It's been said that at the height of their military supremacy, the Roman Empire took no longer than eight weeks to fully train a legionnaire. Eight weeks to ensure a fighter was capable of following orders, taking care of his equipment and most importantly reaping the lives of their enemies.
"SHIT! JAS STOP! WAIT! TIME OUT!"
Of course, the empire was training soldiers not heroes. And that distinction was important. While Caesar probably would have liked to consider his legionnaires great heroes -
"MY ARM DOESN'T BEND THAT WAY JAS!"
I sincerely doubt he would look fondly on the boy who wielded a bastardized version of his sword.
How does a place with no Roman Empire even have a sword named Crocea Mors in it? I wondered as Jaunes limp body whipped past, slamming into the lone tree standing in the Arc family yard.
The little hellcat that Jaune insisted was his little sister despite the glaring differences in their strength had not been gentle in her ministrations. In the weeks since his first spar, she had grown more and more willing to brutalize her beloved older brother. It was hard to tell if she was subconsciously compensating for Jaunes steadily growing mastery of reinforcement, or if the increasing brutality was the impetus for said improvement.
Kind of a chicken or egg scenario really.
"Nope. I'm done. No more Jas." Gasped the blonde teen. To his credit - something I rarely alot him, certainly not verbally at leaat - Jaune had improved this past month. He typically did managed to land a few blows on his sister before the end of any given spar, even if those blows were glancing at best and pathetic at worst.
"Aw come on, you've got at least one more go in you don't you?" I needled the lazy brat from my position just behind his sister. It wasn't a threat or anything, I wouldn't attack Jaune's sister even if I could. But I'd come to find that the blonde idiot was better able to control his tendency to address me directly if there was an obvious reminder of how insane that must look in his field of view.
I could also just stop taunting him, but since I apparently wasn't allowed to cook anything I was going to get revenge on my aggressor and indulge my second favorite hobby.
Efficiency at its finest.
'I hate you so much right now.' Jaune whined across our mental link while his sister skipped - skipped! - over to his prone form.
"Another?" Jasmine asked, not at all out of breath or even really all that tired looking. She could have been asking if her dog wanted to play fetch for all the gravitas the question had.
"No I uh, need to lay down." Jaune pleaded, his excuse poorly thought out and easily ignored by his sister who pulled him to his feet before slamming her foot down on the edge of his shield. The polished white armament flipped into the air and was quickly snatched up by the tiny girl, who reverently placed it back in Jaunes hands. The message was clear. Defend yourself.
Jasmine it seemed, had taken it into her head that Jaune must have found a way to unlock his own aura. It would be amusing if it wasn't so painful to watch.
Jaune groaned, narrowly spinning out of the way of a haphazard charge from the diminutive titan that was training him. I could vaguely sense the drain on his circuits as he reinforced his muscles for just the brief moment required to block her follow up. Jaune wasn't quite up to snuff on reinforcement yet, but his repeated beatings had necessitated his creation of a somewhat novel usage of the skill. While he could move at full speed while maintaining his defensive skin reinforcement, the added complexity of improving his muscles had him right back down to his old plodding pace.
"Keep it on or don't use it at all you idiot!" I called after him, only halfheartedly trying to break him of the bad habit before it became too ingrained. I was only too aware of what kind of damage that could do. I mean really, I'd spent the first half of my life using my own nervous system to move Prana. That's about as insane and stupid as it gets.
I rolled my eyes, licked a finger and marked a tally on my imaginary scoreboard when Jasmine managed to slip under Jaunes guard to land a vicious blow on the side of his knee. If he had been reinforcing the force would merely forced him to lean on a different leg. Since he'd only flicked the spell on and then off again in order to block however...
The blond teens entire body spun as though in the spin cycle of a washing machine, his lower half come out from under him. It was all the beleaguered kid could do to shift his weight so the resultant face plant didn't break his neck.
Even Jasmine seemed to wince at that, unflinching as she typically was in her abuse.
"Please. Please god - no more." Jaune's muffled voice begged from the ground.
A calculating look flickered across Jasmines face. It was a small thing, and something she made a point of hiding from her older brother.
Not so much from his invisible friend.
Much against my will, something about the scheming countenance left me feeling - well not protective, since the girl was hardly going to murder the older brother that she clearly valued above all else - but something akin to it.
Jaune was constantly prattling on about how no one treated Jasmine her own age, claiming her genius had spoiled her chances at a childhood. But moments like this, moments where I could practically see the cogs clicking together in her head while she decided the maximum amount of punishment the kid could take and still recover, left me feeling quite the opposite. The smart, socially conscious child Jasmine was with everyone but Jaune wasn't the mask. The cutesy, slightly air headed demeanor she wore around Jaune was. It was harmless enough - and clearly for his benefit, given how he seemed to love having someone relying on him - but it was always just a tad disconcerting.
I had experience with sweet looking girls secretly being scheming demons too.
"Mmkay. Are we ordering dinner again?" Jasmine finally acquiesced, the dopey mask sliding back onto her face the minute Jaune rolled over onto his back.
"Y-yeah." Jaune said, turning his head to the side and spitting out a wad of blood. Jasmine eyed it critically, and for good reason. From what casual conversation had led me to believe, people with aura just didn't suffer damage that way. They experienced the pain of injury, but no actual wound most of the time.
My third rate excuse for a Master on the other hand, wasn't using aura. Every blow he took resulted in bruises and muscle damage that a small, pragmatic part of me knew would result in just the right amount of nerve damage. Enough to make it easier to tough out pain anyway, which was a skill I foresaw Jaune getting a lot of use out of.
Of course, for someone with no knowledge of Magecraft, the punishment Jaune could take probably seemed borderline impossible for someone with no aura. Again I could see the mildest hint of Jasmines real intelligence shining past her mask, as she filed the gob of blood away for later consideration. She was ready starting to develop suspicions. Which meant I was going to have to pay even more attention to her. Annoying.
'Thanks for all the advice you lazy bastard' Jaune thought at me sarcastically. That was rich coming from Jaune. About the only thing Jaune did put any effort into was Magecraft, and even then he only did it because he clearly thought he could substitute practice in other areas for more Magecraft. Pushups? Exercise? Healthy eating? These things were not for Jaune, who seemed to think that magical powers were the short cut to becoming a Hero instead of the absurd amount of physical conditioning and practice I'd found his sister doing when I followed her to school.
"Bianca's nearly home." I supplied instead of taking personal offense. "Honestly Jaune I feel like a babysitter sometimes."
'Oh man your right, what would I do without you.' He snarled back.
I just smiled at him. What indeed.
-ooo-
I ached in places I didn't realize existed. Jasmine was a sweet girl but it seemed she didn't know her own strength. It was clear to me that she still had a long way to go before she became a professional Huntsman. Honestly, I wondered how she hadn't been accidentally shattering objects left and right the way she threw her aura enhanced strength around. The more I thought about it the more I had to agree with the unspoken rule that people with aura not interact with the public too much. We were like little glass dolls to them. One wrong move and an even slightly capable Huntsman could kill someone.
Thank god I had reinforcement.
"You know your bet with your sister comes due in a few days." Archer piped up from behind me. Ever since I had acquired my ill gotten lexicon of magical knowledge he had been curious quiet on the topic of my training and practice. With regards to Magecraft anyway. He was as vocal and annoying as ever with my physical training.
"Yeah..." I mumbled quietly, the deep breaths required to speak more loudly or engage in a longer conversation coming with too much pain for me to commit any more than that single word. I was going to need to see a doctor soon. There were parts of me rattling around that absolutely should not ever be described with the word 'rattle'. I could only hope the the fabled healing abilities of aura would be enough to patch all the bruising and... probably fractures... up. Naturally that meant that if I wanted to go to sleep without guzzling pain killers any time in the next month I was going to need to actually win my bet with Bianca.
Thinking of sleep made me unconsciously tilt my head so I could catch Archer in my field of view. Our partnership was... strange. I could admit to a tentative sort of like for the guy - he was charismatic in his douchiness if nothing else. But something about him was always just a bit off. I probably wouldn't have noticed except for the dreams.
The terrible, damnable dreams.
I could barely remember them when I woke, but they plagued me. They were infrequent at best, almost guaranteed in the event that I allowed Archer to possess me. But they were so perfectly horrid, such stark examples of the lengths people could and would go to in order to achieve their goals, that I found myself having nightmares about the recollections for days after one. I'd never admit it, but I was more than a little afraid to let Archer possess me. At this point I was really just making up excuses not to let him use my kitchen. I wondered if I should talk to him about it but it seemed... awkward.
Like I said, I couldn't always remember the details of those dreams. But the Archer in them felt... harsher. More militant. More willing to use phrases like 'necessary sacrifice' or 'acceptable collateral damage'. It was an Archer that was at once more and less 'real' then the man who'd been my constant companion over the last several weeks of training.
And it was making it increasingly hard to trust him.
Shaking my head free of the morbid thoughts running through it, I finally opened the door to my bedroom and disappeared into it. Archer didn't follow me in. He wasn't averse to going into my bedroom - he even explained that when I wasn't awake he would poke about my belongings freely. But he was adamant that I get into the habit of securing my 'workshop' against outside intruders, and wanted me to become accustomed to trusting no one around my burgeoning enterprise of Magecraft.
In so much as my meager attempts at it counted anyway.
I shucked off my shoes and pulled off my damp sweatshirt, taking care only to sheathe the refurbished Corcea Mors and lay it gently on my bed. I really couldn't tell you if the thing living in that sword was aware of its surroundings when it wasn't active, but assuming it could seemed better for my self preservation than anything else. With a tired sigh I returned to the project I'd been working on for the last month. Falling down into my desk chair, I pulled out the top drawer of my table and withdrew the three dust crystals I had painstakingly been carving magical formulae into. I probably didn't need to be so gentle, but quite frankly I had no idea what the guaranteed effects of some of my modifications would do. None of the knowledge I had was practical in nature. It was like being told the chemical composition of milk and then being told to make butter. In a sense the two things were related, but only in that both things had the word milk in them. So I was being very careful with what I was doing.
Basing my work on Archer's assurance that someone, somewhere, had managed to store extra Prana in gems was an important first step for me. I had what Archer loosely described as 'A pathetic amount of Prana' available to me at any given moment in time. My one saving grace being the positively ludicrous speed at which said Prana was returned to me. While that worked for me in the short term, I had dreams. Dreams of decimating fields of Grimm with commets of burning energy from the safety of my wizard tower.
Hey I didn't say they were realistic dreams, but if I could achieve even one tenth of the power I imagined - then that would be enough. And the first step towards that goal was having more Prana available to me. It... wasn't working out all that well.
I frowned, rubbing at my temples as I stared at the three dust crystals on my desktop. One fire (from the stove), one light (from the storage room), and one Ice (from the freezer). If any of my family noticed that a few lights and appliances weren't working they weren't being overly vocal about it - though I suppose that's probably because they didn't really use them in the first place.
I had found success in my quest for power storage fairly early. With some effort the hastily constructed formula I had first scratched into the fire stone - one designed to fortify whatever it was on, like a long term variety of reinforcement - had been more than a little successful. When I had used structural grasp on the little red stone, the amount of Prana I determined it could hold had nearly tripled, and it's energy output had increased to something closer to a weapons grade dust crystal than the heater for a stove.
Unfortunately that was the limit of my success. To be sure, the light and ice crystals had shown a similar increase in output - one strobing me blind and then blowing the light it powered, and the other freezing every object under its influence solid in mere seconds - but that was it. My successes had ended within the first three days of experimentation. Nothing I tried after that had allowed me to actually store Prana in the dust crystals. I could put Prana into them, which resulted in a vast strengthening of the stones effects - but that was it. The second I turned away from one of them the Prana inside it would wash away like sand at the beach, completely invalidating the exercise.
Worse still, Archer had nearly no advise to give me on the subject. It seemed this 'friend' of his that I was trying to emulate wasn't exactly open with their secrets. Selfish bastard.
With a murmured prayer that today I made it work, I pushed forward with my research. Fairly quickly I found myself blinking away the blurriness in my vision. A side effect of sleeping only a few hours each night. As was my habit when the dizziness started to come on I paused in my prodding of the gems on the table, retracted my Prana, and waited for the moment to pass.
Archer wasn't very descriptive of how Jewelcraft worked but he was pretty specific about how some of the results could be... explosive.
Deep breathing was the only sound in the room while I tried to wrangle my waning focus. I felt my eyes, bloodshot and dry from the detailed work I had been doing, slowly drift shut. Just for a moment. I wasn't going to sleep I was just -
"Are you even listening to me third rate?!"
I started suddenly, my head whipping around and my heart hammering in my chest.
The sun had traveled almost completely across the sky by now, and I had to fight down the anger I felt at how much time was wasted during that impromptu nap.
Magus? What a joke. I was barely conscious.
Sending another prayer skyward I hastily returned to my work. After all - I already knew what I wanted to do was possible. Archer had as much as confirmed it. And if it could be done -
I was going to do it.
-ooo-
"I just don't get why we can't give Jaune a chance!" I complained. It was an effort of considerable will that allowed me to keep most of my animosity out of the statement.
"Jas you -" Bianca started from her position at the dinner table, a distracted look on her face as she prodded her pizza with distaste. The fact that my favourite toppings were Bianca's least favourite was not a coincidence. Not that Jaune would ever notice such a detail.
"No! Don't use my nickname just because you think it can diminish my argument." I snapped. I hated this. Hated that this was the most I could do for my older brother, who finally seemed to be getting what he wanted out of life. Hated that I was shuttled into Huntsman training before I was old enough to think about it. Hated that Jaune was somehow too 'fragile' and 'special' to be allowed to follow his own dreams.
Hated my family in general really.
Bianca pursed her lips and put down the pizza she had been trying to force herself to eat. The minor inconvenience was satisfying in the extreme.
"Nobodies even home anymore! At least if he gets his license we can get him on one of our sisters teams!" I contested hotly before taking a bite of the meattarian I held.
"I mean honestly, when I go to Beacon are you just going to retire so you can always make sure someone is watching him? Hes a grown man Bee!" The nickname, I thought, was a nice touch. Me and Jaune used to call her that all the time growing up. Before she'd turned into such a colossal bitch at least.
The fact that Jaune never used it anymore didn't escape anyone's notice.
"You don't understand what your talking about!" Bianca snapped finally, her temper overpowering the facade of calm she used to conceal her frustrations.
Oh?
"Oh? So there's a reason forthcoming then?" I didn't bother walking back my vocabulary or acting dumber than I was. Only Jaune really believed it. There was something decidedly strange about lying to the only person in the family I actuay cared about. But the simpler times were somehow just... better. More familial. The rest of our sisters were practically Atlesian Military for how dedicated they were to the chain of command. Do what mom says. In her absence do what Bianca says. Etc down the chain.
"Your too young to - " Bianca started, settling down somewhat.
"Don't." I warned, with a roll of my eyes. Seriously, the age thing only comes up when I start to disagree with someone.
"Jaune is... special." Bianca tried again.
"Uselessly vague." I interjected. Bianca looked like she was going to try again then faltered. I clicked my tongue against my teeth in irritation when a second floor door opened and Jaune's lumbering gait started its way down the stairs.
Bianca's mouth clacked audibly shut, leaving the both of us staring across the table at each other in cold silence.
Jaune eventually wandered into the room like a zombie, stumbling over to the pizza box on the table and haphazardly dredging a slice away that lost nearly half its cheese to gravity before it made it to his mouth.
Mentally taking stock of the situation I shrunk into my seat and turned my eyes upwards to him.
'If you had just stayed in your room a little longer I might have actually gotten somewhere you stupid brother you' was what I thought.
"Heya Jauney! You okay? You look sick." Was what I actually said.
Oh well. I had two more days to help and then it was up to him. I just hoped he could do it.
Maybe then Bianca would stop being such a -
-ooo-
"Think you can actually do it?" Archer asked for the tenth time in the last thirty minutes. I had stopped answering after the third but he'd just kept asking like he thought I'd have a better answer than 'I don't know' if given a few more minutes to think on it.
"Well she probably won't kill you at least." The faithful servant of the bow mused. It would have been insulting save for the fact that he was clearly using Jasmine as a baseline, and then assuming Bianca - who was both an adult and fully trained - must be orders of magnitude stronger. Truthfully, I think he was just curious to see a full Huntsman at work. He insisted that there was no reality where a Servant could ever possibly lose to a Huntsman, but I had doubts. You could really only be so powerful before you stopped counting as a human and tripped over into 'force of nature' territory.
Then again, when I'd pointed that out to Archer he'd just smiled smugly at me like I was spot on.
"Definitely not." I answered him dryly. "But you know if you really want to test yourself against her you could..." I tried, holding the desperation out of my voice.
To this day I'll never be able to tell if Archer could actually tell when I was hiding my desperation - or if he just assumed I was so pathetic as to always be hiding desperation. The jerk.
"Nope. That's all you kid. Even besides the reasons I've already given for not helping, using a Heroic Spirit to win a bet with your sister is just plain petty." Archer retorted, quickly shutting down my suggestion. Again.
"Probably just afraid you'd lose." I grumbled, taking pleasure in the slight expression of pique that crossed Archers face at the words.
The conversation dried up at about the same time as I finished all my pre-battle preparations. I hadn't done much sparring with Jas over the last few days, instead using the time to recover. My progress with Jewelcraft was still effectively nil, and my reinforcement was so so by this point. I could keep my skin reinforced to the maximum I could manage with little effort now, but muscles were proving to be a sticking point. About half the time I could get it right - actually I could technically reinforce my muscles and move at top speed. The problem is that stronger muscles means higher speeds - so even though I could move at one hundred percent of my normal speed, I couldn't really take advantage of the speed boost from reinforcing myself.
I just had to hope what I could manage was enough.
Strapping Crocea Mors to my side I stretched one last time. This was it. This was my moment to prove myself. To force my family to accept my wishes.
A tentative look out my bedroom window, and onto the fields behind the house curbed my enthusiasm some. Bianca was there, waiting with weapon in hand. Looking straight at me. Steely blue eyes picking me out across the distance with clinical detachment.
I gulped unconsciously and quickly ducked away from the window so I could hyperventilate.
Today may or may not also be the day I die.
"Okay. Be calm Jaune. It's like dad always says. All you need is confidence." I told myself.
"Has that ever actually worked for you?" Archer asked curiously.
I didn't answer - which itself was kind of an answer I guess. Instead I continued to take quick shallow breaths until I had calmed down again. Final panic attack done, I stood and strode down the stairs to meet my fate.
Jasmine wasn't home - Bianca having seen fit to send her on some errands to make sure she didn't have to watch the slaughter. As such the house was quiet as a grave on my way through it.
"You..." Bianca said somewhat contritely when I came to a stop across the yard from her and drew my sword.
I just shrugged in response, hand tightening on the handle of Crocea Mors. I knew what the unspoken sentiment was. Bianca thought I would have chickened out by now. Truth is, I still might have if not for the looming threat of a magical murder war hanging over my head. As it was, I needed my aura unlocked just for the added safety net it would provide me.
And somehow I really doubted just coming out and telling the truth would net me anything more than a trip to the psych ward at the hospital.
"So..." I said nervously, taking a stance. I think it was a stance anyway. It was equal parts 'shit I saw on tv' and 'advice from Jas and Archer'. For a complete beginner it was just the best place to start. We didn't exactly have ancient kungfu manuals laying around the house.
With a tired sigh, Bianca hefted her weapon, a travel suitcase sized box with an unwieldy dog sized axe blade welded to the bottom. The sides of the metal case were lined with barrels of varying shapes and sizes, just waiting for Bianca to engage the thing and start plugging rounds of ammunition into her target.
"Jaune, what do you think is going to happen here?" My sister said with a tired sigh.
"Life's not a movie or a game. A month of sit ups and the power of friendship aren't enough to save you out there." She punctuated her statement by flinging her free hand outward, gesturing in the direction of the wall surrounding Vale.
"This isn't a test, and you're not the hero. I'm not going to hold back or slowly increase my power just so you can feel like maybe there's hope. False hope is just going to get you an early grave."
I locked eyes with my sister, taking a deep breath and then hardening my expression. Bianca's gaze was less mad and more searching now, like she was trying to find a sign - any sign at all - that I understood what she was trying to convey.
When she didn't find it, she moved. Roaring across the ground between us, propelled on a jet of something expelled by Cantankerous Thing. It was only because of that brief second of warning that I was able to reinforce my skin and muscles before the blow landed.
With sickening certainty I felt something shift in my left shoulder, the strike from Bianca happening too fast for me to deflect its force by angling my shield. Instead the attack - which was clearly intended to hit me in the temple - hit my shield dead center. Thanks only to my reinforcement, I was able to shift onto my back foot and avoid being launched through the air. Pushing through the pain - oh so much pain - and fighting back tears, I allowed my shield arm to drop and lashed out with Crocea Mors.
The attack was too slow, and with almost casual ease Bianca slapped the blade away. She was strong. Not just 'has an aura' strong. I got the impression that even now she was holding back, despite the sheer amount of force behind her blows being enough to send me to the hospital if even one landed.
Which was the point I guess.
Bianca pushed off with her right foot, coming to a stop only a few feet away and activating something in her weapon that rotated one of the many gun barrels on it into place. Aimed directly at me. Then she paused, blinking in confusion at the fist she originally attacked me with. I watch stoically, enduring the god awful pain of trying to keep my shield arm up when I was pretty sure not all my bones were in the right place. When Bianca looked back at me there was a fury in her eyes that I had never seen there before. Fury... and disappointment.
"You have your aura." she said coldly, a subtle clicking noise the only thing warning me that the flamethrower in Cantankerous Thing had been started up. I blanched.
"No I - " I tried, not wanting to get burned alive because my sister thought she was going to have to 'break my aura' to win this fight.
"Don't lie!" Bianca howled at me. I could see where she was coming from. For lack of any knowledge about Magecraft there was really only one scenario where her first strike hadn't flattened me against the nearest surface - and that scenario included my aura being unlocked.
"Really! Its not -" I stopped speaking and jumped to the side, feeling a scorching heat pass by in the location I had just been in. I didn't wait to find out what the follow up was going to be. I just aimed myself at the tree line and sprinted for it, my reinforced muscles making the action more of series of long jumps than actual running.
I just about made it into the tree line before there was an ominous *thunk* behind me, followed by what sounded like a tree exploding.
'Archer!' I wailed internally.
'Duck!' came his mental response. I didn't just duck I dove, holding in a grunt of god awful pain when whatever was wrong with my shoulder impacted the ground. A high pitched screech whistled by overhead and another tree ahead of me turned into sawdust.
'Move Jaune!' He continued, and for once I was thankful for the immaterial assholes prompt replies. I jammed my sword into the ground to leaver myself up and was off again, making a slow circle through the woodland that would take me around and back towards Bianca even as every tree I passed was turned into an adhoc fragmentation grenade.
'You can take over anytime! She might really kill me!' I cried to the servant of the bow, just as there was a lull in the bombardment. The sudden stop to the hostilities left me wary and I turned only barely in time to see the black sole of Bianca's boot slam into my chest.
My ribs creaked audibly, and I think I blacked out for a second, because when next I opened my eyes I was laying on the ground limbs splayed out around me. I tried to breath but found it so painful that I actually couldn't. A single glance down told me why. There was a visible indentation in my rib cage where Bianca's foot had landed. Each labored, struggling breath caused the bones to shift and prod at my lungs. Bianca exploded into view only a few moments later and I wondered how far she had kicked me. I thought when she stopped next to me that I was going to get kicked in the head. Knocked out to end the fight, or worse - killed by the great axe blade on Cantankerous Thing if Bianca still thought I had aura. Instead my head rolled back as warm hands grasped at me, gently pulling me upright.
I was barely conscious at this point, and was dimly aware of Archer demanding I tag him in somewhere in the background of my thoughts, but I was tired and in so much pain. My ribs. My lungs. My shoulder. All the myriad aches and pains of my month of training. They were all catching up with me now. Not to mention the sleep deprivation.
"Jaune I - I thought -" I could vaguely hear someone saying. It was all background noise, and belatedly I realized why. I wasn't actually breathing anymore. There was no oxygen traveling to my brain, and my vision was rapidly growing dark.
"Jaune. Jaune!"
Ah geese. I don't think I've made one of my sisters cry since I was five and got glue in Olivia's hair. At least, I think it was crying. There was definitely something wet landing on my face. I hoped it wasn't blood. That'd be kind of gross.
"For it is through love, that we achieve immortality - "
Oh. A poem. That was nice. Maybe they'll put in on my headstone. Jas would like that. She always liked -
-ooo-
I started awake to the sound of machines beeping and groaned. Holy shit I wasn't dead. That was both amazing and freaking terrifying. My family was going to chain me up and bolt me to the floor in the kitchen. This went way beyond my usual dumb assery. This was -
"How are you kiddo?" a familiar male voice asked from off to my left. When I managed to turn my head - something I'm not ashamed to say took a minute or so of effort - my dad was there, watching me with a sad but reassuring smile on his face. He had plain brown hair, completely unlike the easily dyed and bleached blonde that mom had passed on to almost all her children. His face was haggard, and looked in need of a shave. In a nutshell, he didn't look great.
I tried to answer him but the only noise that came out of me was a god awful gurgle and I become immediately aware of all the medical equipment presently attached to me. Specifically, the tube very uncomfortably situated in my esophagus doing the hard work of expanding and contracting my lungs for me. It was... scary. Horrifying really. The beeping of the heart monitor picked up its pace and I began to weakly struggle and paw at the tube in my throat.
"Hang on kiddo I got it." My dad said soothingly, his hands reaching up to tug free the medical tubing sticking out of me. The second it slid past my lips and I took a deep heaving breath of stale air that reeked of disinfectant. It was the most beautiful thing I'd had ever tasted, and I lapped it up, my breaths coming more and more easily as I calmed down and really shook off the sleepy lethargy I had been feeling.
"Where... wheres Bee?" I asked with some hesitation. I didn't really know how to face my sister right now. Obviously I didn't really want to deal with any of the overprotective harpies at this, my moment of weakness, but in particular I didn't know how to face Bianca. Whenever I tried to think of her the gentle but strict older sister I remember wasn't there anymore. Instead, my minds eye could only see that cold fury that had radiated from her when she thought I'd secretly had my aura unlocked.
"She stayed home." my father - Nicholas Arc - said flatly. There was no inflection to his voice. Just a bleak statement of fact that sent a pang of worry through my gut.
"It - it wasn't her fault. She thought I had my aura so she -" I quickly rose to defend her.
"Shouldn't have agreed to that silly bet in the first place. She's a trained Hunstman. Your a civilian." he said vehemently. Then sighed and allowed his face to fall into his hands. "Or you were anyway." he groaned.
"Wuh?" I said, truly proving once and for all that I am most certainly not an idiot.
"Bianca realized what she'd done when she all but killed you with one kick." my dad explained.
"She had to awaken your aura just so you'd live long enough to get medical help." He raised his head and gave me the long suffering look of someone with too many unruly children. Then he darted a glance to the corner of the room, where a travel bag and Crocea Mors sat, strange additions to the room that I couldn't believe I had missed before this.
"The doctors say you should be fine by tomorrow. Aura's a hell of a drug." Nicholas joked weakly. "You're mother and I have decided that we can't leave you alone with no training like this anymore." he continued.
Wait what? Seriously? All I had to do was nearly die for one of them to finally see the light and decide that I belonged at Beacon learning to be a Huntsman just like -
"But you won't be going to Beacon." My dad said, shattering my train of thought.
"In the first place, you don't have the necessary background to apply - and your mother and I are only going to teach you to defend yourself. Make no mistake Jaune, we will not be rewarding you for this. You will not be a Hunstman." my father ground out through gritted teeth.
"There's a bullhead in town waiting to take us to my camp in the morning. I think it's best you not see your sisters for a while." The finality of the statement, the cold steely resolve in his eyes, told me everything I needed to know about my chances of appealing my sentence. A part of me felt like he was right. Like I had fucked up so hard that I didn't have a leg to stand on anymore.
But the greater part of me wanted to spit and rave at the injustice of it all. None of this would have happened if they'd just let me be a Huntsman in the first place. I was a Magus god dammit. I was... was...
Not going to take this shit.
"I... see." I said, making sure to keep the sad, pathetic, kicked puppy look on my face.
"I guess... I guess I'll see you in the morning dad." I whinged, slowly levering myself back down onto the hospital bed and rolling over like I wanted to go back to sleep.
"...Yeah. Look, Jaune, you know we just want whats best for you right? That we love you?" Nicholas said, his tone softening even as he seemed to struggle for the touchy feely words that were so foreign to him.
"Yeah dad. Love you." I said, bitterly choking back tears.
I wasn't going to see my dad in the morning. I wasn't even going to be here in the morning. I was going to wait fifteen minutes for him to leave the hospital, reinforce myself, and walk directly to the train station.
Because I. Was going. To Beacon.
-ooo-
In a dimly lit bar, far away in the much more densely populated city of Vale, two people sat. One - a dapper fellow with bright orange hair, a bowler hat, and a white jacket and neckerchief he insisted was 'in style'. The other a diminutive woman, her hair dyed pink on one side and brown on the other. The woman with the two tone hair watched on in boredom as her friend and employer negotiated something with the woman at the bar next to him, idly brushing dust from the cuff of her jacket. She did not immediately determine the sudden pause in his conversation to be of particular note, until he hurriedly yanked one glove off with a yelp of pain to stair at what could only be a tattoo on the back of his hand.
She wondered why he was only just now showing her this, and more importantly, why the other woman at the bar - a tall raven haired woman ghostly pale skinned, seemed so absolutely smug about it.
She also wondered, why her ice cream float had not arrived yet.
One of these worries was somewhat more important than the other, but it was only with time that this truth would become apparent.
She and her partner had been forced to wear the insignia of their employers before after all. She was sure it was nothing to be bothered over.
So with that were done the sort of prologue that sets up the parts of RWBY and Fate that are connected somewhat, and the next chapter should start with more or less the beginning of the actual series.
I hope none of you were too surprised at Jaunes loss. He's better right now than he was in canon upon arriving at Beacon but he's still the same slacker moron that never bothered to practice with a weapon at all before deciding to go to Beacon.
I also feel its important to highlight the differences between aura and reinforcement. Aura just straight up negates incoming damage. The characters in RWBY regularly apply lethal force to each other with the assumption that Aura will make sure they don't become murderers. Reinforcement doesn't work that way at all - and I have to assume that reinforcing yourself up to about the durability of your average car probably isn't that much of a leg up over characters that routinely punch mechs apart like paper mache. Now the combination of Reinforcement and Aura on the other hand...
To answer a question about why Jaune wished the Grimm on the canon Fate universe - remember, he basically just had the fifth grail war to go on, which included such timeless classics as 'Blood Fort Andromeda melting human beings alive for mana'
Obviously if he could see daily life there he wouldn't be so sure that they all deserved it, but truthfully most of the fourth grail war was one contiguous war crime by the moral standards of any sane person.
Oh, and thanks for reading.