#huntsman AU

[xamaxenta]

DOES SABO HABE A FUCKING LITTLE DAINTY BLUE RIBBON IN HIS HAIR IM GOING TO BREAK THE WHOLE PLANET IN HALF BARK BARK BAR

Yes :p he does have a pretty ribbon in his hair, gifted by Ace bc when he first found him he looked like a drowned rat with his hair all over the place

So Ace gruffly brings back a ribbon one day like here tie your hair up.

Sabo being the coy little shit that wants to push how far Ace trusts him is like ive never done it before show me how 🥺

The electrifying feeling of Ace’s knuckles brushing against the nape of his neck as he helps him tie up his hair

[augment-techs]

Question Game. What does self-care look like for you? Biggest lie you ever told? What is your biggest heartbreak? How do you keep yourself somewhat sane? + Coinless Jason

(For the sake of my sanity and everyone else's, I'm going with the open Huntsman AU version of Jason, because at least he is carefully curated in my head for vengeful activity in later works and this gives me a reason to talk about him.)

What Does Self-Care Look Like?:

Self-Care for Jason is having access to shaving tools and eating a meal that smells good and has a calorie count that will keep him alive for three days if he becomes trapped somewhere. It's not exactly healthy to focus on things that he had to rely on through the goodwill of Drakkon or Skull's trickery in their shared hallway in their cells, but it makes him feel less jittery than if he just leaves his stubble to grow or lets the staff of Promethea or the Rangers of the Prime Universe provide him with food.

Biggest lie you ever told?:

There never seems to be an end of the lies he's had to tell to make sure the Omega Rangers allow them to keep using Safehaven's Master Arc.

That he's sure that everything in the Coinless universe is going fine with Drakkon stuck in the Prime even though they left Billy still under Drakkon's obedience spell and he was too clever to be left to his own devices.

That he was perfectly healthy because Drakkon kept losing bets to the Red Ranger even after being in what amounted to solitary confinement for a little over seventeen years.

That the Green Dragon Coin from Drakkon was being cleansed with ease while they waited on their collection of turned Sentries to be returned back from the timelines and dimensions that the Grid had accidentally (or meaningfully) pulled them to when The Void was brought back into the Grid.

But if pressed, he might have to go with the fact that he ever said out loud, "Everything's going to be fine," before Drakkon stole the White Light from him... Maybe.

What is your biggest heartbreak?:

Watching Skull go through a two year cycle of being made to dehydrate, starve, and drown in the cell across from him without being able to do anything but make it worse when he cursed out or goaded Drakkon about not being able to PROVE Skull was a spy.

That and the time Jason got double pneumonia, was totally out of his mind calling for his mother, and woke up one morning a year to the day from being freed by Promethea to find himself out of his armor prison, curled up in a ball with his head on Skull's lap, the man brushing his hair like he was five--just the way his mother used to do it for him.

It was the best he'd felt in years and he'd gone back to sleep thinking it was a dream or a hallucination and not something to worry about. Which was completely false as he'd woken up hours later, his fever broken, to the reality that Skull had in fact managed to get out of his own cell, through all of the locks and codes for Jason, gotten the Red Ranger out of the prison armor without setting off the alarms, and had pissed Drakkon off horrendously.

All of this without breaking any rules. He had not tried to escape, he had not tried to help Jason escape, and Jason had never seen Drakkon shocked into silence at someone addressing him--to his face--about showing ethical obligations towards the prisoners under his authority.

Drakkon had let Jason remain inside his cell without being bound back into the prison suit for three days, but Skull had been removed to somewhere else during that entire time. And when he'd been placed back into the armor, Drakkon had a showcase set up on a screen across from him so he could see a movie showing off exactly how "merciful" he was when his authority was questioned--even by a sentry Captain whose charges of treason and espionage hadn't been confirmed.

The recording had sound, but there was never any screaming involved. The only screaming and crying came from Jason when Drakkon grinned and told him Skull would be back only once Finster had sown him back up again.

How do you keep yourself somewhat sane?:

Observing that there were, in fact, versions of Tommy Oliver that became wonderful fathers and husbands, teachers, teammates, friends, and even martyrs and being allowed to realize that Jason's mercy wasn't a defect in his character.

Talking with Kimberly in the aftermath of The Void, both of them in Ranger Colors again, though the White on Jason took a little getting used to, it wasn't as painful as he thought once Saba was taken back from Drakkon despite the madman's screaming and cursing at theft and ownership and how he'd won. The two of them were damaged horribly, but in different ways that made them both think they'd they'd gotten off luckier than the other; as fucked up as that was.

Seeing that even in the heart of darkness that was Drakkon's palaces and army, there were some good people that had helped the Coinless in their own ways under a guiding hand of an ally, even when Skull was in prison and couldn't offer a word without all of them at risk of being horribly killed.

Planning out how to return to the Coinless world and relieve Billy from his duty as regent, as well as remove the spell on him.

And learning music. Not just songs, but how to read sheet music and even play an instrument or two, despite having not special talent for it. Given that it had built him up back into being something close to sane after so many years completely alone except for Drakkon, it seemed the most obvious thing to embrace in his freedom.

@ajgrey9647

[everafterwhat]

Just a couple redesigns of the boys :D

Sparrow wears Duchess’s family crest as a necklace (she gifted it to him) and Hunter wears a pair of beaded bracelets Ashlynn made him🥺💘 (they’re lovesick bad)

[katerdaddy]

Huntlynn

Finally hunter has joined the ranks and I’ve finally decided on what kind of dress Ashlynn is going to have (or have I 👀)

[gildedoak]

Was messing around with some human designs and ended up with a fantasy AU where Lucifer is a witch and Alastor is a hunter who specializes in hell beasts.

[spittyfishy]

Spring Unsprung has always been my favourite of the eah specials and it is fully because of the tipsy turvy curse lol

[smilesatdawnmain]

Are some people immune to MK’s necklace ? And could someone recognize it as an item from the celestial realm ?

Some folks can if they are used to seeing through Glamors. Like, Wukong's gold vision for instance. Some though, have trained themselves to look through Glamors.

One person in Taken, besides Wukong, will notice that MK is wearing an item from the Celestial realm. And, as a "Hunter" his whole job is to find those in hiding. So he can pick up pretty quickly that MK isn't what he thinks he is.

Gotta love the Huntsman~ (Spider Queen is gonna be apart of this story~)

Next

previous

[vivi-designs]

HUNTER HUNTSMAN

Cigs, food, wood carving, lotion, compass/ watch, telescope, water bottle, poem about Ashlynn, rope.

[llumimoon]

making an AU based off a show based off a doll line means I go WAY TOO HARD on trying to figure out the fits.

here are the designs for the Ever After High AU !!! :D the story this time around is like. WAY too complicated to explain in one post but like the super duper summarized version is this:

For generations the citizens of Ever After have been following the tradition of signing a magical contract in the Storybook of Legends promising to relive their parents' fairytales to keep the stories alive. But there's a bit of an uproar when the newest Evil Queen in ages refuses to follow her destiny and things start to get a little complicated as the students at Ever After High realize that maybe not everything has been played by the book in the past. When Normal breaks a magic mirror he REALLY wasn't supposed to find, his life and story are thrown into chaos. Add in some wildcard Wonderlandians and now nothing's going according to the script. Is a happily ever after really possible?

The AU doesn't follow the show to an exact T, we mostly borrowed some elements and the initial Raven and Apple conflict so there's quite a lot of surprises in store :3c

(EAH AU made by @rindomness, @kaseyskat, and I!! <3 :])

Edit: more designs

image description under the cut

[ID: Four Images of dndads season 2 characters in an Ever After High AU, the first two images being design pages and the last two being doodle pages.

Image 1: A character line up of three designs, from left to right Scary Marlowe, Normal Oak, and Hermie Unworthy. They are each labeled with the fairytale characters they represent, from left to right Evil Queen, Snow White, and Mad Hatter. Hermie has a speech bubble that says "Hello ~ Audience! (yes you looking here)". On the far left Scary stands with her left hand on her hip and her right hand resting palm up with swirlfs of magenta and purple magic coming up from it. She has a serious look on her face and is wearing black mascara and purple eyeshadow. Her hair is various shades of purple to pink and is put up in a side ponytail with a spiky silver hair accessory along with a silver chain around her forehead. She is wearing a black cape with a magenta underside and a sleeveless ankle length dress and long fishnet gloves. The dress has a fishnet neckline and a purple jewel with silver wings on her chest that connects to the hood of her cape. There are chains that connect on he bottom of the jewl to loop around her back. She is wearing a black corset with silver lacing and the bottom of the corset is embellished with silver feathers and a stylized silver crow head. The skirt has a slit down the right leg that is connected with a silver chain and has a dark purple mesh layer on the top half of it. She is wearing black leggings underneath and platform ankle boots that are also decorated with mesh, chains, and lace. She has spiky silver bracelets and fingerless gloves on the back of her hand that connect to a silver ring with a purple gem on her middle finger. To her right stands Normal who is at shoulder length height to Scary and stands up to Hermie's eyes on his left. Normal stands with his right hand up holding a red apple and his left hand playfully posed out by his side. He is smiling cheerfully with an open mouth and has one green and one brown eye. He is wearinf a small tilted red and gold heart shaped crown with a teal bow on the bottom. He has short curly brown hair. He is wearing a white high collared shirt with long sleeves, lace details, and puffy teal shoulders. He has a short red cape attached to a big red bow with gold trip on his chest and a gold apple brooch in the center. He has a brown belt with a gold buckle and gold chains connected to the belt loops. He has puffy teal shorts with three red slits on each side and a white lace trim. He has sheer white tights with white vertical strips and red and white boots with gold detailing and a brown heel. To his left stands Hermie who has his right hand holding a teacup filled with tea at his stomach and his right hand is up to wave at the viewer. He is smirking and has teal hair with various turquoise and pink highlights. He is wearing a purple and magenta striped hat wirh a teal polkadot bow. He also is wearing teal glasses with a circle and square frame with purple and pink lenses and a rose gold glasses chain. He has a striped teal vest that has a long coat tail with pink and purple detailing on the underside. He has a rose gold pocket watch in his vest pocket and a purple and magenta bow on his chest. The collared shirt underneath is a light striped pink and lavender with puffy sleeves that turn into big circle sleeves with a lace trim. He has pink and purple gloves with a magenta ribbon around his wrists. His skirt is mid thigh length and has three layers, the top layer is magenta and has teal and purple polkadots, the second layer is vertically striped with pink and lavender, and the bottom layer is lavender lace, and the whole skirt has rose gold detailing. He has thigh high horizontally striped socks with lace trim and teal, pink, and purple heel boots with purple bows and laces.

Image 2: A character lineup of two designs, zoomed in so that the lower legs are cut off. Link is on the left labeled Prince Charming while Taylor is on the right labeled Queen of Hearts. Taylor has a mischievous smile on his face and his fist in the air as he shouts "Off with their heads!" while Link has one hand up to stifle a laugh and a fond expression and the other hand rests on the hilt of his sword on his belt. Link is dressed in white and gold princely attire that matches Normal's color scheme and a similar but longer red cape and a teal belt sash. He has gold shoulder tassels and a simple golden crown. Taylor has red streaks in his hair and two heart shaped space buns. He also has a golden crown with red heart shaped gems on them, a heart card earring, and a red collar with a heart lock charm. His dress has a high white neck collar that goes around the back of his head and connects to a short jacket with puffy red and black striped sleeves and a white lace trim and golden heart lapel pins connected by a chain. The dress has a sweetheart neckline and is split down to his waist in a V shape in order to mimics the appearance of a white heart on his top. The dress then flares out into a big poofy skirt that has frills at the bottom and has big red and black stripes on it. A sheer top skirt has a white and gold checkered diamond pattern on it. He also has white and red striped tights and black mary janes with a red heel and a golden heart clasp. He's also holding a golden staff with a red heart jewl at the top.

Image 3: A dark grey doodle page on a light grey background. Normal is standing with an exasperated expression on his face and is squatting with his arms out shouting "Am I the only one who cares about following our destinies!?". In the bottom left corner Link os holding Taylor in a princess carry, the both of them grinning with their eyes closed. An arrow is pointing at Link that is labeled 'was supposed to be Norm's prince'. Scary is in the bottom right turned toward Normal with her tongue sticking out and her middle finger up. Her bangs obscure her face. Hermie is in the top right looking at the viewer with his hand cupped toward his face saying "Don't worry, he'll figure it out" with a knowing smile. His eyes are obscured by his glasses.

Image 4: A dark grey doodle page on a light grey background with a sequence of events that go from left to right down the page. Normal is looking desperately up at Scary and clutching an injured arm while Scary looks concernedly down at Normal with her hands hovering. Behind her stands Hermie who's in a intense thinking pose with a hand on his chin. Scary says "Norm what-" and is interrupted by Normal saying "I need your help. I didn't know where else to go." Hermie has a thought bubble above his head that says "Is this im the script?" The next section has Hermie snapping with his eyes closed saying "I'll make it a comedy then, that'll fix it." The next section shows a loud bang on the door behind Normal who looks surprised and the section after has someone outside the door say "Oh thank GOD," while Normal sighs in relief. The last section has Scary with a frustrated look on her face and her hands up with magic energy coming up saying in all caps "Ok what the fuck is going on." /end ID]

[theowlhousesaga]

🧡Eberwolf & Raine❤️

CovenKidsAU SEASON 1

[jeidin]

Little Red and The (big bad) Wolf

[xamaxenta]

what if sabo uses the ribbon to tie up aces wrists when they

Oh??? As a test in trust as always with them? 👀👀

Thats hot bc Ace could easily rip the ribbon apart but he wont, its power play and hes a big bad hunter being told to heel

[augment-techs]

Poll for a fic time! I'm in a bit of a pickle about updating a chapter fic with the good stuff, so I'm gonna let people tell me what to do for a second

[quitealotofsodapop]

Imagine that Mayor watching Chang’e’s cooking show as a way to see, hear, and feel closer to his lovely wife.

Other people just think he’s a fan but nope that’s just his wife that he desperately misses.

Prev.

Ooo I can just imagine it.

It happens during the shaky partnership between LBD and the Spider Gang.

LBD's thrall is just standing around the spider's lair. Like a watchdog. Ready to pounce if one of them thinks of running or trying anything that could bring harm to his Lady.

Spider Queen tells her clan to just deal with it until the new mech is completed.

Huntsman, Goliath, and Syntax (and maybe Spindrax if she's there), are lazing around the recreation area of the lair, watching tv - when the intro for "Cooking With Chang'e" starts playing.

Huntsman, groan: "Ugh. I hate cooking shows." (*Huntsman goes to grab the remote to change the channel when a hand shoots towards his own, squeezing it in a icy grip. He looks up to see a familiar wide grin*) The Mayor: "I would like to watch this show, if you don't mind."

The spider gang just agree to let the weird maybe-human sit with them and watch Chang'e's show.

He starts out watching it whilst standing still besides the couch (even ignoring when Goliath scooches over to give him sitting room), eventually sitting on the floor with his face nearly pressed against the glass. The Spider Gang are quickly convinced that it's not the content he's interested in, but Chang'e herself.

His smile wanes as he watches Chang'e explain how to make rabbit-shaped marshmallows. He no longer has the forced manic grin the spiders have come to expect, but a tired, wistful smile like he's reliving a dear memory.

Chang'e ends the episode with her usual bright smile, arms open to the camera as if she's trying to hug her audience.

TV Chang'e: "Remember people of Earth, I love you so very much! Cooking is Life, and Life is Cooking!" The Mayor: (*silently takes the remote and presses rewind*) TV Change, rewound: "-people of earth, I love you so very much!" The Mayor: (*rewinds again*) TV Chang'e: "I love you so very much!" The Mayor: (*rewinds again*) TV Chang'e: "I love you-!" The Mayor: (*repeats this action multiple times*) TV Chang'e: "I love you so very much!" The Mayor, quietly: "I love you too." (*the Mayor presses his cheek against the glass as if he too is trying to hug Chang'e through the screen.*)

The spider gang watch this display with a sense of unease and pity. Either the Bone demon's lackey was a simp to the highest degree, or the moon goddess resembled a loved one he lost a long time ago. It's a odd crack of humanity coming from the zombie-like henchman.

The spiders wonder if further exposure to Chang'e will make the guy more or less unsettling to work around...

[fleurheartt]

would i get crucified if i said that i hc them as transmasc/butch lesbians

[howlingday]

jaune is spiderman au) in which jaune is everyone's favorite webslinger, going by the name Huntsman (after the huntsman spider) downside he lacks the tech other spidermen have, upside he's already got tons of superstength and durability before he unlocks his aura! however his story is a little different than most spidermen, since everyone around him is a bad ass his grandpa (who's this story's uncle ben) doesn't die. instead when a white fang operative tries to rob him grandpa arc draws a revolver shoots his enemy dead and holsters without breaking stride. people at the scene describe him saying to himself "it's a hell of a thing killing a man" while walking away. take us through the life of a spiderman that the universe doesn't hate

A universe that DOESN'T hate Spider-Man? Oof... Tall order there, friend. But, sure, I'll see what I can do. Before we begin, might I regale you with my research? If not, skip to the read more. When I was playing Shattered Dimension for the PlayStation, there was a bumper in the loading screen explaining that there was a Parker of York Spider-Man who was a knight cursed with the blessings of a spider. I thought to look into this for inspiration, but I came up with bupkis on that. Instead, I found three different inspirations that used the name of Spider Knight. The first is Spyder-Knight from Disney's Ultimate Spider-Man. Not really anything too interesting. Just a knight in Spider-Man armor. Then there's the Prince of Arachne, who was a Peter Parker who worked for the noble Osborn family. He left after Princess Gwendolyn died in his place when Norman Osborn tried to kill him with a chandelier. Peter became knight and served as the Prince of the kingdom, sadly leaving a heartbroken Mary Jane to weep for his return. Then there's the SpiderKnight, who is a fusion of Spider-Man and Moon Knight, which is Peter Parker with D.I.D., including him, the witty voice of The Spider, the serious voice of The Knight, the confident voice of The CEO, and the techy voice of The Science. And then there's SpideyMoon, which... is a thing, apparently? A CANON THING, TOO! Like, apparently, they dated, but it's never brought up again after one mention in one panel? Actually, now that I think about it, I think that was just a joke Spider-Man made. But, yeah, that's what I found. Anyway, here's your Huntsman Spider AU~!

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Chapter 1 - Somethin' Sensational~!

There is an old saying, often told to those who begin questioning their lot in life...

"There are those who are born great. There are those who achieve greatness. And there are those who have greatness thrust upon them."

For one such young man, named Jaune Arc, he wasn't quite sure where he fit into these categories. One could argue he was born great as his ancestors were all heroes and imbued upon him the genetics of a great warrior. However, it could also be argued that greatness was thrust upon him when he awoke one morning with unusual abilities that allowed him to sense danger and climb up walls.

The third category, however, Jaune was certain he wouldn't fit into. His chances of "achieving greatness" were slim to none. Even if he'd somehow managed to stumble his way into Beacon Academy, a school for Huntsmen and Huntresses from all over Remnant, he still a poor fit as both a leader and a hero.

That said, he still did what he could to help out anyone he could. Like his grandfather taught him. "If you can do it, then just do it." His work schedule as a midnight superhero was a bit of a mess, but it's not like he could just stand by and do nothing. Especially not when his world was tearing itself apart.

"I'm screwed..." Jaune groaned into his textbook.

"Is that so?" Ren, his roommate, asked as he read from his own book.

"Doctor Oobleck is going to eat me alive tomorrow. I've been so busy dealing with the Torchwick gang that I wasn't paying attention to anything he's said this past week."

"You could always ask for a remedial class." Ren turned the page.

"And when would I have time for that? When you've already graduated while I'm still trying to figure out what color underwear Gura Belladonna wore when the White Fang disbanded?"

"Ghira Belladonna." Ren corrected. "And you don't have to worry about the underwear color. Just the cloak color. Which was..."

"Red?"

"No."

"White?"

"No."

"Green?"

"No."

"I'm screwed, aren't I?"

"Yes."

As Jaune slammed his face into his book again, he scroll suddenly buzzed. It was an emergency alert from the school...

"All students are required to remain away from Vale downtown due to a robbery in progress."

"Ren?" Jaune shut his textbook and ran to the closet. He snagged his backpack, complete with his superhero suit, and ran for the window.

"I'll tell any girls asking about you that you just missed them." Not looking up from his own studying. Jaune's leaving had become something of a routine at this point.

"Yeah, right." Jaune opened the window. "Like any girl would ever ask about me." Leaping out, he ran up the wall to the roof. Easier to change from there.

"3... 2..." A knock came from the door. Ren stood and opened it, finding his best friend and her roommate standing with their own textbooks. "Hello, girls."

"Hi, Ren~!" Nora cheerfully greeted.

"Hello, Ren," Pyrrha also greeted, albeit more demurely, "is Jaune here?"

"You just missed him." Ren said with a smirk.

--------------------------------------------------

"There's trouble downtown."

"Mhm."

"Do you think it's the White Fang?"

"Could be."

"This used to be such a nice city."

"Mhm."

"If only the police would do their jobs."

"..."

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Jaune made his way from the school to downtown as fast as his legs could carry him. It was times like these, which happened every time there was a crime to be stopped, that he wished he'd brought his bike with him to Beacon. At the time, he didn't think he'd leave the academy very often, and even now he argued that it would only make it more obvious who this masked vigilante stepping in to stop crimes that huntsmen were either too busy, or too corrupt, to stop was.

Thankfully, he'd developed a routine by now and figured out the fastest way to downtown was by train. He didn't have a ticket, so he'd have to hitch a ride. Last time he tried to jump on it while the train was still in the station, the conductor's refused to move until he jumped off. For some reason, people didn't trust masked vigilantes when they said, "I'm trying to stop a crime from happening!"

Jaune was now downtown-bound with his eyes on The Gilded Crown, the biggest bank in Vale. Keeping low to the roof he quietly prayed that whoever was tough enough to make such an attempt was also nice enough to give up without a fight. Sadly, they were more the former and less the latter.

The train began to slow and Jaune leapt off the train and made a running start for the building closest to the station; the Vale CCTV News station where Lisa Lavender gave her unbiased view on him. And when Jaune says unbiased, he means that he doesn't like what she says but replies, "to be fair to her", to each of her arguments. After all, The Huntsman Spider is, was, and, for the foreseeable future, will always be a vigilante, not a huntsman or a police officer who work by codes, regulations, rules, laws, and everything else that stops a person from doing the right thing.

An extensive and drawn-out hop, skip, and a jump later, Jaune was watching the scene play out. Police, huntsmen, and huntresses were engaged in a firefight with bank robbers wearing black fedoras, black suits, red ties and red glasses. The Torchwick Gang. Jaune was weighing his options when he spotted someone breaking into the side of the building, through a top floor window.

"Hm," Jaune hummed, "either this vigilante thing is catching on, or there's something else going on here." Looking down to the brave boys and girls in blue and green, he decided they had enough on their plate without him 'getting in their way', as they like to say. "Think it's time I give them a break."

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"So, Ren~?" Nora leaned in, cooing with a sweetness in her voice. "Any idea when Jaune will be back~?"

"I don't think he'll be back until late." Ren answered, not looking up from his textbook.

"Seriously?" Nora gave a long sigh and fell back onto his bed. "Isn't he failing history?"

"He's been studying. I'm sure he'll be fine on tomorrow's exam."

"Well, that may be so," Nora jumped from her back to her knees, "but there's a lot more important things to worry about than studying!" She glanced over to Pyrrha. "Like maybe getting closer to your friends~?" She waggled her brows.

"Nora..." Pyrrha gave a small pout. It was true she held an affection for Jaune, but it wasn't something she needed to focus on. She was attending Beacon to become a huntress, not to find a boyfriend. Getting a date for the weekend wasn't important right now, even if it's something she really wanted.

"Jaune and I are plenty close, Nora." Ren replied, not looking up from his book.

The two girls shared a look.

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The inside of the bank was dark. Torchwick's gang must have shut off the power to make this heist a little easier for them. Jaune looked down from the rafters above as the black-cloaked goons of Vale's most dangerous criminal continued to unload bullet after bullet against the "protectors of the innocent".

Jaune understood it was a hard job to be a police officer and a huntsman. That's what his grandpa used to do, after all. However, according to the man himself, things have gotten way to lax and hard in the wrong places. When he threatened to go to the council, couple of dirty cops pinned Jaune's grandpa with a crime he didn't commit. No charges were pressed, but he was stripped of his badge and had his good name muddied.

From what Jaune had seen, this wasn't the case for all of the police, but still too many to just blindly trust all of them with everything. So he decided to let things play out down below while chasing the shadowy figure moving ahead of him. He kept his distance, following the obvious trail they left. Open doors and open windows practically screamed-

"This way!' Jaune looked down and watched as the goons started running deeper into the bank. Huntsmen and police wouldn't be too far behind. Jaune had to work fast.

Jaune's head throbbed, and his back slammed against the wall by a doorway on instinct. Bullets sprayed from the other side, meaning stealth was no longer an option. Holding up his arms, keeping his target in view, he charged forward as bullets ricocheted off his armor plating. When he got close enough, he ducked low and pushed himself forward into the figure.

That didn't work, though, and he what he jumped into fell away like solid smoke. His head throbbed and he rolled away as soon as he hit the ground, narrowly avoiding the swipe of a blade. As his rolling came to a stop, he watched the figure flee around a corner, beginning the chase again. He was about to indulge when he heard shouting from the other direction.

Following this noise, he found another large room, though this one wasn't riddled with bullets like before. Instead, there a group of hostages, all tied up and gagged, with the largest of them being yanked to his feet by Torchwick's thugs. Jaune could play cat and mouse with his lead, but not when there was somebody in trouble. Jumping down from the second floor, he landed on the balls of his feet and hopped forward. The gang members gave shouts as they aimed their weapons at him. He ran to the side, keeping clear of the hostages, and chased after the running gang members.

They dragged the large hostage down the corridor leading to the back exit. Jaune barreled through and knocked aside any criminal that got in his way. When they got up to try and chase down their assailant, they were captured by the pursuing huntsmen. Jaune made it to the back alley where the hostage was being shoved into a long car. Jaune made for a running jump and landed just as the car was peeling out.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Jaune shouted as the car swerved around, trying to shake him off. For better or worse, Jaune wasn't flying off with his hands sticking to the roof of the car. His head throbbed and he rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding a blade stabbing through the roof. His head throbbed again, instigating him to roll aside once more. By the time the third stab came, he rolled himself into position over the window. Giving a little hop, he smashed through the window, and everything started to slow down around Jaune.

The guy with the blade, shocked at the sudden intrusion, fumbled with his weapon before trying to stab Jaune with it. The thrust was avoided as Jaune slid into the vehicle with both hands now removed from the roof. Curling into himself, Jaune punched one goon while grabbing hold of the blade from the not sharp side. He then kicked the blade goon as Jaune tugged on the blade. One goon pulled his gun on Jaune, but the hostage jumped into him, giving Jaune the chance to avoid being shot and knocking the goon out.

"You okay?" Jaune asked, untying the hostage. "You usually hear about these kinds of things happening on trains."

"Aside from the glass in my suit," the man grumbled, scowling at Jaune as he removed the gag from his mouth, "I'll live." He took the gun and made his way to the front, where he tapped on the glass. The window opened and he shoved the gun through. "Pull over!"

"Whoa, whoa! Careful!" Jaune shouted. "No need to get violent!"

"Really?" The man asked sarcastically. "After kicking the hell out three asses, shoving a gun into a fourth is where you draw the line?" The car slowed to a stop.

"Wouldn't you?" Jaune asked, trying to ease the tension.

Without looking at his savior, the man replied. "You sound just like him." His arm twitched. "And you. Try anything funny and you'll wish you killed me back there."

Jaune, not sensing any danger, exited the limo with the large man. The man took the lead and brought Jaune into an alley where he could escape. Before he left, Jaune and the man had a talk.

"Look, kid, I get that your heart's in the right place," the man said, "but a lot of people got hurt today. If you want to help people, be a huntsman, or a cop. Don't make things worse by putting on a mask and being a hero."

"I have to, though." Jaune said. "If something bad happens and I could have stopped it, then it's no different than if I did the bad thing." Jaune's voice was a bit shaky, since this was a much larger man he was speaking to, but it was the honest truth.

"You really are just like Ghira." The man chuckled.

"You know Ghira Bellafauna?"

"Belladonna, and yeah. I used to work for him before..." Sirens wailing in the distance started getting louder. "You better go kid."

"Sure." Jaune jumped onto the wall and was about to climb up. "Oh, uh, one more question, if you don't mind..."

--------------------------------------------------

"Well done, Mr. Arc!" Doctor Oobleck called as he handed Jaune his test. "...is what I would say if your score were just a little higher. You may have passed the exam, but I expect much better from you in the future. Keep studying and you just might get an actual 'Well done'."

"Er, thanks, Doctor Oobleck." Jaune said, sheepishly taking the exam into his hands.

"Guess you were studying without us, huh, Jaune?" Nora remarked.

"Well, something like that." Jaune chuckled. "Ren and I have been really hitting the books this past week."

"Yeah, well, some things are a lot more important than studying, you know." Nora rolled her eyes.

"Nora..." Pyrrha grumbled.

As Jaune ignored Nora, he felt like someone was staring at him. He looked around, his eyes passing over the classroom until he caught someone looking right at him a few desks away. The girl looked away, keeping her eyes glued to her exam paper. He recognized her, but more as a friend of a friend than an actual friend. Blake, wasn't it?