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I was a part of something bigger, made of something bigger. When I opened my eyes, Ruby was there. All of RWBY was there in fact, JNPR too. And CRDL even. Everyone I had ever met and, you know what, everyone I had ever not met was stuck too. Not just humans but faunus too. All Cetra in one giant groaning mass.
We were all there and made and trapped in this stuff. I tried to move but I was stuck in it. Like I'd been cemented into place in this wall. But the stuff wasn't cement it was flesh, both human and Grimm. When I looked out beyond there was only one thing that wasn't stuck in the goo, only one person.
A woman.
"Mother!" I called out. "Mother save me!" With dark eyes, she turned towards me.
She walked towards me and cupped my chin with ghost white hands. "Of course, my child. I will save you. Hush now."
With one gentle pull she ripped me free of the wall into her ghostly white arms. I shuddered as she cradled me.
When I woke up, Ruby's arms were tight around me. Her face held the exact same soft expression it had when she was stuck in the wall. I couldn't look at her. Especially as she sighed softly and nuzzled her face into my shoulder.
She could have been in her own bed. She was, in fact, in her own bed when I'd finally passed out. It made me wonder what I'd been doing in my sleep that made her switch beds at some point in the night.
There had been cries for help. People sobbed in the wall. But I knew that no one made it out of the four and a half billion year deep corpse pile. I screamed and something had looked at me. I called out in pure instinct for my mother and something had answered. It was alien, foreign. It was not like us.
My mouth open in a silent scream in the real world, I'd drooled all over my pillow and sheets. I flipped the pillow over and laid my head back but I knew I'd never get any sleep now.
All I could think was that she wasn't my mother. My mother had golden locks and pale blue eyes. She was not the Grimm woman I'd seen.
Ruby hushed me and rubbed my chest softly. Harsh red and orange scars stood out across it. She mumbled softly in her sleep. I watched her adjust her position across my chest, her hands taking mine in hers as she did.
I relaxed but only slightly. The sight of the woman's eyes were burned into my mind.
I checked my scroll. It was three thirty in the am. Way to early to go about waking Ruby or any such nonsense. I slid out of bed carefully, avoiding any movement which might wake Ruby and slid my pillow into my place. She adorably wrapped her arms around it and I couldn't help but brush her hair back and kiss her forehead.
I made my way over to the minifridge and help[ed myself to some of the icecream Ruby had bought and binged to make herself feel better. Strawberry sherbet. Fitting. And for breakfast no less. I sighed and wiped my forehead.
"Jaune…" A quiet whisper. I'd failed and been caught. She came up behind me and wrapped her arms around me. There was a mirror which ran across our wall in which I'd failed to notice her creeping up behind me. Her tight pjs pressed against my back and her fingers traced about the scars on my chest.
"It's nothing, just a bad dream."
"You've been having a lot of those." She almost scolded me. But if it was a scold I wanted to be scolded again, it was so gentle.
"They're nothing," I tried.
"Not nothing," she denied easily. "Tell me about them," she murmured. Her voice like a shallow creek. "Are they about Tyrian?"
"Who? The scorpion?"
I felt her roll her eyes against my back. "His name was Tyrian."
"He doesn't deserve so much as a name. Calling him 'The Scorpion' is already too good for him."
"Tell me about your nightmares, Jaune." She was impossible to distract, it would seem. That's why I loved her; I think. Not only was she a sweetheart, she was unrelenting. It was unbelievably attractive.
I told her about the woman who looked like a Grimm but not about the mound of human and faunus flesh. She was worried enough about me physically.
I shuddered as she ran her hands through my scars, the warmth of her fingers rocked me to my bones. The feeling spread across my ribs as I turned around and wrapped her in my arms. Her arms stayed tight within mine and she leaned her head against my chest again.
"Jaune..."
"I'll be okay Rubes. Pinky promise."
She wrapped her hands around my neck and kissed me.
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Near the start of the trip we'd split into rooms based on gender, later we divided ourselves along what were the developing couples. I happened to run into my old roommate in the hallways of the hotel.
"Ren," I greeted.
"Jaune," he nodded back at me.
"So are you going to tell me how you know so much about this Grimm."
He sighed. "Not much to tell. It killed my parents."
I raised an eyebrow. "Bruh," I stated.
"Yes. I realized it as soon as I said it." Ren agreed. "There's a lot to tell, actually. My father was a hunter who protected a village near here. Where is largely irrelevant. The village is gone now. Much like GaiLong."
"Because of the Nuckelavee?"
"In part. There had already been a rush of Grimm. Whether the town would have survived if it hadn't showed up is a mystery to me." He frowned. "I'd like to doubt it."
"Its like that sometimes." I thought of recent events but more distantly the dragon Grimm which was petrified at Beacon tower. Ruby's silver eyes made the ultimate weapon against Grimm. At least that was how she had explained it.
She still had no idea how to control the damn thing in that regard so I wasn't planning on throwing her against the Nuckelavee. Although…
Mystery eye powers aside, Ruby's abilities were awesome. It made mine, Ren's, and Nora's look lackluster.
"I had hopped-well- I'd hoped to be the one to kill it." Ren confessed.
"Ren, Ruby wasn't even powerful enough to kill it. Therefore no one in our party is."
He grinned sideways at me. "You underestimate yourself. As always."
I sighed. "Not you too."
"Jaune your power is fantastic, if only underdeveloped. You'll only grow stronger from here. Yours is the kind that manifests all sorts of other abilities. Like Ruby's invulnerability. It isn't… raw. Like Nora's or mine."
"Limit is limit." I said it like it meant something. However, Ren nodded along like it did. "Maybe I'll grow but not soon enough. The point is you can't do this alone, Ren. You didn't tell me about its howl. People died."
"You're right. Of course you are. You have a mind for such things."
We walked in brief silence through a courtyard past a gaurd house and up the steps of the North wall. Like I mentioned they were much more militarized than GaiLong. Perhaps that was the way to resist the Grimm. "Maybe we should be more militarized. Like Atlas. Like here. Maybe that's how we are supposed to be."
"I don't think so." Ren whispered. "You and Ruby make our decisions together. You two keep making the right decisions, even. You do so together. That's what makes you two strong. Not your rediculous powers."
"You think us getting together was right?" It was on my mind a bit.
"Yes, even when you ask stupid questions." Ren smirked. Damn him. "I, on the other hand, keep making poor choices. Choices which get people hurt. I do so because I'm making them alone."
"Then don't. Talk to Nora. She talks to Ruby, who talks to me."
"I'd rather, I think, just talk to you when I need to. Cut the girls out when I should. That would be much more rational."
"I doubt I'd be rational about anything concerning my family." I forgave. "Can you tell me anything else about it I should know."
"It'll be fully healed when next we encounter it. Your landmine strategy won't work unless the explosives kill it outright. Its healing factor is so."
I chewed on my cheek.
"I keep…" Ren tried. "I keep pushing Nora away. For no real reason."
"Huh?" I wondered. "Are you just… scared?"
He breathed and leaned against a wall. He stretched his hands over his head then, after a moment, he pulled himself back up. "Yes. I'm terrified of ruining what we have. That she'll find out I'm not what she really wanted."
"Huh?"
"Please. Take me seriously."
"I am. I was afraid of the same thing with Ruby. Still am."
"But she wanted you before..." He trailed off. "Oh I see."
"Yeah."
"Huh," he said. "It's that simple? She wanted me before."
"Yeah."
"Does this go away?" He geastured helplessly.
"Getting kissed helps. It helps a lot."
"I see."
"Sirs?" A guard was behind us. We whipped around. "Will you take a look at this? It's out of our uh-league? Yeah. League."
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We walked into a- I guess it was a barracks? It was low and cobblestone and cement. It had few windows and a large table lined with wooden chairs. It didn't strike me as comfortable so much as sturdy.
There was a weapon on a stone table in the middle of the room. A huntsman's weapon. Except it was clearly bent at odd angles. The metal was warped and internal gears were not only exposed, I supposed some were missing.
It consisted of a series of blocked edges which may have formed a single edged sword, my style in that it was long and single edged. Although it could have been used to form something else given the long shaft beside it. The shaft was snapped in two but it was red and black. Maybe some kind of glaive or even a scythe if I was expounding.
Hey, I'd seen my fair share of scythe.
A pair of barrells probably sat on either side of the main blade, given the symmetry most weapons had, at least. This weapon only had one and the main blades were dinged and dented all across their surfaces. I tapped the blade of Crocea Mors against it, using the bastard sword. and it felt like the same material. The material all high quality weapons shared. Titania.
Normal steel just couldn't hold up to the stresses huntsman's weapons were put under. It had to be Titania or nothing.
"A patrol near GaiLong found it. We hoped you could identify it." The militia man explained in a deep voice. "It's huntsman, right?"
"Yeah," I agreed. "Definitely huntsman." I eyed the barrel and took a closer look. A shotgun shell, dust propellant and probably custom made was still in the chamber. "Ren, run and go grab our weapons expert. She'll be sleeping but she'll want to see this." I flicked the safety on. At least that was still working.
Ren nodded and left to fetch Ruby.
I tried several buttons and switches but they just made those internal; gears spin without properly catching. At a guess, all those gears were Titania too, had to be in order to keep up with aura.
I pulled the shell out of the chamber and eyed it closely. The shell itself was steel and was therefore not a problem.
I leveraged my sword down on the shotgun shell and split it open. I was confident the dust would only go off if the shell was hit properly. I wasn't doing anything like that. There were pellets, metal grains, probably lead or steel on one side, at least at the taste. On the other side was something I was much more interested in and capable of analyzing.
The dust propellent. I smelled it. Burn and a small amount of shock. Enough to propel the pellets at a fairly decent velocity. Close range though. That matched the barrel.
The barrel length was fairly short without a choke or a hop up. Probably made it a close ranged weapon even for a shotgun.
Ruby stepped down into the bunker behind me. I could smell her. Flowers and gunpowder before I saw her. I stepped back so she could see the weapon and her hands raised to her face.
"You know this one?"
"It's my uncle's." She recognized it better than a face. "What happened where did you find this?" She started to run away with questions.
"They said they found it near GaiLong."
"Jaune he won't survive long without his weapon he-"
"Ruby..."
"He'll have methods to survive but not forever. We have to go rescue him." Her eyes had that look in them. I knew I couldn't argue that he was dead.
"Can you give us a second?" I asked the militia man.
He glanced between us and shook his head slowly. "I'm supposed to- that is I need to…" He was supposed to watch us, then. I interpreted.
I shook my head, hands out. "Never mind, then. We'll pay for it, though, regardless."
"They said that you might." He named a steep price.
I grimaced but agreed to it. It wasn't like we didn't have the money. Well did. Not anymore. For what was basically junk.
It was junk that meant a great deal to Ruby, though.
I turned back to Ruby. She cradled the weapon in her arms. Like a long lost baby. Of course I'd do what she asked. Didn't she get it by now? That he was probably dead yet I'd still go with her to find him?
"Tell us where you found it," I ordered the guard. It was fair at the price the rider was asking. He knew and his bosses knew it too. We were paying for the location as much as the weapon.
He nodded and laid it out on a map near GaiLong for us. I copied it to my own scroll with a photo. Then I overlaid it with my own digital map and strapped my scroll back to the inside of my wrist.
"Thank you, Jaune." Ruby whispered, stroking the edges of the blades ever so gently, so as to not cut herself.
"Of course."
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