Apologies.

I know.
I know.
This is a bit different to what I've been workin' on, but there's a reason for that.
Whether it's a good one or not, it's up to you.

I've been goin' through some things that I'd rather not go into fine detail with.
I know that you all have been enjoying the things I've been writing, or at least I think I do, and as a novice, this brings a great deal of joy and satisfaction to me.
But unfortunately, I can't continue.
I'll have to put the story on a hiatus, for now.

I often write these stories while completely intoxicated, so I won't have to worry about my extreme sense of self doubt.
I'm intoxicated right now, so please forgive me for any typos that you may find.
Writing J.A.H.Z. (Jaune And His Zwiehander) has been nothing short of absolutely fun for me, and it pains me to give you all this honest message.

Things have become rather hectic for me, and I simply cannot consistently continue with the story.
There are immediate, long term, and personal responsibilities that I must meet and fulfill.
And personally, my physical, mental, and financial stability hold far more value to me than the continuation of a fanfiction.

Family and personal integrity comes first, after all.

Again, I'm terribly sorry. But, I know my priorities. And not fulfilling them will only spell disaster for me.

Also, I feel as if I don't fit the necessary criteria to write the story that I have envisioned.
My local HEMA club has closed down, and I have lost alot of the knowledge that I have acquired that I wanted to apply to J.A.H.Z.
I have forgotten alot of my Montate lessons because of this pandemic, and thus, I don't feel as if I'll be able to write the story that I wanted.
Maybe, at some point in the future, I can finally find a space to practice of what I think that I have lost.

Also, as a novice writer, I don't feel as if I have the basic skills necessary to make a captivating story.
I have no experience or academic education when it comes to story telling.
So, please, apologies if my way of writing, or characterization, irked some of you in some way or form.

I plan on making on making a "Remastered" version when I feel confident or competent enough to continue this story.
Superior pacing, superior grammar, superior characterization.
These are thins that I want to achieve in the remastered version.
Though, I probably won't be starting it for a long time.

I can give you a less-than-half-baked Chapter twelve. It's all I can do since I won't be continuing the story for a while.

Golden orange beams of light descended down from one of the two massive triangular windows, the shadows of the custom grilles fell alongside them. The sun beamed from the front long end of the barn as its celestial splendour illuminated the soft brown soil below, and said soil generously reflected the rest of the light onto the wooden walls, supports and ceilings. Even the half-oval balcony that protruded above the entrance and below the great window received some radiance.

The space of structure imitated the likes of a great hall. The great eight pillars stood tall as each pair faced each other, and cast their shadows across the rest of the space. The shadows, just like the shadows of the grilles from the windows, followed the reaming shafts of light all the way to the very back of the building. Specs of dust fell from the heavily supported roof, their almost invisible presence made clear by warm gleams.

The smell of damp wood filled the air. Cool temperatures softly caressed the aged wood with benevolence, weaving around the warm streaks that originated from the window. The insulation for the building was pleasant. Comfortable to rest in for long nights, and spar for most hours of the day as you sweat yourself dry. The enjoyable combination of the smell of damp wood and cool air was a lovely gift to the lungs.

This place was far from empty. Its two occupants, a strange floating figure in primarily royal blue and a tall, lanky one that stood with sparse armour of pearly white, huddled around an alien circular flat object that presented visions of the past as it swam against the flow of time. Colours of all variety radiated from the screen, and so did sounds of the same diversity, disturbing the otherwise peaceful location.

...

("O.K! Let's break down everything that just happened, and explain why every single thing that Ruby did here was fucking stupid!") Squire bellowed with a mix of sarcasm, enthusiasm, and genuine restrained anger.

"YEAH!-Wait... What!?" Jaune was brought out of his awesome overload-induced stupor. His arms were still raised high in the air from the lingering hype that was Ruby effortlessly murking a large group of underdeveloped baby beowolves. His limbs shot down, accompanied by the shaking of his head as he attempted to gather his bearings to process what Squire had just said.

"What do you mean by 'what she did was stupid'?" He practically screeched, throwing his hands out. "Wait. Were we even watching the same thing? Ruby absolutely destroyed those things!" He pointed out with outrage, the words bursting past his lips with the pleasantry of a rusty nail.

("Yes. We were watching the same thing.") Squire floated through the screen, causing it to warp and stretch against him like a thin sheet of newly chewed gum, to assume his usual proximity to Jaune. ("The difference is that I saw every single flaw that little red riding hood oh so extravagantly performed while you-") He jabbed a finger at the boy, causing him to shoot back and lower his arms defensively. ("-didn't see jack shit, because you don't know jack shit.")

The insult prompted limp arms and a deadpan from the boy. 'What?' Jaune thought. He brought his hand up close to the side of his head and twisted his neck from side to side, his blonde hair whipping against the momentum. "What? What did you even see?" Jaune bent both his knees and aimed both arms, open-palmed, directly to the screen, Overdramatically presenting the static image of Ruby Rose. "Because all I saw was Ruby kicking Grimm butt like she was just taking out the trash."

Two fingers of the same hand crept up to the temple of Squire's metal cap. ("Hmmm... Jaune, you're smarter than you look.") Followed by the sharp departure of those two fingers as they were repurposed to position themselves directly towards a mop of golden locks. ("What do you think Ms Silver Eyes over here did wrong or at least were arguably pointless?") The god's hat, shining in the gleam, cocked to the side as normally sphere cyan eyes stretched into ovals ("C'mon, Jaune. Use that brain of yours, lad. Tell me.")

"What?" His face scrunched together in confusion. His eyes narrowed and his mouth slightly opened in a frown. "What do you want me to say? Hahah." Jaune twisted his head away with a quick laugh before snapping it back to its natural position. "I can't think of anything wrong here. Ruby's just too good for me to judge." He lazily kicked a patch of soil away. "I mean, c'mon. What can I say? I'm not some combat expert, like you said. I've never even went to combat school!" His words were laced with hidden resentment, resentment that he wouldn't dare further dwell on.

("C'mon! I'm all ears, Jauney-boy. Just fire up those circuits of yours and give me a few honest observations.") Squire hovered back into his signature "lying on an invisible levitating couch" pose as he patiently waited for Jaune's answer. ("It doesn't necessarily have to be objectively right, just give it a whirl.") Squire mumbled.

Jaune furrowed his brows, thinking back on the 'video' and pointed out a few things that stuck out to him. "Well..." He paused with hesitance, crossing his arms in the process. "She did waste a lot of bullets."

("Mm-hmm...") Squire continued to casually float, eyes dim and not even looking at his blonde companion.

Jaune continued to think, his eyes inched closer together and then shot out with realization. He proposed a second answer. "She also wasted a ton of gravity dust for a bunch of baby beowolves... Wow, that was a waste. Gravity dust is stupid expensive."

("Yeeeesss...?") A single dim orb now greeted Jaune. It didn't show whether or not Squire was agreeing with him, but it did tell him that he had Squire's attention.

He placed an inquisitive finger onto his pale chin and looked deep into his mind. He relaxed his face and proposed a third answer. "Aaaannnd... Hmm. Now that I think about it, Ruby did a lot of unnecessary twirling while-"

("YES! FINALLY!") Squire cheered. His arms were spread wide in celebration as glowing 'tears' of some kind ran down from his bevor. He directly looked at Jaune, the brim of kettle hat angled upwards like eyebrows as he began to bawl in happiness. ("FINALLY! YOU ACTUALLY POINTED IT OUT!") Pixel like particles broke away from Squire as the god zipped down to the boy and firmly grabbed him by the arms.

("You have no idea how IRRITATING it is for me to see these idiots twirl around like armed gymnasts on crack") The Brim of his hat pointed downwards in an angry angle, and his bevor pointed upwards to simulate a frown. Squire gritted through his words as relief washed over him, knowing that Jaune wasn't a complete idiot. At least his common sense still works.

Now exceptional close to Jaune's face, with the tip of his nose bordering at the rims of Squire's hat. The Arc can smell the faint scent of- 'Wait... Is a that... Is that? Why does Squire smell like a new bullhead?' Jaune, not even fearing his situation anymore, thought with genuine curiosity. 'Wow... That's actually pretty fresh... Reminds me of Bleues' hovercar.' The scent that Squire was wearing reminded him of his third oldest sister; Bleue Amalie Arc. She was the only one in the entire family who accumulated enough Lien to buy a literal Atlassian Hover Car. It was worth more than Jaune and his sisters ever personally owned...

("Jaune. Jaune? Jaune, are you having a flashback?") With his hands still firmly grasping the boy's arms, Squire waited for Jaune's usually immediate response... A response that seems to be going through a delay. Squire flashed his eyes for a bit. ("Yup, you're having a bloody flashback.") Squire remove his right hand from the boy's arms and promptly backhanded him across the face.

"OW!" With an aggressively red hand mark painting across the right side of his face, Jaune violently shook his head from the sudden surprise. "OWW! WHAT THE HECK SQIURE!" Anger evident on his face, Jaune glared at the omnipotent dick head for spontaneously striking him.

("What?") Squire seemed to reply with authentic confusion. ("You were having a flashback. And knowing your past, your flashbacks can last for hours .") That last word seemed to unnaturally stretch against the space-time continuum, scratching against the air like a guy with a shitty microphone, and ping higher than Bob Marley.

Jaune was still not satisfied with the response, as the anger and irritation from his face were still directed towards the individual who caused those emotions in the first place. "You could have just shook me around instead! Jeeze, man." The soreness of his right cheek was next to unbearable. Jaune rubbed against his face to soothe the burning pain of the slap.

("Well. Whine all you want, you poorly constructed self-insert.") Squire mocked. He placed his hands against his hips once more. ("Honestly, I think we should wrap this up because we're about to lose the plot if we're gonna continue like this.").

*Clap*
*Clap*

With two airy claps, Squire increased Jaune's sense of focus and removed the pain from his face.

("Alright, let's get back on track.")

...

Jaune soon felt more alive than he ever did before. An avalanche of clarity crashed upon him, granting him incomparable focus. The pain of his stinging cheek was a-washed with the cool sensation of water as it disappeared completely. In fact, all the pain from his body was just gone now. The heavyweight of exhaustion completely lifted from him. The hallowing perverseness of his stress was filled with calm and direction. The pain of his aching back was wiped clean and replaced with youthful vigour.

"OH WOW!" He exclaimed, heartily laughing from his rejuvenation. "Oh sweet Oum, I feel good. I feel really good!" Jaune snapped his head towards Squire as his cobalt eyes drank in the sight of the god emitting the same pixels that he has seen a few times before, but this time, the pixels were directly flowing into his direction and merging with his flesh. "How are you doing this?" He said with a rejuvenated grin.

("You see, being the guy who practically moderates this little patch of your subconsciousness, I can adjust any aspect that's being simulated by the mind scape.") Squire slowly floated around Jaune like a ribbon, an armoured humanoid ribbon. ("Aspects such sensory functions, cognitive functions, and even physical functions.") He counted all three concepts on his fingers to gesture his message clearly. ("This means that mind scape can as be realistic as reality itself if I chose it to be.")

("This means that I can get you to feel and experience any attribute of the human condition with the click of a finger.") He finished that sentence with a click, and just as he said, Jaune began to feel stronger and lighter than he's ever been before. It felt unbelievable to him. ("I can also simulate certain places that you've been to. By utilizing your memories and weaving them together, I can form entire landscapes for you to occupy, as you can observe with me bringing back to your family's barn.") He said. ("I can even make things up if I decide to get creative.")

"Huh... " The concept itself was simple to understand. So Jaune, for once, had no problem deciphering what Squire was trying to say. "Wait. WaitWaitWaitWait. Does that mean you could also make like a... copy of my old race car bed?" Jaune excitedly said. His hopeful words were met with verbal silence from Squire.

The brim of his hat and the bevor morphed themselves into a horizontal straight line. Wordlessly, Squire snapped his right finger which caused a stereotypical red and blue bed that was vaguely shaped as a cartoony race car to appear a few inches in the air. It hovered for a bit before crashing onto the ground without any damage done to it. With a "WAHOO!" Jaune jumped into the perfectly moulded piece of his childhood and kicked up his feet in relaxation. 'Aww... I missed this thing. It's never been the same since Verte practically erased my room... and the bed...'

Verte Fayette Arc, the sixth oldest of Jaune's sisters, once accidentally activated a wind dust shard near his room while he was tending to the crops with his Uncle. Jaune's whole room had to be replaced, and the bed was never seen again.

Squire wasn't quite surprised by the request, considering that Jaune had missed that bed ever since it was reduced to splinters and tattered cloth. He watched as Jaune melted into the artefact of his childhood, cherishing each and every second of nostalgia and comfort. Comfort that Squire would soon deny. ("Alright, Jaune.") He clicked his finger, causing the bed to disappear into a cloud of cyan pixels. Jaune fell ass-first to the ground with a yelp. The impact would have hurt if it wasn't for the fact that the ground was made of soft soil. Jaune sat there, legs splayed in front of him and arms supporting him from behind as he gave Squire a glare of irritation.

Squire placed both his arms behind his back and hovered with a straight back, circling Jaune at a slow and steady pace, clockwise. ("Now that you understand the questionable actions of our esteemed performer, we are going to get into the nitty-gritty details of things.") Squire continued to revolve around Jaune. The boy just sat there and continued to burn the entity with his eyes. ("You see... lad. Things are about to get quite...)

Squire came to a dead stop when he found himself positioned in front of the front gate of the barn. He snapped his gaze towards Jaune. ("...painful.")

Jaune tried to conceal his shudder but failed. "Oh! Heheh... What do you mean by painful." Jaune said those words with an anxious grin as he tucked his chin into his neck and slightly tilted to the side.

("What do you think?") Squire's brim sharply angled upwards, and his bevor angle downwards. The smile-like expression from the morphing of his metallic accessories caused dread to pierce through Jaune like a bullet. A flash of white erupted from Squire's position, and the distorted bell that assaulted Jaune throughout his stay in The Mind Scape chimed its awful song. Before Jaune could react, the searing flash had already scraped against his eyes.

"AAAGH!" Jaune squealed in pain as his poor retinas were being barbecued. He tightened his lids shut and grasped his damaged organs to deny any more light from harming them. "AAAAAAAGH! OW! WHY!" The clumsy boy fell on his back once again, rolling and arching his back in agony from the sheer intensity of the pain. Squire wasn't kidding when he said things were going to be painful.

Squire re-appeared. Now he floated slightly above the balcony, overlooking the view below. His attention was roughly grabbed by the sound of a high pitched screaming and the sight of his associate rolling on the floor and clutching his eyes. Squire rolled his own. ("Oi! Jaune! Quit being overdramatic and get your non-existent butt cheeks off the ground!") Squire called to the boy. ("There's some progress that I want to get to.") He whispered, stating it more to himself than anyone else.

Wobbly legs propped themselves up, threatening to collapse at any moment. "SSSSSS - GEE! SQUIRE!" Gritting his teeth with a sarcastic grin that was more of a grimace, Jaune continued. "I would love to, but I as you can see mY EYES. ARE. BURNING!" The screechy nature of Jaunes voice scraped against the walls of the barn, echoing the unpleasant wrath of the screechy seventeen-year-old.

Wordlessly, The god flicked his finger. Pixels broke from his form and slithered their way into Jaune's face. Jaune's head whipped back from the unexpected force. The pixels splashed against his skull like water but siphoned themselves, spiralling into Jaune's sockets like a pair of whirlpools.

"Woah!" Jaune yelled as the pixels whirled their way through his eyelids. Jaune's eyes were once again bombarded with light, but this time it was different. Instead of raking against his nerves, the cyan cubes seemed to soothe them in a way similar to how they rejuvenated him beforehand. The soft coolness provided by the interdimensional constructs carefully washed away the scorching sensation that dug into his lenses. With a sigh of relief and the buckling of his shoulders, Juane lifted his lids.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" He tracked the source of both his pain and relief for a brief second, finding him levitating casually above the balcony.

"Hmmm. Perhaps." Taking whatever he can from Squire's smug and amused tone, he gathered that the deity did indeed do it on purpose.

Juane's eyebrows furrowed down, his mouth set in a frown and his lids were halfway down. "...Jerk."

("HAH-HAHAHAH-HAAAAAaaaa...") Squire's booming laughter sent him clutching his own midsection, and bending his knees. ("THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR SNAPPING ON ME, YOU BLONDE BITCH! HAH!")

Jaune dispassionately stared up at the god.

Squire continued to laugh and cackle. Ignoring the unamused boy that stood below him. ("Oh...") A strange glowing "tears" of the same colour dripped from his eyes. It was caught by a gloved finger and promptly flicked away. ("You screamed like an anime SCHOOL GIRL!") His voice cracked at the attempt to hold in laughter. (Aaah...hah...hahah...Ooooh... Ahem... Ok I'm done.") Calming down from his rib shaking laughing fest, Squire relaxed and assumed his signature pose.

("Alright. Ok.")

*Clap*
*Clap*

...

Cyan Pixels swallowed the soil beneath the boy. Jaune's head shot down to react to the shift in colour that radiated from the ground. "Ayo, What!?" The Cyan Blue illuminated ground, driving the golden gleam of the sun away from it. "Squire, What's going on!?" He did not receive an answer. Jaune's pulled his neck back to face the being causing all this.

Squire, still in his couch-like pose, wordlessly observed. The same cyan pixels emanating from his form, just like before. The metal of his armour no longer shown the radiant warmth of the sun, but instead, reflected the alien glow of the cubes. The metal hat tilted slightly, and Squire's voice echoed past his bevor. ("Jaune.") He looked down on the boy who sought for answers. ("We're gonna do something fuckin' cool.")

The pixels stopped in place, a sweet second passed by before they bursted into action. Pixels formed a massive ring around Jaune. The ring stretched a few meters away from him and erupted into a wall that almost touched the roof. Jaune's head whipped back and forth. The wall of pixels were transparent. He could see clearly through them, aside from the fact everything beyond looked like they were tinted in a touch of blue.

"Uhhh - Squire, what are you doing?" He quickly said, surrounded by the walls of blue.

("Jaune, my guy. You're about to see some serious shit!") Squire's voice echoed from the balcony.

The wall pixels that surrounded Jaune began to shake. The pixels dispersed and the wall collapse. Star-like cores haphazardly shined from where the wall once stood. Gleaming brightly against the dissipating wall, they consumed the rogue pixels like blackholes. The pixels whirled into the stars, similar to how they spiraled to sooth Jaune of his burning vision. Soon, all the free floating particles where collected. And all that was left was the glowing ring and the stars that surrounded him.

"Woah..." It was a spectacle, to be sure. Jaune's soft whisper was a testament to the beauty of the formation. The pixels slowly circled each star like galaxies. The calming blue from around each point made his heart slow and eyes to go heavy. Jaune often forgot that Squire ability to manifest beauty was about equal to his ability of being a condesceniding dickhead.

As Jaune fell under a spell of tranquility, the stars violently bursted and began to the form of distinct objects.

Goodbye ladies and gents. I really did appreciate your attention, but I've got some real important things in real life to work on. See you until then.