[RWBY] RWBY Shorts

[AJ_Talon]

The Beacon Academy library was usually a place of quiet study and whispered conversations. Today, it felt more like the eye of a hurricane.
A towering blond man in a long dark blue duster coat strode through the doors like he owned the place, gray eyes bright with easy joy. Nicholas "Nick" Arc, captain of Radian's militia, legendary Huntsman, and Jaune's father, scanned the tables until he spotted his son and the cluster of friends around him.

"Jaune!" Nick boomed, voice carrying effortlessly. Jaune looked up, eyes wide.

"Dad?!"

"That's your dad?" Yang whispered, looking the seven foot tall giant up and down in shock. "Dang... Now that's a nice future preview."

"Yang!" Ruby hissed.

"What-What are you doing here?" Jaune asked, an edge to his voice. Nick laughed.

"Well I decided to come see my son, of course! And all his friends!" Nick boomed, voice carrying effortlessly. He looked over the groups of students. "Ruby, Yang, Pyrrha, Weiss, Nora, Ren, and Blake, right?"

Weiss recovered first, manners taking over as she stood and curtsied.

"Yes. I am Weiss Schnee. It's nice to meet—YOU?!"

Weiss Schnee barely had time to open her mouth before she was swept into a crushing bear hug.

"Hahaha! Nice to meet you!" Nick laughed, lifting her clear off the ground for a moment. "My son says you're a great girl! He says that about all of you! Except for Ren—he says you're like the brother he never had!"

"Dad!" Jaune hissed, face flaming.

Ren smiled softly.

Pyrrha Nikos managed a polite "Um… Well, I'm glad to meet you—oh my!" before she too was enveloped.

Ruby Rose bounced forward eagerly. "I'm Ruby! Hugs away!" She was scooped up and held high with a delighted "HEE!"

Nora Valkyrie threw her arms wide. "GIMME!"

"GIVEN!" Nick roared, swinging her around.

Blake Belladonna tried to fade into the bookshelves. "I don't do hugs—URK!"

Yang Xiao Long grinned. "Hahaha! Well… if everyone else is feeling the embrace…" She stepped in and got the full treatment.

Lie Ren simply sighed, resigned, and accepted the hug with quiet dignity.

"Awww, hugs are nice!" Nick declared, finally setting everyone down. He turned to his son with open arms. "Come here, kiddo—"

Jaune stepped back, arms up in a block. "...I'm fine, Dad. I don't need a hug."

The big man's smile faltered. "Oh… I see." Hurt flickered across his face, but he brightened quickly. "Well son, you've got me all to yourself while I'm here! What do you want to do? Fishing?"

Jaune stared at the floor. Nick tried again.

"Motorcycle racing? You used to love that!"

"Did he?" Yang asked, interested. Pyrrha flushed a bit.

Jaune remained silent, eyes on the floor. Nick coughed.

"We could train if you'd like?" He pulled out his gigantic sword, and swung it around. "See how you've been improving?"

That was the breaking point.

"Now you want to train me?!" Jaune exploded. "Now?! After I begged you?! Pleaded with you?!"

"Son—"

"NO! No! I don't… I don't want to hear it!" Jaune spun on his heel and stormed out, leaving stunned silence in his wake.

Ruby was the first to recover. "Jaune!" She chased after him.

Nick sighed heavily, shoulders slumping. The cheerful giant looked suddenly smaller. Weiss cleared her throat as she saw all the other students staring and whispering.

"Perhaps we should move somewhere with fewer… staring eyes."

Pyrrha nodded quickly. Yang forced a tense smile and began herding everyone outside. Nick followed, frowning. Such an expression looked unnatural on the man whose smile could light up entire rooms.

- - -

Meanwhile, Ruby had cornered Jaune in a quiet courtyard.

"What was that all about?! That's your dad!"

"I don't want to hear it, Ruby! It-It's nothing!" He protested, sitting on a bench and scowling at the old stone wall. Ruby

"You exploded in there!"

"I'm fine! It's none of your business!"

"You're my best friend! Of course it's my business!" Ruby planted her hands on her hips. "He's sending you money! He's here! He clearly loves you—"

"He didn't stand up to Mom at all! He didn't support me! He just made me go along with Mom's wishes!" Jaune's voice cracked. "And he kept telling me
all these stories about our ancestors, about all the heroic things he and Mom did! Then he just… denied me the chance to even try! I had to do everything myself!"

"He's trying!" Ruby insisted.

"Too little too late!" Jaune sighed. "He never even asked what I wanted to do with my life! Just went with whatever Mom wanted!"

Nick rounded the corner then, the rest of RWBY and JNPR trailing anxiously behind him.

Jaune scowled. "...What?"

Nick took a deep breath. "Son… I understand you're upset with me but—"

Jaune leaped to his feet and cast an accusing finger at her father.

"But nothing! You didn't give me anything! You filled my head with stories of heroism, of being a Hunter, and then wouldn't let me try! Wouldn't let me even fail! I had to do everything all by myself! My sword is a freaking antique! My armor is junk! But I still got in and you didn't do a THING!"

Nick was quiet for a moment. He then sighed softly, and spoke:

"That's not true… I did give you your chance."

"How?!" Jaune demanded.

Nick's voice was quiet, steady. "I saw you sneaking out of the house, Jaune. I was on watch. I could have stopped you from getting to the train at any time."

Jaune's eyes widened. "Wha— You didn't—!"

"I also killed a few Grimm lurking around the road. I did it quietly, so you wouldn't hear anything. To keep you safe. I kept watch over you until you boarded the train."

"I don't—!"

"I even called Old Gus the station keeper and told him not to tell anyone you were leaving. He took your ticket, didn't he? No questions asked? He could have called your mom, but he didn't because I asked him not to."

Jaune stared, speechless. "But… why?"

Nick sighed. "This life isn't easy, son. Your mother and I did a lot of great things, but we lost a lot of people too. Your mother was so determined to keep you safe she forbade me from training you. And I loved and respected her enough to obey… But when I saw you heading out on your own? I knew I couldn't stop you. I had to let you make your own decisions. So I helped however I could."

Jaune's voice was small. "I… Dad…"

Nick offered a sad smile. "Your mother was furious. I don't disagree with her often—she's usually right… But she was wrong in this case. And so we are sending you money. And I am willing to train and help you if you want. You've got good friends, and you've made incredible progress."

"Dad…"

"But… parents make mistakes too. Maybe I should have said no to your mom sooner. Maybe I should have trained you. I can't fix that. All I can do is try to help you now that you've chosen your path." Nick's gray eyes shimmered. "Because, well… I love you, son."

Jaune swallowed hard. "I—I know… I love you too… I just wanted you to be proud of me, too."

"Son," Nick whispered, his eyes shiny, "I'm always proud of you."

Nick slowly walked forward and rested a large, calloused hand on his son's shoulder. For a long moment, neither spoke. Then Jaune stepped in and wrapped his arms around his father in a fierce hug. Nick returned it immediately, eyes closed, the tension melting from his massive frame.
Behind them, Ruby wiped at her eyes. Yang smiled softly, her own eyes shiny. Pyrrha smiled warmly. Even Weiss looked moved. Nora sniffled. Blake flushed a bit. Ren's stoic facade broke for just a moment as he smiled in soft nostagila.

Nick chuckled and patted his son on the back. Jaune laughed a little too, and hastily wiped his eyes.

"So... Ready to train?" Nick asked with a bright smile. Jaune nodded, his own smile wide and bright.

"Yeah! Just... Don't hold back, okay Dad?"

"All right son," Nick nodded, "I'll train you like how I was trained! Well, one of the ways! We don't have weighted backpacks, farms, or milkruns to do-Yet! So we'll go right to the fun stuff!"

Nick turned to Jaune's friends brightly.

"You guys want to watch?"

"Oh, no, w-we couldn't-!" Weiss tried, but Yang stepped forward with a grin.

"Sure we would!"

"Yeah!" Ruby volunteered.

"Of course!" Pyrrha added, "As Jaune's partner and uh... Tutor, I'd be happy to see how you train him! Maybe even... Join in?"

Nora raised her hand.

"Will it involve stuff blowing up?"

"Almost certainly!" Nick nodded.

Nora grinned and grabbed the shocked Blake and Ren's wrists.

"WE'RE IN!"

"Excellent!" Nick laughed.

- - -

Ten minutes later, in a training field...

"DODGE!"

Nick swung his huge sword, unleashing a truly massive Aura Slash that burned gold like the sun. It blasted through the ground, tearing a trench in the Earth. Jaune threw himself to the side, rolling back up to his feet, panting.

"Great son!" Nick cried, as a tree blew up behind Jaune. "You're getting a lot better!"

Jaune looked back, his armor dented, his face covered in dirt and sweat, and a lock of his blonde hair was on fire.

He was grinning broadly.

"Thanks Dad-!"

"DODGE!"

Another Aura Blade lashed out. Jaune didn't quite get clear of the blast zone and was sent flying through a stone pillar, breaking it in half. Nick frowned.

"SON! YOU GOOD?"

Jaune slowly stood back up, and threw a thumbs up and a bright grin at his father.

"SURE AM!"

Nick beamed with pride...

"DODDDDDGE!"

And unleashed another Aura Slash.

"GAAHHHH!"

The rest of Jaune's friends watched from the sidelines. Weiss was aghast.

"This... Is training?!" She asked in disbelief.

"Looks like it's working," Yang chuckled. She flushed as Jaune rose, and removed his top. "Ohhh my is it ever working..."

"Yeah," Pyrrha sighed happily.

"Huh? What's working?" Ruby asked. She stared and blushed. "Oh... Um..."

"NEED A BREAK SON?" Nick called.

"NO! JUST NEED TO FIX MY ARMOR AFTER!" He yelled back. Nick nodded.

"WE'LL GET YOU NEW STUFF! NOW! DRINK WATER!"

Jaune uncorked his canteen and drank, water spilling from his lips over his chest. Weiss turned bright red.

"Ohh... Um... Oh my..."

Blake was furiously writing in three notebooks, her face bright red.

Nora grinned.

"I like the exploding parts!"

Ren smiled softly.

"As do I."

"SIP SON! DON'T GUZZLE!"

"SORRY DAD!"

"NO PROBLEM! NOW DODDDDDGGGGGE!"

 

[AJ_Talon]

Fun idea: Cardin, Jaune, Ren, Sage, Flynt, and Sun are playing a Great War themed game and debate who the best general of the war was. Cardin goes with the Patton-expy, Flynt goes with the Rommel or Zhukov expy... It's a big argument... But they all agree that the Warrior King of Vale was the WORST. They badmouth his terrible strategic decisions and how he was finally pushed back from making any more military decisions by his generals, government, and wife so they wouldn't lose the damn war. Ozpin stops by, listens... And is a bit annoyed by them all dunking on his previous persona.



Jaune's choice is the Eisenhower expy as he had to manage all these lunatics to win the war, but he also agrees the Warrior King of Vale was completely awful.)



Jaune: "I mean he was good at the diplomacy and morale sides but military decisions? Geez... I think a drunken hobo clown would have made better choices."



Cardin: "A newbie on Battle Lightning would be a better general than that guy!"



Guys: "Ahahahahahaha!"



Sun: "Wouldn't have given away as many secrets!"



Guys: "Hahahahahahaha!"



Ozpin: "At least he was capable in battle and willing to lead from the front!"



every head turns towards him

 

[AJ_Talon]

Whiter Rose: The Geist

- - -

Whitley Schnee had never expected to become a summoner, let alone one who used a Geist for household chores.

It had started as a simple training exercise with his Semblance — nothing too dangerous, just enough to prove he could defend himself out near an SDC outpost. Fully backed up by his father's security forces and Fafnir's watchful gaze. He'd managed to kill a lone Geist that had wandered too close.

The victory had been small, but satisfying.

What he hadn't expected was the Geist's essence bonding to his Glyphs.

Now the spectral Grimm hovered behind him like a loyal (if unsettling) shadow, ready to possess and repair any broken device he pointed at. It was surprisingly useful.

Ruby found out about it during one of their quiet afternoons together in the Schnee manor's private workshop.

"So… you just have your little buddy do stuff?" Ruby asked, eyes wide as she watched the Geist phase into a malfunctioning Dust heater and fix it from the inside.

Whitley adjusted his safety glasses, looking a touch embarrassed. "Yes. He-It-Can possess electronic devices, which helps me troubleshoot them. It's quite efficient."

Ruby's gaze slowly drifted to Crescent Rose, currently resting on the workbench with a few finicky internal components that had been giving her trouble.

"You… you think you could get into Crescent Rose?"

Whitley blinked. "Ah… Are you sure?"

Ruby nodded, cheeks slightly pink. "Y-yes… But be gentle?"

Whitley gave her a small, reassuring smile. "Of course. I'll be careful."

- - -

Later than afternoon, Yang stormed into the workshop, her eyes blazing red. She turned her fearsome glare on Whitley, who had been doing some adjustments on a power convertor.

"WHAT THE HELL AM I HEARING ABOUT YOU VIOLATING RUBY'S FLOWER?!"

Whitley nearly dropped the tool in his hand. "NO! Nonono that's not— that didn't—What?!!"

He cast about desperately as Yang loomed over him.

"RUBY! HELP!"

Ruby entered the workshop with a dreamy, slightly dazed expression. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was gently stroking the scythe's barrel like it was a beloved pet.

"Oh he was so thorough!" she sighed happily. "So skilled! He did things with my Rose I've never even imagined before!"

Whitley's face went from pale to bright crimson in record time. "STOP HELPING, RUBY!"

Yang froze mid-rant, blinking rapidly as her brain caught up with the actual context. The red in her eyes faded as realization dawned.

"…Wait. You mean the Geist thing. The actual ghost-possessing-robot-baby thing."

"Yes!" Whitley exclaimed, gesturing wildly at the now-innocent-looking Geist floating nearby. "It was just maintenance! Internal repairs! Nothing… untoward!"

Ruby tilted her head, still looking blissed out. "But it felt really good when he was inside—"

"RUBY!"

Yang stared at her little sister for a long moment.

Then she burst out laughing so hard she had to lean against the wall for support.

"Oh Breaker. You two are actually going to kill me one day."

Ruby finally seemed to realize what she'd implied and turned an impressive shade of red herself.

"I-I meant the scythe! He fixed the scythe! The internal mechanisms felt… smoother! That's all!"

Yang wiped a tear from her eye, still chuckling. "Sure, Rubes. 'Internal mechanisms.' Totally believable."

She walked over and ruffled Ruby's hair, then gave Whitley a teasing grin.

"You're lucky you're a good guy, Schnee. Otherwise I'd have to break your legs."

Whitley peeked through his fingers. "Noted."

Ruby, still blushing furiously, hugged Crescent Rose to her chest. She gave Whitley a shy, appreciative look.

"…He really did do a good job though."

Whitley smiled softly.

"You're welcome."

Yang smirked. "I'm telling Dad."

"NO!" both Ruby and Whitley shouted at the same time.

 

[AJ_Talon]

Beacon Academy Grounds, Afternoon

Jaune Arc strolled along the winding sidewalk near the dormitories, enjoying a rare moment of quiet between classes. The sun filtered through the tall trees lining the path, and for once, no one was shouting about training or Grimm or vigilantism.

That peace shattered almost immediately.

"HEY! JAUNE! HELP!"

He stopped, tilting his head back. High up in the branches of a sturdy oak sat Blake Belladonna, clinging to the trunk like her life depended on it. Her ears were flat against her head, and her expression was a perfect mix of mortification and desperation.

"Blake?" Jaune called up, shielding his eyes. "What are you doing in that tree?"

"I'm stuck! Help!"

Jaune blinked. "Blake... you have Aura. You can just jump down."

"I can't! I got my Aura broken in training and it hasn't rebuilt yet!" she snapped, voice cracking with frustration.

"Then why did you climb a tree?"

"NEVERMIND THAT! JUST GET ME DOWN! GET A LADDER, GET THE FIRE DEPARTMENT!"

Before Jaune could respond, Yang Xiao Long sauntered by with a juice box in hand, the other tucked casually in her pocket. She glanced up at the commotion. "Hm? Oh hey, Vomit Boy. What's up?"

Jaune pointed silently upward. Yang followed his finger, spotted Blake, and broke into a wide, predatory grin.

"Hah!"

"Seriously, why did you climb up into a tree?" Jaune asked again, fighting a smile.

"WHAT, ARE WE DOING AN INTERVIEW HERE? JUST GET ME DOWN!" Blake yelled.

Yang burst out laughing. "Heh... Hahahaha!"

Jaune chuckled along. "You know, maybe we are doing an interview."

"WHAT?!"

"Welcome to the show, Blake! It's a pleasure to have you!" Jaune announced in his best over-the-top host voice, spreading his arms dramatically.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"

"So, you're here to promote your latest project. What's it called?"

"I WILL SLIT YOUR THROAT IN YOUR SLEEP!"

Jaune nodded sagely. "Very visceral! Is this a thriller or a straight-up horror movie?"

"YOU SUCK! YANG, HELP ME!"

Yang, still grinning, took a long, loud slurp from her juice box and did absolutely nothing useful.

"My beautiful co-host would be happy to ask you questions, wouldn't you, Yang?" Jaune said smoothly.

Yang leaned in with mock professionalism. "I would be most happy to indeed! So, Blaine—"

"Blake— SH- REALLY?!"

"Blaine… want some juice?"

Jaune smirked. "And that's why I'm the star."

"HEY! You caught me unprepared!" Yang protested, though she was clearly loving every second.

Jaune rolled his eyes.

"Juice bit, really? This is why Spruce Willis won't return our calls."

"Should it have been cranberry?" Yang asked.

"IS SOMEONE ELSE DOWN THERE?!" Blake demanded from her leafy perch.

"Some ants… a squirrel…" Yang offered helpfully.

Jaune pressed on. "But back on topic, Blake: This is a horror movie, right?"

"UGGGGGHHHH..." She rolled her eyes. "YES. I hate 'thriller'! It's a pretentious term for directors who just want awards!"

Yang leaned over to Jaune. "No but seriously, want some juice? Ruby bought like twenty of these Capri-Sol boxes with Weiss's credit card, and we're trying to drink them all before she realizes."

"Yes, thank you." Jaune accepted the offered box and sipped. Up in the tree, Blake continued her tirade.

"It's a bloody and brutal commentary on Faunus rights!"

"Ooh, that might be difficult to play in the foreign markets," Jaune noted.

"WELL IT'S MY ARTISTIC VISION AND I'M STICKING BY IT!"

"Is it true the main actor got the job due to rumored relationships between him and yourself?" Yang asked, slurping loudly again.

"This is your first movie where you're both star and director. How are you handling the pressure?" Jaune added.

"I'm—I'm taking it one day at a time! My passion is seeing me through! AND NO! THAT'S A FILTHY LIE!"

"But what about all the nude and sex scenes?" Jaune continued innocently.

"WHAT?! I-UGH! I-I'M VERY COMMITTED TO MY ART!"

"Well that does help sell the political commentary!" Jaune said cheerfully.

Yang smacked her lips. "Damn, this is some good shi— sex scenes?! Blake, c'mon girl! Adding that on top of all the bloody stabbings and the chainsaw fight?"

"WHAT?!" Blake demanded.

"Now now, Yang, we should be open-minded," Jaune said. "Besides, the R rating is what's being released. There's an NC-17 cut, isn't there?"

"Yes! It's a bit too extreme... I may have gotten carried away but damnit, it's a passion project! I want to deliver! It's based on Ninjas in Love and Zombies after all—I can't spare on any of the sex scenes! They're a core part of the narrative!"

Jaune tilted his head. "Did you actually try to get Spruce Willis for this? Seems a bit ambitious and risky."

"W-Well maybe he's tired of playing the same character in every movie and wanted to stretch his acting skills! Make some actual art and not just a product!"

"That's a very bold statement," Jaune nodded, "Now, how about the writer? Roger-award winner Baal Cody?"

"She's an overpriced callgirl whore for the establishment!" Blake snarled, practically vibrating in rage.

"Ooh, that's not a good interview response," Yang said. Jaune nodded.

"Yeah, you need to be nicer to the people working on your movie! What if the Writer's Guild goes on strike? Can't have that!"

Blake gritted her teeth and dug her fingers into the tree bark.

"I think... The tattoo artist... Who worked on her fat arms... Was very honored!"

"Delightful!" Jaune chuckled. "And after the break we'll be talking with your co-star, Tom Dutchland!"

"WHAT?! I HATE THOM DUTCHLAND! HE'S THE WORST ARACHNO-MAN!"

"We'll be right back!" Jaune called cheerfully. "Shall we get more juice, Yang?"

"YOU SUCK! YOU BOTH SUCK!"

Yang finally relented with a theatrical sigh. "All right, all right... Sheesh." She walked over to the tree, grabbed the trunk with both hands, and—much to Blake's horror and Jaune's blushing amazement—lifted the entire thing. She gave it a firm shake.

"BWAAAHHH!"

Blake plummeted. Jaune stepped forward smoothly and caught her in his arms with a soft oof.

Yang set the tree back down carefully, brushing her hands off. She offered another juice box with a smirk. "Juice?"

Blake scowled, scrambling out of Jaune's hold. She stormed off without another word, muttering curses under her breath.

"You're welcome!" Jaune called after her.

Blake flipped them both the bird.

Yang snickered, muttering to Jaune, "She needs to get laid."

"Seriously..."

Later that evening, the inevitable reckoning arrived at dinner.

Weiss Schnee marched up to them in the cafeteria, arms crossed. "Jaune, Yang... You made Blake perform like she was doing a movie interview while she was stuck in a tree?!"

"Uh..." Jaune rubbed the back of his neck. Yang grinned.

Pyrrha, standing beside Weiss, gave him a disappointed look. "Really, Jaune?"

Weiss's eyes narrowed. "...Without recording it?!"

"Yeah!" Ruby added, sliding up, "That's the worst part!"

"Totally!" Nora added.

Blake, lurking in the corner with a book held like a shield, growled, "I will stab you all."

Jaune waved his hands. "No, no, of course I didn't!"

A beat of silence.

Yang grinned. "I did."

"YANG!"

- - -

A bit shamelessly stolen from Family Guy. Yes, I went there. Written with help from @brinkleberry Thanks!

 

[AJ_Talon]

Here's a fun idea:

The people of Remnant would likely have research labs and complexes out of cities to study Grimm. So you could do a kind of story that's popular in video games: Going to explore a base or research lab that has gone silent. And bad things have happened.

In this case, RWBY and JNPR go in on a training mission... But on the way there, contact is lost with the base and the trainees go in first to investigate. They then have to survive until they can get backup.

What would the research people would have found? Well...

1: It's a human/Grimm hybrid Merlot created.

2: It's a Grimm that can turn humans into Grimm/human hybrids.

3: It's a Grimm that can make humans into zombies.

4: It's a Grimm that is sapient and can speak and control Grimm.

5: It's one of Salem's former minions who is holding onto a sliver of his/her humanity and uses magic against the lab. Maybe they were in some kind of hibernation and were woken up out of their tomb.

6: It's a Grimm that can control the minds of humans, enhancing their negative emotions until they're mad with rage or suicidal, etc.

 

[AJ_Talon]

Blake takes bodyguard duty and Jaune gets his first assassination attempt.

- - -

The Vale afternoon was crisp, the park's air laced with the scent of autumn leaves and distant food carts. Jaune Arc, in his councilman's jacket, had been strolling through the crowd, shaking hands and smiling, with Blake Belladonna as his escort. Her amber eyes were sharp, scanning for threats, but she stuck close—closer than necessary, her arm brushing his, her tail twitching under her coat.

"I'm fine, Blake. Really!" Jaune said, chuckling nervously. "You don't have to follow me everywhere."

Blake's ears flicked under her bow. "I'm just ensuring future positive relations with Vale and Menagerie," she said, gesturing to herself. "I may not be an official ambassador, but sooner or later, someone will connect me to my parents back home. My actions—especially toward you—will be scrutinized."

Jaune softened. "Yeah, but I'd protect you, Blake. You're my friend… Really."

Blake blushed, looking away. "…R-Really?"

"Really," Jaune said, unwavering.

They'd been chatting with locals when Blake's senses prickled. A skinny, muscular Faunus man in the crowd—his posture, his glare—screamed danger. Her instincts screamed louder when he pulled a gun.

"FOR THE WHITE FANG!" he roared.

Blake's eyes widened. "Look out!" She grabbed Jaune, shadow-cloning them away as bullets sprayed wildly. The crowd screamed, scattering. The terrorist seized a young boy, gun to his head.

"Back off!" the Faunus snarled.

Jaune stepped forward, hands raised. "Don't! Don't… Look, you just want me, right? Take me instead of the kid!"

The terrorist sneered, aiming at Jaune. "You humans all deserve to die! But if you want to be first—!" He fired.

Blake's heart stopped. "JAUNE?!"

The shot hit Jaune center-mass, but he didn't fall—no blood, just a grunt. Ren, hidden nearby, fired a precise shot, dropping the terrorist instantly. Blake rushed to Jaune, hands shaking, forgetting his Aura in her panic. "JAUNE?!"

"I'm okay… I'm okay…" Jaune rubbed his chest, standing slowly.

Ren jogged up. "You all right?"

"Yeah…" Jaune nodded.

"COUNCILMAN ARC! WHAT HAPPENED?!" Lisa Lavender appeared, microphone thrusting forward, camera drone buzzing.

Blake's ears shot up. "How did you get here so fast?!"

Lisa smirked. "The most trouble-prone councilman in public? Something's gonna happen!"

Paramedics and police swarmed in, securing the scene. No one else was hurt, the terrorist dead. Jaune was whisked to the station for a statement, where RWBY and JNPR converged in a chaotic pile.

"JAUNE!" Ruby tackled him in a hug. "You okay?!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine, really!" Jaune laughed, patting her head.

Weiss scowled. "Fine? You were shot!"

"I have Aura," Jaune said. "Better me than someone without."

Pyrrha and Yang barreled through the hallway. "JAUNE, ARE YOU OKAY?!" they chorused, squishing his face between their chests.

"You scared the shit out of m—us, LB!" Yang said, blushing.

"Yes, please don't ever worry m—us like that again!" Pyrrha added.

Ruby hugged him from behind. "HEY!"

Nora leapt in. "I want hugs too!" The pile collapsed, Jaune wheezing, "URK!"

Blake, trembling, whispered, "J-Jaune?"

Neptune and Sun arrived, assisting the police. Neptune gaped. "…SERIOUSLY?!"

Sun grabbed him. "Easy, Neptune, easy!"

- - -

In the interrogation room, Detective Columbia faced Jaune, Neptune, and Sun. "Well, Councilman, this is straightforward. You're not being charged."

"Why didn't you alert local police?" Columbia asked.

Jaune sighed. "Given my security detail was following my every step, I felt it was unnecessary to divert their attention from their usual responsibilities for a walk in the park. I certainly wasn't expecting an international terrorist."

Sun nodded. "Makes sense."

Neptune scowled.

Columbia raised an eyebrow. "Did you not think putting civilians in danger was a risk?"

Jaune's face fell. "Much of the area was sparsely populated. It just happened that I was accosted near a larger group. But… even I know that's a poor excuse. My naivety and lack of experience put lives in danger, and I take full responsibility. You're within your rights to arrest me for negligence, and I'll come willingly."

Columbia shook his head. "Given nobody died, we're not pressing charges. Exchanging yourself for the hostage was heroic… but foolish."

Jaune smiled gratefully. "Thank you, Detective." His face hardened. "Any more questions?"

Neptune exploded. "How could you cuck poor Sun?! How could you cuck me with Weiss and Yang and Pyrrha too?!"

"YOU DAMN HAREM PROTAGONIST!" Neptune yelled.

Sun held him back. "Easy, Neptune, easy!"

Jaune blinked, confused. "I'm sorry, what am I being accused of?"

Neptune flailed. "STEALING ALL THE POTENTIAL HOTTIES, YOU WEIRDO!"

Columbia, nonplussed, said, "How about you head back, Councilman?"

"I think I will. Have a nice day," Jaune said, bolting.

Back in the station's main room, Pyrrha hovered. "You all right, Jaune?"

Jaune nodded. "Good news: no charges. Bad news: it's a warning. Next time, we follow protocol and inform the police. I thought you guys were enough, and extra security was a waste of taxpayer money, but… it's necessary bureaucracy."

Weiss turned on Blake. "Honestly, why would you let him go off like this?"

Ren stepped forward. "I was shadowing him. I share some of the blame."

Blake, trembling, clenched and unclenched her fists. "Not now, Weiss. Just not now."

Weiss fumed. "He could've been killed! Or that child, by a White Fang terrorist—!"

"The guy wasn't part of local cells," Jaune said. "Lone wolf, inspired by the White Fang."

"Oh, big difference!" Weiss snapped.

Blake looked ready to burst.

Yang glanced at her. "Weiss… there's a difference between being worried and being an ass."

Jaune sighed. "Look… I need to be more careful. We're lucky nobody got hurt, but next time, someone might use bombs on a crowd. We'd be okay, but normal people won't."

"Okay?" he asked.

Weiss nodded. "…Agreed. I can draw up a protocol for public events."

Pyrrha nodded. "I can help."

"Thank you. I really appreciate it," Jaune said.

Blake stayed quiet, eyes down.

- - -

Back at the Council Tower, as they entered Jaune's office, he pulled her aside. "Blake? You okay?"

She took a deep breath, face neutral. "Jaune, before I say anything, I need your word you'll be completely honest with me, at least for this conversation. Can you do that?"

"Yes. You have my word," Jaune said, no hesitation.

"Good." Blake's neutrality shattered. She slapped him, rage flaring. "What the hell were you thinking, jumping in front of me like that?!"

Her voice cracked, fear bleeding through. "You could've been hurt, and it would've been my fault! Hell, it's my fault we were out there in the first place!"

Jaune winced, shaking his head. "Blake, I'm sorry. It was reflex!"

"I mean, I never wanted to be a politician!" he continued. "I wanted to be a Huntsman. To protect people!"

Blake smacked him again. "Don't you think I know that?!" Her expression softened, but her voice shook. "I get it's not what you wanted, but it's who you are now. You're too important to recklessly throw your life into danger every chance you get." She rubbed her arm anxiously. "I know it's hypocritical, given some of the things I've done, but if I'm saying it, you know it's a problem."

Jaune's eyes softened. "Blake… there will never be a situation where my life is more important than yours, or a little boy's."

He sighed. "Look… I'll be less reckless, I promise. But I don't consider myself more important than anyone else. I'm supposed to be in front of people in trouble. That… doesn't change just because I've got a fancy office."

He hugged her gently.

Blake hugged back, murmuring, "I wanna believe that…"

Jaune, catching it in their closeness, asked, "Why not?"

Blake's eyes widened. "Shit, I said that out loud, didn't I?"

"Yes," Jaune agreed. Blake immediately tried to pull away, but Jaune's Aura enhanced strength kept her right there. Though she wrestled furiously.

"Blake-Seriously-Quit it-!"

"No, I have to-!"

Blake used a judo sweep to send Jaune falling… Right on top of her. He pinned her to the floor even as she tried to get away. Clones of herself appeared around him, trying to distract him, but to no avail.

"Damnit Jaune, let-me-go-!"

"No!"

"LET ME GO!"

"STOP RUNNING AWAY!"

Blake froze. Jaune panted for breath, holding her down. She looked up, almost meek. Her eyes met his.

"I just…" She shook her head. "I… I don't want to fail you… I don't want to fail again."

"Well… Running away isn't going to help that," Jaune murmured. Blake flushed, her eyes darting downwards.

"You can't fix anything if you keep running," he added, more gently. Blake looked up and blushed softly.

"I… But when the mess is so big you can't fix it-"

"This isn't," Jaune murmured, "I promise. As long as we work together, we'll do better. I screwed up too. It's not always about you."

Blake stared into his eyes. She nibbled her lower lip, worrying it, before she spoke.

"You… You don't have as much to make up for as I do-"

"Doesn't matter," Jaune insisted, "We both want to make the world a better place. Right? We both want to make things better. I know you, Blake. You wouldn't be so reckless and forthright if you didn't care… Right?"

Blake slowly nodded. She licked her lips.

"I do… But you need to stop being so reckless yourself. You're a target and… And I don't want to lose you. It would hurt all of us."

Jaune sighed, and nodded.

"You're right," he said, "I'll try. I promise."

Jaune blinked twice… Glanced from side to side… And realized their position. He turned bright red.

"O-Oh… Um, uh…"

"You really should get off me," Blake said softly, "Unless you want to keep me pinned underneath you?"

Jaune gulped. He was abruptly aware of how intimate their position was. Their legs entwined, his hands pinning her wrists down to the carpet…

"Oh, um, I uh…"

"Unless you want to keep me here? Under y-you?" Blake asked, her voice shaking a bit but still warm and honey toned. Jaune gaped.

"Wha…?"

"I… I wouldn't mind," she managed softly, "if-if it was you, I-I mean… You could even punish me for my lapse, if you wanted?"

Jaune sighed. He got up off Blake, and brushed off his jacket before he reached out. Blake took his hand, and let him pull her up.

"Over the desk? I suppose it would be appropriate," Blake added. Jaune sighed and shook his head.

"Blake… I have seven sisters. The teasing isn't going to work on me."

Blake turned bright red. Jaune chuckled.

"Still, thank you for that," he said. "But I mean… I don't want things to get any more complicated. I don't want you to get in trouble. They already think I'm keeping a harem as it is."

Blake hummed.

"You know," she murmured, "I wouldn't mind if you did keep one. As long as I got to play with the girls too~."

Jaune turned bright red… Then laughed it off.

"Okay that was a lot better. But I'm gonna-"

"Jaune," Blake said quietly, "Do you know who I really am?"

Jaune blinked.

"Uhh…?"

"I'm Blake Belladonna, daughter of Ghira and Kali Belladonna, the Chieftains of Menagerie," Blake said, soft and quiet. Jaune blinked. He blinked twice. Three times before his brain reconnected with his mouth.

"Wait what?! You're… That Blake Belladonna?! But-You-How-?!"

"I honestly don't know how no one else has made the connection," she admitted, "It's really amazing."

"No kidding," Jaune agreed, staring at her in astonishment. Blake smiles.

"Which means it would be good for both of us to connect," Blake said, "for politics, friendship… And potentially other things." She took Jaune's hands in hers. "For the sake of Faunuskind and international politics, yes Jaune, I would absolutely accept being part of a harem!"

Jaune gaped… Then laughed hard again. He patted Blake on the shoulder.

"Okay, you definitely got me then, Blake! But enough comedy. Thanks for cheering me up. And I promise I won't tell anyone your secret, either. That said, if we could meet your parents, that would help me with a lot of our issues."

Blake frowned.

"Well… I haven't seen them in a long time. I… I don't-"

"Please Blake?" Jaune asked. "It would help us out a lot."

Blake slowly nodded.

"I suppose I-I could try… If you were there with me?"

"Sure thing, Blake," Jaune said with a warm smile. He hugged her, and headed into the side room to change. Blake sighed.

"I suppose I need to be less subtle about my politics."

Said the former terrorist.

 

[AJ_Talon]

Fun crack fic premise: Adam decides he's going to get his revenge on Blake the only way an edgy manchild can...

He's going to date Weiss Schnee, get close to her to allow him to kill her dad, and make Blake jealous!

Adam: "Perfect."

However, things get complicated when she sees his real face...

Weiss: "My dad's men did this to you?! That motherfucking twice damned shit fucking cunt son of a whore-He should burn in the pits of Hell-I'd castrate him if he had any balls-!"

Adam: staring... Red faced "... Oh no... I'm in love."

Blake meanwhile is in disbelief.

Blake: "You're just using her to get to her father!"

Adam: "Correction: We're dating and planning on kill her father together!"

Blake: "B-But you hate humans!"

Adam: "Not this one! Also Jaune, apologies. I didn't mean to steal your girl."

Jaune: "She wasn't really my girl and as long as she's happy... I'm happy."

Adam: "... You're a real bro, Jaune."

Jaune: "Thank you Adam."

Adam: "... Okay so now there are two humans I don't hate."

Blake: "SERIOUSLY?!"

- - -

Blake then goes to the most racist human she knows...

Blake: "I'm your girlfriend now!"

Cardin: "I-What?"

Blake: "Yes! I am your hot catgirl girlfriend! We will kiss and cuddle and go on dates together!"

Cardin: "But-But-!"

Velvet: "HEY! He was racist to me first, ya know!"

Blake: "Well I'm everything he hates in a tight, curvy package!"

Velvet: "Not curvy enough!"

Blake: "Why you-!"

A catfight ensues. Glynda storms into the room.

Glynda: "MISTER WINCHESTER! What is going on?!"

Cardin: "I DON'T KNOW!"

- - -

Later...

Ruby: "Why didn't you choose Jaune to make Adam jealous? He's nice!"

Blake: "That's the problem! Nobody would buy that he's racist!"

Jaune: "HEY! I could be racist! ... If I wanted to! ... And had some time to prepare! ... Maybe!"

Yang: "Why does he have to be racist?"

Blake: "... I... You... Shut up!"

 

[AJ_Talon]

One idea: Duels might still be legal in some parts of Remnant. They follow the code duello: The seconds to the duelists do everything in their power to resolve the duel peacefully, and negotiate the terms of the duel. And what weapons can be used (usually named by the guy who is challenged but this can be negotiated). And the duel can be to the death but this was extremely rare, usually it was to first blood or a number of hits to satisfy honor.

So, Jaune Arc finds himself in a duel against a very traditionalist warrior and has to figure out how to either prevent it or win it. And perhaps choose a form of battle he's good at.

 

[AJ_Talon]

So... An older idea a friend of mine had: Jaune brings along some old spheres from one of his relatives, purported to be full of incredible power.

Jaune can't figure out how to use them. It's not until Initiation, when things go wrong and the teams are cut off... That he grabs one and begs, begs, for the power to save his friends, to not be useless!

One of the spheres reacts, shines with power... Jaune gets the impression of a great reptilian eye burning with power looking him over, seeing into his very soul... And going...

"Hm... You'll do."

And in a massive burst of magical power long forgotten... Bahamut, the King of Dragons, flies again and annihilates the Grimm before vanishing.

Good news: Jaune has incredible power and can summon the powerful Guardian entities from before the World was Destroyed in the war between Salem and Ozma!

Bad news: Jaune has incredible power and can summon the powerful Guardian entities from before the World was destroyed in the war between Salem and Ozma... And now everyone knows he has that power.

 

[Sliverhero]

Idea for what if the grim Dragon was more a proper dragon from ancient times.

The First Shadow

The Grimm Dragon did not merely roar, it spoke.
The sound that tore from its throat shook the very foundations of Beacon Tower. Stone cracked. Glass shattered across every building still standing in the city below. Hunters and Huntresses alike dropped to their knees, hands clamped over their ears, not from volume alone but from the weight of the voice, ancient, deep, rumbling up from somewhere far older than language itself.

Smoke curled between teeth the length of flagpoles. Its eyes, burning with that sickly red glow, swept slowly across the burning city like a king surveying a domain that had always been his. "Little things." The words were not growled. They were measured. Deliberate. Each syllable carved into the night air with the patience of something that had waited millennia to speak again.

"You scurry beneath my shadow and think yourselves brave. You forge your little weapons, weave your little auras, and whisper to each other that you are the light against the dark."

The Dragon shifted its massive bulk atop the tower. The structure groaned, buckled, but held barely. Its talons, black as the void between stars, scraped against stone and left furrows like open wounds in the masonry. Each claw was as long as a sailing mast, curved and honed to a point that could pierce the hull of an airship like parchment.

"My claws are spears. Not the crude iron your kind hammers in forges. Spears forged in the first darkness, before your sun begged for its first dawn. Before your moon cracked and wept. Before your gods painted your world like children splashing color across mud."

Its wings unfurled, slowly, deliberately stretching wider than the amphitheater below. The membrane between them was thick, leathery, riddled with cracks that glowed faintly from within, as though magma flowed through the veins of the creature itself. They blotted out the stars.

"My wings are a hurricane. I have carried storms across continents. I have turned seas to dust with a single downbeat. When I flew in the age before your age, the world itself trembled and forgot which way was up."

The Dragon lowered its enormous head. Closer now. Close enough that those on the tower could see the texture of its scales, not smooth, not like a snake, but jagged and overlapping like plates of blackened iron, each one edged with a faint crimson glow, as if the creature's very hide was constantly burning from within. Scars lined its body. Old ones. The kind that spoke of wars fought before humanity had learned to cry.

"My armor is not yours to break. I have worn this darkness since the first shadow fell across the first stone. Your bullets pit it. Your blades scratch it. Your Semblances flicker against it like candles trying to burn a mountain."

It inhaled. The air around Beacon reversed. Smoke, ash, embers, all of it spiraled inward, drawn into the creature's maw like a world ending in reverse. The sky itself seemed to dim, as if the Dragon were stealing the light from the atmosphere.

Then it exhaled. Not fire. Not exactly. A wave of pure, concentrated darkness, Grimm essence in its rawest, oldest form, rolled outward across the sky. It didn't burn. It consumed. Where it passed, the air turned black. Dust particles ceased to exist. The clouds above Beacon simply... dissolved.

"My breath is unmaking. The God of Darkness breathed life into me with the very first exhale of creation. Where your light builds, I unbuild. Where your hope gathers, I scatter. I am not a creature of your wars. I am the reason your wars mean nothing."

The Dragon's gaze swept across the battlefield. The ones still standing. The ones still foolish enough to hold their ground. Ruby Rose, silver eyes wide and shining. Weiss Schnee, rapier trembling in her grip. Blake Belladonna, shadow melting into shadow as if she could hide from the thing that invented shadow.

The Dragon noticed none of them. Because it had caught a scent. Its nostrils flared. A small motion against the enormity of its form, but the effect was immediate, the smoke and ash hanging in the air stilled, then reversed direction, spiraling inward toward those twin black holes of breath.

It was scenting. "Hhhh." A low sound. Not a word. A discovery. Its enormous head swiveled slowly, deliberately, like a searchlight cutting through the chaos below. The red eyes narrowed. The scarred lips peeled back just slightly, revealing teeth that could serve as siege weapons.

"There." The gaze locked onto the tower. Onto a figure standing among the rubble, half-hidden in shadow, her amber eyes wide with something she had never felt before.

Cinder Fall didn't move. Couldn't move. Every nerve in her body was screaming at her to flee, to use the Maiden's power, to do something, but the Dragon's attention was a physical weight, and she was pinned beneath it like an insect under glass.

"You." The word dripped with something worse than malice, just nothing but pure disgust. "I smell it on you. Even from here. Even through the smoke and the blood and the stench of your own fear." The Dragon's upper lip curled further. A sound rumbled in its throat , not a roar, not a growl, but something far more unsettling.

A sneer. "The witch's stain. Old magic. Stolen magic. It clings to you like rot clinging to a corpse. You wear it like a crown, don't you? You think you've claimed something powerful. Something that makes you special." Cinder's hand twitched toward the bow at her back. The Maiden's power flickered in her palm, heat, flame, the desperate warmth of a stolen sun.

The Dragon saw it and it laughed. The sound was catastrophic. A deep, rolling, earth-shaking bellow that sent cracks racing through every wall within a mile. Debris fell from half-collapsed buildings. The air itself seemed to shudder.

"You would show me fire?" The laughter died. Instantly. Completely. Replaced by something far colder. "I was born in the dark before your sun existed. I have bathed in the cold fury of the God of Darkness Himself. And you... a thief ...would wave His brother's leftover warmth in my face?"

The Dragon leaned closer. Its breath washed over the tower like a tide of ash and decay. Cinder's hair whipped back. Her skin went pale. The Maiden's flame in her hand sputtered, dimmed, flickered, as if the very presence of the Dragon was suffocating the light inside her.

"You are not worthy of that power. You are a rat wearing a queen's robe. The magic you carry does not belong to you. It was never meant for something so small. You reek of desperation. Of ambition so hollow it echoes. You stole what you could not earn, and you think that makes you dangerous."

Its eyes burned brighter. "It makes you pathetic."
Cinder Fall, the woman who had orchestrated the fall of Beacon, who had murdered, manipulated, and clawed her way to power through sheer ruthless will, felt her legs give out beneath her.

She dropped to one knee. The Dragon had not touched her. Had not breathed destruction upon her. Had merely spoken and she was on her knees.

The Dragon's head pulled back slightly, dismissive, as if she were already forgotten. A footnote. An afterthought unworthy of further attention. But then...It inhaled again. Deeper this time. The ash reversed. The smoke spiraled. And the Dragon went still.

It went completely still. Not the predatory stillness of a hunter spotting prey. This was different. This was the stillness of something that had been waiting for a very long time and had suddenly, impossibly, been answered.

"No." The word was barely a whisper. But it carried across all of Beacon like a thunderclap.
"No, it cannot be." Its head swept left. Right. Left again. The enormous eyes, ancient, terrible, older than civilization, darted across the battlefield with an energy that hadn't been there a moment before. Something alive flickered in them. Something that had no place in a creature of Grimm.

Hunger. Not for destruction. Not for the annihilation of light. Recognition. "Where!!!!"
The head snapped downward. Past the fallen Huntresses. Past the scattering students. Past the Grimm pouring through the streets like a flood of black water.

Down to a blonde boy standing in the middle of a crumbling courtyard, sword drawn, shield raised, aura flickering like a candle in a hurricane. Jaune Arc. He was shaking. Visibly. Undeniably. His knees were bent, his breathing ragged, his grip on Crocea Mors so tight his knuckles had gone white. He had no idea what was happening. He only knew that every instinct he had ever had was screaming at him that the thing looking at him was not just a Grimm.

It was a predator older than the concept of prey.
The Dragon stared at him and then it made a sound that no one present had expected.
A sound that, given everything they knew about Grimm, soulless, mindless, driven only by the desire to destroy, should have been absolutely impossible.

It purred. Low, Deep and resonant. A vibration that could be felt in the chest, in the bones, in the marrow. The sound of an apex predator that had just scented the one thing in all the world it had ever truly wanted to find. "Oh," the Dragon breathed, and the word was almost tender.

"Oh, there you are." Jaune swallowed hard. "W-what?" "Do you know what I smell on you, little slayer?" The title hung in the air. Slayer. Not student. Not boy. Not child.Slayer. "I smell the Arc." The Dragon said the name like a prayer. Like a curse. Like a memory so old it had fossilized and then been dug up and breathed back to life.

"I smell the bloodline that hunted my brothers. That drove them from the mountains. That cracked their scales with blades forged in hatred and wrapped in holy fire. I smell the line that killed dragons, true dragons, not the pale imitations your age has forgotten and mounted their skulls on walls that have long since turned to dust."

Its wings twitched. Not in aggression. In anticipation.

"Do you understand? Your kind were the boogeymen of my kind. We whispered about the Arcs in the deep places of the world. In the caves before your caves existed. In the dark before your dark had a name. We told our young and we had young, once, before your ancestors butchered them, that the Arcs would come. That nothing could stop them. That even the gods themselves had tried."

The Dragon's voice dropped. Lower. Reverent.
"And failed." Jaune's eyes were wide. "The... the gods..." "The God of Light struck down your ancestor with a beam that carved a canyon into the earth. The Arc stood back up. The God of Darkness unmade the ground beneath another's feet, swallowed him into the void itself. The Arc climbed out. They threw everything they had at your line. Light. Darkness. Creation. Destruction. They waged a war against the Arcs that made your little human conflicts look like children arguing over scraps."

The Dragon leaned down. Far down. Its massive head came to rest at the level of the courtyard wall, eye to eye with a boy who could barely hold his sword steady. "And your bloodline survived. Not because of magic. Not because of relics or blessings or stolen power."

Its breath washed over Jaune. Hot. Dark. Smelling of ash and antiquity and something almost like respect. "Because you are built to kill things like me."

Around them, the battle had slowed. Grimm and humans alike paused, drawn by some primal gravity to the exchange. Even the other Grimm seemed confused, their relentless advance faltering as the Dragon, their progenitor, their living god , purred at a blonde boy with a dented shield.

"Look at you," the Dragon said, and there was something almost sad in it. "You don't even know what you are, do you? You stumble through this world with your borrowed armor and your clumsy stance and your fragile little shield, and you have no idea that the blood in your veins is the most dangerous thing on this planet."

Its eyes narrowed. It pulled back slightly, and its gaze shifted, comparing. Contrasting. The amber-eyed girl still on her knees atop the tower. The blonde boy in the courtyard below. Two inheritances. Two legacies. And the gulf between them was so vast it was almost funny.

"The witch reeks of theft. Of borrowed power clutched by desperate fingers. The wizard, oh, I smell him too, somewhere in this city dying, that old man with his staff and his stolen fragments of godhood, he is the same. Relics. Crutches. Parasites feeding on the corpses of an age that died before their grandfathers were born."

A low, rumbling growl, not of anger, but of contempt, vibrated through the air.

"They belong to a pathetic age. An age of leftovers. An age that scrabbles for the crumbs of powers it was never meant to touch. The Maidens. The Relics. Pale shadows of what the gods left behind, clutched by small, desperate things who think stealing fire makes them Prometheus."

The Dragon's head swung back to Jaune. The contempt vanished. In its place was something far more terrifying, pure Wonder. "But you, Jaune Arc. You are not a relic. You are not a thief. You are not a crutch. You are the original weapon. Forged before magic was divided. Tempered before light and darkness went to war. Your bloodline does not borrow power. It is power. The kind that cannot be stolen. The kind that cannot be given. The kind that can only be born."

Jaune's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"I... my family are just... we're just..." "JUST!!?"

The Dragon's voice cracked like a whip. The ground beneath Jaune's feet split. "Your ancestors slew my kin. They faced the gods and the gods blinked first. Every monster that has ever haunted your species' nightmares, the ones so ancient your historians have forgotten their names, the Arcs killed them. And you stand there and call them just?"

The Dragon drew itself up to its full, impossible height. Its wings spread wide. Its chest swelled. And when it spoke again, its voice was not contemptuous. Not mocking. Not cruel. It was exhilarated.

"I have slept for ten thousand years. I have watched your species rise and fall and rise again. I have seen empires burn and religions crumble and heroes turn to dust. And in all that time, I have wondered, wondered, if the Arcs were truly gone. If the gods had finally, after all their failures, managed to exterminate the one line they could never defeat."

Its eyes locked onto Jaune's. Blue met red. Terror met rapture. "And now, on the night I rise to end an age... I find you." The Dragon smiled.
It was the most horrifying thing anyone at Beacon had ever seen. "The gods could not kill your line, little slayer. The darkness could not swallow it. Time itself could not erode it."

Its wings beat once. A hurricane. The ground cracked in concentric circles radiating outward from the tower. "But I am not the gods. I am not the darkness. I am not time." The Dragon's voice rose to a crescendo that shook the sky itself. The broken moon above seemed to tremble.

"I am the thing your ancestors lived to destroy. And you, the last, the best, the brightest burning ember of a fire that refused to die, you will have the honor that no living soul has had in ten thousand years." Its jaws opened. Wide. Wider. The red glow in its throat intensified, building, to an end. "You will face a First Shadow." "And one of us will die."

Jaune Arc stood in the ruins of Beacon Academy, surrounded by falling ash and fleeing students and the screaming of a world coming apart, and he raised Crocea Mors with hands that would not stop shaking.

But he raised it. And somewhere deep in his blood, deeper than memory, deeper than training, deeper than fear, something old woke up.

Something that had been sleeping in the marrow of every Arc for ten thousand years. Something that had survived gods and darkness and the slow grind of ages. Something that the Dragon could smell like a furnace smells fuel.

Something that recognized the thing before it not as a nightmare, but as an old enemy. The shield on his arm, old, dented, passed down through generations of people who had no idea what they were carrying, hummed.

Not with aura or with semblance. But With an ancient heritage. The Dragon saw it and it roared with joy.

 

[AJ_Talon]

The Star Maiden Garden was quiet and overgrown, full of crumbling stone ruins and wildflowers. It was technically off-limits for unaccompanied children, but Mia had wandered just far enough during recess to end up there, staying within bounds.



She wasn't going to wander out to get eaten by a Grimm... But those pretty purple flowers were so neat!



She was crouched beside a patch of the pretty purple flowers when a soft rustle made her look up.



A tall woman with long black hair and striking red eyes stepped out from behind a ruined pillar. Raven Branwen froze the moment she saw the small blonde Faunus girl staring at her with wide, curious eyes.



Mia tilted her head. "You look like Auntie Yang. Are you her mom?"



Raven was silent for a long moment. Then she gave one stiff nod.



Mia's ears perked up. "Why aren't you around? Auntie Yang misses you."



Raven crossed her arms. "I have important work to do."



"What kind of work?"



"I'm not telling you."



"Why?"



"It's a secret."



Mia crossed her arms right back, frowning. "That's dumb."



Raven's eyes narrowed. "You're lucky I don't feed you to the Grimm, brat."



Mia's lower lip wobbled instantly. Tears welled up, and she started crying in earnest.



Raven's tough exterior cracked almost immediately.



"Hey— wait, I didn't mean it. Stop crying."



Mia sniffled, looking up at her with big, watery eyes. "Do you mean it?"



Raven sighed, rubbing her temple. "…No. Just stop crying."



Mia wiped her eyes and smiled again. "Your sword is really cool."



Raven glanced down at her blade. "It was my father's."



"My papa has a cool sword too! I want one when I get older!"



Raven snorted. "Good for you."



Mia tilted her head. "Why don't you get Auntie Yang a sword? So she knows you care."



Raven paused. "I show I care in other ways."



"Like what?"



Raven sighed, looking almost tired. "By protecting her. And Ruby."



Mia frowned. "Why not hug them? Or be with them?"



Raven smirked faintly. "You're a wordy little brat, aren't you?"



Mia stuck her tongue out. "I wanna know! I really love Auntie Yang and want her to be my mom!"



Raven's expression flickered. She opened her mouth to respond when Yang's voice rang out from the path.



"Mia!"



Yang, Ruby, Weiss, and Blake came storming up, looking equal parts worried and annoyed.



"Mia, you can't keep wandering off like this!" Yang scolded, scooping her up.



Ruby nodded. "We were so worried!"



Weiss crossed her arms. "This is the second time this week!"



Blake sighed. "You promised you'd stay with the group."



Mia pointed over her shoulder. "Sorry! I was talking to Auntie Yang's mom! She can tell you all about it! I was super safe with her!"



They all turned.



A large black raven sat on a ruined wall, tilting its head before letting out a loud caw and flying off into the trees.



Yang sighed, hugging Mia tighter. "That's just a regular raven, kiddo."



Mia frowned. "No, it was her! I promise! She must have turned into the bird!"



Ruby smiled gently. "Come on, let's get you back to the others."



As they walked away, Mia scowled at the spot where the bird had been.



The raven circled once overhead before disappearing into the forest.



"Meanie bird Mom," Mia muttered.



She would get even with her!

 

[AJ_Talon]

"The King Still Breathes"

- - -

The training mission had turned into hell.

The Nevermore's screech tore through the canopy like a blade as it flew down upon them. Jaune's team—his new team—was scattered across three different ledges after the cliffside collapsed. Ruby was pinned under a fallen tree with her scythe jammed. Weiss was trying to glyph herself free while a pack of Beowolves closed in. Blake had already used her last Dust round. Yang's gauntlets were sparking, one barrel cracked. Nora and Ren were fighting frantically against a veritable herd of Boarbatusk, while Pyrrha was fighting valiantly against several Ursa.

And Jaune? Jaune was on his knees in the mud, one hand clutching the old leather satchel he'd smuggled from the Arc farmhouse. Inside were a few smooth, fist-sized spheres of black crystal veined with glowing gold. Grandpa Shirou had called them "the old man's last mistakes." Grandma Arturia had only ever said, "They are not toys, Jaune. They are older than kingdoms."

He'd never been able to make them do anything. Yet he couldn't get rid of them.

A Beowolf lunged for Ruby.

Jaune's hand closed around one of the spheres without thinking.

"Please," he whispered, voice cracking. "I don't care if it kills me. Just—give me something. Anything. I can't— I can't lose them. I can't be useless again—"

The sphere flared.

Not with Aura. Not with Dust. Something older. The air itself seemed to burn. A single vertical slit of molten gold opened inside the crystal—an eye the in his mind seemed the size of a cathedral window—and looked straight through him.

It saw every insecure thought. Every time he'd lied on his transcripts. Every time he'd swung Crocea Mors and felt like a child playing with his father's sword. Every night he'd cried in the bathroom at Beacon because he was terrified he was the weak link that would get his team killed.

The eye considered.

Hm… You'll do.

The words weren't heard. They were felt—a voice like mountains cracking and oceans boiling, ancient and amused and terrible... Yet kind.

The sphere detonated into pure light.

A roar shook the entire forest. Trees exploded outward in a perfect circle. The Nevermore that had been diving for the kill banked hard, wings beating in sudden animal panic.

From the pillar of golden fire rose Bahamut.

Not a Grimm. Not an airship. A dragon the size of a small mountain, scales like living sapphire and gold, wings that blotted out the rising sun. His eyes were the same burning vertical slits that had judged Jaune's soul. When he opened his jaws, the air itself ignited.

The Beowolves didn't even have time to scream.

A single breath from the dragon turned the entire pack into glowing ash, along with the rest of the Grimm closing on them.

The Nevermore tried to flee. Bahamut's tail flicked once. The giant bird detonated mid-air in a rain of burning feathers.

Then the King of Dragons looked down at the tiny, muddy, shaking boy still clutching the cracked remains of the sphere.

The great head lowered until one burning eye was level with Jaune's face. For a moment the entire forest was silent except for the crackle of burning wood and the distant sound of Ruby whispering, "What the hell—"

Bahamut's voice rolled through Jaune's bones like thunder wrapped in velvet.

"You are no hero yet, little king. But you carry the blood and heart of kings. That is enough. For now."

The dragon's form dissolved into rivers of golden light that poured back into the sphere—now warm and pulsing in Jaune's hand like a second heartbeat. The other two spheres in the satchel answered, glowing in sympathy.

Then he was just Jaune again. Kneeling in the mud. Covered in ash. Surrounded by his teammates and friends, staring at him like he'd grown a second head.

Ruby's silver eyes were the size of dinner plates. "Jaune… did you just… summon a dragon?!"

Weiss looked like she was experiencing every emotion at once and had settled on "deeply offended that the universe had not informed her of this earlier."

Pyrrha stepped toward him slowly, Miló still in hand.

"Jaune… what was that? Are you hurt?"

Nora was practically vibrating, Magnhild slung over one shoulder, pink eyes sparkling with manic glee.

"JAUNE YOU SUMMONED A DRAGON! A REAL ONE! IT BREATHED FIRE AND HAD A VOICE AND IT CALLED YOU LITTLE KING AND THEN IT JUST POOFED BACK INTO THE ROCK AND— CAN WE DO IT AGAIN?! PLEASE SAY WE CAN DO IT AGAIN!!"

Ren stood a little apart, StormFlower lowered, his usual calm expression cracked by the faintest widening of his eyes. He studied the sphere in Jaune's hand with quiet intensity.

Blake's ears were flat against her head. Yang was grinning like it was her birthday and someone had delivered her a tank.

Jaune stared at the sphere in his hand. It was cool again. Silent. But he could still feel it—them—watching. Waiting.

He swallowed.

"I… think I just became the world's most overqualified battery."

 

[Sliverhero]

The Judgment of Alexander

Fall of Beacon: Courtyard Ruins

The sky over Beacon burned orange and red.

Cardin Winchester's shoulder slammed against the crumbled wall of the courtyard, his breath coming in ragged pulls. Behind him, Velvet Scarlatina pressed her back against the stone, one arm cradled against her chest, blood seeping through the torn fabric of her uniform. Beside her, Coco Adel sat propped up on debris, her sunglasses cracked and hanging off one ear, a gash across her forehead painting half her face in red.

"Coco.." Cardin started. "Save it," Coco rasped. Her Minigun lay in pieces twenty feet away, scattered by a Paladin's strike that had sent her flying. "Velvet needs attention more than me."

Velvet let out a pained sound, her aura flickering weakly around her. Her camera had been shattered in the initial assault. Her boxes of copied weapons had been trampled under the feet of fleeing students. She had nothing left.
"I'm fine," Velvet lied, teeth clenched. None of them were fine.

Through the smoke and dust, Cardin could see them assembling. A squad of hacked Atlesian Knights marched in rigid formation through the breach in the courtyard wall, their red optics scanning. Behind them, White Fang soldiers fanned out with rifles raised, their masks catching the firelight like grinning skulls. And above them, circling, waiting were a pack of Nevermores and Griffons rode the thermal currents, their eyes burning with malice.

A White Fang lieutenant stepped forward, his sword drawn. "Three more huntsmen-in-training," he called back to his squad with a laugh. "Looks half-dead already. Finish them."
The Knights raised their rifles in unison.

Cardin's hand moved on instinct, not to his mace, which had been lost somewhere in the chaos, but to his chest. To the necklace beneath his armor. The one his grandfather had given him before he'd died. The one Cardin had always dismissed as some old family trinket.

A simple iron chain. A red orb the size of a walnut, pulsing faintly with warmth. You'll know when the time comes, boy. You'll know. Cardin had laughed it off. Called it sentimental nonsense. He wasn't laughing now.

"Cardin, what are you..." Velvet started. He closed his fingers around the orb. The first volley of gunfire erupted from the Knights.
And Cardin prayed. Not to any god he knew. Not to any name he could put to words. He just poured everything he had into that single desperate thought, please, please, PLEASE!!!!

The orb ignited. The gunfire stopped mid-flight.
Every round, every single bullet, froze in the air like it had struck an invisible wall. The White Fang soldiers stumbled to a halt. The Grimm shrieked and veered away. Even the hacked Knights stuttered in their programming, servos whining in protest.

Coco's cracked sunglasses slid off her face entirely. "…What the hell?" The red orb in Cardin's hand blazed like a captured star. Light poured out of it in waves, not red anymore but holy, blinding, searing, white-gold radiance that pushed back the smoke and made the fires dim to candles. The light moved up, streaking into the sky like a pillar, punching through the cloud cover, splitting the burning sky open.

And then the ground trembled. Not like an earthquake. Not like a Paladin's footsteps. This was deep, a resonant, mechanical thrum that Cardin felt in his molars, in his sternum, in the marrow of his bones. It was the sound of something ancient turning on. Something that had been sleeping in that little red orb for longer than Remnant had a name.

The clouds parted. Velvet looked up and her breath left her entirely. It descended from the hole in the sky like a city falling from heaven.

Somehow she knows its name Alexander.
The Summon was enormous easily larger than any airship in the Atlesian fleet. It was a fortress given form, a cathedral of holy metal and divine machinery, all angular walls and concentric rings and towering spires that glowed with internal light. Its central body was a massive armored core shaped like a stylized face, serene, unmoving, judging. Concentric rings rotated slowly around it, each one inscribed with glyphs that burned white-gold. Wings, if you could call them that spread from its flanks, not feathered but layered, hundreds of interlocking plates that shifted and rearranged like living architecture.

The entire structure hummed with power. Not Dust. Not aura. Something else. Something older. The White Fang lieutenant took one step back. Then another. His sword shook in his grip. "What… what is that...?"

Alexander's core glowed brighter.

The rings around Alexander's body began to spin, faster and faster, the glyphs blurring into lines of solid light. Energy gathered in the fortress's core, building, constantly building, the air itself began to distort, heat and light and force compressing into a single point.

The Grimm felt it first. The Nevermores screamed, not their usual bone-rattling cry, but something different. Something afraid. They broke formation immediately, turning to flee, but it was too late. The Griffons followed, beating their wings desperately against the pressure that was building in the air. Even the Grimm on the ground, the Beowolves that had been creeping closer, froze, their red eyes widening with something no one had ever seen in a Grimm before. Fear just pure fear.

Because whatever was building in Alexander's core was the absolute antithesis of everything the Grimm were. It was light. It was order. It was holy not in the religious sense, but in the fundamental sense. The very force that rejected darkness on a molecular level. The White Fang soldiers started running.

The Atlesian Knights tried to retreat, their hacked programming screaming at them to flee, but their legs wouldn't move fast enough.

Cardin stood in the eye of it all, the necklace still burning in his hand, his eyes wide and streaming with tears from the light. He could feel Alexander's presence in his mind, vast, mechanical, righteous. It wasn't a person. It wasn't a creature. It was a principle. A weapon built by hands that had long since turned to dust, on a world that might not even be Remnant at all.

And it had chosen to answer him. "Judgment," Alexander's voice resonated, not through the air, but through Cardin's very bones. "Rendered."

The beam fired. It came from Alexander's core, a column of pure white-gold energy wider than the courtyard itself, descending like the finger of an angry god. It struck the ground with absolute silence.

For one second, nothing happened. Then the world erupted. The holy light expanded outward in a massive shockwave, and everything it touched was simply gone. The hacked Atlesian Knights didn't explode, they unraveled, their metal frames dissolving into particles of light as the sacred energy overloaded every circuit and shattered every bolt. The Paladin that had been stomping toward them let out a distorted mechanical shriek and came apart like a model hit by a sledgehammer, its armor plating peeling away in sheets before disintegrating.

The White Fang soldiers who hadn't fled far enough were hit by the shockwave's edge and sent flying, not killed, but purged. The darkness in their hearts, the malice, the bloodlust, the holy energy seared it out of them like a cauterizing iron. They collapsed, unconscious, their weapons crumbling to ash in their hands.

But the Grimm...The Grimm burned. Holy damage was not like Dust damage. It was not elemental. It was fundamental. The same way that Grimm were creatures of pure darkness given form, Alexander's judgment was pure light given wrath. The Nevermores that had been fleeing ignited in midair, their shadowy forms catching fire like paper held over a furnace. They didn't get a chance to scream. One moment they were there, the next they were unmade, their bodies breaking apart into black vapor that the holy light immediately consumed.

The Griffons fared no better. The shockwave caught them and they detonated, their bodies unable to contain the contradiction of pure light burning inside pure darkness. They popped like black balloons filled with starlight.

The Beowolves on the ground didn't even get that much. The beam's epicenter touched them and they simply ceased, no bodies left behind, no ash, no vapor. Just empty ground where they had been standing, as if they had never existed at all.

The shockwave expanded for a quarter mile in every direction, clearing the courtyard, the breach, the adjacent buildings, the forest edge where more Grimm had been gathering. Every shadow was banished. Every dark thing was purged. The very ground where the beam had struck glowed white-hot, a perfect circle of purified earth that would remain warm for days.

Then, slowly, the light faded. Alexander's rings slowed. The glyphs dimmed. The great fortress-summon rose back into the sky, its work done, its judgment delivered. It ascended through the clouds without a sound, and the pillar of light that had split the sky closed behind it like a wound healing.

The red orb in Cardin's hand went dark. He dropped to his knees.

Silence.

Absolute, ringing silence.

Cardin stared at the ground in front of him. Where a squad of Atlesian Knights had stood, there was nothing but scorched stone and a few lingering motes of white light drifting upward like fireflies. Where the White Fang had been, there were only unconscious bodies and scattered, rusted weapons. Where the Grimm had circled, there was empty air.

The entire courtyard, the entire section of the academy, had been cleared. Not a single Grimm remained. Not a single hostile machine. Not a single White Fang soldier still standing. "Cardin."
He looked up. Coco was staring at him, her mouth open, blood forgotten on her face. Her expression was one he had never seen on her before, not in class, not in training, not in the tournament.

Complete and utter shock. "Cardin," she said again, quieter this time. "What the fuck was that?" He looked down at the necklace in his hand. The red orb was dull now, just a plain little stone on an iron chain. But it was warm. Still warm. Like a heartbeat. "I…" His voice cracked. "I don't know."

Velvet let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. She was crying, her good hand pressed over her mouth, her ears flat against her head. "You saved us," she whispered. "Cardin, you saved us." He wanted to feel triumphant. He wanted to feel like the hero.

All he felt was tired. He tucked the necklace back under his armor and looked at the two of them, wounded, broken, barely standing. But alive. Because of whatever the hell that thing had been.

"Can you walk?" he asked. Coco blinked. Then she let out a short, disbelieving laugh. "Did you really just ask if we can walk after you called down God's own artillery?"

"Can you walk or not?" "Yeah," Coco muttered, pushing herself up with a wince. "Yeah, I can walk." Cardin moved to Velvet and carefully pulled her arm over his shoulder, lifting her to her feet. She leaned into him, light as a bird, her breath hitching with pain.

"We need to find the others," he said, starting to move toward the academy's interior. "The evacuation point...." "Cardin." Velvet's voice was small. He stopped. "Your necklace," she said quietly. "It's glowing again." He looked down. Beneath his armor, the red orb pulsed once, soft and warm, like a heartbeat. Like it was listening.

Evernight Castle: That Same Moment

Salem had not felt pain in a very long time. Not true pain. Not the kind that reached past her immortal flesh and dug into something deeper. The curses that kept her alive, the Gods' twisted gifts had long since numbed her to such things. She could walk through fire, endure the bite of any weapon, suffer wounds that would kill a huntsman a hundred times over and feel nothing more than a mild pressure, like a finger pressed lightly against skin.

Pain was for mortals. Pain was for the small and the finite and the breakable. So when the sensation hit her, a white-hot spike of wrongness that lanced through her chest like a lightning bolt made of broken glass, she actually stumbled.

Her hand shot out and caught the armrest of her throne. Her black nails dug into the stone, leaving gouges. Her lips peeled back from her teeth. "What..." she hissed. It came again. Worse.

The connection she shared with the Grimm was not a leash. It was not a spell or a command structure or a network in any way that a human would understand it. It was biology. She was the source. The wellspring. Every Grimm that existed was, in some fundamental way, an extension of her, a fragment of her darkness given form and purpose and hunger. She felt them when they were created. She felt them when they fed. She felt them when they died, though she had long since learned to treat those sensations like background noise, like the ticking of a clock in a distant room.

But this was not background noise. This was screaming. Every Grimm in the vicinity of Beacon, every single one had been unmade at exactly the same moment, and the feedback slammed into Salem's consciousness like a tidal wave made of razors. She felt the Nevermores ignite. She felt the Griffons detonate. She felt the Beowolves cease not die, not perish to be be respawn later , but simply stop existing forever, as if they had been edited out of reality.

And threaded through that agony, woven into the destruction like a poisoned needle in silk, was something else. Light. Not the light of a semblance. Not the light of Dust. This was something alien, something that did not belong to Remnant, something that operated on rules her world had never catalogued. It was holy in a way that made the Brothers' light look like a candle held up to the sun. It was judgmental. It looked at the darkness inside her, the ancient, bottomless, God-cursed darkness and it rejected it.

Not fought it. Not clashed with it. Rejected it. As if the darkness had no right to exist in its presence. Salem screamed. The Grimm in the halls of Evernight Castle went mad.

The Apathy that lurked in the shadows began to shriek, a sound no Apathy had ever made, a sound that sent the Grimm-human servants fleeing in terror. The Sphinxes in the outer courtyards thrashed and wailed, smashing their own bodies against the walls. The Leviathans in the deep lakes surrounding the castle dove to the bottom and buried themselves in mud, trying to escape a pressure that came from everywhere and nowhere.

In her throne room, Salem fell to her knees.
The darkness inside her, the curse, the corruption, the thing that the God of Darkness had poured into her soul when she had jumped into the Pool of Grimm recoiled. It pulled back from the edges of her being like a tide retreating from shore, driven away by the holy resonance that still echoed through the Grimm network, still rang in the space where a hundred Grimm had just been erased.

And in the space that the darkness left behind,
Salem's eyes snapped wide. For the first time in a long while, she has Clarity. . The word didn't begin to cover it. It was like surfacing from deep water after holding her breath for millennia. Like removing a blindfold she had forgotten she was wearing. Like waking up from a dream so long and so all-consuming that she had forgotten what it meant to be awake.

She could think.

Not the slow, grinding, obsidian-heavy thoughts that had become her normal existence, thoughts that always curved back to destruction, to revenge, to the Relics, to the Brothers, to the same endless loop of rage and grief that had defined her for longer than most civilizations had existed. No. These thoughts were fast. They were sharp. They connected to each other in ways she hadn't experienced since Since before.

Since Ozma. Since she had been human. "Oh," she breathed. And then the memories came, not corrupted, not filtered through the lens of ancient rage, but clear. She remembered jumping into the Pool of Grimm. She remembered why. She remembered the grief, yes, but she could see it now for what it was grief. Not justification. Not fuel. Just grief. Raw and awful and human.

She remembered the God of Light's rejection. She remembered the God of Darkness's twisted gift. She remembered the first time she realized she couldn't die, and the terror of that realization, not the cold indifference she had worn like armor for ten thousand years, but the actual, bone-deep fear of a woman who just wanted to see her daughters again and had been told she never, ever could.

"I..." Her voice cracked. "I was so..." She looked at her hands. Black, clawed, inhuman. The hands of a monster. And she saw them. Really saw them. Not as tools. Not as weapons. As her hands, transformed and twisted and wrong.

"I was so angry," she whispered, and the words came out shaking. "I was so angry and I... I never stopped, I just .... I never stopped..." Tears.
She was crying. Salem, the Queen of the Grimm, the immortal terror of Remnant, the being that had brought kingdoms to ruin and ground the God of Light's plans to dust over and over and over again, was crying. Black tears that leaked from red eyes, running down pale cheeks, dripping onto the stone floor of her own throne room.

She didn't wipe them away. For the first time in ten thousand years, she didn't want to. "I killed them," she said, and her voice was small, human small. "I killed so many people. I... Ozma tried to help me and I ... I used him, I..."

The name hit her like a physical blow. Ozma.
Not the enemy. Not the obstacle. Not the cosmic joke she had spent millennia tormenting. Ozma. Her husband. Her partner. The man who had loved her and she had..

"I destroyed everything," she whispered. "Everything he built. Everything he .... every life, every ... oh Gods, what did I..." She pressed her hands to her face and wept. The Grimm in the castle went still. Not calm, confused. Their mistress was emitting something they had never felt from her before. Something that didn't compute. Something that had no place in the biology of darkness.

Grief...Pure, undiluted, uncorrupted grief. It lasted perhaps ninety seconds. Ninety seconds of clarity. Ninety seconds of sobbing. Ninety seconds of a woman who had been lost for ten thousand years finally, finally seeing the path she had wandered down and understanding, with the full, devastating weight of a clear mind, exactly how far she had gone.

Then the darkness came back. It started at the edges. A familiar heaviness in her fingertips. A slow creep of cold up her spine. The tears began to slow, not because the grief was fading, but because the capacity for it was being smothered. Like ash falling over a fire. Like a hand closing over a candle. "No," Salem gasped. She clutched her head. "No, no, no..."

But it was like trying to hold back the ocean with her bare hands. The curse was part of her now, woven into her soul so thoroughly that removing it would be like removing her own heartbeat. The holy resonance had driven it back temporarily, had created a space where the real Salem could breathe, but the curse was patient. It had waited ten thousand years. It could wait a few more minutes.

The clarity dulled. The sharp edges of her thoughts began to soften and blur. The grief, that beautiful, awful, human grief was swallowed by the returning tide of ancient rage.
But not all of it. That was the cruelest part. Not all of it.

Salem felt the darkness settle back into place like a familiar coat. She felt her thoughts slow down, felt the rage reassert itself, felt the cold indifference crawl back over her emotions like frost over a window. The transformation was nearly complete. Nearly. Because deep inside her, buried under ten thousand years of curse and corruption and spite, there was still a crack. A hairline fracture in the darkness where the light had touched her. And in that crack, something survived.

Not the full clarity. Not the weeping, repentant woman who had knelt on her throne room floor. Just a spark. A memory of what it had felt like to be her. To think clearly. To feel remorse. To understand, even for a moment, the monstrous scale of what she had become.

A splinter of light in an infinite darkness. Salem rose to her feet. Her face was blank. Her eyes were red. The tears had dried to black tracks on her cheeks that she did not bother to wipe away.
She stood in the silence of her throne room, surrounded by the stillness of her confused Grimm, and she remembered being sorry.

And then she didn't. And then she did. And then she.. She closed her eyes.."What," she said quietly, to no one, to everything, "was that?"
The darkness purred in her chest, secure once more, confident and ancient and absolute.
But it did not answer. Because for the first time in ten thousand years, the darkness was not the only thing living in Salem's soul. And it knew.

Beacon Academy : Courtyard Ruins : Moments Later

Cardin stopped walking. Velvet stirred against his shoulder. "Cardin? What's wrong?" He didn't answer. His eyes had gone distant, unfocused, like someone watching a screen that no one else could see. The red orb beneath his armor had begun to pulse, not with light, not with heat, but with information. Data. Knowledge. Something was pouring into his mind in a language he shouldn't be able to understand but somehow could, like reading a book written in a script he'd never learned but inherently knew.

Coco noticed it first. His eyes. The way they moved behind his eyelids, tracking invisible lines of text. "Cardin? Hey. Cardin." He didn't hear her.

He was reading. The report didn't have words, not exactly. It was more like a structure, a framework of pure understanding that assembled itself in his consciousness like a building rising from blueprints. Categories. Designations. Assessments. All of it crystal clear, all of it terrifying, all of it branded into his mind with the same white-gold intensity of the beam that had just saved his life.

He saw the battle. Not from his own perspective, from above. From Alexander's perspective. He watched the holy light expand and consume and he understood, with clinical precision, exactly what it had done to every target it touched.

He saw the Knights unravel. He understood why, sacred energy overwriting corrupted programming at the base code level, reducing complex machines to their constituent particles. He saw the White Fang fall and understood the mechanism, non-lethal purge, the darkness extracted from living souls without killing the vessel. He saw the Grimm cease to exist and understood the fundamental truth: holy damage didn't kill Grimm. It negated them. Erased the darkness that gave them form. Returned them to the nothing they had come from.

And then the report shifted and them Cardin saw her. A throne room. Black stone. Ancient. A woman on her knees, pale, black-veined, terrifyingly beautiful in a wrong and broken way. And she was crying. Sobbing. Weeping with a grief so raw and so human that it made Cardin's chest ache despite everything he knew about what she was. He didn't know her name. The report didn't give him one. But it gave him a designation:

SOURCE ENTITY.

And it gave him a timeline of what had happened in that throne room, displayed not in words but in understanding, in pure comprehension that slotted into his brain like a key into a lock:

Holy resonance transmitted through Grimm network upon mass erasure. Feedback loop reached source entity in approximately 0.3 seconds. Dark corruption, the curse binding the source entity, experienced forced recoil. Estimated 12-15% of total dark mass temporarily displaced from soul structure. Source entity achieved approximate 90 seconds of uncorrupted cognitive function before dark mass reasserted dominance.

Residual effect: Micro-fracture detected in dark binding. Permanent. Non-repairable by source entity's inherent regeneration.

Assessment: The darkness can be pulled back. It has been proven. The immortal is not invulnerable. She is not unchangeable.

She is just very, very patient. So is the light.Cardin gasped, his knees buckled. He would have fallen if Velvet hadn't been there to steady his shoulder, and in the end, they both went down together, sliding against a broken wall, Coco lunging to catch them.

"Cardin! Cardin!" Coco grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her. His eyes were wild, wide and white and shaking. "What's happening? Talk to me!" He stared at her. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "I saw her," he whispered.
" Saw who? " "I don't know." His voice was barely audible. "The one who makes them. The Grimm. I saw,she felt it, Coco. She felt what I did. And for a minute... just a minute... she was..."

He couldn't finish the sentence. Because he'd felt it too. Through the report, through the data, through whatever bond the orb had forged with him in that moment of summoning, he'd felt a ghost of what Salem had felt in those ninety seconds.

The grief. The horror. The remorse. The unbearable, crushing weight of ten thousand years of murder remembered all at once by a mind finally clear enough to understand it. "She was sorry," Cardin said, and his own voice broke on the word. "For ninety seconds, she was sorry."

Coco and Velvet stared at him.
Neither of them knew what to say.

Beneath Cardin's armor, the red orb pulsed one final time, a slow, steady beat, warm and patient against his chest. And then, in the back of his mind, in that same wordless language of pure understanding, the report concluded itself. Not as text. Not as sound. As a single, absolute certainty that settled into his bones like marrow:

Summon Log : Alexander :First Summon: Complete.

Bond Established. Summoner Compatibility: Winchester Bloodline :Awakened.

Side Effect: Resonance Feedback through Grimm Network :Target: Source Entity : Result: Temporary Purge of Dark Corruption, 90 seconds. Residual Effect: Micro-fracture in Dark Binding : PERMANENT.

Assessment: The darkness can be pulled back. It has been proven.

The immortal is not invulnerable. She is not unchangeable.

She is just very, very patient.

So is the light.

Next Summon Available.

Awaiting Input.

The presence receded. The warmth remained. Cardin pressed his hand against the orb beneath his armor and felt it pulse back against his palm, once, twice like a heartbeat answering a heartbeat.

In the silence that followed, Beacon burned around them. Somewhere in the distance, Grimm howled and airships crashed and people screamed. The Fall of Beacon was still happening. Nothing had been saved, not really. Not the academy. Not the kingdom. Not the world.

But a crack had been made.

Not in the walls. Not in the sky.

In ten thousand years of darkness.

And the thing that had made it was a boy no one believed in, holding a necklace he'd never understood, standing in a ruined courtyard with two wounded girls at his side and something vast and patient sleeping against his chest.

Cardin Winchester pulled himself to his feet.
He lifted Velvet up again. Nodded to Coco.
"We need to move," he said. His voice was steady. His hand was shaking. But beneath his armor, the orb was warm. And waiting.

 

[AJ_Talon]

The howl of the Grimm split the evening air like a serrated knife.

Six-year-old Jaune clung to Saphron's hand as they sprinted through the outskirts of the old town district. The shrines and monuments to the Arcs of old blurred past—tall stone figures standing sentinel under the fading light. Roland III with his broken sword raised high. Jeanne D'Arc, her warm smile carved forever into marble. Georges the Unbroken, broad-shouldered and defiant even in stone. Their ancestors. Their legacy.

They'd gone out to visit... And the alarms had screamed with the howls. And so they ran out back home.

Saphron's grip was iron. "Keep running, Jaune! The militia's fighting them back, but we have to reach the shelters!"

Behind them the howls grew louder. Closer. The ground shook with the thunder of paws and claws. Jaune's short legs burned. Tears already stung his eyes.

They stumbled into the old church at the edge of the district—an ancient, half-forgotten place with weathered stone walls and a sagging roof. Saphron dragged him inside, heart hammering. They dove under a heavy oak pew near the back, dust and old incense choking the air.

Two Beowolves prowled through the broken doorway, red eyes glowing in the gloom. Their growls rattled the rafters.

"Be quiet," she whispered, pulling him tight against her chest. Her voice shook but never broke. "Stay down. When I say run, you run to the shelters. Don't look back."

Jaune's whole body trembled.

"N-No!" He whispered.

Saphron pressed a kiss to the top of his head, then gently pried his fingers from her shirt.

"I love you," she whispered, "Now—run!"

She exploded upward with a scream that echoed off the old stones, bolting toward the far window. The Beowolves roared and gave chase. Glass shattered as Saphron hurled herself through it.

Jaune scrambled out from under the pew on shaking legs. He could hear her outside—running, gasping, the Grimm right behind her. She'd fallen. He knew it. She was trapped.

Please… Please… There has to be a way to save her! I would give anything to save her! PLEASE!

The world answered.

The church went black. Flames—golden, ancient, impossibly hot—roared up around him without burning. A great reptilian eye opened in the darkness above, vertical slit blazing like molten gold. Jaune trembled so hard his teeth chattered. His legs gave out. Warmth spread down his pants as terror overtook him.

A voice filled his mind—deep, ancient, like mountains cracking and oceans boiling, amused and terribly generous.

"That is a dangerous thing to promise, child. Anything? But… I am generous. I remember your family of old, boy. The blood of kings and blade-makers still runs true. You will have what you want… And maybe one day you will forgive yourself for it."

Outside, the two Beowolves had cornered Saphron against a gnarled tree. She was on the ground, bleeding from a cut on her forehead, one leg twisted. The lead Grimm crouched to pounce.

Then the church exploded with light.

A roar that shook the very bones of Radian tore through the air. From the ruined roof rose Bahamut—the King of Dragons, sapphire scales flashing, wings blotting out the stars. Golden fire wreathed his form. The Beowolves froze. For the first time in their wretched lives, the Grimm knew fear.

They turned to flee.

It did them no good.

Bahamut's claws swept down like judgment itself. One Beowolf was torn apart mid-leap. The second tried to dodge, only to be incinerated by a blast of pure golden energy that lit up the entire churchyard like dawn. Saphron stared, mouth open, as the dying light revealed the impossible.

"Bahamut…?!"

 

[AJ_Talon]

It was late, after a joint training session with CFVY. Everyone was sweaty, laughing, packing up gear in the locker room. Coco was teasing Velvet about her ears twitching every time Yatsuhashi walked by—"Girl, just ask him out already"—when Velvet paused and sniffed the air. She slowly turned to stare intensely at Blake.

Blake, tying her bow a little tighter out of habit, froze mid-motion at the stare.

"Yes, Velvet?" Blake asked quietly. "Something... I can help you with?"

Velvet sniffed a few more times. She stared at Blake.

"... When was the last time you were in Atlas, Blake?"

Velvet's voice was quiet. Too quiet.

Blake's heart dropped into her stomach. She opened and closed her mouth, slowly.

"Blake? What's up?" Yang asked, leaning from her locker. Ruby and Weiss looked with concern too.

"When was it?" Velvet pressed again.

Velvet was staring at her, ears flat against her head, fists clenched so tight her knuckles were white. The room had gone dead silent—Coco's sunglasses slipped down her nose. Weiss tensed a bit. Ruby looked confused, as Yang frowned deeply.

"I..." Blake started, but the words died.

Velvet took one step forward. "You were there."

It wasn't a question.

Blake's mouth went dry. "Velvet—"

"That night. My parents. Atlas suburbs. Three years ago." Velvet's voice cracked like a whip. "I remember the masks. The horns on one of them. I was hiding in the closet. I heard everything. I smelled everything." Her eyes filled with tears, but they were furious tears. "You were the lookout."

The accusation hung in the air like smoke.

Blake didn't deny it. She couldn't.

Coco stepped between them instinctively. "Vel, what the hell—"

"Get out of the way, Coco," Velvet said, voice trembling. "She was there when they broke my father's ribs. When they told my mother she'd betrayed her people by marrying a human. When they—" She choked. "I thought they were going to kill them."

Blake's knees felt weak. "I didn't know," she whispered. "I didn't know it was going to be like that."

Velvet laughed, a broken, bitter sound. "You didn't know? You were there!"

"I was told—" Blake swallowed hard. "I was told your mother was selling Menagerie secrets to Atlas. That we were just... questioning her. I was new. They kept me outside. I was uncomfortable—I faked a police siren to get them to leave early—"

"You think that makes it better?!" Velvet shouted. "You think pretending to be a lookout while they beat my parents half to death makes you innocent?!"

Coco reached for Velvet's shoulder. She shrugged her off violently.

Blake's eyes were burning. "No. It doesn't. Nothing makes it better."

Velvet stared at her for a long moment, chest heaving. Then she turned and walked out, ears pinned flat, shoulders shaking.

The locker room was silent.

Coco rounded on Blake. "Explain. Now."

Blake couldn't. She just slid down the lockers until she was sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees.

 

[AJ_Talon]

The RWBY common room was thick with anticipation as Yang stepped inside and closed the door behind her. All eyes immediately locked onto her.

Ruby was practically vibrating on the edge of the couch. Weiss sat with perfect posture, arms crossed. Blake had abandoned her book entirely. Pyrrha stood near the window, calm on the surface but with a dangerous glint in her emerald eyes.

Yang leaned against the door and sighed.

"He's not picking anyone," she announced. "He wants to go to the dance as friends. With all of us. Says he doesn't want to cause any team drama right before the big training missions start."

A beat of silence.

Then Weiss's eye twitched. "Of course he picked the coward's option."

Ruby deflated. "But… I wanted to go with him…"

Blake closed her book with a soft snap. "So he's just… avoiding the choice."

Pyrrha's smile was serene, but her fingers tightened slightly. "Understandable. But that doesn't change the situation."

Yang pushed off the door, a dangerous grin spreading across her face. "Exactly. So here's what I'm thinking…"

The girls all leaned in, eyes gleaming with competitive fire.

Yang continued: "We compete for his attention at the dance! Whoever gets the most dances, the most smiles, the most moments wins!"

Ruby frowned.

"Yang, I'm not sure about this-"

"That just means you think you'll lose," Weiss sniffed. Ruby scowled.

"I can win better than you any day! I-I'll show you!"

Weiss flipped her hair. "I already have the perfect dress in mind. He won't know where to look first."

Blake's lips curved into a sly, feline smile. "I know how to move in the shadows. He won't even realize I'm playing until it's too late."

Pyrrha's usual gentle demeanor sharpened. "I've trained with him for months. I know exactly how to make his heart race."

Yang cracked her knuckles. "Game on, ladies."

The room quickly dissolved into whispered plotting and scheming.

From the doorway, Nora poked her head in (having clearly been eavesdropping). She beamed.

"What are we all scheming about? Can I join? Ren's being boring about the dance."

All five girls turned and shouted in unison:

"NO!"

Nora pouted and headed off.

"I never get to scheme... Phooey..."

Inside the room, the plotting continued late into the night. Each girl was secretly determined to win Jaune's heart at the Beacon Dance.

And somewhere across campus, Jaune suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

He had no idea what was coming.

But he knew he was definitely in trouble.

 

[AJ_Talon]

Whiter Rose: "The Ghost"

- - -

The world had ended in fire and silence.

Whitley Schnee stood alone atop the broken spire of what had once been Beacon Academy, the wind howling through the shattered towers like the ghosts of the dead. His white hair was streaked with ash and blood, his once-immaculate coat reduced to tattered rags beneath a suit of scarred Atlas armor. The glyph on his left hand pulsed with faint, dying light.

He was the last one.

Everyone else was gone. Ruby. Yang. Blake. Weiss. Jaune. Pyrrha. Ren. Nora. Even his sisters. All consumed by the endless tide of Grimm that had poured from the shattered moon like a second Flood.

But he still had her.

He raised his hand, fingers trembling as he traced the glyph in the air. The air cracked like glass, and she stepped through.

Ruby Rose.

Not the bright-eyed girl who had once dragged him to arcades and made him laugh until his sides hurt. This was the summon - a translucent echo of silver and red, her scythe spinning in perfect, silent arcs. Her silver eyes glowed with an inner light that was no longer alive, but still fiercely protective. The hood of her cloak fluttered in the wind as if she were still breathing.

She landed beside him without a sound, scythe resting on her shoulder, head tilted in that familiar, curious way.

Whitley's voice was rough, scraped raw from years of screaming orders that no one lived to obey.

"…Ruby."

The summon's eyes brightened at the sound of her name. She reached out - a ghostly hand passing through his cheek like mist - and for a moment the old warmth flickered in those silver eyes.

He closed his own eyes and let the memory take him.

- - - -

Rain. Blood. The ruined courtyard of what had once been their home.

Ruby lay in his arms, silver eyes dimming, her chest a ruin of shattered ribs and torn flesh. She smiled anyway - that same crooked, defiant smile that had stolen his heart the first time she dragged him onto the dance floor.

"Whitley…" she whispered, blood bubbling at the corner of her lips. "Use my power… It's the only way you can save everyone…"

He shook his head violently, tears cutting tracks through the dirt on his face. "No. No, I can't- I won't-"

She reached up with a shaking hand and cupped his cheek. "You have to. Please. I'm… I'm already gone. But if you take me with you… I can still fight. I can still protect you."

He bowed his head, shoulders shaking. The sword in his hand felt heavier than the world.

"Ruby… I… I love-"

Her smile softened, eyes fluttering. "I know. I love you too. Please, Whitley… Let me stay with you."

He kissed her forehead one last time, tasting salt and iron.

Then he drove the blade through her heart.

The light in her silver eyes went out.

He stayed there for a long time, cradling her body, before the roar of approaching Grimm Griffins forced him to move. He burned her remains with a blast of Fire Dust - he would not let the creatures desecrate her. Would not let anyone turn her into a trophy.

When the first Griffin landed, he raised his hand.

A glyph flared.

And she stepped through once more - eyes glowing, scythe spinning, cloak billowing like a banner of war.

Whitley's voice was ice.

"There's one significant difference between her and me… She was the nice one. I'm not."

- - - -

The memory faded.

Whitley opened his eyes to the present. The Griffins were circling, their shrieks cutting through the storm. The summon - his Ruby - stood at his side, head tilted, waiting.

He drew his sword, the blade humming with Dust and raw Aura.

"Ready?" he asked the ghost.

She nodded once, a faint, familiar smile flickering across her translucent face.

Whitley's eyes hardened into chips of frozen sapphire.

"Then let's make them pay."

He raised his hand.

The glyph exploded outward in a storm of white and crimson light.

Ruby's summon blurred forward, scythe carving through the first Griffin in a spray of black ichor and silver fire. Whitley followed in her wake, blade flashing, glyphs flaring with every step. Together they moved like they always had - perfectly in sync, two halves of the same storm.

The Griffins fell in pieces.

And through it all, Whitley Schnee - the last Schnee, the sole survivor, the man who had killed the only person he had ever truly loved - fought with the cold, merciless precision of someone who had nothing left to lose.

Except the ghost at his side.

And the memory of a girl who had once smiled at him like he was worth more than his name and money.

As the last Griffin dissolved into smoke, Whitley lowered his sword, breathing hard. The summon drifted closer, reaching out again. This time her hand almost felt warm.

He closed his eyes.

"…Thank you," he whispered. "For staying with me."

The ghost of Ruby Rose smiled - soft, sad, and eternal - before fading back into the glyph.

Whitley Schnee stood alone on the broken spire once more.

But he was never truly alone.

Not while she still fought beside him.

Not while her silver light still burned in the dark.

 

[AJ_Talon]

Fine... I'll do it myself.
- - -

The dorm room was a battlefield of fabric, hair products, and Ruby's enthusiastic commentary. Yang stood in front of the full-length mirror, turning slowly as the white dress caught the light. It was her old dress from Signal, which Weiss had very kindly recommended a tailor to work it up since Yang didn't have the time or money to get a new one. It hugged her curves, flared at the hips, and shimmered gently. The back was open, showing just enough skin to make a statement without trying too hard. Her hair was down, golden waves cascading over both shoulders.

"Well…" she muttered, tugging at the hem one last time. "It looks better than I thought it would. So…" She looked over at Ruby, half-worried, half-cocky, "how do I look?"

Ruby, sprawled dramatically across her bed in her own red-and-black dress (already slightly rumpled from her bouncing), gasped like she'd witnessed a miracle.

"Ooh… Angelic!"

Yang smirked, but before she could fire back a quip, the door creaked open.

Jaune stepped in, probably looking for Ruby. He froze mid-step the second his eyes landed on her.

The bouquet of half-wilted roses he'd been holding for some reason slipped from his fingers and hit the floor with a soft thump.

He stared.

Not the usual awkward, blushing Jaune stare. This one was different. Like his brain had short-circuited and was still rebooting.

"More like…" he said slowly, voice a little rough around the edges, "…Yangelic."

Silence.

Ruby's jaw dropped. Yang's reflection in the mirror blinked once. Twice.

Yang turned to face him fully, one eyebrow arched so high it nearly escaped her hairline. For a long moment, the only sound was Ruby's barely-contained squeak of secondhand embarrassment.

Jaune's ears went bright red. He scrambled to pick up the roses, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process. "I—uh—I mean—wow. You look… really good. Like, 'the sun decided to put on a dress' good. Not that the sun needs a dress. Or that you're the sun. I mean you kind of are? But in a cool way, not a 'I will burn you' way—though you could burn me and I'd probably thank you—okay I'm shutting up now."

Yang just stared at him.

She crossed her arms, the motion making the dress shimmer again, and took one deliberate step closer. Jaune's eyes widened like a deer caught in very attractive headlights.

"You have a date to the dance, Vomit Boy?"

Jaune blinked. "Uh… No?"

Yang's smile was slow, sharp, and full of promise. She reached out, plucked one of the sad roses from his hand, and tucked it behind her ear like it was the most expensive accessory in Vale.

"You do now."

Ruby made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a dying teakettle and immediately rolled off the bed to hide under it.

Jaune opened and closed his mouth a few times. "I—wait—you're serious? Like, serious serious? Because I've been rejected by Weiss like seventeen times and I don't think my ego can handle—"

"Jaune." Yang's voice dropped, low and warm, the same tone she used right before she suplexed something into next week. "I'm serious. You're my date. Unless you've got a better offer?"

Jaune swallowed hard. The dopey, hopeful smile that spread across his face was so pure it almost hurt to look at.

"…No better offer. Never was."

Yang's grin turned feral and fond all at once. She grabbed the front of his hoodie, yanked him down, and kissed him right there in the middle of the dorm room — quick, confident, and just a little bit claiming.

When she pulled back, Jaune looked like he'd been hit with a very pleasant truck.

"Pick me up at seven," she said, patting his chest. "And try not to trip over your own feet on the way to the door. I'd hate for my date to concuss himself before the first dance."

Jaune nodded dumbly, turned, walked straight into the doorframe, and somehow managed to wave goodbye while rubbing his forehead.

Ruby's muffled voice came from under the bed. "I'm telling Dad you're getting married."

"Ha!" Yang laughed, "Maybe!"

 

[AJ_Talon]

The Beacon Green was alive with the sound of children's laughter under the warm afternoon sun. Mia and Sam ran hand-in-hand across the grass, giggling wildly as they chased each other in dizzy circles. Their tiny legs pumped as fast as they could, the two four-year-olds lost in their own world of pure, uncomplicated joy.

Jaune and Cardin sat on a nearby bench, watching the scene. Jaune had a soft, fond smile on his face. Cardin looked like he was trying very hard not to smile and failing.

Jaune chuckled. "They get along really well."

Cardin huffed, crossing his arms. "Yeah. Sam doesn't have many friends. She's… a lot."

Jaune glanced at him. "Why have you been looking after her so much lately? I thought your family had help back home."

Cardin rubbed the back of his neck. "Mom's having another baby. And since Sam awakened her Aura in the womb… it's safer to keep her here where there are people who can actually handle her if she gets too strong. Dad's busy, so I volunteered."

Jaune nodded. "I get it. Kids with early Aura can be a handful."

Cardin watched Sam tackle Mia into a hug, both of them laughing. "She's gentle with Mia, though. I'm glad. Mia seems good for her."

Jaune smiled. "Mia had trouble making friends before we came to Beacon. She was really shy. I'm happy she's opening up."

Velvet Scarlatina walked by at that moment, carrying a book under her arm. She paused when she saw the two little girls playing, a warm smile spreading across her face.

Mia and Sam spotted her immediately and ran over.

"Miss Velvet!" Mia cheered.

Sam grabbed her hand. "Bunny lady!"

Velvet knelt down and hugged both of them, laughing as they showed her a slightly squished caterpillar they'd found in the grass.

"You two are so cute," she said softly.

She looked up at Jaune and Cardin, then stood, steeling herself. She walked over to Jaune, ears twitching nervously.

"So, um, Jaune…" she began, cheeks pink. "The dance is coming up and I-I was wondering if you would like to go with me?"

Jaune blinked, surprised. "I… I'm really flattered, Velvet, but… I'm going by myself with Mia. It's… complicated."

Velvet's ears drooped. "Oh… I see."

"I'm sorry, Velvet," Jaune said gently.

Cardin snorted. "What, nobody's asked you yet?"

Velvet turned to him, ears flicking. "Why do you care?"

Sam, still holding Velvet's hand, piped up loudly, "Because Cardin wants to ask you out!"

Velvet's face went bright red. "What?!"

Cardin's face matched hers. "What?!"

Jaune grinned. "Well, Velv… he's rough around the edges, but he's interested."

Cardin hissed, "JAUNE."

Velvet stared at Cardin. "You… you do want to ask me? Why?"

Cardin looked anywhere but at her, face burning. "I, well… uh…"

Sam grinned. "He likes bunnies! Like me!"

Cardin groaned. "SAM!"

Mia clapped her hands. "We all like bunnies!"

Cardin grumbled, still red. "Look… if you don't have a date, then I can… ya know… ask you. It'd make Sam happy. I just… don't want her to cry. She's annoying when she cries."

Velvet stared at him for a long moment. Then her expression softened. "You pulled on my ears and called me names… You were pulling on my pigtails, huh?"

Cardin looked mortified. "I… uh… um…"

Jaune chuckled. "That's Cardin. About as mature as a six-year-old."

Cardin glared at him. "Shut up! Look… you wanna go or not?"

Velvet smiled shyly. "All right. But please dress nice."

Cardin huffed, still blushing. "Of course I'll dress nice! You'd better dress nicer!"

Velvet giggled. "I will…"

She hugged both Mia and Sam one last time, then walked off with a little spring in her step.

Cardin immediately rounded on his sister. "Sam, what the heck—?!"

Mia cheered. "Yay! Auntie Velvet will be happy!"

Sam nodded proudly. "Yeah!"

Jaune smirked at Cardin. "Geez, Cardin. You bully everyone you like? Should I be worried?"

Cardin groaned and buried his face in his hands. "Shut up!"

Mia and Sam ran off again, laughing and holding hands.

 

[AJ_Talon]

@CountvonBarnOwl

The Sparring Match

---

The training yard behind the Schnee manor was quiet except for the sound of blades clashing.

Ruby had been teasing Whitley for the last ten minutes.

"Come on, Mr. Schnee," she said with a playful grin, spinning Crescent Rose effortlessly. "You really think you know anything about real combat? You're more of a… strategy guy."

Whitley, breathing steadily, simply turned to Klein who stood nearby with a neutral expression.

"Klein, my sword please."

The butler handed over a practical, no-nonsense blade — strong, well-balanced, and dependable. Nothing flashy. Exactly like its owner.

Whitley tested the weight once, then gave Ruby a small, dangerous smile.

"Shall we?"

The fight started normally enough. Ruby was faster, flashier, a whirlwind of rose petals and scythe strikes. Whitley was precise, defensive, using his Glyphs to reposition and create openings.

Then Ruby overextended on a big swing.

In a blink, Whitley dropped his sword, stepped inside her guard, and caught her in a surprisingly effective wrestling hold — one arm locked around her waist, the other pinning her scythe arm.

Ruby yelped as her momentum was suddenly reversed.

"And where are you without your weapon, hm?" Whitley asked, voice low and smug against her ear. "As I recall, you struggle to fight without it?"

Ruby's face burned. "Well— d-dummy! I have… another weapon!"

Whitley raised an eyebrow, still holding her firmly. "And what's that?"

Ruby twisted in his grip, leaned up, and kissed him.

It was quick. Impulsive. A little clumsy.

But it worked.

Whitley's grip loosened in pure shock. Ruby immediately swept his leg and kicked him backward into the training yard wall with a solid thud.

"GAH!"

Ruby struck a triumphant pose, cheeks still flushed. "HA! I've gotten a LOT better since Beacon!"

Whitley sat up slowly, rubbing his back. He stared at her for a long moment, breathing hard.

Then he stood up, retrieved his sword, and dusted himself off with surprising calm.

"One more round."

Ruby smirked, trying to play it cool even as her heart raced. "Hoping I'll kiss you again?"

Whitley paused, considering her words with that same thoughtful intensity he brought to everything.

"No," he said finally, a small, determined smile tugging at his lips. "I'm going to be kissing you this time."

Ruby's brain short-circuited. Her face went bright red as she sputtered, "W-Wha— you— that's— you can't just—!"

Whitley didn't give her time to recover. He lunged forward with renewed focus, sword raised.

And Ruby — still blushing furiously — met him with a laugh and a spinning scythe strike.

The match continued.

But something in the air between them had definitely changed.

And neither of them seemed to mind one bit.

 

[AJ_Talon]

The combined teams of RWBY, JNPR, and the ever-chaotic KDAM trudged along a dusty Mistral road toward a tiny village nestled in the mountains. The air smelled of pine, though Jaune felt that the scent of shenanigans was also in there somewhere.

Ruby bounced ahead like a hyperactive pinball, Crescent Rose slung over her shoulder. "Wow! A mission all the way to Mistral! This is so great, huh, Yang?!"

Yang walked with her hands behind her head, glancing sideways at the Konosuba crew. "Mostly, yeah. At least Kazuma's keeping Aqua on a tight leash."

Aqua, waddling slightly and cradling a jar of pickles in one hand and a bowl of vanilla ice cream in the other, took an enthusiastic bite of both at once. "Om nom nom… We wouldn't even need you if I wasn't pregnant!"

Kazuma's expression could have curdled milk. "Yeah, that's exactly why Ozpin invited a goddess, a masochist knight, and an explosion gremlin along."

Aqua gasped dramatically, nearly dropping her snacks. "UWAH! Kazuma! How dare you be mean to the mother of your first child!"

Darkness, armor clanking with every step, clasped her hands together and practically swooned. "How dare you not abuse me, your fiancée! Oh, but this neglect is its own exquisite torment~!"

Megumin puffed out her chest. "Seriously, Kazuma, you scumbag!"

Kazuma pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed the sigh of a man who had died and come back too many times. "Anyway… Jaune? You can handle the heavy lifting here, right?"

Jaune gave a confident thumbs-up. "Sure thing!"

Pyrrha tilted her head. "Heavy lifting? You've been here before?"

"Sure! And I've met several Crimson Demons before, not just Megumin."

Ren's voice was calm, but there was a hint of foreboding. "The Crimson Demons are renowned throughout Mistral for having powerful Semblances and incredible Aura techniques… among other things."

Weiss raised a delicate eyebrow. "Like what?"

Before anyone could answer, the sky ahead flashed crimson. A perfectly timed, completely unnecessary explosion bloomed on the path, and four figures in dramatic black-and-red outfits materialized in a cloud of smoke, striking poses so elaborate they looked choreographed by a theater kid on six espressos.

The first, a man with slicked-back hair and a gleaming employee badge, adjusted his glasses with a finger gun. "BEHOLD, WEARY TRAVELERS! I am called CHARLIE! I am the most powerful HOTEL MANAGER OF THE CRIMSON DEMONS, AND MY DREAM IS TO ONE DAY MANAGE A FIVE-STAR RESORT!"

The second flung travel brochures like throwing stars. "I AM RENATO, MOST POWERFUL TOUR GUIDE OF THE CRIMSON DEMONS! I dream of making enough money to move out of my parents' basement! BEHOLD MY BROCHURES OF DOOM!"

The third, a sharp-eyed woman with a clipboard, struck a businesslike pose. "I AM SENNA, MOST POWERFUL SECRETARY FOR THE CRIMSON DEMON VILLAGE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE! I WILL SECURE A THREE PERCENT REVENUE INCREASE THROUGH OUTSIDE INVESTMENT! HIYAH!"

Team RWBY and most of JNPR stared in stunned silence.

Team KDAM did not.

Kazuma stepped forward with the enthusiasm of someone filing taxes and struck a half-hearted pose. "I am Kazuma Satou, leader of team KDAM, adventurer and peerless rogue. My future wives, Megumin and Yunyun, are the foremost archmages of the Crimson Demons."

Megumin immediately detonated into full chuunibyou mode. "THAT'S RIGHT! BEHOLD! I, MEGUMIN OF THE CRIMSON DEMONS, HAVE SECURED A WEDDING RING FROM KAZUMA! OUR NUPTIALS ARE ALL BUT ASSURED, WITH MY RIVAL YUNYUN JOINING ME AS SISTER-WIFE!"

Charlie's eyes sparkled like a used-car salesman spotting fresh prey. "WELL MET, KAZUMA SATOU OF KDAM! BUT WHO ARE YOUR COMPANIONS?! DO THEY REQUIRE ACCOMMODATIONS AT OUR HUMBLE HOTEL? DO THEY HAVE THE SPIRIT TO WITHSTAND OUR TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR ROOM SERVICE?!"

Ruby blinked. "…Huh?"

Weiss's eye twitched. "What."

Pyrrha offered a polite, bewildered smile. "…Sorry?"

Blake just scoffed. "So melodramatic."

Nora's eyes went heart-shaped. "COOL!"

Ren sighed. Though the small smile indicated it was just out of habit.

Jaune clapped his hands once. "Like we planned, guys."

Nora saluted with manic glee. "ROGER!"

Jaune stepped forward, flared his Aura like a dramatic cape, and struck a pose with one hand dramatically shielding his face. Ren and Pyrrha fell in beside him with practiced grace, and Nora vaulted onto her hammer behind them, arms spread wide like a discount Captain Ginyu.

"I AM JAUNE ARC!" he bellowed, voice cracking only slightly. "LEADER OF TEAM JNPR AND NOT THE MOST POWERFUL STUDENT AT BEACON! BUT MY DREAM IS TO BECOME A GREAT HUNTSMAN LIKE MY ANCESTORS BEFORE ME! THIS IS MY BOMBER NORA, FEARSOME AND UNPREDICTABLE! MY ASSASSIN REN, SILENT BUT DEADLY! AND PYRRHA, MY LANCER AND STALWART MENTOR—THE INVINCIBLE GIRL!"

Nora triggered a perfectly timed ring of pink Dust grenades behind them. A pillar of fire and sparkles shot into the sky like the world's most extra fireworks show.

The Crimson Demons erupted into thunderous applause and cheers.

Yang's jaw dropped. "…Seriously?"

Jaune dropped the pose, grinning sheepishly. "It's just how they do things. Go for it, Ruby!"

Ruby's silver eyes went wide. "Eh? OH! Um—" She spun Crescent Rose in a flashy circle and struck what she clearly thought was a cool pose. "I AM RUBY ROSE, LEADER OF RWBY AND MOST POWERFUL… SKIPPED-TWO-GRADES HUNTRESS-IN-TRAINING AT BEACON! MY DREAM IS TO BE AS GOOD A HUNTRESS AS MY MOM AND TO EAT MY OWN WEIGHT IN COOKIES! ALSO I HAVE AN ADORABLE DOG!" She yanked Zwei out of her cloak pouch; the corgi barked enthusiastically. "THIS IS WEISS SCHNEE, MY BEST FEMALE FRIEND AND REALLY GOOD WITH DUST! BLAKE BELLADONNA, MY NINJA GIRL WHO LOVES PORN—"

"EROTICA!" Blake hissed, ears flattening.

"AND MY BIG SISTER YANG WHO SHOULD REALLY BE BACKING ME UP RIGHT NOW!"

Yang sighed the sigh of the terminally embarrassed, stepped behind Ruby, and struck a lazy, one-handed pose.

Ruby spun toward Weiss. "WEISS!"

Weiss rolled her eyes so hard it was audible and gave the world's most half-hearted salute with Myrtenaster.

Ruby turned desperately to Blake. "Blake? Blaaaaaake!"

Blake stood perfectly still, arms crossed, face the picture of unimpressed feline disdain.

The Crimson Demons collectively booed like disappointed theater critics.

Megumin shook her head sadly. "Jaune's was way better!"

Senna nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! Though we really do appreciate your potential business!"

Ruby's lower lip wobbled. "GUYSSSS!"

Weiss adjusted her ponytail with an icy look.

"I don't care if it's for the mission. Some things are not worth our dignity."

https://archiveofourown.org/works/59437609/chapters/234684111

 

[CountvonBarnOwl]

The Overwatch of cartoons.

Click to shrink...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

---

-In an AU timeline Yang is taken by Raven when she is 11 or 12 and she trains to become a Bandit Queen. Raven then sends Yang off to Beacon to train (amd to play both Salem and Ozpin at the same time). This more brutal Yang latches onto Jaune initially to bully him into helping her but she ends up liking him and has no idea how to handle it.

Click to shrink...

Changed up a few of the details but am working on it now. I will have it done this week.

Edit 7-18-26

And here it is, the first insane and incomplete look into my Yang Branwen AU

---

Yang Branwen

"Jaune Arc," Glynda called, and every nerve in the aforesaid student's body snapped to attention for an instant before going slack. Another Combat class where he was called up, another loss to be added to his and his team's record.



Wordlessly, he got up, his team's gentle – albeit loud in Nora's case – words of encouragement fading to static in the back of his mind. He wasn't hoping on winning. No, that was beyond him.



Everybody here had either been in PCS since eleven, or had spent at least six years living outside the walls of the Kingdoms.



He had family, sure, he had a legacy behind him, sure, he had numberless Arc ancestors, aunts, uncles, and cousins who could trounce half of the class, and trounce the other half without breaking a sweat.



But what did that leave plain old Jaune? He couldn't call his great grandmother to fight his battles for him, not that she wouldn't draw steel to defend him. He had the heritage, but he hadn't taken it anywhere. Not until he had taken a piece of that heritage, a piece of that legacy, Corocea Mors, and its collapsable heater shield, and taken it to Beacon.



That he did by himself, Jaune admitted, rebuilding some of his flagging confidence.



True, he enlisted the aid of a man and a woman whose real names, he had a feeling, were not Greek and Morpheus in supplying him with a forged transcript from a PCS that had gone dark at the beginning of the year, but the actual journey of it, that part, he did.



That was all Jaune Arc.



In fact, Jaune considered, as he made his way from the student gallery to the locker rooms to change, forget fighting tenaciously and trying to avoid being beaten silly by one of the students who clearly knew what they were doing for as long as possible.

He was going to fight, and he was going to win. He had enough Aura that only four students in the class had the strength to take down within the class period. He could wear his opponent down; he could pressure his opponent. He could force his opponent into making a mistake, he could outlast his opponent, or force a ring-out. No matter who that opponent was.



"Yang Branwen." Glynda Goodwitch called out.



'Fuck.' Jaune thought to himself, as anxiousness and frustration tore him down from his crest of hope.



Yang Branwen was on his shortlist of big threats. Along with Ruby Rose, who was her long-lost half-sister, from what he understood as far as his first friend at Beacon had intimated him with the facts. It made sense, Ruby had to have whatever strength genes her sister had if she could lug that massive sixty-pound sniper rifle around all day.



But the taller sister, with wild, sunshine-blonde hair that seemed to whip and writhe with a life of its own (or, at least her ahoge did), and practically shone in the light, as well as a few buttons on her blouse not buttoned, and a skirt that had been modified to calf-length for reasons he did not fully understand.



She was grinning behind that red and yellow facemask of hers, the one that matched the scarf she used whenever she tied her hair back and didn't reach for the purple one.



Jaune had to admit. He liked the purple one. It brought out her eyes in a way that did not make her look… hungry.



But for now, he needed to take stock of the situation.



In the locker room, as he changed into his hoodie and jeans, as well as his armor, Jaune took stock of what he knew about Yang Branwen.



The name gave enough away, Ruby had mentioned that her uncle Qrow had a sister, a sister with whom her father had another daughter before her own parents married. Yang's mother mysteriously disappeared shortly after she was born, clearing the way for Ruby's mother. Then, some time after Ruby's mother died, Jaune was still not sure on the timeline, and even less sure that it was his place to press, Yang disappeared.



The sisters had met once again, on the way to Beacon, and had been attempting to reacquaint with one another. Jaune knew this firsthand, he had been the one to ruin their reunion when his motion sickness caused him to remind himself as to what he had for breakfast, all over their boots.



Ruby had forgiven him easily enough, albeit after her own embarrassing incident involving some loose Dust and Remnant's greatest pop star.



But he had been on thin ice with the elder. He was pretty sure he still was, but her physical displays, her pushes, shoves, all of the time she manhandled him, had ceased by the time it became clear that she couldn't win against Pyrrha in a one-on-one.



Jaune was grateful to Pyrrha, beyond words, for all of the one-on-one help she had given him. But he couldn't spend his entire career as a Huntsman hiding behind her, nor even his academic career at Beacon.



Yang had, for her part, settled for staring at him whenever she could. But there was an intensity to it. There was an intensity to everything that Yang did.



A part of him wanted to let her toss him around and just get it over with. The rest of him discarded the thought as soon as it came up. Team RWBY and Team JNPR were friends. Inasmuch as one could have friends in a place like Beacon, where the awkward clash of teenage hormones and big personalities danced a waltz with the adrenaline-spiking clash of steel and gunfire. Letting her win would definitely piss her off. It would definitely alienate her.



He didn't understand Yang's worldview. He hadn't lived most of his life in the ninety seven percent of the world's landmass where the Grimm ruled. It was probable that nobody who spent their entire life behind walls their ancestors built ever could. Not fully. But he understood enough that it would be some sort of disavowal or disassociation, some insult or declaration of hostility.



He'd have to make her earner victory.



-



As Jaune walked into the arena he took stock of his opponent. Hair tied back in a braided ponytail protected by a purple scarf? Check. Wide sunny-yet-wolfish smile complimenting those staring eyes? Check.



'Weapons, Jaune, weapons' Jaune's brain reminded him before his analysis could plunge into the valley of that revealing double breasted crop-top that she wore in place of her usual seifuku under her not quite as cropped or revealing leather jacket with laminar overlayers.



On her shoulder rested a heavy axe, longer than she was tall, with a jagged blade that had to be at least two feet from heel to toe. Jaune knew that axe well. He had seen it in combat against the Grimm, and spent a good number of spars doing his best to avoid its blade. Especially if Yang decided on being a sadist that day and turned one of the Dust effects on.



The hammer head opposite the blade was simpler, but no less horrifying. A giant meat tenderizer, certain to stop and tenderize even a charging Death Stalker. Its Dust mechanism was much simpler, at each vertex between four of the pyramidal points on the head was a small Dust chamber. Pulling the right trigger would activate these Dust chambers, all loaded with Gravity Dust, and suck whatever was trying to get out of the way of the hammer's fall back in, and use physics to deal double damage, because whatever came back into Yang's hammer did so with about as much impact force as one of Yang's merciless downswings.



And even Jaune's nigh-on bottomless Aura could barely stand two of such hits during one of Yang's downswings.



The whole monstrosity could mechashift into a semi-auto railgun, and Jaune was not going to let himself be hit by an APFSDS round doing Mach ten.



And since that was not a good enough place to let the nightmares end, Yang had supplemented this with a golden vambrace, worn in place of the segmented armor on her left forearm. It wasn't a hydraulic, mechanical, or servo-assisted fist, or even a boxing glove. She had made it clear that she did not need such a thing. But just above her index and middle finger was the muzzle for a short-barreled Dust launcher, the ammunition for which was kept in a drum near her elbow.



Yang had intimated everybody in her circle of friends on the all of the ways that a burst of exploding Dust bolts, beams of gelatinized Lightning Dust, or a charged shot could ruin the day of a Grimm, or anything that wasn't a Grimm.



And that was just what the wild woman brought as a backup.



'Her Aura reserve is second only to my own and the distance between the two of us is vast.' Jaune thought to himself. 'She can compensate for this with better Aura control, achieving more with less Aura than what I can do. Moreover, her weapons are devastating and variable. The most I can do is slip my shield back onto my sword and make a club. She will not let me play the attrition game, and I cannot afford more than one trade, maybe two or three, if they are all glancing blows.'



Jaune worked the problem out in his head as Glynda went over the rules of the match. Fight until somebody's Aura drops into the red, is thrown out of bounds, or Glynda intercedes and decides the match. Tournament rules, and no lethal blows.



That last provision was something that Jaune considered leveraging. Yang was made for devastation. There weren't too many ways she could use her weapons without lethality. Some people knew tournament rules, Pyrrha for instance was a four-times-champion. She knew exactly how much follow through to allow on a swing, how to translate one move into the next, and how to finish and flourish enough to work the crowd.



Yang, on the other hand, fought like Ren and Nora. There was a built-in ruthlessness to even the nicest of people who lived outside of the Kingdoms. Every fight could be final. And for refugees fleeing ruined settlements or pop-cities, food was no guarantee. It was why banditry seemed like such an easy out to one's problems, if that was one's entire life.



Jaune could try forcing Yang out on a technicality. It wouldn't be as bad as forfeiture; she might blame her own lack of discipline. But his team would definitely know for sure, as would Yang's. Team RWBY was watching too, and with Ruby's eye for detail and countless similarities and parallels to her sister, she might take exception on Yang's behalf. That would certainly see two friendships jeopardized.



Before he could think further, Jaune's body leapt out of the way of a green-purple projectile about two fingers wide and as long as his head, and another, before her brought his shield to bear, taking the third.



He did not need to lower it to see where Yang was. He could guess well enough from the sound of her boots.



"HYAAAA!" He heard her shriek as she brought her axe in a wide arc. No Dust, no energy, just steel and speed. She wouldn't be open. Jaune had seen that trick before. She'd release the axe from her left hand and recover it quicker. Both bringing her supplemental weapon to bear and extending the range of her swing.



Jaune ran in and slid under the blow. Yang hadn't expected it, but she was already twisting and flexing her elbow to bring her arm cannon to bear. Jaune rolled toward the axe, once, then he kicked out at her right leg, where all of her weight should have been distributed.



The combination of the axe's momentum and the sudden impact of a steel shod boot slamming into the base of her calf sent Yang tumbling to the floor.



Jaune sprang up, to the cheering of other students, or so he thought. Because when Jaune had righted himself, he realized that the other students weren't cheering, they were laughing.



Embarrassment flushed his face. Had he lost his belt again? Jaune pressed the pommel of his sword to his thigh, checking to make sure that his pants covered more than just his ankles.



Then he looked down. Yang had landed awkwardly, and that ankle-length pleated skirt she wore was now covering everything above her waist.



Given the nuances of dorm life seeing a few people in their underwear was inevitable. But this was the first time he had seen anything above the cuisses of a girl who was not on his own team.



Jaune was distracted from the heat in his face and the odd sensation of, for once, being the upright student when the whole class was laughing by the explosive burst of motion from the floor. Yang leveraged herself up and had either pushed or thrown herself into a sort of rolling pirouette in the air.



Jaune barely got his shield up between his torso and the head of Yang's axe. There was a crash of metal on metal as he flew, through the air, left arm first and tumbling over himself before landing downside-up.



He checked the scoreboard before beginning to right himself. Yang's Aura was at 98%, his at 84%, the angle of his shield had diverted most of the force of her swing upward. There was one of the glancing blows he had hoped for earlier. And even that would have been enough to end the match with more than a few students here. Even with Team RWBY and Team JNPR put together, he would make up the majority of the whole group's Aura by himself.



Jaune doubted that he could get lucky like that again. Yang was a monster in battle. 'I have to dodge the gun and bring the fight into measure of my blade.' Jaune thought as he rose up. But before he could decide how he would do that, Yang made the decision for him.



She practically flew at him. In a fraction of the time that it would take for a man to blink, she was on him again and bringing her axe down.



Operating on pure instinct, Jaune stepped left, and hit the head of the axe with the flat of his blade off to his right. As Yang's axe carved a small crater into the floor of the training room, Jaune's left hand clenched and he made to punch her with the edge of his shield. He drove the shield into her mouth and nose. Her Aura took it. And her Aura took the second one.



Her Aura took a strike from his sword too. It had been a paltry blow, intended principally to keep the cannon arm busy, but he felt Corocea Mors blade glance off the weapon's housing, he didn't even need to look at where his own blade was, in an instant he felt the resistance of her Aura as it slammed into her thorax.



Then, Yang wrapped an Aura-coated hand around his blade. Her arm jerked twice, wrenching Jaune's ancestral weapon it free from his grip, before tossing it across the arena over her shoulder.



Then, she shifted her center of gravity, throwing her full weight into her hips and slamming them into his pelvis while pulling his forearm high. Her heel hooked around one of his legs and before Jaune knew it, he was up and over Yang's hip and shoulder.



Then he was on his back, with Yang straddling him, her fist hurtling down. He brought his shield up instinctively, only for it to be sledgehammered against his head and chest by Yang's fist.



Even as his shield collided with his face, Jaune was already putting his counterplay into action. Yang – the berserker – would certainly try to get another shot in. From that starting point, and planning purely by instinct, Jaune supposed that if he moved his shield at just the right time, if he twisted it at just the right angle, she'd have all her weight behind her fist, and with that nowhere between her and the ground, she'd be flat on her belly.



Jaune didn't feel with his arm, or with his shield, he felt with the thin layer of Aura he projected across its surface. As soon as that felt skin, his arm moved. Rotating his forearm and flexing his wrist twisted the angular shield as sideways as it could go, deflecting the force of Yang's punch while leaving her wide open and overbalanced.



But without the nineteen-pound slab of metal between his eyes and his opponent, Jaune remembered something that he had forgotten in the heat of the moment, Yang was on top of him. He had gotten rid of the limb between her upper body and the ground, but he hadn't gotten rid of the Jaune between her upper body and the ground.



Almost in slow motion, a curtain of incandescent tresses, the color of a summer sun fell over his vision. Next was something heavy, a weight that he really, really didn't want to think about given both his clothes and his proximity to a woman, settling across his breastplate.



That weight though, it made the slow-motion fall slow even further, as the extra hit of adrenaline and hormones boosted Jaune's perception to new heights. He could pick out every eyelash on Yang's widening eyes as she fell toward him. He could see the topography of her lips and tongue as they moved to let out a yelp.



Right up until they fell onto his own mouth, and a pair of lilac irises that may as well have gotten to the size of dinner plates swallowed up the whole cone of his vision.



The impromptu kiss had happened because Jaune had tried to evade Yang's unintentional, gravity-propelled headbutt. At least, that was what Jaune would try to tell the teacher, his teammates, Yang's teammates, his parents, Yang's father, Yang's uncle, Yang's mother, his own sisters, and himself when he would later be questioned by each on that very issue. And as far as explanations went, it was straightforward, reasonable, wholly understandable, and even true. Which bought him a lot of leeway with many of the parties who had taken an interest in the matter.



As to why his first instinct when she was on top of him had been to slip his tongue into her mouth… It was a good thing that very few parties on the foregoing list knew enough of the incident to ask him about that one directly.



To himself, he would say reflex, to Yang, he would say that it was an automatic response to a beautiful woman kissing him out of nowhere. The latter probably touched reality more. His short time in Beacon made his dreams come true one right after another.



The dizzying euphoria, or perhaps it was oxygen deprivation, of the protracted kiss was by degrees replaced with alarm as the gradient of the lilac eyes that he had been staring into for what had to have exceeded thirty seconds by now, shifted red.



Jaune could not describe the way he was feeling at the moment, or perhaps he could, but he had the vague suspicion that it would be worth his life, to at least some people, if he did.



Fortunately, the professor called the match there.



"Congratulations are in order Mister Arc, Miss Branwen. You are the first two students in Beacon's history to bring your match to a draw by kissing for over two minutes." Yang broke the kiss immediately, the red draining from her eyes but flooding the rest of her face as Professor Goodwitch spoke. "Though I would advise against trying that tactic against the Grimm, you will not find them to be as… receptive… as you have demonstrated yourselves to be. Although you will be seeing that for yourselves in Saturday detention in Forever Fall. You may get off of Mister Arc's pelvis now, Miss Branwen."



Jaune wondered if it was possible to blush so hard one's face would explode. If it were, he must have gotten very near to the threshold as he and Yang hurriedly collected their weapons and scrambled for the locker rooms to the thunder of their fellow students' laughter, applause, cheers, and what, for half a second, sounded like a "boo" from Nora.



Within the safety of the locker room, Jaune allowed himself a slight chuckle. Nora had always been the most vocal supporter of his efforts to court Weiss from among his team.



However, he was not going to let the confounding of his teammate's matchmaking plans get him down. He was improving. He had caused his opponent as much embarrassment as he had received. And technically, left the arena with something other than a loss. Hopefully this was evidence of real growth, and not a one-time-fluke.



"Heya, Vomit Boy."



<- To Be Continued

 

[AJ_Talon]

Borrowed Heart

The night was quiet in a way Atlas Academy rarely managed. Most of the dorms had gone dark. Only the soft glow of a single desk lamp remained in the common room of RWBY and JNR's dorms.

Jaune sat on the floor with his back against the couch, Crocea Mors laid across his knees. In his hands was the small bronze circlet Pyrrha had once worn in her hair. He turned it over and over, thumb tracing the polished edge like it might still be warm.

Yang found him like that.

She didn't announce herself. Just leaned in the doorway for a long moment, watching the way the lamplight caught the tired lines around his eyes. Something in her chest twisted — the same something that had been twisting ever since the dance, ever since the journey to and fight at Haven, ever since she started keeping a quiet mental checklist of every good thing about the boy who still thought he wasn't enough.

"Hey," she said softly.

Jaune looked up. His smile was small and real and still a little broken. "Couldn't sleep either?"

Before Yang could answer, the air in the room shifted. Jaune seemed to freeze like the world was on pause.

It started as a faint shimmer near the window, like heat haze. Then the light bent, and Pyrrha Nikos stood there — translucent, barefoot, wearing the same white-and-red combat gear she had died in. Her green eyes were soft with apology.

Yang's breath caught. Jaune went completely still.

"I'm sorry," Pyrrha's voice was quieter than Yang remembered, almost fragile. "I didn't mean to startle you. I've… been trying to reach you for a while. But the veil is thinner when someone who loved me is nearby." Her gaze moved to Yang. "And someone who loves him."

Yang's heart stuttered hard.

Pyrrha stepped closer, hands folded in front of her the way she always used to when she was nervous. "I have one request. Just one. And then I will go." She looked at Yang with quiet, earnest pleading. "Will you let me borrow your body for a few minutes? There are things I never got to say to him. Things that still sit heavy in whatever is left of me. I only need a voice. A pair of hands. A heartbeat that still works. It... I can't explain it all but... Please, Yang..."

Yang stared at the ghost of the girl who had once been everything she thought Jaune deserved.

She could have said no. Part of her wanted to. Possession wasn't a small favor. And the idea of Pyrrha's feelings pouring out of her mouth while Jaune looked at her with those eyes made something complicated and jealous and aching twist in her gut.

But Yang Xiao Long had never been good at denying people she cared about.

"…Yeah," she said roughly. "Okay. One last time."

Pyrrha's smile was grateful and sad. "Thank you."

The possession was gentle.

Yang felt a soft pressure behind her eyes, a cool wash of emotion that wasn't entirely her own — love so deep it ached, regret sharp as broken glass, and a fierce, protective tenderness directed straight at the boy on the floor. Her posture shifted without her meaning to. Spine straighter. Shoulders relaxed in that graceful way Pyrrha had always carried herself. When she spoke, the voice was still hers, but the cadence belonged to someone else.

"Jaune."

He looked up, and the shock, hope and pain in his face nearly undid her.

Yang — or Pyrrha — knelt in front of him. Reached out with careful fingers and took the circlet from his hands, setting it aside. Then she cupped his face the way Pyrrha once had in a training hall a lifetime ago.

"I loved you," the voice said, quiet and sure. "I loved the way you never stopped trying. The way you looked at everyone like they were already heroes. I loved that you were kind even when the world gave you every reason not to be. I wanted… so many things. A future. A team that stayed whole. The chance to tell you properly instead of hiding behind training sessions and fake smiles... A future we... We'll never get...."

Jaune's eyes shone. His hands came up to cover the ones on his face, and Yang felt the tremor in them as if it were her own.

"I'm sorry I left the way I did," she continued. "I'm sorry I made that choice without you. I couldn't stand the thought of losing you. But I'm not sorry I loved you. And I'm not sorry that you're still here. Still fighting. Still becoming the man I always saw."

A pause. The borrowed feelings surged — but something else rose with them. Something warmer, sharper, more recent. Something that tasted like golden hair and bad poems and a boy who made that bitch Cinder nervous and still blushed when someone called him hot.

"You deserve someone who will stay," the voice said, and Yang wasn't sure anymore whose throat the words were coming from. "Someone who sees the fixer-upper and wants to help build the house anyway. Someone who can keep up with you. Someone who already… already—"

The possession fractured.

Pyrrha's presence slipped like water through fingers. Yang gasped as full control slammed back into her body. She was still kneeling, still holding Jaune's face, still far too close. Her own heartbeat was loud in her ears. Her own eyes stung.

Jaune stared at her, breathing hard.

"…Yang?"

She couldn't look away. The words were still sitting on her tongue, half-Pyrrha and half something she had been circling for weeks. The dance. The way he took care of kids. The quiet loyalty. The stupid, perfect puns.

"I don't know," she whispered, voice rough. "I don't know how much of that was her and how much was… me. But I meant it. Every word that felt like mine."

Jaune's hands were still covering hers. He didn't pull away.

Outside the window the moon kept rising, silver and indifferent. Inside the room, two living people and the fading echo of a third stayed very still, trying to figure out where one set of feelings ended and another began.

Yang's thumb brushed once, almost without permission, across Jaune's cheekbone.

"Guess we're both still figuring it out," she said quietly.

Jaune's smile was small and wet and real.

"Yeah," he answered. "But… I'm glad it was you."

Somewhere far away, or maybe only in the softest corner of the room, a familiar presence lingered just long enough to smile — and then, finally, let go.

 

[dogbertcarroll]

I have the Power... of Attorney!

"How is it you are never jealous over Yang getting close to Jaune?" Blake asked Ruby, trying to poke her insecurities like a cat playing with a mouse, as the girls talked while the guys were off doing something... probably manly, certainly silly, possibly illegal.

"Because she has to share, I'm her sister," Ruby answered. "Besides, this way she can do the scary proposing thing and all that and I can just swoop in with her."

The girls turned to look at Yang.

"Just because our mothers did something like that, doesn't mean we have to," Yang said, amused but not really opposed to the idea.

Ruby brought out a piece of construction paper with a childish scrawl of words in crayon on it.

"Is that a contract?" Weiss asked taking a close look at it.

Yang rolled her eyes. "We were kids, I'm sure it doesn't count."

Weiss shook her head. "It's legally doubtful, but she has had it notarized. I'm not sure it will hold up, considering the ages you both no doubt were when writing it."

Ruby pulled out another piece of paper, a set of blue prints with writing on the back in grease pencil and oily fingerprints on it.

"This is more enforceable," Weiss said as she examined it, "of course it relies on you not paying back a loan of lien and time spent to repair and modify... a motorcycle. It's also notarized."

"I thought I'd paid you back... Damn, I didn't. No matter, I can handle repayment even if it cuts into my fun funds for a time," Yang said confidently.

Ruby pulled out a roll of Velum tied with a red ribbon.

Weiss accepted the scroll and unrolled it. "I... I'm not sure of the legality of this one, it's written in the script used by the Table Breakers... I think this is more of a religious proscription about clam jamming... um. This is signed by the pope. I don't know if it's legal per say, but I do know that no legal firm or any current government would go against it considering the number of faithful in public service."

"I'm not really religious," Yang pointed out, just arguing for the sake of arguing now and wondering what her little sister would pull out next.

Ruby reached into her cloak and pulled out a small jewelry box, frost wafting off it and creating wisps of fog.

The entire group stared at the box nervously. The sound of howling winds or the screams of the damned could be heard faintly in the room as Ruby removed a pendant from around her neck that held a glittering golden key.

As Ruby brought the key to the box Yang suddenly exclaimed, "But then again, sisters share, right Rubes?!"

"Good sisters share," Ruby agreed brightly and tucked all the contracts and the box back in her cloak, the other girls all slumping in relief at not needing to discover what was in the box or the horrifying idea that Ruby might have something even more worrying tucked away.

 

[AJ_Talon]

The early morning light was soft and golden over Beacon's grounds. Most students were still asleep, but Pyrrha Nikos had slipped out quietly with Mia in tow, the little girl still yawning in her arms.

"I thought we could have some time just for us before everyone else wakes up," Pyrrha said gently, setting Mia down beside her bright red tricycle. "Does that sound nice?"

Mia rubbed her eyes, still sleepy, but her ears perked up when Pyrrha gave the tricycle a gentle push. "Tricycle!"

Soon Mia was pedaling with growing excitement as Pyrrha jogged alongside, giving her little pushes to keep her moving. Giggles replaced the yawns, and before long Mia was laughing brightly, wind tousling her blonde curls.

"Faster, Auntie Pyrrha! Faster!"

Pyrrha laughed, obliging with another gentle push. "You're getting so fast!"

Later, they settled on a blanket in the grass with a big coloring book. Mia concentrated hard, filling in a dragon with bright reds and oranges.

Pyrrha colored beside her, choosing a soft purple for the sky. "Purple is a fun color, don't you think?"

Mia wrinkled her nose. "It's boring."

Pyrrha giggled. "I like it. It's calm and pretty."

Mia pouted but kept coloring. After a quiet moment, Pyrrha asked softly, "Are you happy here, Mia? At Beacon?"

Mia looked up with a bright smile. "I'm super happy! I get to see Papa every day and all my aunties! I just want Papa to be happy too!"

Pyrrha's expression softened. "I want that too. I want Jaune to be very happy."

Mia beamed. "Does that mean you'll be my new mama? With all my other mamas?"

Pyrrha blinked, caught off guard. "Why… why do you want so many mamas?"

Mia shrugged like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Because more mamas means Papa is extra happy! And then I get lots of little siblings and everyone is super happy!"

Pyrrha stared at her for a long moment, then smiled gently, a touch of melancholy in her eyes. "That might mean other kids get more attention than you sometimes."

Mia blew a loud raspberry. "I'm fine with that! As long as everyone's happy!"

Pyrrha reached over and gently brushed a curl behind Mia's ear.

"You have a very big heart, little one," she whispered.

Mia just grinned and went back to coloring her dragon red.

 

[AJ_Talon]

Blake waited outside the daycare with her arms crossed, trying not to look as nervous as she felt. When the doors opened and Mia came running out, the little cat Faunus girl's ears were perked and her smile was bright.



"Auntie Blake!" Mia squealed, throwing herself into Blake's arms.



Blake caught her easily and lifted her up. "Hey, Mia. Want to go somewhere special with me?"



Mia's eyes sparkled. "Special?"



Blake smiled. "My favorite tree on campus. It's really tall. We can watch the birds."


- - -



A few minutes later they were high up in the branches of an old oak that overlooked the courtyard. The wind rustled the leaves around them. Mia sat securely in Blake's lap, staring out at the sky with pure wonder.



"Birds!" she whispered, pointing as a flock of little sparrows wheeled past. "They're so pretty!"



Blake watched her, heart aching in that familiar, complicated way. She tried to wait. She really did. But patience had never been her strongest virtue.



"…Mia," she said quietly. "Can I ask you something?"



Mia turned to look at her, ears twitching. "Uh-huh?"



Blake swallowed. "I heard you asked all the other girls to be your new mama. Ruby… Yang… Weiss… Pyrrha… even Glynda and Velvet. But you never asked me."



Mia blinked, genuinely confused. "But I do want you to be my mama! When we met Granny Kali and Grandpa Ghira! I like them lots. I want them to be my granny and grandpa forever!"



Recalling her parents... She felt guilt rise up like vomit. She closed her eyes.



"I..." Blake sighed. "Well... Maybe you shouldn't."



"Why?" Mia asked.



Blake's ears flattened under her bow. She looked down, voice soft and rough.



"I'm sorry. I just… I hurt my family for a long time. I was angry. I ran away from my parents. I joined a bad man… a man I cared about a lot. He lied to me. Used me. And I did a lot of bad things with him. Then I met you and your papa, and I really like both of you. I want to be a family again. But I'm scared. Scared I might hurt you. Or him. Or anyone who gets close to me. I don't know if I can—"



Smack.



Mia's tiny hand landed firmly on Blake's cheek.



"Stop being dumb!" Mia declared, frowning fiercely. "You're super dumb! You can be my mama too if you want! Cause you don't wanna be bad anymore! You wanna be good!"



Then she threw her arms around Blake's neck and hugged her tightly.



Blake froze for half a second… then the tears came. She buried her face in Mia's hair and hugged her back, shoulders shaking just a little.



"…Thanks," she whispered.



Mia patted her back like she was comforting a big sad cat. "You're welcome."



After a quiet moment, Mia pulled back, still holding Blake's face with both hands.



"But I don't want Uncle Sun to be sad!" she said seriously. "But I want another mama… Can I have two dads?"



Blake stared at her.



"…Um… well…"



Mia waited patiently, ears perked, as if this was a perfectly reasonable request.



Blake opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.



"…We'll… talk about that later," she finally managed.



Mia nodded, satisfied. "Okay! Can we watch more birds now?"



Blake let out a soft, watery laugh and pulled the little girl closer, resting her chin on Mia's head as they looked out over Beacon together.



"…Yeah," she murmured. "We can watch more birds."

 

[AJ_Talon]

Yang pushed open the door to the JNPR common room with Mia perched on her hip, the little girl chattering nonstop.

"—and then Hawk said the blue crayon was the bestest for drawing explosions, but I told him red is way cooler, and then we played Starlight Rangers and I got to be the pink one and he was the red one and—"

"Whoa, slow down, kiddo," Yang laughed, setting her down. "Save some energy for dinner."

Jaune looked up from the stove, where something smelled deliciously like pasta and herbs. The rest of RWBY and JNPR were sprawled around the common room — Ruby and Nora on the floor, Weiss and Blake on the couch, Pyrrha and Ren at the table.

Jaune's face lit up the second he saw his daughter. He wiped his hands on a towel, scooped Mia up, and spun her once before hugging her tight.

"There's my girl! How was daycare, kitten?"

Mia beamed. "I have a boyfriend now, Papa!"

Jaune froze mid-hug. Everyone's eyes were on them. Blake's jaw dropped.

Jaune's eyes narrowed.

"…No you don't."

"I do too!" Mia insisted, bouncing in his arms. "His name is Hawk! He's my super boyfriend!"

"No. You don't. You're way too young for a boyfriend."

"He shared his juice box so we're boyfriend and girlfriend and he's gonna give me a Starlight Ranger decoder ring so we can get married!"

Jaune choked on his spit.

"MARRIED?!"

Yang immediately stepped in, hands raised. "Easy, Jaune. Easy! They're just playing!"

Weiss cleared her throat delicately. "Yes… I'm sure it meant nothing. Children say these things all the time."

Nora cracked her knuckles, eyes gleaming. "Want me to break his kid's kneecaps?"

"NORA!" Ruby yelped.

"What? I'll do it! No smooth player is making the moves on our Mia!" Nora said defensively.

Ren hid his smirk in his teacup.

Jaune actually looked like he was seriously considering the offer. Ruby, Weiss, Pyrrha and Yang immediately scowled at him.

"Jaune!" they said in unison.

"What?!" he defended. "I wasn't going to!"

Mia clutched his shirt. "Don't hurt my boyfriend!"

Jaune looked down at her, jaw set. "Only if you don't have a boyfriend."

"I do!"

"You don't."

"I do!"

"You don't."

"I DO!"

"You don't."

Mia pouted harder. "When can I have one?"

Jaune thought about it.

"When you're thirty."

"THAT'S NOT FAIR!"

The tantrum hit instantly. Mia's face scrunched up, tears welled, and she started wailing at full volume while kicking her little legs. Jaune sighed, carried her over to the designated timeout corner (a small cushion by the wall), and set her down gently but firmly.

"Timeout. Five minutes. No boyfriend talk."

Mia sobbed louder.

Pyrrha frowned and walked over, resting a hand on Jaune's arm. "Come now, Jaune… it's just a silly game for kids. That boy doesn't know what he's doing any more than Mia does."

Yang crossed her arms. "Yeah. Chill out, Vomit Boy. She's four."

"It's just harmless fun," Blake emphasized, "No need to worry... Yet."

Jaune stared at the wall for a long moment, then let out a heavy sigh.

"…Fine."

He turned back to the corner cushion and his miserable daughter.

"Mia? You can come out of timeout if you stop crying."

Mia sniffled dramatically, wiped her face with both sleeves, and toddled over. She looked up at him with big, watery eyes.

"Okay… Can I have my boyfriend?"

Jaune's expression softened. He knelt down, brushed her bangs back, and muttered,

"…Maybe."

Mia's face lit up like a sunrise. She threw her arms around his neck.

"Yay! I love you, Papa!"

Jaune hugged her back, already regretting everything.

From the couch, Nora whispered loudly, "I still think we should break the kid's kneecaps just in case."

Ruby groaned. "Nora, no."

Yang just smirked at Jaune. "You're so screwed when she actually hits dating age."

Jaune buried his face in Mia's hair and groaned.

"I know."

 

[AJ_Talon]

The Schnee mansion's private training hall echoed with the sharp ring of steel on steel.

Weiss—barely fourteen, hair in a tight braid, Myrtenaster still feeling oversized in her grip—lunged forward with a textbook-perfect thrust. Fafnir parried it effortlessly with Knarra's flat, the high-frequency blade humming low as he guided her strike aside without effort.

"Footwork," he rumbled, voice like gravel under ice. "You telegraph the feint. Again."

Weiss reset, cheeks flushed with exertion and determination. She circled, glyphs flickering beneath her feet for balance, then exploded into a flurry—slash, riposte, glyph-assisted pivot. Fafnir blocked each blow with minimal movement, his cybernetic wings folded like a cloak, red eyes glowing behind his face mask.

"Good speed," he allowed after deflecting her final overhead strike. "But you fight like you're afraid to commit. A real enemy won't wait for perfection."

Weiss lowered her rapier, breathing hard.

Fafnir stared at her.

"We can take a break," he said, as though unsure of the words. Weiss shook her head.

"Again," she insisted.

Fafnir inclined his head—and froze as the doors swung open.

Jacques Schnee strode in, pristine suit untouched by the chill of the hall, expression thunderous.

"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, eyes fixed on Fafnir. "I explicitly forbade weapons training for Weiss. She has classes—!"

"She asked," Fafnir interrupted, voice flat. He sheathed Knarra with a soft click. "Said she wants to learn how to fight. Properly."

Jacques's jaw tightened. "And you thought to indulge her?"

Fafnir met his gaze without flinching. "I swore to protect this family. My clan's way—teach the young to defend themselves. If she wants the skill, I'll give it. Better she learns from me than dies ignorant."

Weiss stood silent, rapier still in hand, watching her father with wary defiance.

Jacques exhaled through his nose, pinching the bridge. The silence stretched, cold as Atlas winter.

Finally, he waved a dismissive hand.

"Fine. Supervised only. And if her grades slip even a fraction—"

"They won't," Weiss said quickly.

Jacques's eyes flicked to her, something unreadable passing across his face before the mask of control settled back in.

"See that they don't."

He turned and left without another word.

Fafnir watched the doors close, then looked down at Weiss.

"Again," he said simply.

Weiss reset her stance, a small, fierce smile tugging at her lips.

The steel rang out once more.

 

[Sliverhero]

He man and rwby crossover.

By the Power of Grayskull


Jaune Arc had always hated flying.

It wasn't the motion itself, It was the feeling of helplessness. The very idea that if something went wrong, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it except sit in a cramped metal seat and wait to find out if today was the day he died. He'd spent the entire flight from Arcadia to Vale with his hands clamped on the armrests, knuckles bone-white, pretending he wasn't sweating through his hoodie, and to his hidden shame dealing with his motion sickness. At least there is barf bags if he needs them.

The woman beside him had tried to make conversation early on. She was friendly, Middle-aged, traveling for business, noticed he looked green around the gills and offered him a mint. He'd mumbled thanks and swallowed it without tasting it and spent the rest of the flight staring at the back of the seat in front of him. He is a bit embrassed that he couldnt respond much to her.

He was seventeen. He was on his way to Beacon Academy. He had forged his transcripts, lied to his family, and cheated his way into the most prestigious combat school on Remnant.

Not to new to anyone that knows him, he was absolutely, catastrophically terrified. The airship was a commercial transport, one of the smaller ones that ran the coastal route from Anima's northern settlements down to the city of Vale. It wasn't fancy. Rows of seats, a narrow aisle, a couple of overstuffed overhead compartments, and a window on every third row. About forty passengers total. A pair of hired Huntsmen sat near the back, professional-looking types in practical armor, their weapons leaning against the wall beside them. He hopes he will look cool as them once he successes in his dream.

They are the security for the route. Grimm didn't usually hit commercial flights this close to Vale, but the shipping companies had learned the hard way that "usually" wasn't good enough.

Jaune had counted six other people who looked like they might be students heading to Beacon. Young, fit, carrying weapon cases. He'd considered introducing himself. Making friends before they even arrived. That's what a real Huntsman would do, right? Be confident, charismatic and natural like the heroes pf stories he heard as he was growing up. Instead he'd sat in his seat and said nothing and felt like a fraud. Now the ship lurched.

Not a turbulence-lurch, Not a normal-lurch as if they were turning and needed to adjust, but a wrong lurch, the kind that came with a sound like someone taking a sheet of metal and folding it in half. The lights then flickered as this happened he could hear passengers gasping in fright. The intercom then crackled.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your..."
Suddenly the intercom died, then the lights died. Emergency strips along the floor flickered on, bathing the cabin in dim red. Jaune's stomach dropped. Then the screaming started, and it wasn't coming from inside the cabin.

He pressed his face to the window. For a moment he saw nothing but clouds and the darkening sky, sunset was painting the horizon in shades of orange and pink and then a shape moved across the glass. It was black, massive and wrong.

Somehow a Beowolf had clung to the hull directly outside his window. Its bone-white mask stared in at him with empty eye sockets that somehow still felt like they were looking. Its lips peeled back from blackened teeth in a snarl that vibrated through the glass.

More shapes started to appear, dozens of them. They swarmed over the airship like a living blanket, claws scraping against metal, weight shifting the entire vessel. Jaune to his horror saw an Ursa Minor pull itself up over the trailing edge of the hull, its bulk alone enough to throw the ship into a steep bank.

The cabin tilted. Overhead compartments burst open and luggage rained down. A man near the front shouted something Jaune couldn't hear over the noise. One of the Huntsmen in the back was on her feet, shouting orders, her partner already firing out a shattered viewport, the sharp sound of his rifle barely audible over the shriek of tearing metal.

Then the floor fell out from under Jaune.
Not metaphorically but literally. A section of the hull beneath the row he was sitting, was simply torn off, peeled away like a sardine can lid, and suddenly there was no floor and no seat and no airship, just open sky and a howling wind and Jaune Arc tumbling out into nothing.
He screamed the whole way down.

As he was falling he was able to make a glimpse of the airship and saw flying grimm lifting other grimm towards the airship.

Then the forest rose up to meet him. Branches whipped his face, his arms, his sides each impact a bright flare of pain that he'd feel properly later, if there was a later. He hit a particularly thick branch chest-first and the air left his lungs in a single, explosive wheeze. He spun, tumbled, crashed through a second layer of canopy, and slammed into the ground with a force that drove him a foot into the soft forest earth.

He lay there, Just lay there not knowing if pain means he is alive or dying. The world was a blurred smear of green and brown and pain. He could hear things, the distant whine of the airship's engines, the crack of gunfire, the howling of Grimm somewhere above but it all felt far away, muffled, like he was hearing it through water. All he could think is 'Get up'. But his body didn't move. His mind continues, thinking, no, hoping that he will move and get up.

Finally his body rolled onto its side. Then to his hands and knees, he starts to stand up but is swaying like a drunk. His backpack damage but at least it's still strapped to his back. Crocea Mors was still at his hip. He was bleeding from a dozen cuts and his ribs screamed with every breath and his vision kept sliding in and out of focus.

But he was standing, and can move and now something just landed in the tree above him. Jaune looked up. A Beowolf crouched on a thick branch maybe fifteen feet up, its head tilted, those empty eye sockets fixed on him. It made a sound low, rumbling, almost like a purr and dropped towards him. Jaune dove sideways. The Beowolf hit the ground where he'd been standing, its claws sinking deep into the earth. It turned toward him with a liquid, boneless grace that made he scream. He then did the smart thing and run.

The forest was old growth, massive trees with trunks as wide as cars, their canopies forming a near-solid ceiling far overhead. The undergrowth was thick in places, open in others. The light was fading fast, the last orange of sunset giving way to a deep purple twilight. Jaune crashed through it all without plan or direction, guided purely by the primitive imperative to put distance between himself and the thing chasing him.

His legs burned, his ribs were on fire. Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass. But the Beowolf was behind him, he could hear it, the heavy pad-padded of paws on forest floor, the snapping of branches and that was enough to keep him moving.

He burst through a wall of ferns into a small clearing and nearly collided with a second Beowolf. He skidded, changed direction, nearly fell, kept going. The second Beowolf joined the chase. Then a third appeared on his left, paralleling him through the trees, not attacking yet just running with him, herding him.

They were hunting him, not killing him but actually Hunting him. Driving him somewhere, or just drawing the kill out, savoring it. He read that Grimm could do that. They fed on negative emotion fear, pain, despair and a terrorized prey animal that ran until it collapsed produced more of it than one that was simply killed quickly.

The realization made him run harder, which of course only produced more fear, which only attracted them more. It was a feedback loop, an oncoming death spiral. But maybe just maybe even with his upcoming death, he hopefully pull enough grimm away from the besieged airship that they can survive. Then something strange happened.

It started in his chest, a warmth small, barely noticeable, like swallowing a sip of something hot. He almost missed it beneath the adrenaline and the pain and the fear. But it grew, quickly. Spreading from his chest to his shoulders, down his arms, through his core, into his legs. Like his blood was being replaced with sunlight and to his surprised he started to feel his pain and wounds to slowly fade away.

A Beowolf lunged at him from behind. He felt the wind of its swing a split second before the claws raked across his back.
Jaune stumbled forward from the impact but the claws didn't bite. They glanced off. He looked over his shoulder and saw a faint shimmer in the air around his body, like heat rising off summer pavement, barely visible in the dim light.

He had no idea what what happened. He didn't know it was it was his newly unlocked aura that saved he. He didn't know that every living person on Remnant carried this shield of light in their soul, waiting to be woken up. He didn't know any formal techniques or the meditation practices or the activation phrases that combat schools taught for Aura.

But once awoke his body knew no, his soul knew what to do with it. That part of him, hat had refused to roll over and die, the part that had gotten him to his feet in that crater, the part that got to run even when his mind was telling him running was hopeless. Its that part that woke up.
And it came out sideways, because of course it did. Because Jaune Arc had never done anything the right way in his life.

The aura didn't coat his body evenly. It blasted outward, uncontrolled, erratic, a sudden flare of light and force that pulsed out from him in a wave. It wasn't a shield. It was a shout. A beacon. A bonfire in a dark forest.

The Beowolf behind him took the brunt of it and was knocked flat. The ones on his flanks stumbled, shaking their heads, snarling in confusion.

But the pulse kept going. Radiating outward through the trees, through the darkness, carrying with it every ounce of fear and desperation and stubborn refusal to die that Jaune Arc possessed.

Every Grimm in the area felt it, and every Grimm in the area turned toward him, even the ones in the sky. "Fuck, I made it worse," Jaune gasped, still running, he even noticed he was faster. "I made it alot worse."

More howls in the distance. He can hear them getting closer and closer. The forest was coming alive around him with black shapes and red eyes and the sounds of predators on the move. He could hear Ursa crashing through the underbrush now, heavy enough to shake the ground. Something large was moving through the canopy above, Nevermore, maybe, its feathers scraping against branches.

He was dragging the entire local Grimm population behind him like the tail of a comet.

The ground sloped sharply downward. Jaune half-ran, half-slid down the incline, loose rock and dirt skidding under his boots. At the bottom was a ravine, a rocky, dry creek bed and at the far end of it, the cliff face rose up in a wall of gray limestone.

And there, at the base of the cliff, was a cave.
Not a small cave, not a crack in the rock. But an actual cave, it was thirty feet wide, twenty feet tall, an opening so large it looked almost deliberate. Stalactites jutted from the top like fangs.

Jaune didn't choose it, but his legs chose it for him. He was running before his brain registered the option, plunging into the darkness of the cave mouth with the sound of Grimm howling at his back.

The darkness was total. For a few horrible seconds Jaune was blind running on pure momentum, arms outstretched, feet slapping against smooth stone. Then his eyes began to adjust, and he realized it wasn't quite as dark as he'd thought. There was a faint luminescence here, to him it was probably something in the rock, maybe, or some kind of bioluminescent growth on the walls. It was barely enough to see by, casting everything in a dim blue-gray light like the world's worst night vision.

Jaune started to notice that the tunnel was smooth, unnatural smooth. The walls had been carved, that was obvious even in the dim light. The ceiling was arched, The floor was level no uneven paths. This wasn't a natural cave. It had been built, he doesnt know why.

He ran anyway, because the Grimm were still behind him. He could hear them in the tunnel, their claws on stone, snarling echoes bouncing off the walls in a confusing cacophony that made it impossible to tell how many there were or how close they were.

The tunnel then widened, and the ceiling rose. The walls fell back, and suddenly Jaune was in a cavern so enormous that the far walls were lost in darkness. The faint light was stronger here, coming from somewhere deeper in, and it was just enough to reveal the scope of what he'd stumbled into ancient ruins.

Massive stone pillars rose from the cavern floor, some intact, some broken, some lying on their sides like fallen soldiers. Archways connected walkways that no longer led anywhere. Collapsed stonework was scattered everywhere blocks the size of cars, carved fragments, the skeletal remains of what must have once been an enormous structure. And at the far end of the cavern, rising from the rubble like a monument to some forgotten god, a castle, or the half of one that was still standing.

It was built into the back wall of the cavern, its remaining towers reaching toward the ceiling. The stonework was gray and ancient, covered in carvings that Jaune's dim light couldn't resolve into anything meaningful. Entire sections had collapsed, the left side was almost completely gone, reduced to a slope of rubble and what remained looked like it had been battered by something enormous and violent long, long ago.

But the face of the castle, the central section, the main facade was still intact.

And it was dominated by a skull. A giant skull. Jaune couldn't tell if it was carved or real, some kind of fossil, maybe, or something stranger, to his amazement but it was still part of the building. The jaw formed the main gateway. The cheekbones were buttresses. The eye sockets were windows, dark and empty, staring out across the ruined cavern.

It should have been horrifying. It was. But it was also the only shelter in sight, and the sound of Grimm was getting louder behind him. Jaune ran toward it. He crossed the cavern floor, dodging around fallen pillars and jumping over debris. The Grimm were pouring into the cavern behind him now, he could see them in the tunnel mouth, a dark flood of bodies and red eyes and they were fast.

He hit the slope of rubble leading up to the castle's gateway and scrambled upward, loose stone sliding under his boots. A Beowolf lunged at him from behind. He didn't think, he swung Crocea Mors backhanded without looking and felt the blade connect with something solid. The Beowolf yelped and fell away. Unfortunately in the process he last the grip of his sword and it fell down into the darkness surrounding the castle. Jaune curses but he knows he has to keep moving.

He crested the rubble slope and passed between the skull's massive jawbones. The gateway beyond was dark and gaping, and Jaune plunged through it into the castle's interior without slowing.

Inside was a shambles, collapsed hallways, rubble-choked rooms, fallen beams. But to his surprise he can feel that there i something here thats when he sees it. A light. Faint, pulsing, blue-white, coming from deeper inside the structure. It wasn't much, but it was the first non-threatening light source Jaune had seen since the ship went down, and something about it pulled at him. He followed it. Of course the Grimm followed him.

The corridor was narrow enough that they couldn't all come at him at once, which bought him time. He could hear them behind him, snarling, growling, the scrape of claws on stone. But the passage twisted and turned and occasionally narrowed to the point where only one or two could fit through side by side.

The light grew brighter., Then he was through—into a circular chamber, domed, surprisingly intact compared to the rest of the castle. The walls were covered in carvings. Figures in armor. Scenes of battle. Symbols he didn't recognize. And in the exact center of the room, on a simple pedestal of gray stone. Is a sword, Jaune skidded to a stop as if he is pulled towards it.

It was an odd-looking thing. The blade was broad and straight, thicker than a typical longsword, almost crude in its construction. The crossguard was wide and plain. The grip was wrapped in old leather. The pommel was a simple round orb. The whole weapon had a heaviness to its look, a sense of solid, uncompromising weight that had nothing to do with its actual physical dimensions.

And it was glowing. Faintly, pulsing, that same blue-white light he'd been following. The blade hummed with it, not an audible sound, exactly, but a vibration he could feel in his bones.

Behind him, the corridor filled with growling.
Jaune looked over his shoulder. The lead Beowolf was squeezing through the doorway, its shoulders scraping the stone on either side. Behind it, more shapes jostled and snarled. Red eyes filled the passage.

He looked back at the sword.

There was no time to think. No time for strategy or planning or any of the things a real Huntsman would do. There was only the door full of monsters at his back and the strange glowing weapon in front of him.

He grabbed the hilt, then he world stopped.
Not slowed down. Not shifted. Stopped. Like someone had pressed pause on reality. The growling cut out mid-sound. The pulsing light froze. The air itself went still, neither warm nor cold, just neutral, like being submerged in nothing. He could a beowulf in mid ponce frozen in the air. jaune couldn't move. His hand was locked on the sword's grip, his fingers frozen in place, his body a statue. But he could still see, still think, still feel and what he felt was the sword. It was... asking him something.

Not in words. In impressions. In feelings. In sudden, vivid flashes of understanding that appeared in his mind fully formed, like memories that weren't his.

Who are you? The question wasn't hostile. It wasn't gentle either. It was appraising the way a master craftsman might examine a piece of raw material, turning it over, looking for flaws, measuring its worth.

"I'm Jaune," he said or thought, or tried to say. In this frozen place, the distinction didn't seem to matter. "Jaune Arc." Why are you here? "The Grimm. I was running. The ship crashed and I..."

No...Why are you HERE?The question was different this time. Deeper. It reached past the surface-level answer and into something underneath, the real reason, the one Jaune barely admitted to himself.

"Because I'm trying to be something I'm not," he said, and the admission felt like pulling a splinter out of his own heart. "I lied my way into Beacon. I faked my transcripts. I don't have any real training. I just... I didn't want to be the only one in my family who wasn't a hero. I didn't want to be useless."

And yet you run toward danger, not away from it.
"I was running away. I was running away the whole time."

Were you?

Images flashed through his mind, not his memories, but the sword's. A towering figure in white and gold armor, swinging this very blade through a horde of shadow creatures. A castle, whole and magnificent, its skull-face gleaming in sunlight. A world of magic and wonder and terrible beauty that was nothing like Remnant.

This power has been wielded by warriors, by kings, by heroes. It has also been wielded by fools, by cowards, by those who had no right to hold it. The difference was never strength. The difference was never skill. The difference was this: when everything was taken from them their weapons, their allies, their hope, did they still stand?

The frozen world around Jaune seemed to tighten. The question pressed in on him from all sides. Your weapon is gone. Your allies are gone. Your hope is nearly spent. Do you still stand? Jaune thought about running. The thought was right there, bright and clear and tempting. He could drop the sword. He could try to dodge past the Grimm. He could hide in the rubble and hope they lost interest.

He could surrender. "I don't know if I can beat them," Jaune said quietly. "I don't know if I can do anything. But I'm not going to just lie down and let them kill me. If that counts as standing... then yeah. I'm standing."

The pause that followed felt like an eternity compressed into a single heartbeat.

You will do.

And then a second presence. Different from the first, not the vast, ancient appraisal of the sword itself, but something warmer. Softer. Unmistakably feminine. It brushed against his consciousness like a hand on his shoulder.

"By the power of Grayskull," the voice whispered, and there was something in her tone, amusement, tenderness, a strange kind of irony, as if she knew exactly how absurd the words would sound. "Say it. Say the words."

Jaune blinked in the frozen void.
"By the... power of Grayskull?" he repeated, feeling deeply, profoundly confused.

The voice didn't correct him. The sword didn't correct him. The void simply waited.

He drew a breath, not a physical one, since his lungs weren't operating in any normal sense here, but a spiritual one, a pulling-together of everything he was and everything he had and everything he wanted to be.
"I HAVE THE POWER!"

The words tore out of him in a voice that wasn't his, or maybe was his, amplified and deepened and resonant, a voice that belonged in thunderstorms and avalanches. Light exploded from the sword, a column of blue-white fire that blew through the doorway of the chamber like a cannon blast.

The lead Beowolf simply ceased to exist. The two behind it were hurled backward down the corridor, their bodies slamming into the walls with enough force to crack stone. The rest of the pack, the ones still squeezing through the doorway, the ones filling the corridor beyond, were hit by the shockwave and scattered like leaves in a hurricane.

And from the heart of the light, a figure emerged.
He stood seven feet tall. His body was a monument to power, every line hard, every angle sharp, every muscle defined beneath armor that was white and gold and covered in designs that looked like they'd been inspired by the carvings on the chamber walls. A red cape hung from his shoulders, heavy and regal. His hair was blonde but bright almost white-gold, catching the fading light of the transformation like a halo. His eyes blazed blue-white.

He looked down at himself.

He looked at the sword in his hand, which now felt like an extension of his arm rather than a separate object.

He looked at the corridor full of Grimm that were already getting back to their feet. "What the..." His voice was deeper. Richer. It echoed off the stone walls. "What the hell?"

An Ursa Minor broke though the tunnel and charged him. Shards of stone flung everywhere. It was enormous, easily twelve feet of muscle, fur, and rage, but it might as well have been a child for all the threat it posed. He sidestepped its charge with a casualness that would have been insulting if the Ursa were capable of understanding insult, and brought the sword down in a vertical strike.

The blade passed through the Ursa's spine like it wasn't there. The creature split into two halves that hadn't even finished falling apart before they dissolved into black smoke.

Three Beowolves came at him in a pack. He swung once, a wide horizontal arc and the sword cut through all three of them in a single line. They didn't even have time to register the hit before they were gone.

A Boarbatusk, the largest Grimm in the group, lowered its head and charged, its bony armor plating gleaming. He planted his feet, raised one hand, and caught it. The impact created a shockwave that blew dust and debris in a perfect ring. The Boarbatusk hung in the air for a fraction of a second, its momentum utterly arrested, and then he threw it. It flew out through the skull gate of the castle, across the cavern, and disappeared into the darkness of the far wall with a crash that echoed for ten full seconds.

The remaining Grimm, fifteen, maybe twenty, a mix of Beowolves and a few smaller Ursa looked at what had just happened to their packmates. Then they look at jaune and to their senses they only saw death. And so they ran, they fled from something they cant understand. Grimm, which did not feel fear, which did not retreat, which existed only to destroy life, ran like cowards. They poured out of the castle, across the cavern, and into the tunnels, and the sound of their howling faded into nothing.

He stood in the ruined corridor, sword in hand, breathing hard, surrounded by dissolving black smoke. The power was intoxicating. He could feel everything, the stone beneath his feet, the air currents in the cavern, the heartbeat of small animals hiding in the rubble. He felt like he could punch through the cliff face and walk to Vale. He felt like he could fight a Nevermore bare-handed. He felt like he could do anything.

Then the light began to fade.The armor dissolved into motes of white and gold. The muscle receded. The cape vanished. Jaune shrank, seven feet down to five-nine, the white-gold hair darkening to its usual dirty blonde, the blazing eyes dimming to their normal blue. His body reverted to its familiar, unremarkable proportions, and the sudden absence of all that power was so jarring that his legs buckled and he dropped to one knee.

The sword of power hit the stone floor with a heavy clang. In his normal hand, it was almost too heavy to lift.

He knelt there for a long moment, staring at his hands. Normal hands. Thin wrists. No armor, no power, no glowing eyes. Just Jaune. "I..." He swallowed. "What just happened to me?" No answer. The chamber was silent and dark. The carvings on the walls stared blankly.

He reached for the sword, grabbed it, and nearly pulled his shoulder out of its socket trying to lift it. He ended up dragging it by the crossguard, the blade scraping a groove in the stone floor.
"I'll figure it out later," he told himself. "Survive first. Figure out later. That's the rule."

He dragged the sword out of the chamber, through the corridor, over the rubble, and out through the skull gate. The cavern was empty. The Grimm were gone. Faint moonlight filtered down through whatever opening he'd originally fallen through, illuminating a path back toward the cave mouth.

The climb out of the cave system took nearly an hour. The sword was agonizingly heavy. His body was a catalog of injuries, cuts, bruises, probable cracked ribs, muscles that were going to be screaming at him tomorrow. But the Grimm were gone, and he was alive, and that was more than he'd expected an hour ago.

The crash site was still burning when he emerged from the tree line. The airship had come down hard about a mile east, a crumpled wreck of metal and wire, half-buried in the forest floor, fires still flickering in the wreckage. Emergency flares had been set up in a rough perimeter, and a small cluster of survivors huddled near the still-warm engines.

Seven people. Maybe eight. Jaune counted as he approached. Injured, shellshocked, but alive. One of the hired Huntsmen, the woman was still on her feet, her arm in a makeshift sling, a pistol in her good hand. Her partner was nowhere to be seen.

She spotted Jaune coming out of the trees and raised the pistol before lowering it. "Survivor?" she called out. "Yeah." Jaune's voice was hoarse. He was aware that he looked like he'd been dragged through a forest by a pack of animals, which, in fairness, he had. "Got thrown clear."

"You hurt?" "Maybe? I think I'm okay."

She gave him a once-over. Her eyes lingered on the torn jacket, the one with claw marks across the chest where the Beowolf had raked him and the unbroken skin visible underneath. She frowned slightly but didn't say anything about it.

"What's with the sword?" she asked, nodding at the thing he was dragging behind him. Jaune looked down at the sword of power. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "Family heirloom," he said.

She stared at it. It was the size of a small person, covered in cave dust, and looked absolutely nothing like any weapon she'd ever seen. "Okay," she said, in the tone of someone who had already used up her daily allotment of energy for questioning things. "Sit down. Rescue ships'll be here by morning."

Jaune sat. He leaned the sword against a piece of debris. He stared at the broken moon, both pieces of it, hanging in the sky like a shattered plate and felt the phantom echo of that power still humming somewhere deep in his chest.

I have the power.He said it silently, to himself, like a secret, Like a promise. He live up to the legacies of the previous users from that vision.

Another part of Remnant: location unknown

He did not know how long he had been frozen.

There was no way to measure it. No reference points. No ticking clock, no rising sun, no heartbeat to count. There had been a single moment of terrible clarity, the cold rushing in, his body locking in place, his scream dying in his throat and then an eternity of nothing. Not sleep. Not death. Something between. A void where thought was impossible and time was meaningless and the only sensation was cold, and the void
Then suddwnly there was warmth.

Faint. Distant. Like the first ray of dawn on the far side of a long, long night. It seeped into the void, melting the edges of the ice, and with the warmth, came sensation first in his fingers, then his hands, then his arms, spreading through his body like fire through dry kindling.

The ice cracked.

He gasped, a sharp, involuntary inhalation that was more reflex than biology, since the lungs that would have drawn that breath had long since rotted away. His body jerked. His hands, bone-white, clawed, familiar pressed against cold stone.

There was more cracking and the ice that had encased him shattering, falling away in jagged pieces that rang against the floor like broken glass. He straightened up, and the motion sent more ice tumbling off his shoulders, his back, his skull.

Skeletor stood in a rough, natural cave that was not his throne room. The disorientation hit him like a physical blow. He swayed, one hand shooting out to brace against the cave wall, and it took him several long seconds to reorient himself. His body was stiff wrong like a machine that had been shut down for too long and was struggling to remember its own functions. His magic was a dim ember where it should have been a roaring fire.

"How long..." His voice was a rasp, unused, the vocal cords equivalent of rusted hinges. "How long was I..."

He couldn't finish the question. He didn't have the answer. The void had erased any ability to track time.

He reached for his power, the dark magic that was as much a part of him as his skull, and felt for Snake Mountain. For the connection he'd always had with his fortress, the bond that let him feel its stones as extensions of his own body.

It was there. He could sense it. It was below him, deep below, Buried even. The realization made him go very still. Snake Mountain, his fortress, his seat of power, the symbol of his dominion was underground. Entombed in earth and stone and root systems, hidden away like a dirty secret. As if the world itself had tried to bury it and forget it existed.

"No."

He reached down through the bond, through the stone and dirt, and grabbed his fortress with both hands of his will.

"NO."

Above ground, the forest didn't so much explode as rearrange itself. Trees toppled. Boulders launched skyward. The earth split along a jagged fault line that ran for nearly a mile in either direction, and from the wound in the planet, Snake Mountain rose.

It came up slow at first, the peak breaking the surface like a breaching leviathan, stone and black metal and serpentine architecture emerging from the torn earth. Then faster, the main body of the fortress surging upward, shedding tons of soil and rock and the roots of trees that had grown over it during its burial. The snake-shaped pillars emerged, their carved fangs dripping with mud. The main keep rose, dark windows blinking open like eyes adjusting to light after years of darkness. And finally the observatory at the peak, the skull-shaped dome that crowned Snake Mountain, broke free and pointed its empty gaze at the sky.

The shockwave flattened a perfect circle of forest for a quarter mile in every direction. Dust rose in a column that was visible for miles.
Skeletor stood at the summit, his purple cloak whipping in the wind, and threw his arms wide.

"YES!" His voice was coming back now, stronger, louder, fed by the rising power of his reconnected fortress. "YES! I HAVE RETURNED! YOUR MASTER LIVES AGAIN!"

He laughed, a wild, triumphant, slightly unhinged laugh that echoed off the mountainside and rolled through the forest like thunder. Somewhere in the distance, a flock of Nevermores took flight in panic. Grimm that had been drawn by the commotion paused, their instinctive aggression warring with something they didn't understand, a primal recognition that the thing standing on the mountain was not prey.

The laughter died as Skeletor tilted his head back and looked at the sky. He saw the moon, or what remained of it. It was shattered, Not one moon but a cluster of large fragments floating in loose formation, surrounded by a haze of smaller debris and dust. The pieces caught the starlight in a way that scattered pale light across the landscape below, beautiful, in its way, but profoundly, unmistakably wrong.

Skeletor's jaw dropped open.
He stared at the broken moon for five seconds... Ten... finaly Twenty seconds. His skeletal hands, still raised in triumphant posture, slowly lowered to his sides.

His eye sockets narrowed. He looked away from the moon and turned his gaze downward, to the land itself, the dark forest, the unfamiliar terrain, the wrong-shaped mountains on the horizon. He reached out with his magic, thin and rusty as it was, and tasted the world.

And he froze, not from cold that imprisoned him this time, but from recognition. He knew this world. It was... impossible, but this world was Eternia. It had to be. The bones of it were right the lay of the land, the position of the mountain ranges, the shape of the coastlines far to the east that he could feel through the stone beneath his feet. The geography was correct. The fundamental architecture of the planet was the same. This was Eternia. But it's wrong now.

It was like looking at a painting that had been left out in the rain. The shapes were there, the composition was recognizable, but the colors had bled and faded and the canvas was warped and everything that had once made it magnificent was now dull and thin and diminished. The magic of the land, the vibrant, pulsing, alive force that had once saturated every stone and river and breath of wind on Eternia, was barely a whisper. A mare shadow of a shadow. As if the world's splendor had been systematically taken from it. Stripped away. Smothered under something heavy and cold and suffocating until what remained was barely recognizable.

Skeletor's clawed hands trembled at his sides not from weakness, not from cold, but from something that might have been fury and might have been grief and was probably both.

"This is Eternia," he breathed. "But diminished. Ruined. Something... something took it. Something smothered it. The magic, the life, the, this world should be singing and instead it's barely whispering."

He closed his eye sockets and reached deeper, past the thin, anemic magical residue that coated the land like dust, down to the bedrock of the world itself. And there, buried deep, almost too faint to detect, he found it.

The heart of Eternia. Still beating. Still alive. Faintly, weakly, like a dying ember buried under ash. But there.

And as he stood on the peak of his newly risen fortress, as his own dark magic seeped back into the stone and soil of the land he had once sought to conquer, he could taste it.

Returning.

Slowly. Incrementally. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction. But returning. As if his very presence his will, his power, his existence in this place after so long absent, was acting as a catalyst. A spark in dry kindling. The land remembered him, and the memory alone was enough to stir something that had lain dormant for longer than he could calculate.

His eyes opened.

"This is Eternia," he said again, but this time his voice was different. The bewilderment was gone. The shock was gone. What remained was something cold and sharp and hungry. "My Eternia. Broken. Diminished. Smothered. But mine."

He looked at the shattered moon with new eyes. Not confusion now. Not horror. Assessment. The moon was broken. The magic was fading. The world was a shadow of what it had been.

Which meant no one was strong enough to stop him.

The grin that spread across his skull was not a pleasant sight. It was the grin of a predator that had just realized the fence around the sheep pen had fallen down.

"I can feel it waking," he murmured, flexing his fingers, feeling the land's magic respond to the motion like a dog pricking up its ears at its master's whistle. "Even now. Even with my power barely kindled. The land remembers its master. And as I grow stronger, so will it. As I rise, so will Eternia rise, under my hand."

He turned from the edge of the summit and strode toward the entrance of his fortress, his cloak snapping behind him. His boots rang on the obsidian floor. The walls of Snake Mountain hummed around him, responding to his will, eager and hungry after centuries of silence.

"Let the moon be broken," he said, his voice echoing through the stone corridors. "Let the magic be thin. Let this world be a dim and pathetic husk of what it once was. It doesn't matter. All of it, the land, the power, the splendor that was stolen from it, it will all return. And when it does, I will be the one holding the leash."

He paused at the threshold of his throne room still half-buried in rubble, but clearing rapidly under the push of his magic, and placed one hand on the doorframe.

"This world was taken from me once. By He-Man. By the Sorceress. By every fool who ever stood in my way." His grip tightened. Stone cracked under his fingers. "They won't get the chance again. By the time anyone realizes what's happening, Eternia will be mine every inch of it, every spark of its faded glory, every last drop of power wrung from these broken stones and this shattered sky."

He stepped inside his throne room and let the darkness swallow him. "And I will start," he said softly, "by finding whoever just touched the Sword of Power."

Somewhere to the east, in the ruins of a crashed airship, a blonde boy in a torn hoodie sat with his back against a piece of warm debris, staring at a sword that was far too heavy for him to lift for the moment and wondered what he'd gotten himself into.

He didn't know he was being hunted.

Not yet.

 

[AJ_Talon]

The Arc family farmhouse table in Radian was heavy with the rich, hearty spread of a proper summer lunch—fresh bread still warm from the oven, thick stews, and platters of garden vegetables that Lilac had helped harvest that morning. Team RWBY and JNPR sat scattered among Nick, Isabel, Lilac, and the quiet presence of Orchid Arc, who tapped away at her computer at the far end of the table without looking up.

Nick leaned back in his chair, a familiar mischievous glint already lighting his eyes as he regarded the girls.

"You know… while you're here, ladies… I was wondering if you'd be willing to do some taste testing for us?"

Ruby tilted her head. "What kind of taste testing?"

"Well… I mean, our hospital does make a fair amount of money, but we're all trying to make more cash for the farm. Sooo… we're trying some new foods! Stuff I ate all the time as a kid that Lilac and Tangy think might be luxury goods!"

Weiss's eyes narrowed with polite interest. "Oh?"

Jaune nearly choked on his water. "Wha? This is news to me too!"

Isabel walked in from the kitchen just in time to hear it, her expression already long-suffering. "Oh dear, Jaune, I wonder why that is…"

Jaune winced a bit, as Ruby and Pyrrha frowned. Still, Isabel did smile warmly, which softened her rebuke.

Lilac only smiled, calm as ever. "Well, we're always trying to expand, Jaune."

Yang's grin was pure challenge. "Anything spicy?"

Nick's answering grin was wider. "Yes!"

Nick was already at the cabinet. He snatched down a jar of deep, angry red salsa and held it aloft like a trophy. "Who wants to try some of the Super Hyper Hot Salsa I made with Papa Shirou?"

Jaune's eyes went wide with pure, remembered trauma. "Oh no… dad, don't tell me… you and grandpa—"

"This is made from peppers we harvested in the jungles of Vacuo!" Nick declared proudly.

Isabel's voice rose. "You told me you went there on a Grimm hunting expedition!"

"I can do two things at once! It grew on the grounds of a former insane asylum!"

"Honey… that's still not a good sign…"

"And it's rated at least fifteen million on the Scoville Scale!"

Yang slammed a hand on the table. "Challenge accepted!"

"NO YANG!!! IT'S A TRAP!" Jaune nearly vaulted across the table.

Yang only laughed, tipping her chin up. "Nothing's too spicy for me~!"

Nora bounced in her seat. "I wanna try too!"

Chips were poured. Yang wasted no time dipping one deep into the lethal red sauce and popping it into her mouth. For half a second she chewed with pure bravado.

Then her face went scarlet.

"HA! I can… take… anything… I…"

"Yang, drink some milk," Ruby said worriedly. Yang shook her head, even as her hair lit up.

"N-No... I'm... Fine... This... Is nothing...!"

"You're literally on fire," Blake observed.

"I'm fine...!"

Jaune was already thrusting a carton of milk at her. "JUST CHUG THE MILK YANG!!!"

"NO! M-Milk… is for quitters… Give me another chip!"

He leaned right into her space, voice low and deadly serious. "Yang… drink… the… milk."

Yang twitched.

Five seconds later, she was in the corner, guzzling water and milk like her life depended on it, eyes watering, cheeks still burning. Isabel only sighed and muttered something about an emergency bed on standby.

Pyrrha straightened, determined. "I'll try it next!"

"NO!" Jaune barked.

Nora had already stolen a chip. "NOM!"

Silence.

Then Nora exhaled a perfect little tongue of actual flame.

"UWAHHHHHH!"

Orchid blinked. Nick applauded.

"HAHA! AWESOME!" The tall bearded man cheered.

Jaune stared. "…Well… that's not entirely unprecedented for her…"

Ren, ever prepared, calmly pulled a fire extinguisher from under the table and fired into into Nora's mouth.

"Haaa... Thanks Renny!"

"You'll get used to it," he deadpanned.

Jaune turned on his father. "Dad… maybe we can put up the salsa… you've proven your point I think."

Nick laughed it off and produced a small tin instead. "Okay, okay… maybe not that… Oh! Who likes caviar?"

Weiss's hand rose immediately. "I like it!"

Pyrrha nodded. "Yes, I am fond of it."

"Well… WE MADE SOME!"

Jaune squinted. "Wait, how? We don't have any tanks for fish to spawn in—"

Ruby blinked. "Wait, what's caviar?"

"Fish eggs!" Weiss answered.

Ruby looked faintly horrified. "Why would you eat those?"

Yang, still recovering, managed a hoarse, "Why do we eat chicken eggs, Ruby?"

Nick puffed up. "No no! These… are escargot caviar!" He opened the tin to reveal pearly white spheres. "Snail eggs."

Ruby's voice cracked. "SNAIL EGGS?!"

Nora leaned toward Jaune. "Jaaaune, why is your dad committing food crimes?"

Jaune only shrugged, fond and resigned. "In his defense, he actually knows what he's doing… he just likes to push boundaries."

Weiss considered the tin with new interest. "Hm. That's actually rarer than fish caviar… I'll try it."

Pyrrha's quiet smile followed. "As will I."

Sour cream and crackers appeared. Weiss took a measured bite, then hummed. "…Huh. It's actually pretty good, if a bit common tasting."

Nick beamed. "I'm super common!"

Lilac's voice was soft and certain. "No, Father. You're one of a kind."

Isabel's quiet agreement carried across the table. "That's for sure."

Jaune muttered into his glass, "And thank the Breaker for it…"

Yang leaned sideways toward Pyrrha, voice low enough that only the redhead caught it. "Maybe not too unique if Nick's physique is a hint of the future, eh P-money?"

Pyrrha went scarlet. "I don't know what you're talking about… and besides, you were looking too!"

Yang's grin turned wicked. "Oh, so you're saying he's open market! Then I'll just go stake my claim!"

"No! I didn't say—" Pyrrha shoved a cracker piled high with caviar straight into Yang's mouth. "OH NO YOU WERE SO HUNGRY YANG HAVE IT ALL!"

"MMPH!"

Ruby, chewing thoughtfully on her own sample, only shrugged. "Huh… this isn't too bad!"

Nick clapped once. "Okay! Lilac… bring out the pâté!"

Lilac returned with a plate of soft, perfectly formed meat patties that looked almost elegant.

"But…" Nick held up a finger, eyes sparkling, "I can't tell you what it is until you eat it! But it is meat!"

Jaune's suspicion was instant. "Dad… at least a hint."

"Lamb."

Jaune relaxed. "OH… well that's not too bad."

A little later, after the pâté had been sampled and found perfectly respectable...

"So, what's the surprise?" Weiss asked happily. "What part of the lamb is this made from? It's not the liver, I know that much."

Nick grinned broadly as he popped another loaded cracker into his mouth.

"Lamb brains!"

Silence. Weiss turned green.

"Excuse me please... I'm going to go be violently ill out back."

"You're excused," Isabel said wryly, as Weiss fled out the door. Retching sounds were soon heard. Nora and Ren shrugged, and continued eating.

"Food is food, and this is yummy!" Nora declared.

"Indeed," Ren nodded.

"It is a delicacy in Argus," Pyrrha added, "I might help advertise for it?"

"Wonderful!" Lilac cheered, clapping her hands together. Jaune beamed at Pyrrha.

"Thanks Pyr. That's great!"

Pyrrha blushed heavily and nodded. Yang and Ruby scowled. Blake smirked a bit, enjoying the show and the pate'.

Weiss came back in, blushing.

"Ah... My apologies," she said quickly.

"It's not for everyone!" Nick declared. "Now... The last offering! ICE CREAM!"

He produced two tubs of ice cream that looked innocent enough. Everyone was wary though. Lilac beamed.

"I helped with one of them! It's Lavender Honey Flavor!"

"Oh, that sounds lovely!" Weiss said with a smile. Lilac opened her tub, and it was a pleasant purple flavor.

"Yeah!" Ruby said, "And the other?"

Nick grinned and pulled his tub open. It was practically glowing with how bright red and orange it was.

"Menagerian Death Pepper Flavor!"

"Seriously, Nick?!" Isabel demanded. Nick pouted.

"What? It's super good! And a challenge of bravery!"

Blake's ears flattened. "Menagerie? Sir… Menagerians won't eat those peppers!"

"Which makes anyone who has some even braver!"

All of RWBY and JNPR went for Lilac's ice cream... Save for one.

Yang, still determined to reclaim her dignity, dove into the glowing ice cream without hesitation.

"YANG!" Ruby cried.

"Th-That was just a fluke! I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED! Plus it's ice cream, how hot could it be?"

The answer, it turned out, was very.

Yang's face went from determined to panicked in seconds. "I'm… I'm fine…!"

Weiss's voice rose in pure alarm. "YOU'RE LITERALLY ON FIRE!"

"THAT'S MY SEMBLANCE!"

"THAT'S WORSE!"

Nick took a serene spoonful of the same ice cream. "Mmm… I don't know what your issue is, this is great!"

Jaune stared at his mother. "Mom, have you checked dad's taste buds for… irregularities… or just general presence?"

Isabel's smile was soft and long-suffering. "It's just him, sweetie. I ran the test at least four times. His taste buds can take the heat better."

"I don't know if 'better' is the right word, Mom…"

"You have the same, you know," Isabel drawled.

Jaune shook his head.

"Yeah but I'm not a glutton for punishment," he muttered, as Yang washed down the spice with more milk. She glared at him, her competitive fire flaring again despite the lingering heat. "What…? You think you can handle hotter food than me?!"

"Wha—I didn't say that!"

"Then you try it!"

"I didn't say—"

Nora started the chant. "TRY IT! TRY IT!"

Yang didn't wait. She shoved a spoon full of the Death Pepper Ice Cream straight into Jaune's mouth.

Jaune chewed once. Twice. Then blinked, thoughtful. "Huh. It is spicy… but the good kind."

And then—without breaking eye contact—he caught Yang's wrist, guided her melted ice cream-slick fingers to his lips, and slowly licked them clean.

The table went very quiet.

Yang's face flushed a deep, burning red that had nothing to do with peppers. Weiss's cheeks pinked. Pyrrha's hand fluttered uselessly near her mouth. Ruby's silver eyes went wide. Blake only smirked and quietly opened a notebook, scribbling something that looked suspiciously like notes.

Yang's voice came out high and strangled. "What the—HOW?!"

Pyrrha's was soft with pure admiration. "Oh my… amazing, Jaune!"

Nick's laughter boomed across the kitchen. "HAHAHA! My boy's tasted so many hot things!"

Yang only turned a deeper shade of crimson.

Jaune sat back, tongue still tingling, and muttered to no one in particular, "I think my taste buds burned off…"

Yang, in a snap decision, punched him while blushing up a storm.

"A-ASS!"

"OW! WHAT?!"