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To Survive and Prosper

CHAPTER 14

I couldn't sleep that night. Either because I was thinking too hard about the future, or because I was not comfortable sleeping somewhere in the ruins of a dilapidated civilization even if the place was wiped clean of any Grimm and one of my teammates was watching over us, or it was simply because of Nora's loud snoring.

Regardless, I decided to get up and check on Pyrrha and see how she is holding up. I thought that it could kill off the insomnia that was bothering me then.

I went to her post and saw that she was watching over the streets, holding Miló while it was in its rifle form. "You okay there, Pyrrha?" I carefully approached her.

"Oh, Jaune," she turned her head to me. She looked fine for someone who was assigned to look out for a fourth of the night. "I'm doing fine. What do you need?"

"I couldn't sleep. I thought you could use some company," I said.

"Fine by me," she nodded. I went next to her side and sat as she continued to guard our camp.

We both sat there, just watching the ruins for any potential Grimm that comes near. I did my best not to feel perturbed since it might attract Grimm into coming here, but thanks to Pyrrha being at my side, I was a little more at peace.

The sky was starless and cloudy but despite that, the ruins look slightly better at night. It's probably because the night sky offered a little more color than the dull, almost-gray color the sky in this place had during the day.

"Hey, Jaune. About last night..." She suddenly spoke.

"Heh. I was waiting for you to bring that up." I chuckled. I was so busy doing the mission for the entire day that I almost forgot to ask her about that. "That night won't be something that you're going to forget, will it?"

"I definitely won't. It was just as fun as the food fight we had last Monday. It was one of the only gatherings that I enjoyed so much that I didn't want it to end," she remarked, watching the stars with a beautiful smile on her face.

"It was a pleasure to make your night, and I intend to do it again if you don't mind," I said.

"I would love to have more nights like that." She happily said before turning back to watch the area. "This week is off to a good start, don't you think?"

"Yeah…" I muttered before being reminded about Doctor Oobleck's inquiry about our decision to become Huntsman. "So, Doctor Oobleck asked you about why you chose to become a Huntress, did he? What did you tell him?"

Pyrrha briefly frowned before answering. "Well. I told him that I chose to become one because I wanted to make good use of the training that I had since childhood rather than just use it to uphold my family's tradition of being a warrior." She then looked down and sighed as her tone became noticeably downtrodden. "But the truth is a lot more complicated than that. I wanted to see if becoming a Huntress would make me more than just a mere warrior, so I trained hard while doing my best to honor my family. As you know, I was so good at it that I won Mistral's Regional Tournaments four times in a row. But I never wanted to be this good, I just wanted to make my family proud. Now that my friends have abandoned me, I was afraid of disappointing my family that I could not afford to lose a single competition. I have become so fixated with winning that I almost forgot that I was finding why I chose this way of life."

She bobbed her head upwards and her face brightened as she turned back to me. "But thanks to you, Ren and Nora, I think I now have my answer."

I continued to gaze back at her silently and kept listening. "I have forgotten what it felt like to have friends until I became part of Team JNPR. As I follow you and do my part as a teammate, I have grown to care about my newfound friends. That is when I began to realize the meaning of why I became a Huntress. To fight, not just for honor and glory, but for those you care about."

She finally finished explaining her motivation and she suddenly felt something disturbing her. "Oh, Brothers above!" she blushed, putting a palm on her face out of embarrassment. "I'm sorry for making you hear me ramble again. I think I have gotten too ahead of myself."

"Don't be," I reassured her, chuckling. I appreciate her for opening up; I always wanted to learn more about her personally. "It's nice to learn what you are fighting for and know that there is more to you than just winning," I said. "We're not that much different when it comes to upholding my family's honor. I'm still doing my best to live up to my ancestor's legacy and all that."

"I don't think you need to worry about that. From what I've seen from you, I could say that they'll be proud of you." Pyrrha replied as she tried to comfort me back.

Sure, it does look that way but little did anyone know that I wasn't keen on becoming like them nor do I believe myself to be that much of a great hero, especially when my so-called 'heroic acts' were only done to keep my dignity intact and to keep me out of harm's way.

"I can't really say that for myself, but I appreciate it," I looked back at her. She took the time to open herself to me, so it was only fair that I do the same even if it's only to a small extent. "You know, you're not the only one who considers themselves to be lonely in this team. I just learned that Ren and Nora had no one but each other until they went to Beacon and as for me…"

I hesitated for a moment, but I still managed to get her to say it without exactly ringing out something that I have been dodging for all these years. "I didn't have a lot of friends outside of my sisters. Most people I called friends back at home felt more like acquaintances at best."

She then put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm glad we have each other then,"

I smiled at her, "You're right on that one."

We returned to gazing over the ruins, satisfied with being comforted by one another. There was no denying that Mountain Glenn was a desolate wasteland, but as long as we were together, there was nothing to be scared of.

"So, Jaune… Do you have anyone particularly special in your life?" she suddenly asked. That question caught me off-guard. I did my best to not look surprised when she suddenly asked me that.

"No, not yet," I answered, taking a deep breath. "I did date a lot of different girls before but I haven't got anywhere with them. Soon after, I just decided to stop dating for a bit since I decided that it wasn't worth it."

She looked at me with pity. "Oh. That must have been hard for you."

"Don't worry about that; it's in the past. Besides, I was better off not staying with some of them." I reassured her. "I may have stopped but I haven't given up yet."

"That's nice to hear," she said before taking a brief pause. "So… you don't mind if we spend more time together. Just the two of us? As partners?"

I took a few more seconds to ponder what she just asked. "I'll be glad to, Pyrrha." I smiled at her as she looked back with a satisfied look.

However, the peaceful atmosphere between us partners was short-lived when we started hearing footsteps around the area that I started to wince at the sudden sound.

"Did you hear that?" Pyrrha asked as she stood up tensely and gripped her weapon.

"Where's it coming from?" It couldn't have been Ren or Nor or even Doctor Oobleck because I assume all of them were asleep, and even if the latter was awake, it still couldn't have been because his footsteps sounded more distinct. These footsteps, on the other hand, sounded like they were coming from two people.

She looked around before spotting something, making her hunker down and dragging me down with her.

"What's going on?!" I almost shouted at her abrupt action.

"Shh," she hastily shushed before going to my ear to whisper. "You might want to see this."

She let go of me and I slowly went up to peek from our cover to see what she spotted. What I saw was a sight that almost startled me—two armed White Fang troopers on the road, and their familiar accents made that clear.

"Ye' hear somethin'?" one of them asked.

"I thought it was ye', must be a Beowolf then," replied the other.

The first member puffed. "Let's just get back to base, I don't like patrollin' this shite-pile one bit especially durin' the night."

"Ye' tell me."

Oh great, not those extremist assholes again, I thought. I was almost close to avoiding those terrorist pricks for a full week. I just had to wonder what the hell were they even doing at an awful place like Mountain Glenn.

I guessed that they might have managed to track me down in the mountain, or worse—have a base set up somewhere there, which was unfortunately the case as I would later discover.

"We should follow them." Pyrrha proposed, much to my shock.

"What?!" I shouted quietly, internally asking her why should I put myself in even more trouble with the White Fang.

"They may be up to something and we may never be able to stop if we wait," she explained. "We've defeated them before twice, we could surely do it again."

I wanted to tell her that we should leave them alone because they were unprovoked and they haven't spotted us yet but I didn't want to look like a coward in front of Pyrrha so I went with the insane notion of agreeing with her for the moment. "Alright. We'll have to follow them ourselves. Let's leave Ren and Nora for now, we can't be stealthy if all of us are trying to sneak."

"Good call." Pyrrha concurred before we left our safe haven and follow these two terrorists so that we may find their hideout.

I already have my weapons ready so we decided to quietly and inconspicuously trail the two members across the street. It wasn't easy because there weren't a lot of hiding spots aside from buildings, but we still managed to do so. Thanks to some miracle, our armors did not make any noise while we were sneaking behind them.

We came to a halt after we saw them enter an old sewer entrance, indicating that was where they were hiding. Since we now knew where they were coming from, there was no point in following them further.

"Alright, that must be the entrance to their hideout," I concluded before turning back to Pyrrha. "We must go back and tell the others so we could take care of this tomorrow or maybe even later." Or preferably never at all and that we should just let the authorities handle this. Getting into more trouble with the White Fang was one of the last things I needed.

Pyrrha was wise enough to nod in agreement, so we turned back and headed to where we camped. On our way back, I heard a cracking noise as I looked down and saw that there was a crack on the asphalt below me. Before I was able to throw myself out of there, the road collapsed open and I fell into its pit.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha cried out. I saw outlines around my armor before quickly disappearing within less than a second, indicating that she tried to pull me back out, but it was too late since I was out of her range.

I screamed for a few seconds before landing on my back. The fall slightly hurt my spine, but my aura thankfully prevented the impact from becoming too severe.

When I looked around, I immediately knew that I was somewhere underground, but strangely, this place also had the same desolate-looking buildings as the surface had. It looked like I ended up in some sort of abandoned underground city or something along those lines. [1]

I looked upward at the hole which was deep and dark enough that I couldn't see the surface. "Pyrrha!" I called out for her as loud as I could, hoping that she would at least hear my echo.

Shortly, I could hear echoes of her voice coming from up there. Before I was able to reply to it, two White Fang troopers suddenly barged in from a door and pointed their gun at me. "Freeze!"

Oh, fuck me with a stick, I said mentally.

I turned back at them, almost shrieking at the two goons barging in. But when they saw my face and realized who I was, they were immediately petrified.

"Wait a minute." One of them said before he dropped his jaw. "Oh fec—"

Without delay, I panickily pulled out my pistol and blasted both of their faces within a single second. After their bodies dropped to the ground, I panted heavily out of agitation that I was facing the White Fang yet again. Another squad of White Fang soldiers came from the door with their guns drawn. Since I had nowhere to go, I leaped from the cliff behind me before I was able to be hit by one of their gunshots.

An alarm began glaring as I hit the ground. I started running around the abandoned underground berg, going from cover to cover to avoid enemy gunfire while I desperately looked for an exit. I took out my scroll and tried to contact my teammates, but I wasn't able to due to the abysmal signal I was getting on that hellhole. So I was on my own until I somehow reunited with my team.

Sigh, I knew that this was a bad idea.

I kept running around while I covered myself with my shield as the White Fang tried to chase me down. I followed a trail of train tracks that led me into a tunnel. After going past the tunnel, I saw a few trains stationed on the rails. Little did I know, the tunnel led me to MORE White Fang members. Even worse, when I saw that they even had one of those fucking mechs that Team RWBY faced off last week, which dropped a container when it spotted me. The terrorists all turned toward me and began shooting. I raised my shield to deflect their gunfire before trying to run back, only to have the other White Fang members coming through there.

I went to the nearest cover and started blasting off the White Fang members trying to kill me as I try to figure out how I would be able to get out of this mess while I'm surrounded on both sides with one of them even having an Atlesian Paladin.

The gunfire stopped as someone began marching in. "Alright, who has been causing this ruckus?!"

I leaned out from my cover and saw that the voice belonged to Roman Torchwick, still puffing a cigar even at this moment. "You! You nosy little brat. You just couldn't leave us alone, could you?" he growled when he saw me and threw away his smoke. "At least, you don't have Red with you, that twerp was getting on my nerves."

I took this opportunity to look around to find something that I could use to my advantage. There, I saw a bomb in the open, with a few White Fang members around it. I took a deep breath as I changed the clip of my laser pistol.

"So they call you the 'Valish Defanger', huh? Fancy name but you're going to need more than that to scare me, kiddo." Torchwick snarled before turning back to his faunus goons. "What are you idiots waiting for? Kill him! You want him dead, right?"

The troopers pointed their guns at me again while that one Atlesian Paladin began marching forward. My eyes only focused on that one bomb, they made the mistake of placing there.

"No, I don't think so!" I aimed at the bomb and squeezed the trigger, firing a straight blast of laser fire toward it. The bomb instantly detonated, sending nearby White Fang members flying, if they didn't blow to smithereens.

Welp, it's time to become the White Fang's Angel of Death again. If there was something we both could agree on, it was that this wasn't a good thing.

Some of the remaining members became more furious while others started trembling before me. Regardless, I was determined to get out of this mess. So I holstered my pistol, transferred my shield to my left hand, and took out my sword.

I went out of cover, charging with my shield as they tried to shoot at me. I bashed at the first member before slicing the two other troopers he was with before taking him down as well with a vertical slash. I collapsed my shield and grabbed my gun again and began firing at hostiles at a distance while I clashed with nearby White Fang members. One such member tried charging me with an axe before I deflected it with my sword and fired his chest with my laser pistol then kicked him down to the ground.

After getting rid of most of the troopers in the area, left and right. Torchwick began firing missiles at me. I hastily dodged all of them until he started to command the Atlesian Paladin. "Get him!" he pointed at me.

The Paladin started arming its missiles and fired them at me as I quickly hunkered down and expanded my shield, managing to deflect the projectiles, but the impact of the explosion led me to fly away for a few feet before falling to the ground on my back. I faced the mech again and saw that it was readying its next weapon so I began rolling on the ground before standing back up. I knew that I had to run away because the way it was designed made little way for me to get rid of it without something to exploit.

"Enemies everywhere!" A White Fang member suddenly shouted. I looked at my back and saw terrorists begin running away as my teammates and Doctor Oobleck finally arrive when they mow down White Fang goons on their way toward me.

"The cavalry's here, Fearless Leader!" Nora shouted as she was rushing toward me in the distance.

"Oh, for crying out loud! More of you punk kids?!" Torchwick made an infuriated yell before turning back to the Paladin. "Get rid of these pests right now!"

I saw the Atlesian Paladin adjust and ready its missiles toward them. "Nora! Brr!" I bellowed, mimicking the sound of a bull. She fired her launcher at the Paladin, temporarily staggering it. She then blasted a grenade below her feet, making her fly toward the Paladin as she changed to her hammer and smashed it down as neat as you please. As the mech was lying on the ground, Nora repeatedly smashed through the mech's torso until the pilot was exposed and she violently threw him away.

"Oh, that's it!" Torchwick began to run toward the train. I tried to shoot him down, but I was only able to hit his hat and make it fly off its head. He was indeed irritated but didn't have time to retrieve it so he went straight toward the train. While I didn't know what was important about the train, my conscience intuitively told me that it has to be stopped at any cost or else my life isn't getting any easier. Sadly, this means I don't have time to loot again. I would have gone straight to the exit on this whole, but I figured that letting Torchwick go free won't exactly put me in a better position.

I can't believe I'm doing this, I thought.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha and the others finally got next to me. "Thank goodness you're alright. What's going on here?"

"I'll explain later, right now we need to stop that train!" I started leading them toward the train.

"What's on the train?" Ren asked candidly as he reloaded both of his machine pistols while following me.

"I don't know—all I know is it's nothing good!"

"Look!" Nora pointed to the open cargo on the other track, revealing items that they weren't able to load to the train on time. They consisted of a few weapon caches and some stolen Atlesian machines but most disturbing above all—a bomb.

"But these tunnels are sealed and the tracks lead to a dead end! If they're transporting bombs… then it must be…" Doctor Oobleck mused before getting to a seemingly terrifying conclusion. "Oh no…"

"Get to your places, we are leaving now!" Torchwick's voice announced via a speaker.

"Oh, dear mother of mercy…" Doctor Oobleck muttered before shouting suddenly. "Stop that train immediately!"

Without another word, we all dashed to the train at a much quicker pace as the train began to depart. Fortunately, we all managed to make it to the last car. Now, all we need to do is figure out how we would exactly prevent this train from reaching wherever it's heading.

=o=

1. Mountain Glenn once had a subway system where it would be able to safely transport citizens to the main kingdom. The underground project became so ambitious that it became its own district. When Grimm attacks increased, the civilians tried to use the lower city as an evacuation site. Unfortunately, the Grimm managed to breach the walls and the Kingdom had to desperately seal off the tunnels.