"Wait, so let me get this straight: thirty people just literally jumped off a bridge. And you want to follow them?"
"Yeah! Why not?"
"Because it's crazy!"
"…In a good way?"
"No! In a bad way! Just thinking about it—"
"Don't think. Just jump!"
"What are you, insane?"
Silence.
Because, of course, Ruby's already jumped out the open roof of their speed train as it glides across its elevated track, tossing herself blindly into the depths of the industrial district eight stories below. This happening not ten seconds after the oversized claws on ghost-Miltia's hands had tossed half the occupants of their train car, like screaming salad, up into the morning sky and into the unknown great beyond.
He really wants to reconnect with this now-physically-present girl. He really does. Three weeks after she gave him a mystery vial of Dust, blessed him with opened chakras, and offered friendship to him in this strange world... and she's finally made a reappearance in his life. But when Melanie turns an evil eye on him and Miltia mirrors her perfectly (white garb unmoving in the high speed wind, eyes practically devoid of life, ten wickedly long claws sweeping towards him like merciless salad tossers), he doesn't really have to think about it before he's thrown himself after Ruby. After all, no matter the uncertainty of a blind fall, he can think of worse things that can happen without the smaller girl to back (read: protect) him up against the mindless, violent Familiar.
"Waaaaaahh!"
He falls for maybe ten feet in mind-numbing panic before the instincts, ingrained into him after years of Roman and awakened after a week of combat school, finally kick in. He snaps out his limbs in a spread-eagle formation, increasing his surface area as much as possible to control his fall. With the street quickly approaching his face, he angles himself into a dive before flipping over to land on his feet. His newfound Legs +1 power from Miltia absorbs most of the impact with the asphalt, but he drops into a somersault roll to wick off the rest of his momentum.
Ruby lands shortly thereafter. "You're actually really good at falling!" she exclaims. "I mean, I was the one who jumped first…"
Jaune brushes himself off as he gets to his feet. Thankfully, his silken jacket seems to be none the worse for the wear. Second thing to check: the train whizzing away above, with the Melanie/Miltia pair still on the rooftop. Ghost-Miltia's sort of hard to miss, an ethereal figure in a very physical faunus world. He swears he can feel her dead eyes on him until Melanie bounds into the air again; only then does Miltia turn away, following her faunus original.
Miltia's… a not-so-imaginary ghost Familiar. It's almost funny. He tries not to crack a crazy grin and cackle creepily at the irony of the universe. He still isn't sure what Blake is to him, so he's sort of always kind of considered Miltia his first friend in Zodiac (at least, all those times that he'd decided that she existed. It's complicated.)
Except it turns out that Miltia isn't really real either. A while ago, Penny said that, in the same way that human auras come from the soul, Grimm Familiars come from the spirit. So it seems like Miltia is nothing more than a fleeting persona, just a spiritual expression of Melanie's personality, unable to manifest physically unless Melanie shoots her out with a special gun.
{…}
{…Why does it look like a gun Weiss didn't need a gun-evoker-thing why does Melanie hafta be so creepy about calling out her inner Grimm why a gun whyyyyy}
His mental panic screeches to a halt when his mind stumbles upon another nugget of fridge horror: how did Malachite Technologies get a hold of Miltia's spirit? What if she's composed of bytes of data beamed straight into the brain and somehow given form via energy construct? Could she be a compilation of memories pulled from Melanie's mind that comes out in some form of life-force power? Or… what if the original Miltia's spirit was pulled out of her dying body all those years ago, and then somehow merged with Melanie?
No. That last one is too impossible. There are much more logical explanations for even something as spiritually charged as this Malachite mystery.
Either way, no matter the explanation, the apprehension expressed by Tifa, Pyrrha, Ren, and Cardin at even just the mention of her name could all be summarized into one sentence: resurrecting Miltia's spirit just to have her serve as a slave to Melanie is a goldmine of ethical issues.
{What about Miltia's soul does this mean that this version of Miltia isn't human and if she isn't then just what is she}
Okay. Slow down. There's probably a lot more to this situation that Jaune doesn't know. Really, he'll have to think about this in depth later when he's within the safety of his dorm room. Also because Ruby's beginning to shift nervously at what must no doubt be the beginning of a thinking-so-hard-my-head-is-going-to-explode expression on his face. He wipes a hand across his countenance and heaves a silent sigh of relief when the smaller girl's stance relaxes.
"We should focus," he announces, "on returning to Zodiac Academy. And not thinking about weird spiritual things. The Directors told us not to bring weapons, right? The alarm on the train when Melanie pulled out her spiritual brains blaster supports that theory."
"Spiritual brawut?"
"But if we pick up stuff on our way up the hill…" Jaune plots, ignoring her cluelessness at all the conjecturing he'd done in his head previously.
Ruby gives him a wary side-eye. "But Yang said—"
"These will be less like weapons," Jaune hurriedly defends, "and more like articles of self-defense. I'll bet we can find some pretty sharp and jagged pieces of… self-defense… in the junkyard of this industrial neighborhood. All for self-defense, of course."
The internal struggle that is display so openly on Ruby's face is eased every time he mentions self-defense, so he makes sure to toss the term in more often. Finally, she nods. "I think there's a scrapheap in this direction…"
"I've been waiting for suckers like you," grins a uniformed boy as he takes the first step down from a rickety stack of industrial scraps. Though the entire heap wobbles each time the upperclassman shifts his weight, his hands are tucked casually in his jacket pockets as if to show off his perfect sense of balance. A long red scarf hides his mouth from view, but Jaune can see the playful simper in the smaller guy's eyes as he laughs, "Thought you found a loophole by finding weapons, eh? In that case, I'm totally justified in 'finding' my own!"
"We, uh, were just passing through!" Ruby squeaks, turning around to push Jaune towards the exit. Jaune swears he can see the black fires of gleeful malice ignite in the upperclassman's eyes the second Ruby turns tail on him. He definitely doesn't miss how the guy crouches low in preparation to jump, hands still in his pockets. Pockets that are probably hiding hurtful things that he'd rather not see.
He instantly assesses that a clean escape is impossible. The guy only has to kick off from the top of the admittedly unstable junk pile to land in front of them, pull out the evil things in his pockets, and tear him to shreds while Ruby makes a rose-scented getaway. Jaune's only other immediately accessible option is to throw his body against what looks like a stabilizing rod in the scrapheap, in an effort to buy himself a couple more seconds of time.
It works. The twisting action created by the makeshift turnstile of a pole upsets the precarious balance of the stack of debris; it implodes abruptly like a Jenga tower, taking their unsuspecting hands-still-in-pockets opponent along with it.
"Run now!" Jaune yells, grabbing Ruby's hand and making a break for it.
A falling refrigerator is neatly bisected into perfect halves as the upperclassman makes a reappearance, red gleaming in his slitted pupils, his figure encircled by what looks like a ridiculously long ammunition belt with a small black box on the end. "I like how you play!" the guy roars exuberantly, the red scarf fluttering like a banner behind him. "Time to get rough and dir—"
Jaune's heart abruptly finds itself up in his eardrums when Ruby practically teleports straight up about twenty feet in a burst of rose petals.
"Show him just how awesomely you are at falling!" Ruby yelps, giving his butt her boot as she kicks off in another fragrant flurry of petals.
Okay not cool he has no distance here to control his tumble so he just reaches out and grabs the nearest handhold; unfortunately, this also happens to be a stabilizing agent in yet another mound of junk, and by jerking it loose, he brings another avalanche of sharp and jagged articles of self-defense tumbling on top of him.
{Yes grab something this is totes self-defense}
{And don't use the word "totes" you aren't Miltia}
His scrambling feet abruptly find the solid surface of an octangular sheet of metal; he reaches down to yank the lip upwards, surfing over lumpy debris to solid ground free from the rain of unidentified, sharp, pointy objects. He swears he can feel the soles of his dress shoes kicking up sparks as he slides against the ground, one hand braced against the rough ground for balance and the other holding his new 3-foot wide shield by the metal loops bolted into its sides.
His predator is already flying at him, literally flying at him with what's probably the same semblance magic that allows Melanie to slide over the ground like ice, and man those slitted red pupils combined with that slasher smile are too creepy to be human.
{Well what were you expecting}
Definitely not for the black box at the end of the faunus' bandolier to fire bullets every time he snaps it against a solid surface—like when he's knocking over piles of junk to topple them on top of Jaune. Or for the shots to be accurate at all—not that Jaune can't argue when it puts a hole through the middle of his octagonal shield (of which he is only just realizing it ironically has a four-letter word inscribed in white upon its red surface) while he's dodging falling debris.
"Ruby, if you want this piece of bait to keep doing his job thenyou'dbettercomequickaaaiieeee!" As an afterthought: "And his whip is also a gun!"
Ruby materializes right beside Whippy then—or, at least, maybe 90% of her. A blurry air distortion starts out from her wrists and extends all the way out into a large block of space to her right. Which, ignoring the creepy fact that Ruby's forearms seem to dissolve into nothingness, doesn't make an ounce of sense in terms of physics unless Ruby and whatever is in her hands are moving faster than the speed of light and they're of such different masses that she travels at an infinitely higher velocity than whatever she's holding—but hey, Ruby sucks at physics anyways, so that obviously means she can defy it, right?
Ruby's missing hands finally sloop back into her wrists, bringing with them a huge, metallic mass of unyielding self-defense that smashes Whippy away from Jaune. He catches the glimpse of a loose license plate attached to a larger surface before it disappears into another pile of debris.
"Was… did you just run him over with a car going at the speed of light?"
"Is that… are you trying to defend yourself with a STOP sign?"
Jaune and Ruby stare at the other for a moment longer in silence before giggles begin to bubble up through their lips—
The car alarm goes off as the thrown vehicle is rapidly disintegrated from underneath by a hail of bullets. Ruby runs in the opposite direction, tossing junk in his general direction as she goes. "Distract him while I find something awesome!"
"What does that leave me with then?" Jaune glances downward in dismay at Ruby's… really horrible selection of potential weapons. "What am I supposed to do with a fishing rod? Catch him? There's no hook, line, or sinker on this thing!"
A small shower of debris flies from Ruby's direction as she digs around frantically. "I really like the steel umbrella!"
"But how…? No, just… no. And I'm not even going to argue the point of this mystery box with a label of 'highly combustible' on it. Wait, did you really give me a cardboard fan as a legit weapon?"
"You've never heard of the Paper Fan of Doom?"
"I know this looks like it works in anime all the time, but this is real life, Ruby!"
"Says the guy who said I should call Yang onee-sama… whatever that means. Besides, everything I gave you could be used in a perfectly reasonable alibi if she ever caught you in the act of beating somebody up with it. In self-defense!"
"Yeah, right. 'But Yang, I was just fishing for men…'"
"Wow, Jaune, I didn't know you swung that way."
"No, Ruby—"
The car finally explodes into a cloud of dust and shrapnel; from this destruction flies their enemy, who of course heads straight for the weakest link i.e. Jaune. With nothing from Ruby of any real value, Jaune opts to run for cover with the stop-sign shield held above his head for 'protection.'
An explosion throws both him and lots of painful heavy things like air conditioners and large metal piping and sharp-edged turbines to the left. The stop sign does a pretty good job of redistributing the force and minimizing the impact of unforgiving objects while in midair, but the moment he's landed on the ground, the thin metal folds instantly upon contact with a large plastic crate. Which means that he folds right along with it. The plasticity of the crate thankfully gives it the flexibility to bounce of his body; not to say it isn't painful at all, and that he doesn't roll back and forth in the dirt for a couple seconds afterwards with his arms over his head because the pressurized rebound happened to be focused on his face {oh please not the face}. But when the rounded bottom of a metal canister slams into the ground not three inches from his probably-messed-up-4-lyfe nose, he really decides he needs to get a move on.
"Ruby! What's your game plan?" he yells, dodging and rolling his way out from underneath falling industrial junk meteorites.
"Gimme just another minute, Jaune! This plan is going to blow your mind."
"As long as I'm still in one piece afterwards, you can blow me all you waaah noImeanblowme—"
{—up} is what he doesn't manage to say because a whip of bullets wraps itself around his torso and yanks him to the side, driving all air from his lungs. Muscle memory activates of its own accord in that second, his abdominals flexing all at once to pull his entire body into a tight ball. As soon as he's oriented vertically, he unfurls his legs and plunges them into the ground like anchors, quickly grinding to a standstill with the bandolier strung tight between him and Whippy.
For the first time, he gets a good look at his upperclassman. Like, a really good look at the guy's messy, sandy hair, slitted red pupils that match the color of his scarf, Cheshire cat grin, the glint of familiar silver from the handle of a firearm hidden within his jacket pock—
{Hold on a second}
He yells (and points for emphasis), "Gun!"
Whippy grins maniacally. "You saw then, didn't you? The Malachite's Big Reveal?"
{"You totally stole our thunder. We've had to delay our Big Reveal. …At least, Melanie's grand entrance."}
"She shot herself in the head! How could I forget that?"
With one hand still keeping a firm grip on his taut weapon, Whippy quickdraws the silver gun out of his pocket and points it at Jaune. Pinned in place by his anchored feet, Jaune can't dodge in time.
{crystal blue brain matter flying out the back of her head}
"I've depressed the trigger twice already," smirks Whippy. "It's an evoker, not a gun. And it's supposed to remind me of what I've lost." He holsters the not-gun, his voice growing quiet as he tucks his chin into the scarf. "Who I've lost."
Jaune normally would be more courteous and give the guy his time, but the bandolier-gun still crushing his lungs reminds him that they're still in the middle of a fight, tragic backstory or not. While the smaller sandy-haired boy is still reminiscing about his personal loss {and we just got out of a war, everybody's lost somebody}, Jaune uses the tension of the whip as well as his own Legs +1 upgrade to launch himself at Whippy. What he's going to do… Jaune hasn't decided yet. Maybe steal that evoker thing and empty it of its spiritual bullets so the Malachite follower doesn't shoot his spirit out of his head and end Jaune in three seconds. Or settle for slapping his opponent in the face with his stop sign; oh, that would be hilariously symbolic…
"Time for Plan Awesome!" Ruby whoops, flashing into existence right in front of Jaune. She's brandishing the steel umbrella he'd rejected earlier, and though it might not have a gun built into its end, she wields it with just as much expertise, whirling it about her tiny body so quickly that she's practically encased with a sphere of metal spokes, torn cloth, and added barbed wire.
"Augh!" Jaune yelps when Ruby's barbed umbrella smacks him across the face, sharp pain immediately dulling into a generalized ache as metal spikes slash across his cheek. "I don't like Plan A!"
Whippy unfurls his whip from around Jaune so he can retreat from Ruby. For her part, she follows while calling over her shoulder, "Should I use Plan B then?"
"Uh, as long as you don't tell Yang that I'm the reason why, you can—watch out!"
The ammunition belt-whip finally manages to tangle itself within the umbrella spokes. With a flick of his wrist, Whippy snaps Ruby's makeshift weapon out of her hands—whereupon Ruby promptly grabs the edge of her cape and dramatically throws it over herself. The whirling cloak seems to expand into an inverted tornado of crimson cloth; a distraction, Jaune is too late to notice, because Ruby is already suspended twenty feet in the morning sky above him and Whippy with her true weapon in hand.
"Time for Plan Boom!" she chortles, spiking the 'highly combustible' mystery box at Whippy. Who raises his whip-gun to defend. A weapon composed entirely of a chain of bullets, with a gun on the end that is currently in the process of firing a bullet.
"Nooo, Ruuuuub—" is all he gets out before orange envelops his vision.
Followed by vivid emerald as a complete sphere of neon green triangles flashes all around him protectively. He still feels the explosive heat pushing him up and away into the sky, but at least there isn't fire burning away his clothes.
{What the… but how…}
…How could he forget about this ability? The last time he'd experienced this… had been his duel against Weiss, but then he'd been unconscious for a week afterwards, so he doesn't exactly blame himself about not remembering. But seriously! If he'd known he'd had a protective force field in his arsenal last night, maybe he wouldn't have had to prep so much for Team Jaune, only to get his hopes crushed…
Speaking of Team Jaune… he really hopes Ruby survived that explosion. The size of the explosion was much, much larger than the box itself had indicated. As if the box had been bigger on the inside. Until it had been bigger on the outside too. And very fiery.
Of course, with his luck, he wouldn't be surprised if Ruby had just been burnt to a crisp.
Now, while he has time to think: {How is this forcefield even happening}
He'd sort of assumed that this was an ability granted by Miltia's mystery Dust during his death duel with Weiss. He really didn't have the time to really analyze it much, like he has now while still airborne. But in reality, Dust alone doesn't have the ability to produce energy constructs, not without technology or semblance to give it structure.
So. Is the vial that the Dust contained within a work of technology in itself, specifically engineered by Malachite Technologies? Or has suddenly throwing himself into combat situations suddenly awakened a semblance in him after 19 years?
As it turns out, neither is the case.
He isn't given any warning when the triangular panels fold away into nothingness, leaving him just a tiny figure attempting to fall in style. He has to assume that the previously energy construct had some mass to it, because his aerial trajectory quickly turns from the weightless arc atop a parabolic glide into a steep headfirst dive.
It's almost second nature now to throw out his arms and legs to slow his fall. Plus, if he tilts slightly forward, he can adjust his flight to avoid the alleyways and shoot for a rooftop {oh no overshoot OVERSHOOT}
He flies right over the nice, barely-slanted rooftop of a nice warehouse and instead continues into the dark alleyway right behind it, straight for a nice brick wall.
Triangles flash in front of him again—flat against the wall, however, and not in a sphere around him. Hitting the vertical surface feels a bit more cushioned, like smashing torso-first into a reflective energy barrier rather than an unforgiving wall. Maybe that endurance training from Pyrrha gives him the endurance not to crumple from the pain that occurs upon impact anyways; he manages to bounce off, rolling into another couple somersaults on the ground to dispel his momentum, before allowing himself to lie still and moan quietly in agony at the heavens.
{Yet another battle where you go blasting off again…}
{At least you stayed conscious this time}
His inner snark doesn't get much else to say, however, once a silhouette of a familiar face leans over him.
"I am always glad to assist you, Jaune."