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To Survive and Prosper

EPILOGUE

"So let me get this straight: You subdued an entire base of a terrorist cell, captured one of the kingdom's most wanted criminals, and prevented a breach that would have at least cost hundreds of thousands of damages—all because they were blocking your way to the exit?" The Great & Powerful Ozpin asked with his brow raised after I told him the whole thing. While he appears to believe it for the most part—he was having trouble being convinced that I was trying to escape to save my own skin. I thought that trying to stop the train was one way to do it, which it was, judging that I was able to make it back here.

"That pretty much sums all of that up," I answered.

It was seven hours after we arrived back in Vale. After going through the sewers, we left Torchwick to the nearest police patrol and have him taken to the precinct. We also informed them of the White Fang's presence on the subway to Mountain Glenn, and they better give me a bounty reward soon; capturing one of Vale's most wanted while clearing a terrorist base is no small feat. After all the bullshit I went through, I deserve a vacation that I can pay for with my own money.

We took a Bullhead back to Beacon; all exhausted and stinking from the dirt we got during the fight and after making a trip through the sewers that everyone was staying at least ten feet away from us. Doctor Oobleck patted all of our backs and then we went back to our dorms. Each of us took a quick shower before plopping ourselves to bed for a well-deserved sleep.

After waking up at the start of the afternoon, we were all told to be summoned to Ozpin's office with Doctor Oobleck. He commended us for our work after hearing Doctor Oobleck's remarks about our performance. He then lead my teammates out, leaving me alone so I could have another private chat with the Headmaster about my recent exploit.

"If that's ever truly the case, then it's certainly astonishing to see what you'd do just so you could make your leave," Ozpin stated. "So far, you are the only person I have known that truly earned the right to brag about preventing an outbreak and having a wanted criminal apprehended on their first mission as a freshman—yet, you chose not to. Choosing to instead refer to your success as a result of sheer luck."

That and mostly because my teammates were there. Honestly, I shouldn't be getting most of the credit here, most of what I did was pull a brake. Granted, we were racing against the clock and it took some blood and sweat while we were on Hell's Railroad with terrorists and psychopaths on board, but let's be honest, anyone could pull a brake. [1]

"Professor... Please be honest with me." I took a deep breath and began inquiring about the question that had been bugging me since I took the mission. "Did you manipulate the mission board so I could pick that one particular mission?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny the possibility, Mr. Arc," he remained firm and still.

I begged to differ, there was no smoke without fire and all of the smoke seemed to be coming from him. "Sounds like a 'yes' to me."

"And assuming that's even true, what would happen if I did not set the mission up for you? What would have happened if you did not intervene with the White Fang plot? Do you think that the situation would have ended well?" He asked as he calmly retorted.

"Maybe. Maybe not. I mean, there's always Team RWBY." I pointed out. "I mean, we're not the only option you have."

"A welcome alternative if you ask me. However, I would have been skeptical considering Team RWBY—while there is no denying that they are exceptionally skilled especially when they truly work together, they are currently too problematic to be trusted with something within this scale. Especially considering that one of them is a former member with a personal history with the organization and another is on probation," he responded. "I prefer for them to take time and overcome their own issues first."

"Is that why you picked me instead?" I narrowed my eyes slightly at him.

"You should look back and observe what you've managed to accomplish, Jaune. You just need to put some faith in yourself and you will understand," he said before he grabs to finish his mug. "Because regardless of what motivated you, a breach would have been a huge problem. It would hurt the kingdom economically with the potential damages, civilian casualties, and lawsuits while negatively impacting the upcoming festival as the kingdom's safety would be questioned."

That would have been a tragedy for sure, my problem was that he just had to make it my responsibility for whatever reason when I'm only a freshman who wanted a straightforward mission. "I guess you're right if you put it like that," I admitted. "But still, I did not appreciate going through all of that." He should have sent fully-trained Huntsmen instead, they would have done it smoother than we did. The only reason why that disaster was so successful was that my teammates were competent enough to carry me out of it alive.

"Then be glad it resulted in this instead of your funeral. Like I mentioned previously, I would never send you on tasks I know you cannot accomplish and you were able to handle this efficiently." Ozpin asserted.

"Whatever," I said, rolling my own eyes, having enough of his sugarcoating of the incident. "Just let me celebrate for not dying in the suicide mission you sent me."

"As you wish, then. Just remember what you managed to fulfill," he declared as he continued to stare at me stoically. "You now have my permission to leave. Thank you for your time, Mr. Arc."

"You're welcome, Ozpin, the Great & Powerful," I scoffed before turning away and leaving his office.

I took the elevator, descending back to the ground floor before exiting the Beacon Tower. I reunited with my team who was waiting for me in the courtyard. Team RWBY was also there with impressed looks on their faces. I guessed that they heard about everything we went through that morning.

"Oh look, he's finally here!" Ruby pointed at me and chirped. I noticed that she was wearing a backpack for some reason when her teammates didn't seem like they were carrying anything else, not even their weapons. So it was not like they were going on their mission yet.

"Here he is, our knight and shining armor who made all of this possible!" Nora cheerfully gestured to me as I approached them.

"Is it true? Did you really get what Torchwick was coming to him?" Yang excitedly asked.

I sighed internally, knowing that I had to put up with the humble hero act yet again. It has been barely a few days since I've barely escaped that bank robbery. "Yeah. Let's just say you won't be hearing anything from him in a long while." I said. And I hoped that I wouldn't have to confront the White Fang ever again, I had more than enough of those morons.

"Serves that jerk right," Ruby remarked.

"And did you really break his legs? I would do that myself but it's good to know that he'll be spending time in a wheelchair." Yang remarked. It seemed to me that there was no point in keeping secrets now that they know about that.

"Ya' darn right we did. Ain't that right, Fearless Leader?" Nora chirped.

"Yeah, you could say we did," I told them. That surprised them greatly, my rather indifferent tone didn't help. Ruby meanwhile widened her eyes, Blake took a nervous step back, and Weiss looked like she started to regret disrespecting me since the first day.

"Woah. Holy—" Yang recoiled in genuine shock, nervously glancing to her side while remaining impressed. "Remind me never to get on your bad side then."

"Sure, whatever. Does anyone else know about this?" I asked, hoping that they would say no but unfortunately…

"Uh, yeah. A word about it just spread recently." Ruby answered. I just stared at her with a straight face while shouting a million cries internally that would have been so powerfully loud that I could make both of the gods' divine ears bleed. This will guarantee that I would find myself in another scenario that would put me in harm's way. I don't know who started it, whether it was Doctor Oobleck, Ozpin, or someone from my team, I'm definitely going to have less sleep these days.

"Hey, Jaune. You guys were at Quadrant 5, right?" Blake suddenly asked.

"Yeah, why?" I replied with a curious brow.

"Have you, by any chance, encountered a bull faunus with a red sword among the White Fang?"

While what happened was a little blurry, I don't recall seeing anyone with a red sword of sorts that is not Pyrrha's weapon. It would have stuck out like a sore thumb if there was one. "No, I can't say I have."

"That figures," she said, slightly disappointed. "At least, Torchwick won't be causing trouble in a while. I doubt that this will be the end for the Fang's Valish cell though."

"Maybe not but this is a huge blow to them," I said to her. "Especially if you consider that this is what they've been trying to work on ever since they started robbing dust stores."

"What do they even seek to accomplish by causing a breach?" Blake muttered and asked rhetorically. "I know that the White Fang was a far cry from what they are, but I never thought they would stoop this low."

"We may never even know. All that matters is that we stopped them from harming innocents." Pyrrha said.

"It's for the best, Blake." Weiss put a hand on her shoulder before she hesitantly looked back at me. "Good work, Arc… that is all that I could say."

"Uhh, thanks," I replied, not knowing what to think of her rare compliments. It was then I was reminded of something. "Wait, I've been thinking. I realized that the mission we took doesn't actually have moderate Grimm activity, and you girls said that you've tried to take a Search & Destroy Mission but you couldn't because it wasn't available to students."

They all widened their eyes and glanced around in embarrassment before reluctantly admitting it. "Heh! Well, you got us," Ruby confessed. "We thought that we could use it to help Blake out to stop the White Fang but obviously we couldn't so we just went with the other mission because it's on the same quadrant, we just have to wait it out."

"Well, good thing we were there to stop them ourselves then," I remarked, upholding the illusion that what happened wasn't a result of a dumb accident that would have cost my life.

"Yeah, it's pretty convenient," Yang commented. "Looks like we don't have to go snooping around the place for the hideout then."

"I'll have to disagree. We would still have to check to see if there were any remaining White Fang posts there. There might be some info that they weren't able to dispose of last morning," Blake insisted. It appears she hasn't dropped her White Fang obsession yet but at least she'll be continuing her crusade against them through an actual mission, one of which doesn't involve me. I've been there and done that.

"Then it begs to ask, why were you able to get the mission when we couldn't? And why does it label itself only saying that the Grimm activity there was moderate?" Weiss inquired to us with clear bewilderment and suspicion.

"Gee, I have no idea," I said as I glared back at the top of the tower. One day, I'll get back on The Great & Powerful Ozpin. For now, I'll let him savor the success of another one of his schemes.

Before we could discuss this further, a creature jumped out of Ruby's backpack. It was a puppy—a corgi to be exact with black and white fur.

I sighed upon seeing a dog. I'd be happy to see one if it wasn't for my terrible history with them. I could still remember one biting me hard as a kid that I had to be sent to the hospital like it was yesterday.

"Zwei, I told you to stay in the bag!" Ruby told the dog. "You know we'll get in trouble if people here see you." Fortunately, the courtyard wasn't that populated. You'll get a few students passing through but that was it. It probably has something to do with most first-years being away for their mission. [2]

"This is your dog?" Pyrrha looked at the dog as it chased its tail and barked.

"Aww~ it's adorable!" Nora squealed as she leaned toward it.

"I thought Beacon doesn't allow pets. How did it get past security?" Ren inquired.

"Oh, Dad snuck him in via mail." [3] Yang answered. I can't imagine how dark that creature's journey was then. I remember Bleu telling me that Beacon has rather mediocre security, maybe that had something to do with it.

"Can't be worse than a cat," Ren remarked, making a certain faunus narrow her eyes at him, causing him to quickly apologize and rephrase his statement. "Sorry."

"Look, Zwei, these are our friends from Team JNPR," Ruby said as she turned it toward us. "There's Ren, Nora, Pyrrha, and their leader, Jaune!"

Zwei pants while it happily looks at my team until it turned toward me. I nervously took a step back as it stared at me for a couple of seconds. It then snarled and pounced toward my feet as it began to bite off my pants.0

"Zwei! Get off him!" Ruby rushes in as she pulled it away from my pants. "Bad dog! Say sorry to Jaune!"

Zwei whimpered at her before turning back to growl at me again.

"That's weird, I haven't seen Zwei act like that to anyone," Yang remarked, noticing how Zwei seemed to dislike me for whatever reason.

"I think that animals just don't like me," I responded. Seriously, just go ask Verte and she'll be recounting all of the times when her pets attacked me starting from the week when I was born.

"Why would they? You're such a nice guy," asked a puzzled Ruby.

It's maybe because they could sense me being a fraudulent bastard, I thought. "Beats me."

Nora's stomach growled. "Hey, guys, I'm hungry. Let's get to Vale and get ourselves something to eat."

"Sounds good. We could use it to celebrate our recent success," Pyrrha nodded.

"Let's come with you!" Ruby suggested as she puts Zwei back in her backpack. "We still haven't got our lunch. Oh! We should go for tacos, it's Taco Tuesday, after all," she then playfully poked her elbow at Weiss. "Guess who will be paying."

"Don't get too used to it," Weiss rolled her eyes.

"Tacos would be nice." I nodded in approval.

"Okay, tacos it is—!" Yang chirped before remembering something. "Aw crap, I almost forgot. I can't go with you guys, I'm still not allowed to go to the city for a few more weeks." She frowned.

As much as I was tempted to have her team ditch her and go to the taco place anyway, the thought of doing so didn't sit well for me. Everyone is praising me for the things that I apparently did while they are still being condemned for their mistakes when I have done worse myself. Even if I insist, I don't think her team would abandon her like that, and I'll just end up looking like a selfish jerk. "Well we can't just go out with your team without you, this is supposed to be a time for all of us. So how about we just eat in the cafeteria?"

"That's fine. Are there any tacos there?" Ruby gave a curious look.

"They have burritos, and I think that's good enough for me!" Nora smiled, of course, she would know these things.

"Well, the cafeteria it is then!" Ruby bubbled, raising one of her arms.

"I hope it's not gonna end in another food fight," Blake jested with a light smile followed by laughter from the group.

"You guys are really sticking around for me?" Yang looked at us in amazement. "Thanks, I appreciate it."

I smiled, knowing it made her day better. Sure she was being taught a lesson because of her devil-may-care attitude but at least she had friends that weren't going to leave her behind just so they could have a good time. "Alright, let's not dilly-dally around here any longer. My stomach is killing me," I said.

So we all went to Vale with Team Ruby, Weiss, and Blake. Yang was still not allowed within city grounds for a few weeks so she had to stay. It was one hell of a first mission we had and I was still recovering from that. The following missions should be less complicated, I figure this one was only wilder than it was due to unfortunate circumstances that I could have avoided. The good news is that I won't have to worry about Torchwick and his White Fang slaves for a while.

Unfortunately, I think I might have pissed off his employers. So unless I scared them off with how I handled Torchwick, I may have extended the list of people who want to kill me now. And since Ruby mentioned that people heard about what I did, then I might have also made my undeserved reputation even worse.

Way to go, Jaune.

[On that note, this extract from the Jaune Archive has finally come to its natural conclusion.]

=o=

1. While not exactly false, this is blatantly just another example of Jaune attempting to downplay his achievements to make himself look selfish and less heroic. Remember that his leadership is what led to making his victory possible as I doubt that other people would be even able to reach the brake, considering what he had to face.

2. Although they began the operation early, the White Fang intended to start the breach during that week, when most of the Huntsmen were away doing their missions.

3. Speaking of which, Ruby did consider mailing all of us to Mountain Glenn when we realized that its mission was not available to first-years. I personally am glad we didn't since we would have a lot of trouble breathing inside boxes. On the topic of Zwei getting past security, it's very likely that Taiyang was able to get him in because of his connections with the Beacon staff.

Editorial Note:

Before I close this volume, I will once again add an excerpt from a White Fang report, detailing the aftermath of their failed operation, to give you an impression of the impact Team JNPR left on the organization that day.

It should be noted that the author of the previous reports was killed in action during the train battle, it is unknown if his death was caused by Team JNPR or the Grimm. Whichever may be the case, this report was written by a White Fang member who remained in the Mountain Glenn outpost when the train departed and managed to avoid being arrested when it was raided by the military. The differences are quite an apparent judging how the writing is less eloquent (although less pretentious) than in the previous reports.

The White Fang Reports: Trouble at Mountain Glenn

Alright, where do I start?

Do you remember the operation that we've been working on for months ever since Adam made a deal with some mysterious people?

Well, to put it lightly, it all went to shit.

Sorry, if reading this sounded a little unprofessional to you, the guy who was supposed to write these things died that day. I'm in charge of these reports now and I'm not really much of a writer, so please bear with me for a moment; I'm still trying to get used to this.

Here is everything I could recall during that day.

The truth is that we actually had to take the train leave earlier than expected because The Valish Defanger came in and started fucking everything up so much that the train departed before we were done loading and unloading stuff. Hell, there were some bombs that we haven't been able to load inside it and that's not even mentioning that we were missing some of them because we didn't get enough money to reach our quota.

While we managed to blow up some holes in the tunnels for Grimm to enter, the train wasn't able to reach the barrier towards Vale. None of our members on board were able to come back from the tunnels alive—even Vandyke Fawkes was reportedly killed by the Grimm. But somehow the Defanger and his followers managed to make it out with Torchwick captured.

The Grimm later ended up infesting our underground base at Mountain Glenn, forcing us to move out. VDF and Atlesian forces soon arrived and started shooting and arresting every one of our comrades they saw. I was one of the few that managed to escape to the woods and reach one of our hidden outposts.

Soon after, we learned that Torchwick was taken by the Atlesians and was put on death row for his crimes. I know that none of us liked that asshole anyway but everything we worked up for was all for nothing. Why are we even working with these stupid humies anyway, and what was the point of it? This was their idea, and we lost half of the cell because of it.

Adam was so furious that we had to give him a new office. In spite of that, he told us to stay focused. Although this cell is now crippled, we still haven't lost everything yet. There is still hope and we could build our way back, he told us to think of all the oppressed faunus we are fighting for. He is someone all of us look up to. I believed in him and I only hope that he is right and that we will soon have our vengeance.

I guess this is the part where I write: The Revolution Will Not Be Humanized!

Update: We just found out that Torchwick's companion—The Neapolitan Butcher, or Neo, I think—has survived. I don't know how she was able to get out of the tunnels alive when none of our own was lucky, and she wouldn't tell us because she won't say a damn thing to begin with. But we do know that she'll continue to aid us in our mission and plans to break Torchwick out of prison somehow. If Adam could still trust this mute human, then maybe she could be beneficial to us.

And there's Volume 2. Stay tuned for the next story before we begin the last volume of this trilogy. Until then, take care and stay safe, especially in these complicated times.

I'll try to bring back the Beacon Mix playlist someday, but in the meantime, the original is still available. Just keep in mind that it's based on the old version and I still have to make some adjustments to it.