"There's a garden~ where I go~ If you meet me there, no one will know~"
Adam couldn't help but tap a foot to the beat of Jaune's guitar.
His new eye gazed over at the adult Faunus working out in the new Menagerie Solar Field just on the edge of the settlement of the currently unofficial Kingdom of Menagerie. Two weeks had transformed the outside of the settlement originally used for nothing.
It took a bit getting used to. Sometimes he would accidentally use the zoom in feature when he didn't mean to and walk into walls as a result from the disorientation, but currently it was working as intended as he gazed at groups of people assembling what Jaune called Solar Panels following a simple instruction manual the younger boy wrote and made copies of.
Another group of Faunus were setting and arranging the completed panels from the previous day out onto the tied Iron Bamboo frames to keep the panels off of the sand and prevent them from sinking into it.
"In the springtime~ in the sun~ we can be alone without anyo~one~"
The bamboo was one of the few bits of native vegetation that grew on the island nation without issues or hardship.
They lived up to their namesake, being almost as hard as iron and having a long usability lifespan after being cut down. They grew quickly all over in small groves as well, easily reaching twenty feet of height in a matter of a week.
Decently flame resistant as well and not as prone to burning even when dried.
A bit of a miracle building material for the Faunus peoples of Menagerie if you ignored the fact they couldn't be molded or cut into planks.
Jaune was technically supposed to be overwatching his Multi-Fabricator, a giant rectangular HUNK of a machine that looked more industrial than high-tech. However as long as Jaune input some sort of blueprint and you fed the proper materials into it, the machine would churn out the item you needed.
"All the butterflies~ and the birds~ keep our secret-no they won't say a wo~ord."
It had already been loaded up this morning with crates of materials to the side.
He was sure the Schnees would probably kill for one of these. That was the reason he'd volunteered to 'keep Jaune company' as a guard.
That specialist lady from Atlas was also nearby, but she was an Atlas drone. Even if she was a Faunus there was no telling if she'd been bought out by the SDC.
Maybe someone might say that Adam was too paranoid.
No. He'd just seen even his own kind bought off in the military before. The Eden Crag mines that he had been working and branded at had been under the supervision of specifically a Faunus officer that had been bought off.
Fucking traitors.
"But they watch us~ and they know~ And they're happy as they see our love grow~"
Blake was an idealist. Practical and pragmatic, but idealistic. She saw what she wanted to see. Change happening because of one Faunus that was special.
But Adam had seen what happened to 'special' Faunus in the mines.
If they displayed too much leadership or were strong enough that other workers started to band around them, human or Faunus (not all miners were Faunus and human miners were treated poorly as well) then they'd all conveniently either disappear after working their lives away or be bought off to spread SDC propaganda.
And when the latter happened it wasn't surprising that a fellow miner turned on them and one or both of them would die.
He was told that all the mines operated differently, that his was particularly bad.
Adam didn't think that mattered at all. If even a single one of them would devolve into such a pit of poison then they all deserved to burn. But the world needed Dust. Everything ran off of it.
But maybe that didn't have to.
"We'll sit for a while~ as I drink in your smile~ It feels like a dream that's come true~"
Jaune claimed that Solar wasn't enough for everything if the settlement got too big. He'd donated (fucking for free) a frankly ridiculous number of boxes of solar cells that he'd been carrying in his Semblance (frankly he was a smuggler's wet dream) to make the panels with.
The most important component, the only part they'd be unable to produce without specialty equipment. For now.
The rest could be more or less produced on the island, even if it'd have some complications here and there.
They did have some skilled hands in Menagerie, after all. Even a small manufacturing plant, even though it was truly small. And they couldn't always afford to power it.
Hell he'd heard that Jaune's one Fabricator machine more or less had similar output to the whole plant.
"My head starts to buzz~ and my heart fills with love~ over youu~uuu~"
He saw the Multi-Fabricator expand as it spat out another lithium battery the size of a large guard dog from the mines, silently dispensing it gently on the grid of iron bamboo used as a palette with extended robotic arms. They withdrew quickly into the machine and it began to hum quietly as it formed the next battery.
A pair of adult Faunus came in and quietly took the pallet with the battery as a third replaced it before helping the first two.
They smiled fondly at the boy adding a sense of happy mood to the whole of the work site.
If it wasn't for the fact that after the first week they'd done a small scale test of the Solar Farm's capabilities they wouldn't be so fond.
It was actually kind of disheartening. His own fellow Faunus needed to be goaded into helping contribute with extra pay to work on something so large scale and unproven. Couldn't they just take Chieftain Ghira at his word? He believed in this endeavor, that should be enough.
Now they were volunteering their free time for the sake of their small budding Kingdom only after the Solar Farm powered half of Menagerie for a night. Like they should already have been from the beginning.
Of course the built up power had sputtered out of power a few hours before sunrise and it was also true that not a lot of houses actually had been connected to the grid. And yes, Menagerie wasn't actually that big, but it was the principle.
Proof.
"Baby, can't you see~ You could be with me~ We could live inside a garden of ecstasy~"
And there were plenty like Adam that just wanted to shove a finger at the SDC and their ilk and would do anything to do so.
Defending the Solar Farm would be a headache that Chieftain Ghira would have to figure out, and expanding it equally so if needed, but they had a LOT of unusable desert to sort with.
But now his fellow Faunus were all smiles and not whispering behind Jaune's back like lemmings like they were in the previous week.
Still Jaune was… well. Not quite soft.
He was odd.
Like chewing a piece of juicy meat and suddenly meeting a hard bit of gristle with some fragments of bone.
He had lines he drew in the sand that you couldn't cross without immediately being an enemy.
There were a few neighborhood kids that were too angry at humans that had earned his ire and anger. They didn't show their faces around the Solar Farm or Cafe Cornucopia for a reason.
Jaune had thrown them into the ocean, dragged them out, and tossed them back in again and again until they'd apologized for throwing sand in his brother Ren's face. Or was it cousin? Adam could never tell.
Honestly he didn't care about the details.
"You could be my queen~ I could beee~ yourrrr~ dre~am~ Our lives like a fantasy~"
As long as Jaune kept helping Menagerie that was enough. For now. It might change in the future once he'd have to pick a side.
Adam eyed the blurry almost mirage of Specialist Noire in the distance.
She'd kill any Grimm that was getting too ornery or curious without much fuss with her PileBunker-ChainShot-Tonfa, the weapons not even audible at the distance she operated at.
She'd kept only the bottoms of her Specialist outfit while wearing a black sports bra top, doubling back to a rest station for the workers to pour water over herself whenever she was overheating.
Frankly it was causing work to slow down on occasion as the beautiful bespectacled woman was literally steaming for minutes at a time, huffing air and cooling off in the shade as her top clung skintight from the water.
But it wasn't like they could just ignore the Grimm.
And the Specialist was more efficient alone than the whole of Menagerie's militia at the moment.
"Maybe set me free~ let me be your bumblebee~"
One day Jaune would have to choose. No doubt.
Atlas or Menagerie.
His eyes fixed on the sight of Blake and Yang, the two girls leaning against each other, enjoying a cold beverage in a coconut shell, swaying together as they enjoyed the music, the blonde human girl with her hair tied back with a ridiculous and flashy orange and black ribbon as they sat on a beach towel.
His gaze lingered on Blake who'd closed her eyes with a soft smile, sitting in the shade of a beach umbrella, rubbing shoulders with her human friend.
He'd protect that smile.
If Jaune turned to Atlas in the end, if he became an enemy, an ally of the SDC.
Adam gazed at the boy who was beginning the next verse, his hands tightening with conviction.
He would do whatever must be done.
This was ridiculous.
Befuddling. Absolutely nonsense. It was as if the gods themselves were spitting on his sacrifices!
Arthur Watts nursed a surprisingly well made cup of coffee with only a splash of cream and no sugar.
He was in this backwater nation seething. SEETHING.
His rivalry with Polendina seemed almost childish in comparison.
This child. THIS DAMNED CHILD. His knowledge was nonsense! It upended everything he'd known.
He gazed at the 'Solar Farm' that was the talk of the town. A method of HARNESSING THE ENERGY OF THE SUN!
Ah. It was nostalgic. A childhood fancy from a novel that'd inspired him to enter the scientific field. He hated the rush of childish glee and excitement when he'd seen the results of the solar panels the night of the first test of their power grid.
Ha. He hadn't slept that night.
A dead sweet memory had come to life in front of his eyes and he just wanted to wander into the field and observe. For once to not even scheme, but that opportunity could no longer be.
It felt like the boy was spitting on his empty grave!
And he was a dead man to the world. Unable to benefit from the fruits of the boy's knowledge.
Even his backdoors into the Atlas networks had revealed most of the boy's notes were kept on paper and not photographed for documentation. Need to know basis the digitized documents said.
WHAT WERE THEY FUCKING CAVEMEN?! DOCUMENT FUCKING KNOWLEDGE YOU MONGRELS! By the GODS they were worse than DOGS.
What the hell was wrong with the state of Mechanicus after his faked death?
Not to mention that Ironwood didn't even have the decency to die after all his orchestration of events. His genius machinations! The action that he'd committed to earn a seat on the inevitably winning side of history he'd gleaned from his wiretaps of the General and Headmaster Ozpin.
And the Queen had opened his mind to the truth of history soon after he'd discovered her existence. Once he'd reached that point it was too late to regret anything. His cards had been drawn and it was time to wait for the river. Or whatever Valean gambling analogy it was.
Feh.
And now from the only footage of any value in regards to the boy's technology that existed was one that HE HIMSELF had to leak to witness. Oh he'd seen the fruit of the boy Jaune's ability, alright, because Ironwood was now stronger than he'd ever been.
Polendina was a fool banging around with rocks and sticks compared to a FUCKING BOY from a FARMING VILLAGE IN MISTRAL!
Why had the General chosen him?! The disgrace still burned him inside.
Imagine if only it had been him, Arthur Watts, the coding savant. If he wanted to right now, he could take down the CCT system across EVERY Kingdom simultaneously with the touch of a button.
It would be child's play. Less than that even!
If they'd had his expertise with the boy's mechanical innovations…
Well maybe humanity would have had a chance.
He'd only stayed at their shitty and dirty hotel and the only Cafe in town, thank GODS they'd make a passable cup of coffee.
His normal drones would be too obvious, but he'd fashioned together a crawler drone just small enough that even a child would struggle to notice. He'd debated on commanding it into the blonde human girl's hair, but she was clearly too prideful of it.
But she clung around the boy often.
Having it crawl into the armored lining of her coat was easy, burrowing in a gap in the lining the drone cut out..
Frankly from what he'd observed through the crawler drone's surface scans it had quite the ingenious design that he'd be taking and modifying for his own purposes.
If nothing else, the boy had a good sense of fashion.
The problem was that the boy was a fucking airhead. Goddamn fucking blonds!
His scowl deepened. Even in winter and under the shade of a tropical styled roof it was still hot in Menagerie.
"Is there a problem sir?"
"Ah nothing." Arthur smiled pleasantly quickly, looking as tired as he felt inside, the clear blue layer of color he'd applied over his hair also made him feel like a fool. "I'm just enjoying my vacation but you know, Bat Faunus."
He gestured to his thick sunglasses.
"I'm not nocturnal, but daytime can just be a problem regardless, ha ha."
The barista gave him a smile filled with empathy, leaving a bit and coming back with a rather delightful sweetened pretzel.
"Hey, enjoy your vacation, sir. Something to help with the discomfort. I find a little twilight pretzel helps cheer me up when I feel like killing myself." The barista morbidly joked with a laugh.
He grinned back with a nod of thanks, immediately scowling after the man turned around and away.
Arthur took a bite of the sugary bread. He was pleasantly surprised that this backwater settlement could even make decent baked goods. And it was a geographic issue, not even a race thing.
He wasn't racist, he worked alongside a Faunus in Tyrian, even if that man was not all there in the head.
The reason for his surprise was because this place couldn't even currently grow its own wheat.
Corn could somehow be grown though.
He'd had their corn on the cob. It grew tougher and smaller than it should, but at least it grew. A bit too toothsome though, even if it tasted alright.
Frankly, Arthur Watts hated all peoples equally. If anything he hated more humans than Faunus as well.
He was a man that was above such things. Feh.
His earbud echoed with the incessant singing of the boy Jaune.
It was WORSE that it was actually fucking catchy at this point!
And a love song at that.
He wanted to hurl up the sugary 'twilight pretzel'.
Still he was currently waiting for an email to reach his burner Scroll before he'd be able to activate his next plan.
The Queen did not wish for the potential birth of a Fifth Kingdom, and the more Jaune's budding influence led to the corroboration between Atlas and Menagerie, the closer the backwater desert settlement would become to being officially recognized.
Oh there would be insane amounts of pushback from the racist human populous, but Arthur saw it as an inevitability.
See? He wasn't racist.
Racists were close minded fools and he was no such thing.
Whether he succeeded or failed here he was ordered to retreat.
Frankly he was the only one of the Queen's men that was capable of subtlety and true mass mayhem, but there wasn't enough technology on the island for him to be effective. With that note, the Queen had accepted it might be necessary to make another attempt in the future instead should this not succeed.
She was timeless, after all. She'd win eventually regardless.
Arthur had been ordered to retreat either way. And with his personal stealthed submersible that was currently hidden inside a Grimm just off the coast, he'd be out of Menagerie before anyone could even suspect him.
All he had to do was-
And there it was. A message that the Grimm with his getaway vehicle was in position.
"Shame to end it like this, child." He muttered as he pulled the small earbud from his ear, dropping it and crushing it underfoot. "But the Queen is inevitable."
He walked towards the docks, his finger tapping a button on his Scroll, the worms already preloaded and primed activating in his chosen instruments of chaos as he tossed the device into the ocean.
"Oops. I littered." He joked to himself as he walked to the edge of the dock, seeing the main guns on the Siren Ferry turn on the Defiant Blue.
With a volley of heavy Dust shells the Siren Ferry began to unload upon the Atlasean vessel.
Arthur walked towards the chaos casually as the locals began to run in surprise and terror. There was always something romantic about large battleships firing upon each other, tearing through steeled hulls, scorch marks left behind from the damage of battle.
A bit of a boyish luxury to indulge in.
An empty fruit stall shone with red apples from Mistral on the way up to the Ferry, unmanned by the panicking Faunus merchant that ran from the roar of auto turrets.
He plucked an apple, buffing it casually on his coat. Arthur took a bite as a damaged and imperfect Hard Light shielding began to appear around the Defiant Blue as it tried to block the incoming fire. Arthur had ensured that it would only be at fifty percent operational power at best, but they seemed to have good technicians that began focusing that power specifically to the side of the Defiant that was being fired upon.
A shame. Any lower and it wouldn't have been interesting, but he didn't think they'd have anyone that skilled on board.
The sound of gunfire roared against fine Atlasean Hard-Light shielding as aquatic Grimm approached from beneath the water of the horizon, turning the waters black.
"If only I could access the Farm without risking being recognized." He sighed with a half-mouthful of mulched fruit. "I hate closed networks."
Blake Belladonna awoke to the sound of gunfire.
"Wha-" Her eyes snapped open, Jaune's song being cut out right at the end.
She saw his sister Farbiglas who'd been recording from the side turn the Scroll, secured with a strap to her wrist, towards the bay.
She turned, leaping to her feet as she witnessed the Siren Ferry fire upon the Defiant Blue.
"What? What's going on?!" She gasped. "Why-"
Her eyes widened, the water on the horizon beginning to darken.
Grimm.
Adam quickly stepped to her side, grabbing her by the shoulder as her feet unwittingly began to step forwards.
"Stay here. Whatever happens, don't-"
"The town's about to be swarmed by Grimm!"
She could see Yang nervously reach for her side holsters, pulling out her armored training gauntlets and shakily slipping them over her hands. Her armored fingers stumbled over the buttons of her armored coat, trembling to close it up for protection.
"And what do you think you're going to do, Blake?" Adam hissed, his blue eyes narrowing angrily, "We're kids! You don't even have your Aura!"
"My parents are there!" She argued back. They'd be helping with the evacuation, she'd also have to-
"They've got Jaune and Yang's moms! They're Huntresses. They'll evacuate-"
"We can't evacuate! We'll lose Menagerie!"
"Better than losing our lives!" Adam shouted back.
In the corner of her eyes she could see Jaune muttering something, his ear flicked to the side as if talking to someone she couldn't see. What was he talking to his imaginary friend for RIGHT NOW?!
"What do we do then?" Yang asked, her normal confidence gone as she locked her gauntlets in place, her fingers tapped at her Scroll and she grimaced. "Th-the booster relay's down. I can't call anyone! I can't contact them!"
"We stay here and wait for the adults to evacuate the town, obviously." Adam grunted, looking miserable. "This is the only other place outside of the settlement itself that we have any manpower at! I don't know what the idiots on the Ferry are doing, but they're just drawing in the Grimm."
"Brother, don't. Mom and Dad will be furious. It will be Kuroyuri all over again." Farbiglas's voice called out to the side, and Blake turned to see Jaune beginning to don a full suit of armor, his messenger bag set to the side on the ground.
Odd. Usually he'd carry everything within his Semblance.
He'd somehow slipped into a bodysuit that stretched from the tips of his toes to his fingertips. It didn't reach up to the neck, however, and cut low across his collarbones. A form fitting, midnight black weave of scales that appeared less metal and almost organic.
He must have been putting it on using his Semblance, because there was no other way he'd have squeezed into that so quickly and replaced his previous cotton tee and shorts. For some odd reason it left his abdominal bare, where the hints of musculature pressed against his bare skin.
"Grimm don't exist in just the sea, Farbi." Jaune argued, a pair of armored gauntlets forming over his arms, a curved blade extending off the outside of his forearms. The blade and the joints of his hands shone like silver with an extra layer of metal. "They'll be coming in from the sands too."
Blake felt her blood run cold under the Menagerie sun. Of course. How could she have forgotten?
Specialist Noire had been fighting off curios Grimm in small skirmishes all day. But even if she'd been culling the local population as a result, that didn't mean that the monsters further in on the island would not be beginning to act, sensing the terror coming from the settlement.
"If you promise that you don't go try to fight at sea, I shall be content, brother. I can't be held responsible if all you do is defend yourself and us." Farbiglas bargained, "Although you'll have to let me observe that armor in detail later."
"Later." Jaune promised curtly, a series of layering plates of black metal appearing as it wrapped tightly around his torso, a strange jutting 'tusk' of blades extending over his upper ribs as decorative silver edged plates of layered armor formed over his shoulders and chest.
Armored blades like some draconic Grimm began to jut from his back, some decorated with the extra silvery metal like his gauntlets.
"Children! You- Little Professor? What are you wearing? I-I forbid you to go into battle!" Specialist Noire ran over, still drying off from her last drenching of water, her curly hair matted slightly against her forehead as red wire rim glasses hung off her face. "You-"
"I'm here protecting my sister." Jaune argued back, looking as if he did want to go run straight into the city. He was still putting on the rest of his very ornate armor, almost like something from a fairy tale. Silver spun around his calves and thighs, wrapping up the waist before a skirt of blades formed over it, capped in silvered steel. "I won't leave the Farm though. Grimm might approach from the desert too."
"You can't do that either!" The Specialist ordered, "I'll do what I can to-"
"If the Grimm in the desert begin to swarm us, you'll be overrun!" Jaune pointed at the other militamen that had been on standby at the Solar Farm. "They're leaving to help the town!"
Thigh high armored boots materialized over his scaled legs, black plates capped with decorative silver trim, silvered shin spikes, another decorated blade behind each of his calves gleamed.
"That's not reason for you to risk yourself over-"
"Miss Noire." Blake begged, her Faunus ears flattening against her head, "Please."
"You-"
Yang gasped, pointing at the distance.
"Mommy Summer!"
Blake and the others flicked their attention to the sight of a tiny white haired woman in the distance leaping from building to building before landing onto the top of the Defiant Blue's central hull tower, three large circular magazine drums hanging off her back from some sort of reinforced bandoleer as she wielded her Huntress weapon.
In the span of seconds, the Siren Ferry's turrets were obliterated by S'more's heavy gunfire.
"That's my mom!" Yang whooped, leaping into the air with a fist pump.
A black haired woman ran along rooftops, a blade too small to be seen from this distance flashing as portal after portal appeared, swirls of crimson and black.
Over three dozen people dressed in a similar uniform stepped out, their expressions impossible to see from this distance, but the black haired woman turned to them brandishing their blade and the other uniformed mercenaries drew weapons and leapt off the buildings heading to the shore.
Blake presumed they'd be holding a line against the Grimm.
She held her hands, hoping that's what they were doing.
"That's my mommy Raven!" Yang was almost breathless, excitedly pulling Blake into a side hug. "She's the leader of a mercenary band! She said Jaune's been arming them up!"
"I- Little Professor!" Specialist Noire sounded mortified, "You can't arm- nevermind. Please, you should talk to someone before you hand out your weaponry!"
"Raven asked for guns and swords, so I made them. What's the problem? She gave me the materials I needed for them. She owes me favors now." Jaune took the strap of his messenger bag and tied it to his skirt of blades.
Blake wanted to laugh at the absurdity of an Atlasean Specialist looking so unprofessionally panicked and scandalized, whispering about them being former something that Blake couldn't catch as the woman muttered into a facepalm.
Jaune was just finishing getting into his armor, the helmet forming and crawling up from his neck. Black bladed points extended backward, flat against the side of his head from where his human ears should be. Blake saw black metal wrap around his rabbit ears as they pulled back into black draconic horns capped in silver steel.
"They're coming in on our end." He angrily barked, pointing at the shimmering desert horizon.
She saw an armored visor that looked too solid to see through appear in his hand, slamming and locking into Jaune's helmet, leaving only the armored chin of his lower face exposed.
Blake felt she may have drunk too much tropic punch from her coconut cup as her bladder felt tight at the sight of a thin blackening line forming on the horizon. Ohh nooo.
"We can't retreat to the settlement." Specialist Noire grimly grit her teeth, her muscular scaled tail flicking behind her, "And they can't evacuate to the desert. We're pinned in."
"I have something I can use, just once. I, uh. It's. Well it's complicated. It's hard to explain." Jaune grimaced from behind his draconic armor. Parts of it began to glow gold from some sort of underlights in some pieces of plating.
Actually Blake could swear that some of the black scales and plates were taking on a golden color instead of their original midnight black as if repainting itself.
"Then-"
"Everyone has to keep it a secret. Everyone."
"I-" Specialist Noire looked torn. "I can't-"
"Why the hell does it need to be a secret?" Adam growled angrily. "You're the one dressed to the nines in armor. You gonna fight or what?!"
"And I have a responsibility-" The Atlasean Specialist began speaking.
Blake gripped Adam's wrist firmly, seeing Yang and Farbiglas do the same for the Specialist.
"Please! Adam! Just promise him!"
"Miss Noire! Just this once!" Yang pleaded from outside Blake's vision.
She wasn't sure why she was putting so much trust in him. Maybe because of that one moment in Mantle when he'd stood up for the White Fang. Maybe when he'd donated enough money to help the Fang and Menagerie get a lot of essential work going.
Maybe it was that she'd been charmed, ok, fine she was charmed by the music he played. Just a little. He wrote good songs.
And maybe, just maybe, right now he just looked like some sort of dark night from one of her romance novels.
But right now, she trusted him.
Adam looked uncomfortable. She didn't blame him. Even though Jaune had given him back his eye and repaired the skin, he was still a stranger to the older boy. He didn't exactly try to get too close to Jaune knowing he'd be leaving in a few more weeks in January.
He didn't see Jaune as one of his.
But Blake did.
"Jaune. Please." She turned to him, watching the boy nod under his horned helmet that hid his blue eyes.
A glimmering gold card flickered into his hand, a strange wind began to blow, exuding from the object.
"W-what…" Blake could feel her hair stand on end, and Specialist Noire's tail straightened at attention.
It didn't look right. Even the wind wasn't inherently strange. Semblances could be borderline magical. Nothing was visually strange about what they were seeing.
But that golden card had an odd heaviness like it was not of this world.
Thick and cloying, like being smothered in a thick blanket, Blake felt like she was struggling to breathe. Deeper, heavier, thicker than Aura. Almost sickening in its oppressive pressure.
Whatever power that card exuded in waves… it wasn't Aura.
"Consume the flame of hope." A crimson light began to burn, erupting from the back of Jaune's armored hand, the waves of light weaving together with the golden card in his hands as winds began to whip harder.
That too didn't feel like Aura but it was more familiar.
Rough and heavy. Like pine and spices. The scent of a faint sweetness. The taste of Juniper berries on her lips. Like Jaune's Aura, but not. It was thicker, more oppressive. Like thick molasses instead of flowing water.
"Jaune… what are you?" Blake could feel herself mutter.
"By the power of this Command Seal… Let silver and steel be the essence!"
The gold card floated into the air, being fed by Jaune's crimson light.
"Let the shattered moon be our foundation. An oath shall be sworn here. This I swear: I shall attain all the virtues of Heaven. I shall have dominion of all the evils of Hell. There is no Grail, no glory. Just the Remnants of this broken Realm."
Jaune's hand reached up as a rough human form began to swirl into existence.
"From the Seventh Heaven! Attended by regret! Come! From the salt of the earth and darkness of lost history! Servant Saber!"
A lush laurel of green wrapped around his golden hair, the man's longer spikes of hair shaped like a faux hawk. Crimson grecian North-Western Mistralian garments wrapped in white armor of the same style edged with gold. A missing left arm was replaced by segments of similar white shattered steel, like fragments of shields, forming a giant armored arm, a blue light glowing from within its core.
A strangely familiar, but different voice spoke.
"I thought we wanted to hold onto this one, Jaune."
"I'm-"
"No need to apologize." The figure let out a deep sigh, as if having held in a breath for centuries. "After all… it's a big brother's responsibility to look after his little brother. Besides…"
The young man that just appeared like magic, like a hero of yore, held his right hand to his chest.
"I can feel her." He smiled softly with his eyes closed as if coming to peace with something, "She was always in here."
That was the moment Blake learned that Juniper Arc wasn't quite so imaginary a friend.