"Hey freshmeat!" Yang roars as she punches her bare fists together. They're all seated within an outdoor amphitheater, so when a plume of golden flame shoots twenty feet into the clear blue sky from Yang's body at the center stage, it catches the attention of every faunus (plus Jaune) present. "We have great plans for you all today, so shuddap and listen!"
"You better be wearing your Direction's ties!" Sun pipes in.
Jaune glances down at his school uniform in paranoia, confirming for the fifth time that morning that he is indeed wearing the proper ensemble: clean black suit jacket over a white shirt—and the deep blue tie from Eastern Dragon. To his right sits Pyrrha, her back ramrod straight as she listens attentively. To his left sits Russell… whose eyes keep drifting across Jaune to stare at Pyrrha's front.
Jaune inconspicuously leans forward to block Russell's line of sight.
Yang steps aside, allowing the Director of North Tortoise to take her place. "Welcome to Zodiac," the horned Ox bellows. "You've passed many hurdles to reach your place here at the Academy. You've overcome hurdles set before you by your competitors, by the instructors, and by yourself—but before you take your seat here among the greatest battle school of the Menagerie, you must first earn the acceptance of the great battlers who currently live here. Today, we upperclassmen will evaluate, through the Hunting, skills that were not covered during your initiatory duel."
"As soon as Miss Xiao Long releases you," interjects Ren, "You'll head straight from here to the subway station, located in the basement of the administration building. Your ticket's already been paid for in your name; just detour through the school auditorium to register that ticket on your scroll and board your train whenever it arrives. Because we're sending you to the city's boundaries in waves, that departure time could be in the next fifteen minutes, or it could be in three hours."
Jaune clenches his fists, partly in frustration, mostly in panic. Like, he went through all the trouble of roping together a team after tricking Ruby into revealing the shenanigans; so why couldn't things actually work his way for once? At least, not in a way that ends up with him out cold by the final move.
Pyrrha leans forward and braces her elbows against her knees as her eyes shine with anticipation. Russell's gaze does not take advantage of this fortuitous body positioning, however, instead gazing blankly into space as the last vestiges of blood finally drain from his face. Like, the guy is already pretty pale to begin with… but when Taurus barks out addendums to their upcoming Trial of Death, Jaune's surprised that Russell doesn't pass out then and there.
Does it make Jaune a horrible person if he derives relative strength and courage from the total lack of color in Russell's upper body?
{Isn't it good having friends more pathetic than you are?}
"And do not return to your dormitory under any circumstance," Taurus growls threateningly. "Stay in your uniform and tie, and don't bring any weapons with you."
Ren continues, "Once you reach your destination, do everything in your power to return to the Academy by foot. As you will be representing the newest generation of Huntsmen and Huntresses—peacekeepers of both Menagerie and Vytal—make sure that you're on your best behavior. That means no destruction of public property."
{In that case, at least there will be no explosions.}
"And on that note, this is where the fun part begins," smirks Sun. "Because we upperclassmen will be there to… facilitate your journey back to school. Yeah, that's a good word for it."
Yang smiles wickedly as her irises turn a half a shade of red. "See, it's good to have allies in higher places. On the other hand… to all the emo loners, shonen protagonists, total noobs, spoiled brats…"
He can literally feel the warmth of her smug superiority on his face… and the growing frost creeping up his back…
"Basically, whoever thought they could strike their own path through the Academy—this is your chance to prove yourself. We are your enemy. You'll have to get through, over, under, around, past us to get back to the Academy safely."
"All two hundred of us," Ren adds in a mellow, businesslike tone. "Second and third years, plus graduates who have kindly volunteered to beat you to a pulp should they ever catch sight of somebody not representing the Academy properly. Also, as long as you remember that weapons are strictly forbidden, we will too."
"Using your own body as a weapon," Sun speaks up pre-emptively, "is just fine. Semblances too." He cracks his knuckles cheerfully.
A silence follows in which not a single freshman dares speak a word.
"Well?" yelps Yang. "What are you waiting for? Go for it!"
Jaune immediately catches Pyrrha's arm as the latter surges to her feet along with half their class. He can tell right away that she… may have forgotten him. Or something close to that. Maybe it was the heat of the moment, maybe some weird animal pheromone communication thing in the air that has everybody hyped up, maybe the Directors have spent the past week ingraining certain hypnotic triggers into their minds to establish some baseline control over their impulses… but Pyrrha startles slightly when he grabs her. Her eyes flicker down his fingers around her forearm, then up to his face, and some bright, enthusiastic light fades from within her emerald irises as she calms down.
"Jaune! I…" She bites her lip in worry {that's sorta slightly attractive no shut up}. "What are we going to do?"
Jaune feels the pressure of his neighbors behind him, so he releases her so they can both move towards the aisle. He's only taken a step forward, however, when a hand latches onto his arm. Russell's still seated, his face still as pale as a sheet.
"Jaune… what are we going to do?" whines Green Mohawk.
"How would I know?" he exclaims. "Why are you…"
Why are they asking him, actually? He's not exactly leader material. He really didn't have much of a plan, other than surrounding himself with Ruby and Pyrrha, with Russell as bait. Eh, bait that he attempt to preserve for as long as possible, yes… and teaming up with Pyrrha in a fighting duo, now that he's got fairly good handle on her fighting technique… and he'd had some pretty good ideas of just how he could get Ruby to use her scythe on him like a complicated sling for a quick getaway…
Still, those plans don't matter now if he, Pyrrha, Ruby, and Russell all have tickets that lead to separate destinations of the city boundary. Or, even if they all get the same destination, if their departure times are all different across the next three hours. Sun had said that it was a random assignment… but what if Ruby ratted him out to Yang? What if she purposely reconfigured their ticket times, what if…
{Focus… panicking won't get you anywhere. Compare yourself to Russell if it makes you feel better.}
He's probably a horrible person for gathering confidence from Russell's weaknesses… but it's definitely working. Russell's grip on his arm is as desperate as that of a drowning man's, though his legs are solid enough that he retains his balance when Jaune pulls him to his feet.
"Let's find Ruby first," Jaune decides as their trio inches towards the aisle. "We'll plan after we register our tickets in the school auditorium."
He misses how Pyrrha's eyes narrow at Ruby's name.
Russell Thrush of Thrush: board westbound Line C at 10:45. Transfer to South Train within 10 minutes. Final destination at Phoenix's Landing B. ETA 11:30.
Pyrrha Nikos of Tiger: board eastbound Line C at 13:05. Final destination at Dragon's Gate A. ETA 13:35.
Jaune Arc of Lemming: board South Train at 11:25. Transfer to Sparrow Speed Track within 10 minutes. Final destination at Phoenix's Landing A. ETA 11:40.
"Well… it's not that bad."
Russell's hopelessly hopeful voice irreparably shatters Jaune's futile hope that, if he stares at their three scrolls long enough, the letters and numbers will rearrange themselves in something that puts him and Pyrrha at the same city gate. No, this is definitely bad. Bait is no good if there's no damaging hook paired with it. Bait is good as dead. He and Russell are dead.
He pulls at the collar of his shirt nervously. The back of his neck is sweating something fierce. His azure blue tie is on too tight; he's slowly choking, but he can't do anything about it if he wants to stay at the Academy. But seriously, it's too hot to be wearing his uniform right now. Whose crazy idea was this?
{"We are your enemy."}
Oh yeah. The Dragoness. The last of her kind still alive and breathing. Probably gets away with all sorts of crap because of that. Crap like releasing hordes of desperate freshmen throughout the certain sites within the city and half-heartedly telling them not to destroy public property with explosive semblances.
He recognizes his destination, Phoenix's Landing, instantly as the southern airfield he'd been deposited at upon entering Zodiac; and knowing the Directions from school, Dragon's Gate is probably somewhere along Zodiac's eastern boundary (aka way too far away).
He and Pyrrha glance at each other simultaneously. He takes a breath, about to say something… except he can't really find the words, because it's not like he can ask that she hack her scroll or trade with somebody. Maybe he could make his way towards her, catch her at her destination? It might be a shorter route from his destination to hers. And there possibly would be less upperclassmen waiting to intercept him if he traveled laterally around the boundary rather than join the mad sprint into downtown Zodiac. Maybe. After all, he's not out to impress anybody, right? He doesn't have a particular desire to join a pack. As much as he sees the benefits of having a crew watching his back, it probably wouldn't be long before his not-blood brothers started picking through his nonexistent backstory as a Lemming. As an undercover human, he'll probably last longer alone…
{Therefore you must be either an emo loner, shonen protagonist, or total noobs. Hm. ...Noob, definitely noob.}
Okay. Turn off sarcastic self. Turn to Pyrrha and Russell. Open mouth.
"Two hours between our rides," grimaces Pyrrha ruefully, still staring down at their scrolls. "Jaune… I'm sorry things didn't work out."
Close mouth. Consider passionate speech about traversing to Pyrrha's destination just so they can be together. Reconsiders just how needy and stalker-y that sounds. Looks at trembling Russell and realize that needy doesn't begin to cover it. "But we could—"
Aaaand she's already walking away.
{Wait, no, you're supposed to back me up!}
Really, though, what just happened? The girl had seemed perfectly willing to help him out this past week. They had a deal with the whole tutoring-sparring trade, for heaven's sake. This whole Hunting thing, even though it was a "surprise" to them, should count as sparring, right?
Though he never told her why he was rounding up random people. Maybe he was too obvious, and she's just deduced that he already knew about the Hunting and is hurt that he didn't tell her… or something? Or the distance between them began to widen when she caught on that Jaune's new green-haired friend would stop staring blatantly. And now that he really thinks about it, though Pyrrha had enthusiastically supported adding Ruby to their "sparring team", she'd been a lot more hesitant when he'd casually suggested Cardin, and downright distrustful at the mention of Blake's name.
And of course Russell spent most of his introduction to Pyrrha staring at—well, it wasn't her eyes… though really, could her reason for walking away seriously be because I don't like your other friends?
"Erm… I should find my train," Russell mutters, shifting his weight from foot to foot anxiously. "'Cause it's leaving in ten minutes. Ah, um, I'll… see you at Phoenix's Landing?"
Jaune nods despondently. "Y-yeah. I'll…" {take Pyrrha over you in choice of friends any day} "…meet you somewhere on the airfield."
{Well, there's still Ruby… wherever she—}
"Jaune!"
Jaune's knees go weak. No, not that way. More like a falling-to-knees-in-gratitude sort of way, because Ruby enters the school auditorium and somehow manages to pick him out right away from the masses of students migrating towards the stairs leading into the basement, despite her tiny stature.
"Jaune! You're taking the Sparrow Speed Track with me, right?"
He doesn't even care how ridiculous he probably looks when he slumps to his knees in gratitude to the great gods of the universe.
Of course, he should have expected that the great gods of the universe had no mercy.
Author's Rant
The chapter title, "stupid bird flies first," is a Chinese idiom that means that those of lesser talent should work harder and put in more effort to succeed.
The video game I'm currently obsessed with? Persona 3. It's like a visual novel and RPG at the same time… and it is really dark. Depressingly so. Also… I might be stealing a certain concept from it. You've been warned. Cameo from the 20 year old version of my favorite character in the introduction!
At first, I was super disappointed that chapter 16 had so few reviews relative to its previous chapters, especially since it had a sizeable chunk Blake's story in it. It got me thinking… maybe it's because y'all aren't really invested in her? After all, at this point, Miltia Malachite has gotten more exposure than Blake Belladonna. …So I've done a bit of retconning, and you might have noticed that I've re-added Blake back as a character to this story!
No, this is not a Blake x Jaune story. This story is not in the romance genre for a reason. No pairings. This is just two stories told at the same time. Jaune's POV will still take precedence, but I'm attempting to reveal more of Blake's story through actual text, instead of leaving you readers to infer everything. In other words, the body of each chapter will still be from Jaune's POV, but I will add asynchronous flashforwards to Blake's future on the chapters listed in the retcon section. (By asynchronous, I mean that the flashforwards aren't given in chronological order; they're more meant to demonstrate the purpose of her actions in the present.)
Author's Note
I have some solid ages for select characters in mind, but for the most part, they're general ballpark ranges.
- Jaune: 19 (freshman)
- Pyrrha: 18 (freshman)
- Ruby: 15 (freshman)
- Weiss: 17 (freshman)
- Blake: 19 (freshman)
- Yang: early 20s (senior)
- Sun: early 20s (junior)
- Melanie: mid 20s (freshman)
- Miltia: ? (at least 8 years of her life is one big blank)
- Cardin: late 20s (freshman)
- Adam: late 20s (senior)
- Nora: mid 20s, personality of mid teen (freshman)
- Ren: mid 20s (junior)
Planned story structure (so far):
Act 1, Part 1: Malachite arc
Act 1, Part 2: Weiss arc
Act 2, Part 1: Human arc
Act 2, Part 2: Redemption arc