Chapter Text
In a corner booth at a dingy bar, a young man sat nursing a bottle of beer, thinking over the mistakes that led him here.
On the table in front of him sat a piece of paper, an officious letter that someone had taken care to couch in the vaguest of terms. It could have been for a college, a job, or a loan to anyone that happened to glance at the note. The lack of details drew all attention to one word.
Denied.
Jaune Arc (17-years-old, natural blond, currently regretting everything) cast a tired gaze around the bar, and heaved a sigh. It was the start of Friday night, and he was already done.
"I am sorry, Mr. Arc, but you are not what we're looking for."
"Say it again, why don't you?" he told his memories, raising the bottle of beer mockingly in a toast.
-o-
The meeting room was well-lit, and took up most of this floor. They had cleared it of furniture except for a table and a few chairs, leaving plenty of space for a person to strut their stuff. If they had any.
Jaune sat on a metal folding chair, head hanging low, humiliation written clear across his face.
Two people regarded him from behind the table with wildly diverging expressions. The man who had at first seemed kind carried a dismissive air, his eyes looking past Jaune as if he was not really there, an insignificant speck whose worth had already been judged on the scales. Meanwhile, the woman who had first seemed harsh leveled at him a piercing stare before exhaling her breath, angered but not unsympathetic. A glance at her colleague, and she spoke.
"I am sorry, Mr. Arc, but you are not what we're looking for."
-o-
Jaune's face hit the bar table.
"That wasn't a request, I didn't want to remembe-e-eeer!" he sobbed into the wooden surface.
But, well, how could he forget? It was not everyday that your dreams crashed and burned.
Years, years, of watching the sky, like all the other kids out there. Years of plotting and planning on how he was going to do it.
Of becoming a superhero.
And yet… Why did he have to be too dumb to build a 'radiation-rich' Power Activation Chamber, and too smart to jump into a 'radiation-rich' pile of nuclear waste? Which lightning bolt would grant superpowers, and which would just kill a person dead? How many centuries of backbreaking construction work would it take a regular blue-collar worker to afford that newly-unearthed magical grimoire going on auction at millions of Lien? For the dreaming fools of Remnant, the path to that grandest of endeavors was often an impossible road.
The answer Jaune had arrived at consisted of years following his father's training, followed by failing the test to enter the not-so-secret secret curriculum for aspiring superheroes because, oh, his efforts ended up not giving him any powers. A happy life, but no powers.
Sooo, yeah, he had not really thought that one through.
His backup plan at that point centered around a set of fake power analysis documents, submitted to the Beacon Program in the thinking that he can then awaken a superpower during his time there by… osmosis or something. Compared to his last attempt, it had been working out pretty well as he made it to the very final step before admission. Which turned out to not be the interview this morning, but the surprise request they sprung on him after the culmination of that meeting.
To demonstrate his abilities. That he did not actually have.
Yeah, he really, really had not thought that one through, and counted himself lucky that the scary woman from the interview saw it as just a part of her job to turn down people like him rather than, say, bring punishment into it. (The man working with her held no such compunctions, until she talked him down.)
The third plan, concocted about two hours ago, involved him sitting in a corner booth at a bar, nursing a beer and feeling sorry for himself. Barring a few hiccups, that one was going swimmingly!
He would not call the bar nice. Nobody would call the bar nice, a sentiment shared among the half dozen patrons present at the moment despite them deciding to spend their evening here. The problem was, he had too little experience to tell what a good bar looked like from the outside, and once he entered it had seemed a bit awkward to leave. You know, letting the cold late autumn wind in but then walking out without putting down a single Lien, that sort of dick move. (Man, did he wish he had done exactly that.)
The place sported a worn down, scuffed up look that suggested the owner skimped on the upkeep for a few years. Said owner matched the state of his bar, and had been wiping the same glass with a rag for the past half hour while displaying an expression so perpetually vacant that one might suspect him long dead inside. Jaune would glance at him from time to time, and shiver at the niggling thought that one day he would wear an identical face, standing behind a different counter, whether in a bar or a supermarket or what have you.
As for the beer, it was… okay. Not great, just okay. Cold. Did the job. Came in a bottle. Multiplies.
(He remembered ordering the second, but not the third or the fourth. Hence, they must be multiplying. He could not possibly be a lightweight that got drunk off of two beers.)
Not the typical destination on a Friday night, in short. Not even for someone in the mood to wallow and despair.
Good entertainment, though. The TV mounted in the corner opposite his booth was playing an old recording of what many people considered the best Vytality championship match in the tournament's thirty-year-long history. Just that alone might keep him here all night.
A pretty girl sat down at his table, looking him dead in the eye.
…Okay, add one more reason to the list.
"Hi?" he said, suavely. She sure smiled like he did, anyway. "Can I help you?"
The girl giggled, and said, "Hey there, sorry if I'm being too forward barging in like this." She brushed back her hair, an interesting shade of green, behind an ear. "I saw you sitting alone, and thought you could use some company. You don't mind, do you?"
He shrugged—again, suavely.
"Great!" She scooted further into the booth, making herself comfortable.
Around that point, Jaune's drunk butt—ahem, his tipsy yet still razor sharp wits caught up to events, and it shouted for him to put his sour mood aside and focus on this matter of extreme import. Heeding it, he straightened his posture, striving to present the image of one who may not only hope for, but expect, such fine company. It seemed to work, because the girl giggled again.
"So, what do I call you, handsome?" she asked.
He resisted the urge to tell her that 'handsome' was more than fine with him. "Jaune. Nice to meet you."
"Hmmm, short and sweet. I like it." She looked him up and down. In his head, Jaune was cheering. "Mine's Esmeralda."
Here, he saw a chance to return the compliment, and seized on it.
"You have a beautiful name, Esmeralda." He searched for the best way to keep the conversation going, and held up his bottle. "Beer?"
She perked up. "Aw, that's so sweet of you to offer. Sure, I'll take one!"
Nailed it.
Jaune waved to the bartender. It took a while, as the vacant man was so preoccupied with staring into empty air, but soon Esmeralda had a beer placed in front of her along with a mug, with another one for himself. She did not bother pouring it, instead just raising the bottle at Jaune in a toast. A clink of glass, and they both took a long draught of their drinks.
Afterward, her smile faded somewhat. She placed the bottle down on a coaster, and leaned forward. "I saw you at that interview."
Jaune nearly spat up his drink.
"W-What interview?" His eyes darted to the doors. They had said the process was secure. That nobody would notice him or follow him or gut him like a fish on the assumption that he was a future superhero.
"The one for the social work track? For Beacon University?"
His thundering heartbeat began to slow as Jaune recalled the alibi he was provided. "Ah. Social work. Yes, that's what I wanted to transfer in for."
In the beginning, he had questioned the risks of a face-to-face meeting in broad daylight for a superhero program, but maybe Beacon did know what they were doing, after all. Mix truths among the lies, and it was business as usual in the big city. In hindsight, a clandestine encounter at midnight would have aroused much more suspicion.
"Right…" Esmeralda nodded along. "Hey, so, you came out of that looking pretty down. You doing okay?"
Dark thoughts resurfaced at the reminder of his no-good day, putting a damper to his burgeoning spirits. Jaune flicked his gaze to the side, then back to Esmeralda. He mustered his best grin.
"Yeah. Yeah, I am. Life's like this, sometimes. Don't they say, 'It is what it is'?"
Something on his face gave his real thoughts away. Esmeralda reached across the table and patted his hand, the one still holding his beer.
Huh. It was empty. He downed that in no time flat.
Also, and probably more important, this had got to be the sweetest girl he met here in Mountain Glenn. The warmth of her hand conveyed her heartfelt sympathy, to the point that he could have cried. She was sad, because he was sad, and for that she seemed all the more beautiful in his eyes.
Understanding came to Jaune in a flash.
He had been correct the first time, hadn't he? Esmeralda knew the real subject that was discussed at his interview.
"Were you also hoping to 'transfer'?"
She hesitated for a beat, then nodded. "Every round, there's always a few people who are drummed out at this stage. The program uses these interviews as a chance to confirm certain red flags." She squeezed down softly on his hand, prompting him to stop glancing elsewhere and look at her straight on. Blue eyes found mesmerizing red. "Usually, a lack of actual powers."
Jaune flinched. Under her steady gaze, he braced for laughter. For mockery. A roll of the eye. Something that said he was an idiot to even try.
Yet, there were none. From her, he found a simple acceptance. She looked as if she understood him. And maybe, she did?
"I'm the same," she confirmed without him needing to ask.
An unbidden laugh sprang to his lips. It became outright guffaws as he saw that she, too, let slip her mirth. He could not help it. What were the odds?
Perhaps higher than he imagined. Everyone wished for a chance.
"In that case, you're welcome to join my pity party, Esmeralda." Jaune said with a grand wave at the bar, followed by a bitter chuckle. "We can drink until we forget our troubles." He paused. "Or is it until our troubles forget us? Eh, whichever hits first."
Here, her smile grew a touch uncertain. The girl seemed to wrestle with a decision. In the end, she shook her head.
"Actually, I don't think I will. And you know, you shouldn't either."
Jaune blithely replied, "Yes, well, I think I deserve this one." Both the shame, for his failure, and the drink, for his hurt. At the core, it was all his fault that events came to this. "And the one after it. And the one after that. And… Bartender! Bring me another!"
Esmeralda waved the bartender off. "No, no, he's good." She turned back to him, and when she spoke her voice carried a new inflection, a hard note of insistence. "You don't deserve this."
Jaune wanted to praise her for getting it. A pity party was all about convincing themselves that it was the world in the wrong. The alcohol would have better helped matters along, but they could work on that in the hours ahead.
However, he then paused, because the expression she was giving him did not convey the expected sense of defeat. If he had to put a word to it, she instead looked… anticipating.
"You deserve to be in Beacon."
He opened his mouth to respond. She preempted him.
"And I know how to get you there. I know a way to get powers. I just need one more person for the job."
He shut his mouth. Esmeralda took that as confirmation to lay out her proposal.
It sounded unbelievable, and ill-advised. More than once, he considered mentioning to her how it was too unsavory for his taste. Sure, he already committed one crime in pursuit of his dream, but this felt like a big step further along that road.
Yet, during the discussion that followed, Jaune would sometimes find his eyes flitting to the TV behind her, and the match playing on the screen.
"Things are not looking good for our champ. If I'm right, one mistake will decide the match. AND THERE IT IS! She just gave Cyber Warden his best opening, and he seized it to unleash his strongest attack, the I.R.O.N Beam! This could very well spell the end—"
"Hang on, she isn't evading it! In fact, she's heading TOWARD the blast!"
"..."
"..."
"Is—I don't—How—"
"She's… She's running on it. Oh my word, are you seeing this, viewers!? She's running on the laser beam! Around and around she goes, rising ever closer to Cyber Warden!"
"She never displayed this aspect of her power before! She would have used it earlier, otherwise! Did it evolve during the match!?"
"I don't know, and it looks like Cyber Warden didn't either, because the road he paved for her is still going strong! The excess energy isn't venting fast enough!"
"Is it? Could it be? YES! Down goes Atlas's great defender in a knockout blow! The reigning champion has done it again! People of Remnant! I give you, the winner of the Vytality World Tournament, for the fourth year in a row, Suuuuuummer!"
If nothing else, this bar showed good taste in entertainment.
The 23rd Vytality, that timeless season. The Last Dance of Summer. Just a week later, she would vanish from the face of Remnant, leaving behind the world she saved.
He made Beacon his goal because of her. She credited that place for turning her from a nobody into a hero.
But the Beacon Program would only ever take him if he had superpowers.
-o-
Jaune hurried down the alley that Esmeralda told him they'd meet at, turning every so often to check behind him.
Logically speaking, nobody should be coming after him, but there lingered a persistent sense of paranoia that someone will discover his intentions, plucking it out of his mind for the express purpose of screwing him over. He would not put it past the world to spring that on him out of left field, probably with another scary blonde lady to deliver the blow. The fact that he was only a few blocks from the Beacon campus and the office building where he attended his interview did not help to soothe his nerves.
He swung around the corner, and spied a group of people waiting at the far end, under a flickering lamp. Esmeralda and her friends, or maybe her crew was a better term. They were not here for a picnic, not looking like that.
All three wore simple, nondescript clothes intended to cover everything but their faces. Dark pants, dark hoodies—the same outfit Esmeralda suggested he got for himself. She was the only person with her hood down. The stocky one carried with him a toolkit full of fiddly little instruments that Jaune very much doubted a plumber or a handyman used in their line of work. The other guy, taller and skinnier, held nothing but a simple lead pipe, and the way he brandished it upon spotting movement in the dark alley said enough of its, and his, purpose.
Jaune raised his hands in a placating gesture, and walked forward at a slow pace so as to not startle them further.
"Esmeralda, it's me!" he called out as he emerged from the gloom. A beaming smile bloomed on Esmeralda's face.
"Jaune, you made it."
The other two began snickering, prompting her to spin around and smack their shoulders.
"Don't mind them," she said, turning back to him. "They have a thousand in-jokes that nobody understands, but they know when to be professional. Right, guys?"
The skinny one strode forward, lead pipe cradled on a shoulder. "Yuuup. That's us." He put out his hand. "Professionals with a capital P."
Jaune reached out to shake the hand, whiffing air as the other boy pulled it back.
"Whoops!" the boy said, pretending to smooth his hair despite the jacket's hood in the way. He then cracked up, as did his stocky friend, their boisterous mocking laughs bouncing off the alley walls.
Esmeralda slapped a hand over her face, meaning she did not see the surge of indignation that washed over Jaune, accompanied by a hot, seething pressure that collected at the front of his head, right above the eyes. The hand he was still holding out twitched into a fist… and released just as fast, hopefully passing beneath notice as he did his best to stamp down on his feelings. By the time Esmeralda looked up, he was all smiles again.
He was the new guy, the one with the most tenuous position. What did it matter, that he fell for the joke? People at his school pulled that same trick on each other all the time, and even he was guilty of it until he outgrew the juvenile prank. But get mad now, and these three might decide to kick him off the job.
Not going to happen. Within the lab they were casing might lie the answer to his dreams, and if getting there involved playing nice with Esmeralda's crew, then he'd do what it took.
Not to mention, Esmeralda helped him when he was down on his luck. He was not going to pay back that debt he owed her by wrecking the plan.
So, he pasted on a cheery mien. "Are we ready to go, guys?"
Esmeralda perked up, latching onto the unstated offer to get things back on track. Rushing over, she grabbed his hand, vigorously shaking it up and down. "We are, and thanks for coming, Jaune—We're glad to have you here!"
She shot a dirty look at her other companions, who managed to appear somewhat contrite. Well, the stocky guy did. Tall-and-Skinny tried, but he failed to hide a brief scowl; his displeasure deepened as Esmeralda remained beside Jaune.
"Happy to be of service," Jaune said.
"All business. I like that," Esmeralda winked. "It's not far. The place is on Winter Rain Boulevard. Big, white building that you can't miss." She turned to the others, and sharply clapped her hands together. "Alright, bozos, let's get moving. Opportunity doesn't wait forever."
They set off at a brisk pace, with Jaune taking his cue from Esmeralda and her friends. The trio seemed used to the process, and very familiar with the layout of the neighborhood as they stuck to the back alleys, empty duffel bags tucked beneath their jackets.
Soon, they emerged onto a wider street.
"So that's it, huh?" Jaune said as they huddled at the alley's mouth, peeking around the corner into Winter Rain Boulevard. A little ways down, and on the other side of the street, lay their destination. "I gotta say, it's a bit underwhelming."
One would think that a lab researching cutting edge science, and superpowers in particular, would look more impressive. Instead, what stood before them was an office building on a street full of office buildings.
"Pft. What a noob." The skinny guy sneered, until Esmeralda smacked him on the shoulder again.
She turned to Jaune, and explained, "That's kinda the point. When you're in that game, it takes serious money to protect your research from espionage. The big players can spring for private military companies or even heroes—"
"Or villains," the stocky one chimed in.
"—yeah, or villains, depending. I hear it's a good gig. Pays well, since the labs are also buying the trust that those guys won't steal what they're guarding. As you can imagine, the bills add up fast, and for the ones that either can't afford it or want to cut costs, they do something like this. Boring, nondescript locations that blend in with everybody else, with anonymity their security. No name, no fame."
With such revelations, Jaune studied at the white building again, seeing it and the would-be heist in a different light. Less the fortress full of armed goons that he had imagined, and more… the chance of a lifetime.
"Hot damn," he said.
"Hot damn, indeed," agreed Esmeralda. "Come on, then. Time's wasting. Everybody get your masks. Jaune, here's yours." Pulling two strips of cloth from her hoodie's pocket, she passed one to him.
Jaune looked down at the bandana in his hand, a bright yellow thing that stood out in the night. Unfurling it revealed a smiley face, which would place right above his own mouth after he put it on.
"Was the store out of stock or something?" he muttered.
Esmeralda cocked her head, a green veil now covering everything below the eye. "Is there a problem?"
I'm going to look ridiculous. Jaune smiled the same vapid smile. "Not at all."
The cloth went over his face, the two ends tying together. As expected, the stocky guy who now wore a fanged bandana and the skinny guy with a skull bandana greeted him with full-blown laughter once he was done. Esmeralda seemed to have given up on stopping them, simply waiting on the sideline with her arms crossed.
"Thanks for the mask, Esmeralda," he said to her.
She chuckled. "You are very welcome, Jaune. Although, no names from this point forward. It's now Fang"—she pointed at the stocky guy—"Skull"—skinny guy—"and… Smiley, I suppose."
Of course it was. He rolled his eyes. "And you?"
"Call me Gem," she said with another wink.
Thus concealed, the four of them strolled across the street, acting nonchalant. Just a few teenagers out and about after dark, by definition up to no good but the sort that people tolerated. The act dropped once they hit the next alley, with them skulking in the shadows until they turned down a path that put them on a straight shot to the back of the white building.
The crew had scoped out the exterior some days earlier, and marked out the cameras. Esmeralda, with him boosting her up, fiddled with them tonight, gumming up the mechanisms to reduce their range of movement. A path opened up in the cameras' blindspots that they scurried single-file across.
Fang handled the next task, targeting not the rear entrance but one of the windows. Out came a paper-thin strip of metal, a tool which turned out stronger than its appearance suggested as the stocky boy used it to shimmy a gap. That created the space he needed to insert a thin, delicate hook with which he freed the latch. The window slid open with a soft whisper.
"Easy peasy," Fang bragged.
Esmeralda passed by him to climb inside. "Yeah, yeah," she said over her shoulder. "We're so impressed. Like we were the last two dozen times you did the same exact thing."
"It's not my fault people are stupid. If these builders would stop springing for cheap windows, I'd have more chances to break out my other tools."
Jaune swore to push for a remodel of his family's house the next time he dropped by, whenever that may be.
He was the last to enter the building, his entrance smooth albeit less quiet compared to the rest of them. In his defense, his life before today did not often call for skulkings, schemings, and other skullduggeries in the night. Landing on an ugly, mustard-yellow carpet, he rolled to his feet and got his first look at a secret lab.
Any interest drained away at record speed. That carpet was the best feature of the narrow hallway. With a squat ceiling and plain off-white walls, this place never saw an interior designer, that was for sure.
Or perhaps it did, but of a different sort. Boredom was the goal.
The doors along the hall opened to cramped and nondescript offices, some neat and tidy, others a pig sty of papers. It looked normal. It looked simple.
Until they reached the third floor, and found the janitor's closet.
Behind it was no closet.
"Jackpot!" Esmeralda cheered as she rushed into the room. Jaune and the rest were not far behind.
The windowless space must have taken up half of the entire third story, fitted behind the unreasonably narrow offices and hallways to deter prying eyes. Each of the four walls had an exit, which no doubt led through doors as equally mislabeled as the one they just entered. Lab stations lined the area in rows, the biggest of them occupying the far wall where glowing fluids bubbled and sparked within large glass tanks. Esmeralda made a beeline for that side, scrambling for vials so she could take samples. Jaune joined her there a short while later, head on a swivel as he marveled at the things on display around the room, from wooden staves embedded with Dust crystals to futuristic gadgets crackling with energy.
"This is the stuff you were talking about?" he said, peering into the tank.
Face cast in the low blue light of the fluid, Esmeralda nodded. "From my sources, yeah."
The tank contained a power serum, supposedly. Designed by its makers to grant as-yet-unknown abilities to people who ingested the liquid. The holy grail, as the magical crowd would put it, for the scientific side of superpower research. The key to his dreams. With it, he could become a superhero.
Something had gone right today.
Greed the likes of which he had never known gripped his heart, and he snatched up a beaker from the table, intending to 'borrow' some of the serum for himself. Since the lab had so much of it, nobody would miss a sip, right?
Esmeralda placed her hand over his, pushing the beaker down and leaning in close to whisper, "Don't drink it, not yet. I'm delivering this to my contact, and they'll go over the formula with a fine-toothed comb before they let us take some."
He hesitated, thinking about it.
"Makes sense, I guess. Wouldn't want our brains dribbling out of our ears."
"Exactly. And hey, I'm good on my own here. If you can, go and check out the other lab stations. The more we bring back, the better our options."
Jaune sent a longing glance to the tank. "Alright. Gem, tanks for this. Really. It means a lot to me."
Beneath the gauzy veil, he spotted a soft grin.
"Same goes for me, Smiley. So glad you're here."
He left her, and made his way along the tables and benches.
The people working here had cast their nets wide, it seemed. One table held jars and cases of dissected animals that he felt ill looking at, the papers strewn about near incomprehensible to him with its scientific babble. The post-it notes and scribbles on the margin expressed great interest in harnessing the abilities of different species. Another lab bench focused on cybernetic augmentation, with wires and micro chips crisscrossing a prosthetic arm.
The different avenues of research nevertheless collected around a central concept. Power to the powerless*.
(*That had money.)
Skull and Fang cared nothing for such high-brow concepts. They shoved him out of the way to ransack those lab stations for whatever would fit in their duffel bags. The room soon descended into chaos, with a good half of the research materials ending up on the floor, thrown about by the pair for the fun of it.
"Skull, check this out," Fang called out at a station that had its own drug press, holding up a bottle of bean-like pills. "Says here taking one can boost you up for ten minutes. That's twice as long as Rock, innit?"
"No shit? Let me see that." Skull hurried over to study the pills.
Jaune strolled by them, and offered a warning in passing, "Prototype means there are probably side effects, even worse ones than Rock." It also pointed to some very illicit work going on around these parts. From how he heard it, most people to use the berserker drug ended up dead one way or another.
"Screw off, butter boy," was Skull's eloquent reply.
"...It's going to make your penis small."
Oho, now they were worried.
With that parting shot, he moved on to the next table. Their company left much to be desired, and the lab had many other branches of research more palatable to him. Theories on leylines and lighting strikes, experiments on strange cubes of unknown make that were warm to the touch. He even stumbled on a medieval-looking suit of power armor in one corner, or the basic framework for one at least.
Everybody and their mother had struck on the concept of power armor, following the school of thought to propose substituting machines and computers where a mere human body was found wanting. Barring the geniuses, few succeeded. The technology just wasn't there.
With keen interest, he took off the helmet of the suit, peeking inside. Turning on a little switch located near the ear led to him breaking out in chuckles. The researcher of this project had managed to add LED lights to the visor. Clearly, the hard part was over.
Eh, he joked, but the glimpse into this hidden side of the world was doing him a lot of good so far. As he turned and turned the helmet in his hands, nebulous half-thoughts started to coalesce into ideas of how to proceed from here, what powers he wished to pursue. Temporary boosters would never fly for the Beacon Program, considered too dangerous. Technology was right out given the technical know-how involved with the endeavor, which no university on Remnant could teach him barring one place in Atlas that lived only in rumors.
His fingers drummed a beat on the helmet.
He needed something with staying power, that would not cut his lifespan in half. An ability that he could reasonably explain away to his family and to Beacon, if possible.
"Well, well, well. What does my little eye spy?"
Most preferably, a power that made him invisible and took effect right this second, because as he and everybody else whipped their heads toward the sound of the voice, they saw… a girl.
A girl with a wide grin and wild mane of hair set aflame. A girl wearing a mask.
A superhuman– No, a superhero.
Four throats gulped in harmony, with Jaune dearly regretting ever coming here.
She lit up the room, and he was not talking about the flaming hair singeing the doorway above her head. Her demeanor suggested a brash confidence he envied that practically commanded attention, seized it and forced it to cry uncle. She had on a tight outfit in white that accentuated her figure, the fabric for the legs and arms asymmetrical. The image of golden fire coiled up the longer side, then across her body and looping around her neck to end at a fiery emblem of a heart over her chest. A long scarf wrapped around her neck, the two ends somehow blowing behind her in a nonexistent breeze, set alight at the tips.
Smashing her fists together, she announced to the room, "The Mighty Dragon is in the hooouse!"
And Jaune Arc needed to get out of this hooouse.
Despite the cold sweat breaking out on his brow, the strange urge to applaud was near overwhelming. Life had taught him to cheer for a hero's arrival. It had not told him what to do if he found himself on the business end of their hostility.
No wait, it did. Jaune shifted the helmet he was still holding behind his back and strove to look innocent.
Mighty Dragon. He tried to place the name but nothing came up. It sounded unfamiliar to him, although that was par for the course given his recent arrival to Mountain Glenn. The flickering mask composed of fire covering her eyes did little to hide her youth, marking her as on the newer side for a superhero.
Oh sure, the world saw the occasional child hero (or villain) but they were always a rare phenomenon. Most tended to start in their late teens, at that magical point in a person's life where the idealism of a young adult coincided with the invincibility of a child.
Aaand none of this was helping him figure out what to do next. Jaune eyed his surroundings, searching the best way for him and the others to make their exit.
Meanwhile, Esmeralda groaned, "Just our luck. A frigging Beetee."
"Right in one," said Mighty Dragon, throwing finger guns. "How are y'all tonight? Thanks for coming out. Here I thought it was gonna be a boring patrol, and what do I find? Sneaky, sneaky thieves up to no good."
She must have spotted them entering the building, to follow them into this windowless room. Had laid in wait until they implicated themselves.
"Bold of you, breaking and entering around Beacon's turf," she continued.
With that, it hit him what Esmeralda meant by Beetee. BT. A Beacon Trainee.
Before he could think over the wisdom of it, a comment slipped out. "Aren't you also doing the same thing, going in here?"
The hero trainee turned toward him, and Jaune was ever so glad for the table between them. It hid the way his knees knocked together. A constant refrain of oh crap, oh crap, oh crap played inside his head.
She snorted in amusement. "The smiley-face is doing your cred no favor, man. Anyway, I'm a hero. We're supposed to stop crime."
"The law says different," his runaway mouth argued. Growing up where he did, he had picked up a few of the nuances on the subject. Trainees, sidekicks, whatever the preferred term, could patrol the streets. Entering a building? Ehhhh, better to have the supervision of an actual superhero. That was what the license was for, among other things.
A bracelet the hero was wearing chose that moment to light up. Jaune recognized the design, a communication device for jobs where using a scroll may be difficult. For example, hero work.
"Answer call," the hero trainee commanded, activating the bracelet by speech.
A voice that Jaune could have sworn he heard somewhere before spoke, "Mighty Dragon, solo pursuit is authorized. I am diverting backup to your location. Please proceed with caution."
Teeth glinted in the low light. "Understood, prof. Pursuing." The bracelet shut off, with her continuing, "And there we go." She took a step forward, and the four people in the room took a simultaneous step back, which she seemed to like. "I would tell you to surrender, but that'd just turn this into a chore, so do your best, okay? Make me work for it."
Without warning, a lead pipe whirled across the room, flying straight for her head. Mighty Dragon plucked it out of the air with casual ease, then, while keeping eye contact with Skull, slowly bent the pipe in half as the flames around her flared to a roaring bonfire.
They were all going to die.
With deliberate care, Jaune placed the helmet he was holding on his head, and prayed that it would let him survive a blow from what looked like a classic case of enhanced strength. He also flicked on the LED lights to further obscure his features.
"That was a pretty good shot," the hero trainee praised, and she took another step forward. Her hair floated around her as a halo of fire, giving her an ethereal air, almost hard to look at. "Could have gone better."
His mind racing, Jaune backed away from her as the others did. The gradual retreat brought him closer to the stocky Fang, and there a plan formed.
"Fang, listen," he murmured out of the corner of his mouth. "I remember you putting some of the animal specimens in your bag. Get them out and throw—"
He got no further. Two hands shoved him hard from the back at the same time that a foot hooked across his ankle, sending him forward. He slammed against a table, upending the contents. Glass equipment shattered as they hit the floor, sheets of paper flying every which way.
"Dude!" shouted the hero trainee somewhere beyond the table, with no small amount of outrage. "Not cool. Prof's gonna tear me a new one for the damages!" The room brightened as her flames surged.
Jaune paid her little mind. Groaning with his arms covering his head, he looked behind him to see the departing backs of Fang and Esmeralda. The boy had tripped him… leaving the girl as the one to push him.
An epiphany crept up on him with slow, inexorable certainty, the why of him being here. The reason for his inclusion in the heist. For Esmeralda to approach him in the bar.
They needed a fall guy.
He was not getting any powers.
…
…This moment? Right here, as he lay on the floor?
It felt like the culmination of everything wrong with today. The world was laughing at him, and it wouldn't stop. While drunk as a skunk, he had waved it off. Too morose, then later too mellow, to do otherwise. Without the fog of alcohol, he did not care to blame it on himself anymore, no matter how rightly the responsibility lay at his feet. No, he wanted to hit the world right back.
So, he said one thing as he surged upright.
"Think fast!"
-o-
The heavy glass instrument, big as a person's head and unbroken from its fall off the table, streaked across the room.
Did Jaune throw it at Mighty Dragon? Haha, no. The instrument hit Skull on the back of the head, the boy having been a beat slower than the rest of his team. He went down, crashing against a lab station to further wreck the place.
The suddenness of it stopped Mighty Dragon for a moment, a precious second where Jaune bolted for one of the exits. Grabbing the duffel bag in passing, he flung himself over a lab bench, sliding along the surface and knocking aside its contents. A prototype cybernetic arm soared above his head, thrown by the hero trainee and almost clocking him. He whistled in sympathy as it overshot and smashed into a serum tank, the glass breaking in a million pieces. By then, he was out the door.
Choices, choices. Who would she chase, the target heading out this exit or the two targets that left via the other exit. Esmeralda had intended him as a distraction. Well, let's see who made a better piece of bait now.
The door blasted off its hinges behind him.
She chose him ahhhh!
"You can run, but you can't hide! Not when The Mighty Dragon is on the case!"
He heard the capital T in that. Bold move. Heroes that named themselves with the 'The' had to work twice as hard to prove they deserved it.
Despite the shouting, The Mighty Dragon did not gain ground, her progress hampered due to lugging Skull along while trying to put a set of cuffs on him. Jaune took that as indication she did not have enhanced speed in her back pocket.
Too bad for her, then. If there was one thing Jaune prided himself on, it was his ability to run!
That sounded better in his head.
A turn at the corner, and his expression matched his mask. It had put him in the same hallway as Esmeralda and Fang, with them running toward him from the opposite direction. They very much did not enjoy the nasty surprise that was the sight of him, and liked the sudden appearance of The Mighty Dragon even less.
Laughter rang out behind him. The hero trainee sprinted with all her might, freed of the burden of Skull, no doubt trussed up like a turkey at the moment.
"You idiots make it so easy!" she shouted.
The staircase laid ahead, and on an unspoken signal the three thieves raced for it, each side trying to outpace the other. Unfortunately for Jaune, Esmeralda and Fang got there first, and they gave him jaunty waves as they descended the steps.
Changing tracks without missing a beat, Jaune ran right by the staircase to head along the hallway they just came from. His ears pricked up as he strove to listen for the sound of the hero trainee's footsteps.
And…
Aaaand…
He heard the hero stop. A quick look back gave him a glimpse of her jumping over the banisters, the long scarf trailing after her. Jaune's grin could have split his face. The bet paid off.
Because it had to make all the sense from the hero's point of view. The stairs slowed her prey down. There were two of them. And since they were on the third floor, where was Jaune going to go? He had to come down sooner or later.
He would, but not via the stairs.
Reaching the end of the hall, he smashed shoulder against a door and barreled into an office. It used to be tidy, with books on science subjects whose names confounded him stocking a shelf. Past the desk, the window beckoned him. It was one of those old single-hung frames, secured with a flimsy latch and when pulled up left plenty of space for a person to fit through. The cool night air hit him as he stuck his head out.
A look downward, and a thought occurred to him. It sure was high…
He shook off the hesitation. What would hurt more, broken bones or his family finding him in prison?
His traitorous mind raised the possibility of both happening to him, a double whammy of misfortune to ruin his life. He shoved it over the ledge first, followed by the duffel bag which hit the ground with a loud thud. Empty-headed and empty-handed, he planned the way forward.
The alley did not have a dumpster within jumping range, but he spied an AC unit strapped to the side of the building located about halfway down and a little to the side. It would take a fair amount of that gumption stuff for someone to try and jump over there. The sound of a crash elsewhere in the building provided him with the motivation to move.
He hit it with both feet. Success!
The whole unit ripped away the wall because, oh hey, it was never meant to hold that kind of weight. Failure!
The maneuver slowed his momentum, that was the important thing. Falling from the third story could have put him in the hospital. Two falls, each measuring one story plus a bit? Eminently survivable. Most people could walk that off.
The AC unit slammed against the ground with a resounding crash, then came Jaune's turn. He landed less gracefully than he would have wanted, taking the impact with his legs but missing the roll and so tipped like a tree to slap the concrete in a painful heap.
He laid there for a time, groaning. Once the pain subsided (and that it subsided at all was a pretty good indication he had not gotten injured in a major way), he dragged himself upright, hanging onto the nearby wall for support.
"I did it… I got away," he muttered to the empty air.
A deep breath, and the entire preceding series of events caught up to him. And oh, what a rush it had been.
"I can't believe that worked!" He punched a fist to the sky in celebration before turning to the building he just left. "See? If you traitors had stuck with me, you wouldn't be seeing a jail cell tonight! Serves you right, whoooo!"
With his mood on the upswing, he pushed off the wall and did a little hop in the air, clicking his heels together. The day had been horrible, but the night was turning around.
"Uh. Hi. I'm sorry, but… Oh gosh, I feel so bad about this, but you're under arrest."
The hesitant, slightly squeaky voice sliced through his good mood, and he turned toward it hoping against hope that he would find a random bystander waiting there. The sight of a mask doused that wishful bout of optimism.
It was more of a half-face visor covering from forehead to nose, and one that barely did its job—he could somewhat make out the silhouette of the face underneath. The girl stood at the mouth of the alley, fidgeting with the hems of the red hooded cape she wore. Dark hair fell down to her neck, red at the tips. Beside the cape, her costume consisted of a streamlined bodysuit in the same shade, the material thicker than that of The Mighty Dragon's outfit. Lines ran along the suit, like the surface of a circuit chip, with lights tracing back and forth to highlight the patterns.
The design practically screamed techie, the type that brought superscience to crime fighting (or to just crime). Jaune would have gushed about meeting one of those had he, again, not been standing in the wrong place for it. And been in a better state of mind.
A dozen possible replies popped up in his head. Most ran along the line of convincing the girl that all of this was a case of silly misunderstandings and they should go get late night smoothies or whatever it was city people do around this time. He shoved all of those choices aside in lieu of a simpler answer.
"No," he growled.
A pause ensued, one where he could just imagine the girl blinking in blank incomprehension. A beat later, she tilted her head to the side.
"N-No?" she called over.
"No," he confirmed. "This is my night. I'm making it my night. You're not going to ruin it."
She floundered, seeming to have overlooked this outcome. Jaune watched with a bemused air as the girl outright began pacing and talking to herself, her mumbles indistinct.
His eyes trailed downward. Skating, rather than pacing. Her boots ended in roller wheels.
Finally, the girl made a decision.
"Yeah, well, I'm still arresting you anyway," she proclaimed.
Jaune nodded, rueful but making no move to surrender. His eyes flitted around the alleyway.
"You can try, Beetee," he said to cement his fate, come what may.
The term fitted, in an odd way. It rolled off the tongue, easily spat out with a certain level of venom and derision.
Hearing his challenge firmed the Beetee's resolve. That said, her hands did not seem to know what to do, fumbling with the pouches on her belt in indecision before settling on an item. She pulled it apart to reveal a simple baton.
"That's the best you got?" he blurted out, a tad disappointed.
The comment struck a nerve.
"Hey!" the girl snapped. "I'm just starting out, okay!? The budget they gave me is tiny, and I did a pretty darn good job with it!" She gestured at her costume, notably showing off her high-tech boots with pride.
Thank you for the information, miss.
Those boots were her main focus, which told him a lot. Running would not be an option, for one. In all likelihood, this techie was a speedster. As for up top, well, the red cloak failed to bulk up her slight and weedy frame, or hide the lack of armor. A lopsided hero trainee, she was. Very bottom heavy.
He meant that in a tactical way, if that made sense. Otherwise, no comment.
Still, how was he to survive the next few seconds like this? Thinking fast, he bent down to pick up the duffel bag with one hand. A cushion could mean the difference if he was clotheslined at sonic speed.
The girl seemed to consider it a hostile act, and she shifted her stance in response. Her back straightened, and her hands planted on her hip to affect a confident demeanor.
Jaune suppressed the manly urge to squee, because oh wow, oh wow, she was doing that classic hero pose.
Then, the red cloak swished in a very familiar fashion as the girl swept out an arm, and his excitement shriveled in real time.
In a tone of utmost seriousness, the Beetee declared, "Beware, evildoer, and rue this day." She moved a hand over her heart. "For you face the hero, Autumn."
Silence befell the alleyway after her decree, soon punctuated by the sound of cracking knuckles. Laughter was the furthest thing from Jaune's mind at that hammed up act, his hands clenching into fists. He glared at the girl, working his jaw in silence.
In the end, he managed to spit out, "You're going to have to do better than that to take Summer's place, faker."
The Beetee went through a full-body flinch, her grip tightening on the baton.
"You take that back, you jerk!" she retorted.
He scoffed. So said the person who wore a cape she did not earn, and used a name she did not deserve. He pointed at himself. "Me, a jerk? I'm not the one cribbing the style of the greatest hero to ever live."
The Beetee raised a finger, a rebuttal on her lips. The finger lowered, and for whatever reason, she began to squirm and shuffle her feet.
"Heh heh. Heh. She really is, isn't she?"
"Yes. So, you get why I'm a little miffed here?"
To that, the girl heaved an indulgent sigh, and showed a smile. "Okay yeah, I do… wait, no I don't!" She puffed up again, bristling like a cat. "I'm allowed to wear this!"
The audacity of this child.
"I really thought we could reach an understanding, but I guess not," he said, hunching over and bracing his body.
"You're a villain. Who cares what you think?" was her reply.
The 'v' word hit him like a truck, and like a breath of fresh air. How did he get into this situation? He had the answer.
There stood a hero, and here… a villain.
When seen that way, the world made complete sense again.
With a roar that honestly sounded more like a squeaky whine, Autumn(lol) zipped down the alley, the wheels on her skates screeching over the concrete with the speed of a car. In a flash, she cut the distance between them down to a mere few yards.
Her baton rose up, coiled for a strike. At five paces, Jaune realized it would not matter. This close, he caught the panic behind the visor, and noticed how she was accelerating rather than slowing down.
Typical of an imitator. The Beetee tried to copy the speed of a real hero without the reflexes to match, her mind and her eyes unable to keep up with her movement.
He yanked the duffel bag filled with papers and scientific doodads in front of his body. Autumn crashed into it a split second later, ramming him off his feet and throwing the both of them along the length of the alley, crashing and rolling in a tangle.
They hit a dumpster, bouncing apart. Autumn was the first one up, launching at him to strike out with her baton, promptly falling again as he kicked at her leg to trip her. The baton whipped him in passing, snapping his head to the side and leaving a welt on his cheek under the bandana. Hissing through his teeth, he scrambled to grab the weapon.
A fist slammed into his stomach. Too bad, she lacked the leverage to make it hurt. His knee landed on her in turn.
"Ga-hack!" she cried, the air knocked out of her lungs. Her free hand fumbled at her belt.
Jaune rolled aside as a spray of red mist squirted at where his face used to be. He did not think the color was simply to fit her theme, a suspicion confirmed as Autumn pressed her heels to the ground and activated her skates, the wheels pushing her back before the mist made it down to her. A dangerous substance, then.
It broke her line of sight to him, and she performed a kip-up right into his fist. Knuckles cracked against an exposed chin, and down Autumn went once again. Jaune bit down on a scream as he felt something snapped in his hand.
He did not have the time to check on it. Autumn, half-blind from pain and flailing in a panic, kicked at him. With a screech of wheels, the skates sliced along his thigh.
Rounded wheels sounded harmless until they reached fifty miles per hour. A line tore across his pant leg, with the skin beneath scraped off in a blink. This time, he did scream.
He tripped into her, and in the ensuing struggle managed to make her let go of the baton by stomping on her wrist, pinning it down to draw a wail of hurt that almost killed him inside. With the opportune hand also his useless one, the baton rolled away, and he lunged after it with his other hand, fingers enclosing around the handle.
A blind swing, and the weighted tip caught Autumn on the side of the head just as she was getting up. Jaune watched as behind the visor her eyes rolled upward.
Autumn flopped bonelessly to the ground.
The alley fell quiet but for his heaving gasps for air.
He waited for Autumn to get up, and when she did not he checked to make sure she was still breathing. No problem there, it turned out. His fingers loosened on the baton, and the weapon fell to rest beside Autumn. If she was playing a trick, now was her chance.
Her only reaction was a groan.
A strange, fluttering sensation floated in his chest as he pressed his back to the wall, using it to stay upright. He almost did not believe this moment was real. It had been, what, twenty seconds? A hectic, mad scramble where he hardly thought. All go, go, go.
And... he had won.
Him. An ordinary person.
"Within human baseline, huh, scary blonde lady?" he murmured in a stupor. "Well, the human baseline just took out a hero (trainee)!"
He would dearly love to hear what that interviewer had to say if she heard about this.
The fluttering sensation spread up to his head, with a roaring heartbeat now pounding in his ear. He barked out a laugh. It sounded harsh, and pained. His hand brushed his leg, and came away with blood. His cheek throbbed where she struck him.
Running away would have been the prudent move, but he heeded the call to just tilt back his head and enjoy the cool breeze. He breathed in, then breathed out.
Above his head, between the gap formed by the buildings, the broken moon shone down on him in all its glory.
He had never felt so alive. What a fine night.
-o-
The night ended with him back at the cheap apartment he rented holding a bag full of junk he could not use, a set of scientific papers he did not understand, and a wide grin that would not go away.
It took him until the morning to understand that last part.
He had joined the game. The Game. The one played by superheroes, supervillains, and all the people in between who thought they mattered.
Maybe it did not happen in the way he envisioned, but there was something here. Inklings of a plan. As he sat on his couch with the morning news playing, an ice pack on his bum hand and one knee bouncing from nerves, he mulled further on it to tease out the shy, hesitant thoughts.
He had wanted to join Beacon in the thinking they would have a method to grant him powers. That failed.
He had attempted to drink his sorrows and dreams away. No luck there.
Then, after all that, he had given the other side of the coin a try. Sobriety… and villainy.
One was great, the other not so much. There had been no honor among thieves, the fine company he kept showing themselves as an unsavory lot. Yet, something came of it. A night to remember.
Along with a bag full of junk he could not use, a set of scientific papers he did not understand, and a wide grin that would not go away, as mentioned. Oh, and a medieval-looking helmet.
The helmet, he had a purpose for. The grin, he would like to stay on his face. The rest of it? He saw Lien signs.
Esmeralda taught him a lot. Where to look. What to expect. The next time, he would come prepared with better information and better gear.
He tried hard work. He tried cheating.
Maybe it was time he tried hitting the world until it coughed up what he wanted.
Also…
The news segment he had been waiting for arrived as he was in the middle of brainstorming names. The scene moved from the news studio to a big white building. The reporter, a photogenic young woman who normally worked in Vale—a bigshot name!—stood at the mouth of an alley.
Oh, she went on and on. Damages to property, highly valuable research stolen, illegal drugs planted (yeah, uh-huh, definitely wasn't produced onsite or anything), and a whole host of subjects he paid half a mind to.
The part about him was tacked on at the very, very end. Beacon had done their best to downplay it, their official statement sounding both condescending and dismissive. In the same vein, the reporter mentioned the scantest details on the fight between him and the so-called Autumn.
Each line spoken nevertheless sent a shot of lightning through his veins. He pumped a fist as the reporter finally admitted that the clash between the 'unknown party' and a first-year hero of the Beacon Program ended in favor of him. (She actually said 'unknown villain', but ehhh, he was still a little uncomfortable about that.)
That fight, short and clumsy in hindsight, proved that he was more than what they told him he was. Beacon had placed their hopes in someone else, and that person lost to him. It said a lot, in his opinion.
Autumn must have enrolled with the first batch from back in September, a new hero with a month of experience. In terms of a benchmark, she stood at the starting line. And after yesterday, he knew that he did, too.
What would she look like a year from now? What would he?
Could he defeat her, should they meet again?
He had the feeling that he would love to find out.
The news segment culminated with footage of him. He had not realized until now that one of the alleyway's cameras pointed straight down at him as he was gazing up at the moon. For a long minute, the him on the screen gazed directly at the viewer in silence, clad in what almost looked like a costume.
"If you have any information on this individual, dubbed the Smiling Knight, please contact…"
He heard no more, caught on that last bit.
What did they call him?
He stared blankly at the screen, at the helmet on his head and the stupid smiley-face bandana that Esmeralda gave him, the same one there on the table.
What kind of lame name was that? What if he frowned? Would he then be the Frowning Knight? The frowning Smiling Knight? He was hoping to market himself as Moonlight...
Although, he supposed a pun about how he moonlights as a supervillain would barely rank higher in terms of panache.
No. That did not matter. The real question was this: Which low-down hack with no imagination gave him this title?
A certain face and name popped up in his mind.
"Damn you, Autumn!"
Author's Notes: Ruby activated the Jaune Everywhere System. Her fellow students will forever curse her name.
Villain!Jaune. Only, right now, he's a small fry beginning his journey to beat'em all.
I did not know JLxRWBY would be a thing when this idea came about way back when, so Jessica Cruz was not planned to be a character here. Sadness.