Fools rush in where angels fear to tread


Your name is Jaune Arc, and you are a nobody.

The world has moved on, time and time again - oft leaving you in the dust, leaving you with your hands outstretched in a disregarded plea. You've lived with failure after failure, attempt after attempt to break your mediocrity, to become something more than the sum of your parts. And you've failed so many times that you believe victory to be nothing more than a fantastical dream of a child too precocious to grow up.

Just give up, whispers that insidious enemy, the anathema of all that you've - and still privately do - strive for. You won't make a difference anyway. You'll just get someone killed.

Your hands quiver as you hold onto the matte black grip of the gun, twitching as you caress the beautiful embroidery carved into the instrument of death in a vain attempt to calm your beating heart. Your legs are shaking; and adrenaline pumps through your veins in a surge of panic and anger and too many things to count. Breathing is a challenge. You glance behind you, to where Junior has now directed most of the guests to the backroom, and is now dealing with the few still remaining - the delirious ones, the panicking ones.

And then you look in front of you - to Ivory, to the twins, to the bouncers. And you twitch, fingers tightening on the grip of that deceptively elegant-looking weapon.

Listen to her.

You shake your head, taking a step forward. Your gut falls, and you almost feel like puking your guts out. Gritting your feet, you take a step forward. And another. Another. Another. Until eventually you're naught but a few meters from the club's defenders. You won't be the bystander - the princess that has to be saved. You refuse to.

Turn around.

Maybe - no it's certainly foolish. But you were always kind of a fool, yourself. Resolve fills you, for the first time in a long while. It feels good, eases that sick feeling in your stomach. Tells you that you can do anything.

The air is thick with tension, with heat, with that horrifying question. 'Will you live to see another day?'. And with the terrifying uncertainty of the answer. Ivory glances back as she hears your steps, eyes widening as she looks at you - you probably looks horrible, sweaty, and the exact opposite of bad-ass.

"Jaune?" She asks, stopping mid-sentence while she was talking to one of the twins. "What are you-!?"

She can't finish; because the world turns sideways. Momentum and hysteria. No time to stop. For anyone. Anything.

It happens in slow motion for you - a shout of. "Incoming!" And then a sickening squelching sound as a man near the lounge entrance gets disemboweled, and then decapitated, sun-glass-wearing head flying through the air and landing near your feet. Bile rushes up your throat as the thick, sickening stench registers.

[Play Thousand Foot Krutch: Courtesy Call]

Covered in viscera, from head to toe - the hulking giant of a man carries a wicked, serrated monster of a blade in one hand, and a machine-gun in the other. Armour, Atlesian in design, but painted a dread black acts as his protection. His helmet protects all but his mouth, and you can see that he's grinning, clearly satisfied with his kill.

Everybody starts shooting - machine guns, shotguns, pistols - but he's fast. Almost ludicrously so. And the sinking realization of what he is slams into you, and judging by the stamping of feet behind him. He's not alone.

Run.

He weaves though bullets, hauling his blade and even batting some away, using it as a sort of makeshift shield. The few that get though his guard are immediately caught by his Aura, not even prompting a grunt. People, less armored, but still clad in protection of Atlesian make, start streaming into the room, shooting and taking a few of you down right off the bat. A bullet goes your way, but Ivory drags you out of the way and roughly shoves you behind an upturned table.

"STAY. HERE." She practically commands, before she turns back, yelling for the twins as she moves in to engage...

The Huntsman. Oh no.

Your jaw is quivering. You feel faint, as the violence. The blood. The death. It all threatens to overwhelm you. You see a bouncer take a bullet to the lung, gurgling as he drowns in his own blood. See one of the twins - The white-dressed one - kick someone in the throat, bladed heels ripping his larynx out in a spray of crimson. She sprints off, to join Ivory and her twin as they make a beeline straight to the Huntsman, who's just standing there, looking at all the carnage, occasionally laughing. You get the feeling that he's enjoying all of this, as much as the thought sickens you.

A bullet impacts against the table, but the sturdy thing holds up. You're still spooked however. Time seems to pass by in slow motion, as everything seems to come to focus in a sudden bout of clarity. You're fearing for your life - and how could you not? You're not prepared for any of this. This...carnage This...slaughter.

And yet something possesses you to peek out from behind the table, your grip on the gun tightening so much that you're pretty sure you can hear bones pop. The defenders are at a relative stalemate with the attackers, as the superior numbers of the attackers pin down the forces of the club, while the bouncers are well protected in their hastily-constructed fortifications. The attackers can't put their sights on the three ladies heading for the Huntsman; because they're too busy fending off the occasional potshot from the club; but they're gonna need to reload eventually. And when they do...

The gun feels heavy in your hands.

There are dozens of them, more well-equipped, and well-armored than the club's defenders. But they're wide in the open, with nothing to defend them, while the club has taken cover. They're dying, slowly but surely. One here. Another there. But there's so many of them that it hardly seems to matter. It looks like a doomed situation, not even including the Huntsman.

Despite your earlier resolve, despair threatens to eat you up, and swallow you. What can you even do in this situation. But you set your lips into a grim line, holding onto your wavering calm for dear life.

Alright - you have a gun. You don't know how to use it, but you know enough about guns, from the games and the movies, to manage. You hope.

You flick off what you think is the safety, and aim. A person who's already been shot in the leg. You calm your breathing.

And you shoot.

No good, shot went wide, and the guy goes scrabbling, ducking and weaving as the fire-fight rages. You see, as you quickly duck back behind your table, that Ivory and the twins have engaged the Huntsman. The twins work in tandem, keeping the brute off of Ivory's back as she fires accurate shot after accurate shot through the gaps in his guard. Despite that, however, it looks like the Huntsman has the advantage - more force of nature than man, as he bashes one of the twins in the side with pommel of his sword, and then kicks her away, leaving the girl's white-dressed twin to duel with the man for the moment.

You try to analyze how Ivory shoots, how she holds her gun, how she stands. In the clarity provided to you by the harrowing situation, you seek to emulate her.

Peeking out once more, you set your sights on another attacker, who's managed to take out a bouncer who left the protection of his table in an attempt to get a better vantage point. You breathe, and put every ounce of concentration into this one shot, this one moment.

Your index finger pushes the trigger, the gun pushes back - almost like a playful shove; and you catch him in his side, not quite his chest. He steps back, stumbling, and one of the bouncers take the opportunity to shoot him in the head. An explosion of viscera. And the man topples down. Dead.

You just helped kill a man. You feel sick to your stomach.

You don't have any time to lament, however, as your move prompted a bout of retaliatory fire to rain down upon you. You hide behind the table, wincing as you hear bullet after bullet impact against your only form of protection. The table can't take much more of it, and when it falls apart...

You don't have much time to think on it, however - because of the explosion. A great force that nearly knocks you flat on your ass, you feel it resonating in your bones, and for a second, you fear that the attackers have some sort of explosive weapon that they intend to use to force all of you out of hiding.

But luckily, that isn't the case.

Peeking out of your table once more, gun at the ready, you see that flamboyantly dressed man that was talking with Junior earlier, cane swinging and bludgeoning the unfortunate fools that had the bad luck to find themselves in his range of attack. He cracks skulls with impunity, breaking the enemy force and preventing them from pinning the defenders down in their confusion. Bullets are deflected and dodged in stunning feats of acrobat ability. There's a giant scorch mark on the ground, along with the scattered limbs of a few attackers. He must have caused it.

His appearance rallies the force, prompting them to lean from their cover and just start firing, taking out droves, where before they had only gotten the occasional kill. You push down your nausea and disgust, and start to fire from behind your cover, dodging the occasional retaliatory attack. Your shots are not accurate enough to kill, but enough to disable.

Eventually, Junior, expression livid and meaty fingers wrapped around the handle of his rocket-launcher enters the battle. He's bloodied and bruised, even though he hasn't been fighting in the club proper. Did some of the attackers manage to slip through, somehow? Whatever the case, he looks pissed.

Shouting an outraged battle-cry, he takes aim at an area containing several of the attackers. Limbs fly as the rocket hits home, but you ignore it - pushing down your emotions, you're sure that its gonna bite you in the ass after this is all over. But you're concerned with just staying alive.

By now, the defenders have killed over half of the attackers, with a significant (but tiny compared to the enemy) number of casualties. Some of the enemies are starting to retreat, but are cut down by either Junior's explosions, the flamboyant man's cane, or gunfire from the bouncers. You glance over at where Ivory and the twins are fighting, and it does not look good.

The white-dressed twin is out of the fight, bleeding - staining her dress a crimson red - as her sister stands over her, bladed weapons desperately blocking the swings of her opponent's sword. Luckily, his machine-gun lies, broken some ways away. But the Huntsman remains a formidable opponent. Skilled. Ferocious. She's losing ground, and it's not a question of whether she'll lose. But when.

Ivory looks desperate, even as she sends shot after shot with her gun. The Huntsman takes it, maybe missing a step here and there, and losing a chunk of his Aura. But it's not enough. His armor protects him, dented and scratched and rent, but still functional.

Your mind races. They're going to lose at this rate - going to die. And everybody else is too preoccupied with the rest of the attackers to pay much attention to the Huntsman. Its gonna have to be you. You.

Breathe, Jaune, you tell yourself, eyes sharpening even as your heart thunders, even as the world rages war around you. You're going to have to run from the table, abandoning your cover, to them, all the way to the other side of the room. You might get shot, even as scattered as the enemy is. One of the defenders might even mistake you for an enemy (you don't exactly share their attire). And you don't even know how you're going to help once you get there, but that's something to think about if you actually get there.

You get up, steeling yourself and trying not to think of failure, and you break out into a dead sprint. Bullets whiz past you, and one even catches you in the shoulder, but you don't stop. You scream and - as pathetic it is - you cry, but you just keep going.

It's nothing like the heroic charges from the stories your father used to tell you about your grandfather and your great-grandfather. It's more desperate than that, an almost suicidal action.

The red-dressed twin finally slips up, and the Huntsman's wicked serrated blade catches her in the stomach, finally penetrating her Aura. An ethereal, crimson - and you really are starting to hate the color, with how frequently it seems to pop up - energy covers her, as she screams, toppling to the floor from the force of the blow. She's dazed. The deranged Huntsman chuckles, lifting his wicked blade to go for the killing blow.

But you don't let him.

You're tall, and while some would describe you as skinny - one did not aspire to be a Huntsman without putting on some muscle. You slam into him in a clumsy tackle, and as huge as he is, he's also completely unprepared for you. So, he topples to the floor, grip on his weapon slackened from surprise. You thank your lucky stars that you didn't impale yourself on it somehow, and attempt to wrench the weapon from his grasp.

But any shock on his part soon vanishes into cold discipline. He snarls at you, quickly adjusting his position so not that much of your weight presses on him, He punches you in the face as his grasp on his weapon tightens, breaking your nose in a splatter of crimson. It's painful. Tears, snot; and blood drip down your face. You can barely even think. But you keep him pinned down, he can't swing with much force below you, and you know that if you get off him, it's going to be all over. He'll kill you. Ivory. Everyone. And you just can't let that happen.

He's stronger than you, more ruthless too, he bites and he claws and while he can't use his weapon's blade effectively in his position, he can bash the pommel and the hilt against your body. You weather the storm, though - pained scream coming from your lips as he brutalizes you; but you ignore the grievous harm being inflicted on your body, using your leverage to thwart any of his attempts at getting up, much to his evident rage - if his roar is anything to go by. His off-hand wraps around your throat.

You gurgle as he squeezes, scrambling to get him off of you, he tries to get up, and you know that you're too weak to stop him this time - with his hand wrapped around your throat.

Your fingers clench around the black grip of Ivory's gun. You shove the firearm in the Huntsman's face, where his helmet doesn't cover, forcing it past his mouth. You meet resistance in the form of his teeth, and the hand around your throat tightens, making you see black dancing around the corners of your vision. He bashes his sword against you, almost certainly breaking bones with the force of his blows. He seems well and truly desperate, for the first time. He knows what you're about to do, and he's trying his best to stop you.

His best just isn't good enough.

You crush down any residual hesitance, and you pull the trigger. Shooting all of your remaining ammo into his mouth, shattering teeth, filling the back of his mouth with lead as his Aura sputters out in a flash of murky blue. He gurgles beneath you, movements weakening.

You wrench his hand from your throat, taking a painful, much needed breath of air. Everything hurts, like it's on fire, and you're sobbing from the pain as much as the relief.

"Jaune!" You hear from Ivory, who's started running towards you as soon as the very brief - seconds that seemed to stretch on into hours - but very brutal altercation with the Huntsman. Her eyes are wide, and she's gesturing at you to-!

The hand is back around your throat, squeezing with an even greater force than before. The Huntsman is alive, and he is livid. He shoves you off of him, getting up even as he drags you from the ground by your throat. Your legs kick ineffectually at him, but he just snarls, hoisting his blade up and-!

Ivory screams as the blade sinks into your gut, serrated edges tearing apart flesh with a sound like meat being butchered. Blood runs down the blade in rivulets. The pain doesn't register at-least, at first, and so you're stuck staring at the Huntsman's helmeted face. He smiles, showing you that all of his teeth in the front are shattered, and the back of his mouth is littered with holes from when you shot him.

"Howsh it feel, bitsch?" He slurs at you, as you stare at the gruesome sight, as the feeling of wrongness perpetuates in your gut, slowly evolving into pin-pricks of mind-numbing pain.

"Trassh shlike shyou," he says. "Are bessher shoff dead." And then he yanks the sword out of your guts, a second before he's cut down by the vengeful red-dressed twin, clawed gauntlets going for his comparatively less armored throat, tearing his head straight from his body with a powerful slash. His blood paints you, as you topple to floor, free from his grip. The fall aggravates your already severe injuries as you give a weakened cry.

[Play Erik Satie: Gymnopédie No.1]

It's quiet, you realize, eyes drifting shut. That must mean that the fighting's over.

You're glad.

"Jaune!

Man, you're beat. You'd like nothing less than to sleep for a long, long time...

"Jaune, please!"

You feel someone push their hands against your stomach, where the blade sunk in. You can't even muster the scream at the agonizing pain you're in. It's like everything near your stomach region is burning. Like your organs are sizzling.

You wonder how Mom and Dad are doing back home. Your sisters, too. They're all strong people, much stronger than you, certainly; but one of the duties of being a son and a brother is to constantly worry about them.

Something splashes down your face, wet. You crack open your eyes, that single motion somehow managing to drain you like nothing else. White and green, more like splotches of paint than an actual picture...

"You're gonna be all right." There's something wrong with her smile.

"O-okay?" You ask.

"No, Jaune. You're not okay."

"N-no...me...y-you?"

Ivory looks dumbfounded at that, but she nods anyway.

"Yes. I'm fine, thanks to you. You saved my sister, too. I'm very thankful. You're a hero, Jaune."

You feel warm.

You glance down, hoping that she'll catch what you're trying to tell her. She does, following your gaze to your hands, where you're still clutching the obsidian handle of the gun with a weak-fingered grip. More tears fall at the sight of it, and one of her hands covers her mouth as she suppresses a sob. You nod very slowly, as she takes the gun.

"Jaune..." She looks like she's barely keeping it together. You want to brush her tears away, but your arms won't move. So you settle for smiling at her instead.

"N-no...cry...b-beautiful...smile..."

She just cries harder at that. The movies and the books never really mention how ugly grief is. She's still radiant, though.

"We're gonna help you, Jaune. Y-you're-," a sob interrupts her. "Militia's going to find help! You're gonna live!"

"G-good..." You say, eyes drifting shut once more, unable to keep them open anymore. "T-that's...good..."

"Jaune!"

Darkness - comforting, like a blanket in a cold night to ward off the chill.


"This kid looks like he's been through the grinder. I'm impressed."

"Roman!"

"What?"

"Fuckin' hell. Can you fix him."

"Nope."

"Roman!"

"Geez. What happened to your sense of humor, Junior?"

"Died the second these cocksuckers decided it would be a good idea to come in to MY club and start killing MY people. Now can you fix him, or not? I owe him a debt, if something like that matters to you."

"Alright, alright. I can fix him, but you won't like it."

"Try me."

"I can unlock his Aura."

"...fuck."

"Fuck, indeed. Still want me to do it?"

"...yes."

"Alright.

For it is in audacity that we achieve purpose. Through this, we become an outlaw borne out of our own excess and selfish desires to defy all. Infinite in spite and unbound by law, I draw out your potential, and by my whim, set thee free."

Light piercing the darkness - a warmth in a cold wasteland. Defiance, clothed in spite and purpose, comes swaggering in, chasing away the shadows; reaching out to the light, and drawing it out of its prison. Letting IT be the one to chase the darkness away, helping it stand up on its own two feet. And once its job is done, it walks away, diminished for the moment.

"That's bright."

"..."

"Roman?"

"This kid...there's something about him."

"He DOES seem to have a lot of Aura."

"Not that."

"Then what?"

"I wasn't alone in there, Junior. Felt like there was someone else...something else in there with me."