Weiss felt her temper rising.

Her foot bounced up and down as she tapped a ruler to the whiteboard she'd brought to their dorm room, a few lines of writing and a simple drawing of a dust crystal on the board. On this side, at least. The other side was covered in densely written chemical compounds and the process of how Dust was refined.

All of those were concepts so basic and simple, she could literally remember them off by heart, and she had! That's how they were on the whiteboard! 'So what am I missing? How is this dolt not getting it?!'

Jaune Arc, the cause of an unfortunate amount of her recent stress, stared at the whiteboard with his brow creased as she tapped the pencil she had given him on the side of his head as he read over her writing.

It was the third time she had explained how Dust interacted with Aura to enhance Semblances, but he still had that look that told her he wasn't understanding it. "So, Arc? Can you tell me why we can't use Dust over a Purity Level 4 to enhance or alter a Semblance's effect?"

He jolted as she spoke directly to him, and she felt her eye twitch slightly. She forced her foot to stop bouncing, silencing the constant noise it made, but that only highlighted the sounds of video games coming from behind Jaune, where Ruby and Yang were playing together.

The boy had the decency to look guilty as his shoulders dropped. "I, uh, I'm still a little stuck on my question from before… What exactly is Dust? I know its fuel, we weren't that far into the wilderness at home, but… it was just stuff you poured into a hole and then the higher-tech machines worked. You still haven't explained what it is, or why you have a whole company dedicated to it."

Weiss couldn't help it as she stomped behind the whiteboard, blocking him from sight, and screamed silently, miming the action of choking someone with her bare hands. It was immature, but for a moment, she found it cathartic to imagine herself strangling Arc.

She schooled her emotions right after and stepped back out, ready to yell at Arc for not listening to her lectures properly, when she noticed him writing in the empty notebook she had thrown at him at the start of the 'study session'.

On the left-hand page were random notes of the topics she had gone over, and he had seemingly just written down random snippets of her lecture, but on the other page was a fairly long list of questions relating to Dust, titled 'Questions for After'…

Weiss sagged as she felt most of the wind leave her sails at that, a hand rising to pinch the bridge of her nose. Some of the questions were as simple as 'Why is some Dust different colours'... And that made her realize something.

He wasn't 'not listening to her', he just had no context about Dust.

Letting out a ragged sigh, she used a glyph to send a chair scrapping its way over to her and plopped down on it, letting one leg hang over the other as she crossed her arms. "How on Remnant could your parents think not teaching you about Dust was alright?"

Arc froze for an instant before seemingly realizing that it wasn't criticism sent his way, and relaxed. "I'm not sure, especially since you all seem to know so much about it. Is it mainly a Huntsman and Huntress thing?"

Weiss stamped down the small spike of frustration that rose in her, acknowledging that at least this time it was directed at Arc's parents instead of him. "No, it is a global fuel source for both Huntsmen and civilians, both of whom use it to power near-on everything that needs power."

"Other than the mech we had at the farm, I guess. That used steam power, mostly."

Weiss let out a long sigh. "Yes, you have told me about your parent's friend 'Jimmy' and his seeming distaste concerning Dust before. He sounds like a conspiracy theorist, Arc, afraid of things just because most people use them."

Weiss hummed to herself as she tried to restructure the 'lesson plans' she had created in her head so that she would be able to properly teach him but realized after a moment that she had made similar assumptions about his foreknowledge for most of them.

She was loathe to throw away perfectly good mental plans, but alas, they were unusable. Hmm, her family and their company would be a good, easy place to start. Nice and simple, he'd earned that by at least attempting to study.

Unlike Ruby and Yang, who were too busy playing video games, or Blake, who was 'reading' while incredibly unsubtly staring at Arc, as much as he failed to notice. 'Are myself and Ren seriously the only normal people in fireteam JSBYRR?'

She turned to see what Ren was doing and froze as she saw him holding onto the bottom of the bed above him with his feet, 'sat' in a meditation position while hanging upside down, his eye snapping open as his phone let out a small 'boop!', clearly a notification noise.

'Fine, I guess that makes me the only normal person in fireteam JSBYRR.'

Shaking her head, she purged the train of thought, returning her focus back to Arc, who was waiting patiently. "Alright then, Arc. How about we start with the SDC for now, and we can go further into what Dust is later? Sound good?"

Jaune nodded at her, his body language perking up a bit, and she couldn't help but feel guilty about throwing so much 'Schnee-level' knowledge at someone who couldn't even name the types of Dust.

"The SDC, or Schnee Dust Company, was created by my grandfather Nicholas Schnee. We mine, refine, and ship Dust to all corners of Remnant, and provide work in almost every industry you can name."

She saw Jaune writing her words down on a new page and preened slightly, her chin rising as she smiled. She was proud of the SDC, and why shouldn't she be? The family company had become the premier business of Remnant.

"It was handed down to my late bastard of a father, one Jaques Schnee, when my grandfather died, and when he took over there were… changes… in the name of increased profits. Harsher contracts and cut corners on safety, especially where Faunus were involved…"

She couldn't help the dark look that came onto her face, something that Jaune clearly noticed by his uncomfortable shuffling, but she quickly got rid of it. She also noticed that Blake seemed more interested, having even actually closed the book she was using as a 'cover' for her staring.

"Tragically, however, ten years ago my father refused to listen to a safety officer during a routine tour of one of our facilities and perished. Truly, it was a terrible shame."

A sneer grew on her face as she thought of her 'father', but she was distracted when she heard Jaune let out a choked sputter at her bluntness (and clear sarcasm). He didn't seem to want to interrupt her to question that, however, as he just continued to write in his notebook.

"My mother took over what was hers by birthright, and… Rolled back many of the changes my father pushed for. I respect her quite a lot, for reforming an entire company while also recovering from her alco- ahem. Anyway-"

She was interrupted as a pillow slammed into her face, thrown by one Yang Xiao Long. "Why?!"

Yang stuck her tongue out at her, smiling. "C'mon, you're still doing this study session thing? You've been going at it for two and a half hours! Let the Chief have a proper rest before bed, or are you just enjoying the free labour as he writes your biography?"

Weiss couldn't deny the flush of red that appeared on her cheeks as she flung an arm out at Yang, a glyph appearing underneath the girl and throwing her at the nearby wall. Yang loudly laughed during the whole flight before her eyes turned red right before impact.

Yang seemed completely unfazed by the collision, and immediately tackled Weiss into the other side of the room, wrestling with her.

Jaune just stared at where Weiss and Yang were wrestling.

After a moment of watching the two girls fight, Ruby came up and tapped his shoulder, holding out the controller Yang had been using. "You wanna play? I need a second person!"

Jaune smiled as he closed his notebook, scooted the desk Weiss had gotten him over to the nearby wall, and took the controller from Ruby. "Of course! Definitely looks like my study session is over for now…"

"Now! Does anyone have any general questions about Grimm before I start today's lesson?"

Jaune hummed at Doctor Oobleck's question. Truth be told, he had lots of questions about the Grimm, but in the interest of keeping the fact that he was a country bumpkin with no experience a secret, he kept his hand down.

Anything he really wanted to know would probably be in the library, anyway.

He was in the third row of chairs in the student area of the classrooms, Ren, Ruby, and Weiss on his left, with Yang and Blake on his right. That was why he was a little surprised when there was movement from his right.

Blake raised her hand and Doctor Oobleck happily pointed to her, having been the only one to call attention to herself. "Yes! Miss Belladonna, what is your question?"

Getting to her feet, Blake seemed to rummage through her bag for a moment before pulling out a dusty-looking brown book, about as thick as his scroll's screen. "I read a lot, in a bunch of different genres, and I've noticed that in a couple of the really really old stories, the Grimm are often talked about as if they were closer to the size of people. Do you know why that is?"

Doctor Oobleck's whole body seemed to perk up at the question, and Jaune could spot the man's eyes widening even through his goggles as a grin split the man's face. "Why I just might, Miss Belladonna!"

He ran over to his desk scroll and tapped away at the screen for a moment, before the board at the front of the class mirrored the desk scroll's screen, showing an article on Hunt-a-pedia.

"What you are talking about, young lady is the Brobdingnag Theory! It is considered a bit of a fringe theory and doesn't really have enough evidence to be recognised by most scientific bodies, but the Brobdingnag Theory posits that ancient Grimm, think a few thousand years ago, were smaller but far more numerous. Hundreds, if not thousands of times more than there are now."

That got Jaune's attention, as it did for seemingly everyone in the room. To have to deal with hundreds of Grimm… Even if they were smaller, he couldn't really think if he would make that trade.

A relentless swarm of tiny Grimm sounded like the stuff of nightmares, to be honest.

"The theory further suggests that Huntsmen and Huntresses of the era were just far too efficient at taking down the smaller and weaker Grimm, so the Grimm tried to adapt by getting bigger and bigger until they reached the size we see today."

Doctor Oobleck continued, very clearly revelling in the chance to go on a rant about a theory he was clearly passionate about. "But… While it is an interesting theory, do I myself subscribe to it? N-no, I do not."

There was an odd flinch in his tone at that, barely noticeable, but Jaune felt like Doctor Oobleck had paused just a moment too long there. It was as if he was trying to think of what he should say, instead of just answering.

Glancing over at Blake, he saw her eyes narrowed. Had she noticed the weird pause too?

"Ooh! Ooh! Doctor Oobleck, pick me!"

Ruby was jumping up and down in her chair with her arm raised, and Doctor Oobleck took the opportunity to move on, it seemed. "Yes, Miss Rose, what's your question?"

She grinned at being picked, seemingly not realizing she was the only one with her hand up, and smacked her hands onto the desk in front of her as she leant forward. "Exactly how many cookies, and how much milk, do you think Grimm have to eat and drink to get as big as they do?"

There was silence for a moment, before someone a few rows behind them snorted. Then another person chuckled. It wasn't long until everyone was full-on laughing, with even Doctor Oobleck covering his mouth with his mug.

"You are a delight, Miss Rose. Now, let us move onto the basics of Grimm biology, what laymen sometimes call 'Grimm Goop."

Doctor Oobleck changed the screen over to a cross-section of a Leviathan, a black line pointing to the 'flesh' of a Grimm with the label 'Grimm Goop'. Ruby plopped back into her seat next to Jaune and pouted, crossing her arms.

"But I really wanted to know!"

Jaune winced as Yang reared her leg back and kicked the training room door open.

She stepped in and had a quick look around the room before turning and grinning at Jaune. "C'mon, Chief! You look like you're about to earn your old nickname again, Get your butt in here so we can spar!"

Jaune could admit that he didn't feel like the 'chief' when she leaned over and grabbed him by the arm and dragged him inside because he took a second longer than Yang liked to follow her into the training room, but he let her drag him forward to the stands next to the 'arena', plopping his bag down onto the chair.

Opening the Beacon-branded duffle bag, he pulled out a water bottle and his scroll. While he did that, Yang ran over to the other side of the room to a door labelled 'Storage' and opened the door.

Heading inside, she yelled out to him, sounding a little muffled due to her voice having to go through the small door, a wall between them. "I asked Miss Goodwitch after combat training this morning if there were rooms like this available to practice sparring, and apparently, these don't currently have anybody booked into this weekly timeslot, so I put us down!"

Yang exited the room, having seemingly found what she was after, and threw something at Jaune. It smacked into his face with a dull 'THWAP' and luckily, wasn't solid enough to hurt him even if he hadn't gotten his Aura up.

The blue boxing gloves she'd thrown him looked to be the right size, so he started slipping them on as Yang carried 4 large poles out of the room under her armpits, slotting them into holes in the ground and creating a square.

Once they were all in, she pressed a button atop one of them, and a faint energy barrier wall as high as the pillars sprung into life. Yang turned to him and pointed her hands towards her creation. "Ta-dah! One perfectly functional boxing ring, ready for sparring."

Jaune smiled as she hopped the barrier, and he followed suit, finding the motion far easier than it ever had been to hop a fence back at the farm. 'Man, Aura is so fucking cool…'

He had expected Yang to just start throwing punches, but instead, she plopped down onto her butt, putting her hair up into a ponytail while she patted the ground nearby and motioned for him to sit as well. Dropping down, he tilted his head at her, clearly confused.

Yang smiled as she fiddled with her own boxing gloves, the orange almost matching the tank top she usually wore outside of her uniform. "You can chill, dude. I offered to help teach you how to throw a punch, well, part of that is knowing how much you already know!"

Her smile was infectious, her excitement clear in her purple eyes as she held out on gloved hand for him to fist bump. "So, what kind of fighting experience have you got?"

Jaune's mind chose that moment to freeze in place. Should he lie to her? Should he tell the truth? Two out of Five of his teammates already knew he was a fraud, but that didn't mean he should be telling Five out of Five…

Finally, after a moment's thought, he gulped, his shoulders sinking in a little. "Uh, not much, to be honest. Our 'spar' the other day was the first time I've had to fight another person. I actually have killed a fox or two back home, but usually with our rifle or a shovel, never bare-handed."

Yang frowned at that for a moment, but instead of taking it badly like he was worried she would, she just shrugged. "Well… If you got into Beacon, the Admiral must have seen some sort of potential in you, for all of Weiss-cream's complaints. And I'm going to help you unleash it!"

In a burst of pure strength, she used her hands to jump up onto her feet, sending him a cheesy grin as she made a pose he was sure was from an old martial arts movie. "Aren't I just the most generous, awesome, coolest, blondest teacher around?"

Jaune, whose ascension to his feet was a little less flashy, couldn't help the smile on his face. "Definitely the most generous, awesome, coolest teacher around, and I promise I'll repay you for this. Also, uh… Miss Goodwitch might have you for 'Blondest' though."

Yang paused at his words, her cheeks darkening for a moment before she forced a smug look on her face again, waving him off. "And because of my infinite modesty and stunning intellect, I will not be contesting Miss Goodwitch for anything. Now! I'll show you how to not get hit in the face, and then I'll start throwing punches."

Stepping next to him, Yang got into position, one foot in front of the other, with both hands up in front of her face, with one further out and the other practically sitting on her chin. "When fighting with your only hands, it's all about protecting your vital areas. And I'm not talking about 'Chief Jr' here, I'm talking about your face and your gut. Try and punch me in the face."

Jaune threw his best punch towards her face, knowing that her Aura could take the brunt of it, even if he hadn't been wearing gloves, but his fist barely got halfway before the hand Yang was holding out in front of her batted it downwards like a bear, almost causing Jaune to stumble forward.

"Again."

He threw another punch, and this time Yang didn't bat it down but instead caught it on the padded glove sitting on her cheek, and Jaune could tell that it barely even registered for her. A smile split her face, and she took a step back, rolling her shoulders. "Do you think that you understand what I'm doing, or do you wanna try and hit me some more to check?"

Jaune couldn't help but gulp at her words, and he felt like he got a vision of an alternate timeline where he just punched at her for a while before giving it a try, and she returned every single one of the punches he'd thrown herself.

He shivered as the vision ended, and raised his hands in the best replication of her pose as he could, even trying to get the footing correct. He nodded to Yang…

And was immediately punched in the face.

"Gah!"

He stumbled backwards as Yang's fist hit him square in the nose, but the gloves and his Aura being up meant that it was only a small spike of pain. Reeling, he tried to put his feet back into position and get set up again, but his hesitation in fixing his pose caused him to take another punch.

He jumped backwards, away from Yang, and tried to fix his positioning, and the extra space gave him just enough time to get set up properly, and attempt to bat down her hand. 'Attempt' being the key word.

"Oof!"

His back hit the barrier of the ring and it bent slightly behind him, cushioning his impact. "Yang! What the hell, let me get set up!"

He was in for another lesson about hesitating, apparently, because Yang's gloved fist slammed into his own against his cheek and sent him tumbling to the floor in a right hook that he hadn't seen coming.

"Nobody is gonna give you time to prepare yourself in a real fight, so cmon, get up and get your guard up!"

He jumped to his feet and darted backwards to make space again as he pulled his hands up into position, his eyes widening as Yang lunged forward at him for a jab, and his eyes closed on instinct as his hand swatted down.

There was a soft 'THWAP' sound that echoed in his ears, and his eyes opened to see that he'd swatted the jab down. A grin spread across his face. "Yang! I did it! I di- AGH!"

He'd dropped his guard to celebrate, it seemed, or at least that's what must have happened for her to have simply clocked him with an uppercut with no resistance. Jaune snorted in his head as he sat on the ground, dazed but technically unhurt, his Aura still well in the green.

Yang pulled him to his feet with a smile. "Alright, we're gonna swap again, and you're gonna follow me around and try to get a hit on me, and I will only defend. You get a point if you actually hit me, not my gloves, and we stop if you get 10 points."

Jaune nodded, which caused Yang to drop her chin, looking up at him through her lashes. "I really don't expect you to get above like, 3, however. If you could get 10 points on me in your very first sparring 'class' then you wouldn't need the practice."

Yang started the next exercise and Jaune started following her as she backed up in a circle, attempting to get a punch to connect to her face or stomach, but everything he did was either swatted away or simply dodged… It was still so much fun.

Yeah, his arms were sore, and he was getting frustrated at the lack of success on his part, but his Aura seemed to be loving it. If he didn't keep it clamped down, it almost felt like it was so excited to be fighting like this that it was trying to force itself into his arms to make them stronger and faster, even when he didn't need them to.

The mental strain of trying to wrangle his own Aura while also trying to land a blow against someone so much better at him than this was eventually too much to handle for him, and the control he was exerting over his Aura slipped as he tried for a right hook.

His Aura flooded into his arms, causing the outline they created around his arm to bulge outward, flaring with white light as his Aura was forced to become visible over the limbs, his whole body's Aura trying to make its way into his arms as if it was trying to fist-fight Yang itself.

And apparently, his Aura doing so was weird enough to distract Yang, as his Aura-filled fists slammed into her unguarded face, sending her reeling backwards a couple of steps, her own Aura dropping by a solid chunk.

He quickly wrangled his Aura back under his control, and the glow faded, but looking at his scroll told him he'd wasted almost half of it with that display and attack. He let his hands drop and stared at his arms.

'Was this normal for Aura? I have no frame of reference… I should ask Weiss at some point after I figure out how to repay her for unlocking it in the first place!'

His musings were cut short when Yang started laughing. "Ha… haha… hahaha! That was a great hit, Jaune! Risky and wasteful, but that actually packed a punch! Hahahaha!"

Jaune met Yang's eyes, realizing three things.

Thing #1: Yang had called him 'Jaune' instead of Chief.

Thing #2: Yang's eyes were red.

Thing #3: His uncontrolled attack had caused some of her hair to start sticking out at the wrong angle no matter how much she frantically wiped it down.

His heart leapt into his throat as he started moving his hands back into position. "Yang, w-wait!"

SMACK

"ACK!"

Thing #4: If you are going to punch Yang in the face and mess up her hair, knock her out in that one hit. Because if you didn't, you would just have to prepare to get hit right back with the force of an Atlesian artillery piece.

Jaune stumbled into the Dorm room to see the rest of his team staring at him. Probably because he was covered head-to-toe in already-healing bruises.

Ren was meditating again, Weiss and Blake were playing Chess, and Ruby was cleaning her mock-up weapon, the super-cool, super tricked-out war scythe that was also a rifle. As he entered the room, Ruby spoke up first, concern clear in her tone, laughter even clearer.

"A-are you, snrk, alright, Jaune? You're…"

Looking over and coughing into his fist, Ren smiled at Jaune from his bed, where he sat cross-legged while he texted someone. "I see your 'sparring' with Yang was productive. Did you learn much between kisses with the floor?"

Jaune sighed and was about to nod when he felt himself flinch, seemingly sensing as Yang stepped through the door behind him, grinning as she wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "He sure did! What did you learn, chief?"

His hands instinctively came into position in front of his face and his feet settled into place. "Don't get punched in the face!"

He caught Weiss raising an eyebrow at him for that, before turning back to her chess match with Blake, who nodded to him. "Always a good thing to learn, I suppose."

Ren nodded sagely at his yelled words, getting up from his bed and moving over to clap Jaune in a manly hug that totally didn't make Jaune's bruises cry bloody Mary. Ren patted him on the back softly as he whispered.

"Welcome to the club, my friend. The 'people trained in hand-to-hand combat by a girl that is extremely strong and slightly insane.' club. Nora was mine, and now Yang is yours… It is good to finally not be alone…"

Jaune awkwardly lifted his arm and patted Ren's back as well, and the boy detached from him, returning to his bed and his meditation as if nothing happened. "Alright, well, I'm going to go to bed now if no one needs me- ACK! Stop punching me in the face!"

Yang just grinned at him sweetly, cocking one hip out and leaning her arm on it. "You dropped your guard."

"Ren hugged me!"

"You were grappled by a third party!"

Turning to her sister, Jaune pleaded with the black and red-haired girl who couldn't seem to decide if she felt sorry for him or if she wanted to double over from laughter. "Ruby, please save me!"

Ruby looked down sadly, closing her bright silver eyes as she shook her head. "I'm really sorry, but Yang bought me cookies yesterday, so I kinda owe her one."

SMACK

"Yang!"

The smug smile on Yang's face was blinding. "Gotta get that guard up, chief!"