The Legend of Gaia Ever-Arc
Pyrrha was awakened by a knock on Kendal’s bedroom door. There was no hesitation, no musty remains of sleep that had to be cleared away; she had been asleep, and now, she was awake. As Pyrrha rolled out of bed, she saw that Kendal was exactly the same way, awake and alert at a moment’s notice. She guessed that it was their respective paths in life that had taught them to be this way.
As Kendal was awake, and as it was Kendal’s door, Pyrrha stood up but otherwise remained where she was, allowing Kendal to answer.
River stood on the other side of the door, wearing dark blue pyjamas with the sleeves a little too long for her and the bottoms a little too short, so that her hands were concealed and her ankles exposed.
“River?” Kendal asked. “It’s the middle of the night, what’s up?”
“It’s the middle of the night,” River repeated, “and Sky’s not back yet.”
“Really?”
River shook her head. “No. I’ve waited up for her — I wanted to talk to her about dinner — but she hasn’t come.”
Kendal frowned. “Yeah, but … so? Come on, River, this is Alba Longa.”
“I don’t know what it means,” River said. “But I … you can call it a twin sense or something if you like, but I’m worried. What’s out there at the McKinley farm that could be keeping her for so long?”
“You don’t think—” Pyrrha began, speaking very softly and very quietly.
“I don’t know what to think,” River said.
“God help us,” Kendal murmured.
“I don’t want it to be true,” River said. “It’s just that, when she’s delayed, Sky usually calls, but … but that stuff doesn’t happen here, right? This place is safe.”
“It’s not safe; it’s just lucky,” Kendal muttered. “And luck runs out. Have you told Dad?”
“No,” River said. “I was hoping that…” She glanced over Kendal’s shoulder to look at Pyrrha. “You’re good, right? That’s what Terra said, that you’re good. You know what you’re doing.”
“I would like to think so,” Pyrrha said softly, because if River’s fears were right, then this town could be in a lot of trouble. If any number of grimm had suddenly appeared, on the edges of a town with no defences, inhabited by people who no longer felt they needed them … she would do what she could, and Jaune too, but there was only so much that the two of them could do.
But they would do what they could, until they could do no more. For Sky, for anyone, regardless of whether they liked them or not. That, after all, was the duty of a huntsman.
“I probably shouldn’t … will you go and check it out?” River asked. “Dad hasn’t picked up a weapon since Rouge was born, but you … you’re supposed to be good. If it all turns out to be nothing, then I’m sorry for waking you up but—”
“I’ll go,” Pyrrha said, because that was also a huntress’ duty. “Just let me put my boots on, and I’ll be ready to leave.”
“You don’t have any armour to put on or anything?” asked Kendal.
“I do, and it would be ideal to wear it,” Pyrrha admitted; although she had mostly packed elegant formalwear, she had brought her armour with her, just as she had brought Miló and Akoúo̱. She pulled her boots out of her case and quickly pulled them on. “But it would also take too long to put it all on. My aura will have to serve alone.”
This would be the first time that she had gone out to fight — possibly to fight — in her pyjamas, but who could say if it would be the last? The life of a huntress was fraught with surprises.
“Okay,” Kendal said. “I’ll take you down to the McKinley place.”
“What about Jaune?” Pyrrha asked.
“What about Jaune?” River repeated her own question back at her.
Pyrrha tied her hair up out of the way. “We need to tell him about this.”
“No, we don’t,” River said. “Jaune’s—”
“A huntsman in training,” Pyrrha said as she pulled on her other boot. She stood up. “And I promised that I wouldn’t do this without him.”
River squirmed a little. “He … he doesn’t have to know.”
“But I would know,” Pyrrha said. “I’d know that I’d broken my word to him, again. I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”
“I appreciate that, Pyrrha,” Jaune said, softly but firmly, as he walked up behind her, having presumably come from his own bedroom. He was not wearing his blue onesie; rather, he had pulled his jeans and hoodie on again, though his feet were still clad in his bunny-eared slippers. “What’s going on?”
“Sky hasn’t come back yet,” Kendal said.
“I asked Pyrrha to check it out,” River added.
Jaune’s eyes widened. “No way, you think that—?”
“We don’t know for sure,” Pyrrha said quickly. “But it’s … possible.”
Jaune’s chest heaved. “Then I’m coming with you,” he said firmly.
“I know,” Pyrrha said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“You don’t even have a weapon,” River pointed out.
“Hang on a second,” Kendal said, darting around Pyrrha and to the back of the room where her desk stood waiting for her.
Kendal bent down, pulling open the draws and rummaging around in them for a moment. She came back holding a knife in one hand, a long-bladed dirk with a mother-of-pearl handle. There was a flower pattern carved into the handle, a stem winding its way towards the blade, with flowers blossoming off it at intervals.
“This … this was given to me,” she said, “by … by a good friend.” She pressed it into his open palm. “Take it; it’s better than nothing.”
Jaune stared at the knife in his hand for a moment, before he looked back at his sister. “Thanks, Kendal.”
“Jaune,” River began. “I don’t—”
“River,” Jaune said. “I have to do this, not just because Sky’s my sister, but because this … this is what I do now.”
River stared into his eyes for a moment. “I hope all that training you’ve gotten at that school was worth it.”
It took Jaune only a moment to pull on his trainers, and unlike her, it took very little time at all for him to pull his cuirass on over his hoodie too, so that he had some chest protection to augment his aura. That done, and with Miló and Akoúo̱ slung across Pyrrha’s back and with Jaune’s shield over his arm, Kendal sneaked the two of them downstairs and out the door.
“I remember the way to the McKinley farm,” Jaune said. “You should wait here.”
“Right,” Kendal said, nodding her head and sounding rather relieved as she said it. “I … I don’t know whether to say ‘better you than me’ or tell you to stay safe. How about both?”
Jaune smiled. “Both is fine.”
“Good luck out there,” Kendal said. “We’ll be waiting.”
She closed the door, but Pyrrha would not have been surprised to learn that she was just standing there, immediately on the other side, waiting, just as she had promised to do.
Jaune stared at the door, the same door that he had hesitated before earlier today, and a sigh escaped his lips.
“Jaune,” Pyrrha murmured. “If this is a grimm attack—”
“I know,” Jaune said softly. “I don’t know whether it’s lucky that we were here, or unlucky.”
“Whatever has happened to your sister, you did not cause it,” Pyrrha said. “We should go, and quickly.”
“Right,” Jaune said. “Thank you, for keeping your promise. It would have been really easy for you to go without me.”
Pyrrha slipped her hand into his. “You’re my partner. We do this together.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Jaune said.
He led the way. The town which had so bustled with chaotic activity during the day was almost completely empty at night. Pyrrha hadn’t been expecting flourishing city-style nightlife, but she was a little surprised at the way that absolutely nobody seemed to be abroad under the light of the moon. Even the animals appeared to be asleep, for they saw no sign of them as they moved briskly down the dirt tracks. Some of the houses had lights on within; others were completely dark and silent. Even the water of the lake was still, with no sign of any faunus swimming by moonlight. The wind whistled through the high stalks of wheat, but that was the only sound other than their footsteps to disturb the town.
There were no birds, Pyrrha realised. No owls screeched or hooted; nothing made a sound. That was odd. Suspicious, even. It suggested that something had frightened them all away.
“Jaune,” she murmured. “How close are we?”
“Pretty close,” Jaune said. “It’s just up there.”
“Then let me lead from now on,” Pyrrha said as she pulled her weapons out from off her back, with her shield upon her left arm and her spear in her right hand, her knees and her back bent into a low crouch for a better centre of gravity. “This way?” She gestured with her spear.
Jaune pulled out the knife that Kendal had given him and gripped it tightly. It was a great deal shorter than Crocea Mors had been, but Kendal was right; it was much better than nothing. The blade glimmered softly under the moonlight.
Pyrrha took the lead, as she had asked to do; now that Jaune had pointed the way, it was quite easy to spot the McKinley farm under the light of the broken moon: it was the broken house, the one with its walls smashed down, the roof caved in, the whole place reduced to rubble such as they had seen on the outskirts of Mistral when they had set out to hunt the karkadann.
Jaune let out a strangled cry at the sight of it. “What could have done this?”
I’m afraid we both know the answer to that, Pyrrha thought as she inspected the damage. So much had been broken down that the chimney was practically freestanding at this point, for all the walls that should have attached to it were gone. What had once been — she hazarded — a long, low farmhouse was now little more than a series of wall fragments, disconnected from one another, swaying as though they might fall at any moment.
“Sky,” Jaune murmured. “There hasn’t been a grimm attack here … ever. Why now?”
“Because they got past the huntsmen who usually fend them off?” Pyrrha suggested. “Because a certain grimm was more persistent than the others in getting over the hills? Because … I don’t know, Jaune. I only know what I can see in front of me.” She breathed in and out. “Do you have your scroll with you?”
“No, I didn’t bring it with me,” Jaune admitted, “You?”
“No,” Pyrrha admitted and cursed her stupidity. They needed to warn somebody, because whatever had done this was bad news for the whole town. She should have thought, but she had been in such a hurry, and…
Stay or go. She could send Jaune back to warn other people, but he wouldn’t like to leave her; they could both go, but that would mean abandoning anyone here who might yet be alive. Or they could stay here and do what they could at the risk that nobody would be warned until it was too late.
“Jaune,” Pyrrha said. “What do you think—?”
She never got the chance to finish the question. She was cut off by a cry of pain coming from somewhere in the ruins. It sounded like—
“Sky!” Jaune cried, and he darted past Pyrrha, sprinting furiously towards the ruined farmhouse.
Pyrrha ran after him, catching up quickly until they were running side by side, then Pyrrha pulled ahead just a little as they covered the open ground that had been separating them from the ruins.
The interior of the house was just as smashed and wrecked as the exterior looked, with tables and chairs and furniture all broken to kindling. But there was very little blood, not so much as Pyrrha would have expected, in all honestly. If a family had lived here, and they had perished at the hands of the grimm, then she would have expected more ghastly evidence of the monstrous appetites of the creatures of grimm. They had seen as much during the karkadann hunt, when they had come across the site of one of its depredations. But here, there was no such evidence, or at least not nearly enough, nothing but a few slight trails of blood.
Trails that led to where Sky lay propped against one of the remaining walls, her leg a bleeding mess. Her gun and flashlight both lay nearby her, but just out of reach. She was alive; Pyrrha could see her chest rising and falling, and her eyes were open too.
“Sky,” Jaune gasped, as he ran to her side and knelt down beside her. “Thank God. What happened here?”
Sky stared at him, blinking repeatedly as though she wasn’t sure he was real but was instead a phantom that would disappear at any moment. “J-Jaune?”
Jaune nodded. “It’s me, and I’m going to … Pyrrha, can you activate her aura, like you did mine? If you do, then I can boost it with my semblance and help her leg, but I don’t know how to … I don’t know how.”
“Of course,” Pyrrha said as she folded Miló and prepared to store it upon her back.
“No,” Sky whispered, shaking her head. “No, you need to get out of here; it’s going to come back.”
“Sky,” Jaune said. “What are you—?”
Pyrrha heard the hooves first, thunderous pounding hoofbeats on the ground. She turned to face the dark woods, the trees that looked like monsters in the darkness with arms and claws outstretched to strike at them. But it was the actual monster that she could hear that concerned Pyrrha as she drew her spear once more and settled into a guard.
A monstrous boarbatusk emerged from out of the trees with a great roar. It was larger than the average boarbatusk, and heavier too, with heavy plates armouring its sides like the barding of a warhorse and thick spurs of bone jutting up out of its flesh. Both its flanks were scored with deep wounds, wounds that left its armour plates scored or even cracked in places, wounds that had gouged into its oily black flesh; it looked as though it had been embroiled in a fierce battle already, but those injuries seemed neither to be slowing it down nor weakening it at all, for it made the earth shake as it bore down upon them nevertheless.
The boarbatusk charged, and Pyrrha charged to meet it, her feet pounding over the wooden floor as she leapt over the ruined wall. The boarbatusk roared, and Pyrrha shouted in answer with a war cry of her own as she charged, her shield held before her.
The huntress and the monster closed the distance that divided them, and as they closed, so Pyrrha leapt; she sprung off the ground, soaring through the air, her ponytail flying about her as she flipped mid-air and descended like a thunderbolt to land upon the back of the grimm.
Balanced upon the creature’s black hide, Pyrrha brought her spear down into the nape of its neck, just behind the bone mask that protected its head and face. She drove Miló in as far as it would go, twisting her spear this way and that to do more damage.
The boarbatusk squealed in pain, halting its charge as it squirmed and bucked to try and get her off. It stomped back and forth, it swayed from side to side, and Pyrrha lost her footing on the beast and had to grab one of its protruding spurs of bone as she fell from standing on the monster to sitting on it like a rider on a bull. She switched Miló into its sword form and slashed frantically at the neck, trying to cut deep enough to sever the head from the body.
But strokes heavy enough and deep enough to slice large grimm in two were not her specialty, at least not without much more momentum behind her than she currently possessed. She was wounding the grimm — its roars of pain and the fact that it was so determined to get rid of her were testament to that — but she wasn’t doing enough, and certainly not doing it fast enough.
The boarbatusk rolled over, snapping several of its own bone spurs in the process as they cracked and shattered when pressed between the ground and the monstrous weight of the boarbatusk, but it must have considered it to be worth the trade, for it also got Pyrrha off its back. She felt her aura drain away as she was pressed like a fly between the table and the newspaper, crushed against the ground by the black bulk of the grimm, but then the beast was off her and back on its hooves once more.
Pyrrha snatched up her spear once more, thrusting it forward, driving it into the boarbatusk’s leg, but as she thrust, so too did the sound of three shots shatter the stillness of the night. Three snapping sounds, one after another, as Jaune fired Sky’s police pistol.
Pyrrha couldn’t tell if he had hit the monster, or if in hitting, he had actually hurt it at all, but he had certainly gotten its attention.
It was the worst thing he could have done.
Before Pyrrha could react, the boarbatusk had begun to spin, becoming a black and white blur that hung suspended in the air for a second before launching itself straight at Jaune, and at his wounded, helpless sister behind him.
“Jaune!” Pyrrha cried as the boarbatusk rolled towards him like an enormous boulder.
Jaune raised his shield in front of his face, and then his whole body began to glow white, the light engulfing him just like…
His semblance. Is he boosting his own aura?
It seemed so obvious in retrospect, but Pyrrha had never considered it before now. It probably burned through his aura at an increased rate, but that wouldn’t matter, so long as—
The boarbatusk struck Jaune as he blazed with the inner light of his soul, and though the force of the monster’s impact forced Jaune back half a step, the boarbatusk itself was flung backwards a dozen feet through the air to land on its side on the ground with an earth-shaking thud.
Pyrrha was already charging towards it. She transformed Miló into rifle mode and snapped off two shots as she ran, her boots pounding as they carried her over the earth while she transformed Miló into spear form once more to drive it home into the boarbatusks’s throat.
The grimm screeched, but did not die.
Pyrrha put her foot upon its shoulder, leaning her weight upon the beast to try and stop it from rising, to keep it down and vulnerable.
“Thank you, Pyrrha. But I’ll take it from here.”
Pyrrha’s eyes widened as she watched vines, thick and black and covered in sharp thorns, erupt out of the ground beneath the boarbatusk. They moved as though they knew what they were doing, coiling like snakes around the grimm, the thorns digging into the black flesh unprotected by armoured bone. They wound around its mouth, snapping it shut like a muzzle; they wound around its legs, around its whole body.
Pyrrha took an involuntary step back, watching in horrified amazement as vine after vine rose out of the ground as though it had always been there, lying dormant, waiting for some command to rise.
The boarbatusk tried to rise too. It grunted and snorted and tried to open its mouth wide enough to roar. It strained with all of its considerable might, and for a moment, Pyrrha thought that it might overcome the vines and thorns that sought to hold it captive. But even as it got two porcine hooves upon the ground, even as it looked as though it might regain its feet, more vines emerged to bind it tighter, to hold it faster, to pull it back down to the ground again and keep it there as the vines wound ever tighter, tighter, and tighter, digging into the black flesh until they started tearing the boarbatusk into pieces.
Pyrrha turned to see who had spoken.
It was Rouge. Rouge Arc, Jaune’s elder sister. She was still recognisable, even though her blue eyes had turned to a dark green, her golden hair had darkened somewhat, even as it flew wildly in all directions behind her as though blown and buffeted by a wind that only she could feel. She was floating a few feet off the ground, the hem of her white nightgown gusted by the same wind that was disturbing her hair, rising up a little to reveal her bare feet underneath. She was still wearing her necklace of gemstones, and the seven rainbow-hued stones all glowed as she touched them with one hand, even as she thrust the other hand out towards the boarbatusk and the vines that had destroyed it.
“You are not welcome here,” she said, and for a moment, Pyrrha was unsure if she was referring to the grimm or to Pyrrha herself.
The boarbatusk cried out, whether in anger or in pain or both, Pyrrha could not say, but the vines sliced through it, ripping it to shreds, until there was nothing left of the grimm but ash and smoke, and even that began to swiftly fade away.
The glow of the seven stones around Rouge’s neck faded, and her eyes turned Arc blue once again; the wind that had gusted through her hair died down as she dropped back to the ground and, with a gasp, fell to her knees.
“Are you alright?” Pyrrha asked as she started towards her.
Rouge raised one hand to forestall her. “Sky,” she said, gesturing with that same hand.
“Are you—?”
“Yes, go,” Rouge gasped.
Pyrrha swiftly covered the distance, leaping over another fragment of wall to find Jaune kneel by his sister’s side, one hand upon her shoulder.
“We are family,” he said, his eyes closed and his whole body shaking as Sky groaned in pain. “Bound by blood … but also bound in spirit. Infinite … and forever. And so, as I love you, I unlock your soul.” Jaune gasped in sudden exhaustion as the light of his own aura dimmed, even as Sky began to glow with her own suddenly-released inner light.
“Woah,” Sky murmured, as she perceived the glow that surrounded her. Even now, her leg was starting to look a lot better. “What … what did you do?”
“He unlocked your aura,” Pyrrha murmured.
“And that’s not all I can do,” Jaune said as he held his hands over Sky’s mangled leg and said hands began to glow with the light of his semblance. Pyrrha didn’t stop him. He should have enough aura left for that, and there was no sign of any other grimm in the area.
Rouge walked over to join them, moving slowly but looking stronger with every passing moment. She joined Pyrrha in watching as Sky’s leg began to knit itself back together, the injuries inflicted by the grimm fading more and more with every passing moment.
“Did they teach you that at Beacon, little brother?” Rouge asked.
“Something like that,” Jaune said.
Sky looked up at her elder sister. “Where did they teach you how to do that thing with the vines?”
Rouge closed her eyes for a moment. “You weren’t supposed to see that. Nobody is supposed to see that. Sky, I’m sorry; I should never have let that monster come so close; I try to stop them in the forest where no one can see, and normally, I do, but that creature must have been too big and strong to be stopped by my regular vines, and I wasn’t paying enough attention—”
“Slow down and take a breath,” Sky said. “And just tell us what’s going on? What’s … what’s going on?”
Rouge hesitated. “Is she going to be okay?”
“I think so,” Jaune said. “I should be able to boost her aura enough to heal the wound completely, right, Pyrrha?”
“I’d say so,” Pyrrha replied. “Although you know your own aura best.” But considering that Sky’s wound was very nearly healed already, it seemed a reasonably safe assumption.
“Come on, Rouge,” Sky said, her voice sounding stronger and stronger. “Spill it.”
A slight smile flickered across Rouge’s face. “Did you really think that it was by fate alone that the tranquillity of our home was maintained?”
Sky stared up at her. “I mean … I guess?”
Rouge wrapped one hand around the seven stones. “To answer your first question, it was grandma who taught me how to do this. She learned it from her aunt, who had learned it from great-great-grandma. Great-great-grandpa found these stones, before the war, before he even founded this town. He found these stones and, having no use for them himself, he gave them to his wife. He thought they were just beautiful, but she soon found out that they had … powers. Like magic. They could control plants, and the wind and the water too, though not to the same extent. She decided to keep her discovery a secret, but she also started to secretly use the powers of these stones, these geodes, to keep the grimm at bay and maintain Alba Longa as a haven of peace and safety, passing down the geodes and the knowledge of how to use them to keep the peace here. And so, while generations of Arc men have left this town and ventured out in the world beyond to battle the grimm, generations of Arc women have ensured that there is a home left for them to come home to when they tire of fighting.
“Grimm don’t come around too often, thank goodness, but when they do, I deal with them. I try to, anyway; one of them got away from me, and for that … I’m so sorry; if it hadn’t been for Jaune, then … I’m sorry.”
Sky was now sufficiently healed that she could stand up, although she still leaned on Jaune a little as they both rose to their feet.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sky asked.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Jaune added.
“It is a secret,” Rouge reminded them. “Nobody knows, not even Mom and Dad.”
“Yeah, but… but we’re family,” Sky said.
“This cannot get out,” Rouge said. “If people knew … someone might try to take the geodes away, or misuse their power. It would be dangerous in the wrong hands.” She hesitated for a moment. “As far as anyone must be concerned, it was Pyrrha and Jaune who defeated the grimm and saved you.” She smiled again. “It isn’t even that far from the truth; Pyrrha wasn’t doing too badly when I arrived, and I couldn’t have done what Jaune did for your leg.”
“Yeah, but, it’s a lie,” Jaune said. “You should be a hero to this town.”
Rouge shook her head. “I don’t do this for fame or glory. I do this because it’s home and because I can and because somebody must. Because I was chosen, out of all of us. Because Grandma passed this duty down to me, and I won’t forsake her trust or her memory. But no one can know. You and Pyrrha were the heroes tonight.”
Sky frowned. “Jaune, that … that thing … is that what you’re up against all the time?”
“Something like that, yeah,” Jaune said. “That one was a lot smarter than normal, wounding you as bait for other people, but yeah, that kind of thing.”
Sky’s frown deepened. “And those things have been coming around all this time, but you and grandma were keeping them away, Rouge?”
“Not as strong; usually, they’re smaller and a lot easier to handle,” Rouge said. “That’s why they don’t get past the vines that I’ve set up in the forest. But yes, they come around every now and then.”
Sky pursed her lips, and hung her head. “I guess I’ve been kind of making an ass of myself, haven’t I? I thought that this place was safe, when really, it was just that we had a defender that I didn’t know about.”
“We both owe Jaune an apology,” Rouge said. “I thought that … because I was protecting our home that you should stay here and shelter behind me, but that’s not what you want, is it? You want to be the shelter for those who don’t have seven magical stones to keep their homes safe from the dark.”
“I do,” Jaune said. “We do.”
Sky looked down at her leg, healed now but still visible through the torn remains of her ruined pants. She looked back up at Jaune. “I still wish you’d stay here, where it’s … where you don’t have to fight … but I guess we’re past that now, aren’t we?”
“I’m following the path I believe in,” Jaune said. “Like you all taught me how to.”
Sky snorted. “Yeah, right, there’s no need to brown-nose me now; I know who really deserves the credit.” She looked at Pyrrha. “Thanks for coming out for me, even after everything I said.”
“No huntress could do anything less,” Pyrrha said.
“Hmm, I wouldn’t know,” Sky said. She scratched the back of her head with one hand. “Can we start over?”
Pyrrha smiled. “I’d like that.”
Sky stuck out her hand. “Welcome to the Arc family, Pyrrha Nikos.”