[RWBY] The Great Temporal Step-Sibling War!

[AndrewJTalon]

- - -

The Vacuo safehouse was a tomb of silence in the dead of night: Sand whispering against the windows, the distant howl of wind the only company. Jaune Arc couldn't sleep. The Ever After clung to him like a second skin. Yang had reverted after, but him?

Maybe he was in a young man's body again, but his soul still felt old.

He wandered the halls barefoot, humming under his breath—a restless melody that had haunted him since their return.

"There must be some way out of here…"

"Said the joker to the thief," a familiar voice sang back, soft and almost bitter, from the kitchen.

The light glowed soft and golden. Jaune paused in the doorway.

"There's too much confusion..." Jaune sang.

Yang stood at the sink, back rigid, golden hair cascading loose like a waterfall of fire. Her hands gripped the counter's edge hard enough to dent metal. She sang the next verse: Low, frustrated, edged with pain.

"I can't get no relief," she grit out.

Jaune's heart twisted. "Couldn't sleep either?"

She didn't turn, but her shoulders hunched. "This stupid song. It's been looping in my head since we got back. Won't shut up."

He stepped closer, voice gentle. "Same here."

Yang finally faced him—lilac eyes shadowed, glistening with unshed tears she'd never let fall in daylight. The woman who burned bright enough to light up his entire world looked… small.

He reached out for her, but she pulled away. Hurt filled his eyes.

"Yang?" He whispered.

"I nearly killed you," she whispered, voice cracking like dry earth. "In that place… I was a monster. Mindless. And I almost—" Her fists clenched, nails biting palms. "I almost ended you. The man I love. And this damn song just keeps playing, like it's mocking me for failing you."

Jaune closed the distance slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal. "Yang… I forgive you. I forgave you-."

She laughed—wet, broken, furious. "You shouldn't. Damn it, Jaune, you shouldn't. I loved you—love you—and I hurt you. I could've taken everything from you. From us. And you just… let it go? Like it didn't rip your heart out?"

Her voice rose, trembling with the weight she'd carried alone.

'"Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth. None of them along the line know what any of it is worth-FUCK! Just... Stop it! STOP IT!"

Before he could reach for her, footsteps padded in.

Oscar Pine—eyes ancient with Ozma's weight—paused in the doorway, a sad chuckle escaping.

"I haven't heard that song in thousands of years," he said softly. "Curious how some things endure."

Jaune seized the brief reprieve. "You know it?"

Oscar nodded, moving to the window. Moonlight silvered his face as he sang-voice rich, layered with lifetimes of loss.

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief." There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief…"

Each verse carried centuries: weariness, defiance, the ache of inevitability.

"Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth. None of them along the line know what any of it is worth…"

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke. "There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke…"

"But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate. So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late…"

The chorus rose—haunting, eternal.

"All along the watchtower, princes kept the view. While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too…"

"Outside in the distance, a wildcat did growl. Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl."

The final note faded.

Yang's voice was barely a breath. "What… does it mean?"

Oscar turned, eyes distant. "Even I don't fully know. It was ancient when I was young. Salem loved it—played it in quieter moments. There's confrontation in it. Destiny approaching. Ominous, terrible… yet beautiful. I've wondered if the divine wrote it—an eternal rhyme of humanity's pull toward conflict."

He gave them a weary smile and slipped away, leaving them alone.

The silence stretched, thick with everything unsaid.

Jaune stepped closer—close enough to feel the heat radiating from her. He broke the quiet first.

"The problem isn't that I can forgive you, Yang."

She looked up, eyes shimmering. "Then what is it?"

"It's that you can't forgive yourself."

Yang's breath hitched. Tears spilled over, tracing hot paths down her cheeks.

"I should've been stronger," she whispered, voice breaking. "Better. I've carried everything-kept Ruby safe, let her grow into this amazing person. We beat Cinder at Haven, stopped a whole damn war. Got everyone out of Atlas. Denied Salem everything she wanted. We survived that hell in the Ever After and… and still I turned into a monster and nearly took you from me."

Jaune didn't speak. He simply wrapped his arms around her-tight, unyielding, like he could hold all her broken pieces together.

She resisted for a heartbeat-then shattered.

Yang clung to him, face buried in his shoulder, sobs tearing free-raw, wrenching, the kind she'd never allowed anyone to see. Her fingers dug into his shirt like he was the only anchor in a storm.

"You were never a monster," he murmured into her hair, voice thick. "Not to me. You were fighting—always fighting. Even when you lost yourself, you came back. For me. For us."

Her body shook harder. "I was so scared I'd lost you forever."

"You didn't," he said fiercely. "You won't. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

Outside, the first rays of dawn crept over the dunes: Soft gold painting the desert, chasing away the long night.

Inside, Yang cried until there were no tears left. Until the song in her head quieted, until the guilt loosened its grip just enough to breathe.

Jaune held her through it all.

And when the sun finally rose, they faced it together.

- - -


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfaTEGGtVf8&list=RDxfaTEGGtVf8&start_radio=1

 

[AndrewJTalon]

Solitas, Atlas

- - -

The Schnee Dust Company's executive tower burned in the distance, Atlas's skyline fractured by the chaos of Salem's attempt to induce civil war. But in the abandoned sub-levels beneath the manor, the real betrayal unfolded.

Whitley Schnee—once the perfect heir, now hardened by months of quiet rebellion—stood beside Fafnir as Atlas authorities stormed Jacques's hidden vault. Evidence of embezzlement, worker exploitation, even ties to Watts's hacks—compiled by Whitley with Fafnir's silent aid and RWBY and JNOR's help securing the evidence—sealed Jacques's fate.

Jacques raged as cuffs clicked around his wrists. "You ungrateful whelp! And you—my own weapon—betraying me?"

Fafnir's red eyes were steady. "Debt's paid."

As the dragon turned to leave, his body locked. Eyes flickered unnatural green.

"Fafnir?!" Weiss cried.

"Override engaged," Watts's voice purred through hidden speakers. "Time to earn your keep, pet."

Fafnir's wings snapped open. His sword Knarra was unsheathed with the scream of high-frequency vibration.

Teams RWBY and JNOR charged into battle. Weiss hesitated.

"Fafnir—no!" She cried.

He didn't hear her. Watts's control was absolute.

The fight erupted in the manor's grand atrium—marble floors cracking under impacts, chandeliers shattering in Dust explosions.

Fafnir was a storm.

Wings buffeted hurricane winds. Knarra carved through Ruby's petals like paper and she barely evaded his strikes. His Terror Semblance rolled out in waves—Blake froze mid-shadow clone, Nora's hammer wavered, Ren's normally stoic face twisted in primal fear.

Even under mind control, he was merciless precision.

Yang charged first, gauntlets blazing. She was too angry to be afraid. "Snap out of it, you big lizard!"

Fafnir's claw caught her mid-punch, hurling her through a pillar. Weiss's glyphs shattered against his armor. Oscar used what little magic he had learned, but the spells barely slowed the cyborg down.

They were losing.

Jaune saw it—the way Fafnir's movements, though brutal, still carried that old warrior's economy. Watts was using him like a puppet, but the dragon's strength remained.

Jaune planted Crocea Mors point-down.

"Everyone—close in! I'm Amping!"

His Semblance flared gold, pouring into his teammates. Aura surged—wounds knitting, reserves refilling, fear blunted.

Fafnir sensed the shift. Watts's borrowed voice snarled through the mask's speakers.

"Priority target: the Amplifier."

Fafnir yanked Dust grenades from his belt—flash, smoke, concussive force-and unleashed them wildly. The blasts scattered the teams like leaves.

Jaune stood alone in the clearing smoke, coughing.

He'd counted on it.

Fafnir descended like judgment—wings flaring, Knarra screaming down in an overhead strike that could cleave a tank.

Jaune didn't dodge.

He stepped in, shield raised, and took the blow full-force. The impact drove him to one knee, Aura cracking—but he locked his arms around Fafnir's sword arm, holding the dragon in place.

Terror hit him like a tidal wave.

Every nightmare Jaune had ever buried—failing his team, watching them die, being too weak—flooded his mind in paralyzing clarity. His vision tunneled. His grip faltered.

Fafnir's free claw hammered down—once, twice—cracking ribs, splitting skin, even as Jaune's Aura flickered.

Jaune held on. He looked up into the eyes of the monster that had guarded Weiss most of her life.

Through blood in his mouth, he rasped, "You're… stronger… than this…"

The others recovered.

Yang and Weiss struck from the front—Ember Celica detonating against Fafnir's plating, Myrtenaster piercing and freezing joints with Ice Dust.

Ruby and Blake attacked from range—Crescent Rose's sniper rounds finding weak points, Blake using her Shadow clones to draw any attention while she fired on Fafnir with Gambol Shroud.

Ren slipped in close, Aura charged palms striking pressure points to disrupt motor control, while he fired shots from Stormflower to chip away at Fafnir's Aura.

Nora came from behind—Magnhild charged to maximum, hammer blow landing square between the wings.

The combined assault shattered Fafnir's defenses. His armor and knees buckled. His cybernetics sparked. Knarra fell from his nerveless fingers.

He dropped to his knees.

Watts's voice crackled, full of fury.

"Get up! Finish them!"

Fafnir's claw twitched toward the fallen sword.

"FAFNIR!" Weiss screamed.

His claw stopped.

"KILL THEM!" Watts bellowed.

With a roar of effort—pure will against the machines that made up his body—Fafnir seized Knarra's hilt...

And drove it through his own heart.

The blade punched clean through cybernetic chest plating, high-frequency edge cauterizing as it went.

He collapsed forward.

Weiss caught him—glyphs softening the fall, arms wrapping around the massive frame as he sagged. She kept him on his knees. She looked anxiously into his face, as Jaune struggled to get back up. Ruby was already applying Healing Dust.

"No, wait, I can help-!" Jaune gasped.

"You're coughing blood! Hold on!" Ruby shouted.

"Fafnir—!" Weiss cried.

His mask fell away. Watts's connection severed with a final electronic scream.

Red eyes met hers—clear, for the first time in a long time.

"I-I have Healing Dust, I can still-!" Weiss tried, but Fafnir shook his head.

"No... It's over..." he rasped, blood—real blood—bubbling at the corner of his ruined mouth.

Weiss's voice broke. "You idiot—why—"

Fafnir's eyes were almost soft.

"I swore... To protect you," he whispered. Whitley dropped down next to him, his eyes wide in disbelief. He glanced at Whitley, and nodded in approval.

"Always… remain strong." A claw—gentle now—brushed Weiss's cheek, careful of the metal tips, to wipe away her tears. "Apologize… for not being stronger. For not… ending him sooner."

His gaze drifted to the others—to Jaune, barely standing with Ruby's help. He nodded in respect to the blonde.

"At least… I die… a warrior. Not… a slave."

His hand fell.

The red glow faded.

Weiss held him as the massive body went still—tears cutting clean tracks through dust and blood on her face.

She didn't know what she felt.

Grief for the monster who'd protected her from childhood.

Rage at the father who'd forged him into a weapon.

Relief that the dragon had chosen his own end.

All of it tangled, raw and aching.

Yang laid a hand on her shoulder. Ruby knelt beside her, silent. Jaune joined her. Weiss looked into his eyes, the sobs breaking free. She leaned into his touch as he held her.

They stayed there until the authorities came—until the snow began to fall through the shattered skylight above.

Fafnir Volsung, last of his clan, died free.

And Weiss Schnee grieved for the complicated truth of it all.