Mark turned to look at Jaune and for a brief moment he remembered ta time when they both played together, the old man had called Jaune to his house and as usual, Jaunes sisters had accompanied him.
Being a family of huntsmen and huntresses the kids played games that were more training than actual games.
hell, even Jaune who was kept away from his parent training was able to keep up with the girls even though they were already receiving combat training.
Not all of his sisters had become huntresses one of them was married to another woman who had left the man that fathered her son.
Another of the girls had become an explorer and Maria... Mark couldn't help but smile, she had stayed with the old man and helped him.
The twins had yet to be born back then and the youngest of the girls hadn't even been made yet.
Mark knew why this memory had come to him, it was the time he and Maria first held hands, it wasn't anything important, it was just a passing moment that happens when children pass time together.
And yet for whatever reason, he and Maria began to hold hands whenever possible.
The old man must have noticed this because he started training Mark after a while, one day the old man called him into a huge room, and inside it, Mark found himself surrounded by statues of knights- soldiers- huntsmen both men and women.
Yet what caught marks attention back then were the Knights of Vale that stood inside the room.
'mark I would like for you to meet the Knights of Vale"
"gentlemen this is mark Arc, my son"
"I may not have been the one to impregnate his mother whoever she is, but he is my son, treat him as such," the old man said to Mark and the Knights
The knight however never moved beyond a slight vow, yet Mark can still remember seeing them and how they toward over him, their yellow-white and gold colors seemed to contradict the silver and black colors of the weapons they carried.
All of a sudden all of the knights knees and placed their swords- shields, and spears in front of Mark, yet it was the pair of handguns that caught Mark's attention.
They weren't anything special and they looked as if they didn't belong amongst the honored weapons of the knights, yet Mark remembered how everyone in the room watched him as he walked towards the handguns.
The moment Marks's hands touched the guns, was the same moment all of the knights picked up their weapons and placed them on their sheats, soon everyone including the old man was clapping.
Mark didn't understand back then but that was the day he had officially been recognized as an Arc.
Word must have reached Maria because soon began to pass more and more time at the old man's mansion.
Mark remembered that she would separate herself from the old man's side and follow him when she caught sight of him.
he remembered that there were times when he would see her sitting on the grass watching him train with one of the knights, or the times she would bring Jaune with her.
The three of them would play and soon somewhere along the way the rest of the girls would arrive and it was then when Jaunes parents would be there.
Mark only spoke to his stepbrother once in a while yet there was never any hostility from him, the man had always been kind, it was a character trait that all Arc's share.
His wife was his cousin or sister, Mark didn't remember but it was a custom amongst the families that if a son was unable or unwilling to find a woman outside of the family he would wed one of his relatives.
He would still wed one of his relatives to ensure the chances that their semblance remained in the family and grew stronger because of their compatibility with each other.
So as the years passed and the two eldest of the girls left home to see the world, his bond with Maria only grew.
Mark remembered the day one the knights remove her helmet and seeing how beautiful she was.
He remembered the feeling of her warm lips on his, but he also remembered hearing Maria's gasp, before she ran away crying.
he later found out that a kiss from a knight meant that the two were bonded as knights, not as a man and woman, but as combatants.
It was the old man that explained to him, that the kiss meant that the knight had seen Mark's skill and deemed him worthy of being at her side.
The old man said that normally a kiss was given on the cheek if it was between men, even if it was between a man and a woman, but if it was on the lips.
It meant that the knight had proposed to Mark and he had accepted by receiving her lips and not pushing her away.
Arcs are allowed to have up to twenty wives to ensure the possibilities that a son can be born, so Mark could have as many wives as he wanted.
The next day his stepbrother arrived and demanded Mark's presence, but he wasn't alone Maria was with him.
It was that day that Mark realized his stepbrother never knew that he had been accepted into the order of knights, something that despite himself being a true Arc had been deemed unfit to be.
He never even knew that the old man had presented Mark as an Arc before the Knights of Vale.
Mark tried to say something but his brother wouldn't have any of it, finally, after hearing the screams of his brother as he told Mark that he was both unfit to be an Arc and a Knight did the old man show up.
However he wasn't alone, several of the knights were with him, perhaps they were at the mansion at the time, perhaps the old man had called them regardless the results were the same.
Mark looked past his brother and confessed his feelings to Maria and then he turned to his brother asking for his blessing.
The next thing Mark knew was the burning sensation of pain and his brother's words as he screamed that he was nothing but a lowly commoner unfit to like the ship of his toilet.
Mark didn't know what came over him, but he quickly drew his guns and began to fire at his brother and the two began to fight.
Neither the old man nor the Knights tried to stop them, they just shielded Maria from any stray bullets or misfired attacks from her father.
As they fought they soon began to get used to each other's attacks meaning that they began to hurt each other.
It was the knights that finally stopped them Mark didn't know when he was brought onto the train, he only saw the knight that had kissed him standing over him.
The old man had ordered that Mark would serve on the last wall until Mark deemed himself worthy of coming home.
She only made sure he arrived at the wall and left him there.
He spent the next four years trying to survive, the last wall isn't a place where a person works it's a place where a person survives.
From time to time Maria would write to him, her first letters were nothing but apologies she begged him to forgive her for causing his banishment, she would write to him about the old man and how the rest of the family was doing.
She once wrote about her father and the beating he had gotten from the knights who declared him a disgrace and chastised him for his ill-treatment of Mark.
An Arc was supposed to control their feelings not be controlled by them and the knights had given her father enough time to apologize to them for questioning their judgment and declaring a fellow knight unfit for his position.
Last year her letter told him that Jaune had stolen the family heirlooms and lied his way into Beacon.
Then one day the old man called him and told him to visit Jaune and to take him out for a night on the town to see if he finally managed to get himself a woman or several women.
It was time for the family to decide if Jaune would wed a woman outside of the family or if he would wed all of his sisters, except Maria.
The old man said that he made sure that Mark would be married to her.
To make sure that the family nine continued, every couple of generations, the Arcs made sure one of the men born in the family stayed away from fighting Grimm, or anything else, that was supposed to be Jaune.
Someone that kept the path to everything else opened so if his sn or descendants decided they wanted to be something else rather than a fighter all they had to do was point at him and say see he was a doctor, a factory worker, and so on.
The old man later told Mark the story of the Red Bull and the three huntsmen, and it was because of his stupidity that they now found themselves on this train.
Raven followed the elder of the Arc family, next to her was the girl he kept calling Maria, the girl had long bright blond hair, that she kept tied in a ponytail that for whatever reason the girl kept over her shoulder.
the girl couldn't have been any older than eighteen and yet she seemed to be neck-deep in the old man's secrets.
"Maria will be your sister, she will one day marry the man you married," the old man said to Raven
Rave looked at the girl, she did have some muscle and the way she walked did display her training but she wasn't anything special, then as if reading her mind the girl moved at a speed that shouldn't have been possible.
"Just because Maria is a woman, doesn't mean she doesn't have a weaker version of the families semblance," the old man said to Raven
Maria removed her hand that was placed behind Raven's neck yet she didn't move, she just watched the old man as he walked away, slowly.
"I wonder if Mark will still want you when you can't feel anything below your neck," Maria said to Raven, her jealousy in full display
Raven smirked at the girl's attempt at intimidation, she knew that it was better if she didn't say anything but if she did that then she wouldn't be herself.
"He enjoyed me enough to marry me didn't he," Raven said to the girl before quickly walking towards the old man's side, she smirked as she listened to the girl's footsteps as she caught up to them.
The lights of the train began to turn themselves off and Mark noticed that the passengers began to run past them, regardless of who they were it didn't matter if they were people that lived on the train or passengers that had just gotten on, they all ran panicking.
"Skins!" screamed a woman that wore a dress one would see on women when they went out at night, yet it was the woman's mechanical legs that drew marks attention to them.
She fired repeated gunshots, the bullets she used were a combination of dust layered bullets and ordinary gunpowder bullets and there were even a couple of plasma shots fired from them
The car they were in began to seal itself off even as the people tried to escape, the windows that once had armor protecting them began to open.
Mark looked around and knew what he had to do.
"Everyone look at me!" he said to the boy with him
'I'll get you home, I'm a man of my word and I keep it no matter what!" he said to them, before graving both Jaune and Whitley and jumping out the train.
Ren followed his lead as they fell out of the train they could see the windows closing, as the people screamed and the Grimm began to enter.
What followed was a combination of the hows of the Grimm and the dying screams of the passengers, before they were silenced by the explosion that killed them all at once.
Skins are Grimm that kill a person and take their skin, they can infiltrate human society and spread like cancer, from jus one entire towns vanish, because they nest and make more of themselves.
So killing everyone that made contact with them or people that had contact with someone who even came close to the thing, was the best option.
They landed hard and thankfully Ren and Jaune were okay so they had no trouble standing up, unfortunately, Whitley was seriously hurt and couldn't move.
'He hasn't had his Aura unlocked has he" Mark said to himself as he looked at the boy's body
"We can't wait for our Auras to restore themselves so I'm going to need you guys to help," he said to Jaune and Ren immediately they all placed their hands on the boy's injured body and began to chant.
"For it is in our passing that we achieve immortality"
"Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all."
"Infinite in distance and unbound by death"
"I release my soul and by my shoulder to protect thee"
They said as they listened to the Grimm as they closed in on their location.
In the various kingdoms, people watched as the three eldest gave up a small part of themselves to strengthen the youngest and most inexperienced member.
Winter and Weiss watched as their brother opened his eyes and his Aura began to glow with their family's familiar white glow, but amongst it were the various colors of the other men that had given a part of themselves to save his life.
"Move!" Mark ordered as the Grimm were about to attack, they needed to get back on the train, but the question was how.