Yo! Back again this week with another chapter of Mirror Mirror! Hope you guys have been enjoying this story. The commissioner and I quite like it, and I hope you'll like where it's going as well!

Start Chapter 3

Jaune D'Arc, true king amongst the Lords of Light, deserved ruler of the Kingdom of D'Arc, and overall greatest man to ever live, was in somewhat of a pickle.

Actually, no, he was not in a pickle. He was in a mirror. In specific, he was trapped within a mirror that had once belonged to his niece, one Salem D'Arc, that was subsequently enchanted by the Brothers of Light and Darkness to hold him until the end of all things.

Which felt like overkill in Jaune's opinion, but he was a man, not a god, so what did he know?

This was sarcasm, of course; he knew everything. Obviously.

He wasn't upset about having been shoved into a mirror for a hundred thousand years. Why would he have been upset? No, he was a great and powerful king, who had no need to worry about being stuck in a mirror for potentially the rest of time itself.

It helped both to remind him of and to distance himself from his – totally nonexistent – worry that it felt like it had only been around a week or so since he'd been imprisoned. Only a week or so since he had been overthrown by Salem and Ozma, and then sealed here. He could still remember their final clash, his decision to accept the experimental magics that he'd had his court wizards testing with and evolve into something greater than Ozma or Salem could ever hope to be.

Hah, Ozma and Salem. Those fools. They were assuredly dead, and frankly, good riddance!

/

Inside of a barn on the northern edge of Mistral, Oscar Pine suddenly sneezed.

/

Half the world away, within the creeping halls of Evernight, Salem did much the same.

"Gesundheit." Watts nodded her way.

/

Thinking of his once great enemies lying within unmarked graves – because of course neither would have earned any acclaim at all to have been buried in a more formal manner – made him feel somewhat better. It helped him not to focus on what might have happened had he never been awoken by the sound of Weiss' voice, if instead he'd languished away in a trance, trapped within this mirror, until the universe itself went still.

…Ah, yes, Weiss.

It was not the greatest of topic shifts, but frankly, Jaune hated being existential. He hadn't been trapped within his mirror for all eternity. Thinking about an alternative reality where that happened was pointless.

Yes. Pointless indeed.

Back to Weiss.

Currently, Weiss was sleeping. He could see her from where his mirror was positioned; atop the woman's dresser. She was laid on one side with her chest slowly rising and falling. It was likely quite early in the morning at this point, perhaps three or four. The sun would not rise for a little while more.

…Jaune was not certain how he felt about Weiss.

Of course, she'd woken him up, and was beautiful in a way that none Jaune had encountered had ever been, but she was also crass, loud, and quick to anger. She seemed spoilt in the same manner that many of the nobles that Jaune had met were, and she did not treat him with the respect that he deserved.

Which, truly, Jaune could not understand. Did she not see his glory, his perfection? Had she somehow missed the aura of absolute rulership he gave off at all times?

Pah. What a foolish girl.

He looked about the room, trying to find something with which to entertain himself. Nothing really came, which… yes, unfortunately, made sense. It was, after all, a young woman's room in the middle of the night. There wasn't actually much to do.

Even so, from the look of things, Weiss Schnee must have been the daughter of some kind of duke. During Jaune's time as king, which had not gone on nearly as long as it should have, he had seen many a place of residence that could not even measure up to this, owned by powerful marquises or other nobles.

There was a level of craftsmanship within the room that had even Jaune D'Arc, who would be the first to admit that he was a rather difficult person to impress, nodding his head.

She was in some way related to Atlas' nobility. He harbored no doubts about that.

She could claim that Atlas had some form of… democracy – a method of rulership that Jaune had never so much as heard of – but he could tell by her appearance alone that unless everyone else in Atlas lived just as she did, that this world still held the same faults his own had.

He had not been blind to them. He had lived amongst peasants, after all, for well over a year as he slowly convinced them all to help him overthrow his brother.

He had seen children just born dying of disease and malady. He had seen poor families that could barely make ends meet sell their children into slavery for the chance to keep going. He had seen lesser nobles come and abuse all of those things for their own gain, collecting taxes for the mere allowance to live among their land.

Jaune had once wished to do the same as them, but…

Well, never mind that. It had ultimately been his promise that he would end such conditions that had allowed him to inspire the masses behind him, to march to his – his – castle, and overthrow his brother from the throne.

He'd been far kinder than he should've, looking back. He'd left Salem alive instead of having her slain. He'd simply locked her away in a tower, and thought that would be enough.

Kindness, as it had always been, was a weakness to be exploited, and nothing more.

And in that case, it had been he who was exploited.

He breathed out harshly, trying to steer his line of thought back to one that would get him anywhere. Thinking on past failures, while important in a more macro sense, did him no good while he was still trapped within this mirror.

The first order of business he would need to attend to before considering such nonsense was freeing himself. The second order of business was placing the world beneath his heel and taking over, ruling as he was always meant to.

It felt like a natural progression of things, in his opinion. Just a solid 2 step plan.

Step two would be easy; barely an inconvenience. People would see him, know him to be kingly material, and instate him at the head of all governments about the world. Then, he would be treated as the true king he'd always been by all of them, and rule over an endlessly prosperous world for all eternity.

The first part was…

Well, slightly more difficult was perhaps a nice way of putting things.

He had, after all, been trapped within this mirror by two Gods – capital G – who had very much not intended on him getting out.

That sort of suggested he wouldn't be getting out.

But, and Jaune felt this was worth noting, he had never really given much thought to the opinions of his lessers, and the Gods were certainly that.

And him being trapped in a mirror for all eternity was an opinion, as far as he was concerned.

He smirked, then, and chuckled underneath his breath. Yes. He would not allow those pesky Gods to dictate his life. He was going to free himself from this infernal prison, destroy Salem and Ozma – Oh, wait, never mind, they were already dead, score one for him! – and then the Gods themselves!

It was a foolproof plan!

He drew back and let out a great laugh, his wings spreading out from his back, his tail flicking about at his feet.

And then a pillow struck his mirror, and sent him hurtling to the floor some few feet below.

"Shut up!" He heard his icy savior hiss out. "I am trying to sleep!"

Ah, but beauty is so very cold, is it not?

"I know you're thinking something stupid!"

Jaune coughed into one hand. "Most certainly not. Now free me from this abhorrent darkness!"

/

Weiss felt the fact that she woke up cranky the next morning was more than fair.

She had, after all, been woken up by the idiotic man within her new mirror in the middle of the night, thrown a pillow at him, and then had to get out of bed to pick him back up so that he would stop complaining about being trapped in darkness.

All in all, she was rather cross with Jaune as she set about her morning routine. She was still, and would likely stay for the time being, confined to the mansion, and thusly she hadn't been able to leave without sneaking out in well over a week now.

Although in all fairness, calling her actions 'sneaking' was probably overselling it, given that she wasn't trying to hide what she was doing from her father even remotely.

Regardless, she hadn't expected the fact that she was officially confined to the mansion to be getting to her. After all, until the last week or so, she hadn't actually left her home in well over a month, perhaps two.

But it was the concept of the matter, she felt, that was causing this. The idea that, even if she wanted to leave, which she hadn't for quite some time, she couldn't.

That was beginning to result in her going somewhat stir crazy.

It was that which caused her to push her way out of her window, and make her way again to the library.

She was determined to learn as much as she could, after all, about what Jaune was saying. Even if she tried desperately to pretend like she didn't believe him.

The unfortunate truth of the matter was that she was very much starting to.

Weiss wasn't really sure how she was supposed to feel about that.

She stayed within the quiet halls of the Atlas Public Library for three or four hours. She simply sat at one of the tables on the fifth floor, and read.

And while she had been hoping that reading would be a welcome distraction from her feelings of claustrophobia, it was in the end a fruitless endeavor. She was too frustrated to really sit still and try and absorb information; everything beginning to overwhelm her, bit by bit.

Weiss ended up leaving only an hour and a half later, having made no real progress towards understanding what it was Jaune even was; how he was still around, and whether or not this was really just some prank with a semblance.

She entered into her room through the window to find everything as she'd left it, except, of course, for Jaune, who half-bowed to her within his mirror and then said, "Ah, you hath returned. Excellent. I was growing rather fitful in your absence, I fear."

"You were bored?" Weiss asked with a bit more venom than she meant to inject into her words.

"Indeed, I was." Jaune didn't pick up on her acerbic tone. "As thou might imagine, existing within a mirror is not the most active of existences. Without someone to speak to, I find myself growing rather frustrated. Not to mention being trapped within this… cage. I admit that I find myself more prone to irritation than I might otherwise be."

Weiss… yes, she could understand that.

She could more than understand it; she was practically going through the exact same thing.

That… she wasn't really sure what to think about the fact that, in a manor that contained three members of her immediate family, the one of them she most closely related to was the Dread King from the dawn of time.

She decided, in fact, not to think of it at all. Perhaps if she ignored the problem altogether, it would go away?

Well, she could hope.

She sighed, ran a hand down the back of her neck, and then walked over towards her dresser. She took up the mirror and held it in her right arm as she made for the door.

"Oh? Art thou walking us somewhere?"

"Yes." Weiss sighed out. "I'm going to work out my frustrations. I figured that given you're in a similar situation, I might as well bring you along."

"Ah, how magnanimous thou art, oh lady of freshly fallen snow!"

"I am going to politely ask you stop calling me that."

"Ah, but your countenance is so very aptly described by such a verse, is it not?"

She glared down at the mirror held underneath her right arm.

"Oh, alright." Jaune rolled his eyes. "I will silence my opinions on thy beauty."

"Thank you." Weiss sighed out.

And with that, she made for the Schnee Manor's training area.

One might've thought that Weiss wasn't going very far, given that the training ground was still within the manse itself, but then, the land that the Schnee Family's Manse sat upon was more than twenty acres across. Traversing it from one end to the other still took a good ten minutes.

It annoyed Weiss somewhat that she could not actually speak to the mirror she was carrying along with her. She'd look exactly like the loon her father was currently claiming her to be if she were caught attempting to talk with an inanimate object, and frankly, the man had enough ammunition already when everyone in the manor knew that he was only making things up.

Best not to give anyone any evidence to the contrary.

Finally, she arrived where she'd intended to. The space was open, with great columns holding the room up. There was a set of windows along the upper sections of the four walls, and against the very back wall of the room, which let in natural light. On the ground level, there were many different doors that opened into storage rooms, and also a plethora of racks that were filled with equipment, ranging from wooden swords, fencing equipment, and weights.

But more than any of that, Weiss eyes simply combed the room, taking it all in.

This was where she'd fought the Arma Gigas; where she'd earned the scar on her left eye.

It was not a pleasant memory, but it was one that had her squaring her shoulders, standing just a bit straighter. She'd won that battle, where her father had expected her to fail. She'd claimed victory, and seized control over her own destiny.

It had been that very battle that earned her the freedom to travel to Beacon; to live her own life.

And that was worth smiling about, despite everything else wrong with the day.

"Ah, a training area?" Jaune's voice echoed out from the mirror.

She nodded her head, before realizing Jaune couldn't see that. "Yes. It is."

"Spacious, and quite a bit more advanced than any of the ones we had at D'Arc Castle." Jaune commented, sounding distant. "Normally they were located outdoors so as to not track the smell inside the halls, but I suppose your people might not be quite so advanced to worry about such things." He made a somewhat helpless expression. "Then again, I exist within a mirror. Rather obviously, I cannot smell."

Weiss glowered. "I will have you know I bathe quite regularly."

"Hm. I did as well. Many of my peers would bathe only once every six or so months, but I felt anything more than a month between bathing was–"

"A month!?" Weiss rounded on the mirror. "You… your people regularly waited months without bathing!?"

"Well, it was a rather difficult thing to prepare for." Jaune's brow furrowed. "Either I would have to retire to a river to disrobe, needing to be flanked by guards so that I was not accosted, or servants would be required to ride down to a river, collect enough water for myself to bathe, and return with it in tow. It was quite an ordeal."

Weiss… supposed that made sense, actually. Jaune wouldn't have had the same niceties that Weiss was used to. He wouldn't have had running water, or electricity, or any of the numerous other things that made bathing so easy in the modern world.

"Well, we have showers."

She explained the basics of those to Jaune, and the man hummed with interest.

"And you say this water can be any temperature you wish?"

"We alter the heat of it using fire or ice dust."

"Fascinating, truly."

Weiss felt she might have laughed at that at any other time; the fact that something she took for granted seemed impossible to the man.

"And… Dust, what is that, exactly?"

That… that had Weiss' eyes widening. She turned back towards the mirror to see if the man was pulling her leg; expecting him to be, even, but…

No. Jaune was looking at her with genuine intrigue.

"You… you don't know what Dust is?"

"Should I?" Jaune raised an eyebrow.

"How…" Weiss shook her head, this entire conversation striking her as impossible. "Dust is the lifeblood of Remnant; it is the thing that nearly singlehandedly saved us from extinction itself."

"Hm. Well, I have never heard of it."

"…It's a stone, or… more a mineral, I suppose. It's found deep underground, mined out of the earth. It… it's common knowledge that humans have been using dust for as long as anyone can remember."

"And yet, I do not know of it." Jaune D'Arc seemed to notice how uncomfortable this line of conversation was making her. "Hm. Troubling indeed."

"You must have seen it," Weiss shook her head, unwilling to humor this. "You simply would have called it something else. A moment, please."

She took up Myrtenaster, and unlatched one of the Dust phials from within one of its revolving chambers. It was Fire Dust that laid within.

"Here," She showed it off to him. "This is refined dust. It's been broken down to allow for more convenient use."

Jaune leaned forward. "Hm…"

"You've seen it, then?"

"No." He spoke once more, and Weiss felt her stomach rolling into knots inside her abdomen at that. "I have not. Perhaps during my time dust was simply undiscovered. Thou sayest it lay deep within the crust of this world, correct? In what realms is it found?"

"Well, it's most common in Atlas, definitely, but smaller pockets of it are found all throughout the world, uncovered just about everywhere."

"Hm. Troubling indeed. There existed no shortage of people in my time digging deep within the earth for hidden riches of gold or silver. If what thou sayest is true, they would have certainly discovered this dust as well."

Weiss hadn't really come down to the training arena to have a mental crisis. In fact, she'd explicitly come down here to avoid one. But the idea that dust had somehow not existed on Remnant during Jaune's time, the idea that perhaps something had happened that–

No! She forced herself to discard those thoughts. This is a waste of time!

She wasn't going to think about this any longer. This… it was all just a prank, or… or a semblance, or…

There was no way she was actually talking to some crazy king from a hundred thousand years ago! There was no way that dust had suddenly just… appeared on Remnant one day! There was no way that there had ever been two figures named Salem and Ozma who had overthrown Jaune, and gotten help from the Brother Gods to cast him away inside a mirror!

It was… it was simply preposterous!

Yes. That was the truth of the matter. Thinking any further on it was only going to serve to frustrate Weiss more than she already was.

So, instead, she put the dust vial back inside of Myrtenaster, and primed her weapon. She would stick with basic stances for the time being, working on her form. Then, later, she could utilize one of the training bots that her father had purchased from the Atlas Military some few years ago.

They were heavily outdated; unable to even measure up against Atlas' newer, fully mobile humanoid machines. And Penny would have…

Her heart lurched inside of her chest. She… she hadn't thought about Penny in a long time. It had to have been months since she'd last even considered the girl.

She could still remember seeing her bisected by her own wires, the machinery within her laid out on display.

No. She was trying to calm down.

This was, again, not helping.

She drew up Myrtenaster, and went through some simple sword forms. After that, she moved on to striking the Atlesian mechs – not hard enough to break them, of course, although with their age that was easier said than done.

It didn't help that she was still quite frustrated. More than she would have liked to admit. Everything about her father, and her lack of sleep, and her being disinherited, and this new information, and the thought that maybe, just maybe, it was all real, it…

It was just… a lot.

She was growling under her breath by the time she'd finished her routine; sweat running down her brow, which she idly reached up to wipe away. She expected Jaune to watch silently, and yet, as she went through a few of the more complicated maneuvers, he responded by clapping his hands together, and nodding his head.

"You are surprisingly adept with your blade."

Weiss wasn't expecting the compliment, even with the hint of sarcasm. It caught her off guard. "…Thank you. I have had the very best to teach me what I know."

Jaune nodded his head. "I suppose thou would, given thou art ostensibly a noble. Thou were likely able to call for the land's greatest knights to assist in thine upbringing as a warrior."

Although the language was olden, the general sentiment was one that Weiss agreed with.

Jaune barked out a laugh, then, but it was a sudden thing, and seemed tinged with some complicated feelings.

"In my time, it was considered foolish for a woman to ever attempt to raise a weapon."

Weiss' eyes widened, but if Jaune was about to hit her with some misogyny, then she wasn't just going to sit there and take it.

"There are some people like that even today." She swept some of her hair back behind her head. "But they're routinely mocked for their idiotic beliefs."

"Hah. Good." She was honestly surprised to hear that from the man, and said as much. "Ah, well, I must confess to the fact that I once thought the same as them. It was difficult to not grow to think that way when surrounded by others who thought the same during my entire childhood; those who treated women like lesser beings and gave them no opportunities to disprove their claims. And yet, when I was banished to the countryside, I saw men and women alike doing the same tasks, working side by side. Men and women alike hauling grain, or raising cattle, and dividing duties so as to work alongside one another. It made me realize how foolish a concept such a consideration was. Many of the other nobles about my circle, once I claimed my birthright, seemed to think women incapable of anything at all. How idiotic they were. Many of the finest knights, mages, and assassi– er… warriors of the D'Arc Kingdom were women during my reign."

She… wasn't really sure how she was meant to feel about that.

"But regardless of such frivolities, as I said, thou art skilled. I will admit I had not expected as such from someone seemingly so spoilt."

Weiss bit back on the insult that threatened to come pouring out of her. It was, after all, not the first time she'd heard such a sentiment, and even if it was obviously coming from someone who was in the exact same boat as her, well…

She shook her head. Now wasn't the time.

Instead, she focused, stabbed her sword into the ground, and did her best to summon forth an old enemy.

A moment later, the Arma Gigas, the very first Grimm she'd ever slain, arose from out of her rapidly spinning glyph.

It bowed to her, and she bowed back. It was a meaningless little flare, given that Weiss controlled the beast, but it was one she utilized all the same.

"Ah, you have an enslaved Grimm?"

Weiss debated correcting him on that, but… she just didn't have the energy. "Yes."

"I see. I see. Well, then, if you're going to face off against it, do not tarry on my account. They make for excellent target practice, if little else."

Weiss sensed something wrong with that statement, but did her best to ignore it as she ostensibly set her summoned Grimm free – which was to say she gave it orders to attack her how it saw fit. After that, she surged forward, and allowed her higher thoughts to fade away in the heat of combat.

Unfortunately, that heat lasted all of thirty seconds before Weiss had defeated her summon. The unfortunate truth of the matter was that her created Grimm were nowhere near their real Grimm counterparts in terms of toughness. They could hit hard, but all it took was an errant blow to send them back from whence they came.

And so, even after having sparred against it, Weiss was still softly broiling.

"I must say, the Grimm of this day and age are even weaker than they were during my time." Jaune D'Arc laughed from inside his mirror. "I suppose that makes sense. Without the God of Darkness around they don't exactly have a master to turn to for orders, or to make them stronger."

Weiss' brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"Ah, I was referring to the creatures of Grimm."

"I know that. I meant… what do you mean that… the God of Darkness, he used to control the Grimm?"

"He did indeed. He was their progenitor and their master. They only truly existed in and around the realms of darkness, and even then, they mostly kept to orbiting their God's domain itself."

Weiss was thrown for yet another loop. She was really getting tired of that. The world had already seemed so very complicated a week or so ago, before she'd gotten gifted Jaune's mirror, and now…

Now it only seemed a thousand times more so.

"The Grimm are not weak." She decided to say, shaking her head as she sat down on the same bench that she'd propped Jaune's mirror upon. "They are the foremost threat to all of humanity; the monsters that keep us from truly evolving as a species. It is because of them that my career, that of a Huntress, even exists."

Weiss tried not to let the fury get to her as Jaune guffawed; as if the very concept of the Grimm being humanity's natural enemy was ridiculous.

"The Grimm? Surely, thou art not serious? The Grimm are barely a threat at all, even when one does enter into their territory. They can be defeated with long ranged magic before they so much as notice one normally, and even if they get close, all it takes is a few swings to bring them down. Are the people of thy time truly so pathetic as to not be able to handle them?"

Weiss tried to keep herself under control. She really did. But maybe it was the talks of how the Grimm were nothing, of how they weren't capable of doing anything at all, when Weiss had seen them utterly decimate the population of Vale, bring Beacon to its knees, only a few months ago, but…

It had Weiss' jaw tightening; her teeth grinding together. It had her snarling as she rounded on the man in the mirror, and yelled, "Shut up!"

Jaune D'Arc's expression was one of abject surprise, then, but before he could say anything – and it was clear he wanted to – Weiss kept going.

"You talk an awful lot of crap for someone who knows nothing of our world! For someone who got themselves locked away in a damned mirror!"

Jaune visibly bristled. "I'll beg thy pardon; I was ganged up upon by two Gods! What is the excuse of humanity? That they find themselves struggling with an enemy as pitiful as the Grimm–"

"Is that all you can say!? Put downs!?" Weiss snarled. "That's all you seem capable of; making other people feel like shit, huh!?"

"I would have no reason to if humanity was capable of facing an enemy such as the Grimm!"

"You–" Weiss hissed out underneath her breath. "No. There's no point arguing with someone as stuck up as you, is there? I can see now why the Gods sealed you away instead of bothering to deal with you; I'd have done the exact same in their place."

Jaune's eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open. Weiss felt an ugliness inside of her chest, though whether or not that was guilt for her own comments, or lividity at the man who had caused them, she was uncertain.

"Thou… fine, then." Jaune D'Arc spat out under his breath, standing up a little straighter from what little she could see in the mirror. "Very well. It is clear that thou art too dull to understand my genius. I've no need to continue aiding and abetting someone who clearly wants no help at all."

"Aiding and– the only thing you've done is prattle on about how the world was so much better when you were king! How all of our problems are stupid, and idiotic, when I'm damned sure the problems of your era were far worse!"

"Pah." Jaune spat. "I've nothing more to say to thee. I see now that attempting to converse with one such as thee were foolhardy. Perhaps the next person to find my mirror will be capable of intellectual thought."

"What, just going to run away!?"

And then, Jaune D'Arc disappeared from the mirror entirely, fading back into the prison he'd been locked within.

And Weiss was left standing there, still hot, with Myrtenaster gripped so hard in her right hand that she could see her knuckles turning white.

"Fine!" She shouted, even knowing the man couldn't hear her any longer. "Go! Lock yourself away for another hundred thousand years, see if I care! See if anyone else bothers to help you out of there!"

Weiss snarled, walked over to the mirror, and took it up. She stomped her way over to a storage closet, which contained many different weights and exercising paraphernalia, and practically threw the mirror in along with them.

"Have fun in there," Weiss hissed. "I hope you enjoy it."

And then she slammed the door behind her.

End Chapter 3

Alright, we get our duo's first fight - but like, really, with egos like theirs, clearly this was coming, no?

Anyways, next time, Weiss exists without Jaune for a while. How long will that last? Well, given this is a story that mainly focuses on the two of them, likely not long!

Speaking of next time...

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