I'm alive! Let's get to it!

Jaune sat alone in his room, atop his bunk, flipping through a packet of papers. He mumbled out the tight writing as he read: "Be watchful for 'risk-states' which make one more susceptible to crisis moments. Such states are generally physical situations which inflict stress on the body, transitively inflicting stress on the mind. These states include hunger, sleep-deprivation, inebriation and the like. One will be more apt to succumb to emotions in risk-states, and any upsetting stimuli encountered while in a risk state will be especially difficult to deal with. One's reactions may be more extreme and potentially damaging. Eat well, rest appropriately and avoid all intoxicating substances to limit time spent in risk-states and promote overall mental stability and wellbeing."

He sighed and closed his eyes, taking a break to massage his temples, before turning back to the paper. Above the paragraph was a diagram visually depicting the risk-state chain being talked about, beginning in a risk-state, then presenting a negative stimulus, then following through a chain of behaviors that lead to unhealthy choices and eventually fallout once the 'emotional crisis' was over.

"Following a harmful reaction, one must interject at some point along the behavior chain. This is best achieved by utilizing metacognition to recognize environmental triggers and one's own common reactions to them… as well as immediate mindfulness exercises."

Again, he sighed and closed his eyes. All this reading was somewhat dry, especially compared to Peach's sessions, which she sought to make lively and interactive.

"I know it's a tough read," she'd told him, "and I also know you can get through it. We'll go over all of it here in our sessions, too, so don't worry if you don't get everything. Just tell me and we'll work it out."

Surprisingly, Peach's therapy had become as much a class as any other he'd taken at Beacon, what with reading assigned from textbooks and whatnot. There was a lot of complicated theory that had been worked out concerning all this, and Peach was determined to teach it to him. Or at least the parts that were relevant to his purposes. And that purpose? Dealing with his trauma.

The full extent of which he had yet to really admit.

Beyond the dry reading, it was something else entirely that made tired, a sense of guilt that had been weighing him down for days, its mass growing nearly every minute.

He hadn't told her the truth.

He'd promised Peach, promised his friends, promised himself, that he would give therapy his all. And yet he was still holding back. No one really knew what he had done.

Jaune threw the papers off the bed, and they fluttered chaotically to the floor. He covered his face and slumped to the side, pressing his face into the soft pillow.

"Alright team, I'm sure you're all wondering why you're here," she said.

"Yang, I swear if this is just another hair-brained scheme to get the answers to Oobleck's next test…"

"Weiss, don't be ridiculous," Yang replied. She shook her head and stamped across the room, flipping the lights off. "This is far more important than grades! Girls we gotta band together and stand up for what's right!"

Someone awkwardly cleared their throat.

"Okay, girls and Ren too."

Teams RWBY and JNPR were stuffed into RWBY's dorm. Well, most of RWBY and JNPR. Ruby and Jaune were conspicuously absent.

"Nora and I got together and had a bit of a talk," Yang said.

"Yup!"

"We determined that there is a crisis in our midst," Yang continued, "a crisis which requires our intervention!"

"The White Fang?" Blake asked.

"No silly, I already told you we're saving that for next week."

The faunus sighed and crossed her arms. She cast her bloodshot eyes to the side and crossed her arms, staring longingly at the closed door.

"We can save the terrorists for later, this is more important!"

Yang reached under her bed and pulled out a small portable projector, which she started setting up on her desk.

"Did you steal that from the teacher's supply closet?" Ren asked.

"Nope!" Nora cheerfully answered as she drew the curtains closed, leaving the room in darkness.

"Okay…"

"Hey, the ends justify the means, alright?" Yang said. She pressed a button on the projector and to shine a picture on the wall. It was a crude drawing of a heart, with the letters R+J written on it.

"Oh my god…" Weiss mumbled. Her head fell into her hands.

"Nora approached me and came up with the idea of us taking a more active role in this," Yang said, smirk growing larger by the second. "My sis is too shy and Jaune is edgelord supreme. At this rate, they'll never get together!"

She pressed a button on the projector, switching to the next slide. It depicted some poorly drawn stick figures, one red and wearing a skirt, the other blue with no skirt.

"Nora was kind enough to provide illustrations for the display," Yang said. "So it's obvious to everyone but them that they're super into each other, right? Well, the goal of this is just to give them a little push in the right direction."

She pressed the button again, to the next slide. Now there were other stick figures, and they appeared to be physically shoving the original two together.

"This is just a dramatization, not like we're literally gonna push them at each other," Yang explained.

"I wouldn't have put it past you…" Ren muttered.

"Yeah, well we need to get involved, because the status quo is under attack!" Yang cried. "Recently, Jaune has spent less time and attention on Ruby; I know this 'cause she's complained about it to me."

She flipped to the next slide, now depicting a frowny face on the red stick-figure.

"And I think I know who's to blame!" Yang switched to the next slide, now depicting a black stick figure with a smile, but also a deep V formed between the eyes, denoting an evil scowl. An arrow pointed to the figure, originating from a single word:

Cinder

"This bitch!" Yang said, accusingly pointing at the crude drawing. "This… this thot! She's ruining everything by imposing her feminine wiles! Jaune and Rubes were practically made for each other, then this girl comes in looking for some man-meant, throwing everything down the gutter!"

She switched to the next slide. It depicted a map of Beacon, with various notes and stick figures drawn out on it, almost as if it were some sort of battle plan.

"In order to beat out her seduction, Nora and I have come up with an ingenious plan to put Ruby and Jaune into a situation that will all but guarantee—"

Yang stopped talking suddenly as the room's lights were flipped back on. She gasped and blinked, rubbing the abrupt pain from her eyes. "Alright, come on, you're killing the mood!"

"I'm killing a terrible idea," Ren said, shaking his head. He stepped in front of the light switch, bodily blocking it from Nora, who'd immediately darted in his direction and now recoiled with a pout.

"Ren, this is important!" Nora whined.

"It's a breach of privacy," he replied.

"C'mon, these guys are never gonna get together on their own!" Yang said. She slammed one fist into her open palm. "I think it's high time for an intervention—"

"This is moronic," Blake said, exasperated and frustrated. She stamped to the door, flung it open and slammed it behind her.

"What!? No, Blake your stealth skills are crucial to the mission! Ugh!" Yang gripped her hair in her fists. "What are we going to do now?"

"Nothing," Pyrrha stated. Her voice was firm and not at all quiet. A command, coming from the usually endearing and non-confrontational girl who now stood with her hands on her hips, demanding attention from all in the room. For the first time in a while, she wore a scowl. "We're not going to go messing around in Jaune's life, not when he's in the place he is."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Ren said, "that he he's dealing with some things right now. He's spending a lot of time with Peach or studying what Peach is telling him to, or else he's training. He's even started meditating with us now, too. The last thing he needs is people meddling in his social life when he's just trying to focus on himself right now."

"I concur."

"Weiss!?" Yang exclaimed. "You too!?"

"Yes, me too," Weiss tutted. She gracefully pulled her head back, porcelain chin tilted in the air, refusing to accept a word from her errant teammate as she looked down her sharpened nose, a pose of pure, cold dismissal.

"Aw c'mon princess!" Nora said.

"It's not right to try and frame others' lives in the way you want them to be," Weiss said. She broke her stare and glanced to the side. "I… understand that."

Pyrrha sighed and hooked her arm around Nora's shoulder, drawing her teammate in for a half-hug. "I know that you just want Jaune to be happy, right?"

Nora chewed her lips and looked at the floor, before despondently saying, "Yeah."

"Well, he needs to do what he's doing right now. I think it's doing him a lot of good."

"And there's no need to worry about Cinder," Ren said. "He hasn't said a word about her. The only reason he's been less enamored with Ruby is because he's focusing more on his therapy and his lessons. It's doing him good."

"But…" Yang held up her hands, pleading for someone to take her side, and her face only fell when she saw the unwillingness of the others to go along. "Guys…"

Weiss sighed and stood, standing by her teammate's side and placing a hand on her shoulder. "You're just trying to be a good sister," she squeezed lightly, as much a display of support as her conservative nature could yet allow, "and that's a great thing. But you're used to tackling a problem head-on, taking it down, no room for finesse. This… isn't that kind of problem."

Yang clenched her jaw, angry for just a moment, before she sighed and let the tension go, bunched shoulders falling and fists loosening. "You're right…" She joined Nora's same depressed state, earlier excitement thoroughly killed. "It just sucks."

"Oh yeah."

"I just want things to be better already."

"We all do."

"So your real name is Max…"

"Was. Was Max."

"Was Max," Peach repeated with a nod. "That's fine—you can be whoever you want." She idly tapped one finger against her bottom lip, examining Jaune as one would an object or landmark well know, but that had only ever been seen from one specific angle; now she viewed him from a fresh vantage point. "It's a lot to take in, and I can't say I expected all that…"

"I'd be weirded out if you did," he said with a dry, humorless chuckle. In his hands again was the new slinky, which shivered in his shaky grip, releasing a tinny whine and rattle.

"Well," Peach clapped her hands and smiled, "I'm marvelously happy at how open you're being Jaune! Wonderful work!"

He couldn't suppress a small smile. Then he remembered the second part of his admission. That smile died.

"That's not it."

"Hm?"

"There's more that I haven't told you yet."

"Then go ahead, by all means."

"I…" He erratically shook the slinky in his hands. "Well, first you've got to understand—the wasteland is such a rough place. A lot… there are a lot of things you have to fight against. Hunger, dehydration, monsters… people. I've fought a lot of people."

Impatiently, he threw the slinky down on the couch beside him, then clasped them together, trying to make them stay still. Nevertheless, his fingers continued to shake slightly. He brought his hands behind his head, wrapped around the back of his neck, out of sight in what hopefully came off as a more relaxed posture. It didn't.

"I mean… the people back home were the real monsters. They'd torture you for fun, or kill you just because you weren't human, or even eat you." He dug his nails into the back of his neck, and his unprepared aura buckled before sudden force, letting his skin be scratched. "So…

"I did bad things too."

There was a silence. Peach watched him, gaze level and without judgement.

Suddenly, all the things that had been welling up inside him for so long started to escape, the long façade at last coming to an end.

His nails cut further into his flesh, drawing spots of blood. "I've killed a lot of people." He shook his head. He already felt tears welling up. "I hurt them, too. I hurt all of them." He screwed his eyes shut. "I just thought that, if the world was going to be so mean to me, take everything away from me, then why shouldn't I just do the same thing? Right?"

He brought a hand to his face, his knuckles into his eyes, crushing preemptively tears that threatened to form there. The weight of it all, even before he managed to say it, was coming upon him.

"Everyone has something they're good at," he continued. "Right? My dad told me that, growing up. Everyone has something. One thing. They're better at it than anyone else." He let his hands fall limply into his lap, and then he stared down at them, those dirty hands.

"That's a pretty nice sentiment to have," Peach said. "Do you know what you're good at?"

Slowly, he nodded. "Yeah."

"What is it?"

"Hurting people."

There was a silence. What Peach thought, he could never know, but in his own mind echoed as always many images which he could never fully forget. Bodies burning. Blood flowing. Bullets flying. Faces seen and unseen, ripped to pieces, smothered by fire, crushed.

And he saw two kids who must have barely entered their teens.

"If the world was going to hurt me so much," he said softly, "then I'm going to be just as cruel. I learned pretty quick just how good at it I am."

"Jaune—"

"I would set people on fire. I would set people on fire and listen to them scream and I wouldn't feel bad about it. I never did… never. I used Crocea Mors to saw people apart, and I'd listen to them die and get covered in their blood and I wouldn't feel bad about it. I'd blow people's brains out even after they'd given up and I never felt bad about any of it because I hated them so much. It's not like there were any jails to stop them… or me."

Something sharp and painful lodged in his throat, as if he were choking on a clump or razors.

"I never bothered taking count. But it must be at least a hundred. More than that. Hundreds. I dunno. I've killed more people than grimm."

His face became red; his eyes, wet.

"And I never felt bad about it," he said, voice not much more than a pained whisper. "I never liked it but I did it because I was so angry and I didn't care about them. But now"– he shook his head –"now I still see it all. I see it when I sleep. I see when I'm awake. Everyone tells me to move on but it all still feels so real. It all feels like it's right in front of me. How can I move on when it's right in front of me? And behind me? All around me? Everywhere?"

"Jaune—"

"It's everywhere!" he shouted, throat spiking in the effort. Tears flowed freely now. "Everywhere!" He slapped his hands against his own chest, with enough force to sting the skin and rattle the bones in both his fingers and his ribs. "No rest for the wicked right?"

Peach's eyes were wide. Her mouth was slightly agape. She looked at him, and her own immediate disbelief turned slowly into horror as she realized the scope of her client's difficulty.

"Shh," Peach gently sounded. She rose from by desk and strode across the room. As Jaune's head sank low, chin resting on his chest and eyes screwing shut, she sat beside him. "You're not wicked."

"But—"

"Bad people do bad things and then don't feel bad about it later. Wicked people enjoy their work, or at least feel no need to repent." She laid one hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently.

Some small part of his mind was very glad to have that little touch. Happy, that something out there was caring for him now.

"I never thought that you would have gone through so much… horror." She shivered. "I can't imagine getting through all that."

"Stop it!" he yelled, moving away from her. "Stop acting like there's nothing wrong with me! You say that and you say it and it's not true! This isn't okay!"

"No, no it's not," Peach said calmly. She pursed her lips for a moment, choosing her words carefully. "And despite the acts, you do have a choice over what you do next. This all occurred in a brutal wasteland, a place beyond civilization. You have a unique chance in that you've progressed beyond that, to a new environment with a fresh start; that's what you wanted, right?"

He shook where he sat, but through it he was able to muster a small nod.

"Well it's what you have. You've got the most brilliant chance now to reinvent yourself—no, no you're not reinventing yourself. You're just becoming who you really are, in an environment that lets you achieve that."

He shook his head; her words hung all around him, like mosquitos that zipped and stung.

"Hundreds," he said, "it must be hundreds even if I don't know how many it must be so many, so many…" A flood fell upon him, the gates now released, memories that were part real and part imagine and entirely painful. He saw faces before him, faces whole and faces ripped apart, faces with slashes and burns, faces scowling and faces crying. Then he saw two.

A boy and a girl, both young, younger than him. Both innocent, both with their whole lives ahead of them.

"I killed them…" he murmured.

"Jaune, living in a brutal place like that, even doing brutal things… it's never too late to reform. Never. There are very few absolutes in this life, but that is one of them."

"No…"

"Jaune—"

"I killed them!" he suddenly yelled. This time, he didn't give Peach a moment before the damning words that had plagued his mind for what seemed like so long were finally spoke aloud for the first time: "They were kids and I killed them!"

Then it hung there, the same overpowering silence that sometimes suffocated him while he tried to sleep at night, a reek of guilt.

"I came to this little town," he said. He couldn't remember the name; he'd never asked. But now that town appeared all around him, inside of that very room, seeming just as real to him as the couch he sat or Peach who sat beside. The rusted and dingy huts cobbled together with scrap and garbage, valued at least for having roofs. The ground beneath was brown and dusty. The stench of brahmin waste wafted in from nearby pens. The people there were covered in grime and had hollow, downcast faces.

He asked them what was wrong, for he'd gotten good at recognizing when a particular distress had punctured the wasteland's usual malaise of misery.

"There were bandits," he said, staring ahead, staring at the person who'd told him the story, the person who seemed to stand before him now, looking real enough for him to reach out and touch. "They'd told me that some bandits had come to the town and taken all their food and money… so I just asked where they'd gone, then went on my way."

He stared ahead of him, seeing now a dim horizon, the same smoggy line that had hovered before him day in and day out back on earth. Forever wandering. He no longer felt like he was in Peach's room. He felt like he was somewhere far away.

"The whole world was just so black white," he said, voice slowing down, becoming monotone. Tears ran silently down his cheeks as he soullessly elaborated. "Everybody who gets in my way is the bad guy, and I'll do whatever I want to them."

He saw it now, more alive before him than anything else around. He saw the camp, nestled into the side of a blasted out old factory. He saw himself raising the gun. He even mimicked the action there in Peach's office, bringing his hands up as he were still holding Metal Blaster, finger crooked and bent around the trigger. He squeezed it, and he heard the shots firing.

"There were a bunch of them, and I turned some to ash pretty quick. They hadn't seen me coming—I'd jumped from around the corner. It was all a part of the plan; I drove them back into the tight nook of their camp, all close together. Then I pulled out a grenade and hurled it as fast as I could—"

And he saw it once more, all of it unfolding before his eyes. Tears trickled down his blank, tired face, eyes wide and unblinking.

"Then they came out. Must have been sleeping. Or hiding. I don't know. Two kids. Maybe ten to twelve or something like that. Kids. I don't why they were there; maybe they'd been kidnapped; maybe they'd been raised into it; maybe, maybe, maybe… I dunno.

"But they were too young for this. I saw the fear on their faces that innocent sad fear and I knew it that they were still just kids at heart." He brought his hands to his face, hiding it from the rest of the world; he screwed his eyes shut but still the terrible scene unfolded before him. "I saw them get blown to pieces. I blew them to pieces."

The girl's face had been torn off, chunks of it flying away down the street as her bare and mangled skull remained precariously attached to a mauled body. Here intestines poured out of a great rent in her gut, skin ripped open across her body. The boy was even worse off. Both his legs torn off, he'd been propelled back, fully endowed with shrapnel and smoke.

"Jaune?"

Then he was back in the office, Peach's face before him.

"Jaune, are you okay?"

He blinked. At that moment… he felt something terrible in his chest. It was a curious feeling, as if there were simultaneously something incredibly heavy lodged there in his core, while also being nothing at all. A great weight, with a great hollowness.

"I was stupid, and I didn't care, and I blew a couple of kids to smithereens." He Looked down at his right hand, the one that had thrown the grenade. He stared at his guilty fingers, their swirling prints twisting and winding like so many bizarre little paths that he could never trace, mazes upon mazes. He squeezed. He grabbed it with his left hand.

His hand shook as he squeezed and squeezed, tightening a vice grip around the instrument of murder. He squeezed and didn't even recognize the mounting pain from the increasing pressure.

Suddenly his wrist bent at an odd angle and a crack wrung throughout the room.

"Jaune!" Suddenly Peach was before him, and she effortlessly pulled his arms apart, her matured strength greater than his own. "Don't hurt yourself, don't ever hurt yourself! When you hurt yourself, you hurt your friends and you hurt me, too!"

He blinked and looked back and forth between his twitching hand and Peach's horrified face, and suddenly it all washed onto him; he suddenly remembered again where he was, what he'd done and what he was doing. He also felt the terrible pain in his wrist now.

"I… I didn't mean to. I didn't…"

His voice cracked, and suddenly he bent over double, wracked with sobs, hardly able to get out a few words: "I never meant it! Never!" He fell forward, head landing against Peach's shoulder as he leaned into her fully, and she on her part enveloped him in a hug. It was all he could do, let out all the horror of that event and all the horror he felt for the things he'd done and the things he'd seen in this small way, releasing the pain he could.

"It's okay," Peach crooned, voice soft and pandering. "It's okay now, all okay. You aren't there, not back in the wasteland, not back in the past." She cradled him like one would a child, and she patted his shoulder gently. "It's all okay now. Everything will be alright. It wasn't your fault."

The tension gradually seeped from his body, as his face became wet with tears and snot. Emotions and mind exhausted themselves after a few minutes, raging like a fire until nothing but ash remained, and he was a silent, limp figure in Peach's arms.

"Everything's okay," she repeated.

Then the two of them sat there in silence for a while, before Jaune finally moved again. He cradled his fractured wrist, now burning like an ember in pain. He shook his head.

"It's not okay. What I did wasn't okay. Don't lie to me and say that it is."

"That's not what I'm doing," she said. "I'm just saying that the horrors of the past are in the past. Your guilt threatens to rip you apart, rip apart everything you've built here. I don't like dealing in absolutes, but this is true: if you can't confront the past, how can you survive the present and take hold of the future?

"But this is amazing, Jaune. So amazing." She leaned back, just enough for him to see her smile. "I'm incredibly proud of you, your strength. Letting this out, having enough trust in me and the system and enough care for yourself." Her smile widened. "Your wonderful."

"But I'm a murderer. How can you say any of that?"

"Your life was thrown into a catastrophe, tragedy after tragedy. You survived it… even that horrible accident." Her eyes became downcast, as undoubtedly she envisioned some of his heinous encounters. "But you've got your life ahead of you. You can reform into a life that's happy, where you can do good and help people. Stake a new purpose."

"But… someone needs to do something to me." His shoulders shook as he stared blankly at the floor. His mind was mostly numb by now, coldly clinking together words like links in a simple chain. "I always thought I someone should just kill me soon… after losing my team and doing all that. It's what I deserve."

"You deserve so much more than that," Peach said, patting his head gently.

"I've killed so many people… hurt them all…"

"It's never too late to change. Even that horror… even those two kids. You've already changed. Be careful and compassionate. You can leave a positive stamp on the world, Jaune. No matter what you do, you can make things better."

He blankly looked down, face still without expression. The tears on his cheeks were now drying. "Shouldn't I be arrested?"

"I have no idea how anyone would start to build a case again you, since this all happened so far away in backwater Vacuo. Even then, who would prosecute a child soldier?" She tilted his chin up, so he could look her right in the eyes. Her smile was small and sad, but sincere. "Especially one with such a good heart."

Surprisingly, that only made him laugh. Bitter, weak laughter.

"Good heart?"

He pressed his good hand against his chest, felt under the ribs something heavy and foreign and gross.

"Heart…" He just shook his head.

Peach reached out and placed her hands over his own. "Things in this world don't happen for good reasons. I can already feel the survivor's guilt coming on. Your team wasn't supposed to live and you weren't supposed to die. It just happened. Radically accept, Jaune. Things happen, and there's nothing we can do about that, you know?"

He nodded slightly.

"You did what you did. Terrible things, maybe. But that's gone now. There's no way for you to change it, not at all. You can keep looking for punishment, but I think you'll find that you won't ever be satisfied with whatever you find. When it comes to existential searches like this, people are rarely satisfied with what they get." She patted his hands gently, comforting. "All that happened, has happened. Say that with me, Jaune. Please, say it."

Breathe deep. Hold. Release.

"What happened," he said, voice shaken and nearly invalid, "has happened."

"Things happen."

Breathe deep. Hold. Release.

"Things happen."

"They're no one's fault."

Breathe deep. Hold. Release.

"They're no one's fault."

"They're not mine."

"They're not mine."

"All I can do, is recognize and move on."

"Recognize and move on…"

"Everything you did… all of it can be redeemed. The actions in that environment don't reflect you as a person. All the terror, and the loss, and the pain… all just things that happened. That's it. Like leaves getting blown in the wind, or rivers rushing to the sea, or trees growing and falling. All just things that happen."

Breathe deep. Hold. Release.

"Things that happen…"

"Confront the past. Survive the present. Take hold of the future," she said, "that's our goal, alright?"

Breathe deep. Hold. Release.

"Okay."

She smiled. "Good—now come on, let's get you to the nurse."

The second she unlocked the door, Nora stepped back and kicked it with enough force to crack a beawolf's skull. It slammed open with a meteoric crash! "Hello hello guess who's back?" she yelled at the room and its only occupant.

Jaune was alone, lying flat on the floor.

In response to her absurd entrance, he lazily tilted his head to glare at her; however, said 'glare' thoroughly lacked any malice and instead appeared more like a disarmed squint.

"Hi," he said.

"Watcha doin' down there?" Nora asked she slammed the door shut behind her.

"I'm tired, but I don't want to go to sleep. Just want to lie down."

"Why not on a bed?"

"Bed's too soft. The floor is hard… and for some reason, that's better right now." He raised one hand and limply slapped the tough carpet he'd collapsed onto. "Firm."

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmm," Nora dragged out the single syllable far longer than it had any right to go. She stomped on the floor, as if needing to confirm that, yes, it was indeed pretty tough. That's when she noticed something a little off: "What happened to your wrist?"

"Fell down the stairs, tried to break my fall, mostly worked," he said while brandishing the splint bound to his wrist. "I just have to wear this tonight. Should be good again after I wake up tomorrow." Then he pointed with the same hand to his desk, on which was a white paper bag. "Hopefully that stuff'll help out."

"Oooh, what is it?" Nora asked as she skipped across the room. She leaned over and peered at the unmarked bag.

"Medicine," he said. "Supposed to calm your nerves. That psych Peach sent me too prescribed it. I took some now, actually. Can only take two a day, so I'll take the next before bed. Probably part of why I'm like this. Or, well… I was just pretty tired anyway."

"Uh-huh," Nora hummed as she poked the bag. "Something bad happen?"

"Just a… demanding session with Peach. All good though. Progress."

Nora's smile widened. "Progress!" She said, then leapt into the air and flopped onto the floor beside him.

He squinted, confused. "And what are you doing now?"

"Chillaxing on the floor," she replied, stretching out her arms and turning over, getting into a comfortable position on her back, still near him. "I mean, you looked so snug down here that I thought I'd join you. 'Sides, I just got out of a study-hall sesh with Ren and Pyr, so my brain's fried. Though those two are still at it… crazy-heads. Who could ever like school so much to actually try?"

Jaune chuckled, then closed his eyes once more while Nora yawned. The atmosphere had suddenly become even more lethargic. But it was a lot warmer now, too.

"Thanks," he said.

"Don't mention it."

"What'd you say this was for?" he asked. The mechanic's words were made plump by the wad of gum he chewed as he spoke, while also shuffling through a few papers, smudging them all with the grease on his fingers. Such was the state of affairs in the chaotic machine shop, that nearly everything had some smearing of grease, motor oil or associated fluids and powders. The spare parts, the tools, the old computers, the people. Workers toiled in the background, wielding wrenches and welders and laboring away, creating a cacophony of metal burning and metal crashing and metal riveting. Littered with half-built machines and scrap, the cramped garage was like personal little mess of a factory.

"Specialized construction equipment," said a man looking quite out of place in that environment. He wore a stiff suit and treaded carefully so as not to stain his shoes or pants on any puddle or grimy surface. His nose had been perpetually crinkled due to the stench of smoke and oil and sweat.

"Construction, eh?"

"Yes, for safety and capability. Gives greater back support while lifting and moving, helps a person carry heavier loads," the suited man replied. He licked his lips after he spoke, pink tongue pulsing out his mouth for just a second. "Very helpful."

The mechanic scratched the stubble on his neck as he reviewed the schematics, which seemed to be a kind of exoskeleton. "But this looks like just a frame."

"Well yes, my client is quite worried about design leaks, so we're having multiple manufacturers making the component parts." Again, his tongue crossed over his lips before he spoke once more: "We've got a small assembly back in Mistral where we'll put the parts together into the final product. Aside from security over the design, that also lets us claim the equipment is Mistral made and we avoid a whole host of tariffs while reaping the benefit of lower production costs in specialized Valean shops."

"Ha! Tricky! I like that I do I do." He slapped the man's shoulder in a comradely way.

The suited man shivered as he glanced down and realized that his pristine jacket now had a smear of oil on it.

"No problem, we can get this done in a jiffy. How many ya want?"

"Twenty, to start."

"To start?"

"Yes." He licked his lips. "We're planning on some aggressive expansion."

Oh boy, ominous creepy dude inspired by that lip-licking guy from Tale of Two Cities (which I haven't read in years, but still like that character).

And I've been gone for a while. There are a few reason for that. For one, I wrote and edited my own original novel. I'm trying to get it published and may eventually announce what it is here if I ever get it really done. It's a hundred thousand words long, so it took a lot of time. Also, I just sorta got estranged writing this, since I don't really like the way that canon RWBY has gone. I also feel really unconfident about the part where Jaune finally opens up here to Peach about the horrible shit he did, so that really delayed my willingness to post this.

Anyway, I'm also announcing a greater departure into AU on the side of RWBY here. I already took a lot of liberty with the fallout backstory, primarily through the addition of Bishop and a few in-universe things to better set this up and make sense of things; however, I kept the story pretty much intact. That won't be the case for RWBY, as I intend to radically change a lot of the major plot points and character backgrounds to fit my own needs. I just don't really want to go the same route as canon.

I am NOT claiming that the changes I make are meant to make the canon RWBY story 'better' or anything like that, just that there's a creative difference between what I like to do and what the writers at RT want to do. I tend to be more realist and grounded, explore different themes. This is also a crossover, and I want to more fully utilize that fact. As such, I'll be making changes. I'm gonna list them off here for you to read if you want, but if you don't want to be spoiled about the changes, then skip the section below. This will include no spoilers about the direction of the story or major events, just changes I'm making to canon. I'll explain it all along the way in-story so you can experience it that way too.

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

-Salem is no longer an immortal ancient being, but a woman with a semblance for 'grimm affinity'. She still, however, has a bone to pick with Ozpin in particular for reasons to be later revealed.

-Ozpin is no longer a wizard, but a guy with a semblance that lets him manipulate auras, souls, semblances that stuff, all interlocked. That's what lets him change up Qrow and Raven's semblances to allow them to also be birds while enabling him to also transfer his own soul. Really, I just want to get away from the word 'wizard' and magic stuff, staying with the established laws of semblances.

-The four maidens were actually Ozpin's daughters (not with salem, she is a recent human) whom he had. They each had weather-associated semblances, and he tried to make them immortal but only succeeded in making their semblance transferable through hollow, wandering souls that need new hosts.

-No gods at all

-Relics no longer from the gods. They're entirely different.

All of this is done to keep things more 'grounded' in that magic and gods and higher powers aren't involved, so much as humans competing with one another in the physical world. Granted, semblances are definitely 'magic' in our sense, but it's more of a hard magic system that has more order and laws than just the wanton wizard and maiden stuff. Again, not meant to be critical to Miles, Kerry and the like, just creative differences.