Jaune And His Zweihander

by TheKettleHelmedSquire

Do you like monsters? Do you like weapons? Do you like magic rocks? Would you like to read about a semi-competent moron killing monsters with weapons using magic rocks while his sleep paralysis demon forces him to commit war crimes? If so, check this out.

1. The Prologue

Turns out, proofreading your own shit is quite tricky. Your brain gets used to the mistakes and just skips over them the same way it skips your nose despite it being in your vision all the time. Since I don't have anyone to proofread my junk for me, you're gonna find alot of grammatical and logical errors. And, to that, I say deal with it.

I'm not gonna spend another 3 day on this CBT session of a chapter, it's massive. I'm not being paid for this shit, I'm doing this all in good fun. And, if I'm not having fun, I'm doing something wrong. So, yeah. Cleaning up this piece of shit to be somewhat optimal was quite the hassle. So, here you go. A rocky start to a relatively serious J.A.H.Z. with actual effort.

---

Rain, Rain was one of the worst possible things that could have happened tonight.

The dark, chilly evening was already gloomy enough, but the addition of such atrocious weather made the world around that much more depressing. This storm had been raging on for days, violating the once bright and colourful Kingdom of Vale with its depressing dark and dull hues. Water slid from buildings and rushed into the streets, flooding all that opposed their march for conquest.

Meanwhile, a boy marched along with it.

Fresh off the bullhead, sword at his side, and hoodie utterly drenched in freezing and oppressive wetness, he waddled his way to his destination. Bumping shoulder to shoulder and scraping shoe to shoe with others who made their own march, he was surrounded by those who had their own places to be. He made his way past shops, apartments, offices, of which were once teeming with people and emitted grand lights, but all that was replaced with vacant darkness due to the less than favourable conditions granted by the hurricane.

A pair of black boots crashed against a series of puddles before suddenly stopping. The boy had arrived at his destination; The Crow Bar.

Despite its purposefully terrible name, the establishment was among the best in Vale. So much so, that it even harboured the interests of fully-fledged Huntsmen. Even though it was a small place and didn't have anything outwardly eye-catching, it was still the only commercial pub that the top warrior class of Vale would consistently and vigorously visit.

Those same boots moved once again, this time, on their way to the entrance. A pale hand pushed against one of the double doors which lead into the building. Immediately, a miasma of alcohol and smoke assaulted the senses. It was strong enough almost to gag from, but that's because the concentration of the cocktails was so unusually high so to counter the inhuman resistance that Huntsmen tended to have.

And, he was about to put his own to the test.

As he strode on a deep brown wooden floor, he passed several round tables and ornate chairs of a similar, but more reddish appearance. The walls were of a decorated black, while the ceiling above bared a bold red. A golden chandelier hung over everything, emanating a light blue hue. Pulling himself from his wonder, the boy set his eyes to the barman.

The bartender was making a mix, focusing on the right measures and combinations. He stopped as he saw a customer in front of him, but he noticed that this one was a new face. Wearing nothing but some black hoodie, a pair of light blue jeans, and some boots, the tall, blonde, slim boy stood meekly in front of him.

His blue eyes were heavy with uncertainty.

The bartender quickly noticed a simple blue hilt protruding from the lightly decorated white scabbard that hung from the left of his hip.

"Sorry, kid. We're out of stock for civilian options, all that's left are stuff for Huntsmen. And, trust me, this stuff will give you the single worst hangover of your life if it won't just outright drop you dead." The bartender said, unaware that the teenager in front of him did, indeed, have an active aura.

The teenager's eyes shot wide open in confusion, and the gears began moving in his head. "Oh! Oh, no! I'm not a civilian." He explained.

The bartender looked up and down at his customer a few times over, his eyes often resting on the simple sword hanging from the boy's belt.

"You sure?" Scepticism bled from his tone, but his question was met with a few quick nods.

"Ok?... Prove it."

Without another word, the swordsman dug into his pockets, looking for his wallet.

"NO! I meant with your weapon! Something you're green on the way things work here, kid."

The sudden clarification startled the young man, but nonetheless, he followed the order. He removed the scabbard from his belt and pulled out the sword. The bartender stood there unimpressed and genuinely irritated.

"Ugh... Kid, is that i-"

Before he could finish his sentence, in the flash of an eye, the scabbard had expanded into a shield. This time, startling bartender himself. He carefully studied the shield as it magnetically stuck to the back of the boy's left hand, then moved onto the sword itself. An exasperated sigh slithered from the man's mouth.

"Ok, so you have a mecha-shift. That's great! That's great. Now you can show me your ID."

From that, sword and shield clumsily met. Pale hands patted against pockets until they both fumbled into one, pulling out the item of interest, though not without almost dropping it. They pulled the case of leather apart and slipped out a small, slim rectangular object before passing it on to another hand with a hue just a little bit darker.

"Jaune Arc" The man read. "17 years old, Beacon first year, Team JNPR." He went on to read the finer details of the ID, "Team Leader, not bad.", and then nodded his head. "So, you're a student?"

"Y-Yes, sir..." A quiet and quick stutter came in response.

The man nodded his head and accepted his new customer. "I can't give you the real strong stuff since you're just a student," His finger aims at his conversee. ", but I do have a few options for students. Here's a menu, this is our best seller." That same finger re-adjusts itself to a colourful cocktail at the very middle of a fragile piece of paper placed on the desk before him.

"Whoah..." Jaune whispered, remembering how the only person he knows who drinks told him that this was her absolute favourite.

He didn't have to contemplate long. The drink itself was eye-catching, adorned in a plethora of colours and decorations. It was cheap, too. And, had a high enough alcohol concentration, just enough to have him loosen out in just maybe three or two servings. Jaune didn't know much about alcohol, but he knew the basics from a few strange conversations with Yang.

"Ok..." A blonde mop of hair bobbed back and forth. "Ok. I'll take a Strawberry Sunrise."

"Good choice, sir."

---

A small girl adorned in a red cape and black dress was trudging back from detention with the rest of her team, soaking wet, covered in mud 'n grime, and beyond exhausted. The stunt they pulled at the docks backfired on them tremendously. Walking past the pristine grey walls and cyan lights that lit a path over a dark brown floor, she and the rest of her company marched back to their dorm where they hope they can finally rest from the torture, bestowed upon them by non-other than Ms. Goodwitch herself.

"Worst. Detention. Ever..." She mumbled.

Her words were met with a cacophony of grunts, growls, and even a little bit of crying from the rest of her team.

"You can say that again, sis." The blond, tallest and "heaviest" of the group, wearing a leather jacket and boots soaked in muck, replied to her half sister's statement as she popped one of her sore shoulders.

"I can't believe she made us go on and clear an entire sector in the Emerald Forest. I feel disgusting! It's going to take me forever to wash all this off!" Another girl's whining did not get a verbal reply, instead, she received her own choir of complaints. Her once snow-white hair and dress was now caked in mud and sap

The girl with black, hair and clothes adorned in the same colour, said nothing. Her ambers eyes planted themselves on the ground, dripping with sadness. Even though she was just as exhausted as everyone else, her mind was still heavy with thoughts of the White Fang and what they experienced at the docks. She couldn't believe how they could co-operate with the likes of Roman Torchwick of all people. She didn't know why, how, or when, but she knew that she needed to know.

The guilt that weighed on her as she looked back on her past and on her team was straining, even more so than the "detention" she and the others had received from her teacher. The fact that she saw that what she fought and bled for throw away all their integrity that night, the fact that civilians could have been turned into casualties, and the fact that she had dragged her team into such a terrible predicament, made her feel incomparably awful.

They were coming up to Team JNPR's dorm, excitement and growing relief weld up in their hearts. They could finally rest after such a terrible day. Three whole days of non-stop fighting, walking, crying, and sleeping in sleeping bags that were barely any more comfortable than a sack of thatch.

However, the door to their sister team's dorm dashed open, slamming into the wall with a violent crash. They all stopped in place to see a maiden with red hair adorned in bronze armour, a boy with black hair wrapped in a green coat, and an orange-haired girl with a strange device on her torso and a pink skirt, quickly walking out with their faces wracked with worry, and hands clutching onto their respective weapons with a cruel tightness. They watched as the three practically jogged over to them.

The redhead came up to the lead, spear and shield in hand, and seemingly shaking with stress.

"Have any of you seen Jaune?" She more so begged than asked.

"Uh... Hey, Pyrrha. What's up?" The blonde, seeing the trio's state, attempted to de-escalate the situation. Though, it unfortunately only made things worse.

"Yang... Have any of you seen Jaune!?" Pyrrha practically shouted, causing Yang to recoil back.

None of them has ever seen Pyrrha this twitchy. Honestly, they've never seen anyone in team JNPR this twitchy, ignoring Jaune.

"What's going on? Is Vomit Boy in trouble again?" Yang playfully asked and only continued to irritate Pyrrha.

The small girl with black hair and a red cape quickly came up to attempt to mend her sister's failure. "No! No. We haven't seen Jaune. Is everything alright?"

"NO! It isn't, Ruby! Jaune's missing!"

Ruby, just like Yang, recoiled at Pyrrha's outburst but relented despite her slight fear towards her friend. "Maybe he's just at Goodwi-

"I checked her class."

"Maybe he's at the arm-"

"I checked the armoury."

"Maybe he's hanging out wi-"

"I checked team CRDL and interrogated them thoroughly." She pointed to the orange-haired girl with the giant hammer. "Nora made Cardin cry."

Ruby cringed at that. Using Nora for "Interrogation" often resulted in the annihilation of one's sanity. Sure, she had no love for Cardin, but she wasn't so cruel to wish such a fate on anyone. Pyrrha, on the other hand, was a different story.

"Maybe... uh... he just fell asleep somewhere and just didn't wake up yet!" Ruby practically beamed and internally high fived herself and was about to think herself a genius for that.

"Ruby...we checked every floor, every room, and snuck into multiple staff rooms and dorms." This time, Pyrrha pointed to the green cladded boy. "I've had Ren run around tracking his aura signature and even had him bribe others with semblances for that sort of stuff to help. It's been two hours and no one's found Jaune yet."

That pride died as quick as it came.

"Trust me, he's not in Beacon. We're thinking about ignoring curfew and sneaking out to find him." Ren, despite his tense body language, said almost too calmly. A green and pink light completely enveloped him.

"Ugh... Where could that idiot have possibly gone to? Considering his endurance and overall physical prowess, probably not very far." The girl in white whined once again, inadvertently insulting the trio before her. Though, she couldn't tell due to Pyrrha's incredible ability to hold her own tongue and Ren straining his semblance to keep Nora and himself from tearing the rude girl a new one.

Though, Nora was still being a bit rowdier than the rest of her team would like. "You wanna say that again, Ice Queen?" The two hands strangling her hammer became dangerously tight. "Don't forget who's the gym's bench-press champion, Snow-flake."

The Ice Queen darted back, aghast at such blatant hostility towards her. "How dare you!?"

"Weiss! Please! Just...sit this one out?" Ruby pleaded. Fortunately, her please were heard.

Weiss begrudgingly stood down and walked to the far back of the rest of her team, her back turned towards the rest of them, arms crossed together and face pointing high to her left with an audible "Harrumph!"

"Jeeze, she's such a drama queen..." Yang cringed somewhat, her mumblings being quiet enough to not be noticed by the others, besides the girl who remained quiet throughout the entire conversation.

Exhausted and simply wanting to end the day, but still feeling a significant amount of guilt, the amber-eyed brunette was at a tug of war. On one shoulder, she wanted to take a shower and just pass out on her bed, but on the other shoulder, she wanted to help team JNPR find their leader, who, in her humble opinion, didn't know how to land a hit even if it would save his life.

She was at a standstill, a limbo, one of a moral nature. Help Team JNPR, or crash and finally relax after three whole days of agony. She shook her head and came to a decision. "I can help you."

"What!?" Pyrrha's head seemed to snap in her direction, almost scaring the tar out of her. "You can, Blake?"

Blake awkwardly nodded at the question. "Yes. Yes, I can. But... I... need something that... smells... like him."

"..." "!" "?" "!?"

Everyone else immediately snapped in Blake's direction, every one of them holding looks of either severe confusion, disgust, or barely controlled amusement. She wished the gods would just strike her down where she stood after she said that.

Pyrrha broke the silence.

"Wha-How-I-Huh!? Uhm... I... Ok?" She took a moment to gather her thoughts. "As long as it'll help us find Jaune. Nora!"

The girl in question perked up immediately.

"Get one of Jaune's used socks from the laundry!"

|\|

Meanwhile in The Emerald Forest.

It would have been known as a whimsical and peaceful place was it not for its infestation of Grimm, and that it was being ravaged by a particularly terrible hurricane. Leaves held on for dear life, trees swayed to and fro violently. And, rocks and soil mixed together into a thick earthy soup. The only things that weren't being affected were the ancient stone structures that have weathered time and elements such as these before.

A lone blonde boy walked along a muddied path, untouched by the previously known infestation of Grimm. Though, those monsters were not among his thoughts.

Mud hugged his lower legs and ruined his socks, but he couldn't care any less. Jaune staggered in the blurred moonlight as the sky's tears continuously beat down on him. He couldn't think straight, not after taking one too many. The world seemed to melt around him in a muffled roar, a strange warmth tingled throughout his body where moist coldness should be, and a single thought echoed in his intoxicated mind.

Run Away.

Whether he knew it or not, all he wanted to do after a few months into beacon was run away.

He found that lying his way into that Academy was possibly the greatest mistake of his life. He thought it would have been easy, he thought it would have been exciting, he thought it would have been fun. He thought it would have been an adventure, but all he found in that Academy was exhaustion, strain, and a terrible revelation.

He wasn't ready. He wasn't ready at all, and he can't possibly ever be at this rate.

The physical training that he had endured would have killed him were it not for his aura and his teammates. He never even completed any one of those training sessions.

The constant lessons in weaponry, history, and other things, made his brain wish to burst through his skull and never return. He couldn't understand why Huntsmen fought the way they did, or why dust did the things they do. The blackmailing from Cardin and the rest of his team knawed at him at all times, knowing that his future and possibly his entire life is in the hands of the single worst person Jaune had ever personally met.

Every day, he compared himself to others. Every day, he found himself lacking. Every day, he could feel nothing but crushing shame. In his mind, Jaune's father was right. Jaune can't be a Huntsman, and he never will be. He won't ever live up to be like his sisters. And, if the truth ever gets out, all those he held dear in Beacon might turn their backs on him and view him as nothing more than a liar and a cheat. He could lose everything.

Such worries did terrible things to the mind, and alcohol obviously made them worse.

So, as soon as the bartender tried to restrain him with a special rope made to tie down Huntsmen in case they got too rowdy, he bolted for the window. In hindsight, dashing through the door would have been easier. Then, he ran for the closest border between Vale and The Emerald Forest, somehow climbing over the fifty-metre hard-light wall. He didn't look back, and he didn't want to. All he wanted to do was Run Away.

To run away, and forsake his impossible dream.

The storm seemed to grow ever more spiteful. Lightning painfully flashed across the sky, thunder boomed with a rageful clap, and rain became less like drops and more like malevolent pockets of falling puddles. Despite the alcohol hampering his thoughts, Jaune still had some semblance of self-preservation and crudely made his way to a nearby ruin.

He barged through the decrepit wooden door of some sort of room that was embedded into the side of a stone wall. Due to it already rotting and falling apart, along with the weight and force of a drunk aura wielder, it fell to the ground and shattered. Thousands of wooden fractures splintered across the moss ridden stone ground.

Entering the improvised shelter was smart enough. The boy continued to stagger his way deeper inside, where the water and winds couldn't touch him. He collapsed into the ground, his face buried in untold centuries of accumulated moss. Not that he cared, though.

There he lied, unmoving, unthinking, unwilling to stand up. For a moment, he reminisced, but the drink was too strong and muddled his memory and warped moments in a way where events that once brought a smile to his face only left him holding onto tears.

Jaune was never good at holding onto to tears.

So, he cried.

He cried and continued to cry. Weeping into the moss itself as it gladly welcomed his tears. Small sobs and mere hiccups were all that escaped the moss, any sound that couldn't escape was muffled into oblivion. He was tired in all sense of the word, he didn't want to move, he didn't want to go, and he didn't even want to be. He just wanted to cry.

Jaune soon remembered that the ground was not a very comfortable place to be and nor was the moss, so turned onto his side. A glint captured his eye. With the small sliver of will he had left, he looked up, and at the very end of the room, stood a sword.

A very tall sword.

Curiosity mixed with his despair, and in order to satisfy the scratching in the back of his head, he, with great effort, wobbled himself back to his feet. He stood in place and watched it with caution. He looked up and found a small hole in the ceiling. The water seemed to drip in, but nothing too major. Just some drops here and there.

Moonlight still managed to beam its way through, slightly refracted by the aquatic intruder, and onto the sword. Multiple beams landed onto the blade as the light moved and slithered in an ethereal manner.

Still scared, and very, very sad, he hesitated. Fearful of everything, and his intoxication making that fear worse. Still, Jaune wasn't anything if not stubborn. He gathered all his remaining courage and slowly, step by step, approached it. He was close enough to properly see it, and it instilled in him a sense of awe and wonder.

It was massive. Rusty and rotting, but undeniably massive.

It was unmistakably taller than him by more than a head or two with the tip of the blade being imbedded into some sort of rectangular stone, an Isosceles Trapezoid.

Intrigued, he took a closer look at the blade itself and found it to be rectangular all the way up to the rotting moss-covered wooden hilt, he couldn't tell if the entire sword was like this, with the tip being buried in a rock and all. Two strange spikes protruded from the edges near the hilt below the incredibly wide crossguard. He looked further up and saw what he could assume was some sort of 8 sided piece at the very top of the sword. The silver pommel gleamed like a beacon, thanks to the moonlight.

There was one more detail on the blade that he almost missed. The globular cyan gem at the very centre of the crossguard. The lighting almost made it seem as if it was glowing, but what Jaune didn't know was that it actually was.

Curiosity overwhelmed his better judgment, not that he had much at the moment. He's wasted.

He stood right before it, the crossguard reaching the base of his neck. With as much focus as he can muster, he placed both his hands on the crossguard...and pulled. Nothing. He pulled again but the blade didn't budge. He adjusted himself, this time standing on the stone holding the sword captive, and pushing it up instead of pulling. He took a quick breath before expelling the rest of his strength into the push. His forehead flat against the sword's flat, his face turned red and his cheeks puffed trying to release the weapon from its rocky prison with little result, yet he relented.

He pushed, and pushed, and pushed until...

*CLANG*

It clanked out.

He fell on his back, and his new item fell along with him and onto his body. Thankfully, it was just the flat. Rubbing his head, Jaune slowly rose once more. He pulled the blade up with him and laid it against his hands, arms wide as he looked at it from side to side in wonder. He had never seen a sword like this.

Big swords, from what he's seen, were thick, heavy behemoths that would drag their users around like ragdolls due to the swords normally being far heavier than their actual wielders. This one was none of that. Sure, it was tall, but it was by no means heavy or thick. In fact, it was light and slim, more so than even Crocea Mors herself.

"Whoah..." His slurred words of awe echoed throughout the space.

This blade captivated him. It captivated him so well, that it pulled him from his deep sorrows.

First, he wrapped his left hand around the pommel. Then, he wrapped his right underneath the crossguard. Last, he lifted the sword up in front of him, savouring the sight of it gleaming in the refracted moonlight. Despite the rust and rot, he couldn't help but think it was beautiful.

The roaring outside seemed to quiet down, it wasn't as loud as he remembered. Jaune placed the flat of the blade blade against his right shoulder and marched out back outside to the forest.

Outside in the open air, the sword was free to move however it wished. Jaune whirled it around, it gleamed and shined despite its rust, almost as if smiling from finally being free of its dark damp prison. He spun it in place, grinning like a child with a new toy. Swinging it with glee and renewed joy.

But that joy was soon to be cut short.

A growl filled his ears, then another, then a third and countless more mixed together in a hellish song that sewn a story of death. He immediately stopped, slightly struggling to stop the sword's momentum.

Eyes. Hundreds, if not thousands, of hellish red eyes peered behind trees, bushes, and shadows.

Grimm.

He didn't know how many there were, but he did now that there were a lot of them, more than he could handle. He felt fear and almost dropped the sword. He looked back and found those same eyes peering behind even more shadows. He looked to his left and right, finding no respite aside from those same malevolent eyes. He craned his neck to see above him. And, the sight he found killed the last remnants of hope he had left in his soul. Other red eyes revolved around, creating a halo of doom.

Jaune was surrounded.

He didn't know what to do. There was too many of them, and he didn't know what kind. Lightning flashed across the sky once again, illuminating the shadows for a split second, enough time for Jaune to understand the true weight of his situation.

Hoards of Beowolves and Nevermores. Squads of Ursas, Gryphons, and Borbatusks. Units of Deathstalkers and King Taijitus. And, to top off the three-layer Grimm cake. A Giant Nevermore circled the skies like a tyrant.

It took him a second, to process all this. During that second, the Beowolves rushed him. Jaune only noticed the attack as soon as the first of them were already halfway in his direction, and did the only thing he knew he could at the time.

He screamed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"

The first of the Beowolves, an Alpha, struck from the side, launching Jaune back at the building, the hilt of the great sword still wrapped by his fingers. He crashed back-first onto the building, leaving a web of cracks around the point of impact. He bounced off of the wall and back on the wet ground, seated in place and his back going numb from pain. The sword clanked to his right. His right hand still wrapped underneath the crossguard.

"Oww..." He fell onto the ground, his white aura crackling in response.

Seeing its prey still stunned, the Alpha rushed again with the rest of its pack. Its growls were promises of the end.

That woke him up for sure. The groggy state that stuck onto him for most of that night was, literally and figuratively, knocked out of him, replaced by a desperate focus. He saw the Alpha and the rest of its pack galloping towards him. There was no way he could possibly fight them off, let alone the hoard of greater Grimm that surrounded him. Jaune knew that fighting back would have been futile and that he was tired.

So, so tired.

So, there he sat, ready to accept his fate.

The world slowed around as he stared at the shattered moon above, its giant fragments glowing upon his-to-be final moments. He thought how beautiful this moment would have been if it wasn't for the thought that he was about to die right here, right now.

"Fight"

Sadness.

'What?' He absent-mindedly thought. He didn't much mind the newfound pressure in his head and voice that echoed within. How could it possibly ask that? How could it ask him to fight? He was the single worst fighter in Beacon. Possibly the single worst student in Huntsman history. There's nothing he could possibly do now. He can't fight his fellow students, he couldn't fight the Grimm, he couldn't even fight for his will to live. He was useless. Hopeless.

"Fight!"

Frustration.

'How?' His teeth shut together in a display of irritation, his grip around the sword tightened. There's nothing he could possibly do. Nothing! He was just a naïve boy who thought he could play hero, and look where that's gotten him. At death's door. How could the voice not understand that what it was asking from him was impossible? How could he, an idiot, who didn't even know how to fight, possibly even fight!?

"FIGHT!"

Anger.

'Why?' His face warped with rage, his teeth now grinding together. His knuckles whiten around the weapon in his hand. His muscles tensed, and his heartbeat spiked. How many times is it going to ask that? How many times is this gods-forsaken voice going to ask him to do the impossible!? He can't fight! He can't! Never could! Never will! There's nothing he could possibly do! HE CAN'T FIGHT!

"HOLY SHIT! FIGHT, FIGHT YOU PISS HAIRED FUCK! FIGHT!"

Rage.

"You want me to fight?!" His second hand lunched itself onto the sword pommel. "YOU WANT ME TO FREAKING FIGHT!? FINE! I'LL FIGHT!

"I'll FIGHT!"

He savagely took a haphazard swing to the left. "RAGH!"

...and felt brief resistance before the weapon crashed at the end of its arc.

He opened his eyes. His breaths were heavy, and his vision blurred from tears and rain, so it took him a moment to get a good look at what was in front of him. There, standing in all its horrifying glory, was the Alpha Beowolf that was going to kill him. There was a small detail, though, or the lacking of said detail, specifically. It was a head shorter than it used to be.

Jaune had decapitated the Alpha Beowolf.

"WHA-!?"

"LEFT! LEFT!"

He followed the voice's instruction and came face to face with a squadron of regular Beowolves high in the air and ready to strike him down.

It didn't take him long to process his next move. With his anger rekindled and his will to fight well stoked, with little grace and savage control, he swung the great big blade to the right, cleaving through all four of the monsters before they could come down him. The sword, once again, crashed onto the mud. Further tarnishing its aged form.

"DAUGHAUAGH! Can you not!?" The voice shuddered, complaining.

Eight dissolving pieces crashed down before him before continuing to tumble past. Growls of Ursas, hisses of Taijitus, and screeches of Nevermores filled his ears. The Grimm have been further agitated, and so was Jaune.

"YOU WANNA GO? YOU WANNA GO!? I'VE GOT NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE! NOTHING! YOU CAN'T HURT ME, YOU JERKS! YOU CAN'T HURT ME! YOU! CAN'T! HURT ME! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" With a roar, well... more like a scream, of invitation, the rest of the hoard came shooting out of the tree lines, the shadows no longer concealing them. "C'mon. C'MON! COME AND GET SOME!"

He's definitely watched too many movies.

"COME AND GET SOME!"

First was a line of Beowolves, the larger, smarter Grimm stood by. Although the sadness, rage, and self-loathing coming off of their prey was indisputably intoxicating, they still had a sense of self-preservation due to their long years. They allowed their lesser kin to "soften" up their target, first. The Beowolves came in like a tidal wave, a wall of black came in in all directions. It was a horrifying sight to behold. There must have been a hundred of them coming to spill his blood. But, Jaune wasn't afraid, he was too angry to be afraid. Too angry and too drunk, no wonder they call it liquid courage.

"That is a big hoard. That is a big fucking hoard! Spin, you bastard! Spin! Circle o' death! Spin to win, C'mon!"

The echoey screeches of the voice did not go unnoticed by the drunk. Before the surrounding tsunami of Beowolves could reach him, he did what the voice told him to do. He started spinning. He looked like a child having a tantrum, but the results spoke for themselves. Aside from the inconvenient levelling and stability of the ground beneath him, he successfully managed to spin the sword around.

It pulled against him, and in order to level this tug of war out, he pulled back as well. He wasn't even swinging it, it was more like he was running in a small circle, dragging it behind him while somehow guided by the momentum of the weapon. But, that same momentum threaten to pull him down, so he summoned as much focus to his balance as possible, hoping that his senses weren't too disturbed by the drink.

The first circle of Beowolves were torn asunder, cleaved in half as their bodies and limbs flew in many different directions. Then the second circle met the same fate. Then, the third, then the fourth, then the fifth. And before he knew it, Jaune was chopping up Beowolves like a weedwhacker on grass. He hadn't moved from his original circle, instead, letting the monsters mindlessly rush to their demise. He didn't "cut" them as much as he was more "tearing" them to pieces.

A flock of lesser, smaller Nevermores the size of bowling pins rained down to assist the Boewolves, swarming the circler with the intent of shredding him to pieces with their sharpened talons, claws, and beaks.

Jaune could feel the flock chipping away at his aura. "AHH! OW! FFFFFFFF-" The flock was circling him and ate away at him like a swarm of locusts. His limited focus was further hampered by the pain of hundreds of sharpened objects scraping and jabbing into him continuously at once. "Ow!Ow!Ow! OWW!" He thought about directing his attention to the Neverm-

"NO! Fuck that. Ignore the bloody birds, focus on the muts. You'll withstand it! Just ignore the little shits and keep spinnin'!"

Line after line. Row after Row. Circle after circle. The dumb beasts continued their pointless onslaught. Their efforts were rewarded with death by drunk dumbass.

Jaune was mowing them down.

The older Grimm, with the little thought process they have, noticed that their lesser Kin were doing nothing to soften up their prey. In fact, the light burned somewhat brighter. It was burning ever brighter with every rotation of its strange claw. Screeching, a Deathstalker lost all patience and charged.

Turns out, spinning in a soup of wet soil and rock was rather difficult, even more so when the thing you're spinning with was actually dragging you around. Not by much, mind you. But, it was still enough to tip one's already terrible balance.

"ARG!" It was hard, it was really hard. He started thinking back on the lessons that Pyrrha beat into him. He remembered her beautiful forms, her incredible balance, and her perfect spins. He tried to recreate it in his mind and attempted-

"NO! Do not incorporate that garbage to what you're doing! Just keep spinnin' and keep doin' what you're doin. Do not stop!" Jaune listened to the voice, it's kept him alive so far. He didn't question it, nor did he try to rationalize his situation. His head was too full of ethanol and adrenaline to think right, so he just followed the voice's instructions. "There's a Deathstalker coming up! The Boewolves' numbers are dropping like fruit flies, once you see an open path, I want you to run out immediately and-")

*SCREEEEEEEEEEECH!*

The Deathstalker crashed through the Beowolf hoard like a bulldozer through trees, it crushed, swatted, and pushed any Beowolves in its way to reach its target.

"FUCK!FUCK!FUCK!FUCK!FUCK! GET OUT! GET OUT NOW!"

Jaune didn't need the voice to tell him that to understand how insurmountably fucked he was.

"...Oh." In a matter of seconds, the Deathstalker's massive armoured claw broke through the lesser Grimm and swatted Jaune way like a gangly human-sized mosquito.

"AAAAAAAAAHHH!" He sailed through the air and arced his way back down on the mud, soaking the rest of his clothes, hair, and face with earth batter. He lost his grip on the sword during his flight and it was now several meters away from him. He painfully sat back up with every inch of his body burning with pain. He cleared out his blurred vision and spat out the mud in his mouth.

*SCREEEEEECH*

Oh yeah, now he remembers! The Deathstalker was still trying to kill him.

Its 8 legs rapidly beating against the ground as its feral screeches filled the air around as it rushed towards him with its lovely, venomous, aura piercing tail high above it, ready to turn the boy into a human shish kebab.

"Oh. Oh no. Oh no! OHNONONONONO!" Ignoring the fact that almost every bone in his body sustained fractures from that strike and his aura was barely doing its job at healing them up, Jaune quickly scampered for the sword. "NO! NO! NO! NO!" So much for being incapable of getting hurt. The tail came up, glowing with that horrible venom. The deathstalker ran up, took its aim, and threw its tail at him.

It missed.

Before the tail could strike, Jaune had launched himself from the ground sending soil and stone rocketing from behind him. In just of few great steps, he had reached the weapon. Grabbing it into his hands, Jaune places his left leg in front and right leg behind with the point of the sword straight towards the Deathstalker responsible for his impromptu air travel. The giant scorpion screeched in response.

"Aww, for fucks sake! That thing's decked in plates, mate. You're not gonna cut through that!" Frustration bled through the voice, instilling Jaune with a bit of fear, but not enough to quench his anger.

He gritted his teeth and asked the voice on what to do. "Well, what can I do!?" Pardon his brashness, he's currently fighting for his life.

"Simple! You need to flip the sword upside down and hold it by the blade with both hands! Then you use either the crossguard, handle, or pommel to beat the damn thing to death!"

He followed the voices instructions again. Flipping the sword upside down and holding the blade with both hands, he immediately felt the difference in weight. It somehow felt heavier this way.

The Deathstalker came barreling forth with murder in its eyes. Jaune bared the same intent. He ran up to the giant armoured scorpion as it did to him, and as soon as he was close, he swung. The Deathstalker had blocked his strike. The stinger was ready and rammed its way through the boy.

"RAAAG-ugh!" It had utterly penetrated the aura, the venom working its way to dissolving its prey from the inside out.

It rose its tail and flicked the boy away to tumble back onto the mud, organs ruptured and bleeding to death from the massive hole in his stomach.

|\|

The Great Grimm knew it had won. Throughout its several hundred years of existence, no light had ever survived its sting, even the ones that hunted its own kin, lesser and greater. The Beowolves came up to take advantage of the downed light, but when they got close, the deathstalker would crush them and swat them away with its Pincers. This was its kill and it was not planning on sharing.

With little to no rush and paying no mind to the other greater Grimm screeching around, the demonic arachnid approached its soon-to-be meal. Heavy, white thick boned claws inched their way closer to Jaune to pick him up. While all this happened, the cyan gem on the great sword burned brightly and angrily.

The light was dim, it could now safely feast.

Growling with hunger, the Deathstalker continued to reach for its food, not knowing that the venom it had injected had been neutralized, and the wound on the boy's stomach had completely disappeared. Blood covered knuckles tightened around the tall weapon.

The monster "chuckled" in victory, this one was as good as-

His head shot up to meet the monster eye to eye.

"Hey there, Sunshine!" "Jaune" screamed at the Deathstalker with a stupid grin.

*SCREEEECH!?* In a moment of instinct, the tail launched itself again...only to for it to miss as the light stood up stepping to the side. With its metal claw still in its frail-looking paws, the light threw it upwards...directly into the unarmored joint of the tail.

*SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!* For something so large and heavy, the monster darted back with surprising speed as it responded to the pain. *SCREEECH!* SCREEECH!*

*SCREEEEEEEEECH!*

Meanwhile, the light looked on with smugness while a boot stood atop the dismembered stinger. An arrogant smile was unfittingly placed upon its face.

"Not so tough without this fuckin' stinger of yours, ain't ya!? HA! HaHaHaHa!"

The light taunted the monster. Something has changed, something was different, something was new! Elders did not like of which was new. Throwing a claw, expecting to swat away the light like before, multiple red eyes focused on the prey before them.

The prey flipped its own claw upside down as it did before, holding it by the long metal blade as the part of which it was normally held hovered just above the mud. The giant held some confidence. This reaction resulted in its victory before. All it needed to do was to simply block like be- *CRUNCH!* - fore...

Its right pincer... Its right pincer bent upwards at an angle that should not be!

*SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!*

"See?" The great Grimm could barely hear beyond monstrous screams of agony. "Look at that! You look alot friendlier givin' me a good wave like that! Look at you! Hello! Heya! Wassup!" The light waved back with mockery.

The horrible force created when the pommel struck bone manage to bend the pincer joint upwards, and anyone who knows a shred about Deathstalkers knew that that was not normal. The tank screeched on, trying to understand what had happened to the pincer and trying to pop it back in place, but to no avail. It flailed the pincer around like it was waving someone hello or goodbye. It's desperate screeches of pain and agony mixing with the manic fits of laughter from the dimmed light.

"Alright! I've had me fun...Whew! Time to send you back to the fuckin' shadow realm, ya two-ton piss tailed, fucked-jointed, eight-legged...!" He went on and on with the roasting session.

Still disoriented from the pain and with no Beowolves to help considering that it had killed all the ones who came close, The Deathstalker was completely helpless to what was about to happen next.

"...Ya'know, I've always wondered what the consistency of Grimm bones is like... Do they break like rock? Or, do they shatter and splinter like wood...? Or are they more like hardened clay, or something like a Polymer, or maybe something more keratin or..."

As the light rambled on, the bug tried to back away, only to find itself bumping up against the wall of the same stone structure that it had sent the light flying towards. It still held the great weapon upside-down, its cross high above the air, approaching the monster with sadistic glee. The response from the Deathstalker was already well thought of. "Jaune" knew what it was going to do next and positioned himself closer to the disabled pincer to avoid the coming strike from the monster's left.

And he was right. The Deathstalker...CHARGED!

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEECH!"

"...Ah, I'm not gonna get anywhere with that by just runnin' my mouth, am I? So, Let's Find THE FUCK OUT!"

He was safe from the strike, the pincer couldn't reach far enough to the right and promptly missed. This was it. This was the Grimm's grim fate.

And, this time, there was nothing IT can do!

"RAGH!"

*CRASH!*

The crossguard struck its head from high above, breaking through the armour crushing everything within.

First, the eyes ruptured. A stream of internal Grimm matter, black as night, came gushing out from the pressure, spraying at all directions like a high powered sprinkler.

Second, the mouth suffered the same fate. The pressure breaking into the Grimm's head caused more Grimm ooze to come bursting out like water through a dam.

Third, the skull gave in. The force produced by the strike had completely deleted the skull, sending chunks of bone and Grimm flesh flying everywhere.

All that was left were bone fragments careening outwards as it joined the rest of the debris, Grimm ooze splattering everywhere as more gushed out from the main body, and The skull which once was a marvel of Grimm Evolution, capable of besting against the strikes of actual Huntsmen, simply ceased to exist. The Deathstalker, a proud and ancient Grimm that had killed countless other Huntsmen throughout its long life, was utterly destroyed in three simple strikes.

Grimm ooze vaporized from every inch of "Jaune's" body, giving way to his face which had scrunched up from the debris.

"Huh...So, it's more like stone after all... Aww ffffuck. Augh! This shit tastes like a burnt fucking tire!"

He raised the greatsword back and flipped it again, finally coming back to holding it from the hilt once more. He took a moment to watch as the Deathstalker melted before him, taking some degree of satisfaction at the honestly unexpected devastation he had caused. He expected the crossguard to go through the skull, not utterly destroy it! He propped the hilt of the great blade against his right shoulder, looked at his left hand and placed his concentration onto the palm.

"Alright. Let's see what I can work wi-..."

A light. A Blinding. White. Light

"...Well... That's not normal. That's not normal at all..." The whispers that slithered out leaked a bit of wonder.

He focused more, bringing out as much of the Aura as he can.

"Sheeeeesh! That's a lot of Aura! C'mon. Let's what else you're hidin'!" Forcing more focus into the palm, he could feel it. He could feel all that raw AURA!

His face scrunched up again, grinding teeth threatening to shatter as well. There was so much of it, pulling any of it out was genuinely taxing!

"C'mon. C'mon! C'MOOOOOOOOOOOO-!" A violent beam of pure white Aura erupted from his hands and pierced the sky raining sky above "HOLY SHIT!"

It broke through the clouds and parted them with force instantly. The once constant and oppressive downpour that showered Vale for days had been swept away by a great big boom! The Beam, bright and incandescent, shed light upon every corner, every crack, and every crevice. The deep dark dread above was banished from the sky, and the moonlight rewarded this all with its presence, ensuring that every shadow was occupied.

The Grimm who flew above him also dispersed to avoid the Beam, sensing that such a thing meant danger. The skies were now clear of both the storm and Grimm.

The Grimm who spectated the boy with caution watched on with both fearful awe and innate curiosity. Well... At least the older, smarter ones did.

Still dumbstruck by the very beam that explode from his hand, the boy stood unaware for the next wave of Grimm that was rapidly approaching. Blue eyes looked up above with mad ambition, embezzled by such power.

"Wow... There's a lot more to you than the last one - OH SHIT!"

The Beowolf which had tried to pounce him was struck by the light. Jaunes hand, which was supposed to catch the beast, instead erased it from existence... along with every other Grimm behind it. It all took him a split second to understand what had just happened and, with renewed composure, moved the beam in a horizontal rotation. The Ancient Grimm who took cover behind the tree lines and boulders watched as a hundred more of their lesser but far more abundant Kin get destroyed in an instant.

No light from their knowledge had ever caused such devastation in such a short time, especially not one so dim...

Many of the older Grimm took to fleeing in the moonlight, knowing that such prey was simply not worth it. Although... some stayed behind, their stubbornness overpowering their accumulated sense of self-preservation. The Grimm who stayed behind waited for the light to finally exhaust himself and finally fall from his efforts, instead of rushing in. They saw what had happened to the Beowolves. They did not wish to suffer the same fate.

Under the process of common sense, "Jaune" thought that maybe letting this beam go on for such a long time may have not been the best of judgments. So, as he completed his rotation, brought his opened hand into a fist. This was a mistake. Suddenly, the incredible power which had erupted from his extremities had nowhere to go, and under this new situation had nowhere else to go...but within.

"Wha-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" His scream echoed through the now rainless forest, signalling the Grimm who had stayed that this was their chance. "WHAT THE FUUUUUCK!"

Aura filled his body in ways that were far from optimal. It flooded his veins, charged his nerves, filled his organs, leaked from his limbs in sweats. It was like the Aura was trying to kill him, fill him to the brim until he popped. What made things worse was the pain, it was excruciating. The burning was unbearable. It burned throughout his body as if the sun had somehow repositioned itself within him in order to fry to a crisp.

His body was set alight. White, hot Aura Illuminated throughout his entire, the dim moonlight that held sovereign over the night was usurped as the shadows were thrown further back by that blinding white. His eyes sheened like blue stars in the midnight, his hair blazed a holy golden hue, and his veins and nerves, most apparent in his face, adorned great shocks of white as if lightning coursed through them.

It didn't stop there. Fire. A literal White Fire had begun to flare from his back, and then slither to reach his head and extremities.

The Aura was attacking him. Not "Him", but Jaune. It was physically destroying him, it was trying to kill its own maker!

The Boarbatusks led the charge, followed by Alpha Beowolves and the rest of their respective pacts, The Ursas, led by their majors also followed, Tijitus slithered to the flanks still behind the tree-lines incase the light were to try to escape, and the four Deathstalker who remained, slowly followed. A few Gryphons and lesser Nevermores flew high above, twisted, and dived.

"AAAAARGH! WHAT THE FUCK! AHH! This is ridiculous! Why the bloody hell does this Blonde BASTARD have this much bleedin' Aura!?" Grinding his teeth, he attempted to map out and access the pain receptors so he can temporarily numb them, which would make this whole situation so much more bearable. "C'mon! C'mon! Please, work with me, mate. C'mon...C'MON! RRRRRRRRAaaaooww... YAOW! ...Hey, it worked!"

*CRASH!*

"...Why am I flying at fifteen miles per hour at a general trajectory aimed towards a massive sea of Beowolves? Oh, yeah! That's right! I got yeeted by a Boarbatusk!" And, then the situation became clear. "OH SHIT I'M FLYING AT FIFTEEN MILES PER HOUR AT A GENERAL TRAJECTORY AIMED TOWARDS A MASSIVE SEA OF BEOWOLVES 'CAUSE I GOT YEETED BY A FUCKING BOARBATUSK!"

Thankfully, throughout that entire incursion, his grip on the was still tight, and he still had something to work with. He was rapidly approaching the Beowolves. He had a plan, he knew how these Grimm behaved. He levelled himself and twisted in the air to face them and pulled the sword behind his head at the ready. They pounced upwards to catch, claws and jaws presented promising death... only to be shredded to pieces with a good swing from the I.F.O (Improvised Flying Object).

Finally, on the comfort on the ground, he can surely with confidence, it was his turn to play the weed whacker. Still surrounded by the dense population, he swung the great sword in horizontal circles with far more balance and control, shredding through the demonic dogs with ease. It helped that they were still too dumb to evade. He looked like a human helicopter at the speed he was going.

Feet beat against the ground in a steady rhythm, rusted metal blade swung and spun in a dance, and laughter echoed through the carnage.

He couldn't be touched, any and every Beowolf that attempted to get near would simply be ripped to shreds. He kept spinning, he kept laughing, and never once did he ever leave the mud-caked ground. He felt a slight rumble encroaching his position, another Boarbatusk was coming his way. Despite this, he kept his focus on the Beowolves but worked faster to create a larger open space to perform his next.

The Boarbatusk rolled in, crushing any be wolves in its way or simply crashing them to the side. It squealed in preparation as it honed in on the target.

He could feel it coming closer, there was enough space now. He had created enough space, it was time to hit a home run. At the bisection of the last dog within 10 meters, He flipped the sword again and reeled it back. The hog rumbled closer. Twenty meters. Fifteen meters. Ten meters. Five meters! He steps to the side! The charge missed! Boarbatusk used "redirect"! It was not effective! "Jaune" used "smack the fucker like an oversized baseball"! It was super effective!

The pommel made contact with the rolling pig and sent it rocketing... directly into an approaching Deathstalker. It struck the enormous insect-like a cannonball, crushing the armour and squashing the bug into a messy collection of amour, sludge, and regret.

"HOLY SHIT, THAT ACTUALLY WORKED!? BAH!" Uncontrollably bursts of laughter echoed from his mouth. This entire situation was just so ridiculous! His last host wasn't even able to do half the shit this piss headed scrub lord could pull off! "OH! OH MY LORD! That's fuckin' legendary!"

Unbeknownst to him, his moment of amusement was cut short when he yoinked off the ground by a Gryphon. "Eyo! What!?"

It held him by the hood of his hoodie, climbing altitudes with shocking swiftness. Like piranhas smelling blood in the water, a murder of mini-Nevermores came rushing in. "Jaune" yelled and hissed at the fact that he was being shredded to pieces by a bunch of pea-brained birds. They circled and dashed across him, attempted to slice him up with their talons, but to no avail. It did nothing the blinding Aura that permeated his being... but it did piss him the fuck off.

"Let go of me, you horse-bird BITCH!" He twisted in the Gryphon's grasp, causing it to twist in turn. He grabbed the bird by the wrist and crushed it, making it scream from its now broken joint. Loosened from its grip. Jaune clambered atop the monster, all the while it made its intentions of shaking him off clear. "You think you can trap me? ME!? Well, guess what bird brain, I'm the captain now. You hear me!? I AM THE CAPTAIN NOW!"

He placed the sword between his teeth, grabbed the feathers at the side of its head and kicked it in the neck to force it to move faster. "I AM THE CAPTAIN! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAWWW!" Against its will, the Gryphon was steered away from the hoard. The Airborne Grimm gave chase.

"Aww fuck." He spotted the Grimm of which gave chase. Multiple Murders of Nevermores, gangs of Gryphons, and... "A GIANT FUCKING NEVERMORE!?" A giant fucking Nevermore.

Its great echoey caws, of which can be clearly heard despite the wind rushing past his ears. He kicked his Gryphon again to gain speed and steered it down into the trees to avoid the barrages of sharpened feathers and possible Gryphon rams. Once he got below the canopy, he was genuinely impressed at the agility of this thing. It was the size of a garbage truck, but bobbed and weaved around tree after tree with incredible control, especially considering that it was still trying to shake him off!

Taijitus and Beowolves on the ground attempted to catch him but would find themselves disappointed. Lunge after lunge, the monster narrowly escapes the fangs of multiple giant two-headed snakes. It was marvellous just how slippery this giant horse-bird-lion thing was! There were close calls. Unusually thick groups of trees, tall ruin towers, and abnormal spiked rocks littered the ground and affected the flight. Regardless of the obstacles, the Gryphon had yet to crash. To this, he began to sing!

"HAHAHAAA! HIGHER! KING OF SKIES! HE'S FLYING TOO FAST AND HE'S FLYING TOO HIGH! HIGHER! AN EYE FOR AN EYE! THE LEGEND WILL NEVER DIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!"

The Gryphon wished it was dead. It really wished that the light which had hijacked it and wrenched it from the rest of its gang would just kill it. Its sonorous bellows of ear-scratching torment grated against its skull.

"FIRST TO THE SCENE! HE IS A LETHAL MACHINE! IT'S BLOODY APRIL AND THE TIDE IS TURNING! FIRE AT WILL! IT IS THE THE THRILL OF THE KILL! FOUR IN A DAY SHOT DOWN WITH ENGINES BURNING!"

Oh sweet Salem it's still going. The Gryphon was genuinely thinking about committing suicide just to escape the light's awful singing.

"EMBRACE THE FAME! RED SQUARON LEADEEEERR! CALL OUT HIS NAME! ROTE KAMPFLE-!"

Ok, that's it. Goodbye cruel world.

"-WOAH! WHAT!?" He exclaimed, losing control of the Gryphon as it dived straight for the ground. He pulled up as high as he can, threatening to break his steed's neck in the process and narrowly avoided the crash -"Whew..."- only to crash into a massive tree instead. "Wha-"

*Crash*

The impact separated the two and sent each one careening in different directions. "Jaune" landed into a clearing like a shooting star, rolling with the inertia as to not take most of the force. Mud flew everywhere as he scraped against the ground like an artillery shell, rolling and rolling, turning damp patches of grass into piles of churned soil. Eventually, he came to stop.

"Pleh! Pleh! *Spit* Augh! AAAUGH! Fuck! It's in my mouth! Uuugh! ...Hey... this soil doesn't actually taste all that bad." Tasting the mud further for some fuck all knows the reason, he looked up beyond the clearing and saw the tippy top of what could only assume was Beacon. He clasped his hands together -"Lovely! Finally, I can get away from this mess!"- and walked over to where the Greatsword tumbled to. "Bloody hell, that was a rush."

Standing above the muddied blade, its gem still burning its intense cyan glow, he picked up and rested the crossguard on his right should and held the pommel with his right hand.

"Sheesh! This man's lit up like a light bulb" His comment was directed at the surge of Aura that's still eating away at the body. It was getting worse, he may have shut down the pain receptors, but the damage being done to him could escalate to something that simply wasn't recoverable. "He's got too much of this damn stuff. Waaaayyy too much."

He started undressing.

He ripped off his gloves, and the hoodie he wore which now had a massive Deathstalker stinger sized hole in it. He also found was something else. Those shocks of pure white ran across his entire body, pulsing along with his rapid heartbeat. It was as if he had injected unimaginable amounts of neon into his bloodstream. There was also one more detail.

"Aww fuck, no. Mate, when was the last time you fuckin' ate? Jeeze, you're built like a toothpick!" The body he had expected was not the body he had received. Instead of thick wires of developed muscle and rigid structure, he got an absolute skeleton of a physique and a skin so thin that the ribcage was so unfortunately visible. "What the hell are these weak nerd noodle arms!? ...You know what? Fuck it! I can work with this." His defeated tones of disappointment were followed by another sound.

Suddenly a chorus of screams, screeches, roars, and caws erupted around him. Again, hundreds if not thousands of red eyes surrounded him. But, this time they were not hidden well by the shadows. The moonlight made sure of that. He could see more the same type of Grimm that had surrounded him from before. He looked up and knew what to expect.

"Well, would you look at that! Ya'll caught up with me." He levelled his vision back to the surrounding tree line and placed both his hands on the hilt of his weapon, ignoring Crocea Mors, which had hung by his side this entire time. "I don't know about you lot, but I'm feeling quite drafty right now and would like to be somewhere else nice and warm, preferably with a side of all of you fucking off."

They approached from the tree line and moved towards him. This time, they did so slowly and in unison. They had learned from the last time.

"Ah... I see. You lot are not gonna be givin' me up anytime soon, now are you?" Barks, growls, and screeches were his response. "Well, since this whole thing can't be avoided, courtesy of you all surrounding me in all directions again," He lifted the sword above his head, ready to strike. "I'm just gonna have to kick you all a new one!"

The Grimm rush commenced.

"SO, WHO'S FIRST!?"

|\|

Pyrrha practically flew. Her magnetic semblance pulled her forward, giving her great bouts of speed.

Meanwhile, Nora was high on lightning dust and carrying Ren like a sack of potatoes since he had such little stamina. They had been running towards the beam near Beacon. It was unmissable. Everyone in Vale saw it. Everyone in Vale saw how it pushed away the storm instantly. Everyone in Vale saw that that beam literally lit up the entire Kingdom, it was like morning came way too early and way too quickly.

Blake had helped them track down Jaune. Apparently, she had an aura technique that could increase one's sense of smell. Well, the three definitely smelt the lie in that, but they didn't really care at the time, their priority was finding Jaune and making sure he was safe. Once they had reached a bar, they called off Blake to finally enjoy her rest, thinking that Juane was just inside.

That was a mistake since the bartender told them that he had somehow managed to break through the Hard-light dust reinforced bulletproof glass windows which were roughly ten centimetres thick. Huntsmen proof glass, if you will. But, obviously not Jaune proof glass. "He just suddenly jumped out of his chair and flew through the freaking glass!" The bartender said.

Apparently, at some point in time, the bar was so popular with Huntsmen that the building was outfitted and reinforced to handle the kind of shenanigans you would expect from a bar fight between a bunch of superhumans who can casually lift cars. Yet, somehow, Jaune was able to literally just break through glass designed to stop Huntsmen, semblance included.

Not that Pyrrha was surprised, she still remembered unlocking it and being shocked at just how much Aura the boy had. Speaking of Aura. That beam was made of it, she was so sure that the beam everyone in Vale had witnessed belonged to Jaune. She knew what Jaune's Aura feels like, and that beam gave off that same feeling. Everyone's Aura feels different, everyone has a certain feeling to them, and Jaune had such a distinct one. She knew it was Jaune.

They zoomed through streets at speeds that outpaced commercial cars and made sure they were in the proper lane. Huntsmen running around Vale at speeds faster than most cars was so normal that there were dedicated lanes for Huntsmen to literally run in.

Eventually, they reached Beacon within ten minutes. The run didn't take all that long aside from the fact that Ren wanted Nora to stop at a fast foods joint real quick to grab a quick snack on the road in case she burnt herself out. He knew a semblance that drastically increases all physical attributes and is powered by literal electricity would do such a massive number on one's metabolism.

By the time they got to the academy, the great pillar of light dissipated and disappeared. Furious from losing their main method of finding their leader, Pyrrha commanded Nora to move faster while Ren fed her with an entire day's worth of food. Meanwhile, Team RWBY and Team CRDL watched from their respective windows.

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"What. the hell. was that?" In a room littered with cards, crates of dust, consoles, and implicit magazines, four boys stood by the window as they recovered from the light show that had interrupted their quality gaming session. All of their blue eyes drinking in the experience.

"What the hell was that!? Did you guys freakin' see that!?" The largest of the boys, adorned in a large suit of iron armour and baring an orange crew cut atop his head, exclaimed to the rest of his company.

"Well, of course, Cardin. It's not like we don't have eyes, or a window, or working occipital lobes!" The short boy in brown armour, similar to that of Cardin, with light brown hair and a constant squint, replied with a seething sentence filled to the brim with sarcasm. "It's not like we didn't see the literal Beam of light that lit up the entire Kingdom like it was DAY!"

"Oh, shut up, Dove! Says the military nerd who's always SQUINTING!" Cardin, irritated at the most, in his opinion, annoying member of his team, threw his gaze over to a taller member, Although, he not as tall as him.

He too wore similar armour to the two of them and looked on out the window with a steady gaze, His armour bearing a more grey hue. His dark blue hair still puffy from recently drying from an earlier shower.

"Yo, Sky! What the hell was that, man!?"

The Sky's head snapped over to face his team leader. "What do you mean? I got no idea what the heck that even was! What are you lookin' at me for!? It's not like I caused the darn thi-!"

"OK! OK! OK! Shutup! Jeeze! If you're all so darn dazzled about the light show we just got, why don't we just go out there and take a look at it ourselves?" Another shorter boy with green hair said, adorned in no armour but a simple spiked shoulder guard. "I mean, c'mon, you can't tell me ya'll ain't just a little bit curious about what caused that, now are ya?"

The three boys looked at each other, and then over to the green one, then looked back at each other again, and then back to the green one again.

"You sure about that, Russel?" Cardin said with heavy hesitation. "I really, really, really, really, really, really, REALLY don't want to bump into JNPR again. Seriously, that Nora lady is genuinely insane and should be locked up in a mental ward."

Dove snorted at that. "HAH! The only problem with that is that there is no asylum in Remnant that could possibly hold her let alone still be left standing by the tenth minute."

"Shut up, Dove."

"What? It's true!"

"OK! OK! OK! Break it up you lovebirds. We've got a possible alien Invasion to get into!" Russel looked over to Cardin. "So, what's your call, boss?"

Cardin, still recovering from the torture session on behalf of the N of Team JNPR, placed his chin between the space between his thumb and index finger.

He thought hard about it, then remembered that that loser's team was still out in Vale looking for him. Plus, he was super bored, and there was literally nothing to do. He's played all of the available video games at least three times already. His luck was atrocious tonight, so cards were off the table. And, all the magazines Sky brought in were freaking weird.

"..."

"Uhh... dude?" Sky, harbinger of freakshow magazines, asked his benevolent leader with clarity and grace. "Are we gonna go, or what? Cause, if we ain't, then I'm gonna go back to my magazine-."

"Alright! Let's get the heck outta here!"

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"Woah... Let's check it out."

"Ruby, no. Please, we're all runnin' on fumes here."

"But, Yaaaaaangg!"

"Ruby, no."

"Ruby, YES!"

In another room where the standard four beds were haphazardly "modified" to be "bunk beds", one being held up by ropes above another while the other pair were placed on top of each other, kept in a place by columns of books, four girls, Team RWBY, were going through their own thoughts about the Beam.

"I opt not to go." Weiss, still wearing her towel, stated with utter conviction. "We just got back from a three day long Hunting Expedition, something that's only tasked upon the fourth years by the way. And, honestly, I find the prospect of marching on out there again to be a rather undesirable and an ultimately stupid decision! Hmph!"

"But, Weeeeiiiiisss!"

"You're whining will not move me Ruby Rose, nor can you bribe me with any more cheesecakes. No amount of sweets you have could possibly have me going out there once more, especially not since you made me go in the shower last!"

"But, Blake just got back, and she was way more messier than you! C'mon Weeeiiisss!"

"NO! I got the third straw in Drawing Straws, I was so supposed to go THIRD! You're a tyrant, Rose. A Tyrant!"

The two bickered forward about fairness, prioritizing the least fortunate, and the rules of Drawing Straws. Meanwhile, Yang and Blake stood off to the side, watching the two argue like a married couple. Yang would have been laughing her tits off and teasing them until they eventually broke out of it from embarrassment, but to be honest, she was just way too tired to even make a chuckle.

Blake weighed her options again. One, there was a massive pillar of light that just slammed the entire Kingdom what the power of the sun and did genuinely wanted to know about its cause and origin, then again, she was utterly tired, if not more so than the rest of them. Two, they were not going to be getting any rest any time soon, anyway. The pillar of light sent the entire Academy into a frenzy with students stampeding outside and trying to dash their way into the forest to find out, only to be stopped by the teachers.

"Psst, Blake. What do you think we should do? We're not gonna be able to sleep while this is all goin' on, you think we should go with Ruby and dip anyway?" The larger of the two girls, the blonde one, whispered over to the other with her suggestion."

"...Well, ...as you said, we're not going to be sleeping anytime soon anyway. So, let's just go with Ruby. Weiss!"

"-and that is why laws of Drawing Straws should always be followed! WHAT!?" Her screech pierced the space around them, as her head snapped at Blake, her hair moving like a whip and wrapping around her face. Yang cracked a smile at her misfortune.

"We're gonna head out with Rubes and check out what caused the whole light show." Yang gestured over to Ruby to come along as she move to the door. "C'mon, Rubes. It's not like we're gonna be getting a shred of quiet while this is going on."

"Really, Yang!? Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou!" She had zoomed over to her sister wrapped her with the tightest hug she could muster, before being ripped off by her sister's superior physical strength. "Alright! Team RWBY! New Mission! Go out, and find out what's up with that light!"

"EXCUSE ME!?" Weis had managed to wrench her hair off her face, revealing an enraged and somewhat fearful expression. "Don't you all remember the docks!? If Ms. Goodwitch finds us leaving the premises, she'll give us another detention!"

"Aww chill out, Ice Queen. It's just gonna be a little trip, we'll be in and out in no-time. It'll be like we never even left." She displayed a tired and forced chuckle.

"This is no laughing matter Xiao Long! If Ms. Goodwitch notices we're missing, we'll all be sent out on another expedition as punishment!"

Yang walked over to Weiss' bed and grabbed one of her signature dresses, neatly folded in preparation.

"Don't be such a drama queen, Weiss Cream." She threw the dress over to Weiss in a way where it crashed against her face similarly to her hair. "Ms. G isn't that evil. ...I think. C'mon, don't be such a killjoy. It won't even take us that long. Just get back in the bathroom and change, you've got like a minute, else we're ditchin' you."

Weiss violently tore her dress off of her face and met Yang's smug one with an icy glare, before storming off back to the bathroom to change.

"I hate Democracy."

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The teachers were having a bad time, a terrible time. Not only was it late in the evening and that they were respectively tired, they also had to deal with a small army's worth of students, huntsmen-in-training. Some followed orders while most still attempted to get past the massive improvised wall that stood high and tall above them all, courtesy of one teacher channelling her aura and dust in a riding crop. It was comprised of random rubble, trees, rocks, and damaged property caused by the students.

Another teacher was zooming around at speeds that all the students thought unnatural, even by Huntsman standards. He zoomed and zipped by every student, one by one, performing headcounts and ensuring that not a single pupil was missing. Many tried to use their own speed based semblances to escape his sights but were consistently outpaced by the caffeine-addicted Blitzer.

One more teacher was literally fighting the students. Unfortunately, this was a Huntsman Academy. Violence was not repressed and was often encouraged to temper students for combat, so long as it was friendly and competitive violence of course. Some of the students were far more aggressive than the majority and had attempted to escape the premises by brute force, only to be left biting the dust by the very teacher they had considered to be the most boring and rambly out of them all.

All the while, four boys stood in gear, ready to leave before finding that their chances of actually leaving the school were slim to none. Team CRDL's plans were placed on standby.

"Ok... this is a problem."

"You think, Cardin? It's not like we're in a highly defended Castle in an elevated and heavily defendable position guarded by four of the best Huntsmen in the entirety of Vale, if not the entire Planet!"

"For the love of all that was, is, and will be, shut the hell up, Dove!"

The other two of the boys stood back as the other half of their own team bickered.

"Yo, Russel, was Dove always this much of a jerk-wad?" Sky asked.

"Nah, he's just salty he wasn't made leader of the team. He's been salty the entire semester."

"Oh..."

Just a few yards away was a team who had similar plans, and who were also mulling over their options. Team RWBY were dumbstruck... well, one was awestruck, but the majority were dumbstruck.

"Ohmygosh! Ohmygosh! Ohmysgosh! OHMYSGOSH!" Ruby, being the youngest of them, could barely hold her composure at seeing actual fully-fledge Huntsmen work. She was drooling at the mouth by what she considered, in her words, were "Laws of Physics defying awesomeness and kickassery." "I need their autographs..." The whispers leaked from her mouth like water through a high-pressure hose. Everyone in her team heard it.

"Uh... Ruby? What do we now?"

"Yes, Ruby, what marvellous plan can you pull from your grand ocean of ideas?"

"Yo, Weiss Cream. I get you're crabby, but c'mon, quit it. You're being meaner than usual."

Blake, Weiss, and Yang, in that respective order, voiced their thoughts on the situation. All the while Ruby was still drooling over the fact that she was witnessing actual Huntsmen work their magic, especially when it came to Ms. Goodwitch. That wall of her's was something straight out of a video game! She couldn't believe how fast Mr. Oobleck was moving, he was moving almost double the speed of her own semblance, all the time! And, Professor Port was consistently crushing Team after Team.

Honestly, it was still a bit difficult for her to process how someone so fat and so jovial could move so quickly and fight so ferociously. Dude was clapping people left and right like a barbarian.

The other three, meanwhile, just stood there. They knew that Ruby's initial plan was hopeless and that Ruby herself was going through a massive nerdgasm. With their options cut thin near zero, and their team Leader just... not responding at all while hyperventilating and hopping up and down like a schoolgirl who was seeing her idols in the flesh, which was literally what was going on, the three just stood there and watched Professor Port hail down an undodgeable rain of slag on another team who dared challenged him. The flack shredding their Auras

No one was getting anywhere at this point, not with the holy trinity keeping everyone in check.

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Pyrrha stopped and looked back at Beacon, eyes widening at the sight of the massive wall of random junk that surrounded the entire castle.

"Ren! What's going on with Beacon!?" Her yells are alerted Nora, causing her to stop in place in the process of Ren holding up a strawed cup of soda for her.

Ren still slung over Nora's shoulder like a sack of potatoes looked over to Beacon to see what their temporary leader was talking. His own eyes squinting and brows furrowing as he poured aura into his retina's for better vision. He saw it, a massive wall almost thirty meters tall surrounded the entire Academy. Streaks of purple aura permeated each object that made it up, including the patches of Ice dust that acted like paste to keep it all together.

"Ms. Goodwitch happened!" Ren yelled back, taking aura from his eyes after drinking the sight. "She must have placed the entire Academy under lockdown! The others might have seen the Beam and came to the same idea!"

"MIGHT!? More like definitely saw it. Did you see how bright it was!? It was PAKOW! SHING! KHOOO!-"

As Nora kept on coming up with more onomatopoeias to describe the sudden and temporary coming of day, Ren decided to stick another triple-decker burger into her mouth to make sure she didn't burn too much of herself, stopping her from coming up with more sounds as the only sounds the left her now were reluctant chewing.

"We should keep going, Jaune couldn't be too-!"

*BOOM*

"...far."

He was definitely right about their leader not being too far.

"Ren! What was that!?" Pyrrha was gritted through her teeth, worry and fear for the worst struck through her like a spear. "REN!"

Ren was frozen, he knew what that sound was. He knew what those whistles before the crash meant, he and Nora had narrowly escaped them before but never have they ever been ever to fight back against it. They could only ever run away.

"Giant Nevermore..." He whispered.

"What!? I can't hear you!"

Nora, swallowing the chunk of burger she bit into, did in fact hear what he had said and decided to respond for him.

"HE SAID "GIANT NEVERMORE"!"

"Like the one Team RWBY fought at Initiation?"

"YEAH! And no..."

During the back forth between the two, Ren saw a particularly tall tree just nearby. He came to the idea of using it as a vantage point to get a better look at the land and see if his fears were true. Team RWBY may have slain one of those horrible beasts, but those flying giants were the cause of many deaths, huntsmen deaths. Team RWBY were lucky that it didn't have any aura piercing talons that normally came with it. If it did, those girls would have been as good as dead.

The Deathstalker was bad enough. They were also equally as lucky. One wrong move and someone could have died that day. There was a good reason why those two Grimm types were known as "Huntsmen Killers".

"Nora!" Nora whipped her attention back to Ren. "Put me down, please. I need to get on top of that tree to get a better view."

"Oh, Okay!" She simply kneeled down. It wasn't hard for Ren to get off of her, he was significantly taller than her, and by just crouching lower, his feet met the ground. "Tell us what you see when you get back down, K?"

"I will, here." He placed the massive plastic bag full of food he'd been carrying over to Nora and quickly turned around to head over to the tree before turning back around again to give her a reminder. "Don't eat it all before I come back!" Then, he crumpled the empty rubbish in the bag and stored it in his coat then continued on to the tree, pulling out Stormflower and digging the bladed portions into the body of wood as he hooked his way up the living pillar.

Pyrrha walked over to Nora, who was still watching Ren climb up the tree with incredible speed. In less than three seconds he had already disappeared into the canopy.

"Uhm, Nora." She placed a hand on the shorter girl's shoulder. "What did you by Yes... and no?"

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It didn't take him long. Ren was approaching the top of the Pine tree, the tips of Stormflower biting into narrowing tree until. He had reached the top and spotted It.

"Oh no..."

It was massive, roughly five times the size of a Bullhead, head encased in thick bone armour several meters thick, and bearing a few glowing golden feathers on its wings. This was what he had feared, he knew what those golden Talons can do. He and Nora have seen the carnage they can cause first-hand. But, he saw something else. Underneath the canopies, just a mile away, was an intense white glow that moved quickly and drastically.

"What the... What is that?"

And, then he remembered. It was the same white glow that came off of the Beam. Pyrrha said that it was undoubtedly Jaune's, she didn't touch on why she thought it was him. Every time he asked, she would always just say -"I just know it's him." It was strange, but Pyrrha knew Jaune better than any other first year. Maybe there was something more to his leader than he thought.

He knew Jaune, he really knew Jaune. Ren would go as far as to say that Jaune was the closest thing to a brother he's ever had. He may not have been a great fighter, nor the most attentive when it came to academic lessons, but he was a surprisingly perceptive person. He could tell whenever someone was feeling a certain way, it was scary how well he does it. Despite Ren's emotion numbing semblance, he somehow found out how Ren felt at times by just the process of elimination alone.

He would always be around to help if need be. Whether it was with Pyrrha and helping her clean her equipment, with Nora every time she went to the school's gym to help her lift some weights and keep track of her plans, or with him, putting off some load when it comes to more domestic chores and groceries. Having Jaune around was always handy due to his constant eagerness to help.

But with that eagerness came some sort of guilt, Ren can smell it off of him. Ren didn't know what he was so guilty about, but knowing Jaune's severe lack of self-esteem, he came to the conclusion that he simply didn't believe that he earned the right to be the team leader. Ren thought it was a bit too early to make such harsh judgments. If anything, Jaune is surprisingly competent with coordination despite how strange they can be at times. He did help Ruby with some of her "Team Attacks".

But, that was not important now. He needed to get back down to the others and tell them the news.

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"WHAT!? GIANT NEVERMORES CAN DO WHAT!?"

Nora recoiled back at the outburst, Pyrrha was super screamy today.

"Yeah! We had Huntsman help us find a nearby village and ran into one, the feather went clean through him. Just straight up chopped him in half at full Aura. Hehe..."

Pyrrha was speechless. No, she was more than speechless. She was about to go through an honest to Remnant mental breakdown. Knowing that Jaune was probably out there, alone, lost, and most likely still extremely drunk from what that bartender told her, was about to send her into a frenzy. She started to hyperventilate, thinking about finding Jaune wrenched in half as his corpse laid there, bloodied, lifeless, and in two separate pieces.

Her aura flared, Nora could feel Magnhild become just a bit heavier. But, before Pyrrha could go absolute apeshit, Ren dropped down onto the mud a few meters away, sending sludge in all directions from the impact.

"I found him! The Nevermore found him, too... He's over northeast of here, close to the Forever Falls just a mile away! You can't miss him!" The desperation in his voice was caught by the girls.

Pyrrha swallowed her fears, re-established her composure, and took in what Ren said.

"Alright... Ren! Lead the way!"

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Things were getting a bit more complicated... Ok, that was an understatement. Things were getting extremely complicated. He didn't notice it initially, but as things gradually went on, he started performing movements he most definitely did not intend. His footwork was starting to buckle, his edge alignment beginning to wobble, and his swings becoming far more violent and less deliberate. He was losing control. The blonde bastard was waking back up.

It wasn't just a fight for survival now, It wasn't just Him and these pea-brained monsters. It was now a fight for control. Jaune wasn't aware, his brain was still drowning in ethanol. And, by the time he wakes up, he'll still be pissed hammered drunk. Not to mention, his own monster of an Aura was still trying to kill him. If He's not careful, Jaune will wake, he'll lose control, and there will be nothing to stop that Aura from destroying the body.

This was a right pain the arse, this. Not only was He still surrounded by giant monsters trying to kill from all angles, but he was also fighting to keep the rightful owner of this body from waking up and dying because he can't control his juice. He didn't fatigue, not at all, but He could feel this body falling apart. Multiple organs have already ruptured at least twice, Virtually every bone is either broken or heavily decorated with microfractures, and his muscles were constantly being torn apart and mended back together again.

This process of being undone and redone was starting to get incredibly annoying and dangerous. His performance was degrading.

And, things will only get worse if Jaune fully wakes up. If this lanky sod wakes up, there'll be nothing He can do to keep the Grimm off of him...

A deep rumbling caw permeated the evening glow. Ah, a Giant Nevermore, how surprising. Honestly, he was starting rather exhausted and bored with the Grimm. It wasn't because he's been having any difficulty dealing, goodness no. He had effectively manufactured tactics for the individual types that had come at him. Sweep through the Beowolves, decapitate the Ursas, bat away the Boarbatusks into Deathstalkers to kill both at the same time, and cut the Taijitus half.

It was simple, easy, and none of the types took more than three actions to deal with. The only type that's been giving him any real problems were the bloody air Grimm, especially the Murders of Mini-Nevermores coming down on him like a swarm of flying Piranhas. The Gryphons were a pain and tended to swoop down at the oddest moments to break his concentration, but they would normally just miss, get chopped in half, or just make a massive mistake which would lead them crashing straight into the ground.

They weren't hard to deal with, but they were extremely tedious. Their numbers just wouldn't stop coming, they poured out of the tree-lines like a fucking flood. A never-ending repetition of wave after wave after waver after wave. He could have killed over a thousand Beowolves and a hundred Ursas by now, but they simply won't stop charging! The automatic primal movements and rapid convulsion this body was doing did not help in the matter!

It's a good thing he was glowing like an LED light, though. Jaune's body lit up the place like it was morning, making spotting the sneakier Beowolf Alphas much easier. That Giant Nevermore was still going to be a right good problem, though.

'Good thing I already have a plan for that.' But, that thought was cut short by the piercing head-ache splitting His skull. 'Ah... For fucks sake, I'm losing more control by the second. The pain receptors are back on and I'm barely getting any closer to that bloody castle! Bugger, this is gonna be tough.'

During his continuous swinging, He found Himself getting a tad too close to the tree line where a Taijitu was ready to wrap around and constrict him. But, as soon as it struck, the invader casually turned around and cut straight vertically upwards at the middle of the snake-like monster, causing the heads of both halves to hiss and writhe violently before dying on the ground, tumbling.

The cut wasn't clean, he could see how the blade warped in disgust at such subpar performance. Another convulsion struck him as he threw the blade sideways again, chopping up more Beowolves with far more force than required. He had already lost the ability to speak. His influence over his new host's brain was waning as consciousness (kinda) slowly flooded into every neuron.

He was had already lost a massive degree of control over the Cerebrum, the frontal portion of the brain responsible for speech, intelligence, memory, senses and movement. He had lost almost all functions but movement. He couldn't see, hear, or feel with the body, but that was fine, he had his own way of viewing the surroundings. What was the real problem was that he was starting to lose control over the Cerebellum and Brain Stem.

If he loses those two, he loses the fine functions of this body along with his sense of balance. If he loses control of the body's heart rate, he won't be able to regulate the ethanol. He's been keeping it away from the boy's liver so it can run freely throughout his bloodstream, keeping him nice and numb as to make sure he had as much control as possible. Motor Skills were obviously important, he has to fight to ensure this living skeleton doesn't die. Duh.

But that was getting a bit harder, he had lost of the Cerebrum, half of the Brain Stem, and some of the Cerebellum. Things were not looking good. He'll lose all control soon, and he's going to watch his brand new wielder die just after getting him, and he'll be stuck in the mud for who knows how long! He needed a miracle, too bad most of his magic got yoinked off of him when the Brother Gods decided to clap him out of the sky, turn him into a rock, and slap him on a shitty sword.

He'll get his revenge one day, and that revenge will be saucy.

But, right now he had to focus on keeping control and not losing his new wielder. All he could do now was just keep swinging, and hope he gets a chance to take that Nevermore down with one (hopefully) clean cut.

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Pyrrha couldn't believe what she was seeing. Honestly, none of the three could believe what they were seeing. Nora tried to clean out all the residue lightning dust in her system to make sure that her vision was right. But, all of them saw the same thing. They were atop an elevated position, a small plateau that overlooked a small clearing and several more. And, in the middle of one of them, was Jaune... Fighting!

He fought in a way she had never seen before with a weapon as strange as it was simple. There in the clearing, in a sea of surrounding, stood Jaune. There was something wrong with him. A hostile white light cracked across his entire body like lightning shattering what must have been smooth, untoned skin. His normally meek and soft eyes were replaced by an aggressive, harsh glow of mad blue. And, his hair...

Well, she thought it looked nice, actually. The way it glowed and flowed upwards as if it was underwater reminded her of an ancient golden crown imbued with unknown divine powers, beyond the likes that anyone had ever seen.

Still, she preferred her Jaunes not coming with RGBs, thank you very much.

Still, he looked awful, overall. Mud hugged his legs like concrete, it made his shins look like they were replaced by tree trunks. He was also half-naked for some reason, which showed off an almost skeleton-like body. When they get back, they're definitely going to get Jaune to eat more. He was built like a twig. But, despite his unimpressive and frail appearance, his performance was anything but those two things.

He moved low in an almost crouch-like stance. His feet were wide apart, his knees were heavily bent, and his back was quite straight. It was similar to a squat, but there were other things she notice. He held the handle of the... well, calling a giant a sword wouldn't have been accurate. The sword Jaune was swinging around was tall, but incredibly slim compared to other examples of "great-swords" she had seen.

Continuing on, he always held the handle of the blade close to his head, swinging it in an almost random sequence. Horizontal cuts were most common, followed by diagonal cuts in all four possible angles, and vertical cuts were normally used to behead Ursas and bisect Taijitus with a single swing. Another strange thing she noticed, was that sometimes, normally when a Boarbatusk was rolling up on him, he would flip the blade upside-down and strike it with the handle.

She thought Nora's fighting style was quite the brand of crazy, but she had never seen someone literally bat away a Boarbatusk like a baseball into Deathstalkers, killing both.

The way he fought... It was beautiful. It wasn't conventionally graceful, or complicated, but it was brutal, quick, and efficient. There were little moments of grace and beauty that came in every now and then, but they were of no conscious decisions, they were simply products of how the sword moved. How it glided in the air.

Normally, it would take multiple strikes to get through the flesh of even just a Beowolf. Especially if the combatant was using a light weapon, but Jaune would glide through several Beowolves at once. Ursas were tough and would take way more hits, but Jaune would consistently decapitate them with a single swing. Boarbatusk were a horrible menace on the hunting grounds, especially when they start rolling, but Jaune would simply bat them away at speeds that could rival a relatively slow dust round.

And the things he did to Deathstalkers... He would flip the sword like he would with the Boarbatusks, avoid the stingers and maybe somehow rip or cut it off, and then crush it. Squashing it like the very insects it imitated.

He was destroying them.

Aside from the Murders of Mini-Nevermores that seemed to more annoy him than genuinely hurt him, not a single one was able to even scrape a claw on him. And, when they tried, they would find themselves in twos or threes, or even fours. He was uncatchable, untouchable, ...Invincible.

She stood there, bright-eyed and mouth wide agape at seeing such a display of sheer strength and skill.

Where was all this? Where was all this before? Jaune is intoxicated, she can tell despite how graceful and deliberate his movements were. So, was this one of his secrets, she and the others have always known that Jaune was hiding something. They had never attempted to confront him about it simply because of how stressed out he already always was. He performed poorly in class and combat, but that doesn't make any sense now. Was this the secret? Was this what he was hiding?

...Why would he hide something so incredible?

...

While Pyrrha's brain was going into overdrive at seeing her leader, who was infamous in Beacon for being among the worst-performing students when it came to direct combat and academics, basically exterminate Grimm with such speed and precision that she herself couldn't produce without heavy help from her semblance.

Ren and Nora were doing their own thing.

Ren was recording the entire fight on his scroll... Well, it was less of a fight and more of a massacre. And, Nora was going absolutely ape-shit.

"Ren... Ren. Ren. Ren! REN! REN! REEEEEEEEEEEN! Are you seeing what I'm seeing!? Are you SEEING what I'M SEEING! AAAAAAAAAAHHH!" Her ear-piercing screams of raw unfiltered excitement would leave most with a ruptured eardrum, but Ren was used to the loud and proud attitude towards things that he just kept recording with the utmost concentration.

"Yes, Nora. I can see everything, and so will everyone else at the school." Ren said a bit to calmly, but Nora could tell what was really going in his head. By looking at the small smile that slightly curled his lips and a slight glare of morbid satisfaction, she knew he was just enjoying this as much as she was. That semblance really came in handy when it came to self-control. "I'm trying to get everything on video, maybe with this we can convince the other students to quit looking down on him."

His smile took on a small shade of darkness.

"And, maybe, this can scare Cardin off of him, too."

He was trying to capture everything. From Jaune vaporizing entire platoons of Beowolves and Ursas, to his surprising speed agility when it came to avoiding Deathstalker stingers and Gryphon dives. But, the one thing he put a lot of attention on, was the literal pile of vaporizing Grimm he fought on top of. It was deep, possibly neck high at the centre. He must have killed thousands of them, while completely intoxicated... This was the golden ticket that'll get Jaune the respect he deserves.

After today, no one will no longer speak ill of him ever again... Maybe Weiss would, but honestly. Outside of Jaune and her own team, no one cares about she says. She didn't have the best reputation outside of her own group.

The things he was doing was beyond anything he had seen any other students do. He swept through entire legions of Grimm in a single bound, crushed the near-impenetrable armour of Boarbatusks and Deathstalkers in a single strike, endured countless Nevermore swarms without budging at all, and did so on top of an entire army of dead Grimm. He has been killing them faster than they can fully dissolve. All this, while completely intoxicated...

"Incredible..."

He was a machine. A drunk machine, but a machine nonetheless.

On the other, Nora was squealing in excitement. Her Fearless Leader was finally showing his true colours. Literally. There were like three different colours on him. She and Ren have witnessed entire teams of fully-fledged Huntsmen swallowed by seas of Grimm hoards, never to re-emerge again. This was a similar situation, but this time, it wasn't like that exactly, it was more like a growing Grimm pile courtesy of the Fearless Leader Himself.

"Ohmygosh! Ohmygosh! Ohmygosh! REN! OOOOOHHH! REN! DID YOU SEE WHAT HE DID TO THAT DEATHSTALKER!?" She bounced up and down with incontrollable vigour, so much so, that she was thinking about just jumping in there herself and joining Jaune in battle.

"Oh, yeah, Nora. I'm seeing everything...and so will everyone else." He took a small nod, smiling at the sight of Jaune dismembering said Deathstalkers legs leaving it completely immobilized before cutting off its tail and promptly crushing through its skull with that weird upside-down thing he was doing with that big sword of his. "...And so will everyone else..."

"YEAAAAAAAAAHHH! GO FEARLESS LEADER!

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'For the love of war crimes, can that bloody ginger please shut the fuck up!?'

His control over his host's brain was getting worse, and the ginger's annoying yells and whoops were starting to get to him. Here he was, fighting on top a massive pile of dead morons for what he can assume was approximately... fifteen minutes... He's been fighting for fifteen minutes and this bastard is still going. There is no fucking way he is going to be able to exhaust a significant portion of this scrublord's Aura at this rate.

Especially not since he's lost over eighty overall influence over this nerd's brain. This plan better work.

The continues screeches of "KICK THEIR BONEY BUTTS!", "BREAK THEIR LEGS!", and "SKULLS FOR THE SKULL GODS! BLOOD FOR THE BLODD THRONES!" was genuinely annoying, and disturbing his precious focus.

...

The hoard stopped.

At decapitating the last Ursa that tried to charge and failed just like the fifty-something others before it, he looked out around and "saw" that there were no more Grimm flooding through the tree line. There was a valuable silence in this, a small moment of peace and quiet. He can now re-route the majority of his attention back to gaining ground on the brain, just a bit more if this plan was going to work. Moving fast as fuck was important to taking down that oversized bird.

Which was now diving at him at roughly two hundred kilometres-per-hour, feathers ready to detach and deploy, and with full honest to remnant intentions of fucking killing him! Nice!

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"Oh no. Ohno. OHNO! NO! NONONONONONO! JAUNE! JAAAUUUUNE!" As soon as heard the tell tail whistling of death, he looked and found the Giant diving. His face went pale... uh... paler? I mean, this dude has the skin tone of a ghost what am I supposed to say? His eyes went wide and he almost lost his grip on the scroll. He called out his team leader's name and waved his one arm back and forth in hopes of getting his attention while still holding up the scroll with the other.

For a second, Nora thought that Ren was cheering with her, and then she remembered that Ren doesn't cheer, but he does tend to scream and yell in terror during desperate situations that can mean life or death. So, she followed her ears to where the whistling was, aaannd...

"That's bad. That's really bad. That's really really REALLY bad! JAUNE-JAUNE! JAUNE-JAAAUUUNE! I KNOW YOU'RE OUR FEARLESS LEADER, BUT NOW'S NOT THE TIME TO BE FEARLESS! JAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUNNNE!"

Pyrrha broke out her trance from watching Jaune melt through that hoard like a hot knife through milk and going through every possible explanation on why he was hiding what he could really do. The two were yelling and calling out Jaune's name and waving their arms in the air profusely. At first, she too thought that they were just cheering, but when she saw the fear and desperation carved into their expressions, she realized that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

"What? Wait, what's going on? Why are you two screaming!?" Pyrrha asked before the two whipped their heads so fast to look at her that she thought that they were going to fly off.

"IT'S DIVING!" They both screamed in perfect harrowing sync, pointing in the rapidly incoming giant.

"Oh... I forgot about that... JJJAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUNNE!"

Now all three of them were screaming, and "Jaune" did indeed notice.

|\|

'..I fuckin' hate those three. Yeah, of course, I can see that thing coming! It's a giant fuckin' pitch black bird the size of a school with giant glowing golden feathers in the middle of a dark-blue midnight. YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE BLINDER THAN BLIND TO NOT SEE THAT! SHUT THE FUCK UP! PLEASE!' He wished he left the temporal lobe alone, so he wouldn't have to hear all the garbage.

Unfortunately for the invader, he still didn't have access to the part of the brain that regulated speech. However, he did manage to recover a lot. During those precious five seconds, he was able to take back most of the Cerebellum and Brain Stem, including the occipital lobe. He can now see through the eyes again. Things were going handsomely. He had full control of physical movements and finer functions, along with excellent vision.

For the Cerebrum, he only captured the necessary parts for the plan. The motor cortex was required for movement. He's going to need it for that Nevermore.

*CAAAW*

The Nevermore quickly appeared above the battlefield, sending down heavy rock-like feathers like a bomber. The artillery caused the earth, the surrounding pile, to rupture.

Speaking of that Nevermore, it was getting quite close. It was at about a kilometre away from what he can see and was now gaining speed in its dive.

'Sheeeesh! That thing doesn't have as many golden feathers as it should, must have been in a previous scuffle. I feel sorry for whatever went and gone pissed it off... Man, it's angry. Damn, is it foaming from its mouth!? I didn't know Grimm can foam, or was that a new thing? Ah, fuck it! I've got a plan to go over again. Alright. Alright. Just remember the steps, if you bosh one, you bosh them all. Alright, time to get Jazzy!'

He lowered his stance, rested the sword on his shoulder, kept his eyes peeled on the approaching Nevermore, and went over the five main steps again, ensuring that he wouldn't fail. Because, if he did, his wielder was as good as dead. This required heavy precision and thought. It was moving at two hundred kilometres per hour, and if his guess was right, those feathers would be coming at him at roughly five hundred. If he timed this right, this daft plan of his might just work.

Every step must be executed perfectly. For both their sake.

'HOLY SHIT! CAN THOSE ASSHOLES GET ANY LOUDER!? Ok, ok, ok. Ignore them and just focus on the bird. Focus on the bird, that's right. Focus. on. the bird.' The sheer speed and coordination to make this work required a lot of his focus. He watched as the bird came closer, and closer, closer. He knew when the thing would deploy its feathers and when it would climb to avoid a crash. He's seen and fought many of them before.

He's lost so many wielders to these so-called Huntsmen Killers. So many, mostly it was due to their own stupidity, at times it was just a stroke of terrible luck that brought them to their demise. But, after possibly a thousand years of dormancy, he was not going to take any chances. He doesn't know how many more years it would be until another moron picked him up, and quite frankly, he didn't want to know.

He was so sick of doing nothing for so long.

'950 meters. 900 meters.' Here it comes. '850 meters. 800 meters.' This needs to go right. ' 750 meters. 600 meters.' Just a bit closer. '550 meters. 400 meters.' C'mon... '430 meters. 400. 350. 300. 250. 200!' Now!

He sent the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Right Cortex and the Brain Stem into overdrive. Time slowed down around him considerable. His reaction time was doubled.

The Nevermore sent down a storm of massive feathers. Some black, some gold. They were moving over double the bird's speed, and each of them rapidly hardened from the moment they were separated from the wings, making them denser and more likely to get through material and Aura. This would have been and will be the last thing many will see before their worldly departure...

But not this one.

By the time the first feather was just a couple or three meters away from him, Jaune sprung into action. The plan was set into motion.

Step 1. Reach the Nevermore by bouncing off of the feathers. Note: Avoid the golden ones.

He sent a massive supply of aura into his legs, specifically his calves, hip muscles and butt cheeks. There wasn't much muscle to work with and his ass was virtually nonexistent, but at least he had somewhat respectable calves.

He launched himself onto the first feather on the left. It was pitch black and did not contain any aura-disrupting substances, this was off to a good start. The jump was so powerful that it itself had launched things from the ground as well.

It sent decaying body parts, debris, and mud flying in all directions. The jump left a small crater in its wake.

The second jump was not so good. He jumped to the right, and had almost been caught by one of those golden feathers, but was lucky enough to get on another black feather on time.

He had successfully climbed over thirty meters.

He jumps again to the left where a relatively large feather was coming down. The hail golden feathers got worse. It seems the Nevermore threw more of its black feathers out before the golden ones. Two golden feathers almost portioned him up into threes, but he was able to jump onto the next feather before they could reach him.

Sixty meters were covered.

Landing on the fourth feather was a pain, another golden one almost struck him in the groin. Not that that was much of a long term problem. With his impeccable knowledge of the human body and his host's stupid inhuman aura pool, he can simply reconstruct the dick later. But, losing it right now would, honestly, fucking suck.

Moving this fast, this quickly, made his ears pop. Ninety meters.

The hail of feathers got even worse, it was raining black and gold. Mostly black, thankfully. Feathers whizzed by him as he made his next leap for the fifth and last feather of the plan. He jumped to the right. During this, a golden feather flew above him near his head and sliced off quite a bit of his hair. Thankfully it was nothing important.

He'd rather be short of some hair than be short of a head. One hundred and twenty meters.

The first phase was complete, he has reached the fifth feather. Things were going perfectly so far.

This was perfect, The hard part of the plan was over. He looked the Nevermore straight in all four of its red beady eyes and grinned. Oh, he's got control over facial features again! Not necessary, but still nice to have. By thinking over the ways physics would interact with the Nevermore's dive, he was able to calculate just when and where it'll be by the time Jaune had landed on the fifth feather.

By thinking over the Bird's speed, trajectory, and weight, the outcome was becoming clear. Due to a mix of inertia, drag, and gravity, the bird slow down significantly as soon as it launched the feathers. Because, of its large size and the way it was firing the projectiles, drag played a massive factor in the whole thing. With this in mind, The Giant Nevermore slowed down enough to be just at a little over one hundred and fifty kilometres from the ground by the time Jaune had landed on the fifth feather.

It was just thirty meters away, just the right distance. Jaune can make the jump to the right wing.

Step 2. Get to the right wing and prepare the strike.

Taking the sixth leap in the plan, the boy propelled himself towards the monster's right wing to his left. It curled both wings forward to shoot, the perfect position for Jaune to hop aboard. He was no longer being pelted by plumage, it seems that the Nevermore had exhausted all of its ammunition. The leap was a success, Jaune was now on the right wing, all he needed to do now was angle himself in a way to perform the next step.

Step 3. Jump onto the left wing underneath the neck to decapitate the Nevermore.

Here comes the fun part. He looked the Avian asshole in the eyes... well... two of its four eyes. The monster was shocked, one moment it was hurling everything it had at the ridiculously resilient light, next thing it knew was that the light was right beside it as if it had just suddenly re-manifested into existence. It could see that light was grinning and enjoying this. It was so bright that burned at the eyes.

He angled himself just right. He'll pass cleanly below the neck and land on the other wing with little to no resistance. There was nothing it can do, there was no possible way out of the inevitable. Things were set up just right, the plan was working... It's time to commit the critical act! Again, just like the last five times, Jaune performed his sixth bound. His sword reeled back and was ready to give a fine clean cut.

In a fraction of a second, he swung from above... and straight down.

The speed at which he was going had disturbed the trajectory of the bird. All the kinetic energy transferred over to the left of the beast, causing it to spin counter clock-wise while its altitude rapidly decreased. The Nevermore was spinning out of control will it closed in on the ground, its neck coughing up massive plumes of smoke where the head used to be.

Nearby, the decapitated armoured head of the monster was falling at critical velocity, smashing into the ground and pile of Grimm corpses that laid there.

Step 4. Hold on for dear fucking life.

Quite explanatory, all he had to do was hold on for dear fucking life. So, he did exactly that by gripping the nearly naked wing of the Nevermore.

Step 5. Do not die when reaching the ground. Dying would be incredibly inconvenient.

The Nevermore's body continued to spin quickly as it dissolved in the air. The combination of momentum, wind direction and wind speed made this whole situation worse it should. But, he was sure that survival won't be a problem. Especially all this Aura. Anything that would try to harm would simply bounce off, and if it didn't, there was enough Aura in this bitch to construct whole human bodies.

Bodies, as in plural. Sweet corn on a cob this bastard has a metric fuck ton of Aura!

The spinning suddenly stopped, and he was launched back down onto the ground from around a twenty or maybe twenty five meter fall. He crashed back down on the mud again, as if he wasn't well introduced many times before in the span of a single night. Soil soup flew everywhere, a crater was made, yaddy yaddy yadda... You know how fast things going into shlurp dirt works already. Heavy fast thing makes brown soup go sploosh.

He got back up again, sword still in hand. This time it had not flown away from another crash.

'Phew... Another happy landing!'

He turned around and saw the nevermore impaled into multiple trees. Smoke fumes heavily rose from each puncture along from the clean stump where the head used to be. It slowly dissolved. Falling apart piece by piece like an ice cube in the high noon sun. It was honestly kind of metal. The image was so perfect for a dark metal album cover. It was just that good!

He turned his ears to where the three stooges were and heard nothing but silence. He praised and thanked all forms of probability from the fact that they had now shut the fuck up. Not that it mattered.

He had already lost all his influence on the brain, the only semblance of influence he had left was on the nerves of his hands. Which, he activated to ensure that Jaune's grip around the sword was now as tight as it can be. In order to avoid the body from tearing itself apart, he had directed the continuous stream of seemingly endless Aura into the sword, causing it to glow harshly while it was enveloped by white flames.

This was all he can do now, he can only keep the boy from letting go and risking death by his own overpowering soul.

|\|

If they said that they were speechless, it would an honest to dust understatement. A big understatement. A massive understatement. A colossal understatement. An understatement of unfathomably biblical proportions. The three stood there together in utter shock. The three stood there together trying to process what had just happened. The three stood there...looking at the decaying Nevermore Jaune had clapped out of the sky in less than two seconds.

"Ren..."

"Yeah, Pyrrha...?"

"Did you get that...?"

"...Yeah... Yeah... I got that. I got all of that..."

Ren brought the scroll down, replaying the two-second moment where Jaune managed to jump from feather to feather and decapitate the Nevermore with a single swing.

If there's one thing Ren knew, it's that you can't normally use Nevermore feathers as fucking platforms to hop from, and it normally took a lot more than one strike to bring a Giant Nevermore down. Ok, that was two things. Shut up. Except, he remember this was not a normal situation. In fact, it was the farthest thing from normal. He activated his semblance to keep him from contracting the infectious insanity in which just had occurred.

...It was already too late for Nora.

"YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! WOOHOOOOOOO! GO FEARLESS LEADEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRR!"

Way too late...

"REN! REN! DID YOU SEE THAT!? DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DID YOU SEE HIM TAKE THE THAT THING OUT OF THE SKY LIKE IT WAS NOTHING!? HE JUST WENT ZOOM! AND THEN SHING! THEN IT WAS SPINNING LIKE WHOOOSH! AND THEN ITS HEAD WENT DOWN AND THEN KA-POOOOWWW! AHAHAHAHAHAH! AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAH! AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAH! KICK THEIR BUTTS, JAUNE-JAUNE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!"

Apeshit... She's gone apeshit.

As Nora was filling the air with her cheers and unhinged screaming and an awful sound she labels as her war cry, Pyrrha noticed something has changed. Jaune was twitching... Convulsing. There were no more Grimm. They were either all dead, or they may have ran away. Grimm can develop a sense of preservation after all, but that was the thing. Grimm rarely ran, and when they did, it was due to a threat they couldn't face.

This was incredible... Jaune... was incredible. But, he was just standing there now. Convulsing.

'Maybe it was time to go down there and- He darted through trees, leaving another crater from where he stood. "!"

His sudden disappearance into the shrubbery alerted Pyrrha and the others. Ren had to shake Nora out before he could explain that Jaune had dipped on them and was moving south.

"What the-!? Where's he going!?" Pyrrha absentmindedly remarked.

"He's heading south..." Ren took a moment to think about the significance of that direction, and then it hit him. "He's heading south! Pyrrha! Nora! We need to catch him before he reaches the Grimm pools!"

"THE GRIMM POOLS!? Why would Jaune-Jaune go to the Grimm pools!? I get that he's our fearless leader and all that, BUT THAT'S INSANE! WHY WOULD HE DO THAT!?" We need to get to him before he gets there!" Nora was getting ready to crush another lightning dust crystal in her hands to absorb all that electricity, before being stopped by Pyrrha.

"Wait, what? There are Grimm Pools near Vale!?" Pyrrha knew what Grimm Pools were, but she didn't know that there was one near the Kingdom of Vale. She also wondered why it was so close to the Kingdom... Why would they build a Kingdom so close to one? How did they even manage to build one at all!?"

"Yes!" Ren turned around to see her eye to eye "There are multiple Grimm Pools just south of here! They're just a couple of Kilometers away!"

"KILOMETERS!? WHA-!? HOW!? HOW IS VALE EVEN STILL HERE!? Why is Vale even here!? Why did they build the kingdom so close to them!?"

"That is a really really long story that we'll get into later, but right now, we need to stop Jaune from getting to them!"

They dashed on after him, sliding the slope and landing on the massive pile of dissolving Grimm corpses. The monsters were rapidly decaying now, it's been a hot minute since most of them were slain. The pile was starting to shallow. They ran across a field of corpses and, too, disappeared into the trees themselves. Nora crushed the Lightning Dust in her hand and picked up Ren as if he weighs nothing. She slung him over her shoulder like before.

"Ren!" Pyrrha shouted, running alongside Nora as they dodged trees in their respective superhuman speeds. The wind roared over their ears, making it hard to hear. "Why would Jaune be going for the Grimm Pools!? I get that he's drunk, but this is crazy!"

Ren lifted his head up to face Pyrrha again.

"I don't know! I don't know why he woul-!"

"Maybe Fearless Leader's looking for a challenge! Maybe he got bored of not fighting and decided to conquer the Pools in his rightful name!" Nora was fast, possibly faster than Pyrrha. So, she slowed down a bit. For a woman so short, she can move. "Jaune-Jaune must have been itching for a real battle, and thought that the best way to satisfy that itch was to go to WAR!"

"...As insane as that is, Nora's probably right. We've seen Jaune can do, he might actually be actively hunting the Grimm!"

"I'm sorry, but why!? I don't understand why he would be actively looking for more Grimm! Why won't he just come back to Beacon?"

"Pyrrha, Jaune's intoxicated. I know Nora goes on and on about Jaune being "fearless", but this might actually be the case! You've seen what he was doing. He was laughing and grinning throughout that fight of his. He was enjoying it! As Nora said, he's probably looking for more to fight!"

"Probably!?" Nora butted in. "NO! Definitely! Jaune-Jaune's looking for something to get his blood pumping, I'm sure of it! Why else would he head for the Pools? He's gonna get through that Grimm Hoard like it wasn't even there!"

"And then?" Ren refuted.

"AND THEN... And then... And thennnn, uuuhhh... Ok! I don't know what he'll do then, but I do know he's going to kick so much butt!" Her proud claims of Jaune's abilities have always been quite... blown out of proportions, but in this case, she might actually be right. That was new.

Pyrrha, having enough of Nora's antics, slowed down behind Nora to face Ren, again.

"Ren! What can we expect from the Grimm Pool?"

"..."

"Ren?"

"...It's been known to spawn up to five fully armed Giant Nevermores in a minute."

"I'm sorry, WHAT!?"

Faster than they have ever seen her before, Pyrrha virtually flew forward. She didn't run past trees, she ran through them, like a heavy-duty locomotive on two legs and high heels, crushing everything in her path. Nora trailed behind her, watching her fold trees and send rocks flying like bullets.

"OOOOH! RENNY DID YOU SEE THAT!?"

"See what? Wait, where's Pyrrha?"

Back to Jaune

'Sweet bitches of bastards, this is horrible.'

Jaune was completely feral now. He was "awake", but he was as awake as a litre of alcohol was suitable for everyday consumption. There was absolutely no form, no function, no foresight. He simply swung in all directions like a madman, treating the greatsword more like a big metal stick than a finely crafted weapon designed for specific actions in mind. Said greatsword was being treated horribly, at least it was a lot prettier than it used to be due to all the glowing.

The glowing...

It was getting worse. White lights in his nerves and veins have expanded and were completely enveloping him. His eyes, which were already quite intense before, were now blinding to directly look at. The hair, although cut a bit shorter from his run-in with the Giant Nevermore, sat atop his head like a small savage golden fire, lashing out in all directions.

He was barely surviving, the invader can tell that Jaune was in an abundant amount of pain. His own Aura was eating away at him like a flame, but mended things back together like soothing water. This process would cause nerves to go ham, which may explain the serious convulsions and rapid shaking. Jaune was still heavily intoxicated despite being very, very much "awake". Unconsciously awake.

That Huntsman grade booze really did stick to him.

While this was all happening, He was trying to expel as much excess Aura as possible away from Jaune. It gave the aura a place to go instead of building up and bursting through the boy, the sword itself. Every time Jaune would strike a Grimm, it wouldn't matter how fast or how accurately he hit it, it would just fry upon contact. It would be lit ablaze, the Aura would invade the Grimm corporeal form and take as much space as it can before effectively atomizing it completely.

Toughness meant nothing, armour meant nothing, not even speed would save the Grimm. The aura would actively seek them out like a white blood cell defending its home from an invasive bacteria. The murders of Mini-Nevermores were no longer a problem due to the fact that they would fry once they came into physical contact with Jaune himself. He didn't even need to hit anything with the sword to kill it, his Aura would do it for him.

Just even a small touch would do incredible damage to Grimm. There was also something else the Aura would do. Every time Jaune took a step, flowers and grass would grow beneath his feet in less than a second. The power of his soul was showing off its less destructive tendencies.

It didn't know where the boy was going, all it did know was that he needed to keep stimulating the nerves in his hands to keep that tight grip. If he loosens up just a little bit, he was going to die. And, It didn't want his new wielder to die, not after just getting him. He'll give everything he had to ensure this bastard survived, he needed to. He didn't want to go back to just doing nothing.

He will never go back to being nothing.

Soon, they arrived in a decollate area where the ground was grey and life did not flourish. Multiple pools of a black tar-like substance prominently churned and swirled like infected wounds on the earth itself. Monsters were crawling out of them, and thousands of glowing red eyes belonging to forming nightmares attempted to pierce his soul, but his own blue retaliated with its own murderous glare.

There were so many of them, the invader can spot thousands of them. Within those numbers were all the different types he had fought recently.

'Oh... so this is why he was hauling ass over here... I wish I could still summon popcorn.'

Both Jaune and the invader were thinking of the same thing, despite the former not really thinking at all.

Before the black bodies could fully form, Jaune attacked. He struck with the ferocity of a rabid animal, driven by an unknown desire to wipe away the darkness before him. He was in so much pain, but that pain made the most primal recesses of his mind driving him to search and destroy whatever darkness he could find.

Jaune was a shooting star cleaving through the blackness. He struck like a garbage truck and moved like a missile. Thoughtless in his form, he pushed on. The Pools, in response, whirled and bubbled with rage to his presence. Eruptions of tar filled the sky as chunks and lumps of material descended down. Thousands of dark meteors splashed on the lifeless ground, gaining form by the time of their landing.

The muts were torn asunder, the walking pillars of fat were overpowered, the hogs were blown away, and giant bugs were squashed with no mercy in mind. The murders, newly formed, attempted to chip away at the light. But, like moths to a flame, they flew too close to the sun and vaporized upon contact with their target. The Gryphons poured their efforts into stopping the light, but the same thing would always happen.

If they touch him, they die. If they miss, they still die.

Jaune was smashing diving Gryphons out of the sky. When they successfully struck him, they would get incinerated by the Aura. When they miss, he would simply strike them down in retaliation. The Grimm were helpless to stop him. He couldn't be overpowered, he couldn't be caught, and he couldn't even be touched. Deathstalkers should have already pierced his flesh multiple times, and that should have been the end of it.

But, again, any physical contact with Jaune would simply cause any Grimm to spontaneously combust.

This means the same Aura jamming substance they used to consistently snuff out Huntsmen would not even reach its target before burning up. The Grimm were fatally allergic to him and just the mere prospect of a touch spelt doom for them. His mad swings and boundless speed ensured that none was shown any shred of mercy.

He screamed, shouted, and snarled like a wild beast, each bellow would leave the ground shaking and the wind cowering. His lungs were able to take in more air than before, far more. His ribs expanded from every breath, making him broader. Pushing his bones and flesh with every rapid inhalation. His lungs were being pushed to the brink, trying to squeeze through the gaps of its skeletal prison, deforming the body it belonged to.

'Oh shit! Ok, that's not supposed to be happening. Sweet mother of- Ow! Imagine what that's doing to the rest of his organs. They must look like velvet frosting by now! Fuckin' hell...'

The voice took concern to the boy's physical health. It noted the deformations occurring, watching from the eye-like gem on the sword as his chest bloated due to overuse of the lungs.

'His skeletal system probably has spider webs all over them, his muscular system most likely looks like shredded cheese by now, and his internal organs are most definitely fucked... If he survives this, he's definitely gonna feel all this in the morning. I'm genuinely surprised this mad-lad ain't DEAD yet!'

And he won't be dead anytime, not with how he was melting through the growing Grimm hoard forming out of the pools, and the fact that he was being put back together as fast as he was being torn apart by his own soul.

"JAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUNE!" The shrill desperate call of a woman echoed out of the trees. "JAUNE! WHERE ARE YOU!? JAAAAUUUUNE!"

Pyrrha has flown into the fray.

She rocketed out of the trees and befell onto the desolate lifeless soil beneath. She took a moment to level herself, knowing that she was in the immediate presence of the Vale's Grimm Pools. She scanned the dead land for him, it wasn't hard to spot the human torch that her leader has become.

Pyrrha's breath hitched slightly at the sight of him. Gone was the deliberate and graceful simplicity of his actions, replaced by the impulsive and savage crudity of his efforts. He was enveloped by wrathful white flames of pure Aura. Every inch of his skin was set alight, and the only features she could see were the harsh radiance of his blue eyes and the glow of his fiery crown of gold.

The Grimm were not a problem for him at all, they just... crumbled around him.

The sword Jaune's been wielding the entire time she's seen him fought with was just bursting with colour, as if the blade was made of rainbows... What she didn't know was that the reason why it looked like that was because the sword was hard at work doing its damn best to neutralize and expel as much Jaune Juice as it can, internally screaming curses and profanities just as colourful as the rainbow itself.

Light refraction aside, Jaune looked absolutely bussin'. In absolute agony, but still absolutely bussin'.

Some of the Grimm had turned their attention to Pyrrha instead, thinking they could make better progress with her. She threw her shield out, and with the help of her semblance, forced it to circle around her. The shield clobbered against the Grimm and threw them back, but it did not kill all of them. A particularly annoyed Ursa recovered from getting its head bashed in and charge, only to get to spike by a spear.

With a small spin and the retraction of her semblance, Pyrrha called back Milo and Akuo respectively.

Though, she didn't notice the tar-like chunks behind her quickly form into more of those monsters. She turned around after hearing a series of growls and found herself face to face with a small platoon consisting of Beowolves and Ursas. She took a stance and prepared to fight them head-on, but her focus was disrupted by a series of whistles. Out from the sky, three objects descended on the crowd of beasts. They blew up simultaneously, sending many of them and their pieces flying.

Nora has erupted the arena.

Two more figures flew out of the trees. One moved quickly and swiftly, the other fell crudely and heavily. Nora smashed into the remaining cluster with her hammer while Ren flanked them with both his automatic guns. Although Ren did not do much harm to the Grimm, he did piss them off with that constant stream of fire. Besides, it was his jobs to annoy them, and Nora's job to wreck them.

The two made quick work on the remaining beasts, though it was mostly because of Nora's lightning shocking the shit out of everything nearby.

"Hey, Pyrrha! Wasn't cool of you leaving us to bite your dust back there!" Nora playfully snickered.

"I'm sorry!"

"Well, you can be sorry by doing what you do best." Ren skidded behind Nora. "It's obvious Jaune's not having any problems over there."

He was right. Although their leader had amassed a small army of Grimm, that small army wasn't really doing much to him at all.

"Oh Yeah! Kick Their Butts Jaune-Jaune! Ren we need to get over there and fight with him."

"No, Nora. We can't fight with Jaune."

"But, why noooot!?"

"Because he's surrounded by Deathstalkers and being rained on by at least twelve different flocks of Nevermores."

"But, c'mon! He's doing fine, why can't we?"

"Because, we're not Jaune, and you definitely can't just bust through Deathstalker armour in like two or three hits in most circumstances."

"But, Reeeeennn-a!"

"No, we're staying here with Pyrrha..."

Pyrrha, feeling awkward at listening to the two argue in the middle of a deadland near a series of Grimm Pools, decided that spectating her partner was a better use of her time.

"Renny, look. Jaune-Jaune's doing great! For, once he's actually fighting for realzeis! We're his team! We should be out there breaking legs with him!"

"Nora, please. I get that you're excited about this whole thing, but may I remind you that we're close to Vale's Grimm Pools?"

"Oh that doesn't matter, we've got Jaune-Jaune running around annihilating them. We'll be fine!"

"Nora, again, please. We can't afford to be careless just because of Jaune."

"But Reeen!"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Pretty please?"

"No"

"Pretty pretty pleeaase?"

"...No."

Alright, it's time to pull out the big guns. If Ren wasn't going to let them battle with Jaune that easily, then she'll use the secret Valkyrie technique. She took a deep breath, put Magnhild away to clasp her hands together, and fell onto her knees. She looked him in the eye with the most miserable and desperate expression she could muster, years of practice shining through her efforts.

"...No. Nononono. That's not working this time. We are not going in there to fight with Jaune."

The barricades were tough this time, Nora upped the intensity and ensured that her turquoise eyes stabbed through his magenta in hopes of reaching his soul. Ren buckled for a moment, his own eyes barely holding against the onslaught.

"No. Not this time, Nora..."

She was relentless. She will break him. The two were locked in a battle of will, Nora will not stand down. Fighting with their leader in such a moment was just too glorious to give up. Ren will not win this one, and she will ensure it.

"...Please, Ren. This is special to me... to us." Those words were the final nails in his coffin.

And just like that, Ren lost the argument.

"Ok! Ok. Just... stop looking at me like that. We'll go fight with Jaune."

"EEEEEEEE!"

"But you have to promise, that you'll be as careful as you can, ok?" He gripped her shoulders and looked her in the eye once more. "Don't do anything too, crazy. Crazy might be your thing, but please. Promise you won't be too careless"

"*Grumbles* Promise..."

"I want to hear you say it as I say. I promise that I won't do anything too crazy."

"Ugh!" She whipped her head back. "OK! I promise I won't do anything too crazy. Happy?"

"Good. That's what I wanted to hear, we're gonna go over to Jaune now."

"YES!" Nora threw her fist in the air as she jumped from the ground. She hopped up and down in unruly excitement, screaming "YES!" repeatedly.

Pyrrha, hearing some of the conversations go down, was still observing the J of team JNPR. A great big smile adorned her face as Jaune successfully killed another squad of Deathstalkers in succession. Although his finesse was gone, he still tore through numbers by the hundreds. But, she was still incredibly worried. That glow... She's only seen it once before. It was when she unlocked his Aura.

Was it his semblance? She thought, but she really couldn't be all too sure.

"Pyrrha!" Ren called over, snapping her away from her thinking again. "Me and Nora are going to get in there and help Jaune."

"Yup! Me and Renny are going to go over there and break some legs!" Nora produced a guttural growl during the "Break their legs!" part.

Pyrrha's eye twitch.

"Why would you two do that!? Jaune might be fine on his own, but I don't think you two can handle all..." Her frantic hands waved to display the sight before them. "That!"

"Don't worry, Pyrrha." The green one said. "I can cover Nora and myself for quite a bit."

Ren placed his hand on Nora's shoulder and willed his semblance to envelope her. Snakes of Green and Magenta slithered from his arm and onto her, covering her entirely.

"We're only going to be there for while, maybe less than two minutes. Nora really wants to fight with Jaune, and you know I can't stop her over something like this." Ren prepared Stormflower, taking out two magazines out from his coat. "Besides, I need to get a read on what's happening to Jaune. Whatever it is, it's not normal... I've never seen anything like that before."

Pyrrha was in a state of inner turmoil. On one hand, they were close to Vale's Grimm Pools while said Grimm Pools were spewing out Grimm after Grimm like an industrial machine! Thousands of them were being produced, but most could not live any longer than a minute with Jaune sending them back to Oblivion as soon as they spawned. On the other hand, if they can get closer, they might be able to take a good look at him and see what was wrong...

"Ren, hit me!"

|\|

'Augh bollocks, this sucks... Why does this bastard have so much Aura? I've already expelled enough to power a small militia! This is ridiculous! Oh, this is a right pain, this is.'

Things were not looking good for the greatsword. After losing control over its wielder and letting him succumb to the will of his most primal of instincts. It can't remember how many times it's been bent by the blonde bastard, but at least all this Aura made it easier to bend itself back straight. It's been clobbered in mud, rocks, trees, whatever this black shit is, and so. Since allowing Jaune to let go of it was not an option, it just sat there taking all the abuse being thrown at it.

'Shit's fucked, mate...'

While the sword was being abused harder than a Faunus in the north Atlan entertainment industry, Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora were making their way closer to Jaune, thanks to Ren's semblance which made them virtually invisible towards the Grimm. They navigated their way around entire hoards, more squads of Deathstalkers and Boarbatusks, and quickly made their way over to their intoxicated, and possibly mad, leader.

"Ren, how long would it take until your semblance fizzles up."

"Normally, I can keep my semblance going all day. But, with you three in the mix, it'll only last up to ten minutes to an hour. I really can't tell, you're eating up so much of my Semblance, Pyrrha. Nora, you doing good?"

"Yup! I'm doing just fine. Just peachy! I'm doing great!"

"...Uhm, does she normally do that? I don't think I've ever seen her do that."

"Are you talking about how she's vibrating like a car engine? If so, yeah. It happens when she's super excited."

Despite the help of Ren's semblance, the Grimm were still a problem. Beowolves trampled everything in their path, Ursa's flattened anything in their way, and Boarbatusks crushed all that was unfortunate enough to be on in front of them as they rolled out, all to die to Jaune. They jumped over stampedes, dodged charges, and vaulted over rolling white bones.

They finally arrived. They were close enough to witness their leader's savagery first-hand, and their eyes stuck to his spinning form. No grace, no form, no plan, just intent. Pyrrha could finally see him up close... There was no way out of this now, they were in the thick of it. Grimm surrounded them entirely. They ducked, barely avoiding the wild swings of the sword. Jaune was exclusively swinging horizontal cuts, allowing them to just lie down and watch Grimm get torn vaporized.

Pyrrha looked on in fascination. She studied him, taking in every action and attempted to extract as much nuance as she can. His stance was still low, but his straight back and controlled swings were no longer apparent. She took notes on how he fought both after and before he devolved into a glowing sword-swinging lung-busting nutjob. Another thing her mind grabbed on to was on how horribly deformed his torso was.

Every breath would cause it to expand to a degree that simply wasn't normal, even for Huntsman. His lungs were attempting to escape him by trying to burst through his rib cage. His shoulders, both from the deformation of his ribcage and the constant momentum pulling at them, were disgustingly broad. They also seemed to have also dislocated from both the scapula and clavicle, this meant that there was nothing keeping his shoulders attached to him but the thin skin that covered his body.

"Oh no... Jaune... What's happening to you...?"

Meanwhile, Ren was letting the surrounding Grimm have it as he jumped back up. Now, that he was no longer underneath Jaune's swings, he spun quickly in place to fire in all directions. Nora was laughing hysterically, going on about something called "Valhalla". She smacked an Ursa away with her hammer and then sent outbursts of grenades from the Magnhild's Launcher function. Pyrrha, knowing full well that doing nothing was detrimental right now, sent both Akuo and Milo out to seek their victims.

Ren sought out smaller prey. Beowolves were good pickings due to how his smaller weaker bullets did reasonable damage on them. The mini-Nevermores harassing them were also good to kill, because of the high fire rates and ammo capacity of his automatic firearms. He would easily avoid Ursas and Boarbatusks and proceeded to focus on his intended targets. The smaller, but far more numerous Grimm were his speciality.

Nora was the exact opposite, she went for Ursas and Boarbatusks. With her immense strength and primarily purposive weapon, she was able to dish desirable damage on the black demonic bears and pig-wheel hybrids from hell. She broke through the armoured Boarbatusks with ease and would perform the same trick that Jaune had done in the clearing. She would reel back and strike the hogs while they rolled over and send them over to particularly sturdy Ursa's, imitating her leader.

Pyrrha was capable of fending off almost every present Grimm type. She did quick worth the muts and bears, their unarmoured bodies very easily pierced by her spear Milo. The armoured Boarbatusk would not fear better as her shield Akuo would bash into them to break the bone that hid relatively soft Grimm flesh. The Gryphons posed no threat to her while she shot them down with Akuo's rifle function.

The only ones she had any real problem with were the murders of Nevermores, but that was because they were so small and so numerous. Ren picked them off quite well anyway. Sometimes Nora would send a grenade or two over to a densely packed flock.

Jaune was still swinging away like an angry idiot... A very effective angry idiot that was still stomping Grimm faster than all three of them combined.

This was not a simple fight. No... This was a war. There was no way Team JNPR was leaving, not even when the Pools intensified in their spawning. It attempted to form more Nevermores, but Jaune would see that and strike them down before they were even half-formed. The P, N, and R engaged the surrounding Grimm flooding in from the tree lines and the smaller pools pelting the edge of the DeadLands.

Big J stayed close to the bigger ones at the centre.

This went on for hours. The none stop fighting and shooting and cutting... Miraculously, Ren's semblance was still going strong, it hid the three effectively within those hours. The Grimm couldn't sense the extra three threats, all they could see was a blinding singular big one prowling about the inner pools. It became a game for three, it became less about taking down Grimm for their lives and devolved into a game of "How many Grimm can we keep off of Jaune and how cool can we look while doing it."

If the three were being honest about the circumstances of their current predicament, they would be lying if they said they weren't having fun. Exhaustion and lack of sleep aside, the three pushed on. Jaune didn't stop fighting, so why should they? This was their first chance to fight with their leader rather than fight for him while he was safely behind them. This time, he lead the front charge instead of commanding from the rear.

The three flipped, hopped, spun and did a series of tricks. They could afford it. Ren's semblance hid them from the hoard indefinitely while staying close to Jaune rejuvenated them and quickly recovered any aura they might have lost from spamming their respective semblances for better results. They had three simple steps. Fight Grimm, get close to Jaune to recover and go back to fighting Grimm. Rinse and repeat. Simple and fun!

They eventually ran out of ammunition and had to resort to exclusively using the melee functions of their mecha-shifts. But, that was completely fine. Although the lost luxuries of range offensives were met with sadness and frustration, they kept up the heat. Pyrrha was barely affected though, she can control metal and throw her weapons around like projectiles themselves, anyway.

Meanwhile, Jaune and his drunk-ass was still fucking spawn killing.

The battle raged on until sunrise. The Pools were coming close to exhausting all their tar, most were completely empty and rendered extinct, bringing their thousand years of terror to an end. The main pool had shallowed and was only creating poorly formed Boewolves, some not even having half their bodies yet, were being formed with what little recourses the pool still had.

The hoard had ended an hour ago, and the battle slowly calmed into short skirmishes. Jaune was no longer burning so brightly. He was still fast, hit like a garbage bag full of osmium, and mowed Grimm like grass. But, the intense glowing and near blinding speeds had come to a gradual crawl. The others noticed this when Jaune's screaming and yelling hoarsed and occurred less and less.

The white Aura fire that clung to him since this whole shitshow started extinguished recently.

"Whoa! It's morning already!?" Nora said as smashed another half-baked Ursa into paste. Although she ran out of lightning dust at around 2 AM and was undeniably hungry, she still kept fighting because of a combination of battle-mania and bloodlust.

The sun rose... and Jaune fell. His fall was sudden and unceremonious, they all heard the silence that came before it. He kissed the ground with the dignity of a soggy noodle. The glowing flickering out.

The three were quick to regroup over to him to check on him and protect him from any remaining Grimm. But, the monsters were not a problem anymore. That had effectively killed every Grimm that came at them the entire night, did not sustain a single casualty, and successfully exhausted Vale's northern Grimm Pool.

The Kingdom will not be dealing with any Grimm for possibly the entire next month.

Pyrrha was the first to come into contact with her partner, she rolled him over and gasped at the sight of him. The skin around his eyes was red and the rest of his body took on a garnet and purple hue. He was still breathing, but she was afraid of what would happen if she touched his chest or even attempted to carry, fearing that he'll physically fall apart and collapse like a poorly configured piece of cardboard.

Ren came up over to Jaune and place his hand on his forehead

"Severe Aura strain." He said, a tinge of fear seasoning his words. "He's got body-wide internal bleeding, all of his muscles are torn from what I can see, and... multiple ruptured organs, but nothing vital. His Aura's calmed down and is slowly fixing him now."

Nora cautiously took her steps to the two, her own fearful eyes looking at her leader's state.

"Is... Is Jaune-Jaune ok...?"

"No..." The two cringed, and Pyrrha started hyperventilating. "But, he will be soon."

Well, that cut the tension. So much so that Pyrrha crashed onto her knees in relief.

"We need to get him back to Beacon. He'll need alot of rest, alot of painkillers,... and alot of food. He's most likely gonna be munching up half his weight by the time he wakes up."

"Oh, thank the Gods!" Pyrrha looked to the sky with both eyes closed, proceeding to express her gratitude to whatever benevolent force of destiny that Jaune was going to be fine.

"Wait!" Nora yelled, alerting the other two. "Where's the swor-! Oh... Oh, there it is."

She picked up the rusty blade with her own two. Its rusty and crusty texture made itself familiar to her fingers.

"Wow! Ren! Look how light this thing is!" Nora's call beckoned her partner over. She presented the weapon over to him, almost throwing it at his face. "Look"

"Ok. Ok. Give me the sword." He took out her hands. He expected it to be heavy, requiring both hands to use, but colour him surprised when he felt its actual weight. "Wow! This is light! The weight's barely any heavier than Stormflower."

"And not even a quarter of Magnhild's."

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but can we please take Jaune back to Beacon." Pyrrha was still holding onto Jaune, who was looking more like an actual corpse by the second.

The two stopped with their shenanigans as Ren instructed Nora to lift and carry their leader, albeit slowly and carefully.

With Jaune secured, the three walked their way back to Beacon.

---

They made it. The wall around Beacon was gone by the time they got back, so it wasn't much of a problem for them to get back to Beacon. Getting to their Dorms was not so smooth. Half the original student body was still milling about from last night, many of which still tried to attempt to escape now that Professor Port and Ms. Goodwitch have gone out to investigate the source of the Beam.

Doctor Oobleck was still zipping around performing headcounts and retrieving escaping students. He came up to confront them on where they've been, but Nora said that they were in the kingdom looking for Jaune. Jaune no longer bared reddish corpse-like skin, and was just out cold and reeking of alcohol, convinced the professor that that was all they did.

He zoomed away after instructing them to bring their leader back to their Dorm since the infirmaries were full today. Peter enjoyed last night a bit too much.

There they gently place Jaune back on his bed. He was still half-naked, so they brought two blankets to layer on top of him. Ren started making and mixing different herbal concoctions, Nora hummed as she searched the cupboards and the stash underneath her own bed for pain-killers, and Pyrrha was making sure that Jaune was as comfortable as possible by fixing up his blankets, ensuring his pillows were well puffed and soft and placing a cool wet towel on his forehead.

His temperature was dangerously high.

Today was Saturday, so they had alot of time to sleep. But, that's not what they did.

They were restless, all three of them. Again, despite the lack of sleep and constant fighting last night, they felt very much awake. Hungry, thirsty, and sore, but very much awake. Ren's mind was preoccupied with the footage he captured on his scroll, Nora's was filled with ideas to replicate whatever had caused her fearless leader to suddenly become a Grimm Slaying machine, and Pyrrha was just worried.

She saw what was happening to Jaune. She could see the muscles tearing underneath his skin, how his bones would dislocate and relocate, and why he was going to a bar until he got hammered in the first place.

None of them could sleep, not after what they saw.

The great sword of which had slain so many monsters last night up to all morning stood in a corner. It observed how its newest and, so far, youngest wielder was treated by his companions. It took notes on the behaviours of each one for later reference. The red one was a worrier and a warrior, the green one was calm yet wrathful, and the pink one was explosive, but contained much in her mind. It can smell the inner machinations of each one.

The yellow one, its wielder, was pathetic and powerful.

The miasma of fear and cowardice, tinged by an aroma of selfishness surrounded him. But, there were other things. With that fear and cowardice came an after-odour of fierceness and courage. Selfishness was driven by ultimately selfless desires. If contradiction was a person, yellow would be a good example. There was also great ignorance that came with him, but this boy's mind was surprisingly sharp.

It should know, it spent quite a bit of time in his brain. The neuroplasticity yellow bared was phenomenal.

And, that Aura...

As the cyan gem in the sword glimmered in thought, it was suddenly picked up by the pink one and childishly thrown around by a single hand. She marvelled at how light it was, how it was "The lightest sword to ever sword!". It was demeaning. Thankfully, the green one stopped her before she broke anything. The sword fell into the green one's grasp instead, and he too marvelled at the weight and how slim the blade was, wondering how it could even make a dent in anything with such weightlessness.

The sword took in the irony that this was coming from someone who could be considered anaemic for someone with Aura.

Pyrrha took the opportunity to ask the two to gather some food and medicine for their leader out in the Kingdom, while she goes down to Beacon's armoury to get some more ammunition and dust and get someone to clean the sword while she took care of Jaune once he awakens. The two agreed, leaving after Ren finished making some concoction for Jaune's following hangover and possible fever if his temperature was anything to go by.

As the two left, Pyrrha touched the tall weapon for the first time. Ren and Nora were not joking, it barely felt any heavier than a grain of sand to her. She held it by one hand and inspected it. It was rusty, but it was still oh so sharp. Wickedly sharp, in fact. She slid a finger against the edge and nearly drew blood from the blade's bite. She was shocked ho her Aura barely did anything to protect her. Sharpness was not an issue, then. She thought. Most definitely not.

All that was left to do was simply clean off the rust and dried mud, replace the rotting pommel, and give it back to Jaune. It had no other functions aside from just being a big, but incredibly slim sword. It was so simple in design. There were no intricate designs or signs of professional craftsmanship on the blade, the profile was simple and boring, there wasn't even a single engraving gilded in. It was just big sword... that's it.

The only point of the intrigue of the weapon was the small cyan gem impeded in one of its sides and the two spiked that protruded a bit away from the crossguard.

But, she wouldn't be fooled by its appearance. She knew what this weapon could do. She knew how Jaune could cut down wave after wave of Grimm with it. Maybe Jaune did all the work, but she had this feeling. This scratching in the back of her head as she held the blade with her bare hands that it was somehow special. Her green eyes intensified on the gem.

She took a breath, looked back at her bed-ridden partner, and reluctantly ventured on to complete her tasks, taking the sword away to be cleaned.

Jaune stirred and two small blue glows emanated from behind his eyelids.

---

I did have someone who could clean things up with me, but he didn't want anything do with fic 'cause it was too much work. Man... I swear, I've read this entire thing at least 5 times, and I'm still finding mistakes. I need to get someone to proofread for me. See you next week, maybe.