Chapter XIII: Juniper D. Arc

"Just look at this guy! He has to know what he's doing." Jaune pointed excitedly at the flier he had found. "He sounds like just the kind of guy we want heading this project." Blake made sure Ruby couldn't see despite the girl's protests. There was nothing on it more explicit than what could be found at the beach, but it was still a bit much.

"I suppose that it's better than nothing," Blake conceded. She had recently become more on board with the plan. The others noticed, but let it be. With that in mind, she wanted this all to go smoothly, and hiring a professional was leaps and bounds beyond doing it themselves. "Our first issue is having the funds for it, but an even bigger one is finding him. The log pose takes us from island to island, and it's already difficult to deviate just a bit. We only got to that marine base because of its size and how close it was to our path."

"That seems like a pretty big flaw for a company in a place like this," Ren said. He took the flier from his captain and began scanning it for information.

"There's probably an easier way for civilians to navigate all of this," Blake threw in.

Cardin grunted. "Yeah, and it's probably headed by the marines or something."

Jaune grimaced at that. "We probably shouldn't push the marines too far right now. We've taken a log pose from them, we've invaded one of their bases, and there's a group of them after us, right?" It had never been explicitly said anywhere, but there were rumors of an up and coming team of marines hunting down pirates. The descriptions felt too familiar to ignore.

Ren held the flier forward, pointing to a bit of text toward the bottom. "It says that it's part of a few islands that are connected together." His finger slid over to a small diagram of dots connected by lines. "This shows that any route we take will lead us to one of them. I'm not sure how they're connected, but I suppose the theory is that if we can get to one of them, we can get to any of the others."

"Right," Jaune motioned for Blake to take the flier. "We'll start heading that way. Make sure we don't pass it. The islands being connected gives us a chance going forward, but I don't know what would happen if we had to go back. As for the funds, we won't have any clue unless we talk to him first. Worst scenario, he gives us too big of a price and we carry on like we would have anyways."

Cardin went to pilot, giving Neo a well deserved break. Blake took the flier and began comparing it to their map of the Grand Line. Jaune followed along to try and help her, though there wasn't much for him to do. All that he could really help with was trying to match the small drawing to a section of their map. Nonetheless, it helped calm Blake a bit. Her job had been a stressful one so far, and it was nice for him to at least try.

"I've decided that you were right." Blake said it almost offhandedly. Her hands were still roaming the map and checking sections where marked islands were aligned. It took a moment for Jaune to realize that it wasn't really related to their current task — and even then, he was still confused. "When we talked the other night, about how I ran away, you were right. I know they love me — that's why they acted that way in the first place. My parents would never have been so against what I was doing if they didn't care about me. Even now, I'm just hurting them more by being silent and keeping away."

She paused and met his eyes. "That's why when we finish this, I'll make sure to call them." Jaune perked up at that, his joy written all over his face. "So long as you do the same." Then his face faulted.

Suddenly unsure of the conversation and his stance, Jaune attempted to escape back into the map. Blake was ruthless. "You said you haven't spoken to them in a while, Jaune. You were the one who told me I should contact my parents. What about your sister, Saphron? Why shouldn't you do the same?"

Jaune sighed, rubbing his neck. "It's just scary."

"I know," Blake sympathized. "I know more than anyone else here. I'm still scared, but I think it will be best for us."

Jaune shook his head. "I'm not scared to face them. I'm scared that my mom will kill me."


Tracking someone on the Grand Line, as it turns out, was not an easy task. Cinder tapped her foot impatiently, constantly scanning the horizon for any sign of a ship. What had been easy was commandeering a ship and threatening the crew to complacency. The fools seemed out of their minds, but they at least understood fear. Unfortunately, inanimate objects weren't as susceptible to such methods, so their speed and tracking was non-negotiable — how disappointing.

However, one piece of luck that was on her side was the uproar the Arc family was spreading throughout the sea. It was hard to miss the wrathful woman who was supposedly the mother of the boy causing an international ruckus. The members of her new team, working at gunpoint — or would it be foot-point — courtesy of Mercury, were using reports and sonar to find an approximate position. The latest report claimed her target would be in sight any moment, so here she was.

Then she spotted it. Of course, her eyes caught sight before any of these plebeians around her could. "Soldier!" She called, the closest scrambling towards her. "Tell the helmsman to head that way. Our target is in sight."

Excitement swelled in her chest and the ever present sadism within her carved into her face. Soon she would have what she desired! Jaune Arc would pay, Neapolitan would return to being her pawn, she would achieve her goals, and then execute all of the buffoons that have tormented her. Torchwick would live, he deserved that much for being sane.

The dot grew to a speck, and then to a distant vessel. Eventually, they were close enough. She was mildly surprised to find the woman's ship accommodating them, changing speed and course so that they could greet each other. Cinder sauntered to the railing where the blonde woman stood. Juniper Arc was waiting for her, and looked unimpressed by her display. That mattered little. The man cowering behind Juniper showed that Cinder's act did well enough.

"What do the marines want?" Juniper asked with a no-nonsense tone.

Cinder laughed. At this point, it was nearing a frayed cackle, but she would have said it was intimidating. "Are you Juniper Arc?" She received a nod. "Then my qualm is with your spawn."

There was a sudden chill and shift in pressure. "My, has my boy been naughty? Well, I assure you that I am off to — discipline him."

"Well, I was thinking." Cinder tapped her chin, glancing her eyes off to the sky before returning them. "I figured taking you hostage would help quell my anger."

"Oh?" Cinder felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Juniper's smile looked pristine and even kind. There was no reason for the dread slowly settling in her gut. "Well, I think you must also need some discipline, young lady."

Somewhere, there was a drum thundering a rising beat. Oh, that was just her heart. Juniper's hand reached down and Cinder froze. Not a single person on the ship moved a muscle. It all came crashing down when Juniper's hand rose, holding her shoe.

"W-why do I suddenly feel fear?" Cinder asked.


The sea burned. Fire spiring into the sky and smoke clouding the heavens. Cinder stared blankly, void of all emotion. That had been robbed of her. Behind her, Mercury was in the fetal position, rocking back and forth. At the back, Torchwick was muttering about how he thought nothing could be worse than cheese. Emerald was MIA. It was so close to breaking her spirit, but she wouldn't cave. Not just yet. At the very least, she would be taking something out of this mess. Jaune Arc would pay and Neopolitan would return.


Goodwitch was less than pleased. So far less than such that she felt a vein in her forehead might burst. Of all the irresponsible actions that came from Ozpin, this was certainly the worst. She had overlooked many things, kept thousands of secrets, and carried more burdens than she could count simply because the man was her friend and she believed in him. This was reaching too far.

At first the endeavor seemed reasonable. Yes, she would claim such chaos to be so. She was friends with a wizard who gave rise to a real-life fairy tale, so it wasn't too bizarre for there to exist another world within their own. Her qualms began with the actions he took.

The children desiring to leave were not properly cared for! She had assumed he was waiting for aid of some sort. If it had been up to her, less than a day into the mess, there would be professional help to check on their mental state. Instead, he threw them to the wolves and proceeded to ignore them, or rather that was how she saw it. The man had only left fellow students in charge of watching them and proceeded to do nothing about the actual issue at hand.

What frustrated her even more was that his solution to mitigate the damage was again not to hire help, as she would have done. Rather he left his school unattended save for one person — brothers help Bartholomew — and turn children into soldiers. She would worry that he was beginning to act like James' poorer side if she wasn't so sure that even he wouldn't do this. His swift departure was proof enough.

Perhaps this was all venting. There were few who could listen to her worries as they were either secrets or too numerous for the average mind to bear. However, after listening to the report given to her, it had certainly taken a toll on her mind. Team PWNY had not found Ozpin, as he was off somewhere else doing who knows what. They had found her and given their mission report. A huntsman level opponent and a hard lesson learned, that was bad enough on its own. The ending though, she caught a word thrown in about a pervert. She felt more than justified in her rantings.


"Are you certain about this?" Adam leaned in close, hands gripping the sides of his desk. The revolutionary nodded, but whimpered under the stare of Adam's narrowed eyes. The faunus sat back down, ripping open a drawer from his desk. In moments, a stack of blank papers sat to the left of him. The cycle was one the revolutionaries were familiar with: a paper was pulled from the top, a pen flew down the front, the paper was turned, the pen flew down the back, and finally the paper was set to the right. Since the real Adam Taurus was a planner, he could sit like this for hours doing nothing but running through ideas.

Despite the mundanity of the task, the image of Adam could always be intimidating to newer recruits. "We found that Pyrrha Nikos, the Invincible Girl, has a zoan devil fruit; however, we couldn't learn anything else. I'm sorry, we —"

"Silence!" Adam's sharp voice caused the soldier to quaver. Pausing in his writings, Adam looked the man up and down. "I don't want to hear excuses. How dare you!" The man was sweating, trying to step away. Reddened in the face, Adam stood up and slammed his hands onto the desk. "How dare you blame yourself! Do you think so little of yourself that you must escape from your failure? Do you think that your best isn't good enough — that you should have succeeded and now you must hide that you did not?"

The soldier was stunned. His gaze lifted ever so slightly, meeting what he once thought fury. And maybe it was, but there was a righteousness to it he missed before. "Sir, I —"

"Or is it that you doubt me?" The man's mouth clamped shut. "I selected you to be among my ranks. I saw your skills and potential and picked you to be one of my own. Are you saying that I chose poorly?"

What was this feeling? This pride that bloomed in his chest when he prepared himself for fear and guilt. He failed and Adam was praising him.

"Yes, your mission is incomplete, but so long as you breathe, you will have another chance. You are a soldier, proud and true, so act like it! You disrespect my decision when you claim fault for something like this! Are you going to insult me, or are you going to stand up like the revolutionary you are and change the world?"

"Sir!" Tears were streaming down the soldier's face. "I will follow you to the ends of Remnant, sir!"

Adam dismissed him and returned to his notes. Pyrrha Nikos, well known and young, had a zoan devil fruit. That held potential to help bridge the gap between humans and faunus — if only the newspaper would publish his articles. Until then, this story would just become another in the mountain of papers in his office.


"Coco!" Velvet whined. "You said to give him a chance, but I walked past his office, heard shouting, and a human ran from it crying."

"That's just because they're a new recruit," Coco supplied. "Keep those legs moving, Dove! We do not skip leg day!" The conversation had been following a similar structure: Coco talking to Velvet, but pausing to yell at her new subordinates. "Almost all fresh recruits have similar reactions. Don't worry, they always get used to it."

Velvet gasped. "That makes it even worse! How is he treating them that they all have that reaction?"

"Sky, keep your knees up! If I catch you slacking again, you'll be in Russel's position! Relax, Bunbun, He treats them like any leader should."

Velvet's eyes narrowed. "I disagree. Do you — do you think it was because he was a human? I know Adam was White Fang."

Rolling her eyes, Coco said, "He doesn't care about that. He treats everyone the same."

"He treats both humans and faunus like that?"

Coco nodded, before snapping her eyes to Russel. "I swear to everything you hold dear, if I ever catch you matching beige, iris, and emerald with cherry again, I'll gut you and make you tell me what season would match the palette of your innards before you're allowed to leave this world!"

Maybe, Velvet felt, the racist terrorist was somehow more sane than her friend.


"One, two, three —" Garp trailed off. He tried again. "One, two, three —" No, that didn't work, so he tried again. First, his finger went to Luffy, "One." Then to Kobe, "Two." Next Helmeppo, "Three." Then — "Who the hell is this?" The fourth person of the group of three yawned in response, adjusting his swords.

Luffy slapped the green haired man's back hard, letting out a jovial giggle. "This is Zoro, and he's our nakama now!" Ah, Garp recognized the name now. He must be that upstart bounty hunter, Roronoa Zoro. Garp gave him a good glare to see if he was trustworthy. Eh, good enough.

"Just kick his ass if he betrays us," Garp ordered his grandson. There was no doubt in any of the marines present that the two were family. "Anyways, I sent you out for food, and you came back with a man. What happened?"

"First, we went to a base, sir." Helmeppo began the tale. "Before we could get any supplies, Luffy entered an eating competition and by the end of it, the base had no more excess to spare for us."

"We tried elsewhere, and the same thing happened over and over again." Kobe added.

"Yeah!" Luffy cheered. "It was a lot of fun. Though, at the end we met this really mean captain. His name was like more-gum or something. I beat him up, saved Zoro, and that was how he joined us!"

Sniffling, Helmeppo reached into his bag. "We at least returned with this, sir — wha! It's gone!"

"The last meal we hid?" Kobe asked, turning to see there was nothing. Behind them, Luffy not-so-subtly wiped the crumbs off his face.

Seeing their apparent torture, Garp decided they could use a small mercy. "Leave it be. I think you learned your lessons enough. That does remind me." Disappearing into a side room for a moment, he returned carrying a stack of papers. He dropped them loosely onto a table near them that Zoro already had his feet kicked up on.

"Look familiar?" Luffy's shout after seeing the bounty was the answer Garp needed to continue. "We've taken to calling him Straw Hat Jaune. It seems that his little stunt with us isn't the only thing he's been up to. So far they've escaped combat with a captain, stole top secret information from a base, and we've been informed that Straw Hat has a connection to Onyx Feather Qrow." He pushed the wanted posters out to display them all. "A vice admiral named Ozpin has given us some info on them. This one here is Pink Lotus Ren. We haven't seen much, but from how Ozpin describes him, I'd say he's Straw Hat's right hand. Next, we have reports that this one was partially responsible for stealing the top secret documents: we're calling her Cat Burglar Blake.

"This punk, they haven't decided on a title yet. The higher ups are, and I quote, 'waiting for something cooler.' Until then, he'll just be Cardin. Now, this Ruby Rose seems dangerous. We're not sure how, but she tends to leave battalions of men sobbing. It must be some sort of devil fruit, and a nasty one at that. Due to her scythe, they're calling her Reaper Ruby."

The final bounty was a hand drawn sketch. The sight sent shivers down the spines of those who saw it. Growing serious, Luffy crouched over to get a closer look. Garp went on, "This last one is a bit of a mystery. We don't have any photos and only a few eye witnesses. Evidently, the stuff they gave our sketch artists was the sort of stuff from nightmares. Someone did catch her name though: Neo, Cheddar Neo."


Gliding across the ocean, Jaune stared over the waves. He was glad his devil fruit helped with this, and he was sure Blake, who was sitting next to him, was as well. Ren sat on the other side of Blake and was immersed in his puzzle book. Cardin, Ruby, and Neo were all crammed across from them. There was plenty of room, but Cardin had gotten the window seat and both Ruby and Neo wanted to look outside. It wasn't every day you got to ride a train over the ocean.

Time passed by, which he spent talking with Blake, and they were nearing their stop. He wasn't sure how they started with Jaune asking what she was reading and ended on the topic of whether Yang or Nora snored louder, but he didn't really care. He always thought Blake didn't really like talking, and part of that was because they were more friends of friends, but she was quite verbal when it came to the work of art that was her literature. When Jaune kept up with her, she was surprised that he knew anything about the sorts of books she read — and she was a bit embarrassed too. Then she received a tale of how he was forced into a book club his sister made. He was also the only male in attendance.

The train halted. The third stop had come, and that was theirs. As they got up, Cardin rubbed his cheek. Neo's hand had pressed against it, using it as support, for so long that it had left a red impression. With his slouch and demeanor, people were whispering at the sight. Jaune heard someone ask what the boy had done to upset his partner.

Around the train was bustling, crowds butting heads as they aimlessly clashed. Those departing fought through those arriving only to merge into the pedestrians shopping at the markets. This left Jaune surprised as when they left the market area, it all felt suddenly empty. Past the stalls and cramped buildings was far more rural land. Dots that looked like distant cottages speckled amber fields along dirt roads.

"What are we looking for?" Ruby squinted and blocked her eyes from the sun. She even stopped to stand on her tippy-toes, as if it would let her see over the rolling hills.

Ren answered, "Compared to the workers in the background of the poster, the building seems large. I believe it will be hard to miss it."

"You can say that again." Cardin gestured to a large roof rising just over a tall hill. The closer they got, the more its true size dawned on them. By the time they reached it, Jaune guessed it was nearly forty feet high and at least one-hundred yards across. It was a warehouse with walls made of sheet metal, and as far as Jaune could see, it was all polished too.

"Do we just knock?" Cardin asked.

"No need!" They all spun around to see the man from the flier. In real life, he was much larger standing about a foot taller than Jaune. He had a metal nose, on top of which was perched a pair of sunglasses that matched the small chain around his neck. What drew Jaune's attention were his hands, each of which could not only palm his head, but wrap around to under his chin.

The man crossed the trunks that were his arms and smirked. "The name's Franky, leader of the Super Franky Building Co. What can I do for ya?"

"Leader?" Blake asked. "Don't you mean owner?"

"Did I say owner?" He looked offended. "Here at the Super Building Co, we're a team! I'm a leader that stands with my crew, not just watching over them like some lazy asshole."

Jaune coughed into his hand. Tucked away, the plans were out of sight for now. First, they needed to gauge the cost and how trustworthy this guy was. "Nice to meet you. I'm Jaune and this is my crew. We're looking to hire your services, but first I have a question for you."

"Yeah? Fire away."

Last night he had spent a while trying to figure out the best way to word this. "Will you ask how we got these plans?"

Franky's demeanor changed. The carefree atmosphere dissipated in moments. "It depends on what it is. Are we talking weapons? Because I don't do that shit."

Jaune shook his head and pulled out the envelope. Blake caught his wrist, her eyes saying he needed to be more careful, but there was a certain feeling in his gut that said he should take this chance. After all, Franky's first reaction had not been volatile, just wary.

Large fingers plucked the envelope from Jaune's hands. He froze after seeing the cover sheet and slowly removed his shades. Thumbing through the sheets, his eyes stayed focused, but his mouth grew an excited grin.

He whistled upon reaching the last page. Packing them back inside, he said, "Now I really want to ask — not to get you guys in trouble or anything. It's just that these are beautifully made, and I'd like to know who drew them. Only thing is, I can't figure out what this all is supposed to do."

One brief explanation of scrolls and the internet later, and Franky had stars in his eyes. "What are we standing out here for! Let's go inside so we can talk shop."

"Wait, what about the price?" Jaune hesitated.

Franky barked out a laugh. "Are you kidding me? I should be paying you for the honors of this, kid. I've been looking for a project like this, so get moving. We have a lot to cover."


AN:

Beware the might of Juniper D. Arc; brothers have mercy on Jaune. Don't worry about Emerald, she's not gone or anything. She'll be back next chapter.

If you can't tell, the true Straw Hats are rolling in now. Zoro appears, but there's not too much to him just yet. Another makes their entrance in the next chapter, though if you caught it, they already have. It's just more obvious next chapter.

I've barely written anything about Franky so far, but he's been one of my favorite characters to write for. I barely had to do anything to get him to fit into the crack fic atmosphere.

It's getting caught up with me. I'm just almost done with chapter 16. I should be able to finish it before I get there, but there's no way I'll get through chapter 17 before then. I mean, unless I just have some crazy binge writing sessions. The point is, once I get there, chapters will take longer to get out. I'll try to conform to some sort of schedule, but I'm notoriously bad at them. My goal is to be weekly at the very least. That will give me a week to write and revise an entire chapter before getting it out. Depending on how I feel about that, I might alter it a bit.

Anyways, next chapter: The Super Franky Building Co