Hello, ever since I started this account and forget about it for sometime, I decided to do this story as a throw off one-shot about Jaune battling insomnia before growing to a full-blown story after seeing as I still have this old account.
Thank you for those 3 reviews and the people who favorite and like the story. You all mean a lot to me to see whether there's an interest in this story for me to continue. Expect some inconsistent updates as college is prepping to beat me to pulp. Hope you understand and thank you, again!
Leave a review as they help me know that there are people who like these types of things.
Face first on the cold ground, his clothes were wet. What a great way to wake up to. Only this combination of circumstances could mean two things are up. Either there was a downpour, and he had slept through it all in no thanks to his weak will to not notice. Or he was back in his dreams.
Now it's just all for Jaune to guess which one was his predicament and if he's being honest, after the past few dreams left him undecided to which was the worst outcome at this point.
Finally bothering to dare raise his head, his eyes met again with the oh-so familiar sights of blue-tints and dilapidated walls and stained carpets to the distinct smell of saltiness in the air. Down right noticeable even for him to taste it somewhat.
Then the sounds of whales singing their voices away just answered for him, anyway.
Yep, he knew he's in for a homecoming.
Jaune honestly would have preferred Ansel at any day now to save himself another trudge through pain and suffering over the shouting he'll get from his family, but instead he got Rapture. Joy.
A voice whispered in a tone of a child. "Mister angel?" that made the knight's head perk up to towards the voice, curious. It was dark, but he could make out a small figure of someone familiar.
No… It couldn't be.
That voice, that disturbing voice…"It is you! You came back! The other girls said you'd come back for us!" Others?
The figure finally stepped into the light, showing what the knight feared the most.
What he saw just pulled out a cord from him looking down at a girl, as young no more than six years old, possessing ghastly pale skin and eyes radiating with light. She looked frail; it hurt Jaune to his core seeing the girl, yet by the grotesque powers of ADAM made her somewhat elated about angels and made pretty much blinded by the forlorn state of everything else around her.
A failing city filled with maniac and drug addled splicers who will do anything to get her for her ADAM for their next high of plasmid.
Child experimentation. It was just one of the aspects of living in this soul-forsaken place that everyone bats an eye away and act like it doesn't exist or justified over some selfish reasons.
So Them? Little sisters? What are they doing here?
This young girl, from what Jaune found out about this place, was once a test subject. The thought made anyone sensible or any moral sense's stomach churn at the thought of human experimentation and, worse of all, at a child.
If it wasn't obvious from the beginning, this wasn't the knight's first rodeo here at Rapture. The Mantleian. What was her name? Oh yeah, Jaune remembered her as Tenenbaum. She made a promise to save the girls just as he rescues them.
Well, that was what he remembered. So that leaves him with a brain teaser… Why are there still litter sisters here?!
He scoffs at the possible notion that Tenenbaum could have played him for a fool and…
Hold on, did... Tenenbaum tricked him? No, he remembered taking everyone back topside before waking up.
Couldn't be...
"Come on, come on! Let's go call the other girls!" The girl calls out to Jaune as she waves her hand high that pulls Jaune out of his thoughts as he sees her run through a securis air-tight door.
It shot Jaune a panic as he quickly pulled himself out of the puddle before he gives chase towards the girl. "Hey, wait! Slow down!" Calling out towards the girl that fell on feign ears as she giggled with Jaune stumbling from the rubble and corpses strewn about.
"Hehehe. Mister angel, faster; The other girls are gonna want to see you!"
The blond hears the echo of her giddy voice as Jaune staggered to a stop for a moment.
He entered what looked like a ball. People all around were having the time of their lives, dancing, mingling away, rubbing shoulders with one another with laughter and celebration cheered through the room. Bleeding ghost from the past. Jaune was quick to ignore it all together and chasing the girl before a splicer gets to her. Or worse, imprinting herself to a big daddy.
"Ahh!" No… A bloodcurdling shriek from the little sister filled the room, coming from an adjacent room as it done only to make him panic as he rushes towards to find himself standing over a balcony looking over to see the little sister being harassed by a gang splicers laughing eerily at one other that Jaune doesn't like hearing.
Three. Four. Jaune surmises four of those splicers below.
Maybe a few more on lookout. Probably.
He checked his holster to pull out his modified Webley revolver on his right hand, and on his left he hand forced his mind and watch as it develops hideous rashes that made parts of his skin puff up red with boils forming on his palm to his wrist all around until it pops accompanied with bees crawling out of the freshly popped gaping boils, some flying by his hand.
The disgusting sight made him crack a smile on his lips as he already formulated a plan with a spread of his arm wide to unleash his buzzing friends of a large swarm of bees that hailed down on the splicers.
"Argh, bees!" "Who the hell went to Arcadia?! Casper locked that joint tight! Tighter than a nun's taint! Arghh!" "Oh, lord! I got one of 'em buggers inside my ears!" The room was heard with screams and shouting as Jaune watches them panicking as they fail to swat the buzzing menace as his eyes landed on a poor splicer stumbling towards near under the balcony he's at. Just as planned.
He jumped across the railing and aimed his hand down at the lone splicer he chose with a flick of his wrist with his right hand now splashing wet over a mysterious source of water that was aimed under the chosen splicer "What the hell -argh!" suddenly had the body sent blasting up by a geyser of water as Jaune catches the body with a whack of his revolver knocked the asthmatic Adam-addict asleep.
He followed it up with clenching his wet fist that corresponded with the geyser diminishing as the Jaune straddled on top of the body as they both fell to have the now corpse dampen the knight's fall. But for the splicer's spine reduced to dust by then.
Pistol aimed, Jaune stood up unloading a barrage of lead towards a charging thuggish splicer, sending him to tumble on the ground, leaving a final deathly wheeze off its mouth before it dies.
"The thorn of the family has revealed itself. We must clip it off!" A loud scream shattered the buzzing with another splicer sent next sent an image in Jaune's vision of a butcher's hook closing in as he had raised his hand in time.
Then just by mere inches too close to his hand, a large surge of wind held the object suspended in a hovering state, with the knight happily thinking with all the intention of returning the poor splicer's hook he dropped back; square on the head as spider-splicer fell.
Now his attention was left at the last bastard holding the screaming little sister's wrist as the knight with wingtip shoes watch the man get his next high. Injecting a familiar syringe needle down his wrist before Jaune's anger flared up after he shoved the little sister back and cracked a menacing grin.
Not before long, the electro-splicer, drunk on his new powers, sent out a bolt of electricity towards the blond, who did nothing and took it. The electricity did nothing to Jaune and in fact he seemed to be absorbing it effortlessly, and without even in command of his hands, a powerful outburst of cold wind blew at the electro-splicer, leaving the degenerate encased in his freezing tomb of ice shard.
The splicer's eye through the haze view through the ice, shrank as he witness the random asshole crashed his party, killed his friends now pulled out a wrench and with a solid whack across.
The ice shard shattered to a million pieces.
It was over. Finally.
Thank god, for Fontaine's universal all-in-one tonic and his other personal concoctions I found at his apartment... Jaune's breathing was fervent after that small warm-up act and anticipating for more before giving a glance at the little who was in awe.
"Woow! Thank you, mister angel. Wait, till the other girls hear about those little birds you can make!" Heh, funny. I could actually show them an actual flock later. Jaune smiled at the girl's young naivety, even if it's influenced by those cursed ADAM their drinking.
It was a tradeoff. At least the little girls won't know of the actual horrors happening around them, or what they do with their own hands.
For Jaune, as long as they're not hurt, he's fine with that for now. At least in a dream, he could try to be a hero for once.
The little sister adopted a smile of fear as her entire body just felt a shock, leaving her trembling until. "Mister angel, behind you!" Her cries were too late.
What the hell!? Jaune felt control over his body taken from him as his vision turned to a haze of green as he grit his teeth in defiance at a possible plasmid a lucky bastard that hit him with. What was it?! Hypnosis?
Until a woman, older than he is, walked to his vision that stopped all trains of his thoughts with his first word entered his head. Tenenbaum?!
"There we are. He's perfectly safe now."
Wait, no. It wasn't. Just by her voice just shattered what his thinking.
The woman spoke with a hush tone as she gently pulled back the frightened little sister behind her. Though, if anything, the little sister is more afraid of this mystery woman that Jaune was also frightened for a moment, he thought was Tenenbaum.
"This is not your daughter." Gee, lady. What gave it away? Me with blond hair and her brown? Or was it his age being young to even have a daughter?
"Her name is Eleanor, and she is mine." She gave a stern look towards Jaune's unwavering anger while his body stood still. His free will continues being shackled by a hypnosis plasmid that hit him.
"Hmph. You bear the facade of the messiah. Yet you don't have some perchance, an ounce of his holiness." She muttered off. Honestly, Jaune wasn't even interested in her and more of the poor girl who was backing away from this mystery woman as she continued.
"One could only mean you're an imposter? Hmm, not quite… A Charlatan. What have you come here for? Power? Money? ADAM?" Accusing Jaune that left him more baffled by it. Messiah, Charlatan. He usually reserved expecting those words from Columbia, but after learning about Suchong and Fink; it didn't surprise him that these religious words ended up at Rapture and with Fontaines' thug smuggling in holy texts to the underwater city.
"If you want to be the messiah, then I'll grant you that wish." Hearing those words from this woman sent Jaune panicking, he clenched his teeth as he tried with whatever will he has left to shake the effects of plasmid with his own ADAM.
"Sit, would you kindly?" But to no avail. The clutches that plasmid has on him were tighter than he anticipated as the woman made him remember how Ryan effortlessly controlled him with a simple word that he obeyed in obedience for him to sit down. Now for this mystery woman who, if it wasn't obvious enough already, was reeking of bad news.
"Take this gun, would you kindly?" Pulled out a broom-handle Mauser pistol from her purse, as plasmid shakily took the grip of the pistol. No, no, no no…
Now everything was ten times worse than Ryan. Jaune needed to do something, but without even having control of his body, it left him naked and defenseless to do anything. The feeling was like the initiations. Not sure what to do.
"Place on your head, would you kindly?" Jaune begrudgingly placed the barrel towards the side of his head. He gave this girl, if her name was really Eleanor, one last look to remember to not do the same mistake with Yang.
Jaune could see the fearful look on her face as she keep jerking her head back and forth to this mystery woman and him like she doesn't know what was happening.
"Cock the hammer, would you kindly?" Don't worry, Jaune. You got your DNA registered on the Vita-chamber listed as Ryan. You'll be fine. Fine. Just fine. You'll be back and give this psycho a taste of her own plasmid.
Closing his eyes, Jaune waiting for the horrible pain of dying and having to remember all of it and the sensation along once he awakens from a vita-chamber.
"Sofia, we found a rogue big daddy near! Found 'em near the water pumps." A voice, calling out on the working P.A system was heard by everyone.
"What about it? Did you capture it?" Not opening his eyes in waiting for the horrible process of resurrection to start. He heard the woman ask.
"The plasmid works like a charm."
"Was it a rumbler? I had Mister Meltzer and his daughter around near to see any safe passage blocked away from Sinclair's grasp. You might have confused him for a rogue." Sinclair?
"No, ma'am. We, uhh… Don't exactly know what it is…"
"We did, you nitwit, it was obviously a Rosie!" another voice interrupted with a boom of confidence, for a splicer addict.
"Oh, yeah…" another chimed in, sarcasm dripping with his agreement. Before correcting them both. "'Cept it has a friggen' drill like them bouncers boys, you two stooges!" Almost emptying his lungs screaming at the duo.
"Fascinating, must be Suchong's earlier works, that Mistralian was always an industrious sort… Poor fellow, we must show our hospitality and induct him as a protector to our family. Hand him a second chance Ryan never gave, where Fontaine shuns those similar to him." The mystery woman ordered the P.A speaker announces, after musing about Suchong. Family? What?
"Right away, ma'am."
A small peak, Jaune open his eyes to see.
"And as for you…" A bitter look surface on her face, turning back towards Jaune like garbage. Her voice attaining composure of sophistication, yet everything else about her dripped with anger and disgust for the blond. "Please, do not see this as an act of aggression, charlatan. Think of this as penance for your rather… pathetic attempt at poisoning my daughter with your lies like the snake you are for making them fall under your spell." Like hell he's doing this on his own! Lady, you're the one to talk about making others fall under a spell!
"Now. Pull. the trigger."
His final breath hitched as his finger on the trigger finally tightens threateningly to pull the hammer with a final blow.
Through thoughts of resurrection, his eye wander and catch the frightened little sister with a grim expression yell out. "Daddy!" Before the all too familiar black void entered his vision once more.
Oh, Oum… Everything hurts.
"He's awake!"
Huh?
"Nora, hush your voice."
Just what is she waiting for? Jaune wondered as he noted the other voice belonged to their team's appointed monk, Lie Ren. Wait, did he overslept again? Not the first time this happened.
I must have slept in again. Great, now I'm definitely going to be hearing that with Goodwitch again later.
Right, it's been too long.
Jaune forced his eyes to open to be met by several faces of his friends. Besides the blinding light, he noticed… Wait, this isn't their room?!
The hyper-sterilized white ceiling and walls aren't theirs unless Nora turned their room into a sloth clinic, which he hoped isn't the case as the last time something of that magnitude earned him disciplinary action for not controlling her as leader.
Everyone had this somber smile from finally seeing their leader, friend finally woken up as Nora's affected too much as her expression lit up to her usual excited, giddy attitude Beacon knew her for. She barely contained herself as she proclaimed with a cheer.
"Hooray! Fearless leader is-" Before Ren proceeds to have his hand nimbly cover the bomber's mouth as the ringing sensation in his head began to intensified by the volume of her cheery voice. Guess Ren noticed Jaune's worsening wince. How nice.
"Jaune, thank Oum, you're alright." Now it's Pyrrha's turn as Jaune watch as she placed a hand on his bandaged arm as she smiled with a warm smile. Her eyes were red from the crying. Shit, that made him feel bad about what he had done, whatever it was.
Then he realized, dawning on him are the bandages not only on his arm, but all around his body… Oh brothers, he was at the clinic!
How did he even end up here? What happened?
Now something wasn't adding up at just what happened last night. Scratch that, everything wasn't adding up. His memories from last night were a blur, like gulping down Chardonnay wine or taking a swig of Splendid Champagne Brandy Liqueur. No constitution of his will can dig up something back up when it's buried beneath a thick haze of alcohol.
The expression on the knight was bleak, nothing from last night he can remember, and he tried and kept trying to at least dig up why or what exactly he did. But all of it was hazy at best.
"Just what were you thinking last night?!" Woah. That's a rare sight to see… Jaune paused at seeing Pyrrha all worked up. Even Ren and Nora had to hold her shoulder back as she leaned in close to the poor knight's bruised face. Tears had already begun forming in her eyes. As even the ringing that came back went ignored by the blond knight.
He couldn't believe it. His face just out right froze. The injured blond, bandaged from head-to-toe and an arm hooked on IV, monitoring his aura levels.
Jaune just ceases everything, a wrench thrown at the gears powering his brain, he… doesn't even know what words to say. Last night was a blur besides watching the stars and Vale from a distance is all he mustered from recollections from last night.
I… did what?
He was in the dark at. "What exactly happened?" He breathed. Voice sounded hoarse, like he swallowed rocks down his throat.
This question got the attention of the trio to look of stunned as Jaune was ever since he opened his eyes. The silence was an unimaginable amount of pain as the blond thanked the oldest brother that it was only seconds until Ren decided to speak up, whereas Nora and Pyrrha had an uncomfortable look and even eyed one another, unsure of what to say.
"Jaune, did you not remember anything last night?" He inquired quizzically, neutral as always. Though, Jaune could see a hint of distress around the pink-streaked boy, to which he gently shook his head, denying.
"Besides watching the stars then the lights at Vale, further than that and how I ended up here is up in the air." There was a pause between the trio, not sure how the blond could describe it, but Ren followed up.
"Why did you feel the need to sneak off to the roof? You know better that there's a curfew in place." Eyes narrowed, looking at the slightest hint of a faltering expression on Jaune's confused face.
"Look, I just need some fresh air, is all. The past few weeks aren't the kindest to my head. Insomnia has been hitting me pretty hard. And what's with the questions? Could any of you just tell me how I ended up here?"
"Jaune, miss Goodwitch found you last morning outside. On the ground, injured, and she believes you fell off the railings on the roof." Silence quickly instill everywhere around the room as everyone looked at the blond knight's face turning a look of shock.
Somewhere in his head, he's utterly hoping that there was some too-soon joke told, and he just didn't catch the punch line to, or waiting for the jade monk to deliver it yet.
But nothing came following.
"Oum… Why?"
"That is the answer Miss Goodwitch was looking for herself. She honestly believed you committed suicide, but botched it." He was blunt in his words and demeanor, stern, and Jaune appreciated Ren for setting it straight, apart from the Mistralian boy himself, who wisely chose to ignore the glares he's getting from the two female teammates of his.
Pyrrha looked at Jaune in the eye and explained. "Jaune, please tell Miss Goodwitch that it has all been a misunderstanding. She wants to press you for psychiatric help, but that would set you back a year here. If not outright barred you from continuing." Yeah, that'd be bad. He was barely scraping at the bottom of the ranking and the only reason he's still able to stick to Beacon was with Pyrrha taking time out of her schedule to train him.
"Fearless leader doesn't just give up on himself!" The bomber self-assuredly exclaimed.
I committed suicide? I tried? That didn't sound right. Sure, sometimes I feel like hell, but that's mostly from not being able to sleep like a normal person would. But suicide, really? Jaune couldn't believe it. No, he refused to. His life up to this point has nothing been… Well, nothing.
He was just the youngest Arc child. The only son. Nothing more, maybe less.
Till after the initiations, now he's Jaune Arc, the leader of team JNPR. Top of his ranks of leadership and tactics. This was the highest peak of his life right now, and nothing will make him believe it otherwise.
"No, she's wrong. Besides, a few bad nights are nothing that would push me to end it all. Yeah, it's just a mistake. I promise I'll clear things out with her." Boldly answering everyone's worries as the Jaune the NPR knew the blond's determined glance coming back as Pyrrha's lips were already forming a smile. Nora was just outright smiling the entire time, with Ren nodding along, glad for their leader to return.
"I'll talk to her once I can leave." Jaune assured everyone. Though, he still wasn't sure what exactly made him fall off from the roof that stayed at the back of his head; he was all alone on the roof for all he could remember. For now, he had hoped his teammates could push passed their suspicions aside for now and leave it be content with him breathing.
"Don't worry, it'll take a lot to even shake my will into suicide."
There was a pragmatic pause between the three, as Jaune wished they had accepted his words. "Alright." Pyrrha nodded gladly.
"Aww, yeah! Fearless leader is back with us!"
Another esteem booster to the blond knight graciously given from the energetic Nora earning her chuckles from the rest of her team as she huffed proudly at effortlessly lightening the otherwise dark mood that could attract a beowolf. "You hear that, grimms! Team juniper is back in action!"
The blond knight held back from wincing as he just smiled at everything back to normal. Things were back on track. Partly, Jaune wasn't sure if the dreams were ever going to stop. Sleeping medication might as well be cyanide pills if he'll sleep longer then it'll mean he'll have to book a stay longer at his dreams; wherever it will take him next.
He could use a cup of water… His throat felt like the Vacouan desert during summer.
"Water. I could really-" Asking something to wash down his thirst with as Pyrrha quickly hands him one nearby his bedside table.
"Oh, here."
Jaune nodded his thanks before quickly gulped down the entire contents of the cup and he noticed something off about what he drank… It was way too revitalizing than just what nature's own water would just give. He outright felt good. Way more than drinking the liquid.
He felt good. Like a million lien, hold that, it's actually even more than a million, actually.
What was this? "Some kind of medicine?" It didn't taste like any medication he knew and asking his teammates who bore the expression of shocked at they all bore witness to what was happening on the screen that was monitoring their leader.
What the hell was happening? Jaune couldn't see the screen himself, as it was perched beside him. He asked to his shock-stricken team. "Hey, guys?"
In today's Rapture, water is everywhere. Take advantage of maintenance issues with the Fountain of Youth tonic, and let that water wash your cares away.
