Ch. 50 Signal
When Jaune first saw Signal, all those years back, it seemed like a grand institution. Now it paled in comparison to his experience of Beacon.
Still it was more than a combat school. It was the centre of huntsman activities on Patch. But when compared to the makeshift command centre established near the border of the exclusion zone, it was clear that the horrors of daily life for huntsmen in Vale haven't quite reached here.
"What's wrong?" asked Ruby when she noticed Jaune's hesitation.
"It's… so peaceful here. Like nothing happened."
Ruby frowned a little before shaking her head.
"It's still a school for children, you know. It's not like they don't know what happened, but what they need now isn't to be constantly reminded of it. They need to attend classes and train, business as usual."
"Still feels wrong."
Despite his words Jaune stepped forward, making his way through the waiting room and past the window registers where huntsmen would take their missions. It didn't even occur to him that it was the same waiting room where he sat and waited for his entrance exam, with the same pamphlets that once led him onto his path as a craftsman still sat on the various side tables.
"Come on then, we can record a message for your parents first."
Ruby walked on determined, but Jaune decided to ask one more time.
"Are you sure you want to record the message for the others on your own?"
"Yeah, Yang needs to hear the news face to face, otherwise she'll stew in it until we meet in person. Plus I did make it look like I would be continuing Signal when they left, I need to figure out how to break it to her that I'm not. I feel a bit bad about not saying anything to Ren and Nora, but they'll understand."
"Alright, I'll just show my face in the beginning to say hi and then go off to wander the campus. I'll need to calm down once I send the message. I'm already a bit queasy about recording it."
=O=O=O=
"Everyone! I'm home!"
The Arc patriarch entered his home filled with anticipation. Despite how much he wanted to just watch Jaune's message immediately as he received it, he instead opted to watch it with the rest of the family. Or well, the ones at home.
He was secretly glad that Saphron moved to Argus. While they couldn't reach her now that the CCT was gone, it was at least better than her being in Vale when it happened. They all watched Jaune's fight on TV but it was mostly the girls that were watching when everything went down.
If it wasn't for Cobalt they wouldn't have known Jaune was even alive, but from what Doré's friend messaged him, Jaune wasn't in a good place to be coddled by his family.
Without receiving any reply, Doré walked to the living room where he saw his oldest sitting on the couch with headphones on.
"Blanche!"
"Hmm? Oh hey dad, what's up?"
"Jaune sent a message, can you get everyone to come watch it together?"
Her eyes widened.
"Oh shit I'm on it!"
Without a second of hesitation she threw her headphones on the coffee table and ran upstairs to collect her sisters from their rooms. A distant call of "Language!" from her mother didn't even register.
As Doré set his scroll to display on the larger display of the family TV, Juniper entered the room.
"So, what's all the yelling about?"
"Our wayward son finally deemed it to send us a message."
"Don't be like that, you know what Cobalt said."
"I know, I don't blame him too much, I've seen huntsmen with far more experience shut down completely when things went south like this."
They both quieted down, listening to the stomping chaos going on upstairs before the six children ran down the stairs, racing for spots on the couch. When everyone sat down, nobody said anything as their father played the recording.
When he came into view they could tell he was sitting in a comms centre not unlike the one in Velia. Next to him was the girl they all became familiar with as Jaune's girlfriend and team leader Ruby.
"Eghm, uh hello… mom, dad, sisters… so uh, I'm alive as you probably know from Cobalt. So first of all, let me apologise for not coming home, or leaving a message or… well anything since the fall of Beacon. I'll admit I wasn't in the best place right after it happened, but I was one of the few uninjured people in Vale that could help and once everything calmed down I had… other things on my mind. Personal things…
So uh, now that I'm here with Ruby, I… We… ugh. Sorry, this isn't easy to say, but we'll be leaving Vale for Atlas soon. There is more going on, but the short of it is that I've stumbled upon a few things that could help bring some of our friends back on their feet.
There is… there… why is this so difficult?"
"Do you want me to say it?"
"And dig myself even deeper? No, it's fine I'll say it."
They could all see Ruby entwine her fingers with Jaune's as he took a deep breath.
"When you first met Ruby, we were dating. But that night… we almost died. We all did. But with Ruby in a coma and after I found… pieces… Sorry. Ruby, could you help me after all?"
Their eyes met and Ruby nodded to him. They could all see Jaune's shoulders drop as he let out a breath he didn't even realise he was holding.
"That night, I nearly saw my sister die. And when I went to attack Cinder, the one behind it all… She tore my weapon to pieces. Now a thing you need to understand is that, not only did I build that weapon, Crescent Rose was special to me. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I put a piece of my soul into it…"
Jaune smiled when she said that and squeezed her hand.
"Thank you, I'll continue from here. So, when I returned to Velia, I brought with me Crescent Rose, or rather the pieces. I knew I wanted to rebuild her, but I don't think I quite understood why. Not until Cobalt shared something with me. An old custom amongst blacksmiths and huntsmen alike…
I guess I'll stop beating around the bush, when I got back here to patch, I proposed to Ruby."
It was at that point that Ruby took out the weapon from behind her back, affixed underneath her red cloak. She set it on her lap so that their combined emblem was in full view.
"This is Lunatum Cor Rosae, or the Crescent Heart of a Rose, and she is mine." Ruby proclaimed with a smile.
It was at this point that Doré grew a bit pale while Juniper clasped her hands over her mouth as tears threatened to roll down her face. They both knew what had happened at that moment.
"I suspect that at this point mom and dad will know what actually happened, so let me preface this by saying, I had no clue this was still law. They teach it at Signal but it never came up at Beacon and I suppose Cobalt didn't know either. So mom, dad, sisters, let me reintroduce you to Ruby Arc-Rose, my wife as of about twelve hours ago. Her dad, Taiyang Xiao-Long officiated it, though he didn't exactly make it easy for me, if you get my drift."
This earned him an elbow to the side from Ruby, much to the further confusion of his sisters. Though his parents knew what he meant by that.
"Ehm, so anyway, this is probably goodbye for now. I'll try to send a letter or something from Atlas once we arrive there, though I don't know if or when you'll receive it. Love you all."
The last thing they saw of Jaune was him leaning over towards the camera to stop the recording.
The Arc sisters sat there in stunned silence. It was Amethyst that finally broke the silence.
"With Jaune hitched, I guess it's Lily's turn next. Blanche and Solei are obviously lost causes."
Silence broken, discussion broke out. All the while the two oldest sisters tried to strangle the third youngest, and Lily steeled herself to not let either of the three know of her boyfriend.
=O=O=O=
Jaune was wandering the hallways of Signal. After recording the message for his parents he recorded a short message for Ren and Nora before letting Ruby figure out the rest of the message for Yang. He felt a little bad for leaving Ruby to do it alone, but she had a point. So when she shooed him away from the recording he didn't protest much.
When the bell rang and student's filled the halls he couldn't help but chuckle as he quickly became the centre of discussion of the younger students. Apparently he looked older than he was, though he felt almost insulted when someone compared his stubble to professor Branwen.
Then he heard something he wished he didn't.
"Hey did you hear? Rose came back to Signal."
"Oh did she now? Finally saw that she isn't above us?"
"They should make her repeat a year, that would serve her right."
"Ain't no way, Xiao-Long would never allow one of his daughters to be held back."
"Well at least we won't have to hang out with her anymore, with Yang off the island there's no reason to."
"Truuue, Xiao-Long has a stick up his ass, there's no way he'd treat us unfair and with Branwen gone, I bet she won't even have anyone to run to."
Jaune's blood was pretty much boiling at that point and it took real effort to not say anything. There was a good chance these were the so-called friends that never replied to Ruby's messages.
"Cum amicis talibus, quis inimicos desiderat? I better find Tai before I do something stupid."
He embarked in the direction of the combat classrooms and noted that a good amount of students walked in the same direction, including some of the gossipers he heard before.
Most of them were girls around Ruby's age, though there were some guys included in the group. And since he failed in distancing himself from the problem and his blood still ran hot, Jaune started hatching a plan and as long as Tai helped him with it, he should be able to teach the bullies a lesson.
=O=O=O=
"I don't like this."
"Which part, the problem, or my solution?"
"Honestly, both, but since I'm still a stiff from sleeping on the couch, in wet clothes no less, I suppose I'd appreciate the help with the class."
"And the…"
"...Jaune, you can't just beat them up, they're kids"
"Tai, they're Ruby's age first of all, and second that isn't a good pattern to fall into. They'll go… They would have gone to Beacon in just over a year and just continued their behaviour there. Not to mention they may have to go out of the kingdom now and it won't do them any favours there."
"You just want to beat them up."
"Yes! And beat some sense into them hopefully."
Taiyang sighed. He agreed to a point but he had a reputation of being a by the book fair educator. "...I can see why Qrow likes you so much. This is much more his style… Fine, but none of them end up in the infirmary, got it?"
"Fine. And if Ruby asks, I'm just helping correct some bad behaviour, nothing connected to her, yeah?"
"We can agree on that at least."
=O=O=O=
"Alright settle down everyone, as you've noticed we have a guest here today. He's a relative of mine that's visiting and agreed to have a spar with you guys. Of course, he's not a teacher like me or professor Branwen so in order to make it fair, you'll be facing him in groups of four. We don't have time today for all of you to face him, so Schwarz, Tachibana, Floyd, Colby, you four are going first, get down here."
Jaune stood back, the gunmetal grey form of Testa Cordis Prima in hand. He couldn't suppress the mirth when Tai introduced him as a relative, as he was pretty sure most students jumped to something like cousin or nephew rather than son-in-law.
As the four girls stood in front of Jaune, weapons in hand, Jaune noted that at least some of the mechashift looked vaguely familiar. Now that wasn't to say that Ruby helped design them, after all the knowledge probably came from the same place, but Jaune wouldn't be too surprised to find out that they had Ruby help them when designing the weapons.
"Alright, I'll give all four of you one free strike. Hit me, shoot me, blow me up with dust, whatever. But make that one strike count cause I'm not going easy on you after that. I'll be using this today, Testa Cordis Prima is just a collapsible staff, no blades, no guns, so you probably won't get too badly hurt even if your aura fails. Other than that, if your aura falls below 30% you're out. Any questions?"
"Are you single?"
Her tone of voice was pretty flirty, no doubt meant to throw him off his game. Jaune just smiled calmly. The girl was practically playing into his hand.
"Happily married I'm afraid. Now go on, battle starts when you strike."
Jaune had to give it to them, the girls weren't dumb, before their bout began properly, they all took as much distance from him as the arena allowed and started the fight off with a barrage of concentrated weapon fire.
Two of the girls had their weapons shifted into an assault rifle like configuration and went full auto. Another used a spear like weapon with a semiautomatic shotgun, not unlike Sky's Feather's Edge, and she too emptied the entire magazine into him. The last girl used some sort of pistol sword not unlike what Blake used.
Jaune smiled as his aura took the brunt of the attack. Most huntsmen would be down for the count if they took this much fire head on, but Jaune stood still, watching as the aura display showed his aura dip just below 90% by the time the girls had to reload.
"Good showing, too bad it wasn't enough." called out Jaune jovially as the girls fumbled with reloading, realising just how little they managed to do.
From then the fight turned into a veritable comedy skit, as Jaune made sure to knock the girls off balance as often as possible, sweeping their legs or pushing them over with a strike to the ribs. Their classmates laughed, clapped and whistled at every fall, much to their teacher's dismay. That humiliation hurt the girls more than any of the strikes so far.
That isn't to say the girls didn't do any damage to him, it's just that it was too little to matter. He no longer allowed them to hit him with gunfire, let alone empty a magazine into him, and despite their best efforts any melee strikes were either dodged or parried, making them lose balance once again and even making them collide with each other.
It was an unfair fight from the beginning, they still had more than a year left before they could even think about applying to one of the academies and there was a big gap between them and student's during initiation. That and their teamwork was nonexistent since that wasn't really taught at Signal, plus Jaune could hold his ground even against Taiyang when Tai wasn't holding back.
Soon enough the girls were teetering on the edge of 30% aura. Jaune had to be pretty careful to keep them above the line, otherwise the last part wouldn't work out according to plan.
When the first of them hit the ground, her aura flashing out, they thought it was an accident. By the third one out, Anne Colby knew for sure the last hit would break her aura, 30% in one go.
And as the sweeping strike of the staff hit her in the gut, she could feel her aura break. When she picked herself up, wincing at the pain of the quickly forming bruise, she heard the bell ring. The blonde asshole was playing around with them for almost forty minutes. And to her horror, none of her classmates cared to check up on them.
Instead they were happily asking questions to her tormentor, which he happily answered.
"Oh, I'm not even the strongest member of our team, last time we checked Nora can bench twice as much as me… Between me and professor Xiao-Long? Well, we sparred yesterday and I barely won, but I don't think Tai will fall for that one again so about even I'd say… I married my team leader, had a crush on her since we started Beacon. Oh there she is! Ruby down here!"
The entire class went silent and Anne's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. In the open doorway to the classroom stood their former classmate Ruby. And the moment the pieces clicked into place Anne fainted from shock.
=O=O=O=
So Signal serves as a little interlude and probably one of the last instances of "classroom politics" for a while, possibly for the rest of the story.
As for real life, I'm struggling with keeping a proper schedule. Procrastination is my enemy.
My beta reader is still busy so no proofreading yet, hopefully there are no spelling mistakes in the last few chapters.
Anyway I hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter: Ch. 51 Forest of blood