Disclaimer: I know nothing of the greater RWBY canon nor have I indulged myself in watching anything past Chapter 5, so my knowledge on subjects I will be covering is conceived of clips I have been accumulating over the past few months.
The expressionless myriad of the ocean's waves glitter; bathed in warm sunlight as the dawn of the night dances around fleeting colors. The waves lick at the hexagonal beach, mute compared to sparkling waters. A dark mark is left behind as the waves recede into the ocean. Over and over again the waves lap the stretches of sand as time stands still for a long moment.
A head of hair, both dark and light in nature, lays planted firmly within the sands. Face first she lays as all but her ability to breathe had been stripped from her upon landing in this strange location of fairytale. Slowly, her eyes flutter open as the fatigue in her body finally begins to recover while she lies there in the sand.
The custard-styled lady flips over onto her back before sweeping the particles of sand away from her eyes. She lies there for a while, gazing up at the orange sky as dusk begins to set around her. Seemingly out of breath, Neopolitan takes these valuable seconds of consciousness to fill her lungs and rest her weary body.
Next to her lies an umbrella, covered in a layer of sand and slightly damp from the constant lap of the ocean. The pink and brown hues of the umbrella muddied with wet sand, drowning out the beautifully vibrant colors it once held.
As the mute woman sits up from the sand, letting the loose bits of grain fall off her back, she lets out a great sigh as she looks out towards the endless expanse of the orange-stained sea. A cool and deep wind gently blows across the barren beach, though an unfamiliar sensation tingles her head. The wind flowing freely across her dual-colored hair brings alarm to the otherwise melancholic villain.
Twisting her head from side to side, she looks for that which she had lost during the fall. She spots the object of her desire mere feet away from her, sitting upright against the harsh impact of the waves which desperately try to take it out to sea. Neopolitan gracefully rises to her feet, taking in a deep breath before gently strutting over to beside the hat. She stands above it, simply watching it battle against the waves trying to pull it in fiercely. The black hat with a red stripe spanning the base of the bowl captures the woman's attention, feeling oddly at ease given the present circumstances when gazing upon its silhouette.
She gently picks it up out of the water and gives it a quick pat to brush off the accumulating sand. She holds it gently in both hands, affectionately rubbing her thumb against the rim. Her delicate skin traces along the beautiful craftsmanship, pausing over each bristle of fur lining the rim until she no longer felt the soggy dampness that had laced itself along the bottom of the hat. She places the hat on her head, holding back the brisk breeze and allowing the woman to finally take a look at her surroundings.
She turns her back to the ocean and before her lies a wall of demented trees, twisted and malformed by the contents of the water. They appear to have been organized with no rhyme or reason, a thick blanket of green and browns layering the orange skyline. The further she looks into the forest, the deeper black it appears to be until she can no longer see what lies beyond the lush foliage.
As Neo became more aware of her surroundings, so too did she begin to feel a soreness within her hand. She examines each side of her hand, a tender swollenness beginning to form where that vile woman had spiked a relic into it just moments before… before she ended up here. Wherever here is.
This place does not seem anything like the shores of Remnant. A calm and serene backdrop against a completely foreign landscape. Wherever she ended up, Neo knew she was no longer in Remnant. Staring into the forest, she can almost feel its cold glare staring back at her. The dark snarl mocking her for her mistakes. She curls her hand into a fist and grits her teeth as she can almost hear Cinder's haughty laughter echoing through it. Then a certain silver-eyed huntress' piercing laugh follows, the combination of the two enough to drive Neopolitan mad with fury.
The custard-haired villain kicks up the sand next to her to unearth the pink and brown umbrella which zips into her hand with executed grace. She storms off into the deep woods, unsure as for what lay in store.
He doesn't remember anything about the fall, simply a black pit forever stretching down into nothingness. Though it felt like ages he had been twisting around in that black void, it's even harder to say for certain just how long he'd been lying upon the grainy sands of a beach. A head of blonde hair lays comfortably in the sand, the warmth of the sea breeze and the sounds of the ocean gently lulling him to continue his sleeping.
The warmth of the sun's rays gently plaster the knight's face with its radiance, his skin glowing in the orange dusk of the day. The ocean waves creep ever closer to Jaune, dancing around his body like it is trapped in a waltz. The white foam of the water gently tickles the Blonde's feet, slowly rousing him from his slumber.
Suddenly, he gains consciousness all at once as he sits up quickly, desperately shouting a name.
"Pyrrha!"
He reaches out toward the ocean, the setting sun breaking through his open palm and blinding him for a moment. His racing heart beating faster than his mind can think. The knight breathes heavily, shaking his breath with each new exhale. He spends a few moments reaching out towards the sun before his mind finally catches up to him. His breathing slows and he hangs his head back to look up towards the sky in defeat.
Holding his arms behind him to support the rest of his weight, he stares up at the oranged tainted view above, slowly recalling what had transpired before his untimely fall. He takes one last deep breath to slow his heart while feeling around the sand for his trust shield and sword. His head is throbbing from the fall, clenching it with his free hand he brushes over his weapon with his other. Covered in sand, he hardly recognizes the gold accents of his shield as they've been muddied from the constant lapping of the ocean.
Picking himself up off of the beach, he stands up to hold his shield out in front of him. Watching as it glistens in the setting sun. An idea crosses his mind as he looks out over the ocean. Where in the hell was he? The last thing he remembers was failing to catch the portal to Vacuo and falling deep into the abyss, where he had assumed he would die. But this couldn't be Vacuo, there is too much water. Not to mention the lush garden of green behind him. The trees do not appear to be of any he can recognize, even at a short glance they're obviously not from Remnant. But most importantly, if he had survived perhaps his friends did too.
Jaune attaches the shield to his arm as he notices his aura slowly depleting. The terrifying visual of his aura visibly shrinking gives Jaune an adrenaline spike.
"What the…"
He needs to find his friends, and fast. Though his stores of Aura are grand, they aren't infinite, and sooner or later this strange place at the end of the Abyss will drain his aura dry. So far his only ideas were to sit here on the beach and wait for others to show up, or traverse into the woods in search of food, shelter, and warmth for the nights ahead.
"Don't worry guys. I'll make sure to find you." He says, trying to reassure himself. It only worked because the thought of traversing through this twisted forest was enough to push the thought temporarily to the back of his mind.
Jaune forges ahead into the forest, clearing a path with his blade as he calls out his friends' names.
"Ruby!?"
"Yang!?"
"Blake!?"
"Weiss?"
His voice increasingly becomes strained as each of his calls has a resounding reply of silence. Jaune had traveled through so much jungle that the edge of his blade had become a pastel green from the amount of plants he had sliced with it. All the walking and shouting is starting to weigh heavily upon him, both physically and mentally. The thought of being all alone without any of his friends terrifies him, more so than any monster he may find lurking around in the shadows.
Jaune collapses onto a rock he found in the forest, panting heavily as sweat drips down his brow. Night had fallen, and Jaune still did not have shelter nor warmth. And least of all food, he hadn't seen even a small insect much less a mammal whose meat might be particularly divine at this moment in time.
As Jaune rests on the rock dreaming of all the meats he wishes he could have, the clanging of metal off in the distance catches his attention. Every few moments there would be the sound of steel clashing together, followed by a long period of silence. It takes Jaune nearly a minute to realize what he is hearing is not part of his imagination but a sound occurring throughout the pitch-black night sky.
He quickly gets up from his rock, standing and looking around to determine the direction the sound is coming from. He closes his eyes and waits for the sound to occur again. Each time however it seems like it is appearing from a different direction. The echoes of battle bounding off of nearby cliffs, scattering the location of the fight.
Jaune becomes frustrated with himself, unable to trace the sound to any specific location. Against his better judgment, he decides to follow his gut and head towards the North.
The blonde-haired knight did not have to travel long before he happened upon the source of the loud metal clashes. Jaune slices his way through into a small clearing that seems to be the battleground for the fight taking place. In the night it's nearly impossible to see, only the silhouettes of bodies flinging about in the moonlight make the action visible. A large creature bearing massive horns and a lengthy tail seems to be locked in a struggle with a humanoid figure.
"Ruby?!" Jaune calls out to the blob of darkness.
Immediately the fighting stops and he can feel both sets of eyes peering directly at him. The horned creature tilts its head as it rushes with the speed of a falcon poised to take out Jaune. Jaune extends his shield and blocks the incoming rush. But the force of the charge sends Jaune flying as he tumbles around softly in a patch of greenery. At that moment, the beast yelps furiously. The reckless attack had given the unknown humanoid the chance to score a few hits on the monster, redirecting its attention back onto it.
Jaune gets up and brushes himself off before pushing ahead to rejoin the battle. The giant shadow cries out in agony as the unseen humanoid makes several more hits against it, bringing the beast to a knee. Jaune grunts heavily as he brings his sword to bear against the tough leathery skin of the creature. The creature's tail spins around and slaps at the sword, attempting to dislodge it from its skin before it penetrates any deeper.
The clash of the blade against the steel-like tail sends sparks flying into the dead brush cast to the side, igniting a small blaze that quickly begins to grow out of control. Finally, now that there seems to be a fledgling of light caressing the shadows of the battlefield, Jaune can finally get a good look at what he was fighting.
"P-A-I-N. A-G-O-N-Y." It's looming face screams at Jaune in a distorted cry of broken English.
The skull of the monster jitters around rapidly as if trying to examine everything everywhere all at once.
"Y-O-U. K-I-L-L. D-E-A-T-H." The jabbering creature utters as its lengthy claws swipe at Jaune. The blonde knight barely can hold up his shield in time as the monster's claws screech across his steel, sending even more sparks to feed the ever-growing flame.
From his right, another claw makes its way towards his exposed right side but is stopped just before it connects by a sudden slice. The shadowed Humanoid cuts its arm clean off, stopping the claw in its tracks as it squirms on the ground for a moment before falling limp.
The creature screams out in pure agony as its second claw swipes at the figure and connects in a painful display as the figure is sent reeling from the wound. The fire grows ever stronger until it becomes a raging inferno, illuminating the entire battlefield. The slumped figure of the humanoid remains shadowed as they lay sprawled out on the ground, curling in pain.
Jaune quickly cleaves off the monster's other arm, resulting in another high-pitched scream from the creature.
"P-A-I-N. A-N-G-E-R. F-E-A-R. R-U-N. F-L-E-E." It cries as it dashes off into the black forest, whimpering cries of agony as it flees.
Just as it flees, the shadowed person stands upright despite the wound they had received from the monster. Jaune sheathes his sword and starts to walk over to the figure. The figure however does not seem too keen on letting him approach. Just as Jaune is about to say something, the fire rages brightly behind him, casting light in all directions briefly. He knew that face, he had seen it on many of his friends, and most recently right before Cinder cast both his friend and his enemy into the abyss.
He grips his sword tightly as the crackling of fire roars behind him.
The person he stood before was none other than Neopolitan herself.
"You…" He manages to make out.
Neo seems just as excited to see him as Jaune is to see her. The heterochromatic villain readies her umbrella, covered deeply in the creature's blood. From its tip extends a small foil blade, poised and ready to strike at any moment. She tries to hide the fact that she's seriously injured from the knight, he could not know right now was the weakest state she's ever been in.
"What did you do to my friends…" Jaune asks strongly, commanding her to reveal to him the truth of the situation.
Neopolitan simply just stares in wild rage at the knight. Another one of Little Reds lackey's bent on killing her. This song and dance had been done to death time and time again since that first meeting all that time ago in Vale. How far they had come since then.
The two circle each other wearily. Each watching for any sign the other may make the first strike. The two have become encircled by a wall of flame on every side as the brush around them burns with no end in sight. Noticing there seemed to be no escape from the confrontation, Neo readies herself to attack.
Like a caged animal backed against a wall, Neopolitan dashes forward with her umbrella, swiping at Jaune. The blonde-haired knight moves swiftly out of the way of her lunge before swiping at her with his own sword. Neo gracefully flips out of the way while managing to kick Jaune's sword heavenward with the heel of her shoe.
Neo's umbrella comes back at Jaune as she finishes her acrobatics by throwing it right at him. An attack that he doesn't see coming quickly enough but luckily his shield manages to bounce it away and back into the hands of its wielder.
"How could you trust Cinder… After the fall of Vale, you expected she'd be the one to help you?" Jaune wildly starts throwing accusations. Neo furrows her brow and sends another volley of attacks in his direction, each of which is blocked by his shield, only occasionally allowing him to get in an attack.
Neo attacks with her leg, swinging it against his shield to allow herself to bounce off of it and put a little bit of distance between his sword and her. She clutches her side and finds her hand has turned crimson with her own blood, the result of the Jabberwalker's swipe on her. She looks up to Jaune as he rapidly closes the distance between them, forcing her beneath his shield as they struggle for power.
"You trusted... the woman who killed Roman. And Pyrrha. And countless others…" He spits out at her. "Only for the expected outcome to occur. Cinder used you until she no longer could find a use for you. Then she tossed you aside like everyone else. How could you have been so blind?"
Neopolitan's eyes spark at the mention of Roman, the folds of her mouth dipping into a frown as her eyes focus like the blade of a dagger. She rolls out from under Jaune and hits him with the blunt side of the umbrella, just barely missing the steel tip from his most vital organs. Jaune falls to the ground, quickly turning around with his shield up before Neo could get a second chance at striking him.
Neo instead jumps ontop of Jaune's shield, desperately trying to strip it away from him. But Jaune's grip on his shield is strong, years of developing his shield arm kept the steel in place. But Neo's ferocity was driven by anger. How dare his name fall from those lips. He is not deserving of such a luxury.
How dare you speak of my failures.
"You need to let go…" A faintly familiar disembodied voice rings through her ears, startling the heterochromatic. She all but releases Jaune from her attack and desperately looks around the forest, swinging her head violently to check for the source of the voice. Of his voice. A voice she hadn't heard since that night in Vale.
Jaune takes this brief opportunity to push against her, butting her head against his shield and sending Neo away from him, dazed and confused for just long enough that she couldn't see Jaune's rapidly approaching blade.
Neo makes no attempts to dodge out of the way. But Jaune at the last second bashes her against his shield and sends the two falling to the ground once again, this time with Jaune on top and overpowering the smaller Neo.
"What was that?! What did you just do?!" He screams at her.
Through her dazed state, Neo shakes her head no. She has no idea what just occurred. But for a brief second, it sounded like Roman Torchwick had spoken to hear. It couldn't have been imagined, because the blonde-haired knight heard it too.
"What do you mean you don't know?! Why would you put Pyrrha in my head you maniac?!"
Now Neo was thoroughly confused. Who was she again? The name sounded familiar but only in passing. Like the name of a celebrity you had heard of only from the passing word of another's infatuation. Her confusion is short-lived as Jaune's rough treatment causes her wound to flash in agony. The dual-haired villain writhes in pain.
Jaune eases up on his treatment and looks down at Neopolitan, someone who had constantly been a thorn in his and all of his friends' side. Someone whom he had never seen even a scratch upon. Someone who was now writhing in pain.
The golden knight removes his shield from her to see the bleeding wound the Jabberwalker had created etched clearly across her skin. She hadn't shattered into a thousand pieces, she hadn't been using her semblance to fight the creature. She was in real pain and from the expression written across her face he could tell she wasn't accustomed to the feeling of being in unimaginable pain.
"Your semblance… You…" Jaune makes out as he can see Neo's life leaving her eyes.
Jaune decides as he watches the color drain from her skin to do something he may regret. This person, no matter how cruel she may be, had suffered at the hand of Cinder as well. And more importantly, she held information vital to him. He couldn't just let her die.
Jaune holds out his hands and begins channeling what little remains of his semblance to his hands, performing a healing rite upon the gashing wound. The girl's blood had pooled beneath her, reminding Jaune of the act he committed against Penny. The sound his sword made as it tore through her. The look on her face as the life left her eyes. Then he imagined how Pyrrha must have looked in her last moments as well. What she must have been thinking. And then he returns back to Neo. What must be going through her head as she lays on her deathbed? Perhaps she wishes for vengeance. Or maybe she regrets her actions. He would hear all of it.
Jaune's semblance begins to heal the deep-cut wound as slowly but surely, the color of Neo's face returns. The fire surrounding them begins to burn a bit more dimly, no longer surrounding the two of them. It almost appears like Jaune's semblance is using the energy of the flames themselves to heal the wound. Jaune can feel the last of his aura draining while the wound closes without even a scar to prove its existence. Just as he can feel the last of his aura leave his body, Neo's wound completely heals and her heartbeat begins to return to normal.
He may regret saving her life one day. But for now, in this strange land, he needs her. And he needs to know why he heard Pyrrha whispering into his ear.
…
It takes some time before Neo would come to. So long that the fire that had once been surging around them was all but a bonfire crackling in the background. Jaune had watched over her for nearly the entire time, only taking his eyes off of her to gather sticks to start a campfire near her unconscious body. The exhausted Jaune looks over her with a wave of emotions swirling around in his head. He knows that having to let her die might have been easier, but if she knows even a little about anything that's happened so far it will have been worth saving her for.
Jaune sighs as he gets tired of staring at the one who had attempted to kill them more times than he cared to recall.
"I can't believe I saved you…" He says aloud to himself, just to make sure he isn't dreaming.
Just at that moment, Neo sturs. Her eyes fluttering open as she turns over onto her side. Her arm unconsciously reaches over to grab her umbrella but finds nothing but empty air. Jaune had taken her umbrella and hidden it beside him so that when she returned to this world she wouldn't immediately try to kill him again. A possibility Jaune hadn't ruled out.
Suddenly, as if Neo had remembered exactly what had happened beforehand, her head jumps to Jaune as she immediately returns to her fighting stance. Jaune holds his hands up defensively as he speaks.
"Woah woah, hold it Neo. I just want to talk." He says plainly. But despite his pleas, Neo remains on edge. "Please. Neo. I know we haven't exactly seen eye to eye these past few years. But right now neither of us have a choice."
Neo crosses her arms and raises an eye brow, pointing over into the deep dark jungle which they both had emerged from earlier in the evening.
"If you want to walk away be my guest, but you've already almost died once fighting those things. Do you really want to try and take on another one of them?" Jaune attempts to see reason with the girl, still holding up his hands in a gesture of peace.
Neo sighs and sits down directly opposite Jaune around the fire. She rolls her hand and her eyes as she prepares herself for the bombardment of questions she is likely going to receive.
Jaune nods in appreciation. "So… I noticed your semblance has been…" He trails off at the end, gesturing to the location the wound had once occupied. Neo hangs her head, not deeply to the point where she is ashamed but obviously, the topic is sensitive to her.
She waves her hand dismissively, watching and gauging Jaune's reaction as only a dust of pink leaves her fingers. Jaune looks closely at the action and notices that her aura too has been depleted.
"Then we're the same. I spent the last of my aura keeping you from dying, and it seems you too have exhausted yours." He says, motioning to Neo's example. "This place… seems to be blocking the formation of aura… you don't happen to know what this place is, do you? Where my friends are?"
Neo shakes her head. She stands up like she's about to start changing into another form as if to explain how she ended up here, but finds her semblance unresponsive. She sits back down sheepishly, crossing her legs over each other.
"No no, I believe you. If you did know where my friends were, likely you wouldn't be sitting around a campfire talking to me." Jaune jokes, trying to ease the tension between the two. Neo only glares at his poor attempt. Jaune's smile fades from his cheeks as she stares harder at him with each passing second. He returns his gaze to the fire, poking it with his sword to spread apart the logs and allow for more air to pass through.
As he stares longingly into the controlled inferno, the blonde-haired knight thinks over the situation facing him. If they want to survive and find answers, their enemy is their only hope. But he would need to be able to trust her, and so far this dual-colored hair villainess has done nothing but constantly get in the way of Team RWBY and JNPR.
The more he thinks and loses himself in the roaring fire, the more he is reminded of just how little he knew about Neopolitan. What are her goals, she really hates Ruby but certainly she's got other ambitions, right? What about simple things like where she grew up? Who is Neopolitan? Behind the Pseudonym and the mind-bending reality of her semblance, who is the girl deep inside?
Neo snaps her fingers to get his attention. She had been waving her arms all over the place attempting to earn his gaze as he stared deeply into the fire with no success for quite a while as he pondered pensively.
Jaune looks up curiously, the tips of his golden hair swaying with the movement. "Yeah? What's up?" He asks.
Neo fiddles with her thumbs for a moment, racing through her head as she looks upon Jaune with a range of emotions swirling around the irises of her eyes. She slowly rises from the ground and removes her hat, holding it in her hand while casting her gaze towards where her wound once was. She looks back up to Jaune and bows to him in the manner she had been taught all those years ago.
Jaune is caught completely unaware as the usual stone-cold assassin seems to soften for just a moment.
"I-It was nothing, really. You should get some rest, I healed your wound but you'll be exhausted for quite some time. Coming back from the brink of death is terrible for your body." He says in response to the girl's actions. Trying to make it seem like it wasn't as big of a deal as it was. In reality, only one man had ever gotten the mute to express her thanks before. To her, saving her life was a bigger deal than either of them were letting on.
That doesn't mean she was about to go trusting him enough to let her guard down for long enough so that she could sleep.
Neo crosses her arms with a disapproving glare, tilting her head down and raising an eyebrow.
"If you're worried about me doing something, trust me when I say I could have always left you to die." Jaune says defensively, causing Neo to crack an ever-so-slight smile. At least he was more trustworthy than Cinder. Not that the bar was that high.
Neopolitan points to her eyes before pointing to Jaune's dramatically. Pointing the two fingers she used forcefully in his direction.
Jaune raises a hand as if swearing an oath. "I promise no harm with come to befall you. I'll put out the fire and head to sleep myself in a moment. But your body needs to rest. We've got a long morning ahead of us."
Neo lays down on the ground, using some only slightly singed straw as a pillow. She makes a point to reiterate her previous threat by pointing at her eyes and then pointing at Jaune's. Jaune nods his head, understanding the intention of the threat. She turns around to face the dark and twisted woods, feeling the intense weight of complete and utter exhaustion pull at her eyelids. She hadn't felt all that tired until that very moment as her mind slowly slips out of consciousness. The heterochromatic villain drifts off to sleep as Jaune is left sitting on a log, watching the flames burn brightly.
'Jaune, it's time for you to let go…'
Jaune closes his eyes tightly, shutting out the murmurs of a ghost long since dead. Her voice was clear, like she had whispered it to him in the middle of his fight with Neo. At first he thought it a trick at the hands of Neo's semblance. But after all that has transpired since then, it seems impossible that her semblance is the one to blame. She herself looked surprised to hear a voice at that moment as well. Perhaps we are a land between the living and the dead, a place where the dead can talk to the living. Or maybe we are already dead and these voices are the sounds of our loved ones calling us to join them.
A chill runs down Jaune's spine, his body physically shivering at the thought that he and the others are dead. If you could still feel pain, and potentially die in the afterlife then this is no afterlife at all. They were still very much living.
The more he thinks, the more he can feel sleep take him. He wanders into the forest to find something like a blanket he could use to keep himself warm against the backdrop of the cold night air. Finding a gigantic leaf and returning to the campsite, he stamps out the fire until not even embers are left burning.
Jaune takes one last look at Neo before laying himself down on the ground, stripped of his armor, and falling to sleep against the backdrop of the night.
Neo wakes covered in the wet dew of the morning, plastered in glistening beads gathered around her body. Last night left a lot to be desired in terms of comfort, but the rest felt amazing in terms of getting her energy back. She finds herself draped in a large leaf from one of the low-hanging trees, something she had not placed upon herself before sleeping.
Through her grogginess, she can hear someone humming to a vaguely familiar tune. As she rises from her slumber, with the brown side of her hair stuck to her face, she attempts to open her heavy eyelids. She opens her mouth and stretches out her arm, arching her back to stretch out all of her aching muscles. Each pull and strain feels like an entire massage on her exhausted body.
Her face contorts pleasantly as her vision focuses, taking in her surroundings. The first thing she notices is that the color of the sky is not the usual color she had grown to know over remnant. This place has a green sky and not only that, this entire land seems to be overwhelmingly green now that she can see it in the daytime.
Neo looks towards the smoldering campfire now completely ash as she notices the blonde-haired knight with his back towards her. Neo watches as his head turns side to side, scanning the jungle for any more of those monsters while she caught up on some sleep.
The ice cream-haired villainess slowly rises from the ground and makes her way over to him. The tune he's humming grows in familiarity as she approaches. Without being noticed, Neo manages to sneak up on the knight before tapping him on his shoulder.
"Agh! Oh. Neo. It's you… Geez you almost gave me a heart attack." Jaune says, relieved he wasn't about to be jumped by another monster.
Neo grabs her hip with her arm, plastering a smug smile across her face. She narrows her eyes a bit and breathes out through her nose proudly, causing Jaune to roll his eyes.
"Yes I'm sure you could have stabbed me in the back if you had a certain foil of yours." He also says smugly.
Neo looks around at her hips, then all over the ground of the camp until her eyes focus in on Jaune who is swirling her Umbrella around confidently. Neo stamps down her foot in anger as he so easily had her beat. She holds out her hand, demanding that he return her umbrella at once.
"First." Jaune begins, moving Neo's umbrella further away from her. "I need to know if I can trust you. And not the kind of trust that is broken as soon as you get what you want, you need to swear to me that we'll go our separate ways once this is all said and done."
Neo thinks about his proposition for a moment. He never explicitly mentioned Little Red in his agreement, but she doubts he'll allow that to fly just as any physical harm to himself. Then again she could always just lie. Then why was she having so much trouble doing so?
The heterochromatic villain's thoughts get stuck on the fact that she doesn't want to lie. It has always been the easiest thing for her to do, why now? Her arm tenses and shakes briefly, the battle waging in her head translating to her body. She has fought and killed so many, sometimes just because she felt like it. Her own damn parents are dead because of her. Was it the fact that he had saved her life, or the betrayal of those closest to her that has left Neo with nowhere to turn?
Neo relents, she takes a step back and nods her head. The intensity of her decision coursing through her irises as Jaune is momentarily surprised.
"Here." Jaune reaches out with the butt end of her umbrella facing towards her, asking her to take it from him. Jaune watches as the one who has spent most of her adult life trying to hunt down his friends (and indeed for a moment he believed she succeeded) gently grabs her umbrella and moves it free of Jaune's grasp. She gives it a few swirls before placing it across her shoulder. "But mark my words, Neopolitan." He continues. "The moment you act even a little suspicious I can return you to the condition in which I found you."
Neopolitan crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow.
"We should get going. Who knows how long it will take to get some answers. Best to start now." He says plainly, looking out towards the horizon.
Neo points to an object in Jaune's pocket. One every citizen of remnant recognizes.
"Hmm? Oh! My scroll! How could I have forgotten!?" Jaune shouts out loud, leaving Neo to plant her face into her palm in frustration.
Jaune quickly opens up the scroll and swipes until he reaches his contact list in which he selects Ruby's icon. The scroll vibrates softly a few times, indicating that the scroll is attempting to establish a connection. Just when Jaune is about to give up hope, a voice calls on the other end.
"Jaune?!" the familiar voice of his first friend at Vale asks almost immediately.
"Ruby! Where are you!? What's happened!? Is everyone alright!?" He asks desperately into the scroll.
"Jaune we-" His scroll shuts down slowly, showing the flashing icon of a dead battery as its life is depleted. Jaune curses the wind and grunts in frustration. He then looks over to his temporary traveling companion and pleads with her.
"Neo! Let me use your scroll! If we can find the girls we can all think of a way out of here!"
Neo holds up her broken scroll, split completely in half during the fight the night before. Jaune's illuminated face now droops. He takes a long deep sigh.
"I guess we're back to square one."
The heterochromatic woman closes her eyes and nods her head. Of course, it would be this one she got stuck with.
Neo taps her wrist with an eyebrow raised, a signal Jaune immediately recognized. He looks at the green sky and the sun overhead, noticing its drastic climb in the past few moments.
"You're right. We need to get moving, travelling is dangerous already. I don't want to be left exploring in the dark." He says, grabbing his sword steadily. Neo points up to the mast of a tree, it's towering lumber providing ample opportunity for scouting.
"Good eye." Jaune says, leaving their camp behind in favor of the advantages of a high vantage point. Upon reaching the tree, Jaune begins his attempts to climb up. Placing his hands and feet in the grooves of the malformed tree, he manages to climb up without incident if not a little slowly. By the time he has reached the top, Neopolitan stands perched upon the highest branch already. She looks back at him as Jaune gets his first glimpses of the surrounding world that they have been thrown into.
"Wow…" Is the only word he can make out as he finishes climbing up the stump and looking over the horizon. This isn't just a singular world; it is dozens of worlds cut up into sections, forming a ring around a massive center tree. The tree is the largest thing Jaune has ever been witness to. Taller than any of the Atlas skyscrapers and wider than even Salem's whale. The world around the tree seems vibrant and full of life, bustling with nearly every sort of biome imaginable. Neo looks out over the scene with determination flickering underneath her eyes. What could this new world hold in store? She wonders.
Neo points to the center tree, an object which Jaune had already been looking at.
"I was thinking the same thing. I bet we'll find whatever answers we need there." He responds.
The two nod to each other. Further scanning the plane to identify any nearby settlements that may be worth exploring.
"There," Jaune says, pointing to billowing smoke in the distance, the color of said smoke a cartoonish yellow smoldering against the green sky. "That'll be where we head to first. Maybe there's a village there."
Neo seems skeptical and a little worried, crossing her arms in pensive thought as Jaune prepares to climb back down the tree. She taps her arm as she thinks, the blonde boy trusts too easily. The likelihood of a peaceful village in such a strange place was far less likely than an entourage of thieves and criminals. However, even such people as them could be swiftly handled. Between Neo's fighting abilities and Jaune's defense, the two made a pretty good pair in battle. Neo's face contorts at the thought of working together with Mr. Goodytwoshoes in battle. She hadn't worked with someone since-
"Let me go… You shouldn't hold onto me…"
The detached voice says once again, this time as clearly as if it were standing next to her. She knows that voice. The voice of Roman Torchwick. Neo rapidly looks around in every direction, desperate to find the source. But once again just like before the source of the voice does not seem to be physically present. Neo feels the rim of her hat, soft to the touch. The heterochromatic opens her umbrella and gently yet majestically floats to the ground, giving Jaune a playful wink as she descends past him with ease.
Jaune grunts in exhaustion as he climbs down every natural rung painstakingly. By the time he reaches the bottom, he is completely out of breath and collapses onto the ground panting heavily. As he collects his thoughts and slows his breathing, a sadistically smiling Neo appears overhead.
Jaune rolls his eyes. "Alright, laugh it up. But next time something needs climbing, I'll just cling to you the whole way down." He teases playfully, earning him a flash of Neo's playful tongue.
Jaune rises on his own, not that he would have trusted Neo even if she had offered to aid him. He orients himself in the direction of the fire before cutting a path through the leaves. Slow and painstaking work, jungle traversing is. Being able to sit back and let him do all the work was one of the benefits of tagging along with the knight, despite how different their personalities were.
Before them lays a huge swath of land, covered in a never-ending veil of trees and leaves. Not to mention all sorts of unknown dangers awaiting them. With only each other to rely on, they plunge themselves into the forest.
I don't have any idea why I thought this AU work in a setting I am not familiar with would be my next step after a… multi-year-long hiatus, but I'm honestly kind of intrigued to see where I might take this in a place completely out of my element. I might work more on this, I might not. Stay tuned.