Chapter 6: Best possible version of yourself
Hello everyone welcome back, for another chapter. A bit different this time, due to Aelmellin's last review I thought of how interesting it would be to actually write a small omake every few chapters for the most interesting discarded ideas I had while writing this. So at the end of this chapter is a short version of a full omake, just to show one of the options.
City of Vale, Jade Dragon gym
As they open the door and look inside they see a fairly usual Gym, with a seemingly bored young woman behind the counter as they walk up to it. ''Hello, we're interested in buying a day pass to test things out here later today, how much would this cost?''
The teenager looks up, seemingly being quite a bit less bored when she sees the two of them ''That would be 30 lien each for the day, a yearly abonnement with unlimited visits costs 1500 lien.'' The two turn to eachother, upon which Oscar nods, though as they turn the weapons they carry are more visible to the young woman, making her eyes widen in both slight fear and excitement.
Turning back to her, Jaune pulls out a lien chip ''Then a day pass for the both of us please, we'll use it later since we need to get other things sorted out first but noticed your gym while walking down the street. We'll probably be back in about two hours.'' As she nods, she processes the chip before handing it back together with two paper passes with stamped dates on them.
''See you in a bit'' As Jaune says this he and Oscar walk out the door again, stopping a bit outside ''Okay so we need proper exercise clothing since we can't just use our combat attire unlike in the sparring ring, Spirit mentioned that he knows a street with a few good clothing stores, we go there and get done in one go for both still and some spare casual clothes. You fine with that?'' Oscar nods his ascent, prompting them to leave while Jaune follows Spirits directions.
Vale harbour shopping district
As they walk through the fairly busy street, they look around for a while before Oscar notices a shop selling exercise and overall sporting clothes apparently one of the better shops in the area for durable exercise clothing according to spirit. As they walk in however and start browsing Jaune notices a blond haired girl his age and a slightly younger blackhaired girl with a streak of red with a red cape flowing behind her as they seem be arguing about something just as the younger of the two raises her voice enough to be heard by him. ''Yang, no! Just because you're my older sister doesn't mean you can just drag me along to meet people to try to get me to find more friends.''
'Siblings? They don't look all that alike honestly, what do you think Spirit? …. He's not reacting, this is almost like he was back when we first met Oscar…' Jaune gives himself a mental smack on the forehead 'A heavily muscled blond woman called Yang who is showing off her abs and a younger sister wearing black with a red cape… oh fuck these are Yang Xiao-Long and Ruby Rose.' At this point he drags his eyes away from the arguing sisters to look back to Oscar who is staring badly at the younger sibling.
'Okay yeah let's help him stop that before they notice, especially Yang with what Spirit told me about her.' He grabs Oscar by the shoulder, shaking him slightly while turning him to look away from the girls and towards him, which seems to break Oscars trance, with a slight blush on his face ''Let's quickly get clothing and leave, we don't want to attract too much attention.'' Oscar nods back but just as they move to go to the more general exercise section of the shop, they hear a loud voice calling out to them.
A few moments earlier, on the other side of the shop
Yang and Ruby stand opposite of the other, with Yang smirking at her sister while Ruby seems fairly annoyed ''Ruby come on, you're going to love this, its essentially sparring without weapons, think of how many friends you can make?'' Seeing the continued irritated look of her sister Yang sighed ''Look Ruby, I'm going to Beacon in a month and besides me you've only got two real friends and three or so people you can call acquaintances at best. You really need to make new friends, so whether you want it or not, this is for your own good.''
At this Ruby gets visibly even more annoyed before loudly proclaiming ''Yang, no! Just because you're my older sister doesn't mean you can just drag me along to meet people to try to get me to find more friends.'' It is followed up by a softer ''Besides, everyone we'd be going to be hang out with is your age so even if I somehow make a friend they'll also be going to Beacon or some other Academy.'' What was unsaid by Ruby was the fact that most of Yang's friends thought of the idea of interacting with Ruby as bothersome, and that a number of people who wanted to be Ruby's 'friend' only did so to get closer to Yang.
Yang sighs in frustration as she thinks it over, knowing her younger sister has a problem making friends with others their age, in part due to lacking social skills, in part due to her interests being far different than those of a number of her peers and in a small part that Yang always tries to ignore because she is often overshadowed by her older sister. As she looks around though she realizes something, what if the people she tried to make friends with didn't know any of this beforehand? What if they where strangers to Yang too? And just as she thinks this she sees another boy, probably slightly younger than Ruby from the looks of it, staring at Ruby with a sheathed sword hangs by his side.
Black haired, Ruby's age or slightly younger, armed at an age where only combat school students wear weapons in public, decent looking and seemingly only paying attention to Ruby even while Yang is standing right next to her? A glint appears in Yang's eye even as she sees a hand land on the boy's shoulder, said hand belonging to a blond haired young man her age, also decent looking and equipped with a sheathed sword, armour and a rifle across his back, seemingly either related to or a close friend of the younger man. The sentiment 'Perfect opportunity' slides through Yang's thoughts while she has a small smirk on her face, with Ruby standing next to her noticing both the glint and the smirk even causing her to get worried even as Yang grabs her by the arm.
While dragging her forward she shouts out ''Hey there you two'' As she walks closer the two turn back to her, their body language giving signs as if asking 'Us?' she continues ''Yes, you guys. You two are also huntsman or combat school students right?'' As both of the young men nod, her grin grows.
''So I'm Yang Xiao Long, I'm going to Beacon soon and this here'' as she says this she holds Ruby to herself even tighter ''Is my younger sister, come on, introduce yourself.'' Both of the young men opposite of them can see both Yang's smirk and Ruby's resigned 'Please go along with her, it's the best for all of us' look as she pushes herself out of Yang's sideways embrace, before remembering she's in front of strangers her own age or at least near it.
As she starts looking nervous she quickly starts off ''Hi, I'm Ruby Rose. Currently a student at Signal academy.'' Both of the young men opposite of her give a small smile at how cute it looks, though at this thought Oscar is once again blushing as Jaune sticks out his hand towards her.
''Nice to meet you Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, I'm Jaune D'Arc, a Beacon applicant.'' As he says this he then pushes a still slightly blushing Oscar forward.
''Mine is Oscar Pines, I'm trying to join a combat academy, nice to meet you.'' As the young man stammers it out and shakes Ruby's hand, both Jaune and Yang smile at the scene.
''So now that everyone is introduced, what were you guys shopping for, just general exercise clothing or something more specific?'' As Yang asks the question, her smile turns into a slight smirk ''Possibly swimwear? We'd love to help the two of you find the right set of trunks and judge how they look on you.'' At this Oscar is once again blushing while Ruby turns beet red, with Jaune getting a slight tint of red on his cheeks.
''Alas my fair lady, we didn't come here for those, so I'm sorry to disappoint you.'' On the advice of Spirit Jaune plays along and returns the favour ''Though we'd love to help you find some swimwear and give advice on how it looks if that is what you are looking for. I'm thinking something with yellow and black for you?''
At this point both Oscar and Ruby are beet red while Yang and Jaune look at the other for a moment before they both start snickering, which turns into a short bout of laughter, while for the both of them their respective younger companion gives them an angry look. Once they've stopped laughing Jaune continues ''On a more serious note, we're just looking for general exercise clothing, both me and my friend here'' at this point he lays a hand on the shoulder of a now less embarrassed Oscar ''always just did our exercises outside in whatever combat gear we had on hand since there was nobody else around and there was always the small chance of a Grimm showing up out of nowhere. As such neither of us have anything that would be all too useful for indoor exercises in a gym or for jogging on the city streets.''
At this Yang nods and leads them to the appropriate racks, helping them quickly figure out decent exercise wear for their sizes, ending up with simple just shy of knee length black trunks, red short sleeved shirts and relatively cheap black sporting shoes for the both of them with a spare set of the same clothing for each.
''So after seeing those fore-arms without a shirt covering them, I've noticed they've got a decent amount of muscle on them. How do you feel about testing that new clothing out in a friendly competition in a Gym?'' as she's saying this she then moves slightly closer and whispers ''My sister has a hard time making new friends and she seems to get along well enough with your young friend, so I'd like to let them spend some more time together today, fine with you?'' Jaune nods to her, giving her the go sign for it.
She smiles and wraps an arm around his shoulder ''Great, always good to meet new competition. Here, I'll give you my scroll number and we meet at a gym of your choice an hour from now, any preferences as to where?''
''The Jade Dragon would be nice if its no problem, both me and Oscar already have day tickets for it so it would be a waste not to put them to good use.'' Yang smiles at the name she recognizes before exchanging numbers with Jaune. Afterwards she shouts 'See you there' as she proceeds to grab a protesting Ruby and rush out to grab their exercise clothing.
Back in the store Spirit says to Jaune 'Honestly great to see her again, this went a lot better than I'd thought a first meeting between the two of you would end. If nothing else it is a dozen times better than how my first meeting with her went.' At the inquiring thought from Jaune Spirits tone of voice turns somewhat embarrassed.
'Well the first time I met her we were on the airship from Vale to Beacon and I might have accidentally… puked on her shoe.' At this Jaune turns somewhat sympathetic, knowing already just how awkward air related motion sickness can be from previous experiences, though also glad to have avoided that same first impression.
Jade Dragon gym, an hour later
As Jaune and Oscar wait on a bench outside they quietly discuss the first meeting with two of the people so important to their older selves ''So I saw how you looked at Ruby, was that your own thing or did Wizards crush on her jump over upon seeing her in the flesh for the first time...'' okay, its less discussing and more Jaune and Spirit teasing Oscar and to a smaller extent Wizard.
As Oscar denies it he looks around for anything that could stop this onslaught, and sees Ruby and Yang turn around the corner, ''Jaune stop, they're almost here already.'' Thankfully for the younger man Jaune stops at this as they both stand up to meet the two others.
With Ruby and Yang
''Well, there they are, already waiting on us. You think Oscar was so excited at the prospect of seeing you in exercise clothing that he dragged Jaune here early, or do you think the elder of the two might be more interested in that idea?'' Even as she teases Ruby again with the idea of one of the young men having a crush on her so soon after meeting, Ruby is happy to finally be near them and soon to be free of her teasing.
Though she won't admit it out loud to her sister (perish the thought of her getting an even bigger head) she is actually happy with her sisters attempt at getting her to befriend new people, since Oscar seemed like a friendly guy and even if it was slightly embarrassing, he did give her far more attention than he gave Yang, even while Yang was right next to her which she found she liked. In addition he probably has similar experiences of an older sibling figure teasing them after how Jaune reacted to Yang's statements, and its always nice to have people to talk to on that front.
The addition of Jaune into the mix also meant that Yang's attention would probably be directed more towards him and while she loved her sister, sometimes it was far better to not have to deal with her teasing for a bit. To top it all off, both of them where Huntsman students or wishing to become ones in the future, so they'd probably have very interesting weapons she might look into once she gets to know them better, which is always a plus.
After the duo's greet one another they head inside, with Jaune and Oscar giving their tickets, Yang pulling up a year pass and Ruby buying a day ticket, before they all proceed to the changing rooms.
After changing into their new outfits and walking downstairs towards the exercise room Jaune and Oscar are advised by their elder selves to start with some cardio exercises while waiting on the other two, causing the two of them to walk towards the treadmill and turn it on before walking at a leisurely pace of 7 kilometres per hour.
They don't have to wait for long before the others join them, though both Jaune and Oscar have to be snapped out of staring at the two young women moving towards them, with Yang noticing the look in spite of the fact that this happened fairly quickly and giving the both of them a smirk, before they join them on the treadmills next to them.
After walking for a few minutes to warm up they start jogging, keeping up a decent pace for the next ten minutes while chatting with one another before Yang signals she wishes for them to stop, causing everyone to start slowing down. At this point she walks over to Jaune and starts dragging him by the shoulder ''The two of us have weightlifting to do, you're not getting away that easily.''
As they move she directs him with her towards a lifting bank with a bar above it, before she slides on ten kilo's to each side while he moves to be able to catch it if needed. ''Let's just start with a light warm-up, since you've not been in a proper gym much you might need to adjust to this compared to lifting large rocks or whatever else you could get for weights back home.'' As she's saying this in a mixture of a serious and joking tone, before her tone turns more jokelike ''Also, try to not look down my shirt too much while I'm doing this, otherwise the blood you'll need to compete will move elsewhere.''
As she starts her first set of ten, Jaune rolls his eyes, internally somewhat surprised how easy it is to get along with Yang, he'd expected a situation where he would be hard pressed to not do things that reveal he knows more about her than he should, but instead they just get along well. While this is happening he can see that Ruby and Oscar have switched over to the two rowing machines in front of the weight lifting bench and are chatting a bit while leisurely doing the exercise, most of their attention focused on watching how the weightlifting goes instead.
As Yang finishes her set of ten Jaune takes over the bar from her and puts it in its resting posts again while she vacates the bench for him to lay down and start the exercise. As Yang mentioned, this is a fairly light one compared to the things he'd used in the past to try and train up his strength, though the fairly evenly divided weight is a plus compared to the issues he had in the past. The moment he's done with his first set of ten she takes the bar over and puts it back into resting position, before they switch again, though adding ten kilo's to both sides in weight.
By the time they're done with forty on both sides, at which point its starting to take a decent amount of actual effort to keep the thing fully straight while pushing it up and doing the sets after already having completed the previous ones, Yang calls for a short water break.
They both start drinking from their bottle of water and towel of the slight perspiration on their faces before Yang starts talking ''How about we make this competition a bit more interesting.'' As Jaune looks at her slightly intrigued she continues ''The winner gets to ask the loser to do something'' At Jaune's slightly worried look she brushes it off ''Nothing major of course, just like asking the other for a spar or to request the loser pays for a bottle of soda for each of us after we're done here. You interested?''
Jaune thinks it over for a bit and in spite of Spirits recommendation to not agree, ''Sure Yang, would make it more interesting.'' With a smile on his face, Yang giving him one in return before they shake hands on it. Afterwards she adds another ten kilo's to each side of the bar and they start up again, neither willing to give up.
By the time they've reached seventy on both sides, both of their younger companions have stopped doing any exercises and are just watching, while a small crowd starts gathering. By the next rep of eighty on both sides Jaune is starting to strain slightly, with Yang seemingly being less inconvenienced, though unnoticed by all but Ruby is the fact that she also is starting to sweat more.
As Yang is lifting for the ninety Ruby is cheering slightly for her, while Yang gives Jaune a smirk as he puts it back in resting position before replacing her on the bench, at which point Oscar, emboldened by Ruby's example, starts cheering for Jaune.
As they reach a hundred and ten kilo's on each side, the crowd has swelled significantly as everyone is looking at the two, while some of the younger people in the crowd have started following Oscars and Ruby's example of cheering on their respective preferred victor.
As they reach the onehundred and forty mark on each side, both are now visibly straining to do the full set, though both manage to complete it. However just as they are putting on the added weights for the next set the manager of the gym speaks up ''Okay, that's enough the two of you, I don't know whats gotten into you but if you add any more weight either that bar or the resting supports are going to snap. Please stop this now.''
Both of the now somewhat tired teens look at eachother before Jaune proposes ''A draw?'' Yang nods her ascent to this and everyone around, though slightly saddened that the show stops, gives a cheer as Yang grabs his arm and lifts it up, simply happy that both of them managed to reach this point. Afterwards they start taking off the weights they'd put on the bar before Yang is hugged by Ruby while Oscar walks up to Jaune.
''The both of you where awesome, I wish I was that strong.'' As Yang looks at Ruby with a smirk she immediately stops the hug and starts walking backwards ''Nowhere near enough to follow that torture you call a physical strength training program. I'm fine with my own strength, thank you very much.'' At this both Jaune and Yang snicker a bit while Oscar gives Ruby a consoling hand on the shoulder.
Afterwards they go towards the cycle machines and start a far more leisurely round of cycling, at which point Yang starts up a conversation with Jaune. ''So about that bet we made, with a draw we can both make requests. I'd like for a spar with you sometime next week, you fine with that?''
He nods, more than alright with it before he starts up ''I'm more than fine with it, though in return I'd like a few tips on how to fight unarmed, I know how to punch but from what I've heard you're in a far more dangerous category on that field.'' As Yang turns to look at him with suspicion, Jaune quickly stammers out ''I might have heard about you before we actually met, you're the one that ripped Junior's gang a new one at their bar a while ago right?'' Her suspicion lessens as she gives him a nod to continue ''His henchmen were still smarting about it when we kicked their asses a few days ago after they tried to rob Oscar.'' At this any lingering suspicion goes away for the moment as she instead starts laughing at the mental image of grown men complaining about getting their ass kicked by her while they have to fight another blond teenage huntsman.
Afterward about ten minutes of cycling the four teens do a few more exercises before they head to the gyms bar and drink a few glasses of soda while making small talk, all quickly growing friendly with one another. As they change back into their regular clothes and leave, all of them are happy with how the day went, but none are happier than Yang, who not only succeeded in getting Ruby new friends, but now also has a fight to look forward to next week that might actually challenge her.
Oscars hotel room, the next day
The two young men and two spirits can be seen respectively sitting and standing near the small table, upon which a written list can be seen, titled 'Improvements in case of failure to eliminate Fall' ''Okay so obviously one of the major issues during the fall of Vale was the fact that Atlas's robotic troops turned against them and in turn us due to the virus Cinder uploaded. Wizard since you had Ozpin in your head for a while, did you figure out how they had implanted the virus?''
The older Oscar nodded ''Yes, it was apparently uploaded into the CCT system tower during the Beacon dance by an unknown assailant, later assumed to be Cinder since the assailant according to descriptions of the soldiers and Ruby used a similar fighting style to what she switched to during the fall of Vale while both her compatriots where also at the ball the entire time.''
At this the younger and older Jaune are visibly thinking for a moment before exchanging confused glances ''While that in combination with a lack of quality security would explain how they hacked into the robots already on the ground when the fighting started, it doesn't for those still on the airships or the airships themselves, since they use closed circuit systems that don't actually use the CCT for anything and the control panels for the robots are on the ships themselves, they would have had to physically access every individual ship to take control of all those robots.''
The younger Jaune says, having picked this up from listening to Terra rant about Atlesian systems every time she had to fix an issue. Then the older Jaune gains a look of possible understanding ''Unless of course they had some kind of backdoor programmed into the coding systems of the ships and the robots themselves, allowing for the virus to have a far easier time accessing them than it should have.'' At this he looks up to the other three ''Meaning that if we get them to simply change the code of the robots themselves enough to remove that backdoor access we could keep them from taking direct control of at the very least the troops already on the ground.''
At this Wizard looks between the two as understanding dawned on him ''And since a lot of the issues with the fighting were from the fact that the robots on the ground turned, thus giving up large sections of the line to the Grimm and joining them in the assault, forcing human troops on things like AA guns and artillery pieces to either abandon those pieces and grab their personal weapons to fight or turn those weapons to the ground troops instead of the massive flying Grimm or the horde of smaller flying Grimm…''
The younger Oscar who till now looked flabbergasted starts also understanding the situation ''We could solve the issue of the Grimm getting constant re-enforcement from the air and cutting off large groups of the human defenders in encirclements in places where their flanks where held by robots.'' At this all three of the others nodded before the younger Jaune replies.
''Even if the robots on the airships where still turned, since while we can possibly influence things to remove the backdoor on the robots themselves we have no way of proving the airships have those backdoors without knowing them ourselves and using them to take control to demonstrate, we can ease the situation by a lot, especially if we manage to ease the dust crisis allowing for Vale's defenders to have more dust and thus spare ammunition available. Now the only question is, how do we actually get Atlas to change the programming for those robots.''
Then the older Jaune starts walking in circles before he seems to figure something out ''We can talk to Terra about how we found several criminals taking control of Atlas's robots and using them to fight once things start heating up and that we had to take them out in a fight, or possibly plant evidence that they had managed to take control of a few in the White Fang hide-outs in addition to after action reports to the faculty at Beacon. The combination of this should get Atlesian high command to at least put stopgap measures in place to patch it over temporarily, which even if it doesn't improve the actual quality of the cyber security much, it will render the backdoors inert.''
All three of the others nod, their course of action determined as they write it down before they start discussing other options on improving Vale's defence, some ideas being brought up, only to be quickly dropped after they run into issues already in the theoretical planning phase alone. Eventually the younger Jaune comes up with an idea ''What if we use our foot in with the SDC to start up a small PMC of mounted infantry, to use for missions near Vale. We could draw in some of the refugees or those living out on the streets, especially Faunus and draw them in, giving the white Fang a lesser recruitment pool. It would also help with lessening the quick re-enforcements the invasion kept getting from the Emerald forest.''
The other three think it over for a moment before the older Arc replies ''While interesting, we would run into the issue that we don't have the resources for such an operation, especially not anything truly large in scale, even if we have some tentative SDC support. However even a small boost in available manpower can help a lot, especially in situations like the fighting at the docks and the initial break-through during the Breach.''
The younger Jaune turns towards the Oscars at his older versions tentative approval ''It would also supply something productive for the two of you to do and give you a cover story for why you remain in the city, given that while we would come in to support whenever we can, we'll be stuck at Beacon, preparing our friends for the worst as best as we can and trying to stop Cinder and her crew directly.'' At this the two younger men exchange glances before nodding, with especially the younger Oscar having a shine in his eye.
''So 'Arc and Pines, shields of man', that sound good?'' They all turn towards the younger Jaune with deadpanned looks at that one ''Okay not the best name, what about 'Arc & Pines Rifle's', that better?'' the others mull it over for a bit and nod. While not the most inspired name, its quite a bit better than the other one and its not like they can't change it later on.
At this point Oscar grabs a new sheet of paper and they write down the name before writing down their basic points on it so far, when the older Arc intervenes ''Okay so one of the most important early details will be the overall uniform style of this PMC, what are we going to outfit our troops with that makes us stand out?''
At this the younger Oscar shoots him a surprised look while the younger Jaune and older Oscar both nod ''Yeah, its going to have a heavy effect on what kind of recruits we'll get, how many people will be attracted to it and also how we'll be seen by the general public. After all, if we where to say go in white uniforms, especially with the SDC tentative support we might be able to call upon, we'll be seen as little more than a puppet organisation for the SDC by a lot of Faunus.'' The older Oscar replies.
''But what if we use already existing uniforms..'' the younger Jaune utters as the others look at him with questions in their eyes ''Think for a moment, there's a lot of great war military surplus lying around Vale, often doing little more than gathering the wrong kind of dust in the backrooms of stores, so much so that even a relatively out of the way town like Ansel had enough lying around to re-equip its militia and have a full box worth left over for me to take with me. A dozen or so crates and boxes of similar size would allow us to equip a platoons worth of troops with everything besides fire-arms, since that's the main thing that most people actually buy from military surplus.
In addition, there are a lot of criminal organisations around Vale that can't really go to the police for support in case we steal take some of their weapons which would also take away equipment from the white Fangs main local arms suppliers, making it harder for them to get their hands on enough weapons to actually be as effective as they were during the Fall of Vale. All this will also allow us to draw upon a patriotic feeling, as our main goal will be to help make Vale and the surrounding areas a safer place to live in.''
All of them like this idea and Oscar quickly starts writing down the outline of their plan, with a very vengeful smirk appearing on Spirits face unseen by the others 'Oh Cinder, oh Cinder, this time you will not get your prize so easily. Even if you still win here, you will have to pay for it in blood. For I will have my vengeance again and someday your head will be on a fucking Pike!'
Omake
Atlas, war room
A white haired young woman can be seen pointing at a position on a map while a taller and older but still well built man follows her report along. ''The garrison at Walders pass is currently in the best position, as they are the only one that was actually as well prepared and manned as their reports to us indicated, they managed to beat off the Grimm assault with relative ease. Our position at Grimmsteins pass on the other hand was far less stable than the reports indicated, had I and my troops not arrived when I did they'd likely have lost over a third of the garrison while facing an attack of lesser proportions than what Walders pass was facing.''
At this point she turns from the map to the general directly ''I recommend demoting Colonel Witterbähn, he has been found guilty of not only neglect but also embezzling the funds sent over for him to recruit local auxiliaries as temporary support and instead had spent it on dinners with his wife at a restaurant in the nearby city of Hanze.'' She hands over some papers at this point. ''Here is the evidence of that from the bills found in his office and confirmation gained from confronting his wife after I managed to get my hand on a recording of her bragging about it to one of her daughters, made by a lieutenant that was performing a private investigation after he'd heard from an acquaintance of his that works for the logistical department that they would be getting funds for auxiliaries and more recruits.''
At this the general nods ''That will be handled promptly specialist Schnee, thank you for the report. Major Stauffenberg has been up for a promotion and a more stable assignment for some time, he will do well to re-enforce any lacking discipline among the garrison, and also be happier himself to finally be away from his current posting in Argus since he and his commanding officer keep clashing on how to deploy the patrols. Hopefully that will also lessen the amount of complaints from our local troops about the constant shifts in patrol routes.'' As he finishes however he suddenly stumbles before he sees himself in third person.
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Atlas, war room during the Infiltration battle
A far more weary version of himself and with a new large scar on his left cheek and in a different uniform standing at a the same war table he had been at moments ago only with several other officers hurriedly coming in and out of the office ''The Grimm incursion in the western district has been sqaushed, thanks to your intervention allowing for blocks of concrete to be lifted in to block off the hole while the assault on the northern frontiers has been blasted away by a mixture of artillery and airship support.'' Then a young officer comes running in ''The Red Fall and her support troops have breached into Mantle near Altlands square together with at least twenty Grimm, team JNPR and a squad of androids are on interception'' before the man can even fully finish his sentence the general storms out of the room, calling orders for his direct subordinate, lieutenant-general Sigismund, to take over command.
Red Fall… Grimm intrusions in Mantle itself… what is going on here for heaven's sake?!
As the general rushes through the hallway he calls over his radio ''Platform 1-33, ready for take-off to Altlands square'' as he gets confirmation he switches to another call ''Miss Rose, you and your companions are the closest huntsman team to platform 1-33, head there immediately! Fall has been sighted in the city'' At this point he realizes that if he goes through the building it will take him far too long to get to the landing pad, and instead he rips open the window ahead and jumps out, using his pistol to throw him forward, with a surprised team RWBY rushing through the nearby hall just in time to see him fly down.
How did I know that this group of teenage huntresses was called team RWBY? How desperate is the situation that I'm relying on people so young for something this critical? ''On me!'' they follow his command and moments later they're inside a bullhead rushing towards the other section of the city, with the scene of the fight coming into view just as Cinder collapses onto the ground from a stab of Jaune D'Arc, (again, how did I know that name?) before Oscar can be seen talking to him for a moment before he smashes his cane down and starts moving away as the Bullhead is at the scene and Ironwood jumps out, only for a wave of golden light to sweep out from the now stilling body of Jaune d'Arc, which hits the general and the Huntresses behind him in less than a second.
Atlas, war room, present day
Ironwood stumbles forward again before steadying himself on the holographic table overlaid with a map, seeing specialist Schnee do the same from the corner of his eye before suddenly, opposite of them, two projections appear of themselves in different uniforms that they'd seen in their respective visions. At this point Ironwood quickly engages Mettle before aiming his guns at his counterpart and the projected Schnee ''So is this some of Ozpins doing, Salems doing or did somebody just wish to send a message?''
The projection shakes his head ''As far as I know, none of them. If Salem had possesed it we would be just about the last people on the list to get sent over and if Ozpin had possessed the means to travel back through time or at the very least other people back through it he'd have already used long before that point in time to bring somebody back to before the fall of Beacon.''
At this both of the slightly younger versions of them stare at the see through version of the general ''The fall of WHAT?!''
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AN: And here we end this chapter, my apologies that you guys had to wait slightly longer than with the previous chapters, unlike the ones back then I didn't have as much time in the past few weeks. I hope that its still an interesting read, and please review to show what you feel was done right and what you feel needs improvement. Now, onto the reviews
Aelmellin: That was a good chapter with believable interactions between Jaune and Oscar. A good little tidbit to build up that proper comraderie for them to truly make a good team this time. And Thanks for Answering my Reviews! I admit it took me a bit to realize you did but woot! And a very good point about not bringing Everyone back. That would have gotten complicated even with just a few. Best to limit the effects where possible.
It's a popular fan theory that Jaunes semblance not only amplifies a person's aura, but also their Semblance as well! As Weiss was healed by him and could suddenly summon queen Wasp Grimm with ease when she couldn't do so before so your idea of a piece of his aura could certainly work. But what if you have it that they had so Little of his aura inside themselves for those permanent increases that the ritual had the low level success that Jaune would have had if Alaya hadn't interfered? what if they all only have the Vaguest of impressions and hazy memories that they feel like they should know him and yet know they have never met him before so get seriously suspicious if they are the type. Like Blake in this chapter? Jaunes guess at her actions could be completely true... with just a little extra suspicion added due to a little extra memory they can't access?
And I love the idea of introducing Alaya to explain away the revival of humanity because the brother gods are not benevolent enough to have revived them. but I'd humanity is now the literal manifestation of the will of humanity, then we have so much to play with. Lesser versions of Haki from One Piece since they are literally Will manifested into the world, just like humanity with their Aura? Fate Stay Magic from Alaya herself? So curious! looking forwards to the Next chapter and keep up the good work!
Answer: Thanks for the compliment, it is my intention to write a bit more background and just describe how they are adjusting to this new life of theirs in addition to describing just how they react to meeting their new (old) friends, with the latter hopefully believably bringing the two of them closer due to the shared experience. And yes, would have been a clusterfuck to handle if I just threw in everybody. Probably a fairly funny clusterfuck, but the actual threat level and just overall chances for actual stakes in anything would have been quite hard to achieve.
I believe that fan theory, at least to some level, simply because how else can Ren's semblance suddenly affect the emotional state of an entire train full of people, while before this he only ever used it on very small groups at best. Semblances are a bit like muscles from my understanding, if you never use one in a specific way its very hard to actually suddenly have to use it that way, so a boost would have been needed for that to work. If it has any effect on them when Jaune was brought back, and if yes to what degree? That is for me to know, and for you to figure out by reading the coming few chapters.
Yeah the revival idea was something I'd been thinking of for a while when I wrote that, like you said the brother gods are assholes who see humanity in a similar light to how a toddler sees a failed toy, why would they go through the effort of reviving them? It is also how I see humanity as having aura in the first place, its literally humanities will to survive, which is what brought them back from practical non-existence in the first place, made form in each and every individual human through weaponizing their souls. Keep reading to find out more and thank you for the consistent reviews.
DaDragon562: I've enjoyed the concept so far and eager to see what happens next with initiation to beacon
Answer: Thanks, though it will take at least another chapter before they arrive at Beacon, since I want to write their arrival there and at the very least a portion of initiation in the same chapter. I hope you keep enjoying the concept as a whole and this chapter specifically.
Darkjackal248: great story so far. I'll stay around to see more.
Answer: Thanks, I hope this chapter continued the trend and I hope you keep reading, always nice to see I can entertain people with my writing.
Have a nice day everyone, and see you next time. If you want the end of chapter Omake's to be a recurring theme for the next few chapters please give a +1 at the end of a review, if you want them to not be a thing, give a -1.
