It took a lot longer than fifteen minutes to pull myself together. Structural Grasp being what it is I was easily capable of examining my current physical state - something I very pointedly hadn't being doing any more than was necessary during my training. It wasn't so much that I refused to acknowledge the damage being bludgeoned half to death multiple times a day did. It was more that I knew that it was something I had to do, and so saw no need to scare myself skimming a damage read out that was just going to read as 'your screwed get help'.
Now was different. I had to leave, and now was the only chance I was going to get at it - but as long as I was in a hospital, I might as well see about 'borrowing' some supplies for some self treatment while I was on route to Vale.
And wow did I need treatment. My lungs were okay, as evidenced by the fact that no one tried to stop me from pulling out the breathing tube, but my rib cage was pretty much just being held together by scar tissue and prayers. My shoulder was little better, the joint deformed by the force of the blow that had dislocated it. Thankfully, I had Aura now. Sweet easy to use Aura. Even as I kept watch on my own vitals I could detect my bones reshaping, and tissue knitting itself back together. Dad was right - I'd be okay to move by the morning, even if I wasn't fully healed. That would probably take a week or two. Even then, the process was only so slow because my Aura was apparently bogged down by all the injuries I had apparently suffered during training.
Having taken all that into consideration, I quickly reinforced myself, not bothering to push my circuits to their limit for the exercise. I just needed to be stable enough to move. I wasn't planning on doing any fighting.
Making sure no one else was in the room or the hallway outside, I got up from bed, pulling out the needle connecting me to the I.V drip as I did so.
'Archer?' I queried, even while I locked the door and stumbled over to the travel bag my father had packed for me for a change of clothes.
'Your father is on his way home. Your mother is already there yelling at your sisters.' Archers distracted reply came back.
'Your at the house?' I wondered. I wonder if I could pretend my semblance is my invisible friend. That'd probably help me avoid looking completely bonkers. Then again, if Aura is a reflection of the soul then it'd still be pretty damning.
Yeah, probably better just to hide it.
'The roof of the hospital actually. I'd prefer to stay close to you right now.' Archer corrected me.
What? But the house was so far on the outskirts of town it barely counted as in Ansel at all. How was - not important. Focus.
I shook my head to clear the confusion, shelving all other thoughts. Vale. That was what mattered. As soon as I was finished dressing myself, I clipped Crocea Mors to my hip and slung the backpack over my shoulder.
'Im ready. I need to st... borrow some medical stuff. Play lookout?' I asked Archer. As soon as I said it he appeared in the room with me, poking his head out the door and then leaning back in with a nod to confirm it was clear. It was weird. He was being... oddly helpful. No, that wasn't it. Archer for all his faults was almost always helpful. This was... more cold. More militaristic.
With a start I realized it was more like the Archer I had come to know of in my dreams.
And I really wasn't sure how I felt about that.
Quickly pulling the door open, it was the work of twenty minutes to locate a medicine cabinet with some aura boosters in it. Archer ranged ahead of me, steering me around other people where he could, or helping me hide when he couldn't. Some structural analysis and a quick burst of prana to blow the lock was all it took to get me in and out in record time.
I felt pretty bad about stealing from the hospital but... well I didn't really have a choice now did I? It was...
I paused. I was thinking 'it was necessary' but the thought felt oddly dissonant. Like some deep rooted part of me rejected the concept out of hand. That'd been happening to me a lot recently. Hunches and moments of intuition that felt both alien and relevant all at once. Things I would never normally consider. On the one hand it was a little scary, like I wasn't one hundred percent myself anymore. On the other, the hunches were rarely wrong, and that went a ways to helping me accept it. For now anyway.
'Lets go.' I ordered, and just like that, we escaped the Hospital. The first thing I did after hitting the street was withdraw every lien I had left to my name. I wasn't stupid. I had nowhere to stay in Vale, and more importantly, I wasn't going to be able to get back home to pick up my research. I was going to need materials if I wanted to keep plugging away at Jewelcraft. And all those purchases would be easy as heck to track if I made them with a card. It wasn't a lot after a month of take out, but it was a respectable enough bundle of cash I had stuffed into my backpack when Archer spoke up.
"Whats the plan Jaune." He said, head whipping back and forth, scanning the area for threats.
"What do you care? I thought you wanted me to stay home and learn to be a wizard." I said sarcastically. Archers gaze snapped to me instantly, a disapproving look on his face.
"I know you don't exactly think the world of me but as your servant its my job to keep you safe. Not even being able to materialize when I want to is... infuriating." Archer said, sniffing indignantly and returning to his staring contest with our surroundings.
"Tell me about it." I snorted. It was kind of cute in a way, that he was feeling so protective all of a sudden. This is probably what having an older brother must feel like.
And if that's not the weirdest thought I've ever entertained then I don't know what is.
"Were headed for the train station. If we hurry we can time it so we get the last one into town for the night." I explained.
It is to my great satisfaction, that Archer actually did a double take at that. Not because I planned to catch the train - since it was pretty much the only way into Vale without trekking through an uninhabited stretch of land that - while probably safe, definitely wouldn't have been fun. No, what surprised Archer I could tell, was the fact that I had actually thought through the implications of catching the last train out of town. That it had occurred to me to ensure my family couldn't follow me - at least not right away.
Oh yeah. That was an expression I was going to remember for the rest of my life.
-ooo-
"Archeeeeer." Jaune groaned for the hundredth time while I watched the scenery zip by outside the train. I tried - and failed - to ignore the unpleasant stench wafting from him and had to resist the urge to look out the side of the train to see if the kid had managed to leave a streak of his lunch splattered across the outside of it.
"Jaaaaunnne." I faux whined back at him, voice placid and unbothered. He tried to glare at me in that way he does when he thinks that he has the moral high ground - which is laughable at best really. I am many things but easily cowed by teenager throwing a tantrum was not one of them.
In an ideal world I would probably have been all over this train trying to look for other threats - secure in the knowledge that my Master could call me to his side at a moments notice with a command seal. Barring that, as the Servant of the Bow I was very rarely too far away from something to take part in the battle. There were two things keeping my trapped in Jaune's acrid smelling cabin.
One, a disturbing number of people on this train were carrying weapons. I had thought it strange that the person Jaune bought his ticket from didn't make an issue of the sword he was clearly carrying, but now I could see why. Nearly every third compartment on this train contained someone who was strapped and ready to battle. Worse, I had no idea how many of them were actually trained, and how many were just carrying weapons because of how ubiquitous the tendency seemed to be. It was like the wild west here, where it was stranger to be unarmed than armed, and it made me just nervous enough to be unwilling to separate from my Master.
Two - I was not summoned properly. I was always aware of that fact, but at no point was that more poignant to me than Jaune's impromptu ass whooping only the day before. Privately I had to admit to myself that I had grown... complacent, watching Jaune train and live his life. This world - Remnant - just seemed so uncomplicated. So devoid of the pressures I was accustomed to being immediately forced to handle immediately after my summoning. I had been here for over a month without encountering a single other person capable of Magecraft, let alone another Servant or Master.
Yesterday had been a wake up call though. I was in a severely weakened state. If there was a grail, I wasn't connected to it - it was completely absent of its usual ability to assist in sustaining a Servant, which meant I was entirely dependent on Jaune for my continued existence. I couldn't materialize, which meant that the Archer classes Independent Action was, at best, just a way to minimize the cost of my presence while not possessing my Master.
And worse than any of that, I was a ranged fighter who would never be able to respond at range. I was always going to be forced into melee by the simple fact that I had to possess and drag my squishy, stupid, weak Master into melee combat just to have a presence on the battlefield.
So while I was certainly pleased to be on - for lack of a better word - vacation from my usual motivations and goals, I was understandably stressed by my predicament. I doubted I could go toe to toe with another servant right now if I wanted to, even assuming Jaune was at maximum capacity and willing to let me get into that kind of fight with his body.
Ah who am I kidding? He'd let me do it just because he has no frame of reference for what a battle between Servants was like. His sister was dangerous certainly, but not much more so than a trained Clocktower enforcer.
Speaking of dumb blondes...
"I don't understand how anyone can be this motion sick." I pointed out in response to Jaune's unspoken complaint that there was no Magecraft I knew that could help him. I mean, I knew essentially three spells. Had I perfected them until they were essentially an art form? Yes. Was I the type of heretic magus who had pushed my craft to the point of borderline sorcery? Yes.
Did I have a way to cure motion sickness? Absolutely not.
"This sucks." Jaune groused between ragged breaths and dry heaves. "I blame my parents for this!" he rapidly added before shoving his head back out the window, apparently having found deep reserves to draw from in order to continue his ordeal.
Bizarrely I had to kind of agree with him. Jaune's family wasn't just overprotective, they were borderline insane in their devotion to his protection. The fact that he'd never been on any kind of vehicle prior to this made that abundantly clear. The problem was, they didn't seem malicious about it, and they didn't come across as crazy in anything else they did. In fact they all genuinely seemed to love and care for him. Which begged the question; why? They seemed like they had a reason for their caution, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what. There wasn't really anything about Jaune I found all that 'special'. Well, there was the fact that his prana seemed to restore itself faster than seemed humanly possibly, but try as I might I couldn't find any particular reason for that. It was just something he did.
The train ground to a halt what I guess was maybe half way from the city, and the honed senses of the Archer class allowed me to easily identify the sounds of passengers getting on and off the locomotive. Jaune immediately slumped in his seat, taking the brief respite for what it was and letting his head fall back onto the seat behind him. His scroll - this worlds equivalent to a cell phone - was on the next to him, and his feet were propped up on the seat across from him. I sat in the fourth and final seat, nearest the door.
I watched his scroll pensively as Jaune's breathing evened out, noting idly that the possibility existed for other people to at least attempt to come into the cabin for seating. The thing had started to buzz about once every few minutes the second the sun had risen. I didn't doubt that it was his family trying to get ahold of him.
"You should throw that thing away. They might be able to track you with it." I suggested, prompting Jaune to open one eye and glare at me.
"I need my scroll for identification purposes." he said.
"Get a new one. Find a forger. I really can't advise keeping this one Master." I sniped, knowing the formal title made Jaune uncomfortable enough to stop and actually pull his head out of his ass long enough to consider the advice instead of dismissing it out of hand.
I'm sure the argument would have gone on for a while except that that was the moment the two presences outside in the hallway chose to pause in front of the door to our cabin. Eyes narrowing I stood, vanishing from Jaune's sight.
"Incoming." I snapped as I disappeared from view. Jaune immediately shifted so his hand fell on Crocea Mors but otherwise made no move to sit up. I was never quite sure of the mechanics of a Servants spectral form. Under normal circumstances I'd have two states of being, solid or not. If I wasn't solid I should be invisible, and vice versa. What I was no though was... different. In many ways Jaune's joking assertions that I was his imaginary friend weren't that far off from the truth - I now had three states of being, visible, invisible, and possessing Jaune.
The door slid open revealing two people, dressed in the outlandish and somewhat bizarre way that Jaune had told me Hunstmen tended towards. Objectively I understood that Hunstmen were supposed to be eccentric and lively in order to act as reassuring symbols against the Grimm - but that didn't stop the fact that they all apparently dressed like a cosplay store had vomited on them from bothering me.
Still, these two were at least somewhat more... subtle... than some of the others I'd seen on the train. There was a man and a woman, both appearing to be about Jaune's age, which made sense if his youngest sister was already well on her way to being a professional herself. The man had fire engine red hair, and was dressed in black slacks, and a black jacket embroidered with red patterns at its base and the hems of its sleeves. He also had horns, which made my eyebrows raise - not just because of how strange the sight was, but because apparently no one else found that odd.
The girl was another story entirely, black tights and a white shirt topped with a lacy black vest that did approximately nothing practical. I mean, it didn't even have buttons or fabric past her navel, it just... stopped, creating a white clothed window around her chest area. My mind immediately started making comparisons with Rider, and was assisted by her lithe runners build and long flowing hair. The cat ears were a bit...
...cat ears?
I felt my eye twitch even in spectral form, and knew if I had a body I'd be experiencing the beginnings of a head ache. I tilted my head and quickly analyzed both people, and their weapons - a katana for the man and... what my spell was telling me was referred to as a 'Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe' for the girl. The word salad aspect of the weapons name was something I immediately filed away to ask Jaune about later though - because my analysis had also provided me with a very stark outline of what those two weapons had been up to lately.
Namely, a lot of wanton murder.
'Jaune, get up.' I warned quickly.
"Mrrg?" He said jerking awake. The two new occupants of the cabin turned to him, no doubt assuming their presence was what had startled him. Which was technically true - but only because one of them was apparently a serial killer.
"Sorry to disturb you. Were getting off at the next stop." The girl said politely, if somewhat coldly. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of vomit that suffused the cabin, and it didn't escape my notice that Jaune's outburst had sent the mans hand darting towards the handle of his sword. His companion darted a glare at him that stayed his hand and I felt a sinking feeling in my gut.
These were not good people.
'Jaune! Get. Up.' I commanded once more. The blonde sat up, shaking his head and immediately regretting it as the train lurched forward into motion.
'Reinforce yourself and jump out the window before the train gets up to speed.' I ordered, willing to accept the loss of his travel bag and supplies if we were able to get away from the present predicament. Unfortunately Jaune was having none of it, squinting with a disgruntled look at the two new passengers.
'I'm not going to jump out of the window Archer. They're just Hunstmen. Leave it alone.' he said tiredly.
'Jaune they're -'
"Faunus. Cool." Jaune noted out loud, immediately glancing over both new arrivals and then stupidly choosing to check out the girl in more detail.
My Master was going to die because of hormones. My god what have I ever done to deserve this. Was I ever this stupid in my teenage years?
Hm. Actually, I guess I was actually sort of dumber when I think about it.
The horned man didn't respond well to Jaune's utterance. In fact, he seemed almost to take offense to it.
"Is there a problem with that?" he asked, his hand twitching once more towards his sword. This time the girl didn't immediately move to stop him, apparently too intent on Jaune's answer to notice.
"Nah, I've just never met a Faunus before. So do you like, have two ear canals?" My loveable, oblivious, stupid Master asked, gesturing languidly at the raven haired girl who blinked adorably at the question. The man however seemed none to enthused by the innocent utterance, and stood up sharply just as the last vestiges of civilization pass out of sight and the train once more descended into the wilderness.
'Yes. Now get the hell off the god damn train.' I screeched in his metaphysical ear. He ignored me of course.
The man gave Jaune a measured look, as though trying to determine if he was a bug worth squashing, but then snorted and turned towards the door.
"Come my darling, there's work to be done." he said, gently sliding the door open and stepping back out into the hallway. The girl darted a conflicted look at Jaune before rising to follow him, quickly disappearing from sight when the door closed.
'See? No problem Archer.' Jaune noted smugly.
'Oh yes Master. No problem at all. Now the serial killers will be no problem to us at all.' I replied sardonically. I immediately froze. That was the wrong choice of words and I knew it. Didn't just know it - felt it, deep in the core of my being. Because I already knew at least one other idiot for whom those words were as good as casus belli.
Jaune immediately froze, looking around the compartment uncertainly, no doubt to try and spot me to gauge my face.
No.
Slowly he looked down at his hand, still resting easily on Crocea Mors, then stood up, wobbling slightly as he did so.
No No No -
"Come on Archer." he ordered with some effort. There was a steely determination in his eyes that was both familiar and disgusting to me.
No NO NO NO!
-ooo-
I was just going to follow them for a bit. That was all. I wasn't going to attack them - because they hand't done anything yet, and because I was still pretty messed up from my fight with Bianca.
Also I was scared shitless of dying.
Yep. Just keeping an eye on them. Just... just going to make sure everything's okay.
That's what I kept telling myself, even as my feet started to pound and I picked up speed. Aura and Magecraft together sped me forward, my eyes darting left and right as I periodically stopped to look for the compartment the cute girl and the creepy guy had disappeared into.
Shit, did I just think of her as a cute girl? The cute serial killer. Wait no. Just a serial killer. There - fixed it. No muss no fuss.
'Archer?' I question, expecting fully for him to understand the unspoken request to scout ahead and being surprised when he neither answered nor appeared at my side.
'Archer buddy, I really need you with me on this.' I tried again. This time he answered, though not happily.
'This is stupid. You're stupid. Your dead on your feet. And don't try to tell me your not - you can barely move your so motion sick.' Archer chastised me. He wasn't wrong really, I did feel like shit. But I didn't really have anything else in me to vomit up either, and the momentary adrenaline from knowing I'd been seconds away from being murdered in a cabin that smelled like vomit was keeping me stable - for now.
'Maybe next time tell me about the serial killers before I start to chat with them then!' I urged, skidding to a halt when I made it to the back of the train car I was on with no sign of the my quarry. Frowning I nudged the rear door of the car open, revealing the ground outside as it sped past, and a glimpse of the two Faunus I was chasing through the window into the storage car across from me.
I peered uncertainly down at the small jump to the next car, unwilling to let it go but also well. Scared out of my freaking mind. I was not cut out for this.
Yet. I wasn't cut out for this yet. I had to keep that in mind or I wasn't going to be getting very far in my quest for independence.
'Switch.' Archer finally said, apparently accepting that I wasn't just going to go back to my cabin and sleep this off. I hesitated for only a moment. Sure I didn't really love the after effects of Archer driving my body, but it was hard to argue with his efficiency, and I one hundred percent was not going to be able to take on a trained fighter let alone two.
Prana gushed forth, and suddenly I was in the back seat again. It was curiously different than normal. In so far as being possessed by an other worldly spirit can be considered normal. There was a... a power there that I wasn't used to. Similar to, but distinct from my Prana.
"Trace, On." Archer muttered, his hand falling from Crocea Mors and instead pulling Kanshou and Bakuya - the twin falchions - from thing air. I tried to focus on how he'd done it, how the Prana had moved to produce the effect. It was an effort in... not quite futility. I could tell what he'd done. It was like casting Structural Grasp in reverse, but instead of learning everything about your subject you sort of inflicted it on reality around you. Yeah, inflict sounded like the right choice of words. Like Tracing was a scar on existence, a black eye to god.
But even with all that, I really doubted I could copy the feat. It was a level of minute control over Prana that - if I already had - would mean I'd have no issue reinforcing myself to the maximum. Which was ofcourse, the second thing Archer did - amping my body up to levels of durability and strength that put my own reinforcement to shame.
Faster than a bullet we were moving, almost heedless of the intervening distance and the door stopping us from passing into the next carriage. We arrived in the middle of an absolute crap fest.
There were robot parts strewn and twitching all about the storage compartment, sparks dancing in the otherwise dim room. Containers of dust lay spilled over the ground, and I winced at how much the the contents of just this one cab must be worth. The door on the far side of the cab was open, whipping back and forth in the wind, and just on the other side of it, on a trailer exposed to the air and positively covered in crates and supplies - were the two Faunus.
Archer strode forward but paused at the door, stepping to the side to examine the situation and remain out of sight. Voices filtered back to me, voices I wouldn't have been able to hear without Archer reinforcing our ears. Something I would have to keep in mind for later - you can reinforce senses.
"...innocent people on this train Adam!" a feminine voice yelled over the screaming winds.
"There are no innocent humans Blake. Just ignorant ones." another voice said, brooding and angry, like a storm on the horizon.
From the cover of the doorway, I watched as both Faunus drew their weapons, pacing around each other.
"It has to be done Blake. The White Fang needs this dust, and the rest of the train blowing up is an excellent diversion." The man said coldly, his stance lowering.
"No its not!" exclaimed the cat eared girl. "We can just cut the supply carriages from the rest of the train! No one has to get hurt!"
The man didn't answer, his grip merely firming on his sword.
'That's an Iai - a quick draw stance from the... well I don't know if 'east' is accurate for you but close enough.' Archer explained, seemingly no more perturbed by the knowledge that the train was going to be blown up than I would by the knowledge that it was going to rain soon.
'So? What are we waiting for?' I urged, accepting the observation without comment.
'We could just cut the car their on.' Archer suggested.
'Yeah but we don't know if they've already planted to bombs or not. The girl might be willing to help if we bail her out here.' I forwarded. Archer didn't quite answer, but the vague, almost elemental presence always their in the back of my mind that I recognized as 'him' shifted slightly, a sure sign that he acknowledged my point but refused to say so.
Then we were moving again, appearing behind the katana wielding man at a speed I wouldn't otherwise have considered safe for myself to move while on a moving train. The sudden appearance looked to catch the man off guard, even as Kanshou and Bakuya bit into both of his shoulders, driving him to one knee and eliciting a grunt of pain from him.
"Bombs!" Archer yelled, apparently deeming the girl safe enough to ignore temporarily. I could see her just out of the corner of our vision, hesitantly glancing between us and the man - who's name I took to be Adam from their conversation.
'Why the hell aren't we cutting him?' Archer asked me inwardly.
'Aura! You have to break his if you want to actually hurt him.' I explained. At least I was pretty sure that's how it worked. My sisters were pretty adamant about never directly explaining anything to me that might help me get my shit together, so most of my knowledge on aura was second hand or just plain a guess.
"Get. The god damn. BOMBS!" Archer roared, snapping at the uncertain girl and lifting his foot to lash out with a kick at Adam, who drew his sword and raised it horizontally to block the blow, sending him skidding backwards over the ground.
That seemed to break the spell that had been hovering over the girl.
"I'll come back." she whispered as she passed us, disappearing once more into the passenger cars.
"Let me guess." Drawled the Adam as he stood, a barely restrained fury in his voice that was best described as 'murderous'.
"You saw two Faunus get on the train in your little hick town, and thought we must be doing something suspicious." he growled.
"Well you were so I don't think your making much of a case for yourself there." Archer snarked back, conveniently not explaining to either Adam or me how he'd known something was wrong in the first place. I sort of wished he had. Now this guy was going to think I followed him because I was racist.
Wait. He was a murderer - possibly a mass murderer. Why did I care what he thought?
Adam's lips pressed into a thin line, and both he and Archer charged at each other, meeting in the middle of the deck. Our left arm swept up in an attack intended to bisect but horned man from hip to shoulder, and he danced out of the way, leaning into our guard and jamming the butt of his sword into our gut in a quick motion designed to make space more than injure. Archer responded by hurling Bakuya through the air at him, even as we sailed backwards. The projectile spun past Adam, and curved through the air directly back towards us - and consequently, Adam.
He almost didn't see the attack coming, but at the last moment the whistling of the blade as it flew must have tipped him off because he pitched forward, allowing the black blade to score across his back instead of slamming into his head where it would have done the most damage.
"Aura is bullshit." Archer grumbled under his breath, and I had to agree. The thought tripped something in my mind that had me re-examining my body in abject horror. Aura is a projection of the soul. And my soul wasn't piloting my body right now. Which begged the question - did I even have an Aura while Archer was possessing me? Because I didn't think I did.
A tight ball of fear formed in my metaphysical belly as I suddenly thought of all the ways this could go wrong. Archer, not noticing my inner turmoil stood stoically, watching with a trained eye as Adam once more engaged us in melee.
"Your semblance?" he asked with a hint of disdain in his voice amidst the flurry of blows and counter blows he and Archer were exchanging. When Archer didn't answer he snarled and leapt backwards withdrawing his sword into it's sheathe and dropping into that same low stance he had at the beginning of this mess.
"Let me show you mine." he growled, voice dripping with venom. Something in his tone, something about the way he spoke, must have tipped Archer off - because even before he finished speaking Archer had drop Kanshou and raised on hand towards him as if to ask him to stop.
He didn't though. Instead, at the exact same moment that Adam's blade came free of his scabbard, firing a blazing wave of aura towards us, a massive drain on my circuits occurred - enough so to nearly leave me completely dry.
"Rhos Aias!" Archer bellowed accompanying the drain, and to both Adams - and my - surprise, a huge formation of energy appeared in front of us, its red hue momentarily colouring the entire world ahead of us and distorting my vision of Adam's strike - which promptly broke upon the seven petaled flower of sheer, beautiful prana.
My elation at the ungodly scale of the Magecraft was broken pretty much immediately unfortunately, by the sure knowledge that I was going to die anyway. After all, we were running on fumes, but Adam could probably still muster the energy to fight normally.
'Jaune.' Archer warned me, as though I wasn't already aware of the situation. He stood just as stoically as before though, acting for all the world as though nothing and no one was going to remove him from his spot on the train. Adam glared at us, but made no move to charge forward, clearly wary of anything else we might be able to do.
"Ah. So that's your semblance." Adam mused, seemingly much more calm than he had been mere moments ago.
"Tell me, what's a Huntsman of your caliber doing here?" he asked, drumming his fingers along the hilt of his blade.
'Well that's a loaded question if I've ever heard one.' Archer noted.
'Yeah well. Can we stall him and recover a bit?' I asked hopefully.
'Not a chance. Just being in your body is enough to out do your natural regeneration rate. Its all down hill from here.' my servant informed me morosely.
Crap. We needed something, anything. An edge that would get us through this so we could pull back and recover. Frantically I scoured my mind for options but came up dry. And then my thoughts fell to that something, that other force that I had felt at the beginning of all this. The energy that had never been there when Archer had previously possessed me. That had never been there - before I had my aura.
An idea - a crazy, stupid idea - sprung to mind, and carefully I asked;
'Archer... can circuits channel energy besides prana?'
'Not safely.' He replied instantly, keeping his eyes trained on Adam who seemed content to watch us for the moment.
On the one hand, we weren't actively engaged, which was good. On the other hand, we weren't exactly safe from retaliation right now either. Archer could probably manage one more exchange before my lack of Prana ejected him from me. And there was zero chance of me surviving this guy on my own - even with my aura. Tensing, I tentatively began to urge the energy I was certain was my Aura through my magic circuits. It was slow going at first, like drinking sludge through a straw, but as my Aura began to interact with and mingle with my Prana, my circuits lit up.
As in, literally, lit up. Green lines of power stretched out over my shoulders and forearms, circuits I wasn't even aware I had access to blaring to life and quickly ballooning my flagging reserves of energy to ludicrous proportions. A soft ringing suffused my mind, drowning out all other sound for a few brief moments, like the ringing of a glass cup half full with water. I felt... I felt alive in a way I never had before. I felt like I could take on the whole damn world.
And clearly Archer did too. Because a feral grin spread across his features, one that must have disturbed Adam greatly, because he rocked back as if struck. Quick as a bolt of lightning, there was a drain on my circuits comparable to that which Rhos Aias placed on me, but this time, it wasn't nearly enough to empty the unending ocean of power within me. For every bit my Aura shrunk, my Prana, my Od grew.
And a whole shit ton of that power rushed forth to form a black bow and a jagged malformed arrow of solid steel in Archers hands.
"Hey!" he yelled across the intervening distance to the beleaguered faunus, even as he drew back the mighty bow with a crackle of energy, the arrow in it turning a fluorescent red as power hissed off of it.
"...dodge this."
The arrow - no, the sword that had become an arrow, blasted across the distance towards Adam, the unswerving accuracy of Hrunting, The Hound of the Red Plains bearing it down on its target like a ballistic missile. To my absolute horror, Adam somehow managed to bring his sword up to block the arrow. My terror only eased when the mere force of the block attempt was enough to send the horned faunus careening off the edge of the train a small dust cloud forming in the distance as his aura tried - and failed - to protect him for broken phantasm.
Hrunting? Broken Phantasm? I literally didn't know those words ten minutes ago. Why did I feel so at home with them now?
All such thoughts fled me, as Archer relinquished his hold on my body and a wave of fatigue crashed into me. Worse still, the minute Archer was no longer a part of me my circuits began to reject the flow of my aura, jettisoning it back into me with a sickening feeling of wrongness the sent me to the floor in a painful heap.
I lay there for a few minutes twisting and writhing uncomfortably before finally settling down, painfully aware that I had to get back to my cabin before we reached the next stop. There was no way I was going to get caught up in a police investigation. They'd detain me, which would necessitate calling my parents. And that I had no doubt, would be a shit show.
I never did see that girl - Blake - come back. Maybe that's because she ran away, and maybe that's because I hobbled back to my cabin, and she forgot me in the aftermath. Either way, I was happy to be done with the whole ordeal - even if I really didn't like the needle full of aura boosting chemicals it forced me to use after the fact.
World ending magical war? Fine. Run away from home? Fine. Three inch long needle? Pass.
Man, I could not wait to get to Vale so life could calm down some.
Hopefully anyway.
-ooo-
I think its worth noting that if Archer seems less driven or goal oriented here - its because he doesn't really have a reason to be here. If you assume all he wants out of a grail war is to kill shirou, then being on remnant makes that impossible even if you assume there is a grail to be won. After all, the grail might grant wishes, but I sincerely doubt the power it grants would be enough to beat out the Counter Force and allow EMIYA to break his contract with it. If it could, then Archer would have actually tried to win one of the many versions of the Fuyuki War he was summoned too.
Which is another thing. Theoretically, Archer would never be summoned to any warexcept the 5th grail war. He's not worshipped, and only by dint of the catalyst that saved shirous life is he allowed to be sumoned. He's literally a nobody outside the confines of that war. Being summoned somewhere else is probably extremely jarring for him, and I tried to address that slightly here by pointing out that - to him - this whole remnant thing is pretty much a vacation.
I'm trying to find a balance between Archer being helpful and staying hands off with Jaune, for two reasons - one, purely narratively, I don't want to just replace Jaune with Archer, even if the unique nature of his summoning provides for some bleed over. two, Archer comes from a world that follows a masquerade. Hide magic from the public yadda yadda. Rule of thumb in the Fate universe is to outright murder and civies that see magecraft at work to keep the clocktower off your back. Its a pretty hard habit to break, and since Archer rightly assumes that bringing a servant to an entirely trivial situation is useless overkill, he just wont be bothered to intervene in things like school spars or fights that are relatively safe for Jaune.
Finally, there is a valid reason for Jaune's family being so shitty, but it'd be a pretty boring story if I just up an explained it now wouldn't it?
Oh and as always, thanks for reading.
