After the fall
It was chaos.
Buildings were destroyed, roads were ruined, streets lights were shattered. People still screamed for help, blood still colored the ground.
Yet everything felt muted, it felt like the world had stopped. But it didn't.
Jaune Arc walked the ruined streets of Vale, it was the first day after the fall, after her death.
He couldn't bare the pain, so he decided to bury himself with helping the survivors, even if his friends begged him to stay and rest, even if his teacher looked at him with pity, he equipped his sword and moved to help people.
The once wild kingdom was now slain, all because of her. Jaune gripped that anger and embraced it as he slashed the grimm running his way.
The head flew off like it was nothing, but jaune didn't feel pride at his progress, he felt disgusted
If he wasn't so weak, if he wasn't so goddamn useless, his partner would have survived, Ruby wouldn't be in a coma, and maybe Yang would have her arm.
He faced the rest of the horde without raising his shield, why bother, if he died here, then he isn't worthy of standing while people like Pyrrha died.
He cut the head of the first, then the leg of the second, but the claw of the third dug deep into his chest piece, earning a grunt of pain from him.
He stood his ground and cut the head off, watching it as it rolled around, lifeless.
He looked around, and when he didn't see more grimm he gestured to the people hiding. Two girls, one in a red dress and the other in white came out.
The both looked worn out, the claws like weapon were worn with combat. They looked at him with an apologetic smile.
"Thank you for the help." The one in the white dress said, bowing her head slightly, the other one ushered the civilians who were trapped to move while protecting their flank.
Jaune gave a silent nod, he couldn't trust his own voice anymore, if he spoke up, his voice will definitely crack and grief will overtake him.
He walked away, looking for the next grimm to kill.
He couldn't process what happened yesterday, he didn't want to, his reality was shattered to pieces.
As he walked, the remaining of Atlas Airship was resting in the middle of downtown Vale, the street used to be decorated with banners and lights for the festival, and now…
It was a scene straight out of an apocalyptic movie where the world went to ruins. He could see parts of the robot army scattered everywhere.
It brought back unwanted memories, memories of his friend Penny, on the ground torn to pieces, her lifeless body on the ground.
Tears threatened to come out, he held them off as much as he could, he needed to deal with those things first.
More grimm came his way, he steadied his sword, and tried to remember his training again.
He didn't care about shielding himself, his first thrust went through the grimm's skull, followed quickly by his upward slash which torn open the Ursa's stomach.
A grimm came back from behind him, Jaune's movement was too slow and couldn't block it in time. He prepared his aura to take the damage, but it never did.
A white sword came out of a glyph and pinned the grimm to the ground, a second later Weiss came in and slain it. Her once perfect hair was now hastily done without much care, her elegant clothes were worn out, she looked at him with a cold stare, but it also had warmth in it.
"Jaune." She said softly, which was unlike her usual self, it only made jaune feel worse, he didn't even meet her eyes.
"Ren told me you went to help miss Goodwitch alone." Jaune walked closer to him, trying and failing to meet his eyes.
"Listen, I know how you feel, you're not the only one who's grieving, but we can't Lose you too." Her hand rested on his shoulder, trying to comfort him.
"You know, her parents just left, they wanted to see you." Her words made his eyes jump up to her immediately. They were tense, she could see the tears, see how red they were. He tried to speak, but words failed him.
Weiss couldn't bare seeing her friend like this, she stepped close and gave him a hug, his arms moved hesitantly, but they eventually pulled her closer.
"Don't worry Jaune, we'll stick together, Ren, Nora, Blake and I, we won't leave you, not until Ruby wakes up." She chuckled.
It dawned on him how much unlike Weiss she was. She was doing her best to keep the team together.
/-/
"You can't do that!" it was a screaming match, Ren and Nora didn't dare interfere, because even the adult in the room couldn't.
"I can, and I will young lady, you will be coming back home, I'm not letting you stay in a ruined academy, if you still wish to be a foolish huntress you can do it in Atlas academy. Beacon is no longer viable." Jacques schnee scream at his daughter, which earned him glares from everyone in the small house.
"I understand you're worried about your daughter sir, but if you scream at her again I will ask you to leave." Taiyang said, his eyes narrowing at the man.
"I appreciate you taking care of my daughter, but now, I need to take her to safety, I'm sure you'll understand." Jacques's tone softened, which immediately made Tai feel guilty, after all, his top priority now was to keep his daughters safe.
"Weiss…" she looked at Jaune, the hurt in his eyes, and the guilt was eating at her. It was just yesterday she told him they would stay together, and now she was forced out.
She gritted her teeth, she didn't want to leave her team, she didn't want to leave Ruby like this. But what could she do now? She was out of options, and the ones who usually come up with them were badly hurt.
"I'm sorry Jaune." She looked away in shame, as she followed her father out, back to Atlas.
Nora sat on the couch, hugging her knees, while Ren stood to the side, his semblance nullified the raging emotions inside of him.
Jaune decided to go to Ruby, she always knew what to do, and she would help him, she was his friend after all.
"Hey rubes." His hand rested on hers, it was bigger, but hers felt colder.
"I- I Don't know what to do, Pyrrha is gone, Qrow refuses to say anything until you wake up, and they just took Weiss." He fought back tears as he told her the events of today, which started by a search party for Blake, who has been missing for a while now, then how Weiss's father came and took her back.
"But hey, we still with you, we won't leave until you make us leave, or until your dad decides Nora eats too much and throws us out. Then we'll need to go to my parent's house, which is in the other side of Vale." He continued. While Taiyang watched from the door, he didn't say a thing and walked off.
"I'm sorry Ruby, if it was you, the team would have stayed together, i- I'm just so useless, I couldn't even help my own partner, and because I asked you for help, you're like this." Tears started to fall.
He couldn't allow it, he still didn't want to think of what happened, so he just blocked his emotions again.
"I'll be heading off Ruby, see you later." He stood up and left the room, left the house, telling his friends that he's going to help in Vale again.
He failed them, every single one of his friends, he failed them all.
Pyrrha thought him an obstacle and had to send him away, he involved Ruby and caused her coma, he didn't stand up for Weiss and saw her taken away. He couldn't even comfort his own team.
He was a horrible person.
Jaune went to the headmistress of Beacon academy, or what left of it. She gave the students a choice, they could stay here and help rebuild the academy, or continue their studies elsewhere, but most students wanted to help Beacon and Vale first.
She thought he was one of them.
"Mr Arc?" she looked at him with pity, he hated it.
"I'm here to help, what can I do?" her expression immediately changed to worry.
"What about the search for miss belladonna? Did you find her?" her question was like a stab in his heart, yet another failure.
"No, she and Sun disappeared after the fall. I don't think team Ruby will be back again soon, Weiss's father just came in and took her." He reported, and he saw how her expression changed.
"I'm sorry to hear that." She took off her glasses and cleaned them. Ever since the fall if Beacon, as it come to be known, miss Goodwitch was running around Vale trying to help everyone.
"Tell me what I can do to help." He said bluntly, trying his hardest to not show his true feelings, she took a long look at him and sighed.
"Very well, we're still counting out the victims, if you can go to Atlas Airship and see if you can retrieve and intact hard drive, we may be able to calculate how many were on the ship." Then put them as casualties, it would definitely help. He nodded and went to downtown Vale, where Weiss found him yesterday.
"You need to take this too." She handed him a cloak, he looked at her confused and she explained.
"You would have learned this in your second year, but in a situation like this, huntsmen wear a cloak with the kingdom symbol, it's to show the survivors and the people who needs help that we can help them." Jaune nodded as he put on the cloak, it was dark green, with two axes on the back, the symbol of Vale.
As he moved on, he encountered the two girls from yesterday, both in the same clothes, but they looked worse for wear, they noticed him and waved.
"Hey there cutie, thanks for the help yesterday." The girl in white dress said.
"Things has been awful lately, and huntsmen only focus on grimm, not helping civilians." The one in red said.
"But I only killed the grimm." He said, confused.
"Yeah, but you stayed and made sure everyone was ok, it helps people to know that you care. Other huntsmen just keep killing grimm without even sparing a glance for anyone." She said with a smile. They waved him goodbye as a man in red glasses called them back.
He continued his way and reached the Airship.
"If memories serve me right, this is where the Goliath grimm attacked." He thought as he looked around for a way in, he gave up and used his sword to break the glass and enter.
Inside, he walked in an empty corridor, the scene was taking from a horror movie, like a monster was about to jump him at the first corner.
He followed the signs to the control room, but was stopped in his way as he found the trace of the Goliath grimm. It made a gigantic hole in the ceiling, even after it's death, remaining bone teeth still lingered at the edge of the ceiling. A small amount of light came from the hole, but the black clouds soon blocked it.
What got Jaune's attention was the bawling hat that was on the ground, it was heavily damaged, with even a hole to the side, but jaune immediately recognized it, and recognized the body.
"He's dead." The thought came cold and calculated. Roman torchwick would never leave his hat behind, it was simply his persona, and it was the only clue to the corpse identity.
He picked it up and dusted it, it still looked horrible, but it was the least he could do to the dead man. The body was in a bad condition, he didn't think he would get it out without it falling apart.
He hated him, he helped the white fang, who also worked for Cinder, it didn't take a genius to figure out that he worked with Cinder, and clearly she betrayed him.
"How did she control the grimm?" it wasn't the first time the thought crossed his mind, Cinder somehow managed to control the grimm, which helped her do all this bullshit.
He had a lot of questions, yet he got none. Qrow never answered any, saying he's waiting for Ruby, and he didn't ask miss Goodwitch, she already had too much on her plate.
This was his chance to find something.
He reached a closed door, he pried it open using the tip of his sword as a ranch.
Inside, was the control room, where General Ironwood commanded his ships, and if it still works, then there's no telling what he could find here.
He tried to find a power up button among the numerous buttons on the terminal, and after clicking so many, the screen came back to life.
The first thing it showed was the damages of the ship, and that it was running on the emergency power. Jaune quickly tried to find the list of employees that worked on the ship on the festival day.
It wasn't as hard as he thought, Atlas tech was the same tech used in Beacon, so it didn't take long until he found it and downloaded it to his scroll.
He sighed in relief, but an idea came to his mind and he kept looking.
"Cinder fall, grimm, Ozpin." He whispered as he typed the names.
He got nothing on both Cinder and the grimm. A file showed up with Ozpin's name on it, but when he opened it, it was a request from Vale council to take over Ozpin's work as security.
Jaune Scowled, the good that came from that decision. Vale now was in a crisis, and what did Atlas, our allay do? Close the borders and refuse to take responsibility for what their robots did.
"Robots?" Jaune remember the General saying that this ship controlled the robots, maybe he could find why they targeted the huntsmen.
Jaune tried to find the robots control system, but didn't find anything.
"What else, what else I can look for?" Jaune thought, and as the idea came in, he typed faster than before.
"Winter Maiden" It was the first file jaune found, a sudden spark of joy came to him, he quickly read the file.
"Powers that control the elements? Get passed down to females, currently-" before he could finish reading, a warning flashed in front of the screen.
Unauthorized access, self-destruction protocol started.
Jaune backed down as the count-down reached zero way too fast. Jaune immediately pushed his aura to the absolute limit to prepare for the explosion, but the only thing that happened was a sudden spark under the desk.
"It destroyed the data." He realized.
"Is the maiden so important that it had protocol like that." Jaune thought.
Sure, controlling elements was powerful, but there was semblance much stronger that controlling than weather.
Like magnetism.
Memories of his partner suddenly appeared in his mind, along with the grief he has been pushing all this time.
The pain in his chest was in bearable, the pain of losing someone so close.
"Damn you Ozpin, what the hell was going on there? Why did you take Pyrrha, why did this happen." Sorrow mixed with rage inside of him, as he slammed his fist on the table, he watched as tear drops landed beside his hand, he finally gave in to tears.
The sound of something crashed stopped his grief momentarily, as the thought of the ship suddenly collapsing made him move his legs.
He traced his way back from the way he came from, only for his eyes to drift to the person who was on the ground.
In the middle of the hole left by the Goliath a woman was knelt down, rain pouring on her.
She didn't give any reaction to that fact, as she stood motionless. Jaune recognized the unique hair color and immediately drew his sword and pointed It at her.
She was an enemy, she helped Cinder, she hurt Yang on the train, she fought against team rwby.
She helped Cinder kill Pyrrha.
His anger flared up, even though the tear trace stayed visible on his face, he didn't care, he would kill her.
The girl, finally noticed him, turn to him slowly, the scene made jaune freeze in his place.
She didn't make any flashy move, she didn't try to trick him, she simply looked at him. With her lifeless like eyes.
Tear stain were visible on her cheeks, her hair alongside her clothes were soaking wet, but she looked at him with a resigned expression that froze him.
It was the same expression he wore.
She looked at the tip of his sword, but he didn't dare move it, she held what remained of the thief in her hand, which crumbled to nothing the moment she lifted it up.
Her eyes shot back to it, trying desperately to hold anything of him, her shock expression and hurt dug deep inside of Jaune.
Hesitate, he took a step forward, Neo's eyes looked at him but didn't move an inch. He continued taking steps until he was looking down on her, her expression didn't change.
She was giving up, she accepted death.
He knelt down on one knee and took out his earlier findings. Her eyes widen as she looked between the hat and him.
She took it from him gently and brought it closer to her heart.
She started sobbing, her muted scream hurt Jaune's soul, the same screams as his partner's death.
She was an enemy, but seeing her like this, grieving, it gave him a new prospective.
Maybe she wasn't an enemy.
Maybe the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Jaune took off his cloak and wrapped it around Neo as she continued to sob, he didn't know if it was his big brother instinct, or his kindness that was planted by his mother, but he brought Neo close to his chest, hugging the crying girl.
She didn't pull away, she placed her face in his shoulder and continued to scream silently.
Note: and that it for the first chapter, hope you guys like it.
This will lead to many thing, some good, some bad, but most importantly, it would be great hopefully.
I know I said I was gonna make White knight, but hey, I need to make something else or I'll get hurt when V10 us released and WK doesn't happen.
Anyway thanks for reading, have a good day.
Free Palestine.
And goodbye.