King: Been a bit. The Prompt project was taking up a lot of my time. But now that I already failed to get everything out on schedule and moving back my deadline, it gave me time to get this out there. I wanted to say this is a sequel to a chapter that didn't technically have one, Chapter 145: Bow Before the King. Now, you'll remember that chapter was made using a fan comic as the origin. Again, big thanks to Alex-Keller on DeviantArt for letting me do that. Now, if you saw the comic in question, you'd know it doesn't have a follow up. I made this as a fan work of a fan work, in a sense. Thank you all for reading and enjoying and I hope you continue to enjoy in the future... Despite how long these take to make.
Knox: You good?
King: Yeah... Just low energy recently. Anyway, let's get moving.
Inspiration: My fan-made attempt to continue The Ascension of a Knight comic by Alex-Keller.
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Saffron felt her head spinning given the magical and frankly ludicrous nature of the previous world. "What the heck could be next?"
"Jinx-ed it." Sun remarked.
The screen opened to an open scene looking over a field. Red flowers covered the land like a carpet of petals. The field swayed in the wind as the camera tracked along the ground. It was as if looking out to the ocean.
Ruby looked on with amazement, "Wow. I've seen so many flowers in one big place like that. You can't even see any grass underneath!"
The camera fell close to find Jaune standing among the flowers, looking out to the distance. "Where… am I?"
"Is it not clear?" The voice that answered was his own, but calmer. Colder.
Jaune recoiled and stumbled back, falling onto his butt as he looked around. "What- Who said that?!"
"I did." Another Jaune was suddenly standing before the first, his upper armor and hoodie stripped away to reveal red markings on his chest and arms. He smirked with a level of self confidence Jaune just didn't have.
And then there were those in the audience who recognized the appearance. Their collective mental states were given voice by Velvet saying, "Oh no."
Jaune looked up to this familiar face in shock and horror. "Who… who are you?"
The other Jaune's smirk grew. "Who am I? Is that truly what you want to ask me? After you had the gall to request my assistance so loosely." The other Jaune started laughing, "Have you no memory? Here. Allow me to remind you." He snapped his fingers and, suddenly, everything was different.
Both Jaunes were standing in Haven's entrance hall. Jaune turned to the side as his eyes widened at the scene before him. Mercury Black was pinned to a wall by a golden spear. Emerald Sustrai had a sword sticking out from her chest as she lay on the ground. Headmaster Lionheart had a set of golden chains wrapped around his neck and looked like said neck had been snapped. Hazel Reinard had been turned into a proverbial pincushion by a set of spears. Then there was Cinder, her left side blown apart with Pyrrha's spear impaling her through her chest.
Salem's eyes were as wide as dinner plates. "What the hell happened?!"
Tyrian felt a shiver run up his spine. "What that little psycho child?"
A large portion of the audience turned to him both concerned and confused. Mostly the former given it was Tyrian calling someone else, a child at that, crazy.
The other Jaune walked up to the scene with that smirk, "They got what they deserved. As he stepped into the scene, the facade faded away to reveal a man in gleaming golden armor with golden hair and piercing red eyes. He chuckled seeing Jaune's shock, "Come now, don't tell me you forgot what it felt like. To taste of the power I allowed you to wield."
A sudden flashback hit and caused Jaune to double over clutching his head. "Archer?"
"Archer as a title could never truly encapsulate everything I am. But yes. I let you taste of my great power in your pursuit of justice. Or revenge. I don't care one way or the other. The point is, I let you wield a fraction of my power."
"FRACTION?!" Glynda shouted. "That?! That was just a fraction?!"
Tyrian groaned, "I'd really like some context here! It looks like it was so cool! I want to know!"
Jaune looked away for a moment before returning to eye contact, "Then, what do I call you?"
The man laughed for a second before he looked down upon Jaune, "If you're so keen to know, then you tell me. You see, there's a reason I let you even taste of the power I have. Tell me, boy. Who. am. I?" He emphasized each word as though each were a separate statement.
Jaune shook for a moment, his eyes glowing red for a moment. "You're… the King of Heroes." Jaune began to rise slightly. "Linchpin of Heaven." He was on his feet, swaying slightly. "Humanity's first hero." Jaune now stood perfectly opposite the man with a hard stare on his face. "Gilgamesh."
The very air in the room seemed to grow thick with energy and tension. Each step built up the anticipation and now they had a name to the face. To the power he brought with him. Everything felt off now, like they were just given a huge piece of information, bigger than they could ever understand.
Gilgamesh's smirk grew as he crossed his arms. "Correct. You learn fast."
"But… why do I know that?" Jaune had a sudden headache as the scenes from the battle around him played out. "Because… I was you. For a moment, but I…"
"Don't make a mistake." Gilgamesh shouted, his smirk faded, "You did not become me. I let you access a small amount of my full power." Gilgamesh turned with his arms crossed, his tone turning serious. "However, when next you need my power, it will be for something that requires my full effort." He spun back around to face Jaune, his face devoid of a grin and eyes clear in the seriousness of the situation. And yet he shouted, like a king calling to his army, "Listen here! By the end of the day which you next wake, a horrid witch shall be upon the shores of the kingdom you call Atlas."
Ironwood's robotic hand gripped down on his chair's armrest and splintered the piece. It magically fixed itself, but the point was clearly made for everyone. It was the very thing he hated. The thing he feared. He lived with hope that she would never appear directly.
Jaune went from shock to fear and to determined uncertainty in the course of about five seconds.
Which Gilgamesh noticed and walked around him to smack him upside the head.
"What the hell was that for?!"
"For being afraid." This confused Jaune for a moment, but Gilgamesh continued, "You just told to me my monikers. Should those alone have not told you what power you hold? With but a fraction of my power, you can be certain of victory. Even against this witch who calls herself a god. Humanity is the architect of its own fate. We've no more need of gods."
Salem blinked, not expecting something she could agree with. On the surface at least. True, she was done with the concept of the old gods, but she was now the dark goddess of Remnant. That's just how it works. She was immortal, all powerful. One could only achieve when she allowed it. That's how it worked. So, she couldn't help but wonder what this golden man could possibly do.
But one of her associates wasn't quite so quiet. "BLASPHEMER! I'll kill him!" Tyrian was about to jump to the screen, but only face planted onto the chair in front of him. He returned to his seat rubbing his nose. "I swear I will!"
Gilgamesh grinned before standing before Jaune again. "Call on me, and I'll allow you full access to my power this once. Be ready."
The scene started to flicker before fading out. This allowed for a transition to the scene at hand. Jaune was knocked flat on his back, bleeding from a torn shoulder on his sword arm, with clear claw marks tearing through his armor. He struggled to stand on the cobbles of Mantle as a giant beowolf stood over him. After the events of Mistral, the group traveled to Atlas in an attempt to make contact with Ironwood and try to open the embargoes placed by the kingdom in fear after the Fall of Beacon. Unfortunately, Salem set her sights on the same kingdom and was now invading with her hoard.
Ironwood hung his head into his hands. It was his worst case scenario playing out before him. True, it was in another world, but that didn't matter. If anything, that made it worse. This other world had a Jaune Arc with the power of his Gilgamesh guy. Theirs did not. Maybe that would help, but if that ever happened to their own world, he doubted they could really handle that.
Jaune's friends were just afraid for his counterpart in that moment. It even made them forget the golden archer for a moment, and what he'd said would happen that day.
Jaune stood and held up his shield. He grit his teeth, knowing that his current method wasn't going to help. He glanced to the back of his shield. Against the steel, at the top of the center scabbard, was the golden card with an Archer etching. His attention was forced back to the Grimm as it swung down against him, only for him to dip to the side and slice into its chest. His shoulder stung like hell, but he was running on adrenaline and grit. However, even that could only do so much. His energy was running low and his aura was near exhausted. The Grimm that appeared were part of a massive hoard, forcing Jaune to fight for the better part of two hours straight, alone. As the Grimm lashed out, he stabbed it through the throat and wrenched his blade out the side of its neck before falling to his knees. His breathing was heavy and ragged, but he pushed his sword against the ground like a cane to help him stand again.
"How big is this hoard that we aren't there to help him?" Ruby asked, surprised a situation could have happened at all.
King tapped his foot on the ground with a sharp breath. "Well, large enough to threaten the entirety of Atlas all at once."
There was a silence over the scene, only for Nora to add, "That's a lot."
Jaune coughed as he got to his feet again, doing what he could to stay upright. Damn it. I can't keep this up much longer… A scream forced him back to action. A civilian was being chased by a Creep, only for the Grimm to meet Jaune's blade as she ran away. The blood seeping from his shoulder was starting to catch up with him as his vision was fading. Even like this, his eyes shifted to the card. He remembered their faces after he used it last time. It was frightening to have them look at him like that.
"Okay, seriously, how bad was it?" Saffron groaned. "Like, I saw the dream thing, and yeah that looked pretty bad, but why would he think like that?"
"I'd certainly like to know," Tyrian laughed.
But it was looking like he didn't have much of a choice now. Jaune ground his teeth together in frustration before pulling the card from the place on his shield. "Archer!" The card floated slightly and glowed, "Install!" He crushed his hand together and the card shattered. He was then engulfed in a ball of light before it burst upward into a pillar of gold. It faded out quickly and was lost in the chaos.
The camera moved away to show Ruby and Weiss working together to kill a massive Bangrel.
"Oh sure! They work together but Jaune has to go in alone?!" Saffron didn't take that well. "Where's his partner, at least?! That's how it works, right?"
"Dead." Knox answered quickly.
"What?"
"She's dead. Lost in the Fall of Beacon. But being by himself doesn't really matter when you have that card."
The large Grimm let out a roar as it tossed off Weiss' summoned knight and charged toward the duo, only for a golden streak of light to slam down and blow apart the area the Grimm occupied. Both girls were stunned for a moment before seeing what exactly had happened. An ornate, golden sword was currently pinning the Grimm's head to the ground. Both turned to each other, already afraid of what was to come. That was when they heard the clanking of armor behind them.
(For your entertainment, this is where you would start playing Eiyuu-Ou from the Fate Stay Night soundtrack)
Jaune stepped along the street of Atlas with confident purpose. His attire had changed completely, now covered in golden armor, red fabric fell from the armor at his waist like those of a knight, his hair was up and slicked back slightly, and his eyes were sharp and seemed to gaze into the world beyond them.
Holy shit. Was the common consensus in the audience. It looked like a cross between Jaune and the man Gilgamesh they saw moments ago.
Coco lowered her glasses and looked over all the pieces. Arc in full armor was definitely something to see. A real knight, like something out of a fantasy book. And that got her cheeks to turn a little pink at the ideas and prospects she could come up with in that moment. So many ideas~
Jaune walked passed the two as a portal appeared slightly to his side and in front of them. A sword handle rose out from the portal, which he drew to reveal a jeweled blade that looked like it cost more than the entire Schnee Dust Company yearly gross income.
Yang couldn't help but whistle at the idea. "Damn, that's a lot."
"No kidding." Weiss, and by extension her siblings, have at least a basic idea of the numbers coming in before expenses are taken out by the SDC. That wasn't just big, it was absurd.
Jaune just inspected the blade before putting it back in the portal, only for it to shoot out at mach three and impale an Ursa on a building.
Whitely, an economically minded young man, nearly had a conniption at seeing something so expensive and ornate used as a projectile.
Jaune clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Doing things this way will take too long."
"Jaune?" Ruby slowly inched closer. When this happened before, she was the one he recognized. She was the one he told to be calm and that he would handle things. The one he reassured. She hoped that still held, that he was okay under that card's influence. "Listen. We can beat the Grimm. We can save Atlas, without that weird card power. We're winning."
"Because she's not here yet." Jaune reminded her. The hoard had moved ahead, leaving Salem in a giant whale Grimm acting as her mobile fortress and base of operations. If she entered the city, their conversation wouldn't have happened.
Salem couldn't help but smirk. Someone out there understood the truth.
"But that doesn't matter now." Jaune's grin grew as he looked up to the sky. Jaune started to fall back, only to land on a throne that materialized beneath him. The large stone seat was draped in red fabric as Jaune leaned to the side, his elbow resting on the armrest and his chin on his hand. He smirked and raised his other arm, "Let's deal with these pests first."
The camera hung on Ruby, not sure what he meant by that, only for her to glance toward Weiss. The white haired girl was looking up in abject terror. Then, as the day seemed to grow brighter, she looked up as well. And Weiss' reaction made so much more sense.
The sky was rippling as if stones were cast into a lake, golden light slowly growing with more and more intensity. Portal after portal, glow after glow. The blue skies of the once calm day was now awash with gold, covering the entirety of the Atlas skies.
"That's horrifying." Glynda could barely keep from shaking after remembering the last time she'd seen this. And now, it blanketed all of a kingdom!
"I still don't really get it." Saffron looked around the fearful faces. "Doesn't he have to load them or something?"
Blades began to slowly lower themselves from the portals, pausing a moment before the proverbial golden cloud burst. A rain of steel and gold fell upon Atlas like a hurricane. On the ground, Grimm ran about only to be impaled one after another. A large Goliath ran through the streets before chunks of the beast were torn out one by one, causing what was left to fall. A person looked up in fear, huddling up and praying to any god that would listen to free him from the blades. But as he waited, he found himself unscathed. It was as if the blades only fell upon the Grimm and ripped them to shreds.
"Okay, that's good at least." Terra used that as an anchor so she didn't have to think about what looked like a natural disaster level event. Or maybe an unnatural disaster.
After a solid thirty seconds of raining blades, the weapons stopped falling to the kingdom. The portals faded out soon after, allowing the sky to show once more Jaune chuckled before standing again, looking out to see the giant whale. "Let's get her attention." Another portal appeared next to him before something shot out and toward the Grimm.
Meanwhile, Salem moved within the flying whale. Tyrian and Watts walked behind her to either side. "How long until we arrive in Atlas?"
Watts did the calculations very quickly in his head, "We should reach Atlas within thirty minutes."
"Excellent." Tyrian bounced excitedly. "I can't wait to slaughter them all!"
"Right." Salem stopped and felt a twitch in her eye. Strange. What is this feeling? And as she stood still, the wall-slash-body of the Grimm was suddenly torn open. Salem felt an odd push before looking down to find a golden blade sticking out from her chest.
Tyrian jumped up, only to fall again. "I'll kill him! No one defiles the goddess!"
"That was impressive accuracy though." Watts tapped his finger on the armrest of his chair. "From such a distance would be difficult as it is, but that was frankly absurd."
Salem took the sword out from her body and was about to throw it away before noticing the blade was etched with something on the blade. It read: [You make me want to apologize to Ishtar.] She raised an eyebrow before flipping the blade to find that it continued saying, [Because there's no goddess more useless than you.]
Both Tyrians shouted in unison. "I'll kill him!"
The one on the screen was more colorful though since he was uninhibited, "I'll rip out his throat and strangle him with it!"
All Tyrian could do to respond was shout, "Yeah!"
Watts shook his head, "I'm not going to begin to explain how little that made sense. Regardless, what should we do, my Lady?"
Salem threw the sword away. "I have no need to dignify it."
Salem nodded. She was immortal, after all. What difference would something like that make?
"Is that right?" As they entered the makeshift throne room, they found Jaune sitting on Salem's seat of power. "Are you certain?"
"You!" Tyrian charged forward, "I'll kill you!"
"I'm not going to dignify you, Mongrel." Blades shot out from behind him and turned Tyrian into a pincushion before he fell to the ground. "Or the one standing there in the coat." Watts was about to back away, but spears shot up from around him and pinned him to the wall.
Saffron recoiled at how little he did and how little he cared. It all made sense now about how afraid everyone was.
But Salem was still unimpressed. He'll learn soon enough.
Jaune stood back up and smirked down toward Salem. "I know you're immortal, or so you say. And frankly I have little care one way or another. So allow me to cut to the chase. You are without your minions and your beasts have no chance moving forward anymore. This is your only chance to take what's left and go back to whatever forsaken land you came from."
Salem took a slow breath before looking back toward Jaune, her face as neutral as possible. "Did you believe that I would listen to a child?"
"That's an interesting tone to take before a king."
"What is a king before a goddess?" Salem raised her hand and shot a bolt of magic at Jaune.
Only for the magic to seem to bounce off Jaune's armor. "How quickly you are to dismiss the mortal. How very divine of you. And that's how I know you'll die here." Portals appeared behind Jaune before unloading blades at the witch.
"You're not about to kill her like that!" Tyrian just laughed. "The goddess is far too powerful! She's immortal!"
Salem just swatted the blades away before seeing something odd. In Jaune's hand was a strange weapon, a cylindrical sword with three red and black sections spinning slowly above a golden hilt. Jaune thrust the weapon forward, being blocked by Salem's hand. The spinning of the blade seemed to eat into her hand and took everything down to her wrist before she knocked him away.
Qrow couldn't help but recoil a bit, "That must hurt like hell." He rolled his wrist, thinking back to his most recent injury: a hard slam against said wrist that almost dislocated the bones in the section. If not for his aura, he'd have expected that to be pretty serious.
Meanwhile, Ruby wanted to geek out about the weapon, but couldn't shake a weird feeling. Like she wasn't seeing everything it had to offer.
Jaune smirked and hoisted the weapon up against his shoulder. "Alright, goddess," he mocked, "I think that should act as a sufficient lesson."
Salem raised her brow and looked down to her missing head. She held it forward, ready for it to regenerate as usual. But it didn't. "What?" She was justifiably confused.
Making Jaune's smirk grow. "Good. That shock should become proper fear once you see this." Jaune hoisted his blade upward, the sections spinning faster and faster. Red wind began to shoot out from the sections and the wind started to tear into the Grimm around them. After a moment, the winds burst out in either direction, the camera suddenly shooting to the outside to reveal the giant whale Grimm being ripped into pieces from the epicenter of the blast. The camera returned to show Salem sliding against the frozen ground, looking back up to see Jaune floating in the air. The winds swirled around above him, as though lashing out at the very world around them.
"Okay, that is a cool shot, holy crap." Sun couldn't help but mention it.
Salem started to stand again, only for one of the winds to swing around and cut off her left leg. She fell to her knees, shock and confusion painted on her face. "W-what?"
"Behold!" Jaune called out to the witch. "These winds sever existence itself! The star which cleaves the universe in two and creates a new world within the space between! Ea! The Sword of Rupture!" The winds sprang out and surrounded the two like a tornado of red death. "It doesn't matter if you're immortal. IF YOU CEASE TO EXIST! ENUMA ELISH!" The tornado suddenly shot back up above his blade as he swung it downward.
A burst of power shot forward and down toward Salem, engulfing her completely. The scene showed her as she was torn apart molecule by molecule. It was like being torn apart at the most fundamental level and being forced back together, just to be torn open again.
Everyone took in a sharp breath at the description. The Salem on screen couldn't even scream with everything about her being torn open. There was the most minor amount of sympathy for her at that moment. They couldn't even imagine how horrible that could have been.
The winds began to die down, showing nothing left among the world. The very ground showed sections ripped apart like being broken apart by blades. Salem was nowhere to be seen, no trace of her even having existed. Jaune's eyes flashed as he started to laugh. "Let this be a lesson. Humanity is the architect of its own future." Jaune began to slowly descend, reaching the ground in a few seconds, "No god or goddess can lay claim to this truth! So I have spoken, so shall it be!"
Ruby was officially geeking out about Ea, but was also fucking terrified of something so strong and effective. "That weapon is so cool! But insane!"
"If that scares you, here's a fun fact for you." Knox smirked as he put that out there for them. "It's classified as an Anti-World Noble Phantasm. If he wanted to, he could quite literally tear Remnant apart with it."
The theater was silent, fear of such a thing ever existing even as a possibility.