Alternate title: An Empty Cage
To become strong, to become a hero, all he had to do… was become heartless.
Dragon's Dogma crossover, gamer Jaune, strong Jaune.
Prologue
Beneath the armor, the scars that crisscrossed his body would make a mother weep for her child and a father rage. They told untold stories of unseen horrors, of monsters that hid in the dark and lie in wait. They were long healed and the worst of them left as gashes upon his would-be corpse, cauterized or healed by a controlled miracle. But he was still alive, and they told the tale.
The figure's name had been Arc, once. Jaune Arc.
But what he wore was not what Jaune Arc in his wildest nightmares ever thought he'd wear. Vicious, nightmarish blood red armor and a wide sneer of a faceplate that gave the look of an inhuman, demonic smile with long, stretching black teeth and eyes that glowed a stark yellow. A shield as dark as the night and emblazoned with a gold cross-section splattered with scarlet. A tattered cape billowing slightly at his back, looking more like a blood woven cape splattered with black than anything else. A sword held confidently in his hand, the crossguard in the finely crafted shape of intertwining draconic wings.
Jaune Arc dreamt of being a hero. This was not the appearance of a hero.
The figure swung as death itself came toward it, the Reaper's scythe descending down with a light splitting swipe. Blade met scythe, and he knew he was going to die.
Just not today.
Chapter 1
"Dad, Dad! Can you and mom teach me how to hold a sword today?"
The little boy hurried up to his father and tugged on his pantleg, all smiles. In his hand he held a little cardboard sword, gripping it tightly. His father frowned, but it was quickly schooled into an indulgent smile. He ruffled his son's moppy blonde hair. "Sorry kiddo, I have to teach your sister today. Maybe tomorrow."
"That's what you said yesterday!" The boy pouted, stomping the floor.
"Tomorrow!" His father said. "Jule, come on girl, let's go!" He stepped outside the house and into the backyard, followed by a young girl.
"Yes Dad!" She spared the boy only a small glance as she hefted a blade of her own, most certainly not made of cardboard, before she stepped outside as well.
The boy watched them practice from the kitchen window silently. Then, he started to imitate their movements, completely unseen.
He hit the ground with a painful thud. His sister had kicked him a clear distance, her aura already unlocked. She stood a head and a half shorter than him but moved him like a paper weight. The shame that heated his cheeks was nothing to his frustration at that moment, and he scrambled back to his feet. He charged, pushing back the discomfort of not being able to breathe and forcing himself to, rearing he sword in his hand back, poising his shield as he had seen so many times. She rolled her eyes.
"Time!"
He stopped instantly, feet skidding into the ground. His sister hadn't even moved and went so far as to cross her arms as she shook her head. Off to the side his father held a stopwatch. The ten minutes were up. He knew he hadn't scored a single hit, and his body was lightly bruised, scuffed, and dirty from the dry dirt he had skid through. His sister, contrastingly but unsurprisingly, was unscathed.
He avoided looking at his father. He didn't need to see him to see the disappointed look in his face that he quickly schooled. He didn't even need to hear it, he simply knew it was there.
At fifteen years old he was quickly reaching his father's height. His sisters took some a great many of their looks from both of their parents, but he took after his father. From the very hue of his hair to the shape of his eyes and now his height, he was almost the spitting image of his father, though he lacked the rugged, world-weary look and the scar on his chin. He was like his father in everything except ability.
Tiredly, the blonde man shook his head as he rubbed his temple. He didn't even bother trying to hide the action at this point. "Let's… go get some dinner."
"But I'm not done yet!" He heaved, gritting his teeth in barely restrained frustration. An Arc doesn't get frustrated, he told himself. They get determined. You can do this, you can-
But the doubt was already there. His sister, proud of her heritage and even more so by the fact that she was evidently just as prodigal as her parents and elder siblings, huffed and turned away from him, if not ignorant of his dilemma, then apathetic. She was one of the youngest children, the seventh one to be exact.
He didn't blame her for the snub, but he wouldn't let it, or the way his other siblings looked at him, get to him. Unfortunately it already had. He'd prove himself, and the way their looks of confusion that had once said, "We can do it, why can't you?" before they turned into bemusement and annoyance would disappear forever. The way his mother would sigh, but then smile and say it was alright, that he didn't have to be a skilled warrior like the rest of his family, that they still loved him – he'd never have to see that again.
The way his father's disappointed look always hit him hard would go away. Not now, though. He refused to stop. "I'm not-" he started, but his father shook his head.
"Let's go," his father said, his voice baritone.
He walked back inside the house without another word, his daughter following after him, sheathing her self-crafted weapon with finesse like it was second nature. They didn't even bother to look back at him. He sighed at the reoccurring lack of faith.
That was not the day Jaune Arc lost faith in wanting to be like his family, it was simply the day he stopped believing he could be like them.
As a child, the boy who had grown up to be Jaune Arc dreamt of being a hero. He dreamt of following in his father's footsteps, and his father's father before him. The Arcs held a long line of strong men and women, heroes and warriors. At a young age Jaune's father had been trained and so too had Jaune's sisters. His mother, though not an Arc, was a welcome addition to the family. They were all strong.
Jaune Arc was not.
In the kindest way it could be said, and his parents had indeed said it so often that he couldn't ever forget, Jaune simply… wasn't. Their words, "You don't have to be," soon sunk in to him from a young age, and as bright as he was, he knew what they meant.
His family was full of strong warriors, his sisters trained from a young age and showing prodigious aptitude in combat. Jaune did not.
"You don't have to be like them."
They were intuitive with a blade or a weapon. They were prodigies like their parents.
"You don't have to be, Jaune."
They were fit to be heroes.
"You don't have to be, Jaune."
They were fit to be Arcs.
"You don't have to b- Jaune!"
Jaune never forgot that.
It wasn't very pleasant, living like that, but it was all he knew. Knowing that his parent's sighs were because of him, that they refused to train him because he hadn't shown the same amount of aptitude as his sisters. Jaune was the black sheep, the odd one out, the failure. His relatives knew how to hold a weapon with ease from a young age, and it had been expected that he would too. Not only was he the youngest in the Arc family, but he was also the only boy, the scion, the spitting image of his father.
He was supposed to be the one that imbued them with pride, too.
"You don't have to be, Jaune."
But he wanted to, he so did. He wanted to share in the laughs and revelry instead of being the cute, coddled, and protected youngest child. So, he had taken the family heirloom one night. The sword belonging to his grandfather. The stage was set, his plan already in motion. He would become a hero, would become strong, and he wouldn't return until he did. Until he was fit to be an Arc.
In his mind, not even in its depths, but where the niggling dearth of confidence and insecurity dwelled, he doubted they'd miss him. Who'd ever miss a disappointment? He was a child, a sibling. A brother, a son. But was he an Arc? Not in his mind.
He wouldn't be a disappointment one for long, though. In the moment, he thought it was a good plan. It was heroic, it was determined. It was ballsy and something his great grandfather would have done. Something an Arc would have done!
…And it got him killed.
Falling between the crags of split earth, white, impenetrable mist gave way to murky green and black smokes. Jaune's life flashed before his eyes as he fell to his death. Receiving his fake transcripts, arriving at Beacon Academy, meeting the silver eyed girl who, now that his head was swimming, he couldn't properly recall her name. He could remember being flung off a cliff by the Headmaster of the school of course, and being chased by a deathstalker, and of someone pressing their hand into his chest and feeling… warm inside, renewed. Capable, for once.
Then he remembered running for his life repeatedly. A gigantic black bird in the sky with eyes as red as blood. Feathers piercing the ground like knives through butter. Crumbling stone, adrenaline, attacking even though it was useless, with a sword he taught himself how to use in his hand and a shield as useless as a rock strapped to his fist. Shouting, clanging, movement, thinking how could he ever keep up with these people, how useless he was, how much of a disappointment-
How he kept going. Thunderous steps, inhuman screeches of pain. You can do it! He thought, pointlessly and without belief. Charging. You're supposed to be an Arc! Raising his sword to deliver the killing blow. The deathstalker's carapace fragmented right at the edge of its head, revealing a fleshy, pale target. So close…
Make your family proud for once in your life!
Something bumped into him, a shield from the side. A spear struck the deathstalker and embedded itself almost the entire way. He stumbled, the force of the collision leaving him unable to stop.
He remembered seeing the edge of the cliff and belatedly realizing that there was nothing after that. He remembered his first step on air, and how his foot fell, and how his heart seized and jumped in the same fraction of a second as the air left his lungs in a gasp and he choked.
Someone shouted. "Sorry!" and he distinctly remembered it, but then the friendly tone was followed by a sharp scream of horror.
Jaune barely heard it as the wind rushed past his ears and he felt himself starting to fall. His first step lead to the grasp of a jealous, coveting gravity.
And he felt stupid. This was where his desire to live up to his family name landed him. His entire life he felt as though he didn't fit in his own family because he wasn't wasn't strong enough.
"You don't have to b- Jaune!"
"Jaune? Jaune!"
His parents were right.
This wasn't worth it.
He had shut his eyes as he fell to the ground. Cloying hot mist, and then cold, and then freezing, as he came nearer and nearer to his final, ignominious end rushed past his face and filled his lungs. It… was certainly taking a long time, he thought. Probably why they called it the Forever Fall-
He hit the ground though and felt nothing. Then he felt everything. Surprisingly, there was no pain.
Maybe it would kick in after a few seconds? Like being kicked so hard in the stomach by his sister and flying back, hitting the ground, and not realizing he couldn't breathe until his lungs were screaming?
No, just… sand. Sand? And water. Wet. Salty, briny. Jaune hadn't been to a beach in years.
Rushing water. His eyes were still shut tight. The smell and sound and sensation was unmistakable. He had landed on a beach. Why was there a beach at the bottom of the cliff? Why was he alive? Was he even alive?
Jaune turned over and looked up, expecting to see onyx spires and a battle raging above him, the Nevermore flying overhead. If he was alive, then obviously he couldn't have fallen far. Perhaps he could ask someone to help him back up. If anyone noticed.
He was on his stomach, and the sensation was the opposite of feeling as though he'd been kicked in the stomach. He felt rested, albeit wet and cold and hot at the same time as the water seeped into his clothes. His sword, he noticed, was only a foot away, his shield still in his arms. That was when he heard it. A snort.
But it was too loud to be human, or anything. There was something about it, something… unnatural? No, unfamiliar. Then he felt hot, arid air. It was deep, and powerful, like the roar of an engine rather than an exhalation of breath. Cluelessly, Jaune turned.
It took some seconds for what he saw to kick in. Then, he made a small noise, that of all air evacuating his lungs and running for the hills.
It was larger than him by so many times, saying it would be redundant. He was to this… thing, what a small puppy would be to him. Jaune had gotten his father's looks and his height, but not his ability, and towered over his family. That was his only exemplar. This… the wings, the horns, the scales…. This dragon – and yes, he realized with a sudden, manic calm, it is indeed a dragon – was fucking huge.
Dragons were fairy-tales, a disbelieving part of him said. Even this disbelieving part conceded the argument before it had even begun. Were, because there was no mistaking this sight, no denying it. No saying, No, this is a dream. No running away.
The scales were red and amber and golden and gleaming with sunlight, only marred by ageless grime and scuffs. They were each as large as his face and Jaune saw, with only a step backward, that they were right above him. He was beneath its belly, the long stretch of its neck, and, most importantly, its head. The massive cranium craned down to look at him with horns as red as blood and sleek, black teeth that seemed more like daggers than anything, its eyes as narrowed as keyholes and glowing like embers, a maw full of fire ready to burn everything to a fine and unrecognizable crisp.
It was in that moment Jaune experienced an inhuman, even infaunus, acuity that relayed his surroundings. Beach. Brown stonework. Ruined buildings. Gigantic footsteps. An endless horizon. Bodies everywhere.
Moans. Screams. Pleas for help.
The eyes regarded him emotionlessly, and he looked into them as well. He could see his reflection in the proportionately tiny organs, though they each where as large as half his head. Emblazened yet intelligent, there was no mistaking that look. Calculating. Jaune had seen it before. His father, his mother, his superior siblings.
"What will you do now?" They seemed to ask, looking at him. Their stance was controlled, refined, but after a while it became dismissive. Jaune couldn't do anything, not to them. He'd try, but he couldn't accomplish anything.
But he would do it anyway.
It was not to say that Jaune had learned nothing from the comparatively tiny amount of training he had been given. Though he had been brushed aside in favor for his sisters, he had learned more than nothing. Enough to know when to move, albeit clumsily. Enough to know how to hold a sword in his hands as he rolled, how to ignore the discomfort of his body hitting the ground, regardless of if it was dirt, or sand in his face.
The sword was in his hand and he thought of nothing. Nothing good, anyhow. Admittedly Jaune's last thoughts were, again, of his family. How they would have done it better, how he didn't know how to do it better. Bits and pieces flashed before his eyes, only cementing this.
And he struck out, angry, sad, and desperate. Disappointed, raging, and tired, thinking that even in in his last moments, his family would have done better. His father had the strength of ten men his size and could have bulldozed through a crowd if he so wished. His mother had the finesse of a cat, and his sisters each took after either one. Any one of them could have been the one to do something. People were in trouble, but it was he who was here. They'd die. The greatest of ironies – the wanna-be hero would fail.
"You don't have to be, Jaune."
He, the wanna-be Arc, would fail.
"You don't have to- Jaune!"
He'd try anyway. He didn't have to be an Arc to know never to quit. If he died, he wouldn't die ashamed of himself for trying to be something he wasn't: An Arc.
"I don't have to be."
He roared, but the ominous descent of the claw seemed to drown out the noise. The sound of wet sand smacking and water rushing muted him and then the claw collided with him. Jaune's stance, sloppy as always, was easily broken as he was flung a good twenty feet where he stood. His shield went flying and his sword, no, not his sword, his great grandfather's sword embedded itself into the creature's claw harmlessly. Jaune could see it all in slow motion as he flew back.
He saw nothing, but felt everything. He smiled. Now that felt like getting kicked in the stomach. And, as the world darkened, he thought it was pretty nostalgic.
The dragon watched the boy's comparatively miniscule form hit the ground distantly. Instead of running, he had attacked…. His body skid across the sand in wet smacks, painfully rolling into a heap. The force of the blow that sent him flying should have killed him, easily, but that was easily rectified if so.
Curious, the dragon looked toward the sky. His voice, like fine gravel and tumbling from his throat like a cavalcade, was loud even as he murmured, "Seneschal…"
The dragon, whose name had once been Grigori, looked up with no result. He was not surprised. Then he shook his massive head and the fire brimming in his mouth died, swallowed into his massive belly. He had completed his task, he mused. No one needed to die in order to rouse some brave, or stupid, or strong spirit to stand up.
The villagers would live their life in a… cyclical nature, unto the end of time. However, it was curious… this was yet another round in the cycle, yet the first that those on the beach did not perish in this time, in this place, at this event. If he had still possessed the ability, Grigori would have felt surprised. Instead he felt refreshed, a bit intrigued, and smoke billowed from his mouth.
He picked the soon to be Arisen's body up in one claw, pinching the fabric of his clothing between two massive talons with the utmost accuracy, and laid him into his palm. "Perhaps this will break the wheel," he mused, inspecting the boy. Then, in a controlled annoyance, he uttered, "I hope it tears it asunder."
In an almost perfunctory way his claw descended and stabbed through Jaune's chest. A quiet, choked sound came from his throat, immediately followed by a rush of blood, but he was dead before anything could register. The claw was so large it eclipsed his entire chest, and the fine, immeasurably sharp point cleaved through bone and flesh and organ like butter, leaving a nightmarish gash marred by torn bone and viscera, not unlike a dissected rat.
Disgust having perished cycles ago, Grigori raised the claw to his mouth, no, his maw, and looked at the heart. It had been quite some time since he had seen one so bright, possibly the brightest ever. The current Duke had been weak, and barely glowing, but this… this shone like the sun. Like fire. It beat, pulsated, and pounded… all the way into his stomach, where it continued to do so, and Grigori instantly knew of the boy, down to his last memory, down to the very last desire of his heart.
Relatively gently, he laid the body over the ground. It was nothing more than a nightmarish corpse at that point, but it was easily rectified. Grigori's magic was second to only the Seneschal's, and he waved his mighty claw over the body and it glowed a divine gold. The reaper would not have its due, not by age or injury, at least for now.
As the claw passed, like a dark cloud in front of the sun, all that remained was bloody rags of clothing and an unseemly, frightening scar. The flesh was mended in the shape of a jagged claw and beneath it, the cage where his heart had once been was empty.
Grigori did not look back as he flew off, his wings beating with such force that the seat itself was upset and tumultuous. If one strained their ears they could hear, "This better be the one, Seneschal. Getting real tired of this shit."
The frightened villagers of Cassardis soon peeked from their shelters and saw that the dragon was gone. Voices from throughout the village cried, and shivered, and even cheered. Those on the beach pointed toward the bloody figure, said that he had stood up to it, his sword still in its claw as it flew off. The injured would get to see their families once more because of him. The village would not be destroyed, and life could return to normal.
He had saved them. He was a hero.
Jaune Arc had achieved what he thought was his life's dream. To be strong, to be a hero… all he had to do was become heartless.
The sound of something like a click made him stir. It was smooth, not mechanical. He couldn't place it.
Then the sound of some instrument. An organ? Something deep and ominous that vaguely recalled the image of a church. He opened his eyes.
Staring for seconds on end, he still couldn't understand what he was seeing. Faded gold letters, a scarlet dragon behind them, and corrupted, jagged lettering beneath it all touched in a firey splatter of blood. He saw his name.
Jaune Arc! It read.
Welcome to Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen!
So… he was dead.
