Ch. 4 Trial by combat
"Listen up children! You are all here in order to get a chance to attend Beacon academy. You will be evaluated based on four criteria. Enemies dispatched - you'll be fighting against a horde of Atlesian knights. If multiple people team up to take down a single knight the points will be distributed according to damage dealt. Assistance provided - should you help your fellow examinees by nondestructive means, such as immobilising the knights, you'll be awarded points. Aura - your points will get docked for losing aura. This is calculated from your maximum aura. You'll get full points for not losing any and get zero in this category if your aura gets broken. Finally inhibiting behaviour - should you get in the way of your fellow examinees, inhibit their ability to attack, or be responsible for them losing aura, points will be deducted. Intentional friendly fire is an instant disqualification and potential a cause for arrest. The test will be conducted in groups of twenty in each of the four arenas. You have already been assigned an examiner, please follow them to their respective arenas."
Jaune did as instructed and followed the portly professor aptly named Port. He was in arena four, though by the looks of it it was no different from the other three.
Jaune had been honestly surprised by how simple the preceding paperwork was. Since the exams were for people without previous combat school education, one would assume that he would need to write down more than a name, weapon of choice and name of semblance. Seriously, Jaune had spent the whole bullhead ride here trying to summarise how his semblance works in case he needed to fill that out but no. All he wrote down was Jaune Arc, hand and half sword, Arsenal.
Maybe it was just to cut down on the paperwork, who knows. Either way the scoring system didn't incentivise showmanship and he couldn't enter the arena without his sword on him, so maybe leaving his semblance on the low wouldn't be a bad idea.
The game plan, as far as Jaune was concerned, was as follows. Get up front and hack away at the bots. Not much more he could do, with no support skills and no range option that would work against an armoured target, being a front line attacker was really the only option left.
Jaune looked at his fellow examinees. Most of them had some sort of mechashift weapon, though from the looks of it, CQC was not something most of them would engage willingly.
There was a guy with a pink highlight in his otherwise black hair, who looked downright nervous. It didn't suit him though.
"Hi, I'm Jaune, Jaune Arc. You're looking kinda nervous, something on your mind?"
"Lie Ren, please call me Ren… I guess you could say I'm worried because of a friend. We got seperated for this."
"You two fight together? Are you worried about not doing well on your own?"
"We fight together, but that's not what worries me… See Nora can be a bit… excitable."
"Well not much we can do about it from here. So what's your strategy?"
"Well, usually I would provide support fire for Nora. I guess I'll have to employ a similar strategy here since I'm not exactly a heavy hitter."
"Well I don't have any range. I guess my strategy is just, hit it until it dies. If you want, we could work together on this?"
"That would be much appreciated."
Jaune smiled at his newly found ally. Sure, he was pretty sure he could do well regardless, but having support would make it easier to keep his aura intact. Plus it felt nice to make new friends.
While the two were talking, Port had finished setting up the aura displays and finally called out to them.
"I was instructed by professor Goodwitch to not make any speeches, so without further ado let us begin. Good luck."
With those words a large countdown appeared on a large screen above the arena. The hour-long countdown started ticking down and the atlesian knights started entering the arena.
Since the length of the exam wasn't revealed to the examinees, some grumbling could be heard amongst the crowd. Jaune turned to Ren.
"Let's start with the two on our left and go from there. You good with that?"
"Yes."
"Alright, I'm counting on your support."
With that Jaune dashed with a low wide slash, taking out the legs of one of the knights. To Jaune's surprise the metal knights provided little to no resistance. The metal felt weak, and the lightly armoured joints gave way easily.
Without stopping his movements Jaune attacked the other bot, much like his father instructed him in his short time training with him.
After completely disabling the second bot Jaune looked back to see Ren putting a few bullets into the back of the head of the first one. Seems breaking it's knees wasn't enough to take it out of the fight.
"Thanks Ren. Those three next!"
"Got it."
=O=O=O=
After fifteen minutes, the horde had gotten noticeably larger. Another fifteen before almost everybody had to engage in close quarters. At forty five minutes after the start, people started running out of ammo, three people had their aura broken, and were escorted out of the arena.
Jaune was at just above fifty percent aura by this point, but he was getting tired. Sure the knights were weak individually, but with so many of them Jaune simply couldn't entirely destroy each and every one he fought. So he focussed on disabling the legs, sometimes cutting off the arms to prevent them from crawling towards him like zombies. At this point Ren probably had more killing blows than him, though Jaune was just grateful for the assistance, since he would be overwhelmed otherwise.
The last ten minutes were critical. People's aura broke left and right, and with the number of allies dwindling the horde only got more problematic. The remaining five people were now being pressed against the wall. Finally the timer hit zero and a loud klaxon announced the end of the battle, except the timer now went into negative numbers and the bots were still pushing against them. The only difference being the entrance gates being open.
"I think we need to evacuate ourselves!" exclaimed Jaune.
"The timer is finished though!" came a reply from one of the remaining examinees.
"Yeah, but the exam probably isn't, it's not like they told us anything about the timer."
"Jaune's right, I believe we should go for a final push."
"Fine! Let's do it then!"
With this the group decided to evaq. Sure most of them were half dead with fatigue by now, but with enough determination and a healthy dose of "Please make it end already." they managed to move the whole group along the wall and finally exit the arena. Jaune may have taken a few hits while retreating, but thanks to that no one broke their aura.
"Well, that was a thing. Do you think we passed?"
"You know what? I don't care. at this point I just want to sleep."
"Say, how'bout we introduce ourselves. I'm Maroon."
"I'm Jaune Arc."
"Sky Lark, thanks for taking a hit for me there Jaune, I think my aura would have broken."
"No problem."
"Anyway, I'm Corcra MacMahon."
"Lie Ren, please call me Ren."
It was then that a girl with red hair and a large hammer sprinted into the room. And threw a tackle-hug at Ren.
"REN! You made it out okay? That was so fun! Did you have fun?"
"I take it that's Nora?"
"Yes. Jaune, Nora. Nora, Jaune."
"Hi Jaune! That's a nice sword, you break any legs with that?"
"Actually I did… The joints were surprisingly weak."
The door opened again, this time revealing the round figure of professor Port.
"Well done everyone! A splendid example of tenacity. Why, it reminds me of my younger days, when I..."
"Sorry professor, I need to talk to you about the workshop?. I've pre-arranged this with professor Godwitch?"
"Ah, of course mister Arc." Jaune, being somewhat familiar with boisterous huntsmen from his time dealing with customers, decided to interrupt Port. You could say it was for the benefit of everyone, but really he just wanted to take a look at Beacons foundry.
He turned back to the group, only to see Sky hitting on Corca, Maroon glaring at him for it and Nora bussily retelling her own battle to anyone willing to listen… so just Ren.
"Well, I have other business here. Hopefully we'll see each other again on the first day of school."
With goodbyes all around the rest of the group went on their way.
"Thank you for taking the time from your day to show me around the professor."
"Nonsense, I've nothing to thank me for mister Arc. I've heard you recently finished your apprenticeship under Fèvre. It's going to be interesting having a master blacksmith as a student. I presume you forged this sword as well?"
"Hmmm? Oh, I nearly forgot I had Atra Aurora out. Yes, this is the sword I passed my apprenticeship with."
"A very nice blade with a fitting name. Though it seems you lost the sheath during the exam."
"Oh, no I actually never made a sheath. I just store it with my semblance."
As Jaune let go to demonstrate, the sword reunited itself with his aura. At the same time an alarm went off on the professor's scroll.
"Oh, hold on a second let me… mister Arc, you seem to have triggered the large aura fluctuation warning set up for the exam."
"I uh… what?"
"According to the monitor your half depleted aura just shot up to a little under 150 percent of the starting value. Is that to do with your semblance?"
"I… don't know, maybe? To my knowledge my sword becomes a part of my aura, I wasn't aware it changed my total aura when I did that. I've never really tried this with aura monitors before."
"Hmmm, well no matter. The exam has long concluded so no one can accuse you of anything at this point. Though I admit it is curious, it's not unheard of for a semblance to mess with aura readings."
"That's good… I didn't even know about this part of my semblance."
"That happens quite often. Many students here don't yet have a firm grasp on their semblances. Semblances also evolve overtime as one's aura gets stronger. Why, I remember when my own semblance changed to allow me …"
From there Jaune completely zoned out from the conversation. He had heard it all before and even if the story was interesting the way he told it was somewhere between insufferable and sleep inducing.
Luckily for Jaune, they have soon arrived at the foundry. Leaving Jaune to focus on something else. He had in fact barely noticed when Port finally finished his story.
"That was an exhilarating story, professor."
Jaune had to try his hardest not to show his instant regret as he immediately realised what he'd done.
"Indeed it is my boy, I'm sure you'll enjoy my classes then, I teach Grimm studies and I have plenty more tales to tell."
"I'm sure they'll be equally thrilling."
"But of course! Now tell me how do you find the facility?"
"I'm pleasantly surprised actually. Especially the fact that there are raw materials in stock."
"Indeed, it is a necessity with how unique each weapon is. It is simply far easier to supply the students with raw materials and let them manufacture parts from scratch, rather than keeping stock of spare parts for hundreds of unique weapons at a time."
"Makes sense I guess. I'm a traditional blacksmith by trade so I rarely have to think of mechashift weapons or firearms. Though I would like to learn during my stay here, granted I get accepted of course."
"Nonsense my boy, of course you'll be accepted. You performed admirably during the exam. I'd be surprised if professor Ozpin declined such a prospective huntsman. Why, you remind me of myself when I was…"
Jaune didn't hear the rest of the story. As he zoned out once more he couldn't help but smile at the compliment.
As Port told his story, Jaune began to take stock of the materials once more. The large amount of inert dust, high carbon steel and even titanium and tungsten were all present. Platinum though didn't seem to be in stock. He would have to ask if he could get some in stock if he was to make more weapons for himself.
As he walked around the workshop some more, he noticed some workbenches were outfitted for work with electronics. Though before he could closer inspect them another alarm sounded from the professor's scroll.
"Ah, it would seem the scores have been calculated. Let me see here. Ah there you are, Jaune Arc. Well above the line for acceptance. Let me be the first to congratulate you mister Arc. You have been accepted to Beacon Academy."
The portly professor gripped Jaunes hand in an iron handshake, which the blacksmith reciprocated with a smile.
"Now all that's left is to survive the initiation in two weeks."
"Your wording makes me think I should get to work on my weapons."
"Perhaps you should, especially if you believe it will help you survive?"
"I got to this point by becoming a blacksmith, I see no reason to stop being one now."
"A grand attitude."
"By the way, do you know if Beacon stocks platinum here? I haven't found any in the raw materials."
"I do believe there is an amount of platinum wire somewhere around here. It's generally used in dust infused circuits for mechashift and such."
"I see. Seems a bit of a waste to use wire for my alloys though. Who should I talk to about stocking raw ingots instead? It should be a bit cheaper that way. Beacon might subsidise some of the price but, unfortunately, I'm not made of lien."
"That would be either professor Goodwitch or professor Ozpin."
"Thank you, I need to talk with professor Goodwitch anyway since I'll be staying on campus until initiation. Do you know where I would find her office?"
"Why at the base of the tower of course. Nice and central to the whole academy. She should still be here working through sending acceptance letters to you lott. I recommend you go and see her now, while she's not working on anything time sensitive."
=O=O=O=
Jaune knocked on the door to the vice-headmistress's office. He was let in promptly and soon stood face to face with the stern teacher.
"Mister Arc. I expected to see you later today, though I have yet to process your letter of acceptance."
"Professor Port let me know I passed."
"Ah, of course he did. Did you find the facilities to your liking mister Arc?"
"I did, though I was hoping to speak with you about some raw materials."
"Are you missing some? I was under the impression that we have stock of every metal commonly used in weaponry."
"Well I did find all of them eventually, but since I use some platinum in my high dust alloys I was hoping to request some of the raw metal. The platinum wire for use in circuitry would work of course, but it seems a waste to use it."
"Ah I see. I will admit I was unaware of platinum being used in high dust alloys."
"Well it isn't commonly used. The alloy is one of my own design and is around forty percent dust so it requires the platinum to alloy properly."
"I see. I'll see to it that raw platinum metal is stocked alongside the other metals. Anything else you needed?"
"Just a question. You've allowed me to stay on campus for the next two weeks to use the workshop, but would it be possible for me to make sleeping arrangements as well? I tend to get lost in my work and I don't believe bullheads will fly me to Vale in the middle of the night."
"Ah, of course. You're free to make use of either the storehouse next to the foundry of the ballroom where first years will be staying the night prior to initiation."
"I'll use the storehouse then. Seems more convenient."
"Very well, mister Arc. If that is all, please leave me to my work. You'll receive your acceptance letter soon."
"Thank you. Goodbye professor."
=O=O=O=
Author's note:
On a personal note, I feel like professor Port embodies some of the teachers at uni. I'm writing this note during a lecture of psychology, so you can imagine how much attention I'm paying to the lecture. Anyway, thank you all for reading and hope you look forward to next week's chapter: Ch. 5 Meeting the reaper