Dog Training
Hi everyone, Dominus here. This is a little brainworm that got caught in my head and refused to come out until I wrote a fic about it. Feel free to steal the idea if you want. Anyway, happy reading I hope you like it.
Blood poured from Jaune's arm, making a red trail down to his sword handle. He had lost his shield some time earlier and that wasn't helping. He slammed his sword into another beowolf, slicing between bone spurs into soft flesh sending up a black spray mixed with his own red blood. Even as the beowolf fell two more jumped into its place with teeth bared. How long had he been fighting this endless hoard? They had seen a village under attack and Ruby, being Ruby had jumped right in with the rest of her team charging in behind her. Jaune had tried to stop her but she had shot him a look of disgust and kept on fighting. Her corpse was torn to pieces under the relentless outpouring of grimm that the forest had held. Yang upon seeing her die activated her semblance with a cry and tore a line deep into the grimm, where she ran out of shotgun shells and disappeared under the wave of black. Weiss had gotten impaled by a nevermore feather after a few hours of fighting. Her dust had run out and her aura ran out and the grimm eagerly piled their lives on her sword, distracting her from the final shot. Jaune didn't know where Blake was but there really wasn't any way to escape the swarm at this point. Interestingly enough Zwei was the last one alive out of his friends, the small corgi still bouncing in-between grimm and tearing their throats out.
An ursa charged towards Jaune and he activated his semblance for what seemed like the millionth time that day. His aura sputtered to life, aura boost making the most out of the meager reserves that he still had left. Inwardly he cursed Ruby, a hunter should know a losing battle when they saw it. One would think that she would have learned after they had lost Ren and Nora. The villagers were long dead at this point and all they had managed was to thin the infinite wave of black for a while before it inevitably filled in. Jaune roared as he swung his sword up at the ursa his sword sinking deep into its neck. The momentum of the giant bear ripped his blood slicked handle out from his fingers as it rolled to a stop pinning Jaunes sword underneath its bulk.
Jaune sighed as he watched the grimm rush in at him and flopped to the ground. Looks like the end. Over the heads of the grimm he could see a tiny gray body bouncing from grimm's heads in an attempt to make it over to him but it was too late at this point. Zwei really was the best. Jaune closed his eyes right before an ursa's jaws snapped closed on him. He hated seeing what was going to kill him.
After what felt like less than an instant. Jaune opened his eyes, and looked down at himself. Yep, he was a baby again. It was life three hundred and something and frankly, Jaune was sick of it. There was only so many times that you could watch friends and family die in vain against a seemingly unbeatable enemy before you got discouraged. Well that and having to endure childhood hundreds of times with the intelligence of an adult got really old really fast. Don't even get him started on puberty. With a sigh mismatched with his young body he waved his stubby arms around. He hadn't really gotten any closer to beating Salem. No matter what he did, who he told, or how he trained, there just weren't enough people. The endless black and white waves that Salem could command made any sort of opposition pretty much futile. And what with her being immortal and all, winning was beginning to seem more and more like a pipe dream.
Ironwood had realized the number problem and had attempted to fix it with his robot army but look how that had turned out. To be honest the robots really just sucked. About all they were good for in Jaune's opinion, was killing unarmed civilians. Something that they had done more times than he would have liked. Seriously, when had a gun smaller than Ruby's sniper ever done anything to a grimm that wasn't distract it? He had never managed to stop the fall of vale, even though he had done everything that he could to gain advantageous conditions he just couldn't overwhelm the disastrous amount of grimm that could be summoned when Salem got determined. He was only one man after all. In some of his later rounds he had tried to train more hunters but that hadn't really turned out well either. Even if people were willing to listen to the training advice of a child or teenager, it takes years to train a huntsman to any sort of applicable skill level. He had gotten by with his large aura reserves but most people couldn't do that. It was ridiculous to see how low most untrained people's aura reserves were, aura had to be raised with training and passed onto children in order to have any sort of effect. If Jaune had a couple thousand years to train up humanity against the grimm, the first thing that he would have done would be to institute a tradition to have everyone's aura unlocked at age eight without exceptions. Even if all they did was passively use the aura to stop bumps and cuts it would still train their aura to a certain degree and make their children's aura more powerful. But somehow a guy whose reincarnations were linear rather than looped couldn't even manage that. Looking at you Ozpin, thanks for nothing.
He sighed again and looked up to the all too familiar ceiling of his childhood room. His parents were vehemently against him becoming a huntsman, and it really impacted his ability to train. After about fifty rounds he had figured out how to unlock his own aura but physical or combat training was always subtly but swiftly shut down. He even had the lecture memorized, "blah blah blah, high risk, blah blah, no benefits, blah blah, highly traumatizing, blah blah, bunch of weirdos, blah." Other than the fair point about huntsmen in general being strange it was all just nonsense. In most rounds Jaune had snuck in training like how most kids would sneak in screen time or junk food. They said that insanity was repeating the same action and expecting different results and Jaune probably wasn't that insane yet.
Reflexively Jaune unlocked his aura and boosting his strength started to pace back and forth in his crib. What could he do that he hadn't tried? The main issue was the difference in numbers. Humans just weren't well suited to combat. Most people even with years of training couldn't even match Zwei in a straight-out fight. It was a really pathetic sight to see the people that you had trained for years getting their butts whipped by a corgi, but he was man enough to admit that from an outside perspective it was probably pretty funny.
This last round Zwei had actually been the last one alive besides Jaune himself. Heck, the dog had still been going at it even as Jaune had been torn to shreds. Which was definitely one of his least favorite ways to die. It came in just under the time that he had gotten impaled on the flag pole and just above drowning on his own blood. Although nothing would ever come close to the rubber band death. Even as Jaune had his limbs ripped off by sharp teeth, Zwei hadn't stopped trying to reach his last friend. If only humans could show that kind of determination then they might have had a chance.
It was then that a lightbulb appeared inside of baby Jaune's head. Like a divine message from Oum, it hit him. The sky was bluer, the world more cheerful, as unnoticed by all, Jaune had an epiphany. Aura enhanced dogs were much easier to train than huntsman. They would accept being trained even by a child. Once they got aura, their intelligence shot up through the roof. Their natural teeth and claws made fighting instinctive to them and once enhanced with aura could do major damage. They had a quick birthing cycle allowing him to train better and better huntsdogs in a short amount of time. Best of all unlike huntsman who expected high pay in exchange for risking their lives, dogs would work for food and loyalty. His plan decided Jaune laid back down, mentally preparing himself for a long childhood.
Jaune's father sighed, as he looked at his five, soon to be six, year-old son. Jaune had always been a strange kid, too quiet, antisocial, and way to mature for his age. But the weirdest thing about Jaune was his strange obsession with dogs. It was strange but at least he wasn't obsessed with huntsmen. Every spare second he got, Jaune was reading dog training books or looking up dog breeds, with a huge tendency towards large breeds or hunting dogs. All he had wanted for his upcoming birthday had been a dog of his own and as a father he had to do what he could to support his son's dreams. So, with a bit of research of his own he had found a dog that was technically a hunting dog but was friendly and good with kids. He just hoped Jaune liked it.
Jaune had had too many birthdays to count. And this one was nothing particularly special. He did have to give points for effort though. Everything was dog themed. Unsurprisingly his obsession with dogs went over much better with his parents then his previous obsession with becoming a huntsman. He hadn't quite broken the news that he wanted to train huntsdogs to his parents yet but he would probably get around to it eventually. He just hoped that all of his unsubtle hints about his birthday present hadn't gone unheard. Sure enough when the time of the party for presents came, Jaune was told to close his eyes and when he opened them, there in a small dog bed was a chocolate colored puppy.
"It's a lab," his father said. But Jaune wasn't listening to him anymore. He locked eyes with the puppy. Carefully Jaune walked over and let the puppy sniff his hand for a while, then switched to gently scratching it. "What do you want to name him?" Jaune's dad asked.
Jaune thought for a second, and opened his mouth. "Chocolaty!" his little sister piped in at the last second.
"What? No!" Jaune said. "He needs to have a regal name like Maximus."
"Chocolaty!" his little sister repeated, clapping her hands in delight.
Jaune looked at his dog Maximus, "don't worry," he whispered, "I won't let you be named Chocolaty."
Two years later Jaune and Chocolaty ran through the woods near his house. It was amazing what Jaune could do just by saying that he was going to take chocolaty to the dog park. "Maximus heel!" Jaune said. Chocolaty kept on running. "Chocolaty heel," Jaune said, and Chocolaty stopped.
Jaune sighed mentally, despite his best efforts, Chocolaty refused to be called anything but his chosen name. Training a dog wasn't easy but it was a rewarding experience. Soon the two came to the place where they their training secretly happened. It was kind of sad to admit this but Chocolaty was much smarter than all of his previous students. After he had gotten his aura unlocked, the dog picked up on things amazingly fast. Honestly at this point the only thing left was to gain experience.
"Alright bud," Jaune said. "Now that you are two years old it is time for us to get more dogs."
Chocolaty suddenly looked up and locked eyes with jaune intently.
Jaune nodded solemnly, "It's time for you to get a mate, we are finally going to open up the dog breeding business."
"Finally!" a voice rang out in Jaune's head, "I've been waiting for this day for so long!"
Jaune stared at Chocolaty, "Chocolaty," he said, "did you just talk?"
Chocolaty looked up at him, the voice sounding again in Jaune's head, "What is Jaune on about now? Crazy Human."
"Hey!" Jaune said, "I'm not crazy."
The dog froze, tentatively the voice rung out the third time, "you heard that?"
Jaune did indeed hear it but why could he? It wasn't like Chocolaty suddenly grew vocal cords or something. It would be useful if Chocolaty could talk but it wasn't like things with aura could suddenly develop special powers or something — right, semblances were a thing. Jaune nodded sagely. To be fair, no one that he had ever trained before had ever managed to get to the point of developing a semblance.
Jaune kneeled, and put a hand on the dog's head, "what I heard, was an incredibly convenient development."
"No Chocolaty, you don't get it." Jaune said, "nothing is easier than winning the lottery. It's literally free money just for knowing some numbers."
"Don't you mean guessing numbers?" Chocolaty said, as Jaune punched numbers into an online lottery using his fathers ID and a secret bank account Jaune had created.
"No," Jaune said, as he punched in numbers from memory, "I meant knowing."
"Bless your beautiful hide! Wherever you may be! I don't know you yet! But I'm a willing to bet! You're the gal for me!"
Jaune followed the singing dog down the street. Fortunately, after experimenting the two had learned that his voice projection was targeted, sparing the rest of the world from Chocolaty's serenade. The other thing they had learned was that it was more of a network and with a little practice any mind could be linked and communicate within range. The two were going to find Chocolaty's "bride" and Jaune could only pray that they found a dog that he got along with. In more than three hundred rounds Jaune had never managed to actually get together with anyone. Grimm and dying really put a bumper in things that he never managed to work around. Hopefully his dog would be a little luckier in love.
When they got to the dog shelter Jaune walked in and told the lady working at the front desk that he wanted a dog that would get along well with his. After taking them to the back They very carefully introduced Chocolaty to one dog then another. Then from across the room a German shepherd locked eyes with Chocolaty. Getting up the two of them spun around each other and Jaune heard a new voice in his head, "hey there handsome what's your name?"
Sounding much more suave than Jaune ever was, Chocolaty responded and the two of them, with Chocolaty forgetting that Jaune was still connected to the net and the German shepherd not knowing what was going on with the link went on to force Jaune to listen to things that would make it so that a story would have to have an M rating.
After learning that the German shepherd used to belong to a hunter with aura unlocked and Jaune slipping the worker a twenty, so they wouldn't spay her. The happy couple and the third wheel left the shelter.
"While I am training you, you will not refer to me as father," the lab mind shouted, walking back and forth in front of a line of puppies, "You will call me Sir! Do I make myself clear!"
The puppies, completely out of unison, responded with yes sir, with one of them responding with a yes dad before correcting itself. Chocolaty walked down the line poking each puppy with his nose and unlocking their aura. A rainbow of colors spread out from the puppies; their aura notably stronger than Chocolaty's had been when he had first started out.
Jaune, watching from the side, smiled. It was time for the second generation to start their training. He watched as the puppy's mother, Bianca, watched from the side rolling her eyes at the puppy's enthusiasm and at her husband's antics. The two of them seemed smitten with each other and they seemed to spend every spare moment together. As the puppies started to run the obstacle course he had set up, his mind was already looking towards the future.
Jaune's father took a sip of coffee as he looked proudly at his son. He could never be mad at him. He wanted to be a dog trainer and not a huntsman. Anything was fine as long as it wasn't a huntsman. Though his boy was only ten he was interested in normal sane things like training dogs and not dangerous things like killing monsters. Sure, he spent a lot of time out of the house but chocolaty was there to look after him and that dog seemed unusually smart.
"Dad," Jaune said, "I have something to tell you."
Jaune's father sat up ready to hear whatever his son who didn't want to become a huntsman wanted to tell him.
"I've been training chocolaty and his children that I've been breeding secretly how to be huntsdogs and use aura and I want to start finding families to take in the children."
Jaune's father fainted.
It had taken a lot of convincing but after being assured that Jaune would be doing no fighting himself, Jaune was finally ready to find new homes for the now fully trained dogs. Jaune stood at their graduation ceremony, Chocolaty having cried his way through a speech on the stage moments before.
"I look upon all of you today," Jaune said, "and I no longer see puppies unable to walk through a simple obstacle course. I see brave dogs who will defend their charges boldly. I see dogs who will love their charges as their own. I see dogs who have passed their training with flying colors! I see Huntsdogs!"
The dogs all picked up the square cap sitting at their paws and threw them up in the air. Their eyes locked on the flying frisbee like objects and jumped up with aura enhanced strength to bite, kick, claw, or in the case of one particular dog, laser blast the caps.
"I love him so much!" the adorable girl ran up and hugged her new dog. Jaune walked over a smile on his face.
"His name is Blaster," Jaune helpfully told the girl. "His semblance is that he can project a—"
"I'm going to name you Spot!" the girl said, ignoring Jaune.
All jaune could do is watch helplessly as he watched the mono-colored dog, now codenamed Spot, walked out the door with his new charges. As they stepped out into the street, Blaster turned around one last time and with a paw, launched a crisp salute that went unnoticed by all but Jaune as he returned it.
Jaune sad down in the now empty shed. All of the first generation was gone, off to their new homes. All of the dogs had strict instructions to love, protect, and help their new families. Although all of the families were vetted, in the case of poor treatment all dogs had strict orders to lave and to be reassigned to new charges.
He wiped a few tears from his eyes. Back to training the next few generations. Chocolaty never got a rest from Bianca's endless pursuit and as a result, many more generations of puppies had been born and were currently being trained. He had kept Blaster behind for a while to help with the training for a while before sending him out as well. Hopefully his dogs would go out and do great things and spread his name so he could expand his operation.
"This is reporter Lisa Lavender coming at you live from the scene where a hero dog saved a young girl's life from a beowolf attack."
Jaune watched as his scroll showed a picture of Blaster before showing a picture of several dissolving beowolves who had been torn in half by lasers.
"Many dogs wouldn't be able to do anything in front of a beowolf, but not this family's brave dog, Spot." Lisa continued, walking over to the family on the television screen. "Tell us what happened," she said, moving her mic in front of the father of the family.
Jaune continued to watch as the father clumsily explained about the small beowolf pack surprising them on a trip to the next town when their dog started blasting lasers out of his mouth and smashing the beowolves around like a hunter. He turned off his scroll.
Hopefully this would help his name get bigger so he could continue to train more dogs.
Jaune looked outside of the small store that he had managed to set up at the line of people wrapping around the block. He had hired a front desk guy to help take the preorders that were now flooding in from people who wanted to adopt one of his dogs.
Suddenly the crowd split apart as murmurs arose from the obviously shocked people. Who was it? Jaune got on his tip toes and tried, with every inch of his 11-year-old height to see. A crisp knock sounded and Jaune finally managed to catch a glimpse of General Ironwood walking towards his shop in full military uniform with soldiers trailing behind.
"Robots suck," Jaune said, poking the slide with a pointer for emphasis. On the screen Atlas's top generals watched as AK-130 line of robots showed failure after failure in the line of duty, normally losing in seconds without heavy hunter support. A scientist with a small redheaded child sitting on his lap raised his hand. Jaune pointed at him.
"We realize that the AK-130 line has many flaws which is why we are moving to replace them with the AK-200 line of robots," the scientist said. "They will be faster, smarter and stronger than the last iteration."
Jaune knew the AK-200 line of robots all too well. What worthless pieces of crap those things were. When they weren't busy being hacked and turned against civilians, they were busy missing grimm with their rifle shots or worse, hitting them with their rifle shots and still continuing to do no damage. The only way that they ever actually beat grimm was by saturating the area with so much fire that they managed to actually hit a weak point. He proceeded to tell the general as much.
Ignoring the scientist's muffled crying, Jaune continued, "dogs on the other hand, do not suck." The slideshow flipped through dogs with aura, mostly Jaune's but with other huntsdogs mixed in, subduing grimm with ridiculous ease. "Their natural possession of natures most powerful weapon against grimm, aura, combined with their teeth and claws make training a dog to become a hunts dog leagues easier and more efficient than training a huntsman."
He continued, "in addition, dogs, unlike humans work for loyalty and food. Rather than continuing to waste money and time into building more and maintaining more robots that are little better than grimm fodder, I suggest having every soldier you have be in charge of two dogs each thereby multiplying Atlas's combat power significantly while also saving money."
Thunderous applause drowned out Dr. Polendina's tears as his daughter Penny tried to console him.
"Atlas did what now?" Arthur Watts shouted, throwing a vase against a wall. "I've been working on hacking their systems for months now and you tell me they are replacing their robots with dogs!"
"Smarter, sleeker, and admittedly a little less scary." James Ironwood said, as the AK-130 robots stood in place. "Introducing Atlas's new security forces!" The crowd watched as large white Borzoi's jumped up from behind the robots knocking them to the ground in a symbolic PR move. "Trained by the legendary Dog trainer himself, Jaune Arc, and partnered with atlas soldiers, our lands are safer than ever," Ironwood continued. Jaune, now fourteen, waved to the crowd. It had been hard setting up the infrastructure for the Atlasian army but now he could rest assured that there would be no more teamkills coming from robots.
"Jaune's dog adoption co, has expanded rapidly," Jaune's head of finance said. "We have locations in all major cities and our traveling caravans insure access for even the most remote villages." He flipped through logs, "are you sure that you want to sell them at such a discounted price outside of major cities? We are taking heavy losses from the transport and we are selling them for less than what we sell them for inside. I get that its for humanitarian work but we are barely in the black this year because of it."
"Oh, don't worry about that," Jaune said, punching in numbers on another online lottery, "I get a feeling we are about to get more money really soon."
"It's an honor to meet you," Pyrrha said, "I'm so glad to be working with your company instead of Pumpkin Pete's cereal. I don't have anything against them but its not a very healthy cereal and you do so much to help the people of Remnant."
Jaune, who hadn't expected Pyrrha when his COO had said that they had gotten a celebrity to advertise their dogs, couldn't think of what to say. He had never been able to save her even once throughout all of his rounds. She was selfless like that. He was glad she was the one to come in, he felt like his resolve had been strengthened. "Tell me Miss Nikos," Jaune said, "Do you like dogs?"
Orders came flying in once Pyrrha Nikos was seen walking around with two gorgeous dogs texting someone with a smile on her face.
"Ozpin," Jaune said, "meet Bianca, my second dog and the future fall maiden."
Ozpin stared, "now how did you know about that? I thought you came here to discuss having our hunters paired with your dogs on a larger scale."
"Oh, we're doing that too," Jaune said, leaning forward, "now tell me, does it say anywhere that the inheritor of maiden powers had to be human or just female?"
"Yang, look!" Ruby said, poking her sister, "that's Jaune Arc! I have to go tell him about my ideas for dog hunter weapons!"
Yang looked over at Jaune, who was coming down from a bullhead a little green in the face but holding out well. "I'd talk to him later, he doesn't look so good right now."
"KABOOM!" Ruby sneezed and sent up a massive explosion, causing the girl in white to lecture her about dust safety for way longer than necessary. She knew how to be safe around dust! She made her own ammo after all. As the girl went walking away someone else walked up behind her.
"That was quite the explosion," Jaune said, walking up. "My name's Jaune, what's yours?"
After shock and a brief introduction, jaune enjoyed the Ruby babble that he had missed while walking towards the grand hall.
Jaune saw the spear coming from miles away but recognizing it as Pyrrha's, let it snag him by the hood and sailed away to a tree. Pyrrha was his favorite partner to have and if he was going to graduate so that he could legally lead a dog army to go conquer Salem, she was probably his best choice. After sticking to the tree, he casually pulled the spear out and hid so that Weiss wouldn't see him. He didn't know how she would react what with him being the owner of a multi-billion lien company and didn't want to risk her trying to pick him over Ruby.
"Team JNPR, lead by Jaune Arc!" The announcement rippled through the auditorium as murmurs rose up. Debating if it was that Jaune Arc and why he would be here. Jaune just smiled and waved knowing that this would probably be a regular thing until graduation.
"Chocolaty, get him," Jaune said pointing at Carden's Pit bull at the other side of the arena. "I'll take care of his brother over here."
Carden whimpered in fear as Jaune's aura visibly surged as he swung his sword around with what looked like a ton of skill. Wasn't this guy supposed to have spent all of his time training dogs?
"And that," Jaune said, throwing Carden headfirst into a trashcan, "is why racism is bad."
Cinder cursed under her breath, trying to tug her extremely ripped clothing down to better cover herself. Who said that there was no security at the tower again? A janitor with three dogs might not show up as security in the database but it certainly was security. Time for plan B.
"Wow," Ruby said, walking along with team JNPR and team RWBY, "the Vytal festival sure went well this year. Jaune vs Penny in the final round was sure intense. I don't know why she had a grudge against you though Jaune."
Jaune watched from a corner as cinder fall snuck into the secret chamber where Amber was kept. "I've been waiting," he said as he stepped out. "I'd like you to meet the new fall maiden and her husband. They would like the rest of her power back." Chocolaty growled and Bianca's eyes glowed with arcane power as fire whirled around her.
"Internationally wanted criminal Roman Torchwick caught in a hunter lead raid in an underground facility filled with stolen dust. His partner in crime white fang terrorist Adam Tarus is expected to be caught shortly following his escape. Hunters attribute scent laced dust packages for letting their dogs lead them straight to the underground base. I'm Lisa Lavender and we'll be back with more information in a few minutes."
"I can't believe we graduated with no major incidents," Lie Ren said.
"I wouldn't say no incidents," Pyrrha said, "Remember the llama incident?"
"And the peanut butter incident," Ruby chimed in.
"No," Ren said, "I can't believe Nora didn't blow anything major up."
Everyone around agreed that it was indeed a miracle then Nora spoke up. "Yeah it is pretty strange that nothing happened. I was sure that there was going to be a huge grimm attack and that vale would be destroyed and we would have to go on an adventure of widely varying quality trying to find four sacred relics with some weird things happening in the middle like Ozpin turning into a kid and superheroes showing up for no reason until Ruby would have to drink tea to get herself out of fairytale land where Jaune was trapped for tons of years and then we would never really get any real sort of conclusion."
Everyone stared at Nora. "Nora what are you talking about?" Yang said.
Jaune stood at the head of an army hundreds of thousands of dogs strong. Each one trained to huntsman level. "Chocolaty," he said, "let us rip and tear until it is all finished."
"Jaune," Chocolaty said, "I have to be honest with you, it feels like you stole that from somewhere."
"Just start the mission Chocolaty," Jaune said. It had sounded pretty cool in his head.
Salem stood dramatically in her tower. "How is the war against humanity my loyal servants," she asked dramatically. Then a laser beam hit her in the face. As she faded into unconsciousness, she thought that she saw dogs rushing into the room, killing everything that they found inside.
"So Salem, you are the last grimm but we are having a tough time getting rid of you," Jaune said, to the tied up woman, "I went through all of my dogs and I think that I found one that can fix the whole human grimm thing."
He walked over to the door and let a dog in. "This is Azzpul, its probably the last time you will see him. He has the power to undo grimm with the wave of a paw."
"No wait," Salem said, and Azzpul waved his paw and she became not a grimm.
Jaune patted her on the shoulder, "don't try and jump in the grimm pool because he erased that too. Anyway enjoy prison, you are going to be here a long time, particularly because Azzpul's brother will be in in a few minutes to remove your magic."
Jaune sat down. It was all over. So many secrets were never uncovered. So many plot devices went unused. But it was all fine because none of the plot devices mattered when you have the power of good boys. He patted Chocolaty on the head. "Good boy Chocolaty, Good boy."
The End