Very short chapter this time around.

Beta reader and editor: Catastrophic Bacon

"Oh my god, Jaune! That was amazing! How did you make that Boarbatusk disappear so quickly? How did you bring it back? Is that your Semblance?"

Jaune gave the orange-haired girl a confused smile. "Umm, you're…" He paused for a second. He definitely remembered her face from when she introduced herself before initiation, but only vaguely remembered her name. "You're Nora, right?" he asked, cringing in anticipation for her to angrily announce that he guessed wrong.

"Yup," she said, beaming with glee. "So you did remember me!"

Jaune blinked twice, surprised that his guess had been correct. He had only repeated the name that he'd heard Ren say in his sleep. The poor guy had been tossing and turning in what Jaune had assumed to be a nightmare. "Uh… yeah," Jaune said.

"That's great!" she said, grabbing his hand and giving it a vigorous shake, as if she were introducing herself again. "Anyways, how did you do that with the Boarbatusk in Port's class? To be honest, you don't look that strong, no offense, so the only reason why I stayed awake in that class was because I thought that Boarbatusk was going to destroy you and I really wanted a good show."

"Umm, Nora?"

"Let me finish Jaune!" Nora said, holding up a hand in front of his face and nearly slapping him in the process. "Anyways, as I was saying, as soon as Port brought the Boarbatusk cage out in the open, I got super excited, but when you started to stroll over when it was still trapped, I have to admit, I got a bit angry. I thought you were going to stab the thing to death while it was still in the cage. I get that it's a Grimm, but even that's a bit cruel, don't you think?"

"Nora?"

"But then you covered the cage with some weird cloth, then you took some sort of stick out, waved it over the cage, then said something weird that I couldn't really understand, and took the cloth back off. The Boarbatusk was gone! Annihilated! Destroyed!" Nora waved her arms out wildly, nearly hitting a student passing by them in the halls. "Bam! Just like that! Without you even touching it!"

"Can I just say something first?"

"And at this point," Nora continued, completely caught up in her own story and completely ignoring Jaune's request. "I was a bit interested. I mean, you still killed the little piggy before it even had a chance to fight back, but I was still at how you could kill in an instant, just like that. Heck, I think even Port was impressed. Even though he is super duper boring, he is a Huntsman, right? If he was impressed, that really says something. I'm not sure about what exactly that something is, but it's something."

"I really-"

"AND THEN!" Nora yelled. "You open the cage, showing us that there really is nothing inside! Then you put the cloth back on, mumble some words, then there's a great cracking sound, like the sound of lightning and thunder!"

"Nora!"

"A Boarbatusk bursts out from behind the cloth! It was empty before, but now it's not! What?!" Nora reached up to grasp at her head. "Everybody went crazy, Weiss nearly peed herself I think." An indignant "Hey" could be heard from behind Nora. "And the Boarbatusk went crazy. Eventually Ren kills it by stabbing it with his Aura hands when it charges for Weiss but-"

"Nora."

It wasn't Jaune who spoke this time, but rather it was Ren. Despite him not raising his voice in the slightest, Nora seemed to have heard it over her own booming voice. She stopped talking and turned to Ren, who was giving her an exasperated look.

"Yes, Ren?" she asked. "What is it?"

"I think Jaune was trying to ask you a question," he said, gesturing back to Jaune who was currently wearing an expression that accurately conveyed his utter confusion.

Jaune turned to Ren, nodding his thanks, before turning to Nora. "Yeah, I do have a question."

"Ask away, sir!" Nora replied, giving him a military salute.

Jaune turned to Ren, asking silently for any explanation on Nora's behaviour, but when his partner's blank face gave no discernable answer, he sighed and turned back to Nora. He took an extra second to gather his thoughts and clear his throat.

"Nora," he finally said. "What are you talking about?"

Nora gave him a sly grin. "No need to be so coy, mister. We all saw it happen, there's no need to be humble about being awesome."

"No actually, we didn't."

Nora turned to Ruby, who had just spoken up. "Didn't what?" she asked.

"We didn't see it happen," Ruby explained.

"None of us know what you're talking about, Nora," Jaune spoke up, taking over Ruby's explanation. "What do you mean there was a Boarbatusk in class?"

Nora gave him a confused look that mirrored his own, before looking around to see that the other members of JSPR and RYBN were nodding their agreement with Jaune. The only exception was Ren, who stared off into the distance, practicing his impersonation of a dead fish.

"Okay, now I'm confused," Nora said. "You mean you're saying that none of you remember Jaune's little show?"

"I've been friends with Nora for a while now," Ren spoke up, still gazing into the distance and not addressing anyone specifically. "She dreams up these scenarios on occasion. The best thing to do is just move on with your life," he said, his voice strangely hollow.

"Ren!" Nora gasped. "So rude! How dare you suggest that best option to deal with me is to just ignore me?"

"You're too fast to run from," he replied.

Nora shrugged. "Eh, fair enough." She turned back to Jaune. "But seriously guys, you don't remember any of that stuff? I know I sometimes can be a little bit crazy, but I swear. This time was for real!"

"No Nora," Jaune said. "I don't think any of us know what you're talking about."

Nora looked around to see that once again, the remainder of JSPR and RYBN were nodding their agreement. Her expression turned into one of genuine concern. "Huh," she said. "Then what did actually happen during Port's class?"

Ren spoke up. "You're really dropping this so easily?" His eyes were wide with surprise. "You never admit that your stories are made up."

Nora rolled her eyes at him. "Well, that's because I'm joking around, Ren. I know they're made up, obviously. But this time I really do think that Port unleashed a Boarbatusk into the class that Jaune did some weird magic stuff to," she said. She turned to Jaune. "But apparently that's wrong. Care to explain what actually happened?"

"Nothing," Jaune said.

"Nothing," Nora mirrored in a deadpan voice. "You mean that the universe just stopped existing for the entire period?"

"Well, obviously not nothing," Jaune countered. "I just meant that it was a normal, everyday class. Nothing exciting happened."

"Oh yeah?" Nora said, her voice taking on a more challenging edge. "Care to tell me what exactly happened during class, then? What subject did Port teach? What were you doing during it?"

Jaune stared down at Nora for a few seconds before replying. "Okay…?" he said. "Well, I was actually in class pretty early since I was helping Professor Port with-"

"Just start from when class actually started, Jaune. Just humor me on this," she added, when Jaune gave her an annoyed glare at the interruption.

Jaune sighed, but started his story again. "Well, you burst through the ceiling and Port crashed through the wall after nine o' clock, so I guess that's technically the first thing that happened after class started." Jaune said. "After that, two more guys showed up, and broke down two more walls..." He froze in place after the words left his mouth. "Wait. Did that part happen?" He looked around at the rest of his own team and team RYBN to see seven faces filled with confusion, no longer directed at Nora, but at him.

"What are you talking about, Jaune?" Nora asked, reversing their roles from a few seconds before.

Jaune paused for a moment before speaking again. "That didn't happen, did it?" he asked. His voice sounded as uncertain as he felt.

"No it didn't. Are you okay, Jaune?" Nora asked.

"I feel okay," he said. Even though he had no idea why he'd even suggested that two random people had shown up just to break down the classroom walls, his head was clear and he felt perfectly healthy. But would a crazy person really be able to identify their own insanity? "I don't know why I said that," he explained, talking in order to avoid questioning his own sanity any further. "I think I just had the feeling that a fourth wall was broken down somehow."

Surprisingly, Nora nodded to that. "I think I get where you coming from," she said. "But even in that case, I broke through the ceiling, and that doesn't really count as a wall, so there would've only been three walls broken down if what you said was actually true."

Jaune nodded back. "You're right," he said. Before he could contemplate about exactly what it meant for his sanity if he was actually thinking that Nora made sense, he continued to tell his story. "Anyways, after you and Port came into class, class started."

There were a few seconds of silence before Nora seemed to realize that he'd finished. "And?" she prompted.

"And that's it?" Jaune said, uncertain of what exactly she wanted him to say. "Like I said, it was a normal class. We sat through the lecture, we left with nothing crazy happening, we left, and now we're here."

"Give me details, Jaune. What exactly did Port talk about? What exactly happened to whatever it was you were helping him set up for the class? When exactly was it that you changed out of your school uniform and into your armour?"

"What are you talking about, I-"

His words were interrupted by a soft gasp, though he wasn't sure who had been the one to gasp out loud. Even without Weiss's shaking finger pointing at his body, alternating between his chestplate and the sword that hung at his hip, he froze in place at the realization that Nora was right. Why? When? How? His childhood friend was the one who was good at quick-change magic, not him. And even if he was good at it, he couldn't remember doing it at all.

"I-" He paused, looking around at the rest of his friends who seemed to have come to a similar realization. "I don't-"

He tried to remember what exactly had led to the point where he'd changed into his battle gear, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember anything between the point when Port had crashed through the wall to when Nora started rambling about how he made that Boarbatusk disappear.

Of course, he had been planning to do that for the entire morning, but he couldn't remember pulling it off. He remembered all the events that led up to it, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember anything actually happening.

"Nora?" he asked uncertainly. "What did happen in class?"

"Exactly what I've been telling you," she said. "Also there was this weird voice in my head that was kind of narrating what was going on. Kind of like the voice of God but a lot more stupid. I didn't really like it to be honest."

"Huh." Jaune turned to the rest of his friends. They all wore the same confused expression that he imagined that he was wearing, but he wanted to ask to make sure. "Did we all just black out for an hour? I think we all just blacked out for an hour."

Aside from the nearly silent squeak of "witchcraft" from Weiss, the rest of the girls and Ren nodded their agreement.

"Huh, that's weird," Jaune said. "Let's just hope that never happens again.

She looked nervously behind her and saw that the village she'd just performed at was no longer visible over the horizon. Looking around on the road, she also saw that she was the only person in sight for miles. She checked behind her and around her one more time before tossing her ice cream cone down onto the ground. She didn't refuse it back in the village in fear of seeming like she was being rude, but out here she only had to worry about offending the road.

"Why'd it have to be Neapolitan flavour?" she asked herself. Sure the village people had thanked her with ice cream like she'd hoped, but why did they only have the worst flavour in stock? Not that she had any qualms about the taste itself, but it was more of a matter of principle. How could someone so lazily combine three types of ice cream and have the gall to call it a new flavour? After taking a few seconds to look at the ice cream melt on the ground and appreciate how she was happily denying it a chance to defile anyone's taste buds, she walked on along the road.

"Now, how long will it be until I get to the next town?" she asked herself. Even though she knew there was nobody around to listen, she couldn't stand to keep her voice bottled up any longer. It had been tiring to keep quiet for so long at that village. Thankfully, with a new village coming up, she would have a chance to create a new magician persona. One that wouldn't involve staying silent for so long.

Pulling out a foldable map from one of her pockets, she let out a sigh of relief when she saw that the distance to the next town seemed short enough that she'd arrive by nightfall, even though she was travelling by foot. As much as she didn't mind camping by the road, she preferred beds much more. Unfortunately, a short travelling time also meant less planning time for her next performance.

Keeping that in mind, her mind focused on planning her next performance.

"Card tricks?" she asked herself. After thinking about it for a while, she shrugged. Card tricks were always reliable, but there was the limitation that if she was performing for a larger crowd, the audience members at the back wouldn't be able to see properly. Of course, she did have a much flashier way of doing card tricks, but she'd just used that as her grand finale in the last village, and she avoided repeating a trick too often to keep herself from getting bored or tired of it. Also, it didn't help that she was nearly out of fire dust.

"I guess I could do card tricks as an opening, but that won't be enough on its own." She folded her map back up. There was only one straight road to get to the village with no forks or turns in between, so there was no need to keep checking it for directions. As she stowed the map away, an idea struck her. While she knew about the various hidden pockets hidden on her person, to an outsider, it would have looked like she vanished the map into thin air.

"Disappearing magic?" she asked herself.

It only took a few seconds for her to dismiss the idea. Disappearing magic was something that she had didn't practice, simply because she didn't have the patience to make the necessary props. She never understood how Jaune could improvise the necessary materials so quickly, but she never found it in her to be jealous. He had his skillset while she had hers.

She remembered the first time that Jaune demonstrated his disappearing trick, using a small cage and one of his stuffed animals that he insisted was actually his sisters. Her teasing had been merciless, but she had kept it brief so she wouldn't have to wait long before he showed off his trick.

After a few flourishes and magic words, she'd been clapping with excitement at Jaune's magnificent trick.

According to Jaune, the trick was simple. Reveal the cage with something inside, cover the cage with a cloth while inserting a foldable panel that was painted in such a way that it looked like it was actually the back of the cage, lift the cloth and show off the "disappearance" of whatever was inside, cover the cage again, remove the panel, lift the cover, and voila. The stuffed teddy bear reappears from the void!

She and her teacher had both given each other strange looks at Jaune's explanation. It was certainly a very simple trick if you were good enough at sleight of hand, but that was if you had a perfectly drawn out panel that could fool the audience's eyes. One single person with keen eyes could expose you for a fraud and ruin the entire show.

"Damn show off," she muttered to herself as she remembered Jaune's confused response.

Apparently Jaune was secretly a genius artist who could draw hyperrealistic images within minutes. When asked about how long it had taken him to make the panel that he used, he explained that after finding a piece of cardboard and the appropriate paints, he'd been able to draw it in two minutes.

Fortunately for her and her teacher, the three of them had brainstormed ways to pull off this trick without relying on a freakishly good artistic talent, but unfortunately for her, none of them fixed the two fundamental problems with the trick.

Firstly, she needed specific and proper props in order to execute any versions of this technique. While Jaune could circumvent this problem with his overabundance of artistic talent, she couldn't with here severe lack of it.

Secondly, making a teddy bear disappear was not all that glamourous. Jaune said that when he performed this trick in the future, he would either have an assistant to hide in the box, or an animal that he could train to sit still. Jaune had made the crazy suggestion that he would also use Grimm, but their teacher had smacked him on the head, saying that not only would that be dangerous, but the Grimm might just charge through the panel and ruin the whole trick.

Sighing, she conceded to the idea that she wouldn't be performing that trick in the next village, or anytime soon.

She tapped her chin and thought out loud once again. "Hmm. How about-" She interrupted her own thoughts with a small gasp.

A few dozen feet away from her, she saw a pair of small mounds by the side of the road. To the unobservant watcher, it might have looked like two brown mounds of dirt, but she recognized it for what it was. A pair of bunnies, cuddling together as they slept.

It was adorable.

Taking care not to make any sound and startle them awake, she took extra care to circle around them, stepping off the path itself so she wouldn't have to pass by too close, but she stopped once an idea popped into her mind.

The rabbit-out-of-a-hat trick. She took extra care not to speak her thoughts out loud so she wouldn't disturb the bunnies. It was one of the first tricks that her teacher had shown her, and she'd been thinking of putting her own twist on it for a while. Was the next village the first debut of her own invention? Pulling herself out of giant hat or box by her rabbit ears?

She was momentarily distracted when she saw one of the bunnies' nose twitch and her heart melted at the adorable display. She reached into her coat for one of her inner pockets and brought out a camera. This moment was just too precious not to capture. She just hoped the sound of the camera shutter wouldn't wake them.

I wonder who this mysterious childhood friend is?

I'd also like to point out that this is my shortest AN section yet.