33 A.B.Y
Remnant
"You what!?" A rough voice said as a hand slammed into a wooden table.
"The last six years I've been training with a Hunter. That's how I fought the White Fang commander." Jaune explained the cover story for the third time.
Things were quite tense at the Arc summer home. After a Valian rescue team had found the large sinkhole and made their way inside the ship, along with an entire brigade of scientist and researchers, and a few Hunters as well.
The rescue team then pulled both Jaune and Jade up and out of the hole to a small field hospital to check them for any injuries.
Two people that Jaune wasn't expecting to see up top together was Luke and the headmaster of Beacon.
When Luke had told him he had made some new friends, Jaune wasn't expecting it to be one of the most important men in Vale.
It was then that they discussed a plausible cover story. Apparently making the public panic about there being a galaxy full of extraterrestrials was a big no-no for Ozpin.
Unfortunately for them a headache known as Jade Arc had not only seen what had happened, called their parents, and even took photos of it and sent it to them!
Jaune just thanked the Force that his scroll had a shitty camera on it, the only things that could really be made out where the Sith's bone mask and both their lightsabers.
With the Arc family surely on the way, the two Jedi and headmaster quickly cobbled together a cover story. Painting the bone wearing Sith and ship a White Fang Commander and one of their bases.
The only thing they couldn't cover was the lightsabers.
And now here was our favorite Jedi padawan, getting his ass chewed out by his father while his sisters, real mom, and two stepmoms, Louve and Yami, either stood or sat silently nearby as father and son argued.
Though Jaune could distinctly feel his mother's slitted eyes glaring at the side of his head. Which was probably scarier than anything his father could ever muster.
"What were you thinking?" His father demanded.
His father, Julius Arc was quite the intimidating to most people. Standing at 6'3 and weighing over 200 pounds of pure muscle, the Arc patriarch was the type of guy that made other men jealous and women blush upon sight.
His devilish good looks also helped matters.
But when one faces down a maniacal evil alien who is hellbent both on the death of everyone in your order and galactic domination, these things cease to have an effect.
As such Jaune consider the question for a moment, "Well the first thing I thought was 'oh shit I'm possibly fucked'. The second was about saving Jade, the third-"
"That's not what I mea- grrrr." Julius Arc growled in frustration as he rubbed his head in frustration. With a sigh, he asked one thing.
"Why?"
"Why what?" Jaune asked back.
"Why would you go behind our back to be trained? After we explicitly said no after you asked us to be trained." Julius asked.
"Because of exactly what you just said. You told me no and I disagreed with it." Jaune replied as he indiscriminately looked up at the digital clock on the wall.
11:57 P.M
So close.
"You know Jauney, you could have just asked me. I'm sure I could have trained you in secret instead of some random-" Noir tried to offer but was shut down as Jaune's mother moved her glare over to her.
"Speaking of the random hunter. Who trained you?" Jaune's mother, Lionne Arc inquired.
Jaune considered the question for a second before deciding it wouldn't really matter if he gave Luke's name or not.
"A Hunter by the name of Luke Skywalker." Jaune said with a shrug, "Pretty cool for an old dude."
Harbinger Crash Site
"Achooo." Luke covered his nose as he sneezed hard on his arm.
Headmaster Ozpin looked up from his scroll, having been contacting Vale's council to give them a situational report.
"Are you alright Mr. Skywalker? Don't tell me you're getting sick, I hear this is quite a nasty bug going around this time of year."
Luke shook his head, "No nothing like that, I just felt… an annoyance in the Force."
The headmaster was somewhat intrigued, "Do these annoyances happen often?"
"No, not particularly. I only began noticing them about six years ago when I crashed on this rock."
Arc Summer Home
"Skywalker? I've never heard of a Hunter by that name before." Lionne muttered.
"Not surprised. He doesn't hunt Grimm often, more so does missions directly for headmaster Ozpin." Jaune partially lied.
Afterall Luke was working with Ozpin as of now. Even if they had just met yesterday.
Jaune was expecting his parents to be satisfied with the answer. Thinking that they would be at least happy that it wasn't at least some random hunter, but one of Ozpin's men.
Instead, all the adults froze and the four parents shared glances with each other.
"Did you say he works directly with Ozpin?" Louve asked with concern.
"Yeah." Jaune said as he noticed their expressions, "What's wrong with you guys? See a ghost or something?"
"Jaune I don't want you to train with Skywalker anymore." His father stated in a serious expression.
'Alright, something's up. As soon as I mentioned Ozpin the mood changed, they went from slightly pissed off that I was training behind their backs to concerned.' Jaune thought.
It now occurred to him that none of his sisters ever attended Beacon either. Every single one of his older siblings had attended or were still in Atlas prep school and Atlas Academy.
Interesting indeed.
But none of that really mattered now.
12:00 A.M
"Nah, I'm good," Jaune said as he stood up.
"Excuse me?" Julius asked incredulously.
"You heard me, I'm not going to stop training with Luke. In fact, I think I'll go talk to him right now." Jaune said as he made his way to the door.
Julius stood up as well, "Jaune as your father I'm telling you no."
The young Jedi stopped at the door and turned his head slightly.
"Do you know what day it is?" He asked.
Julius was puzzled by the question and looked up at the digital clock on the wall.
"It just turned midnight which means it's July 26th…" Julius trailed off.
"My birthday." Jaune said, "Which means I'm 17, an adult in the kingdoms eyes. So yeah, try and stop me."
Jaune walked out the door and into the night, set on making his way back to the crash site to meet Luke.
But Julius wasn't done yet. Despite his wives and daughters protests, he followed Jaune out the door.
"Jaune." He called out, "Wait a second."
Jaune stopped, "What now?"
Julias sighed, "Your right Jaune, I can't stop you. But I can give you a warning. If this Skywalker works with Ozpin, that means you might work with him one day. So take my advice when I say don't put all your trust in Ozpin. Because as good of intentions as he has, you'll be a pawn in his game. Your grandfather and great-grandfather found that out the hard way."
Jaune nodded, "Yeah sure, I'll be careful. See you later old man."
With that Jaune walked away from the summer home with his lightsaber clipped to his belt.
And a feeling he wouldn't see his father until much later.
Harbinger Crash Site
"I must say Skywalker, this is quite the extraordinary find. The knowledge we could glean from this starship could be instrumental to humanity's survival on Remnant." Ozpin said to Luke as they both watched even more people exit from bullheads and land in the fastly erected outpost that engineers and builders had set up earlier.
"If there's any anything left to glean that is." Luke added, "Jaune mentioned this ship belonged to the Sith Empire, the last one ended well over a thousand years ago and there were many thousands of years earlier than that. I don't even recognize the design, but judging by the massive sheer size of the hanger alone. I'm guessing it's a dreadnought class."
"So this ship is possible…".
"Around a 1,000 years at the least to about 6,900 years old at max. Either one is a long time for technology, especially the sensitive bits, to decay."
Ozpin shifted on his cane, "It matters not. While it would be marvelous to possibly learn all this ship's secrets, just unlocking even a few of the rest of the galaxies technology could leapfrog Remnant decades forward. The most basic of your plasma weapons could swiftly enable even the average infantry soldier to kill the toughest of Grimm, the weakest of your reactors could power one of the main cities for decades and ween us off Dust usage, and new fuel and materials that could allow us to build fighters that could engage hoards of Nevermore and strategically bomb Grimm nests into oblivion. Which could later snowball into newer technologies."
'It could even allow us to shove a couple some of those new bombs James recently told me about down that old witches throat. A thermobaric bomb I believe it was called. Oh, what I would pay to see Salem's face as that happen.' Ozpin mused as he talked to the Jedi master.
Luke nodded his head, "Indeed it could my new friend. But if you would excuse me I'll be making my way down the lift your people set up to the ship. The lead engineer asked me to translate some of the signs from galactic basic so they can find their way around the ship."
Luke began to walk off towards the lift but was stopped as Ozpin called out to him.
"Skywalker, what do you think about your apprentice?"
"Jaune's powerful for his age, I'll give him that. He picks up on lessons fast and he can even be cunning at times when he not being a goofball or reading those damned Faunus Girls Gone Wild magazines." Luke stopped and turned with a raised eyebrow, "Why do you ask?"
"Because I would like to invite him to attend Beacon Academy. You see while there are quite some extraordinary individuals who will be attending this year, there are many applicants who are… less so." Ozpin said.
"You do know he's never attended one of the prep academies before right? Isn't that one of the pre-requisites set by your council?" Luke questioned.
Ozpin gave a simple smile as he seemingly picked up a steaming coffee mug from nowhere.
"You'll find that the council minds can be changed with enough pressure and influence. You'll also find that I can exert quite the amount of pressure and influence when needed." He said.
"The best dictators often can," Luke replied.
Both men's eyes met for a brief moment.
"Tell me Luke, which is better. A corrupt republic or a benevolent dictatorship?"
Ozpin asked.
Luke mulled it over for a couple seconds.
"A corrupt republic is the better solution." He answered.
"Oh? Why do you come to that conclusion?" Ozpin said intrigued.
"Because a corrupt republic is still a republic and can be fixed peacefully over time. A benevolent dictatorship is still a dictatorship and may not always stay benevolent. To change it may require a war. It also reminds me of a saying." Luke answered.
Ozpin took a sip out of his mug before asking, "What saying is this?"
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
The headmaster nodded, "A very accurate quote, but back to the topic at hand. May I invite your apprentice to Beacon academy?"
Luke thought about it. He saw no reason for Jaune not to attend the academy. Not factoring in the ominous conversation both men had just held.
He had little else to teach his apprentice in the ways of the Force that Jaune could not learn himself from holos and self-practice like he himself had done after the battle of Endor.
His Padawan had even gained a basic understanding of the seven lightsaber forms and Jar'Kai. All that was left was for him to refine and make his own techniques. Mastery would only come after years of experience.
Plus Jaune could use some socializing. The young man had spent his childhood on and his free time secretly training with Luke.
And unlike the Jedi of old, Luke Skywalker was not going to allow his apprentice to be some emotionless husk. Everyone deserves a friend or two.
"Ask him, he's an adult now. Jaune can make his own decisions." Luke said.
"As you say Skywalker," Ozpin said.
2 hours later
"That way should be the reactor room and down the hall to the right should be another crew quarters." Luke pointed out as he translated the signs.
The old Jedi had to admit, the researchers and engineers had taken the fact a ship that was millennia old had crashed on Remnant and was proof that there was alien life out among the stars extremely well.
But considering they dealt with shadow monsters, crystals that had power over elements, and people that could generate their own protective shields and superpowers that even puzzled Luke on a daily basis…
There probably wasn't much that phased these guys anymore.
Dr. Ling nodded, "Thank you for the help Mr. Skywalker. I'll have my teams map out this area as soon as we're done with the armory and bridge. By the way, do you mind if I keep the alphabetic translations you wrote down? It could help if we were to find future sites."
Luke smiled, "Of course Doctor. Now if you don't mind I'd like to do some of my own exploring of the ship."
"Knock yourself out. Just don't trigger a self-destruct setting or such." Dr. Ling said as he walked off and began speaking into a radio.
The Jedi master gave a small chuckle and turned left at the nearest corridor. Ever since he had step foot inside the ship something had been pulsing against his senses.
It was nothing as big and dark as the Sith Lord had been. No, this was like a weak little pulse of light. As if it was submerged in darkness and was crying out for help.
Luke observed his surroundings as he continued his journey throughout the ship. Truly this place was ancient. While he could make out most of the basic characters on the signs throughout dreadnought, some escaped his understanding.
Though the archaic print didn't surprise him that much. He'd expected that some of the alphabets would've changed over the millennia.
He continued following the little pulse until he came up to a closed blast door, which was labeled as Storage Room.
Luke tapped the touchscreen on the side of the door, hoping that it was still in working order. To his dismay though he found it was completely unresponsive.
"Power must be out in this section." He muttered to himself, "No matter though."
Using his prosthetic for the extra strength he grabbed the edges of the small panel and ripped it off, exposing the internal circuits in the process.
"There we go, now just I just have to get some energy into it." He said as he brought up his organic arm and aimed his pointer finger at the circuits.
Emerald energy sparked near the tip before shooting towards the wires and began pumping energy into the system.
*Ding*
The door slid open to reveal the storage room.
"Thank you, master Plo-Koon for pioneering Emerald Lightning."
While maybe not as powerful a Sith lighting, it was a good substitute for those of the light side of the Force who needed to use electricity.
Taking a step inside the storage room Luke was met with a strangely colorful sight. It looked as if a rainbow had committed suicide via a shotgun blast to head.
Around the room on shelves, the foot, and even embedded in the walls were parts of crystals. The colors ranging from blue, green, purple, yellow, orange, and even some brown ones.
A regular person might have thought they were just random gems, but Luke knew better. These were kyber crystals.
Albeit shattered kyber crystals. The beautiful crystals usually gave off a small glow of their color, but the ones strewn around were all dull and lifeless.
'Sith must've been transporting these to one of their old academies, probably so the apprentices could corrupt them into crimson crystals.' Luke thought as he scanned the room, 'Crash must've thrown them around and shattered them. Shame.'
The old Jedi was about to turn around and leave the room when a small light caught his eye.
Looking over he saw the glow was emitting from underneath an overturned locker unit.
Using the Force Luke lifted the locker upwards and gently set it back against a wall.
Revealing a small yellowish crystal sitting perfectly intact on the floor.
Luke opened his palm and the crystal flew from the floor and into his hand. Bringing it closer to his old eyes to get a better look at it he realized that the crystal was in fact not yellow at all.
It was a deep golden color.
Expanding his senses into the Force he found the crystal wasn't calling out to him, but to someone else.
And Luke believed he knew who that person was.
Pocketing the crystal safely inside his robes, he turned around and walked outside the room.
He had another mission besides finding out what the strange pulse was. Namely finding out what happened to the crew of this ship, and how the kriff humans ended up on a planet this far out into the unknown regions.
On the Beach Above the Buried Ship
"Ahh, Mr. Arc. It is a pleasure to meet you again. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to properly be introduced to each other earlier. I am Professor Ozpin, headmaster of Beacon Academy." Ozpin introduced himself as he waved security off and allowed the boy into the know half constructed base.
"Nice to meet you, headmaster. My name's Jaune Arc, but I guess you already knew that." Jaune said sheepishly.
"Indeed Mr. Arc. Tell me, how is your family doing? It's been awhile since I've seen Julius and Lionne, as well as Louve and Yami now ." Ozpin inquired.
"There uhg, fine sir. We were on vacation, a little relaxation before my older sisters returned to Atlas for the year." Jaune replied.
"Is that so? Well good for your sisters. Atlas is an immensely prestigious academy and routinely produces some of the finest Hunters and specialist on Remnant. I happen to be good friends with its headmaster, James Ironwood. I'm sure your sister will become excellent Hunters under his tutelage." Ozpin said.
Jaune was utterly confused. When he mentioned Ozpin in front of his parents they looked like Darth Sidious himself had walked through the door. Yet Ozpin asked about them as if they were old friends.
Weird.
"Tell me Mr. Arc, why have you not applied for one of the four Hunter schools. From what Skywalker has told me, you are quite able in battle. You evidently showed this by defeating a Sith Lord virtually on your own. From how your master described the dark lords, is no small feat I'm sure." Ozpin praised.
"I didn't do it exactly on my own sir. If Luke had not appeared and distracted the Sith I would have been Bantha fodder." Jaune admitted, "As for why I haven't applied for one of the Hunter schools, well my parents wouldn't let me."
Beacon's headmaster nodded as he absorbed the information.
'Hook.' He thought.
"Well, what's stopping you know? Your 17 from what I hear, a legal adult in the eyes of the kingdoms."
"Well I never attend a prep school before and I was never trained by an official Hunter. I couldn't apply even if I wanted." Jaune said.
'Line.'
"What if I offered you a spot in Beacons academy initiation in two weeks?" Ozpin offered.
Jaunes eyes widened considerably at the offer.
"I don't know what to say, headmaster. I've always wanted to be a Hunter, but I also committed myself to be a Jedi."
Jaune had always planned on leaving with Luke and to travel with him to the rest of the galaxy when he became an adult.
But seeing as Luke still had a long way to go with repairing the X-Wings hyperdrive...
'And sinker.'
"I understand fully Jaune." Ozpin said as he pulled a card out of his vest pocket and handed it to the young Jedi, "This is my personal scroll number. If you change your mind, please do not hesitate to call or message me to let me know. But I would make the decision soon if I were you. Beacon starts in a little over two weeks from now, and I'd hate to see you not be able to attend because of simple indecision."
With that Ozpin walked off toward one of the newly constructed buildings.
Whistling a strange tune before taking a sip from his mug.