Author's Notes

And so we begin, one chapter at a time.

My previous record for most views on a single fic in one day was 899 (so close to an even 900), held by none other than Living The Dream at its heyday. Job Security, broke 2,200 views upon posting in under 16 hours. It's already crushed both Origin Story alt endings, and it's a quarter of the way to JSB-P. You guys really do love Jaune, don'tcha?

I realize now that this site won't see the AO3 tags, so I should warn you that there will be basically no death (aside from minor stuff, like 'the Grimm rampaged through the village and ate a bro) and miniscule overall violence, but multiple references to sexual acts. As I said, this one is not a romance, but we will have characters who crack sex jokes/puns frequently, so just warning people now.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!

Chapter 7 – The Birth of an Empire

Blake and Jaune build their nascent company from the ground up.

Since Jaune was too inexperienced to handle the business side of things (the actual business), Blake took it upon herself to build Team Job Security from the ground up. She wasn't a professional huntress, but living in the real world with no one to depend on for many more years than Jaune had taught her how to find information, prioritize target objectives, and manage funds.

At her request, she'd been kept away from Adam's most violent missions, and that had sort of been all of them by the end, so Blake had mostly handled White Fang logistics. She wasn't necessarily the best at it, but she was good, and she was absolutely better than Arc, and that was all that really mattered. After all, with less than a full ten thousand lien to their name, there was no way they could hire a lawyer or accountant or whatever businesses used.

With the money they'd earned from the Lemuria job, she and Jaune had been able to rent out a slightly cleaner hotel room than the previous place they'd stayed at. The two of them still had only one bed, as there was no need to splurge when they didn't exactly know when their next mission would be, but now they'd taken to alternative who slept on the floor in the bargain brand sleeping back they'd bought.

Blake had spent the past full week in the library, reading extensively up on everything she could about the ins and outs of managing a small startup-scale company, and then applying those lessons to the real world. A lot of the work had been just applying for a business license (the books had said to do that first, since it could take up to a full month for it to be processed and shipped).

If this was really going to be their careers, they couldn't do with under-the-table missions paid in cash like they were criminals or drug dealers. Jaune had bullshitted them out of having to show licenses the first time, but Blake didn't expect a miracle to happen twice, nor did she believe that they could reasonably expect to keep getting away with the whole 'we're special hunters' excuse forever. Eventually, someone would call it in to Beacon, and that would get their asses thrown in jail for Vale's stolen valor laws. Not to mention, their sentences would be doubled for hacking into Hunter Mission Boards

But…when there was a will, there was a way. Specifically, a way for Blake to cheat her way through the system legally.

You see, huntsmen had to be licensed to work in Vale, but you didn't have to be a huntsman to kill Grimm. No politician in their right mind had ever asked to make it illegal to kill a Grimm, so the laws were centered around falsely claiming to be huntsmen or to have a huntsman license. If Blake could get away with marketing them as a private security firm or as bodyguards or something, and they just happened to bump into a Grimm on a job, they would be in the right to defend themselves.

The problem there was that non-huntsmen weren't allowed to browse the mission boards, and no one really wanted to hire some random kids to kill the Grimm for them and their village, aura or not.

That was where Jaune came in. It was one part busywork and one part pulling his weight, but she'd tasked him with figuring out cost effective ways to advertise, and he'd readily agreed. Arc was probably more in tune with how citizens of the kingdom were marketed to, being one himself, whereas Blake had never really had time for such things. At the moment, he was doing some computering or something to make them a website and post some free ads on message boards – again, Blake had no idea what it was all about, and she didn't really care to learn. Jaune was free to spread his creative wings and fly to the heavens here, provided that he make sure to plaster his face all over it and not hers.

He wanted to be our customer interface. Let him – I've got more important things to worry about.

Clients were going to have to approach them, but that did come with some benefits. Normally, either a village, a kingdom, or an individual placed a reward for a certain mission on a mission board, and the job was accepted by the first taker who met the difficulty ranking. Be it payment for slaying Grimm or a bounty for bringing down some rogue, it was whatever the customer decided to pay.

As for what Blake was designing, they would be an independent business that got to decide what jobs they took and what rates they charged for it. No long nights of frantically swiping down to refresh the mission boards – Blake would just wait for the client to come to them.

Blake and Jaune, that was. Whoring themselves out like this was a team effort.

Their current strategy was to lower their prices (at the moment, it was ten thousand lien per job) to undercut real huntsmen and huntresses for the time being, at least until they could get established and set up a real budget for…whatever budgets were used for. Right now, the sole objectives were to get jobs and make a name for themselves while staying afloat financially. As it was, hunters were usually so highly paid that removing some of the obscene overhead could make them both competitive and still in the green. Things like profit could come later.

Blake had already sent in the request for a business license, as it had taken her less than one day to fully complete. Both of their names were signed as employees, owners, and managers of the company, but Blake had put her own name at the top. The hardest aspect of it was parting with the thousand lien fee, which literally represented 10% of their bank account at this point.

At the moment, money was sort of an awkward situation. Jaune had insisted on paying for his 'huntsman lessons' during the first mission, meaning that Blake had almost all of their lien under her exclusive control, but she was far too uneasy to spend any of it on non-essentials. So far, all she'd done with her 'share' was to invest it back into the company, secure the hotel room for them, and buy food.

She and Jaune were essentially living together so far, but he'd been good about respecting her privacy, even going further than she would have asked in some cases. For instance, Blake didn't really need him to go outside of the room when she changed – turning around would have been enough.

Blake had to wonder if every startup was like this: no idea what to do, no idea how you were supposed to do it, with the only goal being to survive for as long as possible. Oh, and a partner she'd sort of just picked up along the way.

Or maybe I'm his partner, and he's the main character of the story.

Blake had to admit, it was a bit humbling. Her partner was some sort of likeable human that got training and payment for the work she did solely because people would inevitably like him more than they did her. If Sienna could see her now, she'd probably not hesitate to call Blake a housecat. That woman always did know how to rile up the Faunus and convince them that hating humans was what the Gods had put them on Remnant to do.

Having Jaune be so deferential all the time did help soothe her aching Faunus pride. If anyone looked at their dynamic, they would easily be able to tell that he was the housecat of the relationship – not that it was a relationship, mind you – and not her. She gave him orders, and he followed them without question. In the end, it boiled down to huntress and apprentice, not Faunus and human.

He's a nice person, at least. Not cruel, not arrogant, willing to listen and learn when I tell him something. Jaune knows I need him to pull this off. I could have had some slacker who insisted on an even share of profits, but he's agreed to take less than me for less work.

Speaking of which, it's probably time for some training.

Blake had been doing research for nearly the entire day, but she and Jaune had regular training sessions just before night came each day, as per their agreement. Jaune could probably use as much training crammed into his brain before they got their first mission, and Blake herself needed to keep in shape, so it was a good opportunity.

Not to mention the fact that I need to do something after sitting down and reading all day. I like books, but they tend to be less mind-numbing when they're fictional or at least have narratives.

Texting Arc's contact on her scroll to let him know to meet her there, she folded up the books she'd been reading and stretched out her arms. The other patrons of the library were all either taking great care to not make eye contact with her or staring straight at her like she was about to explode. Blake couldn't really tell if it was because of her ears or because they though she was a hobo who'd spent the day in a library because it had no restrictions on who entered.

I don't actually know how prevalent racism is in day-to-day life out in the kingdoms. I used to stay in the manor in Menagerie, and when I was with the White Fang, in all iterations, we only ever went to places where bigotry and discrimination were common. I have no frame of reference for living in the city. Damn, maybe I really do need Jaune's perspective on these things.

A gym membership wasn't an essential expense, and they couldn't exactly launch into an all-out spar in a random patch of grass surrounded by trees in a public park, so Blake just picked up some flat-ish sticks and pretended they were doing kendo. It wasn't perfect training, but it was budget training, and that was what the poor couple needed to stick to right now.

"What we're doing here isn't meant to be a fight you wish to win; it's a learning experience. Winning doesn't even matter, since we're using sticks and not swords. Besides, you'll mostly be fighting Grimm or maybe criminals, not trained Faunus huntresses. The goal here is to get you as familiar with the concept of holding a sword while getting in some PT. Then, we're going to move on to some muscle memory for basic attacks. After that…we'll see what kind of equipment we have and reassess our lesson plans."

As Blake had tried to explain to him, she wasn't a teacher or a trainer, so she was mostly just making this up as she went along.

"Holding a sword?" Jaune asked incredulously. "That's…I mean, I've held Crocea Mors before."

Blake raised her eyebrow. "Have you run with it? Have you leaned away from a strike with it? Have you fallen to the ground and had to pick yourself up with it?"

Jaune bashfully backed down. "Question rescinded."

He actually hadn't asked a question, but Blake nodded. This was what she'd been talking about – Jaune might have been headstrong at worst, but he was at least self-aware enough to listen to reason when he heard it.

"Strike me when you're ready, and try to use that aura, m'kay?" Arc had been having trouble accessing his aura in non-passive ways. He could heal from it with an almost innate ease belying some natural talent, but his strength wasn't yet up to par. For a man his size compared to a Faunus her size, he should have been easily about to out-muscle her now that there was no difference between their levels. Arc was by no means small, but Blake had seen Ilia hit harder.

Jaune's biggest problem was that he didn't think an attack through, nor did he plan ahead. Every swing was a wild, reckless, desperate thing that pulled all the way back and telegraphed itself ten miles ahead. She wasn't expecting him to master moving an opponent about the battlefield, but any good fighter know that gaining and sacrificing ground could be just as important as a chunk of aura. Favorable terrain, a good angle to strike – he needed to start thinking when he fought.

"Don't try and knock the stick out of my hand in every hit, Jaune! Build up to it if you can. The goal is to get you used to how you move in a fight, not to bash head-on in every attack. Some attacks can be leading up to something greater, and some can be followed up my a more important one."

"Got it!"

Jaune's next attack was barely more than a tap, and then he immediately switched to an extremely heavy underhand swing, trying again to knock Blake's stick away. All it succeeded in doing was breaking her stick, while his remained in one piece.

For the gods' sake…

"Um." Jaune looked at his complete stick then down at her fragments of a twig on the ground. "So…y-your stick…s-sorry."

Blake narrowed her eyes.

He wilted under her irate gaze, holding onto his stick with both hands and letting it drop to waist height. "Y-Yeah, don't worry, I get it, though. Breaking it isn't winning or anything, since it's just random sticks we picked up off the ground. I didn't actually beat you, and if you'd had a sword or you'd been a Grimm, I'd be toast. Sorry, Blake."

It was impossible for her not to be angry, but it was equally difficult to be upset with him. He might not have done well in the fight, but at least he hadn't thought this was an accomplishment.

It wasn't proof that he used his aura to augment his strength – all it was is proof that I picked up the weaker stick. We really need to find some sort of space where we can use our weapons for real.

But they couldn't. They fucking couldn't, because they were poor, and they had no one to blame but themselves, each other, and the hundreds of random nobodies walking about the park that Blake had decided to throw the blame onto.

Blake hated this.

"Jaune?"

Blake and Jaune collectively turned around at the sound of his name.

"Ruby?" Jaune asked. "And…uh…"

"Yang," said a blonde woman standing next to a younger child who was presumably 'Ruby.'

"Y-Yang. Right." Jaune cleared his throat. "Hey, how are you guys doing? It's been so long since we saw each other!"

"It's only been, like, a week!" said Ruby. "Jaune, where did you go? You just disappeared before initiation! It was crazy, yo!"

"U-Uh…" Jaune took a step back uncertainly. His eyes darted to Blake.

So much for him being the one to deal with humans.

"The headmaster called us over to speak with us in private," Blake explained. "It turns out that there was a clerical oversight when we'd completed our applications, and we hadn't actually met the qualifications to be let into Beacon. The headmaster was very gracious, but he had to excuse us from the initiation test."

Ruby looked aghast, and Jaune himself didn't seem too happy about how close Blake was dancing with the truth here, but there was no telling how much these kids knew. If they'd seen Ozpin pulling them away or overhead something about applications being rescinded, lying would draw attention to the fact. Jaune clearly didn't want to be exposed as a fraud in front of his five-minute friends from Beacon.

Blake was throwing the academy under the bus here, but Ozpin had admitted that he really had missed aspect of their applications, and he'd felt so at fault that he'd paid them for their losses. Two kids were out in the street because of him, so let him face the consequences of his own actions.

"They what?!" Ruby screamed.

"Indoor voices, sis," said Yang.

"But we're outdoors!"

"Sis, c'mon." She plopped her arm onto Ruby's shoulder. "I don't think these guys want you blabbing their private business to everyone in a five-mile radius."

"Oh yeah. S-Sorry."

"We'd rather not make a big stink about it," Blake said to the other girls…the other huntresses. "It's already happened, and Jaune and I are doing our best to move forward at this point."

"Oooh, I didn't know you guys were together!" Ruby said.

Blake shook her head before the little kid could do something annoying like excitedly jump up and down pointing at them. "We're partners, but not in a romantic sense."

"It's hunting partners," Jaune clarified. "Like you and Yang."

"Not hunting partners," Blake quickly corrected. "We're not hunters. But we have become a private security firm now, using our hunter-adjacent skillsets."

Telling two Beaconites that they were pretending to be hunters was akin to advertising that fact to Ozpin himself, and Blake was not looking forward to having to explain that conversation.

"Oh, Yang and I aren't partners either, actually," Ruby explained, apparently content to move right past Jaune's slip-up without any need for clarification. "We are on the same – oh, I forgot to tell you: I got made leader of my team."

Jaune's smile at receiving that news was warm and bright, making him a good friend who was pleased with his friend's success.

Blake's smile at receiving that news was just as bright, but she had to bite down on her teeth in order to not physically cringe in jealousy.

This little girl, who was definitely not the right age for Beacon, she'd been made leader when someone just as talented had been kicked out for nothing more than a dodgy past? And it wasn't like Blake was some high school drug dealer or vandal – she'd joined an activist organization in order to protect her entire species at the age of twelve, and…

Beacon's full of hunters. I can't go about getting upset that they exist. Just smile and move on.

"That's…great news," Blake said. "We're all very proud of you. But Jaune, I hate to drag you out of this, but we only have an hour more for kendo practice before…we have to submit the business license application."

It was something that Blake had already done, and it was something that Jaune obviously knew Blake had already done. There was no way he wouldn't pick up on the hint she was dropping.

Jaune nodded at her. "Yup. We'll have to catch up later sometime, Ruby. Wanna exchange scroll numbers?"

Blake bit her tongue as the happy duo said their farewells and handed one another their scrolls so as to input each other's numbers. Yang shot her a sympathetic little smiling nod, and Blake nodded back just to acknowledge it. She didn't want to spend another minute around the two privileged girls living the life she'd so desperately wanted for herself, but the pleasantries had to be endured.

Calm down, Blake. They've done nothing wrong. Consider them Jaune's moral support huntresses. His comfort women…wait, no, that sounds wrong.

"Oh, Jaune! S-Sorry, you got a text or something."

"It's fine…here, I'm done putting my number into your scroll. Here ya go."

The two returned their devices to one another, and Jaune opened up his message app.

Blake nodded decisively. "Well, Ruby, it's been nice –"

"Blake," Jaune interrupted.

Blake pursed her lips and tried to keep her temper. "Goodbye, you two. We'll keep in –"

"Blake."

Her smile couldn't have been wider as she turned to Jaune. "Yes, dear partner of mine?"

Jaune himself was also smiling, though.

"We've got a new job."

Coming Soon: Splash

Nothing like a little dip to cool off.

Author's Notes

That little legal loophole of Blake's is going to become the backbone of Team Job Security's business model, so pay close attention to it. Or don't, since it's basically just 'don't explicitly call ourselves hunters' and there isn't much else to it, but it is important.

We can't have Ruby without RWBY, but she's going to be a supporting character in this one. Fear not; no harm will come to her (I know we're all suffering in the wake of Origin Story, and Villain is only fucking us up even worse). It does raise the question of what has become of RWBY and JNPR, and for the first time in a while, I won't just be filling in the gaps with CRDL OC-esque chumps.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!