Night bag?
Check.
Crocea Mors?
Check.
Nausea pills?
Uh-oh, forgot those. No big deal, how bad could flying be?
Years of training?
Don't have that one, but hey Beacon should handle that.
Jaune mentally ran through a check list of items he would need for Beacon. He was walking to the bullhead transport center to hitch a ride to the academy, and wanted to make sure he was prepared. Well as prepared as a kid with no training, skills, or aura could be. All in all he figured his odds of getting through Beacon were pretty good even with those small details hindering him. It was a school after all; it wasn't like he would have to fight anything without extensive training provided by the school.
He straightened up as he walked across the road towards his future. Nothing would stand in Jaune Arc's way. He would be a great hunter like his ancestors. He would save the day, get the girl, and look awesome doing it. Jaune would laugh in the face of death.
Death decided today it would laugh at Jaune Arc.
Lost in his thoughts of future glory Jaune didn't see or hear a car hurtling towards him. Jaune would meet a messy death today, never to see a future full of good friends, tragic loses, heroic fights, and a conspiracy that would shatter Remnant. It was the end of a short road for Jaune.
That is if it wasn't for a hand pulling Jaune out of the path of the car.
Jaune was shocked, he had almost almost killed. Dead before he could do anything with his life.
"Jeez kid, you need to look out where you're going."
The voice came from Jaune's savior. He turned to see a tall man with messy blonde hair dressed in casual clothes. In addition he also had an unusual tattoo partially covered by a strip of cloth around his arm. He seemed laid back and calm even after saving Jaune's life, as if it was just a normal thing to save inattentive idiots.
"T-Thanks for the save, I would have been killed without you." The man just shrugged with a smiled.
"Naah, kid like you would be just fine" Jaune was a bit confused now.
"Umm…What do you mean?"
"Well you're going to Beacon right? Means you've got aura then. " The man looked at him with an almost knowing smile. "Right kid?"
Sweat started to roll down Jaune's forehead. "Oh yeah, I just got it recently. Sometimes I forget about it"
"Sure." The man paused for a minute before a serious look came upon his face "You seem like a good kid so word of advice, stay away from woman at Beacon."
"Ummm… OK." That's a weird piece of advice.
"Anyways try not to get killed" the man said nonchalantly as he walked off.
Weird guy. Jaune smiled as he stepped forward towards the bullheads. Anyway off to Beacon, a bright future is ahead of me.
The future was grimm, literally and metaphorically Jaune thought as he sat on the back of a moving APC. He looked back down at his shield. It was spray painted black on the front side to help with comaflague in the hellish grimmlands he was currently in. Flipping his shield around it revealed a list of names etched into it. All the names were crossed out except three. He put the cigarette he was smoking in his mouth to free his hand to pull out a necklace from the confines of the camouflaged plate armor that encased his entire body. Once a picture of his team had resided at the end of the necklace but he had replaced it years ago with a small neck knife.
Drawing the blade he carved out Emerald's name. Rest in pieces bitch. He looked up at the night sky, filled with grimm and dust rounds. The armored convoy had been trying its best to fend off the non-stop grimm attacks for the last three days sense they had entered the grimmlands. The lack of air support was Emeralds fault, sabotaged the fleet when they were at the docks, not that they had many airships left from the last few wars. She had good taste in guns though. He patted the new pistol that rested in his holster.
Looking back down at his shield he saw the last two names of Cinder and Salem almost laughing at him. "I'm coming for you two". Going to make you pay. Pay for all the innocent people you kill, pay for my family, pay for my friends, and pay for this fucking world. It all had fallen apart five years ago at the Vytal Festival. Cinder got the maidens power, Salem got the first artifact, and they had crippled communications with the other Kingdoms. After that some politician named Watts stirred up tensions between Kingdoms, a nice fuck'n combination of anti-faunus fear, an increase in nationalism, coupled with shoddy and fake communications, it hadn't been long before people started killing themselves. They had called it the second Great War. Hunters were conscripted into their respective countries' armies. He spent most of that time in the deserts of Vaco fending grimm off from the main military, but in the last year of the war the army had forced its way into the cities and he had been engaged in brutal street fights till the war's end. In private Jaune blamed the people more than Watts for the war that had occurred . He grinned. He still considered scalping Watts a high point of that time thought. It hadn't ended the war but it helped him sleep at night.
Humanity had been weakened enough after that for Salem to use mass grimm swarms supplemented by White Fang strikes to take out each kingdom one by one, old hatreds killing any chances of cooperation. First Vaco had fallen, after that it was like dominos until only Atlas remained. They had the tech and manpower to halt the grimm and as for the White Fang. Well as for them Jaune was glad Blake never lived to see what happened to the remaining fanuses. He shuddered remembering the long winter spent huddling in freezing foxholes fending off enemy probes along their lines.
Around that time the brass crunched the numbers and came to an inescapable conclusion. They were fucked. They were losing men faster than Salem was breeding grimm. Projected estimates said that they would run out of men by the end of the year. Salem needed to die and quickly.
He took one last drag from his cigarette before he flicked it to the side. That's why he was here. This convoy was an all or nothing last ditch for humanity. Kill Salem and have a chance to wake for this nightmare or fail and everyone died. No pressure.
Looking around him he saw military vehicles of all makes and models. It would have been an impressive sight to behold if Jaune didn't know how many burning hulks of twisted steel and lost comrades that lay before them. Thinking back he could see the faces of those lost. First there had been Pyrrha at the tower. Then came Blake, tortured to death by Adam. Yang had beaten him to a bloody pulp and destroyed the Fang base but she had went in too full of rage to wait for back up costing her her life. Ren and Nora had gone out together in an airstrike.
Weiss had been on a patrol with him in White Fang territory when they got separated in an ambush. He had found his way onto a building armed with a sniper rifle hoping to find her. He did, she was being taken prisoner, beaten down by a platoon of White Fang she had been unlucky enough to come upon. He had seen the terrible things the Fang did to their prisoners; he didn't want to imagine what they would do to a female Schnee. A younger Juane would have rushed the entire platoon and died, just another casualty in the conflict Wiess still meeting a terrible end. In his after-actions report he didn't mention the friendly fire.
Ruby's death had been particularly hard for him. She had been using her super speed to get wounded out of the line fire during a battle. Ruby didn't care if they were on her side or the enemies she just saved everyone she could. Her aura had been depleted and there was only one enemy solider left out in the line. He had begged he not to try it but in the end Ruby was Ruby, she wasn't going to leave someone to suffer. He had laid down suppressive fire, covering her, and caught a round in his helmet for his effort, but in the end it was all for nothing. The man Ruby had been trying to rescue had stabbed her in the heart and had limped to his own line.
Somewhere Juane knew it was written that a Vacoun soldier had been awarded a metal for killing a hunter. He knew somewhere it was written that the soldier's company was to be attached to a convoy on a suicide mission. He knew somewhere it was written that the solider was AWOL when the convoy departed. And Juane dam well knew that the soldiers' name had been written upon his shield until a few days ago when he etched a line over it.
A hatch popped up to reveal a brunette woman wearing shaded glasses despite the lack of sun light "Jaune get in here, we're in range."
Grabbing his nearby helmet he opened another nearby hatch and slipped in. Entering he saw the APC's two other passengers. There was his old bully, Cardin, cleaning his shotgun that supplemented his mace. Next to him was Coco, another Beacon survivor. He remembered back in school she had been the most fashionable student even on the battlefield, but like everyone here she had been changed by the last few years. Instead of some stylish get up she wore plain fatigues and a plate carrier, her hair tied into a tight bun to allow her helmet to fit. The only thing she had from her days at Beacon was her weapon and shades.
He found it a bit ironic that they were all the leaders of teams once. One by one they had lost their team members till they were the only survivors of Beacon. A week ago they had been assigned together by brass as team JCC, not that anyone had cared enough to figure out a name for the team. The way he figured it they would all be dead before this mission was over.
"Weapons check." Coco ordered.
Jaune pulled a rifle from a nearby rack and check it. Satisfied by the rifle he set it down and pulled out a thumper grenade launcher he had strapped to his chest. Opening the brake action he took a shell from his armor and slid it into the tube. Putting it back into to its holster he took out his new pistol and checked it for any imperfections. Locked and loaded he patted Crocea Mors.
"Check" Cardin confirmed
"Check" Jaune added
"Check" Coco finished "Alright mechanics have the rocket pods ready to go two trucks behind use so let's get this shit over with."
Cardin turned to Jaune "Bet you never figured you'd get shoved into a locker again did you?"
Jaune put his mask on; it resembled a knight's helmet and had the words "Designated Protagonist" written on the side. "Nope."
"Driver, open the rear hatch." Coco barked.
The hatch retracted and the three stepped out into the grimmlands. A short jog latter they arrived at their destination; a cargo truck holding three locker rockets. They had been modified with a larger fuel capacity to increase their range. A soldier stepped out of the truck to greet them with a salute.
"We good to go solider?" Jaune asked.
"Yes sir. Should take you thirty seconds to reach the tower." Jaune nodded and set a timer on his watch. With that exchange they each stepped up towards their lockers. Stepping inside and shutting his pod Jaune found himself encased in darkness. A few seconds later he felt the locker accelerate into the air bound for their final destination. All or nothing.
Two Beowolfs stalked their way through a corridor of Salem's tower. They stopped and put their noses in the air. Something smelled at bit off to the pair. Still trying to decipherer what smelled a slab of metal smashed its way through the wall and into one of the Beowolfs, crushing it to death. The second grimm cautiously approached the now still metal box that had killed its brethren. The box open and to the Beowolf's surprise it was blinded by a stream of vomit to its eyes. Jaune jumped out and smash his helmet into the blinded grimm's face. Blinded and hurt the grimm staggered back. Bring his rifle up one handed Jaune pulled the trigger and turned the grimm into a bloody pulp.
Juane stepped atop the dead beast heroically. "Hell yeaeeuuuughh" he bent down and vomited on the corpse again. Whipping the vomit from his mouth he stood up. "Uggh, one of these days I'm going to remember those anti-nausea pills." Tossing his helmet back on he heard a deep growl. Looking to the end of the corridor he saw three more Beowolfs blocking his way. "Oh were those your friends?" he asked pointing to the disintegrating grimm. The grimm charged in response.
Spriting forward to meet the creauters he unloaded his rifle into the small group dropping two. The final Beowolf, an alpha, lunged towards him razor sharp teeth bared. He jumped over the alpha landing onto of the beast's back. Without losing any momentum he ran the length of the grimm unloading dust rounds into it as he went. Jumping off he landed onto the hard floor with a roll. Spinning around he unloaded the rest of his clip into the monster before it had a chance to turn. He smiled as the beast fell dead.
A powerful blow from the side flung him across the hall. He gracefully rolled upon meeting the ground and looked up to see what had suckered him. At the end of the hall was a massive King Taijituor as he called them, big fuck'n snakes, because honestly he never really did pay that much attention to Port's class.
The snake slithered towards him at an incredible pace, crushing solid stone masonry in its path. Jaune's scroll rang. "Hello." The snake let out a terrifying hiss as it advanced on Jaune. "No I haven't really ran into much resistance." The snake opened its maw as it closed the distance on its prey. "One second." He whipped out his grenade luancher and fired it one handed into the grimm's open maw causing the snake to explode in a spectacular shower of blood and guts. "I think I'm two floors below the throne room." Grimm appeared at both ends of the halls. Sparing a glance Juane saw a swarm of multiple types of grimm surrounding him "I'll be there in five minutes."
"The hell Arc it's been ten minutes. I thought you had gotten killed" Coco barked.
Jaune stepped up to meet his team, positioned at the door to the throne room. "I'm a bit airsick, had to puke a bit."
Cardin laughed "Same old Jaune." Cardin briefly remembered a simpler time were Jaune was a dork and not a man dedicated to killing, a time when Coco cared way too much about her clothing, a day when his teammates and friends were still alive.
"Alight guys this it. I'm not one for speeches so let's just go in and kill these bitches." With those words Coco kicked in the doors. They rushed in to find that they were in some sort of meeting room the doors to the throne room lying at the end of the chamber. The room featured a large stone table surrounded by ornate chairs most prominently housing a scared woman in a red dress.
"Cinder" Jaune sneered.
The woman stood. "I've believe from your tone that we have meet before. What did I take from you little knight? Someone close?"
Jaune raised his rifle. "Move ahead to the throne room and handle Salem. Cinders mine." He said addressing his team.
"Arc" Coco said with a tone of warning.
"Now" he replied with a dangerous edge to his voice.
Coco complied and moved with Cardin towards the throne room. Cinder made no move to stop them instead stalking towards Jaune."My mistress is more than capable of handling two hunters." He didn't reply he just rushed forward intent on ending the witch. Cinder smiled and rushed forwards to kill her opponent. "This is where it ends for you."
That's for Pyrrha. He looked to see his neck knife lodged in a very dead Cinder's throat. He had used all his other weapons; they lay scattered and broken across the soldering room. Looking up at the ceiling he knew he had lost more than weapons in this fight. His right leg was scorched, an arrow was lodged in his shoulder, and his body was covered in burns of various degrees. Welp this is where I die. Gotta say, this is a hell of a lot better way to go than that car at the airport all those years ago. Wonder if the other killed Salem. He wouldn't die content without scratching Salem's name off his shield. Although he would take a lot of solstice in the stupid face Cinder made when she died.
Darkness started to envelope Jaune's vision. Not like he was losing consciousness as much as literal darkness was pulling him up. He went from seeing the ceiling to Salem's face.
"Wow you're really ugly" he said upon seeing the face of the bringer of the apocalypse.
"Charming." Salem deadpanned.
"So I take it you killed the other and are here to gloat over me." He asked.
"I was." she answered. Salem was kind of disappointed at this hunter's attitude, didn't he even care that he had failed. That their pitifully convoy was being destroyed. That humanity was doomed.
"Jeez did you assholes take a class in theatrics. Cinder talked the entire fight, could only shut her up by killing her." He chuckled despite his pain. She really did die with a stupid face.
"Yes, Cinder proved to be weak. You are dying" she was cut off by Jaune.
"Yeah let me just stop you right there shakeweight. You're going to try to turn me the dark side in exchange for healing me. Let's cut the shit, I've got one question. Did my team drop your aura?"
"Yes" she replied a bit caught off by the dying man's flippant attitude.
"Cool" he swiftly ripped off his beaten breast plate to reveal a suicide vest. "See you in hell fucker." He smashed the detonator.
He woke with a jolt. The hell? Looking around frantically he found himself sitting on a Bullhead full of people. Upon closer inspection they all looked to be young hunters and huntresses, really stupid ones too, dressed in ornate wardrobes that were popular before the war. He looked over to a figure on his right dressed in a white cloak.
"Hey solider" he barked. The figure turned to face him revealing a teenage girl that looked amazingly like his deceased friend Ruby.
She looked around nervously. "Uuummm me?"
"Yes you. What unit are you with?" he asked trying to figure out who these hunters were.
She seemed to shrink a bit at his question. "Are we supposed to be in units?"
He felt anger rising at this incompetent solider. "You know what forget it. Did we make it?" he asked referring to the fight against Salem.
"Yes." She answered hesitantly referring to their admittance into Beacon.
He paused for second at that revelation. It was over. They had won. He could feel a great happiness and excitement well up within him. "Fuck yeah!" he shouted, leaping to his feat catching all the Bullhead's occupant's attention. "We did it men the war is over." He proclaimed in excitement. He grabbed a very stunned huntress with long dark hair and kissed her. "Join me comrades, let us sing to victory."
Everyone just looked at him with surprise especially the huntress he kissed. What the hell is wrong with these guys? The war has been ended. Oh, that reminds me. He sat back down next to the huntress in the white cloak. He reached down and pulled out his shield to scratch out the last of the accursed names. To his confusion his shield was pristine, even the old Arc crest shown on the front. Bewildered he looked down at himself to find himself even more confused. He was in his old clothing he wore at Beacon. He even looked like his seventeen year old self. What the hell is going on? He took a few seconds before he came to a conclusion.
He turned to the girl next to him, who currently was trying to inconspicuously scoot away. "I know what this is."
"I don't." She said honestly.
"This can't be heaven or hell because I know enough people in both places so I figure this is some crazy fever dream. In actuality I'm bleeding to death in the tower or in some surgery suit being operated on depending if the convoy made it to the tower."
"What?" she had no idea what was going on.
Jaune continued. "and you people are all just distorted images of people I knew. Like take yourself you're a distorted version of Ruby. Then we have a hotter version of Yang over there." He said pointing to the huntress he kissed. "We even got a bullshit sober version of Crow over there too."
"Who?" Her head was starting to hurt.
"Yeah as a hallucination you wouldn't understand."
"Oh"
"Anyways." He took off his armor, sweat-shirt, and undershirt. He reached for his belt.
"What are you doing?" the girl asked frantically.
He paused. "Well this is a crazy dream. I'm getting comfortable." He said removing his belt and starting to unzip his pants.
"EEEEEPPPP" Summer ran having reached her limit for crazy.
Don't really like this story as much as my other one, Dust and Blood, so this one is kinda on the back burner. If enough people like it though I'll update it more frequently.