I: The Puma
So post-Volume 8, it's likely that we will see the gang stranded in uncharted waters. The setting of an island is a rather unique one, where depending on how we view the setting great discoveries await our heroes, or would their primal forms be revealed in the heat of the moment. The romantic aspects here are intertwined with guilt as we see how the setting affects their traumatic moments, and how they will help build each other up and move on. This will be a story of seeing how Jaune and Weiss move on after the events of the most recent season and grow closer together.
Also trigger warning for those adverse to issues such as self-harm.
"I'm…so…so…sorry" A broken record had been playing the same message on repeat for the last two minutes, it's needle spinning the same message over and over again, the sticker at the core scratched beyond recognition. Its damp clothes stained in diluted blood and guilt.
"Get up" spoke the violin in crescendo, it's strings well-kept but tangled followed by wear, tear, and fatigue. The bow kept was still sturdy, but the main body's wooden frame had been battered, the neck burnt not badly, but her fingers were on the brink of snapping from supporting herself and her tired body.
He stopped repeating the same message, and started crying, and moaning, and groaning. Jaune Arc in all his years had never cried as painfully since he had on the pristine sandy shores of the island, not even the time when he slipped off the balancing beam when he was six compared to the inner turmoil. Foamy guilt slid up onto his shoes and the long tendrils of sea memories were pulling him into another wave of memories, Poseidon was stretching his arms onto his knees and seeping his magic from his legs, sending chills down his spine, bending and breaking him down further and further.
His blue eyes were now trapped in his personal hell, a hell made by his own pathetic self as the ocean's tendrils swashed by him, beckoning him deeper and deeper beyond his armor and into his mind. Thoughts of him being a year younger come to haunt him once more as yesteryear's mistake came back to remind him of another taste of failure. Failure, it tasted like metal and salty seawater, his crimson gloves brushed upon his lips and innocence now covered his mouth, a new memento allowing fresh nightmares into his life.
Oh, this island was a prison, after all, all islands are prisons. Dictators and failed generalissimos would be exiled to such isles and their punishment was retribution for their sins, theirs was many. But why him? Did his sin necessitate such a cruel response from the gods? Evidently, his murders had done more harm than good, he had led to the death of two blossoming maidens, oh that was a sin deserving of the harshest of punishments. One death was an accident, but now two, it was clear that he was a murderer, oh yes now the island had enlightened him to the truth. The box was beginning to form around him again, the sand was packing around him and churning, it was solidifying from golden pebbles into titanium under the heat, compacting the dust into a prison for his transgressions. The bed of sand and mud was now a sheet of steel, and all the banging he brought from his fists did nothing to stop his imprisonment, the tiny slits of this prison played a feature film in his head again.
On a brisk Autumn night, all the banging and wailing he had done against the prison's walls had done nothing to save his partner. She had burnt into a crisp, his weakness the cause for her death; the only consolation that he had were golden plates of metal and a rouge écharpe to hold on to. It was a crime by causality on his part, his scrawny figure was repulsive, his foolish wishes of parental pride, pitiful desires of grandeur and delusions of recognition, his struggle was all for naught, no better than a pebble on a savanna as the stampede treaded upon fools like him. Oh, the guilt, the guilt, the guilt, now he was in his younger self once more, banging away and giving yells of anguish, that was all he was good for, after all, his yells were a running joke.
After a passionate kiss that had stunned his sense, perhaps that kiss had doomed her, he was not a knight of war, but an angel of death that doomed his victims with lips of poison. Yes, that was why he was now stranded here on this island. His senses had become heightened from murderous paranoia and the flood of guilt. His eyes were darting around his head as if it were a game of Pinball, each time the metal ball hit another high score was another memory. A forceful shove followed the romantic embrace, tainting the moment with bitterness in his heart as he remembered her apology and the fondness gone unreciprocated.
'Ding' went his head, 'ding' it went again, 'ding' it went again, he had now landed on solid group and he was out of breath again, his inability to breathe was going to kill him, oh please let it be so. His amplified screams were carried by the monsoon winds, and he wailed an ugly wail. The sands affected by the banshee's call created expanding craters of it's ghoulish cry. Oh the begging he had done, he had begged a friend to save his partner, he had begged the gods to spare her, but the cold indifference that was shown that night had shattered his heart on the cold stone remains of their failure.
"Jaune, get up." A voice. There was a voice out there, it was familiar, was it the Violin that he had once adored, or was it the long-lost Cello, oh the voice was a rope, one that he could use as a noose.
She had broken his trance for a few precious seconds, having gone beyond the iron curtain and seen the red that laid beyond checkpoint Charlie. For a brief moment, he saw her, and she was an angel. Perhaps an angel of old, one that would bring divine punishment from the lord, like the ones that had 12 eyes and 6 wings, the one that burned sinners away for their transgressions, oh please let her be an angel of old.
"Jaune" Spoke the voice once more, kinder than before. An angel of new then, the ones that were not eldritch, but spoke kindly and guided the lost to his light. Oh, those angels were menaces, they would lead him astray to salvation and their halos would save him. He did not need such lofty ideals, he needed judgment, he was undeserving of kindness for his deeds from an unspoilt person such as her.
He raised his head up lowly, whilst still huddled in foetal position. His hands rubbing onto stands of his hair, letting a shade of orange camouflage form upon his head. A little golden planet was now his head, sand, blood, and water all made up the planet of 'shame and guilt', and at its core was a heatstriken fool.
Jaune looked up and felt the same look of shame and horror that he had felt mere moments ago, when he had plunged his pyritic sword into the heart of newborn innocence. His act of violence was on a newborn, oh lord. He hath sinned and had transgressed on a new innocent life. The life that she would have lived had he not agreed to the violence, oh dear sweet Polendina, what a life you would have lived, one that was to be surrounded by loving friends and family. She had yet to walk the highest peaks, oh she had yet to even see the sight that was before them, this giant baobab tree that towered over him, he had made it so that she would never see such a sight. Her cheerful expressions would have lit up in awe, or she would have been silent and gasped, or she would have jump up and down like a ping-pong ball, now those expressions laid still in the barren void. Oh, she would never hear the high-pitched rapture of tropical birds or smell the organic taste of the long shade. The cruelty that he had help perpetrate knew no bounds.
"Breathe...Slowly" Commanded the Seraphim, as her white clothes burnt a bright albedo under the presence of pounding sun. She held a gloved hand out, offering to lift him up, but his only response was to reject her guiding hand. "I killed her…I killed her…oh god...I killed her."
The sand was his next option, a place less suffocating than his swirling emotions, but it was an adequate substitute for a pillow. He was now an ostrich, a fitting place for him to be, gone was the knight, now, here was the Ostrich, it's long legs couldn't carry him far enough, but they would be enough for him to live. Jaune Arc was going to be a runner, not a fighter.
"STOP" She commanded hoarsely, the sun baking her vocal cords. "I don't blame you, Jaune…Just tell me…why?" Her questions, she was still not in the know to the reason for his treasonous act, but if she knew the truth, it would break her heart, it would hurt her, but it would be the truth. However, it would lead to salvation, not an option in his mind, that was not possible, not desirable, he had to leave this temptation of forgiveness.
His broken sword lay a few meters away from him, still stained with the evidence of his first kill. It still had a red coat on it, and his eyes went bloodshot with fear as his mind went back to 30 minutes ago, when he had plunged it in the cavity of dear Penny Polendina, the blade snapped later on, but it was still sharp. So, he lunged for it, grabbing it by its golden hilt, the sand had embedded itself into the crimson and the silver. "I…can't…She…asked me to do it…but…" His beating heart, aching and bending like a bulkhead taking on water, burst.
His vision blurred by tears and the green, the green all that he could see. All he could hear was another voice telling him to 'run'. Thicket beyond tall palm trees and roguish rocks were the voice, a familiar one…Her voice. That warm voice that once trained him, a voice that he still carried in his pocket and one that he owed his life to. The vision of her was mirage-like but he was picking himself up as he thought of her red locks and emerald eyes, and her warmth that carried sweet nostalgia. It was calling him to follow down the rabbit hole and find her, she was trying to save him again, this time from himself. She was his punishment.
"Jaune…STOP" Her voice beckoned from the coast, pulling him to stop for one beat, but something primal was drawing him into the beyond, the wind swayed the trees in warning, as if the leaves were forming perpendicular junctions and forming large X's but the signs were ignored, the scorching heat took critical thinking out the car and into oncoming traffic as the two kicked up sandstorms with each thunderous step forward creating a recreation of tag. A delirious face followed by determined fatigue, a determination to stop another tragedy.
Well…I'm chasing after him…He got what he wanted after so long. The humorous thought was then banished aside into the more pressing issue at hand. His poor soul had snapped under the weight of his actions, it wasn't every day when a virgin soul had to take a life, even better men had broken down from the stress of such an act. It was a dreadful experience from what her older sister, Winter, had told her. Recounting the tales of her military service where she had seen the garish aftermath of these situations, men once filled with bravado and honor reduced to empty husks or bloodthirsty savages from the endless loss of war. Men that had once looked on with optimism reduced to one base instinct, what had broken her comrade was up for her to speculate later, now she had to stop him, and get him to calm down before he hurt himself or worse...
This jungle was a new beast, it's trees forming layers upon layers. The canvas painted in large swathes of dark green at the uppermost layer, but in it's lower reaches the gaps of light lit up their paths. The Bell-pepper shapes camouflaging whatever prowled in it's grasp. His stamina was greater than hers' somehow as if he was a trout caught in line. He was darting past low-hanging branches and fallen logs, tossing past the rotting layers into her path, willingly or not. He seemed to have lost his sight or thought of her, rushing forward with a single-track mind.
"Jaune, STOP for the love of…." Weiss barely dodged the foliage flying towards her face, as tall bendable tree roots of the soil variety brushed past by her target flew towards her. That damn blond was going to scar her already ruined visage, damn him. Her hound-like chase was over as she had lost sight of him, he had already disappeared deeper into the wildness, she could still hear the noises that he was making, but it was hard to isolate his stupidity.
His infuriating one-track mind was going to be the death of him, that simple-minded fool and his Homo neanderthalensis-like recklessness was taking him deeper and deeper into thick bushels of trees. But she sighed sympathy from her warm nostrils, as the sight of what she had seen a few falls ago played in her head again. As he towered over their comrade and plunged his sword into the cavity of the newborn, it had been his first kill…his first human kill. From his delirious ramblings earlier, he had answered that 'she' had asked him to do it, by her deductive reasoning, it was an assisted suicide done out of desperation.
Although this didn't fully explain his erratic behavior entirely, she felt his suffering. Bursts of empathy pierced her once cold heart, as she pressed on, determined to save him.
A broken knife and a shattered knight burst past more foliage, sturdy winter boots crushing dead leaves with each step. She was in the jungle, somehow. There was no clear answer as to what this location was, but the why and how didn't matter. The Who mattered now, and he was going to prostrate himself before her, and beg for her salvation. This was what he deserved.
'Oh Jaune, come find me.' Said the voice in a pained manner, as if she were a forlorn lover of his.
Using what remained of his blade as an improvised machete, his skills were augmented by the voice. 'You've gotten better at this…I'm so proud of you.' The inner cynic within him argued that these were lies, he was no better off when he started almost two years ago.
Slashes and slashes broke down untouched roots, leaves, and thick clumps of decaying foliage. Change happened fast in tropical jungles such as these, were rich biodiversity made up separate ecosystems on each levels of density, the dangers that lurked in potential foxholes and trunk cabinets meant death at potential corners. This was not the end from him, he was not going to be pounced upon by a wild tiger or swallowed whole by a Boa constrictor that lurked unknowingly in the depths.
He slashed one heavy stroke with the thought of reaching her, so that she may deliver him judgment. 'Keep going, you're almost there.'
Blue eyes met green, a spot uncovered by a natural spotlight, creating a stage for his trial upon a green patch grown deceptively happy. One bright ray of sunlight shot down from far above, the bended leaves at those stages formed balconies, the long length trunks were an audience, tall, slender, and lean, watching the performance that was about to begin. Or, perhaps it was a court, he was going to have to take a stand on the green and be judged for his actions. He was no actor, he was the prosecuted and here he was going to take the stand and beg for her to resolve him.
Then he saw her ancient face, it was hard to believe, but he had long forgotten what her features were like. While it had been a few months since he had last seen her that on that fallen night, the rush of combat and his experiences had dulled his idea of her, from what was once a spartan image turning into hoplite as references and hollow diluted his memory. The idea was there, she was red-haired and emerald-eyed, but the other aspects became muddier over the months, the idea of her was like the jungle changing slightly with time, the accurate memory would return over time but then like the layers above, it would deteriorate and change.
Now, he was laying his eyes on her for the first time. This was their first meeting.
She looked so…welcoming…so…kind. "Oh…Pyrrha, I'm so sorry."
'Oh, my dear Jaune, there was nothing that you could have done.' She comforted in a motherly tone.
"I should never have been there, if I had never even been at Beacon in the first place, maybe you would have gotten a better partner…or maybe even made it so that you never had a guy like me around" He belittled himself with venom, as the balconies above in approval swayed under an unknown force. The trees croaked, asking for his sentencing, or were they applauding?
'Jaune, you are wrong.' She stated bluntly. 'I dEfiNiteLy would've lived it wasn't because of YOU.'
Her accusation washed over him with relief. Oh, he was right to have followed her voice, she knew him so well and would deliver the judgment that he had sought.
"Then…What must I do?" His voice trembling at the thought of what was about to come…perhaps he had been too hasty? No…another voice, her mind still in his head was telling him to do so…This voice…was not familiar, it was a sultry seductress that was now talking to him, edging him on towards this goal. But, the voice was still correct nonetheless, his blade dipped in the bitter taste of suicide was the right tool for it, with one swipe, there would be justice for those that he helped kill.
'I think, you know what must be done.' She suggested in a tragic tone, regretful at the implications of what had to be done.
The spoiled blade now brought up to his neck was poised to strike into him…but nagging voices at the back still trapped in his locker room banged and kicked. Not one voice, but two united voices screaming at him to stop…telling him one command 'live'.
Sensing his hesitation once again, her voice purred sweetly, luring him to the 'Come to me, and I'll deliver you from your nightmares. Jaune, I'm always here for you.' Her warmth, oh the guilt was washing away from him, being eaten by each nibble, his soul slowly being drained from him as he felt more and more at ease from the sensation. The gnawing at his soul was sending him towards heaven as his feet rose above the ground, his eyes open to the sight of his first love.
A small tear shed from his face, he didn't want to…but this was the court, and his judgment was to be delivered by her hypnotic trance.
"JAUNE" The Violin was back, bursting onto the stage from the audience as she looked panic-stricken but determined. In an act of terrorism, she tossed a small red jewel through the air and past him, hitting Pyrrha's face squarely. The cartridge of sold red powder in a compressed solid form burst into a healthy crescendo, it's heat melting her pristine face, melting it's plastique qualities. The Hellenistic skin ruined by hot lava, as dead leaves rotted off her frame; lips twisted and contorting to reveal a flat surface, hiding a forked tongue. The emerald eyes popped off like shedding skin as they cackled like dried seabass skin, black pearls took their place.
The consummation of his former partner with the embrace of flaming roses procreated into the head of a snake. An Eldritch abomination, but of the natural variety. It's eyes blinking in shock, at its deception being unveiled, it's meal now interrupted by man-made hellfire. However, as it's slithering tongue slit, fangs dormant revealed themselves as well as the jaw opened wide in striking anticipation, aiming for his vulnerable neck.
Jaune, still in shock at the face-melting revelation could only raise his left arm in a blocking maneuver, but the bite was all but guaranteed to strike beyond his defenses and onto his core. His fight or flight responses made the decision to stand, the confident voices in his head telling him to stand and bear the brunt of the attack.
Except, the attack never materialized. His snow angel had dashed before him, neutralizing the attack, and with eagle-like precision stabbed the head of the snake in mid-air. She grimaced at the sight of her kill, as the creature was something that she wasn't accustomed to defeating, black tar began seeping out of the nail-sized hole she had left in its cranium. From monsters that dissipated into smoke, to a vile creature that bled when stabbed. She too had taken half a life. The snake left out a 'hah…' sound, attempting to articulate another human word despite the grievous wound. Like the reel of a fishing pole, it slid back defeated into the dark as a long slithering tentacle, a long black fur shape forming it's body as the deception had been unmasked. How it had managed to fool him was now the premier question on both their minds, but before the question could be answered. Something else stirred within the audience.
A four-legged shadow lured within their proximity, the two travelers took combat stances, both wide awake and the adrenaline within their systems pumping their primal instincts. They could hear the growling of birds from far and near, a distraction to be sure. Their hearts beating at fast and erratic paces fuelled by an adrenaline response, despite their statue-like stances, the flowing pump of blood kept their hearts stressed and panicking. Oh, the pain and agony, the noise for both was getting louder and louder, both their beats drowning out the approaching growling.
The trees behind them rustled, actions in trained synchronicity went face-first into the bloodied grass. As both blonde and White swivels turned to face the sight of a grotesque beating mind, its vessel the shade of night. A large Puma standing before them, snarling with tar in leaking from it's frothing mouth hungry to devour the two. It's fur was wild as fleas popped out from each move taken, but the little vipers popped from it's open beating skull. It's brain was made visible, typical Puma brains were small enough to fit within their own skull shapes, but this one had a budging, pulsating mind. His vicious growls and darting emerald eyes looked at the two with pure hunger and rage. Perhaps, within it's giant veiny brain, it was considering what was the course of action to take, it wanted to chew on the blonde first and then feast on the female's remains, then let their bones simmer for a good chewing.
It was going to rip the male's neck out in one swift stroke and then swipe the female dead until she bled to death. However, the truly terrifying chimera showing its true form raised its tail alongside it, revealing the reviling snakehead in its dead form again to forming the Puma's tail. The black fur was docile, but its humungous size from the grass was deceiving. Its fangs barred and looked at the two worn-out heroes with hatred, eyes vying to devour these white trespassers. However, the beast was intelligent, far more intelligent than the two would give it the credit for. His would while grievous, was not the end. Paws stepped back slowly into the shadows, eyelids came down like noir curtains, retreating into the jungle once more.
"What…the…Whatwasthat?" He asked incredulously at the events that had just transpired. He watched his first partner come back as a part of that Puma/Snake hybrid and had almost been mesmerized into such a compromising position.
Instead of responding to his question, the furious Weiss Schnee picked herself up as she should and kicked the idiot on his lower chess plate, buckling his pride from her attack, he looked at her with shock but then placating the wide-eyed gaze with wounded shame. Now he looked like a sad beagle, collar gone and abandoned by a dismayed master.
He began his apology "Weiss…I'm…sorry…I don't know…what came over me…?" Staring into her eyes as sincerely as he could. "I just…felt someone…it sounded like Pyrrha…and I felt the…shame of having killed Penny." His words trailing off into the near past. Then he let out another wail, an earthquake-like trembling within his teeth as he struggled to articulate what he wanted to say next.
He began to beg again: "WHY? WHY? WHY? Why did you have to die? I might've been able to save you…Why me…why did it have to be me?" He wailed on in anguish, performing a symphony of the heart, only heard by his fellow actress and the tall audience of tropical trees.
He was down on his knees begging for an answer from anyone at this point, and so she knelt beside him in the sweating sun. She smelled of grass and sea as of this point, but he had never complained before, so why start now?
She never had a male rest his head on his shoulder, not one to ever play caregiver in under any circumstances. After all, her household was as cold as the north. Expensive caretakers had taken care of her and her siblings, rather than the niceties of parents as expected of a Bourgeois family. But she then saw his sad silly outburst as mendable, and he was a good companion, a very dear companion. His tears soaked through her sleeves and onto her skin, her arms feeling the humidity of his ugly crying. Stroking his hair, she was grateful that her gloves were still on, as his hair was red, blond and wet, the mess that was his head was physical as well.
"The other night dear…I dreamt you sleeping…But when I awoke, dear, I was mistaken…So I hung my head and I cried." Her singing talents were now used to comfort her broken friend as if he were an infant in need of a nursery rhyme. He began quieting, as she began singing, realizing that his interruption was not needed, only letting slight gasps to breathe. He made no comment on her ruined hair, but acknowledged the niceness of the moment, letting a sense of angelic-like forgiveness flow into his soul. As his breathing normalized, he felt a sense of relief, as if he was being seen, as well as heard. As if he was valid. So, he began singing as well "You told me once, dear, you really loved me…And no one else could come between. But not you've left me and love another; You have shattered all my dreams" It sounded hearse coming from his voice, but she lifted him up, following the soft sultry voice by his right ear, he began finding the right pitch and tempo.
One was slightly off-key, but the audience didn't care. Their voice became one as they moved on with the lyrics, the words familiar to his heart. It had been their song one joyous night long ago, and now her memory was being made anew. Their roles became reversed, now she was the one healing him at his moment of injury. This had been their song, but his memory of her had become tainted, innocent blood had stained her memory as well now, both times: his mistake.
After the tussle, the duet, they were both tired. The spotlight on them covered by thick fluffy clouds as if a stagehand had done his duty. Somewhat embarrassed by his behavior, unbecoming of a man to say the least. He turned his head left, away from her chilly strands, and looked calmly, his head still lost in thoughts not his own.
"Better?" She asked concernedly, still wary of her companion's mental state. The tropical island was wild and mysterious; the monster they had just seen off to was proof of that at the very least.
Nodding in return, she looked on at him with a warmer and kinder glance, the discussion for his traumas were going to come, but first they had to survive. His mind no longer racing as it had been before, perhaps it had been the fatigue of their fight…or it had been the island…or maybe it was the monster. From the moment he had landed in the water, his thoughts had only told him to walk into the green, it almost consumed him had it not been for Weiss.
"Come back to the beach with me Jaune, we're going to need to figure some things out…alright?" It was a warm question as if she were a mother asking if her son wanted ice cream after a terrible fall. They could use some ice cream right about now, in this scorching hot sun, a small comfort to take their minds off of the situation. Oh, what was she going to do with him, his gentle soul suffering from a sudden burst of undeterminable insanity, her heart ached seeing one of their best suffering like this. He had just come face to face with the appearance of his distant partner, only to reveal that it was a monster.
She stood tall above him, a conquering queen raising a loyal subject up on foreign land. He took her hand and walked behind her holding it, like a child, now calm and quiet, as she led him through the path that he had swathed.
"Jaune?" She asked him in concern, as he walked behind her, her hand leading him on.
Her voice had reached his ears, snapping him away from whatever grieving thoughts he had. Onto the beach, he saw the light of the glistening sun and it's reflection upon the water. He was going to live, with her.
The plan for this story so far is to keep it as a short three-chapter story.
If anyone is wondering about the inclusion of biblical elements within the text, with brief references to ideas such as the 'Seraphim' or the physical descriptions of the old and new testament angels, the main idea I wanted to present is the decline of a person's sanity and reasoning in the face of tropical extremes.
The idea behind the Puma/ Chimera/ Pyrrha hybrid originates from a few ideas, the puma being an idea inspired by 'The Island of Dr. Moreau' written by H.G. Wells. Whereas the idea to put Pyrrha as the voice of the creature was in part to point out the delusions that some people have over character resurrections. As well as to provide an antagonistic emotional force to counter the kindness, when it comes to punishment, it comes either harshly or kindly. The monster represents the harsh punishment, whereas the voice of Weiss represents forgiveness.
A heads up on the next chapter, but there will be sexual adult content in the next chapter.
Please leave a Fav or a review if you liked this chapter. Reviews would definitely help a lot, as I would like to hear what you guys think. The next chapter will be up at the same time next week at 11 EST.