An icy wake-up call

From the sensation of what you guessed was someone rocking you back and forth with their foot, you slowly returned to consciousness and saw Weiss' visage standing above you. It looked like she had already washed off her new mustache and she was, in fact, kicking you awake.

"-ake up, you lazy...ughh..." you heard Weiss say as your ears touched reality as well, "I refuse to let you sleep in on the first day."

"Alright, alright, I'm up," you say while rising up out of your legless cot, sitting up as all your senses slowly came back to you. You looked around and it seemed like a few scant students were still down as well, still waking up if they hadn't already. Ruby, Yang, and Pyrrha were nowhere to be seen. "What does it matter to you, anyway?"

"What does it ma- Are you serious?" Weiss said indignantly, "Do you even understand how badly it'd look on me if my owner were to be late? No, that simply won't do. So come on; get up and get ready."

As your mind was thinking up a response, it grinded to a screeching halt as her words passed through your ears and reached your mind. 'My owner'.

"Wait, What? What am I?"

"...My owner?" Weiss answered back, confusion clear on her face as she lifted her right hand and twisted her wrist as if it obviously explained everything.

And it did, for on the back of her hand, your handwriting remained. She didn't bother to remove it when scrubbing her face. And realization hit you like a truck; that's right, you didn't just write your name on Ruby, you got Weiss too! You had nearly forgotten between how late at night it was when you did that, your waning belief that it could even work on people in the first place, even if you were testing for that exact thing, and how at that moment you were more preoccupied with Ruby.

A pit formed in your stomach from focusing on that last point. You didn't think you were the kind to think such thoughts about another person, and yet it came so casually to you. And regarding the subject of owning a person no less...

Before you could think further on that topic, you were shaken out of your thoughts by Weiss, who bent down at the waist to put her hand on your shoulder. "Hey, did you hit your head? Do we need to find a nurse, or something?"

From the position she is in, you happen to glance a look down the top of her dress. You couldn't see everything, she did a well enough job to prevent that, but you certainly got more of an eyeful than she would've liked. You avert your gaze as you feel your onesie tighten at the crotch.

"I'm fine! Gimme a minute to get dressed!" you quickly say as you get up faster than intended and rush to the bathroom, missing Weiss' blush indicating that she absolutely saw you ogle her.

Once inside, you slip out of your pajamas and into your regular clothes while you think more about the situation. You own Weiss and Ruby, but do you own all of them? How far can you push things? What exactly does it mean to own a person? Will they treat you like their master? Slavery is illegal in most parts of Remnant, so will you get in trouble if they show your writing to the wrong person? What would happen if the writing washed off or disappeared somehow?

How far could you push things? Will they treat you like their master? As your mind backtracked to that question, you were assaulted by images. Ruby giving you a handjob. Weiss on all fours while you railed her. Pyrrha locked in a deep, passionate make-out session with you. Yang wrapping her legs around you as you plow her into the bed.

Shaking yourself from the daydreams before you pop another boner, you finish dressing yourself and take notice of the time.

Shit! Breakfast is almost over!

Not wanting to do whatever Beacon has you do during orientation on an empty stomach, you leave at a light jog's pace and attempt to rejoin Weiss. You expect to see her again as you leave, but instead you literally run into Ruby, knocking the two of you to the floor with an "Oomph" and knocking Crescent Rose out of her hands.

"Oh no! Sorry, Jaune!" Ruby says as she gets off the floor first to fluster her way towards 'your' weapon, "I didn't mean to drop your weapon! Please don't be mad at me!"

"It's alright," you respond, "I know it was just an accident. I should've watched where I was going." Her face flushed in embarrassment.

As you get back to your feet, you notice the two instances of your handwriting that still remained: on Ruby's weapon and on Ruby's hand. You take notice of how empty this part of the school is, most likely due to everyone eating right now, and realize that, despite your hunger, this is a golden opportunity to answer a few of your questions, even if not all of them.

"Hey Ruby, what am I to you?"

"Huh? You're my owner." She lifted her hand just as Weiss did, confirming that she also saw the writing on her own hand. "You're also my friend."

"Right, so I'm gonna ask you a few questions and they might sound weird or odd, but I want you to just answer them honestly without pointing out how weird they are. Is that okay?"

"Sure it's okay! I mean, you own me, so I would've done so anyway if you really wanted to." Ruby's simple and earnest smile filled your heart with a small amount of guilt over owning her.

"Okay, so, why do I own you?" You pull a small notebook out of your pocket that you bought sometime between the headmaster's speech and the group slumber party. You figured it'd be smart to write down everything you find out about that marker and its limits.

"Because your name is on me." Ruby's guilt-causing smile stayed firm on her face.

"And how long have I owned you?"

"You've always owned me, even before I knew you."

You wrote that down in the notebook: Memories are rewritten so the ownership has always been the case. If someone doesn't know who owns something previously, then they learn once they see your name. "What can I do as your owner?"

"Well, you can do pretty much anything you want, within reason and within the law. What I think or want doesn't really matter. If what you want is different from my desires, then oh well! That's life." The guilt in your heart seemed to have strengthened in size.

"Is it illegal for me to own you?"

"Not at all. I'm just a possession, same as that." She points at your notebook as you write in it: Owning people via the marker does not count as slavery per the law. They are possessions, not slaves.

"And I own all of you?"

Ruby quirked her head. "What do you mean?"

"Do I own this?" You touch her arm.

"My arm is a part of me, so yes."

"What about this?" You firmly, yet gently, hold her shoulder.

"Yes, that too."

"And this?" You run your hand through her hair. "I can do whatever I want with this?"

"Yeppers!"

Okay, time for something bigger. Something more definitive and undeniable. "And what about this?"

You put your hand on her chest. From over the top of her dress and past her bra, you can kinda feel her left boob.

"O-oh, well...yes, I suppose you do," Ruby said as her face turned an amusingly deeper shade of red than it did previously, "B-but public decency laws still exist, and it's really embarrassing anyway, so maybe you should stop before someone catches us?"

"Right, right." You remove your hand from her body as a blush crawls upon your face as well. "What if I said that you hated...I dunno...strawberries? Would you hate them?"

Ruby looked shocked at your question and it took some effort on her part to do what you said and not point out how weird it was. "No, as my owner, you can tell me what to do, but you can't change my mind. Strawberries would still be my favorite snack." She looked down at her shoes; the smile faded from her face. "Did... Did you want me to stop eating them?"

Your heart sank at that reaction. "Nonono, you can still eat them. It was just a question with a random example." You jot that down: Owning someone means you control their body, but not their mind. Underneath that, you add: People are still themselves while owned. Wait, can you own someone's mind if you specify that? Something to think about for later when you test if you can own parts of things. "How do you feel about being owned by me?"

The smile returned to her face, albeit smaller than before. "Well, you've been good to me so far, and there are lots of people that I'm sure would be just awful to me, so I don't have any complaints!" As Ruby continued to beam while praising you for being a decent person, the guilt in your heart started to fade a little. Yeah, you were still a good person. It doesn't matter if you owned these people; you could still be kind to them. You could be responsible and not abuse your power over them. You could be a good master and allow them to still be their own people outside of you. You snapped out of your thoughts right as Ruby was almost finished talking, her smile returned to its full glory. "-And you even let me borrow your weapon! Thanks again for that. I promise to make you proud."

Oh yeah, you did that. Now was as good of a time as any to both fix that and test what would happen if you erased your name. "Hey Ruby, could I see Crescent Rose for a second?" At Ruby's scared/disheartened expression, you quickly continued talking while putting the notebook back in your pocket. "You aren't in trouble and I'm not taking it back, I just wanna see it again while I ask you a few more questions." Ruby sighed in relief before putting the weapon in your hands.

You turned it over until you found the spot where you wrote your name on it. "Whose weapon is this?"

"Yours, Jaune."

"Did you make it?"

"No, I didn't."

Satisfied with those answers, you rubbed your name off with your sleeve, making sure Ruby couldn't see you do it. "Alright, to repeat myself, whose weapon is this?"

"It's mine." Ruby had a changed look in her eye. She wasn't making a fuss over you holding what was her weapon again, but she clearly wanted to, only stopped by how you were still her owner, even if her weapon wasn't.

"Did you make it?"

"Yes, I did!" Ruby had her hands on her hips, looking exceptionally proud of herself and proud of her craftsmanship.

"Was this ever mine?"

"...No, I don't think you've ever owned my baby."

Satisfied with the new answers, you shifted the compacted scythe in your arms to take the marker out of your other pocket. You carefully took off the cap and began writing your name back on it.

"Wait, what are you doing?" There was concern in her eyes as she watched you write on her weapon, even if she couldn't see what you were writing yet. The only reason she didn't take it out of your hands and stop you was because writing on it was clearly what you wanted to do.

Once you were finished, you put the cap back on the marker and stuffed it back in its pocket. You flipped Crescent Rose around and watched as Ruby's concern faded away as soon as she saw your name. Once you asked the same questions again and got the same answers as the first time, alongside a new question on whether you ever removed your name from the weapon or not (she said that your name was always there and never removed), you flipped it again, wiped off the writing, and handed it back to Ruby. "It really is a nice weapon. And thanks for humoring me with those questions."

She practically hugged the weapon once it was back in her arms, paternal love in her eyes. "Yeah, it is pretty great, isn't it?" She returned her gaze back to you as it reset to its usual amount of joy. "And you're welcome. You do own me, so if you wanted to ask more questions, just say so."

The amount of guilt in your heart didn't increase at the reminder of your ownership over another person.

You take the notebook out of its pocket and wrote down your new findings: Erasing your name undoes your ownership and erases the memory that you ever owned in the first place. Under that, you add: Your name needs to be seen for the ownership to take place, but sight is not necessary for the effect to go away if the name is removed.

Okay, so as soon as you can, you should perform another experiment to see if it's just this marker or if the magic ownership thing can work with anything your name is written with. In the meantime...

"Ruby, from now on, you need to be extra careful with my name," you say while pointing to her hand, "No matter what, you need to avoid washing that off. And if you see Weiss before I do, tell her the same thing."

She gives you a salute. "Yes, sir! I'll be sure to keep this nice and safe!"

You nod to her and begin to put the notebook away. As you do, an announcement carrying Professor Goodwitch's voice plays over the intercom.

"Would all first-year students please report to Beacon Cliff for initiation. Again, all first-year students report to Beacon Cliff immediately," she says. Two seconds after it ends, your stomach growls.

"Aww man..." you bemoan, "I don't suppose you have something I can eat before we get started, do you?"

Ruby giggles and, using her semblance, leaves and comes back with a cooked, dry waffle. "Here you go!"

You sigh as you take the waffle. It was better than nothing, you guess. "Thanks, Ruby."

"No problem! See you there!" She whizzes off, leaving you alone with your thoughts and findings once again.

As you headed towards the locker rooms to get Crocea Mors, you run into Pyrrha and Weiss.

"Hey guys," you greet them with a wave.

"Hello!" Pyrrha greeted back with a wave of her own.

"...I see that you're finally dressed," Weiss said, "but I don't think I saw you at breakfast. I hope that doesn't affect your performance. The last thing I'd want is for my owner to fall behind all because he failed to feed himself."

"Owner?" Pyrrha said with wide eyes and a blush on her face. Her mind wandered with potential ideas of roleplay and their familiarity with each other until her eyes passed by Weiss' hand and saw the writing. "Oh, you have his name on you. That makes sense." Her blush faded as she realized there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Weiss returned her gaze to the Mistral girl. "So like I was saying, I heard that teams will be formed soon. Have you given any thought to who's team you'd like to be on? I'm sure anyone would be eager to have someone like you on their team."

"I'm not sure. I was planning on letting the chips fall where they may."

"I don't understand. Is she famous or something?" Jaune said.

Weiss gave her owner a level stare of disbelief. "You're kidding, right? This is Pyrrha Nikos."

"Hello again!"

You gave Weiss a blank stare.

"She graduated top of her class in Sanctum."

The blank stare continues. In the background, completely unnoticed, is Pyrrha growing a smile at the situation.

"She won the Mistal regional tournament four years in a row. A new record!"

The blank stare is endless...

"...She’s on the front of over Pumpkin Pete’s Marshmallow Flakes box!" Weiss said, exasperated.

The stare finally ended as you gave a deep gasp! "That was you!? But they only do that for star athletes and cartoon characters!"

Pyrrha's smile remained on her face, albeit lessened by the over-the-top reaction to the cereal box thing. "Yeah... Unfortunately, the cereal isn't very good, though."

"So yes, she is, in fact, 'Famous or something'," Weiss snarked.

"Well, I would love to be on a team with you two lovely ladies," Jaune said.

"...I'll see what I can do," Weiss said as she walked away, confident that her owner would find a way to make that happen for them. After all, he was her owner.

"Oh, that sounds delightful," Pyrrha said after Weiss was gone, "I just hope things work out that way. I'm a little nervous, admittedly."

...An idea passes through your head. "I have this silly little trick from where I'm from that usually helps with nerves. If you'd like, I can do it for you."

"Will it take too much time?" Pyrrha asked.

"Not at all," you said as you reached into the marker's pocket and took off the cap.

"You're not gonna write something embarrassing on me, are you?" Pyrrha said warily.

You put your free hand on her shoulder. "You have my word that I won't do anything silly to you. And an Arc never goes back on his word."

She stifles a giggle before relaxing. "Alright, if you say so. What do I do?"

"Just hold out your arm and close your eyes." She did what you said. Soon after, you got to work writing something down on her arm.

"Okay, you can open your eyes now," you say to Pyrrha.

Not too long after, she looks down at her arm and sees your writing.

Jaune Arc's Doubts

"...Why did you write down something I already know?" she asked, cocking her head slightly before suddenly jumping into an earnest apology, "Oh, is this part of the trick? I'm sorry, Jaune. I didn't know."

"It's alright, Pyrrha," you say as you put your hands up in front of you in a placating manner, "But now that I've done that, there's something I have to tell you."

"Yes?"

"You no longer have any doubts about the teams. You have faith that, be it from your own efforts, someone else's, or just plain ol' fate and luck, you'll end up on a team with people you can work well with."

You watch as Pyrrha visibly relaxes, her shoulders untensing and her face glowing a little more. "Thanks. I appreciate you using your ownership like that to ease my concerns."

You sheepishly laugh while scratching the back of your head. At the same time, you make a mental note to yourself to add those new findings to your notebook later: You can own parts of things rather than just the whole and you can manipulate people's minds by specifically owning that part of them.

It was a bit of a reach, given that you hadn't tested out either of those things separately before, but since it worked out, you're glad that you were able to do some good like that. See, you really weren't bad for using this power on people!

"Oh! I gotta go get my weapon," you said, remembering why you were in this general area and lightly jogging off, "I'll see you later, okay?"

Pyrrha smiled and waved you off, her chest warming a little more at the thought of you.

As you make your way to the cliffs, you notice that everyone else seems to be there already. Despite being the last to arrive, you must've still been on time, as Professors Ozpin and Goodwitch didn't comment on your timing. Instead, he immediately began another speech. You only half-paid attention to it as thinking more about that marker and what you could do with it seemed much more appealing at the moment. Once you half-heard him say something about teammates, you chose that moment to finally give him your full attention.

"-That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years."

"What?" You and Ruby cried out next to each other.

"After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path... or you will die," Ozpin continued, "You will be monitored and graded through the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. We will regard that item, as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately."

This was not good... You still needed to find someone who could train with you and help you build up your skill! How could you do that if you die during initiation!?

"Are there any questions?" Ozpin asked.

You needed to calm down. Maybe you can survive this if you focus on other things. "Yes, I've got a question," you said as you raised a hand.

"Good. Now take your positions," he says to the entire group.

In your need to ask questions, you miss seeing how everyone beside you was being springboarded into the air. "So, this landing strategy thing... Uh, what is it? You're, like, dropping us off or something?"

"No. You will be falling."

"I see... Did you hand out parachutes? Because I don't think I got one."

“No. You will be using your own landing strategy.”

Before you could ask what a landing strategy was, you were suddenly flying in the sky, screaming all the while.

As the arc of your trajectory started to send you back towards the ground, your mind started racing and thinking several things at once: A general replay of your life thus far. How you should've trained more. How you shouldn't've lied your way in here and faked your transcripts. How you should've had more breakfast if it was going to be your last meal.

How you were gonna die a virgin because you couldn't work up the nerve to do more than almost see and almost touch Weiss and Ruby's breasts respectively or do anything with Pyrrha, even with the advantage given to you by that magic marker.

You regretted spending too much time testing and planning and scheming, but not enough time doing. You swore to yourself, as well as the gods, that if you somehow survived this, you'd do better. You'll take more chances and be more willing to actually do stuff, both in regards to your newfound ownership abilities and life in general. You'll find someone to train with and improve yourself until faking those transcripts becomes wasted time and effort. You'll take better advantage of your control over Weiss and Ruby and maybe even have some more fun with more people.

But first, you need to not die in a forest!