POV: Blake
There are some things that only make sense after a great deal of consideration.
Jaune and I weren't strictly 'friends'. We hung out in the same rough friend group. We were... amicable... when we spoke. And I admit there have been times his antics have made me laugh.
But I have never once allowed myself to forget how he looked when he destroyed Adam. Not defeated, not killed - destroyed. Like it wasn't any more troubling then taking out garbage. He was impassive, aloof, and overall apathetic that day. I haven't seen that expression or the great black bow that accompanied it ever since. And truthfully, I was thankful for that.
Because I had enough trouble suppressing the absolute terror he inspired in me as is.
Finding out that he had been captured and tortured by a psychopath named Caster was scary because it implied there existed a much bigger predator than the innocent looking killer that was Jaune. It should have been exactly the incentive I needed to keep my head down and mind my own business. I just wanted to be a huntress and use my skills to help people. Mass murdering serial killers were not my responsibility.
Only Caster was killing faunus and the White Fang was getting blamed for it. So instead of doing the smart thing and staying out of it, I was here. In Ansel. Where it turns out Jaune's Dad was Caster.
And really that pretty much explained everything I needed to know about why Jaune had run away from home to join Beacon. For one I was very aware of the condition they found Jaune in. Any parent that could do that to there own kid was definitely worth escaping.
"Are you done?" A mans exasperated voice called out from behind me. Which was impossible because I had definitely just stabbed him in the neck. Instead of mentally debating the possibility of the movement, I activated my semblance and rolled to the left, leaving behind an image of my self that would remain in motion for a few seconds and cloaking myself from sight.
Now free to act, I whipped around to examine my enemy. Who... had a gaping wound in his neck. Which would have been relieving if he seemed at all worried about it. The few seconds of stunned silence were apparently enough for the shaggy haired man to locate me, because he pointed his sword at the ground by my feet, leaving me only a fraction of a second to leap out of the way before the very earth itself rose up to grasp at my feet.
"Not super chatty huh?" Jaune's father groused, raising a hand to swipe at the wound on his neck and rubbing it off like it was no more dangerous to him than an ink stain. Wherever his hand passed the wound simply ceased to be, and when it he was finally done the hand he had done it with dropped down to his side lazily.
"You know, I'm actually pretty sure that you literally can't kill me." He called towards me, pivoting haphazardly on one foot to face me and causing me to halt in my tracks. I had no idea how had he known where I was. I spent half the time I was fighting him basically invisible because of my semblance, and I had years of practice sneaking about under the White Fang. Whats more, the man didn't seem to have an Aura. If I managed to stab him it just wounded him as though he was a normal person. It just didn't matter because apparently he could ignore fatal wounds long enough to get rid of them. A semblance maybe? Could I take advantage of that? How much damage could he negate before -
"Seriously with this now? Look I'm gonna get back to you on this whole needless fight thing." He said with a roll of his eyes.
The second he turned I knew that was my chance. I hurled Gambol Shroud forward, the chain thrusting past Caster and wrapping around him even as I sprinted forth from my cover. I made it to him in two loping steps, the improved strength and speed of a huntress allowing me to cross the distance in the blink of an eye and lash out with my weapons sheathe. Of the few positive things I had taken away from my increasingly brutal time with Adam, one of them was the tendency to treat the sheath of my weapon like well... a weapon. It was exactly a sword, but it was filed down and sharp enough to cut a soft target in a pinch.
Just before I landed the attack I tugged hard on the chain of Gambol Shroud, pulling Caster off balance and allowing me to cut him horizontally once without any fear of reprisal. This time though, instead of pulling back to let the killing blow do its work, I pressed the attack. I used my semblance to vanish from sight and rolled behind the man, unraveling the chain from around him to reclaim my weapon and positioning it at the base of his spine. The red dust I had used with my semblance caused my doppelganger to explode with a blazing fury, pushing him back towards me and directly onto Gambol Shroud. I changed the angle of the weapon as I pulled it out, severing his spine as it exited, then spun to the side and out of the way of his body as it fell to the ground.
I watched his body carefully as it fell, waiting for any sign that he was going to shrug off the attack. But it never came. He simply fell to the ground limply, like a puppet with its strings cut.
I waited a few moments more, barely resisting the urge to spit on the corpse, then turned away to go to my friends. God knows they would need my help. I made it only a few steps away when someone else stepped into view. The buxom blonde woman who I was led to believe was Jaune's mother walked briskly up to her husbands corpse with a blank look on her face, hefting Weiss unconscious form easily over her shoulder. The heiress and I had - much like Jaune - not been altogether that close. But she was definitely a friend. Which meant there was no way I could leave her with a distraught psychopath who was likely just now realizing her husband was dead.
Juniper stared blankly at her husbands corpse for a few more seconds, before - to my surprise - she nudged his head with her foot. It rolled to the side lifelessly, or so I thought, until I noticed its eyes. It blinked once, the pupils bouncing back and forth like they held a life of their own. I found myself staring into those fathomless eyes. Looking deeper and deeper, never once noticing them stop spinning, locking onto to me with a ravenous light to them.
And then Juniper kicked the dead man's skull with a snort.
"I'm right here dear. This ones dead, you'll have to send up another." She said with a roll of her eyes. Her hand whipped down to her jewel encrusted belt, her thumb caressing one of the crystals in a motion so familiar it almost -
Eyes widening I lunged forward, hand outstretched to fire Gamble Shroud, but was stopped short as a tremendous pressure fell over me. My hand froze along with the rest me, my finger barely grazing the trigger of my weapon. I shuddered with effort, struggling against it, desperately trying to break free. But I simply couldn't. I shook violently against my restraints, but they constricted, tighter and tighter squeezing the breath from my chest.
Juniper gently laid Weiss against the ground, then walked over to stand above me. My vision was growing dark, my mind growing hazy, but I was still conscious enough to hear;
"Honestly. Such ruthless little friends Jaune's made."
And then the last threads of of consciousness escaped my grasp - and I blacked out.
-ooo-
POV: Pyrrha
My blood sang as I advanced, my footwork steady and firm. I took a half step to the right, maintaining my weight on my back foot to offset the force of Rose's weapon as it clashed against my shield. In the split second before the two objects broke contact, I flicked my shield arm outward whipping the blunt weighted end of the chain she had thrown at me to the side and forcing my opponent to twist into a spinning maneuver to maintain control of it.
The exchange finished, I tool another steady step forward.
This was it. The feeling I had chased all the way to the top of the tournament circuit. The thrill of combat at the highest level. The pure unadulterated passion two fighters could place behind their actions. It would be so easy to prolong this. To make it last as long as I could. To savor the simple sensation of iron meeting flesh in one more death defying exchange of strikes.
I took another step forward, using the delay caused by my previous deflection to swap my spear into its rifle form. My stance changed, and I brought my shield into the center of my body, resting my firearm on it and shooting quick targeted blasts at Jaune's sister.
It wasn't what I wanted to do. It wasn't the sheer bloody minded slug out that I wanted to engage in, that I always wanted to engage in, but it was what I knew would win me the day with minimal damage to my aura. Because as always, I had people relying on me to do so. To be responsible.
Rose only took a one or two rounds of ammunition against her Aura before catching on to my tactics. It wasn't the first time she had done so and adjusted accordingly, the manic grin on her face growing wider with each passing moment.
"This! This is what I'm into!" She cried out euphorically, leaping to the side and running for the cover of the dilapidated house behind her.
"You can feel it right!? I know you can! Your like me! A complete fucking junky!" She yelled from ahead of me, having jumped over some rubble and landed in a crouch, completely removing herself from my sight.
"I don't know that I would call myself that exactly..." I murmured, somewhat indignantly. Honestly, it should be fairly obvious to anyone that knows me I like fighting. I just don't like pointless fighting. It was so strange that no one seemed to grasp that about me. My family thought I fought for their honor. My manager thought that I fought for money. My friends thought that I didn't like fighting in the first place. But with lukewarm feelings like that how could anyone think I became as good as I was? It certainly wasn't talent. God knows that outside of training and fighting, my manager and father were really the only people that made up my social life.
"But you know I don't get it! I keep leaving you these openings to really get into it, and every
Damn. Time. You pull back to play 'safe'." Rose yelled, drawing me from my thoughts. Not once had I allowed the bulk of my attention to fall from where she was hiding, but her words drew me up short. Leaving me an opening? What was she talking about? I had created every opening I took advantage of. Half of those mistakes would have been fatal for someone with less aura. Only an idiot or someone supremely skilled would -
My eye twitched and I reflexively pulled the trigger on my rifle in shock as Rose launched herself through the rubble at me. Not by blowing it apart or damaging any of it - she simply phased through it like a ghost in the night. By the time I had registered what was happening my body had already taken point, unloading all of my remaining ammunition into the oncoming threat.
It was all useless of course, in a single bound Rose had closed the distance with me, and my shots passed through her as harmlessly as the rubble had. Again I reflexively leaned into the charge, steadying my shield in preparation for the inevitable attack. But instead of striking me, Rose stopped mere inches from me, hopping once and flying through me. Faster than I could respond she flicked her wrists, drawing the chain of her weapon up and around my throat from behind. Her knee jammed itself into the small of my back and she put all her wait on my throat.
It was all I could do to stop my knees from buckling under the force arrayed against me. Gritting my teeth I hurled my shield away, using my newly freed hand to grasp at the chain around my neck.
"Hey, hey, let me explain it to you alright? My semblance, when its on, I pass through pretty much everything." Rose crooned into my ear.
"I'm gonna let you go in a sec 'kay? Do me a favour and don't blue ball me here? If your not gonna let me get my jollys then I'm just gonna kill you and move on." She warned, ignoring the choking noises I was making while she continued to strangle me.
There was probably more to her semblance than that - only an idiot explains their semblance to an enemy - but I didn't really care at that point. I had been fighting so hard, and she hadn't even been trying. In fact, she had been holding back.
The knowledge was like a shot of adrenaline directly to my soul. She was holding back. She was stronger than this. I didn't need to control myself anymore.
With a feral yell I tugged on my shield, using my semblance to create and electromagnetic corridor between Rose's head and the sharpened metal disc. The results were immediate, as my shield picked itself off the ground and rammed into her, rebounding off of her aura and dazing her long enough for me to slip from her grasp.
I wasted no time, dropping low to the ground and lashing out with the butt of my weapon, attempting to crack my opponent in the knee and keep her off balance. The blow missed however when Rose hopped into the air slightly, causing it to sail harmlessly through her leg as if she wasn't even there. My eyes narrowed remembering each time she had used her semblance. Did she have to jump for it to work? Or could she use it on the ground at the risk of falling through the earth?
Either way, I had no more time to consider, as I had to roll backwards to avoid a sudden downward attack from the scythe like end of her chain. I came out of the evasive maneuver in a hand spring, thrusting myself to my feet and already prepared for the blunt weight of Rose's next attack.
"That's more like it!" She roared, as the distance between us continued to narrow down, until we were practically dancing through counter strikes together. I quickly fell into a rhythm, hearing nothing, seeing nothing but my opponent, and her movements.
"This is the best thing Jaune's ever given me! This! This right here! Fuck Grimm, fuck the world, fuck everything! All that matters is the thrill! The sheer bloody minded joy of the thing!" Rose continued cackling madly. As we clashed once more and I used my semblance to thrust her away from me.
"We are nothing alike." I bit out, ignoring the coppery tang of blood filling my mouth.
"Bitch please, this is better than sex! Better than any drug! Tell me I'm wrong!" Rose hissed back at me and I recoiled at the obvious arousal in her voice.
"I'm fighting for something." I yelled back at her, barely noticing my voice crack as I did so. My heart wasn't really in it anyway. I was too busy plotting out my next moves, predicting how Rose would react to them, and then changing my plan accordingly.
Rose looked at me for a second dumbfounded, then started laughing maniacally like I had just told an amazing joke.
"You're kidding right? Look at yourself! Your smiling like you just got laid and ate a five star meal!" She chortled waving a hand dismissively at me. I bristled at the crass accusation.
"Say what you want, my friends -" I started, still mostly focused on using the conversation to edge forward and re-engage in combat.
"Your friends are right there. You could have knocked me away and gone to them ages ago. But you didn't because we were having waaaaay to much fun." Rose purred, pointing behind me to the destroyed side of the Arc family home.
I jerked backwards, aborting my attempt at a forward charge, and whipped my head around to gawk behind me, not even considering if Rose had been trying to trick me or not.
There, laid against the wall of the building like puppets with their strings cut were all my friends. They were all breathing - thank god for that - but some of them, Nora in particular, looked like they had been run through a blender. Her clothes hung from her body like tattered rags, and she was clearly bruised in over a dozen places. To their side stood the rest of the Arc family, some more damaged than others, but all of them being tended to lovingly by their Father, who flitted between them like a particularly persistent fly applying ointments and soothing words.
For the briefest of seconds I considered turning back to Rose. Continuing my fight. It was obvious that she was still ready and waiting for me to attack, just like it was obvious that none of her sisters planned on interfering.
And then my breath hitched as I really considered that train of thought. Wasn't that exactly what Rose had been accusing me of? She had as much as said that I didn't care about my friends as long as I was having a good fight. And that, just wasn't true.
Was it?
'Are you satisfied? I can step in any time if you are no longer entertained. Some of your lover's sisters could do with some... chastisement.' Rider said, reminding me for the first time since this had begun that she was still present and awaiting my orders.
Something told me however that bringing out a Servant would only serve to escalate the situation. Not to mention eliminate the element of surprise.
I stared forlornly at my friends for a moment, then back to Rose, and finally, at Juniper Arc as she came in to view peering at me with one eyebrow raised.
'How many of us could you escape with on your Chariot?' I asked her silently.
'No more than two. Assuming that one would even let me.' She replied instantly, and I just knew she was talking about Nicholas Arc. Something about the man was just plain unnerving, even if he was presently getting chewed out by his daughters for being 'annoyingly clingy'.
'That's that then...' I thought to myself, finally turning back to Rose, and dropping my weapon. The look of obvious outrage as I raised my hands into the air in surrender was almost priceless. The sharp look from her mother that nailed her to the ground when she made as though to attack me anyway was even more gratifying.
With a gleam in her eyes, Juniper Arc pulled a scroll out of her pocket, and quickly dialed a number, then let her hand dropped to her belt, caressing several of the jewels there in an almost absent minded fashion. As the call began to ring, a rumbling began, first at her feet, but then eventually spreading to the entire house. I blinked twice in amazement, seeing for just a moment a much more severe looking blond woman standing before me, as the entire Arc household reassembled itself.
Then there was a click, and Juniper spoke in a pleasant throaty voice that completely belied the angry furrowing of her brows.
"Ozpin? I believe I have something that belongs to you."
-ooo-
POV: Jaune
"Whats the plan?" I asked Qrow once it seemed the cost was clear and all we had to worry about were the Dolls guarding the entrance to the tunnels beneath the city.
"Are there any magical defenses?" He asked gravely, his attention turning from our hiding spot in the dilapidated building to me with a razor sharp focus I hadn't previously thought it was possible for the cranky drunk to display.
I considered the question for a second. I didn't detect anything, but my talents leaned more towards research and development than sapper work.
'Archer?' I asked the Servant hesitantly. He had become painfully quiet in the last little while, enough so that I was beginning to worry. Usually he would have tried to convince me to back out of this by now.
'It's a workshop down there. You can't see it from here but there's some heavy duty protection on the place. If you go through the entrance you'll get trapped running in circles by a curse on the stairs down.' He reported seriously. I relayed his words to Qrow as he spoke but otherwise ignored the older man, pretending I was distracted examining something.
'And the curse? On the city?' I pushed, not for one moment having forgotten that he had said he knew what caused it. Or thought he did anyway.
'It was the Grail. Someone tried to cheat and failed.' Archer answered with a mix of exasperation and anger.
'Cheat... how?' I queried.
'Not important right now Jaune. Deal with Caster first.' Archer snapped back at me. I felt my lips press together in a frown, and wanted to argue the point but held my tongue. If he said it wasn't relevant then I'd take his word for it. I would just have to remember to ask him about it later - I didn't for one second think the jerk would bring it up again unprompted.
"Anything else you can tell me?" Qrow asked. I didn't bother repeating the question because by then Archer had already returned to us, and had heard it for himself. He appeared next to me shaking his head wearily.
'Nothing. Can't get any further in without tripping the wards. I'll say this though - I can hear a lot of screaming down there.' He said grimly.
"I got nothing. I'd have to go further in which would trip the defenses." I summarized for Qrow, not really having a way to explain the screaming to him without revealing Archer's presence.
"Good. Wait by the outer wall for Amber, then send her after me." Qrow said, clapping me on the shoulder and rising to sneak past me in the opposite direction of the entrance.
"Wait what? Where are you going? What do I do?" I asked hurriedly jumping up to follow him.
"Nothing. Point Amber in my direction, then start running for Beacon. Call Oz as soon as you get in range for your scroll to work." Qrow answered, not even bothering to look back at me.
"Are you stupid? You'll die down there by yourself!" I hissed at him.
"Look Jaune, I like you, but you're a first year student. If I was going to die down there, your presence wouldn't change that." Qrow shot back, stopping in the middle of a crumbling intersection and channeling Prana for a moment before shuffling a few steps to his right.
"That excuse doesn't work when you drag me out here in the first place you dick! How are you even going to get in without someone to dispel the curse on the stairs?!" I said, yelling at him in that hushed way that doesn't actually go above speaking volume, but is still good enough to convey anger in a tense situation.
"Easy. The bad hoodoo is only on the stairs, right?" Qrow asked, affecting a relaxed tone and stretching as though he was preparing for a fight - which I guess he kind of was.
"Maybe? I don't have x-ray vision so it's kind of hard to tell." I snarled still not sure what the drunkard was planning.
"This place is falling apart you know. One wrong move, bit of bad luck, and -" He said with a smirk as the concrete beneath him cracked, shattering under his heel in a single well placed stomp that created a Qrow sized hole in the ground - which he promptly fell through as though he had planned for it. Which I guess he had but... damn.
I stared in disbelief at the space he once occupied, my mouth half open in disbelief. After a few seconds I stepped gingerly forward, peering down into the inky blackness below and seeing no sign of Qrow.
I looked back, towards the wall where Qrow had told me to wait for Amber, then back into the hole.
"I swear to god when I get back I'm going on vacation. No Magecraft. No insane suicide missions. Just nice, boring, history homework." I growled, flexing Flamen Volcanalis and reciting my Aria under my breath. When the Mystic Code was fully active and humming with energy, when the swarm of multicolored blades that were the culmination of all my research were arrayed behind me, I took a deep breath.
And then I took the plunge.