A Special Exemption

Dawn came quickly and despite spending time getting used to a regular sleeping schedule; Jason was still up at the crack of dawn out of a force of habit…And luckily so since there was a very cheery and very loud redhead ushering everyone awake with a tirade of non stop chattering to the boy that she was hovering around.

"So we could be on the same team together, we just gotta figure out how!" The Redhead would remark as everyone was having breakfast in the dining hall; "We could bribe the headmaster to get us together…Well…not together-together…" She said out loud but trailed off once she realised her phrasing on the last part of her sentence.

"You know the Headmaster owns the school right? What exactly could you bribe him with?" Jason would ask as he peeled an orange across the table from them; "It'd have to be pretty good." The brunette would say with a soft chuckle as he went along with her logic.

"That's true..OH maybe I can bring him some food! Food always helps people agree with stuff." The redhead clapped her hands together before grabbing a stack of pancakes.

"Do you know what he likes?" The black haired boy would ask with a nonplussed look on his face to the two of them.

"Well….No?" Jason mentioned; "I don't I even know what this mission is." he would admit as he looked down at his glass of juice. "I did hear that they're gonna be the ones to give us teams regardless."

"Then how about a signal, something that only WE know about." The girl mentioned as she pursed her lips and tried to think on it.

"You know it might just be easier to wing it, most people tend to work it better if there's no plan to mess up." Jason shrugged; "Plus I doubt you guys are the only ones worried about this."

"That's true…Oh yeah, I'm Nora! This is Ren, we're best buds and soon to be teammates." Nora introduced the two while Ren waved politely.

"You sure that you're gonna eat all that? You might get sick if we're doing a lot of moving." Ren asked Jason as he could see a plate full of food ranging from bacon and eggs to fruit and even a steak, he knew that Nora's stomach was borderline bottomless but Jason was practically a stranger and seeing someone pounding down this food was an oddity.

"Of course, I need the caloric intake to keep up my energy if it IS an "athletic" ordeal, plus I burn off a lot of energy too so better to run on a full battery." Jason explained as they heard Glynda's voice telling all first year students to finish their food and grab their gear. "Besides, we should get moving anyway."

—In the Locker Room—

Jason was inputting the code on his locker as he pulled his collapsed staff out and strapped it to his waist, feeling confident about what could potentially be the first task of assuring himself in Beacon; "Hopefully I won't have to rely on the Watch too much…Using it to beat up bad guys is one thing but I'd rather not ruffle any feathers where they have home-field…Then again…I could always try unlocking it." Jason thought to himself when another thought came to mind as he reached his hand down towards the watch's face but he quickly got taken out of his mindset when he heard Jaune nearby.

"Well, hot stuff..Play your cards right and maybe you could get on the winning team!" Jaune declared rather proudly to a girl in armour with green eyes and red hair while that same white haired girl was in a huff about the boy being too close.

"I…Well…" The redhead started but Weiss jumped between them.

"Hold on, don't you have any idea who she is?" Weiss reprimanded Jaune as she lightly shoved him away to give her and the Redhead distance.

"This i-"

"Pyrrha Nikos, she's a prized tournament fighter that set records." Jason decided to step in; surprising the three but giving Pyrrha a feeling that she was going to get a dramatic change in reception like she did when most people recognised her.

"AND on the front of every Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow flakes box." Weiss added in an attempt to jog Jaune's memory to which he did notice and gasped in joy.

"Those are normally reserved for star athletes and cartoon characters!" Jaune gushed a little as he found something to recognise her with.

"Exactly, now do you two believe that someone like her would be paired up in a team with you?" Weiss asked judgementally towards both Jason and Jaune, the latter muttering a no.

"Maybe not, but what exactly makes you so sure that you're gonna be on a team with her anyway?" Jason retorted, sticking up for him and for Jaune; "There's more to being a team than just being the strongest fighter or the smartest."

"I would have thought someone who knew so much about Pyrrha would jump at the chance to have a celebrity to hang around with." Weiss now directed her look towards Jason, confused as to why a renowned figure like Pyrrha wasn't being celebrated.

"I mean, I know she's a big name and really talented but I'm not gonna make things uncomfortable for her by fawning like crazy…She's still a person and she's as much a student as we are." Jason pointed out, earning him a reassured smile from Pyrrha. "Plus try to lay off the judging, who knows? Jaune could surprise you by being YOUR team leader." Jason remarked with a playful smirk as Jaune looked hopeful.

"You think I have a shot?" Jaune asked him hopefully as he looked like he was trying not to explode from joy.

"Absolutely not! I have standards and if there's anything that I could see him working with, YOU could take him since you're so keen on encouraging him!" Weiss harshly reprimanded him and Jaune.

"We won't know until the teams are decided, however I do think you'd make a great leader, Jaune." Pyrrha added to try encouraging Jaune more.

"Please stop encouraging him, this isn't the behaviour that you should tolerate." Weiss whispered to Pyrrha, however Jason could still hear it and rolled his eyes while Jaune was ecstatic about Pyrrha's praise.

"Well, Pyrrha's on Team Jaune…I'm not supposed to do this but I could pull some strings and earn you a spot, whaddya say?" Jaune rambled to Weiss as he began to progressively get closer to her.

"O-Okay, that's a little too close! Pyrrha, a litt-" Weiss started and was about to turn to Pyrrha but then felt an iota of relief as Jason managed to pull Jaune back.

"Whoa, whoa…Slow your roll there, Jaune…There's a neat thing called personal space." Jason said while he gripped Jaune's collar to stop him from doing something a little more then getting in Weiss's face.

"Thank you...This doesn't make us friends though." Weiss thanked Jason but still managed to somehow turn help into an insult against her.

"Will all first year students please make their way to the cliffside for their first examination." The voice of Goodwitch chimed in over the intercom and stopped the whole thing before it escalated.

"It was nice meeting you…Both of you." Pyrrha said politely to Jaune first then to Jason as she grabbed her weapons and headed out.

Once the two were alone, Jason let go of Jaune who gave him a rather indignant look; "What was all that back there? I totally could've gotten my chance with her." Jaune protested and crossed his arms.

"Dude…Take it from me, no girl likes a guy who comes on too strong. Take your time with it and with someone who actively respects you." Jason mentioned with a hint of nostalgia in his voice.

"What're you talking about? It's all about confidence!" Jaune continued to push it but then the voice of someone else rang in as Yang and Ruby came in.

"Trouble with the ladies there, boys?" Yang asked playfully, she was not present to see what happened with Weiss and Pyrrha but she could guess based on the two's expressions.

"I don't get it, what's wrong with being all confident…My dad told me that girls love a guy with confidence to them." Jaune complained as Jason lightly pat his back while Ruby and Yang listened in.

"Yeah but you don't wanna be too confident…Otherwise you'll give off the wrong impression." Yang pointed out to him; "Believe me, plenty of confident guys can end up looking like conceited jerks if they do it wrong."

"Confidence is like a well made curry with spice, Jaune….Too little spice and people will sometimes overlook it, but if you give it too much then not a lot of people can stomach it." Jason explained before looking to Ruby and noticed she looked a little spaced out; "You doing okay?"

Ruby was taken out of her anxiety for the exam and looked at him; "Oh, Y-Yeah, I'm fine…Just thinking about this test." Ruby mentioned; "Plus the idea of teams is a little daunting."

"Come on, Beacon's a well known and highly esteemed school…Whatever the test is, I'm sure it can't be that bad." Jason remarked with a note of optimism as Jaune left for the cliff.

"I'll bet you'll regret saying that in 10 minutes." Yang joked as she got on her way.

—6 minutes later—

"OKAY! IT WAS AS BAD AS I THOUGHT!" Jason mentally yelled to himself as in the short span of time; Ozpin dropped the bombshell that teams will be made on that day, they will be partners for the next four years and they will be thrown into a Grimm infested forest. "Alright, focus! Everyone's gonna be scrambling for teams so while they're focused on that…I can make my way past and get one of these relics, this treeline should be good for masking and if this thing works like I want it to then I won't have to worry about eye contact with other people." Jason mentally prepared as he grabbed onto his watch and began to twist the dial, making it beep and whirr to life before he pushed the face of the watch down and engulfed him in a bright green light.

By the time that most of the others landed, that flash had gone away and the scramble for teammates began: Ruby went to go look for Yang, Pyrrha was watching Jaune from afar and subtly working her way towards him, Weiss was looking for Pyrrha while the others were doing…their own thing.

While they were all distracted however, a different beast was roaming through the tree line and swinging across the branches, sniffing the air and growling to itself, taking note of a pack of three Beowolves in the undergrowth beneath it before jumping down and pouncing on the first one in it's "line of sight"

The Beowolves quickly turned to the sudden noise and began to act defensive as what they saw was a new animal stepping in their territory: What looked like large dog-like creature with dark orange quills covering it's body was looming in front of them with it's claws extended. The beast was hunched over on all fours and his movements were like that of an ape. The most peculiar thing about this particular animal was that it was looking straight at the pack without any eyes of its own and flaring what looked like gills on the sides of its thick neck as a sign of warning to the Beowolves surrounding it. 

Needless to say; new creature or not, the Grimm were hardly welcoming to their new guest; letting out a warning growl of their own as they moved themselves around to surround this beast, the three Grimm quickly grouping up to more then seven before finally rushing forward to mob the lone monster. Thinking that they had the advantage if this creature was seemingly blind to them with a rush of claws and fangs.

The Orange monster knocked one of them away with a backswing of it's strong arms and brought it's other arm down to floor the attacking Beowolf that followed after it. The Grimm quickly starting to get more and more aggressive as they realised this was now an active threat.

One Beowolf in particular tried to jump it from behind but ended up missing as the creature leaped up into the air like a frog and hit it with a swift double kick to the head to knock it away, two Grimm now collapsed into a pile of black smoke and the remainders growing more irate.

The Orange creature roared back at them and then swiped at them with it's claws; the third Grimm ended up hit but the fourth managed to sneak under the second swing and bite down on it's shoulder in an attempt to incapacitate.

With a pained growl; the Beast would grab the Beowolf and responded in kind by using it's sharp teeth to bite into the Grimm and wrestle it to the ground, the powerful jaws and the firm grip quickly poofed the Grimm and left the fifth, sixth and seventh holding back to attack. However the Beast quickly jumped upwards into one of the trees and started to make it rock back and forth; the sound of the creaking wood becoming louder and louder before it finally snapped under it's motion and fell onto the remnants of the Grimm pack. With the Monster on top of the fallen tree trunk, it let out a whooping roar of triumph but then turned with an almost instant alertness as it saw someone in the bushes.

"Who's there?" A girl's voice would say as she finally made herself visible; it was Blake: that black haired girl from school, the one with the bow and gold eyes watching the beast curiously; "What are you? You don't look like a Grimm that I've seen before." She mused but then watched in surprise as it turned in the other direction and jumped into the treelike, away from her and out of her sight. "That's odd, it didn't attack me like a Grimm would and it almost looked like it recognised me…did it? I couldn't see it's eyes at all…" Blake would think to herself before hearing the sound of growling Ursa in the distance and rushed off to help if someone was in trouble.

—Meanwhile, Back with Ozpin and Goodwitch—

"It looks like all the teams are running along smoothly, Professor." Glynda mentioned as she was watching on a tablet as she saw Nora and Ren team up on one screen, Ruby and Weiss, followed by Pyrrha and Jaune. "It looks like nearly everyone has been assigned a…team…Professor, has anything been seen of Mr. Moss since he was ejected into the forest?" Glynda quizzed as she noticed that even Cardin managed to get his group of four.

Ozpin was watching his screen curiously, he was noticing that while following Blake on her journey through the forest; he managed to catch a blur of orange from the creature that had jumped into the trees. "No, so far I've not seen hide or hair of Mr Moss…but I do have something curious on here." He would ask her as he showed her the image after rewinding it a little to show a rather grainy image of the orange monster watching Blake.

"What on earth is that? It doesn't look like a Grimm and it certainly doesn't appear to be any animal I've seen before." Glynda widened her eyes as this particular creature was not something she had expected to see running around the forest.

"No…It doesn't, quite frankly it looks like something Peter would dream up in one of his stories." Ozpin mentioned as he rewound and watched the clip again, continuing to watch it and trying to place a name or something that it could be. "Quite curious, indeed…"

—Back in the Forest—

Nearly everyone had been able to get to the temple; including the likes of Weiss and Ruby who literally fell from the sky to get there, with Ruby jumping down to reunite with Yang and Jaune's attempt to catch Weiss and be the knight in shining armour for her…to some partial success.

"I got this!" Ruby yelled out as she rushed forward to take a swing at the giant Deathstalker but was very quickly stopped by Yang.

"Ruby! Don't go running in like that, that thing's too dangerous for you to take on alone." Yang scolded Ruby when a second rustling from the trees was heard as Jason ran out from the bushes and brandishing his staff in hand.

"Great, I found it!" He would cheer to himself as he caught his breath. Rushing over as he met with the others, though now it was a group of nine altogether; "So…everyone got a team by the looks of it?" Jason remarked as he saw Ruby and the others teamed up together; Ruby, Blake, Weiss and Yang all grabbing the White Knight pieces. Jaune, Pyrrha, Nora and Ren grabbing the White Rook pieces, leaving Jason on his own as he decided to quickly grab a White Pawn piece from what remained of the set, something that plenty of the others noticed was the set of pieces that had been neglected.

"Uh, Jason…I don't think there's been anyone else collecting-" Pyrrha would start to say but got interrupted.

"We'll talk about that later, but right now, we've got that Grimm in the sky hovering and that Deathstalker's going to take another try at us…We should get moving." Jaune said as he noticed the Grimm lingering.

"Right now, we've got a threat both above and on the ground. Our task was to get the Relics and we've got them now, so we should make our way back to the cliff." Jason explained; while he did feel the urge to cut loose, he didn't want to freak everybody out.

"He's right, but we don't know if we can shake them off our trail…I say we fight them off and make our escape." Ruby chimed in as her attempt earlier had been stopped.

Without anything else needing to be said; the group began their mad rush towards the base of the cliff, Ruby and the others were barely able to cross the bridge before the giant Nevermore broke the pillar under it; stranding the four girls on the ruins while Jaune and the others remained at the edge, wanting to help them but no one could make that jump.

Jason realised he had to make the decision; both of the Grimm were big, mean and threatening to eliminate anyone on either side, uncomfortable memories resurfaced that came about because of his inability to help. Now he had his chance and with Ruby and the others having more options for ranged, he decided to stick around Jaune and the others; "I hoped I could do this secretly…but I can't just sit by so desperate measures it is!" Jason thought to himself before rushing towards the giant Scorpion Grimm.

"JASON!" Pyrrha yelled out as plenty of the others were shocked that Jason was attempting what Ruby had tried to do earlier.

"I can't afford to take chances here...Maybe some extra muscle can do some good here!" Jason said to himself as he twisted the dial on his watch and slammed it down, enveloping him in a green light and causing the other four to shield their eyes from the sudden flash.

There was the sound of the Grimm roaring and then a sound of something heavy hitting a hard surface. Once the light had died down, The would-be Team JNPR could see something that was unimaginable: at first, they thought it was a statue but they could all see it moving and holding back the Deathstalker. The pale green being looked like it was made out of solid crystal and had sleeveless clothing that was all black with one large darker green stripe down the middle up to it's belt, and wearing black pants.

"What the…" Jaune would be watching in surprise much like the others as this…thing had formed hammers out of its crystal hands and was swinging it hard against the Grimm's head to keep it back.

"This form? Aw man, I got all hyped up for something packing a punch but this works too!" The creature groaned to itself as it turned to face the other four, it's eyes had an oddly familiar orange glow to them; "You guys! Target the spots between it's armour, if you can hit it there then we should be able to take it down!" It yelled out at them as it then pushed it's hands to the ground before making crystals shoot up like they were plants and forming a wall to keep the Grimm at bay.

"A-Alright! Pyrrha, see if you can deflect it's claws along with me! Nora, see if you can get high enough to slam down on it's head…Ren, target the joint of it's tail, see if you can loosen it for Nora's trip back down." Jaune ordered them as he stepped into the leader role. "And…uh…Diamond headed guy, see how long you can hold it back!" Jaune yelled out to it.

"I'm not Diamondhead!"

"Well then what are you?!"

"Now's not the time for this…urgh, look just call me Gemomancer or whatever!" The gem coated being accepted both the strategy and his new name while keeping the crystal wall going to hold back the Grimm.

Pyrrha and Jaune rushed forward with their weapons drawn; "Alright, drop it!" Jaune alerted him him as Gemomancer quickly lowered the Wall enough to let Pyrrha deflect one claw and Jaune deflected the other.

With a golden opportunity: Gemomancer shot a barrage of crystal shards at the Deathstalker's face to stagger it while Ren focused his shots at the stinger.

"Hey Jaune, I can't jump up high enough to hit it." Nora realised as without her semblance to help her, she couldn't jump that high.

"Alright, Gemomancer…Can you make a launchpad?" Jaune asked as Nora waited excitedly.

"I can do you one better! Nora, hold on tight!" Gemomancer yelled out to her as he held a hand out; within a few seconds, Nora sprang into the air as a crystal pillar shot her up into the air like a rocket, giggling with glee as she reached her peak and then back down again with the help of her hammer; slamming the now separated stinger into the Grimm's head and finally making it fall.

Everyone except for Gemomancer were panting as this was a lot more exercise than they were expecting before Ren looked up at the tall crystal figure; "Care to explain why you don't feel tired?" Ren asked as he saw that parts of Gemomancer's arms looked chipped and cracked from the Deathstalker's attacks but he had barely broken a sweat.

"I'm made of crystal, crystals don't tire out, but they do get broken." He would say before the arms started regenerating until they fully reformed. The hourglass shaped emblem on his chest had started to change; it began to beep and flash red like it was counting down, he was then engulfed in a green light once more and standing where the crystal guy was, Jason was now standing there and looking a little winded; "Okay, I take it back…that was tough."

Needless to say, everyone had questions, Pyrrha and Ren looked both curious and surprised, both Jaune and Nora were freaking out about how cool it looked but they all seemed to orbit around one big question: "How did you do that?!"

Jason laughed a little; "It's always that one question but the short answer is this." He would remark and hold up the watch on his left hand, showing the similar marking of the hourglass like the one they saw on the crystal guy's chest.

"Come on, you can't just say one thing and leave it at that." Nora whined as she wanted to learn more about "The Gem Dude"



"As much as I want to as well, we need to regroup with the others and get back to Professor Ozpin." Ren explained; "Though I have to say, the colour was very nice."

—At the award ceremony—

Everyone was being awarded their Team Name and their Leader; Cardin for Team CRDL, Jaune for Team JNPR to both Weiss and Pyrrha's surprise and Ruby for Team RWBY.

All the while, Jason clapped and supported his friends as they were granted their places in the school while waiting for his name to pop up and anyone who would be joining him…but the time went on and no one else was called up. "Don't worry about it, Jason…I'm sure that Professor Ozpin will find you a team, you did pick up a relic too after all." Pyrrha said supportively as the two teams walked back with Jason in tow.

"Yeah, We saw how you could kick butt out there so maybe they'll be organising something in mind for you?" Ruby added, even though he wasn't a teammate; she still felt a little guilty that Jason had been left out despite having done everything that they did.

"I'll catch you guys up later, I think one of these dorms is mine anyway." Jason shrugged it off and smiled as he watched the others head to their own dorms; when the doors closed, he heard a beeping from his scroll: It was a message from Professor Goodwitch asking him to see her and Ozpin in his office.

Getting called to the Headmaster's office was never a good sign, his optimistic side hoped it was to explain him not having a team, but there was still that nagging feeling in the back of his head that said that they had found something out of place and they'll expel him for not being able to get a team.

Once the doors opened; he could see Professor Ozpin holding on to his mug of cocoa along with Goodwitch looking over a footage feed on her scroll. "Thank you for coming Mr Moss, I apologise for the sudden request."

Thanking him and mentioning it was sudden? Not a good start…. "I-IT's okay professor, I know things can get busy." Jason tried to play it off but it didn't take an expert to notice the anxiety on Jason's face.

"You do not need to worry about anything, Mr Moss, I just have a few questions to ask of you regarding your performance in the Forest earlier today." Ozpin explained to him as he picked up a scroll; "Seeing as you were the only one of the group of candidates that picked up the White Pawn piece when everyone else picked up something more iconic…Care to tell me why?" 

"With that Grimm hanging over us, I don't think there was much time to grab anything else, No one else picked it?" Jason asked but all he got in response was Ozpin shaking his head.

"Well, regardless of that, we can't have you going through your entire school year with no team…So for now, we will place you in a dorm until we can assemble a team of three to work with you." Glynda explained to him with a look that seemed to mix sympathy with a professional tone but that quickly changed too more stern one as Ozpin leaned forward in his chair towards Jason.

"The last thing that we want to discuss is the topic of some strange creatures that have shown up in the forest." Ozpin explained before bringing up some pictures of the orange beast and of Gemomancer building the crystal wall against the Deathstalker. "I was hoping that you could tell me more about them."