LIFE FUCKING SUCKS NOTE: A storm blew three sections of fence, broke a tree, and all the power in my neighborhood is out until the weekend so I've been running around like a headless chicken all day. Uploads may experience delays for a bit.
STORY TIMELINE NOTE: In the 'canon' timeline Gaius died in the spring after Pyrrha's first tournament, performed INTENTIONALLY to prevent her from taking a seeded spot in the one that summer. However her connection to Jaune in the Gachaverse timeline saved him from that.
However it wasn't enough to save him from the attempt after she won the tournament that the CANON Pyrrha skipped. At the rate she's going, she'll end up the five time Champion instead of four time.
And while canon Pyrrha had never known it, the Spiders who were responsible for her father's death were also the ones that owned her manager, causing her to unknowingly take sponsorship deals that favored them while she fought in the circuit, though that actual also protected her mother unknowingly as a result.
Though there were the odd normal sponsors as well, such as Pumpkin Pete's, that had no Spider connections, just to throw off their competitors.
It was why when she wanted to go to Beacon, she was let loose without much argument, as there was the chance that one day she'd discover the truth. She never did get to.
Thanks to: Andrea Shultz, Shukuen, and Terran for their support!
Jaune gasped as the air finally returned to his lungs, eyes tearing slightly from a strange pressure that had formed around his head. His skin even felt like it was beginning to boil for a moment. His lungs felt like they were ballooning up from the influx.
"What?" Jaune froze as the assassin screamed as he clutched his head.
The assassin was bleeding from his eyes and nose. Even from the sides of his head, the copper scented crimson liquid leaking from his ears. There was a weird sensation of something still pulling at his Aura.
"What the hell?" He could hear Juniper's voice behind him. "What did he-"
It was so jarring that Jaune found himself freezing and staring. His hands trembled.
Actually for the first time in his life he had been genuinely horrified by what he saw, scared even.
But that feeling faded as quickly as it came, whatever tugging at his Aura seemed to rubber band back into him as the assassin screamed and jerked.
Jaune instinctively leapt forwards, thrusting on instinct with Durindana, the legendary spear's blade blooming from the other side of the screaming man's skull.
Thus silencing him forever as his body twitched violently before limply hanging off his spear.
"Oh. I should have taken him alive for questioning. Shoot." Jaune whispered absent-mindedly to himself. "Too late now."
His hand trembled.
"Wh-what?"
Jaune flinched, his head turning just enough to meet the gaze of a half-awake Gaius Nikkos with his disguised green eyes.
Green met green as the older man stared in stunned silence at the sight of the assassin's head, impaled upon his spear, the body lifted up so that the feet hung off of the ground, despite being lifted up by a single hand.
"Crap." His brother agreed with Jaune's internal sentiment, in sync as always.
In a split second, he decided that the best thing to do would be to remove himself from the premises. But escaping via Shadow was a method that he was somewhat known for at this point. Pyrrha had even seen it when he'd had to drag back Nora who'd gone and wandered off in one of their weekends in Argus.
She'd promised to keep it a secret, but it wouldn't be a surprise if she'd accidentally mentioned it once to her parents, as they had a very close relationship. He wouldn't blame her if she'd let it slip either.
But even if as a human, Gaius Nikkos might not see his appearance properly, Jaune decided there was no point in taking any unnecessary risks to his alternate identity.
So he flung his body at the window, crashing to it, feet first, the body of the assassin dragging behind him as the blade of Durindana twisted, forcing the body to be carried along by the flat of the blade rather than the peerless blade cutting through the skull.
Blood and glass sprayed through the air as he descended into the Argus skyline.
"Please tell me you have a landing strategy."
"About that." It looked like he'd have to bear a twelve to fifteen yard fall. "Uh… I'll improvise?"
He grit his teeth. In his normal combat state he would cheat (if you weren't cheating, you weren't trying hard enough) by wearing the bodysuit of his Augmented Drachen Mail, utilizing impossible jumps, even leaping through invisible platforms through the air of his own design. But in case someone heard the sound and looked up, he didn't want them to see his disguise don his dragonscale bodysuit.
Hell, he'd even stopped using the Winged-Spear as the Hornet pretty quickly, replacing it for green painted steel ones instead so that he could use his SSR Rarity Weapon freely as Jaune without worrying about linking it back to his crime-fighting alter ego. He liked keeping his preferred fighting styles separate from his Vigilante style, just to not have to limit himself later.
Plus if he decided someone needed to die, he could do the cool thing and go all out, just that one time!
"Somehow this brings back memories." His Big Brother Juniper muttered as he rubbed his chin with his right hand. "You should do better than I did though."
So once again, Jaune didn't want the off chance of someone witnessing (or worse, recording) him donning his favorite armor mid-air and linking things together later. It was bad enough that Auntie Raven knew his secret!
"Oh! I got it!"
Durindana swung around him, bringing the body of the assassin in front of him, using it as a shield under his feet as he plummeted towards the rooftop of the building next to Argus Medical Group Hospital.
"Wait. Jaune wait no don't-"
His Aura flashed as the heavy impact, the heavy shaking being felt all the way up to his lower back as the body splattered beneath him and the tip of Durindana buried into the roof.
"Oops!" He spat out a glob of blood that had splashed against his mouth. "That's not what I thought was supposed to happen. Or I fell too high. Ew. Cleaning, cleaning."
"Oh gods… Jaune most of what you see in movies don't work!"
"Th-this one was from a manga!"
"This was supposed to be better. How was this landing strategy somehow worse?" His brother groaned into the palm of his hand.
Quickly he swept his inventory over the rooftop to gather the pieces of the assassin, unintentionally shoveling massive bits of N Rarity: Bloodied Gravel into it as well as one of the squares of his Inventory rapidly rose from x2 to x764.
And N Rarity: Chunks of Human Remains rose to x19.
"That's even less of a reliable source, by the way!"
In the distance there was some screaming and the sound of sirens.
"Well, y'know. Now I know for next time?" Jaune cringed as he turned up towards the window he'd jumped from. "I'm sorry Mr. Nikkos, but I couldn't just let ya get killed so… forgive me."
He turned to jump into an alleyway as he swapped with the Shadow he'd left behind at Roman's warehouse.
He landed with a splat on the warehouse floor.
Splat?
"Ok. Sorry about that. Emergency." He smiled as he put Durindana away. "I handled it!"
"Oh gods." Juniper added unhelpfully. "Oh yeah, you handled it. At least there were results."
"...Cap? You're uh. You're… dripping everywhere." Roman kept a good poker face, but his eyes were filled with terror.
Huh? Why-
"Oh!" He looked down before shrugging as he looked back up. "Yeah, lemme clean off. Like I said. Emergency."
Roman just let out a nervous giggle.
Trivia ran up to him and bopped him on the forehead, her eyes flashing pink and letting Neo take a bop at him as well.
"Sorry, sorry! I- ok. Yeah, I left you behind because of what happened last time. I just couldn't, ok?" He tiptoed and leaned over to not get her bloodied by the crimson liquid that soaked him almost all the way up to his sternum as he hugged her. "Not unless I was sure I'd need you, anyways. Family of a friend was in trouble and then I had to make a bit of a… fall. I improvised."
"I'm gonna… go and help uh… write up some more contingency plans… Cap? Gonna avoid your improv skills. And avoid having to have you improve in general. Just uh… over here… away."
Jaune wanted to roll his eyes, but acknowledged that yeah he looked awful. Understandable that Roman wanted to not be near him right now.
Trivia didn't seem to care as she tried to get a deeper hug.
"Hey hey hey. I'm covered. Let me clean up first. I'm fine, I'm fine. It wasn't anything like last time!"
Trivia's fingers clutched hard at his shoulders anyways.
"C'mon. I'm sorry. If I needed you I'd have called for you immediately, really. I promise. Ok?"
She gave him a glare before turning her cheek demandingly.
Jaune just sighed. A kiss on the cheek was a cheap price to pay for forgiveness, no matter how embarrassing it was.
A quick peck later that Trivia returned on his cheek, Neo leaving her mark on his other cheek, he got to slip behind a random crate and use his Inventory to clean off and swap into a fresh change of clean clothes. He raised a leg as he sniffed a knee.
"I still smell like blood." Jaune groaned, pulling out a bag of scented wipes and taking a second pass of cleaning. "I know it smells strong because of the oxidation that the iron in the hemoglobin undergoes, but ugh it just clings to everything."
"White vinegar helps if it's an ambient scent, but honestly just rub yourself down with a little baking soda." Big Brother Juniper advised helpfully. "Let it sit for a few minutes, then wipe it clean after a bit."
"Kay, thanks big bro." Jaune pulled a box out from his Inventory and rubbed himself down. "I've just never gotten that covered before."
"And I hope you never have to again." His older brother sighed, though Jaune didn't even have to look at him to know that they both knew it was a luxury he wouldn't be allowed.
The work of a hero was never done. Not on a world like Remnant.
Even if the both of them would be more happy to fight Grimm rather than people.
For some reason, something about the fight with the assassin today didn't leave him with a sense of victory. For the first time killing a man left a bad taste in his mouth. No. That wasn't quite right.
It was the strange fear that had gripped him then. The horror. Why had he felt that? It wasn't as if he'd felt helpless, but… something had been wrong then. For the briefest of moments something had been wrong.
And it left a bad taste in his mouth.
Pyrrha wasn't sure how she was even supposed to sleep.
"It's fine, baby." Her mother assured her as they cuddled together in her parents' bed. "This time we even hired some professional Huntsmen on the hospital's Lien. He'll be safe."
She silently nodded as she buried her face into her mother's chest, embarrassingly feeling like a child, but it brought her more comfort than she was ever willing to admit out loud.
Nobody was sure what had happened exactly, but there had been a death inside her father's private hospital suite.
Both her father as well as the hospital had assured Pyrrha and her mom that everything was alright and under control, but they'd driven over past midnight just to see for themselves that her father was ok.
Pyrrha had seen the splatter of blood on the ground and the wall. The place where apparently a young teen her age (her father wasn't sure of the gender due to a large black coat) had killed someone. Killed someone to protect her father.
Otherwise instead of running away, they would have… would have finished the job they had come to do.
Thank the gods they were here to save her father.
The mechanics they'd sent her dad's car to insisted it was just faulty work, a manufacturing error, but Jaune had used his contacts with the Atlasean Military to get more trained eyes for a second opinion. They claimed that it had been hidden well, but the damage to the breaklines had been deliberate.
Specialist Cordova, who was in charge of the military base in Atlas, had even promised a bodyguard for her father, but they'd initially turned it down, not wanting to owe Jaune too much after he'd even saved her father from being poisoned.
Pyrrha sort of regretted not taking up Specialist Cordova's offer. But if she had, it wouldn't have been her or her family that had to pay for that favor, it would have been Jaune. And he'd have accepted it without complaint. That was the kind of boy her best friend was.
And as guilty as that made her feel, Pyrrha couldn't help but to feel warm at the thought. Jaune was a friend that always cared so much. Always too happy to give, but was awful at receiving things in turn.
He could be a bit of a hypocrite at times. Really. It was sweet, but frustrating.
Even though the image of Jaune tearing the IV from her father's arm and spraying blood onto himself before he began helping her father had been terrifying.
She was ashamed to admit that she'd screamed in fright then. Even though everyone, Jaune included, had told her that was a normal and justified reaction. That didn't stop Pyrrha for being ashamed that she'd been afraid of the friend that acted as quickly and decisively as he could to save her father. Even though it had only been for a brief moment.
Pyrrha hated herself then. Had accepted Nora's embrace so that she didn't have to show Jaune that she'd been afraid. Not for her father but of him. Even briefly. He was her friend. Her best friend. He had deserved so much more than that.
But now her father had two Huntsmen keeping him safe at all times until he would be released from the hospital, all of the medical equipment to be checked for tampering three times over. Everything should, no would, be alright.
Somehow somebody in the military must have sent word to Jaune, as he'd sent word hoping that she was ok via text. He'd even claimed that he'd be making sure to stop in with a hot meal once a day for her father to, in his words, '-save the poor man from the bland slop that is hospital food'.
It had made both her and her mom giggle at Jaune's message. Jaune didn't take pride in much, but both his music and his cooking seemed to make him happy. He took pride in those, though more for the former than the latter.
"I hope so." Pyrrha murmured sleepily to her mother as her mind's racing began to slow down. "I just want things to go back to normal."
"It will, baby, it will." Her mom assured, even though she squeezed a bit harder than normal. "I'm sure if anything goes wrong your boyfriend will do something."
Pyrrha blushed as her mom teased her.
"J-Jaune's not my boyfriend." She protested weakly, her heart thumping traitorously. "I-I don't even know if I like boys like that yet."
"Oh? I didn't mention Jaune once, though. Hmmmm. Is there something you're not telling me, baby?"
Pyrrha groaned as she refused to pull her gaze up from her mother's comforting heartbeat.
She knew her mom was only doing this to keep her mind off of everything, but it didn't make her any less embarrassed.
But it made her suddenly think of something Ren had mentioned once. That Jaune had helped save his life when he was younger and still living in Kuroyuri, down further south. That he'd killed the Grimm that had killed his birth father. With a black spear with a golden blade. Like her father's description of the weapon of the black and green haired savior.
Pyrrha shook her head.
The appearances didn't match. And besides. Jaune was kind. So kind and understanding. Gentle, too.
There was no way that he could kill anyone.
She felt like a bad friend for even briefly harboring the thought.
Pyrrha faded off to sleep, trying to remind herself to apologize to Jaune for even contemplating such a thing. However, when she woke in the morning, the two-time Champion forgot what her last thoughts were before she'd begun to dream.
Friday night had passed without much further fanfare, Trivia deciding that it was better to monopolize their night rather than going out to investigate Lady Browning's, deciding in a rare moment of choosing to take charge, that they'd put it off for tomorrow instead. So Jaune had sent a message back that he'd be a bit later than usual and that everything was fine.
Not that it should matter too much at the dead of night, but Emerald had told him that she'd stay up a little just in case one of his Specialist Big Sisters stopped by at night to check in on him. They did that sometimes. Honestly if he didn't have Emerald he'd have been found out long ago.
And all the girl asked for was a bit of praise and snacks. Jaune obviously, always did better than that, making sure to find time to pamper her properly as her sponsor. He wasn't exactly a parent (aside from Penny, but that was a different can of worms) but he was the closest thing that Emerald had to one, so he took his duty to her seriously.
He would find time to explore Argus with her, buy her books and anything else that caught her interest even if she'd blushingly insist that she was his blade and that he owed her nothing.
Either way, he and Trivia (Neo in tow, as always) enjoyed some fun little rom-coms (ok, so Qrow was right, they were fun) late into the night, cuddled up in a small flat that a miss Neopolitan Rider had been renting for the past year or so in a quiet and sleepy part of Vale.
Neither wanted to have to part, both lazily enjoying the warmth of each other's company, but they did separate to return to their usual beds for the night.
Well, the truth was that while Trivia got to sleep, Jaune still had a full day ahead of him, however, as it was Saturday morning when he arrived back.
Timezones were a bitch.
Clarent was busy with some extra work on a project she needed to complete last minute from her procrastination, but Robin volunteered to accompany him and his similar age siblings, plus Emerald (who really was just family as well at this point), to check in on Pyrrha and her family.
Specialist Pepper hung around in the background as they did so.
Pyrrha had been a bit clingier than usual to all of them, finding comfort in her friends in these scary times. They'd relaxed in her room, which was larger than the girl confessed felt comfortable to her at times. Rather Pyrrha went out of her way to attempt to clutter it up with furniture to make it more cozy, even if there was still more floor space left than she knew what to do with.
It was perfect for when she had her friends over, though.
Pyrrha hadn't exactly been prepared for her family having moved into a larger home than she'd originally grown up in due to her family's newfound wealth.
Still, a trophy case shone proudly in the side of her room, two golden Championship trophies of the Prepatorium Rank Mistral Regional Circuit shining brightly. Even her laurels had been stored, preserved in resin. Even if her second consecutive tournament had been a bit less memorable than her first, it still held a lot of meaning to her.
But what Pyrrha needed was a distraction, so they all played a match of Remnant TCG to take her mind off of things. Pyrrha, being the particularly competitive girl she was, had formed quite a fearsome Vacuoan Pharaohs deck that she played perhaps a bit too straightforwardly, even if it was meant to be more of a tricky playstyle.
She definitely favored fighting opponents head on, but liked having something in her back pocket to turn the tides.
But whether it was the luck of the Random Event deck or people taking it slightly easier on her than normal (though with how much all of his friends took the game seriously, Jaune wasn't sure of that even really was the case) but Pyrrha managed to take away a victory.
Normally around noon he'd take a nap so that his body could adapt to the multiple timezone shifts he'd have to deal with on Fridays and Saturdays, but with the way that things were going he had to send a message to the Schnee siblings that he wouldn't be able to assist in a midnight meetup. As much as he wanted to help (and did help them all) helping flush out crime in Vale was a bit more important this week. He'd whip up some snacks to all of the Schnee siblings to make it up to them later.
They'd been plenty understanding, however, as apparently the attempt at Gaius Nikkos's life had been hushed over a bit, but the news that the father of the Invincible Girl had been in a terrible car accident had made the morning news in Atlas. Likely half due to Jaune, and half due to the Atlasean presence in Argus in general where Pyrrha was a local celebrity.
Weiss, being a fan of Pyrrha's, though unable to have spent more than a few minutes with the girl during last year's tournament, had expressed her condolences and asked if there was anything that she could do. Jaune had given her Pyrrha's number figuring out that having another penpal wouldn't hurt.
Weiss didn't exactly get along great with Yang, which sort of made it difficult for his other friends to be friendly with her as nobody wished to choose favorites. Emerald being the exception to that as Jaune's request to try to be friends with Weiss was something she took seriously.
Meanwhile as the afternoon began to roll around and fighting off a desire to sleep, Jaune wanted to go check in on Gaius.
There was something odd about that assassin last night. He couldn't… couldn't get this strange feeling out of his mind. Maybe it was because he still hadn't slept yet, but he'd felt antsy all day.
Maybe seeing the medical suite where he'd been attacked again might help clear his mind of it. Give him some hint to the strange sensation he'd felt-
But Pyrrha's hand clutched at his wrist.
"E-everything's fine, Jaune. We're getting updates on dad every half hour and he's got Huntsmen guards. I… I'll just owe you too much at this rate."
Jaune frowned at his friend, sensing that it wasn't the whole truth of why she wasn't letting go of his wrist.
"I'm doing this because I want to, not because you're going to owe me from it. We're friends, you don't owe me anything." He smiled gently, "Really, it's fine, Pyr."
"Even so, I'm your friend. I don't want to burden you with my family-"
"I told you before, dummy." Jaune poked his fingers between her brows. "I'm an Arc. And with us Arcs-"
"-friends are family." Robin finished with a calm smile from behind Pyrrha, her long, straight hair pulled back neatly, affixed by a deep blue headband. "You're no burden at all."
Pyrrha's eyes watered, filled with both an odd mixture of joy and shame. That was confusing. What was there to be ashamed about?
"I… I don't want you to go." She looked down as she refused to meet his eyes, despite the fact that she was more than a bit taller than Jaune himself, "I-I want you to stay here with me, even though my dad's in the hospital. Isn't that… weird? It's gross. Wrong, I just feel safer with you here, even though I know I should let you go and check up on my dad. Am I… am I a bad daughter?"
Jaune sighed. He couldn't wait to be taller.
He couldn't get that strange moment out of his mind, either. Why had he trembled like that? It was worse that he was so focused on that strange moment rather than trying to comfort his friend.
He just pulled his friend down into a hug, feeling Pyrrha lean against him, her weight bearing down on him. Jaune still had priorities and his friends were more important than his own feelings.
"Fine. I'll stay. If anything looks wrong at all, I'll port over to him immediately though, even if that means Big Sis Pepper and Noire finally find out that I can do that. Actually I'm mostly sure they already have an idea, anyways, just nothing that they can officially report without evidence." He pat her back reassuringly, beginning to lean forward as she slumped down onto her knees in relief, allowing him to stand taller.
That was kind of annoying that Pyrrha had to be on her knees for him to be taller. He'd gotten too used to Trivia being so short. It wasn't fair that girls got to grow taller faster. Though it was probably more unfair to Trivia that she was so short.
"We'll make sure everything is ok. It's fine to be scared."
It… couldn't have been that he was scared. Why would he be scared of some idiot assassin that poisoned himself in the middle of combat? That was ridiculous!
So then if he couldn't personally check in on Gaius, he'd have to do something else. Something that helped keep him safe even if Jaune wasn't there to personally be there. Getting Atlas guards was a no-go. If he found it suffocating at times even after having grown up with it, there was no way that Pyrrha and her family wouldn't.
Jacques Schnee still wanted him to g-g-g-get e-engaged to Weiss, so that angle was out as well. Especially since that would look bad for Pyrrha once they'd inevitably break their engagement once they found someone they actually loved. Plus Weiss only got to have moments of freedom as long as they maintained a facade of getting closer with private 'dates' where Jaune would sneak her away to experience being a normal kid.
Also who knew how Jacques would react if Jaune suddenly slighted him by pretending to be engaged to Pyrrha?
As he tried to drive away the plan of getting engaged to Pyrrha out of his mind, the sensation of her body heat became unbearably present at the forefront of his mind.
He began box breathing a bit as the sensation of a steel edge against his skin, the smell of yarrow root on his fingers filled his senses, Pyrrha's Aura mingling against his own, suddenly feeling… weirdly really intimate.
"Everything's going to be fine." Jaune assured once more, trying to keep his thoughts away from this strange feeling in his chest.
But what was he to do? Oh!
His mind flashed with blueprints from the ARK of Humanity. While completely unnecessary for the operation of Nikke technology, the Ring of Conditional Victory had pumped him full of knowledge of things from the version of Earth that the tech had come from.
To understand the information at the top, there was a pyramid of knowledge to give him foundation to the apex of humanity's technology against the Rapture.
And on that pyramid of technological innovation, weren't there a slew of portable health trackers? Not the archaic tech such as step-counters and heart rate monitors, but devices to do much more? There were even those that doubled as smartphones, Scrolls of Earth, so if he adapted a Virtual Intelligence, merged a bit of Remnant's holographic tech-
"I got it!" Jaune's eyes glimmered with purpose, his strange feelings from the events of the assassination attempt fading away as his brain as his mind began working at a new task, rearranging the devices to work without implanted biochips.
"Huh?" Pyrrha gave a bit of a startled sound from his shoulder, the cloth of it damp a bit from her-
Jaune gulped as he saw her glimmering crimson lashes, faintly wet, deep emerald eyes shining and shimmering from behind them. His breath froze in his throat, feeling heavy.
Her arms felt hot around his shoulders.
"Uh, I mean. I have an idea. If, uh, if you think your dad might be on board with it." Jaune quickly turned his face away, accidently meeting Robin's eyes who gave him a weirdly knowing smirk. "T-to keep bad guys away. It's a win-win plan, but I-I need my hands free to whip up a prototype super fast. And to record a video to post online."
"Oh! Uhm. Yeah." Pyrrha nodded, pulling away, though her hands lingered around his shoulders, suddenly his skin feeling like fire where her fingers traced against them. She wiped at her eyes before reaching to her pocket for her Scroll. "L-let me go call him."
"Nothing is boring around you, little brother." Robin sang as Jaune huffed, feeling warm across his nose.
"I don't know what you're implying, but I don't like it, sis."
"I fail to see how this is so entertaining to you, doctor." Ironwood sighed as Dr. Polendina laughed at the video projected in the meeting room. "This is a serious matter."
"It's cute. And rather, just the kind of naivete that we've come to expect from the Little Professor." Captain Soline spoke matter of factly, but Ironwood could see the faint lilt of the corner of her mouth as his Nikke spoke. "And a little teenage rebellion was inevitable, General."
A long brown braid forwards over a single shoulder as her long spiked bangs shaded her golden amber eyes. A form-fitting black leather jacket was trimmed with blue and gold, the colors of Victory Wing, as a silver lion's head charm hung from her neck. A greatsword sized gunblade hung off her back, though the revolver mechanism seemed to house long miniaturized generators instead of ammunition.
Honestly even knowing that they were a hyper advanced form of battery that Jaune called a microfusion cell, his own men hadn't been able to figure out how it functioned when they had scanned it. All they could tell was that the power it could generate in short bursts were frightening. If it wasn't for the fact that Jaune had claimed it was incredibly cost ineffective for Atlas at the moment, he'd have requested more.
Even so all of the members of Victory Wing had such cells implanted in their Huntress weaponry with the reminder to never let one break while they were releasing an output of power. The explosion that Jaune had shown using a spare as an example far into the icy tundras of northern Solitas had proven that danger.
Even if some of the Old Guard were crying out for its mass production to use as a weapon.
Ironwood shut that down, revealing Jaune's information upon the study of what he called 'radiology'. That any lingering radiation that apparently remained afterwards, was a form of hazard that would make the land around the initial explosion unlivable for years. And the boy wasn't prone to pointless boasting or lies.
He'd have to be satisfied with the geothermal plant that Jaune had given valuable assistance and insight to build. Clean, safer energy alternatives were preferable to something as potentially destructive as fusion energy. Especially once Ironwood would be able to successfully lobby for that same geothermal energy to properly heat Mantle with less Dust expenditure.
Jaune had even been willing to let Jacques to slap his name on the front of the bill to gain whatever prestige the businessman was looking for in exchange, though Ironwood wasn't fully sure if the man would be willing to take such a huge dip in sales revenue easily.
But putting the thoughts of revolutionary energy technology aside-
"He's proposing a device that could eliminate a doctor's examination that anyone can just slap on their wrist!" Ironwood shouted, "Without consulting anyone on how to present it to the public and without causing an uproar! It's already too late to take it down, it's spread like wildfire over the internet! No, not proposing, he's made one outright! Specialist Noire has reported he whipped it together in the span of two hours!"
"It won't give any serious medical advice, like young Jaune said in his video." The good doctor assured as his multi-legged chair silently maneuvered to his side so that he could pat the General on the back. "It's not like it's suddenly going to put all doctors out of a job. Nor can it legally prescribe anything aside from, as he'd shown. At most it suggests certain kinds of tea, or eating more of certain kinds of foods that provide vitamins to help with deficiencies."
"And he did it because the father of one of his little girlfriends was put in the hospital and someone tried to kill him the following night." Captain Soline added with an approving nod. "It's cute. You forget sometimes, General, that Jaune's only thirteen. Even if we've not let him be a child in a while, he's young. Sometimes they do things that in hindsight they might regret."
"He's not going to regret anything because it's going to work." Ironwood watched as the video looped and Jaune began to introduce a 'new product' he was working alongside Nikkos Sportswear to present directly to the open market. "Not when it costs about as much as a Scroll and can give the peace of mind of an on command doctor's appointment."
Ironwood sighed again as his companions just chuckled at his plight as the General of Atlas, who the general populace viewed as the man in charge of the Little Professor. His eyes were pinched shut as his thumb and index finger squeezed the bridge of his nose.
"Call for a press meeting confirming Jaune's reveal and that he simply too excitedly leaked the information out of youthful passion. We'll put Dr. Polendina's name as a contributor to shut up any naysayers and contact the Nikkos company. The moment the product becomes available, I want an official order of a hundred of them on the books to deter any attempts at thinking this to be a fluke. We can use them for incentivization in the Upper Course of the Academy. That and contact someone in finance about budgeting for a military work order for more. The well being of my soldiers and their peace of mind is worth any price."
"Jaune already sent me an email about setting one of his fabricators to make sure to get you enough of his new Health Monitors to outfit your whole army as long as you supply the raw materials, General. He even demanded to not be paid for it." Dr. Polendina laughed.
Oh so that's how it was.
Ironwood let out a sigh, one eye cracking open to see both Captain Soline and Dr. Polendina smiling at him. They'd used Jaune's video as a prank on him, knowing full well the boy sent an email to cover his own ass as much as possible as he spread the now viral video.
"Please start with that next time, doctor." Ironwood growled with a half-defeated sigh. "I'm now making that sudden realization that I'll have to deal with the fact that Jaune is entering a difficult age to manage and I would like to be reminded that he has some semblance of sanity left."
"But General, if I did, Captain Soline and I wouldn't have gotten any entertainment for the day."
Ironwood despaired. It had slipped his mind that Jaune had begun to enter puberty and was becoming that which irked an educator the most. A teenager.
And he couldn't even attempt to honeypot the boy anymore with the majority of his friends being attractive girls his own age, not to mention the fact that the boy was a genius that could smell a liar a kilometer away.
Especially harrowing, seeing as how Jacques Schnee held an overwhelming advantage of how even before puberty Jaune had reacted to Winter and Weiss Schnee, according to the reports.
…he was going to make some calls. There still had to be something he could do.
AN2: If you actually care about the lore of my story or the nature of Gacha Jaune's Semblance read this. If not, or you feel its too spoilery to know this insight without it being introduced in the story organically (if I even ever get to it) do feel free to skip it.
While the fragment of Canon Jaune, aka Juniper's soul and Aura lays within Gacha Jaune, always active with the effect of Aura Amp to some smaller effect (affecting Gacha Jaune's own Aura and Semblance as well)
Gacha Jaune's Semblance is not Aura Amp. It has never been.
For he is the champion to the God of Darkness, instead of amplifying the power of Aura, The Light of the Soul, it instead amplifies The Darkness of the Soul.
Selfishness, greed, passion, all the things that while good in small doses, is a poison in large ones.
The irony is that canonically Jaune (despite being kind of a shitty self-insert gone wrong that keeps taking the spotlight and only vaguely interesting by the most recent volumes imo) is a character that was supposed to be a very good little boy. Even possibly his dumb, optimistic, we still need to see the light at the end of the tunnel, can-do attitude might be part of the allegory for the yellow brick road that Team RWBY aka the Ruby Slippers were supposed to follow and go down. Who even knows?
So all of his 'dark passions' are a crazed burning desire to be a hero, though his image of a hero grows and changes as he does.
Thus Gachaverse's Jaune's Semblance is called Passion Overflow, as somewhat ironically similar to Mettle, pushes him to follow his passions and desires fully and completely, but without fundamentally changing himself as a person, just pulling out parts of him that a normal person might subconsciously suppress.
Sometimes as Aura Amp tries to recover his Aura and heal his body, it also cranks Passion Overflow into overdrive, causing jarring scenes like when he demanded Cinder's freedom, even going as far as to threaten to stop cooperating with Atlas.
Technically that means the lower his Aura gets, the stronger the influence of his Semblance.
And Markus Black attempted to not just pull Passion Overflow, which, lets be honest, probably has changed Jaune's brain development and chemistry intensely over his whole life, but unknowingly the fragment of Aura Amp that was empowering it. When Aura Amp attempts to power up Passion Overflow. That did not end well for him as a normal human brain obviously isn't designed for that. Especially one that hadn't developed from the very beginning of its life to accommodate for it.
And I MEAN Jaune's WHOLE life.
It is possible for a Semblance to be active even before AURA is unlocked, according to the example of Gillian Asturias from the RWBY: Before The Dawn officially recognized Light novel.
It might even be more accurate to say at this point Gacha Jaune is a mass of human emotions that thinks it's a person. Who can say? I feel like that part's personal interpretation.
And while Juniper had such huge Aura capacity as a result of Aura Amp stretching his capacity over his whole life subconsciously, Jaune had a large one as well as Passion Overflow made him significantly truer to himself, constantly adding much clearer depth and strength to it. Different ways to a similar end result.
And after so many years Aura Amp and Passion Overflow are also beginning to slowly merge together. After all, despite their differences, both Juniper and Jaune himself are both Jaune Arc.
The end result might be anyone's guess…
Especially when Markus's Soul Plunder twisted them out by the roots before snapping them back in place. That jarring moment opened up the path for new emotions and desires to additionally take place. Or maybe you can call it puberty. Kehehe.