For Jaune, the idea of starting a new school was not something he was looking forward to. It was now August, almost a full month after he and his mother moved to this sleepy little town on the eastern side of the state, and Jaune found himself unable to look forward to allot of things. If it was up to him, he'd sleep through the day, draw a few pictures here and there, or maybe even just stare at his computer waiting to see if any of his old friends logged on.

Jaune's mother had decided however, that it was time he started to get out and learn the lay of the town they now called home. It was a sleepy town surrounded by whole lot of grassy fields and a desert that was pockmarked by other equally small towns. It didn't rain much in the area as the mountains to the west of this town kept most rain storms from making it to them. It was hot one warm days, and freezing on cold days.

Jaune tried to talk his mom out of it of course, it had been weeks since they finally got that 56k modem set up in their home, and he would spend every chance he could get on it trying to see if anyone he knew from home logged on. Every time his mother dragged him out, he wondered if this was the time that Ren, or Nora, or both would be online and he was missing a rare chance to speak to either of them by not being there.

So there Jaune was with his mother as they for the very first time, traveled out to see where Jaune would be attending classes in a few weeks.

"Hey honey, you awake?" Mina Arc said to her son as he lazily gazed out the window. "Earth to Jaune, your being quiet again."

Jaune silently sighed and signed out to his mother [I'm always quiet mom.]

"You know what I mean, come on I hear this school is pretty neat, the classes are smaller than what they were in the city and your bound to find friends here easily enough." Mina said putting on a big smile for her son.

Jaune simply stretched out in his seat and rolled his eyes, he didn't even want to think about trying to make friends again after what happened.

"Well at least try to look interested in what's going on while we talk to the staff at this school..." Mina said as she pulled up to the front parking lot of the school. "Keep and open mind for me okay? I mean our neighbors seem nice at least right?"

[I'm about sixty percent sure that the Torchwick guy and his motor-mouth girlfriend next door are selling drugs out of their house.] Jaune signed with a disinterested look on his face.

Mina smiled as she parked and got out of the car. "Yes, but their rather nice about it though."

As Jaune got out of the car himself he took a good hard look at the school. The building itself looked old, made of heavy dark bricks like many of the old buildings in the downtown area of the town they lived in. He wouldn't be shocked to learn that at some point in the past this school was in fact a warehourse, or a store front or, well he really didn't know. The building looked to be about 3 stories tall, which he was also curious about as he never saw a school with more than a single floor to it.

[Are we sure this is the school?] signed Jaune looking at his mom with a worried look on his face.

"Yeah I'm sure Jaune, lets go." Mina said as she started to walk towards the school's front entrance.


Jaune buttoned up the flannel shirt he was wearing over his t-shirt to stave off a chill that was blowing in from the north and followed his mom into the front doors of the school. The inside of the school seemed to inspire a bit more confidence in Jaune. While the outside of the school was an unapologetic mess of old brick work, the inside had a tight clean layout that looked like the school he left in many ways and showed signs of being remodeled in the last couple years.

Jaune caught his mom looking at him as he scoped the place out. Jaune shrugged and just signed [Okay, well this part is not so bad.] earning a chuckle from his mother.

"Ah your both here already." Said the voice of an older looking man with Long Gray hair, tied back into a pony tail, Jaune wasn't sure if his hair was actually gray, to him everyone's hair looked like some shade of Gray, but this shade he noted seemed to be common on older people.

"Yes hello, you must be Mr Ozpin, we spoke on the phone?" Mina said extending a hand to the older man.

"Yes I am, you must be Mina?" the man known as Mr Ozpin turned to Jaune "That must make you Jaune, it's a pleasure to meet you both."

Jaune waived a polite hello to the older man.

Ozpin continued "Now normally as the principal of this school, we would have this conversation in my office, but since as you can see were almost the only people here except for the office staff, I hope you don't mind a more informal chat out here."

[He's either remodeling his office, or it's a huge mess right now.] Jaune signed to his mother. Mina waved him off "My son said that was fine with us, he didn't mind." Mina said.

Ozpin pulled out a clunky gray rectangular Palm-Pilot with a pen attached to it and started to pull up a file on it. "So we got your transcripts from your old school Jaune, and I saw that you got high marks in creative writing." Ozpin paused and shrugged "Not really a shock there I suppose, you also got very high marks in English, and Art. But your marks in mathematics were a bit on the lower end of the bell curve." Ozpin put the Palm-pilot back into his pocket. "Do you feel like you will need assistance by our math department in improving your grades?"

Jaune twitched his fingers in thought before signing to his mother to translate to the principal [I don't believe so, I kinda just want to fade into the background and not do anything to really stand out while i'm here.]

"I fail to see why a smart young man such as yourself feels the need to shy away from the spotlight." Ozpin asked of his soon to be new student.

[Honestly I just don't see the need to stand out. Standing out never did me any good.] Jaune said as his mother repeated out loud. Mina occasionally scrunched her face up in concern for her son as she translated.

"Yes I see what you mean, that unfortunately does lead to the main snag he hit making arrangements for you Jaune." Ozpin said as he leaned back on a wall. "I'm sorry to say that we were not able to secure a dedicated sign language interpreter to assist you for your studies."

Mina folded her arms "Wait a second, I was told that the school would be able to make accommodations for my son!" Mina said raising her voice to Ozpin.

Ozpin held his hands up in front of him "We tried everything, but you have to remember were a small school, we simply don't get the same kind of federal funding that larger schools in larger cities get. If anything, we have to weigh the needs of either updating our textbooks for the current decade, or hiring a specialist staff member for..." Ozpin looked at Jaune and sigh "Excuse the term 'special needs students'"

[Wow, screw this guy.] Jaune signed out to his mom.

"Hush, you know that's not where he was going with that." Mina sighed and put a hand to her forehead. "So what your saying then Mr Ozpin, is that my son won't be able to get access to an in class interpreter?"

"I'm afraid not, honestly I had to talk the district to allow me to place him in general education classes, they wanted me to place him in the special education department." Ozpin said with a sigh. "I'll do everything I can to help your son out on my end, I only ask for patience."

Jaune rolled his eyes and shrugged, Mina looked to the Principal "I'll try to be patient, but I don't want this to become an issue for him down the road."

"I reassure you that it wont. I told the teaching staff to take care when it comes to assignments involving the use of colors and I understand that we have two other students coming in to our school this year besides your son who knows sign language so I might able to get the district to send a dedicated Para our way." Ozpin looked to Jaune "If you want, I can make sure we introduce you to the pair when school starts."

Jaune shook his head and signed out [I'm not interested, if I happen to meet them, that's fine but i'm not going out of my way to seek out friends here.] Mina once again stuttered while repeating what Jaune said to the Principal.

"It's your choice Jaune, if you change your mind, I'm around campus most of the day." Ozpin said as he check the time on his watch "Oh, uh, I apologize but I have to attend a meeting, I look forward to speaking with you both again soon."

Ozpin quickly shook Mina's and Jaune's hands before lightly jogging deeper into the school.

Mina and Jaune looked at each other, Jaune got a wide eyed and sarcastic smile while signing [Wow, you were right, Keeping an open mind was a great idea!]

Mina didn't look quite as amused "Lets go smart ass." as she turned and started to walk out with Jaune.

[So what's the school colors here anyways?] Jaune signed to his mother with a shit eating smirk on his face

"Orange and blue..." Mina said pinching her nose.

[Is that bad?] Jaune replied.

"Ooooo yeah, completely clashing colors." Mina said with a slight chuckle.

Jaune just shrugged and silently chuckled at his mothers reaction.

"Well I haven't seen you do that recently." Mina said with a smile on her face.

The Smile Jaune had on his face fell of a bit as he looked off to the distance as he replied to his mother [I didn't have to many reasons to laugh at things Mom.]

Mina gave her son a one armed hug "Yeah I read you buddy" she playfully messed with his hair "but i'm sure things will pick up for you in the future here."


Later on in his room, Jaune lounged in his bed while an old copy of Invasion of the body snatchers played on his VCR for the background noise.

Taking some time for himself, he decided to break out his sketch pad and took the time to do some casual drawing. The Picture he was drawing was of two people, the first one a tall man covered head to tow in black armor with a long two handed sword on his back, the second was a woman with a staff in flowing white robes standing beside them.

They were his and Pyrrha's characters from the 2 year long Dungeon Fantasy campaign they all played together in junior high with Nora and Ren. As he drew in his sketch book, his mind drifted back to the past, when they started playing the game together.

It was 1995 and Jaune was in over his head. He found himself sitting around the table at the school's library with the friends he just made a few days before, and he had no idea what he was getting himself into. To his left was Pyrrha, who introduced him to the other two kids at the table. Ren and Nora. A skinny Asian kid with long dark hair, and taller girl who had a lighter hair color and spoke with an accent he couldn't quite place. Jaune learned that both Ren and Nora lived together in a foster home. Jaune didn't ask about their home to much more than that at the time but it sounded like they both came from pretty rough home situations.

"Okay Jaune, so first off you need to fill out this questionnaire, it will help you choose a class." Ren said to him sliding a book over to him with a series of questions.

As he worked to fill out the questionnaire, Nora spoke up. "Yeah, so so far, Pyrrha rolled up a healer, because she's always kinda obsessed with helping others. Ren here is a rogue because he's sneaky, and I rolled, in my opinion the best class in the game, a mage, since I enjoy thinking outside of the box and blowing shit up!"

Jaune smiled as he took a second to write out a note on his notepad 'Sounds like this test is pretty intense then.'

Nora read the note and laughed "I don't know about all that now, I mean sure the book says that the test is to help you pick your class that closest fits your personality, but I don't know how close it to our actual personality types it really is.

Jaune just smiled and nodded as he finished and the other three speculated as to what class he would end up with. when Ren was finished he calculated out the scores and announced the answer.

"Well, It looks like the class you came closest to is 'Dark knight', a class that achieves his goals often at great personal costs to himself." Ren said with a knowing nod.

Jaune wrote out on his Notepad 'I'm not so sure that sounds like me.' and slid it to Ren to read out-loud.

"Maybe, but at the same time, it could also be interpreted as being the kind of person that puts others before his own needs?" Pyrrha said with a warm grin as she pushed her glasses up her face.

Nora chimed in "Yeah, you seem like that kind of guy to be honest Jaune."

Jaune raised and eyebrow and wrote out on his notepad 'You've known me for like 4 days tops Nora.'

Nora grinned wide "Maybe, but Pyrrha is a great judge of character, and she seems to agree right?"

Jaune turned to look at Pyrrha who had a warm smile on her face "Right! So I think the class fits you perfectly!"

Jaune silently laughed as he wrote out 'Okay so who's going to teach me how to make a character?'

Pyrrha scooted her seat closer to his "I'll help you out Jaune! We do this right and we can start playing the next time we all get together!"

Jaune was snapped back to reality when his mother called him down for dinner... shaking his head for a second he looked at the picture he drew, The Dark knight and the healer were both standing hand in hand, looking as happy as they could be. Jaune smiled a bit at the picture

His Mom finally poked her head in "Jaune, are you actually coming to eat? I know your getting sick of Mac and Cheese but lets go!"

Jaune closed up his sketch pad and stood up to join his mom who stopped him as he got to the door.

"Hey, Jaune, you been crying or something?" Mina said with a hint of concern on her face.

Jaune reached up to rub his eyes wiped away tears he didn't even notice where there. He shrugged, and signed to his mom [I guess I might have been]

Mina gave Jaune a quick hug "Well, Lets get some food in you okay?"

Jaune turned off the lights and followed his mother out for dinner.


So this an edit on the original upload of this chapter: I don't know how I managed to upload the chapter without author notes at the end at all, but I wanted to get a bit of personal rambles out of the way as I do.

So yeah these first few chapters are going to be heavy world building and setting up the baseline of the story, I really do want to have these kind of flashback cuts back to Jaune's Junior high days sprinkled at various parts of the story like how I did at the end of the chapter, I also want to use the "Not D&D game their using a sort of story telling mechanism for reason's that will come up later.

And that's about it, I know this wasn't really worth an edit and update. But I wanted to get this out there, so sorry about that. See you all next chapter!