Not a Hard Choice

RWBY w/ Date A Live elements

Action - Drama

Jaune Arc / Amber / Pyrrha Nikos / Ozpin

There are two distinct branches in the Arc family tree. One holds the seeds of great warriors, tacticians; and Heroes. The other binds away darker destructive powers. With the loss of Pyrrha, the fall of Beacon, his failure to kill Cinder; and the reveal of Ozpin's falsehoods... Jaune breaks. Driven to undo all the pain he and his friends have suffered; he vows to do what is necessary to protect those he loves... even if in the end they hate him for it.

/==/ Chapter Two /==/

Weeks had passed and life at Beacon was boring. The first time through, everything was new, and interesting; but now. Now Jaune was forcing himself to not step out of the routine he remembered. If Professor Port's lectures were sleep inducing the first time through; Jaune was nearing a comatose state, having to live through them a second time. Granted, even with his life on the line, he wouldn't be able to relay any of the Professor's insights from these lessons; but that did nothing to suppress the mind-numbing sensation from hearing the man's voice.

Jaune was however not idle, even while struggling to stay conscious. Out in the city of Vale his clones roamed, watching, listening and searching. There were dozens of them, a veritable gang of echos, all with a singular focus. Locating Cinder Fall and stopping her, utterly and completely. So while the search continued, Jaune entertained his mind with further plans, of other steps he should make in case he was unable to get to Cinder before she was in attendance at Beacon. Neo and Roman had gone to ground, so he was hopeful his actions had further delayed Cinder's progress. He was not a complete idiot, though. There was no way the setbacks he had created would derail everything Cinder had underway.

She would still be coming. Short of finding her before that could happen; and putting her down... his options were limited. Gather information; guess at her plan, and work out how to get into the basement of the tower. Jaune knew the girl housed there was a key to Cinder's aims. Why, he had no clue, but his memory of the events leading up to Pyrrha's demise made him certain of that fact. He didn't notice the ending class bell as he sat there, locked away in his thoughts. Idly, he reached up and scratched at the patch he was wearing over his left eye. It was becoming bothersome, and was starting to irritate his skin. He of course took it off at night, when no one would see his eye; but still wearing it all day was becoming an aggravation. A light touch on his shoulder brought him out of his thoughts. Blinking, he turned his head to the left and looked up into the concerned face of his partner.

"Pyr?"

"Class is over, Jaune." she replied, "Are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"We've been calling your name for the last few minutes, and you weren't responding." Pyrrha responded, "Is there something troubling you?"

"No, just thinking."

"If something is bothering you, Jaune, you can tell us. We're your friends, and I hope you trust us enough that you could come to us if you're having problems."

"I know Pyr." Jaune responded, adding a soft smile for extra effect, even while thinking how they wouldn't understand what he needed to do. Not until after it was done. They could hate him after, but at least they would all be alive to do so. "Thank you, I don't know where I'd be without all of you. You… you all mean so much to me."

"Jaune?" Pyrrha had a worried look on her face, "Why are you crying?"

/=/

After a rather uncomfortable supper, where he spent much of it deflecting concerns, Jaune was finally able to get some alone time, and found himself wandering Beacon's halls. He was letting his mind wander, while also partially reaching out to his echoes, drawing in whatever information they had gathered. There was still no sign of Neo or Roman, much less Cinder, Mercury or Emerald. Even Junior was being exceptionally cautious, which wasn't much of a surprise considering what had happened in his club, recently. So not only were his echo searching for five specific people in a city of hundreds of thousands, they were also having to avoid notice by the Axe Gang, and the police. Jaune had kicked a hornet's nest with his actions.

With a lack of information coming in from Vale, he returned to searching his memories. An activity that was becoming harder and harder, as he scrubbed every recollection for the smallest fragment that might be of use, while also fighting the growing impulses he was having to cause pain and hurt. He wasn't sure where those feelings were coming from, though he did want to blame Neo's memories for it, but he knew that was wrong. What he had learned from the pair of criminals was not the cause, it was just amplifying what was already there. Something that had been lying dormant within his very being.

So entrenched in his own thoughts, jaune didn't even register walking into the broad chest of one Cardin Winchester, or the fact that he was flanked by the rest of his team. Jaune badly even acknowledged the known bully, as Jaune just accepted and then subsequently ignored the intrusion. It was only after trying to go around the team, that reality caught up with his distracted mind, well that and the fact that Cardin grabbed him by the back of his collar and flung him into a nearby wall. Say what you would about Cardin, even with his own subpar skills, he was still one powerfully built young man.

"Rather rude…" Cardin started to speak only to get cut off as he and his team were suddenly set upon by a veritable tide of shadowy limbs that burst from the floor, grasping at their wrists, ankles, legs and arms. Non even got to utter a further word as they were as a unit hauled backwards and pinned to the opposite wall of the corridor.

"That was rather unbecoming of a future huntsman." Jaune clicked his tongue, as he stepped away from the wall Cardin had thrown him against. "I would have apologized, if you had been civil about the whole incident."

"What the…" Cardin tried to stammer out as Jaune started to take steps towards him, while reaching up and pulling away his eye patch. Cardin flinched as Jaune leaned in, a twisted grin on his face. The unhinged look in his right eye made the coldness of the clock in his left all the more unnerving.

All four of the young men stiffened as they felt another hand upon them. Cardin visibly shivered as Jaune licked his lips in a suggestive manner. Tearing his eyes from Jaune's Cardin looked down and his breath hitched. Emerging from the floor beneath him and slowly winding up his leg was another shadow hand. Though it was less a shadow, and more like a pale white arm surrounded in a heavy black mist.

"You're a tormentor, aren't you?" Jaune leaned in towards Cardin's face, his blue eye blazing with a strange light, as his left glinted as if made of gold. "Would you like to feel what it's like to have something… yanked on?"

"Jaune?" Cardin asked, his voice betraying the fear he was feeling. This was not Jaune, this was not his second favourite target for humiliation. Normally, Jaune just shied away from him, but this was not that. This was, to be blunt, terrifying for him. "It was all in good fun? Just a joke?"

"A joke? Didn't feel like a joke." Jaune replied, the strange look never leaving his face as Cardin felt the hand move further up his leg. "Would you like to hear a joke? A real joke?"

"S… sure."

"Two guys walk into a bar… the third one ducks." Jaune gives a dark chuckle. "Funny right?"

Cardin wanted to fake laugh, as he was sure if he was so petrified of the destination of the hand roaming up his thigh, he probably could have followed the joke. But he couldn't do it. Sweat dotted his brow and his body shivered as the phantasmal hand and arm completed another coil about his thigh. He thought he could hear whimpers coming from his teammates, but he couldn't take his eyes off Jaune's face. He could feel that appendage climbing further, and he didn't want to confirm it. Furthermore, he didn't want to see that his team was suffering the same as he was.

"Guess not." Jaune answered himself as he straightened himself out. "So should I let you all gain an understanding of what it's like to have parts of your body to be grabbed without your permission? What it's like to have them yanked and pulled on?"

"W… we get it!" Cardin squeaked out, "Won't happen again, I swear! Right guys?"

Cardin thought he heard the rest of his team agree with him, but to be honest, he was more focused on something else.

"Do you promise to leave… everyone alone?"

"S…sure."

"Really?" Jaune asked, his voice taking a sinister tone. "I would HATE to be made a fool of."

"W… we swear!" Cardin choked out, as he felt the fingers close about something very important to him. "We'll back off of everyone! No more pranks, or jokes!"

"Things are happening out in the world, Cardin." Jaune hissed, "Things that seek to hurt everyone we hold dear, everyone we love."

Cardin was panting, and confused. Jaune had gone from playing at hurting them to giving cryptic advice.

"Stop fucking around with the games. Get stronger, be huntsmen." With those words said, all four members of CRDL found themselves sprawled on the floor. The hands and arms that hand been restraining them, gone. As was Jaune.

"What the…" Russel started to speak, before just stopping, as he took a gander at his teammates and understood. None of them needed to say anything. They all knew how fucked up everything had gone, and none of them knew what or if they could do anything about it.

/=/

Jaune was laughing so hard that his sides were hurting as he stumbled out of the shadows into a massive room below the foundations of Beacon, and it wasn't from what he had just tried to do to CRDL. No, he was laughing at his own stupidity. How had he overlooked his ability to manipulate shadows? It was stupid of him. Dropping to his knees and wrapping his arms around his gut, he continued to laugh at himself, so hard that tears were starting to roll down his cheeks. All that planning, and all he needed to do was step into a shadow, and he could be wherever he desired, as long as he had been there before, and of course in a future timeline, he had been in this very room. Gasping for breath, he slowly regained control of himself. Blinking away his tears, he climbed to his feet and sighed.

"Such a lonely place for someone as important as you to be stuffed away in, don't you think?" he asked the comatose young woman sealed in a tube like pod before him. He closed the distance and placed his hand upon the glass, and sighed. "It's nothing but a coffin."

Taking a few moments to gaze at the dusky skinned young woman, his eyes narrowed. The last time he was here, he hadn't been able to even look at her, and now that he had. His hunger to tear strips off Cinder grew by leaps and bounds. For what that cunt was going to do to Pyrrha, had done to this young woman. The chaos and death she would cause. Jaune was going to make her suffer for each and every second of pain she had ever caused.

"Zafkiel!" Jaune shouted as he stamped his foot on the metal floor. A loud dong echoed about the room as the massive clock face rose up behind him, as a flintlock pistol and musket materialized in his hands. Aiming the muzzle of the pistol at the four of the clock, he spoke. "Dalet."

The ding of the elevator opening had been overpowered by the dong of Zafkiel, so Jaune was completely unaware that Ozpin was now in the subbasement room with him. Slowly and carefully, Jaune took aim at the form trapped in the pod with both the pistol and musket. The beep of the life monitoring equipment told Jaune she was still alive inside her glass casket, so his plan should work.

"Mr Arc, I suggest you stop."

"Ozpin."

"I have no idea how you gained access to this facility, but I MUST ask you to surrender. So put down your weapons and step away from Amber this instant."

"Her name is Amber, such a pretty name." Jaune commented, "Too bad you're letting her waste away. Good thing I can save her."

"Mr Arc, I am not making idle suggestions. Put down your weap…" Ozpin faltered as Jaune turned his head to look at the esteemed headmaster of Beacon. The shine of the gold clock that used to be Jaune's left eye, in addition to the massive clock face standing in Jaune's shadow, telling the entity that had lived a hundred plus life times, the being before him was something more than just a student. "Mr Arc?"

"Please back away, Headmaster."

"Jaune you can't…"

"Oh, yes, I can, and I will." Jaune retorted, cutting off Ozpin's voice with his own. "I'm putting something right that you should never have let go wrong. So PLEASE back off."

"I can't let you kil…"

"Kill her?" Jaune whipped about to glare at the Headmaster, who took a step back while raising his cane in a defensive posture, "Is that what you think I'm doing?"

"You are…"

"I'm going to fix your fucking mistake, before it costs my friends their lives!" Jaune snarled. "It's because of you I lost Pyrrha that night! Your failures at defeating Cinder, at keeping Beacon safe, cost how many their futures!"

"Mr Arc, what are you…?" Ozpin cut himself off as he dodged to the side as Jaune pulled the trigger on the musket. The round punching a hole in the metal plate flooring where Ozpin has just been standing.

"I'm not going to let you fail them again! I'm not going to let you send anyone else to their deaths!" Jaune screamed, his seething rage for all he knew about the Headmaster consuming him. "None of my friends are expendable! Fuck you and your maidens, and the relics and Salem! I'll stop you all!"

"Mr. Arc, don't make me…"

Ozpin dodged to the side again as Jaune once again started to fire at him. Weaving about, Ozpin twisted in his flight, and suddenly made a head on dash for the enraged blond. He lashed out with his cane, aiming for an incapacitating strike, only to have his brown eyes go wide when Jaune manoeuvred his pistol to intercept the attack. Disengaging, Ozpin dodged Jaune's attempted counterstrike with the barrel of his musket. Ozpin snapped out a jab with his cane, catching Jaune in his exposed shoulder and shoving him backwards, while avoiding the wild swing of the pistol aimed for his head. Opening some distance between them, Ozpin took a moment to study Jaune. The wizard and master huntsman could feel the insane amounts of power contained within the young man's body. Power that was begging to be used. Pleading to be unleashed. Jaune snarled as he regained his footing, and just charged Ozpin, causing the headmaster to backpedal as he snapped his cane about in strategic parries and blocks as Jaune just started to wildly wail upon him. Ozpin was hard-pressed, not because of Jaune's skill, but because of the pure power and speed the young man was utilizing.

Jaune began to cackle, as he continued to press his onslaught. Raining blow after blow towards the Headmaster's body, and the fact that Ozpin was turning aside each attack was of no consequence for the young man. Jaune was playing a numbers game, as he pushed his attack speed further. Ozpin he knew was far, far more skilled than he would ever be, but even the most skilled person could be overwhelmed by pure quantity, and that was Jaune's entire plan. Bury the headmaster in a landslide of attacks, push him until he couldn't keep up.

"This is for Pyrrha! For everyone that suffered because of your stupidity! Everyone who dies on Amity!" Ozpin grunted in effort, doing his best to keep pace with the blitz of attacks, but his ranting was throwing the older man off. He was being blamed for things that hadn't happened! Dropping to his knees, Ozpin avoided a series of strikes, and lashed out with a thrust to Jaune's exposed stomach.

"Calm yourself, Mr Arc!" Ozpin shouted as he regained his feet and pivoted away from the gasping and hacking young man. "None of what you are accusing me of is real! It's a delusion!"

"A delusion! So Lionheart betraying us! Him laying the foundation for Cinder and her ilk to gain entry to Beacon, and sabotage the festival tournament isn't going to happen? That the virus that turned Ironwoods toys against us is not real?" Jaune screamed, "Fuck you! You pretentious, tunnel visioned fucktard!"

"Lionheart betrayed us?" Jaune's words had greater effect on Ozpin than his physical attacks. Ozpin was reeling that anyone could even suggest that his longtime friend and fellow headmaster would do such a thing, could do such a thing. "Why would he…?"

"Who gives a fuck about that coward! He's as good as dead, for what he did to aid that cunt!" Jaune growled as he recovered from Ozpin's attack, "You can ask him after you reincarnate! No more games."

Ozpin stumbled backwards at Jaune's reveal of information, that was further compounded by three dozen copies of him suddenly rising from the floor. Raising his cane into a defensive position, Ozpin prepared to try and fend off the literal tidal wave of attacks that would be focused on him. The ding of the elevator drew everyone's attention. Ozpin wanted to breathe a sigh of relief as Glynda, Peter and Bart all stepped out into the room, but the pure look of shock etched on their faces at finding so many copies of Jaune Arc wielding a pair of archaic firearms, and dressed in a fairly gothic manner, told him this was far from over.

"Enough of this!" Jaune snarled. "I have people to find and kill!"

"Mr A…" Glynda tried to shout, to bring her authoritarian reputation to bear and force Jaune to capitulate. It didn't work as all around her, pale mist outlined hands burst from the shadows and grappled her, dragging her off her feet and restraining her.

Bart and Peter went on the offensive instantly. Rushing forward only to be met with a wall of Jaune Arc clones. Ozpin himself was forced to backpedal as at least half a dozen of the very same clones rushed him, leaving Jaune free to act. The Headmaster and his companions were hampered. None of them wishing to cause any lasting harm to the young man, and having no idea if what was facing them contained the real Jaune Arc, was making them temper their strikes. The same could not be said for the Jaune's.

"We need to get him away from Am…" The sound of gunshots and shattering glass, caused Ozpin to falter, allowing more than a couple of solid hits to land, driving him to the metal clade floor gasping in pain.

The sudden screaming of Amber caused all the action happening to cease. The clones of Jaune stepped back and as one all sunk into the floor, vanishing from existence. The hands holding down Glynda also receded, allowing the flustered and more than slightly miffed deputy headmistress to regain her feet. Everyone winced as Amber bellowed in agony, but all stood still. That was all of them aside from Jaune. The assembled instructors watched with bated breath as Jaune extracted Amber from her pod, and gently laid her upon the floor. They watched as he began to glow golden, the light moving to Amber. Ozpin forced himself forward, only to stumble back once he was close enough to see Amber's scars receding, and the pallor of her skin grow healthy once more.

"Jaune what did you do?"

"I healed her." he responded in a whisper as he carefully laid her hands upon her stomach, before looking up at the stunned headmaster. "She'll be able to describe those who attacked her. Their names are Cinder Fall. Mercury Black, and Emerald Sustrai. They will attempt to attend the festival as Haven students."

"How?"

"I came back to save the ones I love." Jaune rose from his position kneeling next to the recovered but still unconscious Amber. "I still have more to do."

"Jaune, what is going on?"

"Salem wants the relics, and I'm going to stop her."

"She's immortal, she can't be stopped by conventional means. We would have to use the relics, and that could mean the end of this world." Ozpin commented.

"Then I'll just have to find a way." Jaune replied, with a crazed look in his eye. "I will save them all… even if they hate me for it in the end."

"Jaune!" Glynda called out as Jaune sank into the shadows at his feet and vanished.

"Oz, what is going on?" Peter asked as he shouldered his weapon and let his gaze travel about the mostly empty room.

"I'm not sure, but if even a fraction of what Mr Arc… Jaune let slip to me before you arrived, is true."

"What did he say, Oz?" Bart asked as he knelt down and checked Amber's pulse. "It's strong and steady."

"Oz?" Glynda asked as she turned her attention from the spot that Jaune had vanished in to Ozpin himself.

"It seems she has been making moves even I would not her capable of." Ozpin looked up from Amber to take in the eyes of his three companions. "Let's get Amber to the infirmary, and then I'll let you know what Mr Arc… what Jaune let slip."

/=/

"So this is what this Nightmare looks like?" Cinder scoffed as she examined Neo's illusionary replica. "He's nothing."

"You say that now." Roman countered, "But wait until you are face to face with the fucker."

"He's not…" Cinder doubled over, her voice robbed from her, as she began to howl in agony. Her pain filled cries echoing about the small warehouse in which she was holding this impromptu meeting.

"Cinder?" Emerald rushed forward, grabbing hold of her mentor and saviour, only to recoil from the heat radiating off her body.

Cinder continued to scream, dropping to her knees, and then mercifully collapsing fully into unconsciousness.

"Cinder?" Emerald pleaded as she tried to rouse the young woman.

"What the fuck?" Roman asked, the stub of his cigar falling from his lips.

/==/

Going through some older works and updating/editing them. So Chapter one has been cleaned up if you want to reread it.

Also I set up a discord. Not a huge deal, but if you feel like hanging out, giving advice, offering commentary, critiques, or making suggestions, feel free. The link is going to look like garbage but, not much I can do, considering...

(slash)(Slash) (slash) 3JkVUxzf

Anyway hope you enjoyed.