One More Chance
Chapter 12 - Mission One
A/N: By the way, if you're interested in seeing early releases for the chapters, then you can go here: 'discord .gg/zhn7zr7' Just remove the space.
Beta(s): Amphion, DeathDrayanD
Jaune sighed as he looked outside the store's window once again.
"I just don't get how you're so calm about this Blake. Like… you're so calm and collected while we're on this mission it's insane!" Jaune raised his hands in the air before sighing and shaking his head, looking at Blake.
Blake rolled her eyes, "It's a simple mission, and it doesn't look like anyone's going to start raiding this store anytime soon."
"But it's nearing closing hours! It's like the perfect time for them to strike." Jaune argued, eyes flicking towards the window again.
"Just shut up and act like a busy customer." Blake muttered, walking away to the side to look at the Dust crystals and weapon ammo.
Jaune just sighed and did as she said, walking over to the magazine aisle and looking for something to read in the mean time.
He hummed to ease his nervousness, this was his first mission after all. He really didn't want to mess it up. Right now he was just following Blake's lead since Arthur told him that she's gone on missions before, though he didn't really explain how or why he knew that.
Huh. Yeah, he never did, did he?
… He'd have to ask him at some point. Right now however, he was just looking for something to calm himself down and ease his nervousness. He thought the best place to do so would have been in the magazine aisle which… unfortunately to him, only had Dust or Huntsman related things—which, while he wasn't averse to learning more about them, he wasn't exactly thrilled at the fact that it was all he could find in this place.
"Man I wish they had X-Ray and Vav here…" Jaune muttered to himself, shaking his head. "Well, guess I can't complain. I do need to learn more about the current Huntsman related stuff at some point…" He then raised his brow as he saw a weapons magazine and smiled. "Bianca did tell me that I'm going to have my weapon reforged soon after all…"
As Jaune's hand moved to pick up the said magazine, another pair of hands, one much smaller than his, moved to pick it up as well, and they both ended up holding each other's hands along with the magazine in question.
Jaune's eyes widened and he blushed at how soft and cool the hand felt, turning his head to face the other person.
His cobalt eyes met those of silver.
They both retrieved their hands immediately and averted their gaze.
"U-uh, I'm sorry!" Both of them said at the same time, before Jaune looked at the girl again who still had her gaze away from him.
He then noticed that she had large headphones on, so, hesitantly, he tapped her shoulder, making her jump for a moment, looking at him with wide eyes.
Jaune smiled apologetically and pointed to his ears. The girl understood the message and removed her earphones, looking down at the ground while scratching the back of her hood.
"Ah… s-sorry." The girl muttered with a chuckle, "I-I didn't mean it—like, it felt so nice but—I mean—!"
Jaune chuckled, scratching the back of his head before smiling at her. Seeing her look at him. "I get it, yeah. Sorry about that, I guess you can have it first if you want…"
"N-no! It's okay! I… I can wait if you'd like, it's fine with me." The girl said, shaking her head at him with an awkward smile.
Jaune frowned, "No, but…" He sighed, shaking his head, "Okay, we're not going to get anywhere with this, so we might as well share the magazine. Besides, I might need some help understanding the things in this book, I'm, uh, rather unfamiliar with a lot of Huntsman-related stuff." He chuckled, "Sorry, it's fine if you don't—"
"No! I mean—urgh, yes, it's fine with me. It's just… aren't we supposed to introduce each other first?"
Jaune blinked, "Oh yeah! Sorry about that." He chuckled, reaching a hand out to her with a grin. "My name's Jaune. Jaune Arc"
"Mine's Ruby. Ruby Rose." Ruby said, shaking his hand. "So you said you're unfamiliar with Huntsman-related stuff? You look like a pretty decent Huntsman-in-training to me."
"Well, I'm flattered, but no, not really. I only got my Aura unlocked just a few months ago so… I'm not really all that exceptional." Jaune shrugged,
"Just a few months ago and you got accepted into Beacon?! How?! It took me years to unlock my Semblance alone, much less get used to Aura!" Ruby asked, looking surprised,
Jaune laughed, scratching the back of his head, "Well, I had my cousin to help me with that so I—"
Suddenly Jaune's eyes narrowed and his body glowed blue before he went behind Ruby and unsheathed Crocea Mors, blocking an attack with his shield.
Jaune looked at the perpetrator of the attack and saw… a lot of odd things.
It was a girl. Definitely, but what stuck out to him the most, other than the odd hair color, was how her eyes had two different colors.
One was brown, and the other was pink.
"Looks like they've met opposition." Bianca muttered as she looked at her scroll, before looking through the scope of the sniper rifle again. "Think you can make it quick?" She asked Arthur through her helmet and he replied with a small sigh.
"You think?" He muttered from inside the compound. "I'm still trying to confirm if I'm in the right compound and you're asking me that question?"
"To be fair, it's not like either of us have many other compounds left to check other than this." Bianca replied, looking at the heat signatures through her rifle.
She was in a nearby apartment from the docks in the industrial area. She was far enough away from the compounds to not be seen, and she was fairly sure that nobody was going to notice her anytime soon.
The reason was simple.
It was because they've used the apartment for a month now, and haven't really done much of anything in it.
Watching Arthur's form through the rifle, she noticed two other heat signatures walking towards him.
"Two coming from your six, watch out."
"Just great… these guys again? I swear I've been playing hide and seek from them for an hour now…" Arthur groaned, making her glad that they got both her and him suits which remove noise from both them and around them. He was a talkative man, after all. "Go non-lethal, he said, it will prove us much better than them, he said…"
"Arthur…" Bianca hissed, and he just shook his head before hiding himself from them again. "And we can't go lethal either. They'll start noticing. You know this already."
"Yeah, I know." Arthur sighed, "It's just so annoying though… I could have been done with this hours ago had we—" suddenly he cut off, and she tensed, watching as he suddenly stopped moving before the two other heat signatures, ones that indicated the White Fang grunts, turned to face him and pointed at him, presumably pulling out their guns. "Jammer, now!"
Before Arthur had even said those words, Bianca had already placed down and activated the ECM Jammer. "Way ahead of you…" She muttered, before holstering the rifle to her back and jumping out of the window, placing small glyphs which propelled her towards where Arthur was.
"This is not going to be non-lethal…" Arthur pointed out.
"Well, we'll try to limit the casualties on our part." Bianca said, before frowning, "Although I'm really worried for how Jaune and Blake will fare in this one…"
"Worry about that later, right now we have a whole army to deal with." Arthur said through the helmet. "Take the back part, don't let anyone out."
"Of course."
Bianca unsheathed Alphenlocken and sped up even further.
Jaune grit his teeth as he used his shield to block the shot from Roman's cane.
There was only one thing on his mind as he did his best to stay upright and endure the pain that was searing through his arm right now.
Where were Arthur and Bianca?
This was pretty much one of the worst case scenarios he had been expecting to happen before, and it was rather annoying how it had to happen now of all times. They were almost done with their mission.
Literally one hour away from just finishing the mission, but no, Roman Torchwick and his goons had to come in, along with whoever that ice cream looking girl was, Neapolitan or something. He didn't know.
But right now he was just doing his best to make sure that nothing else bad happened to the store.
They'd failed the mission already, most of the Dust had been stolen.
But it didn't mean there was nothing left inside there, there was still enough that Jaune was sure that one shot could set off a large explosion enough to wipe out the whole building and everything surrounding it.
He had to make sure that didn't happen.
Even if it meant depleting his Aura and putting himself in danger.
"Jaune!" He heard Ruby shout from behind him and he gasped as suddenly the heat finally disappeared, "Are you okay?!"
He let out a breath before he nearly collapsed, falling to one knee and having to balance himself with his sword. "Y-Yeah…" He muttered, "My Aura, however…"
"I know." Ruby said, moving beside him and helping him up, "Should I…?"
"No, don't follow them." Blake grunted from the inside where the store owner was bandaging her up, "You're not going to achieve much if you do."
Jaune just looked at Blake and hung his head, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Jaune looked up as he heard a voice from behind him. It was Arthur, and he had a smile on his face as he put a hand on Jaune's shoulder, both of them glowing white for a moment. "What you've done here, is bought us enough time that we were able to finish our main mission." Arthur chuckled at him as he patted Jaune's shoulder. "Do you remember what I told you before? When we fought the group of Ursai?"
Jaune blinked, remembering that time. "Ah… right. What we may lose in the battle now, may be gained in the battles later on. I think there was a word for it… it was the opposite of Pyrrhic Victory or something?"
Bianca smiled as she walked to stand beside Arthur, crossing her arms. "A Laevinic defeat."
"What point is there to us going back to the past when we're going to lose everything we have anyways?"
"Are you sure about that? The Magic that the Wizard has brought to us speaks otherwise…"
- Jaune Arc speaking with Weiss Schnee, 2 months after the Fall of Atlas
Next Chapter: April 17 7AM CT
A/N: So, yeah. I'll be moving onto a weekly schedule for now mostly due to how I want to work on more than one story every week. If you're interested in reading some of my other stuff, you can always check out my profile.
Just know that the next story to be updated will be Just One Date, which is basically another White Knight story more focused on the romance/drama and stuff between characters.
Update Schedule starting next week should be:
7* AM CT Sunday: AMAZONZ (Dark Sci-Fi AU)
7* AM CT Wednesday: One More Chance (Time Travel AU Jaune x Weiss)
7* AM CT Tuesday**: Of Knights and Maidens (Slight AU Jaune x Amber)
7* AM CT Saturday: Just One Date (Slice of Life Canon Divergence Jaune x Weiss)
*Note: Can vary from 7 to 12 due to possible delays.
**Every second week (Aka second Tuesday)