(Chapter 6)

Jaune awoke with a start.

Cold. That was the very first thought that the blonde had as he rapidly rolled out of bed. As he stood up, he took his time regaining his bearings. He cursed in his mind as he let out an involuntary yawn.

The first thing he took note of was that he was inside some sort of shed devoid of windows. He looked back at his bed to see that on the other side of it was a hiking bag, his outfit, and on the wall above it hung his weapon and quiver. He craned his neck to the right, eliciting a satisfying pop sound to which he responded with a hiss of relief. There, next to a door, sat a table with three items atop it.

Jaune, now fully awake, made his way over to the neatly folded outfit, before changing into it and focusing on the hiking bag, opening it to reveal its contents. Inside was a spile and canteen for hydration, a large combat knife, rations, a thermal tent, dust powered lantern, tinderbox, and a sleeping bag that was rolled tightly and attached to the bottom of the pack. He strapped the knife to his right thigh, and grabbed his weapon, shifting it into its shield form before hoisting it on his left arm.

Satisfied with how he had fastened his cargo, he made his way over to the table and saw a piece of paper resting beneath what looked like a large wristband. Moving the accessory out of the way, he picked up the paper and began to read what was there.

"Students,

If you are reading this, you have awoken and are more than likely confused as to where you are and what is occurring. Rest assured that this was no accident, nor is this a cruel joke. This is your midterm practical exam.

You are at least 100 clicks away from the edge of Mantle. Every student's bag should come with enough supplies to last them individually for 14 days.

Atop the table are three items. On the left is a map of the area, showing the edges of Mantle that you should reasonably find yourself heading to. On the right is a handheld transceiver. Once you enter the receiving range of your team or squad mates, (10 clicks), you'll be able to communicate with them. And finally, the tracking bracelet.

The tracking bracelet reveals your location, but not identity, to any fellow students who activate the bracelet's hard-light compass display. Go ahead and try pressing down on the crystal in the center of the bracelet once you have it where you'd like it to be.

Jaune picked up the bracelet and examined it for a moment, before he equipped it on his shield arm, twisting the bracelet so that the crystal faced him. He pressed the crystal tentatively and was rewarded with a circular compass made of light appearing above his forearm, as well as a small timer in the corner of the compass grid. He admired the unfamiliar tech, before he took notice of the gradually appearing pips of light on edges of the display. Having an inkling as to what they were, he went back to reading the note.

The other pips of light on the edges of your compass are, as I'm sure some of you have guessed, other students with the compass activated. The color of the pip shows the aura reserves of that student. As you're reading this, you should be in the bright green. Be wary of keeping the compass activated for too long at a time however, while the compass is active it emits a signal that, for an unknown reason, attracts grimm.

Twice a day, every day for the next two weeks, we will also ping the location of all the bracelets, revealing the location of any students who don't have the compass activated. Once at sunrise, once at sunset.

Next, here are the conditions for passing this exam:

1. Students must arrive at Mantle by the fourteenth day before the timer runs out.

2. Students must be in possession of their tracking bracelet.

3. To pass, a team in its entirety must pass.

And finally, the conditions that will cause you to fail the exam:

1. Attacking another student is grounds for immediate failure, expulsion, and possible criminal charges.

2. Arriving at Mantle without the tracking bracelet assigned to you at the start of the exam.

Good Luck and Godspeed Students,

General and Headmaster, James Ironwood.

Jaune tucked the note away into his backpack, and let out a sigh at the troublesome situation he's found himself in. He let the transceiver hang from one of his belt loops via the carabiner clip and stuffed the map into his backpack where it would be safe from the elements. Now, with all his cargo, the blonde leader thought of his current situation.

Each student was at minimum 100 clicks away from the edge of Mantle, and no telling how far away from each other. 100 clicks translated to slightly over 62 miles, meaning the slowest pace he could take would be around four and a half miles a day to arrive on the last day, not factoring in the time he would spend looking for his team.

The blonde decided he had thought idly enough and decided to begin his march to find his friends and pass the exam. He grabbed the knob of the door and twisted before he pulled the door towards him to exit the shed.

He was met with a blast of frigid air, causing him to cringe and squint his eyes. Stepping out onto the snow-covered ground, Jaune brought the door closed behind him, and rubbed his eyes with his gloved hands. Once he was finished massaging his eyes, he opened them and found his breath taken away.

The landscape was both intricate and weathered, but simple and delicate. He saw his warm breath on the cold air as he looked at the literal frozen wonderland around him. The ground he stood on was generously powdered with snow, and the trees around him all wore a heavy coating of snow as if it was their bark. From the tree limbs hunt icicles of various lengths, serene in their overhang. He looked to the left and saw an outcrop of rocks from where water had once flowed in warmer times, if the frozen in time beauty of the water, now a long cascading line of pure, clear ice that led to the ground was any indication.

He admired the scenery around him and took solace in that though he was a great distance away from anyone he knew, he found a picture as majestic as his first view of Atlas. As he turned on the bracelet's compass once more, he learned from the pips of light that most likely every student, save for himself, were all in a more north-eastern section of the wild. As he prepared to head into the direction of most of his peers, another pip appeared on his compass.

What grabbed his attention about this light signature compared to the others was that this one came from the north-west and was slightly larger. Jaune debated in his head as to why this one signature looked larger than the rest on the map, and could only theorize that maybe they were closer, and that beyond a certain point, the size of the markers changed, as the other pips were of varying size, but smaller than this one outlier.

Jaune had a choice to make, either leave that one pip be, and head in the direction that most likely would lead him to his friends, or go off away from where his objective was, so that neither he nor this mysterious classmate would be alone in their trek. To him, the choice was obvious, and after adjusting his shield so that it sat more comfortably, he began making his way north-west.

Jaune was lucky he could boast such a large aura pool, because he'd been marching through a desolate frozen forest since the early morning when he awoke stranded without any back-up. The first ping had revealed that whoever was to his north-west knew of his presence and intent, as they seemed to be moving towards him as well but would only activate their tracking bracelet once roughly every hour to most likely confirm the location of the blonde.

Due to having kept the bracelet active all day throughout his traversing the land, Jaune did find himself in quite a few skirmishes, though they were nothing he wasn't equipped to handle. Sabyrs and boarbatusks had been the only grimm he encountered since the exam started, but Jaune didn't dare underestimate them. Despite these grimm typically being more 'quantity over quality' enemies, any species of them were dangerous, and had caused death to those who were either unprepared, or who underestimated their opponents.

Testament to this was the missing aura Jaune had lost. Though for most, being at 70 percent of one's total aura capacity after a full day of being in grimm territory could be considered fantastic, it was a reminder to the blonde of how far he still had left to go. Jealousy rung throughout the teen, knowing his former friends at Beacon could all dispatch multiple grimm much faster and much more efficiently. He made a mental note to spend more time in grimm combat simulations once he and his team completed their exam, as it couldn't hurt to have practice against a more unpredictable enemy in a risk-free environment.

Seeing the sun beginning to get low, Jaune shook himself from his musings and checked the compass to see the location of all his peers. All of them seemed much further then when he'd started that morning, and all day he'd worried about the safety of his team. Another countdown started that would initiate the second and last ping of the day, and he waited to see how far his mysterious classmate was from him.

As the ping occurred, Jaune only had to wait a mere moment before he saw the pip of light he was searching for. It was now actually on the compass instead of being at the edges, reminding him of a radar. Regardless, as the location of the last pip had been revealed, the blue eyed leader picked up the pace to try and rendezvous with whoever was out here with him.

After another five minutes of walking, albeit at a faster pace, Jaune found himself at another slice of sightseer heaven. Behind him stood the entrance to the forest he'd walked and battled through for hours and miles, in front of him from his elevated position upon a cliff face, lay and unobstructed view of a valley that had been blanketed by the forces of cold.

The same beautiful view from earlier, but on a much larger, much grander scale. Jaune took a moment to just breathe and appreciate that there were some things that even the grimm couldn't spoil, or at the very least, hadn't yet managed to. He looked down to the compass once more and saw that whoever he spent the day trying to find, was at most another five minutes of walking ahead.

The blonde's face shifted to one of exhaustion as he now had another choice to make. Would he wait for them atop the cliff face, or would he descend to them and meet them in the valley? Jaune pulled out his map, which only now as he was preparing to plan a course of action was able to appreciate how finely detailed it was and looked for possible routes of travel.

Unfortunately, this truly was one of life's rare situations where there really was only one option from which to proceed. If he descended to his mysterious classmate, they would have the safety of a wall to their back to set up camp at, as well as each other. They could take turns keeping watch and begin traveling at first light, and from there make their way north-east to Mantle. From what the map was telling him, the only exits out of the valley where the bottle-necked opening to the east, and the wide-open expanse to the west. Looking at the height of the cliff face, the blonde reasoned that climbing back up to his current position tomorrow wouldn't be feasible.

The blonde redeposited the map into his back and shifted his still unnamed weapon into its lance form and swapped it to his right hand. Knowing that there really was only one option, he looked over the landscaped and blinked, hoping to commit it to memory, before he stepped off the cliff face into a freefall.

As he fell with his body parallel to the earth below, he was calm, and almost laughed to himself as memories of his descent during the Beacon initiation exam plagued his mind. Now, he was different. As he held the lance in his dominant hand, he prepared to shift it into its umbrella form, but was halted as he craned his neck upwards to look straight. He was rewarded with seeing the world in layers.

The darkening sky above almost seemed painted with orange, red, yellow, and hints of pink ahead of him as the last few rays of sun peeked over one of the mountains that lay in his field of vision. He refocused himself on his current objective, to meet up with his fellow first year, which would require him to survive his fall in order to do.

Shifting so that he was perpendicular to the ground, he shifted the lance into its umbrella form, and slowed his descent. Holding on to the pole near the canopy, he hooked a boot around the shaft near the bottom and stood firmly on the slightly tilted surface of the weapon's body with the other, changing his fall to a float. With style. His open arm hovered in front of him, reading the compass so that he could adjust his descent towards his peer accordingly. Seeing that they were only a short walk away from the rock face, he angled his weapon forwards to speed up his descent and adjust direction, opting to meet them and walk back to where he planned to set up camp for the night.

As his boots gently pressed to the ground of a small open patch in the trees, Jaune shifted his weapon back into its shield form before sitting down to rest on a tree stump to wait for whoever he spent the day trying to meet. A few minutes passed before the blonde could faintly hear boots crunching over snow and fallen twigs. He stood back up from his makeshift seat and waited for his fellow student to enter the clearing. As the sound stopped, he could see the faint silhouette of someone standing at the edge of the relatively small clearing.

He was about to call out to them, but before he could process what had happened, he was laying on his back staring up at the sky with a weight resting on top of him. Looking down at his chest, Jaune was able to make out the hair color of whoever it was that had tackled him. He was greeted by the sight of familiar short, ginger, curly hair.

A grin that was usually reserved for the girl who'd tackled him spread across Jaune's face, unable to contain his joy at his first sign of things starting to look up. The girl that was both hugging him and keeping him from getting up, looked up from her position and gave him her trademark that seemed to brighten up the darkening, cold night.

Despite the odds, Jaune had reunited with his partner.

After setting up camp at the rock face, Jaune and Penny sat across from each other in front of the fire the blonde started to help them keep warm. Jaune was currently inspecting the inner mechanisms of his weapon for anything that may have accidentally gotten lodged within during his bouts with the grimm, absentmindedly chewing on a stick of beef jerky that was included in his rations.

Jaune looked up from his task to see his partner sitting with her legs crossed, elbows on her knees, hands holding up her head watching him as he worked. She was wearing her ever present smile as she was caught staring, and the blonde flushed a bit at having been so absorbed in his work, he didn't notice Penny staring at him so intently.

But Jaune smiled back to her and went back to his work, this being a rather common occurrence. Jaune would be doing something, be it studying his notes, playing his games, or maintaining his weapon, and all the while his partner would sit off to the side and observe as he did. At first it confused the blonde, but after the first week of living in the same room as the ginger, he grew accustomed to it. The one thing that he always wondered was why she would never watch their teammates like she would him, but he just shrugged it off.

The two exceptions to her watching him was either when Jaune would practice playing his guitar on one of the accessible rooftops of the academy that would overlook parts of the school and city, and when team JCKP would practice playing their instruments together. Jaune learned from the first day that his friends were all musically gifted, Flynt especially as he was able to play multiple instruments, and that Penny had the ability to play piano a cut above what he could ever have imagined.

When Jaune would sit on the rooftops and play his acoustic guitar, or occasionally the bass or electric guitars that belonged to Flynt, Penny would accompany him to the roof. When he would begin to play, instead of sitting across from him, she would sit directly behind him, back to back and would just listen to him play. This became somewhat of a routine for the two, along with the constant teasing he endured at the hands of Neon, who caught them both one time, but didn't intrude, waiting until the next day to bombard Jaune with questions.

As he thought of all the memories he'd made with his friends, a sudden realization had occurred to him. Jaune had never once seen Penny eat with them, sure she'd be there, but she never would get food. The more the blonde thought about it, he'd never saw her eat once period. Not for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. He stopped working on his weapon and checked the time. 20:42.

He shifted the weapon to its bow form and set it down next to him, before turning back to Penny.

"Hey Penny, aren't you hungry?" Jaune couldn't help himself from asking, tone curious as to why she wouldn't eat. The girl in question just shook her head before she answered him.

"Not to worry Partner, I am combat ready!" She answered with her usual exuberance. Jaune just stared at her before continuing the conversation.

"That's good, but it occurred to me just now that, I can't recall ever having seen you eat."

"What do you mean Jaune? I accompany you and our friends to the cafeteria every day." The ginger replied innocently.

"Yeah, I know. It's just…I can't recall ever having seen you actually eat food when you're with us." Jaune held a look of thought, and when he looked back to Penny, she seemed worried about something.

"A-ah. Well, uhm, you see, I just don't really eat too much. Which would explain why you've never caught me eating." She hiccuped. All the time he spent with his partner had taught him something about her. She didn't really understand the concept of personal space which could be cute and, though he would never admit it, secretly enjoyable, but it was also incredibly embarrassing. She loved hearing stories about places aside from Atlas and Mantle, which he knew stemmed from her never having left Solitas.

She spoke in a way that was unique to her, she loved to meet new people, she enjoyed practicing her piano skills, her favorite subject was philosophy oddly enough, and her favorite class was the combat course. Jaune knew almost everything there was to know about his partner, down to her favorite color. Which was green, not too dark of a green, or emerald green, but a brighter, more lively green, like a forest illuminated by sunlight.

But the one thing that he learned about his partner that helped him immediately, was her tell of when she was lying or not telling the whole truth. Her spontaneous hiccups.

The blonde looked her over as she put on a somewhat forced smile, and he decided to try and ease her fears. "Penny, just so you know, if something's bothering you, I'll always be here to talk to you. You aren't just my partner, you're my friend. My best friend." At this, the ginger haired girl's eyes widened at the words spoken by her partner.

A time passed and they sat in a somewhat stuffy silence before Penny decided to voice her thoughts to her blonde partner.

"Did you mean it. What you said. About me being your best friend…" She had shifted how she sat across the fire, now she peeked her eyes out from behind her knees, as she almost was curled into a ball. Jaune just let out a sigh along with a sincere smile.

"Of course I mean it Penny. I'd never lie to you, or any of our friends for that matter. That's why I came clean about my transcripts right off the bat, I wanted you and the others to know the truth about me. And if anyone was going to tell you, I wanted it to be me." The blonde's minor speech made his partner enter a state of thought as she mulled over Jaune's words.

Jaune sat across from his partner in silence, and after a few minutes passed, the ginger uncurled herself and moved to sit nearer to her partner on the other side of the fire. The blonde looked over at her and waited patiently for her to collect herself. She began speaking, albeit very hesitantly.

"Jaune, what are your thoughts on the faunus?" Penny probed for answers, though she also knew she was just stalling so she could keep her secret for a little while longer. Her partner just looked up at the sky and answered.

"I think there is a lot that's wrong in the world. They are persecuted, ridiculed, and treated as less than human. I really couldn't care less if someone was a faunus or not," As the blonde said this, Penny was a bit worried about his answer, his phrasing putting her slightly on edge. Though her fears were erased as he continued. "because to me, anyone I meet is a person. Human or faunus doesn't matter, we're all people, and we're all trying to find a place to belong or a purpose to achieve."

He looked back down to her, and any word's Penny had to say were lost as the girl viewed her partner. The shattered moon behind him cast an elegant light on him from above, and his deep blue eyes shone through the darkness of the night as he finished his monologue.

"It just seems dumb to treat others as less than each other based off what they look like, or what they are. Death comes for everyone, and all of us are equal before it. So why ever treat someone like anything less than how you yourself desire to be treated?" Jaune remembered the words about death, spoken to him by his former grandmother, smiling at one of many pieces of wisdom she'd imparted to him.

Penny sat in silence with the blonde, his words caused her to feel something she couldn't describe. Perhaps, admiration? She decided to contemplate them later, as she felt it was her turn to speak.

"…do you remember what I disclosed to you when you received your weapon? About how I have a secret." Jaune nodded before he responded.

"Of course. Are you secretly a faunus or something?" Penny just smiled sadly before she shook her head and looked to her partner.

"No…but I'm not human either." At this, Jaune look of curiosity shifted to one of confusion. She held her right hand out to the blonde, who took it in his silently. She rolled up the sleeve of her right arm and made sure her partner had a clear view as she pressed into a section of her forearm, causing it to slide up and reveal a complicated array of metal inner workings.

To his credit, Jaune didn't recoil as he saw the inner workings of her arm, though his eyes did widen. Penny sat silently for a few moments, before she gently began to move her arm, causing the blonde to let go, and closed the slide back before pulling her sleeve back into place. Once she was done, she looked over to her partner and waited to hear his thoughts.

"So…" Jaune paused, and Penny's face turned forlorn. But before she could begin to sulk, the blonde continued his thought.

"COOL!" At this, it was the ginger who recoiled back at the sudden energy that erupted from her friend. She blinked confusedly, before regaining her composure and confirming something.

"So…you aren't repulsed?" Jaune looked at her as if he'd been slapped, before he spoke back.

"What!? No, of course not! But I had no clue you we're a cyborg Penny, like I actually would have never guessed." He was smiling brightly and stood up to walk around her and look at her from different angles. She interrupted him with a clarification.

"Actually, I'm an android."

He looked confused, before he decided to ask the inevitable question. "What's the difference?" The ginger adopted a factual tone as she explained to him.

"Well to summarize, a cyborg is a combination of flesh and machine. Typically, a human who has had cybernetic implants integrated into their body. Like General Ironwood. I on the other hand, am an android." She paused, summoning the courage to finish speaking. "A machine made to look and act like a human." As she concluded her explanation, Jaune was looking at her with a hand to his chin in thought, processing the information he'd been given.

After a few moments of thinking, Penny decided to ask him the question plaguing her mind.

"Does this…change anything?" She looked to Jaune worried to here his response. The blonde just gave her a smile and a thumbs up before he answered her.

"Nope! I don't care what you are, you're still Penny to me. But now, I think I'm a little closer to learning everything there is to know about you." The blonde couldn't have known that his words would have such an effect on the girl, but her eyes widened, before her lips started to quiver as she held a face of gratitude towards Jaune.

The ginger and her dear friend sat next to each other, the fire keeping the boy warm as he began to bombard her with questions about her life and how she saw the world. Penny was all too happy to answer all his questions until the blonde found himself growing tired. Penny informed him that he should rest to regain energy for the trip they'd have to make tomorrow, and since she didn't require sleep, he could be fully rested.

The blonde felt the desire to argue, but the reassuring look from his partner convinced him to give in to his exhaustion. As he lay in his sleeping bag within his tent, the boy had an odd experience. It wasn't a nightmare, but he wasn't sure it was a dream either. He couldn't describe it; it was as if he was alone in a completely dark space, yet…he wasn't. He wasn't sure how, but he could feel it.

As he began to walk in a direction, he could hear...no, sense something behind him, and as he turned around, what before was a dark space, was now a blinding white. And as he stood between the two halves of the room, arrows began to appear all around him. Not weapons, but the arrows that could guide someone where they needed to go.

As the blonde approached one of the arrows, he reached his hand out towards it, but was suddenly shaken awake by his partner.

"Huh? Penny? What's going on, is everything okay?" The blonde asked groggily as he sat up in the tent. Penny who was sitting next to him nodded and informed him of why she'd woken him.

"Everything is perfect Partner, but I decided to wake you because the sunrise scan is going to occur soon." The blonde nodded and thanked her. As she exited the tent, Jaune sat there thinking for a time longer about his dream. He didn't know fully what to make of it but decided to contemplate over it another time. First, he and his partner had to find their friends, and pass their exam.

(A/N)

Hey guys, so if this chapter seems a little bit shorter than usual, you are correct. I just felt that this was a pretty good place to stop this chapter. So, Penny told Jaune her secret, and Jaune seems to have had himself an interesting dream. Hmm.

Anyways, Next chapter, we'll see how another pair is holding up in the exam. Won't tell you exactly who, but I can tell you this, they are main characters for this story, and on the same squad.

Also, if you're reading on mobile, polls won't show for some reason. So if you're at all interested in the poll, just check out my bio for the story ideas, and let me know which stories you'd be interested in seeing me create, up to 3.

As always, I hope you enjoyed reading, and I'll be back once the next chapter is finished.

B.J.H