Chapter 28: New Day, New World

"Huh? Waz dis…?"

"Me."

"!"

The day opened with a crash, as Lisa, upon waking up to find herself lying sideways atop Jaune, tumbled off the air mattress in a none too adroit display of her natural dexterity. From there, their typical morning began.

Albeit, with a little more enthusiasm. New toys will do that.

As the first one to finish their morning routine, Jaune 'cooked' breakfast. That was to say, he hovered by the stove as an array of gadgets and doodads did all the work for him.

Frying pans that accumulated air pockets, releasing them in puffs that turned the sausages and bacon. A blender containing a compartment filled with fine blades to peel the fruits he tossed in, before mixing them up. A compact toaster the size of a thick book that launched slices of bread up at the perfect angle calculated to ensure they flip around and drop back in to toast the other side.

…That last one just looked like a whole lot of showboating to do the same thing regular toasters can. But hey, science!

He didn't even ask for the extra functions to these, nor to the rest of the appliances beeping and whirring on the kitchen counter. They came standard, though he had come to understand over the course of preparing the meal that the word standard in Academy City often translated to experimental (and not always practical, vis-à-vis that toaster). Life there was convenient to a degree that he suspected they had ceased to notice, incremental advancements piling on and on until they created a normal that was several dozen steps out of touch with everyone else, almost alien to the mind. So much so that Jaune sometimes couldn't see the logical jumps in between, how things went from then to now. Frankly, it's a bit unnerving.

At least Academy City clothes look and feel familiar, and didn't, for example, crawl over the ground to drape themselves on him or the like. It made sense. What innovation can one really add to a t-shirt that's visible to the eye? Holographic logos? At a guess, the experimental features manifested in concepts like a particular style of weave to reduce wind penetration, or maybe a synthetic fiber that's stretchier than normal. Small things.

Whatever the case, they've still pretty much replaced the bulk of his Dunwall wardrobe in one fell swoop due to being less scratchy on his skin, with the exception of the silk shirts and other finer things because those were amazing. He had one of the shirts on right now, and it paired surprisingly well with parachute pants from Japan as an outfit for lounging around.

Not that he will. It was shaping up to be a busy day.

As Jaune portioned out the food onto two plates, something bumped into his leg. Looking down, he was met with the cleaning robot they received as part of their payment from Crowley. A cylinder about the height of mid-thigh, with wheels and a mop on the bottom, the robot emitted a soft and constant hum as it circled from one side of him to the other for no apparent reason that he could see.

If anybody asked what compelled him to flick a piece of sausage onto the floor he would not be able to answer, but the cleaning robot immediately zoomed in on the dropped foodstuff, sweeping the morsel into its hungry maw (vacuum port). Done, the thing puttered away in search of new spots to clean. Jaune stared after it for a while, then gave up on trying to understand and got back to his task.

The manual said the robot counted among the first iteration of its kind, a household version of the larger, public one he encountered in Academy City. It's possible there were a few bugs in the software they haven't fixed yet.

Carrying the plates to the nearby table, he set one down for himself and reached to the other side to place the second plate next to Lisa, swaddled in an oversized hoodie she bought for the express purpose of lazing in the apartment. She spared it a cursory glance, otherwise engrossed in her (technically theirs, but hers practical-wise) new computer. A laptop, she called it.

Like the phones they bought, it's a low-tech, physical-make monstrosity almost an inch thick (an inch!), with a screen whose dimensions can't be adjusted at all. No Hardlight hologram tech. No portable pocket form. For as wonderful as Earth software was, their hardware fell short. Jaune hadn't been impressed. For a bonus compensation, it lacked oomph.

Of course, they then discovered Aleister Crowley had loaded it down with what seemed to be the full breadth of that Earth's 'inter'-net available to the average person, to blow Jaune's every complaint out of the water. The man knew, through unknown methods, that they did not belong in his world, and prepared their reward accordingly with something that cost him little, yet was of supreme value to them. Even with pieces missing, likely pertaining to magic and Academy City secrets, the remainder comprised a treasure trove that people would kill to have, from scientists to generals to Headmasters. It may take some doing, but collate a few different sources together—a hobbyist website here, a trade magazine there—and innovations decades ahead of Jaune's and Lisa's worlds could become possible in a fraction of the time.

Or so Lisa said, anyways. The girl might have forgotten how to breathe for a minute upon realizing these details. She also hasn't put the laptop aside since unboxing it.

"What are you looking at now?" Jaune asked her. Curious, he waited on starting his meal, and leaned over the table to catch a peek.

In answer, Lisa spun the laptop, angling it so they both could see.

She was watching a cat video.

"Hehe, it's sooo cute~," she gushed.

"D'awwww."

And Jaune was right there with her, cooing over the little thing climbing the steps of a staircase. Breakfast went on for twice as long as usual that day.

After the meal came the moment Jaune was anticipating. No, it's not testing out the rocket boots.

Grabbing a toolbox he got from Dunwall, he marched to his new battlefield, the bathroom, where he set to the task of replacing the old, primitive, pathetic toilet that was already in the apartment when he first arrived here. In its place shall rest the toilet of the future! Of champions! A veritable throne fit for a king!

Without a dozen pursuing organizations, he took the effort to do it right this time. Crocea Mors would not be needed. Instead, he pulled out a wrench.

Shutting off the water supply, he drained the tank, then knelt down to remove the bolts attaching the toilet to the floor. Pretty simple, and had he brought the toolbox with him, the same job honestly would have been easier back in the other universe, as opposed to prying it off the ground.

Hmmm. The more he thought about it, the more he liked that idea. The tools were cheap and easy to replace, so he can just treat them as disposable in case space ran out in his Pocket, while being invaluable in situations that called for them. Jaune made a note to keep a few choice items at hand on the next trip. Wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, etc.

The toilet was put to the side for now, as he observed the waxy circle thing and the metal round thing sitting on top of the hole in the floor. What even were the names for those?

That the metal part looked to be in pristine condition spelled good news. The waxy part that would form the watertight seal, not so much. Half of it stuck to the ground, and half got ripped away with the old toilet.

He checked the underside of the stolen toilet. It had the same material, in good shape since a section of the drain pipe was taken along.

Were they reusable? He'd soon find out. Jaune left the bathroom to fetch a knife.

"Everything going okay?" Lisa asked from her spot at the dining table. Loose pieces of paper covered the area surrounding the laptop, with her in the midst of copying over the notes written on them; possible future purchases, supplies on hand, what to be on the lookout for, theories on the nature of everything about their situation, and a host of other minutiae.

He waggled his hand in a so-so gesture. "You'll know in a bit."

"That doesn't sound at all assuring."

"It's the best I got, Lisa," he said, now rummaging in a drawer. They stored a selection of kitchen knives in there, and he chose a small one that didn't look to have a purpose, insofar that he recalled.

Jaune put it to better use separating the waxy ring (again, what was its name?), moving the knife in a slow, careful motion to preserve as much of the material as possible. Once done, he removed all the extraneous bits, pipes and pieces of tiles and such, and maneuvered it over the hole in the floor.

The dimensions seemed to roughly match.

…Welp, that's confirmation enough for him!

Jaune plonked the toilet down, and screwed in the bolts. The water supply was connected, then turned on. Water started to fill the tank.

Bracing for disaster, he gave it an experimental flush.

No leaks occurred. He punched the air in victory.

"I'm freaking amazing!"

Lisa poked her head into the room. "Sooo, am I gonna need to wear a raincoat?"

He flushed the toilet again in lieu of a response.

"Ooh, nice." A round of applause followed. "Good job, Jaune," she praised. "All that's left are the electrical stuff. Think you can do it?"

Jaune scoffed. "Easy-peasy. Watch me." He grabbed the loose cable and—

Ah.

Hm. Well, this could be a problem.

The cable—there's only three wires in it for some reason—was designed to run behind the walls directly to a power circuit. This bathroom, meanwhile, had a set of outlets next to the sink. He may be able to jury-rig the setup by removing the outlets to get at the connections behind them, but he also had four feet of cable where he needed seven.

"Hey~" A hand appeared in view, holding a plastic packet containing what looked very much like a length of electrical cord that ended in a plug. "I assume you could use these right about now?"

"How did you even get that?" Jaune said, awed by her foresight.

Lisa shrugged. "Ohhh, you know how it is, a naturally advanced mind further bolstered by parahuman abili—okay, being real here, I had nothing to do with it. Crowley included that in our payment. I only realized what the heck it was for when I saw it again a minute ago," she admitted with a sheepish chuckle.

"That son of a gun knew we were going to steal the toilet…"

"Yup. Looks like he approved, too."

And here he was, thinking they got one over him. "I really, really hate that guy," Jaune concluded.

"Saaame."

The cord added plenty more cable to the task. From there, it was a simple matter of attaching red to red, white to white, and black to black, all sealed off with tape that Jaune wasn't sure were fully water- and fireproof or not, but got the job done. Then he applied tape along the length of the cord to affix it to the wall, out of the way.

"Lisa, would you like to do the honors?" He asked after inserting the plug into the outlet.

She tapped the screen built into the toilet.

One, two, three seconds, and the screen booted up with a jaunty tune. Jaune whooped, and held his hand out above his head, with Lisa performing a little hop to slap it in a high-five. Eager to explore its function, the pair crowded around the screen.

A dozen games, each with its own high score board, tantalized Jaune with the apparent challenge. Lisa, meanwhile, loudly insisted that she had dibs for an hour each day to use it as a massage chair. Along with a library of movies, shows, and educational documentaries, the toilet promised to be less bathroom fixture, and more entertainment hub for during their downtime. Awkward placing for it, but stuck in this apartment, Jaune will take what he could get.

Unless Lisa was willing to not hog the laptop. (She wasn't.)

"There's a pretty extensive songlist, too," Lisa commented. "Most genres, instrumentals, nature sounds…" The sound of the ocean washed over the room.

"How high can the volume go?"

She adjusted the setting, and it became loud enough to be heard from the main room.

It didn't take long at all for Jaune to suggest they leave the volume like that, letting it play throughout the apartment as ambient sound. Something about the constant saa~ saa~ of the ocean waves spoke to his very soul, telling him to just lie back and chill out. And to call everybody 'dude' for some reason.

Lisa told him he could have done well as a California surfer bro, whatever that was. He took it as a compliment.

The following hours, they went through and catalogued the rest of their loot from Academy City.

With the dwindling stockpile of guns, partly from usage and partly from Jaune throwing them out to make room for better things, the wristbows made their return, bolstered by a new cache of stun and tranquilizer darts. They fitted nicely within the chamber of the weapons, and a test fire pointed to little or no loss in accuracy, confirming their viability. Of course, it called for a careful, more targeted approach than he was accustomed to, but that was the method Lisa seemed to prefer as opposed to a chaotic firefight. Left unsaid was that she remained quite uncomfortable with the necessity of killing, justified or not.

Still, it gave them options where they could act with mercy and not risk betrayal in doing so. Jaune was all for that. The addition of smoke grenades and flashbangs worked in the same vein, expanding his repertoire.

As for the other nifty gadgets, a thought occurred to Jaune after he passed the fourth item in a row over to Lisa, which concerned exactly that conundrum. So much of the stuff they gained were better suited for her than him, including ID cards that were in reality mini touchscreen keyboards to allow customization of what info and design they display, and an electric bike that would allow her to keep up with him running. What a strange coincidence, and had he not known her well, he might have believed it deliberate on her part. Except, he chose a lot of these items, like the door keys that can be reshaped to match different locks, and the smart handcuffs that among other features can deploy a second set to capture anyone coming to the first captive's rescue.

Why had he picked those, anyway? He knew he had a good reason at the time, but it was a bit of a blur after the hours that followed. They were discussing the different choices available in the payment pool, he suggested them, and she agreed it was a good idea. Those were the broad strokes of his recollection, and that one's clearly on him.

"What's wrong?" Lisa asked once she took note of his frown. The girl tilted her head, and blinked innocently. Jaune almost ruffled her hair on instinct.

He shook his head, and said with a smile, "It's nothing. Stupid thoughts. Ready to test out those rocket boots?"

Now, when he imagined rocket boots, he had the image of soaring through the sky, piercing the clouds and zooming towards the horizon.

This wasn't that.

Oh, but they did try! He was holding a pair of boots, and each shoe had rocket thrusters on the heels. The inches-thick document that came with them guaranteed flight as a function. So technically speaking, he supposed that counted.

Problem was, even Academy City had its limits. Sustained flight required two main things: propulsion and fuel. Too weak of a propulsion system, no lift. Too little fuel, you fall out of the air and crack your head on the pavement. Add footwear to the equation, and everything got twice as complicated, because—and the scientists were very insistent about this in the document—the bottom of the feet were one of the worst spots to put thrusters. They threw around concepts like center of mass, balance, fulcrum, muscle strain, and a host of other issues.

And then they made a working product anyway.

The key technology to League Stepper, the boots, revolved around microbatteries. Really good microbatteries. They were, in fact, the main research field of the lab, with the shoes being but one of many derivative applications developed to attract investors (because who didn't feel a flutter in their heart on hearing the phrase 'rocket boots'?). The current iteration of the tiny energy storage units each measured half the size of a fingernail, and together could power a racecar in theory.

With a pair of these babies on their feet, a person could achieve flight for 30 minutes… in 1-minute stints, a duration further shortened by directional maneuvers. The number had a long string of asterisks attached to it.

The development team hasn't quite gotten a hang of the overheat issue. Or the drag resistance issue. Ditto to the safe descent issue. And the—

Limitations, in short.

"But they work, right?" Jaune asked as he strapped on the boots. They're bulkier than his other pair, although not unduly so. The weight didn't bother him much, either, unless they were traveling long distances.

Lisa, perusing the accompanying documents, gave a noncommittal hum.

"Riiiight?" he pressed.

"...Kinda? Try your best to be near the ground before the minute is up. That's the best case maximum time, just so you understand. Once it gets to that point, the safety locks engage to keep the boots from melting, then they won't turn back on for at least twenty seconds. And don't be cute," she warned on seeing him open his mouth. She didn't need her powers to guess what he would ask. "You can fall a long way in that time. All the way to the ground in most cases."

An energetic hop took Jaune to his feet. "Don't worry. I'll work on learning the controls first before I start thinking about flying higher than my Aura can take." Why didn't Lisa look reassured at that? Weird.

In the pursuit of a simple, intuitive unit, the control system to League Stepper laid inside the shoes themselves, concentrated on the big toes. A firm touch would engage the thrusters. Release or press harder, and the operator can adjust the level of power expended. Direction depended entirely on the person's movements.

It'd take getting used to, and already Jaune was picturing a few maneuvers that he could do with this. He had never counted among the agile fighters of Beacon, yet the image of them stuck with him. Aggressive styles of combat made possible through sharp bursts of speed, with a person evading attacks by a hair's breadth to continue pressing the offensive. Short and repeated activations of the boots may allow him to somewhat emulate them.

Of course, that goal stood at a distant second place to actual, honest flight.

Jaune took position in a cleared area at the center of the apartment, and tried his best to stifle his rising nerves. It would be so, so cool to fly—a childhood fantasy come true. What he worried of, was that he'd fail in the first minute, and sour on the whole thing. He didn't want to see a dream meet reality, only to die.

He wanted to succeed. He will succeed.

His initial attempt, he went at it too carefully, brushing the triggers in cautious probes. It drew faint rumbles from the engines that he could feel with the soles of his feet. That sensation of power humming to life, energy ready to transform from potential to motion, lit something in him. The boots weren't a ruse. Just believing that lent him the resolve to take the plunge. He pressed down firm on the triggers.

Then, he flew.

Mere inches in the beginning, the height fluctuated with every little twitch of his big toes, the boots seeming undecided on whether to cut out or gun the engine. Holding still was harder than expected without firm ground to stand on, and the uneven energy levels between the shoes shifted his frame in sudden, nauseous jerks. It forced him to wave his arms back and forth to compensate for the shaky balance.

That lasted until giddiness overwhelmed him, and Jaune upped the output to shoot higher by another few feet, in the process discovering that flight was easier done on the move. Like on a bicycle, visualization of the act seemed to work best during the maneuver itself as he made micro-adjustments to maintain the momentum. Balance faded to the back of the mind, and in doing so almost became something of a nonfactor. His body knew how it wanted to move. Worrying was superfluous.

A turn of his left foot put Jaune in a spin. The result was a touch too fast, so he eased off the trigger in that foot until the spin slowed to a gentle, almost elegant twirl. To him, it felt like a dance on the air.

"Wooow," he muttered, beyond thrilled.

Looking down at Lisa, he beheld a face filled with wonder, likely the same expression he was wearing. Her world may have people that can perform such feats with ease, but this sight? Someone who by all rights was fated to never fly, yet did? Perhaps that was a rarer, and precious, thing.

Recovering her composure, she grinned up at him. "So? How is it?"

"I don't think I want to come down," he admitted, to her amusement.

"Hehe, well, you'll have to at some point. The recharge cycle takes a while, even with the solar converters to speed things along. Drain the batteries and we're looking at a day of it being out of commission."

Limitations on top of limitations, enough to make Jaune sigh. Still, it couldn't dampen his good mood, not right now.

"That leaves us a bit of time. Want to give it a shot?"

Lisa tried, not very well, to hide her eagerness. The boots looked comically large on her.

"Ready?" Jaune asked once she took his spot. "Now, remember—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time. Don't be nervous? Pft. I never am."

Having said so, she displayed a great, big smirk. Below, the boots hummed to life.

Then, Lisa blasted off at what seemed the force of an actual rocket, and slammed her head into the ceiling a split second later. Aura flickering from the force of the blow, she crashed back down to the floor where she laid in a heap, motionless.

Jaune stared, mouth open, his mind still catching up to events. Once it did, he rushed to her side, screeching to a halt on one knee. "Lisa?"

Slooowly, the girl curled into a ball, arms hugging her head.

"Lisa, are you alright?"

"...Hurts," she whined in a small voice.

They stayed in that day.

Lisa later tried to milk getting hurt by claiming it as the reason he should cede her the air mattress. He made his opinion on the matter known by carrying her to the old bed and dumping her on it, before getting in his own bed.

"Good night, Lisa."

"Good night, Jaune."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Can you fetch me the laptop? I'm totally in pain in right. Oh, and a glass of water? And a—"

Jaune groaned, getting up again.

-o-

The next day, they set out.

As was habit by now, the two of them looked through the list of Instances, and zoomed in on the safest choices available. This time, that meant two events, each coming in at a danger rating of three stars.

The first mentioned a battle. Jaune had no desire for what it might entail. The second, though? Was right up his alley.

The portal swirled before their eyes, and brought with it a damp, humid air. A faint roar could be heard, sounding far away. Their view became awash in shades of green and brown.

"It's a jungle of some kind, not just a forest," Jaune remarked, peering closely.

Costumed, armed, and sporting a snazzy new cloak, Tattletale scrunched her nose. "Yuck."

"You don't like it?"

"I'm a city girl at heart. Give me people, paved roads, and a hamburger any day of the week." She checked her crossbow. "Alright, let's get that daily bread."

"I'm sure we can hope for more than that."

His vision blurred for a moment as he crossed the threshold, the hazy image taking on greater clarity and depth until he found himself within a hollow beneath a mighty tree. Immediately, new scents hit his nose, the most overwhelming of them a woody, pungent sweetness that laid thick upon the air.

He turned to check on Tattletale, who sniffled from the disagreeable aroma. "Not exactly what you'd expect, huh?"

She sneezed, and shook her head.

"I can't decide if this is better or worse than the smell of Brockton Bay."

Snickering at the comment, he led the way out of the hollow, pushing aside a few tree roots to make room. A climb up a small slope, and he emerged into the forest proper.

"Holy…"

Behind him, Tattletale whistled, likewise stunned.

He was a boy raised of rivers and woodlands. He came from the frontier, from the wilds beyond the city walls. It couldn't prepare him for what true, untouched nature looked like.

The trees blocked the sky. They wound and twisted into one another, building bridges that spanned the canopy, and towers higher than the walls of Vale. What rare light that filtered between the leaves blessed the land beneath, and under each sunbeam bloomed a hundred species of flowers, colorful bouquets created by time and happenstance amidst the gloomy undergrowth.

Jaune took a step forward, and his boots sank into a carpet of moss. Beneath this layer, tree root networks spread across the jungle floor, growing to the point one could not tell it from the ground. So thick in places were they, that streams and ponds formed above them, and trickled between the gaps to water the plants living below.

Unlike the quiet woods of his home, the jungle brimmed with the sounds of its denizens, a raucous din composed of chirps, croaks, hisses, and growls that never seemed to end. Creatures he had no name for flitted between the branches, or slipped through gaps in the roots. The fish that swam in the water, their glittering scales reminded him of gems. Frogs here grew to the size of footballs, all the better to dine on the insects that he shuddered to go near—rare were the buzzing, stinging pests not measured in inches.

…Some could be measured in feet, and Jaune turned a bit sickly as he spotted a bee-looking thing as long as his forearm. Thankfully, it's just hovering over there, minding its own business. He thought it was collecting fruits, since there's a sort of green orb held in its many legs, but on closer scrutiny appeared to be more a gelatinous sac.

On seeing it, Tattletale pulled a face. "Ewww, it looks like snot!"

"I kind of want to poke it," Jaune said.

"Nuh-uh. Don't you even dare. We're not even sure what it is. Could be acid for all you know."

"A fair point," he conceded, skirting around while keeping a wary eye on the bug. That turned out to be a mistake, since he was better served watching where he put his feet, almost falling over as the forest floor shifted under him.

Stumbling back, he drew his sword from its scabbard, brandishing the blade at…at…

A snout poked out of the ground, sniffing. Then, the patch of moss behind it shook, before popping up to reveal a pig.

Jaune tilted his head. "Um. What the heck?"

The pig stared at him. After a little while with him showing no hostile movements, it seemed to lose interest and turned around, trotting off. In its wake, the ground began shaking in a familiar pattern, and soon a herd of pigs manifested out of nowhere. They followed their apparent leader to a small distance away, where the whole group plonked themselves down. In a blink, they vanished from sight, blending in with the vegetation.

"A natural camouflage. You know, that's actually kind of awesome," he said.

"Yeah, no doubt," agreed Tattletale. She studied the spot the pigs just vacated, then cast her gaze around their immediate surroundings. "But more importantly, their survival strategy and numbers are telling me that this place is pretty safe. They're only getting the occasional predator passing by, instead of dedicated ones seeing through the ruse and using this as a hunting ground."

Meaning they could rely on it as a fallback position, returning here to rest between forays into the jungle. Of course, that assumed that they would need to.

"Are we sure those pigs aren't what we want? Maybe they're magical, and the loot rating is referring to them."

Tattletale mulled on his suggestion. "I won't cross that possibility off the list, but a pig with moss on its back doesn't really give off the same impression as the Beast of Caerbannog, does it? Anyway, we can try grabbing a few of them on the way out, just in case they fetch a good price. For now, let's work off of the basis that the 'monster' in this world is worthy of the title."

"Yeah… Any idea where to start looking for that, then?"

"Hard to say," she hedged, seeming unwilling to state outright that she had not a clue. "Could be in the trees, could be in a cave. Let's walk around for a while, and that should give me a better picture."

And also gave them the next shocker.

A number of fallen trees dotted the landscape, or so Jaune had thought of them. It wasn't until he moved under a break in the canopy that he learned what they really were, the thinnest roots of a tree that made the jungle look more like a collection of saplings. The thing was best compared to a mountain, with the main roots thick as train cars and stretching on for miles.

Tattletale kept yelling about how it's an impossible existence. That it would take a tree a million years to reach that size, along with the amount of nutrients to sustain a continent's worth of farmlands.

He just shrugged, and blamed it on magic. The many universes were apparently rife with that stuff, after all.

With little to go on, they simply chose a random heading, and set off. Jaune would, at Tattletale's direction, slashed at the trees with his sword to mark their route. The concept was a familiar one to him, except he didn't see how it can help here considering the sprawling mess that was this jungle. She, however, claimed that they were clear as road signs to her eyes, and that even their walking through the foliage was leaving a trail she can follow with ease.

Traversing the area was, in a strange way, both difficult and relaxing at once. Rare were the stretches of flat ground as every plant, rock, and river in sight vied for space. Their journey involved as much movement up and down as it did forward. Yet, the sheer scale of things meant that the trees weren't all that close to each other, always allowing them an avenue to advance. Better still, the massive root systems snaking through the forest created a series of pathways they could walk on to often bypass sunken pits and dangers of the like.

And the view, oh my. Waterfalls, exotic flowers, a rainbow across a pond, hidden redoubts carved of nature—a hundred sights so beautiful that it brought tears to his eyes. Throughout it all, the ancient forest thrummed with the vibrance of life. Creatures big and small made their appearance, unafraid of the human presence. They hunted, and frolic, and lived with an enviable fervor.

He could never get tired of it, and even Tattletale observed this world with eyes brimming with curious marvel.

Although, just as there was life, and beauty, so too was there the other side of that coin.

Bones and half-eaten remains littered the forest. From time to time, conflicts broke out between species over territory, their cries and shrieks ringing out from amidst the foliage. Wounded animals rested quietly under cover, awaiting their end.

How wondrous, and how sad, this land. And, sometimes, just plain disgusting.

"No, Tattletale, that's not snot."

"It is!" she insisted, stomping a foot.

He pointed at the congealed, greenish mass covering the boulder they were standing in front of. "It isn't, because how in the world does something hock a loogie that plasters a turkey to a wall?" The bird—not quite a turkey, but of similar size—was thankfully dead. Jaune would welcome death too were he in its place, if Tattletale was right about the circumstances. "It probably came from the sac that weird bee was lugging around."

"Nope! This is a different substance. Obviously."

"But what does that imply about the size of the creature, then?" he asked with a note of worry.

Tattletale likewise looked uncomfortable. "We did see a lot of lizard species. Combined with this, it could mean we're in a world where the dinosaurs are alive and well—did you have those in your world?"

"Like T-Rexes and stuff? Died out a bajillion years ago? Yeah, we did. Though isn't it a bit early to assume they're around just because of a few geckos?"

Five minutes later, he ate those words.

"Sooo?" Tattletale, smugly smugging, flourished her hands at the pack of dinosaurs grazing on the vegetation.

"...You're right."

She preened. "Always am, nihihi~."

Quadrupeds, the dinosaurs sported bony crests atop their heads and spikes on their tails. The young of the pack measured the size of rhinos, the adults akin to elephants. The docile things seemed mostly unconcerned of the two interlopers, with the biggest of them throwing the occasional glance their way.

"I wonder how they taste," he muttered to himself. Looking at them may or may not have reminded Jaune of dino nuggies.

"Yeah… hey, Jaune?"

"What's up?"

"These are herbivores." She was stating it, rather than asking. Her grin had somewhat faded.

"I think that's pretty clear, yes."

"Those aren't usually at the top of the food chain. So if this is the size of the herbivores around here, don't you think that gives us an idea of how big the carnivores that eat them are?"

He had been trying to avoid thinking about that, in fact. "Could be smaller ones like wolves and things," he suggested with not much conviction.

"The head of this pack"—she gestured at the largest one—"has scars along its side. Something bit it."

Jaune studied the unmistakable teeth mark. It wouldn't have been easy to leave wounds on that hide. The dinosaurs barreled into rocks and trees without a care, such was their toughness. Each imprint in the row of scars compared to his hand in width, and together formed a jaw that could chomp him in half.

"The Rathalos, do you think?" he asked her.

"Did someone say… Rathalos?"

Jaune, and Tattletale, whirled towards where the voice had come from. There was nobody that they could see, but the bushes there shook in time with the approaching sound of footsteps. They soon disgorged a person into view.

Armored in steel and a strange red leather, he resembled a knight, plumed helm and shield and all. Strapped to his back was a folded contraption that might be a weapon of some sort. Dark furs and sharp teeth decorated his raiment, lending a savage image.

But then, he popped up his faceplate, and what appeared was a young man displaying a friendly, carefree smile.

"Heya! You two don't look like you came from Astera. Sounds like there might be a story there."

Rather than suspicion, he took their presence in stride, and it threw Jaune for a loop.

"Uh, well, it's nothing that interesting, just a couple of sightseers you know," he deflected, before holding out his hand. "Anyway, I'm Jaune, and this is Tattletale—"

"Taylor," Tattletale hissed for only him to hear, while elbowing him in the side. He poked her back, eliciting a yelp.

"—and we happened to be in the area. Who are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

The man happily returned the handshake.

"Nice ta meetcha. And me? I'm just a local monster Hunter."

Universe: Monster Hunter. Location: Ancient Forest.
Event: Rathalos Hunt.

Author's Notes: A typical day in their new life.

A Huntsman?
No! It's a Hunter!