A/N: For all you Mr. And Mrs. Smith fans out there, YES! John Arc looks like a rugged and slightly older Brad Pitt in armor (think Achilles from the movie Troy...now you got it!) and YES! Jane looks like Angelina Jolie but back when she was Lara Croft In Tomb Raider! :D it makes sense, they have lots of kids too...tho the Arcs aren't adopted...

Anyways, enjoy the finale of the Retribution arc!

Chapter 34 starts now!

Stepping out to the sunlight for the first time in several hours, the blue-eyed Hunter felt a pang of despair at the extent of the town's destruction. But catching sight of the battle and with no time to lose, he led the group to the Paladin ranks, ambushing the machines from behind with a loud war cry.

Engaging his massive armored war-gauntlets which were so heavy he could only keep them raised with the aid of his steadily-flowing aura, John Arc pummeled Paladins left and right, taking out a few of them with just one punch.

"May! Go find your brother before he gets himself killed!"

The recently-turned seventeen year old listened to her father as she took off her distinctive family hood to reveal a head of shoulder-length golden blonde hair before ducking through a tumbling fight between a Paladin and two nimble androids in her search for her brother.

The blue-eyed blonde was almost as tall as her brother, younger in age but certainly with a woman's body. She was beautiful like her mother, but the only armor she wore was steel-shinned boots and a leather-bound corset over a simple sleeveless light blue dress with an a-line skirt like Weiss', under which she donned a white long-sleeve blouse with sleeves bunched up to her elbows.

Seemingly unarmed, May silently made her way through the fighting with impressive ease, finally finding her brother behind a lone standing wall without having received a single scratch. Her face positively lit up when she saw him.

"Brother!"

"May-flower!" Jaune ecstatically responded as he turned to her momentarily, quickly turning back to the four-armed Elite Paladin which had now engaged him behind the wall and dispatching the robot with a giant energy-blade strike from Crocea Mors. The girl stared in shock as both halves split apart, the two siblings now behind the wall which provided a slight reprieve from the battle.

"Brother?"

"Long story, sis..." He mentioned as he came up to hug his blushing younger sister, "one that up to this point would probably have, mehhh, thirty chapters. Thirty-five tops. You still know how to use those?"

The knight pulled back from the hug and looked at the girl's forearms, which were loosely wrapped with silk-like strands in criss-cross patterns. People thought they were for fashion, or to increase the girl's general air of adorableness, which she was. But those accessories were not just for looks.

A meaningful smirk grew on the moe girl's face as Pyrrha came into the clearing where the siblings stood in each other's arms.

"Of course I still do, silly!"

The Spartan approached cautiously, and spoke up somewhat confused.

"...er...Jaune?"

The knight, surprised, spun awkwardly towards his girlfriend before responding.

"Oh, Pyrrha! Look, meet my sister May! May, this is-"

"Pyrrha Nikos!" The girl finished his thought in awe, "y-you, you're going to school with Pyrrha Nikos! You guys know each other!?"

The Spartan chuckled a bit, now at ease with the clarified identity of Jaune's blonde companion.

"Yea, you can say that," the Spartan began with a knowing grin at May's blushing brother, "it's a pleasure to meet you, May Arc. Are you here to help us fight?"

The girl nodded energetically.

"Have you discovered your semblance yet?" If the girl was anything like her brother, Pyrrha didn't see the pain in asking. Maybe the girl was a late bloomer, too.

But just then, a large Paladin made its way around the wall behind Pyrrha, readying its cannons to fire. With one end tied only to her little finger, the girl now let her long ribbon fall from one arm, the fabric tensing as she raised it up and manipulated the long strand's flowing course over her head before it suddenly shot towards the robot lethally, a dazzling electrical current coursing through the ribbon into the Paladin and rendering it powerless.

The Spartan turned, staring back at the little girl in shock.

"Oh."

The girl responded, beaming with pride, "I can manipulate electricity. If an object can hold a current, then I can control it too!" The girl paused as she held out her arm, her conductive ribbon wrapping itself around it as if it had a mind of its own, "I want to be a Huntress someday! Hopefully I'll get accepted into Beacon next year like my big brother!"

"I do not doubt it..." The redhead replied with an impressed smile.

"Where's mom and dad?" The knight asked his sister with a tinge of worry in his voice.

"They've rejoined the fight..." The girl now responded solemnly, "both of them."

Jaune's eyes widened a bit, "Dad too? He won't be able to hold up for too long! His leg!"

Indeed the Lord of the Arc family had had his fair share of bouts in life, but what had finally taken him out of the occupation some years ago was a devastating bite from a large Nevermore, its beak having twisted his leg back and forth as it took him through the air before the Hunter finally downed the bird with a blast from his plentiful aura reserves. It was a wonder that the limb didn't come off, but the damaging effects proved to be permanent, limiting him to a position of consultant for Huntsmen and Mayor of the town of Dorme.

"We should go find them," Pyrrha stated decisively.

The three fighters now rejoined the fight in search for John and Jane Arc.

Team RWBY was now in dire straits, every girl was running low on ammo against their opponents since they had been dueling it out for quite some time without reloading.

Weiss turned briefly to glance at her blade as the cartridge pulsed red to indicate her dust levels were low, something that her red-eyed opponent didn't fail to miss.

"That doesn't look good," Emerald pridefully teased as she kept pushing the heiress back with repeated Falx strikes, "looks like we're about to find out who really is the fairest of them all, Ice Queen!"

With an angry riposte from Myrtenaster, the snow-haired girl sent her opponent skidding back several feet with both pistols up in a defensive position as the heiress began to approach her menacingly.

"Do not call me that..."

Weiss Schnee had never lost a match. She was as good as they get, and she wasn't about to tarnish her record now...And with a flash of memory of the match she'd almost lost to Davin, the student was struck with an idea.

Powering her trusty rapier with the last of her dust reserves, Weiss began quickly twirling Myrtenaster in side to side motions as the sword blazed a fiery red, the arcs of light disorienting the red-eyed mercenary.

"What in the world!?" Emerald cried out as the fast-spinning blade made painful contact with her at every hit point, finally disarming the mercenary before a final violet-tinged lunge sent her flying into a brick wall several yards away.

Blake saw her teammate rush off to aid the others against the Paladins as she turned to Roman to begin her final assault.

"Oh, I guess you won't be counting on your Ice Queen for help, eh?" The criminal taunted as he let down several cane strikes around the faunus-girl before sending her back with a well-timed punch.

She mentally recalled her bullet count as she straightened out.

'Fifty eight rounds used already from the clip. That leaves me two bullets. Better make them count.'

Yang was now struggling against Mercury only a few feet away, his nimble movements and several successful dodges causing the brawler to waste her strength. Mercury had studied her semblance while he was at Beacon and knew that as long as he didn't hit her hard enough, there'd be nothing to stop him from executing a killer blow.

"Had enough, Blondie?" He casually stated as he nailed her with a double kick, one to the torso and one to her knee, twisting her leg and causing her to drop down to one knee in pain.

With no extra strength for wisecracks, she got up and re-engaged her opponent with an angry growl.

"You do know that you're not coming out of this alive, do you?..." Torchwick smirked as he continued his assault on the catgirl both psychologically and physically.

"...you're gonna wish I had put you down at the docks when we're done with you all here."

With her emotions finally clawing their way out at the man's remarks, Blake sheathed Gambol Shroud and came at him in a fury.

"AAARGH!"

Roaring in anger, Blake engaged Roman in close combat with her mastered form of hand-to-hand Win Chun, using her fists and forearms as spear, sheath and shield. Landing several quick blows to his chest and abdomen with her fists and elbows, the raven-haired girl heard the satisfying sound of a rib cracking as she sent the criminal tumbling back as he winced in pain.

She was nowhere near done yet.

"You know what it is about people like you?..." She stated fiercely as she resumed her bout with the criminal and his cane, ignoring the pain when the cane came in contact with her arms.

"...you pretend to be superior while exploiting the weak and defenseless for your own gain! It's scum like you that made me want to join the White Fang in the first place!"

"Oh?..." Roman echoed as he pushed himself back from her, firing his cane repeatedly as she came at him zig-zagging around the bullets with her semblance but knocking her to the ground with a crushing downwards cane-strike when she got close enough.

"And how's that going for you, kid?..."

Blake looked up from the ground at the hole of the end of Roman's cane pointed at her face, turning to see her partner in a similar situation, with Mercury's foot at the brawler's neck, his loaded ankle rounds aimed at her throat.

"You're out of friends..." Mercury called out loud enough for both girls to hear.

"You're out of options..." Roman stated with equal volume and the tone of an executioner.

Yang looked back at Blake with an apologetic look of having failed her team in battle, closing her eyes for the inevitable...

But like a ticking timer going off in her head with a ding, Blake suddenly recalled one particular count she had been keeping track of during her fight with Torchwick.

Roman was surprised to see the cat-faunus turn to look back at him with a smirk before speaking up.

"...and you're out of bullets."

The criminal furrowed his brow.

"Huh?"

He fired his cane, only to hear the despairing sound of a bullet-less click as Blake quickly pulled out Gambol Shroud and fired a single shot at Mercury's ankle, disabling his weapon.

Promptly swatting his pained leg to the side, Yang pulled her legs up and put the grey-haired merc down with a leg lock of her own, now giving him the worst ground and pound he had ever experienced in his life.

Resheathing her bladed gun, the raven-haired girl did a pop up over a low cane-swing meant to discapacitate her and landed in a crouch with a hand on her sheath in front of the criminal, who barely managed to speak up.

"You little-"

POW!

Firing the last bullet into its sheath, Blake aimed Gambol Shroud on her back in a way that its recoil sent the hilt of the blade straight at Roman's face, knocking him out cold.

A trick she had learned from Adam, her old partner in the White Fang.

"You wanna know the difference between you and me, punk?..." Yang now shouted at the powerless mercenary as she beat him to a pulp.

"...I got teammates and friends that actually care!" And with a final gauntlet-powered punch to the back of his head as she stressed the last word, the merc went limp.

"Now where's Ruby?" Yang called out to her partner as she got up from her motionless opponent.

Jaune and Pyrrha now fought their way through the army on either side of May, the girl expertly flaring out a ribbon from each arm around the trio and launching them at two Paladins at a time, leaving them as sitting ducks so that Jaune or Pyrrha could dispatch them.

"May, look out!" Pyrrha shouted as she turned to the girl.

A large Paladin came up from behind and threatened to fire at May, leaving her two companions little time to react. They were backed in beside a large brick wall that surely was once part of a building.

But right when it was about to fire, the three kids saw a large broadsword emerge through its side, shredding the bot through the middle and pulling out as the pieces fell to reveal a woman standing behind the machine, armored in white and with her jet black hair done in a long braid that came down to her waist.

"Jaune..." Pyrrha began in realization, "she bears your family crest! I-Is she your-"

"MOM!" The two siblings cried out joyfully as they went to hug their smiling mother.

The Spartan looked to her other side as she heard loud booming, the sound of metal being crushed now getting closer. But her grip on Milo softened as she saw a blonde Hunter with Jaune's eyes emerge into the fray, knocking back the Paladins around the group and in doing so practically forming a barrier of twisted metal around them.

"Good, you're all safe..." The Hunter stated as he saw his family safe and sound, "Jane, please take Jaune and May back into the control room until the fighting dies down."

"But dad..." The knight began to protest.

"No buts. Look, Jaune, you're here, and we appreciate that. But you're only going to get hurt if you stay here any-LOOK OUT!"

Jaune instinctively leapt backwards as his father pulled Pyrrha in with the rest of his family to dodge the rail-gun shot that left a crater where the group once stood. Easily stepping over its smaller fallen counterparts, the Elite Paladin stepped into the clearing, Pyrrha and Jaune's family barely recovering and backing up against the wall.

Before the Hunter could attack, the monger sent down an iron fist on the man who blocked the brunt of the force with a golden, wispy aura-projected barrier. But he suddenly cried out in pain.

"AGH!"

The pressure proved too much as the group heard the man's knee loudly pop, the Hunter falling to his other knee before being punched into the wall by another fist from the four-armed robot.

As the machine focused its plentiful tracking lasers on each member of the weakened group huddled against the wall, Pyrrha desperately cried out to her partner who was barely getting up a few yards behind the giant robot.

"Jaune!"

Standing up, the knight's eyes shot open as he grasped the weight of the situation. Suddenly feeling all the frustration, anger, and inner turmoil he had experienced in his life come to a bitter peak, all thought ceased for a split second as he looked into the terrified eyes of the girl he loved.

"YAAAAAH!"

Now redirecting his energy, Jaune's eyes blazed white, his aura exploding in a large white plume out of his back and condensing into dozens of white-bladed swords that even the other students and fighters on the field noticed.

"AAAAARGH!"

Throwing both arms at the automated Elite Paladin which had turned to face him, the dozens of blades mentally followed, turning the machine into a pincushion of blades of differing sizes and types. The Arcs and Pyrrha watched in wonder as even some of the Beacon students came around one of the downed Paladins to see the blades continuing to fly through the air into the dying machine.

Shingshingshingshingshingshingshinnnnnng...

Finally out of aura-blades, Jaune watched the Elite Paladin go down to the floor with a metallic groan, landing on the other machines with a crash as his family managed to get on their feet.

"Mister and Missus Arc," Pyrrha began with complete awe and pride for her knight, "there's something that Jaune needs to tell you..."

Jaune's mother was silently counting all the protruding blades before they dissipated, suddenly turning to her husband with a small gasp.

"John," she began with a strong but sweet voice, also in awe for her child, "that was more than five dozen projections...that beats your father's record..."

The Hunter, limping slightly, slowly approached his son, reaching a hand out to put it on Jaune's shoulder.

"Jaune...I had no idea-"

The knight didn't let him continue, shrinking back from his reaching hand and backing out of the clearing as the battle raged around him, tears streaking his cheeks.

"No! You didn't!" He angrily responded, but was clearly struggling to rein it in as he continued, "Just stay back for a second, okay? I'm having a bit of a tough time controlling how I feel right now...and...and..."

His voice trailed off as he happened to glance sideways and caught sight of Blake, Ruby and Yang fighting a very fiery Cinder Fall. Completely out of ammo, it was an all out melee fight, Cinder blocking slashes from Gambol Shroud and Crescent Rose as she defended against the swinging brawler at every opportunity. She was an incredibly skilled fighter and could've held them back all day, but she wasn't a patient person in battle.

"Sorry, girls," she said with an almost uninterested air, "but this ends now."

Slashing her twin blades across her front at the students, Cinder threw out an arc of fire that sent the girls leaping backwards to avoid the flames. This gave the enchantress all the time needed to press a few buttons on a control pad in the side of her blade.

Looking up, the three teammates saw a plume of light coming down from the sky, making out the shape of an Elite Paladin before it landed with a thundering boom next to Cinder. To their further surprise, three more massive machines landed in the locations of Cinder's teammates, and unlike the other Elites, these Paladins had cockpits.

Jaune saw the enchantress board her four-armed Paladin, her three teammates crawling into theirs, and felt his already delicate emotional state worsen as the four giant bots surrounded the three girls with no one around to help them.

"No!..."

His promise at his ancestor's statue on that fateful day in Beacon before entering the Trace coursed through his mind, his reason for wanting to become a Hunter now clearer than ever as his eyes blazed white.

"...I SWORE IT!"

His family and friends couldn't keep up as he aura-dashed to his friends' aid.

With the sounds of weapons arming and Cinder's rail-gun flexing over the robot's shoulder to aim at the teammates, the three girls stood back to back as the four iron mongers boxed them in.

"Yang..." Blake muttered, her voice cracking in helplessness.

"We did what we could, Blake..." She responded half-heartedly as she still engaged an empty Ember Celica. They weren't about to go without a fight.

But Ruby suddenly squinted at a strange white streak between two of the machines coming in their direction from a distance.

"Is that...?"

BLAM!

The rail-gun fired, but within the millisecond of time between firing and impact, a solid white barrier came up around the girls, protecting them from certain death as Jaune entered the small space now dashing back and forth between the trio with incredible speed while blocking and deflecting sixteen arms and cannons with aura-projected gauntlets and pulses.

May stopped in her tracks along with the rest of her family and the Beacon students a few yards outside the Paladin circle as they saw how the white knight, now literally glowing white, didn't let a single punch or bullet break through his defenses.

"That's incredible..." The young girl muttered aloud, echoing the thoughts of everyone else in the group.

But now the four bots each engaged their rail-guns, the large devices lighting up as they powered their shots on Jaune.

"We've got one shot to take them out!" Ruby called out.

"I'll cover you!" The knight called out as he flashed back and forth to block the robots' advances. Even with his aura, Jaune was finding it nearly impossible to fit in a single offensive move between so many defensive maneuvers.

Blake cried out above the gunfire, "But there are four of them, how are we going to-"

Shinnng!

A flash of white left an Elite gun-less. Weiss.

"Go now!" Ruby cried out, each girl striking at once.

With their new jumping abilities taught by Seul, they each easily reached the full height of the robots in one bound, two slashes and a one-two combo in mid-air disabling the other three rail-guns.

The Paladins made a fatal mistake as they now turned to open fire on team RWBY and the other students. They had given Jaune his chance.

"GRRRRR!"

Growling with the sheer power that his aura was emitting, the white knight lifted both aura-infused arms out at the group of robots with palms open. The machines now slowed to a halt as the augmented magnetic force could actually be seen pulsing rapidly through the air, the metal groaning as it was manipulated against its will.

"Oh my dust, NO, Jaune!" Pyrrha let out as the knight turned the guns forcibly away from the group. Somehow, she could sense where Jaune's aura was about to take this.

"...RRR-YAAAH!"

And now clenching his fists shut, the people gasped as the four Elite Paladins imploded under the crushing force, each machines' four arms and two legs crumpling into the torso before being slung away as hard as the eye could see by the Knight.

Jaune turned to see the machines disappear into the horizon as his white aura cascaded around him, the very heat of which was already charring the ground. Finally, it died down, leaving the knight heavily panting where he stood.

"Look over there!" May suddenly shouted, prompting the group to look back at the town.

Having seen what Jaune had done, the few dozen Paladins left were beginning to leave, blasting off in the sky in the same direction. But the group saw only three Elite Paladins left on the ground heading in their direction. Something was strange.

"What are they doing?" Weiss asked as they continued their approach.

Instead of heading in their direction to fight them, the Paladins were trying to keep up with a fourth normal Paladin which seemed to be trying to do something as the machines finally neared the group.

And to everyone's surprise, the smaller machine spoke.

"Bunch of cock ups! Trying to get in a good one all day and zilch! Not one port! Now I'm really cheesed off!"

Seul deadpanned, "Is that-?"

In its frustration, the normal Paladin gave up, shooting two of the seemingly pacified Elites with an arm cannon and massive grenade launcher mounted on each of its metal arms before turning and downing the third Elite with a massive uppercut.

As it walked over to the tensed group, it spoke again to relieve their fears with a metal-armed salute.

"Cyrus Fergusson, hacker extraordinaire at your service, ol' chaps!"

"...But how?" Jaune asked incredulously.

"Oh I been trying to gen up on these babies ever since word of Paladins hit the rumor forums! And finally today I figure out how to crack my way into one! Almost had these Elites too but their programming is a tad more difficult, it is. Hard lines for me! Well I gave up on them for now, left them to their own devices, though they won't be needing them anymore heh..."

"But all you have to do is get inside them..." Jaune wondered aloud.

Seul, however, was more alarmed than anything at the last bit of info.

"Wait. You're not controlling those Elites anymore? You didn't shoot the third one just now! Cipher you have to shoot them in the head cavity or else they'll-"

BLAM!

A rail-gun shot tore right through Cipher's cockpit, his Paladin going to the ground in flames.

"CYRUS!"

Jaune and his family ran to the burning machine while the rest of his team and Seul went to tear apart the last Elite. Unable to reach the cockpit due to the flames, John and his children were held back by Jane.

"Allow me..."

Sheathing her broadsword, she moved her arms in front of herself in a fluid motion around and around as she glowed cobalt blue with her aura, and the students were surprised to see water suddenly condensing in the center of her movements in front of her.

Once she had gathered enough, she whipped her arms out, dousing the flames over the entire Paladin. But taking a good look at it, the family only looked at each other in confusion.

Next to the fallen Elite, the rest of team JNPR and Seul had done pretty well with angrily taking the robot to pieces...but they couldn't help raising their brows at Nora as she continually hammered the flattened AI Unit into the ground.

"Uh, Nora..." Ren began sadly, "I think you got it."

"No!" She responded energetically, still not satisfied with her work, "must do it for Cipher!"

As she continued hammering it, the three turned to look at each other with downcast expressions until the sound of another voice called their attention.

"Bloody robots, those wonky things ain't even worth peanuts!" They blinked as they saw the cryptic casually walk over to the main group before turning to look incredulously at the hammer-wielder, "And oi! She still goin at it? Always full o' beans, that one..."

"Cyrus!" Jane exclaimed as the group converged on the hacker with relief, hugging the very confused newcomer, "thank dust you're alright!"

"Um...of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Where were you this whole time?"

"Behind that big wall over there." He said, pointing at the other side of the wall where the Arcs had been attacked. Jaune pointed at the same wall to be sure.

"That wall over there?"

"Right as rain, mate! That wall there!" The hacker confirmed, now expressing slight confusion as he continued, "Why? Did I miss something?"

The group merely traded knowing glances.

A/N: Family-wise, yea, I'm mostly sticking with Tusk Act IV's descriptions of the sisters. Rowenna is based on Shaga from Ben-to, Gabriel on Saber from Fate/Zero but suited up, and May on Sakuma Mayu from Cinderella Girls except blonde.

And yes, Jaune is indeed going beast mode more often :) anyways, stay tuned for next chapter, The Eye of the Storm!

Happy Reading!