Plastered Paradox

Chapter 15

The first thing Jaune became aware of when they finally made it back to Haven was that it didn't look how he remembered.

"Huh," he said aloud. "You know, I can't place my finger on it, but something about Haven feels really different."

"Is it the masses of Grimm attacking people?" Cinder asked dryly.

"You know, now that you mention it, that just might be it. Watch my back."

"Oh, Gods, not again!"

But it was too late – Jaune had already taken off, drawing his sword as he charged with a wild shout. He collided with a Beowolf shield-first, knocking it on its ass before driving his sword through its skull, killing it instantly. Off to the side, Qrow and Raven moved in, working to engage the Grimm and keep them away from other people.

It was pandemonium, Jaune realized as he rose to his feet and shook the Grimm gore off his sword. All around him, Huntsmen and students were locked in combat with Grimm. But despite that, there was only one thing on his mind.

"Where the fuck is Lionheart?"

"Who the hell cares about that fat chode?!" Raven demanded as she threw an Ursa off herself, then leaped up and decapitated it. "Get your ass in gear and help us out, already! These things are fucking everywhere!"

Jaune shrugged, because when your foul-mouthed, femdom-obsessed bandit fuckbuddy tells you to fall in with her and help her fight the forces of evil, that's really all you can do. So he did, and ran over just in time to lop the arms off another Ursa that was sneaking up on her from behind.

"Hey, Raven," he said.

"Yes?"

"Wanna do the back-to-back thing? I think it'd look really cool, and I know how much you like to look cool when you fight."

"You're like a small child, you know that?"

"I'm not hearing a no."

"...Fine."

Jaune pumped his fist in victory as the two of them pressed their backs together and kept fighting. Grimm assaulted them from all sides, but they didn't give in, instead continuing to lash out as the tide kept on thickening.

"I was right," Jaune said. "This does look cool."

"Jaune!" Cinder called from off in the distance.

"And just like that, it's over," he lamented. "Stay here, would you? I gotta go take care of this thing."

"Hurry back," Raven said, looking over her shoulder at him.

Jaune nodded, then broke off from her, pressing through the horde to get to Cinder. A Boarbatusk came rolling towards him, but he just waited for the right moment, then stuck it with his sword mid-roll before moving on.

"Man," he said absentmindedly as he continued to carve his way through the horde like a weed whacker going through Beacon's gardens, not that he would know or anything. "These guys are real chumps now that I've gotten a lot better at fighting. This is like a fucking Sunday stroll for me."

Off in the distance, he was idly aware of a Haven student who looked suspiciously similar to Sky Lark screaming in terror as she was pinned beneath an Ursa Major. He furrowed his brow, then sighed.

"Of course, right when I open my big mouth…"

Still, he supposed he could spare this moment of charity. So he broke through the horde to get to the student, then stood behind the Ursa Major, his sword raised for a decisive blow, only to pause mid-stride.

"What are you doing?!" the student yelled as she fought to keep the Ursa's jaws from clamping around her head. "Quit standing there and help me!"

"I'm trying," Jaune said, "it's just that I've gotta think of a really cool one-liner before I do it, otherwise I'll look like a total joke."

"A one-liner?! You're letting me die over a one-liner?!"

"If I say yes, will you respect it more?"

The girl stared at him for a moment, then started to scream again. "Help, help! I'm being attacked by an Ursa and my would-be rescuer is a moron! Someone else, anyone else, help me!"

Jaune rolled his eyes. "You know, beggars can't be choosers when it comes to getting rescued. You should meet this one bartender guy I saved a little while ago – dude didn't complain once when I saved him, even though he obviously didn't like the rescue at all. I'm just saying, I'm kinda wasting time doing this when I should be helping Cinder out."

He paused. "Oh, yeah. Right. Well, let's not waste any time, then."

And with that, he cut the Ursa's head off and tossed it away. The blue-haired girl stared at him in disbelief, and he stared back before saluting her.

"I'm combat-ready!" he said, only to immediately cringe. "Yeah… probably not the best choice given what happened to her. I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, you good to keep fighting?"

Not-Sky's older sister just stared at him like he'd spontaneously grown a second head, then picked up her weapon which looked suspiciously similar to a really big spear, and took off running. Jaune watched her go, then shrugged.

"I suppose it only makes sense that I'd run into a relative of someone I knew at some point, I'm just surprised it was Sky," he said to himself. "Anyway, where was I? Oh, right – Cinder! Cinder, where are you?! You didn't get eaten by another snake, did you?! Because if you did, that's entirely too much vore for one person to deal with in a single day!"

Unfortunately, he didn't get a response from her, which earned a sigh from him. "Alright, yeah, that's not a good sign."

As if on cue, a massive roar cut through the air, joined soon thereafter by an entire other symphony of various Grimm calls from just outside city limits. Jaune's eyes widened as he realized what was happening.

"Alright, I think it's safe to say the queen's pissed off now," he said to himself. "Cinder, if you can hear me, let me know!"

A few seconds passed by without a response, but then to Jaune's relief, she called back.

"Jaune, I'm over here!"

He took off running towards her, sword at the ready as he burst out onto a nearby street. To his amazement, Cinder didn't appear to be in any danger this time; rather, she was standing in a pile of fallen Grimm, doubled over and breathing heavy while covered in cuts and bruises, but still very much alive. Jaune hurried over to her side and rested a hand on her shoulder, then began to use his Semblance.

"I've got you," he assured her. "That feel good?"

Cinder glared at him. "You left me again, you ass!"

"You had it under control."

"Barely! Why do you think I screamed?!"

"You just need to have some self-confidence."

"And you need to learn to be a better guardian! What kind of caretaker leaves a young girl like me to fend for herself?!"

"That's like par for the course in families of Huntsmen," Jaune told her. "It's really not a big deal."

Cinder let out an annoyed huff, then crossed her arms. "Whatever. Just don't do it again; I really don't want to be eaten by another King Taijitu."

"How was that, by the way?" Jaune asked. "Was it as awful as I expect?"

"I'd put it slightly above living with the Madame, but slightly below walking in on you and Raven having sex."

"That-" He paused. "...You, uh, haven't done that yet, have you? Because if you have, then I must apologize for the mental scars."

"No, I haven't," Cinder assured him. "Not yet, at least. Something tells me I will at some point, though."

"Yeah, no, that was a one-time thing. Well, the good news for you is that alcoholism runs in the family, so you'd be among friends if it drove you to drink."

Footsteps caught his attention, and he stood up with his weapon in hand, only to relax when he saw that it was Qrow and Raven approaching. "Good, you made it," he said.

"A little warning next time would be nice, you know,' Qrow grunted. "That and keeping Cinder on a tighter leash."

Cinder glared at him for a moment, then turned back to Jaune. "Is that it? Because it looks to me like the Grimm have backed off."

"It would seem that way," Jaune agreed. "I think Salem was just probing us with that attack, though."

"You'd certainly know a lot about getting probed, wouldn't you?" Raven asked.

"You know, now that we're dating, that joke loses a lot of its teeth," Jaune pointed out. "Because it implies that not only am I okay with getting probed, but you're okay with being the one doing the probing."

"How do you know I'm not? You've never asked."

"Excuse me, I'm gonna go throw up," Cinder announced. Then, true to her word, she ran around a nearby corner, and the sounds of retching were audible just a few short seconds later.

"Man, screw all you people," Jaune lamented. "I can't even tell obvious jokes anymore without someone taking it the wrong way. Is this really what it's like to be Lionheart? Because if so then I understand why that guy just sits up in his tower and does nothing all day, and then eventually defects to Salem."

"Speaking of, where is-" Qrow began, only to catch himself. "I don't even know why I'm bothering to ask. We all know he's hiding up in his tower."

"Let's go pay him a visit, then," Raven announced. "I mean, fuck it, right? Someone's gotta help us prepare for when Salem launches her full-on attack, and the least he can do is let us use his students as meat shields."

"Good to know fucking me hasn't mellowed you out at all," Jaune said.

"You kidding? I'm only getting more aggressive the longer I have to spend around you."

"Good to know I still have that effect on people."

The instant they marched into Lionheart's office, Jaune stepped over to his desk, picked it up, and threw it out the window. Just as he'd expected, Lionheart was underneath it. He gave Jaune a sheepish grin.

"Oh, ah, hello, Jaune and friends," Lionheart said. "I was just, um, searching for my contact lenses – you see, I'm no good in a fight without them, so-"

Jaune rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah."

He bent down and picked up Lionheart, then placed him so he was actually standing up. "Listen, I don't really care that you're a coward," Jaune assured him. "I mean, sure, it's embarrassing, humiliating, and totally unbecoming of a Huntsman, let alone a so-called man-"

"I thought you said you didn't really care?" Lionheart asked.

"-but we kinda need you to throw us a bone, here," Jaune finished, ignoring Lionheart's question. "I don't think I need to tell you the attack just now was merely meant to test Mistral's defenses – if that was a real attack, Salem would have sent her minions in as well, plus a lot more Grimm. Needless to say, I think Haven as a whole failed that little test, so you can expect to see an even bigger force knocking on your door in short order."

Lionheart let out a groan and buried his head in his hands. "Why me…? Why did I agree to help Oz out with all this stuff? I could have just as easily said no, but I wanted to be the headmaster."

"Why'd you want the job if you expected to actually have to do stuff in the position?" Cinder asked.

"Because I didn't think it'd be like this!" Lionheart lamented. "Seriously, headmasters don't even really do anything except sit in meetings all day. How was I supposed to know there was actually a super-secret conspiracy against the entire world I'd have to fight against?"

"Well, you're in it now, man," Jaune said. "You gonna sit there and cry about it, or are you gonna help us all not die?"

Lionheart stared at him… then let out a sniffle. Jaune rolled his eyes. "Dude, for real?"

"Hey, you're the one who gave me the option," Lionheart countered.

"That was obviously a rhetorical question, you big bitch. Damn it, what's a guy got to do to get some actual help around here?"

"Aside from call Ozpin?" Qrow asked.

"What would Ozpin-" Jaune paused, his eyes widening in recognition. "Actually, that's not a bad idea. Of course, first we need to set things up with Lionheart-"

"Look, whatever you people want, just take it," Lionheart insisted. "Clearly, I'm of next to no help to you by myself-"

"Next to no help?" Cinder echoed. She shook her head. "That's being extremely generous. You've done nothing but hide under your desk while sucking your thumb and almost dying the entire time we've been in Mistral. I'd call you a coward but to do so would be an insult to cowards everywhere. Legitimately, I'd feel bad comparing them to you, because while someone may be a coward now, there is always the distinct possibility that one day they will do something actually brave. You, on the other hand, will always be a rancid wank-stain of a person, eager to curl up in a ball and hide from the world if it means keeping yourself safe from all adversity. I would sooner go into a fight with my estranged abusive stepmother backing me up than you."

Jaune stared at her, mouth agape, as did Qrow and Raven. He exchanged a quick glance with the two of them, then wiped the look from his face and cleared his throat. "O-kay… Cinder, I don't know where you suddenly acquired the ability to roast that hard, but for real, massive respect from me."

"Ditto," Raven said with a nod. "Perhaps we're rubbing off on her more than we initially thought."

"Please don't rub off on me," Cinder deadpanned.

"Don't push it, kid." Raven looked back to Lionheart. "We're gonna borrow your students, okay? All your students. Because somebody has to take care of the Grimm while we deal with Salem's little entourage, and something tells me that isn't going to be you."

"Right again, of course," Lionheart said. "Please, feel free to take as many students as you need."

"You know, you're awfully okay with the idea of using students as meat shields," Qrow said to Jaune.

"Oh, that's because they all die in ten years, anyway," Jaune answered. "The way I see, if I can keep even just one student out of the bunch alive, then my ratio is still going to end up being positive compared to what it ordinarily would have been if I just did nothing at all and let nature run its course."

Qrow blinked. "You're fucking weird, dude."

"Trust me, it'll all make sense once we get our hands on the Relic," Jaune insisted. "Then I'll prove I'm actually a time traveler, and not a deranged schizophrenic like you all seem to think I am."

"So, reinforcements," Cinder interrupted. "We've got Lionheart's students now, but that's not going to be enough if Salem throws the full might of her army at us like we expect she will."

"You're right," Jaune said. "Hold on, let me make a scroll call real quick."

He pulled his scroll out of his pocket and dialed the first number in his directory. It rang exactly once before someone picked up.

"You've reached Neo's Ice Cream Parlor, where the blood orange ice cream is a lot more literal than you might expect," Roman answered. "What can we do for you?"

"Yeah, we've got a bit of a situation here," Jaune insisted.

"Oh, you've got a situation? Buddy, let me tell you who's got a situation – Ruby just discovered her Semblance like fifteen minutes ago. She's been racing through the club ever since. Do you have any idea how hard we've had to work to keep her out of the adults only section? Let me tell you, it's been really hard, man, and her fucking sister isn't making anything easier by challenging random people to a fight and then just punching them in the groin out of nowhere, then declaring herself the winner and taking whatever cash they had on them as prize money."

"Holy shit, dude. What did you do, just dump them both with Neo for hours at a time?"

"Yes, actually."

"Bro, what the fuck? Did you really expect that was going to end well?"

"Hey, I was busy, okay?" Roman insisted with a huff. "Look, was there something you needed, or can I go back to tard wrangling these unruly children?"

"Yes, there's something I need, why the hell else do you think I'd call you now?" Jaune sighed tiredly. "Look, Mistral is probably going to be attacked by Salem with everything she has in very short order. We're trying to buff up our defenses in preparation for it, because otherwise, this place is turbo fucked, like I'm talking full-on choke-on-that-cock levels of just absolute annihilation. If you've got any reinforcements available, now is the time to send them."

"Shit, man, you really couldn't give any advance notice?" Roman asked. "Because you're catching me off-guard, here. Most of Vale's Huntsmen are already away on missions, and there aren't exactly a whole lot of students I can get there at a moment's notice."

"So we're fucked," Jaune surmised.

"I didn't say that," Roman added. "What were you looking for, exactly? Maybe I can arrange something."

"Hell, at this point, I'd just settle for the biggest guy you've got with the biggest gun you've got."

"I don't have anyone like that, but I can send Glynda."

"Sold," Jaune said in an instant. "Send her over to Patch, I'll have Raven pick her up and bring her here."

With that, the call ended. Jaune turned to Raven, only to find her glaring at him. "What?"

"My Semblance is not your personal portal generator," Raven chastised.

"Oh, come on, it's not like I'm asking you for a trip to the fucking store. We're doing this for some actual reinforcements."

"You got a single person to deal with an entire army of Grimm," Cinder pointed out.

"Uh, I got Glynda to deal with an entire army of Grimm, excuse you," Jaune countered. "Seriously, Glynda is basically a one-woman Grimm apocalypse. We just went from inarguably fucked to possibly maybe okay. Now all we need to do is get her here."

All eyes turned to Raven, who rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "You're really going to make me do this?"

"Come on," Jaune asked. "This is our only hope of not dying. That's gotta be worth something."

"Oh, it is. You want to know what it's worth, Jaune? You putting that mouth of yours to work – 2 hours a night, every night, for a week. That's my price, take it or leave it."

"Sold."

Raven flashed him a cheeky grin. "Excellent. Excuse me while I go fetch her."

"Excuse me while I go throw up again," Cinder said.

With that, Cinder ran out of the room and Raven tore open a portal and stepped through it. Once they were both gone, Qrow turned to Jaune.

"Do you both have to be so casual about it?" he asked. "Seriously. At this point, you're just bullying the poor girl."

"She'll get used to it," Jaune insisted.

"If you say so. But just know that if she ever throws up on my shoes, I'm beating your ass."

Jaune chalked that up as just another thing that ran in the family.

Not long after, Raven stepped back through the portal, along with Glynda Goodwitch.

"Alright," Glynda announced as the portal closed behind her. "What kind of trouble have you all gotten yourselves into now?"

"Oz didn't explain it to you?" Qrow asked, surprised.

"Oh, he did," Glynda amended. "He just did a very poor job of it, probably because he was busy trying to keep your niece from burning down Junior's club."

"Would that be the speed-freak niece with ADHD who's on a permanent sugar high, or the anger issues niece who thinks she's always the toughest person in the room?"

"Trick question – it's both, plus the girl who looks like ice cream. Do you have any idea how badly she's enabling those two? They're already all little hellions; I can't imagine what they're going to be like in ten years. And that's not even mentioning the other two who just showed up. You'd think the quiet Mistralian boy would be easy to control, but all he does is enable the other hyperactive anklebiter all the time."

"Actually, they're all basically the same in ten years, funnily enough," Jaune said.

"Ice cream girl…" Cinder muttered to herself in thought. "Why does that sound so familiar…?"

"No reason," Jaune hurriedly added. "Look, we're burning daylight, here. Glynda, I'll give you the short version – Salem's about to fuck Mistral in the ass with the biggest, spikiest dick she can possibly summon. We brought you in as our ringer."

Glynda blinked. "...You want me to take on Salem? I mean, not that I'm not ridiculously powerful or anything, but-"

"No, that's our job," Jaune specified. "If Salem shows up – and I suspect she probably won't, because we haven't pissed her off badly enough for that to happen just yet – then yes, we'll need your help to deal with her. But I suspect that she's just going to send wave after wave of Grimm to Mistral as a distraction, then send in a few of her lackeys to steal the Relic while we're all… uh, distracted, I guess."

"So then what's the plan?" Glynda asked.

"The plan is, you and Cinder are going to help bolster the defends outside."

"Are you fucking serious?" Cinder demanded. "Jaune, for real? We talked about this."

"We did," Jaune said with a nod. "I'll be completely honest – I do not like the odds of you against one of Salem's entourage, let alone more than one. My guess is she'll be sending three of them – Tyrian, Hazel, and Rachel – so that makes it an even fight between Qrow, Raven, and I. But if you're there, suddenly the fight becomes a lot less even, because we have to make sure you don't die."

"I can take care of myself!" she insisted.

"Not against those three, you can't," Jaune said. "Seriously, they will kill you without a second thought… well, okay, Hazel might have a second thought, but he'd probably do it anyway because he just hates Ozpin that much. But that's beside the point."

"What is the point?" Raven questioned.

"The point is that she's safest at Glynda's side," Jaune told her. "Glynda can keep her safe, that I'm sure of. Right, Glynda?"

"Keeping her alive can't be any worse than having to wrangle the Beacon students on a daily basis," Glynda explained. "Then again, she is your not-daughter."

"She's not my daughter," Jaune said.

"She sure seems like it."

"Well, she's not, even though I care for her; the age gap is too small for that to make sense."

Cinder crossed her arms and glared at him. "You're an asshole, Jaune," she said.

"I know, you only tell me that every day." He sighed, then ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Look, if it makes you feel better, we'll get you a gun so you can actually be of some help against the Grimm while you hang back."

"Is that wise?" Qrow asked. "Because Cinder with a gun legitimately sounds like the scariest thing ever."

Cinder flipped him off, then turned back to Jaune. "If you think you can bribe me with weapons, it won't work. I'm still going to be mad at you."

"You can be as mad at me as you want, so long as you're still alive," Jaune said. "Glynda, watch her, would you? Don't let her out of your sight until it's clear."

"I'll take care of her," Glynda promised.

"Good. Now, as for the rest of us… saddle up, I guess," Jaune said. "Because we've got ourselves a Relic to defend."

No big AN today since I'm supposed to be working right now, but I felt compelled to update this despite that, so here we are. Hope you all enjoyed the chapter, and I'll see you all next time!