A/N: This is one of my first attempts at writing from Jaune's perspective, so I apologize if it's a bit out of character. Also, my chapters keep getting too long, and I'm trying to keep them at around a thousand words, so you'll have to wait a while for the rest of Team JNPR. Enjoy!
In retrospect, Jaune is pretty lucky that he ended up sprawled in an alleyway, nose probably broken, The Huntress leaning over him menacingly.
It seemed like the obvious thing to do. Go save the world. And Jaune picked up the sword that his family hadn't used for generations, climbed up to the roof, pulled his hood up to shadow his face, and began searching for crime to stop.
It was a miracle that he found a mugger (armed) menacing a woman for her purse in an alleyway. And now, time to be a hero.
Jaune tried to make a dramatic entrance by dropping down right behind the criminal, but ended up falling on top of him, because it turns out that falling off of buildings is difficult to do dramatically. The woman hastily backed away, the gun flew into a corner, and Jaune decided that getting up from this tangle was probably a losing battle. Instead, he plucked the purse from the groaning mugger's hand and flourished it at the woman.
The woman made the entirely reasonable choice to back away from a stranger who had dropped out of the sky.
"I'm not here to hurt you!" Jaune shouted, hoping that would convey his message.
And then a blur of red and gold hit the ground in front of him and knocked him flat with one blow.
"This is just a misunderstanding," Jaune pants, hastily dropping his sword. "I'm not trying to hurt anyone."
Both the woman and the mugger have hurried out of the alleyway, so he has no-one to corroborate his story.
The Huntress doesn't respond. Up close, she's more terrifying. Her armor is gold and ornate, and looks barely scuffed, so she's probably never lost a fight. The red cape swirls dramatically around her despite the total absence of wind. Her arms are bare and look almost as disproportionately muscular as an action figure's. She's at least six feet tall, for additional intimidation, and wearing a gold mask in the likeness of some kind of monster, with blank holes where the eyes should be.
And, of course, there's a pointy thing that might be a sword or a spear but doesn't really look like either wedged under his chin.
"Explain," The Huntress says flatly. Her voice is higher-pitched than Jaune expected. Although, presumably, eating gravel isn't actually an obligatory part of the whole being-a-hero thing.
"I'm a hero, like you," Jaune says, trying not to move his jaw too far. "I was stopping a criminal."
"You appeared to assault a civilian and threaten another," The Huntress says.
"Um, I realize that it looked bad, but the guy I fell on was mugging the woman. His gun went over there somewhere," Jaune offers, gesturing with his chin, because The Huntress is probably going to break the first limb he moves.
The Huntress squints into the alley and nods.
"Why were you attempting to fight crime?" she asks.
Oh. Actually having to explain stuff. To a real hero, who probably thinks he's a little kid trying to be special.
"My family were heroes, about a century ago. We still have some of the weapons, like the sword. I thought that since Remnant is getting worse, I should help make it better," Jaune offers.
The Huntress looks unimpressed.
"I see," she says calmly, and Jaune panics. Is she going to pat him on the head and send him back to his family? Turn him in for vigilantism?
"Do you have any combat training?" The Huntress continues.
"Um, no, but I figured I could kind of pick that up as I went along?"
Jaune can't tell if The Huntress' expression changes, but her head tilts to one side. She's probably laughing at him. And she'll tell stories to her friends about this dumb kid who thought he could be a hero.
"You have heart and will, if no genuine ability," The Huntress comments. Oh, now she's just trying to soften the blow.
"Thanks," he says.
"We could use another fighter," she says.
It takes Jaune's brain several moments to catch up with his ears. He could be a hero? He could fight with The Huntress? He could help save Remnant?
"So, I could be your sidekick?" he asks.
"No. You'd be part of the team," The Huntress says.
"There's a team?"
Jaune can't see The Huntress's eyes, but he has a sneaking suspicion that they're rolling.
"Yes. Having a single hero – myself – as the public face of the effort allows the other heroes to work without media or criminal attention. Let's go."
The Huntress leaps, cape billowing around her, straight to a rooftop. Jaune manages to climb up a drainpipe after her without falling, although he does come pretty close.
The Huntress appears to be having a conversation with several people via a small earpiece.
"No, Ren, he's untrained. Yes, Nora, he seems like a decent person. No, I didn't ask him if he likes sloths. Please stay focused."
"That's your team?" Jaune asks.
The Huntress nods.
"We work on this side of the river, unless the heroes on the other side need our help." A pause. "Nora wants to remind you that we also visit them to discuss strategy and play board games. And she'd like to know your opinion on sloths."
"Sloths are pretty cool, I guess," Jaune says. "But why is she asking me about them now?"
The Huntress shrugs. It's the first gesture she's made that hasn't been a perfect fighting move.
"Nora's eccentric. You'll get used to her," she says. "She'll also make you benchpress her hammer until you break several bones, if you aren't careful. Just be aware of that."
"Her hammer?"
The Huntress doesn't sigh in impatience or tell him to shut up, but she turns away from him and jumps to the next building.
"We're on patrol. Save the questions for when we get back."
All of this just happened. Jaune Arc, that nobody who can't walk across a room without tripping over his own feet, is a superhero.
And he'll save Remnant as long as he doesn't die first.