(Chapter 14)
Being the general of the Atlesian military came with certain luxuries. much like his specialists, he had his own personal transports; be it by land, air, or water. His personal bullhead was larger than a standard passenger craft, having a second floor that acted as the man's personal quarters.
Two hours into the flight, the general's two students had slowly begun to chat less and less until eventually, the two of them sat in content silence next to each other. As the transport took them to Vale, he studied both teens silently. One was the creation and daughter of undoubtedly one of the kingdom's greatest mind, and the other a young man who was working so valiantly to become a huntsman.
As he looked them over, he noticed the new weapons at his hips, taking special interest in the firearm. He cleared his throat, grabbing the attention of the teens from where they sat.
"New arsenal?" Jaune looked surprised that the general noticed, before he smiled and patted the weapons on his hip.
"Yea, Penny's dad finished my weapon right before I came looking for her. And the gun is from Whitley." The older man raised an eyebrow at the younger man before he asked him a question.
"He bought it for you?" The blonde shook his head in response before clarifying as Penny sat in silence listening to the two talk.
"It was his. He wasn't using it and said that he wanted me to use it instead. Worked out perfectly since my new weapon doesn't have a ranged function." James looked at the teen silently for a few moments before he spoke.
"Would you mind if I took a look at your firearm?" The request surprised Jaune, but he nodded before handing the weapon carefully to the general. Taking it into his hands, he examined the weapon from all angles. After a few moments of appreciating the weapons craftmanship, he looked back to the younger man before handing it back to him.
"Do you know how to fight with it?" The blonde rubbed his neck before he explained to the general.
"I've went to the range twice since Whitley gave it to me, and my accuracy needs some work, but I think I'm making my way there." The older man smirked before he exploded into movement.
Jaune's danger senses were screaming at him as the general engaged him in close quarters combat, causing him to dodge clumsily due to the, though still larger than normal, limited space of the bullhead. He realized that the headmaster was trying to make him understand something but didn't have the time to discern what.
A dodge later, the blonde was a second late, and the general swept his legs out from under him before spinning to grab hold of the teen's arm, keeping him from landing on the metal floor of the bullhead. The two's eyes met, and the blonde saw mirth written on the general's face before the disciplined man pulled him up to his feet and took a step back to explain.
"Just because a weapon is a firearm, doesn't mean its application in battle is limited to being at range. While you might have a main weapon, your backup weapon is just as important. Especially if it's your only ranged option. Learning how to fight with it, be it in hand to hand or a distance, will determine if you're using it to its fullest potential."
The younger man nodded to the general, and the older man looked down to his watch and saw that their flight had a few more hours, before turning to the younger man and clearing his throat.
"Since our flight is only a third of the way through, I could teach you some forms and methodologies to fighting with firearms, if you'd like." Jaune's eyes bugged out of his head as the prospect of learning from the general and headmaster himself presented itself, for however brief the lesson would be.
"A-Absolutely!" The older man chuckled at the enthusiasm the younger man was showing.
"Then let's begin. As you get more accurate with your gun, you'll be effective at greater distances, but once an opponent has come within a certain range, taking shots can be dangerous." The general reached into his coat with both hands to retrieve his twin revolvers, pressing the button behind the chamber on each gun and flicking them to the side, revealing the cylinders.
"My style lets me transition from fighting at a distance to hand to hand whenever I need to, and my revolvers, Due Process, use different types of ammunition. The White gun fires a shot similar to the weapons wielded by the Atlesian knights, and the second trigger on it fires a dust-based explosive round. The other chambers gravity dust, which I use to propel myself towards or away from an enemy."
Jaune took a second to admire the design of the general's weapons before the stored Fair Trial back into its hip holster hidden under his coat. He reversed his grip on one of the guns of Due Process so that he was holding the handle towards the blonde.
He motioned for the younger man to mimic his stance, and once he did, the headmaster observed his form before adjusting the positioning of his arms and lowering the teen's stance via pushing down on his shoulders. Once Jaune was in a proper stance, the general began to continue his lecture.
"I prefer to keep my enemies at a distance that allows for me to adjust to them as a threat, which is typically around twenty-five meters. If I don't want them to come any closer, then I keep that distance between us or increase it. If I want to close that distance, I either let them approach, or I chase them down with my black gun."
The blonde nodded as he began to mimic the forms that the disciplined man went through while he spoke.
"I use a very militant style of C.Q.C. that I've adjusted to fit me personally. Since you and your friends are close with team WICK, I assume you've seen how Soleil battles in with her guns up close. She uses a fighting style that if I'm correct was born in Mistral; it incorporates palm thrusts, punches, kicks and chops. Since she has a very limited number of shots in her cylinder, Soleil had to develop hand-to-hand skills so that she wouldn't be overwhelmed in the field."
A bit of time passed and as Jaune listened, he had his form adjusted at points by the general. Seeing that the blonde was trying earnestly to learn and memorize everything from his crash course, the general decided to teach Jaune some grappling techniques that he could use with his gun to apprehend an enemy or disarm them.
James gave the leader of team JCKP directions to keep going through the motions until he memorized them and could follow through with the correct motions not as clumsily as he currently was. The disciplined man sat down on the opposite end of the bullhead, observing the younger man and making comments to correct his form so that the blonde wouldn't develop any flaws in his form.
Penny continued to sit silently as she watched the two interact with a dynamic that surprised her slightly, before she began to think to herself, having remembered a conversation she had with her father concerning Jaune's choice in metal for his weapon. A short while later and the general announced that he'd be retiring to his personal quarters for the remainder of the flight.
Penny waited until the headmaster left before grabbing her partner's attention.
"Partner?" Without looking to her, the blonde answered her while continuing to go through the forms he'd been shown with focus.
"What's up Penny?"
"Why did you want your weapon to be made with a non-ferrous metal?" The taller teen faltered in his movements slightly before he sighed and sat down next to the girl. He stayed silent for a few moments before finally beginning to speak.
"…My ex-partner back at Beacon was Pyrrha, Pyrrha Nikos. And her semblance is polarity. That combined with her skill for combat makes her really hard to beat in a fight. The Vytal Tournament is in May, and by then, I need to be able to face her as an equal and beat her as an opponent."
From the side of him, Penny sat silently before her face shifted to one she would take whenever she was learning about something. After a few moments of silence, she looked to him before she spoke.
"Pyrrha Nikos, trained at Sanctum Academy and won the Mistral Regional Tournament four years in a row, setting a new record and earning the title "Invincible Girl", as well as earning a mascot sponsorship from Pumpkin Pete's. She is six feet tall with a red colored aura, and her weapons are Miló and Akoúo̱. She is seventeen years of age, human, and hails from the city of Argus." She turned to him before she spoke again.
"That Pyrrha?" Jaune just dumbly nodded before a thought crossed his mind.
"Hey, Penny? How do you know all that?" The girl looked to the side and began to innocently squirm in her seat. Jaune stared at her for a moment longer.
"Did you…access Beacon's files?" The ginger looked at him with the expression of a child caught with a hand in the cookie jar, before she began to poke her fingers together as she answered the blonde.
"…I may have taken a peek…" Jaune's brought a hand to his face at the girl's actions, before a thought entered his mind.
"Hey Penny? You weren't detected in their systems or anything, were you?" The girl immediately shook her head as she answered her partner.
"No need to worry there Partner, I took various safety measures to ensure that I'd leave no traces of my presence behind. Besides, in comparison to Atlas, their cyber security is archaic." Jaune put held his chin in thought before he began to ask a request of his partner.
"Hey Penny, could you possibly give me some info on some of my other ex-friends?" The girl looked at him, slightly surprised that he wasn't mad, before she smiled and nodded her head.
"Can do Partner! I'll need names, but what are you trying to find out?"
Jaune thought for a moment before replying to the ginger haired girl.
"I don't need things like measurements or the like, but family history and maybe any thing that they might have done wrong?" The girl nodded before signaling for him to continue.
"First…"
The flight to Vale was finally coming to a close. After hours of being stuck in a flying metal box, the ramp down to the bullhead docks that would lead to the city began to lower. The general and his guard detail stepped out first, followed by Penny. Jaune took a deep breath, preparing himself to once again enter the urban jungle that was Vale.
Thoughts and spirit collected. Jaune slowly walked down the ramp before his boot hit the solid ground of the dock and he looked around to see his surroundings. The dock hadn't changed much in his time away, but there was now a noodle stand near the entrance being run by an older man. He breathed in a breath of fresh air as he and his partner followed the general to a car that had been waiting for them.
The car ride was short, the traffic in Vale during the afternoon being rather tame. Once the car parked, the group exited the vehicle, and Jaune's eyes widened as he was greeted with the sight of one of the priciest hotels in the city. Following the smirking general dumbly, the group entered the lobby, and after being welcomed, were given keys to their rooms.
The general's guards were to be in the suite connected to James, and the students would share a room separately since they were on the same team and bunked together already.
After being given the key to their luxurious hotel room, Penny anxiously questioned the older man.
"Are we okay to go Mr. Ironwood?" James looked at the two before he sighed and answered the excited ginger.
"Yes Polendina, you two are free to go and explore now. Try to keep a low profile. And if happen upon anything major, contact me, then the police. Besides that, remember that we'll be staying here for the remainder of the weekend. So, you have the remainder of today, tomorrow, and until 1400 on Sunday to enjoy your time here."
Necessary information given; the general entered to his suite to prepare for the meeting he had with Ozpin. The ginger girl practically dragged her partner out of the hotel lobby and onto the streets of Vale. From there he began to lead her to and from various places around the town while they chatted along the tour.
"Tell me Jaune, how are you so familiar with Vale?" The blonde smiled as he answered his partner who was skipping to his side.
"When I left home to go to a huntsman academy, I left a lot earlier than right before the semester started. I actually left home around three months before my first day at Beacon. When I got to Vale, the first thing I did was look for a job. Luckily enough, I got a job at a hotel and in exchange for working I got a room and minor pay. But whenever I wasn't sleeping or working, I was exploring Vale, trying to see every inch of a big city like how I always wanted to."
The girl next to him smiled before continuing to chat as they rounded a corner, and as Jaune looked up for what he should next show her, his eyes widened as he saw a group across the street that he recognized all too well.
He told Penny to follow him quietly, and the two snuck across the street and blended in the crowd as they approached the blonde's target. As they got closer, still unnoticed, the two could now hear the group's conversation as they peered into a window.
"…you sure? I don't think that would look good on me."
"Why don't we go inside, and you can try it on?" Having successfully snuck behind the group, Jaune flashed a smile to his partner before he cleared his throat loudly, grabbing the attention of the group, causing them to turn around. As they met eyes with the blonde, the group was silent before he was assaulted by a shorter bunny eared girl and her friends.
"JAUNE!" The group's exclamation made the boy smile in response as he was the epicenter of a group hug that had been months overdue.
Team CFVY and Cardin separated from the boy with wide smiles on their faces before Velvet began to pout.
"What's wrong Velv?" The girl in question pointed her nose away from him before Yatsuhashi explained the reason for her being upset.
"You haven't called any of us in weeks. We were beginning to worry. Velvet and Cardin especially, but he probably won't admit it."
"Hey!" Everyone shared a laugh at the tall red-head's expense before Coco strode forwards and studied Jaune up and down before nodding her head.
"Well, you showed up at the perfect time. Now we can finally find you some new threads to give you some style. No offense." The blonde shrugged as he looked to the coffee-colored fashionista.
"Some taken." Everyone laughed at this, before Jaune took a step away from the group to introduce his Partner.
"Alright, before anything else, I have someone I want to introduce to you all. Penny these are my friends at Beacon, guys, this is my partner at Atlas, Penny." The ginger skipped forward with a bright smile on her face as she waved to the group.
"Sal-u-tations! I'm Penny, it's a pleasure to finally meet you all!" The positivity practically beaming from the girl was infectious and soon the girl was swallowed up in attention from the blonde's friends as they made their way to a clothing store.
Upon entry, the leader of team CFVY dragged the tall blonde to a mirror before pulling out a tailor's body ruler from her purse before using it to take the boy's measurements. After getting the numbers, she went to the front and presented his measurements to the man behind the register, asking if there was anything in stock that matched the blonde's numbers.
The man thought for a moment, before he disappeared to the back for a few moments. He poked his head out to observe the teen's looks, before nodding and disappearing again. The older man returned with bags and a box concealing the contents inside, before he handed them to the blonde and directed him towards the fitting room.
The blonde's partner and his friends attending Beacon waited patiently for the teen to finish putting on his new clothes, before the sound of a dressing curtain sliding to the side drew their attention. All eyes were on Jaune as they appreciated his new look.
He was wearing slightly baggy black pants that tucked into the black and white boots he wore. Since this was a huntsman quality tailor shop, it came as no surprise that there was gravity dust in the soles of his footwear.
On his torso he wore a black undershirt beneath a white shirt with a split down in the center in the shape of a sword blade. Above his overshirt he wore an open, hooded light coat with quarter sleeves that was the same color blue as his eyes on the sides with black and white trim edges, and light metal around the back waist.
He also had blue suspenders with gold and silver buckles that hung from his side, as he was given explicit instructions from the older man not to wear the suspenders unless he was only in his undershirt. Topping off his look was the sword and revolver that hung from side of his hip, as well as the black fingerless gloves that covered his hands.
The older man nodded in satisfaction of the boy's outfit, and the group of teens all voiced their approval of their friend's new look. The fitter also included two sleeveless and two long sleeve variations of the white overshirt for the boy free of charge. After paying with the rather hefty price with his student lien card, the group left to head towards an armorer.
As they stood outside, Jaune remembered the shop with a bit of nostalgia, having come to this shop to equip himself with some cheap armor for Beacon. He shook the memories away as he opened the door and led the group inside. The scent of steam, heat, and metal assaulted the group as they entered the shop, accompanied by the sound of metal striking metal.
Jaune walked up to the counter before dinging the bell that sat on the counter twice. The sound of striking metal ceased, before the group heard footsteps and coughs. The armorer was a short man, though incredibly muscular, with a beard and thick goggles. His tanned skin was covered in metal dust much like his apron.
Upon seeing his customers, his eyes brightened behind his goggles which he proceeded to remove.
"Jaune! How are you Sonny?" The man had a heavy accent, but it wasn't one that anyone present, save for possibly Penny, could identify. The blonde shook the older craftsman's hand firmly as he replied.
"Never better." The look in his eye as he said it didn't go unnoticed by the man, and he proceeded to let out a bellowing laugh, before looking at the group of friends behind him.
"They with you?" At the blonde's head nod, the short man smiled before he looked the teen up and down.
"What brings you back to me shop Sonny?" The blonde looked down to his outfit before he thought about something and answered.
"I need some new armor to go with my huntsman outfit. Something for my arms and legs, something that'll complete the look and add a little protection, but I don't want to restrict movement or go to heavy." The older man nodded as he thought about what he might have for the boy, before he voiced another question.
"Anything for your chest?" The blonde shook his head negatively before he responded.
"No sir, My aura pool is pretty large, and I do have a shield, so instead of adding all that weight, I want to focus on my agility." The man looked the blonde over once more before he left for the back.
"You've been here before Jauney boy?" Cardin's question seemed to be shared by the group.
"Yea, right before Beacon. Since I didn't know what I'd be up against, I wanted something to protect me in case I ended up taking a hit." The group nodded, before Coco thought about how he'd worded his answer and blanched.
"Jaune…did you not have aura during the initiation exam?" The rest of the group's eyes widened as they turned to look at the boy incredulously. The blonde just rubbed the back of his neck embarrassedly as he answered her.
"I did about a third of the way into it." Everyone was about to bombard him with questions before a few coughs from the backroom and approaching footsteps interrupted them.
The armorer returned and placed two large boxes on the counter for the teen to examine. Jaune took the lids off both the boxes before looking at the armor and smiling a bit. He began putting the armor on, and before long, was complete in his actions and turned to face the group, getting a whistle from Coco and a thumbs up from his partner.
The metal armor on his legs protected him from his knees down to the toe of his boots and was silver in color except for at the shin, which was a blue that matched his outfit. The back of his knee was left unarmored so that he wouldn't lose any range of movement and surprisingly wasn't too heavy. Above that he had gray leather protecting each thigh.
For his upper body, he was wearing matching silver/blue vambraces on either arm that stopped a bit below his elbow, and on his shoulders, identical silver guards that went down to slightly above the bend in his arm. All in all, Jaune finally had the look of a proper huntsman.
The teen went to pay the armorer, and with his shopping finally done, he and his friends left the shop. The group was debating what to do, when Jaune had a thought.
"Hey guys, there's one more thing I want to do, and then maybe we could grab lunch?" Team CFVY plus Cardin looked between each other before they shrugged their shoulders.
'So, lemme get this straight. You rode a damn elder strix into a battlefield where your squad had been fighting a sphinx, and a horde of Grimm?' Fox's mental question was heard by the group, which surprised Penny as she had never experienced his semblance before.
Jaune just continued eating his food as he nodded to the dark-skinned teen, getting wide-eyed looks as he recounted the tale of his midterm exams. The group continued to eat, and Jaune looked towards the window of the restaurant and saw his reflection and admired his new hairstyle.
Before they came to eat, the blonde had wanted to visit a salon. The hair stylist smiled to him when he told her he'd like to clean up his long, messy mop of hair. She trimmed away his split ends and upon request, gave the boy a hair tie. Jaune had pulled his hair through the tie and was now confidently sporting a ponytail to finish off his transformation.
Velvet grabbed the blonde's attention by waving her hand in front of his face as she held her camera in her other hand.
"Remnant to Jaune? Let me see your scroll." The boy dumbly took it out before handing it to the rabbit faunus. Velvet proceeded to take a cord from her bag and connect it from the camera to Jaune's scroll. Jaune watched as a transfer bar popped up on the screen of his device and realized what she was doing.
"Is that…?" The girl smirked to him as she replied.
"This is what we've gotten so far. Since you're here, might as well give you what we have." The blonde nodded and waited for the bar to fill completely before the scroll was handed back to him.
"So Jaune, have you found a sponsor yet?" Yatsuhashi's question surprised the teen, and he furrowed his brow as he replied.
"Sponsor?" The gentle giant began to explain it to his blonde friend.
"Sponsors are licensed or retired huntsmen and huntresses that train teams for the Vytal Tournament. Come time for the festival, the sponsors are introduced so that the crowd knows which team was trained by who." The blonde processed the information, making sure to file it away and possibly look into finding a sponsor for his team.
"What about the second semester, are you going to participate in the Vytal Exchange Program?" The blonde frowned as he thought about the question, this time knowing about what they were talking about.
The exchange program allowed students from any of the other three academies to transfer to the host kingdom's academy at any point in the second semester to study there until the Vytal Festival took place. Jaune thought about it for a moment before he answered hesitantly.
"I'm not sure yet…me and my squad need to talk it over and see what we want to do." The Beacon students nodded to their friend, understanding his reluctance.
The rest of the meal was uneventful but no less pleasant, and before long, team CFVY and Cardin stood across from Jaune and his partner.
"It was good seeing all of you guys." Jaune's friends smiled and surrounded him with a group hug once more. After they separated, Coco spoke out to her younger friend.
"Hey. Don't be a stranger now kid, drop by with the rest of your team sometime. I need to thank the one responsible for keeping an eye on you." A round of laughs later, and the two groups went their separate ways down the sidewalk.
Belly full, a new look, and having gotten to visit with his friends, the blonde's mood was an all time high. As they neared the corner, they had to hop out of the way as a blonde monkey faunus nearly trampled them as he was being chased by what seemed to be some form of authority. The two looked to each other and shrugged before they turned to continue walking, and Penny was knocked to the ground by a figure in white.
Jaune was startled by his partner's fall, but soon his expression shifted from one of shock to one of pique as he drunk in the form of the one who knocked his partner over. Behind him, the blonde faunus leaped to the safety of the rooftops and made his escape.
"No, he got away!" As the girl's friends arrived, they observed how Weiss had propped herself up atop what she'd knocked over, or rather who, and the tall blonde who looked rather irritated by her presence.
From the side, Yang grabbed her partner's attention.
"Uhhhh, Weiss?" The girl looked to her teammate, before a new voice spoke out from where it stood.
"Do you mind not using my friend as an armrest." The heiress heard the words, causing her to look down and be greeted by a short ginger waving to her from her position under her. The Schnee stumbled back in surprise at the close proximity she had with the girl.
The tall blonde held out a hand to the ginger and pulled her to her feet, checking her over for any injuries before facing some people he hadn't wanted to see again so soon.
The heiress cleared her throat before she began to speak.
"I apologize for running into you. I was absorbed with trying to observe that filthy faunus stowaway." Jaune narrowed his eyes at the girl and noted that Blake also fixed the girl with an unseen glare. The members of team RWBY eyed the two, most of their attention falling to the blonde they all felt was familiar but couldn't place where.
"Your apology is accepted! My name is Penny, it's a pleasure to meet you." Even when discontent with someone, the girl had a propensity for always being polite. The girls nodded in acknowledgement before introducing themselves.
"Hi Penny, I'm Ruby."
"I'm Weiss."
"Blake"
"…" The blonde bombshell of team RWBY was staring at Jaune intently as if trying to figure something out before her partner smacked her in the side.
"Oh, I'm Yang." The android girl nodded before she responded to their introductions.
"It's a pleasure to meet you." The heiress made a face as she spoke up.
"You already said that." Penny looked to be in thought before she nodded her head and replied to the girl.
"So I did!" The group of girls looked between themselves before Weiss tried to lead them away.
"Well, sorry for running into you!" But before they could continue their retreat, Penny said something that froze the girls on the spot.
"Where to next Jaune?" The girls swung around on their heels to face the two once more, this time all of their focus being on the tall blonde. His new outfit, his new haircut, his posture, his attitude, his musculature; so many things about the blonde were different, though only Blake picked up on his subtler changes.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Jaune Arc." The blonde adopted a look of apathy as he yawned before replying to the shorter girl.
"Actually, it's just Jaune now." The meaning of what he said wasn't lost on the group, but the girls weren't all too affected, save for Ruby and Blake, who realized what he meant and felt a pang of guilt for what they'd had a part in, regardless of however small.
"Oh well Vomit Boy, you shouldn't have done it in the first place." Jaune lazily turned his gaze over to the brawler before he began to respond.
"So what you're saying is that because I did something wrong, I deserve to suffer the consequences?" Yang nodded and was backed up by an upturned nose from Weiss. Jaune smirked at the two as he continued speaking.
"Then why haven't you turned yourself in Yang?" The blonde brawler's face turned to one of confusion as she voiced her thoughts.
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about how you went to an underground club and caused thousands of lien in property damage alongside assaulting the owner and his staff." The girl's eyes widened before they narrowed with a growl. Before she could begin to speak, the blonde continued speaking.
"You weren't the police, and they hadn't done anything officially illegal, nor where you a licensed huntsman. You just strolled right into to the bar and got upset when they wouldn't tell you what you wanted." Yang's fists were clenched and her eyes were flashing red, wanting nothing more to unleash herself on the boy.
The leader of team JCKP turned his finger to Ruby, who looked rather shocked, both at her sister's actions and at the declaration of her own misdeed.
"You had a run in with Torchwick and some of his goons at a dust shop. Instead of calling for help you decided to fight them all on your own. Did you know that none of his lackeys had aura? You beat them all, but you sent two of them to the ICU in critical condition." The gothic dressed girl looked at her former friend in horror as he delivered this revelation.
Jaune's finger drifted to the heiress and his face shifted to one of pure contempt as he spoke. "Weiss, you actually haven't done anything illegal yet," the white-haired girl looked rather smug, before Jaune said something that really caught her off guard.
"but that doesn't mean you aren't cruel. You left your younger brother all alone, with them. Not to mention, you are incredibly discriminatory against the faunus." Weiss's incredulous look was extremely satisfying, and finally his finger found its way to pointing at Blake, who looked extremely uncomfortable by this point. He didn't say anything for a few moments, tension building as he finally spoke.
"But out of everyone here, myself included, Blake has broken more laws than all of us, combined." All the girls turned to the mysterious beauty, who by now was beginning to pale at the possibility of what Jaune might know. The leader of JCKP paused for another moment, observing the curious, yet vexed faces of Yang and Weiss before he spoke again.
"You still haven't told them, have you." The black-haired girl defiantly tried to keep her composure as the blonde glanced up to her bow, something that didn't go unnoticed by the girl, and the color drained from her face as she prayed he wouldn't reveal her secret.
Jaune debated delivering that bit of knowledge before he decided to let the girl's team interrogate her for answers later but decided to make a comment instead.
"You know Blake, it's incredible that no one has confronted you on who you are because of your last name. It holds quite a bit of weight." Blake was terrified. Jaune knew things about her she would have preferred to keep hidden, things she hadn't talked to her friends about yet.
The blonde's face shifted to one of empathy as he spoke to the hidden faunus of team RWBY.
"I really hope that when your past comes to light Blake, that they give you the chance I didn't get." With that he turned away from them all to gather his thoughts before he spoke again.
"All of you are hypocrites. I may have done something bad, but at least my crime didn't hurt anyone. None of you had any right to judge me after what you've done, but you did, and because of that I almost lost my dream."
The blonde smiled at his partner, who beamed back to him, before he spoke to the members of team RWBY again.
"And I couldn't be any happier." The girls all looked to him confused as she smiled thinking about his friends back in Atlas.
"I made friends, real friends who didn't care about what I did before I met them. I got to meet Penny and get a fresh start. So, even though you all caused me grief; thank you." The blonde turned away from them, ignoring the indignant yells from the heiress and the brawler as he and his partner returned to their hotel.
As they reached their room, Jaune collapsed on his bed exhaustedly. Penny patted his back gently before sitting down on her own bed. Jaune turned over on his bed with a tired smile on his face as he looked to his partner and spoke.
"Hey Penny?" The ginger android looked to him and responded.
"Yes Jaune?"
"Thank you." This was another common occurrence between them, where Jaune would thank his partner out of nowhere, and while it confused the girl initially, she learned to accept it rather quickly and wholeheartedly, loving when her partner was in a good mood.
The two stayed in silence before Jaune realized he forgot something and shot up from the bed.
"Shit! I need to let everyone know we won't be back for a few days." The girl giggled at her partner's panic before she responded to him.
"No need to worry partner, I already took the chance earlier during our tour of Vale to send them both a message saying we'd be gone, and when we'd be back." The blonde let out a sigh of relief as he nodded to the girl, before thinking of something for the two of them to do.
Jaune looked to the T.V. in the room before he had an idea.
"Hey Penny, wanna watch some movies for the rest of the night?" The girl gave him her trademark wide smile and nodded up and down. They scrolled through the on-demand movie channels, Jaune giving his partner the first choice in movie.
As the movie began, the blonde didn't like the angle of the T.V. from where he sat on his bed and grabbed the chair in the corner of the room before bringing it between his bed and Penny's, choosing to sit there.
As the movie went on, the ginger girl thought back to something she'd seen Neon do with Flynt. Often when their team watched movies in their dorm room, the cat faunus would often sit in her partner's lap or stretch across it. When she'd asked the girl about it, she simply stated it was something she did whenever she watched movies with her partner. When she asked why, Neon shrugged her shoulders and told her to try it with Jaune some time.
Nodding her head, she sat up from the bed drawing her partner's attention. And made her way to his chair, before plopping down in his lap and continuing to watch the movie.
Jaune on the other hand, was a blushing mess, and was noticing a ton of things all at once. One, his partner was in his lap. Two, he felt as if Neon had some part in causing this. Three, his heart was racing, though his partner didn't notice as she was entranced by the movie. And four, the girl was actually much lighter than he expected from an android.
Eventually, he leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes listening to the movie, absentmindedly playing with Penny's hair as he did so.
While Penny, she had a small blush on her face, as what her and her partner were doing, was exactly what the characters in the romance movie she chose to watch were doing as well.
(A/N)
So it's finally happened. The first part of Jaune and Penny being in Vale is complete, and now, I'm working on the next.
Also, to give you a visual of Jaune's new look. Look up "Elsword Lord Knight" and go to images, and its that guy's outfit, but with blue instead of red, instead of a cape he has a hood, no cloth thing hanging in front of his pants from the shirt, and he has a small pony tail now.
Also, I should probably mention this. The armor Jaune added to his outfit was purely aesthetic. It could theoretically protect him a bit, but aura is the body's natural armor. It just completes the look he was going for.
Anyway, I think that's about it for this A/N. See you all again soon!
B.J.H.