Chapter 6: Prison Sex
"Taylor is the queen of escalation. I am the queen of doubling down."
— 16 —
When Weiss was a little girl, she'd found a faunus house servant stealing jewelry and reported it. She thought she'd been doing the right thing. You're supposed to report criminals and punish people. It was what good girls did. But she'd never been able to get the screams out of her head. The Schnees' maître d'hôtel, Klein, had been the one to deal with it. She'd expected the thief to be fired. Maybe blacklisted from the service industry. She'd never imagined the servant girl needing to strip off her shirt to be whipped in her mansion's courtyard. At first, Weiss had watched from a window with morbid curiosity as the girl removed her blouse, her tail bobbing anxiously. And then hid with her hands over her ears as the whipping ripped strips of flesh off the girl's back. As the girl screamed and begged, saying she was just trying to support her child. As the blood painted the fountain outside her window.
The house servants had been forced to watch. It was an object lesson, Klein later told Weiss, as he looked lost and unable to get the blood off his hands. The rules were rules. It didn't matter if you liked them or not; you had to obey them. Like how the rest of the servants had to clean the blood off before returning to work.
Only after the maid had been reduced to a blubbering mess, curled up in the red snow, had she been informed of her summary firing.
It was why when Weiss saw someone who should have been her teammate beating another boy to death, she had to step in. It didn't matter that they were arguing nonsense. It didn't matter that those two seemed to be the only ones who really understood what was going on in a way that sent shivers up her spine. Weiss summoned a glyph to save someone's life.
Using her Aura in this place, her Semblance, felt wrong. Not on a moral level. She saw the way the other Jaune was about to die, and she had to do something. It was more as if the ability itself didn't mesh with this world, and she couldn't explain it. Her nose had stopped bleeding, but it still ruined her dress. Her mouth was dry and her whole body felt like sandpaper. But her Aura? Her Semblance? It made Weiss feel like someone was trying to kickstart her nervous system after every synapse had been frozen shut. She would have tried to figure that out, would have tried to think about and process a lot of the things she was hearing and seeing.
But then Blake appeared.
Maybe an hour or two ago, Weiss would have been too confused to do anything. Even minutes ago, she felt like she was bleeding to death from her nose, her mind filled with memories and thoughts that at once felt alien and intimately connected to her past. But Shamrock had been there for her. And Jaune had sort of been hovering around uselessly, but that counted for something. By the time things turned into a standoff between her teammates, she had an idea of what was going on, and it made her stomach pirouette throughout her chest cavity.
Blake was standing by the window that she had climbed in through. She had used the ribbon attached to her sword to pull Jaune away from his other self and drag him across the room. Now she was standing there, holding her sword in one hand, and using her sheath in the other. Her cat ears were erect, her teeth bared. She was breathing heavily.
Adam. That's what she called Jaune. Weiss had to rack her messy head before she remembered it. Adam was the name Blake had given to the leader of the White Fang in Vale. She had called him a "venereal disease of the mind," whatever that meant. Now she was accusing Jaune of being him. It looked like if the boy made any sudden movement, she would try to kill him.
It didn't look any better across the little common room. At first, he didn't look angry. Not the way he had when he was beating his other self to death, a phrase which sounded a lot more like masturbation than the merciless brutality it was. She had seen it happen, even heard a couple of words, and cringed in pain with every punch, every kick. As soon as Blake entered the picture, it was Jaune who'd broken. He didn't look angry or filled with hatred or even like he wanted to fight. Not his face, in any case. He looked like someone had ripped his guts out and was showing them to him, asking for his opinion on whether the small or large intestines would look better as a coat. He managed to stand up, and she didn't like anything about his posture.
Blood covered Jaune, painting his fists red and splashing all over his armor. What little armor that stripper look-alike was wearing in any case. He was staring Blake down with that same lost expression, but his hands were what gave it away. His arms were held down by his side, elbows locked. Those veins on his arms that she always thought looked a little gross were bulging out, with his fingers extended like he was trying to grab something. Weiss thought that if anyone got within arms distance of the boy, he might grab them by the throat and strangle them, the way his fingers were twitching.
"What did you call me?" Jaune croaked.
Blake twisted her sword, bringing the pistol within the grip around to aim at him. "Shut up! I know what you're going to do. You're going to try to convince me that I'm crazy. Like I'm the one acting irrationally! For God's sake, you bit off a boy's fingers!"
Weiss exchanged glances with Shamrock. To her partner, this didn't seem like a surprise. Shamrock just kept tapping her fingers against her halberd.
"He isn't—the guy wasn't real," Jaune said. "You, Weiss, me, Shamrock. We are real. This place isn't. He might as well have just been a skinwalker. But you wouldn't listen to me."
Something about that sounded like a lie to Weiss. It didn't entirely add up in her head. But then again, it answered some questions about why her mind was a complete jumble, at least she thought it did. All of the contradictions and insanity and the blood on her skirt. But that didn't mean what the boy was saying wasn't some kind of misappropriation of the truth to try to smooth things over.
"Blake," he went on, "I need you to just calm down."
"No!" she screamed. "I'm not calming down. When has telling someone to calm down ever worked in the history of ever? It's like you can't even hear yourself talking. Like you don't even know what you're doing. You were about to kill somebody! But you don't care, do you?! You don't care about anything."
Jaune winced. "I care about you. And I need you to be okay so that I can be okay. I can't be okay if you're not okay, Blake."
Blake just laughed. But there was something painful in the sound, like she didn't exactly disagree, as much as she publicly wanted to. It was like the laughter was to cover up how terrified she was, and it wasn't very convincing.
"Which book of mine did you take that one from, huh?" she asked. It sounded hollow, forced.
He took a step towards her. "Blake."
She white knuckled her gun. "Don't you dare get any closer to me! I swear to God I'll shoot you!"
Jaune showed just the smallest glint of teeth and stepped towards her again. "Then shoot me and get it out of your system. I have an aura. Don't you remember? You gave it to me. Blake, I need you to remember me. I need you to think through this. Realize what you're doing."
"I know what I'm doing," she hissed. "the right thing for once in my life!"
He took another step forward.
She aimed the gun at him and fired. The bullet hit his shoulder square in the armor. It knocked his shoulder back, but didn't do anything lasting to him.
Jaune looked at his shoulder, where his Aura had absorbed the entirety of the damage like he couldn't believe what just happened. But he really shouldn't have been surprised. Weiss could see the low glow of the Aura behind his eyes. He wasn't like some fighters who preserved their aura, bringing it up tactically. Jaune practically lived in it like an amniotic sac. The more Weiss thought about it, the more she remembered, the more she could barely recall a time he wasn't doing it. He reached out and touched his fingers where the bullet hole would have been if it actually hit him. A moment later, still looking like he couldn't process what was going on, he crouched down and grabbed the flattened bullet off the ground where he had ricocheted into the tile.
Blake was holding the gun with both hands, starting to hyperventilate. "Since when have you had an Aura?"
He looked up from the bullet in his palm, the hand still covered in blood. "Since the day you told me about Adam. Did you think I was bluffing? Maybe now you'll listen to me. Tell me what you're doing and why, and then let me explain."
She didn't put the gun down. "No! You always do this. You—he—both of you? I don't know. You do something awful. And if I have the audacity to question you, you somehow find a way to explain and justify it to yourself. And then the people around you, they make me think like I'm the crazy one because I don't want to kill people, or because I'm not okay with watching you beat a man to death, or bite someone's fingers off, no matter how you explain it. You're not going to convince me this time. I'm going to stop you. I am stopping you. I know I'm right and you're not going to make me doubt that ever again."
"I'm not Adam."
"Then why are you acting the same?!" Blake screamed. "You're killing someone with your bare hands. Again! And it's like everyone around me thinks I'm crazy for having questions. Weiss is just sitting there like nothing matters; she was just watching you until I came! The people at the hospital didn't care when I brought Sun to them. It's like no one cares but me, but I'm not the one who's crazy. I'm not! You are!"
Jaune did that thing again with his hand, lowering them, but keeping the fingers outstretched. He took another step towards Blake.
Weiss couldn't sit there any longer. She touched Shamrock on the shoulder and then made a left-handed gesture towards Jaune. Shamrock seemed surprised, but quickly found herself and nodded. A moment later, Weiss was on her feet, reaching into herself to find her Semblance. She performed one of those Vaudou signs for good luck, and created a snowflake in front of Blake just in time to block a hail of bullets.
Shamrock moved to intercept Jaune, holding her halberd out towards him. She raised a finger and waggled it back and forth.
"Both of you idiots, stop!" Weiss shouted, her throat feeling filled with broken glass.
Blake kept pulling the trigger on her empty gun, the bullets all deflected into the glyph. She adjusted the grip and was holding her weapon like a sword again. Jaune, for his part, looked red in the face, and not just from the blood. His attention was on Shamrock, staring down the smaller girl. And constantly rolling the bullet he had picked up between his fingers.
"Blake, I don't know what's going on, but enough about this doesn't make sense to any of us that you need to stop," she said, and then spun around to point towards Jaune. "And you! What the heck do you think you're doing? You're acting like a complete psychopath! And you're not explaining anything to anybody. What was that entire conversation you were having with yourself about? Why are there two of you, but only one of us? You're not explaining anything to anybody, and you wonder why your partner is freaking out on you? I have half of mind to kill you myself. The only difference is, I'm smart enough to understand that maybe trying to kill my friends and teammates is stupid. Which both of you could learn a lesson from!"
"Weiss, stop," Blake said weakly, hands shaking. "He's covered in blood. He bit someone's fingers off. He was beating someone to death. Don't defend him. You don't think there's something wrong about that?"
"There's something incredibly wrong about everything!" Weiss snapped. "The difference is, I'm not about to start shooting my boyfriend over it!"
"My what?" Blake asked, voice hitching. Her ears were flat against her head.
Weiss rolled her eyes. The action made her temporarily nauseous, but she kept a stiff upper lip and a frozen spine so she didn't look weak. "You told us you were White Fang once. But then you left because you couldn't agree with something. You said their leader was a man named Adam. Sounded like you knew him. And then here you are, projecting that name onto Jaune here. I think I can read between the lines and understand something really messed up happened to you, and you're conflating it with this as your way of making sense of this madhouse."
Blake stood up straighter. "I… what? When did I tell…" She put her palm to her eye, teeth grit.
"Why are you listening to Weiss and not me?" Jaune asked.
Weiss growled at the boy. "Because you're covered in blood and were beating someone to death! I wouldn't trust you either. I still don't think I trust you. One moment, I think I'm trying to call my sister, and then you show up out of the blue dressed like a pornstar, and then start asking questions, and then more really weird questions, and then things get freaky, suddenly everything hurts, and then you shrug and walk away and leave me there. It's like you can't get it through your thick head that maybe other people don't think that's what sane, healthy, normal, not murderous people do!"
"I… was trying to find Blake to fix this nightmare world," he said weakly, eyes going to Shamrock, still holding him at spear point.
Weiss put her hands on her hips. "Oh yeah, I remember, your completely overdramatic 'You gave her location to someone who loves her and hates himself' speech. If I wasn't woozy enough from all the blood, just thinking of something that cringy would make me vomit."
"Love?" Blake asked, rubbing at her nose. She pulled away her fingers and stared at a splotch of blood. One of her cat ears twitched.
"You had some kind of thing with this guy named Adam, right?" Weiss asked, going off her gut. "That's the sense I'm getting. And when suddenly your new boyfriend starts acting like a raging psychopath, and our memories are destroyed by this place, you start seeing them as one and the same."
"Jaune's not… he's not… we…" Blake shut her eyes tight, grimacing. The blood was visible by her nose.
Weiss scoffed. "Just stop pretending and admit it to yourselves already before you kill each other in a blaze of stupidity. Jaune, Blake, you're the most cliché case I've ever seen. You two obviously love each other!"
Blake hissed in a breath, her ears fluttering. She kept pressing her palm into her eye, the blood running down her nose. "I—I—I"
"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Weiss said, arms folded. "It's actually kind of sad seeing you trying to pretend otherwise. Not even a bad soap opera would keep it up this long."
Somewhere across the room, the other Jaune let out a wet sounding laugh. "I feel insulted somehow," he said, and broke out into a coughing fit.
Weiss looked over and saw the blind boy, Fox, crouching down in front of him. It looked like he was trying to tend to his wounds, and talk to the guy. It probably meant the other Jaune wouldn't die, so that meant Weiss could focus entirely on her team. At least the people she thought were her team.
This room already had way too many moving parts, too many people trying to kill each other or who had no idea what was going on, that just trying to boil it down to four people was a challenge enough. She was thankful for Fox. Even though she could only half-recall why she knew his name.
Weiss' Jaune, though, had almost the complete opposite reaction to his partner. He didn't stutter or act confused or scared or anything. Weiss remembered accusing the two of them of dating back in a sushi bar, what felt like a lifetime ago. It had been the exact same way, where Blake got flustered, and Jaune just looked grim. Even now, you could practically take a pencil down those deep lines in his face.
"Yeah," he said, looking away.
"I… Jaune?" Blake asked, holding her head. She almost looked frantic, but remained in place with the glyphs around her.
Jaune met her eyes, but angled his face away. He didn't say anything. Maybe he couldn't. He looked like he might hit something if anyone was with an arm's distance.
Weiss needed to change the conversation before this completely sidetracked everything into useless teen drama. They could sort this problem out later.
"So," Weiss said to her Jaune and Blake, putting down her heel, "stop being stupid and stop trying to kill each other, and start trying to actually talk so we can figure this out together as a team, all four of us! And that starts with answering the simple stuff first."
Jaune acted very slowly, like his joints were made of clockwork. Like he still wasn't over Blake. He held his hands up, gesturing his chin towards Shamrock. "She knows."
Weiss arched an eyebrow. "You do?"
Shamrock tried to angle herself so she could keep Jaune in his corner but still talk to Weiss. "This isn't really Beacon. I think we've all figured that out to some degree. But Jaune and I, we went to the edge. There's a point where the world just stops. There's also almost nobody here on this campus, just a couple faces that we all know. Usually there's more students, other years, but they're absent."
"Huh. Shit. Hadn't even noticed that myself," Jaune said. He licked his lips. "But what does that mean for the people we do know?"
"Aren't you forgetting the entire adventure we literally just had like a couple of hours ago?" Shamrock asked with a scoff. "I mean, yeah, I didn't remember until I was literally banging my head against the edge of reality, but we just came back from fighting against face changing monsters."
Weiss blinked. "I… Yeah, that's a good point. I even asked Jaune about them. He told me he didn't forget the monster he was."
"I was being dramatic," Jaune said quickly.
But the answer came too quickly. Her scar itched; the one she did have in this place. And it itched the more she looked over at Fox and the other Jaune talking to each other. Her attention went back to the boy pretending to be a stripper.
"But then why are there two of you?" Weiss asked.
Blake sucked in a breath. "Yeah. Yes, exactly! There's two of you and that's the biggest problem with this place. One of you has to be, like, a wendigo or can't be real!"
Jaune curled the corner of his lip. "I have an Aura. He doesn't. Problem solved."
Weiss didn't let up. "But this place is weird. Things don't add up. How do we even know you're right? The boy Blake knows wouldn't bite someone's fingers off. The Jaune I know wouldn't beat someone to death while both of you were talking about complete insanity. There's something deeply wrong here, and I think you know what it is. It's tied to you. And tied to the name Simone."
The boy winced. "There's all kinds of animals coming here. Occasional demons too. I think the place we went through was magical. Some kind of sorcery. Or maybe just an effect of Dust we don't understand yet. I think it was just making us see our worst fears and nightmares, but they weren't real. Just like this place isn't real, isn't it obvious? Don't think about that name; I know I sure as hell don't." He fell silent, staring her down, and not saying anything else.
He was so painfully dodging every single part of that question that it instantly raised every single alarm she had in her head.
"Okay, because you can't even answer anything straight. If there's just a slightest bit of linguistic nuance, I'm going to be really simple with just one question. Are you even the real Jaune?"
The way he didn't instantly reply made anything he could have said ten times worse. Weiss hadn't even really meant it like that. She was more or less just asking the question out loud to calm Blake down, to try to help her clear her confusing memories, and settle it down once and for all that this was in fact Jaune, not Adam. Then things could return to normal and she could go back to her rather embarrassing affection for the boy.
Instead, Jaune just stood there, teeth grit. "Well, I know for a fact that he idn't."
Her scar itched.
Weiss gestured for Shamrock to move. It was a vaudou gesture from the left hand. Shamrock understood what it meant and moved. A moment later Weiss and Shamrock had practically swapped spots, holding back the other of their teammates. Weiss stepped up to Jaune, still rolling that bullet between his fingers and covered in blood. She felt like he had a hundred pounds of muscle on her. But she wasn't going to let that intimidate her or stop her from getting in his face to make a point.
"That's not what I asked," she said harshly. "I said, are you even the real Jaune? There's two of you, but one of the rest of us. Why? I don't know what the hell you two were talking about, but you two seem like the only ones who know what's going on here. Who are you?"
"I'm the only Jaune you've ever known," he said, again refusing to answer the question properly. Incredibly simple yes or no question. And that honestly freaked her out more than anything.
Shamrock looked over her shoulder. "That's not even true. I've met three of you. Two of them are in this room, I think. And then there was the boy I met during the interviews, with a different accent, and who didn't smell of cheap whiskey. I've met one Jaune who lacked confidence, one who lacked sobriety, and now one who lacks the ability to give a simple answer. All three of you are different Jaune's I've known."
Jaune looked completely flabbergasted. His cheeks were red. His eyes were wide enough that Weiss thought they might fall out of his head if he moved it too quickly. "People can change. We're not the same person day in, day out, not if we're working to become a better version of ourselves."
"You aren't answering me," Weiss said, feeling a distant sense of panic in her chest. Her heart felt tight. Her scar kept itching. But she had to do her best to look strong, look unyielding, and use all of the negotiating in deal making talents her father had tried to drill into her to keep the pressure going. "You called him Jaune. But he said that's not his name. You're telling me you two are the same person in one sentence, but in the other you're telling me you're not. You're hiding something. You're lying to us, Jaune."
Blake spoke as if in a daze. "You're right. Adam would do this. The Jaune we know wouldn't. The boy I know wouldn't do this. He's… there's something wrong about this."
Jaune just stood there mere inches away from Weiss. Not saying anything. Not even looking at anyone particular. The sweat rolled down his forehead, mixing with the blood spattered across his cheek. His breathing came in heavy. He was doing that thing with his fingers again.
Weiss realized he could grab her at this distance. And she didn't know if she'd be fast enough to pull up a glyph. If she could stop him this close. She wasn't going to give him the chance to realize he could do that.
"Stop thinking!" Weiss said. "Stop it! You could have just lied and said everything was okay, and you know we probably would have believed you. But you hesitated. You could lie, but you don't want to lie to us, not directly. You're talking in circles because you know something is wrong. And just like every other time something is bothering you, you double down. You don't try to find an easy solution, you just do the same thing twice as hard. You shut down and stop eating for days. You run around until your body collapses. You insist we train and fight harder. You beat yourself up just like you're beating your other self up, like it's some overly obvious metaphor. All because that's the only way you know how to process it when something is wrong, by doing the same thing again harder."
Jaune leaned away fractionally, staring at Weiss with wide eyes.
"So drop the macho tough guy act. You're so obsessed with making things right for other people that you're downright self-destructive for your own egotistical reasons. You know there's something wrong, and I'm going to help you whether you like it or not. Stop it, Jaune! Just stop it and let other people in!"
She saw it flash in his eyes. The glow of Aura got harder. He grit his teeth, looking from Weiss, to Shamrock, and finally settling on Blake. His hands balled, and she thought she'd played the exact wrong hand. Like he was about to start screaming and thrashing.
Until he looked down at the bullet he was holding. He rolled it around in his finger. She watched the fight leave him. Until he just looked like he didn't know what to do. Or more likely, he knew exactly what he should do, and despised the very idea.
"Does," Weiss said, grasping for something, "does it have something to do with your complete lack of knowledge about basic things? All those weird references you make that only you understand?"
His wide eyes went back to her. Jaune's hand moved, shaking.
"Jaune," Blake said, and the boy just froze. "I… I remember. That night in the hospital. I held your hand and we activated your Aura. I saw people. Before whatever we did knocked everyone on campus unconscious. I saw you, but a different you. There was you, a soldier, and a cowboy with a blonde girl with her hand on his shoulder. But all of them were you, weren't they?"
"Wait, that was you two?" Shamrock asked quietly. "I thought it was a microwave wave accident or something."
Weiss saw Fox stand up from the other Jaune, listening intently to the conversation.
Blake said, "This is, this is all connected. I didn't ask back then because I respected that you had things you didn't want to talk about. I have mine too. But those people in your Aura, they're the reason for this whole thing, aren't they? Why there's two of you. For god's sake, that girl I saw was the same Simone in the cave, wasn't she? Jaune, please, what's going on? We can help."
His mouth opened fractionally. He turned his hands over, as if inviting a hug, or just exposing his wrists. Weiss was acutely aware she didn't have her rapier, while he, Shamrock, and Blake were fully armed. When Jaune finally spoke, his voice was a weak croak, as if he had to force through every syllable through fluid-filled lungs.
"Please don't make me think about it," Jaune said.
"Why?" Weiss demanded, feeling her blood through every capillary. She still felt like glass. It was like every part of her nervous system was misfiring, barely keeping her from functioning.
Weakly, he pointed to the other Jaune, the one with Fox. "Because that's all he thinks about. All that part thinks about. The part of me that doesn't deserve to live. I have burned every bridge, every rope, every road except for y'all. I don't want to think about what could have kept me being him. He hurt you all. I hurt you all. And you were willing to give me a second chance because I did everything in my power to kill him before. Now look at us," he said, looking all three of them in the eyes. "I need you to be okay so I can be okay."
"But we're not okay!" Blake almost shouted. "I am not okay. We can't be okay because of what you're doing here, Jaune."
The other Jaune broke out laughing. Weiss turned to see him standing there, leaning against Fox, who was helping keep him up.
"No!" her Jaune said, and she put a glyph in his face to keep him from moving. He turned his savage eyes to her, like he wanted to rip her to pieces.
The other Jaune kept laughing, and coughing. "He's never gonna tell you. He thinks any damage he might cause by laying it would be way preferable than letting you know." He gestured with a hand, its fingers broken. "Hey, Eric, you remember what Sergeant Lopez once told us? Simone said the same thing, too. You got the heart of a dog. Even its teeth, really. It's our spirit animal. It's why we vibed so much with our old dog, Lord Woofers. Remember him? Can't believe you and the cat girl caught feelings for each other. Way too ironic."
Blake made a noise in her throat. Their Jaune tries to push against the glyphs around him, so Weiss uses her Semblance to create more. Preventing him from getting any of the momentum he needed to punch through it and free himself. The snowflakes interlocked into a prison lattice. It didn't stop him from growling and thrashing. Weiss doubted it would last long against him.
"You're a dog," the broken Jaune said. "Fiercely loyal and protective to the ones we care about, overly friendly and energetic even, but if we think you're a threat to ours, to the people who love us and feed us? You both know you'd bite their throats out. Like you did to me."
"What isn't he telling us?" Weiss asked, and swallowed.
The other Jaune's eyes looked more frantic and savage than anything she'd ever seen. He wanted blood. "Neither of us is Jaune. The real Jaune is just another soul swimming around in the chimera thing we are. Like the soldier. Like Greg." He coughed. "Like the fate-twisting eldritch horror that created us and piggybacked her way into this world for the fuck of it. Those are the people you saw, Mittens. All we are is one lie after another we've told ourselves so often that we started to buy our own bullshit. The Jaune y'all know is just the latest version of a broken mess of souls wearing human flesh trying to find his place in this clown world. The difference between me and him is, I've accepted this shit is fucked up stupid; that none of you ephemeral women matter; that if I die, I'll probably just try again somewhere far beyond. No reason to care for just another stop along the ride. That idiot there still loves you all and bases his entire self-worth on that. He'll do anything to make you think he's worthy among the worthless. And he thinks if you know he's something that isn't really human, you'll hate him, and the entire house of cards he built upon your love will collapse, and that that will destroy him irrevocably. Pathetic, innit?"
Their Jaune shattered one of Weiss' glyphs, freeing his right arm. He made a gesture, and the gun at his holster pulled towards his palm. But it got caught within the snowflake lattice. Jaune thrashed harder.
"Shut up!" he screamed as his broken alter ego.
The other Jaune just laughed. "Y'know, it does feel good. The feeling of telling people you know shit you shouldn't know, just to see them hurt. Remember back when he did that to you, Weiss? When I did it that time I walked in on your training? Knew a couple things about you, and it was so fun to see you freak out over it."
"Don't you fucking dare do that to them!" Jaune said. "It was wrong then, it's wrong now. They don't deserve that!"
The broken boy made a face. "As if you have the right to control them and keep your secrets. You're no different than our father. At least, two of our dads, Brian and Nicholas. Jerry was a Nazi, but he was okay-ish a dad. Funny how life just keeps rhyming no matter whose eye we see through."
"What happens if I kill you?" Fox said, his voice wrong. More feminine. Like he was trying to imitate an older woman.
"Nothing good," Jaune said. "If it's anything like last time, I'll slingshot back. First a college boy, then the teen superhero, then the soldier in some imperial republic in my first world, and now here. Odds are it's back to Earth Bet with me. And when that goes tits up, I'll be back, stronger and smarter and more fucked up in the head, and I'll have a bone to pick with you specifically."
"Me?" Fox said slowly.
The other Jaune nodded eagerly. "All he wants to do is be left alone to find his own personal redemption and to earn the love of the people he cares about. Like I said, pathetic. See, I don't really know who you are, and I don't fucking care. You're not my problem. Better to leave us alone and keep your questions than risk something that'll actually want to fuck with you. Apologize for the confusion and let life just be so you can go back to stalking your ex-husband and leave us out of it, and you'll be fine." Another bloody cough. "Hold on, hold on, I got this. Lemme get my best Eric impression."
The boy cleared his throat, and smiled through red teeth. When he spoke, there was a mix of amusement with actual hate in his words. "So help me whore gods, if you hurt the people I care about, I will eat your dreams and drink your soul so bad, when I die, I'mma coma back as the protagonist of I, Salem: or, how I consented to letting an entire kingdom run train on me, but it's okay because I already looked like I'm covered in more throbbing dick veins than a FUCKING TWIX BAR. Are we fucking clear, bitch?"
He looked over to the imprisoned Jaune. "That about sound like you, hombre?"
Fox had his mouth slightly agape, looking incredibly amused in an understated kind of way.
Their own Jaune had stopped fighting. He was just slumping in place, letting the glyphs hold him up. He looked woozy, sick, his skin paler than a ghost. "Just…" he said, and didn't finish the thought.
"Yeah, don't know how you'll get out of this one, either," the other Jaune said. "But that's the fun of doubling down. You choose not to face your problems. Instead, you just make more problems, and make the existing ones worse, forever and ever until you are dead. Clinically proven to work!"
Weiss couldn't help herself. She looked away, towards Shamrock, and to Blake. Blake in particular looked like she might throw up. Nobody was standing straight, or looked confident, or anything. She suspected they hadn't invented words for this kind of emotion yet.
She looked at her hands and saw the blood on her own skirt. What was she doing? This wasn't how this was supposed to go. She was just asking Jaune a drop dead easy question to calm Blake down. To stop those two lovebirds from murdering each other in a blaze of stupidity and lack of communication. But this?
Weiss remembered watching the maid bleeding out in the show. Remembered the maître d'hôtel saying he had to fire her. Workers really didn't have rights in Atlas once you signed your name on the employment contract's bottom line. Even General Ironwood's attempts to end indentured servitude hadn't totally fixed that. Weiss had known what she was seeing was wrong on a level she couldn't articulate, and had been helpless to do anything. Like she felt helpless here, a pawn in a game between things she didn't understand.
But she wasn't. Back then, that was learned helplessness. She had the ability to do something, and just couldn't process anything else. Like how she couldn't process the two Jaunes, or this entire reality being fake, or anything. She'd come to Beacon to take control of her own destiny, for what it was worth. And here she was, just letting destiny use her as a plaything, like one of the girls her father would see on the side.
That wasn't who Weiss was. Wouldn't who she would ever let herself be.
She turned to the Jaune she had locked in the glyphs and asked, "Is that all true?"
It looked like a force of effort to turn towards her. "Yeah."
He could have lied. Could have doubled down. Just pretended like he was as lost and confused as she was. But he didn't, and Weiss had to believe that counted for something.
Weiss grabbed at the hem of her skirt. "No, not that. That doesn't matter. That, that doesn't change what we've been through anymore than learning Blake used to be a terrorist changed what we went through together. I'm asking if it's true what he said about us."
"There is no me without you," Blake said as if stumbling awake. "You said that to me once. Was that real?"
"We never really had a deep emotional chat," Shamrock said with a nervous laugh, "but I always felt we could relate and hang out and be cool, so that's my contribution to this."
Jaune was still hanging his head, but he nodded. "I don't even care about myself. My world is you idiots. That we can have something, some bond, some meaning just from knowing each other—that's the only thing that matters to me in the world. Any world. Any soul. It's us and how much we care for each other." He swallowed. "I'm sorry. I don't even know about what anymore. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Too much shit to think about. But I'm sorry."
Weiss let out a long breath to calm herself. "Are you our Jaune?"
"Yeah," he croaked, staring at the floor.
"Then it doesn't matter if you're some weird whatever-the-hell," Weiss said emphatically. "I don't think it changes how you feel. And it doesn't change how we feel."
"I… yeah," Blake said. "We are going to talk about this, but… I think… you're not Adam. You're just the asshole I'm gonna be spending the next four years of my life with, and I was happy with that before, I think. And nothing's changed."
"I never lied to you like that," Jaune said, voice still weak. "What I feel, what I say to you, it's because I'm too dumb to try to lie, Blake. I meant what I said, no matter who or what I am. Words have meaning like that."
"Oh, yeah, words," Shamrock said, nodding. "Because this is kinda fucked up and goes one more step to proving my religion is right."
"Shut up, Shamrock," Weiss said with a laugh.
"Make me!" Shamrock said, asking Celiphie for forgiveness with her left hand.
The other Jaune just looked about, sputtering out. "Wait, what, no? No! He's a psychopathic asshole who doesn't care about anyone but himself. Stop taking his side in this! Fuck you, I spilled all the goddamn beans! Hate that pathetic motherfucker for never telling you the full story!" Another laugh. "After all he's done to me, to us, he doesn't get to have some bullshit anime redemption arc based on the power of love! That's now how this works. That's not how any of this works. No!"
"That's. Fucking. Enough," her Jaune said calmly, trying to get his legs back under him. "Weiss, let me out, please."
She just stared at him. "Is that a good idea?"
"Depends," he said with a little laugh. "Do you trust me? Even after all of that, all of this, can you trust me? Can all of you?"
Blake made a noise. "I… I do. I do trust you, Jaune."
Shamrock nodded slowly.
With a breath, Weiss let her glyphs go. Jaune stumbled briefly as they stopped carrying his weight. He looked down at his hands, before reaching down to grab the revolver that had fallen on the floor. Weiss felt a moment of panic, before he just slipped it into his holster without any comment. Just getting his things in order.
"I think I finally understand what's going on," Jaune said, gesturing to Fox and the other Jaune. "And who those two clowns over yonder is. Because he is me, and I am him. The difference between us is just five words, I think. Five words that he once thought. Just five little words that made him stop being such a self-centered little prick and reach out to people, to ask for help, and to be there for you guys."
"No!" the other Jaune shouted, shaking Fox, who themselves continued to stand there impassively. Like he was more fascinated than anything else. "You don't get to make a big speech. After all this, it's too late to learn your lesson. It's too late for me, and it's too late for you. The cat's already out of the bag!"
"Do you remember what those five words were?" Jaune asked.
The other looked at Blake, eyes frantic. "Mittens, don't you listen to him. Stop thinking you can believe in him. He bit off someone's fingers. He'll do it again like the dog we are. Fuck, he's not even a teenager. We're maybe like twenty-four or twenty-five in terms of how much we remember. Anything you have isn't romantic, it's creepy and unhealthy!"
"I can't do this alone," Jaune said, spreading his hands cruciform. "I know this. I understand it. And coming to face with it is what let me be there for other people. And they never would have been there for me if I hadn't realized that, too. Even now, look at Weiss. If we hadn't been there for her, would she be here now? She's a better person than me. Blake came here to fight for what she believed in, even if she didn't understand everything, because she felt it was right. She's a better person than me. Shamrock figured out things were wrong, and set out to solve the problem without having a massive hissy fit or panic attack. They're better than me.
"But together, we're all something better. We are more than the sum of our parts by virtue of having each other. And you, Jaune—you're just a part of me that's terrified of that, that still can't rationalize it. Who will scream and kick and spit and bite and do everything so long as he doesn't have to acknowledge that he can't do this alone. I'd call you pathetic, but you're just a part of me. If I just condemn you, just try to kill you, that just proves I've learned nothing from the people I love. The people right here beside me, who are still willing to accept me, because I put in the effort for them, because that's what you do for people you love."
Jaune turned around and held his hands out. With a somewhat awkward smile, he said, "I have an idea. And it's really stupid. And honestly, I have no idea if it will work or not, but it kind of feels like the thing to do. I can't do this alone."
The other boy kept screaming, profanities and swearing, but it was falling on deaf ears. Blake slowly put her weapons down and took the first steps forward. Shamrock didn't stop her as she hesitantly walked forward, and stopped me your feet away from Jaune.
"We're… we're still going to talk about all of this, Jaune," she said.
"Just so long as it doesn't change what we have."
She sucked on her lips and shook her head. "Honestly? I don't know. But I kind of like the idea that there's someone out there more messed up than me. It's kind of comforting in a weird kind of way."
Jaune laughed, this honest, almost desperate noise. And he took her hand. Her eyes were more than a little wide, but she didn't resist.
Shamrock went next, putting her hand on Jaune's shoulder. "Is this a part where we all form one kind of ultimate being by combining ourselves?"
Blake snorted. "What?"
"Because it's a pretty common motif in Eastern media, and I think that would be hilarious for Blake," Shamrock said.
"I hate you; this is the worst team ever," Blake said, smiling. "Can we go back in time and get a do-over? I want a less sappy and emotional team."
Weiss let out a breath and grabbed Blake's free hand. "Not a chance, Blake. I think we're long past the four big stages of grief and have wound up squarely in acceptance. For better or worse, we're all in this together. Even if I don't really know what's going on, and what I do understand sounds kind of insane and stupid." She shrugged.
All together, they turned back to face the other boy and Fox. While Fox remained just standing there, looking more fascinated than anything, the other Jaune was nearly foaming at the mouth. And when they all stepped towards him, Fox let him go to stand to the side. The boy collapsed to the ground, snarling and hissing.
"I know what you are," Jaune said, with everyone by his side. Just like he was by their side. With everyone supporting everyone else. As a team. As friends.
As a family, Weiss thought, and honestly couldn't keep the hint of a smile from pulling at her lips. She knew she must have looked incredibly dopey.
Still didn't help the fact that she didn't know what was going on and a part of her was still terrified, but she trusted in everyone else right now. They could figure that out later, when things weren't so dire or some kind of metaphysical manifestation wasn't trying to tear them apart. Whichever came first.
Jaune reached out and grabbed his alter ego's hand. Glowing with his aura, his grip was too strong for the other to wriggle out of.
"I know you well," he said. "All of us know you. Because you're a part of me. And I hate you. Which is why I have to understand that you became me. Without you, I wouldn't have these people around me. You were capable of crawling out of your hole and realizing there's more to life than just getting drunk and wallowing in pity. What matters is the journey. The people around you that you love, and who love you back. People who support you because you support them. One day, you become me. Which is why it's stupid to hate you. I have to look you in the eyes and understand, and say, I forgive you."
"Me? Forgive me?" he snarled. "You're the one who beat the shit out of me. You're the one who couldn't look himself in the eyes. Still gets uncomfortable looking in the mirror. I know there's nothing to forgive in me. You can't just shounen speech your way out of this! You're the one who thinks he's gone so far, but keeps repeating the same mistakes again and again and again!"
"Yeah," Jaune said. "But I'm not going to hide that. Not going to pretend this is easy. Not going to pretend like it took one simple conversation, one little duh moment, to turn you into me. I'm nowhere near perfect. I'm still mostly a fuck up. But the people here, they believe in me. And together, all of us are going to become the men and women we've always wanted to be. And so will you. But, you can't do this alone."
"I… I!" The boy Just broke out laughing, until it started coming out as an incoherent kind of sob.
Blake seemed to realize something. She sucked in a breath, and, with her Aura glowing, she said, "From shadows I release you."
Shamrock nodded, Aura shielding her, and mixing at the edges with the people she was touching. "A thousand faces, a thousand lies, one truth."
Weiss remembered when she found her own Aura. She felt ridiculous and yet proud as she said, "Tell me, who's the loneliest of all?"
Jaune looked around as he held his broken other's hand. "Uh. Shit, this is actually working. I didn't think this far ahead. Um. Go Go Gadget Forgiveness! No. Fire walk with me. Or, Make America Great Again?"
Blake elbowed him. "Jaune! What did you just do a whole speech about?"
"Oooh!"
She rolled her eyes, smiling. "Idiot…"
He tightened his grip until the other boy was squirming. "I can't do this alone."
Weiss saw their Auras all bleed into each other. All of the colors uniting as they stood together, touching each other, before leaking out across Jaune's hand into his other self. Just like his normal aura, the one that was but across from each of them was a color she couldn't describe. Maybe it wasn't even a color. Maybe it was more sensation, and seeing it as color was just the only way the human mind could process it. It was hard to look at, physically. Just like Jaune's eyes, she didn't want to look at them when they were glowing, but Weiss made herself watch.
The broken boy lit up like the rest of them, their Auras intermingling like tie-dye. Together and yet apart. Separate, but stemming from the same source. Everyone's souls acting in concert. Weiss felt a little woozy.
And then she gasped, looking up at the boy suddenly sitting on the kitchen ledge. He looked like he couldn't be older than fifteen or sixteen, And dressed like some kind of Vacuan desperado, but with an infectious, overly bubbly smile. "Sup, kemosabe?" he asked, twirling a revolver. "There's more girls here than last time!"
Another hand appeared from over Weiss' shoulder, a broad man in a soldier's uniform labeling him d'Orléans, and with the kind of babyface you couldn't really put an age to, but felt young. He reached out to join in on the fun and said, "Don't look at me. I don't know what's going on neither, but I ain't never let that stop me afore! Let's crush some cocks and pump some pussies, in a metaphorical, self-acceptance sort of way!"
Then there was the last boy who appeared. It looked like Jaune. A somewhat more put together version of the very first one Weiss had met just before initiation. Looking lost and just trying to squeeze in. When he appeared, he was the only one of the boys without Jaune's garbled foreign accent. "Hi, here too. Sure am glad that's not me down there on the ground. But I'm just part of a deeper, more theologically troubling problem. I like your dress, Weiss. You're very pretty. Just sayin'."
When he joined in, the broken Jaune's Aura felt stronger, until it was a palpable sensation on Weiss' soul. She remembered a feeling like this once, right before she was knocked out. Before something that the authorities claim was just a CCTS microwave burst error.
"Someone's missing," Blake said. "I saw four people last time when I activated your Aura. Where is—"
"I believe I've seen enough from this touching display to answer my questions, sweet children," Fox said. But the voice was all wrong again. Weiss turned around to look, and she didn't see Fox. She saw a woman in a black gown, her skin as white as snow, patchworked with infected looking veins. She didn't know what that style of hair was, but she never saw anyone with that fashion. It somehow looked ancient, out of touch with reality.
And then she remembered the figure in the cave. And Weiss felt her stomach drop.
The woman raised her left hand, making a gesture that was almost comprehensible as Vaudou. Circles and shapes and light emerge from her fingers like Dust without a source. Light pulsed through her veins, through every capillary, until her hand looked nearly see-through.
"I'm ending this," she said calmly. Her very present somehow felt overbearing and motherly. Simultaneously cold and distant yet extremely inviting, like Weiss almost felt ashamed to be in the woman's presence. Weiss imagined it was what her mother would have felt like if her mother and father had ever seen eye to eye on child rearing. "You've all been very helpful. We won't be seeing each other again. Not unless you do something truly regrettable, sweet ones."
"You!" Jaune gasped. One of them. Maybe all of them. Weiss couldn't tell anymore. She had completely lost control of the situation like a minute ago and was just riding it out for as long as she could.
"Yes, me," the woman said with a little laugh.
"No, that's not what I—"
The swirling morass of shapes hovering over her hand got stronger, got brighter. Weiss knew something bad was about to happen.
Until a girl in a white feather dress with hair nearly as white blonde as hers came up from behind the woman. She grabbed the woman who used to be Fox and pulled her in, pinning her against herself. The woman broke out into a panic, trying to escape, but the grip the blonde had her in was iron tight. And Weiss remembered her from the cave too.
"Gotcha, bitch," Simone laughed. "He meant me, by the way. Because I'm way scarier. And way cuter." She winked, not letting the woman go no matter how hard she tried to struggle.
The feelings emanating from the activating Aura stopped for just a minute. Gravity felt like it had given up. Weiss' guts floated freely in her chest cavity. Until everything slammed down with the force of a thousand tons of fire Dust. And a wave of something wrong exploded out across the room, destroying reality itself.
— 17 —
Weiss had felt this way before once. In hindsight, she knew it was because of the last time Jaune's Aura went haywire. When Blake turned it on. She remembered waking up with a bad bruise from where she'd fallen, in Jaune's arms as he carried her to her room. She'd tried to fight him. Push him away. Get that creep to stop touching her. But he had barely reacted. He had just looked determined to bring her somewhere safe and let her down.
This time was different.
When she opened her eyes, blackness and pain rushed it. It was like trying to swim in the open ocean, except instead of salt water, she felt submerged in a tar pit. The kind that trapped animals for thousands of years and left behind the most well-preserved fossils. She thrashed and tried to open her mouth, and the black ooze didn't rush in it once. It leaked over her teeth, stifling her screams, and tasted of hot asphalt and ash.
It's like trying to eat a bagel I burned to a crisp off a highway, she thought, and the sudden and ridiculous idea made her suck in air in a half-hearted attempt to laugh. The tar leaked into her mouth, like some sickly crawling spider trying to go for her uvula.
Weiss flailed, spinning in the black morass of tar. She brushed up against something like bone. It slithered away at her touch. She tried to shove off it, and succeeded only in sending herself spinning. Her lungs felt flat and empty, and she couldn't get anything else in them. One of her hands pushed into some membrane. Gravity could be hard to pinpoint underwater. She couldn't tell if she was reaching up or down, but with the strength from her Aura she pushed through and felt cold, winter air.
She waved, trying to reorient her body towards the air. Where she could breathe. So she wouldn't just die and become a fossil for future generations to marvel at. She would never wind up in some art museum as a glorified mummy. She wasn't going to die like this. She wasn't going to die at all. In fact, Weiss didn't believe in dying; the power of denial meant she was immortal! She, she, she—
Strong hands grabbed her and hauled her upwards. A moment later and she could tell up from down, and even found her feet.
"I gotcha, I gotcha," Jet Shamrock said, breathing heavily. Bits of black goo stained his red suit. "I gotcha, I gotcha," he kept repeating, leaning back to drag himself and Weiss out of the tar. As soon as Weiss could, she pushed her feet against what felt like the ground beneath the tar and helped.
And together, she reached the end of the ooze and they hauled each other out of the morass. She collapsed onto the ground, some snow-covered asphalt. Choking and coughing, she tried to spit it out, going as far as to stick her tongue out and claw at it just to make it go away. That was when she saw where she'd been, and where she was.
Stretching before her, ripping a furrow in the street like the aftermath of some earthquake, flowed a river of Grimm-stuff. Black and languid, it moved like molten rock, filled with faces and arms and eyeballs that turned to look at her the more noise she made. It was like that ball she'd seen deep in the cave before it had crashed down and drowned them all. All around her was the city of Montluçon, burning, with the howls of Grimm and roar of distant gunfire.
"The surface," she said, and suddenly felt so woozy. She braced herself against the snow as she fell against it, still trying to spit the liquid Grimm out of her mouth. "How?"
Shamrock was on his knees, throwing up. More of that black sludge came out, staining in the snow. "Same," he said, and coughed. "Same way the Grimm got in the city. Must have flowed upwards. A volcano of flesh-eating demons. Gods!" He tried to make a gesture, but only ended up slipping onto his face without the support of his arms.
Gritting her teeth, Weiss tried to stand, but only got onto her own knees. She shoved Shamrock for all he was worth so he didn't drown in his own vomit. He gave her a thankful look, but said nothing, just staring up into the ash-strewn sky. Even the snow coming down was tinted an ashy gray.
"We escaped," Weiss said, looking down at herself. Her dress was once white, but the caves had soiled it into a disgusting brown. The liquid Grimm had done the rest. There was hardly anything clean about her now. Her fingernails looked chipped; the skin of her palms was ragged. She reached down to her side and found her sword.
"Do you remember everything?" he asked weakly.
Still on her knees above his body, she nodded. "Yeah. I—yes. My head feels like it's swimming in mercury, but yeah. I remember you and that weird place and." She gasped. "Blake, Jaune!"
Something growled behind her. It was a force of effort to turn around and see the hulking beowolf sliding towards her in a low crawl, as if trying to reduce its profile. Its breath misted in the cold air. It looked nearly twice her size, and wasn't even the biggest one she'd ever seen. She tried to stand up, trying to grab her sword and do something, but her legs gave out beneath her. She fell into the snow and nearly cracked her head on a patch of exposed asphalt.
The Grimm licked its lip and held itself up on its long forearms, growling low in its throat.
Until the heavy bullet ripped into its snout, spraying bits of viscera and chunks of bone into the air. She flinched as five more shots hit the Grimm, ripping its head and chest apart. The monster fell down, twitching like it didn't know how to die properly.
Weiss and Shamrock looked over to the far side of the snowy plaza, past destroyed cars and cracked storefronts. At the edge of the river of Grimm stood Blake and Jaune, holding each other up. Neither of them looked any better than Weiss did. Blake needed to actually hold up Jaune's hand so he could shoot.
"Guys!" she called out, her voice nearly lost in distant gunfire and the howl of the wind.
They practically crawled their way over to Weiss, each of them only really using one leg, but it was enough to let them move. Until they reached the pair, and all of Team BASS collapsed together.
"Found you," Blake said, and laughed. Every word turned to more mist in the cold.
Jaune just laid there, holding his gun. His face looked battered and bruised, blood staining all of his many scars and seeping through his armored gauntlets. Even his fingers seemed angled wrong. It took Weiss a moment to realize he was suffering all of the injuries he'd given to his other self back in that place.
"Gang's all here," Shamrock said weakly.
Weiss swallowed. "Is… is this the part where we talk about what just happened?"
"No," Jaune said, trying to sit up. He looked so broken, so completely out of shape. He pointed down the street as a bullhead flew overhead. "I think—I think we just traded one execution for another."
The distant roar of a horde of Grimm. She knew enough about the calls they made to know it was several species of the demons. And as soon as Weiss followed Jaune's broken fingers, she saw them.
No one was making it out of here unscarred. Physically, mentally, or otherwise.