Episode 13, it was good, a lot of time progression and a bit on the short side, sure, but good nonetheless.
My only wish is that Cardin is so stupid from having Jaune do all of his work, that he tries to make the Rapier Wasps sting our favorite sword-and-shield user, but forgets that, since he's the one covered in the sap, he gets stung instead.
460 or so favorites, let's move on to the story.
Weiss joined everyone in training field C, each of the humans were lined up, and she could notice that nobody was armed, even her own rapier was missing.
"Attention EVERYONE, I will be temporarily taking over this assignment. Since I am in charge, you know that this will be awesome, for the next few days, the soldiers and guards will train amongst themselves while we have our special little program. You may recall Professor Port, he was once on the hunting team DOPG, or Doppelganger, that stands for David Ozpin, Orchid Qrow, Peter Port, and Glynda Goodwitch. We did this same exercise, we will now watch a demonstration of the results of this exercise." Qrow turned to the empty center of the field.
From a pair of contestant squares came Ozpin and Glynda, facing each other.
Ozpin walked perfectly fine without his cane. He didn't really actually need it, but it was the deadlier of his two weapons, so he often carried it with him, not right now though.
Glynda had foregone her usual documenting devices, looking a lot more threatening as she was. walking around the large circle in the exact middle of the field with Ozpin on the other side.
They brandished their weapons, ready for their sparring match.
In Ozpin's hand was the Disciplinary Action Scene.
In Glynda's hand was the Brewler.
The announcing system was activated, as Qrow spoke into the microphone.
"THREE!" he shouted, getting hyped up for this.
"TWO!" he yelled, his heart rate was climbing, and he could tell that his teammates' were as well.
"ONE!" he hollered, his palms sweaty from anticipation, his eyes wide.
"GOOOOOOOO!" he screamed, and off they were.
<battle time>
Qrow's selection of the battle music was odd, to say the least.
Glynda charged, swinging at Ozpin with the hammer-axe.
The older man ducked and slapped the woman across the face with a flaming swing of the riding crop.
Doing a backflip, he sent bolts of lightning to strike his foe down.
The green eyed mage blocked the bolts with the ceramic surface of the polearm, going in for another swing.
The green clad warrior took a hit, flying back several feet.
Swung at, Ozpin tried to dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge, but his age-induced lack of agility was his undoing.
Taking a huge horizontal hit, he flew back again, going several more feet away.
He felt like resorting to what many may call 'dirty tactics', he didn't care, whatever got him a win was a good move, method, or maneuver.
He ran at Glynda, jumping high into the air to avoid the uppercut, he did something that was just really damn cool.
He drop-kicked her in the face.
Getting on top of her prone form, pinning her shoulders with his knees and sitting on her stomach, he didn't allow her to move as he slapped her in the face several times with the leather band of the magic wand. He even went so far as to start directly punching her in the nose and mouth.
It was obvious that these two had a lot of unresolved tension that was coming out and finally being solved.
Glynda wouldn't go down so easily, dislodging her arm, she performed a swift, precise uppercut to the elderly huntsman's jaw, she pushed him off of her.
Pinning his chest firmly under her foot, she brought the hammer's head down on face, dealing a great amount of damage, bringing the hammer-axe up halfway, spinning it around and giving him a neck-chop.
Ozpin blasted her off with a magic missile. Brewing up a storm of fireballs, the Jagermeister would not let his title be mocked by a loss.
Glynda squinted her eyes slightly, compressing her gaze as flames rained down around her.
She hit a fireball with the hammer, knocking it towards her foe like a baseball.
A water shield was formed, then frozen into a large chuck of ice. The chunk was broken into pieces and the pieces were sent flying at the huntress like arrows.
Taking several hits, Glynda wasn't sure who would fall first, her scroll read that Ozpin was at the edge of the yellow, almost in the red, and she was the same.
She did the only thing she could, she spun the Brewler around quickly, blocking Ozpin's magical attacks.
Ozpin kept blasting, he could tell what she was doing, and conjured up a laser blade around the wand.
The two weapons were thrown through the air, a latent form of a shockwave spell erupted from the Disciplinary Action Scene as it collided with the Brewler.
The duo ran at each other, jumping up into the air, they lashed out at each other in rather harsh single-stroke collision.
Glynda, herself not afraid to use dirty moves, kicked Ozpin in the crotch.
Ozpin, his brutality in full swing, double-punched Glynda in the throat.
With a loud ringing, the two fell from the collision, hitting the ground hard as their auras were almost depleted.
"AND THE WINNER IS, NOBODY! IT'S A TIE!" Qrow announced into the microphone, gathering the two's weapons and allowing the pair to stand up.
They shook hands, and then immediately parted ways, Ozpin was sort-of-limping, Glynda was bowing her head.
Even with their auras protecting their bodies, even when it was not fully depleted, some damage could still be dealt directly.
<battle end>
A few quick healing spells and they were back again, wielding their own weapons once again, Ozpin drank from his retransformed coffee mug.
"So, can anyone tell me what you just witnessed?" Qrow asked, his voice still in 'exciting announcer' mode.
"A couple of old farts beating the shit out of each other?" Yang answered, not really sure what sort of education could be gained from the witnessing of the sparring match.
"I'm sure Miss Rose knows the answer, she is a fan of weapons." Ozpin chose to ignore Yang's slight against the two professionals.
"Oh, RIGHT, you were using Miss Goodwitch's weapon, and she was using yours!" Ruby answered, happy that she more-than-likely got it right.
"That is correct, we exchanged weapons for the battle, now then, who can tell me why?" Glynda asked the next question.
A few mutterings of 'uh' and 'um' were the only responses.
"Allow me, what if, say, tomorrow Glynda were to get eviscerated by a monster, what of her skills? Those would be lost, yes, but what of her weapon? Since Ozpin knows how to use her weapon, and she knows how to use his, a powerful device of battle would not be rendered useless. Now, sure we could train with it after they died, but that would take some time to build up the minimum skill level required to use it efficiently, and with the original user still alive, various tips and tricks could be given to raise the skill level far higher than it could go on its own in such a short time." Qrow tried his best to explain why they were doing this, but he could tell that some of the younger fighters just weren't getting it.
"Alright, allow me to give a relatable example, REN, WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF NORE SUDDENLY KEELED OVER!" he shouted at the easterner.
"I would be sad, sure, but I would eventually move past it, eventually." the green clad ninja answered.
"WHAT OF HER WEAPON?" Qrow demanded the information.
"I guess, I, would... take it?" Ren wasn't really sure how to respond, but from what Qrow had said right before, he felt like that was the right answer.
"YES, OF COURSE, TAKE IT, she can't really use it anymore if she's dead, or even just hospitalized, NOW, HOW WOULD YOU FIGHT USING HER WEAPON?" the old master was practically interrogating the young man.
"I guess, I would fight like she did? I mean, she's a master at it." the lightweight didn't know the answer.
"WRONG, YOU SHOULD FIGHT LIKE YOU DO! Now, if you trained with Nora's hammer-grenade launcher, you would develop your own skills with it, skills that will no doubt vary, in some form or fashion, from her own." Qrow corrected with great rebuking.
"Now, this is an exercise that I call 'friends close, arms closer'. Each of you will be doing some training, but rather than with your own, you will practice with each other's 'arms', or weapons. The goal is to know each weapon and how to use it. Now, for some of you, this may be at the very least, say, uncomfortable, as you may treat your weapon like it's your child and you don't want someone else to handle it. Well, that needs to put aside for now. It is time to learn more than what you know." Qrow pressed some buttons on his training field creation controller, dismissing a few walls that concealed a pair of tables.
There were two tables, one had the weapons of team RWBY, the other had the weapons of team JNPR.
"Now, we will start by moving one step forward, which means that everyone should stand in front of your weapon." Qrow instructed, waiting for everybody to do so, "Now, take a step to the right, if you are at the end of the table, go to the front of the table." Qrow watched as everyone followed the instructions, "Now, arm yourselves with the weapon in front of you and turn around." he directed, watching as the others obeyed.
Some of them looked a bit miffed, seeing someone other than themselves with their armament of choice, but the feelings were put aside for now.
Ruby had the Myrtenaster, Weiss had the Gambol Shroud, Blake had the Ember Celicas, and Yang had Crescent Rose.
Jaune had Magnhild, Nora had Milo and Akuou, Pyrrha had the Jade Dragons, and Ren had the Sword and Shielth.
"Okay, so, uh, um.... have fun." Qrow wasn't sure what else to say, he made the tables move off of the training field with a few button presses, giving everyone space to move about.
The new arms felt odd in their grips, shifting them in their hands, they were a bit stuck, seeing as how they had no idea where to start.
"Just do what comes naturally." Qrow gave the top, moving to a higher position to observe.
And so it began.
<cutaway>
After dividing up, they each went for the most simple fix to their being practically illiterate at their current armaments.
Training dummies that needed to be destroyed.
With Ruby, she was contemplating how she would, say, be proficient at using Myrtenaster.
The rapier was small, that was the only thing she could see being a major problem.
Looking it over, she found an arrow symbol pointing to a green dust capsule gauge, from what she had seen from Weiss, it was powered by soul.
Focusing her soul through the thin sword, she saw the dust chamber mechanism light up, she went through the various sides, observing each one.
Pale green was wind dust, dark blue was water dust, bright cyan was ice dust, medium yellow was lightning dust, medium red was fire dust, dusk purple was darkness dust, and ivory...
... ivory dust was one of the two rarest dusts there was, it was holy dust, the power of creation.
Testing out all of the dusts, Ruby used the elemental powers to move around the battlefield, destroying her targets with several well timed strikes.
With Weiss, she was having a harder time.
The sword part was easy, not much else on that needed to be known.
The pistol-whip part, that was where it got hard.
The ribbon had a small cube for a handle, she probably sustained head injuries from her futile attempts.
The formula went; attempt to manipulate the whip, fail and hit self in face, resolve to do better next time, repeat.
She heard Blake walking over, looking up at the original wielder of the weapon she held, her eyes pleaded for help.
"Weiss, you're trying too hard, just let it move freely, only manipulate it when the ribbon gets tense." the ninja gave the tip in a kind voice, propelling herself back to her own area with a double blast of impact shells.
Letting the weapon move, she started spinning it around, pulling it closer when a target was closer, using her aura to control the position of the pistol, she quickly and carefully delivered headshots to each of the targets, eliminating them one by one.
Her style didn't change, it just... adjusted to fit her new armament, she was precise, careful, and calculating.
Blake was having an easy time, all things considered, she even put a mixed load of shells loaded into the Ember Celicas.
The ninja had an advanced perception of space and depth, and a really good memory to boot, she knew each of the shells she had loaded, what they did, and when they were next in the chamber.
Delivering several quick, perforating punches, she blasted herself into the air, delivering a few jumping kicks to her training dummies, keeping herself in motion, the black clad girl dodged the strong, swift attacks she had set her dummies to fight with.
The bookworm adjusted easily, she never really had a problem with change, even in the past when it was necessary for survival, she had simply grown up knowing that change was needed.
Yang was stuck.
In all the initial hubbub with Ruby making her own weapon and how cool it was and what it was made of, she hadn't picked up a particular, crucial detail.
How does one fire the Crescent Rose?
She pointed it downwards, not wanting to accidently blow a hole in the castle masonry with the massive one and a half inch thick bullets.
Using her expert fingers, she moved every part she could, trying to find the trigger, or at least whatever acted as the trigger.
She took a hit when the weapon finally fired, the kickback was like a raging bull, rising up so far it struck her in the head.
The gun portion dealt with, Yang started brutalizing her training dummies, slashing and blasting them to pieces.
This was how she fought, getting up-close-and-personal with the enemy, giving them a face full of buckshot, well, usually, now she was giving them a face full of rifle-blast.
The scythe was built strong, it WAS sharpened, but not to a great extent, about the cutting power of a steak knife.
The blonde woman's muscle-bolstered arms made quick work with the suboptimal edge, slicing and dicing the targets with .
Team JNPR was having a similar situation.
Jaune's excesses of muscle gave him a great advantage with the war hammer, but he hit a snag when it came to firing it.
Finding the trigger was easy, the battling afterwards was easier.
Mainly using knockout tactics and horizontal slams, the blonde man's moves quickly became smoother and more fluid, swishing the polearm around like it was just a stick.
With Nora.....
Nora used the twenty five caliber, three inch long casing, ultra-velocity cartridges of Pyrrha's rifle to launch herself at the enemy.
She always felt a sort of high when she moved with her weapon, giving an absent minded laugh she stabbed and smacked the dummies with the Milo and Akuou.
With Pyrrha.....
The machine pistols were simple in design, obviously their creator favored function over form, the rule of real over the rule of cool.
They were chambered in forty-SW, a small, but decent cartridge, not much in perforation, but they pack a punch.
The twenty round magazines were emptied within a breath or two, which left the question of how they were reliable.
Then she found the answer, the fire select.
Safe, Auto, Soul.
Using the 'Soul' setting, her aura was projected in rapid volleys, the energy projectiles were dark red, signifying that it was, indeed, her own soul being utilized.
The bolts seemed to home in on the targets, even without aiming and wielding the guns akimbo style, she shot a three inch wide pattern, impressive for what was basically a bladed TEC9.
The blades, however, where a bit of an issue, they were sharp, yes, incredibly so, but the problem was the possibility of chipping or breaking them, she didn't want to abuse the weapon, but she was concerned.
Stabbing the dummies in all of the vital areas, slashing off heads and severing limbs, her skills improved quickly, she was a master of the fight.
With Ren.......
The slim ninja kept on his toes, bouncing slightly, ready for movement, he had set his dummies to move, to have the highest skill setting and a medium speed setting, as that was what he'd be fighting.
Using the slightly-sharp edge of the shield, he countered a punch and did a quick stab, puncturing the false pony's throat, leaving it dead.
He let his enemy come to him, that was his style, Lie and Wait, it was the reason why he was called Lie Ren, in his hometown, surnames were assigned based on skill, his people put a lot of emphasis on huntsmen and huntresses.
That was why Nora was Nora Valkyrie, her style was the kind of take-action violent ways of the barbarians.
The history classes had been interesting, there used to be more kingdoms, including the current four, and one of them was snuffed out by its flaws.
Burning the forests around, giving no chance for retaliation, the problem was that all the fighters left at the same time, when they got back one day, everything was destroyed, and they were slaughtered.
Ren was snapped out of his reminiscing by a punch to the chest that knocked him flat on his ass.
Using the sword to parry as he flipped up again, he kept fighting.
He often worked so hard that there wasn't much energy for anything else, his excessive thinking had led him to many injuries, he could recover quick, but it didn't take much to knock him back to the medical ward again.
After slaying all of the dummies, he summoned some more, he had work to do.
Qrow watched all of the young people for about twenty minutes, then he grabbed his megaphone again.
"ATTENTION, IT'S NOW TIME TO SWITCH AGAIN, GO TO YOUR TEAM'S TABLE, PLACE DOWN YOUR WEAPON, TAKE ANOTHER STEP OVER, AND PICK UP THE NEW WEAPON, THEN RESUME TRAINING!" the megaphone was exciting, it was hard for him to put it down.
The next switch went by quicker, with everyone rearmed again, the practices continued.
Ruby learned the whip more easily, having a similar expertise in motion, and utilized the pistol-whip in a new way, rather than a harpooning her enemies, she used it like a grappling hook.
Quickly pulling her tiny frame to the targets, she shot and slashing with the gun and sword parts, it was easy, though for many foes it would be inefficient.
Weiss delivered her punches with the finesse of a professional boxer, striking when she could, though the way she went about it allowed the manifestation of defenses, the enemy could brace themselves for whatever impact she might bring.
Her style had always been about patience and skill, she was calm, cool, collected. Weiss Schnee didn't let much phase her.
Blake had it a bit rough, but after the minor bump of finding the trigger, which was explained to her by Yang, it was smooth sailing.
She used the rifle form to its fullest extent, putting out headshot after headshot, the scythe was used in its straightened form, the one lined up with the barrel, rather than perpendicular to it. She stabbed and slashed her conjured opponents, melee prowess too much for the relatively weak foes.
Yang was hacking and slashing, just hacking and slashing, not much else to say, the dust mechanisms only aided her destructive fighting style.
Team JNPR was, again, a similar, yet different story.
Jaune had moved on to Pyrrha's weapons, the Milo and Akuou, spear and shield.
While they lacked the simplicity-equals-reliability factor of his own rudimentarily forged weapons, they had a more modern-day level of integrated intricacy that couldn't be found in other, older styles and models.
The rifle form was useful, in less than a few minutes, with Pyrrha's guiding hand of course, he had managed to build up a par level of marksmanship.
'Par level' meaning the thin line between efficient/skilled and wasteful/incompetent.
Sending the spear through several heads in a row, Jaune's skills had transcended the boundaries of death.
His fathers' skills were being filtered through him, through his powerful body, his quintuple soul, and his malleable mind.
Jaune Arc the First, Jaune Arc the Second, Jaune Arc the Third, Jaune Arc the Fourth, and himself, Jaune Arc the Fifth, they worked as one, even with the latter being the only one in pre-mortem.
His soul had transcended mortality, infinite in breadth and distance, unbound by death, all of his fathers' souls joined his own. He was a machine, a machine that was never truly completed, it merely added more and more parts with every new person in the line.
The machine was known as Jaune Arc, a legacy of a ruthless, blood-stained, usurper of a king and master of the battlefield.
Rage, anger, fury, hatred, indignation, chagrin, irritation, displeasure, vexation, all forms of hostility, these were his most powerful weapons.
Nora was a different story entirely, her proficiency came from her lack of a grip on reality, while Jaune had a stranglehold.
She merely sang a little tune as she shredded her targets with the machine pistols, the aura function using her candy-coated-plutonium of a soul as its fuel, spitting out thinly-jacketed missiles of pain and violence.
Pyrrha was used to the style of the sword and shield, her own weapons weren't very different, though the laminated carbonate alloy of her shield would bend, where as the simpler ivory-coated metal of Jaune's shield was very much the opposite of submissive.
The sword could be powered by soul, a plating of a simple formula of steel over force dust was the entirety of its design, it was well-sharpened, the formation of it, the metal covering the dust, prevented the dust from being expended, but the thunderous effects were never exhausted.
Smashing up a few targets, she tried a spin attack, shattering several enemies at once. The shield was used to, well, shield her from oncoming attacks. It was a big case of SSDX, same shit, different face.
Ren was having a bit of a fun time with Magnhild.
The explosives part, he wasn't too keen on, but he launched himself into the air a few times, he felt like he was flying, the wind running through his hair, he came down on his targets like a bird of prey.
Blocking a few punches, he countered with a smash, this was easy, so he turned up the difficulty again.
Qrow couldn't feel his side, but he shook off the feeling of something wet on his upper portion of his left hip, he looked at Ozpin to ask his opinion, but only received a fiery scowl from the older man.
Ozpin had a lot of pent up anger with his two teammates, as least he got to beat the shit out of Glynda, but Qrow was a different story.
The age gap was about twenty one years, Qrow having recently turned fifty, and Ozpin being seventy one.
Qrow turned back to the warriors, activating the bullhorn setting on his megaphone, damn he loved that thing.
"Alright, YOU KNOW THE DRILL, TABLE, WEAPONS, STEP, WEAPONS AGAIN, GO!" he was practically lecturing at this point.
"Qrow, why won't you stop SCREAMING!?" Ozpin was a bit hypocritical, but the younger man never really pointed out such mistakes.
"I'm not screaming, David, I'm lecturing, something that I understand that you have grown fond of." Orchid used the professor's first name just to irritate him.
"Don't call me David." David replied, his eyes narrowing in a growing anger.
"But's David is your name, David, if I shouldn't call you by David, that being your name, the what should I call you by, David?" it was moments like these that Qrow lived for, making people he knew get mad, he was just too cool to care.
Ruby, on the other hand, was dealing with the heat, she berserker-ed her way around, striking her enemies and using the force to launch herself at other enemies.
It was tough at first, and a few times she ended up shooting herself over into Weiss's area, but after a brief explanation and a few tips on using Crescent Rose, the red clad girl resumed the action.
Weiss had the same problem the other two had, finding the trigger, but Ruby had been kind enough to come over, rather forcefully and comparable to a missile maybe, but she was helpful, being not only the wielder of said armament, but also the expert, and the creator, so she knew what she was doing.
With the knowledge she needed, the white-clad young woman began almost dancing with the scythe-rifle, slashing and shooting her foes, the force wasn't enough to launch her larger frame around like Ruby did, but that was okay, the heiress understood that she wasn't here to master her comrades' weapons, just learn the basics.
Blake swung Myrtenaster at a great velocity, timing her dust actions almost perfectly, lashing out and striking with ease, swordsmanship was one of her fortes.
Yang was having similar problems as Weiss, the pistol-whip, but a few wise words from Blake, and the blonde was whipping the pistol around and shooting her enemies.
She hypothesized that the original intent of such a design was for a speedy fighter, and maybe barricade surpassing.
Using the bladed sheath in the offhand position, she mainly stuck to melee form of the Gambol Shroud, using the pistol at point blank range.
Team JNPR, again.....
Jaune had stopped training the second his quintuple soul ended up scorching the barrels of the Jade Dragons, it didn't help that a nearby tower had been de-roofed from about a twenty shots in a single second.
He had left to go inspect the damages he had accidentally caused.
That was something about him, there were a lot of things that could snap him out of his rage.
Nora was propelling herself a lot like Ruby did, using the force dust of the sword to knock herself around like a bouncy ball.
After one such bounce, she ended up launching herself through Pyrrha's area, skidding to a halt a couple of feet away from Ren.
"Nora, that's not really the best way to move in an encounter." the green-clad easterner informed lightheartedly.
"Boop." Nora replied, holding Jaune's sword by the blade and poking Ren on the nose with the pommel.
Ren just gave a small, somewhat goofy smile, getting low, and using his foot to push on Nora's feet to slide her back to her zone.
Pulling a Chuck Norris and swimming on land, the redhead reached her zone and resumed training.
Pyrrha took a brief break to watch this display of disregard for the laws of physics, but then again, she was Nora, and what brief experience Pyrrha had with Pinkie Pie had taught her not to question any breakage of physics or logic when in Equestria.
The Magnhild was surprisingly lightweight, which wasn't saying much since she expected it to weigh at least as much as her whole body, exposure to these ponies and their less advanced culture led to brief lapses in memory.
After the invention of mythril, shadowite, and blood-steel, many weapons were improved by vast degrees.
Shadowite was basically super steel, the highest tensility of the three alloys, and great malleability to back it up.
Blood-steel was named after its dark red appearance, it was the easiest to make, simply steel with some copper and bromine, both elements contributed to the color and the cost-efficiency. The performance was twice that of normal steels, but about a tenth of shadowite.
Mythril was a hell of a lot harder to get, since it was a blend of iron, titanium, ivory, gold, cobalt, and platinum. True mythril was typically light green, but somewhat weaker, yet much cheaper, forms ranged from white to gray in color. It could be beaten like copper and polished like glass, molded like tin but stronger than the hardest of normal steels,
Ruby's weapon was made of all three, mostly blood-steel, but the black portions were obviously shadowite, and the light gray blade was easily distinguishable as mythril.
Her body went on training even while her mind was distracted, the less-conscious parts of her mind memorizing the skills she developed.
Ren was still working hard, the Milo and Akuou were fine weapons, he just recycled a lot of things he learned while training with Jaune's sword and shield.
The rifle function, though, that was useful.
His aura worked like a really powerful force-field, and also as a limited ability of telekinesis, he wouldn't be able to lift anything heavier than himself, but anything lighter was quite maneuverable.
Ren spun the spear in the air, giving it a much wider range of attack than normal, bringing it back to his hand, using the shield to cut and block his fake foes.
Blocking a rearing stomp from the large illusionary pony, he stabbed it in the throat with a quick, simple move, negating whatever the AI had planned.
These magically summoned targets were quite advanced, there was a lot more to them than just soul, Ren could tell, soul wasn't this flexible, maybe it was magic? In Vytal, just saying the word 'magic' without 'is not real' or some variation of such following or preceding the word could get one branded insane, possibly in legal trouble, all over the word 'magic'.
Magic wasn't real, at least not in Vytal, but here in Equestria, the easterner knew that the thing powering the training fields, the source of energy for the light crystals that illuminated the halls, to just seeing it for himself, he knew that magic was real in Equestria.
He was the last of the warriors to accept magic, the others had simple thoughts on the subject, Vytal doesn't have magic, Equestria does, end of story.
The green ninja often found himself overthinking things, that was why he slept like a rock, he didn't snore because his body was too tired to enter a condition where he would snore.
The way he overworked himself probably facilitated the biological response.
"TRAINING TIME DONE, the period of the hard limit is over, is you wish to continue training with your own weapons, feel free, but it's dinner time, see ya later, suckers." Qrow soared off as quickly as he could, which was a lot faster than before thanks to his professional flight training from the pegasus guards.
It was time for food.
<cutaway>
Jaune had faced a great deal of 'OH COME ON' when he arrived at the top of the thirty story tower.
There was an elevator.
There was no reason for an elevator to be there, no logical explanation, the only reason that this particular elevator was placed at this particular point in space was simply to give the cruel being known as luck yet another chance to shit on him.
Stepping into the large, roofless room, he found a pony standing in the middle of the floor, holding a teddy bear with little horns.
He had a coat like sand, with a pale yellow mane and tail, cloudy white unshorn fetlocks, and black irises.
The pajama clad stallion walked over to Jaune, rearing up with his teddy bear placed comically on his head, he simply hugged the blond young man.
"Um, what are you doin-" Jaune was shushed.
"Shhhhhhhhhhh, sleeeeeeep." the sand colored pony said, rubbing Jaune's back with a hoof.
Jaune suddenly felt a sharp pain in his spine, followed by a feeling of pleasure and a wave of fatigue. He began to doze off.
The demon pony smiled, he had used his weapon, the Eternal Slumber, a small dagger laced with narcotics, analgesics, lots of poison, and various caustic substances.
It was called the Eternal Slumber because the target fell asleep forever.
As is they're dead.
Jaune's other fifths of soul pleaded for him to stand and fight, to not be put down so easily.
A wave of adrenaline washed over the swordsman, he was lucky that his aura healed him, or he would be at shareholder level with an aspirin company for all the headaches his chronic anger would cause him.
He grabbed the sleepy pony, stabbing him up the diaphragm.
This was a fatal move, because as long as the blade stayed where it was, the stallion would be physically incapable of breathing, much less speaking.
"Scream for me." Jaune demanded in a morbid tone, his attitude took quite the turn for the worse here.
"The path of righteousness is beset on all sides by cretin like you. I shall lead the others through this valley of darkness, for I am truly my brother's keeper, the man of many souls. And I will strike down with GREAT VENGEANCE and FURIOUS ANGER, YOU, and ALL THOSE who attempt to POISON, and DESTROY ME and MY BROTHERS. You shall KNOW that I am the WRATHFUL FIST OF GOD, when I lay my vengeance, upon you." Jaune quoted the Book of Hunters.
The Book of Hunters, a practically religious peace of bibliography detailing the rise of humanity from the oppression of the Grimm, ascending from slaves to rebels, from rebels to warfighters, and eventually one day, from warfighters to conquerors.
His name didn't matter, but his powers were severed, the creatures of Sin would lack the essence of.... tiredness?
Wait, was that a good thing?
The Sin lacking..... um, exhaustion, maybe the power of laziness and lack of action, this death would energize them.
Jaune decided to let the chips fall where they may, grabbed the Eternal Slumber as a memento, and go to the dining hall.
His aura cleansing the toxins from his bloodstream, the blond trekked off.
<cutaway>
Everyone was having a good time, a little celebration was taking place, it was some twin sister guards' birthdays today.
There were two cakes, one for just the twins and one for everyone else.
It was of utmost quality, made by the head chef Growling Roar-say.
Though the chef was a bit of a prick, and a douche, and he yelled a LOT, but he claimed to make food that would make Demonus and Angelus cream their pants, if the former ever wore any, so he was put to the test, and passed with flying colors.
"Who is Demonus and Angelus? They sound important." Ruby asked Luna innocently.
"Allow me to explain, here in Equestria, the only problem one has with the afterlife is managing their affairs before they get there. There are many forms of those who control the good and bad afterlives, Heaven and Tartarus, Angelus and Demonus are the managers, they deal with who comes in and who goes out, there's more, the ones who control the actual contents of the afterlife, the gatekeepers, and there's Death, he's a really nice pony when you get past the whole 'alicorn of death' part." Luna explained at ends.
"Speak of Demonus and she'll come a runnin', how's it goin' cousin?" a lurid looking stallion jumped in from the open window, landing in front of the pair.
Ruby looked at him in amazement, the musculature, the hanging black mane dripping ethereal petroleum that dissipated when it hit the floor, the pale gray coat, the skull and crossbones cutie mark, the leather wrappings on his front hooves, the bone helmet that made him look like there wasn't any skin on his head.
The blood red eyes, the sharpened horn, the lack of wings.....
"I thought you were an alicorn?" the red clad girl asked the controller of death itself.
"My powers don't work when I'm in the mortal world of Equus, or when I'm in a physical form, but in heaven, tartarus, or the spirit plane, I'm the real deal." Death extrapolated, gesturing to a bit of black cloth wrapped around his back.
The apparent alicorn looked at his watch, "Well that's enough living for today, let me check the time," he brought the watch closer, "Yep it's about that time." he jumped into the fireplace and burned to ashes.
Ruby was shocked, but Luna gave a chuckle.
"That's something he does a lot, young Ruby. You'll get used to it, don't worry though, Death never dies." the midnight blue alicorn imparted the wisdom, walking off to prevent her sister from hogging all the cake.
Ruby ate her cookies slowly, thinking about Death and his few words, she didn't think about the concept of death, she never had, and hopefully wouldn't have to for a long time.
"Oh man, these are, these are really good looking, yeah, yeah they are." Jeering looked at the plate, motioning to one of the servants to bring in more cookies.
"Hi, aren't you Scootaloo's brother?" Ruby asked, looking at Jeering questioningly.
"Nope, that would be me." Evening said from behind her back, vaulting over the table and sitting across from the scythe-wielder.
"Oh yeah, I see it a lot now, so, Jaune told me about you two, you have a sniper rifle too?" she asked Evening, wishing to talk about weapons.
"Well, yeah, but I stowed it away, right now I'm packing heat in the form of a shovel." the stallion brought out said shovel.
"Ooh, that's a lot of potential." Ruby complimented, looking over every inch of the tool/weapon.
"It is, and it's inconspicuous, who assumes a murderer uses a shovel?" the helmetless scarlet unicorn's words made Ruby start thinking again.
"Oh well I use a sword, I'm gonna legacy the legacy with my gold-iron alloy." the act of the pegasus brandishing the sword made Evening hiss.
"Dude, I may not be a squishy wizard, but keep that thing away from me." the magic knight chastised.
"Oh right, sorry, the gold is for electricity, and we both know this, but you still are cautious about me using it on you, we're friends, though, and I do not, I do not do that, that is, my least favorite thing to do." Jeering, upon further conversation, sounded less cool and more mentally unstable, yet wise in his own way.
"What are you talking about, what's wrong with gold?" Ruby asked, her round eyes wide with curiosity.
"It's a common misconception that iron and magic don't mix, that's obviously wrong since I said it was a common misconception. Quite the opposite, in fact, as iron is the most magically receptive metal there is, the problems are the royal metals, copper, silver, and gold. Blood exposure to one of these three metals will cause a block in the innate magics, magic is everywhere, but it can be evicted. If a pegasus gets cut with a silver blade, they will be unable to fly until their body processes and disposes of the silver, the magic in pegasi make then light and able to produce lift with their wings. If a unicorn is cut by a gold weapon, they can't cast magic until the gold is expunged. Earth ponies lose their earthly vitality and strength in the poisoning of copper. We each have weaknesses, but luckily all of those metals are soft, and the perfect alloy between all of them can only be made with magic itself, the only case is the infamous Crowned Zanbato, a sword forged in an eldritch location, only the mentally insane can wield it, so I'm pretty close to a user." Warden laughed at the end of his explanation, a kind of hard, debilitating laughter that left him shuddering with each mirthful exhalation.
Ruby laughed too, Jeering said "Oooooooh booooooy." before joining them.
Glynda looked at the laughing trio, somewhat relaxed by how they were at least enjoying themselves.
She smiled to Ozpin, Ozpin smiled back.
That fight earlier really shattered a lot of tension between them, the result was calming.
Jaune and Pyrrha were happily chatting away, talking about what they would say when they got back, how they would get back, how they would fight the Sin, but they were very positive about it.
Nora was monologing to Ren, but the green-clad young man spoke back more often than usual.
Even Weiss and Blake warmed up to the ponies, it helped that the ponies were very warm, friendly folks.
Yang was currently talking to a very large pegasus soldier, she looked content.
Qrow had returned, getting between the older hunters and resting his elbows on their shoulders, Scootaloo was standing on his head, their adventurous and energetic personalities quickly made them friends.
"Off, on an adventure across the SEA, come fly with me, let's fly AWAAAAAAY, to the lake and fly across it like it was the ocean, because we're both really fucking awesome and super badass to boot! So this way, follow me Scoot." Qrow half-sang-half-announced, running off quickly, nearly leaving Scootaloo behind before she clung to his head, her revolver's holster poking him in the ear.
Everyone was having a good time.
Today was a good day.
Didn't even need to bring in any AKs.
<cutaway>
It was time for things to suck, a lot.
Who knew that there was more to this place than that damn, dirty forest.
"Come on, we don't have all day." a calming, yet condescending voice insisted, moving the quartet on.
Walking on his two feet, accompanied by a third 'leg', the suave man directed his allies to the strange, old-style town.
"Activity is abundant within those walls." the other man pointed out, his eyes could see a lot of physical things, though his mind wasn't the smartest in guessing intentions.
"Why are we doing this?" one of the two girls asked.
"Because, I am a man of humor." the white-clad man began, turning to his makeshift team, "and I only laugh at things I like," he reared his head back in laughter, "and HAHA, ORGANIZED CRIME!" he gave several loud chuckles, firing his weapon into the air.
"You're really weird, dude." the other girl remarked, brushing back a lock of her black hair.
"Shut up, you M&M, I do what I want, because I can." the redhead countered, turning back to the town.
He was going to burn the town, burn it to the ground.
It was time for a fireworks show that these people would never forget.