Chapter XXII: Party on Vearth

Sleep deprivation was a plague in Skypiea. While the faces of its denizens were kind, the dark bags under their eyes couldn't be missed. The cause, as they alluded, was an island across the small span of sea. Supposedly, loud music could be heard from it all night long, and those that couldn't cover their ears properly found trouble sleeping. Jaune had even experienced this himself. Despite the amazing ear plugs they were given, he could still hear the beats and even felt them from an island over.

While most of them had managed to get decent enough sleep, Cardin had struggled and chose to train in the night instead. Now, he was back at the ship resting while the rest of the crew explored. Ren went to the market, Ruby was messing around with the different types of clouds and something called dials, and Neo was off doing — something.

Jaune found himself with Blake, Sun, and Neptune at a cafe. The place was certainly crowded from the locals needing something to kick off their day. In Jaune's opinion, it was a bit much going on for some quaint cafe. Live performers serenaded them with string instruments, the coffee was served in china, and the waiters' attires resembled that of a butler more than their own. All in all, it made him feel like he was at some high class ball. The topic at hand, however, greatly diminished that.

"So, you're saying that Adam wanted to help us?" Blake had dragged them to a place to talk. Mainly, a comment that Neptune had made shocked her, but she hadn't had any time to address it yet. Jaune and Sun were merely there to be mediators.

"Yeah. Some revolutionary guy helped us out and said that he worked for him." Neptune summarized his meeting with the soldier and the vague details he had been given.

Blake shook her head, staring at her coffee instead of across the table. "That doesn't make sense. Adam isn't like that. He wouldn't just help a human. Are you sure that's the name he gave?"

The conversation never got much further than that. All Neptune had was a name and that it was connected to the Revolutionary Army, but Blake was positive that something was going on. When the talking died down, Jaune tried using his scroll to find any information — and maybe message Nora since it had been a while — but there was no connection. It seemed that the CCT wasn't designed to get through clouds from a weird fantasy world.

Sighing, he set his scroll down and looked around. "These people look miserable," he said aloud. He didn't get a response, but he didn't really need one. The faces around them spoke for themselves. Even the cheerful melody was in contrast to the dull stares of the musicians. "You think it has to do with that vile monster they were talking about?"

"It seems someone was partying too hard last night," Sun replied.

"That's putting it lightly." Someone from a table near theirs commented. They turned to see a woman, vexed and looking seaward. "Every night that rapscallion plays that obnoxious music, and everyone here is tired of it!"

"Have you talked to them?" Neptune asked.

The woman scoffed. "We have certainly tried, but they clearly have no interest in being civil about this."

Jaune thought over what she had said, and was about to respond when someone said, "You four, with us."

Ruby was, for all intents and purposes, a kid in a candy store. The clouds were one thing, but these dials were another. At first they appeared to be nothing more than shells, but they did so much more. Lights, bursts of wind, fire, and so much more. Sure, most technology could do that stuff too, but this was different. She had gone to the market with Ren after hearing about them. She had thought them interesting and wanted to open one and figure it out. Yet, when she did just that, it was like a foreign language of engineering. Nothing within the device resembled anything she knew.

That's why she went back and got another; and then another; and even more after that. Now she had too ma — enough; she had just enough for now. She was sitting on the beach by the ship investigating them. Scattered around her, most of them laid on the ground thoroughly dissected.

Evidently they worked by absorbing things and then releasing them. There was one she had found that supposedly stored impacts and released the force back. She began making plans of how she might attach it to Crescent Rose to absorb its recoil for combat. The question was how to get that to work without ruining the look of her precious weapon.

The White Berets was what they were called. Jaune would be lying if he said it wasn't intimidating being escorted by a police force to speak somewhere in private. Luckily, he wasn't alone. Blake was on guard by his right, Sun feigned nonchalance while his hand rested near his weapon, and Neptune looked ready for anything.

"We cannot simply overlook any breaking of our laws," the man, who had introduced himself as their captain, said. "We can, however, make some small tweaks. Community service will suffice. The people of Angel Island would appreciate it."

That lowered their guards, but Jaune still didn't like the sound of it. "How long would that be?" It wasn't as if they couldn't spend time helping around, but he didn't want to slow down for too long on anything. While they didn't have a schedule, he didn't want to stay for longer than necessary.

"Eight-hundred hours; collective, of course, so one-hundred each."

That would be way too long. "Is there anything else we can do?" The captain sighed, but then Jaune added. "Maybe we could help with the people partying on that other island instead?"

After a moment, the captain warned, "That's dangerous. The people over there are ruthless; they'll tear you apart if they get the chance." Jaune's gaze did not waver. "Fine. That would make it more than even for your payment."

The Bucket floated over the puffy waves, on course for the island made of what the locals called vearth. As it grew in size over the horizon, it felt like a sight for sore eyes. It couldn't have been that long, but the bright white all around them had gone from other worldly and angelic to blinding and barren. The island of vearth was a deep green, like jade over an earthen pedestal.

Oddly, there wasn't much of a coast. The sides of the island looked more like cliff faces, as if it had been carved from the ground and displaced. Luckily, they weren't too high. Once The Bucket neared the edge, they were able to climb out and onto the land.

"This place is bigger than it seemed out there," Neptune commented. He placed a hand against one of the giant trees that were deceptive in size. "We should probably split up."

His suggestion was met by silence. When Neptune turned around, he could distantly see that they had already done just that, making their way across the coast in pairs of two. Only one person remained. Neptune just hoped that Neo didn't have any cheese.

"You can bet your ass that I'm finding them before you do, Goldilocks." Cardin jabbed at Sun without any real venom.

While Neptune had been admiring the island, Ruby had gone off to investigate and Ren followed to keep her out of trouble. Ruby without rules was becoming more reckless by the day. Then Jaune went off in a direction with Blake, and only four of them had remained. Cardin only glanced at Neo before grabbing Sun's shoulder and marching them off. While Sun would have preferred being with Neptune, he couldn't exactly blame Cardin.

The island, now that they were headed deeper into it, was a jungle to say the least. There were vines as large as themselves hanging from the towering trees and moss grew on them as well as the bark. Trying to make heads or tails of where they were going, Cardin cursed under his breath. It was a damn labyrinth navigating the bushes and giant roots, and everything dangling from above didn't make it any easier.

They had been passing under a canopy when a sound began resonating around them. It almost sounded like flapping wings.

The jungle was exciting in Ruby's opinion. New adventures awaited them just around every turn. Ren was following behind her, but that was okay. Normally, she would have Weiss or Yang demanding she be careful. Weiss would probably give her some long winded speech on why it was reckless to run off on her own, and Yang would just be the typically overprotective older sister.

Ren was nice because he let her do her exploring while monitoring her. Sure, it wasn't someone trusting her to be fine on her own, but it felt less that it was because of her age. That had been something that was slowly weighing down on her at Beacon, her being younger and having to catch up. Here on the seas, it didn't really seem to matter as much. Sure, it helped her mess with the marines, but that was different!

However, despite all of this, Ruby was in a far happier, more energetic mood than she would have been. The source was that they were finally helping people: she was right! To that point, it had been a balance between tough times and fun. Going on an adventure with friends was an amazing experience, but this wasn't some vacation that came for free. Maybe eventually she could show Yang that they weren't just being criminals. Maybe after this, she could tell Yang that they had done something to help people.

Suddenly Ruby stopped. While Ren caught up, he noticed her looking around. Then, when he was trying to figure out what had made her stop, he heard it too. "Oh hoh hoh! Oh hoh hoh!" A faint laughter echoing in the trees around them.

Jaune frankly had no idea how he and Blake had gotten into this situation.

"The Skypieans are elitists!" The man shouted to his crowd. "But, at least they keep to themselves!" The crowd roared back in response.

"They're talking about music, but I feel like they're going to war," Jaune whispered to Blake.

"That's because this is war." Near them a man with a hat pulled past his eyes spoke up. "While not all of us can understand some like to listen to noise instead of art, music is a very big deal up here, and you should take it seriously too if you want to survive."

Jaune sighed. "Yeah, we know that. I think your boss attacked us for it when we got here." While he had worn a mask at the time, the hair matched and there was no mistaking that the weapon was the same.

"You caught Wyper after a restless night," the man explained, gesturing toward their leader. "We've been struggling to have peaceful rest for some time now, and every then and again it wears down on us."

Jaune shared a look with Blake, but she just shrugged before asking, "And where are you off to now?"

The man simply replied, "We will fight his DJs, and they will feel our restless wrath."

Another chimed in, "Yeah! We'll blow their speakers up!"

"Yeah! We're gonna fight until we see the sunlight!"

"So, to get to this guy, we have to get through his forces first?" Asked Blake. Stoic faces greeted them, and it began to sink in that this wouldn't just be them kindly asking someone to turn down their music.

"Listen, you keep that cheese away from me, you hear?" Neptune pointed accusingly at Neo, who just blinked and tilted her head in response. "I don't know how you managed to get war crimes in dairy form, but keep it away."

Neo just nodded, but Neptune was still weary of her. It wasn't too long ago that they had fought at the tower, and the battle was still fresh in his mind. It was easy to overlook in a group, but being one-on-one with her made him feel like he was alone in a lion's den. And, Neo was just a lion that was currently strolling along through a jungle, looking almost like she might have been humming a tune.

At this point, he was more so just trudging after her in the silence. One would think a jungle would be filled with plenty of noises, and there were, but it was mild compared to Neptune's imagination. It felt almost as if the wild life had been scared away.

Before Neptune could fully process it, Neo was bounding up to some stone and beckoning him to follow. He did so, approaching the cragged rock. Getting closer, its jagged structure betrayed the worn look, and there were still chiseled lines visible on its surface.

"These are ruins?" Neptune asked. When he looked back up, Neo was already headed off to find more. Maybe this would be interesting.

The waters churned as the small ship rowed closer to the shore. Qrow lounged on the end of the rowboat, watching part of his crew take him to land.

"I can hear her voice," Qrow announced, mostly to himself. Of course, there was only the sound of waves crashing against the shores of Mistral, but anyone who knew of haki would understand. Mistralian forests tended to be dense this time of year, but Qrow always knew how to find her, even if Raven had no idea how.

The bow of their boat slid onto the sand, and Qrow swung his legs over the side dropping onto the beach. Following close behind him were Port, Ghira, and Junior. As they marched deeper inland, Qrow led the way while Ghira and Junior had to stop Port from going grimm watching. That was by no means an easy task.

They knew that they had reached the Branwen tribe before it was ever in sight. Its members could be found for any reason from hunting game to hunting coin. It only took trying to rob the wrong person and a swift hit from Junior to turn one bandit into their guide; not that they needed one.

Qrow remembered the camp well. His memories weren't built upon any specific parts, but rather the atmosphere of it. It wasn't the tents, the members, or the fires, but how the tents looked, how the members acted, and the many, scattered flames.

The tribe did know who he was, being an ex-member, but they wouldn't know his crew mates. However, the Branwen tribe was built on a hierarchy of strength, and one look at the poor soul who had tried to rob them made the others present hesitant. Qrow claimed a log as his seat and pulled out a flask to wait while the others followed. He had barely gotten so much as a sip when the woman he had come to visit emerged. And just as always, Raven was not happy to see him.

"Have you come to try again, blood traitor? How many times must I say no before you realize you won't convince me of anything?" Raven's dull, uncaring tone was betrayed by her sharp eyes. One of her hands rested on her sword, ready to draw it at any moment, but the other rested by her side: a sign she was confident.

Qrow took a long swig from his flask, purposefully annoying her. "That's not my business this time. Actually, I probably can't say that I work for him anymore." That had caught Raven's attention, but she only revealed it through a subtle shift in her posture. "This is far more important: the Grand Line."

"What line?"

"The Grand Line."

"You said that." Raven narrowed her eyes. "Is this some sort of joke? And what was the point of bringing these three along? You normally come alone."

"They're my pirate crew."

Both of Raven's hands were at her sides now. She stared blankly at him for a long time before saying, "I think you've reached a new level of drunk."

Qrow waved a hand dismissively at her while taking another swig. Then he reached into his shirt and pulled out a bottle of liquor. "If I wanted to do that, I would be drinking this."

Raven eyed the large bottle and Qrow's shirt, trying to comprehend how that had just happened. "Where did that come from? How did you do that?"

"I've always been able to do this."

"Bullshit."

Qrow shrugged, tucking the bottle back into where it came from. "Ya know when Oz gave us a bit of magic for the bird stuff? Yeah, it turns out he gave us more than needed so I had a bit extra. I used it to be able to do that."

Hesitantly, Raven found a place to sit. Never in her life had she been hit with such a series of ridiculous responses that it made her struggle to stay standing. The tribe watched in mild bewilderment. Raven allowed her mind to wander back to when she and Qrow first got their magic from Ozpin. Nowhere in that process did she feel she had any control over what happened with the magic.

"That's impossible, Qrow! It doesn't work like that!"

"Haki training certainly helped with it." Qrow's nonchalance would have vexed Raven if his words hadn't already made her feel like her mind was on fire.

"Haki? What are you talking about now?" Thus, to answer Raven's question, Qrow entered a long tale of pirates, haki, and the Grand Line. By the time he was finished, most of the tribesmen had gathered around to listen in.

"So what I'm saying is forget about this Salem and Ozpin crap. There's a whole world of adventure out there waiting, so you should tag along on my ship." Qrow held out his hand, but Raven only stared at it.

"Hell no." She grit the words out, punctuating each as she did.

Qrow gave her an incredulous look. "Not even for battling on the seas for the sake of riches and glory?"

"Get out."

Qrow stood up with his hands in a placating manner. As he left, his crewmates got up and followed behind him. Raven stared as they left, thinking over what had just happened. While most of what he had said sounded like utter bullshit, she had watched him pull a bottle from thin air. If that was the case, there might be some truth to what he had said.

Mistral had been becoming monotonous. So, if she could lead her tribe to the waters, it might give them something new to work with, and it might keep them away from her. The glaring issue is that the Branwen tribe were bandits, not pirates. They had no knowledge of sailing at the moment other than smaller vessels for simple tasks. Perhaps it would have been easier to take Qrow's offer, but unlike someone, she wouldn't abandon her tribe.

Once she felt that the tribe had settled down, she began barking orders. While she wouldn't blindly follow her brother's delusions, she would see for herself what was out there.

Jaune burst out of the root, smashing his shoulder into his opponent. They had arrived as an army, and they weren't easy foes. Jaune should have been surprised to see they looked like goat people, but this wasn't the time or the place for that. Their use of dials and the odd contraptions on their feet made them formidable and demanded his attention. So far, Jaune had been saved numerous times by his devil fruit, allowing him to duck and dive where it would normally be impossible. Blake was faring better than him, her acrobatics matching the movement that came from the enemy's footwear.

Jaune was careful with Crocea Libertas, striking in ways he hoped would be nonlethal. It was a strange feeling for him to need to hold back for once. Throughout all of his time training, sparring, and the real fights he had been in, he had to give it his all just to last a small amount of time. Now he was worried about hurting these auraless people.

The shandians had led the charge, telling Jaune and Blake they would have no qualms so long as they didn't get in their way. While it was nice not to have another enemy, it almost made him feel like he was piggybacking them. They had charged in, and he was taking care of the stragglers. He supposed he shouldn't complain too much, since it was already hard enough as it was.

The dials that the goat-like DJs felt nearly impossible to counter. They launched out small bursts of air that could cut, and they were attached to the DJs' palms. Without the angling and swinging of blades, it was harder to predict their attacks. With only the twist of the wrist needed to change the direction of the blast, there was far less telegraphing.

Even so, Jaune became a nuisance for them. Both his and Blake's auras significantly reduced the effect of their dials, even if it did take a chunk out of their aura. Jaune was also swimming circles around them, popping up randomly to catch them off guard. At one point he even unconsciously tried dragging one of them into the water, only for it to effectively trip the DJ.

They were making their way close to where the center of the island was. Sprouting from the center was a giant vine, and the Shandians had informed them that was where this guy making all the noise was. It still looked miles away, and the thought of the trek alone exhausted Jaune. It really made him glad to have Blake with him, but he hoped the others would be doing alright.

"That's the last in this area!" Wyper called out. "The sun is setting, and it will be dark soon. Night is their domain, so we'll get some rest before pushing farther tomorrow."

The man who had talked to them earlier, having introduced himself as Braham, sat by them again. "I know you probably heard the music all the way from Angel Island, but it's far worse over here. Good luck getting any sleep tonight." With that, he left Jaune and Blake alone.

"All of this over some music," Blake mused aloud. "Is this fighting really worth it over something like that?"

Jaune stared at the fire the Shandians had started. Watching the flames flicker, he let himself ponder the question. Blake was being rhetorical, but there was something to it. This was serious to the locals, even if it seemed trivial to outsiders. Then again, maybe that was exactly it.

"I think it's more than just the music," Jaune responded. "It's a part of their culture; it's ingrained in them and it seems to be part of their way of life. Then these outsiders come and completely disrespect them. They play their loud music without thinking of others and refuse to even speak with the locals when they go to talk to them about it."

"I guess so," Blake said.

There were a few more moments of silence before it began. The ground shook once, then again, and then it fell into a rhythm. It vibrated Jaune's whole body, and he knew there was no way he could sleep tonight. This became even more obvious when the lights began flashing. Pinks, yellows, blues, and greens danced through the sky and Jaune wondered if anyone with epilepsy stood a chance being within five miles of the show.

Jaune shared a look with Blake before getting his cloud earplugs out. Unfortunately, Braham was right, and it was far worse on the island itself.

AN:

So, it's been a hot second since I've last posted. I wanted to first say that as I've said priorly, I won't ever give up on this without making it to the end first. Especially not without saying anything. What happened was a mixture of burnout and work.

I write a lot during work when I have nothing to do, and the majority of this story was written that way. It seems recently that I haven't had the time to do so. Then there was how I was really feeling tired, especially with writing. I would sit down, write like three words, delete them and go do something mindless. I'm sure it's connected to my ADHD somehow, but I get that way sometimes. Unfortunately for me, that's how a lot of my projects have died, but I REFUSE to let this one meet the same fate. I've never written something this long or complicated, and it's becoming something I can be proud of.

I'm sure everyone has heard it a thousand times, but no one ever expects stuff to blow up like they do. I thought I would get a few people reading this, and it makes me happy to see so many people here along in my journey to learn how to write. I love when people comment, because I want to hear what you all think. Even if it's a critique, I'd be happy to hear about it.

Anyways, I wasn't too crazy about this chapter, but it was partially a way to break out of that burnout. Part of those emotions was that I was struggling to supply the humor I was trying to keep going throughout the story.

My ideas for this arc were mainly centered around fights that have yet to happen, so in the gap between getting to Skypiea and getting to those fights, it felt like I was just rambling without any humor. Well, I decided that if I was ever going to get to those parts, I either needed to brainstorm or just get through it, and that's what I did. So, overall, sorry for the wait, and sorry for the pacing of this chapter.

Anyways, next chapter: The Man Who Never Stops Dancing