I love the contrast between the weapons of Team JACL:
You've got a cludged-together simple axe with a derringer pistol attached to it.
You've got a simple straight sword.
You've got a machete.
And then you've got a giant glowing blue sword that has more computing power than the rest of the world combined, can generate almost arbitrary amounts of energy, can use hyper-advanced math to magic high-dimensional physics into existence and analyze and quantify souls, and is a super-intelligent AGI on top of all of that. It even has the potential to develop a soul. (And that's not even counting the Process.)
Jaune absorbed all of the complexity and creativity for weaponry for himself, it seems. What do Ada and Lumen even do in their Weaponsmithing class? Sharpen the edge? Build a new weapon now that they've got a blank check and safety to make something?
Be fair, the derringer's not exactly taped on. Lumen
is working on something as far as you can tell, you always got the feeling his sword was very much a 'what he could make at the time with what he had' kind of deal, and Ada... well, yeah, the former. Much to Mulberry's disapproval, but that'll come up another time.
Anyway, this is your first Christmas present. Sorry it's late, you know how the mail is. Your second one is- oh, sorry, hold on, almost forgot-
[sladevoice]
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT'S CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISTMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS[/sladevoice]
-where was I? Right- your second christmas present is going to come in a couple days. On January 1st, another thread is going to appear in my signature, and with any luck, it'll gain the traction I need it to, to actually keep interest in it myself. With any luck, it'll gain the appeal it needs to… become its own thing. Even separate from me.
God help me, it's going to be the first original thing I've published that wasn't a quest, and we all know those don't count.
(also I don't care what you all think, I genuinely believe the Slade joke only gets funnier, a) the more I do it, and b) the further away from Christmas I do it- one of these days I'm going to hit a six-month hiatus again and do it somewhere in the middle of June and it's going to actually burst the aneurysm on my brainstem from laughing so hard)
The Process matter bubbles beneath your feet, and you begin to think through your options. A certain clarity seems to lay itself over your mind, not the time dilation of Turn()- just… more thoughts in the same amount of time.
Immediately, you discard the idea of directing the class as a whole- it's too slow. It's too
unreliable. You're not their leader. JACL's, sure- but not a whole class of Huntsmen.
Immediately after that, you discard the idea of bringing the Process to bear in its entirety- too much, too fast. It's exactly the kind of molecular horror show you're trying to avoid by going so slow with it in the first place. At the same time, it's impossible for you to completely hide it, now- even if you put the dock back together.
So where's the happy medium?
{Coordination.}
Coordination.
The Process matter bursts into motion as you leap up and onto your sword, ready to ride into the ship as quickly as it can take you. From the white pool, several units that are almost, but not quite, exactly like Cells if they had been put under a negative filter then grew to the size of small children form, rushing out towards the group.
Some people bring their weapons to bear, before you yell back at them.
"The Badcells will guide you through the ship and keep you in contact! Listen to them! I'll explain later but right now just trust me!"
That breaks their focus from the Badcells to
you, and the looks of confusion you get just point to uncomfortable questions in your future.
You get ready to blast off-
"Wait!" someone in the crowd yells, and in the instant before you ignore that and blast off, you feel someone land on the Transistor's handle and hold onto you. Turning around, you see a flash of a pink highlight and black hair, and a sharp, angular face set in a determined scowl.
"Ren?"
"Trust me."
… Yeah okay you deserve having your own words thrown back at you. You Process him a board extension and strap him in, before blasting off to view the damage.
The hold of the ship is open, the first layer of many,
many cages now gone, and you can see others near the floor have been opened, and their Grimm nowhere to be seen. The Grimm in the cages above are going absolutely mad, and it only fills you with-
WARNING: INVASIVE SEMBLANCE DETECTED! COUNTERACT N-
{Bracket, BRACKET! Relax, it's… Ren, I think.}
Nothing. You feel nothing but peace. You look down at the scene below, and understand that it too will pass. That whatever happens happens, and you will do your best to make sure that what happens is what you want to happen. If that isn't enough… so be it.
"Let's go," Ren prompts you forward, and you dive down into the hold, past Grimm that simply do not react to your passing.
{I've never seen him this calm before,} you hear Blue say in the back of your head.
It's kind of unsettling.
You touch the ground, and begin scanning for free Grimm and injured people as you step off your sword, Ren hopping off with you.
A few Grimm are in here, but it seems most have moved to the next hold over, or up into the accommodations- the Process relays this through the Badcells, and focus on the people stuck in the hold- namely, one Dawn, and another Scroll signature.
You bring a hand up in a gesture to create a holographic scan of the ship with mobile markers of Grimm and civilians, and notice your hand is completely white. Actually, even the red liner of your blazer is grey, in direct sunlight.
"We're here to rescue, not fight. What are you doing to me, right now?"
"I-it's my Semblance. I call it Tranquility."
"Apt. It's making me reconsider whether I need anxiety medication. Anyway-rescue is our priority. Four people still alive here, one in here, three in the hold over. Vast majority of Grimm down here are in there too. I'll work on hemming them in- you think you can do this to two civilians at once?"
"Yes," Ren says confidently. "But… not two civilians and
us at the same time. And if I let go of it on you…"
You'll put every Grimm on or near the ship into a frenzy because of just how angry you are underneath that veil of peace.
On the other hand, Process. You shake your head.
"Shouldn't be too much of a problem. Once the civilians are out of the hold, we'll join the others on cleanup."
A Boarbatusk walks by at the end of the row of cages, snorting and snuffling like a truffle hog as it searches for the person currently hiding on the catwalk above- female, mid-30s, wolf Faunus, no major injuries- covering her mouth and nose as if not breathing will help. It starts to come down the aisle towards you, still not noticing you're there.
Ren's Semblance is pulling its weight, that's for sure.
Saying nothing, you point to Ren, then the Boarbatusk- yourself, then up towards the civilian. Ren nods, and with a flick of his sleeves, a pair of machine pistols appear in his hands. Grabbing the Transistor by the hilt, you float up to the catwalk as Ren walks straight up to the Boarbatusk, which doesn't even register that someone is in front of it.
With two swipes, he cuts the cables that hold its mask on, the mask slides off, and the Boarbatusk falls down dead because it doesn't have a face anymore, going too quickly to make a sound. Even the Grimm in the cages above barely note its passing.
{Thank god it only makes Grimm blind, that's absolutely terrifying.}
If you can make people feel like nothing's wrong, is that any different?
{JAUNE WE'RE RAPIDLY RUNNING OUT OF REASONS TO NOT KILL HIM FOR YOUR SAFETY.}
You snort, taking Blue's joke in stride- and then the colour begins to enter your skin again, and… you're still pretty calm. Huh. Guess you were working out that anger in the background. Still, you feel the eyes of various Grimm
snap to you as Ren's Semblance fades away.
This follows the pattern of a concrete plan contributing to your emotional stability.
Reaching the catwalk, you find the Faunus in question, staring at you with wide eyes and pricked ears as you ascend over the railing and land gently.
"Hello," you say gently.
"Are you injured?"
She silently shakes her head.
"N-no, but- D-Dawn is, she's in the next hold over. I- God, that Imp… it just-"
"Hey, hey, don't worry about her. I'm going to get her out of here, okay?"
{Good news on that front- we've found Dawn, we think, and… well, she's alive.}
You're not hearing a but there, Blue. You're watching Bracket roll out a red carpet and direct photographers to it.
{... The Imp had fun. Process can direct people her way, probably stabilise her if you loosen the leash a little, but unless there's a healer in the class, there's… not much we can do for her beyond that.}
The news settles in your stomach like a glacier.
"... What? What is it?" the Faunus woman asks.
… How long has she got?
{Minutes at most. Blood loss is the main concern. She's already unconscious, so… at least there's no pain.}
You need time. You have time. Minutes are an eternity for you, when you need them to be. You just have to move fast.
The Faunus is still staring at you with concern, fear and comprehension, all at once.
"Oh God, she's dead, isn't she?"
"No, no!" you say quickly.
"No. She's… alive. I can help her. But first, we need to get you out of here, okay? Can you stand?"
The growl of a Grimm interrupts her response, and you see the Beowolf behind you. The Transistor launches a Ping() salvo at it, and it yelps as it tumbles back down the sheer steps of the catwalk. You offer your hand to the woman, and she takes it with wide eyes.
"... H-how are we getting out of here?"
"I'm going to do something, and I need you to trust me, okay?"
She blinks, and you snap your fingers, a disk of Process matter voiping into existence beside her. The slim, featureless white disk honestly looks closer to luxin like this. Maybe you can play it off like that when it's not forming an actual unit. Or eyes. Or
guns.
Maybe you're flying a little too close to the sun trying to crib Lumen's style.
"Don't worry- it's perfectly safe. Just step on it and it'll take you out of here."
The wolf Faunus blinks again, but does so, giving a little squeal as it starts to move slowly upwards, keeping her perfectly balanced no matter how much she flails.
"Oh, oh God, no, I hate this-" she says just before she floats out the hatch above, disappearing.
Okay. One down.
How many more?
{Four. Dawn's the most injured, but the rest aren't in great shape either. Looks like CRDL are extracting one, though- Cardin's doing the heavy lifting, the others are just keeping the Grimm off him.}
That's your boy.
"Ren," you call.
"Here. Civ out?" he says from somewhere below you as you hop down, Aura flaring to protect yourself from snapped ankles. The second you do, you feel that grey creep in again, the tranquility laying itself over your emotions.
"Done. Gotta move fast, there's a critical injury in the next section."
You watch him go a shade greyer.
"Student?" he asks, and even underneath the tranquil grey, you can hear that note of concern.
"Civilian," you reassure him, as horrible as that sounds.
"Any more Grimm in here?"
"Saw a Beowolf, but I lost track of it in the stacks. Nothing else. Was that what you were shooting at?"
You nod.
"Let's move."
The Transistor marks out the quickest route to the next cargo section, and you both take up a dead sprint.
"Jaune," Ren says after a second. "I noticed something concerning earlier. Some of the locks had gouges taken out of them- others, what looked like teeth marks. I think… some of the Grimm are trying to learn from the Imp."
Well, that's concerning- and means you can't let a single one survive.
You nod, and he slams it open.
The other side is chaos- there must be a dozen Hunters in here, including PRLN, RAMA, and the rest of JACL. Initial scans show at least half over that many Grimm. Unfortunately, numbers are a hindrance in such tight quarters.
"Jaune!" Lumen calls out. "Critical injury up top! Plugged her wounds best I could, but- SIR WOULD YOU
PLEASE STOP TRYING TO BITE ME-"
Interrupted by the Beowolf that leapt at him, Lumen forms a small stick of blue luxin, using it to hold the Grimm's mouth open mid-snap, ramming his sword down its throat.
"Where's the Imp?!" Ren says.
"En't here, the git's hidin' somewhere else!" Leathers yells, bringing down a chainsaw-bladed axe on a Boarbatusk's back at the same time Pyrrha puts her rifle to its faceplate and pulls the trigger.
A flash of yellow from the next row over.
"... I think we run into it in- AH!" Rashmi starts, before the warning hiss of a Grimm startles him.
The sound of rapid-fire plasma blast and several meaty thumps precede the surprisingly bony thump of a Grimm hitting the ground- a Myrmek, you see through your HUD.
"MY LORD, HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU TO STAY PRESENT IN BATTLE?!" Kapila roars, clearly angry with her partner.
"I'm sorry, Pila, it won't happen again!"
She gives a frustrated grunt that suggests he will not in fact stay present in battle in the future. You shake your head and start to float up to the catwalk above. There, you find Dawn, Creme next to her with her hammer in her lap and gently stroking the unconscious woman's hair. You've never seen her look so…
fallow before. Lumen is looking over the edge, Alabaster and Tulip providing white light for him as he marks Grimm with thin strings of superviolet luxin from a gaseous cloud hanging in the air over the cages. You watch the strings grab a Boarbatusk charging at Nora, and yank it off-course, hooking a tusk around a cage bar and flipping it onto its back.
{Jaune, injured now, questionable mental health of your teammates later.}
You know, you know!
You turn your attention to Dawn.
It's… bad. But it could be worse, if Lumen didn't think so quickly. Large bandages of green and orange luxin stretch across her midriff, and after scanning, you realise they actually penetrate quite deeply into it- roots of green extending into her abdominal cavity as non-invasively as they can, taking the bare minimum material needed to plug all the bleeds and hold her organs
relatively together. These bandages are holding all of her insides, inside, and plugging as many blood vessels as they can.
{It's sterile, and it stopped the bleeding. He probably saved her life.}
"Jaune? Oh thank God, can you- is there-"
"Gonna get her out of here to Port. She'll survive the next few minutes."
"Okay, okay, he- he called in for medical assistance, they should be down by now. God, I hope they're down by now, I-"
"I know. Now, move away from her for a second. Gonna just… encase her and send her out."
Creme nods, moving away from Dawn, and you raise a hand- immediately encasing her in a large pill of Process matter, which starts to float out, forming the same electromagnetic disks as the Jerk's arms to support her weight. It zips towards the ceiling, slamming into it and immediately assimilating a perfect hole in the hatch door.
The realisation of the Process's potential in terms of creating cartoonishly accurate cut-outs of you whenever you make a door where a wall was hits you like a truck, and you have to take a second to refocus.
{Dawn's landed, Cardin's dropped the civilian off. There's one more on the other end of the hold, but besides that, everyone's out. Lock the Grimm down and you can relax.}
Right. Right.
The relief is so strong it leaves you weak in the knees.
You know, this is going s-
no. You've learned your lesson.
"Mark all free Grimm," you say, and the last ten or so Grimm are highlighted in your vision, still trying mindlessly to snap at your classmates and the Badcells slashing, stabbing, or blasting away at them, or in one enterprising Badcell's case, latched onto its head and trying to stab it in the eyes.
What a vicious little bastard. You just might keep that one for yourself.
You snap your fingers, and the sound echoes through the hold. Every free Grimm is suddenly caught on all sides by a wave of Process matter, encasing them in cubes three inches thick, mimicking
diamond.
Not taking chances this far into it.
"Civilian on the other side of the hold," you tell Creme.
"Gonna grab 'em."
"Hey, boss!" you hear the Badcell by Creme and Lumen say, its voice rougher and more aggressive than the friendly chirp of a regular Cell.
"Still Grimm in the crew quarters, you want we tell people to go help stab 'em?"
"Anything bigger than a Boarbatusk?
"Nah, it's all shrimp!"
… Blue, do you want to explain-
{It's… a long story. We'll talk about it later.}
When isn't it a long story, these days?
"Blue, that the last civilian on the ship?"
{Looks like it. Pretty much everyone got off without much issue, it was just a couple unlucky souls.}
Great.
"Direct everyone to the crew quarters. This is a cleanup mission, now."
"You got it, boss!"
Every single Badcell floats through their assigned team, and the message is relayed through them.
""""HEY, KILLERS! LAST CIV'S EXTRACTED! THIS IS A CLEANUP MISSION NOW! FIRST, CREW QUARTERS, THEN WE'RE FINDING THAT IMP!""""
At volume.
You know- you went an entire week without something entirely surreal happening. That's a new record, for the past couple months.
Wait. Something's missing from this picture.
"... Where's Ada?" you ask your teammates.
"... You know it's pitch black and full of Grimm in here, right? She volunteered to stay outside with half of Team SSSC, watch for escapees," Lumen explains. "They killed a small den of Loxies a little while ago, and about half a dozen Beowolves."
You give a low whistle.
{Girl's really compensating for that nyctophobia.}
Quiet, you.
"Okay, fair," you say.
"So, what next?"
"Crew quarters, yeah? After you extract the last civ, anyway," Creme says.
You could go into the crew quarters, but…
You stare at the far end of the hold, knowing there's a third section.
A knot forms in your gut.
"Jaune? Come on, buddy, leadership time," Lumen prods gently. "Something else on your mind?"
You shake yourself back to the present
"... Just a hunch. Wait here a second, I'll go deal with the civ."
Lumen and Creme nod, figuring you know what you're doing. You hop over the railing, and rush across the tops of the cages, their occupants making various displeased noises as you rattle them a little, and eventually find the final civilian, a large, bald man, cradling a mauled arm and clearly relieved by the timely intervention of a bunch of Hunters.
"Oh thank God, is it over?"
"Mostly. Here, let me bandage that," you say, reaching into your bag and pulling out a roll of quickly voiped bandages. Crouching down, you gently pull the arm away from his chest, the hiss of pain making you wince too, as you take in the full extent of his injuries.
{Bites and clawmarks. Dunno how he actually got away from it, the Beowolf should have... locked him down and torn him to shreds.}
You start to bandage his arm, and make small talk to distract him from the pain.
"... So, how'd you...?" you ask, gesturing to his arm.
"Beowolf," he says. "Little bastard jumped me from above, tried to pin me down."
Breath ragged, he still gives you a weary grin, then gestures to the very large pipe wrench next to him.
"Just meant it stayed still so I could crack it over the head, though."
You grin with him, finishing up your bandaging- it's not your best work, considering how quickly you went, but you tug the end, and the Process matter adjusts just enough to put on all the pressure it needs.
"Can you walk?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Was just waiting for your lot to finish up. I can get out myself," he says, standing on slightly shaky legs, but waving you off when you try to help, and jogging off to the ladder, which he easily descends with one working hand. You watch him rush through the stacks to your classmates, who quickly direct him down a cleared path.
{Alright, Jaune, you wanna vocalise that hunch for us? Your subconscious isn't nice enough to lay it out in plain Valish for us.}
... Nobody's found the Imp yet. In any part of the ship that a Hunter has been, they haven't seen hide nor hair of it. So, either it's hiding somewhere
really stupid, somewhere nowhere would think to look, or...
{It's somewhere nobody's looked, yet.}
What's in the third hold, boys?
Grimm cages. Big ones. We can't... scan what's inside them.
Well that bodes well. And if you were a shockingly smart Imp, looking for more Grimm to free to get you out of here, why not go for the biggest guys in the prison yard?
... Dammit.
{Sending Port a message- asking him to ask Gideon what's in the aftmost cargo compartment.}
Whatever it is, it's big enough to be a legitimate concern if they get out.
... And you'll be taking Creme and Lumen with you, whatever you do. You can't keep running off on your own, or, well, trying to before someone stows away on your ride. So whatever happens next lands on their heads too.
Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit.
{One more and your next coffee's free.}
Dammit.
[] The Crew Quarters- considering the vast majority of the class seems to still be up there, you don't think there'll be anything in there for you to kill- but it'll be a good place to regroup, share information, and come up with a plan... at the risk of the Imp actually freeing one of those big Grimm, if it's not trying to hide in a barrel in the galley or something. Here's hoping ten teams of Hunters are enough for whatever's comihahahahaha ten teams of Huntsmen who made it to Beacon could kill God it'll be fine. Probably.
[] The Aftward Hold- you cannot risk a bigger Grimm getting out. One Imp, against three quarters of JACL, and the other teams down here? It'll be enough- at least enough to distract it so everyone else can get down here if your suspicions are correct. On the other hand, if the Imp isn't in there, there's a chance whatever is in there will be angry enough to break free on its own.