II

Jaune Arc sat anxiously on the hospital bed beside his injured sister, the tears crawling into his eye sockets, threatening to inch their way out of his body like maggots.

She'd been on a city bus. The driver had apparently developed some kind of problem, claiming to have lost concentration with being able to hear people's thoughts.

The bus had sped into traffic, smashing itself into the multiple confused vehicles and causing an absolute maelstrom of catastrophe.

Saphron had managed to reach the emergency escape, but jumped out of the bus right in the middle of four cars speeding into each other amidst the chaos.

Why, Saphron?

Why?

Jaune looked over to his dying sibling, her face covered in bandages as her labored breathing echoed further and further into his head, sounding like a sandstorm in a subway tunnel.

There was nothing he could do.

Jaune opened himself up to that realization as he clenched her hand and let the tears crawl out.

As his sobbing continued, Jaune found himself unable to realise that his sister's breathing was slowly beginning to sound stronger.

He squeezed his hand tighter around hers, and her hand squeezed back.

He finally made himself aware of this as his eyes widened upon noticing that his entire body was suddenly being enveloped in a white glow.

Saphron squeezed tighter and tighter until her grip was stronger than Jaune's.

She opened her eyes.

Jaune's body stopped glowing as he took a moment to gaze at his sister.

She used her other hand to wipe the tears from his face, moving it from his cheeks to the side of his head, running it through his tufts of blonde hair.

What was going on right now?

He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Had he done this?

Everything in the room became more obvious upon the silence developed by the two gazing at each other.

The news on the television, the ticking of the clock, the flowing of the white curtain, the life support.

All of it was irrelevant to them for a moment.

Saphron sat up and hugged her brother, sobbing with him.

Jaune hugged her tighter.

"I thought I'd lost you…"

The woman looked over her brother's shoulder to see the breaking news on the television.

All people carrying the disease known as Aura were to be arrested and taken in for experimentation.

She let go of the hug and set her hands on Jaune's shoulders.

"You need to go, Jaune."

"W-what? Why?"

She turned him around to face the screen.

He stared blankly at it for a few seconds before realizing what she was getting at.

"Oh."

"Mom and Dad will be here soon to get you. They won't understand."

Jaune knew this was definitely an honest and heartbreakingly true explanation. His parents would act out of fear. She was right. They wouldn't understand.

"But I'm not dangerous! I healed you!"

"Do you think they care?"

She gestured to the police forces being shown on the screen.

Jaune started to tear up again as he struggled to process everything that was going on.

"But you just got back…"

Saphron hugged him again.

"The world isn't in the right place now. You are. I'll let you know when it changes."

She let go for the final time.

"Now, go. Please."

Jaune gave one last sorrowful look at his sister before leaving the room.

"I love you."

Elsewhere in the city of Atlas, Cinder Fall sat in her office with her associate, Mercury Black standing at her desk.

"You do realise that by outlawing this condition, you've set the stage for a civil war?"

Cinder scoffed at his statement.

"War is a chess game for the people who run it. That's why I love it so much."

"Which implies?"

"Atlas is one of the most totalitarianistic kingdoms to ever exist on Remnant. The people here will do whatever their government tells them to do without question. Not only do we have that advantage, but should a civil war commence, all we need to do is ally our powers with that of Mistral."

"You do not have full control of Atlas."

Cinder tensed up.

"Dammit."

She slammed her hand hard onto the desk.

"I forgot about James."

Mercury walked closer to his mistress, sitting on the desk with his prosthetic legs making a series of metallic groans.

"I'll tell you what- seeing as you can benefit from both the possibility of war and control over this hellhole, I'll come up with how you ought to do both."

"You've always got the better end of my plans, Black."

"Thank you."

He got off of the desk and began to pace around.

"Let's see- if we could get the Schnee dust company on our side, we could definitely coax Ironwood into giving up his position after we halt the production of dust for the Atlas military. Once we gain control of it, we'll restart the production and use what we have to the best possible extent."

"Implying that our control won't be permanent?"

"Ironwood has a lot of extremely powerful people on his side. Not only that, but Jacques Schnee is a pretty difficult man to convince. We have to be ready for anything if we're going to try this."

"Of course."

"Remember that the only force we have against those with Aura as of now are police forces. We have to act quickly and take the military before any retaliation begins."

Cinder raised an eyebrow.

"And what will we do if we experience a rebellion before we put this plan into action?"

Mercury smiled, his lips curling to the left side of his face like a shriveling plant.

"I know a guy who can take care of that."

Roman Torchwick was beginning to tire out.

This kid just didn't stop.

He was in a fight with a young boy by the name of Oscar Pine. The two had been swinging their canes at each other for over thirty minutes now, and the police gathered around them were watching, in which they had been called to arrest Oscar on Torchwick's command.

Here they were, in the middle of the street in the city of Argus, just beating the crap out of each other like there was no tomorrow.

Or, as Oscar put it, he was beating the crap out of Roman.

He didn't even need to try, as his semblance was quite a special one.

Time.

Oscar was slowing down every moment upon which Torchwick's cane was swung at him. To everyone else, he was moving incredibly fast to counter the attacks. However, to himself-

It was just a walk in the park.

He slammed his cane into Torchwick's stomach, causing him to crumple to the floor.

Torchwick coughed repeatedly, cursing under his breath as he did so.

Oscar stared down at him, holding back the urge to laugh.

"Are you done?"

Roman managed to get a few words out.

"You. . .little. . .f-freak. . ."

Oscar gave a long sigh, shaking his head.

"People like you never learn."

He bent down to Roman, stepping on his cane so he couldn't pick it up.

"What was it you tried to tell me- the real world doesn't care about spirit?"

The police all pointed their guns at Oscar.

He looked around at them, smiling.

"Take your best shot, guys."

Jaune stepped out of the Atlesian airship and onto the grounds of Argus.

The city looked dead. Almost completely deserted.

He thanked the pilot for flying him there and gave him the bribe.

He proceeded to walk through the city streets, looking for someone. Anyone.

Everybody who might have seen him shut their windows immediately.

The police must have been extremely active around here.

He continued to walk until he heard the sound of footsteps coming from a far corner.

Finally. Someone was out.

He began to walk in the direction of the noise. To his unfortunate surprise, the noise caught up to him first.

He crashed into Oscar, sending them both down.

They got up, groaning in pain.

Jaune glared at the mysterious boy that had just run into him.

He looked a little above his age, and for some reason, was carrying a cane? Why would he even need that if he could sprint at the rate of goddamned ostrich?

"What the hell, buddy? It's already enough not to watch where you're going, but to not do it while running in the middle of the street?"

Oscar looked at the young blonde in confusion.

"You were the one walking towards me!"

"Yeah, and you were running! Hell, I don't even know if I'd call that running- that was more like you were speed walking through a dimension that works faster than everything else does!"

Oscar's eyes widened.

"That's. . .actually exactly what I was doing."

He got up and immediately crumpled back down to the floor as a gunshot sounded and the bullet wound up in the side of his waist.

Jaune immediately panicked.

"What the hell!?"

"Run."

Roman Torchwick advanced further towards the two boys with his men, blowing out the smoke at the end of his pistol after delivering a perfect shot to Oscar.

Jaune tried to pull Oscar away, but there was no time.

"Let go of him, kid. He's mine."

He pointed the pistol to Jaune's head.

"Going once."

Jaune squeezed Oscar's hand, hoping to heal him the way he did Saphron.

"Going twice."

Roman cocked the pistol.

Nothing was happening.

Jaune hung his head down in front of the gun. This was it. He was going to die.

"I'm sorry, kid. Looks like both of you need to go."

He put his finger on the trigger, and was immediately cut short as his firearm became trapped in a block of ice in a manner of milliseconds.

His eyes widened as he looked to his left, seeing the girl pointing her rapier blade at him amongst the now unconscious police.

"Weiss."

The girl walked closer to him.

"Let him go, Torchwick."

"You think this is gonna stop me?"

He raised his frozen arm, ready to bash Jaune's head in with it, and was pushed to the floor by Ruby Rose.

He scowled up at her, getting back up.

"Little Red."

"Long time, no see, Roman. Leave him alone and we'll do the same to you."

The humiliated officer looked over to his incapacitated men, then to Jaune and Oscar, and finally to Ruby and Weiss.

"This isn't over."

He smashed his arm against the road, freeing it of the ice, and ran off into the city.

While all of this was going on, Oscar was still slowly blacking out as Jaune kept trying to work his magic.

Ruby knelt before him and looked over to Jaune.

"It's alright. Both of you are in good hands."

The boy out of time kept struggling to stay awake as he stared up at the girl with silver eyes.

She smiled down at him, and he finally gave into the darkness that welcomed his sleep.