age. Most people stuck to their age group and treated anyone older as some kind of separate category altogether.

"Old? You don't even have any grey in your hair mate. If we're talking real old war dogs Ozpin is the only one I can name off the top of my head." And even that youngin' was barely a few thousand years old. Then again, wartime does tend to count for more age-wise.

Taiyang gave a boisterous laugh, most likely getting the inside joke even though he knew I couldn't possibly know about the secret immortal. Oh, that's gonna be fun to reveal later down the line, but for now, I'll just let Ruby and Yang keep their confusion until they remember this day a few years and life-changing experiences down the line.

"So...You any good at fighting games?" Yang asked after the awkward moment with her sister as they watched their new friend and dad laughing way too hard at what they thought was a mediocre joke.

A devilish grin was the only answer she received.

2 hours later

VICTORY! COMPLETE ANNIHILATION!

"...10 games, it took 10 games for you to go from a complete noob to...THIS!" Yang had never seen such bullshit before. I simply gave her a peace sign. Sure the characters were different, but it was still a fighting game. Decades of experience served me well.

"I didn't even get a hit in." Ruby said quietly, she was sure her infinite combo of low kicks would have done it!

"I think we should stop now before friendships get ruined. You girls can keep playing but I have a request, mind if I take a look at a few of your Signal textbooks? I got fighting down well enough but I could use a serious refresher for everything else hehe." A chorus of nerd was spoken before they agreed and let me borrow some of their old study material. Having a teacher as your dad probably helped them keep this stuff in good condition.

"Do I need to sleep or does Gamer's body cover that? Oh well, only one way to find out." I said to myself before hitting the books, starting with modern history for fairly obvious reasons. Dustcraft could wait for later, he didn't even think they taught that at Beacon. A shame but he guessed each school had its specialties.

The next day

Ok, good news/bad news. The good news is that I did not require sleep and was able to study for eight hours straight, learning all of Remnant's history in the process...That sounded impressive but really there were only about three centuries worth of information to go through, and only four kingdoms to focus on(five for modern history).

The bad news, this world's history was dark as all hell! Orwellian factions, genocides, resource scarcity, kaiju Grimm, and all the while a single constant was there to consistently save this world, but only just.

Ozma, Oz, Ozborn, Ozwell, Oziel, Osiris, Oscard, Osford, Ozymandeus, Ozpin. My respect for him grew with the accounts of each of his past lives. The real sad part was that half of these near-extinction events weren't even Salem's fault, at least not directly. The humans of this world were just as bloodthirsty and self-destructive as usual.

"And for the last eighty or so years, the world has been in a state of peace more or less. Barring the Faunus-Rights war but that barely lasted 3 years. Oz has certainly built himself a house of cards alright. At least he was smart enough to make four bases as a foundation instead of taking power for himself." Though that in itself had its dangers. Lionheart being a perfect example.

'What a mess of a world I've chosen for myself. At least it's a mess with a fairly obvious enemy. Be they those childish brother gods or Salem is irrelevant. Both of them were corrupted by their own power and lost any empathy they may have once had.' Power corrupted, especially when you had nobody to balance you out.

"Slate? Is that you? How long have you been awake? It's 5:00 AM!" Taiyang spoke from the stairway, dressed in his pajamas and barely cognizant after waking up so early. "That's Yang's old study material, been crammin' eh." He mumbled followed by a groan of coffee.

"I feel ya man. Don't worry I'll make some, where's your stash?" To some, asking for the location of another man's coffee stash was no less than blasphemy. However, as a teenager and with the fact that Taiyang was barely there mentally gave Slate quite a bit of leeway.

'Let's see. Coffee beans, ooh and they're nice and fresh, I guess Patch is pretty close to this world's sweet spot, even if the weather's a bit chaotic. A coffee pot and...A very complicated and overly expensive coffee maker. Yeah, no.' I took a plain filter from the machine and started boiling a fresh pot of water before crushing the coffee beans into grounds by hand. Saiyan strength was pretty useful.

That's right, I was using the good ol-fashioned pour-over method for the perfect cup of coffee, much to Taiyang's appreciation as the delectable aroma of the slowly forming black liquid gold formed in the clear pot. Hell, it was so good that the two girls actually woke up early and half-levitated themselves to the kitchen Looney Tunes style!

'Honestly, these three are too easily impressed. I haven't even added in the flavorings yet. Let's see...Ooh, this could be interesting.' Maple leaves, locally sourced, some mint, heavy cream, whole milk. And of course some sugar.

Each individual received their own unique mixture of the previously mentioned ingredients mixed into their liquid nirvana. Ruby in particular was losing her damned mind at the idea of a coffee drink that didn't make her want to drown her tongue in sugar afterward.

"It's all in the aroma, take a nice slow beath after each sip for maximum flavor." I spoke the good word which Taiyang followed without question. His daughters joined soon after, each soul singing in pleasure from the warm drink after last night's cold.

"Hey Slate, I completely approve of you dating Ruby, just keep making this for me every morning will ya?" Yang mumbled in a dreamlike voice. I was half sure she was joking but the way she was melting made it hard to tell. Surprisingly Ruby didn't even acknowledge the teasing and just kept drinking.

Taiyang on the other hand: "Ya gotta beat me in a spar but otherwise yes to everything Yang just said." ...I was going to wait to see if they were actually serious about this. He knew that most people lived gray, unfulfilled lives of instant coffee, but damn. Wasn't Taiyang supposed to be just as overprotective as Yang or was that a fanfiction trope?

Genre specific questions aside Ruby decided to change the topic of conversation for everyone's benefit.

"Dad, can you drive me over to Vale later? I need to restock some of my dust ammo." Ruby said her first words in a three minutes after taking her first sip.

"It will have to be tonight, I'm really busy with post-exam grading which will probably take me till nightfall to finish." It was the end of the school year, Ruby's going to visit a dust store at night, there's one month until Beacon starts. Yup, this sounds like the Torchwick set up. Now the question is, should I join her?...

So, how is it so far? Good? Mediocre? Lacking in something? One thing I should mention, I'm going to be integrating parts of the official RWBY manga into this story. It's pretty good, worth a read.

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, as a heads up I'll finally be uploading chapter 1 of the Heroic Nerd vol 3 in September so keep an eye out for that. And as always try to have a great day.