HELLO EVERYONE!

I hope you haven't missed me and Remnant Light too badly :P

I am looking forward to returning to posting RL for you, as I'm super proud of the fic! As it stands now, Remnant Light is my longest individual story. It only has about 60k words posted, which puts it 3rd on my account, but I have around another 60k words of backlog, totalling up to over 120k words!

I really hope you enjoy this chapter and this whole next story arc!

The students of Beacon are given 3 days off after they return from their missions, to recuperate, go over their performance, and find out what they could have done better next time.

It might seem like a long time to take off after a mission of such a calibre, but it isn't truly only for the student's benefit. Much of the time off is planned with the hardworking engineers and workers in mind so that repairs for the first-year students' Arks can be completed with no interruptions, as the newer students usually take more damage to their Arks than the ones with years more experience.

If one took a stroll around Beacon, however, one would spot a great deal of the first-year students… Most definitely not going over their performances, or finding out what they could do better for next time.

Most spend this time relaxing, chatting with their friends and regaling them of the 'awesome tales' of their combat against the Grimm, even when most of those tales inevitably boiled down to 'All 6 of them jumped the Grimm and beat it to death'.

Ozpin couldn't help but enjoy the sight, however. Sure, he wished more of the students were more diligent in their training, but… These were children, only a month into their education at Beacon. He could not expect them to have the discipline of veterans.

Or at least, not most of them. There were still a few Fireteams that were active in their training during the three days, but they were the exceptions. And while he wouldn't ever say that he had favourite students -A bald-faced lie that anyone who knew him personally could immediately call him out on- he was glad to see that fireteam JSBYRR was one of them.

They trained together, studied together, and had an instant camaraderie that pleased Ozpin to no end. While he trusted the algorithms and systems that Beacon, Atlas, Shade, Haven, and Fang academies used to sort out their students into squads… it didn't always create teams that meshed well as people, focusing more on a team as combatants.

"C'mon, Jaune! We have to finish your shield!"

"R-ruby, wait! Slow down!"

Ozpin raised an eyebrow at the odd twist of fate, as his morning walk around the campus was interrupted by the very students he was thinking about. An excitable Miss Rose practically was dragging Mr Arc along behind her as they passed him, and the two students flashed him apologetic smiles as a burst of Rose petals invaded the confines of his coffee mug.

His eye twitched, but he held his tongue, the students already being long gone by the time he realised he would have to dump the rest of his coffee. Rose petals in coffee weren't a bad taste, per se, but he refused to use ones created by Miss Rose's semblance to get that flavour.

Ignoring the soul-crushing pain as he tipped out his coffee into a nearby bush, he chuckled to himself. As long as there were students in his schools with the drive to improve and the ability to cultivate relationships like Fireteam JSBYRR had…

Then he was confident that humanity could eventually reach that divine goal placed upon him, so long ago.

Jaune sighed to himself as he let his stomach settle.

Ruby was great, but she didn't seem to understand that super-fast movement through the air, like what she could do with her Semblance, made his gut commit a mutiny against his body. It had taken all of his willpower (and probably a little help from his Aura) to stop himself from vomiting already.

Luckily, his Aura was doing something about it. Even after resting in the bathroom of the Workshop for only a minute, he could feel his Aura's healing effects doing their thing, his stomach calming down.

Pushing his way out of the bathroom, he bumped shoulders with a grey-haired boy, who was only slightly shorter than himself, and noted that he was -for some reason- bringing a screwdriver with him. As the boy glared at him, Jaune hummed out an apology. "Ah, sorry dude."

The grey-haired boy met his eyes and for just a moment, Jaune felt like he was in some kind of danger… But he couldn't be, not this deep in Beacon, right? The boy shook his head a moment later, huffing. "Yea, just watch yourself, dweeb. Gods, this fucking school…'

The door started to close behind him at this point so Jaune just let the rude interaction go in his mind. Instead, he focused on the cacophony of noise coming from the workstation that Ruby had all but officially claimed, some of the materials and tools they would be using to finalise the shield they were building already on the bench.

As he reached the workbench, however, he paused, his eyebrows furrowing. He could hear rustling from somewhere around the workbench, which was not large enough that it should be hard to find her but did not see her.

"Ruby, where exactly are you right now?"

His search was interrupted as a blur of red dropped from the ceiling above him. Ruby landed with two feet on the workbench with a 'THUD' and bent her knees slightly to absorb the shock. Grinning at Jaune's open-mouthed expression of shock, she giggled.

Holding out her hands, Jaune saw the finished Sword/Rifle they had made, wrapped in a tarp as a makeshift sheath until they could get the shield done, and raised an eyebrow at Ruby. "Ruby… W-why was the sword up in the rafters?"

She gave him a look that almost made him feel like he was the weird one in this situation, even when he felt like that was a totally okay question to ask. "Because it's precious and needs to be hidden from anyone who wants to steal it?"

The cute tilt of her head that she did alongside her words caused Jaune to laugh, shaking his head as he smiled at her. "That tracks, I guess. Alright then, let's get this shield done so that we can put the two together!"

Ruby just nodded rapidly in response before placing the Sword/Rifle down on the bench in an open space and grabbing her tools. Jaune picked up his soldering iron, looked over the step-by-step guide that Ruby had made for him on what he should be doing, and got to work.

Jaune was loathe to admit it, but even two years younger than him… Ruby was far smarter with this stuff than he was. He'd put machines back together in the past, but the most complicated device he'd ever 'fixed' was their old TV. The majority of that was just screwing the antenna back into its proper place and replacing the power supply to the screen.

So to go from that to the complex chassis and internal mechanisms of a true, huntsmen-level Mechashift weapon? It was quite the leap, and he was grateful for Ruby's help. The only thing that irked him about it was that it now meant that he literally owed favours to every single member of his team for all of their help, and being in so much debt made him uncomfortable.

He'd mostly paid Blake off with the books, he was fairly sure, but Weiss, Yang, Ren, and now Ruby were going to require him to really think about what he could do for them. Weiss especially, since she was apparently hella rich.

But he pushed all that out of his mind for the moment and focused in on Ruby's voice as she did a final check of the Sword/Rifle across from him. It was the third time she'd done a 'final check' and he was fairly sure that the weapon couldn't get any more perfect, but it was clear that she just needed something to fiddle with while she waited for him to finish.

That was motivation enough for him to do his best, and he locked in as best he could, allowing the excited rambling of Ruby to form a pleasant backdrop to the sounds of bolts being drilled into metal plates, metal being welded together, and the rattling of screws whenever he grabbed a couple from the plastic tub on his right.

Eventually, as Ruby was in the middle of explaining how she had experimented with different materials for her Ruby-Sized Warscythe to get the perfect Weight-to-Durability ratio, Jaune drilled in one final bolt and paused, having reached the final step of the process.

He looked at the shield, in its plain, gunmetal-grey glory, flipped it over and tapped the button on the edge of one of the handgrips. There was a single instant where he was worried it might not work… But with a small 'THUNK' the shield collapsed in on itself, resting on the workbench in its sheath form.

"YOU DID IT!"

His excitement was almost interrupted as Ruby's own excitement caused her to crash-tackle him with a hug, swinging around his body to turn the hug into a koala hold for a moment before dropping to the floor and grabbing the sheath.

She grabbed the sword from its place on the workbench as well and popped the shield back open with the button, and Jaune had to admit that it was funny to see the weapons, which were sized for him, look just slightly larger than they should be in her hands.

She didn't seem to care, however, as she spun around with a grin full of joy on her face, meeting his eyes as she finished her 360, and Jaune's laughter caught in his throat. There was just… Something about her in that moment, his silver eyes glowing with happiness and a smile just for him and their work together… That had his cheeks slightly warm.

He tried to shake off the feeling by refocusing on the weapons, but the warm feeling merely shifted to his chest as she continued to grin at him, motioning for him to… Kneel? "Huh?"

Ruby rolled her eyes at his confusion as she sheathed the sword and motioned downwards with it again. "Hop down on one knee for a second, okay? I'm doing a bit."

Jaune sighed, but he was used to playing along with the vague demands of women. Getting down on one knee in front of Ruby, he realised what she was about to do right as Ruby held the hilt with both hands, tapping his shoulders one after the other with the sword.

"I now dub thee, Sir Arc, Maker of Stuff!"

Jaune snorted as she finished off her 'bit' by tapping him on top of his head, before handing him the sword/shield combo as he got to his feet, just… Staring at the weapon. It felt… Good, to be holding something he helped create.

Even through his contemplative silence, Ruby's excitement didn't seem to drop, the girl still practically vibrating. "So… What are you gonna call them?"

Jaune looked up from the weapon and met her eyes again, a smile forming on his face. "Shouldn't the one who did the knighting a second ago be the one to name it? Plus… Realistically you did most of the hard work. I would never have made anything this high-quality."

Ruby froze for a moment as she looked at the weapon, and he could see that she was considering accepting his offer before she shook her head. "Hmm… Nope!"

"But you-"

"Nope!"

A sigh escaped him as he shook his head, chuckling at her antics. She looked deathly serious, however, even with her joking tone of voice. "I'd love to, really… But it wouldn't be right! A long time ago, before she… Hmm. A long time ago, my mother told me that you need to name your weapon. It's a very personal thing for a Hunter!"

Jaune picked up on the slight misstep Ruby seemed to have made, as well as the almost… Pained look on her face as she made it, but she was a pro, apparently, and schooled her expression quickly, back to that semi-joking semi-serious expression from before. "And while I know your first thought for its name was a pun, and I hate that, it would still be your choice, and I want you to make that."

Jaune smiled at her, that small core of heat in his chest reminding him that it was there because of the sincerity of her words. He could tell that this was really important to her, even if she wished she could accept his offer to name it, her principles wouldn't let her.

He looked down at the weapon, rugged and unpolished and without paint, and couldn't help but smile as he imagined it in its prime, with its white and gold accents, just like the Crocea Mors that hung on his family's living room wall.

But it wasn't just his weapon anymore. It never was, really. Ruby had done the heavy lifting, and even if it was technically for a school assignment, they had already gotten permission for Jaune to keep it if it was up to Professor Mulberry's standards. And he was sure it would be, with how skilled Ruby was at this stuff.

He looked back up again and met Ruby's eyes, and he could tell that even though she was putting effort into being supportive, she was expecting him to go with the pun name he had suggested before. And maybe he would have kept it that silly name if he had built it 100% himself, but…

"I dub thee, 'Crocea Flos'. 'Crocea' to link it back to the original sword and my Ark, and 'Flos' or 'Flower', in honour of the amazing person who helped build it."

"Eep!"

Jaune laughed at the noise that escaped Ruby at that, grinning at her. Her face was slightly red as she waved her hands at him, looking slightly panicked. "B-but, you, you were supposed to… Jaune! What did I just say?! You were supposed to name it for yourself!"

He nodded, looking down at the weapon in his hands. "I did. I wouldn't even have a weapon like this without your help, Ruby, let alone one as high-tech and awesome as this. I think you deserve the recognition."

Ruby didn't say anything for a second or two as she stared at the weapon. For a moment Jaune wondered if he'd messed up somehow, but as she met his eyes again he could see the smallest tears appearing in the corner of her eyes.

His 'lived with 7 sisters' senses pinged at that moment and he gently placed Crocea Flos onto the workbench next to them just in time for Ruby to slam into him, wrapping her arms around his torso and squeezing him in a tight hug.

He reciprocated it, patting her on the back. He could tell that he had pushed some sort of button, hit the nail on the head for… Something Ruby had bad memories about, and he felt horrible for bringing it back into her mind, but… Her tears were clearly happy ones, so maybe he had done the right thing, somehow?

Either way, he would take it. Ruby stayed attached to him for a little while longer before eventually her overwhelming emotions faded enough for her to realise that they had a bit of an audience in the other students in the workshop, and she went bright red for a different reason, vanishing into Rose petals as she escaped the workshop.

After a minute or two it was clear that she wasn't coming back, so Jaune packed up Crocea Flos for the day -after taking a copious amount of pictures to show to the rest of JSBYRR- and cleaned their workbench, before heading out himself.

They could get the paint and colouring done another time. Now that it was finished, they had all the time in the world to work on that together, so if Ruby wanted to hide because she was embarrassed, then he was fine to give her that.

He was totally going to tell Yang and the rest of JSBYRR so that she could join him in teasing her about it for sure, however. Not even he was gracious enough to keep that from her sister.

Yang let out a yawn and the bags she was holding with her scrunched elbows raised as she stretched.

Tukson's Book Shop was quiet, and had a nice, professional atmosphere… But, well, she could read fine, and was smart as hell when it came to schoolwork… She was just not as obsessed with fictional stories as Blake seemingly was.

Yang looked over at the girl, who was nose-deep in a book in the 'adult literature' section doing what she apparently called a 'test run' of the first couple of chapters to 'see if she wanted to buy it.' As if Yang didn't know that the book she was reading was likely some form of smut.

So she recognised the title, sue her. One did not get unsupervised Scroll access during their formative years without knowing about some stuff.

Still, even as she thought up a million and one ways to tease the hell out of Blake for her choices in reading material, as well as the 'guts' it took to blatantly read them while still in the bookstore, she was also starting to feel bored.

She'd invited Blake down to Vale for the day to go shopping for some stuff, Beacon having given the students a couple of days off after their first proper Grimm-killing Mission… And to her surprise, the quiet girl had accepted her invite, even after she'd jokingly called it a date.

Yang needed to grab some sporting equipment, a couple of new workout outfits and some weights, so they'd done her stuff first, and she'd very much enjoyed teasing Blake for the way she looked at her when she showed off a few of the more… Risque workout outfits the store had.

She hadn't ended up grabbing any of them in the end, but hey… How could she not take the opportunity to tease her new teammate!

After Yang was done with her stuff, however, Blake asked if they could make a quick stop so that she could look at a few books. Yang snorted at the memory of the completely sincere look on the girl's face as she checked her Scroll's clock.

That had been 3 hours ago.

The sky outside was already growing darker, and Yang was starting to get worried that they might legitimately miss the Bullhead back up to Beacon if they spent too much longer here. Putting down the comic she had been skimming as she thought, Yang padded over to Blake, scaring the girl half-to-death as she bumped into her shoulder with her own.

"Are you almost done there, Blakey? We've been here for hours now, and I don't wanna have to find a hotel room to sleep in if we miss the Bullheads."

Blake was silent for a moment, her eyes darting back to the page she had been reading, and Yang could almost see her weighing the pros and cons of leaving now and sleeping in her own bed or leaving later and having to find a hotel.

Yang smirked, an evil glint in her eye as she put her hands together in front of her. "Oh, is this your way of trying to get me alone in a bedroom with you? I know we've only just met, but you could have just asked!"

Blake cringed slightly, before laughing softly, and Yang's evil smirk turned into a laughing smile as well as Blake bumped her shoulder again. "Stick to your day job, acting might not be for you, Yang. Plus, between the book I was just reading and you yelling that out in the middle of the store, thanks for that by the way, people are going to think we're some kind of deviants."

Yang just winked at her as Blake put the book back and slowly made their way to the counter to actually pay for at least one book after spending 3 hours treating this store like a library. "Are you kidding? Of course, we're deviants. It's weird to see two girls as badass and beautiful as us together outside of a movie screen."

Blake snorted, handing over a few cards of Lien and receiving a bag with the Tukson's Book Shop logo on the outside. "As if the majority of Huntresses aren't all somehow runway-model levels of pretty."

Smirking again, Yang elbowed Blake in the side as she pushed the door of the shop open. "Oh, so you're saying you've been checking us out? Should I be worried about any advances, Blakey?"

When she didn't get a response, however, her forehead crinkled and she looked back to find Blake with an expression on her face that Yang could only describe as terrified. Before Yang had even taken a step outside, Blake had grabbed her arm, pulling her back so quickly that the wooden doorframe actually splintered in her grasp as she was practically thrown behind a nearby bookshelf, blocking her line of sight from the door as Blake crashed down next to her.

"Blake, what the fuc-"

"Sshhh!"

Yang's mouth snapped shut even as her worry grew. What had Blake in combat mode? The way that she was glancing around, checking the entrances and exits to the building, in case she got attacked…

The girl was peeking over the top of the bookshelf at something across the street, so Yang lifted herself up until only her eyes crested the bookshelf as well, frowning as she failed to see what Blake had seen.

There were a couple of sleazy-looking guys, a cafe that had a guy in a dancing frog suit in front of it, and cars parked up and down the street, including an oddly designed white van with blacked-out windows and a blue and white number plate, the logo of a wolf head emblazoned on the corner. In any other situation, it would be cool to see a Menagerie Licence Plate cause they were rare, but now she had to focus on Blake and what was scaring her.

If only she could peek into the girl's head and figure out what. "Blake."

Blake flinched at the harsh whisper Yang spoke her name in before sitting back down and shaking slightly, her breath coming out in short bursts. Yang looked around and saw that a couple of other customers were giving them either concerned or frustrated looks, and wrapped an arm around Blake's shoulder.

The girl practically jumped in her grasp and Yang thought she was going to bolt again for a moment, but she stayed put, meeting Yang's eyes. "Blake, what the hell is going on? You're freaking out."

Her words seemed to almost remind Blake that she was there to witness her flipping out like this, and the black-haired girl's expression changed in an instant, going from scared to closed-off immediately as she stood.

"Blake?"

Yang followed her up with a frown on her face. Clearly, she was freaking out over the van across the street, not that it could see into the store with its tinted windows, but it was still clearly making Blake uncomfortable.

With one hand hovering where her scaled-down weapon usually sat and the other balled into a fist, Yang didn't believe the words she spoke in the slightest. "I'm fine."

"Bullshit."

Blake glared at her for that, turning on the spot and stomping over to Tukson himself, who was behind the counter, and speaking with him for a moment, before nodding Yang over with her head.

"Tukson said we can leave out the back entrance just this once because I'm a good repeat customer for him."

Yang secured her bag of weights and clothes in her grasp before following the quiet girl through the door behind Tukson and entering the alleyway behind the shop. "Are you going to tell me why we're running away like little children out the back entrance of the store now?

Blake shook her head, her face still in that clearly purposefully blank, emotionless expression. "No. Everything is fine, I just wanted to leave this way."

Yang huffed and reached out to grab the girl by the arm, only for her fist to close around nothing as the image of Blake appeared a few meters ahead of her. Growling, she clenched her teeth, her eyes flicking red for a moment.

"Ugh, I'm trying to help! You looked terrified out there."

Blake turned to look at her at that, and Yang could see a little bit of that fear peeking through her attempt to mask it, but also a little anger. "I said I was fine, Yang. Leave it alone."

Yang's nose scrunched up in anger as her eyes turned red. A nearby trashcan, unfortunately, caught the brunt of her anger as it got compressed into the ground by her fist, Blake not even flinching at the sound of tearing metal behind her as she scurried towards the Bullhead docks.

"Fine," Yang spat, "Be that way then, damn. Brothers, I was just trying to fucking help."

It was clear the girl heard her by the way her walking slowed slightly at her words, but she didn't turn around. The rest of the walk to the Bullhead docks, and the flight after reaching it, were filled with an uncomfortable, upset silence.

Yang hated it, but Blake wasn't listening, wasn't telling her what was wrong, so she could even begin to help. But she wouldn't be Yang Xiao Long if she was ready to just give up after that.

Even if she had been rude and dismissive when she blew Yang's concern off, Blake was her friend now. When it came to her friends, nothing was allowed to make them terrified to that extent and not earn the right to receive the Xiao-Long Left-Right Combo meal.

And she could imagine that the rest of Fireteam JSBYRR would be more than happy to help her keep an eye on her, to help her out with this. 'Just you wait, Blake. If you think we're just gonna let you push us away and deal with something that scary by yourself, then you're an idiot.'

She couldn't wait to inform her teammates about this little incident.

And there we go!

Chapter 1 of my "Volume 2!" I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know your thoughts down below! I can't wait to see you all next week!

(I've also got another shorter long-fic in the works, so keep an eye out for that as well! It's gonna be a DragonSlayer story!)