LXVIII - Wind Root

Apologies for the lack of updates, pretty sure it's seasonal depression? I hate that I get it since I prefer fall and winter over the other seasons; it sucks this is a thing (No need to worry about me, just unmotivated). For the last few years around this time I have lost a lot of motivation to do anything not critical to my survival (like work) and hobbies take a hit. Happened last year when there was no update to this fic for a few months. Might be a while before I do updates with any regularity. I have seen people finding and following the fic, which did surprise me. I wonder how long folks had to scroll to get to Successional, let alone follow a fic that might look dead. IT'S NOT!

I am just going through something dumb rn. Also switching jobs from a park to a ski resort. I'm going to try and make myself do at least some writing for this, but please bear with me.

Sorry.

~~~(LXVIII)~~~

They definitely had a… wardrobe change… in the days they were apart. Whether they were good changes, he wasn't sure. Sure, he liked a good belt to keep things in place, but not in the strange manner they seemed to have taken it to. He had one to hold up his pants, another for his revolvers, and one for New Leaf. But he used them! His belts also had bullet or shell loops to keep ammo ready, but half of what he saw was useless or could be replaced with something else.

Looking at Ruby's thighs was a big example.

"Any reason you're staring at my partner's legs?"

"Disappointment."

Ruby's sounds of confusion were drowned out by Nora laughing.

"Ox… why..?" Said girl in red looked down at her outfit and back to him in puppy-like sadness.

"Not even sure how to begin, Red."

"Sister bashing aside." Yang walked up holding a familiar bag over her shoulder; strapped to the right and left sides were Bulls Breath and New Leaf respectively. Once in front of him, she opened the top, showing off the contents inside. Inside he saw his guns resting atop the rest of his armor. "Here's your stuff. Fair warning, Atlas did a bit of tinkering with it."

Oxon looked down at his hands. "Yeah, sounds about right." Oxon got to quick work putting his gear on over the gray clothes given to him by the academy.

Once wearing his armor, he noticed the same restraints fixed onto a fancy new pair of boots. It seemed like they didn't want him running if he decided to try and escape. Waste of resources really since he wasn't going to. With a loud cachunk, Virginiana folded out with ease, clearly not having been affected by the "modifications" with. His helmet had been tinkered with though.

It had been a fairly simple piece of protection before. Thankfully, it no longer had the gash left by Adam's blade, having been reforged by whoever worked on it. Compared to before, it was mostly the same helmet it used to be. The horns were still attached to each side and were angled forward, but the points had been blunted. Annoying, but not something that meant much, they still could do damage. The main change was to the face plate. Before it covered his nose and eyes, but left his mouth free. Now though, there was a steel plate that was attached to the top of the helm and ran just a few centimeters under his chin. It was smooth and undecorated and only had openings for his eyes. Putting it on, he noticed it had an inner lining of leather along it and while it didn't touch his face, it would make it a bit more comfortable to wear. Especially for headbutting.

"Yeah, that was one of our ideas." He looked over to Oscar who looked a bit guilty. Oxon had a guess as to why he had such an expression. He was about to say it wasn't a big deal but was interrupted.

Yang tapped him between the eyes, metal finger making a slight clinking sound. "Yeah, while we may see you for who ya are, the rest of the kingdom won't. It's better you not get recognized by the general public when you go out."

"Good idea." Oxon nodded. "I wouldn't really like to be harassed in the street." With the new helmet approved, he looked down to inspect his weapons.

His revolvers were seemingly untouched it seemed, though the same couldn't be said for the larger weapons. New leaf had some kind of mechanism wrapping over the barrel break and the hammer. The weight was marginal, but upon trying to insert some shells, he saw what had happened. Instead of an easy and crisp snap down, the barrel did not move, and he couldn't load any shells.

"What the h-eck is this?" He tried a few more times before there was a beep, letting him load two shells and snap it closed. Looking up, he saw Yang with her scroll out. A new one at that.

"Yeah, you need approval from us to be able to reload." He gave her a look, one she nodded at. "Yeah, total BS. But if you're with us, we're not going to lock it. But if you're with other members of ironwoods teams or the Ace-Ops…"

"I'll need to be aware of that." Looking at the dumb thing he let out a frustrated sigh. "Good to know about it before I tried it at least. I'm guessing Bulls Breath is the same?"

"Not quite, so you should still try loading it." He caught the box of ammo the blonde girl threw. He cautiously did so at first and after the first one went in with ease, he loaded the rest of the bullets. After a moment, he knew what had been done.

"Well that's stupid." After six rounds went in, he couldn't put the other six he normally could. They'd put in a tube plug. He levered a round into the chamber and put one last bullet into the tube before lowering the hammer safely. "From thirteen to seven... That's so stupid."

"Trust me, we know."

Blake stepped forward next.

"It took a bit of convincing to allow the six in the first place. Ironwood wanted no long range munitions at all." He gave the faunus a smile and a pat on the shoulder.

"Thanks, I will admit that I'm mad." He saw her ears go back a bit. He gave her forehead a flick and received a glare from the girl and rolled his eyes. "Mad at Ironwood, not you, obviously. I don't have any doubt that you guys had nothing to do with his decision. Besides, it wasn't like I was expecting open arms from the kingdom, remember?"

"Moving on!" Nora suddenly appeared between him and the pouting girl with a big grin. Her outfit had also changed, he had to admit, it looked good. The whole of her team seemed to have made more reserved upgrades and used far fewer leather belts. Thank fuck. "Time to test it all out!"

"Wait, what?" He went ignored.

"Should we pair off for solo fights or do team battles?"

"Uhhh, there's nine of us, somebody would be left out."

I don't particularly need to fight, myself. Myrtenaster wasn't upgraded after all."

"Great idea Weiss-Cream, you can be the judge then!"

His confusion decreased as he watched the others pull out their weapons, it seemed like most of them, bar Weiss and Oscar, had new features on their weapons courtesy of the icy kingdom.

Oxon looked at the others for a moment, wondering who he would fight. Not Nora, that was for sure. Ruby or Blake? It had been a while since he tested his aim on speedy targets. He took a few steps towards the girl in red when Jaune stepped in front of him.

"Been a while since we last sparred, right?" Oxon blinked away the mild surprise and shrugged in noncommittal acknowledgement. "Yup, last time was right before the festival. A lot has changed since then."

"When I taught you that fighting dirty is critical." Yeah, he remembered. He had sparred with Yang, Oscar and Qrow on rare occasions, but he'd purposefully avoided doing so with the remnants of team JNPR. He didn't want to reopen any wounds that were thought to be closed. Though it seemed like the knight wanted to test himself.

"Yeah… Not wrong there." The blonde boy, no, Huntsman motioned for Oxon to follow. With a mental sigh, he followed. Catching up to walk side by side, he tried for some small talk. "So, how's it feel to be fully licensed now? Gotta feel good, yeah?"

"It does." Oxon noticed Jaune's grip on his sword tighten. "We've finally made it to Atlas, and now we have General Ironwood on our side. I've wanted to be one for so long, it's kind of surreal that it's finally happened."

Not for him of course, but it was never a goal he had in the first place. Oxon was doing pretty well at his original goal of survival. Now though, it was different. The Salem threat was real and dangerous. They'd hit two kingdoms to different effects. Vale lost its school while Mistral lost its huntsmen. He and the others were worried about whether Atlas or Vacuo were next.

"Do you think Sun will be alright in Vacuo?"

The blonde thought for a moment before answering. "He should, Vacuo is known as a rugged kingdom. He and his team should be able to combat whatever happens next."

"Unless she goes after us…"

Jaune paused but nodded, firm expression setting on his face. "Yeah, unless she goes after Atlas. Though, with how we've been doing lately, we should be fine."

"Yeah," Oxon nodded. "We've been on a roll since Menagerie. If not for Adam, Argus would have gone much smoother."

Once the two walked to a spot far enough away to not be interrupted, they stood a bit apart. Jaune deployed Crocea Mors and got into a stance.

Guess it's time to get to it. Slipping Bulls Breath free, Oxon pulled the hammer back and got into a ready stance as well.

"You haven't fought me in a while, maybe I've gotten better than you." From behind the white shield, Oxon could see a slight smirk on the former wimp's lips. If Arc wanted to goad him into getting sloppy, he'd need to try harder.

With a smirk of his own, Oxon got ready for the bout. "I've got a perfect streak going, I don't plan on letting it end anytime soon."

With the words said, both shield users moved forward.

~~~(LXVIII)~~~

Sorry for being a short chapter, but better than none lol.

I hope these nerfs are not as awful as some feared. I wasn't going to actually takeaway any gear, just tweak it a bit to where it's obvious that the kingdom is taking him seriously while letting his fighting style remain mostly untouched. Will these tweaks mean anything? Will Oxon be just fine? You'll just have to wait and see!

~~~(LXVIII)~~~

Omake - Belts, Belts, Belts, They're All The Rage These Days.

(AU where Ox isn't enemy of the state)

"That should do it." Oxon looked down at his form and smiled. After seeing the options available, he spared no time making his new outfit as dependable as he could. "I'd like to see anything get the better of me now!"

He walked out of the changing room with a confident smirk as he joined the others.

Immediately he was subjected to a variety of stares and laughs.

"Buddy, what am I looking at?"

"And I thought Ruby went overboard…"

"Weren't you supposed to be the straight man to our comedy routine?"

He shook his head slightly and blinked at the odd comments. He looked down and confirmed he hadn't accidentally worn a bright pink cape and vest.

"I don't see what's so strange, I just made things easier for myself."

"Yeah, I feel like I'm looking at an anthropomorphic Atlesian army knife."

"So many pouches…"

"Did you even look in a mirror when putting that all on?" He looked at Blake as she looked him up and down. She didn't look impressed. She gestured to one near the far wall. "Just, try and find the problem…"

Rolling his eyes, he humored his stepsister. Walking in front of the reflective surface he saw himself in his suit of armor. New and improved.

"His two revolvers sat on a belt each, suspended above the one holding his new kevlar-cotton jeans. No change there, but the two belts above them were. They were covered in bullet loops the whole way around his torso and gleamed with two dozen bullets each. One held revolver ammo while the other held bullets for his rifle.

On his biceps, he had a thick leather band on each arm that held eight shotgun shells of different varieties. Some slugs, others buckshot, most dust infused.

He also had a few pouches affixed to his leather chest guard. Each had more ammo inside.

On his right thigh was another pouch which held medical supplies. On his left was one that held field rations.

On his back was a medium canvas backpack filled with other supplies like rope, a tent, a sleeping kit, and a weapon repair kit.

You know, the essentials.

"This is all practical." Oxon put his hands on his hips in satisfaction as he looked himself over once more.

"Practically insane…" Oxon narrowed his eyes at the muttered words.

He knew his outfit was perfect, he'd ignore the haters. To fully put away the issues they had with his armor, he brought out Bulls Breath.

"I didn't improve just my armor," He turned to face the others once more. "I also requested a few neat upgrades to my gear."

Flicking a button halfway up the hilt of the ax rifle, Oxon looked in awe as a blue light began to grow around the large ax head. He'd taken inspiration from Arc's idea for his shield and applied it to his main weapon. With the hard light extension, the size of his blade nearly doubled and the surface area of the blade made it so that he'd be able to cut through larger targets much easier.

"Oh gods… It's the Sword Sword all over again."

"Hey, it's not a bad upgrade!"

"Anything else?" Looking to the side, he saw Oscar looking at his other weapons. Deactivating the energy blade, he placed the weapon on his back.

"No?" Patting a hand on each revolver, he clarified. "These aint mine to change, besides, they already do their job well enough. Just needed higher quality ammunition to be better."

"And your shield?" Jaune seemed to escape an exasperated Ruby and came to inspect his fellow "Shield Bro's" upgrades. "Any changes there?"

Oxon answered by activating the mechashift mechanism, letting Virginiana fold out. Instead of a full metal barrier, there was now a hole for Oxon to see out of. It was made of some sort of composite Atlas techs used before hard light dust. It wouldn't run out of power, though it would need to occasionally be replaced if severely damaged.

"A peep hole, huh?" The blonde leaned in to inspect it. He made a slight hum of approval. "Nice."

"How about you? Finally get a long range option?" The guy had been the only melee-only member until Oscar joined. It had been a point Oxon brought up whenever a flying enemy showed up. Which was annoyingly common lately.

Predictably, the knight shifted his sapphire eyes to avoid the flat emeralds of Oxon.

"Jaune…"

The blonde spun on his heel and looked to the others. "So guys, what say we head to the training room and test out our new gear?"

"Jaune."

"Great, let's all he'd down, I can't wait to try out my shield's buffs!" His cheery attitude was about as frail as frost. He put an arm around each of his teammates and began ushering them towards the door.

"Jaune!"

"Hurry, before some other teams reserve them!" The leader was halfway out the door when Oxon began to give chase.

"Jaune! Get back here! We talked about this!"

"I don't need a gun and you can't make me!"

"I'll get you to use firearms even if I need to graft one to your arm!"

~~~(LXVIII)~~~

Jaune… get some damn long range ISTG.

Ngl, I wrote half of that before the whole… thing… starting. So apologies if it's not exactly great lol.