So yeah, its been a while.
I'm not gonna lie, I hit a major burnout, and struggled with a lot of things back home mentally. Don't worry, I've gotten much better now, but I finally did something worth while, and plan to make a schedule for myself, as it would help a lot. Please, PLEASE comment what you think, it really helps me out, and thanks for your time.
Enjoy!
Bam! Bam! Bam!
There had to be a hammer ringing Jaune's mophead dome. That could not be just his imagination. He groaned, rubbing the throbbing mass of pain that was his head. Nausea followed, making him lurch over the wall, gagging, threatening to retch. He managed to find enough sense to take a deep breath, and attempted to get a firm visual on his surroundings. It failed miserably, whatever vision he had lost in a world of green pea soup. He groaned again, back sliding down the wall, hoping beyond hope that something would just make this mystery sickness stop.
It felt like a few hours had gone by since the poor knight had found any semblance of sanity. It may have just been a few seconds outside of his scattered mind. The first and only sound he could make out was the ticking of a clock. He took a few deep breaths, trying to make anything out of that mass of pea soup he called vision. It took some time, longer than Jaune would have liked, but the throbbing started to go away. He sat up, fingers curling into the pristine carpet floor.
Where was he? What was going on? Jaune's entire brain was muddled. Whatever common sense he could muster was being trampled like a puddle being repeatedly stamped and rippling. A hand suddenly touched his shoulder, whatever reaction he had badly delayed, something about slapping the air with his limp hand, making some sort of bubbling noise with his mouth. Definitely befitting of a prospective hunter, one would say. The figure in front of him shifted away a little only to come back what felt like a minute later and dangle something under his nose. It smelt sour. Very, very sour.
All of a sudden, instant clarity. Normal vision, hearing and sight were smacked back into his face fast enough to give him whiplash. The poor boy went cross-eyed for a moment. Then the smell hit him like a ton of bricks, and sent him bouncing back, gagging. That was rancid, good gods!
He managed to look up in surprise to see Yang standing there victoriously with an odd taco wrap in her hands. "W-what is that?" He rasped.
"Two week old tuna, sour milk, some crap I stole from under the sink, mystery juice off the internet, and I do believe… tarragon?" Yang mused. Her nose crinkled. "Yech, that is pretty ripe. It's the first time I opened this in a while."
"You didn't have to open it at all." Jaune mumbled, holding his nose. No use, the smell wouldn't go away. It was an absolute plague. "Why did you have to do that?"
Yang shrugged, lobbing the foul-smelling concoction out one the far windows with one good toss. "Well, had to wake you up somehow without slapping your mug off. You were babbling about something to do with some guy named Adam, and finding cat hair all over your body. I figured this little mess here would work better than smelling salts anyway." She hastily rubbed her hand against one of the lockers, grimacing. "And now my hands are gonna stink for a week. I really did not think that through."
Jaune would have laughed if every passage wasn't on fire right now.
He slowly eased himself up, legs feeling wobbly from unused. The halls of the school were completely empty, the clock reading two AM. Moonlight shined through the windows, casting a pale glow over the slightly darkened hallway. It brought out the lavender in Yang's eyes, Jaune thought. It was quite nice actually. Jaune cleared his throat, fighting off the warmth growing in his cheeks.
"What are you doing out here? Especially this late?" Jaune asked.
"Didn't you hear? The most exciting things always happen at night." Yang grinned. "The monsters come a-howlin', the ghosts come a-spookin', and the lunch ladies keep forgetting to lock their doors." She bounced an apple in her hand like it was a crown jewel. "Raiding the lunchroom is definitely worth staying up this late. A damn good fruit-ful effort, eh?" She burst out laughing.
Jaune cringed. "That was almost as bad as the smell." Yang stuck her tongue out at him, slinging his arm over her shoulder and hoisting him up. His brows furrowed. "What're you doing? I thought you hated my guts earlier."
Yang's face became oddly solemn. "Can we not talk about that?"
"Something wrong?"
"Just forget about it." Yang pressed, dragging Jaune's sorry butt across the hall and into the dorm area. "Actually, better question. What the hell were you doing treating the hall like a lounge? After curfew even? Holy crap, I'm not that gutsy."
A small grin flashed on his face. "You know, for a second, you sounded exactly like Professor Goodwitch." Yang's face did quite a grand contortionist routine, mixing and twisting a grimace, amusement, and horror into one perfect disaster. Few could say they saw such an odd expression come from the brawler. Consider Jaune one of the luckiest men on the planet.
"Twenty lien says that she was the school bad girl at one point." Yang laughed.
Jaune snorted. "Twenty more says she was the school heartbreaker."
The pair were too busy laughing to recognize the familiar click-clack of heels coming towards them, spelling their doom. The blondes would have kept it up if they hadn't heard that whip crack as a riding crop clapped a wall right next to their heads. Their blood ran cold.
"Oh no, please, do continue." Goodwitch hissed, fire in her eyes. "In fact, I would wager twenty lien of my own that I am able to break much more than hearts, especially to unruly students who have no idea how to obey a simple curfew rule." Jaune and Yang gulped. A night of stinky triumph had just fallen flat on its face, and the one who tripped it was a soul-crushing weight called detention.
/
The morning was the world's most merciless racehorse. It didn't care whether or not you were too tired to wake up in the morning, or too alert to fall asleep at night. It just kept on racing ahead without a care in the world, stopping for no unfortunate soul who couldn't take its advance. Jaune was at its mercy, and he hated it. It had raced to four AM before Goodwitch had decided she had enough of the tongue lashing, and let the two of them go. They left that office like they had just witnessed a tragedy, downtrodden, silent, and just wanting to sleep it off.
They wordlessly entered their rooms, barely conscious enough to open their doors. His eyes were weighed down by cinder blocks. He flopped face-first into his bed, groaning. It was a weary battle just to work their legs to get them back to their dorm rooms. The weight of an impending three days' worth of detention didn't help. Even if Jaune got back from whatever mission Ozpin has schemed for him alive, that hell would still be there. Jaune's eyes snapped open. The mission! The partner! The expulsion!
The poor knight clambered off the bed again, chock full of disjointed energy. He had just managed to get out of the dorm room while team RWBY's dorm room was slightly parted. Jaune took a dive, wrenching his finger in between the door frame and the door, propping it open.
"Yang! Yang, wait! I have to ask you some-tiiiiing!" Jaune's girly squeal was enough to shatter glass. He couldn't get angry at Yang for slamming the two-inch thick door onto his fingers. He'd been the one stupid enough to think fingers were enough to stop a seventy-pound door, without aura no less. At least it was enough to get Yang's attention, as exhausted as she was as well.
"Wasz goin' on?" Yang slurred, eyes practically shut.
"I was just… checking up on you?" Jaune said awkwardly.
Yang narrowed her eyes. "Didn't you just see me not even a few seconds ago? Are you that desperate to hang out with me?" She yawned loudly. "For that matter, couldn't you have chosen a better time?"
"Sorry, it's just a little hard for me to talk to you sometimes, especially since you just spent the last week trying to kill me over an accident," Jaune said a little more bitterly that intended.
The silence grew thick. There was something brewing behind those lavender eyes, but Jaune had neither the foresight nor alertness to see it right now. They stopped in the middle of the hall briefly, Yang heaving a sigh. "Hey, got any favors you need doing?"
Jaune cocked a brow. "That's a little random."
"What can I say. Most of life's greatest rewards are." Yang mused, a whimsical face starting to crack at the seams. It slowly shrank to a frown, glaring at the carpet as if it had done her wrong. "Look, I'll be real with you, I treated you like shit all week for a stupid reason. I just… I don't know how to explain it, or even if I want to, just gimme a favor."
"Yang, seriously, you don't owe me anything."
"No I don't. Funny, huh? Now, favor?" She impatiently asked.
Jaune pursed his lips. There was obviously more to this than meets the eye, but this was obviously quite the gracious gift horse. There was no way he was going to give up this one. "How far are you willing to go with that favor?" Yang cringed. "Wait, that's not what I meant. I mean, I have that mission tomorrow morning, and I still don't have a partner. It's going to be a few days most likely, so I was wondering if you wanted to go with me?"
Yang groaned. "How early?"
"It could be in like… a couple of hours?"
She groaned even louder.
"Sorry…"
"Just… let me sleep. For the love of the gods." She mumbled, slamming the door shut. Jaune could barely make out her lamenting the fact that she ever went out at night to begin with.
Now came the hard part. Calling your superpowered, all-knowing principle in the crack of dawn, just hoping beyond hope that he doesn't magic up an angry lightning bolt to smite the knight for waking him up. The nervous sweat was already setting in. With trepidation, he unlocked his scroll and called the headmasters number. Each ring made his heartbeat accelerate, like the ticking of a bomb about to explode. When the call was picked up, Jaune heard the same wise, soft-toned voice riddled with gravel, and lack of some desperately needed caffeine.
"Mister Arc, there had better be worldwide armageddon to excuse you calling me this early in the morning." Ozpin grumbled.
Jaune gulped, his shaking hand vibrating faster than the scroll ever could. "Well, I don't see any meteors, so I can say we're safe- I'll just get to the point." He hastily said, sensing the elderly wizard was not in the mood for pleasantries. "I found a partner. It's Yang Xiao-Long. She agreed to it, so we're ready to go whenever."
Ozpin went quiet for a moment.. "Miss Xiao-Long, you say?" He asked. "Hmm… if that is the case, head down to the Airship in one hour. The trip will be long, and the accommodations are adequate, so I would wager sleeping inside will not be an issue."
Jaune sighed. "Yang's going to kill me if I wake her up."
"Would you rather I do this for wasting my time?"
"No, sir!" Jaune quickly squeaked in fear.
"Good. I shall await your results when you finish." He hung up, leaving Jaune standing there. He sighed. Here goes nothing. He took a step.
That step was all it took for the entire world around him to fall apart.
The moment his foot touched the carpet, a dark miasma burst forth, spiraling in an angry tornado around as far as the eye could see. Shadows crept over the lockers, ceiling, and floor, swallowing it all whole. The dark haze encroached over every surface, covering the entirety of the hallway in thick darkness. All noise had slowly died down. The crickets chirping outside, the howling wind near the window, all gone, replaced by a slow, steady mechanical hum. The air had gone ice cold. Jaune could see his breath, and that was just about it. The only visible thing in the dark void was the young knight, who gave off a faint glow.
Fear was an understatement. Jaune was petrified, feeling like the cold had locked up every muscle in his body. His breath came out in rapid gasps, spreading a misty haze in front of his eyes, shaking furiously. Walking made no difference. He couldn't even hear his footsteps. There was barely something there to call a surface, as if walking on a storm cloud. His fingers curled and squeezed against his pants, fingertips nearly plunging a hole through them, trying to tell himself to stay calm. This was an illusion. Some sort of messed up dream. It had to be. Maybe it was that spider Grimm Blake warned them all about. Just don't believe what you see, she said, and especially don't believe what you hear.
All the same, he had to try something aside from standing there. "Hello?" He sputtered, unable to find anything smarter to say. "Is there anyone here?"
Something crashed to the ground behind him, making a collection of jingles and jangles. The sound of chainmail. Jaune turned and saw a knight in full black plate armor, red plumage flowing freely in the shadows. His breath shuddered. The Knight drew his sword, a daunting crimson glow illuminating the abyss.
Jaune's heart stopped.
Can you do it now?
He narrowed his eyes. "Did you say something?"
Can you save yourself? Save all of us?
His brows furrowed in confusion. "What are you talking about? What did you do? Where are we?"
The Knight's head sunk a little. Not this time, then. We are getting closer however. One day, you will be rid of this curse. One day, we will both be free. Until then, walk tall. The Knight plunged his sword into the ground, the shadows spinning once again in a harsh tornado. The shadows peeled away, tearing at the walls like paper, the lockers, ceiling and floor showing underneath. Within a spilt second, with a flurry of wind, it was all gone, and the familiar sounds of the night returned, leaving Jaune sitting there in utter confusion.
No. That is it. He needs sleep. Even if it was just for an hour, if sleep deprivation was going to lead to more madness like that, one hour was worth it. With that, he rushed back into his dorm room, slamming the door shut, not catching the large stab gash in the carpet floor.
/
Yang was none too pleased about being woken up again. Ember Celica was luckily far from grabbing range, otherwise the poor hunter-in-training would be picking a few shotgun pellets out of his armor. Jaune had to half-drag half-escort her to the airship, making for quite an interesting three-legged race, but they made it. The airship took off the moment they got their supplies in, or rather the moment Jaune brought them all in. Yang had all but passed out on the couch that was luckily put in there, and was snoring loudly.
Jaune was not too close by, taking to one of the passenger seats, too tired to feel sick. He could have sworn he saw the shadow of a bat swooping past, but that could just be one of those hallucinations again. He gripped his seat thinking about it. He didn't know what it was. A vision? A hallucination? Hopefully, he could just ignore it and carry on, and carry on he did. Ignoring that shadow creeping up every now and again before flying off, he drifted off to sleep, just hoping the mission would turn out alright.