Sorry for the long delay in updating. Shorter chapter than normal. (By about 1300 words.)
/==/
Marrow, Jaune and Allison watched as Lisa Lavender went through a security pat down, while another guard looked through the few personal affects she was permitted to bring this far into the base. Nodding to each other; that the check was good they handed Lisa back her things and stepped out of the room.
"Before we begin, Jaune is my client and if at any point during this interview he appears to be distressed by your line of questioning; I WILL step in and stop the proceedings and then have you escorted off the base." Allison informed Lisa as she was taking a seat across from Jaune.
"I understand." Lisa replied as she set the few items she had been allowed to bring in with her upon the table. Once done she directly faced Jaune, "I would like to thank you to agreeing. There are a lot of people on both sides of the issue interested in what you have to say."
"Issue? What Issue?" asked Jaune.
"The issue of; if you should be held accountable for what happened at Beacon, and here in Atlas." Lisa informed him, "While the courts say you are not accountable at least in the case of Atlas; it has not stopped some very vocal people speaking up for and against you."
"I can't be that important."
"You are." Lisa continued as she set up her scroll and opened up her note pad. "Like it or not, you are now the poster child for the SCS, and its validity; considering."
"Considering?"
"The loss of human life associated with the activation of your semblance." Lisa stated flatly.
"Miss Lavender." Allison warned.
"I'm sorry, but he should know what he's facing outside these walls." Lisa countered, "You're his lawyer haven't you briefed him on what is happening outside of the obvious legal issues?"
"I'm here to protect Jaune, to make sure he gets fair treatment as per the note of law."
"Well I'm here to let him get his voice and side of what has happened, out into the court of public opinion. Regardless of how good a lawyer you are, and you seemed to been pretty good considering you got him off here in Atlas; he still needs to face the tide of opinion outside these walls. The more people know about him, and how he sees what has been happening, can make the difference between living in the open or in protective custody."
"I feel sorry for the poor bastard that tries to force that." snickered Marrow.
"Why do you say that?" Lisa asked.
"After what I've seen him do; believe me, you would have to be an utter lunatic to try and pick a bone with Jaune."
"So he is dangerous?"
"Now I didn't say that."
"But you hinted at it. You said you would feel sorry for anyone who did try and get at him. Or am I wrong?"
"Marrow." Allison stepped in. "Miss Lavender, I believe we have strayed from the objective of this gathering. I hope we understand that comments prior to the commencement of the official interview are off the record."
"Right." Lisa returned her attention to the table and Jaune. "I will be recording this, but also taking notes. This is so I get your exact words. This will be a print article; and what I write will use your words, and not mine. Understand?"
"I do." Jaune replied.
"So let's get started shall we." Lisa smiled warmly at Jaune before reaching over and thumbing the icon for the voice recorder. A second press and the display showed the program as active. "This is Lisa Lavender with a once in a lifetime opportunity. I am sitting here across a conference table from the young man who has been the centre of the news these recent weeks. One Mister Jaune Arc. Jaune, can I call you Jaune?"
"I guess."
"Thank you." Lisa smiled again before turning her attention to her notes, "Jaune what do you remember?"
"What do you mean?"
"When your semblance first activated. What do you remember? Sights, sounds, feelings. Help my readers understand what was happening to you in that instant, when everything changed for you."
"I saw someone I cared for, about to be killed."
"I see. What about feelings? There are theories that suggest; that semblance activation happens during episodes of extreme emotional distress. What were you feeling as you were watching that person facing death."
"Fear and . . ."
"And?"
"No just fear."
"Jaune. You don't have to hold back with me. I'm here to get your side of this whole situation, and I can't do that if you hold back. You don't have to be afraid of me." Lisa set her notebook down and reached across the table and patted the back of Jaune's hand. "So say what you want, how you want."
Jaune just nodded as Lisa withdrew her hand and returned it to her notebook.
"So you were saying you were feeling afraid, but stopped. Was there something else aside from just fear?"
"Anger."
"Anger? So fear and anger. Fear because this person could or might die, and angry at the person attempting to cause his or her death?"
"Her."
"Okay, her. Would what I just said be accurate?"
"No, it's not."
"How is it not accurate?"
"I was afraid. For her, for me, for the headmaster; but I was angry. Angry at Cinder for what she was doing, but also Headmaster Ozpin, and Pyrrha. I was angry and fearful for them at the same time. It's hard to explain."
"Why do you think you were afraid and angry?"
"Everything."
"Everything?"
"Everything that was happening. It was unreal, and shouldn't have been happening."
"Was that, to the best of your recollection; when your semblance activated?"
"I think so."
"What do you remember?"
"I remember things feeling slow."
"Slow? How?"
"Do you play video games?"
"This is about you Jaune, not me."
"Do you like action movies?"
"Jaune, again this is about you, not my interests and hobbies."
"Please answer."
"Okay, yes I have played video games, and yes I do like to watch the odd action movie. How is that important, to you saying things felt slow?"
"You know how in some games you have a bullet time ability? Where everything slows down and it makes you feel like you are reacting faster than anyone should be able to, or when the hero walks away from the final explosion, everything just grinds down so you can see each step and every pulse of fire?"
"Okay, I know what you are referring to."
"That was how it was like."
"So are you saying that when your semblance activated you entered bullet time?"
"It is the only way I can explain it. Everything seemed slow, and I was able to react extremely quickly."
"You gave a couple of names. Pyrrha; who I assume would be Pyrrha Neikos your former teammate."
"Yes."
"Ozpin, who obviously is the Headmaster of Beacon."
"Yes."
"It is the last name, which was the first one you mentioned. Cinder. Was she your first victim?"
"I ... "
"Jaune?" Allison asked as she prepared to stand and end the interview.
"I'm okay."
"Was she your first victim? Or should I say the first causality associated with the activation of your semblance?" Lisa asked.
"She was." Jaune answered flatly.
"What were you thinking when it happened. Did you feel anything?"
"Fear and rage. I was mainly just reacting. Everything was so slow, and foggy. I can see them, I know what I did, but it didn't feel like it was me. Does that make sense?"
"It sounds like what a couple semblance scholars informed me of, when I was researching for this assignment." Lisa flipped to the front of her notebook and then back to the page she was writing on. "From information I gathered, autopsy reports indicated Cinder was beheaded. Do you remember her, or you're actions? What about the others that you encountered?"
"That is out of..."
"Yes. I do, I can see everything I did."
"Jaune?" Allison turned her attention and noticed he was sitting there looking dazed.
"Everything?"
"I see all their faces. I see what I did; I see it all. Their fear... the blood..."
"This interview is over. Marrow!" Allison as she started to rise from her seat. Not wanting to have her interview to so early, Lisa as well started to stand. Not to be out done Marrow hopped to his feet; and reached for Lisa's scroll.
"I did so many horrible things that day." Jaune continued as everyone in the room grew rigid.
Allison and Lisa tried to suppress shivers as they felt something invisible wrap around their midsections, that pulled them firmly down into their seats. Marrow gritted his teeth as something draped itself across his shoulders and pushed him down into the seat aswell.
"I hear every scream and cry." Jaune turned and stared directly at Lisa. "That is what you want your readers to read, right. To know that the Butcher of Beacon is as much an unfeeling remorseless monster as the grimm; or am I wrong?"
"I'm here to get you side Jaune. I promise." Lisa said through gritted teeth. The feeling around her waist, the slight constriction of something should couldn't see, but could feel.
"Then everyone should just sit and we'll talk."
"Okay." Allison and Lisa responded as Marrow remained silent.
"I know what I did. I see it everyday, relive it every night."
"Every?" Lisa asked
"Every."
"How do you..."
"Sleep or live with myself?"
"Both I guess." Lisa responded.
"Jaune you don't have to..." Allison offered.
"But I do. How will all those people out there really know unless I tell them? They need to know that not only do I barely sleep, but that everyday I think about how to make it all end."
"Jaune?"
"We can stop. I didn't mean to..."
"No keep asking your questions."
"I..." Lisa stammered.
"You know there is a doctor here in Atlas helping me try and understand my semblance. They have named it vectors. Do you know what a vector is?"
"Not really."
"A vector is a quantity having direction as well as magnitude, especially as determining the position of one point in space relative to another. Or at least that is what the doctor told me. But what I really do is, I choose a place, a point somewhere around me, determine distance, and then I decide what shape,before determining how fast. I make all those calculations, hundreds of times in a blink of an eye." Lisa let out a sigh, that was echoed by Allison as the strange alien feeling wrapped about her waists slithered away. "I can cut your pen in half from between your fingers."
All three then watched as the pages of Lisa's notebook began to be turned over as if being manipulated by invisible hands.
"They say my brain was rewired when my semblance activated. That it continues to be altered as I grow more and more of whatever it is that I control."
"What would you like to tell my reader's Jaune? What do you want all those people outside to know, to understand?"
"I'm not a monster. I have grief and guilt over what I did. I had no control, I was just acting, but now I do have control. You've seen it. You've felt it." The pages ceased to turn, the feeling of having something unseen holding them down sliding away "And now I need you and their help."
"Help?"
"Someone has kidnapped my sister, sister-in-law, and my nephew. The authorities are trying, but it is not enough. My family needs them found. Maybe one of your readers knows something. Maybe they saw something."
"I doubt that anyone will just start looking for them because you asked."
"They will."
"How are you so sure?"
"Because if they are found, safe and alive I will plead guilty in Vale..."
"Jaune!" Allison snapped as she shot up from her seat. "You will do no such thing! Trading your freedom for the chance that someone other than the authorities find them is..."
"The only way I can make amends for the damage I have caused."
"Jaune do you really want me to have something like that published?" Lisa asked as she reached over and turned off the record function of her scroll. "Right now only us in this room know you said that. If I print those words it will be in the public record. People will hold you to it."
"It is a fair trade. Their freedom for mine."
"Jaune, after all we've gone through. All we have to still face, you can't." Allison spoke, her voice sounding rushed, confused; almost desperate.
"What else can I do?"
"You can let the authorities do their jobs. Don't complicate it by giving every wack job a reason to call in with bad information." Marrow offered, "Be patient they will be found."
"How can you be so sure?" Jaune asked taking his eyes off Lisa and focusing on Marrow.
"I just know. That is all there is to it. I just know." Marrow offered.
"You also have to consider that for every person out there picketing and calling out for your blood, there is another just as loudly calling for you to be set free. That type of offer could make the fringe, more extreme individuals of that camp, decide to do something drastic." Lisa explained, "It will cause mass chaos and hinder efforts to find your missing family. As much as a great story this would make, I can't personally take part in causing the amount of anarchy that could result in the publication of such words."
"You wrote that piece that got leaked." Jaune pointed out.
"I did, and I've been regretting it ever since it got out after I wrote it."
"You still wrote it. What's changed now? I'm still the same..."
"No, you're not what I wrote about that first time. You are more than what was detailed in some reports. I've read the court transcripts, listened to the audio recordings of what transpired. Those few things have humanized you and your situation."
"Humanized?"
"Yes." Lisa offered, "The reports I used writing that article didn't talk about you, or what has been happening to you. They were just detailed accounts of what you did or were accused of. There was no frame of reference as to you, and what you had and have been suffering through."
"So if you aren't going to..."
"I wont allow her to publish those words." Allison informed Jaune everyone in the room.
"You wont have to, and seeing as I've had an issue with others stealing my work." Lisa responded as she tapped her scroll and hit the delete button. "We're going to start over."
/=/
Tyrian had made his way into Mantle. Through the convenient and timely intervention of several larger than normal grimm incursions he was able to gain entry through without detection. Slinking from shadow to shadow he made his way to the poorer less patrolled segments of the city. There had been no sign of Watts in the small hideaways that his goddess' children had lead him to. Therefore there was only one other option. He was hiding in one of the kingdoms.
The first and obvious choice to search was his home kingdom of Atlas. So here Tyrian was. Hidden in the rafters of a mostly empty warehouse he suppressed the urge to drop down and unleash his frustrations on the lone female patrolling the main floor. Her flashlight swung back and forth, and Tyrian gritted his teeth. It would be so easy for him to drop down and end her existence. Another note upon in his already impressive resume of death. Another notch in his belt, in the competition of killing prowess, he had decided him and Jaune were engaged in.
But locating and dealing with Watts was his Goddess assigned priority; not his own pleasure. There would be time enough for that later. Taking his eyes from a target of opportunity he gazed through the skylight. Hidden in shadows he was still able to see the sky above, and by extension the great floating form of Atlas. A murder of nevermore flew past, and his smile grew wider. His goddess was assisting his search for their wayward companion. If he was here they would find him. He was sure of it.
/=/
Mercury and Emerald fell into combat stances, as they regarded the massive bulk that was Hazel Reinart. They couldn't fathom how a man of his stature had been able to get into Vale, much less locate them. They had been so careful. Moving lodgings almost daily, and even sometimes roughing it in abandoned or condemned buildings. But those questions were moot. He was standing before them, and they were cornered.
"I've come to bring you back to her."
"We won't go." Emerald snarled, "She'll just punish us. It was Watts' fault, we had no idea."
"Just let us go. We won't talk. We'll vanish."
"And what is Watt's fault?" Hazel asked as he considered the situation. He knew they couldn't best him. He was their superior in power and skill. They had no where to run, and he had no wish to actual harm them. They were still children, and children should be protected; as far as he was concerned.
"Like you don't know. The bastard has sold us out. Blamed it all on us, and all we did was what were were told. We used what he GAVE us."
"I see."
"So let us go. You'll never..."
"Watts never returned to our Queen" Hazel stated flatly. "All we know is that the mission failed, but not why."
The pair of teens too a step back. Part of them wanted to believe Hazel, but doubts still remained. They were survivors after all, and you didn't survive if you just blindly trusted everything people told you. Not when they had seen time and time again, that trust broken.
"We going to do this?" Mercury asked, regaining his stance after the step backwards.
"No."
The pair looked at him confused, but unwilling to relax their guard.
"We're going to talk." Hazel informed them, "You are going to tell me what happened. Everything that happened."
"It'll still be our word against his." Emerald pointed out.
"It will, but it will also be my support of you words, against his absence." Hazel stated as he crossed his arms over his broad chest. Before tilting his head in their direction. "Shall we talk, then?"
/=/
Arthur Watts was once again hiding. Secluded in the ratty motel room, he had been staying for these last few days. He had seen the growing number of nevermore that had been skirting through the air above Mantel. He smirked knowing many would have been shot down before even getting past the walls, and the few that did would face the same gauntlet to get out. But he hid anyway. Alarms of sabres getting inside the walls; and the presence of the nevermore made him even more cautious. He knew she had some control of the dread beasts, but he wasn't sure how much. Could she see through their eyes? He knew about the seers, but they had been designed for the purpose of long range communication. He didn't know if similar traits could be attributed to the more average grimm. The thought made him shiver at the potential possibility.
Erring on the side of caution he rescheduled his meeting. The hand off would have to be somewhere slightly more public. Not too public, but just enough that any encroaching nevermore would be dealt with. As he planned and schemed, he took to nervously pulling the heavy curtains back just enough; so he could scan the tops of the nearby buildings. Just in case.
/=/
Salem glided through her tower. It was quiet, almost serene. There was no one else there. All her associates were gone. So she was once again alone. The peace allowed her to think, to contemplate, consider, and then plan. Currently she was considering the situation in regards to the young man who had slain one of the greatest of her children. Such a slight against her should not go unpunished. He had also robbed him a valuable pawn, in Cinder. That setback allowing the powers of the Fall Maiden to slip from her grasp. Than of course there were Cinder's minions who had fled, and Watts who have vanished. That boy had become the source of far too many threads being undone. She confirmed, and strengthened her original impression. Steeled her resolve. That boy needed to be removed. The sooner the better; and if she couldn't count on her associates to handle the issue, she would have to do it herself.
Returning to her throne, she gracefully took a seat. Closing her eyes she focused in on herself, and then reached out. Her children were not completely mindless. Just singularly focused on hunting the emotions that called to them. But she could nudge that focus, tweak it to suit her will, and at times she had done just that. If she focused on a singular entity she could vastly adjust their mindset. Imparting complex and intricate plans, and commands. But the more she pushed influence too, the more general the ideas had to be.
With her will imparted, she opened her eyes and smiled. If subtlety was not working she would try a more direct approach. The command, the push, the direction; the shift in focus was simple. She had connected herself to all the roving grimm in Solitas. It was a simple word she forced into their simple minds.
Gather.
/==/
Not feeling this is one of my better chapters. But I have to get back on track somehow. So here's hoping the following chapters are of a much better quality.
Also a quick update. If you have given my couple of "exercises" a read you will already know my plan. If not, here it is again. As things are getting worked out in RL, I will be focusing on "Unleashed" and "Monster". I want to get these two stories completed before trying anything really new.
Mostly I'll be focusing on "Unleashed" as I have a better idea on where that story is going to end and how to get it there. "Monster" will be worked on during this time as well, just not updated as often. Mainly because I've been away so long that I'll need to read what I've written to get back on track; which means I'm going to see a lot of mistakes, and ideas I need to address.
As always comments, critiques and suggestions are always welcome.
To those who have been offering support, advice and input. Thank you so much. It means a lot.
Anyway. Hope you enjoy.
PS – If this chapter is really not up to snuff, feel free to let me know.