Watcher Curse
Chapter : 9
Artist : RachiePieUwU
"So let me get this right, I am dreaming, you aren't my daughter, you two aren't my Ruby's besties, and you all have..., Rusted Knight in your heads?" Summer Rose sat cross-legged in front of them, Cinder was beaten pretty badly, Weiss was too scared to move, and Jaune had to explain the situation.
"Basically, I know this is hard to believe, but we are telling the truth."Jaune was sweating heavily. Cinder is the strongest one of them, being a second-year student with real-life combat experience, yet she was beaten so easily.
Summer Rose raised an eyebrow, then closed her eyes. Suddenly, a blonde guy who looked much older than any of them walked into the room wearing a maid outfit.
"Honey, it's time for your daily ride." He winked at Summer, who immediately threw the sofa she was sitting on, knocking him out of the room.
"Alright, I believe you." She coughed into her hand, her cheeks a little red.
"What was tha-" Weiss was about to ask.
"NOTHING. Now, I understand how you guys got here, but why are you here?" She changed the subject.
They looked at each other, sending a message that she didn't catch, then spoke.
"Well, my semblance is an unknown, until now, I could jump into the dreams of other watchers and Listeners, but I never knew why." Jaune explained. She hummed a little.
"What exactly happened in those dreams?" she asked.
"Well, the first one was in the everafter where I met Rusty, he's the Rusted Knight version of me, the second was with White in a bullhead to Atlas, she's Weiss's Rusted Knight, then Cinder in a destroyed Beacon, and again, in some weird place, there were a lot of portals and a bridge made out of light." He explained, a little confused.
"The bridge between the world." Jaune had a questioning look, so she explained.
"It's what Ruby created to save mantle, it's a bridge made in the void so we could get the Civilians out, it was where I fell and became the Rusted Knight, or as I like to call it, the Rusted Rose." They all made a sound of understanding.
They'll need to confirm if all the Rusted Knights started from there, if anything, this may help defeat the fake fall.
"And idea why we got here?" Weiss asked.
"I'm not sure, as you said, I'm dead in your world, so there isn't something I can do." She hummed a little.
"Maybe it wants you to see my story or train you three, as you said, training in your dreams actually improve your actual body." Jaune nodded.
"Then I'll start with my life story I guess, then off to training." Summer snapped her fingers, and the house got turned into Beacon's gardens.
/-/
"So, how much do you guys know about me?" she asked them. They were standing in Beacon, yet it looked different, the buildings looked newer, the garden looked much younger, and they saw people building a statue.
"Ruby told me a little about how you died on a mission when she was 5." Weiss started.
"She told me you died when she was young, and that was the reason she wanted to be a huntress." Jaune continued.
"I have no clue who you are lady." Cinder snored.
"That makes sense, I guess, different events, well let me tell you my story, or what it was."
"I was once a student of Beacon, there, I became the leader of my own team, team STRQ, my partner, Raven Branwen, didn't like that fact and kept challenging my order." The suddenly were on a stadium, the screen had 'STRQ' on it, they saw two guys, one black hair, and the other blonde, while the two girl had black hair, one was shorter than the other, but.
"Is that Yang?" Weiss gasped.
"She is Yang's mom, but I'm her mommy." Summer chuckled and continued.
"After I royally beaten her, the team became a lot closer, we became a family." They were in a dorm room now.
They saw how they got along, fought between each other, made pranks, and laughed together, they saw all of that in fast-paced motion, yet, each of the Watchers felt the bond, they all had it with their own team.
"Eventually, we graduated and joined Ozpin's inner Circle, but unfortunately, Raven discovered the truth after we almost died in Mountain Glenn."
They were in a city that looked like Vale yet wasn't, they saw how the grimm came from inside and slaughtered the Civilians, they saw team STRQ with another team fighting their hardest to save as many people as they could, when they retrieved to the tunnel, a guy from the other team with green hair, whom Jaune recognized as Dr. Oobleck, ignited explosive, sealing the tunnel.
After that, they found themselves in Beacon's Infirmary, Ozpin telling Raven and another person that they needed to use the Relic, so they went to Haven.
"I wasn't awake in this part, but years later, I used Jinn to see what happened here, and to say it was unexpected was an understatement.
"They saw Ozpin ask the spirit of knowledge the question, alongside him was Raven, Headmaster of Haven, another woman with a hoodie, and…
"Is that Roman torchwick?" the Watchers yelled at the same time.
"Oh, you know him, I guess he was your father's partner after all." Summer chuckled, not noticing how Jaune's face turned white.
"As a result of her curse, Salem cannot be killed yet." The spirit stated simply, she had a sympathetic look.
Upon hearing the answer, everyone looked shocked, except Ozpin, which turned everyone against him.
"After that, both Roman and Raven left the team, and because of that, the two teams broke apart, and as destiny loves to torture us," She had a bitter smile.
The next scene was heartbreaking, they saw both Yang and Ruby, they were kids, neither more than 7 and 5, yet, they stood in front of a gravestone with "Taiyang Xiao-Long" on it.
"The day my husband died, was the day things got worse. I threw myself in missions while leaving the girls alone, bless Qrow who helped, but they lost both parents that day." The next were events they already saw.
Ruby stopping Roman, joining Beacon, befriending both Weiss and Jaune, everything was the same as their world, yet.
Ruby, who idolized her mom, couldn't look at her. They saw how Ruby tried to talk with her mom and gave up, they saw how Yang wasn't the same protective older sister, looking at Ruby with resentment, they saw how distinct the family became, their uncle was the only one who tried his best to keep everyone together.
They were suddenly on the bridge between the worlds.
"I was too far gone, I couldn't save Yang at the fall of Beacon, I wasn't there for Ruby when she needed me, and I failed to save her friend Penny." They saw Summer as she removed her weapon from the dead body of a ginger-haired girl, whom Jaune recognized and immediately felt sick.
Cinder took Summer moment of grief and knocked her off the bridge, she accepted it and fell for her doom.
"Yet, I found myself in the everafter, I waited for my daughter and her friends, team RWJN. After a lot of yelling, I finally made up with my daughter and walked through that portal." Tears in her silver eyes threatened to come, but she wiped them and punched the tree branch beside her.
"And the goddamn Tree thought to erase all the progress that we made." They were back at Beacon, where the statue still being build.
/-/
"You were sent to the pass like Rusty and White." Weiss said, in shock.
"Not exactly, I had full control over my body, there wasn't another me to share with, so I had a free rain to do what I wanted."
"So, I took that chance. I was sent to my Beacon first year, so I did everything in my power to save everyone. I stopped Mt Glenn from happening, I saved Hazel's sister and made him join us, and I screeched every corner in the continent of Atlas to find her." The scene changed to white, everywhere they looked, there was the color white. They saw Summer in her White cloak ruffling in the icy wind.
She stood at a lone house, she didn't knock on the door but immediately pushed in.
Inside, two dead bodies lay motionless on the ground, dawning in their own blood. Summer bit her lips and walked past them to the baby bed that they were trying to protect.
Amber eyes looked at her, her smile could warm anyone in this weather, but her future would burn the world to the ground.
"Hello Cinder, I'm Summer, and I'll be taking care of you from now on." She held the baby in her arms carefully to not hurt her.
"So that's why you called her your daughter, you raised her in your new world." Weiss said.
"I did more than that, Tai, Raven and I are happily married, with 3 beautiful children and the fourth on the way." She smiled while placing her hand on her stomach. Summer noticed Cinder's expression.
"I'm sorry you had to lose your partner at such a young age."
"I- I don't know, they aren't my parents, you aren't my mom, my mom got killed, by the hands of that bitch that stole my body, and yet I see another me having everything I lost, it's not fair." Tears fell to the ground. Jaune wanted to comfort her, but Summer beaten him to it.
"Don't say that, my child, there's still people who care about you, think of them. I may not be your mom, but I still love you like one of my own." Cinder embraced the hug, letting both Jaune and Weiss to stand there awkwardly.
"Sooo, picked anything from the story?" Jaune asked Weiss.
"Like that fact we're sharing our bodies, while other knights get full control. I'm not sure what to think, hopefully we get more information from the upcoming spar." Jaune nodded.
"The Tree said we are the last, or our Listeners are the last Knights, so we are kinda special." Weiss hummed her agreement.
/-/
"So let me make this clear, if you don't use everything you have against me, you will get hurt." Summer explained, flexing her arm around with her weapon, a huge mech-shift axe.
They were in Atlas fighting arena, as Summer put it, they were the best to know when to stop beating up kids, which wasn't concerning at all.
He saw the match between her, Weiss and Cinder, she was a force of nature, her attacks were so fast that Jaune couldn't keep up with her movement.
Weiss had it easy, Summer decided that tiring her out was the best plan, which led to a lecture about stamina and how to increase it, Summer was great, and Jaune had the feeling that she was a teacher at some point.
Cinder wasn't much better, she was better than them, but she still got her ass handed to her. Summer's powerful strikes broke Cinder's blades, which led Cinder to use that shattered blade as a bow and shoot arrows, which worked for 5 seconds, until Summer got close and knocked her out.
Jaune stood nervously in the ring, his shield and sword in hand, thankfully, the shield didn't have the hole from the Dock's fight, another point for training in his dreams, or more like in his semblance.
Summer looked confident, and even though she had just beaten Weiss and Cinder, she still had much more energy.
"Alright on three, 1, 2, 3 go." Cinder announced, and Summer immediately dashed forward.
Jaune knew he couldn't just stand around, so he met her half-way shield up, parrying her strike. She kicked the shield, making him stumble back, and went for another swing.
Jaune prepared himself, so when she hit him again, he slid the shield back, which allowed him to strike her.
The hit didn't land, Summer disappeared and appeared behind him. She swung her axe, which launched him forward, taking a lot of aura.
"Not bad, you're definitely the same as my Jaune, even stronger, and he's second year." She smirked at him.
He was on the ground, gasping for air. He steadied himself with his sword on the ground.
"Come on, Jaune, what would Rusty do in this situation, he would probably use his semblance to boost himself, fuck, why did my semblance have to be some weird shit like that." He thought standing up.
He dashed forward to attack. He saw Summer's eyes widen. She parried the attack, however, she underestimated the power of the blow and got pushed back.
Jaune kept the pressure on, swinging left and right. Summer, of course, dodged, but he kept it anyway.
Summer had enough and used her speed to go behind Jaune, he couldn't react in time, and the blow knocked him out of the ring.
The arena was in silence for a few moments, until Cinder screamed.
"Was that what I think it is?" she asked, looking at Weiss, who nodded with a growl.
"Wait, what happened?" Jaune was confused.
"You didn't see it?" Summer asked, extending a hand to him, he took it with a shake of his head.
"Your last attack, you were glowing white." She explained, and it took him Cinder to hit him on the back of his head to remember why that was so significant.
"You just used Rusty's semblance." Cinder said.
"I'm afraid, that is not all." Weiss had a dead-man look, she looked ready to kill him on the spot.
"What is it now? Please tell me he did not just charge his aura fully and became an infinite aura battery, that's cheating." Cinder whined.
"Much worse, look." Weiss held a special scroll that showed a recording of their fight.
On it, it showed the moment Jaune got back up and attacked Summer, the moment he moved forward, his body started to glow white.
"I can't see it."
"Look closely, Jaune." Summer said it patiently.
He looked closer, and to his surprise, he saw a small glyph under his feet when he dashed, which allowed him to push back against Summer.
"Weiss, please tell me it was you." She shook her head.
"This is White's glyph, not mine, her glyphs are more refined than mine, look at the pattern here." She pointed to a small detail that he would definitely miss.
"So white did this?"
"No, it's definitely you, your aura went down a little the moment it appeared, and with the aura amplification, you got it back immediately." Summer said.
"So basically he could use other people's semblances, or at least, the Watchers, cool, just to make sure, did he copy yours, Summer?" Cinder asked.
"My semblance allows me to add or remove weight from any object I want, I'm sure Jaune didn't use that, but you better keep an eye out for anything." She said that, and all of them frowned.
"Forget to ask, but, what happened to Salem in your world?" Jaune asked.
"Oh, Salem died after killing the brothers." Everyone eyes widen in shock.
"Yeah, she said there was a way to kill the brothers, so she worked with Ozpin after a long battle that took Atlas out to see if they could do it, and apparently they didn't need to fight, it was a matter of finding some kind of Ruin that allowed them to kill them, they definitely looked spent after it though." She explained.
"You're telling me that Ozpin and Salem killed Gods, by using some kind of Ruin?" She nodded.
"You know it?" she said, shaking her head. They all facepalms.
"Yeah, sorry, this information was only with Ozpin and Salem, they did look for temples that were before their time, which made it extremely difficult to find."
"What happened to Atlas?" Weiss asked.
'General Ironwood had this awesome idea to throw Atlas at Salem, it didn't kill her obviously, but it was good enough to take out more than half of her grimm forces." They all looked at each other, they all knew what happened in Atlas from their Listeners, but to hear it actually worked.
"I'm not sure why you guys met me, but I hope I was of help to you. I told you what you need to improve, you just need to keep training, and you'll be fine." She grabbed them all and gave them a big hug.
"You're waking up." Jaune recognized.
"Yep, and I'm not sure if you guys gonna meet me again, just tell my daughters I love them, that includes you too, Cinder." She held Cinder's head and planted a kiss on it. Before Cinder could respond, the world started to change.
/-/
The room was dark, which wasn't a weird thing, but usually everyone else wakes up before him.
He looked around and found them all asleep, Nora hugging her pillow, while both Ren and Pyrrha were fully covered in their blankets.
He got out of bed very slowly, and made his way to the door to take a walk. The moment he closed the door and turned around, a certain heiress blocked his way.
"Hey Jaune."
"Hey Weiss."
"We need to talk."
"Yes, yes we do, let's find a place to sit down and exchange notes."
They made their way to the rooftop in silence, the place had privacy and the cold air of the morning hours helped them relax.
"Do you usually wake up this early?"
"Sometimes, I usually do my morning training at 5:30 after the sunrise, but it's not bad to watch it once in a while." They sat down at the edge, their feet's dangling off.
"So, my semblance..."
"It's awful. Why does it kidnap people from their normal dreams and then throw them into another universe dream, like, how, why?" She sighed.
"It's not your fault, to be honest, it's kinda of a blessing, we just met Ruby's mom, unfortunately we can't tell her, at least we got some new information."
"Yeah, I mean, if we could defeat Salem that way or hack, even the Tree itself, it would be great." They laughed at the idea that Gods can be defeated that easily.
"You may not be my first choice, Jaune, to be my partner in this situation, but I'm glad I can share this with someone, it's scary, I know how my friends will die, I know how the world will end, yet, I can't talk with anyone about it, Ozpin is too paranoid, I can't say anything to my team, and the end of everything I hold dear is coming." She held her knees close to her chest.
"I don't want to lose this life. I worked so hard to get it, I'm not going to give it up."
"You won't, we will stop the fall, we will help Cinder get her body back, and we will stop Salem. It doesn't matter if I have to jump into another universes dreams, if we can find a way to end this, we should take it no matter what." Jaune looked Weiss in the eyes, Dark blue against Cyan blue, both reflecting each other.
They both broke eye contact and quickly found something else.
"The sunrise is beautiful." Weiss mumbled.
True to her word, the view was breathtaking, the sun rising behind the tower, golden light shining on everything.
At that moment, they didn't realize that they were holding each other hands, but the voices inside them definitely did.
"We should start exchange information." Weiss said it in a hurry.
"Yeah, let's do that."
They talked for few hours, about Cinder, Fake fall, Ozpin, and both Rusty and White and their relationship, and how it came to be, eventually they just sat back watching the students walking to the cafeteria, they sat in silence, both thinking of their fates.
Weiss thought about White, how she would react to her team's death, how heart broken she would be if her second family just disappeared, She closed her eyes and sighed, White is here to correct her mistakes, to save everyone, same as Rusty, They'll see it done, no matter what.
While Jaune was thinking about Summer, The Rusted Rose, his semblance allowed him to invade her mind and see her life, Not just Summer, But Rusty and White too.
"And maybe I can do the same to Fake fall and learn her weakness, that way, I can help Cinder get her body back." Their scrolls rang, it was 8am already, they made their way down, with a final smile between the two, they met their respective teams.
But at the back of Jaune's mind, Summer's words still hang in the air.
"Salem died after killing the brothers, they can be killed" Rusty thought after Cinder filled them in.
Note: sorry for the delay, i had multiple deaths in the family, one of them was my grandma so yeah, couldn't write.
this is not my take on Summer's backstory, this is a combination from the show's lore, my one headconon for why Raven left, and some stuff from my other story.
Jaune's semblance started to take form, with each advantage he gets a new skill, next chapter gonna show that he doesn't know how to use any of his shit, so no, he won't be op anytime soon.
Anyway if you like the story, then follow it.
You have a suggestion, complaint, or something to point out, leave a review.
Free palestine.
And goodbye