As evidence of how fickle inspiration is, I am writing this immediately after releasing the story.
Hopefully it doesn't end up getting named as 'Beacon Battle Royale Chapter 2 Draft 14'.
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If you asked Jaune Arc whether or not he expected to see a dead body in his lifetime, he would've reluctantly answered yes. And although he never wished for it to happen, such expectations just comes with the territory of being a huntsman who is expected to fight literal monsters. It is inevitable that he'll have to go in to a village that's been overrun by grimm, and he knows (but does not dare let it happen if he could help it) that he cant save all civilians from the grimm and that some of them will die.
But if you asked Jaune Arc whether if he'll get his first experience today, and whether he expected it to be so violent, he would've looked at you weirdly before asking who you are and what are you doing in JNPR's dorm.
That actually happened. It's the reason why he and his team are out of the courtyard – some woman, maybe another student – had somehow gotten into their room and stole Magnhild before jumping off the window. To say that Nora was pissed would be an understatement, the girl was livid.
"GET BACK HERE!" The energetic redhead rushed to the window and shouted after the thief who is now sprinting across the grassy courtyard. Then, without a bit of hesitation, she started climbing out of the window.
"Wait, Nora-!" Jaune grabbed his friend, intending to not let her hurt herself, but he underestimated just how much energy an angry Nora could put out and thus joined her in the air screaming when she jumped out.
Thank the gods for belts. He would not want to imagine what an angry Nora would do to him of things go wrong since he is literally hanging on by the hem of her skirt.
They landed on the grassy courtyard, with Jaune tumbling – expertly rolling – while Nora just impacted the ground like a pissed off god that just descended from the heavens and is looking to whoop ass. And there's one specific ass that she's looking to whoop right now – and it's sprinting away from her!
"I'M GOING TO BREAK YOUR LEGS SO RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN!" The redhead roared before rushing forwards, leaving the just-now-recovered Jaune in her dust. The huntsman-in-training hears a pair of thuds behind him, and he needn't look back to know that the rest of his team have joined him on the ground.
"We should catch up to her before she does something rash." The stoic Ren offers, even though Jaune could detect a bit of eagerness, too.
"Agreed." Pyrrha, his partner and trainer, voiced out for the both of them. The three shared a quick nod amongst themselves before running towards Nora who had just pounced on the thief and knocked both of them down onto the ground.
"Yaagh!" They arrived just in time to see Nora rolling across the grass with the thief as both of them fought over the grenade launcher. "Let go of her you stupid thief!" Nora snarled ash she tried yanking her weapon off of the woman's hand.
For the first time since they started this merry chase, the woman spoke up: "Why the hell do you keep looting my MGL!?" Her voice sounding confused.
"YOURS?" Jaune recalls the saying as to how you can't exactly feel sound, but it just so happens that Nora's neigh-hysterical disbelief of what the thief just said transmitted the aneurysm his teammate currently felt. "I'LL BREAK YOUR ARMS TOO!" Nora shouts, lifting an arm up with the clear intent of using the next best thing to a hammer that she currently has.
Jaune and Ren moved forwards to stop her, each of them struggling to hold back the arm of an enraged Nora while Pyrrha just used her semblance to recover her teammate's weapon. After that's been done, the angry redhead allowed herself to be extricated from the thief in favor of being able to look over her weapon. "Magnhild! You're not leaving my side again!" She cooed to her weapon in a way that had the rest of team JNPR slightly confused as they thought such a thing was only possible to one Ruby Rose.
Unfortunately for them, this moment of inattentiveness allowed the thief to get up and start running. Jaune noticed her escape first, and he wasted no time in getting up and starting to run. "Hey, stop!" He called out, they still need to know who she was so that they can report this to the-
A pink mist suddenly replaced the thief's head, which was then followed by the unmistakable crack of gunfire. Jaune couldn't register what just happened at first – some weird trick of light and some students negligently letting off a shot, maybe – but the situation immediately dawned on him when the woman stumbled and he rushed forward to catch her.
Or what's left of her.
Jaune, mouth agape, could only stare in shock and horror at the headless corpse in his arms. Blood spewed out of the exposed arteries, but Jaune was too shocked to even worry about the blood that had started to stain his armor and hoodie red.
"Jaune! What just ha-!" He heard Pyrrha rush from behind him, only for her to then gasp in shock. "Oh gods…" He heared her say in a muffled voice, probably because she'd covered her mouth.
Pyrrha's presence finally snapped Jaune out of his shock and he unceremoniously dropped the corpse in his arms before backpedaling on his ass. "Wha- what just- why…?" He tried to say something, but his thoughts were racing a mile a minute and were shouting over each other to be heard. At loss for words, Jaune could only have his pupils dilate as it followed the stream of blood pouring out of the neck and into the grass below.
"What happened here!? Jaune!" For once, Ren sounded like he was in a panic as he rushed towards Jaune. He then knelt down and turned his friends' head away from the corpse to face him. "Hey, are you okay!?"
Jaune blinks, and then Ren had forcefully stop him from looking back the corpse. That seems to have done the trick and Jaune nodded back with widened eyes. "Y-yeah. I just…. I just didn't expect that to happen."
Jaune looks to the side – away from the corpse – and sees a shocked Nora comforting an equally shocked Pyrrha. Ren and Nora seems to be dealing with the death easier than the both of them, which makes sense as he knows that the two had survived out in the wilderness on their own.
Suddenly, more gunfire erupts. Jaune turned his head to look at the source, but another one erupted from a different direction. Jaune tried to turn towards there too, but was then cut-off by yet another firefight erupting from somewhere in the campus which was then followed by another, and another, and another, up until the school sounded like a warzone – the weapons vary, from what sounded like low-caliber pistols, assault rifles, machine-guns, and even a rocket launcher.. Around them, Jaune could spot an oddly-dressed group engaging yet another oddly-dressed group in front of the cafeteria.
"We gotta get out of here." Ren says, to which Jaune could only nod in agreement. He doesn't know what the hell is going on right now nor why his world just got shaken up and turned up-side down.
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Jesus lord my eyes were glossing over the letters at the final sentences there. I need to sleep.
