Blood pounded through Jaune's head as he crashed through the undergrowth around Vale. He had wanted to head back to the office and continue working through his plans for the Council but was stopped by the gnawing feeling deep in his chest. Summer's words were still bothering him.
He let out a deep breath and crossed through the shrubbery around him. He didn't have a particular direction he wanted to go in, but he needed to get the feeling out of his chest. All around him, he heard branches and twigs creaking.
He let his worries fade from his mind as his senses worked overtime.
They had come.
He activated his brace, the gears within whirling to life for a moment before they settled with a sharp click. He stretched the leg, working out any kinks as he did so and readied himself for the coming slaughter.
He tapped his cane softly on the forest floor, and as some unspoken signal; the forest came to life with the roars of the Grimm. They were ready for him.
Good thing he had a lifetime's worth of experience so he could say the same to them.
To them, even if they didn't realize it fully, it was a chance to best a Hunter; a chance to end another human life that could inspire others to rise and kill them.
For him, it was just stress release.
He tapped his cane on the hard earth in front of him, watching the Grimm approach him warily. He tapped his cane again and his opponents bristled, in so much as Grimm could. They were waiting for him to make a mistake, open his guard, or change his position; but if there was one thing Jaune Arc was, it was patient.
Finally, one of the younger Grimm lost its patience and leaped forward, a howl in its throat. Jaune dodged to the side and smacked his cane against the beowolf's face. He was rewarded with a high-pitched howl and the Grimm was sent flying into a tree, snapping it in half on the impact.
Jaune kept his eyes forward, watching the Alpha as it stalked behind the rest of its pack. The other Grimm had gotten restless, their claws scraping the earth back and forth as they paced. Jaune had never seen such a patient Beowulf pack before, but he reckoned it was because of the Alpha behind them. It was keeping the younger ones in line and his little demonstration on what would happen if one of them got too impatient seemed to settle them somewhat.
The question is, what were they waiting for?
The Alpha regarded him silently as they locked eyes. It was old; very old. It had a large amount of concentrated bone growth around its face, almost making a complete mask. He had rarely seen such an old Grimm so close to one of humanity's settlements; they largely stayed closer to Salem and her castle. He could see the sparks of intelligence within the beady red eyes, but it wasn't true intelligence, at least from what he understood. Only instinct.
And this thing's instincts told it to wait for something. Most likely backup. Considering who they were up against, their instincts would be correct.
Jaune's patience began to grow thin as the stalemate dragged on. He had a theory, one that crept into his mind and made his hackles rise. Perhaps this one was being directly controlled? Perhaps Salem had found him out already and was observing him? Testing him?
It made his hair stand up on end but he let out a breath and forced himself to calm down. That was his paranoia speaking. The chances of Salem finding out so early were slim to none, even with her abundance of magic. Oscar and he spent many nights making sure of that before they committed to their course of action.
Just as he calmed himself down, the Alpha let out a howl and to his surprise, they backed away. Jaune's confusion only lasted a moment before he realized why.
Perhaps he should have been less patient or had calmed himself down before entering the woods.
Because the giant Deathstalker that came into his vision was certainly no coincidence.
The Alpha howled and the beowolves charged him. There were perhaps only ten in total, not including the Alpha, which was quite the small pack for such an old Grimm. He quickly realized why as he fended off his attackers.
The Alpha was stalking behind him. It was using the younger ones as bait as it went in for the kill. The Deathstalker charging him from the front was only the cherry on top.
Beside the situation, beside himself, and beside how he normally acted; Jaune felt a grin creeping up his face. He couldn't remember the last time he had such a challenge placed in front of him.
He dodged, countered, and blocked the younger beowolves as they surrounded him. It was almost effortless for him, even with his injury. He had been fighting these things for so long that he could do it in his sleep. No, his focus was on the two higher-tiered Grimm trying to surround him.
He spied the alpha stalking through the trees behind him, trying to stay in his peripheral vision and within the shadow of the trees. It wouldn't last long against him in a one-on-one fight, so it had taken to becoming an ambush predator. He kept an eye on it, but it wasn't his primary concern at the moment.
The biggest problem was the Deathstalker.
As he looked at it, he realized it was most likely the same one his team had faced all those years ago— or perhaps, all those years in the future. Time travel was funny like that.
He knocked one of the beowolves away from him with a backhand, while he twirled his cane in front of him to block a swipe from another. He was running out of time to make a move. The Alpha was still hanging back, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike him while the Deathstalker continued its slow approach from the front.
There were only a few regular beowolves left and suddenly an idea came to him. He let the grin come unrestrained from his face as he charged two of the normal beowolves. They snarled as he approached and swiped at him.
Jaune ducked underneath the swipe of their claws and grabbed their extended arms. They delayed a second before they reacted but a second was all that he needed. He threw them at the Deathstalker, to block and distract it for a moment before he spun around and charged the Alpha.
The Alpha was surprised and hadn't been expecting him to charge it, but it managed to recover quickly as it howled and tried to sideswipe him. Jaune dodged to the side of the swipe and jumped over its tail as it tried to hit him.
This was the reason Juane had decided to go for the Alpha first; its agility would be a problem if he tried to face off with the Deathstalker. The spark of intelligence within it would also be a problem if he tried to overpower the Deathstalker. It would ambush him while he was loading his dust.
Mid-air, he activated the latent dust within his cane and swiped the air with it. The Alpha only had a moment to growl at him before its decapitated head fell to the forest floor below them; the wind dust slicing through several trees behind its body.
As Jaune landed and righted himself he glanced towards the Deathstalker and the few remaining beowolves. He needed to mop up quickly. The burst of Wind Dust had taken up a good chunk of his Aura; he wasn't sure if he would be able to cut through its limbs due to the bone plating and had to put some extra power into it.
He brushed himself off and took stock of the situation ahead. The beowolves weren't particularly happy with him killing their leader, but that was something he had accounted for already. There were only three left; two of the five had died when Jaune threw them into the Deathstalker earlier.
What he had in store for the three would be more than enough without having to exert himself physically more; he could feel the pressure begin to exert itself on his knee when he used it too much. Even Aura could do only so much. That's part of the reason he had learned another way he could still keep fighting.
He rotated the dust in his cane to the next chamber as he heard a howl come from the three Grimm. He aimed his cane in their general direction as their patience finally snapped and they charged him; ignorant of the danger in their midst.
Jaune activated the fire dust he had chambered into his cane and watched the ensuing chaos.
Fire spewed out of the front of his cane and engulfed the beowolves hell-bent on ending his existence, sending them sprawling on the forest floor in agony. Or, the closest thing the Grimm had to pain, since he was pretty sure they didn't feel it.
The Grimm melted in front of him and he watched impassively as the fire continued forwards, on a direct path to the Deathstalker. It screeched when the flames engulfed it, but merely swung its tail around and the fire dispersed.
It chittered its mandibles and continued its approach.
His soul burned at the self-perceived insult and memories flashed through his head, ones he had long burned into his very soul itself. Memories of his fledgling team working together with their sister team to bring down this same Grimm as well as a giant nevermore.
He hoped that the Nevermore wouldn't be showing up to the reunion.
The scorpion Grimm screeched and charged him again, while Jaune rotated through his current arsenal to try and come up with a plan to kill the old thing.
He leaped, rolled, and dodged— doing everything in his power to stay out of the way of the giant pincers that were determined to slice him in half, or the giant stinger, which occasionally slammed down onto the ground to spice things up so he wouldn't get too comfortable.
He didn't appreciate the accommodations.
A pincer came up to swipe at his head and he moved in to block the attack. When he meant to block, he meant more like directing it away from his body. As he did that, he realized he had made a mistake. It had been too long since he had fought an Elder Grimm; he had worn himself thin on their smaller brethren for too long and he didn't consider one simple fact.
The Scorpion was baiting him.
He cursed as the stinger slammed down on top of him. He threw himself out of the way and felt the air displace from the stinger passing through the space where his head had been a moment before. He tucked into a roll from his dive to give himself some more room to work with.
Jaune stopped rolling and looked up. The Scorpion wasn't letting up and closed the distance far faster than he had been expecting. Jaune cursed again and jumped up. He needed to take thing down immediately. The way his knee groaned in protest only accentuated matters.
He couldn't re-create how his team took it down originally. He couldn't recreate the force Nora used with her rocket power hammer; but as he looked at the Scorpion charging toward him, he could recreate something else.
He cycled the Dust through his cane and waited. The Scorpion grew closer. He kept waiting. It was within a few cane lengths when he snapped his cane down onto the ground.
Ice sprouted from the bottom of his cane and spread out all around him in a gigantic circle. The scorpion tried to backpedal and move out of the way, but Jaune had waited for the perfect moment. The Scorpion couldn't stop its momentum and ran straight onto the frozen ground in front of it.
Immediately, it slipped and crashed down, its momentum carrying it onwards. Jaune jumped into the air, going straight over the creature, and watched as it fumbled on the ground screeching the entire time, unable to get up. For such an older Grimm, it seemed strange how it didn't know how to walk on the ice once its momentum stopped.
Jaune wasn't going to let his luck go to waste.
He landed on the ice and let out a quick breath. As much as the Aura helped, his injury certainly didn't. It drained him of Aura faster than he should have and that added to his mounting frustration.
For all the power and advantages he had stacked the deck with, he still felt powerless. He had so much time to change things, yet he still felt like the clock was ever present behind him— reminding him that of all the advantages he had supposedly given himself, the world was a cruel and unpredictable place.
He couldn't guarantee success. Even with all of the plans, counter-plans, research, training, etc. that he and Oscar had gone through— he still couldn't be sure what lay in the future. That was the crux of the issue he supposed— to have meaningful change to the future outside of his immediate circle, he needed to go further back than Beacon.
But, that meant a lot of things were unknown to him. He didn't know this period— it was his parents' era, not his. He didn't know it as intimately as they did. Which meant it was harder for him to predict how his presence would change things.
He was scared.
He clenched his fist against his cane.
He was scared all of the changes he was making and going to make would amount to nothing. Or even worse— change everything to have it worse than before he interfered.
He doubted he could do that without seriously trying, but that was the thing about changing the past— it meant that everything beyond a few key details was up in the air. Sure, he had an idea of how things would go, but he couldn't account for everything.
The Scorpion screeched and nearly shattered his eardrums. It brought him back to the present and he grunted. He had time later to think about all of that. For now, he had a job to do.
He drew in a breath before he reached into his coat and started to rummage around in his pockets. He knew he had a few— Ah, there they were.
He pulled three red spheres out of his pocket. He hit the manual switch on the side of his cane and with a 'click' part of the top of the rose came off. He inserted the three red spheres one by one before he clicked the top back on.
He cracked his neck and readied himself.
He tapped his cane against the ground once and felt the beads within his cane dissolve and go back to their natural form— Fire Dust. As soon as he sensed the beads dissolve, fire appeared around him.
Steam rose around him as the ambient fire dust clashed with the frozen ground below him. He strained his Aura against his cane, trying to control the immense energy within it. He couldn't let too much leak out into the surroundings, yet small bits of fire swirled around him like a vortex. He needed to unleash it before he lost control.
He swung his cane up slowly, letting out a deep grunt as he did. He pointed his cane at the stuck Grimm and finally let his Aura flow the fire in the direction it wanted to.
"Flame Emperor." He intoned and his world went white.
He heard the Grimm screech ahead of him as it tried to combat the torrent of flames, but it was no use. It was dead, even if it didn't realize it. The steam died down slightly and he was able to make out the blurry form of the Grimm screeching, not in fury, but pain as its caprice was melted thoroughly from the flames he unleashed.
As he watched the Grimm die, his thoughts drifted to the cane in his hand— and the one who started it all.
"Heya, Jaune. Even if we don't make it out of this alive— you know how much I love you right?"
Jaune nodded a dopey smile on his face. "of course I do. I love you just as much, Ruby."
Ruby Rose smiled.
It was the last time he saw it. Before the end. Her end.
Jaune brought himself back to the present as he clutched his cane— his memento to the one who sacrificed everything for them.
Jaune clutched Thorn tightly as he muttered. "Let's go home."
He turned around and started to navigate back towards Vale. All the while, ignoring the continued sounds of the dying Grimm as its insides liquified and it melted into a puddle of pure destruction, before fading away. The forest around a charred and broken reflection of what it once was.
"Gotta keep moving forward," Jaune muttered a prayer and mantra in one. "Gotta keep moving forward."
Yo, everyone! Sorry, this is a day late, the Winter storms that have been hitting like 90% of the country kind of delayed things on my end, so sorry about that.
This chapter was re-written a few times and while I'm not satisfied with it, I have a feeling I never will be if I just sit on it, so here it is.
In case anyone is confused by the 'beads' Jaune used to make the giant fire, they are just highly compressed (and therefore highly volatile) Dust powder that dissolves into its base form once Jaune inserts it into his cane and activates it. The Dust itself isn't more powerful; he is just able to fit more into his cane and use it all at once rather than how his cane normally operates. It is a lot of Dust which is why even with his large Aura reserves, Jaune had a hard time controlling it. There will be a more detailed explanation later in the story, but that's the gist of it.
Also, to those who caught it, yes that is a One Piece reference :)
Anyway, hope everyone can stay safe and warm; Don't forget to Review, Favorite, and Follow!
Next Ch; January 30th.