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Jaune Arc

Level: 34 – 37

HP: 100/100

AP: 214/400 – 234/420

Vigor: 10

Mind: 20 – 21

Endurance: 16

Strength: 22 – 23

Dexterity: 15 – 16

Intelligence: 10

Dust: 41566 – 1237

"Hey Jaune?" I looked up, peeking over the attribute page that floated in the middle of my vision to meet a pair of amber orbs that were staring my way intently. "Can we talk when we get back? In private."

"Who are yo-"

I shook the memory off, and did my best to smile at Blake. As much as she had screwed up her first impression, she had just put herself in front of 3 Ursa Majors to bail me out. Would I have been fine if she hadn't stepped in, probably, but I couldn't know that for sure, and neither could she. So, in the end, it was the thought that counted.

"Sure." I told her, before focusing intently on the screen in front of me, trying to ward off the nausea that always plagued me on moving vehicles. People always said to focus on something far away, like the horizon, but looking out of a window while flying always made me even more sick. Instead, I kept my eyes on the floating screen and mentally confirmed my choices.

The strength that suddenly came to me was exhilarating, and I let out an involuntary shiver at the feeling. The euphoria temporarily banished the nausea from me, though it came crashing back into me in short order. Next to me, Pyrrha nudged my side with her elbow.

"Are you okay Jaune?" She asked, and I just gave her a little nod. The girl still looked a little pale, and she still had bags under her eyes, but all other signs of her previous exhaustion had vanished.

"Yeah, just motion sickness acting up." I told her, and after a moment of hesitation, she seemed to relax and turned her attention back to team VLYR, as Nora was excitedly telling a story about how she'd faced a group of Ursa like we just had with Ren at some point.

There were some obvious embellishments in there, but I couldn't help but smile as she recounted the experience of crushing one of the beasts to save a little kid who'd gotten lost in the woods. Honestly, sometimes Nora reminded me of Professor Port, and for a moment, I imagined her teaching in his place. As ridiculous as it sounded, I honestly could see it happening.

"They make medication for motion sickness, you know." Weiss, who was sat next to Blake chimed in. Looking over at her, I wasn't the only one who looked confused at how nice she was being today, as Blake looked just as bewildered. She'd been okay ever since her chat with Port, but this was something else. First fussing over her partner after the fight with the Ursa, and now trying to help me with my motion sickness?

"I've heard about them." I said after a moment, "But they have drowsiness as a side-effect, and I can't take something like that before going to a Grimm-infested forest." I told her, though I did smile at her concern. It was nice to see that she was warming up to the team. I hadn't exactly forgiven her for what she'd tried with Port, but the fact that she was trying certainly helped.

She looked a little surprised at that, but nodded along anyways. "Can't hurt to have some on you for the return trip though, can it?" She asked, and I considered it for a moment. I hadn't bought any for Beacon since I would mostly be flying to places where I'd need to be alert, but even if I had to report on something after the flight back, the drowsiness shouldn't be a huge problem for the return trip.

"You're right! I'll have to get some next time I go down into Vale." I told her, "Thanks Weiss!" And I really was thankful. Motion sickness sucked. It wasn't dangerous or anything, but vomiting was annoying and more importantly, it hurt. The fact that aura didn't do squat to help with the pain certainly didn't make it better.

"No problem." The girl said, going back to her scroll as Blake shot me a helpless look over her partner's shoulder. Evidently, she also had no idea what was going on with Weiss, though I wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead, I just settled down as the flight back to Beacon continued and did my best to keep my lunch down.

When we finally got back to Beacon, I flopped down onto the ground in front of the whole class, dramatically trying to hug the floor. "Oh floor!" I swooned, "I swear I'll never leave you again my love!" The flight hadn't seemed so bad, but after the day I'd just had, a little bit of laughter went a long way.

"Get up you lunk, you're embarrassing the team." Weiss, seemingly back to her normal self, kicked me in the ribs. When I didn't move immediately, she reared her foot back to kick me again and I rolled out of the way, laughing all the while. Her tone had lacked any real anger, the snark in her tone was almost playful, and I couldn't help but rile her up now that I knew she wasn't actually mad.

Team VLYR laughed along as Pyrrha held a hand out, pulling me to my feet as Weiss 'fumed' off to the side. She didn't seem to realize that I could pick out the little smile that twitched onto her face. Blake, sensing the mood, went over to her partner to 'comfort' her, much to my amusement.

"Hey guys, we're getting some food before we go back to the dorms, you wanna come with?" Yang cut in when I was back on my feet, my fellow blond not even trying to hide how much our antics amused her.

"Not today Yang, you'll have to find some other circus act as entertainment." I told her with a smile, "I still have that essay for Port, so I want to head to the library later." I'd already finished Port's assignment, actually, having at least 8 extra hours in a day was nothing if not handy, but it gave me a handy excuse for when Blake wanted to talk to me alone.

The rest of BASN echoed me, albeit for different reasons, and we split off from VLYR, who went off in search of food. We, instead, made our way back to our dorm, where the exhaustion of the day seemed to crash into me all at once.

My Endurance stat may have made it so I didn't get tired easily, and I recovered my stamina faster as well, but that did little for the mental toll some events took on me. It didn't mean I needed to sleep necessarily. Which was lucky, since I wasn't sure if I still could sleep, after going so long without. What I could do, though, was just relax for a bit. Take a nice hot shower, go for a walk, maybe even see if the music room was free.

But first, I had a team to fix. I was going to be stuck with them for at least 4 years, I was going to make it work, if not for my sake, then for Pyrrha's. Turning my head, I saw that my teammates were all in similar positions on their own beds. Hell, Pyrrha was already asleep, judging by the soft breathing coming from her bed.

"Hey Blake, you still have to do Port's essay right?" I asked her, trying to make it clear that this was for the 'talk' that she wanted. Meeting her golden eyes, I was pretty sure she'd gotten the message, as she gave me a single nod before responding.

"Yes. Are you headed to the library?" She asked, standing back up and grabbing her book bag.

Rolling off my bed, I put my shoes back on and grabbed my own bag, even if I didn't need it. "Yeah." When I finished tying my laces, Blake was already by the door. As I approached, she pulled it open for me, and we walked out into Beacon's halls together.

It felt a little weird, to be honest. I'd never really been alone with Blake since coming to Beacon, except for that one time she'd come to give me her notes. That wasn't by accident either, I'd been avoiding her, and she had made no effort to fix that, something I was grateful for at first. I hadn't been ready to talk to her.

'Hell, I don't know if I'm ready now. And she just saved my bacon.' I thought, ignoring the other students milling through the halls. No one batted an eye at us, there truly wasn't anything strange about two teammates walking together, after all. It was only us, or maybe even just me that was finding the situation strange.

Getting to the library didn't take long, as it wasn't too far from the dorms. Maybe it was to encourage students to actually study and do homework instead of slack off? Or maybe it was a coincidence. Who could say?

As we walked in, the huge open space in the middle was relatively empty, since the upper years still had class right now, and most of the first years were relaxing after the field trip. There were still some people here, though. Some were studying or doing homework, others were simply reading, and I could even see one team playing a game of Remnant over on one of the corner tables.

Instead of taking a seat at one of the tables in the center, though, Blake led me over to one of the smaller tables between the bookshelves on our right. I dropped my bag and pulled a chair out, quietly sitting down as Blake did the same, sitting opposite me.

For a while, we were just quiet, while we stared at one another. Honestly, if I knew what to say, I might have just started the talk off to get it over with. Alas, I had no such luck, and simply sat there to wait until Blake started talking.

"I…" The girl began, but she trailed off. After a couple of moments, she tried again. "We've met before." She said. I blinked. Was she talking about Forever Fall? The first time? I was pretty sure that was what she was talking about, so I just gave her a little nod, neck stiff as I suppressed a shiver at the memory.

"In Forever Fall, I mean. I… I didn't connect the dots. You avoided me after initiation, but I thought it was because of…" She didn't finish the thought, simply leaving it there. I couldn't help but wonder, though, why she thought I'd been avoiding her.

"Because of what?" I asked bluntly. I wasn't looking to beat around the bush, not today. All I wanted was to resolve some of the issues with my team and then relax until I forgot all about the motion sickness, nasty sap allergies and Ursa that had taken a dump all over the first field trip of the year.

Blake, though, seemed more than willing to avoid the question, and simply didn't answer it. She didn't even bother trying to lie or make up some excuse, she just flat out ignored the question. "I want to apologize." She told me, and it looked almost painful for her to admit it, but she soldiered on regardless. "I… I was in a bad place. I wasn't in my right mind, and everything was fight or flight back then. I threatened you when you helped me. It wasn't right. So, I'm sorry."

She kept her apology short, and the explanation behind her actions remained short and vague, and I had a feeling that asking about it wouldn't be helping any. Bringing one hand up to my face, I rubbed at my eyes, trying to alleviate some of the pressure building up painfully behind them.

It was good that Blake was apologizing, great even. Knowing a little of why she'd done it was good too, even if I didn't really know why, only some vague hint that she had been in danger at the time. But honestly, that seemed very like Blake. From what little I had seen of her since we'd been put on the same team, the girl was headstrong and independent. Stubborn as well, and she would dig her heels in if I tried to pry for more answers.

While I didn't know exactly why she had threatened me, or what lead to it. I did know that she had helped me out today. I might have been fine against the Ursa, even without her interference, but I couldn't deny that she had helped. And wasn't that the thing that mattered? She'd made a mistake in a moment of weakness, was it really fair to hold that against her for the rest of our time at Beacon?

'No, no it isn't fair.' I decided.

"I won't say that it's fine, because it was pretty messed up. And while I don't exactly understand why you did it, I won't pry." The girl seemed to deflate at my response, "But," She perked up, "I accept your apology. I won't lie and say that I'm completely over it, but you saved me today, I we'll call it even." Amber eyes met my own blue orbs, and I could make out a hint of a smile on the black-haired girl's face.

With a stupid smile of my own, I stuck my hand out at her. "I didn't get to finish my introduction last time. The name's Jaune, Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue. Ladies love it."

"Do they?"

Ah, another failed opener. All was right in the world.

A/N: Hi guys, I've been getting a lot of feedback about the whole Cardin thing, and maybe I let my own views on it color Jaune's responses a little bit too much. To me, Cardin is incredibly unimportant, and thus not something Jaune is going to get mad about, which might be a little unrealistic from Jaune's perspective. But, let me clarify a couple of things here. People are saying that Cardin committed attempted murder here, which is just not true. He threw the sap at Jaune, but he had no idea Jaune was allergic. It's not like Jaune told him about his allergy, and if I see someone washing their hands and sneezing once in a forest, my first thought isn't 'oh, that guy must be allergic to the tree sap we're tapping'. Also, the sap doesn't attract the Ursa, they were already there. On the Wiki, it only says that the tree sap attracts Rapier Wasps because they are attracted to sweet things, so it's not like the Grimm are Cardin's fault here.

He is, however, going to be punished. It's not included in the story, because I wrote these chapters over a week ago, and I forgot about it. That said, he's getting a 2-week suspension and detention until the end of the semester for endangering another student (and because it's his second offense in as many weeks). I hope that explains things a little.

If you guys missed the last update, I have a little spot on this Discord server now where people can come and discuss this story with me should they want to. It's a much easier way for me to communicate with people than through reviews since I either have to respond in a chapter once every other day here, or send PMs that no one reads or responds to. Over on Discord, I can reply in real time, and it's just much easier overall. The code is b7JaQcpuc7 if you guys are interested.

As always, you can read up to 4 chapters ahead on:

P a treon . com (slash) Raven991

Have a good one!