Author's note here! I'm trying to balance college with this and my other story Beyond the Sunset, so I apologize if updates are irregular and short! Still, I've had the idea for both this and team SNST for a while now, and wanted to try my hand on it when I could!

With this Jaune-centric story, he will not be overly powerful or in a Harem-like setting as many tend to lean towards. His backstory will be different, however, which is something that I hope to get into as the story progresses!

Leave a review, positive or negative, and I'll fix what I can! ^-^

Chapter 1

Getting Settled

"Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue - ladies love it!"

Jaune fingerguns his reflection in the mirror of his bathroom, putting on a convincing smile. The morning of his first day at Beacon, and it must go perfectly! Years of training with his irritating father should not be in vain!

Ignoring the laughter from outside his bathroom, likely two of his older sisters listening in and promptly calling him a dork, Jaune looks himself over one last time.

Jeans, hoodie, light armor, ancient huntsman weapon, award-winning smile.

It's all there!

Jaune steps out of the bathroom, his sisters quickly quieting down for him. They've always been obnoxious, but he loves that they can quiet their annoying little mouths around him.

"You had better not use that on the very first girl you meet, Jaune!"

Jaune softly smiles at his older sisters, patting their shoulders.

"No promises."

This was a terrible idea.

Jaune holds his head in his hands, desperately trying to keep his breakfast from un-eating itself as the ship shifts and shakes. The view is nice, but seeing past watery eyes and ignoring the nausea is very taxing, so he stopped bothering to look out the window half an hour ago, just sitting in a seat alone and hoping no one comes up to him.

Well, he always hopes for that, but especially now.

"Oatmeal seemed like such a good idea too…."

Jaune feels the ship start to slow, and stands up just a bit too quickly, possibly throwing up on some blonde on the way out. It wouldn't be the worst first impression he's ever made. Jaune smiles slightly at a memory involving setting a fire. Good times, good times indeed.

Oh right, his horribly painful stomach, how could he forget.

Jaune launches out of the ship and swiftly makes good friends with a trash can. Hell, it's better company than most people. Smells nicer too. After ridding himself of his food, Jaune wipes his face off and strikes up a friendly conversation with his new friend.

"Sooo… Come here often?"

The trash can doesn't respond. Dust, it's perfect.

An explosion makes Jaune turn his head away from his friend for a moment. From the looks of it, a snob, goth, and emo are all yelling at each other. Honestly, he expected worse, given that they're all pretty girls. Girls are so much nicer to talk to than boys, since they always assume you're into them and thus leave you alone.

"Make friends while you're there Jaune."

"You've gotta try to get out more, bro. I know you don't really like doing that but if you wanna be a huntsman you're going to have a team, at least at Beacon…"

"My boy, school is school. Social shit is just one aspect of it, and you're going to have to do it, no matter how much you want to hurt them."

"They say teams can be like a second family, you know, and you like us, right…?"

Jaune sighs. His mother's going to call in a few days, and he'd rather not have her nagging about having no friends again. Deciding to make his very first friend outside of direct family, he strolls over to the depressed little goth girl sprawled out in the middle of the path.

"Hey," he starts, squinting when he realizes that his stupid introduction would just be a waste of time. "I'm, uh, Jaune."

Since he never bothered to hold his hand out, the girl awkwardly scrambles to her feet and giggles to herself. Awkwardly. "Ruby… Aren't you the guy that threw up on the ship?"

"Possibly."

"Ah! O-okay!"

Jaune rubs the back of his head, frowning and starting to walk with Ruby. "Well, Ruby, I'm not the best at talking to people, so, uh, what do we do from here?"

Ruby gasps, flailing her arms. "I'm not good at talking either! So, um, I don't know actually!"

"Oh, that's… good?"

Ruby blushes and nods. "So… Why throw up on the ship?"

"Motion sickness," Jaune replies with a shrug. "That and to get people to avoid me."

"You want people to avoid you? Why?"

"Well, I'm just not very good with people, y'know? Plus they talk a lot, and usually get way too touchy, and are so emotional."

Ruby visibly shrinks, frowning a little. Jaune doesn't notice, or doesn't care, but continues anyway. "You don't seem too bad though. Smell better than most, look cute, uh…. Nice voice, I guess?"

Ruby's face gets a bit red out of both embarrassment and the… strange compliments. "Thanks, I think!"

"Yeah, well throwing up isn't that big of a deal. If you threw up on the ship I wouldn't really care, right?"

"Right!"

"All I'm saying is that motion sickness is a much more common problem than people let on!"

"Look, I'm sorry! Vomit Boy was the first thing that came to mind."

"Oh, yeah? What if I called you Crater Face?"

"Hey, that explosion was an accident!"

Jaune sighs and dismisses Ruby with a small wave of his hand, shaking his head jokingly. A silence of immensely awkward proportions follows as the two walk through Beacon.

"So... I got this thing!" Ruby takes out a massive red weapon, and Jaune's eyes widen.

"Whoa! Is that a scythe?"

"It's also a customizable high-impact sniper rifle!"

"A, uh, wha…?"

"It's also a gun."

"Ohhhh. That's cool!"

"What've you got, Jaune?"

Jaune smiles again, taking out Crocea Mors' blade and holding it in both hands. Ruby 'oooohs' and 'ahhhhhs' make him awkwardly fumble the blade, trying not to trip over his own feet.

"What does it do?"

"Huh? It's, uh, a hand-me-down sort of. From the Great War. In other words, not also a gun."

"Yeah, I'm kind of a dork with weapons so I did go a little overboard designing it."

"Right, lots of huntresses make their own weapons early on, right?"

"Right! Nobody appreciates the classics anymore though, I'm glad you do!"

"Yeah… Truthfully, I'd love to make my own someday, but I don't have the Lien for that and Beacon."

Ruby puts away her scythe and nods silently as they continue to walk.

"So," she says, looking around. "Where are we going?"

"I thought I was following you?"

"W-well, about that, I may have been following you."

"…Huh."

"So, this is the auditorium?"

Jaune looks around the large room with impressed nods, while Ruby waves to someone then turns to him.

"Oh, hey, I gotta go! I'll see you after the ceremony!"

Jaune is about to stop her when she runs off. He sighs.

"Where am I supposed to find another nice, quirky girl to talk to?" he asks sarcastically to nobody in particular. Walking further into the room, Jaune looks up at the ceiling then down at his sheathe, thinking about how long it has taken him to get to this very spot.

He just now realizes how hard his hands are shaking.

Seconds pass as he stares at his shaking hands with a soft frown, before he stuffs his hands into his pockets and begins shuffling over to where he saw Ruby run off to.

"-cute boys, like tall, blond, and scraggly over there!"

A short girl, with hair and outfit white as snow, pointing at Jaune of all people. Was he really cute to her?

He scowls at the thought. No thanks. He is interrupted from walking over, though, when a microphone sounds and he looks to see the headmaster on the stage.

"I'll... keep this brief. You have traveled here today in search of knowledge, to hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose, direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step."

Jaune yawns and rubs his face, ignoring the rest of the speech and going to get dressed. He moves to the changing rooms and looks in his pack, rubbing his face with a sigh. His sisters packed his clothes since he was too lazy and nervous.

So now he's wearing a onesie and being laughed at.

Truly, people are so pleasant, and not wanting to interact with them is obviously strange. Truly, a wonderful society he lives in.

Jaune sighs, plopping down on the floor and stretching out. Right next to that emo girl from earlier, who seems to be trying to ignore him and read.

"I like your style."

The girl's eyes don't even leave her book.

"Jaune Arc. A pleasure."

Finally, she glances to him with a glare, nodding to indicate she heard him.

"And you are?"

"Reading."

"Good to know, but I meant your name."

"Blake. May I continue reading now?"

Jaune narrows his eyes, clenching his teeth and attempting not to lash out on the very first day.

"Whatever you say."

Jaune gets up and walks somewhere else. Truly, anywhere else would be nice. Punching a girl in the face on the first day of school has gotten him into trouble before, and was an interesting learning experience, not to be repeated.

He finds a nice spot away from the groups, and falls asleep on the floor.

Another dreamless night.