It took several minutes of tears and laughter before Jaune was finally able to speak, throat choked up with emotion. "Hey guys. I'm home…"

"Welcome home, Jaune." Ren said warmly, his hand on the blonde's shoulder.

Everybody finally pulled away, sniffling and wiping their eyes, but beaming at the returned friend. "How did you get back, Jaune?" Ruby asked as she smiled so widely it was starting to be painful.

"I would like to know as well." Ozpin said as he approached with a smile of his own.

Jaune nodded to the headmaster. "It's good to see you, sir. I'd be happy to tell you guys all about it, but…" He trailed off as his stomach let out a ferocious growl, actually making his friends jump back in surprise. He scratched the back of his head, chuckling sheepishly. "I would seriously kill a goliath with my bare hands for a pizza, sir."

Ozpin chuckled, amused. "I think that can be arranged. Let's head to the cafeteria and get you some food. I don't imagine you've been eating all that well out in the wilds."

Jaune shrugged as he began walking alongside the headmaster, his friends following behind, ignoring the stares of all the other students. "I made do. I've become a fair hand at hunting and fishing. I didn't exactly know what plants and herbs would be good for seasoning though, so my meals were pretty bland."

Ozpin nodded in understanding as Glynda and Ironwood walked beside him, their eyes on the blonde. "In that case I can see why you would be anxious for something more interesting."

"Are you alright, Mister Arc?" Glynda suddenly asked, finally breaking out of her shock, her eyes roaming along his form, searching for any injuries. "Should we perhaps stop by the infirmary first to give you a checkup?"

"I'd rather do that after I eat, Professor." Jaune said anxiously.

"He seems to be in good health, Glynda." Ironwood said soothingly. "Nothing a bath and a change of clothes couldn't help, I imagine."

Jaune's eyes glazed over. "Oh man, a hot bath sounds amazing…"

"Food first, Vomit Boy." Yang said with a smile and a pat on the back. "Your stomach sounded like an angry Ursa Major."

He chuckled, but Ruby spoke up before he could respond. "Ooh, what's this, Jaune?" She reached for his bow without thinking, running her fingers along the smooth wood.

"Figures that's what you would focus on." He said with another chuckle before unslinging his bow, holding it out to her. "This is Vanquishing Thorn. It's helped me out a lot ever since I found it. I'd be pretty damn dead if it weren't for this."

Ruby studied the weapon as the others watched, turning it dexterously in her hands, testing the weight and drawing the string experimentally. "This is an excellent bow." She finally proclaimed. "Pretty simple, though. I mean, it's an old fashioned wooden bow. No mechashifting, obviously or anything else, no slots for dust. I'm guessing any special features were in the arrows." She glanced at the empty seeming quiver on his back. "I'm guessing you're out of them?"

Jaune plucked the bow from her hands with a smile of amusement. "Yep. What can I say, Rubes? I have an appreciation of the classics."

"Where'd you get it?" Nora asked with interest, her voice more chipper and excited than anybody had heard her in months, which brought a smile to Ren's face.

Jaune was about to answer when he was once again interrupted. "Oh. My. Goodness." Suddenly the blonde was face to face with Oobleck, who was peering at him uncomfortably closely. "Mister Arc, is that really you?"

Jaune leaned back, trying to get away from the hyperactive teacher, spotting Port standing nearby, his own eyebrows raised in shock. "Uh, yeah."

"This… This… This is UNPRECEDENTED!" The green haired man exclaimed. "There has never been a known survivor of the Deathlands! Especially not with how deep you had gone, and how long you were there!" The doctor was practically vibrating with excitement. Or was it just the caffeine? "Mister Arc, you must tell me everything you saw in there!"

"Especially the Grimm you fought, my boy." Port added in, looking just as interested, though for different reasons. "We saw some interesting varieties we hadn't encountered before when we went to search for you, so I am very interested in your own experiences."

Jaune glanced from Port to Oobleck. "Wait, you went out looking for me?"

"Every day for several weeks, a group of volunteers among the staff, along with a detachment of my mechs, went out and searched for you during daylight hours for as long as possible." Ironwood explained. "Unfortunately they obviously didn't find you before the council shut the search down."

"Oh…" Jaune said. "Then the bullhead I saw fly over my head that one time must have been yours."

Everyone blinked. "Wait, you saw the bullhead? It was that close?" Glynda asked in disbelief.

Jaune smiled sourly. "I frantically climbed a tree so you could see me, but I didn't make it. I had to watch it fly away, not noticing me scream for it." He let out a slow breath at the memory. "I had to fight off a lot of Grimm after that…"

They all knew what he meant by that, and Pyrrha and Ruby quickly hugged him again. After a few moments of silence Oobleck cleared his throat. "Yes, well, I would be interested in hearing about your experiences, young man."

"Let's get Mister Arc to the cafeteria as we'd intended, and then we can ask him some questions." Ozpin said, and everybody nodded before continuing on their way.

By the time they'd reached the cafeteria they had gathered a large crowd which was peering at Jaune with shock and curiosity. Said blonde had finally become aware of the attention and felt a bit awkward and self-conscious. Upon noticing his reaction to the stares, his friends quickly gathered around him, shielding him from view. Of course, all of that was forgotten when Jaune sat down and a large meat lovers pizza was set in front of him.

"Damn, look at him go…" Yang said with an impressed look on her face as her fellow blonde finished off a slice in what seemed to be three bites, still blushing slightly from when Jaune had moaned in what seemed to be an almost orgasmic bliss at the first bite.

"I'm surprised you aren't commenting on his manners, Weiss." Blake said as half the pizza disappeared in less than three minutes.

"He's earned the right to behave as he wants for the moment." Weiss murmured quietly as she watched, the heiress having stayed silent since the moment they'd first laid eyes on Jaune, simply watching him. She smiled weakly when Ruby patted her back, understanding how much of a relief this must be for the white haired girl.

Finally Jaune sat back with a content sigh, sipping on the soda he'd been given with his meal. "Oh man, I never thought pizza could taste so good…"

Glynda cleared her throat. "Well, now that you've been fed, Mister Arc, I believe we would all be interested in your responses to our questions."

He looked up at the strict teacher before setting his drink aside and nodding. "Sure thing, Professor. Just one thing, first. Weiss?"

Said girl jumped slightly at suddenly being addressed before stepping forward. "Yes, Jaune?" She asked softly.

Jaune raised an eyebrow at her strangely passive behaviour but shrugged it off and stood up, taking off his quiver and setting his bow aside. "I was hoping you could help me deal with this, since you're probably the best person I know to do it."

"Deal with what?" She asked, confused.

Jaune smiled before turning his quiver over, making everybody gasp as a pile of gold coins was dumped onto the cafeteria table, the tinkling of the metal landing sounding incredibly loud in the stunned silent room.

Weiss picked a coin up with a shaking hand and wide eyes, bringing it up to her face and rubbing its surface with a thumb. Then her gaze turned back to Jaune, who had an eyebrow raised as he waited for the verdict. "This is real gold…" She said faintly.

The cafeteria erupted into discussion, everybody talking to each other over the fact that Jaune Arc not only returned from the Deathlands, but he did so bearing a bunch of extremely valuable treasure with him.

"Holy crap!" Nora cackled, throwing an arm around Jaune's shoulders as her eyes took in her leader's loot. "Jaune, you're ritch!"

Jaune picked up some coins before handing one to Nora, followed by the rest of JNPR and RWBY. "Seems so. Here, have some."

"Are you sure, Jaune?" Ren asked as he studied his coin.

Jaune shrugged. "A few coins less won't hurt me much. I'd much rather share with my friends."

"Each one of these is worth a considerable amount of money." Weiss warned.

"Likely more than you realize, Miss Schnee." Oobleck said as he picked a coin up as well, studying it. "I don't recognize the markings and images. That makes them more valuable than for just their gold content. Collectors, museums and researchers would pay quite a bit for them."

"Really?" Jaune cocked his head to the side. "Huh, should have realized that, considering where I found them." He nodded to the coin in Oobleck's hand. "Keep it, sir. I'm sure it's worth more to you than it does me."

The doctor smiled. "Many thanks, young man. Where did you find them?"

"I think we all want to know." Pyrrha said from where she sat as close to Jaune as possible. "What happened to you in the Deathlands, Jaune?"

Jaune sat back down and sipped his soda again before beginning his tale. "Well, I was knocked out when I hit the ground after falling out of the bullhead. After checking and seeing that my scroll was cracked in two, I just picked a direction and started walking, thankfully without being attacked immediately…" He continued describing what had happened, including the centipede Grimm that had passed underneath his sleeping place, everybody listening intently without interrupting.

It was when he reached the point that he found the remains of one of the people who had died in the Deathlands that he was interrupted. "You didn't find any identification, Mister Arc?" Ozpin asked intently.

Jaune shook his head. "No. His scroll was out of power, and like a moron I didn't consider bringing it with me. I took his bow and a bag of supplies with me when I left him, though. This quiver was actually his. If I describe his weapon, could you find it in the database? I'd like to talk to any next of kin."

Ozpin nodded agreeably as Glynda prepared her scroll to take notes on the weapon. "That could work, yes. I assume that means that the bow you currently possess is not the one you got from that unfortunate hunter?"

Jaune shook his head. "No, I found this one a while later after a Grimm broke that one into pieces." He bared his teeth, eyes glinting. "I made sure that bastard paid for it, though." Jaune's friends' eyebrows rose at the ferally pleased look on his face. They weren't used to seeing such a thing on him, and it made them wonder how much his experiences had changed him.

Glynda dutifully inputted the details of the weapon Jaune was describing into the Hunter database, beginning the search once it was done. Within moments they got a result. She showed them the image of a man in his thirties with black hair and pale green eyes, his outfit similar to what Jaune remembered remaining on the bones, with plenty of purple and black on it, the bow Jaune had used in his hands

"That's him." Jaune said with a nod. "Who was he?"

"Morado Malachite. Went missing twelve years ago. Next of kin are his nieces, Melanie and Miltia." She swiped the screen to show twin girls in white and red outfits.

"I know them." Yang said when she saw the pictures. "They work as bouncers in a club in downtown Vale."

"Think you can introduce me?" Jaune asked.

The busty blonde nodded. "Sure. Just let me know when."

"So what happened after that, Jaune?" Pyrrha asked, hand gently resting on her partner's arm, as though afraid he wasn't real.

Jaune continued talking about his attempts to escape the Deathlands to his riveted audience, describing the Grimm he'd encountered, some of which didn't have names because they hadn't been encountered before. Occasionally he'd be asked a question by Port about a specific type, and he'd answer as best he could.

When he reached the point where the centipede (or as he'd taken to calling it during his story, 'that bastard') broke his bow and sent him tumbling into the river which carried him away right when he was about to make it to civilization, someone interrupted him. "You've gotta be lying." Everybody turned to look at Nolan Porfirio of Team BRNZ of Shade, who had his arms crossed and was staring at Jaune.

Said blonde raised an eyebrow, not seeming to notice the fact that his friends were glaring at Nolan. "Really? Why?"

Ignoring his team leader hissing for him to shut the hell up, Nolan continued. "It sounds too much like some shitty survival movie. The hero is set back right when he was about to succeed? It's such a trope! I bet there wasn't even a giant centipede Grimm and you just tripped into the water, waded out, and decided it would be a cool story to tell when you got back."

Jaune stared at Nolan silently for a moment even as the crowd began to murmur, though they all quickly went silent when he began to speak, more than a bit angry. "Why the hell would I need to come up with stuff to make myself cooler? I just walked out of the Deathlands, motherfucker. I'm aware enough to know that something like that is going to give me more cred than I'll ever know what to do with, even if I never said anything about what happened in there." Jaune stood up, leaning on the table, blue eyes narrowed menacingly, making Nolan back up as he began to realize he'd fucked up. "And where do you think the gold came from? Or the bow? Or this?" He reached into the small safebox at his side, pulling out an old, leather bound journal.

"What is that, Mister Arc?" Oobleck asked with interest, Ozpin looking curious as well.

"This is the journal of Sophia Sand, a researcher and explorer who was given a grant by the King of Vale almost a decade before the Great War to investigate the Deathlands and find out why they're so dangerous." Jaune said to the suddenly salivating history teacher. "It details everything she saw before she was killed by the Grimm infesting her final resting place."

Oobleck reached out with a shaking hand. "May I?"

Jaune handed the journal over. "Of course, Professor. I made a promise to her that she'd be remembered."

"Doctor…" Oobleck said absently as he gingerly opened the book to the first page, studying it intensely.

"He wasn't lying about the giant centipede either, by the way." Coco said from where she'd been sitting nearby with her team, listening to everything while flipping through a fashion magazine. "It attacked Gernsback, and we would have lost the town if Jaune hadn't killed it " She tilted her shades down and stared hard at Nolan. "Single handedly, by the way..."

Nolan glanced from Jaune to Coco and back before swallowing and retreating into the crowd, his female teammate, May Zedong, silently berating him for being a dumbass.

"So, where did you find that journal and the rest of your spoils, Mister Arc?" Ozpin asked with interest, making Oobleck finally look up from the journal with an intense look on his face.

"You aren't going to believe me." Jaune warned.

Ozpin's lips quirked in a smile. "You'd be shocked at the things I'm willing to believe, Mister Arc."

"The river carried my unconscious body downstream and into a cave, where I wound up on the shore of it. When I explored it after I woke up, I found myself in an ancient underground city." Jaune said simply.

Everybody stared, stunned silent. "No, really, where?" Yang asked.

Jaune motioned to Oobleck. "It's detailed in Sophia's journal. She made sketches of everything she saw. It should be near the end."

The doctor quickly yet carefully searched the pages till he found one with a sketch of an underground city followed by her observations. He looked up at Ozpin. "He's telling the truth."

Everybody began whispering again while Ozpin stared hard at Jaune, suddenly much more focused. "What else did you find in this place, Mister Arc?"

Jaune began to describe the city, talking about the amazingly intact buildings, the many carvings, the temple, its armory (which made Ruby squeal) and the treasure room that had a lot more coins than the amount he grabbed (which made more than one person very interested).

"I was surprised that the temple was set up to worship a couple of faunus." He said at the end of his description. "I mean, that wasn't common back in the old days, was it?"

Ozpin didn't let on, but he felt like he couldn't breathe for a moment. Finally he managed draw some air. "No, not really. Why do you think they were worshipping faunus?"

Jaune became acutely aware of the way Blake and many other faunus students were watching him. "Well, there were statues of two on them on altars. One was a man made of gold with large antlers, the other was an obsidian man with rams' horns."

Ozpin brought his ever present coffee mug, taking a sip to wet his suddenly dry throat. "I see…"

"That's amazing!" Oobleck cried, pulling the coin Jaune had gifted him out of his pocket. "So this was the official coinage of an ancient city, lost to time, which may have actually had a legitimate case of faunus worship!" He suddenly zoomed in front of Jaune, leaning in and making the blonde lean back in surprise at the closeness. "Young man, I'm asking, no, I'm begging you, collaborate with me on a paper about your findings to submit to academia. This is incredibly exciting information, and it deserves to be shared!"

Jaune blinked multiple times. "Uh…" His eyes landed on Sophia's journal and he smiled. "Sure Doctor. As long as you give Sophia Sand credit on the research."

Oobleck's head bobbed up and down so violently it was in danger of being dislodged. "Of course, Mister Arc, of course! You'll most assuredly get extra credit for class, as well."

"That would be good." Jaune said with a rueful chuckle. "I missed a lot of class…"

"So what happened when you left the city, Jaune?" Pyrrha asked.

Jaune briefly hesitated before saying that he'd had to bypass a goliath to get out of the city, not wanting to explain his bow's special ability just yet, which mentioning the Orochi would do. Then he talked about the weeks after that as he made his way back out till he reached Gernsback as it was being attacked.

"The rest you know." He said as he finished off his soda.

"Wow…" Nora said with a big grin. "That's better than my stories."

"Mister Arc, I would appreciate it if you would consider giving a few lectures in my class about the Grimm you encountered and how you fought them." Professor Port said after a moment.

Jaune blinked. "Wait, what?"

Port laughed his usual laugh. "Don't be so surprised. You've seen Grimm that even I haven't. Not only is your knowledge on their weaknesses extremely valuable, enough so that I do believe I'll ask you to submit some papers on them to disseminate, but your experience in dealing with Grimm you had no information on could help the other students if they ever find themselves in a similar situation." Port smiled as he saw Jaune's continued indecisiveness. "I'll make it worth your time by giving you a guaranteed A+ for the year should your contributions in the class warrant it."

"Deal!" Jaune shouted, knowing better than to pass up a guaranteed A+.

"Excellent!" Port said jovially. "I'll adjust my lesson plans to accommodate you."

It was when they all saw Jaune yawn, eyelids drooping now that he'd had a good meal and the explanations were over that Ozpin intervened once again. "I think that's enough, everybody. Mister Arc deserves a nice hot shower and some rest in a real bed. If he feels up to answering any further questions he will do so later."

The crowd dispersed under Glynda's glare, a few of the students congratulating Jaune on making it back, Sun and Neptune chief among them. Then RWBY and JNPR led their friend back to the dorm, all of them feeling protective of him.

"Jaune?" Ruby asked when they reached the door to JNPR's room, prompting the tired blonde to turn to look at her. She then proceeded to give him another hug, holding him as tight as she could. "I'm glad you're back."

Jaune blinked before smiling, holding Ruby gently. "So am I, Rubes." He let her go and ruffled her hair. "I'll talk to you tomorrow, ok?" Once she nodded he smiled before heading into his room.

He looked around the room he'd shared with his team for so long and that he'd dreamt of getting back to. The way simply standing there made him feel was… indescribable. He looked at his side of the room, seeing that it lay untouched but clean, obviously having been taken care of for his return. It brought a warmth to his chest he'd missed.

"Go get a shower, Jaune." Ren said as he sat down on his bed with a small smile, Nora flopping onto her own with a big grin. "Then you can get some sleep. We'll talk more tomorrow."

"Yes." Pyrrha said, a large smile that seemed to be permanently stuck there on her face. "We have lots to talk about."

Moments later Jaune stood under the almost scaldingly hot spray of the shower, moaning in pleasure as the hot water soothed muscles that hadn't relaxed in months. The only thing that could have made things better was if it was a bath and not a shower.

After a longer than necessary time under the water and getting clean, Jaune glanced at himself in the mirror, taking in the scraggly beard he'd grown while away from any grooming supplies. Deciding that he was too tired to deal with it now, the blonde answered the siren song of his bed, leaving the fogged up bathroom to find his teammates happily discussing his return.

He looked at them all, taking them in once more as they did the same with him, his heart swelling with emotion, before he smiled and said "Goodnight guys" and flopped down onto his bed, already asleep by the time they'd responded.

Hello all.

I realize that not much happened in this chapter. It was more of a transition than anything else. We'll have more reactions from various people going forward. I was actually going to have a small part with Cinder's reaction at the end but decided to leave that for later with the rest of the reactions.

On another note, holy crap. Over a fifth of all the reviews for this story came after the last chapter. I'm guessing you all like it, huh?

Alright, I'll leave this here. I don't think there's anything else to say, and I'm falling asleep. Hope you all enjoyed, and don't forget about my Pat A Ron at dotcom /athanmortis.

Till next time.