All for One, One for All
Part 2: Heroes United
Chapter 4: Here We Come
Jaune Arc wasn't the toughest kid out there. His Aura was still locked at 17 years old, and his sword and shield made him look like some kind of knight sent to the modern era. He didn't even have a formal education; getting invited to Beacon by Headmaster Ozpin himself, therefore, was a huge shocker to him. Jaune hated lying, and yet he said on his transcripts that he'd already unlocked his Aura but had yet to find his Semblance. He did this so he wouldn't get treated like a weakling, but he felt like he was too late for that. His best bet for surviving in this school was his hand-to-hand combat experience and his strange temper that seems to come out of nowhere.
He boarded the airship to Beacon and swallowed the lump in his throat. There were three things he hated in this world: bullies, liars, and planes of any kind. He hated being high up in the air on a moving object; he got his motion sickness from his father. He hoped that this trip wouldn't take too long.
When the airship took off, Jaune got down on the ground and started doing pushups in an attempt to ignore the feeling in his stomach. Of course, this only made it worse, making him dizzier than he was than when he got on.
"Try looking up at the clouds," said a Scottish voice. Jaune followed the voice's advice, and sure enough it worked. "Motion sickness, eh? Gets to me, too. Nasty perk to have. The name's Thor, by the way."
"Jaune Arc," Jaune responded. "You sound Sco-aah!" Jaune shrieked upon seeing the Dwarf for the first time. Dwarves had dense bones and muscles but short spines, which made getting around more difficult. Thor, on the other hand, looked like he was taller than most Dwarves, standing 5-foot-8. He still looked about as muscular as a normal Dwarf, but he looked like a tall Dwarf. "Y-you're a Dwarf." Thor burst out laughing at this.
"What, did you think I was a Dragon," Thor finally got out. "Of course I'm a Dwarf. And you look like a Centurion." Jaune cocked his head to the side and gave a confused sound.
"How do I look like a Centurion," Jaune asked.
"You know, Arc," Thor explained. "Blond hair, blue eyes, kinda skinny. Bad temper, I'm guessing. Locked Aura, consistent set of morals. It's easy for me to see it because I've seen it before."
"O-okay, but for all you know I could not be a Centurion." Thor bobbed his head side to side, possibly agreeing with the statement. "Besides, I don't even know what a Centurion is, much less what an Aura is." The Dwarf doubled over as if Jaune had just punched him in the gut.
"Wait, WHAT?! You—ach, who in their right mind doesn't know what Aura is?" Jaune pointed at himself. "Besides for you, that is."
"Look, all I know is that I've never needed it until now. I've always made do with hand-to-hand and quick reflexes."
"And how do you heal yourself," Thor questioned.
"Err, time? First aid, patience, a bit of pain in some cases." Thor's jaw dropped. He pulled himself together a few seconds later and muttered something about 'crazy Centurions', shaking his head.
"How do people do it," cried a young man about a year or two older than Jaune with red hair, darker red eyes, a black-striped red armored shirt, black pants, and a white ivory necklace with strange engravings. His tan skin was more of an olive color at this point as he stumbled across the airship.
"Look at the clouds," Thor suggested.
"Tried that," returned the boy.
"Push-ups," Jaune mentioned.
"And that."
"Try unfocusing yourself," said a 16-year-old with blue-streaked silver hair, a silver jacket with blue sleeves, a light blue t-shirt, silver cargo shorts with blue pockets, and blue sneakers with white socks. The only strange bit about him outside of his age was the fact that he was hovering about six inches above the ground, appearing to ride a chair-sized cyclone with his eyes closed. "You literally don't have to do anything: just stop thinking and you'll be good."
The redhead tried this and apparently found it effective, as his face returned to its original state. It didn't last long, though; not ten seconds passed before his tan skin turned fire-red, leaving him to start smoking out the ears and nose.
"On second thought, maybe I should just get myself some water," he muttered, leaning against the railing; seconds later, it started glowing red from the heat, leaving both Jaune and Thor perplexed.
About a gallon of water splashed the hothead in the face; though the source was unidentifiable, the red-haired boy was apparently not amused with the cyclone-riding teen, who was smiling like he'd just made some dumb joke.
"While that felt great," said the redhead in a threatening tone, "I swear to God, if you do that again I will make sure to beat you silly when we get off the ship."
"Bring it, hothead," the silver-haired boy smiled, literally asking for a fight at this point. The enraged man was just about to catch fire when he fizzled out and rolled his eyes.
"My name's Solis," Solis corrected the other. "Get that through your thick skull."
"Ventus," Ventus returned. "And I don't have a thick skull, Bonehead. I just don't use anything up there."
"What's that make you, an airhead," Solis demanded, which made Ventus's smile even bigger.
"Exactly, Bonfire."
"Quit calling me names! Call me Solis. So-lis. SOLIS! Get that through your hard skull, Airhead."
"You know, you don't exactly sound like your name," Ventus commented. "Solace means finding comfort in hard times, yet you're quite literally smoking through the ears."
"No, not solace, s-o-l-a-c-e! Solis, S-o-l-i-s. It's a derivative of the Latin term meaning 'Sun'. My name literally means 'sun', not 'peace'. Good God, get it straight."
"Quit your arguing, lassies," Thor grumbled. "You're both pretty, so shut up."
Neither one stopped, driving Jaune more and more towards the rage he hated so much. Finally, Jaune had had enough and let it all out.
"SHUT YOUR TRAPS," Jaune shouted with a much darker tone to his voice. Solis turned to snap at the blonde, immediately shrinking down at what he saw; Ventus had a blindfold on, and was scrunching up his forehead as if that would help him see. Jaune's complexion didn't change much, but his eyes showed everything: all the colors in the balls inverted except for the pupils, leaving him with an orange iris and bright blue pupils on a black background. The orange in his eyes seemed to radiate fire in its purest form.
"Wait, what's going on," Ventus pondered aloud. Solis tore off the blindfold while trying not to look Jaune in the eye, revealing a Liaison with one silver and one blue eye. Thor's head seemed to explode before he collapsed with excitement. Ventus whistled in awe. "I'm guessing we blew his mind, right?"
"Err, I'm calling a truce," Solis muttered to Ventus quietly. "Jaune? Remind me never to piss you off."
Jaune's eyes reverted back to normal, leaving him shaking his head and blank-minded. He remembered nothing of what happened, not even from an outside perspective.
"I've never seen a Centurion in action," mumbled Thor. "And I not only saw that but a Silver-eye Liaison? Oh, it's got to be my birthday." All the three young adults could do was stand there and stare at the strange Dwarf as if he'd lost his marbles.
"And how old is this guy," Ventus asked as he used the vortex to push himself up before dispersing it.
"He's acting like a child," Solis mentioned. "He's got to be fifteen."
"I'm twenty-two," Thor said as he picked himself up off the floor. Solis's mind blew up this time, and he fell to the ground like a tower.
"And there he goes," Ventus commented. "Congrats. Who's next?"
"You're weird," Thor and Jaune both stated simply.
"No, I'm the wind." To prove this, he marched over to the nearest open window and leaped out. The three other young men darted over to the window to try to find Ventus.
"Well," Thor deadpanned after finding nothing, "he's dea—SONOFA!"
Ventus was outside, not falling but flying, at speed with the airship through dense clouds, as if it were nothing. Jaune tried to imagine what it would be like to fly without aid. The thought got to him, and he passed out from acrophobia.
Two minutes later, Jaune woke up to being carried out over someone's shoulder. He saw the familiar clothes of a comic book character and jerked awake. He accidentally pummeled Thor in the nether regions with a sneaker and rolled out of the Dwarf's collapse. He dusted himself off quickly and reacted violently upon hearing a nearby explosion.
Five seconds and a short sprint later, Jaune found a young redhead with silver eyes being ranted at by a snobby-sounding white-haired girl wearing mostly white. Apparently the explosion involved some breed of Dust. Jaune decided to butt in when he heard pissy words being thrown about.
"Woah, whoa, hang on just a minute here," Jaune cut the white-haired girl off as he stepped between the two girls. "First off, what happened here? Secondly, can we somehow reach an agreement before things happen?"
"Stay out of this, Blondie," came the snarky response.
"Can't we all just agree to disagree and get over this like nothing happened? It's Dust, I can smell it; it's not strong enough to throw you around unless you weigh, like, 50 pounds."
"I said stay out of this," again with the snark. Jaune was starting to feel the rage again, and if it came he would try to remember everything.
"And I said calm down," said he in a diplomatic tone. "Let's reserve punches for bad guys and Grimm, okay?"
"And just who do you think you are, telling me what to do? I am Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. So unless you're some general's son, I suggest you step out of this."
"I'm not a general's son," Jaune admitted. "But I'm certainly more diplomatic than most. So why don't we try to not kill each other over a simple sneeze. Besides, now that I see it all, this wouldn't have happened had you not been shaking that Dust vial around."
Weiss stammered a little bit, obviously flustered and in denial of the truth that just came out of Jaune's mouth. Weiss had just turned around when Jaune got smacked upside the head with the same Dust vial Weiss lost. The redhead giggled at both Weiss's loss for words and Jaune's misfortune, causing both to glare at her.
"And just what are you laughing at," Weiss demanded.
"I don't think she would be if a half-full Dust vial hit her in the head," Jaune mumbled. He bent over, grabbed the vial, and handed it over to the heiress, all while rubbing his head where it hit him. Weiss snatched it out of his hands and marched over to wherever they were supposed to go.
"FOOOOORRRE," an echo called, obviously delayed. This made the redhead laugh even harder.
"If only I didn't have a mark for in the morning," he rubbed his head before walking off in the same direction that the heiress did. While walking, he tried to recall what happened when he unleashed his anger on the airship. All he could recall was blackness, but eventually he could see the airship. He was making progress, now all he needed to know was what happened to cause the temporary amnesia.
Ventus was the one who threw the Dust vial, having narrowly dodged and caught the thing. Since Jaune was there, he figured the blond would catch it if he forewarned him. He tried, but he apparently forgot about the delay when he yelled too loud. The vial smacked the young Knight in the head, followed shortly by the echo of Ventus's warning. The wind warrior would've found it funny had Jaune not been smacked into a bad mood as he had been. The blond walked away to where the white-haired girl went, leaving the redhead all alone. He heard her calling out for Jaune to wait up, and she started to follow him but stopped when she realized the knight wasn't stopping for anyone. Ventus made his move to make a new friend.
"Sorry 'bout that," Ventus apologized. "I tend to screw things up when I try to help out." He held out a hand to help the redhead up. "Name's Ventus, by the way."
"Ruby," the girl introduced herself as he pulled her up. "Hey, aren't you that kid who jumped out of the plane and started flying?"
"That's me," Ventus nodded. "My Semblance is Vortex; it allows me to summon a vortex or any kind of wind or cloud and use it to my advantage. I recently learned how to manipulate Dust in a cyclone, and before that I learned how to recharge my Aura with the wind." Ruby's jaw dropped.
"Wow. I take it you don't need any weapons?"
"Oh, no. I use 'em anyways, though. Twin steel-joint whips charged with mixed dust for ease of use." He pulled them out. "Hurricane and Typhoon. That's their names. Made 'em myself." Ruby loomed over the twins and gave Ventus a pleading look. He smiled and let her look them over. In the meantime, he was able to get a good look at her eyes. Both were silver like his one, but he sensed a similar power in hers.
"Wow. These are so cool." She gave the weapons back. "Well, I've got this." She pulled out her own weapon, a 6-foot sniper-scythe that could transform into a simple red box. He whistled.
"How long did it take you to build it?" She smiled at him.
"Two weeks." Ventus almost died of laughter.
"You and I are so similar! I built mine in a handful of hours." She giggled after realizing that he wasn't laughing at her.
"Hey, you have a Liaison," she discovered. His smile dropped.
"Yep," he said simply. He almost immediately looked away, remembering all the pain he went through because of it.
"What's the matter? Don't you like having a Liaison?"
"Well, yeah. It's just… I've gone through a lot of pain, been made fun of for it. Doesn't mean I don't use it, but I… I just don't fit in anywhere."
"Yikes." The two started walking to the auditorium, Ventus using the wind to guide him and Ruby following mindlessly. "You know, a lot of kids have made fun of my silver eyes." Ventus gave her a funny look.
"Hey, I like 'em. If they don't, that's fine; they can gouge their own out. So long as you like 'em, it's fine by me. Don't change what doesn't need to be changed."
This made Ruby smile, and there was silence for the rest of the walk. Ventus heard a blonde call Ruby over, making him assume that they were somehow related. He made sure no one was paying attention for maximum reaction, then created a vortex and flew up with it. He crossed his arms and toned down the vortex, replacing it with a dense patch of wind for him to stand on. He normally did this so he could actually see the speaker(s). This year was going to be fun, he could just tell.
End
A/N: How about that. Jaune has a crazy temper and even crazier power that doesn't even need Aura, we've met another OC, and already we've seen a conflict between Ventus and Solis. Tell me what you guys think. I'll see you all next chapter. Texas, out.