Chapter One: Breaking Point

Hello, everyone! Welcome to my first story! If you're queasy about gore, violence, and sexual abuse, I suggest you not read further. EXTREME VIOLENCE WARNING. I am not liable for any emotional damage any readers sustain while reading. There will definitely be new chapters. Have fun~

Jaune Arc was in a very bad way. His team would not-so-happily attest to that. He had been doing nothing for days but watching that God-forsaken video of Pyrrha on his scroll, day in and day out. He hadn't started that way, no; at the beginning of their journey to Haven, he had been his regular old dopey, kind-hearted, sometimes depressing self. It started out with him sneaking away at night to watch the video and train. Then, it had escalated to him watching it during the day. When he was asked about it, he would never say much. Soon enough, he was watching it constantly, over and over and over. He wouldn't respond to anyone, not Ren, not Ruby, not Nora. He was a walking corpse, not even attacks from Grimm could rouse him from his grief-induced stupor. After one such attack, Ruby had decided that she was well and truly fed up with these shenanigans. She stormed over to Jaune, covered in dust and breathing heavily, folding up Crescent Rose as she went.

"Jaune! You can't keep doing this! Ren almost got hurt!" Jaune didn't even acknowledge that he was being spoken to. Nothing new. The only movement he made was a slight twitch of the thumb to restart his precious video.

"Jaune! Listen to me!" Ruby grabbed his scroll, pulling it out of his limp hands and shutting off the video. Ren and Nora stood nearby and shared a concerned look with each other, but didn't intervene. They were both curious to see what he would do.

Jaune turned his gaze upward for the first time all day. "Give her back." He spoke flatly, staring at her with eyes that were spookily vacant. His mouth hung slightly ajar and Ruby had to struggle to meet his uncomfortably empty gaze.

"No! I know you miss her, Jaune. We miss her too, but this isn't healthy! This isn't a good way to deal with your grief!" She was trying to stand her ground, but it wasn't easy when he kept piercing straight into her soul with that blank stare.

"I said give her back!" Jaune growled, slapping Ruby across the face. Not hard enough to really hurt her, but certainly enough to leave behind a bright red imprint of his fingers. Ruby held a hand to her painfully throbbing cheek, staring at her friend in shock. "J-Jaune…?"

Ren immediately stepped forward, level-headed as always, and grabbed Jaune's wrist. "That was not necessary, Jaune. Control yourself."

Ruby had staggered backward from the slap, putting some distance between her and Jaune. Nora had gone to Ruby while Ren had gone to Jaune, and had put her arms around the young girl comfortingly, staring at Jaune as if he was a stranger. It was enough that he had had his face in his scroll and shut out the whole world for the past few days, but actually hitting Ruby was just too far.

Jaune paid Ren no mind, ripping his wrist from his companion's grasp and storming towards Ruby. Nora stood in front of her, arms out protectively, and Ren blocked Jaune's path by standing in front of him and pushing against his chest. Jaune had gotten a good deal stronger since they were at Beacon, and Ren was hard-pressed to hold back the young swordsman. Jaune was quickly being worked into a rabid frenzy. He felt entirely lost without Pyrrha. The world was going dark. He needed her, but she wasn't there! It was that little girl, that little red whore who had taken her, and he was going to get her back at any cost. He pushed against Ren, quite lost in his fit of rage.

"Jaune, calm down! Stop this! Ruby is your friend! We're all your friends!" Ren pleaded with his teammate, but to no avail. His words only caused Jaune's furious gaze to shift from Ruby to himself.

Jaune had begun to legitimately think about the situation. Not to say that he was in his right mind, he was far from it, and would be from then until the day he died. He stared at Ren, his face a mask of frenzied rage, and drove his fist into Ren's jaw, knocking him to the dirt. As soon as Ren was out of his way, he charged Nora, who had begun unfolding Magnhild the moment he struck Ren.

Nora was really gonna give it to him now. Friend or not, he had slapped Ruby and punched Ren, and now he was going for her. No way. Jaune had unsheathed his sword and readied his shield as he advanced, but they all knew he was no good in a fight. Sure, he had landed some cheap shots on friends who hadn't expected a thing, but this was a fight, now. She was gonna break his legs for sure.

Once Jaune had his weapons up and ready, he closed the remaining distance at a full sprint. Nora swung her Magnhild at his chest, but he dropped to the ground on his back and slid on the loose, dusty road. He shot his foot out and plowed it straight into Nora's knee with a resounding crack! She dropped her hammer, clutching her knee and screaming. Her aura would've protected her from a cut or a stab, but Jaune simply forced her knee back enough to break it. Her leg was limp and awkwardly twisted as she rolled around in the dirt, crying out in pain and holding her ruined leg. Jaune spared her no more effort and stood back up, heading for Ruby.

By now, Ren had recovered from the punch Jaune had nailed him with, his rarely-seen anger flaring like a thermal vent from the depths of the ocean. He leapt to his feet and sprinted at Jaune, tackling him to the ground as he reached a currently paralyzed Ruby Rose. She had just wanted to help him, she didn't know this would happen! She was just trying to help!

When Ren tackled Jaune, he had been lunging for Ruby's hands, desperately reaching for his scroll, for Pyrrha. Instead of nabbing his scroll and safely retreating back into Pyrrha's visage, all he accomplished was knocking Ruby's arm on his way down. This caused Ruby to drop his scroll. His scroll fell on a rock. The rock broke his scroll. The broken scroll broke Jaune. It wasn't explosive, as one might expect. It was quiet, almost peaceful. Jaune stopped struggling against Ren the moment he saw his scroll shatter. Pyrrha was gone. All he had left of her was gone.

Ren had him pinned to the ground by his shoulders and was kneeling on top of him. "Jaune! Stop! This is not how you deal with grief! You broke Nora's leg, Jaune!"

"What…?" Jaune turned his once-again-vacant gaze to Ren, no longer fighting him. His voice sounded airy.

"I know you miss her, Jaune. We all miss her, but you need to move on! You need to get over your sadness!"

"Huh? Y-Yeah, I'm sorry… I don't know what came over me… I'm okay now." His voice still sounded very empty and hollow

"Good. Get up, we need to take care of Nora."

Ren pushed himself up off of Jaune and dusted off his clothing. Nora was still clutching her knee on the ground, tears streaming from her eyes. Ruby was sitting on the ground, knees pulled to her chest. She was having a hard time coping with what had happened, and the fact that she had caused it. It wasn't over yet, though. Not even close.

As soon as Ren had his back turned, Jaune scooped up his sword and bashed Ren over the back of his head with it. Ren dropped to his knees with a grunt, drawing Nora's attention. Jaune wasted no time in lining the tip of his sword up with the back of Ren's neck and jabbing sharply, breaking his already damaged aura. Ren was dazed from the strike to his head, and now his aura was broken. He was entirely defenseless. Jaune lined his sword up with Ren's spine again and slowly began to push it through his teammate's neck. He took his sweet time impaling his friend, taking a full fifteen seconds before the tip emerged out of Ren's front, just under his adam's apple. Ren's usually peaceful visage was replaced with a wide-eyed, gasping face during the impalement, which quickly gave way to a limp, slack-jawed mask of death. Jaune's face remained blank and vacant the whole way through.

Nora was in a haze of pain, her shattered kneecap shooting spears of agony through her entire body. She was mostly unaware of what was happening during the scuffle between Jaune and Ren, but it seemed like Jaune was under control again - that was, until she heard Ren grunt in pain. She opened her eyes to see Ren on his knees, head hanging, and a disturbingly peaceful-looking Jaune standing behind him. Suddenly, his head shot up and he looked to be in immense pain. When the tip of Jaune's sword emerged out of Ren's throat, Nora forgot all about her pain as her heart was ripped in two. She could only shriek in horror at the sight of her childhood friend and partner - the one she had been madly in love with for years - be murdered by her team leader, a boy she trusted with her life and cared for like a brother.

Ruby was still a few feet away, knees pulled to her chest on the ground when it happened. Ren's grunt also drew her attention, causing her to look up and watch the horror unfold, powerless to stop it. It only got worse when Jaune was provoked by Nora's screams. He snapped his gaze to her, his face now twisted with unholy rage. He violently kicked Ren's corpse off of his blade and stomped over to Nora. As soon as he was within attacking distance, he began hacking, pounding, and stabbing her prostrate form. Her aura broke after the first couple of hits, and her shrieks of horror and heartbreak quickly became ones of terror and agony. Jaune kept hack, hack, hacking away until what used to be the kind, bubbly, joyous Nora Valkyrie was nothing more than an unidentifiable pile of visceral meat and bone. Jaune was drenched with blood and breathing heavily, a sadistic, twisted, entirely insane grin on his face.

Ruby hadn't moved an inch from her spot on the ground during the whole ordeal, her eyes widened in pure horror as she was forced to absorb what was happening to her treasured friends, of which she had so few. 'I… I just wanted to help him… I just wanted to help us…' She thought. She felt numb all over. She probably couldn't have moved if she tried.

After a few moments of staring hungrily at the brutal, bloody destruction he had wrought on Nora, he slowly turned his predatory gaze to the terrified, paralyzed, and traumatized Ruby Rose…

Whoo, this was a doozy, alright. Banged this whole chapter out in a few hours. Well, I hope you all liked it, please leave a review and tell me what you thought/how you want the story to go from here. I've got a pretty solid outline for the next couple of chapters at least, but I'm open to some slight suggestions! There will most certainly be more of this story, and probably quite soon...