It was hard to breathe. Hard to walk.
Hatred. Despair. Self-Loathing.
These sensations filled him at every moment of every breath, threatening to break him.
Iwou's hands shook, his skin clung tight to his bones, as if he was severely dehydrated. Was this how it all ended? His ambitions? His dreams? His hope?
And yet faint wrinkles creased all over his form, as if his very lifeforce was being drawn in by the Bolt of Ozrai, alongside his Aura.
The tip of the bone spear drove into the metal grating, rending parts of the steel as he fought to keep himself upright.
His breath came in ragged gasps. He's already lost the ability to speak coherently. Incoherent mumbles were all he could now manage through his mind's haziness.
Fear. The plan. There was only the plan.
What plan was it again? There was a goal. A singular goal.
How long had it been? Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks? Everything was hazy.
His body shuddered feebly as he was guided to some room high up inside the Colosseum. Where he'd fester and rot until he was needed.
There was no buffer. It was eating him alive, it was NEVER meant to be used without… what was it? What was missing? Some wisp of thought, an errant, long memory lost. It was necessary, why was it- A SACRIFICE. This life, this iteration, a sacrifice. For the plan.
What was it? He had to think. Remember. What was it?
He couldn't hear his accompanying attendants. They dragged him by his arms.
His back slumped up against a wall, a thin mattress under his form. His hands trembled, feeling the roiling pulsing, angry lightning threatening to spill from the spear in his grasp.
He had to keep it in. Keep it inside. Remember… remember. There was something he had to do first. Something he'd sword to himself.
What was that? What did he promise?
…who was he?
Gather them all. Gather them all and die. Leave a legacy of destruction so it could be cleansed and washed away. Evil and cruelty to unite them, with plans on tearing them down. Plans on plans on plans on plans. And he would know how to counter it all exactly, regardless of where he'd be… reborn?
His throat heaved dryly as short gasps spilled past his lips like laughter.
It hurt to try to laugh.
Yes. Yes. Reborn. This wasn't the end. It was never the end.
He'd just come back. Again and again. Torture. It was torture. It was all he had. All he was. Pain. Everything hurt. Pain meant he was still alive.
Failsafe. Nobody would live without the core memory. The Bolt was never meant for another's hands. It was, from the beginning, only an instrument to bring DEATH. Death to all but the one who needed it, deserved it. He would die. This body would die. That didn't matter, he'd be reborn.
His withering hands gripped tightly around the length of the spear, holding it to his chest, feeling his Aura bleed deeply into the spears bone marrow.
All he had to do was feed it. Feed it and kill. Everything would gather under his banner. He'd have it all in the end. He was a conqueror. He was the great conqueror of Animus. Everything would be his. All he had to do was die.
Everything was complete.
Only Animus needed uniting now. No, Animus had been united long ago. What- Yes, once he united Animus, that would be enough. The smaller Kingdoms were already subsumed or gone. She had ensured that. All he had left was embers. But embers could spark anew, light the flame of hope. Yes. Yes.
The four. Keep the four from her grasp. They both had forever. A miracle. Oh gods grant him a miracle. Something. ANYTHING. As long as he had the four, he could still make this work. He had to hold onto hope.
Hope. Hope. Hope. Hope. HOPE. HOPE. HOPE. HOPE. HOPE! HOPE! HOPE!
"F- I mean, UNCLE JAUNE!" Pyrrha's eyes widened as the small freckled girl tackled her friend so hard it almost bowled him over. "I MISSED YOU!"
"Penny? Hey!" Jaune smiled widely as he picked up the girl by the pits (as if she was a small child) and picked her up and spun her around as she giggled. How many of his friends were girls? Was Ren and Whitley the only male friends (aside from that Sun fellow he'd met last Winter Break) that he had? "Did they finally let you out? That's great!"
"Yes! I am here alongside my-" The girl suddenly looked to the side as if noticing Pyrrha for the first time. "-oh! Sal-u-tations! My apologies Fa-Uncle Jaune! I did not realize you were with a friend."
Oh, that was right, odd stutter aside she said uncle, so they were probably family. She did share some similar features, Pyrrha supposed. Wow, Jaune really did have a rather large family.
"Hello there." She waved politely, "It's nice to-"
"Polendina!" A dark skinned girl panted, rounding a corner in a cyan blue beret, a gold marking on her forehead, like an ovaline sun formed of golden circles.
Her short hair (likely normally neat) fell in a slightly messy and scattered outline, rather than the fashionable bob that her dark hair (it had a somewhat teal tint, despite looking nearly black, not unlike Ruby Rose) seemed to imply.
"Please remember, that no matter how excited you are, I need to be nearby to keep an eye on you!"
"Penny. Apologize to poor Ciel." Jaune frowned, putting the small girl down. However the thump was heavy, as if the girl weighed far more than her tiny frame suggested.
Semblance?
"Sorry, friend Ciel." Penny apologized immediately, genuinely sounding apologetic, "I just thought I saw Fa- Uncle Jaune and could not hold back my excitement."
The Ciel girl huffed, standing up straight, tucking an errant lock of dark hair behind her right ear.
"Your apology is accepted, Penny." The girl took a deep breath, glancing at the silver watch on her left wrist. It was well made, an older model, not dissimilar to something Pyrrha's father carried in remembrance of his own father who'd passed away before Pyrrha was born. "We are still on schedule, so this can be allowed. Please just point it out, rather than act on it immediately."
This girl was a bit stiff, wasn't she?
"So…" Pyrrha kept up her polite smile, even if internally she wasn't sure how she should be reacting to the situation. "What exactly is even happening?"
She and Jaune were just planning on playing a bit of table tennis in one of The Candlelight's lounges and maybe sneak out for a snack or two. Huntsmen and Huntresses in training always needed more calories, after all.
The Schnee siblings had, on the other hand, had to call back home so were off by the CCT under guard by Jaune's Specialist 'sisters'.
"Oh, yeah. Pyrrha, this is Penny Polendina. She's… well officially she's my niece, but I guess she's the closest thing to my own daughter at the moment. It's a bit complicated, but she's a good girl." Jaune just pat the girl's head, as if claiming a girl that looked about Ruby's age as a daughter when he was fifteen wasn't odd. "That's Ciel Soleil, who's been a huge help looking after Penny in the past two years. She's from Atlas, so a bit stiff, but she's pretty nice too."
"That is kind of you, Professor." Ciel gave a small nod of thanks, not seemingly bothered that Jaune had called her stiff.
"Ciel, really, you're Penny's friend, and mine by extension. You can just call me Jaune." Pyrrha let out a small laugh as Jaune gave the girl a tired frown.
"Professor Jaune, then."
"I'll never win this, will I? Well, regardless. Penny, Ciel, this is Pyrrha Nikkos, one of my best friends." Jaune gestured at her, making her feel warm at his introduction.
"Hello again." Pyrrha gave a small wave, seeing a sudden bolt of recognition in Ciel's eye.
Penny on the other hand just ran up close, invading (slightly) her personal space as she thrust a hand up at her.
"Hello, Pyrrha Nikkos! F- Uncle Jaune has told me a lot about you!" Her eyes sparkled excitedly, "I would very much like to be friends!"
Weirdly her neon green eyes (only a few shades lighter than Pyrrha's own) reminded Pyrrha a bit of herself when she was younger. An excitable girl that just wanted a friend. Well she'd never been as exuberant as Penny Polendina, but that wasn't important.
"I'd be happy to be friends." Pyrrha smiled, shaking the girl's hand, as Penny squealed with joy. Weirdly she felt a kinship, sort of something oddly familiar. It made her oddly feel a bit like an older sibling. Hmmm. It was strange, but nice. "It's very nice to meet you, Penny."
The only thing odd was that something about the way her muscles moved seemed a bit odd. Not quite natural. Actually, it reminded her a bit of the members of Victory Wing that would stop by in Argus on occasion to check in on Jaune.
Odd.
It must have been some special Atlas training, perhaps?
"Sensational! Friend Ciel! I have made a new friend!" Penny was almost bouncing on her toes.
"Congratulations, Penny." Ciel Soleil's voice was tired, but not derogatory. "You did it."
Somehow she made that not sound condescending at all. She actually did sound faintly happy for the girl.
"Well, we were going to play some table tennis and maybe go sneak out for some snacks. Wanna join us?"
Pyrrha felt a slight bit sad that she wouldn't get to spend private time with her best friend, but considering his niece had shown up it couldn't be helped.
"I would love to!" Penny turned to Ciel. "How much time do we have, Friend Ciel?"
The girl glanced at her silver wristwatch.
"It is 1958 Mistral Capital Standard, so we have exactly two hours and two minutes before curfew. As long as we leave time for the commute back to our own hotel, we should easily have an hour and a half for leisure, assuming we do not stray too far from our current location."
Penny squealed, grabbing Jaune and herself by the hand and dragging them in a seemingly random direction, pulling willfully like a child with her parents. Something about this situation was weird but also not altogether unpleasant.
"Penny, the lounge is to the left." Jaune laughed as the short girl dragged them in the other direction. She was surprisingly strong.
"Have you played table tennis before, Penny?" Pyrrha asked, getting a shake of the head from the orange haired girl, the large pink bow in her hair shaking wildly.
"Nope! But I am Minigame™ Ready!"
Something about the way she said minigame sounded strange.
"Good boy, good boy. Wakey wakey."
The massive Grimm let out a deep rumbling groan.
"Yeah, well you're just too big, ever considered that?" The Arcana laughed, "I can't believe there's a place like this by Mistral. A giant city buried underground by seismic activity, now covered by an enormous tree's roots to the point that dirt piled up enough to create a roof above. It's like something out of a fairy tale. The ancient civilization of Arian from the Era of the Brother Gods, eh? Hmmm… kind of a shame that the magic to their royal vault is somehow still active. Hmmm. It'd open so easily from the inside but I can't sneak inside. Phooey."
The Grimm groaned from beneath her.
"Oh hush you. If you're not going to give me anything helpful, then don't give me your sass. If I try to break it down by force, it'll just ruin whatever's inside to prevent me from getting it. That's so wasteful."
Acana looked down at the small mountain of a Grimm, massive and mighty, the shape twisted to appear similar to a 'god' of the Mistralian pantheons, a long twisted coil with spines and scales of white bone and crimson lines, forming the Shinryu.
"Because mom ended up having Ozma assassinated when he was Ozrai, even though he'd planned for it, you've been sitting here, sleeping and gathering dust uselessly. You should be glad we're going to get you out to get some exercise."
A dangerous growl began to form, freezing as a light began to shine.
"Hey. You watch it. You can't even house the essence of the pools. All the value you have is looking scary and hitting hard. Don't think I won't just let you rot here if you get uppity at me, buster. We're just trying to get an idea of the current level of defenses that Ozma's readied using Jaune. Honestly, I think mom's over worried, but I guess I'd rather her be worried about me rather than not. Anyways, you have one job. Make sure to die in a satisfying manner, ok?"
The Shinryu rumbled pitifully.
"Hey, I won't complain if you win. I'd encourage it, but you weren't designed to be able to propagate, just brutalize. That's on mom, not me. Rather you're the weird one. I've never heard a Grimm be sentient enough to complain about anything yet aside from Monstro and Fafnir. This is actually kind of fun. Shame there's a good chance you'll die, though."
The Shinryu rumbled sadly again.
"Then win, you coward. Unless sleeping like a lazy bum in these ruins for a century made you worthless. I donno. What do you want me to do? I just had to stop by to give you orders. I have places to be too, you know."
The fact that the media had given him, Weiss, and Pyrrha two days without any real public attention had been a blessing, but it had been borrowed time.
It was pretty much inevitable that the media would catch up, but the three had all hoped for a bit more privacy first, though. Hells, he had been banking on that so he could find time to sneak off for his own follow ups without 'locking himself in' suspiciously for hours at a time, or forgoing sleep.
Thank goodness The Candlelight was pretty good about forcing all the paparazzi off of their premises when they showed up suddenly on the morning of the third day of the 39th Vytal Festival. Still it did put a dampener on some things for certain. There was too much of a paper trail showing off that he was there, after all.
Regardless, now that the third day was past and half of the Vytal Festival was nearing over, Jaune had a performance to make with Weiss on the fourth day.
Team CRXN were holding strong, Rakan and Xayah had taken over for the Doubles Match and won pretty handedly, letting Trivia carry over into the full Single's Tourney as a whole just because she wanted to show off to him how much she'd learned at Beacon, even if she didn't care about the Tournament at all herself.
He'd sat in on a few of Weiss's performances before, (her voice was beautiful) but she'd only ever really dabbled in a more classy operatic style for performing, even if there were more casual versions of her songs out there in various covers.
But in an attempt at letting Weiss have fun with other styles of music, they'd chosen something upbeat and celebratory from one of his own catalog, Celebrate, ahead of schedule. It had to get approved by the Festival's Producing Department, after all.
And considering that they were technically volunteering after all, not being paid for their performance as neither of them cared for the money that would come from it, the most important thing was that they had fun.
While his music was well received, he wasn't so overwhelmingly popular (or even had people really negotiating, for that matter, for a 'better' slot) that he took up the first day performance or the last day in the Vytal Festival, rather landing in the middle, but that suited him fine. He wasn't interested in fame to begin with, after all. Weiss too was, despite her fame and popularity as a rather beautiful girl, still not filled with inter-Kingdom acclaim like bigger performers either.
Ok, well she did, but just not for her performances, regardless of the fact she did genuinely have plenty of die hard fans.
If the SDC status was levied, perhaps they'd have had a more prestigious time slot, but neither of them cared for that in all honesty.
The Candlelight had been happy to lend the duo the ballroom, letting them get in some final and last minute practice for their performance together. It was borderline a formality, honestly. They both knew their parts by heart at this point, but just hadn't yet performed together, too busy having fun.
Honestly, they'd probably only need to practice once or twice together to get in sync with the other, but everyone in Jaune's friends and family had gathered for the bit of practice and private performance anyways. While the support was really appreciated, it was also sort of distracting.
It sort of became a little tea social rather than any real practice, but that was fun as well.
Extra distracting, too, because this included the Atlas delegation of General Ironwood and Victory Wing and Penny who was introduced as Dr. Polendina's daughter rather than what she actually was to all but the few who knew the truth.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) this excluded Team CRXN as Trivia needed to get plenty of rest as she'd be taking center spotlight for the rest of the Tournament going forwards, much to Trivia and Neo's complaints. Still telling her that he was looking forward to her fights seemed to satisfy her well enough for now.
It was somewhat inevitable, though, that both Weiss and Whitley worried about accidentally making a fool of herself in front of the legendary General of Atlas.
"Just pretend as if I'm not in the room." General Ironwood had waved casually with a smile, even though somehow he made that look near downright regal. "I'm not here as the General tonight. Just James."
That didn't alleviate anything for the Schnee siblings in general, though. Which was fair. He was effectively their eldest sister's boss and one of the most influential men and women of Atlas as a whole.
Also it seemed that apparently Whitley was going to see if he could get into the Upper Program a bit early like Winter did sometime soon, though he lacked her same level of combat talent. Still Winter must have put a good word in, as General Ironwood seemed willing to put some consideration into it.
Ren just sat casually by the drum kit Jaune pulled from his Inventory, also performing, though his name wasn't being plastered everywhere like Jaune's and Weiss's. Lucky duck. He'd be performing on a proper set when tomorrow came, but it was better that they not be too loud.
Nora was currently having a blast tapping at the drum kit and getting it to make random noises, because of course.
Still practice was fine, enjoyable even, doing more than a few takes as they all enjoyed the night. Certainly more takes required than it would have been required if Jaune, Weiss, and Ren had been left to their own devices, but they all agreed it was more enjoyable this way.
Honestly, everything was going really well. Everything except following up on activities in Northern Animus.
It was like they'd achieved what they'd been there for or their goal wasn't important enough to follow up on now that they'd been discovered. And there was always the chance that what they wanted wasn't even directly in Northern Animus or it had all been some elaborate distraction all along.
He just wished he had more information to follow up on. Nothing sucked more than dried up leads.
…should he make drones? Just an army of drones? Could he get away with that? He should look into that. There had to be rules, or lack thereof for him to take advantage of, right?
There was a bunch of dead-end drone tech that was pointless against the Rapture, but would serve him well on Remnant, after all. As long as he stripped the weapons off he could get away with it. Probably.
"Yooooooooooo! Jaune, it's me, Sun! Wassup, bud?"
"Sun? Hey! What're you doing here?!"
Whitley watched as Jaune's hand clapped loudly into a monkey Faunus boy with an open shirt that revealed some tanned abs and pecs, pulling the other boy in for what he would describe as a 'bro hug'.
If he was being honest, he was curious as to the purpose of the specific gesture outside of greetings. If the purpose was to hug a friend, it seemed rather inefficient to hold one's hands between each other to prevent a full embrace.
"You know Vel and I were thinking about Haven, right? What better way to come see it than the Vytal? Got in a bit late though, only arrived last night. Even with Vel's uncles pitching in, getting an inter-continental airship ride was not easy without booking it ahead of time. Vel and I had to get separate flights because of all the traffic."
That was curious. Whitley (though human) hadn't missed the various discriminatory practices to the Faunus in Mistral. For goodness sakes, some places had separate prices just charging the Faunus extra for everything. If they even allowed the Faunus at all. Why would a Faunus wish to come to Mistral for anything?
"Oh that's awful. Did you two get to meet up properly?" Jaune asked worriedly.
"That's why I'm here lazing in the lobby instead of out having fun or looking for Velvet. She should be here already, since the flight she got squeezed into was before mine. I just checked in." Sun held up a room key, wiggling the plastic card. "Lost my Scroll somewhere though, or I got pickpocketed, so I can't call her."
"Oh, that must be dreadful." Whitley found a moment to squeeze himself into the conversation, not wanting to be completely left out when it was supposed to be a moment when he got to 'hang out' with Jaune. "Do you have a tracking app for it?"
"I mean, Velvet's the one that can track it with her Scroll. I know there's a keycode for a Tracking App I should have memorized, but…" Sun scratched the back of his head. "Well I don't remember it off the top of my head, ha ha."
"That's a tough break." Whitley frowned, sympathizing with the taller boy. He looked maybe close to a hundred and seventy five centimeters. Pretty decently tall, actually. And here he was barely scraping a hundred sixty.
At least that was only about five centimeters behind Jaune, but his ears at full length made the boy feel taller than he was, though he was currently wearing a beanie that hid his ears.
"Tell me about it." Sun groaned, "Eh. Things'll work out though. If I just sit around in the lobby long enough she'll probably find me."
"Well, it's not super legal, but I could just track down your Scoll from the number I have." Jaune offered, pulling out his Scroll from his pocket, rather than his Semblance.
Apparently holding it in his Semblance resulted in the signal getting cut off.
"Oh, that'd be-"
"-luckily unnecessary." A girl's voice finished, getting the three boys to turn in her direction.
She was pretty, dressed not too far from how Jaune usually did, a black shirt with crimson letting that stated 'Rock & Roll will Never Die!' clinging tightly around her lean frame.
Her fingers clasped over a weather-beaten Sandsong Galactus 7, a pretty popular Vacuoan Scroll brand that was a few models behind the current Galactus 10.
Her knuckles and the edge of the phone both had a faint smear of dried blood on it, clearly not from her, however, as the skin of her hands weren't torn up or calloused at all. Aura.
"Vel! You found me! And my Scroll! I was worried I'd have to miss out today and sit here the whole time while waitin' for ya!"
"Just a bit of luck. Was thinking about using the tracking app to see where you were by this point, but found some asshole with your Scroll trying to figure out your lock screen password." Her black hair and rabbit ears fluttered as she leaned in to kiss Sun on his cheek, passing the Scroll into his hands. "Gave him the ol' Vacuoan nose shine to thank him for delivering it right in front of me."
"Should be a bit careful. It's still Mistral." Jaune gave her a bit of a worried frown. "They can hit you pretty hard legally even if you're not seventeen yet just because you're a Faunus."
"Thanks Jaune, but I had it handled." Velvet giggled, leaning over to give him a quick hug. "I took that guy out so fast he couldn't have seen me!"
Jaune just laughed as Whitley wondered if it was normal for other Huntsmen and Huntresses in training to resort to violence so quickly. Despite his own training, he'd never quite taken much to the thought of hurting other people, even if he was positive he could take down Grimm without much of a fuss.
He'd only really fought training androids up to this point, even if some of them emulated the movements of simple grimm such as Beowolves. He'd certainly had little to no trouble with those.
"As long as you just left it at that, I guess."
"He's just sleeping it off in an alley somewhere. Not like he didn't deserve worse for stealing from my boyfriend, but he was just a petty thief. I'm not stupid."
"Ah, he's just looking out for us, Vel." Sun waved it off as he pulled his girlfriend in from the side, hips bumping together. "I mean, I've got a couple of cross looks outside, even though things are a bit relaxed cuz of the Vytal Festival, you can still see places with signs that say no Faunus allowed."
Winter could swear that a dark look flitted into Velvet's eyes momentarily at that mention, but it cleared up almost faster than he'd noticed it.
"I know, I know." Velvet sighed before turning to Whitley himself, "And who's your little friend, Jaune?"
"I'm not little." Whitley replied, keeping his voice level, mature. "I am Whitley Schnee, despite how odd it might seem, I very much consider Jaune to be a close friend."
"Yeah, Whit's a good guy." Jaune chuckled as he ruffled Whitley's hair, getting a momentary scoff of complaint from Whitley himself who swatted at the older boy's arm, even if he couldn't keep a smile off his face. "Close to a little brother."
That did rankle slightly.
It really would have been nice if Jaune had just become his brother in law, but apparently he was in some complicated situation with some of his other female friends now, according to Weiss. He was actually a bit surprised at how easily she was willing to accept that, as he was sure she did like him a bit. It was just a shame, in the end.
He sort of thought of Jaune like a brother too. Would it have killed Weiss to at least have tried?
"I mean the fact that I would think it to be very cool if you were my brother aside, shouldn't you be getting ready to go and perform today, Jaune? You'll be late." Whitley helpfully reminded, ready to accompany his friend to Amity Colosseum.
"Oh yeah, huh. I'll catch up with you two after! You're both also staying at The Candlelight, right?"
"Yup! Just need to check in myself." Velvet nodded cheerily.
"Oh, wait, did you not get to Mistral before me?" Sun asked, surprised. "You left like three days ahead of me."
"Some Grimm made us land shorter off in East Animus. Nobody got hurt or anything from the landing, but I had to find another way to get the last bit of the leg to the capital. Eventually dropped onto a train headed west and paid for a ticket afterwards. I got here this morning." Velvet shrugged, smiling as her boyfriend gave her a concerned kiss on her temple. "Mmmm, seconds please."
Sun laughed as he gave her a second kiss, making Whitley feel like a third wheel.
"Alright, you two, have fun, but not too much fun." Jaune chuckled, his arm wrapping around Whitley's shoulders to pull him away in a friendly (brotherly) side hug. "We're off for now."
"Byeee~ have fun~" Velvet waved with a grin.
"Deuces!"