First of all: Holy shit this took long. Sorry, I just had to revise a few things and then write it all up
I may have made up parts of the worldbuilding here, I don't know how much of what I put in here conflicts with the world of RWBY. To be fair, I didn't feel like watching World of Remnant.
Also, responding to a review from last chapter, yea I'll hopefully try to spread out the magical shit a bit better now. I will promise you that nothing (At least nothing I or canon hasn't already established) here is magic. It's mostly just Grimm and shit.
Just as a note: School's starting up for me again. That means that updates might become sparser. I'll still work on this stuff, but you know how it is with juggling responsibilities.
That said, have fun!
The White Knight once saw the city of peace,
The scars of war festering with hate,
With his companions, he obliterated those scabs.
Jaune was easily impressed. It was kind of a given for a traveler like him. With the sights constantly changing, he never got bored of just looking around and taking in his surroundings, or even just admiring the view. It was one of the few things that he could do as a nomad that he could not do, or at least not as often, if he stayed in one place. Sure, from what he's heard of it, Beacon's impressive, but it becomes less so if you sleep, eat, learn, fight, and live there. As a one-time visit, it's large and grand. As a home, it's vast and probably confusing to navigate. Regardless of that, Jaune was smiling as he admired Vytal.
The large island where the Great War ended. Jaune didn't pay attention much in history, but he knew enough about the Great War to say that it left its mark. His grandfather apparently was a terror in it. He always refused to talk about the Great War. It was something of a mark of shame for him. He usually just talked about his tales as a Huntsman after the war. Jaune supposed he refused to glorify war for a child, though he wondered why he'd glorify being a Huntsman for Jaune if it was essentially the same thing. Eh, well, close enough. It involved constant conflict, that was for sure.
Regardless, Vytal was a grand place. Most settlements on it were actually at the coasts, since inland didn't really have all that much besides the Vytal Peace Memorial, where apparently the peace treaty was signed eighty years ago. Jaune had taken a boat to Vytal, mostly because it sounded interesting, and was currently eating a sandwich he got from the corner store of the port town the boat he took went to. While he was having a fine day eating his sandwich, he heard stuff.
"Did you hear? The Memorial is haunted by Grimm."
"I tried to go to my grandfather's grave, but I saw the entire place crawling with monsters."
"What if they come attack us?"
Jaune saw that people were worried, scared. And Jaune had an inkling that if their anxieties continued to bubble, whatever Grimm infested Vytal Memorial Park would probably migrate to attack the portside towns. So, buying a quick meal, some jerky, and water dust, he decided to head to the Vytal Peace Memorial.
Jaune walked to the Vytal Peace Memorial with pretty good supplies. Even if he didn't get some jerky at the corner store, he still had some ammo and dust on him. With five regular flares, two electromagnetic flares, two ice flares, a gravity dust flare, a crystal of lightning dust, and a crystal of wind dust. From afar, he surveyed the Vytal Memorial. It wasn't looking pretty, that was for sure. The sky was clear, shining a light on the city. From a tourist's guide to the Memorial Grounds, which was situated in the entire ruins of the city of Vytal, it was seperated into four parts for the four kingdoms that took park in the conflict. Each part had its own memorial, graves, statues, and other little things.
And he decided to approach the Atlesian side first, or was it Mantlese? Eh, Atlesian.
To call the city of Vytal a ruins would be half correct. A lot of the buildings were up, though they were crumbling or partially destroyed already. Streets were cracked and sidewalks sometimes turned to gravel. Snow also was plentiful in the Atlesian sector, with some areas buried in a hill of the white powder. Jaune didn't know why, it was perfectly warm elsewhere. The memorials were plentiful. There were many statues of old Atlesian soldiers and knights, plenty of specific war heroes and generals, and even a mural depicting the history of Atlas. Disregarding that, he stayed hidden where he could to scout out the Grimm in the area.
Grimm flooded it the Atlesian sector. Grimm parodies of old Atlesian footmen, knights, horses, and early vehicles paraded the streets with swords, axes, cannons, and early firearms. Dead bodies of Atlesian soldiers from the great war littered the winter hellscape. Bloodied white was a common color. He saw dead Atlesian footmen skewered by arrows and left to bleed out in the snow. He saw many with deep cuts on their chests, piercing the armor they wore. He saw limbs seperated and organs splattered. The visceral scene contrasting with the perfect snow made Jaune puke.
The strangest thing was that, all around the park, everywhere he looked, he saw Grimm weirder than the rest. They were seemingly passive and featureless humanoids, occasionally those with Faunus traits, that were kneeling or praying at memorials or graves. They occasioanlly shook or swayed while doing so, which meant they were living. Jaune supposed that if they didn't attack first, he wouldn't bother clearing them out. He nicknamed them Mourners in his head.
Just as Jaune was about to descend upon a lone Knight, he heard the sound of gunfire from far away. He shrugged and followed the sound. There were a few possibilities of what was there. One: A Knight with a gun was fighting at some random thing. Then, he could watch from afar and observe it to safely gather data on how it fought and acted. Two: It was fighting someone. If it was a civilian, he had to save them. If it was a fellow hunter, he could probably join them if they were working to investigate what was going on in Vytal.
So, with a shrug, he navigated through the alleyways of the decrepit and snowy ruined city to get to the source of the gunfire. And when he reached it, he realized quickly who it was.
Yelling out commands to a few Atlesian knights, a sight for sore eyes made herself clear. Winter Schnee, now all cleaned up and wearing a non-torn uniform, wielding a beautiful saber with one hand and carrying a wounded comrade with another. She was the picture of a heroic soldier. And, of course, the Grimm were descending upon her. The twisted knights used old, rusted, and chipped Atlesian swords to swarm at the robotic knights while rotting musketeers shot metal bearings at the Atlesians. Jaune didn't waste a second in his response.
He pulled out his crystal of lightning dust and channeled a bit of aura into it before imbuing the electricity into Crocea Mors. He descended upon the knights and instantly fried the Grimm insides with the electricity, merely needing to tap at the armor before each Knight fell. The rapid destruction of the twisted knights allowed the Atlesian Knights to raise their arms and fire their guns at the unarmored musket zombies. It was only a few moments before the fight was finished and Winter was safe.
"Who- you!" Winter looked up to greet her rescuer and saw the same huntsman from long ago. "Y-y-you're back!"
"Heya, Snow Angel!" Jaune gave a cheeky smile as he could practically hear a vein pop. "Long time no see. Sorry I haven't called." Yea, really getting the teasing in there. Before she could say anything else, he sighed. "Sorry, sorry, I'm just feeling witty today. Anyways, I came around to see what was clogging up the Vytal Memorial. I take it you're doing the same?"
"Yes, I am. My partner and I were sent with a small platoon of Atlesian Knights. We were quickly overwhelmed by the Grimm and he was injured." She looked at the unconscious Specialist she was carrying. "Very luckily, I managed to dress his wounds quickly. I will need help exfiltrating him to a safe area for a Bullhead to pick him up."
"Got it. You need help?" She shook her head. "Alright, I'll go along with you either way. But, I'll still need some help figuring out what the hell is happening around here."
"I suppose so."
"Seriously, what happened? I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be snowing, winter ended a while ago! This place is like a messed up theme park for the war and I don't think I like that." Winter carried her injured comrade as they walked and talked. Jaune was feeling pretty excited at the fact that he'd be working with Winter on this mission. It felt like it was going to be a large and long one and he was itching for the company.
"We suspected a special type of Grimm is infesting Vytal Memorial Grounds. The colosseum where the peace treaty was formally signed is blocked offf, however. I think we may need to deal with a few other lesser Grimm before we can access the center." Winter wasn't having too much trouble carrying her comrade, though Jaune and the Knights did have to fight off a few minor Grimm that tried attacking them on their way out. Luckily, they were at the edges of the Vytal Memorial grounds.
"Oh, that's going to be a pain." He sighed. From the looks of it, whatever was infesting the Vytal Memorial Grounds was probably absurdly powerful. To lighten the mood and catch up with who he'd like to call a friend, he askked, "So, what's happened to you since we last met?"
"Due to the events on that mission, I've no longer been deployed to clear out Merlot's labs." Before Jaune could say anything, she shook her head. "It's of no grievance to me. This mission was supposed to be recon and training for him," She pointed to her unconscious comrade, "But we were ambushed by overwhelming force. It was of no fault of his own that he was injured. He tried to shield me with his own body when the gunfire happened and his aura was shattered. I'll make sure to give a glowing report on him for that." Same Winter as ever, cold tone and front, but warm on the inside. At least that was how Jaune saw it. "Anyways, how has it been for you?"
"Oh, you know the usual. I've been around places, seeing places, people, and things." Jaune was vague on purpose because, to be honest, there were a lot of places he'd been to during the time in which he saw her last and that day. He'd saved people from Grimm, apprehended bandits, helped out at a bakery, made a pot for someone's birthday, and even found a really good drink at a small inn in a really small town. Oh yea, and he won a deck of cards containing a magical spirit of luck and/or gambling by cheating in a game of rock paper scissors, but that wasn't something he was exactly going to tell everyone. Mostly because that would mean bringing out Darling and that would almost certainly mean she would try enticing him with a game of yahtzee.
"It's both a boon and bane to hear you're still traveling. But, I'm glad I'm able to see you once more." They were now waiting outside the Vytal Memorial Grounds for a bullhead to arrive and pick up the injured Specialist in training. "Anyways, when we go back in there, we must have a plan. I see you have a map of the Memorial Grounds?" Jaune nodded and put it down. There were five (six if you counted the unofficial Menagerie corner) sections to the memorial. One for each kingdom and the central arena, where the peace treaty was signed. From what Winter said, the arena was blocked off by some unknown force. Jaune reckoned that whatever was in it was spawning all the other Grimm and, due to its size, it had split up smaller spawners through the four (five if you count Menagerie) sections. Jaune voiced his idea to Winter, who merely nodded. "Yes, while I thought nothing of it at the time, I scouted a statue of a Mantlese General bleeding an odd black substance. Perhaps that is where the Grimm are coming from, it is in the middle of where the Grimm are most dense." Jaune looked at the little marking Winter put on the map to indicate Grimm and nodded. "I'll assume whatever is spawning the Grimm is in the Atlesian Great War Museum Hall that lies underneath the statue I mentioned. If we can deal with it, we should."
"Hmmm, by the way, what do you have on you?" Jaune went on to list the ammunition and supplies (he still had that box of raisins and salt shaker, much to her extreme disappointment) that he had on him. He was asking mostly because he wanted to make sure if he could fall back on her if he ran out of rations. While it wasn't too hard to scavenge for non-perishable food in Veinshire, he was pretty sure that'd be way more difficult to do in the memorial grounds. The foremost reason being that memorial grounds aren't the best places to build supermarkets and all.
"This was supposed to be a quick mission. But, just in case, we had a few of the Knights carry backpacks of rations. Between the two of us, they should've been enough to sustain us for a good while." He was sensing a but. "But, the knights were slowly picked off as we tried to escape. So, most likely, those are scattered around the Atlesian sector. Personally, I'm carrying an MRE, my saber, a vial of fire dust, and a vial of ice dust." Hmm, rather minimal, but he couldn't exactly blame her given the nature of the mission.
"Hmm. Well, between the two of us, we can't force our way through these Grimm." Jaune pointed at the practical barricade of Grimm that surrounded where the statue was. Or, to be more accurate, taking the path of roads would just lead to them walking into various Grimm nests and being swarmed easily. Winter nodded, finding that to be pretty obvious but also finding it rude to point that out. "But, it looks like there's a way past it. There's a half destroyed factory nearby. If we can get in and out, we might be able to sneak into the Museum Hall without anyone noticing."
"There's a problem however. In order to enter the factory without attracting attention, we'd need to enter through the back door. And to reach that, we'd have to pick a pathway. We could go the quickest route and have to deal with a few platoons of those odd armored Grimm." Twisted Knights, he insisted. She shrugged, the name was better than any other she had at the moment. "Twisted Knights. Or, we could try to go a more complicated route to avoid any patrols. It really makes no difference, since we might be able to simply run past the patrols, but I wouldn't bet on us being faster than a musket shot." That was a good point. Jaune took another look at the map before pointing out a large destroyed house, apparently it was a former orphanage.
"What about this? It leads nearby the back door and I don't think there could be any more Grimm in there than outside." That was a good point and she nodded, the plan seemed pretty good. After ironing out a few more kinks, they got ready to head to the former orphanage. They stretched a bit, Winter showing Jaune her new weapon that Ironwood commissioned her after her last weapon got destroyed. Apparently, the saber could seperate into a seperate sword, allowing her to dual-wield duelling sabers. From what Jaune had seen, she was pretty good at using her saber offensively and her fighting style did seem like it would use two. Though the path they picked out was supposed to be rather safe, there was almost a guarantee they would run into something to fight on the way there. By the time they were ready, Winter's injured companion had been sent back to their temporary base at a portside town while the two of them approached the memorial grounds once more.
"It's kind of weird, you know?" To burn some time as they traveled, Jaune initiated some conversation.
"Hmmm?"
"How modern the buildings seem. I've always wondered why Vytal looked like this. From what I know, the Great War was originally fought with sticks and stones." Well, swords, spears, cannons, and etc. "But supposedly this was made during the last few decades of it. How far did we progress during the war, anyways?" It was a fairly good question. The Great War had been long, ridiculously long. Spanning for about a century and featuring a body count so large that it rivaled most kingdoms in terms of size. It had started with tensions between two sides. Mantle and Mistral on one and Vale and Vacuo on the other. Despite historians and propoganda framing it as an ideological battle, it was mostly a battle that started over resources and fearmongering. Because, of course it was. Mistral and Mantle, though especially Mantle, were getting increasingly more transparent in terms of what they wanted: An empire. While Vale and Vacuo had been mostly content to run on a system of semi-feudalism, the other two nations were becoming increasingly structured and expansionist. Valean opinions of the two other nations plummeted due to fearmongering that the king tried to calm, though he failed. In the end, the bubble burst when conflict dramatically escalated on a colony with very precious resources. Mistral was at war with Vale over who owned the island, Mantle joined in on the side of Mistral due to a few treaties, and Vacuo would eventually join in on the side of Vale to avoid being cut up by Mistral and Mantle as colonies.
"Very. Beyond the modern innovations we take for granted, there were thousands of failed ideas. Out of desperation, scientists cooked up numerous ways to try and win the war. I can't tell you how many absolutely mad experiments from that time I've had to read about in the academy. Like, for instance, one scientist proposed that we put a pathogen into Vacuan water in order to make them smell more, thus fore, lowering their morale and attracting Grimm. While the overall tactic was somewhat solid, as it's just fear-stoking, it was quite silly and born from someone living their entire life during war and wanting to do anything to win. Anyways, in terms of architecture, the kingdoms began using concrete and wood in a semi-modern style a while ago, actually." That made sense. While he hadn't been in vale for months by then, he remembered a lot of the buildings definitely being more modern than wht Vytal used to be. There were no electric lights in the city of Vytal, only gas lamps and other combustion based illumination. It actually reminded Jaune of the level of infrastructure most frontier towns had, as not every farmer could afford to constantly use an in-house generator to power their lights. Some of the time they just have candles or lamps lit in their homes.
They heard the rising of guns and turned around. Upon rounding the corner, they realized they had been surrounded by musket wielding Grimm. Their uniforms were tattered and worn, their bodies humanoid but entirely black and white, and they were definitely hostile. Jaune dubbed them Musketeers.
"Is this really the time to be blase?" Winter had put up her saber, sticking to a one sword stance this time. Jaune shrugged.
"Eh, I mean, what other name could you give them? All for One? Nah, that's clunky. Musketeer works. It's short, simple, and sweet." Winter sighed, Jaune had missed the point entirely. He had Crocea Mors at the ready though, as well as his shield deployed. Jaune was also using the small moment in which their enemies took aim in order to analyze them. He could tell from the bumps in their clothing where the bone plate armor was. And by the looks of it, he may be able to tear straight through their flesh. But, he'd probably get shot at before he could really reach any of them. And they were surrounding them. "So, you take the ten over there and I get the ten over here?"
"Yes, I suppose that's fair. I'll make quick work of them." And with that, she practically disappeared with how quickly she rushed at her enemies. Jaune put up his shield as black powder was ignited, with peach-seed sized balls of metal slammed into his shield, almost putting him off balance if it weren't for the terrific footwork that allowed him to dissipate the force. He thanked dancing lessons for that. He began to descend upon the Musketeers. There were ten of them, lined up in a row. Though six fell back with their muskets, four stayed and drew out rapiers made of bone. Jaune sighed, this was going to be painful. They all tried stabbing at him, one above the shield, one below, and the other two at it. He had to fall back to not get stabbed in the foot and used Crocea Mors to flick away the one that tried to skewer his head. Then he noticed that the six Musketeers that fell back were slowly reloading their guns, which wasn't exactly good.
He rolled away from a thrust coming from a Musketeer who tried to flank him and used that momentum to try beheading one of them. It worked, a little too well for his tastes. The head came clean off and out from it came a small geyser of blood. Well, not blood, but something with the consistency of blood that was all the colors of the rainbow. It was, to be frank, quite weird. The pool of liquid that was left after the corpse dissipated was made up of hundreds of different colors. But, it was no time to get distsracted, no no no, there were still three Musketeers trying to stab him and six getting ready to fill him with lead, or whatever those shots were made of.
Even if he was physicall stronger than them, he couldn't engage them in fencing. Crocea Mors, while not exactly a greatsword by any means, wasn't light either. If he tried to engage in proper combat with them, they'd just zip around him and get their licks in. Instead, he had to be aggressive without giving them the chance to try and utilize their manuverability. He always kept his shield up towards where the six Musketeers were while he used his other hand to wield Crocea Mors. He leaned right in order to bump into a thrusting attack, almost getting stabbed but able to simply tuck the blade in his armpit, and then stabbed Crocea Mors backwards into the Musketeer's chest. Again, colored blood exploded from the wound, staining his back with what he could only describe as Unicorn blood. Now that he thought about it, wouldn't a Unicorn make an excellent symbol for the Atlesian Military? It would certainly be funny to see a general ride a Unicorn into battle.
Oh yea, fight. Two left.
He put all of his strength and a bit of aura into countering a slash from one of them, basically breaking the blade. He converted the momentum he had left into making a spinning slash, basically bisecting the Musketeer and causing another splash of colored blood. This time, it got in his eyes. And while he was flailing to try and get it off, he felt a stab from the lat Musketeer.
BANG!
Instinctively, when hearing the sound of shots firing, he grabbed onto the sword and tried to blindly use the Musketeer as a meat shield. For some reason, it worked. The Musketeer was riddled with holes, causing explosions of rainbow blood towards the direction of the other six Musketeer. Jaune had wiped his eyes clean at that point and looked over to see them trying to reload once more. Jaune noticed how the bloodsplatter was somewhat connecting them in small puddles and tried something silly out. Bringing his lightning dust crystal out, he charged it up a bit and aimed its power towards one of them. And without the time to think up of a cool one-liner, he fired off a chain of lightning that latched onto one of the Musketeers and then jumped onto the others. They all shook from the shock and dropped dead, not exploding this time due to the lack of an actual wound. He looked over to see that Winter had also just cleaned up her ten Musketeers and, by the look of it, she was also covered in colored blood.
"Well, that was messy." Jaune was trying to wipe the stuff off of him. He looked over to the snow, which had been painted with blood by the battle. Strangely enough, the Unicorn blood that stained it didn't do it without any pattern. The rainbow fluid actually created graffiti on the snow. Jaune smiled, at least the mess created something of beauty.
"Indeed. I suppose if these are supposed to be the soldiers of Mantle, it would make sense. The tyrannical policies set by Mantle before the Color Revolution weren't exactly popular. Graffiti was a common form of protest to that. And many people took part of it as a form of self expression. Even soldiers did it in military bases." Winter seemed indifferent about it all, which he voiced some confusion over. "It's history. Those practices are over now and soldiers, while not allowed to tamper with military property, are at least allowed self expression in non-obstructive methods. Things like scroll decorations or custom gun modifications are rather common for active duty soldiers." He supposed it made sense. Learn from the mistakes of the past and all.
"Well, let's get to that orphanage." And that wasn't a sentence he thought he'd say, like, ever. The look on Winter's face indicated that she wasn't expecting to have heard that be said either. From where the battle commenced and ended, they traveled to where a former orphanage was. It was a large hall with three floors. Jaune was pretty sure that, on top of an orphanage, it probably served as a school as well. And, in comparison to the other buildings, it was actually on par with them in terms of quality. And then Jaune realized the implications. If the building was made during the war and the orphanage was this large-
"Yes, from what I recall of Vytal's history, there was a political movement to fund facilities like these for the horrific amount of orphans made in the war." Well, that was certainly a tidbit of history. They could think on the past later. The orphanage building was half destroyed. In the middle of it were huge craters, as if something burned or shot into it, that revealed the rooms inside. They could see the charred remains of skeletons in the wreckage, along with charred boards, half destroyed rooms, and rubble. They entered from the door in one side, hoping to sneak through the orphanage to get to the factory's back door.
The room they entered was actually quite clean for being part of a destroyed building. There weren't windows, but a lamp was actually lit. The floors creaked as they walked through the lobby-esque room. It seemed to be the processing place for new additions to its halls. There were old children's toys on racks and happy crayon illustrations on the walls. From the lobby side of things, he could see that there were medical supplies in case of an accident in the room. It was either the waiting room of an old timey pediatrician, a vintage hospital, or an orphanage. Well, ok, that would've been his fifth guess. Right behind a daycare in poverty and a very bad kids space in a fast food joint. Those thoughts were immediately cut off when they went to the next room, where they saw something truly terrifying.
The next room was in flames. Mourners wearing Great War-era clothes were hugging onto smaller child-shaped Mourners as the fires consumed the rooms. Explosions rang through the air as shells penetrated the sides of the orphanage before letting out flames that consumed. Soldiers with gas masks came in and began firing upon the people there, walls were shattered, people were slaughtered, a melody of gunfire slammed into their ears. Winter was shocked still while Jaune couldn't move. They felt the intense heat of the fires and saw as the scene played out. Winter tried backpedaling away, tried to walk out the door, but found it locked. Even with Jaune helping to try and slam it open, it wouldn't.
They turned around and could only watch as the orphanage burned down in front of them.
"I think I remember this event." Jaune perked up. "The Mantle military, to try and end the war, wanted to use fear tactics. So, in a deliberate effort to attract the Grimm to the Valean stronghold on the island of Vytal, Mantle military forces attacked it and purposefully began slaughtering people with targeted shellings and a few troops. Their target? This orphanage at the edges of the city. That was enough to attract a large force of Grimm that, while it didn't overrun the city, it still damaged their defenses. It was called the Helkiger-Tiyo Massacre. Helkiger was the general who ordered the attack while the orphanage was Tiyo's House for those Affected by War." Her eyes bore a haunted look. Before, she saw the event in a detached way. Now? She saw what happened first-hand as Mantlese soldiers slaughtered them like animals. It was nausea inducing, to say the least.
"We have to get out of here."
"Agreed." This was why terror tactics were made war crimes after the Great War. Nobody wanted those used on them. The tactics were often barbaric in terms of the acts taken, ranging from mutilating bodies to chemical warfare. All in the pursuit of weaponizing Grimm and their terrifying strength. Jaune, who had always kept a healthy fear of Grimm (it was important to always keep in mind what they could do in the cases in which otherwise you'd get cocky and then mauled) paled at the prospect of them being set upon anyone on purpose. It was an offense that was considered capital for a civilian, though the death penalty had been abolished in Vale for quite a time.
And so, they ran. Jaune kept up with Winter as they sprinted through the burning exhibit of the past. The soldiers barely looked at them as they slaughtered the Mourners acting as civilians. It was a sentiment that was bubbling in Jaune's head for a while, but Vytal Memorial Grounds had truly turned into a fucked up theme park dedicated to the war. The smell of smoke overwhelmed their noses, as did the heat did to their skin. Malice radiated from the soldiers as they slaughtered the Mourner actors. The only thing that made the scene ever so slightly comical was the thick rainboy fluid that splattered onto Jaune's armor as they went by.
And the orphanage was large. They saw everything about the attack. How the soldiers deliberately aimed at non-vital parts to prolong suffering, thus attracting more Grimm, how they herded their victims together to make them watch as the others died in front of them, and how they left nobody to survive. How they tossed people into flames made from the rubble of their victims' home, how they used chemical irritants to further exasperate their pain, how they used hollow point ammunition so the bullets would expand in their flesh, how they-
"Snap out of it." Winter was now dragging Jaune along. He had been paralyzed at the sheer violence on display. She was stronger than him, if not physically, than mentally. While her eyes were haunted by the sights before her that her ancestors, if not committed, then were complicit with. But she was a soldier, he was not. She knew first-hand how conflict took away, while he was lucky to not have been cursed with that at such a young age. She pulled him through the hall and they managed to get out the other door, where there was no fire. There was no screaming, there was no smoke. There was no gas. There were no soldiers. There was no gunfire. It was just fresh air, the bright blue sky, and snow. Jaune slumped over by a wall, pupils shrunk, breathing heavily.
"S-s-sorry, I-I've never seen such. Such." He couldn't find the words to express himself. Winter, knowing they were safe for the moment, merely sat besides him and sighed.
"Such is how war goes. This is why veterans are the most adamant opposers of war. Because that is what happens when it escalates too far." Winter sighed. Jaune was slowly recovering, he always had. Even when seeing death for the first time, he was back and ready with a smile later. "But the warhawks in the council and streets don't think that. They think of war as a glorious thing. They think it's a sport, when in reality, it's hell." Jaune sighed and got up, his smile a little dimmer.
"How do veterans deal with it?" Winter thought for a moment before recalling something she did during training.
"I was taught a meditation ritual once. The purpose of it was to clear ones mind and be ready for an attack at any angle. To only focus on what's important. It's called Calm Waters. There are many forms of it, depending on your weapon, but since we both have swords, I can teach you the form. It'll help you relax and will be a useful skill, alright?" Jaune shakily nodded, getting up from the wall with Winter. She put her saber to her side and put a hand on the hilt. "Close your eyes and ears to the outside world, for they muddy your mind. Then, calm your breathing, for it is the only access to the world you have left. Then, let your troubling thoughts stir before expelling them. Free your aura from your flesh, your clothes, and your sword. Let it roam and feel the world around you." She said the instructions while doing them herself. Jaune could feel her aura expand and lightly touch his skin. "Now, try and sneak up on me with an attack."
Jaune looked confused for a second but did as told. He tried to silently poke her in the eye, but was immediately blocked by the flat side of her saber. He tried putting a bit more force into his finger, but found that she would put equal amounts of pressure in it as well. He tried poking somewhere else, but she merely moved the blade. After that, he pulled back and nodded.
"Alright, let me try." His head was swirling with panic, but he started with closing his eyes. That was easy, now he couldn't see. Then, he stopped focusing on his hearing. Everything incomprehensible white noise. Now he could only hear his own breathing, which he noticed was rather ragged and irregular. He focused on it and found his breathing calming down as he thought of nothing but the great blue sky. And finally, he tried letting his aura and troubling thoughts run free of his body, tried to force them out of his head. It wasn't working, the more he thought about them, the more they popped up. Winter seemingly noticed his trouble in how his breath changed and sighed.
"If you are having trouble with the last two steps, try imagining an easily agitated mist coming out from you. The world is calm water and every movement is a small ripple. Sense those ripples are react to it." Jaune did so and imagined it. The sky was a clear blue and the floor was a shallow pool of water. Much like the river at Ansel he played in. He could vaguely sense buzzing in some small crevices, though he couldn't recognize the bugs. Ss he remained in Calm Waters, he found himself oddly calm. He could feel the world around him, not through sight or sound, but through an odd sense of knowing. As if the world and him were one. And a blade was coming close.
Shing!
Jaune met Winter's saber with only the amount of force necessary. She tested the waters as he did by putting more and less pressure, only to find that Jaune adjusted accordingly. She tried a stab and he merely sidestepped. She looked at his form for a moment before nodding.
"Not too bad. Your reaction times definitely need work and it took too long to get into the state, but you are still learning how to do it. This technique has been refined for decades. A legendary blind sniper once wielded a rifle and used the technique to find her prey. Give it a few months of constantly training this, you'll do better. But, aside from that, has it taken your mind off of what you saw?" Winter was smiling as Jaune exited Calm Waters with a neutral face.
"Yea, got it. Let's get moving, alright? Don't wanna slow you down." Winter rolled her eyes at the remark but didn't say anything as the two of them entered the factory back door. It was an older design of factory, where instead of machines doing everything, there were factory lines where countless workers did and were working. The machines were, oddly enough, still up and running. And mourners wearing factory worker clothes were at the belts, putting together the product they were making like clockwork. The Mourners were terrifyingly efficient, with no wasted movements or time. Jaune and Winter stalked through the shadows, hoping to avoid conflict. They weren't in the past, they could see snow out the windows and still could go back out, but there was no guarantee of there being no Grimm in the factory halls.
Jaune got a good look at what they were producing and found out quickly: It was ammunition and weapons. Guns parts were being manufactured, assembled, and tested with bullets quickly. Every minute there were a hundred new guns produced. Every minute there were thousands of bullets of various sizes produced. Winter seemed astounded because the guns were real. Old 9mm pistols, 9mm SMGS, machine guns, trench guns, rifles, and countless other weapons of the Great War were being produced by the Mourning Grimm. The two of them weren't far enough into the factory to see where exactly their products were going, but it couldn't be anything good.
"Why exactly would they be producing guns?"
"My guess? They're serving some larger Grimm. Factories like these often had dismal morale during war time, due to strict rules, harsh conditions, and long hours. They factory machines are likely being supported by Grimm fillings while the arms being made are being used by some larger Grimm here. And if I'm being honest, we'll probably have to fight it." That was not an exciting prospect. Because there were only so many things a Grimm could do with an army's worth of guns.
"So, we'll be fighting a giant monster made of these things? Hmmm, let's sabotage the factory line." She raised an eyebrow at that. "If we continue on, it'll get stronger. But if we sabotage the machines right here? Then we'll stop its growth and then can deal with it. The only problem is that the Mourners will probably get hostile." Winter nodded and counted them all.
"They'll probably pull out pistols while those overseer Grimm looking on top of everything will pull out a larger weapon, like a machine gun, rifle, or explosives launcher. I'll be able to take them out while you sabotage each of the machines, alright?" Jaune did a small survey to see what he needed to destroy. First, there was the machine that made the gun parts, that would have to be cut. Then, he'd need to destroy the conveyor belt. Finally, he'd have to stop the creation of new bullet casings as well as the flowing in of gunpowder. With a nod, Winter got to disrupting the Mourners. Jaune decided to go for the gun part machine first. It was in a seperate chamber and he found that metal was being stamped into becoming gun parts by a Beringel.
A Beringel whose arms were pistons. And while Beringels were strong before, having their punches powered by pistons as well wasn't exactly doing nothing to its strength. A normal one could destroy a house with their arms, this one could probably tear down a castle. The large gorilla Grimm beat its chest as smoke billowed out from its arms where the pistons were grafted onto it. Metal fused with flesh as it seemed that the gorilla was very adept at using its modifications to try and kill him. How did he know? It was using that power to, instead of throw items, punch gun pieces at him like projectiles. And all he could do was run with his shield up to dodge or block all of the projectiles while trying to evade the Beringel. It was keepings its distance from Jaune, who tried out the technique he just learned to dodge better.
In hindsight, that was a bit of a screw-up.
He closed his eyes, his ears, and as he was trying to calm his breathing, he was hit in the gut by a very strongly launched gun barrel. He was knocked out of his focus and opened his eyes to see that the Beringel had grown tired of ranged fighting. Now, it was trying to smash him. With a panicked yelp, Jaune managed to roll away from the Beringel's first slam, which created a crater in the floor. He tried getting a few stabs at it, but found that its hide was too thick to pierce. And with the pistons, he couldn't use the same trick as last time as it would only punch, not swing. Maybe he could short circuit the pistons? No, those didn't seem to be electric. As he dodged another slam, he continued to think. And then, he realized something. All the gun parts were coming from somewhere, right? The metal that the Beringel was stamping looked molten before it was slammed and cooled. And the conveyor belt led still had some length to go. So Jaune booked it up the belt, with the Beringel hot on his heels. Dodging a few shot out molten metal ingots, he found himself in a foundry, where molten steel was being poured into ingots for the Beringel to stamp. If Jaune could go up the ladder to a platform above the metal, he might be able to lure and shove the Beringel into it.
But that relied on him being able to go up the ladder.
SLAM!
The Beringel was in the room and was pelting him with heavy ingots of molten metal. It wasn't too hard to dodge the projectiles, but if he was on a ladder, he would get slammed right in the back. He just need a way to distract it long enough for him to make it up. Looking into his ammunitions, he had one. Loading a electro-magnet flare into his flare gun, he shot at a metal pillar near the Beringel and, as he hoped, the piston parts were attracted to the flare. The magnetic force pulled its arms to the side, though it was struggling with the pull. Jaune saw this as a good of an opportunity as ever to climb the ladder quickly before the magnetic force wore off and the Beringel would get back to trying to punch and/or sling crap at him.
He leaped up and actually had a bit of time to spare as when it made its final attempt to pull its arms off the pillar, it wrenched off an entire chunk of it and launched the Beringel into a wall. In that time, he sat down and put himself into a meditation pose. He closed his eyes and ears and began to imagine the world turning into one of Calm Waters. All was still or mundane, until he felt a splash. Jaune rolled to the side and dodged the Beringel's fist, his eyes still closed. He was pretty sure that if he got hit, his concentration would be broken and the Beringel would overwhelm him. So he just had to keep on dodging. With sword in one hand and a shield in another, he began to dance with the gorilla.
As the water splashed, he turned and ducked into his next step. Every movement was simply to evade and lead the Beringel on. Jaune was playing a delicate game, one where even a slight impact could doom him. He was grazed many times, but he managed to hold onto his grip on it. He sensed when it would attack and reacted accordingly, ducking, leaning, and rolling on the platform that was surrounding the large bubbling pool of molten steel. Every time it tipped over to pour out some of the glowing liquid, he knew. Every time the Beringel overextended to punch him, he knew. Every movement of its foot, he could sense.
And when he was able to lead the Beringel to try and slam into him while his back faced the molten pit, he was able to take its hand like they were in a waltz before leading its momentum to the molten steel. Jaune let go before it could pull him in and opened his eyes. The sense of calm he felt was rather pleasing. The sight of the Beringel burning to death in the metal was also quite pleasing. In a few moments, it would burn through its skin and kill it, turning it into black smoke that bubbled out of the steel.
"Alright, that's one done." Jaune had taken a few hits during that fight, but he managed to minimize the damage taken thanks to good dodging. He thanked his dance lessons for that. So he was now going to have to deal with the conveyor belt and the bullet casing maker. Actually, thinking of the conveyor belt, Jaune simply cut it fully across, thus making it unoperational. "That was rather simple. The next one is going to be really painful, isn't it?" Well, no time to complain, he supposed. Jaune went down the ladder and saw what Winter was doing. It turned out that the factory worker Mourners were a bit more of a problem than she thoughts. Mostly because security came in with automatic rifles and began firing at her. She was dealing with them pretty slowly, careful not to let herself get hit even once. She must be counting on him to hurry up and come to help her, which he was definitely going to try and do.
He sneaked over to where the bullets were being made and found that the brass casings were being cast from another foundry of molten brass. He didn't see anything else and shrugged. He looked around for a power source or really anything he could tamper with and saw the conveyor belt. It was as good as anything so he slashed it as well, effectively stopping the flow of munitions to the rest of the factory. Shrugging, he wiped his hands and began to walk away.
Well, began to, because he heard something bubble. He looked behind him and saw that a hand of brass clawed out of the large container, with drops of molten brass coming off and hardening as it came out. It began to swing at Jaune, though it was a few meters short, it made up for the fact by slinging molten brass at him. He dodged the flaming hot puddles as they splatted on the floor and hardened. He couldn't use his shield against it, because if he tried then the molten metal would stick to it and clog the mecha-shift feature, however limited it was. So, he stuck to dodging. From the looks of it, the hand had an eye, which probably was its weak point. The only thing was that it was on its palm. And when he tried to stab it, it closed its hand into a fist and struck with more force, which rendered that idea moot. If he put a little gravity dust on his clothes and got grabbed, he might be able to collapse it with the small explosion, but he really had no idea beyond that.
Perhaps he could try piercing the fingers or hand itself? No, that would be rather difficult. Plus the force he'd need to accomplish that could only be gained through the hand slamming down onto Jaune as he pointed Crocea mors upwards. And he wasn't exactly willing to bet that he'd be able to kill it before its crushing weight would snap his spine.
So, he'd have to force the hand to stay open. But how to do that? Jaune found that it would regularly heat itself up by dipping into the pool of molten metal. That motion also gave it more liquid brass to sling at him, which wasn't getting any less annoying as Jaune continued to think. Its attacks were less focused on trying to slam him, as that approach had been proven to fail.
Now, it begun trying to fight him with two of its fingers acting like legs. It was kicking furiously at him, making him pull out his shield to deflect and block the overwhelmingly powerful strikes. If Jaune could get behind it, he might be able to stab the eye before it could turn around. But going through the quickest path, in between the two fingers, ran the risk of him being squished if the hand closes them up. So, he continued to use his shield to stall for time.
That was a mistake.
In a slip-up, Jaune was unable to deflect a flick that the hand made at him with its finger. He was slammed with overwhelming force and hit the wall with a loud thud, creating a small crater in the wall. His aura protected him, but he was unable to move as the hand revved up in order to try and hit him.
But before it could thoroughly flatten him, Jaune heard the sound of glass shattered above him as a star of grey, white, and red with black hair jumped in. Qrow appeared, his ridiculously giant sword in his hand, and he descended upon the brass hand (after recovering from slipping on a shard of glass and then his cape) with it. Qrow was, simply put, ridiculously fast and strong. While the brass hand, Jaune dubbed it a Hamsa after a thing he saw in a video once, wasn't being sliced through by Qrow, he was able to make nicks and scratches in it while quickly dodging any strikes it made towards him.
"Hey kid! Get up and join me! And no hiding behind your shield this time, got it!?" Jaune weakly grumbled a bit and emerged from the crater. He stretched while Qrow fought, occasionally slipping on nothing and converting that accidentally gained momentum into an impromptu dodge from a flick or slam the Hamsa tried to use on Qrow. He wasn't exactly amused at him wasting time as he picked up Crocea Mors and its shield and flicked around the sword in a prepatory motion. "OK JUST GET OVER HERE ALREADY!" And it seemed like Qrow had lost all patience. With a shrug, Jaune charged in with his shield at the ready.
"There's an eye on the palm. Could you attack it?"
"Nope! If you tried to serve as distraction, you'd be kicked back into the wall. You're going to be the one that tries to stab its eye." And that's what he was afraid of. Because while being the distraction was rather dangerous, trying to get its eye would just be a recipe for disaster.
"By the way, why are you here?"
"I saw you having trouble through the window, thought to help you out." Wait, but there weren't any other buildings as tall as- "Don't question it, we got a fight to win." Jaune decided to shrug it off in lieu of focusing on fighting the hand. Its index and middle finger were still acting like legs, with its thumb, pinky, and ring finger covering the eye. Jaune decided to flank the Hamsa and met with the three-finger brass barrier in his way. He had a plan and began poking at it, agitating the Hamsa.
He dodged a few flailing kicks and the such and continued to poke at it. After a moment, it was angry enough to try and slam him with its brass arm. He managed to roll away in time and Qrow saw that, as the index and middle finger weren't tucked in, he could now see the eye. He didn't waste a moment and charged at it with his giant sword. Jaune winced as he heard the sound of soft flesh being torn through. The molten brass bubbled but, in the end, the Hamsa's eye faded away, and all that was left was a statue of hot brass. Hot brass Qrow wasted no time in jumping away from and swearing from minor burns.
After a moment, they recuperated and began talking.
"Well, it's nice to see you again, but, why are you here?" Jaune was curious. What was Qrow doing at Vytal Memorial Grounds?
"To visit a grave." Jaune rolled his eyes at the obviously sarcastic response. "Well I'm here to see what the hell happened to the place. It's not a good thing when a large memorial gets infested, you know. I was sent over to investigate and all."
"Same, actually. So was- OH YEA!" Jaune immediately ended the conversation by running back down the conveyor belt to Winter's fight, only to see that she had finished it. She was in the process of cleaning her sword of rainbow blood when Jaune had come in. She didn't look too worse for wear. Her clothes were a bit ruffled and she seemed a bit irritated, but beyond that, she was fine. She gave a look over to Jaune, who hadn't seemed to fare that much better, and gave a sigh.
"What took you so long?"
"Hey, Jaune, what did you run off forrrrrrrrrrr-" Qrow trailed that sentence as he walked in and got into eye contact with Winter. Jaune looked between the two of them as Winter's face morphed into a snarl while Qrow's turned into a playful scowl.
"Eh, do you two know each other?" Jaune was confused, to say the least. How did an Atlesian Specialist and a Valean Huntsman know each other? "Did you two meet somewhere? Like on one of your vacations? Did Qrow spill your drink or something? Are you guys exes?" That proposal was the one that popped the bubble, with both of them laughing at the prospect while making remarks disparaging the other in between chuckles.
"Yea, no. The day I date Ice Queen here is when there's only one woman on earth. Well, two, actually, but you don't need to know who exactly. Actually, make that three, gotta include my bitch of a sister. Make that five if we count my nieces, six if you count someone who tried to stab me, oh and a couple hundred thousand if you count anyone underage! What was I saying? Oh yea, me and her? Never." Jaune looked at Qrow, wondering if he was drunk. He did show signs of being an alcoholic last time they met.
"Mr. Branwen is an arrogant, blase, moronic, and pompous buffoon who has no idea what being a huntsman means and constantly refuses to adhere to any sort of procedure. He is, to put it mildly, a blight to women." Well, they were certainly hateful of each other.
"So, how the hell did you two meet?" That was the million lien question, wasn't it?
"I was supposed to cooperate with him on a mission to hunt down a troublesome Drake that had been torching towns. Mr. Branwen," Qrow's scowl became ever more, no pun intended, frigid whenever she addressed him that way, "And he decided to get drunk before we even began. He then proceeded to go on a joyride with Atlesian military equipment, crashed a bullhead into the drake, and then went on to claim that he did all the work and that he shouldn't have to pay for the bullhead. All throughout the process he was constantly making unwanted advances towards me and making other inappropriate comments. He also said I was bad at fighting." Oh, so it was personal. Well, it always was.
"Really? I don't remember it like that. I remember you saying that if I was sober then I should fly the bullhead! How was I supposed to know you were being sarcastic?"
"READING TONE YOU ALCOHOL PICKLED BRAIN MORON!" They were yelling now and Jaune had put a hand to his chin. The next words he spoke broke the arguing up pretty quickly.
"So you two are exes?" Admittedly, he really never was in a relationship himself and the only things he knew of one were of listening to Saphron talk about how she charmed Terra. With Terra talking about how badly Saphron flirted with her. Other then that, his only experience was watching TV dramas with his mom at night. She loved those. Oh yea, he said that. And the room was silent as Qrow and Winter reached for their respective weapons.
"Say that again and I shall not guarantee you will live." The suggestion was that insulting? Yeesh.
"Yea. She's way too young for me anyways." Qrow proceeded to down a few swigs of whatever alcohol was in his flask, Jaune knew it was alcohol because of the smell, as Winter balked at the comment.
"Excuse me!? I'm too young for you? You're way too old for me, you creepy old man." Qrow dramatically clutched to his chest as he feigned hurt at the admittedly paltry insult.
"Oh how will I cope? When the girl dressing up like a stuffy bureaucrat going out to the club in order to lose their virginity calls me a creepy old man." Jaune could practically feel the hatred radiate off of - oh shit fuck.
"Guys?"
"And you're dressed like a playboy crossed with a miserable superhero during a mid-life crisis that can't afford to shave because they spent all their money on a scroll game!" That certainly got Qrow riled up.
"Guys!?" Jaune was increasingly panicked now, because he could hear something approaching.
"Oh!? Well you act like you always have a stick up your ass! What's it doing up there? Using it to protect your purity so you can save it for Jimmy's Irondick?" Jaune couldn't even comprehend how many levels of wrong that insult was. For some reason, Winter could.
"Well-"
"GUYS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! SOMETHING'S COM-" And then, a giant approached. From the other side of the factory, the large Grimm that was demanding the Mourners continue production revealed itself. It was as wide as the factory walls itself and in height it reached the third floor of the factory. Its body was like that of a dragon, but instead of scales, there were guns. Tens of hundreds of thousands of pistols, SMGs, machine guns, shotguns, rifles, and other various firearms attached to its body. Its head was a giant cannon with two giant eyes at its side, the barrel about as large as a bullhead in terms of its circumference. Jaune, in the brief moment of clarity before all hell broke loose, dubbed it an Arsenal Drake.
"WHAT THE FU-" Guns began firing. Jaune's aura, which already was at 78% from his fight with the Hamsa, was being whittled down by the constant gunfire of the Arsenal Drake. Qrow bolted behind some machinery while Winter used her glyphs as a temporary shield before she settled behind a metal barricade. Jaune used his shield after taking a few bullets to hide with Winter as bullets whizzed by them. It wasn't going to let up, that was for sure.
"Ok, this is bad." Jaune was keeping himself calm in order to remain functional. Really, what was the Arsenal Drake if not just a bunch of guys with guns? Oh, yea, it was a motherfucking dragon with a bunch of guns attached to it. This didn't seem like a fair fight and looking at Qrow across the room, he agreed. In fact, he was drinking from his flask as the machinery he was hiding behind was being whittled away at by the constant gunfire. Jaune suddenly had an idea.
"Hey Winter? What's your semblance?" Winter only raised an eyebrow before explaining the power and functionality of Glyphs. "Huh, that's ridiculously versatile. Alright, could you, perhaps, freeze those guns? Like, all of them?"
"I could, but that would take more ice dust than I have on me." Jaune nodded and scrambled through his pockets for a moment before pulling out two ice flares. Emptying the shells of their dust and discarding the plastic, he handed over the handful of ice dust to Winter, who judged it for a second before nodding. "I'll do my best." She took the dust into her hands as glyphs appeared and siphoned away the dust. Large flocks of small Nevermore flew out of the glyphs that she created and immediately flew towards the Arsenal Drake, twisting and turning in the air in order to avoid the gunfire hailstorm.
Plenty of them were shot, which created a small explosion of ice that fell to the ground before immediately shattering from the bullet storm, but some managed to avoid the fate of their kin and slam into the Arsenal Drake, exploding with ice and jamming a large amount of guns on top of freezing it in place. Its mouth opened up to reveal another wall of guns that began firing. Qrow noticed what happened and looked to Jaune, wondering if he had a plan.
"Qrow! Use your speed and weapon to tear apart any guns left still working without getting hit! Winter? I want you to prepare to barrage the Arsenal Drake's mouth with fire dust in order to set off any bullets in it. If we do that, we deprive it of a large portion of its ammo, alright?" Winter and Qrow nodded, seeing the plan as solid. Jaune emptied out all of his regular flares of fire dust and put them into Winter's hand. Jaune joined Qrow in the frontlines in deactivating the guns not frozen on the wings. He pulled out his shield and continued charging forward, keeping in mind to shield his feet and legs with aura as bullets pinged off them. It was painful to deal with and he had to jump from cover to cover in order to avoid getting hit.
And he was hit a lot. The shots it got in on Jaune when it first arrived combined with the unimaginable amount of bullets fired at him as he approached whittled down his aura to yellow, or, as he estimated, around 43%. From the safety of his shield, he began swinging at the non-fozen bits of the Arsenal Drake's wings. It tried in vain to move but found itself weighed down and unable to pull muscles due to parts being frozen. Guns were torn off like scales, revealing black flesh with a bone frame underneath. Jaune continued working at the absolute gargantuan pile of guns until he saw that Winter had cast fire upon the Arsenal Drake's mouth, igniting all the bullets in it at once. They went in all directions, a few hitting Jaune and Qrow, and created holes, small craters, and flattened pieces of lead everywhere. The Arsenal Drake screamed in agony and pulled back, lifting itself and freeing its body of its frozen constraints.
It backed away fast enough and utilized suppressive fire in order to make Jaune and Qrow back away, upon which Jaune heard the distinct and loud sound of a bullet being chambered. And then Jaune realized why, the cannon on the Arsenal Drakes face was being loaded. And they were powerless to stop it.
"Guys! It's going to blow us all to pieces with the cannon on its head!" Jaune yelled from behind some defunct machinery he was using as cover.
"Well I can't exactly run up and cut it off, now can I!? I'll be riddled with holes before I could do that!" Qrow was across the hall from him, but still not any closer or in any position to try and rush the Arsenal Drake.
"As would I!" Winter was even further back. And despite her very high speeds, she couldn't really outmaneuver a storm of gunfire.
So, would they have to fall back? And make this entire fight pointless? In that moment, Jaune had to make a decision. Either they retreat or stand their grand. Not moving wasn't a very good idea, mostly because whatever bullet they'll shoot will basically have the force of a bullhead crash but at bullet speed. There was no way to deal with the giant bullet aside from getting a giant sword and doing as the hero does in a few Mistralian period drama, reflect it.
Wait, that's it!
"Winter! Create a giant black glyph in order to deflect it!"
"What!? Are you sure?"
"It's either that or we run and that isn't exactly a guarantee of our survival either, just do it!" Qrow was also yelling agreements in between his cursing of his semblance. Winter sighed and did as he said, creating a giant black glyph just in time for the cannon to fire a giant bullet. It slammed into the black glyph, with strings pulling at it as the projectile got closer and closer to crushing them. But, its momentum was stopped before it could touch them, and it was propelled back at the Arsenal Drake with incredible force. Such incredible force that it created a giant hole in its body and in the roof of the factory.
And with the clattering of guns, it fell, toppled. The Grimm parts of the Arsenal Drake faded away as the guns were left there. It took a few moments for them to be sure that it was all said and done with. Qrow began laughing while Winter sighed a breath of relief at the fact that his plan worked. Jaune, Winter, and Qrow all gathered around where the Arsenal Drake used to be. Though, it was now a pile of recently-made vintage guns. That and a few tank cannons, howitzers, and other things. The giant face-cannon was actually made of bone though.
"Well, I never thought that would happen, but I guess it worked! Good job for thinking that one up brat." Jaune smiled triumphantly as the three of them mopped up the mess that was made. A lot of ammo was also in the pile, most likely stored in the body of the Arsenal Drake as reserves for its guns. The pistols were well made, though not really his style. 9mm pistols weren't really useful against Grimm. Sure, an explosive shot might tear into its flesh, but a sword cuts its arm off better and without the need for ammunition. Plus, he wasn't about to waste money on regularly oiling the gun. Still, they were pretty nice to look at. Qrow even chuckled as he fiddled with a few pistols while Winter sighed in exasperation at his playing around.
"So, do we just leave all of this to rust away?" He asked after they had put all of the Grimm-made guns in a pile. Winter shrugged.
"After we're done, I'll ask the General what should be done with these. Though they are capable of being used as firearms, we already have much better in the military." They all shrugged and left it at that. Well, it was time to leave the factory and go down to whatever was making the entire mess in the Atlesian part of Vytal. Or, it would've been time if it weren't for the fact that the sun was beginning to set. And Jaune's aura wasn't looking to hot. Winter and Qrow were fine in that regard, but they didn't seem too keen on not getting any rest. So, they decided to set up camp in the factory. Qrow left with Winter in order to find ration packs while Jaune was given the duty of setting up camp.
Considering he didn't have much camp to set up to begin with, he decided to grab some materials. A light walk let him grab an armful or two of wooden planks, some of which he put in a pile and set fire to with the fire-dust-weaving in his gloves. He got some rocks as well to act as a sort of barrier. He always saw that being done in camping videos or when he went out with his dad, but he didn't know why exactly that was done. Oh well, better to be safe than sorry. After that was done, he was feeling remarkably bored. Very bored. The sun was still setting and Winter and Qrow promised to come back only when it had fully set, so he had some time left.
Against his better judgement, he pulled out the deck of cards from his pocket and opened it. A card came out and flew to the other side of a conveyor belt, where Darling popped up from. Her card-patterned suit and clover-field hair were a sight he'd occasionally seen whenever he was feeling bored in the wild. She was more than willing to burn off his boredom with low-stakes games. She would put up some complaints about him being boring, but would comply as he would utilize whatever wits he had left from the events of the day in trying to outsmart Darling in whatever game they chose. That, or just mindlessly rolling dice to see what happened.
"Hello again! I see we're in a new place? Now, do you have a proper bet today?"
"Nah, just these." Jaune pulled out a few sticks of jerky. Since they were getting rations, he might as well have some fun with the soon-to-be superfluous piece of food. "Oh yea, and a pinch of salt." He pinched out the appropriate amount of salt and put it on the conveyor belt. He also dragged out a chair and put it there in order to use it as a sort of table for their game. It was better for his posture if he sat on a chair instead of on the floor. PLus, it looked slightly less ridiculous to gamble against a literal luck spirit at an improvised chair rather than on the floor.
"Good enough! Well, for today, I suppose we shall play a classic from Vale-"
"I swear to god if you make me go through the Tomb of Horrors one more time-"
"No! No! Nothing of the sort. I meant a game called Murder Mystery! Since the last time you've seen me, I've crafted up a mystery you need to solve!" While Darling was primarily a sadistic luck deity, she was also the patron saint of games. Or at least, she loved them enough that Jaune was comfortable calling her that. While the majority of games she played with him revolved around dice of some sorts (He would never forgive her for making him go through the Tomb of Horrors) she was perfectly willing to play games that didn't involve dice of any sorts. Sort of like the murder mystery he was now trying to solve.
An hour or so must've passed because halfway through piecing together all the clues, he heard a thud from across the hall. He looked up to see Winter and Qrow staring at him sitting across from an oddly dressed magical lady. Oh, yea, that would be quite the pickle to explain.
"So, uh." Qrow started speaking first. "Should I ask who this is?"
"Yes, please explain." Winter was no less confused.
"Oh, new players! Well, let me introduce myself." She dropped through the ground and arose with a small explosion of cards. "I go by many names. Though I prefer to be called Darling, you may call me Chance, Gamby, Ms. Fortune, or Arbiter. But the name you know and curse and bless in equal measure is Lady Luck." So she had that introduction as a sort of instinctual thing as well. Kind of like his 'short, sweet, rolls off the tongue' shtick that he couldn't stop saying. Well, it was the closest to charming he'd ever get.
"Hot." Upon seeing the sadistic goddess of games up close, that was all Qrow had to say. And it didn't take a genius to tell what Darling's reaction was.
It was a curious and very sinister smile. Winter only facepalmed upon hearing Qrow's response.
"Really? You see a magical entity claiming to be a God of Luck and the only thing you can say is 'hot.' Are you kidding me? Don't tell me-" Winter's face was shoved away by Qrow. She would've stabbed him, but she saw what happened next and sighed before going to pick up the ration packs she dropped.
"So, what say you and me play a game of cards? Maybe if I win, you can take me to the VIP lounge?" Jaune and Winter both retched. Winter from the sheer sleeziness of it. Jaune from knowing what Darling would do to the poor fool. She, of course, merely smiled as new prey walked right into her hands.
"Oh? Well I'm a high class woman in very high demand. I'm sure you have enough money to bet in order to force my hand and put myself on the line?" Qrow nodded. Soon, the two of them walked over to a slightly more private area. Jaune gave up on trying to solve the mystery and helped Winter out with carrying the ration packs.
"May I ask why you were sitting with someone who claims to be a deity?" Jaune really didn't have any way around it.
"Won her in a bet." Wait, fuck. How was it possible for a man to shove both feet in his mouth and still move? He wasn't sure and seemingly, neither was Winter. Her face said it all, the confusion, the irritation, and ever-so-slight bewilderment at the fact he freely admitted it without a hint of remorse. "Fuck, that sounded wrong. Sorry, but it's kind of true. I won a magical deck of cards that she lives in in a game of rock paper scissors. She's huge on gambling and all. She is an actual luck spirit though. I'll inform you later." No sense hiding the very possibly life-changing consequences of gambling too much with Darling.
"Very well. Shall we prepare some food?" Well, the MREs were supposed to be 'meals ready to eat' but he supposed it made sense that they had to do something to prepare it. And that something, he found, was often adding water. He used some of the water dust he had in order to hydrate the meals. The time it took for them to set up camp with the ration packs as well as wait for the water to fully work its magic on the MREs was enough time for Qrow to play a few games with Darling and walk back to the campsite. Jaune noticed that the deck of cards closed, so Darling probably returned to her vessel, taking all of her game pieces with her.
"Screw my shitty semblance. How am I now ten thousand lien in debt to a spirit? How would she take my money!?"
"Straight from your bank account. She's magic, it works."
"Oh god, there goes my savings."
"To be fair, you were gambling to try and bang her. Did you just forget your semblance?" Jaune asked what exactly it was and was told: bad luck. It took a minute for Jaune to stop laughing at how comical the situation was. It also took a minute for Qrow to stop trying to wail on Jaune for laughing at the situation.
"Yea, yea, I thought with my lower half and not my upper. Jeez, I hear that enough from Tai. Anyways, how exactly did you meet this 'Darling' girl?" Jaune told him and saw the confused look on his face again. Then he reiterated it and his expression turned back to normal. He took a swig from his flask and nodded along. "Got it, magical bullshit." Close enough. "So, Jaune, how exactly did you meet Ice Queen over here?" Jaune and Qrow engaged in some mundane conversation about the whole event while they ate their MREs. After a moment, Winter cut in with her own question near the end.
"By the way, I never got your name. I heard Qrow call you, John, was it?"
"Wait, you don't know his name?"
"Yes?"
"She told me to not say it to spare her the news of my death." Jaune was remarkably blase about the explanation. It took only a few seconds for Qrow to let out his half-drunken laughter at the fact that 'Ice Queen has a friend and she doesn't even know his name.' Subsequently, it took only a few more seconds for Winter to try and skewer Qrow as her irritation hit a bursting point and a few minutes for them to stop their impromptu spar. Jaune did spectate for a moment and saw that the two of them were incredibly skilled. Winter was refined, elegant, and wasted no energy in her movements while Qrow was simply fast, strong, and very flexible with his weapon. After a moment, they sat down by the campfire once more and began to talk again.
"Well, my name is Jaune, short, sweet, rolls off the tongue, ladies love it." Jaune sighed as soon as he said it. "Qrow? Don't you dare say anything."
"I dunno, it'd be pretty funny."
"If you do, I'll tell Winter our first memories of each other."
"Ok I'm backing off." Qrow put his hands up. Conversation from there devolved into little things. Like Jaune asking how Qrow's family was doing (Pretty good, one of her nieces was going to go to Beacon) or going ons in Atlas. (Apparently Atlas Academy's average test scores were higher than Beacon's. Coincidentally, Ironwood happened to be in an extraordinarily good mood that month while Ozpin was in a bad one) Eventually, the topic would drift to how Winter taught Jaune Calm Waters. Qrow snapped and seemingly had an idea.
"Hmmmm, I got it! If Ice Queen over here gets to teach you something, I'll also put something in." Winter rolled her eyes but bit her tongue, letting Qrow continue to speak. "Hey kid, do you know what the Branwen Tribe is?"
"No? Should I?"
"Eh, it's not really all that well known beyond Mistral. Well, anyways. The Branwen Tribe is a bandit group that I was born into. They're all asses, bitches, and dicks. And only one of them is a blood relative."
"Oh, who-"
"She's the queen of them all, Queen Bitch. Anyways, while I did leave the tribe, I learned a few things from them. I learned to fight like a Branwen, which is useful." Winter remarked something about him fighting without honor, to which he rolled his eyes at. "I learned how to properly rob someone, which is less useful. And finally, I learned of a little thing called the Wolf Gaze and the Sheep Gaze. It's based on an old Mistralian concept called 'killing intent.' The basic idea is that before you attack, your aura gives your intent away. That's why animals flee from inexperienced hunters who get too excited. Or why the best killer simply walks up to their target with a smile and outright stabs them out of nowhere. Anyways, you can suppress killing intent, turning your gaze to that of a sheep's, becoming less threatening to the unskilled observer, or you could amplify it, turning your eyes to that of a predator's, intimidating your enemies as you size them up. Basically, it's an aura technique for stealth and intimidation." That was actually a rather useful skill. While Jaune liked to keep a smile on his face, he did run into bandits at times. And while he liked fighting as much as the next person, he'd much rather go on his way without a fuss if he was on the road. So learning this skill could actually help him in deterring bandits in the future!
"Huh, neat! Could you teach me it?"
"Hmm, well it'll take some time, but why not? Let me show you how it's done first." Qrow stood up and blinked. Something changed about him. The passive aura around him grew sharp and hostile, like thin needles pricking through Jaune's skin. His eyes were intense, sharp. His posture, combined with the fact he was standing above them all, made him seem powerful. And Qrow's eyes were observing Jaune thoroughly, as if seeing through all of his tricks. Then, he blinked again. His aura changed once more. While in its neutral state it would passively hang around Qrow like mist, now it was pulled back and barely left his skin. If Jaune was being honest, he might've not been able to tell Qrow had aura at all anymore in this state. He also seemed smaller than before with his hunched back.
"Woah." Jaune was quite impressed. The aura control he just showed was pretty damned impressive. Even Jaune could only really force out his aura into ojbects he touched, rather then manipulate the passive aura radiating from him.
"Yep. Let's just start with Sheep Gaze, alright? You'd probably fit that." Winter sighed.
"Is that necessary? I've already taught him Calm Waters, which should be more than enough."
"Not really. Calm Waters is great and all in a fight, but the two Gazes are great outside of it. If you're going to use Calm Waters, you've already decided to kick someone's ass. Wolf Gaze and Sheep Gaze are good before fights. To make whoever's bothering you leave you alone or even make them underestimate you." Qrow turned away from Winter and looked at Jaune. While he typically acted like an irresponsible drunk, his tone was now that of a teacher's. "Anyways kid, here's the basic idea of Sheep Gaze. In my tribe, passive aura is considered someone's area of control. In the tribe, amplifying our passive aura in grandstanding was common. Skilled members would keep the young and less skilled in line by projecting overwhelming strength. And a young upstart might lower the guards of a more skilled member before stabbing them in the gut. The size of your aura doesn't matter, it's what you cover with it. Take my sister, she's a bitch, but she considers the tribe under he control, you could even say an extension of her. If you tune your senses just a bit, you can feel her aura all around wherever the tribe goes. That's how cocky she is. Now, Sheep Gaze is the act of making it seem like you can control less than you actually can. People tend to underestimate those sorts. Think a certain general taking advantage of a shy trainee." Winter bristled.
"Excuse me? General Ironwood would never do something like that!"
"No, I meant General Legat. He was a commander in the Mistralian military that defected and became a Branwen. He was famous for being an abusive dickhead to his soldiers as a means of 'discipline'. He also got stabbed in the gut by a kid." He huffed a bit, probably having experienced some of the treatment the general had heaped upon his subordinates decades ago. "Anyways, your Killing Intent is merely your aura, your sphere of control, focusing on your prey. Whenever someone has killing intent towards you, it'll feel like someone is staring needles at you. Most people can only recognize that someone bearing killing intent towards them are coming near. Eventually, you'll be able to tell which directions its coming from. But that shit is hard to train, it's matter of experience honestly. But the Gazes? Those are easier to teach."
"Hmmm, got it. So, how do I do it?"
"Well, I would say just do it, but that won't be very helpful, now would it?" Jaune gave him a deadpan glare and Qrow rolled his eyes. "Yea, I got it. Anyways, I guess you can try 'visualizing' it or something to help you get into the state. Uh, let's see. Imagine a coat of wool covering your body. It's soft, large, and makes you look like a sheep. It doesn't matter what's under the wool, as long as the wool is what's being seen. Got it?" Well, that visualization only made sense, given that it was called 'Sheep Gaze' and all. Regardless, Jaune tried imagining it. He felt awfully warm, though not from any coat of wool over him. His body must've been heating up from the effort it was taking to hold in his passive aura.
"Is this good?" Jaune's smile was a little dimmer now. The world felt more closed off and the sense of ambient knowing of what was behind him was replaced with an uncertainty that made him a bit uncomfortable. "Brothers, it feels like a third limb is itching and I can't scratch it."
"Yea, that's kind of a thing you'll just need to get used to. I'll say this, normally, your passive aura is decently sized. Imagine if you were lit on fire, yes that's how large it is. Nothing like Ice Queen's over here or anything, but it's not like you're Tai back in Beacon when it came to Raven." What? "Don't ask, you don't wanna know. Anyways, now your passive aura is kind of like hair, just sorta poking out. I'd say most people would be fooled, but most people aren't going to be able to kill you anyways."
"Hmmm, is there anything I should know about this form?"
"Yea. You have to keep calm when in it. Let's test that out." Wait, what? "You're a stupid blonde bimbo who tripped dick-first in the wild and the only reason you're alive today is because someone only slightly better than you took pity on your sorry ass and hauled you by the ear to the gates of barely living."
"Qrow I feel like these aren't going to work because you told me it was a test."
"Eh, gonna try it anyways. Let's see what else I should insult."
"I feel like he's just doing this to insult you." Winter was facepalming.
"Yea, got behind quota. Oh yea! Your sword sucks and it should've stayed buried with whatever sadsack of a grandfather you had." That was uncalled for! "You were two belts like a weirdo who walked into a clothes store and decided that, for some reason, they needed more leather." Wow. "Also, jeans, really? I know I'm like, the last guy who gets to talk about fashion, but jeans?" They were cheap and comfortable! "Your parents were really shit at raising a kid if you're the product." Ok really!? "Brotherswhatthehell!?" He jumped back when a face splitting smile entered Jaune's face.
"What's wrong Qrow, never seen a smile before?" Winter had a smug expression on her face, bathing in catharsis from Qrow's fall. Qrow, in response, flipped off Winter.
"Ok, that was a bit surprising. But I could practically smell the malice coming from you. Your aura just burnt through the wool coat you had." Jaune realized that, indeed, Qrow's weirdly personal insults goaded him into leaving Sheep Gaze.
"Yea, don't worry about it. I use that style of teaching on everyone. Well, I wasn't exactly teaching you with it, more like testing, but, actually I'm too sober for this." And once more, he drank from the flask. "Plus, you're still just learning. Eventually you'll be able to do that for hours on end or something. I dunno." Jaune nodded and shrugged off the insults, Qrow probably didn't mean them anyways.
Jaune retracted his smile and finished up his MRE. It tasted, fine, honestly. While it was military food, there was an incentive to make it taste good. That incentive being that good morale warded off the Grimm. And making MREs taste like crap would lead to costs in ammunition used against the Grimm. So, they scientifically calculated (read, guessed) the cheapest way to make their MREs taste good enough.
Eating the food (which was just rehydrated potato mush with some strong gravy), he realized something.
"How the fuck does Mantle eat? Like, do they grow stuff in the snow?" The question actually got both Qrow and Winter to pause.
"Yea, good question!" He stopped drinking so he could actually understand the explanation that Winter looked like she was about to give.
"Well, potatos are a staple in Mantle and Atlas." Well, no duh. Most of the MREs were potato based. "And potatos are very hardy crops. They can be farmed in essentially any weather and in a constantly snowy place like Solitas, that matters. Potatos are farmed on large patches of land during the less snowy-seasons. All a potato really needs to grow is sunlight and nutrient filled soil. So, in spring, summer, and early fall, potato farmers outside the walls produce food for the city. Of course, they also raise livestock and occasionally farm other crops, but potatos are the main business." That, actually made a bit of sense.
"Wouldn't farmers get mauled by Grimm? The weather ain't exactly friendly."
"That's half of why the Atlas military exists. Military bases are located in most villages in Solitas. From what I've heard of soldiers, they call it crop duty. For the people on those bases, their job is to protect the farms. All farmers are given a radio to act as a direct hotline to the bases. I'd say a good sixth of the army is dedicated to making sure Mantle gets its potatos." Qrow began laughing at the face while Jaune had slightly more appreciation for the effort that went into gathering the materials for the MRE.
"Wow, that would suck! Imagine training for years in an academy just to be saddled with guarding some potatos!" Winter gave a heavy sigh.
"Well, those hypothetical glory-hungry soldiers should know that protecting the farmers is equally if not more important than any action-filled mission that they might get otherwise. There's not much point in insulting those on crop duty. Grimm attacks happen regularly enough to warrant the bases existences."
"More like Jimmy wants everyone to be under the military's watch." Qrow's voice was teasing, but the accusation did get Winter to raise an eyebrow.
"And? Does Ozpin not have significant influence among all Valean huntsman?" Qrow put a finger up, considered the company he was with, and put his finger down before shutting up.
"Low blow, low blow." He took another sip from his flask. "Welp, I'm gonna turn in for the night." And that left only two. Winter and Jaune had finished up their food, having eaten slowly due to the MREs being rather strong in terms of flavor. The gravy in specific was about as salty as Jaune's jerky. And he always cheaped out and bought the stuff that was oversalted for a discount. They still had some time in the night and Jaune was feeling refreshed, so he decided to get up and start practicing Calm Waters. He asked Winter to help him, to which she agreed.
It took a few seconds of concentration to enter the state, something that itself need work, but he had other things to focus on. The world was a clear plain of blue, with Jaune standing in a shallow pond. With the slight twitching of his finger, ripples were made and he could see what they bounced off of. To Winter, his aura thinned and became a mist that expanded a bit, though it became harder to sense because of that. A movement would disturb the mist and alert Jaune to her movements.
She didn't speak, because Jaune wouldn't hear her. But he knew that she would begin attacking him. Calm Waters was a technique entirely designed around reactivity. Jaune's form was flexible. He could dodge any attack as long as he was fast enough and there was room to move. Winter would be testing his speed. So, pulling out her saber, she began thrusting and slashing at Jaune. She purposefully made her movements slow and for her posture to be quite poor. She wanted to see if Jaune could sense the weakness in her form and try to counter-attack.
He didn't. Instead, he dodged and deflected every swing and thrust. She heard of a style of Calm Waters called Calm Waters, Lurking Shark centered around creating and exploiting openings sensed with Calm Waters, but she wasn't taught in that style. Speaking of different styles of Calm Waters, there was also Calm Waters, Coiling Serpent, which was centered around grappling other combatants, Calm Waters, Meddlesome Fly, which was focused on using the enemy's strength against them by redirecting their attacks, and Calm Waters, Tricky Macaque, which was focused on feints and unpredictable movements to make the enemy overcommit and slip up. She shook away those thoughts, Jaune was still trying to get a grip on Calm Waters. Winter's slashes were getting quicker now, not as quick as she'd use in a fight, but about on the level of a last year basic combat school student.
His reflexes were to be expected of someone just learning Calm Waters, as was the unstable nature of the mist. He would occasionally flinch, probably falling into the trap of thinking all ripples were enemy movement. Many a student of Calm Waters dodged a fly as if it was a bullet because of that mistake. When Winter finally got to a bit under her level of speed with her attacks, which she could maintain for a good amount of time until she got exhausted, Jaune was overwhelmed and couldn't dodge anymore. Winter, using her military discipline, stopped herself from stabbing Jaune at the lost moment.
"Hmmm, you're learning." Jaune had left Calm Water when he realized the attack was going to hit him and stumbled a bit. "Remember, Calm Waters is a purely reactive style. If you must be on the defense, enter it in order to more effectively block and dodge. When you're attacking, I'd reccomend keeping your eyesight." Jaune nodded and put Crocea Mors back into its sheath with a sigh. Staying in Calm Waters was an exercise in of itself but avoiding a barrage of saber strikes from Winter? That was the kicker. He only lasted a minute against her, and most of that time was her going easy. At her highest speed, he only lasted 5 seconds. He promised himself to last for at least 10 seconds next time and let his body relax.
And, hoo boy, he was tired. After a few more exercises, the two of them went to sleep. Sleep embraced them as the shattered moon eyed them from above through the equally shattered roof.
"Alright, we're leaving the supplies here. It should be an easy, go in, murder whatever the hell is spawning the Grimm, and come out. Got it?" Qrow, as the most experienced of the bunch, came up with a plan. Well, an outline. And really, in this business, an outline was the best you'd get. You'd be lucky if you even got warnings. Anyways, the three of them used the morning to eat some more rations, stretch, and answer nature's calling. After that and a final check of their equipment, they decided to exit the factory and go to the Atlesian Great War Museum Hall that stretched underneath a statue of the general of Mantle at the time. It was mostly fine, though its eyes bled out a viscous black liquid that Jaune had a hunch was Grimm fluid. Seeing no Grimm to topple there, they instead went down the stairs and entered the Museum Hall.
Or, well, it should've been a museum hall. Instead, it was another attraction in the Great War Theme Park. Well, this time, it was an attraction for what looked like modern day Atlas. They found themselves on a hill overseeing something truly bizzare. And that was saying something, because Jaune reckoned that he had experienced some of the weirdest shit anyone on Remnant has in the past few months. To be specific, what they saw was a giant moving kingdom. From the looks of it, the city was Mantle, with Atlas being a halo floating above it. Mantle moved via mechanical legs and tank treads. Atlas connected to Mantle via large wires that went up to it. The moving city was attacking Vacuo, with cannons and machine guns and mortars constantly firing at the smaller city. And for the destroyed parts of the city, the moving Mantle was cannabalizing it before expanding using the dead parts of Vacuo.
"What." Qrow was the first one to speak amongst them.
"The." Jaune was equally as confused. What was this supposed to represent.
"FUCK!?" And Winter, surprisingly enough, was the one to curse.
"Eh, what's that Ice Queen, swearing at last?" Winter rubbed her forehead in irritation.
"Apologies for the outburst, it's just that I remembered a truly foolish idea from the war. The suggestion by one Dr. Hinden proposed that Mantle should be put on wheels. Sieges would become impossible, though they already were due to the weather, but it was supposed to be a supposed last resort if Mantle was surrounded. It was no secret that he appealed to the wartime science commission with images of a mobile Mantle conquering the other nations. It was also no secret that the idea utterly failed." Winter sighed in frustration. "It seems that modern day Atlas and Mantle has been placed in this situation. And it's currently annexing Vacuo. Rather violently, if I may add." Winter seemed rather disappointed with the events shown. "I'm eternally grateful for the lack of fuel and square cube law."
"Well. If I see Jimmy at the cockpit piloting this whole thing, I'll be a happy camper." Qrow took a swig of whiskey as Winter sighed yet once more.
"General Ironwood has no intentions of forcefully annexing any sovereign nation. Anyways, I suspect the source of it all is in the city itself. From the looks of it, we'll need to first enter Mantle. Then, we'll have to find a way up to Atlas. And then, we'll have to cross Atlas in order to find the Grimm behind all of this. I'm willing to bet that it'll be in the council chambers." Winter analyzed the scene before them. The crawling version of Mantle was a few miles away from them. The hill they were on actually had a small outpost. A small house probably belonging to a shepard or something. There was also, conveniently, a truck by the shack. And considering there were definitely no people there, stealing the truck would be perfectly fine. Even if a Mourner bolted out of the shack and started yelling at them as they drove away.
The ride was bumpy. There were roads to drive on so Winter, the only one among them who could actually drive, had to improvise and continuously avoid rocks and pits as they made their way towards Mante. The ground was scarred, with marks of disruption likely from the moving city as well as marks of destruction from its weapons. When they got closer, they actually had to swerve on the ruined ground in order to avoid being bombarded with explosions and shells. It was actually quite impressive on Winter's front, though Jaune was a bit, how do you say, incapacitated, to enjoy it.
"BLEEGHHHHH!" Turns out, motion sickness applied for more than bullheads. It applied to open-roofed high speed bumpy vehicles. Luckily, the open roof meant he could throw his guts out the window without worrying for dirtying any of his companions.
"You fight Grimm on a daily basis and you throw up now?" Qrow seemed a bit bemused and disappointed at the same time.
"Shut up!" He managed to get out in between one of his projectile vomitting sessions. "It's a totally normal thing for - oh god not again BLEGGHH!" He chucked his head out the window and took to the ground a brush moistened with his stomach fluid. After a while, his throwing up turned into dry heaving that he still aimed out the window for safety's sake. He used a bit of water dust (much to Winter's chagrin) to wash out his mouth because it was slick with stomach fluid and the taste was unbearable.
After a while, they managed to get to Mantle itself. And it was changed. The urban industrial juggernaut looked even bleaker than what he'd heard about it. Things were dimmer, lights flickered, it seemed that poverty and decay had eaten up the entire place. To be fair, they were at the edges of Mantle. But also, it was quite the depressing sight. What was even worse were the Mourners. Though featureless, they walked with so little energy that almost screamed 'national morale crisis.' The three of them hid from patrolling Atlesian Knights while also seeing the propaganda. And boy, was it something.
On posters, banners on buildings, on the TV, and even on billboards was propaganda for the Atlesian Military. Propaganda that was not interested in subtlety. Not at all. With the Atlesian Eagle on his arm, illustrations of General Ironwood crushing a crude depiction of 'Vacuan savages' and 'Valean rebels' were all over the place. Videos of Mantle itself crushing opposing armies with a voiceover from Ironwood played on all the TVs. Posters of dust miners working in the rocks with 'Provide Dust, Provide Food' written on it were also plastered everywhere. Anything not involving Ironwood instead featured war heroes, or shots of Atlesian soldiers, or even pictures of Atlesian technological marvels like holographic displays. One noticable poster was a depiction of an Solitanian Hawk in black and white, with, 'Under its careful gaze, we know' written on it. On top of all of that, the sheer amount of Atlesian Knights walking around made it feel like a military parade. The entire place felt like a comical exagerration of Atlesian nationalism. And with every poster, there was the subtle brand of the SDC.
Qrow whistled, not making a single snarky comment.
"Have nothing to say, Branwen?"
"Nah, it's just that this place seems worse than I remember." Winter sighed.
"Yes. What the warhawks in the council often forget, or well, can afford to forget is that war often inflicts poverty on everyone. Those winning wars will likely still be negatively affected."
"Speaking of War Hawks, there's one right over there!" Jaune pointed up, where a literal Warhawk was diving towards them. With wings of white metal and an equally protected head, the Grimm was also large. About the size of a mature Beowolf, by the looks of it. As it passed by them, a metal feather detached from its wings and fell to the ground quickly. Sensing something off, they dodged in a panic and found out that those wings were actually bombs. It created a small crater where they were just standing, with smoke coming out of it.
"DISSENT DETECTED." And they could hear the sounds of Atlesian Knights. It seemed like the purpose of those Hawks weren't even to kill anyone. It was to alert the Knights to any potential enemies. What they also heard was the sound of modern Atlesian Knights raising their rifles at them. At a moment, a single calm thought went through Jaune's mind.
'Why don't the modern ones have guns in their hands? Why bother having physical weapons?' Before he could voice those thoughts, the Knights immediately began opening fire. They were surrounded on four fronts with twenty Atlesian Knights with fully automatic dust rifles using suppressive fire on them all. While Jaune may have believed in the combat skill of his friends, he wasn't exactly sure they'd be able to take them all down without their aura being gunned through. They were all huddling behind something, shifting trash cans and dumpsters to serve as temporary cover. That temporary cover was being torn up by the rifles, but it was the thought that counted. Jaune, having gotten too used to these sorts of things, sighed and came up with a plan.
"Winter! Use your glyphs to create a barrier on three of the squads so we can take down the fourth force uninterrupted!" Jaune barked out the command. She was taking cover behind a dumpster, clutching onto her saber and using a trash can to avoid gunfire. Meanwhile, Qrow had used his sword and aura to shield himself, putting his back to Jaune's as he used his own shield for the same purpose. Winter nodded and did as instructed, creating three large glyphs to effectively block three of the alleyways (and the Knights in them) so the three hunters could destroy the Knights.
To put it simply, Qrow and Winter probably would've been fine without him there. Qrow turned his sword into a scythe and tore apart a few Knights while Winter blitzed them so fast they couldn't react. Sure, if they did that without the barrier, they probably would've been fine, but they would've taken unnecessary damage. Jaune had taken down a couple of the Knights with a few good strokes of his sword, aiming for their core, their dust batteries, and where he knew the CPU was located. As he saw Qrow and Winter take a few hits, he remembered a funny thing about aura shielding.
While it is true that the more aura you had, typically the more you could use to tank hits, there was a sort of art to it. You could train your aura to use only the bare minimum required in order to block hits. Instead of using 10% automatically to block a bullet, you could be trained to instead use 5% of your aura. And the only downside would be that instead of flattening and bouncing off, the area of impact would curve in ever so slightly and then flatten and bounce off. And it wouldn't even pierce skin, so it was fine. Qrow and Winter, having vastly more training, were adept enough at this so they could actually match Jaune in terms of aura usage. Still, Jaune was rather tanky despite that.
That tidbit was all he thought about he sliced up a few more of the robotic enemies. They were perfect copies of the pictures he'd seen on his scroll and on the news while he was getting a bite to eat.
They'd already sent the twenty they sectioned off to the scrapheap, so Winter had let down another one her Glyphs so they could destroy a few more. Jaune focused on something else as he fought. He shifted his hearing outside the battle and began focusing outside. Was something coming towards them? Was the ground slightly shaking? Qrow and Winter may not've been feeling it because they were leaping around without even touching the ground, but as someone who had been keeping their feet on the ground, he could feel the ever so slight vibrations. The sounds of whirring. The sounds of people jumping out of the way. The sound of metal impacting on concrete.
And it was at one of the hallways. He turned around and noticed immediately what it was. Again, Atlas wasn't exactly subtle with what their robots looked like. Even with limited connection to the CCT, he could see pictures of the vast arsenal of robots that Atlas had. At least, photos that had been published by Atlesian sources. Regardless, he recognized it as a Spider Droid. It was giant, it was tough, and it could shoot giant lasers. Because of course it could. Why bother with cheap and efficient bullets when you could fire off a god damned laser!? Well, it was better for his ears than bullets, he supposed.
It was also charging its laser right at them. For the sake of imagining it, the alley they were in had four ways in and out. Four paths. All, for the lack of a compass, basically faced cardinal directions. They'd cleared out the western hall before moving to the southern hall, only for the Spider Droid to stomp in and charge up a laser. Jaune was pretty confident in Crocea Mors and his shield's invincibility, but he wasn't exactly as sure about his defenses against giant lasers.
Luckily, Qrow and Winter had noticed it as well. They finished up destroying the knights in the quarter they were currently in and had to think fast. They were too far into the alleyway to just book it and find cover behind the buildings. Then, he realized a fatal design flaw: They had jackshit to protect it from attacks from down under. Sure, it was definitely protected there, but being unable to do anything to it would be better than being shot with a laser. So, without wasting a minute, he barked out an order.
"Winter! Use a glyph to speed us up so we can hide under the Spider Droid!"
"WHAT!?" Qrow didn't look like the biggest fan. "Do you WANT us to get crushed!?" Meanwhile, Winter prepared her semblance for the task at hand while the Spider Droid continued to steadily march closer.
"Qrow, use your scythe and the momentum to cut through its leg! We just need to unbalance it! If we can make it collapse a building, the rubble will kill it!" Qrow sighed and prepared his scythe as glyphs appeared under the three of them. Jaune readied Crocea Mors while Qrow readied Harbinger. Winter, knowing that her saber would not even be close to strong enough to pierce the droid's armor, had instead focused on preparing the glyphs.
All in all, it took only a few seconds before they sped up considerably. They blitzed towards the underside of the droid as its guns went off, following them with a giant glowing beam of death. They were narrowly hit until the rotating guns met their limits and Jaune and Qrow slammed into its legs. Harbinger and Crocea Mors rended through the metal with a wince-inducing cry. They cut through wires, pistons, gears, and armor. The speed and extra strength they put in helped them cleave right through and go under and past the Spider Droid. Winter had followed them and watched with them as the Spider Droid, due to just having lost its legs, frantically turned about in order to correct its guns. It was too late, however, as its large energy cannons hit the buildings around it and caused a small avalanche of concrete. In the end, the three of them were safe once more, with a way to the city sidewalk open, and a pile of rubble behind them.
"That, was." Winter was the first amongst them to speak as they rested after that fight. "Quite intense." Jaune had been grazed by the laser and had his aura cut down to 86% on top of all the shots he'd taken from the Knights. Qrow had 81%, his aura not being the largest of the bunch. Winter, having had to use glyphs excessively throughout the fight, had around 76% after it all. Considering everything that could've gone wrong, them being pinned on all four sides, them being bombarded by the spider droid, or even them being buried under the rubble, the fight had gone pretty well.
"Yep." Qrow took a sip from his seemingly bottomless flask. Jaune wondered if the spirit of booze resided in it, but decided not to ask. He motioned a request for something to drink as well, but Qrow raised an eyebrow as he awkwardly retracted the hand.
"My ears are still ringing." Another thing Jaune didn't like about guns: They were so damned loud! Seriously! The constant barrage of automatic rifle fire would've made him deaf if it weren't for his aura mending his nigh-shattered ears.
"May I insist we find camp further into the city? Then, we might be able to find a way up to Atlas proper." That sounded like a good of a plan as any. From the sheer size of the place, it was clear they weren't going to get through the entire area in one day.
"You know, it's really good we brought out own food. Cause if we didn't, we'd probably have to pay way too much at the gift shop." Jaune's deadpan line only got a chuckle from Winter and a sigh from Qrow.
"Damnit kid, you shouldn't have reminded me. I once went to this amusement park for Ruby's birthday and everything was so fucking expensive! Seriously, twenty lien for mediocre fries." Jaune shrugged, that sounded about right. He'd only gone to an amusement park once before, mostly because there was only one in Vale that was rather expensive. And while they weren't exactly poor, they weren't rich either. The property taxes on their house were cut because his father was a Huntsman, an active one at that. But even with that and a few other state-provided benefits, buying 10 tickets to an amusement park in a world where non-Grimm infested land was at a premium price was a pipe dream. The only reason they went was because dad got it in a lottery.
The three of them had settled into walking the sidewalks of nightmare-Mantle's slums. They would duck into hallways (Jaune would be practicing Sheep Gaze all throughout, it also helped that it warmed him up in the odd cold of the moving city, especially given it was devouring Vacuo) whenever a Knight squadron would pass by. They also had to make sure no Warhawks saw them, or else they'd be getting chased for a while.
"Hey, odd question." Jaune was getting a bit bored as they walked. Sure, they were all on their nerves just in case they were ambushed, but there wasn't much to do otherwise.
"Hmm?"
"If Atlas is in the sky, what do they do to shit? Do they like, dump it on Mantle?" Qrow actually chuckled at the image and the irony of it while Winter sighed at the other huntsman's mirth.
"While I am sure some in Atlas would prefer that, no. We don't. Instead, Atlas City's plumbing rates are especially high because due to the limitations and error prone nature of simply piping it off the island directly onto Mantle, we simply contain them in large septic tanks and dispose of them in the middle of the Solitanian winter. That, or the ocean." It was a solution, sure. But any farmer looking to make a claim on some land better watch out for if some of their 'claimed land' had a giant mountain of frozen shit.
"You know what? Now I'm glad Vale doesn't have a giant floating city." Qrow chuckled a bit as he took another swig from his flask.
The Mantlese slums were somewhat barren, to say the least. They could see through dirty windows that mourners were constantly at work in factories and plants. They could see Mourners dressed as miners roam the street. There were trucks full of guns and dust constantly moving around. It seemed that the edge of Mantle had been turned into the heart pumping out blood for the war machine of Atlas.
And there were Knights watching. Patrolling the streets, guarding buildings, keeping eyes on the working Mourners. Spider Droids stomped through the streets. The occasional Mourner soldier walked with a rifle in hand. They made an effort to avoid the robots and military personnel, they didn't know what could happen if they were seen by them. And they weren't exactly keen on finding out.
"Alright, let's make camp here." They found a scrapheap and ventured into it, finding it devoid of all people. Jaune (somehow) found enough wood in the pile of junk in order to make another campfire. They all did some searching around the Junkyard and found something interesting: A small broken down Manta. The hull was mostly intact, it was just the engine and most of the internals that were fried, shattered, and shot. Winter, having taken a mandatory vehicle basics class, could recognize that while the interface was salvagable, the engine was most definitely not. And it was a 10.2 Gravity Dust Engine. With a sigh, they all went back to camp and decided to find a way to repair the Manta.
So, after hydrating their rations, they got back to idle chatter.
"You know, when all of this is said and done, I'm going to take a nice and long vacation." Qrow seemed tired with the whole mess. If every quarter of the memorial grounds was going to be this annoying to deal with, then the prospect of just ditching was looking increasingly attractive. The only reason he wasn't was because, A: he couldn't just leave two hunters to deal with it alone. And B: if he left, Winter would be unbearable about it.
"I would say that as well, but there's no rest for the wicked." Surprisingly, Jaune was the one to say it.
"Kid, I don't know where you're coming from, but you're like 17!"
"Sixteen, I'll be 17 in a week or two."
"Point still stands. You really should take a break. Even when I was at Beacon and couldn't really head back home, I took a break." Ignoring the fact that he really didn't put too much effort into schoolwork. (except when he almost got expelled, twice.)
"He is right, you know. Even if we serve without pause, there is downtime for soldiers." Jaune thought about it and shrugged.
"Well, it's not like I'm just constantly fighting Grimm or anything. my break kind of just is wandering around." That subject was going nowhere, so Qrow sighed and took another bite of the tater tots that was that night's meal.
"Do you have any siblings, Jaune?" Winter had nothing else to really talk about. Military things? The free-spirited wanderer couldn't relate. Atlas? He was a Valean who probably hadn't left his homeland for a good while. Politics? Just, no. Qrow latched onto the hook Winter cast as well, seeing nothing better to talk about.
"Yea, got anybody who might be interested in me?" Qrow, of course, went about it in his usual tactless way. Jaune, of course, gagged thinking of that.
"Wow, no. I don't think so. Well, Coral might, but I don't know for sure." Jaune shrugged. "Anyways, I have seven sisters." And that got Qrow to spit out his drink, while Winter coughed at the prospect. "Yea, I know. Saphron, Coral, and Sable were born way before me. Only a year older than me are the twins, Jade and Hazel. After that, I was born, and they had two more: Lavender and Amber. Really, they're all amazing." He smiled nostalgically. "I remember when Saphron was going on her first date with Terra and she called us in a panic, asking what the heck she was going to do. Or when Coral published her first book, or when Sable managed to get into culinary school. Or how Jade and Hazel never found out how I could tell the two apart. Or how Lavender kept on trying to beat me at games. Or how Amber would always ask me to make pumpkin pudding for her." Jaune's nostalgic smile turned wistful as he gazed upwards. "You know, I wonder what they're doing now."
Silence as Qrow and Winter saw Jaune. Not the junior huntsman who braved every situation with a light quip or excited smile, but the young kid who left home and felt as if they couldn't return.
"Mom and Dad probably went back to normal after a while. Mom probably is still working the vineyard. Dad probably made a new sword. Saphron probably is raising Adrian with Terra. Coral probably wrote a few new books. Sable always talked about making her own diner. Jade and Hazel were thinking about acting. Lavender is still young, she's probably just having fun with her friends and having all my games to herself. Amber might've already learned how to make that pudding on her own." Jaune smiled as he imagined the numerous paths his sisters took. "Man, I'm a horrible brother, aren't I?" Jaune knew that they all missed him. He was Saphron's baby bro, Coral's control reader, Sable's taste tester, Jade and Hazel's audience, Lavender's rival, and Amber's hero. He knew that, and he still threw away his home for adventure.
And yet, he could never say he regretted it. He couldn't say he regretted meeting his teacher. He couldn't say he regretted becoming a huntsman. He couldn't say he regretted saving people. He couldn't say he regretted helping those must vunerable to the creatures of the night. He couldn't say he regretted meeting Talos, meeting Amber, meeting Qrow, meeting Winter, even meeting Darling. He couldn't say he regretted leaving home.
Finally, Winter decided to speak.
"I," She was hesitant, finding the right words in a delicate situation. In the end, she decided to forgo that. "Sometimes, I find myself regretting leaving home. When seeing the news, I sometimes wonder, if I should've left. When I see my sister's strained smiles and melancholic songs on the screen, I wonder if that was my fault. When I read my sister's letters about how father is pitting her against Whitley, I wonder if I could've changed that so at the very least, us siblings could be the family we never had. I constantly think back to my team, how if I hadn't jumped at the opportunity to become a Specialist, and they hadn't loyally followed, we would've stayed alive. And yet, I can't find it in me to say I want to go back." Winter had no real solution, nothing much to say, she was just as stuck as Jaune. Qrow took a swig of his flask.
"So, done with the pity party?"
"Qr-"
"Sshhhh, Ice Queen. I'm just saying kid, they're not dead, right?" Jaune nodded. "Well, just go visit them. It's not like they banished you or anything. Plus, you're a huntsman who is constantly in the Grimmlands. You are basically a coinflip away from dying any moment now. I really shouldn't havve been the one to tell you, but you should give your family a god damned better last word than 'sorry I left.' Alright? Just, like, go home or something to visit. Spend some time with your family, you never know when you'll go on a mission and disappear." Qrow took another, especially long, sip from his flask. Jaune was shaken out of his slump and thought about what Qrow said before chuckling.
"You know what, that's a good idea. It's probably better to ask what they've done since I left than thinking about it. Maybe Jade and Hazel have gotten better at singing." He laughed. "You know, those two can definitely act, but the last time I heard them sing? Not great. It doesn't help that they tripped over each other."
"Oh, I get that. Ruby, my niece, she sometimes tries singing alone to whatever's playing in her headphones, but the second anyone looks at her while she does it? That singing turns into mumbling." Qrow let out a raspy, but fond laugh. "Honestly, it's probably better than Yang trying to sing Achieve Men and balling up in embarrassment when her voice cracks in the best part." Winter rolled her eyes and decided to join in on the camaraderie.
"You know, Weiss' letters when she started practicing were filled with quite the creatively worded frustrations over her initial lack of progress."
"Oh? do tell."
It was the next morning. After Qrow managed to cheer them up enough to engage into a night-long chat about their homes and families, they woke up, had a light meal, and got to work trying to find a gravity dust engine. And gravity dust. Unfortunately, they didn't have much luck looking about the city for those. They could've tried to storm the factory making airship parts for that, but the multiple security Spider Droids wasn't making them confident in their ability to do that. Instead, Darling was the one to give a solution.
"For five lien each, have a chance to earn a Gravity Dust Engine! Only applicable while you're in this sub-realm, b-t-dubs."
"Please tell me it's not a lottery."
"Nope! Worse!" Darling snapped and a claw machine, with a small box labelled 'Gravity Dust Engine' on top of a pile of other junk. Jaune, Qrow, and Winter gave Darling a deadpan look.
"Excuse me, what?" Winter seemed the most confused.
"This seems too good to be true." Jaune looked at the claw machine in detail. "Like, literally. This is definitely rigged. Darling, what's the catch? We lose a direction every time we play? It gets buried every time? You use our bank account numbers on embarrassing purchases we'll have to explain to our friends and family?" The last one got Qrow and Winter to pale at the possibility. Mostly because Qrow already had to do that multiple times. Summer threw a fit when she found out he used a good portion of his cash on random junk he saw on the screen.
"No! No! Nothing like that. Though I will be using the money you give me on new games whenever we reach civilization. It's just a normal claw machine." Jaune was not confident on that front. Being a boy from the country, he really didn't have much experience in arcades. Winter, being part of the Atlesian elite and then part of the military, had a similar amount of experience. Qrow, the pariah of a bandit tribe, somehow did have experience.
"Oh god damnit, these things!? At Beacon, I had to loan Tai a hundred lien so that he could win a big teddy bear for Ray at an arcade." Qrow sighed. He saw no other alternatives, so he shrugged and took the first try. He put in five lien and piloted the claw so it was above the prize, with Jaune and Winter providing assistance on the sides. With the press of a button, it descended upon the small box, clawed on it, and slid right off as it ascended. Qrow gave an exasperated sigh and looked at Darling, who had a very satisfied smile.
"You know, we probably should've expected that." Jaune sighed.
"Screw my shitty semblance."
"Let me try." Winter took to the claw machine and slid a lien card in a convenient card reader. She expertly piloted the claw to be right above the box, watched as it went down, and used a glyph in order to make the box stick to the claw.
Unfortunately, the box then shed its outermost layer of cardboard. Jaune sighed as Winter slammed the dock of the claw machine in frustration.
It kind of went on like that for a good hour (with them taking frequent breaks to brainstorm ways to beat the claw machine) before they finally managed to break it. Literally, Qrow's semblance acted up and the claw machine broke. At that point, Winter released her frustrations by ramming the claw machine through with her sword. That broke the plastic barrier and Jaune just tore out the window and got the box. He exchanged it with Darling, got the gravity dust engine, shrugged, and gave it to Winter so she could get to work on the Manta. Now, the only problem that was left: They needed gravity dust.
"So, where would we find gravity dust?" They didn't need too much. From the looks of it, they just needed around his weight in dust.
"Dust stores? SDC warehouses? I dunno, a truck?" Qrow wasn't of much help either.
"Yea, but then we'd have to carry all of it! Why can't we get crystals? We just need five." Jaune sighed. He wasn't weak by any means, he considered himself relatively strong, but he wasn't keen on carrying several pounds of pure gravity dust on his shoulders through a hostile environment.
"That's because those are only sold in shops in downtown. And those are guards by Knights and Spider Droids. Do you want to try robbing a dust store and tangling with an army of robots?" Qrow looked at Jaune, who seemed to be seriously giving it some thought. "Jaune, no. I'm serious, no. Absolutely not. There is so much wrong with what you're planning. Please n-"
Thirty minutes later, they hijacked a truck, crashed it into a dust store, scared the life out of a mourner playing shopkeep, and loaded a case full of gravity dust crystals. Qrow, wearing an obligatory ski mask, looked at Jaune, who was also wearing an obligatory ski mask.
"You know, there's not much point in wearing these." Qrow muttered. It was probably the fact he was still carrying his giant ass sword while Jaune was still dressing like someone who walked into a clothes store during a tornado. "Anyways, we got the stuff. Let's run." Qrow was drunk, having actually emptied his flask in preparation for the stupidest plan Jaune had ever come up with: rob a dust store. It was really simple, to be honest.
"Alright!" They loaded up in the truck and backed up (Qrow used signals just to be polite) back onto the road, were they were met with a small army of Atlesian Knights pointing rifles at the truck. Qrow let loose a string of swears as he slammed on the pedal. Meanwhile, Jaune propped up his shield to protect himself from the mess that was happening. He also snagged a rifle from a Knight they passed by and used it occasionally on the odd Knight or so.
Jaune would've vomitted, but he was currently laughing from how comically bad the situation was getting. Their tires were shot off so they were generating tons of sparks on the road as Qrow frantically turned corners, ran red lights, and ran over Knights in order to get away from the ridiculous amount of Knights firing at them. Jaune had to find out how useless even rifle bullets were against Spider Droid armor when he emptied the magazine trying to shoot it, only to find that the bullets didn't really do anything to it.
"Jaune, I just want you to know, I hate you." That was all Qrow said before he forcefully shoved Jaune out of the truck before leaping out himself. And that was before the truck was absolutely obliterated by a laser beam from the Spider Droid. They decided to book it in the alleyway, jumping past dumpsters, turning corners, and generally trying to get lost in order to ditch their pursuers.
In the end, they found themselves panting and exhausted as they went back to the scrapheap. They were shot a lot. A good quarter of their auras were chewed through when they ran from the small army of Atlesian robots. Winter was dirty from working on repairing the mini-Manta with only her hands, her sword, and whatever scrap she could find in the junkyard. Qrow and Jaune were sweaty from running all over the city to avoid being turned into swiss cheese. Winter raised an eyebrow as they presented the gravity dust crystals to her, but decided to not throw stones while in a glass house and just plugged them into the fuel compartment.
"Alright, everyone, pack in." They all got into the rather small Manta cockpit. It was about the size of a small car with four seats and nothing more. Winter was driving, being the only one there with the training to even think about operating one of those things. Qrow was at the back, muttering about how his semblance better not make them blow up. And Jaune was sitting by Winter, looking out the front window. It was pretty cramped, if he was being honest, but it was better than climbing up to Atlas by the wires connecting Mantle and the flying city.
Winter was currently slowly making her way up to Atlas, while Jaune and Qrow waited.
"You know, with all the fuss that air travel takes, making Atlas a floating city seems like its more trouble than its worth." Jaune sighed as he sipped from his canteen.
"Eh, air-busses are actually far more practical than you think. It's just when you have to deal with maintenance is when it feels like that." Winter was the one to answer.
"Well, it's probably good that air travel is mostly non-civilian. I mean, could you imagine what the skies would look like if everyone was using a bullhead?" Jaune laughed.
"And imagine all the accidents. I'd be banned from ever flying because I'd cause a block to be levelled with all the engine malfunctions." Qrow shivered. While his bad luck was pretty bad, adding (literally) higher stakes and more possibilities would make it exponentially worse.
"I'm eternally grateful that your semblance is limited to just your immediate surroundings. If it wasn't, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be allowed anywhere near civilization." Qrow mumbled something about coffee being spilled on someone's lap as they continued to ride upwards. Eventually, Winter drove them up to the edge of Atlas. Instead of going into the airship bay, she decided to go to the grassy outer ring of Atlas City, where vineyards and idyllic isolated mansions were situated. They all tumbled out of the Manta, which had slid into the dirt with few difficulties, and got a breath of fresh air at last.
"You know what, I take any good thing I've said about Atlas back, if this is how they utilize space up here." Qrow was facepalming at the sight of so much land going unused in the city right above the densely packed Mantle, whose poor living conditions are so infamous that even Jaune had heard of them. (It's an old joke in the three other Kingdoms that, for all of their faults, 'at least it isn't Mantle.')
"Yes, I will be the first to admit, that despite Atlas' technological leaps and bounds, we have a class problem." Was all Winter really had to say. Jaune, meanwhile, sighed.
"You know, my home was also a vineyard, but it wasn't this large. Plus, the fields look totally barren." Jaune was also quite baffled at the fact that the land was unused. "Actually, why isn't the whole place a city? I can see a few farms, yea, but most of this is just a plains." Winter gave another very exasperated sigh.
"You two know what a stock market is, right?" They nodded. "Well essentially, these lands are all stocks." The two of them gave her an odd look. "Yes, while some farmers are here and prospering as they use the dust-fuelled temperature and water in order to grow exotic crops or wines, there are substantially more people who bought up the land and refuse to develop it. Not out of environmentalism or anything like that, but because the land will lose value if they do so. Essentially, there is an entire market amongst the richest of the rich where they constantly buy, sell, and trade deeds claiming ownership of various parts of the land for exorbatant prices. And then there's the fact that deeds can be split up into two parts of the land in question and those can be sold. That is why a majority of this is empty." Winter seemed incredibly disappointed. "So much food we could've grown locally with the land. And we can't use it because a million different pieces of paper are constantly changing hands between people who don't care because they won't starve."
"You know, for a rich girl, you sure are sensitive to the plight of us plebs." Qrow gave a playful smirk as Winter scowled.
"I'm no longer wealthy. Whatever wealth you think I possess, I don't. Father closed any access to any accounts I may have had before I formally joined the military. Any and all money I have are savings from my position as a Specialist. Plus, one of my teammates was from Mantle and had many complaints about the economic and class disparities in the city." And, Jaune noted, add a little bit of military utilitarianism and that makes the perfect person to really dislike the land-ownership system at play in the floating city.
"Well, thanks for the economic lesson, but at least walking in the grass beats the city. Less things shooting at us, at the very least." Qrow sighed at remembering the batshit insane plan Jaune came up with. He also gave said boy a scowl as he helplessly chuckled.
"Anyways, where are we heading to next?" Qrow and Winter began thinking up of where exactly the source of all their woes was.
"It seems like Jimmy's the lynchpin of all this, or at the very least he's the poster boy of it all. I say we head to the Headmaster's office in Atlas Academy. Got any other ideas?"
"I'd say going to the council chambers." She thought for a moment before shaking her head. "Nevermind, actually. Atlas seems to be currently in a state of war." Winter paused for the distant sounds of cannonfire to sink in. "And in that case, protocol deems that all council meeting would be held in a private and safe location. In this case, I'd say that would be the Headmaster's office in the Academy. So, yes, we should head there." Jaune nodded in understanding.
"Alright, I guess we got a plan. Problem though."
"Yes?"
"Atlas Academy is on a mountain. We just crashed our Manta." Jaune pointed at the currently crashed vehicle. Winter at least had the decency to look embarrassed.
Well, in a few hours, they ran into Atlas City due to having no other way of getting to the academy, dealt with a few squads of Knights, and managed to come up with a plan. Unfortunately, that plan was quite literally going into the sewers of Atlas City.
"Again, why are we doing this? Sure, there's like a billion robots, tanks, and other things on the aboveground path, but at least we aren't crawling through the fucking shit-way!" Qrow was not a fan of their current plan. Honestly, neither was Jaune. For some reason, Winter was the least hesitant.
"What? Can't stand to get a little dirty? If it's that unpleasant, wear your cape like a mask. This is the road of least resistance. At least whatever foe we encounter in the sewers will be contained to the sewers. We could find enemies of all sizes up there." Her reasoning was solid, but Jaune wasn't exactly comfortable with it either. He was way too used to being in free and open spaces to suddenly be chucked into the claustrophobic waste filled tunnels.
"You know what? I'm going the quicker way. I'll meet you at Atlas Academy." Qrow swore a bit as he tripped on the way out. Winter and Jaune looked at each other before shrugging. Qrow wasn't stupid, he probably wouldn't just tackle all of those robots head-first. He'd probably find some other way to sneak past, or, best case scenario, swallow his pride and just go along with the plan.
"Well, let's go in." And so, the two of them descended into the sewers with naught but a makeshift torch (made of a light Winter salvaged from the Manta) to illuminate their path. Sure, it definitely wasn't as dangerous as a few thousand guns firing at them constantly, but it was definitely scarier. The only sounds they could hear were the muffled going ons of the streets above and the occasional wet 'shlush' of their shoes wading through the murky sludge underneath them. Jaune's nose had clogged itself to deal with the stench, while Winter was holding a handkerchief to her nose. They'd still take a thousand showers after all was said and done, but it was bearable. For now.
"Wait, I thought you said they disposed of all waste off-site?"
"They do. But it's too much of a hassle to manually collect a septic tank from every single house in Atlas. So, a sewer system was build to funnel excrement. There's a system where it empties into tanks for us to take away when it reaches full enough capacity. It uses the mechanics of a pythagorean cup in order to do that." She thought for a moment before chuckling a bit. "Actually, Atlas does do another thing with the excrement. You see, Atlas City's third biggest export is actually human waste. They ship it to plants where they turn it into fertilizer for the farmers. It's but another thing we provide for them."
"Huh, nothing goes to waste, eh?"
"Yes."
"By the way, Winter?"
"Yes?"
"Why is the muck level rising?" Indeed, the level of shit in the sewers was steadily rising. Jaune thanked the fact he was wearing boots, otherwise, his shoes would be totally soaked. "And why do I hear something coming towards us." Indeed. Looking back, Jaune and Winter could see glowing red eyes and long snapping jaws. To put it bluntly, there were sewer alligators chasing them. Grimm sewer alligators.
"I probably should've expected this. Well, Jaune?"
"Yes Winter?"
"We have a few miles to run."
"Godamnit Winter."
So, they began running. Jaune and Winter broke into a mad dash. Winter busted out a glyph or so to further her acceleration or help her when she accidentally sllipped in the rush. Jaune merely winced as they splashed through the rising sewer water while Grimm alligators chased them. It wasn't exactly a pleasant experience, especially as one of them tried biting his hide off with their razor sharp teeth.
"WHY DIDN'T WE GO ALONG WITH QROW!?" Jaune was the first one to regret their decision to travel by sewer. Mostly because they were now running a marathon, in the dark, wading through contaminated water, and being chased by fucking alligators.
In the end, they managed to bolt right out of the sewers with those alligators mere inches away from taking large chunks of their flesh. And they had to run uphill for a good portion of it. Uphill with dirty water running. It was not pleasant. At all.
They were panting and gagging as they emerged from the sewer systems to the outskirts of Atlas Academy. Suddenly, Qrow walked up to them with a smug smile, with not even a drop of sweat on him.
"Hey Brat, hey Ice Queen, what took you so long?" He gave a comically long yawn as both Jaune and Winter, in their soiled clothes, glared daggers at Qrow.
"HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET HERE BEFORE US!?" Jaune was the one to yell. Though, it was more like a pitiful whimper considering his lungs were flipping in between deflated and feeling like popping.
"How in the world?" Winter was muttering. It wasn't long before they both collapsed on the ground due to exhaustion. It really was par for the course, considering how far they had ran and how many close calls they'd gotten into.
After a while, they set up camp, where Qrow informed the two of them on what he saw as he scouted around the academy.
"The place is totally empty. I would say that's a bad sign for our prospects of finding the god damned thing, but considering how it's the only place around here that isn't swarmed by security guards? I'd say we've hit jackpot. Plus, it seems like the Headmaster's office at the top floor is blacked out. Can't see a thing through its windows. We'll have to reach there from the elevator. Beyond that, we're fine." Was all he said before letting them use the showers in the student dorms. Really, feeling hot water for the first time in a while was a pleasant experience for Jaune. Typically, he either had to bathe in rivers, or at inns. He usually went with the cold rivers, so hot water was a rarity.
After bathing and putting their clothes to wash, Jaune and Winter both met Qrow in a dorm room. Jaune and Winter collapsed in their beds while Qrow chuckled and sat down. Jaune, not asleep at the moment, took out his deck of cards and released Darling. She appeared with the rolling of die and peered at Jaune with snake eyes.
"Quite the unfortunate position you've found yourself in, I take it?" Jaune sighed.
"Do you mind telling a story? I don't feel like talking and I can't fall asleep." It was going to be better than silence at least. Darling gave it a few moments of thought before shrugging. No point in not complying.
"Sure!" Darling pulled out her own chair before she began to tell her story to the two exhausted huntsmen and the one still rather spry one. "Long ago, before the world as you knew it was broken, there was a different age. An age of kings, queens, knigths, warriors, magic, and gods." Qrow felt himself twitch. "And during that time, there were two gods in particular that stood out. A golden dragon whose length went on forever, whose creativity knew no bounds, whose powers over creations were unrivalled. The Golden Dragon of Creation, the one who birthed the world from one scale in its infinitely long body. And the other, a purple dragon with twisted horns, twisted horns that made an equally twisted crown. The dark dragon, who, beneath the surface, bore flames. Flames hungry and all consuming. Flames that directed the purple dragon. These two were the Brother Gods. But the brother gods were petulant beings."
Qrow felt a twitch.
"The Golden Dragon always wondered why its creations insisted on rebelling. It wondered why they disobeyed the rules it created. It wondered why they didn't act according to how it dictated. The Purple Dragon merely revelled in its destructive nature. For while the Golden Dragon ruled all that was, the Purple Dragon ruled all that was not. And anything consumed by its hungry flames became not. And so, even with those problems, the two draconic brothers continued playing their games. They continued creating, destroying, and watching. They forged the world of magic, knights, and kingdoms and watched it. The Golden Dragon sighed as its creations once more changed from their intended course while the Purple Dragon merely enjoyed the inherent destruction in that path. But, eventually, it reached a breaking point. Over something, the two Brother Gods left the world, shattering its moon. And from there? Well, things only became worse. But the two gods left presents for their abandoned creations. A test, you may say."
Qrow was feeling uncomfortable.
"Four objects, four relics. Four items as a reminder of older times. Four pieces of a puzzle that, when put together, would beckon the gods to come back once more to resume their reign of the realm. The brother gods created two each. Creation, Knowledge, Destruction, and Choice, were their natures."
Qrow was sweating.
"The God of Creation created the Relic of Creation and Knowledge by crafting a staff and lamp. But it saw another problem. two deviant spirits existed. One who created without the approval of the Golden Dragon. And one who knew all and spread their knowledge without approval. So, the Golden Dragon stuffed the two spirits into the staff and lamp respectively before chaining them. He bound them to their relics with golden chains, golden chains that limited their former power. For the spirit of creation may never see more than one of their makings at a single time and the spirit of knowledge may never experience the world they know intimately. At least, as long as they stay in their relics."
Qrow was seriously considering punching Darling.
"The Purple Dragon had other ideas. It may not create, but was it really creation if it was a part of it all along? So it took one of its teeth and spit it out. That tooth grew a mind of its own and became a sword. They say whoever takes the sword sees the vision of a woman in a raggedy black cloak. And all things struck with the sword while her true name is uttered will be destroyed. For choice, the Dragon merely plucked out its own eye and planted it in the earth. From that, roots grew out of the eye. And choice became personified. From that singular eye grew a spirit, one of infinite branches seperating infinitely in all directions. It was the spirit of choice. For, when choice first became a thing, anything beyond the confines of the Golden Dragon's vision became a thing. Unlimited destruction became a possibility. That eye was then placed on a crown, where the wearer may see the infinite possibilities of the world. Where they must make a choice on where they must go."
Darling chuckled.
"As for me? I barely escaped the fate of being one of those relics. I simply had to beat the Golden Dragon in a game of cards. For, what is luck if not the choice of that without a will? What is luck if not the chaotic choice that nobody may wield? And for that, I avoided being enslaved by the gods, and roamed the earth for entertainment for years to come. At least, until a wizard came and bound me. But that's a story for another time."
Qrow was glad that Jaune and Winter had fallen asleep before most of any of that was said.
"So, apprentince of the very same wizard? I can smell his magic on you. Well, it's muddled by the booze, but I can still smell it. What did you think of my story?" Qrow looked Darling in the eye before sighing.
"I'm too sober for this shit."
"Alright kid, before we go and confront whatever's there, I'm going to teach you Wolf Gaze." Qrow and Jaune were talking as Winter decided to search the academy cafeteria for any food. Qrow had decided to make up for lost time and teach Jaune the other technique. "Wherever you go, you'll probably find a use for it. It's harder to learn than Sheep Gaze. While with Sheep Gaze, all you need to do is suppress your intent, with Wolf Gaze, you need to amplify it. When people with their aura unlocked give death glares, they accidentally use an unrefined version of Wolf Gaze. That's a reason why even if someone doesn't know what aura is, people with aura seem more threatening. Anyways, it's kind of harder to imagine it, but I do it by looking at the world around me and thinking how much I would love to see it burn."
"What."
"Yea, I know. Makes me sound like a maniac. That's why you shouldn't use Wolf Gaze constantly. Eventually, those thoughts that produce your killing intent will become extremely easy to bring forth. It'll be like a switch from total sweety to intense murderer." Qrow sighed. "Yea, not exactly the best idea to inflict intense psychological damage on yourself, alright? But if you just use it occasionally, you should be fine. Anyways, it's not the same for everyone. Some people activate it by imagining how they'll kill someone. Some stew in their dislike of that person. Some just focus all of their negative thoughts on one thing and that thing only. It's really just a matter of you deciding it."
"Hmm, so that's why I freaked you out so much after you insulted my parents?"
"Yea, that's probably a touchy spot for you. I guess imagine how you'd feel if someone insulted them? Eh, that doesn't feel right."
"Yea, I just can't find myself to get mad unless someone actually says it. And I know you wouldn't meman it." Jaune shrugged.
"Yea, you don't seem like the person to get mad. Well, whatever. It's not like I needed you to be able to use Wolf Gaze at will. Really, I'm telling you what it is as a sort of lesson, just so you know what it is when you do get mad. Cause Wolf Gaze can be very unnerving. Seriously, I've scared away a Beowolf with a glare that I put my all into. And that was because I was hungover!" Jaune snickered at the thought of a hungover Qrow paying off his bar tab by killing some Grimm, but being so annoyed that he scared one away because he was too tired to kill it.
Suddenly, Winter walked in with some food she ransacked from the cafeteria kitchens. While Atlas Academy was a military academy, that didn't mean the food they served had to be horrible. It wasn't gourmet by any means, but it wasn't hydrated rations. So, Winter had gotten some basic produce from the kitchens and would be getting to work. After a while of Jaune and Qrow instead testing Jaune's control over Calm Waters, Winter had finished making a large breakfast.
"A large fight is ahead of us, so let's prepare." And so the three of them ate. After doing that and some morning stretches, they found themselves on the elevator heading up to the headmaster's office.
"You know, this is way larger than the one at Beacon. Over there, it can only fit like, five people." Indeed, the elevator was spacious enough to hold twenty people at once. It was quite impressive.
"Well, large groups head up to meet General Ironwood at times. Anyways, we should prepare ourselves for what we're about to face. It could be any manner of monster up there."
"Yep. Could really be anything. I mean, we fought a dragon made of guns, so honestly I've lost the ability to be surprised."
Ding!
The elevator doors opened to reveal a sight that somehow made Qrow's jaw drop. In front of them was the experimental Atlesian Paladin. It had guns all over and one hand replaced with a chain gun. On top of it was a round platform with a round table, with seats all around it. It was akin to a hal. And on that table was General Ironwood, with ripped clothes, and intense wounds, as he held the giant Paladin down. He held multiple chains constraining the metallic beast of war as it desperately tried to rip free. At the sight of the intruders, the War Paladin shattered its chains as Ironwood fell to the floor and faded away into black dust.
"Well, that's not an everyday sight." Suddenly, panels opened and rocket heads were revealed. Explosives were launched at the elevator, so Jaune, Qrow, and Winter could only hop out as it was bombarded with firey death. The Headmaster's office they were in was actually extremely large, probably for the sake of the battle. So it gave them plenty of breathing room. Unfortunately, it also allowed the Paladin to operate without complications, and there weren't many items in the room they could use as cover.
"Split up! Divert fire so it can't focus on any one thing!" Jaune yelled. The three of them were already split up, but the order was given anyways. Qrow went left while Winter went right and Jaune stayed where he was, having the least speed of the three of them. Instead, he kept his shield up as it was hit by a barrage of lead. Of course, one of its arms followed Qrow to use its chain gun on it, while the other used a wrist-mounted dual cannon turret to fire at Winter. Jaune was being shot at by a few machine guns turrets on its pelvis-area and shoulders.
Honestly, with how many rifle bullets were being created by the chain gun and how many arm-sized shells were being pumped out by the autocannon, he was lucky that all he had to deal with was a few machine guns. It didn't make it any easier as he felt the sensation of needles trying to poke a thousand new holes into his legs and how an excessive amount of force was being applied to his shield, but at least he had a shield. Qrow was just trying not to get shot as he ran faster than the chain gun could turn while Winter had to blitz from glyph to glyph to avoid the large bullets fired out of the autocannon.
As for how the hell they were going to take down that thing? Jaune had no freaking clue. It didn't seem to have any problems pinning him down while making Qrow and Winter dance to its tune. From behind his shield, Jaune pulled out his trusty flare gun and aimed his electro-magnetic flare carefully. With a high pitched whistle overshadowed by the constant gunfire, the flare flew through the air and managed to hit the Paladin, contorting some of the electronics underneath and deactivating two of the guns shooting at him. That was good enough for Jaune, since that meant he was able to start moving forward without losing his footing from the amount of force the bullets slammed into him with.
"Winter? Do you know what the hell this is!?" It looked like an Atlesian robot, so she might.
"It's an experimental robot called the Paladin! It was designed to fight large amounts of Grimm!" That was all Winter could get out as she continued to avoid the artillery fire from the Paladin. Jaune thought for a second on what a vehicle like that would need to fight Grimm. It'd need to be very strong, have deadly weaponry, and have countermeasures for being tipped over. As for specific design flaws Jaune couldn't see any. It suddenly turned to slam Qrow as he tried to strike at the Paladin. Qrow didn't expect the speed of which it did so and was slammed hard and out the window, causing glass to shatter and him to fall.
"QROW!" Jaune's blood was pumping. For one, he just saw his friend take a bone-shattering hit and be slammed out the window. To top it all off, this meant that the Paladin had one less target it had to focus on. His aura probably protected him from the full force of that punch, but it definitely wouldn't save him from the hundred story or so fall. Winter's eyes widened as the Paladin turned to face the both of them at once. New rockets were loaded in and flew out towards them. While Winter dashed out of the way, Jaune knew that rolling away wouldn't give him enough distance. So, he knelt down and put his shield up as he was bathed in flame.
It was agonizing to say the least. Like he was taking a bath in hot coals, or if needles were poking into every single inch of his skin.
Luckily, it only lasted a few seconds before the explosions died down. The floor beneath him was scorched, but he was alive. A little worse for wear, but alive. Winter had taken the offensive, using her glyphs to propel herself in order to tear off two of the light machine guns that were pinning him down. now, all they had to worry about were the rockets, the autocannon, and the chain gun.
Jaune held his shield up high as he circled around the Paladin. It kept the Chain Gun on him, pelting him with hundreds of thousands of bullets per second as Winter occupied most of its attention. Jaune saw as the chain of bullets rapidly fed into the rotating gun from a box on its back. Swallowing his nerves, Jaune charged at it and leapt up high with Crocea Mors ready to strike. And with a single stroke, the chain gun was disconnected with its ammo supply. Jaune had to roll away as the chain gun was detached from the Paladin, revealing a hand that slammed at Jaune. He managed to roll away just before the fist could crush him.
Winter wasn't having a good time either. The autocannon that she was dealing with had no obvious weak points like the chain gun did. So, she stuck with using her glyphs to avoid fire and occasionally blitz by it to get a strike. Unfortunately, the Paladin had heavy enough armor so that their strikes couldn't do much of anything. The Paladin then grabbed the council table/halo above it and atached it to its currently weaponless arm, turning it into a shield. Jaune swore as he was bashed by it, making him roll to bleed momentum as he was knocked away.
Then, it did something not even Jaune expected. The floor was coated with a thin layer of brass shells from the extensive gunfire from the Paladin. With its free hand, it reached into the floor, and the shells all flocked to it. It then pulled from the ground a massive lance made out of bullet shells. Hell, the lance itself kind of looked like a rifle bullet.
"Hey! It's copying me!" Jaune was trying to joke, mostly because he was pretty scared of what the giant robot with a sword and shield would do to them. It then swung at Winter. She managed to dodge, but the swing then moved over to him. He put his shield up and positioned himself so the floor would take most of the force. As the sword crashed into his shield, he felt a massive explosion come from it. With the force of the giant blade added with the explosion, he was easily toppled over and sent flying. He rolled and barely managed to come to a halt before he flew out the window as well.
So the sword also created explosions, how fun.
Winter had retreated over to his body and stood by him as he got up. The Paladin was in a defensive position, watching Jaune and Winter, waiting for one of them to make the first move.
"Do you have lightning dust?" Winter asked Jaune.
"I have a crystal, why?"
"Let me borrow it, please." Well, she went with his orders without complaint, why wouldn't he? So, he handed over the crystal of lightning dust. She gripped onto it as a glowing yellow projectile flew out and hit the floor beneath Jaune. A glyph resembling clockwork began working and Jaune felt, for lack of a better term, fast. The world was moving so slow before him and Jaune felt as if he could run circles around even an Alpha Beowolf. With a smile from the energizing feeling, he bolted towards the Paladin.
It reacted with a furry of thrusts towards him. Even being hit once by it would definitely mean being torn apart by the explosions caused. But the time dilation Winter had used on him gave him the speed and time he needed in order to roll, jump, and dodge the storm of explosion powered thrusts. It backed up and gave a final thrust towards Jaune, who placed his shield onto the lance before hopping on it and riding the shield. Explosions rang out from beneath him, actually giving him momentum as he leaned and let the explosions speed him up as he rode his shield, with Crocea Mors in hand, towards the Paladin's actual body.
And hooking a foot on the grip of his shield, he leapt from the lance with Crocea Mors and embedded his blade deep into its center. He aimed it so it would go through the most armored part of the Paladin, where he guessed the power source for the entire thing was. Before he could further drive it in, he was grabbed by the Paladin, and thrown out the window, taking both his sword and shield with him.
He felt weightless for a moment as he heard glass shatter and himself fall. But then, he felt warm.
He realized he had closed his eyes as he waited for death, but opened them as he realized he wasn't falling anymore.
"Hey kid, nice seeing you again." And here was Qrow, holding him midair. He had enough force so that he landed back in the building through the shattered window/wall gracefully. Qrow let Jaune find his footing. The time dilation effects had worn off, so everything was now moving the same. Winter was dealing with the Paladin and Jaune had to unhook his shield from his foot. "Alright, what's the plan?"
"Huh?"
"Plan, kid. What is it?" Jaune thought for a moment and considered the abilities of his friends before thinking something up on the fly.
"I got it." He smiled at the sheer outrageousness of his plan. "WINTER! USE THAT TIME THINGY ON QROW!" He turned towards Qrow. "Change it into scythe. Cut off the hand that holds the lance."
"Yea, why is it holding a lance any-woah what the fuck!?" Qrow's words became much faster as he was hit with the time dialtion. Not wasting a moment, Qrow dashed towards the Paladin, dragging his scythe behind him. Qrow descended upon the Paladin, which tried blocking Qrow with its shield while stabbing at Winter with its lance. Fortunately, Qrow managed to instead convert his momentum as he ran up the shield and leapt above the Paladin. He carrying his scythe behind him with an adrenaline fuelled grin.
He strafed through the air and with a single stroke detached the Paladin's hand, making the lance fall to the floor with a loud thud. Jaune didn't waste any time heading to the lance.
"Keep it busy!" He began pushed the lance into place as Winter and Qrow heeded his order and began a relentless assault on the Paladin. Winter and Qrow used glyphs, her saber, and his sword in order to slam into the Paladin, which could only raise and swing its shield in its defense. It also switched back to using the autocannon on its handless arm, which did give them a little bit of trouble, but the speed they managed to build up as the whizzed around the Paladin allowed them to dodge it.
Meanwhile, he had pushed the lance away from the paladin and turned it around so that it would face it.
"Winter! Create a black glyph at its handle!" Winter retreated and let Qrow handle the Paladin, much to his displeasure. With the tap of her saber, a black glyph was formed and Jaune pulled out his wind dust crystal. He charged it with aura and directed the wind at the tip of the lance. After a few moments, he had built up a crashing bullhead's worth of force into the black glyph, which was primed and ready for the final attack.
And luckily, Qrow had lured it into its line of fire.
So, with Jaune muttering, "Fire!" the lance was launched by the black glyph. It was faster than any of them could see as it lept from the black glyph with a boom. It tore through metal with explosions and fried circuitry. A large hole was blasted into the roof, revealing the shattered moon to the three as they looked through the gaping hole the lance left.
And with its main components destroyed, the Paladin fell, and faded into black dust.
And with the dying whirs of motors, the world around them faded away as well, and left them in the Atlesian Great War Museum Hall, looking at a propoganda poster from Mantle during the time of the Great War.
The fight was real, their auras could attest to that.
And with the death of the Paladin, the Atlas quarter of the Vytal Memorial Grounds would spawn Grimm no longer.
AN: This was originally supposed to be the Winter introduction chapter, but honestly I realized the worldbuilding would take center stage and hog the spotlight, so I quickly wrote up Braving Winter for this to make sense. Plus, now it won't feel weird that Qrow is here! Anyways, this is also going to be my first Multi-Chapter story. Arc? The Vytal Arc I guess? Call it whatever. Im splitting it up mostly because holy shit just Atas took up a whole lotta space.
AN2: Also, for those who wanted it, here's some aura techniques! For Calm Waters I just wondered how would the Mantlese doctrine of emotion suppression would evolve and got to that while for Wolf Gaze/Sheep Gaze I just wondered what exactly the Branwen Tribe would need. They're both aura techniques and also, I'm going to be pretty liberal with what can be done with aura. Get ready for martial arts movie/anime bullshit!
AN3: And yes, the Mourners are just the background guys from Volume 1
AN4: Also, I had two ideas for stories that you probably can just steal from me. 1: A slice of life of the various characters in RWBY called The Totally Normal Lives of Totally Normal People. And 2: A slice of life featuring Salem, Queen of the Grimm, and who just so happened to become addicted to games. Think 'Gamer Salem' from Knight of Salem by Coeur Al'aran.
AN5: Fuck, just had a realization. This is just a Wuxia story! I mean! I literally just added magical martial arts! And the protag is a vagrant hero who helps people out who was trained by an aloof fuckweed who truly cared for him! And yes, before you ask, my understanding of Wuxia stories is extremely shallow.
