I have no excuse. All I'm going to say is Age of Calamity is awesome and addictive.
No, I do not have my priorities straight. Yes, I know it's unhealthy. Yes, I'm already at chapter 5 in just 3 days.
For your convenience here are the levels of speak:
"Normal speak."
'Thought.'
"Com chatter."
["AI speak"]
[Literal action]
Who can hear these levels of speak. I leave up to your understanding.
History 101 - Little Red
Don't get her wrong, she was still mad at him for making her worry like that: first, for getting shot then vanishing the next day; then, finding out from Ozpin that he'd been expelled because, something-something, fake transcripts and what have you; then, finally, discovering that he was her new dust-darn Grimm Studies professor! Oh yes, Ruby was still very much upset with Jaune.
But—and it was a big but ('Krk. Big butt. Krk krk.')—even she had to admit that Jaune looked prit-ty darn cool when he got all serious talking about being a huntsman and stuff. She's even got goosebumps just listening to him!
Ruby had never seen her best friend so riled up before! Driven, like he was really feeling what he was preaching. So smooth and so confident; he looked like the genuine article, a huntsman. He looked like- like he's- he's… he's looking at her… He's looking at her! 'Oh no. Oh no!' Quick, what was he saying? She remembered it was something about... aura? Drat! 'My scatterbrainedness strikes again! Why oh why wasn't I listening?!'
Wide silver eyes quickly diverted themselves onto her lap, but the damage had already been done. Ruby had already broken the one rule any aspiring student inconspicioso such as herself never should have broken, and that was to never, and she meant never, make eye contact with the professor. Ever! Lest they be called upon.
Even if it was Jaune.
'I'm invisible. I'm invisible! You can't see me! You- Ah! Don't walk over heeere! Nooo...'
"Ms Rose."
"Nooo- Dah-I mean, yes, Jau- I mean, yes, Mr Wolf?" Darn, that was gonna take some getting used to. Ruby whimpered, and she did not fail to notice how dumb and wimpy she'd sounded just then. Hadn't she been making fun of him not too long ago? What happened to that?! 'I should have totally called him traitor face just now.'
"I asked you a question."
Did he? No, he didn't... right? "Whaaat? Naw, you didn't. You're pulling my leg, Jaune. Hehe, silly Jaune," she snickered and waved off with an amiable and amused snort thinking that what he'd said had been a fib. The unamused quirk of his brow told her it was not, "...or not." Ruby laughed nervously, and after scratching the nonexistent itch behind her ear, shyly asked a repeat of the question, "Tell me again, please?"
Jaune closed his eyes and let out a tired sigh that only made Ruby feel worse, but instead of annoyance, what she found in his gaze when he opened them again was a gentleness that spoke of a deep patience. He humoured her as if her request was nothing he hadn't heard before, "Can you tell me what aura is, Ruby?"
Oh, that! That was easy! It's… uh. Hm. What was aura? It's funny how it's never really been explained to her what aura was, only what it did. "Uh… pass?" Her entire body seemed to cringe expecting to be told off for not knowing. Oddly enough, he didn't. Instead, Jaune just smiled at her like her answer was the cutest thing he'd heard all day.
Somehow that made her feel even worse than worse—'worsest?'
"It is the physical manifestation of the human soul," her partner answered for her from two seats over, "and is the huntress's bread and butter when it comes to fighting Grimm of which, in contrast, have no souls and, therefore, no aura, making them weak against it. As long as it is available, aura aids the huntress physically, and fuels the use of her semblance."
Jaune let out an impressed hum, "Correct again, Ms Schnee. Someone's been reading up." He smiled at her teacher's pet of a partner who preened haughtily at the praise.
Betrayed, Ruby's jaw dropped as she leaned forward to shoot an incredulous look over the other end of the table where her traitorous teammate sat. She wasn't shocked Weiss was able to answer the question—honestly, a human encyclopedia, that girl—no, she was shocked because her partner actually looked eager—eager—to answer. Eager for Jaune! Had she forgotten that he was the enemy?!
That was probably a bit extreme, but they were totally not cool yet! Weiss shouldn't be looking all pleased with herself fraternizing with hostile elements like that! Team RWBY did not associate with terrorists!
She caught her partner's eye, and immediately Weiss stopped looking proud. With just her glare, Ruby accused the heiress with a, 'What's the big idea?!' To wit, she replied with a guilt-ridden yet still somehow defensive expression that, translated, meant, 'What? It's your fault for not reading our icky, boring textbook. Now you're jealous that he thinks I'm smart and you're just cute, so nyeh!'
How Ruby figured that was what her partner's face was saying at that moment was a science only she could comprehend. It was highly complex. Highly.
And she was not jealous!
Ruby's eyes narrowed at her snowy-haired friend, 'So... 'tis treason then.'
"Though probably, to be fair to the others," Jaune cut through her thoughts of comeuppance, "you might want to raise your hand first before answering a question I asked someone else? Next time, let your fellow students succeed or fail on their own. Yes?"
"Y-Yes, Jau- Mr Wolf."
Ooo, burn!
'Ha-ha!' Ruby smiled smugly at Weiss when her face turned red like a big'ole nasty zit. "Yeah, Weiss, raise your hand. Goodness, so uncivilized (hehe)," she contributed helpfully, not realising that she was doing the exact same thing she was mad at Weiss for doing. Oh well, as the saying goes: the enemy of my partner is my... best friend? Yeah, that sounded about right.
Weiss turned even redder but more out of annoyance now than embarrassment.
"Now I'm going to have to think of an even harder question for your leader," Jaune lamented.
"Yeah! Now he's gonna have to- wait, what?" Ruby's did two double-takes—two times two, heh, math—of her, so-called, best friend while the expression on her face pulled an entire one-eighty.
Rubbing his chin, Jaune walked lazily about as he contemplated, "What to ask? What to ask?"
While he did that, Ruby was leaning over the table again to give Weiss the dirties look her cherubic face could muster, 'You did this.'
The heiress was too prim and proper to wear anything more obvious than the tiny satisfied smirk on her face to speak of her satisfied-ness.
"Oh, I got it! Ms Rose, can you tell me what is aura's biggest weakness?"
~ • ~
There was a constant ringing in her ears when consciousness decided to return to her. It muffled all other sounds like her head was underwater. Hoping to make sense of what was going on, Ruby tried opening her eyes, but all she could see were blurred shapes. Senses impaired and body aching, still, Little Red forced herself to get up on shaky knees.
With the aid of her aura, slowly she was able to gather her bearings enough that, in the background, she could now hear her Myrmidon's systems listing the damage it had taken. Only one ear gave it a listen as the other was still busy bleeding.
["Armoured Core structural integrity at 41%"]
["Shields: Offline."]
["Sensors: Offline."]
["Dust Matrix: Depleted."]
["Failsafe initiated; diverting power."]
She felt the steady pull of her Armoured Core as it began to feed off her aura. The trade-off for raw power was usually worth the steady drain, but that was until she noticed something with her Myrmidon.
According to the rudimentary mech stat diagram shown on her HUD, her Core's right arm seemed to be missing as denoted by the greyed-out area on the display where her right arm should have been. Her HUD telling her that was rather redundant, however, when there was already a gaping hole on the right side of her Myrmidon to let her know that its right arm was indeed missing.
It had now become a liability rather than a combat multiplier and had to be abandoned. "Systems, cut power and get me out of this thing..." she mumbled through the fading fog of delirium. No hiss accompanied the command since the cockpit was already decompressed; only the mechanical hum of motors working to get her mech open could be heard making a sound.
Once it did that, Ruby made to hop out of her AC, but she seemed to have overestimated her body's willingness to obey her at the moment and instead fell out onto the unforgiving snow. She made the mistake of catching herself on her right side, and immediately, white-hot pain shot through her entire body.
Gasping for breath as she rode out the anguish that radiated over her… everything, she rolled over so that she was lying on her back instead of her, apparently, injured arm. The right one too; that was her favourite arm, darn it.
Thinking about it, of course it had been injured; it was the same arm that slotted into her Myrmidon's missing one. She'd forgotten about that. She took better stock of her injury and saw that her skin had been charred to the point of flaking. It hurt so bad just to move that it took her injecting herself with her suit's built-in painkillers just so she could think straight. Ruby groaned as the prickly feeling of aura working furiously to heal her burns tickled her carbonized flesh.
"What just happened?" she asked no one in particular and slowly began to recall.
There had been an explosion, a colossal one that had carved a crater into the ground so deep and so wide it could have been mistaken for an arena.
An empty arena.
Looking around herself, it was with deep sadness that she realized her red Myrmidon was all that was left of Omega lance—brothers and sisters in arms, all gone in a blink of an eye.
"Still alive? Impressive. Hunters are tough."
Death's cold fingers ran up and down her spine when she heard that voice so close. Trepidation weighed her limbs heavy when she stood up to face the one responsible for all the death and destruction, yet she did so with defiance.
'Oh, and she could fly now. That's just... perfect.'
Fear and panic held her heart in a vice grip when she saw Cinder Fall descend down into the crater where she was. She had become more powerful in the years Ruby hadn't seen her. She, on the other hand, had a blackened piece of toast in place of a right arm.
The odds didn't look to be in her favour.
"Hello, Ruby. How are you, friend?" she mocked.
Despite being afraid, Ruby growled at the older woman, "We are not friends."
"Awww, that's too bad. I was even planning a reunion with everyone! Oh well, it saves me catering at least."
Ruby wanted nothing more than to semblance-punch the smirk right off of Cinder's stupid face, but she knew that she was the one outclassed in that match up. All she could do was stall as she thought of a better plan.
"Why?" Ruby asked the simple question.
Cinder replied with a non-committal, "Hm?"
"Why are you doing all this? What could you possibly hope to gain from killing everybody?"
Cinder actually paused to consider her as if she couldn't believe that Ruby still had to ask, "Why power, dear. What else?"
"But you're already the most powerful being in all of Remnant!" She wasn't sure if Cinder whispering "not yet, I'm not" had been her imagination, but still Ruby asked, "What more could you want?!"
"The Winter Maiden's power, the last of four I have yet to possess, I want that," was her automatic reply.
Penny? She wanted Penny's powers? Ruby didn't know what the deal was with the maidens, but one thing she did know was that, next to Jaune, Penny was one of the most powerful people she had ever known. How much of that was Penny and how much of that was the maiden, she wasn't sure. But if Cinder wanted it, then Ruby would do everything in her power to make sure that she didn't get it.
The psycho was strong enough; thank you very much.
"And what, you become a super maiden or whatever? That's it? That's all you want?!"
"Power for power's sake is idiotic."
"Then you're idiotic!" Ruby realised that insulting the person who could incinerate her with just a snap of her fingers probably wasn't the smartest thing she'd ever done, but that was the thing with emotions, it made you dumb. A fact both love and hatred had proven true.
And how Ruby hated Cinder.
Either Cinder didn't care for the insult, taken aback by it, or was pondering the many ways she could barbecue her for it, whatever it was, it made her shut up. The way the brunette's eyes narrowed at her dangerously made Ruby blood run cold, but then they took on an almost defeated air about them, before she asked, "'Do you believe... in destiny?' Your friend asked me that once."
Pyrrha...
Out of morbid curiosity—also because she still needed to stall—Ruby remained silent to see where her nemesis was going with this. Why all of a sudden was she quoting Pyrrha after all these years?
"She never got to hear my answer because, well, because she was dead by then-"
The cloaked huntress clenched her fists at the audacity of this woman and was surprised that her right hand had been healed enough to do that. If worse came to worse, at least she'd be able to fight.
"—but... yes. I do believe in destiny. I've met her, after all."
Ruby raised her brow at that. Met destiny? Was that a metaphor? Ugh, she was no good with those. 'Just speak plainly, woman!' she didn't actually say.
"And do you want to know what I've learned about destiny after years and years of trying to go against it?" Cinder didn't let her reply, "That only those with power could truly challenge her. That's why I need the Winter Maiden. I need more power."
Suddenly the defeat in her eyes evaporated in just a blink, "That's also why I think you and yours are destined to fail, as weak as you all are. To me, you are now nothing more than a means to an end."
"What the heck are you talking abou-"
"—This prattle bores me. I think I've humoured you enough. Has your arm healed yet?" she asked tiredly as if the very question had been a chore to say out loud.
Ruby froze.
Cinder... let her recover? All this time she'd thought that she was buying herself time, when in truth, Cinder had been giving it freely. Was she that confident she could defeat her?
Ruby broke into a cold sweat as a wicked grin spread across Cinder's face seeing fear in the eyes of her younger adversary, "Let's try and move this along, shall we? As pleasant as it is to catch up with you, you're not the one I'm actually here for. No. You, my dear-"
Cinder paused when the comlink in Ruby's Myrmidon crackled to life from the cockpit above her, "Ruby, do you copy? What's your status? [Pause] I-I'm on my way there. Just- Just please be okay..."
The Cheshire cat grin on Cinder's face grew at hearing Jaune's voice, and Ruby's eyes widened as the realisation of it hit her harder than an Ursa. Fearing for the man she loved, the huntress paled with dread.
"—are just bait. Now let's hope you can last long enough for your boyfriend to get here."
~ • ~
Her face visibly brightened when, 'Oh! Oh! I know this one!' With an all too enthusiastic pep about her, Ruby stood and cleared her throat for maximum snootiness. Adopting what she thought was a pretty good Weiss Schnee impression, the cloaked huntress in training recited, "Aura's biggest weakness is one's own aura reserves. How big her reserves are determine the length of time her cloak could stay up and the amount of damage it could ta- mitigate!"
"Saw what you did there and nicely said, Ruby," Jaune applauded and used her name; that was like two times the awesome! 'Take that, Weiss!' Maybe that's why her partner liked being such a smarty pants so much? She couldn't help but feel good about herself when Jaune complimented her. It was also nice seeing her best friend peek through the gruff teacher schtick he was trying to pull. It let her know that her Jaune was still in there somewhere.
Her Jaune—by that, of course, she meant in a friend-she-hadn't-seen-in-a-while kind of way and not he's-mine-no-touchy-touchy kind of- right, anyway! Jaune was talking again so, 'Got'ta pay attention!'
"That's right, kids, as awesome as aura is, one thing you should always remember is that: It. Is. Finite," Jaune warned as the hardness in his tone returned. "Strength, speed, super senses, regeneration, and, yes, Ms Valkyrie, even thunder thighs, it aaall goes away when your aura reaches zero," he paused to look at everyone, making sure that he had all their attention, "but all of you know that already, don't you? Anyone from Goodwitch's class should already know what that feels like."
Immediately, sounds of agreement and soft laughter as students quickly regaled their respective seatmates of their past experiences blended together and made the classroom reverberate with a positive hum.
"But let me ask you one thing," Jaune's voice cut through the noise, "anyone ever tried fighting Grimm without aura?"
The hum died as if it never even existed.
"Show of hands who's ever tried?" Jaune put his own hand up and wiggled his fingers expectantly. But only his ever occupied the space above their heads.
Ruby noticed the way he was looking at his team as if he were expecting them to raise their hands as well. Ruby was surprised when Ren and Nora did.
"Oh, bullshit," All heads turned towards the back of the class where Cardin Winchester thought that now had been a good time to act on his dumb bully urges, "Pink-eyes and crazy girl? Yeah right! Put your hands down losers-"
"—Cardin."
The coldness in which he spoke was so below freezing it made Ruby shiver even when it wasn't her name he'd just called out. How could her friend sound the same and yet so different? Like two different people were using his voice and took turns to speak. This voice Ruby summarily dubbed as super-serious-professor-Jaune voice.
Do not mess with Jaune when he was using his super-serious-professor-Jaune voice.
"Apologize," he demanded without having to raise his voice. Somehow, that made Jaune even more intimidating in Ruby's humble opinion.
Cardin looked like he wanted to protest, but after noticing all the faces that stared at him as if warning the bully to just shut up and do it made him think twice. He wisely took heed, "Sorry," he mumbled as he leaned back on his chair while petulantly crossing his arms.
Ruby tried to pretend she did not just hear her sister whisper "So hot" at her friend just then.
Jaune continued as if there hadn't just been a thing, "I asked Ms Rose earlier what aura's biggest weakness is, and as far as your textbooks are concerned, she's correct. But do you want to know what my answer would be if I were asked that question?"
Another rhetorical that no one dared lay a finger on.
No one, that is, except for Ruby. What? She was a very curious girl!
It's just the way he'd asked made it sound oh so tantalisingly mysterious like a sifu in one of Yang's Mistralian Kung Fu movies she liked watching with their dad so much. She couldn't help herself.
What was the story behind the mystery? What could possibly have happened to her friend to make him look so darned edgy? "What?" she whispered, but he'd heard her just the same.
Their eye's met, and for a moment, Ruby saw a whole plethora of emotions flit about his blue orbs before they were locked away again behind the confident smirk he wore his entire lecture.
"The real weakness of aura is its strength."
Woah… he even answered his own weird questions in a roundabout way like a sifu. 'So cool…' but, "Wha?"
~ • ~
Ruby had always been fast. With her semblance, no one from their group ever came close to her levels of speed. On a Myrmidon, Jaune could probably keep up with her (barely); Weiss was pretty fast with her glyphs too, but when it really came down to it, "high velocity" was Ruby's middle name.
So why was Cinder Fall always one step ahead of her?
Ruby swung Crescent Rose aiming for Cinder's scrawny little neck, but she dodged it effortlessly like the past dozen times. This wasn't working. Cinder was making her burn through her aura at an alarming rate while the maniacal brunette, on the other hand, looked like she was barely breaking a sweat! That was when Ruby decided that she had to escape, to regroup with the others and take Cinder on where terms of engagement were more favourable.
Hefting Crescent rose near the bottom of its shaft, Ruby swung again, but this time, the move was more to intimidate and give her some breathing room than to actually hit her opponent. When Cinder hopped back to avoid getting bisected, Ruby took that opportunity to petal-blur in the other direction.
But Cinder was already there to hinder her escape. The look on Ruby's face screamed disbelief. That didn't stop her from trying again, however. She went left; Cinder was there. She went right; Cinder was there too. She didn't want to accept it but it had already become quite apparent that Cinder was simply faster than her.
Faster than the Red Blur.
"Uh uh uh, little rose. You're not getting away that easy. You're staying right here until I and your little boy toy have had our chat."
"Don't you DARE touch Jaune!" she roared as the veteran reaper expertly executed one of her more devastating attack manoeuvres, the whirlwind dance.
That whirlwind might as well have been a breeze the way her nemesis seemed to dance right through it. "Oh, did I strike a nerve?"
Nothing was working!
Desperate, Ruby petal-blurred one last time with all the aura she could spare, but it would seem that Cinder had had enough of her antics when she reached into the mass of red petals and grabbed her cape just as she was fleeing. Her head snapped back and her feet flew forward when the forward momentum from her semblance caused her hood to grow taught around her neck. "Hrk!"
"Did I ever tell you how much I love your hood? Such a convenient noose. I'm so glad you decided to keep it after all these YEARS!" she shouted the last word as she swung Ruby by the cape into the bedrock like a pendulum.
Standing over her prone form, she grabbed Ruby by her suit's chest plate and began beating on her helmet. Again and again, her fist kept punishing the glass causing a metronomic sound of brutality to echo throughout the crater. When her visor broke, Cinder then reached into her helmet and used her grip on the jaw guard to rip it right off her head.
And the inhumanity continued.
It continued until her Aura was all but spent and Cinder's fist came up bloody, "What now, Little Red?" she paused in her cruelty to ask, "You have no more aura left, and Mr knight in shining armour is still nowhere to be found! I guess that means I get to kill you now, huh?" With one hand, she raised Ruby up by her neck, and with the other, cocked her fist back to deliver the final blow, "Goodbye."
Ruby put a hand on her gauntlet, and-
~ • ~
"Its strength is its weakness because that same strength makes the hunter complacent. Dependent. So dependent that when their aura goes down, they're all but useless. Tell me, when you're faced with a Grimm and you don't have your strength, your speed, or your semblance, what do you do?"
~ • ~
—she turned one of the nobs that would activate her suit's supercharge feature designed to electrocute any Grimm foolish enough to have her in their claws. Cinder dropped her with a yelp, and immediately, Ruby went to work on her distracted opponent. Seeing as she had lost Crescent Rose somewhere a while back, Ruby had no choice but to go fisticuffs. With a flurry of combos her sister had taught her, she kept Cinder off balance.
But the advantage could only last so long as the maiden caught her next jab in the palm of her hand.
~ • ~
"You fight. Plain and simple.You fight because it'll kill you unless you kill it first. People who rely on their aura and semblance usually get the shorter end of that exchange. But what could you do? You think the Grimm would wait for you until you got your aura back? You think there'd only be four kingdoms if the Grimm were that nice? Uh, nope!"
"But then I see the looks on your faces as you ask yourselves the question, 'How could you kill Grimm without aura? Well, let me tell you. You see... what people seem to have forgotten is that, before hunters had aura, they had cunning."
~ • ~
Seeing that she was caught, Ruby immediately turned another toggle on her trapped gauntlet. Acrid smoke billowed out from the seams of her suit, enshrouding her and the surrounding area in a veil of thick misty black. The smoke made Cinder choke and unprepared for the kick delivered to her sternum.
~ • ~
"Before aura, they had training."
~ • ~
Cinder may be strong, but she still needed to see in order to fight. Ruby, on the other hand, was trained in the art of shadow fighting by Blake Belladonna herself. The smoke-and-mirror "jutsus" that freakin ninjas used, yeah, she couldn't pass that up when she and her friends decided to start training each other in their arts of fighting.
She never stayed in one spot. Always moving to confuse her opponent, she struck where least expected, and before Cinder could retaliate, retreat back into the smoke.
The meaty sounds of fists hitting their target sounded in the mist as Ruby slowly chipped away at Cinder's aura. If only she could take it down then she wouldn't have to worry about her powers. They'd be fighting on even ground, and she knew that she was better trained than Cinder was. She could do this.
She could win!
"ENOUGH!"
Flames manifested in all directions, burning away her smokescreen. Ruby tried covering her face and managed to keep it from being scorched, but the same could not be said for her right arm. With no aura or armour to shield it from the intense heat, her bare skin… cooked.
"AAARGH!" Ruby howled in pure agony.
Once the flames mercifully receded, Little Red fell to the ground a whimpering ball of pain. Thoroughly spent and all the fight burned right out of her, there was no stopping Cinder when she grabbed her by the neck and hauled her up again so that her feet dangled in the air.
~ • ~
"But most of all, before our aura, we have..."
~ • ~
"You honestly thought you could defeat me? ME?! You are nothing! You are, all of you, weak! You can not change your destiny." Cinder then brought her face closer to Ruby's so that she could stare vehemently into her silver eyes, "And do you know what your destiny is, Ruby Rose? Your destiny is to die... by my hand. As is the destiny of all who are like you, powerless and feeble fools who think that they could just-
[—Thump. Thump. Thump. BAMF!]"
~ • ~
"...our friends."
~ • ~
Cinder disappeared, and in her place stood a very familiar Myrmidon.
Ruby crumpled to the ground with no one holding her aloft, her back cooled by the snow.
"I'm sorry, Cinder, I didn't quite catch that last part," Delirious, still, Ruby couldn't help but sass despite how broken her body was or how much pain she was in, "hehe." The sound of servos winding down from exertion drew her attention to the Tall One that now faced her. Its glowing eyes, though incapable of showing emotion, somehow portrayed how heartbroken the pilot inside was when he saw her this way.
"Ruby..." Jaune whispered her name through his Myrmidon's speakers and it couldn't be clearer just how torn he was.
"Hey, big guy... Where-ugh... Where've you been?" Her voice croaked as she smiled at him weakly, "...I missed you."
How Ruby played off how poor of a state she was was meant to reassure him that she was okay, but it looked like it did quite the opposite when she saw his Myrmidon clench its fists so tight around sword and shield the metal of it groaned. Jaune's head forcefully snapped in the direction where Cinder lay buried in a tomb of her own make when he'd backhanded her at terminal velocities.
The unbridled fury Jaune felt in that moment could be seen in the way light poured out from under his mech's articulated plates. And it only shone brighter when the general kept pouring more and more aura into his Armoured Core way past its safety threshold. The light, so bright it became, it turned his white Myrmidon obsidian in stark contrast.
"All Myrmidons rendezvous on nav point Gamma. Primary target is Cinder Fall... Show her no mercy."
~ • ~
Jaune walked unhurriedly back to his desk to grab the chair there. Then, dragging that chair towards the middle of the lecturer's walking space, he spun it around so that the back of it faced the amphitheatre's audience. Finally, he sat down with arms crossed over the backrest.
Then Jaune proceeded to stare at his students.
For a good long while, that was all he did. Chin in hand, his eyes roamed over each and every one of them. To their credit, they only looked away when it was their turn to meet his gaze. All in all, he had their undivided attention, their morbidly fascinated attention.
"The thing about being a hunter, it challenges us to become better in not just in the way we fight," he spoke slowly, deliberately, then paused as if he were thinking of what next to say but was actually just letting them mull over the words he'd just said. A lot of them thought that way; he knew because he was the same once upon a time when he'd been the one sitting where they sat now. Only when he got older did he realize just how dangerous that sort of thinking was. Not foolish. Not arrogant. Dangerous. "To be a hunter is not just to fight. It's when you look out that window," he did, and his students followed suit, "and finding something worth protecting with every fibre of your being."
It was late in the afternoon and the soft glow of the afternoon sun bathed the outside world in an almost angelic glow. Such simple beauty was lost on his students; just by looking at their befuddled faces, he could tell. But to someone like him, someone like Wolves' Bane who had spent half his lifetime locked away in a living nightmare once lovingly called Remnant, he'd die for such a view.
And he had.
Jaune returned his attention to the class, and, one by one, so too did they, some taking longer than others as if they were actually looking for that something outside. They misunderstood; so teacher will explain.
"Grimm are coming," he remembered himself saying all those years ago as he whispered those same words again. A minute pause to shake those memories away, Jaune's thoughts returned to the present the same time the steel in his tone did, "They're coming to take what you all hold most dear. It doesn't matter what it is; I want you to close your eyes," he instructed and waited for the last person—who just so happened to be Ruby—to do as he said. "and picture it in your heads. Imagine holding he- it… in your arms." And having been the last, of course his eyes were on that one person when he finished with the line, "What is it you love?"
"Longing" did not suffice enough a word to describe even the echo of Wolves' Bane's longing within Jaune Arc. Yet again the student had to remind the soldier that she was not his, and he was not hers. He had no right to feel the way he was feeling.
That didn't mean he won't still protect her with everything he had. Didn't mean she still wasn't the one who kept him going. His strength to march on in his day-after-day.
She might not be his Ruby Rose, but she was still Ruby Rose. And that was his "something" worth protecting.
"The Grimm want to take that away. The question is... would you let them?"
They did not answer even when they opened their eyes to look at him with no small amount of uncertainty.
He couldn't have that and so drove the point home for the last time, "Every day you treat being a hunter as a joke, a job, or a pastime, you let them. All it takes for Grimm to win is hunters not doing their jobs and doing it right. You want to become huntsmen? Huntresses? Then it's time you took this seriously. Because it's not just about you anymore. You owe it to the people you will protect, your team, and yourself to do everything that you can. Be more than the power you wield. Connais-toi toi-même. They deserve nothing less."
Whispering so as to not draw attention to themselves, Ruby asked, "What did he say?" she directed at their team's resident bookworm.
"I'm not sure," Blake replied, "but it sounded Gallian."
"Vomit Boy knows Gallian?!" Yang exclaimed quietly before lowering her tone down to husky, "Ze language of luv… so hot," to Ruby's infinite embarrassment.
Not that he'd heard any of it, but Ruby sure did when she began sputtering, "Y-Yaaang! Stop saying that!"
"Hey, I calls it as I sees it, sis. 'Sides, don't go pretending you weren't thinking the same," the blonde, with no hint of remorse, raised her brow at her little sister. She even had the gall to grin.
"Was not!"
"Can you two please cease and desist?! I am trying to pay attention here," Weiss scolded, no longer able to put up with the siblings' shenanigans.
If that put Yang off, however, it didn't show. "See? Even Weiss thinks so."
"What?! No, I do-"
"Ahem."
The harsh cough yanked their focus back to class and only then did they notice Jaune's look of disappointment resting solely on their team, as well as the bemused eyes of their classmates. Four sets of shoulders rose to sink their heads in shame, and in Ruby's case, even slid half of herself under her table.
After giving them a long hard stare, he mercifully went back to watching his class, going over their faces one by hopeful one.
'Go on, say something else,' their eyes seemed to tell him, but that was all for today, he decided. They already had enough to think about.
"That about covers it for aura, at least, in this class. Make sure to ask more about it from your combat professor. TLDR; it's nice to have, but don't put all your eggs in that basket because it has more holes than you realize." Pulling his scroll out from his pocket, he took a quick peek at the time, "Tomorrow if professor Port still isn't feeling well, we'll start tackling the different kinds of Grimm. I'll give everybody a free pass for not taking notes on today's lecture since it's my first day," Jaune looked meaningfully at his students and saw surprise written all over their faces once he'd reminded them that they really haven't been taking notes. Weiss being the exception. They probably never thought they had to in this class. Again, he blamed Port for that, "but be sure that you do tomorrow; you will be quizzed on it. Class dismissed."
The bell rang just as he'd said it, and everybody stood up in a daze when, finally, the intense atmosphere lifted off their shoulders. Contemplative looks etched onto their faces deep in thought on not just the lecture, but what it really meant to be a hunter.
What it took to be a real one.
["I always loved the way you handle our kids, Jaune,"] WNTR drolled sarcastically after being quiet for so long, ["Like a wolf teaching puppies how to hunt. You really don't sugarcoat do you?"]
'I do on some occasions,' he defended as he stood up to gather his things that were on Port's desk.
["Oh? Pray tell, on what occasions?"]
'Oh, you know, like right now when I'm about to get interrogated by my friends.'
["My general on the back foot? Mmm, this I've got to see."]
His AI may not have had a face, but Jaune was pretty sure that, if she did, she'd be smiling just then. Whoever thought it a good idea to program her with such a mean streak, Jaune had a few choice words for them.
["Oh, you adore me, and you know it."]
He did, but she didn't need to know that.
["I already do,"] and oh how she sounded so smug about it.
"Professor."
Right. Now came the hard part. Jaune closed his eyes as he mentally prepared himself for the confrontation. Taking a deep breath he turned to face his friends who were the only ones left inside the classroom. Obviously planned, still, there was no need to be so obvious about it, Jaune thought. "Hey, guys. What's up? You need anything?"
It wasn't that he was playing dumb, it was just he really didn't want to do this right now even though he knew very well he had to.
"An explanation would be nice," Pyrrha crossed her arms under her chest, and Jaune did his best not to let his gaze drop any lower than her collar.
Huh, puberty. Funny how he was going through that again. If there was anything about his youth he did not miss, hormones would be right up there next to pimples and not able talk to pretty girls.
Wolves' Bane realized just then that Jaune still had to work on his discipline and self-control (amongst other things).
"Right. Right, an explanation. I guess I owe you guys that much."
"You guess?" Weiss asked sarcastically.
Jaune scratched the back of his head apologetically, "So uh, do you guys wanna sit down or, uh-" his friends did not move a single muscle from where they stood surrounding him in front of Port's desk, "Okay. Standing. Got it." He took time to observe them, and though subtle from underneath their hard expressions, noticed how all seven sported uncertain looks of varying degrees as if they were talking to a stranger and not their teammate.
But he wasn't a stranger! He was Jaune; he was their friend! He had to remind them of that.
"So," Jaune said cheerfully, trying not to show his discomfort too much and make the situation any more awkward than it already was, "what do you want to know first?"
"What about we start with the one on everybody's mind?" Blake suggested as she narrowed her golden eyes at him. "Who are you?"
~ • ~
"Jaune. Jaune. Jaaaune. I must say, Jaune, you may be famous, but goodness, are you a hard man to find! Took me ages just to get you here, didn't I? Oh, sigh, what does a girl have to do to get a little attention around here?" Saccharine melancholy coated her every word as she regarded Ruby with a cruel smile, "besides being beaten half to death."
The fingers of Jaune Arc's Armoured Core tightened around Giga Crocea Mors as Cinder let out a soft chuckle. Oh, how her servos ached for retribution. ["My General, shall we teach this cretin some manners?"] WNTR growled.
Yes. Jaune wanted nothing more than to do just that, but he did not become general by being stupid. A rift may have divided Arc from Fall a good few meters from where the sadistic woman stood, but that distance meant little for people who could move as fast as they could. He had to remain vigilant. 'We wait until the others get here. Until then, our job is to protect Ruby.'
She was his AI; she would obey even if she was loathed to, ["As you command."]
His coms rang, and Weiss's voice came through, "Jaune, Ruby is-"
"—I know. I can see," he cut her off when his eyes momentarily flicked towards where WNTR displayed Ruby's vitals on his HUD. They were dropping.
Fast.
"Call for evac and exfiltrate with Ruby while I keep Cinder busy. Get her to a medic as fast as you can."
"No..."
Surprised, White looked over his shoulder at Blue who only had to tilt her head down at Red from where she hovered protectively over her broken form.
"It wasn't a request, Ruby."
"No!" The sheer volume in which she managed to say that one word took both he and Weiss aback, but that was all she had left in her, it would seem, as the rest of what she had to say devolved into nothing more than pained breaths and broken gasps with words tucked in between, "She doesn't… hrk… want me. She wants… you, Jaune. She'll kill you. You have to… have to… run"
"Negative," he said with an air of finality elevated beyond contestation.
"J-Jaune... Please-"
"—Weiss, kindly get my second-in-command off the battlefield." Jaune was getting impatient whilst Cinder only looked amused by the situation.
"Jaune, you're not ordering me to just abandon you to that madwoman, are you? You can't expect me to obey that order, not after-!"
"—I am. And I do."
"Jaune…"
She must have thought he'd gone mad the way she looked at him as if he were speaking another language. Her general was insane! How could he hope to best Cinder diminished as he was?
The goal in Jaune's mind, however, was not to defeat, merely occupy.
There was no time for second thoughts when Cinder suddenly leapt towards Ruby looking to finish her good work.
Covering meters of ground in the blink of an eye, Jaune was barely able to intercept with his shield. The force of her attack had been colossal and his feet dug furrows just absorbing the blow. "Get her out of here! That is an order, Snow Angel!"
"Didn't anyone ever teach you three that it's rude to ignore your betters?"
He swung his shield at her again, hoping to catch Cinder with another backhand.
"Not twice, Jaune!" she taunted as she leapt over the attack. At the apex of her flip, Cinder spun a kick to his head that connected with such a force it made Jaune's mech stumble forward. He reversed his misstep by swinging his sword back where he meant to catch Cinder where she landed, but she didn't land. With her power, she floated to be eye level with his Myrmidon.
"You've been a thorn on my side for far too long now, Mr Arc. It's about time that you embraced the inevitable. About time you all did." She thrust her hands forward and the telltale orange of her palms promised fire. Jaune raised his shield up just in time to save himself from an infernal demise.
The metal burned bright orange in the intense heat, and Jaune was shocked to see it warp and yield in his grip. Leaping out of the way of the flaming torrent, he discarded his ruined bulwark and gripped his sword instead with both hands. He charged into a graceful flurry, movements quick and precise.
Cinder met him blow for blow with a pair of burning scimitars, and when their blades locked, it would have confused anyone to read if it were ever written down how the giant had been the one to take a knee instead of the tiny witch. "I will admit, you've gotten better, but let's see how well you do without armour, good sir knight." With but a flourish, Jaune had been disarmed, and his Armoured Core's long arms could only do so much when Cinder began to engage him at extreme melee.
Burning fingers made light work of his armoured chest, and the horrifying sounds of metal being ripped right off his Myrmidon screeched through the night. Soon enough, Cinder reached the final layers of his plating and wasted no time tearing through those as well. But once she did, however, she didn't expect the boot that greeted her on the other side. Jaune took full advantage of the momentary distraction to deliver via mech a sucker-punch so powerful that a visible halo of sound erupted from the point of impact.
Cinder was sent flying again, and Jaune was granted a moment to catch his breath.
"Jaune, fall back! You need to stop using your aura!"
Indignance took the better half of Jaune's wits then when he heard Weiss order him to retreat. "I told you to get Ruby out of here! That was a direct-!"
"—She won't make it!" she cut him off mid-shout, "She's too injured, Jaune. You have to heal her if she's going to have a chance."
Worry replaced anger as the gravity of her words did well to chase away the high of battle.
In his silence, Weiss pressed, "She needs you, Jaune. Let me be the distraction."
Jaune was torn.
To ask Weiss to act as his rearguard as he tended to Ruby, he might as well have signed her death warrant. Cinder had already killed her once before; she could do so again. If he kept on fighting, however, who knew when—nevermind if—he'd be able to get to Ruby in time to save her.
The choice: Weiss or Ruby.
Weiss was forced to make that decision for him when- "Watch out!" she cast a mech-sized gravity glyph from under his feet to lift him off the ground in time to evade the hurtling comet that was Cinder Fall.
After crashing down on the snow-covered battlefield, "Go, Jaune! Weiss shouted at him as she took up defensive positions in front of his downed Myrmidon. Brandishing Giga Myrtenaster in the fencer's perfect en garde stance, "The others are almost here; I'll be fine with just stalling," Weiss reassured her general.
Jaune's lips parted but knew not what to say. Looking between Red and Blue, in the end, he settled for words that both betrayed his calm and questioned his resolve, "No hero stuff, commander! Understand?"
She laughed even when faced with such odds, "Understood, Omega lead. No hero stuff," she said as they swapped places. Now he was the one kneeling next to Ruby and Weiss running interference. Jaune made certain not to squander the precious seconds Weiss afforded him.
He dropped down from the hole Cinder tore through his Myrmidon and rushed towards his second-in-command. Kneeling next to her, he collapsed his helmet. "Gods, Ruby," he whimpered when he was finally given the chance to diagnose the full extent of her injuries.
Gingerly, Jaune only cradled her head in the crook of his arm. He didn't want to move her too much and risk making her condition worse. Gods, he could barely recognize her under all that blood. 'Damn it, Ruby, what did you do to yourself?'
Jaune didn't notice how he began to tear up.
"J-Jaune… don't cry."
The alarmingly soft utterance drew him back from the edge of despair, and he remembered to reprimand her, "Dummy, I told you not to engage! Now, look at you," he snarled, the fires of which drowned within the watery tone of his voice.
["Subject suffers from third-degree burns, fourth-degree on her right arm while having been broken in two places, internal bleeding, severe haemorrhaging, a concussion, and aura petrification located in several prime meridians. General, I… I'm not sure how you're going to fix this…"]
"M'sorry, big baby."
"Dummy…" he choked out a sad laugh before promising with more conviction the contrary ever would allow, "I'll fix you up, I swear. Just stay with me 'kay?" He did not wait for a reply before calling forth his semblance. In desperation, he poured out every last ounce of aura his soul could spare into the tiny bobble floating in his hand before letting Ruby take it.
It was to his absolute horror when he discovered it having no effect.
["She would not take, Jaune; her aura pools have atrophied. I suspect it's because of her forcing her semblance when she had so little aura left. The burns as well keep her from reopening her meridians as what little aura she could regenerate is used to heal her injuries. She'll need more than that to kickstart her reserves. More than you could give, my general. I-I'm sorry."]
"No... No. NO! Please, no…" Please not her. Please not Ruby. Please. Please.
If to know your own death was to know fear, then what was the death of the woman you loved while you watched helpless to stop it? Despair seemed such a trivial word, but it was the closest thing.
"I…love you too."
Jaune's eyes opened wide and stared disbelievingly at Ruby who found the strength left in her to break his heart in the most loving and cruellest of ways. "Why? Why tell me that now?!"
She let out a dry and tired chuckle, "We both suck at… timing… I guess."
He could no longer hold back the sobs that begged him for release, "Ruby, no. Please… don't leave," he pleaded desperately, "You can't! You said that we'd finish this together! You said-… Cookie, please no. I'd be lost without you."
By some miracle, she managed to crawl her hand up on top of his that splayed over her stomach—her last comfort she can afford the man she never got to love the way he deserved.
"I love you," she said again as her eyes fluttered with the herculean task of staying open and on his. "I love you. Always ha-… have..." She said no more.
["Ruby Rose, has flatlined, sir... I'm sorry."]
His breath caught, eyes shut, and head bowed in anguish. "Ruby…"
There was no death rattle, no final cry of pain. Ruby just stopped. Like a marionette with its strings cut, she just… stopped. And he knew he would never see her smile, hear her laugh, or feel her warmth ever again... Never again…
Unless he did something about it.
"This- This is a joke, right? Right?! Jaune what is going on over there?! My HUD's telling me that Ruby- She-… It's got to be a mistake, Jaune!" the broken young man heard Yang yell over the coms in vehement denial over the loss of her sister. But no… not lost. Not yet.
With tears flowing freely down his face, he said in a voice devoid of allemotion, "Yeah, Yang… It is a mistake," 'a stupid cosmic joke,' he wanted to add but didn't, "Ruby's fine."
And when he raised his head and slowly opened his eyes, luminous, they burned with a golden power.
"I'll make sure of it."
~ • ~
Glynda stopped the video feed to hold a trembling hand over her mouth in both awe and horror.
"You paused it."
Surprised to hear his voice so close behind her, the combat professor jumped in her seat, "Ozpin!"
"Glynda. Horrifying, isn't it?" He stepped back from where he stood watching over her shoulder and began to leisurely pace the breadth of the room.
"I-" She forewent the mystery of how he was able to get into her office without her noticing and let out a tired sigh. She couldn't be bothered; her mind was far too distracted by… other things. "Yes, it- well, it got a bit too much for me," she admitted.
Nobody spoke after that, both of them lost in their own thoughts, but when the silence grew too uncomfortable, it was Glynda who broke first. He wanted to know what she thought about what she just saw, that much was obvious. "How? How could we have messed up so badly that our students had to clean up our mess? They're just kids, Ozpin… What have we done?" Their eyes met from across the room, and she couldn't help but feel that, as capable as the headmaster was, he was just as lost as she.
"What didn't we do," he cryptically rephrased, but she knew what he meant.
"You didn't reincarnate."
He nodded, "For some reason, I died a permanent death in the Wolves' Bane version of the future."
"How could that be? I thought-"
"—I don't know," he told her before she could finish, and for once, Ozpin looked his age.
She didn't know what to say to that. Suddenly all their fears became all too real for her. Oh, they were a reality before, but always felt far off. Now, however, faced with what their failures would look like if ever they would come to pass, suddenly, all they've managed to accomplish felt fake and inadequate.
"Something has to change, Ozpin. I don't think staying alive to be there to guide them would be enough, not based off what I've seen."
"And you would be correct in saying so."
That surprised Glynda enough for her jaw to drop ever so slightly. Ozpin had always been one for stubbornness and secrets; to hear him openly admit that his current course of action, whatever that may be, needed redirecting, came as a shock. For as long as she knew the man, he never admitted to his faults.
A realization came upon her just then, "Why are you here, Ozpin? You didn't come here just tell me all this."
He chuckled, "Sharp as ever, Glynda. I always liked that about you." When she didn't return his smile and instead waited for him to come clean, the professor saw him take in a deep breath as if what he had to say weighed heavily on his chest, "How secure is your office?"
Ah, so it was one of those talks. "I do regular sweeps."
He looked at her contemplatively, and Glynda worried for a moment that he was thinking twice about telling her whatever it was he had to tell her. At this point, the professor didn't know how well she would tolerate that, his secrets. Would she remain content if he changed his mind?
The answer to that, to Glynda's subtle surprise, was "No, she wouldn't".
Thankfully the calculating expression disappeared just as quickly as it came, "There are things I'm about to tell you that will make you question everything I have ever done, Glynda."
His eyes were intense in the way he kept them on hers. She took a moment to steel herself. She would not turn back.
"And I am telling you first, out of all the people I trust, because I trust you the most. Now I am asking for your benefit; would you still want to know?"
"Yes," her answer had been shaky but no less resolute in its conviction.
"Then keep playing that video; there is something that I want you to see."
~ • ~
"I'm still Jaune. I… I'm a soldier."
Blake and Weiss shared a look while the rest of her and Jaune's team just stared at the blonde waiting for him to continue. When it looked like that was all he was going to say, it was the quiet one who prodded.
"And what is a soldier doing in Beacon pretending to be a student, to be our leader, to be our friend?"
Though he spoke without raising his voice, the emotion there was palpable, and it somewhat unnerved everybody to hear as much from the usually calm and collected Lie Ren, the same boy who said that it was okay to keep secrets.
Ruby guessed he just told Nora that so that she wouldn't be sad.
"Ren…" Jaune looked hurt that he would even accuse him of such a thing. Clearly, he did not think about what it would look like on their end what he did. "Ren, I didn't pretend to be your friend. I am," he tried to convince him, to convince them.
"Please answer the question, Jaune," the request would have sounded accusatory coming from anyone else, but Nora wasn't putting him on the spot, she just desperately wanted to know why he would worm his way into their lives and pretend to be someone they could care about, only to reveal that that person didn't even exist.
He did not answer.
"You said that you're a soldier. What does that make us then? Were we… were we just part of a task, part of your mission?" Ren furthered, and a new level of hurt could be seen on the faces of those who actually considered him a friend when they realized that that could very well be the case.
His apparent hesitation did not help when he tried to explain, "At first… At first, yeah, you were part of my mission, b-but- Nora? Nora, wait!"
No one blamed the Valkyrie when she ran out of the room with barely restrained tears in her eyes.
"Forgive her, professor," Ren said in what was clearly meant to be a biting tone but still managed to sound flat, "you see, Nora's been lied to before by people who she thought were her friends. It did not end well for either of us. Now if you'll excuse me; I have to go see to my partner." The long-haired boy walked out as well, and Pyrrha wordlessly followed, only sparing a disappointed glance over her shoulder at her partner.
When the other team left, awkwardly, so too did hers one by one. Yang at least put a hand on his shoulder for what comfort that was worth. Soon enough, there was no one left.
Except for Ruby.
With apprehension making the action seem jerky, Jaune turned around from where he watched his friends leave to fix her with a look that had "lost" written all over it. They didn't know where to begin and so stood awhile in quiet indecision.
"When I first came to Beacon…" finally she began in a soft voice, "do you know what I was afraid of?"
Jaune shook his head, no.
"I was afraid that I wouldn't make any friends," she paused to look him straight in the eyes. "You were the first."
"Ruby-"
"—Are you my friend, Jaune?"
Ruby tried not to look it, but she was just as affected, maybe even more so than his teammates when she realized that it might have all been just pretend; that her first friend, her best friend, was only her friend because it was part of his job. Her sister had always been the popular one. She was just the kid with the knees of bees. Who would ever want to be friends with her? She didn't want to think like that. Not anymore.
What she wanted was for him to convince her that she was wrong.
Surprisingly, it looked like he understood what she meant by the question when lost was replaced by determination. What he said next, however, took her completely by surprise.
"Go out with me this weekend, and I'll prove it to you."
OOoOooo! Can't wait for the next chapter. Finally get to write some cheesy stuff! Believe it or not, this story was meant to be a one-shot fluff piece once upon a time.
So what we got here? We gots some classroom nonsense; got that good old senseless violence; aaand, oh, even a promise of a date?! My my my... what a busy (lazy really) bee I have been!
Also thanks for all the suggestions and the insights. Those inspire me actually, especially the ones that make me ask questions as well.
A lot of the reviews are guessing at aspects of the story now and I just love that! I really don't want to spoil though. So do please forgive me if I do not answer some of your really-too-close-for-comfort questions. Leave others to guess too! Come on, guys. Sheesh.
Till next time, TTFN! Tata for now!