Jaune's Accidents

Chapter 7: Imagine Pendragons

Jaune was exhausted. Not only did his first true love up and vanish, the people began to spread rumours again about how she tried to kill him.

It was the worst.

How the hell was anyone supposed to get through school like this? They weren't, of course. Not unless they were Jaune Arc. Jaune was nothing if not enduring. Today, for whatever reason, class was about collecting honey from the nearby forest. The forest filled with Grimm.

To feel safe, Jaune did the most human thing of staying near his team and not leaving their side. Nora was apparently making the error of assuming that the entire tree is needed for the honey and rips them out of the ground with their roots intact.

With people this strong, there was nothing Jaune had to fear. Nothing but the fear itself. And the sadness of having his heart ripped into pieces. The only person he could confide in was Ruby, and she has been spending more time around her sister lately, probably to stop her from mocking him any further.

Jaune sighed, his eyes half closed as he stared at the ground, walking forward.

Cardin had been avoiding him as well, at least, since the duel. Maybe he just wasn't worth his time, or maybe standing up to bullies actually made them stop for once.

Holding a jar open and moving towards a tree, Jaune began to sap off the honey, unaware of the fact that he had long since walked away from his team and the only team nearby was Cardin's.

The bully had a smug smile on his face as if he just had the idea of the century. The kind of smile that would be reserved to the kind of person that manages to exterminate all Grimm, one that bled arrogance as much as these tree bled honey.

Which is a lot. There's a lot of honey in those trees.

Or is it syrup? Nobody really cared, this wasn't what hunting Grimm was about.

Jaune hummed a merry tune, putting jar after jar next to him as he bled the tree dry, unaware of the fact that Cardin was behind him, ready to throw a jar filled with honey onto him in a desperate attempt to show superiority by making him sticky.

Bullies live in their own world.

Throwing the jar and running away immediately, Cardin didn't notice that Jaune bent down to put down the next jar and avoided the projectile. The honey exploded all over the tree, some of it dropping on his clothes. Not noticing the glass shards, Jaune just stared at the stains on his clothes.

"I can't do anything right," he muttered. "First the bombshell in the club, then the dance, and now this."

Jaune fell to his knees, ignoring the reddish honey staining his pants. Looking around, Jaune noticed his teammates were gone too.

"Why."

It was the only word he muttered.

Negative emotions attract Grimm.

Unfortunately, Jaune wasn't in class when that was explained. Prone to fall into bad moods, Jaune was a literal Grimm magnet. If the probability was one percent, Jaune would roll the nat 100 in Grimm spawning. If it was one in a thousand, Jaune would have 5 Grimm ready to maul him.

Aura, as strong as it made people, also had the effect of amplifying the effect of emotions, bleeding them out easier, because nothing the soul feels can vanish without a trace. The most accomplished hunters were capable of suppressing their Aura to such a degree that their emotions didn't even matter, and Grimm couldn't feel them coming.

So Jaune, prone to be attacked by Grimm since the tender age of, well he couldn't be sure when it started- a silent prayer for his old friend, the black dog, was muttered - attracted them like an oasis attracted thirsty travelers.

And by the time he noticed something was wrong, around fifteen Ursa Major had gathered around him. Surrounding him, leaving him no way out. Jaune felt his heart pound, quickly moving onto his feet and taking his weapon, looking for a way to escape.

Panic spread through his body, and the surge of negativity made them lunge at him.

Jaune raised his shield at one and blocked the attack. Closing his eyes and stabbing his sword forward, he pierced the skull of the beast and managed to roll behind the tree as another was about to cut open his face.

Jaune quickly jumped onto the tree, sheathing his weapon to grab onto it, fourteen Grimm remaining on the ground. Unfortunately, the amount of honey he had sapped from the tree made it weak, and it quickly splintered at the base, leaving him falling into the hungry grasp of the monsters.

Screaming loudly, Jaune prepared himself to die, pierced by the spikes on the Ursa's backs, only to notice that he reflexively grabbed the spikes on its back. His mouth was still opened in an eternal scream as instinct took over.

Twisting his body onto the ground, Jaune lifted the Ursa up by its spikes and smashed it into three others, the spikes breaking off. If he could reach the rest of his classmates, they could take the Ursa on.

But they didn't leave him a way out. When one jumped him, he raised his hands, not noticing the spikes still in his hands. The Ursa impaled itself on them and Jaune threw it away, still screaming in fright. The bodies of the thrown Ursa ripped trees apart and shattered them, their spikes sliding over the ground carved the message of a desperate struggle into it.

Jaune held onto the fur of the next Ursa that tried to kill him, his arms in a bear hug around its neck, and holding on tightly to avoid getting crushed under its feet, he hear a snap before the Ursa fell over, crushing him under it. It started to dissolve immediately afterwards.

There was no way he was going to win this!

Jaune's Aura flared.

The white glow changed. Semblance made itself known.

Everything in front of Jaune's eyes turned white, and when he regained consciousness, he was kneeling in the middle of the clearing, his back arched and his face aimed towards the sky.

"Jaune?" he heard someone say. Turning around, he found all his classmates, even Ruby, who was taking a nap on Yang's back. They looked frightened, and Blake was the one standing the furthest behind, as if she'd turn to run away immediately.

What Jaune couldn't see was the image of his Aura around him, in the form of a dragon.

"Pendragon," Blake muttered before passing out. Jaune stood up, the destroyed clearing ripped apart by what looked like fangs and claws of a dragon, and the winged creature behind him vanished with every step he took towards his classmates.

Ruby woke up when it was gone completely, yawning.

When she saw Jaune's form, which was without a scratch besides a few pieces of broken armor, she jumped off her sister's back and rushed to him.

"Jaune! What happened!?"

Jaune was tired. Closing his eyes, he fell forward and was caught by Ruby, muttering a few words before falling asleep. "Thank you for saving me."