Disclaimer:

I don't own jack. Or RWBY either.

Story:

The name's Jaune, and I've had a long week. I had to hike nearly a hundred miles to my last job in well under two days to beat the Grimm to Bump-in-the-Road-Ville, population twenty. Once I'd got there I'd had to fight a small horde of lesser Grimm running on no sleep. And already having been forced to use up a sizable portion of my aura just to get their in time. And then the grateful populace didn't even have any beer. What the hell.

Still, I did take jobs to help people, not to get alcohol. And I did eventually get some shut eye, and they did gave me a rucksack full of food for my trouble. It was a pittance for the work, but just because they didn't have money didn't mean they didn't need or deserve help.

"But seriously, would one drink have been too much to ask?" I grumbled to myself as I trekked through the forest to my home. The plain gray plate armor I wore moved with barely a whisper in the afternoon sunlight. It certainly should be quiet; it certainly took enough time and effort to make.

I shortly caught sight of my front door; a slab of heavy dark wood that matched my furniture, set into the foot of a mountain. It was the only place for miles around, making shopping trips a pain, but I never had to worry about noisy neighbors. I activated my semblance for a brief moment, making a temporary key out of my aura. Making a permanent key with was well with in my semblance's ability, but permanent creations took a lot more time and effort, and they could be stolen or misplaced. I lived alone and really didn't need any surprise visitors; a lot of people in Menagerie don't take kindly to humans after all.

I fumbled with the door for a bit before the key slid home. I opened the door and then knocked some of the travel dust from my sabatons and greaves before stepping inside on to the smooth stone floor of my den. I was looking forward to a hot bath, a cold beer, and a warm bed.

Or I was, until I noticed my surprise visitor.

The gray haired bastard was relaxing in my favorite chair, one hand resting on a cane, the other lifting a mug up for a sip. It was hard to tell with him seated but he must have been at least as tall as I am. He wore a dark green suit topped off with a lighter green cravat, and had a cross necklace draped over it. On the bridge of his nose was a set of dark spectacles, and oddly for somebody in Menagerie, I couldn't see any distinctive Faunus traits. Though I couldn't say much about that. I was a human myself after all. But I could say quite a lot about the fact the man seemed to be waiting, patiently, and at perfect ease in my home.

Well, I wasn't sure how the guy found out where I lived. I wasn't sure how the geezer got in. I wasn't sure why he had broken in to my home; the only things of value I owned were some old books and a grand piano, and those aren't the sort of things you can easily sell off. I was forced into the unattractive conclusion that the guy wasn't here to sell me cookies. But one thing I did know was how my unwanted guest was how he would be leaving: on his ass.

I gave the infuriatingly calm intruder a blank look. Time to put him off balance. I shrugged the pack off of my shoulders to rest on the wall by the door and raised my voice, focusing in on the cross he wore, "Aren't I little too old to be in a priest's strike zone?"

The guy's eyes widened a bit at that. It was momentary thing, but momentary surprises were all that I had ever needed. I grasped the fraction of a second the old man took to be surprised to create a spear with my semblance, take a pair of paces to bring the old man in range, and thrust it at the seated man's gut.

He moved more like lightning than a surprised old man. In the time it took me to take my second step he dropped the mug, grasped the back of the chair with his newly freed hand, flipped out of and behind my chair, then proceeded to use it to bat away my strike. He finished the maneuver by lobbing the heavy wooden chair at my head. I dodged by a hair's breadth, ducking below the improvised projectile and wondering how the hell my opponent had managed to move so quickly from such a bad position.

Then I straightened from the duck just in time for the housebreaker to land a straight kick to my chest. Hard. I smashed through my doorway, cracking my head on hard stone as I went through. I hit the ground and rolled a few times before managing to stand up a little woozily, quietly glad I had forgotten to shut my front door, but also regretting the fact that I didn't make a helmet to finish off my suit of armor.

The old guy must have moved in while the chair blocked my sight. Green Suit hits like a runaway bus. It was annoying, but I had to admit I was wrong about how he would be leaving my house. I was the one getting kicked out on my ass.

I watched the newly christened Green Suit placidly walk out of my ruined doorway with new caution. My hands were empty; I must have dropped the spear during my brief flight on Green Suit Airlines. I clutched empty air for an instant before my semblance filled them. My left arm bore a heater shield and my right a cruciform sword. A half dozen barely visible ephemeral javelins hovered around me, only waiting for my aura to make them real.

Green Suit nodded genially and spoke up as he casually strolled out of my home, "That wasn't quite what I was expecting. You're more aggressive than I had thought. Still, I suppose this will work. You're quite fast for your age, Mr. Ebner." The man's cane clicked and he pulled out a slender blade from within it.

I grunted at the mention of the family name my foster father had given me. "Clearly not. Some random geezer managed to out pace me after all."

After I made a weapon, or anything else for that matter, it was simply there. But I could add in a vector as I brought them into the world, and I did so now. Six throwing spears came in to the world speeding through the air, each one targeted either the man or one of his likely angles of escape. I came rushing in behind them, timing it so I would arrive just as the man would be half way through whatever defense he used against the spears.

The man simply let the spears aimed at his escape routes pass him by, blocked all three I shot at his person, and then parried the diagonal swipe I made with my sword. Then he riposted with a swing of the empty scabbard his blade had previously occupied. I caught it on my shield, and even then I felt the strength he had put behind it. I slid black for at least a yard, my heels digging furrows in the ground as I went.

Okay. Whoever Green Suit was, he was better than me. A lot better than me. If I wanted to survive this I was going to have to try something risky. I started boosting.

Boosting is a manner of using aura. Every hunter's aura strengthened them, but it wouldn't normally allow them to increase their abilities beyond what their aura could protect them from. Boost did. It's user's aura would heal the damage it inflicted almost immediately. But it was exhausting; the increased ability and the healing both required a respectable amount of aura to work.

We traded a few blows, our blades meeting each other or occasionally being deflected by my shield or his sheath. Then I was abruptly riding high on the wave of boost. My physical abilities more than tripled half way through a horizontal backhand with my sword. My muscles and tendons tore all along my arm and back; and my shoulder dislocated from the immense force I put into that single blow.

Green suit managed a clumsy block in spite of his surprise and my speed, but my strike smashed though it and sent him flying back a a fistful of yard into a tree. I rushed forward as my aura popped my arm back into it's socket, trying to press my advantage before he recovered. The man seemed oddly pleased as he went flying, "Well done Mr. Ebner! I honestly can't remember the last time someone as young as you managed to strike me."

After that Green Suit proved once again he was on another level. He must know how to boost too, or else was holding back so much it wasn't even funny; I barely noted a blur before I went sailing through a hardy oak tree before another arrested my flight. Gods above, I was glad for my armor at that point. Less so for the bruises, but that was still a great deal better than broken bones. I got back to my feet in a flash, but Green Suit was simply there before me as if he hadn't bothered crossing the distance between us.

I felt a scowl darken my face. Okay. I guess boosting wasn't enough on it's own. I started using the basics of slide as well. Slide was much more sedate than boost. It was simply moving the aura in your body without letting it leave your body. It would effectively let you make yourself heavier, lighter, or even allow a master to move them self without twitching a single muscle.

I used slide to pull me down. Had I been standing on a scale it would have broke beneath my feet, leaving me the target of fat jokes for a thousand years. Let's see this bastard rag doll me now.

I had to start moving before the man did; he was that much faster than me. I started shifting my sword and shield into positions that left tiny holes in my defense. He immediately attacked them, but I was able to tell more or less where his weapons would be. It let me keep up with him, barely, but I couldn't keep it up forever.

The stalemate didn't last long. His blade knocked mine from my hand, but I replaced it instantly. My shield caught his sword immediately afterward and I pushed forward, driving the man away from me with a shield bash. The man was content to let me catch me breath. That was a mistake.

I lifted my sword, pointing it straight up, like I was threatening the sky. More ephemeral weapons formed around me. This time it wasn't half a dozen, nor was it just spears. This time hundreds of weapons formed; spears, knives, axes, hammers, everything I could think of that was the least bit aerodynamic. I could only form them ten or so at a time, but Green Suit waited obligingly. The man started forward only after half minute or so had passed. I responded by lowering my raised sword, and a wall of blades and bludgeons shot forward to meet him.

Avoiding so many attacks in so short a time should have been impossible. I would have been forced to take dozens of hits had I been forced to meet the same assault. It probably would have killed me in fact. Green Suit evidently didn't subscribe to the same ideas of impossible as I did though.

He swayed out of the path of a few dozen weapons on his way towards me, barely avoiding them. The ones he couldn't dodge he blocked. He must have been forced to block at least fifty more weapons in the span of a finely split second, blade flitting and the scabbard revealed it's self to be a firearm, barking repeatedly, knocking more of my attacks away from him. If it took Green Suit any effort I didn't see it. It took him a half a breath tops to reach me and he proceeded to strike me half a dozen times despite my darting blades and my shield. Then once again, he kicked me.

Weighing as much as a small car evidently didn't mean much to Green Suit. I smashed into the same damn tree again, and I didn't have time to do a single thing before he hit me again. And again. And again. And again.

It was pretty disorientating all things considered. I involuntarily let go of both boost and slide. I lost track of things for a while, punctuated only with heavy impacts. I couldn't even tell the difference between when the old man hit me from when he hit me into something. Pathetic.

I don't know how long that went on, but I eventually came to. My vision gradually focused and I noticed two things: A sword point above my right eye and a gun barrel above my left. I considered renewing my attack, but I ended up holding still. He'd walked through my best like it was nothing. And after my assault and the beating he laid down on me I wasn't capable of bringing even a quarter as much strength to bear. It was a surrender, but what else could I do but die?

I heard Green Suit address me though I couldn't see past the weapons pointed at me, "Are you willing to converse with me now Mr. Ebner?"

I glared up at that, though I couldn't see him past his weaponry. "I don't see I have much choice."

I was sulking, and it should have been beneath me, but I couldn't help it. I'd been a professional hunter for seven years, and never had I been so badly outclassed. Even when my foster father first passed away and I first started hunting as a ten year old, and had been forced to rely entirely on tricks, tactics, and my semblance to survive even lesser Grimm, I hadn't ever been so thoroughly dominated. Only when my dad was still alive had I known something was completely beyond my ability to fight.

Amusement touched Green Suit's voice. "You could always try to to get out of this predicament. I don't see how you could mind you, but you can try."

I grunted, surly. "I'll pass. I know when I've been bested."

"Then why don't we head inside for a drink?" My glare deepened. Asshole, offering me my own stuff like it's his. And there was nothing I could realistically do about it. I followed him into my own house, trying to ignore the wreckage of my favorite chair and my thoroughly ruined doorway. I comforted myself that at least my piano and books hadn't been damaged. I could make a chair, though it was a pain. I didn't know enough about pianos to make one of them though.

I limped my way past Green Suit, who had taken another seat, into my kitchen, and didn't bother asking him what he wanted to drink. There was a pot of coffee already brewed after all, and I didn't even own a coffee pot. I gabbed a mug out of a cupboard and poured him a cup.

It was an inference that he wanted coffee, but I didn't ask him if he wanted milk or sugar because I was feeling petty. Hey, you get your face beaten into the ground by someone who broke into your house and see if you're feeling up to being a gracious host afterwards. Being rude wasn't terribly smart I'll admit, but at this point I doubted he'd try to finish me off before he got whatever it was that he wanted from me.

I grabbed myself a beer from my ice box and wandered back into my den. I handed him the coffee and found another unbroken chair to sit in myself. He took a sip from the mug I'd handed him without any sign of displeasure. So much for the cheap dig.

He spoke as I took the first pull from my bottle. "Aren't you underage for that sort of beverage?"

I was seventeen, so yes I was underage. But, hell I've been risking my life twice a week since I was ten just to put food on my table. And the institution never helped me take care of myself, so I'll drink whatever I want thank you very much. So I shot back without a pause, "Aren't you too old to be my dad?"

"Touche."

We simply looked at one another for a few minutes after that. He quirked an eyebrow at me, and I sighed, breaking the silence. "So, I guess you're not here to kill me like I first assumed. Which begs the question: why did you track down where I live and proceed to break inside my house?"

"I heard rumors of a child hunter in Menagerie, working hard, changing others opinions about humans. I wanted to meet this man myself, and extend an offer to him."

His first sentence was true at the very least. I was fairly well known in Menagerie these days, and what was at first simply a way to get food and other necessities became a political statement: Not all humans were evil. Not all Humans meant harm. Some even wanted to help.

Thanks in part to my efforts humans were regarded with suspicion instead of outright hostility. Seven years ago if somebody found out I was a human I could expect a lynch mob to form. On a few occasions that's exactly what happened in fact. It was why I had to start hunting instead of going to an orphanage. Now though I was seen as something almost precious in Menagerie.

I... could have blamed for them for their ignorance I guess, but what would have been the point? That wouldn't have helped anybody. Besides, the very first humans I met were real pieces of work. If slavers had been the only examples of humanity I'd run into I might have shared the common opinion on humans.

It had never stopped me from defending myself or anybody else though. And it never would. Race doesn't matter, only intents and actions, and only those of the individual in question.

I replied, tiredly. Was this join or die offer? "And that would be?" He hadn't answered about the break in, but I didn't see a point in chasing the answer. Maybe he just wanted to instigate a fight?

"I am Professor Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy for hunters in training. My school is based in Vale, and I wanted to extend an invitation to enroll in my academy on a full scholarship to this extraordinary individual."

"You got here a little late then. I've been hunting for seven years already after all. And a lot of people around here need me. Hunters are in short supply out here in Menagerie."

He smiled then, as if I had conceded a point. "I have offered the assistance of Vale's hunters and my own academy's hunters to assist Menagerie's beleaguered forces. Always they refused our help, but I never had the endorsement of a well respected citizen of Menagerie either. If you accept my offer I will offer our aid once again to Menagerie, and backed by your word we will be able to help many more people than you could alone. Unless you can be in a hundred places at once, and have a private airship for travel?"

Now I nodded, actually conceding the point. I'd learned years ago and miles away that despite my strength I couldn't be in more than one place at a time. Nor could I always travel fast enough to get there in time. And sometimes people died because of that. I clenched my fists at ugly memories, and only the dregs of my exhausted aura kept them from drawing blood.

Sometimes a lot of people died because of that.

Okay, Jaune. Time to stop acting like a child. I took a deep but shaky breath, and my anger died as it left me. I took another and shame followed it. Neither had a place here, around Ozpin. The man was uncanny; I needed my wits about me. "Okay. But why do you want me in particular?"

He nodded to me now, and then gave me a small smile over his cup. "Three reasons: first, you have become a statement to the Faunus. Whatever you think Jaune Ebner, people around the world see you as a hero who fights for the sake of others no matter their creed or race." I grimaced at that. It was true technically. But he wasn't finished yet, "My academy's stance mirrors your own, and having you join would lend credence to that. Second, despite your impressive skill level and you experience hunting, you still have much to learn. And I have much to teach. Third, your father Dietrich was well known to me. We were never friends, but we did see eye to eye on many issues. I doubt he would have wanted you to be as isolated as you are. "

Words came out of my mouth before I could stop them, cold as a glacier's heart. "Then he shouldn't have died."

My fists balled up again. What the hell was wrong with me today? I unclenched my hands while Ozpin looked at me levelly, saying nothing, his amusement gone. He was right. My father had told me that directly even, something about it being unhealthy to grow alone, and he had probably been right too.

Ozpin gave me the time I needed to get my self back under control, and I was grateful. The one sided beat down had been a test. And it looked like I passed. I contemplated if I could say the same about our conversation. I doubted it.

I nodded again, slowly, thoughtfully this time. The pros outweighed the cons. "Alright Professor. You have a deal."

Ozpin smiled. And that was how I found myself on my way to Beacon.

Notes:

This is my first foray into fan fiction, the first person perspective, fight scenes, and writing for fun instead of profit. I'd appreciate it if you dropped me line, tell me what I did right, what I did wrong and how I can improve. Questions and comments are welcome as well of course.

Not all chapters are going to be as action heavy as this one, but there will be more. Not everything in RWBY is about fighting and not everything in this fic will be either. I'm going to try to strike a balance.

Jaune Ebner is in fact Jaune Arc, not an OC, I promise. His name was changed via adoption, and why he was adopted is plot relevant and will be revealed in the future.

If you're looking for a story that has Jaune stomping all over everything, you'll not find it here. And if you're expecting to have everything stomp on him, well, you won't find that here either. I like my protagonists strong and antagonists even stronger.

Pairing(s) are undecided.