Disclaimer, I do not own RWBY or any of the franchises referenced in this work
Chapter 16: Jazz in space
Inspiration: Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt
"Now that everyone is back, I'm going to have you step out for a bit Jaune Arc." Blank said, getting groans from several members of the audience.
"Aww… does he have to?" Pyrrha complained while grabbing onto Jaune's arm tightly.
"Rules are rules, last universe was one of the exceptions that's all." Blank said.
"It's okay Pyr, I'll be back eventually." Jaune reassured.
"So I'm going back to the testing range then?"
"Indeed, you'll hands on experience with the tech your friends will be seeing this time round. Although I do recommend taking things slow and following the instructions, because I can tell you they will not mix well with motion sickness." Blank answered.
"Alright then, well… bye guys, see you later I guess?" Jaune chuckled awkwardly and rubbed the back of his head as he stood up and waited for Blank to begin transport.
"Oh hold up there lover boy, you owe me something." Yang rose as well and planted a kiss on his lips before he could react. Then Pyrrha did the same, slightly ticked off with Yang stealing a march on her.
"Eheheheh…" His giddy laughter was the last thing they heard before a flash of light took him, and replaced him with two additional figures.
"We're back? I… we have new faces now?" Ironwood raised an eyebrow at Cinder's group, not recognizing them.
"Weiss, I hope you've been behaving yourself?" Winter looked to her sister, and the younger Schnee sat straighter in her seat, not wanting to give a bad impression.
"Of course sister. I wouldn't do anything less."
"Ahem, a little explanation to cover everything you've missed is in order I think." Blank coughed to draw their attention to him.
(one explanation later)
"I still think this is a bad idea." Ironwood said and glared at the terrible trio with all the force of a thousand suns.
"Preaching to the choir Jimmy, they'll get what's coming to them eventually." Qrow muttered.
"Nothing we can do about them now, what are we watching this time?" Winter shook her head and asked in an effort to get them off her mind.
"Another universe where humanity has expanded to space but not quite reached the interstellar level yet. Faunus don't exist in this world but the white fang does and humanity is at war with itself." Blank said.
"Figures, those terrorists are a problem everywhere it seems." Ironwood commented, getting Blake's ears to droop.
"They're a lot more than just terrorists in this universe. And like the fang of your world, they have perfectly legitimate grievances as well."
"And so they think violence is the answer to their problems? How barbaric." Winter said.
"To be perfectly honest, violence really is the only answer. Their enemies, the earth federation are morally bankrupt. If you combine old Mantle and Mistral pre faunus revolution, you'll get a rough idea of just what kind of a government is in charge of the federation. Both sides are responsible for heinous atrocities and ironically have the same beliefs, victory at any cost." Blank explained.
"Couldn't they try working things out? Negotiating?" Ruby offered.
"They probably tried, and the federation either ignored them or responded with heavy handed tactics. And when peaceful methods didn't work, they switched to more violent ones and started seeing success. Then it just snowballed…" Blake replied, shifting uncomfortably as she recalled the once peaceful protest movement descending into becoming one of the most hated terrorist groups in the all the land.
"Correct. When the white fang of that world got tired of ineffective 'talks' they launched an armed uprising to secure independence for the space colonies, and thanks to vastly superior tech for the time, they started winning. They would have won too, but then the leadership got greedy, and it eventually cost them the war." Blank said.
"Cost them the war, even with a large technological advantage?" Ironwood asked, unable to think of how anyone could squander such an advantage.
"At the beginning of the one year war, the federation folded really hard against the fang's offensive in space and they were pushed all the way back to the planet. With their success, the federation was about to cave to all of their demands. But the white fang launched a full scale invasion of the surface itself instead and there their war efforts bogged down. Gravity and atmosphere severely hampering tactics designed for space combat, their supply lines wound up stretched to the breaking point and they were unable to finish off the federation before they could launch a counter attack."
"So they bit off more than they could chew, pathetic. Should have planned better instead of getting greedy." Cinder said with a smirk.
"I'm surprised you can say that with a straight face." Roman started slow clapping sarcastically.
"In any case, today's viewing will be set in one theatre of the one year war near its close, the thunderbolt sector. I'll just let it start playing now." Blank said and the lights dimmed, the murmuring in the audience dying off as they waited for the movie to start.
Chatter filled the hallways as the federation pilots suited up and readied for their sortie. Nervous energy filled the air as they entered their assigned GMs, giant humanoid mechs specially outfitted to deal with the harshness of the thunderbolt sector.
Their mission was simple, destroy the Big Gun emplacements halting their mothership's progress through the area. But simple didn't mean easy, not when those canons were manned by the crack troops of the living dead division.
"Living dead division? Cheery name." Roman commented.
"One of the signs of the desperate situation the white fang have found themselves in. So called the living dead since nearly every member already has one foot in the grave." Blank said.
"How so?" Ironwood asked.
"It's a unit of amputees. Their crippling injuries mean they perform poorly in a straight fight, but using them as snipers is perfectly fine since they don't need as much motor control. And if they die, it's considered no big loss."
"…How despicable." Ironwood bit out.
From the cockpit of one of the GMs, jazz tunes could be heard playing as well as the sound of drumsticks beating against metal. An older Neptune smiled as he floated over to it, the technician grabbing hold of the cockpit hatch and swinging himself down to see his friend bobbing his head along to the beat as the drumsticks danced in his hands.
"Listening to pirate radio again Jaune?"
"Eh, these guys have the best tunes." Jaune replied with a smile, pointing to a beat up radio he had taped to the dashboard.
"Oh at least use some headphones, I'm surprised no one's complained about noise pollution yet. Hmmm, I recognise this one, isn't this an old broadcast?"
"Oi, oi, none of that now. You gotta feel the music in your bones, and I like this one. Oh! This is the part, the perfect piece to listen to right before a mission." Jaune said as the music picked up.
"Catchy, not quite my cup of tea but he has good tastes." Yang said, enjoying the music.
"Eh, as long as he doesn't try to serenade me with it, it's fine." Weiss commented.
"Serenade? There's a story there that I'm missing isn't there?" Winter raised an eyebrow and Weiss sputtered in denial, not wanting her sister to find out about that less than stellar experience.
"Nothing! Nothing happened at all!"
"Ahhh can already see it, out there, dodging through the debris as the vibrations tell me how to move." Fiddling with the controls, he made the numerous thrusters on the GM dance as the music played, serving as a performance check, happy with their reaction time, his little impromptu performance was cut off by a sudden sneeze.
"Oh come on, can't they do something about the crappy air quality in the hangar already? We've been complaining about it ever since we shipped here." Jaune said, getting Neptune to roll his eyes good naturedly.
"It's just your sinuses Jaune."
"Whatever, Nep you got any tissues?" Jaune smiled when Neptune sent the small pack flying over, catching it between his drum sticks.
"Thanks, see you later."
"You too." Neptune gave Jaune a small nod as the cockpit hatch closed, the technician giving a small headshake at his long-time friend's little quirks before moving off to check if any other pilot needed his assistance.
Jaune performed the final system checks as he waited for the signal to launch. As he was doing so, Weiss's voice came over the intercom. "Here are you mission objectives, eliminate the snipers hiding in our home of Side 4 Moore, in the past month over forty friendly units have been shot down. We will not forgive the cowardly enemy that destroyed our home."
"Wait what?" Weiss blinked in surprise not expecting to hear her voice.
"Side 4 is a group of space colonies, when the war broke out, they chose neutrality, wanting nothing to do with the fighting. But since the white fang has a if you're not with us, then you're against us policy, they attacked in force and destroyed more than a few colonies there along with everyone on it. Survivors of the atrocity signed up with the federation en masse for vengeance." Blank said.
"What!? I thought they were fighting for the people in space! Why would they attack their own!?" Blake hissed out.
"You know the type, holier than thou, believing their way is the best way and any who won't stand with them are traitors to their own kind." Blank pointed out.
"That's…" Blake wanted to say that her own universe's white fang wasn't that bad at least but then recalled Adam and that thought died a fiery death.
"This war is reaching its end stages, and retaking the thunderbolt sector will go a long way towards our victory. Glory to Moore, death to the white fang!"
"Preaching to the choir huh. Tch, my birthplace just won't let me go huh. Ensign Jaune Arc, launching." Jaune's GM shot out into space, followed by several more of his fellow pilots. Twin shields guarded the front of their mobile suits as they powered forwards, thrusters manoeuvring them around the wreckage of the destroyed colonies.
Muted rumbles ran through his machine as debris impacted and bounced off his shield. Jaune paid it no attention as his gaze was focused on his forward view screen, searching for where the snipers could be hiding.
"Interesting mech designs, I wonder if R&D could make use of these, they're certainly a lot more mobile than the paladins." Winter commented, jolting down several notes.
"These are mobile suits, bipedal mechs whose strengths lie in their mobility and equipment versatility. Do note that outside of units designed specifically for terrestrial combat, most mobile suits can only show their true potential in space where there is no gravity or air resistance to slow them down." Blank said.
"Interesting, I assume the white fang developed these… mobile suits first? And the federation was stuck with older capital ships and fighters similar to contemporary ones?" Ironwood asked.
"Indeed, it took the federation a long while to develop their own suits due to never having the need to do so prior to the war. And they really only succeeded because of the defection of one of the white fang's greatest technical geniuses."
"Hmm, I can see at least how the white fang would be winning at the start. No fighter will be able to perform moves like that, even without air resistance to factor in." Ironwood said as he watched the team of mobile suits evade debris at speeds and distances that would have been fatal for a normal fighter.
"As I thought, free jazz really is the best for the thunderbolt. I love space, I love mobile suits, I love the battlefield, out here… I'm free." Jaune grinned as lightning flashed nearby, the electrical discharges a leftover from the destroyed ships, colonies and mobile suits littering the area, giving the eponymous thunderbolt sector its name.
Several explosions blossomed when the more inexperienced pilots were caught off guard by the sudden lightning strikes and wound up crashing into wreckage, their suits folding in from the force of the impact instantly.
"Well that's pathetic, dying without even getting to see the enemy." Mercury rolled his eyes.
"Oh shut up Mercury, like you'd have done any better. Now be quiet, I'm trying to watch here." Emerald said, her eyes remaining glued to the screen.
"Huh, never figured you to be a fan of mechs Em."
"There's a lot you don't know about me, now shut up!"
"Damnit, we're completely exposed out here!" Jaune's radio picked up the chatter from the other pilots.
"Never mind, if they shoot, we can just trace it back to pinpoint their location!" Another pilot called out.
"Ho, so who's gonna draw the short stra-ah hell." Jaune saw the shot coming a split second before the beam hit, the high powered particle beam instantly slagging his shields and piercing the GM behind it, melting through the upper torso and causing it to explode.
Background radio chatter went haywire as the sniping commenced in full, every shot claiming another victim and the surviving pilots trying to relay the location of the snipers back to HQ but being foiled by the high concentration of Minovsky particles in the area.
A series of gasps and cries went out from the audience, no one expecting Jaune's machine to be destroyed so suddenly.
"Well… that was a quick one." Cinder muttered, after all that build up, she was kind of expecting him to survive for a little longer than that, not go out so anticlimactically.
"JAUNE!" Nora yelled and shot out of her seat, only a quick tug from Ren kept her from leaping at the screen.
"Nora, relax, movie's not over yet. Jaune must have survived." Ren said in an attempt to calm her down.
"Y-yeah, he must have ejected or something."
Blues music echoed inside the Zaku's cockpit as the sniper pulled the trigger again and was rewarded with an explosion seconds later. "Barrel's reached end of lifespan, switching to target prediction role now."
Mercury leaned back from his seat as he pushed away the targeting monitor, switching from active sniper to spotter.
"Good shooting Merc, we'll take it from here." His comrades cheered as they picked up the slack, not that there was much with him having cleared out half the federation attack force on his own. Mercury just leaned back in his seat and hummed a tune as he transmitted accurate firing solutions to the other snipers.
"Well, well, well, look at that, even in another world I'm a badass." Mercury chuckled as the audience glared at him.
"Grr… metal legs, right? Pyrrha, can you break em from here?" Nora turned to her teammate and asked.
"Good question, might as well give it a shot." Pyrrha was about to try before Blank interrupted with a cough.
"Ahem, kindly avoid doing that, I'd rather not have to disable your semblances as well."
"Hmm… ensign Corsac, is your suit drifting? There's some interference from your comms." Mercury said when he noticed Corsac's screen glitching out.
"Huh? Is it, hang on lemme check the cables… eh what the?" Corsac trailed off when a small light started to beep on his controls and his viewing monitors shut off, the cockpit hatch of his Rick Dom opening up immediately after as the emergency release was triggered from outside the suit.
"What is- no wait!" Corsac's cries were cut off when a pistol entered his cockpit and fired once, the bullet landing right between his eyes, killing the white fang pilot immediately.
"Corsac!" Several shouts came from the other snipers as they watched their comrade be murdered right in front of them, none of them in any position to do anything about it. Mercury just stared at the screen with wide eyes as a person in a federation pilot suit entered Corsac's mobile suit.
Jaune smiled and hit the release on Corsac's seatbelt, grabbing hold of the deceased corpse and shoving it out into space to join the thousands of other corpses floating around in the vacuum. "Hmm controls don't seem too different from a Zaku, this Dom is mine now."
Jaune looked up into the monitors displaying the other white fang pilots, kicking his legs up onto the controls, he gave Mercury a small wave. "Yo, you look the ace in charge of these snipers, good shooting but your taste in music is absolute trash."
"It's Jaune! He's alive!" Nora cheered, throwing popcorn into the air in celebration.
"Yes he is, now please calm down Nora." Pyrrha said as she joined Ren in trying to get her to sit back down.
"Tch, bold words from someone who just got lucky!" Mercury said as he glared at the screen.
"Hiding in the back, sniping people from afar like cowards… a perfect job for cripples like you peg legs." Jaune mocked as the members of the living dead division glared at him.
"Are you laughing at my legs?" Mercury asked angrily.
"Of course, you are kinda pathetic aren't you? Oh, and thanks for giving me all your sniping positions by the way, I'll pop by to pay you a visit later. For now, I'm just gonna walk home right on through your blind spots. Tata boys." Jaune laughed as he hit the controls to disengage the mobile suit from its position, gunning the thrusters as he prepared to shoot on home. The boys back home would probably bust his ass for abandoning his core fighter out in the middle of nowhere, but he could probably buy them off with the Dom.
"Dick." Mercury said curtly.
"…Okay, that's… kinda uncalled for actually. What's with Jaune?" Yang asked.
"He has… issues to say the least. His family life is complete crap after his father committed suicide and he found the body during the white fang invasion of his home colony. Then when he joined the federation, he found out that he effectively sold his soul to a force just as corrupt as the fang. And after fighting in a war he would rather never have been part of, he's now only capable of feeling alive in the heat of battle. Being a jerk is the only way he can deal with the absolute insanity of the situation." Blank said.
"Aren't there counsellors that can help with that?" Ironwood asked, having seen soldiers like that under his command, they usually didn't last long.
"There are, but not nearly enough to deal with the extreme numbers, so many fall through the cracks. And Jaune Arc knows that as long as he remains on the battlefield, his problems won't improve, at the same time, he can't bring himself to walk away. Too much anger in him."
"Tragic." Ozpin summed it up with one word.
"You're not getting away you hear me, next time I'm definitely shooting you down! I'm chief petty officer Mercury Black, and I'll be gunning for you always until I kill you." Mercury swore.
"Ensign Jaune Arc, when you hear the sound of jazz, you'll know I'm here." The Rick Dom took off and drew its machine gun, pumping several rounds into the Big Gun, the artillery emplacement went up in a ball of flames.
"That's set up for a blood feud if I've ever seen one." Blake muttered under her breath.
"Damnit all, twenty-four of them went out and this is all that returned?" One of Neptune's fellow techs complained as several badly battered GMs limped back to the carrier, some helped in by more functional mobile suits as their pilots were already KIA.
Neptune nervously watched the proceedings, his worry growing when there was no sign of Jaune's machine coming in. Just as he was moments away from a nervous breakdown, his attention was drawn away by several shouts of awe.
Turning to the hangar entrance expecting to see Jaune's GM make a miraculous return, his blood froze in his veins when he saw a white fang mobile suit coming in for a landing. The worry faded away once the machine came to a stop using the safety net and a familiar pilot suit emerged from the cockpit.
"Jaune! Where the hell did you get that!?" Neptune pointed to the captured mobile suit once his friend had made it over to him.
"Uh… funny story about that. You see, there was a little accident out there, and the previous pilot was kind enough to lend me his suit so I could make it back. Told me to keep too." Jaune said smiling sheepishly, unable to meet Neptune's eyes.
"Oh for the love of! You abandoned your unit out there again didn't you!?"
"Now, abandon is such a strong word…" Jaune trailed off and wished he could remove his helmet and plug his ears.
"You dick! Do you have any idea how long I worked on your GM!?"
"Uh… a couple minutes?" Jaune didn't have the time to regret his words as Neptune caught him in a headlock and started squeezing, their antics bringing laughter to the hangar and lightening the grim mood.
"I still don't get it, how did he survive getting his mech blown up?" Taiyang asked at last, unable to keep the curiosity at bay any longer.
"All the GMs are equipped with a core block system, essentially the suit is made up of three parts. The legs, the upper torso and a connecting core block made up of a transforming fighter, in an emergency it can function as an escape pod or a last ditch effort to continue battle. Before the GM was completely destroyed, he managed to eject and circle around in the core fighter." Blank explained.
"An escape pod that can function as a fighter… interesting concept, that would lead to higher survivability for pilots." Winter said.
"Ah, that's a side benefit of the core block system actually, not the main focus."
"What?"
"The federation places greater emphasis on the combat data collected by their mobile suits than the pilots, due to the absurdly high attrition rate faced by pilots on the field when rookies run up against veterans, high command believes the data to be more valuable, since it could lead to development of new strategies or technology to advance the war effort. That the pilot survives is a nice bonus but chances are good they'll just die in the next engagement." Blank said.
"That's very pragmatic and also very depressing." Roman said after silence took the theatre.
"So the fleet finally sent reinforcements and a new prototype unit with them, and you want me to pilot the new suit. Heh, did the Moore brotherhood send more money to the federation again?" Jaune said as he leaned against a wall in Weiss's office.
"Every pilot that outranked you died on the last mission. Otherwise…" Weiss said after a long period of silence, staring out into the void of space.
"I'm the only one left eh? Figures, but what else is new, we both got to where we are now because everyone above us went and bought the farm, isn't that right acting captain?" Jaune said and Weiss spun around to glare at him.
Her attempt to slap him was halted when Jaune simply grabbed her arm and locked it in place, leaving her to glare at him. "Let go. That's an order."
"As you say captain." Jaune released her hand but before Weiss could try slapping him again, he'd already slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her in close for a kiss.
"JAUNE ARC!" Weiss screamed out completely mortified, her face was burning red, and she could hear the loud roar of the blood rushing to her face, telling her to find a hole somewhere and bury her head in it.
"Oh my, anything you want to share with me Weiss." Winter turned to stare at her sister, causing her face to turn even redder.
"Yeah Weiss-cream, anything to share with the class." Yang glared at her teammate, thoroughly unamused by what she was watching. Pyrrha was by her side cracking her knuckles, if Weiss suddenly decided she wanted a piece of Jaune as well, she'd… well she didn't know what she was going to do yet, but it'd be something drastic.
Weiss forcibly broke the kiss, pushing away from Jaune with tears in her eyes, her words spilling forth in a broken tone. "No, I have to stop loving you, only then can I order you to your death."
"Go ahead then Weiss, order me into battle. I've been possessed by the demons called mobile suits that shine on the battlefield." Jaune smiled, an expression just as broken as the one of Weiss's face.
"I don't like it, I don't like it all. What happened to them?" Ruby whispered, unnerved by what she was watching. The people on screen were still undeniably her friends, yet so… different, and not in a good way.
"It's quite simple, war is hell." Blank replied.
"Wooo… this is amazing, it's like night and day. And I thought the GM Nep tuned for me was good… so this is a Gundam eh?" Jaune said to himself as he prepared for the first test flight, a simple recon mission to check up on the sniper positions identified from the captured Rick Dom's computers.
The black and red mobile suit shot out into the sea of stars, moving far faster than any GM as the multiple boosters on its back gave it unparalleled acceleration. With Jaune at the controls, a GM could really move among the debris, but with a Gundam, he could make it dance.
"hahhehaha…. Heehahehahaha…. Hahhehahhahah! This is it! This is the power I've always wanted!" The Full Armour Gundam raised its twin barrelled beam cannon and fired on a destroyed building, blowing it to smithereens in a single shot.
"Gundam, give me your strength."
"Unreal, and I thought those GMs were mobile, and that kind of firepower, isn't that a battleship grade weapon?" Ironwood looked to Blank for confirmation.
"Indeed, that is the FA-78 Full Armour Gundam, thunderbolt custom. A single high-performance mobile suit equipped with the Full Armour package for maximum mobility and firepower, turning it into a weapon capable of fighting off entire armies or small fleets on its own." Blank explained.
"The way he says the machine's name… the Gundam isn't something ordinary is it? It's not just another mobile suit right?" Qrow asked.
"Indeed. The original Gundam was a prototype for the later mass production models, an experimental unit that would have served as a testbed for most future weapons research and as such had its performance tuned to the absolute max with nearly every type of tech they could think off crammed into it. When the white fang attempted to destroy it, they failed and it fell into the hands of someone who would later become their single greatest nightmare." Blank said.
"One person becoming that feared? It is kind of hard to believe." Goodwitch said.
"Never underestimate how much damage one determined person is capable of causing. That way lies surprise and death." Blank said and Goodwitch nodded quietly, seeing his point, a constant reminder was just seating several seats away after all.
A white fang pilot pulled the trigger on his artillery piece, the Big Gun spitting out lasers at a rapid pace towards the pale streak in the distance. But none of the attacks even got close. "Damnit, what the hell is this, it's not hitting!"
Firing again and again until the barrel overheated, he wasn't able to shoot down the federation suit, its speed simply too much to compensate for. The next thing the sniper knew, a pink beam had already struck his cannon from the side, causing it to explode and sending his suit into a tailspin.
"Fuck! What the hell is this!?" Righting his suit after fighting the controls for a bit, his mobile suit drew a machine gun for defence, hunting for the enemy that just disappeared. A second beam shot flashed out of the blue, slagging half his machine gun and causing it to explode.
While the sniper was starting to panic, his comms came to life as a transmission came in on a universal frequency. Instead of words or some encrypted message, only jazz music played from the speakers.
His viewscreen was momentarily filled with the enemy mobile suit as it rammed him and ripped away one of his arms. The white fang member started screaming in terror as the federation suit disappeared from view, reappearing again only long enough to cut off his Zaku's legs with a beam saber.
Then a shield entered the screen as it was used to push aside the Zaku's remaining arm. An arm grabbed hold of the Zaku's torso as the enemy came into full view for the first time. The doomed pilot getting a front row seat to the unveiling of the Full Armour Gundam just before it rammed the beam saber into the cockpit, vaporising the man inside.
"That… was needlessly cruel." Ironwood said at last, impressed with the Gundam's performance, but displeased with Jaune's handling of the situation.
"It was a test flight to see how the Gundam would perform in a live fire situation, Jaune Arc was testing its limits. And, also relying on the Gundam's potential for psychological warfare. Every member of the white fang knows that facing a Gundam in open battle is effectively suicide, even aside from the original White Devil, subsequent Gundams have been weapons of ace pilots that their own aces tend to suffer one hundred percent casualties against. Having a Gundam show up here now is soul crushing for the Living Dead division." Blank said.
"It was perfection actually, it's not enough to just have power, you have to rip it away from your enemies too. Leave them crawling in the dirt as they fall into despair and understand their place in the world." Cinder praised, her world's version of Jaune Arc may be an enemy, but that didn't mean she couldn't appreciate the actions of another world's.
Mercury sat calmly in his refurbished Zaku I, his original mobile suit long destroyed by Jaune's Gundam while in the hands of another pilot. He inhaled, counted to four and slowly exhaled, keeping an eye on the screens feeding him precious data from sensors scattered throughout the thunderbolt sector.
Hard to believe it had only been two weeks since the Gundam appeared. In that time, he'd been called back to A Baoa Qu to receive a medal for his sniping and test out the new reuse pyscho device system.
When he left, the white fang laid claim to the majority of the sector, when he returned, most white fang installations had already been destroyed, most of them at the hands of a single unit. Survivors fortunate enough to return from the slaughter spoke of jazz music playing on the universal frequency moments before the attack came out of nowhere.
The ace sniper of the white fang knew Jaune was taunting him, hunting him. Using the sound of jazz to lure him out. "I'm back now, sorry to keep you waiting, and I… see… you."
Disappointed that the Gundam wasn't in his firing range, he relayed its projected path to his fellow snipers, trusting them to take the shot for him.
"Yeah, that's not gonna work. If you want something done right…" Mercury shrugged his shoulders and felt a small bit of pity for his other self, there was no way those other grunts would be able to take out the Gundam on their own.
"There you are, I see you!" Jaune yelled out as he deflected a Big Gun shot using one of his four shields, discarding the damaged equipment once the shot faded away.
The Gundam accelerated, its movements becoming even more erratic than before in an effort to outpace the Big Gun's adjustment speed. Launching two missile pods, dozens of micro missiles shot out of them in the direction of the closest identified sniper, exploding harmlessly in the vacuum, they served to blind the sniper to Jaune's movements.
The sniper just kept firing blindly, knowing his position was compromised and hoping to get a lucky shot off. But fortune was not on his side, Jaune's Full Armour Gundam shot through the smoke cover and locked onto the sniper, the Gundam's shoulder mounted beam cannon fired, the pink beam lancing through the Big Gun and blowing the area to hell.
"Bunch of cowardly snakes, can't you fight outside your hidey holes? Tch." Jaune fired randomly into the debris field, breaking up larger pieces into a cloud of smaller ones to hamper visibility. Abandoning several of his spent fuel tanks, Jaune used them as decoys to suss out the location of the remain snipers.
"Found you." Double barrel rifle firing, the beam damaged a Rick Dom and destroyed the second sniper position. While the mobile suit was struggling to regain control, Jaune boosted closer and hacked off its legs with his beam saber and readied for the final blow.
"Gotcha now. Die!" The third and final sniper position, manned by Mercury himself, got a lock on the Gundam. Full Armour or not, a single hit from a weapon designed to bring down capital ships would destroy it instantly.
Depressing the trigger, the particle beam lanced outwards, headed straight for the Gundam. It was a perfect shot, and Jaune had no way of dodging it in time.
"NO!" Nora yelled in panic.
Then a miracle happened. A thunderbolt passed right between the Gundam and the beam, the electrical discharge deflecting the particle beam to the side and sparing the Gundam any damage aside from superficial paint scaring.
"Bullshit! I had him dead to rights!" Mercury yelled next, pissed off at his perfect kill being messed up by a lightning bolt in space of all things.
"You'll just have to try harder next time Mercury." Emerald smirked as he started growling.
"What do you mean try harder!? That was perfect! There's no doing better than that!"
"Oh be quiet you two, your little grudge match hasn't ended yet." Cinder said with a frown and her underlings fell silent immediately.
"Ho… sniping at me from such a long range… it's you isn't it peg legs!?" Jaune grinned maniacally as he forgot about finishing off the crippled Rick Dom in favour of settling the score with Mercury.
"Tch, a thunderbolt deflected the beam!? I can't believe this guy's luck!" Mercury swore and prepared to continue sniping, ignoring his comrades calls for a retreat. Refurbished or not, the Zaku I was an antique and there was no way in hell he'd be able to outrun the Gundam in it, and the both of them knew it.
"If you can predict my movements then I dare you to fire. If you're prepared to kill your own that is." Jaune's Gundam had grabbed hold of the first sniper who was still alive, holding it in front of him as a human shield, daring Mercury to kill his own comrade.
Jaune's eyes widened momentarily when the next few sniper shots went wide, blowing up pieces of the destroyed colony instead. "Oh, adding to the debris as a distraction huh? Trying to funnel me into a kill box?"
Instead of playing to Mercury's plan, the Gundam started weaving through the new debris field at breakneck speeds, keeping out of the line of fire, jazz playing all the while, pumping Jaune up. "Ahhh I love this song! When you hear the sound of jazz, it's the end!"
Jabbing another almost spent fuel tank into his human shield, Jaune sent the hapless sniper flying forwards, before launching a missile pod straight into it, detonating it and executing the white fang pilot. The resulting explosions lit up the area and the glare kept Mercury from getting a good look at the Gundam's location.
"It's over." Jaune said as his distraction gave him the opening he needed to sneak past Mercury's guard and end up directly overhead. Firing downwards, he blew the gun emplacement to hell, but Mercury's Zaku dodged away at the last minute, the monoeye tracking catching sight of Jaune just before he could land the finishing blow.
Undeterred, Jaune's machine surged forwards, using his gun to pin the struggling Zaku to a section of the colony. "Hahahaha! With your worthless body, this must be your limit, how pathetic. It's over peg legs!"
The Gundam's beam saber came down, intending to spear Mercury's Zaku right through the cockpit. The white fang suit tossed out a cracker grenade and brought up one arm in an effort to ward off the blow.
Mercury's efforts succeeded partially, the addition of the arm deflected the beam saber enough for it to not deliver a fatal blow but the exploding instruments inside his machine critically wounded him anyways.
As the cracker grenade went off, Jaune was forced to retreat to get out of the blinding flash. When his sensors could get a better look at Mercury's position, the Zaku was nowhere to be found, the living dead division's ace sniper had escaped to fight another day.
"Kuh, son of a bitch!"
"Gah, so close!" Nora complained, displeased with having Mercury escape his fate.
"Tell me I get him back for it later." Mercury asked, equally displeased with being put into such a situation.
"You do, although whether or not that's a good thing for you highly depends on just how much you want your revenge." Blank said.
"That makes no sense." Cinder said.
"The Full Armour is beyond anything the white fang has at the moment, except one unit."
"So use that then. Oh wait, guess that means legless over here is going to use it." Emerald commented.
"Indeed, enough power to match the Gundam, it just comes with a very high cost." Blank said.
"High cost?" Cinder raised an eyebrow.
"Oh yes, the special system installed on that machine can only bring out its full potential when its used by a quadruple amputee, at the moment, that Mercury Black is missing two legs and an arm, but there's still one functioning one left that would hamper performance." Blank's words got Mercury to pale instantly and clutch his arms to himself.
"Bullshit, they cut off my arm for that!? Lemme guess, they didn't bother asking for my opinion either."
"Correct. Power is expensive after all."
"So the final assault is starting soon huh?" Jaune asked as he hung out with Neptune, both of them taking a break to recover.
"Yeah, you blew up most of their guns and the fleet is free to push through. HQ sent in even more reinforcements to make up for our losses. Gotta push the damn fang out of the sector soon, I heard they have their own reinforcements coming soon." Neptune replied as he watched the new arrivals touch down.
"Eh, with more hands we should-what the hell!? They're just kids!" Jaune's cheery tune changed when the fresh pilots exited their shuttle and started mingling with the existing crew, their youth and inexperience easily visible. His hands clenched in to fists as Neptune shook his head with a depressed sigh.
"They're all we've got, everyone else is with the main fleet preparing for Operation Star One."
"This is bullshit, I need to see Weiss. God damn it, I asked for reinforcements not cannon fodder."
"They're your men now Commander Jaune Arc." Neptune said.
"It's a sick joke." Jaune slammed his fist against a wall and left to find his captain.
"They don't look like kids to me." Roman shrugged, unsure about what Jaune was so upset about. Sure they were a little on the young side but still, hardly actual child soldiers.
"It's the principle of it. Those pilots are fresh out of training school and have zero combat experience, some haven't even been out on the field and they're being sent to fight veteran aces. For comparison's sake, it's like asking students fresh out of combat school to go fight off ancient Grimm that veteran huntsmen have issues with. In other words, a death sentence." Blank said.
"Oh." Roman said quietly.
"The higher ups don't expect those pilots to return, do they?" Ironwood asked.
"They expect some, not all. Barbaric as it is, throwing fresh meat into the grinder can and has given great results. Rookies who survive the crucible emerged hardened and more experienced then before, eventually becoming great aces themselves should they live long enough. And there's also the issue that both sides are nearly completely exhausted at this point in the war, they're just throwing everything they have left at the enemy and hoping the other side breaks first." Blank explained.
"It's the battle of the century folks, cripples versus child soldiers! That's… actually very messed up." Roman jested in an effort to lighten the mood before processing the words again and falling silent.
"Weiss! Weiss!" Jaune yelled as the door to the captain's quarters opened. The lights were out and Jaune nearly had his eye put out by a syringe floating in the air.
"The hell?" Looking at it, he identified the syringe as one meant for injecting painkillers. The thing was already empty though and he could see Weiss hunched over her desk.
"Weiss!" Surging over to where she lay, Jaune hauled her up roughly and forcibly rolled up her sleeves, cursing when he saw several injection marks on her arms.
"Damnit! You're an officer for fuck's sake, how long have you been using!?" When Weiss failed to respond, Jaune slapped her twice to bring her back to the waking world.
"What is wrong with you!?"
"I-I'm a drug addict!?" Weiss choked out, brain frying at the image she was trying to process.
"I… I… why!?"
"It's the only way you can cope with having to send your subordinates to their deaths repeatedly. Having to order Jaune out into the field and now effectively sign the death warrants of the rookies, that version of you has gone way past her limits." Blank answered.
As her friends and her sister moved to console Weiss, Ironwood smiled bitterly at the sight. "The chains of commanding huh?"
He'd lost a lot of good commanders that way in the past, some resigned, unable to continue their work. Others found solace at the bottom of a bottle, unable to deal with their guilt. And then there were those who went and chewed on a gun.
"If we can just improve the mechs to where they can replace a flesh and blood soldier completely, maybe this will be a thing of the past." The general mumbled to himself, hoping that such issues would one day be a thing of the past.
"I understand… I understand what your father felt like now." Weiss said and Jaune recoiled as though he was just slapped.
"I know how he must have felt now when the deaths of everyone in Moore weighed on him. You'd never understand it Jaune. I have to order more people to their deaths again! EVEN THOSE CHILDREN SENT HERE LIKE EXPENDABLE GOODS!" Weiss cried out, tears leaking from her eyes.
Jaune's face contorted into a bitter expression, unable to find any words for the situation. In the end, he settled for pulling Weiss into a hug and letting her cry her heart out without any condemnation.
"Tch, big deal, it's just ordering other people into battle while you stay safe. I'm the one who got my limbs sawed off, if anyone's got the right to cry it's me." Mercury rolled his eyes at the sappy display.
"You're evil, you don't count." Ren replied.
Mercury glared and was about to start arguing back when Cinder shut him up with a look.
As Jaune resumed his role as commanding officer of the mobile suit squadrons and left to brief the other pilots on the upcoming final push, he left Weiss in the hands of Neptune.
When she came out of painkiller induced stupor, she found herself lying in a specially set up medical ward inside Jaune's quarters. Neptune was there, staring at photos of the three childhood friends, taken before the war and shortly after they enlisted.
"Life used to be so much simpler back in the day. Just doing as we pleased, the world was our playground." Neptune said as he picked up one of the group photos and stared at it with fondness in his eyes.
"I still see those days in my dreams." Weiss said after a long silence.
"Drugs can't take you back. Jaune doesn't actually enjoy war you know, he's just… only capable of feeling truly alive when he pushes himself to the limit. After all this… he can only live in the madness of war now. I feel sorry for him actually." Neptune said.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Emerald asked in confusion.
"Hmm? Isn't it obvious? He hates what he's doing but it's the only way he can live." Mercury explained.
"And how would you know that?" Emerald challenged but Mercury just shrugged.
"Figure it out yourself Em."
Jaune stood in front of the assembled pilots, his heart sunk when he not only found himself the oldest person in the room but the only one above the age of twenty. Gritting his teeth, he began his speech.
"Our mission begins at 2400hrs, you'll be acting as my shields. I'll be avoiding any random skirmishes along the way, the Full Armour Gundam's sole mission is to sink the enemy fleet and take out their ace sniper.
This is a messed-up world where someone who kills lots of people gets praised as a hero. An infinite loop of planning ops and fighting. Even when the players and pieces change, the mission we call war continues. Try to ignore it all you want, there's no changing it.
I love mobile suits. I'm hopelessly addicted to these machines that amplify my abilities. It gets me fired up from head to toe, call it sinful or whatever, but I'll break free of whatever ties me down. And I'll keep fighting all the way to the pits of hell itself.
Farewell, my brother and sister expendables. If any of us survive, I'm buying."
Jaune finished his speech and saluted, the assembled pilots returning the gesture. There were no lies in his speech, nothing but the honest to god truth. Yet none of the rookies wavered, their patriotism keeping them from breaking, somehow, that made him feel worse than the alternative.
"That's… one heck of a depressing pep talk." Blake said, even before dangerous missions in the white fang, there had never been anything so… dark.
"Ya know, I thought all these mission speeches were supposed to raise morale, not lower it." Yang said, uncomfortable with the twistedness on display.
"He's being honest because he thinks they're all going to die no matter what, he's convinced morale won't make a difference and if he's going to send them to their deaths, he might as well be honest about it." Winter analysed.
As soon as the battle begun, things went awry for both sides. The white fang and the federation both coming to the same conclusion, the battle would not be won as long as the enemy fleet remained intact, and both knew their rank and file mobile suit squadrons simply wouldn't cut it.
Mercury's new Pyscho Zaku and Jaune's Full Armour Gundam both skirted the around the front lines, missing one another as they hunted the enemy capital ships.
Both machines engaged at the same time, inflicting heavy losses on the fleets, none of the ships on either side capable of handling a direct assault from high performance mobile suits.
With the fleets going down in flames, the two aces returned to the front, hunting one another once more.
"D-did we just die!?" Weiss asked, seeing the carrier they were on take several direct hits from Mercury's assault.
"Neptune survives on a lifeboat and eventually meets up with Jaune, you live as well although rescue comes later for you and you get amnesia from oxygen deprivation as a result. You meet up with them again in the future but that's a story for another time." Blank said.
"W-well at least you're alive?" Ruby said, trying to find a bright side to the situation.
"That's… not really comforting Ruby, but thanks anyway." Weiss replied.
"That was too easy… battle's not over yet, there's still one more out there. Where are you peg legs?" Jaune asked himself as he scanned the view screens, hunting for any sign of Mercury. The enemy fleet had been completely wiped out by the Gundam and the white fang carrier was now besieged by the surviving federation mobile suits. They could take it from there, he had a score to settle.
"There you are!" After several minutes of fruitless searching, Jaune caught sight of his target, a heavily modified Zaku that couldn't be anything but an ace custom. Firing his arm beam cannon in an attempt to get in a fatal blow, he couldn't help but grin when the red mobile suit evaded it effortlessly.
Their fight spilled over into the interior of one of the destroyed colonies. The Gundam firing its beam weapons repeatedly while the Zaku retaliated with bazooka shots. Explosions rocked the ruins, and Jaune landed the first solid hit.
His shot incinerated half of Mercury's bazooka and caused it to explode in his hands. An attempt to follow up with a finishing blow was halted when a large piece of debris knocked loose from their shootout fell in the way, taking the hit for Mercury and letting him escape.
"Guh! Lucky bastard!"
"Payback's a bitch." Mercury smirked, seeing Jaune fall victim to the same bullshit luck that saved him earlier left a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
"Shut up Mercury, I'm trying to watch here." Emerald scolded as she furiously shovelled popcorn into her mouth.
As their fight led them deeper into the residential sector of the colony, the mass grave of the massacred colonists served to hamper their fight as Mercury found out.
"Get out of my way." A dress once trapped in the rubble became dislodged by the fighting and ended up blocking the Zaku's main camera, obscuring Mercury's vision. A quick burst of steam from the Zaku's hands cleared the obstruction just in time for Mercury to spot the Gundam coming in for a saber slash.
Pushing his thrusters to the maximum, the Zaku shot away just in time as the Gundam swung, the beam saber finding only vacuum for its efforts.
Explosions blossomed all over the destroyed colony as the two machines continued their duel. The final resting place of so many lost souls disturbed once more by two individuals driven to kill each other no matter the cost.
"It's… it's like Mount Glenn again." Ruby said, recalling the deserted city and seeing the contrasts between the colony and it.
"It's disrespectful, can't they leave the dead to rest in peace?" Goodwitch huffed angrily.
"Clearly not, some people don't have the decency for that." Roman said and glared at Cinder, her forcing him to return to that cursed land was yet another reason why he'd piss on her grave if they bothered to give her one after her inevitable execution.
"Grah! Just die already!" Jaune yelled as he fired another wave of missiles, growling when the Zaku's extra manipulator arms on its backpack whipped out two machine guns, gunning down the entire volley before they could threaten him.
Trying to shoot down Mercury with the Gundam's two beam weapons wasn't going so well either. The Zaku's movements were unnatural, too fluid for a normal pilot and it was causing Jaune a major headache.
"Guh, how is this happening!? The Gundam is obviously stronger than that Zaku, so why can't I kill him!? Is… is he… NO! There is no way in hell a cripple is a better pilot than I am!"
Jaune's frustration increased yet again when Mercury dodged his attacks and retaliated with a fresh bazooka, the subsequent blast rattling the Full Armour Gundam as it landed nearby.
"I don't get it, how is he putting up such a fight? He doesn't even have limbs anymore. What kind of system could do something like that?" Pyrrha asked, unable to identify the reason behind Mercury's sudden increase in skill.
"The reuse psycho device is an attempt to reduce user input lag. As anyone who's ever piloted or driven anything before will know, there's always a time delay between you thinking of your next action, your limbs moving to carry it out and finally the machine responding to your input. That delay may be miniscule at worst but every bit counts when life and death can be decided in a split second. The system connects the pilots nerves to the machine directly, cutting out the middleman and allowing the machine to react far faster than should be humanly possible, it's why a quadruple amputee is needed, the mobile suit's limbs are his limbs now." Blank answered.
"Enough power to match a super weapon, and all it requires is the user sacrificing his body." Ironwood said and looked down to his own mechanical parts.
"Power isn't cheap. Never has been, never will be." Blank summed up, even though the orb didn't have eyes, Cinder could still feel him sending a pointed stare her way.
Disbelief was mounting for Jaune as the Gundam started taking more hits, including a direct strike to its head, disabling its missile pods and damaging the camera, causing half his view to start flickering.
Gunning the thrusters, he disengaged the spent fuel tanks and shot out into space. The interior of the colony too cramped for his liking and loathe as he was to admit it, gave Mercury the home field advantage. The white fang had been in control of this place for too long, Mercury simply had the better picture of the place while he was effectively fighting blind.
Detaching the useless missile launcher, Jaune continued firing with his beam weapons and dodging the counterattack. Thumbing a button, multiple hatches on the armour blew away, revealing hidden emergency missile pods, firing every last one of them at the Pyscho Zaku, too many to shoot down and forcing Mercury into a specific dodge pattern, allowing Jaune to line up a clean shot.
Despite his planning, the reuse psycho device allowed Mercury to evade a fatal blow once more. The Gundam's particle beam blowing off one of the Zaku's arms and damaging its weapons pack but leaving it largely intact. In response, Mercury fired off a sturm faust, the rocket slamming into Jaune's shields and blasting him backwards.
With both machines spiralling out of control, they ended up getting separated and losing one another in the debris field. Instead of rushing to resume the fight instantly, both pilots fell back to deal with the damage to their machines.
"At the rate they're going, it's going to end in a draw." Taiyang commented.
"What. I thought I'd get him back for taking my arm, what gives." Mercury complained, getting an elbow to the side from Emerald for his interruption.
"Your fight ends in a draw, but white fang reinforcements mean you win the battle." Blank said.
"So the fang wins? That leaves a sour taste in my mouth." Winter frowned, annoyance written all over her face.
"They win the battle but go on to lose the war. But, it honestly doesn't matter which side wins in the end, victory by either the fang or the federation doesn't lead to a lasting peace." Blank replied.
"As expected of a Gundam, if I ditch the armour I can still fight huh?" Jaune muttered as he initiated a full system reboot, the Gundam's various systems coming online again. A full check indicated that the armour had borne the most of the damage with the exception of the damage to the head. A simple purge and he'd be fully mobile again.
Hitting the emergency release switch, steam vapour hissed out as the mobile suit vented coolant to purge the jammed pieces of armour. Most of its weapons were offline but Jaune still had one last beam saber at his disposal.
"Alright, time to end this. This time, I'll kill him for sure." Glaring in the direction Mercury had flown off in with determination, he pushed the Gundam forwards again, eager to get back into the fight.
Searching through the area, Jaune finally found his target, the Zaku had fallen back into the colony interior and was lying amidst another ruined section of the residential block.
"Gotcha, when you hear the sound of my jazz, that's when you die peg legs!" Jaune roared and sent the Gundam into a straight dash, beam saber outstretched and ready for the coup de grace, Mercury's unit not reacting after apparently losing power.
Once more, fate intervened. Before, a thunderbolt saved Jaune from an unblockable strike, and now, the thunderbolt sector did the same for Mercury. The lightning struck the colony dead centre, electrical energy racing through the ground and into the downed Zaku, jumpstarting it and causing its last sturm faust to fire at point blank range.
Jaune could only look on in shock as the missile smashed straight through the Gundam's head, taking it clean off and deflecting his attack enough to stab through the Zaku's monoeye but miss Mercury's cockpit.
That was the last bit of action from either of the two suits as they finally ran out of fuel and started to shut down from the damage.
"WHY!? WHY CAN'T I BEAT HIM!?" Jaune roared and slammed his fists against the dashboard when the Gundam went completely offline. The Zaku was right there in front of him yet he could do nothing to finish it off.
His fight in the thunderbolt sector finished, Jaune popped the hatch and exited his mobile suit as white fang reinforcements started pouring in, the multiple Gelgoogs pointing their beam rifle at him. Noticing the Psycho Zaku had likewise popped the hatch, the two ace pilots came face to face in person for the first time.
"Haa… ahhh…" Jaune was speechless when he saw Mercury's full body in person, and noticed the limbs ending in metal rods.
"No… no way… he's missing all his limbs!? I lost to a guy like that!?"
"Serves you right for being a dick." Mercury crowed, still annoyed by Jaune's earlier mockery of his disability.
"Gah! That's not fair! What happens to fearless leader now?" Nora asked and folded her arms.
"Probably taken as a POW." Ironwood answered.
"So what happens now? We beat the Gundam, we destroyed the federation fleet but we still had to pull out of the side 4 completely. And the reuse psycho device will probably be mass produced with the data from your machine." One of Mercury's colleagues said as they stared at the large numbers of wounded sealed inside medical tubes.
"Yeah… it can turn even the most average of pilots into superhumans, they just have to be willing to cut off their limbs for it." Mercury said and looked down at the prosthetic limbs replacing his flesh and blood body.
Shaking his head, he left his comrade behind and headed for the detention blocks, going to pay the Gundam pilot a visit. He didn't know if he wanted to go and mock the man, scream at him or just stare, he just felt the need to see the individual responsible for taking his arms from him.
As the guard buzzed him through, Mercury entered the cell and simply stared at Jaune, the Gundam pilot having been beaten to an inch of his life by other members of the living dead division.
"What the hell!? That's mistreatment of POWs, that's a war crime." Ironwood growled out, seeing mistreatment of prisoners was a quick way to piss him off. He'd been accused of facilitating torture on captured members of the white fang in the past despite having done nothing of the sort and this type of war crimes was a very sore spot for him.
"Grr… they're dead. They're so dead." Nora growled out, fingers clenching into fists, by her side, her friends were nodding their agreement.
"Yes, they are actually." Blank answered.
"They are?" Winter looked to Blank for clarification.
"He gets free eventually, and most members of the white fang left on the ship at the time of his escape end up as target practice for him. He's an ace pilot but he's also gone through basic, and he's a crack shot."
"Jaune Arc, son of the former leader of side 4, part of the Earth Federation's Moore Brotherhood… and notorious Gundam pilot." Mercury listed off as Jaune raised his head to look him in the eye.
"Mercury Black, tell me, how do you pilot a mobile suit with that pathetic crippled body of yours?" Jaune grinned before coughing up some blood, captured and beaten as he was, he remained defiant to the end.
Mercury's prosthetic arm tightened into fists, the metal rattling under the strain as he glared at Jaune. "I wanted to kill you to put an end to this. I thought if I could beat the Gundam, it'd set me free from this nightmare called war."
"Nightmare? Gah! After all you've done, you want to play victim now? You beat my Gundam with the power you gained by sacrificing your body didn't you? Hehehhe… hell of a rush isn't it? Beating me, the more we curse war, the more we hate it, the more obsessed we become with it." Jaune spat out, getting Mercury to take a step back as the memory of the pure euphoria of piloting the Psycho Zaku came back to him.
"It's our fate to go on fighting, admit it and quit lying to make yourself feel better. You sacrificed your body and I sold my soul, we're both demons who can only exist on the battlefield now. hehehehhahahhaheeha… the war isn't ending anytime soon for either of us." Jaune burst out laughing as Mercury simply spat to the side and left, unable to refute the words without his rebuttal sounding hollow even to his own ears.
"They're all… broken." Summer said.
"They're all casualties of war, the walking wounded of both sides." Ozpin replied with a small headshake.
Neptune sat huddled in a corner as the white fang ship rumbled from multiple hill breaches. He couldn't tell what was going on outside but he could guess from the snippets of conversation he overheard from the guards.
"A Baoa Qu huh… so the fighting has already reached here. Operation Star One must be succeeding then." He smiled bitterly and pulled his legs in closer, tuning out the worried mumbling of his fellow POWs.
Weiss was on board their carrier when it went down, and Jaune was nowhere to be found after having been separated from the rest of the prisoners. He didn't know whether they were interrogating him or if Jaune had already been summarily executed. For all he knew, he might be the only survivor of the three of them.
Panicked mutterings broke out when a series of impacts rocked the ship, causing the lights to go out and engulf them all in darkness. Before a full on riot could erupt inside the hold, the doors opened.
Blood spray floated into the room followed by the corpses of several white fang soldiers, both living dead division members and regular white fang troops. Jaune was right by them, one arm at the door controls and the other with a pistol outstretched.
His friend's face a royal mess, swollen and bruised all over but there was no missing the grin that just oozed smugness. "Nep, got any tissues?"
The screen faded to black and the lights came back on.
"Yeah! Jaune-Jaune got them all!" Nora cheered while Ren and Pyrrha just clapped politely.
"Meh, I was hoping peg legs over there would bite the dust too, but I guess you can't win em all." Yang shrugged, just happy to see Jaune escaping and rescuing his comrades.
"Gottaseemoregottaseemoregottaseemore…" Emerald was chanting softly under her breath, getting Mercury to shift one seat away from the mint haired girl.
"Reuse psycho device huh… interesting concept, is there anyway to develop that technology here without it needing the removal of all four limbs? Or a way to adapt it for better prosthetics?" Ironwood asked, staring at his own mechanical parts and wondering if they could be improved, internally wishing Dr Polendina was here to see all this.
"I suppose it is, I can prepare some notes on the device and several other similar analogues. It'll be made available the next time you enter the testing range." Blank said.
"Is that wise? Not that I don't trust Jimmy here or anything, but that kind of tech is open to a lot of abuses, especially if a certain someone gets hold of it." Qrow said, thinking of Salem and how much of a nightmare her pawns would be if they had access to such tech.
"Everything can be abused Mr Branwen. In the end, the decision on whether or not to introduce such technology to Remnant isn't mine to make, it's all of yours. Go refresh yourselves ladies and gentlemen, next viewing will start soon." Blank said.
Author's notes: Done, can't believe it took me so long to do a Gundam chapter. Try googling my profile name, just for fun. In other news, university has started and update schedule might get thrown out of whack by classes. An extra backstory tidbit for Gundam lore nuts, thunderbolt is actually the second time a modified Zaku II high mobility type has defeated a Full Armour Gundam, the first was done by Johnny Ridden shooting down Heinz Baer in another manga. Decided to write this chapter after re-watching Gundam build divers re-rise, came for a show about kids piloting giant robots in VR without stakes, got an SAO like isekai and furry genocide... yeah... on that note, ever see someone raise a death flag so high they wiped out an entire city with them?
Cast list:
Jaune Arc as Io Fleming
Weiss Schnee as Claudia Peer
Neptune Vasilias as Cornelius Kaka
Mercury Black as Daryl Lorenz
Corsac Albain as Hoover