So continues my desperate attempts to answer all the PM's I am receiving about the state of the site and uploads not showing. I can't even update my profile page to provide answers as that also doesn't save. Therefore I can't tell them that apparently viewing the site in mobile mode fixes it, or where I have uploaded the chapters away from the site.
Alas.
Cover Art: Mystery White Flame
Chapter 81
Jaune wasn't sure when his life had become some kind of divine comedy, but as he stood on the cliffs overlooking the Emerald Forest leaning on his sword while a literal Black Knight clumsily practiced swinging a sword ripped right out of one of Ruby's videogames around, he knew it had happened.
"Do you think you can beat her?" Ironwood whispered in his ear.
Now, Jaune didn't consider himself the best huntsman on the planet. He didn't consider himself the best of much, since even someone better at lying their ass off could have avoided this situation. Still, the question stung his pride and he turned to favour General Ironwood with an indignant scowl. To his credit, the man looked somewhat abashed.
"I mean, obviously you can beat her. I think my first years could do that." They both paused to watch as Salem swung her barndoor of a claymore over one shoulder, unbalanced herself and tipped back, sword digging into the ground behind her.
"One moment!" she yelled. "Small problem!"
"It's just that I don't see how you'll deal with her permanently. There's something to be said for someone who can shrug off evert injury and keep coming, and it's not that it's a fight you win."
"Not traditionally speaking, no," Jaune admitted.
"You have an idea, then?"
"Vaguely."
General Ironwood looked about as pleased as any man told his fate hung in the balance of a `vague plan` could. He smacked his lips, tossed his head from side to side and stomped off with a comment that he was going back to leading the defence against the Grimm, because "at least those monsters made sense".
He felt that was a little unfair. Salem made sense if you thought about it; it was just that you had to wrap your head around some interesting concepts. Functional immortality for one, and the impact that had on your sense of self.
See, most people avoid bad or stupid ideas. It seems obvious, so obvious that when someone doesn't do it, you think they are insane. It's not actually bad choices people are afraid of, though. It's consequences.
People feared consequences. And why not? Consequences hurt. Asking a girl out and getting rejected stings, while putting your hand on a hot pan straight off the stove stings as well, albeit a more immediate and swearing-fit-accompanying kind of stinging. Waking Neo up early also stings, as does depriving Roman of his tobacco because you thought it would be good for his health. There are plenty of things in life that hurt, and it's human nature to avoid those things because pain is bad and really big pain can downright cripple you.
Then, suddenly, none of that matters anymore. All of a sudden, no consequences you experience can stick, or those that do are easily recoverable from. What changes? What stays the same? Well, quite a lot really. There are all those weird hobbies and activities that you kind of want to try but that come with the risk that scares you off. Skydiving, bungee jumping, BASE jumping. He wasn't sure if Salem of all people had ever jumped off the tower of Beacon in a wingsuit (probably not) but the point remained that once risk was taken out of the equation, a lot more options opened up.
Now, multiply that by however many thousand years and add in the creeping element of boredom involved. BASE jumping without risk probably sounds fun until you realise risk is the main reason for the adrenaline rush. Repeat the process ten thousand times without it and it probably gets boring. Apply that logic to just about every activity in the world, and what was realistically left?
Apparently, donning a big suit of armour, a sword and fighting a huntsman when you had no combat skill. Suicide to anyone else, an amusing pastime to Salem. It was even more ridiculous from Ironwood's point of view because she was ignoring the huge war she'd brought on the city – and it probably dug at Ironwood that Jaune was ignoring it as well – but that was applying human logic to Salem. It was suggesting she had to win now.
What did time mean to Salem? What did Grimm lives mean to her? General Ironwood was too focused on the military ideal of a quick and decisive victory which, in all fairness, was the absolute most efficient way to wage war, but Salem didn't care about efficiency because there were no consequences for her.
"You should let me fight her," Nicholas Arc said, placing a hand on his son's shoulder.
"I'm the one who challenged her."
"I won't let you face that monster."
"Have a little faith in me."
"I have faith. I also have a heart, and it does not appreciate the thought of my son risking his life with such a cavalier attitude." The hand tightened. "I can cut her head from her shoulders. Leave this to me."
"She will survive that!" Jaune hissed. The fact Salem was here at all implied she knew there was no extent of injury they could cause that would permanently damage her. "And besides, you're not aware of the plan."
"Plan…?" Nicholas' grip loosened. "You swear you have a plan? I'm not going to be satisfied with a `vaguely` like Ironwood is."
Jaune didn't think Ironwood was satisfied with anything but nodded anyway. He had a plan. It was a simple plan, an inelegant plan, but then he was a simple and inelegant kind of guy, so maybe that was for the best. Ozpin had always been the big strategy guy, and Salem had run rings around him. Maybe that was more a fault of the matchup than a flaw in Ozpin's genius. Big strategy worked well when it was outmatching a foe trying to use the same style, but Salem wasn't. Instead of strategy, she used brute strength. Salem had brought a claymore to a chess match, and once she managed to get the thing under control, it'd probably prove more useful than an e4 opening.
Nicholas grunted once, squeezed in clear warning that if the fight went wrong, he would intervene, and then released him. It wasn't a threat Jaune wanted to counteract, since if things went wrong, he'd rather throw away his honour than his life. Watching Salem finally get her monstrous blade under control, albeit the thing's tip was wavering in the air, Jaune took a deep breath and stepped forward.
"Are you ready for our duel?"
"I have been ready since we arrived," Salem lied. "It is you who dallied with that rather attractive man over there." Quietly, she whispered, "His name?"
"Married."
"Married? Well, it's an interesting name but I suppose a name doesn't matter beneath the sheets."
Jaune's face grimaced and then grimaced again, having little grimace babies that scrunched his face up tightly. No one needed the image of their parent having sex, and less so their parent having sex with an eldritch abomination.
"Enough! Let us set the terms of our duel."
Salem blinked, confused. "Terms?"
"Why yes, you didn't think Ozma and his knights would duel against people for no reason, did you?"
"I did, actually. Huh. I guess it would make sense it was for a purpose, but I really did assume it was just some manly rite of strength. Like all those times the knights would get naked, oil up and wrestle."
Jaune slowly and methodically counted to ten before continuing. "A duel is often used as a way to decide an argument or issue. Sometimes they were used to decide entire wars before they happened, and sometimes they were used to win a lady's hand."
"Question!" Salem raised her own hand. "Why would said lady be impressed with some brute coming along and beating on her beloved? Why would said lady not stab said brute in said brute's crotch?"
"I don't know."
"Are we duelling for your lady's hand?" Salem looked to Glynda and hummed. "I've not actually tried that. Hmmm…"
"We're no longer dating," Glynda said very quickly and very nervously. "And he was just giving an example of what a duel could be for. No one is duelling for anyone's hand here."
"We will duel for time." Jaune said. He'd have loved to duel for Salem to take her army away, but he knew she'd never accept it, and there was always the chance he might lose. "We already have our meeting tomorrow, but should you lose this duel then you will sacrifice your time tonight and stay in Beac- Ozma Sucks until tomorrow."
Salem wasn't the only one who looked stunned. Glynda, Nicholas and even Oobleck looked like they were about to explode. He couldn't blame them.
"You… Should I lose, I am to stay the night?" Her helmed head tilted to the side, red eyes peering past her grating. "I thought this was not a battle for one's hand. Are you trying to worm your way into my bed?"
"No! None of that! Why are you so obsessed with that anyway!?"
"It's been a while. It's as dry as Vacuo down there-"
"I do not need to know!" he yelled. "There will be other things planned. You will stay and sample our hospitality for the knight, swearing on your honour-" If she had any, "-that you will not harm anyone for the duration. You will be a guest and will be released tomorrow before our noon ceasefire."
"And the invasion continues?"
"If you wish it," he said.
"Very well. I shall agree to that term. If I'm to be rewarded for losing with a hot meal and a comfortable bed, I won't say no." Again, there was no risk or consequence from her point of view since they could hardly poison or assassinate her in the night. "Now the question is, if that is to be my reward for defeat, what shall I gain if I win?"
"Same terms reversed?"
"You as my guest?" Salem looked him up and down and then glanced at Glynda. "Despite my ex-husband inhabiting the body of a child, I'm afraid my… tastes do not match those of your ex-girlfriend. I prefer my men to be men."
"EXCUSE ME!?" Glynda screeched.
"I will take him, though," she said, pointing eagerly to Nicholas. "He will be my guest for the night with no harm coming to him. A few scratch marks don't constitute harm, right?"
"Absolutely no-"
"Agreed." Nicholas Arc said.
"DAD!?"
"Better these terms than something that imperils you." Nicholas said. "Your mother wouldn't care if it was to protect you, and we'd all know it didn't mean anything." Louder, to Salem, he said, "Jaune of Arc agrees to these terms."
Salem clapped her gauntlets together. "Wonderful. Then let us begin."
"Not yet!" Jaune said quickly.
"There's more…? All this posturing and talk. Very well. What now?"
"The terms of the fight. It cannot be to the death-"
"Why not? I'm fine with that."
"There is no death for you," Nicholas said, "Therefore it's an impossible duel."
Salem paused. She wasn't surprised; the whole intent of her wanting a duel in the first place was that she knew she couldn't be killed, so this was hardly news to her. What she probably hadn't expected was to have that thrown back in her face as a means to invalidate the whole thing. No one had ever pulled the fairness card on her before.
Now that they were, she knew they were introducing a way for her to possibly lose the fight. It wasn't exactly subtle and now the pieces were falling together in her head. They'd force her into a duel she could lose.
The hope was that now the terms were established, her curiosity might eclipse her concern. That she might think the possibility of an evening with his father – ugh, mom was going to kill him – appealing enough as to be worth trying for, especially since the consequences of losing were so minor. Either way, the terms were in her favour, so what was the harm? What did she stand to lose? Jaune's fingers clenched Crocea Mors tightly.
"I will consider terms," she finally said. "Within reason. My resilience is my greatest strength, so I hope you don't expect this to be to first blood. I won't accept that."
First blood would have been laughably easy and much too ideal given their difference in skill. He wasn't surprised she'd cut the idea off.
"How about to unconsciousness or ring out?" Given her ability to shrug off damage and regenerate, he wasn't sure she could be rendered unconscious easily. It would take more than a solid hit to the head. "As for the ring, hm. I guess it'd be a bit ridiculous to make it small. How about from the wall of the school to the edge of the Emerald Forest?"
All in all, that was about a hundred metres diameter, a generous arena with plenty of room to move around and no real chance of him cheating her over the line.
Salem looked suspicious. "That much room? How specific?"
Clever girl, wanting exact markers.
"If you touch the school wall or enter the Emerald Forest with your full body, it's a ring out. The forest surrounds the school, so I guess that means the arena is a ring, but I'm happy to stick to this section of it if you are. As long as you don't touch the school or go into the forest, it's fine."
A generous area, plenty of visible warning and an easy time avoiding ring out as long as she stuck to the central area. And all she had to do was outlast and knock him out. Or kill him. Even if she lost, the worst she'd get is a bed and some food.
Salem looked like she was desperately trying to find the trick, the way he could win or the reason he'd put everything so firmly in her favour. Reckless as she may have been, as consequence-free as her existence was, she wasn't naïve. Nor stupid. Her head craned back and forth, inspecting the walls and the grassy fields all the way up to the forest and the cliffs off to the left. Given how heavy she was with all her armour, he wasn't going to be able to lift or throw her anywhere. Certainly not into the wall or the woods.
"Well?" he prodded. "Are we agreed?"
What are you planning? Her expression seemed to say. Her red eyes were narrowed to thin slits as she ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. Ultimately, she nodded, pulling her visor down over her face and hefting her weapon.
"The Black Knight accepts your terms."
/-/
Ruby Rose crept through Tyrian Callows' room like the floor was lava. There was definitely something stuck to the floor in places, suggesting either a severe lack of hygiene or some serious problems. Parts of the floor and furniture were also eaten away at by what seemed to be acid, showing melting marks where droplets had spilled from his tail. Some were more obvious with puncture wounds. Tyrian was seemingly a man prone to fits of spontaneous and acidic violence.
He was also, she realised rather quickly, an outright psychopath.
For one thing, his walls were all different colours. Blue, green, yellow and purple. Now Ruby would be the first to admit garish colours and no sense for fashion were relatively low on the scale of psychopathy, but still, it hurt when you turned around in the room because your eyes kept taking in different tones.
There was also a rather strange abundance of pictures of Salem drawn by the hand of what appeared to be a ten year old child. Some of them showed a cartoonishly drawn Salem with a black triangle for a dress, grey hair and red dots for eyes, standing next to a brown coloured man with a black tail, holding hands. Both were smiling madly, and all around them were pink stick figures on the floor, covered in red. One of them had black hair and the words `Bitch Cinder` above them. There was a big black arrow sticking out her back and a bow on the floor.
She would have worried about small children being sacrificed and enslaved if it wasn't for the words, Tyrian – 36, written on the bottom left corner in crayon. Ruby's head jumped to mental illness, but she shied away. He might just be bad at art.
Bad at socialising, too, if the books on his desk were any indication. Ruby moved them aside just in case a sword was hidden underneath, reading the titles as she went.
"How to Make Friends and Influence People. A Dummy's Guide to Holding a Conversation. Small Talk and You. Hey, I own that one." Ruby paused to shudder and wonder if she needed to reassess her life choices. There was a piece of paper stuck in the last one. Ruby opened it up – again, who knew where he might hide a clue? – and found the book marked to the chapter on getting to know people.
"Have a list of questions in your head that you can ask to keep a conversation moving," she read. "If it helps, plan those questions out in advance so that you never run out of things to say!"
Huh. It looked like he'd had a go at writing some. Or one. There was only one, and Ruby blushed as she read it out loud.
"Are you a virgin? W-Why would he ask that!?"
Ugh. Tyrian needed help. More help than even she did if he thought that was a good leading question. Sliding the paper back in, she checked under the desk and then opened a drawer.
A knife flashed for her face.
Ruby screamed.
"RUBY!" The door slammed open, Yang one foot inside with Weiss and Blake behind. Cinder behind as well, though more morbidly interested in whether she'd died than concerned. "What's wrong?"
What was wrong? What was wrong was that Tyrian Callows had stuck a freaking jack-in-the-box in his desk drawer so that when she opened it up, it sprung out. He'd also taped a scalpel to its left cheek, which the little red and white jester face was waving around aggressively as it cackled.
"Tyrian had a phase where he was interested in practical jokes," Cinder said. "That lasted until he spooked Salem and no longer. I suppose he must have kept one or two around."
"Knives!?" Ruby wailed, pointing.
"In his words, nothing is as startling as seeing your life flash before your eyes."
"I just saw mine!"
"Did it look like a fast food commercial?" Cinder grunted when Blake elbowed her, growling and moving away. "Whatever. Stop wasting our time and get back to looking. If I know Tyrian, and sadly I do, then he'll have left himself a reminder as to where the Relic is. His attention span isn't the best and he'd not dare upset Salem by losing it."
"You mean like this riddle?" Blake asked, looking at a piece of paper stabbed into the wall with a dagger. "Seek high, seek low, seek in the middle, see above the middle but below the high, seek below the… it goes on for a while. Ah, here we go. And if you seek that which my Goddess has entrusted to me, seek where the floor touches the sky. Is this a treasure hunt?"
"Fucking Tyrian!" Cinder swore angrily. "He'll be the first I use the Relic of Destruction on."
/-/
The sheet of metal whooshed toward his head for the hundredth time and Jaune, like every time before, ducked under it, letting the metal sail above. Unlike those times before, he planted a hand down on the grass and caught his breath as she over-extended and spun half away from him, driving her weapon down into the dirt and hopping on one foot.
Times before, he'd attacked in those moments, wielding his sword by the blade and wailing on her helmet with the crossguard and pommel, striking her helmet like a bell. Her helmet was already dented in places and yet she kept coming. It was getting to the point where he was beginning to think she couldn't be rendered unconscious. At the very least, her ears were heeling from the constant ringing he was forcing on her. A normal person would have had their eardrums shattered by now.
"This is ridiculous," he panted. "Do you not tire or something?"
Salem's answer was to take her comically huge sword and swing it over her head, forcing Jaune to roll aside. Nicholas, Glynda and Oobleck watched silently and if he wasn't wrong, a little despair. There was no blaming them. As fights went, this one was awful. Patently bad. Had it been in class, Glynda would have had both combatants stay behind for a telling off, if she didn't just end the fight immediately and send them both to the headmaster's office.
Salem overextended with every attack. He kept dodging once it was clear his swings did nothing. There was no strategy, no skill and no technique. Both were working to wear down the other since he couldn't kill her, and she couldn't catch him so long as he had the strength to walk slowly to one side or crouch.
It was a good job the students weren't here to see this.
"Do you not?" Salem fired back. "We've been going at this for an hour! Ozma never lasted this long." Given that Ozpin never fought her like this, Jaune chose not to think too hard on what she meant. "As for me, that would be telling. En garde, knave."
He could have parried but walked sideways instead, letting Salem's blade crash down and turf up mud and dirt. He couldn't detect any fatigue in her voice. Then again, that would suggest she needed air to breathe since it was to do with taking on more oxygen to feed the lungs and muscles – anaerobic metabolism or something like that – but did Salem need to breathe? Did she need oxygen? It'd be a fairly big flaw in the immortality if she did since she could be drowned, so he had to assume she didn't.
As such, if her muscles also didn't need oxygen-rich blood then it might mean she didn't require much of anything, which again, logical, or she could just starve to death or waste away on a lack of nutrients. Presumably, her body created everything she needed regardless of what she did.
Which was bad for him. He was a fairly fit guy – in the top percentile of everyone on Remnant if one considered huntsman fitness vs regular person fitness – but Salem might as well be a self-sustaining powerplant. There would be no tiring. There would be no stopping.
If this carries on, I'm screwed. I can't knock her out and I can't wear her out.
Pulling back, Jaune walked briskly away from her to buy some time to catch his breath and think. Salem had to wrench her sword free, chamber it against her shoulder and then trudge after him in her heavy armour so it took her a moment or two to give chase. There was plenty of room for him to run her around, though the word `run` was probably more accurately exchanged for a sedate stroll.
"Even walking will wear you out eventually," she pointed out. "I can keep this up until the turn of the century."
"Maybe by then we could ask Jinn for a way to kill you," Jaune snapped.
"Cute. There isn't one according to her."
Ozpin had already asked Jinn that once and he had to wonder if he'd told Salem, or if she hadn't sought out Jinn herself and asked it. Either way, if the Spirit of Knowledge couldn't come up with an answer, he wasn't going to have much better luck.
"You may have stamina on your side, but I have something all the more powerful," he boasted, backing up even further. When he moved toward the forest, Salem stopped. Obviously, she wasn't going to be baited into there. Crap.
He moved along it instead, up the rise toward the cliffs of Beacon. Beacon was surrounded by the Emerald Forest, but it also stood upon a large plateau, and the forests along the edges of the school were very much the highest points of the forest, mostly the edges of it growing up around the sheer cliff. It was more accurate to say the trees along the edges were the edge of the treeline. Below stood the real Emerald Forest.
Salem trudged slowly after him, skirting left both to avoid straying too near the forest and also to corner him against the cliff. Jaune looked back and winced. The sheer drop wasn't deadly by any means, but it would certainly mean the end of the duel. Worse, Salem realised it, stopping about six metres away.
"I hope you don't think I'm going to blindly attack and send myself over the edge." Salem said testily. "You don't actually think I'm that stupid, do you?"
"You need to beat me."
"Yes. And I can quite easily stand here for seventy-two hours waiting for your legs to give out if I have to." She rested the huge sword against her shoulder, taking the weight with remarkable ease. "I am not going anywhere near that cliff edge, Jaune of Arc. Now, you can either come here and fight me like a woman, or you can stand there and pass out like a stubborn man-child."
"Heh." Jaune grinned, dropping his stance and standing up tall. He sheathed Crocea Mors. There wasn't much point having it out anyway if dodging was his only option. "You know, I'm going to have fun showing you around Beacon."
"Ahem?"
"Around Ozma Sucks," he amended. "I'm sure it's a lot more comfortable than that tent you have out there. Warm bed, soft mattress, central heating…"
"Are you now trying to convince me to throw myself off the cliff and take the loss? I'll admit, it's tempting, but victory will provide me a warm bed just as readily."
Jaune cringed. Glynda and Oobleck looked to Nicholas, who was covering his face with one hand. It was probably for the best his mom didn't hear about this.
"The thing is," he continued bravely. "People coming into the school usually have to earn their place first. We're very picky when it comes to new entrants."
"Oh?" Salem appeared more polite than interested. "And do I make the cut, Jaune of Arc?"
"Probably. But traditions are traditions, you know."
"Of course. Tradition is important."
"Then I'm sure you'll be thrilled to have a chance to experience Beacon's initiation!" he shouted. "I'd tell you to have a landing strategy planned out, but I'm sure you'll be fine. Neo!"
"Neo?" Salem looked around. "What are you-?" Her eyes caught him, grin in place, finger pointed down. Wide-eyed, Salem finally noticed the thin plate under her feet. A plate that most of the students had also failed to note on their first day. "What on Remnant is -?"
KA-CHUNK!
The plate shot up suddenly. Salem's question went unasked, her final words trailing off into an indignant and high-pitched shriek as she, her weapon and her heavy suit of plate armour were launched half a kilometre into the Emerald Forest. Jaune tracked her progress with a hand over his eyes, nodding briefly when she disappeared into the canopy. Apparently satisfied, he turned to Glynda and Nicholas.
"Do you think that's far enough to count for a ring out?"
"You realise she is going to be furious," Glynda said.
"Yep." Jaune popped the `p` as Ruby might have. "Which is why I need you to prepare for this evening. We're going to be putting her up for the night and I want no expense spared."
"On what? You haven't even told us what the point of this is yet?"
"We're going to show her why life would be boring without humans around to spice it up." When that only prompted more confusion, he explained in simpler terms. "We're going to give her the night of her life and convince her she'd be more bored if we were all dead."
Silence.
Dead silence. The only sound that could be heard was a distant and angry cry emanating from the Emerald Forest that sounded a lot like his name.
Finally, eventually, Glynda replied. "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard."
"Got any better ideas?"
"No." Angrily, she pushed her glasses up her nose. "I'll tell the cooks to make a feast. Oobleck, find the best wine we have and take more from the city if you need to. We will reimburse the stores we steal from later."
Glynda stomped off, muttering to herself about whether they were trying to kill the Grimm or rehabilitate them. He wasn't sure himself, but then that was the problem dealing with someone who couldn't be killed. You had to think outside the box. They couldn't beat her, but they could maybe – just maybe – convince her she didn't want to fight them at all.
It was a long shot, but then so was everything at this point. Jaune looked back over the forest, judging the howl of absolute rage and the speed at which a woman in heavy armour could move. They probably had two hours to prepare the party to end all parties.
Maybe Coco could be called on to help.
If you happen to know any fans who can't access the site or the chapter, do feel free to tell them where it is available – or suggest they try the site on mobile mode since that seems to be working for some. I have tried to update my profile to tell people but it doesn't save properly.
Next Chapter: 12th November
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