Chapter 23 – Old Friend, Why Are You So Mad

In which Jaune Arc picks out an easy first mission and visits a quaint, rustic village.

Amber was chipped.

Jaune was beside himself with rage at his thoughtless actions of the last night. At the time, he'd felt only righteous indignation at her insistence of him risking his life against a superior opponent, one that even she hadn't been able to best. But now that the threat was dealt with, he hated himself for having thrown her so callously. As mentally tough as she was, he wasn't ever supposed to let himself lose sight of the truth – that her physical form was fragile. He had, and she would be the one to suffer the potentially lethal consequences of his temper tantrum.

"It…It's something that's going to happen," Amber had tried to say. "Just a side effect of being a scroll. Totally not your fault."

She didn't sound convinced, and it certainly didn't convince Jaune.

"Amber, this is the equivalent of me hitting Nora so hard I put out her eye. Don't tell me that it's okay, because it's not. It never will be."

"I…I…I'm sorry."

"You're–!" Her apologizing for what he had done only made him feel worse. He was no different than any scumbag off the street. A regular abuser. "This is so messed up."

Jaune put his hands on his head and took in an uneasy breath. He had no idea if there were any way to repair Amber. It was possible that they could replace her screen, but what if a part of her soul was taken away with the broken glass? Her life was tied to the pieces of the scroll, so there was no telling if that was equally spread through all of them or lumped up into a specific portion of them. Until they knew for sure, it was too risky to –

Jaune groaned in disgust with himself again. Here he was, trying to make a choice that was never his to make.

"Amber, about getting you fixed…"

"I don't want to risk it." No hesitation. "I can live with a small corner of my screen slightly dented. I can't live with…not living. Jaune, I don't hold this against you. I was literally telling you to go kill yourself, and after you'd just gotten over trying your fixation with suicidal self-unlocking. You were upset, and you didn't mean to hurt me."

"Does it matter? I did hurt you. After everything you've done to help me, to train me, to talk me out of throwing my life away, I go and respond with anger the first time something doesn't go right. Dust, I'm such a petulant child."

"Jaune, did I ever tell you about when I got my maiden powers, how I nearly iced a member of my own team? And I mean that literally – they were getting on my nerves, and I tried to push them away and ended up freezing them in a giant chunk of ice. I didn't mean to do them any real harm, just to…I dunno, get them out of my face. It sounds like a comical thing, you know, cartoonishly being frozen in a perfectly rectangular block of ice, but believe me, it wasn't. They had no air, and they nearly died of hypothermia before I could get them out. On top of that, I was in such a hurry to help them that I ended up covering their chest in second degree burns from the hot air I used to thaw them out."

"Amber, I don't–"

"I know it's different, Jaune, but the point is the same. I didn't realize I was going to hurt my friend, and I did so in my ignorance. Intent matters, so yeah, you may have been negligent, but you know better now, so let's let bygones be bygones and forgive one another."

"Amber, what–"

"I…I may have had a bit of a personal grudge against Cinder, and I may have let that influence my choice of words. Everything I said was true, but I pushed hard for you to go after her because I wanted her to be caught more than anything. I guilted you into nearly dying, and…and I'm sorry too. Am…I still a part of Team Juniper?"

"Ye – of course. But Amber, you've used that phrase twice now, and I still have no clue what it even means. What are maiden powers?"

"So that's everything I know. Oz never gave me the full picture. I don't think he ever fully trusted me, in part because I kept trying to escape from his grasp and also because I only joined his group because I got the powers by accident. The headmasters, Qrow, Glynda, Winter, Xanthe – they all joined when he made them an offer. I joined when I suddenly had the ability to blast Beowolves into orbit with fireballs, and there was no choice but to induct me."

"Where did the maiden powers come from?"

"The old man gave–"

"Forgive me if I don't literally believe a fairy tale," said Jaune. He was familiar with the concept of the four maidens, but it wasn't supposed to be real. At its best, it was a fable meant to entertain babies in a nursery alongside wonderful hits like The Indecisive King or The Two Brothers, and at its worst, it was pre-scientific babble meant to explain why summer was warmer than winter. Jaune refused to buy into the notion that some old hermit had just empowered four random ladies.

"It's true."

"Where did the old dude get the power from?"

"I…I don't actually know. Huh."

"Why does it transfer only to young women? Why the cutoff at thirty?"

"No clue."

"Who was the person who thought of you?"

"Not to sound like a broken record, but…"

"Geez, Amber. Didn't you ask these kinds of questions when you got this power? Wouldn't you want to know what it was you'd inherited?"

"I was a bit too preoccupied with being a living god."

Jaune gulped down uneasily. "And now Cinder is the living god…"

"I saw from where you left me that they had sedated her. As long as they keep her in a medically induced coma, she's no threat. Besides, as we speak, I expect that he's probably…hooking her up to the old aura transfer device."

"But you said that the device doesn't work for person to person transfer."

"Jaune, it's a euphemism. Ozpin needs that power in hands he can trust, and it only transfers when someone…"

"Oh."

He didn't feel sorry for Cinder at all, though the notion that the kindly headmaster was going to execute an unarmed woman as she slept made him feel weird inside.

Not unarmed. If she's that powerful, her very existence is a threat. Amber's body died, so Cinder now has the full powers of the maiden thing. She needs to die.

"I take it this was the 'higher than my paygrade' stuff you were so dodgy about when we met."

"Bingo. Here, hold on a second."

Jaune patiently as Amber went silent. He was still feeling guilty about damaging her so severely, but her story had helped, even if he'd barely been able to keep up with it due to his own ignorance.

"Okay. Here's the most recent picture I could find of the winter maiden," Amber said. Her screen showed a white-haired woman who looked to be in her early forties.

"Is that a Schnee?" asked Jaune. "Weiss' family all have that same hair color."

"No. Her name's Fria – Fria McAtlasmaiden. She's the only other maiden who's accounted for, beside…me. Crud, I just realized that I'm never going to be a maiden again."

"That's not true. If they off Cinder, then her powers are free for the taking."

"I'm a scroll, Jaune, not a young woman. Anyways, Ozpin's lost his grip on the maidens in the most recent few decades, so Spring and Summer are missing. Spring's last host ran off to Mistral, while Summer's been gone since before I was even born."

So two of the highest cosmic powers in existence were in the hands of no one in particular. That didn't reassure Jaune any, but he supposed that if he hadn't heard of phenomenally fearsome women waging war on civilization before, they probably weren't in the hands of someone crazy. Actually, because this stuff was such a well-kept secret, it was possible that the maidens simply didn't know they were maidens. After all, non-huntresses didn't typically attempt to summon summer storms or icy lightning, so there would be no way they would ever find out what they were.

In the end, it wasn't Jaune's business. Amber had told him for context about who she was and what Cinder had done, but with one maiden in Atlas and the other two somewhere across the globe, it was extremely unlikely that it would ever come up in Jaune's life again. Right now, the more pressing things were taking care of her scratched screen, spending time with his newly reformed team, and the advent of his first mission.

Jaune had been so worked up by the drama around his relationship and the craziness involving Torchwick that he'd somehow missed out on all the notices and bulletins Beacon had been sending out about the upcoming assignment. Fortunately, he was armed with his taser, his dirks, and many of his others recently acquired weapons, so aside for mentally psyching himself up, knowing didn't make a difference. Ozpin completely explained the rules of the project during the opening ceremony, stressing that this would be their first foray into the real world of Grimm slaying.

Jaune nodded along, pleased with the notion. Sure, Grimm were dangerous, but he would have his team with him as well as some pro-hunter, and Jaune had faced down a super-huntress – a maiden, apparently – without so much as a scratch.

Well, he did have that scratch on his head. And the burns on his arm. And the burns on his back. And the burns on his front.

"Maybe we'll choose a light mission, you guys," Jaune said. "I'm a bit winded after last night."

Nora winked at the others. "We went all the way."

Jaune's eyes shot open, and he rapidly began waving his hands in a frenzied attempt to pacify Ren.

"Not that! I was talking about Cinder, not…eek!"

Perry's eyebrows rose, but Ren simply nodded.

"I saw you reloading your taser with Lightning Dust this morning. You're a lucky man with a wonderful woman, Jaune." Ren patted his shoulder. "Take good care of her."

"So, Jaune – something wussy, you say?" Nora investigated the Hard Light screens displaying the mission listings. She looked particularly closely at one of the missions and rubbed her chin. "How about this one?"

Jaune looked it over. "Search and destroy: Mountain…Glenn? Wait, isn't that the city that was bombed to oblivion with all the White Fang still in it? Perry?"

"Oh, I see how it is, look at the Faunus for deets whenever the Fang gets brought up."

"Nice try," said Jaune. "You were going on and on about how significant it was and how much you knew just before we went to prom. You can tell us all about it, and I'm ordering you as leader to do so."

Perry snorted. "Fine. Yeah, the city got kablammo-ed. It's now a heap of rubble. If I had to guess, the point of the mission would be to look for either survivors or leftover equipment. Maybe Beacon wants to see if the White Fang left any weaponry, some documents on their safehouses, any sort of thing that can give the good guys an edge on their movements or tactics. I don't think we'd see any combat."

Jaune thought it over but ultimately shook his head. "I want something easy, but not that easy. That sounds like they don't even need hunters to do it."

It was ironic that he was the one saying it, but he was fully serious. He was bone tired, but a boring mission like that wasn't going to make the rest of the team happy. As much as Jaune wanted something simple, this was a momentous occasion in all their lives, not just his.

"Why not this one?" offered Ren, pointing out a listing labelled High Profile Capture. "A local huntress sheriff in an outlying village needs some backup bringing in a wanted criminal who's been terrorizing the populace. It says that it'll be a mix of combat and crime scene investigation."

"That does sound fun," said Jaune. Capturing a single criminal wouldn't be too challenging for Jaune if he was with both a trained huntress and his team, and the split mission aspect of it genuinely piqued his interest. The idea of getting some practical experience at the non-combat aspects of hunting was appealing.

"I'm down," said Perry. "I've always wanted to travel outside the kingdom walls. I've never actually seen the wildlands of Vale."

"I would've preferred mushing Grimm into oatmeal, but I guess I can do that anytime. Sign us up, leader." Nora gave Jaune a thumbs up, so he tapped the accept icon on the screen.

"This is so crazy," said Perry. "I'm actually a huntsman now. If only my old man could see me now."

"You are the old man, Perry," teased Jaune. "Let's head out to the bullhead docks so we can get one of the good ones."

"They're actually assigned in advance," said Ren. "Furthermore, all of Beacon's airships are equal in stylistic aspects and efficiency. There are no 'good' ones."

Nora laughed mockingly. "That's where you're wrong, Renny. Tell him, Jaune."

"Some of them have lumpier seats, and one of them makes me throw up more frequently."

Nora nodded. "Precisely. No vomit on this comet!"

Jaune and Nora wordlessly high fived, then both looked away as Ren stared at them.

"S-Sorry, we didn't mean to–"

"You two really are a good match," observed Ren.

"Oh," said Nora, blushing. "T-Thanks. You and Velvet are also sweet."

"Just don't share food with her," Jaune advised Ren. "Or drinks. I may or may not poison her, and I don't want to lose a valuable member of Team JNPR."

"I shall heed your advice with great caution and report you to the proper authorities." Ren bowed. "Now, let us advance to Bullhead 9 for our first formal mission. This is bound to be an educational and enriching experience."

The edges of his mouth curved upwards, betraying an excitement rarely seen by the pink-eyed stoic. Even his emotionless state was cracking, albeit only slightly, at the prospect of their mission.

Jaune couldn't wait.

The village was called Iyun, and it was detestable. The wall around it couldn't have been more than eight feet tall, not nearly enough to repel the advance of a single Beowolf, let alone a full pack. Every building was both the home and place of business of its resident, meaning that the hospital was basically the doctor's living room, the bar was the bartender's kitchen, the forge was the blacksmith's garage, and so on. Running water had to be carted out rusted bucket by bucket from a communal well that had nearly been overrun by ivy and moss. That the people of this town hadn't given up and moved east was nothing short of a miracle.

Jaune loved it.

"Oh, it's like an Ansel away from Ansel!"

He dragged Nora by the wrist over to the well and pointed eagerly. "Look at that! Entodon Seductrix, or seductive moss as it's more commonly called. They say that if two lovers tongue-kiss while chewing on it, their fates are sealed…for the worse! Haha, better not accidentally eat any while we're here, Nora. Oh, and we have to play Wall Rumpus while we're here, or this whole trip was a waste. It's this suuuuuuper fun game where you all the players press their butts to the wall, and the winner is the one who gets blisters last…"

Nora looked longingly at Ren, who shook his head and mouthed the word 'Velvet.'

Perry ushered Jaune away from the well (and Nora) and in the direction of the sheriff's lodgings at the outskirts of the town. "Maybe we oughta focus on the mission, bud."

"But of course! What was I thinking, playing games on the job? Alright, anyways, only I know the lingo that folks like this always use, so just let me do the talking. Why, Sheriff Granolawhy's sure to love us as long as I make sure to us the appropriate formal greeting." Jaune took a bow and practiced his line. "May the stench of hay always waft through your barn."

"Stench of…what?"

Jaune smiled at the ignorant Faunus – poor city boy that he was, he clearly was entirely unaware of the deeper meaning of such a refined, time-weathered introduction.

"You see, dear Perry, to have a barn full of hay implies that you're well off. It's a wishing of prosperity."

"Sure, now let's–"

"But it actually goes much deeper than that. Hay's not just a crop; it's the perfect feed for livestock, implying that you wish a rich life as a rancher to your friend. Such poignant subtlety, such intimate finesse…if we introduce ourselves any other way, we risk offending our host."

"I don't think…" Perry paused his dismissal and cocked his head. Turning to Nora, he asked, "You kids ever hear of country formal talk from yer time on the road?"

Nora and Ren shook their heads in disagreement.

Perry frowned. "Jaune, I can't tell if you're messing with us, or if I'm actually supposed to complement the huntress' haybales and will look like a dummy if I don't."

"Messing with you?" Jaune stopped before knocking on the sheriff's door and turned to face his partner. "Perry, I'm pretty sure I know how people talk in frontier villages like this. I'll have you know, I was born in a small town. And I lived in a small town."

"If you keep talking, you'll probably die in a small town."

The female voice behind Jaune caught him off guard, and he rushed to turn around and bow. He hadn't even heard the door open.

"Sheriff Granolawhy, may the stench of…."

Jaune trailed off as he looked up and instantly recognized the huntress before him. Her face was an unforgettable one, and the memory of their last close encounter was one forever etched into his brain. Not to mention, he had some unfinished business with the adult woman who stood before him.

"So. You're the sheriff of these parts, then?"

At least that cleared up her last name – he had seen it on the mission briefing. He had no idea how Yang Xiao-Long and Ruby Rose had gotten their family names from her, but it wasn't his place to pry. She was to be his mentor, and furthermore, he intended to walk away from this encounter with more than just knowledge.

Raven Granolawhy owed him one sword.

"You–"

"Shut."

"But–"

"Shut."

"W–"

A lithe but muscular hand was pressed against Jaune's mouth.

"Shut."

Jaune shut up. The hand remained.

"Listen close, because I'll only say this once. I am Sheriff…G-Granolawhy, and I'm going to be your mentor for the next week as we track down the criminal you signed up to assist me in capturing. I don't take any crap, so watch your mouths around me. You three – hammer, gloves, SMGs – head inside. There's a room on the second floor with four cots. Settle in. Arc, follow me. There are some things that I need to discuss with you, as team leader of the mission."

The hand was removed from Jaune's mouth.

"So why–"

The hand went right back.

The Junipers waved goodbye to Jaune as Raven led him around to the back of the sheriff's building. Of all the small, homemade homes in Iyun, the sheriff's office probably had to be the finest quality in the bunch. It was the only one with an actual brick chimney, and it was easily three times the size of the rest of the buildings. Jaune figured that living in relative luxury was probably one of the benefits of being the town hunter. Miss Granolawhy was the only thing standing between the villagers and the entire Grimm contingent of Sanus, so she, like many other local hunters that resided in small towns, could pretty much live whatever kind of lifestyle she wanted.

He'd heard some horror stories of powerful hunters charging exorbitant rates for their services or demanding they be named mayor or sometimes even king, but that had all changed when the kingdom decided to take a more active stance on hunting as a career. The academies were founded, and licenses became required. Rogue hunters had learned pretty quickly that taking advantage of the meek was not worth their while, and the few that didn't were eventually forced out or arrested by the new wave of their ethically trained replacements. Nowadays, it was a much fairer system, but villages usually still threw lien at hunters like there was no tomorrow in desperate bids to earn them as residents.

Still, this was the woman who'd raised kindhearted Ruby and heart-of-gold Yang, so Jaune never doubted her integrity for a second. Besides, Miss Raven's housing may have been fancy, but it wasn't extravagant or anything.

Her hand came off his face once more. Jaune kept quiet this time.

"You came. I almost worried you wouldn't."

"Well, we saw the mission and–"

"Does your team know? About what I showed you when last we met?"

Jaune shook his head. "No. I didn't tell them our previous meeting, Sheriff Granolawhy."

The elder huntress groaned. "You don't need to mock my method of summoning you. I had to choose something you'd be sure to recognize, but in a way that wouldn't get noticed by anyone else. Don't worry – the real sheriff is fine. He's tied up in one of the grain silos."

"G-Grain silos?"

She nodded. "The villagers were surprisingly compliant when I threatened them."

Jaune took a step back in fear. Is she actually a rogue huntress?

Raven watched his reaction like a hawk, then exhaled deeply. "I'm not looking for a fight. I…I need your help. And no, before you go report this to Oz, I'm not looking to come back in. I just have a little more heat on me than I can handle, and I have a mutually beneficial proposition for the both of us. Anyways, it's your fault I'm in this situation – you forced me to show my power, and that's why they're after me, so I'll consider your debt to me cleared if you agree."

There were so many things that Jaune didn't understand about what she'd just said – her being in trouble, him being to blame, the entire situation with her apparently kidnapping a village just to get him here. All Jaune could do was meekly eke out, "Why me?"

Raven frowned and began to count on her fingers. "Well, Qrow I can't stand, and Tai I'd rather not have to deal with. Of Ozpin's agents, you're the most palatable. And make no mistake – I mean that not as a complement to you but as an insult to the others. You're strong – strong enough to coerce the White Fang under your banner and capture Fall – and I can respect that, but you choose to hand your prizes over to the old warlock. You're just a slave, boy." Her scowl intensified, but then disappeared only to be replaced by regret. "…a slave whose help I need."

So, now that rational thought shared the same grave as journalistic integrity, Jaune barely had any mental faculties left to process Miss Granolawhy's request. Manners that his mother had instilled upon him when dealing with both women and his elders kicked in, though they were regretted mostly immediately. "I'm always happy to help a lady in need."

Raven's shoulders loosened as though a grand weight had been taken off of them. "Glad to hear it. I could kill them both with a snap of my fingers, but I can't be on my guard 24/7, and that's Callow's greatest advantage. I haven't slept in four days. I portal myself halfway around the globe, yet still I find myself being watched from the shadows that same afternoon. He must have some way to locate me – maybe it's a semblance, maybe it's Salem's power, I don't know. And Rainart is there, too – I only just caught a glimpse of him once, but he isn't the type to give up a hunt just because the prey is running fast. They're both trying to wear me down, and it's working. That's where you and your team come in – you turn the hunters into the hunted."

"Callows? Rainart?" Jaune had been under the impression that his team had been tasked with arresting one criminal, not two. It was a trivial difference, and it wasn't all that much of a surprise given how everything else about the mission was apparently bogus, but this sounded like the beginning of the end of his vacation mission. "Two of them?"

"With Fall dealt with, the witch is tipping her hand. For her, it's all or nothing. If Callows and Rainart can't kill me and force my maiden powers into a new host, Salem's going to go into hiding, build up her strength, and try again in another century. Our goal is to…"

Jaune's mind turned off at the word maiden.

Amber had mentioned that two of the maidens were missing, and it all suddenly made sense. Raven's monumental display of aura magic hadn't actually been aura at all. She'd been trying to scare him off, and he'd been too oblivious to even realize that what she could do was special.

I was a fool for thinking I could just dip my head in the sand and hide away from all these powerful people. I was dealing in maidens and murderers before I even knew what they were, and now I'm in too deep to ever get out. Roman was right – he was only the beginning, and I'm nowhere near ready for what waits at the end.

"…to my plan, I get to save my own skin, and you get to bring home the head of Salem's last two agents to your master. We have a deal?"

"I…"

"You and yours only need to handle Rainart, however you see fit. I can deal with Callows on my own. I think that's a fair division of labor for when we find them." Her red eyes squinted at Jaune, studying his reaction. "So, do we have a deal?"

Jaune didn't want to shake her hand. He didn't want to agree to hunt down someone who was so dangerous that even one of Amber's dreaded maidens couldn't handle them, especially when he'd just gotten distracted and missed her entire plan of attack. He didn't want to be anywhere near this blasted town and its fake sheriff and its well and its farms and its everything.

But she was an invincible warrior, and he was a squishy little beanpole. He wasn't the person who got what they wanted in this one.

As he shook Raven Granolawhy's hand, he asked her a question that he desperately wished he knew the answer to.

"How could I say no to you?"

The dream town had gone from a perfect ten to a solid zero rapidly once the veil of Jaune's cheeriness was pulled away. The food they'd bought at the tavern was nostalgic for its proximity to what Jaune had eaten as a child, but it was nowhere near as filling or lipid-rich as Beacon's greasy grub. A well was a fun novelty, but Jaune forgot just how tedious it was to actually have to work to get a drink, particularly when he was already dry as a bone.

The worst part of it was the space in which Raven had housed them. The spare room was just an empty wooden garage, and the 'cots' she'd promised them were nothing more than chalk outlines on the floor.

Jaune wanted to go home.

"And you acted like coming to a small village was going to be all fun," teased Perry.

"I'm glad my misery pleases you so."

"It's not that you're unhappy here, Jaune," said Nora. "It's that you're just as unhappy as the rest of us that gives us pleasure. If you were all chipper like before, we'd have gone insane."

"How are we ever going to become hunters if we can't even stand roughing it in a tiny village?" griped Jaune.

"I think the root problem here is that we thought we'd be fine," said Perry. "If we'd packed our own sleeping bags and rations and whatnot, we'd be much better off. But we thought that this would be nicer than it is, and now we're paying the price."

"I miss food," said Nora, gazing forlornly at her unfinished bowl of plain grains from dinner.

Perry shivered. "For me, it's Fire Dust. You never know what you've got 'till it turns blue, freezes off, and falls onto the floor."

"While I can appreciate the spartan quality of our accommodations, the hygiene certainly leaves something to be desired," said Ren. He traced a finger through the patches of mold on the intersection of the wall on the floor, then immediately seemed to regret it upon realizing he had no water with which to wash it off.

"At least we learned something," said Jaune, trying to cheer them up. "Next time, pack on the assumption that there won't be anything waiting for us."

"Because there isn't," said Ren.

"Naaaaw, you're right, Jaune," said Perry. "The whole point of this thing is getting valuable experience in the field, and the sheriff lady's gonna be teaching us all sorts of important tips and tricks, so –"

"About that."

Perry's smile began to fade when Jaune interrupted him. "Y-Yeah?"

"Sooooooooo, it might be that there are actually two convicts we're bring in."

"Okay. That's not so –"

"And the sheriff told me that we're going to split up to catch them."

A cacophony of reactions assailed Jaune, ranging from disappointed to outright indignant. He could barely make out any individual complaint, as all three of his teammates were furiously shouting over one another in a jumble of dismay.

"–what's the point of–"

"–dereliction of duty–"

"–can't feed us, can't house us, can't even train us–"

"–hoping to show her my hammer–"

"–hoping to score–"

"–all Jaune's fault–"

"–worst place in the…you know, you're right, it is all Jaune's fault–"

Suddenly, the discordant complaints became a lot more similar.

"–responsibility of the team leader to vet missions–"

"–probably planned this whole thing–"

"–could've gone to Mountain Glenn–"

"–going on and on about the sexy moss–"

"–stole my girlfriend from me–"

Seeing where this was going, Jaune quickly made his way out of the room before Ren could finish tying his coat into a noose.

Still, as much as he wanted to keep his head on, they were right about one thing: this all was his fault. Raven had only tricked Team JNPR into coming because she seemed to be under Velvet's spell and thought Jaune was more than he actually was.

As he descended the stairs, he considered the merits of simply telling his team the truth and fleeing to Beacon. Those three would be singing an altogether different tune if they knew that Raven was no real sheriff, and she was only in Iyun to trick/press gang Jaune into helping her resolve some personal vendetta. They could call it in to Ozpin, report the location of a maiden to him, ask for a new mission…

Except she can open portals with her semblance or aura or maiden powers or whatever did that. I don't think running is an option. Besides, it'll probably be easier just to arrest this Rainart fellow than piss off a maiden by reneging on a deal, even if it was made under duress. He's just one guy – how hard could it be?

Sheriff Granolawhy was lounging about on the sofa in the lower room. Completely sprawled out on her back, she occupied enough space for three people as she idly tore pages out of magazines scattered on a coffee table.

Her red eyes looked up at him lazily, and she set down a copy of Hunter's Digest. "Something you need, Citron?"

There were a million things Jaune thought to ask for: food, better rooms, information on who they were fighting, a review of her plan from before that he'd missed…

"Where's my sword?"

"Huh?" Raven clearly hadn't been expecting that to be his query. "Sword?"

"I left my sword when last we met. My sheath, too. It's important to me."

"Ah." Recognition filled her face. "Crocea Mors. A blade of decent craftsmanship and distinct markings, but lacking Dust or enhancements. Underwhelming overall, but deserving of recognition for its body count over the generations – higher than Omen, astoundingly."

That was all well and good, but Jaune couldn't bring himself to care about her opinion. "So? Do you have it?"

She looked at Jaune and said nothing.

"Well?"

"…no. I don't have your sword anymore."

Jaune threw up his hands in disgust. "Ugh, of course. Not even one thing can–"

His ranting was cut off by Raven mumbling something.

"What was that?" he shot out challengingly.

Her expression changed back to neutral, and she resumed disinterestedly ripping apart the magazines.

"I said you'll get it back."

tl;dr Team Juniper finally gets to shadow that sheriff they wanted to without getting sidetracked by Salem stuff

Next Chapter: Hungry Like the Beowolf

In which Jaune Arc's shirt is covered in feces after breakfast and his pockets overflow with beans during dinner.

Author's Notes

Story: Amber had told him for context about who she was and what Cinder had done, but with one maiden in Atlas and the other two somewhere across the globe, it was extremely unlikely that it would ever come up in Jaune's life again.

Me: LOLOLOLLOLLLOLOL!

Anyways, we're approaching the endgame here (23/25), so expect slightly less comedy and more action. There will still be jokes, but Jaune's got another fight coming up, and this will be less zany and more serious.

Since Cinder is imprisoned, Vytal is safe from Team Chimney, so the story's going to finish with Volume 2 and Team Juniper's first mission.

This will also be the last chapter I post of Living The Dream until January. See you around next time!

Happy rats, and don't do crime!