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"Ridiculous! There's no way I put my locker in number 636. I would've remembered to count that high." Jaune mumbled as he walked around the locker room, trying to find the locker with all his stuff. He soon spotted it behind the short, white haired girl, Weiss was her name, he remembered. The other girl was a beautiful, red haired goddess in bronze armor with stunning emerald eyes.
As he got closer, he heard the white one talk to herself, "This will be perfect! The smartest girl in class partnered with the strongest girl in class. Together we will be unstoppable. We'll be celebrities, we'll be famous, nothing can come between us now!"
Jaune stepped in between them and placed a hand on his locker door. "You know what else is great? Me, Jaune Arc. You know another thing that's great? You moving so I can get my stuff from my locker."
"Not you again." She said while crossing her arms and stepping back.
"You seem to say that a lot, Frosty." Weiss sputtered and grew increasingly more annoyed. "How dare you talk to me like that!"
"Well, from the bottom of my heart, my bad. But, I'm afraid I don't know your name."
"I'm Weiss Schnee." She said haughtily. Jaune blinked. "Your name means white snow?" She seemed surprised that he knew that. "Yes."
He reached over the top of the locker and swept his hand along it. "What are you doing?"
"Pretending you're not here, Weiss Schnee. Can we trade names?" He answered with saturating mockery. That got her riled up even more as he finally found the paper with his locker code written on it.
"What's wrong, Weiss? You look frazzled. To embarrassed to ask to be on my team?" Jaune knew that wasn't the case, but he loved annoying this bitchy, god-complex of a girl. The redhead stepped in. "Actually, I think the teams are comprised of four students each."
Jaune half listened as he opened his locker and put on his quiver, holsters and sheathed sword. After loading his guns and loading his ammo belt with different kinds of munitions, he filled his quiver with fire, ice and lightning Dust arrows, along with ten serrated broad head arrows. As he readied himself for initiation, he turned to the spartan. "Well, red, play your cards right and who knows? We might be...Wait, what were we talking about? Never mind, not important. See you two at the cliffs." Jaune shut his locker and strode off once he was dressed in his armor.
Both Weiss and and the red-haired girl were left befuddled at the blonde guy's antics.
Jaune stood on the cliff, a pair of aviator shades over his eyes, his arms crossed in front of him and earbuds in his ears to block out the useless chatter of the other students. When he saw the headmaster and Professor Goodwitch start speaking, he took them out and stowed them in his pocket.
"For years, you have trained to become warriors, and today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest." Ozpin said.
Professor Goodwitch said, "Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of teams. Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates. Today."
Jaune could hear Ruby let out a disheartened whine before Ozpin explained further. "These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon Academy. So it is in your best interest to be paired with someone who you can work well with. That being said, the first person you make eye contact with once you landed will be your partner for the next four years."
He could've sworn he heard Ruby's world shatter like glass.
"After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way,"
"Oh joy." Jaune muttered.
"Do not hesitate to destroy everything in our path, or you will die. You will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and make it back to the top of the cliff. You will guard your item, as well as your standing, and grade them accordingly. Are there any questions? Good. Now, take your positions."
No one had any, so Jaune stuck his earbuds in and tried to figure out the best way to launch while listening to Buddy by Willy Nelson. He'd woken up at around 5:30 and had snooped around the platforms the initiates were presently standing on. As he mulled over his options, he failed to notice the ghost of an amused grin on the headmaster's face. He just decided to wing it and stuck his hands in his pockets while bending his knees slightly. As he felt the gears shift under him and was shot into the air, he straightened his body so that he 'stood' straight up.
While the trees grew closer and closer to him, he took a deep breath and shouted, "Feim Zii Gron!" A blue mist enveloped Jaune before his whole body turned into a mass of the stuff. His Ethereal form collided with a bunch of trees before his eyes widened in horror. There was a bird in his path. 'Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit Out of the way Out of the way Out of the way!' but it was too late and his form collided with the bird in a burst of feathers. Since he'd harmed another soul, that meant his shout lost its effect and he turned back to normal...right as he collided face first with a tree. "Eat a dick, forest." He said before sliding down the trunk and flopping painfully onto his back. His fists clenched.
"Cover it in crow feathers, grim blood and the tears of your victims," He yelled as he got up and removed his now busted sunglasses, "AND EAT A BIG, SOFT DICK!" The only ones who heard were more birds that flew off. As Jaune watched, he sighted out a raven amidst the other, less graceful birds. He faced it and shouted at it, "Raan!" As a wave of violet energy collided with the raven, it faltered before turning around and flew towards Jaune. The boy allowed it to land on his shoulder before he told it, "Alright bud, sorry I scared you, but I need some help. Just fly over me and point me in the direction of the forest temple. Got it?"
The black bird let out a squawk of confirmation. "I like you. I think I'll name you Edgar." Edgar seemed satisfied with his title and took flight. Jaune started walking after it, knowing he could take his time.
After walking a few kilometers north, Jaune was getting board. What kind of deadly forest was this that he hadn't found any grimm to slaughter? It was truly shameful. As he walked to the edge of a clearing, he no longer saw Edgar, and assumed that meant he'd reached the temple. Unfortunately, he'd actually stumbled into a pack of at least 20 beowolves. The bipedal wolf-grimm turned to see the boy and Jaune knew there was no chance of escaping a pack this size. As the creatures growled and stalked closer to him, he clasped his gauntleted hands and rubbed them together before pulling out Crocea Mors and twirling it theatrically. "Alright, guess it's time to make some chimi-fucking-changas."
The first beowolf leaped at Jaune, but he stepped to the side and brought his sword down on its neck, decapitating it. After watching their companion get killed so easily, the other grimm approached more cautiously. Jaune decided to skip the foreplay and get this over with quickly, with two guns and maximum effort. He switched to his pistols and started firing as more beowolves charged.
"Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, fourte-Woah!" Jaune ducked as one jumped at him from the right side. He turned Grieving Widow into its dagger form and threw it into the beowolf's skull. Jaune alternated between slashing through their numbers and dodging around them, herding them into a single group while firing Dust arrows or rounds from his pistol. Before long, the grimms' numbers were dwindling as Jaune reloaded his guns. Once he'd taken out most of the stragglers, it was down to him and the alpha.
The creature was several feet taller than the rest, with added bone plating on its limbs and face. As the alpha charged on all fours, Jaune fired a round from Dragon Song, but the bullet just skimmed off its tougher armor. He fired two more bullets, but they did no good either... and now his gun was empty. He should've known not to waste bullets. "Bad Jaune." He scolded himself. The beowolf alpha was getting closer, he saw this as an opportunity to unleash a bit of pent up fury. "YOL TOOR!" A swirling inferno rushed from Jaune's face. It hit the grimm like a truck, blasting its flaming body away. It lay limp as the flames died down, and Jaune walked over after collecting and reloading his weapons.
When Jaune got within a few feet of the beast, it growled lightly and tried in vain to get up. Most of its fur was singed off, and now it was just a burnt, smoking husk that had once been the pack leader. Jaune stepped forward and plunged his sword into the beowolf's throat. Its body twitched before it finally went limp and dissolved. Jaune flicked the blood off his sword and sheathed it.
He spun around and knocked an arrow in his bow when he heard the sound of burned grass being crushed by a foot. He turned to see Blake. He quickly put the arrow back and slung his bow across his back. "Hey."
"...Hey, Jaune. Did you do all this?" She asked hesitantly, gesturing to the smoldering, blood stained fields. He noticed there were still multiple grimm carcasses laying around, half dissolved.
"Uh, yeah. I guess I went a bit overboard." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
He tried to change the subject, "So, I guess we're partners then?"
She nodded, "It appears so."
They both heard a cawing and looked up to see a raven. "Edgar! Where have you been? You could've given me a warning that I was walking feet first into a fucking pack of beowolves." Jaune yelled as the bird landed on his arm. Blake looked very confused. "Why are you talking to a crow?"
Edgar squawked angrily. "He's a raven. I had him fly above the forest to find the temple." Jaune said before turning back to the bird, "But someone left me to the wolves." The bird squawked again. "Whatever, just go. Zu'u gaar hi nol hin ahmik(I release you from your service)." The raven chirped before flying off to god knows where. Blake seemed surprised. "What did you just do?"
"It's an ancient language that correlates with my semblance. It's pretty hard to explain."
"Well, we've got time." The girl started walking north, since that was where Ozpin said the temple would be.
Jaune thought up a way to explain his semblance without giving away anything about the dragons, the old world or anything that might make him sound completely insane. Turns out, it wasn't as hard as he thought.
"Well, my semblance has been passed down through generations. Ever since the language was common knowledge. Only one person could have it at a time, and the power could only be passed on when they were close to death." That part was true, but it wasn't just Arcs who could receive it.
"Over the years, the next receiver of the semblance was able to find new ways to alter their semblance's energy. After centuries, the one in possession could perform elemental attacks, manipulate the weather, even control lesser beings, like I did with Edgar." Blake nodded as he explained, seeming to understand.
"Alright, but how does the ancient language you talked about fit in?"
Jaune let a half insane, half mischievous grin spread across his lips. "I'll show you. Stand back." She did, and Jaune turned to a lone, dead tree off the path. He inhaled deeply before shouting, "Liz Slen Nus!" The giant sphere of ice and steam shot forwards, engulfing the tree and freezing the whole trunk. Blake's amber eyes were wide at what she just witnessed. Jaune had completely frozen a tree by literally shouting at it. She noticed the boy start walking again and swiftly caught up to him.
"Each shout is made up of three words of power from the old language. When said the right way in the right order, they can do stuff like that. Liz means ice, Slen means flesh, and Nus means statue. And if you think that's impressive, you should've seen the one I used on that alpha back there."
"So, did your grandfather teach you how to use your semblance?" Blake asked. Jaune stared at the ground as they walked. "No, he died when I was seven, after he passed it on to me. My mentor taught me everything I know. He practically raised me since I was ten."
He stopped at the edge of another clearing, but continued when he saw a circular, stone temple. Walking into the center, Jaune saw a bunch of pedestals with chess pieces on them.
"Chess pieces?" Blake asked. He nodded.
"Yep. It looks like we weren't the first ones here either." He looked through the remaining pieces, deciding on a white knight. "How about a horse? Blake, did you hear me?" He turned to Blake, but she was looking and pointing straight up. Jaune copied her first action and saw Ruby falling from the sky and a giant nevermore circling the clearing. Only for Ruby to get hit with a flying, yellow girl and both of them went hurling into the trees.
"Do my eyes deceive me or did Ruby fall from the sky and get intercepted by her sister?"
"I-"
Before Blake could respond, an Ursa toppled into the edge of the clearing while a redheaded girl in pink fired grenades at it. As the grimm lay dead, she pouted, "Aww, it's broken." As she started poking the beast with a stick, a green clad boy with a black ponytail caught up to her, panting slightly. "Nora, please...don't ever do that again...Nora?"
A pink blur shot by Jaune and Blake and stopped at the temple, examining a white rook piece. "Ooohh." Nora then started singing, "I'm queen of the castle, I'm queen of the castle!"
"Nora!"
"Hehe, coming Ren!"
Blake asked, "Did that girl just ride in on an Ursa?"
"Yep. A true genius in the making." Jaune observed. They heard more trees crashing and saw Pyrrha Nikos being chased by a 40 ft. tall deathstalker. "Yang!"
"Did she just run all the way over hear with a deathstalker on her tail?"
"Pyrrha!" Yang finally made it to the temple, along with her sister, just in time to see Pyrrha get knocked away by the deathstalker's claws and land at their feet.
Jaune was getting a bit angry. Just a little bit. "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! CAN EVERYONE JUST CHILL OUT FOR FIVE SECONDS BEFORE SOME OTHER CRAZY BULLSHIT HAPPENS AGAIN!?" Apparently, that was too much to ask as only two seconds went by before everyone looked up to see a white speck dangling from the nevermore's talon and yell, "How could you leave me?!"
"I said jump."
"She's gonna fall."
"She'll be fine."
"She's falling."
"Oh look, it's snowing. No one told me winter came around for a warm up lap." Jaune muttered as he just walked right under where he predicted Weiss would fall and held out his arms. "Three...two...one...landing!" He caught Weiss, not even faltering as the new weight collided with his outstretched arms. He set her on her feet and heard Yang say, "Great. The gang's all here. Now we can die together."
Jaune uncaringly retorted, "Meh, I've already lived longer than I expected." That was actually true. When he first started training under Paarthurnax, he didn't think he'd stand a chance against his first dragon, or even a creature of grimm for that matter.
"Not if I can help it." Ruby ran toward the giant fucking scorpion with only herself and charged head on and OH GOD WHAT IS SHE THINKING!?
"Ruby wait!" Yang called out. But Ruby either didn't hear her or ignored her sister and swung her scythe across the deathstalker's armored face. The scorpion knocked her aside with minimal effort and charged at the girl. Yang ran after her, but the Nevermore had finally circled around and unleashed a volley of giant, razor sharp feathers. No one was killed, but one feather pinned Ruby's cape into the earth and blocked Yang's path to get to her sister.
Jaune was about to use his whirlwind shout, but Weiss shot forward using her glyphs and stabbed her rapier into the ground, creating a half-dome of ice that trapped the deathstalker's stinger.
"You are so childish..."
"Weiss?"
Oh for the love of all that is holy, is she doing this now?
"...And dimwitted, and hyperactive, and don't even get me started on your fighting style. And I suppose I can be a bit...difficult. But if we're going to do this, we're going to have to do this together. So, if you quit trying to show off, I'll be...nicer."
"I'm not trying to show off. I just want you to know I can do this."
"Your fine." Weiss walked back to the temple, with Ruby following and saying something about normal knees. Yang raced toward her sister and proceeded to crush her torso in a hug. "I'm so happy you're okay!" Since Jaune didn't want to hear any human bones cracking today, he came between the two.
"Ladies, as touching as this moment is, we've got a bird on one end of a stick and a scorpion on the other. I suggest we get our relics and take the smaller stick that's attached to the main stick that we'll lead us to safety. Okay? Okay. Okay? Okay."
He took out Dragon Song and pulled the slide back, letting the round that was in the chamber fall into his waiting hand. He put that in his pocket and headed in the direction of the cliffs once Ruby and Pyrrha had grabbed their pieces, the others following.
As they literally ran out of the woods, they weren't metaphorically out of the woods yet as the two giant grimm seemed determined to rip out their entrails and eat them with a side of skin and bone.
The group ran through a large pathway lined with old stone columns that were taller than the deathstalker and spotted the cliffs a kilometer away. They took cover behind the pillars as the nevermore perched itself on a giant, stone tower. Why the hell were there so many abandoned stone buildings in the middle of the forest?
Jaune saw Nora run out and distract the bird as it hurled more feathers at them. At the same time, the deathstalker decided to make an entrance. "Keep running!" He yelled. They made it to a ravine that separated them from the tower and cliffs and started crossing a narrow bridge. Jaune, Blake, Ren and Pyrrha stopped to fire at the scorpion, and Jaune managed to make it across before the nevermore took out the bridge, leaving the other three to fight it off.
Yang and Nora used their weapons to propel them across the gap, Nora bringing down her war hammer on the deathstalker's head before launching backward and colliding with Blake...sending her into the ravine.
Jaune watched as she threw her chain scythe/sword/gun thingy and used it as a swing to send her back into the air and onto the nevermore's back. She ran down to its tail, slashing at it before jumping off and landing safely on one of the ramparts. That left her, Jaune, Ruby and Weiss on that side, standing on a broken chunk of wall to deal with the bird.
"It's tougher than it looks." Blake told them. Jaune unslung his bow and notched a fire arrow. "Then let's throw whatever we've got at it. I don't know about you guys, but I sure as hell ain't getting killed by an overgrown magpie." The nevermore screeched even louder than usual. "You heard me!"
The four started unloading projectiles as the bird flew closer. It swept under them and knocked out the stone columns keeping their level of the tower up. As it collapsed, they jumped from falling chunk of rock to the next until they found stable ground.
"None of this is working!" Weiss exclaimed. Jaune watched as the grimm flew about, then his eyes found two pillars that were about twenty feet apart. "Ruby!" He yelled. Said girl was soon by his side, and he explained his awesome plan to her. He then ran up the pillars and leapt onto the nevermore's head. He started punching his gauntleted fists into the bone plated head, cracking the plating before he jumped off and the woozy beast crashed into the cliffside.
It regained its senses, however, but Weiss rushed passed Jaune and froze its tail feathers to the ground as Jaune climbed the left pillar he'd seen earlier and grabbed the end of Blakes sword so the ribbon stretched between the two like a slingshot. Ruby jumped into the center of the ribbon and Weiss used a black glyph to keep her in place before Ruby was shot through the air and hooked her scythe around the birds neck, hitting the cliff and staying there with the help of more glyphs. Ruby ran up the rock face and leaped over the league, taking the nevermore's head clean off.
The others stood in awe that Jaune and Ruby's plan had actually worked. "Well...that was something." Blake said. "That statement could sum up my whole life." Jaune muttered under his breath.
Chapter three is here!
The plot will mostly follow the canon story line, but I'll add a few story arcs of my own.
Keep aware for updates and be sure to leave reviews and check out my other stories.
Fireballmonkey out.