Howdy folks, how's it going?
Hope you all have been keeping safe.
Before we begin, just a quick head's up for those of you who may not be aware. Through the Eternities has a Tvtropes page now, so be sure to check it out, and expand upon it if you can.
As always, huge shoutout to Chaos for his continued assistance.
Now, on with the show.
/
With a loud crash, the bulky young man was sent skipping across the amphitheater like a pebble over a lake, within moments crossing the length of the arena and crashing into the nearest seats as students rushed to move out of the way. He was out cold even before impact.
Silence fell across the large room as everyone looked down at the downed fighter, then slowly up at the other members of his team spread around the arena in varying degrees of unconsciousness, and then to their opponent, standing amidst the devastation with a calm and serene expression that most decidedly felt out of place in the current situation.
…
…
…
"Uuuuuh…" Yang, feeling somewhat unnerved, broke the silence uncertainly, clearly struggling with finding the proper words to say. "I had no idea that Pyrrha could be that… vicious…"
"Never thought I'd see the day I'd feel kinda sorry for team CRDL…" Blake muttered, wincing as gravity dislodged Russel from the crater he'd put on the wall and made the mohawked boy slip to the ground.
It was the day after the new arrivals at the academy, and currently, students of all four schools were taking part in the usual combat class, supervised by Professor Goodwitch. And even with the influx of new faces, eager to have a whirl in the ring, things had been going about the same as always.
Up until Pyrrha had been called to fight, and decimated her opponent. And the one after that, and the one after that, and so on and so forth, with CRDL just being the last of a long line of… well, to call them matches would be rather disingenuous. They generally ended far too quick for that classification.
"…Well, I certainly do hope that you got whatever it is that is bothering out of your system, Miss Nikos." Goodwitch stated chidingly, finally speaking up after several bouts of just observing with a raised eyebrow. "In the future though, I would advise that you leave such… eagerness, to fighting the Grimm instead of your fellow students. It would not do to fill up the whole infirmary on the first day of the festival."
As if snapping out of a trance, Pyrrha blinked at the teacher's words, looked around, and then flushed slightly, a mortified expression growing on her face. "Uh, yes professor… I'm sorry…"
Then she walked back towards the seats, looking more like a bashful kid that had just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar than the juggernaut that had just demolished a good number of the students present.
It did not escape Ruby's notice that the redhead opted to sit very far from the rest of her team. Jaune in particular was giving his partner a rather worried look, and when he felt the red-cloaked girl's gaze on him, he just shrugged helplessly at her.
"At any rate," Goodwitch then addressed the crowd, after the hapless CRDL had been carried off to the infirmary. "Given the… swiftness, of the previous few bouts, I suppose we do have time for a couple or so more matches before the class is over. Any volunteers?"
"I'll take a turn."
From out of the crowd, a figure walked forth. Having forgone the school uniform, Arslan's outfit was clearly mistralian in design, what with the yellow long-sleeved robe and the red sash around her waist and the baggy black pants. But it was none of this that drew Ruby and Merle's attention as the girl sauntered forward with a confident smirk on her face.
No, it was the green, tattooed lines running across her one bare arm. The white symbol on the sash, a multi-eyed, monstrous face with four tentacles. And most of all, it was the weapon she carried with ease. The golden orb, carved in the visage of some roaring monster, glaring eyes of jade, almost as if they were glowing…
…She remembered then, a woman, that very same smirk on her lips, standing tall and mighty before myriad faceless enemies, daring them to keep up with her strength as she brought to bear the might of a god, its many limbs heeding the call of the priestess…
…Oh.
"Ah, Miss Altan, was it?" Goodwitch nodded, after a quick check of her scroll. "Very good. Are there any other volunteers?"
"Oh, there will be no need, professor." The girl dismissed casually, her smirk turning into an eager grin, her eyes zeroing in on a suddenly very nervous figure in the crowd. "I know full well who I want to fight. Jaune, get your pretty little ass up here!"
The boy in question winced, then let out a long breath through his nose as most eyes in the amphitheater turned to him at the blatant calling out. His entire demeanour was that of someone who most definitely did not want any part of this, but who was resigned to the inevitability of it all.
"…Can you please not talk about my ass like that?" He groaned quietly as he stepped forward, looking kind of like a man bound for the gallows.
"Why not? If you got it, flaunt it, or so I heard the saying goes." The girl replied without a care, grinning widely as she looked him up and down. "And you most certainly do got it."
"Oh dear Gods, woman." Jaune ground out in a flustered hiss, embarrassed at the attention. "Would it kill you to be a little bit less forward, at least when there's an audience?"
"Oh, you wound me, Jaune." Arslan retorted, sounding vaguely offended and just a bit embarrassed herself as she averted her gaze for a moment. "I don't mind when it's just a fight, but I'd never want an audience for the other motions I'd like to show you."
…
…
…
The silence that followed the declaration was broken by quite a few cat calls from the onlookers, and the sound of scribblings on paper as Nora wrote something furiously on a notebook, to her partner's immense, oblivious confusion.
"…There is no way you're not doing that on purpose." Was all that Jaune managed to say after his brain successfully rebooted, although the way the girl blinked in confusion said otherwise.
"Ahem." The deputy headmistress suddenly interjected before Arslan could reply, looking thoroughly unimpressed. "If you two are quite done flirting, and I feel the need to remind you we have rules regarding… excessive fraternization among students, I believe we still have a spar to go through."
"Eh, fair enough." Arslan commented without a care in the world, contrasting sharply with Jaune's own flustered exasperation, before she once again regarded the boy with a grin. "I've been looking forward to this anyway."
The boy did not deign to retort, knowing it would likely be a wasted effort, and simply took a combat stance, the ancients blades floating around him, poised to strike. Seeing this, the girl's grin only widened, as she shifted to hold the golden idol with one hand, not looking the slightest bit inconvenienced by the weight. In the screen on the wall, their pictures popped up.
"Good. I believe you're both aware of the rules of engagement, yes?" Goodwitch called out, the tensing of both student's postures the only confirmation she needed. "Then, begin."
No sooner had the words left the teacher's mouth, than Arslan casually flicked the sphere upwards, then punched it forward, straight at her opponent. Jaune saw the maneuver coming, however, and immediately moved out of the way of the projectile.
What he did not expect was for the idol to suddenly stop in midair and snap back towards its thrower with a twang, who promptly punched it again straight at him, only for him to narrowly dodge once again. As the sphere flew by, a brief sheen in the corner of his eye revealed the wire attached to it, which went taut as the girl once again pulled it back by the end of the wire hidden by the long sleeve of her robe.
"I see you picked up a few new tricks since last time…" He commented, earning him a smirk from the girl.
"You should know by now that I take my lessons to heart, Jaune." She retorted with a confident smirk, cheekily spinning the orb on one finger.
"That's funny, because I am pretty sure I am the one who taught you that throwing your weapon just leaves you without one last time we fought." Came the calm retort, one that wiped the smile off her face, replacing it with an annoyed glare.
"Oh, you're in for it now." Arslan say, in a tone that didn't come across so much as a threat and more as a statement of fact.
"Yep, probably." Jaune agreed in much the same way.
The platinum blonde once more tossed the orb upwards, only this time she jumped after it and spiked it downwards, once again making the boy jump out of the way as it crashed like a meteor into the floor of the arena, crater and all.
Then the girl charged straight at him. Two of the floating blades around Jaune shot forward to intercept, but Arslan simply ducked under the first and smacked the second away with her arm, crossing the distance in moments and opening up with a left hook straight at his face. But the boy, his expression now one of neutral serenity, seemed to have once again expected the move, as he avoided it with a tilt of his head to the side.
Undeterred, the girl pressed the attack. What followed was… oddly rhythmical.
Jab, dodge, punch, block, swing, twirl, kick, duck. Every strike was masterfully avoided. Every retaliation was predicted and countered. Fists flew and swords flashed, eyes locked only on each other… And yet, to Ruby's mind, it looked less like they were fighting, and more like… dancing?
At that moment, Jaune's blades rained down from above, forcing Arslan to disengage and move back to avoid them. Silence fell as both combatants regarded each other, the boy with the all the calm of a still lake, the girl with the wide grin of someone having the time of their life.
"I've got to hand it to you, Jaune." She broke the silence boisterously, but with obvious fondness in her words. "You really know how to get a girl going. I'd expect nothing less from my promised one."
…
…
…
"…Oh for fuck's sake, Arslan." The young man grumbled in exasperation as his poise shattered into a million pieces, a flush once more spreading across his cheeks as he threw her a rather annoyed glare, pointedly trying to ignore how the gazes of everyone in the amphitheater fell on him.
"Well, yeah, that's kind of the point." She replied, her tone bluntly innocent, a brief flash of confusion passing through her expression, even as the cat calls from the audience grew louder.
"…Wow, ok, I walked right into that one." Jaune muttered, sounding at once incredibly exasperated and thoroughly unsurprised. "Can we just go back to the fight? That's somehow less painful than your lack of ability to read the room…"
"Have it your way." The girl replied with a shrug, apparently not understanding what the issue was. "Although in that case, you might want to duck."
The boy barely had the time to register the words before alarm came screaming at him from his connection to the blades. Not even thinking, he promptly did as suggested, barely avoiding the swipe from the green blur behind him, which quickly revealed itself to be a glowing, spectral tentacle that was growing out of the equally glowing orb, which had been left nestled in the crater it had made earlier.
The momentary distraction was enough for Jaune to have the air knocked out of him as his opponent suddenly tackled him to the ground. The momentum of the impact sent the duo into a sprawling spin, and when they stopped, Arslan had her legs around the boy's torso and her arms around his neck, trapping him in a headlock.
"You know damn well you're not breaking out of this, Jaune." She grunted with effort as he struggled to do just that. "I won this one. Give up."
"I wouldn't… be so sure yet…" The boy gritted out in reply. "You forgot… about them again…"
Arslan blinked at the words, then felt a cold sensation at the back of her neck. Glancing back, she saw his blades floating there, aimed directly at her head, her neck, her heart and her liver, all ominously poised to strike…
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…
…
"…Fine." She grumbled with a pout, more annoyed than threatened. "Let's call it a draw, then."
With that, the girl released her hold and got to her feet, allowing Jaune a few moments to catch his breath before lifting him up as well.
"Just so you know," She said casually as she swiped some dust off his shoulder. "A tie doesn't really count for the score, so we're doing this again soon."
"I didn't realize we had a score going on." Jaune deadpanned, rubbing at his neck. "You've been working out."
"Silly Jaune, how could we determine who's the better fighter without keeping score?" Arslan laughed, cheerfully clapping the boy in back, not really noticing how he winced at the impact. "And flattery might indeed get you somewhere."
"Probably the infirmary at this rate…" The blond grumbled under his breath.
"Well, I suppose given what we've seen here, there's not much critique I can make about the fight you yourselves are not already aware of. If nothing else I should commend you for representing all that the Festival stands for so well, if with more enthusiasm than should be permissible." Goodwitch interrupted the banter, staring at the duo with her usual stern demeanour, before turning to address the crowd. "At any rate, that will be it for classes today, students, you're free to go about your day. Except you, Miss Rose, I must ask that you stay a bit longer."
Ruby blinked at that. Throughout the class, she had been nothing but an observer, and she was pretty sure she had done nothing to warrant a reprimand, so either she was going to be called in for something related to the past, or…
She nodded at the teacher, remaining in her seat as the crowds begun dispersing.
"Go ahead." She mumbled softly towards her teammates. "Meet later…"
"You've been getting called aside by the teachers a fair lot recently." Weiss commented, her expression somewhere between concerned and curious. "Is everything alright?"
The red-cloaked girl glanced around at them, all looking back with varying degrees of confusion, and in Yang's case, hesitation, before shrugging, a motion that had Merle squawk in annoyance at being jostled from its perch.
"Nothing serious." She reassured, and only repeated exposure to her usually blank demeanour allowed the girls to pick up on the faint annoyance in her sleepy tone. "Fix spar problem, probably…"
"Well, if you're sure…" The heiress replied uncertainly, before the three of them moved away, each casting one last glance back at their team leader. Ruby watched them go, then her eyes were drawn to Jaune. Noticing this, the boy looked back, and mouthed the words 'meet at the bullheads later', before Arslan approached him and dragged him off, though not without throwing a stern frown at the younger girl. That could become problematic, she could not help but muse…
Pretty soon, the amphitheater emptied out, with only the teacher, the girl and her crow still present, at which point Ruby got up and walked up to the stage.
And then one of the side doors opened, and in came Jax, confirming the girl's suspicions.
"Finally." The champion grumbled as he approached. "I was getting bored out of my mind waiting for all the brats to be done. Gotta say Glynda, I wasn't too impressed with the performances under your "tutelage"."
Ruby did not miss the way the deputy headmistress eye begun twitching at the jab.
"…I refuse to be dragged down to your level, Jax." The woman ground out, pointedly refusing to look his way. "Miss Rose, you have the next hour or so to yourselves, just be mindful not to cause too much damage, I'd prefer not to have to repair things."
With that she was off towards the exit at a rather brisk pace.
"Yeesh, I see the years did nothing to remove that stick up her arse. Which is a darn shame, given how nice an arse it is." The grandmaster shook his head in disappointment. "Seriously, I've known her since she was a student, hasn't changed a bit. Woman really needs to learn to relax, if you ask me. Maybe try one of those new dating app whatsits I've heard became a thing. Blitzcrank would be proud."
"…Wait till now necessary?" Ruby inquired with a slight tilt of her head, not really acknowledging the ancient man's ramblings.
"Pppffft, do you seriously think I could be arsed to be giving out lessons to a bunch of newbies who barely seem to know which end of their massively overcomplicated and overcompensating weapons is the pointy one? I am here for you, kid, not to be a babysitter for a bunch of hormonal teenagers." Jax retorted drily, before crossing his arms in apparent pondering. "Though I have to admit, it was entertaining in a nostalgic kind of way to see those last two going at it. Oz filled me in about the boy, but the lass was a surprise. As Buhru as they come, that one, the kid's sure got his work cut out for him there. Eh, I wonder what Illaoi and Irelia would think of that union."
"Jaune knows." Ruby stated, causing the champion to perk up curiously. "About past. He's researcher. Explorer. Asks me lots since met… Will like meet."
"A new blond explorer brat? Ppfftt, if I didn't know any better, I'd ask if he was Ezreal's distant descendant, but we both know that kid didn't have the game to leave a lineage. At any rate, there's no way that this is a coincidence. Two kids wielding ancient weapons, one other with the powers of a demon, and me all converging to the same place? There's something building up in the backstage."
"…Not just you." The red-cloaked corrected, drawing the masked man's attention. "Orianna, Nocturne, met them."
"…Are you shitting me?" The man breathed out, his tone sounding genuinely surprised for the first time in the conversation. "Tell me everything."
And so she did, explaining to him the details of meeting the Maiden of Clockwork and the events that transpired at both the docks and the clinic, the man listening quietly all the while…
"…So, the creepy robot-doll chick ain't quite so creepy anymore? Good on her. She vanished pretty early into the Grimm clusterfuck back in the day, so we'd more or less written her of as KIA." Jax commented after she was done. "As for Nocturne, now there's someone I can't say I'd be sorry if they were gone for good. Given what you said though, seems unlikely he's gonna cause much trouble, so good work on that, might be hope for you yet."
"Know why it hiding…?" Ruby inquired, her mind going back to the shade's spiteful words.
"My guess? Probably the Grimm." The champion shrugged. "Grimm go nuts whenever you're around, right? Bet it's the same for the not-Ezreal and the Buhru lass, too. That's not a coincidence. From the first time they've popped up, anything related to the League and its champions made them go absolutely batshit. We've never quite figured out why, but that's how we lost quite a few of us back in those days. It didn't really matter if they were human or vastaya or some other miscellaneous thing, so I can't imagine it'd be much different for that creep."
"I see…" She mumbled ponderingly. It did make sense, given her own experiences.
"At any rate, this is all very interesting and what not, but it ain't really what we are here for." The champion dismissed, slowly rolling his shoulders and neck. "Oz says you don't get to spar much cause all the kids are too chicken and that's why I'm here. So, let's get on that, so I can see what I'm working with here."
At that, Ruby and Merle shared a long, silent look, before once again turning to the champion.
"…Can't win."
"Caw."
"Pppft, of course you can't, kid. I'm the champ. I spend most of my time these days out in the far corners of the world hunting down the worst that the Grimm have to offer. I could fight every single brat in this academy at the same time with both arms tied behind my back and win without breaking a sweat." The man chortled, amused by the very notion, his words filled with a certainty born of confidence. "Granted, you're probably gonna last longer than any of them, but this was never about beating me, it's about training you. So let's do this."
With that, the ancient warrior took a couple of steps away, standing in the middle of the stage, and with his arms crossed behind his back, stood there, patiently waiting, almost like a soldier standing at attention.
Ruby observed this, noticing the man's thoroughly relaxed demeanour, and the fact that he had left the still burning lamppost that was his signature weapon leaning against a wall, and quickly came to the conclusion that he wasn't taking her seriously.
Some might've been outraged by the notion, some might have thought it arrogance, but the red-cloaked girl did neither. She knew what she could and could not do, and the memories of the distant past were all the proof she needed that she didn't stand a chance against the grandmaster at arms.
Needless to say, Ruby was not looking forward to what was about to unfold. Not out of any fear, she lacked the capacity for it, but simply because she knew it was pointless. It wasn't arrogance on his part, nor lack of confidence on hers, it was just that the gap really was that wide. Still, it seemed like there was no getting out of this situation, so might as well just get it over with.
With a low squawk that more closely resembled a groan, Merle flew away.
And without warning, Ruby vanished in a blur, petals and feathers fluttering to the ground as she reappeared right on top of the champion, the scythe in her hands poised to strike…
…Only for the masked man, who hadn't even deigned to look up, to almost lazily reach out and grip her arm, stopping the attack in its tracks. The next thing she knew, there was a moment of blurring disorientation as Jax swung her away from him, and then her back was smacking against the ground. Blinking, she looked around, realizing she was lying in the exact same spot she had just been standing on.
She blinked at that, mildly surprised despite herself. Speed had always been one of her greatest strengths, the one that she knew was actually hers. With how easily she had been intercepted, however, she might as well have been moving in slow motion…
"Can't say that attacking without warning and going for a blind spot was a bad call." Jax commented casually, his arms moving behind his back again as he remained where he stood. "Would probably work against a lot of less capable people. You got the right mindset to end fights quickly, and the speed and agility to make it work. The attack in itself, however, was thoroughly underwhelming. How about you try again?"
Ruby got up, assessing her options. Then she vanished again, this time reappearing low to the ground and swinging at the man's legs. She missed the mark as the ancient warrior casually skipped over the scythe, then lashed out with a kick at her gut that threw her back again, although this time she managed to roll with the momentum until she landed on her feet, looking up to see her opponent, completely unruffled.
"Trying to cut my legs off from under me? Not bad." The champion stated, the leg that had kicked her away lowering itself back to the ground. "It's actually kinda weird that for all that you seem to have the right instinct, you are sloppy as all hell. Any halfway competent fighter should have been able to see that swing coming from a mile away. Try again, kid."
The red-cloaked girl once again blurred towards the champion, this time reappearing right in front of him with an overhead swing. He easily side stepped the attack, only this time she immediately blurred away before any retaliation, reappearing at his side with another swing at his torso, one that was once again avoided with an almost casual ease, and then fading into petals and feathers once more.
"Hit and run tactics now, uh?" Jax mused, casually avoiding a swipe at his face with a slight lean backwards. "Not a bad strategy in theory. Points for effort." He turned sideways, avoiding a slash at his chest. "However…"
He suddenly struck out to the side, gripping at the scythe just as it was coming in for another blow, even as Ruby hadn't finished rematerializing yet.
"The problem with speedsters like you, is that you tend to be fairly predictable."
With a slight flick of his wrist, Ruby suddenly found her weapon torn from her hands. Fortunately, by this point she had wised up and immediately blurred away, barely avoiding the palm strike that would've sent her flying once more.
She reappeared a small distance away, her blank, dual-colored gaze falling on the grandmaster at arms as he casually inspected hers.
"That's kind of a shoddy grip ya got there, shorty." He commented idly, balancing her scythe in the palm of his hand. "We're gonna have to work on that. Also, not that I have much room to talk here, but with all of them new fancy gadgets that'd be any Piltovan and Zaunite's wet dream, why are you fighting with a literal gardening tool? Rhaast at least had the excuse of being a magic monster weapon, this is literally a lump of metal on a stick."
"…Needed weapon. Took it." Ruby replied simply. Within moments, the scythe vanished from the champion's grip, to his rather mild surprise, finding itself in her hands once again.
"Back when you first met the scarecrow, yeah, I recall." Jax conceded calmly, the blue lights of the mask looking rather piercing as he stared at her. "But as I mentioned, this is a lump of metal on a stick. Ain't no magic on it, that's all you. Irelia's blades are of a craftmanship the world will not see the likes of again, knowing how the buhru work, that girl' idol is probably the last in a very long line in replacements, and my lamppost is as great as I am. You on the other hand, have stuck to this shoddy thing this whole time, and it honestly surprises me it hasn't broken yet. So the question remains, why do you still use it?"
…
…
…
"Don't know…" Ruby replied, after a long, long period of silence, the words coming as something of a realization to her as her blank gaze fell on the weapon, which unhelpfully failed to provide an answer. "Just do."
"…Fair enough. Welp, can't say I am very impressed so far. From what I've seen, actually properly wielding that thing feels kinda secondary to your other abilities. So, how about we start taking this a little bit more seriously, and you start using yer little tricks?" The champion shrugged, before staring at her, his whole demeanour expectant. "C'mon, bring out the creepy glow, bring out the crows. Lemme see what Ol' Fiddle did to ya. Might level the playing field a bit."
Ruby stared at Jax with a light tilt of her head. Then her left eye burst into unearthly, pale flame, an aura of chilling dread permeating the amphitheater. She swung her scythe, ghastly green crescents surging towards the ancient warrior, who promptly weaved his way around them with the same casual ease he had been displaying all throughout.
Then writhing darkness bloomed in her arms, and as she pointed them at the champion, twins crows of misty darkness leapt forward, and struck him square in the torso, staggering him for barely a second.
The man just chuckled.
"Bit of a copout using an unavoidable attack to finally get a hit in. Still, that's more like it." He said approvingly, completely unbothered by the foreboding atmosphere that had settled or the shadowy veil that writhed around him for a moment longer. "Also, just so you know, I'll be going on the offense now."
"CAW!"
Ruby didn't even have the time to register the words before an alarmed call from Merle allowed her to barely avoid the fist that struck at her face. Instinctively, she amped up the fear in the vicinity, but the champion was undaunted, surging forward as inexorably as the tide, and she once again narrowly avoided a swing, the fist missing her head by a hair's breadth.
This was why she knew she could not win.
Jax, quite simply, was not afraid. And even if she increased the fear to levels that might draw in the Grimm, she did not believe he would be. Without the magics of the fields of justice to level the playing field, the man was beyond her reach, beyond fear.
And he just kept coming, relentlessly continuing his assault, forcing the red-cloaked girl back with each and every step, not giving her the space or the time to try to retaliate, or fade away from the onslaught, always keeping her on the defensive.
Eventually, her luck ran out. One of the man's fists clipped her on the side as she tried to move, slowing her enough that the next blow struck her square in the gut. Pain meant little to her, but the punch still winded her, leaving her completely open to the next one, time almost seeming to slow down as the fist came ever closer to her face…
Something clicked into place.
And then the incoming attack was stopped in its tracks, blocked by the spectral, clawed limb that burst into being on her shoulder.
Jax froze at the sudden halt to his assault, genuinely caught off-guard for the first time since the beginning of the spar. He recovered within moments though, twisting the trapped arm to free himself, and jumping back out of reach as a second spectral limb lashed out at him.
Silence fell as the combat lulled, the ancient warrior giving nothing away as he calmly observed the girl staring at the misty, eerily long appendages with a slight tilt of her head, her expression a very mild frown of confusion.
"Uh, well, that's new." He commented idly. "Or old, such as the case may be. You're more like him than I thought. Saving this little trick for an emergency, were we?"
"No. Didn't know." Ruby denied, her sleepy mumble sounding vaguely surprised for once, as the spectral claws wiggled at her behest. "Only happen once, in dream. Never real before…"
She focused on these ghastly arms, feeling them like they were extensions of her own being, as real as her actual limbs, and with a thought, she dismissed them, making them fade away into nothing.
"…Oh, I see." Jax breathed out, the words casual and easy-going, but heavy with some apparent realization. "So that's what this is."
"What…?"
For a long, long moment, the Grandmaster at Arms did not reply, the blue lights of his mask contemplating her with cold, inscrutable focus.
…
…
…
"…That's something that's best discussed another time." The champion decided at length, shrugging lightly, before making a show of looking up at the clock. "As things stand, I got what I wanted out of this. I know now what you suck at and what you don't, so going forward we are going to work on those things. And kid, there's a lot of things to work on. But that's for next time, for now we are done. You can go and meet up with the not-Ezreal, even set up a meet if you want. Will be interesting to see what the kid is like. Run along, now."
With that, and a casual wave, the champion turned back and went to pick up his lamppost from the wall.
Ruby blinked at the rather abrupt turn of events, an equally confused Merle returning to his place on her shoulder at the apparent end of this spar. After a moment of quietly watching the leaving champion, the red-cloaked girl about turned, and made to go herself. Jaune was expecting her.
As she did, Jax opened the side door, his trusty, lamppost casually leaning on his shoulder as he made towards the tower of the Academy.
"The scarecrow was craftier than we all gave it credit for." He mused quietly. "The kiddo is gonna love this…"
/
"Wait, are you serious?!" Jaune asked, a thoroughly flabbergasted expression on his face as they walked out the air strip and into the streets of Vale. "We have another freaking Champion in the academy, right now?!"
"Yes." Ruby replied simply.
"Aaaaw, man…" The blond boy groaned. "I knew it, I totally knew I should've staid after class too. Just how astronomically low were the odds that we'd keep running into them, and now all of the sudden they just start popping up left and right? Damn, can't believe the headmaster didn't let me in on this…"
"Jax wants meet, too…" The red-cloaked girl replied, patting her friend's shoulder once for comfort. "Can later, when go back."
"Oh, you're damn right I will." The boy replied eagerly, a glint in his eyes that by this point Ruby recognized as the sign that his research mode was on. "We shouldn't be taking too long here anyway, just a quick meet with Tukson, then we're gonna head straight back asap. There's so much to be learned, and I don't even have to go out to find it. Beacon was a good decision, after all."
The red-cloaked girl nodded calmly, not really off put by her friend's enthusiasm. There was however, something she had been meaning to ask.
"Jaune…" She called, drawing the boy's attention. "…Arslan?"
At the name, Jaune winced, a slight flush covering his cheeks as he coughed awkwardly.
"Oh, right, her." He chuckled nervously, looking around as if expecting the girl in question to pop up from a corner. "She certainly leaves an impression, doesn't she?"
"How meet her?" She asked, accentuated by a curious caw from Merle.
"Well, that's a story and a half…" Jaune breathed out, a fond smile growing on his face. "Do you remember when I told you how my semblance awakened?"
Ruby nodded at the question.
"Well, here's the long version. It was a few years back, when Tukson first took me in. He had a trip he had to make, and having nowhere to leave me at, he grudgingly let me tag along as an assistant." Jaune begun, his expression one of quiet reminiscence. "We went to Mistral. There's a small, relatively isolated community there, on the southern coast of the continent, not that far off from Menagerie. Tukson visited the place with some frequency as part of his research into the old times, because the people there have their own costumes, the likes of which you don't see anywhere else on Remnant. They even have their own god, who they just call the Sea God."
A deity that was familiar to Ruby. She wondered if its name had been lost to history, or if its current followers simply couldn't be bothered. Even odds it went either way, really…
"Anyway, that's where Arslan's from, and where I first met her. She's the daughter of the place's chieftain, an old friend of Tukson's and the one who was hosting us during out stay." Jaune snorted then, a sort of amusement that only hindsight could provide growing in his face. "To be honest, we didn't really hit it off at first. The moment she laid eyes on me, she kinda wrote me off as a wimp, and that seemed to be the general opinion around the place. She would take every opportunity she could to pick on me, while I was just trying my best to go unnoticed. She was kind of a bully, honestly, always rubbing it in my face how much stronger she was."
Ruby's blank expression broke into a light frown. Bullying is bad.
"Then, it all came to a head when there was a Grimm attack. The place is actually one of the safest remote communities out there, with a sizeable force of defenders, but they still had those from time to time. Tukson, the chieftain and their warriors went to help with the defenses, while the kids and noncombatants all ran for a pre-designated shelter." Jaune frowned then, this particular part of the memory unpleasant. "A couple of beowolves managed to slip past them in the chaos, though, and chanced upon the two of us before we could make it there. Arslan tried to fight them off by herself, and well, didn't turn out so well for her. She was left badly wounded, and by some miracle, I managed to deal with them myself. Might have been some help from the blades acting on their own… Anyway, Arslan was messed up bad. Real bad. It wasn't looking like she was going to survive, and as much as she had been a bit of a bitch to me… I just didn't want her to die. So there I was, desperately trying to stop the bleeding, when suddenly my hands start glowing. My semblance awakened, and it saved her life. Imagine both of our surprises."
He looked down at his hand, that same glowing appearing momentarily.
"Shortly after, the Grimm were pushed back. To this day, I still feel phantom pains at the memory of the bone crushing hug Arslan's dad gave me when he learned what I did. Suddenly, nobody thought I was a wimp anymore. Arslan herself was still kinda weak from the ordeal, though, and was bedridden for a few days, so I helped nurse her back to health. She asked me why, you know? Why was I being so nice to her after the things she had done. I just shrugged and said it was the right thing to do. After that, she usually went very quiet around me, and wouldn't look me in the eyes, even after she was all better. I just assumed she felt ashamed, but I was happy we had become friends. So, a week or so after, it was time for us to leave, and the whole town came to see us off. When we were saying goodbyes, Arslan gave me a shark tooth, and I happily accepted the farewell gift, to the crowd's loud rejoicing, and Tukson's laughter."
And annoyed expression crossed his face then, the flush blooming on his cheeks again.
"In hindsight, it should have been obvious. We've kept in touch ever since, but it was only by the second time we went back for a visit, when we were both a little older, that Tukson, the bloody asshole, deigned to inform me that in their culture, a person giving another a trinket from the sea is pretty much a marriage proposal, or more specifically, a promise they would wait for each other until they could marry. I had been engaged to Arslan the whole time."
…
…
…
"Don't want to?" Ruby asked, the innocent but blunt directness of the words causing the boy to stumble briefly, staring at her with wide, embarrassed eyes as he awkwardly stammered desperately trying to come up with a retort.
"It's… It's not that I mind. Arslan was one of the first friends I ever had, and I do like her. She's fun to be around after she warms up to you, and I do feel… happy when I'm in her company." He eventually admitted, his face red. "I just wish she wasn't so freaking forward about the whole thing. You saw that match earlier, she has no filter whatsoever, which is a bit of a cultural thing. She wants me, and damn everything else."
"Is why never mention before?" The red-cloaked girl followed up with another innocent yet piercing question, making the boy wince.
"…Kinda?" He asked more than answered. "I am not exactly ashamed of what we have, even if I can't quite tell what that is yet. But it is something that causes questions, and I don't usually feel too comfortable answering those. It's complicated."
"Fair enough…" Ruby conceded, deciding that the boy had enough issues on that front as it was. "She related."
"Uh? To what?" Jaune asked intelligently, surprised by the sudden change in topic.
"To past, League, Champions. One was same, carried idol, worshipped Sea God."
"…Uh, shit, seriously?" The boy replied, less because he was surprised and more vindicated by the confirmation. "I did have my suspicions, was intending to ask about it, actually. I wanted to introduce you two, even, but she did not seem too keen on the idea. Any clue as to why that is?"
"Sea God say demons bad…"
"…Ah. Shit, yeah, that'd do it." Jaune breathed out, looking momentarily concerned. "Shouldn't become anything too serious. I'll talk to her, she'll see you're not bad."
"…Thanks."
"That's what friends are for." The boy said with a smile, before looking over to their destination up at the end of the street. "Uh, looks like we're here. That's odd, the store shouldn't be closed at this time…"
At that moment, a low growl made Ruby tense up. From the other side of the street, a ghostly, purple beowolf stared at her, its claws and teeth caked with blood, before it slinked into the alleyway and out of sight.
"Jaune." She said, the sudden serious edge to her blank tone earning her the boy's undivided attention. "Trouble."
Jaune's eyes widened, then his expression grew steely as he nodded. The duo immediately rushed towards the bookstore. The door was unlocked, the boy slamming it open…
…Inside it was chaos, books strewn everywhere, stands and aisles broken and ruined, torn pages and smashed glass everyone.
And in the middle of it all, in a large puddle of blood…
"TUKSON! NO!"
/
R.I.P, Tukson. You will not be forgotten.
Also, it honestly surprised me that so few people seemed to make the connection last chapter as to what was the deal with Arslan. I had thought that the mention of a Sea God would've made it fairly obvious. xD
Anyway, next chapter, things will be escalating a bit.
Be sure to let me know what you thought of these developments in your reviews.
But before that, next month we got more Beneath a Broken Moon, so look forward to that.
Cya all on the next one, take care and stay safe.