1,344I don't own anything to do with the RWBY franchise
Chapter 1 - The Daily Grind
Fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh, grunt, groan...
"Tell me something. Why do you bother with any of this, big brother? You're the only male born of our generation. You're the heir apparent of the Arc family. None of this... training... is ever going to be necessary."
Fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh... Hahh, hah, grunt...
With a heavy sigh and an angry sideways look at his twin sister, Jaune Arc ended the overhead sword strikes that he'd been practicing and allowed his 'sword' to drop to the sandy earth. While he was vaguely aware that it's bad sword etiquette to allow a blade to crash into the ground, the fact that he hadn't actually been holding a sword made those minor details unimportant.
Despite the fact that he was a member of a well-known and highly respected Huntsmen and Huntress family, Jaune wasn't allowed to own or train with a weapon of any variety. For lack of better options, he'd been training with a heavy iron crowbar with leather wrapped around one end to simulate the hilt of a sword. For obvious reasons, he was in no danger of dulling the edge of his training blade, and he needn't worry about proper maintenance or etiquette.
Now that Jaune had successfully been distracted away from the rudimentary sword swings he'd been practicing, he figured that it was as good a time as any for a change of pace. Without a word, he dropped into a deep crouch before pushing himself up to his full height. It was time to complete his daily leg strengthening exercises.
"Well... Tell me," the pretty blonde girl prompted, yet again. "Why do you have to do... this... every single day? I don't get much time off from training and I miss you when I'm gone. Can't you take the day off and spend some time with me?"
With yet another sigh, Jaune turned back towards his closest friend and sister. "I'm sorry Olivia, but I can't do that for you. If I took a day off every time one of my sisters did, I'd never get to train ever again. There's seven of you after all, and all of you get just one day off a week. How about this though. If you really want to spend some quality time with me, then how about you teach me what the rest of you are learning. You'd have my undivided attention then."
"You know I'm not allowed to do that Jaune," Olivia protested in a petulant and frustrated little voice. After crossing her arms over her almost nonexistent chest, she huffed and kicked some of the sand at her feet. "You know what I think? I think that it's selfish of you to ask me to train you, because you already know that I'm not allowed. You know very well that we're being watched on several of the courtyard cameras, which means that I'll be severely punished for anything that I let slip in your presence. Can't you make both of our lives easier and just give up on this so called training?"
"No. No I can't," Jaune immediately answered, in a no nonsense tone of voice. "I refuse to spend my life as nothing more than breeding stock for line continuation purposes. It's absurd that any of you think I'll change my mind on this..."
It could be so much worse though Jaune," the younger twin sister encouraged, while adopting the most adorable smile that she had in her repertoire. "You've been given an education in several fields that the rest of us don't have the time to persue. I have no idea what you're even talking about when it comes to science or history and that's with you dumbing down everything you say for my benefit. I don't know how to dance or sing like you can, paint or play an instrument like you do. I'm always amazed by how delicious your cooking is and the things that you can build with your hands. You're a fantastically well-educated and genteel young bachelor, Jaune. When you finally come of age, you're going to marry several of the most accomplished young heiresses that Atlas nobility has to offer. Why can't you find satisfaction in all of the things that've been provided for you and make peace with your situation."
In the moment that followed Olivia Arc's words, a heavy silence blanketed the entire courtyard. With hands that were beginning to visibly tremble, Jaune bent over, picked up his ad-hock sword, and returned to his earlier efforts. He knew right away that his only two options were to either freak out and hurl hurtful words at his youngest sister, or start using the Hell out of his body. Jaune made his decision. He started swinging his way through some more amateurish sword forms with all of the strength that he could muster.
In response to her brother's desperate efforts, Olivia Arc shook her head, turned away and then channeled her aura to dash towards the castle. When she moved, it was with the speed and grace of a ninja, her every movement showcasing the futility of Jaune's so called... training.
With a grunt of both effort and frustration, Jaune heaved his metal bar in a right to left cut that ended up looking more like a homerun hit with a baseball bat than any kind of sword form. His knuckles were white and his teeth were clenched. His breathing was irregular and his face was visibly flushed with blood. He was angry. No... He was furious. He couldn't even believe the words that had just come out of his twin sister's mouth. He and Olivia had always been extraordinarily close growing up, to the point that it had felt like they could read each other's minds. Olivia knew exactly how he felt about his parent's 'plan' for him, which could only mean that she just didn't give a damn about his desires anymore.
The fact of the matter was that Jaune had heard Olivia's line of reasoning hundreds of times in the past. He'd heard all of her arguments many, many times, from both of his parents and all six of his older sisters. The fact that Olivia, his twin sister, was willing to parrot those same arguments, signified the end of an era. Olivia had turned on him. She'd become a plant just like the rest of them. She was a watcher, a spy, a prison guard; she could no longer be trusted.
There was no one left... He was alone...
Dropping to the ground, Jaune began pushing himself through a gauntlet of body strengthening exercises. When he finished a set of fifty pushups, he turned over and started on the sit-ups. When those were completed, he moved on to burpees and squats. When he was finished with those, he ran laps around the courtyard until he could hardly breath and was just moments from passing out. He pushed himself to the limits that a body can reach without aura bolstered abilities, both because he needed to be prepared and because it hurt to dwell on his sister's betrayal.
The second reason why Jaune was struggling so hard was because he was already fourteen years old. If his parent's hadn't decided to protect him like a bird in a cage, he'd already be a second year student at a Huntsmen and Huntress preparatory school. As things stood however, he was being forced to wile his life away under a gauntlet of capable but remote home tutors, while the rest of his sisters took part in the family trade.
According to his parents, Jaune was being kept safe because he was the future head of the family. According to their plan, he was supposed to treat his seven sisters as some kind of bodyguard slash mercenary force, as he climbed his way up the social/political ladder. If his parents were to be believed, Jaune was supposed to become a well-respected member of Atlas's upper aristocracy on the backs of his hard fighting sisters. Yeah... It was just as pathetic a destiny as it sounds. He might as well cut off all of his arms and legs and rely on the robot serving staff to keep him fed, watered and clean.
What his parents seemed to be forgetting, was the fact that Jaune had witnessed the scope of the threat humanity faced for himself. Seven years earlier, Jaune had survived a Grimm attack that would've killed most children, and his parents had locked him behind the walls of Arc castle ever since. They expected him to be grateful. They expected him to be fearful. They expected him to be obedient.
They were wrong.
Jaune had just as much drive to fight the Grimm as anyone else on Remnant, and he despised the comfortable prison that his parents were forcing upon him. No... He wasn't going to cooperate with his family's willfully ignorant and irrational form of devotion. He wasn't going to allow himself to be nothing more than a mascot for his sisters to rally around. No... Jaune was going to get away...
He just didn't know how... yet.
The primary hang-up with any escape attempt that Jaune had ever made was twofold. The first problem was that every single member of the Arc family staff were Atlas Academy trained Huntsmen and Huntresses of at least middling level. The second problem was that Jaune's own aura was forcibly sealed away and inaccessible to him.
Ever since the Grimm attack seven years earlier, when his aura had been forcefully unlocked by a mixture of trauma and injury, Jaune had been wearing a device around his neck. It was a locked metal choker or torque of some kind, but Jaune couldn't help but think of it as a collar. This collar continuously drained any and all aura away from his body, to the point that he might as well not even have any.
At eight Am every single morning, a pair of his father's strongest lieutenants would place a large, opaque looking crystal into a well-protected slot in Jaune's collar. In return, they'd always remove a radiantly bright yellow crystal that was completely saturated with Jaune's aura. During this exchange, Jaune was always held down in a heavy duty metallic, restraint chair, that had several very thick belts and straps attached to it. Jaune's family knew from long experience that he'd try to get away during the time that his collar was removed, which is why they'd made arrangements to do so "safely." It was exactly this variety of sick consideration that made Jaune so desperate to get away...
Long story short, Jaune wasn't going to be able to get away until he could figure out how to deactivate the aura suppression collar, which in turn explained why he was pushing his body so hard. He had a theory and he'd been checking it out every day for quite a while now. In the past, after the days where he'd been very physically active, the crystal that was removed from within his collar was always quite a bit brighter and more powerfully charged. Jaune suspected that the collar draws more power from him on days when he's physically active, because his body attempts to generate aura in order to help him move and heal his various torn muscles. The fact that his aura was drawn away and fails to assist his body in any meaningful way was the only thing that made testing out his theory difficult.
Jaune ached... badly, most of the time...
His body didn't heal within just a couple of hours like a modern Huntsmen trainee does with an aura. What that meant for Jaune was that he needed to train like an athlete would in the days before aura was first discovered, slowly and painfully. He needed to continue pushing himself harder day after day, because he needed his body to generate more aura. He wanted to generate more aura because he had a suspicion... Jaune was pretty sure that he was filling the aura suppression collar's crystals almost to max capacity, which is why they were replaced every single morning without exception. He wanted to know what would happen if he pushed the crystal beyond its capacity. Granted, there was a chance that the crystal would explode and remove his head from his shoulders, but Jaune was willing to take that risk if it meant potential freedom.
No. Jaune was not going to stop completing what his sister's called a completely futile training regimen. He was going to continue pushing himself to the limit until either his body breaks... or the crystal does...
One Year Later...
Drip, drip, drip, grunt, groan, drip...
"So you're going to continue giving me the silent treatment again today, Jaune?"
Grunt, groan, huff, puff...
"You know, I apologized a long damned time ago," Olivia suddenly screamed at Jaune, as the teen continued to perform handstand pushups. "It's cruel that you still haven't forgiven me after all this time!"
"One hundred," Jaune gasped out, in a quiet and tight lipped little voice, before rolling forward into a crouch. After dusting himself off, he looked up at his twin sister, only to give her a silent but meaningful stare. He held her eyes for several very long moments as he rose to his feet and shook out his arms. Olive knew exactly why he was ignoring her, so he wasn't going to dignify her outburst with a response.
A few weeks after their argument a year earlier, Olivia had come back begging for his forgiveness, which, of course, Jaune had given her because he lived an extremely isolated existence. Not long after that, she'd started asking him probing questions about whatever escape plans he was making. She'd tried to act as if she was a coconspirator of some kind, but she wasn't a very good actor and they were twins. Jaune had known right away that his sister was spying for their parents and that she could no longer be trusted. In the end, that had been the straw that broke the camel's back, at which point, he'd stopped communicating with the girl altogether.
What bothered Jaune the most about Olivia's behaviour was the way she continually acted as if it was him that was at fault. He had no patience for his sister's delusional brand of immaturity, thus he hadn't said a single word to her in over eleven months' time. Well, today would be no exception. Breaking their locked gazes, Jaune rose to his feet and moved towards a nearby tree. Without a word, he jumped up to a relatively low branch and began a set of pull-ups. Hopefully, by the time he was finished punishing his body, Olivia would have gone back inside of the castle with everyone else.
"You know what? Fine! You want to train with me Jaune, get your ass down her right this very instant!"
So much for leaving him alone... Jaune had no idea what his sister had in mind, but he was curious enough that he dropped from the tree limb with forty more pull-ups to go. Turning around, he found his sister with her arms up in a fighting stance.
"Grab that dumbass crowbar of yours and come at me," Olivia screamed, with a red face and white, trembling knuckles. "I'm tired of this idiocy. You're weak... You're weak and you're slow and you're defenseless! I'm going to show you just how fruitless all of your efforts are!"
While walking over to his crowbar sword, Jaune kept his eyes on his visibly furious sister. She was trembling from top to bottom and heaving for air just standing there, so it was safe to assume that she wasn't bluffing. He also knew that he didn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell of winning a fight against his sister. She was an Arc family fighter and a candidate for admission to Atlas Academy, which of course meant that she was extremely gifted and tough.
He, on the other hand...
Well, since it was taking far longer than he'd thought it would to finally break open the aura suppression collar, for all intents and purposes, Jaune was a civilian. Actually, when he really thought about it, he was worse off than a normal civilian. He had literally zero aura at his beck and call. Most normal people have at least a small amount of latent aura that aide them as they live. Well... Whatever. He'd take what he could from the beating that he was about to receive. Up until now, he had exactly zero real life fighting experience, so that would make this so-called 'spar' worth it one way or another.
After picking up his 'sword,' Jaune moved until he was a little over ten feet away from Olivia. He had no idea what the customary start to a spar would look like, so he just took a ready stance and waited.
You have nothing to say in defense of your strength," Olivia asked, with angry sarcasm dripping in her tone. "No bravado or bitchy one liners to sling my way!"
"You will win," Jaune replied in a deadpan tone of voice. "I'll fight... and then I'll lose."
"If you know that much, then stop making everyone worry about you," Olivia screamed, as she launched through the air in Jaune's direction.
Fast. Olivia was way too fast to keep up with, especially while carrying a heavy iron crowbar. By the time Jaune had taken just one large step to the left to flank the girl, Olivia had changed course, come in from behind and was throwing a punch at the back of Jaune's head. Only by leaping forward into a roll was he able to protect himself from an instant knockout, but that didn't mean that he was safe. Even as he was rolling forward, Jaune felt the weight of a mountain slam into and then through his ribs, and he was kicked across the lawn like a soccer ball.
After tumbling and rolling several times, Jaune finally managed to bounce painfully back up to his feet. Unfortunately, Olivia was right there to meet him. Before Jaune could even begin lifting his arms into a defensive stance, Olivia's fist was smashing into his nose and cracking it in half like an egg. Stars and a deafening jangling noise rattled through Jaune's brain as his legs left the ground and he flew through the air. Then, after slamming into the stone of the courtyard wall, he dropped to the earth like a sack of potatoes.
Well... shucks. That had gone even worse than Jaune had thought it would, and he hadn't thought that it would go well.
A moment later, when a black silhouette shielded Jaune from the evening sun, he wondered if his adversary was going to continue her attack.
'You're pathetic," Olivia pointed out, in a dull sounding voice that was simultaneously angry and sullen.
"Of course I'm pathetic, I'm a prisoner," Jaune groaned out, as the ringing in his ears slowly faded away.
You're not a prisoner," Olivia snarled, in a voice that was equal parts raw hurt and extreme anger. We're your family. We love you. The Grimm surround us on all sides and humanity isn't winning. We, your sisters, are protecting you. We'd be willing to die for you. This is where you belong."
You're no family of mine," Jaune snapped back, in a cold and unforgiving tone. "I renounce you, and someday I'll be free of you. You'll lose sight of me for just an instant, and poof, I'll be gone."
"Even if you do manage to run away, we'll track you down. We'll keep you safe," Olivia growled, with absolute conviction. "You won't be in danger for long."
"I agree that you'll try," Jaune spluttered, as the blood leaking from his nose ran down into his mouth and impeded his speech. "I'll be forced to run to the farthest reaches of Remnant to truly get away from you. I'll have to face off against bandits or slavers or the creatures of the Grimm. I'll have no training... and then... I'll probably die. You and the rest of your deranged little clan have made that outcome almost inevitable. Still... I can't wait for that day to finally come. I can't wait to be free of you..." With one last sickly little smile, Jaune buried his head into his knees and pinched the bridge of his nose.
For about thirty seconds, neither one of them moved. Jaune stared at his feet and acted as if his entire focus was on stemming the bleeding. Finally, as if time suddenly decided to resume its forward momentum, he heard an inarticulate little sob and his sister's shadow disappeared.
Well... ouch. That had hurt for several different reasons. Thankfully, Jaune currently had a very, very compelling distraction. At some point during that extraordinarily one sided fight, Jaune must have been trying very hard to use quite a bit of aura, because the crystal within his collar had finally shattered. Even as he rested there against the courtyard wall, Jaune could feel the cartilage in his nose snapping back into place and his broken ribs beginning to mend. For the first time in over seven years, he had access to his aura. He was free. One thing was immediately apparent. He absolutely, positively, could not waste this opportunity.