Plastered Paradox
Chapter 10
"What the fuck were you thinking?!" Qrow shouted.
Jaune winced. "Keep it down, would you? No need to blow my ears off…"
"No, I think there is a need! You just told a follower of Salem where to find two Silver-Eyed Warriors at once! Hell, one of them is a fucking five-year-old! I ought to kick your ass here and now, you piece of shit!"
"Seriously, what were you thinking?" Raven asked. "Because even by your standards, this is pretty colossally retarded, Jaune. Like, for real, as soon as you explained exactly what you did, I felt my IQ drop a standard deviation."
"I still don't really understand what's going on, but for once I agree with Raven," Cinder volunteered. "This does seem pretty dumb of you, Jaune."
"Alright, so maybe it's not the best plan," Jaune said. "But I needed something to prevent Cinder from getting tortured to death."
"You didn't have to send them to the right place!" Qrow protested. "Seriously, you could have sent them to the middle of the Vacuan desert or the Atlesian tundra! Why didn't you do that?!"
"You want to know why? ...Because I didn't think of it," Jaune admitted.
Qrow let out an irritated shout and lunged for Jaune, intending to strangle the life out of him. Raven stopped him, and the two men stood there, glaring daggers at each other.
"Children, please," Raven said. "Qrow, I understand that Jaune fucked up pretty massively because he's a moron, but look on the bright side – Summer hasn't found out yet."
Instantly, Qrow's eyes widened. "...Okay, yeah, that's a good point. And for the record, we are going to do our damnedest to keep it that way, even if she gets attacked and we have to lie to her fucking face about it. I cannot deal with angry!Summer again, not after what happened in our third year."
"What happened in your third year?" Cinder asked.
"Someone thought it'd be funny to replace her shampoo with blue hair dye as a prank," Qrow explained. "Eighty-three hospitalizations later, and the horse tranquilizers finally took effect enough that we were able to knock her out, strap her down to a table, and get the dye out of her hair. That calmed her down enough that we weren't in imminent danger of severe bodily harm anymore."
"That sounds horrifying," Cinder admitted. "What happened to the guy that did it?"
"Ozpin said he'd take care of it," Raven answered. "Last thing I heard, that guy now eats all his meals through a mechanical straw. Seriously, the old man's usually pretty incompetent, but when he's properly motivated, he can pretty scary… just not as scary as Angry!Summer, which is probably why he decided to just make sure that one student could never be a problem again."
"So it's agreed, then," Jaune interrupted. "Summer never finds out what happened here, because then we're all dead. I'm especially dead, but so are all of you for letting me say it… except maybe Cinder. She'll probably just get away with a spanking or something, or whatever it is moms do to unruly teenagers."
"You were a teenager once, too," Qrow pointed out. "You don't exactly have to guess how moms discipline teens who act out."
"I'll be honest, man – I've blocked most of my teenage years out of my memory due to cringe. I've buried my happy childhood years underneath a thin veneer of alcohol-induced retrograde amnesia, along with most of the really bad parts of my teenage years. At this point, I'm kinda forcing myself to just remember the good times only, because the cringey parts make me want to commit toaster bath."
"That's dark, even for you," Cinder commented.
"You'll understand when you're older."
'Can we focus?" Raven asked, impatient. "So, the Spring Maiden is a degenerate weaboo who's thrown her fedora into the ring with Salem, presumably because Salem promised to bring her favorite waifu of the season into existence using magic or something. I want to know what we're going to do about it."
"Well, the easiest thing to do is probably hunt her down again," Cinder explained. "I mean, that's kinda self-explanatory – we can't exactly let somebody like that just run around."
"And let's not forget that somebody has to warn Summer and Tai that Salem knows where they are," Raven stated. "Hopefully without telling them the real reason why."
"I thought we just agreed that we weren't going to tell them, because otherwise, she'll have our asses on a platter?" Jaune asked.
"Believe me, I don't want to do this, but we can't just ignore the fact that Salem now knows where her and Ruby are," Qrow emphasized. "So someone is going to have to tell her, since otherwise we're going to be down two Silver-Eyed Warriors."
"Thank you for volunteering," Raven said.
"I didn't volunteer for shit! Don't put this on me!"
"I mean, you're kinda getting it by default," Jaune said. "Raven and I can't go back – Summer kinda fucking hates me, and it's a bit too early for Raven to be making a booty call, she has to wait at least until the kids are in bed. I suppose we could send Cinder, but I don't really trust a teenager with something this important, especially since she still doesn't really know what's going on."
"That's easily rectified by just telling me what's going on," Cinder insisted. "Seriously, I grew up in an abusive orphanage, and got adopted into an even more abusive family. However bad it is, I can handle it."
"No, you can't." Cinder glared at him, and Jaune ignored her as usual. "Qrow, just do it. It'll take like thirty seconds to warn them, and someone has to unless you want a dead family on your hands."
Qrow sighed tiredly. "Fine, fine… you make a convincing argument, I suppose. Though I'm still gonna kick your ass at some point."
"Of course I make a convincing argument, I'm a natural orator. Raven, portal him over, would you?"
"If you ever use the word 'portal' as a verb again, I'm turning into a bird and gouging your eyes out while you sleep," Raven threatened as she tore open a portal. Qrow stepped inside the swirling black-and-red vortex and disappeared.
He was gone for all of twenty seconds before Raven suddenly stiffened, then let out a loud cry as a portal began to form in front of her. Jaune couldn't help but stare in surprise.
"Uh, you okay?"
"No!" Raven shouted. "Something is… forcing its way through!"
"What?! What is it?"
"I don't know, but whatever it is, it's really, really mad! It… it feels like some kind of ferocious beast! Could this be Salem herself?!"
Raven cried out again as the portal widened even further. Jaune tensed as two figures stepped through it, and when he saw who it was, he couldn't help but wince.
"Yeah, I should've seen this coming…"
"Jaune!" Summer shouted as she stomped towards him, the portal closing behind her just as Qrow stepped out of it. She got right up in Jaune's face, grabbed his collar, and pulled him down low enough for her to stare into his eyes. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!"
"Unfortunately," Jaune said.
Summer slapped him. He didn't even try to dodge it. "You ratted my family out, you idiot!"
"I did, yeah. Sorry."
Another slap. "What were you thinking?!"
"I wasn't."
Yet another slap. "Well, you'd better fix it! I am not letting my family live their entire lives in fear of what that witch might do to them!"
"I'm working on it, trust me."
Summer went to slap him again, only for Cinder to suddenly reach out and catch her hand.
"Stop!" Cinder said. "Just… stop, alright?"
Summer blinked, then lowered her hand. She turned her gaze back to Jaune, glaring at him. "Qrow explained it all to me. On a certain level, I understand why you made the choice you did. But at the same time, really, you couldn't have just lied?!"
"Well, I-" Jaune paused. "...Hang on, Qrow explained all that to you in like twenty seconds?"
"What can I say, except that Angry!Summer makes a very compelling argument as to why you should cut to the chase," Qrow said. "Seriously, all I had to say was that Salem knew where she was and the next thing I knew, she was threatening to cut my balls off unless I told her everything. So I did."
"Don't try to change the subject," Summer warned. "I hope you're happy, you idiot, because now I've got Taiyang making arrangements to go take the girls to stay with Ozpin."
"That… might not be the best idea," Jaune warned.
"Why not?"
"Because Ozpin may or may not be in the mind of a criminal named Roman Torchwick now."
Summer stared at him. "Let me guess – this is something you did?"
"In his defense, Torchwick isn't such a bad guy," Qrow said. "I mean, sure, he's a petty criminal, but he's quite charismatic, and he's good with kids… for a given definition of 'good'."
"I'm not even gonna ask you what that's supposed to mean," Summer said dryly. "Something tells me I won't like it."
Cinder turned towards Raven. "You're being awfully quiet."
"Because I'm not an idiot," Raven explained. "I know better than to get on Summer's bad side when she's pissed. Unlike some people."
"Yeah, yeah…" Jaune muttered. "Look, Summer, I will readily admit that I fucked up big-time. I'm not even gonna argue that I didn't. The question now is, what are we gonna do to fix it?"
"That should be obvious," Raven said as she examined her nails. "We kill the Spring Maiden. And by 'we' I mean 'I', because Gods know that none of you have the stomach for that kind of mindless violence."
"Do we really need to kill her?" Cinder asked.
"Well-"
"She's a threat to my family," Summer growled. "That means she dies. No ifs, ands, or buts about it."
"Point taken," Cinder hurriedly corrected herself. "Alright, next question – what's the big deal about her being the Spring Maiden?"
Summer blinked. "You mean nobody told you?"
"Nope."
"Huh. That's… way more responsible than I expected from a group like this. I mean, your most moral member is a guy who's plastered all the time."
"Which one?" Raven asked dryly.
"In any case, someone should probably explain to you what's going on," Summer said.
"For real?" Qrow asked. "I'm surprised to hear that coming from you, Summer. I thought you wanted her to have a semblance of a normal life."
"She's traveling with you three, any chance at a normal life she may have had is gone now," Summer pointed out.
"Alright, yeah, you have a point there. Who wants to do the honors?"
"I'll do it," Jaune volunteered. He cleared his throat. "I'll keep this brief, Cinder – there's an ancient Grimm lady named Salem who wants to destroy all of humanity. She has an inner circle of people who obey her commands to help her destroy humanity, for whatever reason. We're going to stop her the only way we can – with magic and wanton violence."
"Magic?" Cinder asked.
Jaune nodded. "Yes, magic. It's real. Those Maidens we keep talking about? They're four young women who have the power to harness magic. Don't ask about specifics on that – the whole process is very stupid and makes absolutely no sense. I'm pretty sure the old man came up with it after seven or eight beers."
"The old man? You mean Ozpin?"
"Yeah, he's kinda using magic to brain-surf through people when he dies," Jaune said. "Again, it's quite convoluted, but I can't really blame him for it, for reasons I won't get into now. Anyway, point is – we need the powers of the four Maidens if we're going to beat Salem. That's a problem, because the Maidens are all very powerful, and one of them is currently allied with Salem herself. So we're going to have to kill her if we want to actually make any progress when it comes to beating Salem." He looked over to Summer. "How am I doing?"
"Might want to wrap it up," Summer emphasized.
"Alright." Jaune turned back to Cinder. "Anyway, yeah, that's about it. We need to kill the Grimm queen, and we need the Maiden powers to help us do it. There's more to it than that, obviously, but that's enough for a basic crash course at the moment, I think."
"This is the most insane thing I've ever heard," Cinder said evenly. "If it were coming from anyone else, I wouldn't believe it, but this is so insane and coming from a person who themselves is so completely insane that I feel like I have no choice but to believe it unflinchingly and unquestioningly."
"That's about right," Raven grunted. "So, question now is – where do we go from here? We've gotta track down the Spring Maiden, obviously. Any ideas where we can begin looking?"
There was a sudden explosion from off in the distance. All of them looked over out the nearby window to see a plume of smoke rising up from the center of town. Slowly, they all turned back towards each other.
"That might be a good place to start," Qrow suggested.
They all took off running towards the danger without missing a beat, intent on killing the Maiden and also maybe helping people.
They rushed over to the center of town, their weapons drawn and ready. All around them, people sprinted away in a panic, and it didn't take long to understand why.
"You know, I was wondering when Salem was going to start making her moves," Jaune mused as he stared down a gigantic King Taijitu.
"Would you shut up and start fighting?!" Summer shouted as she leapt into the fray. Qrow followed after her. Jaune blinked, then looked over to Raven. Raven rolled her eyes.
"If I must," she said simply.
"Oh, come on," Jaune protested. "All this time, you've been bitching about how you've wanted to kill something, and now that you finally get your chance, you're all reluctant about it?"
"Killing Grimm just isn't the same."
"Whatever, you fucking murderhobo. You just keep the Grimm off me, I'm gonna make sure Cinder is alright."
"Oh, I'm so glad you finally noticed!" Cinder shouted. Jaune looked over towards her and found her pinned underneath a Beowolf, desperately trying to keep its jaws from closing around her head.
"You know, this is a good learning experience, actually," Jaune stated.
"Fuck you, Jaune!"
"No, really. How do you think I'd get out of this situation? Just do exactly what you think I would do."
Cinder paused for a moment, and after a fraction of a second to collect her thoughts, looked up and spat in the Beowolf's eye. The Grimm reeled from the sudden contact, and Cinder seized the opportunity to roll the monster off her. While it laid on the ground, she reached for some sand and superheated it into a small, jagged shard of glass with her Semblance, then in one move, shoved the glass deep into the Beowolf's other eye. The Grimm stiffened, then collapsed and began to dissipate into dust. Cinder stood over it, panting, but then a wide, victorious smile crossed her face.
"I did it!"
"Congrats," Jaune said.
"Thank-"
At that moment, Cinder turned towards him and found him standing over top of seven dissipating Beowolves. Her smile instantly faded, replaced with a deep scowl. She crossed her arms. "Do you always have to be such a huge asshole?"
"I don't have to be, but I choose to be because it's fun," Jaune answered.
"Whatever. Can I have my sword back, now?"
"Get your own sword. Do that thing you did with the sand again, that was cool."
Cinder's eye twitched. She bent down, superheated some more sand into a blade, and picked it up, then threw it at Jaune. He deflected it with his own sword.
"Someone's feisty today."
"Fuck you," Cinder hissed.
"Language, young lady."
"You're not my dad, Jaune. Stop acting like you are."
"I'm the closest thing you've got. Watch that thing behind you, by the way."
Cinder turned around just in time to avoid a swipe from an Ursa's paw. The Grimm came around for another strike, but Jaune managed to kill it by throwing Cinder's sword at it. The sword embedded itself into the Grimm's neck, and it fell over dead. Instantly, Cinder pulled her sword out of the fallen Grimm, examining it. As she stared at the blade, her scowl returned.
"Jaune, what the hell did you do to my blade?!"
"I made some adjustments while you were asleep."
"Is that what you're calling it? You painted it pink!"
"I thought girls liked pink."
"Oh my Gods, you are the most insufferable person I know. What's gotten into you?"
"I haven't had a drink in awhile, so I'm a little cranky and bugging people is the best way I know of to relieve some stress," Jaune said. A Beowolf came up from behind him and he whirled around and decapitated it in a single stroke without missing a beat. "If it makes you feel better, I can teach you the ways of the prankster after we've cleaned out the town."
"Does that mean I'll get to have my revenge on you?"
"Cinder, if you actually manage to prank me, I'll take it like a man, because that would be genuinely impressive. I learned from the best, you know."
"Who were the best?"
"A pint-sized ginger and a tall blonde with huge tits. You've got a little something on your left."
Cinder moved and managed to avoid the next Beowolf as it tried to barrel into her. She lashed out with her sword while the Grimm tried to recover, embedding the blade deep into its chest. It wasn't enough – the Grimm was still up, and it brought its claws back to swipe at her. Jaune hurriedly rushed in and severed its limb, and Cinder seized her opportunity, yanking her blade free and driving it through the Grimm's head.
"Good," Jaune commended as the Grimm toppled to the ground. "Remember that Grimm don't have organs the same way we do. That would have been a fatal blow to the heart on a normal person, but on a Grimm, the only way to really stop them is to do so much damage that they just can't recover from it. Headshots are best, obviously, but you can also riddle them with bullets and it'll do the job just fine." His eyes lit up. "Ooh, we should get you a gun, Cinder."
Cinder stared at him. "Why would I want a gun?"
"Uh, have you seen this party? The only person with a ranged weapon is Qrow, and he's got a shotgun. Somebody needs to pick up something with range if we're going to be versatile."
"What about a bow and arrow?"
"Yeah, no. I can fire a gun just fine, but a bow and arrow? Not something I can do."
"But I can make glass arrows with my Semblance," Cinder protested.
"That sounds really cool, but I'm still vetoing it because I can't train you on how to fight with one of those," Jaune said. "You're getting a gun and that's final. We'll even combine it with your sword. We'll get you a gunblade; you and Raven can be weaboos together."
"Are you morons still bullshitting when there are Grimm to kill?" Raven asked as she popped out of a portal next to Jaune.
"Yes," Jaune said. "What are you doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you be out killing?"
"I needed a break," Raven commented. "Like I said, it's just not the same when it's Grimm."
"You're really messed-up, you know that? Nobody should be this excited about killing someone."
"I mean, you were probably pretty excited about killing Ozpin," Cinder pointed out.
"Silence, child," Jaune said without missing a beat. "Anyway, Raven, we're just hanging back here. I'm teaching Cinder some of the finer points of Grimm killing. It was going well, but uh… I think you, Qrow, and Summer have it handled."
There was a gigantic explosion off in the distance, followed by a high-pitched cackle. Jaune blinked. "I take it that Summer is having a good time?"
"I'm surprised you knew that was her," Raven said.
"I mean, how could it not be? She's raising two kids and two manchildren. I imagine that she'd revel in the chance to cut loose for once."
A Beowolf suddenly broke free from the nearby forest, sprinting towards them. Jaune tensed for a moment until he saw the fear in the creature's eyes, and he realized that in that moment, he might have found a kindred soul in humanity's greatest threat. The two locked eyes for a moment, recognition passing between them, and Jaune nodded wordlessly, a small gesture indicating that he, too, knew what it was like to have to deal with scary women all the time.
And then it died because Summer reached out, grabbed the Grimm by its hind legs, and dragged it back into the forest, all while it whimpered loudly and clawed deep gouges into the ground as it tried to stop itself from being pulled to its demise. Summer dragged the Grimm off into the darkness of the forest, and Jaune turned towards Cinder.
"You might want to cover your ears."
Cinder obliged, covering her ears just in time to avoid hearing a Grimm screech like a little girl. Then it was cut off as abruptly as it started, and Summer came strolling out of the forest, her blade perched over her right shoulder and a satisfied look on her face.
"Well, that was fun," she said as she wiped her free hand on her cloak. "Now then, onto business."
"What's business?" Jaune asked.
He blinked, and then suddenly Summer's blade was at his throat, and she was pinning him to a tree with her other hand.
"You ratted my family out, you son of a bitch!" she shouted. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you here and now!"
"Cinder is watching," Jaune pointed out.
Without missing a beat, Cinder turned around and covered her ears again. Jaune scowled. "Oh, come on."
"Can't hear you, sorry," Cinder said. "Nice knowing you, Jaune. Guess I'll have to find a new family."
"Come on, Summer," Qrow said as he approached from behind. "Jaune's an idiot who fucks things up more often than not, but he means well. Besides, every village needs its idiot, wouldn't you agree?"
"I like to think of myself as more of the court jester than the village idiot, but I respect the sentiment," Jaune said.
Reluctantly, Summer let out a low growl and lowered her sword. "...Fine. But just know this, Jaune – one of these days, I'm going to get my revenge on you. Raven, portal me."
Raven scowled. "What am I, some kind of portal fairy?"
"Portal me!"
Not even a second passed before Raven tore open a portal. Summer gave all of them except Cinder one last baleful glare, then stepped through the portal as it closed behind her. Jaune watched her go, then turned towards Raven.
"Well, at least now we know who Yang gets her mean streak from."
The incoming sword slash was worth it to him.
"Alright," Jaune announced as the four of them huddled around a table in a bar in the ass-end of town. "So, the Spring Maiden is in league with Salem."
"I feel like we already had this conversation," Qrow commented.
"We did, but let him be dramatic, he doesn't get many chances to," Cinder told him.
"You know, for a fifteen-year-old, you're certainly wise beyond your years."
"It only seems that way because I'm surrounded by idiots."
"Anyway," Jaune interrupted, getting their attention. "Salem definitely knows about us now. The only question is, where do we find the Spring Maiden? Any ideas as to where she might be headed?"
"Well, what makes the most sense?" Raven asked. "She probably wants the Relic. Last I checked, that thing's still at Haven. It was pretty safe there until you came along and fucked everything up, but now it's probably going to be targeted at some point."
"Yeah, that's true," Jaune mused. "Alright, then. If I was an evil Spring Maiden in league with the world's angriest divorcee, what would I do first? Hm…"
"If I may make a suggestion?" Cinder asked. "I'd try to gather together a strike force and attack Haven to get to the Relic."
"Right, but who would she go to? Grimm alone wouldn't do the job, especially if Lionheart isn't out here sending his own people into the meat grinder for her. Anyone know any terrorist groups running around?"
"Aside from the obvious?" Qrow asked, looking at Raven.
Raven glared at him. "Are you insinuating something?"
"Oh, like you don't wear it as a badge of pride."
"As a matter of fact, no, I do not like being called a terrorist. We're bandits, not terrorists."
"Is there much of a difference?"
"There's no political bend to our crimes, we just murder and rob people indiscriminately. Terrorists only murder and rob people who go against their politics."
"Is that really any better?" Cinder asked.
"Yeah, because politics is mad gay, for lack of a better term. Sure, we'll rob and then kill you, but only because we want your watch or something, we'd never kill you just because you voted for the wrong guy or whatever. That's just boring."
"Yeah, whatever," Jaune said, impatient. "So, that's one group we're going to have to visit and check to make sure they're clean. Anyone else? Going once, going twice…"
"There's the White Fang," Qrow said.
"Are they terrorists yet?"
"What do you mean, yet?"
"Sorry; forgot that the whole time-travel thing makes me sound like a schizo. What I meant was, are they actually violent?"
"Some of them are," Raven mused. "I think there's a sect being run by some up-and-coming tiger Faunus here in Mistral that's been getting pretty uncouth recently. I'm sure with the right motivation, they could be convinced to act like savages."
"There's our second group, then," Jaune announced. "Do you know where to find them?"
"Hell yeah, those guys are so annoying. They keep killing the people we're trying to kill. I was just about to handle them myself when you came along and dragged me out of camp."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not how it went down," Cinder advised.
"Shut up, Cinder."
"Please don't tell Cinder to shut up," Jaune implored. "Only I get to do that, and only because I'm the one who actually saved her from that hotel."
"For your information, you didn't save me from shit, Jaune," Cinder snapped. "In time, I was going to save myself."
"Yeah, well, it didn't go down that way, and thank the Gods for that. Anyway, where are we going first?"
"I vote for Raven's camp, since we can just portal there," Qrow pointed out.
"Vetoed," Raven said instantly.
"Why?"
"Because I'm not returning home until I've reclaimed my honor and gotten my own conquest."
"In other words, you're not going home until you've gotten some dick, because otherwise the others will make fun of you," Cinder surprised. "Can't say I'm surprised, honestly – it does make sense."
"Are you for fucking real?" Qrow deadpanned. "Seriously, Rae? That's stupid."
"All of this is stupid," Raven replied. "I figure I get as much of a right to make stupid demands as the rest of you do. Hell, Jaune punched out Jacques Schnee and stole his pants, burned down a hotel, kind-of adopted a teenager, killed Ozpin, and gave the fucking Grimm queen Summer's dox, all in less than a fucking week. It's not like any of us are going to top that."
"Alright, yeah, you've got a point. So, White Fang first? Maybe you can convince one of them to give you the dick."
"Or you can just get with Jaune," Cinder pointed out.
Jaune and Raven both began to retch and dry-heave. Cinder blinked. "Was it something I said?"
"I wouldn't fuck Raven even with a rented dick," Jaune stated.
"I'd sooner be celibate than sleep with Jaune," Raven insisted.
Again, Cinder blinked. "...Why? You two would honestly be good together."
"Name one reason why."
"You're both complete assholes."
"She's got a point, actually," Qrow said.
Jaune scowled. "Okay… name three more reasons."
Cinder held up three fingers and began to count off. "One: You both enjoy trading barbs with each other. Two: You both live the Huntsman lifestyle, so you're already compatible there. Three: You're just her type, Jaune."
"I'm not-"
"If you say you're not Summer, I will cut your dick off in your sleep and ram it down your throat," Raven threatened.
"See?" Cinder asked. "She already wants it, Jaune."
"Fuck off, child."
"No really, I mean it. There's so much unresolved sexual tension between you two that you could cut it with a knife. You should both just fuck already so we can move on with our lives. If nothing else, you can do it so Raven can actually return to her tribe of Hill People."
"Yeah, I think I'd rather take my chances with the genocidal terrorists who hate my entire race and want me dead," Jaune stated.
"Is this just you being an abrasive asshole and making excuses again?" Cinder asked.
"Is it really that easy to tell?"
"You're laying it on pretty thick."
"Well, shit, next time I'll dial it back a little bit. Did I at least get my point across?"
"Somewhat," Raven admitted.
"Can we move on already?" Qrow pleaded. "For real, I was sick of this conversation five minutes ago. Let's just go find the White Fang and get this shit over with."
New chapter time. Now that I'm not working on as many stories at once, I'm hoping I can speed up updates for this one, and also maybe – emphasis on maybe – start working on something new. A lot of people were interested in another Jaune-summons-demon-Cinder story after Cinders and Sins came out, so I'm gonna try and see what I can do with that basic premise, but as with every story I tease, there's no guarantee when or if it'll actually come out. I write a lot of stories and end up scrapping most of them during the planning stages because I'm not happy with them, and I've already scrapped three different renditions of a demon Cinder story since Halloween. I'm hoping the fourth one ends up being something that I actually like, because the others were not good – they never even made it past the initial planning stages. It still sucks to have to throw away thousands of words/hours of work, but sometimes it's gotta be done, because I'm not working on a story that doesn't resonate with me. Life's too short for me to write a story I don't enjoy writing.
Anyway, not much to discuss here. Jaune really deserved an asskicking here but I guess nobody was willing to do it in front of Cinder, which makes sense, I suppose – nobody wants to see their dad get beat up, after all; that'd be some True Detective shit right there. If you know, you know.
What else, what else… oh, as far as news is concerned – I'm slated to start a new job in early December. No idea what that'll do to my update schedule, but if things taper off for awhile, that's why. Honestly, I'm ready to be done with the application cycle, it's been taking up so much of my time; I've barely been able to study for my exam, it's fucking annoying. I hope this new company will actually let me take the exam since I paid for the study material myself and it wasn't cheap, but I guess we'll see; I bought it way before I even had my first interview and it's not a license they usually support, so I can't exactly blame them for it if they won't let me, but still.
Also, I apologize if you some of you find this annoying, but I'm probably going to start doing the Coeur thing and adding a little statement at the end of every chapter I write pointing people towards where they can find my original work if they want to support me. I know I just did that last chapter, but still, it's probably going to be a good habit to get into, so I might as well start now, right? Speaking of, a huge thank-you to all of you who bought my book! I had a pretty big outpouring of support for my first original, and I couldn't be happier with that! I hope you all enjoy it, and if not, then I hope that doesn't scare you off from trying any other books I might put out in the future, lol. The next one is currently actively being worked on, by the way, but it's still a long ways out. I think it's coming together rather nicely, though – definitely better than the first one, IMO. But more on that when it's closer to the release date.
Past that, I've got nothing else. Thank you all for reading, and I hope to see you next time!
Enjoy my work and want to help me out a bit? You can support me, as well as read more of my writing, over on Amazon. My first original story is available for purchase now, you can find it by going on Amazon and searching for 'I Accidentally Summoned the Demon Queen' by John Haruspex. The story is available now for three bucks in ebook format (or free with Kindle Unlimited) or twelve bucks in paperback format, if you prefer physical media.
www . amazon dp/ B0BLFL72MX