Me: Okay, time for me to finally get back into the grind of writing Ascendancy, not to mention schoolwork as well-

Brain: Write new idea.

Me: Heh? But I really have to be productive and-

Brain: Write new idea.

JNRS

(Inspired by The Writer Games by The College Fool and Beyond the Boundary by alanw6616)

We all know how Emerald's story goes: She lives alone on the streets, grows desperate for any sort of attachment to another, is found by Cinder, devotes herself to the woman and her evil plans before eventually defecting over to the good guys and helping them to evacuate Atlas and Mantle.

We all know this.

But what if something happened beforehand?

What if someone else found Emerald on the streets?

What if someone set Emerald's path on a completely different direction?

That's right, instead of being found by Cinder, she is found by two familiar, and much better, people.

She is found by Ren and Nora.

So, Emerald comes across both Ren and Nora and joins their group, and this leads to them becoming a three-person trio instead of just a pair as they walk over the world together, and eventually join Beacon Academy.

It would be Emerald who was able to get the false transcripts needed for them to get into Beacon, though she would not be a fan of the decision. Seeing as she was a thief and grifter on the streets, she would not have a high opinion of Huntsmen in general. However, Ren and Nora wanted to go to the academy, seeing it as a safe place where they could train to become better fighters than they were, and so to Beacon they went.

The initiation to get in was, in her mind, a disaster. Yes, she got Ren and Nora partnered together (Because those two were a couple no matter how many times they said they weren't), And yes, she was able to get on the same team as them.

But she had been partnered to some wimpy noodle runt named Jaune.

Great.

So, as stated above, this story follows Emerald Sustrai as she takes Pyrrha's place in Team JNPR, their team becoming Team JNRS (Juniors), And all of the problems that come with it.

For one, the trio of Emerald, Nora, and Ren have become a tightly nit unit over the months of their travels together, and this means that they are, a lot of the time, unexclusive of other members. And considering how the only member of their team is Jaune, their team leader, this causes a lot of problems, particularly when they don't listen to his orders, and how he doesn't have the confidence to actually try and give them orders.

Another problem that arises within their team is that, as demonstrated by her attachment to Cinder in canon, Emerald is devoted to both Ren and Nora for picking her up, and as such, is extremely protective of them, even if she shows it in a very deadpan, sarcastic fashion. This also means that she is generally unaccepting of people that she might think are a threat to them, or even other people in general, so she immediately takes a disliking to Jaune for seemingly intruding on them.

The previous point them finally leads into the partnership between Jaune and Emerald, and that is initially a very dysfunctional pairing, as Emerald does not like Jaune for intruding on her, Ren, and Nora, viewing him as an interloper, before eventually discovering that not only did he fake his way in like the rest of them, but he didn't have any combat training or experience beforehand, she begins to view him as weak and unable to do anything, and begins to actively mock him and boot him out of their dorm, leaving to the team becoming even more dysfunctional than ever.

It is Ren and Nora who eventually force Emerald to try and reconcile with Jaune, though she is very reluctant to do so. However, that chance would soon be pushed upon them, and the team would be forced to put aside their differences and work together, thanks to a violent incident in the Forever Falls.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the trip to Forever Falls would be different from canon, and would involve them staying overnight in the forest and working together to make a tent and place for themselves to sleep, and with their experience in living outside of the city walls, including Jaune's previous camping trips with his family, they are able to make a decent place to sleep for themselves whilst other teams fail at the same task.

It is here, under the starry night above them, where Emerald and Jaune are finally forced to sit down next to each other and talk their differences out, Jaune exposing his fears of letting the others down, as well as his complex of being the weakest member of their team, and Emerald reluctantly, and very hesitantly, revealed her own fears of bringing harm to the only two people in her life, and being let down by the people around her once more.

Then, in the morning, Team JNRS discover that they have been stolen from their sleeping den, and taken to a cave in the middle of Forever Falls, by an unknown group of... Bandits? It was hard to tell, but they called themselves the One Path.

So a cult, then.

But that didn't matter right now.

They had been kidnapped.

And the One Path seemed to be strangely fixated on Emerald Sustrai.

However, thanks to Emerald's mixture of ruthlessness and skill, and Jaune's surprising leadership, they are able to break out of their bonds and sneak out of the One Path's hideout, before eventually being discovered by the Path and surrounded by their Pathfinder goons.

But then, all of the Pathfinders are suddenly taken down, they are saved by a Huntress that had been assigned to look for them after they had gone missing for a whole day.

A Huntress who called herself Amber.

Team JNRS were able to grow closer as a team in the time afterwards, with Jaune and Emerald slowly growing closer as partners as the trio of old friends began to bring him closer into their circle, with Jaune even inviting them to his family home for their time off Beacon (Though Jaune secretly worries that Emerald might be a bad influence for baby Adrien:

"The cow says 'Moo'!"

Turns the page.

"Butterfly doesn't say nothing."

Turns the page.

"Pig says 'You have the right to remain silent'."

A bad influence indeed).

Throughout those same days, more of Ren and Nora's influences on Emerald begin to expose themselves. Most notably, instead of being forced to hide away her actual thoughts and personality from other people in order to blend in, Emerald is encouraged to express herself around others, and so doesn't hold back on her sarcastic tendencies and occasional pickpocketing, even going so far as to teach the others in her team, as well as Jaune's sisters, on how to do it, and making a game out of how much Lien they can swipe from other people.

Hey, Saphron ain't complaining. She's already got a criminal record, and it helps pay the bills.

(As it turns out, the Arc family has a long history of casual criminality.)

On top of that, Emerald's loyalty to those is shown through her dealing with Team CRDL, and how she ruthlessly dispatched them in a mock match against them. However, it is shown that this level of devotion towards her teammates- Ren and Nora in particular- Is incredibly unhealthy, and much of the story is focused on Emerald having to learn how to balance having her own life alongside having one alongside the people around her.

And then, there's her outlook on Huntsmen in particular. Despite training to be one, Emerald has a very bitter view on Huntsmen, and sees them as selfish thugs with superpowers, not helped at all by how many times she had been shaken down and sent packing by Huntsmen, and how none of them had saved her from her miserable situation. However, it is through Jaune, Ren, and Nora, that Emerald's viewpoints on Huntsmen begin to shift and change, her once-narrow mindset on the profession eventually evolving to accept the grey, and see the good in them alongside the bad.

However, within team- Particularly Emerald- Grows a personal vendetta against the One Path and their kidnapping of them. They are angry about being kidnapped and possibly almost murdered by the Fang, and now they want to go after them. And now that they know from Team RWBY that the One Path is in Vale after their fight at the docks? Hell yeah, they're ready to go against them.

Well, Emerald is mostly, because she vindictive like that, but the others aren't sure. Whatever happened at the docks, it was devastating. Team RWBY had come back battered, bloody, and barely clinging to life. Ruby's condition in particular was drawing Ozpin's attention, as all of them were trapped in comas for their wounds.

But when all of Beacon Academy is pulled from their studies to assist the local authorities in tracking down the One Path and their Pathfinders, Team JNRS are the first ones into the fray.

However, the questions soon arise: Why is Ozpin so eager- So desperate- To track down and bring in the One Path? What does Ruby's coma and wounds to her eyes have to do with it? And who are the One Path itself?

As the investigations continue, the truth about the One Path eventually comes to show itself to the team: They are a cult of Grimm worshippers, few in number compared to a group like, say, the White Fang, but they are talented, fanatical, and resourceful. That makes them very dangerous, especially with their zealous belief in a goddess known as... Oh, what was her name? Salem? Whatever.

And as it turned out, their cult leader was some crazed Faunus by the name of Tyrian Callows.

But, as we cut to the villains of this story, we finally see the bigger consequences of Emerald never being picked up by Cinder:

Since Cinder no longer had the chance to track down and recruit Emerald to her side, she no longer had the ability to lure out the Fall Maiden, Amber, into a trap, and lost her chance at getting the powers that she oh so desired. This had the knock-on effect of Cinder not having the power and leverage needed to secure an alliance with not only Roman Torchwick and Neo, but also Adam Taurus and the White Fang, meaning that not only does Cinder not have the means in which to deceive her opponents and manipulate them to her own ends, but she also lacks the manpower to achieve those ends. As such, Salem discarded Cinder's plan for acquiring the Relic of Choice, and sent the rest of her agents over to Vale in order to compensate for the loss, leading to a lot of friction and dysfunction between the group as they tried to work together to achieve their ends, only for conflict and resentment to brew between them, particularly between Tyrian's band of fellow cultists that he brought along (Few in number, but much more individually skilled than the White Fang's regular mooks) And the rest of Salem's agents, particularly now that they have to both blackmail and indebt themselves to the various criminal elements in Vale in order to complete their objectives.

Cinder and her fellow agents, due to lacking Emerald on their side, have become desperate, and that makes them more dangerous than ever.

However, now, because of the vast web of fragile and delicate alliances that they have been forced to construct left one mighty hell of a paper trail, and Team JNRS began to use this path to chase them down, not knowing of the conflict that they were dragging themselves into.

Soon, it is Team JNRS versus the One Path and their allies, as Cinder tries to manipulate Emerald over to her side, forcing her to confront and challenge her own inner demons, and question what it is that she wants with her life, and how she can protect the two people that had adopted her in all but name, as well as the boy that had been partnered with her, and had grown closer to over the months that they had been with each other.

But, as Cinder and her agents begin to threaten her teammates and their connected families, and as a violent underground fighter by the name of Pyrrha Nikos begins to make waves within Vale's criminal underworld, shaking down crime bosses with a smile on her face and blood on her knuckles, Emerald is forced to ask herself a very difficult question. One that she feared answering at all:

What is she willing to sacrifice? Her family?

Or the entire world?