Monday, May 1st (0 years 7 months b.c.)
*??? PoV*
It was running as fast as its legs could carry it. It's four feet thrummed against the ground in a fast repetitive motion making a sound not unsimilar to that of drums.
Over a tree root, under a branch, dodge another tree ahead of it. It wanted to get away. It needed to go faster, much faster.
As it tried to pick up speed a strike to one of its hind legs sent it stumbling and rolling among the trees and foliage. Unable to continue running it got up from where it tumbled to and tried to face the direction of its pursuer.
Nothing. Not even an iota of fear of any other negative emotion for that matter.
It growled trying to elicit a response from its adversary, but that did nothing once again. It instead decided to keep peering around itself as it repositioned its body to have its back facing a tree. It was smart, or at least as smart as an alpha beowolf Grimm could be. It ran not because it was afraid, but because the person hunting him was much stronger and if it died right there it would be unable to cause more misery and suffering to humans.
It kept scanning its surroundings waiting for any hint of movement to pounce upon, but silence and stillness were the only ones greeting it. It knew it was still being hunted, it just didn't know by what or who.
It had been with its pack slowly growing in number to become ready to attack a nearby settlement. That was until his pack members began dying. It happened before its very eyes, the pack members he was gathering were getting picked off, at times it managed to catch a glimpse of yellow, but no more. It had tried to call its underlings to gather together in a circle, but by that time they were already too few in number to defend properly so it commanded them to attack the nearby village in order to distract the killer. They wouldn't do much damage, but that way it would be able to get away. It could afterall just build up another Grimm tide and raid another settlement, but that wasn't possible if it was dead.
It should've distracted the person hunting it for a while, but it had barely bought itself a minute.
The Grimms thoughts came to sudden halt with the quick cessation of its mockery of a life. It didn't even manage to see the person that killed it, all it grasped from its killer were a few words as it began to fade away.
"Nice, that makes five out of ten today."
*Yamamoto PoV*
He was sitting in the back yard in a seiza position upon a few pillows. He had his tea sitting on his left as he stared out towards the back yard. The wind shook the leaves of the trees and made it so they danced, the frogs croaked, the birds chirped, and whatever other fauna existed in the forest made noise. As Yamamoto sat there he took everything in and he felt peaceful.
It had already been a year since he arrived here. If he was honest it felt like time had just flown by in an almost time-skip like manner, but the reality was that training Jaune almost all day and balancing the need to socialize with the family his time had just gotten eaten up.
He grabbed his cup of tea and brought it upwards to take a sip as he mused on the time passed.
In the Soul Society and as Head Captain time for him passed just as fast if not faster. What was a single year in the face of the next upcoming hundred or even thousands. Life at the society was monotonous at certain points in which he'd repeat what he'd done the day before and the day before that and so on for however many years until a change happened.
"It hadn't always been that way" He thought to himself as he remembered the violent beginning of the Soul Society and some of his more... bloodthirsty... compatriots to put it lightly. They were honestly a menace, as was he, but during the war with quinces they had been what was needed.
It was such a stark contrast to this past year. Although it has passed almost as fast as those days of monotonous paperwork it was filled with completely different activities thanks to a particular group. The youngsters. They were so much trouble and took up all of his time whenever he wasn't training Jaune. He rarely got moments of peace like the one he was experiencing right now, but still he enjoyed their company and due to that he had started participating in some of their activities. He reminisced from the time he attempted painting with Ivy to the moment he had to show up to Lunas school and give them a talking they wouldn't forget. Honestly he hadn't thought the educators to be so incompetent that they couldn't see an obvious case of bullying of his granddaughter.
He had also learned that he had first arrived during a somewhat lull in the kids academic school careers. The variety of options they had for teaching honestly intrigued Yamamoto. The children of the kingdoms had a choice to either attend a school physically in person or to attend online. There were 3 semesters throughout the year and you had to attend at least 1 but could choose to attend all 3. Near the end of these semesters they had a small break. Apparently the schooling system they had before was much harsher and much more similar to the human world of his origin, but due to negativity arising from such schooling methods they devised it in such a way that students would be able to study whatever part of the year they needed to have ample breaks, and apparently if they dropped a semester through the middle it would not affect them as long as they finished it later. Yamamoto wondered if something like that would work back on earth, but not knowing the modern day methods of teaching he didn't know. Maybe it was something only devised thanks to the Grimm.
The hunter schools were much stricter and more traditional. Yamamoto guessed that made sense, if you couldn't handle the stress of grades and regular schooling how could you handle the lives of people depending upon you. Hunters needed to be able to deal with that sort of negativity.
"Awful long sip you're taking gramps" spoke a voice from his right.
Glancing over he saw Hazel also sat with her legs crossed upon a few pillows giving him a teasing grin.
He supposed he had gotten a bit lost in thought as he had brought up his tea to drink. Quickly finishing his sip he set the tea back down on his left.
"So whatcha thinking about gramps? I don't think people generally have one sip of tea that is that long" Hazel asked with curiosity and amusement lining her voice
"Hmm. I got a bit lost in thought." Yamamoto stated and as he gave her face a glance he could see that wasn't going to suffice, so he continued "This past year has been very... different... compared to the rest of my life."
"Different good or different bad?" she asked with curiosity and amusement lining her tone, but a grin on her face as though she already knew the answer. She just wanted him to say it out loud.
Honestly, such a cheeky brat. Yamamoto missed the days were they were wary of him.
"Different horrible! never have I seen such blatant disrespect from youngsters" Yamamoto bantered
"Agh!" she exclaimed as she held a hand to her heart in mock hurt and said, "Oh how you wound me! That's it I'm telling mom." she said, but both of them knew neither of them had a real complaint against the other.
Yamamoto coughed to get the conversation back on track from the joking tone, though leave it to Hazel to always try to liven up the situation. "It has just been different in a way I cannot explain well. I find myself in a situation I have never been in before, and all my years of experience barely help at all." he said before taking a breath and continuing, "The strangest thing of all though is how I find myself attached." 'To all of you' went unsaid.
After he finished speaking Hazel looked away from him and towards the forest. She then softly spoke, "I'm glad you're here gramps. Before you arrived things were... well they weren't horrible. We were still family, but tensions were high and there was a lack of warmth that our younger years held... like when Dad was around... but you helped change things, now the house is more lively... more warm." She turned to look at him and gently smiled as she said "I'm glad you're with us gramps"
"I am glad as well" Spoke a voice from behind towards the door to the dining room. They both turned and saw Violet standing there leaning on the doorway with a gentle smile on her face, "I wanted to say dinner is ready, but I seemed to have interrupted a bit, sorry"
"Nah, it's fine we were basically done with our tea. Right gramps?" said Hazel in response to her mom as she turned towards him to get his answer.
He simply nodded.
"Good. Well go grab the others and get seated it's Arc style meatballs tonight"
As Violet finished speaking Hazel seemed to vanish. Were Yamamoto still in the soul society he would assume her to be a practitioner of HohÅ on the same level of Yoruichi.
Truly the effects of those meatballs were frightening.
"There she goes. Well I'll be in the kitchen so make sure to grab Jaune, ok dad?" She stated before he nodded towards her and she headed inside.
Yamamoto turned to look upon the forest. It was the same, but for some reason it just seemed much more vibrant, more beautiful.
*Ace Operatives PoV*
An adult male with light skin, blue eyes and short brown hair, wearing an Atlesian uniform with a green and silver clover badge on his uniform. Can be seen holding a pair of binoculars. This was Clover Ebi, the team leader of the Ace Operatives.
"He's gone again, probably to get the Arc kid." He states. He glanced at a member of his squad and asked them, "Can you still not follow him at all Harriet?"
"No can do captain, same as the rest of you he's there and then he isn't." responded a woman with dark skin and with magenta eyes that stopped glowing yellow. She was huffing and sweat was dripping down her brow as if she had run a marathon.
This was Harriet Bree whose eyes turn yellow when she uses her semblance. She has small brown hair with two big tan strands sticking up in the front. Like all the other Ace Ops she wears a red white and blue uniform.
A third voice cut in.
"... Damnit! Even after training and pushing Harriet to the limit with her semblance we still can't catch even a glimpse of him!"
That was Elm Ederne who is a muscular dark skinned woman with short brown hair in a small ponytail, amber eyes and 1 visible silver earring. Just like the other members of the Ace Ops Elm wears a red white and blue uniform though unlike the other Ace Ops she doesn't wear shoes instead she has sports tape wrapped around her feet.
"Calm down Elm, I'm sure Clover expected this" Said a calm voice. The owner of said voice was Vine Zeki.
Vine appears as an adult male with pale skin, short gray hair, light blue eyes, and blue orb markings on his face like the other Ace Ops he wears a red white and blue uniform, however vine's uniform is adorned with gray bead necklaces and bracelets.
"He's right, I'm sure the captain already has our next move planned out." Came an agreement from Winter who was standing nearby.
"I still don't know why we're here though. We've already been watching them for almost a year and they've done nothing but train." Came the voice of the last and youngest member of the Ace Operatives Marrow.
He appears as an adult male Faunus with dark skin ,dark teal hair and green eyes. Just like the other Ace Operatives Marrow wears a red, white and blue uniform. Marrow's Faunus trait is a small dog tail with grey and white fur that protrudes from his lower back.
Harriet looked offended as did Winter, but right as they were about to speak they were cut off.
"We're here because of the pillar incident. Try to remember that the people we are surveying are somehow related to that." Clover said to Marrow in a chastising tone.
"I know, I know. I'm not an idiot, but it's been over a year and we haven't seen anything indicating they are in any way tied to the incident, much less responsible for it." Complained Marrow
"I hate to agree with him, but apart from the old guys freaky speed there ain't nothing odd with the family." Spoke Elm
Clover wanted to chastise them, but even he wasn't seeing anything out of the ordinary. Maybe one of the Arc family had an intense fire semblance, but seeing how most of them were fairly young and not even in combat schools he sincerely doubted it. The old man's semblance is speed and they had the mothers semblance on file. The Jaune kid was the last possibility, but observation for almost a year confirmed he still hadn't even found his semblance.
Clover sighed. This really was starting to feel like a massive waste of time.
"Look, we're here on a mission. We're gonna need to suck it up and push forward" Many of his team displayed tired or annoyed faces until he continued ",but I'll talk with Ironwood and see about ending this assignment or at least rotating some members out to go on different missions." He finished.
No one looked happy, but at least they didn't seem annoyed. Clover would call that a win.
"Fine. All I'm saying though is that observing them for this long is starting to border on creepy." Marrow quipped before walking away.
The rest of the team also dispersed, leaving Clover alone.
He just sighed again and continued to look towards the house.
*Ironwood PoV*
He massaged his temples and sighed. The Ace Operatives recon mission wasn't fairing well. The only things they knew was that the old man had an apparently ridiculous speed semblance, that the kid he was training was a prodigy, and that they lived in a happy family.
If this family wasn't related to the incident there would go an entire year of his best operatives wasted. He still hadn't told the others in Ozpin's inner circle. He had been planning to once he got concrete evidence of the perpetrators identity, but it seemed like he had nothing to show for it.
"Sir?"
Broken from his musing he looked up towards the screen displaying the Ace Operatives captain. The captain told him the team had complained, and they were beginning to grow restless under the lack of activity. He needed to make a choice. Activating his semblance he spoke.
"Captain Clover. Bring in the family. Go during the night and use the other family members as leverage to get the old man to obey if he decides not to cooperate. This may seem a strange order, but we need to be completely and utterly beyond any shadow of a doubt sure that they are unrelated to the incident in any way before letting go of this investigation."
On the screen Clover looked surprised for a brief moment before he steeled his face in determination.
"At your command general!" He said as he saluted.
"Go." Ironwood commanded.
The video call cut off leaving the general alone in his office.
'Even if they are unrelated to the incident I can press charges for something arbitrary once they're in my grasp.'
He stood up from his chair and walked towards one of the windows in his office with his hands held behind his back as he thought of how he would utilize the situation.
'This will save face in front of the squad and gain me a man with an unmatched speed semblance.'
As he looked upon the evening sky slowly bleeding from orange into purple he turned off his semblance and allowed himself a smile. Having an operative under him that was near untouchable would strengthen his position near the future. Hell he might use him against Salem if he proved strong enough.
*Jaune PoV*
As he looked at the clock it read midnight. Yet as the young Arc lay in bed with his onesie and his trusty sword and shield at the side he could not sleep. For whatever reason he was alert and tense. He didn't understand how or why considering every single day he trained he would fall asleep almost as soon as he hit the bed, and considering he trained today the occurrence of him not sleeping was odd.
He sighed. Maybe he just needed to work off his energy. He grabbed his trusty partner Crocea Mors and set off to head to the back yard.
As he snuck through the house he pondered about random things until he found himself reminiscing over the way he had ended up treating his blade as his friend.
Honestly at first he hadn't understood the way some people would reference their weapons or vehicles or even tools as partners, but thanks to the past year he had come to understand and do the same. How could he not, when every single day he relied on his blade and shield to stay alive when hunting Grimm. If people wouldn't call him crazy he would swear that at times he could feel what his blade was feeling or even thinking.
Ever since a year ago during his first hunt he had grown accustomed to thinking his blade was haunted. It had to be, there was no other explanation as to why there was a voice in his head. It may have been a hallucination under the duress of fighting for his life considering he hasn't heard it since, but he didn't think so. Call it a gut feeling.
As Jaune opened a door leading to the back yard he was shocked out of his musings as two people, a guy and a girl, stood in front of his backyard porch.
Jaune blanked out and before he could think properly, he closed the door behind him on reflex and moved forward as his mouth shot off.
"Uh, can I help you?"
Very suddenly one of them blurred and what looked like electricity trailed from her body and out of sheer instinct, despite being surprised, Jaune turned around and blocked a strike.
*Clang*
Unfortunately his footing wasn't stable as he hadn't had time to properly shift his feet into position and thus he was sent flying towards the middle of the back yard.
He quickly recovered and took up a proper stance as he faced his enemy.
The woman sighed and said, "Damnit. Sorry captain I failed to knock out one of the targets and noise has been made."
The other one responded, "Don't worry. In fact it was almost expected considering how harshly he's being trained."
A bunch of things immediately stood out in Jaune's mind. They wore marching uniforms meaning they were part of something together. The woman had said targets implying multiple people, and seeing how his house was further removed from the town the only other targets possible were his family. This made him want to see red, but during the past year he's learned a lot about keeping his emotions in check. The second thing that stood out was the mans answer, they knew not only that he had training, but also that he was still undergoing it. They knew his fighting style, and that was really bad because just off that hit Jaune could tell they were skilled. What he's said next gave him an endgame to reach for.
"Let's him quickly before the old man gets here, we can use him just as well as any other target."
Even as the man unbuckled his weird hooked sword and the woman responded with a yessir, he smiled as he just had to survive until his grandfather got here. If there was anything hammered into him this past year, it was how to survive.
As if some unseen signal happened, they both dashed towards him. The woman was upon him in a flash. She sent fist at him, unfortunately for her Yamamoto was faster and he had learned to deflect strikes.
He raised his shield towards her fist at an angle and deflected it to the side. As he was about to press up on the opening he noticed she was smiling and her eyes weren't even focused on him.
'Behind me!' He quickly realized the other man must have attacked. There shouldn't have been time for him to already be upon Jaune, so it must be a ranged weapon. Thinking quickly he gave up his advantage and rolled to the left.
As he stood back up he saw that there was a wire with an oversized hook at the end of it leading back towards the sword of the man.
Before he could make further observations the woman blitzed him again. She wasn't committing to any attack and was speeding at different angles trying to find a gap in his defense to exploit.
As Jaune kept moving his shield to block new angles of attack he tried to keep his eye on the man too.
It was a good thing too, the man ran towards him and leapt, probably trying to end the fight in one good strike. He quickly thought of a pl
As the man descended upon him with his sword-fishing rod thing raised over his head for a strike he subtly opened his guard to the woman quite letting her think he was distracted by the other person. As expected she went for a hit and committed, that was all Jaune needed.
Instead of deflecting he let her commit and then grabbed her arm. He could see her glowing yellow eyes widen as he drew her close and shoulder checked her in the direction of her captain.
"Oof" She couldn't help but let out as she was actually pushed off the ground.
The captain's eyes widened, but he quickly abandoned his attack and used his wife to reel himself left and out of her path. Damnit was it too much to ask for things to go right?
"Are you alright?" The captain called out towards his comrade without taking his eyes off him.
"Yeah... just- ..fuck, the kid hits like an Ursa. I think that took down a fourth of my reserves." The woman called out as she picked herself off the ground.
The captain's eyes widened and Jaune encouraged by this new knowledge rushed him. Their blades met with a resounding clang. Pushing as hard as he could against the captain, the man's eyes widened as he began to be pushed back. The captain disengaged and jumped backwards. Jaune sought to chase but a streak from the right stopped him.
He raised his shield, but not in time. He ate three punches before it was up and blocking. Two had hit his chest and one in the face. As the other person disengaged Jaune grinned. These hits were nowhere near the level of his grandfathers.
The woman must've seen how little effect her hits had had and the smirk must have pissed her off as she yelled. "Grin about this, you little shit" and she blitzed towards him.
As he was about to engage her she didn't commit and instead began to circle around him. Jaune stood weary, ready for any attack and finally one did happen, but from the captain. As he turned his attention to him, he started getting hit from behind.
'Damnit, I need a walk or something to cover my flank' Jaune thought as he began to get cut down by the well oiled machine that were the two ace ops operatives working together.
Jaune could do nothing but hold his guard up and endure the hits waiting for one of them to mess up. The punches hurt a relative amount, it was the sword slashes that were hurting him and cutting away at his aura, he needed to do something else he would be a punching bag for them.
He shouldn't have tempted fate with that sentence.
As he guarded himself he was unable to notice that the captain and that woman had worked together to surround him with wire. Once the captain pulled on the ropes he definitely knew as his arms became stuck to his chest thanks to the tight binding of the ropes. Jaune was in trouble.
The woman blitzed towards him and aimed for nothing except his vitals. Temples, chin, eyes, solar plexus, throat, kidneys and liver. She was hitting all of them in a flurry of blows as he stood there and could do nothing but endure thanks to the damned wire.
Finally after an impressive thirty seconds, his aura shattered. He almost fell, but managed to withstand it. Gramps trains him until his aura breaks and beyond.
"Phew. Fucking grim and darkness kid, how much brothers damned aura do you have?" stated the woman as she walked towards him.
"Doesn't matter now though, fights over." She stated as she was upon him. Finally she was close enough, and the young Arc responded with the most vicious headbutt he could muster.
"Fuck!" She yelled out as she backed away.
He hadn't done any real damage except to himself, but aura stopped damage not pain, and taking a headbutt from someone of Jaune's strength was no walk in the park. She was vicious though and she responded with a flurry of strikes to his face.
"Harriet that is enough!" The captain yelled making her pause immediately, "go collect his family, the others are late and they may have gotten caught. I'll hold on to him as a piece to bargain with the old man."
The woman hesitated and then saluted, "Yes sir, sorry sir." and began to walk towards his house.
His house where his family was. Where mom and the others were resting. Where little Luna would over sleep, Ivy paints, Hazel exercises and goofs around and his other siblings were.
'...Call my ...name'
Jaune began to struggle against his bindings. He was grunting and exerting force on them. As he thought of all the dangers they represented to his loved ones.
"Hey quit struggling, this line is made from Nano-Carbon coated titanium. I've held literal Ursas down with it." The man said
But Jaune was no longer listening. He was seeing red as his attempt to break free grew stronger.
"Call my name"
He heard it again, and his thrashing doubled as a well of fury he didn't know he held again to give him strength.
He didn't even notice he was pulling the captain towards him, and had forced him to plunge his sword-rod thing into the ground in order to hold him still.
He wanted to be a hero. Not for fame. Not for riches. Not for strength. He wanted to be the hero so that he could protect others just like his father. Even if his ending was a tragedy. He wanted to protect.
"CALL MY NAME"
Suddenly the air was very heavy. The captain stared at him with wide eyes. The woman had stopped advancing towards his house, and looked back towards him.
"Defy the heavens, and give me the strength to protect."
It was utterly silent. As though the world was waiting for the words that followed to be allowed to breathe again.
"Crocea Mors"
And in a blinding golden flash that made both ace ops in the back yard shield their eyes. Suddenly before them was an armored figure decorated in a beautiful set of armor.
*Marrow PoV*
What the hell was he looking at right now.
Marrow sat on the roof of the house as the imposing figure of Yamamoto stood next to him. Marrow looked towards him and then back at the fight and then towards him again as if asking for an explanation.
Yamamoto deigned to respond only with the rise of an impressively long eyebrow.
He wondered how he found himself in this situation. Their encounter has been a bit odd. Mostly because he was fighting his own teammate when Yamamoto happened upon his little fight with two of his teammates in tow. It appeared as though Winter and Elm hadn't fared very well on their end.
Why was he fighting his teammate? Well because while he got his hands a bit dirty for Atlas he refused to basically kidnap children to hold them hostage. He knew his teammates wouldn't agree, they prioritized the mission over everything and trusted the General too much. Vine looking at Yamamoto in shock gave him the opportunity he needed to get some good hits in and incapacitate Vine.
Yamamoto had just stood there and watched him do it, which was nerve wrecking considering how he was holding two of their strongest operatives as if he were holding a pair of trash bags.
Long story short he told him that he hadn't agreed with his teammates goal and wouldn't sacrifice his morality for a mission and so Yamamoto invited him to "watch my student fight" and so they were sat on the roof of the house overlooking the kid fight.
When Jaune was caught Marrow honestly wondered if it would be better for kids to be away from Yamamoto considering he stopped him when he was about to intervene and told him to just watch.
Marrow thought he was insane and was still coiled to intervene, but heeded his command for now. He had been getting closer and closer to jumping in, until the air started getting heavier and heavier as the young Arc struggled. Honestly whatever animal instincts he had left in himself warned him that danger was close.
Suddenly the world paused and the kid said something, and next thing you know after a blinding flash of light the kid was standing there in an amazing looking set of old knight style armor.
What the fuck.
(AN: Hellooo, yes still alive, yes still gonna finish this... someday. Unironically college started after I had finished the previous chapter and I'ma be real witchu the dumb little monkey in my brain is suggesting dropping out cuz we're too dumb for calculus, lmaooooo. Ugh I wish I was hard working, but i didn't wanna be on this god damn planet since age 8. Oh well tho, suck it up and go forward!--)
(AN2: Forgot what I was gonna say, but yeah just putting this story out there immediately. Probably gonna have a few typos cuz I kinda just need to force myself to put something out so that I continue. Anyways I will c y'all later fr fr. Apologies for the venting)
(AN:3 Also gonna progress the story forward faster so an accelerated pace can be expected and gonna maybe stop using the dates and just tell you if it's close to canon)
(AN4: last one I swear. Might do some one shots just to get rid of plot ideas in my head.)