Hero Time

It had been a good few days since what became known as the Forest Incident happened; Team JNPR became NPR with Pyrrha becoming a temporary albeit despondent leader until they could find someone who could step in as their fourth. The biggest change in scenery however was that everyone had been giving Jason a wider berth than ever before once they heard of "The Beast" that the watch wearer could turn into.

"I trust you understand why I called you down here, Mr. Moss." Ozpin mentioned as he had asked for Jason to come meet him at one of the more private training rooms for what he labelled as a "Headmaster oriented review".

"You said that you had questions for me and that what happened in the forest has you concerned?" Jason asked as he looked around the large arena; "Look, it was an isolated incident…I promise that it won't happen again!" He protested as he saw Ozpin watching him with a great degree of intensity even though he didn't look angry or upset.

"I'm not concerned that it'll happen again, it's whether you can control it is something that does have me concerned." Ozpin explained as he saw Goodwitch shutting the door behind them; "Now I want you to explain to me what these forms are and what we should expect of them…If you intend on using them, then as the Headmaster of this school…I should know what to expect if anything happens or how to counteract if the worst should happen." Ozpin made sure to point out as he rested his hands on his cane.

Jason hesitated as he knew this would happen eventually, just not quite so soon. With the discovery that the watch could register Grimm still knocked him for a loop though the swing that clocked him on the side of the head did as well; "P-Professor?!" He would protest as he ducked under the next swing and extended his staff.

"Apologies but you can consider this your Semester review, Mr. Moss…I want to see everything you've learned at Beacon and prove that you indeed can control this. Because otherwise you may find yourself following the same footsteps as Mr. Arc." Ozpin mentioned as he tapped his cane tentatively before thrusting once more.

Jason felt himself stepping back as he deflected another swipe from Ozpin's cane; "With all due respect Professor; it's not exactly an easy thing to explain…" He admitted honestly as he decided to try showing Ozpin instead as he began to turn the dial; "So I think I'll show you." Jason would start to grin; "With a little bit of extra Muscle."

Green light exploded in the training hall as Ozpin got into a defensive stance along with Glynda getting her wand ready to use her Semblance in case he turned into the Ursa monster again. "Well…That's different." Ozpin mentioned out loud.

Once the light dimmed down; Ozpin and Glynda were treated to a rather comedic sight of a tiny grey creature with orange eyes that was barely any bigger than a jelly bean, he was now wearing a green jumpsuit with a black belt. His suit's collar was black and had dark brown, fingerless gloves with a green rectangle on the back.. "Aw come on…I try to prove a point and it screws me over!" Jason would say in a tiny but squeaky voice; "P-Professor, this is hardly the form I wanted to use to try explaining things…although it would be smart to use it to explain."

"So…What exactly does this form do?" Glynda would ask curiously as she was keeping a stoic look to ignore the fact that "Jason's" squeaky rant was utterly adorable for her to watch.

"By utilising this form, I can increase my intelligence and technological skill to improvise and adapt machinery to my advantage…like using the watch to utilise this new adjustment." "Jason" would say as they gripped the grey outer circle of the Omnitrix symbol and started to rotate it clockwise; making start to flash orange and beep. 

Ozpin backed away a little with a look of apprehension but kept watching as the tiny Jason quickly became engulfed in metal plating and started to grow up to what would look like Ozpin's knee height; by the time it all stopped, Jason was now clad in what looked like a mecha suit that had larger armoured plating on its shins and its wrists, the eyes that shimmered under the helmet were bright orange and strapped to its hip was a dagger and a collapsible rifle plus what looked like shoulder cannons that had folded into it's back.

"Astounding…How did you come up with something like this?" Ozpin had to admit that something that could change on the fly was more then a little interesting.

"In this form, I'm not limited to the usual intelligence that my regular form is accessed to, so I have been able to improvise plus including the factor of the watch's security protocol can now enable me to do the same for any of the forms that I can access." Jason elaborated though while in the armoured form; he sounded like he was talking through a mike.

"And the Grimm forms, do they have…This too?" Ozpin asked both out of curiosity and worry as the time limit on Jason ran out a lot quicker then expected; "Though the time limit does have me concerned for using it in the field."

Jason thought on this and then snapped his fingers; "I think that armour change must have added some extra power drain on it so the timer must be shorter….Though considering how much smarter I got and with his small size; I think I'll call him Lil Brain."

Glynda raised her eyebrow; "Quite a…literal naming process…" She mused as the three waited; "So…Our plan for you today is for you to show all of your "forms" to us and prove that you A) can demonstrate that you are capable enough of staying here at Beacon as a student and B) Is to allow us to make sure that there are no more surprises waiting for us."

Jason nodded as his watch turned green again after a few more minutes and he turned it on once again.

——Hours Later——

Jason had been firing on all cylinders from morning to afternoon with Ozpin's testing so he had taken the chance to go into Vale to stretch his legs and get out of the school for a moment. "As expected of Professor Ozpin…A real slave driver." He thought to himself as he reached for his wallet to buy a drink but found his pockets empty…Not good, Jason glanced among the crowd and the floor in case he might've dropped it while walking but no such luck. "Shit…If I lost it then that's all my money plus that Rare Sumo card I got from back…Home…" Jason worried but then felt his body sink a little as he remembered his situation; "No, I can't be sad about it…I'll do whatever it takes to get back home! For Kevin and for Ben…Who knows…I might even get the nerve to finally as-"

"HEY! GET BACK HERE!" A voice yelled out as Morgan caught a glimpse of pink and brown hair disappearing into the crowd.

"Pickpocket, huh? Well, I'm not letting you go that easy!" Jason grimaced as he tried to follow after the blur through the crowd; noticing that they were dipping and weaving into the back alleyway. By the time he had gotten through and had enough space; it was already too late as he couldn't see hide or hair. "Grr…I thought that police did something here…If I'm a gambling man, that's gonna be Roman Torchwick behind all this. Taking my money is one thing but I'm NOT letting him slide with taking my last memento of back home!" He growled to himself as he turned on the watch and began listing through the choices, "If he wants to mess with me, then I'm gonna return the favour!" He then slammed his hand down on the watch and transformed into a flash of green light.

Roman Torchwick was a simple man of simple wants; While he was waiting for the White Fang to get mobilised for his next heist at the docks; he took delight in the age old tradition of pickpocketing and right now he was swimming in valuables ranging from easily swiped watches to flimsy purses and wallets; "You know, for a place that's crawling with cops and would-be goody two shoes; They sure don't take much care in protecting their valuables…Knock off watch…plastic…Gods, a fake bag? Vale rich folk are basic…" 

Torchwick took all of the green and blue Lien cards and placed them into a machine that began to scan them; buzzing for a moment before flashing up a number and producing a single red Lien card; "A nice tidy sum of 30,000 Lien to add to my funds in this little gadget, I have to thank Cinder for getting her contact to provide this pimped out little money printer…Huh, looks like I missed one." Torchwick then put the red Lien card into the machine to store the funds before picking up the last wallet that the brown and pink haired girl handed to him.

Torchwick would eye the wallet before starting to empty it out; "Huh?! Neo…Who did you pick up this wallet from, the Mayor?!" He asked in shock as around ten Red Lien cards dropped out from the wallet.

Neo shrugged before pulling out her scroll and holding it up for her friend to see; "Pulled it out of some kid's wallet, probably some rich kid from uptown with an inheritance from daddy's credit card?" 

"That sounds about right…But still, 300,000 Lien sitting in some brat's back pocket is something else." Torchwick mentioned as he put the cards through the machine and tapped one of the buttons; "Let's see how much the two of us have in our clever lil piggy bank."

The two watched as the calculated number started to count up with all the money that they had accumulated since entering this "Cinder's" employ before it finally stopped at a whopping "Neo, I think the machine broke; it says this totalled up to 800,000…So factoring that in along with our collective total that we managed to get stowed away in the safe, we're…." Torchwick mentally did the math and then began to grow a smile so wide that it threatened to break his jaw. "We're sitting pretty on that pile of 8 and a half million Lien AND whatever gets put our way once we start selling off the Dust deposits that we got, following that we go-What's this?" Roman stopped his tangent when he saw a blue card that was sticking out of the wallet and slipped it out; "Sumo Slammer? Man, kid's a weirdo for having something like this…"

Neo rolled her eyes and held up her Scroll again; "Says the man who holds on to X-Ray and Vav comic books…" She mutely snarked at him with a smug grin on her face.

"Hey! Give or take a few years, comic book nerds will dish out literal thousands of Lien for a mint condition; I can use that to squeeze out whatever money I can without having to get a heist going." Torchwick grumbled; "Besides…What were you doing, looking through my stash like that?"

"You have better eye makeup then I do and you always get cheap when it comes to me asking for stuff!" Neo remarked with a pout but then tucked her phone away to put the now emptied wallets out with the trash.

"In all honesty Neo, it pays to look THIS good…I can't rely on a Semblance that changes how I look to other people so I gotta do things the old fashioned way…Neo?" Torchwick turned back when he didn't hear her heels coming back in; "Alright, very funny Neo…I know you're mad about the makeup thing but we gotta get ready fo-NEO!" He then yelled out in alarm when he saw the unconscious Neo in the hallway and down the hall was what looked like an active Police drone.

Though on closer inspection; it didn't look like an average drone due to it looking rather distinct with a more outlandish paint job; this drone was coloured almost entirely black but it had orange highlights around it as it aimed it's "camera" up to Torchwick. 

"Well…This is awkward, too bad I'm too far down the line to stop for a sting op." Torchwick quipped as he lifted his cane on a quick-draw and fired a shot at the drone before it could take it's chance; true to form, the drone was hit dead on and collided with the wall. "Sorry coppers but I'm not really up for a chase today, kinda bu…sy?" Torchwick's smarmy look changed when he saw the black and green slowly peel off the drone

The amorphous blob then reformed into what looked like a 7 foot tall vaguely man shaped blob; it had a black exterior with orange stripes that resembled circuitry all over him though his front torso was coloured a dark green with black circuitry patterns. The only thing that seemed to link him back to Jason was the familiar symbol on his chest since the orange circle on his head happened to be the one thing that could qualify as a face.

"Alright, Torchwick…You've been caught with your hands in the cookie jar, I'm here to take the cookies back! So tell me where you hid the money and my trading card!" The thing's voice spoke out; sounding like it was digitised and modulated with it's orange circle lighting up as it talked.

"Heh, alright buddy…I know you're probably new to the whole budding superhero thing but word of advice?" Torchwick aimed his cane at the figure and opened up the gun segment; "Get some better material." He snarked as he fired off Melodic Cudgel with the sound of a firework.

What Torchwick wasn't expecting however was the spot that he fired at opened up and ended up blasting open a window; "My name isn't Buddy, I think it's better that you call me Patch!" He would say as he began charging up something in it's face, having been too distracted to notice. The interior of the hideout lit up orange as "Patch" fired a beam of concussive energy directly at Torchwick to send him crashing through a door and into unconsciousness.

"One part down, now he mentioned a safe, maybe he put it in there?" Patch mentioned as he kept time of the essence; before bonding with the safe that remained under the table, as it turned into a mass of oranges, greens and black. There were a series of slow beeps and the digital screen flashed up with a series of numbers as Patch deciphered the combination until it finally opened up. "Turing Test…Never fails…"

However Patch could only see the singular machine in there that Torchwick was using to count up the money, though the only indicator that he saw it's relation was the pile of multicoloured cards around it; "Alrighty, let's make sure it doesn't get stolen again." He mumbled to himself and melded with the machine; sucking up the cards and then started the counting after a few seconds of beeping from the machine and also from Patch's symbol. The two split and Jason was left sitting on the ground as the recent events tired him out more then he expected.

The machine that he had been bonded to however had been overtaxed and was now effectively just a weight, it's only contribution from the whole thing was a single card. "One card? I had 300k stolen from m-You know what? I'll have to come back, those two could wake up any second." Jason said to himself as he grabbed the card, his discarded wallet and the Sumo Slammer card before sneaking out of the window.

——Later at the docks——

Jason could hear a familiar voice from around the corner followed by a series of introductions; "Hey everyone." 

Team RWBY had been in the process of chasing someone down or predominantly Weiss was. "Hey Jason, how come you didn't come with us earlier? If we knew you were going to be down here then you could've just joined us." Ruby mentioned as she waved at him.

"Well I was kind of busy this morning because of that training, it really wiped me out…I've not long been done but as luck had it, some weirdo swiped my wallet while I was walking in town, luckily I was able to get it back." Jason explained though decided to omit telling them that he did stuff with the watch to get it back. Though he did notice that Blake was looking a little more sour than usual and Weiss was more haughty than normal.

"A stolen wallet? Of course, that scoundrel must've taken it during th-"

"CAN YOU NOT?!" Blake finally snapped at Weiss as she got sick and tired of listening to Weiss accusing the Faunus Boy and the White Fang for practically every kitten stuck up a tree.

"I'm sorry, but they are known to do this…You can't exactly blame me for thinking someone who stowed away on a ship, resisted arrest from Police AND caused a scene in public is NOT a criminal." Weiss retorted back, ever determined to play the morality card on her high horse.

"You…You….Ignorant brat!" Blake snapped before storming off with Weiss following soon after to continue pushing the point.

Yang and Ruby however thought it best to keep a distance and explained things to Jason who looked more confused then anything.

"So Blake's mad about this Faunus guy who Weiss was chasing but Weiss seems adamant that he is some sort of super criminal?" Jason tried to surmise while the two continued to argue.

"Pretty much…I don't suppose you got a form to fix this, do you?" Ruby asked with a nervous chuckle though she looked curious when she saw the redhead that befriended her eyeing Jason's watch.

"Um, excuse me? Your wristpiece is surprisingly advanced looking for something as simplistic as a watch, would you mind if I examine it?" She would ask as she had her hands clasped to each other; "May I ask where you got this from? It looks more distinguished then what I have seen from Atlas."

Jason was rather perplexed that this new girl had suddenly made a beeline for the Omnitrix without even asking his name; "Uh…." He would make a side glance over to Ruby who made a gesture to say that she was harmless…probably; "Sure, though I don't even know your name." Jason pointed out as he saw the girl poking and prodding various parts of the watch.

The girl straightened up almost immediately as she looked him in the eye; "Oh, my sincere apologies; it wasn't my intention to be perceived as ill mannered… My name is Penny, it's a pleasure to meet you." Penny introduced herself with a soft smile and a wave of her hand.

"Well, it's nice to meet you too…I'm Jason, it's always nice to come across new friends." Jason remarked as he thought that Penny was now friends with the others.

This made Penny gasp softly and clasped his hands excitedly; "You think I'm your friend?!" She asked with an almost innocent expression on her face as her hands clasped his.

Penny didn't evoke much of a response from the others before but when she started getting touchy with Jason made them feel things that they hadn't expected; Ruby was happy to see that she wasn't the only one to get figuratively mauled by Penny's friendship but she was equally a little annoyed that Penny was going to be hogging time with the Watch.

Weiss was still stuck in her argument with Blake as she asked whether she should stop referring to a trashcan as a trashcan; however it seemed like since Penny entered the group, she was taking side glances at Penny like she was watching her with a sense of caution.

Blake was equally embroiled in her debate but she could feel a growl festering in her throat when she saw Jason getting his hands held in the reflection of a window, though she seemed more focused on trying to argue her case with Weiss.

Yang was laughing her ass off when she saw Jason awkwardly trying to navigate a conversation with this new girl however she had to admit; she did have her attention split between watching Jason and watching the fight to make sure it didn't go too far.

"Interesting; this interface operates purely by rotating the face and pressing it down to enable you to transform into your other forms?" Penny asked inquisitively as she turned the watch's face left and right; watching the icons on the face slowly change with each new Click on the watch.

"Mhm, once I have the right form in mind like if I want a speedster or extra muscle then I can just push the button and voila, we got a new form." Jason explained as he let her do whatever it was she was examining. "I can even think of things to use for utility purposes."

"I'd like to see one of these forms for utility purposes!" She would say excitedly and accidentally pressed down on the watch's face; causing the docks to get engulfed in a green light.

"Oh….This is not good. Just think utility, Utility…please don't give me someone like Way Big!" Jason mentally pleaded with the Omnitrix as he felt his body start to shift and change.

However as the two were arguing, Weiss being the more "Sensible" of the group turned to try and see if she can shield them from view though she did notice that where they had wandered off towards was away from most of the public view.

The five girls watched the lights die down as "Jason" showed off one of the other forms at his disposal; What emerged from the light was what looked like a vaguely humanoid creature with a mixed resemblance to an amoeba or a toad, he had the watch's black and green face on his tanned stomach and muzzle, with black sprouts and black-green spots on his tail, limbs, and back. His eyes were sharp and orange, he had thin black whisker-like lines that ran along his face from his upper lip to under his eyes, his teeth were now visibly sharp canine teeth and his tail wass short and straightened. "Huh, well…It's not completely what I wanted or expected but I'll take it." "Jason" would remark in a now deeper voice that seemed to rumble like he swallowed something harsh.

"Uh…What is that?" Weiss asked as she wasn't sure whether to find the small froggy creature cute or disgusting. "Because it doesn't look all that strong."

"This, Weiss…is…I'm actually not sure what it is, my teacher never actually went into much details with some of these forms but I did see him use this once or twice." Jason explained as he gazed up at Weiss with a narrowed look on his pudgy face.

"Aw, he looks like a lil meatball~" Yang internally cooed as she lightly poked at his belly; "So…What exactly does it do?" She asked him as she looked around for something to test with.

"Well, when my teacher used it, he swallowed stuff and spat out other stuff…He called 'em loogies." Jason remarked as he waddled off with a rather loud rumble of his stomach.

"Loogies?"

"So you say it swallowed stuff…Like this?" Ruby asked as she jogged after him and held out a soupcan that she had found discarded.

Jason took the can and looked it over; with another gurgle of his stomach, he quickly slipped it into his mouth and began chewing on it. There was an awkward mix of awe, curiosity and just plain weirded out  looks on their faces; "Huh, not bad…Could probably use a little more." He mused out loud.

Yang got the idea first and smirked; "Lets see what else he can eat!" She suggested as her, Ruby and weirdly enough Penny each started handing Jason more and more odd things for him to chew on.

By the time that the girls looked back at their arguing duo; Jason had consumed four trash cans, 16 empty bottles and cans, a piece of lumber, 9 different types of rocks and the most shocking was watching this small toad like creature devour an abandoned car. "Unbelievable, this is what you were up to all this time? How could you ignore your teammates like this?!" Weiss snapped at the trio but found herself tempted to squish Jason's cheeks as they started to bulge.

"Honestly, I wish I could ignore you…I'm going back to the dorm." Blake resigned herself as she left the group to go blow off steam; Weiss stormed after her, determined to win their argument while Jason was left alone with his transformation coming undone to bring him back to normal.

Jason was about to say something to Yang and Ruby but they had left too with some rushed apologies as they kept up with Blake's rushed walking and leaving Jason with Penny.

"Are you not going with them?" Penny would ask as she was still intrigued by the watch and what else it could do.

"They've got their own team to deal with…But I'm not a part of their's." Jason explained as he walked along with the freckled girl, still unsure of his situation with Ozpin and getting assigned a team.

"So your team is away?" Penny asked curiously as they walked along the dockside; "It seems rather odd but considering that you are capable of what you do, I assume it is because of your wristpiece?"

"The Headmaster intends on assigning me a team but he hasn't decided of one yet." Jason remarked; "As for the watch, I don't want to assume I can work with or without a team bu-"

"I'm sorry, Jason….But I have to leave and reconvene with my overseer, perhaps I can see you again…W-With Ruby and the others too!" Penny interrupted with an almost sad expression as she rushed off into the city.

"Man…Just when I think that the people at Beacon were weird enough…Someone has to come along and prove me wrong." Jason thought to himself as he wandered back towards the school, unaware that a familiar pink and brown haired girl watched him from an alleyway; snapping a picture of his watch and then sent it to Torchwick with a very ominous caption.

"You wanna get your money back?"