Best possible version of yourself chapter 12

AN: Welcome back everyone, here I am back again with the misadventures of JNPR, RWBY and Oscar. This chapter is going to focus on initiation and the events just after again, I hope you will all have some pleasure reading it. For those interested in pictures with the Grimm, the reptilian Grimm is based on Fallout Deathclaws, specifically the fallout 4 one as I remember that one the best.

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In a tower in the Grimmlands

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Salem can be seen sitting on a throne, looking at the effectiveness of the teenagers that her minions had identified as potential future threats through a communications Grimm while connected to one of its partners in the Emerald forest and nods while smiling to herself. ''If they are left to grow at least one of them will become their generations version of Ironwood or Goodwitch, better to cull them now rather than waiting. Especially that girl wielding a scythe, the young man wielding the Arc Family sword and shield and the duo of redheaded young women, those would be a pain to deal with in the future. Not in the least because at least the young man has already assisted in weakening two aspects of the updated campaign plan around Vale.''

She looks to the side where Tyrian and Watts are sitting on some of the other seats at the table ''Watts.'' The scientist looks up from the screen ''How high are the chances that once initiation is over you can get us video feed from Beacon? I would like to see Ozma's face after he realizes that he lost some of his most promising students during initiation.''

Watts looks slightly troubled ''I'm uncertain my Queen, if my virus was already installed it would be easy however if we install that now already it will likely be found at some point within the next few months before the Vytal festival starts. Without I'd say I could get access, however not without them being able to find out afterwards that somebody hacked in.'' Salem waves away his concern.

''Oh I will be gloating to him and making him even more destabilized for a bit to give Cinder more breathing room and to implicate that Crown movement in Vacuo. Roughly half of the students will probably survive since he's both not going to let his students just fight a completely unknown Grimm alone and with this being the first time its tested against true opponents there are probably some flaws we haven't noticed so far. However making him feel more guilty is always a good way to get him to try to strike back blindly after the so often returning helplessness of seeing some of them dying.''

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Back in the forest

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Moments after they've grabbed their relics, a giant reptile Grimm charges out of the forest followed by a dozen Beowolves on either side. The moment they break the treeline the larger Grimm points a claw and roars, as if giving them orders, upon which the Beowolves charge ahead only to be ripped to pieces by gunfire within moments as everyone opens up with their rifles, pistols and grenade launchers, slaughtering them before they can even cross a third of the clearing. However when they turn their fire to the almost five metre tall horned reptile that looks like a wingless dragon, it seems to do relatively little and just charges through their fire.

Explosive grenades bash go off at chest level, barely slowing it down as the rifle and pistol fire does nothing more than deliver tiny scratches on the armour as Ruby turns slightly to JNPR ''You guys and Yang keep it busy, I might have a way of immobilizing it!'' With no time to question Jaune nods and charges forward, putting away his revolver with the rest following behind him, no time to argue.

Jaune meets it head on, managing to just about hold his ground against one swinging claw sent with charging speed ramming into his shield only to be thrown to the side by the second one hitting him square in his side. Phyrra tries her scything shield, however it just bounces off leaving the tournament fighter to being unable to do more than keep dodging as it tries to take her. However just then it gets hit by several blasts of buckshot, causing it to turn in annoyance towards the other blonde who is grinning while rushing up, ducking under the first attempted tail slap, before bringing some more shot into its side, while Nora slams her hammer into the tail.

They all jump back a bit as it swings its tail around itself before taking a step forward while slashing, forcing Ren to dodge only to use its momentum to turn it into a backhand to slap Yang, pushing her back a bit as her Aura tanks the hit. Several grenades exploding in its face courtesy of Nora give her the moment to recover and move before it rams into a tree just behind where she stood.

As it rights itself it gives Jaune a chance to look at its feet better ''The scales on the feet between the toes look thinner, Phyrra you take left I take right, Yang help her, Nora on me, Ren play support and get us out of there if we're wounded!'' At his words they charge in again, not having any better plan to follow they use it.

Phyrra uses her shield to parry a strike from the Grimm while approaching, pushing her but rolling with the momentum she manages to close in where she rams her spear down through the thinner scaled flesh of its clawed feet before ripping it out as Yang rams a buckshot punch into the hole, sending projectiles flying through the inner flesh while on the other side Jaune rams his sword into it, turns it and rips it out followed by Nora ramming her hammer down onto the area before all of them have to dodge out of the way of the grasping Grimm as it lets loose a cry of anger and pain, with Nora giving it more of it by pelting its feet with grenades, several still doing not much of any damage but others managing to get either shrapnel or high explosive power into the premade wounds.

Before their eyes however the Grimm seems to move past it as it moves itself back up straight, all the while hatefully staring at Nora and readying to move forward. Before it can do much of anything more however Blake swings by, wrapping part of one of gambol shroud around its legs before a red blur rushes in, grabs it from her and rushes around it before pulling as ice is rammed into its legs, with Jaune and Yang running in to ram their weight and strength into it to help, with the Grimm scoring a nicking hit on Jaune as it falls but otherwise falling to the ground as Weiss uses up every bit of ice dust she has to freeze its legs to the ground.

The others all rush in, trying to avoid its claws as they try to do damage, with Jaune managing several good stabs in its left armpit before having to retreat while Nora and Yang go to town on its feet with Ren and Blake shooting into its face trying to hit blind it, with Phyrra managing to sever a good chunk of its tail with a semblance aided shield throw. However while this is all happening, the ice is cracking, the sound being hidden at first under the sound of gunfire and continued impacts of weapons before being noticed just as the ice breaks, the clawed feet shooting out and ramming both Nora and Yang, throwing them back into a tree on the far side of the clearing and stunning them possibly to the point of concussion, as the others are forced to dodge as it sweeps the remainder of its tail around, uses it as support to stand up before lumbering towards Nora and Yang its intent clear as it starts lowering its head, with all seemingly too far out of the way to do anything.

While all have a negative reaction, three of them are far more extreme. Ruby sees this, sees how Yang is in danger, lying there stunned and possibly concussed, to die as their mother on a mission while an image of Yang lying on the ground with an arm ripped off bleeding profusely as the area around her burns appears in her mind. Both Ren's however feel the shock as the moment of the older ones death flickers through their mind, the corpse of the woman he loves lying by his side placed over her currently unconscious body, while for Jaune the dead body of Nora rips through his mind and rage awakens.

A roar rips through the clearing at once, sounding out of three throats as something awakens in Ruby and her eyes start glowing silver ''NOOO!'' rushing forwards faster than ever that silver shine spreads onto her scythe before she rams said scythe into its leg as it is moving, throwing it off to the side and sending it stumbling backwards slightly as she leaves a large cut into it, black sludge pooling out, it tries to attack her only to hear a roar above it and feeling a pull on its horn before a face with a crazed look is in front of it, stabbing down into its left eye.

''Get your filthy paws off them!'' the enraged Ren who had used Jaune's shield as a springboard shouts as he stabs into its eye again and again, doing a lot of internal damage and sending it screeching in pain giving Ruby several more chances to crash into its leg again in the process, ripping its left foot off as it stumbles, before a blond glowing battering ram in the form of Jaune drives it to the ground by shoulder checking the off balance beast before he joins Ren by ripping back its head as it tries to bite through an aura and rage enhanced grip on its right horn before stabbing his sword into the now available lower jaw and proceeding to shrink his shield, ram it into its throat, before expanding it again, forcing its maw open as he starts sawing into the lower half with his glowing sword, intent on removing said lower half of its face.

This is the scene a frantic Ozpin and Glynda arrive to, their potential students torturing a heavily damaged Grimm to death while three of them are cursing it and screaming obscenities at it in rage, with Ruby Rose managing to rip through the lower end of its legs and tail through alternating slashes and is now ripping into the weaker inner flesh near where it's legs connect with her scythe while Jaune manages to finally rip through the lower maw, removing it from the Grimms face before he rips out his shield with strength, opening a number of small wounds in it which are worsened as he stabs forward at the same time as Ren destroys anything left inside the upper half of its head by opening the area between the fleshy holes that were once its eyes and now directly ripping into its equivalent to a brain.

On the other side Weiss and Blake had gotten to work on ripping pieces off its left arm by way of the combined appliance of dust flame throwers and slashing chops while Phyrra is going along with the flow and creating numerous holes by semblance aided stabs downwards of her spear into its other arm.

Glynda Goodwitch is staring, mainly at Ruby from the sheer shift in personality while Ozpin gets over his shock quickly and chuckles sadly ''Just like her mother.'' Glynda turns to look at him causing him to roll his eyes ''Did you really think that one of the most dangerous huntresses on Remnant was always the happy go lucky person? Don't get me wrong, she usually was, but the moment somebody so much as harmed a hair on the head of one of her team members, something similar to this was the result. Why else do you think Gregory Mason ended up in the infirmary with two broken legs after he and his team had left them behind to their fate during a mission.''

Glynda turns back again seeing that the Grimm had finally endured enough from the teenagers attacking it and was disintegrating, causing said teenagers to instead rush towards the two others as the teachers walk closer. Yang opens her eyes to a tearful Ruby, getting a giant hug from her ''Yang you're alright, oh Gods I was so afraid it had done serious damage after you didn't stand back up.''

Besides them Ren and Jaune are hugging Nora to themselves, not talking much at first before she asks softly ''What happened?'' Ren shushes her and brings his hand to her lips before they help her stand up.

''We'll explain later, for now'' as they turn he can see the approaching staff members ''we should bring you and Yang to the schools infirmary for a checkup. Is that alright with you, headmaster, deputy headmistress?''

Ozpin nods ''Most certainly, after that performance all of you could easily fulfil the last steps across the bridge in a short while so we're bringing you back to the school instead. You are correct that Miss Xiao Long and Miss Valkyrie do need to be looked after in the infirmary, if only for a checkup. Miss Belladonna, if you will.'' The headmaster indicates Yang, with Blake nodding in understanding as she helps Ruby prop up Yang as they all walk to the bullhead and file in.

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Tower in the Grimmlands

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The three are sitting there speechless for a few minutes before Tyrian speaks up ''Well if nothing else this does show that it can take a lot of punishment.'' Salem looks at him, annoyed ''My apologies for speaking out of turn my Goddess.'' She turns her look back to the screen, showing the bullhead taking off.

She sits there annoyed for a few tense minutes with both her subordinates deciding silence is a virtue for now, after this the annoyance slowly leaves her face as she sighs ''Not much that can be done about it now. With how much work put into that thing I would have hoped it would take out at least one student permanently, without that there isn't much of a point of calling, Ozma will be clear of mind enough to not rush into a counter-attack on a group not directly aligned to me for this, since it will drive them to our side.''

She looks over to Watts ''Look into those students as much as you can, I'll have Cinder investigate them all closely once she is at that school and I'll have that minion of her brought over temporarily to get everything they remember out of them, this might be more dangerous than previously expected.'' She looks contemplative for a second before turning back to Tyrian ''Also, you are going to re-enforce Cinder, do not interfere with her plans but be available for backup in case she calls while guiding more Grimm towards the city with my blessing.'' Both men nod their ascent with a muttered 'Yes Milady/ Of course Goddess' from them respectively.

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Beacon, a few hours later

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Ozpin is standing on a podium, announcing teams for the upcoming first years ''Jaune d'Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Phyrra Nikos and Lie Ren, I announce you team JNPR, otherwise known as JuNiPeR,'' cheers can be heard from the crowd, a number of them Phyrra's fans, before they calm down at a hand gesture of Ozpins ''Lead by Jaune d'Arc.'' While still slightly surprised, with both the past knowledge of how this went the other time around and his own higher combat competence Jaune was more prepared for both this and Phyrra's hard congratulatory clap onto his back. He accepts with a nod and leads his team off the podium.

Next to be called upon are their new(old) friends ''Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long, I announce you team RWBY, otherwise known as RUBY.'' A somewhat smaller cheer happens and it quickly dies down, them having less fans among the crowd for the moment ''Lead by Ruby Rose!'' While Weiss Schnee was visibly surprised, she only took a moment to remember back on just how dangerous the younger woman was when angered and decided there was probably a decent reason for her being the leader instead. Not at all that she was afraid of the younger girl who was also the only first year shorter than herself, no sirree.

That evening after all the ceremonies and dinner the teams are lead to their dorms and as team RWBY brings in their suitcases, takes out some sleep clothes and then falls onto the beds face first, asleep and exhausted, in team JNPR's room JNR waits for a moment to make sure Phyrra is asleep before the three of them gather and release their backseat drivers. As the room is filled up both Ren's hug their respective Nora's to themselves while their respective version of Jaune sits near, ready to give comfort.

It proves unneeded, though all six of them are very worried now ''How come it was so extremely different from your original initiation.'' Spirit looks at the younger Jaune as if to say 'do I need to spell it out?' ''And yes please do tell it straight up, I feel we all already know what the most likely option is, but we all need one of you three to put it straight up on the table to make it more real.''

Spirit nods, understanding the feeling to a degree after their past experiences ''Likely somebody on Salem's side remembers at least some things, though likely not everything considering neither Ruby nor any of us were assassinated at any point, so they either don't know enough to know just how dangerous we might become to them or the person on their side remembering is too afraid of how Salem will react to tell her.'' He pauses for a moment before looking them all straight in the eye ''Since, you know, between the four of us and Oscar we are personally responsible for the death of between a third and half of Salem's human followers, the total depending on whether Tyrian survived that tail being chopped off and whether you consider Torchwick a follower of hers or not.''

The older Ren nods ''I can see Cinder ignoring that last one if they know it and not caring enough to actually perform a full open assassination attempt on Ruby, however if Salem knew just how many of her followers were killed by us five she'd send Tyrian and Hazel after us with Grimm support and force Cinder to assist, regardless of any protests. Especially Oscar since he is also a next possible incarnation of Ozpin, though she would probably have them take him alive instead precisely because of that.''

The older Nora looks around to group ''So to summarize, at least one of the members of Cinders posse or Salem's direct subordinates has some information from the future. Which possibilities can we cross off right now?'' The others think for a moment before Jaune speaks up.

''I think we can cross off that ice cream themed girl, Neopolitan I think she was called?'' Spirit nods ''Okay yeah Neopolitan, she didn't recognise me nor Oscar when we fought Torchwick, and he didn't seem to recognize either of us either.'' He thinks for a moment ''She also didn't seem to fight as… viciously as you explained, it was almost like she was at first trying to toy with us and only took us seriously after a bit of fighting. Somebody who had recently gotten the memories that caused her to be so vicious first time around would probably not have tried that, especially not against somebody that could become a future threat to her or was an ally to the girl she holds responsible for Romans death.''

The others nod before thinking on it for a moment when older Nora speaks up ''Its probably not Cinder herself, she's petty enough that if she actually remembered the damage you and Ruby have done to her she'd have personally tried to kill one of you already, especially you since as far as she knew you would be an extremely easy target.'' She becomes quiet for a moment before shrugging ''I've got nothing more besides that.''

They all look at each other and realise none of them have ideas currently, at which point Spirit speaks up again ''Well with that covered, let's now go over how we three'' he indicates himself and the other two time travellers ''got here, since my younger self here has a full explanation on that one.'' They all turn towards the younger Jaune, with a hyper look on both Nora's faces as they imagine all the possible ways they could know how it happened.

''I was looking for things in the Arc family library back home and after getting annoyed at not finding anything truly useful after hours of looking, smashed my hand against part of a shelf in anger. However, whether by sheer luck or intervention of fate, I hit in a slightly different location than Spirit here did.'' At this he gestures to Spirit, clearing up who is 'Spirit' before one of the Nora's can ask ''And instead of just getting some pain in my hand from slapping solid wood, I hit the switch that triggered a mechanism that caused the back of the shelf to retract, where several books were stored.''

He takes a deep breath for a moment as both Nora's stare at him with glistening eyes at just how the story is going so far as Jaune continues after taking a moment to make sure he remembers everything correctly and pull a book from his bag. ''The top book of the small pile was the important thing there, and now I have it here, it's called 'Supernatural secrets of the old world, by Joffrey d'Arc' and has several rituals that include magical power of various kinds and for some reason an obsession with blood magic. One of those was a spell called 'Become the best possible version of yourself in three easy steps' that required a bit of blood and an object you intended on using long term.''

The younger Ren now looks at him somewhat worried while the older one sighs in resignation as they think on the sheer desperation somebody must feel to go along with that much of a 'too good to be true' concept ''Jaune, are you sure you are alright?'' Unexpectedly it wasn't either Ren that said anything but instead the younger Nora as she goes over to Jaune and sits next to him, laying a hand on his shoulder. ''Are you sure you're alright, not missing the functionality anywhere in your body or loss of memories or control?'' As she is saying this she looks him over worriedly.

Jaune smiles softly in return ''No Nora, I'm fine. The spell was probably only intended on giving you the specific knowledge gained from the object in use and some subconscious wisdom, instead something interfered, some outside force, that supplied enough power to the spell for it to instead bring over our other selves from the potential future. Did all of you also see…?'' The others nodded and the three younger selves go into a hug for a moment again, supporting one another with the knowledge all of them have had to watch their own deaths, and in case of Ren and Nora even worse in the form of the death of somebody they love.

The older versions give them a moment while also looking over at Phyrra, seeing her still sleeping. They are very lucky that she has always been such a heavy sleeper, though back during their own time in Beacon they often thought differently from how hard it was to wake her in the morning if she wanted to sleep in some more. After giving them a bit of time however Spirit turns towards the older Ren and Nora ''I discussed it with Oscar and after his explanation about it we concluded it was most likely the spirit of humanity, Alaya that interfered and supplied additional power. It also awakened our latent family magical capabilities and strengthened them a bit.''

Nora shakes her head but Ren nods uncertainly ''I think I remember a legend about a being like that… wait a second did you just say awaken latent magical ability?'' Both of the Nora's and Ren's are now staring at their respective Jaunes, the former with open excitement and the latter with a slightly more subdued variant of the same. Spirit chuckles as Jaune looks to him for assistance and upon deciding his younger self has suffered enough for now he steps in.

''We aren't completely sure as to the whole picture but apparently several people in the Arc family tree, including the legendary Jeanne D'Arc, where capable of using magic to some degree or another. This Joffrey d'Arc was one of them and wrote down a number of spells used by various family members, though some of them can't be used by us for one reason or another.'' After this Spirit turns towards Ren ''You said you might have heard of a legend about the spirit? Oscar didn't have too many details on it.''

Both Ren's share a look before the younger one speaks up ''It's something of an old legend in Mistral, told to me by my father when I was young. It involves the idea that humanity as a species has a unified spirit that tries to keep it alive throughout history. Of course since humanity is a species of individuals and groups, a lot of them want counter-intuitive things so the only thing the spirit can work towards is the one thing the majority of humanity agrees on, that humanity should continue existing. To achieve this it then, according to the legend, empowers individuals with some capabilities of past heroes or if you believe some of the more exotic tales even heroes from other worlds.''

The others all think for a moment before the others exchange looks and share nods as Nora speaks up ''With just how many myths and legends Ozpin has proven to be true, chances are very high that the last part of that is real, especially considering our current situation.'' The younger Jaune stares at Nora for a moment, having not expected this from her while the older two men and Ren take it in stride with the older Nora nodding along. Then both her and the younger Nora exchange a look and nod to eachother.

They proceed stare at Jaune as the younger one starts up ''However, you said something about awakening latent magic?'' The Nora's are now very close in on his face as the older Nora continues ''Any chances of you helping us with that fearless leader? I would really like some hammer or explosion related magic, maybe lightning of some kind, and I think younger Nora here feels the same.'' Jaune desperately looks to Spirt who is signalling 'Don't look at me, your problem', causing him to turn towards the Ren's only to see that they are both looking over Joffrey Arc's book. Jaune is desperately trying to find anything that can let him let the girls down easily, since he has no idea how he could help them with it, looking around the room to no avail.

After a minute or so of this however Spirit speaks up ''It's probably for the best if you guys go sleep now, its very late and you need to be up and ready for your first classes tomorrow, first impressions are important.'' Both Nora's turn to look towards him, almost pleadingly, and he just shakes his head, causing both of them to sigh as the younger Nora goes back to bed, with Jaune giving him a thankful nod and emoting 'Thank you' before he and Ren do the same.

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Following morning, around 06.30

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Jaune shakes his head as he wakes looking around. He can see that Nora is already awake, now waking up Ren, while Phyrra is still asleep. He shakes his head and goes to the washroom, grabbing clothes to change into from his pack while on the way. There he is met by the shelf with items they had brought in yesterday and now he takes a closer look he quickly realizes that him, Nora and Ren combined have only slightly more than Phyrra on her own. 'To be fair, they are orphans who never cared much about appearance and you fled your home with nothing but the clothes on your back, your arms of war, a pack and a saddlebag. Its fairly easy to have a lot of products compared to that, especially with her sponsorships.'

He thinks on Spirits words for a second before shrugging in agreement, and a quick shower later he is shaving in front of the mirror while waiting for his hair to dry, thinking on just how quickly everything has changed in the past few months. 'Spirit, a question, are you doing okay?' as he doesn't get an answer for a moment he continues 'With everything that happened all the people you had to see that you saw die in addition to the rollercoaster that is Nora and Ren, are you okay?'

He hears a seemingly content sigh in his mind 'I'm fine, thank you for asking. Better than I've been for weeks if not months, even since before my death actually. I'm here, changing the past, with my two best friends by my side while another friend has our back in Vale. We have a small army training up to support the defence of Vale and everybody I know that was either dead or on the verge of it is back here and alive again. Including my partner whom I had been grieving over for quite a while.' He is silent for a few moments before starting up once more 'Though now that I think on it, it might be a good idea to try and figure out if your semblance is still the same, probably is, but how you unlock it matters somewhat to the exact form it takes. If it has the same form as mine did, we might be able to heal Amber and save a lot of early maiden related trouble if we can somehow get Ozpin to trust us enough and reveal it to him.'

As they have their short conversation, Jaune finishes shaving before he proceeds to brush his teeth. 'Sounds good, we'll have to try once we have time. For now lets focus on getting done here so the others can have the bathroom.' The mental image of a highly annoyed Phyrra comes to mind from the one time where Nora had occupied the bathroom for too long, causing Spirit to agree as he doesn't want all their weapons zooming through the room once more into the bathroom door, it was quite a task replacing it last time around and Miss Goodwitch was even more on his case than usual for at least a week afterwards.

As he walks out Ren nods to him before walking into the bathroom, while Nora is putting her clothes into a closet, having used the bathroom before anyone else was awake. He looks over to Phyrra, seeing her still sleeping. He walks over and tries to wake her, smiling at the cute face she makes as she tries to refuse ''No, five more minutes please.''

He has to smile only to hear a loud scream and then a crash from the room next to them through the walls, causing Spirit to chuckle in his head while also waking Phyrra up 'And that will be Weiss crashing into the ground as she wakes up only to be shocked by Ruby blowing heavily into a whistle next to her bed. Now that I think about it, Beacon is next to a forest and either us or Nora could easily get them wood from said forest to make proper bunk beds with, or they could even go out and buy some wood in the city, why did they keep using books and such for the entire year.'

At this the younger Jaune is stupefied 'They built bunk beds out of what?! I can't believe you didn't try to help them get wood later on. Also according to our schedule we have combat class later today…' A grin appears on Jaune's face 'I have an idea.' He turns towards the now awake Phyrra that is grabbing her clothing for the day out of her bag while Nora is excitedly talking to her ''Hey you two, I'm going to go out and grab some sticks and logs in the Emerald Forest to use for my semblance in our free hour between our first class and combat class, you two want to make it a team outing if Ren agrees as well?''

Phyrra nods and agrees quickly, hoping to turn her friendly teammates into new friends out of this, while Nora is visibly thinking for a moment, wondering what Jaune could possibly use wood for with his semblance before realizing something and smiling at him while enthusiastically nodding. ''Yes fearless leader, a forest outing is a great idea.'' At this point Ren walks out of the bathroom, causing Nora to push Phyrra towards it ''But first we all need to get ready so we can go grab breakfast.'' Jaune chuckles before going over to Ren and asking for his agreement, quickly getting it.

Later while the four of them are sitting, all eating a breakfast of their choice, Nora having surprised Phyrra by just how many pancakes were part of her choice, while chatting to each other. ''So Phyrra you're pretty good with that spear right?'' As Jaune asks the question she nods and smiles slightly ''Any chance of you giving me some tips and tricks with them, due to my semblance I occasionally use spears however so far I've mainly used them as throwing weapons or to train others in very basic combat stances, if I've got them anyways I might as well learn how to properly use them.''

Phyrra gives a smile in return ''I would be delighted in helping you train with them Jaune, however,'' at this she smiles challengingly at him ''in return I want a few spars with you with both a spear and a sword first, your capabilities in initiation were, interesting to say the least.'' While from what she saw his technical skill in swordsmanship wasn't all that special or great, his actual combat reflexes, physical strength and courage were far above the average. Fighting a deathstalker head on alone very much wasn't something the average first year student would dare to try, let alone be capable enough to win even if with a bit of assistance from her semblance.

Jaune smirks in return ''Bring it on Phyrra, I might not beat you but you're going to have to work for that fight, I've got my honour as an Arc to hold up.'' As they smile afterwards at each-other before Nora drags Jaune into a discussion on what pancake toppings would go the best with wine from his families vineyard, Phyrra feels very confident and happy in the team that she ended up with. As she sits there thinking however she is a bit perplexed when Nora turns towards her.

''So Phyrra, Jaune claims that with his families sparkling sweet wine, strawberries on pancakes would be the best choice of topping. However I instead believe it would be Red Sap from forever fall, that stuff is great on anything. What would you think is the better option?'' Phyrra is silent for a moment, unsure of how to react, before she smiles at Nora.

''I have always been more fond of apple pancakes when it is drunk with something sweet like the wine you mention, though Jaune I would like to ask, if your family makes their own wine, is it possible for me to buy a few bottles at some point? I'd like to try out new things now that I'm away from Mistral and tasting one of Vale's local dinner wines is certainly something I'd like to try without the media finding out immediately and trying to look for a reason behind it. We could then also settle this debate, by trying all out at some point.''

Jaune gives her a smile ''I'll see what I can do Phyrra, if I contact Sable, one of my older sisters, I should be able to order a small crate or box with six bottles, the minimum order size my family sells in outside of our home town.'' Phyrra nods with a smile at him as he smiles back before Nora drags them into another discussion, this time on whether or not coffee enables people to see other dimensions when consumed in high enough quantities.

A bit more than an hour and a half passes as the quartet continues making friendly small talk while getting to know each-other, talking about their hobbies, books they like, and the aforementioned potential mystical qualities of coffee, which after losing it Nora somehow turns into an argument on what breakfast food is the best in the world. Which boils down to her trying to convince the other three that pancakes alone are the most effective and tasteful meal in existence, with the others trying to get her to also eat something else. In the back of Jaune's head while happily watching the scene Spirit does feel as if he's forgetting something though and it takes a few more minutes before he realizes it. 'Jaune, your first class starts at 9!'

Jaune stills for a moment as he brings out his scroll, seeing that its already 8.53, causing him to look up to his teammates that were looking at him in askance from his sudden silence and change in posture before he blurts out ''We have our first class in seven minutes and its on the other side of the school!'' their eyes widen as well before they abandon their plates and rush out, hoping they won't make a bad first impression on their teacher, not seeing Ozpin and Glynda sipping their preferred hot beverages as they watch the students rush towards their first class, a proud tradition they repeat at the start of each year.

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AN: And that is the end of this chapter, I hope you all enjoyed it. My apologies that it was published this late, I was mostly finished already early in December but as I stated in the Authors Note of my other story, I was weak and exhausted for most of December because of a physical injury and as such had little time or will to write while most of January till now was spent catching up on work that had been left to gather dust due to said weakness and exhaustion. I think there weren't any reviews this time around, but I do hope people enjoyed reading both this and the previous chapter, so see you all next time.