BEFORE YOU READ THE CHAPTER!
I want to announce that after the next chapter comes out, RL will be going on a short 1 month hiatus, where I will be focusing on stemming the bleeding of my Backlog. As it is at the moment, I write 2 Chaps of Remnant Light a month while posting 1 a week (4 a month) meaning that I will be taking small gaps in between the big story arcs (think of them as my Volumes) to help build them back up.
I hope you enjoy the chapter and are excited to see more!
The world of Remnant was as beautiful as it was perilous.
If one could fly over it like a bird, they'd be able to safely view the lush, thick forests that covered most of the landmass claimed by Vale, the sky-piercing mountain ranges, the beautiful rivers, and the massive ecological variety in both flora and fauna.
Squirrels ran through the underbrush, searching for nuts as they prepared their hoards for colder weather. Fish played in the water, leaping out of the rivers they lived in and splashing about. Birds feed their younglings, pushing them to grow strong so that they can join them in the sky above.
THUD THUD THUD THUD
But the world of Remnant was as perilous as it was beautiful.
THUD THUD THUD THUD
As the world around the animals of Remnant shakes, they scurry away, swim downriver, or hunker down in their nests, doing their best to avoid the invincible giants that traversed the land.
THUD THUD THUD THUD
One such squirrel was not lucky enough to avoid its fate this time around, as it climbed a nearby tree. The foot of one of the fearsome, unstoppable giants landed on a boulder close by, sending splinters of rock spraying everywhere, including the squirrel's tree.
Luckily for the squirrel, it died almost instantly and quite painlessly as rock shards shotgunned him through the Giant's pressure upon the stone, unstoppable and unfaltering in its travel across the lands of Remnant, off to do battle with their rivals: The dark giants that shoddily mimicked such wildlife's forms.
What magnificent, unshakeable power those giants must have, to be so calm that the animals couldn't sense any emotions or intentions from them…. Other than their will to pass by without conflict, that is…
'AH SHIT! GOD DAMNIT! DON'T FALL OVER! AAAAAAAAA!'
Jaune panicked at the controls of his Ark as his right foot landed a little higher than he was expecting, shattering a fairly large boulder underfoot and causing him to stagger, faltering slightly in his march alongside the rest of JSBYRR.
The destruction of another clump of trees, the edge of a river, and the scattering of a scared herd of wild cows later, and Jaune finally got it under control in a display of (basic) piloting skill that would have been unthinkable even two weeks ago, stopping his Ark from tipping over and mortally embarrassing himself in front of his fireteam.
'Brothers, that was fucking close…'
Letting out a sigh of relief, he checked his left, almost waiting for one of the members of JSBYRR to connect a call to him and tease him about his stumble, but none had come so far. He did see Blake's mech give him a small incline of its head, showing that she'd seen it but wasn't commenting, and he was glad for it.
Honestly, he hadn't really expected most of them to have the time to focus on him when everyone's eyes were scanning their surroundings.
But relatively safe as he was in the middle of their travelling formation, he allowed himself to check the screen to his right, the one that showed a small projection of his own Ark in its entirety, giving it a once over, top to bottom.
His Ark, which he had dubbed Crocea Arca, was… Basic. His style was standard and his special requests… Nonexistent. The Beacon engineers seemed to have just slapped the Arc family symbol (They must have figured it out from his name or something?) onto the shoulders, chest, back, and shield of his barely modified generic-model Ark.
The only other details were some gold and white paint around the joints, which gave it some pop, but other than that he was a blocky, armoured wall vaguely shaped like a person, wielding the blandest sword and shield he could imagine.
Which was… Kind of his fault. Getting in by cheating meant that he had missed out on the finer parts of preparation for Beacon, including -apparently- around a decade of daydreaming about what his Ark would look like, designing it down to the very last detail.
While he was glancing over the design for his Ark, a screen appearing on his left interrupted him, Ruby's face set in a focused expression as she spoke through the comms. [Hey, guys! I think I've found the Grimm's home base! You should come to me!]
Her message winked out a second later, replaced by a map of the area, a glowing red rose symbol flashing small ways north of where they were. Commanding Crocea Arca to send a message to the others, Jaune spoke.
[Alright, everyone head towards Ruby. I'll go in front, can you hang at the back, Yang? Just in case we get ambushed I want our most durable on either end to cover our bases]
Yang appeared on screen giving him a giant thumbs-up, which was mimicked as best as it could by her Ark. [Can do, Chief! Alright everyone, form a line! Huh, this is just like Signal all over again!]
Jaune couldn't help the small laugh that escaped him, and he heard a few of the other's laughter coming through the comms as well. He watched through his cameras as the group fell into line behind him, and he raised his sword and shield, ready for any threat, just like Professor Greene had warned him to.
-Earlier-
"Alright, Mr Arc, fireteam leader of… JSBYRR! right! You and your teammates have been assigned sector… 23F for your mission. A village nearby, Sheepstead, has called in and informed us of a Grimm in the area. They weren't able to identify it exactly, but a giant creature with bone plating and ink-black skin is hard to mistake for anything but a Grimm."
Jaune was a little shocked at what almost sounded like an attempt at a joke from Professor Greene but kept himself focused. He was in his first mission briefing! He had to do well!
"23F is east of Beacon, correct?"
"Slightly North-East, but you're close enough." Professor Greene nodded sharply. "You will be heading there at 0900 hours tomorrow and will be hunting down the reported Grimm. Even without a clear description, we have determined that it is likely to be classified as a Medium Grimm. I trust you remember what that means?"
Memories of the last 2 and a bit weeks of classes flashed through his mind, both Doctor Oobleck's and her own. "Yes, Professor. A good balance of attack and defence, with the high possibility for some sort of gimmick or surprise ability."
The professor's serious expression softened for a moment, but she still didn't show a smile. "Good. I'm glad you've been paying attention in class. I'll leave you with one final bit of advice before I let you return to your team, Mr Arc."
"Professor?"
Her eyes hardened and for a moment Jaune could tell that she wasn't really looking at him, but rather through him, at something else in her memories. "Keep your teammates close… But keep your weapons closer. You have to be ready for any threat out there, even ones not included in the mission briefings."
He didn't know how to respond to that. Luckily, it seemed that Professor Greene wasn't looking for a response. Handing him the folder with their mission details in it, Professor Greene waved him out of her office, clearly preparing for the next fireteam leader to enter.
With the folder in hand, Jaune returned to JSBYRR's dorm, ready to share their mission with his team.
Jaune shook his head as he forced himself to refocus on the present.
Keeping his sword and shield raised, he checked his cameras to make sure that all of the other Arks were still in formation and tip-top shape. And even though he wasn't intending to right now, he could feel himself admiring the designs of the Arks as they travelled.
Weiss' Ark, Myrtenaster, was small, lithe, and elegant, but was covered in so many hatches filled with cannons and mortars that Jaune reckoned she counted as a battleship all on her own. She had claimed to be their team's Dust expert, and was apparently very ready to put her money where her mouth was with her Ark. The silvers and cool blues played well off each other, and similar to his own Mech, the Schnee family insignia was emblazoned on various parts of the Ark, the most prominent between its 'shoulder blades'.
She had also mentioned something about both her, Ren, and Blake having a 'Shield Generator' on their Arks somewhere, powered by 'Hard-Light Dust', but they hadn't gotten that far in their study sessions yet. He trusted her that it was a good thing in place of armour plating, however.
Weiss was really smart, and just generally really awesome, so he could trust that she was probably right.
His eyes drifted to the back of the group, and he couldn't stop the smile on his face as she looked at Yang's Ark. If Weiss' Ark was cool and sleek, then Ember Cilicia was the exact opposite. It was tall and sturdy, covered in sloping armour plating that was designed in a way to make blows glance off of her. The most distinctive bit of her Ark, however, other than its vibrant gold and black paint job, was the fact that it didn't have hands.
Instead, there were two giant gauntlet-looking things shaped like the heads of dragons, designed for bludgeoning and allowing her to use the jaws of the dragons to 'chomp down' onto Grimm and hold tight. The fact that she fought with her extremities meant that she didn't really need hands for holding weapons, and the dragons looked so cool that Jaune was a little jealous. The fact that the dragons were painted coiling down her arms, and meeting on her back with decaled wings was also super awesome.
While both of their Arks drew the eye in different ways, Ren's Stormflower and Blake's Gambol Shroud were anything but flashy. Even thinner than Myrtenaster, they were quick, agile, and most importantly, light.
Neither of them fought with much munitions or firepower, which meant they were able to use the space that the ammo would for an extra Shield Generator in Stormflower, or to make their Ark physically stronger in Gambol Shroud.
Appearance-wise, they were both thin and small and darkly coloured, but Ren went for more camouflaging green colours, and Blake stuck with black. Although Jaune thought he saw some purple in there, it was such a dark purple if there was that it was hard to tell.
Although… He could see some white and black rectangles on the sword of Blake's mech that made it weirdly hard to look at, which was probably its purpose, that helped add a bit of contrast to her Ark's colour scheme.
Their trek towards Ruby didn't take much longer, their Arks capable of moving pretty swiftly over terrain when necessary. Jaune noticed Ruby's Ark kneeling at the top of a nearby hill, its war-scythe/sniper rifle laid over the top as Ruby scanned the area.
Crescent Rose was unique, even amongst the other five already distinctive designs of Fireteam JSBYRR. Covered in reds, blacks and silvers, it looked like she had taken the colour scheme of the mech directly off of her normal outfit.
It was also the second shortest of the bunch, but Ruby had spent the first few hours after they got their Arks regaling him with information about the specs of it, so he knew that it was using some experimental 'Gravity Dust Weight Decreasers' to allow it to pile on mounds of ammunition and physical strength enhancement tech while retaining a light enough weight for Ruby's Petal Burst to work on it.
The first version of her Ark was using it, at least. He could still remember her closing her eyes as she raised a finger at him, in a pose that reminded him of Weiss during their study sessions, telling him to 'never get locked into a single idea, and never rely on experimental tech until its proven effective.'
He could definitely see hours upon hours of tinkering and designing in Ruby's future, and he knew that she would love every single second of it. Maybe he could join her and see if he could try his hand at making his own Ark a little more… flashy? The generic model was fine, but he still had a nagging awkward feeling in the back of his mind as he piloted it that made it feel ever so slightly… Claustrophobic.
He was pulled away from his inspection by a bunch of screens appearing to his left as all Fireteam JSBYRR connected to the one call. Before Jaune could even say anything, Ruby was speaking.
[So yeah! I think I found it. There are a bunch of like, footprints and scratch marks around the area that I can spot with my baby right here that could only have been made by a Grimm, so it's definitely nearby!]
He saw the rest of the team nodding, a few of them clearly psyching themselves up a little, and coughed, drawing their attention. It was time for him to step up as the leader and really get a plan going.
Pulling up a map of the area near where Ruby thought the Grimm was, he used the Ark computer's editing function to draw a line around the area and split it into thirds, writing JR, WY, and RB on each of them.
[Alright guys, here's how we're going to do this. Splitting into partners, we're gonna spread out and take the areas I've marked. Ren, you're with me in section 1. Weiss and Yang, you have section 2. And that leaves Ruby and Blake with section 3.]
It was a fairly basic 'split up and look for it' plan, but Professor Greene had drilled into the fireteam leaders' heads that sometimes simple was best when it came to plans, because it meant less could go wrong.
He received various affirmations of the plan from the team, and Yang said something that caused Ruby to laugh, but he was too busy focusing on Weiss' screen to hear it. He could see from her face that she was still sour about him being the leader of the Fireteam, but he hoped it would not cause any issues with following the plan.
Luckily, it seemed she decided to be mature and follow his 'orders' as Myrtenaster headed over to stand next to Ember Cilicia. He gave her a small nod he wasn't sure she noticed and glanced over to his optics, confirming that the partners had split up.
At the very least, Ruby and Blake seemed to have no issues whatsoever following his plan, having already moved over to each other and gotten ready to move on his mark. He was grateful for the lack of friction between the girls and him, even knowing that Ruby had been kind of hoping to be the leader of their team.
[So, Jaune. Should we begin?]
Jaune looked at Ren as the call they were in split into three 2-person calls so that the partners could focus on each other. Taking a deep breath, he smiled at the other boy, understanding the subtext of his question.
Ren knew he was a fake. He didn't seem to care, for some reason, supporting Jaune anyway, and for that, Jaune had formed a bond with the boy that was different from any he'd had before, as Ren quickly took up a role in Jaune's life as a very quiet 'brother' figure, even if it had only been about a month.
Letting go of the breath, Jaune thrust Crocea Arca's bland sword upwards in the air, watching as the other two sets of partners darted off to their own sections as he did so. He sent as confident a smile as he could muster in the direction of his comms screen and nodded.
[Yea… we should. Let's do this!]
[You and the Chief doing all good there, Weiss-cream?]
Weiss' eye twitched at the nickname, but she ignored any amount of frustration that appeared because of it, knowing that Yang had said it partly to throw her off. Instead, she focused on her surroundings, only responding once the immediate area was clear.
[And what is that supposed to mean?]
There was a moment of silence, thankfully, as Yang was too busy checking her half of their section for Grimm tracks, but the snort that came through the comms a few moments later showed that Yang wasn't buying her feigned ignorance at all.
[C'mon, it was clear to see that you have an issue with Jaune. Your forehead got all frustration-wrinkly when he told us to split up. You don't think he should be the leader or something?]
Weiss rolled her eyes as Myrtenaster's blade was raised to push a tree out of the way, looking for any burrows or cave entrances that the Grimm might have used to store its kills or just to sit and wait for negativity to come its way.
[I believe in the teachers at Beacon Academy and their choices enough not to disobey the orders of my Fireteam Leader, you can be sure of that.]
Yang raised an eyebrow at her through the screen, and Weiss' mouth pressed into a line at the look she was giving her. [That was an answer fit for politics, girl. But you didn't actually answer me.]
Weiss upturned her nose slightly. She couldn't blame Yang for not having any worries about Jaune. She knew the girl didn't know about his lack of Aura until the day of the initiation. She was still almost amazed at herself that she had helped the boy at all by unlocking his Aura for him, but she owed him for stopping her from exploding alongside her luggage, and a Schnee always repaid their debts.
But getting caught by the teacher right after that meant that he had been seen by their peers as her friend, at the very least, which meant he had been accidentally attached to her own reputation, and she refused to allow him to drag that down. Not with her inheritance of the SDC on the line.
[Fine. No, I don't yet believe him to be the right choice. And while I am open to him proving me wrong, that doesn't stop it from being frustrating to not have been picked myself.]
Yang actually paused at that, frowning at her candid answer. Had Yang expected her to be fine with Jaune being the leader or something? Maybe, not knowing his secret. Yang's frown vanished as she was distracted by something, but she still spoke.
[Cold, Ice Queen, damn. You wanna share why you have doubts? He seems to be doing fine to me, I guess. A little goofy but all-around, he seems like a really solid guy.]
She couldn't blame Yang, but it was still annoying to talk about this. She wanted Jaune to prove her wrong, she really did, but she also would be absolutely fine if he gave her the position instead if he eventually bent under the pressure.
[That's not really for me to say. You'll have to ask him at some point later on if you wanna know why.]
To her credit, she could tell that Yang had somewhat realized that there was some sort of secret that Weiss shouldn't be spreading around there, and backed off, her full focus returning to looking for the Grimm.
That allowed Weiss to refocus as well, glad that the conversation was over.
[So… do you like stuff?]
Blake almost felt her ears twitch slightly as Ruby spoke for the third time, repeating her question with slightly different phrasing. Glancing at the screen, she gave the girl a tired smile, doing her best not to outright ask the girl to be quiet. That would be rude when all Ruby was doing was trying to be friendly.
They'd been on the same team for almost a month now, and the only people Blake could say she had really bonded with were Yang, who dragged her out to Vale almost every second day or so… And Jaune as they trained together, and even that was almost completely accidental and mostly fueled by proximity, to begin with.
She felt bad about keeping her partner at arm's length though, so she answered her this time, taking her searching slightly slower. [What kind of stuff do you mean?]
The fact that she responded at all seemed to make Ruby's day, the girl visibly brightened at her words, and her mouth started spewing word vomit that Blake was only barely able to keep up with.
[Like, what do you do for hobbies?! Other than reading, I already know you read a lot I don't think anyone in our yearwouldn't know that you read a lot but you also spend a bunch of time in the training simulators is there a particular course you like to run or is it just training oh and someone mentioned that you went down to Vale with Jaune the other day what was that about?]
Blake snorted at the deluge of words, but she ran the questions through her mind at a slower pace after Ruby was done and answered as best she could. [No, I don't really have any other hobbies. The aura training course is a good one to do at all stages of mastery, and Jaune was repaying me for some help I gave him by buying some books for me.]
Crescent Rose's head bobbed up and down alongside Ruby as she nodded, humming. [That's cool! Yang used to buy books for me too, but after I exploded our old bookshelf she said that-]
Woosh!
Blake semi-tuned Ruby out at that point as the girl started talking again, telling the story of how she was 'doing her best to study Dust' like a 'good student' and how the bookshelf exploding was 'an accident'. She felt bad about ignoring her, but she thought she heard something…
She scanned the area and realised that they were near what looked like a massive cavern dug into the side of one of the mountains, the ground next to it compacted and crushed under something that clearly weighed a lot.
[Ruby, contact the others, I think I've found- oh, crap.]
The signs around it screamed Grimm. Scratches in the ground from claws, grooves dug into the stone of the mountain itself by one of the many, varied appendages and limbs Grimm had, and things she could only vaguely call 'footprints' due to how many overlapped each other.
A low rumbling noise hit her ears, all 4 of them, and she felt her shoulders raise up slightly as her entire body went tense. She hoped Ruby was doing as she had ordered as quickly as possible. Because as Blake looked deeper into the cavern, she noticed two red dots staring right back, rapidly growing in size as the Grimm dove at her.
Gambol Shroud's weapons shot into her Ark's hands as she readied for combat, her Aura practically vibrating throughout the machine as adrenaline shot through her. Her eyes focused on the Grimm. She couldn't stop the shout that escaped her as the Grimm crossed the threshold of the cave.
[Contact!]
Thank you for reading!
Remember, the AO3 version of this story contains art in most chapters, including this one!
See you all next week! Please let me know what you think of the chapter below!