{Three-Year Time Skip}
{3rd Person POV}
The sun is shining, the clouds are white and fluffy, and school is boring as fuck.
That was what Mordred thought to herself as she looked out the window and tried her best to ignore whatever the hell the teacher was talking about.
There's a better use of my time than being here. I can beat all of my classmates and even most of the upper years. Why can't I skip a grade? Artoria skipped her last year here, then went straight to Atlas Academy. She really had to go to the most boring and uptight Academy out of all of them, didn't she? Atlas Academy... it doesn't even have a sick name like the rest. Even Shade Academy in Vacuo, as rundown as it is, has a better name than Atlas. Who the fuck names their Academy the same thing as the place it's in? That's fucking boring... and I'm kinda bored without Artoria here to fight with.
She let out a tired sigh. Before she noticed, her teacher started to cough to get her attention.
"Would you mind telling us what's on your mind, Miss Arc?" Her teacher, Mrs. Cass, a short, black-haired woman with an athletic build that didn't match her age, asked with a certain look in her eyes that reminded Mordred of her mother when she started to get mad at her for starting another fight, whether at school or at home.
"Nothing.... I'm just confused about why we're learning about the Grimm Wall anyway? We already learned about it in our first year! It's basically pointless! We could've learned about more important things, like... Aura control?" If Cass hadn't been a forty-five-year-old veteran Huntress, Mordred would've spit out more fire, but sadly, Mordred had some respect for the old retired Huntress.
"And why would it be pointless, Ms. Arc? As all of you know by now, and I expect all of you to know, Remnant has been isolated by the Grimm Wall for as long as we can remember. None of us know what it actually is, but we do know that dark wall that pours out black shadows, the same as the Grimm's fur, is dangerous. Did any of you students see the news the other day?" The retired Huntress looked at her students, and one of them raised their hand.
"Yes, Mr. Wood," she said to the brown-haired boy, and he answered her.
Wood... I never knew that was his name. What a stupid name, Mordred thought to herself, because she never really cared to remember her classmates' names.
"The latest expedition crew from the joint effort of Atlas and Vale came back with only three people out of its thirty Huntsmen and one hundred fifty soldiers. The rest were killed by something in the wall when they were inside it," Wood answered Mrs. Cass with a proud look on his face for watching the news. Unlike him, Mordred had more important things to do, like training with Jaune.
"Not something, Mr. Wood, but somethings. It would take more than a single thing to kill that many people and damage the warship they boarded." She then looked at Mordred. "So tell me, Ms. Arc, is the subject of the Grimm Wall pointless?"
Mordred looked away before she scoffed. "Then they just suck. If I were there, I would've killed all of the Grimm!"
Her words made her classmates look at her with annoyance and envy at her skills compared to them.
"What? You all want to fight? I'll beat all of your asses!" She stood up from her seat and slammed her hands on the table. "I'll beat all of your dumb, sitting asses!"
Whenever they fought, she always won, no matter how many of them ganged up on her. From what Jaune had told her months ago, when she complained about not being able to skip grades, the reason she couldn't was because of her suspension and the amount of detention she had.
All Mrs. Cass could do was let out a tired sigh and shake her head at the usual sight of Mordred trying to start another fight. "Ms. Arc, calm down, or do you want another detention?"
Mordred glared at her before she sat down and looked away.
Mrs. Cass decided to switch subjects to Aura.
"Do any of you know why we don't unlock everyone's Aura?" she asked, but before any of them could answer, Mordred answered first.
"It's because if a person unlocks their Aura, Grimm will target them more, because to them an Aura-unlocked person is a fucking beacon, yada yada yada. Can we do something else? How about combat class? It's much more important than this, considering this is our second-to-last year of combat school."
Mrs. Cass gave her a pointed look and ignored the request. "And why would the Grimm focus on an Aura-unlocked person rather than a normal civilian, Ms. Arc?"
Mordred frowned, because the old Huntress was acting like she didn't know the basics. Most of Mordred's knowledge about anything not related to fighting came from Jaune, because unlike her, he actually cared about school.
"Its because Aura is the manifestation of our soul, and we basically leave our soul out in the open by turning it into a personal force field. The Grimm love eating souls. It's obvious why they target people with Aura and focus on them."
She gave a smug look, because she knew Mrs. Cass didn't expect that much detail from her.
Mordred then thought about how Jaune would explain it, and she figured he'd add more, like how Grimm don't have souls and that's why they go after people with Aura.
"That is correct, Ms. Arc. That's good. I hope you're always like this. It would be good for your grades. Not that you're failing. If I remember correctly, you placed second last semester, right?" Mrs. Cass asked.
"Hey, the only reason I didn't rank first was because I forgot to write my name and date!"
She shivered as she remembered the long, sleepless nights of Jaune tutoring her for the exams. Even when they were sparring, he'd ask her questions, and if she got them wrong, he'd hit her for each wrong answer.
Jaune could be scary when it came to her academics. She knew he was strict because he cared about her future, but it wasn't like she needed algebra to kill a Grimm. She wanted to be a Huntress, not a doctor.
Mordred guessed that if Saphron weren't so busy applying to medical school, she would've drilled her even harder so Mordred didn't fail her exams. Sometimes Mordred worried about Saphron, with how often she had bags under her eyes, but Mordred told herself it was the price of becoming a doctor. If Saphron didn't get into med school, Mordred didn't know what she'd do, but she knew she wouldn't do anything illegal, at least not by her standards.
As Mrs. Cass kept talking, Mordred sighed and couldn't wait for school to be over, because there was no combat class today and she was itching for a fight.
I wonder if Jaune is down for a fight. What the fuck am I saying? He's always down to fight. He probably finished his civilian school already and is waiting for me at the cave.
She looked up at the clock above the whiteboard and read it.
It's 14:45. Jaune gets out at 14:00, and I get out at 15:00. Just fifteen more minutes, Mordred. You can handle this. There's nothing the great Mordred Arc can't handle.
Twenty seconds passed before she slammed her head on the table.
I can't handle this.
---
After a grueling fifteen minutes, she finally finished her last class of the day and ran into the woods.
"FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOM! I'M FINALLY FREE!"
She yelled as she ran through the forest.
"The great Mordred Arc is free! No more school today! No more stupid classes! Isn't that right, pipsqueak?!"
She grabbed a squirrel, and it squeaked.
It kept squeaking before she let it go. "Fucking squirrel. You're lucky I'm not hungry right now, or I would've cooked you."
She scoffed and continued jogging through the forest until she reached the waterfall.
"I hope he's here, because if not, it means I wasted my time coming here instead of going home and meeting him there."
She jumped through the waterfall and into the cave behind it.
She landed cleanly, thanks to practice. When she looked around, she smirked at the sight of her little brother sitting on the ground, his Aura flowing across his skin in a strange pattern.
From what he'd told her years ago, it was training for Aura control. He controlled his Aura in a pattern like waves, moving it through his body in controlled pulses. Mordred didn't really understand how it helped, but after three years of trying to train her Aura, the best she could do was focus it in one spot, and even that took nearly all of her concentration.
Meanwhile, Jaune didn't even seem to need focus to do the complicated control he was doing now.
Speaking of waves, she wanted to go to the beach again. The last time they went was last year, on Jaune's birthday. She suspected he suggested it because he'd heard her talking about it a few weeks earlier.
Her little brother was like that, and it was hard to deny he was caring. She also knew that with how charming he was, he was going to break hearts when he got older, because even now, plenty of his female classmates were head over heels for him. With his athletic build from training, it was basically impossible for him not to stand out.
"Jauney boy! You've been waiting for your awesome sister?!"
She smirked and walked closer.
Jaune opened his eyes and gave her a smile.
"I haven't been waiting long, Mordred. I only got here about thirty minutes ago. I helped Mr. Rock unload his ship. He told me he'll sail to Vacuo to drop off some cargo in about two months."
He stood up and walked to the weapons rack.
"Mr. Rock? Who the fuck is that?"
Mordred's eyebrows furrowed. She didn't remember anyone in town named Rock, and Orleans was small enough that most people knew each other.
"Mr. Rock. You know, the bald, jacked sailor who's about as big as Dad."
"Oh. You mean Dwayne. Why are you even calling him Mr. Rock anyway?"
She chuckled at how polite Jaune was.
"His last name is Rock. That's why I call him Mr. Rock."
He gave her an exasperated look, then tossed her a training sword. She caught it with one hand.
"You didn't know his last name?" he asked.
"Fuck no. That name is as stupid as one of my classmates' last names-Wood. Who the fuck names their kids Wood and Rock?"
She walked over to the more open space in the cave.
"Well, you do know that my name, Jaune, basically translates to yellow, right?"
He held his sword at his side with one hand, relaxed and not even in a stance. Mordred wasn't offended by that, because ever since he unlocked his Aura, she hadn't won a single match.
"Shut the fuck up. Let's just start the fight. I'm itching to beat you."
With a smirk, she launched herself at Jaune, grinning as she closed the distance.
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