Hola!
People asked me why Ruby and Weiss appear ahead of Jaune in the character list.
Drum-roll please.
Because the site says couples will automatically be pushed ahead of single characters-no matter how you order them. Just another way the universe likes screw with people for being alone.
So, a very astute reviewer—who unfortunately left his/her great review as a guest—noted a couple of things about this story that I would like to address.
Number one, in my first chapter I accidentally referred to the "Grimm" as "grim"—whoops. I changed that. (Guess that's the sort of mistakes betas are supposed to stop).
Number two. Ozpin, the maidens, and Jaune, Weiss, and Ruby being the last three people on earth. Our guest reviewer pointed out that, if Jaune, Weiss, and Ruby really are the last people left on Remnant, Jaune, in theory, should have Ozpin in his head. Additionally, Weiss could be the winter Maiden, etcetera…
The answer to the Ozpin quandary is relatively simple. But it won't be explained until later in the fic.
Now, as to why Weiss and/or Ruby would not automatically receive the maiden powers…
This presents an opportunity to briefly detail the perspective of this narrative.
Jaune, Weiss, and Ruby, are not, necessarily the last three people on Remnant. Every claim and statement in this story is from the perspective of the characters, not an omniscient narrator. That means, the veracity of the claim "last three people on remnant" is completely subject to Jaune's knowledge base. There are likely far more than three living people in Remnant. Whether they are hidden in a bunker or have found an island to flee to, there are, more likely than not, a few other survivors.
Assuming, based on the strange and convoluted rules by which the maiden powers transfer, that the successors to the remaining 3 non-cinder maidens were not carefully selected but transferred practically by accident during the heat of battle…
It should be little surprise that the maiden powers did not wind up with Weiss or Ruby.
Finally, over the general sentiment that Weiss and Ruby's perspective were more pleasant to read from then Jaune's and that they should be in the past too. I wrote Ruby and Weiss the way I did to make the end of the first chapter, emotionally impactful.
Jaune's perspective and personality will bleed through more as this story progresses, making him a much more likable character. I went all-in with Weiss and Ruby so I could make an emotional payoff for a fifteen-twenty minute read.
And to the IM's asking me about the ship.
It's a secret.
But I do know exactly who it will be.
Same as last time, no beta, no time to edit thoroughly, hopefully it's not too rough.
Without further ado
Possibly a Prisoner; Probably Not
Jaune awoke to a bucket of cold water.
Well. That wasn't quite right.
He was already awake. Just not fully.
The frigid assault, however, finished the job.
He heard the sloshing before he was drenched. He was careful not to give any indication that the attempt to rouse him was successful. He kept his eyes shut and his chin resting on his chest.
Eyes closed, cold water dripping down his face.
It took him back. Way back. He remembered a prank by his most mischievous sister. It had happened long before he had become a huntsman. And long before Salem had destroyed the world.
Jaune inhaled through his nose as he pretended to wake.
He took stock of as much of his environment as he could before he opened his eyes.
He smelled…perfume? Soap? Feminine, for sure.
He was seated in a hard chair. His legs were bound to the chair's legs. His arms were bound to the chair's arms. Additional rope was looped around his chest and his stomach to firmly attach him to the seat's back.
Whoever had tied him had been thorough—and they certainly knew their way around a knot. There was no wiggle room in any of his bindings.
Which meant he couldn't just break his thumb and yank his hand back. An annoyance.
But not a game-breaker.
The chair he was secured to was sturdy—but it wasn't iron. He could feel the chair's legs give a bit when he flexed. The arms too. It would take a bit of effort, but he could reduce the furniture into kindling.
Then he would kill his captors.
Quickly. Efficiently.
He would not give them the opportunity to understand or comprehend what was happening before they were slain. They would wonder to themselves why they had yet to pierce his aura reserves. They would wonder why he seemed impervious to pain.
And then they would die.
Next, he would…
He would…
Wait…
Recent memories surged into his unprepared mind.
The dragon. The portal. Ruby and Weiss.
Had that happened? Was it real? Had he dreamed it all?
Was he…in the past?
Suddenly, opening his eyes became a touch more important.
His eyelids fluttered open. He took a few seconds to adjust to the light. There was a mirror directly before him? No. Not a mirror. But his eyes. The Arc family eyes. He had seen them in the mirror often enough.
He looked past the eyes.
Her face was framed by short blonde hair. There was a small scar across her right cheek and a mole on above her right lip. Just above that mole was a nose ring, a small red stone mounted on the band.
Jaune had seen that nose ring and that mole and those eyes before. He looked away from the girl, observing the familiar concrete basement. Memories of countless hours transforming it into a bunker with his father assaulted him.
"Good morning," growled his older sister in a terrifying tone.
Alana.
She was alive. Of course she was alive. Everyone was.
Weiss had done it. She had sent him back before the war. Before his family had been slaughtered. Before his friends had been murdered.
Jaune Arc was home—for real this time.
Jaune turned his attention back to his sister. A metal bucket rested in her hands. Her weapon was strapped across her back. Alana's ice-blue eyes were alight, pulsing with a heat and life Jaune figured was completely absent from his own.
A second girl walked up beside Alana.
Crystal examined him with a harsh glare. "Finally awake huh?"
Jaune cleared his throat. "Where am I? Who are you?" He figured those were the most reasonable questions to ask in this position—although he already knew the answer to both.
"We're asking the questions here," said Alana.
"Okay," replied Jaune simply. "But you'll eventually tell me why you've tied me up right? You girls do know this is kidnapping…?"
Alana kept her eyes trained on him as she called out, "Sage?"
Jaune watched his third sister appear from behind the stairs. It was surreal. He had resigned himself to never seeing his family again. Now his three older sisters stood before him. Well…they were older than him. All he saw before him now were children. He struggled to hold back a smile. He was happy, sure, but it was best to keep his emotions in check. He needed to figure out what had happened since his arrival. Was it one of his sisters who had knocked him out? If so, why?
And was that even possible? It had been so long since he had seen them. And his last memories of them were when he hadn't even had his aura unlocked. They had seemed monstrously strong then. But now? Were they strong enough to knock him out, even with a surprise attack?
Sage held a small piece of paper—about the size and shape of a five-by-eight photo. In her other hand, rested Jaune's broken sword. She glanced from the weapon to the photo and back again, her eyes flitting behind her spectacles, as she approached.
Sage spoke. "It's Crocea Mors. I'm certain."
Ah. Right. His father's sword.
The pieces fell into place. He still wasn't certain whether that boot could belong to one of his sisters. But it certainly made more sense if it did.
"Where did you get it?" asked Alana from between clenched teeth.
"The sword?" questioned Jaune.
"No, your Oum-awful haircut," quipped Crystal.
"You don't like my haircut?" said Jaune, "I thought it was pretty good," he flicked his neck, gently shifting his mop, "considering my barber uses a giant scythe and cuts hair at three hundred miles per hour…"
"Crystal!" Alana glared at her sister.
Crystal raised open palms in a show of apology. "Sorry, sorry. Serious time. Sorry. You do the talking Lani."
Crystal, ceding the talking role? Jaune suppressed a smirk. Things must be tense.
Alana turned her attention back to Jaune. "Where did you get that sword?"
"It's a family heirloom," replied Jaune.
"You're goddamn right it is," growled at his eldest sister. "But it's not yours. Where did you find it? Who…" she trailed off, her voice losing some strength. She resumed a moment later. "Who did you take it from?"
"It's my family heirloom," restated Jaune. "My great-grandfather fought with it in the war."
"You expect me to believe that? You expect me to believe that a suspicious man, carrying a broken sword—identical to my father's—just… fell unconscious right inside the borders of our town, on the day my father is supposed to return?"
Jaune nodded. That was, essentially, what had happened.
"So, you just slipped and hit your head, huh?" challenged Alane. "No fight with a fully trained huntsman? Maybe you blew a kiss to the wrong village girl and got a rock to the face for your trouble? That what happened?"
Jaune suppressed a chuckle. Crystal was the one who turned everything into a joke but Alana dipped into the sarcasm well when she was suitably upset. He knew exactly which village girl Alana had in mind too—which did not help in his endeavor to avoid laughing.
Shuki the Psycho.
She was the only girl in Fern who would beam a rock at someone for flirting—aside from, perhaps, Ellie Arc. Ellie—wasn't so much a psycho as she was a hard-ass—so Jaune wasn't certain she'd bludgeon someone for blowing a kiss.
But it was certainly possible.
Anyway.
Time to process. Quickly.
What was the best way to handle this?
Wait it out? Argue? Free himself?
Option number one looked attractive. After all, his father would be home eventually, and, with him, so would Crocea Mors. Effortless innocence—Jaune liked the sound of that.
But on the other end of the scale…Ruby and Weiss…they were counting on him. Could he afford to waste time here? Surely a few hours would not irrevocably damage his time-tables? It was a question that would be easier to answer if he knew the date. Weiss had warned that their arrival wouldn't exactly be precise. The sooner he figured out when he had arrived the sooner he could adjust the plan.
Then there was the problem of how long he would have to wait for this situation to just "pan out."
Mathias Arc normally returned home the day he had announced he would. But there were exceptions to that rule. Sometimes his jobs ran days or even weeks longer than advertised.
Weeks.
Regardless of the date, Jaune knew he didn't have that much time to waste. Some parts of the plan were more time sensitive than others. Dealing with the Fall maiden, Amber, was one such part.
Especially since he didn't know exactly when or where she was attacked by Cinder and company. Finding her would be a tricky and time-consuming ordeal.
Plus, there were still so many other questions he needed to answer.
Well, they weren't all questions he needed to answer.
He needed to find out the date.
He wanted to figure out what happened before Ruby tossed him through the portal. Was he alone? And, if so, why? Were his teammates alright? Questions like these were burning bright at the forefront of his mind.
But they were also less important.
He had all of Remnant to worry about. Ruby and Weiss would be fine—if he succeeded. If he failed…well… everyone would—no. It was a moot thought. He wouldn't fail.
"Hello?"
Alana's manicured hand waved just a few inches from his nose yanked him back into reality.
Right.
How had he decided to handle his current circumstances?
"Could you repeat the question?" said Jaune.
"She asked if you got knocked out by an untrained teenage girl with a rock," chimed Crystal.
Alana rolled her eyes at Crystal's uncalled-for interruption but seemed resigned to humoring her. Their dynamic had always been like that. Crystal's mouth would run. After some time, Alana would snap at her. Crystal would calm. And then a few minutes later Crystal's obnoxiousness would reset, as would Alana's patience.
"Right," replied Jaune, "I was attacked. Definitely a trained huntsman. I didn't see them. But it wasn't a teenage girl, trained or untrained."
"You shouldn't underestimate teenage girls." Crystal held up a toned arm, flexing.
Jaune couldn't stop the muffled laugh that escaped his closed lips.
She had some muscle—a lot actually—given her age, body type, and gender.
Nothing he should really laugh at.
But he had tanked blows from Goliath trunks before. So, he figured he'd earned the right to laugh at power posturing.
Crystal feigned offence at his reaction. There might have been some traces of real offence mixed in. Hard to tell. It had been a while since he had to read a woman. Ruby, Weiss, and he had practiced absolute, brutal honesty. There was no need to search for hidden meanings or read into passive aggressive behavior. Anger, apologies, and misunderstandings were identified, explored, and handled with militant efficiency. Part of that was their training as soldiers. Part of that was just being friends with Weiss Schnee.
"You're embarrassing yourself," said Alana, rebuke laced with exasperation.
"You're an embarrassment," replied Crystal.
"You're both embarrassments," cut in Sage, before an argument could begin. She stepped around Alana and crouched before Jaune. She held up the picture of Crocea Mors, hanging above the mantle of their fireplace.
Ah. Jaune remembered this photo.
She then held up the sword.
"Can you understand our concern?"
Jaune glanced from the broken weapon to the photo. His eyes eventually rested on his sister. Figures, Sage would be better at this. She was careful, analytical, smart. She was probably the reason he was so thoroughly tied to the chair. Keeping his limbs firmly attached to the limbs of the chair prevented him from generating momentum. Momentum was the key to escape—well for most people at least. She was a lot like Ren. Not as quiet, but a similar kind of person and warrior—thoughtful, analytical, willing to wait, willing to test the waters.
Basically, the opposite of Crystal. Or—better example—Nora.
Of course, Sage was still just a hunter in training. She was more accustomed to slaying mindless Grimm than dealing with potentially hostile humans. That was why she felt so comfortable getting so close to him. An experienced huntress would have kept some distance. Or at least stayed on guard.
Jaune tested the strength of his chair with a gentle lean.
If he were to try. Really try. And he was willing to sacrifice a few ribs to the ropes around his stomach, he could probably break the back of this chair. He'd then go with the momentum, bringing his forehead crashing down into her nose with the force of a mace.
She'd be unconscious before she hit the ground.
He wouldn't do that—obviously.
But he could have.
She'd eventually learn better. She just had to live long enough. Jaune would ensure she did.
Truth be told, he would have assumed the same position as her. He would have drawn close, letting his captive think they had an easy way out. Let them think he had accidentally put himself in attacking distance.
The only difference between him and Sage was his mile-and-a-half of aura.
And the fact that he'd interrupt his opponents headbutt with a knee to the face.
"The blades do look similar. At least the hilts do. Mine's a little worse for the wear though," said Jaune.
"Obviously," agreed Sage. "But surely you can see why that would only concern us further. Seeing a man with our father's sword, but broken. The natural conclusion is that you not only injured or killed him, but that you destroyed his blade."
Jaune watched Sage's eyes. Hers were a more greenish blue than the rest of the Arcs and they were the only clue to her emotions. Unlike Alana and Crystal, there was no anger in her voice. No baring of teeth. No protruding neck muscles or clenched jaw…
But her eyes were wider than usual. She blinked a little more frequently. There was a hint of wetness.
She was scared. She was terrified that something had happened to their father.
That he had done something to him.
Jaune decided to appeal to her logical brain, to help alleviate her fear. "That wasn't the wear I was talking about dummy. Look a little closer."
Sage squinted at him, probably taken aback by both his claim and the name he called her. Wielding the playful insult was a long-awaited piece of justice for Jaune. After all, Sage was the one who called everyone dummy. For Jaune, and Jaune alone, the term had grown beyond the occasional insult—transforming into a full-blown nickname. Jaune had rarely stood up to her as a kid. Admittedly, if he had, he'd have received a headlock and an intense noogie for his trouble.
Sage stepped aside, inspecting his blade once more. Crystal swooped in to replace her. "Hey, have we met before? You look…familiar."
"I doubt we've ever seen each other before," said Jaune, "even in passing. This is my first time having the pleasure of staying in…", he trailed off, as if he didn't know the name of his own hometown.
"Fern," Crystal finished.
Jaune ignored her. "Backwards hick-village number twenty-six."
"We aren't backwards or hicks," said Alana. Her voice was a bit of a growl.
"Right. Well, I guess I must have imagined the fight I had with a whole swarm of Grimm. I must have dreamed that I saved the dirty little town of Urn from sure destruction. I must have hallucinated dragging my broken body into Urn. And I guess the Urn-ian teenagers who attacked and trussed me up must be figments of my, obviously, hyperactive imagination."
The ease with which the lie flowed out of him was a little concerning. But words were a weapon—the only kind he was willing to use in this situation.
Jaune closed his eyes. "Maybe, if I keep telling myself this isn't real, you'll all disappear when I open my eyes on the count of three. One. Two. Thr—"
Jaune had hardly reached three before he felt his chair tipping. He opened his eyes to see a furious Alana, hands on his chest, pushing him backwards. A real huntsman, tested by war and blood, would have punched him, kicked him, cut him. Of course, Alana would just tip him over.
What an adorably nonviolent display of aggression.
He toppled with a chuckle.
Alana's face turned redder. She looked as if she might even work up the gumption to kick his downed chair. Or stomp the ground next to his head. Jaune sincerely hoped she didn't. He wasn't sure he would be able to contain his laughter. His head cracked against the concrete floor. That wasn't fun. But it didn't hurt much either. "Ow," he exaggerated, "are you trying to kill me?"
He strained his neck to make eye contact with his older sister. It was difficult. If the ropes were a little lower and he could curl his upper back it would have been easier.
"Sage!" Alana extended an open hand towards her Sage, the girl just outside of Jaune's inverted view. "Hand me his sword."
"Um, wait. I think I'm starting to see what he was—"
Alana whirled on her sister, momentarily disappearing from Jaune's view. She returned an instant later, clutching Crocea Mors.
Jaune wondered if it was possible for him feel any less concerned about whatever the hell was about to happen.
Crystal slipped between Alana and Jaune with hands raised. "H-hold on Alana. Why don't you just calm down?"
Alana sidestepped the girl and snapped, "I'm not going to stab him you idiot." She crouched down next to Jaune, unwittingly giving him a view up the "combat skirt" she adored so much.
He'd have to give both of his sisters some interrogation advice. If he wasn't their brother, one of them would be unconscious, face down in a pool of blood with a broken nose and the other would be receiving a thorough ogling.
Alana held the flat of his blade a few inches from his eyes. "See this?"
"I see it," said Jaune.
"Is this really your sword?"
Jaune took a moment to admire the familiar weapon. The dents, chips, smudges, and fractured edge—every part of that sword had been with him through the best and worst moments of his life. He had originally borrowed it. No. Stolen. But it was his birthright. His legacy. His companion. He turned his attention back to Alana's blistering gaze. "Yes. She's mine."
Alana stared at him for a drawn-out moment. Finally, she spoke, "I don't believe you." She straightened and turned.
Jaune called out after her, "is that it?"
She didn't reply. He lost track of her once she left his frame of vision. "You all realize you can't just keep me here against my will, right? I understand that you're suspicious. But you're not the police, you can't arrest me. Hell, I'm the one who should be calling the police."
"We don't have any police," said Alana, "welcome to backwards hick-village number twenty-six."
Jaune exhaled. It was beginning to look like he'd have to bust himself out. He heard Sage, Crystal, and Alana whispering amongst themselves. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying—yet. But they were growing incrementally louder—probably more animated too.
Jaune stretched his neck from side to side a few times, working out the cricks. If he broke the chair, and acted confident, and said he was going, and walked right by his sisters…would they stop him? They would be surprised, but would they draw their weapons?
Only one way to find out. He began sitting up. The chair back creaked. The rope dug into his solar plexus.
"What are you doing!?"
Jaune froze. That voice didn't belong to one of his older sisters.
"Cece, go back upstairs!" commanded Alana.
Cece, true to form, didn't acknowledge that her older sister had spoken. If Jaune remembered correctly, there were only four family members the precocious child listened to. Mom, Dad, Ellie and—sometimes—Jaune.
"Jaune!" the girl screamed, "Crystal and Alana have finally done it! They kidnapped the boy they were fighting over and then they killed him!"
Jaune laughed. He couldn't help it. It had been years since he'd heard Cece "tattle." The girl was a true youngest sibling—skilled at twisting and hyperbolizing the truth until it was near unrecognizable. She had a potent talent for causing conflict among her siblings and, when she was feeling particularly malicious, dropping them into an ocean of trouble with their parents.
Jaune heard the creaking noise of a heavy tread descending the stairs. He winced when he heard a familiar yet strangely foreign voice. The voice was high. Whiny. Naive. Ignorant. The voice was young. Too young.
"What are you talking…?" Jaune Arc, the younger, trailed off.
Jaune assumed it was because he had been spotted.
"Oh my god!"
Jaune heard the telltale sound of large bare feet slapping against concrete. his younger-self dashed to his side.
Oum. He wasn't ready for this insanity.
Hearing his voice was strange enough. Seeing him in the flesh though?
His face was unmarred. His skin was smooth and unblemished, aside from a mountainous zit on his right temple.
Oum.
That zit was almost as bad as the red runway across his face.
Jaune pulled his gaze away from the Goliath acne with the force of a wench.
The kid's haircut was better. Although, it ought to be. Fern had a talented barber. Old man Colson was a fair sight better than Ruby and her "baby."
The younger man still had baby fat, some around the face, but mostly on his body. A lot of that would go away in his first few months at Beacon but it would still be years before he looked like a man. There was a bit of peach fuzz on his chin—which, if Jaune remembered correctly, was the result of several months of facial-hair growing effort.
Jaune remembered his excitement when his peach fuzz turned into something a bit more formidable. He'd jumped up and down in front of his mirror.
Then he discovered the horrifying truth.
Facial hair sucked.
The only reason he sometimes sported a beard was laziness. If he were a Schnee and could afford to hire a man whose sole job was to shave his boss while said boss played video games. Hell, that would be the end of grizzly Jaune right then and there.
The most striking difference between the boy before him and the man Jaune saw in the mirror was intangible. The boy had wide eyes. The shade was the same—but the images that flickered through those sliced-sky irises were different. He looked so worried, no doubt concerned for the man bound before him.
Jaune wondered if he was still capable of feeling such concern for a stranger? Sure, he fought to protect innocents. But those were faceless civilians, masses he would never know or care for intimately. Was he still capable of such directed personal empathy?
He doubted it.
He was fighting for Ruby and Weiss. His family. JNPR—his second family. The four kingdoms. Even all humanity.
He didn't have time to worry about one stranger tied to a chair.
"Are you okay?" asked younger Jaune.
"I'm…I'm fine." No he wasn't. He was talking with himself. And not in the way that only made him halfway crazy. "Could you sit me up?"
The younger nodded. A second later the boy lifted the chair. The rate at which the teenaged version of himself righted the chair was either the result of unnecessary thoughtfulness or a pitiful display of weakness.
Either way, it was slow going.
Fortunately, he was corrected just in time to enjoy the show.
Cece stood defiantly before one exasperated older sister, deftly refusing her requests to go back upstairs. Alana glared at Cece with a look Jaune remembered burnt his younger-self to the core.
Cece shrugged it off without blinking.
Sage had his blade again. She studied it closely, occasionally glancing at the picture of a whole Crocea Mors. Crystal glanced between him and her younger brother several times before eventually grinning.
Ah. She had realized why he looked so familiar.
She parted her lips, likely to share her discovery.
But Alana's roar distracted her, as it did Jaune.
"Who taught you that!?"
Jaune's eyes widened when he saw Cece, his darling little sister, raising her middle finger to the roof.
"Jenny taught me. She told me it means 'I'm the boss and I don't care what you say about it.'"
Well. Jenny, whoever that was, wasn't too far off.
"Cece," Alana's voice was strained. "Never do that again. Mom will kill you. And go upstairs. Right now."
Cece dropped her right hand to her side only to whip up her left, flipping off Alana again. "Why would mom kill me? I'm not the one who tied up some guy in the basement!"
"Cece." Alana's voice grated like flint. "You—"
"Alana. Cece."
Jaune was surprised to hear his younger-self break up the two girls' argument. Young Jaune's voice was serious, absent its usual cringe-worthy qualities.
Even more surprising was the way the two girls turned towards him, lips pressed tight.
Jaune remembered getting yanked around by his sisters, a lot. He remembered them putting him in dresses and treating him like a prized commodity. He remembered them scaring off any potential love interests in school.
He did not remember being able to lead or control them.
Jaune strained his neck, trying to see what kind of expression his younger-self was wearing.
No such luck. He couldn't see him.
He imagined it was probably "the-serious-leader-face" Nora had said he sometimes got. It had been primarily unconscious back then—and that was after this point in the timeline. Which meant his younger-self was entirely unaware of the effect he had.
"Cece, don't make that gesture, especially not towards the people who love you. Jenny was wrong. It means 'I hate you.'"
Cece's hand dropped immediately, a wave of guilt flashed across her expression. "I-I didn't know that."
"It's fine. Just don't do it anymore." His voice hardened. "Alana."
The girl looked nervous. Nothing his younger-self would pick up on. Her tells weren't all that visible. But Jaune could see her nerves in the way her eyes flicked to Crystal for support. Her sister looked away.
Damn. Cold.
"Why is there a man tied to a chair in our basement?"
"Well," began Alana. She glanced at Sage. Sage's eyes didn't leave the sword she was inspecting. "Sage, Crystal, and I were training, a little way out of town. Just doing some light sparring. We were on our way home when we came across this guy. He was laying in the middle of the road. We thought he was dead at first. When we realized he was alive we decided to take him to Agatha's to get him checked out—"
"Will you please hurry up and get to the part where you decided to take the injured guy prisoner?"
Teen Jaune's interruption wasn't aggressive, or even all that rude but it still had a curtness to it Jaune could not, for the life of him, recall having. He'd always assumed when Ozpin and Oscar talked about his leadership potential they'd been talking about some deep, locked away part of him. An aspect of his personality to which he would not gain access for several years.
Had it really been this obvious?
Oum. Ozpin owed him back his sense of childish wonder.
"Well, we saw he had Crocea Mors and we thought that—"
"He had dad's sword?" exclaimed young Jaune. "Is that what Sage has been looking at?"
"Yes," said Alana, "we had no idea what to do when we saw the sword. Crystal convinced me to—"
"I didn't convince anyone!" interrupted Crystal. "I made a suggestion. You made the decision and Sage is the one who said he may have attacked dad and taken the sword as a prize! Then you said—"
Crystal stopped short when she heard a rather…unpleasant noise.
The choked mixture of a sob, gasp, and a scream drew every eye in the room to Cece. Even Sage's attention was pulled away from Crocea Mors.
The small girl's eyes were saucers. Her jaw quivered. Her chest heaved. Trembling fingers flew to her mouth. It was clear, from her voice and her expression, she couldn't quite wrap her mind around what Crystal had just said. After at least fifteen seconds of silence she spoke. Her voice was small. Tiny. Microscopic even. Yet the room had gone so quiet she was heard clearly. "H-he attacked dad?"
Somehow, Jaune was the first to respond. It ripped out of him. He could not stop it. Let the other girls stew in their fear for a little while. Mathias would return home and they'd be fine, embarrassed even. Cece looked broken by the very thought of her father bleeding in a ditch somewhere, as if she would not recover if he did not reassure her right now. "Of course not. I'm a huntsman. I kill Grimm. Your sisters are crazy."
Alana's head swiveled from Cece to Jaune. She snapped out of the nervous stupor her younger brother had put her under. "Where'd you get the sword then!" she screamed.
"I already told you." Jaune's voice got louder, not quite a shout, but frustration leaking out of him. "It's a family heirloom!"
"I don't believe you!" she fired back.
"Well tough!" Okay. He was yelling now. But he couldn't help it. Cece looked as if she was about to have a mental breakdown and it was these idiots' fault. "Doesn't change the truth! I'm a huntsman. Not a bandit! That's my sword!"
"I'm a huntress! I've seen plenty of swords, none of them looked anything like Crocea Mors!"
"Now that's just a boldfaced lie! You haven't seen plenty of swords. No one fights with just a sword anymore!"
"Exactly! That's how I know this is my dad's!"
Another retort was on his lips but Jaune was distracted by Cece lurching towards him in a sort of sprinting dive. She collapsed to her knees before him, eyes full of water.
"Cece, get away from him!"
Get away from him indeed. If he had been a murderer his idiotic siblings would have just delivered to him the perfect hostage, served up on a silver platter. The sheer incompetence of it all was overwhelming.
"D-did you hurt my dad?" she asked, stammering through heavy breaths. "Did—" she reached up, to touch his knee but she never made it that far. Suddenly she was in younger Jaune's arms as the boy moved from behind the chair. Her hand remained outstretched, seeking reassurance that her father was coming home from the stranger tied up in her basement.
Her devastated expression was like a dagger through Jaune's heart.
He'd seen a lot of bad stuff during the war.
Mothers ripped away from their children.
Husbands from their wives.
Sisters from each other.
He'd become desensitized to most of it. The horror. The sense of loss. It was all familiar now.
But it was always worse when it was someone he loved. When they were broken… When they were hurting…
Well, that was probably the only thing left that could make him feel anything.
His anger, formerly directed at Alana, faded into obscurity. It was replaced by an acute sense of helplessness. Mathias would come home. That would solve this. It would all be fine…
But there was nothing he could do in the meanwhile.
He hated that.
"Why am I even bothering," he said, more to himself than anyone else, "there's no way you're going to believe me."
"I believe you," said Sage.
Jaune's eyes locked with his most reasonable sister. She was holding up Crocea Mors.
"This sword looks identical to our fathers…But the wear is different. It's got little faults in the edges, a pockmark near the top, slight discoloration around the hilt. This sword has seen hell and back, without a proper tune up in…potentially…years."
"What!?" hissed Alana.
She was spot on. Jaune had done what he could to maintain his weapon over the years—but there had never been enough peace for him to feel comfortable having the blade reforged, and that was the only way to erase the evidence of his last three clashes with Salem.
Sage adjusted her glasses with a slender digit. "I believe Crocea Mors and…" she glanced at Jaune's sword and then at Jaune, "…our new friend's sword were created by the same smith—and that they are even part of the same set. That is why the engravings and shape are identical. But…they are not the same blade."
"Sage," began Alana, a warning clear in her voice.
"I'm not just postulating abstractly Lani," said Sage, "nor am I even suggesting that we release…" she glanced at Jaune again, "him, until we have confirmed my theory. I am simply stating that it is fairly reasonable to believe our father is fine."
Cece suddenly began struggling in teen Jaune's grip. Her legs flailed inertly as she attempted escape. "Jaune, let me go, I need to talk to Sage!"
Younger Jaune's eyes remained fixed on his older counterpart as he set down Cece. The girl stamped towards her older sisters. Sage was pointing out the small faults in the blade to Alana. Alana was looking a little queasy. Crystal just looked relieved that the situation seemed to be resolving itself.
"Is that dad's sword or not?" demanded Cece.
Alana inspected the discoloration at the hilt Sage had pointed out, angling the blade to get some light on it but not glare. "It may not be," she admitted.
That was all Cece needed to hear. She stamped her foot several times. "He's right!" She pointed at Jaune, the random stranger tied up in her basement. Her finger than traveled to her sisters. "You're crazy. All of you!"
"Cece," began Crystal.
Cece ran her over. "Don't ever scare me like that again!" With that final remark, the youngest Arc barreled towards the stairs. "I'm going to keep a lookout for dad!"
Junior Jaune was frozen, staring at his future self, a second too long. He called out after his little sister, "hey, make sure you stay…" he trailed off when he realized she was already gone.
Was that alright? Jaune knew what his younger-self was warning the girl against. He also knew she probably wouldn't listen to him. Well…it was probably fine. Nothing ever happened in Fern.
Silence reigned supreme once Cece had left. Alana continued inspecting Jaune's sword. Sage would occasionally point out some new flaw in the metal. Young Jaune and Crystal kept glancing at their guest, no doubt wondering what they should do now that their prisoner's guilt had been cast into doubt.
The subdued silence gradually began to irk Jaune. His siblings and his younger-self were acting as if taking an innocent man prisoner was the end of the world. He cleared his throat. Sage and Alana gave them their full attention.
"So, I get your dad is out on a mission. You all got a mom?"
"She's out," replied Alana, gaze narrowed.
Out huh? That much was obvious. After that shouting match a few minutes ago he had already as good as confirmed that his mother wasn't in the house. She'd have been downstairs the moment she heard his unfamiliar voice.
But she also wasn't far. She wouldn't be. Willow Arc was a dutiful wife and mother. She was also unconventional, terrifying, and fierce. But dutiful nonetheless. She wouldn't stray far from home when her husband was due.
Which meant she was out in her garden.
"Why?" asked Sage.
Jaune tilted his head to the left and stared at her.
"Why are you asking about our mother?" restated Sage.
"Isn't that obvious? I want to file a formal complaint against her psycho children."
Alana muttered something and looked away. Sage appeared vaguely bemused. Jaune looked downright horrified.
Crystal was the only one to reply.
"Well…I could get our mom. But, honestly, I don't know if she would respond much better than us if she saw that sword. Actually, I think it would be worse. Maybe even a lot worse."
Jaune considered that insight for a moment.
Oum. What was he thinking? Why would he even joke about it?
He should count his lucky stars his sisters had snuck him in past Willow Arc.
If his mom believed, for even a moment, that he had hurt or, worse yet, killed her husband…
Shit.
She would go berserk.
For the first time in this lengthy encounter Jaune had to push down a surge of nerves, to prevent it from messing with his voice. Strange. He had faced flocks of Giant Nevermores, surrounded by swarms of the smaller ones—the thought of his furious mother should not have stiffened him up this much. "I was joking. I don't want to meet any more of you crazy people. Just…make sure your dad is okay and then let me go."
Crystal nodded, clearly just as anxious as him to avoid involving their mother.
Of course, that was when Willow's voice rang out from above.
"Girls, come help with dinner."
Looked like Willow was done gardening.
Crystal shot her older sister a questioning glance.
Alana handed Crocea Mors to Sage. "It's fine. We'll go upstairs and run interference on mom. Sage, you stash his sword." She glanced at Jaune, her expression wasn't quite open, but she was certainly less hostile. "My dad normally hustles to get home before dinner. We'll return your sword to you then. Also…I'll apologize."
She looked as if she expected him to demand a lot more than an apology. She relaxed when he just rolled his eyes. "Fine. Just hurry up, I've got places to be."
Sage slid Crocea Mors into a backpack leaning against the wall and then slung the bag over her shoulders. She left first. Crystal followed. Alana left last. "Keep an eye on him Jaune."
"Eh?"
The two Jaune's exchanged a confused glance when they realized they had reacted with the same sound at the same time.
Alana was gone before either could muster a complaint. The awkward silence was strong between them. One was just an awkward teen. The other knew he and the awkward teen were the same person and he was still reeling from the implications.
He hadn't considered it in the heat of the moment earlier, but was it even safe for him to talk to his younger-self? Would it cause a time paradox? Would the act destroy the universe? Or something equally as bad?
He hoped not. He'd come back to save the world. Not destroy it more thoroughly then Salem ever could.
Best to just pretend the other Jaune wasn't there.
Jaune plopped down in front of him, ankles crossed.
"Um…so you're a huntsman, right?"
Jaune didn't say anything.
His younger counterpart continued regardless. "That's cool. My dad's a huntsman."
No kidding.
"I've been thinking I might want to be one too."
Silence.
"Any pointers?"
Oumdamn it. Weiss would have said something if this was dangerous, right? Surely the possibility hadn't slipped her mind? Did anything ever?
"Training. Lots of it," said the time traveler.
Younger Jaune looked ecstatic to have drawn a response from his suddenly taciturn companion. "I know that much! I'm strong you know. Probably not in a fight, but I can lift a bit. My dad says I'm built solid."
Jaune remembered their father saying that.
"He also says being built solid just means the sword that kills me will probably get lodged halfway through."
Jaune also remembered him saying that.
"Where should I start for real though? I know I need to work on my swordsmanship and get stronger…"
Massive understatements on both accounts.
"My dad has shown me some stuff but, apparently, I wasn't interested when I was younger, so now it's too late. My parents are convinced I'll just get myself killed if I try to become a Hunter now…"
Jaune drowned out the rest of his teen-self's rambling after that. Get himself killed? If only that was the consequence of his arrogance. He wouldn't die. Jaune Arc couldn't die.
The rest of the team he was supposed to protect though…
There wouldn't even be enough left of them for a proper burial.
No.
That was before Jaune came from the future.
Teams JNPR, RWBY, CFVY, CRDL, SSSN. They would be fine now. They would grow old together.
He'd make sure of it.
"School."
Young Jaune's rambling ended. "What?"
"You want to become a huntsman? Go to school. I recommend Beacon."
"Beacon…?" Repeated the younger Jaune.
He had heard of it. Jaune knew that because he could still remember the first time his father had spoken of Beacon—it had been years before this time—whenever this time was.
"…won't they want to see transcripts from a combat school?" finished the boy.
Jaune shrugged and delivered a few more pieces of morally questionable advice. "Lie."
"Lie?" repeated the teen incredulously, "what kind of hero would I be if I started it all with a lie?"
Jaune laughed. It was strange, rehashing these old worries. He could vaguely remember agonizing over starting his hero career with a lie—probably a few days before he procured fake transcripts—documents that, he would later discover, had never stood a chance of deceiving Ozpin. "The normal kind, kid, remember this. It took me years to realize it, so it ought to put you ahead of the game."
Young Jaune leaned in, clearly hanging on every word.
"Heroes are just normal people who everyone, including themselves, expects to do the impossible. If you can't lie to everyone, including yourself, you won't even be able to get up in the morning—much less do the heroics. Lie. Lie. And lie some more, until, somehow, you make all that bullshit the truth."
"You make being a hero sound terrible."
"Yeah…it's the worst."
"Maybe I should focus on my music then."
Jaune resisted the urge to burst into laughter. What the hell was he talking about? Had he ever had a smidge of musical talent? Was he referring to their ability to play a couple of notes on a guitar? Jaune struggled to remember if he had some sort of musician phase. If he could recall it, maybe that would even help him pin down the date.
For the life of him, he could not remember having ever mistaken himself as a musician. Maybe it had been one of those hour-long phases.
"You can't."
"I can't…focus on my music?"
"Nope." Jaune imitated his close friend's pronunciation of the word. "Once you've got the hero bug, you start blaming yourself for every bad thing that happens. You get obsessed with getting strong enough to stop more bad things from happening. And the only things that matter are the people you want to protect and the skills that will let you protect them."
"We—" young Jaune stopped short of completing a sentence. His eyes fixed straight ahead on nothing. He was listening.
Jaune followed suit.
A bell. A massive bell was ringing. Suddenly it grew louder, more obvious, and then it grew louder again.
No, the bell wasn't growing louder. More of them were ringing. Closer bells, further bells, they all melded together in one cacophony of sound that practically shook the house.
"Are those the warning bells?" asked young Jaune.
Jaune stared at his younger counterpart as if the boy had sprouted a second head.
First off, yes. Yes, those were the warning bells. What the hell else could they be?
Second, why would he, a random stranger in this town, know more about their alarm system than someone who was born and raised here?
"They normally only ring one, for a fire or something," said the boy.
Oum.
Talking to his younger-self was embarrassing.
Did he truly not understand how a city alarm worked?
Sure, Jaune couldn't remember Fern's warning system ever being put to the test…but every civvie within the town limits should still understand the basics.
"The bells are rung differently to convey different messages. Sometimes they say hey guys, help put out the fire. Sometimes they say, everyone, ring your bells together, warn the town about the mass Grimm attack."
"Mass… Grimm… attack...?" parroted young Jaune, eyes wide, fingers trembling.
"No need to look so panicked," said Jaune, "outskirt villages like this are always full of retired huntsmen and huntresses. And a couple of active ones too. If there's a Grimm incursion they'll handle it…"
The words were true but empty. There was no Grimm incursion.
Jaune knew there wasn't one because he had already lived this day.
He had already lived every day in this Jaune's life.
He would remember something like a swarm of Grimm attacking Fern. Sure, eventually, events would start to diverge from his memory of them—thanks to his own influence. But everything should still be the same for now. He had only been here a couple of hours and he hadn't done anything yet.
Although…
A full-alert alarm? All six watch towers ringing? And the town center bell as well? There weren't many things that could trigger that other than a Grimm incursion. He could count the number of alternate possibilities on one hand.
Flood?
Wasn't raining.
Bandit attack?
Not in this area.
Rapidly spreading fire?
Wasn't dry enough.
Huh.
But if a Grimm attack was the only option…
And he didn't remember a Grimm attack ever happening…
Oum.
Had he somehow managed to change the timeline already?
But what had he done that could cause a Grimm incursion?
Wait. Grimm incursion.
Hadn't he just fought a Grimm incursion? A massive one? They were drawn to the…
The portal.
Creating the portal had attracted hundreds—potentially thousands of Grimm. What if it had a similar effect on the other side? Even if the portal was only open for a few seconds in this time, would that be enough to summon the nearby Grimm for a juicy civilian snack?
It felt about right.
The universe wouldn't let him cheat, travel back in time, and catch his breath.
Well, jokes on the universe. There were plenty of huntsmen in Fern. They'd be fine. Jaune didn't have to do a thing.
"Cece,"
The raspy, stricken, terrified voice yanked Jaune from his thoughts. Jaune peered into his younger-self's constricted pupils. He watched the color retreat from his cheeks and his jaw began to tremble.
Cece…?
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
Where was it Cece liked to wait for their father? Outside the wall?
Younger Jaune's feet moved before the rest of his body had time to register what was happening, like one of those cartoons where the character's feet disappeared offscreen before the rest of the body followed. The clumsy boy fell to the ground as he scrambled towards the stairs. He caught himself but not well, one of his fingers was bent back awkwardly.
Not that the kid would notice any time soon.
One thing that hadn't changed in the past decade: how easily Jaune could ignore pain when he was awash in adrenaline and terror—not so much when it was for himself—but when it was for someone he cared about…
Jaune would charge into a beowolf's maw without aura for his sisters.
And that was exactly what that naïve idiot was about to do.
"Jaune!" Jaune used his commanders voice. The voice he had used to roar orders over a sea of Grimm. The voice he had used to bring The Crimson Reaper herself out of a violence induced rampage, killing thousands of Grimm in minutes.
His younger-self didn't want to stop. He didn't want to turn. But he had to. He was compelled. There was no arguing with the authority in his tone. No brokering.
"Untie me! I'll save your sister!"
Young Jaune began to turn, "you don't even know…"
"She's at the west gate, in the tree right!?"
That stopped the boy again. "H-how—"
"It's my semblance," Jaune lied. "I'm faster than you. I'm stronger than you. You can't help her. I can."
Indecision flickered across his features.
"You can't help her Jaune. I can," said Jaune, from between gritted teeth. Why the hell was it taking him this long to make a decision? He had two choices! Go out there and get himself and Cece killed? Or free the real huntsman who ate situations like this for breakfast? What was this crippling inability to react? To respond? It made Jaune furious. Was he furious at the boy in front of him or himself?
Was it the same thing?
Jaune growled when the boy remained frozen. At this point wouldn't it be faster for him to free himself?
The teenager finally moved. He slid to a halt on his knees. He reached hesitantly for the ropes binding Jaune's arms. He paused inches away from one. "W-will you really help h—"
"Want some advice for becoming a hero?" asked Jaune, pushing back against the chair as hard as he could. The chair protested. Jaune ignored the furniture's complaint. Like a coiled spring, his body jerked forward and down. He folded as if he were performing a crunch. His abdomen screamed at the sudden exertion. His ribs creaked ominously as he crushed them against his bindings.
The spine of the chair snapped like a femur.
Little Jaune screamed when a brick forehead collided with his nose. He fell back onto his butt, using his hands to slide himself away from his assailant.
Hm, so he was still conscious. Looked like dad was right. Aura or no aura, Jaune Arc was built solid.
Jaune glanced at the bindings that were still in place. His legs were still bound to the seat's legs and his arms to the seat's arms. He needed to take out the rest of this goddamn chair in one swoop.
Easy.
"Learn how…" began Jaune, as he leaned back once again. This time there was nothing to obstruct his motion so he brought himself back into a near reclining position, just on the verge of tipping backwards. He pushed up on the balls of his feet.
"…to make…" Jaune threw his upper body forward and pushed off on the balls of his feet. He, and the remains of his chair, went airborne. Not very high. But he didn't need to be high. He just needed the backside of the chair to be the first thing to hit the ground.
Wood splintered and pricked at his aura as his bodyweight obliterated the rest of the chair.
"an Oumdamn decision!"
Jaune sprinted by his shocked younger-self, tossing away the chair arms and legs still attached to his body—but not the chair—as he took the stairs two at a time. He arrived in the main hall.
The shape and all was still the same from when he, Ruby, and Weiss were living here.
But it was whole. There were no tears or rips. No claw marks. There were even happy family portraits on the walls. Jaune would have liked to spend a few hours memorizing every one of them, locking away his own collection of portraits in a vault deep inside him.
But there wasn't time to even look at those pictures. Grimm incursions started outside of the town. Cece was outside of the town.
There were his sisters, hastily changing in the hall. They were stripped down various degrees. On had on a bra. The other two wore camisoles. One had gym shorts. The other two were in their underwear.
They had probably slipped out of their combat uniforms and gear when their mother had requested their assistance in the kitchen. Bad timing.
Jaune was already upon them by the time they noticed his presence.
Behind them, watching the girls change was…
Jaune's breath caught. His mother. His dear mother.
Her eyes widened when she saw him. "Who ar—"
Jaune didn't hear her finish the question. He had already blown by her, thrown open the front door, and closed it behind him.
He took off into the fray. Every step on the town's dirt roads kicked up a small cloud. He pumped his arms. He sucked in air.
He was sprinting from the beginning. Fern blurred around him as he dashed past shops, neighbors, and friends he had grown up with.
He could only see what was in front of him.
Grimm.
There were quite a few of them.
Nothing like what he and Ruby had been holding off before, no Nuckelavees, no Deathstalkers—certainly no Dragons—mostly just Beowolves and a few Ursa. He heard the cries of some nevermore as well, but their screams were the pitch of the normal sized ones. Those were only dangerous if they swarmed—and even then, he could put them down before they managed to put a dent in his aura.
There was nothing here that could hurt him. He, Ruby, and Weiss probably wouldn't have even bothered with a battle formation if they were walking through an abandoned village with this few Grimm.
But there was a big difference between the number of Grimm it took for a Hunter to be concerned about their own life, and the number of Grimm it took to make protecting a spread out civilian population difficult. One hunter could only cover so much area—well—unless they were Ruby. She had once cleared a Grimm incursion of hundreds by herself without a single casualty among the villagers. The villagers had called her the red phantom, because of how she appeared dispatched every Grimm in the area in an instant and then all but vanished. She'd been crushed to hear the village had fallen a few weeks after she left.
Come to think of it, Weiss had done something like that as well. She had summoned a horde of her own Grimm to singlehandedly protect hundreds of civilians and fight off the Grimm threat.
So maybe Jaune was the only one who had limits to how much area he could cover.
That was fine. He knew where his talents lay.
They weren't in fighting thousands of enemies. They weren't in protecting communities from a million small threats.
Jaune's legs started to burn much sooner than they usually did. He'd only been sprinting fifteen or twenty seconds. Why the sudden exhaustion?
Ah. He hadn't slept nor eaten since his fight in the future.
Not that it mattered.
Like a little thing like exhaustion would stop him from saving his little sister.
From what he could tell, the Grimm were entering the city from the North and East gates. That was good. Very good. Maybe Cece wasn't even in danger. Maybe he would push himself to the limits of exhaustion, only to find Cece perfectly safe, perched in the same tree Jaune once climbed when awaiting his father's return.
That would be amazing.
It would be perfect.
Jaune sped up.
Unfortunately, Jaune Arc's life didn't do "perfect." Or "amazing." It did "engh…" or "abject-misery"
Jaune ran by Beowolves and Ursa throwing themselves at doors. He wasn't overly concerned about the civilians, at least a quarter of those doors had a hunter or ex-hunter behind them. He was sure they'd assist their neighbors after they dispatched the threat to their own home and family.
In fact, there were already several hunters out dealing with the horde.
So, the town would be fine.
Jaune was glad for that.
Mostly because he wouldn't have slowed even if he was needed.
No. Fern was not the priority.
An Ursa barreled to him. The moment it lunged he vaulted over it. He could dispatch it with his bare-hands, sure. But he had already abandoned any action, any idea, any thought, that would cause him to lose momentum. That would stop his feet from pounding the ground.
There was a Beowolf in his path. He ducked low a little, plowed into it, lifted and heaved. The beast landed behind him, probably minorly confused, as Grimm sometimes got when they could not comprehend what had just occurred.
From what he could tell, Grimm were coming from two directions
Jaune's eyes finally fixed on the western gate. It felt as if it had taken him ages to get those great wooden doors in sight. But, considering Fern's size, it had probably only been a little more than a minute.
He was close.
And he didn't like what he saw.
An Ursa paw sideswiped him. He spun with the blow and kept running.
There it was, the western entrance to Fern. The sixteen-foot-tall wooden doors normally separated Fern from the horrors of the wilds. Today they were bent in awkwardly, the great wooden beam that usually sealed them had snapped.
Jaune had seen it a dozen times before. A horde of Grimm would throw themselves at a door.
Not the walls.
The door.
Grimm were mindless beasts. There was no doubt of that—although there were exceptions. Jaune thought back to that talking Nuckelavee from his third encounter with Salem. He still shivered when he remembered that eternally amused screeching voice.
But that was aside the point. The point was that, generally, Grimm were dumb creatures, filled with thoughtless aggression. But Salem had always made sure they were surprisingly skilled at identifying structural weaknesses.
It was the combined weight of a relentless mob, all pressing on a single point, that eventually brought down the door, window, or whatever the lead Grimm had chosen as a target.
As it was, the western entrance hadn't fallen. The doors had buckled. But they had not caved.
For some reason, that was worse.
The Grimm had started their assault but stopped? Were they distracted by something on the other side? Something Like Cece?
He needed to get passed that wall.
Should he mess with the door? No, Oum knew how stuck those giant oaken things might be. Should he take the thirty second hit of looping around to the storm drain Cece had used to get out there?
He felt sick.
In situations like this thirty seconds was the difference between someone being safe, alive, huggable, kissable…
And being torn, ripped, and reduced to literal shreds.
He spotted a supply shed few feet to the right of the door. It was an old rotten wooden rig, probably used to hold equipment for maintaining the wall and gates. Oil for the hinges, tar, cement, that sort of stuff.
It looked as if it could barely support its own weight. But it was right on the wall…
Which meant it was perfect.
Jaune ran straight at the wall, just to the left of the storage shed. He jumped just before the inevitable collision. His feet met the wall about five feet up. He sprung off the vertical surface to the right. He landed atop the shed. He could feel the unstable edifice buckling beneath him.
But it didn't matter. He sprung off the collapsing roof, arms reaching, fingers outstretched.
Three of his fingertips met the ledge. That was all he needed. He latched on. He regripped with his right hand. His biceps flexed.
He was atop the wall—for an instant and then he was dropping onto the other side. He screamed out Cece's name at the top of his lungs as he fell. He rolled as he landed, dispelling some of the force.
There were trees. Trees everywhere. But which one was the one he had showed Cece?
And Grimm, there were Grimm too.
Well, the remains of them.
Still fading Grimm limbs, heads, and bodies laid scattered about, slaughtered with the efficiency of an experienced huntsman. Jaune was briefly reminded of the battlefields from the war. So many Grimm, so much killing. The beasts hardly had time to fade before they were replaced with their brethren.
Who had done this? It must have been a group. There were too many Grimm simultaneously decaying for it to have been a single huntsman.
Unless there was an S-ranked huntsman like who called Fern home. But he would remember if he'd grown up next to a huntress of Ruby's or Weiss's or Glynda's caliber. His father was a low A-rank at best—and it was possible he was the best Fern had to offer.
"Cece!" he screamed, expelling all questions not directly related to the whereabouts of his sister. Figuring out who killed those Grimm didn't matter.
Only Cece mattered.
"Cece!" he cried again.
He held his breath as he waited, hoped, and prayed for an answer. It burned. He had ran the whole way here. His lungs craved oxygen as if he'd swam. But what if Cece had fled? What if his panting drowned out her distant response?
After several seconds, he gasped, giving in to his body's weakness. He needed air.
Oum, could he just have this one? Just this once? He'd become religious, worship Monty, take up the cloth—after ramming Crocea Mors down Salem's throat of course—whatever it took. Just let Cece be alright.
Silence.
Maybe not "alright." Maybe that was too much to ask of a god who, apparently, hated him.
He'd settle for alive—savable—even if only just barely.
"Cece!" he cried out a fourth time.
A rustling to his right caught his attention. He whirled, arms raised and fists clenched. Were there more Grimm in the area? Hard to believe considering how thoroughly it had been cleared.
But even the best huntsmen made mistakes.
Tension fled his burning limbs. His heart calmed. His eyes watered. Cece stumbled through some underbrush, cradling a badly broken arm. Her bone had not torn through skin but pressed up against it, stretching it like fabric, producing an agonizing tent. There was dirt on her face and gold leaves, orange stems, and red petals in her hair
"Where did you go?" sobbed the girl. "I was so scared."
Where had he gone…?
What did she mean?
"Dad," she cried between gasps.
Did she think he was her father?
Was she just crying out for him?
Jaune mentally pinched himself. It didn't matter.
What Cece was saying didn't matter.
The girl was delirious and in intense pain. She needed help, not questions. He gave her as easygoing of a smile as he could muster. She wasn't in any condition to return that nicety. But there was a glimmer of relief in her azure eyes.
That would have to do for now.
He began to approach her. Ten, maybe fifteen feet away.
It happened quickly from there.
Branches snapping. Leaves brushing. Quieter than Cece—but purposefully so.
Cece turned. Her mouth was stretched in a screaming position but only a breathy rasp escaped her. The lone Beowolf was mid-lunge, flesh ripping teeth and claws stretched out towards her pale face.
The scream lodged in her chest came bursting out a second later. It ended in some confusion, when she realized the Beowolf had not bitten her.
She panted, wide-eyed, trembling like a massage chair.
She looked down at the Beowolf corpse twitching at her feet. Its concave head was only a few inches in front of her sneakers. The small puff of dirt kicked up by the head's collision with ground was still settling. The Grimm's body began to disintegrate.
She looked from the decaying monster to the man who had just obliterated it with his fist. She looked back at the monster. She looked at him. "H-how—?"
Jaune gently swept the girl into a bridal carry. The eleven-year-old released a small, mouse like noise and then a wail when her arm was jostled. "Keep your arm steady okay? Rest it on your other arm and try not to let it move. Okay?"
The girl nodded. She was still shaking though and her chest was heaving.
Jaune took a few steps.
She settled a little.
He stepped on a twig.
She yelped.
Her whole body jerked and her breathing, which had just started to calm, took off again. Her initial cry was accompanied by a second, this time in pain rather than terror, when the sudden motion shifted her injured arm.
Jaune's heart hurt. Seeing her so afraid made him want to kill everything in Remnant that had the potential to scare her.
Unfortunately, that feat was outside of his ability.
"It's fine now," he cooed, "you're with me. You're safe."
She looked up at him, eyes glazed in terror, body shaking.
He wasn't sure what she saw in his eyes—what any of the people who had looked to him as a hero saw in his eyes—but, somehow, it calmed her.
Gradually, the terror in her face and her quaking body was replaced by relief, evidenced by the way she relaxed in his arms.
Jaune kept a careful eye out for lingering Grimm as he made his way to the western gate. The damage to the doors looked just as bad from the outside as it did from within. There was no way those warped doors were going to open easily—even if the bar that usually kept them shut was broken.
The state of the gate left him in an unfortunate predicament.
Obviously, he couldn't go back in to Fern the same he had left.
Not while carrying Cece.
He could get these doors open. It would take some effort but he could do it.
But he'd have to set Cece down.
Maybe the best way to get back in to Fern would be through that storm drain?
His mulling was interrupted by a voice from behind, a shout. Jaune turned. There was a man running towards him at top speed. He handled the uneven dirt road at a breakneck pace with the ease of someone who was accustomed to less sure footing. His voice grew louder as he drew closer.
"I heard the bells! Hey! I heard the bells!"
Jaune watched that familiar blonde nest approach. It was almost the same as the one in his reflection—only this one was the original.
Cece's watery eyes sparked to life and a toothy grin graced her lips. "Dad," she cried out.
He was already sprinting, but when Mathias Arc heard his daughter's voice he somehow ran even faster.
Mathias arrived a few seconds later, panting, but upright. His eyes flick from Jaune, to the damaged gates, beyond and finally to his daughter. His expression was guarded, suspicious, curious, too many thoughts and emotions pulsed behind those eyes to decide on any one?
"He your dad?" Jaune pretended to confirm with Cece.
Cece nodded happily.
Jaune stepped forward, offering the girl to her father.
Mathias accepted the burden immediately. He dropped to his knees and gently set her bottom half on the ground. He whispered to his daughter, holding her tightly with his left arm, and catalogued her injuries with his right.
Jaune inspected the doors. They were warped sure, but the right one looked as if he'd still be able to push it open. The hinges on the right weren't as grotesquely mutilated as the hinges on the left.
He glanced back at Mathias. The man had produced a small red bag. He bit off the cap of a hypodermic needle and assured his daughter—who was not a fan of needles—that this would help make the pain go away.
It took a moment, but Cece eventually decided she disliked broken-in-half arms more than she disliked small needles. So, she took her drugs.
Once his daughter was safely in his own arms and he'd ensured she was not in any immediate danger and he'd mitigated as much of her pain as he could, Jaune's old man proved a bit more sociable.
"What happened?" asked Mathias.
"Grim incursion. Pretty big one." Jaune dug in his feet and pushed the door. It slid, slowly but surely. The hinges squealed, and wood grated. Once the gap between the two doors was big enough for a grown man carrying an injured child to step through Jaune stepped back. He motioned to the opening, "After you."
Mathias gave him an easy smile. "No, no. After all the work you just put into opening it, it's only fair for you to go through first."
Jaune considered pointing out that the man with his arms full of injured civilian should really be the first one back behind the safety of the walls. But he chose not to.
He understood the man's hesitation. Jaune was clearly a trained huntsman. Mathias wasn't about to offer him a turned back. Jaune had no such inhibition against showing his back—since he was somewhat confident his father wouldn't stab him in it.
Besides, now that he thought about it, there could be more Grimm waiting just inside the walls of Fern than there were just outside.
Jaune answered his father with an easygoing shrug and slipped between the doors. Mathias entered slower, careful not to bump. Jaune was happy to see that Fern was still in one piece and that all that remained of the Grimm were a few annoying Nevermores. Fortunately, there was a man blasting them out of the sky with a shotgun…shotgun…hoe?
Was that a shotgun built into a garden hoe?
Was it that much stranger than a sniper rifle built into a scythe…?
Yes.
Yes, it was.
It was, perhaps, the next level of insanity. Would it ever stop?
The two huntsmen fell into an easy pace beside one another.
"So, who are you?" asked Mathias.
Jaune used the diamond laced steel trap of a brain he had spent the last decade refining to field the question. "Name's John."
Oum. What the hell was wrong with him?
"Ha, Mathias, I have a son named Ja-une." Mathias placed extra emphasis on the pronunciation difference.
No kidding.
"So, John," continued Mathias, "I know my daughter likes to wait for me outside the gates—", he glanced down sharply at the girl in his arms, "—even though I've told her a thousand times not to leave Fern without her older sisters…"
Cece feigned sleep, a small smile tugging at her lips. Huntsman painkillers, they worked fast.
"Am I correct in assuming you saved her life out there?"
Jaune glanced at his father, his eyes were serious. He was the type of man who took the matter of debts owed and repaid as a matter of life and death.
Jaune didn't need that melodrama. Saving his sister from a Grimm incursion he had caused wasn't a favor, or him going the extra mile as a huntsman. That was his duty. "I was in the right place at the right time. I happened to be able to help."
"Still, a lesser man wouldn't have gotten involved."
Jaune resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Was he talking about civilians? Would most civilians hesitate to jump into a potential swarm of Grimm to perform a rescue? Yes. Obviously. And for good reason, considering they would not accomplish anything.
But most, if not all, of the huntsmen Jaune had grown up with at Beacon would have been pretty damn quick to get involved when a little girl's life was on the line. Cardin wouldn't have let that shit go down—even back when he was still a dick.
Or now, technically.
Huh. He'd returned to the time when Cardin was a dick hadn't he?
"A lesser man would've gotten behind those walls as quickly as possible."
Still going on about it, was he?
"Well—" began Jaune.
Cece rolled over him in her usual way. Only now, her energy manifested itself in slurred hazy speech.
"John wouldn't do that!" she proclaimed, as if the two of them were lifelong friends.
Funny how, in a way, they were.
Jaune's amusement faded as the girl continued, "John was inside the walls! He was at our house. He came all the way there to save me! And he killed like, a thousand Grimm. Then he disappeared. Then he was calling out my name and then he saved me again!"
Jaune and Mathias were both confused by her story—but for different reasons.
Mathias got his question off first. "John was at our house?" All amicability faded away in an instant. His eyes narrowed and his body shifted.
How on Remnant did his father plan to fight him with an injured girl in his arms and Crocea Mors in its sheath?
Before Jaune could try to defend himself—verbally, of course—the Cece train barreled through her father's aggression.
"Well, John was passing through town and he… fell asleep on the road? Or maybe he was unconscious—that's what Alana said—but she and Sage and Crystal decided his sword looked like yours…"
"Uh-huh…", Mathias was barely listening to his daughter, his attention focused on John. Their pace back into town remained steady but the tilt of his body and the tension in his stride told Jaune he was ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. Probably to get Cece somewhere safe before the confrontation.
"So they decided to sneak him into the basement and then tie him to a chair and force him to tell them what he did to you!"
"Uh-huh…" Mathias kept moving stiffly for a moment more and then came to a complete stop. Jaune stopped alongside him, watching his father's face transform from suspicion, to shock, tinged with a little bit of horror. "What!?"
"They kept asking what he did to you. And he kept telling them he didn't do anything. But they didn't believe him until Sage said that maybe his sword isn't your sword. I knew the whole time though."
She smiled brightly at "John," once again, as if they were best friends. "I knew John wouldn't do something like that. That's why I went out to wait for you. To prove Alana and Crystal wrong."
Jaune wanted to gawk at his little sister. Even when high, she was a masterclass at pinning the blame on her siblings. Those last two lines sounded so innocent, but they were actually carefully aimed character assassination strikes, designed to remove fault from Cece for going beyond the wall.
She was adding her own sins to the pyre she was building for her sisters. Was she a monster?
"Is that true?"
Mathias's face was red. Very red. He was furious. And Jaune had a hunch it wasn't with him.
Well…this was better than his father formulating the best way to run him through with zero hands available.
Sorry girls.
"Your son is the one who asked me to go rescue Cece when the alarm went off. I was…tied to a chair at the time." It was a tweak to the truth but still mostly there.
Jaune could hear the demon Mathias sometimes borrowed from his wife when he was angry. It slipped into his voice. It was heating its pitch fork. "It seems I owe you a debt and my children owe you a lengthy, heartfelt, apology along with penance."
Jaune wasn't so sure he needed all—or any—of that. "It was an honest mistake D—Mathias—no need to make it a bigger thing than it was."
The Cece train dealt with Jaune's reasonableness next. "When I came downstairs his chair was knocked over. I think they were beating him. And he was all wet. What is that thing where you put a towel over someone's face and then pour water on it?"
"Waterboarding?" asked Mathias, "how do you know about—"
Cece interrupted him. "Yeah, I bet they did that too."
"They tortured you!?" asked Mathias, the horror evident in his voice.
"No," said Jaune firmly. "All th—"
Mathias held up a hand to stop him. "We'll settle this over dinner. I'll ask my kids for their version of the story and you can make sure they don't try too…" Mathias's eyes narrowed.
Was it Jaune's imagination or had forked tongue just flicked out of his mouth?
"Alter events."
Dinner?
Seeing his family again. Sitting across from them at their large dining table. Laughing at his little sisters' antics, getting laughed at when he tried to carry a tune with his guitar.
He had dreamed of this.
So why did he feel so reluctant now.
Was it because he would be sitting across from his younger self?
Was it because he still didn't know the date and every second counted?
Or was it because his sisters had taken him prisoner and interrogated him and his father felt he owed him a blood-debt and was plotting to use him as a tool to inflict heavy psychological damage on his wayward children?
Huh.
That third one.
"I don't want to impose,"
"Nonsense, Willow always makes extra when I'm coming home from a mission."
Right, Willow Arc.
His mom.
What would he say to her?
No doubt she had—or, rather, would take it the hardest when he had—would—run away.
He was a stranger in this time, which meant he couldn't call her "mom." Even if she knew it was him and he was able call her "mom" she still wouldn't understand the guilt that ate him up inside.
What would he say?
'hey mom, sorry for running away from home, I don't hate you or anything. I just wanted to be a hero and save the world—but I failed, which is why you and dad and everyone else died. Sorry about that?'
"I really don't thi—" Jaune started.
"I won't take no for an answer." Mathias finished.
Well. That didn't leave Jaune with a plethora of options.
Perhaps he could run.
It looked like he'd be by himself for this mission. Ruby and Weiss must not have come through the portal.
It was the only explanation. Even if they were being stealthy, no way Ruby could have resisted "helping out" during the incursion. And if the Crimson Reaper had been "helping out," every single one of the Grimm would have been dead before Jaune made it out of the house.
A solo mission.
It had been a while since he'd had one.
And it looked like this would be the most important of his career.
That's right. He couldn't afford to waste time with dinner and pleasantries.
He needed to get out there.
He needed to enact the plan.
Amber, Qrow, Roman, kids, White Fang, Cinder, Ironwood, Adam, Ruby, moon Ozpin, Whitley, Schnees, Grimm, Salem, moon.
Whoa.
That felt wrong.
Had he messed up the order already? Had he listed something twice?
No matter. He patted the book sewed snugly into the inner lining of his jacket. He had Weiss's notebook. Surely the plan would be written within.
Memorizing it all was probably just a backup, right?
Clearly he'd already tarried too long. He hadn't slept or eaten since…well…fighting a horde of grim for hours on end but that was nothing.
He was a machine, dedicated to Salem's destruction.
He would live off the land and sleep only when necessary as he searched for the place Amber would be ambushed.
It was time to stop a war before it began.
Jaune might have sprinted away from his father and sister, out of Fern and into the wilderness that very moment, if not for his father's timely question.
"So, where's this sword?"
"Huh?" replied Jaune dumbly.
"This sword that looks so much like mine my daughters assumed you had murdered me and decided to torture you for information?"
Jaune briefly rehashed the day's events. Where was Crocea Mors?
Ah. Now he remembered.
Had he seriously been about to run off into the wilderness without his partner?
Well…
Shit.
Looked like he was going to dinner.
So… you may have noticed something weird about this chapter. It's all one monstrous take. No cuts, no perspective changes. And even some pretty static environments. Now most of my chapters won't be like this, but I took this as a personal challenge when I saw the possibility here. I've always really liked scenes in movies that were all done in one shot. The dialogue and characters have to naturally peak and flatten, generating conflict and resolution in real time. You can't just cut from a realization or an encounter to action or conflict. You have to build all of those things with the characters and setting you have available.
The weirdest part for me is that this 13k+ chapter, which is almost a quarter length of some short books, all takes place in less than an hour in the stories time. And all the beats for the chapter are jammed in there somehow.
It was a challenging write—hopefully you guys enjoyed the result.
Still no beta, so I'm the only one whose read this, which means it might be a train-wreck someone else might have seen and gone "ADD SOME SCENE CUTS DEAR GOD!" If so, whoops.
I'm putting this date out here for the next chapter: September 30th
Be aware, I've set up this story in my rotation as biweekly. And once I've set everything in stone I'll lock into it.
But there's a fourth story I want to add to my rotations…
And I've got a job that involves even more writing…
And this chapter is clocking in at nearly 14,000 words…
So this may wind up being a tri-weekly fic.
Kay?
Kay.
Fave, Follow, Review, etc…
As per usual, didn't have much time to go over this, especially since I need to jump right into writing Guitar Huntsman. Sorry for the little stuff.
-Vronsurd
