Boy, this is kinda awkward.
Uh... milk line was longer than I thought it'd be?
Yeah... I'll just get on with it.
Got a BIG note at the end. If you're worried about the story dying, don't worry, that's not gonna be happening.
As usual, read, review, critique and flame.
Deep in the woods, beyond winding trails in the mountains, hidden amongst tall, majestic, and secretive trees, lay a lazy little stream. And not far from it, a creature was on the prowl.
To call it a creature was almost a sin. Wolves, bears and lions, natural creations of Mother Nature, may have killed as humans were wont to do, but their actions were born of the necessity to survive. Evolution was often harsh and unforgiving, but it was ultimately neutral on the moral compass. Grisly and morbid yes, but not inherently evil.
This 'creature' was dark, and it was most certainly evil.
Lupine in shape. Demonic in appearance, with black shadowy fur, spotted with distinctive bony protrusions like decorations designed by a demented mind, and ever-glowing crimson eyes.
It was powered by one thing.
Hatred.
Pure, unadulterated, overwhelming hatred. It felt no love, it was blind to kindness, and there was not even a shred of the very concept of mercy in its soul. How could there be any? It had no soul to begin with.
In a way, that made it... innocent, for never was the choice of its mindset given to it. Never was the gift of anything given to it at all, save immortality and its sense for destruction and mayhem. It had no way of changing; its creator had never put that much thought into its design. He had never favored them for long. It knew this, as did all its kin in all their shapes and sizes, and it infuriated them. All of them. It pushed them, each and every one, to committing some of the most brutal acts of psychotic, mindless, and merciless violence that most living creatures weren't even capable of. Their seemingly infinite lifespan only added oil to the ever roaring inferno that was their rage. They would live with the ingrained knowledge of their unloved existence until the starlight died, or they did first.
It felt no hunger, pain was ignored, and sleep was nothing more than an activity when there was little else to do.
It felt only the desire to kill. To kill, crush, rip, maim, tear, claw, wreck, ruin, and rage. And by the stars above did it rage.
But it was not a completely blind rage. It was directed; a disturbingly focused hatred. It cared not for the birds in the trees. It ignored the small creatures that scampered away in panicked frenzy. The deer, elk, and other big game of the forest were not worthy of its time. None of them were. There was only one type of creature worth its attention. Only one. Only them. The Favored Ones. Those conniving, weak, and nauseating maggots. Too cunning to stay in the dirt with the rest of the planets creations. Too weak to deserve the right to flourish.
It hated them. It hated them all.
Hate.
Hate.
Hate.
Hate.
Hate.
HATE.
Even if that word were to be burned on every inch of every tree, painfully etched into the surface of every fresh stone, it would fall unfathomably short in describing just how much the monster despised the human body, the human mind, and the human idea. It envied the thinker, the dreamer, and the builder. It loathed the farmer. It detested the merchant. It abhorred the protector. If it were to eviscerate them all, tear each strand of flimsy muscle they possessed, and spread their stench-ridden gore far and wide across the land, it would not be enough, for it would know that they existed in the first place.
And so it hunted. It prowled far and wide across the world, ever searching for those deemed the enemy of its kind.
It was alone; an unusual situation for any familiar with the shape of the thing. They rarely traveled alone. Those more experienced would realized the danger that it thus possessed; it was a survivor, capable of actions beyond that ever present instinct for carnage. There was a spark that was growing in those baleful eyes, a spark of menacing reason and vicious intelligence.
It wasn't successful. Not yet. Being a survivor didn't make it a killer. Blind chance and the tiniest bit of oversight from the protectors of Human and Faunus repeated too many times had provided the means to its continued existence. It had yet to hear the shrieks of frightened children ringing through its ears, and oh, how it longed to. The destruction of humanity, them and their artificial brethren, would be the only thing capable of bringing contentment, if it were even capable of feeling that.
But the time was coming.
Soon.
Soon.
Soon it would scatter their disgustingly fragile remains, from the tips of the highest inhospitable mountains to the pits of the darkest caves, where secrets known only to them lay buried, and forgotten by everyone else.
It... it could feel it. There on the wind...
One was close, the negativity it produced was delicious. The drawing to negative emotions was the only boon given by its creator that was in anyway useful, and it hated even that, for that was the only blessing bestowed upon it. Immortality was a curse.
The figure paused, standing up on its hind legs, resting a powerful clawed paw against a tree. It sniffed the air and growled.
Yes, it was so very close.
Spiked ears flicked towards a crashing sound, easily discernible even over the sound of a stream just 20 yards away. Combat. Others must be on the trail. Drool spilled between sharp fangs. If the others beat it to the kill, it would not mind, but it wanted to be there. It needed to be there. To hear the screams and gurgles, to swim in the panic and terror. It needed to move closer, just as the fight was moving closer...
...Closer?
Well, wasn't that helpful? It wouldn't need to move far...
Suddenly, the tree it rested against jolted, groaning in wooden protest as it was shoved from its rightful and decades-long place in the world, toppling onto the beowolf and crushing its spine, aided by a new and larger form. It roared from the sudden attack, its arms pawing at the dirt to drag itself out from its temporary prison. A shadow fell over it, and it paused its actions so that it might look up, to behold its attacker if nothing else. It didn't even have the chance to before a large fist crashed onto its head.
Grimm were monsters in more than just action and appearance. They were tough to the point that it was almost sickening, and possessed unfathomable determination. Even the weakest among them made sure that people who didn't know that fact learned it very well. Countless times were they capable of shrugging off broken limbs and crippling blows, even mortal ones, and keep moving until their injuries caught up with them far too slowly. No regular man or woman would ever be capable of damaging one in melee by themselves without some kind of injury in equal or greater measure.
But the blow that struck this one was not from any regular human.
It wasn't even human in origin.
It came from something greater, and this rang true as the large fist crushed the grimm's head between brown wrinkly flesh and the slightly yielding but uncaring ground.
And like thousands- maybe millions- before it, the beowolf died, unnamed and unremembered.
The new figure snorted and clicked, raising itself on two thin and deceptively powerful legs. It looked to be the bastard child of a human and insect. Awkward and un-uniform in build, with a large bulky carapace and long and thin muscular arms and legs. It still would have towered over a man if it stood next to one. Coming from its back were two additional arms, each ending in long curved skewers. Over a pair of locked insect mandibles, two red, bulbous, and hideous eyes studied the now smoking body. The shifting of rocks by the stream caught its attention, and those same eyes searched the offending direction, quickly stopping on the lone figure sauntering closer, blade held lazily over its shoulder, the source of its recent crash.
"Daaamn..." Qrow Branwen didn't quite slur, "You actually survived that, I was sure that last hit would do you in."
The monster, as if understanding him, looked down to its freshest wound; a long gash, running diagonally from shoulder to hip. It was just one of many others adorning its frame. Brown and revolting fluids seeped from the cuts, catching dirt and leaves that stuck to its body as a ghastly art project. It trembled at the sight of its lacerations, looking back up to its assailant. Mandibles unlocked, revealing a jaw with jagged needle-like teeth, some chipped and some missing. Drool and ichor spilled between the gaps, spraying the air as the figure hissed.
"Drrr Gop'kch! RRRoi'ka G'L!"
Qrow closed his eyes with a sigh, reaching up to clean an ear with his pinky finger.
"Yeah, can you not do that? I still can't understand you and it gives me a massive headache. Besides, I probably wouldn't like, or agree with what you're saying..."
He paused.
"Unless it's about my parents. Then it's probably true."
The monster screeched, charging forward with a surprising speed. Qrow narrowed his eyes, lowering himself and gripping Harbinger with both hands, steadfast in the path of the now berserk abomination. Eyes roamed low, calculating and cold. As a mountain of flesh and chitin bore down on him, Qrow lunged, sweeping his blade forward to the target of his eye. Metal met flesh, and a brief resistance was recognized before the latter gave way to the former, cleaving through with little resistance. Two enemy's now stood opposite of their original position. One did not stand for long.
The monster crashed to the ground, its legs having been separated completely from its body. The man's ears rang from his foe's immediate and ear-rending shriek of pain. He stood up straight, turning with a grim face to admire his work.
"Should'a' just done that at the start," he muttered, completely inaudible next to the sounds of the monster's agony. The noise's source, as if hearing his comment, somehow managed to shriek even louder than before, drawing a wince from the veteran huntsman.
Okay. That was going to have to stop. The aging warrior stalked over to the struggling mass, his seeming nonchalance masking his wariness. In his experience, nothing, human or otherwise, was ever completely powerless, even after losing a limb or two.
True to his expertise, his inhuman adversary gnashed its teeth, its four remaining arms planting themselves on the ground as makeshift legs to lift itself up, ichor spilling excessively from the bottom stumps and amplifying its horrifying visage. It whirled around to face him, staggering forward as a child of nightmares. Its eyes were glassy, losing color ever so slowly, but that did not stop them from expressing the sheer anger, and even disgust, in their gaze.
"SKOR D'K'TO-" Its roar was cut short, courtesy of the massive blade now splitting its face vertically in half. The monster went cross-eyed at the metal quite literally in its face. Mandibles clacked twice on the weapon separating them from each other before spreading wide in twitching agony. Those same bug eyes went... well... bug-eyed, focusing on two different locations and then stilling completely. A pained gurgle was given, and the behemoth crashed to the ground, expired.
Qrow sighed, a wave of exhaustion overtaking him as he glared down at the corpse, blade still firmly lodged through its skull.
Different shape, he noted, different size, still a pain in the ass.
Oh yes. Unfortunately, this was not the first non-grimm(or non-human) target that the huntsman had had to exterminate. Remnant had a problem, a new one that is, and it had had been steadily growing in severity over the past decade or so.
There were new kids on the block, and they were not friendly.
Because, of course! People needed new monsters to deal with besides the fucking Grimm.
Qrow was not a religious man. Too many experiences in his life will do that to you. Add in Ozpin's little deity story, and, well... Even if those two did exist, Qrow sure as shit didn't feel like turning to them in prayer. Assholes couldn't bother to fix their own shit-hole of a creation, and probably never cared for it to begin with. If anything, these past few years had told him one simple thing:
If there were any deities in this world, then they were some of the most sadistic and/or apathetic shits that a living thing could possibly become.
Why else would he have had to deal with at least forty different monsters in a brand new shadow war for the past decade and a half? Apathy or sadism. Why else would each of them be at least equivalent in strength to a regular grimm(if not more so as the nearby headless... Beowolf? Yeah, Beowolf- supported)? A sole point to sadism. Why else would he, or anyone else in Ozpin's group for that matter, have to deal with this at all? Whoever was in charge deserved a trip straight to God-jail, if that was a thing.
Which, if it did exist, was probably filled with all the guys and gals who actually cared about people.
It was becoming unsettlingly easy to tell which huntsmen were 'in the know' with regards to this recent problem. He rarely had ever seen people look so haggard and worn.
Qrow grumbled, planting a boot against an ocular organ that popped from the pressure, staining his boot with pungent slime. With a wrench, Harbinger was pulled free of the body, and a wave of ichor and innards followed it out, right into his other boot, splashing onto a bit of his pants as well.
The pants and boots he had just bought.
After losing the previous ones to a different monster.
He blamed his semblance.
The number of times he lost something fighting one of these things was almost laughable. Almost. It was still way more depressing. Damn things just had to make life as inconvenient for him as possible.
As if on queue, a foul odor began to rise from the slowly cooling corpse, and Qrow nearly gagged in response. He had the misfortune of coming across some nauseating stenches in his life, but, holy shit, did this thing make a good contender for first place. Better do what he needed to before he lost whatever contents he had in his stomach.
Still glowering at the cadaver, he reached into his pocket, pulling out his scroll, one of the only pieces of technology he would ever own, and opening it.
As his eyes were still on the body(he had had far too many close calls with a 'deceased' opponent, a fact that was both aggravating and terrifying), he started at the sound of crunching, and a slight jarring in his hands. Looking down, he could see why; a neat little hole had been busted through the device, brown flecks indicating the source to be- yep. There, he could see the damning evidence, scratches from the scroll on one of the arms with skewers.
Wonderful.
He was already drunk and he still needed a drink.
A glower plastered itself on his face, directed down towards his fallen foe. Even in death, this thing was finding ways to fuck with him; breaking equipment, nasty ass smell, and even just the sheer sight of it was-
Wait.
It was two warning signs that gave away the fact that something was wrong. The first was the browning of grass near the monster's body. It wasn't from the thing's blood, that was a shade of brown that was... just plain out hard to describe. No, this was the easily recognizable decaying brown of wilting plant-life; dying grass.
The second sign was even less pleasant, a burning of the throat and nostrils. His aura flared around him, fending off an unseen killer. More than a decade's worth of instinct as a veteran huntsman, a title not so easily distributed, pushed him to act near instantaneously, leaping back from the corpse and its insidious innards with a foul curse.
Poison.
This thing had poisonous gas in its body.
What in the actual fuck?
And now, just like every monster before, Qrow was extremely relieved to have killed it so far from any settlement, and simultaneously horrified by the potential alternative. It was always bad enough imagining grimm making it into a settlement or town, Qrow had already witnessed it happen far more too many times in his life, but the thought of these things attacking one was outright gut-clenching.
It was a miracle that any of these things had yet to do just that. It was actually the main reason barely anyone was aware of them. Most of the regular people who did encounter them... were better left undiscussed. But even with the very small mercy that they sought to kill grimm as much as the people they came across, they were still popping up in numbers that would break a man if they knew the implications.
Thankfully, there were two more points that gave Humans and Faunus a small reprieve, for a little while at least:
First off, these monsters were far too intelligent to try going after settlements, which was both a good thing and a very not good thing. It was a very short term convenience for some very disastrous future consequences. The second point however, was a little less threatening. These things seemed to be too fractured amongst themselves to do any kind of unified assault on a populace like the grimm were capable of. Hell, he'd even seen a couple of them fight each other. And on those experiences, all he had to say was; by his mother's rotting tits were those nasty to watch. Those cases only served to drive the point home that they stay as far away from civilization as possible.
It was an objective that... couldn't be upheld for much longer. The invaders were starting to move around. A lot. Too much. Hell, this last one had actually been moving towards a settlement, whether it had meant to or not.
They could only be so successful and so lucky for so long. The day was coming. Some unfortunate people somewhere in an unfortunate town were going to be some of the unluckiest sons-of-bitches under the sun. Qrow didn't want to think about it.
And yet, his imagination betrayed him. A picture formed; two pairs of eyes, one silver, the other lilac, both wide in confusion and terror at the sight of the monster, dead in reality, but very alive in his mind, advancing towards them and gurgling in its mind-blasting tongue. The monster shifted, taking on the form of a monster that he had previously slain a few months earlier, that of a giant eye split with mouths that screamed at the two incoherently. Then into that man-thing that had been missing a jaw and eyes, then that flaming and talking tree, then that... that thing-
He had to squeeze his eyes shut to wash away the images.
"...That won't happen." he had to tell himself, aloud, as he did almost every day now.
They were in Patch.
They were safe.
Tai, at least, was always close by. And even then, with Signal Academy right there, Patch was probably one of the most secure places in the world, barring the four Academies, other combat schools and, of course, a few private holdings of families like the Schnees.
But, that treasonous part of his mind argued, they wouldn't be there for long.
In four years, Ruby would be going to Beacon. In four more, she would be out in the world. Yang would be out there even sooner. Ozpin was already considering recruiting some of the fresher graduates. It would be stupid not to with this new threat on literally everyone's doorstep. Much like those almost-certain-victims in the future, some fresh young minds were about to have their world shattered. Qrow did not want that for his nieces. Even if he knew that Summer and Raven's daughters would most certainly be skillful by the time they graduated, he knew that what they would learn could only account for so much. You needed experience to survive as a huntsman, and he did not want them to ever get any experience from fighting these... things. Grimm were bad enough.
He reached into his coat, extracting one of the only other items he possessed to ever hold value.
A flask.
It held value to him at least.
A long pull from it calmed nerves antsy at the thought of family in danger. The warmth cleared his mind, for now at least.
Worrying would never solve the problems the future held. Only action would, and action was very much needed now.
Magic coursed through his body, shrinking him down, turning hands to wings, and skin and cloth into feathers. The bird didn't remain for long, taking flight and rising above the trees to set off in the direction of Vale's vaunted institute of potential protectors.
It was a long flight. Lots to think about. Past opponents and the more recent one. How to combat them, and how to stop them. Some of the huntsmen in Ozpin's group(now more of a small army at this point), those individuals not yet mentally beaten into a pessimistic killing lump, tended to discuss their new enemies in low tones with each other in private; theories on their existence, their purpose, and origin. Qrow never took part. He wasn't much for theories.
But sometimes, he did wonder.
Where did they come from? Why were they showing up now? What even were they?
No one had a clue.
Well. One did. Ozpin knew something. Of course, the old coot didn't tell anyone yet. Fucking schemer. Took him forever just to tell him and his darling twin about Salem. The only thing he told anyone for certain, was that Salem wasn't the reason for them appearing.
That was good.
It was also terrifying.
Because if the Queen didn't summon them...
Who did?
Who was responsible?
Where were they?
What was their goal?
And, most terrifying of all, what were they doing now?
"Before the creation of the CCT towers," droned the voice at the front of the classroom, "messages had to be delivered by courier, a much longer and less effici-"
This is psychologically paralyzing.
Jaune's mouth twitched.
It's important.
Is it truly though?
To not get held back a year, yes. He defended half-heartedly, resisting the urge to put his head on his desk like so many others in the room. He didn't have much reason to criticize the people sleeping. It was Friday, and the last class that students took before the weekend was World History. It was learned by everyone on the first day of school that Mr. Sheenan- the world history teacher- had the personality, conversational skill, and awareness of a brick wall.
Actually... no.
That might be insulting to walls.
He was pretty sure a wall had more personality once it was painted.
And it might possibly have noticed nearby people falling asleep sooner.
As if to prove a point, a soft 'thud' sounded nearby, as a student lost the war to stay awake and joined the snoring masses.
Their trespass was ignored. It was a unanimous decision amongst students that Mr. Sheenan should have probably retired twenty years ago.
"As a message's arrival were less guaranteed the longer they had to travel, most families and friends would stay in relatively close distances to ensure contact with one another, leading to the familial isolation which has only recently started to recede with the use of the towers and air transportation."
How is this possible? Nyarlathotep sounded genuinely lost, and almost scared, History is knowledge. Knowledge is good. Obtaining knowledge should be enjoyable.
You sound really upset about this, Jaune noted with a yawn, sticking the eraser of his pencil between his teeth, and I could have sworn you said when we first met that you've never had to learn anything.
Beside him, another student gave into inner desires, his face planting into an open book. Another point to Sloth.
I am upset. The human provides not one scrap of information that isn't already in the book. Absolutely nothing. No insights, no flare, not even an opinion. He's simply repeating it word for word. This... this thing... is not learning. No. This is regurgitation. And it is vile. Nyarlathotep rebutted heatedly. Also, my words were, verbatim, 'I myself have never had to train for anything in my existence'.
Thanks for the reminder Mr. Perfect, Jaune snarked.
Well, it is simple truth. I have never had to train. But once, every few aeons, I have learned. To learn is to obtain and maintain knowledge. To take it and to keep it, memorize it, and- barring life-threatening situations- it is best done willingly. If I were to tell you a profound fact, one that captured your interest, that stayed in your memory, and possibly manifested inside of you a desire to know more, you have learned. That is fact. Everyone knows this. Everything knows this. The capability of learning is required to be considered intelligent in anyway at all. Mental growth is a salient advantage in the eternal struggle that is the universe.
Jaune could feel another power hungry monologue coming on. Nyarlathotep really liked those.
One must dominate in all aspects. What good is being a nigh immortal man, or nearly unstoppable horror that man can barely comprehend with their eyes- much less conceive in their own mind- when both can be possibly undone with but a ritual? How superior is the mortal savage with claws, and teeth, and blades, against the slightly weaker being with higher technological prowess? Knowledge is, at its lowest form, the means to create an equalizer. When applied properly it can lead to outstanding advantages, as is the case with humanity's highly revered and equally debated 'gun'.
God made all men, an unknown man supported, Samuel Colt made them equal.
Jaune winced, a sigh escaping his lungs. Ever since that conversation over a year ago, those lovely little voices had decided that staying in his dreams was just too confining for them. He still didn't know their source, but he had suspicions. And he didn't like them.
...Sounds like RPG logic, He finally commented, massaging a low eyebrow over dull eyes that blinked sluggishly at the board, a barbarian's stronger than a wizard, but a wizard has intelligence and magic.
Honestly, he probably should have been focusing on the lesson, but he needed something to stimulate his brain.
...I despise this comparison.
Why!? Jaune raised his hands in confusion. Any student who saw him may have mistaken his frustration as being directed towards the teacher. It's right isn't it? How is it wrong!?
It isn't, the Outer God admitted with a mental equivalent of a sigh, but I feel its impact is lessened when it can be compared with a... a game. Especially the kind where the mechanics for what is possible are so... lacking.
Well excuse me for trying to tone it down to something I can understand, the blonde defended, that's the only way I can make any sense of it!
And we have this atrocious environment to thank for that, Nyarlathotep concluded. It is in dire need of attention.
It can't be that bad...
Another thud, another student casualty.
Nyarlathotep's silence was damning.
Okay fine, Jaune conceded, it's really bad.
The student next to Jaune, leaning back in his seat and actually snoring in class, jolted, hitting his knees on his desk and looking around wildly in a panic before apparently remembering which teacher he was with for the period, and flopping forward onto his own book, asleep once more.
...Super-duper bad.
It would seem that your vocabulary range is in dire need of attention as well, the alien's voice was drier than a desert, quite possibly medical attention at that.
Hey, I'm still a high schooler. Get off me.
Men used to live with less than a quarter of the scientific knowledge you know now when they were the same age as you, and yet their linguistic capacity more than doubled your own.
Why the hell would it matter? Wait, no, why would it matter to you!?
Standards, Jaune. Standards. Language, like learning, is what separates you from an animal. Even if the language is nothing more than slapping raw meat and gurgling through a combination of moist, squishing, squeezing flesh and wheezing of viral and dirt-soaked air, and incessant chittering with slimy bone-.
Please stop, Jaune shuddered, That description is just... just wrong.
No, I find that it describes your method of communication perfectly. And I'm certain that at least one of those men that I spoke of just now would agree with me.
Okay, well, I ain't 'one of those men you spoke of'.
No, Nyarlathotep sounded tired when saying this, you certainly 'ain't.'
Hey, that word is in the dictionary.
Congratulations! The sarcasm was painful. That's one new and atrocious contraction gained at the cost of over ten thousand infinitely more elegant locutions lost. Truly, a tremendous triumph of terms. Where now shall your species' next laurels of language lie? Perhaps in the informal contractions? Gotta? Watcha?
Jaune felt him shudder in his mind.
...Imma?
Okay, okay. Dick.
Dick though I may be, I can take some solace in the fact that I am not, at the very least, a teenager.
...
Jaune felt like he had somehow lost at the end there...
Alright, alright! He ran a hand through the rat's nest on his head. It's... horrible. There, are you happy?
Not so long as you stay in this room. Holy shit, you give the thing an inch and he tries to take the next mile and everything along the way. It is abysmal. Abhorrent, even! I think you might find yourself more educated walking out the door.
That would get me in trouble.
Only if that human fossil notices you.
He had to resist groaning. Okay, he probably didn't have to, but he did anyway. How much longer would he have to endure this for? The day was almost over, right? He hoped so. Between Mr. Sheenan's droning and the relentless complaints coming from his head, he might just end up going insa- oh, there was the bell.
With a robotic precision, the teacher stopped mid word, closing the book he held, and in his voice's absence, the classroom filled with the sounds of chairs scraping the floor, backpack zippers, and inane chatter from whoever happened to be friends or acquaintances. Mr. Sheenan didn't tell any of them about future lessons or assignments for the weekend. He never did. It was always written on the board before class.
The background sound gave Jaune the cover to sigh in relief, massaging his temple with a hand once more.
Forget going insane again, how had he not done so already?
He looked around, watching his peers, all of them oblivious to the struggle in his mind, engrossed in their own daily struggles and concerns. All sorts of emotions and body language were displayed for him to bear witness to; weariness, relief, indifference, sleepiness for the majority... It was astounding just how much information could be given to you if you took just a small amount of time to simply look at people.
It was relaxing, in a way, to see people like this. It let him know that he was not alone in his... distaste(a tasteful choice) for this particular class. Though he almost took back the nice comment upon seeing one or two looks of disappointment from some of the more 'studious' members of his grade. You know the ones; the ones that break down and cry when they get a ninety nine on a test when the average grade was a seventy.
Freaking tryhards.
I concur. Their lamentations for the mundane are rather aggravating. Entirely beyond the proportion of their cause. You know, there is no rule of nature nor artificial law of man that requires you to endure them. The option to give them a genuine reason to weep is always available... Came the oh-so-helpful advice.
That's a no-go, you know that.
Fine, be boorish.
While the last few students fled the class, movement at the front drew Jaune's gaze. The culprit was obvious, Mr. Sheenan, placing his copy of the textbook on his desk and sitting down.
It went unsaid among the general population that the man was almost something of a relic. Not to say that people treated him with reverence, most people around Jaune's age despised him.
No, Mr. Sheenan could be considered a relic because of the fact that he was old. The consensus that he should have retired twenty years ago was not just because of his teaching style or lack of. The man had been a resident of Ansel even before the boom, or so his parents told him.
"He's an excellent teacher! You'll love him." They had warmly added.
He didn't have the heart to tell them how wrong their prediction was.
Nor did he think they would appreciate the opinions of his peers.
Looking at the man felt strange. He was almost uncanny. Every action he took seemed nearly minimalistic.
No, more than that they looked... mechanical, as robotic as his voice, lacking any life to them.
More machine now than man, a wizened voice remarked, twisted and evil.
Jaune highly doubted that last part.
Ugh... Despite his astonishingly depressing and unexciting personality, I can assure you, once again, that he is very much human.
That somehow made it worse.
"-c? Mr. Arc!"
Jaune liked to think that he didn't jump at the voice.
Alas, reality would say otherwise.
He had good reason to jump. For almost half a year now, he had been subjected to a monotonous drone, the type that either left you with a severe case of narcolepsy, as so many students earlier could attest, or left you wanting to tear your own hair out. Which, thankfully, the school had yet to have anyone show that particular reaction.
This test of of a teenager's already flimsy patience was what he was used to, and it was just so different from the genuine intrigue(and tiny amount of frustration in the shout) that laced the old man's voice. The quirked eyebrow on the spectacled face that he had only ever seen as mimicking a cow in a barn only added to Jaune's confusion. Said confusion bit of an exaggeration, but even the most mild teenager was still prone to dramatics. Jaune was no exception, briefly wondering if his passenger had finally managed to break him.
Again.
...
He'd better confirm.
You're heard that too, right?
Yes...
The voice sounded suspicious, and Jaune felt justified. Good to hear that he wasn't going crazy. Any more than normal, that is.
...Hmm...
What is it?
Nyarlathotep took a moment to respond.
Well, he doesn't show any sign of possession.
...That was your guess?
Alright human, what do you think is the reason that your automaton of a teacher has suddenly gained a personality?
...Monster?
We've had this discussion already.
"Do you need something?"
"Ah!" It wasn't a yelp. Jaune could say that with a scrap of pride, but that still didn't stop him from suffering a small dose of embarrassment. And sudden nervousness. Was it a small dose of nervousness? Why was he nervous? Was it because the teacher caught him staring? Holy crap, he suddenly did not want to be here. Why did he feel that he was in danger? Was he in danger? No. Then what- QUESTION! He was asked a question! Think fast, answer the question!
...
...
Shit, what should he say? 'I was wondering why you're so boring?' Gods, that... it'd be better if he just asked for detention.
Think, Jaune, think!
Oh, by the stars... Lie, Boy! It's not difficult!
"I-I... I was just... uh... wondering... w-what... what... um... uh... tooomorrowww's... subject... would be..." he haltingly stammered, nodding as if trying to convince himself, a victim of imbalanced teenage hormones.
You need lessons in lying as much as you do vocabulary.
From the looks of it, Mr. Sheenan agreed, even if it was unknowingly.
His normally deadpan face morphed into a flat unimpressed stare over the tops of his bifocals with a single raised bushy eyebrow almost made Jaune curl up and die in humiliation. The fact that tomorrow would be Saturday didn't help.
Thankfully, the teacher decided to give Jaune's dignity a reprieve.
"Well Mr. Arc, since it's now the weekend, you'll simply be doing the assignment on the board. If you were wondering about next week, we'll be studying the Great War."
Jaune saw the sentence for the lifeline that it was, and he leaned forward to snatch it as quickly as he could.
"You mean the one between all four kingdoms?" He almost shouted, desperate to steer the conversation away from his social blunder.
Mr. Sheenan made a face. Jaune couldn't describe the emotion behind it with his mind already in such a mess.
"Would you perhaps know of another Great War?" He asked.
His question's tone was dry and sarcastic, obviously meant to be a humorous quip that was intended to tease.
But its effect was not intended.
Poor Jaune's vision exploded, perhaps aided by his humiliated state. Images flashing rapidly in his eye practically threw him back in his seat. The classroom, the teacher, and the desks all disappeared, overrun by startling scenery. He saw skies; some cloudy, some open and blue, others chocked with fog, ash, and smoke. Sometimes it was day. Sometimes it was not. But no matter the state of the upward expanse, the ground below it was almost always the same, apocalyptic wastelands littered with ghastly mixtures of dead wood, torn earth...
And people. Dead people.
Jaune had seen dead people and animals before, even excluding his encounter with the nightgaunt last year. The concept was no stranger to him. He had been to funerals where the dead had been presented for a final goodbye. He'd seen a few ways those persons had been treated; open-casket funerals with the deceased dressed in their impeccable Sunday-best, draped in ceremonial robes, or, hell, even covered in nothing but a blank white sheet. A growing town that was starting to resemble a cultural melting pot had exposed him to all sorts of views, even on the idea of death.
The corpses that he could see now, attempting to posthumously scar him from the recesses of his mind, seemed to spit in the collective face of any bereaved person that could somehow be related in any possible way to the stifling setting that he saw...
They were strewn everywhere, in all manner of state that seemed insulting, laying face up and gazing with half-lidded and empty stares at the apathetic skies, disrespectfully crumpled face down over shredded trunks and berms, or just unceremoniously sprawled face down in dirt. Some were broken in the same way a stick is broken; un-whole, separated, with torsos missing bits and pieces ranging from parts of arms to whole legs. Others lay rotting, denied a final rest, sitting half buried in mud, or partially submerged in or even floating bloated in scummy-water-filled craters. Several weren't even fully touching the ground, suspended and hanging from cruel curly wires, hollow remnants of agony forever frozen on their flayed faces.
It was a land of the dead. It was the kingdom of the sacrificed and the mad. Built by martyrs, willing and unwilling.
And it belonged to No Man.
And yet men still wanted it. They would kill for it. They had already died in the tens of thousands for this place in particular and they would continue to do so.
They had already done so for close to a year.
A ragged and worn man in a dirty blue coat with a red cap stood by a huddled mass of people, his crimson trousers long since stained by the filth he and the rest had been forced to endure in. Some members of the crowd watched him in dreaded anticipation, cringing and flinching from roars that erupted and geysered the landscape not a hundred yards from them and occasionally threw scraps of an already disrespected corpse into the sky. Many men gazed forward listlessly, appearing almost oblivious to the pounding cannons save for the slight twitching of eyelids. Emotions were plain to see on them all. Fear on most of them, determination on the few not yet broken, and resignation on those who only lived on in a physical sense. Some were vomiting, from stench or nerves. The pounding ceased. Their breathing was shaky. The time of reaping was upon them.
"Forward!" the man hoarsely cried in a strange tongue, waving his arm to the ground before them, and they surged out of the strange muck-filled ditch they sheltered in in reply, struggling up and over slick wood and bloodthirsty wire with screams of panic and courage alike.
For Death, the last two years had shown to be a bountiful harvest across the continent. The next two would be no different.
As quickly as the foreboding scene assaulted Jaune's eyes to sear into his brain with its horror, it departed just as quickly. He had to stop himself from looking around in a wild panic. There was no smoke-filled skies, not here. There was no mud. There were no dead men. It was only him and the teacher. Just two people. Two people in a boring old classroom, and Jaune preferred it a thousand times more.
"...no." he answered the teacher quietly, and he tried not to shudder.
Mr. Sheenan stared at him in silent bemusement for a moment before a flash of something passed through his eyes in turn, and, apparently mistaking Jaune's sudden introvertedness for something else, sighed.
"I... apologize, Mr. Arc." He stated, more emotion on his wrinkled face than Jaune had ever seen in the entire half a year that he had known the man to exist, "I should not make jokes about such a subject, and especially at your expense."
Jaune shifted uncomfortably. Truth be told, he had completely forgotten what they had been talking about.
Mr. Sheenan took that as a sign to continue, though he struggled to do so.
"I-" He began awkwardly "We- Everyone, was affected by the War. Some more than others. Even excluding the villages destroyed, the chances that a family didn't lose someone close are almost non-existent. It's wrong for me to joke about something so severe-"
Jaune listened to the man talk.
He did so at first because it might make him feel better.
He quickly realized that there was a serious communication error somewhere.
Have you ever had someone completely misread your situation and try to comfort or console you? Maybe someone else just stole all your money, and a friend suggests getting black-out drunk and forgetting about people of the opposite gender 'cause they'll try and take everything from you in a divorce? Or maybe the urn containing Grandma's ashes somehow fell into the ocean, and they tell you not to feel so bad because you could probably find a similar vase online and you shouldn't focus on worldly possessions?
That person thinks they're helping. They 'know' in their mind what the issue is, and how to resolve it with the aid of their own experiences. And maybe, on a different day, under different circumstances, they'd be right. Maybe their advice in the moment will actually be quite profound words of wisdom to remember at a different time in the future. Maybe, in any other situation, their effort would be genuinely helpful.
But at that current moment in time unfortunately, they've made an honest mistake; an assumption to be precise. It's a small thing that can end very poorly should they attempt to fix what they perceive to be the problem. After all, they've not only completely misdiagnosed the sickness, they're prescribing the wrong medicine. They're lending the wrong tools to finish the job, like bringing a table saw to screw in a lightbulb.
Quite a few people aren't really bad people for doing this, as was the case with Mr. Sheenan. He obviously wasn't a mind reader. He had no way of accurately knowing what had made the boy in front of him deflate with just eight words. And frankly, that was good. Otherwise, that would mean he'd be doing this on purpose.
On Jaune's end... Well...
To be on the receiving end of this 'help' is to learn the pinnacle of awkward. It's almost its own kind of embarrassing. If you don't correct the other person, they might just go on and on; talking about solutions to a problem that they don't understand. It gives them the image of an aloof and inexperienced know-it-all. Depending on the recipient's personality, its effect may even be detrimental, more upsetting than uplifting. More than a couple unnecessary spats and scuffles have been started because of people making assumptions in these types of situations.
Some have definitely been necessary though.
'No, I don't want a new vase, you ignorant jackass, that was fucking MeeMaw!'
Fortunately for Mr. Sheenan, Jaune wasn't the type of person to respond to assumptions with aggression.
Unfortunately for Jaune, he wasn't the type to correct adults either.
Ancient entity in his head aside, Jaune had zero experience of talking back to them, let alone correcting.
For better or for worse, you did not talk back to or correct Momma Arc.
"-should correct them, ok?" Mr. Sheenan finished/asked, staring at Jaune intently, but not without a little care in his eyes.
It really didn't help.
Jaune was almost glad that the teacher had started the sudden sermon of propriety in society; it made him almost completely forget what he had imagined just a bit ago.
The main downside of said sermon however, was that he had no freaking clue how to respond it.
Thoughts?
You could always try an honest response.
Like what? 'Thanks for the minute long monologue, but I don't know what made you decide to even start it'?
You would be honest.
That he would be.
And if Jaune were to be even more 'honest', he'd rather go out and see if the Nightgaunt had a vengeful family than say that.
Amusing. Ever consider entertainment as a career choice?
No.
That was sarca- forget it.
He forgot it, returning his focus on the teacher. The man was expecting an answer. Jaune suddenly realized the best answer to give in this situation.
When in doubt: a neutral positive.
"I understand, sir." he answered with a nod. Mr. Sheenan nodded back in response-
-and opened his mouth to speak again.
It was at this point, that Jaune's body acted instinctively. It was a bit like a fight-or-flight response. His teenaged mind had already endured what could only be described as a scene from hell, immediately followed by what could easily be considered the most awkward moment of his life so far, and both things had only happened after the older man had opened his mouth.
He didn't want to know what might happen the third time, no sir.
Was he sure that the teacher wasn't simply just going to end the conversation there and dismiss him? No.
Was he certain that the man would continue his long-winded apology/lecture? Also no.
Like Mr. Sheenan, he wasn't a mind reader.
Was he going to take the chance that it was the latter? Absolutely not.
No way he was listening to any more.
Now, to call it a fight-or-flight response doesn't mean that Jaune acted in a primitive or brutish fashion. He didn't attack the man because that would be immoral and end very poorly with either his parents or the police, so no 'fight'. That left 'flight', which he took to with gusto.
However, just because it was an instinctive response does not mean that Jaune did it in any manner that he felt would be uncouth. It's not like he suddenly launched to his feet and sprinted from the room like a man fleeing from a starving bear.
No, he had bit of a role model for etiquette living in his head. It certainly wasn't a good one, but Jaune simply couldn't deny that Nyarlathotep had a way with words and social appearance. At least, from what he knew of the man...god...thing.
Thus, he strove to emulate.
"I apologize Mr. Sheenan," He cut in before the man could speak, "But it is getting rather late. I best be going home. Thank you for your concern, and have a good day."
Then he packed his bag and left.
Calmly.
That is what Jaune would claim.
What actually left his mouth was 'SorrymistersheenanIneedtogoI'mlateforbedthanksforthetalkbye!' as he threw his backpack over his shoulder in that single fluid motion that only high schoolers in a hurry can perform flawlessly and practically teleported through the classroom door and out of the school.
If he had been just a little bit slower, he would have realized that he forgot his history book on the desk.
If he had stayed, he would have seen Mr. Sheenan mouth out the question 'Late for bed?' and look to the clock on the wall that read 3:30pm.
Adrenaline was a hell of a drug.
...Well, I will say that your haste was most superb.
Shut it, Jaune grumbled, sitting on a bench in front of the school with his head in his hands.
I think you managed to exit the main entrance before the door of your classroom closed. Which is rather impressive considering you ran for the door farthest from the classroom. And I didn't sense you use any of my power to do it.
Not helping.
At least I'm trying to give you what is certainly the more inspiring thought.
Than what?
Don't you have to come back to this place tomorrow?
No. It's Friday.
The outer god gave an aggravated sigh.
How you humans haven't gone mad from these baffling 'schedules' astounds me.
Jaune didn't bother replying. He had given up trying to ignore the thing at this point. However, he could ignore certain memories that were very recent. Hence why he just rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. If he pressed hard enough, he could get little shapes to appear out of the blackness. He tried to focus on those funny little shapes of nothing, tried to drown the last few minutes out in non-sensical geometry and focus on the sounds of the world around him; the sounds of cars driving around the school and on Ansel's main(and so far, only) road, the conversations of students his age or slightly older as they moved to go home or transition to after-school extra-curricular activities, and, of course, the unending laughter and chatter of kids from the nearby middle and elementary schools.
Frankly, it was a bit disorienting hearing the dull roar of the town's educational center in motion without being able to see the sources of each individual noise, but if he wanted to make it easier for his brain, he'd have to be looking around, and he didn't want to risk so much as a second of eye-contact with anybody right now.
Mortification sucked.
He put more pressure on his eyes. It definitely didn't feel good, and he had no doubt that it was probably as good for the ocular organs as it felt, but he just couldn't care at this point.
The shapes were starting to change colors.
So engrossed was he in his sudden semi-masochistic pursuit that he couldn't pick out the footsteps drawing near him until a kick to his foot shifted his leg, which in turn caused his elbow to slip, and he collapsed on himself in a way that only the clumsy can.
"The heck are you still doing here?" Asked Amberly, his darling little sister who was turning more and more into a younger version of Daphne(with all that implied).
Jaune stared at the girl smirking down at him in surprise for a moment. She had started Signal this year, and they never let their students leave for regular weekends.
However, as his memories of his other sisters' time there resurfaced, he remembered that they did let their students go home during class breaks, which were at different points in the year for reasons he never truly learned.
Seeing the slight bags under Amberly's eyes, Jaune couldn't help but think that she needed it.
From what he heard, Combat Schools could get very stressful for even the best of students.
"A girl reject you or something?" was her follow up question, still wearing that smirk that she picked up from- yeah, she was starting to be like Daphne a little too much.
To an outside person, that question sounded blunt and mean-spirited, but Jaune knew very well how his younger sister's mind worked. Being away for a good portion of the year did not make her an alien entity that he was no longer familiar with. Given that the it had been almost two years since they last had a sibling back from Signal on class break, she must have been expecting him to forget their schedule and thus make a big protest in public about her being at school, or in town in general.
Well, boohoo, he wasn't gonna give her what she wanted.
"When did you get here?" He inquired blandly.
Her smirk morphed into a scowl.
Apparently that was not the right response.
I would expect that your life surrounded by females would give you an advantage in understanding their desires, and yet you still surprise me.
Jaune rolled his eyes. Wonderful. A classy snarker in his head, and Miss Upsetty-Spaghetti in person.
Might as well fix what he could.
"What's got- h-hey!" Jaune pulled his frustrating but loveable sister into a hug. It was the awkward youthful sibling hug; the one where both do love each other, they really do, but can they please end it now, Mom? They don't want people to know they don't actually hate each other and their friends are starting to point and laugh.
Complete with small pats on the back.
They'd grow more accustom to it as they got older.
"Glad you made it home safe..." Jaune spoke softly, allowing himself a small smile. His sister either mumbled or grunted. He couldn't quite tell. Either way, the fact that she wasn't punching meant that the little girl who always wanted to cuddle or practice hair dressing and makeup on her older brother was still in there.
His smile morphed into a teasing smirk of his own.
"...Amby."
And just like that, the hellion that she had recently transformed into roared back to the surface as she shoved him away.
"Don't call me that, you idiot!" She snarled, her complexion changing to the classical representation of a tomato.
"Yeah, yeah. Not in public." he sighed. Change was inevitable, unfortunately.
"Don't call me that at all! Nobody calls me that anymore!" An eyebrow was quirked at her statement.
"So Jasmine doesn't call you that anymore? Daphne doesn't call you that when she drinks? I heard Saphron call you that when she called us recently. You wanna call her up and tell her that the nickname's no longer in service?"
Amberly didn't pout. Heaven help the man or woman who said that- Brothers, she really was just a clone of Daphne at this point, wasn't she?
It took a minute or so for the rebel to calm down, a minute of muttering coupled with looks that could kill pointed in his direction. Jaune, having near faded memories of how the family had dealt with its first iconic troublemaker, knew she was just embarrassed and let her fume until she cooled, simply listening to the nearby laughter of the few children who had yet to be picked up by family.
Patience was king in the Arc household.
Or maybe it was queen, given the gender ratio?
Eventually, the younger girl calmed down enough to speak normally again.
"Seriously though," she started, "Why you still here by yourself? Something happen? Day ruined?"
Oof. Thanks for the reminder, Amberly.
"Well, it was a day." Jaune admitted.
His response earned him a close and distrusting inspection. Now she looked too much like their mother.
"You're not being bullied again, are you?" She asked.
He nearly rolled his eyes again at the question.
"The last time I was bullied, you were still taking your doll to school." was his answer. That earned him a narrow eyed stare.
Lord, this girl wasn't even old enough to properly remember when he was getting bullied. Though she was apparently old enough to to swiftly take a zero-tolerance stance after all was said and done. Add in the combat training that their parents gave her and- well- children on the playground swiftly learned to respect the name Amberly Arc.
Jaune was doing just fine, hitchhiker aside. Technically, in the bullying department, he was doing more than fine. It took him a while to find out that he had something of a... reputation since the second grade year, one that had managed to stick with him- even after the departure of his two childhood friends- all the way to the present.
Apparently, mauling someone and then becoming their best friend follows you for a while.
It would be nice, if it didn't make some of the people in his grade act so awkward around him sometimes. Particularly girls. More than once he had noticed a girl or two staring at him.
He stopped trying to make eye contact after the fifth time they had looked away in apparent embarrassment.
He didn't blame them.
If someone known to have had a past psychotic episode noticed him staring and tried to make eye contact with him, he'd look away too.
That 'Holly' girl must have possessed a level of patience near that of Christian saints or Buddhist monks to be around you.
No clue what the heck those were, but yeah, he and Nate could be pretty stupid sometimes.
...Someday, somewhere, you will drive a woman to inarticulate depths of rage or despair. Probably both.
Pretty sure I've done that to Mom already- A finger flicked his nose.
"Ow!" he held a hand to his face, looking at the only possible suspect. It definitely wasn't the children laughing a few hundred feet away. Plus, Amberly still had her arm raised after her attack.
"You're being all quiet and dramatic again." She accused with a huff, "You can be a full-time dork or a full-time drama queen. Not both."
"I am not a drama queen!" He exlcaimed, rubbing his abused nostrils.
A beat.
"...And I'm not a dork." he weakly added, refusing to meet her eyes.
"Right." his sister 'agreed'.
"Well, what are you doing here?" Jaune shot the question like a snap, still avoiding her look of 'You're not fooling anyone'. Given how she was acting so far, she probably came just to cause him stress.
"I was on my way to hang out with my old friends," was her explanation, standing akimbo, "I thought I would run into you coming home on the way there, but when I didn't, I decided to stop by here to find you."
Huh. Well, shit. Now he felt bad about his earlier guess. Despite her attitude, she was still a member of his family. It was only natural that she look out for him.
"...Thanks for checking on me, Amberly." he gave her another genuine smile.
She looked at him impassively for a moment before turning away with a low mumbled 'yeah'.
Apparently he had just gone beyond her tolerance for close family moments as she started to walk away.
"I'll see you at home Jaune." she eventually said to notify him that her time there was up.
Jaune waved "Have fun with your-"
Wait, she was on her way to meet friends?
He doubled checked this with her. She turned around to show him a bemused face.
"Yeah, that's what I said."
"I thought all your friends here lived close to us."
"They still do. We're just heading to our old hangout spot." She turned around again to leave.
Ah, the elusive 'hang out spot' that pops into existence at least once in every teen's life. Amberly certainly did a good job of hiding hers from the family, wherever the heck it was. He didn't know of anything recreational that wasn't closer to their house.
"Where is that anyway?" He ventured half-heartedly to her back before she left. Such information was probably useless in the grand scheme of things. And he didn't expect an answer.
So it was a little shocking when she did answer.
"By the river."
His hand clamped onto her arm, stopping her with his weight. She turned to him, confused and affronted.
"What?"
Her indignation turned into a scowl as her rebellious nature reared at the challenge.
"Got a problem with that?" She challenged back.
Got a problem?
Got a problem!?
"That's out of town!" He hissed, eerily reminiscent of his mother after he had come home two summers ago. The irony wasn't lost on him.
"That's rich, coming from you." She accused, ripping her arm free from his grasp easily. The irony wasn't lost on her either.
Jaune pressed on regardless.
"Why the hell would you go there!?"
"So we don't have to deal with people!" a raised voice vehemently defended, "Brothers, when did you get the stick up your ass?"
"Oh I don't know- maybe when you told me that you're going out of town."
"We'll be fine! Daphne and Jasmine told me the huntsmen cleared the area of grimm two days ago!"
Once more, as it had happened repeatedly for over a year, a very personal problem for Jaune raised its head.
He wasn't worried about grimm.
Okay, that wasn't quite true.
He did worry about grimm. All people did.
They just weren't his biggest concern.
'-Are there more?'
The question floated into his head from the past. Those three words had haunted him for several weeks. He nearly never went outside during that time, if only because Holly and Nate were still around. After they had left, he had been on edge for several more. Every bush looked to be hiding a monster, every bird in the sky was a glimpse of a potential killer. It had taken far too long to for that justified fear to fade, prolonged by his simultaneous knowledge and wariness of his passenger, but it had faded.
His sister's confession of her destination just now threatened to resuscitate that fear back to its original level.
And here is where Jaune's problem came into play; he couldn't tell anyone.
It's not like he was being threatened by Nyarlathotep. The thing didn't need to threaten him, because who would believe him if he did tell people?
He knew people his age who still openly fantasized about 'fighting bad guys' and the like.
For the second time that day, and for completely different reasons, Jaune had zero idea what to say.
In desperation, he turned to the one thing he despised turning to.
Any ideas?
I have many ideas.
Not the time for being quirky.
I wouldn't view it as being 'quirky'-
NYARLATHOTEP!
The outer god's brief moment of silence was unnerving, and when he next spoke, it carried the rasp that accompanied his true self.
You had better watch your tone, boy. I've killed for far less than that.
It spoke of Jaune's character that he wasn't too much phased by that now.
I know. I definitely believe you. But Amberly is more important than me right now.
Then go with her if you're that worried.
"I'm coming with you." He told the girl.
She shook her head.
"Uh-uh. The last thing I need is my friends to see you being a momma bear." Jaune went silent for a moment.
"I'll tell Mom." He hated saying that. It sounded like such a childish threat. His sister didn't like hearing it, giving him a look of betrayal at the promise for a moment before sighing.
"Jaune," she began, "I don't think you understand just how stressed I am. Remember when we used to ask our sisters what combat school was like? They were downplaying it."
He tried to speak. She cut him off.
"I know you hate how overbearing Mom can be. We all do. But I don't think it's okay for you to to go to her because I'm doing something you don't like. I never told her about the time you went out with your friends when you were twelve. Just let me have fun, please?"
That. That was a fucking dagger. Of all his sisters, Amberly was definitely the most rebellious one, but she was also the one who stuck by him the most. What she said was true; when he, Nate, and Holly- mostly him and Nate- got into their usual antics that might have horrified a parent, she had been quiet about it. She had even hung out with the three of them once or twice.
The hypocrite card is as often justified as it is brutal.
When he opened his mouth to respond she cut him off.
"Please?"
How could she?
How could she use that damn tone that all his sisters used against him; the one that their own mother still occasionally used on their dad, against him?
The tone that had initially weakened his resolve to become a huntsman.
Any other ideas? he asked.
Aside from tying her up and keeping her in your home?
Be serious please.
I am being serious. Not only that, I'm being considerate. That last part he certainly was. Normally, Nyarlathotep just recommended killing. Or worse.
It was established very early on that Family was off limits.
What you fail to see here is that, like you, she is growing. Despite their revolting habit of creating castes from nothing, you are still creatures who value independence. The girl is no different.
It isn't safe.
And neither are you. Jaune started and looked around wildly for a moment. Amberly cocked an eyebrow at the action.
Where?
Not in that way, you dimwit. Jaune relaxed a little, What I mean is that humans are fragile, even when they mature, and the universe is an apathetic entity. At any point, your brain could just simply decide that it's done with this world and give up. One of those contraptions that you all adore beyond my comprehension could careen into you and kill you in a moment. Stars, a meteor could fall on top of you right at this instant.
Thankfully, none of those things happened.
Jaune returned to staring silently at Amberly, whose cocked brow morphed into a furrowed one at his scrutiny.
...Can you sense anything? he asked.
Not even an atom. No Byahkee, certainly no Deep Ones, not even another Nightgaunt.
Jaune only knew what one of those things were. Images flashed to match the other two. He was glad there weren't any of those around.
His shoulders sagged in defeat.
Is this the right thing? He asked, sounding exhausted.
There's no correct answer to that question. Don't be simple.
I hate that phrase.
I know.
"Promise me you'll be back in time for dinner." He asked of the girl. She gave him a soft smile.
"I will." Not even she was brave enough to incur the wrath of their mother. She idly checked the watch on her wrist, and the numbers made her eyes go wide.
"Shit! I hope they're still there. Gotta go Jaune, bye!"
Jaune knew that her tolerance for physical contact was already as exhausted as he felt, so he just motioned her away with his head. She was already departing, flying down the street at a speed that he knew far outmatched his. No way she was going to be late.
He watched her leave for a few seconds before turning toward home with a sigh. He knew that she would be back in time, she wasn't stupid, but a verbal contract made him feel much more secure.
Did he like it? No. He probably wouldn't feel any better until she came home. Luckily there were things to distract him, like homework and reading. After Nyarlathotep insisted that he read more for the sake of 'broadening the limits of his mind', he had sorta been stockholmed into enjoying not just comics, but books of general topics as well. Heck, he got almost as much of a kick out of reading the World History Book as Nyarlathotep did, a weird semi-bonding-agreement thing between them. It was a bit dry, but he tried to get what enjoyment from it that he could. Of course, it didn't help that one of the assignments Mr. Sheenan always gave for the weekend was to pick a section-
Jaune. Nyarlathotep's tone was foreboding. We have a problem.
Jaune realized it too.
He forgot his textbook.
Before he knew it, he was already back in the school, flinging open the door to the history class, gasping for air and beyond grateful that the door was unlocked.
He was not grateful that the teacher he had ran out on was still at his desk.
"Ah, Mr. Arc." The man greeted, with his usual robotic voice, as if what had happened earlier today... hadn't.
Jaune mimicked a robot in kind, stiffly walking up to his forgotten textbook and grabbing it before turning to leave.
The entire time, two words played through his head on repeat from the door, to the desk, and back to the door.
Please don't. Please don't. Please don't. Please don't-
"About earlier..."
God. Damnit.
"I suppose I-"
Jaune's savior for the day happened to be a scroll of all things, as the teacher's began ringing with an incoming call. The man looked over and sighed before answering.
"Miles," he greeted in that voice of his that Jaune still didn't think was actually his, making the motion for Jaune to leave with a mouthed 'later' before continuing, "What can I do for-"
"Amos!" the scroll sobbed, stopping Jaune in his tracks its tone of hysteria and putting a frown of confusion on the older man, "Amos, please! You gotta help me! Please!"
"Miles? Miles! What's wrong!?" Jaune noted far away the concern in the teacher's voice. He had never heard that either.
"Help! I need help! Brothers, why? Why?" the boy's attention shifted rapidly to the scroll. His body stilled itself in the face of another person's panic, rooted in place in the doorframe.
"What-" Mr. Sheenan tried to form a question. He was cut off.
"Huntsmen! I need huntsmen! It's still outside! It's still there-I-can't-see-it-but-I-can-still-hear-it-Gods-why-"
And then they heard it.
From the device came a laugh.
It was not the laugh of a broken man like the one who called.
It almost sounded like the kids he had heard outside the other schools.
But it lacked the proper cheer of children. It sounded delighted in a way that only someone truly sick in the head could perform. It would have reminded Jaune of the unhinged psychopaths he only read about in comics if it weren't so much worse; an insane shriek of a giggle that prickled his ears, and slid a frozen knife down his spine.
There was silence.
"...It's in the house..." Mile's voice was soft, and horrified, and Jaune's stomach clenched at the sound. There was another giggle and Miles screamed.
"Oh no, NO, PLEASE! PLEASE! IT'S IN THE HOUSE! GODS! IT'S IN-" The call ended with a giggle, and wordless sounds of suffering.
The next words that jolted Jaune into action out of the doorway didn't come from the teacher. The teacher's face was ashen, his eyes wide with alarm as he too had been frozen in place.
The words came from within his head. There were only three:
Oh...
Oh my...
And Jaune was gone.
Flying out of the school faster than he had returned to it, hidden hounds of hell nipping at his heels as he picked his direction mid stride and ran with all his might.
When his legs started to burn he could only run harder, pushed by Nyarlathotep's small incredulous whisper of-
I hadn't considered one of those...
His sprint was fueled purely by fear.
Not fear from the phone call, though that had played a major part.
Certainly not fear for himself.
Jaune felt fear because he knew some people.
He knew the voice on the other end of the phone in particular.
Miles Waker was a man that everybody his age knew.
Like Mr. Sheenan, he was a teacher, or at least he had been. He had retired last year. Unlike Mr. Sheenan, everyone had loved him. He had been one of those teachers; the cool ones, the ones who did things that people enjoyed. He sometimes acted a little grumpy, but everyone knew he was a big softy on the inside.
He even started a sports club for the school.
Jaune didn't feel fear for him.
He felt fear because when Mr. Waker had retired, against everyone's wishes and advice, he had decided to get away from what was becoming the hustle and bustle of Ansel. He got on well with people, but absolutely despised People. He had moved here long before even Jasmine was born to avoid People, which had slowly begun to appear at Ansel in droves after Jaune's birth.
So he moved.
He didn't move far.
Just to a shack a little ways out of town.
Down by the quiet river.
I like cliffs.
They're good for hanging from.
Okay, so... yeah. I do apologize for the unofficial hiatus. Obviously, it wasn't planned. The language course I was taking was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Of course, it doesn't help that i had to retype a lot of this latest chapter, either due to not saving like an idiot or simply disliking what I had written down.
Also, to make something of a small confession, I was originally planning on releasing this around Christmas time, but do to some stupidity on my part, I ended up with a lovely little case of Traumatic Brain Injury. Unfortunately, that happened before I could graduate the course, so I've been rolled back a bit, and am going to be resuming classes again very quickly now.
What does this mean? I hate saying this, I really do, but I wouldn't expect the next update to be for a while. I know it's a really asshole thing to do, given the fact that I just threw Jaune's sister over a cliff, but I'll try and work on the bits and pieces that I can so I can get it out.
Who knows? Maybe if enough people believe that I'm not going to update for another year, the collective psychic energy will manage to generate enough spite in me to dump out the next chapter in a month's time? Maybe?
I wouldn't count on it.
Now, onto more lighthearted topics.
I would really like to thank all the readers who decided to message me to ask about the story. I never have the balls to do that myself, so take that as me saying you got bigger nads than me. I have a bit of an anxiety problem, and seeing direct messages fills me with as much dread as it does curiosity, but the fact that you all have been so supportive thus far has been greatly appreciated. In a way, your interest is what helped me find the strength to go back to this mess of a chapter and push on.
Once again, thank you.
You necromancers.
NOW!
It's been asked of me on the site and in person: Gavenga/Author's real name, where the hell do you plan on taking this shitshow?
All over the place. There will be funny! There will be sad! There will be angry! There will... NOT be lemons, because RWBY has enough of that already and I am a pure and innocent soul. There will be VIOLENCE!
I suppose I should give out this next warning though, especially in these dark times:
I like humor. I like low-brow humor. I like wit. I like humor where it shouldn't be. I like jokes so dark that they would probably get me reported if I wrote them down, but you know what? Imma jot em down anyway. Nothing is sacred.
I feel some people may call me out in the future. Everyone has a joke or two that they don't like. But if there's any consolation in the phrase 'nothing is sacred', it's probably in interpreting those exact words in a different light. Nothing is sacred; we are all worthless under the gleeful spite of Comedy.
Hence, I plan on having it all! Even puns. Especially puns.
And violations of the Geneva Convention.
I probably didn't have to say all that given that A) we're dealing with the tentacle-beard-man-stories, and B) This story is already rated M, but I feel that If I don't have this at some point in the story it might come back to bite me in the ass later.
So yeah.
Lastly: Length.
Length. Length. Length.
I've come to realize over time that I am really bad at condensing my words. I've been forced over time into a habit of logical progression. You would not believe how big this chapter was originally going to be. I tend to be bad at communicating and I feel that if I don't give out all the facts, I might just lose people. I may also just be an moron.
I know some people don't like really long stories and my writing can be a bit of a turn-off for them.
But this is MY story damnit and I'll write it to be however long I want it be!
To further explain with an answer to an old reviewer:
Dear Loopsnake(if you are still out there somewhere...),
You wanted a lengthy story.
I plan on giving you one.
This is a threat.
Sincerely, Gavenga323.
Now then, I shall retire, study, and try not to cry at my perceived crimes involving the English Lexicon.
Do me a favor, and have a great day.