She had spent the night before at The Drunken Rabit, speaking with the villagers about how life was for them. Once they had learned that she was the daughter of their Chieftain, they had been more than happy to brag about how well their village was doing thanks to a nearby Dust mine they had discovered. Some asked if her father would pay them a visit anytime soon, and Blake was relieved to see that people outside Kuo Kuana still had respect for him. It also explained why Fennec and Corsec had been meeting with the Governor; with Atlas declaring an embargo on Dust, supplies were dwindling rapidly as the Schnee Dust Company was unable to do any sort of importing or exporting. That meant the White Fang was probably running low, especially after the huge amounts they used during the Mountain Glenn incident and the attack on Beacon.
Meanwhile, Jaune had simply elected to camp outside of the village, joining her in the morning with his hood up outside the inn. Together, they had gone to the town hall accompanied once more by the strange and suspicious looks of the villagers they passed, reigniting some of Blake's anger despite it clearly not affecting Jaune.
"If you don't calm down, you're just going to bring the Grimm here that much faster," Jaune said, once more surveying his surroundings rather than the people occupying them.
"They, of all people, should know how it feels to be treated differently because of species," Blake hissed.
"So, maybe they feel I deserve it," Jaune reasoned. "Either way, their opinions of me aren't my concern. Their lives are."
Blake huffed and kept her eyes forward as she followed him up the steps to the town hall, where a quick mention of her name earned them an immediate meeting with Governor Oryx, who turned out to be a rather short, wiry man, barely reaching her forehead if she counted his long horns, her chest if she didn't. He had thinning grey hair and a bushy goatee that concealed his mouth as he glared at Jaune through squinted eyes.
"And how can you be so sure my village is in danger?" He asked skeptically.
"Because I've been working for Ghira for the past month, hunting down and killing any Grimm that get too close to settlements," Jaune replied. "I've been tracking this one almost since I got here and it's headed in this direction."
"If it's a threat, then I'm sure Miss Belladonna here can handle it," Oryx countered. "I don't want help from your kind, boy."
Blake opened her mouth to offer a scathing retort of her own at this stubborn little man who would treat her friend so poorly when Jaune stepped in front of her, cutting her off as he lifted his chin up and glared down at the governor with a look that was eerily familiar to what Blake had seen Weiss give others when they annoyed her.
"Blake isn't an active combatant," he sneered, pulling out a piece of plastic from his pocket and tossing it to Oryx. "She's only able to help with the express permission of a licensed Huntsman, otherwise any and all damages will be handled by you as opposed to a Huntsman Insurance Agency. And trust me, this Grimm is a big one." Oryx's face got increasingly red as Jaune spoke before the younger man seemingly dropped his arrogant facade and shrugged nonchalantly. "But, if you won't accept my help, then I'll just have to tell Ghira to go ahead with his negotiations with those two White Fang members."
"You'll do no such thing, boy!" Oryx shouted. "Those hooded sons of bitches think they can just go over my head to bleed our Dust mine dry? I won't have it!"
"So you'll accept my offer, then?" Jaune asked.
Oryx froze mid-tirade and glared menacingly up at Jaune, who stood there unfazed. "Don't look so smug, you jackass. I may not care for the Fang's ruining people's livelihoods, but that doesn't mean I won't be hoping those Grimm don't gut you before you're done with them. At least then Miss Belladonna here won't have to deal with your insuferable attitude."
Jaune grinned and plucked the card up off Oryx's desk as he turned in place and sauntered out of the town hall, Blake following quickly on his heels.
"What was that?" She demanded.
"I take it you're talking about me channeling my inner-Weiss and actively coming across as an arrogant jerk?" Jaune replied, catching her off guard.
"Y-yeah," she stuttered as they made their way through the town square before recomposing herself. "Did you have to antagonize him like that?"
"Probably not," Jaune conceded. "But this was the quickest way to get him to agree to letting me help, and, more importantly, spread word to others about why they shouldn't accept the Fang's."
"By reinforcing their ideas that all humans are cruel, arrogant, jackasses?"
Jaune shrugged, his expression hardening momentarily. "Most people are pretty crappy, regardless of race. They can go on hating me for the rest of their lives, so long as I can make sure they keep on living."
"And when their collective hatred just winds up bringing more Grimm to their doorstep?" Blake asked.
"Did anything like that happen while you were in the White Fang?" Jaune countered.
Blake paused as she realised what he was implying. For a group as full of hatred and bitterness as the White Fang, they never had to deal with Creatures of Grimm at a rate higher than any other group of wandering people. This only led to more questions, however, as she remembered reading about the many camps of bandits roaming the continent of Anima. Shouldn't large congregations of criminals, with hearts filled with greed and malice, be an impossibility outside of the kingdoms, where they weren't protected against the avatars of destruction that were supposedly attracted to those kind of negative emotions?
"It's big," Jaune said, breaking her from her thoughts as they made their way out of the village. His head was tilted back and he was staring off into the distance, speaking more to himself than anything. "Prints show it has four legs, feline-like paws according to shape; that means stealth and retractable claws."
"What are you doing?" Blake asked, stifling a chuckle when Jaune snapped back to reality before looking away, a hint of red dusting his cheeks.
"S-sorry," he muttered. "I'm normally on my own during contracts, it helps me get my thoughts in order to say them out loud."
"By all means, don't stop on my account," Blake replied, smiling and placing an encouraging hand on his arm, realizing belatedly just how much higher his shoulder was than hers. "Witnessing your thought process is pretty interesting."
Jaune grinned as they entered the jungle once more. "It's big enough to need room to maneuver, but not smart enough to understand its disadvantage just yet."
"How can you tell?" Blake asked as they approached the smoldering remains of Jaune's little camp.
"Grimm hunt people," Jaune explained. "They're drawn to our negativity. When they attack a village or town, everyone's first instinct is to run. Get as far away as possible. A wooden door isn't going to stop a Beowolf, and nothing a place outside the kingdoms is going to have the resources to build will stop anything bigger. The older a Grimm gets, the smarter it becomes. They know that the majority of their prey aren't going to take cover inside a building, and won't waste the energy getting to those who do. Younger Grimm, though, are all instinct and hatred, they easily fall into a frenzy and start destroying anything and everything around them. Based on the destruction this one has left behind it at Gerard's farm and around here, it's safe to say that it still feels those frenzies."
To say she was impressed would be an understatement. She had seen evidence before of Jaune's potential as a tactician, and it seemed that he had only improved in that regard over the past year. "And I'm guessing the age of the Grimm has bearing on how you plan to take it down?" Blake asked.
Jaune nodded. "An older Grimm would avoid me in favour of the easier prey. A younger one will be attracted to the challenge. On top of that, Grimm develop more and more bone plates as they age. Considering all the evidence points to a single Grimm, it's one that I've never seen before, which means I need every advantage I can get."
"We need every advantage," Blake corrected. "I'm fighting with you."
Jaune looked like he wanted to protest, but eventually chose not to, clenching his jaw and nodding as he grabbed his things. "Keep to the trees," he said. "Use your gun while I keep it distracted. When you find an opening, hit it hard and hit it fast, then get away as fast as you can."
Blake nodded and settled into the familiar role of keeping an eye on their surroundings while Jaune tracked the Grimm they were hunting.
"Random question," he said after nearly an hour of silence. "Are there many aircrafts on Menagerie?"
"Not that I'm aware of," Blake replied. "Why do you ask?"
"Saw one fly overhead not too far from the village last night." He didn't look away from where he was crouched on the ground, running his hand through the damp, spongy earth. "Wanted to know what to make of it."
"Knowing my luck and your apparent mastery of deductive reasoning, I'm sure you'll find a scrap of cloth and crumbs in the dirt that both somehow point to the White Fang air-dropping dogs in here just to make my life even more miserable," Blake snarked, her annoyance at yet more questions making themselves known leaking through.
"Nah," Jaune replied standing and stretching his back as he turned to her. The hoodie her mom had provided him from the market in town after seeing how torn up his was, rode up and Blake caught a slip of the tan skin underneath, displaying surprisingly defined musculature that made her face heat up the more she looked. "If they wanted to make you miserable, they would just go after the tons of fish you and your parents go through every day."
Blake gasped in mock horror. "No! Not even the White Fang is that cruel!"
Jaune grinned, one side of his mouth rising higher than the other, giving him a distinctly lopsided expression that Blake couldn't help smiling at as well. "That or they're gathering and burning every copy of Ninjas of Love they can find."
"How do you know about that?" Blake demanded, her face reddening.
"About the series in general, or the fact that you and your dad read them religiously?" Jaune asked, his grin widening as Blake's eyes widened upon hearing about her father's taste in literature.
"Dad reads them?" She asked, unable to supress her laughter at the image of her father hiding a copy of the books in his desk to read in secret.
"Your mom is chocked full of embarassing moments about both you and your dad," Jaune replied. "A lesser man would be inclined to consider the possibility of blackmail after hearing about how you used to run around buck naked whenever your parents had a visitor."
Blake's face reddened and her ears drooped to her skull as she groaned. "No. Don't tell me she..."
"Busted out the photo album?" Jaune finished for her. Blake whipped out Gambol Shroud and swung it threateningly towards his neck, taking satisfaction in the way his eyes widened. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were embarrassed," he said, smiling as the tension bled from his posture.
Blake's eyes narrowed as Jaune raised a gloved hand to gently push her blade away from his neck with a sheepish laugh. "You're surprisingly calm considering I was inches from cutting your head off," she noted.
Jaune smiled and waved off her concern. "You wouldn't have done that," he replied, not a trace of doubt in his tone.
"So long as you never bring up any stories my mother told you, you're right."
"Not even the one about you collecting a bouquet of exclusively poisonous plants and handing them out to everyone you would see?"
Blake smiled, her chest feeling much lighter as they continued to walk through the jungle. The two of them walked together for most of the day, sometimes talking lightly about everything that wasn't related to Grimm, or the White Fang, or Beacon, or anything like that. Sometimes, they just carried on in a silence that Blake was coming to appreciate more and more. It reminded her of the nights in her dorm back at Beacon when Ruby, Weiss, and Yang were asleep while she sat up reading. There were no expectations for her to say anything or act in any way, she could just sit quietly and be herself, comfortable in the knowledge that she wasn't alone.
"So..." Jaune trailed of thinking. They were playing a game of questions to pass the time as he tracked the Grimm they were hunting. "What's your opinion on milk?"
Blake raised an eyebrow, chuckling. "Milk?"
Jaune laughed sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck. "I know about your addiction to all things aquatic, I was wondering if you had any other..."
"Catlike tendencies?" Blake finished. Normally she would be offended, but there was an innocence in the way Jaune was asking that prevented her from feeling the usual indignation.
"Well, my sisters both have bird traits, and they love fish and hunting with our dad. They've also got fantastic eyesight. Velvet had a secret addiction to carrots. You can't really blame a guy for noticing the connection."
"I guess not," Blake replied, shrugging. "Personally, I'm not a huge fan of milk, but my mom loves the stuff. It's not really something most faunus will talk about since it just gives bigots more ammunition, but most of us share some sort of behavioural tendencies with our animal side. How much or how little changes from person to person, though."
"Explains why you hated Ruby and Yang's dog," Jaune muttered under his breath only for Blake to flush, her ears pressing flat to her head as she glared at him.
"That little... monster chewed up three of my books!" She hissed. "Three!"
Jaune laughed, holding his hands up once more. "Fair enough."
"Anyway," she said, recomposing herself. "It's my -"
Her mouth closed with a click as she was interrupted when Jaune raised his clenched fist. "We're close."
Crouching down once more, Jaune picked up a large, obsidian feather and scowled. Even Blake knew what that meant: the thing they were tracking could fly. His sheath moved along its rails, reconnecting with the extra armor covering the left side of his neck, chest, and back before gliding to its place on his forearm. Rather than expanding into the massive tower shield she had seen before, however, Jauned pushed a button on it, detaching the blade and additional armor with a soft click while the original sheathe expanded into a kite shield more reminiscent of what he used to wield. In his other hand, the blade and additional plates of metal seemed to expand on their own into a wide, triangular blade while a long, nearly five-foot shaft extended from the bottom. Twirling the newly formed spear, Jaune turned to her, expression stoney, and pointed to the thick foliage overhead, indicating where he wanted her. Drawing Gambol Shroud and folding it into its pistol-form, Blake nodded seriously and easily clambered up the thick branches to perch over him only to frown as he planted his spear in the ground and lowered himself to his knees, his eyes closed.
She watched him curiously, resisting the urge to call out as he seemed to concentrating deeply before she realised how quiet their surroundings had become. The slight breeze had died down, and no matter how hard she strained her ears, Blake couldn't detect the sounds of birds or any other sign of life anywhere near them. The lively, open atmosphere they had been enjoying became oppressive, the comfortable shade of the trees becoming homes for all sorts of imagined terrors culminating in the sound of massive wings flapping before a dark form dropped between the trees behind Jaune and began quietly stalking towards him.
*(OoO)*
Jaune opened his eyes and took a deep, calming breath as he heard the low, rumbling growl of whatever Grimm they had been hunting from behind him. Steeling his nerves as he felt the familiar sensation of fear that electrified his senses everytime he faced off against the monsters, he watched the ground in front of him as the shadow of whatever it was got closer and closer, his muscles tensing as blocked out the heat of the midday sun on the back of his neck. He continued waiting, ignoring the part of him that was screaming to run and reprimanding the idiocy of this plan, until he felt the hot, damp breeze of its breath on his neck.
Sending a silent thought of gratitude to Lavender and her amazing engineering skills, Jaune sprung to his feet and grabbed his sword-spear, channeling his aura through it and memories of Nora, Ruby, and Pyrrha through his muscles as he twirled to the side and brought the blade down as hard as he could into the beast's side, feeling the aura-enhanced blade hack through the tough feathers into the muscles and tendons of the thing's wing before jumping back.
Its ability to fly away hindered, Jaune took a moment to examine the Grimm before him, analyzing his opponent. The Grimm looked like a massive lion with the typical bone-like spines lining its back and protecting its joints. Its claws were the length of his head and he mentally reminded himself that he did not want to be anywhere near them unless he had to. Its tail was like a scorpion's, ending in a deadly stinger, while row after row of spikes lined the rest of the appendage. Worst of all was the Grimm's head. Crowned by a protective mane of bone, the Grimm's face was distinctly humanoid, with a square jaw and pointed nose. It looked like someone who had never seen a person before had tried to carve one from marble, its baleful red eyes making him tighten his grip on his weapons. The humanoid facsimile lasted only a moment when the creature reared back in pain, opening its mouth with a sickening crack that extended far past where the jaw should have ended, hinging wide like a snake to reveal multiple row of razor-sharp teeth as it let loose a roar that shook the ground beneath his feet only to be interrupted by gunfire from above courtesy of Blake.
The Grimm snarled in her direction, whipping its long tail through the air, surprising Jaune as the spines that covered it detached and were sent flying in Blake's direction. Blake's eyes widened and she quickly managed to dodge with use of her semblance. Focusing himself, Jaune twirled his spear and ran towards the Grimm swinging his blade at its leg and earning a pained shriek from the monster before being lifted off his feet and sent flying himself thanks to a swipe from its other paw. Shaking his head to clear the remaining diziness, Jaune watched Blake jump from tree to tree as she took pot shots at the creature.
The two of them tried to play off each other, forcing the Grimm to constantly switch its attention from one to the other, but the monster was extremely adept at covering its blind spots, as its stinger handled anything its claws and teeth couldn't reach, and the projectile spikes it launched covered any targets out of range, and its agility, even with an injured paw, was incredible as well. Jaune had just redirected a stab to avoid being turned into a chew toy and nicking the atrociously humanoid face when Blake dove at the creature's exposed back, both her blades poised to bite deep into its flesh only for them to barely cut through its tough hide before the Grimm stretched its tail out and bucked its legs, knocking her into the air before being swatted into Jaune and sending them both barreling towards a nearby tree.
Jaune groaned as he felt the impact of Blake against his chest and his back against the thick trunk of the tree.
"It's tougher than it looks," Blake wheezed, struggling to her feet.
"It looks pretty tough," Jaune replied, watching the Grimm rise as well, its injured front leg having been unable to support its weight when it threw Blake off its back. He frowned, as he quickly replayed what had just happened in his head. Blake's weapons didn't have the weight, strength, or leverage he did, so she wasn't able to cut through the Grimm's tough hide as easily, but that didn't mean there wasn't something that could. Before he could share his plan with her however, the creature released another ear-splitting roar and he watched wide-eyed as its mouth unhinged wider than before, an orange glow rising from withing the abyss of its throat.
Grabbing Blake by the back of her neck, he tossed her behind him and pressed a button on his spear, shrinking and reattaching it to his shield in time for it to expand into its massive great shield form which he used to cover them both as the Grimm unleashed a massive deluge of fire that scorched the air and ignited the surrounding trees. Anticipating an attack while they were distracted, Jaune switched his shield to his right hand and used it to block the incoming claws while tossing Blake underneath it.
"Slow it down!" He shouted. "Use the spikes!"
Blake frowned but nodded as she suddenly understood what he was trying to convey, and returned her katana to its pistol form as she ran between the Grimm's legs and shot at it from the back. The Grimm tried to turn to face her, but was cut off when Jaune drew his sword and plunged it into its other paw, pinning it to the ground long enough for the Grimm to resort to hurling spikes at her when its stinger couldn't reach. Making use of her semblance, Blake easily avoided the projectiles and plucked them out of the air as she sprinted back towards Jaune, sliding along the ground and stabbing them into the monster's inner thighs. Jaune grabbed her wrist and hauled to her feet as the Grimm screeched in pain and tried to fly away, only to crash twenty feet from them.
"What now?" She asked as they faced the monster that was hissing in their direction, its tail whipping angrily through the air. They couldn't get close to it without risking being skewered or cooked alive, and Blake's bullets were little more than an annoyance to it.
Rather than answer, Jaune switched his sword and shield back to their original hands and collapsed his shield, returning it to his back as a sheath before closing his eyes and gripping his blade with both hands. It didn't take long to find the sea of energy within himself, and Jaune took a moment to bask in its warmth as he concentrated on redirecting its flow outside of his body to surround his blade with an ephemeral silver light that curled and dance like wisps of smoke before strengthening still to a enshroud his weapon in a shimmering white blaze.
You have a greater reserve of aura than anyone I've ever taught, a voice said in his memories. While this means you will always have a harder time controlling it than most, the sheer amount of it will allow you to do things others have never even dreamed of.
Opening his eyes, Jaune glared at his target and brought his sword in a massive vertical slash just as the Grimm was releasing another plume of flames. A wave of silver light blasted forth from his blade and tore a deep trench in the ground as it raced towards the Grimm, growing all the while and smothering the fire it was about to release. It swept through the monster destroying flesh and bone alike and stopped once it reached the other side, leaving two singed halves of the beast to fall to the ground before disintegrating.
Sighing with relief, Jaune shrunk and sheathed his sword before turning to Blake with a sheepish grin as he examined their burnt surroundings. "So, it could breathe fire."
"Apparently," Blake replied.
"Can't say I saw that coming."
A/N: Hopefully this offers some insight into how both Blake and Jaune view the injustices of the world after Beacon as well as what was hopefully a more interesting fight scene. Not much to say concerning this one, but hopefully you all liked it and continue to read and review. Have a nice week!