Winter Break 27

Everyone pretty much unconsciously accepted her as a surrogate mother, thus helping her increase the Arc Matriarch's Aura pool by quite a bit.

Her husband was going to have to work even harder to keep up with his wife now. Thankfully, Jaune taught them how to increase their Aura Levels through his meditation technique. 

They planned on contacting Jaune frequently so they could continue to work and experiment with it. They hoped sharing the information would speed up improving it.

However, that did little to calm Gwen as she hugged everyone and refused to let them go. Everyone didn't seem to mind, though, it was a little awkward to deal with her crying so much about them leaving.

Jaune hugged his family one last time before they all gathered their luggage and stored it in their inventory. He also made sure to inform his parents and siblings about how they could form a party and use things like a chat function.

He also got his grandparents to make a party screen of their own and become fellow players. They were surprised by their stats and even gleefully spent tokens to improve their overall abilities.

Jaune was surprised to see that they were known as a level 110 Dreadful War Knight, and 115 Temporal Knight.

Another surprising effect was that after increasing their Constitution scores repeatedly, some of their youthful looks began to return. The two were surprised to see more of their hair color come back and a few of their winkles fade.

Jaune and the rest waved goodbye as they went to the nearest airport and purchased tickets to their next location. After flying for an hour and a half, they ended up at the coastal city next to Mistral's borders.

The last time they came here was when they separated and Team RWBY went on to use the Jinn's Lamp in the frozen tundra.

Jaune smiled at the thought of the arriving team that would be meeting with them shortly.

The weather in the city was warmer than outside its border wall, but it was still cold and raining. Since the climate by the ocean was warmer, it rarely snowed here, so they would have to travel for a few hours if they wanted to see snow.

As soon as they settled into the beach house, Yang's jaw dropped and said, "This is your vacation home?"

Standing in front of them was a two story house on a piece of grassy land elevated a good thirty feet from the sandy beach. There were a couple of trees and flower beds that needed tending, a garage attached to the left side of the house, and a picket fence that surrounded the property.

"It's alright," Weiss shrugged her shoulders.

"Nice place," Blake commented.

"Dude! I wish you could have brought me here sooner! The guys would love to chill here!" Sun laughed as he climbed the palm tree and grabbed a coconut.

Everyone ran inside and unpacked most of their luggage. They wanted to take a long nap after the flight over, but they knew that they needed to prepare for the next day. 

Thankfully, other than the logistics, the plan was pretty much complete. Sun would stay at the house to bring Team SSSN in on what's been happening while Team RWBY-JNPR all drive up Kuroyuri to kill a grim and extract some much-needed and precious metal ores.

Jaune went out to get food for everyone, Pizza tonight.

While he walked through the rain, he hardened his Aura Shell so he wouldn't get wet or cold.

As he strolled down the streets of seaside city, he heard a familiar voice calling out to him.

"Jaune?" 

"UWNKLE Jan!"

"Terra? Adrian?" Jaune turned around with a shocked expression to see his sister-in-law holding his nephew in her arms.

"It is you!" Terra ran over and hugged him.

Jaune nearly cried as he recalled seeing their corpses burning in a funeral pyre. The image of her torn body shielding the deceased Adrian haunted his soul for so many years. It was taking everything he had not to kidnap them and hide them in Domremy until this whole apocalypse issue was done and over with. 

"Hey, you okay?" Terra asked as she saw his expression.

Jaune sighed and nodded his head, "It's good to see you two. We missed you at Christmas."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry about that. Mom wanted to spend this year with Adrian and my boss needed me to work on the communication tower because of some issues with the solar flares we've been having recently."

"Shame, you missed one heck of a party,"

Terra tilted her head as she looked at Jaune and said, "You…seem different."

"Yeah…A lot's happened. I even got accepted to Beacon,"

"You did?! Congrats, kiddo! Saph mentioned that it was your dream to go there,"

"UNKLE JUAN!" Adrian held his hands out, demanding to be held by his uncle.

Jaune smiled and plucked him out of Terra's arms before holding him above his face.

"You miss me, squirt?!"

Adrian laughed as he patted Jaune's cheeks, "Unble Jun! Luv!"

Jaune's heart thumped as he hugged his nephew and said, "I love you too, kiddo."

Terra gave a soft smile as her brother-in-law returned her son.

"So what brings you to my neck of the woods?"

"Oh, we're going after an ore deposit to make some weapons for the upcoming festival. You should head to Domremy to watch me win the tournament with the family," Jaune grinned.

 "Hmm…awfully confident aren't you?"

"Hey, I've been working hard, and I don't think my skills are any less than the rest of my companions."

"Well…you do look like you're in better shape. I see that you put on some muscle, and did you get taller?"

Jaune smirked as he flexed a bit and said, "Well, I had good teachers and a Nora pushing me every step of the way."

Letting out a snort, Terra started to laugh at Jaune's attempt to show off like a jock.

 "What's a Nora?"

"What indeed. To be honest, I'm still trying to figure that out," The blond knight nodded his head.

"So what are you doing here?"

"I thought I just…ooh, you mean to this part of town. Yeah, I'm grabbing some food for my friends. We'll be leaving the moment it stops raining."

"I see. You'll have to introduce me sometime,"

"Count on it," Jaune gave a thumb's up.

Terra was about to ask where he was staying when her Scroll began to ring. With an annoyed expression she answered and started speaking, "Yeah…What do you mean? No, I told you to amplify the signal by rerouting power from the terminal room. WHAT? Idiots! Sigh…alright, I'll come back in."

The dark-skinned momma shook her head as she hung up and said, "Sorry, Jaune. I'll have to cut this reunion short. I have to drop of Adrian at mom's house. Some idiots at work tried to increase the strength of the signal by adding another power source when the tower isn't fitted for that extra strain."

"I get it, duty calls. I'll drop by and visit before we head back to Beacon. You still live on 23rd Street, right?"

"You know it! Ooh, before I leave, Saphron told me she had some family stuff to work on and that she wouldn't be back for about a week. Wanna tell me what's going on?"

"Well…I think you should just go visit her. Take a vacation or something, and I'm sure she can fill you in on what's been going on."

"Fine, just…let me know if it's anything I need to worry about,"

"Huh…Oooh, hey, you and sis are solid. She's just started training again. Our family is…well, just going through some things at the moment. I promise you that she'll explain everything when she gets the chance."

"She's started training again? I thought she didn't want to be a Hunter?"

"She doesn't, but Hunter or not, it doesn't hurt to have the strength to defend our loved ones."

Terra frowned, "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"A lot, yeah. That's why you should talk with Saph in person,"

"Alright, after I finish up with work, I'll cash in on my vacation days. You got me curious, Jaune."

Her Scroll rang again before the mom let out a frustrated growl, "Are you kidding me! Sorry I have to cut this short, Jaune. I have to go and chew out my subordinates."

"Go get em," Jaune waved as he watched his sister-in-law run out from the cover the sidewalk awnings provided and back into the rain. 

She got in her car and drove off while waving back to him one last time.

The blond knight clenched his fists before saying, "I'm not going to lose anybody this time. I'll protect them with my last breath if need be. I will protect my family."

He continued on towards his destination with a smile and renewed confidence. Within a few minutes, he stepped into the pizza parlor and ordered the meals. After sitting around for a while, he eventually returned to his allies and got cheers for the choice in food. 

They spent half a day waiting for the rain to die down, during which they went over plans, joked around, and snacked on junk food before everyone got ready to travel to Kuroyuri.

Yang pulled out Bumble Bee from her inventory and grinned as she threw a helmet at Weiss and said, "Come on Weiss Cream, let's go for a ride."

"I told you to stop calling me that!" Weiss shouted with a stomp before begrudgingly sitting behind Yang.

Blake now had her own car and still couldn't get over the fact she could just store it in her. She wanted to buy it with Weiss's help selling the Moon Dust. But since the snow-princess learned that daddy was going to be cutting her off soon, she thought that she might as well make him pay and give it to her teammate as a present.

She pulled a four seat high-tech looking mountain climbing car. It was slim and had larger tires with bumpy tread patterns suited for climbing up stone hillsides.

Pyrrha called out, "Shotgun!" 

"Really?" Yang and Sun said at the same time.

The two looked at each other and laughed as they pointed to their shotguns.

While they joked around, Jaune pulled out Quicksilver and a green and pink motorcycle for Ren to drive. He then looked at his longtime friend and said, "For you."

Ren already had his license and was planning on buying one, Jaune decided to pay out of his own pocket as a late birthday present. For Nora's birthday, which was a few months after his own, he gave all-you-can-eat pass for a pancake shop in Vale.

Ren smiled and replied by saying, "Thank you, Jaune. It should be useful for the mountainous terrain. We might be able to ride all the way to the mountain trails before needing to go on foot." 

The amethyst-eyed hunter sat on his bike when Nora jumped on behind him and shouted, "Onward my faithful steed!"

"Nora, no shaking or messing around when I'm driving," Ren shook his head with a smile.

Nora nodded her head as she wrapped her arms around Ren and giggled like a schoolgirl with a crush.

Ren blushed before he put his helmet on and started up the engine, Sun just whined, "D-ooo-d-e! Where's mine?!"

"Your birthday is during summer, Ren's was a couple of months before school started, so I just you're just going to have to wait. Oh, yeah, and this has nothing to do with the fact you started a bike club without me," Jaune laughed before taking off.

Sun grinned and waved goodbye as he thought, "Cheeky bastard," 

Blake walked over to him and looked at her future husband before giving him a kiss on the cheek and saying, "Take care of the place while we're gone. We'll be back before you know it."

Sun grabbed his cheek with a surprised expression .After shaking off the shock, he smiled at her and said, "I'll be waiting for you. Always…"

It took a lot out of him to act so romantic, but from the blush he saw from her cheeks, he knew that it was the right move to make.

Blake nodded her head and smiled before getting in her car and taking off.

When they all were out of sight, he sighed and said, "Well…now to explain things to my team…shouldn't be too hard…" 

The Faunus then headed inside to contact his team and get things underway.