Chapter 1

I'm eighteen, I'm drowning in people, and I'm scared out of my freaking mind.

Everyone else is terrified too, all the other hundreds and hundreds of eighteen year olds. We blot out every square inch of Fifth Street's antique stone tiles, a cloud of humanity so thick that would–be passers by are forced to detour for half a mile, but you won't find a single soul who isn't wishing with all their might that they could be somewhere, anywhere else. Some of us are shaking, some of us are crying, but most of us just stare with haunted eyes at the building we're oozing into on leaden feet. It towers above us, a brilliant monstrosity of gleaming white marble and inviting sheets of glass. Vale's government has an official title for it, but none of us remember what it is. It's just The Center. A few nearby adult pedestrians shoot pitying glances at us, but most shuffle forward with downcast eyes. Nobody likes it, but The Center is a necessary evil. They survived. Most of us will too.

No matter how much the government tries to gloss over it, the eighteenth birthday brings with it the dreaded Report. If you're lucky, they find you have no potential for aura and your service to the state involves military conscription into a regiment for a year or two. If you're really lucky, you might not even get that. Either way, you'll probably survive and then the rest of your life is yours. You can dream of the job you want, go to school if you want, get married to a nice guy or girl if you want, get a clean apartment in the residence of your choosing, and have one, two, three, four, however many children you want. The world's yours, more or less, as long as you work for it.

If you're not lucky – if you have The Curse, if you have aura – well, your life is what buys the rest of us our freedom.

"Jaune!"

I whirl around at the sound of my name. I can't find the source at first, but eventually I pick out a slim, black hooded figure sifting its way through the crowd. It moves with inhuman grace, flowing through the tight gaps between people like water. I know who it is even before I see the golden pupils beneath the hood.

"Blake," I offer her a weak grin once she sidles up beside me. "It's been forever. Welcome to the party."

She rolls her eyes. "It's been two weeks you dork. And thanks. Thrilled to be here."

"Like I said, forever." Her presence doesn't exactly alleviate my dread, nothing could do that, but it's like having a favorite blanket during a scary movie; she's warm, familiar, and comforting, and I've been friends with Blake Belladonna far longer than I've had any mere blanket. A burden shared is a burden halved, or whatever it is they say. "Where you been? Making sacrifices to the tuna gods?"

"I could certainly use the help," she murmurs, and a surge of guilt blazes through me with ashen bitterness. I'm far better off than she is. My parents are completely auraless, my grandparents are completely auraless, and the worst my sisters have had to suffer is one of them spent three years as an army cook. I'm terrified, but when it comes down to it The Report will probably only cost me a few years. But Blake? She's strong, really strong, and both of us know it.

"I'm sorry," I stammer out, the words falling and blending into each other in a clumsy rush. "I didn't mean anything by it, it's just that, you know, you really like tuna, so I thought maybe –"

"You're not helping, Jaune," she interrupts, but there's a feeble quirk at the corner of her mouth that shouts she's not mad.

"Right. Sorry. Shutting up now."

"You've promised that for ten years, now. Hasn't happened yet," she teases.

"I guess it wasn't meant to be."

She looks away. "I'm glad. Between the two of us, somebody needs to talk to strangers."

I know what she really means. Faunus racism is better, now, but it's not good. Just better.

I look up again, and my heart sinks at the sight of grooved pillars framing yawning doors like fangs in a gaping maw. Only a few minutes, now, until I see the roll of the dice of fate.

"I went looking for Adam," Blake admits without warning. "That's where I disappeared to."

"And?" I ask, voice guarded. I like to think I'm one of Blake's good friends. Adam's the other kind.

"He's in the White Fang," she whispers, and my stomach twists into icy knots. Usually reserved for criminals, the White Fang is the infamous all–faunus hunter brigade. An optimistic person would call it a death trap. I don't like Adam, but I wouldn't wish conscription into the White Fang on anybody.

"Sorry to hear that." What else can I say?

The tide of humanity shoves us forward into the building. It's every bit pristine on the inside as it was on the outside: grandiose ceilings, wood paneled walls, slender buttresses and even a fountain of bubbling water over a bed of obsidian. Strings of lights cast a pure white glow over the whole interior, illuminating a gargantuan poster of scarlet and gold. On it, a squad of hunters pose in front of a rising sun. Beneath the image is captioned The heroes of today. The legends of tomorrow, as if through sheer delusion it can reverse the cruel reality. My gaze is quickly magnetized to the expansive row of maple desks adorning the opposite wall. The figurative executioner's block.

Blake is roughly jostled into position right in front of me. The line stretches before us, but The Center is a brutally efficient machine, and we can hardly blink before her turn has come.

There's a woman behind the desk, dressed in a snappy black blouse and severe grey pencil skirt. She can't be more than a few years older than us, with almond eyes and long black hair pulled into a tight ponytail. In any other situation, she would be very pretty. At the moment, she just looks exhausted.

"Name and ID," she drones, and I tune out in order to give Blake some privacy. I'm brought out of my reverie when a soft hand gives my own a gentle squeeze.

"Good luck," Blake says, and then she disappears into the crowd. I step forward to fill the vacancy.

"Name and ID."

"Jaune Arc. 489-263-1678-7677." She types furiously to enter the information into her computer, leaving me free to study the dark circles around her eyes. "Rough day?"

"You don't know the half of it," she sighs. A shrill scream yanks the attention of all those nearby, us included. A girl kneels in a crumpled mess on the unyielding tile, violent sobs shaking her body like leaves in a hurricane. We avert our gaze as two uniformed guards bodily drag her back into the dark testing room from which she had escaped.

"That's the fourth one this hour." The woman's voice is thick with regret. "You kids don't deserve this."

Of course we don't. Just like she doesn't deserve to be stuck at a desk for hours on end, having her heart shattered over and over and over. But life isn't about what you do and don't deserve, and the alternative is even worse.

The clicking of the keyboard stops. "Alright, we're finished. Report to testing room twenty nine immediately."

"Thanks. And, uh, thanks for your work. This would have been even worse if I had to wait for forever."

She looks up in surprise. I wonder if anyone has ever talked to her, except to curse her out. "Good luck," she says after a brief hesitation. The testing room is behind the desk, with a narrow aisle leading to it. With a deep breath, I walk through.

The inside isn't as cramped as the entrance might lead you to believe. If it wasn't for the mountains of complicated looking machinery, it would have been generously roomy. As it is, I still have enough space to stretch a little before settling into a nondescript black chair. I wasn't given any instructions, so I guess I'm just supposed to wait. Sure enough, it's only a few minutes before a harried nurse rushes in, stark white medical coat misaligned across her frame.

"Hand," she commands, and I hold mine out obediently. She places it on a small table before wheeling over what looks like a giant microscope, the lens of which goes squarely over my wrist.

"Watch the screen," she says, pointing towards a flat panel on the wall. It's completely blank, so I look at her in confusion.

"Uh, I might be crazy, but I don't think there's anything there."

She waves her hand distractedly. "Just wait. Please focus on it." Without further explanation, she turns the lights off, leaving the two of us in pitch blackness.

The seconds drag on. I'm about to speak again when a bloodcurdling screech sends my heart pumping a million times a second. I jump in my chair as a massive pair of glowing red eyes swoops straight at me, a pair of wicked talons extended underneath it. A shout of surprise tears itself from my throat, but the screen suddenly blacks out and the lights come back on. My heartbeat slows, but only just. A jumpscare. They had thrown a freaking jumpscare at me.

"What was that for?" I demand, voice shaking with the after effects of adrenaline and the beginnings of anger. I don't get angry easily, but that? That was uncalled for.

"Measuring your aura," she explains gruffly, "is only possible under stress." She opens the door and gestures for me to leave. "There's a room on your right. Waiting room twenty nine. Can't miss it. Wait there until we bring you your Report."

I comply with only a few grumbles, still miffed about the test. I have to admit it was pretty effective, though. I certainly was surprised.

The waiting room follows the same pattern of decor that the main hall did, but there are stiff metal chairs aligned along the spacious walls. Blake occupies one of them. She's the room's only other occupant. One look at her face sends my heart plummeting in despairing free fall.

"No," I whisper. "Please no."

"Just as expected." She tried to laugh it off, to play it cool, but there's a tightness to her voice and a tremor that betrays her, and I'm terrified because I've never, ever seen Blake Belladonna close to crying, not even when she was thrashed so bad she couldn't walk straight for a week, but now? The only thing holding the tears back is the shock.

I cross the room and wrap her in a tight hug. Normally, she fights me off, but this time she doesn't resist. "How bad?" I whisper.

"Ninety seventh percentile of all aura bearers," she intones hollowly. "At least I'm special."

Ninety seventh? There's no way she is getting out.

Four children. That's the toll demanded of her, bare minimum. Then there's the government "protection" – constant inspections for "family health," restricted housing, regulations on what you could and could not teach you children. Her job was to pass on her excellent aura, to produce the next generation of heroes, and there was no way Vale was going to allow that unsupervised. Unlikely she'll have the comfort of a loving husband, either. No, he'll be arranged, a mate of a suitable power, forced into a life that he doesn't want any more than she does.

When you're just two numbers on a spreadsheet, chemistry and suitability don't factor into the equation. Well, most marriages could work as long as both parties are willing to stick at it. But pulling that off under constant government interruptions? Good luck.

Words are meaningless here, so I just hold her. She shakes, but she doesn't cry.

A guard enters the room, consuming the empty space with his intimidating bulk. I recognize him as one of the two who dragged the sobbing girl off earlier. "Belladonna?"

She pushes me off with firm hands. "Yes sir."

"Come with me. Time to meet your future husband."

She straightens, and suddenly the shaking is gone, replaced with a steely fire in her eyes that sprung out of nowhere. "No," she says, voice ringing clearly in the empty room. Both the guard and I stare at her, mouths agape.

"Blake?" I ask. That's it. The stress finally got to her. I am about to watch my best friend of ten years go absolutely off the wall nuts.

You can't just refuse to comply. Obedience was your societal duty, your noble sacrifice for the good of all. Disobedience leads to anarchy, and anarchy is a breeding ground for Grimm attacks. Disobedience is not tolerated in the slightest.

"Excuse me?" the guard stutters, echoing my sentiment.

"No," Blake repeats. "I'm not going to be married."

The realization hits me like a rampaging ursa. No. No no no. Of course Blake wouldn't go along with marriage. She was far, far too proud to submit to such demanding control, but neither would she run. She understood the cost of safety just as well, no, probably more than I did. But marriage wasn't the only option offered to the aura 'blessed.' It was just the one that was offered to exceptionally powerful individuals, and anybody with half a brain took it. But I was never all that certain of Blake's sanity anyways.

"I'm not going to be married," she repeats with a slight hesitation, but her eyes are rekindled into a defiant blaze. "Because I'm going to join the Hunters. Put me in the White Fang."

"You're nuts," the guard says.

I grab her shoulder, forcing her to stare directly at me. "Blake. Please. You have the aura capacity to be a breeder. Leave the military to those who don't."

"I can't," she says with a melancholy half–smile. "Just listen to yourself. Breeder? Like a favored mare? I'm not an animal, Jaune." Her smile turns sour. "No matter what people say."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," I snap.

"But it's exactly right," she responds, still composed even in the face of my anger. "A breeder is a state asset and nothing more."

"So you'd rather die." We both know the numbers. Only half of hunter recruits survive their first mission. By the end of the third, it's one sixth. Teams are devastated and recreated so frequently that you're lucky to sleep in the same bed twice. If by some miracle you survive ten missions… well, you know everyone who's still alive. Probably been on a team with each one of them at some point or another. It's a death warrant, and Blake is volunteering.

"If it comes to that," she says. It's false bravado. It will come to that. The only question is when.

I wish I could argue with her. Shake her around, scream about how crazy she was and how I didn't understand. The problem was that I did. You didn't get much freedom in the Hunters. But you still got some. A breeder? They didn't even get to choose the number of kids they wanted.

But was it worth dying for such a middling amount of personal choice?

"I don't want to lose a friend," I whisper, voice uneven. Like falling down the stairs.

"Then you should have ditched me when you had the chance," Blake says, still gentle, still patient. Somehow, it makes it worse. "We knew this was coming."

We knew, but at the time it was so easy to dismiss it as 'the future.' Well, the future was now.

"So that's it? This is goodbye?"

She shakes her head. "Not quite. Basic training is still in Vale. I'll drop by to see you when I can."

Great. So goodbye is later.

"Still think you're certifiably nuts," the guard grumbles. "You ready?"

"Yeah," she says. She turns away from me, but her posture alone speaks of grim determination. The fear and the shock are gone. "Take care, Jaune. I'll see you soon."

"Looking forward to it." And then she's gone, and the door clicks shut behind her.

::-::-::

I wish I could describe how I feel. Words only go so far, and I'm stuck dead center in a tumultuous whirlwind. Any sense of stability in this insane night left with Blake.

Only a few minutes pass before the door clicks open again. At least I think it's only been a few minutes. Kinda hard to tell, well, anything right now. The same nurse from before bustles in with a stack of glossy documents.

"Jaune Arc?"

I give a lazy half–wave. "Here."

She balances the precarious tower on one arm, using the other to nudge one of the papers into my waiting hands. "Your Report." Without further explanation, she leaves.

Well, I know what the results will be. Aura's genetic, after all. The only question is what civilian duty I'll be assigned to for a while. A perfectly normal life for a perfectly normal boy.

The page jumps to meet my vision.

Ha.

Ha ha.

Ha ha ha ha.

Hahahahahahahaha – normal? Normal? Why would I expect normal? Why would I think that anything in this irrational hellhole of a world could be normal? On a night that defied all my expectations, why would I think I would be an exception?

No. No, no. In the end, I'm part of the giant cosmic joke as well.

The page is chock full of words, numbers, stats, but there's one value that everyone who sees their Report immediately looks for. Your Standard Aura Score: your SAS. In other words, how you rank compared to all the other aura wielders in the kingdom of Vale. Zero meant for you were safe. The nurse had been kind enough to circle my SAS for me.

Let me tell you a story. It's about an eighteen year old boy from a quirky but loving family. Like every other eighteen year old, he takes the Report. But he'll be fine. Everyone else in his family got zeroes. They made it through fine. Everything's fine.

Oh, did you expect a zero for him too? Try 99.95%.

A/N:

For those of you who are worried this will be super edgy angst, fear not. There are always deeper themes that I try to explore in my writing, and although grimdark moments have their place, there has to be a deeper purpose.

On a random note, I think there's something to be said for close, platonic friendship. It's something that I think often gets tossed aside in favor of shipping, which is fine, but at the same time perhaps we also miss something valuable. I hope Blake and Jaune captured a little of that here.

Besides, Couer (and others) have the Blake/Jaune ship well covered. Lancaster needs some love, heh heh.

Yes, I am biased. I admit it.

Thanks for reading! Please review.