Once again
Cinder's flame separated them, he couldn't see Penny or Weiss, but he saw Cinder's grimm hand extended, he realized it too late, however.
His heart sunk when he heard Penny's scream, pure agony from someone who just got a human body, who for the first time, felt true pain, Weiss saw it too, immediately dashing to stop Cinder while he went to help Penny, to try to heal her.
"Penny, J- just hold on, my semblance." He trembled as he knelt down next to her, she was laid on the ground, skin paler than usual, he pushed all of his aura to save her.
"N- no." She barely managed.
"There's not enough time, she can't get the maiden and the staff." She said, her voice was low, skin turning whiter and whiter.
"But there is something you can do." Her hand traveled to his sheathed sword, he got the implication, but didn't want to hear it.
"I- I don't understand what you're talking about." He looked at Weiss, she was holding Cinder back, but not for long, she would fall sooner rather than later, he gritted his teeth.
Let me choose this one thing.
Trust me.
He started to hear a ringing sound, he stared at his reflection in the sword, he saw an older version of himself, one with a beard and long hair, the ringing sound became louder and louder with each second.
Let me choose this one thing.
Trust me.
Trust me.
TRUST ME.
Jaune snapped his eyes open, panting for air, he clutched his heart, feeling the vibration from it, he was still alive, he didn't know what happened to him.
He looked around, everything was a different shade of white and blue, he found himself in a bed with a heart monitor, while tubes ran into his body.
He felt a sharp pain from his head, his hand went to touch it and found bandages around him, and he also saw some on his shoulder, seeing he couldn't move his other arm quite right.
"I'm in Atlas." He thought, and it was an obvious thing, seeing how everything was the color he remembered the kingdom with.
He sighed in relief, at least he made it here, but immediately went to his scroll to check on his friends, however Nora came in just in time.
"Jaune." Nora launched herself at him with a hug, while Ren hurried his bass towards him, showing his own worry.
"H- Hey Nora, what's up?" He tried to return the hug, but Ren decided it was the best moment to join in, crushing Jaune even more.
"C- can't, breath." He managed, and both immediately departed.
"Are you ok? How's your head?" Ren asked, his worry shown by his eyes scanning him up and down.
"I'm fine, my head hurt a little, what happened?"
"An Army of white fang shot us out of the sky, you heroically covered Weiss with your body, shielding her, but the white fang were too much, we fought to the very end but, at last we-"
"A group of white fang shot us down, we fought them and a rescue team came to help, you passed out just before they came." Ren cut off Nora's tale, which earned him a Scowl.
"What happened since then?"
" A group of specialists from Ironwood escorted us to him, team RWBY, Qrow and Oscar explained the situation while we came to stay with you, it's been two days since then."
"Did they tell him the truth?" Jaune asked cautiously, making sure no one was around other than them.
"It was one of the first thing Ruby explained to him, he was pretty upset, but said we will cross that bridge when we come to it." Ren explained.
"Good, last time was a mistake, which resulted in many deaths, this time, it will be different." He thought getting out of the bed.
"Thanks, Ren, I think I'm gonna need to talk to Ruby." He made to stand up, but Nora forced him down.
"Sorry Jaune, but you still need your rest, we will go inform the others, until then, stay here or else they'll need to fix more than your head." She gave him a warm smile, away from the threat she just declared.
"Oh sure." He saw them leave, and he fell back to the bed, he needed General Ironwood involved in his plan, to make it go as far as he wanted and Ruby would help with that.
Few minutes went by, he got a message from Ren saying they got an emergency mission, something to do with communication tower, which was weird, this mission would happen later on, not now.
Yet another thing he couldn't predict, at this time, he didn't know if it was even his fault or not, and he rather he didn't know.
He heard the sound of footsteps coming his way, he didn't know who it was, but he put on a smile for them nonetheless, however, it fell immediately.
/-/
"Hello friend Jaune." Penny said Cheerfully, not noticing how his face fell when he saw her.
"Is everything ok, Jaune, I detected a sudden increase in your heart rate." Penny said, her eyes glowing green for a moment, no doubt checking his medical records.
"H- Hey P- Penny, I'm fine, thanks, W- what are you doing here anyway?" He stuttered, he couldn't look her in the face, not after what he had done to her.
"I came to check on you of course, team RWBY and Oscar were worried about you, and they were devastated to not see you before the mission."
"Why aren't you with them?"
"I have other duties, which mean I had to stay here, I wanted to ask, how was your journey to Mistral, I heard from Ruby that you managed to kill off Cinder the one responsible for the fall of Beacon and got the maiden power back, excellent work, I'm sure General Ironwood would love to talk with you about that." Penny didn't take a break from talking, nor did she notice how Jaune grew more tired.
"I wanted to ask, what happened to Adam, and the white fang that attacked us?" the white fang attack was unexpected, and it would help him to know how they knew about the bullhead.
"Oh, terrorist Adam Taurus is in Atlas prison, charged with many crimes, from the SDC and the kingdom of Atlas and Vale, while the attack itself was more complicated." She took the seat next to him and continued.
"When you fought him off in Argus, they managed to put on a virus that gave them access to our network, they found out about Taurus and decided to do a rescue mission, unfortunately for them, the Ace-Ops, Ironwood specialist team, were already on their way to escort you, I was with them too, but your bullhead fell." Jaune nodded.
It explains how they knew, and the why was pretty obvious, Adam was a symbol for them, and with it gone, the old white fang has ended.
"How long is he sentence to?"
"Right now, we can't give him a trial, but seeing how much damage he has done, I'm almost certain he will be in prison for a long time, longer than any human or faunus life span."
He grimaced, he didn't know why he wanted him to live, but to hear it was a worthless effort still stung.
"Sorry friend Jaune, I need to go, another Call of Duty, get well soon." Penny waved him off as she ran away, he smiled and waved back, the sharp pain in his heart making it clear how he felt, but it lessened when he talked to her.
He could only stare at the ceiling and think about what happened, and what's gonna happen next, he got the easy part, now the hard one, he needed to convince Ironwood to work with him and ditch Ozpin, or more like hide the truth from him.
And he needed to prevent Penny from self-destruction, and he had the perfect idea for that.
/-/
It was later that day Jaune got released, the nurse told him where his team's room was, he already knew but thanked her anyway.
He made his way there, and when he reached the door, a familiar voice called from behind.
"Jaune, you're back." Oscar rushed to him.
"Hey Oscar, yeah, they said I just need some rest, and besides, I want to spend some time with you guys." Oscar looked a little nervous, his eyes flickering between the door and him.
"Is everyone ok?"
"YES, how about I show you around, Penny already showed us, so you're the only one out of the loop, we can even grab something to eat." He offered and Jaune nodded.
"Good idea, let's get Ren and Nora." Jaune opened the door, Oscar screaming no behind him, he didn't know why until he saw the clothes thrown on the floor, they were Ren and Nora's.
"On second thought, let's go." He looked back at Oscar, his face bright red.
They walked around Atlas academy, Oscar showing him the place, Jaune nodded in amusement at how excited Oscar was.
He then told him about the mission, how they fought alongside the Ace-Ops to kill grimm, and how they met with Weiss's father and had a heated conversation which led him to the hospital.
"This is the first time I ever saw her this angry." He shivered.
"That was nothing, you should have seen her back at Beacon, Weiss was ready to throw me into a grimm forest because of how much of an idiot I was." Jaune laughed while Oscar stared.
"What, Weiss won't do that, and I'm sure you weren't that bad."
"Oh I was. I was the worst then, I even faked my way to Beacon, didn't even have my aura unlocked." Oscar looked dumbstruck.
"What!"
"Yeah, Pyrrha unlocked it when we first met, which wasn't the best timing because I was just launched from a cliff into the forest."
"Why?"
"Ozpin."
"Make sense." They both laughed at it, reaching team RWBY's room, Jaune was about to knock, when the door handle moved backwards.
His dark blue eyes met blue ones, they widen immediately, and he felt her crashing into his chest.
"Jaune." She screamed into his clothes, she left the door behind her open, and the rest of her team came as fast.
"Jaune, your ok." Ruby was the next, hugging him from the other side, while Yang and Blake were content to give him a smile.
"I'm pretty sure Ren and Nora told you I'm ok, I heard you all went on a mission, how did it go?" He asked, noticing Weiss not making any move to let go, he didn't mind it.
Ruby then recapped the same things Oscar told him, with more Nora's style, making the grimm much worse while making their achievement much bigger.
He had no idea if this was worse or not than his original timeline, but the fact none of them bat an eye on Ruby's story worried him.
"Hey, we were going to grab something to eat, you guys want to come?" Oscar asked.
"Sure let's go." Ruby said, she took one look at Weiss who still held Jaune and hiding her face, then at Jaune who gestured for them to go without him.
She nodded, understanding that they needed some time to talk, she gestured to the rest to go, leaving the two alone.
"Hey Weiss." He said, but she didn't answer.
"They left, so you can stop acting embarrassed about showing your emotions."
"I'm not." She took a step back, looking to meet his eyes, only to see the naked relief on his face.
"I'm glad you're ok." He said with a genuine smile, she looked away, flustered.
"I- I should be the one apologizing you got hurt because of me, if you didn't protect me, you wouldn't be in that state." She looked down, he noticed the dark circles around her eyes and grimaced.
"It wasn't your fault, if I listen to Yang and ended Adam, none of this would have happened, it was my fault everyone was put in danger." and it kinda was, wasn't it.
Sure, he helped to stop Adam, but because of his actions, Ruby got knocked down, Blake and Yang hate him, and their bullhead got shot from the sky because he let Adam live.
"Don't say that, I agree Adam is the bad guy, but he still has rights, we can't just kill him, and don't put the blame on yourself, I was the one to stand up first, you just helped me, everything was my fault, Adam, the white fang, everything." The emphasis on the last one made him pause, she noticed, and continued.
"You saw the brand on Adam's face, SDC, it was a cruel joke by Mantle previous government, it was meant to mark criminals who worked with the SDC, but some racist piece of shit-" Jaune winced at the uncharacteristic insult from her. "Decided it was better used to mark faunus." Jaune's eyes widen.
"My mother discovered it, she saw it used on a faunus child and was too late to stop it, that day, she came back heart broken, blood all over her, I was a child back then, I didn't understand what happened. and that person, that monster, was one of the top employees in the company and father refused to fire him."
"I confronted him on that after the mission, and he told me how it would have hurt the company." She scoffed.
"He tried to slap me, you know, because I didn't know my place, but aura really did him dirty." She had a distance look, and smirked at the memory.
"Oh, so that why he went to the hospital." Weiss nodded.
"So yeah, everything the white fang did, everything Adam did, it was all my fault-"
"It's not." His voice was sharp and firm, she stopped and looked at him.
"It's not your fault Weiss, you said it yourself, you were a child then, hack, it's not even your mom's fault, she tried to help, and failed, you're better than your father, you're helping faunus, you are trying to be better, you acknowledge the mistakes that happened and trying to fix them, as far as I know, this makes you a good person."
He looked into her eyes, trying to comfort her, he saw the tears, he saw how she tried to hold them, but it was futile, as the tears fell without a sound, she tried to wipe them.
"Weiss, I know I'm not the best person to say this, but, no matter what happens, you can count on us to be there for you, we are your friends after all." He smiled confidently at her, but her expression changed.
"Y- yes, friends, I can always count on you, haha, hey look, we reached the others, you can go first, I need to wash my face." She ran off before he could say a word, he understood why she didn't want to show weakness in front of them, especially after that awkward long hug.
He sighed and went to sit with the others.
/-/
"So, are you finally gonna tell me your master plan?" She asked, walking alongside him.
"Yeah, master plan, more like a skeleton and I need you to put muscles on it." She looked confused at him, and he laughed.
"It's an everafter joke, there was a creature that needed help putting muscles on, literal muscles and organs on him, it was quite dramatic." He smiled, not noticing the look she sent him.
"OK now I need to remove that from my memory, Thanks Jaune." He laughed.
They reached General Ironwood's office, from what the other told him, he didn't have the best reaction to the news, but said he'll need to figure something out.
They knocked on the door, and when the reply came, they entered.
"Miss Rose, Mr Arc, I'm happy to see you up and running so soon, how're you feeling?" the General of Atlas asked, he sat at his desk, filled with paperwork, yet he smiled their way.
"I'm feeling much better, thank you sir, but we have something important to discuss with you." Jaune said, and the General raised an eyebrow.
"How important?"
"It's better to close the office." Ironwood nodded, clicking a button that closed off the windows, the doors, and hopefully all network.
"I trust miss Rose told you about my plan?" Jaune nodded.
"Yes, you want to make Amity the new communication tower to tell everyone about Salem." Ironwood nodded. " And you know she can't be killed." He heard the long sigh, the General aging few more years.
"Yes, Oz told me, it was quite the unpleasant surprise, but if we could discover how her immortality works, we could build a prison to hold her, at least for 100 years or so, I'm currently working on plans to make sure of it." He gestured to his desk, specially the mountain of paperwork.
"What if I told you we don't need all of that?" He raised an eyebrow.
"You have a better plan, Mr Arc? I'm all ears, at this point, nothing will surprise me much." Ruby laughed awkwardly.
General Ironwood stood dumbstruck as Jaune told him his story, how they came here the first time, what happened to Atlas, and what he wanted to do to Mantle.
After what happened in his last timeline, he had all the right not to trust the man, yet, he felt like they had a hand in his fall, and Jaune wanted to make sure this time, no one suffered.
"And how do I trust your words? As far as I can tell, you suffered from a head injury in the crash." He asked, a little angry in it, it was expected, the doubt and anger. Who would believe someone telling them they were from the future, and they fucked up so bad, they destroyed the kingdom they swore to protect.
"You have an emergency plan, to take the staff and launch Atlas to orbit, grimm won't be able to reach you, and you would get the staff away from Salem." His eyes widen, it was a good plan, a last resort option, that will doom humanity, but also save it, because if the gods got here, there won't be Remnant anymore.
"Arthur watts, he's one of Salem agents, he used to work with you, and worked on Penny, I know what will happen in the next month, General, which is why we need to act fast-" Jaune was cut off by strained laughed.
He looked at Ironwood, his eyes were wide, a hopeless smile on his face.
"Why? Why does it matter, if I fell, if Atlas fell, what hope does the world have, she's immortal, and has grimm that can literally take down Atlas, what hope do we have." Ruby felt sympathetic, after what she learned, hope was lost, but Jaune wasn't without his cards.
"Why do you think I came back, I didn't come back empty-handed." He smirked when Ironwood looked at him.
"What?"
"The person who sent me back, it's the creator of the brothers, their mother in a sense, she gave me something, it would defeat Salem, it would save the world." Ruby saw the light coming back to Ironwood's eyes.
"What is it, some kind of powerful semblance? Did she give you magic like Oz? Or did she give you the power of the brothers?" Ironwood launched at him, taking hold of Jaune's shoulders and shaking him, he winced at the pain, and Ironwood let go.
"Sorry, that was out of the line." Jaune waved him off.
"She gave me this." Jaune pulled out his necklace and opened it, she could see a picture of Pyrrha in it and smiled, but when Ironwood saw it, his smile fell.
It was a bunch of leaves.
"Is that it?" He asked in disbelief.
"Yes, those leaves from the everafter Tree, the creator of the brothers, If you drink it, no matter what you are, you will Ascend."
"Ascend?" He asked dumbly.
"Ascension is like rebirth, after someone finished his purpose, the Tree gives them ascension, the chance to be rebirth as a new person, literally, she told me that this would solve Salem's immortality problem, and better, this will bring back Salem who would fight on our side." Jaune explained with a smile.
"And how are we supposed to feed her those?"
"Don't worry, Salem is coming here as I told you, we just need to face her, I was hoping you can make the leaves into something like bullets, or a liquid poison." He shrugged.
"It would be better than asking her for a tea party, are you sure you want to trust me with it, after everything that happened." His uncertain look spoke value in the man, he recognizes his faults and strive to change them, Jaune respected that.
"Yeah, I need all the allies I can get, especially that you would be helping us a lot too, I don't want Atlas to fall."
"Very well, I'll task my team to make them effective, do you have any preferences?"
"Yes, I want them to be bullets for crescent rose, and just one liquid form." He said, and Ruby voiced her opinion.
"Why me, isn't it better to use it on someone who could get close?"
"Well, you have your silver eyes, plus the maiden, and I trust you with my life, and if nothing else, we have enough for Salem and Ozpin." She nodded in understanding.
"And I have a favor to ask from you General." Ironwood took his eyes off the leaves that Jaune handed him.
"Ask away, anything to help save the kingdom." He smiled.
"I want to use the Staff of Creation to make a body for Penny."
/-/
A deafening roar echoed across the Abyss, no soul was hurt, for it none existed here.
"Calm down." A voice called from the Abyss, even though there was no end, two beings existed here.
"Calm down, all our waiting, all of those EONS, and for it to interfere."
A sudden wave of anger and light filled the seemingly endless space.
" It is our creator, it is our mother, don't look down on which we can not comprehend."
Light battled the darkness, a fearsome battle that will never be witnessed by mortals.
"So what, she made a joke out of us, handing them a way out, to that arrogant child."
The light shined.
"Then, we simply interfere the same way, even though I do not like challenging her, I would play along with your decision, brother."
The darkness and light mixed together in harmony.
"If it wants to insert her knight, we will insert an opponent that will end him before he ruins everything."
The light became brighter.
"Do as you wish brother, however, when you lose against mother, do not expect me to follow you."
The darkness said, going along with his brother's wishes.
"Awake from your rest, we have a task for your young soul."
Note: ominous, yes, the brothers, or the brother, finally decided to do something against Jaune.
I mean, if they want to stop him they just need to destroy the tea/leaves, which shouldn't be hard.
If you didn't get it, the light brother is the one who want to fight back, while darkness is just dragged along, poor man.
Anyway, thanks for reading, I appreciate it, leave a review and tell me how you see this chapter went.
Free Palestine.
And goodbye.