Jaune Arc (RWBY)

“Okay Jaune, you can do this,” you huff as you walk up the ramp leading to the airship that is slated to take you to your destination. Beacon Academy, school for Huntsmen and Huntresses; civilization’s first and last line of defense against the all-encompassing Grimm menace.

Only the most badass and intelligent students ever got accepted into Beacon. The entrance criteria were highly selective and people from all over the four kingdoms competed relentlessly for a spot at what was arguably the best Huntsman academy on the planet.

You, on the other hand, cheated your way in.

Truthfully, you had dreamt of becoming a Huntsman since you were a child, but your parents had been dead set against it. Your father, himself a powerful and successful Huntsman refused to train you or even unlock your Aura. The rejection… it stung. Still stings. How could your own father be so relentlessly against you striving to make a difference in the world? Not only that, your mother had joined him as well. Perhaps she’d even encouraged him to reject your request to begin with. Maybe that’s what made it easy for you to rationalize stealing your father’s sword and forging your transcripts to get accepted into Beacon.

Thinking about your family draws your eyes to Crocea Mors. The ancestral Arc sword dangles sloppily at your hip, but the aesthetic weapon somehow manages to make the view look graceful. The sword itself is ancient, wielded by your ancestors for centuries. It predates mechashift technology by many years and so lacks most of the bells and whistles common among modern weapons. As if you weren’t already at a major disadvantage, having not even unlocked your aura or engaged in any sort of combat training.

You’d make it work, though, somehow, if only to prove your mother and father wrong.

You look ahead as other boys and girls who look to be eighteen, nineteen, or even twenty file ahead of you into the airship.

A particularly buxom girl with incredibly long, wavy blonde hair catches your eye. She’s wearing a yellow and brown outfit that exposes her midriff and does very little to hide her cleavage and toned, athletic legs from view. She’s accompanied by a girl who looks like she’s eighteen, but only just barely. The younger girl has dark hair with red highlights along the tips. She’s wearing a much more conservative red outfit, but you still notice the telltale bumps of her smallish breasts.

“C’mon, sis. Don’t be nervous. I’m sure you’ll make a ton of new friends,” the older blonde says as she finds a seat and sets her bags down.

The younger girl follows suit. “That’s easy for you to say, Yang. You were the most popular girl at Signal!”

Yang smirks at her. “Damn right I was.”

“See, this is what I’m talking about. It’s just so… easy for you to get along with people. I’m probably the youngest person here. No one’s gonna want to get to know me,” she says.

“Oh come on, Ruby,” Yang drags the girl into a hug, unintentionally squishing her breasts out slightly past her cleavage. Ruby tries to resist for a few moments before giving into her sister’s superior strength. “You’re gonna make plenty of friends. Hm. Maybe you’ll even get a boyfriend~”

“Yaaang!” Ruby sputters. Her face turns bright red like a tomato and you can’t help but chuckle a little at her embarrassment.

You can relate to her struggle to find friends. You’d never exactly been the most popular kid and were always made fun of for your grandiose dreams of becoming a protector for humanity. So you wanted to be more than a village yokel going through the drudgery of menial life, accomplishing nothing of note and being utterly dependent upon others for protection. Why couldn’t anyone accept that? Why was everyone you grew up with so content with their lot in life?

Someone shoves past you, staggering you and almost causing you to fall on your ass.

“Watch where you’re going, weakling,” a gruff voice scolds you. You glare at the guy who so blatantly knocked you over. There was plenty of room in the airship, so he had to have run into you intentionally.

The young man is tall and wears a set of heavy steel plate armor. You suppress a flare of jealousy and anger.

“Damn. My first day and I’ve already met my first bully. That’s just great,” you mutter. “Hm. What’s that?”

You glance down at the solid metal floor of the aircraft. A dark black marker is resting against the floor.

“Maybe that guy dropped it,” you reason, picking the writing implement up with your fingers. You glance over at the taller boy only to see him shove another prospective student aside with his significant bulk. Yeah, you’ll be damned if you don’t get back at that jackass, even if it’s in a small, incredibly petty way. “Hm. Finder’s keepers.”

Your eyes are inevitably drawn to the bare metal walls of the airship. The craft is old enough that rust and grime have accumulated along the walls. Various names and sentences have been scratched and written into the walls. Probably by prospective Huntsman and Huntresses on their way to Beacon. You wonder how many of them made it. How many of them survived.

“Hm,” you smile softly and uncap the marker the bully had dropped. “Even if I don’t make it, someone’ll know I was here.”

A warm feeling swells in your chest as you write your name down on the airship wall. You even add a little flair to the end. Maybe ten or so years down the line, it’ll make someone roll their eyes.

Jaune Arc’s airship

There. Even if you die tomorrow, you’ll have left something behind. You don’t know why that means something to you, but it does.

You sag down in the nearest seat as the aircraft takes off. The metal frame of the craft rumbles around you and it’s all you can do to not vomit as your stomach lurches at the movement. You’ve never liked flying. Oh, you can definitely appreciate the beautiful vistas it offers, but your stomach usually disagrees.

“F-fuck,” you grumble.

“Are you alright?” a soft, feminine voice cuts into your sudden wave of nausea. Interestingly enough, your stomach settles somewhat.

As you glance away from the floor, the first thing you see are a pair of toned, athletic thighs hugged by a bronze and red skirt. Your eyes travel upwards. The owner of the legs is a gorgeous redhead with piercing green eyes that seem simultaneously protective, but cautious. It was almost as if she’d go to great lengths to protect you, but it wouldn’t take much for something to scare her away. Weird.

You can’t help but notice the way her large breasts fill out her armored top. She’s leaning down slightly since she’s standing, giving you an eyeful of her cleavage. You avert your gaze quickly, hoping she hasn’t noticed.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine. I don’t do too well with flying is all,” you tell her.

The redhead’s expression softens.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Beacon isn’t too far away, so hopefully you won’t have to deal with that much longer.”

You smile at her. “Thanks. I’m Jaune-” you shut your mouth suddenly as your stomach lurches. Through sheer willpower you prevent yourself from vomiting all over the girl in front of you. “Jaune Arc. What’s your name?”

“Eh?” The girl raises her eyebrows at you. Her emerald orbs widen. “Um. I’m Pyrrha Nikos. It’s nice to meet you, Jaune.”

She stretches out her hand towards you.

Smiling, you take it in your own, fighting the blush that’s threatening to spread across your face.

Her hand is soft, yet firm. You wonder how much of that is due to her aura mending callouses that have formed over years of training. She’s probably much stronger than you, so why can’t you shake the idea that she’s just become a lot less nervous around you?

“Nice to meet you, too,” you say. She grins back at you. Gods, she’s beautiful. This is probably the longest you’ve ever had the attention of someone so beautiful, aside from your mother and sisters of course, but they don’t really count.

“Um, you can sit here, if you want?” you gesture to the seat next to you.

Pyrrha beams at you. “I’d love to.”

She sits down next to you, setting her bags down in front of her. She glances behind you, something apparently catching her eye.

“Huh. I didn’t know you owned this airship, Jaune.”

You raise your eyebrows at her. “What?”

“It says it right on the wall there. ‘Jaune Arc’s airship’. Your family must be very wealthy. It’s really kind of you to allow Beacon to use it to ferry students back and forth from Vale.”

“Erm?” you glance back at the brief sentence you’d written on the airship’s wall. “Oh, that. Yeah, I totally own this airship.” You play along, hoping to elicit another smile from Pyrrha

“That much is obvious. So how did you come by it?” she tucks a strand of red hair behind her ear and gives you a serious, considering look.

Is she making fun of you?

“I… uh… I wrote my name down on the wall and that was it,” you mutter, for lack of anything better to say. You facepalm mentally. Damn, you wish you were more quick-witted. Maybe you’d have much better luck with girls that way.

“Yeah, that makes sense. Hm. Are you excited to be starting at Beacon? I hear our teams will be decided either today or tomorrow.”

You stare at Pyrrha for a long moment, looking for any sign of deception or humor in her eyes, but she seems completely serious. Is she messing with you?

Compulsively, you grab a book hanging out of the top of Pyrrha’s bag.

“Hey!” you ignore her protests and scribble your name down on the cover.

Jaune Arc’s

“W-what did I just do?” you say. Nervously, you look up at Pyrrha. The girl is probably much stronger than you and fully capable of making you pay for defacing her property. She’ll definitely-

“Wow, I didn’t know my book on Aura Theory was yours all this time,” Pyrrha frowns nervously. “I’m so sorry for keeping it. If I’d known it was yours, I’d have given it to you as soon as I saw you. I promise.”

You blink. “Uh, it’s fine I guess.”

Pyrrha’s posture relaxes immediately and she leans toward you slightly, emphasizing her significant cleavage. She can’t really believe you own her book because you wrote your name on it, right?

“Thank you. You know, you seem very generous and kind. I wouldn’t mind if we ended up on the same team together, t-that is if you don’t mind of course,” she adds quickly.

She glances down nervously before composing herself, awaiting your answer.

Just what is going on here?