Hololive EN is amazing. I love them all already.
To say that Sarah Lyons did not look happy was a massive understatement. It was like saying that a nuclear warhead is just a bit more powerful than a firecracker. Her scowl radiated pure contempt, and she glared at him with that look which was hers and hers alone.
Sarah had blue eyes, but they were unlike any other Jaune knew. Many think of blue as cold, but that was certainly not the case for Sarah. Her eyes were bright and unrelenting and intense; they were colored like the blue that lies at the center of a furious, industrial, supremely hot fire—her glared burned.
So bright and commanding were they that, when first meeting Sarah, anyone would be drawn to look at her eyes; often, the sight of them locked a person and demanded their attention for a moment. In this case, however, Jaune immediately looked away.
Because her eyes were furious.
Sarah stepped close, stopping only feet before him. With ramrod posture, she towered at just over six feet tall. Not looking her in the face, Jaune noticed that her clothing was conspicuously white—Atlesian attire. Although they were civilian clothes, Sarah's demeanor would have left anyone guessing that she was a soldier. The strength of her demeanor suggested it… along with the massive sword on her back.
Viridis Mors, a massive claymore made of durasteel.
Jaune glanced down to Crocea Mors, strapped to his hip. The swords were sisters, made alongside Rubra Mors and another as part of a small experiment to test such weapons' value. Except for Rubra, which Bishop took a liking to, they were put in storage. The Brotherhood had looted Crocea and Viridis at the fall of Raven Rock, and although Jaune remembered Elder Lyons mentioning once there was another, he had no idea where or who it had gone to.
Jaune swallowed nervously. Thinking about these stupid swords was just a desperate why to distract himself from the woman before him. It did not take a genius to figure out why she was angry.
Sarah had not known he was alive, for that was a secret kept between him, the Elder and the coroner.
Everything felt awfully quiet, even in the midst of the fair. Hundreds of people around them milled about, chatted shouted and played games. Yet right there and then with Sarah before him, he felt like he had been sucked into a silent, suffocating vacuum.
"Um, Weiss this one of yours?" Yang eventually asked.
"No…" Weiss replied.
They all looked with suspicion at Sarah, but Sarah only looked at him. She acted as if the others did not exist. For her purposes, they might as well not have. After all, there was only one reason for her to be here. Jaune struggled for a second longer to take a breath, hold it and look up.
She did not blink. She bore into him with those vicious blue eyes, scalding like gouts of steam from boiling water.
Jaune let go his breath, then spoke.
"Hello Sar—"
"We need to talk," she said, immediately crushing his words.
Jaune grit his teeth and clenched his fists. His face started to burn with immediate humiliation and frustration. It was just like Sarah to force an abrupt power play like this. The worst part was that he did not dare try to challenge her on it. She knew he wouldn't.
He felt a tear in his abdomen, like his fake heart was getting wrenched down through the flesh until it could plop into and dissolve in his own stomach acid. The woman before him was a monument to his failures, and she spared no mercy.
"You have many things to explain," she said, continuing to burn him with those unblinking eyes. Her voice burned with contempt she did not bother to hide. "Whatever pathetic excuses you can try and give, I don't want to hear them. You're going to tell me what I want to know. Do you understand?"
The others had been confused by Sarah's arrival, and now they were stunned by the sheer hostility she commanded.
Jaune forced himself to keep a hold of her gaze. Even as it started to feel like someone was lighting fires under his skin, he forced himself to match her. This was the most he could manage while trying to think up what words he could say. His mouth suddenly felt dry as desert sand.
Pyrrha put her hand on his shoulder and scowled at Sarah. "Just who even are you?"
Weiss puffed up and glared at Sarah as well. "What right do you think you have to accost others like this?"
Sarah did not bother to answer them. She was here for him and him alone, and she was going to drag him out from whatever he was doing. Jaune saw the resolve in her eyes. He knew it well. Sarah did whatever she believed needed to be done. She did not let things stop her.
"Hey there lady…"
Jaune gulped as things got a bit more tangled.
Qrow stepped in right between him and Sarah. That made things more cramped, considering there was only perhaps a couple of feet between Jaune and Sarah in the first place.
Jaune prickled with anxiety as the woman he considered to be an old mentor and the man he considered his newer mentor suddenly squared off. He sidestepped around Qrow and saw that now these two were glaring at each other, faces mere inches apart. Sarah had easily transferred her contemptuous glare to the one trying to impede her.
"Sorry," Qrow said without the usual lackadaisical tone in his voice, "but the kid doesn't feel like taking anymore selfies or whatever it is you want. So buzz off." Qrow leaned a hand against the hilt of his sword.
"He knows what he has to do," Sarah said replied with a tone as sheer and solid as polished steel.
"Oh, does he?"
"Yeah... yeah I do."
All eyes were on Jaune again. Sarah snapped her hateful gaze back to him. Qrow looked at him with confusion, wondering just what the hell it was that he had stepped into the middle of. His friends looked on with concern. Ruby looked a little scared.
"Sarah let's just go somewhere and talk," Jaune said. His words were hoarse and not commanding.
"That's all I ask," she said. She stepped back from Qrow, who still looked warily between her and Jaune. "We will go a private place and talk." Her words were almost mechanical. Sarah had put a cap on her anger, reverting back to the cold and unemotional tone she was generally known for.
Jaune nodded. It was useless to try and oppose her in this, because this what Sarah wanted to do. And what Sarah wanted to do, she believed she had to do.
It didn't take long for them to get to his room. Jaune silently and awkwardly led Sarah back to Beacon. She took long, purposeful strides beside him. No one asked for an autograph as they walked along. Sarah and her imposing eyes flashed a glare at anyone who got too close; few approached anyway, considering Jaune looked like he was about to be sick.
He certainly felt sick. His thoughts were a turbulent, jittery mess. Even more stuff from Earth was coming back to barge in on his life and raise everyone's suspicion. As much of a problem as that was, however, there was something else which inspired a pressing worry.
He had had once seen Sarah execute a man for desertion; she had turned him to ash with her laser rifle. Of all the knights Jaune had met, he did not know of anyone more fiercely loyal and devoted to the Brotherhood than she was. She tied her very reason for existence to the Brotherhood of Steel.
So, while he did not expect her cut his head off the moment they were alone, he also did not expect for him to get out of this conversation fully unscathed.
Before he knew it, they were in his room with the door slamming shut. The others were waiting just outside, having followed closely. That gave Jaune some small comfort, since they would barge in if they heard anything too bad.
Jaune willed himself to look at Sarah, but her focus was not on him. Instead, she looked all around his room, observing the beds, the posters on the walls and the desks. She saw the pile of empty grape soda cans by Pyrrha's desk, because the champion had gotten increasingly lazy around them about cleaning up after her guilty pleasure. She saw the chaotic dump of papers and books on Nora's desk, along with cutesy little stuffed animals. She saw Ren's immaculate desk with just a new book on it She saw Jaune's desk, on which he had placed framed pictures of him and his friends.
She saw all that and more, including their movie posters, the little potted plants on the windowsill and their dangerously makeshift bunk beds. She took it in silently.
"This… is my life now," Jaune said.
Sarah did not respond. She seared picked through everything in his room with her eyes; Jaune felt like he might need to clean off all that he owned after she left, otherwise the feeling of her gaze would linger.
Sarah eventually stopped and lingered on something in particular. She was looking at a collection of photos tapped up onto the door. It was all the pictures he and his friends had taken from their time in Beacon thus far. It had been Nora's idea, and they all loved it, the collection of their shared memories. There were the photos of Jaune with everyone at the garden. There was Pyrrha and Nora standing triumphant over dead grimm they had killed in the Emerald Forest. There was Ren and Jaune lazing in the shade, chatting. All of them up on the bed after Pyrrha had soaked him with grape soda. A good memory.
Sarah sneered.
"How long have you been here?"
"May be six months."
"I've been here six years," Sarah said, still scowling at the collection of photos. "I've done my hardest to get in a position where I can discover and stop any more forces that could come from Earth. And you have, what, decided to be a child again?"
Jaune had noted that Sarah looked older, though not by much. She had been twenty-five before, making her thirty-one now. She still looked as strong and vital as ever. She was meaner than he remembered, but maybe he had just never unlocked this version of her before.
Jaune scowled and squeezed his fists. "I like my life."
"To fulfil one's duty, one need not be happy. You need to be dedicated." Sarah slowly turned her head and fixed him with those burning, bright eyes. "I once thought that of you."
Jaune could not hold her gaze.
"You left," Sarah spat. "I thought you were dead. We thought you were dead. We held a funeral for you, mourned for you. Imagine my surprise when, at that Enclave base, I see the Lone Wanderer take off his helmet and…"
Sarah grit her teeth.
"You had help," she said in a low, seething voice. Jaune spared a glance her way, and sure enough, the anger on her face was even more intense now. Her hands were balled into fists. Her shoulders were hunched like a predator ready to pounce. Everything about her expression and demeanor suggested a willingness—a want—to attack.
But Sarah kept herself at bay, waiting for his answer.
"Yes," he said.
"Who. Who helped you fake your death?"
"Your dad."
Sarah grimaced like she had just eaten something rotten. She crossed her arms over her chest and pensively scowled. She did not look surprised.
Jaune felt some sympathy for her. He knew just how much Sarah had looked up to her father, how loyal to him she had been. Much like Jaune himself, he was the one who raised her, her only remaining family. Being wrenched away from him and thrown into a new world must have been very hard.
Right now, however, he did not see sadness on her face. She was all anger.
She huffed and shook her head. "He was always too kind." She redirected her furious eyes back to him. "How did you get him to agree, and why even bother faking your death?"
"He felt bad for me," Jaune said in answer to her first question. "And… I just…"
This was the difficult thing to admit.
Jaune gulped and prepared himself.
"I didn't want to face any of you. I was… very, very angry. I was very angry and I sort of wanted to die so I just told him to do that and I left. I tried to go back to my vault, but that didn't work out either."
"And then you became the Lone Wanderer," Sarah said accusingly. She glared into him. Evidently, she had, much like Orion, seen his unmasking and declaration back while fighting Bishop.
"Yes," he replied. That was all to say.
Sarah bore into him with her eyes, then sneered in disgust. "I wondered who it was that my father would be willing to give Crocea Mors to. I was wondering who it was that could get the reputation of the Wanderer."
Jaune did not look up at her.
"You don't deserve that sword," she said. "You don't deserve the legacy of pity, either. Maxwell Noble has been in all our hearts for some time. If I ever get back to Earth, I will rectify that."
Jaune clenched his fists but remained silent.
"But you go by Jaune now?" Sarah asked in a mocking tone. "Jaune Arc? Obvious enough to see where you got that from. Your mother like her, didn't she."
Jaune's skin crawled. He and Sarah had had several late night talks while out in camp, trekking through the wasteland. During their campaign against the Enclave, they had gotten to know each other fairly well. He had told her about his mother's hero.
"The name doesn't fit you," Sarah said. "Joan of Arc was a good person. From what I recall, she never abandoned her allies or tried to use poison gas or locked people inside of a burning building like a savage."
Jaune shut his eyes and tried to keep at bay the words he wanted to scream.
Breathe deep. Hold. Release.
"You wanted to kill them too…" he said shakily.
"Bullets to the back of the head are far more humane than being burned alive. We have standards to uphold."
Sarah scoffed. She watched him as he shivered with anger and shame and other feelings. Observing that he was probably close breaking, she turned away and brought her attention back to his room. She noticed again the photos taped up onto the door.
"Although, this hardly looks like the kind of place the Lone Wanderer would live in."
Breathe deep. Hold. Release.
Breathe deep. Hold. Release.
Jaune slowly opened his eyes. He kept his fists tightly balled and harshly grit his teeth, clamping down hard on his emotions. He almost wanted to vomit. He could not have possibly been prepared for this.
Sarah walked up and scrutinized the photos again. She frowned and said, "I see you've been wasting a lot of time."
"What should I have been doing?" Jaune asked, his voice quiet and seething.
"Training, working, traveling, building connections, researching, advancing yourself and a goal that makes your life worth living," Sarah said flatly. She swung her scalding scowl back to him. "This just looks like you've been having a party."
"I've been working really, really fucking hard," Jaune said; he spoke through a clogged throat. He shook as if it were below zero in the room. "I've been trying to change myself for the better. I made friends. I've seen a therapist…"
Sarah looked down on him with those eyes like smoldering coals.
"Weak," she said.
Jaune whipped around and stomped away. He couldn't stand the sight of her. He went up to his desk and slapped his hands down them hard enough to make the heavy wood creak. He took in a deep breath.
Sarah was saying all the nasty things that the voices in the back of his head, treacherous thoughts driven by self-hate and doubt, had been saying. She told him these things to hurt him.
"Get a hold of yourself," she said without pity or remorse.
Jaune looked back over his shoulder with hate in his eyes. For her. For himself. For everything that was happening.
She met his eyes with her own. "Now, I go by Sarah Pride," she said, changing the subject. "Not creative, but an alias is an alias. I figured it would be dangerous to keep my real name. I suppose picking an alias radically different was a good move on your part—"
"It's not an alias," Jaune said, turning away from his desk and faced her full on. "It's who I am."
"Is that so?"
He nodded, scowling with determination and anger.
Sarah met his glare. She crossed her arms and stared at him.
Jaune felt warm anxiety wash up and spread under his skin like waves of ants.
Sarah scoffed again and shook her head. "Fine, call yourself whatever you like." She looked up at the bunk beds again. "Six months here, having sleepovers and going on playdates."
Jaune squeezed his hands into fists again. He dug his nails into his palms, grateful for any sensation that could distract him from his emotions. Anger and shame and embarrassment welled up in his head like gases, heating up and expanding such that it felt like his skull was going to explode. Along with that, his stomach felt like the acid there had spilled out and was burning the rest of his guts. His throat was prickly and his mouth was completely dry.
"Six months," he eventually managed to say.
"During which time you've been acting like a normal student at Beacon," she said. "At least, when you haven't been confronting criminals and terrorists."
Her scowl deepened.
"I must admit you seemed to have done as good a job as you could with the Breach," she said. Her tone was not congratulatory; her voice, not excited. She was not praising him but admitting the truth. It did not make Jaune feel any better.
"Six years for me," she said. "A blast of yellow lighting came for me a few seconds after I saw you get vaporized. Then I was falling through the air and right into a forest in the middle of Mistral."
Jaune scowled pensively.
"Did any radroaches come with you?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "A big chunk of the wall behind me was taken with me by the lightning, A few radroaches were hiding back there, if I had to guess. I saw them crawl out and away after I got here." She looked down on him with slight curiosity. "Have you actually done some research yourself?"
"Yeah," Jaune said. "Saw there was an outbreak of giant cockroaches in a small village in Mistral a few years ago."
Sarah nodded. "That was me."
With the conversation shifting away from his supposed failing, the tension was easing slightly. Slightly. Their body language and the way they looked at each other still made obvious the mutual contempt, but at least Jaune's vicious urge to lash out at her was becoming not quite as strong.
"I've spent the last five years in the Atlas Foreign Legion," Sarah said. "Recently, however, I joined the Atlasian Specialists, their elite forces."
Jaune remembered that Weiss's sister was a specialist herself, and Weiss had insisted that the station was one which commanded respect, one which was hard to attain.
"The Foreign Legion grants citizenship after five years of service," Sarah continued. "It's extremely hard work that they put on the legionnaires, but hardly worse than what I had to deal with in the wasteland."
"Why Atlas?" Jaune asked.
"Their technology."
Jaune's eyes widened, then he fell back into a scowl. "Of course…"
The Brotherhood of Steel was obsessed with preserving the technology of the old world. Well, not just preserving it, but hoarding it for themselves. Elder Lyons was more compassionate than the elitist and xenophobic Outcasts, but Sarah…
"You always had a soft spot for the Outcasts, I remember."
"I fought the traitors," Sarah said. "I don't have to prove my loyalty, especially not to you. That I wanted to try and compromise and rehabilitate them simply means I took the original mission of the Brotherhood more strictly than my father did, though not so much as they."
Jaune scoffed. "Whatever."'
"Anyway," Sarah said, scowling but pushing past his judgement, "I'm suspicious of Atlas. Their technological advancement is sudden and abnormal, putting them past the rest of the planet. I want to work my way as far up in their military as I can and investigate whether or not they've discovered some technology from Earth."
Jaune didn't admit it, but that actually sounded like a smart thing to do. "They might have gotten a boost like the Englo."
"You really have done some research," Sarah said. "Yes, the Englo certainly were influenced by people from Earth, likely members of the Brotherhood who came here during our battle. I imagine the Enclave would have made something much worse if they had managed to take control a thousand years ago."
That thought made Jaune grimace.
"What'll you do if it turns out that Atlas has been using Earth tech?"
"Destroy whatever they have left," she said frankly. "That's my duty."
Jaune scoffed again. "Duty to what?"
"The Brotherhood of Steel."
"That doesn't exist anymore, not here on Remnant."
"So long as I'm alive, it does. Even if I'm the last knight in the world, I'm still a knight."
Jaune sneered and looked away. Sarah's loyalty was unrelenting. Even after getting dragged away into a different dimension, she based her whole life off of serving the Brotherhood.
"Louis Creed is the only other Brother I've found anything about," Jaune said. "And he was a long time ago."
"Yes," Sarah said. "I saw what happened to him as well." Her voice was flat, betraying no sense of grief. "He did as well as he could, and his story made me glad I was not discovered when I blew up my own armor and got away.
"Although that was difficult, considering I needed to make my way out of a forest with several broken ribs and a broken arm. I was summoned in the sky and not even the power armor was fully able to protect me."
"I just washed up on a beach," Jaune said. "Guess I'm lucky I didn't get thrown in the ocean and drown."
"You seem to be a lucky person, indeed," Sarah said.
"Don't really feel lucky."
"You've survived where many others have not."
Jaune supposed that was true. He sighed and stepped away from her, back to his desk. He pulled out the chair and tiredly fell back into it. He rested his elbows on his knees and propped up his head in his hands. His anger was quickly funneling into exhaustion.
"I don't suppose you've met anyone else from Earth?" Sarah asked.
"No," Jaune said flatly. "No, I haven't."
"Neither have I," Sarah replied. She took his answer without suspicion.
Jaune opened up a drawer in his desk and pulled out the notebook he'd been using to keep track of all his research into Earth on Remnant. He told that to Sarah and passed it to her. She flipped through and scanned all the scrawls about cockroaches and mental asylum patients.
"Nothing I haven't seen in my own research," she said when she had finished examining what he had written. "You won't get far relying on public information to try and research about Earth. That's why I quickly decided to try and work my way up through Atlas. If I can higher level clearance, maybe one day I can see if there's really more to them than meets the eye."
"Hm." Again, Jaune would not admit it, but the idea was a good one. As much as he earlier derided Sarah for her continued allegiance to the nonexistent Brotherhood of Steel, he agreed that wiping out traces of Earth should be a priority. He stashed the notebook back into the drawer and shut it.
After a moment's thought, he pulled it open again and threw in the letter from Angela and Victor as well. He snapped it shut.
"More importantly," Sarah said, taking a step closer to him, "I want to talk about Bishop."
Jaune instinctively frowned at the mention of his name.
"You fought him," she said, "what was his semblance?"
"I don't know."
Sarah scoffed.
"Oh come on," Jaune said angrily, "a lot of them are hard to sus out. What's yours?"
Sarah's reply was her glare.
Jaune hated her. Really. He hated Sarah Lyons.
"I got my aura unlocked by the huntsman who saved me in those woods after I came here," she said. "My semblance is unnecessary information. What is necessary is everything you know about Bishop."
Jaune's reply was his glare.
"You want him dead, don't you?" she asked with a cold, mean tone. "I'm stronger than you, undoubtedly. I have connections with Atlas, which is actively searching for him. All you're doing is hiding up here in Beacon for the time being. I'm going to be out in the field, quite possibly fighting him or his allies. Tell me what you know. You have to."
The way she made demands of him was infuriating; it was even worse that it made sense. Jaune had six months of schooling in this world's fighting, but Sarah had five years of military service already under her belt. She was certainly a more skilled combatant than him, and she would be out on the front lines. It made sense for him to tell her all he could. He knew that. She knew that.
He bit the bullet and explained to her what had happened on the train. Bishop's right-hand man, Arthur, was here with him. Bishop's abnormal strength and speed had translated well into Remnant with aura. He did not look much older than he had on Earth, perhaps a max of a few years.
She idly brought up a hand and tapped her thumb against her chin, an old habit that Jaune still recognized. "He really is working with the White Fang…" Sarah muttered.
"I know," he said. "It doesn't make any sense with how much Bishop hates anybody who's not human."
"No," Sarah said. She let her hand fall and shook her head. "It makes sense with regards to Bishop's final goal."
Jaune raised an eyebrow, confused. "And what's that?"
"Global domination."
The room was quiet for a pregnant second as Jaunt took that in.
"The Enclave was always driven by the belief that they and they alone had the right, the responsibility, to rule," she said. "I can't imagine he has any goal other than to create a human-dominated authoritarian power structure in which he and his new Enclave play a crucial role. That was their goal back on Earth.
"In that regards, it makes sense that Bishop would ally with whatever group happened to benefit him at the moment. He'll betray the White Fang eventually, but he'll use them until then. It is likely that Bishop values them for their destructive potential, attacking the current power structures that he seeks to compromise or overthrow.
Sarah scowled as a new thought struck her.
"Also, the White Fang being successful in their terrorism and getting more extreme is actually a boon to human supremacists."
Jaune's eyes widened as the insidious cruelty and intelligence behind this theory struck him. "If he helps faunus terrorists, then racism against faunus might pick up."
"It will definitely pick up," Sarah said. "There has already been a rise in anti-faunus hate crimes not just in Vale but around the world after the Breach. By helping them now, he's priming more people to eventually be radicalized or sympathetic to whatever messages he will be trying to spread."
Jaune stood up suddenly, fueled by anger anew. "That absolute bastard," he seethed.
"Yes," Sarah agreed. "I'm going to do all I can to fight him. You can sit here and continue to do nothing."
Jaune snapped up his head to glare at her, as quickly and as angrily as if she had just slapped in the face.
"What?"
"You're weak in more ways than one," she said. "Stay here and have slumber parties with your friends and complain to your therapist or whatever it is you do. Fight in that tournament if you think it's fun, it doesn't matter. Just keep out the way."
Jaune stepped up to her in quick, long, aggressive strides. He stopped not a foot in front of her, glaring straight into her viciously bright eyes. Sarah did not flinch.
"I haven't been doing nothing," he spat at her. "I've been pulling myself together, fixing all the busted up pieces. I've been training harder and harder and harder until now I'm one of the best in the school. I'm going to keep getting better, and sometime I'm going to face Bishop and kill him."
"You're going to run away again," Sarah replied. "The moment things get hard, the moment one of your new friends dies or gets hurt, you're going to run away like you did before. No matter how good a fighter you may get, you've proven yourself weak in spirit."
"Fuck you."
Sarah took another step forward. Their faces were mere inches apart. Neither blinked. Sarah's bright, angry eyes took on his own; one of his was a shade of blue more muted but not entirely unlike her own, and the other was utterly bloodshot and red. He bore into her with spiteful hate. She pushed back with sheer contempt.
"We made you an honorary knight," she said. "You said you would always hold the values of honor for the rest of your days. Then you shattered that."
So close, they buffeted each other with their breath.
"You can't blame me for leaving after what I lost."
"We all lost someone," Sarah said, "but not all of us ran away."'
"Not everyone's a brainwashed robot like you."
"A robot?"
Sarah's chest swelled as she took a deep breath, held it and released it. Even if her face did not betray any great increase in hate on her part, this action proved she had just pushed down a significant uprising of ill feelings.
"Do you think I don't have emotion?" Sarah asked. "Is that it? I have felt pain, and pushing through it has made me strong."
"Don't look down on other people just because they don't repress all their issues."
"Just sit here and stay out the way and let the adults do their business."
Jaune barked a sharp, single, bitter laugh. "Let the adults work? Really? You didn't seem to give a shit how old I was back when you made me a child soldier back on Earth."
"You begged me to let you come along with us," Sarah shot back. "Don't blame me for your own fervor. I was younger than you were when I started shadowing missions. I was younger than you when I killed a person for the first time. The wasteland was different. We were always stretched thin and desperate. Especially after you learned how to use power armor after that Anchorage simulation. We were desperate in a fight for survival, for the whole wasteland, against the Enclave. We were willing to take in whatever help we needed."
Sarah stopped talking, and her mouth formed a thin line as she scowled at him.
"That an excuse?"
"An explanation for my mistake," she said. "A mistake I believed that I had payed for."
"And how the fuck were you the one who payed for it."
Sarah's stare was utterly intense. Her hands were balled into shaking fists. She leaned forward minutely, even closer. When she spoke again, it was in a low, cold tone:
"I was saddled with the guilt of believing I was responsible for the death of a good, innocent, bright kid. That's what I believed for months. I did not forgive myself for it. I have never forgiven myself for any mistake, for any death under my watch. I keep my composure and continue, because that is what I have to do. That is what I did in your case. I fought afterwards with your memory and the memory of everyone else who's fallen.
"Then imagine my surprise, when it turns out you had simply run away.
"You dishonor all the people who've felt loss but continued to fight. You dishonor all the people who really did die in the line of duty."
Sarah didn't wait for him to reply. She sidestepped and headed toward the door quickly, her boots thumping heavily as she went.
"Stay here and stay out the way," she said. "I've gotten all I need from you."
She paused for a second, hand on the door handle. She took in a deep breath. She held it. She let it out. Her shoulders rose and fell as she practiced the routine of VATS just as Jaune had countless times, be it in the battlefield or just to calm down.
"Just tell them we fought together in Vacuo," she said. "Your friends."
"I wouldn't have to lie them more if you hadn't barged in like that," Jaune said hatefully. "I don't want to lie to my friends."
"And I don't care. Just tell them I'm a mercenary you abandoned or something like that, I don't care."
Sarah turned to look at him one last time. The force of her bright blue eyes nearly made him take a step back.
"It's better to die with honor and dignity than to run away. Keep that in mind."
"I'm not going to run away again."
He held her eyes.
"Really?" she said. "A worm can't grow a spine just because it says it has."
"You calling me a worm?"
"I think it's a fair thing to call a deserter, yes."
Jaune breathed heavily, chest heaving up and down as he fought to contain himself.
"When things get hard, we're faced with fight or flight. You made your choice before. What if one of your new friends die, will you run then?"
"Never," Jaune said harshly.
Sarah's look was unwavering. "You really won't run? It never crossed your mind?"
Jaune flinched like he'd been slapped. He suddenly remembered the shameful truth that he always planned on running away when he first came here. He remembered that he had indeed tried to run, and only Ruby being there to physically stop him had kept him from doing it.
In that flash of weakness on his part, Sarah saw the truth.
"I thought as much," she said contemptuously. She turned the door handle swung it open and strode out.
Jaune's friends parted to let her through; Ruby gave her the angriest, nastiest glare she could possibly summon. Qrow and the others quickly went into the room, even as Ruby continued to glare at Sarah's back. She huffed and came in with the others, closing the door behind her.
Jaune sat back down at his desk, feeling like he was about to vomit. His hands were sweaty, his mouth was dry and his legs were weak. He must have looked as sick as he felt, because Pyrrha rushed to get him a glass of water. Then the questions came.
Who was she? What did she want to know? Where is she from? Why was she mad at you? Is she dangerous?
Her name is Sarah Pride. She wanted to know why I left back in Vacuo and everything about Bishop. She's from Vacuo too, a mercenary. She's mad at me because I left and she thought the fight against the Enclave wasn't done. Yes, she is very dangerous.
Jaune lied and lied and lied; the more he did that, the worse and worse and worse he felt.
Then there was Blake.
"If she was a mercenary," she said, "who was paying her?"
"The people who were fighting the Enclave," Jaune said shakily. He took a drink of water. "Like the villages and stuff."
"Well why does she want to know about Bishop?"
"He… he killed people she cared about." It was a true enough statement.
Perhaps it was the way he hesitated. Perhaps it was the flighty look on his face. Perhaps it was something else. Whatever it was, it made Blake narrow her eyes.
"I think it's best if you try and tell us everything about the scenario, kid," Qrow said. He ambled beside Jaune and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It'd be easier if you could give a good outline of everything that was going on, so we understand more just who the hell might be in play in this whole mess with the Enclave."
"I…" Jaune desperately tried to take a swig of water to stave off the need to answer. His glass was empty. When he realized that, he nearly dropped it for how much his hand shook.
Jaune abruptly stood up and pushed past the others, tugging down the collar of his shirt for how hot he felt around his neck. His face felt like it was burning, and a creeping heat came up his back and flowed across his chest. Smoldering anxiety was overtaking him.
"Listen," he said after taking a gasp of breath. "Just"- he wiped a hand across his forehead, which was covered in sweat –"just let me take a breather or something okay I just need some time to get my thoughts straight okay?"
He looked down and noticed his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"That's alright," Ruby said quietly. "If whatever she said brought up bad things…"
"I, I mean I just need some time to get my, my thoughts straight alright that's all I need that's all I need that's it."
How could he ever tell them the truth about the Brotherhood of Steel? They kept asking him questions, and he would have to keep obliging them with answers. What if they actually reach out to people in Vacuo and try to investigate this stuff?
Jaune looked down and tried to will his hands to be still.
"Listen kid, maybe just sit down again," Qrow said in a quiet, careful tone. "Just calm down a little."
Jaune looked at Blake. He looked at the floor. He looked at her again. He looked at the floor. He looked at her again. She knew. She was the only one with the capacity to be suspicious of him, with her own paranoia, with what she saw at the docks.
Jaune turned away from her and suddenly felt dizzy and light-headed. He stumbled and leaned against the wall, smacking his forehead against it and staying still. His thoughts broke down from the normal structure of human thinking and became an uncontrollable slush as panic boiled up in him in him noxious smoke from a bubbling tar pit—
Blake knew what he had done, and she might tell the others. He might have to tell the others if they all kept asking questions. They would wonder what he had done and he would have to tell them and then they would know, they would know. They would know that had he killed a couple kids and did some horrible things and he killed some people and he did horrible things and they would never forgive him. And Ruby would never look at him the same, but no they can't know that they can't they can't know that. I love them too much I won't lose them because they know what I did I did it before I wouldn't do it now they don't have to know they don't have to know it shouldn't be like this this should be gone Bishop should be dead and Sarah should be gone why couldn't she be dead too no she doesn't deserve to die but that fucking bitch if she had this would be easier they weren't asking questions and I wasn't lying to them and they don't have to know they don't have to because they shouldn't because it has to be all left behind because that's not me anymore why does it still have to be chasing me why can't it leave me alone I don't want to be a part of this anymore just let it be over I don't want this they shouldn't know they can't know they would hate they would know they would put me away they would think I'm lying when they go to Vacuo and there's nothing there and they would hate me no they wouldn't they would because I could never tell them the truth and if do they'll think I'm crazy and they'll stop being my friend dear god they're going to know they're going to know they're going to know they're going to check in Vacuo and they're going to learn I'm lying and even if I try to tell them the truth they won't believe me they'll think I'm crazy and I'm going to go to an insane asylum Jesus Christ they're going to lock me away and my friends are all going to think I'm crazy and they'll never know or understand oh my god it's just falling it's falling apart why did this have to be like this it shouldn't be like this it shouldn't be like this even Peach will think I'm crazy and shell be so sad that im crazy because we worked so hard and everyone will be so sad that im crazy because i love them so much and they love me dont they but they wont when they think im crazy or think im a liar keeping everything from them and they think terrible things they think the worse things about me they will they will think and peach will think that im the worst and ruby will never love me again and pyrrha will think im nuts and everythingisgoingtohellicantbeleivethatsarahcameoutofnowherewhydidithavetobelikethisitwasallgoingsowellwhydidbishophavetocomeandruineverythingihateeverythingihateitihateititwasgoingsowellweweregoingtogoonadateanditwasgoingtobegreatilovemyfriendsbutimightlosethemagainandnoiwontrunawayiwillneverrunawayfromthemnotagainiwontididbeforebutiwontbutillnever—
"Jaune?" Pyrrha reached out and pressed a hand against his arm.
"Don't touch me!" spat the Lone Wanderer as he whipped around and threw her hand away. His eyes were wild and unfocused, not quite seeing the people right in front of him. His chest heaved up and down.
He gripped one hand with the other and squeezed, hard. Why won't they just stop shaking?
While mumbling about needing to be alone, he rushed past the people he cared for and got to the door, which he flung open. He stumbled to into the hall and tried to catch his footing, but he quickly failed. He saw stars all around the edge of his vision, largely because he had stopped breathing.
Jaune crumpled to the ground.
So Sarah shows up and Jaune's brain proceeds to melt as all of his anxiety and guilt related to his secrets collapse on him. Good times, and just as he recovered from the mess that Bishop threw him in. Our boi just can't catch a break. But hey, being involved in a conspiracy involving your extraterrestrial nature will stress out anybody. And in case anybody's wondering, nah Sarah's semblance doesn't really involve her eyes. That's just a natural trait she has. You know sometimes you meet people and they just have exceptionally bright/noticeable eyes?
It's been a while since I played Fallout 3, but my impression of Sarah was fiercely loyal, a bit arrogant, not as soft-hearted as her father. I also remember her not feeling (or not showing) remorse when the dude gets killed by the behemoth that you have to mini-nuke. Still, as hard as she is, she tries to do the right thing.