Chapter 4: I Ran Out of Clever Titles A Long Time Ago

"NORA, I SAID HEADPHONES ON!"

— 8 —

When I was first in-processing basic training, we were all put together in a shitty barracks awaiting our actual training unit. Our first night there, we discovered that the showers were group showers only. Looking around each other, the boys all concluded that the first person who went there was probably gay, but by going in there and showering first, would instantly make things normal.

In sacrificing yourself on the altar of homosexuality, you made everything straight and finally the men could shower.

We all knew it wasn't really gay. Groups of men showering together is just a fact of life in the army. I mean, I went in first and to this day, my dick be like an accent mark, all about them over-Es. So that clearly put me in the clear.

Now, what probably was gay was when I walked into the occupied gym showers, saw a vaguely Asian looking man with a pink streak in his hair who had to be Ren, meeting his eyes, and in an awkward panic saying the first thing that came to my mind.

"Nice cock, bro."

He looked at me in a blank yet horrified way that I'd only seen on the face of women before. Mostly the ones on my team.

"Did Nora put you up to this?"

I looked down at my naked self. It was just me, myself, and the revolver strapped to my hip. "Nothing's up about me, my man."

Honestly, even if I'd accidentally walked into the girls shower, found Pyrrha and Yang and maybe Weiss, and they all enticingly invited me in to join them, I probably wouldn't have felt any different.

An hour and a half of lifting weights until my muscles just couldn't cope anymore. Followed by a cozy six-mile run on an inclined treadmill for give or take another hour. Then about twenty minutes of crawling to the showers on the jelly like substances that by all appearances should have been my legs. I didn't have any energy left in me.

But by sweet Jesus did that feel good.

For the first time in a long while, I've been able to just put on some music and zone out until my body collapsed. It was as close to Nirvana as I had been in a very long time. With the exception of getting so crossfaded on whatever drugs I could use to shred my liver. Fitness was what I needed. Physical activity the likes I had been unable to accomplish since my original run-in with the Emerald Forest.

Felt like the first step on a road to recovery.

Well, second step. The first step was learning that Croaker had a supernatural ability to heal people only if he was able to doctor their wounds and splint their broken bones. Honestly, I owed Ruby something awful for forcing me to go. Why no one had told me about this in the first place, I didn't know.

Actually, scratch that. The nurses who probably could have pointed me to him if I had begged them, were the same people who kind of hated me. Long story. I wasn't apologizing for it either.

Which was probably my problem. I had to wonder just how many things were holding me back of my own creation. How many problems could I have solved if I had just approached things from a better perspective in the first place, been more cognizant of myself instead of drunk or high or anything else?

I hated character development. Especially when it happened to me.

"Besides," I told Ren, shamelessly naked and setting the water in my shower to Purge the Unclean, "why would Nora want to talk to me?"

The vaguely Asian looking boy refused to even side-eye me. Just intently staring at his loofah as though it held all the answers in the world. "Good point," he mumbled. "She keeps trying to set up matches with you in combat class."

"Yeah. People like her are the reason why at any given moment, I got more bullets on me than a PowerPoint on gun violence."

"Pretty sure she wants to kill you."

"Tell a hoe to take a number."

To my surprise, that got his attention. He fixed me with a cold expression. Which I really couldn't take seriously. His nipples were all hard and pointed at me and everything.

"Don't talk about Nora like that," he said.

I held up my hands, realizing on some level I probably didn't want to make enemies with, like, the only other boy with the name at this entire school. Even if, in my professional opinion, he was completely worthless. I don't think he ever did anything of note. Except that he sounded exactly like Monty Oum. I miss that fucker.

"Sorry, bro. Just trying to be funny."

"You need new material," he said, going back to talking in a quiet voice, refusing to acknowledge me in any other way.

"But new material isn't up to my standards."

"Funny," he said dryly. "You're in no position to have high standards, yet you have them anyway."

Fucking ouch, bro. Not cool.

There really wasn't much else to get out of the boy. He and I didn't get along on a fundamental level. And unlike a cute girl, I couldn't find joy in pushing his buttons. He just kind of silently took most of it anyhow.

Toweling myself off in the locker rooms later, I heard my hotline bling. Took a moment digging through my jeans to find my scroll and check me the texts.

Indigo: sup bitch u have a moment

I stared at the text, not sure who the hell it was from. Indigo? I felt like that name should be ringing bells, but wasn't? Halfheartedly I tried to let go of my thumbs, seeing if I couldn't get some muscle memory response from my sleeve. But no, there was no actual Jaune Arc reaction to any of this. There never was but at the fringes of consciousness and physical conditioning responses.

I shook the water off my hand before trying to explore his contacts. With the exception of Team BASS, it looked like most of the people Jaune been texting before I hijacked his soul were mostly an assortment of random colors or spices. None of which I myself have talked to.

Indigo, Mom, Hazel, Glasses, Saffron, and so on. None of which meant anything in particular to me.

I looked over the contact card, and found a section of previous names. Apparently this texting app did that. In the past, Jaune had intermittently labeled Indigo as Ya Girl, I thought I blocked her, & Weepin' Shades of Indigo.

That last one got me. I recognized it as a quote from Tool's The Pot. But that would imply that, A) Jaune was the king of dude to listen to Tool, and B) Tool existed in this world and I could find their music.

I booted up my scroll's version of Google and tried figuring it out. If I could get that music to play, I would be a happy boy.

She texted me again.

Indigo: u have a moment

Indigo: this is a command from ur mother not an option

Bitch, get out of my way. I'm looking for music I actually like!

You: I wasn't aware I had an abusive MILF sidechick

Indigo: domt b gross Jaune

Indigo: proper grammer ass using bitch

Fuck it.

You: Bruh. New scroll who dis

Indigo: shit the school did give u a new scroll huh

Indigo: same school that called me thinking i was mom u wanna talk about why i had to pretend to be her and why i have to attend a parent-teacher meeting?

Indigo: im going 2 have 2 take off work friday just 2 pretend i pushed u out of my vagina and threatn 2 put you right back in asshole

I blinked. Several thoughts came rushing all together at once. This girl had to be my sister, as I vaguely recalled Jaune saying he had a couple. Second, the school had called her thinking she was my mother? Third, she was coming here!

I looked through my phone documents and found Jaune's beacon application. Sure enough, on the section to include parental contact information, he had listed two phone numbers. One was Indigo, and the other was Saffron. Holy shit, kid, you just saved my life and help me dodge.

You: I know you're my sister and I have to accept you no matter what, but I'm not comfortable with an unbirthing fetish

Indigo: ur gross wtf

Indigo: im going 2 literally rape u u fucking literally owe me it life

You: Good talk

Indigo: luh ya 2 3

I compressed a breath, and just stood there, thumbing my scroll. It felt like a miracle on one hand, and that I was going to die on the other. I genuinely would not have known how to deal with the people who were supposed to be my parents. They would figure out something was wrong with their little boy. But a foul mouthed older sister who was willing to pretend to be my mother and stick up for me like this?

I had a feeling I could work with this.

But now I had to wonder if Beacon thought I had two moms.

— 9 —

"Comme ci comme ça, thanks for asking," I told the empty dorm room, setting down onto my bed. Weiss and I were the only ones who actually made our beds, and of the two, mine was better. She didn't know how to do a proper hospital corner fold.

Still, I suppose I respected the effort.

I wondered if the girls and whatever Shamrock was were still in detention. But I swore they told me it was only on Fridays till Sunday. This was late into Monday evening. The sun was down and everything.

On account of being legally hospitalized, I hadn't seen my teammates since I woke up and they were all asleep. It had mostly just been Croaker, Ruby, and occasionally that monotone freak Oleander all day. Although Ruby had pretty much flaked the moment the doctor wrote her a note excusing her from class all day, not that I could blame her.

I disrobed and examined my body. Moving hurt in a good way. The only evidence of my earlier wounds was the rather nasty but well healed scar across my chest from the Grimm. I rested my hand upon it, feeling myself breathe. Relaxed.

Happy.

"You were happy back then, too," she said.

Of course, it couldn't last. It never lasted.

I kept my eyes closed. "Do me a favor, Simone. If ya gonna be my personal demon, I'll fall in love with you all over again so you'll finally leave me like the girls who came before you."

When I looked for her, it was just me. Lingering effects of the withdrawal, I supposed. Too many neurons deep fried in liquor for my own good. The only upside was that I learned that if you dissociate hard enough, you get to eavesdrop on conversations you're a part of. That, and my head was no longer constantly spinning like a starving stripper.

I hadn't had this body long, but that had given me enough time to ruin it considerably. Flexing my arm, I hoped that if whatever was holding me here knocked me loose and Jaune got free, he'd at least inherit some gains and cardio.

Still. Given the internal damage I had done, that was the equivalent of trying to work at Olive Garden because you thought it was the first step to joining the mafia. An uphill battle at best. But this was a start. I felt like I was beginning to take control of my life like an army of stepdads.

Exhausted from a day in the hospital and an evening in the gym, I went to bed for once without the craving for alcohol or nicotine.

— 10 —

In hindsight, waking up with the hard part. I hadn't exactly realized it until now, but one of the things driving me yesterday were the bennies. One of the most common treatments for alcohol withdrawal are some form of benzodiazepine. Croaker had been a lying piece of shit, claiming he couldn't give me any medication. Or, well, he was very charitably picking his words. He couldn't do anything for the pain, which was now on a video somewhere on Ruby's scroll, but he was somewhat obligated to deal with the symptoms of withdrawal.

Benzodiazepines and his semblance combined to fix my wounds up to the point I can work out, and left me with a lasting feeling of relaxation that helped me just clock the fuck out after I had destroyed my recently healed body up in the gym.

I rolled out of bed and to my surprise found that the girls had shown back up during the night. Or, well, two girls and one extremely androgynous individual covering their eyes with their purple top hat.

Everything hurt in the best way possible. Muscles sore from the gym. An exercise well taken care of. It was a work of art just trying to get to my legs. I was about as shaky as a newborn fawn that had just been ass raped by a Canadian lumberjack.

I tried getting out some morning calisthenics. All that amounted to was me pacing back and forth as quietly as I could for about 20 minutes, listening to music, and stretching out. I can only manage maybe 20 push-ups before my abs refused to work anymore.

I considered shaving. But really, after doing my morning rituals in the bathroom, I couldn't find the effort. Back home, when my whiskers were short, I looked like a blond. And running my fingers over Jaune's stubble, I kind of liked the look. It was a bit more than I would have expected from a twink like him, like myself currently actually. Part of me wanted to see just how far I could take it, especially given this sleeve was only seventeen years old.

Another part of me just didn't like using his straight razor. I'm entirely convinced the only reason he bought it was to flex on somebody. Look at how cool and manly I am, using a straight razor like I'm on that James Bond wave. It was a long, slow process, and then I had to rinse off the sink and countertop to make sure I didn't get any fuzz on the counter. Pretty sure the girls would never forgive me for that.

Putting the finishing touches on my uniform, I padded myself down and gasped.

"Dude, shut," Shamrock called out, sitting up in bed. My eyes went straight to their crotch, trying to figure out what the deal with that was. No matter what they presented as, they always dressed in a sexless kind of way. Night shirt and everything.

Shamrock saw where my eyes went and made a spitting noise as they sat up. "It's too early for this shit, man. What are you doing?"

"Getting dressed for class and thought I forgot something."

There's a saying in the Army. Right time, right place, right uniform, and you can't go wrong no matter how incompetent you are. It's why they say it's the easiest job in the world. And given that I had only been working three days a week, I couldn't argue.

Every time I went outside in my camouflaged monkey suit, I compulsively had to pat myself down as if looking for crab lice. Make sure my military ID was in my left sleeve pocket, make sure I had a pen and pencil in my sleeve. Check for my phone and wallet in my cargo pockets. Room key in my left breast pocket. Car keys in my right pocket. Chapstick, hair comb, and emergency Bic lighter in my right breast pocket. And most importantly of all, some notepads and emergency tobacco in my right sleeve pocket.

The uniform had a lot of pockets, I'm trying to get at. It's kind of why they were mint.

Thus the brain fart. Trying to check pockets this school uniform didn't have for items I no longer carried.

"Only thing you forgot is your brain," they said. "Please retrieve it from the lost and found at your earliest convenience."

"You want to go with me?" I offered. "Help be my wingman, uh, my wing-gender-neutral-term with that Cards girl in the student center?"

They tightened the top hat over their head. "I'm down for community service. Anything to ensure you don't reproduce."

Funny.

Everyone else got up on their own time. And as a TEAM, we went to class. I still walked slightly faster than the rest of them, and liked to pretend I was still in charge, even though actual leadership was up in the air.

Classes ran in a block like my freshman year of college before building my own schedule. History, psychology, tactics, no foreign language, and so forth. I made sure we got the front row seats in all classes during our first day, and we had sort of just rolled with it. History was probably the worst subject. In theory it was fascinating, being that I loved history as much as I did, but I did not vibe with this future fantasy setting. Nothing really worked like my head canon anyways, and so I don't want to talk about it because I don't like being wrong.

It was also very college like. Typical days were nowhere near as long as a day in high school, and the topics were better taught and more condensed, Professor Mustache's class being the exception. It resulted in a lot of free time in the afternoons. At least for the schedule that my team and VYPR had, which were the only two I could concretely identify. Almost everyone else might as well have been shadow people for all I cared.

Lunch was as lunch does. I usually skipped it in any case, only joining this particular day to try to hang with my team and work on becoming an actual human being in their eyes.

To mixed results.

Blake had vanished off to the library. Weiss had snuck off, presumably to be an aristocratic bitch somewhere. And Shamrock was now a couple inches taller and had feathers on his arms. Faunus now. Using those to practice card tricks. Oh yeah, definitely a boy right now by the way.

"Can you teach me?" I asked.

Shamrock gave me a thoughtful look. "Depends. Have any money left to bet?"

I sucked in air through my teeth. "I need to pull a couple extra shifts in the foundry before my wallet's back on that high carb diet."

"In the what?" he said, fanning cards through the feathers on his arms. He didn't seem to have exact control over them. A couple of them fell to the table.

"You know, the place where you can workshop weapons and sell stuff you make."

"The fishery. Artificery. Whatever."

Well, at least I had a proper name for the place now. Shamrock didn't really seem to be inclined to teach me anything if he couldn't win some money in the process.

I passed the rest of the day in an anxious daze. I had an appointment coming up. Therapy. Not that I was going to take it very seriously. I've been through this entire dog and pony show back in DC. I knew what they're going to say, what they are probably going to diagnose me with, and everything between. And apparently had already failed it miserably, given my track record since showing up in this world.

I really wanted a drink right now. At least a cigarette or something. Some snus packets?

"Hey, Jaune!" said pretty much the only girl in the world ever happy to see me.

"Hm?" I grunted, looking up from my scroll. I'd been on my way to the appointment early, carrying my gym bag for some post therapeutic stress relief.

The red-eyed girl with the blue police beret smiled. She waved from the student center help desk. I'd been walking through the building to shave some time, and also because the journey Ruby and I had taken to the doctor's area or whatever had seen us get lost here a couple times and now I didn't know my way without it.

The girl was positively beaming. "Whatcha got in the bag? Anything in there for me?"

"Pretty sure the bag's big enough to carry you, girl."

"Ooh," she said. "Are we going to go down the whole romantic threatening kidnapping angle?"

Honestly, that's my kind of line. But if she was going to start with it, then there was no way I could accidentally overstep my boundaries and offend her.

"Not unless I can convince you to go full tomboy mode and go to this appointment in my stead."

She tilted her head, arms folded. "You sick, you hurt? What appointment?"

I approached the desk, not wanting to just kind of be yelling in the middle of the student center. "Not hurt anymore, thank God. Do have a nasty scar for it though. I mean, I can finally work up a sweat without collapsing to the ground bleeding."

Cards nodded sagely. "I had that problem too when I was thirteen. Five years later and now the only times I'm on the ground bleeding is when my teammates stab me."

"I'm going to assume that's a slutty metaphor. And if so, ask for your Snapchat."

She's snorted. "I wish. Team ICWN—Icon—is just a little brutal when it comes to training. Kind of my own fault. My Semblance is pretty tanky, and I kind of have to not use it on purpose to avoid ruining Goodwitch's class." Cards sighed happily. "It was funny the first three times an innocent bystander nearly got maimed. But then I kept getting in trouble. Which is not funny. Unless it happens to people I don't like. Which usually does include me, but not in this case."

"I like you," I said blankly. "How come you're not on my team and the ex-terrorist is?"

"Aw, don't be like that. You're always invited to hang out with me by the help desk. Provided, if anyone asks, you say that you are working on an extensive review of my awesome work performance, and deny any rumors that I am secretly drawing you naked in my notebook. And then actually write those good reviews if the professors get too nosy. Gotta cover our tracks."

"Ah, Cards. Every time I'm around you I feel like I need an adult."

She winked. "I am an adult." Her smile became forced. "Kinda sucks being the oldest girl in the freshman class. But that just legally means I'm the boss if the teachers are away. Just, my team isn't quite ready to handle that fact yet."

I examined the girl for a moment. Cute butt, thin waist, though not much chest. Tasteless stockings under the too-short-skirt Beacon issues its females. Circular face and tomboyish black hair with a red streak. She did kind of remind me of that one female officer from Resident Evil 2. Jill, I think? Except she was about five foot even and a little too eager to please. And for reasons I legitimately could not place, her voice made me think of a sleepy Ashnikko. Studying her too much kind of hurt. Looking at any girl in this world for too long made me vaguely dissociate.

See, the girls on Remnant were like the pornstar Athena Faris. At first, damn, she got it going on. But then you start staring and see her eyes are a little too wide apart and you start thinking she got fetal alcohol syndrome. And then other things start jumping out at you. At first glance, approval, but if'n you start thinking about it, something feels off. I suppose I got the same sensation in the mirror. Anime bullshit and all.

Would still smash, though.

"Could always just get as naked with me as socially acceptable as my gym partner? I promise to only leer sexually at you when you're looking at me." Shot, fired.

The girl laughed, taking that in good humor, instead of being creeped the fuck out like pretty much anybody else. "Do you promise to accidentally walk in on me in the showers so I can act offended and beat the shit out of you?"

I hesitated. "Sorry. I'm not a sub."

"Ah, all's the same, Jaune. I work here all tonight. Not that I really do anything. Mostly just browse my scroll, try to teach the infestation of parrots to say nice things to me, and get paid twice minimum wage."

Shot, missed?

There was a feeling there was more to that than a simple I'm busy. I could just ask her for another night, or a weekend or something. Maybe she wanted a bit of a chase. But that felt off. A sense that she just enjoyed someone paying flirtatious attention to her more than anything, letting us both feel like we were almost connecting to another human being.

It's the big difference I saw between her and someone like, say, Ruby. Cards could be nice to me in a world where that was hard to come by. But it had this vague feeling of superficiality. Like she'd do this with anyone. After the other night, I don't know. I sort of felt vaguely serious about Ruby. Not in any romantic sense, obviously, but in terms of human connection, I guess.

Still, I felt like it was progress. Which is why I pivoted to a more important topic. "Hey, you know how to activate someone's aura? Got a kid brother wants to visit me who dreams of being a huntsman, and I don't know how to do it for someone else."

That got a curious look. She tugged on her beret. "No. Not really sure I can."

"You could always practice on me until it feels right?"

That got a half grin, her hands on her hips. "Okay, Uncle Jaune."

"I feel like there's something suppressed in that statement."

"Nope," she said happily, like nothing was wrong. "I'm just calling you a creep."

You and every other girl, Cards.

"Well, thanks for hearing me out at least. People seem pretty reluctant to help the kid out."

She looked around, her eyes settling on a couple of students walking by. "Makes sense to me. No one just wants a bunch of random kids running around the city with superhuman abilities. My life here is all ears, and I don't wanna rock the boat with something that irresponsible. Even if I was sure I could do it to somebody, I'm really not feeling like getting arrested for any damages the kid might cause on accident. Most people have to find it on their own, on their own time. I—"

Her eyes narrowed, her beret seeming to lift slightly. "Oh shit, those parrots are back!" The little girl jumped up over the desk and began sprinting towards a flock of brightly colored parakeets currently dive bombing the student center bagel shop.

Hand on my hip, I watched her go poorly attempt to fight a bunch of hungry parrots. I guess the school really did have a problem with them. Still, there went my sneaky chance to get an aura from somebody else who didn't seem to hate me. It left some food for thought. But mostly it left me without any distraction to keep me from going to fuck with my therapist. Whoever he or she was.

a/n This is a bit more of a breather chapter. But! I did go back to edit volume 1. Chapter 1 now has a better psych break explaining what's going on. And I overhauled chapter 2 so Jaune is less just an insane fuckwad and instead more like we see in volume 2 J'd'Or, bashing his head against why his actions aren't working like planned, and breaking down sobbing in a Denny's bathroom.

In the writing process over on the Discord, we're at the point where Volume 2 is over, I'm writing Volume 3, and Jaune has his Aura. Dare you to guess how that happens.