Chapter 52 – Second Location
Jaune finds himself trapped in the clutches of a very reasonable madman.
The sensation of being teleported by someone else's semblance was a surprisingly normal one. It wasn't like some sort of lurching, nauseating reorganization of Jaune's position relative to the universe; it was more like blinking and waking up in a new location, minus the blinking.
tzzz
They had initially been on what Jaune assumed was a rooftop, but less than a second passed before they were teleporting again to another rooftops, and then another.
tzzz
tzzz
tzzz
He's taking me away, Jaune realized. I need to stop him.
His ears hadn't been turned off during Blake's explanation of the man's semblance, so Jaune, with one arm still wrapped around the dude's neck, let go of his dirk with the other hand and covered his eyes.
"No. Stop that."
Jaune's stomach was elbowed, and the force of it was enough to break his grip on the man.
Still, Jaune's aura was up, so he wasn't felled by the punch and had enough wherewithal to get right back up and wrap his arms around the huntsman's stomach. He needed to see to teleport, but he took anything with him that he touched, as shown by him using his semblance to drop Velvet out of the building.
A sickle cut against the side of Jaune's torso, but he ignored the pain and gripped the hand that held the weapon.
Don't let go! Can't let go!
His teeth gritted, Jaune ignored the other sickle striking his neck and reached into his side pocket. Rummaging through the other junk that was in there, he yanked out a pair of handcuffs and slapped one onto the wrist that held the lower sickle.
Then, with great struggle due to the guy's wriggling, Jaune clicked closed the other cuff around his own wrist.
The second sickle struck against the cuff's chain, trying to cut through it, but these were reinforced handcuffs, purchased at Velvet's huntsman store. They weren't breaking anytime soon.
"Oh."
Jaune grinned victoriously. "Oh, indeed."
His own arm was jerked around as the sickle was turned around and used to stab at his legs, but Jaune's aura was mostly full, having taking next to no damage during the fight, and the hit felt weaker.
The cut did, however, slash open Jaune's pocket, causing the contents within to fall out to the floor.
There was a pause between the two of them as they both, for some reason, stared down at the miscellaneous contents of Jaune's jeans.
"Where's the key?" asked the huntsman.
"I…I guess I forgot it?" Jaune asked as much as he said.
It hadn't been a conscious choice on his part, but it probably benefited him greatly right now. They were bound together, as it was virtually impossible to not be touching at least some part of a handcuff at any given time.
Jaune tried to take the offensive by wailing on the dude's head with his right hand, but the guy just crouched down, simultaneously avoiding the blow and also pulling Jaune down with him. His fingers rummaged through the binoculars, wallet, scroll, and other garbage Jaune had on him, but he found no key.
It's not gonna be that easy, D-wad.
He did find another set of handcuffs, though.
tzzz
Suddenly, Jaune was elsewhere. He and the huntsman were still connected by the first pair of cuffs, but they were in a different location.
No – not a different location. It was the same rooftop, just a few feet closer to the ledge.
Jaune again tried to punch the guy, as he knew his aura was far closer to breaking than Jaune's own, but the poorly-planned blow was just as poorly-executed, and he missed by a mile when the huntsman ducked.
Jaune's legs were kicked, and he started to fall down. Yanking his tethered arm, he tried his best to bring the other guy down with him, but his foe was too steady and remained on his feet. Jaune was hanging at his enemy's mercy, and a kick to the stomach followed.
tzzz
Dangling from the man's arm as he was, Jaune had a poor vantage point of his surroundings. He now had no idea where he was, as all he could see was the night sky and the huntsman hovering above him.
"Mmmm, your aura is thick."
"So I'm told," Jaune admitted.
The enemy dropped to his knees, and Jaune, whose weight was supported by his cuffed arm, dropped to the ground. Then, something tight pressed against his free wrist. Jaune heard the sound of a click and twisted his head around to get a better look.
He…He handcuffed me?
The other side of the second pair of cuffs clicked around a metal pipe protruding from the top of the building. Jaune yanked against the new cuffs, but it didn't budge.
Both of his hands were bound.
The huntsman stepped away from the pipe and pulled back, and Jaune was pulled like a clothesline. There was a light, only just barely painful pressure on his wrist, but the true downside was that he couldn't move.
With a gleam of gold, the huntsman drew his sickle with his free hand. Pointing the blade at Jaune, his fingers shifted on the hilt, and the blade shot out like a grappling hook, leaving behind a trail of rope that led back to the man's hand. It collided directly with Jaune's side, making his aura just barely crackle.
"No good. I was wrong; you aren't frail like Ginger."
"Let me go, you A-hole!" Jaune tried to kick the huntsman, but his legs couldn't reach.
"I can't," the huntsman said calmly. "Literally, I cannot. You bound us so. Nor can I get close enough to inflict enough damage without risking you breaking what little remains of my own aura. What a conundrum…I suppose now is the time I should declare my regret for how little range my weapons have."
The huntsman's finger pressed onto the hilt of the sickles again, and Jaune realized there was a button on it. Meanwhile, the rope coiled back towards the weapon, dragging the sickle blade with it.
"Your aura is nigh unbreakable, and all I have to break it is these weak hits." The huntsman sighed. "We may be here for a while."
"Let me go!" Jaune screamed.
"As I said, I cannot. Don't blame me for your own actions, huntsman."
"I'm not a huntsman," Jaune seethed. "But you are."
The man blinked and leaned away as far as he could within the confines of the cuffs, then nodded from his distance. He pressed the button again, and the sickle shot into Jaune's back again. It barely hurt, and his aura flickered lightly in its ghostly white tone.
"I am a huntsman. I'd tell you my name, but that sounds like folly. I suppose I can identify myself as the sole survivor of Team Turquoise without too much risk."
Jaune considered screaming for help, but he had no idea where he was and if he was anywhere close to Team Job. The two of them were pretty high up, and it was too early in the morning to expect these buildings to be full of people to hear him.
What he could do instead, however, was figure out why.
"Your team…you said they died in Mountain Glenn?" Jaune asked.
The huntsman looked away. "I mourn them to this day."
"And what, the stress of losing them broke you?" Jaune theorized. "Drove you to murder?"
"It is not so. They passed tragically, but I kept Turquoise alive by continuing to hunt. Then, I took an armed bandit's life one day to preserve my own. It…opened my eyes."
Jaune kept struggling against the cuffs, but it was in vain. Neither they nor the pipe was anywhere closer to breaking than when he'd started, and the huntsman's footing was sturdy. The sickle weapon just kept shooting into Jaune, recoiling, and repeating.
"From that day on, I executed any captives I took in my line of work. Bandits, rogues, criminals, all of them. There was no leader to watch me, no team to stop me, and Beacon accepted it as self-defense; the school never cares to check too deeply, as huntsmen are trusted. It made the world feel…clean. I enjoyed the work I did and the bonuses I took, but I started to desire more."
"You realized you didn't have to wait for lethal missions against people to get your fix," Jaune suggested. He tried to lean his body forward to avoid the sickle as it shot, but it was in vain.
The huntsman nodded. "I'm not broken inside or something. I know what I've done is wrong. No one grows up knowing they wish to become a murderer, and it shakes me to my core to think about what I made myself, but I desired that…driving exhilaration, and I couldn't wait. And to my disappointment, killing that old lady didn't provide it. I suppose, in hindsight, it was the bringing of order, the death of a wrongdoer or lawbreaker, that made it so wonderfully clean. Killing a civilian filled me with no joy. It was…no good."
"Then why keep doing it?" Jaune asked hatefully. He wasn't buying this guy's story that he was some sort of tragic, tormented vigilante soul, not when he'd gone and murdered three people who'd done him no wrong.
"I chose an old woman who was on death's door as it was," the huntsman explained, ignoring Jaune's question. "I thought the impact minimal. Her window had no shades or shutters, so I teleported in, killed her, and left the way I came. But then…I'd started. I…I couldn't stop, even though I wanted to. I had to complete the building, left to right, top to bottom. Like a book. It was the only way to make it clean and even."
That was why he did the kills in a line? Because of some weird murder-OCD?
It would explain why he went through all that trouble to try and distract Blake and Velvet using the open door, and how he'd done it. He had to kill in order, for whatever messed up reason, but Velvet was watching the fifth floor, including the apartment next to the drug dealer dude's, like a hawk. Getting in would be no trouble – he could just peek through the window and teleport in – but she would catch him in the act and stop him. Instead, he'd teleported into the seventh floor apartment, opened it from within, and disappeared down to the streets by looking out the window. It was all done in a hope to take Velvet's eyes off of the location Blake had assigned to her.
It was a good call to have one person specifically patrolling just that floor, with no other responsibilities. I guess we did make the right choices.
Jaune was currently in a rather perilous spot, but they'd prevented this maniac from killing the woman and child in that apartment, so it was a win in his book. Plus, he wasn't dead yet, and until his aura broke, he held onto hope that he may yet get out of this with his life.
"So if you don't like killing, and you only want to kill criminals, why are you killing me?" Jaune asked.
"Because you've seen my face. Your friends will probably need to die as well."
"Or…and this is just a thought…you stop killing people?"
"I have to clear out the building," the man said calmly as his sickle retracted for another hit. Jaune's aura was probably about half now, in spite of the many times he'd been hit. It seemed like the launching sickles had little force behind them and probably were meant less as a weapon and more as a grappling hook, to be used if this huntsman needed to get to a location that he couldn't see directly.
"Why?" Jaune asked. "Why do you need to kill them? You said it yourself; you don't enjoy killing civilians."
"Left to right, top to bottom," he said, offering no further explanation.
He's insane, then. Maybe he says seeing his Beacon team die in Mountain Glenn didn't affect him, but I'd think he isn't as clear a thinker as he believes.
Back to the important matter – how Jaune could get out of here.
All he really needed to do was break free of the second handcuff, the one attached to the pipe. If he broke the first, he'd still be stuck, and that would leave this dude free to teleport to safety.
Would it be possible to somehow angle the hit so that the sickle struck it? But that wouldn't work – the sickles had proven themselves weaker than the cuffs.
Maybe Jaune could somehow tilt his hand so that he wasn't touching the cuffs, then be teleported out of them? Except that would be almost impossible, and he couldn't control when the dude teleported. And Jaune doubted he would be able to convince this dude to teleport when he had Jaune at a disadvantage.
Wait…why not just scream?
"HELP!" Jaune cried out at the top of his lungs. "SOMEONE HELP!"
It wasn't likely to work, as they were too high up to be heard by anyone on the streets down below, but it was better than doing nothing.
"I NEED HELP UP HERE!" Jaune screamed.
"Stop that," the huntsman said flatly. "Stop."
"SOMEONE HELP ME!" he yelled as loudly as he could.
All of a sudden, Jaune felt like his arms were being torn apart by the tension in the chain links of both handcuffs. It was as though there was suddenly a team of oxen attached to each side of him, yanking in opposite directions, but he could see nothing in either direction. His aura broke, but whatever was pulling him kept going.
The huntsman also looked like he was in pain, and he was moving erratically. It almost looked like he was…floating?
The handcuffs attaching Jaune to the pipe broke, and he lurched forward, sliding along the ground with the unseen force still moving him. However, it stopped after a moment, and then he and the huntsman were both lifted into the air as a familiar but extremely uncomfortable sensation of being frozen overtook him. At least this time, Jaune remembered to breathe through his nose.
His arm felt like it might be broken, after the immense tensile for to which it had been subject, but in the end, it was just pain. Jaune winced as he flexed it up and down, trying to restart the flow of blood in the swollen wrist and burning limb.
Goodwitch had thrown a covering over the teleporter's face, and he too was the owner of a painfully broken aura. Police were currently in the process of putting a new set of restraints around his hands and legs to prevent him from moving.
Seems kind of redundant, Jaune thought sarcastically. I had him pinned pretty good, didn't I?
He had no idea if he was being arrested as well, or at least detained. The police had search him for weapons with exceeding thoroughness, but Jaune was currently being watched surreptitiously by a few of the hunters that Goodwitch had brought along with her. More of them, including the head honcho herself, were attending to the serial killer guy, but that didn't change the fact that she had treated Jaune with all the care of a ragdoll when breaking him free.
She wasn't even breaking me free – she was just catching the bad guy. I happened to be attached to him, so she snapped us apart as quickly as she could with no regard to my arm.
Still, he wasn't of a mind to complain or anything, not when he technically owed her his life.
The fact that they'd been close enough to Jaune to have heard his shouts suggested that they'd probably had some way to track him or the other huntsman. That, or Glynda Goodwitch herself just so happened to have a peacekeeping force of heavily armed huntsmen, huntresses, and police officers to a random building that luckily had the killer and his soon-to-be victim atop it.
When the huntsman was thoroughly bound by enough cuffs, restraints, straps, and other such harnesses that he would probably have to ask permission to blink, the majority of the hunters led him into the open door that they'd burst out of. Goodwitch, satisfied with her work, turned around and walked over to Jaune.
"You are dismissed," she said to the hunters who'd remained. "I shall deal with this empty-headed young man."
All three of them nodded and started walking towards the door, but the sound of metal clanking against metal caught their ears. Jaune as well turned to see a black metal hook on the edge of the building.
Goodwitch raised her weird whip weapon in the direction of it.
"No, wait!" Jaune said, recognizing the design of the hook. "It's Gambol Shroud! It's Blake's!"
The whip weapon didn't lower.
"Jaune!" shouted Blake's voice from down below. "We're coming!"
"Stay strong, soldier!" said Velvet.
The hook slid around slightly as the two presumably climbed their way up the vertical face of the building. Tense seconds passed as Jaune watched the deputy headmistress of Beacon tense up, even though they all knew exactly who was coming their way.
Finally, two hands appeared over the edge of the building, and Velvet hoisted herself over the edge with a grunt. Blake followed shortly thereafter, the main body of her sword in hand.
"Jaune!"
"I'm okay," Jaune promised. "A little roughed up, but fine."
Goodwitch finally lowered the weapon she had, but Jaune noticed that she didn't dismiss the little huntsmen vanguard who'd decided to stick around.
"Are you okay?" Blake asked, running over to Jaune and grabbing him in a quite tight hug (it may have seemed a little tighter due to his broken aura).
"I'm fine," he said. "Did you guys follow Beacon here?"
"Beacon?" Blake blinked, then looked at Goodwitch. "What? No, we used the tracker. You'd left the device in your pocket, but I had the console with me. Sorry it took so long."
"The fact that it took so long should be proof to you two that this little vigilante game you're playing is a fundamentally flawed endeavor," Goodwitch chided, her hands pressed to her hips. "Had we not intervened the moment we did, Mr. Arc would have been slain."
Blake's eyes widened in fear, but Jaune shook his head. "I mean, I still had aura when you guys arrived. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the save, but Blake would have also –"
"Your aura was broken when you were rescued," Goodwitch said dismissively.
"Um…that may have had something to do with the fact that you…again, thanks a bunch, but you kinda were the one who actually broke it." Jaune rubbed his arm, which still felt like it had gone through a wringer and come out the other end.
Goodwitch shifted her glasses telepathically as she leaned her head forward. "Were you not crying for help when we found you?"
Jaune shrugged. "You got me there, I guess."
"This is not about 'getting you there,' Mr. Arc. Do you still not see that your actions only worsened the situation? An ongoing surveillance operation between Beacon and the police was nearly compromised because of the involvement of you two."
"Three," Jaune said. "And I seem to recall that dude breaking into the room of a woman and her baby when Blake intervened."
"The situation was under control," Goodwitch said.
He wasn't going to convince her. That much was clear to Jaune, so he decided to give up on it and switch to damage control. The killer was caught and in police custody, so all that was left for him to do was keep himself and his team out of legal troubles with Beacon.
"Ma'am, I'm afraid you misunderstand. I was merely stating that we knew nothing of any police presence at the apartment complex." Jaune looked over to his teammates. "I mean, Blake, Velvet, and I didn't see anyone else there, so we had no way of knowing that there was some sort of sting operation going down."
"As I said, the situation was under control."
"You were going to let –"
"Velvet," Jaune said sharply. "Miss Goodwitch, it sounds to me like this was merely a misunderstanding. We showed up at your crime scene, you escorted us out, and we didn't go back until there was no more police presence. Furthermore, we weren't aware of any ongoing police or hunter activities going on there, so it sounds like there was no obstruction of justice or vigilantism going on."
"The police may disagree," Goodwitch said back.
"But I doubt a jury of our peers would," Jaune said. "But if you'd like, we're more than happy to comply with law enforcement on this matter."
Jaune turned over to Blake.
"We still have that lawyer's number, right? We may wanna fire it up. Actually, we'll probably going to need something more – maybe one of Vale's bigger law firms. Oh, and those folks at the apartment complex, they'll have to be witnesses. We'll probably want to have them all show up and testify about the police presence at their apartment if this goes to court." Jaune rubbed at his arm and rolled up his sleeve. "Oh, and I think we may want to take some pictures of my arm. You know, for insurance purposes, given that I was grievously injured in an ongoing police operation."
He never said it explicitly, but he figured Goodwitch would catch on.
She did not. "You'll find that hunters have numerous legal protections, Mr. Arc. Civil suits rarely go anywhere against those who have only the kingdoms best interests are heart."
"Well, my arm is broken," Jaune said. It was a lie, but Goodwitch had no idea how much pain he was in, and his arm certainly was reddish and swelling. "And my aura is broken. Ma'am."
"As I said, it was broken when I arrived."
He had no idea if she genuinely believed it. There was a good chance she did – this woman probably truly saw the three of them as little more than underprepared vigilantes sticking their noses where they didn't belong. But that still wasn't the point.
"Broken by who?" Jaune asked.
"By –"
Jaune waited for her to finish. "By…?"
By the huntsman. By the Beacon-trained serial killer that was currently in police custody, whose face and team Jaune knew.
If Team Job were to be prosecuted as vigilantes, then either he or Goodwitch had broken Jaune's aura and damaged his arm, and Goodwitch had already insisted strenuously in front of Team Job and the three huntsmen she'd brought with her that it hadn't been her. If she chose to pursue this issue, she would have to admit in court to the existence of a huntsman who'd murdered three people and planned on murdering more. Given how far she'd gone to silence the truth and prevent a panic, Jaune somehow doubted that.
Her only option is to throw away the veneer of being on the side of right and just silence us, too. Also dubious, if I had to guess.
"You endangered your lives, and the lives of other civilians," Goodwitch reviled.
"It felt like we saved a life," Jaune said. There had been a woman and her kid in that room that the killer was fighting Blake in, and as far as Jaune could tell, Beacon hadn't been intervening before Team Job had.
The elder huntress turned around to her subordinates. "You three are dismissed."
The trio awkwardly glanced at one another, until one of them nodded. They then walked to the door of the rooftop and went downwards.
"Now then." Goodwitch turned her attention back to Team Job. "This has clearly gone on too far. Headmaster Ozpin was kind enough to look the other way when you attempted to become hunters without the appropriate qualifications, and his magnanimity was doubled when he didn't shut you down immediately, but your reckless actions tonight are nothing short of criminal."
Our actions aren't 'nothing' short of criminal, Jaune thought. They're 'legally' short of being criminal.
"You will not be prosecuted, but effective immediately, Team Job, or whatever pseudonym you choose to call yourself…"
Goodwitch towered over them.
"…is disbanded."
Jaune couldn't help but burst out laughing. Well, maybe not laughing – he was doing his best to contain it, so perhaps he just burst out snickering with his hand covering his mouth.
"Disb…dis…oh my."
"This is no joking matter," Goodwitch bristled.
"It kinda is," Jaune said. "You can't just say 'I disband thee' and expect it to come true, Miss Goodwitch."
"I can and I have. No longer shall you bandy about calling yourselves huntsmen."
"Good thing we aren't," Jaune said.
"We're security consultants," Blake said. "And we've never described ourselves as anything else. You and Ozpin are the only ones to call us huntsmen. A lot, in fact."
"Do not mistake this as a request." Goodwitch's fingers strummed against her legs, then curled into fists. "It is an order."
"Or what?" Jaune asked. "Det - *snrk* - detention? You'll expel us from Beacon? No, I think not, Glynda."
She frowned far more sharply at that, and Jaune decided that he'd probably gone a little too far there, but the point still stood. She wasn't his professor, nor was she his deputy headmistress or even a superior huntress officer, higher up than him in the chain of command. As far as Jaune could care to be concerned, Glynda was just a woman off the streets.
"We're not your students," Jaune said. "Nor are we hunters whose licenses you can revoke. You have no authority over us."
Goodwitch's icy glare could have frozen a volcano. "If you think that –"
"Let's go, you guys," Jaune said, cutting her off as blatantly as he could and stepping towards the door. "It's pretty late, and I'm super tired."
"It's actually early," Blake pointed out, following after him. "The sun's even up, Jaune."
"VELVET!"
All three of them froze at Goodwitch's exclamation of the team's currently most silent member. Jaune turned around and saw that Velvet herself, who'd been following behind him, was frozen in place. Her back was towards Goodwitch, but there was a look of sheer terror on her face.
Blake stepped over to her and ushered her forward to the door. "Let's go, Velvet."
"Do not make this mistake, Velvet. You know these people are charlatans. They'll only drag you down."
Jaune wondered for a moment if she was going to be offered her old spot at Beacon back. That might be the one piece of ammunition that Goodwitch could fire at them.
I hope not. It'd be horrible to have to watch Velvet turn Beacon down.
Jaune had nothing but full confidence in his teammate. Goodwitch could say whatever she liked, but Velvet knew Jaune, and she knew Blake, and she knew that they were the furthest thing from reckless vigilantes that there could be.
Blake and Velvet disappeared down the stairwell to which the door opened, leaving Jaune behind with Goodwitch.
"You are making a grievous mistake," Goodwitch swore. "You are shortsighted children who have no idea what the long-term consequences of your actions will have, and I pity that this break in your small string of temporary victories is not enough to make you understand that."
"Out of curiosity, have you ever used your semblance on a close friend?" Jaune asked her. "I mean, to really freeze them up, not just hold 'em for a second or two?"
"Only a fool chooses to close his eyes in the face of the overwhelming evidence to his own incompetence. I pray that you do not drag down the innocent with you when this all comes crumbling down around you."
"You may want to," Jaune suggested. "Just to get someone to tell you what it's like. You probably wouldn't use it so casually."
"How can you still think you're in the right here, when it took my intervention to prevent you from being slaughtered like a lamb? And because of you, the two-hundred and twenty people at that apartment complex may have lost faith in Beacon. Their negativity is attracting Grimm to the kingdom at this very moment, I assure you."
There were a lot of rebuttals he could have used – the premiere one was the fact that it wasn't because of Jaune that those folks had lost their faith in hunters, if they even had at all.
But Jaune didn't care to rebut her. Instead, he opened the door and walked away.
Coming Soon: The Dreaded Red
Blake discovers that weapon repairs aren't cheap when you lack a multinational terrorist organization to foot the bill.
Author's Notes
No one hired them, so there's no client review.
Professor Goodwitch does not have the power she assumes she does, even though the individuals in question are of the age range and possess the skillset to be students of hers. Like Ozpin, she assumes that letting Team Job Security exist is some luxurious privilege that could be repealed at any time. Them losing and needing rescue certainly didn't help that mental image (especially her seeing Jaune screaming for help), though Jaune and co saving the residents of the apartment does sort of balance that out.
It's a conundrum: would they have been okay on their own? Jaune was still alive when the rest of his team caught up, but the threat was dealt with that the time. I think I prefer the non-answer: we'll never know, and neither will they. Thus, Team Job can always argue that they were fine with or without intervention, but Beacon can claim otherwise without being proven wrong.
This will be Glynda's last appearance in the story, sadly. The rest of it will be other Ozpin mooks and the big man himself, coming back for round 2.
Happy rats, and don't do crime!