Another story attempt that has interested me just from its concept. I'd appreciate some reviews on this one as well since I have a better idea of what I want from this one.

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Jaune narrowly dodged another swipe from the grey and black cane his foe wielded. As it came back around for another sweep the blonde boy blocked it with the shaft of his own cane weapon, he pulled down on his weapon, hooking the handle of his opponent's weapon, and whipped it away. Though disarmed, his opponent did not let up and instead punched Jaune straight in the jaw.

While his aura cushioned the blow, he was hit with enough force to temporarily rattle his head. The figure across dove for his lost weapon and only barely managed to get a grip on its curved handle before Jaune launched a vicious kick into his face. The figure, not willing to throw in the towel yet, shook his head and parried a wicked stab from Jaune's own weapon and instead sent the direction of force so that it drew the boy across him.

The young man snarled and attempted to elbow his opponent as he passed but was once again spun on his heels by a block that swung him around. Even though Jaune was having issues keeping up he was determined to win this, so, as he drew farther away, he attempted a roundhouse into the figures temple. His enemy ducked underneath it and closed the distance between the two to throw a handful of what appeared to be red dust into Jaune's eyes.

The blonde warrior coughed and sputtered as his eyes burned. Temporarily blinded, the opponent headbutted the young man sending him sprawling onto his back in head-ringing pain. The figure laughed and placed the barrel of his cane directly between the eyes of the now-recovering huntsman, he had lost and was at the mercy of this man. Roman Torchwick cackled once more as he eyed his downed enemy, the king of crime in Vale smiled widely as he lorded over the boy.

"Nice try kid, but you're gonna need to be a lot faster to pull a fast one of over me." Roman smirked before he flipped his cane and extended its hook to Jaune who took it with a sigh. "Still though, you've gotten a lot better, I think I can tell your mom that you're good to go."

Jaune turned up at his uncle in surprise. "R-Really Uncle? B-But, you said if I didn't win then I'd be S.O.L?"

The master thief chuckled heartily. "Well, criminals lie all the time right kid? Anyways, what kind of uncle would I be if I denied you your dream."

Jaune smiled enthusiastically with enough brightness that Roman mock winced at its innocence. He could feel his own rotten soul actually feeling proud for a moment there! Despite his nephew's disposition, he threw an arm around the blonde boy and laughed again.

"Well then, I think to celebrate your success I should, as you irresponsible uncle, take you into Vale for some drinks, maybe a few illegal substances, and finish off with some hook- homework! Some practical homework and training exercises!" Jaune looked up quizzically at his uncle who had begun to sweat profusely.

Roman's smiled grew incredibly strained and he swallowed hard. "N-Neo, so, ugh, how long have you been watching?"

He was answered with a boot to his ass that sent him sprawling onto the floor. Suddenly, Jaune could feel a pair of gloved hands wrap around his neck and pull him into a warm hug. Craning his head back, Jaune could see a smirking face with a pair of mismatched brown and pink eyes that coincided with her hair color; Neopolitan, one of, if not the most, deadliest criminals to ever grace Vale's grimy underworld stared right into his eyes.

"Hey mom, so, how long were you there for?" Jaune asked, choosing to ignore his groaning uncle. His mom just gave a hushed sigh and ruffled his hair as she mouthed a few words for him.

"Honey, promise me that, no matter how long you live, you'll never take your dumbass uncle's advice." she said, cocking an eyebrow at said uncle who scoffed as he read her lips.

Jaune chuckled and pulled her into his own hug. "I promise mom, you know that I think Uncle Roman is a bad influence."

"Hey kid what the h-"

"Anyways, uncle said I passed my combat test so does that mean...?" Neo dropped her smirk and sighed, tapping her head against her son's, before she looked up and smiled sadly at him.

"I always knew you leave the roost at some point kiddo, your sisters did and look at them now. I just wish you had chosen a more... agreeable line of work." Jaune sighed, perhaps just a little dramatically, which caused her to smile.

"Mooom, we've been over this! My one true dream is to become a huntsman and fight evil!" The young huntsman could almost feel the palpable eyeroll his uncle no doubt gave at that, but his heterochromiatic mother just sighed and gave him a small kiss.

"I know sweetheart, I know, but if you ever end up running afoul of your uncle's operations remember: Roman is weak to being kicked in the ass super hard!" She said silently, Roman gave a pained groan, whether from the earlier kick or the advice Jaune did not know, and his mom rolled her eyes.

Jaune laughed sweetly. "I will mom, I will. Anyways, is dad back yet?"

Neopolitan smiled with faux exasperation and nodded. "In the kitchen, where else would you find him?"

"Thanks mom, I'm gonna go tell him the good news!" Jaune exclaimed happily as he rushed out of the mansion's underground training ring. Roman half-limped over to his adopted daughter and cracked a smile.

"Well, you did have 8 kids, so I guess it's just probability that one of them would be a pain in the ass." Roman chuckled, lighting one of his cigars. Neo laughed quietly and promptly kicked her dad even harder in the ass...

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"So kiddo, your mom tells me you passed the test that your uncle gave." One Broderick Arc laughed, one hand firmly grasped around a beer and the other ruffling his son's hair. "Guess that means my sweet little golden noodle is gonna become a huntsman!"

Jaune blushed, more than a little embarrassed, at the nick name. "Daaad, I told you not to call me that anymore."

"Oh come on son, to this old fart it seems only a few days ago I was tucking you into bed and telling you stories of my exploits." his father sniffed the air as his eyes filled with tears of pride. "And now just look at you! It's- It's too much for me!"

Broderick Arc, skilled huntsman and slayer of evil, cried a near-literal fountain of tears as he embraced his son with a crushing grip. Jaune, for his part, tried to stay conscious as his dad wailed about his little boy growing up to be like his old man.

This went on for nearly a minute before his mom came in and physically pried them apart, where she then took Jaune's replacement as crush dummy as Jaune's father cried to his darling wife about their kids. Neo bore it all without complaint save for an overly-dramatic eye roll (it has to run in the family) and a hand that waved for Jaune to pack his stuff.

Jaune walked through the expansive mansion his family owned to get to his room. Every once in awhile he'd see some maid or other servant cleaning or cooking and he'd wave to them and they'd wish him good luck in turn. Passing the now-empty rooms of his sisters, who were all busy being assassins, or executives, or hackers or something, and opening the door to his he took it in for one last time.

His room was decked out in posters and album covers of classic rock and alternative bands that almost took up the entirety of the purple walls. Stepping over a small pile of dirty clothes, Jaune picked out his duffel bag and backpack from his closet and began to load clean clothes, his toiletries, some paperwork, a few fake ids, some dust crystals and powder, and a few other odds and ends.

Always best to be prepared, right Jaune? he thought, remembering his grandpa's advice from years ago. Uncle Torchwick would handle the paperwork, and, if nothing else, he'd at least have a smooth entry into Beacon. Jaune sighed, not unhappily, and thought about everything that had happened...

His mom and uncle had worked together to be a couple of... unsavory folk who had built a criminal empire across Vale and had extended operations into other kingdoms. His dad had been a reckless huntsman who wound up in the wrong place and wrong time and just happened to cross his mom and Uncle Torchwick. The two fought and at some point dad had let them get away so he could fight them later. Fast forward a few times and his mom and dad just kinda... hit it off in what Jaune assumed was a very, very interesting adventure.

The two had a boatload of kids, he and seven sisters, and now were, more-or-less, stay-at-home bad asses for their kids. However, every baby bird has to learn to fly and Jaune's sisters had took to the air like true hawks. Corbin, the oldest, had become a rather ruthless CEO of an accounting firm located in Atlas and acted as the Schnee Family's personal accounting company. Corbin had a tendency to spoil Jaune, as the cool big sister should, and he couldn't count how much stuff had come from "Clemmons LLC". Mindy and Rowena, the twins, picked up their mom's more, how you say, ruthless habits and had become international hitmen (or hitwomen?) operating under any number of "nom de guerre".

Jolanda was currently some kind of lead hacker for one of those "let's save the world by being nerds" hacker groups that accounted for any number of cyber crimes. Bruna did... something? To be honest he wasn't quite sure what she did. Chryssa and Olivia were running a sort of back-alley law firm for shady businesses and select individuals who needed guarantees that they would be indicted or imprisoned for something.

And then there was Jaune, subsequent "Golden Noodle" of the family, who had wanted to emulate the coolness of his dad with the swagger of his uncle. His mom and other family had been pretty cool about it surprisingly, I mean, the rest of Neo's kids were doing illegal trades that could get them executed in a few provinces so what was having one kid that fought Grimm?

So, at age ten, Roman gifted his nephew a black, metal cane with a single golden band right after the curved handle ended. Taking inspiration from his own weapon, Melodic Cudgel, Roman fashioned the cane to have a grappling hook handle and also have the end of it act as a flamethrower. Jaune had dubbed the weapon as "Black Matchstick".

Training was, well, intense to say the least. His mother, while supportive, didn't want her baby unprepared so she set about educating her son in every possible skillset one could need as a huntsman: acrobatics, hand-to-hand, perception, reflexes, dust usage, technique, bartitsu, forgery, thievery, stealth, charm, etc etc. Of course, Jaune took to some of the skills more readily than the others, but his whole family had come out to help him achieve his dream. With Roman cooking up what was probably a tear-jerking story for his nephew's profile Jaune finished packing and fiddled with his cane.

This is it, it's really happening. All my fantasies of being one of those "dashing rogue" types might finally come true, and who knows, maybe I'll get a sexy sidekick as Uncle always used to say. Jaune chuckled to himself before gathering up his supplies and looking at himself in the mirror. An expensive black wool coat that was designed to handle small caliber rounds, a designer grey T-shirt, a pair of jeans, and his lucky sneakers was all he needed to look the part. He was going to do it, he was going to be a huntsman and change the world.

As he neared the kitchen he caught a glimpse of his family sitting around the marble island nearly whispering to eachother-

"Roman, what do you know about her?" he could hear his dad ask.

"I- Not really anything at the moment but I'm having my best crew work on it right now." he could listened to his uncle speak. "She doesn't seem interested in me personally, so she hasn't really been looking into us that bad. I think, if we keep a low profile, she'll leave the kids alone at the very least. So let's keep your marriage on the hush-hush ok?"

His mom must've said something because, after a moment, he could hear his dad hum in agreement. "Well, Jaune will be undeniably safe at Beacon. Ozpin has got that place locked down like a steel vault, so I'm not too worried. And the others are in far off places so I'm not too worried either, but still, we should probably keep a backup ready in case we need to make a hasty escape."

"Agreed, I'll jump out the moment I can." his uncle responded before stopping abruptly as Jaune decided to knock on the door.

"I-Is this a bad time uncle?"

"What? No, no kid just a little bit of a business venture I'm heading into. Nothing your dashing uncle can't handle really." Roman said, cutting a pose like he was some charismatic bad boy from one of Corbin's trashy romance novels. "Anyways, your profile is all set up and has been entered into the Beacon mainframe."

"S-So, I I'm in what you're trying to say!?" Jaune cried enthusiastically. His uncle cringed again but his parents sent a look between eachother and chuckled quietly to themselves.

"Geez kid, yeah you're in. Don't be opening up the water works like your dear old dad over there." Roman said, looking at Brody only to find him tearing up. "Wha-? Dammit Brody I was kidding, don't actually start crying again!"

The two argued in what would seem to an outsider to be a comical fashion, with his father trying to argue while also very obviously choking back tears and Roman's exasperation at the fact this guy married his only daughter. Jaune chuckled and went over to hug his mom who brought him in with strength you wouldn't think a 4 foot woman would have.

"Remember you family's advice Jaune." she said, and while her eyes were serious she had a playful smile on her face.

"I know mom: All you need is a little confidence, friends are just enemies you haven't made yet, there is always someone who's a sucker, and there's no need to be nice on your fist day!" Jaune finished proudly, Neo smiled wider and pulled her baby boy into another bone-crushing hug.

"Be safe sweetheart, if you die I'll drag you back here and ground you until the end of time."

Jaune chuckled a little. "Of course mom, I'll be counting on it."

Jaune was caught from behind by yet another bone-crushing hug as his father wailed incoherently about girls or good luck or something like that...

0-0-0-0

Oh lord, bullheads.

It didn't take very long for Jaune to find out he didn't like flying in bullheads too much. The altitude, the pressure, the way everything just sways beneath your feet made his stomach turn and his head run in circles. He sat, hunched over, by the trash can in the ship in case he had a repeat of the accident he had just gone through (he'd have to buy that girl new shoes) before finally, and with the grace of god above, it landed at Beacon Academy.

When the doors open it wasn't a surprise that Jaune was the first one jetting out of there. He fell to his knees and praised the solid ground beneath him, may the gods grant him many years of flat surface to come. People brushed by him with both confused and annoyed stares before he finally got up and started following the crowd of people towards what he assumed was the lecture hall.

Along the way he thought he heard some kind of commotion coming from the courtyard to his left. Hmm, what would Uncle do? So Jaune went to go investigate and, with any luck, he'd find something to steal while everyone over there was distracted. Peeking around some bushes, he saw a pale girl thoroughly chewing out some black-haired kid who must've knocked over he luggage apparent by the scattered suitcases.

It was then that something caught Jaune's eye. One of the cases was open slightly, and in it, he could see what looked to be the mostly finely cut dust crystals he'd ever laid eyes on. The suitcase's logo said everything he needed to know; the Schnee family was notorious for their dust and it seems that this girl had been given a little sample. She wouldn't miss one lousy dust crystal right? At this cut he could only imagine the uses for it, with such purity the thing had to pack a wallop and he figured he could use the extra edge.

He crept over to the cases, hoping the two were too engrossed in their argument to notice him. And, in one fluid motion, he kneeled down and snatched up one of the crystals from the edge of the case before clicking it shut. He sidled up behind the two and coughed to get their attention, the pale girl whirled around with a ferocity he had only seen once in his mom when his dad had forgotten their anniversary.

"Can I help you-" she stopped when she saw the case in his hands. "Wha- Thief! Hand that back right now!"

Jaune winced at her tone. "I-I only came to give it back to you, i-it's not safe to keep dust lying around you know."

"You think I don't know that! I am Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, I think I know my dust." She huffed indignantly before looking down at the still prone girl. "Well, at least you have more tact than this buffoon."

She sniffed the air and carted away her things, leaving the two other freshman to awkwardly fill in the space. Jaune, finally realizing the girl was still on the ground, did what his uncle would always do and offered the end of his cane to her.

"Oh, thanks a lot." the girl, who was apparently wearing some kind of red corset-hood combo thing, shivered slightly. "I thought she was about to flay us both alive for a minute there."

Jaune chuckled before extending a hand out to her. "My name's Jaune, I just got here for the freshman year."

"Oh, Ruby Rose I'm a freshman same as you!" she chirped cheerfully. "Wanna go to the lecture hall together?"

Jaune smiled happily. Yes! My first friend! "I'd love that Ruby."

"Cool! I see you got a cane there! Does it transform? My weapon does, her name is Crescent Rose and she's a..."

The two began to leave the courtyard, with Ruby talking about her weapon, but Jaune couldn't get over the feeling of a pair of eyes digging into his back...

The walk to the lecture hall was just fine, the two had been talking and getting to know one another through the trip and it had been surprisingly lax. Not at all like the awkward cringe-fest he had imagine making new friends was like.

"..And that's why my mom says strangers are just enemies you haven't made yet!" Jaune said happily, oblivious to Ruby's shocked face.

"Weiss isn't my enemy!" she denied fervently.

Jaune just shrugged. "Well you were worried she was about to eat you alive back there so..."

"I-I, n-no that wasn't what I- you know what Jaune Arc!" she stammered, embarrassed at the jab. "Whatever, we're here anyway."

Jaune laughed and ruffled her hair which only got her more worked up before a familiar blonde girl came walking over to them.

"Hey Rubes! Over here!" she said, waving her arm as she came over.

"Yang! Check out this guy I just met!" Ruby waved back. Jaune was having trouble identifying who she was, he could've sworn that he had seen her somewhere before. Wait, was it-

"Sup! My name's Yang Xiao Lo-"

"Let me buy you new shoes!" Jaune blurted out, having gone stiff as a statue. Ruby and Yang looked taken aback and an awkward silence descended on their little group.

"W-Well, I think we should at least get to know eachother first." Yang laughed, with only a little bit of force.

"N-No, one the bullhead I just kinda- well, you see, I get kinda airsick and..." He trailed off, not quite sure how to handle this. As another long silence descended down upon the three, Jaune silently reached into his wallet and pulled out 300 lien and threw it at her before walking away just a little too robotically.

Real cool dipshit, you couldn't even work some cheesy one-liner in there? Jaune berated himself for his own stupidity. He decided to place himself squarely behind a couple of chattering freshmen, well, the girl was chattering away but the other seemed rather impassive. The girl was ginger and wore a pink skirt while her green-garbed friend had a small highlight of pink going through his ponytailed hair.

"So Renny, what do you think we'll be doing for initiation! Oooh! I hope we get to wrestle Ursa, wouldn't that be fun." The ginger girl crowed to her friend -Renny was it?- who sighed slightly and shook his head.

"I don't think so Nora, they're probably going to use it as an excuse to make teams." Renny said, shrugging his shoulder slightly.

"Oh! That's makes so much sense! Well then, we'll have to be extra extra super duper sure we get on the same team!" Nora cheered, pumping a fist into the air and garnering some annoyed looks from the people around her.

Please, let the madness end Jaune groaned in his own mind, face looking a little despondent. "Nora" turned around, apparently bored with talking to her companion, and her eyes landed smack dab on Jaune.

"Hello! You're a first-year too right?" she called out, waving at him and smiling brightly. "My name's Nora, and this is my friend Renny-bear!"

Ugh, ok I guess. My mom's name is just a misspelled ice cream so who am I to judge? Renny-bear closed his eyes before opening them and regarding Jaune with an apologetic look.

"It's Lie Ren actually, nice to meet you...?" he trailed off with the question.

Ugh, quick! What would uncle do?

...

Yeah, lying to or silencing Nora and Ren probably wouldn't work. So he supposed he'd just need to go in head-first with these people-

"Jaune. Jaune Arc, I'm training to become a huntsman." he smiled, extending a hand which Nora took in a crushing grip.

Oh dear god, I thought dad was bad. Ren, seeing the look on Jaune's face, tapped Nora's wrist and she quickly dropped his bruised hand with a sheepish smile.

"Oh gosh, I'm sorry Jaune-y, I didn't mean to hurt you."

"It's cool Nora, don't worry about it." well, she seemed nice at the very least. Maybe a couple bullets short of a magazine but a very nice girl, and her friend seemed to act as her... mediator? Holder?

"I don't suppose you know when this is suppose to be under way do you?" Ren asked, gesturing to the still-empty stage. He had a point too, it had been almost 10 minutes and still no one besides a few upperclassmen were here.

"Afraid not, but it has to be soon right? They can't keep us locked up in here forever." Ren cracked a small smile, seemingly reminiscing, before, as if on cue, the lights behind them dimmed and the stage lights brightened.

From right stage an elderly man with silver hair walked to the center where a microphone stood. He took a moment to scan the crowd of young faces, tap the microphone, generating some awful feedback, before clearing his throat.'

"Students, my name is Headmaster Ozpin of Beacon Academy..."

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"So, ugh, was he kinda weird or was it just me?" Nora asked as the three headed into the ballroom where they were supposed to be sleeping. Jaune was inclined to agree with her, the headmaster's speech had not been very inspiring. True, Jaune did not know much about the art of speech, but he assumed that you weren't supposed to make vague allusions to the world ending or everyone dying.

They neared the locker rooms and Nora broke off to go change with the girls, meanwhile Ren and Jaune headed into the men's locker rooms. They'd finished dinner and were expected to get prepared for sleep as initiation, the locker rooms themselves were well-kept and spacious even with all the men running around.

Over the joking and jeers Ren turned to regard his newfound friend. They'd hit it off rather well, dinner was mostly just keeping Nora away from eating everything while they talked for a bit. They'd asked eachother about their lives and the like, so Jaune stuck to the story Uncle Roman told him which was he was the only male child of a now widowed huntsman. Ren and Nora were both orphans attending a combat school in Mistral before arriving here, but they were nice people and were pretty easy to get along with.

"What do you think initiation will be tomorrow?" Jaune asked his friend, who seemed to ponder that for a moment.

"I imagine some sort of practical team exercise, maybe an obstacle course or assignment from the teachers." Jaune hummed in agreement, it made sense after all. Hunters worked in teams of 4, so it made sense they'd want to get together with their team as soon as possible.

"Well, here's hoping." Jaune said, changing into his pajamas (a set of extremely comfy, and expensive, pajama pants and night shirt) while ren seemed to be more comfortable in a tank top and green shorts.

The assembled kids filed into the massive room and promptly decided their territory like this was some kind of nature documentary. It was kinda funny, with only a few exceptions like Nora, the room was almost perfectly divided between male and female sides. Jaune caught Ruby and Yang talking about something or other, and when Ruby caught him looking he froze and just turned back to Nora who was talking about some dream or another.

"You guys up for cards?" Jaune asked, pulling out a strangely designed deck of cards that Nora began to "ooh" at. They were a gift from his dad, the entire deck was colored and designed to resemble a sort of macabre, "skull-and-crossbones" look.

"Sure, I love go fish, and war, and spoons, and..." Nora continued on, listing all her favorite card games while Jaune just dealt Ren in for a game of bullshit. Later that night, Jaune was plagued by nightmares in which he seemed to be falling endlessly into a cavernous darkness.

Weird...