Hey there! Hope everyone's staying inside and staying healthy! I've spent so much time inside my apartment (by myself cus my roommate moved out to be with family) that it truly feels weird. Ah well, at least I can still get in zoom calls with my friends to play d&d lol

"It doesn't change."

He sighed.

"That's really what this is all about."

Bishop sighed again.

He was stuck alone in his room in the hidden-away base out in the forgotten ruins of an abandoned old town. No one but the doctor and Arthur knew he was there, and it was going to stay that way. The image of the Commander in Chief of the Enclave as an unstoppable killing machine for their ideology was one that could not be compromised. As such, he remained hidden even from the guards around him. Stuck alone in the tight room, it felt like he was under quarantine, cordoned off for fear of some odd virus.

There was no internet, no new books, no tv—there was nothing for him to do that would satisfy the innate human boredom to which even superhumans like himself fell prey.

"I've had a lot of time to think," Bishop said. He lied on his back on his tough bed, staring up at the ceiling. "And that's what it's all about. Don't you agree?" Bishop turned to look at his one listener.

Rubra Mors leaned against the wall nearby. The dutiful sword was within arm's reach; it was rare for Rubra not to be.

"All I've been able to do is lay here, look at my aura creep up, let the doctor prod me and think and think and think…" He sighed and shook his head minutely; even such a simple act had the sore muscles in his neck protesting, as every muscle in his body was sore and intolerably tight. Even a week after what she'd done to him, it was still like this.

"So now I'm here, talking to a sword."

Rubra Mors did not respond.

"I'm sorry; I shouldn't be so dismissive." Bishop cast a glance back at his companion. Rubra silently stood at attention, the keen black blade waiting in its hard black sheathe.

"After all, you've always been the most loyal. Even Arthur cannot compare to you." Bishop chuckled dryly. "Don't tell him I said that."

Rubra Mors said nothing.

"Exactly, that's why I can trust you. Don't need to worry about you telling anyone else, no snarky comebacks, no complaints, not telling me to take a break…"

That last item on the list made Bishop scowl, sharpening his frigidly blue eyes. Normally, whenever he was smiling and talking, his eyes were polished lapis, two clear, shiny and attractive gems that had always been the subject of adoration from other Enclave girls. Now, however, they were far from lustrous. It was hard to sleep when your body felt like a rock battered in a hurricane, resulting in deep bags under his eyes, and his sclera were shot through with red veins. The sparkly blue irises were clouded with dark feelings.

Bishop sneered.

"This is what breaks give me," he said. "This is why I've been 'working myself to death' the last few years." A growl turned over in his throat. "You understand that, Rubra, in a way that Arthur never could. My old teacher still thinks of me as that kid, but you know me…"

Bishop looked at the sword on the wall.

Rubra Mors did not respond.

"Yes, yes you know me…" Bishop sighed and turned back to his previous occupation of staring up at the ceiling. "You know it all."

Rubra Mors said nothing.

"I've had a lot of time to think, and in these days that have been passing by, do you know what word has been passing through my mind? Any guess?"

Bishop paused for a moment, but the inanimate listener did not speak up.

"Failure. That's the word that's been passing through my head all this time. Failure. Over and over again. I understand it was still largely a victory… everything and everyone tells me so. We achieved our strategic aims, but it reminds of the past. Failure here. Failure at the Purifier. Failure at Raven Rock. Failure to kill that little rat, that last emblem of an old movement to be destroyed.

"And I was disgusting as I failed in the Breach. I laughed and snarled like some animal, but how could I keep it contained? Do you blame me?"

Rubra Mors said nothing to blame him.

"Of course you don't. You were there with me. Granted, Nikos tried to use whatever her semblance was to get away you from me… but I know you didn't like that. I was worried about you, when I nearly lost you."

Rubra Mors was unapologetic.

"But I had nothing to worry about. You were waiting for me, ready for service. Like you always are. Thank you."

Bishop shifted under the covers, trying to no avail to settle comfortably. His sore body wouldn't allow that.

"And now I'm here, talking to a sword."

Rubra Mors gave no words of comfort.

"But I'd take your company over most others," he said. Bishop opened his eyes and looked with a mix of nostalgia and sincerity as he addressed his sword: "I appreciate you."

He was sure that, if Rubra Mors could talk, then the sword would return the sentiment.

"But see, I don't like being left alone with my own thoughts. Thinking and thinking… nothing to do but confront things.

"Being productive is such a wonderful escape. I don't have the time to contemplate things if I don't give myself the time, don't let myself. But here I am, returning to it all." Bishop shook his head and glared with the intensity of a firebrand into the ceiling above him; a nasty look was about the most powerful show of force he was able to muster, with weak muscles and aura still mired in the yellow.

"I just wish I could sleep until my body is willing to be compliant again, and then we can get back to it. Then I'd be just a dream away from the action. Wouldn't you like that?"

His sword said nothing.

Knowing Rubra agreed, Bishop continued to ramble with a voice raspy and low:

But see, as demoralizing as times like these may be, I never lose focus. In fact, I'm more sure now than I've ever been. All of this thinking is unpleasant, but it has led me to further strengthen my resolve.

Why we fight. I know why.

Because war never changes. Humans are capricious and violent. We learn how to do so many things and style ourselves as being so smart, but in the end: nothing changes. We fight because moral degeneracy will always rise, and the good will always fall, and vice versa. The fight is a cycle.

Rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall and rise… and fall. That's all humanity has ever been capable of, going up and down and up and down like a child bouncing on his bed until eventually he falls off and cracks his skull open—just like his mother warned him.

We need order. We need a strict father who will tell the child to stop jumping. We need an end to war, to violence, to disagreement. An end to the cycle. That's why we fight, why the Enclave fights. We're going to break the cycle. Shatter it. Grind it to dust. Make a utopia.

People have been saying that utopia is impossible, ever since the word was invented. But my father always said that utopia was not a place to be found, but a place to be made. You craft it with your own hands, and the tools you have, and the power you wield.

Rome, Britain and America all reached for this state, all sought their own peaceful hegemony.

And they're all gone now, fallen after the rise.

But we? We've learned the lesson, finally. And without us, the humans and mutants on Earth are sure to exterminate themselves. I can only hope that the Enclave remnants there manage to pull together, but we should focus on what we can do.

We must continue here, on Remnant. We have to save this world from itself. We have to become the father that tells them to stop jumping on the bed. We need to form utopia, now that we've learned from the successes and mistakes of our ancestors. No one else can do this.

Because we've learned the hard lessons. Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, the fathers… they all tried. Like my father always said, their initial constitution was properly authoritarian, and Washington would have been the perfect leader of the perfect dictatorship, just as is necessary and proper, were it not for that sickness.

Communism is the only mental illness that's contagious. The founders, so strong as they were, were not impervious to the wiles of degeneracy…

And it infected them, made them give the right to vote and hold office to the unworthy—to everyone! Ever since Plato, it was known that democracy is absurd. The fathers knew well to at least restrict the electorate, but they were not nearly stringent enough. They were so close to it… they stood on the precipice of greatness, but the force of degeneracy prevailed.

We were just built this way, with moral degeneracy and mental deviance acting as plagues all along.

But now we have the ability to fight that. We have millennia of experience to build on. We have learned from that ultimate lesson—apocalypse.

And we have guns; and we have cameras; and we have computers; and we have soldiers.

We have the means with which to build a world that is pure of blood and pure of thought.

That's what must be done; otherwise, war will not end.

Because war stays the same. People are going to fight so long as they disagree, and they are going to disagree so long as degeneracy runs rampant. It is constant, but that is actually a good thing. We know why it happens. Now, we can understand it like germ theory. It happens because of that disease. Like any disease, if you are proactive, if you take the necessary steps toward sanitation and cleanliness, then the disease will not occur.

Remove the malign. Remove the impetus for conflict. Purify.

People can't fight if they don't differ. If we all have the same culture, the right genes, the right ideology and the right method of thinking—then we have peace.

Isn't it so simple?

Diversity of DNA, of culture, of thought. None of it can be accepted. Diversity is what ruins civilizations.

That's why we had to get rid of the mutants back on Earth, and why we must exterminate the Faunus here on Remnant. They are different. And they are impure, more prone to the savagery we seek to snuff out.

Communists, anarchists, national socialists, homosexuals, atheists, mutants and every other breed of degenerate, mental and genetic, are all the result of that old problem, that red rot of the mind. The rot that made our leaders back in the twenty-first century lazy and stupid. The rot against which American exceptionalism fought for centuries. I guarantee, if the founders had made the kind of constitution that they wanted to make, free of degenerate influence, then there would not have been an apocalypse. My father always told me about how good it could have been.

I only wish they'd spilled the blood of the unworthy when they spilled the ink for the constitution.

We need that correct political structure, where only the strong and wise get a say, where everyone is aware of the need for homogeneity. Not any kind of purity like that practiced by the Nazi scum or those confederate traitors or those Klan fools with their ridiculous theories on skin color and skull shape and sect of religion or descent. No, we need that correct cleanliness of culture, thought and species. We need—

"Purity of blood and mind," Bishop said.

Then he stopped his rambling. Finished, he looked at his sword. Rubra Mors had listened dutifully throughout the monologue.

"I suppose I'm preaching to the choir, hm?"

The sword said nothing.

"Oh well, at least it's nice to talk about it with someone. Sometimes I feel like I need to remind myself."

With a heavy sigh, he said, "Why we fight. I know why."

Bishop nodded gently and closed his eyes, though he knew the latter was futile; he would continue to be awake with mild pain for hours still, and he would be stuck alone with just his thoughts to haunt him.

"I feel like… I don't know, I've been thinking so much. Just so much… thinking."

"About what?"

"A lot." Jaune shrugged and looked at the slinky in his hands. "A lot of things."

Peach idly tapped a black-polished nail against her desk as she looked at Jaune. "And is any of it bothering you in particular?"

Jaune stopped playing with the slinky. He was quiet for a moment, as he tried to sort things out.

There were some things he wanted to tell her but knew he could not. For instance, out of everyone, he felt most guilty for not telling Peach that he was from another planet. After all, she was the one person to whom he was supposed to be able to tell it all. A close second would be Ruby, and an extremely close third would be Pyrrha, then the rest of his team and then Qrow and then the others…

The great secret about himself, which he could never share with them. They'd just think he was crazy. Christ, they already thought he was a little crazy, or at least that he was a recovering crazy. No, he couldn't tell them. And for that, a dark guilt sat heavy inside of him, and sometimes it felt like it squirmed around whenever he lied.

In that way, the guilt was a cold, heavy worm that slithered around his intestines like a grotesque parasite.

Was he withholding vital information from them? Wouldn't the authorities be better able to research if others from Earth had come to Remnant? But they wouldn't believe him. They'd write him off as crazy… and even if they did believe him…

Would any of them look at him the same way again?

"Well I started doing some research," Jaune said. He ran a finger along the smooth and bright surface of the tin slinky in his hands. "To find out more about what Bishop could be doing. But I haven't really gotten anywhere."

"I'm sure the authorities are trying their hardest on that front. I believe that that effort may be out of your hands."

"Hm."

But the authorities weren't looking for the right things, were they? Jaune had spent nearly the entire previous night in the library, scanning the internet through the dark hours for keywords that might matter:

Brotherhood of Steel. Giant cockroaches. Radiation. Atom. Nuclear. Super bomb. Enclave. Gas masks. America. Earth. Plasma. Lasers. Power armor. John Henry Eden. Washington. Vaults. Super mutants. Mutations.

And so on and so forth, all the old-world vocabulary he could think of.

If anyone saw his search history, they'd think it bizarre indeed. They'd also find that he himself had found nothing. The news was dominated by the word "Enclave" which Ironwood and Ozpin had supplied the public after he'd supplied it to them. But other than that…

There was nothing. It was as frustrating as it was unsurprising. He, Orion and Bishop had arrived years apart, almost decades apart. Certainly, others had come. That lightning had shot all over the place. A few Enclave personnel, a few more knights… maybe even…

"Jaune?"

"Hm?"

Peach had broken his contemplation with a question. She smiled meekly and waved a hand. "Just making sure you weren't dozing off or disassociating or…"

"No, I'm alright," he said. Then he blinked, and he shook his head. "Well, no I'm not alright. Not really. But right now no… I'm not losing it or anything. Just tired and distracted."

"I wasn't implying that," Peach said. "I just know that there are times you've been sucked in by memories and thoughts."

"Yeah… I'm not so bad now," Jaune said. He screwed his eyes tightly shut, then opened them again, as if that would somehow reset the world before him, or at least refresh his perception of it. He took a deep breath.

"It's just…" he sighed again. "It feels like… I don't know, like I'm swimming? It's hard to keep a train of thought right now. I… it was easier when I was working, when I was researching. Then I could just kind of zone in, have a purpose. But now I'm here and you tell me to think and let out what I'm thinking but…"

"It's just overwhelming?" Peach guessed.

"Yeah."

"You aren't sleeping well, right?"

"No," Jaune replied. "No I'm not." Fearing a look of disappointment on Peach's face, he met her eyes.

He was surprised to see that she remained as impartial seeming as ever. Even now, he still feared disappointing her, though he knew that he never would. He never could, not really.

"I could tell from the dark rings under your eyes," Peach said. "It's even noticeable with your right one."

His burned eye, that was. Most people never mentioned it to his face, likely for fear of offending him. Peach had no such fear, knowing that scars on his skin really didn't bother him at all. As he'd explained, they were par for the course in the wasteland, not unusual in the slightest.

Well, except for the one.

"Any reason in particular?" Peach asked. "Nightmares? Anxiety? Trying too hard to be productive?"

"All of those, I think," Jaune replied. "I stayed up late last night researching, but that was just because I couldn't really sleep. And the night before that… I don't remember what I dreamed, but I remember that it wasn't good. I think… I don't know… I think I was falling?"

He had awoken from that nightmare silently. In the middle of the night, the room had been quiet and dark. He came to consciousness unaware of what had been torturing him as he slept, but he was covered in sweat—and for a moment, it felt like he was tumbling down through the air.

There was a solid second after he'd awoken when his mind was dazed with fear, the primal fear of falling. He could have sworn that he was not on his bunk but in the middle of a disastrous plummet.

That was how he'd woken up, and for the rest of the day he had been chased by that uncanny feeling. For the rest of the day, he'd felt fragile and weak, even as he'd forced himself to stand tall and clench his jaw and stare forward and look for all intents and purposes like the soldier he had been trained to be.

When he was being trained in VATS, trained to be a guard back in the vault, they had him stand for hours, staring at a wall, silent and focused and keeping up his authoritative pose. Later, it was that kind of discipline which first got Sarah to respect him, to see in a kid the kind of hard-wrought warrior she and the Brotherhood appreciated, warriors with minds like steel.

That was what he pretended to be all day, and then he spent the first ten or so minutes of his session with Peach in cathartic tears.

Now, he just shook his head. "There's just a lot going on," he told Peach.

"There certainly is," she said. "You're taking the medication, right?"

"Yeah," he replied. "I don't know how much good it's doing but I'm taking it. I think it helps calm my nerves. But I still keep thinking and… thinking. Can't really control that." The slinky clattered in his hands as Jaune shuddered. "It sorta reminds me of how I was at the start of this."

"What does that mean? Start of what?"

"When I first came to Beacon. I… everything seemed faster. I was afraid. I looked over my shoulder all the time, and now I do again. I was starting to feel comfortable." Jaune stopped to breathe hoarsely, feeling a pain well up in his throat. He stared dead ahead, looking at nothing in particular. "But now I'm looking over my shoulder again. And I'm jumpy and I hate being touched just as much as I did before.

"You know, the other night, Pyrrha tried to pat me on the arm and—just by instinct—I slapped her hands away. Hard. Her aura flashed and the look on her face"- Jaune gulped painfully –"was terrible. I said sorry and I felt so bad and she… she said it was fine…"

Jaune trailed off, and he looked at the offending hand with which he'd hit her.

"It didn't feel fine to you," Peach completed.

"No," Jaune said, staring at his hand. "No it wasn't fine. Something like that is not fucking fine. I said sorry but…"

He stopped, for that pained knot in his throat rendered him silent. It was a few seconds more, and a few deep breaths after that, which let him wrestle control of his voice again.

"We were going to go to the movies, right? Ruby and I. We were going to go and… and I was actually looking forward to it. I'd stopped looking over my shoulder and flinching at everything in the corner of my eyes and… it felt like I could have fun. I hated going out to the park with Nora. And even if I mostly liked the other few trips I went on with my friends to Vale"- Jaune let the slinky fall out of his hands and onto the couch beside him –"I still felt jittery the whole time, and I had the magnum on me and I was ready… to be attacked.

"I thought that maybe this time, when I went out with Ruby, it wouldn't be like that, since I've made so much progress. Like maybe I could be out in public without being afraid." Jaune brought his legs knees up again his chest, wrapped his arms around his legs and curled up there on Peach's couch. He tried to sink back into the cushion, to be small.

"I don't want to be like how I used to be," Jaune said.

I don't want to be the Lone Wanderer anymore.

Peach looked down at her desk, tapping her black nails against it for a few seconds. Then she brought a finger up to her mouth and tapped on her charcoal-colored lips a few seconds more.

Jaune wondered what it was that she was preparing to say, and he let out a sigh of relief when she spoke again:

"Relapse is a part of recovery," Peach said. "Those feelings of paranoia, of isolation, even of aggression, are all parts of you. Embrace that. It's a part of who you are. And in a way, it always will be."

I will always be the Lone Wanderer.

Jaune closed his eyes and shook his head.

That wasn't true. That's not true.

I am not the Lone Wanderer. I am Jaune Arc.

Jaune Arc could not be alive were it not for the Wanderer, but one is not the other.

"Do you understand?" Peach asked. "You've grown so much. And being faced with this kind of pressure is absolutely brutal, and of course your response won't be perfect. You won't be fine and dandy. It will be hard. It will hurt. There are always going to be times when it hurts."

When he opened his eyes again, Peach was looking straight into them.

"You can, and you will, get through this," she said. The tips of her mouth tugged up into a smile. "And one day, you can kick Bishop right in the dick."

That made Jaune laugh.

He moved down the hallway. He had a slight limp, his leg being out of the cast but still sore. He attracted a few glances from the students whom he passed. Jaune kept his hands clasped in front of him, as was his habit, as he was trained, as would enable him to best defend himself. He couldn't help but tighten his grip whenever he saw another looking at him. He no longer responded with glares, no longer sneered at others, no longer tried to intimidate them into leaving him alone. He simply averted his eyes and ignored the prickly, uncomfortable feeling under his skin, a feeling as if someone were raking their nails on his raw flesh. The simple act of others looking at him no longer bothered him as much as it once did, but that didn't mean he liked being the center of attention, or the recipient of any attention at all other than his friends'.

It was unfortunate, then, that he was now a celebrity.

In a way, he'd even come to eclipse Pyrrha. He was the leader of the team that averted a horrific disaster. His face was plastered all over Vale's news, and he'd had to deny so many requests for an interview that he lost count. He'd had to awkwardly try and wrestle with other students—strangers—trying to ask him about the Breach; he tried his best to be conciliatory but to also get the hell away from them.

The other three were happy to talk with reporters who visited Beacon or via the phone or talk to curious other students… but not him. His absence in essentially all interviews and calls on tv was conspicuous to the public. Ironically, his own desire for inattention had inspired several articles about the "mysterious" leader of team JNPR, articles which sought to discuss him and his past. Jaune found those thoroughly invasive. That his renown was growing due to his efforts at privacy was not lost to him; it frustrated him greatly.

Pyrrha had freely taken a few calls in their room, and in one of them, she'd accidentally said that he was there as well. When the interviewer asked if he could speak to him, she had been quick to say, "Sorry, but he's busy." She apologized to him afterwards, but there was no need: Jaune had forgiven her the instant she'd done it. Even if, the instant she'd done it, he'd felt an acute and vicious sense of panic.

"There's pretty much nothing you could do that would keep me pissed at you," he'd said. "Just… be careful. Please."

The concept of having his face out there, known and seen by so many—it gave him goosebumps, made his shoulders hunch like a wild animal backed into a corner.

It was bad in Beacon, too. He had been fairly distinctive before, recognized throughout the school as the one with the scar and the chainsaw. Now, however, he was recognized as the mysterious hero who'd stopped the terrorists. Even Cardin had given him a respectful nod. Cardin!

He hated the spotlight. Back in Vault 101, as a kid, he'd only ever been the center of attention when he was being bullied. Amata had been his only friend, and he'd become accustomed to sharing a close bond with one, or only a few. Such had been the case when he'd been in the wasteland, with his team and, to an extent, with Sarah as well. He hadn't liked being used as a kind of figurehead by the Brotherhood, a young face with an awkward, genial smile. A boy-wonder who was good at killing. Only Sarah had continued to treat him normally—for her, that meant brusque and aloof communication, but it was her own way of caring and respecting.

The best part of being the Lone Wanderer was that he'd been able to wear a mask. A part of him wished for it again.

That was (at least somewhat) why he was headed to where he was headed. He'd dragged his belongings back from his little hovel out in the Emerald Forest to Beacon, but not all of it he left in his room or his locker. Some of it was too sensitive for that—or too volatile.

Nora, a little after their reconciliation, had shown him an entrance down into the school's basements and tunnels that were used for the pipes and maintenance, found by her while snooping for things fun and forbidden. While she'd shown him around down there, she'd told him to stay away from an area loaded with something called 'asbestos' because apparently it caused cancer.

Sheesh, imagine being so afraid of some cancer. People on Remnant are soft.

He opened a janitorial maintenance door and stepped inside, whereupon he used the flashlight on his scroll to navigate to a door deeper in the room, behind a stack of mops. He slipped a bobby pin out of his pocket. Jaune had never been the best lockpicker in the wasteland, but knowing at least a little—just enough to get through some pesky old doors—was practically essential.

It took him a few moments to slide the pick in, rattle it around and twist the lock. It had taken him barely a minute to do it the first time, and the look of amazement on Nora's face had been priceless. He smiled to think of it now. She'd been so downtrodden by the realization that they'd installed a new lock in the door. Man, how fun it'd been to sneak around down here with her, a secret they still kept between the two of them. Neither Ren nor Pyrrha would be very happy with them if they found out.

The door swung open, leading into a black abyss. The smile fell from Jaune's face. A cold feeling crept upon him, and a weight like a ball of ice formed in his stomach.

Brought to his mind was the images of dozens of caves and metro entrances back from the wasteland. Void openings into nothingness, into different lands full of monsters and raiders and horrors.

He suddenly felt hot. His hands twitched towards his waist, where his weapons would be.

Breathe deep. Hold. Release.

He got a grasp of his nerves, telling himself that he was a universe away from that old place. Even if Bishop was here, there'd be nothing down there for him. This wasn't DC, and it wasn't Mountain Glenn, either. There'd be no ghouls, no super mutants, no deathclaws, no robots, no cannibals, no nothing.

Nothing other than what he himself had hidden.

So he walked down the steps. Foot after foot. He held onto his scroll more tightly. The darkness clotted thick around him.

He fell into that old rhythm. It was easy as riding a bike, really. The version of himself that had lived and learned back on earth was a vicious survivor. He knew to pay attention, to pick out movements in the dark, to listen just as much you look. He had developed a skillset, one not to be soon forgotten.

Jaune had changed over the months, but not all was left behind.

It was as if, in his transition from Lone Wanderer to Jaune Arc, he had taken a scalpel to himself. Steadily, over time, with the assistance of his team and Ruby and Peach and Qrow, he'd sliced ribbons of his own flesh to peel away. It had been excruciating, and it had been hard, but he'd skinned himself alive. And he'd survived. And now he had grown a new skin.

But the muscles and bones underneath remained the same.

With care and paranoia, he stepped through the tunnels underneath Beacon. They were cramped, dark and dank, qualities all familiar to him. He made his way through, alert and on guard and aware, having adopted that mode of existence to which he inevitably returned when threatened. He went through the tunnel like a snake, slithering steadily but always ready to spring on a moment's notice.

He walked alongside pipes and vents; the only sound in the tunnel was the flow of his breath, the grate of the soles of his shoes against the cement floor, the rumble of rushing water, the hiss of gouts of hot steam.

Then he came upon a sign that read: Warning! Asbestos!

He turned to his side and reached though a few pipes, careful not to touch his skin against the hot metal. He saw it glinting in the light of his scroll, the thing he'd hidden there before.

He pulled it out from its shadowy hiding place. The filtration helmet.

Jaune shined his light on it and grimaced. It was a crude, old thing. A hard-hat with a flashlight attachment was attached to a gas mask; this was what they wore around in the Pitt to not get turned into trogs by the poisonous air. He had gained it, Metal Blaster, and his gamma-shield armor in the Pitt. That horrific, brutal place to which he'd fled after his abandonment of the Brotherhood of Steel. Its cruelty had helped form the Lone Wanderer.

Jaune looked into the eyes of that mask for longer than he should have.

Eventually, he held his breath and pulled the thing over his head. The rough, sweat-crusted leather and plastic on the inside of the mask was uncomfortably familiar.

Recently, he'd been wishing that he could wear his mask again, wishing he could get out of the public view.

Now that he had it on again, he wanted nothing more than to take it off.

Nevertheless, Jaune persisted. He stepped past the sign and through the dusty, forbidden area. He pocketed his scroll and flicked on his helmet's light. It was significantly more powerful, making up for the slightly more restricted peripheral vision and hearing he had.

Jaune's walk turned into a jog as he ran to his destination, which he saw stuffed into the corner: his old duffel bag.

He knelt down beside it and pulled open the zipper.

Within was what remained.

The scraps of steel that were his Gamma Shield Armor was the first of the junk that he pulled out. There still remained on it the slashes from where the deathclaw—no, the beowolf—had mauled him barely an hour after he'd come to Remnant. He'd deemed it largely useless since then, and he now only wore comfy and new blue-colored clothes. He threw the armor aside.

The second thing he fished out was none other than his pip-boy. Jaune had decided it was worthless and stashed it here with the rest of his old belongings not long after he'd finally decided to settle down. He'd recorded his songs from it onto his scroll, and then there was nothing else it could give to him. In that moment, Jaune looked down at the cracked and dirty glass of the pip-boy. He flicked the button on its side, which made the little computer hum and shine. The vault-tech logo flared for a moment as it loaded. When that was finally done, he entered the password—CATHERINE—and logged back in for the first time in a while. It was mostly just lists of goals and the items he had on him, as well as pages upon pages of personal notes, as well as the now worthless map function and radio. Jaune turned off the device.

When he did, he saw the reflection of the mask of the Lone Wanderer in its black, dead screen.

Jaune stuffed it back in the bag, then rooted around some more. The only other things were some of his survival material, a knife, a couple shattered syringes of what had once been med-x. There were only two other things of great importance here.

A plasma grenade. It was a supremely destructive little thing, and it fit easily in the palm of his hand. It wasn't any larger than Zwei's head, but it would be able to turn that puppy and any living thing in a ten-foot radius to goop. How strong would aura be against it? Earth's destructive capacities, after all, where far worse than anything on Remnant. Far worse. No dust or semblance could claim to be commensurate in cruelty to the arms of his old world.

Jaune set aside the grenade, carefully, then looked down at the only thing remaining in the bag. It was a locked box. He carefully unlatched its locks; he fought to do that despite the frustrating shudder that overcame his fingers for a moment. Wrapped in ratty cloth within the box were three of the "trump cards" that he'd been called crazy for using.

Three mini-nukes. Each one had been carefully rigged with an egg-timer's knob that, when pressed in and twisted, would set it for detonation. Effectively, they were the deadliest grenades that had ever been made. Certainly, they were the deadliest grenades on Remnant now, if they had not been so on Earth.

Jaune was fully aware that he held on to what must be the only nuclear explosives in the world.

He held his breath, too nervous to nervously shake. He had chosen this spot because it was underground, and hopefully the damage of these little monstrosities if they happened to decay enough would be relatively contained. Relatively.

The thought had crossed his mind before of running out into the Emerald Forest, tossing them into a cave and calling it that. He had not done that. He'd stowed them away. Just in case. Although Jaune wasn't entirely sure why he'd come here and why he'd felt compelled to look through his old belongings, it struck him that these three awful little things likely played a role. He had thrown one at Bishop and nearly ended him.

Given the chance, he would throw one again.

Jaune had his arms crossed and walked with a stoop like an old man. He scowled pensively, and he scowled suspiciously at the people who passed by. Everyone made sure to give him a wide birth, recognizing the look of someone who should not be approached.

He had looked over what remained, and it had put him in a foul mood. He still vividly felt all the sensation of the helmet, which once he had been so used to. He choked on his own breath, as the shoddy air filter sometimes left much of it caught in his mouth; parts of his face and neck were red and raw, having been scratched by the gnarled old leather that bound the helmet together; his eyes still squinted as if they were peering through the foggy goggles.

He touched a hand against his face. His fingers were cold, for fall was beginning to come into full swing, and the air was developing an increasing chill which latched onto and burrowed into the exposed skin. When he pressed a hand against his cheek, however, he almost flinched, for his cheek was very warm in contrast to his chilly fingers. If Jaune had had a mirror, he would have been startled by the feverish shade of red that burned up his face.

All he could do was trudge on. He pressed through the halls, heading back towards his room. Towards Nora and Ren. Towards Pyrrha.

And towards Ruby as well, if she was around. But then… did he really want to talk to Ruby?

That thought stopped him in his tracks.

Of course I want to talk to her. I love her.

But she's been weirding you out lately, hasn't she?

I still love of her.

Of course you do, but right now you're not exactly looking for the weird cheer she's had lately.

No, not really… I'd actually prefer Pyrrha's company right now. I like just asking Pyr how her day went and listening to her talk about it. Those are very peaceful conversations.

Yeah, there you go.

I don't really know what's going on with Ruby… but recently being around her makes me anxious.

"And I don't know why," Jaune muttered. He sighed deeply, looking down at the floor. He was just standing by the side of the hall, looking down at the floor.

His eyes widened when he realized that, and suddenly he felt angry at himself for allowing a public display of weakness like that. What if one of his friends saw?

He immediately straightened his posture, set his shoulder back, raised his chin and started walking down the hall with respectably long strides—even if it hurt his recently freed leg. He wiped the paranoid scowl from his face, instead summoning a stoic façade. Anyone looking at him now would see a dutiful young man, walking as if he had a sense of purpose.

He walked in that forced way which had become common to him, all the way down to his room. He pulled out his scroll, turned it on and pressed it against the lock—

Just as he heard an abnormal sound coming from down the hall. It was a whoosh, a bellowing of air that he recognized immediately. It was something—someone—moving very quickly.

He turned and smiled. Recent thoughts aside, seeing Ruby always made him feel happy. The red blur came down the hall, leaving rose petals in her wake. Jaune braced himself, expecting her to barrel straight into him as she often did.

Instead, she stopped just before him, and her expression erased Jaune's smile in an instant.

Tears covered her red cheeks, and she looked at him with wide, puffy eyes that were bloodshot from crying. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and her hair was slick with it. She panted heavily, chest heaving up and falling down rapidly. She looked at him with wide, scared eyes for a moment, paralyzed by the sight of him. She turned her back to him and dashed for the door to her room.

"Ruby, what the—"

She looked over her shoulder, now wearing a big, wide smile. "Haha!" she said. "Had a real rough training session! Ha!" Her voice seemed about to crack. Her hands were shaking. She fumbled to pull her scroll out of her pocket.

Jaune's thoughts whirled inside of his head, so fast and confused that it made him dizzy. Panic, worry and utter confusion collided with one another inside his skull. "Ruby, what's wrong?"

"Nothing!" she said forcibly. "Ha, ha, ha!" She choked out a few laughs, even as she choked on her own voice, even as a few more tears rolled down her cheeks, even as her shoulders shuddered. She desperately pulled out her scroll and almost dropped it from her shaking fingers. Even her robotic hand shuddered uncontrollably.

"Ruby!" someone called from down the hall. Jaune recognized Yang's voice, and when he turned to look, he saw that she was followed by both Weiss and Blake as well. They were sprinting as fast as they could.

Desperately, the girl clad in red turned on her scroll and pressed it against the lock on her door, which glowed green and clicked. Without looking back, she shoved the door open and threw herself inside, cape flapping behind her. Jaune followed without hesitation.

Ruby, however, lurched for the bathroom and dashed in, then slammed the door shut behind her so hard that the doorframe creaked and nearly cracked.

Jaune was left speechless, suddenly feeling small and powerless.

Uh-oh, what happened to finally make Ruby crack? Also, you're welcome to everyone who's been asking for mini-nukes; those bad boys' triumphant return has been planned since chapter 1.

I've been wanting to elaborate on Bishop's specific breed of fascism for a while now, one that's based off of a kind of DNA-based racism not know to us, divested from skin-color. I don't know if Fallout's America had a civil rights movement like irl (since fallout is supposed to be stuck in the 50's), but I'm going to assume that it did. Even if it didn't, I believe that a more universal "human purity" in the face of mutation was always the Enclave's obsession. Bishop has all of that, as well an incredibly intense hatred of communism and a deep-seated misunderstanding of history.

After a review saying he's somewhat shallow and that his motivation isn't so clear, I realized I better elaborate on Bishop pretty soon, and I figured that the sooner the better. After all, I think it makes sense that Bishop would be stuck with just his thoughts and his sword right now. A lot of Fallout's villains are really great in how compelling they are and how they're motivations are based off of their situation with the wasteland, Caesar being a good example. He said he saw in ancient Rome the kind of society needed to survive and thrive in the wasteland. Also with the slavers at the Pitt, their leader argued that their slaving and brutality was necessary in the harsh world, that they'd reform when it ceased to be necessary. The real Bishop does a lot more than just ruminate on how terrible Jaune is; that's just the version of Bishop we saw in Jaune's dreams, the two-dimensional creation that was really just a manifestation of Jaune's own feelings, rather than Bishop himself.

Bishop genuinely sees himself as a member of a movement that will save humanity. I think others in the Enclave like Autumn were more concerned with power and less about the psycho fanaticism. Bishop, however, is a true to the core fascist who thinks he's saving humanity by killing and/or enslaving everyone who disagrees with him because, of course, he and only he is right.