Chapter 1

September 3rd. Early night. Somewhere on the streets of city of Vale.

15 minutes to go.

Jaune thought to himself as he looked at his scroll.

He had been running for 45 minutes up to this point, and since his target time was exactly 1 hour, it wasn't hard to calculate how much time he had left to run.

"Just 15 minutes, easy." He uttered to himself, and wiped his sweaty brow clean. A single minute later, he had to do it again because he was really pushing himself today.

He didn't mind that, though.

Sometimes, Jaune Arc could thoroughly enjoy pushing himself to his absolute limits, and today was one of those days. Well, tonight. He thought would be more correct, but that was just a small detail. And right now, he cared very little for small details because he had to focus his mind on his burning lungs. His aching legs, and his heavy breathing.

He wiped his sweaty brow again.

"..."

7 minutes left.

His scroll showed him, and despite his exhausted body, he tried to up his speed, even if slightly. He failed. Heh. That managed to earn him a wry moment of amusement, but a second later, he took as deep a breath as he could, and at least didn't fall behind his current pace.

"..."

One minute left.

Come on! He tried to motivate himself and increase his run to at least a passable sprint. Come on! Just barely, but he managed to break out in a sprint and even if sweat was dripping into his eyes and burning them, he merely blinked and kept sprinting.

Bleep!

His scroll ringed, and thus signaled he could finally stop and take a rest. And the moment he did, he doubled over and was panting heavily. His clothes damp and sticky with his own sweat, and he continued to try and fight for getting back his even breathing.

Pant. Drip. Pant. Drip. Pant. Drip.

Unsurprisingly to him, it took him quite a bit of time to recover.

Pant. Drip. Pant. Drip.

But he did slowly recover non the less.

Pant. Drip.

His breathing was close to what he wanted it to be.

"..."

He took one, final, deep breath and then straightened his back. His blue was met with a much too friendly smile given it was coming from a total stranger to him.

"Hello there!" She enthusiastically greeted him with a big wave of her hand. Her excessively friendly smile not faltering.

He scrunched his eyebrows ever so slightly, but ultimately, didn't think much of this as he even greeted her back. "Hi."

She paced closer to him.

"I am certain that you are a student at Beacon Academy. Just like myself!"

"I...yea, I am." He admitted, and even though the girl did give him some weird vibes, she seemed harmless enough. Plus she looks cute. Perhaps even beautiful given the combination of short, copper hair and her emerald green eyes.

"I knew it!" She exclaimed, seemingly satisfied. "What about your name? I know you're a student at Beacon Academy, but I don't know your name."

He scratched the back of his head, feeling sheepish in this weird girl's presence. "Jaune Arc...and you?"

"Penny Polendina. I am very pleased to make acquaintances with you. Oh! Perhaps we could be-"She hesitated for a moment so short it would be easy to miss. "-friends!"

In a lapse of better judgment, he answered immediately. "Uh, sure?"

Her eyes widened and sparkled. "This is sensational! I am sure there will be lots we could be talking about! Like clothes and cute boys. And romance movies and best make-up to wear!"

He blinked. "Sure." He blinked again. "Wait, wait, what?"

Author's note: And so, here's the first chapter of my newest work. Now initially, I figured I'd have so many things to say, so much to explain and so forth, but then...well, I decided I would be succinct and just let you know the most important stuff.

And first and foremost, I'll let you know that this story doesn't fallow the canon one. No fall of Beacon, no going to Haven, none of that. This is a completely different story and I'd like you to know that right off the bat. In fact, this newest work of mine is a...hm, kinda special case, I guess? Basically, it will at times heavily rely on some of the story elements of my previous works. In fact, some of the OC characters which will appear here will be directly taken from my previous stories, and will simply be fleshed out to a higher, better degree.

Also, I have to be honest and let you know that some of the story elements here will differ from the original source material that is of course, RWBY series. Hence, if some of the things here won't be as they were in the original story, there's a very, very good chance it was intentional. With that being said, I'd like you all to know I didn't make those changes to stroke my own ego or something. I merely made them to better compliment the type of story I'm trying to write here. Of course, I'm not saying you can't criticize the changes I've made, not at all. Honestly, as long as you stay civil or, well, don't be a complete dong at least, you're free to criticize my work as much as you like. It's always been that way, and nothing has changed in that regard.

Now with all that being said, well, this one's going to be quite a doozy, folks. I have certainly taken some rather great risks with this work, but, well, I do have faith that this story is going to be a good one. Not for everyone of course, but hopefully, most of you will be able to enjoy it well.

Other than this, I'll probably have very few other notes to leave after chapters, or maybe, I won't have any at all. We'll see.

I wish you well folks, and, well, may you have a good read with this one.