"Do you think this is it?" Pyrrha asked as they looked down at what appeared to be the ruins of what Jaune assumed was a temple dedicated to some forgotten deity.

Jaune glared at it, seeing something but not entirely sure what. "You stay here and cover me. I will go check it out." he ordered.

Sliding down a small canopy he drew his sword and expanded his shield, his paranoia was acting up again and he elected to approach the ruins carefully. This time however his paranoia was completely justified as the last 'ruin' they came across was home to a group of Beowolves, while they did manage to defeat the creatures without much difficulty he did not wish to be surprised again. As great as Pyrrha was in close combat she would currently be more useful watching over him with her rifle.

Cautiously he approached the ruins, it was no doubt intended to circular in design but years of neglect and exposure had reduced it to a decrepit semi-circle of stone exposing dozens of podiums with chess pieces perfectly placed on them. Seeing it was safe he collapsed his gear and waved his partner over. Once she arrived he paused to stare at a white rook chess piece that stood on a podium next to a white knight piece, for some reason it seemed bizarrely familiar.

"What are chess pieces doing out here?" Pyrrha asked as the two entered the temple.

"That's it!" he yelled out. "Pyrrha don't you think it's odd to find chess pieces in a forest?"

"Uh, yes?" she responded with a questioning expression.

Jaune crossed his arms and leaned back slightly "Especially since they are perfectly positioned on pedestals in a Grimm infested forest?"

"That's right." she stated as she gripped onto a nearby piece and looked it over. It was brand new, the wood polish was still shining with the only imperfections coming from her gloves as she held it.

"I'm pretty sure these are the 'relics' we were sent here to find." Jaune stated with confidence.

"Which one should be bring back?" she asked putting her piece back down.

"I think this one." he said gripping the white rook piece. He again paused to look at it wondering why it seemed so important.

"Good choice." a new voice intoned.

Surprised Jaune jumped back, landed with his expanded shield in front of him and his sword ready to cut and stab at whatever startled him. Looking around he saw the voice belonged to a short girl with turquoise eyes and orange hair. She had an outfit that was a mix of several others with the most notable parts being a pair of pink finger less gloves, a pink frilly skirt, a black vest partially worn over a white shirt with a heart shaped hole on her bust, and near shoulder length sleeves. She sat on one of the remaining support columns looking down at them as though she were lording over them, almost like a queen about to address her subjects.

A second later she pushed herself off her high arch and stood with her feet parallel to her hips while both hands rested on them in a relaxes manner, she tilted her head slightly to the side and gave them a wide smile that would have been a pleasant one if not for the fact that she was showing far too many teeth. Jaune didn't need to analyzing her to learn that she possessed an high level of confidence and a belief that she was in a position of authority while simultaneously challenging anyone to try and oppose her.

"Aren't you that girl from breakfast?" Jaune asked recognizing her almost instantly.

"Yep. Name's Nora, and you are?" she asked.

"Jaune, Jaune Arc." he said sheathing his sword and extending his right hand.

"Nice to meet you." she said gripping, shaking and practically crushing his hand with both of hers. "Is this your partner?" she asked rushing up to Pyrrha who backed up slightly before Nora could come too close for comfort.

"Yep. That's. Her. Where's yours?" he managed to force out while tenderly holding his right hand. 'Why did it have to be the right one?' he internally groaned.

"He's right there." she said pointing to the beleaguered black-haired boy in the green jacket he also recognized from breakfast. He was hunched over, breathing heavily and kept a hand on one of the columns and the other on his knee as though he were doing everything in his power not to collapse on the spot.

"Jaune meet by best friend Ren. Say hi Ren." Nora ordered. In response Ren just coughed, leaned into the column then slid to a seating position.

"Will he be alright?" Pyrrha asked.

"Eh he'll be fine, though it doesn't look as though we were the first ones here." Nora commented as she went to inspect a pedestal.

True to her word several of the pedestals were missing their pieces, looking around he counted at least 20 pedestals, some had white chess pieces and others with black ones.

"I think I figured out how the teams are made." Jaune said after moving to stand next to Pyrrha.

"How?" Pyrrha curiously asked.

"Ozpin told us to form pairs then bring back one piece each right?"

"Yes." Pyrrha confirmed.

"Correct me if I'm wrong but each pair is to bring back 1 relic and if so then the people with matching relics would be paired together in a team of four people." he theorized.

"That does makes sense." Pyrrha agreed.

He held the white rook piece before them "So if we go by that logic then whomever picks up the remaining white rook piece will be our partners. And if that's the case then we need to find Ruby and Weiss quickly before-"

"I'm queen of the castle. I'm queen of the castle." Nora sang as she played with the other white rook piece.

Jaune's shoulder's slumped and his face twisted into one of disappointment "Damn-"

"-IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT." Ruby finished for him as she announced herself from above.

"RUBY!" Jaune yelled looking up.

"Ruby?" Pyrrha asked then froze upon seeing her.

"Nora!" said girl announced herself loudly as she somehow materialized between the pair. "By the way I think she might be in serious trouble."

Jaune couldn't disagree. His best friend was currently holding onto the tail feathers of a giant nevermore while her partner Weiss was hanging onto it's talons for dear life. The monster itself either didn't seem to notice or care for it's passengers and instead seemed content just flying overhead.

"Shouldn't we help them?" Pyrrha wondered.

"I'm going to say yes." Jaune answered.

"How do we do that?" Nora asked.

"Like this. Muda!" he roared as he kicked the base of an empty pedestal, the power his stand provided causing it to break at the base with enough force to launch it 2 meters into the air. Focusing his mind on the task at hand he made a rough guess as to the pedestals weight as it landed in his arms, willing away the pain he felt in his right hand as he gripped it he took aim.

'I have only one chance at this, after this the monster will not allow itself to be hit again.' he thought before he roared his hate and threw the broken pedestal at the monster, his stand materializing to add it's immense strength to the throw. It flew upwards then curved into an arcing motion before descended like a javelin onto the giant best. In response to the new danger the beast twisted and dodged in mid air with the movement and grace only a bird could manage before the stone missile could hit it, inadvertently throwing off both Ruby and Weiss in the process.

"Oh come on!" Jaune yelled as the pedestal crashed harmlessly into the forest.

"It was a good effort." Pyrrha said with a comforting smile while Nora stared at him with a clearly surprised expression.

"Head's uuuuuppp! Ruby screamed as she flailed through the air towards them while Weiss safety descended to the nearby thicket using strange glyphs that materialized below her feet.

"I got her!" Nora yelled as she dashed out to try and catch Ruby. "I don't got her." she said as Ruby slammed into the ground in front of her. 'Damn it Nora!' Jaune cursed before Ruby announced she was fine and pulled herself up.

"Not to interrupt but that nevermore is coming back." Ren called from the temple.

True to his word the giant creature had turned around and was now headed in their direction intent on killing them. As it flew towards them it seemed to ignore everyone's projectile attacks only acknowledging Nora's grenades as a threat and dodged them with an avian ease, in response Jaune focused his vision on it. While analyzing the expression of a Grimm was proving to be an exercise in futility due to a lack of anything resembling proper facial expressions or subtle identifiable gestures that might tell him what it was feeling and by extension thinking he had hopped to at least make an educated guess as to what it would do next based on how it was moving. The more he focused on it the more he felt a bizarre sense of deja vu followed by an equally frightening feeling, almost as though he locked eyes with an enemy sniper the moment before the bullet that would end his life was fired.

"Get to cover." someone yelled a moment before the beast made a single powerful flap with it's wings launching a barrage of spear like feathers at them, each one slamming down like spears into the earth and the ruins like rain with devastating effect.

"We need to bring that that thing down to us or it's just going to keep dodging us and attacking from a safe distance." Ruby yelled from behind one of the ruin's columns.

"I can do it." Nora called out as bolts pink electricity danced across her weapon.

"That thing can dodge your grenades easily. How are you going to take it down?" Jaune asked from an archway he scrambled behind.

"like this!" Nora barked with an almost psychotic smile.

Curious as to what she would do Jaune willed time to slow down while Nora stepped out of cover and aimed her gun at the Nevermore. As she did he thought he saw something truly bizarre, even in slow motion it appeared as if the veins in Nora's body had for a moment lit up in the same way a light bulb would when provided adequate power only to vanish the instant she pulled the trigger of her grenade launcher. Even in slow motion the grenade traveled at an incredible speed towards it's intended target, slamming into the monster's chest before it or anyone could do as much as blink.

"Direct hit." Nora declared as she hefted her weapon on her shoulder and placed a hand on her hip as color rushed back into the world around them while the beast fell from the sky, slamming into the ground as though it suddenly lost all ability to move, rendering it completely helpless.

"Its down. Kill it quickly before it can recover." Ruby yelled before rushing out to dispatch the beast.

/-/

"This is our room." Ren declared as they entered their dormitory.

The room itself was nothing special. It had 4 beds, 2 of which were arranged approximately 30 inches apart from each other and the side walls, all of which were pressed against the far wall that had a window built in the center of the wall opposing the door. It offered them an excellent view of the gardens below, with a small book shelf fitted between the two middle beds. By the door were 4 empty desks with 3 rows of shelves build over them for what Jaune could safely assume was for books and other small materials. Decorating the walls was a bland wallpaper with faint pattern that repeated itself at every interval.

"This is the closet." Ren said as he opened a door built into the left side of the room.

"We have a large bathroom as well." Pyrrha commented as she walked through the door on the right side.

"I call the middle bed." Nora yelled as she threw her luggage to the side and jumped landing face down on it.

"I for one think this room is perfect." Jaune declared.

Without decoration the room was little more than a larger version of a room in the hotel he stayed at when he first entered Vale, appearing just as cozy as well if the bed he sat on was any indication. Initiation had finished not too long ago and with it came team assignments, just as he had guessed he and Pyrrha were paired with Nora and Ren because they had both collected the white rook pieces and with that Ozpin had decided to dub them team JNPR. After the ceremony they were then given fitting uniforms, computerized devices called 'scrolls' in which they could communicate with themselves and others as well as Beacon's computer system and directions to the dorm room in which they would be living in for the foreseeable future.

He smiled as his team started making themselves home, a ridiculously good stroke of fortune had placed him literally 4 steps away from the dorm Ruby and her team was in. On her team was his dream girl Weiss Schnee, his current nemesis and best friend's older sister Yang Xiao-Long and a black haired beauty with amber eyes and a bow on her head named Blake Belladonna who strangely enough froze up when they made eye contact as though she were expecting him to do something then felt relief when he didn't. What made it even more bizarre was that he felt as though he knew her intimately, like she was a long lost friend or something.

He put his hands behind his head as he lay down on the bed he picked for himself, the whole situation was far too bizarre for comfort. It was one thing to have a sense of familiarity with strangers as that would led to future friendships but what he felt in the last few days hinted at something more. He closed his eyes and relaxed, trying to focus his mind on what he knew.

He had researched Beacon extensively prior to planning his trip from home to see if it was where he truly wanted to study and while he did expect the anticipation that came with visiting a new, exciting and no doubt desirable location, now that he was lying in a bed in Beacon's dorm room as an official student of the institute all he felt was the kind of relaxation he would feel when he came home after a good day in Sino. It would have been acceptable if he was living in Beacon for months or even years but instead he couldn't help but feel a little worried as he seemed to settle in 'far too quickly' as one of his older sisters would describe it.

More than that he had noticed he started feeling strangely when he saw certain people. For his team he felt a strange kind of love, the kind that would be born from years of bonding and sharing experiences. For team RWBY he felt an odd affection as though all 4 girls were not people he had just met within the last few days but instead were members of his extended family like a cousin or someone closer. An all male team Ozpin dubbed team CRDL had inspired a strange kind of anger and apathy like that he had felt towards the bullies at home and so on.

It made no sense, before he met Pyrrha that morning he had such an adverse reaction the moment he saw her. Now that he had a chance to think about it the best way he could describe what he felt would be as if he had experienced years worth of anguish and despair over the loss of someone important and the relief and happiness that would come when you suddenly meet that person again all in the span of however much time passed when he was having his breakdown.

Wanting to test a theory he conjured images of all the girls he had 'reacted' towards in his head. As an image of Pyrrha smiling at him spun itself in his head he couldn't help but smile back happily, as an image of Ruby replaced her he also felt happy, but not as much as with Pyrrha. Repeating the process for Nora, Yang, Blake and even his dream girl Weiss he noticed that oddly enough none of them seemed to have the same effect as Pyrrha did. He sighed 'She must be important somehow.' he theorized, the 'how' and 'why' was something he would need to figure out if he was ever going to solve this bizarre riddle. He doubted Pyrrha would know anything useful and asking would just raise questions he wouldn't want to answer, in the end his own guesses and theories were currently the only valid leads he could go with.

The next thing of note was his apparent echo locator ability that helped him against the giant death stalker in the cave. He couldn't see in the dark and despite the size of the death stalker, the confinement of the cave and the fact that the beast was literally in front of him the odds of him hitting anything that would do any actual damage would still be startlingly low. His idea to slow time and essentially play what could be effectively summed up as the worst game of 'whack a Grimm' in Remnant's history should have taken him a lot longer to actually achieve anything had that new and bizarre ability not activated. Since he had his eyes closed and decided to rely on his sense of touch and hearing to determine where he should strike it could have been some ability he always had within him or it could be tied to his stand somehow, given his recent experiences the latter seeming more likely. If that was the case then he would need to ask Dio for more information and hopefully the man would provide the answers he needed instead of making him guess and try to figure it out on his own.

Speaking of stands their was also the real possibility that Yang had one and it was emerging. If it was truly like her than it would likely place everyone around her in danger when she activated it's ability, then again their was still the slim chance that it could be a relatively tame one and pose no real threat to others. Either way he doubted he would be able to do anything about it until it manifested enough for him to properly interact with or identify it.

'Oh well I have 4 years to figure all this out, it can't be too hard.' he thought and froze when he opened his eyes.

Perched on all fours above him was his team mate Nora with a large almost predatory grin on her face. Her hair was wet and moisture clung to her skin as the scent of soap reached his nostrils. She wore a simple black shirt with the word 'boop' on it with her symbol making one of the 'o's and short pink pants that clung to her recently washed body like plaster.

"Nora what are you doing? Where's Ren and Pyrrha?" he had to ask trying to make sense of the situation.

"They left not too long ago, besides I needed to talk to you about something." she responded.

"Something?" he asked, trying to hide his confusion as she leaned in closer.

"Yep, you and I have that special something in common." she said.

"I, I do?" he asked while several the voices in his head collectively started asking and hopping as to what it might be.

She put her hands on his shoulders, effectively pinning him to the bed "Like me you're possessed by an evil spirit." she said.

In a flash of pink electricity a metallic humanoid emerged from her and floated behind her. It had one hand which resembled metal gauntlets with short needle like protrusions on the ends of the fingers resting on Nora's shoulder which ended midway up the stand's arm and seemed to melt into the rest of it's body. A body that appeared to be made of various wires and cables and given a humanoid shape by a plastic casing similar to those found on any household electrical device used anywhere but still retaining a bizarrely feminine figure save the occasional electrical component he couldn't identify jutting from it at odd places. The only other notable feature he noticed from his position were its deep red eyes that seemed to look like partially dimmed screens.

/=====To be Continued=====/

/==========================================================================================================/

Stand name: ?

Destructive power; ?

Speed; ?

Range; ?

Durability/staying; ?

Precision; ?

Development potential/Learning; ?

User: Nora Valkyrie

Abilities: Uncertain

/==========================================================================================================/

AN: And like that initiation comes to a close and the teams are assigned. What bizarre fates and encounters awaits Jaune as he starts his tutalage in Beacon? How will he escape Nora's clutches? And how will he solve the mysteries plaguing him? Find out next time on Jaune Arc's Bizarre Adventure.

PS: happy holidays everyone.