Jaune looked over his gear making sure he had everything he would need. Qrow told him that his contact wasn't happy about bringing anybody other than Oscar and Qrow but he would accept the son of Gretchen and Josiah Arc, as well as the daughter of Summer Rose when he heard how important they were to the troubled young farmer's mind.
Ruby had packed all of her gear fast, Qrow told them they wouldn't need their weapons but they would be allowed to carry them anyway. He refused to elaborate further but they were pretty sure he was just being mysterious for the sake of being a mysterious bastard.
Ozpin had been thankfully silent and Jaune had been checking regularly. He also refused to leave Oscar alone. Nobody but Jaune, Qrow, and Ruby knew that Oscar tried to kill himself and they wanted to keep it that way for the time being at least.
Everyone else thought that Jaune was taking Oscar on a training mission and Qrow and Ruby were tagging along to make sure nobody died. Nora was a little upset about being left out of Oscar formal training but he was also glad to see Jaune taking responsibility for who she had been privately referring to as his "baby brother". The fact that Jaune didn't let Oscar out of his sight only bolstered this.
Jaune wanted to ask how they were supposed to get there when Qrow got a message and he motioned for them to follow him to the roof. While they were on the way there they heard the loud roar of a bullhead and when they made it to the roof they saw an Atlas bullhead bearing a squad of what seemed to be marines waiting for them to board.
Qrow walked up the ramp and after a brief hesitant pause they followed him. The flight to the nearby base was short and when they landed they were greeted by a short woman who was about to open her mouth to presumably yell at them based on her face when Qrow cut her off.
"Shut the hell up Bertha, I am here on request of Jimmy himself."
The woman who's name was probably not Bertha was about to explode when a specialist also cut her off.
"He's right, this man and his kids are over your pay grade" Winter Schnee said, shutting down any kind of response since the specialist corps operated outside the normal chain of command and Winter was known to have the ear of at least half the ruling council of Atlas.
Qrow nodded and kept going, not bothering to even stop next to the woman and so nobody else did either. They kept going and followed Winter to a different bullhead.
They boarded and Jaune couldn't help but notice the way that Qrow and Winter made a fact of never looking at each other at the same time. They would both glance at each other every few minutes but on the rare case that they made eye contact Qrow would look away first and take another swig from his flask.
The flight to the location that they were never told about was long but not unbearable. Jaune took the time to think about what he was going to do if this didn't work out. Jaune knew that Oscar would rather die than be used to hurt Ruby, that was a given.
But was Jaune willing to kill him to protect her, if Ozpin did wind up in full control then he would be able to say anything and they might not know if it is Ozpin or Oscar. Could Jaune kill Oscar as Ozpin begged for his life. Even if it was to protect his friend.
Oscar was thankfully blissfully unaware of Jaune's worried thoughts since Ruby was asleep wrapped around his arm therefore drawing all of his focus. Jaune paused his concerning line of thought long enough to think about just what he was looking at.
Ruby and Oscar's budding Romance was no secret, it never had been. Jaune would have thought that Qrow would be more opposed to it given the nature of Ozpin's connection to the boy but he hadn't said anything.
That was when Jaune realized that Qrow must have already asked himself all the questions that Jaune was asking now. He probably had more than one plan to get rid of Oscar if it came down to it. That also meant that Qrow was trying to give them at least the chance to be happy before the day he may need to destroy Oscar. Honestly it was surprising to Jaune that Qrow wouldn't just try and prevent anything and therefore prevent the risk of breaking Ruby's heart.
As the bullhead bucked with some turbulence Jaune looked at the man next to him. Qrow was in the middle of throwing back a swig from his flask and Jaune noted that he was drinking a lot more than normal. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know that it was linked to Winter somehow.
Jaune resumed his thinking about what to do about Ozcar and he kept wondering what he should, could, and would be willing to do when he heard the sound of the engines slowing down and felt them landing.
When the bay door lowered they saw that they had landed inside of what Jaune was guessing was some kind of military hanger. There were no windows but that was expected, all things considered.
At the bottom of the ramp was General Ironwood himself, Jaune took a moment and wondered if he needed to straighten up his clothes or armor for the general when Qrow stood up and walked past him muttering a hushed. "Don't bother kidd" the last word being slurred and dragged telling Jaune that Qrow was already drunk.
They went down the ramp and Ironwood waited for Winter's salute. And upon returning it he then set about leading them into the base. The general seemed aware of Qrow intoxication but he didn't seem to address it. What really intrigued Jaune was the fact that Ironwood didn't mind when Qrow staggered off down one of the corridors of the base for some unknown reason.
Jaune noticed Oscar was getting more and more nervous. He kept an eye on them and as they passed another hanger with a ship in it Oscar lightly tugged at Ruby and whispered something. Jaune just barely heard him say something about being scared and wanting to see his mother again. Ruby hadn't been told yet but Oscar had no memories of his mother.
It was a small mistake but one Jaune was going to punish, grabbing the handle of his sword with his left hand in a reversed grip drawing it and turning to his right with his right hand forcing Ozpin's left arm away as Jaune slammed his pommel into the man's chest. The blow stunned him, making Ozpin cough and fall to his knees.
Winter instantly drew her sword with Ironwood stopping her from completing the action as Jaune grabbed Ozpin by the back of his head and cranked back on man's hair to force his eyes wide open.
Ruby looked at both Jaune and Oscar in shock and when she saw the yellow tinge to Oscar's eyes she looked at him with rage, she wanted to hurt him, hurt him for trying to use her love against her but she couldn't do that without hurting Oscar. Ruby stepped back and sank to her knees in tears unable to process her emotions any other way. With a nod from Ironwood, Winter went over and tried to console the girl as Jaune dragged Ozpin to his feet and forced him to follow whatever Ironwood had in store.
They walked the halls for a good long while before they ended up at a door. Inside Jaune saw an old man in a wheelchair working on a machine like the one at Beacon.
"What is this James?" Ozpin asked.
"You know damn well what this is, you helped make it" Ironwood said as Jaune approached the machine and looked into the pod that Pyrrha had been in. Inside was a charred body that was hooked up to several tubes and machines.
"Who is that?" Jaune asked, trying to figure out how he felt about what was happening.
"That would be Ozpin's body, we recovered it in secret and have been working on stabilizing it, he's brain dead but technically alive, and he'll stay that way until I decide otherwise."
"This won't work, you'll just kill Oscar" Ozpin said bluntly, "I built this machine, I know what it does."
"If that were true then you wouldn't tell us, you'd let us kill the boy and then you would move on." Ironwood hit the button to open the pod and turned to Ozpin. "You can get in or I can break both of your legs and drag you in."
Ozpin looked like he was about to fight back when Jaune's gauntlet came down hard on the back of his shoulder. Ozpin's knees buckled and he was still getting them back when Ironwood was strapping him into the machine.
The machine door lowered and Ozpin looked like he wanted to say something but chose not to. As the device went to work Ozpin could be heard stifling his own screams of pain and even though Jaune knew that Oscar wasn't feeling the pain he still wanted to make sure that it didn't hurt the boy.
The old man Ironwood had called Dr. checked the readout and yelled "General the boy is crashing, I think it is Ozpin's doing he is trying to cling his aura to the boy's soul, since this boy's aura was never activated simple masked with Ozpin's there is nothing to stop him."
Before Ironwood could say anything Jaune smashed his hand through the window and reseted it on Oscar's chest. He was still learning his semblance but he wasn't going to let Ozpin kill Oscar like that.
Jaune felt the "wound" in Oscar's soul. It didn't feel like the wound Weiss had and Jaune suspected that he would never feel another wound like it as he funneled all of his aura into keeping the Oscar alive, Jaune felt something oppose him and he knew it was Ozpin. He must have hoped that nobody would be able to stop him.
His hopes were in vain. Jaune felt the force fighting him and he drowned it in the yellow light of his semblance.
Jaune lost all track of time at that moment, he could have been holding Oscar's soul together for seconds, minutes, maybe hours, he had no idea. But when he felt Ozpin's soul stop fighting him and the machine powered down Jaune pulled his hand back just in time for his knees to give out and he crumpled to the floor. Ironwood went to the pod and the Dr. went to try and help Jaune up.
Jaune was tired, more tired than he had ever been in his life before. Apparently whatever he had done was no small feat since the Dr. was looking at him with wide eyes filled with both wonder and fear.
"How did you do that?" he asked under his breath in a stunned tone.
"What did I do?" Jaune whispered back.
"You just did the impossible, you unlocked that boy's aura from underneath the wizard's and then you somehow made it so strong that it pushed the Wizard's away. I have no idea how powerful that boy was going to be on his own but you just made him stronger." the Dr. whispered as Ironwood pulled Oscar out of the pod.
"How are you feeling?" Ironwood asked him.
"I feel fine, better than fine actually, but why am I here, and, well, where is here?" Oscar asked before he saw Jaune. His eyes brightened as he walked over to him and slipped his shoulder under Jaune's.
Jaune leaned lightly on Oscar until he felt the strength that came from an unlocked semblance and he put some more weight onto the boy. "Are you ready to go home?" Jaune asked him.
Oscar's response froze Jaune's mind and body the moment he heard it. "Yeah I am but are you okay dad?"
…
Saphron woke up when she heard movement downstairs. Her first thought was that Adrian was awake and she was getting ready to go tend to him when she heard the sounds of Ruby and Oscar talking. There was a long pause before she heard Jaune reply but she couldn't hear what was being said.
She was still getting dressed when she heard Ruby and Oscar's whispering to each other grow quiet and then stop. She didn't hear Jaune and she still wanted to check on Adrian so she finished tying her bathrobe and headed across the hall to the room where Adrian normally slept.
She looked over at the second floor set of rooms that JNPR had moved into as well as the room that Hazel was staying just to make sure she wasn't waking anyone up by walking through. She went into Adrian's room to find Yang asleep in the rocking chair with the baby asleep in the sling she was wearing. Smiling at the sight and taking a no flash photo Saphron went downstairs and found Jaune in the living room chair he seemed to have deemed as his own, staring at the wall with his elbows on his knees.
"Are you okay Jaune?" She asked, recognizing the worried look on her brother's face.
"Ozpin has been removed from Oscar, but there is a problem." Jaune said not sure how to phrase himself. "Much of Oscar's past was destroyed in the process I was able to save him but there seems to have been a catch." again Jaune paused but Saphron knew better than to rush Jaune when he was like this.
"He thinks I'm his father, he is adamant that I am his father. The only thing that we can guess is that because of the role I have been playing in his life and the fact that I was the one who unlocked his aura as well as kept him alive during the process that removed Ozpin. Well, it seems that I am the most impactful male influence in his life and he seems to have decided that I must be his father as a result."
Jaune's worry suddenly made sense, Oscar might have long term mental problems if he doesn't know his own father. And she also realized that Jaune also became a parent in the span of a day. Apparently Oscar was very certain of Jaune's paternal obligation and frankly Jaune was the man for the job.
"Well why don't you go to bed" Saphron said and ordered hoping to get through to her brother. She must have since he nodded and stood reminding her how tall he had become. Saphron hugged Jaune before she headed upstairs with him. She also made note of how he looked at Yang with Adrian as he headed for his bedroom.
Hello everyone, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. the Christmas chapter will be coming out here next week, but it is already up on my just like everything else you can get my stories at least a week early there along with other assorted perks. I would like to offer my thanks to both of my supporters. I honestly wouldn't have the drive to write as well and as fast as I do without the motivation you give me.
May you all have a Merry Christmas, and as always, God Bless you, he has already blessed me.