Dark Rose
Chapter 15: Revelations
"Jett..." a gruff voice said, as he drifted in and out of conciousness. "Jett, c'mon. Wake up.." He lay still, quietly snoozing. "Jett-nevermind." He could hear a person get up from next to him and walk away from him. He heard the man talk with someone on the other side of the room, their mumbles unclear from where he was. Jett turned on his side, away from the voices, and fell back asleep.
"Jett..." a softer voice cooed from behind. The woman placed a soft hand on his shoulder, shaking it slightly. "Wake up, sleepy." He grimmaced, and curled up slightly. The hand suddenly tightened it's grip for a moment, before loosening up again. "Just wait until she gets back. Won't be long." the gruff voice explained. The woman let go of his shoulder, and Jett fell back into a deep sleep...
...
"Jett, wake up. They need to talk to us." a familiar voice stated. "Noooo...too comfy.." he mumbled. The girl sighed. She grabbed his shoulder and rolled him on his back. Her soft lips graced his in a soft embrace. Jett opened his eyes to see Ruby looking back at him. They parted, and she blushed. "You know, there are other ways to wake a person up, right?" Jett teased, sitting up. Ruby smirked. "Yeah, I know. But you wouldn't wake up the first time I tried." she said, poking him in the chest with her index finger. Ruby took a seat next to him on the cot he was sitting on.
Jett looked around. He and Ruby were sitting in a small log cabin out in the middle of the woods somewhere. The cabin around him was mdily furnished, as if it was only used every once in a while. A fire lay off to the right of him, stairs leading upstairs and the doorway to the kitchen off to the right. The front door opened and two people walked inside from the outside. The first person to come through the door was an attractive, mid-height, Asian woman who gave off a "don't mess with me attitude", and the fashion sense to match. The mystery woman wore a white, faux leather jacket with a black V-neck, and black skinny jeans. The light caught and reflected on something around her neck. Jett looked closer, and saw that the woman had an Ice Dust crystal fastened to a silver chain around her neck. At her waist, hung two, gleaming sliver rapiers, that glinted against the light coming from outside.
The...creature calling himself Jett's father walked in behind her. Suprisingly, he wasn't as large as he was before, and he could fit through the doorway. The man cast off his hood, and look at Jett with a tired expression, but he quickly gave a small smile when he looked at Jett. "I'm sorry we couldn't meet under better circumstances, Son." the man started. "First," Jett said, raising a finger in the air. "I need to know your name. I'm not just going to call you 'Dad'." The man unclasped his cloak, and hung it up on the wall behind him. "Jett." "Yes?" "That's the name." Jett gave the man a confused look. "No, that's my name." "And where do you think you got that name from? Me. I'm Jett Oswind, Junior." The man said with a grin. It slowly dawned on Jett what he meant. He shot up with realization. "Oh!" Jett exclaimed.
"Yes, while this is all facinating, can we please get on with it?" the woman said impatiently. Jett Sr. nodded, and turned back around to face Jett and Ruby. Jett noticed that his father looked different from the last time he saw him. Which, coincidentally, he was trying to kill him, too. The half of his face that wasn't changed wore a neutral expression. His skin was tan, and his grey eye sparkled in recognition. The man had his dark brown hair slicked back, and he wore a faded green flannel with yellow lines on it, instead of white. He wore brown fishing pants that held up with suspenders that looped around his shoulders. On his feet, he wore grungy-looking hiking boots that looked worn from the road. On the other half, that's where things get strange. The other half of his body was covered in moving darkness that constantly moved and shifted along the split between the halves of his body. Half of his face was covered in an alabaster white mask with glowing red markings on it. The eye peering out seemed to glow, as if made entirely of fire. His arm and body seemed less...big, as it was when the two of them fought. It seems like he can control the size of that half... Jett thought.
"Yes, well this here is Angel Bao. She's been helping me ever since...this happened to me." Jett Sr. explained, gesturing to the deformed half of his body. "How?" Ruby finally spoke up. Jett Sr. scratched the back of his head with his free hand. "Well, I really can't...you know.." "Too much information!" Jett exclaimed, cutting across his father. Jett Sr scowled. "Anyways," he said, turning back to the two of them. "I think it's about time to tell you the truth about what happened..."
"You see, I once was a Hunter. One of the best, actually. I was often contracted into taking down some of the biggest nastiest Grimm around." Jett Sr. explained. He gave a wink at his son. "Heard about you taking down the Beringel with your team, Jett. Matilda definitely has some of my blood in her." he chuckled. *Ahem* Angel cleared her throat, and gestured to continue the story. "Eh, sorry. I'll get back to it." "Well, with all this attention, I happened to be away from home pretty often." Jett Sr. cleared his throat, and drank some water from a glass next to him. "Me being away from home so often prompted Millie, your mother, to get...familiar with one of the other dock workers where we lived, if you catch my drift." Jett Sr. pointed at Jett Jr. "THAT man is your biological father. But he split when I *Ahem* found out." Angel laughed slightly. "That's one way to put it. They never found the rest of him, you know?" Jett's father scowled at the young Huntress.
"Anyways, I did the best I could to raise you up until you were 4." Jett Sr. continued. "Work dried up, and we were scraping the bottom of the barrel. That's when I met HER." Jett leaned in. "Who?" he asked. The man dropped his head, and uttered a single name: "Salem." Angel shivered at the mentioned of the name. "Nasty piece of work. But she had the ability to create Grimm, so we worked out a deal. She continued to create Grimm near the village so I can provide for the family, and I would work with her scientist, who went by the name: Dr. Watts, on his 'experiments'." "Wait, who is Salem? She sounds important. And a bit scary." Ruby asked. "Not getting into it now. But just know that she's an enemy of humanity, and I should have never dealt with her." Jett Sr. answered. "Back to the story. Doc Watts had an idea for an experiment involving copying the Aura and Semblance of three different people onto one person." Ruby gasped. "Is that even possible?" she asked incredulously. "If you listen, I could explain it to you, young lady." Ruby gave a sheepish grin, and dropped her head.
"Anyways, this was a revolutionary concept, seeing as it had never been done before. So, as is nature, we hid it. We set up the labrotory in a system of caves underneath the village." Jett Sr continued. "Also, I had a personal stake in it, too." he added. "How so?" Jett asked. "Well, when you were born, you had no discoverable or unlockable Aura in your body. No Aura, no Semblance. So I wanted to see you become stronger than me, which is why I volunteered to be one of the subjects for the experiments." "What!?" Jett exclaimed, jumping up from his cot. "Is that why we have the same Semblance?" Ruby reached up and grabbed Jett's hand, and squeezed softly. "Sit back down, Jett." she said calmingly. He nodded and took a seat again.
"It was me, and two other people as the test subjects. And, as you can imagine, were the direct beneficiary." Jett Sr. started again, taking a sip of his water. "It was horrible. We were subjected to...horrific experiments in order for Doc Watts to figure out a way to do what we signed up for." The man sighed, and continued on. "Well, he finally figure out a way to do the experiment without killing any of us, or you. The experiment commenced, and was a success. All the Auras and Semblances of everyone involved imprinted on you without a hitch." Jett leaned back, and stared at his hands.
"I find all of this hard to believe...Dad." Jett said quietly. "Well, one way to figure it out is to look at our Auras." "What?" Jett looked up, and saw Jett Sr. showing his Aura around him. It was light blue, with tinges of black in it. "Go ahead, use your time dialation. You'll see when you look at your Aura." Jett nodded, and focused, activating his Semblance. Time slowed down around him, and he opened his eyes and looked at his Aura. It was the same! Light blue with black streaks! Jett closed his eyes again, and turned his Semblance off. "You never wondered why you have three different Auric colours?" Jett Sr chuckled, looking pleased with himself. "I just thought that it was normal.." Ruby smiled slightly. "I could have told you that, dummy.." she teased.
"Can we please hurry this up? I'd like to get on with my day." Angel impatiently asked. "Yeah, yeah. Let me finish, woman.." Jett Sr scowled once again at the brash woman. His right half rippled in annoyance, and his eye grew brighter. "Well, it was during this time when we were guinnea pigs that I met with a Hunter named: Qrow Branwen." Ruby's eyes lit up, and Jett froze in place. "That's my uncle!" Ruby exclaimed, suddenly excited. "Heheh, yeah..." Jett Sr noticed his son's change in attitude, and apparently decided not to question it further. "Anyways, turns out that he was one of the Headmaster's informants. His views, and the information he gave me, changed my mind about the operation I was in. I just wanted to get you out of this mess, Jett. So, we devised a plan to do just that."
"Thing is, plans usually go wrong." Jett Sr stated, looking down. "The experiment progressed faster than Qrow could move to help us. As I said before, the experiment was a success. However, Watts wanted to take it a step further, and make you a mindless puppet." Ruby gasped, and grabbed Jett by his side, pulling him close. "No. Mine." she said curtly. Jett Sr cracked a smile. "Well, he obviously didn't get his wish. His smile turned back into a frown. "I...I was the reason why they didn't get enough time to do what they wanted on Jett." Jett Sr. confessed. "I quickly offered to take his place for another experiment. It made me into what I am. See, apparently, Salem can control Grimm. So, turning someone into a hybrid, you get the best of both worlds. The creativity of the human brain, and the ability to use Aura and Semblances, mixed with the ruthlessness and simple-minded nature of a Grimm."
"It was about this time when your mother, Millie, found out about what we were doing to you." Jett Sr continued on. "Well, Salem gave me a simple choice: Kill Millie, or her Grimm would murder both Millie and you." Jett's eyes opened wide. He felt Ruby squeeze him a bit harder. Jett looked down, and saw her looking at him. She didnt say a word, but he could tell that she understood his loss all too well. Jett looked back at his father, and gulped. "G-Go on." he stuttered. Jett really didn't want to know the rest of the story, but he needed to know the rest. "I...chose you." Jett Sr said, shakily. "You have to understand: I had no choice. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I am so sorry. I've lived with that regret ever since then." Jett shook his head. "Just keep going, please."
"Alright. After making...that descision, that's when things got hectic." Jett Sr kept going, nearing the end of his story. "Qrow had finally arrived, bringing the Headmaster, Ozpin, with him. Mayhem insued. Ozpin fought Salem in an epic battle, Qrow took on Watts and his created Grimm. Meanwhile, in the chaos, I grabbed you and took off." "What happened next?" Jett asked. "Well, two things. First, I needed to find my friend, Dante Everburn. He was a friend of mine that could burn memories away, essentially erasing the memories." Jett Sr. explained. "Second, I needed him to take you away from there. I couldn't risk Salem controlling me into attacking you." "Your friend didn't do a good enough job." Jett stated plainly. "What?" "So far, I've had two flashbacks. First one was in a book store when the smell of the books reminded me. The other time was after you attacked me, when I spoke to the Headmaster." Jett explained. "WHAT?" Jett Sr exclaimed, jumping up from his chair. "Tell me what you remember exactly!" he insisted.
"...So that's what I remember." Jett finished. "What were those numbers?" "It's the date and time of the experiment." Jett's father explained. "November 31st, 2022. 7:23PM." Jett looked confused. "Hmm..I thought it was the date and time that I performed my Mirror Blade for the first time." "Your what?" "The ability you saw me use on the man you called Tyrion?" Jett Sr nodded. "Ah, that." "Wait." Jett froze. "You're not still controlled, are you?" Ruby straightened up, realizing the same thing. The two separated and got up quickly, moving the cot in between the the two of them and Jett's father. Jett Sr let out a deep chuckle. "Yeah, no. Angel here is good for other things than fighting." She shrugged. "I studied a bit in neuroscience, so I came up with a neuro-signal blocker that I implanted in his brain to block Salem's mind control signal." she explained, bracing herself up with the wall.
Jett and Ruby untensed, looked at each other, then back to Jett Sr and Angel. "There's still one thing that I don't understand, though." "Oh?" Jett Sr asked, raising an eyebrow. "And what's that?" "Why did Matilda tell me the wrong version of the story?" "To put it simply, she didn't know the real version, because no one told her the right story on purpose." Angel pushed off the wall, and walked forward. "It's very hard to tell a four year old that her old man just murdered her mother because a psychopath gave him no choice." she explained.
Jett Sr stood up, and walked back over to the door, and opened it up, letting in the sunlight. "I think that's enough for one night." he grunted. "We'll still be looking into a way to get back at Salem. But, for now, you need to go back to Beacon and let your friends know that you're alright." "Yeah, good idea.." Jett muttered. He looked back at the cot, and grabbed his jacket off of it, pulling it on. "Actually, what time is it anyway?" Angel looked at her watch. "11:23am." Jett turned a shade of crimson. Shit. The rest of JEMM and RWBY will think that we were doing something all night...! Ruby must have had the same thought, because her face turned the same shade as Jett's. "We gotta go!" Jett shouted suddenly, and beelined for the door, Ruby on his heels. Jett Sr. held out his arm, and essentially clotheslined the young man, stopping him rather quick.
"Hey, what's the big idea?" Jett scowled, holding his throat. Jett Sr dropped his arm, and held out Ebony & Ivory out with his other hand. "Here. Almost forgot your weapons." "Heheh, thanks Pops." he said, gratefully taking his weapons. Jett changed them to gun mode, and put them in their hoslters. Jett walked out the door with Ruby. "Come back next week! We should have some results then!" Jett Sr exclaimed. He closed the door behind them. "Well, lets head back and face our teams.." Jett said begrugingly. Ruby reluctantly nodded. The two of the them turned and made their way back to the school in the distance.