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Chapter Twenty-Nine: Dolls
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"That's a big Ursa!" - Speech
'I'm so tired.' - Thoughts
[Game Announcement]
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I don't own RWBY or The Gamer.
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"Efforts to rebuild the Atlesian fleet have re-structured much of the economies of Atlas and Mantle." Lisa Lavender said on screen.
Qrow sipped his whiskey watching the news report. "Atlas has begun to import dozens of airships worth of steel and materials, creating brand new budgets and higher taxes for the citizens of Atlas. The resulting protests have helped create unrest throughout Mantle."
"Go figure. Good luck Winter." Qrow chuckled finishing his drink.
Footage played of Jaune marching Adam in chains off the airship. "The recent arrest and capture of Adam Taurus has lead to many speculating even more about the events that occurred at Vale leading to the deaths of thousands. Hunstman Academy enrollment remains at a record low, and Huntsman operations have still yielded no concrete evidence about the cause of the near-total destruction of Vale."
Qrow began to ignore the news report, enjoying some peace and quiet along with another cold drink.
Ozpin then appeared, taking the stool next to him. "Fear begets fear I suppose."
"Hmf!" Qrow said. "Put that on my tombstone. Whatcha doing here?"
"Where else would you be during this time of day this part of the week? You weren't at the school."
"Have some important events to catch up on." Qrow raised his glass, nodding to the screen tuned to the news channel. "You know this bar was one of the first things they rebuilt? Made sense, you lose all your loved ones and the first thing people wanna do is hit the bottle. Can't say I blame them."
"Yes," Ozpin noted the many passed-out drunks leaning over tables throughout the bar. "And you thought you should join them."
"Hey, I'm just here for a drink alright?"
Ozpin sighed, getting off his stool. "I have business to attend to at the school. Forget I said anything."
"Okay, what? I can't get an hour off on one night?"
"You can. But you have to continue to train Jaune. And especially his teammates."
Qrow laughed. "Kid practically trains himself. He caught Taurus in a day when it took Kingdoms months to fail to even get a glimpse of him. Not much left I can do."
"Being a Huntsman isn't all about fighting."
"In that regard, I can't teach him much either," Qrow said. "You can though."
Ozpin nodded. "Yes, I suppose I can."
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Salem remained on her small red throne as a large muscular man and a scorpion Faunus approached.
Kneeling, both men said the same. "My queen."
"Rise," Salem said. "I have a task for you both. Tyrion." she turned to the Faunus. "I need you to go with Hazel to Beacon academy as soon as possible. How long should it take you to reach it?"
"By Bullhead?" Hazel scratched his chin. "Two days at least."
"Ozpin is reeling from the attack after the Festival. If you move quickly enough, you can free Adam Taurus. Then I want you to help plan the strike on Mistral."
Tyrion bowed his head low. "What do you have in mind, your Highness?"
"The current Spring Maiden is of no threat to us. She won't do a thing to help protect the city of the Academy. The White Fang almost succeeded at Beacon, they can do so again. Without Adam Taurus, the attack won't happen. Understood?"
"Yes, my Queen," they said together.
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Adam had his legs tied around the roof of his cell, using the iron bars to help support himself as he did pull-ups. With his hands tied shortly to the walls, he was still able to move enough to train his core muscles.
Hearing his chains clink, the guard rolled aside the metal bar to look into Adam's cell. "What's going on in there?"
Adam was already flicking his chins to create noise. "What?" he asked. "I'm bored."
"Stupid kid." the guard closed the vision bar in the cell door.
The moment he heard him leave, Adam got right back to work. While it strained him past his limits with how little space his chain gave him, Adam continued to train the best he could.
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Jaune quickly took a look at his stats and remembered just how powerful the Gamer was. With just a few weeks of work, he was so strong that he had well over 100 points into each stat. And the learning speed he had let him more than master Pyromancy, sword fighting, and all his Mana abilities with just a few runs in the Abyss. With each of his skills at or above LV 100, Jaune was comfortable in how powerful the Gamer had made him.
Leaning off the stairwell barrier out of Beacon's dorms, Jaune approached Qrow. "Hey, you've been gone all night."
"Don't worry I can handle myself."
"Well, I was wondering. When did you plan on teaching here at Beacon?"
"Teaching?" Qrow chuckled. "I've tried teaching before. Didn't work out." Qrow turned to the completely empty campus. "Besides, who would I teach?"
"Ruby? Me? Pyrrha, Yang? I don't know."
"Well, it's not gonna happen."
Jaune spoke. "Why not? You're here now anyway. Why not teach us?"
"What am I gonna teach exactly?" asked Qrow.
Jaune spoke honestly. "How about how to become a Hunstman? Sure we could all use it."
"Okay kid," said Qrow. "Think about where you were a year ago. Now think about where you are now. Now do you really think you still need my help?"
"Nora and Ren do. So does Pyrrha." Jaune said.
Qrow sighed. "Fine. How does right now sound?"
"Right now? It's the dead of night."
"Exactly," Qrow said. "Emerald Forest, ten minutes."
"What? Wait-"
By the time Jaune had turned around Qrow had disappeared.
Inside the dorms, Ren was cleaning his pistols while speaking. "Does that sound safe at all to you?"
"I think that's the point of it?" Jaune said.
Nora already had her hammer ready. "A Grimm hunt in the middle of the night? Now that's a way to spend a Friday night!"
Pyrrha swung her legs off her bed. "Well, it has been a while since we actually had a proper class."
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In the central grotto where the trail into the Emerald Forest ended, JNPR approached Qrow.
"Yay you made it," said Qrow dryly. "Okay, the first lesson of becoming a Huntsman is to be resourceful. Well, as resourceful as possible."
"Okay, so what's the test?" Nora said as Ren was already wary of any Grimm that might be nearby.
"Find these small glass dolls." Qrow raised a tiny porcelain soldier the size of his fingernail. "Find all seven before sunrise and you pass. Fail, and I won't teach you guys a thing."
"Wait-" Pyrrha said.
Jaune chuckled knowing what he'd already done. "Yeah he's gone. We should split up to cover more ground, use our scrolls to communicate."
"Is that safe though?" Nora wondered.
"We should be able to handle it," said Jaune before running so fast into the forest his team barely had time to react.
Pyrrha sighed, drawing her sword and shield. "It doesn't sound too hard," she said before running in a different direction than Jaune.
"Of course it's not. Finding small stuff in the Emerald Forest. Not that hard right Ren?" Nora's partner had already disappeared. "Ren?"
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The first place Jaune checked was the same ruins Ozpin sent them all to during initiation.
"Guys I found the first one." Jaune used a voice message on his scroll after walking on top of one of the pillars. Upon touching them, he realized he had triggered an alarm. "They're traps! They're traps be careful!"
Jaune was then surrounded by Grimm on all sides. The amount and size of the Grimm would've seriously told Jaune he was dead were it not for how sure he was he could handle them. There were over thirty Grimm
Jaune turned four Ursa Majors into nothing but dust and EXP for him with how quickly he detonated Exploding Mana Arrows into them. As a King Taijitu snapped its jaws onto where Jaune was standing, he had already activated [Aura Sword] and cut the Grimm to pieces. The Grimm that tried killing him found he was so fast they weren't even close to dealing any damage.
Any remaining Grimm was either melted away by Jaune's Pyromancy abilities or disposed of with his sword within seconds.
'I wasn't expecting these traps to attract so many Grimm.'
Checking his scroll to see where Nora now was, Jaune flew to catch her in time. At full speed Jaune was running so fast that he easily caught Nora before she touched the next porcelain toy soldier.
"Wait!" Jaune said. "Did you not get my message?"
Nora turned. "What message..."
'Huh leave it up to Nora to not check her scroll so often she ignores such an important text.'
"Well these things are trapped," said Jaune, pointing the to tiny wires attached to the porcelain soldier. "We gotta be careful."
"Huh. So then how to we touch them without you know. Kaboom!" Nora said loudly.
Crickets sang quietly in the Emerald Forest while Jaune came up with a quick plan. "I'm gonna cut the wires as fast as I can. Then you grab it and we go."
"Sounds like a good plan."
As fast as Nora could blink Jaune had already cut both wires with Ina. Nora looked at the small toy soldier in her hand. "That's two down five to go."
Jaune checked his scroll speaking quietly. "Turns out Pyrrha got my message. Four left."
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Not far from where Jaune and Nora were speaking, Ren was about to get the doll attached to a rock when the Grimm attacked him. Much more accustomed to combat after a year of being enrolled at Beacon, Ren easily defeated it.
Using his pistols to make it close its eyes and protect itself, Ren easily closed the distance between them before slashing the snake Grimm across the throat. While his attack was effective enough to kill it, the resulting flail sent Ren crashing directly into the object he was trying to reach.
As Ren tumbled over the doll Qrow set, a loud crash of cymbals.
Brushing himself off, Ren watched as multiple Grimm approached, surrounding him from all sides. Before the first one could strike, Ren was running for his life, trying to make a few of them keep his distance by shooting them with his pistols.
Before long, Jaune had activated [Aura Sword] and used his massive amount of DEX to cut down multiple Ursa in a single slash of his sword.
As Nora kneecapped a Beowolf and caved in its head, Ren stopped running before turning to watch Jaune slay well over twenty Grimm in about five seconds with just his sword.
'He's even faster than during the battle at Beacon. Well, he just gets weirder and weirder.'
Jaune beheaded the last Grimm with a small glance at his notifications.
[You have gained +14,000 EXP!]
[You have gained +1 LV!]
[You have gained +1 STA!]
[You have gained +1 STR!]
"Wait," said Nora. "Where's the thingy? The um, the glass soldier or whatever."
"I think I broke it?" Ren said.
Jaune looked over the part of the forest floor where Ren had broken it. "Huh. Well, I guess we got the fourth one. Sort of." Jaune picked up the broken shards of what remained of it.
"Should Pyrrha be by herself?" wondered Ren. "I don't think even she can handle well over thirty Grimm at once."
"Let's go help her then. But why do you have to be so clumsy Ren? You broke one of the thingies we were looking for!" Nora said.
"Okay, they're not thingies. They're tiny toy soldiers. Made out of porcelain." Ren said. "Qrow made them breakable for a reason. And tiny. If they weren't in such obvious places they would be impossible to find."
"Makes sense they were trapped though," Jaune said.
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"So will you train us now?" Jaune handed Qrow the seven dolls he had "hidden" throughout the Forest.
Qrow looked at the shattered one. "You passed. But not really."
"What? You made us hunt Grimm and risk our lives in the middle of the night just to say no?" asked Nora.
"When I said to be resourceful I mean move carefully. Use your surroundings. Each of the dolls could be retrieved without attracting so many Grimm. Over half of the dolls had their alarms triggered." Qrow said showing the notifications on his scroll.
Jaune crossed his arms. "So this is what being a good Huntsman is? Making us pass a test you didn't outline for us." scoffing, Jaune lead his team away from Qrow. "Let's go guys."
"See now you got it. Think about everything that's happened this past year. Hordes of Grimm, the destruction of Vale. Being a Huntsman means you have to be prepared for more than you anticipated. Didn't Ozpin teach you that? That's what this whole test was about." Qrow said.
Jaune considered what Qrow said.
Most of what happened over the previous year could barely be anticipated. But without the Gamer Jaune likely would've been unable to handle any of it.
"Fine," Jaune said. "If you don't want to train us. Then go right on ahead."
"Who said I didn't?"