A/N: Hello again, got another idea to continue the storyline of Shattered Worlds. This isn't quite a sequel, it will be shorter than Shattered Worlds(Theoretically) and is meant to bridge the gap to the sequel when I get around to it. I will do my best to do weekly updates, but between work and other projects I might not meet that goal, will try my best though!
Would like to thank everyone who has favorited, followed and reviewed this. Also thanks to herald of the scourge for reviewing chapter 17. It's a bit belated, apologies for that.
PLEASE NOTE: This is an AU. It's a scenario that plays out in my head if you ask the question: "What if Cinder and her group didn't sabotage the Vytal Festival Tournament?" in Volume 3. This is an idea in my head on how it would branch out. Hope you enjoy it.
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3 years before the 80th Vytal Festival
"Dad, why won't you teach me how to be a huntsman?" Jaune Arc asked his father, James. The elder Arc, with a shock of blonde hair the same color of his son's, but with a neatly trimmed beard and mustache, didn't even turn around to face his son. Instead continuing to stand in front of a bookshelf and read the tome in his hands.
"You don't know what you're asking." James Arc told his son.
"Of course I do!" Jaune protested, "I want to be a hero just like you!"
This time, James Arc did turn his head, glaring at his son with such intensity that Jaune took a step backwards. "It would destroy you." The elder Arc stated, closing the tome in his hands and making his way out of the Arc Family Archives.
Jaune watched him go with a forlorn look. That hadn't gone the way he expected. He thought if he pressed his father he would give in, like he saw his sisters do a few times before, growing up. However, his insistence obviously hadn't had the same outcome. The young Arc sighed, what did he do wrong?
"Chin up Jaune." A familiar voice, the voice of his second oldest sister, Jasmine, spoke from his left. He hadn't even seen her walk up to him. "Dad's been stressed lately, maybe try to talk to him tomorrow." She offered.
Of all his sisters, Jasmine had helped him out the most. Though all her sisters treated him with varying degrees of care and respect, Jasmine seemed to really go out of her way for him. She had the family hair color and eyes, her long hair which normally went to the base of her spine, was pulled up to her shoulders with a bun located at the back of her head. Like her brother, she wore plate body armor, but unlike him, she wore a blue long-sleeved tunic underneath the armor, blue pants that were slightly puffy and knee-length leather boots covered her legs and feet. On Jasmine's back rested her weapon, a greatsword.
"I don't get it Jasmine, why is he so unwilling to teach me?" Jaune asked his older sister. "Killing grimm doesn't seem so hard."
She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Jaune, being a hero is more than just killing grimm."
Jaune grinned, "Yeah!" He agreed, "It's about looking cool while killing grimm!" he finished with a fist pump.
Jasmine shook her head, though a smile played on her lips. "Not quite. Being a hero is about being selfless, about overcoming odds even when you have doubts of your own strength. It's not an easy path to take."
"I don't care." Jaune replied. "I want to be one, whatever it takes."
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Present day.
The bullhead streaked across the morning sky. The sun was out in full force as it shined its warm rays down upon the snow-covered pine trees below. As beautiful of a sight it was, it also made for uncomfortably cold temperatures and the occupants of the bullhead were counting their blessings they had heat in the ship.
One of the occupants was standing near the bay doors, his left hand gripping a handhold above his head tightly. He was a seventeen year old boy with medium-length blonde hair and blue eyes. He was garbed in what most would say casual wear. A black hoodie, jeans and sneakers. However, there was plate armor over the hoodie and he was armed with a sword with a sheathe that doubled as a shield. His name was Jaune Arc and he was currently lost in his own thoughts.
Several months had passed since the Vytal Festival Tournament. It had been an exciting time for Jaune and his team, especially since Pyrrha ended up winning the whole thing. Defeating Yang in the finals to claim the title of champion. Jaune smiled at the memory of their celebration afterwards, Ren made Nora turn at least fifty shades of green from a nutritious concoction he had made. Yang somehow got the socially awkward Ruby to sing karaoke, and last but not least, Blake and Weiss had an epic showdown in the remnant card game that went down to a nailbiting finish. Then there was Pyrrha, he could still taste her lips on his if he concentrated hard enough.
Unfortunately, that happy little time came to an end. Shortly after the tournament, Pyrrha Nikos vanished. Every day Jaune and his team searched endlessly for her, but their search had been fruitless. Jaune suspected that maybe Cinder Fall and her crew might have something to do with it. They did get busted as terrorists. The strategist in Jaune told him they were planning to sabotage the Vytal Festival Tournament in some way, but thanks to some information leaked by a friend of Ruby's, they were stopped. Jaune suspected they might have something to do with Pyrrha's disappearance, but that was just a gut feeling.
"Thanks for letting me come along Jaune." A voice said to Jaune's left.
Jaune turned in that direction to see Ruby Rose, his petite silver-eyed friend garbed in red and black. She was also gripping a handhold above her with her left hand. Her lips were curled upward slightly in a smile, but Jaune could tell there was a lingering sadness underneath it. Like Jaune, she had also lost someone important to her, a boy named Richter Bremen. Apparently he had been friends with her since they were kids and had been brutally tortured and experimented on by Cinder Fall. The experiments had turned him into some sort of grimm-hybrid thing according to Ruby. Although her team suspected he was dead, Ruby had not given up hope. So if she was still going to search for her friend after half a year, then he wasn't going to give up on Pyrrha either.
Jaune smiled back, "We needed a fourth member for this mission anyway and you get along well with Ren and Nora. It was a no-brainer really."
Ruby nodded her thanks and Jaune shifted his thoughts. Even before the Vytal Festival Tournament, attacks by grimm had been becoming more frequent and dangerous. To make things worse, those weird grimm-hybrids that Ruby described as "Altered." Began appearing. According to her, they seemed to have similarities to her missing friend. They were freakishly strong and most of the time these altered would go berserk, if left unchecked, their rampages could level outlying villages easily. It was getting to a point where the frequent missions were interrupting their lessons at Beacon and Jaune briefly wondered how far behind he was on homework. He cringed at the thought.
"Got any leads on your friend?" Jaune asked, making conversation.
Ruby shrugged her tiny shoulders. "Just a hunch. Richter has always been cautious. With the increasing number of altered, I'm guessing he would try to occupy the more remote areas like this one."
Jaune nodded, "Makes sense." His team's current mission was to safeguard a remote communications tower being built a long ways southwest of Vale. The tower was being built to open up communications for a village named Turthus, located at the base of a dormant volcano. It was the first move of Vale to begin aggressively expanding the web of the CCTS. Besides Turthus, there was no civilization around for hundreds of kilometers. If Ruby's friend liked remote places, Turthus sure fit the bill.
"What about you?" Ruby asked him.
Jaune looked at her blankly, he had been lost in thought. "Huh?"
"Any leads on Pyrrha?"
His smile vanished, "No." He answered, "It's like she disappeared off the face of Remnant." He must have had a real melancholic look on his face, because Ruby frowned in concern at him.
"I'm sorry." She told him.
"Not your fault, let's just….focus on the mission okay?" Jaune requested.
Ruby nodded, "Right."
Turthus came into sight and the bay doors of the bullhead whirred open, exposing Jaune to the cool winter air. He took a glance behind him to see Ren poking Nora awake, who suddenly snapped to attention and muttered something about pancakes. Ren then gave him a nod, indicating that he was ready. Jaune nodded back and returned his attention to the small village below. It looked more like a collection of cabins then an actual village, some of the people looked up as they flew by, a few of the children even waved. He saw Ruby wave back to them out of the corner of his eye.
The bullhead flew further south, where the communications tower was halfway built. While the bottom was mostly finished, the top part was nothing, but a skeleton of metal beams. Various piles of building materials were scattered all around the tower. Jaune braced himself, it was show time.
"We're here!" He shouted to his team, "Be ready to jump in thirty seconds!"
Eventually the bullhead slowed to a crawl directly above the communication tower and Jaune's team made their exit. The ship couldn't come down for a landing as the area was still considered hostile and losing even one bullhead at this point would be a problem for Vale, most of them were being overworked as it was.
Now in freefall, Jaune remembered the last time he was in a situation like this, when he was doing his trial in the Emerald Forest to determine teams. Back then he had Pyrrha to save him, but this time she wouldn't be here to insure he had a safe landing, he had to rely on himself.
The young Arc watched as his teammates used their natural talents and weapons to land smoothly and stylishly onto the ground. While he had improved greatly thanks to his training, he was still a ways off. Instead he went for more practical means. Pulling a small metal ring on the left shoulder strap of his backpack, a small white parachute deployed, slowing his descent. Jaune smiled in triumph, he might not get points for style, but there was nothing wrong with being slow and steady.
And then the parachute got caught on one of the metal beams at the top of the communications tower.
The groan Jaune emitted from his lips was probably loud enough to be heard in the entire forest. Couldn't one thing go smoothly in his plans?
"Uh guys? A little help here?" Jaune called out, his feet dangling uselessly in the air. A moment later, Ren leapt up and sliced the cords of the parachute. The young Arc fell into the arms of Nora, who had an amused look on her face. "Thank you." He muttered, deflated as she set him on his feet.
Jaune's embarrassing entrance was soon forgotten as he looked around the communications tower site. The place had been attacked a few times before by grimm. Vale had sent groups of military forces to help clear them out, but they were unable to. So now the hunters were being sent in, even if they were still in training. The kingdom must be really shorthanded for them to do this, but Jaune's team was exceptional, they could handle this.
"Set up a perimeter." Jaune ordered. "Ren take the north, I'll take the south. Nora, you're east, that leaves the west for you Ruby."
Everyone nodded in acknowledgement, even Ruby. Being the leader of her own team, Jaune was worried she might try to step on his toes, but before they stepped onto the bullhead to begin the mission she told him she wouldn't interfere with his leadership. It was reassuring to know.
The team split up to head to their assigned directions. Jaune sprinted to the south, his sword and shield in hand. Mentally, he went through the lessons Pyrrha had taught him, it never hurt to rehearse.
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Nora Valkyrie raised her hammer above her head before bringing it down on top of a beowulf alpha's head. Using a recoil shot, she backflipped away before the other beowulves could hit her from behind. She landed, then charged into the group of grimm, with each swing she sent one of them flying until they were distant dots in the horizon.
The team hadn't been the same since Pyrrha's disappearance. Ren, who was already a hard worker, was working overtime to try and attempt to fill the hole their red-haired teammate had left behind. Jaune's determination to find her again was bordering on obsession. As for herself, Nora missed the pillar of support Pyrrha used to be for their team. If one of them faltered, Pyrrha was always there to hold them steady and she had turned Jaune from someone who couldn't beat up a common mugger to a surprisingly capable hunter. Her absence was sorely noticeable and Nora only hoped they wouldn't spiral downwards. Otherwise they would have to be called team JNR as in junior.
As in team loser….
Banishing the negative thoughts from her mind, Nora delivered a homerun swing to the left hip of a beowulf that was charging her, sending it into another group of its brethren and knocking them over like bowling pins. Nora grinned wickedly at the remaining beowulves, leaping into the air and raising her hammer over her head for another groundshattering strike. The lust for battle was taking over and she embraced it.
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Lie Ren shredded through half a dozen creeps thanks to his weapons, StormFlower, dual automatic pistols with collapsible blades at the end. They might not be the most powerful weapons, but he wouldn't trade them for anything, what they lacked in power they made up for in speed.
In order to try and honor Pyrrha in her absence, Ren had doubled down on his training. He hoped to do what Pyrrha had previously done and fill in the gaps for the team. Although he had made some improvements, he still had a ways to go, but the young huntsman was resolved to see his goal through.
An ursa began barreling down towards him, StormFlower's gunfire unable to slow its charge. Ren ducked under the swing the ursa threw at him with its left forepaw and anchored the blade of his left pistol into the grimm's left hip. The young huntsman used that to swing around to the ursa's back, firing his spare pistol point-blank into the back of the ursa's head. It toppled forward, onto its belly and didn't rise again.
Ren was leaping away from the dead ursa when instincts warned him something was coming up fast from his rear. Without looking, the young huntsman swung his left pistol backwards in an overhead swing, feeling it dig into something fleshy. He heard the death yelp of a beowulf as a result of his attack. Tightening his grip on his left pistol, Ren springboarded from the now-dead grimm, positioning himself upside-down in mid-air above the rest of the beowulf pack. The young huntsman then spun like a top, unloading StormFlower onto the grimm below him. The hail of bullets shredded through the beowulves like they were paper. Some tried to run, but didn't get very far before they were littered with bullet holes.
Ren righted himself in the air and landed easily in a crouching position, surveying the aftermath of his attack with a slight frown. His timing was off by a second and a half, he needed to do better.
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A red blur streaked through a group of half a dozen ursai, the glint of metal could be seen as several slashes struck out, originating from the blur. The slashes knocked the grimm into the air and the blur coalesced into Ruby Rose's petite form. She stayed in her crouched position for almost a full second before using her semblance once again, blurring back the way she had come. This time the slashes from Crescent Rose chopped the ursai up into confetti and the pieces dropped down in her wake, dissolving quickly in the snow.
Ruby rested her scythe on her shoulders as the pieces of grimm continued to fall, staring up into the sky. A lot had changed in half a year. The 80th Vytal Festival Tournament had been a blast and although her sister had lost in the finals, she couldn't be too upset. After all, Pyrrha Nikos was a crazy good huntress. However after that, things started to get a bit more….hectic. Grimm activity spiked and even people that had been altered had shown up, looking a lot like Richter when she had last seen him, except they seemed more savage and feral.
Richter.
He had saved her life again, she acknowledged that, but the second time was different than the first time at that decrepit old mansion in Patch. This time Richter had told her that he loved her, shortly before the escape pod that carried her and her team was jettisoned away. It was already bad enough that he had willingly put himself in grave danger again, it was another to confess something like that. It made the ache she felt in her chest at his absence even more painful.
She had tried to track him down, both before and after the Vytal Festival Tournament, but the only thing she had to go on these past few months were witnesses that spotted a demon in a tattered grey cloak. The sources however, were less than reputable, and more than once she caught the stench of alcohol on their breath as she asked them for more information. Still the sightings had happened enough for her to believe that it wasn't a coincidence. Richter had to be alive, but the last time he cheated death, he had come back a changed man. How much of a change would he have gone through this time? Would he even recognize her?
Ruby collapsed Crescent Rose back into its carrying form, placing it in the holder at her lower back. Turthus had been the most recent sighting of the "Grey Cloak Demon." It was one of the reasons she had asked Jaune to accompany him on this mission, the other being they were friends and his team needed an extra member to properly ensure the communication tower's protection. She only hoped she could find Richter before he did something drastic. If she could just convince him to return to Vale, then that would be the first step towards things returning to normal and Ruby could really use some normalcy right about now.
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Jaune hacked the head off of another creep as he continued to edge his way into a group of grimm. The young Arc kept his shield in front of him, blocking the stray attacks the grimm would send his way. Recalling the training he had been put through these past few months.
While Pyrrha had taught him well, when she disappeared he had lost his unofficial fighting tutor. Ren and Nora both offered to help, but their styles were too different from his own. It all seemed like a lost cause until the most unlikely of candidates stepped up to offer assistance in his training.
Professor Ozpin.
Beacon's Headmaster had offered to take Jaune up as an apprentice. He was thoroughly confused at the offer, surely Ruby or Pyrrha would have been better candidates and he told Ozpin this. However, the professor was adamant that he wanted to train the young Arc. The only reason he gave was that it was a "Favor." For someone.
And so, shortly after the Vytal Festival Tournament, Professor Ozpin began training Jaune. At first, the young Arc was worried, Ozpin carried no noticeable weapon, even Glynda Goodwitch could be seen using her wand to fix things when the students got too excessive in their horseplay. The only thing the headmaster ever carried was his coffee mug and his cane. Then again, Doctor Oobleck had a thermos that transformed into a weapon, maybe Professor Ozpin's weapon was a coffee mug? It was crazy enough to be true.
Regardless, his doubts were soon put to rest. The headmaster at Beacon showed Jaune why he led a school for training the elite in grimm slayers. Jaune felt his skills steadily improve under Ozpin's tutelage. Maybe in another year or two he could look at his team and Ruby and the others as a true equal.
Jaune was drawn away from his thoughts as a beowulf struck out at him. He blocked it with his shield and immediately countered with an upwards swing that bisected the grimm from groin to skull. Three more beowulves charged at him, striking out with their claws simultaneously. Jaune held his shield out, blocking all three strikes, he gave a little ground from the force of the impact, but his shield was reliable as ever, it held sturdy. Exerting himself, Jaune shoved his shield-arm out forcefully, the sudden push knocked the beowulves off-balance, leaving them wide open. Jaune quickly capitalized, executing a wide horizontal slash with his sword that decapitated all three grimm.
Before the bodies can even hit the floor, the young Arc was charging forward, slamming his shield into the chest of an ursa. He managed to knock the grimm over and not wasting any time, he plunged the tip of his blade into the ursa's heart. It seized up for a moment before going still.
Jaune removed his sword and stood up, flicking the excess blood off of his blade. Five creeps, four beowulves and one ursa, not bad for someone who didn't know what aura even was almost a year ago. He couldn't wait to see Pyrrha's face when she saw how much he had improved.
He just had to find her first.
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The last grimm dissolved into black smoke as Ren lowered his pistols. Not his best performance, but not his worse either. Perhaps a homemade drink would help when he got back home.
Something glowing in the treeline ahead of him caught the young huntsman's eye. His violet eyes locked onto glowing scarlet orbs, orbs that strangely looked human.
The thing, roughly resembling a man, suddenly lunged forward and reflexes saved Ren as he flipped over him, unloading StormFlower into his back. Or he would have except the glowy-eyed figure brought up his right forearm and blocked the shots. Normally a forearm wouldn't be able to do that, but this guy's forearm was almost as wide as he was tall. There were also bone-white cylinder-shaped objects extending from the back of the figure's elbows. A white mask covered the top half of his face and with the exception of his massive hands and forearms, he was covered in all black. It looked like a cross between man and grimm and that meant only one thing….
Ren was unable to finish his thought as the grimm-looking man pointed his left fist at him, the cylinder in his left elbow slid into his arm and Ren suddenly found himself spinning in the air. Pain and shock went through him as an invisible force nailed him on his right side, sending him into a twirling descent to the ground below. What the hell had hit him?
The young huntsman landed hard on the back of his head and shoulders, he flopped over onto his belly. The grass blurred into splotches of green as Ren dizzily reached up to the earpiece located in his right ear.
"I have an altered at my position! Need backup!"
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A/N: Oh forgot to mention a fun tidbit of information. If Ruby and her Signal friends, Pearce Spicule, Trista Cornucopia and Richter Bremen had formed a team, they would have been Team Raptor (RPTR)
When Richter was with Darion Shiver and his crew, Gena Celvic, and Novus Procter I would unofficially call them Team Dragon(DRGN) in my head.
Wonder what other team names I can come up with. See you all next week!
