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The view on the bullhead flying them to Beacon was magnificent. As we ascended, past the skyscrapers and towards the massive cliff the academy had been built on, people oohed and aahed at the windows. Or at least, that's what I assumed was going on. I had been huddled in the bullhead's bathroom since the flight had started. Trying my best to keep what little water I had managed to drink this morning down.
Who knew that a massive hangover and motion sickness did not mix? Not me, that's for sure.
I had gotten some sympathetic glances, and more than a couple of laughs from the other students who had needed to use one of the bathroom stalls near mine. One girl had even congratulated me, saying that I must have had one hell of a night. And while she wasn't wrong, I wasn't exactly in the right frame of mind to appreciate that at the moment.
It had been a fun night though. Even if the end of it did make me want to shove my head into the toilet bowl I was leaning over. I might have some pretty thick skin, living with 7 sisters did that to you, but the way I had been shot down by Cinder made me cringe every time it crossed my mind.
The bullhead lurched a little as it touched down next to the school, the unexpected motion made my head spin as my stomach tried to empty itself once again. There was nothing left, though, so I just sat there dry heaving until the nausea subsided a little. The ship had stopped moving, so now I only had to deal with the hangover. Totally doable. Probably. Maybe.
I was the last person off the ship, having been stuck in the back bent over the toilet, so I was more than a little surprised that I wasn't the only person still around here. There was a girl sitting on the floor in front of the ship. She was cute, with short, dark red hair and a little button nose that reminded me of Indigo.
'Come on Jaune, strangers are just friends you haven't met yet. Right?'
I walked over, ignoring the scorch mark on the floor where she was sat, and simply stuck my hand out.
"Hi, I'm Jaune!"
She looked up at me, her gaze trailing from the outstretched hand up to my shoulder before finally settling on my face. Meeting her eyes, it was almost like looking into a mirror. Literally, since her eyes were some kind of silver color I had never seen before. They sparkled in the light, and I could even see my own reflection in them if I looked carefully.
"Ruby." She groaned back as she took my hand. A month ago, I would have struggled and heaved to help her get to her feet, but with my strength score being literally double what it had been then, it was no trouble. As she stood, I took note of just how short she was, she couldn't have been more than five and a half feet, even with the slight boost her boots gave her.
"Aren't you the guy who threw up on the ship?" She asked, a little frown playing on her brow as if in deep thought. I tried to ignore it, to just let it go. But I couldn't.
"I just found you in a crater." My deadpan expression was clear as day.
"Ahahaha, yeah! Uhm, about that…" Ruby trailed off, rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment. "Let's not talk about that." She eventually decided, the mutually assured teasing being enough for her to ease off.
"Anyways!" I cut in, breaking the awkward silence. "I'm Jaune, Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue. Ladies love it!" I told her, hopefully looking a lot more confident than I felt.
"Do they?" That was twice now in as many days that I had been called out on it. First Cinder, and now Ruby. I didn't have the heart to defend myself. I deflated with a sigh, my shoulders drooping forward.
"Probably not."
It was silent while I wallowed, before Ruby decided to break that silence by grabbing the red metal contraption attached to the small of her back. As she drew it, it expanded into a huge scythe that was longer than she was tall.
"So, I got this thing." She told me, which explained exactly nothing.
"Is that a scythe?"
"It's also a customizable high impact sniper rifle!" The girl said excitedly, and at my blank look she continued. "It's also a gun."
For the record, I do know what a sniper rifle is, thank you very much. I simply hadn't been expecting someone as short as Ruby to be toting a weapon that large. Not to mention that she just whipped it out in the middle of the road leading to the school.
So, what have you got?" She asked.
With a small smile, I drew my sword, the ancestral blade gleaming in the light as I showed it off. "I've got this sword! And this is my shield, it compacts down into a sheath to make it easier to carry around." I told her, expanding the kite shield for a moment, before turning it back into a sheath and clipping it to my belt.
"Doesn't the shield still weight the same?"
"Yeah. But it isn't as big, which makes it easier." She hummed along as I explained.
"Hehe, I'm kind of a dork when it comes to weapons. I guess I did go a little overboard when I designed this." She explained.
"You made that!?"
"Yeah, all students at Signal forge their own weapons, didn't you make yours?"
"Huh, no. I didn't go to a combat school. Crocea Mors is an heirloom. My great, great grandfather used it in the war." I told her, and I couldn't help it as my smile grew a little wider. I might not have been using it for that long, but the weapon had been with me the whole way. The fact that my semblance said it was a legendary certainly didn't hurt.
She nodded along. "Well, I like it, not many people appreciate the classics these days!" She said, and I couldn't help but laugh at the way her eyes lit up when she continued to explain the intricacies of her own weapon.
We walked around for a little while longer, somehow managing to get lost before just deciding to head for the biggest tower in the school. There, we had hoped to find someone who could tell us where to go, but we found the assembly there instead.
"Hey Ruby! Ruby over here! I saved you a spot!" I looked over to the blonde girl that shouted and waved over at the little redhead. When I saw her, I had to wonder if all Huntresses were good looking. Maybe it was the aura?
She was taller than her sister, maybe five eight and change if you counted the meticulously styled blonde mane that sat on her head, with violet-colored eyes and a wide smile that reminded Jaune of those toothpaste commercials. Where Ruby was cute, she was beautiful.
"Oh, that's my sister. IgottagoseeyoulaterJauneBYE!" She said, the words coming out in one long string as she suddenly vanished in a cloud of rose petals. Some kind of semblance?
'Did she just ditch me?' I wondered quietly before just finding myself a spot somewhere in the middle of the crowd to wait.
"Come on, come on, come on. Where the hell did I put my stuff. There's no way I put it in locker 636, I would have remembered having to count that high." I muttered.
Things had not been going according to plan since I'd arrived at Beacon. To be fair, not even I'm sure what the plan was exactly, but that was beside the point. First, he'd had to suffer through Headmaster Ozpin's speech about wasted potential. 'As if I didn't know that already.' I grunted mentally.
After that, we'd gotten instructions to stay in the entrance hall, where they would be sleeping for the night. That would have been fine, if only I actually knew anyone except for Ruby. And, as good as I had been feeling about myself since my application was accepted, I was not confident enough to go up to some girl I barely knew to sleep next to her and her sister.
The fact that people had not been as appreciative of my onesie as I was certainly hadn't helped.
And now, I couldn't even find my gear. I hurried past rows and rows of lockers, desperately looking for number 636. It was what I had written down the day before, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember going that far to find myself a place to stow my stuff.
"So Pyrrha, have you given any thought to who's team you would like to be on?"
The voice was so close, I barely managed to look up before I bumped into the speaker. It was another girl, with snow white hair and crystal blue eyes, it was like looking at a frozen lake in midwinter. Beautiful. Judging by how red her face was getting while I stood there staring like an idiot, she was probably as dangerous as that frozen lake too.
"-ook where you're going!" I had been so distracted looking at her, that I only caught the end of whatever it was she was saying. To be fair, though, her tone said it all. I wasn't worth the dirt on her boots, and having bumped into her, I was now below even that. It reminded me so much of Sapphire, my second-oldest sister, that I couldn't help the small smile that crept onto my face.
"Sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going."
"Hmph, that was obvious!"
'It's just like Sapphire. Just stay calm, don't disagree with her and she'll stop being mad.'
I repeated the mantra in my head while I stuck out a hand to the girl. "I really am sorry." I told her, "I can't find my locker and I was so nervous that I stopped paying attention. I didn't mean to bump into you." The explanation seemed to mollify her a little, so for the finishing blow, I stuck a hand out to her. "I'm Jaune, Jaune Arc. It's nice to meet you, in spite of the circumstances."
For a moment, it looked like she was going to snap at me again, but it seems that the Sapphire approach worked its magic. The girl didn't lash out, but she didn't take my hand either. Instead, she simply let out a little huff.
"Weiss Schnee."
"It's nice to meet you Weiss, and sorry again for bumping into you." I told her, hoping that that would be the end of it. I didn't expect my hand to be grasped by someone else, though. The girl Weiss had been talking to was suddenly standing in front of me, shaking my hand.
"Pyrrha Nikos, it's nice to meet you Jaune." She said. The girl, Pyrrha, looked like a warrior from Mistrali myth. She had long, blood red hair that was tied back into a messy ponytail. She was tanned, her skin almost shining bronze under the lights of the locker room. Like those warriors from the myths, she was decked out in bronze and gold armor, with a matching spear and shield strapped to her back. All of it came together to form the image of a fierce warrior.
Only for her wide smile and friendly emerald eyes to break the image. She happily shook my hand while Weiss stood there, dumbstruck that Pyrrha would take the time to introduce herself to me. I almost laughed at the expression on her face, Sapphire always looked the same when something caught her off guard.
"It's nice to meet you too Pyrrha. Who knows, we might even see each other in initiation later." I told her with a smile. The happy introductions were interrupted again, though, when Weiss interjected herself again. The pale girl physically jumping between Pyrrha and I, waving her arms wildly in the air as she did so.
"No, no, no. Jaune was it? Do you have any idea who you're talking to?"
"Not in the slightest, though from her introduction, I'm assuming her name is Pyrrha." I said, my smile growing a little wider. It was always fun riling Sapphire up, before she beat me up for it anyways, and Weiss was looking to be the same.
"She graduated top of her class at Sanctum!"
"Never heard of it."
"She's won the Mistral regional tournament 4 years in a row, a new record."
"Huh, cool. I've never really been one for tournaments, but that sounds pretty impressive." Pyrrha's smile grew a little wider at the compliment. Meanwhile, Weiss seemed to be growing more and more frustrated by my ignorance. To be fair, I hadn't actually heard of any of those things. Ansel was a small town, and while we had internet, I hadn't exactly used it to look up girls in a completely different kingdom.
"SHE'S ON THE FRONT OF EVERY PUMPKIN PETE'S MARSHMELLOW FLAKES BOX!" Weiss shouted out, waving her arms around wildly as she did so. Now that was something I did know. Pumpkin Pete's was one of my all-time favorites, and I always managed to convince mom to buy a box or two whenever the local grocery store stocked it.
"That's YOU?" I gasped, a little starstruck. As much as being top of her class at whatever academy she had attended in Mistral and those tournament wins sounded impressive, they were a little abstract to me. I had never seen the Mistrali regional tournament, nor had I ever heard of Sanctum. But to be sponsored by a company so large that it was present in multiple kingdoms, and even managed to find its way into small towns like Ansel, that was impressive.
"Yeah, uh, it was pretty cool. Sadly, the cereal isn't very good for you." She admitted a little sheepishly.
"What cereal is? But that's really cool, you'll have to tell me about it sometime. I do need to find my locker, though, so I'll see you later Pyrrha, Weiss." I finished, waving at the pair while I went off looking for my gear.
A/N: Hello everyone! I wasn't really all that happy with last chapter, especially after some reviews got me to look at the pacing of the story, but that chapter in particular. I'm not adjusting it, mostly because I know that I'll get stuck on it, but also because it reminds me not to make that same mistake again. I'm curious to hear what you guys think about this chapter though.
I also wanted to address something quickly, someone pointed out that Jaune is a little OOC, and I agree. This is partly because this is first person, but also because Jaune is already different from his canon self. Not only is he already a little stronger and more prepared for initiation, but he also got into Beacon legitimately, which surely has an impact on his behavior.
Also, having his family be hunters and huntresses is not canon, and thus I am completely making them and their personalities up, so Jaune will be influenced by this a little as well, like in his conversation with Weiss.
Someone also said that I nerfed aura, I don't really understand how. Jaune already had his unlocked, so it wouldn't randomly boost his stats, the buff is already there. As for aura techniques, no one really knows any in Beacon from what I remember, so I don't see how or why Jaune would randomly know any by practicing on his own. Remember, Jaune isn't some genius, and he doesn't have skills like a traditional gamer might, so he can't just randomly learn stuff like that without help.
As for his semblance and what to do about magic, I managed to find a solution that I like after brainstorming with Chaos65 and CrowMADDER (Thanks for helping out btw). It will be featured in the next chapter, so you'll just have to see what I decided on.
Anyways, as always, leave a review if you have any comments or feedback for me. That's how I improve as a writer anyways.
Have a good one!
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