Jaune let out an exhausted sigh into his mattress and decided the day could hold on a tad bit longer before he forced himself to get up. His mind wandered onto the myriad of tasks he needed to get done, especially with Jasmine on his case and with motivation to keep him accountable. He shuddered at the thought of displeasing her; an almost mirrored reaction he had to Glynda Goodwitch once upon a time. That time had long past, yet his memories of it remained fresh just as the days he made them.
Perhaps, his recent run-ins with Team STRQ and Ozpin himself had sparked those memories to re-emerge, yet there were a series of them he was intentionally avoiding thinking about. Every time he looked at Summer…
Jaune let out another sigh into his mattress and grabbed his cane that leaned next to the nightstand he had 'liberated' from a junkyard down the street. He stretched his arms above his head and began his morning routine— a series of stretches that got his body up to the task of hard labor that he needed to do for the day. The mines wouldn't work themselves. Yet, at least.
He glanced through the window and saw the shining city of Vale waking up with him. He saw commuters begin to trickle out onto the streets, their morning routines remarkably different from his own. He stared at them, letting his mind wander through the fog of sleep that still clung to the edges of his conscious. In a future different than the one he knew, perhaps that could have been him? Wandering around an unfamiliar city at a stable, boring, office job— the path of a Hunter lost to him. That was the path his father had wanted, many years in the past.
Or future. Time travel made everything tricky.
His gaze landed onto his cane, and the shining silver rose placed on the handle. He tore his gaze away from it like a burn in his mind and took a deep breath. He had a multitude of scars from those days, ones he doubted would go away on their own. He chuckled to himself.
"I really could use your help." He whispered, his smile brittle and his voice hoarse.
He expected a litany of voices behind him to agree, yet all that he heard was the emptiness of his room and the analog clock ticking softly on the wall.
He let out another morose sigh, but quickly moved away from the window. He couldn't brood and mope all day, as much as his mind might wish him to, and he needed to act. Time was of the essence. He would have more time in the future— har har— for introspection.
In the present, he needed to focus. On forcing Jacques on the back foot; on securing an iron grip on Vale and making it his; on supplanting Ozpin in the minds and hearts of Team STRQ; and…
…On fixing the future that they hadn't been able to save. His mind burned with memories that wanted to come forward, but he refused their temptation. He took a deep breath and pressed a button on the desk in the middle of the room.
"Jasmine. Meet me in my office."
"…I'll be there shortly, sir."
"Thank you."
He pressed another button, this time on the underside of his desk and watched behind him as the bed, or more accurately, the cot, folded itself up and into the wall to the side of his desk. He grinned cheekily at the singular rose that sat in a beautiful glass container next to his window.
It wasn't like he had the money for an apartment with all of his spare time, energy and lien going straight into the business. So, he had the brilliant idea of merely combining his workspace and living space. He had heard of all sorts of entrepreneurial types in the past (future) doing the same— yet he had a feeling that it would be disapproved of by anyone that knew him personally.
The Rose on his windowsill certainly seemed to glare at him.
He chuckled and tapped the glass surrounding the rose fondly. He also had a feeling his work/life balance would be shot in the future, but he ignored that gut feeling with gusto. It wasn't like he had much choice in the matter at this stage.
A knock at the door startled him and he jumped slightly, before recovering quickly and letting the yelp that tore through his throat turn into a deep cough.
"Come in!" He said with a winning smile and sat at his desk.
By the look on Jasmine's face, he hadn't fooled her in the slightest.
"Sir? Are you ready for your briefing?" She asked, her eyebrow still arched in accusation. Jaune merely gave her the patented Arc Family Winning Smile!
Her face remained passive. "…Right. Diam has left to go…'recruiting' as you put it and hopefully that's all the trouble he finds. The man may be skilled, and his record is sound, but he seems a tad…single-minded when it comes to a task."
Jaune's smile faded into something more normal. "Yes, that's part of the reason I wanted him. It may cause trouble in the future, but that drive, that 'single-mindedness' that you call it separates him from the rest of the wanna-be gangsters out there with perhaps some skills, but zero passion. It will serve us well now, as we begin to build upwards and out." He declared, meeting the challenge Jasmine left head on.
For all that he believed in Diam and his character, it seemed Jasmine still needed convincing if the purse of her lips was anything to go by. "Perhaps you're right. Only time will tell, however." She cleared her throat and shuffled some papers around that she was holding.
"Moving on, you have an appointment with the Council of Vale later this week on your proposition. I trust you have a plan on how to convince them to give you so much land without asking why?" Jasmine said, her voice gaining an edge that made Jaune shiver. The Goodwitch comparisons kept coming to his mind. He suddenly had much sympathy for Ozpin if this was how she acted to him.
"Yes, something of one at least. Ozpin will vote in my favor and is in my corner, for now at least. We'll have to start providing tangible results to him soon to keep him from bailing ship, so to speak. But, for now, we can rely on him." Jaune said, eyeing his cane again with a minor frown.
Jasmine picked up on it. "I thought you didn't trust him?" She asked, the steel back in her voice.
Jaune waved her off. "I don't. Not as far as I can throw him, at the least." Jaune chuckled. "No, what I do trust is his motivations— we are helping him prepare his students for what lay beyond the city's walls, and he trusts my own self-interest enough to not betray him, for now. That will change in the future as we gain more influence and connections. He doesn't trust people easy." He said, the bitterness hard to keep out of his voice.
"…That sounded personal."
"It was."
The clock ticked onwards for several beats before Jasmine sighed.
"Fine. Moving on to other matters, this showed up in our mailbox today." Jasmine set down a thick white envelope onto the counter. "I promise this isn't a joke."
Jaune smirked and went for a quip before he eyed the logo on the front, and it died on his tongue.
The Schnee Family snowflake couldn't have looked more ominous on his desk than if he had been attached to a bomb. Which was a high possibility knowing Jacques.
"…This isn't funny, Jas." Jaune said, all joviality gone from his voice.
"This isn't a joke, Jaune." Jasmine snapped back. "It's addressed to us; the company that is. I haven't opened it, yet— I had a feeling you would want to be the first to take a look, whatever it is." Jasmine said, her eyes not leaving the non-threatening white envelope like it was about to bite her.
Which was a reasonable precaution to take, at least back in his day.
"Yes, I suppose that would be for the best." He muttered, grabbing the wretched thing on his desk like it was poisonous—Odds were fairly high it was. He hesitated for a moment before sighing and tearing it open, gently.
A cream-colored piece of paper fell out of the envelope as he opened it, and he braced himself. He waited. And waited.
…And waited some more.
He cracked open an eye and, at the absence of poisons gas, explosive devices, or other nefarious means of which to murder him, he let out the breath he had been holding. How anticlimactic.
He glanced towards Jasmine and ignored the way her eye twitched furiously. "Well, at least it wasn't booby trapped. This time." He said with a grin. Which died a swift death when Jasmine turned her glare to full force onto him.
"Not. Funny." She grit out, her eyes ablaze with fury. Perhaps she was related to Goodwitch after all? The way the room seemed to vibrate with her fury pointed in that direction. Or perhaps it was merely his imagination.
He swiftly cleared his throat and began to read out the letter for the both of them.
"You are cordially invited to the Schnee Family home for the auspicious union of Willow Schnee to Jacques Gele…" Jaune paused in his reading and traded a dumbfounded look with Jasmine.
"It's a wedding invitation." Jaune said, his mind a whirlwind as he tried to adjust his worldview to what he knew about Jacques. "It must be a trap of some sort." He said, his voice desperately trying to make sense of how they received something that many people on the planet would kill for.
Jasmine remained contemplative even after Jaune began to freak out. "Perhaps…it isn't." She said, eyeing the invitation again. "Regardless of our ambitions, and your own personal vendetta against the man—" Jaune whistled slowly and played at being innocent, "—we are unknowns. I'd doubt anything we have done so far has gotten his attention, or do you believe that Ozpin sold you out to Jacques of all people?" She accused and Jaune raised his hand…
…and put it down quickly at Jasmine's glare. "That was rhetorical. Ozpin doesn't hate you, Jaune. He is merely wary. Which he has a right to be— just as you are of him. Regardless, this invitation appears to be genuine, so the real question is— what are we going to do, Jaune?" She finished and looked at him expectantly.
A great question— one he didn't have an answer to. He scanned the letter again; it was mostly flowery language and flattery—a standard invitation for such a high-class event. One detail caught his eye, however. The date…
An idea, an utterly foolish and brazen idea entered his mind and he looked at Jasmine. From the way her breath caught, the look on his face must have said it all.
"Jasmine. We have two months." He said, eyeing the envelope with a wild gleam, one that he could tell had unsettled his assistant.
"Sir?" She questioned, taken aback by his will. For all the banter and antics, these situations are what he excelled at exploiting.
"We have two months to get the ball rolling, and then…" Jaune smiled, all vicious teeth.
"…Then we announce Arc Dust to the world!"
…Yo! I'm alive. Somewhat. Just kidding.
Anyways, Hi, hello! Never thought I'd come back to this story, but here I am. Almost 4 years later. Wow how the time flies. I blame COVID for that, but anywho, I hope everyone is alive and well.
This chapter isn't exactly filler, but more of something to get everyone back up to speed since it's been so long. I have another chapter almost done I'll try and release next week to make up for being gone so long.
However, due to IRL stuff, I'll most likely only be able to upload a new chapter once a month. This month will get 2 chapters, but after that it'll be back to once a month.
Looking back, this story is kind of a time capsule of my writing ability, and even though I might cringe at reading some of the things I've written before, I refuse to re-write it. I will let it stand as a testament to how far I've come and how far I have to go. Regardless, I hope everyone enjoys!