RWBY Re: Jaune Arc - Chapter 26

“Okay, you got me, I know your Uncle Crow.” Jaune raised his hands in defeat.

“So you admit you’re lying about not knowing my Uncle, but that’s not all I want to know, somethings been off since we met, you act way too familiar with us from the get-go, almost like we’ve known each other for years. Not in a not bad way, it’s just that, you are either the most perceptive person on the face of Remnant, or you knew something about us beforehand.”

Jaune smiled and waved his hand, almost as if he were gesturing a simple ‘come on’ motion before he said, “And what else?”

Yang continued, “The image you used of Ren and Nora looked a bit older, and the way they fought shows how much you know about them, you would need to know someone pretty intimately to pull off what you did. So Jaune Arc…” Yang pointed her finger at Jaune like she was a detective. “What is it that you are keeping secret? Are you working for Crow to keep an eye on us or something?”

“Hahh! No, I’m not working for Crow, when I first came here, it was because I wanted to be a Hero.” Jaune sighed, “Listen, Yang, I am keeping a pretty big secret, and Ruby was right, I am preparing for war,”

Yang gave him a serious look, Jaune shook his head and said, “Look, invite me out for a drink and I’ll spill the beans, okay.”

Yang lifted her brow, “You drink? And are you hitting on me?”

Jaune laughed, “No I’m not hitting on you, it’s not something I can just go blabbing about, but I get the feeling you know what it’s like to keep a secret from your loved ones, and besides, I think you can keep a secret. Can’t you?” Jaune pushed her buŧŧons by mentioning that she was keeping a secret from Ruby.

Yang grinned and placed her arm around his neck, “Well lover boy, I know just the place, I’ll pick you up tonight.”

Jaune shook his head and said, “This is not a date.”

“Awe, are you scared of me?” Yang joked around.

“Okay, Yang, that’s far enough…unless you plan on following me into the shower,” Jaune said as he opened the dorm-room door.

Yang laughed and shouted, “Is that a challenge?”

Jaune slammed the door on her and laughed, after taking a shower and eating, Jaune went off to class, the rest of the day went like normal, that was until Yang threw Jaune a helmet and said, “Come on loverboy, were going out for a drink!”

Ruby and the rest of the room went bug-eyed, “Yang, what’s going on!?” Ruby shouted.

“Relax, Jaune and I are just going to do some bonding as teammates, I figured taking him to Junior’s place would be a good start, that guy knows how to make one hell of a strawberry daiquiri.”

Jaune smiled and took the helmet and placed under his arm and said, “All right, see you guys in a bit.”

“Jaune drinks?” Pyrrha asked tilting her head.

Jaune then said, “Not really, but the drinking age is 18, next year and all, and my dad has let me try some when I was younger, it was the only thing besides fighting that I think I could connect with Yang over, Ruby and Blake have their book swapping tradition now, Ren and I can bond over cooking, Nora and I can bond over her eating my cooking.”

“Hey…That’s true, let’s not change things,” Nora interrupted.

“Are you calling me a booze lover by implying that drinking is my hobby?” Yang frowned.

“If the shoe fits.” Jaune chuckled back.

“Don’t let her drink too much, she’ll have to walk Bumblebee back again,” Ruby whispered after calming down.

Yang placed her arm around Jaune and said, “What’s the matter Ruby, afraid I’ll steal your boyfriend?”

Ruby blushed and said, “He’s not my boyfriend, I’m just worried about what you’ll do to him!”

“Oh, and what am I going to do to him?” Yang teased.

Jaune moved out of her grip and said, “Are we going, or are you going to tease your sister all night?”

“I haven’t decided,” Yang replied.

Jaune went ahead and shouted, “I guess that I’ll drive then, I think I can hotwire a motorcycle, now was it the blue and red wire, or the red and green wire?.”

“Don’t you touch my baby!” Yang shouted back as she gave chase.

After Yang drove them to Junior’s bar, Jaune stepped off and listened to her confused tone as she said, “Gotta tell you, most first timers riding with me tend to freak out, you managed to keep your cool, I’m impressed.”

Jaune stepped off the back of her bike and said, “I got used to your driving skills a long time ago.”

Yang showed an even more confused look as Jaune walked through the door, “Well are you coming?”

Yang shook her head, “Wait, what was that supposed to mean?”

When they entered the bar entrance, they were met by one of Junior’s men who went running through the large double doors, “Boss, she’s back!” the henchman shouted.

Before Junior could react, the doors were kicked open, Yang waved her hand and shouted, “Hey Junior!”

Junior went for his weapon when Yang shouted, “Relax, I’m not looking for trouble, just one of your strawberry daiquiris!”

Junior sighed and placed his club down and said, “No trouble!?”

“No trouble.” Yang nodded her head.

Junior waved his hand and called off his two lovely twins, they nodded their head and went back to what they were doing before Yang’s entrance.

Jaune sat next to her at the bar and ordered a beer; after their drinks arrived Jaune paid for them and started to drink.

“S~o! What is it that you want to tell me?” Yang asked as she took a sip of her drink.

Jaune put down his bottle and let out a satisfied ‘pwha’ noise as he looked over to Yang and said, “What if I told you that I have memories of the future, in fact, I came from the future, or more specifically, my soul from 7 years in the future, flew through time and space to fuse with my younger body’s soul.”

Yang gave him a hard stare, “I’d say you’re crazy!”

Jaune chuckled, “Yeah, I’d thought you’d say that, but I can prove it. Your dad’s nickname for you is his sunny little dragon, you have a dog named Zwei that has Aura, your mother is Raven Branwen, and she abandoned you and your father when you were young. Ruby’s mother is Summer Rose, she went missing on a mission several years ago, and is ȧssumed dead.”

Yang’s jaw dropped, but Jaune didn’t stop, “You’ve been looking for clues about your mother’s location for years now, and I can’t tell you why she left even knowing why she did.”

Yang frowned and pulled Jaune over by the neck of his hoodie, “Okay, who are you, some kind of stalker?”

Jaune sighed, “This is my second time living, Yang, a spell was used to send my soul 7 years in the past and fuse with my current body, and you’re one of best friends, I would even go so far as to call you my sister.”

“You really are mad,” Yang was seconds away from throttling Jaune, he raised his hand and made an image of her mother out of Aura, Yang froze in place as Jaune made two more, an older version of Ruby and herself appeared next to her, robotic arm and all.

“Look at my title Yang.” Jaune allowed her to see the Reincarnated Hero title.

Yang frowned as she inspected his title and then the Aura Constructs, Jaune then relaxed little, she still held on to him with a suspicious look, however, what he said next made her let go, “You know, this wasn’t the first time you guys have worried about me burning myself out. You told me about what you did when you were young, how you endangered your sister when you went to go look for your mom.”

Yang winced, “I did, huh? I never told anyone that before, not even dad.”

“It’s good advice, it helped me when I was down, someday Blake will need to hear it too.” Jaune took another swig of his beer and canceled his technique.

Yang sat down and asked, “So, what’s with the robotic arm?”

Jaune sighed, “Something I hope to avoid in this timeline, so do you believe me?”

Yang appeared to be struggling with her answer when she sighed, “Depends on what you tell me.”

Jaune then finished off his beer and ordered another, “Well I can tell you for starters, I came back during the flight to Beacon’s Initiation test, I was supposed to barf on your boots,”

Yang froze, “Ew!”

“Yeah, and I wasn’t exactly very strong either, I was kind of a goof.” Jaune began to go into how this timeline already diverged from the original.

“I was helpless, without a landing strategy, Pyrrha was supposed to save me, and we would have continued to complete the test in a similar manner.” Jaune dove into the specifics and paused when he had her caught up to the current date.

“Wait a minute, you crushed on Weiss!?” Yang stared at him in disbelief.

“Yeah…Hey don’t give me that look, she’s a good girl under all that Weissy-ness. You’ll see what I saw in her as well someday!” Jaune said in his defense.

He then let out a sigh, “What?” Yang asked.

“Well, there are some things I’d rather not speak about, certain events come with meeting life long friends and allies, so I’ll avoid certain subjects, but let’s just say things get really bad in the future,” Jaune said as he started on his new beer.

“Okay, so how bad?” Yang said frowning, she had hardly touched her drink.

“Grimm, and a lot of them.” Jaune’s expression turned sour. “The whole world was engulfed in a wave of Grimm so massive that all of humanity almost perished.”

Yang turned pale, “What happened?”

“We…we were caught completely off guard, Atlas at the time was the last place standing, unfortunately, we were elsewhere while the last haven of mankind fell, off questing with Ozpin in search of…sorry, can’t talk about that right now either.” Jaune shook his head.

“What about our…?” Yang bit back her words.

“Your dad and Crow pulled through the first wave, we met up with them eventually, while every other Hunter or Huntress who hadn’t already died were forced into small groups, it was a world where only Hunters could survive. It was hell on Remnant.” Jaune flipped his head back as he downed half of his beer.

“My family, however, wasn’t as lucky, we lived in a small village, and our family were the only Hunters for hundreds of miles, and they wouldn’t give up trying to protect the rest of the civilians…it cost them their life,”

Jaune’s hand’s shook, “We had just lost a fight against a really big baddy when we got the news Doremy fell, I ran away from the quest to check on them, and when I got there, everyone was dead.”

Jaune thought back to the rage that engulfed him as he slaughtered every last Grimm that was around him, if his team didn’t show up, Jaune would have killed himself from over-exhaustion, “After you guys caught up, you stopped me from killing my self, I wouldn’t eat, sleep, or drink, I just wanted to kill Grimm, you gave me that pep talk about loss and how burning my self out wasn’t going to save anyone.”

Tears fell from his face, “When we finally found my family’s bodies, I could bȧrėly recognize them! The Grimm had torn them into pieces, I cremated what little I could find.”

“Jeeze, Jaune, I’m…so sorry, did we all die as well!?” Yang asked with a look of worry on her face.