So, it turns out that I kind of forgot I am meant to be at a wedding today. Forgot as in I didn't remember yesterday but then my friend called me last night to talk about how excited she is, and I almost asked what about until I remembered. UI have to be there at 1pm for a 2pm wedding, so this is going to be hella short. Lucky that I ordered the wedding gift over a month back, so I don't need to panic and try to find one. I'm going to try and rush as much of this chapter out as possible. Speed-writing time.

Cover Art: GWBrex

Chapter 28

His options were to fight or run and fighting would only cement his place as the next dark lord. Losing the money he'd paid for the passage was a shame, but he could deal with that. He'd have to deal with it. Jaune entered his cabin and picked back up the bags he'd dropped in there, shouldering them and pushing back out onto the main deck. He walked over to the railing, hood up and tyring to look unconcerned as he looked for the Chosen. They weren't on the pier yet, likely still searching the other vessel, so he had a chance to get off and slip away before they got on here.

Maybe I can book passage on one of the ones they've already searched. Then I can slip past them. That was if they hadn't warned the captains to tell them if anyone matching his description tried. Can't take the risk. I'm going to have to go back inland and try to hide there. Damn you, Ozpin. This is all your fault.

A lot of Neptune's men were busy running about the deck typing up ropes and lashing down crates. They were moving faster now than they had been before with an urgency that had them brushing him out the way. It was when Jaune approached the ramp and found it draw back up onto the ship that he realised why, and then Neptune came running out the cabins and up the steps atop them to the wheel. He didn't shout but waved his hands angrily forward, making had signals and pointing to the sails. His crew understood and loosened ropes, causing the white sails to billow as they rode down the central mast. A moment later, the ship creaked and scraped against the pier as it began moving forward.

The Trident was fleeing harbour. Slowly at first, but once they were out past the pier the sailors pushed out long wooden oars to and began to row to add to the small amount of wind propelling them. Sun was at the mast, striking a small wooden hammer into the wood to create a rhythm for the men to row to.

"Stop!" someone shouted from the docks. "Stop in the name of the Queen!"

It didn't look like Neptune planned to. He turned the wheel so that they began moving east toward Mistral and so that Jaune could see the docks off the starboard side. It was one Huntress who remained, too far to make out her face but her black clothing and cape gave her away. The woman was shouting still, pointing, and then the air around her began to glow a deep purple. Jaune took a nervous step back.

Aura. Magic.

"Semblance…" Ozma whispered.

The ship groaned to a halt suddenly, stopped dead in the water despite the wind and the oars. Wood creaked and cracked as it fought against large glyph-like structures superimposed in the air at the prow of the ship. It was a barrier of purple light, a wall, halting their progress.

"Keep rowing!" Neptune roared, spinning the wheel to try and take them around it. The ship wasn't capable of turning on the spot normally but with the barrier holding it in place, he was able to turn the prow left, scraping it along the magical wall and dragging the starboard side of the ship against it as he searched for its limits.

The move brought the barrier right in front of the railing he was stood at, and Jaune stared up at it, amazed by the intricate symbols, the sparkling purple lines drawn in the air and also the strange sense of familiarity coming from them. This was magic. This was the Goddess' gift that marked the Chosen as different from regular women. It was what the Dark Lord and his incarnations had.

It was what he had.

Ozma continued to speak into his head, offering answers in exchange for control, telling him he could break this barrier if Jaune but let him. He pushed the voice back. If he was the reincarnation of Ozma then he had magic too. If Ozma could use it to teleport him out the city, he should be able to use it to break this. It's my body and that means it's my magic.

Swallowing, Jaune reached out his right hand and touched the barrier. It was warm to the touch, flat and smooth like glass. He could feel it pulsing like a heartbeat – maybe the magic's, but maybe that of the huntress back on the docks. He had only felt magic be used twice now – once when Ozma fought the Beowolves and saved his father, and the second time when he betrayed him and teleported them out of the city. Both times, the magic had been used outside his control, but he'd still felt everything. He'd experienced the rush of power, the feeling of it. That wasn't enough to understand how to use it, but it was enough for him to know it could be used.

I have magic, Jaune thought, eyes closed. I know it's deep in here somewhere. He tried to recall the sensation of it roaring through him, focused on it, grasped it. Ozma kept talking, kept offering, but Jaune blocked him out and felt something flickering deep inside him. It was like a small ember. Desperate, he took it, cupped it in his mind and willed it to life, pulling and pushing, stoking and feeding it. It was all metaphorical, perhaps even metaphysical, but the more he concentrated on it, the greater it grew. Maybe it got easier, or maybe magic needed focus. He had no idea.

No idea of how to use it either. As the firer grew and his body began to tingle, Jaune ignored Ozma's warnings and snapped his eyes open, pressed both his hands to the barrier and pushed it all out at once.

Fire exploded between his hands and the barrier, hurtling him back but shattering the spell in one go. He heard a pained scream at the docks, but the sudden lurch of the ship as it lunged forward prevented him from focusing on it. He rolled back against the cabins and came to a stop, the palms of his hands red raw and smarting, but his body somehow still whole despite what must have looked like a grain explosion. The fear of having been seen and the ship's crew knowing who he was didn't match up to his awe at having used magic. He had done it. Not Ozma. Him.

"If you can call such a brute force approach magic…"

The Dark Lord would disagree of course – he wanted Jaune helpless and relying on him. The voice didn't try and argue, instead retreating back into his mind even as Jaune stood and retreated back into the cabins, hopeful that his intervention had somehow gone unnoticed in the chaos.

/-/

The ship had been on the open waters for over an hour now. The rocking of the ship, still new to him, had his stomach feeling queasy, but sitting alone in his small cabin on the bed with his eyes closed helped mitigate it. What helped more was the distraction granted by his having used magic without Ozma's assistance. It confirmed something he'd long since assumed – that the magic wasn't in Ozma, but in himself.

That might still be because he was born a reincarnation of the Dark Lord, but that still meant he didn't need the treacherous man in charge of his body to use it – only to use it well. Could he learn? Could it be practiced? The palms of his hands were still a bright pink from the heat of so much magic. It was likely he'd used too much too fast, but maybe he could learn to control that. Not to declare war and conquer like Ozma wanted, but to evade the Chosen and stay hidden in some far flung village.

He couldn't practice magic here; he quickly came to accept. A wooden ship out in the ocean with poorly controlled magic was a recipe for disaster. Maybe in Mistral, however, in some small camp on his own somewhere quiet and away from civilisation. It would make so much of a difference if he could learn to teleport at will like Ozma had. Tellingly, the Dark Lord didn't chime in to offer to teach him. Not that he would have accepted, but the silence still confirmed that Ozma wanted Jaune dependent on his influence.

A knock came at the wooden door and Jaune stilled, his stomach clenching up. It was almost too much to hope that no one had noticed his intervention – the deck had been filled with people working the oars, and the captain had a view over it all. He hadn't exactly been subtle either. "Come in."

Neptune Vasilias pushed the door open but didn't step inside. The room wasn't large enough for two people as it was, but he stood in the doorway, and he hadn't drawn his sword. That was a good sign. He didn't look entirely comfortable, however. Jaune offered him a weak smile. "Can I help you, Captain?"

"Thought I ought to come and say a few words." The captain ran his tongue over his teeth as if searching for them in his own mouth. "Our departure was a little sudden as I'm sure you saw. A little more action than we're used to seeing, and I figure you're smart enough to put the why together."

"Something illegal on the ship?"

"That's a little on the nose coming from you, don't you think?"

Jaune snorted. The man knew, as much as he was dancing around the issue. "I'm not here to cause any trouble or recruit you into my dark army, captain. I've no interest in playing into the stereotype for what I am. What they say I am."

"Ask no questions is our motto, good sir. You won't find any on the Trident that care to intrude into your business. Besides, your intervention saved us having to answer some rather awkward questions."

"What is it you're carrying that they'd care about?"

"Weapons." Neptune smiled grimly. "How familiar are you with Mistral?"

"Not at all. I lived in a village in Vale my whole life."

"Then let me fill you in. Eighty years ago Mistral had a… disagreement with the Eternity Queen. I won't bore you with the details but the short of it is that she taxed too hard, barely ever showed and left the country reeling under constant attack by Grimm and very little in the way of aid or assistance. The people had enough and rose up in rebellion – aided in no small way by the coming of that period's Dark Lord. One of your predecessors, I assume."

That explained more than it needed to. "It failed, then. The Dark Lord has always been defeated."

"It failed." Neptune confirmed. "Of course it did. One country against her empire, her power and all the Chosen. Didn't help that the Dark Lord at the time went sprinting off the pier and into his madness, or so my father told me. Went from a brilliant commander to a madman halfway through the campaign. For allowing that to happen however, Mistral was punished once it was brought back into the fold. A trusted family were granted rulership over the entire country. Regency, they called it, but eighty years on they're still in charge and let's just say they haven't been making any more friends than the last lot. Some the Schnee are still punishing us to this day. Hard labour, few liberties, cruel conditions."

"These weapons are for a second rebellion then?" Jaune guessed. "I want no part of it if that's where you're going."

"Quite frankly, we don't want you having any part in it." Neptune said. "You seem as sane as the next man but then so did the Dark Lord at the time. I hope you won't take any offence if I say none would trust you."

How was he supposed to not take offence at that? Jaune smiled weakly. "Why tell me all this then?"

"These weapons need smuggling from where we land to their final destination deep in the southern forests. I'm a sailor, so I can only take them half the way, but I figure that you might also be looking to keep a low profile on reaching Mistral."

"You're offering to let me travel with whoever takes the weapons?"

"Less offer and more request. It's a dangerous journey and I can't do much to help them along, but someone like you just might. They'll also keep you out of trouble as well, which is quite frankly good for the rebellion."

"Because I'm a distraction."

"Got it in one. With the Chosen and the Goddess focused on you, the Schnee family will have their attention split two ways. That's to your benefit as well. The kind of chaos an uprising will cause can do much to hide a single man."

A mutually beneficial relationship then. He had no interest in this rebellion – it sounded far too much like something Ozma would, so Jaune was determined to stay out of it. On the other hand, if the rebellion went off and threw Mistral's leadership into chaos then they'd have no time to put into hunting him down. They might even start to worry that he was taking over it as the last Dark Lord had, focus everything on the rebellion and lose track of him entirely.

If I pass through Mistral and then take another ship to Vacuo from the east coast then they'll never know. The Chosen will assume I stayed here to wage a war against the Eternity Queen. It's what every other Dark Lord would do after all.

Could he trust these people? Probably not, but then they wouldn't trust him either. It was an alliance of convenience based more on the concept of the more enemies their enemy had, the more distracted they'd be. It might be in their best interests to keep him free and at large, even if it was against their interests to let him influence anything.

"Are you sure they won't try and push me into working with them?"

"No risk there. The ones in charge won't want anything to do with you in all truth. There are enough that say you ruined the last rebellion."

"Not me."

"The Dark Lord." Neptune said easily. "Sorry. You know how it is."

"Captain!" a voice cried from outside, dragging Neptune's head to the side. "There's a ship following us – three sail galleon. It's gaining!"

"Piss." Neptune swore. "I thought we'd be quick enough to get away – they wouldn't put this kind of effort into hunting smugglers. Looks like your little trick didn't go unnoticed."

"The Chosen?" Jaune asked. "Can we outrun them?"

"If it's a galleon then it's a military vessel. More sails is more speed with the wind at our backs, and we can't compete with something like that." Neptune looked back nervously, then shot Jaune a nervous grin. "Are you up to helping us out again? We're all of us for the bottom of the ocean if they catch up."

There wasn't much of a choice.

"Give me control and I shall sink them…"

Jaune ignored the voice and grasped Neptune's hand, letting the man haul him up. "I'll do my best but don't expect too much. Magic is new to me."

"A trick like before against the thing's hull might be all we need."

Not bad for only having two hours to write. I have to go get ready now. Hour to prep and hour to drive there.

Next Chapter: 14th August

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