Disclaimer: See prologue.
Chapter 1:
As Jaune got off of the airship and walked a few steps onto Beacon's landing area, he wasn't expecting to hear of all things today an explosion going off nearby.
'What was that..?' He thought with a frown as he carefully walked to the source of the explosion, Aura surreptitiously up and Magic Circuits ready to flare on the go.
His anticipation was for nothing as he noticed that the source of the explosion was merely from a couple of girls who mishandled Dust.
One of the girls, themed in white, walked away from the scene as did another, whose theme was ironically black. But what caught Jaune's attention was the last girl, whose main theme was red, who was left to her own devices crumbled on the ground.
"Welcome to Beacon…" He could hear her mumble.
He had a small smile at this familiar sight, back then, before his life was turned upside down by an outerworlder, these kinds of moments weren't stranger to him.
So he made a decision and walked to her.
"Hi, my name's Jaune." He smiled down at her, lending her his hand.
She looked at him in surprise then had a happy smile.
"Ruby!"
A little after…
"-and then she scold me while she's been the one to wave around that unsealed Dust in the first time! How's that's fair!?" Ruby complained while waving her arms around.
The both of them were currently walking along the main path. After Jaune helped her to get back in her feet, and started to head towards the rassemblement point, Ruby started to rant about her unfair treatment to the hands of the white themed girl of earlier who seemed to be called Weiss.
"Eh, eh… I feel for you."
"Thank you." She nodded while waking akimbo.
"You're welcome… By the way, my full name is Jaune Arc."
"Ruby Rose."
"Nice to meet you." He smiled.
"Same!" She answered with a upbeat tone.
They fell into not an uncomfortable silence but Ruby couldn't stand the silence for too long.
"So… I got this thing!" She said as she unfolded the object that hanged behind the small of her back.
What Jaune could see before him was the mother of all scythes. Unbeknownst to the owner of the weapon, at the sight of it Jaune instinctively used the Structural Analysis spell on it. Instantly, all the specs of the mecha-shift weapon registered into Jaune's inherited Reality Marble.
One of the unexpected effects of Shirou giving a replica of Avalon to Jaune, was that the replica he gave him was the perfect copy of the original sheath that was already vastly attuned to Shirou Emiya's soul. In doing so, some aspects of Shirou's Origin and Element transferred to Jaune, fusing with the later's own Origin and Elements.
Now, these events shouldn't normally have been enough for Jaune Arc to inherit the Reality Marble of Shirou Emiya, the Unlimited Blade Works, however, what the both of them hadn't expected, was that Jaune very much looked up to Shirou. For Jaune Arc, Shirou Emiya was the exact embodiment of what he wanted to be.
A hero.
The memories of that day, the day when his future teacher and big brother figure saved his life and took him under his wing, would forever shape the individual known as Jaune Arc.
Thus, after the replica of the sheath of King Arthur attuned to Shirou Emiya's soul was transplanted into Jaune Arc's body and grafted itself onto his very own soul, after years and years of exposure to Shirou Emiya's ideals and after the teacher brought his student into his Reality Marble to teach him about Noble Phantasms and their owners, the Heroic Spirits of legend, Jaune inherited a portion of Shirou Emiya's Reality Marble.
Suffice to say that the teacher and student were quite caught off guard about this event.
The following days after this they both made lots of experimentations to deduce the ins-and-outs of this phenomenon and if it posed any dangers for the young Magecraft user.
Fortunately it offered only advantages for Jaune.
Unfortunately he couldn't make use of it as much as his teacher. While Jaune had overall more circuits than Shirou and their qualities were very high, the fact that this Reality Marble wasn't originally Jaune's meant that he needed to imput more of his Od, the natural magical energy coming from his life-force, and needed to pull more Mana, the magical energy naturally present in the world, to summon the Reality Marble.
And the amount increased by each aria, or chants of the spell.
Not only that, but the Mana of the world wasn't much. Oh there were some of course, at least enough for any run of the mill magus and medium spells, but the Mana seemed to naturally flow into very specific creatures. The Grimm.
It would seem that the Creatures of Darkness didn't merely feed on the negativity of Mankind, either humans or Faunus, but they also used the ambient Mana of the world to evolve themselves.
That development worried Shirou.
While it wasn't surprising to see Phantasmal Beasts take into themselves the Mana of the world, there were in fact a few of them that conversely generated Mana like trees would oxygen, the majority of them that did absorb Mana did it at least in random ways.
But that rule didn't apply to the Creatures of Grimm.
Because as they found out when Shirou immobilized a couple of Beowolves and Ursai to experiment on with the use of Black Keys — Mystic Codes that essentially amounted to enchanted objects which could among their abilities immobilize targets upon the blade piercing their shadow — and through some heavy uses of the Structural Analysis spell, the Grimm weren't Phantasmal Beasts in the common sense of the term. They were constructs made out of some form of corrupted Mana.
Basically there was absolutely nothing natural about the Grimm.
They constantly absorbed Mana non-stop, and not just to sustain themselves but to also accelerate the rate of their growths and to enhance their lethality. And going from what both Shirou and Jaune observed in the wilds, they were clearly "programmed" to do so. And that only meant one thing, there was something out there that controlled the Grimm to make them do that. And wasn't that a most worrying thought.
Shirou could only offer two hypothesis on the matter.
First hypothesis, the Grimm are a leftover of some bygone god that disappeared from the surface of Remnant and forgot its "toys".
The second, some ancient being from Remnant's version of the Age of Gods was still roaming somewhere out there and was planning something.
Shirou was especially worried about the second hypothesis and when Jaune swore that he would somehow, someday, get to the bottom of this, Shirou made his adopted little brother also swear to be careful and to not head into danger carelessly. Jaune had given his word as an Arc.
"Wow..! Neat scythe."
"It's also a customizable high-impact sniper rifle!"
"So it's also a gun." He stated more than asked.
Ruby couldn't help herself but to cock it with a proud smile.
"It's also a gun."
"Eh, cool."
"So what've you got!?" She excitingly asked with big eager eyes.
"Well this…"
He unsheathed Crocea Mors and presented it to her.
Originally the sword was a good but mere hand-and-a-half sword, or otherwise known as a bastard sword able to be wielded either with one or two hands, that was passed down in the Arc family from generation to generation as a heirloom whose age went as far back as the most ancient records. Sadly, while the blade still kept its cutting edge, even after times passed at resting unused and uncared for above the mantle, the blade was really starting to show its age with the nicks and chips on its edge and surface. So Jaune decided to give it a lifting, Magus style.
While he kept the overall original design and size, and the iconic blue hilt, Jaune with the help of his blacksmith and Magus teacher, reforged the whole blade, giving it a new life. But that wasn't all. This sword was meant to be used by a Magecraft user after all.
Thus carefully hidden runes were inscribed along the blade, invisible but for those well versed into the magical arts. These runes gave Jaune access to all sort of elements.
Fire, water, ice, wind, electricity, earth and a few more others.
And depending on how Jaune wielded his sword and the will or intent he projected onto it, various effects could happen. A flame-thrower, a wall of ice or earth, a tornado or razor sharp slices of wind, so on and so forth...
Crocea Mors became the very first Mystic Code of the Arc family.
However, both Jaune and Shirou accorded themselves on the fact that such a weapon displaying that kind of abilities without some visible reasons or sources could be suspicious. While there wasn't any kind of magical authority such as the Clock Tower that kept the existence of magic secret from a more mundane public, they both agreed that it wouldn't be that smart of a choice to outright showcase magic to the people of Remnant, no matter what could be done with Semblances or Dust. So they merely gave the sword the illusion of using Dust. But they didn't stop there because while the Dust was here as a distraction it would have been a waste to not make use of it.
Speaking of Dust, Shirou and Jaune made quite a few numbers of interesting discoveries about it.
As he handled a piece of uncut Fire Dust crystal one day, Shirou couldn't help himself but to notice the similarities between it and his girlfriend's, Rin, own Jewelcraft, the art of using jewels and/or any kind of gems to store magical energy and to enchant them to do specific things. Such as taking a ruby and infusing with a fire spell. Bam, literally a Fire Dust crystal. Kinda.
Of course the process was a little bit more involved than that, and he was quick to tell Jaune as such, he didn't want his student to one day inadvertently repeat that to his beloved but oh so temperamental girlfriend. He valued his well being and his eardrums thank you very much.
That, and Dust was a naturally occurring phenomenon. It seemed that at one point in Remnant's history, more likely its Age of Gods, the ambiant Mana crystalized within the earth and took an aspect of an element in the process for whatever reason. Yet again most likely because of a divine intervention.
Anyhow, the point of the matter is that Crocea Mors has visible Dust elements into it that could enhance the enchantments powered by Jaune's own Od.
"I have this sword, Crocea Mors, a family heirloom that has been passed down hand to hand in every Arc generation. Its Dust additions are a recent thing that my teacher and I made to give it more range. All of the perks of the classics with a dash of modernity."
"Ooooohh!" She was literally undressing the already naked sword with her eyes.
"Eheh… And I've got this shield too."
He took Crocea Mors' sheath and by activating a mechanism turned it into a shield that he placed on his left arm.
As the sword was reforged, the same was done for the shield. Shirou made use of ancient and modern blacksmithing techniques as well as Magecraft to reinforce the shield but also to give it convenient abilities.
One of those being an adjustable energy dome shield, using similar principles such as in Bounded Fields, a Magecraft centered on making specific areas akin as forcefields around determined objects or buildings. In the shield's case, the dome upon activation surrounded Jaune and any other persons he included into the field and protected them for a certain duration. The duration was determined by the amount of Od Jaune fed into it. Alternatively, he could make use of Hard-light Dust to power it but to that meant sacrificing control over its size that was pre-set into a three meters radius.
The shield could also absorb the kinetic energy of anything that impacted its surface and Jaune could then unleash the energy into a blast from its front.
There were more nifty abilities inspired by the Noble Phantasms of Heroic Spirits stored within Shirou and Jaune's shared Reality Marble, such as the Rho Aias or Lord Camelot, depending on the situation.
But speaking of Noble Phantasms the shield's true value was in its ability to act as a magical crossbow to shoot them. Indeed, while Shirou was an expert marksman through his years of practicing kyudo, sadly this specific skill didn't transfer to Jaune alongside the many other abilities he inherited from his big brother. And while Jaune was a most studious student he just wasn't made for shooting a bow, no matter the hours he put into it. That is why Shirou had the idea of implementing a crossbow mechanism into the Mystic Code, afterall it would have been too much of a waste for Jaune to not have been able to launch broken Noble Phantasms at Grimm, especially the more ancient ones. The rate of fire wouldn't be as high as Shirou can produce through his special Projected Black Bow, however concidering Jaune wouldn't have to rewound a physical mechanism to shoot the Noble Phantasms, merely needing to put them atop the shield as he outstretched his arm, the rate of fire would be as fast as Jaune could Trace them, set them on his shield, aim and fire. It was overall quite an elegant solution he thought.
Of course there were also a few Dust cleverly placed around to sell the mascarade.
Ruby couldn't decide where to aim her eyes.
"What do they do! What do they do!"
"The sword allows me to stab and slash things and the shield to protect myself from hits." He lackadaisically said. "Oh and, as you saw the shield can turn into a sheath to carry my sword freeing my hands."
She sent him a deadpan glare that was more adorable than anything.
"That's not funny."
"Eheh, c'mon Ruby, you don't expect me to give away the surprise now do you..?" He said with a wink.
"Jaune..!" She whined.
"You sure love your weapons, huh?" He asked with a smile.
She giggled and then she gave up trying to make him surrender his secrets, for now.
"Well, I'm kind of a dork when it comes to weapons, sooo… I guess I did go a little overboard when designing it."
"So you did design it from scratch…" He stated impressed.
"Of course! All students at Signal forge their own weapons!"
"Huh, neat. Honestly on my part I'm relieved that my weapon is a hand-me-down, while modifying it is one thing, I wouldn't have known how to go about making it from the ground up back then. Even if all it was was a simple relic from the past."
"Bah! Don't worry about it. Not many people have an appreciation for the classics these days. Even if you did end up to modify it to do…"
She looked at him with wide innocent and eager eyes, barely hiding her intentions to get him to talk. Fortunately for Jaune he grew up with seven sisters which made him slightly immune to such tactics.
"Nice try~." He sing-songed.
At that she pouted adorably and made as if she was crossed with him. Though she couldn't last long as she didn't have any mean bones in her. Then she asked him where they were going and Jaune answered that he didn't know either and was following her along the path. Eventually they managed to locate their positions and where the rassemblement point was, and headed there while continuing to discuss and deepening their newfound friendship along the way.
After arriving at the Amphitheater.
As they both entered they took on the sights of the crowd of their fellow first years. Instantly Ruby perked upon hearing her name being called.
"Ruby! Over here! I saved you a spot!" Came the call from a girl themed in yellow.
"Oh! Hey! H-hum…" Ruby started, waving at the girl, then she looked shyly at Jaune. "D-do you want to come with..? I want to show my sister that I've made a f-friend… O-of course y-you're not obligated! It's only if you w-want to…"
Jaune could only smile to her social awkwardness, seeing a lot of himself in her before he gained confidence in himself as he studied Magecraft and trained to become a Huntsman. Truth be told that part of him never really went away.
"Don't worry Ruby, I'd be glad to."
This made her shying face brighten up and after grabbing him by the arm which made him slightly blush, not much used to be touched by pretty girls other than his own siblings, as she lead him toward her sister.
As they arrived Jaune noticed the girl stood with her arms crossed and raised a curious brow at his presence.
"How's your first day going, little sister?"
"You mean since you ditched me and I exploded?"
"Yikes! Meltdown already?" Then she turned to Jaune. "And who is this?" She asked while looking at Jaune carefully.
"He's Jaune! My new friend..!" Ruby said proudly with some shyness.
"Well it's great to see you followed my advice." The little sister blew a raspberry at her older sibling. "I'm glad to see my sister making new friends. Hi! My names Yang. Yang Xiao Long, this drama queen's big sister."
"Jaune Arc." He nodded politely, he had been tempted to add more but felt that before this dragon less was more.
"But Yang! I'm telling you, I literally exploded a hole in front of the school! And there was some fire, and I think some ice…?" Ruby exclaimed while scratching her head.
This made the big sister smile, though there was some uncertainty in her eyes.
"Are you being sarcastic?"
"Oh no she speaks the truth. Some kind of white themed girl mishandled Dust and made your sister explode."
"Huh, you mean a girl like her..?"
He turned and saw the aforementioned girl walk up to the them.
"Ah, yep, just the one."
"You!"
"Heek!" Ruby quickly jumped into her sister's arms. "Oh, God, it's happening again!"
"You're lucky we weren't blown off the side of the cliff!" The white themed girl said.
"Oh my God, you really exploded." Yang deadpanned.
"Told you." Jaune shrugged. "There was even a crater and I did consider to nickname her Crater Face…"
"Hey!" The reaper whined.
"I said I considered it not that I did." He said as raised his hands in defense.
"Thank you." She gratefully nodded, then she turned toward the girl. "It was an accident!"
Weiss held a pamphlet titled "DUST for dummies and other Inadequate Individuals" to Ruby.
"What's this?" Ruby asked as she crossed her eyes at the piece of paper.
"The Schnee Dust Company is not responsible for any injuries or damages sustained while operating a Schnee Dust Company product. Although not-"
"Hum, sorry but actually not really sorry," Jaune interrupted what was about to be a headache inducing slogan, "from my point of view Ruby's the one who'd be in the right and should be complaining, I mean you did wave an unsealed jar of unsecured Dust around without paying attention." He supplied.
"Yeah!" Ruby exclaimed.
"W-well…"
Yang, sensing that things were about to go even worse intervened.
"Look, uh, it sounds like you two just got off on the wrong foot. Why don't you start over and try to be friends, okay?"
This made Ruby's face lit up at her big sister's suggestion.
"Yeah! Great idea, sis!" She held out her hand and cleared her throat. "Hello, Weiss! I'm Ruby! Wanna hang out? We can go shopping for school supplies!"
This made Weiss raise a delicately manicured eyebrow.
"And then we can paint our nails and try on clothes and talk about cute boys, like tall, blond, and Mr. I-can't-mind-my-own-business over there?"
"Uh, I resent that."
"Good." She said unkindly.
Though it seemed Ruby wasn't catching on the heiress mood.
"Wow, really?!"
Weiss just looked at Ruby with a deadly glare.
"No." She said with a severe finality.
'Yikes what crowled up her-'
But his thoughts were interrupted when the ambient sounds of the students stopped as the crowd's attention was drawn to the stage, where a grey haired man, the world renowned and famous Professor Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy, was readying the stage's microphone. With him was the as much renowned and famous Professor Glynda Goodwitch standing beside him.
'Ah finally things pick up a notch.'
"I'll… Keep this brief. You have traveled here today in search of knowledge, to hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people." His speech stopped when his eyes landed on Jaune, the Headmaster's attention on him didn't last too much and he continued his speech while looking at the other students. "…But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose, direction." As the students whispered among themselves at the content of his speech, the professor's eyes landed again on Jaune and this time the young Magecraft user noticed it.
He could see that the Headmaster's eyes were stopping frequently on him and stayed on him a few instant longer then to anyone else.
'What's up with him..? Seriously why does he look at me like that..? It's kind of starting to freak me out…'
"You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step."
And after finishing his speech he took a step back and let the microphone to his colleague, Professor Goodwitch.
"You will gather in the ballroom tonight; tomorrow, your initiation begins. Be ready. You are dismissed."
After she told her short clipped orders she went back to the Headmaster's side and both departed from the room.
The students were left flummoxed.
"He seemed kind of… off." Yang said.
"It's almost like he wasn't even there." Ruby added.
'Oh he was there. He was there alright… Why did he look at me like that?'
Jaune was even more perplexed than his fellow students. Concerned even.
Later that night…
While the girls, specifically the sisters, were talking to each other at Jaune's sides, the Magecraft user was left to his own troubled thoughts.
'That was really wierd… I couldn't focus on dinner so much that scene played again and again in my head… Why would he look at me like that..?'
Off to the side he could hear that the sisters decided to go speak to the same black themed girl of earlier in the day.
'Sigh… No use in trying to understand this by myself. I'll have to wait and see I guess.'
Now he could both see and very much hear that Weiss joined them and scolded the girls for causing a ruckus. Of course it completely eluded the heiress that she didn't help the situation.
The black themed girl let out suffering sigh and blew out the candle she used to read, plunging the room in a relative darkness.
The girls got the message and went to their bed rolls to stay the night.
'Better just go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a busy day…'
Thus Jaune closed his eyes and let sleep take hold of him.
A/N:
Welp, here goes the first chapter.
I haven't got much to say about it...
And I know that not a lot happened but your thoughts?
Especially about the Reality Marble. I know it's far-fetched, and doesn't necessarily follow the rules and/or conventions of the established Nasuverse (if at all...), but I really wanted to give Jaune most of Shirou's abilities without having to either make him a reincarnation or something or to outright remplace Jaune with Shirou himself.
By the way, I'm experimenting with adding break lines between scenes, to make the transition more polished. Does it look good?
Fyr out.