Knox: 1000 pages!

King: It's a big thing...

Knox: Break out the booze!

King: We don't have mouths.

Knox: Celebrate somehow!

King: Fair enough. Hope you enjoy the final part to the Felix/Jaune prequal saga.

Knox: Just the prequal?

King: Don't get ahead of me, Knox...

Inspiration: Red vs Blue

/\

Part three was ready to begin again.

The scene opened to Mercury looking over his sniper rifle as Emerald moved one of the onsite vehicles into position for cover. Emerald jumped down from the vehicle, "We're good on the north and south. Had enough extra limestone to make a bottleneck at the east end."

Mercury nodded, "Good…" He had something on his mind in that moment.

"Dynamite?"

"In that crate."

Emerald's eyes narrowed, "Good…"

Jaune walks back into the scene with phone in hand. "Whelp! Our trust arms dealer isn't returning my calls. So, he's either high off his ass or thoroughly aware of how fucked we are." Everyone was silent. There wasn't much to say given the situation. Jaune nodded, "On the bright side, there's a pileup on 35, so… that buys us some time. You know… in case we want to just kill ourselves."

Pyrrha was a little scared to hear that. "They're not going to… right?"

Emerald turned and glared toward him. "We have enough firepower. We have the cliff to our backs and a thorough understanding of our terrain." She picked up a gun and cocked it before pushing it into his chest. "We're survived worse. And if you waste even one bullet on yourself, I will be very unhappy…"

As she walked away, Jaune tried to joke, "Why's it always got to be about you?" It how he best dealt with bullshit situations with next to no way out.

Mercury reached down and picked up one of their pistols.

Jaune called to him from off screen. "Merc, want to give a hand with these."

No response.

Emerald raised an eyebrow. What's going on with him?

"Merc! Ammo!"

Mercury looked up to Jaune for a moment before returning his gaze to his weapon in his hand. "Schnee doesn't know about me…"

Cinder felt her eye twitch. Between the two, she trusted Mercury the least, that he might abandon the mission to save his own skin. And this wasn't helping.

Jaune stared toward Mercury, taking in his words. "What?"

"Schnee… He called you both out. Locus and Felix… Two bounty hunters… He didn't mention me. I was never inside."

"The hell are you saying, Mercury?"

"I'm saying I have a family! You and Emerald fight well enough without me!"

"No, fuck that! Are you seriously trying to get out of this?!"

"I never wanted this!"

Kali nodded, "He's not wrong… He was rather vocal about it."

But that didn't go down well with Jaune, "Son of a bitch!" He pointed his weapon toward Mercury, who retaliated in kind, forming a stand-off.

"Felix!" Emerald walked back over, still refusing to use their real names. "Siris is right. Schnee doesn't know he exists. If he wasn't here… no one would question a thing."

Mercury raised an eyebrow, "Did… did she just give an out?"

Roman smirked, "Looks like it."

After a moment, Jaune groaned and moved the pistol, breaking the stand-off. Mercury looked to his weapon before placing it back on the table. The scene faded there to the entrance gate. The gates were bashed in as four large vehicles made their way across the dirt and into a line of cover. The men under Jacque's employ formed a firing squad.

Opposite them was Jaune with a gun to his hostage's head. "So… what? Daddy chicken out?"

"Wait… Didn't they kill him?" Ruby looked to the screen, a bit confused.

"They don't know that…" Blake explained.

A loud engine revving followed and three more vehicles, one significantly longer and better armored than the others, entered the quarry. The two smaller vehicles turned quickly and created a sniper line. The longer of the three moved closer and turned. More men got out of the car, guns at the ready. One of them tossed a phone to Jaune's feet, which started to ring.

Jaune looked down at the phone a second before returning his attention to his attackers, "Really?" This was just sad… He picked up the phone and answered the device using the recognizable name, "This is Felix~"

Jacque was, indeed, on the line, "Felix… Thank you for saving me the trouble of hunting you down." Jacque was in the larger vehicle. "I respect a man who chooses to look his death in the face."

That did not go over well with the interdimensional mother, "Fucking hypocrite!" This man was threatening her baby! (Kind of. Close enough!) And he couldn't even bother to face him?!

Jaune could be seen from the window of the car, "Well… that's awfully presumptuous of you."

"Where is your partner?"

Jaune looked up to the cliffs. "Oh… She's around. We wanted to give you one more chance to take your kid and go our separate ways."

"I'm afraid, you're not in any position to negotiate."

"Oh come on! I literally have a gun to your kid's head! Most people would say that's a pretty good bargaining chip!"

"I am not most people."

"No kidding…" Tai glared at the screen. "He might be worse than Raven. Somehow…"

Jaune sighed and nodded, "Yeah… So I've noticed. But you were stupid enough to come here."

Ironwood nodded. "Not his brightest move…"

Yang turned to the general, "What? Calling that ass out?"

The general shook his head, "Not Arc. Jacque. He went to a location of known mercenaries after an extended period of time had passed, and one of them was just out in the open? Of course, it was going to be a trap."

Jacque hung up and tapped the glass of the window next to him.

The man directly outside the car pointed his gun only to be sniped in the head before he could do anything else.

This made everyone jump, given its abrupt nature. Then they remembered Emerald was still unaccounted for on screen.

Salem felt a smug sense of joy that her son and his partner (not like that, though she can hope for that to happen soon~) was thoroughly outsmarting that asshat.

One of the goons shouted, "Sniper!" before being picked off as well.

The camera moved to Emerald's position on the cliffside, with sniper rifle in hand. "Move!"

Then, it returned to Jaune, who kicked the bound body forward, "Moving!"

Another of the goons grabbed Whitely as he approached and motioned for the others to chase Jaune. He removed the hood and heard a metallic sound. A small-ordinance grenade was wedged into Whitely's mouth and exploded, right in front of the window with his father inside.

"That's… seriously messed up." Weiss did not need to see that. Technically, she didn't as it was off screen, but the effects were still there. Her brother's head just exploded… So, that'll haunt her.

Jacque was beyond pissed now. "Will somebody kill these motherfuckers?!"

The sniper line started to set up on a nearby hill. One of them got a bead on Emerald, only to hear a device activate next to him. The entire hill area was lined with motion activated explosives. As the rest of the snipers turned to see what happened, four shots were fired with three being kill shots. The fourth dived to the side to fight back, but a bionic leg knocked away the gun and slammed onto his chest. Mercury had remained to fight with his team and shot out the man beneath him.

Emerald raised an eyebrow. "I'm actually surprised you stuck around."

Mercury shrugged.

Jacque didn't take this well, grabbing his radio, "Renaldo! What's happening?"

But the voice that answered was Mercury, "Sit tight, Jacque."

The scene transitioned to Jaune, running up to a conveyer belt to lift the stone. He sat onto the belt and fired back at his pursuers. After one shot, he placed a small charge onto the wall and started to run up the belt again. As he jumped off the belt to the nearby platform, a bullet went through his leg, causing him to loss his concentration and fall face first onto the metal platform. He groaned and pressed a detonator, blowing his pursuers to bits.

Jaune couldn't help but recoil at seeing himself faceplant, but the same reaction occurred with the explosion.

He reached up as a hand met his. "How many is that?"

Emerald was waiting for him, helping him up and placing his arm over her shoulders. "Nineteen."

Jaune noticed another goon appearing over the ladder behind her. "Shit!" He tossed a knife toward the man, hitting him square in the nose with the hilt. It might not have been his plan, but it knocked him off balance enough to fall off the platform. Jaune just shrugged, "That'll work."

Yang snickered, "Okay… that was kind of funny." The majority of the group was long since been desensitized to the violence.

The scene moved to Mercury running across the open ground with a shotgun. As Schnee's back line turned to fire toward him, he used his bionics to jump into a flip. As he did, he fired into the group, hitting one and killing him with the buckshot. He fired until he ran out of ammo, then reached for his pistol. The goons' automatic weapons were terrible for open spaced due to their recoil and spread, so the worst they did to him was knocking his pistol out of his hand. He ran off from the firing line and behind a buzz saw style digger designed to cut the stone into shape.

As one of the men rounded the digger, he was kicked in the face by Mercury, who was standing on the large wheel. He flipped along the frame, his fighting style being based on fluid movement, staying out of reach before kicking someone's lights out. Speaking of, he slammed his foot downward and sliced the gun held by the goon in half.

Mercury grinned, "I've got to learn how to do that."

He kicked the gun up and into another goon rounding the corner. Another kick placed the unarmed goon under the raised blade. As he pleaded, Mercury kicked down on the mechanism and popped the man open like a blood-filled grape.

Jaune lurched forward, threatening to vomit at the sight. He held it back, but barely.

Pyrrha was there to comfort him, much to Velvet's jealousy.

The last of the goons proved more difficult to deal with as he opened fire on Mercury. The bounty hunter slid under the digger and up around the frame. He sliced the tall exhaust pipe off and spun it to keep momentum. He kicked the pipe through the air with his bionics and impaled the goon through the chest.

Mercury's grin spread a bit further. "I really need to learn to do that."

Mercury made his way over to the car, picking up a pistol. He opened the door and looked around inside, finding Jacque missing. The crime boss had snuck out and gotten around the hunter, smacking him across the head with the bat.

Mercury scoffed, "Cheap shot."

Emerald laughed. "You're just mad you got smacked across the head."

Jacque was breathing heavily thanks to the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He kicked the gun away and glared down at Mercury. "I told you… I fucking told you, that I'd bash your fucking skulls in… Fucking bounty hunters."

Before he could cave Mercury's skull in, bullets flew from off screen and into the crime lord. Off to the side, Emerald was holding Jaune up over her shoulder and both had guns being lowered. As per usual, Jaune was the first to speak. "What a douche."

Mercury leaned up against the back of Jacque's car. "You shouldn't have brought family into this…"

With his last breath, Jacque set the record straight. "You did first…"

Jaune clutched onto his chair, "He's… not wrong."

That got to Mercury.

At least the one on screen.

But, the bounty hunters Locus, Felix, and Siris would live to see the sunrise. It was rising right now, actually.

As Emerald set him onto the vehicle's back, Jaune scoff, "Nature's so fucking cliché."

This got a few chuckles.

"We're alive." Emerald glanced toward him a moment. "Quit complaining."

"Yeah? But it's part of my charm." As Emerald passed by, Jaune locked eyes with Mercury. "Hey… Thanks… for staying."

The two shared a moment, but Emerald (and by extension reality) butted in. "We're still at our initial equipment cost. And then some."

Mercury groaned. "Probably would have been smart to turn him in…"

Jaune thought and looked back at the limo… truck… thing. "Well. What do you think we could get for this?" He tapped his knuckle on the back.

The last scene was the car driving off down the streets through red lights.

King appeared as the screen went blank. "So, Jaune? What did you think?"

Jaune took a breath. "It was… different. And I…" he sighed, "I don't know. This is just so crazy, you know?"

"You have no idea…"

"So… that was a version of me?"

"Yep. A version that could have been if everything fell into the same exact places."

"That's still weird to think about."

"If it makes you feel better, the next one is going to be more lighthearted."

Yang looked up to the fireball, "Oh? What's the occasion?"

"Well… that's my usual thing after sustained villain-Jaune sets." He was met with silence. "Bad people doing good things… For now…"