Chapter 17
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Ansel.
A singular bullhead descending out of the sky. A small party of blondes stood waiting for them. Yang would have made a joke about the blonderhood waiting for Jaune, but she wasn't here.
"We're almost there." Pyrrha gently rubbed her partner's back. The engines whined less as the bullhead descend. A pilot quickly shooed them off with their gear. Safely off, the bullhead disappeared back into the sky to finish its deliver of students and huntsmen to their respective missions.
"JAUNE!" Happy shout.
"Jaune." Not happy.
"Welcome back IDIOT."
Jaune was screwed. At least his team was body blocking for him as they got off. I only feel a little bad about it.
His defense failed quickly with the disparity in numbers someone would eventually get to him. Also, NPR not blocking didn't help.
"JAUNY" Amber his youngest sister leaped and wrapped her arms around him. His brotherly instincts kicked in and he hugged her. "I missed you so much."
"I missed you too, Amber." Jaune hugged his youngest sister back. Although Amber was thirteen, was the baby of the family. A fact that she contested greatly when Jaune introduced her to his team.
Lavender walked you and promptly stood on Jaune's feet as she hugged him. The message clear, but considering she had helped with his forged transcripts, Lavender couldn't be that mad.
Next up was his older sisters minus Sapphire who equally berated his stupidity and his…okay mainly his stupidity. Sable and Hazel took the lead with Coral and Jade supporting them.
They were eventually broken up by their mother. Juniper Arc.
"Jaune."
"Mom."
"I am disappointed in you and very proud of you at the same time. Do you know how it feels to be this conflicted?"
"No."
"Promise to keep in touch over the next break and all will be forgiven." Her authoritative and controlling voice came out. The voice that brought order to eight children without a shout. The voice that brought Nicholas Arc to his knees begging for forgiven for unknown slights. In the back Nora stood behind Ren and Pyrrha.
"Arc's promise I will call someone in our family at least twice a month."
"Three times."
"Three times." Jaune conceded.
Juniper hugged her son. He hugged her back. "I am glad that you are safe." She whispered in his ear. "Now introduce us to your teammates."
Jaune started.
"Starting left to right. Lie Ren, Nora Valkyrie, and my partner, Pyrrha Nikos. We form Team Juniper."
"CAN I GET YOUR AUTOGRAPH?" Amber stood in front of Pyrrha.
"Ahh…sure." Amber looked frantically for a pen and object to sign.
"Can you give to me later?" Amber looked sheepishly down.
"Of course. I would be happy too." Pyrrha politely answered as Amber abruptly hugged her. "Thanks." Jaune stepped in and pulled her off of Pyrrha.
"Is she also the team leader?" Coral asked the logical question. Pyrrha flushed at that.
"NOPE. JAUNE IS THE FEARLESS LEADER!" Nora interjected.
"Fearless Leader?" Someone asked. "Sounds like a story to me." Sable smirked.
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Team SVRW.
Doctor Oobleck was greeted as he stepped off the bullhead followed by Team SVRW.
"Professor Oobleck, I am glad you could join us." Doctor Oobleck's old friend taunted him as they shook hands.
"Resident Assistant Williamson. It's good to see you. How is everybody?"
"Happier now that you are here." Doctor Williamson of Vale University tilted answered. "I am assuming you brought the good stuff."
"I don't leave Beacon without it." They both smiled. "Let me introduce you to Team SilverSword. Their team leader is Wiess Schnee." The white-haired girl shook his hand.
"If you get the chance thank your father for funding this expedition."
"Of course?" Wiess responded. Why would he fund an archeological expedition?
"Next is Ruby Rose, a scythe wielding prodigy."
"A prodigy? I guess that means we are in excellent hands." Ruby blushed at the praise.
"Sun Wokong of Vacuo." Sun shook hands with professor.
"Will the trinkets be safe with him around?"
"I wasn't planning on taking anything." Sun coldly responded.
"I jest young sir. It's the Mistrialian and Atlassian archeologist you have to worry about. They combined have more scandals than a beach has sandals." That got a chuckle out of Oobleck and Sun.
"Finally, Neptune Vasilias, a boy afraid of a kiddy pool."
"Why's that?"
"Unlike his name sake Mr. Valais here fears the water like a dog fears a feisty cat." Oobleck responded.
"That is unfortunate. I guess you lucked out then. We were originally going to the coast for an underwater scuba expedition."
"I could have protected the camp." Neptune weakly offered.
"A camp on a boat. Maybe someday but not anytime soon." Williamson laughed at that as did Sun. "Very well then. Your tents are off that away. Ask anybody if you can't find them."
"Also run a quick perimeter check as well." Oobleck called out as Team SliverSword went looking for their tents.
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Arc Residence. (The Arcidence)
"This is…quite the residence." Ren commented as the small crowd walked into The Arcidence.
"It has to be with so many chuckle heads running around." Several indignant 'HEYS' were heard.
"Not you girls. Jaune and your father." The matriarch corrected. Jaune pouted in the back.
"Is that why you married me?" Nicolas Arc asked from the top of a seat of stairs.
"No Nicky. We got married because of what's under the belt." Juniper corrected again.
"Pyrrha take notes." Coral added. Said girl flushed dark red at the thought. Coral then received a sharp blow to ribs for that.
"Miss Nikos. I take it then." Nicolas held out his and to the champion. "I sparred with your father before Sable and Coral were born. Can I assume you got your training from him?"
"I did for the most part." Pyrrha responded.
"You also got your wonderful looks from your mother too. Your hair is as vibrant as hers was back then. Tell me. How are they doing?"
"Last I heard they were great."
"That's good to hear. I would like to call your father soon if you can give me his number." Pyrrha nodded that she could. "So, who are the rest?"
"I am Ren and this is…"
"NORA!" She shook the older huntsman hand firmly.
"That's quite the grip you have. Make sure you don't break Ren with it."
"He's used to it."
With everyone introduced and the girls mostly scattered back through the house doing odd jobs or going back to their lives, Team Juniper stood with the Arc parents.
"When does your mission start?" Juniper asked.
"Tomorrow and then its two days and a night out. Three times." Jaune responded.
"Well there isn't many dangerous Grimm out there mainly lots of Beowolves and Ursa so it should be a walk in the park." Nicolas added.
"YES! I get to use grenades for once." Nora cheered from the side.
"Don't get too excited, Nora. We may not find any tomorrow." Nora shrugged. Explosions would be had.
"Dinner will be ready in an hour and a half." Juniper stated. "Now shoo. Go get some rest." Team Juniper was pushed out the side door to the guest house for the evening until dinner.
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Several days later.
Team SVWR sat around a fire bored. After running or walking circles around the camp without any serious Grimm to fight, they had become bored. Bored of watching the archeologist dig and explore the ruins. Bored of eating the same premade food.
Bored. They weren't allowed to spar for safety concerns both a lack of aura if the Grimm come and well civilians don't like being near random gunfire.
"Weiss, I am sooooooo bored." Sun complained from a rock where they sat. Neptune nodded in agreement. Ruby attempted to slump deeper into the rock formation.
Weiss looked at the rest from under her umbrella and asked a simple question. "Why is that my problem?"
"You're our team leader. You should be keeping moral up." Neptune smartly replied.
"I thought you enjoyed listening to Doctor Oobleck's stories." Weiss fired back.
"I do, but he not telling stories now." Weiss pouted at Neptune's answer.
"What do you guys want to do?" Weiss asked.
Leave.
Eat all the cookies and leave.
"Leave as soon as possible." Sun responded. "But we can't." Sun sighed.
"I thought we would at least be busy instead of just sitting around doing nothing." Ruby added.
"We are doing something. We are protecting every single person here." Neptune pointed out.
"But I want action. Not this." Ruby swept her arm over the camp site.
"Boring is always best or that's what one of our teachers back in Mistrial said. Remember Sun?"
"Mr. Sanko. Boring is always best and only fight when necessary."
They were silent for a few minutes as they took that information in. With a new perspective, about their boredom they reconsidered their positions on it.
"So, we sit here bored until we leave or something shows up?" Ruby broke the silence.
"Yep…Sorry everybody. I should have brought of something for us to do." Weiss apologized.
"It's not your fault. I thought we would have access to the CCT, so I only brought my scroll." Sun held up the useless device.
"Same here." Neptune added on. Weiss felt better.
"We could play cards." Ruby stated. "Uncle Qrow always played cards with us when we were younger."
"Was it Go Fish?" Sun asked.
"Yes. But that's besides to point. We just need to find a pack." Ruby jumped up with Sun following soon after.
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The Arcidence
Team Juniper was back in Ansel for the night before heading out back to Beacon for the end of the semester. Juniper had asked her eldest daughters to take the rest out into Ansel so that Nicolas and herself could spend more time with Jaune's team.
The six of them ate dinner with idle chit chat about the mission. Nora as always exaggerated her stories if there was some validity to them this time.
"Tell me." Nicholas looked at the three non-family members at the table. "Why do you guys want to be huntsmen and huntresses?" Juniper noticeable coughed into her hand. "Only if you want to."
Pyrrha started. "I wanted to get away from competitive fighting. It's fun, but I don't want to do that for every. I rather spend my time trying to help people."
"That's every noble of you." He looked at the last pair.
"Have you ever heard of Kuroyuri?" Ren asked.
"I have. It was unfortunate." Every decade or so, a freak wave of Grimm would take out an outlining town. The towns just disappeared overnight with most of the residents. The last town was Loincrest in Atlas.
"Nora and I are some of the few survivors." Nora shifted closer into Ren who responded.
"Thank you for sharing. All of you." Nicolas paused. "I joined because I wanted to be hero like the family before me like Jaune. It was one of the reasons why I didn't want him to become a huntsman." He sighed. "But I will not will stop him."
They sat in silence.
Nicolas continued to collect his thoughts.
The silence continued.
"Being a huntsman won't be easy or fun…" Nicolas low voice rumbled through the room. "…It's going to be difficult. It's going to be disheartening." He stared off into the distance. "Sometimes you respond to call and it will be too late. But through it all you find something to stabilize you."
"Sometimes its liquor to drown your sorrows. Other times it be training until you collapse. But the best solution is the emotional one."
Silence pervaded as Team Juniper was entrapped in the Arc's words.
"Your mother was that solution." He smiled at his wife. "Every job became the same. Complete the mission and return home…and that's what I did. Still do…. The point being. You're a team. Stick together and support each other no matter the situation."
After a few minutes of silence Pyrrha asked a question.
"Why was Jaune then relatively under trained compared to everyone else?" Nicolas sighed.
"That's a good question. The short answer is time and money." Nicolas looked at his wife who nodded as he continued. "When I started training Jaune, I was busy. I am a huntsman so I take jobs throughout Vale and I am also the father of eight girls." Nora snickered at that. Jaune rolled his eyes at the long running family joke. "That didn't leave me a lot of time to train Jaune so I gave him other stuff to work on." He looked at Jaune. "Did you show them your bookshelf?"
"I pointed it out, but not enough to give it significance." Jaune responded.
"On that shelf are books on tactics and other huntsman related topics. Medical to camping stuff Beacon does directly teach for the most part. I also gave him an exercise goals and basic drills."
Ren nodded along. Many things becoming clear. Jaune's poor knowledge of medical work, but better than most others in their year. Jaune's extreme knowledge of tactics and strategy. Jaune's passable knowledge of Grimm.
Jaune stepped in. "So pretty much I was self-trained, but Dad taught me sword play whenever he could. It was usually several hours a week."
Pyrrha nodded. Satisfied. It wasn't Nicolas' fault for Jaune's underwhelming performance in Professor Goodwitch's class.
"Thank you for answering my questions." Pyrrha finished.
"Thank you for training my son." Nicolas smiled at the champion. The front door opened.
"There goes the rest of the evening." Nicolas cleared the plates as his children loudly filed into the house.
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Evening.
Nicolas rolled into bed. One arm looking for his wife.
"Do think they will be green eyed with blonde hair or blue eyed with red hair?" Juniper asked.
"hmm…" Nicolas hummed indifferently.
"This is important. Think of the grandbabies." Juniper elbowed him.
"Green eyes with blonde hair. Two and Two. Both twins." Nicolas answered to follow questions before they were asked.
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Beacon. All missions finished.
Team Juniper stood with Team SilverSword. Ruby had received a message from her Uncle about their arrival time.
Weiss gasped. "WHAT?" Ruby asked.
"That's my sisters ship!" Weiss glyphed over to the landing pad quickly followed by everyone else.
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House Keeping.
Chapter 18 will be Team Skybox.