Never Change

Chapter 4

Jaune massaged his temples.

It had been months at Beacon now, and he still hadn't gotten much better. That was to be expected, he supposed; after all, he did fake his transcripts. The Vytal Festival was only two months away, and he couldn't afford to become an embarrassment to his teammates and the rest of the world.

Back in the Emerald Forest at the beginning of the year, he couldn't even get down from a tree after being pinned to it by Pyrrha's javelin. He had to get his ass saved by her more times than he could count! And the 'plan' that he 'came up' with to defeat the deathstalker? Well that was all Percy's plan! He didn't even deserve team leader.

He felt like a complete failure.

He needed training, heck he wanted it!

And who wouldn't?

Jaune didn't want to just remain at the bottom of his class, forever toiling and getting beaten to bits by Cardin Winchester.

He was team leader! He was supposed to be stronger. But he feared asking anyone for training; it would be like admitting he was the weakest of them and couldn't even hold his own.

He would have asked Pyrrha for training, but he didn't want to waste her time after saving his ass so many times.

Jaune mustered up the courage, and he knocked on team PRWBY's door. When no one answered, he knocked several more times, loudly.

A sleepy Weiss answered it, "J-Jaune? What are you doing?"

Oh yeah, it was 6 in the morning, on the weekend. He blushed, embarrassed.

"Is Percy there?" he peeked his head in the dorm room.

"No," she yawned, "I think he already went out for training."

The ice queen shut the door in his face, as Jaune sagged. She didn't even tell him where he was.

Well, it was time to go on a field trip around Beacon.

-----

After wandering around the school grounds for what seemed like hours, Jaune finally came upon Percy at the edge of the Emerald forest, training with his semblance.

Jaune's foot crunched on a leaf, and Percy whipped around, hurling a ward knife towards him.

Jaune froze.

The knife impaled itself into the tree next to him, before dissolving. He sighed in relief.

"Jaune! What are you doing up so early?" Percy looked confused.

It made sense. He was normally the last to get up on his team, despite being the leader. He needed to set a better example.

"C-Could you teach me?" at Percy's confusion on his face, Jaune elaborated, "Could you train me? I want to be better. Not just a weakling that everyone looks to protect. I don't even deserve team leader. You were the one that came up with the plan to take down the deathstalker. You should be the leader of both teams! You deserve it! I want to get better, to not just be the clumsy Jaune Arc, ya know?"

Percy smiled, "You have ambition to get better. Yeah, maybe you're at the bottom of the class in sparring, but you can improve! You're a great leader. Back at initiation, I only gave you the general idea with the deathstalker. Jaune, it was one sentence. One sentence. You would have figured it out yourself. Sure, I planted the idea in your head, but you were the one who executed it. You were the one who finished it."

"B-But..."

Percy shushed him, "No buts."

"No. I have to get this off my chest," Jaune took a deep breath, wondering if this was the right course, "I cheated my way into Beacon. I forged the fake transcripts."