Here's the second and final chapter of 'Broken Arc', which I enjoyed doing. There was a lot of positive feedback, which was great after I was so worried that people wouldn't take to the idea, and no one hated the OCs I used, again something always important. Another thing is that, if anyone likes this premise, and wants to use it as the background for their own DarkJaune fic, feel free to. One of the reasons I did this was to create a better foundation for the idea.

Have fun reading, this is the part where shit goes down.

"David, DAVID!" Jaune screeched, keeping his hands to the giant's side, forcing all the Aura he had to him. "You can't close your eyes, if you close them, you won't open them again. I won't let you close them!"

The siege had gone on for a week, when the defenders poured out in force. It had been at midnight, probably guessing that they weren't going to expecting it, but that was why they expected it and now a mad frenzy took place, an downpour of rain turned everything into mud and it became an image into some sort of hell. Men and women were beginning to lose their weapons and instead focus more on just drowning the enemy in the mud, the darkness turning the display into some nightmare.

Everyone was stabbing at each other and Jaune had been awake enough to launch into the attack, cutting off this and that person's head and bashing them with the shield and he thought he stepped on a few corpses and none of that mattered because David was starting to cough up blood.

"He got hit by a mace, smashed right through his armour." Jet mumbled, tying cloth around David's mouth, to quiet the pain. "The bitch is dead, he took her head clean off. Now we just gotta fucking save him, 'kay David? We're not letting you die." He all but screamed, keeping a firm hold on the cloth, after Hecta told them of the pain involved in such a process.

"If we transfer enough Aura, his body might be able to repair itself." She said, her voice wobbling, even after she tried so hard to keep her voice level. "At this moment, all we're doing is keeping him in a limbo state, so we need to do more."

"Rrrrk!" David gurgled, his wide open and a roar of agony was kept back by a mere piece of cloth. Tears rushed down his face, and his arms were smashing against everything in sight, a pitiful scene for someone who smashed their way through the battle, to the point where those he killed formed a fairly large pile for the three to hide behind. Under the torrent downpour, and the chaos of the battlefield, they might as well have been invisible.

"Don't worry, you'll be okay. Got it, you'll be okay." Jaune didn't know much about controlling his Aura, but he followed Hecta's lead and tried to force more of it forward. His body was rejecting his efforts, probably thinking that he was doing something stupid, and that might have been the case, but he had to try and save someone.

The battle raged on, as victory was becoming more clear. From afar, there was the distant sight of King Dante, lifting his weapon that was his size and letting it roar and howl through five different soldiers, calling the army forward to show no mercy, the sounds of surrender being cut off by grunts of agony and pain. Jaune tried to say something, that they needed to help their wounded instead of focusing on killing the retreating enemy, only he was occupied with saving his friend.

David was in the midst of a frenzy, probably the result of the pain driving him to madness, as he soon started to attack the people trying to save him. Jaune guessed that he thought they were the enemy, from the force of a blow to his left leg, until he saw that his friend was shaking his head wildly, all restraint lost to the insanity of despair. "Grrk!"

"No! Don't give up, we just need to try harder. Jaune, we need to go further!" Hecta commanded, somehow understand the gurgled noises that David was making.

"Just do it, I got a good hold of the cloth!" Jet roared, keeping a tight hold on the cloth, making their attempt to save their friend all but silent, when compared to the symphony of horror that filled the whole of Cliffhelm, a portrait of black and red.

Their efforts were cut off, as distant roar brought about flame and a blast of air, strong enough to easily throw the panicking group of four back, to a chorus of screams. Jaune had a brief look towards the sky, as an airship loomed ominously in the sky and rained death onto Cliffhelm, turning the old fortress into a pile of flaming ruins, and the sounds blended together into a single ringing in his ears. Even after crashing onto the ground, Jaune couldn't hear anything but the ringing.

It was the music that he heard, as he saw David's life seep away from his eyes, when he realised that the relief in them had been because he and Hecta had tried to force him to linger in agonising pain, and the music to the sight of Jet and Hecta screaming in horror, before it all became black.

That should have been when he realised that it was all a lie. That we weren't anything but pawns for a single side of chess. That morality meant nothing to the nobility and rich men that ruled Remnant, owing to the glory of dead men and women, or the profiteering made from mankind's struggle to survive. That Jaune had just saw an innocent man die in the mud for one family's greed, for which someone's mother pitted him and his brother against one another as a sacrifice for power.

It was when he reached Oceanspire that he realised that this was a war without heroes.

The town was still burning when they arrived. It's people had experienced the same poor luck.

Oceanspire's walls were said to have devoured themselves, folding into one another until they were no more, when the Northern Campaign met its bloody objective. Supposedly, the government army shifted towards guerilla tactics, slowly picking them off as they fell further and further back, until they were trapped in the city and were surrounded by an army that was beginning to bicker between themselves. With the open opportunity they had, all that hate and frustration was directed at a single town.

Oceanspire had surrendered, and General Hansel kept everyone in line, even leaving the Faunus Legion there as he moved to meet with the King. It was when he died of some kind of diseased that General Gretal took charge, and she was busy trying to send troops back to 'keep the beasts in line', as more generals began demanding true command or royal orders setting out command. The soldiers, mostly mercenaries and noblemen's armies, were beginning to riot again.

So Gretel let them loose on the most powerful Loyalist's estate, comprising of an entire town.

Jaune didn't want to know what had happened, in the three days before both armies met up, only it was clear that nothing approaching human decency had been given to the people here. Most found their homes looted, husbands and wives taken from their homes, and any resistance being met with the sword, and it took the arrival of the Southern Campaign for the insanity to stop, as General Gretel found herself bedridden and sick, after coming back from Oceanspire to be questioned on what happened.

"Hello, Jaune." A merry voice cried out, the three of them tunring to see a familiar figure sitting in the remains of a home. The charred remnants of whatever room it once was, now served as a seat for Crow-Eye to mockingly wave them over, the expression on his now-revealed face was one of complete joy, in the midst of the carnage. "It's nice to see you again."

One look, and he had to repress the urge to scream. There was no hat to cover his face, leaving the grey hairs on top of it to blow with the wind, were they not being pulled towards his left eye, revealed to the world. The rest of his face was equally horrific, looking as if it belonged to a ninety-year old corpse, were it not for the way that his skin was just pulled towards the left eye, leaving his skin to appear as if the slightest cut would rip the whole thing apart.

He didn't want to think of how where the dark colouring around the black and red sphere, that was where an eye should be, appearing like it was splashed on, had actually come from. Nor did he feel like asking if it was just his imagination, when said area seemed to glow for a second.

Another thing that only took a single look at Crow-Eye's revealed left eye to realise was that Jaune's suspicions about the cause of its covering was true all alone. Jet's gasp and Hecta's charge forward merely confirmed it, before he joined in the charge, right alongside her. Crow-Eye's goal must have been to poison the higher-ups, and then corrupt the Northern Campaign into some sort of sadistic nightmare, to turn people into Grimm in human shape. That must have been his plan! There was no way that people could have done all of this on their own.

Hecta swung her right fist and hit the air, even as it seemed a certain hit, while Jaune found himself going straight for the sword, Crocea Mors aimed right at the centre of Crow-Eye's head. It managed to pierce the air to his right, and nothing more.

"You've noticed what's happening, I'm guessing?" Crow-Eye asked, as Jet attempted a sideswing with his morningstar, to merely hit the air behind the monster. "Fun deal. I can manipulate space, I get my face munched on." As he spoke, Jaune swore he could see the bulging black eye glow, as did the red circle for what should have been an iris, as Crow-Eye's face seemed to almost stretch further towards the eye. He might have asked further, were it not for the sudden stranglehold he had on both him and Hecta.

He could feel te life being sapped away from him, not because he was dying, but because he could feel his Aura being sucked away from him, the very feeling of losing the manifestation of his soul forcing bile to rise up his throat. Hecta was turning pale, as her very energy was being violated alongside his own, while Crow-Eye's face began to turn back to the way it was, and even began to look more human than it did before. As if sickened by the presence of a soul, Jaune almost heard the eye howl in anger, as it receded away.

"Sorry that I took a bit more than I needed, it's just been a while and it never hurts to stock-up. I'm just lucky that none of you have that great control over it." He said, Jaune barely having the energy to look up and see that Jet was gasping on the ground, a likely impact of being another victim of whatever that was supposed to be. "I wouldn't do that, if I was you." He added, somehow knowing that the Arc was moving to use Crocea Mors on him.

"You did this." Jaune never knew he could place so much hatred into three words. "You corrupted them somehow, and made them do all of this!" He cried out, motioning to the ruins of what was once a peaceful town, now a scene of a tortured people.

"We're telling the King, and you're gonna die." Jet promised, forcing himself to stand tall and glared in a way that Jaune never thought he could.

"He knows. Why the hell do you think Oceanspire fell so fast? How do you think he survived the Grimmlands, searching for mercenaries crazy enough to do this?" Crow-Eye asked, not even appearing that bothered by the loathing they were showing to him. "I didn't corrupt the guys either. That was just a fine mixture of greed, fear, frustration, confusion, and disillusionment all mixed in together to produce a fine broth of carnage. My roommate is very confused about all of this, more about why it's a problem then why they did it, but it's all because of shit hitting the fan."

"How did the general die then?" Hecta asked, both her and Jaune helping the other stand up to him. "Bit of a coincidence that both generals are dead, and that this now happened."

"That wasn't me either, kid." The smile was now gone from Crow-Eye's face, looking directly at the two. "You ever heard of Dust Lung?" He asked, as if they were schoolchildren who knew nothing about the plagues after the War of Survival.

Jet was the first to speak, fear making his voice sound ten years younger. "No, that can't be. The only way you can get it now i-"

"Generals Hansel and Gretel were part of a different time, their King's desire of a new method of Dust Infusion doomed them, and it will doom us all, unless proper action is taken." Crow-Eye turned to Jet and began to point fingers. "You, the girl, your little boytoy, the Restoration Movement, the Loyalists, everyone in this forsaken land. Once everyone's dead, I'll probably be next on the list, I will be hunted like a dog, and that's something none of us want."

"How would you know?" Jaune asked, keeping his hand close to the hilt of Crocea Mors. "What makes you think that's going to happen?"

"Funny thing about this eye. The more I use it, the more it eats me, but sometimes it activates itself, and still munches on me." He tapped the side of his head, where the QuothRaven eye remained, before giving a resigned smile. "We're not doomed, but we might be, if you don't let me get to our King."

They couldn't stop him. He knew it and they knew it, his words serving more as a taunt than anything else, and they could only watch as he strolled along the horrific scene without a single blink of an eye. Jaune let his rage take hold over his common sense. "You did something to them," He accused, knowing that something must have happened to the Northern Campaign forces. To make them do something likethis. "They're not like that. We're not the kind of people who abandon everything when things get tough! We're not monsters!"

"'Unleash all of your anger and frustrations, for this is a righteous cause.' That was the order given to us." Crow-Eye said, not even turning to look at them, as he laughed at them again. "Morality is a construct we use, to claim that we are greater than the beasts we came from."

With that, he merrily strolled along. Leaving the three of them to lie in the ashes of what was once civilisation.

Jaune refused to believe him. How could he? It was only when he heard about how Lady Temperance, she who stood defiant and had forced the true heir to the lands into practical-slavery, had been tortured and murdered on the command of the freed girl, driven mad by hate and despair, and how Dante merely pardoned them and vowed to marry the daughter of the well-loved and deceased lord-turned-councilman.

That was the start of Jaune's realisation of what the world truly was.

The twenty-fifth death in a week of Dust Lung, and the twentieth to the White Fang, after the SDC and other companies called for recognition of Palate's new regime, even when the war went on.

The advance was being kept back, on account of people vomiting enough blood to fill their lungs, and it was clear that Dante (he was no King to Jaune) was beginning to tire of it all. Crow-Eye had been urging fierce action, immediate quarantine of all suspected units and purging them all if a single member showed signs of sickness, claiming that it was the only way to prevent the disease from spreading. More and more generals were beginning to agree, as more of the former Northern Campaign began to lose men, even with the swelling of the ranks from volunteers and 'volunteers'.

Jaune had been invited to the war council, after his father made the case on international television that he had been tricked into serving this cause, as a way to show that he had come of his own free-will and that he was an enthusiastic part of the war effort. Jaune's condition had been for Jet and Hecta to be kept safe, refusing to let them be butchered as some bizarre attempt to stop the disease from spreading.

So now he was here, and a witness to the true horrors of war.

"There are moles in the Faunus Legion, we need to remove their weapons and strike now." One general demanded, smashing the table with his fist to add emphasis to his point, coming off as a more some bratty kid to Jaune. The man looked about sixty, with a white handlebar moustache and small spectacles, with an elaborate white uniform displaying a large number of medals, making his tantrum all the more embarrassing.

"How exactly do you expect that to go down? The last thing we need is the image of us gunning down our own troops, while a pandemic reigns supreme." Another general replied, this one looking to be in her mid-fifties with a mixture of white and black hair. Jaune didn't detect a moral opposition to the plan to slaughter loyal soldiers, just one based on inconvenient timing.

The older general didn't take the blunt advice well, turning his bluster towards her. "The Faunus probably did it! Those Grimmspawn must have poisoned the victims, I knew Johan and Angela for ye-"

"You what?" A third general cried out, this one in his late-twenties, a clear sign that his promotion came from his family name instead of ability, who proceeded to pull out his pistol and aim it at the first general. This itself led to another sessions of shouting and arguing, leading to nothing being done, while the third general had then fled the room, crying about infection.

How had they got this far, with generals like these? Such questions were becoming a common thing for Jaune, who now could see the appeal in just watching and smiling, as Crow-Eye took to in these meetings.

Jaune wouldn't be surprised, if these were the same kind of people who wanted to wipe out what made people human, if it meant a few more dead Grimm.

"This is an opportunity, Your Majesty. We can appeal for aid and get some new armaments and supplies while we're at it, then we can deal with the riff-raff and purge out this disease." Someone else argued, wearing a business suit, to contrast with the general's military costumes. From what he heard, he could guess that he was representing one of the companies who arranged for the cover-stories, which made him wonder what was to happen to people like him, when the truth eventually came out.

It was another general, this one with a robotic right hand and black muttonchops, who mercilessly cut that idea down. "You call in the four Kingdoms and they'll take charge of this whole thing. We'll be forced to back down, as the tide in our favour strengthens more and more, and people will begin to find out about the incident in Oceanspire. It's better that we continue with the attack and publish the results of our investigation which shows that we-"

"Cover it up." Jaune said, cutting into the room, beneath all the smoke and hot air. It was that suggestion, that they pretend that all the horrible things that happened never happened, to avoid justice being done to those responsible, that made him speak up. "You want us to cover up murder and looting, because it might damage ourpropaganda?" He asked, unable to disguise the contempt he felt.

Now came the time where they treated him like an idiot, someone there because they needed him to be. "Boy, this is war. Your gr-"

"No he wouldn't! He forced guys like you to stand down and stop butchering the Faunus!" He cried out, not letting the general get a word in, before turning to the King, praying that he was the man that hundreds gave their lives for. "King Dante, we need to make peace. We've lost so many, in the ambush, in the sieges, with the diseases, and now this guerilla war. So many people just want to go home."

Jaune was speaking for himself, but he knew others were feeling the same. The Foreign Legions were entering the wrong kind of state of mind, the kind that was beginning to accept that they weren't heroes, but that it didn't matter, that it was better to fight and win instead of make peace and maintain some sense of humanity. It wasn't helped by the constant fights that kept blood boiling, and the idea that the White Fang were working with the Loyalists, to try and stop the Restoration Movement's crusade.

"You send those boys home, two things could happen. The first is that the Kingdoms are smart enough to see that something is up and keep them under close-watch, before killing everyone or just letting them die, before a pandemic breaks out. The second is that the pandemic breaks out." Crow-Eye said, speaking for the first time, no trace of cruel comedy in his eyes. Just that of a tired man. "I see thousands upon thousands of people, vomiting rivers of blood before they drown in it, months before the infected can be found and dealt with, by a cure or by removing them from the picture. Rest assured, none of us will make it out fine."

"Then make peace!" Jaune shouted, a plea of sanity in a room full of men and women more obsessed with winning a war instead of saving lives. "Ask the Kingdoms for help, accept some kind of peace treaty and be the man we were told you were." He nearly begged, tears developing in his eyes, as King Dante merely said nothing.

"A peace treaty?" He asked, as if the words were dirt. "I shall never gain a crown that way, the different houses that once held the crown would urge their respective supporters to fight for them. We will end up fighting and bickering amongst ourselves, while some damp deal is given and forced upon us. No. We must find another way."

"Becoming King doesn't matter right now!" Jaune snapped, his contempt open for all to see.

"It is the only thing that matters here!" Dante shouted, the fanatical glint in his eye scaring Jaune. "From the day my father had to ask me to strike forth, even when it meant his death, I have had to carry our claim myself. Even as my eye rotted to nothingness, even when my own mother all bit disowned me, even after Leo was turned against me, and even now, as we stand on the cusp of victory or death, I remain the only one capable to bringing about justice for my family. I shall not becoming like the others, forced to whore myself out to the Schnees for trinkets and hands in marriage, before begging for them to carry my name on.

I shall die here. Whether a King or a Pretender, I shall die here, where my home is."

"We still need to deal with the White Fang and the infection." The first general said, the one prone to bluster, only now a picture of serenity, as if that speech was somehow inspiring.

"I already have a plan." Dante said, as calm as he had been before. "I first need your loyalty. I know that many of you have pledged allegiances to pretenders once, that your desperation for a government that understands the needs of a strong military, along with an economy ready for the future. I promise you what I always have, but just remember that our cause is the right one, the one that is blessed to succeed. If you feel any doubt, let me remind of this."

Someone had wheeled in a table with a cloth over an object, hiding it from the world, as Dante spoke to the council, Jaune remaining in silence. Whether people thought it was from inspiration or horror, they didn't seem to care, once the hidden object had been revealed to them, bringing about a cascade of cheers and oaths of loyalty. Only Crow-Eye remained silent with Jaune, turning to him and giving him a smile, one that suggested that he knew what had, was, and would be happening all along.

As Dante put on his golden hat, apparently lost since the Faunus War, Jaune merely watched, as a group of 'elite military minds' discussed the proper method of murdering the people who put their faith in their leader.

In the end, they got what they wanted. Jaune had stayed silent for his friends and family, too cowardly to take his chances as a constant source of criticism, but had seen his vomiting and weeping to his friends as a sign of protest. A stand against the plot to send the suspected infected and Faunus Legion into a siege without hope of victory, with 'friendly fire' from the airships given, that all but wiped them out.

There weren't even bodies left, from what he heard, the memory causing his grip on Crocea Mors to tighten.

Only ashes.

From there, memory became flickers of nightmares.

Moving into the interior of Palate had been a much harder task, as it turned out, with the Loyalists deciding to bunker down and turn every town into a battle-zone where street-fights were the norm. Even with the mass defections, upon Atlas recognising Dante's little court as the legitimate government for Palate, there was still large pockets of resistance against them, for many reasons that Jaune could understand. Dante no longer led them, in favour of hiding behind them and waiting for the right time to strike

It didn't stop him from fighting on, however, even if he didn't want to.

Someone had to protect Jet and Hecta, two pieces of a game in the eyes of the leadership, and Jaune refused to place the burden on anyone's shoulders but his own. He had stopped counting how many enemies he had killed, or tried comparing his skill with Crocea Mors, knowing that all the ability in the world wouldn't make him truly worthy of it, and that his conscience was damned either way for his stupidity. All that mattered was how many he was saving by ending the war early.

Or it was, until Jet died.

It was an ambush from the White Fang that did it. It turned out that the Council of Palate were the ones against anything but tightening labour laws, after miners got buried, and that had been the thing that got Dante the capital needed to start funding this little invasion, so the principle of fighting with the enemy of the enemy came into play. They had been moving towards another city, Jaune no longer bothering to remember its name amongst the others, when they struck.

Their numbers had been enough to cause a panic, before the ranks reformed, but this time they were ordered to chase them down. Jaune had been lucky enough to not find any of them, knowing that they were smart enough to have already been too far away and to ambush him, when he heard a familiar grunt of pain. He ran as fast as he could, seeing Hecta just a short distance to his right, as the two entered a clearing and saw where the scream had come from.

Jet had died, that much was clear. From the three White Fang beside him, it was also clear that he had gone down fighting, enough that he needed two knives in his chest and an arrow to the throat to bring him down, and it was obvious to Jaune that none of it mattered because he failed at staying beside Jet and keeping him alive.

Hecta took hours to cry, Jaune had pretty much broken down there on the spot, shaking the body and begging for it to not be true, and then taking him to be taken by the others. Hopefully, his friendship with Jaune might allow him to be preserved enough for his family to see him one last time, before having to bury their son, all for a cause that they had been lied about and for fame that would never come to it.

It was as they set up camp that she kissed him.

There was no reason, no true spark beyond him finding her pretty. It was clear that she was just looking for something positive from this war, something for her to use a hope that she hadn't just lost all she had because she lost faith in herself. Jaune himself hoped to have felt something, that having been his first kiss, only he had barely felt anything from it, just an awareness that he had lost so much because of a poor decision.

That was when she broke down, and Jaune couldn't even serve as a shoulder to cry on.

Hecta didn't deserve any of this. The fear of being disowned was not even true, a mere result of her own fears mixed with lies told to her to encourage her to not to find a Scroll and send a message home, where others wanted to lie and those who didn't lie unknowingly had their Scroll messages intercepted and deleted, leaving them without a reply. Jaune always had that on his mind, when wondering if he was making the right decision now.

Her death was the other thought on his mind.

It was the final battle, it was the final charge, they just needed to clear this one last step and they would be free from the nightmare.

Jaune, like most of his sisters, had been taught about CPR by his parents and learnt on how to handle a wound from doctors on the battlefield, so getting Hecta's heart to beat again shouldn't be as hard as it was. He had been sitting there for half an hour, hidden behind the victorious charge ahead, led by the returning King himself, fighting against the usurpers in their own dark fortress. None would try and disrupt things like with David, and no one would ambush them as with Jet.

So why wasn't it working?

Come on, Hecta. You can't give up.Jaune's mind was begging her to respond to the chest compressions, even if it hadn't for the other methods.We're almost home, we just need to make it through this.

He kept on going through the motions, not wasting his time with ineffective stuff like mouth-to-mouth, and shook off attempts to make him give up after she had been wounded, forcing the others to go on without him. Jaune didn't mind, not when he was trying to save his friend from certain death, especially at the turning point of the war, when the two of them could go home and put this horror to an end, to put down their weapons and enjoy a long life of peace.

Nothing I do is ever going to make up for this.He thought, continuing to apply pressure to Hecta, feeling a rib break from under his hands.Good, that means it's working.

"Arc? Arc!" A doctor, whose presence Jaune ignored in favour of trying to save his friend. "Arc, listen to me. She's gone. We can't go anything for her, and we have to let her go. All you're doing to damaging something that can't be fixed."

Jaune ignored him and kept on applying CPR, focusing only on his work, swearing that he felt a heartbeat for a second. "I can do it, my parents taught me how to restart her heart. We need medical equipment stat."

"Ar-"

"Let me go! I can save her, just give me time and we can restart her heart!" He demanded, shaking himself off from the doctor and getting back to trying to save his friend. Why was no one trying to help him save her?

"She has no head!" The doctor grabbed Jaune with both hands and forced him to look at where Hecta's eyes should be, instead replaced by a bloody stump. "Arc, I'm sorry, but you've been sitting here for nearly an hour. People are starting to talk and she is not coming back."

It couldn't have been Hecta. Where was her hair, long and flowing, and what had happened to her gentle eyes? They were nowhere to be seen, where there was now a river of blood with meaty chunks everywhere. This wasn't supposed to be her death. Where were her final words? Where was the goodbye? It shouldn't have been a single bullet that had done so much damage, where the one in her chest just went straight past her.

Jaune wanted to hit the doctor, for making him return to reality. Jaune was happier in the delusion that he could have done anything good from this, that he could have ever pretended to be the hero from all of this, that he was ever worth the family name, and that he might have been had a chance of not losing something to his mistake. Now he was back in reality, where heroes were rare and the Grimm in human skin were the true monsters of the world, for all that humanity had won the War.

After that, and the execution of those who needed to be made examples of, he was left to his own devices. The only precautions taken were those to prevent him from checking out early, lest they allow him to become the figurehead of a diplomatic backlash for a relatively short civil war, lasting only six months. Just as the Kingdoms were happy to let the Council reign, so they were happy to let Dante become King of Palate, as if it was no skin off their nose and that nothing had actually happened.

Jaune never considered suicide. He didn't have the strength for it, and just wanted to go home.

The coronation had been a grand affair. As his carriage rode to some old church, Dante had been flanked by the veterans who had served with him since the beginning, only there were no Faunus, or mercenaries, and the armour they wore was more expensive than anything they had been given before. As far as Jaune could see, it was likely that the 'veterans' were just some guys paid to march in line and play to the crowd, so that no one would inconveniently begin to break down.

After all, we wouldn't want this to look like this was an invasion. Jaune had grown bitter, after the final member of their band had been confirmed dead. Soon after, he found that he was promoted up a fair few ranks, a formality with Loyalist resistance collapsing, and was required to be on the front screen to display the Foreign Legion's eagerness to help out and to try and rub off that positive Arc reputation onto the new regime.

It must have been why he was made to stand so close, when the Bishop placed the ancient golden hat on Dante's head and proclaimed how the Gods would make him wise and noble, and how Palate had a blessed future ahead of it. Personally, Jaune wondered if the guy's predecessor said the exact same thing, when the High Council took charge, and his predecessor, when the Virgil Clan got kicked out of their home?

Sometimes, in his darkest moments, Jaune had thought about not going back home himself. The only thing that brought some warmth to all of this was drawing near, and it had started to burn Jaune, as he wondered what people would think of him from there, seeing him as no more than either the buffoon who got tricked, or the glory-hound who underestimated everything.

Instead, he could become something else. A lot of the mercenary companies, fattened off their profits, were talking of heading to the frontiers again, to collect protection money from nomads and small villages. He thought about joining them, or even some of the more nutty ones who wanted big-gain/big-risk in the Grimmlands, becoming the kind of guy who only raised his sword for the right price, not having to give a damn about doing what was right or whether he was a hero.

The thoughts would then turn to names. His parents did so much for him, it felt wrong to further destroy the legacy of the Arc family, owing to one failure, so why not go for the name of a family long-thought to be dead and gone? He could take up the maiden name of his mother, the cast-out of an old family who could date themselves to the original warriors against the Grimm, the firmest proponents of the Expansionists, those who wanted to turn mankind solely towards slaying Grimm.

Jaune de Rais had a catchy tune to it. They'd talk of how he went from Palate to wherever, taking Crocea Mors to kill whoever got in the way of the next paycheck, how the campaign in Palate must have done something to turn him into the monster he was. His fantasies often ended with people blaming Dante's little uprising, forever staining his precious family name and marking him as a nothing more than a spoilt brat, whose lust for power doomed thousands.

Then he would think of his home, of his family. His sisters would have to hear of their brother's latest atrocity, of how he put some poor hamlet to the sword for not giving him something, forever to be judged as his kin, and his parents completed the arguments against. His mother would see the ghosts of her past return, in the form of her only son having gone mad, and his father would be judged as a failure, letting his son become a Grimm in-

"Human clothing?" A familiar voice asked, its happy allure stilled scared Jaune, even if he never showed it. "The King has returned, sitting on his throne, high in the sky, and all shall be good. That was what they told the kids in Atlas."

"Leave me alone." Jaune said, no longer in the mood for others to torment him, when he was doing a fine job himself.

"Nice try, I know you like talking to me." Crow-Eye's smile once did nothing but scare him, now it merely unsettled him, as well as annoy him. "We're two guys that get how insane the whole thing is, so why not have one last talk?"

"Last talk?" Jaune mentally hit himself for letting curiosity override everything else. It was the reaction that men like Crow-Eye loved, knowing that they were the mysterious factor that all feared and tried to comprehend, and he just added to it.

"I'm heading back to the Grimmlands. The heat needs to die down, and Dante is probably already selling me down the river, or a posse of Huntsmen and Huntresses are on their way to 'convince' him of the merits of doing so." A rare frown came to him, just as it did when the prospect of Dust Lung first came to them. "You're not coming with me." He said, making it feel like an order.

"What makes you think I want to?" Once more, Jaune hated how it came across as a denial of intent. Even if he did want to, it would never be with someone like Crow-Eye, who would probably have murdered him in his sleep, if the voices in his head commanded it.

"You don't. For all you get off on throwing egg at the guy's face, you love your folks and sisters too much to do it." Crow-Eye explained, painfully reminding the Arc that his mind was all but a book for something like him. "That's why, with the bridge home available, you're willing to risk one side cutting the rope, or the bridge collapsing with you on it. You get the bridge, no one else does."

"Either way, if you're leaving, good riddance." Jaune never knew that he could speak with such acid. It looked like the war really was a learning experience for him, in more ways than one, even if it revealed how in the dark he had been about the world.

"If you got questions about what's happened, now's the time to ask them." He said, not even registering Jaune's words. Showing his right hand to Jaune, he kept his thumb and index finger down. "I'll give you three."

Jaune knew there was something fishy about this. Crow-Eye was probably only doing all of this for kicks, seeing how the bright-eyed brat had changed in the past few months, from the safety of one of the palace corridors. The whole thing was probably going to go back to a regal purple, with foreboding white pillars keeping the room up, and a white marbled floor, as if to show off wealth, and Jaune decided to throw out what he could.

He even decided to try out a plan, to get some kind of payback against the guy in front of him. Did you have something to do wi-

"No, and I suggest you stop being cute about this. We wouldn't want all those nice people out there to die, now would we?" It was how happily Crow-Eye said it, as if it were some kind of truth-or-dare punishment, that truly horrified Jaune. "You're not smarter than me, don't risk trying to prove otherwise. Dante came to me, a big pile of money with him, and told me to round up all I knew for a job, and the bag would be mine. He knew the risks, both to him and others, and even tried to get me to go extreme with the eye, create some real problems. I told him that a giant bird, tearing up the whole island, was nothing close to what he wanted."

"Why did you never try to get the eye removed?" Jaune asked, a part of him always trying to understand what would make a person try to keep that thing, barely hidden from the world via a piece of cloth.

"You need to word your questions better. Any decent con-artist could have given a great non-answer." He said, not even bothering to pause before speaking again. "I didn't want it done, until I killed the fucker that created the need for it. Once that was over and done with, few doctors wanted to risk their lives, and there didn't seem much point to it. Didn't have much back home, being written off as dead a long time ago, and the pay was really good. A whole continent filled with jewels and wealth takes care of its own."

Jaune spent five minutes thinking of his last question. Setting a limit on the number seemed like another game, seeing what kind of questions Jaune valued more than anything, whether he would get them all over and done with, or try to stretch each one out. He could guess that making Crow-Eye use, well his eye, was going to be rejected, meaning that questions on what the eye could do were pointless, since that'd be all he'd know.

It meant that a thousand 'what-ifs' were circling around his mind, tormenting him. Was there a peaceful way to have won the war? How was his family, and what were they doing? Was there an afterlife? What was it like? Could he find a way to speak with David, Jet and Hecta again? Was there a way to bring them back? Did he want to bring them back?

Could he have saved them?

It hit him. "Why?" He asked, his voice becoming exhaustion. "Why did you direct us away from the Northern Campaign?"

"Same reason I've been doing this with you, and the same reason I didn't want you dying on me." Crow-Eye answered, the smile on his face almost melancholic, before stalking forward and waving a hand back at him. "See you around, Jaune Arc."

Slowly and surely, as if a weight fell on him, ridding him of the usual spring in his step, Crow-Eye's exit from the palace hallway echoed throughout the abandoned pathway and left Jaune alone. Immediately, the silence of the hall was broken by the quick and fearful steps of some court attendant, the man looking tall, lanky and having giant spectacles that were on the verge of falling, his bald head shining from sweat.

He was probably praying that Crow-Eye didn't notice him.

"Captain Arc, the King has requested your presence as soon as possible. Some journalists have been asking about the Foreign Legion an-"

"I'm going to bed, tell someone to bring me my stuff. Someone should be arriving for me, in a few days, when the air-shipping routes open up again." Jaune said, feeling himself become weightless, almost letting the air itself guide him to the room he was assigned.

The attendant began to sweat even more, as if panicking over the deviation. Jaune Arc wasn't supposed to have a spine, they were likely to say. "The King in-"

"He can come and tell me that himself, and then I can tell him that the only way I'm going in front of those cameras is if they make me." He growled, forcing the attendant to flee, muttering about seeing someone else about it.

Jaune kept walking, not even bothering to hear what else the poor bastard was saying, back to his room, happy to wait there for the whole time. If he was a royal guest, it'd be nice to see what their rooms were like, seeing as he was the so-called symbol of the Foreign Legion being such a voluntary thing. If they tried to kick him out, Jaune would just comply and tell people everything, get some questions asked and answered.

When a general, judging by the military uniform, managed to use some skeleton-key to force his way into Jaune's room, there was a lot of shouting about following orders and a demand that he go down there and follow the script. Jaune never felt happier refusing something, only for the general, and his two bodyguards, to move in some attempt to force him there.

If only one good thing came out of the horror, it was that look of fright and fury when Jaune drew Crocea Mors and made it clear that there would be a fight. The sight of someone who spent their lives having people lick at their boots, never having to personally deal with the consequences of their actions, being forced to back down like that brought him far too much joy.

For the next three days, Jaune spent his entire time in his room. He closed his mind to everything, from all the pain and all the shattered dreams he had, to just focus on the singular fact that it was all going to end soon, and that he would be free from everything. The food and drinks came at a schedule and Jaune ate and drank all of it, even when it was the most basic foods possible, a clear insult considering where he was, but that didn't matter.

Jaune was leaving, and there was nothing to stop him.

He still didn't know why he was the subject of so much interest, to the point where Crow-Eye tried to keep him alive. Was his Aura so large that Crow-Eye wanted for some reason? Did Jaune remind him of a younger self, before his greed doomed him, and he wanted to stop the same from happening? Had the QuothRaven been in control the whole time, using the civil war as a way to prepare a new body, to sneak into the Kingdoms with? Either way, it failed to save him.

A dark part of him argued that Crow-Eye planned things from the start. That, somehow, he could tell that he wasn't going to survive no matter what he did and wanted some kind of revenge on those who would kill him, the Huntsmen and Huntresses who moved to slay those like him the second they popped up in the radar. What better revenge was there? The son of one of their finest, and grandson of the one who slew the Ratking, turned into a weapon for those who planned to crush them all like ants to a boot?

The vision of Jaune, lost and confused on a battlefield, must have been glorious for him.

Or it.

It was Dad who came to pick him up.

Jaune said nothing, and neither did his dad, for the entire trip to the airship and to their room, where Jaune sat on the nearest chair and his dad on the opposite side of the room. For some reason, Dad didn't show any sign of feeling as if his son was a liar and a killer, someone who happily joined some manchild's quest for power and lied about it, and was now a war-criminal who was more De Rais than Arc, someone who killed for other's power instead of protecting the weak.

Instead, he just seemed calm about the whole thing. Jaune tried to look the same, only it was clearly a poor attempt at trying to intimidate his own father, who was probably too ashamed to even talk to his son right now, the one who ruined a legacy of protecting the weak and doing what was right. How could some kid who got conned into selling his soul for the sake of a golden hat and a few Lien be an Arc?

It was only when he tried to say something, that it all came out. "I was in a band, Dad."

"Jaune?" His dad sounded relieved, as if he was frightened that Jaune was never going to say a single word again. "What do you mean?"

"I was going to be the guitarist. We were worried about how we were going to get home, so we decided to form a street band after it was all done, to raise money for the ticker-fare back. I was the guitarist, David was the drummer, Hecta the vocalist and Jet would be a bassist, though I was going to ask you if they could stay at our place, until they got back on their feet." Jaune gave a single laugh, empty and devoid of anything positive, before his voice returned, full of tremors. "But they're dead now. All of them. I can't write lyrics, Dad, we all know that, so how can you have a band? It's crazy, it's stupid, it shouldn't have been them when it could have been m-"

Jaune's felt arms wrap around him, and he finally cried into the chest of his father, feeling like a child again. "I should have come after you, looked more into that damn leaflet. We heard that they were recruiting people like you, but we should have looked more into it. Professor Ozpin said we shouldn't, that it could cause a crisis, but what have they done to you?"

"They said we were going to be heroes." Jaune wondered how stupid he sounded, to have believed that kind of bullcrap, and from some guy stalking combat school rejects. "That we would be fighting to protect the weak, that people were being crushed under an oppressive heel, that we could be adding to something better than ourselves. Only, we ended up just killing people. People didn't celebrate us, they just wanted to keep a bunch of teenagers and paid muscle from hurting them. There were the people at Oceanspire, and-"

"A man with an eyepatch?" Dad cut in, breaking the hug between them, and kneeling to look his son in the eye. "He was the other reason that a move wasn't advised, owing to a power he has. No one wanted to have the QuothRaven be unleashed again, and that man was the type to unleash it out of spite for the world, if death appeared likely to come to him."

"So he gets away with it?" Jaune was beginning to wonder if this 'campaign of liberation and justice' was going to result in anything other than things getting worse. "They're all getting away with it?"

"That...man is being tracked down. He's likely to flee back to the Grimmlands, if Glynda and the others haven't caught him yet." Dad replied, putting a hand on Jaune's shoulder, and he hid his horror when the now-war veteran flinched at the sporadic nature of it. "We can't do anything about Virgil, but they'll make sure that justice manages to win, no matter what happens."

"He let people die for him." Jaune hated how unsteady his voice was, when it was all other, just like a lot of things about himself that he wasn't exactly fond of. "The Faunus Legion believed in him, and he just let them go out and die, just like the Foreign Legion soldiers who got sick."

"Jaune, we'll help you get through this." Dad promised, his son able to tell that he was trying to find a way to express his understanding, without triggering some kind of flashback. "It'll take a while, but we will make sure you get better."

"When did it become clear? How did everyone react?" Jaune asked, needing some idea of what happened after he left.

"We called the SDC after a week, found out that you never made it to Atlas, and then we heard that a lot of mercenaries had their contracts paid for a year, young people everywhere had gone missing or signed up for programmes outside of their nations, and even a few letters got through explaining the whole thing. It was only after we heard about the first attack that we got an idea of what happened." A rare fury was in his voice then, having boiled for months now. "The whole thing was supposedly voluntary, so their cause had an army of lawyers arguing that there was no justification to get you back, but we kept demanding that something be done."

"I guess everyone's been worried." Jaune admitted, the shame of what he had done haunting him. "Is anyone mad?" He asked, hating how important that was to him, compared to everything else that had happened, when thinking of those who would never see their loved ones again, dying in some land they didn't recognise.

"We know that you'd never do this unless forced, or you were tricked. They targeted people rejected from combat schools, on the streets and even those who had lost loved ones, to beef up their armies, before they then got them drunk on the ride there and encouraged some kind of celebratory atmosphere, jokes about ending in a few months and all." He thought he hid it well, but Dad was clearly repressing a lot of anger, his hands turning white from the firm grip. "It's how a lot of these armies are formed. Very few fight for coups against democratic governments."

"How do I go on?" Jaune asked, feeling like a little kid again, expecting his dad to have the answer to everything. "This isn't exactly something to be proud of."

"I don't know, and I don't think anyone does. All we can do is hope and plan." Dad said, both Arc men looking down on the ground, neither not what the other went through for the past few months. "Jaune, it's okay to ask for help after this, and to keep a bit quiet. No one expects things to go straight back to normal."

"It was my birthday yesterday."

"I know."

Crow-Eye didn't last long. The might of an army of Huntsmen and Huntresses, all well-trained and ready for him, unlike the disorganised rabble that battled against the QuothRaven, easily overcame him. Glynda Goodwitch was the leader of that little gang, before she scurried on back to Beacon, content to let people like him move across the world, until he did something that upset the powers that be.

They were just abused dogs, things to be pitied, until their paranoia made them strike out, and they were put down.

All of it had made him angry, even if he hid it well. Back then, all he wanted to do was to pretend that it had all been a dream, that he would wake up and go back to his life as a guy who thought he could become a Huntsman, that he didn't realise that the world was designed to reject true heroes in favour of those who follow the scripts given, who nod and obey their betters, and for those who don't experience actual loss.

Even that had been something he was denied.

During the day, everyone stepped on eggshells around him, as if a single wrong word would send him back to the battlefield, reminding him of the blood and corpses that surrounded him. He had found out that some in the Foreign Legion had been drugged, given something that dulled the mind, so that they wouldn't snap and break morale, for the first few months. Without those drugs, Jaune became more aware of what he had done and what he got himself into.

Still, it wasn't daytime that saw him break down. It was when he slept, where his mind was forced to relay the faces of those he killed and those he saw die, alongside the faces of those who were sent to the slaughter for being Faunus, and the only escape for him was to force himself awake again. It got to the point where he tried to avoid sleep as much as possible, forcing himself to stay awake during the night and trying to get through the day. Anything to avoid going back to the nightmares.

He lasted four days before he collapsed again.

The therapist was kind and caring. She didn't make Jaune go back to the memories, as he feared, and seemed happier to just talk to him about what he wanted to do after all of this had ended. He always replied that he didn't know, now that a military career was out of the question, and law enforcement as well, he couldn't think of what else he could do, when he had spent the last six or so months killing people and bringing about suffering.

He was given a few meds, mostly to make sure that he didn't sink into depression. Taking them was trickier than he thought, with PTSD making him somehow even more clumsy, but he took the recommended two per day, and it did make things easier for him to go about his daily business.

It took a month and a half, and Jaune was beginning to wonder if he really could go back to the way things used to be. If he could actually become the loveable comic relief again, rather than the scarred boy who ran away from home and made the worst mistake of his life, even with the nightmares dominating his mind for the entire time he slept. At some point, Jaune had just decided to accept that he'd have to go through cycles of waking up and going back to sleep again, and he still tried to find a way to live his life.

That was when Joan, the eldest sister, called home and asked if Jaune wanted to spend some time in Vale with her, specifically the city just outside of Beacon, to try and get his bearings. Jaune knew that his parents were wondering if their home looked too militaristic, reminding him of bad times, and the press were starting to scent that a story was nearby, to make Jaune into an object of media fascination along with other returning fighters, crushed by what had happened to them.

Some of them were even refusing to come home, so broken by the war that they either developed a taste for it, or were too ashamed to face their families again.

Jaune himself wanted to go. The house was the only place he felt safe, and even then it was becoming more and more like a prison he created for himself, having barely left the place since he got back from Palate, while he didn't feel up for facing the people he used to see across the street to the stores and parks. He didn't want to become someone they had to avert their gaze from, and he wasn't interested in hearing what rumours were cooked up about him either, whether he was an idiot or a glory-hound for leaving.

"It sounds pretty good." Jaune admitted, nervously looking over Joan's Scroll message, getting the gist of it. Even with all the emoticons, he could still tell that his sister was serious about the offer. "What would I be doing there?" He asked, getting the feeling that he'd be doing more than taking up space in an apartment, instead of just the family home.

"Joan managed to find you a job at a nightclub." His mother said, the bags under her eyes a result of the constant screams at night, representing the burden he had become. "It's a bartending thing, it's a place where a lot of young adults hang out, and the pay is supposed to be really good." She added, hope glimmering in her eyes.

"She's checked it out herself, there's no chance of the place coming under attack, at least in any more danger than a popular nightclub would normally deal with. Not to mention that it's in a safe part of the city, so there wouldn't be any trouble coming to and from the apartment." Dad added, the idea having some appeal to Jaune, who was in the mood for a peaceful job.

"Doctor Colly thinks that it'd be a good move, instead of you staying cooped up here. We'd also visit you every other week, the trip's only a few hours and we'd bring along Cassie and Liz, so everything would work out." His mother seemed so happy about the idea, and Jaune could admit that it was something he wanted to do. A new slate, with something familiar to go back to, might help him move on. The therapy sessions could only do so much, and it did provide an answer for what he could do for a while.

"It sounds pretty good," He admitted, giving off a nervous chuckle, before an uneasy smile came to him. "I might even make a career out of it."

"Just focus on getting better, that's all we need to worry about." Jaune's mother moved to hug him, but not too tightly, after he almost had a panic attack from how quickly it came about, and it almost felt like he was getting into something new. He wouldn't have to think about Palate and how he had let evil triumph, how things had turned out, and even those people and ideals that he lost.

In time, the itch in his right hand may even go away, when he thought of such things. Like how the mercenaries had been paid, the trinkets and items that the Restoration Movement's soldiers brought with them, to remind them of home, had been sold off on the black market if they were killed in action. The faith of so many, paid back so poorly.

There that itch went again.

That decision led him to the path he was on now. They didn't like how he refused to kill, how he never truly used Crocea Mors, in favour of weapons that knocked out the enemy, but he had left that life behind him. He was not going to be a murderer for anyone, not for Torchwick, not for the White Fang, and certainly not for the great Cinder Fall, who he was not yet judged as ready to meet more than once.

Joan thought he was going out with friends, when he was really trying to save the world.

"Hello there," The girl said, her voice as cheery as ever. "My name is Neo, what's yours?" She asked, having to look up to Jaune as she spoke, despite sitting on a stool that made most people just tower over him.

"My name is Jaune Arc. For the millionth time, I'd be your bartender, if you were of legal age." He said, giving the same answer he always had to this girl, whenever she came by to Club Veil.

"I'm the proper age, I'm just a fair bit petite." Neo replied, her eye twitching. Thankfully, she skipped trying to show I.D and went straight for her usual order, saving Jaune some time and breath. "I'll just have some ice-cream." She said, handing over the Lien.

Jaune never got why this girl was so into a single type of ice-cream, at least he assumed that was why she styled her hair like that, but she was a paying customer and didn't complain when Jaune almost had the cold substance slip from his hand, as had happened with a few cocktails. The customers were generally alright, in that they just wanted their drinks and the club patrons were rich enough for tips to be high, but he had always been a bit accident-prone and memorising the different combinations for Strawberry Sunrise, Avocado Avalanche and Plum Pounder was more than tricky.

He wasn't anyone's favourite, and they might have noticed his discomfort when they talked about royal weddings in Palate and how dreamy King Dante looked in this and that, so it was nice for a customer like Neo to hang around every so often. Even if it felt like she was trying to look grown-up, when she was way younger than she said, reminding Jaune of his little sisters, instead of a trendy customer looking for a good time. It felt nice to be someone's favourite, rather than the one people went to when everywhere else was too crowded

It wasn't helped by the way her eyes lit up by him handing over the sugary goods, the option of deserts making Club Veil popular among people going out on dates and upper-class druggies wanting new experiences, and the almost-drool she had going on. Honestly, she was more like Cassie than anyone else that Jaune knew, which was a nice reminder of home. Joan tried to be there for him, but she had her career as a Huntress picking up, and Jaune was eager to try and stand on his own two feet again, working night-shifts here meaning that the two rarely saw one another.

And they were still fighting over Joan's blatant betrayal in Oligopoly. She promised that she wouldn't buy Forever Fall Foundries when he was in jail, and she just did it anyway.

"How did a nice young man like you end up here?" Neo asked, halfway through her little pattern of alternating between each ball of ice cream, savouring the respective sauce of each one. "Club Veil is nice, but you seem far too in shape for this to have been your career-path. New to the city?" She asked, taking a bit more interest in him than normal.

"Kind of." He replied, deciding to keep details to a minimum, as the tiny girl pointed to the picture of an Avocado Avalanche and then to him, her question clear. "We're not supposed to drink on the job." He informed her, recalling how it was made very clear that they weren't to get drunk and damage the club's reputation.

"Pity. I'm actually waiting for some friends, so you can see that I'm of legal age." Neo said, halfway done with her little treat, waving her spoon at him as if it were a deadly weapon.

"Unless your friends can make you over five foot tall, I don't think that'll be the case." Jaune pointed out, motioning to show the height difference between the two of them.

"Well boo on you." Neo said, with a pout, jabbing her spoon forward and causing a bit of vanilla ice-cream to land right on his cheek. After he wiped it off and definitely did not eat it, Neo decided to ask another question, this one much less welcome. "So, Jaune, if that's your name, what was it like?"

Jaune stopped in his tracks and glared at her, already knowing what she meant. "How did you know?" He asked, moving his hand to where he placed Crocea Mors, in place of the firearm normally placed there, in case things turned violent.

"Your body structure, and the way you dealt with that drunk two nights ago, suggests that you've been training towards something. The fact that you're here suggests it didn't go well, and I know that you have no idea how to use the rifle hidden behind the bar, after that attempted robbery where it was in your grasp. Too young for the military, too old to be a Huntsman candidate, which leaves one recent option, explaining why you would want to leave your home for a while, Mr Arc."

"Shut up." Jaune wanted it to have sounded more deadly than it actually was, instead of some meek plea from someone close to tears. "It's over."

"Actually, it's not," A male voice said, the guy having silver hair and hearing silver clothing, as if trying to create some kind of theme. "We're here to talk to you about the importance of giving people what they deserve. For some, it's showing them what it means to have nothing, others want them to know fear, and others feel that they could do with a reduction in Lien."

"You're next break is in five minutes, meet us in the alleyway, if you want to do something that'll matter." A girl said, sitting to the left of Neo, as the silver guy sat to the right of her, giving off the impression that they were surrounding him.

"Is this it?" Jaune growled, trying his best to not let them scare him into submission, refusing to be a part of some other scheme where he was lied to and manipulated into being a cog in a machine. "I'm going to go with you guys, and you'll tell me all about you're fighting for freedom and heroism?"

"Oh no, Jaune. We're not asking you to go and kill people in the name of liberation, or freedom, or whatever it was they got you with." The guy said, putting his head onto his hands. "We're asking you to destroy those on top, who take pride in treating all before them like pawns, those who let an entire nation fall into chaos for the bottom line, or for their own pride. Us little guys, always getting the spiked dick of injustice rammed into us, are getting a bit tired of it."

"We're not asking for a hero." Neo said, with the same voice she used in all of their earlier discussions. "More a villain. If you want to learn more, then please talk with us."

He didn't know why they chose him. Maybe it was because he brought Crocea Mors with him, for reasons beyond him, or the idea that his name implied a certain amount of talent to it, or even the idea that they needed someone with 'military' experience with them. Either way, he had listened to their proposal and guessed that his lifespan wasn't going to be very long, if he told them where they could take their offer.

A part of him had always been screaming for him to strike back at the world, to force the world as it was to become what it should be, instead of some dark place where a man could bring suffering to thousands with the right help. He knew that Torchwick and Neo only cared for money, and for spitting in the face of authority, while Cinder Fall apparently had some grand scheme in her mind. All in all, he was more focused on bringing about true justice.

The training helped. Torchwick considered such things beneath him, always muttering about how the jarhead would flip out and start cutting people, while Neo thought the opposite, and apparently got their boss to agree with them. If he wasn't backing a mission, he was training with the White Fang goons who'd come at him, slowly building up his swordsmanship again, and even going beyond his normal skills.

Some of them tried to taunt him, boasting of humans they might have killed at Palate. Jaune took to joking back about how he was there, when they ordered the Faunus Legion to march to their deaths, and how easy it was to take down some of their friends during the campaign there. He got the feeling that their mutual attempts didn't build a friendship, and was quickly cracked down by their respective leaders

He kept his identity hidden, his role covered up by some guy called Junior (who had a connection of his own Club Veil while he ran the more sleazy joints, to ensure he knew everything that went on), and would go out and assist Torchwick in robbing Dust, or generally keeping his skills up for when his moment would come. When the Vytal Festival came and all those at the top would be watching, Jaune would be there, a symbol of those sacrificed for their riches, and he would show them the price of their actions.

Of course, if his generation wasn't so damn nosy, that is.

"Ms Pumpkin Pete?" Jaune asked, even as the mask distorted his voice, while his vision was clear as day. "I'm a fan of your product, got me through some hard times."

"I suppose I should say thank you." The redhead replied, already plucking her spear from the ground, as it turned into a sword once more. "It's not the healthiest of foods, however, so you should probably cut your intake." She advised, entering a combat stance that reminded him of Hecta once more.

Jaune thought that things would be easier. All that he and Torchwick had to do was rally the crowd, and then lead them towards their vague and mysterious goal, before he had to get back to Joan's apartment and get some form of sleep until the next job. Yet, for some strange reason, the meeting got infiltrated and it was up to him and Torchwick to track them down, despite having an small army of Faunus who could see in the dark.

At some point, the two got separated, and Jaune was having to face down some guy with blonde hair in the stupidest style that he had ever seen. There was enough hair to have it be spiked in random directions and add a good half a foot to his size, as if he was aiming for his enemies to laugh themselves to death, or be distracted by how ridiculous it appeared to everyone else in the world. His tonfa, on the other hand, was anything but silly, as Jaune found himself working on the defensive for a while.

In the end, as the two found one another to be blocking the other's blows, Jaune decided to cheat and launch a knee to the guy's junk, bringing him down enough for a black, sheathed blade (the black sheath being a thin but strong second sheath for the blade, when he moved the blade from the true sheath) onto the left side of the guy's head. It was enough to knock him out, as his Aura prevented the injuries from being too fatal.

Jaune was about to cut his losses and assume that Neo had Torchwick covered, when a spear cut into his path and he barely dodged a shield spinning right behind him, the thrower assuming he must have been distracted. He had fallen back to see the culprit, and saw a girl who didn't seem in the mood to just let him go without a fight, most of her body shrouded in darkness, until she stepped into the lights given by streetlamps. His eyes had widened, as if seeing a ghost.

Her hair was black and kept in a ponytail, probably to keep it from sweeping down to her shoulders, and it somehow worked with her eyes that looked more like green gemstones than eyes...

No, she's gone. Jaune scolded himself, having kept his mind off from specific names and faces from that time for so long. It wasn't just that, but something about her reminded him of something as well, those eyes and hair, and that very uniform itself, armoured as if she was-

The girl from the Pumpkin Pete's cereal.

"What is life, if we can't indulge in the sweeter things?" He asked, hoping to try and psyche her out. Make her slip up, or even start to question what she was doing, to give him the advantage in battle. "Unlike those who use innocents as sacrifices to the altar of greed, very few have died." He said, preparing himself for a wider speech, showing her all that he had go-

"Actually, obesity-related diseases are second to only smoking-related diseases as the cause of deaths nowadays." The girl said, stopping in her tracks and raising a hand, as if they were in some health class. "Sorry, if I ruined your point." She added, before entering a combat stance again.

Is she mocking me? At times like these, Jaune was grateful for the featureless black mash he wore, on top of a face mask itself, made to protect his identity. It had successfully allowed him to not show this girl the fact that his face had turned to a likely very dark shade of red, and the minor body movements from left to right, as he tried to find the right response to her point. Not to mention that his plan to reveal the horrors of the world had just been totally undermined by this chick, however cool she looked with that pose.

"Shut up." He said, maintaining his dignity. "My point still stands."

"I don't know why you've chosen to work for men like Roman Torchwick, but I will stop you here and now." She said, closing the distance between them, a clever tactic, had Jaune not noticed it. She proceeded to speak again, only to ask a question this time. "I don't suppose you have a name?"

"You can call me The Broken." He declared, having decided the name for himself long ago, to reflect on what the war had done to him. "I fought for what I thought was justice, and I merely served to spread evil across an innocent land. I am all those who were lied to, I am those who suffered for the desires of the few, I am the one who will force this world into a new order."

"Some would say that the old order can still bring out justice, that disruptions to it will only bring chaos and the Grimm down on us." The girl pointed out, not letting her guard down for a moment. Escaping might be a trickier task than Jaune first thought.

"Did such things stop the Colourful Movement?" Jaune asked in turn. For some odd reason, taking a strange joy in the little debate the two of them had going. "They must have been told that removing all that made us human was a minor sacrifice, if it meant being strong enough to finish off the Grimm, and maybe even the Faunus."

"I'm not sure whether I should be relieved, or worried, that you believe yourself to be on the side of justice." She said, with a strangely sad smile, looking almost regret having to fight, not that it stopped her from readying her sword. "I suppose, at this point, it doesn't matter. You can call me Pyrrha Nikos and I'm going to stop you. The ideals you yearn for cannot be found on the path you tread, working with people like Torchwick and the White Fang."

"My ideals are dead." He said, removing the second sheath for Crocea Mors, revealing its deadly blade to the world. He had a feeling that he was going to need it, if he was going to hold his own against someone who could injure someone like Hecta with ease. "Only death of their killers shall bring them back."

"Pyrrha is a lovely girl..."

As the two drew their weapons, Jaune was internally thankful for the armour he hid under his hoodie, the symbol on it removed and replaced with more black. It might give him the advantage in this fight, surprising his opponent and giving him time to flee, and maybe even pick up something from A Simple Wok, if he was lucky enough to escape and make it out without fighting more Beacon students.

Both of them readied their blades and, under the light of the moon and city, began to dance.

Well, that was a lot longer than I thought it would be. I'm hoping that I managed to reflect some of the character aspects of Jaune that normally get ditched by DarkJaune fics, his clumsiness, his desire to do good and be a hero, and his childish nature (in that he thinks having a name like 'The Broken' would be cool and intimidating), while also showing how he ended up a bad guy here.

Again, this was a fun project to get into, and I sincerely hope that you all enjoyed it as well.