Visions of the Past

XxX----XxX----XxX

Official Supporters:

Priests, The Impossible Muffin, Xager the Chaos King, Not Tsundere Bean.

Adeptus, Private Wilger

Ze Nope Rope, Kaiser Snek, Snekiest Snek

Acolytes, DigiDemonLord, Cheeseberry

If you want to be on the Supporter list, PM one of us for details or join our private server for details. Hope you enjoy reading my stories, please leave me a comment to let me know if you did, or where I can improve. Link here, where able to be seen : https://discord.gg/2UZncAm

Second link here, remove ( and ) and it SHOULD work : D(i)scord(.)gg(slash)kfhkfUb

I have a kofi account now, too, under this name for those interested.

Beta(s) :

XxX----XxX----XxX

The Vault beneath Beacon was still in shambles even a month and change after the Battle of Beacon, when Goodwitch brought him into it. The great hunks of smoothly cut stone had mostly been left where they'd fallen when he ripped them down. They were surrounded by splashes of shattered mortar, loose soil and smaller rocks pulled down from the earth above the stonework itself that looked almost like massive bloodstains. Long metal rods, used to support the roof above, stuck into the air like hagged fingers, crossed in places by thick cables and wires that sparked intermittently.

It was a mess to say the very least, but at least it didn't block off most of the rooms that Goodwitch wanted him to look at.

"Ozpin had his own sorting method." Goodwitch explained quietly as they made their way through the wreckage, "And I'm afraid I haven't had the time to go through the repositories themselves."

"Of course not, you have more than enough on your plate as it is." And he was pretty sure that the mess was not helping her in that regard, either. "You haven't started repairing down here, yet?"

"James is vetting engineers and laborers to clean it out, and operatives to monitor the drones they'd be using besides." The woman answered as they neared the end of the great hall, and the broken pods that had been tied up in the fate of so many. "Once that is subtly sorted," she went on, "the mess will be cleared away."

"I suppose it's also not that important, relatively speaking." Pyrrha added from beside him, her heels clicking with every step as she surveyed the damage he'd done. Absently, she added a quiet, "And remind me not to make you angry, Jaune…"

He only chuckled, shaking his head, "You are pretty good at agitating me sometimes, Pyr. But I don't think you'll ever get me to this kind of anger."

"Oh?" The woman smiled almost roguishly, raising one brow in challenge, "Perhaps I ought to up my efforts, then."

"So you're aware, children." Goodwitch called over her shoulder, smiling thinly, "I do intend you to leave alone down here, but there are cameras for security. I would very much rather not find something in those records that I don't need to be privy to."

"H-Headmistress!"

"We'll at least keep all our clothes on down here, Goodwitch." He promised, laughing at the embarrassed hiss of his red-faced partner when she rounded on him. Laughing, he raised his arm to block the playful slap she sent his way and asked, quietly, "Which rooms are we allowed to look through?"

"Any of the ones in this hall." She answered quietly as they came to a stop at the entrance to one of the many long hallways that split off from the main chamber of the Vault. "They are, all of them, filled with artifacts not of this world, by Ozpin's estimations. Some have already been examined and catalogued, but…"

"But they were catalogued and organized by Ozpin himself, so you don't really know much about them?" He guessed, eyeing the odd letter-number seriel system Ozpin seemed to have invented himself.

At least, it didn't correspond to any he knew.

"He made the serializing system himself, yes." She nodded simply, looking at the somewhat foreign code on the little silver plaque he was inspecting. "He has a handful of notes on it in his office, I believe. Or, well, in my office, now, I suppose."

"That will take some time to adjust to, I imagine." Pyrrha murmured sympathetically, folding her arms across her chest beside him.

"Yes, well…" Goodwitch shrugged and chuckled, gently, "My life has for years now been full of things I have been made to adjust to, over time."

"You've survived." Was all he said to the older woman, shrugging and receiving the same in return. "Notes on how he organizes things sound useful, though. If you have time…?"

"I'll use my lunch and dinner hours to compile whatever I can find and get them to you." Goodwitch promised quietly, frowning tightly and taking a short breath before, finally, saying what she had on her mind. "Along with everything else, though, I… Do have a moderate piece of rather sour news, I'm afraid."

"Of course you do…" He sighed, turning a glare on the woman standing at the hall's head, "I don't suppose that it's the kind of sour news that means Pyrrha and I are forced to stay here, at Beacon, for a while. Is it?"

"I'm… Afraid it is, actually." Glynda answered quietly, shifting slightly on the spot as his lips dragged down, into a frown. "Although, if you prefer, I can arrange lodging in Vale itself. And transport up here, to look through what we have here."

"Vale or Beacon, it's all the same." He argued quietly, taking one step closer to the woman. He was still a couple feet away, of course, closer to the plaque he'd been at than he was the older woman. But he knew she knew how little that mattered, and he felt the slightest pang of her anxiety echo around her for it, "Either way, I'm here, where you can keep me in your sight and under your thumb.��

"That isn't what I'm-"

"I'm sure it isn't." Jaune grunted, "But it's not inconvenient for you, is it?"

"Jaune." Pyrrha's hand on his arm, as always, drew him back and made him take a breath. She gave him a look, and gave him a little shake of her head. And he gave her an agitated, sidelong glance before he sighed and nodded, stepping back and letting her step forward instead. "I'm going to choose to believe that you're not playing with us, Headmistress. But I hope you understand my partner's suspicions."

"I do, yes." Goodwitch nodded, "Ozpin was a many of many virtues. But his proclivity to manipulate and control people was not one of them."

"You didn't seem particularly vocal about opposing it at the time."

"I didn't disagree with him doing it." She answered flatly, frowning when he huffed a bitter little laugh at it. "Lest you forget, Mister Arc, Ozpin is an ally that I have worked with for nearly two and a half decades. He earned my trust through all of that time and so I do not mind being controlled and manipulated. If he believes it to be for the best, then I will trust his judgement."

"Spoken like someone who's never paid for it." Jaune grunted, flinching at the sheer sense of malice that slammed into him when the words left his mouth.

"Do not," the woman growled, glaring balefully at him, her hand balled into a fist at her side, "presume that my trust is naivete. I have lost much, fighting Ozpin's war, trusting him the way I have had to. Friends, opportunity, family, lov-"

She cut herself off with a hiss of breath, closed her eyes, and he could feel her force herself to calm down. Trembling slightly, she forced her hand to uncurl, the crushed pen clattering to the floor beside her.

Finally, she let the breath out, half-turning to leave, "I'll see the notes gathered for you, Mister Arc. If you get hungry, or desire a break from your studies here, in the Vault, your Scroll has access to the elevator. Oz- My office, the entry floor and here. You may come and go as you please, and aren't required to attend any classes, lectures or training. You also have access to the training arena and equipment room, if you need either."

"Thank you, Headmistress." He murmured, tugging absent-mindedly on his chin-braid and nodding, "Goodwitch, I'm sorry for-"

"Quite." She nodded, striding away and calling back, "Good night.

Together, and quietly, he and Pyrrha watched the older Huntress make her way back around the rubble and through the Vault. She never once looked back, even though he was sure she could feel their eyes on her back. She stepped into the elevator eventually and had to turn towards them to press the button, but even then she kept her gaze on the wall and then brought her Scroll up, typing away at it rather than even look at them.

And all the while, he could feel her tempest of emotions - pain, loss, anger, resignation - whipping around the Vault.

"Jaune…"

"I know, Pyr." He sighed, turning and giving her a small, apologetic smile, one hand tugging his braid straight while the other drummed absently on his thigh. "I was… Definitely in the wrong, there. I just… Being here, you know?"

"I know, Jaune. Believe me, I know." She sighed, looking around hidden, the rubble-strewn battlefield and frowning. "I… Hate being down here. It's where I was supposed to die, where I almost did. And where I still lost part of myself, even if I did manage to survive in the end. Something I'll never get back…"

"Yeah." He nodded, "And it's where I lost control, and gave in to the Dark Side entirely, too…"

"Is that so meaningful, that you would compare it to my own loss?" He could tell from her tone, and the simple way she raised her brow, that the question was a genuine one. Not one meant as a reprisal for some perceived malice.

She knew him significantly better than that.

"Falling to the Dark Side is a Jedi's worst fear and a Revanite's as well." He explained quietly, turning a long, slow look over the damage he'd caused. "The verbage varies a bit between Jedi and Sith, but the way I mean it is losing yourself to it. Becoming little more than an animal that can talk and swing a lightsaber, tearing through the world until something bigger and stronger beats you down and puts you in the ground..."

"It sounds horrible…"

"You lose a part of yourself." He nodded gravely, "The darkness takes you, rips you up, and uses you. That is why I hate being here, too. Along with what happened to you, of course. It's all…"

"It's a lot to bear, I know." Pyrrha said understandingly, stepping in front of him and leaning in to press a chaste kiss against his lips. The suddenness of it surprised him and he blinked, but she bounced away before he could really react, and she smiled, "You and I are alive and, if not whole, we are well enough. And I shall always be here, to pull you up if you start to fall."

"Thanks, Pyr." He smiled, feeling the warmth in his chest. Then he waved a hand at the door beside the plaque he'd been reading and asked quietly, "So, uh, want to start here, then?"

"It is as good a place as any, I suppose." She nodded, "And I am so curious to see what else came from that outer world…"

"What else…?" He asked, turning a curious look on her.

"What is out there, beyond our skies, brought you to me." She answered sweetly, smiling warmly at him as she reached for the door release, "That itself is a wonder of the world, to me. And so I wonder, what else shall the outer world bring? What wonders? What mystery and mysticism?"

"Ah." He chuckled, "You're in a pretty dramatic mood for what's probably just a bunch of junk."

"Oh yes, it probably is, a lot of it." She said more seriously as the door opened. Smiling, she added, "But, even if nothing down here actually helps us, the chance to learn more about your culture is… Well, more than enough pay for the work, in my humble opinion."

That drew a flush from him that he could feel, burning on his cheeks. He nodded and, quietly, murmured, "I'll, uh, try and explain whatever I can, then, Pyr."

The room they stepped into was stacked, floor to ceiling, with shelves crammed in as closely as they could be without making it hard for one person to move through them. It was so tight that he and Pyrrha had to move through one in front of the other, and only had a few inches to either side to move around. Each of the durable, steel shelves were stacked high with data-drives ranging from crisp and clean looking to broken in half or scored by blaster or saber burns.

"This is probably a treasure trove of information..." He murmured mournfully, looking at a palm-sized drive made of black material and crossed by blue symbols he didn't recognize. "Technology, history, culture… And most if it probably lost, because our technology isn't compatible."

"It's quite like being trapped in a room with a book that tells you how to leave, written in a language you do not comprehend." Pyrrha murmured, picking up her own, badly scorched and blackened piece of data-drive. Grimacing, she ran her thumb along its broken edge, "It's tragic… And not in the sense of drama and poetry."

"Yeah." He nodded, "We can't use these, not here, but…"

"The Archive might be able to?" Pyrrha guessed, one brow raised in question. He nodded and she smiled, returning the gesture as she looked over the shelves around them, "It would make sense, that such a place would have what we need to access these drives and devices. But how would we compensate the Archive for its help? The Curator made clear that it wouldn't offer much in the way of charity, outside helping us after the Trials."

"Maybe the information on these would be good enough?" He suggested quietly, shuffling further along the she;ves, scanning each for anything more interesting, "The Curator accesses them, and we each get a copy of whatever is in them. A bit of a gamble, but given how little effort he has to go through…"

"It cannot hurt to at least take them and try." She agreed quietly, running her hands along the shelving units absently as they meandered through the repository, "How do we decide which ones we take, though? I see no labels of even the strange, Ozpin kind."

"I'll go through it later." He answered with a shrug, "Look for Sith or Jedi symbols. Those would be the most enticing ones, after all."

"To the Archive," Pyr smirked teasingly, "or to you?""

"Yes." He laughed, shaking his head at the weak but nonetheless amusing joke. He heard her chuckle, too, and only when the moment had passed did he ask, "Next room?"

She agreed and, closing the door behind them, they slipped out and moved down the hall, to the next sealed repository. Like the first room the second had multiple shelving units, but they only took up half of the room. Crammed into one side in the same sardine-like manner as the first, and stacked high with unlabeled data-drives, pads and the like, all in the same mixed conditions as the ones in the first room.

The other half of the room, though, was far more spacious.

The center part of the right side of the room was empty aside from a low worktable, with a solid base instead of legs that rested on the ground. The base was covered in drawers and the table itself with rags and tools, needles, thread, and even hammers and nails. Across from it, armor and weapon stands lined the wall, covered in foreign armor of a wide variety. Or, well, the scraps of it, held together by matte black cloth like museums used, to keep the pieces in shape.

"Is this… Plastic?" Pyrrha asked quietly, running her hand over the face of an old but stark white helmet.

"Not plastic, no." He answered, picking the thing up off the stand, "Plastoid. It's the same in texture, but its blaster-resistant. Good for combat armor, out there."

"Ah." She nodded, looking at the helmet as he turned it in his hands and asking the obvious, "Do you know what it came from?"

It had been white, once upon a time, but had greyed significantly since then, bordering in places further to black than anything else. The visor was cracked, outright missing the left eye, but still mostly intact. It ran across the face of the mask and down at the center, over where his nose would have been if he'd worn it, and then down over where his mouth would be in a sort of upside down 'V' shape that spread out over part of the pronounced chin of the helmet. It was mostly featureless, though, aside from a simple blue pattern in a language he didn't understand on the right forehead.

The tally-marks that had been stenciled all across the left side, though, he understood perfectly.

"Seventy," he counted them out, "and it looks like he only stopped because he ran out of space."

"And moved elsewhere." Pyrrha nodded, pointing at the shoulder and the chest-piece, the only other sections on this stand, that were similarly covered in the tally marks. The woman grimaced, running her finger over the armored breast, "If this covered his entire body, he must have had hundreds of marks… Hundreds of kills."

"Yeah." He sighed, setting it back on the stand and turning to his left, "This one looks kind of similar…"

The more intact suit next to the first was smoother, but colored the same white, and made of what felt like the same plastoid that the other was. This one's features were less pronounced, though, with a 'T' shaped visor that spindled to a narrow point at the center of his eyebrows, another wide section branching down to a similar inverse 'V' over the mouth. A spindly, broken antenna stuck out from one side, melted at the top.

"What is the blue for, do you think?" Pyrrha asked, running her hand along the blue stripes of his arm, and nodding at the shoulders and chest. "A unit insignia? Rank, maybe?"

"I don't know." He answered, looking down across the armored stomach towards where the chest-piece ended in a ragged, melted point at where his own hips would have been. Running a finger over the warped surface he frowned, "A lightsaber did this, though…"

"How do you know?"

"I know." He answered simply, "I cut enough plastoid and metal drones in training to know. And I've seen pictures of the damage besides."

"Can you…" Pyrrha leaned against his side, holding a hand on his back affectionately, "Can you… Feel anything, from it?"

"Yeah, but… I need you to get away from me." She blinked, hurt, and he rushed to explain, "I-I would be overwhelmed by you, right now. An emotional imprint on a relic, like this, isn't as powerful and easy to feel as living emotions standing near you. If you… Go to the door, though, I can try and get a read."

"Ah." She nodded, the hurt vanishing instantly, "I understand. Do you… Want to, though? I don't know what this will feel like, for you."

"Yeah," he nodded, curiosity eating away at him, "I do."

She nodded and turned to leave, leaning against the side of the door where he'd directed her to. He closed his eyes and opened himself to the Force to check and, while he could sense her, it wasn't so oppressive as it would have been had she been right on top of him. What he sensed from her - curiosity, affection, worry - weren't particularly bad things to feel, but they were distracting.

And distractions, he couldn't afford.

Sighing, he laid his hand on the armor's chest, leaning forward to press his forehead to its nose and inhaling. It smelled of plastic and dust, and he let himself center on that. On the smell, a smell that whoever had worn it would have been intimately familiar with. For a moment he stared into the dark visor of the helmet, blue eyes darkening to an odd green that he was sure had to be a trick of the light.

Then, he closed his eyes, and let the Force take him.

For a long time, all he heard was his breathing and all he felt was the cool of the air. Soon, though, that began to shift. Lights lit up around him and cracked forward vibrantly, vanishing before he could even discern what they were or where they came from. He felt tremors in his arms as some came from himself, cracking out in bright blue, but he didn't dare avert his eyes from the figure ahead of him.

It was twice the size of a man, with reverse hinged legs and a lightsaber in its hand, flicking out as the bolts of blue came towards it and deflecting them away. Shadowy figures rushed around the taller one, collapsing as lances of blue struck them or as they neared and the figure himself did.

The figure filled him with emotions that played through him like a tempest. Anger, fear, pain, betrayal. And under it all a strange… Fog, of duty and something else, something strange, that he couldn't understand.

His emotions controlling him, he rushed the figure and then felt pain flare across his stomach as his vision swam.

The last thing he felt, as he receded from the imprint, was… Relief, deep and heart wrenching.

"Jaune…?" He staggered away from the armor and fet hands on his shoulders and then arms around him, hugging him against Pyrrha's chest as he collected himself. Meeting his gaze when he turned his head to her, their noses almost touching, she asked, "Are you alright? You looked terri-"

He cut her off by rounding on her and pulling her into a kiss that drew a surprised squeak from her before she sighed and relaxed into it. His hand found her throat, feeling her pulse quicken, and her hand found his wrist, holding him as he held her.

"Sorry." He murmured after they parted a few seconds later and he pulled away, grimacing, "I, uh… Lost myself for a second."

"Perhaps you should lose yourself more often, then…" She flushed when he turned to her, brows raised in surprise. Apparently, she'd not meant for him to hear her. Still flushing red she cleared her throat, took a seat at the work table and asked, sheepishly, "Did, uh, did it work, then? You got something from the armor?"

"Yeah." He nodded, and sat, relaying what he'd seen and felt to her while she took notes on her Scroll. Finally, he finished, "And then when I came to, I was so… Into going with the flow of my emotions, my instincts, so I… Yeah."

"It's… I didn't mind." She said, flushing again and then shaking her head, "But what you saw was… Well, more than nothing. What do you think was happening?"

"A unit of soldiers was dispatched to hunt someone down, someone hiding." He answered quietly, "They found him, there was a battle and he," Jaune waved a hand at the armor, "was killed by whoever their target was."

"This means…?"

"I don't know what it means, yet." He said quietly, looking at the armor. "But I do know that I'm hungry. You?"

"I could do with something particularly greasy and unhealthy." She smiled, standing and asking brightly, "Would you like to rest here? I'll fetch us a couple pizzas from the cafeteria and we can see where our evening goes…?"

"Yeah," he smiled, "sounds good."

XxX----XxX----XxX

Gee willickers, I wonder if anyone guesses what that vision was of.

Real talk, we got Goodwitch characterization and the start of finally getting super dirty on digging through the SW stuff. Whoo!

Also yes the current plot line is several days after this, technically, on the RWBY end. I needed this in but it made the other chapter nearly 10K - which, no - in my planning sheets. So, there will be a moderate time-skip in the next Jaune chaptoir.

XxX----XxX----XxX

Dasgun :

^-^

Smokey Panda :

Kali is a legitimate treat to write and I am already revising to try and get her into more things. The Way has plot points specifically meant to facilitate that. XD

Greer :

For proper context-

I view canon Adam as a lot more layered and nuanced than a lot of others. I dislike the common arguments that Adam is a bad character for how he ended. I rather liked it, the tragedy of a man enabled and pushed way too far.

Probs gonna have him appear in this a lot.

Argus :

I also imagine that the meeting would play out the same way, minus the longest catnap in history - I saw you, Kot Bot - and as said earlier, Kali is a treat to write if I'm in the proper headspace.

Literally finding ways to justify including her and Ghira in other stories.

Zenith Tempest :

I mean, Ironwood here is just acting like canon Ironwood. Flaunting the law and norms to get his plan how he wants it, with little to no oversight. I'm glad you enjoy it, but if you do, I encourage you to revisit Irondaddy in V1-3, since that is the stage of his development he is at here.

And I mean this in a genuine 'I think a second review of things will make you enjoy it more' way, here.

Fic Eater :

Yes, we are talking about the same person. Just covering events up to this point Blake.

This story's Blake is, after all, modeled on the anti-racist freedom fighter that, when her organization went too far, left it to pursue a career fighting giant monsters to protect people instead and then, when, for reasons that aren't her fault, that organization came back for her, worse than she left it, she stood up to fight it. Which had her stabbed, made her lose her home, and sent her fleeing from a madman that wanted to kill and destroy everything around her.

Also.

In your examples, insurance would cover most of the issues at the Docks - and, I mean, it's the SDC, fuck 'em - and on the highway it is directly stated to the screen that team RWBY were punished, and no one on the highway got seriously hurt.

I recommend re-watching these sequences.