(Chapter 3)
As he collected the attention of his new team, the boy swallowed hard, he knew what he was about to do was risky, but he wasn't going to hide anything like this from his team, his…friends. The other occupants of the room just looked to him, reactions ranging. Flynt just nodded and sat back down on the ottoman next to his bed and put down his trumpet, Neon jumped back on to her bed and looked at him waiting for him to talk, and Penny smiled at him.
He shrunk from the gaze of his teammates and almost seemed to retreat into himself as he tried to decide where to begin his tale, before a gentle hand rested on his shoulder. He looked up to see his partner giving him a reassuring smile, to which he returned with one of bewilderment a tiny smile was sent back to her in thanks. He took a deep breath and began.
"So, I'm not exactly…qualified to be here. At this academy or any of them really." As he said this, the blonde teen knew there was now no return. The curious look that had spread over Neon's face was obvious, and Flynt seemed to become more attentive as he said this. Penny just continued to look at him with the same look of exuberance as she had since they met. At the pause that filled the room, Flynt decided to speak.
"What are you talking about? You got accepted into Atlas, didn't you?"
Jaune winced at the dark-skinned boy's question before answering reluctantly.
"Yea, but, I uh, probably wouldn't have been accepted here if I had applied normally…" as he said this, the faunus of his team added her two cents to the conversation.
"OH! That's right. There were rumors going around the campus about how a new mysterious transfer student, but no one knew where he came from. That was you?" The blonde just looked confused at the revelation before he replied.
"There were rumors about me? I wonder who started them…" The blonde shook his head, realizing he could investigate that later as he was getting off track. He steeled his resolve and got to the heart of what he wanted to share with his team.
"Anyways, I transferred here from Beacon Academy. I…I didn't get trained to be a huntsman before I went there. My family refused to train me or let me go to a huntsman preparatory school." He looked around the room to see the reactions of his team. Penny now tilted her head slightly to the side, an innocent look of curiosity on her face, Neon looked completely lost as to why Jaune seemed so worried when he wanted to tell them all this, and Flynt remained silent, but had an inkling of where the story was going, and so he decided to ask.
"Jaune, if all that's true, how did you get into Beacon then." The trumpeter asked. The teen in question just looked up to the ceiling before speaking.
"I cheated. I knew they wouldn't bat an eyelash at my application if I tried to apply without any prior training, so I used most of the money I had to get ahold of some forged transcripts. They were holding up too, until I couldn't keep my mouth shut."
The other members of the newly formed team JCKP all stayed silent, signaling for Jaune to continue his story.
"There was this guy who bullied me, and I was too weak and afraid to stand up to him besides once where I helped out a faunus he was preying on. After I helped her, I made his shit list and was always on his radar, if he saw me with no teachers around, he made sure to make my day hell." He recalled the events between him and his now ginger haired friend as he paused briefly before continuing.
"One night, after a pretty bad day of getting pushed around by him, my partner took me aside to the rooftop to talk." Everyone present was able to hear the hurt in his tone as he spoke.
"She offered to help me, to protect me, but not even a few minutes later after I told her my secret, she turned on me. She forced me to tell my team, and then they turned on me too. After two weeks, she told the team we always spent time with, and then they turned on me too. The very next day after they told them, I was called to the headmaster's office." The other occupants of the room listened as he told his tale, thinking and waiting to hear everything before they made their judgement.
"The deputy headmistress, Ms. Goodwitch, was the one they told, and she wasn't too happy about it. So, she told headmaster Ozpin, and that was that, I knew I was going to leave Beacon. When it was just me and him, he gave me a choice: give up on my dreams of being a huntsman or come to Atlas to get some real training, no false transcripts and no false entry, and he even let me withdraw from Beacon instead of kicking me out so that it wouldn't show on my record."
Jaune now held a look of determination and decided to finish taking up all the attention of his team.
"I told a team of second years what happened, and they didn't care. They told me that I had their full support. And funny thing, that bully? Me and him are cool, he apologized for everything, and is trying to make a change to how he is." He smiled as he told them that, and it stayed as he continued. "Professor Ozpin and General Ironwood are giving me this chance, and I am not going to let this one slip away." He spoke with finality.
After he ended his story he looked around the room and readied himself to be shunned by the other members of team JCKP, but as he heard nothing for a few moments, he almost began to ask if everything was okay, before Penny stood up and moved to stand in front of the blonde teen. He looked down at her before she suddenly wrapped her arms around his torso gently, to not repeat in almost injuring her partner.
He was stunned to silent and just stood in his spot for a small while, no one saying anything before he spoke to his partner in a quiet tone. "You…aren't upset." It was more an observation than a question. She just looked up to him from where she was hugging him and replied.
"No, I'm not Partn-Jaune. You're my friend, I don't care about what you did. You're here now and you passed initiation. You earned the right to be here just as much as anyone else here." At this Jaune could nothing but put his arms around the girl dumbly and return her hug, thankful to her.
An awkward cough from Neon helped remind Jaune of the other occupants in the room as he quickly jumped back from the green-eyed girl that was hugging him moments ago, shying away from the mischievous grin that the cat faunus wore as she began to speak.
"You two are pretty close~ did something happen before you came here? I wonder…" She trailed off, enjoying both the blushing yet mortified look Jaune had and the innocent confused face that Penny wore. She laughed at the pair, wiping away fake tears with mirth from her eyes, before she spoke again.
"But, in all seriousness, everyone does something they know is bad at least once. And I can't trust anyone who says they haven't. So, Jaune, before all this, did you ever do anything bad?"
The blonde teen thought for a moment at her question, before he shook his head in a no, not able to remember doing anything especially bad. The orange haired faunus just cracked a smile before happily giving her verdict.
"Then I guess it's a good thing you finally did something bad huh? Because that means I can trust you and call you a friend." She passed a glance over to her dark-skinned partner, who had a look of thought from the beginning of the story to the end. Flynt adjusted how he was sitting on the bed before looking at his leader and giving a small smirk.
"If Neon says it's cool, then I'm with it, she's always been a good judge of character. Way I see it, what you did was wrong. It put your team and friends in danger." As he said this Jaune began to have a bit of worry before the trumpeter dashed his fears away.
"But, being a huntsman is already dangerous, and having another person out there to share the stage in front of things trying to kill you never hurts." As he said this, he stood up and made his way across the room until he was a few feet away from Jaune and put his hand out for a shake. "As long as you never make a plan that puts me, my partner, or your partner in unnecessary danger, we're Jake."
Jaune started to tear up a bit accepting the handshake, having risked everything by telling his new team about his secret, and this time was rewarded with friends that were happy to accept him. Suddenly the blonde teen made a look of confusion and voiced a question that now was on his mind.
"…What do you mean, 'We're Jake?'" Flynt just laughed at the boy, followed by Neon who understood Flynt's lingo, and a look of fellow befuddlement from Penny.
Back at Beacon, Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora were all making their way to the headmaster's office to meet the Pyrrha's new partner. As they walked through the halls, they all wondered what kind of person their fourth member would be.
"So Renny, what do you think our new teammate is gonna be like?" The bubbly and ever energetic voice of Nora asked to her lifelong friend. The teen kept pace as he thought of what kind of personality their new teammate would have.
"Hmm…Well, I wouldn't mind having another guy on the team. Or at the very least, someone laid back." Ren spoke to the pink bomber, before looking to Pyrrha.
"And what about you Pyrrha? What do you suppose your new partner will be like?" The scarlet spartan smiled warmly in thought.
"Well, I hope they're strong, kind, and someone who wants to protect and save lives." She spoke with a sure tone, looking back to the sole boy among her close friends. Nora decided it was her turn to insert her own opinions of what she wanted from their new teammate.
"I hope they like pancakes and sloths, but they have to be really strong, and nice!" Ren and Pyrrha both smiled in response to their excitable friend. It wasn't too long before the three Beacon students found themselves standing in front of the door to Ozpin's office. Pyrrha reached to open the door but stopped once she heard an argument coming from inside and beckoned her team to join her in listening through the door.
"I don't trust you! I trusted you once, and I lost everything because of it!" A woman's voice rang out.
"Then why are you here?" Professor Ozpin replied, sounding exasperated beyond compare.
"Because…I have no choice. I can either work with you, and coexist, or with her, and die. At least this way…my tribe has a fighting chance." The female spoke with a somber, angry tone.
"What about your family?" Ozpin replied, a tone between curious and disappointed.
"My tribe IS my family now."
"Honestly Raven, I don't know why you make things so difficult. You know that they would accept you back, you might have to prove that you're going to be here, but they do miss you. You know that, right?" Ozpin tried to persuade her.
There was a pause, unlike the last. There was no feeling of overwhelming tension, palpable even beyond the door. The woman was probably mulling over the option, before she spoke again.
"If this plan of yours is to work, I need to be away from here as much as possible. Maybe one day I can have the luxury to see them again and apologize, but that won't be today." The headmaster remained silent once she finished talking. And so she continued.
"Take care of them for me Ozpin. I may not trust you, but I do know you have the strength to keep them alive." The sound of a blade being drawn could be heard, before a strange sound came after she finished speaking, almost otherworldly in nature.
"You have my word, as little to you as that may mean, that I will keep them safe from all of this." Ozpin spoke out to the female one last time. Raven began to walk towards the sound, and before the sound disappeared, and her voice with it, she spoke out, in a different tone to what they could only assume was a different occupant in the room.
"I expect for you to stay alive. I trained you myself, and if I was able to make it through this academy, then you had better do the same." And with that, the sound stopped, and a third voice spoke out softly.
"Yes ma'am."
The three teens from their hiding spot all quickly felt that they had just intruded on something that was likely extremely classified or personal, and so they collected themselves and put on faces of blissful ignorance. After waiting a few minutes, Pyrrha pushed open the door to Ozpin's office and was greeted by the sight of the headmaster drinking from his ever-present coffee mug, and a girl around their age.
She was rather plain looking, having extremely short brown hair. She wore pants that were maroon at the thigh, and brown from the knees down, accompanied by brown boots. Around her chest she wore a brown vest with the sleeves torn away and a popped collar, brown gloves, and a choker wrapped snuggly around her neck. The most noticeable feature of the girl were her eyes and her tattoo. Her eyes were a piercing blue akin to ice, and on her left arm a tattoo of a raven above a flower was depicted on her tan skin.
The unnamed girl turned to observe the new occupants of the room, before she scoffed to herself and rolled her eyes at the members of NPR. This earned a huff from Nora, who seemed to be about to voice her thoughts to the tan girl but was stopped by a hand from Ren. Pyrrha saw the girl's reaction but brushed it off as she had once been like that, before she had learned humility.
The girl looked back to the headmaster and spoke. "Professor, if that's everything, can I go now." She looked to the professor with boredom. The white-haired man in question took another sip from his mug before he massaged his temples tiredly and spoke to the girl.
"Now now young lady, don't be so hasty. You may not know how we do things here at Beacon, but since you'll be attending starting today, you will have to learn. Here, we don't train any students by themselves, rather, we train them in teams. And luckily for you, yours just arrived." The girl adopted a look between horror and regret, but before she could begin to argue, the headmaster spoke again.
"Ms. Nikos, would you and your team please step forward and introduce yourselves to your new partner." Upon hearing the headmaster's request, the spartan and her team walked forward until they were only a few feet from the roguish girl and began introductions.
"Hiya! I'm Nora, I like pancakes, sloths, Renny, my hammer! Also, I…" After the initial introduction of Nora, the tan skinned girl began to tune her out and looked to the sole male of the team, who sensed that it was his turn to introduce himself.
"Hello, I'm Lie Ren, but everyone just calls me Ren." The girl gave a begrudged nod to the boy, thankful for his to the point nature. Pyrrha seeing that she was the only one left to introduce themselves began speaking.
"And I'm Pyrrha Nikos, your new partner. It's a pleasure to meet you." She smiled to the girl and stuck her hand out. The unnamed girl looked to and from the hand outstretched towards her and the smile the girl wore, before she smirked devilishly.
To Ren, what he saw the girl doing was both unsanitary and disgusting, and he watched as she spat into her palm, and proceeded to shake his scarlet haired teammate's hand, who shuddered in response to the firm and saliva coated handshake she was met with.
"Vernal. Vernal Branwen of the Branwen Tribe." As she said this, the three teens nodded to her and Ozpin cleared his throat, collecting the attention of the other occupants of his office and spoke once more.
"From this day on, the four of you will form team Providence, PRVN, led by Ms. Nikos." The headmaster stood up and pulled out an item from his pocket before tossing it to Vernal, who caught it to reveal that it was a scroll.
"Ms. Nikos and the rest of your team will help you acclimate to Beacon, and if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask them or a teacher. Now, off you go, all of you." The members of team PRVN made for the door, and as they exited, Ozpin called out one last thing for them.
"Also, take Vernal to get a set of uniforms for her." As the door closed behind them, team PRVN walked in silence on the way to the dorms, before Vernal asked a question.
"What's a uniform?"
(One week later)
Jaune was facing a dilemma. He had completed everything for his enrollment except for two crucial parts. He still hadn't gotten a new set of combat clothes, and he still hadn't acquired a weapon for himself. Coco, the coffee colored fashionista of Beacon, assured the blonde that she would help him pick out an outfit that would help him turn heads like her and her team. All that left him to do was pick out a weapon.
The blue-eyed blonde was currently in the armory labs of the academy with his partner, trying to find himself a suitable weapon or weapons so that he could participate in combat class. Sadly, he hadn't found any luck so far.
"Dammit!" The teen's frustration slipped from him; he took a deep breath before putting down the sword/javelin/sniper rifle mecha-shift weapon he had been testing out. The balance felt off, the sword form was too heavy, the javelin form was too long, and the only semi-decent part of the weapon was the sniper rifle.
'I wonder if I'll find a weapon suitable for me, since I don't really have training.' As he put it back to its original spot, Penny seemed to be able to read his mind, and tried to reassure him.
"Don't you worry Partner; we'll find you a weapon. And if we can't find one, we'll make one!" The ever-bubbly voice of his partner exclaimed, doing little to ease his worries, but succeeded in making the blonde smile.
"…You're right Penny, thanks." Jaune replied to the girl, truly grateful for her pure heart. The ginger-haired girl smiled and led him away to another part of the workshop to search for another potential weapon. After another thirty minutes of searching the duo decided to take a break, sitting together on one of the unused workbenches.
Jaune let Penny talk about whatever topic seemed that seemed to capture her as he stared to the ceiling in thought. After five minutes, he felt a hand gently lay itself on his shoulder and shake him a bit, and he looked back from the ceiling to the left where his partner watched him with concern. He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but her face remained worried as she asked him a question.
"Jaune, are you okay?" His partner asked, her attention solely on him. The boy just let out a sigh, dropping his façade before he answered her.
"I don't know Penny. It's kinda depressing. I just want to be able to train myself so that I can help fight with you guys, but I can't even find a weapon to do it." The boy felt his hand get gripped firmly, but not painfully, by his partner who now had a stern look on her face.
"No more feeling sad Partner, there are still weapons in here for you to test out. Me, you, Flynt, and Neon are all going to get stronger together and show the world who team JCKP is." Penny spoke with a tone that left no room for disagreement, and the boy felt his doubts slowly wash away before shooting the girl an elated grin to which she returned.
Jaune turned from her and scanned the room for a few minutes, letting his sight fall upon the weapons he still hadn't tested yet. Among the many he saw, little did much to hold his interest past an initial glance.
"Any of them catch your eye partner?" Penny's voice called out among the silence, he shook his head no, and she just pumped an arm in the air and made a declaration.
"Then it looks like we're going to design you a unique weapon!" The girl wore an excited smirk as she exclaimed, and her attitude was infectious as Jaune merely nodded his head to her with a smile.
"Oh ho? Did I hear that someone is designing a new weapon?" A third voice called out from behind them, surprising both teens. Jaune and Penny turned around to view who was behind them, and Penny's eyes widened in shock before she ran to the man.
He was a dark-skinned man with gray hair and wore a green hat. The rest of the older man's outfit was rather plain, but what stood out was the contraption that the man sat in. It was a seat with four legs that carried the man. Jaune made an educated guess that the man was most likely a paraplegic since the man could still move his upper body.
"Father!" Penny called out, further adding to her blonde partner's surprise. Jaune watched as his partner gave the man a hug and decided to wait for her to introduce him.
"Hello Darling, are you having a good day?"
"Yes sir! And I hope that you are having a most wonderful day to!"
"I most certainly am, my dear." The man turned to the blonde teen, and cleaned his glasses before studying him in depth, and his face shifted to one of recognition.
"And I'm guessing you must be Jaune, Penny's partner." The man wasn't asking a question, he knew exactly who he was. Jaune nodded his hand and walked forward before offering the older man a handshake.
"Yes sir, Jaune, no last name. Pleasure to meet you." Jaune gave the older man a sincere greeting, hoping to make a better first impression to those he didn't know at Atlas in comparison to the impressions he made at Beacon. The older man gave Jaune a somber smile before accepting the handshake.
"Pietro. Pietro Polendina. Scientist and engineer of Atlas but most importantly, Penny's father." The blonde teen was confused by the sympathy in the man's tone. Before he could inquire if he was alright, the man spoke again.
"Young man, Ironwood spoke to me already about your situation. I know it won't make you feel any better, but I'm sorry about your family." Jaune's just shook his head before he picked up his end of the conversation.
"It's not your fault sir. What's done is done. I'm not happy about it, but I'm not gonna waste energy or time thinking too much on it or hating them. That's all effort that I can use to get stronger and prove them wrong." The older man let out a mirth filled belly laugh before wiping away a tear from his eye and speaking to the teen again.
"Jaune, I think you and I are going to get along famously." From the side, Penny was practically gleaming with happiness at the positivity of her best friend and father's interaction and decided to hop back into the conversation.
"Father, Jaune wishes to arm himself with a weapon, but none of the weapons here suit his tastes. Therefore, we decided to build one!" The ginger-haired girl informed her father of her partner's plight and the older man simply grinned before patting Penny on the head and turning his robotic seat to face the blonde teen.
"I do remember overhearing something about making a weapon when I came over to say hello. So, what do you have in mind?" The older gentleman pulled out some sort of device and began tapping away as he started to think of ideas for his daughter's partner.
"Well…I don't really know? I mean, I've never really had any training, so I guess I'm open to suggestions." Jaune responded to his partner's father. The older man just smiled shortly before putting down the device and imparting knowledge onto the blonde.
"Young man, I know you weren't given any training prior to becoming a student here. But here at Atlas, you will get all the training you need in order to become a full-fledged huntsman. And on the off chance that whatever weapon we design is something so unique that there isn't anyone you can watch to learn from, then you'll just have to make your own combat style."
As the old man finished speaking, Jaune had looked up to the ceiling in thought, imagining a weapon that would match him. Before he could become enraptured in his thoughts, a heavy hand fell upon his shoulder gently and he looked back to the scientist as he spoke to him.
"So, let me rephrase; what kind of weapon do you want? What do you want your weapon to be able to do?" Pietro retracted his hand from Jaune's shoulder and reactivated the small device, powering up a screen from which the genius inventor waited to sketch upon. The blonde teen thought for a moment, before beginning to answer.
"…I want something that will let me protect people. Others too, not just myself. Something that will let me keep my team safe." As he began speaking, Pietro began to write down his comments and brainstorm ideas, still listening fully to Jaune as he did, but also noticing his daughter smile warmly at her leader's words.
"I also want the ability to go on the offensive. I don't want to hide behind my shield and watch my team do all the fighting, I want to be able to fight side by side with them and take out enemies on my own." Upon hearing this, Pietro began drawing possibilities for the teen's weapon, and Penny skipped over next to her father and watched as he listed possible ideas and designs.
For a few minutes, the only sound being made was the tapping of the inventor's finger dancing over the touch screen device while Jaune stood in thought. Both father and daughter's attention bounced back to the boy as he began to speak again.
"I also have a really big weakness, which is that I have no ranged abilities. I want to change that."
"Have you ever used a ranged weapon before?" Pietro asked him, but not looking up from the device, paused in his designing. The boy shook his head no, and the scientist let out a few sounds of thought, deleting some concepts and debating on newer ones as he drew much slower now.
"And the only other thing I can think of is a form to give it some reach, for enemies where being too close is a really bad idea." As he finished listing off what he thought would be the ideal weapon, he looked over to his partner and saw her amazed as she watched her father work. Jaune just chuckled at the girl, and sat on the table next to him, waiting for Pietro to finish whatever he was doing.
After roughly thirty minutes of waiting, Pietro smiled and beckoned the boy to follow him. As he stood there confused, Penny skipped over and pulled him behind her excitedly. Once they arrived at an odd room filled with projectors and what looked like a scanner for the floor, Pietro tapped a few buttons on his device, and swiped his work off the screen, sending it to float in the middle of the room where the three were gathered.
"So Partner, see anything you like?" The ginger haired girl asked to her team leader. The blonde in question stepped forward and reached out to try and read some of the notes written down by Pietro and yelped in surprise when the hologram enlarged where touched for better viewing. Blushing fiercely as his partner and her father laughed at his shock, he began to read through the notes and examine some of the sketches drawn by the inventor.
"Hmmm…" The boy put a finger to his chin in thought as he read the creator notes of each design, weighing over the potential pros and cons of each design he came across.
"See, these are all catching my eye, now I just wish I had some way to…" Jaune trailed off, looking down to his hands before a comment made his eyes widen.
"Feel each one out?" The blonde's snapped over to Pietro, staring at him as if he'd said something insane.
"Yeah, actually. But that's impossible…isn't it?" The boy watched as a large smile found its way to the dark-skinned man's face before he tapped a few buttons on the screen, and a holo-projection replica of the weapon Jaune was looking at appeared in front of the boy. The boy reached out and grabbed the weapon before noticing that it held no weight and looked back to the older man.
"Would it be possible to simulate the weight of different metals to see what I like?" At the blonde's question, the older man nodded.
"Why yes, yes it would. What metal did you have in mind?" The blonde grinned before he answered.
"A non-ferrous, high-grade titanium alloy. And if that's not possible, something non-ferrous that's durable." As the words left his mouth, Pietro couldn't help but feel impressed by the teen, who clearly had been researching options. He was about to question why he asked for that specific metal before a realization struck and he grinned, and made the hologram simulate the weight of his chosen material.
Penny watched as her teammate looked around at all the notes and held each of the potential weapon designs before she turned to her father.
"Friend Jaune seems rather adamant about having a weapon made from non-magnetic metal. Is there any reason as to why?" The ginger's creator smiled to her before enlightening her.
"Darling. Do you know who the members of his former team were?"
"No sir." She looked to him curiously, awaiting a revelation.
"If it's for the reason I suspect, then that boy you have for a partner is probably best at holding grudges that I've ever seen. He's extremely polite and well mannered, but he does have a petty side to him evidently." The older man laughed to himself before he reminisced aloud. "Oh, the joys of being young."
Penny looked as if she was going to ask a question, but got the feeling that perhaps her father wanted her to ask her partner herself, so she went back to watching the blonde who was now testing out another weapon hybrid.
'This isn't the one eith-wait.' Jaune turned from the weapon he was holding, letting it fall apart into countless particles of light as he walked toward a set of floating notes and design ideas. As he read through the notes, his face adopted a ghost of a smile, becoming wider with each page he read through.
After five minutes of excitedly looking through the sketches, he signaled for the older man to form a holo-projection of the weapon he was reading about. The older man nodded, and a heavy hard-light weapon lay suspended in front of the blonde. As he reached out and gripped the shield, he let out a breathless gasp of excitement. He took a practice stance and tried changing stances multiple times to test the shield, before he was satisfied. He pressed a button on the arm support of the shield and gears could be heard as the weapon started to morph.
A few seconds of later, his shield had shifted into a bow. Since he had no arrows, all he could do was hold the weapon with his left arm and pull back on the hard-light string with his right hand, imagining himself nocking an arrow. As he held the holo-form of the weapon, he suddenly had a question to which he asked Pietro.
"Sir, will this fire normal arrows or?" The scientist pointed to something on one of the design notes, and made it appear in holo-form in front of him before explaining.
"That's where this little device comes into play. It's designed to resemble a quiver, but in truth, it's actually a portable mini 3-d printer. Simply put your hand in front of it, and an arrow will be made and ready to fire. There will be some…other features that it can use in the future, but I'll keep those restricted for now so that you learn how to use the weapon as it is, you're going to be quite busy learning how to use multiple different weapon forms in combat." The blonde understood what the older man said was wise, and found himself agreeing with the inventor's decision.
He admired the form for a few moments more, before he shifted the position of his fingers on the handle of the bow, and upon hearing a hiss, placed his other hand on the handle above his left and pulled them in opposite directions, causing the bow to split into twin swords, the sword held in his left hand was in a reverse grip, and the sword help in his right was held normally.
He took a few practice swings, enamored by the weight and sleekness of design both blades had before he placed them back together hearing a hiss, signifying the completion of its reattachment. He twisted the handle of the bow in different directions, causing the weapon to make a completely new whirring sound.
After another moment of weapon transformation, in his hands lay a lance. Neither too long nor to short, standing just taller than him after having unlocked many inner mechanisms, and it seemed to the boy as if the front of the lance did something else as well.
He looked to the older man in confusion, who in turn chuckled before answering the unasked question.
"The lance's…canopy I guess we should call it, stretches upward for one last transformation. Try and push the part your holding with your right hand upwards and grip the lower end with your left." Jaune nodded and proceeded to do as he was instructed, causing the lance's canopy to unfurl upward, causing his weapon to resemble…an umbrella?
Jaune looked to ask the genius man why his weapon could shift into this form but was met with a look of mirth as the older man spoke.
"Young man, you haven't found your semblance, yet right?" It wasn't a jab at him, it was merely an observation meant to make the boy think. Jaune just winced before sighing and nodding his head, confirming the words of the dark-skinned man, who continued.
"So, tell me. What exactly is your landing strategy?" As those words left Pietro's mouth, Jaune felt as if the weight of the world came falling upon him in embarrassment. He was so caught up in everything else going on, he entirely forgot that he still didn't have a landing strategy. The scientist had thought ahead so far as to make him a weapon concept that would not only keep him safe but was viable to most situations. He just rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, refusing to meet the amused eyes of Pietro.
"So, Partner, is this the weapon for you?" The cheery voice of his partner always made the blonde feel better, so he turned to her and gave her his own bright smile, nodding to her. Suddenly, his thoughts came to a halt as he realized something and voiced it to the older gentleman.
"I just noticed something. All these weapon concepts were drastically different, but they all had one thing in common; a shield form." The older man took of his glasses to clean them before placing them back on and addressing the boy.
"I reckon that's why all of these weapons caught your eye in comparison to the others. You desire to protect others, and what better to do so than a shield. Plus, if i recall you said, and i quote, "I don't want to hide behind my shield and watch my team do all the fighting." So, at the very least, you did tell me that you wanted a shield." Jane smiled in gratitude to the wise man, and thanked him.
"After seeing this, I don't think I'll ever wanna use anything else." At his compliment, the older man nodded, accepting the praise with grace, and the ginger-haired girl jumped in the air out of excitement.
"Sensational! Father, how long will it take to fabricate Jaune's new weapon?" The older man began typing somethings on his device before running calculations in his head.
"I would say…maybe three days. It all depends on how much work gets done and how many problems we come across."
"Is there any way I can help?"
"What do you mean my boy?"
"I really appreciate this, you and Penny helping me design a weapon, I wouldn't feel right if I didn't help you build it at least." The blonde said, earning a bit more respect than he already had from the older man.
Pietro just chuckled to himself, before waving his hand in a dismissive manner.
"Don't you worry young man; I can tell you're quite earnest. But, thankfully the machines here in the lab cut down on actual labor, and what labor is left can be handled by Penny." The dark-skinned scientist looked at Jaune, who hadn't wavered in his request, and gave an exasperated smile.
"But…if you're going to insist, then you can help out over the next few days to make it go faster. I'll write a note to James so that you can be excused from your classes, and by the end of the next few days, you'll be carrying your new weapon."
At this, the blonde smiled and nodded his head furiously, and the three set themselves into planning out the building process, all of them wearing smiles.
(A/N)
So we finally get to see Jaune's weapon. Next chapter, we'll get to see him use it and build his training schedule. We may also meet the companion team for JCKP. The dynamic will be similar to RWBY/JNPR's dynamic, but will also feel unique. Soon, we may even get to see Jaune discover his semblance. Who knows?
Hope you all enjoyed reading this chapter and I can't wait to share more with you all.
BlackJackHero