BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
Oh, what's that? It's the NEW STORY ALARM!
That's right, my fifth story, titled The Murderess and Her Brain has dropped! Join Neopolitan the murderess and Ozpin her brain friend as they forge a weak alliance in the name of avenging Roman and Beacon while navigating their own distrust of one another. Laughs, cries, fights, and plenty of excitement abound, in...THE MURDERESS AND HER BRAIN!
Chapter 19 – It Matters Now What Happens
In which Jaune Arc faces down Roman Torchwick's paladin and shows the world just what he's made of.
Jaune dove out of the way as a rapid stream of bullets lit up the spot he'd just been standing in. Roman's mech may have had a million machine guns, but the thief didn't seem to know how to aim a single one of them. Jaune chalked it down to him never having operated the paladin before, and not knowing how to use it.
He'd had to keep moving continuously to avoid being toasted, but so far, things were going a lot better than he'd possibly expected. Jaune ducked to avoid a missile, which soared overhead and crashed into a nearby parked car. Kicking himself up off the ground, he dashed forward and narrowly managed to somersault away from another machine gun blast's impact.
Maybe I actually can do this. If I run him out of ammo, the paladin will be no more dangerous than a great big dump truck. I seem to be nimble enough to avoid getting hit. Let's hope my luck keeps up.
Jaune dodged another missile by hitting the floor and sliding under another car. Bullets tore through the metal chassis of the vehicle, raining down a shower of shattered glass from the windows, but Jaune was unharmed. Jumping out from the other side, he dashed out from his position of cover and made a break for the nearest spot where more could be found – beneath an overpass. The many strong concrete pillars would provide Jaune plenty of safe places to hide, and Roman's mech would have trouble navigating the enclosed space.
The rate of fire increased and Jaune had to leap into the air and kick off of one of the pillars to avoid being shot up. He ducked behind another, hoping that it would provide him a moment of solace, and it did. Missiles and bullets shot into the pillar, but all were stopped by the wide beam.
I can't stay behind this one for too long. If he destroys it, the overpass will come down, and everyone driving overhead will be endangered. I'm a huntsman, and it's my job to not let my own fighting spill over onto the ordinary folk of the city.
Waiting until the fire died down, Jaune sprinted away from the pillar and tried to make his way to the next nearest one, but a missile shot it before he could. Thick black smoke filled the air, and Jaune was forced to retreat back to his initial cover…only to watch as a missile destroyed it too.
With no other options, Jaune began to weave back and forth between the lines of fire in the completely exposed area, nimbly escaping the rapidly-fired ammunition that Roman's machine was expelling.
"He's doing it," said Blake, awed and amazed. "He's really doing it."
Team RWBY had arrived, but she'd quickly filled them in on the situation. The quartet now watched from a safe spot on an overlooking rooftop as the altercation between man and machine went down. This was no ordinary combat – this was a blood feud. Roman had set his sights on Jaune, and no hunter but Arc himself was suited to handle the murderous rogue.
Of course, Jaune had this covered. He was constantly in motion, dodging left and right, leaping out of the way, practically dancing his way around the unyielding deluge of artillery coming from the much larger robotic enemy he faced.
"How could you ever have doubted the angelic grace of that majestic hunk of man?" said Ruby, slowly shaking her head from side to side. "Tsk, tsk."
Blake was ashamed to admit that no answer of hers could possibly address her former lack of faith in the Citron Champion.
"There have got to be ten thousand rounds per second shooting out of those machine guns, and plenty of missiles too," whistled Yang. "T-They haven't even so much as nicked his coat! He's untouchable!"
Weiss fell to her knees and began to tear up as she outstretched her arms in astonishment, trying to reach out and touch the masterful display. "It's…beautiful."
"Stupid lemon-lime crusader," said Roman. "Just die already!" He looked down at the onboard display.
'Noncombatant(s) detected. 0.00kSo aura detected [sub-threshold]. Automatic safety interlocks engaged to prevent collateral injury.'
"What?" Roman screamed at the screen. "Why would it…? No, you stupid machine, just shoot the twerp already!"
'Use of lethal force on civilian targets is not permitted. Please refer to user manual section 17.2-d.'
Roman slapped his palm against text, hoping that it might somehow change it. "No! He's just out there, doing parkour and jumping jacks like an idiot! Why can't I just squash this dumb bug already?!"
He could see Jaune Arc, through the viewport. The false huntsman was doing all sorts of tricks that he probably thought were preventing him from being vaporized by the heavy ordnance Roman was packing, but he may as well have been standing still or painting a target onto his chest. The computer on the paladin had some sort of safety measure that prevented it from locking onto a civilian and aimed elsewhere when it did, so the guns were shooting everything at, near, or around Jaune's location – except for Jaune himself.
"Just my luck – I get the biggest gun in the world, and my target is the one person in the world I can't aim it at!"
All that training with Amber had been paying off. Jaune was entirely free of bruises, though he was beginning to get more and more tired. If this kept up, Roman would exhaust him before running out of ammo. As the only reason Jaune was still alive was because he kept moving at all times and never gave his opponent a stationary target, overdoing it like that would not be an option.
Without a weapon, I'll never be able to damage Roman. I need to find some way to get on the offensive and take the fight to him.
Just to be sure, Jaune pinched himself.
No aura.
I don't have the strength to throw anything at him that would even make that robotic armor of his budge. Maybe I can cut some critical circuit or wire, and make its systems fail? Then Team RWBY could come in and sweep up the leftovers.
Jaune scroll rang, but he ignored it. Whoever was calling could wait until after the–
"AMBER!"
Jaune rapidly reached into his pocket and pulled her out, rolling behind a pillar for the brief safety it would provide.
"Hey, Jaune. 'Sup?"
"Amber, what are you doing here? I left you in my room!"
"I texted Nora and Perry last night and told them to slip me into your pocket. Told 'em it was for an epic prank."
Right before I left…Nora hugged me…and I took my eyes off Perry for a second to hug her back…
"But why?"
"You may have given up on yourself, buster, but I haven't! This plan of yours isn't going to work. Even if you self-unlock, which I'm still not convinced is a thing, you'll have to face down a paladin that even I would have been afraid of before I became a maiden."
"What's a maide–"
"So I stowed away in your pocket to teach you a lesson."
Words could not begin to describe how angry Jaune was with his scroll. Just like that, on a whim, she gone and nearly thrown away her life! If anything were to happen to her, Jaune would never be able to forgive himself. The pain of loss would be something he would have to endure for his entire life, and he would never be whole again until the day he ohhhh I get it.
"I've really been an idiot, haven't I?"
"Top shelf, premium grade dumb. See how it feel when a person whose safety you care about doesn't care about it themselves?"
"Yeah," Jaune admitted forlornly. "This really sucks."
"But it's not too late. You just need to get your butt out of dodge before Roman's shots start hitting."
"Can you call my rocket locker? If I had my armor, it might block some of the bullets and improve my chances of escape."
"It's already on the way. I called that son of a gun in the second Blake shot out the lights at the rally."
Speaking of Blake, Jaune hadn't expected her to be so successful at vanishing without a trace when he had told her to. "Can you reach her and the others? They might be able to help me turn the tide."
"I tried calling. They probably all set their scrolls to mute when the battle started. They don't want to miss a second of the esteemed Citron Champion in action," she said sarcastically.
The pillar he was standing behind gave out, and several of the bullets that had been tearing through it zoomed past Jaune's unprotected head. Strangely enough, though, as soon as his cover was destroyed, all of the shots immediately started missing. A missile passed by harmlessly, avoiding Jaune by a wide margin.
"Wait, can he not hit me?"
"That is weird, but you should still get some cover."
"Noted."
Jaune hung up on Amber and began to run.
"Argh, I've had it! Let's end this!"
The paladin's machine gun stopped rotating, and for a second, Jaune deluded himself into believing that he had somehow won.
Then the mech armor itself began to move.
It started slowly at first, with each leg taking a full second to make a single step. Then, as Roman seemed to get the swing of things, the walking motion started to become more and more fluid. Step by step, he turned a walk into a jog, then into a brisk run, then an all-out sprint. In less than thirty seconds, 20 tons of solid metal were bull-rushing straight towards Jaune.
"I'm gonna curb stomp you like a dog!"
"You curb stomp dogs?"
"Shut it!"
Jaune had a head start on the paladin, but Roman was closing the gap between them rapidly. Passing out from under the overpass, Jaune caught sight of the starry night sky, though one of the stars was burning a lot brighter than the others…and it seemed to be growing, too.
"My rocket locker!"
If Jaune could get to it in time, he just might be able to hold out long enough for Amber to call in more reinforcements. His armor wasn't indestructible, but it would probably be enough to let Jaune tank a hit or two before giving out. Right now, with a paladin piloted by an enraged huntsman with a person grudge hot on Jaune's tail, surviving one or two hits sounded like a welcome boon.
More bullets whizzed past Jaune, but this time a few of them ricocheted off the ground behind him and actually passed by the sides of his clothes, tearing his jeans and hoodie. The rocket locker was getting closer and closer, and Jaune was almost there. He just needed to hold out for a few more seconds to get to it…
Then, disaster.
The missile-shaped storage container slammed tip-first into a building and swerved out of the way from the impact. It sailed right over Jaune's head, taking its precious defensive contents with it.
…straight into the paladin.
Jaune skidded to a halt as the destroyed robot armor stopped moving. The locker had struck it with such force that it passed straight through the cockpit, smashing Roman right in the gut, and pushing him right through the seat and back of the machine. There was now a hole in the center of the mech, two feet across and going all the way through. Jaune looked through it to see Roman Torchwick, pinned to the ground by the heavy weight of Jaune's locker on his midsection.
The armor fell forward, loudly slamming into the ground. Behind it, Roman Torchwick's aura faded into the air as it broke.
"Holy mother of potato salad! He did it! He flippin' did it!" squealed Ruby, violently shaking an equally excited Blake back and forth in their shared furor. "He planned it all out in advance down to the millisecond and lured the paladin out from beneath its cover and drained it out of bullets and called in a tactical airstrike on his scroll and calculated the angles and vectors of its flight and used his surroundings to his advantage and blew Torchwick's ugly face up! Velvet was right about everything ever all along!"
"Dang, even I wouldn't have had the guts to pull something that ballsy," confessed Yang. "That sure was a nice one, Vomit Boy. No – that is no mere boy. Vomit Man."
Weiss had fallen to the ground and was now freely weeping onto the floor. "That was art. He's not a huntsman, he's a poet."
The combined weight of Jaune's rocket locker and the armor inside probably wasn't too much for Roman to throw off of himself with aura, but the collision had broken it, and he was now just as weak as Jaune was. At that level of strength, pushing an incredibly heavy half-ton of steel and rocket fuel seemed unthinkable. Torchwick wasn't going anywhere.
Amber was calling the police to come and collect their apprehended criminal, and Jaune was walking over to Roman to survey the damage to his locker.
"Oh, this thing is so busted. I hope Ozpin's not mad. Am I liable for damages if it's an accident?"
"S-Stupid kid," Roman muttered. "I know the truth. You ain't no real huntsman, you're just a phony. This was all luck."
"Yeah, that's not quite right." Jaune crouched down over the defeated thief. "I think I've finally got it figured out. See, I may not have aura, but I'm still a real huntsman. It isn't aura that makes me who I am, and it doesn't need to be."
Torchwick spat and tried to grab at Jaune, who was just a step out of his reach. "You may have pulled a fast one on me, but that doesn't mean jack in the long run. I'm the plankton at the bottom of the food chain, kid, and you've just fast tracked yourself for a meeting with the apex predators. There are people I answer to, and there are people even they answer to." He coughed into his hand, and Jaune cringed when he saw that there was some blood in the mix. "I'd like to see you try your hand at lasting ten seconds with…my mistress."
"Roman, I don't know what kind of weird crap you're into, but I have a girlfriend…I think. I'm faithful to her. Your mistress can do conjugal visits with you in prison."
"Not last ten seconds in bed, you moron! Ten seconds in a fight! Eghhhck!" Roman spit out another gob of blood. "You really did get me this time, though. I guess it's my time…to split."
Torchwick smirked.
Jaune stared at him for a second.
"To…split!"
Nothing happened.
"To…to…split!"
"Uh, you good, bro?" Jaune raised his eyebrows in concern.
Torchwick slammed a fist into the ground. "Darn it, Neo! I bet she's at Vinny's, eating an extra-long deluxe three foot meatball marinara submarine sandwich with melted provolone cheese made from a buttered loaf of sourdough bread with a thin layer of mayonnaise spread on both sides of the bun, crisply toasted in a wood fired oven for no more than three minutes and twenty seconds on each side so that it gets that perfect crunch just the way she likes it but not all blackened, with still-soft, right out of the pan square cuts of bacon about an inch across sprinkled along the whole thing, and three even dollops of ground up shreds of sour pickle in vinegar evenly plopped along one half, and slices from a cucumber fresh off the vine, cut today, gently placed on the other half, all while catching the tail end of the big game in that booth she always asks for when she goes to Vinny's because it's right next to the space heater!"
"Fix this? No can do, sonny boy."
Jaune looked at the spread of destroyed armor he'd laid out in front of Beacon's blacksmith. He'd brought it back hoping that she might somehow be able to undo the damage that it had taken when tearing apart an Atlesian paladin.
"But you made it. Surely fixing it can be easier."
"That's not how it works, kid. Even though it's the same materials, how carefully metal is cooled and wrought makes a big difference. If I were to just hammer it back into shape and weld the busted parts up, it would introduce all kinds of vulnerabilities. Right now, the best I can do for you is melt all the materials down and reforge the whole thing from scratch. It'll take even longer than making it from scratch."
Jaune sighed. "Fine. How soon can you have it done by?"
The woman inspected the shredded scrap metal Jaune had once worn. "Week and a half, at best. Two, most likely."
"Two weeks! It took you an evening to make it!"
"I was a lot less busy then, sonny. Right now, I'm getting all sorts of orders in to improve people's weapons, fix up their breastplates, build 'em fancy hats – all sorts of useless trash, but I'm contractually obligated to do them in the order I receive them. I think it had something to do with the upcoming surge in orders that the Vytal Festival is bringing."
Jaune hadn't even thought about Vytal. A week and a half from now, it would have already started. By two weeks, the tournament would probably have progressed to the singles round. Jaune still didn't even have a new sword, and now he was down a suit of armor too.
"What am I supposed to do until then?"
"Sorry, Citron-boy. I guess you'll just have to use your aura for any defensive measure in the meantime. Armor's nice and all, but it can't be the only trick up your sleeve."
Jaune thanked the woman and left. As much as he wanted to blame her, she wasn't the one at fault here. This whole thing had started because Jaune had prioritized self-unlocking his aura above his own safety, and it was he who would have to face the music.
The conversation between Jaune and Amber was long overdue. He'd been doing his best to put it off, perhaps hoping that if he waited long enough, they wouldn't have to have it, but he knew that wasn't going to fly. Jaune's days of cowardice were over.
Jaune slid through the recent history of his scroll's call logs and dialed the number listed under the name ^*^fo3di3i5$$#TTT. I really need to make a contact for her, stat.
"Yo?"
"It's me," Jaune said. "Jaune," he added, for good measure.
"And it's me. Amber."
"I–"
"You–"
"You go first."
"No, you."
Jaune breathed in.
"Amber, I…I don't know where to start. You've always been a good friend to me, and I can't think of any instance where you led me astray in all the time we've spent together. I was wrong to break my promise to you about not putting myself in danger, and I was wrong to go to the White Fang rally."
"You've got that right. Stupid! If you die–"
"Then you have no one to charge you," Jaune admitted sadly, pressing his hands to his eyes in shame. "I know."
Amber was silent for a second.
"Is that seriously how you see me? How you see us?"
"Amber, I don't mean to make this sound creepy, but you depend on me. I'm your lifeline to the outside world. I need to take care of myself, because if anything happens to me, you'll either die or fall right back into Ozpin's hands."
"Into Ozpin's…Jaune, please tell me that's not it."
"Not what?"
"Are you serious suggesting that the only reason I want to keep you safe is because I'm worried about myself?"
"Why else would you? I killed you, Amber. I wandered around in a place I wasn't supposed to be, and I ruined your life. Honest to the Brothers, Beacon itself is a place I'm not supposed to be. It's all my fault that you're like this, which makes it my responsibility to look after you."
"Jaune, you dummy! You're my friend, not my owner! I'm not a dog that needs daily feedings and to be let out for walks and pissing. I'm a person. If I had resented you for putting me here, I could have at any time asked for you to explain the situation to someone else and give me to them. I don't hate you. Well, I hate you a little for making me nearly lose my mind with worry last night when you nearly got your head knocked off by an Atlesian murder bot, but I don't hate you in the way that I think you worry I do."
"But you have to!" Jaune said, standing up in denial of her statements. "Everyone should! I'm a liar! Every time that you or Perry or Nora or Team RWBY depend on me, I'm lying to you about who I am. You all put your lives in my hands, you trust me to look after you, and I can't even keep up. That's why I need my aura so badly. If I can self-unlock, then I won't be so much of a liability."
"Jau–"
"But I won't!" Jaune hastily rushed to remind her. "I won't try to self-unlock ever again, I promise. I-I mean, I actually promise this time. Instead, I'll…I don't know, I'll think of something."
Amber' screen flashed a bright white suddenly, blinding Jaune. "GAH!"
"There. I can't slap some sense into you, so pretend that I did just now. Jaune, take it from someone who's been around the block a few times: there will be a million and a half chances for you to unlock your aura in the future. It may not seem like it now, but you're going to meet all sorts of huntsmen and huntresses in your time at Beacon, and I'm sure that somewhere along the way, you'll figure out a solution. You're a smart kid. Now, on the other hand, you only ever have one life. If you go and throw that away out of some misplaced sense of responsibility to be strong for your team or for me, you're not doing anyone any favors. Team Juniper doesn't want you to die. I don't want you to die. And it's not because I need you to change my diapers. I like you, Jaune. In a platonic, socially-acceptable-given-that-you're-soooooo-underage-compared-to-me way. We're friends, right? Or do you see me as just a scroll? As a burden?"
"No, I never would – Amber, I trust you more than anyone!"
"Then are you finished with this whole self-unlocking business?"
Jaune sighed. "I am."
It was a nice dream, self-unlocking, but Jaune was finally willing to accept that it was just too good to be true. When the little android girl had presented him with the ability to fix all his problems on his own, Jaune had been willing to drop everything just for a chance to grasp at that glimmering star of hope, and he nearly had. It was a picture-perfect solution to all his problems, and a toxic part of himself that he desperately wished didn't exist had also enjoyed relishing in the idea that he would have been one of the only huntsmen in the world that was completely and entirely self-reliant. Made from scratch, no one else to start him off – all Jaune.
Like most bargains that promised to earn you something for nothing, it wasn't real. It was just smoke in the air, visible but impossible to grasp. The price Jaune would have had to pay, the life he would have had to gamble – he didn't want to lose it. He had his friends, he had his partner, and he wasn't willing to give that up. Not anymore.
"Am, I'm really sorry about breaking my promise to you. Is there any way I can make it up to you?"
"Well, I could give you some sappy BS about forgiving yourself or something, but I get the feeling that it'll take a load of guilt off of you if I give you some physical way to atone. Plus, if I punish you, it'll reinforce your reluctance to do stupid stuff in the future, so here's what I want. And yes, it's gonna hurt."
Jaune gulped.
"V-Velvet."
The rabbit Faunus turned around and started in surprise. "Jaune! Oh my gosh, it's been ages! How have you been?"
"F-Fine. Hey, I was wondering if I could ask you a favor."
Velvet cocked her head to the side. "Whatever do you need, dear friend of mine Jaune?"
"Well…"
Jaune felt the weight of Amber in his pocket. She had insisted on chaperoning just to make sure that Jaune didn't chicken out and also to witness his abject humiliation at the hands of his most hated enemy.
"It's like this. After being a public figure for so long–"
Velvet flashed a genuine smile. "And that fame is well deserved."
"…yes," Jaune said, biting his tongue. "Yes, it is, and I relish it. As I was saying, I keep getting hounded by the media, day in and day out. It's starting to become a problem, and…I was kind of hoping to get back to my roots as a humble huntsman hero of Beacon, so I was wondering if you'd…agree to interview me. T-To set the record straight."
Never again did Jaune doubt the existence of the female orgasm after the ecstasy he saw on Velvet's face that in that moment.
When she came down from her high, she began to rapidly draw things out of her pocket, including a pencil and a notepad. "Oh Dust, this is happening! I've dreamt of this moment for so many nights. I have to grab my camera! No, wait, we should just do this whole thing in my studio. Quickly, Jaune – what's your opinion on doing tasteful nudes?"
"I'm open to anything you suggest," Jaune said through gritted teeth. He could practically hear Amber snickering as Velvet led him to her newspaper clubroom.
"In that case, we'll do a tell all. Jaune Arc's two sides: the superhero, and the normal man who also happens to be a superhero. I've prepared a few questions for occasions like this." Velvet opened up a cupboard and hoisted out a stack of papers at least six inches tall. "There's no time to waste. Okay, question number one: What is your most recent exploit in the name of radical adventure and heroism?"
"I…recently…beat Roman Torchwick in a fight. He's in prison, for real this time."
Velvet started furiously scribbling onto her notepad. "…oil wrestled…and then made…sweet, sweet…okay, next question." Velvet stuck her pencil in her ear and leaned in close. "For the sake of journalistic integrity, and because this is a tell-all, I must fully document the story. Now, when you oil wrestled Roman Torchwick into submission, were you fully clothed? Did your…ahem, 'huntsman weapon' factor into the duel or events leading up to it in any capacity?"
Jaune thought back to how he had snuck into the meeting, tricking the two guards into thinking he was a rooster Faunus. Amber had made him swear to tell Velvet the entire truth about last night, and as embarrassing as it was, Jaune wasn't willing to break another promise to her. "Well, y-yes. Technically, I did–"
Velvet was writing before Jaune could even finish the sentence. "…beat Torchwick to death with his…okay, next question. So, I've been hearing some rumors that you were involved in the recent arrest of Miss Emerald Sustrai and Mr. Mercury Black at the hands of the Atlesian military on suspicions of treason and criminal intent. Would you care to comment on how you singlehandedly hunted them down and handed them over to General Ironwood in exchange for command of Atlas' nuclear arsenal?"
Jaune bit down on his lip so hard that he nearly tasted blood. "…Ruby Rose did find evidence that linked them to the scene of a crime, and I was with her at the time, but I didn't actually–"
"…vigilante peacekeeping force with the Citron Commandos…supreme leader of the Solitas continent…okay, next question."
Stay calm, Jaune. Amber only made you promise to go through with this for one interview and the piece that comes out of it. After that, it's no holds barred.
Don't think about the news article that's going to ruin your life, Jaune. Just focus on the fact that Velvet's going to be eating out of a tube for the rest of her life as soon as she finishes printing it.
"So, when's the article going to come out?" Jaune asked at the close of the interview. "Sometime soon, I hope?"
"Oh, don't you worry, Citron Champ." Velvet's ears wiggled. "I've got something good planned for this one. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go enjoy one of life's greatest joys – solid food!"
Don't get too used to it, bunny girl. Your time will come soon.
"That was cruel and inhumane," Jaune said aloud to Amber, once Velvet had left the room. She didn't respond, but he knew that if she did, it would probably be little more than insane giggling at his expense. "But I think I've learned my lesson: keep my promises."
On that note, he had another action item to check off his agenda based on an implicit promise he had made.
Nora was inside their dorm room when he got back. He'd filled her and the rest of the Junipers in on the attack the night of, and they'd all expressed the expected worry and concern. Jaune had assuaged their concerns by explaining that Amber had already talked him out of every doing anything stupid like that again.
Ren had been…weird about it, to say the least. Jaune could tell that concern had overridden any lingering resentment the Mistrilian boy felt towards him, and he'd seemed genuinely worried for Jaune's safety at the time. Still, there was just a gap between them that felt like it was going to grow wider every time they had yet another awkward exchange. Ren was taking his time on getting over whatever issues he had with Jaune stealing his girl from him, and Jaune was happy to give it to him, but this could only go on for so long before it started impacting their performance. It was Team Juniper, not Team Junipe+R. That sounded like some anime opening title, not a professional team from Beacon.
Anyways, Ren wasn't the focus of Jaune's attention right now. Nora was.
"Hey," Jaune said to her.
"Hey is for horses, of which I have developed a crippling fear due to childhood trauma involving a horse Grimm that ravaged my home village beyond recognition. In other words, hey yourself, mister."
"So, I was wondering. Are you free tomorrow?"
Nora turned around in her chair. "As a matter of fact, I do happen to have an unfilled four-hour block in my schedule between slaughtering masses of Grimm in the forests surrounding Beacon for my own amusement and going to bed. Why?"
"Nora Valkyrie, would you please go on a date with me?"
tl;dr Jaune's level is too low to be attacked by a boss enemy
Next Chapter: You Give Love A Glad Name
In which Jaune Arc forgot to tag this as poly and also underage.
Author's Notes
Ah, finally time for Jaune and Nora to consummate their love. Almost there…
Did I need to describe Neo's sandwich in such vivid detail? Yes, yes I did. It's a major plot point and deeply establishes her character. And if I hadn't, I bet everyone would be asking 'Hey, why didn't Neo save Roman like in canon?'
You bunch of whining babies...nothing ever pleases you people.
Happy rats, and don't do crime!
