Broken Blondes

Chapter 2: Echoes of Bad Memories

Awkward would not begin to describe the atmosphere in which one Jaune Arc found himself immediately following Yang's departure.

Blake looked as if she wanted to call after the buxom blonde, and if anything, run after her. She didn't. She seemed deflated in that single moment of inaction, turning her cold amber gaze on him.

It was more accurate to say he was caught between the crosshairs of a particularly nasty storm of emotions than a gaze. That storm belonging to the clandestine member of the team formerly known as RWBY.

It was absolutely the last place he wanted to be in that moment.

Jaune had always been somewhat dense, there was no denying that veritable fact, but even he felt like he'd interrupted something intimate... despite Yang and Blake being the ones to interrupt him.

The emotions radiating off the woman standing only a few meters from where he was leaning were volatile and frustrated. Not the kind of words often used to describe the usually quiet faunus girl.

She was clearly sullen, the tension rolling off her in waves. The silence was something she could keep up for hours, or even days if she felt it necessary.

Mistral was massive, something he knew well from the stories he'd been told by Ren and Nora while they'd been at Beacon. That had given them a lot of time to learn about each other's teams while they were huddled around a campfire until everyone fell asleep.

He already knew the story of when they'd learnt she was a faunus, but he'd not realized it had been two whole days.

The dark-haired girl's stint when the White Fang first reared their head in Vale… hadn't ended without some significant destruction, at least from the hooded girl's description. He remembered the headlines on Vale's news blog for Hunters. Jaune shuddered to think what could have incurred such a dramatic silence from the woman this time.

His own silence seemed to go unnoticed, outside of minor flicking of her cat ears, which appeared to move independently of another; human pair of ears hidden away behind her long black hair.

The tension built to the point Jaune could no longer stand, gathering what nerves he had, his eyes moved to where he had left his sword and sheath.

He stepped forward to be a little closer to it, before she seemed to come back to the present, her words not aimed at him. "Really, Yang?! After all this time, you won't even face me?"

Jaune recoiled as if slapped. He attempted to interject, "what?…"

"Shut it Jaune." she hissed, her words venom.

His name felt like an insult. He made himself small and kept wisely silent, waiting for her to continue, fearful of moving again. "What's her problem? I've been gone awhile, I know, I get that, but she won't even talk to me?!"

At this point, she scowled, bristling as a cat might.

Damn it, what did she do? He couldn't think of anything… his mind drew a blank.

It was this point where Jaune attempted to move again, and cautiously spoke, "Well, when did you leave for Menagerie? Maybe something happened while you were gone?"

Blake just stared past him, and for a moment, Jaune isn't sure he's even going to get an answer.

Then, "I left…"

He leaned in, she didn't bother to look at him. "I left because my past caught up to me."

Jaune remembered the White Fang troops pouring into Beacon. Had someone from her past been there? Did she have to kill them? What did the cat eared woman have to do to get past her days in the group?

"I tried to fight him off, but… I was too distracted, and he was too focused on making me suffer. He promised to make everyone I care about suffer."

Jaune's eyes widened. Oh.

"He's the reason Yang is missing an arm, but I'm the reason she's not dead."

Maybe it's the whole… missing arm thing she's mad about. He couldn't help but think.

"Does she know about that?"

No response.

Well, that answers that. He couldn't help but feel annoyed.

"And then what?"

"I made sure she was okay. I didn't want them getting caught up."

"I know Ruby and my team have been trekking through Mistral for the last 6ish months now, Yang didn't come with us… she wouldn't say why. Ruby didn't say much about it either."

Jaune paused, thinking to himself what Yang had been going through for the last several months, what she had been doing.

They had been out of any sort of personal contact for the entire time, knowing that the letters they had sent out might not even reach their recipient with the speed they were delivered and how much people moved around Remnant.

Their scrolls didn't work after a certain distance either, given the CCT tower at Beacon went down, crippling all long-distance communication across the whole of Remnant.

As his mind worked backwards, a strange thought began to take shape. He didn't remember seeing Blake for 90% of the conflict at Beacon… granted he'd not seen Yang either, with his… personal focus, but he was sure something had happened.

He racked his brain, trying to think of any reason that Yang and Blake might fight. The two members of team RWBY who seemed to never fight. Then, realizing the last time she'd been in a conflict with a team member like this, it dawned on him.

"You disappeared, didn't you? Like that time at Beacon?"

Blake lowered her eyes to the floor, all the confirmation he really needed.

"You know what... you shouldn't have disappeared… After everyone was hurting, when people NEEDED someone to rely on, someone to lean on…. You left!"

Still nothing from the dark-haired vixen. He didn't know if it was because he was on the right track, or she was considering decking him.

He figured he didn't have much else to lose. "You went off and did your own thing, I know I hate every moment thinking I could have done more."

Blake glared at him. "Jaune, I'm just going to say this once. Shut UP."

Jaune glared back at her, not really giving an inch. "I could have done something, anything to bring her back…. I was totally helpless, but you had a CHOICE. It's my cross to bear for my inaction, but everyone lost something that day. Some people lost more than others… and you walked away when your team needed you most."

As he was speaking, he found the courage to walk to his sword, and Blake, almost robotically, walked out to the edge of balcony.

At some point in Jaune's speech, he had stopped chewing out Blake for something he had little evidence to support, changing it to a self-depreciative tirade.

Calling out her actions morphed to his helplessness to stop the one person who fostered the good in his life from being quite literally destroyed.

His back to Blake, sword in hand, something in his words took him back to that night, where everything that could have gone wrong… did.


The first thing to hit him was panic, before the reality of the situation overrode this sensation, and somehow made him more confused and sickened. He knew where he was. The place he couldn't seem to escape, no matter how hard he tried.

Beacon was falling, the light it once housed was doused in flames, giving it a paradoxically bright light that only served to amplify the horror around him. So many lives had been lost in a single night.

Again, he found himself staring into an ocean of green to distract from the chaos around him. Seeing returned in the normally calm and cool orbs, a sense of determination and regretful fear.

The look in Pyrrha's eyes, was what told him something was horribly wrong. These eyes, which had looked at him so many times, encouraging him, helping him become a better man, a better person, a downright competent fighter and tactician.

This paragon of hope that forced him to see the good in himself, was now telling him to get somewhere safe and hide.

This drastic shift not only made him too scared to move but also sad. There was nothing he wanted to do less when Pyrrha was afraid than not stand with her, to do whatever little he could to help her through it.

She must have seen this stubbornness, because she only uttered two words that would haunt him forever. "I'm sorry.."

With this simple apology still at the forefront of his mind, he was forced to the present, where a warm sensation hit his lips.

At first the effect stunned him, opening his eyes to the stark reality that Pyrrha Nikos, the perfect warrior, the woman anyone would love to be or be with, had feelings for him.

He had only just settled into this idea, a smile forming at his lips despite the chaos all around him, when he felt his armor move on its own, propelled by a force he had only experienced a few times as the direct recipient, Polarity. Her Semblance.

It tugged at his armor, pulling him into Pyrrha's Rocket Locker, before he let out a startled cry as the door slammed shut.

This he knew, was going to be the last time he ever saw Pyrrha before… before…. The thing he couldn't himself come to admit. The thing that only came to pass because he DIDN'T see her coming! All her teachings of foresight for nothing when it really counted… Damn it!

His frustration mounted at the futility of the situation. When he felt the rockets ignite, his first instinct was to smash his fists against the door in an effort he knew was futile. His time being locked into these metal canisters by his tormentor, Cardin, too many times had taught him that much.

This thought didn't stop him from trying, against everything his mind was telling him, as he was propelled away from The Invincible Girl. He tried to keep her in his line of sight as long as possible.

Her eyes were covered by her hand, clearly not wishing to trick him, and his heartstrings felt like they were being severed. She was barely visible before she ran to the stone clock tower. Then he couldn't see her anymore.

He felt the numbness hit him like a truck. He couldn't believe it. He was completely helpless to do anything to help her. In the one moment she really needed someone by her side.

He came back to the moment as he hit his head back on the locker, The locker was changing direction, descending rapidly away from Pyrrha, from his greatest failure as a leader and a friend.

Everything went black.


Reality crashed back on him like a rocket locker hitting pavement head first, his face a picture of tension and torment, the memories bleeding away slowly, leaving him in a semi-paralyzed state, barely able to walk away, his expression hidden from the sullen cat eared woman, who he could feel glaring daggers into his neck.

Probably an appropriate reaction, knowing he wasn't nearly so innocent as he wanted to think.

Shaking his head, he opened the glass door of the balcony, and secured his gear to his hip, before walking through and shutting it again.

He refused to look back. He slipped into his room, and collapsed, sword and sheath in hand.

Blake listened to the sound of Jaune retreating from the balcony, her secondary, faunus ears hearing his movement at length, until she heard the harsh slam of his bedroom closing, having already turned her back on him herself.

She knew she had been gone, but she also knew her team could take care of themselves. Yang's own sister had proven that much on the battlefield well enough, and she shouldn't even have to THINK about Yang handling herself, given she was easily the most physically strong member of their former team. Around Beacon her physical prowess was a matter of school legend.

She herself was nicknamed a ninja at Beacon. This was also relatively accurate, given her penchant for silence, coupled with her speed and her semblance allowing her to quite literally appear to vanish. The only person who presented even a shadow of a challenge for anyone, including herself, in her mind was Adam.

The man was a force to be reckoned with, especially when he came prepared. The sociopathic splinter group leader of the White Fang had trained with her for years, making him cold and efficient. They knew each other's moves like they knew each of their scars, intimately.

She wished she'd left the group lauding itself as the faunus rights movement earlier, had she not been so consumed by her need to fight she might have noticed his thirst for blood sooner. Maybe she could have done something about it…

Shaking her head, she figured she couldn't change the past, but should shape a better future. There was no point in mourning her past failures. It wouldn't do anything but make it harder to learn from them.

She looked out to the beautiful city that lay before her. The lights twinkling as people moved beneath them, the military groups that had swarmed the school no longer visible.

How could she atone for something she didn't understand? Her encounter with Yang made it clear that they weren't friends, not anymore. She figured she probably needed to earn that right back after leaving them at Beacon.

She let a single tear fall, deciding she had to do something to remind them why she had been a part of their team. They would know her commitment to her team. Till then, she might as well enjoy the beautiful night.

End of Chapter 2

A/N: So, a short chapter this time, but it's necessary, as the next few chapters get really into the building of the main story, and really start to move things along. It's one of those stories with a bit more of a slow burn start. Also of note, I now have a Beta reading and helping me improve my writing. We're currently working on the next chapter.

Chapters will hopefully be more consistent now, trying to balance stuff IRL with writing at the moment, so we'll see how far we get.

Say Hi Jiu-Jitsu Dude

JJD: Hey guys and gals! Looks like we've got another story going, and wouldn't you know it, it's got puns, angst, and violence. So, basically my drugs of choice. Excited to have you on board and to be working with Splice!

Updates from here will hopefully be bi-weekly, but whose really to say?