I don't own anything.
"- That said, the first person you make eye contact with after you are launched will be your partner for the next four years."
It was … odd to say the least. What if you didn't get along with the person you found in the forest? Would there be an option for reassignment? At least there wouldn't be any 'last picks' so to speak, but wouldn't it be worse to not be picked than to be stuck with someone who hated you? I didn't get a chance to think on it further as the headmaster continued.
"After you have partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the Emerald Forest. There will be opposition, do not hesitate to destroy anything obstructing your path. There, you will find an abandoned temple containing a number of relics. Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. You will be monitored and graded for the duration of the initiation, but rest assured, our instructors will not intervene."
"Are there any questions?" I raised my hand hesitantly. "Good, now take your positions." I let my hand fall back to my side with a sigh. 'Guess not then'
Glancing to the side, I saw everyone tense up, ready to be launched into the forest. They were all acting as if being launched off of a 100-foot-cliff was normal. Then again, maybe it was normal for Huntsmen. If it was, my family had never mentioned it, though even if it was, I doubted that they would have talked to me about it. After all, they'd been so busy trying to make sure I didn't become a Huntsman that they avoided talking about the job whenever I was near.
I tensed up as the person next to my left took off, the movement giving me a second to prepare before I was suddenly airborne. I most certainly did not scream like a little girl while I passed over the treetops, it must have been the wind. That's right, the high-pitched squeal was just the wind.
When the first treetop smashed into me, taking a small chunk out of my aura bar, I reached for the scabbard on my hip. "Come on, come on, come o- OW!" I tried and failed to get my shield up in time to prevent any more damage to my aura, only managing to get the mechashift up by the time I started crashing through the higher branches.
Now that the shield was between me and the wood, I could at least appreciate that the constant crashes were actually slowing me down and breaking my fall. I could have probably survived the fall without slowing down, but I wouldn't have been surprised if that took my whole aura with it. And if I had to fight without my aura, I was pretty much screwed.
I didn't have to worry about that, though, as something else tore through the forest a damned sight faster than me. It looked like a red and gold comet, scything through the canopy before it barely missed my head. Instead of taking my head off, it caught my hood and pulled me along for the ride, leaving me pinned to a tree. The comet, a spear by the looks of things, was stuck in the tree, and deep enough that I couldn't pull it out from this angle, despite my relatively high Strength score.
So, I just hung there, suspended by the spear and a flimsy bit of my hoodie that pulled the rest of it up into my throat. Not only was it vaguely embarrassing, but the tight feeling on my windpipe was more than a little uncomfortable. Not dangerous or painful, just annoying.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I met my partner.
"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Pyrrha spoke up from next to me, brandishing Miló, which was once again in her hand. We had been walking north for a while now, but the path wasn't very clear so close to the edge of the cliffs on the western side of the forest.
"I think so. I mean, we're definitely going north." Up ahead, I could just about make out a small cave entrance off the beaten path. I pointed at it. "You think that's it?"
"I'm not sure, but it can't hurt to check."
When we got closer, I started to see the little symbols etched into the rock next to the entrance. The cave painting featured a number of stick figures with bows and spears fighting against a huge scorpion, though judging from its size, it was probably a Grimm if it got that big. That, or the artist had taken some creative liberties.
"This could be a ruin, right?" Pyrrha met my eyes as she nodded at me, but I held her back as she made to enter. "I'll make us a torch first, going in blind might not be the best idea with what the headmaster said about opposition."
"That's a good idea Jaune, do you need any help with that?"
"Thanks, if you could grab some of the drier grass, that'd be great."
It only took us a couple of minutes to find all that we needed. I cut up a thicker branch that I'd found on the ground and filled it with some of the kindling Pyrrha had gathered before lighting it. It probably wouldn't last all that long, but I didn't need it to. All we had to do was find the relics and leave. Simple, quick and easy.
We made our way inside, walking side by side in the surprisingly wide tunnel. Judging from the entrance, I thought we would have had to walk single file, but we could actually fit quite comfortably. We were a little further in when Pyrrha finally spoke up again.
"I don't think this is it."
"I don't know, let's just go to the end of this path and then we can turn back if there's nothing there." I told her, walking just slightly ahead now, mostly so she could properly see where she was going.
"Okay." Pyrrha said simply, seemingly glad to just go along with whatever I said. After having spent most of my life around a family who all thought I was woefully incompetent, it was nice to be taken seriously for once.
That just made it all the more embarrassing when I tripped into a puddle of water only a couple of feet further in. I had gotten so lost in thought that one second, I was looking over at my new partner, and the next I was face down in the drink. The fact that the torch had fallen in with me did not help my mood any. It was out now, and with how wet it was, I could probably use up all of the dust in my lighter and it still wouldn't burn.
"Are you okay Jaune?" She asked, sounding genuinely concerned instead of just laughing at me. It was a novel experience, and despite the cold water, it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. The smell of the stale water dowsed any positive feelings, though. It must have been sitting there for ages.
"Fine." I grunted out, getting up. I would need a shower when we got back to the school.
As annoying as it was, I was glad for the darkness in a way, since it meant Pyrrha couldn't see the furious blush on my soaked face. I wiped some of the stale water off my face and flicked the water back into the puddle before taking a look around. Without the torch, it was hard to make anything out except for Pyrrha's eyes and a little gold and red up ahead. Was that Miló or something?
Taking a closer look, I saw that there was a whole lot more gold than there had been on Pyrrha's weapon, and only a little red. It was also a completely different shape, the sharp looking tip widened out into a relatively round body, as opposed to the thinner blade on Pyrrha's sword-spear combo.
Looking at the red, I felt a cold bead of sweat mix with the remaining water still on my skin as my heart pounded in my chest.
Deathstalker
Level 93
"RUN!" I shouted out, already turning on my heel to make my way back the way we came. Its name and level were in red, and the health bar on it looked positively massive. I wasn't exactly sure what a red name meant, but the fucking thing was more than three times my level. There was no way in hell that we could fight it and live.
As we started running, Pyrrha managed to pull ahead of me, and almost dove through the thinner entrance to make way for me. I ran out, hot on her heels as I heard the monster behind me tear through rock and stone to get to us, its body too wide to actually walk through the tunnel.
Every cloud and its silver lining, after all. It may be huge, but that also meant that it was a lot slower than it could be, as it had to tear through all of those obstacles. When it burst through the cave's entrance with a mighty crash, Pyrrha and I were already a good 30 yards ahead of it, and I dared to look back for a second. I wished I hadn't.
The Deathstalker was a massive thing, and clearly the inspiration for the drawing at the cave's entrance. It was almost as tall as I was, and probably a dozen times as wide with thick plates of bone armor scattered around over its body in spines. As if that wasn't terrifying enough, its tail reached up even higher, even reaching up to the tops of some of the trees. And the claws weren't much better, huge, armored pincers that looked ready to crush entire trees, or people, in a single hit.
All in all, it was a horrifying thing to watch. It was especially bad since the damned thing scuttled after them on its eight spiked black legs at speeds that should have been illegal for a creature that large. I turned away from it as I kept sprinting after Pyrrha, the redhead pulling further and further ahead of me as we ran.
"We need to run through the thickest parts of the forest!" I shouted out, hearing the crashing sounds of trees being crushed, cut, or simply uprooted by the beast as it chased us. It would be more dangerous for us to run through the denser trees and underbrush, but it would also slow the Deathstalker down like the thin path had in the cave. And with how large it was, it would be slowed down by the terrain more than we would be.
Pyrrha didn't even say anything, but the girl adjusted her course anyways, angling herself away from the cliffs, and towards the denser areas to our right. We hopped, leapt and jumped over the various obstacles, barely slowing for anything. At least I did, Pyrrha regularly stopped to make sure I was still following, the championship fighter was a whole lot faster than I was and didn't have nearly as much trouble running from the Grimm.
Speaking of, the monster chasing us was still working its way through the forest, destroying all of the obstacles in its path as it did so. The sounds of nature being wrecked was getting further and further away, as it constantly had to contend with trees and rocks that we could simply go over or around, while it only went for the shortest path towards us, which was mostly through those obstacles.
"I'm queen of the castle! I'm queen of the castle!" The bubbly voice sounded out form ahead of us. Pyrrha and I spared each other a look, before we put on one final burst of speed and made our way into the clearing with what had to be the ruins we had been tasked with finding.
And we weren't the only ones who had found our way here. To the left, I could see Ruby and her sister talking excitedly. Next to them was a man with a green and black vest in some kind of Mistrali style, along with an orange haired girl in pink and white who was holding up golden rook above her head. And last but not least, there was Weiss, alongside a pale, black-haired girl with golden eyes…
'That's the girl from Forever Fall."
I didn't have time to stop and stare, though. The closer we got to the clearing, the thinner the forest had gotten. Judging by the crashing sounds behind us, the Deathstalker was gaining on us.
"Jaune!" Ruby called out to me, but I just sprinted past, Pyrrha right beside me as we grabbed the first chess piece we could.
"We need to go, there's a Deathstalker chasing us!" I shouted as my hand closed around the black knight. Right on queue, the monster became visible on the edge of the clearing, as it took in all the new prey with eight glowing red eyes.
"Great, now we can all die together." Ruby's sister deadpanned at the huge scorpion Grimm while everyone else pulled out their weapons. Before anyone else could say or do anything, Ruby shot forward, her scythe already in hand.
"Not if I can help it!"
"RUBY WAIT!" Her sister shouted out as the little reaper dashed right up to the beast, far to fast for me to track, let along keep up with. Her charge, fast as it had been, wasn't enough, though. She managed to slice into one of its claws with her scythe, the weapon sparked as it bounced off of the thick bone armor of the Grimm, barely denting its HP bar.
Before she could move away, the Deathstalker slammed one of its pincers forward, knocking Ruby away and off of her feet. Her sister sprinted forward, the gauntlets on her hands breathing fire as she charged, though the shots simply pinged off the Grimm's thick armor. If Ruby's attack had only reduced its HP by a sliver, her sister's shots barely did a fraction of that.
As the Deathstalker switched targets to the blonde, Ruby rolled back up to her feet. "Don't worry, totally fine!" She shouted out as she ran back towards us, zipping across the clearing. Meanwhile, her sister was using the recoil from her gauntlets to try getting away from the Deathstalker, the shotgun blasts pinging impotently off of its shell.
Nothing we had done had actually done any damage, the armor was too thick, and we weren't fast enough to outrun it without anything to slow it down. "We need to immobilize it and run, or we need to kill it." I said, and the rest of the group looked at me like I was crazy.
"KILL IT! KILL IT!" Ruby's sister shouted as she ran back over to us, the monster hot on her heels.
"It's weak in the eyes and the joints. Jaune and I can keep it busy." Pyrrha spoke with a confidence I did not exactly share.
"We can!?" My new partner wasn't listening, though, as she was already charging at one of the pincers, shield first. "Damnit! Go for the legs!" I told the rest as I chased after her.
The Beringel had taken out around half of my total aura in a single hit, and that thing wasn't even half as strong as the Deathstalker was. My aura was pretty much full, but getting hit seemed like a pretty bad idea here.
It was faster than me too, but like most Grimm, it was also predictable. The pincer that came down onto me was fast, and I wouldn't have been able to get out of the way if I hadn't known it would be coming, not with my Dexterity score. Even knowing it would be coming, I didn't have enough time to jump to the side, so instead I angled my shield upwards and slammed it into the offending limb while jumping to the side. The push propelled me out from under the pincer, the extra force allowing me to make it out unscathed.
I rolled to my feet, but I wasn't fast enough to get out of the way of the massive tail that stabbed at me. I barely managed to get my shield up in front of my chest, and I closed my eyes for a moment in anticipation. When, after a moment, I didn't feel any pain, I dared to open my eyes again. In front of me, the orange-haired girl stood with her massive hammer swept out.
'Did she deflect that? How strong is she?'
"Can you take care of the tail?" I asked her, as we leapt backwards, avoiding another hit from its pincer.
"Awww, but I wanted to break some legs." The girl pouted, she actually pouted in the middle of a fight to the death with the strongest Grimm I had ever seen. "Fiiiine. I'll take the meanie's tail!" She told me after looking at my expression. The hammer in her hands shifted, turning into a canon from which she shot two charges at the tail that was now trying to spear Pyrrha as she danced around the Grimm with far more grace than I had.
'Is that a grenade launcher? Whatever, fight now, confusion later.' I thought, moving away from the black and white limb that reached out to crush me. A moment later, it buckled as Ruby and her sister managed to hack through one of the legs on the right, while Weiss, the black-haired girl and the boy in green did the same on the other side.
I spared a look at the monster's health bar, and I was surprised to see that it had already lost a whole quarter. Even if our individual strikes weren't doing much to it, with eight of us working together, we were slowly but surely chipping it down. I took a step back as it tried to pulp me into the ground again, and lashed out with Crocea Mors, stabbing it into the join on its pincer. With my Strength score, the weapon lodged deep into the joint, lodging itself between the armor plates and into the flesh beneath.
That in and of itself proved to be a problem when it lifted the injured limb back up. Still holding my sword, I hung on for dear life as the Grimm swung its limb back and forth trying to throw me off. "SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"
"Heya!" It was the girl from before, with the orange hair. She leapt off the tail that looked like it had seen better days, the armor on it cracked and oozing some kind of blackish-green fluid. 'Must be poison, Grimm don't bleed.' In midair, she flipped over, holding her hammer above her head as she fell towards me.
And like a nail, she stuck Crocea Mors, which was still stuck in the monster's pincer. The blade was pushed in deeper, spearing it all the way through as the impact of the strike broke some of the armor plating on the limb, allowing me to wrench the sword out.
I rolled on the ground to minimize the impact on my aura and looked up at the bar in the corner of my sight. 'Three quarters, we can do this. I can do this.'
Looking back up, the orange-haired girl was already gone. She was running along the monster's back to get back to the massive tail, not even slowing as the monster buckled again, losing another leg. It was down to three legs now, barely able to move, and far below half HP.
We were winning.
I don't know what it was that caused me to raise my shield suddenly, maybe some kind of instinct, but it saved my life. The pincer, more of a claw now that one end of it was dangling uselessly by some kind of cartilage, slammed into my shield at full force, launching me away from the monster and into some trees.
In that moment, I felt the impacts on my back, but it was nothing compared to the ringing in my arm. It felt like I had tried to stop a train my holding my shield out in front of it. Dazed, I looked up at my aura meter and winced. That one strike, even taken on my shield, had reduced my aura down to a mere sliver. If that had hit me anywhere but my shield, it wouldn't just have taken down my aura, it might have killed me entirely.
I forced myself to my feet, ignoring the ache where my back had impacted the tree and the way my shield arm flopped rather uselessly by my side. I couldn't move it, the limb simply hung there, it didn't hurt though, so that was a plus. 'Must be the adrenaline.'
I ran back to the fight, just in time to see Pyrrha ramming Miló deep into one of the monster's eyes. Meanwhile, Ruby and her sister had finished up the last leg on their side and were now working on cutting through the Grimm's tail with Nora. Weiss, her partner and the boy in green cut through the last remaining leg.
Then it happened. Pyrrha was trying to rip her spear out of the Deathstalker's faceplate when the claw I had been keeping busy before swept out towards her. It almost looked like it was happening in slow motion.
"PYRRHA WATCH OUT!"
Her shield was in her off-hand, and there was no way she would be able to get it up in time to block the hit. I didn't know how strong she was, but I doubted even she would be able to take a hit like that. Just as the claw came down, there was an explosion of red, and suddenly Pyrrha was gone. Looking around, I found her standing a dozen feet away from the monster, unharmed.
Ruby was stood next to her, with one arm around the championship fighter she had just dragged out of danger.
The Deathstalker, with barely a sliver of health left, turned its claw towards me, but I leapt past it. I don't know when I started running at it, maybe when I shouted out, or maybe when Ruby had already dragged Pyrrha away, but I was on top of it now. With my remaining arm, I rammed Crocea Mors down into one of its remaining eyes, pushing it down to the hilt.
GREAT ENEMY FELLED
+ 48271 DUST
+ [Chitin Shield]
Knowledge crashed into my skull along with the dust that flowed into me. Suddenly, I knew how to use my aura – Or was it magic? – to make my shield stronger. The experience almost made me lose my footing as the Deathstalker dissolved under me, dropping me to the ground. It was then, that I noticed the little screen in front of me, almost like the one I got when I inspected Crocea Mors.
[Chitin Shield]
A defensive spell which, when placed on a defensive armament increases its resistances.
Scaling:
INT: D
I couldn't help the little whisper that escaped my lips.
"What the fuck?"
A/N: I know I haven't shown Jaune's stats in a while, and that's mostly because not too much had changed, but I'm going to be putting it here, and if I feel like I haven't shown it in a while, but don't have a reason to in the story, I'll just put it at the end here.
Jaune Arc
Level: 27
HP: 100/100
AP: 360/360
Vigor: 10
Mind: 18
Endurance: 15
Strength: 20
Dexterity: 13
Intelligence: 10
Dust: 52197 (This is going to be around 5 levels.)
As for magic, I found a way to make it work that wasn't too broken. So, his semblance is going to be 'the game', while he can get magic. At first I thought it was too versatile to balance, but making it like DS or ER magic with individual spells that he can get makes it much easier to balance.
Also, the spell is not a skill that he can level, that shit is too annoying to write, and serves no purpose anyways if it scales with his INT. I just wrote it like that so it's clear for you guys what's going on. Jaune gets the knowledge on how to do the spell downloaded into his head, and a little popup for the scaling, but nothing beyond that.
Also, for the people saying I nerfed aura because he doesn't use Ren's aura punch or doesn't use dust casting, he can use those if he learns how. But how the fuck would he have learned that in the wilderness without any dust or instruction. Also, if it's that simple, why isn't everyone using techniques like that. Jaune does know how to use basic dust and stuff and he will learn more in his Chemistry class at Beacon, but that doesn't mean he will use it. Out of the main cast, the only person who actively uses dust is Weiss, and later Blake. The rest have dust rounds and stuff, but that's not the same. Just because something exists doesn't mean he has to use it.
Anyways, I hope that clears things up for you guys. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a review. Also if you have left a review, check your PMs on the website, since they don't show up on mobile. I try to respond to any reviews with feedback or questions, so you guys should find some answers there.
As always, have a good one!
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