Velvet stood on the wall surrounding the town of Gernsback, looking out at the forests and hills in the distance. She felt a chill travel up her spine as the trees swayed ominously, seeming to be taunting her. No matter how seemingly normal the vista was, she couldn't forget she was looking at the place where Jaune Arc died. The Deathlands.
Coco walked up to her, looking serious for once. "Thinking about him?"
Velvet nodded. "It's been weeks since the memorial, but being here, so close to where he died…"
Coco nodded turning to look out into the distance like her teammate was. "Yeah, I get it."
"I can't help thinking about how terrified he must have been." Velvet continued. "I know I wouldn't last five minutes if it'd happened to me."
Coco clapped her hand on the rabbit faunus' shoulder. "Don't think about it, Vel. Just focus on the here and now and not on things that aren't going to happen. Now come on, we're having a team meeting to decide patrols." She let Velvet go and made her way down the stairs, heading to the town inn. Velvet gave the swaying trees one last look before following.
When she arrived she found not just Team CFVY seated around a long table, but teams ABRN of Haven and NDGO of Shade, along with the local huntsman for the town. Taking her seat she observed as the discussion began.
"Alright, now that we're all here…" The leader of ABRN, Arslan Altan, began. "...We should see what we can find out about the Grimm we were sent here to deal with." She turned to the local, a man named Gris who was dressed in shades of grey, with armor the color of smoke and a sniper rifle strapped to his back.
Gris nodded. "For the passed five days the town's been menaced by a new type of Grimm I haven't encountered before. It's looks like a centipede, but it's bigger than a Goliath and heavily armored. I fired a full clip from my rifle into it and it didn't seem to notice. It doesn't help that whenever it attacks a small force of other Grimm join it, some of them of uncommon varieties. I'm assuming something lured the big one out of the Deathlands, which brought its attention to us."
Nebula Violette, the leader of NDGO, spoke up next. "When do most of the attacks take place?" She asked seriously with her arms folded.
"Sunset." Gris said instantly. "They like to hit us when visibility starts going down. We've set up some floodlights to compensate."
Coco was the one to speak this time. "Alright, I suggest six hour patrol shifts, with one person of each team per shift. Sound good to you?" She asked her fellow team leaders.
Arslan and Nebula glanced at each other before nodding. "Sounds good to me." The leader of ABRN said. "Anything else to discuss?"
"Yeah." Nadir Shiko, also from ABRN, spoke up. "Anybody know why exactly they sent three second year teams to deal with a single Grimm?"
"It's because of what happened to that Arc guy." Octavia Ember of NDGO explained, not noticing the grimaces on the Beacon team at her words. "We're pretty close to the Deathlands where he died, and they don't want to risk another student doing the same so close to the tournament in a couple of weeks."
Nadir made a noise of understanding before Fox spoke next. "Are we prepared to evacuate the town if necessary?"
Gis nodded. "Yeah, we can get bullheads here in fifteen minutes from a nearby base that's closer to Vale. It's a last resort, though. The citizens of this town are stubborn about leaving their homes. They have to be, to be so willing to live so close to the Deathlands. The Council took advantage to make this a forward base to stymie any Grimm incursions from it."
Coco looked around at the various teens as Gris' explanation finished. "Any more questions? No? Alright then, let's set up those shifts."
Two days later Gwen Darcy of NDGO was getting antsy as she walked the top of the wall surrounding the town during her noontime patrol. From her position she could see the townspeople going about their day as best they could while expecting another attack that evening.
As Gris had said the Grimm had attacked at sunset both days since the teams' arrival in Gernsback. They were repelled with relative ease thanks to the amount of firepower now in the town, but what was worrying was that the centipede Grimm the more veteran huntsman had told them about hadn't joined in on the attacks. That led them all to believe that it was an elder Grimm that was intelligent enough to use the more minor varieties of its kin to test the new defenders, learning about their capabilities with each attack. That was a worrying prospect, as the older, more intelligent Grimm were always extremely dangerous.
She looked back out into the woods as she walked passed one of the town guard who were patrolling as well. Gris wasn't the only defender of the town when the students weren't there. It had a sizable guard force, both full time and part time, and even the civilians all had some sort of weapons training.
"Well hi there, cutie. How did you get up here? Are you some kid's pet?" The guardsman said behind her. Gwen turned to see what he was talking about, finding him kneeling in front of an adorable little black bunny rabbit. She squeed internally, but her elation at the cute animal died a quick, ugly death when she took it in more fully, seeing the large for its size antlers on its head, the red eyes, and the small flecks of white against the black that she realized after a moment were bone. The black haired girl paled and cried out as throwing knives appeared between her fingers. "Jackelope!"
The guardsman looked up at her in confusion, not seeing the adorable little bunny suddenly open its mouth horrifyingly widely into a circle, two sets of jagged, sharp teeth lining the blackness beginning to whirl like saws. It jumped at the guardsman, who turned at the motion just in time to see his death approach, the Jackelope's mouth clamping onto his face and turning it into a gory, ruined mess, blood spraying in a fine mist along with shards of bone. He didn't even get a chance to scream.
Gwen immediately launched a trio of knives at the Grimm, which was still clamped onto unfortunate guard and was thus unable to avoid the attack. It died quickly when one of the weapons hit it right in the eye, falling off its victim, letting the girl see the ruin that was once a man's face.
She managed to force down her bile at the sight when she heard the sounds of gunfire and people screaming in fear and pain. She turned to see multiple Jackelopes attacking, using their prodigious jumping ability to get to the defenders on top of the walls. Their small size and agility meant that most of the defenders were having a large amount of trouble taking them out. As she watched, Yatsuhashi brought his massive blade down on one, but it scampered out of the way and all he did was smash the stone of the wall.
The town alarm began to sound as people hurried into the shelters and the students rushed to aid in the defense, not having expected another attack to happen before sunset. More than one person there cursed themselves for becoming complacent in the routine and letting the Grimm catch them with their pants down.
Gwen turned when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, seeing a lot of Grimm leaving the forest to join the attack, more than the defenders had faced in any of the other assaults. Another group of knives appeared in Gwen's hands, prompting her to begin throwing them at the oncoming Grimm. She was forced to dodge away when fox like Grimm, Kitsunes, she remembered, began to spit fire up at her and the other defenders in order to cover the advance of the other attackers.
Several squat, round Grimm jumped up onto the wall, joining the Jackelopes in harassing the defenders with their massive claws. One of them landed on a guardswoman that had just dodged one of the deadly bunnies. The crunch of broken bones as her torso was compressed down into her lower body was surprisingly loud as she was squashed onto the floor, the stone of the fortification cracking from the impact.
Gwen took advantage of her position on the high ground to rain knives down on the Grimm that were now running about the town. She could see that Coco had the same idea, jumping onto a roof and deploying her gatling gun, mowing down the larger enemies, especially the thankfully small number of Nevermores and Griffons that were attacking from the air..
The fighting continued for what seemed like hours but was likely about ten minutes, with more and more defenders falling to the Grimm, especially the small, speedy Jackelopes. The students were running low on aura, and Gris was debating with Arslan whether to call for an evacuation when the gates of the town were busted down by the massive Grimm centipede Gris had warned them about, its blade-like legs digging deep into the dirt as it entered the town, the varieties of Grimm that hadn't been able to get over the walls following behind it. Everybody knew that the fight had just gotten harder for the defenders.
The centipede rampaged unchecked through the town, taking out anybody that stood in its way till Gris intercepted it, his sniper rifle shifting into a double bladed staff as he worked to hold the monster at bay in order to give his comrades time to deal with the other enemies. Coco tried to bring her gun to bear on the thing, hoping her armor piercing ammo would do the trick, however she was kept from acquiring a shot by various other Grimm attacking her, prompting her to shift the gun into its handbag form to fight them off in hand to hand.
Velvet had deployed her own weapon, becoming a true terror on the battlefield, something NDGO and ABRN wouldn't have believed of the timid bunny girl without seeing it for themselves. More than one of them hoped they wouldn't face her in the tournament, not sure they'd be able to win as they watched her shift between numerous hard light weapons as she tore through the Grimm, anything that got near her dying a swift death, even the lumbering Ursa Majors that had joined in the assault.
Gwen was doing her best to keep from being overrun along with a couple of guardsmen when she spotted the centipede making its way towards her, having launched Gris halfway across the town with a whack of its tail. She was already low on aura thanks to one of the squat creatures attacking her from behind before she could riddle it with knives, so she wasn't sure she'd be able to take a hit from something with that kind of strength. Unfortunately it didn't seem she was going to have time to get away. "Brace yourselves!" She called to the guardsmen with her.
The massive Grimm slammed into the wall at their feet, the stone giving way and making them fall down to the ground in a shower of debris. One of the guardsmen ended up getting his arm broken by falling rubble, and Gwen grunted when she felt her aura shatter from the impact with the ground, unable to land on her feet due to the debris falling on her as well.
The Grimm reared up over them preparing to strike. Gwen absently noticed as she looked up at it that part of its jaw was missing, having been lost in a previous fight, most likely. Then she was force to scramble away as it lunged forward with several of its bladed legs preparing to strike. One of the guardsmen, dazed from the fall, wasn't able to get out of the way in time, and died with a gurgle as several massive bladed limbs stabbed into him. The other guardsman managed to barely avoid the attack despite his broken arm, but Gwen received a nasty cut on her leg below her armored skirt despite avoiding most of the attack.
She tried to get away, doing her best to ignore the pain in her leg. She heard someone, she thought it must be Dew, shouting her name, and looked up to find the centipede about to lunge again, its gaze fixed squarely on her. She heard some of the other students try to reach her, but from the sounds of it they were too far away. She closed her eyes in fear, a tear falling from her eye as she prepared to die. She heard the centipede attack with a shriek, followed by a deep thudding sound and a flash of light she could discern even with her eyes closed.
After several moments of not dying, along with the slight shaking in the ground and the sound of something huge crashing to the ground, Gwen hesitantly opened her eyes, blinking up at what she saw.
A man stood in front of her, a heater shield held up in front of him, having blocked the centipede that she could now see was writhing on its back a small distance away from her. He looked dirty and dishevelled, his pants missing a leg below the knee and both sleeves of his black hoodie ripped away at different lengths. His mostly white armor was almost pristine, however, and he had a quiver without arrows along with a crimson bow strapped to his back. The hand not holding his shield had a sword clasped in a tight grip.
The man turned to look at her. He had deep blue eyes partly hidden by long, shaggy blonde hair that was almost reaching his shoulders, and a short beard on his face. He smiled, looking unbelievably happy to see her, and she couldn't help but blush. "You okay?"
She began to nod, but winced when she moved her leg and felt the pain of her wound. The man looked down at her wounded leg and dropped to his knees beside her, setting his sword and shield aside to rest his hands on her leg. Gwen blushed more heavily. "Wha-?"
"Relax." He said, still smiling, and began to glow white. Gwen watched in awe as the glow extended to her leg and her wound began to close. Soon there wasn't even a scar left, leaving only her ripped legging to show where she'd been injured.
The blonde sighed in relief as the glow faded and Gwen began testing her leg's mobility. "Good, you didn't explode."
His patient's head snapped up to look at him. "What!? That was a possibility!?"
He winced. "W-well, I've never used my semblance on another person before…" He said, laughing hesitantly, shattering the cool image he'd built up by his timely save. Then his face became serious. "I pumped some extra aura in you to give you a boost. You should be good to continue fighting if you're careful." He turned his head when the centipede finally righted itself and screeched at him, a glare on his face. "I've got some unfinished business to take care of." He picked up his weapons and stood up, looking at the Grimm fearlessly.
"Remember me, asshole!?" He said, walking towards the monster, weapons at the ready. It screeched at him again. "You caused me a lot of trouble, you ugly son of a bitch. I'll be taking it out of your hide!" The Grimm responded by rushing the Huntsman, who raised his glowing shield to block the armored leg that was coming down to rip into him. The leg rebounded with a deep gonging sound and a small flash of light, telling Gwen what had happened before, and he took advantage to sash at its face, leaving a gash in its bone mask. "I'm taking more than your jaw this time, you bastard." The blonde snarled.
"Holy hell, who is that?" Reese Chloris of ABRN asked as she rode up to Gwen on her hoverboard. "He's badass."
"That's Jaune…" Yatsuhashi said as he hopped down from atop the wall, his large sword resting against his shoulder. There was disbelief in his voice, the normally calm young man not masking his shock. It took the two girls a moment, but then they realized why.
"No way…" Reese said. "You mean the guy that we had that memorial for? The guy who got dropped in the middle of the Deathlands months ago?"
Gwen stared at the blonde who had saved her as he dodged another of the centipede's blades, slashing at it with his glowing sword as it passed, cutting the leg off, slicing through the bone plating with ease. "Guess he's not dead." She said dumbly.
Yatsuhashi turned and brought his sword around to cut the Jackelope that was leaping at him in two. "We need to focus back on the battle. There are still many enemies left." He moved to help the guardsman with a broken arm up to lead him to the town doctor's office, which was their triage center.
The girls nodded and threw themselves back into the fight after one last look at Jaune.
Jaune growled as his 'old friend' skittered backwards from a swipe that would have taken an eye or three. It had learned to avoid his sword when it glowed, being down two limbs and having several gashes in its bone armor to show why that was a good idea.
He could try to overcharge his bow like he had with the Orochi and a few other Grimm in the weeks since, but the Grimm wouldn't allow him the time. Once again he reminded himself that the bow was a situational weapon, no matter how much he'd like to simply annihilate all his enemies with a single enormous blast of aura.
The centipede seemed to become annoyed, and it planted some of its front legs into the ground as it twisted. Recognizing what was coming, Jaune jumped over the tail as it whipped by, slamming into one of the houses lining the small park they were fighting in and caving the wall in.
Jaune took advantage of the Grimm's position to rush in with his sword at the ready, his shield leading the way. The monster screeched as it began swinging its tail back around, but Jaune slid underneath it, feeling the wind of the centipede's huge body passing over him ruffle his hair. He immediately used his crouching position to launch himself forward, jumping at his enemy's face, Crocea Mors, once again glowing white and ready to stab into it.
The Grimm let out an ear piercing screech as the sword slammed into one of its remaining eyes to the hilt. It reared back, taking Jaune, who kept a tight grip on his sword, with it. Once the Grimm had reached its apex Jaune quickly planted his feet on the thing's face and jumped up with all his aura assisted might. The was a brief flash from the back of his armor, after which he gained even more height, now higher than the roofs of the houses around him. Crocea Mors glowed brightly once again, seeming to lengthen, as Jaune glared down at the centipede, which was looking up at him with its few remaining eyes. As he began to drop there was another small flash of light from the back of his armor, which made him fall faster. The monster, unprepared for his increase in speed, couldn't react in time.
Jaune yelled with effort and more than a bit of vindication as he swung his sword down using every bit of his muscle strength, weight and momentum. The Grimm was sliced in half down the middle, its heavy bone plating only slightly slowing him down. The blonde knight landed heavily in a crouch as the enemy that had caused him so much trouble and no small amount of grief died, dissipating into black smoke.
Bolin Hori of ABRN approached Jaune, eyes wide and staff held limply in his hand. "Holy shit, that was bad ass."
Jaune smiled slightly, shrugging. "He pissed me off."
The black haired young man shook his head, still in awe. "Well, I'm not complaining. We'd probably be pretty screwed if it hadn't."
Jaune sheathed Crocea Mors and unslung his bow. "There's still a lot of Grimm to kill. After that, I'm giving the first person I see a hug." The he drew the string of his bow back and shot a Bouncy Ball in the head, dropping it, and launched himself into battle.
Boling blinked but ended up shrugging, getting back into the fight as well.
The battle lasted another ten minutes, but the death of the centipede had given the defenders a second wind and taken a powerful weapon away from the Grimm's ranks. It still wasn't easy, but eventually they were victorious.
As the townspeople emerged from the shelters and surveyed the damage, Jaune stood and simply savored being around other people. It was a heady feeling, and part of him couldn't believe it was happening. He kept expecting to wake up in a tree, hearing the movements of the Grimm as they hunted for him, safety still out of reach.
"Jaune?" He heard someone ask hesitantly, and he turned to see CFVY approaching, all of them staring at him. Velvet had been the one who'd spoken, her pretty brown eyes wide as she looked at him like he would disappear at any moment.
Jaune slowly walked towards his fellow Beacon students, none of them saying anything further. He stopped in front of Velvet and reached up with a shaking hand to touch her face. The bunny girl blushed heavily. "Wha-?" She cut herself off when she saw tears appear in Jaune's eyes before he suddenly wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly.
Velvet stood very still, eyes wide and face crimson. Her blush faded when she heard what he was saying. "You're real. You're real." Her look of shock faded into a sad smile as she hugged him back.
"Yes Jaune, I'm real. You made it. You're safe." She murmured soothingly. Coco stepped beside them and placed a hand on Jaune's shoulder, prompting him to look at her, and she gave him a smile.
It started as a giggle, then a chuckle, and soon Jaune was laughing with happiness as he pulled Coco into the hug, the sound of him venting his relief contagious and prompting the other students to laugh as well, all of them happy to have a friend back.
Ozpin sipped his coffee as he stood near one of Beacon's landing pads, a small smile on his face as he watched a dot on the horizon get bigger. Students were milling about nearby, getting ready to go out into Vale to relax and do some shopping, but they all kept a respectful distance from him.
He turned his head when Glynda and Ironwood approached and stopped at either side of him. The headmistress was the first to speak. "Why did you call us here, Ozpin? Has something happened?"
Ozpin took another sip before responding. "I received a call from Ms. Adel not that long ago. The town of Gernsback was attacked by a large force of Grimm, including an elder of a large new breed that was extremely dangerous, likely having come out of the Deathlands."
Ironwood's eyes widened before narrowing. "I'll have a battleship ready to fly to Gernsback and assist with repelling the attack in a few minutes." He pulled his scroll out of his pocket, ready to bark out orders, when Ozpin held up a hand.
"The attack has been repelled. There were losses, though thankfully none from the students, primarily due to the Jackelopes that were part of the attack." Both Glynda and Ironwood shuddered. Jackelopes were some of the absolute worst Grimm to fight. "However, one of the defenders managed to kill the elder Grimm, which allowed them to hold the town."
"That's good." Glynda said with relief as a bullhead began to land. "Though I don't understand why you needed our presence here if the issue is resolved."
Ozpin simply smiled before turning to an approaching group of students. "Thank you for coming so promptly."
Teams RWBY and NPR shuffled slightly awkwardly before Ruby spoke up. "Um, why did you want us to come to the landing pad, Professor?"
The headmaster simply turned to look at the bullhead as the door open, prompting the others there to do so the same. They saw teams ABRN and NDGO hop out of the aircraft, followed by team CFVY. It was who jumped out after them that made eyes go wide and jaws drop.
Jaune Arc hopped out of the bullhead, looking around with wide eyes that were moist with happy tears. His gaze travelled from Beacon's tower down along the grounds, to rest on the teachers and his friends.
"It can't be…" Glynda gasped, a hand over her mouth in shock.
"...Jaune?" Ruby croaked out, voice thick with hesitant hope.
Pyrrha was the first to move. She began to run towards Jaune, tears streaming from her eyes. She was quickly overtaken by a rushing blur of rose petals once Ruby got over her shock. The little reaper slammed into Jaune, who almost fell to the ground from the impact. The girl was crying with happiness, tears trailing down her cheeks as she hugged him. She was soon joined by Pyrrha, who also threw her arms around Jaune and held him tight, tears trailing down her own eyes as she sobbed happily.
The rest of Jaune's friends rushed over as well, Nora enthusiastically joining the hug as the others stood around the blonde, shock and disbelief in their eyes, along with more than a bit of joy.
All around the landing pad, people stared. Many recognized what was going on, and shock spread throughout the student body as the news spread.
Jaune, for his part, laughed as he held two of the most important girls in his life tightly, feeling such elation he thought he was going to burst. He did it.
He was home.
So, we have finally reached the point of the story where Jaune returns home, triumphant. I've been looking forward to this chapter, and was really hoping it would be voted on so I could write it asap. Happy to see it was.
In any case, Jaune is back home. Now he needs to deal with everything that comes after. His life is no longer in danger (for the moment), but that doesn't mean things are suddenly going to be easy.
The Jackelopes… Well, I just wanted to make a bunny Grimm in honor of my best friend, who always has an online avatar of a pissed off or malevolent looking bunny picture. For she is the Grimm Bunny, and you shall fear her.
Anyway, I asked her what she wanted them to be, and she said 'Jackelopes'. So that's what I went with. Her main request is that they look utterly harmless yet be one of, if not the, most dangerous and horrifying thing on the battlefield. I hope I managed to do so.
Next chapter will be mostly talking, with Jaune explaining things and the others' reactions.
I can't think of anything else to say at the moment. I hope you all enjoyed. Don't forget about my Pat A Ron dotcom /athanmortis, and please review.
Till next time.