Jaune stood over a dead body. "You're a bastard!" He shouted in an empty forest. "What kind of person comes back from the dead just to kill a stranger?" He stood still and waited for a reply. "I take back my prayer." He huffed after not receiving an answer.
"Oh please, I hardly had any strength left, if you weren't so weak I never would've scratched you."
"You stabbed straight through my armor!"
"Yeah, well it's your fault for leaving your Aura down in hostile territory! A Nevermore could have ripped out your throat before you could see it." Adam huffed.
'Aura?' Jaune thought, and although he couldn't feel Adam freeze, he sensed it.
"You don't know what Aura is?" Adam asked.
Jaune could feel the disbelief, he let out a laugh and tried to think up an excuse.
"I can feel your panic." Adam interrupted.
'So what if I don't know? It probably isn't that important. I'm going to be a Huntsmen, I have other things to pay attention to.' Jaune gave his excuse.
"Are you serious?" Adam didn't wait for a reply. "Don't answer, I can tell. One more question, are you a moron?"
"I'm serious! I'm on my way to Beacon right now! I'm going to be a Huntsmen!"
"Sure kid, as if any academy will accept you."
'That doesn't matter.' Jaune thought automatically.
"What? That wasn't a denial, tell me, why doesn't it matter?"
Jaune panicked again, he didn't want to be judged, even if it was by the ghost of a killer, but the more he forced himself not to think about it, the more he did. Eventually the entire memory of buying fake transcripts surfaced clearly.
"Seriously, are you a moron?"
Jaune felt blood rush to his cheeks. "S-shut up, you bastard."
"You don't know about Aura and you're headed to the Beacon Academy, do you know how screwed you are?"
'Shut up.' He whined.
"You'll be lucky if you don't die the second you step foot there."
'Stop it.'
"Do you even know how to fight?"
'No, I don't, but it doesn't matter, Beacon's a school, I'll learn.'
"I have a better idea. What would you say to a little mutual assistance?"
'What?'
"I'm saying I'll help you, if you'll help me."
'What do you want?'
"I'm not sure if you notice, but I have a little problem of being dead, and there was so much more I needed to do. If you help me take care of unfinished business, who knows? Maybe I'll pass on and leave your body, and before then you'll get your own personal tutor. So what do you say, deal?"
Jaune could feel that Adam wasn't telling him everything about his side of the deal, but what he could gain far outweighed the risks. "Deal."
"Excellent."
A few hours went by with Adam explaining everything he knew about Aura, Dust and Grimm, during his lecture he found out how to share his memories with Jaune, who had accepted them with headaches. Apparently the reason Jaune took back his body was thanks to his Aura, that Adam had unlocked for him when he woke up his own in Jaune's body.
Before they noticed it, they had arrived at Vale. Jaune double checked to make sure that Adam's mask was hidden in the small satchel he was carrying with him before going through a security check, after passing with no problems he relaxed and headed towards an airport. He didn't know why Adam asked him to hide it, Adam's weapon was tied to his belt with no problem.
Not before long, Jaune was standing aboard an airship trying to hold in his airport lunch.
"This is seriously pathetic." Adam grumbled, not too happy to share in his experience.
'Hey! I'll have you know motion sickness is a much more common problem than people let on!' Jaune defended, he looked around for something to focus on in order to forget the fact he needed to vomit.
His eyes landed on a screen, on that screen a female newscaster with purple hair was next to an image of Faunus protesters with poster signs, the image was replaced with wolf's head scratched out by three claw marks. "Thank you, Cyril. In other news, this Saturday's Faunus Civil Rights protest turned dark when members of the White Fang disrupted the ceremony. The once peaceful organization has…"
He could feel Adam surge with emotion, but he kept quiet, and when Jaune turned his attention back to the screen, he instead saw a hologram of a blonde woman. "Hello, and welcome to Beacon! My name is Glynda Goodwitch." She said, but before she could go on, he felt the need to vomit once again, so he slowly made his way to a trash can, leaving whatever that Glynda women said next go unheard to him, and forgetting Adam's intense emotions.
After landing, Jaune spent about a minute emptying his stomach before moving on. As he took in the view of Beacon, an explosion interrupted his revelry, he recalled Adam's earlier words and realized how true they were. If Huntsmen can cause an explosion within minutes of arriving, he didn't like his chances of surviving without his Aura. His curiosity wanted to know what type of monsters his classmates were, so he headed towards where the sound had come from.
And he saw three girls in different colors before his body froze, a red shimmer burst over the surface of his body as Adam was sent into a rage.
"Blake!?" Adam shouted suddenly. "Schnee!?" Then he growled harshly.
Jaune could feel Adam's Aura struggle to overtake his own, but he fought it down. "C-calm down!" He screamed with a contained voice as he fell to his knees.
Now that he couldn't see them anymore, Adam quickly calmed down. Jaune tried taking deep breaths, hoping he would feel it and relax.
'What was that about?' He asked.
"It's not important right now. I'll tell you later."
'Are you sure?' He didn't get a response, so he dropped the topic.
After standing back up to his feet, he noticed that two of the girls had left, and only one remained, who for some reason was laying down on the stone pavement. Jaune took a step forward, and when Adam didn't react, he took another.
Ruby Rose had just experienced what it was like to make the worst first impression on someone, now defeated before she could throw a punch she decided to take a breather while lying on the ground, her moping was interrupted by the voice of someone standing above her.
"Need a hand?" The blond boy asked with a smile as he held out his hand for her.
Ruby groaned as she took his hand. "Haha, very funny." She deadpanned after pulling herself up, then she introduced herself. "Hi, I'm Ruby Rose."
"Nice to meet you Ruby. I'm Jaune Arc!" As he introduced himself he jabbed his thumb towards his chest. "And uh, well. I had something I was planning on saying but after I said it the first time, I don't feel completely sure about it anymore." He appeared dejected.
"What was it?" She asked.
"It was nothing, just something I read in a story. I thought it sounded neat, but it's actually way too embarrassing to explain." After answering her, Jaune looked towards the ground with a focused expression.
She nodded solemnly. "I understand. I've tried some things from a book and it didn't turn out great."
'Curse you 'Five Easy ways to Make Friends!' curse you!' Ruby cursed in her head.
Jaune smiled at her, then examined her and the area surrounding her. "So… What exploded?" He asked.
Ruby suddenly felt nervous, she didn't know quite how to explain what happened in a way that would make sense to a stranger, so she changed the topic. "Look at this!" She shouted as she pulled out her weapon, Crescent Rose, the compact box unfurled into a large red and black scythe, she did a quick twirl with it before stabbing it into the ground
Jaune took a quick step back and his hands twitched. "Whoa! That's one heck of a scythe."
Ruby beamed with pride. "It's also a high-impact sniper rifle!"
He seemed to freeze for a second before speaking. "It's also a… gun?" His words were stilted. "That's… pretty cool."
"So what're you packing?" She asked as she put away her weapon and eyed the two sheathed swords on his left hip.
"Oh, uh…" Jaune reached down to his left side and grabbed a blue handle that met a gold hilt, he pulled out a long silver blade. "I got this sword!"
"Ooooohh!"
"And this too." He unclipped his sheath with his other hand and pressed a switch on it, which caused it to expand into a shield.
"So, what do they do?"
"That's, uh, all?" Jaune answered with confusion as he put his weapon away.
"Oh, I guess you want to keep it simple." Ruby nodded. "Sorry if I put you off, I'm just kind of a dork when it comes to weapons, and probably did go a little overboard when I was designing mine." She quickly explained.
"Huh, it's not a problem and- wait, wait, you made that?"
"Yeah! Every student at Signal forged their own weapons!" She paused. "Did you not make yours?"
"No, it's a- It's a hand-me-down. My great-great-grandfather fought in the war with it."
"Well, I think it's neat. Not many people appreciate the classics nowadays."
"Sure, the classics..." Jaune mumbled.
"What about the other one?" She asked, eyeing the sleek red and black design.
"That's um…" he paused for a moment, "I'm holding on to it for a friend."
"Oh, can I see it?" Ruby asked with hope. "It looks cool."
Jaune sighed and turned away from her. "Sorry, he said to not let anyone see it, and told me not to even touch it." He shrugged.
"Really?" She whined.
"Really." He said, then he smiled. "If it was up to me I'd definitely let you see it, but between you and me, he's a bit of a bastard, so I should probably listen to him or he'll stab me."
Ruby pouted. "Darn."
Jaune laughed slightly.
"Then next time you see him let me know so I can ask him." She said.
"Sure, sure." He laughed as his face twitched.
Now that weapon talk was out of the way, Ruby needed to change the topic again. "So what made you want to talk to me?"
"Well, I heard an explosion."
Ruby flinched as heat flooded her cheeks.
"So I wanted to know what kind of monster was going to this school, but then I found someone who needed a hand." He said and waved a hand in the air.
"That's all?" Ruby tried fishing for ulterior motives.
"Hmm, yeah that's all. Oh! And my mom told me that 'Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet.'" Although he smiled, his expression twitched into annoyance. "So we're friends now, got it?" He asked and held out a hand. "Don't stab me the second I turn my back to you, and we'll get along fine."
"Uh, sure!" She met his hand and they shook on it.
"That's nice! That's nice!" A man with wild green hair said as suddenly as he appeared.
Ruby and Jaune both stumbled away in surprise.
"However, the time for friendships to bloom is not now! The headmaster's speech is about to start!" The man advanced towards the new friends and herded them away. "Hurry along now! Hurry!"
Jaune had nearly fallen over many times at the speed he was forced to run by the green haired man who spoke too fast, he was almost out of breath as he entered a giant crowded auditorium. Taking a moment to catch his breath, he noticed that his new friend didn't even have a hair out of place.
"Ruby!" A voice escaped the chatter of the crowd and found Ruby, who perked up. "Over here!" Both Jaune and Ruby found who was shouting, a girl with long bushy blonde hair was waving her hand in the air. "I saved you a spot!"
Ruby turned back to him. "Hey, uh, that's my sister. I'll talk to you later, bye!" And she zipped off with a hundred times more energy than he currently had.
"Sure. Later." As soon as she was gone and he was left alone, he didn't have to keep up appearances anymore so he started panting. He stumbled towards the back wall and trailed along it before he found a water fountain. As he was drinking desperate gulps, he was reminded that he wasn't truly alone anymore.
"That's just sad, you're exhausted from such a light jog."
'Hey, back off, my body's too sore for this.'
"Did you forget your lessons already?"
'Oh.' Jaune felt what lay dormant in his body and forced it to move, his Aura sank into his muscles and he felt them cool, and the pain faded away. 'That's better.' He sighed in relief.
"You should have been using it the moment you started to move."
'Why didn't you remind me?'
"It's better this way."
"Whatever." Jaune mumbled as he walked back to the center of the crowd.
The people in the crowd kept pushing against him as soon a he stepped foot into it, eventually he was spat out in an area with a lot of room to move, and a few feet away he saw his friend, Ruby, next to her was the blonde girl she called her sister, and in front of her was one of the girls from earlier.
'Blake?' He questioned Adam, because he somehow knew who those two girls from before were.
"SCHNEE!" He corrected harshly.
Jaune instinctively covered his ears from Adam's volume, not that it did anything to help, he felt like his ears were ringing, between the ringing and the crowd's chatter, he couldn't hear what conversation Ruby and Schnee were having.
"-out cute boys, like tall, blond and-" The words that Schnee had said managed to pierce the veil of sound for but a moment before her angelic voice was drowned out.
But he could see that was pointing at him when she said that. He felt his heart skip a beat. 'She thinks I'm cute?'
A deep and low growl managed to escape from his throat, Adam's Aura flared and he nearly took over. Jaune had to fight to keep him down, confused at his sudden swell of rage. As he struggled against Adam, the lights dimmed down everywhere except for one spot. A man with white hair dressed in a dark green suit and holding a cane appeared on stage.
'Is he the headmaster?' He wondered but not for long as Adam managed to make him take a step towards Schnee.
For the entirety of the speech, he wasn't able to appropriately pay attention, only catching bits and pieces of it, and every time his attention slipped away from his body, Adam took another step. Any attempt to communicate was met with growls and snarls.
"-ballroom tonight; tomorrow, your initiation b-" Now Glynda was speaking, and Jaune was a few steps away from Schnee.
'Stop, you're going to embarrass me.' He whined.
Ruby had just finished saying something as he got close enough to draw the three girls' attention, as they turned to look at him, he pushed back Adam with all his might. "Hi, I'm Jaune." And he introduced him to Schnee with a smile.
She huffed and twirled around before walking away.
Jaune would've followed her, but his legs were locked down to prevent Adam from trying anything. So instead he let out a sigh and took in the sight of her departure.
"Ooh, nice try." The blonde girl, Ruby's sister, said with cheer.
'Calm down, act normal, you totally know how to have a conversation.' Jaune hyped himself up. "I'll, uh, get her next time." He said and mimicked her cheer.
"Uh-huh, sure you will. The name is Yang Xiao Long by the way." Yang smiled brightly and she somehow reminded him of his sisters.
"My name's Jaune Arc! Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue - ladies love it!" He finished with a wink, maybe it was because he formed an artificial connection between them, but Jaune felt comfortable talking to her.
Yang raised an eyebrow and she looked over Jaune. "Is that so?"
"Probably." He shrugged his shoulders, and he also noticed that Adam had calmed down. "Well, it was nice meeting you, Yang, but I have other matters to attend to, so bye." And he turned away and left. With the other person in his body no longer throwing a fit, Jaune felt his stomach whine, he had basically skipped lunch by regurgitating it, so he was still hungry. He began scouring the school grounds for a place to eat.