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Summer's - surgery? We'll go with surgery - surgery commences, and our gang will have to deal with the consequences.

Start Chapter 56

They spend the remainder of the next day running through every single thing that could go wrong when they remove the Grimm encroachment from Summer Rose's form. They run through the scenario where she's already dead, or has flatlined. They run through the scenario where she's completely stable, and how they'll handle that. But they spend the most time going over what they're going to do if she's in rough shape, and only a timely application of Jaune's semblance, and Watts' medical knowledge, can help save her.

"I will be on hand with surgical equipment to do what I can." Watts says as he reads through a medical textbook on anatomy. "Even if it is not exactly my field, I shall make the effort regardless. I specialized in robotic biology; helping to build the first Atlesian knights and paladins. But this is similar enough."

Jaune's face contorts somewhat. "Is it really?"

Watts sighs, like Jaune's just asked something incredibly stupid. "No, no it isn't. But frankly, you've nothing better to fall back on at the moment, have you?"

He supposes the man is right. They've no other options, that's for sure.

Jaune asks Salem and Ozma at one point whether or not either of their magics could be of any use in keeping Summer alive, but they only have this to say.

"If I had any ability with medical magics, I would have used them to save my Ozma when disease first took him." Salem speaks, when the two of them are alone. "I did not, because I had not. Ozma, unless he has been keeping a rather powerful skill in his back pocket for hundreds of thousands of years, has no such thing in his arsenal either. Believe me when I say that medical magic was rare even in the Golden Age of this world, and most assumed it was a gift given by the Gods themselves."

Jaune nods his head, even if the thought doesn't really help to relax him very much. His semblance is truly what they're going to be falling back on here. It's the linchpin holding their entire plan together.

That scares him, even if he'd like to pretend it doesn't.

And so, as the clock begins to tick more towards the evening, the nerves hanging about each and every member of their group rise. Jaune sees Raven practically wearing a hole through the floor as she paces back and forth inside of one of Salem's old laboratories, which has been converted into the room they will be using for Summer's… surgery? Can it be called that?

Either way, it had been clean, and relatively mess-free, so it had been a fairly obvious choice.

As for why Raven's so visibly upset, well, most of it likely comes down to Summer's condition, but some of it…

"There's…" the woman sighs heavily. "There's something I know I should do, that I don't know if I will."

"If you know you should do it, then why don't you?"

"Because it would be… potentially a far more excruciating outcome if things do not go well today. It would be getting one more person's hopes up and having them potentially dashed against the rocks."

Jaune frowns. "Who are you talking about?"

"Does it matter?"

"Do you think it matters? Because it seems like you do."

Raven opens her mouth to respond, but shuts it after a moment, letting loose a titanic sigh.

"I hate you sometimes, kid."

"That's fair, I guess." Jaune chuckles, trying to mask his own worries in a familiar conversation with Raven. "But… seriously. If you think you should do it, then don't let fear hold you back. Hasn't fear already cost you enough?"

Raven nods her head, and then, under her breath, says, "I should go get Qrow."

For some reason, Jaune, Ruby, Yang, Weiss, and Blake are all invited to whatever this event is as well. Raven is talking to Qrow about something or another, and it's rather clearly something they're spending a good deal of time deliberating on, judging by how Qrow himself is frowning rather profusely.

"It's… like you said, it's a risk. But I think… I think we owe it to him to take that risk."

Raven nods her head with a brittle laugh. "Kid said the same thing."

And then, with only another breath of hesitation, Raven slashes her sword beside her, cutting a rift into space. The portal hangs open for a staggering amount of time, twenty or thirty seconds, before, finally, a figure takes a step through.

Ruby and Yang both go wide-eyed, and it takes Jaune a minute to realize just who this is.

Tall, blonde, and well-built. Clearly a hunter, based purely on his physique alone. Not to mention the way the man carries himself. His eyes scan the entire room, seemingly searching for threats, but eventually, they land on Ruby, Yang, Qrow, and last of all…

"Guys?" Taiyang Xiao-Long speaks, shaking his head, "And what… Rae, where the hell–"

"I need you to sit down and shut up." Raven speaks, and both Ruby and Yang go to get angry at her for that, only for Qrow to step between them, and motion for the girls to stay calm. "I'm going to tell you what's about to happen. You are not to panic, or scream, or do anything sudden."

"O…kay…" Tai looks rather worried, and for a man who's had as rough a life as Taiyang Xiao-Long, Jaune can't really blame him. "What's happening? Are Ruby and Yang in danger!?"

"They're always in danger." Raven says without a care in the world. "They're huntresses, and damn good ones, which means they're tasked with the hard shit; you should remember what that was like."

Tai grimaces, looking over at both his daughters with a shake of his head. "I do. Doesn't mean I much like it."

"But even so, that isn't what I called you here to tell you." Raven says, before she opens her lips, and…

No sound comes out.

"Rae?"

"It's…" Raven looks conflicted; terribly so. Her mouth hangs open, as if at any moment she might finally break her silent tableau and speak, but…

"Mom's alive." Ruby interrupts with all the tact of a sledgehammer. "She's alive, and she might not be for much longer."

One can imagine how the next five or so minutes go.

After Tai has settled down enough, they go about catching him up on the facts of the situation. Summer Rose is alive, albeit in a rather precarious position inside of the Big Bad Wolf. They have the means – they believe – to get her out of the beast, but when they do, they don't know if she'll simply die. And even if they can get her out, and she's still alive…

Well, she might not stay that way.

By the time they've finished, it's been a good twenty or so minutes. Taiyang had been asking questions nearly the entire time, ranging from how they'd figured out Summer was alive in the first place – Jaune had been told by Salem – to how they'd gotten her out – "I finally grew a pair," Raven answers bleakly – to finally how they'd gone about acquiring the means of freeing Summer from her confinement – "You remember those Relics that Oz told us about?" Qrow speaks up, and Tai nods, "Well, let's just say they're doing a lot of the heavy lifting here."

Finally, as the day officially gives way to night, they decide that the time has come.

Everyone is in the laboratory. Luckily, it's a big room, and although Watts had initially requested – well, requested is a bit polite, more like demanded – that everyone not actively contributing to Summer's recovery be moved from out of the room…

Well, that had gone about as well with their group as Jaune had expected it to.

Which is to say not well at all. Ruby, Jaune, Salem, Watts, and Ozma are all semi-required. Ozma and Salem because, even if they can't heal with magic, they still might be able to answer questions about the Grimm if such an event comes up. Yang, of course, is staying, and Blake is staying for Yang's sake, in case things take a turn for the worse. Ren is there to use his semblance just in case anyone wants to be… well, calmed down, and Nora follows Ren anywhere.

Raven and Tai are both present, and though Qrow is apparently waiting back at the Branwen tribe, hoping for good news, it still stings a bit to Jaune that the man can't be here.

Pyrrha is around because she wants to be, albeit she's standing outside in the hall, politely out of everyone's way. Weiss is doing the same. He's pretty sure Emerald and Ilia are around here somewhere. The only people from the castle who have declined to come are Mercury, and Hazel. The former had commented that he had a rather troubling relationship with his own parents, and so hadn't needed to see any familial drama. The latter had said that he'd seen enough death for one lifetime.

And of course, even though he'd wanted to come, they'd barred Tyrian from attendance on the basis that he is Tyrian.

Finally…

"Are you okay?" Cinder, the final person present, asks him as she places a hand on his shoulder, and likely feels him jittering.

"I'm… I'm managing." Jaune admits, smiling up at her. "Just… nervous is all. I can't stop thinking about… what if something happens, and I mess this up, and… and Summer dies because of me?"

"If that happens…" Cinder begins, before shaking her head. "No. That won't happen."

"What?"

"You won't allow that to happen."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because I've met you before, Jaune Arc." Cinder smirks, likely entirely for his benefit. "Because I know that while there is a fragment of an iota of you that's still breathing, you won't give up. If there's a chance that Summer survives this, that chance will almost certainly be because of you."

Jaune finds his mouth opening and closing a few times before his cheeks go red and he looks away, scratching at his temple and loosing an awkward laugh.

"I don't know if that's quite–"

"You are amazing, and beautiful." Cinder states, reaching over and poking him on the left breast. "Do not try and say otherwise. You are speaking to the world's foremost Jaune Arc expert; I would know."

Jaune can't help it; he laughs. "What, I'm not the foremost expert on me?"

"You're not even in the top five."

He laughs again, this time more freely. He's… to say he's glad Cinder is here is an understatement; he's not even sure he could manage something like this without her beside him. Her being there just… settles him. It feels like, no matter where he goes, if Cinder's beside him, that's home.

He's home right now. Even in the depths of an evil crystal castle, surrounded on all sides by violet brimstone, about to try and save a woman from the depths of darkness.

He's comfortable.

"I love you." He says with a smile.

Cinder blushes somewhat, before muttering something under her breath that he's pretty sure is, "There are people around."

"They can know." Jaune says, laughing lightly. "I'm not that worried."

Cinder shakes her head, before quietly saying, "I love you, too."

"Alright…" He takes a breath. "Well, no time like the present; I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

He puts on a pair of latex gloves, cracks his neck, and moves over towards the surgery area.

"When are we starting?" Jaune asks to no one in the area in particular.

"Once I can get my eyes working." Ruby says, smiling shakily over at him as she does her best to stay relatively upbeat. It looks quite difficult for her, what with the way she's practically vibrating in place. "I'm uhm… having trouble thinking positive thoughts at the moment."

Jaune understands that, yeah. It would be… he tries to think about what it would be like if it was his mother in this scenario. But, then, it's probably different for Ruby than it would be for him. Ruby hadn't truly known Summer for that much of her life. She likely only has fragments of memories of the woman.

So, this has to be a bit odd for her.

For Yang, however…

Jaune looks over, and sees the woman clutching her soulmate in her arms, evidently leaning rather heavily on Blake. Her partner seems to be whispering soothing words to her, and Jaune finds himself smiling at seeing how far Blake has come.

No time to think about such things then, however.

"Do you uh… want some help?"

"What do you mean?"

"I guess I just…" Jaune hesitates a moment, before deciding to commit to his idea. "Think about how after this, you're going to get to see your mom again. How after this, you're going to get to talk to her, and be with her."

Ruby's expression falters somewhat, then, even as her eyes go a bit misty. "And… what if that doesn't happen? What if I… if the device doesn't work, and I kill her?"

"That won't happen." Jaune echoes Cinder's earlier sentiment, smiling for Ruby's sake. "Because there's no one else out there who's as strong, or as loyal, or as good a leader as Ruby Rose. No other person who I would want to call my best friend."

"Aw, thanks Jaune." Ruby says, before chuckling somewhat. "But, uh, what does any of that have to do with my eyes?"

Jaune thinks about that for a moment in silence.

"…Huh."

Ruby snorts.

"You know, this sounded a lot better when Cinder did it."

Ruby is cackling, wiping at her eyes.

"I'm sure it did." She said, before looking up at him with obvious gratitude. "…Thanks, Jaune. Really. For getting my mind off all of this."

"Hey, what are friends for, right?"

"Mm." Ruby states, even as her expression contorts, and she turns toward Watts. "I think I'm ready now."

The man nods. "Right, everyone who's nonessential, at the very least back away from our working area."

That, at least, seems agreeable for the remainder of the people within the room. The only person who doesn't obey is Raven, and really, that comes as no surprise to anyone. Watts, seeing her refuse to budge, just rolls his eyes, but gives the go-ahead gesture anyway.

"Priming the focusing mirrors." Watts speaks, his voice completely steady. Jaune doesn't exactly like the man, but he's surprisingly reliable in this moment. "Ms. Rose, a count of three would be optimal, but if you're going to explode, then–"

"I can count to three." She says, cutting Watts off. "I'm going to be ready in a moment. I'll let you all know when."

Jaune nods his head. He turns back around and stares down at Summer Rose. Or, well, at the Big Bad Wolf, who is sat on top of a tarp on the ground. It's about the only thing they could think of that would keep Summer from touching the ground once she's freed, that also wouldn't simply break beneath the Bad Wolf's weight.

A tarp had ultimately been what they'd settled on.

Sometimes going back to analog works the best.

"I'm ready." Ruby speaks, and all sound in the room dies. She leans forward, pressing her eyes into the device the Relic of Creation had created for them just as Watts nods his head, and prepares his medical instruments. "Three… two…"

There is no 'one'.

In the next moment, a blinding ray of white light washes over the Big Bad Wolf. The creature lets loose a hideous gasping sound, almost as if it were letting off death throes. Jaune watches as its limbs begin to disintegrate, as that which makes it whole dissipates.

The Grimm is dying.

Only time will tell is Summer is as well.

The next few seconds seem to happen so slowly. The Bad Wolf's form fades away gradually, but where Jaune had expected to see Summer Rose's intact form, he sees only…

The light fades, Ruby falls back and away from the device, panting and sweating, and Jaune has to hide a grimace. He pushes himself forward, directly towards where Summer Rose's form has fallen to the ground, and begins to prime his semblance.

Summer Rose is still alive.

That's pretty much where the good news ends.

Her legs are gone; eaten away above the knee, about halfway up her thigh on the right leg, and an inch or two lower on the left. They're long-since scarred over, so Jaune doesn't even begin to think about somehow trying to salvage those.

Her left hand is missing three fingers; they look like something has been ripping occasional bits off of them for years. Her right arm has a big chunk just… absent. Her naked torso reveals a massive gash where her left breast should be, and Jaune can quite literally see her heart beating so terribly weakly within the cavity that had once been her chest. There is a horrible pale scarring all over the right side of Summer's face, and Jaune imagines that at least one of her eyes has been entirely removed.

This…

Instantly, Jaune catalogues that Summer Rose has minutes; at best.

It is a fact; something his mind supplies to him to spare him the pain of trying to save her. To spare him the pain of failing to do so.

His semblance flairs to life over the woman immediately, regardless.

He'd never really thought of doing anything else.

"Oh gods…" Jaune hears Raven let out, what must be automatically, as she takes a step back from Summer's form. "Summer… oh gods…"

"M-Mom!" Ruby cries out as she pushes herself off the floor, tears already flowing down her face.

It is an instant realization that pushes its way into Jaune's mind, as he holds his semblance first and foremost over Summer's heart; over the cavity that is her chest, to try and bring some sort of healing towards the area.

He can't save her.

That Jaune knows. There's nothing he can do for Summer.

Summer Rose is going to die.

No…

Summer Rose might as well already be dead.

After everything; after Jaune had betrayed Salem, after Raven had finally gotten courage, after Qrow and she and everyone else had reunited, after sleepless nights spent watching the wolf, fearing it, what it could do, after going to Atlas and getting the Relic of Creation, all of it had just been… for this?

It feels so… so wrong to Jaune. That something so horrible could happen after they'd invested so much.

He remembers, in that instant, something he'd talked with Cinder about back within the Glass Unicorn, as they'd laid down to rest one evening.

'I think I've learned to accept that the world isn't fair.' Cinder had said to him. 'The world simply is. Bad things happen to good people, while the worst of them go unpunished. The rich get richer, and the poor ever poorer. There is no innate justice, or light at the end of the tunnel, for those who've suffered.'

And Jaune feels himself despairing as Yang cries into Blake's collarbone, shaking her head against the woman as if in complete denial. He feels himself despairing as he hears Ruby cry out for her mother, slamming her fists into the floor. He feels himself despairing as Taiyang steps forward, a blank, harrowed expression on his face, like he's caught in a nightmare. He feels himself despairing as Watts lets loose a hoarse sigh, and shakes his head.

"There's nothing to be done." He says, and it sounds so final.

It can't end that way, can it? When Jaune had first decided to break Cinder out of her confinement, so very long ago, their plan had hit snags, yes, and they'd faced impossible odds. Yet they'd succeeded.

When Sienna Khan had been on her deathbed, and Jaune had but moments to save her; when the White Fang had come for Blake, and her family, they'd saved them all, despite everything.

When Haven had hung in the balance, when Raven Branwen had refused to save the woman that she and so many others had loved, things had turned out alright in the end. When they'd gone to Vacuo, needing answers, they'd found them, despite the odds, despite that they'd been looking for a needle in a haystack.

…It can't end here. Jaune won't let it end here.

"Because I've met you before, Jaune Arc. Because I know that while there is a fragment of an iota of you that's still breathing, you won't give up. If there's a chance that Summer survives this, that chance will almost certainly be because of you."

He will make Cinder's words a reality.

He will be the ghost of a chance.

He feels someone's hands on his shoulder, trying to pull him away, but he just shakes his head. He feels another, and then another.

They've given up. Summer Rose is still breathing, and they've given up.

How could–

And then, like such is something she's done a million times before, Cinder drops down next to him, kneels on the floor, and presses her burning hands to one of Summer's many, many wounds.

And she looks up at him as the sound and the smell of sizzling flesh fills the room.

And she nods.

…

It is in that moment, seeing the love of his life, so broken, so beaten, so battered down by the wrongs of the world commit so wholeheartedly to saving someone else's life, that Jaune begins to believe that maybe, just maybe, anything's possible if they put their minds to it.

Because what chance do they have against a god if they can't save one single woman? What chance do they have to save the entirety of Remnant if they accept Summer's death the moment things look hopeless? What chance can they possibly have if they can't let a mother see her children at least one last time.

None. At least not in Jaune's mind.

Jaune knows what he needs to do.

"I guess I just… it feels like we'd need a miracle." Jaune remembers himself saying the previous night.

So, he'll just have to make one.

And it's as he thinks this, as he sends up a silent prayer to no one in particular, as he forces himself to conjure up some magical solution, that the literal magic within him responds. A warm feeling suffuses his body, and though he has no idea what it is, he can feel the basin of magic that Salem had taught him to create activating. He can feel something taking him there, guiding him, like a hand is gently nudging him this way and that.

Whatever it is, it manipulates the magic within him. It molds it for him, and then gently places it within Jaune's grasp. He couldn't describe it with a single word, but it feels almost like–

Green and bright. Light surrounds him. This is what a tree feels, taking the sun's warmth, and turning it to energy. This is what it feels like when a hawk pounces upon a mouse, and rips its body to pieces. It dies, but it doesn't. Life moves on. One day that hawk, too, will die, and the mushrooms and the worms and the detritovores of Remnant will break it down, too. Until one day, the seeds that have grown from that Hawk's corpse will be taken in by a mouse.

Ever undulating. Like the tides. Weightless and boundless, untethered by anything but the world it resides upon. In that moment, Jaune understands it all. He thinks he'll probably forget once this is over, once he's not holding this brilliant everything in his hands, but for now, he knows what he must do.

He must allow Summer to photosynthesize in the light of God.

He comes back to his body just in time to watch a light brighter than his aura, almost as bright as the Silver-Eyes had been, wash over the body of Summer Rose. He listens to the way that the tears flowing all around him calm, and the previously despairing words cease entirely.

Not yet. Jaune thinks then. This isn't over yet.

He knows he can save her; save Summer. He can, and he will. Or he would, but the magic within him, all the magic he possesses… it is not in and of itself enough. He needs greater magic; more magic. Magic that knows the woman beneath him, that knows who she is, that knows her soul, and her life, and her–

"Raven!" He shouts, "Over here, I need your magic!"

It says something about the desperation of the entire scenario that Raven doesn't hesitate a moment. She runs up, kneels down beside him, and offers out her arm like one might during a blood transfusion.

It will do.

He keeps his right hand right where it is, hovering gently above where Summer's chest would be had there not been a terrible chasm carved into her, and moves his left to take Raven's wrist. In an instant, he understands. Magic cannot conjure form from nothing; not truly. It must make an exchange.

"The powers that Ozma gave you, and the Spring Maiden's might," Jaune says, although he's not entirely sure it's him saying it. "I'll need them if–"

"Take them!" Raven pleads, "If it will save Summer, then take them!"

He nods his head, and then, in the next moment, he wrenches both the corvid transformation and the powers of the Spring Maiden from out of Raven Branwen.

The woman lets out an agonized scream, and collapses in a heap beside Jaune a second later, crying out as she is brutalized by the pain of having a piece of herself rather violently separated from the rest of her. He'd have liked to do such a thing more gently, but they simply hadn't had the time. He's not sure why he knows how to take the magic he's now holding and break it down; to mold it once more just as Ozma had so long ago, but he does just that.

In an instant, the Spring Maiden is no more. Millenia of power is reduced only to raw energy. Compared to the that, the corvid transformation is miniscule, but…

He'll still need it.

He reaches inside of himself, and configures the powers to be exactly what he needs. It isn't much, really. All the magic he's holding is doing is assisting Summer's own ability to heal herself.

Which sounds like a big deal, but really, for them it isn't.

And he places that magic upon Summer, and watches as her form begins to shift.

Instantly, healing that would've taken place over days, weeks, perhaps months happens in the blink of an eye. The gash in her chest doesn't heal entirely, but the edges begin to scar over. The little cuts and knicks and lacerations all over her close, leaving even more scar tissue. Eventually, the major problems have become the only problems.

That doesn't eliminate them, however. Nor does it regenerate Summer's lost limbs.

But for now, they've done all he can.

And so, with one final gesture, they fade away entirely, leaving only Jaune Arc, bewildered, with his hands hovering over the chest of a now much-better off Summer Rose, surrounded on all sides by entirely shellshocked people.

But Jaune had been left one last piece of information, and it's that that has him standing up, and turning towards Ozma with a serious look on his face.

"Mr. Arc," Ozma looks flummoxed. "You–"

"There's no time!" Jaune cuts him off, shaking his head and pushing past Raven's still shaking form. "We did what we could, but we couldn't fix problems that the body itself couldn't. Half of her injures are too severe for her body to fix on its own, no matter how much time it's given. So, for now we've literally stopped her body's natural functions. That's not going to last, however. What she needs now is a dedicated team of surgeons, and quite good ones. I… I honestly don't know how I know this, but I know I know this. Does that make any sense at all!?"

Ozma doesn't even bother answering that last part. Instead, he simply shakes his head, and presses both his hands to his temples.

"There's only one place we could go that would be able to offer that kind of immediate assistance…" Ozma speaks, and Jaune watches as the rest of them all, even the still reeling Raven, who's only just now taking to her feet, key into what he's saying. "Only one nation that might be able to get help to Summer before she fades away entirely…"

Jaune knows what the answer is, even if he's entirely dreading hearing it.

Ozma looks at all of them, takes a breath, and then says…

"We need to get her to Atlas."

End Chapter 56

I just want it on record that I have had the vast majority of the latter half of this chapter written for like months lol. Finally getting to it feels good.

And hah, you guys probably thought the Atlas Arc had ended! Fools, the lot of you!

Anyways, yeah, something helps out Jaune to heal Summer, but his healing isn't quite enough on its own. Now, they're relying on Atlas, who have been, uhm... we'll say unreliable so far in this story.

We'll have to see what happens next... whenever I post the next chapter, seeing as how I've basically thrown my update structure out the window these past two weeks. Might be on Saturday, might be next Thursday, we'll see!

See you all then!