"Jaune? Where the hell have you been!?" Junior yelled. The customers seated at the bar looked up from their drinks at the disturbance.
Jaune waved his hand, "Oh you know around. Are the twins here?"
"Yeah they're upstairs. You and your… friends can go wait in the living room. I'll be up in a few minutes."
"Thanks uncle Hei, you're the best."
Junior waved him off, "Yeah. Yeah I know but you have some explaining to do. We all thought you were dead."
"Oh. I see." Jaune paused for a moment before walking around the counter towards a door labeled 'Staff Only' in big red letters. Just on the other side was a hallway with a staircase on the right and a set of swinging doors that lead to the kitchen on the opposite side of the door he just walked through. Turning to the right Jaune took the staircase with Enterprise, Sims, and Tirpitz not far behind.
Reaching an open door at the top of the staircase Jaune walked right through the doorway into a modestly decorated living room. Two couches, a recliner, and a TV. Just beyond the couches was a small dining table that looked like it never saw much use and a hallway branched off toward the bedrooms.
However what drew everyone's attention were the two occupants of the room seated on the couch watching some documentary on big cat species or something. The first wore a red dress, red stockings, red heeled boots, and had a red feather hair clip in her hair. She was sitting up messing with her scroll clearly concentrating on whatever was on the screen.
The second girl was wearing a white dress, white stockings, white heeled boots, and a furry white scarf. She was sprawled out over one of the couches absentmindedly paying attention to the TV.
These girls were Militia and Melanie respectively. Often called the Malachite Twins rather than by their names as most found that the only way to tell them apart was the differing colors of their clothes and, they were not above switching colors to confuse their opponent.
"Well I see you two haven't changed at all." Jaune's words caused both twins to whirl around to face him. Melanie actually turned so fast she fell off the couch she was lounging on.
"JAUNE!" Militia rushed forwards tackling him in a bear hug. "It's good to see you're all right."
"Yes it is good to see you Jaune," Melanie called out as she walked towards him. "In fact I would say it's great because now I get to do this." SLAP!
Jaune rubbed his now very red cheek, a hurt expression on his face. "What was that for?"
His question only seemed to make her angry. "What was that for!? THAT was for making us think you were dead you moron! Besides, why are you complaining? You're not the one who hurt their hand." True to her words Melanie cradling her hand with a pained expression.
"Here I'll fix it." Reaching out, Jaune grabbed her hand and activated his semblance. Golden light sprang to life for a moment before disappearing. Leaving Juane with a slightly aching hand and Melanie with a now healed broken hand.
"You finally managed to find your semblance huh Jaune?" Militia spoke up, finally releasing him from her death grip.
"And he brought friends. Mind explaining who they are, Jaune?" Melanie inquired. Now done inspecting her hand for any damage.
Jaune let out a big sigh before manifesting his rigging in a flash of thousands of mental cubes. "That's going to be a bit of a long story. I hope you guys still own that warehouse. Cause I have a feeling we'll be needing to visit there sometime soon."
"Alright talk. Now." Melanie demanded.
"I suppose I should start with the Mental Cube I found on the beach."
"Mental Cube?" Militia was the one to speak up this time.
"Yeah it's those blue cubes that you saw earlier. I found one on the beach and I picked it up. Then I made the mistake of running aura through it. Once I did that it felt like my body was set on fire and I couldn't let go of the Cube. Eventually I passed out on the beach."
"If you passed out, how did you end up missing? Unless of course they had something to do with it." Melanie gave the three of the four white haired women in the room a hard glare.
"Actually the reason I disappeared was because of the tide." The embarrassed blush on Jaune's face told everyone how he felt about that part of the story.
"Hahaha y-you got swept out with the tide again. Your sisters will love this." Militia, unable to stop laughing, was holding her stomach and bent at the waist, laughing at Jaune's misfortune.
"It was one time and I was six. How was I supposed to know?" Jaune grumbled. "Anyways. I woke up in the middle of the ocean…" As Jaune continued with the story of his disappearance the twins moved from worried, to shocked, to distress at the part where he first came across each girl, and finally to confusion when he finally explained what the three women with him were. And what he was now.
At the end of his story the two sisters clearly didn't know what to think. On one hand the existence of ship humans made of mental cubes was absurd. On the other hand, this was Jaune; he couldn't lie to save his life and the only reason they had even given him the false transcripts he needed to get into Beacon was because they didn't think he would make it.
That created another problem for them. Either Jaune had suddenly become very good at lying or someone had covered for him and neither of them knew which one of their theories were true.
"You guys don't believe me do you?"
Militia bit her lip looking very unsure of herself before working out a response, "It's just that your story is just so… out there."
Jaune's lips curled into a soft smile at that, "I know which is why I asked if you guys still owned that warehouse over by the docks."
"We do but what do you need it for?" Melanie asked, arms crossed over her chest.
"Because I'm going to show you I'm right. Well actually Sims is going to show you since the rest of us don't exactly fit inside once we bring out the ships."
"Um Jaune I don't know if you know this or not but ships don't do well just sitting on the floor." Sims spoke in a worried voice. Concerned about the stress that would be placed on her ship.
"I know but the warehouse actually has a dock in it."
" Why? That seems like a waste." Tirpitz asked.
"My family was really important when the kingdom was still a monarchy and when they moved around it was a big deal. So they had it built so they could have a quiet way out of the city if they needed one. When the main branch of the family moved away they gave it to Hei's branch of the family." Jaune explained.
"Wait, we had a private dock all these years?" Melanie asked.
"Yeah. You never knew?" It was Jaune's turn to be confused for the night. How did you not know you owned a private dock? He shook his head. "Anyway let's grab Uncle Hei and head over there so I can prove to you all I'm not crazy." Melaine shrugged at that.
"Yeah sure let's go." As they left for the docks Militia grabbed Junior by his tie and forcefully dragged him along. Barley giving him time to call out to one of his goons to take over the bar.
Soon they were well on their way to a more private side of the industrial district. On the way Jaune told Junior about his little adventure out at sea. To say he thought Jaune was crazy was an understatement but he went along with them once Enterprise said they were on their way to show them proof their story was correct.
After a few minutes they arrived at an old looking warehouse that was in bad need of a new coat of paint and perhaps a few new pieces of siding. The edge butted up against the sea needed some serious attention. The door while locked didn't prove to be an obstacle for the new battleship as he simply grabbed the door and ripped it off its hinges.
"I uh I wasn't expecting to do that." Tirptiz raised her eyebrow at him.
"You didn't expect that?" Jaune scratched the back of his head, his cheeks flushed with his embarrassment.
"I was just trying to open it. Come on, let's go." Hurrying inside Jaune looked around at the inside.
Everything was covered in a layer of dirt with a few objects shoved into a corner covered by a tarp. There in the center of the concrete floor was a large pool of muddy slimy water of an unknown depth, just large enough to fit a Fletcher class destroyer. On the ceiling was the remains of an old overhead crane rusted beyond use.
Enterprise was the first in behind him followed by the others. As they took in the state of the warehouse/dock the disgust on the girls' faces was clear for everyone to see. Junior however was looking around with a contemplative look. No doubt thinking of several uses for the warehouse that would generate a large amount of profit.
"Hey Jaune I know you said your family was important and needed privacy but isn't this a bit much?" Tirpitz asked.
"It is a bit much, yeah but my family wasn't always very frugal. In fact they used to be extremely extravagant. It helps that they were an offshoot of the royal family too so no one could really criticize them for it."
Tirpitz and the other shipgirls looked at him in shock. "You're royalty?" Sims asked.
Jaune shook his head. "No, not technically but close enough. We actually ran most of the frontier when the country was still a monarchy but now we are in charge of the largest frontier city and the surrounding area."
"If that is the case then how did your uncle end up running a nightclub?" Enterprise asked.
"Because we're not actually part of a legitimate branch of the family." Junior spoke up. "Anyways you said you had proof I want to see it." Jaune shrugged.
"Alright Sims you're up." Sims wrinkled nose in disgust.
"Do I really need to do this? That water is disgusting."
"If you want them to believe us and be left alone by the military then yeah."
Sims left out a heavy sigh. "Fine but I'm using all of the hot water for my bath when we get back to the club." Stepping forward Sims summoned her ship in a flash of bright blue mental cubes. When the light died down it revealed a Sims class destroyer resting in the scum filled water. "Ugh this is so gross."
Sims' complaint went unheard by the twins and Junior as they openly stared at the warship in front of them. Jaune had to wave his hand in front of their faces to get their attention.
"So do you believe me now?"