A/N: You know, this goin' be interesting. Enjoy!


Jaune tried to talk to Pyrrha. He honestly did, but every time he got close, she seemed to find a reason to leave the conversation early or simply disappear, leaving Jaune standing by himself, confused.

After the fourth or fifth time this happened, Jaune frowned, getting a angry.

"Why is Pyrrha running from me?" Jaune asked himself quietly, scratching his head in confusion. The dragon-soul inside of him decided not to speak, knowing that any advice Vedrahgol was going to give would probably be ignored. With a weary sigh, Jaune decided to make a mental note to trap Pyrrha somewhere so that he could talk with her, and headed back to his campground, before he was pulled away by a harsh jerk, causing him to stumble and fall across a pair of boots.

"Wow Jaune. Aren't Hunters supposed to be poised and always ready to fight or something?"

Jaune looked up warily at a grinning Mika, who nudged one of her boots into his stomach, causing him to groan and roll away, unsteadily getting back up onto his feet.

Glaring at his sister, his expression changed when he saw that she was wearing a cast on her arm, and concern overrode his need to defend his pride.

"What happened?" Jaune asked, gesturing lightly to the arm. Mika waved her free hand, scoffing in dismissal.

"I was in the front lines and wasn't paying attention to my aura management. Goes to show that even graduated Huntresses can make mistakes, huh?" Mika said with a grin, trying to reassure Jaune. Still he was unconvinced, taking a step closer to make sure there were no other injuries on her.

"Jaune, I'm fine." She said, laughing, pushing him away from her. "How about you just go and have some smoochy smoochy with your girlfriend and let a big sister have her pride?" Jaune's brow furrowed, eyes inquisitive.

"How'd you know that I was dating Yang? I haven't even told anyone yet."

Mika drew herself back, face filled with surprise. "Wait a second," She said holding out a hand. "You actually are dating someone? And it's one of those girls that I met earlier?"

Jaune, realizing no way out of this, nodded with resignation, having been trapped by his own words. "Yeah. The uh, blonde one." Mika took a second to recall an image of Yang, before whistling lowly.

"Wow. Nice one bro. I knew you had a thing for massive—"

"Alright Mika," Jaune stopped her midsentence, knowing that whatever she was about to say wasn't going to end well. "Can you tell me why you pulled to aside?" The older sister pouted, her fun temporarily killed by her little brother. Huffing out a breath, she conceded.

"Fine." Leaning over, she started whispering to him.

"Dad told me to tell you that there's something you need to be looking out for. Said he couldn't get in contact with your scroll." Jaune looked confused, before shuffling around his pockets to search for his scroll. Not able to find it, Jaune scratched the back of his neck, mentally trying to retrace his steps.

"I… might've dropped it when I was fighting the Grimm." Jaune confessed, shrugging sheepishly. Mika nodded, smirking a little.

"I figured as much. He wanted to tell you that he was proud of you, by the way." Jaune didn't fight the smile that rose to his face. Mika continued to talk.

"He said he had another dream. Told me that you would know that that means." Jaune nodded, letting his sister continue. "He said something about watching out for a scroll. Not the electronic ones that we use, but something from along ago, you know, the rolls of paper that have writing on it?" Jaune nodded. "Well, he wanted you to know that if you find something like that, bury it somewhere deep and never tell anyone where it is." Mika snorted, thinking that her dad was being overdramatic. "And that if Imaar got his hands on it, it would be the end of the world as we know it."

Jaune blinked, mouth agape at the information.

"He's… joking, right?" Came the uncertain question, Jaune sure that this couldn't be a possibility. After all, what kind of crazy world would this be if there was a rolled up piece of paper that could end the world?

Their world, right.

Mika shrugged at the question. "Didn't seem like he was joking to me." Jaune closed his eyes, head in his hands as he tried to think, before Vedrahgol decided to bump in.

Maldovah, what your father says is true. It is an artifact from our world, what we call an Elder Scroll.

And it's that powerful?

That powerful and more, Maldovah. It is something truly fearful, able to warp reality and time itself. Even the Dov do not dare interfere with the workings of the Elder Scrolls.

Jaune blew out a tired breath. Wonder. Great. How fantastic. As if he needed something else to look out for besides the dragons that he had to fight.

"Alright then," Jaune said aloud, looking at his sister. "Thanks Mika. Unless there's something else you need, I've got to get to my camp now." There was a brief pause before Jaune was suddenly gathered up into Mika's arms, her head resting against his cheek as she squeezed him tightly.

"Come back in one piece Jaune. We still need to yell at you for running away without telling us." As the two of them separated, Jaune raised an eyebrow, smiling softly at her.

"I'm pretty sure telling you that I'm running away would defeat the purpose." The girl rolled her eyes, smiling at Jaune.

"Fine then. We'll figure out something else to yell at you for." Jaune laughed softly and leaned in for another quick hug.

"I promise when this is all finished I'll come visit. And then you can yell at me for as long as you guys want." Mika nodded, face stern.

"Good."


When Jaune arrived at ARC's campsite, things seemed to be in utter disarray, everyone running around as if the place was on fire. Which it wasn't, after Jaune made sure to check.

"What's going on here?" Jaune asked Ruby, who had stopped zooming around long enough to say hi to him. Ruby pointed to Professor Goodwitch, who had a very grim look on her face, and was clutching a clipboard hard enough that her knuckles were completely white.

"Where were you? We tried to call you, but you never picked up." Ruby said, frowning when Jaune explained that he had lost his scroll. Shaking her head, she grabbed one of his hands, leading him towards the Professor. "You really need to stop losing your scrolls Jaune. Come on now, even I don't lose my scrolls as often as you do." Jaune didn't bother rebutting her, and held his silence as he was slowly led to the blonde-haired witch.

Professor Goodwitch nodded at Jaune.

"Mr. Arc. So glad to see that you've finally found the time to visit your teams. If you could so kindly as to help them gather everything up, we're moving out. Posthaste." Jaune nodded, walking alongside the professor.

"Is there a reason why?" Jaune asked, looking back and forth at the teams that he was commanding, seeing everyone gather up their things.

"There's been movement to the south of us. Apparently, Imaar has been able to bring a force of Grimm around towards the back of us, which means that if we do not move now, we'll be crushed in between the northern and southern Grimm."

If it isn't one thing, it's another, it seems.

"How long do we have before they're on top of us?" Jaune asked.

"We have half the day before they're too close for us to get away from them safely."

"Okay then," Jaune said, nodding along. "So… where're going to go?"

Silence.

Professor Goodwitch didn't say a word, the delay long enough that Jaune was tempted to ask again, or make sure that he hadn't suddenly grown deaf. Finally she spoke.

"We are moving… to the west. We're going to try and go around the main forces, and strike the Grimm in the city of Niege before the Grimm can muster up a force against us. We'll need to go through the mountain pass quickly to do so however." Jaune furrowed a brow, not entirely on board with the plan.

"Moving everyone's going to take hours!" Jaune protested. "By the time we get everyone through the pass it'll take half a day."

The professor shook her head. "No, it would take the whole of the United Army several hours to get through the pass. It would take Unit Arc a few minutes."

Jaune stopped walking, letting the woman go forward a few steps before halting, turning around to look at the young leader.

"We're going to go… by our self?" The witch only nodded.

"That's insane!"

"Insane or not Mr. Arc, if we simply decide to stay here, we won't be helping at all. Now then Mr. Arc, are there any more questions that you need addressed, or can we try and save Remnant?" Jaune wilted a little and shook his head, biting his lip in concern.

It might have been their only option, but it was almost as suicidal as staying here to fight.

There were hundreds of thousands of Grimm out there, and Professor Goodwitch expected them to, what? Charge head on and kill them all? Or avoid the massive amount of monsters out there?

Either option seemed pretty impossible.

"How're we going to be leaving?" Jaune asked hurriedly. The pit in his stomach grew. "By Bullhead?" Professor Goodwitch shook her head.

"There's no time to prepare a ship, and even if there was one ready, there would be too much attention on one lone ship. We're going to go on foot." Finally, the hurried woman outpaced Jaune, leaving him behind as he tried to wrap his mind around what was needed.

When it rained, it certainly poured.

A hand rested on his shoulder, bringing his attention to his, uh, to Yang, who had a focused, yet concerned look on her face. Jaune was ready for any comforting words that she would offer him, but instead she pointed to a tent that still hadn't been broken apart yet.

"We need some help clearing the camp up. Are you going to pitch in or just stand there and gape?" Even in the most serious moments, Yang seemed to find a way to joke around. It was enough to snap Jaune out of his funk, and he nodded, stepping forward to help Yang with the tent.

It took less than five minutes, neither of them speaking a word as they gathered and tied everything up, checking and double checking to make sure that they weren't forgetting everything. Ruby zoomed past them again, clutching papers and other small objects in her hands, finding bags to put them all in. Any ammunition that could be spared were packed in separate bags, and all the bags divided amongst the group.

Within the hour, Unit ARC was outfitted with a large backpack, two bags of ammunition, and a bag of toiletries and other things on every person, including Professor Goodwitch, who would, as always, be accompanying them. Something that helped lift some of the weight off of Jaune's shoulders, that was for sure.

With one last final check, Professor Goodwitch nodded and flicked her riding crop, creating a large and roughly drawn out map, instructing the group on where they were heading, and what to do if they encountered Grimm or anything else on Miraak's side. The closest safe place that they could get to would be half a day away, a ransacked village that was reported deserted a few days ago. That meant no more waffling about, and they all set foot, walking quickly away from the main forces.

It wasn't much longer that there were sounds of screaming and fighting behind them, as the Grimm closed in on the United Forces.