LoamyCoffee: Aw yeah!~ Time for a delightful chapter of learning to become even more dangerous~
Excellent talk. Makes you really think about light and darkness, and I certainly have to agree that I was confused that only 3 people seemed to use Aura as more than forcefields. I mean Ren used his aura to pierce a King Taijitu's eye with it's own fang. Also heard something about Grimm from someone who read the latest book, that those with powerful Auras are basically Grimm magnets. They brought this up after people were confused as to why a child Lie Ren's use of his semblance was able to make him and Nora undetectable by Grimm, as they thought due to the new book, that Grimms were attracted to Aura in general.
Re: I know, right? I said that most of last-chapter was inspired by Tales of- games and Toriko, but quite a bit of Soul Eater went into it and previous chapters as well, since in Soul Eater, and also Yuyu Hakusho (which I also referenced albeit passively though more than I realize in hindsight), "spirit energy" is a power source, which can be shaped into different forms and strengthened over time. It just really irked me that so-few people used Aura for things other than being "a forcefield", which is why in addition to Ren, Nora in this story is also capable of shaping her Aura into different attacks; Ren wouldn't "hoard" that kind of knowledge for himself.
As for those with "powerful Auras" being Grimm magnets and the contradiction over Ren's ability to have him and Nora evade the Grimm… Grimm are attracted to "negativity", that much has been clear from Episode 1 if you read between the lines, and Ren's Semblance is like a "Cloaking Field" for the emotions one (or multiple people) is (are) feeling. For example, Ren could shield Ring Wielders from the Black Lantern Corps members in the DC Universe; at least in terms of being able to Detected at long range since they "see" Emotional Spectrum Energy.
I think maybe the people who wrote the transcripts forgot (similar to Akira Toriyama forgetting about the [Super Saiyan 2] transformation for Super) that Grimm are drawn to "Negative Energy", not necessarily Aura; the two aren't mutually exclusive, since you can have very LITTLE Aura or none at all, but if you're rife with "negative emotions", the Grimm will be drawn to you all the same.
You see, in my HeadCanon, if you can CONTROL your fear (and/or other "negative" emotions), either through willpower or emotion-dampening pharmaceuticals (aka drugs), then it's possible to "avoid the notice" of Grimm; Ren's Semblance is significant evidence to support my HeadCanon. Combat Androids might not have emotions, but they are "creations of man" which the Grimm instinctually target.
Hope this Reply cleared things up.
RandommDude: I'm not a fan of playing the OST, but this one really helped envision how the fight probably went in your head. Plus, it was really hype! And apparently Terrence has a stronger punch, dealing 11 damage compared to Jack's 7. Well that or he's way tougher than average.
I'd feel it would be too much of coincidence if that interaction between Terence and Jack wasn't inspired by TFSs Kakarot and Perfect Cell conversation before the tournament.
(Chapter 29)
Re: Well, OSTs tend to help me get in the right "headspace", and fight scenes just "turn out" better when I have something to get the creative gears turning; helps my imagination churn out new ideas, and my fingers dance over the keys faster, you know? And yes, Terrence is strong, stronger than the rest of his peers, though because of Jack's "Injury De-Buff", the gap between their respective power levels is narrowed.
And yeah, I was kind of inspired by Kakarot and Perfect Cell from that one scene in TFS's Dragonball Z Abridged.
Blaze1992: MORE FIGHTING LESS BIG WORDS.
Anyway I wonder what the teams super moves will be.
I think having Nora getting explosive hands like bomb boy from MHA would be cool to see.
Re: Well, the Tales of- series will be a bit of a factor, but some Soul Eater and Yuyu Hakusho might play into it as well. If anyone reading the "fanmail column" has something they want to see, if they give a Character, Move, and a good Reason/Justification for why aforementioned character would use aforementioned move, it might make it into the story~
*NEW WORLD*
"Ohmygod! We're all gonna die in here!" Nora yelped manically.
"Nora, calm down."
"I gotta get out of here!" she cried whipping out Magnhild.
"NORA DON'T!" everyone crie-
*BOOOOOOM!*
To any outside observer, the cubical cloud of pink smoke would've perfectly illustrated the space that confined them. When the dust settled, everyone was either coughing or rolling on the ground and covering their ears from the recoil. Nora's hair was blown backwards like a grenade had just gone off in her face, which it kinda had, and she was covered head to toe in pink dust while the others had a light coating on their hair and shoulders.
"Ugh… Ignoranus…" Jack groaned.
"What did you say?"
"Ignoranus; it means stupid, you moron!"
" . . . Okay, I kinda deserved that," Nora said beholden to the groaning forms of her friends.
"Yes, and please don't do that again…" Jack groaned, rubbing at his four ears while Ren confiscated her weapon. "Pain in the ass…"
"Soo…" Jaune asked nervously. "What do we do now?" he asked, trying not to let panic settle in.
"Well…" Jack hummed as he rapped his knuckles on the invisible wall surrounding them. "We don't seem to be in danger of running out of air."
"What makes you say that?" Weiss asked skeptically.
" . . . "
*Who Knows How Long Ago…*
"Uuugh… What hit me?"
Attempting to bring his hand to the goose egg-sized lump on his forehead, his hand scraped up against something incredibly close to his torso.
Blinking his eyes open and striking a match, Jack found himself confined to a wooden box with little wiggle room to speak of once his eyes adjusted.
"Goddess damn it… Not again!"
*The Present*
"A feeling," Jack hummed after a moment.
"What, were you buried alive or something?" Nora asked jovially.
" . . . Also yes," Jack nodded after a moment.
"Jesus Christ! Is there anything you haven't done and/or gone through?!" Jaune asked exacerbatedly.
" . . . Also yes."
" . . . Forget it, I don't want to know," Jaune groaned.
That whole mess with the Groundhog Day-style time loop still messed him up inside.
Worse was he couldn't ever, ever, seek professional help because that kind of talk would get him institutionalized!
And wouldn't that just please Nike.
Or would the 'current' Nike actually feel sorry for him since he reconciled the whole "stolen heirloom" thing with her?
Ugh, brain melting time travel bullshit…!
"Oh my god I'm going stir-crazy!" Ruby cried as she ran at the wall, surmounting it and a few steps across the ceiling before gravity pulled her down. "Jack!" she said pulling her face from the dirt. "Get us out of here!" she shouted with a dramatic finger-point to the ground.
"You've got it," Jack nodded, claws popping before he started scooping up handfuls of dirt at a rapid pace.
*Less Than a Minute Later...*
"What do you mean you can't dig us out!?" Weiss demanded aforementioned amount of time later.
"I mean, this 'Mime Box' the RA made extends underground by two feet," Jack answered as he clapped the dirt off his arms. "A perfect ten-foot cube."
"Right, because that isn't claustrophobic in the slightest…" Ren hummed.
"I think we should just be happy it isn't airtight," Pyrrha said looking on the bright side. "If it were, between the nine of us-"
"Ten!" Nora said happily holding up Blair by her armpits, letting her hind legs dangle cutely. "Aren't you a pretty baby~? You are~ Yes you are~" she cooed happily nuzzling her face into the cat's belly.
"…then our air would run out in minutes."
"Shame it doesn't keep out the sun," Yang said shielding her eyes. "Ugh, why couldn't he box us in under a nice tree?"
"Why did he have to box us in at all?" Weiss cried. "I blame you for this."
"Hey, don't pin all this on me. At least half the blame goes to that braindead idiot," Jack huffed.
"He's not braindead, he's amnesiac!" Blake said fiercely.
"Rawr! Kitty's got claws~" Yang purred.
"I-I'm just saying…" Blake blushed. "There's a difference between being braindead and having no memories."
"Assuming it isn't all an act," Weiss huffed.
"Can we please focus?" Ren asked. "Sooner or later, one of us is going to have to use the restroom, so I'd rather not still be here when that happens."
"Well, at the very least Jack already dug the hole," Nora stated in what she assumed was a helpful tone.
"Only you could seriously contemplate going to the bathroom in a cube filled with strangers," Weiss sighed. "And whose cat is this?!"
"Oh, she's… Vincent's…" Pyrrha trailed off nervously.
"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" Yang groused.
"They will never believe you~"
" . . . Also yes."
"Oh my god it's spreading," Nora shuddered in a breath.
"Sooo… Not that I don't mind hanging around, but shouldn't we try to get out of here?" Yang asked. "Blake, you've got his number, right?" she said causing her to become the center of attention.
"I… I…" she stammered before whirling around away from their eyes and tapping at her Scroll. " . . . He turned his Scroll off."
"Well, shit. What now?" Yang asked, banking on being able to call the RA back and have him get them out of there.
"I say we call the teachers for help," Jack said going for his Scroll.
"Really? You, calling for help?" Weiss asked incredulously.
"Yeah. What's so surprising about that?"
"Nothing! It's just… I always figured you were one of those don't-ask-for-directions-no-matter-how-lost-you-were kind of guys," she admitted.
"Hey, when you deal with supernatural bullshit, it helps to call in an expert," Jack said pulling up the faculty numbers he'd gotten from Ozpin.
Sometimes it really helped being an errand boy.
Now if he could only find out why the man's Aura made his skin crawl.
*NEW WORLD*
"HOLY SHIT THOSE TITS ARE HUGE!"
-was the collective thought all save Blake had when Dr. Veronica arrived to help them out of their current predicament.
Well, her and Dr. Stein and a few of their teachers, but Dr. Veronica left the biggest, er… impression since she was relatively new to most of them.
At first only Glynda had been sent, thinking the whole thing just a prank meant to pull the woman away from her scholarly duties. However, when she felt the invisible box with her own hands, and learned they couldn't hear one another outside a Scroll call, she realized no-one was pulling her leg, and called in more help.
At the moment they were surrounded by Glynda who had used her [Telekinesis] to set up a canopy so they wouldn't get heatstroke, Oobleck who was perusing the invisible box's every corner, Dr. Stein who was watching them like bugs under a magnifying glass, Lilith who was edging the whole thing with police tape, Brick who tagged along "for funsies", and amazingly-
"Headmaster?!" Weiss squawked.
"Hello, ladies. And gentlemen," the man replied, speaking into the Scroll on the table that allowed them to communicate.
Because apparently the box surrounding them left their voices very muffled.
"What're you doing here?" Ruby asked.
"Oh, just figured I'd get out of the office, grab some fresh air. Helping you out was the perfect excuse," he answered with a jaunty smile. "So… this seems to be a fine kettle of fish."
"God I could go for some fish," Blake muttered.
"I packed a couple tuna fish sandwiches if that sounds good," Jack said pulling one from his rucksack.
"Not that I'm not grateful for the snacks or anything, but whyyyyyyy?" Yang asked suspiciously of the bag.
"Well, originally the plan was to have you guys try to turn your Aura into Artes and give you all individual instruction to help you along; the snacks were to give us more staying power so we'd be motivated not to go back to the dorms too soon," Jack answered. "I'm glad we did, otherwise being trapped in here would really suck."
"At least we're out of the sun," Weiss sighed.
"So how exactly did you come to be trapped in such a way?" Ozpin questioned.
*One Explanation Later…*
"Hm. I see," the man hummed thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "It almost seems like he took your words a little too literally."
"I know, right?" Nora asked aloud.
"Is there any chance we could call him back? Have him undo this technique?" Ozpin asked, tapping the wall with his cane.
"We've tried, but I can't locate him. He's gone completely off the grid," Gylnda sighed looking up from her Scroll.
"Something I've been meaning to ask," Weiss spoke up. "Dr. Oobleck?"
"Yes?"
"Why are you carrying around chalk?" she asked as the man highlighted the corners of the box.
"A good adventurer doesn't go anywhere without chalk!" the man said matter-of-factly.
"I… see…" the heiress hummed.
"Or a towel. Or a grappling hook. In fact there are many tools an adventurer-"
'I would give literally anything not to be here right now…' the collective, captive audience thought as the eccentric doctor babbled into their only line of communication with the outside world.
*Be-de-beep*Be-de-beep*
*Be-de-beep*Be-de-beep*
"Ah! It's Vincent!" Blake gawped at her Scroll.
"What?! Give it to me!" Glynda demanded, only to hit the wall full-on as she rushed forward with a-
*THUNK!*
" . . . No-one is to speak a word of this,"she hissed, rubbing her nose. "Ever."
"V-Vincent! I-"
"Blake…"
"Ah, yes…?" the ravenette asked worriedly.
The defeated tone caught her flatfooted.
"Can I… ask you a… difficult question?"
"Of course. You can ask me anything," Blake answered, swatting at Yang's teasing face off to the side with her free hand.
"If I… had to do a bad thing… for a good reason…" he began, sounding completely and utterly exhausted deep-down inside, "would you…"
"What? Would she 'what'?" Nora asked before Ren could shush her.
"Would you still be my friend?"
"Of course I would!" Blake answered, a little more-quickly than she'd realized after she felt her peers' eyes on her.
True, she hadn't known him for all that long, but even still, it hurt to hear someone like him sounding so defeated. That's why she chose to support him, even if she had no idea what was going on.
Or maybe deep down, it was because she wanted someone to accept the bad things she'd done, because she'd had "a good reason" for doing them too, even if in retrospect some of what she'd done had been unforgivable.
"Thank you, Blake, I… really needed to hear that," Vincent returned, an upward lilt in his tone near the end. "I'll be back soon. Don't wait up for me, -"
"Vincentwaitbeforeyougohowdowegetoutof-"
"-bye."
*Click*
*Beeep*Beeep*Beeep*Beeep*
"Um… He hung up."
"WE CAN SEE THAT!" the others shouted, her hands going to her ears.
"Do you at least have his location?" Glynda asked.
"Um… I can't track that information," Blake answered after a pause. "Wait, can you?"
" . . . That's not important."
"We think it's pretty damn important!" the others shouted.
"Well…" Ozpin hummed, hands on his cane and diverting their attention back to him. "That sounded rather heavy."
"Indeed," Oobleck hummed. "Oh well, work for another day," he dismissed, drawing a number of tools from his bag before attempting to chip pieces off the invisible wall.
"So… What should we do now?" Ruby asked.
"Well… until Vincent is brought back here to open your cage, the only thing you can do is wait for us to find a solution," Ozpin hummed as Dr. Veronica took out a number of bizarre-looking tools. "Glynda-"
"I'm already on it. I'll track him down," Glynda said walking off. "With features like his, it shouldn't be too hard."
"I think she just jinxed herself," Jaune said aloud.
"Quite," Ren hummed.
"Sooo…" Jack hummed aloud as he sat on the log bench. "Seeing as how we're going to be here a while, you guys wanna hear a story?"
"Yay! Storytime!" Ruby whooped giddily, taking a seat in front of him.
"Uh, Jack. Question."
"Yeah?"
"Why do you have a beach ball?" Jaune asked as one was taken from the rucksack.
"In case of a beach ball emergency," Jack said with a flat look as though that answered everything.
"Oh, well, okay then…" Jaune hummed at the odd bit of foresight, the Faunus inflating it in a few moments.
The next moment he took out a marker, scribbling something before turning it around, eyes going wide as they beheld a weirdly-accurate representation of the world of Remnant. The continents weren't to scale or anything, but the shapes and positions were all correct. Even all the teeny islands large-enough to make it onto the world map.
"Wow, that's really good," Ruby nodded.
"Map-drawing is important in mercenary work," Jack shrugged. "But more on that later. Now! Tell me this…" he hummed cryptically. "If this, is the world of Remnant, why is it that the people of Vacuo have to pass through Vale in order to get to Mistral? Why does Mistral have to ship all its goods to Vale, instead of going the other way around?"
"Well, obviously that's because… um…" Weiss began, only to fall short.
"The reason for that… Come to think of it, what is the reason for that?" Pyrrha blinked, realizing she couldn't answer either of those questions.
The rest of them were of the same thought as well. As long as they could remember, that was just the way things were, and you simply didn't question it. But now that they were being presented with this and directly questioned…
"Hmhmhmhm," Jack chuckled, as though he were privy to an inside joke. "Good, good, it seems the gears are turning…" he hummed mirthfully.
"Mr. Braxton…" Dr. Oobleck said nervously. "I really don't think-"
"Mmmmm, buh-bye," Jack said turning off the Scroll, muting what they were saying from the outside world. "Now, where was I? Oh, yes."
*NEW WORLD*
Elsewhile…
"Headmaster, I'm really nervous about where that conversation is going…" Dr. Oobleck said nervously as he eyed the students in their enclosure.
"Whatever do you mean?" Ozpin asked casually, sipping languidly from his mug as he watched the teens' faces shift expression.
"I mean, what he's talking about… What he's going to talk about," he said as Jack began to regale them with something quite animatedly. "It's taboo. It's…" he paused, looking around before leaning in and whispering- "forbidden!"
"Technically it's only forbidden for that subject to be talked about in school, and even then, Jack isn't a formally-recognized member of our faculty, so if Jack wants to disseminate choice knowledge at his own discretion the Kingdom would rather he not… that's entirely his prerogative," Ozpin hummed as Jack drew a square around the continents of Remnant, leaving the rest of the beachball conspicuously blank. "This world of ours is bigger than they know, but most spend their lives within the Four Kingdoms, never thinking beyond that. It would be humbling for them to be taught as such," he said as jaws dropped in the cage, minds appearing as if they'd been blown.
"Ozpin… Just who is that guy?" Lilith asked. "His skill level is abnormal, as are those scars, and the way he carries himself…"
"Who indeed?" Ozpin asked aloud. "Who indeed?"
"Uhhh, yeah. That's why she's asking," Brick stated bluntly.
*NEW WORLD*
Back in the box…
"Mr. Braxton… I really don't think-"
"Mmmmm, buh-bye," Jack said turning off the Scroll, muting what they were saying from the outside world. "Now, where was I? Oh, yes. I was about to tell you one of Remnant's biggest secrets."
" . . . You're not pulling our leg, are you?" Jaune asked nervously.
"Jack," Weiss said fitfully. "Is this going to be brain-melting?"
"Oh, don't worry… If you lot can't handle this, I have… ways of putting you at ease," Jack said patting his bag ominously.
" . . . Well that wasn't cryptic at all!" Nora said in a completely straight tone.
" . . . Is it drugs? Because it sounds like drugs," Ruby pouted, crossing her arms.
"Shouldn't we be worried about Dr. Oobleck trying to stop this line of thought?" Weiss asked over her shoulder as Oobleck pounded on the wall, trying to get Jack's attention and failing.
"Weiss," Jack said grabbing her cheeks and turning her around. "Don't worry about it."
"And yet, I worry."
"Do you want story time or not?"
"ShutthefuckupWeiss!" Ruby hissed angrily.
"Ugh, you really are a child…" Weiss groaned.
"Oh, let her be a kid a while longer~" Yang said with a smile that quickly wilted. "We can't all hold onto that innocence forever…" she trailed off, arms wrapping around herself as a shudder ran through her.
"Don't worry, Yang, nothing like that will ever happen again. Not as long as I'm around," Jack said putting a hand on her shoulder.
" . . . You're the best, Jack," Yang beamed.
"Heh, don't I know it~" Jack chuckled.
" . . . I feel like I'm missing something," Ruby hummed.
"Don't ask."
"But-"
"DON'T!" the two said her way in perfect stereo.
"Sooo… Do you two rehearse that sorta thing or what?" Nora asked.
" . . . Getting back on topic," Jack said as he gestured to the improvised globe. "Riddle me this: If what you see here is the whole of Remnant, why then, do people in Vacuo have to pass by Vale in order to get to Mistral, if they only have to travel around the other side of the world to get there."
"? . . . ?"
"The answer… They can't, because what you see here is not the whole of Remnant," he said waving his hand at the map before them.
" . . . WHAT?!" the whole of them gawped, sans Ren and Blake who were more composed than that.
"What do you mean this isn't the whole of Remnant?!" Weiss demanded. "You can't honestly expect me to believe that missing portions of a map have just been overlooked by all of us."
"And once again I reiterate…" Jack hummed as he turned the globe toward him and added something. "Why do the people of Vacuo have to travel east through Vale to get to Mistral, instead of west as the map would indicate?" At this the group became silent. "I see the gears beginning to mesh up there," he said waggling a finger at their foreheads.
"But…" Pyrrha said motioning to the freshly-added square around the caricatures of Remnant's continents. "If there really is more of the world than just these five continents, then how come we don't know about it?"
"You're referring to the control of information, right Jack?" Blake asked. During her time in the Ancient Library with him, she'd found a book about this very subject, more-recent than the others, but none the less important.
"That's right," he answered. "If the populace is led to believe that this… is all there is to the world, that all of this is 'their world', then they'll stay where they can be observed and controlled by the Kingdoms, instead of venturing beyond the range of their control, just like during the Great Age of Piracy."
"Oh, I remember that!" Jaune realized. "When the privateer, Gold Roger, was finally apprehended after the Great War, he mentioned something about the sum total of his treasure, the One Piece, right before he was executed."
"It's just 'One Piece', no 'the' in front of it; that would just be pretentious. But yes, you're correct," Jack answered. "With his dying words, Gold Roger spurred hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands of people to the sea beyond these four Kingdoms you're all so familiar with, in pursuit of the world's greatest treasure."
"But where to?" Ruby asked.
"I'll answer that right now," Jack said as he wet his thumb and wiped away the square before drawing a circle around Remnant. "First off, imagine the Remnant that you know as the numbered side of a billiards ball, and everything else is the white band running around it. First, just outside of what you know is Remnant, you have what is known as the Calm Belt," he said gesturing to the first circle he drew, adding another behind it concentrically.
"Calm Belt?" Nora asked. "Sounds like something you use to fight roid rage."
"Well it's not," Jack sighed. "The Calm Belt is effectively what it sounds like. It's a belt of ocean surrounding the whole of Remnant that's completely calm. No ocean currents, no wind, no nothing. The water there is completely smooth like glass unless something disturbs it from above or below."
"That sounds highly unnatural," Weiss stated as she crossed her arms. She always did wonder why people in Vacuo went east instead of west to go to Mistral, accepting that by-train was just "how things were done"; now that she was getting a definitive answer, it was hard to accept. "Does anyone know why such a phenomena occurs?"
"Nobody knows," Jack answered. "Get used to it, you're going to be hearing it a lot."
"If there's no wind or current, doesn't that mean you'd need a motorized boat to get through it?" Pyrrha asked.
"That's what you'd think, but there's a humongous hazard hiding beneath that glassy water," Jack said as he rounded the ball, scribbling something onto it before turning it around. "The Sea Kings," he said with a grin like one telling a scary story, a wicked-looking sea monster drawn poking its head from the area labeled Calm Belt.
"S-Sea Kings?" Jaune gulped, taking note of the teeth, teeth, oh, and more teeth.
"Remember those A-Class Grimm that Port talked about in Class? Well, imagine something au natural that can eat Grimm that powerful for breakfast, and are large enough to have their own zipcode."
"So… Like sea serpents?" Ruby hummed.
"In essence, yes. The Calm Belt is effectively the nesting ground for Sea Kings of all varieties. Mostly they eat one another, big-fish-eats-small-fish, but whenever boats carelessly pass by overhead, it's like setting off a big neon sign saying 'Eat me, I'm delicious!'. For that reason alone, the Calm Belt has historically been the ultimate barrier preventing people from easily approaching the path to One Piece, if not leaving behind the whole of Remnant altogether," he said drawing a few more Sea Kings of various types at the cardinal directions, surrounding Remnant. "After that, you have the Grand Line. The most dangerous thing out there isn't the Sea Kings or even the people who live out there, but the unusual weather patterns. And when I say unusual, I mean extremely volatile with a capital eeeverything, because the weather can change completely in an instant. Water spouts, storms, blizzards, whirlpools. If you think it, you're not trying hard enough, because the Grand Line will throw everything plus the kitchen sink at you, and then the whole house, and the surrounding neighborhood, and the next town over. And that's just the warmup," he said drawing another concentric ring, wider than the Calm Belt labeled Grand Line. "Now, the Grand Line itself doesn't have any large continents like Remnant does. Instead, its dotted with dozens of islands, the only places where the surrounding waters, weather, and currents are stabilized in a predictable manner. Because of this, the islands in the Grand Line will fall into four basic categories: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. Much like the Forever Fall Forest which is perpetually in a state of autumn, entire islands in the Grand Line experience only one season year-round and rarely deviate. Those that do deviate possess all four seasons of their own, though the default will be the longest season, meaning the Grand Line potentially has sixteen seasons total to experience," he said dotting the Grand Line ring with islands and drawing little seasonal symbols on them.
"Whoa…" Ruby gawped as she tried imagining it.
"So you're saying there could be an island that's summer vacation all the time?" Yang asked.
"Probably," Jack shrugged. "Moving on-"
"Hold on, how can entire islands have their own seasonal cycle?" Weiss asked indignantly.
"No one knows. Now, as I said before, 'moving on'," he interrupted, "is that while in what you know as Remnant, there's a defined north and south, in the Grand Line, things work differently. For one, compasses do not work, in the slightest, due to the unique nature of each island's magnetic fields," he said drawing magnetic fields around each one, "a normal compass will go around in circles. The only way to navigate the Grand Line is with a special kind of compass known as a Log Pose. In essence, it's a compass that locks onto islands instead of poles. A Log Pose can take anywhere from a few hours, to a few days, or even up to a year to set to a new island, meaning you have to leapfrog from one island to the next if you want to move down the line in either direction."
"But couldn't people navigate by the stars, or the sun?" Blake asked.
"Because of the weather variations throughout the Grand Line, the line of sight between an island and the overhanging stars can become garbled, like looking through a trick mirror, or a fisheye lens. The stars you see in Remnant will be completely different from what you see in the Grand Line. For that reason, the Log Pose is pretty much the only way to move around in the Grand Line, and you can't just eyeball it because there's barely any landmarks to speak of."
"What if you wanted to go to one island in particular?" Weiss asked.
"To that end, what's known as an Eternal Pose has been developed. Like the name implies, the needle is permanently set to a single island and can never change, making it so you can go straight from Point A to Point B, instead of zig-zagging from C through Q," he said making a straight line between two islands, and then a zig-zag between the same two as a point of reference.
"So then if the Calm Belt and the Grand Line is like the white band on a striped billiard ball, where's Gold Roger's treasure?" Ruby asked.
"Well that's the tricky part. The Grand Line is actually divided into two halves. What lies beyond the Calm Belt is what's known as Paradise. The reason for that is because compared to the second part of the Grand Line, what you see here is literally a paradise in comparison. In order to get to Roger's Treasure, you have to pass through another oceanic band collectively known as the New World."
"So then you just keep sailing south or whatever direction to get to the New World?" Nora asked.
"You'd think that, but no. There are some pretty hefty obstacles in the way," Jack said drawing another circle past the Grand Line. "Separating Paradise from the New World, first and foremost, is what's known as the Poison Tide," he said making bubbly and skull-effects on the drawing. "The Poison Tide is a deadly ocean current that, like the name implies, is highly toxic. Made of a pure poison that can kill anything that swims in its hazardous waters or breathes in the poisonous fumes that rise up from its surface, the place is literally considered an 'ocean of death'. Ships of the strongest steel will melt like ice cream, and careless Humans that get exposed to it will have the flesh slough from their bone like something out of a horror movie."
"So then… You'd use an airship to get past it!" Nora realized.
"Close, but no," Jack said shaking his head. "Similar to the Grand Line, the weather above the Poison Tide is craaaazy. We're talking entire walls of cyclones that can swat Atlesian battleships out of the sky like they were flies, and anything not specially built to survive the Poison Tide is done for the moment it hits it. Some theorists speculate that the Poison Tide is the collect sum of the entire world's toxic material gathered from all the world's oceans into a single oceanic band."
"How the heck does that happen?" Yang asked.
"No one knows."
"And after the Poison Tide, then you get to the New World?" Ruby asked.
"Nope!" Jack chuckled. "After that, you'll come across the Red Line, a band of continents and archipelagos that have each evolved completely independently of one another and the rest of the world. It's also known as the 'Gourmet World' by the IGO because the Ingredients that can be found there surpass what can be found throughout Remnant and the Grand Line by unfound magnitudes."
"How many magnitudes we talking?" Nora asked suspiciously, eating from the foodstuffs Jack had packed with a completely unwavering gaze.
"Well, let me try to explain it to you this way," Jack said as he tapped at what they all knew to be Remnant. "Remember what I said about Capture Levels? The highest Capture Level you'll ever naturally find anywhere in Remnant is 100. However, Sea Kings in the Grand line easily surpass 100, even the smaller ones. For this very reason, their meat is a delicacy where a single pound of it in some cases can be worth more than the sum yearly income of most countries. As for Gourmet World… well… Try imagining it like an RPG where in Remnant, the highest-level Boss character will only be Level 100, whereas in the Gourmet World, the benchmark for common MOBS is around Level 500, and the Bosses are in the upper thousands."
"Th-Th-They're that strong!?" Jaune gawped as Jack finished drawing differently-shaped islands and archipelagos in the area summarily labeled Red Line/Gourmet World.
"Yes. At the very zenith of the food chain are eight incredibly strong beasts whose ancestors have ruled since ancient times, well before the advent of recorded and even unrecorded history, surviving through countless mass extinction events, and are considered to be forces of natures by their own rights. Their mere presence on these colossal megafauna causes the conditions to become much harsher whenever they so much as walk around. Supposedly, a single footstep can turn a plot of land into barren wastes or an oasis depending on their mood. Others can rip mountains from the ground and toss them like skipping stones, while some can completely decimate areas the size of a whole Kingdom with only a single breath."
"Supposedly?" Ruby asked aloud, whereas everyone wondered what a living force of nature would be like.
"Only the higher-ups in the IGO know the true dangers of the Gourmet World, or even the terrain, so the map I'm drawing here is not an accurate representation. Everyone else only has stories and hearsay to go off of after various information leaks, but let me make one thing clear. As you are now, you wouldn't last even five minutes in the Gourmet World. Hell, you wouldn't even last five seconds before some animal gobbles you up like a grain of rice. The people that traipse through the Gourmet World are comparable to weapons of mass destruction capable of wiping entire countries off the map of Remnant, and the only reason they're kept in check is because of the hierarchy that the IGO has been able to establish. Also, the safe route in-and-out are closely-guarded secrets, though even then the 'safe' paths are still suicide runs for conventional people with conventional means."
"Have you ever been there?" Yang asked.
"Yeah, you sound like you know what you're talking about," Ruby added.
"If by 'been there' you mean 'dragged there against my own will', then yeah, I've 'been there' once before," Jack answered.
The next moment he started shimmying out of his pants, much to the teens' collective shock.
"Whoo! Take it off!" Yang whooped, pumping a fist.
"Can I get a slice of that beefcake?" Nora giggled as Jack's muscular legs became exposed.
"Keep it in your panties ladies, I'm not stripping down all the way," Jack said stripping out of his pants. The next moment he turned his back to them and hiked up his right boxer leg, revealing a jagged band of flesh on the back of his upper thigh just-beneath his buttock that looked like it'd gotten the business end of a shark on steroids. "See this? A wee baby from the Gourmet World decided to make me its snack, and if I hadn't been able to twist around and take a chunk out of its shoulder, it would've taken my leg clean off. You take an x-ray of this leg and you'll still find teeth marks."
At this the others winced.
"Suffice it to say, after what was probably literally five minutes of being there, my godfather dragged me out of that place, and I swore to never go back until, at the very least, I could punch small islands in half like bricks," Jack said pulling his pants back up.
"Is that really as strong as you need to be to go there?" Ruby asked. "If that's the case, I'm surprised anyone even knows about the New World."
"To be fair, there are a lot of ocean routes that bypass the Red Line entirely and drop you off in the New World, which like the Grand Line, you need a Log Pose to navigate effectively. Hell, there's supposed to be an underwater route that goes under part of the Red Line, but I've only ever heard stories, so your guess is as good as mine."
"So then the New World is another band of islands in a crazy-ass ocean just past the Poison Tide and Red Line behind it?" Yang asked.
"Pretty much."
"But wait, if these are all bands wrapping around the world, what about the other side of our planet?" Weiss asked as Jack drew another concentric line past the Red Line and labeled it New World.
"Well…" Jack asked as he whirled the ball around, scribbling something on it before turning it at 180. "No one knows."
Occupying the space that would be opposite the numbered side of a billiard ball was a big, fat, ? mark.
"What do you mean 'no one knows'?" Weiss demanded, sounding rather irritated.
"I mean, no one knows what is on the other side of the planet from Remnant," Jack reiterated. "No one in all of recorded history who ever ventured out of the New World to that region of the planet has ever returned, and we're talking people who could rip through the entire summation of Atlas' military might like it were tissue paper. If whatever is out there can stop those monsters, then you can guarantee that you do not want to be there."
"Well… At the least, aren't there stories about what's out there?" Ruby asked.
"No one knows."
"Seriously, again with that shtick?" Blake asked.
"I am serious. There is absolutely zero information about what's on the polar opposite from Remnant," Jack said with a deadpan. "There are many theories about what exists in that region of the world. Some think there's some kind of black hole that sucks everything in, while others believe there's some form of earthly paradise that no-one wants to leave. However, it's universally agreed that anyone who goes there, is never heard from again. No one ever has returned, which is why all there is to know about it are stories and speculation."
"Does that place at least have a name?" Weiss asked.
" . . . 'The Backyard' is the most-common name for that region of the world," Jack answered. "But like I said, in order to get from here to there, you have to pass through the Calm Belt, the Grand Line, the Poison Tide, the Red Line aka Gourmet World, and then the New World. As you are now, you'd never survive the trip, so you don't even have to worry about The Backyard, and hopefully, you'll never have to go out there. Hopefully the whole of Remnant will be enough for you to live and die in."
"Jack, I think you underestimate our abilities a little too much," Pyrrha huffed indignantly.
Sure, he'd beaten her soundly once before, but that said more about his abundance of ability, than any lack of her own.
The next moment after blinking her eyes, Jack had squatted down directly in front of her, the bottom of his right hand tapping her left cheek with a lazy sideways axe strike.
A moment later, the entire left side of her face was split open, blood gushing out causing the Mistrali to roll out of the way and transform her weapon.
"It took you point-five seconds to ready yourself for combat," Jack said flicking the red-head's blood off his hand. "If you let your guard down for even an instant, you won't even make it through the half-way point, so I'll say this again. You will never survive through the Grand Line, let alone Gourmet World, let alone the New World, as you are now. In fact, Huntsmen as an institution have never left what you know as Remnant, since the law of the land is managed by something completely different."
"But wait," Ruby said grabbing the retconned globe and turning it over in her hands. "If the entire world is so… big," she said eyeing it over, eyes full of child-like wonder, "why don't people just migrate there, away from the Grimm?"
She looked like she wanted to say more, but reconsidered.
"I mean, even if you ignore the Red Line and New World entirely, there's still a lot of real estate to go around," Ruby said gesturing solely to the Grand Line.
"Inspired, but naïve," Jack answered. "First off, while the Grand Line doesn't have Grimm in abundance like Remnant, the natural hazards alone are more than enough to trump most exodus from Remnant. And even if you could get past the Calm Belt without being made a Sea King's lunch, do you really think the locals would just accept a bunch of illegal immigrants trying to colonize?"
"But it wouldn't be colonizing if they were just looking for a new place to live," Ruby countered.
"That's what colonizing means, you dolt," Weiss huffed.
"The Humans of Remnant couldn't even accept the people already living here," Jack said pointing at his secondary features. "They already tried to force all the Faunus onto a penal colony with the last war. Do you really think if any sizeable number of people from the Kingdoms made it to the Grand Line, they wouldn't try to push the Grand Line residents out?"
"Errr…" Ruby paused.
"And even if you ignore the weather, the Sea Kings, and the locals, piracy is a big thing out there," Jack went on to say. "With bandits, the worse they can do is run into the mountains, or ride an airship out if they aren't stepping on any toes, but pirates? Even without a Log Pose, they've had generations to study the waves and the skies, and they can navigate the seas like it's their own back yard. They've cultivated superhuman senses that tell them when the weather's about to get bad, and where the best fishing spots are. Sure, the Grand Line and New World has a Navy, but sea crime still exists."
"So the grass only looks greener," Ruby hummed.
"In this case, I think the water would be bluer," Nora chirped.
"Also, if anyone tried entering the Grand Line illegally, they'd just be sent back into the Calm Belt. The Kingdoms might be important in Remnant, but all their authority ends where the Calm Belt starts," Jack finished. "Even a guy like Ozpin would just be 'another dude' out there, so far from his throne of power."
"But then, how come no-one from the Grand Line ever comes here?" Jaune asked.
"Because there's no profit in it, probably," Weiss hummed. "If getting past the Calm Belt, Sea Kings, and even the weather are as-expensive as Jack implies, then there isn't any reason for a self-sustaining region like the Grand Line to establish trade with a foreign nation. Even if it's mostly water out there, there's probably an abundance of natural resources they could tap into. Though the islands are implied to be insular by their very nature, I imagine trade within the Grand Line would still exist."
"Oh? What happened to all that doubt you had earlier?" Jack asked with a raised brow.
"Let's just say… I'm growing open to new possibilities," Weiss returned, the corner of her lips quirking.
" . . . You mean like anal?"
"NORA!" the rest of her Team gasped, nearly all in the box growing red in the face.
"What?" Nora gawped incredulously. "She was totally eye-banging him just then!"
If Weiss had a drink, she would've sputtered it all in Jack's face.
*NEW WORLD*
"What do you think they're talking about in there?" Brick asked aloud.
"No idea, but it looks like it'd make a hell of a story," Lilith chuckled as the majority blushed up to their ears.
"Merriment aside, I'm growing worried," Dr. Veronica hummed as she eyed a spot on the wall, numerous instruments scattered on the ground around her, largely inert. "By all rights there's nothing here, yet there is; if a paradox had physical form, this would be it."
"Has Glynda had any luck on her end?" Dr. Stein asked.
"It does not appear so," Dr. Oobleck hummed thoughtfully, eyes darting. "Do you think Jack would let me study that when he's finished with it?" he asked pointing to the beach ball.
"I thought talk about the outside world was taboo~" Ozpin hummed.
"There's nothing wrong with studying global topography for my own sake…"
*NEW WORLD*
A while later after story time was concluded, Nora's earlier faux paus was largely forgotten as growling stomachs prompted the entrapped teens to ravage the contents of Jack's sack.
Ruck sack. You perverts.
Between the nine of them, ten if you count Blaire, the food didn't last for very long, though the provisions were welcomed all the same.
"There must be some way out of this box," Ren hummed, idly running his hands alongside it as the sun began to set in the distance.
"If there is, I'm not seeing it," Weiss sighed.
"Oh, you give me crap about my puns, but she gets nothing for that?" Yang asked.
"She wasn't trying to make a pun," Blake sighed.
" . . . Whelp, I'm not too proud to beg," Nora said grabbing a nearby thermos cup and clanking it at eye level. "HEY! VINCENT! I'll take back every mean thing I've said about mimes! Just let us out!" she shouted, everyone's hands going to their ears at the loud- *Klink-link-link-link-link-link-link!* -punctuating the air.
"Nora! Stop!" Pyrrha pleaded.
"Yeah! Splitting headache developing here…" Jaune groaned.
"Wait… Listen," Ren said taking the cup from her and clanking it across the wall, albeit at a sedate pace. "What is that?"
"The bars, duh," Nora chuffed.
"This box has bars?!" Ruby gasped. "I thought the walls were solid!" she said feeling along the walls before her hands suddenly settled around bars.
"Well, they are, but… they've got bars… too?" Nora asked confusedly, taking hold of the bars with both hands. "I guess."
"Or are there bars because you imagined them?" Weiss realized.
"Sooo… if I just imagine a door, will it be here too?" Jack asked aloud.
Doing just-that as he felt along the wall, he felt something knob-like bump into his hand at waist-level. Grasping hold of it with both, the Faunus gingerly turned it, hearing the latch rattle before opening with a *click*
"Huh. Simple solutions for complicated problems," Jack said pulling the knob inward before stepping through the box's perimeter, eyes going wide before they all rushed at the space Jack had walked through, only to meet an invisible wall once again.
"Sooo… it wasn't that Vincent actually trapped you in a box, but he created the cognition that 'you are trapped in a box', hence why when one of you invoked the impression to rattle a cup on the bars, bars appeared, and then doorways in succession," Dr. Oobleck postulated as Teams RWBY and JNPR began to file out of their own doors, Nora going so far as to prostrate herself and kiss the ground once she breached the police tape.
"I… almost literally cannot believe it was that easy…" the heiress hummed as she stepped out and stretched her arms.
"Wait, how come you didn't figure this out?!" Jaune asked Jack's way. "Didn't you spend a half-hour talking at us about Aura Manipulation and 'making the impossible possible', and then that brain-melting world reveal?!"
"To answer your second question, I did. To answer your first question, the reason I didn't figure this out was because it wasn't an Arte. It was an Esper ability," he said causing the blond to clam up, the others' interests piqued. "Psyckokinesis, PK, isn't something that can be learned, only inherited, or to have randomly manifest. They tend to keep to themselves, and the ones that don't I don't brush shoulders with; I've heard too many horror stories about mind-fucking to run the risk."
"Well, that would explain what happened to all the cutlery," Blake hummed.
"Huh. And here I thought that was the Beacon Poltergeist," Yang added.
"Ms. Belladonna," Glynda said curtly, returning from what was clearly an unsuccessful venture. "Have you had any luck contacting Vincent since your… previous interaction?"
"No, ma'am," the secret Faunus replied curtly. "But I think… I think he'll really need a friend when he gets back. Is it alright if I wait for him at his dorm?" she asked pleadingly.
" . . . That should be fine," the woman sighed after a moment, her expression softening at the long-tailed cat rubbing against her stockings. "Be sure to take care of his ladyfriend~" she giggled as she held up the cat, her tension washing away as the purple-haired cat leaned into her palm, before she passed her along to Blake.
"C-Can do, ma'am," Blake returned, walking briskly off.
"Hey Blake~" Yang hummed going after her. "I have a spare apron if you wanna play the role of Japanese housewife when he gets back~"
While Blake was sputtering at the blond's outburst, the police tape lining the box's corners and edges began to fall to the ground.
"Hm. Fascinating. Now that you've escaped the cognition, the box has lost its corporality," Dr. Oobleck hummed as the nudged the police tape with his toe, purposefully crossing through the box's former perimeter. "To be honest I was skeptical about the existence of Espers, but I'll have to reconsider my previous stances now."
"Well, I think we all learned something today," Ren hummed aloud causing his peers to look at him. "Don't talk smack about mimes."
" . . . That's what you took away from all this?!" Weiss asked incredulously. "Not… this!?" she gawped as she jabbed a finger at the "World of Remnant" that Jack had made for them on the beach ball.
" . . . Also yes."
"Is… Is that a reference, or something?" Weiss found herself asking.
*NEW WORLD*
AN:
When I started planning Giant-Slayer, I was still in the process of reading through Toriko, and I found the distinction between the "Human World" and "Gourmet World" so-interesting, that I decided to blend it together with One Piece's circumnavigational topography; albeit, the rings run parallel instead of perpendicular.
ALSO! Having Salem's stronghold be on the opposite side of the planet ("The Backyard" being a reference to Guilty Gear) instead of on a continent surrounded by all the other Kingdoms, just makes for a better long-run story. Especially since the Canon has gone a little… moopy.
That and I'd already turned the dragon-shaped continent on the upper-left half of Remnat's world map into Skyrim from Elder Scrolls V.
Anyway, tell me what you think of this setup. With the worlds of One Piece and Toriko mixed into this, there's definitely room for one-shots, off-shots, and post-graduation content for Giant-Slayer. Plus, it all blends with the "power crawl" thing I started aiming for after changing the "scale" of power levels in Remnant, since the scaling has become a bit inconsistent... I mean, they said Pyrrha was strong-enough to become a fully-certified Huntress before the Battle of Beacon, but what does that even mean when Cinder, a woman with a whole lifetime of training, who killed Pyrrha, was given a hard time by Neo, a career criminal, who got punched in the face by Oscar, a farm hand with barely a month's training under his belt, who came at her from around the corner and completely announced his presence?