After that discussion, Sam brought me to his table with the other two teams. I was still somewhat uncomfortable, but that was pretty normal whenever I was invited to talk to people that I don't know. This group in question didn't seem to be noticing our approach. They seemed to be deep in some kind of conversation.

"Hey guys!" Sam said, catching their attention.

"Hey Sam!" Ruby responded. "Hi James! Nice to meet you again!"

I smiled. "Same here. How are you Ruby?"

"Oh, I'm great! Classes are so fun so far! Well, except for professor Port, but I'm kinda hoping that's a one-time thing." Ruby replied.

Sam took a seat next to Weiss, who stood up and offered a hand. "I'm Weiss Schnee. Pleased to finally meet Sam's training partner."

I give her a nod in response and shake the offered hand. "Likewise. I've been wanting to talk to you anyways. I just wanted to offer my sympathy."

Weiss looked confused. "Sympathy? For what?"

I thumbed in Sam's direction. "Well, for putting up with that idiot all the time. If I'm being honest, I don't know how you do it."

That got Weiss and a lot of the table to laugh. Sam merely pouted. "Hey, come on! I'm not that bad!"

I rolled my eyes. "Sam, at the tournament before I met you, you almost disqualified yourself because you didn't know how powerful your shotguns' recoil was."

"That was one time!"

"Then later on in that same tournament, you lost because you threw a dust crystal at your opponent without activating it with aura."

"I was tired!"

"And when we started sparring, you-"

Sam started chuckling nervously. "Alright, we get the point!" He said cutting me off. "No need to say anymore."

Weiss only smirked. "Oh, I don't know, I think he should keep going."

"Nonono!" Sam responded. "That's enough of that!"

I smiled at Sam, deciding to throw him a bone. I turn to face team JNPR, who I hadn't met yet.

"Hi, I'm James Smith. Nice to meet you." I say, nodding my head in greeting.

What I wasn't expecting, was for Nora to grab me by the arm and pull me down onto a seat in between her and Ruby. She then shoved a plate piled with pancakes in front of me. I look at her questioningly, only to see a manic grin greeting me in response.

"Sam said you didn't eat lunch yesterday." Her grin only seemed to widen. "That's not okay! You're eating today!"

I look around at the rest of team JNPR, searching their expressions for a way out of this situation. I absently noted that Nora's plate was even more full of pancakes than my own, forming a pile probably a foot high at least. I met Ren's eyes, and he merely shook his head, as if to say that there was no way I could get out of this.

"Erm… Thanks…" I respond, barely catching myself from saying Nora's name. I hadn't been introduced to them yet. While I might be able to get away with it, better to be safe than sorry.

Ren decided to cut me a break. "Pleased to meet you James. My name is Ren, and my friend here is Nora."

That actually reminded me that I've met the two of them before. I… Had actually forgotten until just now. I snap my finger in realization. "I thought I'd recognized you two! I met you back in Mistral years ago. You gave me some advice on acrobatics, if I remember."

Ren tilted his head in confusion. "That sounds… Vaguely familiar. I'm sorry, but I don't quite remember you."

I waved him off. "It's fine. It was years ago, and I only remembered you because of your hair colors. They're… Unique."

Ren nodded in response, happy that James forgave him for not remembering their previous encounter. The other members of JNPR decided to introduce themselves as well.

"Nice to meet you James. The name's Jaune Arc." Jaune introduced himself.

I then turned to the last member of the group. This was my first chance to come face-to-face with Pyrrha Nikos, and the only thing that was going through my head was that if I failed, she died. Her fate was one of the main things that I was trying to change.

"Hello! I'm Pyrrha. Nice to meet you!" The 'invincible girl' greeted.

I nod my head respectfully at her. "Nice to meet you all." I reply, though my gaze flickers briefly back to Pyrrha. I couldn't help it. It was one thing to think about saving someone you'd never met, it was another to come face-to-face with the person in question knowing that if you didn't do a good enough job, they would end up dead. It didn't help that I quite liked Pyrrha in the show, and was pretty devastated when she'd died.

However, I did my best to school my features and not let my worries show on my face. While I could probably come up with something, I didn't want to meet new people only to have to lie to them as soon as I met them. I started working on the… Pile of pancakes that Nora had arranged for me. Which meant applying liberal amounts of syrup to the pile in front of me. Far more than most would consider reasonable.

… What? I'm Canadian. Don't judge.

"So James, how did you meet Sam?" Weiss asked, after she got over the momentary disgust at the amount of syrup I was using.

I swallowed the mouthful I had before answering her. "Well, I met him after the second round of his first tournament. We kind of bumped into each other on accident, and from there we started talking. Didn't take long for us to become friends. After he realized how garbage I was at fighting, he volunteered to help train me."

Sam looked like he wanted to protest, but before he could, Weiss decided to speak up. "That was very kind of you Sam." She said.

I gave Sam my best look to tell him not to fight the idea that I was garbage. The story… Wasn't entirely false, but it wasn't the complete truth. Yes, when it came to general training suggestions, Sam was invaluable, mostly because he agreed to be my sparring partner, and finally managed to get me membership at a place where I could regularly spar against people without my Semblance. However, I did and still can completely trounce Sam when I use my Semblance. And when I told Sam how much I practiced with my Semblance, he gawked. Apparently people don't actually train with their Semblance whenever they can, usually because there are very few Semblances that synergize well with daily life like mine.

So, Sam eventually managed to convince me that I wasn't complete garbage… The amount of effort I'd put into my Semblance was above and beyond the average, maybe even more than someone like Weiss, who practically relied on her Semblance to fight. However, he did reluctantly agree with me that my swordplay could use work, but even then he pointed out that I still had some good points there.

Irregardless, Sam's first reaction whenever I'm harsh on myself is to try to convince me that I'm not the worthless piece of trash that I am. I don't necessarily always agree with him, but I'm not going to voice that out loud. I don't think he necessarily means it, he's just being a good friend and general nice guy. That's why right now, he really wants to tell me that I wasn't worthless, but I need him to agree with me right now because we still need to convince people to underestimate me, and the best kept secrets are the ones no one knows… The fact Sam knows is unavoidable, but I don't want to let anyone else onto the secret until it's time for it to no longer be secret.

Sam chuckled nervously. "Heh, yeah I guess. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, so I figured I'd give him some pointers, and then when we hung out again, he asked me for some more, and it kind of just went from there."

I heard a sharp noise from one end of the table and saw that it was Pyrrha snapping her finger. "That's where I knew you from! You've won the last Atlas youth tournament!"

Sam sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Heh. Yeah, but this was my second tournament… The first one… Didn't end well."

Weiss snorted, remembering the moment in question. It was the one that I'd mentioned. Sam had managed to beat Cardin Winchester at the tournament where I'd met him, but in the final round, he tried chucking a crystal of gravity dust to push his enemy away, but forgot to infuse his aura into the crystal (Which I'm honestly still baffled by. He was raised by the Schnee family, how on Earth did he manage to forget to infuse aura into dust?) which allowed his opponent to press his advantage, and Sam couldn't recover.

Of course when the next tournament came around, I made sure that Sam trained until he couldn't move so that he would win the next tournament, which he did. I liked to think that it was because of my contributions that he won, but it probably wasn't.

"Aren't you here a year early then?" Pyrrha questioned.

Ruby's head whipped to gaze at Sam so fast I was afraid that she'd gotten whiplash. Her eyes showed that she was obviously hoping that Pyrrha was correct.

Sam nodded his head. "Yeah, I am. Weiss' dad wanted me here to look out for her."

Weiss huffed in frustration. She of course didn't like that, but didn't really want to talk about how her dad didn't like her chosen profession or how little faith he had in her abilities right now. She was enjoying her lunch, and the less she talked about her father, the longer it stayed that way.

"You're here early too?!" Ruby asked, excited that she wasn't alone in that.

"Yep. Mister Schnee used his connections to get me in." Sam shrugged. "Not how I'd like to get into Beacon, but he wanted me to go, so I didn't really have much of a say in the matter. I'm his ward, so… Yeah."

They talked about the Schnee family for a while, as I silently observed them while polishing off my plate. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was another fifteen minutes before class started by the time I'd finished my food. I looked back at the rest of the group. No one else had talked to me since I introduced myself, which I kind of expected. It wasn't really their fault though, I just… Didn't know what to say. I quietly grabbed my tray and got up, heading to the drop-off area and then heading to my next class.

I thought that no one would notice my departure, but I didn't realize that Ruby had seen me leave.

Ruby watched James leave the table and frowned. She had honestly almost forgotten the guy was even there. After that whole starting bit, he'd been super quiet, and hadn't said a word. They'd talked a bit about the Schnee family, which was mostly Blake getting kind of mad and Weiss barely even trying to argue with her. Then that had gone into talk about faunus rights and the White Fang, and they were still talking about that. Ruby was honestly only half paying attention to the discussion about the White Fang herself. As far as Ruby was aware, faunus were just normal people with cool animal powers. Why was that so hard to understand?

"Uh, guys?" Ruby said, interrupting Weiss' long tirade on how the White Fang have tried to attack her family multiple times.

She was successful in grabbing everyone's attention. She pointed in the direction of the door. "James just left."

The attention was then focused on where James had been sitting previously, and then the door, but James had already gone towards his next class and wasn't in the cafeteria anymore.

"That was a bit rude of him…" Weiss muttered.

Sam sighed and shook his head. "No, he just didn't want to interrupt us. That's how James thinks." He stared at the doorway.

"He didn't say anything." Yang said. "I kinda feel bad, but I totally forgot about him."

Sam frowned in thought. "I'll see if I can convince him to come back here again, but I kind of promised him that I wouldn't." Sam explained. "He kinda guessed that this wouldn't go too great."

Blake frowned. "Why would you think that?"

Sam shrugged. "James isn't great at meeting new people. If we hadn't just clicked as well as we had, I don't know if we would have become friends."

Everyone seemed to mull over the information for a few moments before Sam reiterated that they shouldn't worry about it, and that he'd talk to his partner about trying to eat lunch with them again.

Ruby however, still felt guilty. She was sitting right next to James, and she should have noticed that he wasn't really saying much. However, what really got her was that if she had been on a team with only Yang, she could totally see herself in James' shoes. She wouldn't like being dragged to hang out with Yang's friends… But because of Yang and her team, she had made a ton of new friends, but James didn't have that. If Sam didn't convince James, Ruby resolved that she'd do something about it.

The final class of that day we just happened to share with teams RWBY and JNPR, and I could tell that Sam wanted to convince me to go back to his lunch table tomorrow, but wasn't sure how to do that without breaking his promise to me that he wouldn't pester me anymore.

There were two possible outcomes. One: Sam argues that, because I didn't join the conversation during lunch, I didn't meet his requirement to 'actually try', although I only really agreed to stay at the table for all of lunch time, so I technically never violated an agreement that was never made. Two: Sam decides that my making friends is more important than a promise he made, and pesters me about it anyways.

It was truly unfortunate that we were in Professor Goodwitch's sparring class then, because today everyone was going to spar against their partner for the class. After all, most partners have never met before this week, so Goodwitch wanted to give us a little bit of time to adjust to our partner's fighting style.

However, for me that meant that Sam would get the entire lesson to bother me about giving the others another try. Odds were good that we'd be arguing about it for a while. We took our stances at one of the smaller sparring rings that Glynda had set up for today. I had decided to forgo my knives today. Sam and I were going to be doing a more unique version of sparring than most other people do.

"James, I know today didn't go fantastic, but-" Sam started.

"Today went exactly how I imagined it would go. Don't worry about it Sam." I replied, cutting off Sam in the vain hope that he might not continue if I tried to show that I didn't want to talk about it.

"So you'll come back to the table tomorrow then?" Well, I tried at least.

I hear the professor blow a whistle to signify the start of the sparring matches. While Sam still had yet to grab his weapon from behind him, I had my sword strapped to my waist. I grabbed the hilt of my sword and raised an eyebrow at my sole friend.

"Are we actually going to spar today? Y'know, so that Goodwitch doesn't yell at us?" I ask.

Sam flushes pink slightly in embarrassment. "Sorry." He muttered, grabbing his shotgun and shifting it into sniper form.

He starts to take aim and I lower my stance, putting my other hand on the hilt of my still-sheathed sword. Sam and I had figured out that all-out spars between the two of us were pretty useless early on. If I didn't use my Semblance, it was a good experience for me, but not Sam, because I was adapting to fighting opponents without my Semblance, but I wasn't enough of a challenge for Sam, who was used to fighting the best of his age at tournaments. But if I did use my Semblance, it wasn't even fair for Sam. I could close the distance in an instant, which Sam couldn't really do much against because of his lack of melee weapons. We still had those spars from time to time, just… Not very often.

So we devised a new form of sparring. Sam prided himself in his accuracy, whereas I prided myself in my reflexes. I was pretty sure that even without my Semblance I could stand with the best reflex-wise. With those in mind, our new fashion of sparring was simple: Sam would try and shoot at me, and I would attempt to deflect the bullets. Me keeping my sword sheathed is a recent addition, and the two of us are trying to see if I'm ready for that step up. I had been winning much more frequently than Sam so that was why we wanted to give this a try.

We got off to a rocky start, but that was to be expected. The fact that I was deflecting any bullets at all was a good sign, but it was obviously quite difficult. Going from having my sword unsheathed and ready in front of me and taking the extra fraction of a second longer it takes to unsheathe my sword was going to take some getting used to, but I'd just have to learn to cope. This was good for my reflexes, and if I manage to fully block Sam's shots, I think I'll truly be to the point where I can accurately deflect bullets without my Semblance in the heat of combat.

Granted, that still puts me behind better trained huntsmen and even some of my fellow students such as Pyrrha, but that's what I get for not having a sparring buddy for most of my life.

Sam's not getting as much training out of this, but I get the feeling that he's enjoying finally being on the winning end of this spar for the first time in a while. This training exercise used to mostly be Sam's way of picking his shots and feinting. I had explained to him that some of our opponents were going to be able to deflect bullets, even when they're fighting someone else. By practicing against me, he might learn a trick or two that could catch them off guard. He's certainly learned a fair few trick shots. I'm not sure how his aura bullets bounce off of walls and other solid objects, but they do.

Professor Goodwitch seemed interested in our method of sparring, and came over to comment. "Now what are the two of you doing?" She inquired.

I decided to respond, keeping my eyes on Sam to let him know that we were still continuing. "Well, Sam and I-" I quickly slashed my sword, attempting to deflect the shot sent my way from Sam, just barely missing it as the aura bullet collides with my own aura shield. I sigh and re-sheathe my sword. I turn to face the professor to give her my full attention. "Sam and I have been training together for a while. We're pretty used to how we fight by now, so we decided to use our time to train instead, since my basic skills are still behind Sam's." I explained, not technically lying, but also not telling the whole truth either.

"Hm. I suppose that is acceptable. I expect the two of you to participate in spars with the rest of the class in the future, however." She said. "Your performance in the future will tell me whether or not you can be pitted against a full team, seeing as you are lacking two members."

"Yes ma'am." I respond. "We'll do our best."

"Very good. As you were."

With those final words, Goodwitch left to focus on another pair, and Sam and I square off against each other. We continue our own little sparring match for a while, before Sam decides to strike up a conversation to help pass the time.

"So, you're coming back to the table tomorrow, right?" Sam asked.

I successfully deflect an incoming bullet from Sam. He'd been shooting in the same area for the last few shots, so this one was easy to predict. "Dunno. Probably not."

"Seriously James? You didn't even talk today! That's not enough!" Sam retorted, firing off another shot, which I failed to deflect, since he suddenly decided to shoot at my legs instead of my chest.

I groaned in frustration at failing to block a shot yet again. "I don't know Sam… I just… Feel intimidated, you know? They're all these larger-than-life people… They're still characters in my mind, and I'm just… Me."

I sigh. "Plus, It's hard to look at them knowing that one of them is going to die… And I can't let them know anything about it."

Sam scowled. "I still don't get why you won't tell me who dies. All you've told me is that it's not Weiss." He fired another shot at me, which I again failed to block.

"I'm treating you like I'm treating everyone else." I respond. "The less you know of the future, the more it will resemble what I know, and the more I can try to fix."

This had actually been a point of contention between the two of us. Sam had only made it halfway through season three, so just far enough that he had a feeling things were going to get bad, but not enough that he saw Pyrrha's death. He only knew about the Maidens and the relics because I had told him. It had felt necessary, really. I had also told him about Salem and her little group, informing him that they'd managed to make Cinder the Fall Maiden. That's how Sam knew that Jaune and Ren were safe, since I had told him that Maidens had to be women.

Honestly, I still don't quite know whether or not telling Sam what he missed is a good idea or not. A large part of me says it is, but I can't quite figure out why. Because of that thought, I've decided to hold back on telling Sam, since once I give him knowledge of the future, there's no going back. If I get desperate, I'll let him know everything I do. However, everything that he doesn't yet know I'm not letting him know. I feel bad, but I don't know if he'd do or say something bad on accident because he knows that Pyrrha is going to die. Hell, he might even do the same for Penny. The odds of him doing this is admittedly low, but I don't think I can take the chance.

"Whatever. We've argued about that enough." Sam grumbled. We really had. When we first met, that's one of the things that I'd done that had made Sam quite upset. It'd been one of our few true arguments since then, and neither of us had felt like backing down.

"But I get what you're saying about the others being a bit larger than life. I felt like that at first, but I got used to them, and now they're no different than other people." Sam said with a smile. "I'm sure you'll feel the same way after a while."

I shrug. "Maybe. Regardless, lunchtime is perfect for training, so I'd rather be doing that. I've still got a long way before I can catch up to an average Beacon student, let alone teams RWBY and JNPR."

Sam shook his head. "No, you really don't. Yeah, fighting without aura is your weakness, but when you fight with aura? I genuinely don't know who could stand up to you at full capacity. Hell, with a bit more training, I think you could probably take on Cinder."

"Yeah, but for fighting Grimm or the White Fang, I've got nothing. I need to be good enough to not fall back on my Semblance for them, or else I won't be able to rely on it when I do manage to reach Cinder."

My style of fighting was apparently an actual formal style. A "Semblance Fighter" as my school text tells me. Not especially common, given the fact that not everyone's Semblance is useful enough to be a crutch in combat. The only Semblance fighter I can think of from the show would probably be Yang, but she's good enough that she doesn't always have to rely on her Semblance. I'm not the same unfortunately. In addition, I don't have much practice with fighting while using my Semblance, mostly because I don't have someone to spar against that could hold up. I could just keep beating Sam up, but I don't think that'd work quite right. Finally, there was the ever-present issue of my small aura pool, which I still hadn't found a solution to.

"Whatever. Still, it's not like an extra hour's going to do much more for you anyways." Sam commented.

"An extra hour a day for every day of the week will be almost a full day of practice after three weeks. We've got twenty weeks until the Vytal festival, which is almost over a hundred hours of practice." I retorted. "That's good enough for me."

Goodwitch blew the whistle signifying the end of class. Sam shot me a meaningful look before we both grouped up with the others to listen to the professor's words.

"I am mostly pleased by what I witnessed today. I believe that you all have the makings of fine huntsmen and huntresses. I expect all of you to continue training with your partner outside of class, for next time you will be paired up with another group to spar against. Class dismissed."

I had already been shuffling through the moment I realized that she started, since I figured she was going to dismiss the class at the end. I was far away from Sam, and simply speed-walked towards the exit. I knew Sam wasn't going to let the subject drop, but I honestly hoped that this would be one of those subjects that he simply let go after a while.

Little did I know that one of my fellow team leaders had seen me depart, and decided to pursue.

I had finally reached a training room that I felt would take Sam long enough to pick that he'd probably just give up. I stretched a little bit, which wasn't something I did prior to Sam beating the habit into me. This training room, like many others, came equipped with a variety of training machines in order to help teams simulate real life fights against actual opponents. One of these training machines simply fired out a copious amount of bullets, which would stop firing the moment any of the participants aura dropped below a certain amount.

I wanted to use it to practice deflecting rapid-fire projectiles from a variety of directions at the same time. I couldn't practice that very often, and I wanted to see how much of a time dilation I had to get up to in order to get a hundred percent of the bullets deflected or dodged. I expected somewhere around a 6:1 dilation, but I had never really gotten the chance to use one of these machines before with my Semblance because they were all in public locations where anyone could see what I was capable of.

However, I didn't have that problem at Beacon. Because this was a private room, I simply put up a sign on the door saying that the room was taken, and people would stay away. Well, that and the fact that the doors lock whenever the room detects some form of combat, or the equipment is running. This is so that someone doesn't enter the room and get a bullet to the face with no time to react.

I went to a panel in the wall, and selected the training mode that I had in mind. The machine revved up. I walked the middle of the circle, surrounded by automated turrets that rose from out of the ground. A voice started counting down.

"Three…" I pulled out my sword.

"Two…" I bent my knees in preparation.

"One…" I activate my Semblance at a 6:1 dilation, the amount that I believe will work for this scenario.

Immediately, I hear a shot from my right and left simultaneously. I quickly look right first, and move my blade to intercept the bullet, while at the same time moving my sheathe. I manage to move my eyes in time to adjust the course of my sheathe to block the bullet on my left. I hear another bang from directly behind me, so I slide to the left, dodging the shot. The next shot comes from directly in front of me, giving me plenty of time to deflect it with my blade. I look over my shoulder at the next loud noise, shifting the sheathe behind my back in order to deflect the shot.

This kept going on and on, and I was lucky that there were very few shots that were truly simultaneous, since doing so is almost impossible. For me, I had only the slightest bit of time to react to the bullet while it was mid-flight. Still much longer than normal, but not enough to be able to take my time. However, what made this exercise possible for me was that my Semblance made it so that the time between shots was actually a few seconds rather than the execution squad it would be more akin to for anyone else is that my Semblance made it so that the time between each shot for each gun was more than half a second as opposed to the normal tenth of a second that it would be normally. While I as well as many other students at Beacon could probably block that kind of fire from one direction, having guns firing from every direction at random makes it significantly more difficult as one would expect.

However, this exercise was more difficult than I had initially expected. I certainly couldn't block every bullet coming my way. Most of them, sure, but not all like I was hoping. After about five real minutes, my aura has been completely depleted because of a combination of bullets making it through my defenses and my aura being drained constantly by my Semblance. Normally I can keep up a 6:1 dilation for around eight minutes, so that tells me that I'll need to practice quite a bit before I can get to the point where bullets are a non-issue at that dilation. I'd like to see what it would be like at a 10:1 dilation, but I'll need to wait for my Aura to completely regenerate before I can do that.

My musing about future plans was interrupted by a very loud shout.

"That… Was… AWESOME!" I heard a familiar voice shout behind me. I quickly turned around just in time to see flower petals in my face as Ruby rushed next to me, stars in her eyes. My eyes widen in shock seeing her here. I apparently hadn't noticed her following me, and she had decided to come into the room without me noticing.

"Your sword was moving so fast! How did you do that?! Can you teach me?" She asked quickly.

I start to get nervous. This isn't good. I wasn't sure if Ruby would agree to keep the secret of my Semblance from the others. I obviously can't teach her what I just did, since all I did was use my Semblance and block some shots. I could maybe convince her that I'm just holding back in class, but in the end that would just be me trying to get her to keep a secret anyways, so why not just tell Ruby the truth since she's already found out?

I sigh in resignation. I guess I don't have much of a choice now. "No, sorry. It's not really a technique, it's my Semblance." I explain.

That doesn't seem to disappoint Ruby though. If anything, it makes her even more interested. "Oh, okay. What's your Semblance? It looks really cool."

Well, here we go. Hopefully I can convince her. "If I tell you, can you promise not to tell anyone? And I really mean ANYONE. It's kind of important to me."

Ruby cocks her head in confusion. "Huh? Why?"

Why indeed. How could I explain this to Ruby? Should I just let her know everything? How much information do I let her know? I actually turn my Semblance on to a 10:1 dilation so that I have time to think. It'll drain my already low aura to almost nothing, but I need to think this through quickly.

Explanation 1: The truth. Let Ruby know everything. All my plans, all my knowledge. Needless to say, this plan has some problems. I have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not Ruby would actually believe me, but on the off chance that she does, I have no way of knowing how she'd act. I can almost guarantee that she won't be able to act normal in front of Cinder and Emerald however, so if I do that then subtlety might be going out the window.

Explanation 2: Claiming that people would probably hunt me down for my Semblance. This… is a bit of a stretch. While yes, I could make some devices that don't normally function properly work using precise applications of my Semblance, I highly doubt it's something I have to worry about. Ruby might wisen up to this and figure out that there's more to the story, and pressure me as to why I'm not telling her everything, making me feel like even more of a scumbag than I already will for lying to Ruby. In addition, I wouldn't put it past Ruby to actually somehow piece together what's happening through sheer tenacity.

Finally, Explanation 3, the last explanation I could come up with in such a short time frame: No explanation. Simply say that it's important to me that no one else knows what my Semblance is. Let Ruby come to her own conclusion, but hint that I'd really rather not go into my reason why my Semblance is secret from everyone else. The best lie is one that you never have to make, after all.

Explanation 3 was what I decided to go through with. "Please Ruby, it's… Really important to me that you don't tell anyone? Please?"

Ruby frowns thoughtfully for a few moments and then pouts and nods grudgingly. "Fiiiiine. I won't tell anyone, I promise. Now C'mon! Tell me!" She said, getting a little impatient.

I let out a deep breath in relief. I was just happy she agreed to keep it a secret. Whether or not she could do so was another matter altogether, but at least I knew Ruby would keep her promise.

"As far as I can tell? Time manipulation." I explain with a grin, knowing what Ruby's reaction is probably going to be.

Ruby blinks a few times in confusion, and then her eyes widen comically. "HUH?!" She exclaimed incredulously.

I chuckle. "Well, it's more like I can control how time affects anywhere in my aura. So what you saw me do was just me speeding up my perception of time so that I had more time to react to the bullets."

"Oh." Ruby replied, though she seemed somewhat… Disappointed? With my explanation. "So you can't go back in time?"

I shake my head. "Nah. Even if I figured out how to reverse the flow of time with my Semblance, I still wouldn't be going back in time, I'd just be changing my body to how I was in the past."

"That's still really cool though!"

I nod. "Yeah, but it's got a few problems. Even though I practice with my Semblance all the time, all I've figured out to do so far is give myself more time to act, and I can't help but feel like I should be able to do more." I then fold my arms. "On top of that, even though my aura capacity is above average, my Semblance burns through it so fast that I can't really use it for as long as I'd like."

"Ohhhh… Well… Sorry to hear that then."

I shrug. "Eh, it's fine. I'll just need to keep training and hope for a breakthrough in one of the two areas. If I can overcome either of those obstacles, I'd be happy."

Ruby's expression suddenly perked up, as if she suddenly remembered something. "Hey James, are you gonna come back and eat with us tomorrow? We didn't mean to not talk to you! It was an accident!"

"Eh. I'm not sure. I'm not really used to hanging out, especially not with other people. I kinda doubt I'd really add much to your group, so I figured my time would be better spent training. I've got a lot of work to do if I want to get better, after all." I explain.

Ruby doesn't seem to like that idea much though. "I get that, I mean, back at Patch I had a few friends, but we never talked very much. I didn't think that everyone would want me around here, but the others are awesome! They'll make sure you feel right at home!"

I smile slightly, attempting to hide my awkward attempts at not socializing with the rest of the cast of RWBY. "I'm sure Ruby. Thank you again for the offer, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline." I state, firmly attempting to end this line of discussion. I was kind of sick of hearing it for the day, and I just wanted it to end.

"I'll fight you for it." Ruby replies.

I raise an eyebrow. "Huh?" I respond elegantly.

"We can spar, if you win I'll stop asking, and if I win you come eat with us. C'mon! It'll be fun!" She encourages me.

Honestly, at that point it sounded like a good idea. Once I have all of my Aura back, I'll probably be able to beat Ruby with my Semblance. Then I won't have to worry about any of this, and I'll get more experience fighting better fighters.

I think about it a bit longer, and come to the conclusion that it's not the worst idea ever. I nod in acceptance. "Alright, I'm fine with that."

Ruby grins, and grabs Crescent Rose from behind her back and lets it flip out and get embedded into the ground. "Alright, ready?" She asks, much to my confusion.

"What? No. I need time for my Aura to recharge." I explain.

"Nope! Now's good!" Ruby responds, an innocent smile on her face.

… That move was far more devious that I thought Ruby was capable of. I sigh. "Well played." I respond, unsheathing my sword and activating my passive 3:1 dilation. There's no way I stand a chance without it, not that I have any delusions that I'll stand a chance anyways. I'd fought against a bunch of melee fighters in the past (and I had to in order to pass the battle exams), but Ruby was going to be on a whole other level.

"Alright, GO!" She shouts, zooming at me faster than the bullets that I just deflected.

My eyes widen in shock as I immediately backstep to dodge the scythe swipe aimed at my midsection. I then jump forwards and block Ruby's Scythe close to the handle with my sheathe while I go in for a quick vertical slash with my sword. However, Ruby nimbly twirls while pressing her scythe on my Sheathe, keeping me locked in a strength contest while she aims the head of Crescent Rose at me and pulls the trigger. I barely have enough time to duck the incoming shot, and now Ruby's a good distance away from me, taking shots at me. Luckily Ruby doesn't quite have the same aim that Sam does, so advancing on her and deflecting her shots is fairly trivial.

Once I re-engage my opponent at melee range, I dash towards Ruby while slicing at her with a diagonal strike from my sword. Ruby swats my sword with her much heavier weapon and uses her momentum to continue her motion and throw my sword across the room. She attempts to continue that motion further to spin around and whack me with her scythe like it was a hammer, but while her back was turned I'd already ran back to where my sword had ended up.

I was forced to start using my knives now that I no longer had my sword. I wasn't much with melee knife fighting though, so I would have to stick to throwing. I throw a knife at Ruby as she finishes her swing, but she spins her Scythe to deflect the shot. She decides to get into a ranged battle with me and switches Crescent Rose into its gun form, so I start moving while throwing knives at her, which she soon follows suit with Crescent Rose.

We go back and forth like this for a while, and while Ruby has almost landed a shot or two on me, I'm the only one that's done any damage. Ruby decides that enough is enough though, and switches her weapon back to scythe form while spinning it to deflect my incoming knife. Then I see a swirl of flower petals, and my vision goes black.

I blink my eyes open, and the first thing that I see is a teary-eyed Ruby looking down at me, seemingly mortified that she'd knocked me out. "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you! Are you okay?!"

I groan in response. "Yeah… Once my Aura kicks in, I should be fine…"

"I'm SO sorry! I just thought that, you know, once we got going you'd have enough to take a hit or two…"

I shook my head. "No, that's my fault. I had to use my Semblance a bit in order to even stand a chance against you… Figures you were holding back though. I've still got a long ways to go."

Ruby chuckled sheepishly. "Yeah, sorry… I didn't want to hurt your feelings too much, but I wasn't really trying too hard there until the end."

I wave off her apologies. "No, I'm aware I've got a long ways to go… It's why I wanted lunch times to train."

"What if I helped you?" Ruby asked.

I cock my head in confusion at her. "What?"

"Well, I mean, you don't train with people much, yeah? Maybe if I trained with you, you'd get a whole lot better!" She paused. "Not during lunch though." She giggled. "You lost that bet."

I sigh in defeat. "Yeah, I know. I'll join you guys."

"Aw, cheer up! It'll be fun!" Ruby responded.

"Well, I certainly hope so now." I respond dryly. "'Cause now I don't have much of a choice!"

She continued to giggle at that, not feeling guilty in the slightest. She decided to stay with me while I recovered, and the two of us started talking. Eventually, she got around to asking where I was from before Beacon.

I shrug nonchalantly at her question. "Well, I was technically born in Mistral, but I lived all over the place really. I stayed in Vacuo and travelled around the outlying Mistral territories, but I visited Atlas every once in a while. That's when I met Sam, and once he and I became friends I stayed there for around two years until we both came to Beacon."

Ruby furrowed her brows. She realized something off about my story. "What about your parents?" She asked. "They must have had weird jobs to travel so much."

I shook my head. "Nah. I haven't seen my parents in eleven years. I raised myself on the streets."

"Oh! What happened to them?" Ruby asked, then seemed to realize that what she asked might be a bit too personal. "I-I mean… If you're okay with telling me…"

I shrug again. "Dunno really. One morning I'm sleeping in my bed, happy with my life with my family, and the next I'm waking up on the streets of Mistral. I know that they didn't just abandon me… They were an awesome family, but I haven't been able to find them." I actually had tried. I'd looked through public records, trying to find anyone that looked like a member of my family. It was depressingly easy to find out that that wasn't the case. Considering the extremely hostile world that I found myself in, the population was leagues below that of Earth. The total population was in the tens of millions rather than the billions that we had found ourselves in on Earth. Still, I wasn't one hundred percent sure, and still kept an eye out for anyone from Earth to this day, especially after meeting up with Sam.

My story makes Ruby curious. "Huh… That's weird. And you still don't know why it happened?"

I shake my head. "Nah. No idea. What about you? Where'd you grow up before Beacon?"

"Oh, I went to Signal Academy back in Patch. It was really cool! My dad's a teacher there, and I got to learn how to build Crescent Rose." She replied.

I nodded my head. "Yeah, I figured you'd made that. It's not something I think I could find at a store."

"Do you have a cool weapon? I uh, kinda like weapons…" She asked, sheepishly looking at the ground and kicking some dust with her foot.

"Nah, never had much money. Only reason why I even have a sword is 'cause some kind huntsman bought it for me. Most of my knives I just found. Even if I had the money, I've never gone to school anyways, so I wouldn't know how to build anything. Everything I know I've learned from public libraries." And a previous life worth's education, but that's not something I can really tell Ruby.

"Oh… That… Really sucks. Sorry." Ruby apologized out of reaction.

"Why? Not your fault that I lived on my own. Besides, even though I didn't get an education, I don't think I ended up too badly. Yeah, I could be better, but I got this far and I can say that I'm almost completely self-trained."

That seemed to mollify Ruby a little bit. "I guess that is a little cool… Still, I'm sorry that you don't have an awesome weapon… Maybe I could help you make one!" She finishes excitedly.

Her expression lets me know that this isn't actually much of a request. I've got a good feeling that if I said 'no' here, she'd just go out and make me something. Not that I was going to refuse anyways, Ruby was probably the best weaponsmith around, considering the fact Ozpin considers her creation 'one of the deadliest weapons in the world'.

"Sure! On two conditions. One: I get to help you as we go, and two: I pay for it."

"What?! No! You just said you have like, no money!" Ruby protested.

I shake my head. "I have a bunch saved up that I don't have to spend on food anymore because of my scholarship. I think I'll be fine."

She seems to want to protest some more, but eventually accepts my conditions. She looks at her scroll to check the time, and her eyes widen in shock.

"Oh man, I'm so late! Sorry James, I've gotta go! I was supposed to meet with my team five minutes ago!" She shouts as she runs out of the door.

A moment later, her head pokes back into the door. "I better see you at lunch tomorrow mister!" She shouts before disappearing in a flourish of petals.

I chuckle in amusement. Oh well, there goes my lunchtime training. And probably some other training sessions that I wanted so that I can build my weapons. And probably more training when I'll get dragged off to hang out with the others.

I look around. There's knives everywhere. I start cleaning up as I go over the events that just occurred. Ruby's a really nice person. However, the fact that I lost so badly to her is a bad sign. While I barely used my Semblance, that doesn't excuse how handily she wiped the floor with me. Hopefully by training with her more, I'll get more used to fighting higher-skill melee fighters, which I'm not used to doing. I'm used to fighting Sam and the odd fighter in training fights, and the occasional fistfight in Vacuo. Ruby, who is probably one of the most highly skilled members of the cast, is out of my league without my Semblance.

Regardless, I guess I'll give the others another try. Ruby finding out about my Semblance is… Interesting, and not something that I'd expected. I'm gonna be honest, I didn't think I'd be able to keep it a complete secret for long, but hopefully Ruby won't tell the rest of her team just yet. Maybe I should think about telling teams RWBY and JNPR once I get to know them better? My main reason for not telling them is that if they don't talk about it at all there's no way that anyone can know about it.

However, I'm starting to realize that I might be getting a little bit too secretive here. Yeah, not telling anyone reduces the chance of anyone finding out about my Semblance, but I don't think it'll get out even if I tell the others.

I shake my head of those thoughts. I needed to concentrate. I had homework to… Ah, screw it. I was gonna procrastinate. Why lie to myself?

A/N:

Wow this chapter was hard to write. Expect my update speed to take a massive hit, because I have no idea whether or not these chapters will come as easily as this or not. Don't worry though, I won't abandon this. I've got cool ideas down the line that I want to use.

So yeah, my character is based off me, and I… Don't do well with new people. The lunch that I sat at is based off of actual experiences. That's with an 's' as in plural. So yeah, even though RWBY and JNPR are awesome people, I can totally see them accidentally forgetting about me when I just don't say anything.

I'm a bit worried that I haven't quite got Ruby's personality down, so if you guys could let me know what you think of her dialogue here, that'd help me out a ton!

Reviews:

Harbinger The Reaper - Glad I could help! I had wanted to get something out for New Years as well, but this chapter was a pain to write.

Hitler's Moustache - Yeah, the perspective's kind of going to be split three ways (SI, Sam, and Ruby), but for a while most of the focus is going to be on James.

Bomberguy789 - Don't worry. I think I've got the idea of reversing time under control. I've actually thought a ton about my character's powers, and I think you're gonna like it.

I'm also soon going to go back and edit the last chapter so that Weiss doesn't cry the second time, just to make it a little more realistic (or at least in my mind)

Guest - Honestly, I hadn't realized it, but Sam and I interact a lot in group settings, so us saying each other's names just seemed natural to me. I'll try to keep your advice in mind in the future however.

Thank you for that catch, I'll be sure to fix it immediately, I don't know how either of us missed it, but whatever.

Regarding the 'focusing' theory: Wait and see. I'm going in a different direction than you're thinking, but I'm not gonna spoil it. Although I touched the main aspects of it in this chapter.

TheRPlion - Yep, plus I'm kind of going into this whole mess with self-confidence issues in the first place. You've just touched on one of the overarching themes of this story.

EDIT: To all those that got spammed with notifications, I'm sorry. Fanfiction was being weird with posting the newest chapter, and for whatever reason would only show up that I had three chapters after I posted this one. Hopefully it's now fixed, but I had to repost this chapter and the last one in order to fix it.