Initiation (Part 3) - Teams Formed

(-/Jak's POV\-)

I don't know how, but following that Deathstalker ended up leading us to the ruins. Yang and Blake were already there and were accompanied by two others; a short redheaded girl in pink with a hammer, and another young woman with long black hair featuring a singular pink stripe dressed in a green Mistralian Martial Artist outfit. She appeared to wield a pair of bladed submachine guns.

"I gotcha Rubes!"

The Grimm flung Ruby off its tail and sent her flying through the air, only to be caught by her elder sister.

"Anyone got a plan for that Deathstalker?!?" Called out Blake after tossing Pyrrha her spear.

"I got it!" Ruby shouted as she blitzed towards the Grimm, extending her scythe's blade.

*CLANG*

Only for the blade to bounce off of the creature's hard carapace.

"Ruby!" Yang exclaimed in worry for her sister as she was too far away to do anything but watch as Ruby was knocked down by one of the monster's pincers and was about to be impaled by the creature's stinger.

The finishing blow never came, however.

The moment Ruby had dashed forward to attack the Deathstalker, I had drawn Excalibur and began channeling my Aura through it.

In both hands, the holy sword's blade glowed with its ethereal blue light in response to my Aura as time slowed down to a crawl just as Ruby was knocked down and I struck.

With Excalibur's power coursing through me, I lunged forward with a leap and severed the monster's stinger with a single swipe of my blade. Before anyone knew what was happening, I repeatedly dashed forward to strike the Deathstalker again and again until it was cut up into tiny pieces.

It never stood a chance.

With the threat gone, I released my hold on Excalibur's power and time resumed its natural flow while I turned my attention to my friend who was still sitting on the ground looking up to me with a stunned expression.

"Ruby, are you okay?" I asked as I helped her up and began checking the girl for any injuries.

Thankfully, she seemed just a bit shaken.

"H-h-how did you do that?" Ruby asked after finding her voice.

"What do you mean?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"There was this flash of light and all of a sudden, the Deathstalker's in pieces and you were standing right in front of me!" She exclaimed while excitedly gesturing towards the dissipating Grimm chunks.

I raised Excalibur in my hand.

"Magic sword," I answered simply.

Ruby glanced at the weapon in my hand with an even greater newfound appreciation than before.

"Right... So how does-?" Ruby was cut off by the rest of our group approach as Yang scooped up the smaller girl in a tight squeeze.

"Ruby! Are you alright? Don't you ever scare me like that again!" The fox girl fussed over her younger sister who tried, in vain, to escape the elder's grasp.

"Yang... I'm fine... You're embarrassing me..." Ruby protested to no avail.

"Wow! That... Was... AWESOME! You were just there one moment, then the next you're over here and that Deathstalker never knew what hit it! I'm Nora, by the way, and I like pancakes! Do you like pancakes? We should go find more Grimm for you to kill!" The pink girl praised and introduced herself while getting really close to my face.

"Ummm... Thank you?" I didn't really know how respond to her.

"Sorry about her, she's pretty excitable. I'm Lie Rin," the girl in green, who I assumed to be Nora's partner, said while pulling the ginger back.

"Jak Silver. Sorry, I'm not used to friendly people yet." I introduced myself before giving a soft smile.

Rin's eyes widened.

"Oh. Don't worry about it..." She said before turning her attention back to her friend. "Let's tone it down, Nora. Jak needs some space."

"Okay!"

I finally returned my attention to Weiss.

"Got our relic?" I asked her.

She held up a small golden object in her hand and nodded.

"Of course." She answered.

"Pyrrha? Got yours and Ruby's?" I checked with Pyrrha as Ruby was still stuck in her sister's deathgrip.

"Affirmative," she confirmed.

"Good. Let's go." I said, taking a step towards the cliffs where we were launched from.

Only to stop dead in my tracks when a giant black feather appeared sticking out of the ground in front of me.

"That's... A big bird..." Yang eloquently stated.

Another flurry of stiff and razor sharp feathers were launched our way.

"Take cover!" Blake ordered everyone.

Many of us dashed or dove away to end up behind a tree or whatever large stone was available.

Being one hundred and ten percent done with today, I grasped Excalibur in both hand while synergizing my Aura with the sword's magic as well as the silver fire that travelled from my covered eye, to my hands, and coating my weapon. I then stepped out from behind the fallen tree I had dove for to avoid getting skewered by a feather and looked towards where the projectiles were coming from.

With my blade held high, I locked in on the giant Nevermore and swung down.

In an instant, it was over. A great wave of silvery-blue fire and energy split the overgrown raven right down the middle.

My new friends could only stare in silence as they beheld the destruction I wrought.

"What? The Grimm are gone now. Let's go."

(-/Time Skip brought to you by Chibi Child Blake pouncing upon Chibi Child Jaune\-)

(Blake's POV)

We were all standing behind just off stage as we awaited our turn to be called up by Ozpin and placed on our teams.

"Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long, Lie Rin, and Nora Valkeryie, you four have collected the White Rook pieces and shall be known as Team BYRN (Burn), led by... Blake Belladonna..." The headmaster announced.

Now it was Jaune's team's turn.

"Jak Silver, Weiss Schnee, Pyrrha Nikos, and Ruby Rose... You have collected the White Knight pieces and will form Team JSPR (Jasper) led by..."

From an outsider's, it would logical to assume the leader to be either Weiss or Pyrrha due to their renown. I could see the Schnee heiress already begin puffing out her chest in anticipation for what she believed to be her name be called.

"Jak Silver."

Weiss's flabbergasted expression as she visibly deflated nearly broke my composure.

I was initially expecting Pyrrha to be called if I was being honest. But this?

I'm okay with this. My Jaune always was far more intelligent than everyone gave him credit for when we were children.

I was glad to see Ozpin had recognized Jaune's aptitude.

'I look forward to seeing where you lead us all...'

AND SCENE!!!

Sorry for the shortness of this chapter. It was... Frustrating... Trying to figure out how I could believably write out a scene for taking down the Deathstalker as well as the Nevermore. I felt that this was the best way to handle it as it shows how this story's Jaune reacts to certain situations while hinting at his capabilities.

This is also a means of showing his friend-group that he is, indeed, not someone to be trifled with.

Speaking of friends...

Since a lot of you were gunning for it, I went ahead and genderbent Ren into Rin.

And to HelpingHand, nice try. I had almost went with a team setup like the one you guessed for those very reasons, but I had long since decided on this one while operating on a similar vein. Weiss is gonna learn the hard way that Pyrrha is no push-over and that Ruby will be excellent at de-railing her 'attempts' at domesticating their leader.

And since I loved your review, I'll let you know that I was planning on leaving the guys of Fox and Cardin alone as a means of access for Jaune to have a guy friend as well as an early 'rival'.

Initially, I was going to leave Yatsu alone as well, but yeah... You're right. We can always use more tall muscle-mommies in the world.

How I handle SSSN, however, is gonna be a surprise.

Now as far as gender roles and ratios go... Men make up roughly ten percent of the global population with Aura using men making up only five percent of that population. So for example...

Let's say we take a population of a megacity, about 1,000,000 people, and break it down.

(Keep in mind these are rough, yet still fairly accurate estimations.)

That's 900,000 women. All of whom have the ability to unlock and use their Aura.

Then we have 100,000 men where only about 5,000 of them have the ability to do the same.

That's a pretty large gap.

But there is a trade off.

Men who have Auras often develop much stronger Auras as well as Semblances. On top of their biological make up, and save for a few outliers, male Aura users tend to be more effective combatants.

Because of all this, males who are discovered to have functional Auras are somewhat considered government property (to a degree) and are immediately taken in by the various schools and academies to hone their abilities to increase their chances of survival and future contributions to the total population since men with Auras often pass down their abilities to their sons.

One of the leading reasons as to why men make up such a small portion of the total population, is due to the fact that Grimm prioritize targeting them over women. There are several reasons why that is the case. First, if you take out one gender, the other loses the ability to reproduce. This in turn, lead to an increase in infighting between women over 'breeding rights' with men in the past before sperm-banks became a thing.

The main reason for targeting men accepted by the public, is that men still have a nasty habit of bottling up their negativity and act as beacons for the Grimm.

Unbeknownst to the world at large, the targeting of men is coordinated by Salem in an effort to deprive Ozma of eligible hosts.

As such, men are more or less the 'gatekeepers' of sex and it is typically women who make the first move in relationships with harems being semi common which leads to Yang's situation.

More often than not, with Yang's biological mother out of the picture, most people assume she is an adopted child because of her 'apparent' Faunus nature until they learn that her parents are/were in the Huntsmen profession. Then they typically operate under the assumption that Yang's bio-mom is dead.

Yang rarely ever bothers correcting them.

On the whole, the sexual dimorphism between men and women is largely unchanged save for women being much more naturally inclined to having functional Auras.

As for how does Excalibur compare to Gigasteel weapons... Well... You'll see...

And now, without further ado, an Omake, for you...

"MY Jauney!!!"

It has been three months since that fateful meeting between Her Royal Highness, Princess Blake Belladonna of Menagerie and her future husband-to-be, Jaune, of House Arc, of Vale.

Currently, Princess Blake has been most obstinate in her refusal to leave her room within the Royal Palace, citing her discontent at the fact her parents had wrongfully 'Taken Her Jauney away' and now refused to be seen without the most terrible of pouts she could muster.

Unbeknownst to her, however, she was in for a surprise as her "Jauney" was standing with his father outside Blake's room for a surprise (for her) visit.

Her ears flicked at the voices she heard outside her door.

"Are you sure this will work?" Blake heard her mother ask someone else.

"Not really... But do you and Ghira have any other ideas?

That certainly sounded like Uncle Roly... But what is he and Mommy talking about? Are they going to try to trick her?

Well she's not going to fall for it!

"Got your snacks ready?" Her "Uncle" continued.

Snacks? What snacks? Is it snack time already?

There was a muffled murmur indicating a 'yes'.

There was a knock on her door.

"Hey Blake... Uncle Roland is here and he brought you something special..." Queen Kali softly said while opening the door to reveal Roland and...

"MY JAUNEY!!!"

"Uh-oh..."

WAPUMF!!!*

Ciao!