Jaune's eyes snapped open as he was shaken awake and immediately he scrambled to his feet, hand grasping over his shoulder for the familiar feeling of Milo and Akouo and drawing them, ready to face whatever danger approached.
He quickly took everything in. They were in a dark cave with just one exit.
That was bad.
He tried to call up his Aura, ready to protect himself but nothing came.
That was really bad.
Further along the rocky floor he could see Neopolitan lying motionless, her condition unknown.
Finally there was the person who shook him awake.
His partner: Penny Polendina.
He spared a quick glance towards her to check her condition to see no obvious injuries, before he focused back on the entrance and the dark caves beyond, falling into a defencive stance.
No visual on any Grimm.
"All clear," Penny's cheerful whisper finally allowing him to relax somewhat, only to see the world in front of him sway and the cave floor suddenly come racing towards him as he collapsed.
He was caught by Penny right before impact, his weapons clamouring to the ground.
"You are suffering from Dust poisoning!"
She really didn't need to sound so cheerful about that.
"And Shock, with imminent risk of multiple organ failure."
What?
He realised he was gasping for breath as the adrenaline faded away and he felt the exhaustion flood through him and his chest feel like it was being crushed in an iron vice.
"Can't… Br-Breath-," he gasped as his stomach suddenly spasmed, and he convulsed in a desperate attempt to keep down its contents.
Food was a valuable commodity after all.
She swiftly laid him on his back, propped his legs up on a rock and turned his head to the side, easily overwhelming his futile and Auraless struggles.
Through his delirious haze, he tried to channel his Aura into himself in an attempt to accelerate his recovery, only to remember his Aura had been broken by whatever had happened.
"What… Happen-"
"Talking will slow your recovery. Please rest!"
She moved over to Neo and woke her, resulting in her flailing in silent panic, eyes wild and deadly parasol already half-drawn. Without her Aura she was also quickly subdued by Penny's mechanical strength and layed in a similar position as he was.
"All clear. Please stop moving. You are currently suffering from Dust poisoning and Shock."
Apparently Penny's bedside manner left something to be desired as that sentence seemed to do very little to calm Neo as she continued her frenzied struggle against her.
Through the drowsiness that threatened to envelop him once more, he tried to recall how they had gotten there. What had happened and where were they? How far from the stronghold were they? The cave seemed somehow familiar. How much time would they have before the Grimm that eternally hunted them finally converged on their position? Why were they cornered? They never let themselves get cornered. It all but guaranteed they'd be slaughtered like so many others.
He desperately tried to cast his mind back in an attempt to recall the details of his current situation.
And then, it all flooded back.
An alcoholic huntsman, a vertically challenged psychopath and an AI robo-girl walked into a bar.
It had all the makings for one of those shitty jokes, and, if Jaune was a wittier man, he might have been able to think up an actual punchline to match.
Yang would have been able to.
He grimaced.
Alas, he was not a wittier man.
Right now, he was a man who desperately needed a drink.
Or several, preferably.
Jaune led his companions over to a makeshift table and pulled up a crate to collapse over and try and forget about the world.
How had it all gone so wrong?
He unclipped the burnt and rusted hip flask from his belt to finally top it back up with the miracle liquid.
Alcohol.
Good, reliable, old alcohol.
And soda, if there was any left. He wasn't a psychopath.
Talking of which, he turned to see his unlikely ally slump onto the weapons crate next to him with a tired sigh. The world sure had turned out strange.
Who could have guessed that just six years after teams RWBY and JNPR had their little skirmish with Neo and Roman, that they'd be fighting together to defend humanity's last survivors?
He unclasped his Atlesian Combat Mask with a mechanical hiss as he was treated to the slightly less stale, recycled air of the stronghold.
Joy.
The room they had entered was much like the rest of the stronghold. An odd amalgamation of cave system, dilapidated Atlesian hallways, and makeshift scaffolding and tents. There were flickering lights hanging precariously from the low ceilings and crates full of weapons, ammunition and dust cluttering every narrow passageway.
Soldiers of all different kingdoms and poorly armoured civilians mixed, all unified by the haunted looks of despair and desperation that marred each of their faces.
Jaune, however, was in desperate need of a drink before his headache got any worse.
It'd been too long since he last had a drink.
He filled Qrow's battered old hip flask and traced his thumb against the barely visible picture of a crow on its side, blackened and burnt, just like the man himself had ended up.
It was Jaune's hip flask now.
And now he understood why Qrow drank. And if he was going to subject himself to whatever desperate new scheme Pietro needed them for, he'd need to fix his current sobriety.
Whatever Dr Polendina had cooked up wouldn't work anyway. They'd tried everything. They'd tried everything when they had all of Atlas working on ways to hold back the Grimm. They'd failed. Now all they had was him and whatever he cooked up in his Lab to try and stretch out their imminent demise by as long as possible.
They were held up down in a dilapidated old cave system deep beneath the ruins of Atlas, hiding and fighting for each new day they could steal before the Grimm inevitably breached their last bastion and eliminated the final remnants of an organised human resistance.
It was inevitable. Everyone knew it. They were just waiting to die. The Grimm, evolved as they had become, would find their last stronghold and eventually breach the walls. It was just a matter of time.
He gulped down more of the suspiciously ambiguous and unlabeled alcohol in front of him and grimaced. It tasted like petrol. Watered-down petrol at that.
The whole room seemed to echo his disgust and disappointment. The entire stronghold was just a relic from the great war. The room now designated as a pub was just another damp little cave filled with crates and large industrial bottles repurposed for fermentation and distillation, with rather mixed results.
The lack of anything good to drink really shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. He was usually one of the leaders of the scavenger teams that went out into the hellscape above to search for supplies. He wasn't sure who decided that it was a good idea for him to lead a team with his track record as a team leader. He supposed it was just because they didn't exactly have many options when it came to available huntsmen.
Him, Penny and Neo were the only Huntsmen class survivors since they lost General Schnee.
There were a few others with their Aura unlocked, but their training was either non-existent or hardly enough to help turn the tide of a battle.
It also didn't really help their strength when rationing was enforced and even then, they were only scraping through the harsh Atlesian winter.
It showed too. The scattering of people around him were slumped and looking gaunt and weak, some huddled under rough blankets while others were simply waiting to die with blatant hopelessness written across their faces.
Still, he thought Neo might have stolen them some of the last good alcohol in one of her infamous storeroom heists. Apparently not. He hoped that was down to her selfishness and reluctance to share, rather than because they were down to the very last of their supplies.
He should probably have been against her thieving, but he honestly couldn't bring himself to care anymore. They had bigger issues and sowing discord between the last Huntsmen they had would be counterproductive. Not that he really thought Neo could ever be convinced to follow any rules even if he did try and convince her to stop.
To think he had once been so bothered by such trivial crimes like theft and extortion. Sure, it was bad, but it wasn't really worth the hassle when the apocalypse was on their doorstep.
He really had changed.
They all had.
Jaune was pretty sure it wasn't for the better either. Ironic, given that the idea of being one of the few last Huntsmen trying to protect humanity against the hordes of Grimm would have sounded like a dream come true when he was younger.
Now, he wished it was just a dream. It was a fucking nightmare!
Penny stiffly sat down opposite him, "Are you two ready?"
"No."
She eyed the drink with a familiar look of disapproval.
Neo was staring off into the distance, eyes glazed over and unfocused, clearly not having even registered what Penny had said.
"When will you be?"
"Probably never. But I might think I'm ready when I've had enough drink to stomach whatever disastrous experiment your father has in mind for us."
"Splendid!" The word was laced with false enthusiasm. "And that drink is fifty-two percent poison by the way. I would not recommend further consumption."
Well, they had all changed in some ways. Other things never changed.
"Mmhm. I'll bear that in mind."
He took another swig.
Penny's eye twitched and her bright smile became just a tad more brittle.
"Phenomenal! I will see you both in the Lab!"
He couldn't help but grimace and trace the scarring that flowed up his neck and across the right side of his face.
Dr Polendina was a phenomenal scientist and an outstanding doctor, but there is only so much you can do for someone when scooping out their melted eyeball from their bubbling face without any anesthesia.
That was not the sort of thing you forgot easily, so while the doctor may have saved Jaune's life, Jaune wasn't exactly jumping at the idea of being back in his lab again.
This time, at least, he'd not be under the knife.
Still, much of the injury had healed relatively well and he had got one of Penny's spare robotic eyes surgically connected up to his brain, leaving him with a rather odd combination of one sapphire eye and one vibrant green one.
The striking contrast might have actually looked rather dashing if it weren't for the ugly spider web of burned scarring that stretched across one side of his face and neck.
Unfortunately, the Doctor's latest exploits had been somewhat less successful and a lot more… Volatile.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
He gulped down more of the bitter liquid that was beginning to warm his insides and stave off the relentlessly bone chilling cold of Atlas.
"You ready, Neo?"
Neo was still staring into the distance as she nursed her own drink of such a vibrant colour, it had him wondering if it might actually be radioactive.
She didn't say anything but notably grimaced.
Neo didn't talk much.
Actually, she didn't talk at all.
But she didn't choose to communicate much through other means either, usually just looking lost in thought or scowling at whatever had drawn her ire. Some lackluster miming was about as expressive as he'd ever seen her.
She was odd. He didn't know her very well. He'd never really tried to get to know her. Nor she, him. Their partnership was more born out of necessity, out in the field than by choice. With so few Huntsmen left, it was somewhat inevitable that they'd have to learn to work together in the field.
It was funny who your friends were when the apocalypse came.
He let his mechanical fingers brush absentmindedly across Crescent Rose. Still there, a comforting weight attached to his belt, as always.
He still had no idea how to use it.
That wasn't the point.
He took another swig.
He almost found it funny, in the end he'd lost an arm and an eye, just like Cinder had.
He let the memory of finally sticking a blade through the bitch's throat float through his mind and smiled.
It hadn't really made him happy, as he had thought it would. More of a grim satisfaction followed by a dull hollowness.
Still, the bitch was dead, for all the good it did.
He swayed slightly as he stood and moved over towards the makeshift Lab. He couldn't procrastinate any longer. Neo stayed where she was. She'd come when it suited her, as always beholden only to herself.
With a little help from the cozy buzz and the soft floating sensation lent to him by the power of alcohol, he arrived at the Labs in what felt like only minutes. Although he was quite sure it was usually a fifteen minute walk. The magic of alcohol strikes again!
"Ah, Mr Arc, you've arrived, and not nearly as late as you usually are! Excellent, Excellent!"
"Am never late, am arrivin' exactly when-I pl-"
"Yes, yes. I'm sure! Now come on in, let me explain. It really is quite fascinating! It was the electromagnetic crystal coils of course, you see. Naturally. Naturally!"
"Right," he had no idea what that meant, but if it was important, he was sure Penny would explain it to him.
The room was a mess of wires, computers and industrial dust casters all crammed together into the chaotic deathtrap that Dr Polendina seemed content to work in.
Hang on, when did Neo get here? She nonchalantly leaned against the rocky cave wall.
"-so the idea is, we can use this rare dust to manipulate these fields that affect the quantum structures in this green dust, with the coils obviously, to-"
He zoned out once more. Whatever this man thought was so obvious managed to escape Jaune's meager scientific knowledge by quite a significant margin.
The whole room was either one big abomination of a machine or many machines connected together into one chaotic amalgamation that definitely wasn't up to Atlas code. General Schnee would have had a stroke.
At the very center of the room were three small capsules that looked suspiciously like the one Amber had been killed in all those years ago.
Connected to a mess of different overlapping wires and sensors was Ozma's cane, with all his stored magic trapped within. Surrounding it were a plethora of large dust crystals of strange colours Jaune had never even seen before.
Perhaps he really should have spent more time studying 'Dust for dummies' like Weise had said.
Well, demanded really.
A small sad smile pulled at his lips at the nostalgic memory.
"-preventing the stasis bound subjects from being completely atomised, which would, I think you'll agree, be a suboptimal outcome. Now this is all hypothetical of course, but I believe I have managed to engineer a similar effect using this same electron annihilation probability field to briefly disrupt the natural flow of time and create the necessary anomalies."
He looked over at Penny for a translation as he unscrewed the top of his hip flask to take another swig.
"It's a machine that theoretically allows us to manipulate the flow of time within a field. For example, reversing it."
Jaune choked.
He choked so badly he genuinely felt he could have died as he knelt on the floor hacking up the burning liquid that he had unintentionally inhaled.
He hadn't even recovered when he gasped through the coughing, "A Time Machinel?"
"No, you absolute troglodyte, it is not a time machine!" The man actually seemed insulted to have been accused of inventing the impossible.
He staggered back onto his feet and clipped the flask back where it belonged. "Well, it sounded like time travel to me!"
"We have always been 'time traveling' just without the means to further manipulate it beyond the forward direction! I have just explained the details of Time Dilation and its limitations. Did you not listen to anything I've been talking about?"
"Not really. Look, are you really telling me we can go back in time and stop all this from happening?"
He clearly wasn't the only one who seemed to think it sounded like time travel, as Neo was also staring at the man with wide eyes.
"No. I have said exactly what I have said. If you did not bother listening to me then you will simply have to live with your self inflicted ignorance, won't you?
…But yes, it may, theoretically be capable of accelerating a small quantity of matter against the flow of time by some unknown amount. And potentially destroy all of Remnant. And erase history and, in all likelihood, some other horrible things I have yet to consider."
"That's time travel! We could stop everything before it starts!"
The scientist genuinely looked as if he was close to having an aneurysm, a prominent vein bulging on his forehead as he ground his teeth and glared at Jaune.
"It. Is. Not. Time-travel."
Jaune wasn't entirely sure what this guy's idea of time-travel was, but he'd read enough comics in his childhood to know this sounded exactly like time travel. The possibilities this could unlock. He couldn't even begin to get his hopes up. It was simply too good to be true.
"So… does it work?"
The man shrugged.
He actually had the audacity to shrug!
"It doesn't really matter. The Grimm have breached the upper level now. I'd give it only another day or two before we're completely overrun and slaughtered. There's no other way out. That's why you're all here now. It doesn't really matter if it works or not, because we are all already dead. It's now or never. Our desperado, if you will."
If that was true then this really was a last ditch effort with very few consequences. Or at least not consequences anyone would have to live with for very long.
He'd known they'd breach the walls eventually.
He'd know that when they did, it would all be over.
But for the first time in a long, long time, Jaune felt a spark of hope he was unable to stomp out.
He might be able to see them all again. To save them. To finally be strong enough to protect them rather than have them die protecting him time and time again.
Neo had her face set with a grim resolve as she eyed the dust powered mechanical masterpiece with a look of open yearning.
Penny looked at it with equal parts calculating curiosity and optimistic hope.
He could make it all up to them. It could all be worth it. Each and every pointless sacrifice that had been made for him to have got this far, against all the odds, it could actually pay off. He brushed his mechanical hand along Crescent Rose again.
He could save them.
He could save them all.
He would save them all.
It would seem his thoughts had shown on his face, as the old scientist grinned slightly manically and gestured over to the pods.
Jaune had imagined time-travel might involve a magical portal or being able to watch the world around him rewind itself. Perhaps there would be some whimsical jingle, as colours of all shades swirled past him. That he'd step into the past with his head held high and save the world.
Time-travel, it would seem, was somewhat misrepresented in his childhood media.
Big surprise.
Time-travel actually felt like being enclosed into a claustrophobic pod and subjected to a range of near lethal dust crystals exploding around him and a truly unbearable amount of G-force before the mechanical contraption around him detonated and he knew no more.
Jaune would give the experience zero stars overall, and would not be recommending it to a friend. Luckily he didn't have to endure it for longer than a second before he was saved from the agony by losing consciousness.
He choked in shock and tried to rise only to be swiftly pushed back down by Penny.
"Penn-... Did we-... Did it… Work?" He rasped.
"Our situation is unknown. We are in the Mantle Stronghold. It seems to be abandoned, as it was when we first retreated to it. I recommend you lie down and stop wasting oxygen by talking. Your condition is critical." The sentence was reinforced by another firm push.
Despite her ever cheery tone, it was clear her 'recommendation' would not go ignored.
Could it be possible?
Could they have escaped the nightmare?
Could they have returned to a time before the elder Grimm roamed the land, a time when the kingdoms and the academies still stood. When Ozma still shielded the relics from The Grimm Queen and Humanity still had a chance.
A time when the others would still be alive?