---
In the middle of nowhere a boy was fixing up some stuff for his night, he stopped, looking in the area and with one thought as a shadow from the moonlight rises to cover it, although predictable... it was a grimm, but what's more, it was an Ursa, its size was a big as 5 meters tall on its hind legs.
*Roaring!~!*
*thud!*
he wondered, sizing up the beast as it lowered it's massive body as it roared, It lunged itself with each heavy footstep causing the ground to tremble slightly.
'I wander how much strength is needed to overpower an Ursas strength... maybe 4x' Jaune thought as he activated his weapon to spear form with it's mechanical sounds in the night sky.
*clinking*
Jaune's eyes looked to the side armor of the beast, and he dodged to the side to avoid the beast's massive paw as it swiped through the air where he had been standing smashing the ground with enough force to crater it.
backing up The ursa swung it's paw again without missing a beat after making a crater, jaune used his shield to parry the strike sending it past him with huge gust of wind flying past him, using his spear he stabbed at the gaps between the bone armor in the chest area with 4x the power of his semblance.
*ROAR!!* it was effective of course, by hitting the lungs of the beast.
he leaped back 8 meters, pulling his spear out with it causing more damage to the area, this wound will eventually kill it, when it was done it's cry from the new air hole it has, it raised it's blood red eyes looking at me with whatever intelligence it had, to show he will kill me.
'come on now, don't break apart already, you are an ursa major, the second strongest of your kind in the Ursa's?'
the ursa did it's roar of blood gargled anger and charged forward again, jaune stepped forward with his spear leaving his hand as the spear only stopped when it impaled itself on the left shoulder of the Ursa.
Unsheathing his sword, jaune stepped forward as he dashed toward the right side of the Ursa with 5x the speed and strength, swinging his blade at the neck severing the head from its body as he turned off his semblance.
the Ursa's body fell forward after a few more steps with it causing the ground to tremble, as it began to disintegrate into nothing, as the night sky was back to the quiet but slightly damaged camp.
"*sigh*... I could have done a little better... qrow would probably kill it before the ursa could make its first attack..." he looked around again to see if anyone heard him talking to himself... not a single person but the sound of silence.
walking forward his body stiffened, the one side of his semblance he didn't like...
'*ugh* this damn side effect, it always makes me feel like crap, this is what I get for using 5x for long periods'
With the beast gone and also with the fire prepared... and some of the area destroyed, he made his last scope of the area before he would take his sleep, setting up trip wires around his area.
he finally gets to rest, closing his eyes for another night of nightmares and hopefully good memories...
...
he dreamed of Ruby from when he was trying to get his mind off his parents, who had left two weeks ago when he was just a child... nothing worth noting on this one, I'll just let it play out.
"Jaune, why do you swing that sword all day?" Ruby asked with a questioning expression she usually had growing up.
"I'm still figuring out why... does that answer your question ruby?" The younger Jaune said, his voice, his mannerisms, were not the same as now...
"Nope."
... this small but peaceful and memorable time... I wish it could have lasted longer... as the day when he was told his parents were gone was something he didn't want to remember... He didn't cry that time... the younger me didn't know what to do.... So he found that swinging a sword would keep his mind off this memory...
When the younger Jaune learned that a Grimm watch was issued for one of the winters, he took his chance at them, finding more ways to occupy his mind... no, his supposed anger... he kept at it for awhile, until one day sometime in spring he would save his supposed friends... and that ended his anger against the grimm.... he'd still kill them of course, nothings going to change that.
he swung the family sword for many years, he would then join the academy of signal were he would make his own weapon.
'hm... I remember this... this was one of many times I trained my spear use'
seeing the young Jaune Going far from the Xiao Long house, he would came to a field of tall grass under the starry night, When hours were spent with his new weapons training, he would rest by laying in the tall grass, watching the stars and their constellations.
"Jaune?" But on one night anothers voice would follow him...
"Do you ever stop to think... if you'd had different life experiences, would your life itself be different?" Yang asked as she lay beside him after watching Jaune with his spear training.
Jaune rolled away to think of her words. With a single thought, he stopped and looked at her with a small shrug. "Maybe."
"Why'd you roll away?"
"You're too close."
...the dreams before me are nothing new...
even this one... It was on a cloudy day, far from both Jaune's last home and new one, on a cliff overlooking the land and in the distance, the ocean. A few people in black clothing stood near a stone.
"...Jaune... is my mom... gone too?" Ruby question as she looked at him by the cliffs of her mother's grave.
As it rained in the background, the only way I could answer her that time... was with my silence. Yang hugged her with tears in her eyes. I never wanted someone else to experience this... the loss of family... like this...
---
As the fire crackled in the night sky, a boy was sleeping, his body language indicating what kind of dreams he would experience.
...
"Jaune..." a small voice called and echoed out to him... it sounds familiar...
"Jaune..." another voice echoed with his name.
"Will I be like you?" a small voice of ruby did the same.
But more echoed voices grew louder and faster around him, hearing people he didn't know talking... but not to him.
"Your training means nothing! you will die like your father!"
"Protect what remains of humanity... son"
"Hold our ground! We don't let them cross these mountains!"
""By the Arcs!""
"Don't follow us boy, you have your mission... complete it."
It all subsided to a single, almost unrecognizable voice of his mother.
"...jaune"
"Im sorry I left you, my little Arc..."
...
In the dead of night, a 16-year-old Jaune woke up from his nightmares, breathing heavily as his fire died, marking the hours he'd slept alone.
___________________
<6 months later...>
As a small river flowed from the north and the wind blew from the east, the sun rose to begin a new day.
Jaune looked at two stones as he knelt at his parents' gravestones placed far from an old destroyed village, under a small tree, with almost no human soul in sight for miles... except the old man behind him, telling him how they got here.
"These two evacuated the people here many years ago... and before this happened, when I was the oldest guard they had in this village, these two had come and with them, the brightest smiles you could have seen in a world like this... but..." the old man sighed, shaking his head and holding his cane.
"Grimm" Jaune whispered under his breath while sweeping away the dust that had built up on both stones.
"They could have just left us here to live, but they chose to fight a little longer for us... when we came back with reinforcements, their bodies were never found... may they rest in peace."
The old man walked away as Jaune just sat there...
He finished what he set out to do, to find where his parents were buried, and to say his last goodbyes.
'It took a while... but I finally found you two... now I can say what was bottled up the day you left... goodbye and rest in peace.'
He placed belongings in his pack near the stones and waited for some time before getting up.
He had to spend 2 years on this continent trying to find where his parents were last alive, and now that he did after coming all the way down to southern Anima... he had nothing in mind to do. His intention with training with a sword was curiosity, and when his parents died, his curiosity turned into taking his anger out on the Grimm and later, to find where they were buried... now...
'What... do I do now?'
Trying to think what he wanted to do, he sighed with his thoughts cleared. He got up after cleaning the stones and walked away to get to the nearest road... he was going to go back to the Vale kingdom.
'Tai, Ruby, and Yang... I could go back now... Ruby would probably kill me if I showed my face, and Yang... worse when Ruby's done with me... maybe finish signal academy?... no, I'll just give an application to beacon early.
When he was halfway out, he thought about the old man he met and why he was all alone out here.
With this thought, he ended up checking on him at his little cabin. He saw the old man's family and now knew he wasn't alone out here.
___________________
<3 months later>
"So this would only get me to the train station east of Vale—or Sanus, correct?" Jaune asked for confirmation.
"I mean, yeah? We're kinda short on dust for long-distance travel. The train should be coming up from south of Sanus, heading to an SDC station on Vital Island. It will take you to Vale the rest of the way after," the airship pilot said as he strapped some crates to the deck of the ship.
After traveling for three months straight to the north of Anima from the vast south, he made it to a village named Shion with an airship cargo/passenger bullhead.
"Okay, I'm just asking. oh I'll be sure to try to keep whatever I have in my stomach for the ride," Jaune warned when the pilot pressed a button to make chairs come out of the walls for the passengers.
"Wait? What did you say?" the pilot asked as Jaune took the furthest seat at the front.
"Nothing important, I'll take my seat" Jaune said, yawning with tiredness, how he paid for the ride?, he did small jobs of delivering the villages packages to other villages.
Others started boarding the large ship, with some talking about events that happened in the time he was away.
---
"Hey, did you hear? The champion of the Mistral regional tournament is going to attend Beacon! She's the pride of Mistral!"
"I heard she was scouted by the headmaster of Beacon. Man, I'm so jealous!"
"why don't you apply? maybe you'll get a chance"
"your kidding right? that school picks anyone and they become prodigies! I would need to be lucky to be accepted first!"
"your right, you probably won't make it pass initiation, I heard only 20% make it and the others just quit or something"
---
"You know? I'm pretty sure this isn't supposed to be loose," a man said, looking at a strap on a crate.
"...Whatever man, just keep it to yourself," the man beside him didn't care.
The ship had its last-minute preparations before it took off, and one more person came into the ship.
A person in a hood walked towards the only seat available next to Jaune.
"Ahem... is this seat taken?" she asked quietly.
Jaune, yawning, answered her. "No, it's not taken."
"Okay then!" she said with a smile, taking the seat.
'Maybe she'll be quiet the rest of the way, I need my sleep...'
In the air, Jaune sighed. Not even an hour passed before he felt the effects of airsickness. This was his third air flight; his first flight was worse... he threw up that time.
'...This will be a long *hurp* flight.'
"Are you okay?" the girl asked at the noise Jaune made.
"Airsickness." he said as he took some pills to help relieve it.
__________________
<12 hours later>
The large airship descended through the mist of the mountains, its jet engines humming softly as it approached a secluded clearing and landed.
Jaune stood at the edge of the open cargo door, the wind blowing his black hair. His boots crunched on the ground, and with a straight face, he went to the closest trash can he could find.
The airship lifted off, signaling the rumbling of the distant train in the vast mountain landscape stretching out behind it.
Jaune adjusted the straps of his pack, reminded of how long he had been gone.
'It will be my 17th birthday in one week... guess that marks three years away from the kingdom of Vale.'
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the distant rumble grew louder, and the train let out its noise as it stopped.
'this is a pretty long train...' he thought as he looked at the tail end of the train with the 12 carts with the sdc symbol, he then looked at the front with the 6 carts for passengers.
Boarding the train, Jaune found a seat after giving his ticket. The carriage was populated with a handful of civilians lost in their own thoughts and some talking about events coming and going.
And with the final passengers on, the train lurched forward, the rhythmic clatter of wheels on rails, and to him it became a soothing sound to close his eyes to for the next weeks.
With a deep breath, Jaune let himself sleep for his next and hopefully peaceful ride home.
____________________
<5 days later...>
Jaune Arc sat by the window with his hood down, breathing steadily in sleep. Behind him, the passing scenery of mountains gave way to the Forever Fall Forest.
Across from Jaune, an older man dozed lightly, his hat tipped over his eyes, oblivious to the mountainous world outside. A few rows back, a mother struggled to keep her child entertained, their laughter a stark contrast to Jaune's quiet sleep. Not a moment too soon, a few kids laughing quietly came closer to the two sleeping men, one going for the hat of the older man, the other for Jaune's hood.
Jaune's hand drifted to his chest, where beneath his shirt pocket lay a coin of lien. He flicked it towards the ground without any of the them noticing, and the children saw it roll away with its golden shine, giving chase to it and away from the two men.
"Huh? Wha-*yawn* t happened?" the old man woke up anyway because the children were too load chasing the coin...
"It was those kids again... you can go back to sleep old man."
"I wasn't sleeping, it was a power nap. How many people do I have to say this to? *Tch* youngsters these days," the old man said, taking his power nap again for the 14th time.
As the journey continued, Jaune gazed out of the window, reflecting on the past three years. The faces of his parents when he was young and now the faces of Ruby, Yang, and Tai flashed in his mind... wander what they're doing right now...
that was his thought when two small shadows were seen by him jumping on top the last sdc cart...
'...grimm?'
Getting up without alerting anyone who was busy, he went to the back, the noise from the train would drain whatever noise he might make.
with one look inside the passenger cart, he closes the slide door.