This was supposed to come out yesterday but I wanted to get further into the episode instead of stretching it out into another update. Episode 2 will complete around the same time next week.
Episode 2 – A City, and Other Tombstones
"Beacon may be a national museum – a national institution – but it does not belong to the state. It does not belong to the council, it does not belong to investors, and it does not belong to the people. It belongs to whom it should."
"Beacon – once a huntsman academy and now a huntsman museum, hospital, and gym – belongs, in perpetuity, to huntsmen."
~Dr. Bartholomew Oobleck, curator and sole proprietor of the Beacon Museum.
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Oobleck's operating room looked like it was split in two.
On one end the walls were sterile and arrayed with harsh white lights and ventilation, a maze of hospital partitions covered every patient he was dealing with. It wasn't difficult handling them, what with Oobleck's brain currently transmitting instructions to several robotic arms that moved speedily from their ceiling mounts. The other end of the room was cozy. Carpeted floors, false windows that mimicked sunlight, and an array of cozy, oak and pine beds with IVs embedded into the headboards.
There were only three people on that side. Terra Cotta-Arc, Pyrrha Nikos, and Jaune Arc. Their nameplates glowed over the headboard just above the IVs. They looked like tombstones.
Yang shook the thought away.
Her hand pressed against the glass wall of the observation room. Her tears had dried up hours ago, and she has since been lilting through varying states of restlessness. There was a painful twitch in her eye. Her body still felt worn. She didn't get much sleep.
Oobleck stepped from one of the partitions and onto the carpet. His hard-light hospital gown powered-down and disintegrated like dust caught in the wind. He raised his metal hands, arrayed with bloodied instruments, and a pair of robotic arms stretched from the ceiling, popped them free from his wrists and replaced them. His new hands had synthetic skin. He flexed them experimentally.
"Do you have an assessment?" Whitley asked from beside her. He'd been in similar states but Pyrrha was his biggest concern.
Oobleck stood beside Pyrrha. She had no bandages and only needed an IV. She had a bruise on her stomach but that healed naturally, even when asleep. No, most of her damage was self-inflicted, exerting her own telemagnetics to the point of unconsciousness.
"It's difficult to say." His voice blared off the speakers. "We don't know what part of us makes us psychic. So I haven't been able to pinpoint the exact source of her trauma. She's had hemorrhaging and seizures but they've settled with every healing spell I've learned from Gods' Grave."
He drew a golden triangle with two fingers, woven with mysterious sigils and circular runes at each point. Pyrrha's body glowed in response but the magic filtered out of her like scattered dust.
"And she hasn't had them since so those may have been unrelated symptoms." A holographic pad manifested in front of him. He pressed a few keys and a display panel lowered into the observation room. Yang and Whitley had to step back to see it. The display showed a mock-up of Pyrrha's brain and her nerves webbing out from it. "For some reason, her brain refuses to reconnect with the rest of her body. As if she's… detached from them, like it's suddenly a foreign object."
Yang's chest twisted.
Whitley's face grew steely. "We can fix her," he said. "If you'll let me."
Oobleck nodded. "As agreed, I've run out of alternatives, but I do not have the final say."
They stared at Yang. It took her a second. She looked back at Whitley. Her askance stare was all he needed.
Whitley almost didn't speak. It hurt to see her like this. "With… with her parents still coming in and Jaune…" He shut his mouth. "She listed you as an emergency contact. She's already signed you off as someone with authority if she needs it. And right now, we can't waste any more time."
A holographic display filtered from a projector shooting out of his wrist. It looked like some legal document she didn't understand but she recognized the dotted line and her name already written down on it. It just needed her signature.
"If you consent, I can take her to the Schnee's medical division and we can give her the best treatment the city can –" Yang already had her hand in the display. It read her bio-signature, approved with a green flash, and she signed her name with her middle finger.
He blinked.
She hugged him. "I trust you. We trust you," she whispered. It was the most she'd said in hours. "Save her. Make sure we don't lose anyone else."
"I promise," he said. Then he was out of the room.
Pyrrha's bed lowered into the floor below. Out of sight and probably into a secure Schnee transport.
"Thank you," Oobleck said. "I wasted so much time using magic. I shouldn't have bothered. Science and medicine are consistent, predictable." Light particles filtered over his hand. "Magic has no room on the operating table."
"I think it does."
He whipped his head at her. She'd found her voice.
He found the hint of a snarl cresting at her lip. "What that Watts guy did… He busted through aura. Nothing does that. Nothing. It had to be magic too." She looked up at him, her broken gaze was narrow. "You said you stopped her seizure and whatever. You helped, Doc. Don't count yourself out just yet. We need you."
Oobleck nodded. These may have been his friends but they were her family. And still she found it in herself to give him a pep talk. "You have your father's strength."
She was silent for a moment. The memory chip was still in her pocket. "He gave me much more than that."
By now all the mechanical arms had receded into the ceiling. They were all done.
The partitions and the tiled floors sunk into the ground, carpeting shifting into place over them. Metallic panels twisted into themselves, revealing hardwood walls and more simulated sunlight. The lights dimmed and turned warm. The beds didn't change though. All polished steel and sterile fabrics.
Three other huntsmen were laid there. One of them, a woman, groaned and shifted. Her new cybernetic eye was still adjusting as it couldn't completely close. She'd need to wake up and acclimate.
Oobleck caught Yang staring. "They survived," he said. "The tabloids have already run their stories so they have to go around telling people they're not dead despite their obituaries. Still, Port will have some good news tonight."
It wasn't much but it was something. Yang was here when he was trying to save the Arcs. There were more beds in here then and Oobleck was a blur between partitions and the mechanical arms moved just as quickly. She'd stood there waiting for a miracle that her heart told her would never come.
She shuddered. It wasn't the time to dwell on that.
"Will there be any brain damage?"
Oobleck paused. He studied her for a moment in that way where he stared too long. It made her uncomfortable but she endured it.
"The chances of that are minimal at best, you know that. What are you actually trying to ask me, Yang?"
Her arms curled tighter together, willing courage from nothing. "I need to know if he'll remember…" Me, she thought. "Us," she said instead.
He ambled over to Jaune's bedside and waited for just a moment. Yang's eyes weren't away this time. They'd locked onto him. "Though I'd normally err on the side of caution, it is in my professional medical opinion as both your doctor," he stood straight and faced her, "and, more importantly, as your friend that you hope and expect the best."
A tiny part of her held in defiance. "And if you're wrong?"
He didn't even flinch. "I won't be."
The glass walls of the observation room fell away. "Perhaps it might be best," he continued as he stood at her side, "that you see for yourself." He gestured to Jaune. "I can promise that his body is warm. Filled with that familiar hint of life."
A chair rose from the floor beside Jaune's bed. She dared to sit in it.
Partitions rose to cover the other patients. Oobleck left the room. She was alone with him now.
Most hospitals had a heart rate monitor that beeped incessantly. Oobleck never needed them. He monitored vitals through a holographic display in his eye. But without the infernal machine, there was nothing but silence in the room. She sucked in a breath, just to filter in some noise, but when she exhaled, she realized she could hear his breathing in the muted air.
It was slow, steady like water that evens out on the surface. There was a shudder somewhere, and she thought she might have imagined it, but she saw the bumps under the blanket where his fingers should be. They were twitching.
Jaune was a quiet sleeper. Having had to share a bed with Joan for most of his life, the pair of them learned to lie completely still and wake up exactly the same way. It used to scare her when they were dating. Sleeping next to him sometimes felt like sleeping with corpse. But she quickly noticed things neither he nor Joan would have figured out on their own. That he moved. Just a bit. And other imperceptible things like the twitch in his fingers, rolling shoulders, and the smacking of his lips.
Whenever he came home bone tired from Uni, she'd lie wide awake in bed with him cause he settled in early. His lips were normally dry so she'd made it a habit of kissing him there. The lip smacking was audible after that. She thought it was funny.
She told herself that that was the reason why she was leaned over his bed, face only inches from his. Cause it was funny. Cause they would laugh about it. Not because she needed a shred of normalcy. Not because the kiss from the night before burned into her cheek cause she dreaded that it might have been their last.
It felt foolish to think that. He wasn't dying. He wasn't dying. But everyone else was and all she'd done at this point was expect more and more bad news. If this was an enemy she could fight, she'd dare them. Pour her bravado into white hot branding across her skin, daring them to take any more from her. She'd sooner die than let that happen!
But this was no enemy. This was a twist of fate tossing coins and she'd landed on tails for nine bodies straight.
Just one good thing, she begged. Gods alive, if you can still hear me, please give him back.
And she kissed him. She pulled away. He smacked his lips and it made a popping sound.
She laughed. Just a little. It was stupid and foolish but it was like a shred of happiness amidst everything else.
Then he shuddered. His head shook, shut eyes scrunching, lips in a snarl.
"Jaune?"
It was like he was wading through a nightmare. Fought it angrily. In defiance with bated breath and his heart rate soared.
Then his eyes shot open. He scanned the room, looking for signs of where he was. He settled on Yang, gawking at him. He smacked his lips again. "Hey," he said.
She hugged him, her weight pressed against his chest. Flashes of last night came to him. The last thing he remembered was Yang beneath him on the floor.
He ran his hand down her back. "Are you alright?" he asked her, voice low and gentle.
"Doc healed me right up," she laughed against her runny nose. She inhaled sharply, fighting tears that wouldn't come. "I'm just glad you're awake."
"How long have I been under?"
She squeezed tighter around his neck. "Hours."
"That doesn't…" He paused. "Yang. Were you awake the whole time?"
"Every minute… I couldn't sleep. I needed to know…"
"Yang…"
"I'm sorry! I just… I couldn't lose anyone else. Doc said he had to pull bits of bone out of your head and you lost so much blood! I couldn't sleep waiting for the news. I had to know. I had to be here! Not –"
"Shh…" He pulled her in, clutching her back and neck. Somehow, he'd gotten her onto the bed with him. "No more. None of that… I'm here. Focus on me." Her ear pressed against his chest. She concentrated on the sound of his heart beating.
Once her breathing settled, she balled fists against his chest. She craned her head up to look him.
Her hair was a mess.
He pushed her hair aside and –
Y͟͏̢͟ ͠Ó̕͢Ų̷̛ ̧́͞͞'̸̷̧̡͠D̷͟ ̡ ̀̀̕̕ ̷́͜҉ ͢͟͟͞ ̸̨͟͞D͘҉̧ ̢͟͜͏̶O͢͏ ̢̀́̀ ̡̢͠ ̢͘͠͝W̛͏̷̶ ̴͏̕E̸̴̵ ̵͘ ̵̨̛͘͢L̡͘͘͟͢ ̶͟ ̡͞͡L҉҉̡͘ ̵͟ ̢͝ ̕͞͏̴ ̵̷͢͟ ̶̡T͘Ò̵͡͞ ̢ ̷̧̡̀͡ ̷̶̡̛͜ ̸́͢ ̵̴͞L̵͝͞͡͏ ̢͠O̵͘͠O͏̨̨͜͜ ̧K̵̢̕ ͏҉ ̶̶̢͢ Y̷̛͘͟͡ ̨͟͝O̷̢͘͟ ̸̷̵̡͘ ̴̷͡҉ ́͟Ừ̢͟͠ ̴̛́̕͜R͜͞ ̨̢ ̧͞ ̴̨͟ ̕͜͠ ͘͢ ̀͝͝҉B̴̵͢͝Ȩ͘͠ ̵̷̛͝ ̸̢́͘Ś̴̨́͘ ͘͟ ͝T҉̷͏̵̡
"Agh!" he hissed from a sudden pain. It was like someone had pushed a needle into the corner of his eye.
She grabbed his cheek, her other hand pushing his hair aside so she could get a better look at him. "Jaune?"
"I… I'm sorry. Just a headache…" And a voice… Who…? "Yang?" He blinked the pain away.
"Yeah?"
The echo of the voice was familiar. But it couldn't have been. Could it? "Yang, where's mom?"
»»⋅.⋅««
He ran. Jaune knew full well where Oobleck kept his morgue. When Beacon was a huntsman academy, all four wings of the school had dormitories for each year. The Senior division was the oldest and most abused. He redid them for hospital use till they were sterile and out of the way.
He hadn't bothered reading the signs over every passing door. He knew where to stop. At the end of the hall, the furthest from everything else. It was like Oobleck tucked away his failures, not that anyone blamed him for them. Well, not anyone he personally knew.
When he skidded to a stop, he stared at the metal door and couldn't help but think himself a failure. They were here, all of them. Every Arc but his eldest sister, himself, and Adrian. That was three. Three! They were twelve strong last night!
"Jaune!" Yang called to him from down the hall.
He didn't wait. He pushed through the door.
There were more than eight bodies on the metallic beds. He should have known. Whatever happened that night, it did more take from his family.
If they weren't in the morgue drawers, then they were prepped for transport out there in the open. And they all were. This meant that families were already asking for them.
He could only imagine what Saph was feeling.
He wove around the beds. Holographic name tags hovered over them. Some of the names were familiar. He'd even placed some of them from kids he acquainted himself with when he was younger.
Fleeting memories passed him. A sprint through the pale white streets of Old-Home's clay houses. Diving through the crystal-clear coast for shoring clams. Climbing the oldest syl tress at the heart of the woods. Kissing Yang among the stars and fireflies under the serenade of crickets.
At the end of the room, he found them. His father was like a mountain to orient his horizons. His bed was the widest, and his silhouette the largest. Even beneath the thin fabric did little to hide his sheer size. Beside him was his wife. Somehow their hands hung off one side, letting their cold fingers touch.
Instinctively, he reached out to one of the beds at his side. A hand, curled inward post-mortem – likely clutching her shield – peeked from under the covers. Dahlia's darker skin stood out. He didn't recognize the burn along the arm, but knew the scar along the back of her hand well.
When he raised a hand to touch it, he realized that he was unfurling a fist.
He breathed.
Tension knotted inside of him. Burning and unkind. It welled in his chest and flared through his nose. A cursory glance revealed strands of blonde hair at the head of every surrounding bed. His sisters, arrayed like a maze pressed together. And he at the end, the minotaur that thrived in menace and fed with fury.
Even though his semblance showed the room in a cold, muted blue – of abandonment and grief – but there was a bleeding red against his family's skin. There was an anger there that beckoned to him and he found himself broiling with it till he was sure his nostrils flared.
Then he gasped. The tension uncoiled.
A numbness blanketed his body. His fingers rose into his vision but they felt detached. As if they weren't his. Then there was a tug on his neck and waist, willing him to twist around.
"Turn," a voice whispered in his ear.
"Turn." He refused but his foot was already shifting to the door behind him.
T͏͝҉̧ ̛͞U̶͘͟͠͠R̸҉̴̨ ̶̴̢̡͜N̨҉
Yang came through the door. She stopped only a foot behind him.
"Who –"
"A man named Arthur Watts," she said. She shook her head and sucked in her teeth. "He was downing huntsmen left and right with some glowing glove. Ruby tore through him for his trouble…" She inched into the gap between them, taking his hand. Hers was trembling. His was loose. Weary. "I wish I could tell you it was all over. That putting him down meant all we had left to do was grieve."
He laughed bitterly. "Of course it isn't…" Somehow he already knew.
"He can duplicate himself. One minute he was dying and the next he was standing right before me. All cleaned up like it was nothing. And even with both versions of him dead now, we don't even have the glove he used. It vanished along with his body when backup came." She looked up at him. "This isn't over. He's coming back. I know it. And he'll come for us. All of us."
Jaune turned to his sister's hand. It was still waiting for him. He reached out and found Yang doing the same. Huntsmen took longer to decay. Her hand, unlike last night, was somehow warm. Perhaps by delusion.
The sides of their heads pressed together.
"We won't let him," he said.
A voice in his head agreed.
Ẃ́͘͟͞ ̵̵̧É̵̕͢ ̶͡҉̧͡ ̧҉̡ ̧͝W͏̵͡͏͜Ơ̸̴͜͠ ̨͘Ņ̷̶'̕҉̧͟͝ ̕͘Ţ̛́͠ ̸̡̧ ͠͏̵̧͞ ̧̧͞͡L̴̛͡͞͞ ͢͡͞E͘͝ ͝͝͏ ̴̴̛̀͟T̴̶̴̕ ̵͘͟͠ ͢͢͡ ̴͢ ̧̧H҉̶ ̀͡͏͜Į͘ ̴̢́͜͜ ̧̢͢͞͡M͘͜
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Oobleck's operating room was also his office and conference room. Shifting panels tended to make a single room multi-purpose.
The floor was arrayed in varnished wood panels and comfortable seating. Behind Oobleck's intricately carved desk was a set of screens that casted light into the dim room. Not that Jaune noticed. He couldn't see light or dark after all.
Yang, on the other hand, soaked in the atmosphere. She'd stared at this room for hours since she arrived late last night. The harsh white lights then were oppressive, clinical, and functional. Now, however, they were warm and a dim yellow-orange. There were no three words about it. It was a pleasant. In her fatigue, it was starting to invite sleep.
Jaune had been eying Oobleck's backside as he flitted through something on his holographic tablet. His color was as per normal under his semblance, a shade of his skin. Top to bottom. Even on his clothes. But every once in a while there was a hint of gray – of an inexplicable numbness.
At least, that's what it probably was. Grey was sadness and grief as well and not usually all at the same time. Sometimes it was difficult to tell those emotions apart.
"We'll begin momentarily," Oobleck said as he swiveled back at them. "The twins will be here any minute." He shoved off his desk and made his way to the door. "For now, I'll have to make a call. Just a moment."
"Where have they been? I haven't seen them." Jaune was sat closely next to Yang who hadn't yet let go of his wrist since dragging him in here. She was nodding off. He leaned in so she could rest on his shoulder.
"Organizing Pyrrha's transfer," she said against his arm.
"Pyrrha? Is she–?"
"Alive? Yes." She smiled warmly, happy to deliver good news.
"Oh, thank the gods…" Fingers splayed over his forehead and into his hair. Relief filtered from his lips as he shuddered.
He'd shown more emotion just now than he had after finding his family in the morgue.
She shook it off. Relief from having Jaune back was stemming the dam from her own grief. It'd overflow once things settled down a little more. Perhaps Jaune was just going through the same.
Weiss and Whitley came in, their footsteps landing in sync as usual. When they found two other cushioned seats, they sat the same time.
Their eyes locked with Jaune's. They jolted, nearly rising from their seats.
"You're awake," Weiss said.
"How are you feeling?" Whitley asked.
"Just a little stiff," Jaune said, rolling his shoulders. "It's nice seeing you two off the pill."
The twins shared a look.
"We felt it was pertinent we be emotionally available," Whitley said.
"For both your sakes and our own," Weiss added.
Jaune nodded but his head was squeezing into his skull with the way they were completing each other's sentences again.
"Guys." Jaune tapped two fingers diagonally across his lips.
They nodded in unison. Whitley turned to his sister and mimicked the gesture. It meant he wouldn't be talking.
Weiss leaned in as her brother pulled back. "Is everything alright? You hadn't needed us to desync for years now."
"I know. Sorry… I'm just out of it. I'll be back to normal soon."
"You shouldn't push yourself." Even though it was only Weiss speaking, Whitley mirrored the concerned look she'd been giving him. Guilt dripped into his chest. "There's more you should know… When we're done here, we have a lot to tell you about last night."
Jaune's brow furrowed in confusion for a moment. "You mean about…? No, you don't have to. Yang gave me the broad strokes." He resisted the urge to clench his fist.
"How have you been processing it?"
Jaune's hand was limp beside him, even as he willed some emotion trying to parse the barren feeling in his gut. "I don't know…" he said.
Yang yawned.
"Good morning," Jaune said, his broad smile teasing.
Weiss and Whitley craned back in confusion.
"Morning yourself," Yang said. "I'm not the one who slept all night."
"You could have," he said softly. "I'd have been there regardless."
She slapped a hand to his face and playfully shoved him repeatedly. "Ew! Don't cheat on Pyrrha!" She laughed.
He laughed.
Yang sniffed. She'd uncoiled from Jaune and was shaking her head. She'd lost people before. Parents she'd known her whole life. Even Summer, who was like surrogate mother. Qrow counted but since he'd fallen into a rut, it was like she'd lost him a long time ago. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to finish the list.
Jaune wiped away her only tear. "Hey."
"Sorry… This must be worse for you."
He blinked. "What do you mean?"
"What?" She backed away. A glance at the twins revealed they were doing much the same.
"Jaune," Weiss spoke slowly, "we don't know whatever these broad strokes Yang told you of, but–"
"–I told him," Yang said before she turned back to Jaune. "He knows." She was only more confused. "Jaune, that was your family."
His hand ran down his face. "I… I know. Maybe I haven't quite wrapped my head around it."
"Makes sense," Whitley offered. "Perhaps a part of you is still suppressing it."
"Or," Weiss began, "Oobleck might have missed something. Your brain might have gone through more trauma than he thought."
Whitley hissed. Weiss took his hand. "I'm fine..." Whitley mumbled. "Just another headache."
Oobleck stepped back into the room, his boots echoing. "I've already contacted Roman," he said, head still buried in his holographic tablet. "He and Hivemind are gathering intel on Watts as we speak, but until then we Do. Not. Act…" he watched them sternly. "…We prepare."
"Hive is an information syndicate," Whitley said.
"We could trade them secrets to leverage resources for him," Weiss continued.
Oobleck waved them off. "That won't be necessary. Hivemind is completely committed to backing Roman. He and Neo have been very… persuasive."
Jaune groaned. "Please don't tell me he killed his boss again…"
Oobleck chuckled. "I don't think that's at all possible in this case. Regardless, Roman has just gotten a promotion. Even has satellite access." The largest monitor behind them glitched out, static and code running rapidly through it. He groaned. "….And here he is now."
The desk shifted into the ground and the screen shifted closer. Roman's emblem – a grinning blue jack o' lantern with a monocled eye – flashed briefly on the screen before his face appeared against a city skyline – he was likely on his balcony.
"Mornin', kiddos," he greeted. There was a red hand print across his mouth.
"What happened to your face?" Yang asked.
"Neo doesn't like it when I bring work into the bedroom. I swear that little woman hits harder everyday…"
The camera shifted as if it was mounted on something with legs. It hopped onto the railing he leaned back against.
"Roman," Oobleck sighed, "we're in the middle of a debriefing."
"About that." Roman's eyes shifted between them. "Since none of you are balling your eyes out, I thought I'd bring something up real quick." The screen blinked until they saw an outdoor video feed of the reception from a wall camera. It was a shot of Watts encountering an oncoming huntsman.
Their blood boiled.
Watts's glowing hand swung and the shot froze just as the impact landed. Then it rewinded. "See that?" He replayed the shot again, just before any gore. The huntsman threw his hands up, blocking with his mace. His aura flashed, fortifying him, but he was thrown back regardless.
"That's a huntsman reacting on reflex. First thing we're taught is to fortify aura against any oncoming blow. It softens it and reduces any damage at minimal cost. Only it's having the opposite effect here."
Oobleck stiffened. "What do you mean?"
He replayed the shot again. It was moving much slower, almost frame-by-frame. "See the way his aura bends on impact instead of bracing?"
Yang remembered Liona flicking against her own skin, her aura flared but dispersed the impact across her aura's surface. Then Amlan came to mind, doing the same. She grit her teeth.
"His aura is curving inwards. That's the thing that's breaking through his skin. Not the lightshow." A zoomed shot revealed the aura pressed against the skin till the bones in his hands were outlined. It paused before the skin tore. "Watts isn't just some fancy parlor trick to down huntsman. The force that tears through steel and concrete is just the cherry on top. Whatever he's using, and I swear it can only be magic, it's turning our own aura against us. Purpose built to kill huntsmen."
Everyone sat back. Yang was afraid. Any anger of her own was buried in uncertainty. She knew fighting him was going to be difficult but this made it seem suicidal. She flinched when she turned to Jaune. There was no fear. His eyes narrowed, the muscles in his neck tightened.
She knew him too well. This wasn't a revelation that should inspire anger. He should have been afraid. A part of her told her that she misread him this time. But no, that couldn't have been the case. When she found him in the morgue, he was confused not saddened. This wasn't normally like him. Something was terribly wrong here.
Oobleck glowered at Roman. He rolled his eyes. "But we've got good news!" Roman cheered. "My stoic little brother-in-law can help."
"Ren?" Whitley asked. "How?"
"I called him up a little earlier. He's my go-to when I need to bounce ideas off of someone."
Weiss crossed her arms. "Not your sister?" She'd had plenty of meaningful conversations with her.
"Princess, you ever sit Nora down for anything serious? I love her but she's far more comfortable with beating the shit out of your problems than anything else." He waved his hands. "We're going off track. So I spoke to Ren and when I brought up my theory as I was still figuring it out, and he suggested that he knew how to disperse and deactivate his own aura temporarily. Said it let him push off bugs and dust, and it even helped him during his breathing exercises, but being vulnerable meant it didn't have any combat use." Roman had a glint in his eye. "Until now, of course."
Oobleck felt a pang of guilt at the mention of Ren. They'd both lost their aura during on their last expedition to the ruins beneath Vale. "He won't have any trouble teaching it?" he asked.
"He assures me that he won't," Roman said confidently. "And that's good enough for me."
Oobleck nodded. "Thank you, Roman. I'll be sure to contact him when he's awake."
"Ring him at nine tonight. It's Sunday so they'll be busy with their regulars at the restaurant."
Jaune couldn't hear the rest of the conversation. As if white noise filtered into his ear. He scratched the side of his head to stop the ringing but it wouldn't go away.
He was drawn inexplicably to the paused video feed lingering next to Roman. After having taken a good look at Watts, he couldn't help but feel like he'd met him once before. His angry look as he struck down a huntsman seemed… familiar. Vividly so.
He stood up, staring at the static Watts, arm at full swing.
People were calling out to him but he couldn't hear them. He was hearing something else.
Was that rain? It wasn't raining outside right now, so why did he hear rain?
He felt it again, that needle pressing into the corner of his eye but it held this time. As if it dug further.
̶̵̴̸͡W̧͢͟͞ ̴͟͟Ę̴̶ ̴̛͟͡ ̵҉͘͜C̵̡͜͟ ̶̸̡͡À̴͠͝N̷͢͠'̷̢̡T̸̢ ̶̨͟ ͢ ̶̧D҉̵҉ ͏̕͘O͏͏̶͜ ͜ ̵̢̡͏ ҉̀͝͡ ҉T̡̀Ḩ̸ ̸́Ì̵͏S̨̡̢̡ ҉́
,̶̢́̕ ̷̛҉ ̷̀̀́͡ ̨́O҉́͘͢Ĺ̛͟͢҉ ̧̕̕D͏̸̡̛ ̸̛͘ ͏̧̡ ̴̨͘͞ ̛͜҉ ͞F̵̨́͘͟ ҉̵̢͢R̛͡ ̸̡́҉I͏̨͜͝͡E̶̢̛̕N̷͟͟͢ ̢͟͢͡͞ ̴̷̵̡ ̴͜D̨̛͡
He trusted that voice. For some reason he did. Not its words but who spoke them. A well of wisdom somehow. Calmness he'd come to depend on.
T̡̧͜ ̡̀ ҉̀͡͏̶Ḩ̷̷͏ ̨̛̕͡I͘ ̴̴̨͞ ̶͘͘͜S̴͡͏́ ͡͡ ̸̶͘͟ ̷̴̛͘͡ ̸̢͜҉͞ ̷̴̕͜ ҉̷̸̴̡I̢̧̛͠S͟ ̢̕͜͠ ̷̶̧͟
̴͠͏͝E̶̴V̨̢̢E̡ ̵̨͢͟Ŕ̢͘͞Ỳ̡̀́ ̵̶̕T̡̛͢ ̸͢͜͡H̡̀͟͟ ̀͢͝ ̶̧͝I̸̛ ̸̢̕Ǹ ̶̛G̴̵̵̕͜ ͢͞҉ ̕͜
̴̢ ̵̶ ̷̶͠Ẁ̶͘͞͠ ͠҉ ͠͞͠͡͝E̸̷̷̡̛ ͟͜͜͠͡ ̸̛̛ ̵̢͜͡ ͜͠ ͟Ą̶̸́ ҉̧R̴̛͠͞ ̛͞͞E͏̶̨͠ ̷͠͏
That was someone else's voice. It was familiar, too. A friend? A close one somehow. Almost like a brother.
͝W̕͠ ͝E͏ ̴͢ ͢ ̸̨ ̵ ҉͡A̴͘͠ ̕͜L͘ ̡̕W͏ ̡͞A͢͝ ̷̀͞Ỳ ̨̡̛S͜ ̕ ̸̨́ ̀ F̛͡Í̷̷ N̡͡ ͠҉͠D̵̕ ̵́ ̛͘ ̧ ̴͢͞A͝ ̨̢͢ ́͟W̴̡ Á̢̕ Y̧̡͞ ́
̧͞
̡Ẁ͡͠É͝ ̕ ̷̶͡A҉̴L ̧͠͡W̶̶A̛͜Y͏͠S͘͞͞ ̷͟ ̶D̷̀ ̢ ̷O̢̢
A feminine voice. Hopeful but skeptical. Inquisitive. Challenging. Always like that. How did he know her?
҉W̴ ̴́͝ ̸̡͘E̛͏ ̨ ̷̧D̛ ̢̛R ̛O ̧̢͘ ̸V̢͡ ̀E͏͏ ̶ ̧ T̡̀H̷̴ ͘E ͞ ̧͟M͟ ̀͜ ́ T̵ ́͢O̷̸ ̛͞ ̶̡͠E ̸X͘ ̛ ͢͝T̡͟ ̡̕͢ ̢͝I̧N͡ ̢́͢C̡̧ ̷͢͝ ̴̨͝T̸̴I͟ O͟N͘
A refined voice. Prejudiced to it somehow. But there was respect. Begrudging. A ghost of a kinship there. But also trust of a different kind. As if two halves of him felt differently about him.
T̨HIS IS ̧ǸOT A̧ ĹEG͢ACY ̕WE AB͝A̸N̸D̴ON
That was his voice! It had to be. His throat flexed when he heard it and his lips moved to every word! But… no… wait. That was someone else's. Familiar and… that was… that was…
Jaune collapsed.
»»⋅.⋅««
Yang rung her hands. It was a habit she'd picked up over the last week. Like a nervous tick – she was unfamiliar with those. Unfamiliar with a nervous anything really. Her dad said she was born with cheek and confidence that rivalrf the sun. The hyperbole was starting to grate at her. Her confidence, now more than ever, felt like facsimile and the nervous tick was like the new normal… And the first of many.
She didn't want that. Steeling her nerves, she shook them off and clenched her fists.
Sitting down, she watched Jaune at the other end of the locker room as he got dressed. It was starting to feel strange. They'd done more than see each other naked so changing in front of each other was a non-issue. There were even rush mornings back in their house in Glenn that they'd even showered together just to save time. Nothing happened. It was normal. They were used to it.
But now he had a growing commitment to Pyrrha. Coma or no coma, the things that made people think this was weird was making it weird. She pulled out her scroll and opened the holo-scan file of Coral's porn. A falsified but detailed biography of their first time. She still thought it was funny. But also a little weird now.
And she hated that.
"You alright?"
Yang looked up to see him. He'd closed the gap somewhere in the middle of her introspection.
"Yeah, I'm…" She hated lying to him too. "No. I'm not."
He chuckled. He did it like it was easy. As if he didn't just lost his family, hardly grieved when he woke up, and collapsed suddenly when he saw the killer's face. "Alright," he said, "am I going to have to pry it from you or are you gonna tell me?"
She let the springs in her chest loosen with a steady breath. "I think I'll delete Coral's draft," she managed. The name burned across her tongue.
"What? Why? It's hilarious! Don't tell me Coral's hundred metaphors like 'breaching her castle' or 'plowing her velvety fields' actually got you worked up?"
She snorted.
He grinned. "That's what I thought." Pivoting back, he marched back to his gear. Sword and sheath sat scarred and dull against the locker. (The sheath was more like back armor plating that funneled heat out of the blade and off the shoulder pads).
Her hands rolled over her face, smothering her smile. "How can you say her name without getting worked up?"
He stole a glance at her over his shoulder but there was a shame in those eyes she knew too well. He hadn't looked like that since they were kids. "I don't know," he said.
"You've been saying that a lot."
He sucked in his teeth, face scrunching up till the hard lines of his brow grew shadows. "Cause it's the truth. I don't know why I don't feel anything."
That stung. Her chest tightened. "Nothing?" she said, standing up. "I figured you weren't feeling it as much as you should but you're telling me you're not feeling anything?"
There was no accusation in her voice. When she approached him from behind, he felt her concern as it bled off of her. Felt it roll over his skin when she'd slipped her hands under his arms and over his chest.
One hand rose to meet hers, pressing it against his chest. "See this?" he said. "This I feel. I know how much you care. What we've had over the years and it's… tangible. It even hurts to know that you worry about me so much and I can't do anything about it." He swung an arm around and over her. They pressed their foreheads together. "I'm just as scared about not feeling anything. Maybe the Doc missed something. Maybe something is wrong with my head."
Her lip tilted. She did that when she was indecisive but all he thought about was how cute it always looked on her. Backtracking from that thought at a time like this, he knew for sure something was wrong with him.
"The Doc looked you over. Twice. We've seen the records and the scans ourselves. Other than this," –she ran a hand over the back of his head, over the synthetic fibers that overlayed the hole in his scalp– "there was nothing out of the ordinary."
"Maybe we should…" Get a second opinion? No. Fuck that. "I trust Doc. Maybe this is all just in my head."
"Yeah," she breathed, pressing her cheek into his chest and refamiliarizing herself with his favorite soap brand. Weird. It should be weird. But it wasn't. Fuck it, he was comfy and she needed comforting too.
"Maybe this is just how you're processing it right now," she suggested. "You didn't cry at your granddad's funeral."
"I didn't know granddad. Not really. But my parents? My sisters? They were my whole life…"
"…I don't know anymore, Jaune…"
"I don't know either."
Restlessness settled between them. Confusion on top of that. It was a lot of useless things and mulling over answers that won't come anytime soon. So she pushed away from him. "We're not going to get anywhere moping into each other's chests."
He blinked. "Yang, if I was buried in your chest, the last thing I would be doing is mope."
She nearly tripped over air and though she didn't blush, she laughed. The intended effect, meant to diffuse her. "Alright, you got me, but you know the fee. Pucker up."
The first time he'd teased her by flirting, she told him to pucker up and she headbutt him. His aura was up cause he knew she was getting back at him, so he didn't feel a thing. They'd laugh it off and it had been a running joke ever since.
So, like every other time, he leaned down and closed his eyes, preparing for the inevitable.
Yang stomped her feet and punched into her palm. Her semblance gathered all that force and ran it through her limbs and into her chest. It hurt all the way but it was a pain she was used to. That same force gathered thickly like an obstruction pushed against her ribcage before it surged up her right arm into her thumb and finger raised to flick him.
When she did, he soared backwards into the bench. His legs caught the underside to catch him. He laid over it. Yang slid onto the bench and hoisted him into sitting up.
"I hope it was worth it," she said.
He swung his bangs out of his eyes. "It was better when I got you to blush but I'll settle for this." He grabbed his sheath and slid it onto his back.
"Let me help you with that," she said, slipping behind him to strap the back plate onto his shoulders. It was an old design, needing to vent out heat from his sword so the dust canisters didn't explode and the dust channels under the blade's edge didn't bleed dust onto the user. Most weapons nowadays didn't even need venting of any kind, and if they overheated at all, it was a feature. Between his last gen cybernetics and his century-ago blade, Jaune really needed an upgrade.
When she'd helped him fasten the entire thing onto his back, she watched him test the straps. "Promise me you'll get that upgrade and come straight back."
"We'll be going to Vale to train with Ren anyway, and it's not like they can leave their business either. Like it or not, we'll be in that city a while."
She groaned. "I know… poor fucking luck if something else turns up while we're there. Then we'd never leave." He was glowering at her. "What?"
"Language," he said but his heart wasn't in it.
"Right, sorry." She smiled. At least some things never changed.
He picked up Crocea Mors. His hand shook, the blade rattled. His other hand grabbed onto his wrist to steady it but it was like his fist wouldn't close. "Rotting… gods," he hissed.
Yang's hands settled loosely over his. "Shh… breathe." He did so. Feeling and tension settled into his muscles. He breathed easy when the feel of his own grip grew more and more familiar. He looked up at her but she gave him a cheeky grin. "Language," she shot back at him.
"I didn't…! Right… Sorry."
"Good. Now go." She pushed him towards the exit. There was an arena waiting for him out there down the long passage. "I'll be in the control room so you've gotta impress me."
He eyed the passage and swallowed. His grip was holding but it wasn't as steady as he remembered. It was like his muscles had either atrophied or they didn't quite feel right under his own skin. Like they didn't even fit. "I'll do my best!" he called back weakly as he marched down the path.
"And remember! No dust! No shields! And none of that twirly stuff you do!"
"It's called a vortex!"
"I don't care what you call it! Swordplay only, Arc! Make mama proud!"
She winced, realizing what she'd said. He waved back, not even noticing.
The funeral was yesterday. Jaune came up to the podium and gave a speech about his family. Molded the muscles in his face so he could frown and hope and plead and cheer. Like an actor in a movie or a showman on his stage. Anything but the orphaned son he was, the last of a huntsman family's legacy.
Yang wasn't brought in as a family friend. She counted among them. Another Arc daughter, as kin as all the rest. And it hurt to see them. Tore a gash in her chest to see their faces on photos that seemed so distant and elsewhere, from a time when they were happy, and together, and lazy because they thought they had so much time. Like dreams trapped behind hazy glass.
Those memories were so vivid still. Baking with Dahlia because she wanted to thank her tutor. Spinning tall tales to keep Liona interested in huntress life. Teasing Coral about her love letters from Sky. Kicking back with Sable on a movie binge after she lost a race. Cori teaching her how to tie Jaune's tie. Aunt Hess singing her to sleep over a camping trip. Uncle Polly closing a scratch on her knee because she slipped into a ditch.
She remembered the way their faces scrunched when they thought too hard, how some of them howled when they laughed and other tittered and snorted. How their dinners smelt great, and full, and sometimes terrible. How their silhouettes cut against the setting sun, huddled together like the family unit they were –their arms outstretched to welcome her in.
She cried back then. Sobbed readily into Jaune's shirt and felt a pang of some errant relief when she felt his tears spackle across her hair. But those tears weren't for himself. Now she knew that he'd felt that way because of her. He cried for her pain, her grief, her loss. Because the Jaune Arc she knew always felt too much, and he felt too much for her.
But a broken part of him couldn't feel for himself.
So, as he marched on into the light, more nervous about his jitters than the family he'd lost, feeling nothing like it was the curse and the blessing that she both envied and feared… she couldn't help but think that she'd lost him too.
»»⋅.⋅««
It used to be a combat class. You could tell by looking at it. It had an amphitheater design: student desks descending into steps towards a large, circular stage. Was all wood when Oobleck first found it, even had all the bevels and smoothed over scars of old huntsman spars. To preserve it, he layered over it all with foam, metal, and concrete. Detachable and interchangeable as was Oobleck's style.
But the desks were moved to make space and with all the old wood and tall windows paved over, it hardly resembled what it used to. Just another combat test chamber – all polished, shiny, and new – so it was chromatic and lifeless.
Oobleck sat before a wide terminal, his fingers occasionally opening up to split into mechanical digits – long needle-like appendages with rubberize tips – to press more buttons at once. He normally controlled everything with his brain implants, but not the arena. The terminal was from a different era. Back when huntsmen were plentiful, back when Remnant needed academies to train and license thousands of them every year.
Even if he was no longer a huntsman, he needed to preserve their memory.
He took off his glasses and stowed them away to get a better look at the arena below. He had perfect eyesight. The glasses were fake.
Weiss watched the tiny ways he moved his face. Her brother did his very best not to.
Jaune stepped into the arena. His hand on his sheathed blade.
"Are you ready?" Oobleck asked.
Weiss realized he wasn't speaking into the shoddy mic across the terminal. He was asking her.
She looked back at Whitley and to the total zero other people in the room. "Aren't I the last person you should be asking?"
"He's not in top form," he reasoned. "Might stumble over himself and not be in well enough shape to join Yang."
"He'll catch up. I believe in him."
Whitley chuckled to himself.
"Is there something you want to say, dear brother?"
He shrugged and gestured at her. "You bet against him."
She huffed. "Yang needed the money. Fool girl's not going to ask for it when she needs it."
Whitley winced, his eye twitching. Another headache. Any retort he might have had died with it.
"You still haven't answered my question," Oobleck pressed. His gaze was of thinly held-together of indifference that he didn't actually have.
"I'm ready," she stated firmly, eyes drawn narrow with certainty. Irked, just a smidge, that she couldn't tell if he believed her.
He nodded before he turned back to his panel. The mechanical fingers glided over the panel rapidly as he set up the arena. Every beep accompanied the dull thud of rubber.
Yang entered the room. The twins noted her even pace and distant stare. Normally, Whitley would have stayed silent. He chose not to. "How is he?" he asked; genuine concern bled off him as he leaned where he sat.
"Jitters are still there. He's got a grip but it's not as firm as it used to be… Is he on?" Yang asked before she leaned over the panel to look closer, answering her own question.
Oobleck glanced at Jaune. She was right. He was still shaking. "Yes. I'm priming the room anyway."
The old monitors on the terminal flashed before six separate profiles were generated in minimalist boxes. Each one was an android he had manufactured for the session. Yang noticed the sixth with an added feature. "Holographic Emitters? You planning an overlay on this last one?"
"To make it look more dangerous without actually being more dangerous. We're here to test his basic reflexes, not his acumen or his prowess."
"Well, you better have made it hard-light. Jaune has trouble seeing holograms in detail if they're not the one color."
He nodded. "Of course," he said, making the adjustment. He leaned over the mic, careful not to touch the specks of rust rimming its criss-crossed head, and said, "We're beginning. There will be no countdown."
"What?" Jaune shouted. "What if I'm not ready yet?"
One of the walls was already open and a sleek white android with blackened joints was already sprinting at Jaune from behind. He almost didn't notice it until his training kicked in when he heard it. He swung in a wide arc and sliced through its thin neck. He hobbled a step from his own momentum.
"Good." Oobleck nodded from the booth.
Jaune spared him an unimpressed glance but quickly noticed that two other androids were coming at him from his flanks. Thinking quickly, he ran towards one of them and quickly caught its fist with his free hand. He wrenched it into the way of the other android so it could punch its ally in its blank face.
He swung his sword at their necks but got his blade caught on the last one's head.
Another android was already coming for him when he was trying wrench the blade out in a panic.
"He hasn't reset his stance since this started," Yang said. "His form's off."
Whitley leaned over the edge of his seat. "It's more like he's forgotten his form entirely."
"At least he hasn't fallen on his face," Weiss said.
Oobleck chose not to enter the conversation, focused as he was at the fight below. Jaune was polishing off the fifth android. He had caved in its face with the pommel of his blade after a rough grapple. His legs quaked as he stood, unbalanced and breathing slowly.
He looked around. He had time enough to breathe. He took that moment to roll his shoulders before scanning the walls.
He stood in a wide stance and lowered his blade's tip till it angled toward the floor. "Yes," Yang whispered, nodding, "…that's it."
Oobleck let him hold his stance just a second longer before releasing the last android.
Arthur Watts emerged from the wall.
In one smooth motion, Jaune swung his blade and sliced through Watts's fist and lobbed off his arm from the shoulder. The holo-droid stumbled passed him with the sudden lack of weight to balance it – its hologram fizzled. Jaune turned and stabbed his tip into his calf then wrenched it out, severing the mesh tendons.
Watts fell on his knee, effectively defeated, but the session wasn't over.
Before Oobleck could urge him on, Jaune approached the android from behind. He tilted Watts's head before he stabbed into his neck and through the core where a heart should be, the edge coming out his lower left side.
He pulled it out and let it fall to the ground, its hologram fizzling out with its dying circuitry.
In the silence of the control room, Oobleck sat back and breathed the only the sigh of relief among them.
"I'd say this is progress," Whitley said a little too quickly. "I hadn't realized that he fought like that though. He was nothing like that in our last spar." He and Weiss watched Yang as she let out a breath and walked towards the door. "Yang?"
"He…" she said slowly, shaking her head. "He doesn't fight like that." She stared at Oobleck's motionless back, waiting for a response. When it was clear she wasn't getting one, she shut door behind her.
Oobleck stared at Jaune as he stood over the android.
His hands weren't shaking.
»»⋅.⋅««
In Glenn, locals didn't scream. The quarter population of huntsman in the tiny city meant that there was always protection on patrol, not far from anywhere. And they showed up to stop anything bad from happening so frequently that Glennites shrugged off trouble all the time.
Civies ran screaming past Jaune as he marched down the street. Only tourists scream in Glenn.
Nostalgia bled off every corner here. There were the shifting silhouettes behind the frosted glass of the convenience stores (sometimes they were happy yellows, mostly frustrated vermilions – college kids with deadlines and coffee lows), the Mistrali noodle stall that always had one or two melancholic drunks downing alcohol with their meal (they were always a sad grey, sometimes laced with pale blue longing), and the technician who was always checking the perimeter lights (they were mostly content yellows, when they hummed they were pink – passionate – but the new ones were always a wild and scratchy dark red for fear).
One such technician unhooked her headphones as another set of civies jogged briskly away. "Oh, evenin', Jaune! Back already?"
"Hey, Taf." Jaune waved as he kept walking. "Just here for the week."
Taffy pulled off her helmet and its attached goggles, revealing the shock of her pink hair. She looked around. "Where's Yang? Didn't come back with her?"
"Nah, she's up ahead dealing with–" another screaming civie, "–that."
She looked down the road then up at the perimeter light. "Oh, it's red." Glenn had a grid of perimeter lights that turned from green to red whenever there was trouble in a certain area. Trouble was relative but it was almost always a cryptid. A job for huntsmen.
Jaune shrugged. "Not like I could tell, but you should turn it up if you didn't see."
She scratched her head as he jogged off.
Two civilians were stood beneath a red perimeter light and a hedge wall (Glenn was covered in these). One had his arms crossed and the other was bent over and heaving breaths through his laughter.
"I was this fucking close - ha!"
"Hey, shut it," the other shushed. "Huntsman."
Jaune raised his hands. "Not militia. I don't do reporting."
They breathed sighs of relief. Out of the corner of his eye, Jaune spotted the panting man pull out a black feather. He remembered that game. Stealing a feather off a cryptid was something he and Yang did when they were ten. When you had aura, you got away with a lot.
He turned into the local park and that's where he spotted it. Glenn's only cryptid species: the watchman.
Cryptids were beasts that spawned from rumors. Something about a collective unconscious manifesting into reality. And though there were a variety, a watchman was unique to Glenn as it was the only one that spawned there.
Way back when, Mt. Glenn High had a janitor who was getting sick of kids breaking into school to steal stuff, suck hypo, or plow. Sometimes all three. (They called the trifecta until they ran out of cool things to steal). So, he took the matter into his own hands and hid in dark places dressed as the school's owl mascot to scare away kids. One kid tried to defend his girlfriend when they got spooked. Janitor broke the kid's nose, ran off, and quit his job. Most of the staff knew the real story but teenagers spread rumors of a tall shadowy owl into the pliant ears of their naïve siblings and their concerned parents.
And by some dark cosmic equilibrium because of the extinction of grimm, the watchman was born.
It lumbered through the park. A gorilla-like body with arms taller and wider than a man, small black feathers wound tightly like fur, and the face of an owl that glinted white in the moonlight.
Jaune whistled.
It whipped around and rumbled a guttural shriek like it was choking on its own scream (like an asthmatic janitor in a panic). It stormed towards him, its fists crashing into the vibrating dirt.
Jaune tossed his sword into its throat. It choked, wobbled, then died.
A watchman's neck was the size of its massive head. They were ridiculously easy to kill for anyone with any competence.
With an arm raised, Crocea Mors magnetically flew back into his hand. He swung the dense, clumpy blood off the blade. Most of it still stuck. "Ew."
Another ran in from behind. He'd heard it before it got close.
He raised his forearm up and it chomped down onto it. His aura flared but he didn't mind.
There was a click, a whir, then his cybernetic forearm expanded into the hard-light shield with the sound of a sharp, muffled klaxon.
The beak of the watchman was sliced off vertically. It stumbled back. Jaune followed up with a stab into its neck. It was clumsy. Nearly missed this time. He pulled free the bloodied sword.
"Ew," he said again. Why watchmen had chunky blood, he'd never know.
The watchman sputtered its last breaths for a moment there and kept bleeding into the grass. Oobleck told him that when huntsmen used to fight grimm, they would just dissolve on death like so many ashes. Cryptids weren't so mercifully clean.
A watchman barreled down a cobblestone path with Yang rodeo riding its back. It had a bunch of leaves and twigs stuck its dense mass of black feathers. It was struggling to wipe them off. Watchmen were afraid of getting caught in bushes (like a janitor stumbling through shrubbery), and even though it shouldn't physically stop them, it deterred them enough for the city to build hedge walls everywhere.
The watchman huffed, exhausted and panicked, before it ultimately died, crashing at Jaune's feet.
Yang hopped of the creature. "Nora was right. This is fun."
"I don't think that's the kind of rodeo she was talking about."
"Oh, I checked." She dusted herself off and pulled a twig from her hair. "She meant both, but it takes two to tango so I'm stuck with riding cryptids to death."
"You haven't slept with anyone since high school?" Since they broke up, he meant.
"How is that a surprise? I've got a strict criteria."
He rolled his eyes playfully. It was just the one thing. "Strict, right. Not unless you're in love. But what about Sage?"
She waved it off. "Nothing happened between us."
"He had a crush on you."
She whipped back. Scratched her head. "He, uh, didn't make that clear."
"Eh, it was high school and he's a celebrity now." He still wished she'd go out and find someone. Neon had an interest in her once, too, but Yang still had trouble connecting intimately with her parents still fresh in her mind. Had to be worse now, even.
Another guttural shriek ripped through the air. Watchmen lumbered down from the cobblestone path Yang rode in from. "Oh, yeah, forgot about those guys." She punched her fists together. Her gauntlets quickly de-cloaked revealing one shaped boxy and yellow and the other was a jagged and red. "They're fun in numbers. Wanna get surrounded?"
"Yang, we should really get to Bin as soon as possible."
"C'mon! This'll be the last time hunting anything will be easy."
"I don't know…"
She rolled her eyes. Those were his three favorite words now. Still, if she couldn't ease him out of it, she'd just have to put him on the spot.
"Yang?" She wasn't next to him.
She was already sprinting ahead. "Least kills buys dinner!"
There was a sprinkle of worry here and there, but none of it mattered when she'd felt the crunch of the watchman's skull bend around her fist and he'd crashed into the one on her flank. Even if he was apprehensive, he was still her partner in the end.
A flurry of fists crashed around his shields. "This is crazy!" he complained but he laughed all the same.
Her hand was to his chest. When the fists landed on his shields again, she'd absorbed the force with her semblance. She felt it travel down his arms, pool into his chest, surge into her own arm until it crashed into her already swinging fist.
The watchman she'd struck soared back several feet, practically disintegrating through the force alone. Its body was basically mist when its skull embedded itself into a tree in a mighty thud.
The other watchmen turned back to Jaune and Yang – blood splattered and grinning. Another thing cryptids had that the grimm didn't was the ability to feel fear. They didn't envy ancient huntsmen their relentless enemy, but when the watchmen scurried off, they knew they'd waste more time trying to catch up to them.
With a groan, they split up to hunt to them down.
»»⋅.⋅««
Please Authorize. "Jaune Arc." Voice match confirmed.
Please verify willful consent. He stuck a wide eye over the camera. Stress levels nominal.
'Almost there!' said the words on his scroll if it was even remotely encouraging. "Ugh…"
Please authenticate bio-signature. He stuck his finger onto the screen. It glowed (Yang said it was green) then it pinged. Bio-signature active.
Have a pleasant transaction.
"Sorry about that," said the greasy fry cook as he took his own scroll off the picnic table from beside Jaune's. "I'll have authorized commerce tomorrow, I swear. I'll even give you a discount."
"Don't worry about it," Jaune said. "We won't be back in town for a while anyway." The cook was about to open his mouth but Jaune shook his head. "Don't ask. Long story. But we'll hold you to that discount when we get back."
"Sure thing," he said happily as he scurried back to his cart.
With the cryptids for the night all dead and gone, people started funneling back into the park. Though they'd avoided the picnic table they were sat at. The stench of rotting murder-owls wasn't exactly pleasant and neither was the sight of two drenched huntsmen. Still, it afforded them alone time and cheap, hastily assembled burgers.
"How'd I do?" he asked, gesturing to the scattered cryptids with his burger. The lettuce flew out. "I think I did pretty good."
She grunted and leaned into the massive head of a dead watchman, its tongue lolling out, and loudly whispered to it like an inured friend. "Can you believe this guy? Give him a few cryptids to off and suddenly he thinks he's on his feet again."
He pointed his burger at her. Tomatoes fell out. "You don't think so?" He pulls up the massive head of one slumped across from him with his free hand. There was a gash in its head the width of Crocea Mors. "He certainly did."
"I think you're overestimating yourself." She leaned towards him, a cheeky grin flashed over her smile. "Think you can take me in a spar again, Jauney-boy?"
No. "Yes." His blade still felt a little sluggish and uncomfortable in his hands. Like he recalled it belonging to him, but also felt that it belonged to someone else. Familiar yet unfamiliar, and the paradox was throwing his thoughts in for a loop. "And whether or not you believe me, I know you feel as restless as I do."
They'd been at this for months now. It was time they left.
"Fine," she said, munching on the burger that was more grease than literally anything else. "I'll put in a good word for you. Doc wants us out to see Ren soon anyway. Sooner we're in Vale, the better."
He rolled his hand. Pickles fell out. "And the sooner we're out of it, the better."
She sighed. "Sorry to say, but you're gonna have to get used to Vale." Her scroll slid across the table to him. It was a message from Roman.
He's in Vale. Back from the dead. Details when you touch ground.
"When were you gonna tell me about this?"
"When you were ready," she said diplomatically. "Which you are now. Congrats?" She smiled apologetically.
He exhaled through his nose, shoulders relaxing. "Yeah, that makes sense. I'm still kind of a mess. We'll need jobs though." He almost took a bite. Stopped. Sighed. "Huntsmen aren't very successful in Vale if they're not cops, syndicated, or… the Valkyries. And the best bounties there get swallowed up by desperate teams." He wasn't looking forward to the city grind.
"Weiss has us covered," she said. "There's a district that could use some extra security. Said that the place has high walls, no crime, a gym for staff, the works. We just work for their mayor as personal bodyguards and we'll have a base, money, and discretion."
"I'm sensing a catch here."
"Yeah, whoever-he-is thinks we're friends of an heiress who just need jobs."
His lips thinned. "I'm not comfortable going covert on this from our employer of all things."
She smirked. "That's why we're making it clear that we aren't just friends of an heiress."
He leaned in. "Go on…"
"So, because they'll be expecting some snotty silvers with no talent and empty pockets, Weiss thinks we should show them what a Schnee power move is and show them we're certified huntsmen. His head-of-security will be waiting outside for us and Roman says he'll be watching us through video feed as we arrive."
"And the power move is…?"
"You." She grinned, shaking with excitement, gesturing wildly. "Landing strategy. Loud and flashy."
He sat back. His burger patty slipped in-between the table's gaps. "You sure we aren't gonna hurt anyone doing this?"
"Ren'll give us a holo-tag you'll probably see from orbit. He'll keep people off of it and you should be fine."
He raised a brow. "Should?" he thought, but he let it go.
Instead, he listed in his head things they should grab while they were still in town. Maybe an extra gravity-dust cartridge. He had a jacket he and Yang spent weeks designing – they should grab their prototypes. Maybe the district had a tailor for huntsmen. "What was the name of the district?" he asked.
"Fridge? No, Fringe. Like it's on the corner of the city over an old dried-up dock. There's a crater there where they salvage old ships."
"For someone trying to get in with a Schnee, he certainly didn't pick a very upstate-sounding place."
"Yeah, but I'd take it over the stacks," Yang said. "Say what you will about the upstate, but at least they've got air-conditioning."
"Yeah, it's almost summer." Jaune eyed the moon above with its golden glowing cracks on one side. They said that the moon used to be shattered on that end but the gods reassembled it as a sign of their return. It was almost beautiful, Yang thought, but Jaune couldn't see it. The moon above in his eyes was no different from the sun. It was almost sad, but he didn't even know what he was missing. Which almost made it sadder.
Jaune made to bite his burger but all he found was some greasy buns. In a fit of silent frustration, he threw it at the watchman beside Yang in a meaty thunk as it fell over onto the floor.
"Jeremy!" Yang cried dramatically as she got up to hoist it over her shoulder like drunk friend. If she had an exaggerated speech prepared, it was lost in the gush of blood that slipped from its beak and spilled over her. "Ugh! Not worth it." She punched its head off of her. It exploded in the other direction.
Jaune looked over the splatter. "You hit the flower bed. Cleaners are gonna have a hard time getting it out of the carnations."
"Of course you know what the yellow flower is."
"I hung out with Ren. It's a given." He'd recognized the shape. Flowers were either brown or green in his eyes, never yellow. Except that one time…
"Pfft! No, you knew way before that. Mom – no, Aunt Hess –" She shook her head. He put a hand on her arm. He smiled at her, nodding along. "–No. You're right. Mom. She used to take you gardening and picked what to put on your yard."
"I remember," he said. He frowned, then his lips thinned.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, holding the hand that was squeezing her arm.
"Like I can't shake the feeling that something's just fundamentally missing."
It wasn't quite what she was expecting… No, it was exactly what she was expecting. She was just hoping for something otherwise. Jaune just seemed shocked by it all. Not sad. "You know, I expected you to take all this a lot harder."
"Same. When I asked you about mom, I knew everything had gone to hell. But then I found out most of my family's joined gramps and it feels like I already knew."
She let the moment sink in. Eying him up and down, to the park, the bodies, the moon, then just him. "You haven't cried," she said finally. "Not really."
"Maybe I'd done all my mourning in my sleep," he said, shutting his eyes. Remembering. "I think I had nightmares of them. I got one a week back. It was so… vivid. Like I was in Sable's head when she tossed a coin at Watts. Tore right through his cheek." He pulled out his wallet, a sleek black metal frame that Yang and Joan got him when he was fourteen. He pulled out a coin and pressed it between his finger and thumb. "It's like I can feel the way she did it." He flicked but the coin fell to the side in a pathetic phut and slipped between the bloodied armpits of a watchman.
She laughed quietly. "Not quite."
He shrugged. "I'll get the hang of it."
A flashlight blazed over them. Jaune only noticed cause Yang winced.
"You huntsmen pick the weirdest places to get intimate," said a balding old man. His crew of cleaners were already working on all the giant corpses.
"Evenin', Bin," they greeted.
"Arc. Yang."
"My last name's Xiao Long."
"Too many syllables."
"Then why don't you call me Jaune? It's one syllable."
"It's a long syllable. Longer than Arc. Now I'm wasting time chatting. What's the bill for the compost heap?" He looked around, giving the corpses a quick once over. "I count a dozen at least."
"Consider it a freebie," Yang said. "We're leaving town and we might not go hunting here for a while."
"Ooh! Romantic getaway?"
"We're not dating," they said in unison.
Bin laughed good-naturedly. He knew they weren't an item but he'd been around when they were. Him and his quintuplet siblings. "So, where you headed then? Mistral suddenly getting more activity? I hear people are paying big for escorts down south in what's left of Vacuo."
They looked at each other. Then to him. "Vale," Jaune said.
He doubled back. "That cesspool? I… look, kids, if you're hurting for money, we could always use extra hands at the cleaners."
"It's not about money." Yang waved her hands to placate him. "We're just visiting some old friends. An extended visit."
"Must be some really good friends if you're making the effort to go there." He rubbed his exposed forehead, looking like he was creasing the old wrinkles into more wrinkles. "Just don't get shot, alright? People talk big about how bad being in Vale is but it's more than just a shitshow of degenerates. It eats good people up like it'll get any better feeding itself honest souls…"
He looked back at the stained carnations, beauty swallowed by violence. "I used to have five brothers, not four. Remember that."
»»⋅.⋅««
Beacon's airfield looked like a wasteland. It used to hold a fleet of old airships they called bullheads but most of them were scavenged, others sold to collectors, and one – only one – managed to get disassembled and cleaned for a spot in the museum. Oobleck nearly starved that week when he bought it, but that was before he got Schnee money.
Now it was empty, flat lands that stretched until they vanished into featureless skies.
Yang was with Jaune, Weiss, and Whitley on their way to their ride into Vale.
Jaune was more or less put together at that point, much like he was before the wedding, but that was all surface level stuff. He still wasn't quite present half the time, often losing himself in thought at whatever point was the most distant. It was like his eyes saw ghosts in the horizon, silhouetted against the setting sun. He'd stared at it for minutes. Yang hadn't bothered talking to him. It might have been cathartic and she didn't want to interrupt that.
So, instead she made a call she'd been planning to make for weeks now.
Blake's voice buzzed over the video feed of her scroll. "Yang? – Sun, pause it. Pause it! No, stop it!" Sun was laughing on the other end of the line. He liked punishing Blake for not shutting off her phone when they watched something by spoiling whatever she missed. Usually, he didn't get to anything juicy in the five minutes he watched without her, but the one time Jaune managed to call during the climax of an Ylda Braveheart film, Blake throttled her boyfriend and got Jaune and her to never call her passed eight if it wasn't an emergency. "This better be important…"
"Guess who's coming to Vale?" she swung the camera to her entourage as she walked backwards.
Sun hopped into view of the screen. "You guys are going to Vale? Like, now?"
Weiss and Whitley were too occupied to notice Yang, but Jaune turned and did a double take. Then he grabbed her by the waist, and rubbed a fist into her hair.
"Hey!" she laughed.
He snatched her scroll.
"Jaune!" She leapt onto his back.
Blake giggled. "Glad to see you don't have the shakes anymore."
Yang poked his cheek, still on his back. "You asked her about that?"
"She had firsthand experience," he said.
Blake shrugged. "Cause I had the shakes when my spinal jack glitched a year back." Plus they were both cyborgs. "How long will you four be in town?"
Their smiles fell. Yang wrapped her arms tighter around Jaune's neck and tucked into it. "For as long as we need to."
Things were silent for a while until Sun pushed into Blake's cheek. "Hey, guys?" he asked.
"Yeah?"
"Come over once you two are in the city. We miss you all. Crime and villainy doesn't keep very good company."
They laughed. "Shouldn't have been a detective then," Yang said.
"I'd still pick it over hunting cryptids all year round." Everyone but Sun winced.
Sun and Blake had been on their own vendetta. The pair of them lost an old friend, Ilia Amitola, and Sun had dropped being a huntsman to be a detective so he could find her killer.
Blake kissed his cheek. He was thinking too long about Ilia again.
"We promise," Jaune said. "Maybe we can even work together. Like old times."
Sun nodded. Blake's eyes sparkled. "We'd love that," she said. "I'll insist on dinner tomorrow but you two should settle in first. Call, alright?"
After their goodbyes, Yang unwound from Jaune's back. "At least Vale has good people in it," she said.
He chuckled. "They'll probably be the only reason why we survive that place."
What awaited them was a massive whale-shaped spacecraft, winged by massive thrusters that were each almost half the size of its own fuselage. When it touched down, the rear opened up with an escort of SDC security that shuffled down its steps – all sleek military formal wear with hard-light armor. By the time their retinue got close, a holographic red carpet spanned the length of their path into the ship.
Yang whistled. "Schnee treatment. Wish travel was always like this."
"Don't' expect the same treatment coming out," Weiss cautioned. "Where you're going, there isn't going to be a space big enough for the beluga to land. You'll need to get there on your own once we're overhead."
"Yeah, yeah. We've got the landing strategy ready, don't we?"
Yang looked to Jaune who had spent the last minute or so staring at the enormity of the ship as they came up beneath it, the size suddenly spanning the sky. He felt her eyes on him. "Oh! I've got… three gravity cartridges chambered. We're good."
She looked between him and the ship. "What are you worried about?" she asked.
"The ship's big but I've ridden in belugas that weren't exactly… steady." Jaune got motion sick in airships. Yang remembered to pack a few paper bags for him.
"That's because maintaining both thrusters equally is a nightmare," Whitley said as he read reports with his sister on a holographic tablet. "That's why we hire the best. You won't feel a single tilt. I guarantee it." He looked up enough to show his smug confidence passed the holographic glow.
A series of androids ran between them, carrying their collective luggage. Their steps in a rhythm like Weiss and Whitley's.
They'd ascended the ship, and just as they made it up to the lodging, through the window they saw clouds pass. "We're already moving?" Jaune asked. "I didn't even feel it take off."
"Hopefully this means you won't need these," Yang said, gesturing to the paper bags in her pocket. "We've got thirty minutes till they need us to drop. Ren said he'll meet us on the ground so remember to aim for his holo-tag. He said it'll be of his emblem."
"And Nora?"
"He didn't mention but I'm guessing little An's kept her busy. Funny how the only thing that tires her out is another her."
"Haven't seen them in a while. An should be in Adrian's grade, I think. Maybe they should meet."
Yang paused. "Have you reached out to Saph yet?"
Jaune sighed. It was heavy; loaded with so much concern that his shoulders slumped and his whole body seemed to follow. "She hasn't picked up since the funeral. She's sent me messages but says she can't talk to anyone real-time without breaking down. Terra's folks tell me she's doing better than she sounds but wants to get all her grief out before she can let herself be relieved she's got any family left."
"I figured she'd have come to you running every time."
"She's barely even hugged Adrian. Not that she was allowed. Almost had a death grip on him, they said."
"I saw." Yang met her on the same day they got Jaune to Oobleck. Thought she might have gotten a bruise from the hug if she didn't have aura. It was a small comfort at the time. "For the only Arc in your family without aura, she's got quite the squeeze."
"She's not the only one. Adrian doesn't have aura either."
"Right… Wait, is that why she wanted another kid?"
"I think. It was mostly for dad. He wanted another future huntsman in the family. Not that he minded that Adrian wasn't like us."
"Guess it was easier than talking you into getting him grandkids."
He playfully scowled at her. "I did! Technically."
She rolled her eyes. "When the twins wake up Pyrrha, maybe consider taking her offer."
I want one of my own, he recalled her saying. "She told you about that?!"
"We're best friends. Of course she was going to tell me. Plus, it was my advice. I asked for results."
He wanted to ask her to stop but he'd kill to see Pyrrha awake and flirting again. There was a lot he wanted to fix. He had to take Yang's advice too. Next chance he got, he'd take the plunge.
"I already see the city," Yang said, looking out the window again. "You almost forget how big it is…"
It dominated the landscape as it swallowed the sea in suspended platforms till the horizon sank into steel and concrete instead of the ocean. Rolled over mountain ranges with skyscrapers, hotels, and casinos built into their titanic earthen faces – lit windows like a thousand eyes – as if they breathed life into the silent stone. And the bulk of it? The rest of the city was so dense with pavement, street, and city that the closer they got to the ground, the more it seemed like the concrete and infrastructure went on forever.
This was Vale. A maze of poison and deceit, the maw of some unstoppable beast that swallowed its heart and subsisted on sheer malice, a writhing mass that cursed a kingdom to devour its kin, and a thousand other terrible things to call a place.
It left one to wonder what kind of people thrived on a place like this. And who they might be if they adapted.
Yang tugged on her necklace that was tucked into her bosom. At the end of it was her father's memory chip. Still as cold as she remembered it. The warmth she felt from it the night of the wedding was gone.
Her father died in this city. Rumor has it that her mother died here too. Would it take her too?
Her eyes narrowed. So did his. Silently, they dared the city to try.
And before it was all over, the city would break first.