A/N: Hello everyone! For any readers who've been following me or my stories for awhile now, I apologize for my absence of late. I've been dealing with a bad back, growing feelings of inferiority and insufficiency, worsening depression and suicidal thoughts for the last few months now and haven't had the motivation, creativity, energy or confidence to publish anything I have written. Again, I apologize for my prolonged absence. That being said, I honestly didn't think this story would get much if any attention, never mind reviews actually expressing support for it, so... thank you, for supporting my story and or stories. Even if you're just dropping by to read and don't follow, favorite or review, I still greatly appreciate your presence.
Sorry, went on a bit of a tangent there... anyways, on with the story, eh? Sorry if this feels a little rushed, but it ah... it kinda was.
He didn't bother renting out a room in the motel again, rather he was more than content just rack out in the Slave 1, which remained seated in the parking lot taking up a comical amount of space by just being there. Classes would be starting up in about a week, just after they'd finished their entrance initiation. With all that being said, however, the issue of school supplies made itself prevalent, and he knew that he'd need some more regular supplies for this new environment he'd be going into.
Curiously enough, the quest that was added for him pointed towards the Slave 1's cargo hold, wherein he found not only everything he'd need for school and the sort, but also a second set of Beskar armor, another jetpack, left hand gauntlet that traded his concussion missile with whistling birds, a spare set of Westar 34s customized the same way his current ones were, and an Amban Phase-Pulse blaster rifle... all items he could've sworn he'd never had. The Slave 1 was also fully stocked with spare munitions for his current kit, including Kaminoan poison darts, jetpack missiles, tibana gas canisters, the special canisters needed for his Westar 34s, fuel for his jetpack and flamethrower, replacement hidden blades, replacement knee missiles, whistling birds, and concussion missiles too. Finally, his ship now also had a built-in carbonate chamber that could also thaw out whoever was unfortunate enough to be carbonized in the first place.
It was all rather strange, as most of the stuff he was fairly certain he'd never had. Normally, he would've been suspicious of all this, but according to everything he'd been able to find following that man, Ozpin, telling him he practically only existed since today, he knew that none of his stuff had been tampered with, not naturally, at least. Even security footage from the previous night just showed the cameras go static for about a second, with the Slave 1 taking up the space in the parking lot the moment that feed had been reestablished. There wasn't enough time for someone to tamper with his everything, so by whatever means that there was this disembodied voice in his head that fed quests into his helmet's HUD, and more importantly his mere existence here to boot, must've been the same thing that changed all his gear and changed his ship. It was the only real explanation that made any sense.
"Might as well fly this over to Beacon in the meantime. Hopefully they have space for private parking..." Jango idly mused as he stepped over and into the cockpit after closing up and securing everything. He was at least satisfied to see that aside from supplies and a new fuel type, his ship had remained exactly as he'd last had it. However, with that thought aside, Jango initialized all the systems of his ship, and sighed in relief as it rose upright without issue, leveling out and sitting him upright, before blasting off through the night sky, straight for Beacon Academy...
It was surprisingly easy to get cleared for a personal landing pad, as the moment he'd touched down, it had been none other than Ozpin who'd greeted him the following morning. The man admired his ship for a few minutes, before clearing him for the pad's usage. It was all a rather painless procedure, but that was about five days ago now. During that time, Jango had done some experimentations, specifically with his munitions. After spending a whole day shooting his new Amban Phase-Pulse Blaster Rifle, he'd returned to the Slave 1 to find new canisters for the rifle within the stowage. The following day, he'd fired a few more hours, and returned just to see it all replenished again. It was strange, to be sure, but convenient beyond a doubt. However, just to be absolutely certain, Jango made a meticulous count of his jetpack rockets in storage. 25, there were, and after taking and firing off about 10, he returned to find the number hadn't changed.
"Magically replenishing ammunition without explanation. I'm not gonna bother questioning it for risk of pissing off whatever has given me this boon." He spoke to nobody in particularly as he equipped all of his gear. From the cockpit of his ship, he watched as an airship touched down and offloaded a batch of students onto the academy grounds, eventually spying a familiar silhouette among the crowd and deciding that would serve as his cue to move. He'd made a very minor change to his kit in temporarily replacing his concussion missile with the whistling birds. Against humans, and more specifically if he wanted to take a target alive, he would've opted for the concussion missile, but this initiation, from everything he'd gathered, wouldn't require him to take anyone in alive. Just fight his way to an object, take it, and get back.
All fairly straightforward, he thought as he stepped off his ship and began making his way for the auditorium, although before he could even get halfway there, the sound of an explosion somewhere off to his left caught his attention. It wasn't a particularly powerful sounding explosion, but any explosion in this area to his knowledge was out of the norm, so he'd went to investigate. Somehow, he wasn't surprised to see the perp upon his arrival, chuckling somewhat behind his mask as he stepped out from behind a pillar to approach. There was some girl in a white dress yelling at his first contact, as well as some girl in black step in. Before he could get there to say anything, though, the girl in white had sputtered something an a notably indignant fashion, before stomping away, and the girl in black making herself scarce not a moment later, leaving him the last one there alongside Ruby by the time he'd arrived.
"Hard landing?" He asked, offering the redhead a hand as she looked towards him as opposed to the sky. Laughing somewhat nervously, Ruby took his hand and allowed him to help her to her feet before scratching the back of her neck in a timid fashion.
"Hah... yeah, I guess you could say that. When did you get here, Jango?" She asked, watching him point towards the Slave 1 and forming a small o with her mouth as she slowly nodded in understanding. "Oh... so you're just loaded then. Got it."
"I wouldn't say that, but the ship is mine." He explained in as few words as needed while still getting his point across. Jerking his head over towards the auditorium, Jango began making his way towards his current objective without anything more to say and a young reaper hot on his heels...
During the headmaster's speech Ruby had broken off to be with her sister, something he found more than a little curious, given how different the two appeared. Adopted or half-siblings, he surmised, before finding an isolated spot within the auditorium and just quietly listened in. Now, however, as he kept to himself in the corner of the gym where they were all sleeping tonight, he couldn't help but run himself through a few quick exercises to maintain physique. He didn't quite sense any danger afoot at the moment, so he'd felt comfortable enough to offload his kit in his locker, though that didn't mean he wasn't at least packing some form of heat or another. His Westar 34s were currently concealed on his person, easy enough for him to draw on a dime should a situation arise.
With some amusement he watched Ruby and the girl's sister approach the black-dressed one from earlier, chuckling slightly as the white one stormed up to them making a fool of herself. Most of it he just tuned out, but he found Ruby's reasoning for all this to be humorous, even if naïve. The innocence of a child. It was amusing to him and his more cynical, practicality-driven mind... still, he supposed there was something to be said about one pursuing own ambitions, even if they are unrealistic. Of course, he already had an idea about her reasons, given their first encounter, but the more concrete statement just served to solidify what he'd already thought.
Nevertheless, the night in the gym was short-lived, and it wasn't too long before he'd reequipped his armor and weapons in the locker room, opting to take up the whistling birds as opposed to his concussion missile for this mission, and stood by the cliff side overlooking the Emerald Forest. He already had some understanding of the mission, he really just needed the finer details so he could finish the job, and given he'd accomplished harder missions with less to go on, he wasn't worried in the slightest. Minutes ticked by, drawing more of his fellow students over to the cliff side, he counted about twenty in total, himself and his only real known contact accounted for in the count.
"Well, it's good to see you're all up and ready to go so early. I take it you all slept well?" A familiar voice called from behind, but Jango didn't need to look back to know who was calling out to them. Ozpin's voice was recognizable enough on its own, so he merely crossed his arms and stepped onto a launch pad whilst keeping his gaze trained on the forest ahead of himself. He could almost picture the man closing in on their position, each step taking him a few feet closer than before until finally he stepped around the group and regarded every student with a nod, himself included. A brief explanation of the ensuing events followed suit, just as he'd expected, but the assignment of teams was somewhat bizarre to him, not that he really had any issue with it, and the parameters of the mission were straightforward enough. Find a partner, fight Northward to some ancient ruins, grab the relics, hightail it out of there. If anything, this may well be the easiest job he'd had in months.
"Mr. Fett," Ozpin's gaze turned to himself, with a small smirk playing across his face. It didn't take a genius to figure out why he was being called out, being that he was probably the only one there who'd expressly stated that they wanted to be a Bounty Hunter, specifically. "The skills of hunting men are not similar to those of a normal Hunter, but something tells me I won't need to worry about that from you?"
"Save any worrying for the blonde one on the end, Ozpin." He took up an athletic stance, before blasting off with his jetpack the moment that the pad finished its movement, sending himself soaring past those launched just prior to himself and leaving all else in the dust. He wasn't gonna be shown up by a bunch of children and amateurs, he'd complete the mission the fastest, and with the highest kill count to boot...
He scorched the earth somewhat with his landing, before looking North and following the quest tracker in his HUD. A few scattered creatures of black and white attempted to ambush him, but he couldn't find any that one good shot from one of his blasters couldn't kill. Interestingly enough, a new tab appeared when he first killed one of them, titled "codex" and located in his upper right peripheral. A quick look inside revealed several more tabs, including a bestiary that described the creatures he'd killed and providing their names and capabilities. A useful feature, to be sure, especially given that it also listed weaknesses that he could exploit. So far, within the ten or so minutes he'd been trekking through the woods, he'd slain three types of "Grimm," those being titled as Beowulves, Ursa, and a singular Beowulf Alpha that took an extra shot to put down.
He made a mental note to aim for the head of that one next time he faced it, since the other two fell easily enough with a shot to the chest and he'd thought the pattern would repeat itself. However, before he could put in any more thought after killing it, his aura sense kicked off like crazy, as a singular signature was heading directly towards him at an absolutely insane speed. Knowing that humans just didn't move that fast, Jango acted purely on reflex and pivot aside at the last second and kicked out low, striking his attacker in the knees and sending them toppling face-first into the dirt with an almost satisfying Crunch!
"Augh!" A feminine voice cried before getting buried in the dirt, followed by a crimson cloak flipping over their head just as they ate the dirt and drawing a confused grunt from the defendant... who only them remembered that semblances were apparently a thing here, and recognized the one he'd just tripped as soon as he saw the cloak. Sighing lowly, Jango shook his head and stepped around to Ruby's front and kneeled down, offering the girl a hand just as she was picking her face out of the ground.
"Sorry about that, acted on reflex. Nothing broken?" He inquired quietly as the girl's face shot upwards and her eyes snapped onto his visor. A nervous laughter escaped her as she accepted his hand and allowed Jango to heft her up to her feet. After she'd dusted herself off and spat out whatever dirt was still in her mouth, Ruby shook her head and propped herself against a tree, knees down shaking violently and in a manner that looked quite painful.
"Nah, but you kick hard, and I mean, I'm struggling to stand properly right now levels of hard..." He turned his head back towards the North, noting a small, circular portrait of Ruby appearing in his lower left peripheral of his HUD. Directly beside it, there was a similar status and aura tracker to his own, plastered just above her nameplate. As if on cue, a new codex entry appeared, bearing her name and being filed under "Persons of Interest." However, there was a sort of bar under her tab tracking her physical status, most of it was greyed out, but part of it was filled in with a light blue glow. He idly assumed that that must've been something to track semblance with but he couldn't be too sure. However, with all that aside, he turned his attention back to the little reaper beside him, who was only just then starting to regain her footing and correct balance, finally not needing the tree to stay upright. "So... I guess we're partners then, right?"
"Something like that. Come on, we still have a mission to accomplish." No more words necessary, he resumed his trek towards his objective, maintaining a running pace that most would've been hard-pressed to keep up with, although given her prior speed he wasn't surprised to see the girl didn't have any trouble keeping pace. There wasn't much between themselves and the objective, but something in the back of his mind was just screaming that things wouldn't remain so easy for long...
She wasn't sure quite what to think of her new partner yet, being from Atlas as he was and herself from Vacuo, the two couldn't have come from more different backgrounds and yet, he seemed to be something of a wildcard. Nevertheless, she pressed onwards toward the objective, keeping her gun-sword "Lucio" at the ready as they went deeper and deeper into the forest. The last thing she wanted was to be caught off guard by something... well, more so than she'd already been. Her partner just seemed to bring about a whirlwind of unpredictability wherever he went, and it made her normally analytical and methodical approach far more difficult.
"Yo, Nero, you still good? We can pause for a sec if you need it." Her partner offered her, distracting her somewhat as she was currently trying to read their map. She sighed somewhat, before turning to face him and giving a weak smile. Truth be told, she wasn't able to sleep at all the previous night as it was just too damn cold for her liking. She was used to operating in the deserts of Vacuo, so Vale might as well have been winter for her even in the middle of its Summer. Nero was tired as all hell, but was just doing her best to power through it regardless of both that and currently being very cold. All being said, she should've been more aware of the drop in ambient temperature comparing the two regions, but she focused on other things that she was far less glad she'd focused on at this current juncture, especially since warmer clothing wasn't one of her considerations.
What she was wearing now was her usual combat attire from back home, consisting of a white jacket with a harness underneath and no shirt revealing her ample cleavage and belly button. She also wore black short shorts and gloves, magazine pouches on either side of her hips and knee-high boots, finally finishing the look with a pair of sunglasses. Her black hair ran down to her shoulders and was held in a ragged and choppy bob, and the final things to note as far as appearance went was a fair skin complexion and bluish-green eyes. Cool and practical for a place as hot as Vacuo, but she really should've at least considered buying a normal shirt to go under her jacket while in Vale. For weapons, she was packing a pair of scoped 10mm handguns, a pair of 9mm SMGs, Lucio, a shotgun, grenades, and a 40mm grenade launcher to top it all off. A walking arsenal, which was a sharp comparison to her teammate.
"I'm fine, Yaeger, just a little chilly, is all. Our objective is another five or so kilometers due north of our current position, we should keep moving." She was thoroughly perplexed by him, as despite being from Atlas, Yaeger was more of a wild man than even most of her friends back home, and that was reflected in how he fought. Bladed gauntlets each with an integrated twin-barrel LMG were his weapon of choice, and he merely wore a black cloak with a crimson interior to cover his upper body. His lower body was concealed by baggy black pants and steel greaves, with steel tassets armoring his hips. Finally, his skin was a similar complexion to his own, his golden hair reached a little further down than her own, and his blue eyes were sharp, fierce. He stood about a foot taller than herself, at roughly 6'4", and he was very well built from a standpoint of raw physique... a sharp contrast from her own, which was somewhere between curvy and athletic.
"Y'know, I would agree with you... but we're surrounded." He spoke bluntly, taking up a wide stance with an almost maniacal grin as he prepared for battle. Sighing lowly, Nero unholstered both 10mm pistols and pressed her back to Yaeger's own. She wasn't the greatest warrior, more so she was a support-kinda fighter, but she still enjoyed battle just as much as any other Hunter, and a mere handful of Beowulves and Ursai? No challenge, this would be over in short order.
Leveling out her left, Nero loosed a single bullet, finding its mark through the eye of a Beowulf just as the follow-up shot ripped through the adjacent charging wolf's throat. A booming roar ripped through the air as the four barrels of Yaeger's two gauntlets began singing their deadly song, cutting down swathes of Grimm and turning his whole arc of fire into a veritable storm of shrapnel from how his bullets splintered bone and wood alike. He grunted in annoyance as an Ursa Major began wading through his fire with little trouble, and Nero annoyed by the raw press of numbers coming from her side. With a sort of wordless understanding, Yaeger ducked down and around, allowing Nero to roll over his back, dropping into a crouch and lining up her shot. The greater precision of her weapon allowed her to put a quick burst of bullets from each handgun through the beast's weak spots, dropping it with ease just as Yaeger swept widely and wildly with his gauntlets, slashing down a handful of Beowulves with each swipe before deflecting an incoming claw from an Ursa with an upwards slash, before stabbing through the beast's abdomen with the four blades of his left gauntlet. Stabbing his other gauntlet through, he displayed a savage example of his strength as he heft the beast overhead, and tore it in two with ease.
Drawing her SMGs out, Nero quickly sprayed down the approaching Grimm as they were getting too close and too numerous for her pistols to reliably dispatch in short order, while Yaeger turned back to his Machine Guns to turn the Grimm who were still out of reach of his claws into minced meat. Fighting smart as they were, there wasn't any particularly fancy tricks they were bothering to employ in beating back these beasts, and within just about two minutes of combat, they stood alone once more, the horde dealt with without any real trouble aside from expended ammunition. Sighing in an annoyed manner, Nero stowed her weapons and pulled her compass out, reorienting herself onto North and looking back to Yaeger. In response to the end of combat, he retracted the blades of his gauntlets, and crossed his arms, a slight smirk crossing his features as he looked down on her.
"C'mon, Yaeger. We've still got a few kilometers to cross before we're finished here."
"Looks like we're the first ones here." Ruby mused as they waltzed into the ruins, seeing that each pedestal still had its piece on it. Without thinking too much, Ruby took a Black Queen piece, while Jango took the King of the same color, and the two began making their way out of the area... however, they'd shortly be drawn to a halt, as a duo of warriors darted out of the tree line with an entire horde of Grimm that looked like big ants nipping at their heels. Jango, for his part, found the sight somewhat amusing, but Ruby was panicking at seeing the two teens run for their lives with equally panicking expressions playing across their faces.
"DAMNIT YAEGER! You just HAD to shoot the stupid anthill! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?." The female screamed while running, eliciting an equally loud and hasty response from her partner.
"IT ISN'T MY FAULT! IT WAS JUST ASKING TO BE SHOT!"
"THAT'S YOUR REASON?!. IDIOT! IF I DIE, I'M HAUNTING YOU FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!"
"NICE SENTIMENT, BUT I THINK YOU'RE FORGETTING THAT IF YOU DIE, I'M PROBABLY GONNA DIE TOO!" He laughed as they ran, drawing a slightly more audible chuckle from Jango as he listened to their back and forth, before he noticed Ruby tugging on his arm with an almost expectant look on her face. Groaning as it seemed the amusing scene was only amusing to himself, Jango dropped into a runner's stance, before blasting off to intercept them with Ruby speeding alongside him with Crescent Rose drawn and extended. He managed to cross the distance first, whipping himself upright at the last second and allowing the partners a second to pass him before unleashing a violent conflagration from his left gauntlet's flamethrower upon the horde of Grimm ants and condemning the whole horde to a fiery doom in a single sweep.
Dropping down, Jango admired his handiwork before turning to see Ruby had only just stopped herself in time to not be lit on fire herself. She only seemed bothered by that for a moment, though, as immediately she turned her eyes towards his flamethrower, lighting up in an almost cartoonish manner. He had to gently bonk her on the forehead with the back of his hand to bring her back to the real world, making her go beet red as she realized she was ogling over his weapons again.
"Oh, sorry! Its just that flamethrowers are super rare to be found in the hands of hunters, even more so one both so small, portable, and powerful! I ah... Could I take a closer look at it later?" She inquired in a innocent tone, although Jango merely shook his head and began walking back towards the ruins, and the duo of his peers that were currently catching their breaths in the ruins. As soon as he was within about two meters he halted in place, crossing his arms and looking the two up and down. A male and a female, both around his (new) age.
"Who are you two?" He questioned, foregoing any normal pleasantries as he directly addressed the two. The male chuckled somewhat nervously, before getting elbowed in the side by the smaller female as she cleared her throat and straightened her posture to address him.
"I'm Nero Friedman, apparently the brains between myself and this meathead. His name is Aldrin Yaeger, but he apparently prefers to be called by last name, so Yaeger will do for him. Thanks for the save, Silver." She recollected herself swiftly, stepping up to pat him on the shoulder before having her arm brushed aside by Jango, who merely shook his head.
"Jango, not Silver. I'm Jango Fett, my partner is Ruby Rose."
"Hello!"
"We've already grabbed our respective pieces. Grab yours, and we'll start making our way-" Before he could finish his statement, the sound of a blasting shotgun reached his ears, and a look back revealed an Ursa collapsing out from the tree line. Curiously enough, the blonde Ruby had identified as her sister stepped out from the foliage, followed shortly after by the black-clad girl who'd helped his new partner just the day prior. A simple nod was all they needed for acknowledgement, and the duo began making their way towards them... followed shortly after by the screeching of some massive avian Grimm that the white-dressed one and a girl clad in a crimson trench coat clung onto for dear life, with the latter one letting go on the bird's first pass. Sighing lowly, Jango just stepped over to the side and propped himself against one of the stone pillars that surrounded the ruins, content to just let everything play out and allowing his suspension of disbelief to take over.
Blonde boy he was almost certain would become a stain earlier sailing through the air and crashing into a tree, a crazy ginger and her ninja boyfriend riding in on an Ursa, Amazonian Redhead being chased by a big scorpion, and finally the white-dressed one letting go of the bird and getting caught by the blonde who seemingly forgot he wasn't immune to gravity. Ridiculous as it was, that was exactly what he'd observed over the next few moments. Standing up from the pillar again and taking up himself in the center, Jango snatched Crescent Rose from Ruby for a moment, who looked more than a little baffled by the fact that he'd just walked up to her and snatched her weapon while she was in the middle of conversation with her sister without even asking, and trained his eyes down the sights. He was more or less just guessing where to shoot, but he squeezed the trigger and tracked the bullet as it struck one of the massive scorpion's eyes and forced it to recoil in pain, giving the green-eyed redhead enough breathing room to effectively get out of dodge.
Scoffing, Jango handed the weapon back to Ruby before gesturing with a hand for all to follow. This wasn't an optimal location to fight these two behemoths, and he had a feeling that more comically sized enemies would be joining the fray in short order. According to his physical map, there would be ruins directly East of their current location that should serve as a suitable battleground... not that he couldn't probably take out both the big bird and the stupid scorpion on his own, but he was thinking of his comrades' well-being right now. Here they were too exposed, and the others he couldn't be too sure wouldn't get picked off one by one by the bird that was shooting feathers at them.
Good as a plan as it may have been, he couldn't expect what would be waiting for them upon arrival...