-(=RWBY=)-
Chapter 6
-(=RWBY=)-
The bullhead dropped him off some distance from the warehouse, so as to not risk the roar of the engines warning Torchwick and the White Fang of the impeding assault.
The moment Jaune hit the ground, he was off at a sprint. His feet pounded the road leading up to the factory, and were it not for his own aura infusing the ground and strengthening it, the asphalt-bound gravel would have long crumbled against the superhuman force Jaune's legs were exerting upon it.
Instead, with his mastery of aura showing its worth, the ground held, and allowed him to run as swift as the wind, and in no time at all he was at the door of the factory he was assaulting.
A boom signalled his plan being carried out, as the bullhead under his command began strafing the factory windows on the side opposite to the entrance.
A distraction, of course – one he took full advantage of, when he burst through the front doors.
Three White Fang fighters stood before him, distracted by the noise coming from the other side of the building – a lapse of attention quickly punished when he slashed through the first man's face, spun around to split the second one's head, and then stepped forward to carve open the third from left shoulder to right hip.
As he withdrew his blade from the body of his last victim, he was confronted with the next problem – another team of masked terrorists were located a fair distance away, at the centre of the factory. Each one of them was armed with an assault rifle, and upon seeing him cut down their fellows, all three began opening fire –
Jaune dodged to the side. He could have just deflected some of the rounds and tanked the rest even while rushing the shooters, but that would have been a waste of aura – especially considering the fight he was soon going to have against Torchwick and at least two other huntsman-level opponents.
So instead, he ducked behind the conveyor belt of an assembly line, before dashing forward even while keeping his head low. As he did so, he brushed his left hand on the metal plate that covered the underside of the conveyor belt machine.
The White Fang continued firing, perhaps betting that the underside of the machine was largely hollow and that its covering plates were too flimsy to offer much protection – and they would have been right, except that Jaune was running his aura through the metal plate on his side, and reinforcing it sufficiently that it resisted the dust-propelled aura-enhanced bullets much as a shield would have.
Eventually, he reached a large, squat machine that the conveyor belt fed into. Thick and solid, there would be enough layers of metal within it that it could resist the rifle bullets even without aura reinforcement.
Jaune estimated that the terrorists had, by this point, exhausted perhaps two-thirds of the ammunition cartridges in their rifles – a third in the initial burst of fire when Jaune was at the entrance, and another third as they saturated the conveyor belt.
Temporarily letting his sword go, Jaune tore off his suit jacket, followed by the dress shirt underneath; wrapping the former around the latter, he then let it rip – throwing the whole bundle out beyond the cover of the machine, and watching it get immediately cut to shreds by a concentrated eruption of gunfire –
– which also meant they were out of ammunition. Grabbing his sword and leaping up, Jaune vaulted over the machine and threw himself at the team of terrorists.
One man got his head cleaved open by a lunging slash, the other got his face bisected by a rising backhanded cut, and with a twist of his wrist Jaune beheaded the last.
With that task done, Jaune was off once more, sprinting for the back of the factory, where the remaining aura signatures were located.
As Jaune erupted into the open space at the rear of the factory, he saw who his final opponents were – Torchwick, Neo and the tattooed man with a chainsaw, all in varying degrees of shock and dismay.
"Arc!"
Weiss, still bound to a chair, evidenced utter relief at the sight of him. She seemed unharmed as yet – and that was how she was going to stay, once Jaune was done with these fools who thought they could torture his teammate and expect to get away.
"Sit tight, Weiss. This will be over in no time at all."
Simultaneous combat against three huntsmen was, of course, no easy task – but that was what his training and technique drills were for.
First, take out one of them with a surprise attack, so as to even the odds.
Jaune spat at the chainsaw-wielder, and the man flinched in disgust.
It was a fraction of a second during which he was distracted, unprepared, unready, but that was more than enough time for Jaune, who lunged forward.
The man's chainsaw came up – far too slowly – to defend against the attack, and Crocea Mors split his head open in a shower of blood and bone.
Spinning about, Jaune faced down a panicked Torchwick and a nervous Neo.
Second, intimidate one enemy into a defensive posture while you attack the other.
Stepping forward, Jaune made as if he was about to strike at Neo with all his speed and all his strength –
– and as expected, she flinched and used her considerable agility to dance away and put some distance between them –
– except she never was his target, and when he leapt it was Torchwick he attacked.
The criminal was caught off-guard, expecting as he did for Jaune to attack Neo, get overextended, and open himself to an attack to the back.
Instead, Crocea Mors came swinging down, and when Torchwick made a desperate block with his cane, that only allowed Jaune to use his superior strength to push right through, and separate Torchwick's head into two.
To the side, Neo gave a wordless scream, and with rage and despair on her face she lunged at him.
Third, best the last enemy in single combat, using your greater mastery of the expected timing of attacks.
Neo's anger blinded her, and in her headlong rush to avenge her comrade she left herself open, thus allowing Jaune to make an almost contemptuously easy downward cut to –
Neo shattered into a thousand pieces of glass, leaving no trace of her behind, and Jaune could only think –
An illusion semblance!
A quick glance around confirmed that the girl had disappeared – and since she was highly unlikely to have just upped and left, she was clearly still around, albeit invisible to the eye.
And since he could hear no noise from her – the sound of her footsteps, for example – nor could he pinpoint her exact location through her aura – even if he could still sense her general presence – Jaune could not help but conclude that Neo's semblance masked sound and scrambled aura detection too, and was far more than just a visual trick.
He was, for all intents and purposes, fighting an opponent he could not sense. The only time he could strike at her was in the moment after she attempted an attack of her own – an act which, by necessity, gave away her position.
Which meant –
The tip of a blade slammed into his back, nearly depleting all of his remaining aura and making a web of excruciating pain light up his body –
– but Jaune was prepared, and had braced himself, so the pain did nothing to slow him down as he spun around, and sliced at the air where Neo's body would have been.
The air fractured into countless glass shards, revealing Neo as was throwing herself backwards and bleeding slightly from a shallow cut on her chest.
Almost.
Her face twisted by both pain and grief, she disappeared again as her semblance activated once more.
That was a near miss, but valuable knowledge had been gained, for Jaune now knew a crucial fact about her semblance.
Her illusions breaks upon physical contact.
The problem now, however, was Neo knew that he was ready for her – ready, to retaliate instantaneously whenever she struck at him.
Movement in the corner of his eye made Jaune move, and he gave a short back-step, to avoid a vicious stab, even as he brought his sword arcing down on the girl who had leapt at him with no thought of defence.
The air fragmented into innumerable splinters of glass, and then Neo was stumbling back, her torso gorged open and a torrent of blood pouring forth.
She fell to the ground, and a pool of blood began spreading out from her body.
It was altogether too easy, and indeed –
My blade met no physical resistance when I made that supposedly fatal slash.
Quickness of thought and bodily instinct combined, pushing him to twist and dodge to the side, so that the stab aimed at his heart turned into a near miss, even as Jaune swung his sword around in a vicious backhand cut.
The shattering of air into glass occurred once more, and the real Neo skipped back a couple of steps with a second, deeper cut now gracing her chest. Across her face, fury warred with increasing doubt, even as she faded back into the safety of invisibility.
Jaune was right – the initial assault had been but a trick, meant to make what came next seem realistic; and the corpse was a lie, meant to lull him into dropping his guard, after which he could be stabbed through the heart.
It was an illusion within a illusion – a nested trick, and a very clever attempt at deceit.
Something moved at the edge of his vision, and from the opposite side to her last attack, Neo materialized and rushed at him.
The same trick?
Unable to risk this being a double-bluff – where it was the real Neo attacking even while he overconfidently believed it to be an illusion – Jaune was forced to take appropriate countermeasures.
A twist let him evade her lunging stab, even as he brought his blade down in a sweeping cut that bisected Neo – who promptly broke into a myriad of glass slivers that rained down upon both him and the ground. In the midst of that crystalline shower, another Neo appeared, this one with her face hacked in two.
Jaune stepped forward, and stamped down hard on the corpse, which – as expected – reduced to fragments of glass that soon faded away into nothingness.
Even as Jaune circled around, warily, on edge for the next attack, said attack never came; and indeed, his heightened senses told him that Neo's aura signature was receding – though still there, it was fading, almost like she was retreating.
Jaune wasn't sure what to believe – on the one hand, it was clear, from the doubt he previously saw, that she disliked her chances against him; on the other hand, the rage she displayed did not seem like it would permit her to retreat while Torchwick's murderer still lived.
The moment Torchwick died, and Neo attacked in anguished rage, Jaune was certain that only one of them would walk away alive from that fight; apparently, that was not to be.
Jaune turned to Weiss – and to his horror, found his teammate unconscious, with her stomach slit. Blood poured out, streaming down across her diamond-flecked dress, red on white, like a crimson tide blotting out the stars once bright.
"Weiss!"
Jaune found himself screaming her name even as he reached his hand out, helplessly, towards her. Stumbling forward, Jaune thought of nothing but what he could do – futilely, the traitorously rational part of his mind whispered – to save her. Stemming the bleeding with his bare heads; cutting off part of her dress to make a bandage; pushing his aura into her, even, on the off-chance he had a healing semblance – whatever it took, he would do.
Except –
Her scar is over her right eye.
Jaune moved without further thought, and –
A soft gasp escaped the girl's mouth.
– ran her through with his sword.
A manifold web of cracks lit up the very air, and the world around them shattered into a thousand pieces of glass.
Neo sat slumped upon the chair, Crocea Mors buried in her stomach up to its hilt.
The real Weiss, still bound at the hands and ankles, was lying on the floor a few meters away, and struggling to get up.
"Jaune! Thank the gods you realized – she was about to stab you, from within the illusion. How did you know that it was her, and not me?"
Jaune acknowledged Weiss with a glance, and said, softly,
"You have a scar over your left eye; in Neo's illusion, the scar was over the right. I suppose that's what happens, when you don't have much time to make a detailed illusion, and instead just reflect what you see – like a mirror, am I right?"
With that last word, he twisted Crocea Mors, earning a gasp of agony from Neo, before pulling out the sword, which dripped blood from point to hilt.
Neo raised her head to look at him. And even while she clutched at the wound on her stomach, it was neither anguish nor terror at impeding death that was written across her face.
No – it was hatred, pure and perfect and true; hatred for the man who had taken away everything from her.
Jaune looked down at her, and found he had neither sympathy nor mercy to offer. Grimly, he told her,
"If you didn't want to end up skewered by a sword, with all your colleagues slaughtered, perhaps don't blow up a room full of children, and then livestream to the world, a sick attempt at torture-murder. But since you didn't have the basic moral decency to avoid even that, you can do this instead – improve the world, by being dead."
"Jaune!"
Ignoring Weiss's warning cry, Jaune hefted his sword, and chopped Neo's head off.
Weiss seemed stunned into silence for a moment, before flatly saying,
"That was a mistake."
Jaune headed over to free Weiss, and even as he worked at the cable ties binding her, he said,
"I don't see why. Neo needed to die, Weiss – she was dangerous, even half-dead. Remember that her aura's not broken, since I merely bypassed it using Anra steel. Had she activated her semblance, she could have fooled us into thinking she was already dead, before using the last of her strength to slit your throat and stab me in the head."
Weiss climbed to her feet, all the while rubbing at her chaffed wrists.
And instead of speaking, she walked over to the table set-up a few meters away from the chair she had been previously bound. There, she picked up the scroll held upright by a scroll stand, before fiddling with it.
That was...
... the scroll which had been recording the attempted livestream. It had been running throughout, and would have captured everything happening in the area around the chair – including his killing Neo at the end – but not the broader fight and how much of a threat Neo had been.
To the world, it would have looked like Jaune was executing a defenceless little girl – and he could understand Weiss was worried.
"I've terminated the video recording. We can speak freely now."
Weiss put the scroll back down on the table, and turned to him, frowning, before saying,
"You were justified in killing her, and there is no one on Remnant more supportive of executing White Fang scum than me – but the world will not see it that way. There'll be legal repercussions for this – you'll be the subject of an investigation, possibly an indictment, if the Valean Council capitulates to the pressure from the faunus and the bleeding-heart liberals."
The tone Weiss took made clear just what she thought of said faunus and their liberal human allies.
And as for the substance of her concern –
Confidently, Jaune said,
"The risk Neo posed, plus the circumstances – the Sky Garden bombing, and then the sick stuff they wanted to do to you – will make any politically-motivated prosecution much harder to do. And besides, I'll have powerful allies, won't I? The headmaster, who always protects his students; the traditionalists in the legislature, who love my family name and history but hate the faunus deeply; and the Schnee Dust Company too, will be on my side, I presume."
That last bit was meant as a statement, but ended up coming across more as a question – a question which Weiss eventually answered, after appearing uncertain about whether a reply was needed.
"Oh. Of course. My family will be more than happy to provide any and all support –politically, socially, financially – if you face legal trouble."
Jaune nodded.
"Thanks, that would be great."
The two of them lapsed into a somewhat uncomfortable silence after that. Their hate-filled relationship, starting from the very first day they met, couldn't just morph into a beautiful friendship overnight – though the successful defeat of Torchwick did seem to mend things somewhat, and offer the chance for a new start.
We're on speaking terms now, at least.
Jaune eventually broke the silence, when he remembered –
"Oh yes, and another thing. Not that I thought of this in the heat of battle, but there was always the chance Neo was going to survive the initial abdominal stab. It's not likely, but people do sometimes survive such serious wounds, albeit with serious organ damage and massive scarring."
Weiss frowned, and seemed to move – unconsciously – to rub at her own scar; as she did so, she considered his words, before saying –
"They do, if their aura is intact, and being focused upon healing – as Neo would have been attempting."
"Right! And having survived, then what? Didn't Torchwick previously escape –"
"– as he was being transported to prison? Regrettably, yes."
Weiss grimaced while making that interjection, her words completing his train of thought. Her eyes narrowed with distaste, causing her scar to crinkle up as well, even while she continued by saying –
"And there I was, at the start of term, so gratified that he had been captured by Professor Goodwitch – and that the dust robberies would finally come to an end."
At that point, Jaune was starting to become aware that Weiss was acting somewhat strange. It was unlike her to be so chatty to him, or to volunteer such random information about herself. Chalking it up to her being understandably tense and restive after the kidnapping – and also to him being regrettably unfamiliar with what a non-hostile conversation with her was like – Jaune simply stood there and listened to Weiss, as she continued speaking.
"It was quite the nasty surprise to find out later that Torchwick had been freed when his prisoner convoy was attacked en route to the Tower of Tranquillity."
Despite all that had happened, and despite the seriousness of the conversation they were having, Jaune could not help but spare an ironic smile, when Weiss mentioned the official name of Vale's most infamous prison, located in the mountains on the eastern border of the city.
Tranquillity, indeed – that was one euphemism for the state of mind prisoners were put into, by the controlled number of Apathy held there for the express purpose of keeping the criminals quiescent.
"But yes, Jaune, I do see where you are going with this. Torchwick's criminal associates, especially with the White Fang's help –"
"– could similarly liberate Neo."
Jaune finished that sentence for Weiss, even while nodding at her to acknowledge the point.
Continuing, he said,
"Exactly. And alive and free, is there anyone – Raven Branwen excepted – potentially more dangerous to the Kingdoms than Neo? Can you imagine her illusions giving cover to the White Fang as they assassinate Glynda Goodwitch or any of our other Champions, right as they're in the midst of fending off a titan-class Grimm assault?"
Weiss's frown deepened at his words, and she said,
"I can imagine that. Nothing is unthinkable for these monsters. And if that were to come to pass... it would be cataclysmic – the city would fall, and millions of lives would be lost with it. The mere thought of this happening... is sobering."
Jaune nodded in agreement.
"It's terrifying."
And it was on that cheery note that Jaune finally said –
"But anyway – shall we get going?"
His words broke Weiss out of her deep, solemn musing, and she looked up surprised.
"Oh. Yes, of course. But perhaps –"
She gave an awkward cough.
"– you could put a shirt on first? Is that any way to be dressed in front of a lady?"
Jaune looked down, and only then remembered that he had used both his suit jacket and shirt as bait for gunfire earlier.
Weiss being a stickler for propriety was almost endearing at this point; and as the perfect retaliatory quip came to mind, and he could not resist saying it –
"A lady? Is there one around?"
Weiss's mouth twitched, in an almost-smile.
"Touche, Arc. Now get dressed, so we can exit this hellhole."
"Your wish is my command, princess."
A cheeky smile ghosting at his lips, Jaune retraced his steps back to the assembly line. His heart felt light – lighter than it had been in a long, long time. The fact that he could joke with Weiss, and even almost make her smile – that was a great relief, after a month and a half of relentless animosity.
At the area in front of the assembly line, Jaune picked up his bullet-shredded, hole-ridden shirt and threw it on, along with his similarly tattered suit jacket. Then, he grabbed an oily cloth that someone had conveniently left hanging from a nearby pipe, and used it to wipe the blood off his sword.
Sheathing his blade, he turned back to Weiss, who was waiting for him a polite distance away.
With constant glances about the empty factory, and with Neo's parasol-blade gripped tightly in hand as a temporary weapon, she appeared on edge, and ill at ease.
It was concerning enough that Jaune was moved to ask –
"Weiss, are you alright?"
His teammate glanced sharply his way, and for a moment she looked ready to snap at him; but then, she reined in her instinctive anger, and instead sighed, and said,
"I'm fine as I can be. I've just been kidnapped and almost tortured, Jaune. It takes time to get over such things."
Ah.
Jaune felt an ass for even asking, but then Weiss offered him a weary if genuine smile.
"But thanks for asking after me. I appreciate it."
Jaune smiled weakly in return.
Then, after some hesitation, he decided to bring up the Goliath in the room. If they were to make this friendship work, he and Weiss needed to talk about the reason for their initial, bitter enmity – and for that, there no time like the present.
"Weiss."
The seriousness in his voice caught her attention, and made her stop just as she seemed ready to lead the way out of the factory.
And before his nerve could fail him, Jaune made himself say –
"That night, atop Beacon Tower, I said some terrible things to you – things that were hateful, and cruel, but above all untrue – and in saying them, I hurt you. For that, I'm sorry. No matter how poor I am at showing it, I care about you, because you're my teammate – and my friend – and I swear I'll never hurt you this way ever again."
His words – acknowledgement and apology and promise all bound together as one – came tumbling out.
Weiss was expressionless, for a moment, before a strange mix of determination and uncertainty bloomed upon her face. Looking him in the eye, she said,
"I forgive you, Jaune. And thank you, for apologizing. I know sorry can be the hardest word to say, and I..."
She seemed to struggle for words, before finally saying –
"– I've said my fair share of cruel things as well, but even so you risked your life to save me from a fate worse than death. So please let me apologize too. I know I can have a temper sometimes – but I promise I won't ever lash out at you like that again."
Jaune dipped his head, gratefully. Being forgiven, and indeed, being given an apology in turn – it was a feeling beyond relief. Indeed, it felt like liberation, like release. And as a gift, it was a precious one that he would always cherish.
His emotions seeping into his voice, Jaune replied,
"I forgive you too, Weiss, though really there's nothing to forgive. Regardless, it's all water under the bridge. Let's make a new start. Friends?"
Weiss looked momentarily taken aback, but then the shadow of a smirk graced her lips.
"Friends? Why not? For the gallant act of saving her, the princess is pleased to grant the knight her favour."
Jaune laughed.
Looking up, through the factory windows, he could see the moon looming large in the sky. With its broken face hidden on the far side, tonight it was a perfect sphere, full and flawless and glowing silver.
And Jaune could not help but think, in appreciative wonder –
To make friends of foes, and to create love from hate – is there a greater miracle a human can make?
-(=RWBY=)-