I am honestly surprised with the massive amount of feedback I received with this story. I mostly just wrote it up to prove a point to one of my internet friends, and now everyone is thirsty for more, so here we go, I guess.
To address the "length" problem. The first chapter was basically just an introduction, so I will be making the chapters longer from now on.
Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY.
Chapter 2: Collapse
Joan and the others followed the tuft of blonde hair that stuck out through the crowd, they were obviously approaching a rather large house near the center of town. They wove their way through the sea of merchants, gossipers and playing children, trying their best to keep up with Jaune's pace.
Finally, they reached the large structure as Jaune turned around to talk again.
"Well, this is it. Joan, you can take it from here right?" Jaune asked with a small smile on his face.
"Yeah, sure. Do you have somewhere to be?" asked Joan. "You were never a socialite, did I miss something over the past few months."
"You're always missing stuff Joan. That's why we never gave you a gun." Jaune joked as he ruffled her hair a bit. Joan whined a bit. "In any case, I've gotta get back to work. It's not easy supporting a family of 9 after all. Dinner is at 7, make sure your friends don't get mauled. Usually, that's my job, but since you're back..."
"Yeah, yeah. Duty as the eldest. I get it." Joan rolled her eyes.
"You're one to talk, you look like you got 2 years younger since you went to Beacon. See you soon, Joan." Jaune gave one last smile before disappearing into the crowd.
Joan turned around to see half of her friends watching her and Jaune's interaction while the other half was standing in awe at the large house.
"You need a lot of room for two parents and 8 children." Joan mentioned jokingly as she approached the hunters in training. The house was two stories high with a basement level underground. The outside was painted white and seemed to glow and light up the village.
The interior could only be seen through the slight view of the windows, every so room would be painted a different color while the family rooms were painted white. As they were led in by Joan, the teams could only wonder how much it took to pay for this home.
Two balls of blonde energy shot down the stairs as the teens watched in awe. The slightly shorter one could be seen holding up a male doll that was also blonde, the taller of the two seemed flustered and was yelling constant complaints of "give it back" and "stop!".
As they ran by, Joan grabbed the figure out of the smaller child's hand and held it up where neither of them could reach. Getting a better look at it, they could all see it very much resembled Jaune. Joan looked down at the taller blonde, Lynn, who seemed very embarrassed.
"Lynn, why do you have a Jaune doll?" wondered Joan.
"W-well. For art class, the teacher told us to make a doll of the person we look up to most. I started to make dad, but ended up making Jaune instead." Lynn responded with red now very evident on her cheeks.
"Lynn was saying bad things while playing with the doll earlier!" the smaller blonde, Lynn, blurted.
"What? What kind of bad things?" Joan asked, turning back to Lynn.
"It w-was n-nothing!" Lynn tried to defend herself as Mia continued.
"She was holding the doll and making weird sounds, saying in a deeper voice, 'Lynn, I love you' before saying back 'Jaune, we can't we're brother and sis–" Mia was cut off as Lynn slapped a hand over her mouth with her face red hot.
Joan and the others were speechless as Joan placed the doll back in Lynn's hands before pulling her two sisters to the side. Leaving her friends to wonder what the rest of the family was like.
A young woman came downstairs in jeans and a loose-fitting long sleeve shirt, upon seeing the teens, she exclaimed, "Oh! You must be Joan's friends. I heard you were coming. Oh, where's Joan, I haven't seen her in forever. Please, make yourselves at home, you can leave your stuff in the rooms down to the left here."
"Thank you, Miss. Joan is talking with her siblings over there." Pyrrha said before gesturing towards the other side of the room.
"Oh, thank you. You must be Pyrrha, Joan talks about you all the time. Please do join us for dinner at seven, I'm Joan's mother, Margaret. Once again, please do make yourselves at home."
Margaret went over to greet her daughter as the hunters in training made their way to the guest rooms. Finding 4 doors at the end of the hallway, each room containing one bed plenty of room for two people. The walls were painted white and the sheets were light blue. A desk was placed in one of the corners of each room with a lamp on it.
"So, I suppose we should decide sleeping arrangements now?" Ren asked.
"Sure. So since there's 7 of us, Ren can sleep alone, Pyrrha can room with Nora, Ruby with Weiss and Blake with me." Yang suggested.
"Sounds good." Ruby replied.
"Aww, I don't get to be with Renny?" Nora complained.
"No, I like this arrangement. I'll start getting prepared now." Ren announced quickly before dashing into the closest room, a lock could be heard behind him.
They each chose their rooms and began to unpack as Joan reunited with each of her sisters.
"Joan, so can you kick massive butt now!?"
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"Are you getting bullied?"
"Do you have any funny stories about your teammates?"
Joan was bombarded with questions from her sisters as she sat and took them all in.
"Please, one at a time. I can hardly think with all of you asking at once." Joan stated.
"Sorry Sis..." Jeanne apologized.
"No it's fine, Jeanne. Now to answer your questions. I've always been able to kick butt. No, I don't have a boyfriend. I'm not getting bullied, and I have tons of funny stories about my teammates."
With Jaune
"Hey, Jaune. How's the shop holdin' up?" The owner of the shop came from the back to greet Jaune at the front. He was an older man, nearly retired with his kids traveling all about, his wife in the hospital and only running this shop as a hobby.
"It's fine, only had 3 to 4 customers so far though."
"I heard your sister is back in town, have you seen her yet?"
"Yeah, I met her as she got off the bullhead. Had tons of friends too." Jaune smiled.
"That's nice. You know, I haven't seen my daughter in two years now. She's all off, traveling the world, making new discoveries."
"That's what she always wanted though. I remember talking about it with her when I was in my first year of middle school."
"Isla was always such a free spirit. So considerate. So much like her mother..."
"Come on, Tom. Why don't you pay your wife a visit. I can hold down the shop for you." Jaune suggested.
"No, no. You have a sister to see to. You're off for today, Jaune."
"Ok. Thanks Tom. I'll pay your Marie a visit sometime. I'm sure your wife gets lonely up there."
"Thank you, Jaune. Have a good night now."
Jaune hung up his shop jacket and began to grab his stuff when Tom asked.
"How's your forging going, Jaune?"
Jaune paused for a minute, "I wasn't aware that you knew."
"Oh please, what else could you be doing. A family of warriors, going into the warehouse alone. You definitely don't go in there just to 'relieve' yourself."
"Your sharp mind will never go away with age, will it Tom?"
"You better hope it doesn't. Oh, one more thing. An early birthday gift, from me to you."
"Really? That isn't for another few weeks. What is it?"
"Well, my son has always had that 'hunter' mentality. Has become quite adept at shining up tools and making new ones. Thought I'd offer you one of his 'projects', to inspect and go off of." Tom said as he pulled out a large box from a closet behind the counter. He laid it out across the bar before gesturing Jaune over.
With a few clicks of the latches, the box's lid popped right open. Revealing to them a singular black and gold handgun.
Jaune looked to Tom, who nodded to him. He reached inside of the box and ran his hand against the large handgun. A glossy black on the huge barrel, black leather for the handle, gold trigger and magazine, lots of detailing as well. The gun was .50 caliber, easily. 56 metal bullets were in the box along with 7 dust rounds of varying types. All .50 caliber.
"Tom...this is..."
"It's name is Lox Magnus. Flick the safety." Tom stated.
Jaune picked it up with gentle hands before hitting the safety as instructed. The gun started to shift in his hand, eventually becoming a black and gold double-bladed dagger. It had a slight pommel, a cross-guard and a triangular blade. The blade was gold while the hilt was black.
"Thanks, Tom. I couldn't be happier. This'll definitely help me in my works."
"Yeah, yeah. But if somebody asks, you didn't get it from me."
"Haha. Right. Have a nice night Tom."
And with that, Jaune slid Lox Magnus into a holster in it's gun form. The holster wrapped around his waist and the gun stayed snugly behind him, not easy to pickpocket without him noticing immediately.
It was perfect.
"Mom, I'm home." Jaune called out into his house, his eyes immediately darted to the kitchen door. Whatever was on the other side was making an awful amount of noise. Nothing good could ever come out of what was going on in there, and he was definitely going to regret checking.
He slowly made his way to the kitchen door, pausing slightly and staring at it for a moment. The door somehow felt larger than it was supposed to be, like he was shrinking under the pressure of what he would find on the other side.
Hesitantly, he reached out to push the door open when–
*Crash*
The door swung open, hitting him with the force of a thousand tanks falling on him...then exploding. He was sent straight into the opposite wall, making a 'Jaune-Shaped' imprint on it, knocking him unconscious.
Great way to start off the night.
"Nora! What did you do!? Joan's voice was in an obvious panic.
"Um...I opened a door?" She responded sheepishly.
"You knocked my brother out cold!"
"It's only one brother."
"He's my only brother!"
"Really?"
"Nora!"
"Ok, ok, sorry..."
Joan let out a heavy sigh, collapsing onto the couch.. She looked over at her twin's unconscious body laid out on opposite couch. She rubbed her temples as she tried to sort everything out in her head, when she opened her eyes, all of her friends had gone off, not wanting to face anymore of her wrath.
"Hey, Joan." A quiet voice greeted her. She looked up from her relaxed position to see her brother struggling to stand up from the couch. She immediately was at his side helping him up, he offered her a smile before asking, "So, I'm guessing something bad happened?"
"I'm ashamed to admit that this sort of thing happens a lot more often than you would think." She breathed out.
Jaune chuckled slightly at this, "You have great friends. Don't ever forget that, and never take it for granted." Joan looked up at Jaune, thinking about how mature he's become, "The same can be said about my cooking, tell your friends that dinner will be soon!" Jaune walked off.
"Ughh, you always ruin the moment." Joan groaned before laughing, "Thanks, Jaune." She whispered before rushing off to find her friends.
All of the many people in the Arc household were soon gathered in the dining room, extra chairs were brought out to accompany the many guests that they had.
"Oh, it's like having 7 more children." Margaret gushed.
"Honey...please...no." Henry was getting a migraine just thinking about it.
The idle conversation was pleasant throughout the meal, the siblings joked and asked somewhere between 100,000 and 1,000,000 questions. The Arc Parents didn't hesitate to tease the teens at every available moment, Jaune seemed to be enjoying himself too, but he was a bit uneasy.
"I'm going to be excusing myself first." He stood up from his chair and brought his dish to the sink.
"But Jauneyyyyy..." The youngest girl complained.
"Jaune, we have guests." His mother tried to reason.
"Don't worry, I just want to check on something. I'll be back before curfew." He said before throwing on his hoodie and rushing out the door, giving them all an eye-full of gold on his belt.
They all looked at each other before Pyrrha asked, "I...don't suppose he had that earlier...did he?"
"No, he definitely didn't. We should follow him."
"Joan." Henry said sternly. They all stopped in their tracks and glanced back at the man, "There's something coming, I want you and your friends to stay here and protect your sisters."
"And what about you and mom?!" Joan exclaimed.
The left wall opened up and two weapons came from it, a white claymore and a golden spear. "We're going to make sure the village stays safe. I'm sure Jaune sensed it too."
With a nod, the parents made their way out as the students were lost as to what they should do.
With Jaune
"There's something wrong here. There's definitely something wrong here." Jaune muttered to himself as he made his way to the edge of the village. As he got closer to the wall, he burst into a full sprint, planting a foot on the wall and boosting himself on top of the wall.
He squinted to try to make out what the small cloud of black in the distance was.
"Grimm." Two voices said from behind him. He turned to look back to the two retired hunters, his parents. "We'll take care of this, Jaune."
"No, you'll hold them off. I'll take care of this." Jaune said. They look at him confusedly. "Grimm are attracted by negative emotions, I'll find the source in town and try to do something about it. It's only small grimm right now, I think I can take care of it before this escalates."
They offer him a nod before speeding into battle.
He lets out a breath before turning and rushing back into town, making sure to check on everyone in town, they all pointed him towards something going on in the village square.
They were here again, they came every once and a while trying to recruit members. Trying to sway our people into betraying each other and joining their cause.
The White Fang.
The people in town know that The White Fang are terrorists, they wouldn't listen to a word they say, they know better.
Wait, the grunt has a different target audience this time, this can't be good. The bastard is influencing the young. He's trying to brainwash them from a young age.
"Grimm are on their way here. We need to focus our efforts on defending the village. Come on!" Jaune reasoned.
"My people, this human is trying to use us as bait for the grimm. The council is corrupt, as are the humans. We deserve rights, we deserve equality. We deserve revolution!" The grunt yelled.
Cheers broke out as they all began to target him.
"Son of a–"
Back at the household
"Guys, I think something's happening." Ruby said as she gestured for them to look out of the windows.
Just as they did, the walls of the village collapsed, leaving rubble to stain the ground and the grimm stormed in. Blake's eyes widened as she saw the scene at the square.
Jaune was trying to dodge a bunch of attacks from White Fang operatives and young teenagers that had listened to what the terrorists had to say.
The students immediately rushed outside and the White Fang immediate retreated at the sight of them, running into the nearby woods, with the children following.
Jaune kneeled on the ground, slowly standing up as he began to run towards the border, towards his parent's last location. The teens quickly followed him as they ran towards the wave of grimm, the White Fang would have to wait.
Jaune pulled out Lox Magnus and began unloading a round into any grimm that stood in his way, the others dispatched any other grimm and kept all of the villagers safe. Joan had stayed in the house to protect her siblings along with Pyrrha, but all the others were with Jaune.
The blonde boy quickly jumped over the collapsed wall and began calling out, "Mom! Dad! Where are you!?"
A low cough caught his attention as he looked over to see a dead old man, standing over his body was a fully grown deathstalker.
"W-what. These things don't come around here…" He quickly shook it off and began engaging it. The others helped him in taking down the high-level grimm.
Yang went straight in, delivering a powerful blow to it's front, stunning it for a second as she as and Nora both smashed one of the claws to the side. Blake and Ren began shooting straight for the eyes as Ruby and Jaune shot at the stinger.
The deathstalker was checkmated, and was quickly immobilized before being loudly put down by Nora.
More ursa and beowolves emerged, they quickly engaged, hoping to kill them before anymore damage was done. The battle was long and hard, but as the White Fang got away, it seemed the wave of grimm also thinned down.
Jaune collapsed to his knees, being exhausted, not used to this level of combat.
Just as he lifted his head, he saw white...stained red. His eyes widened as he scrambled towards the ripped cloth. The others quickly noticed him moving again and went to catch up to him.
The white was just barely visible underneath a collapsed building, with a final burst of adrenaline, Jaune lifted the rubble above his head and tossed it to the side.
It was his father, badly wounded and bloody. He was on his hands and knees, under him was the unconscious form of his mother.
"Mom! Dad!" He yelled as he pulled them both close before laying them on the ground.
Tears threatened to fall as he saw their bad condition.
"Y-your...your mother. S-she's going...to be fine...Jaune…." Henry forced out. "We...we took down a couple nevermores and deathstalkers–" He coughed up blood. "We just didn't expect the aftermath."
"No. No, this can't be happening. Dad, we need to heal you, where's the medkit!" Jaune yelled over his shoulder as the students were struggling to find anything that could possibly help.
"It's...too late...for me Jaune." Henry gasped in air. "I never...told you your semblance...did I?"
Jaune shook his head, his tears falling onto the soiled ground.
"It's...inheritence. You, you have the power to transfer power. With that...the transfer of power means the death of the source. Seeing as I'm like this...Jaune...I want you to transfer my power to yourself."
"No. Dad...this wasn't supposed to happen."
"Jaune...I know. You...you never wanted this. But it's time you awaken to your potential. Please."
Jaune squeezed his eyes shut as he pressed a hand to his father's chest.
"Good...now." They both began to glow bright white.
Jaune felt the surge of energy immediately, it was like he had internally combusted. In an instant, it was over, and his father's limp body fell. With a soft smile still on his father's face.
Jaune didn't want to look over to the others, he simply said, "Get to news to my sisters, bring my mom back to the house...I just need a moment." He reached up and brushed the tears out of his eyes, looking down at his father.
The others picked up Margaret and began going back to the Arc household, with heavy hearts, they promised not to look back at Jaune.
"Dad..." Jaune started. "Thank you...you were a true hero." More tears fell, "I always looked up to you...I wanted to be just like you..." He choked back a sob. "I didn't want to be a huntsman...because I wanted to be like you. I wanted to be able to protect my family from where I am now. Right at home."
Jaune looked up at the sky as his tears slid down his cheeks. "I'll make you proud now, Dad. I'm sorry. I promise, I'll make you proud for once."
With all of it built up in his chest.
Jaune screamed at the sky one last time before he finished his vow. Laying his father across the ground, he gave a small nod before taking off his fathers coat and draping it over the body.
"You'll be remembered...Dad."
Why...why did this have to happen? It was just a normal day...and then...then...
This.
That's all I have for now. Please give me a few suggestions as to how to length is. If you want even longer chapters, I'm going to have to ask you to wait a while for each chapter to release.
I have a set of plans set out for this story and have begun to write a few of them down. I haven't yet decided on what romantic pairs I'll be utilizing in this story, leave some suggestions in the reviews, or just PM me. We can discuss some ideas.
-DimensionBlade 1.2
