I'm back. Week was hell. Somehow feel more stressed coming back from not writing for a week.
Cover Art: Solace O'Autumn
Chapter 36
Much of Vacuo was in uproar by the time they'd showered and had breakfast – which felt wrong when orphans were in danger, but Cinder forced them all to eat because they'd be useless searching while hungry. As for Vacuo, it wasn't just the fact orphans had been kidnapped, that was old news and unfortunately common, but it was more that the one piece of positive news the kingdom had received in decades was now being turned on them.
For once in such a long time, the world gave a shit about Vacuo thanks to one celebrity's charitable mission. People were looking at the city and thinking that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad place to live at, that maybe they should also invest in the city or move there.
And then they'd gone and mucked it up.
To say the police were out in force would be like saying there was quite a bit of sand in the desert. Not only were the authorities out, but so were a lot of people – protesting and raging on the streets about government incompetence and calling for the deaths of the criminals responsible.
There was that old marketing saying about how any attention was good attention, or that there's no such thing as bad marketing, but this really proved how stupid that idea was. Proving yourselves unable to keep law and order was not, in fact, a good image to have, no matter how much it made the news in other countries.
"Who are the criminals involved?" Cinder asked – or rather, she demanded – of Emerald.
"We don't know, ma'am."
"How can we not know? They're demanding this thot—" Mercury drew in a breath but swallowed it when Cinder glared his way. Wise choice. "—hand herself over to them, so they must have provided her some way of doing so."
"They've given a location, ma'am. Guitar Cutie has to go out alone into the desert out the west gate before sunset or one of the orphans will be killed."
Jaune sucked in a breath. Noticeably, he was the only one to react with such shock and horror, but maybe being huntsmen meant they were calmer about things. This is what the quest meant, he thought. Save the orphans. Damn it, Pyrrha was right – it was giving me advance warning! And I just assumed it was referring to saving them from poverty.
"Detestable," said Cinder. "I assume this group wants the money, but I struggle to see how they think they'll be able to spend it. Killing orphans to steal charity money is so cartoonishly evil a plot that every kingdom on Remnant will be united in taking them down. This will become such a vote winning initiative in any country that I'll be surprised if Atlas doesn't send their elite forces to help Vacuo."
"We don't have time to wait for them!" Jaune said.
"Obviously. We have to deal with this mess so that these people don't steal her away. Not that I care what they plan to do with her, but it'll only become our job to rescue her from them anyway if we let her be taken." Cinder let out a huffy sigh. "We might as well kill two birds with one stone."
"And save the orphans," Jaune said.
At the same time that Mercury said, "And win a kiss!"
Cinder ignored the both of them. "They're almost certainly watching the west gate to see when this stupid girl passes through it. The problem is that I'm sure everyone else is watching it as well now, so we can't just attack whomever we see there and assume they're with this group. And if we're too obvious, they'll realise what's going on."
"What do we do, then?" asked Jaune.
It may have been his quest, but Cinder and her teammates knew a lot more about working together and fighting bad guys than he did, being a team from Haven and all. He was more than happy to let her call the shots.
"We need to force the criminals to show themselves, and then ideally track them back to their lair. Simply dealing with them when they kidnap the girl won't solve anything if they can keep killing orphans to draw her out. We need to locate them and remove them from the equation."
"By saving them, right…?"
"If that's the only option."
"Guitar Cutie would be terribly upset if any of them were harmed…"
He didn't expect that to mean much to Cinder, but it instantly had Mercury and Emerald staring at their team leader a little more intently, which Cinder couldn't help but notice. She scowled back at them, but Emerald had the guts to speak up.
"Weren't we told to locate and bring Guitar Cutie back to meet someone, ma'am? That would be a lot easier if Guitar Cutie didn't hate our guts."
"What she said," Mercury agreed. "I don't want to upset my queen."
"Morons. Morons, the lot of you." Cinder pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine. Fine!" she hissed. "We'll save the stupid orphans and be the heroes, but that doesn't change the fact we need something to draw them out. And we don't know if or when this stupid girl will offer herself up. We need bait. Convincing bait."
"Bait…?"
"Someone who can pass as Guitar Cutie at a distance. Someone blonde, someone with guitar skills, someone—"
"You don't need to keep hinting, Cinder. I caught on at the first instance."
Cinder chuckled. "Good. Tell me, Jaune. How comfortable are you with cross-dressing…?"
For fuck's sake…
/-/
There were levels of meta to this that Jaune wasn't entirely comfortable with.
He was not Guitar Cutie in his hastily put together outfit courtesy of Cinder and Emerald. Though they did their best to match her, they had never truly seen her and could only work from videos. Ironically, that meant he still looked pretty but not like his alter-ego.
Instead, he looked like a girl trying to mimic Guitar Cutie.
Making him a boy cosplaying as a girl who was cosplaying as another girl who was actually a boy in cosplay.
It was all very confusing.
"How are you this pretty?" asked Mercury.
"You're obsessed with some internet thot so your opinion is worthless," Cinder said. "But you do pull off the look well, Jaune. Do you understand the plan?"
"Go out there, get kidnapped and taken back to their lair, wait for you to follow using the tracker on my outfit."
"Perfect."
It went unsaid that there were a lot of risks, not least of which was the criminals realising he wasn't Guitar Cutie (or at least thinking they'd realised that) and killing him, but Cinder wasn't about to say that, and neither was he. He couldn't leave Sun and the kids to die.
Cinder and her team smuggled him to the west gate. There were already hundreds there, including police and huntsmen and civilians demanding something be done. Annoyingly, everyone was chanting about saving Guitar Cutie rather than, say, the group of children that were being threatened with execution. Jaune did his best to ignore them as they passed through.
My quest hasn't given me any warnings of death for failing these… maybe that means I'll be safe either way. And I am Guitar Cutie, technically, so they shouldn't want to kill me…
Assuming they believed him.
"Good luck," Cinder whispered, as Jaune roamed out ahead.
He wasn't the only one out there. There were police out there, trying to catch the bad guys, and a few other random people. Some of them might even have been the criminals themselves. Since they'd told Guitar Cutie to head here, others had come first, and Jaune blended among them.
Until he chose not to, taking a deep breath and throwing his headdress and robes open.
His fingers hit the guitar before those around him could register their shock.
And he played.
Nothing special, nothing involving his Semblance. He just played a random song to show that he was a guitarist, and possibly the most famous one on Remnant. From a distance he was a girl with blonde hair and a guitar, and that was all he needed to be.
It took mere seconds before two figures appeared beside him, a man and a woman – and the man hauled Jaune up over his shoulder. He only just had the sense to grip tight to his guitar. Voices were raised, gunshots fired – but the woman shielded him with aura, and the two of them quickly fled with Jaune in tow.
Please don't lose me, Cinder!
/-/
"Well?" Cinder asked.
"His tracker is active, ma'am. They've looped around the city and are sneaking back in."
"Perfect. Saves us having to traipse through the desert in search of them."
"We're going to save him, then?"
"Of course. Salem wants us to find Guitar Cutie and Jaune was correct that this is the easiest way to achieve that."
For a random man she'd met and drank with, he was proving both useful and competent, and her team did need a fourth member for their ultimate plan in Beacon. He was no huntsman and no use in a fight, but she had muscle aplenty. What her team lacked was intelligent life. Cinder had long given up on finding any in the heads of her current underlings.
"I'll rescue Jaune and you two shall focus on dealing with any enemies. Do your best to keep the orphans safe if you see them, as they're our key to finding her."
"Are we taking them hostage as well?"
"No. There's no point." Cinder wasn't soft, but she had been an orphan. She knew how it felt and had no interest in being as bad as her adoptive family had been. "We'll earn her favour by helping them. And even if we don't meet her specifically, this will be a feather in our cap. Ozpin isn't going to assume the team that helped save a bunch of orphans could possibly be working for his enemy."
That wouldn't satisfy Salem of course, but Cinder wanted to keep her eyes on the real goal. Not some stupid internet thot, but power. The power of the maiden, the power that was rightfully hers.
Let the rest of the world simper after some stupid girl.
But, if she was going to strike out alone in this, then she'd be damned if she let the one person who wasn't obsessed with Guitar Cutie die. Jaune Arc might as well be one of a kind in this world gone mad.
/-/
The bag that had been pulled over Jaune's head was wrenched free moments after he was pushed down into a kneeling position. They were inside, red carpet reaching to pale beige walls and a low ceiling – low enough to imply they were underground or in a basement. Circular lights installed into the ceiling beamed down on numerous tables, some stacked high with money and other with poker chips.
He would have guessed a casino even without his Semblance giving him the answer.
Because while the woman in front of him wore a mask, his Semblance handily gave her a name.
Carmine Esclados.
What were the odds, really? That the criminals who had taken Sun and the kids were none other than the people running the casino he worked at. He'd have called it ridiculous if not for the fact his Semblance had tried to warn him and he'd ignored it.
Crown Casino, group called Crown, and a quest telling me to discover the truth about them. Damn it, I really need to learn not to dismiss quests out of hand.
There were others there as well, many of them masked by headdresses with the veils drawn up. The names didn't mean much – Bertilak was familiar, but Jax and Gillian were newcomers to him, though apparently related. Jaune paid more attention to the levels and breathed a sigh of relief to note that they were actually below Cinder's.
It said a lot that graduated huntresses and huntsmen could be weaker than a current student, but then they were lower than Qrow, Winter and Ironwood as well. It was obvious they hadn't put much effort into being proper huntsmen when they graduated. By becoming criminals, they'd probably defaulted to fighting over crooks – which were just people, not Grimm. As such, they hadn't gotten stronger. Jaune looked to the apparent leader, Jax, who sat behind a desk stacked high with cash.
.
Jax Asturias
Lvl. 38
Jax Asturias is the leader of Crown, a criminal group that wishes to bring back the monarchy with its leaders at the crown. He believes himself descendant to Malik the Conqueror, and that his Semblance ability to control people's minds means he is fit to rule.
.
Control minds? That was worrying. Were Carmine and the others under his thrall or loyal to him? There were a few people stood nearby as guards or other members, but a noticeable difference was that some were stiff-backed and silent, their faces revealed but blank. Those must have been the thralls.
"This is her, then?" asked Jax. "She isn't as attractive as I'd been led to believe."
Should he take that as a compliment…?
Not being a cute girl was a good thing, right...?
"Does it matter?" asked another woman, Gillian Asturias. "What she lacks in breeding, she more than makes up for with global reach. She is the most popular woman on Remnant right now, eclipsing even Weiss Schnee and Pyrrha Nikos. With her as your Queen Consort, there will be no shortage of people willing to listen to you."
Jax leaned forward. "Hmmm. That's true. But what about this urchin business? Killing them off will be a bad look for us."
"Then it's a good job she's surrendered herself, isn't it?" said Carmine. "You can let them go now. Job done."
"We can convince people that this was done harmlessly," Gillian added. "The masses will believe whatever their beloved idol tells them, so have her tell them it was all a misunderstanding. That the media got it wrong and we were actually helping the orphans instead."
"You think they'll buy that?"
The woman shrugged. "Idiots will buy anything."
"True." Jax snorted. "Bring them out, then."
A door was opened and several thralls walked out, along with Sun and his people – all of them blank-faced, even the children. Jaune felt his stomach drop. They'd all been taken under Jax's Semblance.
Come on, Cinder. I need you right now.
A burst of static sounded nearby. Carmine and Bertilak raised their fingers to their ears.
"What is it?" asked Gillian.
"Disturbance in the casino. Someone has started a fight."
"Now of all times!?" Jax snarled.
"It's fine." Gillian laid a hand on his arm. "Go deal with it, Carmine. You as well, Bertilak. It will look suspicious if we don't act as we normally would." The two of them saluted and left Jaune on his knees, guitar cradled to his chest. "Don't worry so much," Gillian told her brother. "This is our victory. You needn't get angry with them."
"I know. I know. It's just the timing." The man shook his head and stood. He approached Jaune, stepping around his desk and walking closer. "You don't look like much, but I'm told the allure is in your music. Play something for me. If I like it enough, I might give you a charmed life."
Jaune eyed Sun. He was the strongest ally here but wasn't under his own control. Could that be broken…? Jaune brought his guitar out and began to play, subtly using his Motivational Song on Sun, hoping it would boost him enough to break out the control.
It didn't work.
Sun's face twitched once or twice but if his buff was a percentage as Pyrrha suspected, then its impact depended on Sun's level – and that was lower than Jax's. The music didn't give him enough to work with.
But it seemed to please Jax and Gillian.
"See?" she said. "I told you the girl was skilled. Music is culture and the people love it, as they'll love her. She can be the popular queen under our control, covering for any unpopular decisions we make."
"The peasants should trust us to know best but I get what you mean," Jax said. "Better to have her than not. You." He pointed to Sun. "Wubong, or whatever your name is. Take Guitar Cutie to my personal quarters."
Sun didn't move.
Jax scowled. "Did you not hear me? Take Guitar Cutie to my quarters!"
Again, he didn't move.
Was he breaking free…?
"What's up with him?" Gillian wondered. "Ask him why he doesn't obey."
"Tch. Idiot orphan peasant. Why do you not obey?"
Sun responded obediently. "This is not Guitar Cutie."
Oh wow...
Thanks, Sun.
Trust him not to recognise her since her disguise was different and made by Cinder and Emerald. Jax and Gillian had never seen her beyond some videos, but Sun had apparently been paying a lot more attention when they were together. Enough to notice the small differences and know this wasn't the right person. Or, at least, he assumed it wasn't the right person.
Jaune jumped to his feet and tore off his wig.
"A MAN!?" Jax howled, his face burning bright red.
"Isn't that the new hire Carmine mentioned…?" Gillian said, looking him up and down. "Don't tell me they took the wrong person."
Jaune swallowed and pointed at them. "Let the kids go!" he demanded, hoping that somehow his Charisma would work as it often did in tabletop roleplaying and just convince them to do as he said.
Sadly, it did not.
"They got the wrong person!" Jax howled. "Those idiots!" He drew a sword from his waist. "I'll kill him myself!"
"W—Wait now." Jaune backed up. "What if I told you I am secretly Guitar Cutie—"
"No one makes a fool of me!"
Jax lunged.
And he was fast.
He might not have been as high a level as Cinder, but who the hell was at her age? Cinder was a freak of nature, as was Pyrrha. Jax was still several times stronger than Jaune, and his first attack crashed into him, sending him sprawling to the ground.
And almost killing him straight out.
He had 10hp remaining.
If he hadn't been stacking his latest levels all into Constitution, he'd be dead from one hit alone. Jaune landed hard, gasping, clinging to his guitar as agony coursed through his body.
And Jax stalked toward him intent on finishing the job.
"I'll kill you and then I'll kill one of these wretched brats on the hour, every hour!" Jax spat. "I'll make her reveal herself to me if I have to have them skinned alive! Maybe I'll have the faunus do it, too. Everyone loves a hero, but they love seeing one fall even more. I'll make him kill the children he swore to protect unless Guitar Cutie surrenders herself to me."
Which she wouldn't if Jaune died here, because he was Guitar Cutie, and because without him, she could never come to save the children. Sun would kill his own friends, and then he'd die himself. All this because of one jumped-up man who thought he should be king.
"No…" hissed Jaune, kneeling. "I'll stop you."
Jax burst out laughing. "Oh?" He spread his arms wide, mockingly. "Do tell me how you intend that, boy. I am Jax Asturias, descendent of Malik the Conqueror. I invite you to try and stop me. Please, go ahead. Give it your best shot."
The guy might as well be that arrogant. He had aura, training, and Jaune was unarmed. Even if he did have a knife, it wouldn't matter. He'd never be able to best an actual huntsman in combat. This was hopeless. He needed Cinder to get here sooner, which meant he needed to buy time.
Jaune's fingers touched the strings.
One shot, huh? Yeah, he would make it count. He'd sent a terrorist running with one skill before, channelling all his fear into it. Now, he channelled anger. Anger and white-hot rage at the thought of children being slaughtered. He was a higher level, too. He had more Charisma than before, and this time it wouldn't be a case of him boosting Sun's level.
This would be an attack.
His Charisma against Jax's. The Charisma of an online celebrity versus that of a crook who relied on his Semblance to do all the heavy lifting for him. Jaune roared as he struck the strings, playing out the lowest and most violent Discordant Note he had ever released, aimed directly at Jax's waiting body.
The sound made the air vibrate. It was visible, enough so that Jax's eyes widened a brief fraction of a second before it struck. The man went ramrod still, every muscle in his body locking up in one go. His eyes opened wide, pupils and irises turning to pinpricks and blood creeping in at the edges.
With a choked gasp, Jax Asturias clasped one hand to his chest, to his heart…
And fell.
He didn't get up.
Nor did he move.
"J—Jax…?" whispered the shocked woman. "Brother…?"
.
You have gained +1 level for killing a huntsman.
You have gained +1 level for killing a huntsman.
You have gained +1 level for killing a huntsman.
You are now Lvl. 12.
You have +15 attribute points available.
You have 1 perk selection available.
.
…
What…? Kill…? No…
It was just fear. It was… It was just meant to make him afraid, to send him running. This was a huntsman for crying out loud. He was meant to be brave. He fought Grimm – or he was meant to, but he'd not, and chosen to become a criminal and become lax in his skills.
And, despite being a third as high a level as him, Jaune's Charisma was abnormally high, enough so that it'd probably be closer to what someone of Lvl. 100 would have. Jax's might have been as low as 40-50 for all he knew, and he'd thrown the might of his 178 Charisma at him.
It had killed him.
"NO!" screamed Gillian, reaching for her weapon. "I'll kill you—"
A chair crashed over the back of her head, driving her to her knees. Sun clasped it behind her, his dizzy face strained but free of Jax's influence. The kids were shaking themselves free as well.
"Run!" Sun ordered him. "I don't know who you are but take the kids and run! I'll hold her off!"
Jaune would have loved to, but he was on the verge of death and had just killed a man, so his body wasn't responding as it should. Neither was his brain, which felt like it was buried under cotton wool.
"Help," he whispered, head spinning, skill activating. "Someone… HELP!"
The door burst open, and a black-shafted arrow flew through, catching Gillian in the back of the neck as she turned to dispatch Sun. The woman's aura deflected it, but a second and third came, and the third shattered through and buried itself in her back, knocking the woman forward.
Cinder strolled forward, nocked another and released, burying a second arrow in the woman's body before casually adding a third for good measure.
Gillian Asturias died alongside her brother.
.
Quest Complete: For the Crown!
The masterminds behind Crown have been slain and Vacuo will know justice again!
+EXP. +Rep Vacuo. +Title: Champion of Democracy
.
Quest Complete: Queen of the Urchins
The orphans have been saved! Yay!
+EXP. +Rep Sun Wukong. +Rep Homeless
.
You have gained +1 level!
You have gained +1 level!
You are now Lvl. 14
You have +25 attribute points available.
You have 1 perk selection available.
.
It was all too much. The near-death experience, the low hp, the fact he'd killed a person, and then the barrage of notifications.
Jaune's eyes rolled back up into his skull and he collapsed on the ground.
/-/
Cinder noted Jaune's collapse but a quick check told her he wasn't injured, no doubt shocked instead. She was pleased to see him alive, and even more pleased to see one of the ringleaders dead.
No wounds. How did Jaune—?
A memory came back to her, through a drunken haze. "I have a Semblance, too. I play my guitar and stuff happens."
The words might not have been exact but that was what Jaune had told her. A Semblance based around playing music, with what seemed to be the capacity for killing a person. How very interesting. It wasn't a Semblance she'd normally be interested in since it wasn't combat oriented, but she'd already been considering him a viable future candidate and this only made him better as one.
"Who are you people?" asked the so-called urchin prince.
"Allies," she said, simply. "That's enough for now, isn't it? We came to save your people."
"Aye. It's enough. Is he…?"
"Exhausted, I believe." Cinder approached the man Jaune had killed and summoned her swords, slicing down to pierce the huntsman's heart. Cinder dismissed her blades. "When they ask you what happened, you'll tell them I killed him in self-defence. Got it?"
Sun's eyes widened and flicked to Jaune, and he correctly assumed she was covering for him. She was a huntress student, which technically meant she was legally allowed to act in self-defence or to prevent crimes. Jaune was not.
"Yeah. Yeah, you took them both out while he distracted them."
Cinder nodded. "Good. Make sure the other children know that's what happened. Allowing him to get into trouble would be a poor way to repay us for risking our lives to rescue you."
"No worries. You saved our bacon, and we'll not forget that. You need anything, you let me know. Okay?"
A route in with the one who had met Salem's latest obsession.
Perfect.
"I'll take you up on that soon," she said, stooping and picking Jaune up bridal style. Given his guitar was apparently a weapon, she would have Mercury come collect it. "At the very least, you can let the authorities know what happened and make sure our involvement is in rescuing you, since we had to break into a casino to get here and break a few laws along the way."
"Hey, it's not breaking the law if the ones you bring down are the bad guys, right?"
It was, and yet Cinder doubted Vacuo would mind. They'd thank her team for dealing with this issue of national embarrassment before any internet-famous orphans were killed. Amusingly enough, even Mistral might thank her and her team. This would make getting selected for the Vytal Festival trivially simple. Haven would want to send her team solely because they would be popular with the crowds.
But, for now, Cinder was content to walk out the casino and into waiting cameras and news crews with Jaune in her arms, and Sun and a legion of rescued orphans at her back.
Little would she realise the can of worms such an image would open.
Having checked my notes, Jaune should be 14 because he was lvl 8 after leaving Atlas and gained +1 level for "saving Cinder" from being ambushed in Argus. I'll update his stats next chapter.
Keep in mind his Charisma will be different because he keeps passively gaining +1 point here and there just from his online videos being released and viewed by millions, etc. Even if I don't show every point, he keeps getting them for free.
Next Chapter: 18th August
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