It was a typical February afternoon in the Ansello Mountains of the Northern Valean Frontier as an old blueish-green pickup truck made its way on the half-thawed roads to its destination.

"Alright, Jaune, remember..." Dad began.

"Stay by the truck..." I finished tiredly. "I know..." Dad looked at me softly with a sad smile. "I'm sure they'll come around one day, lad. But for now..." He trailed off.

My name is Jaune Miles Arc. I'm the only son out of eight children of Roland and Ciel Arc. Our family is not what you would call normal, and I am somehow both the most and least normal one in the litter.

You see, for as long as anyone can remember, humanity has been in a desperate war for survival against creatures from the Grimm who want us all dead for some reason. That was until around twenty years ago. Apparently, a couple of years before I was born, some "Rifts" opened up all over the world and out poured thousands upon thousands of monsters calling themselves "Mamano."

It was an invasion from another world and, as expected, mass chaos ensued. But it didn't last long however, as it turned out Remnant's invaders were actually just a bunch of ladies desperate for some love at ANY cost. Yeah. Lots of women around the world were NOT happy with this turn of events, but (not to sound chauvinistic) who cares?

After the dust settled, humanity's new friends with benefits decided to stick around after seeing how hard the Grimm made things for us.

How does this relate to my family's weirdness, you ask?

My mom and sisters are all different mamano. Mom's an echidna, basically a bluish snake-lady who can give birth to just about any random monster girl you can think of. So yeah, all my sisters are different types of monsters.

And I am just some dumb kid with more muscles than brains.

Which is why Dad wants me to stay near the truck. I have a nasty habit of attracting trouble and causing everyone in the village a massive headache.

...

It's not my fault! Things just... happen! Sure, I can be a LITTLE clumsy, but most of the time it has nothing to do with me!Like last month when Mr. and Mrs. Nattuck's prize bull decided to go on a rampage and wreck a bunch of stalls! I stopped it! Granted, I knocked the animal clean out with a punch between his horns, but what was I supposed to do? Let it gore me to death? Apparently!!! And somehow, it's MY fault that the pen's gate got kicked open just as I was walking past. I was THREE FEET AWAY!

So yeah... I'm not well liked in our village, even though I just want to help.I looked out the window as a sea of snow and grey trees moved by while Dad drove the truck along the muddy roads to Ansel.

So why is Dad bringing me to the village? About two weeks ago, while tilling the soil with one of my sisters, the plow hit a stone and broke. And since I'm the strongest that can fit in the truck, I was the only option for him to bring along.

Pulling into the village square, Dad hopped out of the truck to make his way towards the cyclops blacksmith while I opened up the tailgate to make things easier.

I lost sight of Dad when he ducked into Mrs. Tonks' forge to retrieve our newly repaired plow.

With my only means of protection from irrationally irate villagers and lonely mamano gone, I decided I'd be better off climbing back into the still running truck than here in the open where someone can blame me for some sort of BS situation I didn't even cause or start, but got involved in anyways.Too bad that plan apparently isn't going to work.

Just as I turned to get back into my seat, I was greeted by the sight of silvery purple hair and antler-like horns mounted upon an otherworldly beautiful woman's face.

She wore a kimono that I recognized as being sewn by Verte, my half-spider sister, over the top half of her body. The lower half was a strong, serpentine, scaly tail. Her arms, which ended in strong and equally scaled talons, were tucked under her prodigious bust.

Uh-oh...

"Now, who do we have here on this fine spring day?" She asked in a sly tone."Uh, hi! Lady Toko!" I awkwardly bowed my head in deference with my eyes closed as I did so in order to avoid catching an eyeful of her generous cleavage. "H-how can I be of assistance?"

The mamono before me was none other than Lady Toko, the region's local Ryu. A powerful dragon-type mamano that is revered as a water deity. Being a farmer, offending her is the LAST thing I want to do. There was a loud sniff from behind the ryu as I greeted the woman before me. Looking beyond her as I stood up straight, I then noticed two of her shirohebi attendants flanking her with sharp glares in my general direction. Of course... Lady Toko wasn't often seen in the village. Her attendants managed any errands she needed to run, so the ryu wasn't exactly as well informed of my admittedly poor social standing as they were. If she was in town today, it must be on some sort of official business.

As the local "That Boy," I knew better than to pry into things that were none of my business anyway.

The water dragon turned to give the shirohebi responsible an inquisitive look.

For her part, the white snake-woman did a decent job at looking somewhat innocent as she pulled out a handkerchief to blow her nose.

Lady Toko then returned her golden-green gaze to me.

Why do I feel like a chicken in a coop with a fox staring me down?

"I'm not quite certain yet... Though, I am curious as to why I haven't seen you at the shrine these last few weeks..." She trailed off.

"Oh! Um... sorry. We've been having a run of bad luck on the farm, so I've been pulling triple time in the field, and I'd rather not trouble you with all the details..." I tried to explain, nervous that my bi-weekly trips to the shrine to make some offerings were cut short now that I just dropped things off and high tailed it out of there as quickly as possible.

In the past, I'd usually stick around just long enough to pay my family's respects to Lady Toko, but what I said was true. Between the rising costs for Cheri's medicine, the broken plow, Cerea's busted leg, some coyotes attacking our livestock, and now a gang of bandits trying to extort us who were responsible for breaking Cerea's leg, things were pretty tough on us.

Recently, my contribution was the elimination of the coyotes and other predators that wanted to take a crack at us. Their now cleaned pelts, along with the meat of whatever else I ended up hunting, made up the bulk of last month's offerings.

I hope it was enough.

Now we just needed to figure out how to deal with that gang without involving the village.

I really hope we don't have to fight them.

"I see..." She mused, sounding sympathetic.

"Jaune! Plow's ready, if you'll go get it!" I heard Dad call out and cut himself off as he came around the truck to get me. "Lady Toko! A pleasure to see you today!"

His surprise did nothing to hinder his more graceful bow towards the local goddess, before repeating himself.

"Jaune, the plow is sitting just outside Mrs. Tonks's forge. If you'll go get it while I speak to Lady Toko, please?"

"Okay!" Grateful to get some distance between myself and someone so important to the village, I hastily made my way towards the farming implement in question.

Mrs. Tonks eyed me warily as I approached her workshop.

"Hi, Mrs. Tonks..." I waved awkwardly before reaching down to puck up the large farming tool used to help break up the soil for our fields. "Thanks for fixing our plow..."

"I'm surprised it lasted this long with you around..." She said tersely.

"That wasn't me. I don't plow." I informed the cyclops after taking a deep breath. While I did a little bit of everything, my job was mostly animal handling and keeping predators away from the livestock with my bow. Or my fists, if it came down to it. I'd also help Tio, Cerea, and Dad with any heavy or high-strength related work.

"Hmph. Doesn't surprise me." She grunted.

I ignored her as I lifted the plow over my head and turned to make my way back to the truck.

I made it to the truck without incident and set the plow in its bed. Dad was already behind the steering wheel with a grimace.

"Ready to go?" He asked.

"Yeah."

After a few minutes on the road back home, I had enough of the uncomfortable silence.

"So... Is everything okay, Dad? You seem a little... off." I asked.

"Yeah! Yeah. I'm fine," he tried to reassure me. "Just... Need to talk with your mother about something Lady Toko said..."

"Oh... Okay..." I was slightly put off by Dad's uncharacteristic apprehension about... whatever the topic was.

I turned my attention back to the blur of nature around us before something caught my eye in the passenger-side mirror.

Smoke, back at the village.

"DAD! Stop the truck!"

The truck skidded a little before coming to a full stop as Dad hit the brakes."

"What?!" Alarm colored his voice.

"The village! Something's wrong! We gotta go back!" I told him.

Putting the truck in reverse, Dad turned us around and sped back toward the village.

What we saw was something that we were dreading.

The village was under attack by those bandits who were harassing our farm and broke my sister's leg.

Faunus men, women, and mamano dressed in black and white, wearing Grimm masks, sacked the place.

"Jaune! Stay in the truck!" Dad ordered as he got out and pulled the family sword, Crocea Mors, from its compartment under the driver's seat.

With the sword drawn, Dad then deployed the scabbard into its heater shield form and immediately knocked over one bandit before driving the sword's point through the gut of another.

I wasn't really given the choice to disobey him as a large, deeply tanned, muscular arm shot through the windshield, grabbed me by the collar of my coat, and pulled me out of the truck over the hood.

"Heyyy... Lookie here!" Back now firmly pressed against the wooden post of the village pub, I was met face to mask with a minotaur as she put her other free hand on my belt buckle.

"C'mon, now, don't be sh-SHIT!"

Just like how she didn't give me a chance to disobey Dad, I didn't let the minotaur finish her sentence before I grabbed the large woman by the wrist and squeezed. Hard.

I felt her bones effectively turn to dust under my grip, right before she dropped me.

Landing on my feet, I spartan-kicked the bandit before me in the chest. Atomizing her ribcage while sending her flying across the street and into a burning house that collapsed on top of her.

Holy shit, I just killed someone...

I didn't have time to really process that, however, as another outlaw came at me, swinging an axe directly at my head.

I was able to duck under the attack just in time, and the blade embedded itself into the wooden post behind me.

While he wasted a solid second trying to free his weapon, I opted to backhand him in the jaw, inadvertently knocking it off in a shower of blood, bone, and teeth.

Now, with my right arm drenched in blood, I grabbed the axe's handle and wrenched it free from the wood.

I saw a faunus man with a dog's tail who thought he could sneak up on Dad while he was preoccupied with two other combatants.

Immediately, I threw the axe overhead and sank it within his skull just as Dad turned around to see him drop to the ground and myself farther back, covered in blood that wasn't my own.

Seeing that the truck's smashed windshield and that while I was a little shaken, I was otherwise unharmed. He nodded at me in understanding before pointing his sword over at the far edge of town.

"Come on!"

Everything was a blur after that.

When all was said and done, I unsurprisingly found myself getting yelled at by angry villagers.

Dad tried to defend me, saying that I had practically saved the village from getting wiped out by there being simply too many bandits. Even for a former huntsman of his caliber being backed up by the village's militia.

"And who's to say he won't do the same to us?" An elderly goat-horned man shouted, referring to the ease with which I slaughtered multiple bandits with my bare hands.

That was Mr. Bune, the village elder. Basically, he's the closest thing we have to a mayor around here.

"He won't!" my father roared in anger. "He's just a boy who doesn't know his own strength!"

"That's exactly the problem!" Mister Bune called out. "Now get that... that FREAK out of here!"

Ouch. I couldn't stop myself from wincing at that. But while it hurt, what Bune said was true.

Other villagers chimed in and started calling me out as well. Making it known that I had long overstayed my non-existent welcome.

Before Dad could reply, I placed a hand on his shoulder.

He turned to me.

"Jaune, I..." He started.

"Come on, Dad... Let's just go..." I tiredly said, being absolutely done with today.

Seeing the look in my eyes took all the fight out of him.

"Alright, son..."

The road was dark as we rode home at a slower pace due to the new hole in our windshield.

We drove in silence before Dad spoke up.

"Jaune... I just want you to know that you're not..." he paused, looking for the right words to say. "You're not whatever they say you are..."

"Then what am I?" I asked. While I appreciated his words, Mr. Bune's words still stuck with me. I knew that's what everyone thought of me, but hearing the words out loud struck a cord with me.

"You're my son." He stated firmly. It was almost like he was reassuring himself more than me.

We didn't speak anymore after that.

When we got home, I took a shower and went straight to my room while Dad went to go talk to Mom in their bedroom.

I tried to go to sleep, but all I could think or dream about was what Bune and the others in town said about me.

Am I really a monster in human skin? A real monster? What am I?

Then, an idea wormed its way into my head. What if I became a hero? Like a Huntsman, like Dad was? Actually put my strength to good use and help people? That would prove I'm not a monster! Sure, I didn't exactly have the same level of training, just the basics. But I still had a year before I was old enough for Beacon, and had plenty of strength and practical skills that any Huntsman should need. It would be tough, but I could do it!

Mom and Dad would never let me go, though. As their only son, I was too "precious" to risk like that. But why should I have this kind of strength then? Now's my only shot at this. Besides, it's not like I would be outright abandoning everyone!

Student missions are still huntsmen missions. I'd be compensated, and all that money could be sent back home! I'd be bringing in extra money to help pay for Cheri's medicine!

With my mind made up, I knew what I had to do. Grabbing my hunting bow, bowie knife, and a few essentials in a backpack, I left a letter simply stating that I was going on a hunting trip for some time until things blew over and the dust settled.

Then, out the window I went, landing quietly outside as I made my way southward on foot.

It's time to prove I can go the distance!

AND SCENE!!!

There we have it, folks! The first chapter of a story whose premise I've wanted to do for quite a while now.

A RWBY Monster Girl AU!Now the premise here is based off of my original draft for "The Hammer of Heaven," in which Jaune is still simply a demigod instead of a full-blown Thundergod and is kind of based on Disney's take on Hercules as a dorky kid who just wants to be accepted.

Don't worry, he'll get his lightning powers eventually.

Now... Anyone wanna take a stab at who is gonna be what type of monster girl?

And, I've got a question for all of you.

If you could have any type of monster girl as your wife/girlfriend, what kind would you go for?

For me, I'd say a jinko would be my top pick.

Ciao for now!