Collision Course - Prologue

Jaune Arc had always had a dream that he had focused on his entire life, and try as he may, he'd never gotten to even attempt to realize that dream. He'd been sent to a normal school and nobody had bothered to train him or inform him about anything regarding Huntsmen besides what he'd heard from the various tales that his grandfather would tell him, one of the few who even bothered to tell him about those sorts of things.

But when he finally learned of Beacon where most of his family had been trained, besides him and his sisters, he'd made a… decision. Yeah, let's put it like that. After inheriting Crocea Mors from his grandfather, with specific instructions on what to do to get into Beacon, including faking his transcripts… He'd followed them.

He didn't even want to imagine how his family had reacted to the note that he'd left them before leaving for Vale, but… He couldn't live with himself if he'd merely sat around on his ass, instead of trying to follow his ancestor's footsteps.

Or at least, that's what Jaune was telling himself as he stared upon the horrible, metal contraption that was an airship… Somebody hated him, he swore, paling and feeling his stomach literally contort in on itself at the thought of entering it.

"Had a bad experience with these things?" A distinctive voice rose up behind him. Jaune tentatively turned around to see a girl with distinctive red eyes and brown hair, looking at him with concern.

"You could say that," Jaune admitted, feeling more than a bit ashamed about admitting that to her. "But it uh, isn't a problem, trust me."

The girl merely smiled gently, before rifling through the blue messenger bag she had on her. "Well, if you do have a problem, you should probably eat these. They'll help you out."

Jaune glanced at the distinctive red sweets, before smiling. "Thanks… I er, forgot to introduce myself, didn't I?"

"You did," she answered, letting out a small giggle, that made Jaune immediately feel more confident about what he was about to say.

"Well, I'm Jaune Arc… It's sweet, short and rolls off the tongue." He said confidently, giving a radiant smile, hoping that this worked… It had been a while since he'd talked to a girl his own age, after all.

"And my name is Gabriel." The red-eyed girl replied with a grin, seemingly happy with how he'd introduced himself, before something beeped on her arm, immediately turning her expression downcast.

"Hey, what's up?" Jaune asked concernedly. He didn't particularly like seeing girls being sad, especially cute ones like her. "You gotta go?"

"Unfortunately, yeah…" Gabriel answered, sounding genuinely sad about the prospect.

"Hey, if you get another chance, we can meet up again? I'm going to Beacon after all, so it isn't that far." The young man said, trying his best to make her feel better. He wasn't about to let a new… friend(?) be sad, dammit, not if he had a say in it.

"You're way too kind, Jaune," she replied, smiling gently at him once more. "Hey, give me your phone or whatever you have."

"Sure…?" Jaune answered, rather confused at where she was going with this… Passing his rather beaten up Scroll, she immediately began typing into it ridiculously fast, making his eyes go wide in surprise.

After merely a moment, Gabriel jovially handed him back his Scroll. "Here, I gave you my number… Try not to abuse it, eh?"

"Why would I do that?" Jaune asked, genuinely confused once more, gingerly pocketing it. "We're friends, right?"

The brown-haired girl stared at him for a moment, before letting a genuinely relieved grin rise on her face. "Yeah, for sure. I'll be seeing you around, kay?"

As he watched her walk off, he felt slightly lightheaded yet stronger for it. Probably not physically, but in his heart… He shook the thought off because it seemed ridiculous, even for him.

Jaune tentatively began to walk towards the airship, grabbing one of the sweets that Gabriel had given to him. As he actually entered the metal behemoth and seeing the number of people there, he couldn't help but feel intimidated, especially with the risk that he might vomit on them… He'd done that in high school once and he'd never lived it down.

Noticing that the airship was lifting off, Jaune tentatively began to suck on the sweet that he'd been given and instantly knew why she'd recommended them. They were just so good and soothing for his stomach, that he barely noticed the distinctive twinge of his stomach that usually accompanied airship rides.

Next time he saw her, Jaune decided, he'd have to thank her in some way.

He'd gotten so distracted by his sweet that he hadn't even noticed they'd arrived, and probably wouldn't have if his stomach hadn't flipped on itself once more, grimacing as he felt the distinctive drag of his body as it descended. He genuinely hated this feeling more than anything.

Shaking his head to rid himself of any mental cobwebs, the young man exited the airship and let out a small, completely unintentional gasp at the sight of Beacon. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that it'd look this… Beautiful? Grandiose? One of those fancy terms that he didn't have the charm to use.

The courtyard was surrounded by tall white pillars, with distinctive red and green trees dotted around the greenery that followed the courtyard to Beacon. Beacon itself looked, to put it bluntly, like a palace from a fairy tale, albeit somewhat more futuristic in terms of materials used to build it… And here was where the young man was going to study to become a Huntsman.

He didn't realize until now, how truly out of his depth he was, Jaune thought as he gazed upon the various students walking rather calmly towards the school, all equipped with various weapons that made Crocea Mors look simply inferior in comparison.

Jaune blinked rapidly as he realized that he'd heard an explosion…

Wait, why the hell was he hearing an explosion?

Moving forward somewhat cautiously, he came across the sight of a black-haired girl on her back, wearing some sort of mixture of a gothic-lolita style dress. Pretty cool, as far as he was concerned...

Jaune cringed sympathetically as he heard her whisper from the floor, "I guess this is welcome to Beacon…"

"Hey, you okay?" He asked as he outstretched his hand to pick her up.

"Uh… Yeah," the young girl replied somewhat awkwardly, grabbing his hand before leaping up with a surprising amount of strength.

"So..." Jaune began just as awkwardly, cursing himself for refusing to go to the social gatherings that he had, before settling on the first topic that came to mind. "What kinda weapon do you got? I've seen a ton of bizarre weapons around here, so I wondered what you had."

It seemed that was the right thing to talk about, since the silver-eyed girl seemed to literally morph into another person, seemingly genuinely excited about the prospect. "You really want to know about Crescent Rose?"

The young man blinked rapidly for a moment, before hesitantly nodding, recognizing another area where he was completely out of his depth… Again.

"Well," the girl began and Jaune rather bleakly realized that he didn't even know her name and she didn't know his own either... "This is Crescent Rose!"

As she brandished some sort of folded up thing, Jaune didn't even bother to hide his surprised yelp, when it suddenly turned into a rather wickedly long red and black scythe that'd put Crocea Mors to utter shame in terms of how complex it looked in terms of design. And Crocea Mors was just a well polished sword and shield!

"Sorry…" The girl said, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly. "Probably should have warned you before mecha-shifting it."

"Ah, uh, wha-" Jaune tried to say before stopping himself in his tracks. He got the distinct feeling that he should probably know what that is. "Yeah… A warning would be nice."

She shot him a suspicious look, before stating rather deadpan, "you have no idea what mechashifting is, do you?"

Jaune let out a sigh of shame, hoping to god that this half-truth would work. "Yeah... I didn't pay much attention in that particular bit of class, I'm afraid."

"I'll admit… I didn't either." She admitted with a nonchalant shrug, before perking back up, as they wandered further and further into the school. "But I did learn about it when I made Crescent Rose!"

"Ah," Jaune said, wracking his brain for a convincing half-truth, even as he felt more and more guilty about lying to this girl. "I kinda didn't have to make my weapon, so that's why I didn't have that particular remedial lesson, I guess."

"So… If that's the case, what's your weapon?" The girl asked, stopping to a halt, tipping her head as they neared a distinctly grey statue of a weirdly familiar guy with a sword and a hooded girl with a battle axe, on top of a rock with a roaring beowolf below them. Jaune felt a bizarrely keen desire to stare at it, before shaking his head, turning to his… companion once more.

"This hand-me-down," Jaune answered somewhat glumly, as he took his sword out of the sheathe. Seeing her look of genuine curiosity however, he began to feel a bit more confident. "Crocea Mors. My granddad gave it to me when he died, and I've kept it ever since."

"That's cool… uh…" The girl tried to say, only for her eyes to widen and to flush red in embarrassment. "Wait, I don't know your name!"

"I er… I don't know yours either, so…" The blond replied, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. "Uh… Anyway, I'm Jaune Arc."

"This is so embarrassing…" The black-haired girl said aloud, and Jaune got the distinct impression she'd meant to keep that to herself, before plastering an awkward grin on her face. "I ah, I'm Ruby Rose. Nice to meet you, hehe… Heh."

As the awkward silent threatened to swallow them whole, Jaune cleared his throat, deciding that continuing like this hadn't happened would likely be preferable for them both. "The sheath turns into a shield, so… If the shield gets too heavy for me to carry, I can just… ya know, put it to my belt."

"It'd weigh the same though, right?" Ruby asked, seemingly thankful for just… Continuing the conversation.

"...Yeah." He answered, hanging his head downwards.

"Hey, it's a classic," she said, patting him on the shoulder comfortingly. "The classics are simple in design but great in effect so… They're great!"

"If you say so," Jaune mumbled to himself, not really believing her. As he somewhat despondently attempted to turn his shield into a sheathe, it suddenly leapt out at him, tumbling from his hands, forcing him to let go of his sword and kick it towards the statue to pick it up and finally put the shield-turned-sheathe at his belt.

Ruby looked on sympathetically whilst cringing from what he saw, but honestly… It wasn't on the top of his list of worries that he'd humiliated himself in front of a prospective friend. No, what worried him was…

"Wait, why…?" The young girl asked, sounding genuinely shocked as the two of them stared at the sight of Crocea Mors phased inside of the statue, a slight reddish-black glow surrounding where it went past where the rock was supposed to be.

"Reckon we should… I dunno, get a teacher here or something?" He finally asked after a moment, trying his hardest to ignore his confusion.

"I mean, it could be some sort of test," Ruby said hesitantly, as she nervously bit her lip.

"Or we could just ignore it for now and get to wherever we're supposed to be going-" Jaune tried to say with false confidence, as he moved to grab Crocea Mors, only for a strange red hand to grab at his arm from inside the statue.

"What the-?!" He yelped loudly, trying his hardest to pull his arm free, to no avail.

"Jaune!" Ruby yelled worriedly, zooming towards him in a blur, distinct petals flowing from where she'd once stood. "Let go of him, you stupid hand!"

"No, Ruby - don't!" Jaune tried to warn her only for the red hand to pull just as she did, sending her crashing into him and the both of them tumbling inside the statue where they began falling.

The young man landed right on his back, letting out a pained gasp on top of whatever pain he was already feeling, as the prone form of Ruby landed right on his sore body.

"Sorry, Jaune, didn't mean to do that, " she meekly said as she clambered off him, offering him a hand, which he rather graciously took.

"It's fine," he grumbled, giving her a somewhat pained smile as they began looking over where they were.

It certainly wasn't Beacon anymore, Jaune reflected incredibly nervously, as he gazed upon the sight of a black-colored ground with distinct white bones popping out of the ground. A cobbled path lay in front of them, leading towards some sort of tower… The tower itself was an absolutely bizarre sight, with the only commonality being the color scheme: black, white and red.

Otherwise, it looked utterly distorted like it couldn't possibly exist: it stood taller then any skyscraper he'd ever seen, piercing past the mauve clouds, and trying to describe what it looked like felt utterly impossible. At the bottom part, it looked like a normal concrete building, only to suddenly morph into a movie theater after a few meters of concrete and… Jaune felt a headache splitting his head even trying to ponder it, so he put it out of his mind for now.

"Where are we?" She asked, sounding slightly afraid which made him feel incredibly guilty. If only he hadn't been such a clumsy idiot, she wouldn't be here in this…

Nightmare world. Jaune thought, despairing. What the hell had he gotten himself and Ruby into?

AN: An experiment that I've been pondering for a while now - a fusion between RWBY and Persona… And I hope you're intrigued by such a concept too, cause then I've done my job as an author.