The (Mis)Adventures of Team JPTR

by GenericUsername3846

You know when you have a really bad idea that seems better the more you think about it? This is one of those. Jaune Arc, Peter Parker, Ben Tennyson, and Rex Salazar together in the RWBY universe to form team J.P.T.R. And they said Infinity War was the most ambitious crossover in history. Updates will come fairly regularly if my schedule allows for it.

6. False Start Part 1

I'm sorry for the wait, but this chapter just… kicked my ass. And by that, I mean this chapter and the next one. You see, by the time I finally finished everything up, the chapter was so stupidly long, I just had to break it in half.

For reference, the last chapter was 69 pages long. After editing and before snapping this chapter in half, it was 147 pages long. As things stand now, the two halves combined come out to 161 pages. I've finished editing this half, so I'm posting it now, and the other half will be posted in 2-3 days. Now, that's not a possibility, it's not a "maybe," this is a guarantee; the next chapter will be dropped in the next 2-3 days.

But whatever, let's move on. I really don't think it should ever take me this long to write another chapter unless there's actually something in my life stopping me from writing, like finals or something. This one was just… unique, because I had to do some planning. Work out exactly what I wanted to do in the future, how I wanted the characters to be, and how best to set those things up now for big payoffs later. Of course, that only made me stress myself out, thinking I had to work out exactly how everything had to play out in the future and that the groundwork had to be perfect, no exceptions.

I ended up overthinking it and doing 14 rewrites.

The good news is that, because I did so much overthinking, I've planned out an absurd amount of content and plot/character developments for the future, most of which were set up for in this chapter. And by that, I mean this chapter and the next one. Seriously, I pretty much roughly mapped out the entire series. It's, uh... it's gonna be long. This ride is probably gonna last a few years.

But for real, I'm just... not that happy about these chapters. I struggle with segments where I have to stick pretty close to canon because it doesn't give me a lot of room to be creative, and when I do throw in changes of my own, it just feels... wrong, somehow. Chapters like this, where I'm all but required to ride canon, just bug me. Maybe it's not as bad as I think and I'm just overreacting, but I'd personally give these two chapters, like... a 6 or 7 out of 10. I can't wait for chapter 8, where I'll be back to having all the freedom I want to be as creative as possible. Until then... even I have to call these chapters mid. I tried so hard, but I just couldn't get them perfect. I'm probably gonna come back at some point and do some editing to see if I can't make it any better.

My complaints aside, it's good to see you all again. I really am sorry you had to wait so long, please accept my apologies for that. This particular half might not be the most exciting, but I promise the second half coming in the next few days will more than make up for that. Let's get it going.

I don't own RWBY, Spider-Man, any version of Ben 10, or Generator Rex.

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"Thank you for your patronage, dear. You will come by again, won't you?" I don't get very many customers these days."

Today was finally the day. After waiting for so long, the days until the term began ran out, and all that was left was to get to Beacon. Jaune had already packed up everything he brought with him and was now turning his room key in at the front desk.

"Of course. If I'm ever in Vale again, I'll come see you. Thank you for everything, ma'am." Armed with a kind smile, he handed the bronze key over the counter to the old lizard Faunus. She accepted it gingerly and hung it on a numbered hook hammered into the wall behind her. When she turned around, she looked strangely annoyed.

"You know my name, young man. I expect you to use it." The scaly old woman pressed her hands onto her hips, glaring pointedly at her young customer.

"R-right, sorry about that, Liza." Jaune had honestly thought she was joking when she had told him her name four days ago, and wasn't able to keep himself from laughing. Apparently her parents had a sense of humor. Thankfully, she did as well, and laughed right along with him after saying "My name is Liza" with a perfectly straight face.

The odd pair had grown much closer during his stay in the dilapidated motel. After purchasing his forged transcripts, there was so little money leftover that buying food was out of the question, even if he could still afford to rent his room. Liza had taken notice of his predicament and cut him a deal. If he helped the elderly woman around the motel, she would waive his room charges so he could buy food for himself.

Jaune had spent every day since that night at the police station either training or doing menial tasks such as vacuuming rooms, sweeping the halls, and decluttering closets. As far as training went, there weren't many options. He obviously couldn't spar with an old lady, so he could only train his body.

Basic exercises, like push-ups, squats, and the occasional jog around the city. It wasn't much, but the similarity between his current training and the "training" he underwent back home was painful; both were all he could realistically do.

At the very least, it felt good to be able to tell himself "Hey, at least you're still doing something", however small the consolation was.

"If I recall, you said you were applying to Beacon, yes?" Liza eyed Jaune's body, covered by gleaming white and gold armor. A similarly colored scabbard hung at his waist, the sword hilt poking out from the top gleaming in the yellow light cast by the ceiling lamps. "Well, you're certainly dressed the part, dear. Have you prepared yourself for initiation yet?"

"Definitely. It's just, like, a test, right? I answer a few questions, check a few boxes, and I'm in?" Jaune cluelessly tilted his head. Initiation? The Headmaster already accepted him, shouldn't that have been the end of it?

"Ah, you must not be from Vale. It's quite infamous around here." Liza covered her mouth with a scaly hand as she laughed quietly. "I'm not quite sure what exactly happens, but I've heard it's very difficult to pass. Supposedly, less than half the applicants are accepted every year. But I'm sure you'll do great, Jaune. A strapping young man like yourself? You'll pass easily."

The old woman glanced at the clock on the wall. Her eyes grew a centimeter larger when she took notice of the time.

"Dear me, I've kept you for too long. You had best get going now or you'll miss the entrance ceremony."

The time on the clock was 4:30. Jaune wasn't sure when this entrance ceremony was supposed to begin - or that it existed in the first place - but his caretaker seemed to know more about Beacon than he did, so he took her word for it. With a final "thank you," he hefted both his backpacks and left the motel.

The gates to Beacon weren't very far, only about twenty minutes away on foot. Even if it was farther, it wasn't as if Jaune could afford a taxi with the money he had left, so he resigned himself to walking to his destination. At first, he'd thought against wearing his armor and Crocea Mors on the way there, but eventually decided it was fine since he could sort of say he was a Beacon student.

So he'd thought, anyway, but there was no time to change now that he learned the truth. For what reason did he still have to take a test? He was already accepted, by the Headmaster no less! Why was a test even necessary?

"Just my luck. I finally get to the end, and there's still more before I can even start." Jaune ran his free hand through his hair and sighed deeply, cursing his fate.

The sky was slightly overcast with clouds, throwing a handful of large shadows onto the city. The dark patches were a welcome escape from the brutal Vale heat, which persisted even in the early Fall. All in all, it was a fairly nice day. There were even a few small families mixed in with the businessmen and city workers walking around the city. The dirty, rundown district he'd been staying in was already long gone, making way for the cleaner, polished city proper.

Jaune's eyes darted around, catching short glimpses of the people around him. A human couple leaving a park with their daughter, a Faunus man wearing a suit, a group of children running around with sticks and garbage can lids, and dozens of other unique people passed him by on his way to Beacon. The sight of so many people being happy and at peace did give Jaune a certain sense of ease, though the effects didn't do much to put his worries to rest.

"Initiation, huh? Please, please don't make yourself look like an idiot. It's bad enough you'll probably be the worst fighter there, the last thing you need to do is embarrass yourself."

Everybody knew Beacon had an entrance exam, but Jaune had always assumed it would be a basic written test, the sort of thing where they'd ask you a few questions about the Grimm and maybe some Dust mechanics. His knowledge was lacking, but he had been confident he'd at least be able to get by. A low passing grade was still a passing grade.

However, he was suddenly feeling incredibly nervous. Based on what Liza said, this test was abnormally difficult. If he was lucky, a paper test was all it would be. If it was some kind of combat assessment…

"Please tell me we won't have to fight each other. If that happens… no, stop it. You're supposed to be confident. You graduated combat school, you earned the Headmaster's favor, you're an Arc. You've got this."

Jaune tried to hold his head high and face his darkening future without looking away, something that was slowly getting harder and harder to do. A distraction would be perfect, no matter what form it took.

"I wonder if they're all still…"

Absent-mindedly, Jaune reached a hand into his pocket and withdrew his scroll. He flicked the device on, the holographic screen casting blue light on his face as it lit up. Once the electronic display clearly displayed its recent notifications, a strangled noise forced its way out of its owner's tightening throat.

"Grk!"

Missed Calls: 894

Unread Messages: 1,967

"..."

Two weeks of ignored calls and phased-out messages resulted in this, a monument to his family's unbelievable concern. For a few seconds, Jaune could only stare, dumbfounded, at his screen. Slowly, he reached a trembling finger out to the "reply all" button underneath the message tab… and veered off to press the power button. The scroll's soft light blacked out, revealing a reflection of the worried knight's face on the dark screen.

"... Later."

He shoved the device back into his pocket and kept walking. The first thing Jaune had done after being accepted into Beacon was send a letter to his family telling them that he had made it, that the Headmaster himself had welcomed him to the prestigious academy, and that he may have made some new friends at the same time. Even factoring in delays from his local airport being shut down, the letter would reach his family sometime in the next day or two.

A letter was good, a letter was best. If he replied to any of those messages, the response would definitely be immediate, and he would be sucked into a conversation he wasn't ready for. A video call was also out of the question for obvious reasons. With any luck, the calls would slow down once the letter made it home.

"After initiation… after I'm definitely a student, I'll call you. I promise, the first thing I'll do is call." He muttered to nobody, hoping the right people would somehow hear him. Facing his family as he currently was would be impossible for him. Only once he reached his goal… then he would definitely make contact and excitedly tell them all about what he had done.

He could only hope they would listen.

The familiar gates to Beacon were approaching, the very same place where Jaune had fallen into despair only to be pulled straight out less than two weeks ago. This time, the huge black gates were wide open, allowing anybody to walk straight through to the other side.

After stepping inside, there wasn't much to see. A mostly empty parking lot was headed by two three-story buildings coated in plain, brown paint, a large mountain right behind them. It looked like a low-budget gun range, the kind meant for "enthusiasts" who spent more time talking and comparing weapons than shooting.

"... This… is Beacon?" Jaune was so utterly disappointed by the sorry sight, he didn't even sound let down. The blonde boy stared emotionlessly at the plain buildings, unable to muster any other reaction. This was the place he had dreamed of for so many years? Where were the grand spires, the beautiful gardens, the unnecessarily detailed architecture?

"Hey. Hey, kid! You here for Beacon?" Jaune turned away from the buildings, his eyes falling on one of the few cars in the parking lot. It was a small, black car with only two doors. A middle-aged man whose dark beard was turning white occupied the driver seat, the window rolled down to keep his voice from being muffled. A black cab hat covered the top of his head, which was probably bald, based on the lack of hair on the sides of his head.

"Y-yeah?"

"Then get in, I'm your ride."

Taking a closer look, Jaune realized that every one of the twelve cars remaining in the parking lot had a driver resting inside, ready for any students who arrived for the new term. All of them were glaring venomously at the man who called out to him, like he had wronged them somehow.

The prospective student hurried over and hopped into the passenger seat, tossing his backpacks into the seats in the back once he settled in. The moment he fastened his seatbelt, the driver pressed his foot to the gas. The black car drove past the two buildings and up a cracked, concrete pathway leading up the mountain, presumably on the way to the real Beacon. Grass sprouted up from the damaged old road, ensuring the ride would be a bumpy one.

"About time one of you showed up. Job sounded real great at first, 'Just give one student a ride to the school and you're free to go home.' Yeah, real sweet job, when you wait in the sun for four hours till someone shows up for a ride. Nice work picking my car, kid, I was about to drive out of there. Heh, bet those schmucks back there are punching their steering wheels." The middle-aged man complained noisily as he drove down the damaged road, energetically waving one hand around to emphasize every one of his words.

"... Glad I could help." The man's energy was a bit too much for Jaune to handle. He could only shrink away towards his window and stare blankly at the trees and ferns as they passed by.

"Do they just… pay taxi drivers to wait down here?"

The incredibly loud sound of jet engines drowned out the crotchety driver's moaning. Jaune held his ears and leaned forward to stare up through the front windshield. He could see a huge silver and blue aircraft soaring through the sky in the same direction they were driving.

"I don't get why they bothered payin' us to wait down there. They put those fancy airships all over Remnant for any kid outside Vale, why not just keep one docked here? Eh, whatever, they pay me to drive, not think. Long as I get paid, it's none of my business." There was a nametag fastened onto the man's checkered shirt. "Krasnyy" was written on it in bright red letters. [1]

Krasnyy continued talking without pause, finding new things to complain about every second. Jaune wasn't sure how long the ride to Beacon would be, so he tuned the man's incessant complaints out. Having seven sisters was a nightmare, but it came with the benefit of preparing you for countless things in advance. After years of exposure, Jaune knew what empty, meaningless complaints sounded like, and that the speaker wouldn't be offended if they were tuned out. Rather than respond to the deluge of words, he went back to staring out the window and lost himself in his thoughts.

"Initiation… it has to be a combat test, right? Do we all fight each other and the winners become actual students? Is that why only half the entrants get accepted? If that's the case… I'm screwed."

Eliminating worry was impossible. Saying "calm down, you'll figure it out" was easy, but that didn't mean it was actually possible to throw out all your worries and look at the bright side. Unless this test involved beating up trees, Jaune had absolutely no training that would serve him well.

He couldn't help but feel disaster was coming.

"-id. Oi, KID!" Jaune jerked upright from surprise, smacking his face on the passenger window when he was suddenly yanked out of his mental deliberation. Pressing a hand to his nose, he groaned out a "yes" for his driver.

"You doin' fine? Looking pretty freaked out there." Krasnyy hadn't taken his eyes off the road. While questioning his charge, he continued looking straight ahead at the winding path like a true professional.

"Oh, of course, just a little nervous. I'm not sure what'll happen once I get to Beacon and… er, I think I might be overthinking everything. Is it good to be this freaked out, or am I just worrying too much?" Jaune tenderly rubbed his nose. Thankfully, it wasn't bleeding.

The cranky driver didn't say anything at first, nor did his expression change as he turned the wheel in both hands to complete a tight left turn.

"Want some advice? Shut up and stop worrying. You can dread something all you want, it won't stop it from happening. The sooner you start getting ready instead of being afraid, the better your chances'll be." Krasnyy finally looked away from the road, carefully observing his passenger with scarlet eyes. "... You look strong enough. You'll probably do great, kid."

"... Thanks." Jaune smiled gratefully at his driver. However small the boost was, hearing encouragement from somebody else did wash away a tiny bit of worry.

"Not like you have to be perfect, yeah? Who cares if you aren't the best one there as long as you pass? It's not like the world'll end if you're not a top student. I'm just saying, there's nothing wrong with there not being anything special about you. Hell, I personally think it's nice to know you're an average person. Nobody expects anything special from me, I'm just the guy who gets 'em to where they need to go. Take it from an old man who's lived too damn long, happiness lies in mediocrity."

That… was probably meant to be encouraging. Jaune told himself that, anyway, as his smile grew strained.

"I guess… he's not wrong. It's not like I'm supposed to be special, I'm just a regular guy applying to Beacon, just like everybody el-"

"..."

"Ah, Mr. Arc. The centerpiece, the cornerstone, perhaps the most important person in this entire room. You, young man, have an incredibly crucial role to play in the events that will play out in the coming two years."

"..."

Jaune's heart sunk even further.

Ever since that night at the police station, he'd been thinking. When he was training his body, when he was working around the motel, when he packed his bags, and when he was trying to sleep, his mind went back to that Paradox guy's words.

"... Why didn't I ask more questions when I had the chance?"

At first, Jaune was happy. Or, at least, he wanted to be happy. Despite the insanity of the situation, the parts he understood were "Magical wizard guy appears from nowhere, delivers a prophecy telling me I'll be a hero, and that I'm meant to save the world." That part was easy to understand and pick apart with the benefit of hindsight.

It was for that exact reason he wasn't sure how to feel. On the one hand, he could just take it all at face value and celebrate. Everything he'd ever wanted, he was all but promised. Forging his own legend, saving the world, getting statues built and songs written in his honor… that was like every kid's wildest dream, never mind his own personal, lifelong fantasy. The problem was that, with so much time spent by himself, not being able to ask anybody any questions, Jaune had created a million questions he could only ask himself.

Why now? Why him? Why did the world suddenly need saving when everything seemed stable? What difference would he and four other guys make? How, of all people, was he going to help?

Jaune glanced at the sword fastened to his waist, pouring his self-doubts into the beautifully forged weapon.

"... I don't even know how to hold this thing properly."

Accept it.

So badly, Jaune wanted to just accept it all and be happy, but he couldn't. He just had too many questions he didn't even want the answers to, every one leaving him more afraid than the last.

Why did it have to be him?

What was he going to contribute?

… If he, "the most important person" didn't step up somehow, was the world going to end? Was everything… resting on his ability to perform as expected?

He didn't realize at first, but Jaune's breathing had gotten faster. He was starting to feel slightly nauseous, the same way he did after flying. His body reacted in a similar fashion a few days after all this information had been dropped on him, only back then, he couldn't keep himself from vomiting into his room's toilet.

"... My chest hurts."

"Kid? You okay?" Krasnyy took notice of the young man occupying his passenger seat suddenly breathing harder. When he received no answer, he took his foot off the gas and pressed on the brake. The small, black car slowed to a halt on the mountain road, blanketed by the shadow of a large tree.

"Oi, kid!" Dealing with a panicking passenger went beyond his job description, and even further beyond what he even knew how to deal with. The callous man was starting to sweat uncomfortably. "Breathe, kid! What did I just say about calming down?"

He wanted to believe it, but he just couldn't. Someway, somehow, Jaune Arc of all people was supposed to help save the world. It was such an unrealistic idea, he struggled to not laugh at it. No matter how you looked at it, the idea of an untrained teenager doing something like that was just ridiculous. No, it was all so incredibly unrealistic, it effortlessly leaped past being ridiculous and gracelessly crash-landed face-first into the realm of insanity.

"... Wait."

Jaune Arc saving the world…

Impossible.

Ridiculous.

Insane.

Unfeasible.

All at once, Jaune relaxed. His breathing abruptly returned to normal so quickly Krasnyy thought he had imagined his passenger's distress.

Indeed, it was completely ridiculous.

One might even say it was delusional.

The idea of Jaune Arc saving the world was just…

Something about all of this felt oddly familiar. The lunacy of the entire situation was reminding him of something he had heard so long ago, he'd almost forgotten about it, a very important discussion he had forced out of his mind as soon as it was finished.

7 Years Ago:

"I don't get how you can eat so much. Don't you ever get full?"

"Eeeehhhh? I don't see any problem here. A growing girl needs her nutrients."

Jaune's plans of spending the entire day training in the forest had been derailed when he was forcefully dragged along on a shopping trip with Saphron, Rouge, and Merigold. It wasn't as if they even asked him what he thought about the clothes they bought, so he didn't really understand why they even brought him along. Fortunately, Merigold was equally bored with the whole situation. While the two oldest siblings continued browsing through the clothing store next door, he and Merigold had slipped away to Mrs. Dee's restaurant, hoping they would be able to outlast the girls' desire to find new outfits.

It was a simple establishment. A one-story, wooden hut with only two rooms served as the kitchen and the order counter, while seven round tables were positioned outside for anybody who wanted to sit down with their meal. The Arc siblings were seated at one such table, though the difference between them was plain to see. While Jaune was satisfied with a single burger and a side of fries, his twelve year-old sister was currently in the middle of consuming her fourth burger, many more waiting beside her for their turn to be eaten.

Frankly, the tiny girl's appetite was impressive, and a little terrifying. No matter how much she ate, she never seemed to get full or even feel uncomfortable. Their parents often joked that she could eat the whole town if she went too long without food. She wasn't exactly thin, but the sheer lack of mass was astounding. For all the food she consumed daily, it hardly ever caught up to her. Even after years of over-eating, size Medium clothes still fit her fine. Her small size was perhaps the strangest thing about her.

"Sure, but… how do you not feel sick? Even dad doesn't eat that much food. Aren't you worried you'll eat too much one day?"

Merigold paused mid-bite, pondering the question carefully. There was a glob of red sauce on her cheek she probably wouldn't bother wiping away until she finished her small mountain of food. If anything, it only served to keep her occupied while her mind wandered. Though she had stopped eating for the time being, her tongue absently stuck out of her mouth and dabbed at the sauce while she considered the question.

"Mmmmmmm… nah, not really. Should I be?" The deliberations did not last long. So easily, the question was shrugged off, and the gluttonous child went back to eating.

"The usual, huh?" Jaune could only sigh at his big sister's lack of real thought for the commonly asked question. "I'm starting to think eating is just your hobby."

The young boy meant it as a joke, but his sister took on a serious expression, like she had just heard something inexcusable.

"And who says it isn't?"

"Huh?"
"Why shouldn't it be my hobby? Food tastes good, doesn't it? Eating tasty food is more fun than running around outside or messing with computers. You get to imagine how everything will taste once you get a good look at it, you can enjoy the smell, you can savor the taste every time you take a bite… eating is awesome, you guys just don't appreciate it enough."

Merigold grinned sharply and took another bite of her burger, finishing it off in one go.

"But don't worry, you'll understand one day."

"Is that so?" Jaune did not sound even remotely convinced. This was not the first time the third Arc child had spoken of eating as though it were a sophisticated act. "I really don't think this is healthy, Meri."

His own burger dangled in his grip, half-eaten. He had grown entranced by the display in front of him and forgotten to finish it off. No matter how many times he saw his sister - who was a head shorter than him despite being two years older - wolf down copious amounts of food, it never ceased to amaze him.

"... Should you really be judging me, Mister Huntsman? At least I don't do the same thing every day, knowing it won't work. There's a word for that, you know. Sounds like you're less healthy than I am." Jaune did not rise to the bait. He knew his sister wasn't actually offended by his words, it was just an "off day."

Merigold was an odd child in more ways than one, but her mindset regarding her brother's dreams was particularly unique. By now, the rest of the Arc family had more or less picked their sides in the matter. Vert and Saphron wholeheartedly supported him, Bleu and Indigo were fervently against his dreams, Rouge and Violette honestly didn't care either way, and Merigold… couldn't decide. Some days, she was Jaune's biggest cheerleader and all but begged their parents to let him be a Huntsman, and other days she protested harder than the rest of the family combined.

Today was apparently a "nay" day and not a "yay" day.

"You know he won't change his mind no matter how many times you ask, right? If you spend your whole life begging him to let you go, you'll miss out on all the cool stuff right in front of you, the stuff you can do."

"Clothes shopping is starting to sound pretty fun right now." Despite only being ten years old, Jaune had learned to not put much stock in what Merigold had to say about his dreams, whether she was in favor or not. It was hard to take her advice and support seriously when it wasn't uncommon for her to say exactly the opposite the very next day.

"Jaune…" Merigold glared half-heartedly at her brother, setting her almost-finished burger back down on its platter, the simple act almost making her brother fall out of his chair from shock. It may not have seemed like much to an outside observer, but for somebody who had spent his entire life with the black hole known as Merigold Arc, it was huge.

Merigold never put her food down once it was in her hands.

"I'm being serious here, Jaune. There are so many fun things you could be doing, but all you ever do is beg dad to train you. When was the last time you played in the tree house? When was the last time you visited the neighbors? When… when was the last time you and me ate together like this? You're so obsessed with being a Huntsman, you never think about anything else."

His sister's serious attitude caught the little boy off guard. Even so, he wasn't ready to give up the argument without even countering once.

"All you ever think about is food! How can you tell me I'm obsessed when you-"

"I can eat food." Merigold immediately cut her brother off, speaking as though she had just stated the most obvious fact in history. "I can sit down whenever I want and enjoy a sandwich. If I want it, I can go down to Mr. Lee's store and buy some ice cream. If mom isn't busy, I can always ask her to make lemonade. Can you just talk to dad and start training whenever you want?"

"... Th-that's not-"

"What's so wrong with settling for what's possible, Jaune?" Again, Merigold did not allow her brother to finish. He had never seen this serious side of her before, and it was seriously throwing him off his game. "Is it really that bad to just do something else? There are so many people who want to spend time with you, so many things you could be learning. If you waste your whole childhood on this… what will you have, when you look back and realize you lost all that time for nothing?"

Merigold, like most of the Arc children, was deceptively intelligent. Most of the Arcs were geniuses in one way or another, it was just that their unique personalities often kept them from realizing the full potential of their incredible minds. Of course, there were exceptions. Rouge in particular had weaponized her incredible ability to lie, making it so even the village elders were never sure if she was being honest or not. Most of them, though, did not show their bright minds aside from rare occasions.

Jaune heard what his sister was saying, thinking he understood what she was getting at. Thinking, but not actually hitting the crux of her point.

"You're telling me to just give up? You think I should do something else just because this is a little hard?" Merigold sighed faintly, disappointment written all over her face.

"... I used to love coming up with incredible, impossible foods. They were all so wonderful and cool, but they just didn't make any sense." The little girl brushed her long, wavy hair away from her face and looked away from her brother, staring at nothing as she pointlessly changed the subject. "My favorite was a pancake made from flower petals and cotton, that feels lighter than air and tastes like cake frosting. I bet it would melt in your mouth, and get warmer the longer you wait before you swallow it. Mmmmm, I bet it would be delicious."

Merigold's expression turned hungry once again, a small bit of drool leaking out of the corner of her mouth. Quickly, she wiped it away and regained her serious expression.

"But I stopped making that stuff up. All I ever did was think about how delicious all those impossible foods probably are. I looked forward to them like I could actually eat them, I started comparing mom's cooking to them, and I always felt disappointed when the real thing wasn't as good as the stuff I imagined."

"..."

Jaune didn't even know what he was supposed to say. Was this still a lecture? What point was his sister trying to make?

Merigold tenderly picked up her half-finished burger, scanning it with her eyes like it was an alien object.

"... What's the point of coming up with all that stuff? It's fun to think about it every now and then, like a cool little 'what-if,' but what am I supposed to do when I look forward to them so much, I can't even enjoy my real life anymore? The food I can eat tastes worse, the meals I'm supposed to enjoy aren't as fun anymore, and all I ever do is compare my boring life to the awesome one I like to imagine. It's like… no, that's not it."

The Arc girl closed her eyes, taking a breath through her mouth to collect her thoughts properly.

"... Some things just aren't real, and they won't ever be real, no matter how fun it is to imagine them. It doesn't matter how enjoyable it is to get lost in those ideas if I won't be satisfied with the real world. If I fixate too hard on the imaginary, how am I supposed to enjoy my reality anymore? Why think so hard about a crazy delicious food I'll never get to enjoy when this perfectly good burger is right in front of me? I'd rather focus on what's real than lose sleep wondering why I can't enjoy something that'll only ever be in my head.

"All those crazy foods I came up with are fun and all, but I can't eat them, can I? This burger, though?" Merigold took a bite of her burger at last, smiling brightly with a mouth full of food. "Delicious."

The advice was so painfully simple, even a toddler would be able to understand it. There was a fine line between what was real and what existed in your head. Rather than a lecture, it seemed more like a lesson in common sense. There was nothing demeaning there, it was simply a worried girl giving a touch of advice to her troubled little brother for no other reason than that she was concerned for him.

Even still…

"... So you are telling me to give up. It won't ever be real, so I should focus on something else. No matter how much I ask, dad won't change his mind. You… you don't think it's possible for me. You don't think I can do it, do you!?"

The ten year-old boy grew irrationally angry, all but shouting at his sister, whose smile dropped in an instant.

"Wh-what!? No, that's not what I meant! I was just saying-!" Jaune dropped his burger, letting it fall to his plate with a wet, plopping noise. It was incredibly quiet, yet it still managed to silence his sister.

"Forget it. I need to do other stuff today. See you back home, Meri."

"Jaune!"

Red-faced, the frustrated little boy dropped out of his chair, abandoning his meal and his sister and running for the town gate. Why had he let his sister's pull him into this shopping trip in the first place, and why did he sit through the pointless lecture? There were more important things he could be doing. His body wouldn't train itself.

Merigold didn't bother going after her brother. He had always been much faster than her, and it wasn't as if she knew where he was going anyway. Sullenly, she sunk into her chair, half-heartedly stuffing the last of her burger into her mouth. Before she had even finished chewing, she reached for another one, followed by another not even thirty seconds later, and another soon after. Her free hand went to the back of her head, obsessively scratching a single spot where her beautiful hair had thinned slightly. Her head did not itch, and the constant digging was starting to hurt her scalp, but she couldn't stop.

On any other day, she would have already snatched up her brother's abandoned meal and devoured it. Now, she just didn't feel like it.

"Oh, Jaune…" She could only mutter sadly between hurried bites, less and less time passing between them. The mountain of burgers disappeared in less than two minutes.

Present:

"I totally missed the point back then, didn't I? Merigold… when was the last time I spent time with you?"

When he really thought about it, Jaune couldn't remember the last time he exchanged more than a few words with his gluttonous sister. The bulk of their interactions could be summed up as his sister excitedly inviting him out to eat, a quick "Sorry, not today" serving as his only response as he hurriedly dashed out the door to conduct his daily training.

Come to think of it, she had seemed so, so happy, that night he left. Her fork nearly fell from her hands when her little brother struck up a conversation with her for the first time in years. Confusion was replaced almost instantaneously with an unreasonably happy smile and a delighted response. The voracious young woman even stopped eating for a brief time after they began speaking. He hadn't noticed at the time, but there might have been a touch of emotion leaking into her voice throughout the entire conversation.

"... I promise, you'll be the first one I call, Meri."

Indigo had always managed to pull him away from training so easily only because she fought so hard to spend time with her brother until he gave in. All his other sisters, who were more passive in their approaches, rarely exchanged more than a few sentences with him before he was gone for the day. It never really dawned on Jaune that he only spent extended amounts of time with his family when they were all gathered together for some unusual reason, such as a snowstorm blocking their doors, or heightened Grimm activity forcing the elders to temporarily seal the village gates while his father cut down their numbers.

He loved his family. Of course he did, that could never be in doubt. But… maybe Merigold's warning of missing out hadn't been far off the mark.

And, that wasn't all. There was another very important piece of advice she had bestowed upon him that day, probably without even realizing it. Not that she could be blamed for it, since the number of situations such advice could be applied to was so extraordinarily tiny, it wasn't even worth considering.

Despite that, the more Jaune considered everything, the more it all made sense. Puzzle pieces fell into place, gaps in logic filled in, and his incredible sense of panic that had been building up over the past week, threatening to make him shatter, began safely draining away.

Everything, all of it… made sense now.

"... I was really stressed out at the time, and it hadn't been that long since I made up my mind. That guy just disappeared after everything, and nobody else in the station even saw him. Everything he said, everything that was going on… I really am an idiot."

"You usually mutter to yourself, or am I just the lucky witness to your mental breakdown?" Krasnyy's sarcastic comment interrupted Jaune's sweet realization. His words were harsh, but the concern in his eyes was plain to see. To the middle-aged man's surprise, the blonde boy was smiling now. There was no trace anything had even been bothering him.

"Sorry, looks like I'm still pretty nervous. But it's alright, I think I'm doing better now. I'm really sorry if I made you worry." Jaune offered no further explanation, silently leaning back in his seat and humming quietly to himself while he stared straight ahead, ready to arrive at Beacon. Krasnyy regarded him for a moment, then sighed again and pressed on the gas pedal, resuming their journey. For the first time since they left the parking lot, he did not say anything.

"I've seen that look before. Zelenyy… even now, you still won't stop bugging me."The driver kept his thoughts to himself. Whatever his passenger was dealing with, it wasn't his business. His only job was to get him to where he needed to be. [2]

That was all that was expected of him as a driver.

Jaune was terrified. The face he was showing hid the fear he still felt. The fear of failing initiation, of embarrassing himself, of having to go home and tell his family he couldn't make it, of having to face his family even if he passed. However, the reason he was so capable of showing such a believable, confident expression was because he'd found something positive he could focus his emotions on. Something he could think about and laugh.

Really, everything from that night… was just so ridiculous.

Beacon:

Krasnyy was gone. He had handed his passenger a sheet of paper before leaving him at the top of the mountain. As he was about to leave, he took the time to look his passenger in the eyes and tell him one last time to not worry, and that he would do great. Left alone, Jaune didn't even look at the leaflet he was handed, too busy being amazed by the scenery around him to care about the slip of paper.

"Whoa…" The knight stared with wide eyes at the beautiful sight he was greeted with. There was no gate, but there were two giant stone pillars on either side of the polished stone path he stood on, decorative spire points capping them off. Neat, orderly lampposts lined the path leading to the front entrance of the school, a shimmering blue moat surrounding the path around the halfway point between the gates and the academy itself. Meticulously trimmed, emerald-green grass and vibrant red trees added variety to the scenery, making for a pleasant combination of warm, gentle colors.

That was to say nothing of Beacon itself. The very first thing Jaune saw was a giant white and blue tower, the glass windows wrapping around just underneath the pointed roof showing off the glowing green orbs inside. Dozens of smaller towers stood at its side, all of which were built into the church-like school. The roof slanted into three points above the front entrance, giving it a sharp look. Whoever designed the building apparently was not a fan of flat rooftops.

The legendary school was so beautiful, it almost made it possible for Jaune to ignore the smoking crater just in front of him.

"... Uhhh…"

There were a few other students still milling around in the courtyard, having just arrived on the last transport ship. All of them spared only a quick glance at the crater before shrugging it off and moving on.

By the looks of it, Jaune was the only one who had taken a cab instead of an airship ride, not that he - or his stomach - was complaining. He did feel a bit bad for the taxi drivers who would be waiting all day in the crippling heat, though. Feelings of remorse aside, he was more preoccupied with everybody else's lack of care for the giant, black hole that looked like it was formed by an explosion.

"... I guess that kind of thing's normal for combat school." Jaune finally held up the paper Krasnyy had given him, curious about what was written there.

Welcome to Beacon. The entrance ceremony is mandatory and will begin at exactly 6PM. Until then, you may explore as you wish, but do not leave school grounds, and do not be late.

The official-looking leaflet was printed in unnecessarily fancy font. A small map of the school was printed onto the back, showing exactly where the entrance ceremony would be held. A quick scan of the area revealed nobody else had a similar leaflet. Were they only given to the taxi drivers? Jaune didn't think too hard about it as he reached into his pocket and checked the time on his scroll.

"5:32. Still plenty of time."

The map showed that the auditorium where the ceremony would take place was right next to the entrance hall. As long as he didn't wander to the opposite side of the academy, there wouldn't be any problems arriving on time.

There was nobody he knew meandering about outside, and nobody seemed like they were in the mood for a conversation. That was understandable enough. Everybody was probably just as stressed as he was.

"The auditorium, huh?" Jaune noted the location of the entrance ceremony's venue and, hefting both backpacks over his shoulders, began trekking down the polished stone path to the school of his dreams. For now he would worry about getting to where he needed to be. After all, it was literally a straight shot from his current location, it wasn't as if he could possibly get lost on the way there.

The giant, oak double-doors were already open, allowing any student arriving at Beacon to stroll right in. A wide, branching staircase was at the back of the entrance hall, and multiple doors lined the walls on both sides of the large room. One of them, to the right of the front doors, supposedly housed the auditorium. Pushing it open, Jaune could see there were already dozens of students gathered inside. The venue was already packed long before he arrived. Large, beefy fighters with heavy armor, small, lithe warriors with simple daggers, and many more people who looked far more experienced than he was all waited impatiently for six o'clock to come.

"..."

Even from outside, the atmosphere in the room was oppressively heavy, so much so it actually felt like a weight was pressing down on Jaune's shoulders. Was it that everybody in there was so serious they were overwhelming him, or was it that their combined stress level was on the same level as his and was wearing him down even faster?

Whatever the case was, he really didn't want to be in there any longer than he had to. He already felt so nervous, he could puke at any moment. Standing in that room for almost thirty minutes probably wouldn't be good for his health.

"... They did say you could explore if you wanted to." Jaune took another look at Krasnyy's leaflet to confirm the information, and glanced around the entrance hall after. All the doors looked the same, but only two were open. One of them led to the auditorium, and the other was on the opposite wall. It stood ajar, like somebody had opened it partway and slipped through the gap. Beyond the entryway, he could only see a hallway, with even more doors lining the sides.

Stew in nerves and tensions for a half hour, or do some exploring of the coolest place in the world?

Jaune was already through the open door leading deeper into Beacon before he even finished asking himself the question.

The halls of Beacon were just as clean and regal as the outside. The white walls faded into a deeper shade of grey the closer they got to the ceiling, pairing nicely with the red carpet laid out on the floor. Blue, dome-shaped lights were placed at equal intervals on the ceiling, illuminating the halls with gentle light. The design was simplistic, yet pleasing. Even somebody like Jaune with little appreciation for interior design was capable of enjoying the color scheme and layout. It did seem lacking in classrooms, though. Perhaps he had wandered into the dormitories and all the classes were held in another section of the school.

There was, however, one thing that struck Jaune as odd.

"Why isn't anybody else here? Am I seriously the only one who wanted to explore?" No matter where he went, every hallway he explored had been empty. The carpets looked like nobody had tread on them in days, without so much as a foot-shaped indent hinting at somebody else's presence. Maybe everybody else just found more comfort in waiting where they needed to be than they did wandering around.

Finding himself at a crossroads, Jaune hung a right instead of going straight ahead. "Is everybody else really happier just standing in the auditorium for- Oof!"

"Hey!"

Jaune felt something bounce off his chestplate. Whatever it was, it was much smaller than him, so he didn't have any trouble keeping his balance. He was more at risk of falling over from being caught by surprise than he was from being suddenly struck with a large object.

The next thing he heard was a high-pitched, feminine grunt of displeasure accompanying the sound of an impact. There was a girl on the floor in front of him, propping herself up with her arms. Her beautiful face was twisted into a glare aimed directly at him.

"You! Watch where you're going! You could have hurt somebody!" The girl jumped to her feet before Jaune could offer a hand or even an apology. She slapped her white hair out of her face and brushed her pale blue dress, clearing the miniscule amount of dust that had covered it.

"S-sorry, it was an accident! I thought I was the only one exploring." Jaune raised his hands in surrender as he pleaded his case to the angry girl. She continued to glare for a few seconds, then relaxed a bit and heaved an annoyed sigh.

"It's… fine. I apologize for being short, I just got finished dealing with an annoying dolt and I'm still a bit wound up." The girl did not smile, but she at least gave a polite curtsy. Jaune would have settled for a handshake, but that felt cheap compared to her fancy gesture, so he decided to awkwardly bow instead. Bowing was fancy, right?

"She seems… nice?" Still bowing forward, Jaune lifted his head to look at the girl's face. If it weren't for the grimace twisting her features, she would probably be extremely pretty. Her bright blue eyes paired perfectly with her snow white hair, and the scar above her right eye somehow added to her charm rather than diminishing it. There was also a strange, charcoal-black mark on her cheek, almost like dirt had been smeared onto her face. That, too, did not take away from her appearance.

"... Beautiful." Jaune was at a loss for words.

"... I-I-I'm J-Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, roooo… actually, er, never mind, I'm just Jaune Arc." Coughing into his hand, he shot upright and stiffly introduced himself.

"Am I sweaty? I feel sweaty."

"Weiss Schnee." Maybe this girl just permanently wore a scowl unless something made her happy, because the grimace still hadn't dropped.

"Weiss, huh? It's nice to meet you. I was starting to think I was the only one exploring." Weiss did not respond, instead raising an eyebrow like something Jaune had said confused her. She looked expectant, as if waiting for him to say something else. When he remained silent, an unidentifiable emotion showed on her face, one that was quickly buried by her usual scowl.

"I see. Then, are you-"

"HEEEEEEY!" The pair of teens turned their heads down the hallway just in time to catch a glimpse of an orange flash. The next thing both of them knew, a short girl dressed in pink, white, and black skidded to a stop right in front of them, her face split by an ear-to-ear grin.

"Ah-hah, finally! I've been looking for other people this whole time! See, Renny!? I told you we weren't the only brave adventurers here!" The orange-haired girl turned around and shouted down the hallway. There was one more person slowly stumbling over to them, pressing a hand to the wall to support himself. By the time he finally reached them, he had to press both hands to his knees, breathing heavily as he barely stayed on his feet.

"Nora… please don't run away like that." The man in question wore an elegant-looking green robe and white pants. His black hair had a single streak of pink in front, and Jaune wasn't sure if he'd dyed it or if the odd color was natural.

"Weak in the knees, Ren! You and me need to do more training and get that stamina up!" The excitable girl slapped her companion on the back so hard he was launched off his feet. Jaune and Weiss managed to sidestep just before he crashed right into them.

Despite being on the receiving end of such a violent push, all the boy did was calmly raise his head off the ground and groan out "It's 'you and I,' Nora."

The beaten young man looked over to Jaune, locking eyes with the sweating knight and nodding politely.

"Hello, my name is Lie Ren. It's very nice to meet you." He still hadn't gotten off the floor, seemingly not minding doing his introduction while laying on his stomach. Before finally standing up, he locked eyes with Weiss and gave her the same greeting.

"So uncivilized." Weiss' grimace deepened the more she looked at Nora, who was excitedly bouncing all around Ren while he climbed to his feet. Jaune would be inclined to agree if she didn't remind him so much of how Bleu acted when they were kids.

Actually, never mind, she still acted like that when she got excited.

"Uugghh, it's been so boring around here! Everybody's just standing around instead of exploring, there's nobody to talk to! I was worried everybody here would be boooooring!" The girl called Nora suddenly shot forward and grabbed Jaune's hand. With no warning she thrashed it up and down so fast he thought his arm would be torn from its socket. "Nora Valkyrie, nice to meet you! Ren and I are together, but not, like, together-together, we're just best friends! We've known each other for years, ever since-!"

Once again, never mind, Bleu had nothing on this. Jaune was having trouble keeping up with this girl's energy. He helplessly turned to Ren, wordlessly begging him for a rescue.

"Nora." The redhead immediately stopped trying to tear the blonde's arm off and fired a mischievous smile at her… friend?

"Yes, Ren?"

"Please don't kill our classmates." If the tired tone was anything to go by, the poor boy was forced to say something similar far too often. All he got in response was a careless laugh.

"You guys… are students here too?" Jaune rubbed his sore shoulder, not sure how to approach the odd pair. Ren nodded stoically in confirmation.

"Yes, we arrived only an hour ago and began exploring. I admit, it is nice to know we aren't the only ones."

Jaune forced out a smile. They both seemed nice enough, if just a bit… much. Well, Nora was, anyway, Ren seemed fine to deal with. Weiss, on the other hand, seemed far less willing to see the good points.

"I do hope you'll keep her under control in the future. I would much prefer not being manhandled by a-" Weiss was cut off when her hand was snatched up and roughly shaken up and down by a familiar culprit. She was much smaller than Jaune, so the violent thrashing actually pulled her off the ground a few times, making her feet bounce painfully off the carpeted floors.

"S-s-sto-p i-i-i-it!" The pale girl's voice could barely be heard over Nora's excited introduction.

She was soon rescued by Ren, but the emotional scars would surely last. A few strands of hair had been pulled out of the tiara holding her ponytail together, giving her a frazzled look.

"Er… I mean, it makes sense, right? I probably should have expected to meet some unique people here. Wait, that reminds me, where are…"

Jaune recalled something very important just then, realizing there were a certain few people he hadn't seen yet.

"The adventure's not over yet! We need to keep exploring this labyrinth of evil until we find the treasure! Let's go, the princess awaits her rescue! We'll slay the monster together!" Nora began spouting nonsense that didn't even follow the same story, then picked a random direction and dashed off. Ren sighed and followed her, waving goodbye to Jaune and Weiss over his shoulder. He appeared exasperated, yet still he was clearly smiling.

"..."

"..."

"... S-so, uh, are you nervous about-"

"Sorry, but I should be getting back. The entrance ceremony will be starting soon, and it wouldn't do to be late." Weiss politely curtsied one last time and turned around to leave.

"... Okay, uh, see you, then. G-good luck during initiation." Jaune waved goodbye to the beautiful girl. He watched her until she disappeared around a corner. "... I need to pass this test. No matter what, I'm getting into Beacon."

Left alone, he pulled out his scroll once more and checked the time.

"5:52. Yeah, I probably should start going back." Jaune turned around and went back the way he came.

"..."

Was… it the way he came?

Every hallway was the same, red carpet, white-to-grey walls, blue ceiling lights. Nothing set them apart from each other or made them distinct in any way.

"... Er… which way did I come from, again?"

This… was not ideal. The last thing he wanted was to show up late to the entrance ceremony, especially when there would already be attention on him for not being as good as everybody else. He tried following after Weiss, but she was already out of sight by the time he turned the same corner she had disappeared around in the first place.

"Did I come from… the right? Or was it left? Mmmmnnn, why didn't I just go in a straight line the whole way!?" Jaune pressed both hands to his head, burying his fingers under his hair. His one goal of not embarrassing himself on the first day seemed doomed to fail already.

"Hey, are they almost done?"

"Relax, dude, just a few more minutes. I'm not enjoying this any more than you are."

"We seriously need to go on a shoppin' trip, this is just stupid."

"... Hello?" Jaune whipped his head all around. Those voices, whoever they belonged to, were coming from somewhere nearby. "Hello?" He tried again, hoping somebody would answer this time.

"Did you say something?"

"Nah, wasn't me."

Jaune listened intently and ran in the direction he heard the voices coming from.

"Hey, do you know the way back to the auditorium? I got turned around in here."

"Seriously, I know I'm not imagining that. Is somebody outside?" The voice came from the room Jaune was standing right in front of, slightly muffled by the grey door blocking them from sight.

Something about it sounded familiar.

"Ben? Is that you?"

"..."

"..."

"... Jaune?" From behind the closed door, that undeniably familiar voice reached Jaune's ears. The speaker sounded oddly apprehensive, even a little nervous.

"It is you guys! I was wondering when I'd see you again!" Excitement taking hold, Jaune gripped the doorknob without thinking. For some reason, every other door he had seen was locked by an electronic scroll reader, but each door in this one corridor had regular door knobs.

The instant his fingers began noisily twisting the brass knob, sounds of commotion came from the other side of the door.

"W-wait a second!"

"Jaune, hold on!"

"Don't open the door!"

Jaune opened the door.

He learned a few things in the next five seconds.

One, the room was apparently home to a handful of washing machines and dryers. It was likely a communal laundry room for all the students to use.

Two, all the boys he had met last week were indeed gathered in that room for a previously unclear reason.

Three, all four of them were both completely naked and soaking wet.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"I'm… just gonna…" Jaune, still holding the doorknob, slowly backed out of the room while pulling the door shut. The silence was so intense, the sound of the jam clicking into place felt as loud as a gunshot.

"... Sorry, I didn't mean to-"

""""Just wait there!""""

Exactly two minutes later, the boys pushed through the door. This time, they were all fully clothed…

And wearing the exact same outfits they had been wearing a week ago.

"... Jaune, listen, there's a very good reason for what you saw in there." Peter tugged at the collar of his torn up shirt. It, along with everything else the boys were wearing, was wet. It seemed they were pulled from the dry cycle early out of desperation.

"Why… are you guys doing laundry right before the entrance ceremony starts?" The flustered young men all tilted their heads curiously at his reasonable question.

"The what?"

"That's today?

"Oh, so that's why the old lady went off on us." Kevin gained a thoughtful look, going so far as to hold a hand to his chin in contemplation. He was the only one who didn't look like he was all that bothered by what just happened, only caught off guard by the sudden intrusion.

"Whatever. Look, what happened was-"

"No, no, no, tell me later! We need to get moving!" Jaune brushed off Rex's attempt to explain the peculiar situation. Thrusting out his scroll in one hand and the leaflet in the other, Jaune wordlessly filled in the four of them on the situation they found themselves in.

The time was 5:57 PM.

Every one of the Beacon entrants began sweating nervously, except for Kevin, who only said one word.

"... Shit."

Auditorium:

"Yaaang! I've only been here for an hour, and somebody already hates me!"

"Relax, Ruby, it can't be that bad. Besides, you've got plenty of time to make friends here."

Two sisters stood together at the front of a large crowd of hopeful Hunters-to-be. The shorter of the two had been on the verge of tears for the past ten minutes as she explained everything that had happened to her since she exited the airship. The older of the two only half-listened to the wild story of explosions, rich girls, and getting lost in some kind of garden.

Her favorite part was where the little reaper was found, about to cry, by a black-haired girl who tried to give her a can of tuna to calm her down, only to walk away in disgust when she was told tuna didn't taste good. Incidentally, that was how Ruby managed to arrive at the auditorium, by carefully following the horrified tuna enthusiast.

Thinking closely on it, she might have made two enemies.

"That's not the point! I blew a hole into the courtyard! Rrrrmmmm, what if they kick me out for that!?" Ruby gripped her hair with both hands, anxiously pulling at it to ease her fear.

It was beginning to get hard to watch. Acting on her duty as a big sister, Yang delivered a "gentle" love tap to the top of Ruby's head.

"You're worrying way too much, Rubes. I seriously doubt anybody here cares about a hole in the ground. And who cares if one person doesn't like you? There's at least five other people here who do." Just like that, Ruby released her grip on her hair and stopped pacing.

"That's right! Jaune and everybody else!" Ruby excitedly looked all around the auditorium and frowned when nobody she saw looked familiar. "... Where are they? It's already six o'clock."

Yang, too, looked around and found no trace of their one-time acquaintances.

"Maybe they got lost?"

"Ahem."

Through the speakers fastened to the ceiling, the sound of someone clearing their throat clearly broke through the din of the auditorium, silencing all conversations between the gathered students. The sisters gave up their search and faced the stage, where a familiar grey-haired man waited patiently behind a microphone stand. A few feet behind him, a stern-looking blonde woman was glaring into the crowd.

"Hello. Some of you may already be familiar with me. My name is Ozpin, I am the Headmaster of this academy." The well-dressed man held a hand to his chest and bowed politely to his students. "I planned to welcome you with a speech, but there is something I must address before we can begin. I have been informed there is a rumor circulating about a certain group of 'Honors Students' that I would like to explain personally."

Since he mentioned it, there had been a few whispers going around the auditorium, something about "crazy strong, crazy handsome guys who got to personally meet the Headmaster for being crazy talented". It didn't really make sense, so the red reaper ignored them. As far as she knew, Beacon didn't even have an Honors program.

From the corner of her eye, Ruby noticed Yang had suddenly begun to sweat and chuckle nervously.

"Yaaaang. What did you do?" The short girl whisper-shouted to her sister in a dangerous tone, talking extra quietly so the Headmaster wouldn't hear her.

"All I did was tell my friends that I knew some guys who got into the school early, I don't know why they started telling people about Honors Students, or whatever! They're the ones who changed everything!" Yang hissed right back, shutting down the conversation before it went any further. She didn't want to incriminate herself as the person who technically started the rumor when Ozpin was less than fifteen feet away.

"I want it to be known that we do not show favoritism to any of our students. All of you, regardless of your race or origin, will receive the same treatment. These individuals in question merely required a helping hand from our staff, nothing more. These 'Honors Students' are just the same as all of you, and will not be receiving any special benefits or treatment. You have no need to be concerned, nor will you be required to treat them differently."

"He's... not denying that they're Honors Students?" Ruby tilted her head to the side, confused. What game was the old man playing?

Out of nowhere, Ozpin cracked a smile and laughed quietly into the microphone, confusing everybody in the crowd.

"However, I will admit that their talents are fairly exceptional based on what I've been told about each of them. I ask that you not think any less of them for requiring our support, nor any less of yourselves. I am not concerned with your current ability. What I am interested in is the potential within each of you. There is no shame in-"

"Left! I said go left!

"LEFT!? It's right! Learn directions, dude!"

"Both of you ladies, shut up! And get your elbow outta my face!

"All of you stop fighting or I'll run us off the cliff!"

"Oh gods, we're gonna die!"

All eyes shot over to the set of double doors leading outside the auditorium. The sound of multiple boys screaming at each other reached the ears of all those assembled.

Needless to say, confusion was abundant.

"Why didn't you just let me carry everybody!? It would've been way easier!"

"Shut up! I'm faster than you! I'll make sure we're not late!"

"Moron, we're already late! Why are you just running in circles!? Just pick a door!"

"They all look the same!"

"Why don't you ask your sugar mommy to get us out of this, Peter?"

"Ha, nice!"

"I already told you, it's not like that! Stop bringing it up!"

"I'm- hulp! I'm gonna hurl! Get me off this thing!

""""Don't you dare!""""

"... Yang? Do they sound…"

"Familiar?" The golden-haired brawler finished her sister's sentence. She was still deciding if she wanted to be perplexed by what she was hearing or if it would be more fun to just break down and laugh as she imagined what was going down on the other side of those doors.

"What are you doin'!? Why are you going up the stairs!? It's on the first floor!"

"Do you want to run through the building while carrying four people!? Why don't you lose some weight before you criticize me, Jabba!?"

"We were right there! You just had to go straight! And who're you callin' Jabba, Gorlock!? Eat any chili fries lately!?"

The voices went higher. Rather than coming from the other side of the door, they were now coming from directly above, along with what sounded like hundreds of footsteps falling so quickly they sounded like a machine gun firing.

As all the students began whispering among themselves, Ozpin's paper-thin smile grew a tiny bit wider. He would have loved to have a mug of his favorite hot chocolate for all of this, but he settled for watching the ceiling in amusement with his arms folded behind his back. At his side, Glynda sighed deeply. Whatever mess was being made, she refused to clean it up.

"Wait, I think we're right above the auditorium! This is perfect! I'm pulling out the Smack Hands!"

"Wait, wait, wait, no! We can't just-"

"Screw it, I'm doing it! We're already late enough!"

"Rex… whatever you're gonna do… do it soon! I'm- hergh! I'm fighting a losing battle here!"

"If you barf on me, I'll make sure you drink your meals through a straw for the rest of your life, Arc!"

"Guys, come on! Just stop fighting and-!"

*Crack!*

A shattering sound, like glass breaking, filled the room. Shortly after, the dull noise of a rough impact forced most of the students to cover their ears. The entire ceiling shook, raining dust down on all of them and painting their clothes light brown. A small, jagged crack split the ceiling, though it was too small to see through.

"That was the plan!? I take it back, don't do this! Please don't do this!"

"Just keep going! There's already a hole in the floor, we can't stop now!"

"Are you trying to get us expelled!?"

"Is it really expulsion if we're not students yet?"

"Tennyson, you're an idiot!"

"This wasn't even my plan, it was yours!"

"Why did we agree to Rex's plan!?"

"Callarse, it was Peter's idea! Don't pin this mess on me, burro!"

"I don't know what those words mean!"

Another dull, violent impact, another round of dust raining down. The crack grew wider, providing a glimpse into the room above. Strangely, there were no people, only a black and blue blur dashing in and out of sight.

"Glynda, I do believe your Semblance will be necessary to-"

"Not. One. Word." Through gritted teeth, the exasperated woman made her displeasure with her amused boss clear.

"Yang…" Ruby was starting to get nervous. Those voices were definitely familiar, but all the loud noises were making her uneasy.

Yang did not respond. She had finally made up her mind and decided it would be more fun to just laugh at the chaos she was envisioning. The unbothered girl was on the ground clutching her sides, laughing harder with every passing second.

"Ren, doesn't that sound like the guy from before!?" A short distance away, Nora excitedly jumped up and down beside her exhausted companion.

"Hmm." Ren eyed the ceiling carefully, ready to jump away at a moment's notice.

Standing next to them, a black-haired girl squinted suspiciously, the bow atop her head twitching unnaturally.

"Ben, why are you still running in circles!? Just stop, we've already got a plan!"

"Stop backseat driving!"

"There's no reason to keep running anymore!"

"Please... just slow down."

A girl with fire-red hair clutched her round, golden shield tightly, preparing for the worst.

"Hold on…" The familiar voice managed to pull Ruby's eyes away from the ceiling. The same girl who had yelled at her earlier was standing right beside her, arms crossed and glaring inquisitively at the nonsensical racket. She was so preoccupied with the irritating commotion, she hadn't even taken notice of the "dolt" standing just a few feet away.

"That voice… isn't that-"

*Boom!*

It was a good thing everybody gathered in the auditorium was a trained fighter, else they may not have reacted in time to avoid the storm of rubble.

With one final crashing noise, the ceiling exploded into pieces, raining down broken bits of wood and plaster into the auditorium. The students right underneath the hole, who happened to be Ruby and Weiss, leaped away before the large pieces of rubble crushed them. Yang, still dying of laughter on the floor, just raised a gauntleted fist and shot a ball of fire Dust into the chunk of debris threatening to crush her. She did not stop laughing at all until something else landed directly on her stomach. Her aura protected her from any damage, though it didn't stop the wind from being knocked out of her.

Rubble rained down and smashed through the wooden floor of the auditorium, blasting splinters everywhere. Most of the students safeguarded themselves with their aura, others raised their shields or dived for cover behind the larger students. Ozpin didn't even twitch, calmly watching the destruction without raising so much as a finger to defend himself. Not that it would be necessary for him to do anything. None of the chaos extended onto the stage, instead remaining centered on the space in front of it.

As far as Ren could tell, nobody other than Yang had been injured, yet a chorus of groans still filled his ears.

"... Jaune?"

"Urrrrrggh… hey, Ren. Nice to see you again." The dirty knight raised a shaking hand in greeting, eyes still scrunched shut as he released a pained groan.

"Ooh, Ren, it's the naked guys! I told you they were real!" Nora pointed at the boys buried under Jaune, saying something outrageous despite all the people around them.

A tangled mess of people had dropped straight through the ceiling and fallen twenty feet to the ground below, and somehow, that wasn't even the strangest part of all this. As far as Weiss could tell, there were five people in the pile, six if you counted Yang. One of them had giant, robotic hands, and the other didn't even look human. It had legs that curved backwards, was covered in black and blue scales, and had a thick, striped tail.

"Next time… I'm carrying us. You suck with directions." The boy with the oversized hands groaned loudly as the robotic constructs collapsed in on themselves until they resembled normal, human limbs, which he used to gently knock the inhuman creature in its helmeted face.

"Shut up, I did my best! You try keeping track of directions while carrying four people who are all yelling at you!" The raspy-voiced creature slapped a clawed appendage onto the green hourglass symbol on its chest. An explosion of green light filled the room, and when it disappeared, a regular human had taken the monster's place. The decrease in mass shifted the entire pile, threatening to make it collapse.

"Whose knee is in my face!?" A thuggish man with a giant hole in his shirt roared with anger as he grabbed the leg draped over his head and threw away whoever was on top of him.

"Gah! Hey, watch it! I already look bad enough." The boy who had been thrown flipped in the air and landed gracefully on his feet on the stage where Ozpin was still waiting patiently. His movements were beautiful, but his clothes were suited for a hobo, not a student of Beacon.

"Guys… please stop arguing." The hopeless plea came from the only person in the pile who actually looked like a proper Beacon student, his bright yellow hair covered in a layer of brown dust. The poor boy was laying on his back right on top of everybody else, slowly moving his body to slither off the pile like a worm.

"Get… OFF!" Suddenly, the entire pile was launched into the air when the blonde girl at the very bottom of it all shot to her feet, somehow possessing the strength to send all four boys dog-piled on top of her flying.

"Grk!"

"Oof!"

"Why!?

"... Ow."

Every one of them landed beside the hobo boy on the stage. If Ozpin cared about the disturbance, he didn't show it. If anything, his faint smile only proved he was greatly enjoying the show. The stern, glaring woman beside him, however, was another story. Even from a distance, anybody could tell a vein was popping out of her forehead. If one were to wager a guess, her teeth were probably being ground together at that very moment.

"Well then, this seems as good an opportunity as any." Ozpin addressed the crowd humorously as the dusty, bruised boys climbed to their feet. All of their clothes were torn and visibly wet, they looked like they had been dragged through a wind tunnel, and the blonde one seemed seconds away from barfing all over the stage. "I would like to introduce you all to Beacon's… heh… 'Honors Students'."

"..."

"..."

"... Uh, hi?" The boy dressed like a homeless man casually waved to the crowd with one hand and patted the dust out of his hair with the other.

"Sorry about the, uh… hole in the ceiling." The boy in the green jacket went next, pointing up the sizable hole nervously. His clothes were the only ones that weren't damaged, but they were also the wettest.

"For the record, not my fault." Next was the young man wearing goggles. He did not wave, instead keeping his arms behind his back as he whistled nervously.

"Sup, nerds?" The thuggish man with a massive hole in the front of his shirt was the only one who looked unbothered by what had just happened. He had no qualms addressing the other students as if they were simply chatting outside of class, and nothing at all had just happened between them.

"... I-I… er, u-um… hello?" Last was the blonde dressed like a knight. Between the five of them, he looked the most horrified.

"You had one job, Jaune! ONE! Don't make yourself look like an idiot! No, no, no, no, no! This isn't how everything was supposed to go!"

Oblivious to the mental breakdown the stressed out knight was experiencing, Ozpin closed down the introduction with a smile.

"Please get along with them during your time here. That is all. Now, if you five would please join the others, I still have to give my welcome speech."

"""""""THAT'S IT!?"""""""

Beacon Commons:

The entrance ceremony was over. The room was unnaturally quiet after Jaune and the others slunk into the crowd. Nobody said a single word to them, or gossiped about their incredible entrance. The students closest to the front of the stage simply slid out of the way to make room for them, allowing Ozpin the freedom to give his prepared speech.

It was… certainly interesting.

"Is he bipolar or something? Dude was all smiles one second, then acted like the world was gonna end when he gave that speech." Kevin gnawed at the thick turkey leg in his hands.

After the ceremony had ended, all the students were herded into the cafeteria, where dinner had been prepared for them. Dozens of tables loaded down with all different kinds of foods were waiting. There were rumors that there was an entire table with nothing but pancakes on it, but the rumor went unconfirmed due to the table being empty when somebody glanced over to fact-check.

"I don't think it's that big a deal. He probably just acted more serious to make sure we'd get the point. I bet he'll go back to normal after today." Peter was working through one of his many plates. At first, Jaune had thought it strange that he didn't even begin to grab food for himself until everybody else had something. But, after seeing him fill twelve plates with food, consume all of it, then go back for seconds, he understood perfectly. The small boy's appetite might have even been a challenge for Merigold's.

"I'm just glad nobody's talking to us."

It was both comforting and alarming. On the one hand, nobody had come over yet to greet the "Honors Students" except for Ruby and Yang, so Jaune didn't have to come up with an excuse for their apparent high status, nor did he have to explain the disaster that was their dynamic entrance. On the other hand, they were being stared at, and people were clearly whispering about them. Being the subject of literally everybody's conversations was almost as painful as somebody coming up to ask about it.

At the same time, he didn't really know what else to talk about. Surprisingly, Yang and Ruby hadn't asked about their entrance either, probably assuming they acted out of desperation after realizing they were late. The relative silence within the group was painful. At this point, he was just fishing for a conversation topic.

"So, uh… why were you guys naked in the laundry room?"

""HUH!?"" Ruby and Yang spit out the food they were chewing, surprise coloring their features. The other boys just shot him looks of betrayal.

"... Sorry." Jaune muttered sheepishly. Rex sighed, deciding he would be the one to explain.

"These are the only clothes we've got, so we had to wear them ever since we started living here. This morning, Ms. Goodwitch came up to us and gave us this whole rant about how we smelled disgusting and needed to shower and wash our clothes. I think it was something like "My deceased grandmother has a more pleasant stench than you boys!" Then she-"

"No, no, no, you're telling it wrong!" Ben interjected rudely, cutting off the goggled teen. "What she said was "Your body odor is so offensive, I'm surprised the Grimm in the Emerald Forest haven't fled to the next continent over!"

"You're both idiots." Kevin jumped in next, smirking down at the younger boys. "What she said was-

1 Hour Ago:

"Absolutely intolerable! If you were living under my roof, I would have kicked you out to live with the pigs! No self-respecting person would ever allow themselves to give others the chance to associate them with the stench of death! You should all be ashamed of yourselves for even calling to mind the vague image of a rotting carcass! I want all of you to shower and change your clothes immediately, or I will throw you back to Vale myself!"

The torrent of insults had been going nonstop for almost five minutes. The boys weren't even offended anymore, they were just impressed the furious woman was still coming up with new ways to tell them they smelled disgusting. Funnily enough, she hadn't even seemed that angry at first. It was more like she just couldn't keep quiet anymore, and once she got started, days of pent up complaints all spilled out at once. At last, she took a breath. Her shoulders heaved with every deep breath she took, face wrinkling with disgust on each inhale.

The boys were aware of how bad they smelled. They would have loved to shower if only so their bone-dry scalps would finally stop itching so much. There was just one problem.

"But… these are the only clothes we have." Peter nervously pulled all of the enraged educator's attention to himself, shrinking slightly from her wrathful glare. The two suitcases worth of clothes he'd had were abandoned in the middle of Vale when he dashed off to Junior's club. Even if he were to go to the place they'd been left, somebody had probably stolen them by now. The hundreds of Lien Kali had spent purchasing him those outfits had completely gone to waste. The only two things he had left were his scroll and his wallet, which were also bought by Kali.

"I do not care. Leave your clothes in the washing machine and report to the bathrooms immediately. I have tolerated your stench long enough. No more. You boys would put skunk Faunus to shame." The exasperated Deputy Headmaster shook her head disappointedly and walked away, leaving the boys alone.

Previously, they were gathered in one of the many private training rooms meant for teams to use in their free time. Though, after receiving such a brutal verbal beatdown, they were strangely motivated to cut their session short.

They had not used it yet, but all the boys knew where the laundry room was. They were apprehensive at first, to leave their only clothes behind and walk across the school to the showers. After some time spent debating whether they should just take a dive in the moat in front of the school, they convinced themselves it would be fine since they were the only ones there aside from the teachers. As long as they moved quickly, there wouldn't be any problems.

None of them were happy about the interior designers' lack of foresight. Whoever the genius that decided the shower rooms should be a ten-minute walk away from the laundry rooms urgently needed to be fired.

""""This place better not have security cameras."""" The four of them shared a single thought as they walked, naked, through the halls of Beacon. Until now, they had been sleeping in the very same training room Ms. Goodwitch had confronted them in and they were not given the codes to enter into their scrolls to make them open the dorm rooms, so they would have to use the communal showers in the locker room. Rex considered just hacking the doors, but decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

The boys walked single file, silently agreeing, as men, that whoever was in front would stare straight ahead while everybody behind him would glue their eyes to the back of the head of whoever was in front of them. None of them said a word until they arrived at the locker room.

Their showers lasted almost thirty minutes. After so long without the feeling of warm water cleaning the grime off their skin, they wanted to enjoy it for all it was worth. They could feel the grease flowing out of their hair. When it was finally time to exit, they found they had one more problem.

"Why are there no towels!?" Ben tore open every one of the cabinets in the sizable shower room and found nothing he needed. There was cream for athlete's foot, bandages, and plenty of sports equipment, but what the shower room suspiciously lacked was towels.

"Don't tell this is one of those stupid places where you have to bring your own towel! Tacaños!" Rex was equally upset by the lack of towels.

"Guys, relax. It's just us, remember? Let's just go back to the laundry room and wait there. We need to move our stuff to the dryers, anyway." Peter eased the others' fury with logic. None of them were happy about it, but there was little else to do.

Being naked and soaking wet was a winning combo. Even in the incredible Vale heat, the boys were shivering with every step.

"Th-this s-s-sucks. Best sch-school in the world, my a-ass. Cheapskates c-c-can't even afford to buy t-towels for the l-l-l-locker room." Kevin's teeth chattered loudly as he belted out his righteous complaints.

Nobody said anything, but everybody nodded in agreement. With the benefit of hindsight, even if there were towels stored there, they probably would have passed on the old, dusty, probably used wraps, but that didn't mean it wouldn't be nice to at least know they were there.

"Almost there. Just a few more doors and we'll be-"

"Come on Ren! Fortune awaits those brave enough to search for it!"

"Nora!"

All four boys froze in their tracks. Instinctively, their hands shot down for the purpose of personal protection.

"... It's just us… right?" Rex drilled a hole into Peter's head with his eyes, impatiently waiting for the crucial answer.

"... How many days has it been since we got here?"

"..."

"... RUN!"

They took off. Abandoning what was most likely a fruitless effort to hide themselves from sight, the band of streakers booked it straight to the laundry room. Not taking any chances, Peter fired a web at the knob and wrenched the door open. With the way clear, he baseball slid into the room, feeling cold, grey linoleum chill his already frigid skin.
Right as his head cleared the doorframe, Rex leaped into the air directly above him, landing hard on his shoulder and rolling to his feet. By now, the door had bounced off the frame and was closing again. Kevin, the next to approach, forcefully backhanded it open and grabbed the knob.

"Hurry up, Tennyson!"

Ben dived through the door just as Kevin pulled it shut, the loud bang reverberating through the enclosed space. For a few tense seconds, there was only silence as the boys waited for the voices to return.

They never did. With any luck, nobody spotted them.

"... We never use the communal showers again. Agreed?" Peter faced the rest of the group, being uncharacteristically serious for once.

"""Agreed."""

After moving their clothes to the dryers, they waited patiently in different corners of the room, shivering as they waited for the machine to finish. Beacon only used the finest appliances. The high-tech dryers would be finished with their clothes in less than ten minutes, but even that felt too long. The laundry room was freezing, and it didn't help that they were all soaked. By now, the long wait was getting to them.

"Hey, are they almost done?" Rex absently questioned nobody in particular while he stared at the ceiling.

"Relax, dude, just a few more minutes. I'm not enjoying this any more than you are." Ben was equally disinterested, not even checking the machine to see if he was actually right. He was more preoccupied trying not to freeze. No way was the hundred-time universe savior dying of hypothermia in a college laundry room.

"We seriously need to go on a shoppin' trip, this is just stupid." Kevin had been twiddling his fingers the whole time, bored out of his mind waiting for his clothes to finish.

"Hello?" Peter's eyes snapped open. That voice definitely didn't belong to any of them.

"Did you say something?" Ben glanced over at his corner neighbor.

"Nah, wasn't me." Rex denied immediately.

"Hey, do you know the way back to the auditorium? I got turned around in here."

"Seriously, I know I'm not imaginin' that. Is somebody outside?" Ben cautiously leaned closer to the door, trying to catch a glimpse of movement through the gap between the floor and their last shield against the outside world.

Something about the voice was weirdly familiar.

"Ben? Is that you?"

"..."

"..."

"... Jaune?" Ben was almost afraid to answer, knowing that doing so would confirm his presence.

"It is you guys! I was wondering when I'd see you again!" The excited shout was followed by the jiggling of the doorknob. Every one of the vulnerable boys went into panic mode.

"W-wait a second!"

"Jaune, hold on!"

"Don't open the door!"

There was no stopping it. Their fates were sealed the moment the door was pulled open.

Present:

"I knew it was you guys!"

Ben and Peter jerked away from the strange girl who had wedged herself between them. It was unclear how long she had been there or how much she heard.

"That was you in the halls!?" Rex flung an accusing finger at the grinning girl.

"Noooo, silly! It was me and Ren in the halls!"

"Please don't make me a part of this, Nora. But yes, I was there too. If it's any consolation, you all have impressive physiques." It was Jaune and Ruby's turn to jump away from a visitor appearing out of nowhere behind them.

"... Thanks." Peter forced out a half-hearted smile at the honest compliment. "Let's... let's just leave it alone. The sooner I can forget this, the better."

"So that's why you're still dressed like a homeless guy. What a "bum"-mer! Eh? Eh?" Yang was so clearly proud of herself for that genius pun. She mostly received groans and boos from everybody, except Peter, who actually laughed a bit. Her smile grew wider when she received the bit of support, going so far as to bow to her unwilling audience.

"Hold on, I get all of that, but there's still something I don't understand." Jaune raised his hand like a student asking a question. "The shower thing make sense, but what was Rex saying about a sugar mom-"

"NOTHING!" Peter abruptly leaped out of his chair and heatedly shut down the conversation before it could start. His face was bright red. From anger or embarrassment, the distinction was unclear.

"Oh-ho-ho, you're gonna love this!" Rex, on the other hand, was smirking evilly. "So we were relaxing one night when Peter pulled out his scroll, and that's when-"

"Annnnd, this conversation is over! Jaune still needs a tour of Beacon, isn't that right, Jaune? You haven't toured Beacon yet, right Jaune? Do you want to tour Beacon, Jaune? Let's go tour Beacon, Jaune!" Peter snatched Jaune by the arm and dashed away, abandoning his five plates that still had food on them. The heated young man smashed through the doors leading outside the cafeteria and continued to run with his unwilling companion's arm locked in his grip. He did not stop running until they had entered a completely different building and went up two different flights of stairs.

The level of exercise was nothing for him, so it was odd that he was breathing so heavily. Jaune was left baffled by just how quickly they traveled so far. Yang and Ruby might have yelled after them, but he wasn't even sure. He was vaguely aware of being practically dragged up the second flight of stairs, unable to reliably set his feet down on account of how fast Peter was pulling him through the halls.

Their escape had been swift and nonsensical. He wasn't even totally confident his brain was caught up with what had just happened. Had five minutes passed, or five seconds?

"... Uh, do I wanna ask what-"

"Do. Not. Ask!" Peter preemptively shut the conversation down a second time. They would not have that discussion, not on his watch. He promised himself all traces of that… demon… would never haunt him again.

"Dang it Kali, I know you said all that on purpose!" Jaune could just barely hear his friend muttering under his breath about something he couldn't make sense of. He got the feeling it would be best to just move on.

"S-so, what did you guys do while I was gone?" The floor they were on looked like it was devoted entirely to studying purposes. Bookshelves were everywhere, as were open desks, diagrams of historical battles, maps, charts, and anything else a student of Beacon might need.

"Is this whole floor a library?"

Peter seemed more than happy to move on to the new topic. He jumped at the opportunity the moment it presented itself, like he had completely forgotten about the previous subject of conversation.

"I think Ben and Rex just spent the whole time sparring. I got into a few matches with them when I had some free time, but they mostly stuck to fighting each other. They're both pretty tough." The short boy genuinely laughed, like he was recalling something funny. "They couldn't ever settle the score, though. Every time one of them gets the point advantage, the other one closes the gap in the next match. I think they've got thirty-six wins each by now."

The two of them walked while Peter recounted their experience as early entrants. They passed bookshelves filled with textbooks, fictional novels, and even comics as they padded through the library. There were even beanbag chairs here and there, giving the entire room a far more relaxed feeling than it might have had.

"I was surprised when I saw Kevin spending so much time in here. He pulled every book he could find on tech and mechanics off the shelves and studied like his life depended on it. He also said a lot of stuff I didn't understand, like something about technology levels."

Indeed, Kevin had spent almost all his time in the library obsessively poring over textbook after textbook covering Dust engineering, mechashift weapon design, airship propulsion tech, and anything else he could get his hands on. The closet nerd absolutely loved new technology and absolutely hated when there was something in the field he didn't understand. Such a fearsome combination of emotions had the potential to induce study sessions so intense, even Gwen would say they were too Spartan for her liking.

Peter distinctly remembered how confused Kevin had been at first, saying things like "Activating an energy source by usin' your soul as a charger? Sounds like somethin' that would only exist on Anur Phaetos. There better not be Ectonurites in this place."

Strange things like that often slipped out of Kevin's mouth when he studied the unfamiliar technology of this world. According to him, Remnant was "barely a Level 4 planet, maybe a Level 5 if you lowered your standards," whatever that meant.

"Anur… Phaetos? Ectonurites? Is Kevin okay?" The unfamiliar terms felt strange in Jaune's mind. None of it was ringing any bells for him. Those words didn't even exist in his comics.

"A few days ago, we found him passed out at that table right there." Peter pointed to an empty desk nestled between two pillars, a window right in front of it providing a view of Beacon's front gate. "There were like, twenty textbooks all around him and a bunch of notebooks filled with calculus equations and rough diagrams. Not really sure what the deal was there, but I think he's drawing up blueprints for a car he wants to build."

All of this was going way over Jaune's head. By the sound of it, Kevin knew absolutely nothing about Dust or technology in general, only to become an expert on both subjects in just a week. It was honestly a little intimidating.

"... A-and what about you? What'd you do all this time?"

"Me? I pretty much lived in here. I wanted to learn as much as I could about everything, and this was the best place to do that. History, technology, Dust, science, anything I could get my hands on, really. I didn't even have time to clean up my stuff before the whole shower incident, so my table should still have…"

Peter trailed off and came to a complete stop, like his body had shut down. Jaune curiously leaned over to look his stunned friend in the face, then followed his eyes to whatever had caused the sudden change.

The table he had been talking about was right in the corner of the library. Multiple stacks of books were piled onto it high enough to tower over Jaune even when he was standing. There were even more stacks on the floor around the table, and all the bookshelves in the area had huge gaps from all the books that had been pulled from them. Presumably, that wasn't the issue, since Peter seemed to know exactly how the secluded corner would look.

What caught him off guard was the girl sitting at said table, flipping through one of the books left there. She had black hair topped by an identically-colored bow, and golden, cat-like eyes. Her outfit looked relatively simple, consisting of black boots, tights, bracelets, and a dark corset worn over a white cut-off shirt, and white shorts thrown on over her tights. The most unique thing about her was the sword hilt poking above her right shoulder. Or was that a pistol grip? Maybe it was both, there were plenty of weapons like that.

In any case, she was a very attractive girl, something that seemed to be a common theme in this place.

"Is that like a secondary requirement for admission? Every Huntress-in-Training has to be beautiful?"

The girl flipped one more page when the bow atop her head twitched unnaturally. Once the erratic movement calmed down, she glanced up at the boys, who were still staring at her.

"... I'm sorry, is this your spot? There was nobody here, so I thought these books were available." The raven-haired girl closed the book and stood up, ready to leave.

"Ah, no, don't worry about it." Peter was quick to wave off her concerns. "It's a big table I can just sit somewhere else."

As he said, Peter pulled out the chair on the opposite side of the table, allowing the mystery girl to keep her seat. Jaune sat down beside him, feeling like he was just along for a ride at this point. The quiet girl didn't really look like she wanted to hang around anymore, but she still gave a quick thank you and sat back down, reopening the book she had been reading.

Out of pure, in-the-moment curiosity, she briefly glanced up to ask "Aren't you two the ones who fell through the ceiling? The Honors Students?" She got her answer, nodded, and went back to reading like nothing had happened. Evidently, the exciting event barely even garnered a moment of her attention.

Jaune and Peter shared a look. The knight silently pointed at the girl and mouthed "you know her?" Peter just shrugged.

"... Uh, I like your bow." It felt weird just ignoring the girl, so the awkward blonde took it upon himself to try and start a conversation.

"Thank you."

"..."

So much for that.

"Er, I'm Jaune Arc. What's your name?"

"Blake." There was no change, he still received a basic, curt answer.

"Nice to meet you Blake. I'm Peter Parker. Do… you like to read books?" Peter tried this time, going with the safest option for conversation.

"Yes, I enjoy them quite a lot." It was… an improvement, though conversation was clearly not what the girl wanted. The corners of her mouth were starting to curve into a frown.

Peter decided to cut his losses. If she didn't want to talk, he would leave her alone. His conversation with Jaune wasn't finished anyway.

"Well, like I was saying earlier, I basically lived in here the whole week. I studied whatever I could, but I mostly stuck with technology and history. Dust tech sounds really awesome, I'd love to get the chance to work with some of it myself. I bet I could make some epic stuff if I got a few hours alone in a workshop with some… sorry, I kind of start rambling when I talk about that kind of thing." It was Jaune's turn to politely wave off the apologizing boy's concerns.

"Don't worry about it. My sister, Saphron, likes to talk about tech stuff too, so I'm used to it. It's actually kind of nice. You're a lot like her." Peter grinned at Jaune's kind assurance.

"If you say so, just let me know if it gets annoying. Anyway, I studied a lot of history, too. The Great War, the common language, the formation of Menagerie, the Schnee Dust Company… I was mostly just trying to learn as much as I could about the Faunus. I was hoping it wouldn't be as bad as I'd heard, but… it was like a non-stop slideshow of unfair treatment. It wasn't as bad as I'd thought, it was way worse."

Peter's odd fixation on the unique topic was lost on Jaune, but it did manage to grab the attention of somebody else.

"You're interested in the Faunus?" The two boys peered over the table at Blake. She had finally looked up from her book and was peering directly at Peter, curiosity filling her golden eyes. "Most people don't care to learn about Faunus history unless it's for a homework assignment."

"Now she's interested? I don't really get it, but if she wants to talk now…"

"I guess, yeah. It was just something I was curious about, but I got sucked in once I learned a little bit. I started with The Great War, then moved on to the smaller stuff. Hiked up prices, increased shipping costs, underground slave trading… it was hard to get through, but I couldn't stop reading. And… I couldn't help but notice that none of the textbooks I read mentioned how this stuff got resolved." Blake listened intently. When Peter was finished explaining, she opened her mouth to respond, only to be beaten to the punch.

"Even I could've answered that for you." Jaune's mouth was set in a frown. He leaned back in his chair, recalling everything he'd learned about Faunus treatment in school. The people in his village were generally very accepting of everybody, so he could only speak from what he'd been taught, not what he'd seen. "Technically, it's not legal to treat the Faunus any differently, but most people don't care when it happens. On paper, humans and Faunus are equal, but if you take a walk through any of the main kingdoms, you'll still see plenty of unfair treatment. Or so I've heard. I live in a village, so I haven't seen any of that myself."

Blake carefully observed her tablemates, turning over their words in her mind.

"And how do you two feel about it? Faunus treatment, I mean?" The hobo lookalike smiled at her apparent interest.

"You're really interested in this stuff, huh? Well, it makes me angry, I guess?" Peter shrugged. He wasn't really sure what else he was supposed to say. Wasn't it only natural to be disgusted by such blatant mistreatment? "Faunus are still people. We don't lose the right to respect just because we look a little different."

"'We'?" Blake suddenly looked incredibly interested, her bow twitching erratically.

"Oh, right, I guess it's not that obvious." Peter made an odd sign with his right hand, aimed at the ceiling, and fired a long, white strand that stuck to the surface. Both Blake and Jaune looked enamored by the odd sight. "Uh, surprise? I'm a Faunus, I guess. Er, ta-da?" It should have been something one could say with absolute confidence, so it seemed odd that the boy sounded so unsure about it.

"... I see." The quiet girl's reaction was oddly subdued. But, then, she had been subdued the entire time, so it was to be expected. "You're very interesting. Most Faunus who are lucky enough to have easily hidden traits hide them in public."

Peter only shrugged at her statement.

"Not really my style. I don't really see any reason to hide it, so I figure it's better to just be up-front about it."

"That's awesome! I didn't even know there were spider Faunus!" Jaune, on the other hand, was excited. He reached out a finger to prod the sticky cord, still attached to Peter's wrist, but thought better of it. He didn't know it, but the other two felt a small spike of relief from his reaction being one of awe and not one of disgust.

"Anyway, I don't really get this stuff." Peter yanked his arm down, pulling the web strand off the ceiling. Cutting the cord attached to his wrist, he balled up the web and tossed it over his shoulder into a nearby trash can without looking. "I never really understood why people discriminate in the first place. Who cares if we look different, we're all just people, aren't we? Why can't we just get along?"

It was the honest truth, it simply didn't make sense to him. In some of the textbooks he read, it was explained that some historians believed early humans associated the animal-like Faunus with Grimm and pushed them out of their settlements for fear of being attacked by the "half-Grimm" creatures. It all sounded ridiculous to him. Even if that were true, shouldn't everybody have moved past that idea by now?

"I'm pretty much the same. My family always taught me to accept everybody, no matter what they look like. There are a few Faunus back home, and I can't imagine treating them badly. They're some of the nicest people I know." Jaune was also totally honest. It really never occurred to him to treat his neighbors differently for the way they looked.

"Why're you so curious about this, anyway? If you don't mind me asking, what do you think about it?" Blake looked taken aback by Peter's question, like she hadn't expected it at all.

"Me? Well… of course I'm not happy with the way things are." Blake closed her book and stood up. "I apologize for bothering you with my questions, I was just… curious. There aren't many people like you two. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me."

Blake politely bowed and walked away, apparently having gotten the answers she was after.

"Hang on a second." The golden-eyed beauty paused when Peter called her back. She expectantly peered over her shoulder, waiting for whatever question he wanted to ask. "We haven't… met before, have we? I swear, you look so familiar, and I know I've heard the name Blake somewhere before."

The book-loving girl looked confused by the odd question.

"I don't believe we've ever met before. You don't look familiar to me."

"Really? I was so sure, too. You weren't ever in Menagerie, were you? There's some people there who look a lot like you." Blake's eyes snapped all the way open. Something Peter couldn't identify flashed through the golden orbs as her lips pressed themselves into a straight line hard enough to turn them white.

"... No. I've never been to Menagerie in my life. I was born and raised in Vale." She did not wait for any follow up questions. The very instant she was done speaking, the evasive girl turned all the way around and walked straight out of the library.

"... She seems… cool." Jaune didn't know what to make of Blake. The things he knew about her could be counted out on the fingers of one hand. She was a native Vale resident, she disliked Faunus mistreatment, and she liked books. It wasn't exactly a lot to go off of.

"Yeah… cool…" Peter watched the girl until she disappeared behind a bookshelf. Something about her just felt… off. She became noticeably tense after his last question. Was there something odd about it? Did people consider it offensive for some reason if you asked them if they came from Menagerie?

"I could have sworn… she looks so much like them. Hmm… nah, couldn't be, she didn't have any Faunus traits."

Feeling curious, Jaune reached over and grabbed the book Blake had been reading.

History of the White Fang: The Changing of the Guard

The cover featured two flags side-by-side, one blue with a sad-looking wolf on it, the other red with a ferocious-looking wolf emblazoned on the front.

Jaune knew impressively little about the White Fang, so it didn't mean much to him. Peter, on the other hand, stared a little too hard at the cover.

"... Well, whatever. I studied it because I was interested, but it's not really fun to talk about." Peter took the book from Jaune and placed it back on the stack Blake had pulled it from, a complicated expression on his face.

Without saying anything else, Peter gathered up all the books he'd pulled from the shelves and returned them to their proper places. With the term starting up, he couldn't just hoard the titles as he pleased. Once everything was in its place, he settled back down at the now empty table, relaxedly leaning into his chair until it was balanced on its back legs.

"Tomorrow's the day, huh? I seriously lost track of time this past week. Today caught me totally off guard." Peter didn't sound like he really cared about the topic he selected, he just didn't know what else to talk about.

"... Yeah, totally. I'm feeling a little nervous now that I'm here." Jaune wrung his hands together in an effort to find something to focus his attention on.

"A little nervous" was acceptable. Surely, that was all a calm, collected combat school graduate would feel. Only just a little nervous.

The two boys sat quietly. It was pointless to reiterate that tomorrow was a cause for stress, and they had already covered the important events that had gone down in the past week. It seemed equally pointless to have a discussion about Peter being a Faunus. It was interesting for a moment, but not really a big deal. There wasn't much else to say now that Jaune understood what they had done to prepare themselves to live in this new worl-

"... Hey, Jaune?"

"What's up?"

Peter leaned forward, allowing the chair to fall back onto all four legs. He looked all around, making sure nobody else was nearby. The spider sense wasn't alerting him to anything, so it was most likely fine.

"How are you doing? With everything that happened that night, I mean?"

"With the police station? Man, I was definitely freaked out back there. It's still kind of scary to think I could've been arrested, but I'm doing fine now. Honestly, I do feel kind of bad about Junior's club." Jaune responded casually, as if he wasn't talking about a major, life-changing night.

"That's… not what I meant. All that stuff with Paradox and his warning, it's just… I've been there before. This isn't my first time getting thrown into a situation I don't even understand, with nobody to help me figure stuff out. I know it's a lot, so if you ever start feeling overwhelmed, just remember that I'm here. You can talk to me whenever you need help."

"..."

Jaune stared blankly at Peter. Taking the silence and what he assumed to be confusion as a sign to keep going, the interdimensional hero opened his mouth to continue.

"Everything that's going on, prophecies and all that, I wouldn't worry too much. It all sounds scary at first, but it really does help to just not think about it. If you just focus on what's in front of you and keep doing your best, everything will usually work out. I know it sounds crazy, but you just have to, I don't know, forget about saving the world and just let stuff happen. It always helps me to-"

"What are you talking about?"

"... Huh?"

Peter's eyes doubled in size. Jaune's head was tilted to the side like he was a confused dog, utterly oblivious to everything he had just heard.

"Paradox? Saving the world? Peter, are you okay? You didn't hit your head, did you?"

"... Huh!?"

The pseudo-Faunus couldn't keep himself from yelling. He fully expected Jaune to have plenty of questions about everything, maybe argue for a bit about why he was a part of something so huge, but, this?

"Jaune, you-"

"I mean, that sounds cool and all, but you kind of lost me with that lost part." Jaune genuinely laughed and pointed a finger at himself, smiling mockingly. "Me, save the world? Come on, there's no way anybody would believe that. Even I'm not that stupid."

"..."

Peter watched. He observed. He scanned.

Every detail. Ever flicker.

He wanted to see everything. Everything Jaune did, the way he talked, the way he held himself, the very way he existed. After so much time as a superhero, and even more time as a scrawny nerd who spent more time watching people than interacting with them, he had gotten good at sort of understanding people based on their body language. It was amazing what you could infer about a person just by looking at them.

Slightly pale skin, a bit of sweat, twitching fingers…

Flickering smile… trembling arms, eyes darting around, looking at everything except him.

Understanding.

Peter exhaled lightly. His expression softened, his smile dropped, and he shrunk in on himself to appear smaller and less threatening.

"Jaune… I know all of this is a lot, but just remember that I'm here for you. All of us are. You don't have to-"

"Oh crap, it's getting late! We should start heading back before the teachers get mad at us!" While Peter was speaking, Jaune had casually pulled out his scroll and flicked it on, his eyes widening when he caught sight of the time. Springing up from his chair, he locked eyes with Peter, urging him to follow him out of the library.

"... Right. We can always talk more later." The muscular boy slowly rose to his feet and padded after Jaune, who was already half-way across the library.

"Oh Jaune… I'm so sorry we had to drop all of this on you. I really am so sorry."

Auditorium:

By the time the boys arrived at their final destination, it was already dark outside. All the students had been handed bedrolls to lay out. For the night, they would be bunking on the floor. For those who passed initiation the following day, they would be granted proper dorm rooms.

In the meantime, the auditorium served as a decent place to rest. The hole in the ceiling and the destroyed floorboards had been completely repaired, not a single trace of damage remaining. With the floor free of loose debris and rubble, the students were free to lay their bedrolls wherever they pleased. Friends formed up with friends, creating territories within the cramped space.

Everyone had taken turns in the bathrooms to change into their pajamas, except for those who just didn't care and got dressed in front of everybody. People like Kevin, who slept in his underwear, merely peeled off their clothes and settled down. Most of the students had basic sleepwear, such as sweatpants paired with t-shirts. Of course, there were always exceptions to the norm.

After such a long day filled with stress, tension, and uncomfortable memories, Jaune was too tired to even bother changing into his pajamas. All he did was peel off his armor, lay it beside his bedroll, and settle down in his day clothes.

When the two boys had arrived at the auditorium, most of the other students were already asleep, including the ones they recognized. Kevin, even when wearing only his underwear, found it too hot for blankets and was passed out on top of his bedroll, body exposed to the world. Ben and Rex were still awake, heatedly challenging each other in some kind of video game they had downloaded to their scrolls. If their tired eyes were any indication, the deathmatch would not last for much longer.

Jaune wasn't even sure where Ruby and Yang were, Blake was off in the corner reading to herself, and that beautiful girl from before, Weiss, was already curled up in her bedroll. Shockingly, Nora was also asleep, right beside Ren. For such an energetic girl, she appeared to fall asleep very easily.

There was nothing to do, and nobody to talk to. Even the gaming boys only waved at them, too tired and too focused on their match with each other to say anything else. Knowing initiation, whatever form it would take, was tomorrow, most of the assembled students had enough common sense to realize their best option was to sleep as soon as possible.

Jaune and Peter did not share any more words. Once the knight had stripped off his armor, he turned over on his side, making it clear he wasn't interested in anything but sleeping at the moment. Peter respected this wish, leaving him alone and preparing himself for sleep. There was still so much he wanted to say, but now was not the time nor the place for that discussion.

"... Good night, Jaune. I'm sure you'll do great." Politely, he said his good-nights and turned over, ready for sleep to take him as well.

"Yeah, good night."

"..."

"You guys have a good chat? You were gone for a while." Peter glanced over at Ben. He had not taken his eyes off his scroll, unwilling to give a single advantage to Rex.

"... Yeah, everything's fine. Jaune just... he just needs some time to think about all this stuff. Give him some space, okay? Please."

The game was paused. Neither of the jacketed heroes were stupid, they knew concern when they heard it, and Peter's voice was dripping with worry and anxiety. The two of them peered around him to catch a glimpse of Jaune. He was turned on his side, back to them, seemingly passed out already.

"... Sure, man, whatever you say."

"No problemo, Pete. We can talk more after we're done with initiation."

Shrugging, they went back to their game. Whatever problem there was, they could deal with it later.

"Thanks." Ready for the long day to end, Peter fell into his bedroll and shut his eyes, ready to be claimed by sleep.

"..."

Peter had seen it too.

That much was clear. Everything that had happened in the police station, it wasn't just Jaune. The teleporting scientist, the insane prophecy, all of it.

"Th-th-that doesn't mean anything, though! He was probably really stressed out, too. There's probably some kind of sciencey word for that, like, uh, l-like a shared hallucination, or something like that. Y-yeah, that sounds… scientific. Heh heh… yeeeaaah."

"It just doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense. All of that crazy stuff, it couldn't have been..."

Exhaustion had finally caught up to him, forcing him to close his eyes. That was enough thinking for one night, now was the time for rest, not revelation.

"..."

The very idea was ridiculous.

Jaune Arc, the untrained, uneducated, unrefined fool whose entire plan for the future was to bumble his way through the best Huntsman academy in the world and hopefully learn enough on the go to graduate…

He was supposed to save the world? He was supposed to not just be a hero, but a legend? A leader?

Such an idea crossed the realm of "realistic fantasy," completely bypassed the dimension of "hopeless dream," and awkwardly swan dived directly into "pure insanity."

No matter how you looked at it, such a thing couldn't possibly be true. It had to be a delusion, a side effect of an overactive imagination, a hallucination, a mistake, a lie, a mirage, a desperate wish… madness.

In a time like this, in a place like this, reality had to preside over imagination. Being a hero was easy enough, right? Train a bit, go to the right places, save some people, and just like that, one could be a hero. Not a legendary hero, just your regular, everyday Huntsman who rescued people every now and then.

Anything more than that was asking too much.

Anything more than that was relying too much on personal fantasy.

Anything more than that…

Simply didn't make sense.

.

.

.

I know this might annoy some people, but just let me explain before you write your reviews.

Jaune is… difficult. We're talking about a guy who starts out so lacking in confidence, so full of self-doubt, that he completely pretended to be somebody he wasn't at first. And that was a Jaune whose family actually supported him enough to at least let him go to Beacon. If you take that little piece out of the story, what does it do to him?

The little anchor right there is removed, meaning Jaune has spent his whole life going after this dream by himself. That's not exactly great for your self-confidence. And, of course, for as much as most people like to clown on him for being stupid, Jaune has proven multiple times he's actually really smart and perceptive in his own way. Now, take a guy like that, who's done nothing but dream his whole life, and tell him he's supposed to not only help save the entire world, but he's the most important player in the game, for reasons he doesn't even know.

He's important? Why? What is he meant to do? That small little detail was unfortunately left out.

It doesn't matter how much you like to dream or hype yourself up, only an actual insane person would just be able to believe and accept something like that so easily. This kind of thing takes time to work out and deal with, nobody could just hear something that crazy and go along with it wholeheartedly right from the get-go. It's like, would you believe it if a dude showed up to your house one day and said you're the guy who'll end world hunger and stop all wars forever? Sounds crazy, right?

That's how I see it, anyway. If you disagree with me, that's alright, but I personally believe this makes the most sense.

If it isn't clear yet, I want to spend a good amount of time developing Jaune's character, the pre-Cardin Arc Jaune, I mean. It opens a lot of interesting story opportunities if I do more with it than just "Jaune doesn't want help, Jaune gets bullied, Jaune defeats bully, Jaune accepts help." I understand Monty was working with a skeleton crew and a five dollar budget, but his character arc just felt so cheap.

Okay, justification over, now you can write your reviews for this chapter.

[1]: For anybody curious, Krasnyy is the English spelling of the Russian word for red. At least I think so, I don't actually speak Russian, so I'm trusting Google on this one.

[2]: Zelenyy is also Russian, for green. Again, I'm trusting Google on this one.

And by the way, this story won't be entirely from Jaune's perspective, it just so happens these early chapters are best suited to be told from his point of view. Pretty soon, we'll be spending more time from everybody else's perspective, it's just Jaune's turn right now.

If this chapter seems like it ended kind of abruptly, I wasn't joking when I said I cut the original draft in half. I just chose what looked like a good stopping point, snipped the chapter there, pasted the leftovers into a second document, and prepared them to be uploaded as separate chapters..

I'm still not entirely happy with the way this chapter turned out, and I don't know why. Something just feels off. No matter how many rewrites I do, something keeps bothering me, so I had to just say screw it and post the best draft I had before the wait for new chapters stretched out even more.

Apologies for the super long Author's note. I'd say it won't happen again, knowing me, that's probably not true. I have a problem with this kind of thing.

Thank you for reading and please do leave a review.

Aren signing off.