Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum, not me. This is merely a fanwork meant for entertainment purposes only. Cover image courtesy of Simon Howden. All rights reserved.
Gah...I can't take it anymore! I need to go up there and help!
What are you going to do, huh? If there's really something up there that Spade nor Weiss can deal with, what makes you think you'd make any difference?
Whether I can help or not, I can't just leave them to fight alone!
All you're going to do is get yourself killed!
Jaune's thoughts continued to attack each other as the raucous noises from upstairs only proceeded to get louder and more difficult to ignore. Bianca, meanwhile, had curled up into a foetal position, muttering madly to herself…
"I'm going to disappear, I'm going to disappear, I'm going to-"
"Bianca!"
It doesn't look like she's getting up, but at least she's not repeating that line anymore.
"...what do you mean you're going to disappear?" Jaune asked finally, slowly walking closer to the brilliant ice-blue light of the aura font and, by extension, Bianca herself.
"D-don't come any closer!" she stuttered, shivering incessantly as Jaune stopped in his tracks.
Just as he had seen Spade do earlier, Jaune dropped to one knee, looking down at the ground in respect.
"Please, Bianca." Jaune begged, "I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong."
Yet more worrying sounds echoed from the upper floors.
"...you're going to take it, aren't you?" she uttered, her voice full of fear.
"Take what?"
Bianca pointed a quivering finger over to the font behind her.
"I...don't understand." Jaune said honestly, "That's natural aura, isn't it? I wouldn't know how to take it if I tried."
"It's not you!" she suddenly snapped, standing upright in a flash, "It's your weapon! Can't you feel it?"
Jaune glanced curiously down to Crocea Mors but, try as he might, there didn't seem to be anything special about it. There rarely was, really.
"It's just a sword and shield, isn't it?"
"...you don't know what that is, do you?" Bianca asked, frowning heavily.
"Well...kind of? All I really know is that it was used by my great-great-grandfather in the war. Isn't that all there is to it?"
Bianca shook her head.
"What happened in the conflict, Jaune? What was it about?"
"It was a mass effort to push the Grimm back, to defend the bastions of civilisation that remain today and make Remnant a safer place for everyone." Jaune reeled off dutifully, looking a little embarrassed for a moment, "Um, my dad used to tell me about it all the time, so it's one of the only bits of history I know a lot about."
"In that case, it shouldn't surprise you to learn that there were a few weapons made in that period that were specifically designed to fight Grimm. Grimm slayers, they were called."
Jaune's eyes widened.
"Crocea Mors is a Grimm slayer?!"
"No, Jaune, it's a whisk. Of course it's a Grimm slayer!"
"Okay, okay, I get it!" Jaune exclaimed hastily, "Jeez, you're really reminding me of Weiss right now…"
"Well excuse me if my niece and I show some similarities under pressure!"
Jaune blinked.
"Wuh-"
BOOM.
"Look, just ask Spade about it later, okay? I think we've got bigger things to deal with right now."
"Yeah...you're right."
Jaune finally lifted himself off the floor, quickly grabbing Crocea Mors on his way up. However, as he began to step towards the exit, he felt a strange force trying to pull his weapon away.
"...you can't leave, can you?"
He stepped forward as hard as he could but, despite his best efforts, his sword and shield weren't going anywhere fast.
"Why...is it...doing this?" Jaune huffed, continuing to pull as hard as he could on Crocea Mors.
"Eurgh!" Bianca cried in frustration, "How can you not feel it?! It's so obvious!"
"I don't know...what you're talking...about!"
"Oh for...it's aura magnetism, you dunce! Your weapon is filled with personal aura and the font is filled with wild aura. You can't move it because the two are attracted to each other!"
Finally, Jaune stopped his futile efforts to move Crocea Mors and, in fact, found that it stayed in mid-air when he let it go.
It wants to join with the aura font...which would mean…
"So if it was placed in there, the wild aura would be absorbed?"
"Stolen." Bianca corrected.
"Stolen, then. What would that actually do?"
The ghostly girl sighed heavily.
"Your weapon's system would get a jump-start, allowing it to assume its Grimm slayer form."
"But...wouldn't that be a good thing?"
"Not for me…" Bianca muttered bitterly.
Slowly but surely, the cogs began to turn in Jaune's head.
"I'm going to disappear"...stealing the aura...absorbing it…
"I'm the girl who died."
"You're still here because of the aura font...and if I take it, you'll die? ...for good?"
She nodded sadly.
"But if I don't take it, Weiss and Spade will die instead!"
"You don't know that!" Bianca bit back.
As if to punctuate Jaune's point, another crash rocked the very foundations of the manor.
"Maybe I don't…" Jaune admitted, inching closer until he was face to face with Bianca.
"...but I think you do."
The ghostly girl bit her lip.
Thu-thump. Thu-thump.
It wasn't in the shape of a biological heart, or at least, not a human one. Instead, for whatever reason, Alice had assumed the vague form of the typical 'love heart', with a few key differences. Firstly, in the center of the heart was some kind of pulsing gold light, surrounded by the white exoskeleton so common in almost all forms of Grimm.
I called her Alice. She was of a very strange variety of Grimm; while many other types eat foliage or meat, her kind subsisted on a very different kind of nutrient...emotions.
On the outside of the deep red shape were dark purple cracks, cracks that seemed to connect into the jet black tentacles that were producing the dripping substance that had so soaked Weiss' attire.
When I was alive, she was small and weak, easily cleaned out by an experienced hunter of huntress...but no one did. No one knew she was here as she cleverly implanted herself in the manor's forbidden room, somehow knowing that no one would find her there.
However, these tentacles didn't just go through the ceiling. Looking closer, Weiss found that the black appendages ran through the walls, the floor...they were just so minute that you wouldn't know what to look for unless you already knew about them.
And by then it was far, far too late.
After however many years, it was time for the manor to receive its judgement. A strange white mist began pouring out of the forbidden room, engulfing the entire manor in a blanket of the coldest poison. It seemed the emotions she most craved were those given off just before a being's death.
"What's it doing?"
I was down in the basement at the time, searching desperately for the aura font that I had felt for so many years, but just couldn't see...I didn't know what was happening until it was too late.
"In about five minutes...killing you. Slowly."
Yet while I stood there choking on the mist, my semblance that had lain innate for so long began to activate itself. Utilising the aura font, I teleported the entire manor away from civilisation, praying that no more would stumble into it and suffer Alice's wrath.
"Me? Why not you?"
"Helmet filters out the mist it'll make."
Weiss went to dive through the hole Spade had made on the way up but, as much as it looked like an opening, her prone form hit something solid and slippery.
I guess being so close to so much natural aura must have been why I didn't fade away, but then, neither could I leave. I was bound to the font, knowing I faced oblivion should I leave its bounds.
"T-this isn't possible!"
"Alice isn't going to let you leave. She fixed the hole."
"B-but-"
"It's her semblance."
So I slept, knowing that I must wake up to warn away anyone who tried to enter. Alice wasn't some ordinary Grimm anymore; she was barely something that could be fought at all. She had become death itself, and I was her gatekeeper….but I failed in that regard, didn't I?
"Semblance? It's a Grimm! Grimm don't have aura!"
"It's not innate. She's using the aura of the font."
Spade entered, and somehow, his semblance made him immune to Alice's mist. After a while of exploring, he found me, swearing that he would visit as much as he could and try and protect anyone who entered the manor.
"So that's it? I'm just going to die?"
If I know him, he'll be trying to save your friend even now.
Spade grunted, raising his weapon.
"Not if we kill her first."
But they can't. She's practically invincible to anything other than a Grimm slayer.
Spade roared as he conjured an enormous boulder from thin air, launching it with considerable force right into Alice. However, the projectile merely bounced off her, being repelled by some kind of otherworldly force field that enveloped her core.
So, Jaune…
Are you willing to kill one to save another?
"I…" Jaune started but, unfortunately, his words had failed him. This was a moral conundrum and a half, being essentially a choice between two bittersweet outcomes.
"It's not as easy as it seemed, is it?"
"It was never easy. I don't want to make you disappear, it's just…"
"It's just what?"
Jaune paused for a moment, deep in thought. He would need to convince himself before he could convince Bianca, after all.
"Well...let me ask you something, Bianca. Would you let another die so you could live?"
"W-what? I'm the victim here!"
"Perhaps you are, but I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't want to make you disappear, but neither do I want to, through inaction, cause the death of my friend. So it's up to you. Do you want to 'live' while she dies to Alice, the very thing you said you would protect people from?"
"I…"
"She never wanted to come to the manor in the first place! Her father, who is presumably a relative of yours, essentially blackmailed her into coming, threatening to take her very way of life away unless she complied. And now she's going to die here, all for the mistakes of another."
"It wasn't my fault I died, either! Life isn't fair!"
"No, it isn't, but while you would be stuck here tied to this font, Weiss can be out there in the world, making it better...making amends. She has a life to live; all you have is the remainder of your death."
Bianca dropped to her knees, her head in her hands.
"You're...that's not-"
"It's up to you, Bianca. Her life, or death, is yours to decide."
There was a moment of silence as the dead girl agonised over the decision, twisting this way and that as she did so. Finally, after almost a minute, she was still.
"...do you think there's something after death, Jaune?"
Jaune looked up to the ceiling.
"I don't know. Some say you get to meet all of your loved ones in some cloudy place in the sky. Others say you drift into nothingness entirely. All I know is that death is relief for those who have lived a tortured life...or a tortured death, as the case may be."
"Would I get to see Spade there someday?"
"He seems determined. For a guy like him, I doubt true death's going to get in the way of finding you."
"...promise me, Jaune."
"Promise you what?"
"Promise that you'll tell him I love him and that, if he and I were alive at the same time, I would have married him one day."
"Perhaps you still will, in the next life."
"Yeah…"
Another short pause.
"Go, Jaune...save your friend."
"Thank you, Bianca. I'll never forget you."
Crocea Mors firmly in hand, Jaune strode towards the blinding aura font, courage burning deep in his heart. Perhaps he wouldn't survive this. After all, it was said that those who wielded Grimm slayer weapons paid a great price for their power. He didn't care. He had promised to help Weiss and, in his own head at least, get her back safe and sound.
Pyrrha…if I don't make it back...
"Goodbye..." Bianca said weakly.
Jaune plunged his sword into the font, screaming as the wild aura coursed through his veins.
Goodbye.
It was no use. After minutes upon minutes of launching everything from rocks to dust to the weapons themselves, Alice had made it out without suffering a single scratch.
"...I'm really going to die here, aren't I?" Weiss uttered sadly. She didn't even have the energy to cry. Spade, for his part, kept trying to hurt Alice, desperate to at least do something. Yet nothing worked. This was the end.
I can only hope Jaune made it out...but he went into that mist, didn't he? So I managed to get both of us killed, really...I guess this is why Ruby was made leader and not me. She'd have some kind of plan to get out of this. She's always coming up with crazy ideas that somehow save the day. Dust, I miss that dolt right now…
A cursed hissing noise began making its way around the room as the deadly white mist pumped industriously out of Alice's tentacles.
I miss all of those idiots...pity they won't miss me…
"Spade?"
No response.
"...thank you."
Despite having accepted her fate, Weiss couldn't help but hold her breath.
Goodbye…life was fun while it lasted, I guess…
"Weiss!"
Whipping her head to the sound's source, Weiss's eyes widened as she watched the door that had so refused to open earlier be sliced to pieces by...by…
Jaune?!
While his eyes were covered by a blinding blue light, there was no doubt in her mind that this really was Jaune Arc. His drab sword and shield, however, had undergone quite the transformation. The sword had turned a glittery yellow hue, pulsing silvery lines swirling up the surface of the blade as it relished in its own aura. The shield, too, had turned yellow, while the arc symbol upon it assumed the same pulsing silver that surged through his weapon.
"Crocea Eversor!" the blonde boy barked, raising the shield portion high in the air.
"Protect!"
Weiss gasped in amazement as a transparent hexagonal shield formed around her and Spade, effortlessly repelling the poisonous mist away.
"Spade, Weiss, prepare to fire!"
Jaune discarded the shield, grabbing the longsword in two hands as he pointed it directly towards Alice. Weiss could have sworn she heard a female voice roar a battlecry as a beam of yellow light shone out of Jaune's blade, striking the monstrosity right in the center. It screamed horrifically, but Jaune refused to back down.
"Now! Give it all you've got!"
Brandishing what little dust she had left in Myrtenaster 2.0, Weiss rapidly launched innumerable balls of elemental dust towards Alice, grinning as the creature continued to scream. The cracks innate in the monster were slowly widening. However, almost as soon as they appeared, the wounds began repairing themselves.
"It's not working!" Weiss exclaimed, "We need to get in close! But how…"
Jaune glanced between his party members, a plan quickly forming.
"Weiss, do you have enough dust to propel yourself up to it?"
She shook her head.
"Not far enough."
"It doesn't need to be. What if Spade sent you upwards and you were merely maintaining the velocity? Would that work?"
"I...think so. If I can hit it in the right spot, at least."
"I know you will. Now, go! I don't know how long I can keep this up!"
Seeing the Spade had already got in position, Weiss nodded that she was ready, bracing for impact as the man's enormous mace crashed into the ground she stood on, sending her flying upwards. Having performed the stunt many times before, it was easy for Weiss to use her semblance to keep her going, looking for all the world like a white missile as she was propelled towards Alice.
"I...I can't hold on!" Jaune yelped, "Five seconds!"
Weiss increased her dust output, spinning in the air so that Myrtenaster 2.0 was pointed squarely towards the glowing gold point in Alice's center.
"Four!"
Just a little more...
"Three!"
Almost…
"Two!"
...there!
"One!"
SCHLUK.
...bullseye.
Unfortunately, it was never going to be that simple. As Alice's death throes reverberated through the building, it was very clear that it was beginning to fall apart. However, before Weiss could react further, Spade had grabbed the now unconscious form of Jaune, beckoning to her as he shot straight through one of the walls out into the garden. Using the very last of her dust reserves, Weiss zoomed out through the hole Spade had made, sputtering as she unceremoniously landed in a patch of rotten grass. From the safety of the outside, it was almost a little sad to see the manor implode on itself, despite all the horror that had occurred inside. Yet...there was also relief there.
"It's...over." Weiss said, wiping her brow.
"You can take off the helmet, Cardin."
The earthen warrior nodded simply as he removed his helm, revealing that it was, indeed, Cardin Winchester beneath it.
"You gonna tell Ozpin about this?"
Weiss shook her head.
"Yeah...me neither. That guy's a dick."
Just the epilogue to go now, debuting on Wednesday the 30th of April. Stay tuned!
P.S - For anyone on GMT or earlier, this chapter is about three quarters of an hour late. Sorry! It turned out a bit longer than I expected ^^' .