Beacon was a school that produced the best. Only the strongest of combat students were considered for the prestigious academy. Thankfully strength of a stomach was not a prerequisite, thought Jaune as he emptied the last of his stomach contents into a trash can. He hoped the upchucking would not be a defining moment of his time here. Although the attractive blond he puked on would probably be someone to avoid. It wasn't his fault that his family suffered from air sickness.

Looking up from the can as his stomach settled, Jaune took in where he was. The school was massive and benefited from intricate architectural design with cutting edge training equipment to help the students become effective grim killers. Most students would feel exhilarated entering the school for the first time as their goal of becoming hunters or huntresses was close at hand, but these students were supposed to be here. Jaune saw himself entering the lion's den with only some forged documents standing between him and expulsion, or worse. He had no idea how to fight grim, dual, or a single thing about how to talk to kids his age. Taking a breath he steeled his resolve and stomach for what lay ahead of him. He had come too far and sacrificed too much to let little details like that stop him from achieving his goals.

An explosion shook him from his thoughts. Looking towards the sound he saw a slightly singed girl clad in a white dress matching her pure white hair berating a younger looking girl wearing a black dress accented by red trim. He recognized the white one, she was Weiss Scheene , heiress of the SDC. "She could make quite the ally," he mused to himself.

Jaune approached the two but delayed as a girl with a black hair bow stepped in and seemingly ended the argument, as Scheene walked away in a huff. He looked at the red girl a bit closer. Something about her seemed a bit familiar. She appeared a bit saddened still knocked down by the explosion. He figured talking to her wouldn't hurt. Besides as his mother used to say, "strangers are just friends you haven't met yet." Man, he hadn't seen his mother in a long time.

"Need some help?" he asked putting his hand out. Ruby looked up to see a boy with messy blond hair dressed in jeans, combat boots , white shirt, black leather jacket, and a scabbard attached to his hip.

"Thanks," she said in a tiny voice appropriate for her. "I'm Ruby"

"Jaune Arc, short sweet and the ladies love it" he said with a stupid grin plastered on his face as he pulled her up.

"Do they?" Ruby asked not buying it in the slightest.

"W-well they will" Damn. He couldn't even convince a little girl he was cool.

"Wait. Aren't you Vomit Boy?" asked Ruby

So much for that not sticking. "How would you like it if I called you crater face?"Jaune asked.

"That was an accident." Ruby flatly protested.

He followed her for a few more awkward steps before she suddenly stopped. "Soooo check this out," she said, opening up the biggest scythe he had ever seen. In fact, he'd actually never seen one before, but it was still larger than he'd ever imagined. How did such as small cute girl wield such a massive implement of death. "Wow! That thing is awesome looking," he finally said.

"Yeah. It's my baby. It's also a high impact sniper rifle." She eyed her weapon with a slightly evil grin that reminded him of someone.

"So is it chambered for 308 or 50 cal?" He knew a bit about sniper rifles, just not enough to figure the weapon's caliber on site.

Ruby smiled at his interest in her weapon. "50. Kick back helps me move and it really helps with grim. So what do you have?" She hoped it was a sniper rifle, a bazooka, nun-chuck Gatling guns, knifle or some other new and exciting weapon. To her disappointment Jaune pulled out a plain sword and turned his scabbard into a shield.

"Yeah, not the greatest," he admitted noticing the reaction on her face. "I just got it. I really have no idea how to use them."

"What do you mean they're new?"

Damn it. An absentminded comment like that could really screw him. "Had mine stolen when I arrived in the city." A lie-something not unfamiliar to him.

"Criminals are the worst! When we're finally hunters we'll stop that kinda of stuff. We'll stop grim too. And we'll be awesome." Jaune could hear the innocence in those words.

"Sure Ruby," he said, not wanting to push the issue and arouse her curiosity about his weaponry. He changed the subject. "So where are we going anyways?"

Ruby gave him an odd glance. "I don't know; I was following you."

Exactly a month before Jaune was puking in a trash can in Beacon it had been a cold and rainy night on the docks. Mark "Shark-Face" Menzer was looking upon a crate of automatic rifles left there by one of his contacts, and Jaune was looking at his target. Shark-face was a crime lord from Minstrel who was making a big push into Vale.

Known for his ruthlessness, Shark-Face routinely lit his rivals on fire with his hand held flame thrower to get jobs done. From his perch atop the crates lining the dark warehouse Jaune counted a dozen guards around the place, each armed with small arms and bladed weapons. Upon entering the building he counted a few additional sentries posted outside.

It would be a quick task tonight.

Drawing his handgun and knife he dropped down, crushing a guard under him. Before the room of criminals could turn to face him, he scored three head shots, confirming his sense that the henchmen lacked aura.

"The fuck?" Shark-Face thrashed his head around. "Kill that bastard!" he screamed to the remaining men.

Jaune rolled his eyes as he swiftly jumped behind a metal shipping container. Yeah no shit, kill him, he thought to himself.

The remaining henchmen broke into two groups of four, each maneuvering around either side of the large shipping container. Jaune calmly put away his gun and took out a grenade from his jacket. He tossed it to the side of the container farthest from himself. He then ducked around the closest edge of the container to find himself inches from a gun pointed at his head.

Swifter than the trigger pull he used his freehand to shift the barrel to the left and used his other hand to shove his blade into the man's throat. At that moment the four other henchmen on the far side stepped around the edge of the crate only to step into the blast of the grenade killing the entire group in one blast.

The three remaining henchmen opened up on their assailant. Jaune used the man who was still impaled on his knife as a shield. He could feel the shock of the rounds slamming into the body's limp flesh. Lightning quick, he unleashed his own gun and fired three shots in cool, even succession, then shrugged the no longer useful human shield onto the ground next to his dead comrades.

Turning, he watched Shark-Face advancing on him with his flame thrower. "You going to burn for this you little shit!" Jaune fired a round at Shark-Face's temple only to witness it bounce off harmlessly. An evil smile spread across upon Shark-Face lips. "Aura kid".

Didn't one need a soul to have Aura?

At that moment the outside sentries entered the warehouse. Jaune had prepared for this as the henchmen tripped a bomb he had set earlier while infiltrating the building. It was powerful enough to shake the structure and distract Shark-Face for a few seconds in the process. It was all Jaune needed.

He taped the end of his pistol and knife handles against each other and when he pulled them apart a wire connected them. Jaune quickly closed the distance between himself and his opponent. He brought the wire under Shark-Face's flamer arm and swiftly pulled it up to his neck. Stepping forward and pulling, he effectively cut of Shark- face's oxygen and prevented him from aiming his flamethrower in Jaune's direction.

Jaune found suffocating an enemy that manipulated aura to protect themselves an effective means of killing for even the hardiest of enemies. Aura could stave off kinetic energy, but Jaune had found in his years of fight that moving an opponent's body against themselves was the best way to negate the advantages of aura.

With a final twitch Shark-Face was no more. Another mission accomplished.

Damn, I'm good, thought Jaune.

Just then, Jaune's scroll unexpectedly went off as if somehow to punish him for the thought. Jaune leapt up and uttered a scream unbefitting a guy as macho as him. In the sudden silence, he looked around to see if anyone witnessed the embarrassing moment. Nope, just a bunch dead guys.

Looking down at his scroll Jaune saw it was a reminder he had set earlier. The words "Beacon paperwork due," flashed across the screen.

"Ah man, that's what I forgot to do this week." Shit. "Going to have to pay a fortune to get a forger at this hour," Jaune cursed under his breath.

As good as he was at killing for money he had some serious issues with a lot of stuff. Heck, on his way here he needed to go back for his weapons after remembering he had forgotten them at the safe.

Walking back to his ride he scrolled through his contacts looking for a forger that fit the bill. This job at Beacon had been a long time in the making and if the intel was good he could put this life behind him. The thought incited a sudden nervousness in him. Deep cover infiltrations weren't his best skill and going in as a student would have quite a few complications to contend with.

Jaune hadn't really been in school for a long time, and after many years of killing, his social skills weren't exactly stellar either. Although to get to Amber he would pretend to be General Ironwood if that's what it took. Hell, to get to her he would tear Vale apart brick by brick if he had to.

Jaune walked over to his sleeping bag. He'd just finished brushing his teeth and changing into his blue bunny onezee pajamas. He took stock of the events of the day.

Lost his lunch.

Made a new friend (Ruby was her name?)

Got lost.

Found were to go.

Listened to a dumb speech from the headmaster about potential, and most interestingly, heard Weiss say something about "cute boys" and point to him.

Maybe he could play it cool and seduce the heiress. On the other hand his romance experience was zilch (not for lack of trying) and his ability to "play it cool" was not an ability he had. Still, he considered it might be worth a shot. Given his past experiences, what did he really have to lose.

Jaune laid his head down on his sleeping bag. He was lying in an auditorium surrounded by the first year students. For some reason unknown to him, they were sleeping there for the night instead of the dorms. The rooms had to have been set up so why sleep out here, he wondered.

From the architectural plans he had stolen from an archive the dorms appeared to be quite large. Compared to the amount of students present, there weren't enough individual rooms for them. All that pointed to some kind of group based set up. This unnerved him a bit. He would have to deal with the added complication of a small group of people living with him. Not really something he wanted on this already complicated mission.

He lay awake lost in thought, thinking about this assignment. Intel said Amber frequented the hunter academies for some unknown reason. Amber had been in the Vaco academy last and an intercepted message had confirmed her heading towards Vale. He didn't know for sure if she was here but he couldn't pass up an opportunity as promising as this. In fact he wondered if he had jumped into this a bit too hastily. He never had successfully done a serious deep cover job. Well there was that time he pretended to be an arms dealer, but that had ended with him in a trash compactor. In retrospect that joke about the mobster's wife hadn't been a good idea.

Hours passed as he lay awake lost in contemplation. The vibrations of the silent alarm on his scroll pulled him from his thoughts. He checked the room for any students still awake. Finding none he decided it was time to go to work.

He tried to exit his sleeping bag quietly. Unfortunately, though, he got tripped up and fell on his face. The commotion woke up the student next to him. A young man groggily looked up at Jaune.

"Shut up man" the disturbed sleeper murmured. With that he fell back asleep.

Well that was embarrassing, Jaune thought, cursing himself for the slip up. Little moments like that really could get him killed in his business; how he'd gotten by thus far baffled him. Unfortunately, despite his precision killing, he never seemed to be able to overcome his awkwardness and clumsiness. Some days he wondered if his semblance was being unlucky. He once heard of a guy like that- Hawk, or something like that.

He looked around to see if any other students had been roused by his actions. Seeing none he quietly tipped toed over to the auditorium doors. Giving it a small push he found it to be locked. Pulling out a lock pick from his pajama pockets he proceeded to pick the lock until he heard a click. He pushed again be to no avail. He most have unlocked it the click was a tell tale sound of the bolt sliding. Upon closer inspection he found the door to be a pull door.

One embarrassed lock picking later he found himself outside, on the main campus. He moved silently across it, avoiding light. Closer to his goal he noticed armed guards patrolling and cameras placed sporadically. Honestly he was surprised there weren't more guards around and he identified quite a few strategic blind spots in the cameras.

Dodging the sparse amount of security on campus he found himself at his goal. The CCT tower. It was the hub of all wireless communications in Vale. Honestly this had been stupidly easy so far. This right here was Vales only life line to the other nation, one decent virus could cripple the country for weeks. Yeah there were quite a few wannabe hunters around but they were all asleep. Only a crappy security system and a few dozen guards around so far. He hoped the inside of the tower was just as insecure.

He moved around back to the rear of the tower. According to the stolen plans there was an electrical panel that controlled some secondary systems. Nothing important to communications, but the lights on the first floor was what he wanted. Locating the panel he opened it to find it to be exactly what he needed. Flipping the switch he smirked as the lights went out.

He stealthily moved to the front entrance to see a guard on alert. Jaune picked up a rock from the landscape and threw it, hitting a lamp post in the distance. The metallic sound caused the guard to walk off a bit from his post to investigate. Jaune took the opportunity to slipped past the guard and enter the tower.

He entered to see about five guards all crammed around a panel. "Just keep switching it on and off it might do it" said a one of the guards.

"Why the hell would that help Jerry you idiot" said the guard closest to the panel, clearly frustrated by the issue.

Jaune smiled at his luck and crept into an elevator in the room. Inside the elevator he found the button for the comms room and pressed it. As the elevator went to its destination Jaune relaxed a bit.

The elevator opened to reveal a room full of consoles used by students to make calls to people outside Vale. Calls from scrolls were also intercepted and logged in this tower. Jaune couldn't have a nosey headmaster looking to see the kind of unsavory people he called. Approaching a console he inserted a USB drive into it. The drive uploaded a program that allowed for his scroll to securely make calls.

As soon as it loaded Jaune pulled up his scroll and made a call. It rang for a few seconds before someone on the other end picked up.

"I'm in Roman, all is going as planned"