I'm actually back within almost a week, what kind of magic is this?
Thanks to my patrons Robert Waldron, Jesse Garcia, LOLZMAN, Ragy, The-Anti-Akuma and Hydrolic for supporting me this month! Super appreciated, y'all are life-savers.
Sometimes, Jaune enjoyed falling. When he was free-falling from the back of a Bullhead, wind rushing past him, blowing his hair back, he truly enjoyed the experience.
When he was deep inside an abandoned mine, filled to the brim with dangerous Grimm, experiencing significant issues with his semblance, and had been grabbed by something he still couldn't see?
He really didn't enjoy falling right now.
His first attempt to right himself ended with his face meeting rock at a not-so-insignificant speed, the impact leaving him momentarily dazed, to the point where it took a few seconds to regain his bearings and attempt again.
There was a strange weight still attached to his leg, despite his lack of clarity regarding what it was, and it was still pulling him further down, sometimes dragging him down angled slopes as he rubbed against the pit's walls, never giving him a moment to slow or stall his descent.
Until, by virtue of a lack of further distance to travel downwards, Jaune's descent ceased, and he hit the rocky ground on his back with a series of sharp pains and a loud, pained groan. Aura could only do so much.
He really tried to get onto his feet the next moment, knowing he was in potentially quite a bit of danger, but he could barely move. He could feel his spine stitching itself back together, muscles reknitting themselves, so it would be a slight bit longer before he could be up and ready to fight.
Luckily, whatever had grabbed him seemed to have released it's grip, leaving him winded and injured on the ground at the base of the pit.
He tilted his head to the side, noting the two piles of rock that lay there, Grimm smoke pouring off them. They'd been Geist, he realized, his concern only growing. They'd died very, very recently, which meant one of two things.
Either there was a Hunter already down here, or whatever had grabbed him was definitely not a Grimm.
"And here I thought you'd not be getting up," A voice spoke from directly in front of Jaune, just out of his field of vision. "You're healing nicely already, how useful."
The voice was distorted in a startlingly familiar way, and as Jaune lifted himself, he came face to face with something that was only technically a face, and even then only by certain standards.
It was, without a doubt, clearly a human skull, eye sockets glowing the oh-so-typical Grimm red in an alarming fashion, black matter swirling outwards to connect the mask to the rest of the person's outfit, near completely black tactical rigging and netting strapped all over, loaded rifle magazines and various grenades slung across them like they were ready to combat an entire army. Even their hood was composed of the shadowy tentacle-like matter that was almost identical to an Abominae Mask.
It was a man, clearly, no amount of modulation could completely disguise the voice, and more specifically he appeared to have a pair of brownish-red fox ears that poked out of the hood, albeit scarred and with the left missing a small chunk, almost like a bullet had cut its way through years ago.
"Nothing to say?" The man asked, squatting down, his older, well-worn unfamiliar rifle brushing against the stone beneath him. "My sources said you were quite a bit more talkative."
Jaune was still waiting to not be winded, but regardless, he tried his best. "Who… are… you?" He managed, more of a groaned question than anything else.
"Please, you should be able to tell by now. Unless my sources were completely off base, which has happened from time to time, though considering your current circumstances, I sincerely doubt that."
There wasn't much nuance to that statement, and it concerned Jaune greatly. This man knew about the System, and more than that, he knew Jaune possessed it. Considering the circumstances of their meeting, this had gone from being a potential danger to being a guaranteed fight. He just needed to stall for himself to heal, and for his team to reach him.
He activated Observe all the same, looking at the man.
[Observe's high level has chipped away at Oathbreaker's Visage's Concealed Identity perk, and is displaying partial information!]
[Talon, Oathbreaker]
[Level: ?]
Jaune decided a smart call might be to try and back away from this man, considering the information that had just been granted to him.
He backpedalled on his hands and knees, scrambling in the dust until it was interrupted, his back running up against a pair of leather-clad shins.
He looked near vertical to see a woman, mid-twenties at best, deep brown hair almost haphazardly shaved on one side into some kind of faux-hawk, tan skin exposed where it wasn't clad in black leather much like Talon, though hers was far more natural than the Grimm-like matter that his was made of, and a strange glove made of rope netting wrapped around her fingers and arm up to her neck, where she seemed to wear it almost like a choker.
Dark veins stood out on her face, and despite her darker skin tones, her face was still an unhealthy pallor, though that didn't seem to bother her. He realized his attention was far more worthy of focusing on the thin dagger she held in her hand, the stiletto razor-sharp and glinting in the light.
"Almost a shame to gut this one. He's cute."
Her voice was, unlike the rest of her, startlingly angelic, almost convincing him she was anything but a dangerous killer. It was strangely offsetting.
[Vox, Oathbreaker]
[Level: 125]
It wasn't the first time he'd gone up against a killer with honeyed words, though, but they didn't seem to be having any effect. Instead, it seemed more like it was simply a coincidence.
Another voice spoke up, much deeper and heavily accented. "Do not let his appearance win the fight for him, habeebti."
The voice came from a taller man standing off to the side, wrapped in a series of mismatched cloth, slung and bundled as if the man had simply grabbed an entire textile store and tossed it over himself, though the man's entire back was exposed as if the fabric had just been torn completely off by something. Jaune couldn't make out the man's face through the headwrap he wore, but it was clear as day that this man was from Vacuo, even without the foreign clothing his accent and tendency to vie for the older, more ancient words of the Vacuon tribespeople made it more than obvious.
Jaune Observed the cloth-wrapped man as well, to add to his information on the trio.
[Khayin, Oathbreaker]
[Level: 115]
Jaune tried to stand, and got halfway up off the ground before he was gripped by Vox, her hand firm on his shoulder. "No, I don't think so."
Her order was dismissed almost immediately. "Let him up, Vox. I want to see him stand," Talon commanded, and it wasn't until now that Jaune properly realized how terrifying it was to hear that voice from this perspective.
Jaune stood, not towering over them but still taller than Vox and Talon. It was harder to see over Khayin, seeing as the man was his equal in height, though Jaune wasn't quite as emaciated as the desert-dweller appeared to be under his cloth.
"Let me flay him now, min fadlak sadeeq," Khayin said, and it took Jaune a second to understand the first part through the man's accent.
If he wasn't sure they were threats before, there was no doubting it now.
Jaune did the only thing he could think of. He snapped his arm up and fired a Mana Blast.
Talon cocked his head to the side as the only exposed part of his skin, his left arm, began to glow brightly, the dark veins illuminating a sickly purple.
The Mana Blast fizzled and died without any effect. Jaune's eyes widened in panic.
"You are not the first to try something like that, wielder, but I suppose that's the best confirmation we could've gotten. I appreciate your honesty, it's… refreshing."
If offense didn't work, Jaune would have to move onto defense. In this case, attempting to Phaseshift out of harm's way.
It failed to activate, expending his Mana and doing nothing but making Talon's arm glow even brighter. "A slow learner, though, it seems."
Jaune figured a more tactile, physical response might be warranted, and broke into a sprint, only to land face down on the ground, blood spurting from where he'd bitten his tongue when his jaw had slammed against the stone floor.
Something had grabbed his leg again, tripping him.
"Our fourth member is a little shy, you see, but I'm sure that wouldn't surprise you if you met them. It's hard to turn a wielder, but it is possible. Would you be willing to undergo what they went through?"
The question shocked Jaune on multiple levels, and he could barely process the information. There was a prior wielder alive, and they'd been turned to whoever's side these people worked for? And they were trying to turn him too?
"Never," Jaune spat through his bloodied lip. "I'd rather die than join whoever you work for."
Vox laughed. "He's got spirit, but he doesn't even know about Salem. Poor kid."
The name seemed familiar, but no matter how hard he thought he couldn't place it. "Who-"
He didn't get to finish his question as he was hauled to his feet by Khayin and smacked in the stomach by the man's fist. It caught Jaune so off-guard he didn't even get his Aura up in time, and he doubled over, wheezing.
"You know not of the Elah?" Khayin questioned. "How can you proclaim to be a wielder without-"
This time it was the Oathbreakers that were interrupted as a gunshot rang out from above, sparking off Khayin's blood-red Aura and causing the man to leap backwards, one hand retreating into his layers of cloth, presumably to reach for a weapon.
Vox moved as well, a no-less-lethal blade being pulled out of a pocket of her harness as she backed up, throwing the blade at the three moving targets that descended from above.
It was smacked out of the air by Lightning Lash as Ilia hit the ground first, followed by Blake and Weiss, the latter of the three wearing her new mask.
"Your friends aren't the quickest on the draw, are they?" Talon questioned, not even bothering to pay any attention to the three Huntresses, his mask still focused on Jaune, staring unwaveringly.
"At least I have friends," Jaune spat out in return, going for the low blow.
The man behind the mask must've cocked his eyebrow at that, considering the way his head tilted. "Right. So, join or die, make your choice, wielder."
He leaned back almost casually as a bullet whipped past his head, finally paying attention to Blake, who had fired Gambol Shroud. "If you'll excuse me, I'm trying to have a conversation. I'll get to you once I'm finished here."
Blake didn't like that answer, and went to fire again.
Vox interrupted her with a flicker of her hand, a swath of knives having to be hastily blocked by the cat faunus as she barely managed to shift Gambol Shroud in time.
Jaune moved then, and whilst he couldn't Flash Step or Phaseshift, Sprint would still give him some speed. It may not have been his best option, but it was the one he chose.
Choosing to shoulder-tackle Vox wasn't his best option either, but the woman certainly wasn't expecting it, or at least not expecting it to be allowed to happen, and Jaune was surprised it had been allowed to happen as well, considering what had happened the last time he'd tried to run free.
He hit the ground at the same time as Vox, rolling back to his feet and drawing Predator from his hip, snapping a shot off over his back at the leather-clad woman who was already most of the way back up to her feet.
Almost in slow motion Jaune watched as the bullet met another mid-flight, both rounds deflecting outwards and turning to shrapnel and sparks, and his eyes trailed up to meet the glowing red of Talon's mask, rifle held in one hand.
There was a single beat of silence before Talon spoke, modulated voice echoing through the cavern. "Well, I see you've made your choice. Khayin, do as you will."
The masked man took Vox by the hand and held up something very familiar, and Jaune's eyes widened as the Hearthstone enveloped the two of them in a warm light, taking them out of the Dungeon.
His attention flickered from that startling revelation to Khayin, the man grinning. Jaune couldn't see the grin, but he knew it was there all the same, from the posture to his attitude.
"You should have taken the other option, sadeeq," Khayin began, his hand coming out of his robes to reveal a gnarled bone-and-metal revolver that seemed to drip blood from the maw-like barrel. "Thousands amongst the desert sands have wished that their deaths would be quick. You will be the same."
Jaune grimaced. He had a feeling this was not going to be an easy fight.
"Who is this guy?!" Weiss shouted from behind her spontaneous cover, the rocky leftovers of one of the Geist serving a purpose for a change.
"How should I know?" Jaune replied in kind, ducking as a bullet chipped the rock above his head. "All I know is that they know about the System!"
"More than you seem to, sadeeq!" Khayin shouted with a laugh. "To be given such a gift by the Aleha and to not know how to use it, how unfortunate!"
"This asshole is really getting annoying!" Ilia shouted out from her cover behind the forced-open door of the security checkpoint. "Can't you just use some bullshit semblance trick to kill him?"
Were it that simple, Jaune thought, frowning. He could use his Mana now, clearly it was Talon who had been interrupting that, but even though he could fire out barrages of spells, Khayin almost seemed unaffected by the veritable wall of firepower that Jaune could summon, ducking and weaving through any attack he sent as if it was as simple as breathing.
Maybe if his spells didn't glow incredibly brightly in the low-light, they'd be harder to dodge.
He poked his arm over the top of his cover and fired a few blind shots with Predator, loading a new mag in after, wracking his brain to think of options.
"I'm getting bored here, children!" Khayin called out with a cruel laugh. "Vale breeds weak Hunters, it seems!"
Considering that Jaune was the only Valean among them, it wasn't the most accurate of statements.
The man had a revolver, and as far as Jaune had seen it didn't appear to have any kind of mecha-shift functionality. That fact, or presumed fact, as it was, led Jaune's train of thought down a rather dangerous set of tracks.
He vaulted out from behind his cover and darted towards the man, keeping low as he closed in, the shield of Crocea Mors covering what it could as rounds smacked against it, before bringing it back to take a swing with it, the blunt, dented part trailing through the air where it met Khayin.
In a strange twist of fate, Jaune felt it strike, clattering the man and driving him backwards, nearly flipping him in a complete one-eighty. Khayin hit the rock with a splatter of blood and a pained groan, and Jaune had to pause for a moment to make sure that it wasn't a trick.
He shared a confused glance with Weiss, who looked equally confused. 'Did he not have Aura or something?'
Slowly, Khayin staggered to his feet, spitting out a hefty glob of dark blood, teeth stained through with it as he grinned. "Good hit, sadeeq. Your strength is not to be underestimated."
The man looked near-death already, one arm hanging limply at his side. It might've only been a Shield Bash, but without Aura it was essentially like being hit by a truck, especially considering the strength Jaune could put behind the swing.
Yet he continued to grin, and Jaune had only the slightest warning from Sixth Sense before a spike of deep red blood punched him in the gut, sending him up and back with a fierce pain, as if his very life was being drained.
When he landed, rolling backwards to a halt next to the piece of cover Blake had been using, Khayin was already moving up to hit him again, a swirling vortex of bloody tendrils surrounding the man as he approached.
Blood-red Aura coated the man from head to toe, and one blood tendril swept the rocks aside, forcing Blake and Jaune to split up and give ground.
Both of them opened fire with Gambol Shroud and Predator as they did so, only for one of the blood tendrils to harden in front of the man, blocking the bullets without so much as a dent.
Jaune had to give up on firing at Khayin as another spike of blood almost struck him in the chest, thrown like a massive knife, but even as it splashed against the ground, it was already slithering back to Khayin like it was some kind of living creature and not a puddle of blood.
Jaune was very quickly coming to the conclusion that this was not a fight he was going to be able to win in his current state, as another tendril struck at him from behind, splashing on and around his shield and gripping it hard, nearly tugging it out of his grip.
Instead, it flung him at speed into a wall, where he impacted with a groan as his Aura flared in response, preventing any major injuries. It would have kept him pinned there, were it not for a rather effective activation of Phase Shift, dropping through the hardened blood and onto the ground in yet another roll, courtesy of Rolling Recovery.
Jaune was truly unsure of how he was supposed to fight blood. It was mostly water, so it would essentially act the same, but Jaune hadn't really fought any hydromancers in his life, so he wasn't entirely familiar with techniques to disable them.
Mana Field was proving to be at least somewhat effective at blocking the attacks, as were some of Weiss's more solid glyphs, and whilst Blake had so far managed to avoid injury thanks to her own semblance, it was a little closer than he or, he imagined, she was comfortable with.
Ilia was nowhere to be seen, but Jaune was hoping that was for their betterment and not just that Ilia had hidden for her own safety, leaving them to deal with these attacks.
Speaking of attacks, Jaune noticed a small pool of blood beneath him far too late to do anything about it, but instead of a spear of blood lancing up and striking him, this one bubbled languidly.
Was there a limit to how long the blood was effective outside of the body? If that was the case, they might have a chance after-
The bubbling pool of blood exploded in a shower of red ichor and pink foam, and Jaune could quite easily feel the micro-shards of iron that lacerated his Aura like shrapnel from a grenade.
It shattered his Mana Field too, the tiny darts ricocheting off the projected Mana and hitting anything within it, primarily him, until it broke from the pressure.
The explosion didn't even afford him a break, as two bullets met his Aura, one to each shoulder, sending him spinning and then immediately countering that spin, dropping him to the floor.
Even if the rounds didn't break his Aura, it was close, but even then he felt his HP drop somewhat, sapped by the concatenated attacks.
And, from his position prone on the floor, it was clear that they had been healing what HP reservoir Khayin possessed.
Jaune rolled sideways, clambering to his feet as he reached into his inventory. If single shots from Predator weren't working, it was time to change up his strategy.
He brought Sandstorm up and shouldered the stock, using one arm to brace against the top as he held down the trigger on the light machine gun, letting fly a stream of 7.62x39mm rounds from the tip of the barrel, muzzle flash bright in the low light.
It succeeded in getting Khayin's undivided attention, tendrils swarming in and congealing into solid masses of blood-flesh, but he could see each tendril weakening from the continued onslaught. More tendrils formed, blocking the rounds, but Jaune refused to let up on the barrage, even as the barrel was going red-hot.
Blake and Weiss moved together as they'd trained what felt like such a long time ago, Blake ducking in and delivering a crippling strike to Khayin's legs, dropping him to one knee, with Weiss following it up with a piercing blow that penetrated the man's Aura, lancing through his back and emerging out his chest, definitely pulverizing a rib or two, and without a doubt it had gone through one of the man's lungs.
Jaune ran out of ammo, the gun clicking empty as the last belt-link clattered to the ground, the muzzle of Sandstorm smoking from the effort, and as he let the gun sag in his arms, the swarming blood-tendrils turned to nothing but liquid, dropping to the ground with a synchronized splash.
Weiss pulled her blade out with a wince, and blood poured out of the hole she'd made.
Khayin remained kneeling, arms sagging at his side, but when he spoke, his voice came out hoarse and failing, like there wasn't enough air to properly form words, likely from the hole in his chest. "Very good. Let's go again."
Jaune moved the moment he realized what was happening, Flash Stepping right past the kneeling man and grabbing Weiss around her midsection right as a razor-thin blade of blood passed through where she'd been standing but a moment before, sliding to a stop next to the blood-stained security checkpoint.
The three of them watched in abject horror as blood swirled around Khayin, quite literally lifting his body into the air like some kind of blood-spider that was emerging from his back, the torn and gaping fabric that had been there since Jaune had first laid eyes on him now making sense.
Another blood-blade swung towards them, and Jaune barely had the time to put his shield in between it and both himself and Weiss, wincing as it hit the shield hard enough to cut a line straight into the metal.
"What's wrong, sadeeq? Scared of a little blood?" Khayin, or, as Jaune was starting to realize, the blood asked, the body nothing more than a puppet to contain the possessed lifeblood.
He wasn't at all ashamed to admit that the man was right, Jaune was scared. System Mind clamped down on the terror, but it couldn't, or wouldn't, stop it all, and everything Jaune thought of was tinged with the flavor of fear.
Blake dove under a lacerating blade, fading to shadow as it still clipped her, or rather the clone of her, as she righted herself with a graceful roll, stopping next to Jaune and Weiss.
"Any-" She began to ask, concerned as to what the plan was, before a metal length wrapped around them and tugged them backwards into the security checkpoint.
Ilia sealed the door behind them. "Run! That's not going to hold him for long!"
Ilia had the right idea, that was for sure, but Jaune wasn't going to leave their lives in the hands of an old metal door.
He placed his bare hands against the floor, bringing Terrakinesis out and warping the entire checkpoint, bringing the corridor down behind them as they ran through the lengthy checkpoint hallway.
"There's a boat up ahead!" Ilia shouted, and as the chameleon faunus shoved open the door into the air-dock, Jaune barely paid the area any attention as he rushed over to the door controls, slamming the emergency release.
Blake and Weiss were already joining Ilia in the only remaining boat that was suspended above the now-open deployment hatch, and Jaune leapt over with a Aura-charged Jump, landing and nearly jumping as the passageway they'd emerged from blew up, sending the metal door spinning over his head.
He yanked open the door to the driver's cabin and hit the cable release. "Hold on!"
The boat dropped.
So. That was a thing. A crazy, spooky, revelation-y, sorta thing.
Just, uh, I don't speak or write or read Arabic in any way, so trying to figure out translation was a little difficult, I couldn't exactly find great resources for that, so if it's wrong, let me know. It's only a couple words, though, so hopefully it's not too bad. I might change that up and invent my own conlang for Old Vacuon, who knows.
Anyway, Jaune's on a boat! Everyone look at him, cause he's on a boat! I'll actually go into detail as to what the boat is next chapter, but for now, if you've played BF4, it's essentially the DV-15 Attack Boat. There's actually a bunch of stuff that happened this chapter that I won't be going into until the next chapter.
So, I'll get into reviews instead of wasting time talking! Wait...
Sperance: Technically, if Jaune jumps fast enough at an angle and activates his PIP-boy before he hits the ground, he can break a leg, have it heal and not lose the -% speed debuff, which, upon stacking enough, overloads the system memory and allows him to side-load unregistered code, making him able to play DOOM in his own head.
Argus456: I've been working on a gear system in the background for a while, might've mentioned it a couple times in the past, but once that's fully developed I'll be able to properly introduce gear for his summons. Think MGSV:TPP's development system.
avidreaded: I can't remember off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure that's actually canon information. At the very least I know that it's true for Winter, and considering it's the same semblance...
FORD B: Man I kinda wanna play the old Tomb Raider games now, tank controls and all. I wonder if they're on GOG.
Sonikah: I dunno if this counts as a disappointment, but I can tell you that your guess is as good as mine as to what the next Grimm Sin will be! They're already assigned to various areas, so who knows.
IcySneasel: It might not be a Friday but it's certainly closer than most of my other chapters have been lately. I'm really glad you've enjoyed it so far, though!
adamantra03: There's every chance that I just missed it, to be honest, I've gotta go through and update the public sheet once this chapter is live anyways, so I'll check and, if it needs to be changed, I'll do so! Thanks for the heads up!
NyaNyaKittyFace: If you thought the last chapter had a lot going on, just you wait. There's a lot of questions in here that I'll be answering in-chapters soon enough, so I won't go into detail, but you are absolutely right, I need to write a beach episode. Maybe once Volume 9 rolls around.
ImperialAxis: As far as the System is concerned, a life is a life. It's not so much determined by heartbeat as it is by Aura, locked or unlocked, so Penny would still count, but those who have been stripped completely of their Aura, through whatever means that may include, would technically not. Also, there is a way to determine innocence through Aura, but I won't go into detail on that cause of spoilers :P
That'll do it for this week, here's hoping I can get another chapter out relatively soon. We're in lockdown again in WA, so I've had a bit of extra, unexpected time to write, due to various events being cancelled, so maybe I'll have a chance to get the next one written. Who knows.
I've got a Pa Treon if you would ever feel like donating to help me out, it comes with various perks, plus my unconditional love and respect.
And, as always, see you next chapter!
~AFatFlyingWhale