Another dreamless night had passed, fortunately no memories made him want to dry heave for about an hour. Jaune was awake for ten minutes before moving. His torso felt like spiders were having a party, then someone had poured scalding fondue chocolate over them, but that didn't stop them from dancing. He suddenly remembered when his family had eaten chocolate covered crickets during a camping trip, they were surprisingly tasty.
Back in the present, he sat up to examine his body. His feet and hands were covered in charred flesh that crawled up his arms and legs, his torso was covered in a red star with streaks of blacked flesh starting at the center and reaching out to the points of the star. He could barely remember the fight, but he knew it had ended when he tried to turn intangible to avoid the burning girl, and yet she still hit him.
Then... Pain.
Jaune opened his scroll to look at the time. It read 11:37. Then he opened his notepad app, he checked the time the airship departed for Beacon. It left at five, he was planning on being there at four, so he had a few hours. He looked around, the sun shined in the sky, lighting up all of Vale. Standing up, he walked to the edge of the roof he was staying on and took in the sight of the city. Vale was big, the buildings were tall, everything seemed so large. He was on top of a three story building, and it still seemed huge.
He shook his head before deciding how to spend his time. He got dressed in his regular clothes, his spare clothes had been burned up beyond repair last night, then he visited the store where he bought his last pair of headphones and got some new ones. He decided to continue listening to Ninjas of Love. He had lost his burner Scroll last night, so he had to use his actual Scroll. After returning to his base and while he was listening to the audio book, he busied his hands with repairing his onesie.
In the audiobook, the two leads were trying to poison the other while feeding them food, but they had the same idea and poisoned the same fruit. Eventually a neutral party got the fruit, and they had to get it back before it was eaten, but they couldn't say why it was important. That was where he stopped it because he finished repairing his onesie, and he still had four hours before he had to leave.
Jaune looked at his body, it wasn't even halfway healed. He needed to buy gloves with fingers if he was planning on walking around. So he visited the same thrift store he went to on his first night in Vale, he bought another set of spare black clothes, some gloves, and a scarf. He then decided to go all in, he bought big sunglasses and a large hat. He looked into the full body mirror in the dressing room and laughed at himself.
That's right, I'm in no way a celebrity hiding from the paparazzi. I just have a weird sense of fashion, I swear.
He stepped out of the dressing room hoping to find a high collared trench coat that completed his look. Searching aisle by aisle took a long time, but he had that time to spend. He did find a coat, but when he reached for it, his hand met another hand.
"Sorry!" The owner of the second hand blurted out, the hand belonged to a red headed girl, but she was also wearing a large hat, a scarf and big sunglasses.
"No problem." Jaune smiled, he pulled out the trench coat and examined the size. "It's too small for me anyways." He said and held it towards the girl who was also playing dress up.
The girl smiled, and let out a sigh of relief, clearly nervous about being caught dressing up. She tried on the coat, it fit her perfectly, she flipped the collar up to obstruct her face from the sides. "Thank you, there was a bigger one in that aisle." She gestured to the aisle behind her.
"Thanks..." He paused, he couldn't call her dress up girl, to her face, but he didn't know her name.
"Py-p-pyro." She stuttered in anxiety.
Jaune could relate, his mom had taught him an introduction he could use so he wasn't caught off guard, he hasn't needed to use it since he died.
"Yes." She muttered, congratulating herself. "Hello, my name is Pyro N-nyro." Pyro stuttered when pronouncing her last name.
"Hi, I'm Jaune Arc." He said, holding out a gloved hand.
Pyro hesitated before taking it.
"It was nice to meet you, Pyro." Jaune said as they shook hands.
"Likewise." Pyro had a wide smile as she responded.
He returned the smile before walking past her, feeling good about helping someone, if he had still been alive, he probably would've caused Pyro some problems by adding his own anxieties to the situation. He eventually found the trench coat she mentioned, it was slightly bigger than his size, but he could still wear it. After buying it and waving goodbye to her, he left the store.
He still had three hours until his flight, so he spent an hour walking the street, just enjoying being in a bustling city, people talked and walked everywhere he went. They just existed. With two hours left, he went back to his camp and took off his trench coat and hat.
With more than an hour and a half left of spare time, Jaune set out to find a place to eat. A small ice cream parlor caught his eye, although he couldn't taste anything anymore, and probably for a good reason so he wasn't going to risk it, he still wanted some ice cream. A light bell chimed as he walked through a door and into the parlor, it was cold and nearly empty. A bored looking guy sat behind the counter, and a small girl who had white hair with thick red stripes sat in the corner.
The guy behind the counter stood up and gave him a smile.
The girl jumped and froze completely, as if gravity no longer had any hold over her.
"How may I help you?" The employee asked.
He needed a second to drag his eyes off the girl, but eventually he did. "Surprise me." He answered and handed over twenty Lien.
"Okay, you may take a seat while I prepare your treat." The man said with a small layer of regret and apathy.
Jaune looked around the empty parlor, they had seats by the windows, in the center, by the counter, and a booth in the corner, where the jumpy girl sat alone. He decided that having someone to talk to would be better than eating in silence. So he slid in the seat across from the girl, and got a better look at her, her hair was white with shades of light pink and diagonal stripes of red. Her left eye was red, and her right eye was white.
The girl jumped slightly and stared at him, then she turned her attention to her ice cream, it was a mix of different flavors, and it was currently mostly melted.
"Hello, I'm Jaune Arc." He introduced himself.
The girl ignored him, she seemed content to play with her ice cream.
Jaune smiled and nodded. "Interesting, I've never met someone who communicates with ice cream sounds." He said. "How does one learn to do that?"
Then the girl glared at him.
"I've got to say, girl-who-communicates-with-ice-cream-sounds, my week has been pretty interesting. I went on a trek through the forest, hiked a mountain, crossed a ravine, met a drug dealer and nearly lost my head in an alley."
The girl froze, not that Jaune noticed.
"Joined a gang, fought the embodiment of fire, and now I've met a girl who communicates with ice cream, that last one is definitely the most interesting." He finished.
The girl stared at his scarf in fear, and then she suddenly lunged over the table to rip it off.
His neck was exposed, twin burns climbed up the sides. "Rude, but hey at least you're contributing to the conversation."
The girl relaxed, her body visibly deflating. Jaune was able to take his scarf back.
A glass bowl filled with colorful flavors of ice cream and an assortment of small cups filled with toppings were placed in front of him. "Here you go, Sir." The man reached into a pocket in his apron, and pulled out a receipt and handed it to Jaune. "Sorry about Kandi, she's been in a bad mood since yesterday."
He smiled. "Thanks, and It's not a problem." He handed a ten Lien tip to the man.
The man returned Jaune's smile. "Enjoy." He said and returned to his position.
He turned to Kandi. "So, is it spelled with a C or K? Y or I?" He asked her.
Kandi rolled her eyes and pulled out a Scroll. I'm Kandi Kane, and I don't appreciate people making fun of my name. It read.
While she showed him her message, he also saw the time. "Darn, I hate to cut this short, especially since we were just getting somewhere, but I have an airship to catch." Jaune slid his ice cream over to Kandi. "Uh, anyways cute name, and enjoy this, it was nice to meet you." He said as he walked out the building.
Kandi cheerily waved goodbye, and dug her spoon into her new unmelted ice cream, her appetite somewhat improved.
The man behind the counter waved goodbye and Jaune waved back as he left.
He arrived at the airship dock with all his belongings at a little past four. After checking in at the gate, and his name actually being on the flight manifest was a relief. He tagged his travel bag and was told to proceed to the second level deck. He looked out the window, he was excited, his nerves were still silent, anxiety was a thing of the past, he felt like laughing.
Jaune didn't even care if people would look at him funny for laughing out loud, but he didn't, because that would be rude. He just chuckled under his breath, admittedly it was a pretty mad chuckle. From the corner of his vision he could see a girl with a bow who looked at him funny. He couldn't hold it anymore. Mad laughter burst out of him, without the need to breath, he didn't have anything holding him back.
Many people distanced themselves from him, which made him laugh harder. It lasted for ten minutes, then he smiled and took a seat on a bench. The area around him was pretty empty, the only person who didn't leave was the bow girl.
He waved at her.
She didn't wave back.
Jaune looked at his Scroll, they had thirty minutes before they departed, and then thirty more minutes until they arrived. He had his headphones around his neck, he couldn't wear them because he would be unable to hear announcements, but if he raised the volume he would be able to hear it while it rested on his neck. So, he continued to listen to the Ninjas of Love audiobook.
In the hour that he waited to land at Beacon, the two ninjas attempted to assert dominance over the other by being more romantic, which led into a competition to prove who was better at sexually pleasing the other. Over the hour, many people came and left in his area, the ninjas also came many times.
As he looked around, he noticed the bow girl had somewhat closed the distance between them, she stood less than feet away from him, leaning against a wall, with her eyes closed. Her face twitched in sync with certain parts of the audio book. He smiled, at least someone was enjoying the erotic exploits of the Ninjas.
The sound of a body colliding with another body stole Jaune's attention.
Yellow, like flowing gold, like burning flames.
Pain.
Pai- Purple.
Purple eyes.
She had purple eyes.
The Demon didn't have purple eyes.
The Not-Demon girl was hugging a smaller girl wearing a cloak. "-sister is going to Beacon with me! This is the best day of my life!" The Not-Demon girl shouted in joy.
The cloaked girl whispered something, and the Not-Demon released her.
"I'm just so proud!" The Not-Demon continued to shout.
Jaune took a look around, almost everyone was watching the girls, even the bow girl, so he paused the audiobook.
"Yang!" Cloaked girl whined. "It wasn't anything special."
"Wasn't special!? Ruby, you chased off Roman Torchwick, Vale's most notorious criminal! You're going to be the cat's pajamas at Beacon!" The Not-Demon girl, Yang, continued to make a scene.
"I'm going to be normal pajamas, I mean a normal girl with normal pajamas!" Cloaked girl, Ruby, shouted back.
"C'mon, Ruby, why aren't you more excited? This is the type of thing people dream about, you were personally invited to Beacon by the headmaster himself and you haven't even graduated from Signal yet."
Ruby flipped her hood up. "I just got lucky." She said with a sigh.
"It wasn't luck, it was skill." Yang comforted Ruby with a side hug.
"Roman Torchwick." A voice repeated, and Jaune turned to see a screen talking about this supposed most notorious criminal. "Evaded capture once again, be warned that he is still at large, officials have yet to give word on the cause of his sudden spike in Dust related thefts." A mugshot was shown on the screen.
The Fancy Suit Man was Roman Torchwick, and his partner was the beheader.
Jaune hoped to hear a report about the partner, but instead they talked about a Faunus Civil Rights rally turned riot. Then the program was replaced by a hologram of a woman. "Hello, and welcome to Beacon Academy!"
He wondered what to call the woman, he was leaning towards 'hologram woman'.
"My name is Glynda Goodwitch."
Darn.
"You are among the privileged few who have received the honor of being selected to attend this prestigious academy! Our world is experiencing an incredible time of peace, and as future Huntsmen and Huntresses, it is your duty to uphold it. You have demonstrated the courage needed for such a task, and now it is our turn to provide you with the knowledge and the training to protect our world." The recording shut off, and they didn't turn the news back on.
The passengers took pride in the announcement, but Jaune felt uncomfortable, he had cheated his way in. He looked around, everyone looked happy, some were looking out the window as they approached Beacon, and even the bow girl had left.