Ch. 94 Vytal's folly
"Dad? Can I have a minute or two?" Jaune spoke softly. It was quite late at night and for the first time in days perhaps weeks both male Arcs were spending their night at home.
Doré looked at Jaune with apprehension. Still he got up from his seat and followed Jaune into the training room, where the two fought just about a year ago. "What is it, Jaune. Don't tell me you're getting cold feet? The ceremony may be happening the day after tomorrow but it doesn't really change much for you two anymore does it?"
"I wish it was that simple. No it's the… other thing that ails me."
Despite Doré's misgivings about his son's secret keeping, he did keep the secret from everyone. Juniper would break down should she find out and his sisters wouldn't fare much better. Yet Doré still held onto hope that his son knew what he was doing.
"I was afraid it was that… is everything ready then?"
"About as ready as one can be for such a thing."
"And Ruby?"
Jaune hung his head low and shook his head. "Not yet. It's what I wanted to talk about. How…"
Silence hung in the air between them.
"How do you broach the subject with her? I wish I knew. At least though, you have to tell her, that much I can tell you for certain. She should be there. I doubt there's another who could help you should anything go wrong."
=O=O=O=
Sighing as he walked into his old room he looked at the sleeping figure in his bed. He loathed to do this at this time of night, but he didn't have the luxury of time.
"Ruby…" he whispered as he shook her shoulder "...Ruby, wake up."
"Hhhhmm… what is it? What time is it?" she mumbled from her sleep.
"Close to two in the morning. Ruby, please wake up, I need you."
"Can't it wait…"
"No." he said firmly, his voice no longer a whisper, though still quiet enough that it shouldn't wake up anyone outside of the room.
He watched as Ruby opened her eyes. Their eyes met for a moment and there must have been something in his gaze that clued her into the seriousness of the situation.
"What happened?" she asked, now with a lot more clarity, the sleepiness leaving her entirely.
"I didn't want to… I'm sorry Ruby, I thought I had more time…"
"Jaune!" she intoned quietly.
"I'm dying. Faster than we thought. I need to finish reforging Amity. Today."
At that Ruby's eyes widened and she quickly threw on some clothes. She was mid zipping up her skirt when she spoke up again. "What's the plan, what do I need to do?"
"There are two main crystal growths in my body, I plan on removing both and using the dust as a core for the entire weapon. Everything's ready… but it might kill me."
Ruby stopped moving, her blouse half buttoned up. She was moving again a moment later though. "Okay, so what's the plan there? How can I make sure you don't die."
"It's not that sim…"
"What do I need to do, Jaune." Ruby repeated, her voice firm yet with an undeniable shake underlining it.
=O=O=O=
Qrow flew over the crater. It was growing and soon might spread beyond the confines of the crater but it hasn't yet.
The sun was already beginning to rise and Qrow had to take photos of a few key points where the Grimm goop was most likely to breach the natural dam.
For a brief moment the crow turned back into a man and while in freefall took out his scroll and snapped a few pictures before turning back into a bird. The Grimm took notice of the huntsman's brief presence and started converging on his location. The Nevermore especially swarmed behind the crow, though they soon lost interest in the clearly nonhuman creature.
Still Qrow needed to fly about for a good while before the Grimm calmed down and dispersed enough for him to take another plunge through the air to take more photos.
=O=O=O=
In truth it was a gamble of massive proportions. In order for Jaune to execute his plan he needed to use the entirety of his now gargantuan Aura.
It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling, pouring his entire soul into something. The problem was simply the fact that he needed to leave his Aura to recover, leaving it to run rampant in his body. The situation was delicate enough while he kept himself depleted, but now he ran the risk of dying even before he started the process of forging all that remained of Amity into something new.
Both he and Ruby were walking now, using the last remaining portion of the way to let Jaune's Aura recover. It was supposed to be time efficient as they wouldn't need to wait after they arrived.
Unfortunately for Jaune however he severely underestimated just how much the growth had accelerated now that his aura was near full. Each laboured breath was punctuated by a stabbing pain in his chest as the dust further consumed his sternum and surrounding cartilage.
Soon though, with Ruby supporting him at every step they entered what remained of Amity.
For Ruby it was the first time seeing it since Jaune started the process by blowing it up. The crater edges were once more surrounded by Forever Fall's trees yet none of them encroached on the inside of the ruins.
The metal that used to take the shape of the floating arena was greatly diminished. In fact maybe a third of the metal and remaining dust was gone, absorbed into Jaune's soul.
Another thing to note was the large amount of text scratched into every surface Ruby could see. The words clearly written in a hurry but recognisably the same blocky style of lettering Jaune used to inscribe his weapons.
Ruby didn't have time to translate it all, seeing as all of it was written in Ancient Valean. Some words stood out to her however. Words like weapon, war, peace, hope, broken, shattered, lost and so many more indicated the thoughts Jaune had when carving those words.
Yet more impressive than any of that was when she saw Jaune stand straight in the very middle of the crater, where the many lines of text converged on. She approached him, handing him a few pieces he prepared for the weapon he'd be forging soon and prepared to step back when he stopped her.
"Ruby… before I start, I want you to have this." Jaune said as he pulled out a small box from his pocket. "I'm sorry I'm giving it to you like this. I thought I'd give it to you tonight during the ceremony… but I don't know if I'll survive this. I'm sorry, I can't hold on for any longer… stay over there, I'm not sure if it'll be safe to be close to me."
Ruby didn't open the box, barely glancing at it. In the end she silently nodded in agreement, afraid she'd cry if she spoke out loud.
She watched him take off his shoes and shed his shirt exposing his scarred skin. The light of the shattered Moon and the barely rising Sun casting shadows over the most prominent one, the crater like scar in the middle of his chest.
As Ruby watched Jaune's Aura ignite she couldn't help but admire the sparkling reflections of tiny dust crystals peeking through the scar tissue. A moment later though she had to shield her eyes and take a step back as the flame of Jaune's soul became even brighter and bigger than before. The words carved beneath his feet soon took on a light of their own as his Aura spread through the structure that used to be the Amity Colosseum, the once symbol of peace and celebration of the end of the Great War.
The script pulsed with power and the dust within the metal expressed itself in unpredictable ways.
And Jaune screamed as he plunged his arm into his chest.
=O=O=O=
Qrow was mid freefall, in the process of taking another picture when suddenly a pulse of something raw passed through him.
Startled, he turned back into a crow, even forgetting to take the picture. Soon however it showed itself to be the correct reaction.
Indeed it wasn't just Qrow that felt the pulse. The Grimm felt it too.
The black tar no longer sat and moved about peacefully. It started to boil. All of it.
Black smoke billowed from within the crater as Grimm emerged in numbers Qrow had barely ever seen before. Flocks of Nevermore flew straight up from the middle of the body of black liquid. Hordes of Beowulves, Ursa, Creep, Boartusks and many more emerged from every direction.
Then, just as he was about to fly away, Qrow heard a deep rumble and then a series of loud cracks as the natural dams he was tasked with monitoring started to crumble.
Whatever it was that just happened, it woke up the Grimm liquid and Qrow could see it slowly make its way into the main settlement of mountain Glenn. Making its way in the direction of Vale.
As Qrow raced forward, hoping to outspeed the Grimm on their approach of Vale his mind raced.
Just what happened that could cause this.
=O=O=O=
Roman closed his eyes. He was checking his semblance as he has grown so used to doing at multiple points throughout the day. His semblance has only grown stronger for it, though the vagueness of using it to tell the odds of something as big as Beacon's or Vale's ruin never got any better.
His eyes shot open!
"FUCK! Fuckfuckfuckfuck FUCK!" he swore as he sprinted through Beacon's hallways, completely ignoring the careful facade of having a bum leg he carefully constructed over the past months.
He threw open the door to Glynda's office, swiftly dodging the incoming projectiles and running up to press the button on her desk that connected the school's PA system. It may not be fully functional but the sooner word got out the better.
"Roman, what the hell are you…"
"Attention all students and huntsmen! This is a state of emergency, this is not a drill. Great peril is ahead, the nature of which we're ascertaining right now. Remain calm and prepare to defend yourself, Beacon and Vale. I repeat this is not a drill!"
As Roman let go of the button he was immediately yanked away from the mic by the collar of his white coat. "What do you think you're doing!? What's happening?"
"You heard most of it, an emergency. You know how my semblance works, I don't know the specifics. Chances of Beacon falling again - high. Vale being destroyed - somehow higher than that! Deaths in our numbers - damn near certain. Other than that you know better than I do."
"The thing at Mountain Glen!"
Glynda let go of him, letting him fall to the ground as she hurried to pull up the reports.
Roman stood up from where she let him fall, looking over her shoulder.
"What the hell is that?"
"That's a pool of liquid Grimm, a spawning pool. And it's the only thing I know about that could threaten Vale like you described." safe for perhaps Salem herself leading an attack on Vale herself, she added in her mind.
"Well fuck, how long was that there? How long have you known?"
"It has been there at least since Neo and Qrow went there. That's when we found out. Qrow has been there multiple times since and I think he's there right now. I expect we'll get word from him soon. We've been trying to prepare to deal with it without raising general panic. Which you've done, by the way."
"Well excuse me headmistress! I believe that it's the right course of action!"
"It is… if it really is this thing that's come to threaten Vale then your actions are entirely warranted. Go address the students. Go and make sure they're ready when the time comes. I'll mobilise the huntsmen and start preparations for… evac. Shit but where do we evacuate to? The shelters in Vale can house some, Beacon can manage some as well, but what about the rest? Patch? They'd starve before we manage to clean everything up. A small part of Vale took us months."
"I don't know if we even can save everyone. You're talking Vale, the entirety of Vale, you cannot move a city like that in a day and we may have even less than that."
=O=O=O=
Jaune screamed in pain as his Aura tried to heal the wound he inflicted on himself. Still he worked through the pain and with great effort pulled and ripped the crystal out of his chest.
It was swift and for a moment he saw the crystal that used to be his sternum pulse with Aura.
Then his mind caught up to the pain. A searing pain, a stabbing pain, the pain of broken bones, ripped cartilage and shredded muscles. His vision turned white for a brief moment before his Aura forced him to recover, keeping him alive and moving.
He watched as the Aura flowed and pulsed through the crystal, searing and boiling the tissue he'd ripped out together with it. His hand was experiencing much the same, his skin all but evaporating under the immense force his Aura radiated.
As his Aura spread through the written pathways within the wreckage of the colosseum he watched and waited as his left arm burned away exposing the crystalline bone beneath the soft tissue. As he forced more and more Aura into his surroundings he could see the dust crystal that used to be his sternum grow, fusing with the fingers of his hand as it slowly grew into a facsimile of a human heart.
Finally he could feel his Aura reach the farthest corners of the crater.
In a show of force and determination he grabbed his left arm with his right and put force on it.
Then more. And more until finally his humerus broke where the crystal met with bone.
He screamed louder at the pain, and forced the crystal into a prepared shaft.
His head hung low he could see the blood boil and evaporate at contact with the Aura outside of his body. It was trying to fix the massive hole in his chest but succeeded at cauterising the wound at most, practically burning the exposed flesh with the force Jaune was expelling his Aura with.
At last Jaune started to speak.
"Sum Iaune Arcus, et cum virtute animae meae ego sumo hac dominio. Quod fractum esse sumo. Sumo et fac sit partem mei.
Te formaris ex partibus corporis mei. Cor inservias, fo quod hic creatum est. Te nomino Stultitiam Vytalum in lingua avita in qua omnia arma ab Arco gestata nominatur."
The meaning of his words was as follows:
I'm Jaune Arc, and with the power of my soul I claim this domain. I claim that which was broken. I take it and make it a part of me.
You are formed from parts of my body. May you serve as a heart to that which was created here. I name thee Vytal's Folly in the ancestral language in which all weapons carried by an Arc are named.
As those words rang out a great change came over the area as every last piece of metal touched by Jaune's Aura glowed and in turn disappeared.
At that same moment Jaune felt something inside, a spark of something more than Aura. It glowed ever brighter, feeding on the Aura that rushed back into Jaune's soul. It was so very bright…
And yet when the last of what remained of Amity joined Jaune's soul the spark, having depleted its fuel and still hungry for more, smouldered and went out, failing to ignite that something greater which Jaune had been on the cusp of.
At that moment, when the spark had finally gone out, Jaune's Aura completely depleted, he collapsed to his knees, his heart finally giving out.
=O=O=O=
Author's note:
Hello and welcome to the end of the second volume of Arsenal of Arc. At this very point in time I still haven't figured out what I'd like it to be called but I guess I'll settle for Reforged arc.
There are a few story lines that haven't come to fruition quite yet and with how things ended here I doubt they will for a little while more. Still I think I'm quite happy with how it turned out in the end.
Not much to say beyond that other than that I'm genuinely surprised that I managed to get this far with the schedule I somehow ended up with. I say somehow as I really want to refuse the consequences of my actions somehow being my fault... Oh well, whatever, I'm too tired to care right now.
Thank you so much for reading and thank you for getting this far. If you want to support me you can do so on P a treon . com (slash) OlympianScribe
Anyway I hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter: Ch. 95 Twice shattered