I've had a lot of time to think about how I'm gonna do this so hopefully that counts for something. Enjoy.
Jac slowly awoke to the familiar smell of blood and fire, looking around he frowned at his surroundings. He laid in a bed completely nude, against the wall was a roaring fireplace which provided the only light in the room as there were no windows. Looking down he found that his wounds were gone thought a massive scar now marred his chest. Looking around once more he noticed some of his clothes laid out on the nightstand next to the table.
Grabbing them he frowned, only his under garments and pants were present. Quickly putting them on he began a search for his weapon only to come up empty handed. "Damn." He cursed under his breath before finally turning to the door, he'd rather not exit meet whoever owned this place unarmed but he didn't seem to have a choice. Walking over to the door he quickly pulled it open and found himself in a long hallway. "Where the hell am I?" He whispered to himself as he began making his way down the hallway sticking to the shadows cast through the windows by the moonlight as he moved.
Soon he came upon another door, quietly opening it he peeked inside. Along the walls were over a dozen beds each with a child sleeping in it, raising an eyebrow he silently closed the door again before continuing down the hallway. Finally at the end he found a staircase that lead down and swiftly moved down it until he was on the ground floor and stood in what looked like a lobby of some kind, another fire place burning against the wall, this time however someone sat before it in a wooden rocking chair. Jac narrowed his eyes at the small wooden table next to the figure who he, judging by body type, figured was a woman. On the table lay his blade, his empty sheath, hat, undershirt, and most importantly his necklace with all his badges and trinkets.
"Good hunter, please come join my by the fire." A strikingly familiar voice broke the silence. "The smell of the old blood rolls off you, hiding is pointless between hunters such as us."
Frowning further Jac stepped out of the shadows and towards the figure by the fire, when she finally gained a better view of the woman his mouth fell open. "Doll?"
A giggle came from woman before a shake of the head. "I'm afraid to have me mistaken, I am Maria former hunter of the dream and the first student of Gehrman." Maria gestured to a chair several feet away. "Please sit down Jac." In her hands was his coat which she was currently working on with a needle and thread.
Nodding Jac walked over to the chair and sat. "How do you know my name?" He asked curiously.
"Oh I've known oh you since you left the dream, just as I did the others." She explained as she continued working on his coat.
"Others, like Samson." His practically spat the name.
"Indeed, Samson awoke from the dream about eighteen years ago, though I've never encountered him before, nor have I met the others. Although the odds of anyone stumbling upon this orphanage the way you did are remarkably slim. Doubtlessly this meeting was meant to happen." She explained as she finished patching a tear in the coat and quickly moved to the next of many. "Out of curiosity, how did you end up all the way out here? It wouldn't have anything to do with that torched White Fang camp about twelve miles east of here would it?"
"You knew about them?" Jac asked.
"Of course, I'm a hunter with twenty two children to protect. Once you showed up I made it a point to retrace your steps to insure you weren't follow, as well as to investigate what put a hunter like you in such a state. Luckily for me with how much blood you were loosing you practically painted a twelve mile red line." She let out a soft laugh.
"I was on a scouting mission." Jac sighed before he began massaging his temples.
"Ah scouting, that explains the massive cloud of smoke, charred corpses, and Vale military ships arriving on the scene." The sarcasm was practically dripping from her tongue.
Jac could only glare. "It was meant to be a scouting mission, but part way through I noticed a pair of young girls being held hostage. I decided to go off mission and infiltrate with the purpose of rescuing them. It all went pretty well to be honest until I ran into who I assume was the camps commander. I managed to get the girls out before having to engage him in combat. One thing lead to another and I ended up against the entire camp, so I decided to take out as many as I could by blowing up a barrel of booze setting several dozen men on fire." He explained.
"And that giant cut that was threatening to spill your organ out?" She asked never looking up from his coat.
"The commander used some kind of special attack, managed to break through my blood blades, aura, and hardened blood." He answered looking down at the scar now across his chest.
The two remained silent for nearly a minute after, the only noise in the room was the cracking of the wood in the fire place. "What is your goal Jac?"
"Huh?" Jac raised and eyebrow to the question.
"In the dream you goal was the same as all others, slay the next enemy until you could escape. In that you obviously succeeded. Now here, in the waking world, what is your goal?" Maria looked up from the stitching.
Jac didn't answer as he thought over the past few weeks he'd spent at Beacon with team RWBY. Working for Ozpin, fighting grimm, learning of the Court. Then his mind specifically drifted to a pair one silver eyes. "I don't know really, but in the short time I've been awake... I've met people, friends."
Maria nodded. "I see, a hunter without a path is a dangerous thing, but looking at you I can see you've found something to keep you on the proper course." Looking back down to her stitching Maria grinned darkly. "But to survive that course, I suspect you will need to grow stronger. Much stronger."
Beacon
Yang stood in the doorway of her teams dorm room, she silently watch he little sister who laid under her covers curled up in a ball. She'd been that way all day. "Hey firecracker." The blonde looked to the familiar voice of her uncle. "How is she?" She'd run into him that morning and had been shocked to learn that he'd been on the mission with Jac.
Yang shook her head. "She's not taking it well, and she doesn't want to talk to me either."
"Why not?" He asked pulling out his flask.
Yang sighed heavily. "On the field trip to the Forever Fall yesterday I got into an argument with her over Jac. I noticed that she was getting a little to... fond of him and told her she might want to put some distance between herself and him. I was just trying to look out for her, but we started fighting when I said I thought he was a bit wrong in the head. She was still mad when we went to bed, then we heard what happened from Ozpin."
Qrow hummed to himself before patting the blondes shoulder and turning to leave. "Leave her be for a little while, let her process it."
Looking back to the lump of blankets that was her sister Yang nodded with a frown.
One week later
Jac panted heavily from where he knelt on the ground, Maria stood several yards away not even having broken a sweat. In one hand she gripped her sword, in the other was the small dagger that could attach to the base of the swords handle. Sitting on her waist was her pistol. "To tired to continue? We've only been sparring for three hours." Maria smirked at the boy on his knees.
"Cocky bitch." Jac growled as he forced himself to his feet, gripping his one remaining sword tightly he dropped into a ready stance.
"That's better." Maria smiled. "Now you have until sun down to land a proper strike on me, if you don't you will be doing all the dishes yourself."
Without responding Jac cut himself and extended his blade before charging.
Beacon
Ruby sat quietly watching as Dr. Oobleck sped back and forth around the classroom, she wasn't paying much attention, instead she simply doodled in her notebook. "Ms. Rose!" She jumped slightly at hearing her name.
"Uh, yes sir?" She looked up to the man at the front of the room.
"Who was the person responsible for the standardizing of the huntsmen's academies across Remnant?" Oobleck asked before taking a sip from his thermos.
"Uuuuh, I don't know." She shrugged.
Oobleck sighed. "Disappointing Ms. Rose, your scores as of late have been dropping. While I have an idea of what might be the cause I'd strongly urge you to not allow it to harm your learning abilities." He spoke with a sympathetic tone, all the professors were aware of Jac's 'death', and each responded to it in their own way. Most didn't react much at all having not known him all to well. Oddly enough of all the teaching staff, aside from Ozpin himself, Glynda had taken it the hardest. After hearing the news she became visibly upset and left the room mumbling about a 'tortured soul'.
"Yes sir I'll try." She nodded with a frown on her face.
"I hope so. Now as I was saying, Alistair of Mistral took inspiration..." She soon tuned the man out again and went back to her doodling. All the while she never noticed her three teammates looking at her with worried faces.
Two weeks later
Jac back flipped away from Maria as she fired several shots at him before lunging into a flurry of strikes with her blood covered blade, Jac parried or dodged each strike with his own blood blade. He had been shocked the first time Maria had attacked him with blood, shock quickly turned to embarrassment when she proceeded to mock him for believing that blood manipulation was his semblance.
She explained that apparently all hunters touched by the old blood could manipulate their blood in such a way, and while she'd been impressed by how he hardened the blood in his body to increase his defense, she quickly proved she was capable of doing the same. Though she had admitted she never considered trying such a thing. After that she began forcing him to focus a large amount of of his effort into training with his aura, mentioning his skill was 'an embarrassment to watch'.
Lunging forward Jac passed through her by activating his old bone and turning to smoke, reforming behind her he slashed down at her back only to be caught off guard when she released an ear splitting beast roar that pushed him back and staggered him briefly. Maria didn't even turn around as she thrust the smaller blade at the base of the handle backwards and into Jac's gut earning a pained gasp, a moment later Maria ripped it out at an angle tearing a large gash in his stomach forcing him to his knees where he held the wound to prevent his innards from falling to the ground. "You're still leaving yourself to open, you must learn to recover quicker." Maria chastised before reaching into her coat and withdrawing a vial of blood connected to a syringe.
Walking over she quickly jammed the needle into Jac's arm and squeezed the blood into him. Shortly after Jac's wounds began mending themselves at an incredible pace, within a minute the normally fatal wound was completely closed. "Stand, we're going again."
One month later
"What are we doing?" Ruby asked her sister as she and her team walked through downtown Vale.
"Getting some fresh air and checking out the festival preparations." Yang answered throwing her arm around her sister. "You haven't left Beacon in weeks so I thought it would do you some good."
"Not to mention some of the students from other kingdoms will begin arriving today and as students of Beacon it is our duty to greet them to Vale." Weiss added with a devious grin on her face.
Ruby smiled a little at that. "You want to spy on the competition don't you?" She giggled. It had been hard coming to terms with Jac's death, so hard she still hadn't managed it completely but she was trying. Her hand moved to the handle of Jac's sword that now hung from her hip next to her baby. She had to make a new sheath for it and she didn't know the first thing about fighting with a sword like it but it provided a bit of comfort having it with her, like Jac was still following behind them carrying their bags and grumbling about it.
"You can't prove that." The heiress pointed earning another giggle.
"Woah, what happened there?" Yang said looking ahead of the group, not far away a dust shop was surrounded by police. "Let's go check it out." With that the four began walking over to the crime scene.
Unknown Location
Samson sighed as he pushed open a pair of large, slightly rotted, wooden doors and entered the decrepit and abandoned looking church. Walking into the chapel he made his way down the aisle which was lined with broken and rotted church pews. Reaching the alter he turned and walked over to the confessional against the wall and quickly grabbed it's side and pulled. With a loud creak it moved revealing a dark staircase leading down, pulling it shut behind him he walked down.
Soon the hunter reach a door at the bottom and knock five times in a specific pattern before pulling it open and entering the torch lit room. The room was larger than one would expect, at least thirty feet in diameter with a large wooden table at the center and another wooden door against the back wall. Sitting around the table were three other individuals, each reeking of the old blood just like him.
Walking up to the table he took one of the five seats before looking to the last remaining vacant seat.
"I thought I'd be the last to show up for sure." He gesture to the empty chair.
"Sigil won't be joining us this time, his business in Vacuo turned out to be more complicated than expected." Another man spoke from across the table, his face obscured by a featureless steel mask with only a pair of eyeholes. Aside from the mask he wore a long grey leather duster with standard grey leather hunter armor underneath
"That crazy bastard is probably the one who made it complicated." This time it was a woman who spoke. She long crimson hair and a top hat on her head, he eyes were hidden behind a pair of pitch black glasses with circular lenses. She wore a formal mens suit with a long jacket.
Samson laughed. "I hate to agree with Vix but I wouldn't put it past that maniac, right Jorn?" Samson nudged the final person at the table, a man wearing black hooded robes that completely obscured his body and face. Said man gave no response to the old hunter. "Alright, so whats the deal, why call us all here Vince?"
The man in the mask leaned back in his chair before reaching into his coat and pulled out a folder and tossed it onto the table. "I recently came across a bit of knowledge that I feel you will all find extremely interesting. Apparently there's been a secret war going on for centuries now between two factions, one of light, one of dark. The two are both in control of great power that could be of great use to our goals, however the two have more or less been in a stale mate for decades." He explained as Samson and Vix looked over the information that had been in the folder.
A large grin forming on Samson's face as he read and listened. "And you think we should stir things up."
Damn it's good to be back, hopefully you guy enjoyed it, I'll definitely not take two years to post another new chapter. This was mainly a set up chapter so look out for the next one. Leave me a review and tell me what you all think. LATER.