It had been a couple weeks since Jaune and Ruby became the fast friends that they had, Jaune tended to spend a lot of time online chatting with her, and they saw each other in the mornings. He would, under duress, even admit to himself that he was starting to come around to Yang as well.
But Jaune was still a student and as he sat in the back of his science class, he heard the words from his biology teacher Dr. Merlot that he absolutely never wants to hear. Jaune also remembered that this particular instructor was very clear on his insistence on being called "Doctor" as he didn't go to a decade of collage to be called "Mister Merlot."
"Alright class I am going to split you off into pairs so and I'm going to assign each of you a component of the human cell for you to write a report on and present in front of the class." The good doctor said to the groans of the entire class.
Jaune leaned on his hands thinking "Son of a bitch!" To himself at this idea, it's not that he couldn't contribute a lot to a group project, it's just that he was completely dependent on others to present.
That almost never went as well as he wanted it to.
"Okay and finally I want Jaune Arc and Blake Belladonna to team up and present a report on the purpose of the Mitochondria in your typical animal cell, I'm going to give everyone a week to get their presentations prepped, so I'll let you all spend the rest of this class coordinating with your partners to determine how you want to divide the workload."
Jaune barely had the time to try and figure out who his partner was before a short girl with almost Pitch black hair sat down next to him. The first thing he noticed, was she was wearing mostly black, Black pants, a black choker, and Black tank top, under a black over shirt.
The second thing he noticed was her complete lack of eye contact with him, in fact it looked like she was hiding behind her bangs from the world more than anything, Jaune heard her mutter something out but he couldn't make out what she was saying.
"A quiet goth girl, this is novel" Jaune thought to himself, he shook his head at her trying to signal that he didn't catch what she had said.
"I said I hope you don't mind doing the talking, I'm not very good at it." The girl said a bit louder but not quiet at an easy listening level, still refusing to make eye contact with him. Her body had practically turned itself into a pretzel from the tension in her body as she spoke.
"Well shit..." Jaune thought before he pulled out his note pad and wrote out a short note 'That's going to be a bit of a problem, I'm mute.' and slid the note in front of her.
The girl known as Blake glanced slight at him as her body tensed up at the realization of this came crashing into her. "Oh... So I have to do the talking?" Blake said with her voice wavering badly.
Jaune nodded at the Shy looking girl and slid a note to her "I mean I'll help out the best that I can, but yeah, you have to be the one to do the talking unless we can somehow scrounge up and interpreter."
Blake looked at Jaune with a look of absolute horror in her face as she fidgeted with her hair. she spoke quietly "Is that an option?"
Jaune shrugged and wrote down "Honestly The district told me when I came in for orientation that they couldn't swing one... sorry.
Blake laid her head on the desk "Were screwed then..."
Jaune tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention and slide her a note "Look, I can scrounge us up some poster board, and as long as you can help me with the coloring I'll draw us up a poster for this that will put professionals to shame. I can also introduce you to a couple friends of mine, we can use as a test audience to practice our presentation with."
"This teacher has it in for me I know he does. It's because I don't like crowds, or people, or looking at people, or people in general." Blake said.
"We can do this as a team, I'm not the kind of guy to let a nice girl down!" Jaune wrote with a sly grin on his face.
"I... guess I can manage to talk for a couple minutes, it doesn't have to be that long of a presentation right?" Blake asked with a strong hint of desperation in her voice.
Jaune held up 4 fingers to show it had to be a 4 minute presentation.
"Okay... we can do this... we can do this. You help me with the speech part and we'll take it from there." Blake said still not entirely confident in herself.
Jaune wrote a quick note "Lets meet after class, I have a couple of my friends who I was planing on meeting, we can see what they can suggest for us."
Blake looked unsure of herself "I-I should ask Adam first what he thinks. T-To make sure he didn't mind me being around your Friends."
Jaune shook his head and wrote out on a note "Who's Adam?"
Blake muttered "My Boyfriend..."
Jaune shrugs and writes "Well tell them two of the people that will be there will be girls, and most of them can't speak so it'll be fine."
Blake muttered again to Jaune "Okay... I'll do what I can..."
The bell let them out of class a few moments later.
After school Jaune pulled up a seat with Ruby and Yang signing out a quick hello before they all say down.
Ruby signed out an excited [Hi Jaune did you miss us?]
Jaune half smiled and signed out a quick [Nope]
"Well do we have a plan today? Pop down to the arcade? Not walk around like a bunch of sad loners?" Yang said leaning back and kicking her legs up on the table.
[Actually I'm waiting for someone, my partner for my group project for Science class.] Jaune signed out to the pair.
[Who's your partner? Anyone we know?] Ruby asked Jaune.
[Her name is Blake. She wears dark clothes and can't bring herself to talk louder than a mouse fart. Ring any bells?] Jaune signed as he leaned back and tried not to check out Yang's legs.
"Oh yeah, I think I know who your talking about, how are you going to make that work?" Yang said as she signed out the same for her sister to understand as well.
[Well I was hoping you two would help me with that.] Jaune signed back to the pair.
Ruby and Yang looked at each other. Ruby then signed out [I mean if she shows up, her boyfriend is pretty clingy, we tried to get her to hang out with us but she used her boyfriend as an excuse saying that he already had plans with him.]
Jaune leaned over to look over the girl's shoulder and waved as he saw Blake approach them, the girl quietly sat down at an empty spot in at their table and looked around before quietly saying "Hi" without actually looking at any of them.
Yang raised and eyebrow and said while signing "Okay so we can work with this, I'm thinking make over, works all the time in the movies."
Jaune and Ruby face palmed. "What did I say?" Yang asked.
Blake kinda looked off to the side as she tensed up "I don't think I want anyone to really pay that much attention to me."
Ruby was far more understanding and signed out as Yang interpreted to Blake [So Jaune says that you have a group project together but you have problems with talking in front of large groups?]
Blake tensed up as she said to the group "Something like that yes."
Yang chimed in "Well I mean it sounds like we just need you to get some practice in, build up some confidence, maybe spend a few days actually holding conversations to get used to it."
[I'm also half in favor of a makeover as well, I mean I know how much looking confident actually helps make you actually feel confident as well.] Jaune signed, Yang translated for the others.
"I'm not sure, I kinda don't want to stand out." Blake said softly. "I also don't want to change how I look all that much."
[I'm not talking about anything super dramatic, your cute as is.] Jaune said.
Yang paused her translation to whistle at Jaune "Smooth dude."
[Not where I was going with this Yang] Jaune signed while looking at her [Blake I'm just saying lets try pulling your hair back into a ponytail, get some light makeup on you, and see if that helps you. Unleash your full potential here.] Jaune signed out with a look of confidence on his face.
Blake looked down at her lap for a bit, hiding her eyes behind her bangs trying to process what Jaune said "I'm... I'm not used to people calling me cute."
[That's what you took away from this? I-] Jaune stopped when he noticed Yang was not translating for him and she was actually speaking for herself instead."Of course your cute, I mean your boyfriend clearly saw something in you right?"
Blake tried to make her self small, Ruby put a hand on her shoulder and finger signed with Yang translating [Seriously, you don't lose anything by trying just once right?]
Blake, clearly nervous reached back as if she was going to pull her hair into a ponytail before pausing "I... I don't have a hairband."
Yang pulled her's off and handed it to her, Blake pulled her hair back and tied it off before letting her hands rest on her lap again.
Jaune couldn't comment on her eye color, but he did note that she had rather striking eyes as he signed out [Yeah, those are fighting eyes alright, the kind of eyes you see on someone in charge!] He signed out before punching his fist as if trying to prove his point.
"Yeah I agree, we just need to help you find your voice first." Yang added.
Ruby leaned in and signed despite still needing Yang to to interpret [Seriously, we should exchange makeup tips, I know an eye shadow that would make you look awesome!]
Blake found a smile creeping on her face and said with a slight bit more confidence "Okay, where do we start?"
Later that evening Jaune was finding himself struggling to relax for long enough to sleep. He instead decided to get some work done. As he kept working on his part of the presentation by recreating art from the science book and prototyping what the final poster would look like a thought bounced in his head that refused to leave "Why did Blake need to get her boyfriends permission to hang out with us?"
Realizing he was not going to get any work done, he got on his computer and logged onto to the home's dial up connection, AIM auto logged him in and he was quickly bombarded with the familiar noise of 3 beeps of lowering pitch in a row alerting him to a message. he quickly checked and saw Ruby who was also not sleeping had messaged him.
RBYROSE1: Hey Jaune you up still?
DARKKNIGHTARC: Yeah Ruby what's going on?
RBYROSE1: N/M Bored, Can't sleep.
DARKKNIGHTARC: Yeah Same... question, what's with your screen name? been wanting to ask.
RBYROSE1: I like how it "sounds" if that makes sense, rolls off the tongue i'm told. what about you, "Dark Knight Arc"?
DARKKNIGHTARC: Yeah, Yeah, I played a Dark Knight in Dungeon Fantasy.
RBYROSE1: So, if you don't mind me asking, have you talked to your ex recently?
Jaune paused, he remembered he didn't actually tell Ruby what actually happened to Pyrrha, It still bothered him that he had not come clean about that... Maybe now would be a good time...
RBYROSE1: Hey, you still there, you didn't pass out at your desk did you?"
DARKKNIGHTARC: No... Just thinking.
RBYROSE1: Sorry I didn't mean to upset you about your Ex, I guess that means she hasn't messaged you recently?
DARKKNIGHTARC: I.. She can't contact me...
RBYROSE1: What did you do, block her?
DARKKNIGHTARC: Ruby she's been gone since before I met you and Yang.
RBYROSE1: Gone as in?
RBYROSE1: Wait
RBYROSE1: Fuck, You mean "Gone" as in "Gone Gone"?
DARKKNIGHTARC: Yeah, We didn't break up, we had planed on trying to stay in contact after I moved and she... Well she...
RBYROSE1: She died?
DARKKNIGHTARC: Yeah...
RBYROSE1: Oh no, Jaune I'm so sorry, I should of figured this out a while ago!
DARKKNIGHTARC: Nah don't worry about it, you had no way of knowing.
RBYROSE1: Okay well now i'm going to give you the biggest hug you have ever received tomorrow. I'm just warning you now.
DARKKNIGHTARC: It happened months ago, I won't pretend I've cried out all my tears about it, but you don't have to go out of your way for me.
RBYROSE1: Hey we are friends right?
DARKKNIGHTARC: Well yeah of course.
RBYROSE1: Then your going to get a hug from me when I see you and your going to damn well like it okay?
DARKKNIGHTARC: You swear like 300% more on here than you do in person. You understand that right?
RBYROSE1: Yeah, I know.
Jaune finally found himself yawning as he typed.
DARKKNIGHTARC: I just yawned for longer than 5 seconds, I better get to bed.
RBYROSE1: Right night buddy!
Jaune saw that Ruby was typing something else, she went back and forth on it for a good seconds before she just logged off, and Jaune made his way to bed.
He didn't sleep well that night. He Also never got an answer for his question about Blake.
Well here we go with the first chapter of an actual story arc for this fic. I don't know if every character I introduce into the "Group" is going to get a arc dedicated to them or not yet.
I'll be honest, I have the start and the end of this story planed out, as well as the History between Jaune and Pyrrha planed out. But I'm more than open to adding stuff as I go. I'm actually interested in where this goes and I had to deeply weigh how much of a villain I wanted to make the series traditional Villains be in this Story. Do I want to make them all the scum sucking monsters that need to be battled against?
The overall Story is Jaune fighting a battle against his own demons. The whole "Man versus self" thing at work. I also want to explore the issues that the various character struggle with, and see how they overcome them. Trust me, it may not seem like it on the surface, but every character in this story has demons to chase, Even Ruby, Even Pyrrha has her inner struggles to deal with.
I'd say more... But that would be a spoiler, and I better save something for the story, I'll see you all next chapter, thanks again for reading!
