Hey guys, RWBYBlackFlames here and I'm glad to welcome you to chapter one of my new story, Jaune's Secret. So yeah. I hope you enjoy, Black Flames out!

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Chapter 1

The Mistake

"Blessed are those who see beautiful things in humble places where others see nothing"

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"So Jaune, did you study up on the assignment that Professor Midnight gave us?" asked Ruby as they walked to their next class. Jaune had seemed out of it yesterday and she was fairly concerned.

"Wait, there was an assignment yesterday?" said Jaune shocked. Something that Ruby didn't know was that there was a reason he wasn't fully awake that day. Pyrrha's training had started to get more intense, with her starting to use her semblance more and more, and unfortunately the previous night, she may have accidentally sent him flying off the rooftop. Fortunately, a few trees broke his fall but in the midst, he was stuck for a while until help came. He would've cut himself loose, but his sword fell onto the ground, unlike him. Pyrrha was stammering apologies left and right about it, but he eventually convinced Pyrrha not to worry about it. Unfortunately, it took a good chunk of his night to get down, since the doors to the school were locked and by the time he got to his bed, it was already morning and he had to face the day with no rest and a tired body.

"Yeah, she told us to research up a certain dust crystal, I can't remember the name but she said that we would be talking about it in class." said Ruby, cheerful as always.

"I'm sure it's nothing important." said Jaune as they entered the class. Everyone else had already entered, except Weiss and the Professor. After a few minutes, surprisingly Professor Goodwitch entered the room. Unfortunately, for Jaune, it was very important.

"Children, be quiet. Now that I have your attention, I have some information for you regarding your teacher, Mrs. Midnight. Unfortunately, she was working hard last night trying to find new research materials and blew up from a misplaced dust crystal. She'll be alright and will be reteaching in a week or two. Do we have any questions?" asked Professor Goodwitch.

"Yes, why did she need new materials?" asked a student in the back.

"It seems she was working on them when, and I quote, 'A blonde man screaming like a girl fell from the sky and hit a tree and got stuck.' During the confusion, the dust crystal sample she was using disappeared. She was at a dust shop last night when a faulty seal let fire dust out. Unfortunately, she has a small cold and one sneeze was all it took to blow up the place." said Goodwitch. Ruby and Jaune shrank back in their seats, with embarrassment fresh on their mind.

"Fortunately for you, we managed to get a new sample, curtsey of Ms. Schnee." said Professor Goodwitch as Weiss walked in, with a briefcase. She gave it to Professor Goodwitch and then returned to her group, next the professor opened it, revealing dust crystals. In look, the seemed black, but if you looked at it, it seemed to suck in the light around, but not nearly enough to cause worry.

"This, my dear children is a A.D.C. or an Anti-Dust Crystal." Jaune paled as Goodwitch said that, getting sweaty.

"Do you mean AC/DC?" asked a student in the back, earning some laughs.

"I mean detention. My room after school, you can clean up the arena." retorted Goodwitch.

"Worth it." said the student as class continued.

"Now, we were originally just going to show it to the class..." said Goodwitch, causing Jaune to sigh.

"But thanks to Ms. Schnee, we can have a live demonstration." said Goodwitch, destroying any hope Jaune had. Pyrrha, who was seated next to Jaune noticed his unease and tried to talk to him.

"Jaune, what's the matter?" asked Pyrrha with concern in her tone.

"N-n-nothing P-Pyrrha, I'm f-fine!" said Jaune, with his words the exact opposite of what he looked like. It looked like he was facing down an Ursa Major, while being tied up, with no weapons and fresh out of aura. He looked like a man on death row, but Pyrrha wasn't the type of person to pry.

"Alright class, we will now be using the A.D.C. Now, let's see if this is legitimate. This is a Fire-Type Dust Crystal, and it works perfectly fine." The blonde professor pulled out a red dust crystal and promptly applied a minor amount of aura, causing a small fire to come from it. She exterminated the flame, before pulling up a A.D.C.

"Now that we now it works, let's try to use the A.D.C." said the professor. At this point, Jaune started to move, before realizing something. Nora was sleeping on his shoulder. Normally, one would try to shake her off, but Jaune has seen what happens when you try that first hand. He still has nightmares about it… So effectively, Nora has trapped him.

"Oh!" Goodwitch applied the aura, but it seemed she poured to much and the classroom was engulfed by the A.D.C.'s effect. The air had a more bland taste, and the fire crystal looked like it was completely shut down, nothing more than a pretty rock now.

"My apologies students, it seems that the A.D.C. crystal is more sensitive to aura then I would've thought. If anyone had dust on them for whatever reason, it is now effectively negated, my apologies. Oh, it seems like we're out of time, remember to study about the A.D.C. crystal and it's uses on the battlefield. There will be a test about it soon." said Goodwitch as the bell rang. Shockingly, Jaune was the first one out, with a rather sick look on his face. Normally he would wait and talk with his friends as they went to the next period, lunch, but this time it seemed like something was off. Hopefully he'd talk about it during lunch.

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The crew went to lunch and noticed that Jaune was missing. Fortunately, Midnight's class was the last one today as Combat was canceled today after a rather nasty explosion involving Nora and Yang's hair. Not even Professor's Goodwitch could fix the arena. Either way, Jaune was absent and this left a very confused group.

"So, does anyone know where Jaune is?" asked Ruby curiously.

"I don't know, he seemed rather pale when he was leaving Dust Class, perhaps he's at the nurses." said Blake as she read her book.

"Maybe he went straight to our room" said Pyrrha.

"We're not going to figure out where he is from just talking. I say we go find him, tie him up, and bring him here! That's what friends do!" said Nora with confidence.

"Nora. That's kidnapping and I'm not sure he would appreciate it." said Ren, trying to shake the idea from Nora's head.

"Nonsense, if there's one thing that strengthens the bonds between friends, it's a good old kidnapping. Just like how I met you. It's pretty funny how you-" said Nora.

"NORA!" said Ren, cutting her story off and giving the group a good laugh.

"Alright guys, it's time to activate plan 'Find Jaune and figure out why he's not here and help our friendships'!" said Ruby with enthusiasm.

"You really have a way with plan names…" noted Yang as Ruby pulled out a binder, which on close inspection can be identified as Weiss's. On it was a map of Beacon with Jaune's possible locations.

"Alright, Team Alpha, me and Weiss-" said Ruby before she was cut off.

"Weiss and I" corrected Weiss, earning her weird looks from her friends.

"What? If we're doing a plan, we should at least do it right." said Weiss, before they continued.

"Anyways, Team Alpha, Weiss and I will go and check the infirmary to see if he's there. Team Beta, Blake and Yang will check to see if he's in the library-" said Ruby before she was cut off once again.

"Why would he be in the library?" asked Pyrrha.

"He sometimes goes to the library to study after school. He said he didn't want to bother y- I should not have said that. SORRY JAUNE!" said Ruby as she accidentally revealed Jaune's secret. Sometimes the two leaders would head after class to the library, to study for upcoming tests and such. They didn't want to reveal it to their respective partners and burden them so it was their little secret.

"Anyways, Nora and Ren will go check Goodwitch's classroom to see if he got confused and went there." said Ruby.

"Woohoo! We're gonna find ya Jauney!" said Nora with enthusiasm before Ruby quickly went to her side and started whispering to her.

"Nora, you know how Ren can be, make sure he doesn't blow something up or get sidetracked." whispered Ruby.

"Okay! I'll keep an eye on him!" replied Nora with enthusiasm, with Ren looking rather annoyed at the comment.

"And Pyrrha, you go check the dorms. He might've gone back there to go take a nap." said Ruby.

"He seemed tired today, so the dorm sounds like the ideal place for him to be if somethings wrong." said Pyrrha.

"Okay, Team RWBYNPR, move out!" said Ruby as the group split off and went to their respective locations. As the groups wandered off, Weiss started to talk to Ruby.

"Why did you tell that to Nora?" asked Weiss with curiosity.

"I heard that telling someone who's likely to get sidetracked to keep an eye on someone responsible, the two will likely stay on task, since the person who's less likely to get sidetracked will be so focused on making sure the responsible person doesn't mess up, they're much more likely to get the mission done." said Ruby.

"Where did you find this out?" asked Weiss.

"I read it in a book." said Ruby as the duo walked to the infirmary.

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As Pyrrha walked into the team dormitory, she initially saw nothing, but as she started to leave she heard talking from the bathroom. The door was cracked slightly, and Pyrrha started to listen. To her surprise, Jaune was the one who was talking, and apparently on a scroll.

"So father, what do you think?" asked Jaune nervously. Pyrrha could only hear bits and pieces of the reply, since she was so far away.

"…, you got lucky. Since the crystal seems to be working, you're …, but what's the status of it right …" asked Jaune's father, to which Jaune sighed in relief.

"It's working, otherwise we'd be in trouble. However, it looks like it's dimming more and more by the second." said Jaune.

"… That's not …, you're gonna want to find someone who's an expert with … and get their opinion. Unfortunately, all the spare crystals are …, so you're out of luck here. I'm guessing since you … at ground zero, the effect will be delayed, but I'm sure the … will be out in a weeks time. Hopefully they can give you … about it. Just make sure no one finds out unless it's inevitable and make sure to keep me updated." said the father.

"Okay, thanks father. Goodbye." said Jaune as he ended the call and started to head towards the door, to which Pyrrha, in surprise, grabbed a spare notebook ran to the door of the dorm.

"Oh hey Pyrrha, how's it going?" asked Jaune as he saw Pyrrha.

"Oh, I was just getting a notebook for class. We were wondering where you were Jaune, what happened? You seemed rather pale." asked Pyrrha. She would've asked about Jaune's call, but it was his secret to keep.

"Oh, it must've been something I ate during breakfast. I knew the breakfast burrito was a bad idea." said Jaune, to which Pyrrha smiled. She couldn't make him tell her his secret… well she could but only bad things would happen after that. He would tell her in time, like his last secret. Hopefully.

"So Jaune, Ruby says you go to the library after school to study. And you don't ask me to help as to 'not burden' me?" said Pyrrha with a scary smile on her lips, with her face showing happiness while her aura revealed her agitation.

"RUBY WHY?!"

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Hey guys, RWBYBlackFlames here and that was chapter 1. So yeah. I hope you enjoyed. Some minor explaining now.

Professor Ella Midnight: Cinderella. Would've used Cinder, except we already have a smoking hot girl with that name. Damn it.