19

lso double upload day wheeeee

Farbiglas Arc hummed amusedly as she watched that her edited video finally made it past Grimm Empathy Negation Lockdown protocols and begin to spread like wildfire.

Honestly, you'd think that from the result of the amateur documentary channel that became a sort of music channel on ViewTube having set a precedent of only having positive emotional influences via her precious brother's songs that she'd have gotten more leeway.

Perhaps it was because of her geographic location, meaning all the people in charge of the video GEN-Lock protocols and the fact that her brother, so obviously a Faunus was… well a Faunus.

Originally named as a method of trying to maintain her brother's anonymity while giving some personal touch to the ViewTube channel, the music took a lot more popularity then she'd have ever expected.

It became dramatic enough, eventually, that she'd need to get mother Noelle's assistance to protect everything that was her brother's. Thankfully Atlas was willing to intervene on their behalf, especially when some unscrupulous Mistralian music corporation tried to copyright her brother's songs under their personal license.

She was sure that the Atlas military offering to take military action over a seven year old's songs must have been quite hilarious. She could only imagine what the faces of that music corporation's board of directors must have looked like.

Either way, there was a bit of decent money flowing in for Jaune, Ren, and Nora's future tuitions.

Both her mother Noelle and Farbiglas had communally decided that he'd be happy to know that's where the money was going, even if he'd be mortified to find out she'd been spying on his personal and casual performances.

And some Atlas VIs cleaned up the audio so that it could be allowed some small albums to be made with those as a baseline. With some commissioned drum and bass work, and suddenly they were truly full and proper little full songs that sold just fine.

A little too fine.

Actually it was a bit closer to a lot.

Certainly more money than Farbiglas had ever expected.

It boggled her six year old mind.

It was currently being mostly saved up for Jaune in the future, aside from any schooling tuition for Jaune and his siblings, adopted ones included. She did take a five percent cut for maintaining everything, even though her mother noted it should be fine to take more.

She didn't care about the Lien, though. Perhaps she was more like her brother than expected.

Once Jaune was an adult, they'd make sure he was aware of his earnings. If they'd informed him right now, he'd just get flustered and donate it all away. A kind sentiment, but Jaune would literally bankrupt himself one day if he didn't grow out of this behavior.

"Bumblebee. Quaint. With future potential sister-in-laws Yang and Blake relaxing together in the footage, it makes for quite the pretty song." Farbiglas noted with a nod. "It seems the internet 'ships' this as a rather cute friendship."

While a VI adjusted song version of Bumblebee had been released without a problem, but the last bit of the song had ended with the sound and visuals of the Siren Ferry's (Mistral quickly abandoned the vehicle abstaining all responsibility and now it was the Glacial Ferry owned by Menagerie) turrets firing upon the Defiant Blue and the horizon of tropic sea darkening with the blackness of Grimm.

That wasn't enough to get the video taken down, of course.

The problem was the comments section.

PlonkerBucket: Hold up. WHAT. What's that ending?!

KarateOnion: Awww. Those girl are cute. Ha. I get it! Bumblebee! I ship it!

PyreGator: Bro they're like ten.

UncleTomata: *MESSAGE DELETED*

MistralCCTAdmin277: Warning one. No jokes about being the same age as children for illicit reasons. Don't let me catch you ever doing that again.

HabitatGreen: Isn't that Menagerie? I've seen that place in a documentary. What happened there? That's a LOT of Grimm.

PlonkerBucket: Oh sh*t. RIP Faunus. We hardly knew ye.

CandlelightChili: Yeah let's also not make light of a potential destruction of the closest thing to a 5th Kingdom. Does anybody have any news of what happened in Menagerie? Also hey can you release the rest of what happened? Even if we get news from outside sources, a direct video feed of some of the events would be amazing!

BlackEpidermis: Upvote this.

PyreGator: Upvote this.

RuralHumor: Faunus aren't people, change my mind. Good riddance.

ClearTripwire: Upvote this. *EDIT: NO I MEAN THE ONE POINT BY CandleightChili ! I'm not responsible or encouraging the racist above me!*

PlonkerBucket: I mean at BEST they're just a decent sized Settlement in the end. Also they've got zero official recognition of legitimacy from the Four Kingdoms. Just stating it as it is. Saying 5th Kingdom is a big misguided and politically loaded. I do hope they survive though. Nobody deserves to go out from Grimm.

SuspiciousCrewman: Already making headlines on the Atlas Broadcast Corporation! Come watch THIS link for the most accurate and immediate news from ABC!

HabitatGreen: …Is that a glacier on the desert of Menagerie? How much Ice Dust were they storing there? Mistral mined out all the Dust on that island like a century ago! Also the ABC's image looks photoshopped AF. Grimm's still in the ice and not dissolved.

PretendBomb: Scientists are tentatively presuming that somehow the ice put the giant earthworm Grimm, the locals call it The Burrower, into a state of rapid hibernation. It's probably injured and messed UP but barely alive under that ice.

TrivialChalk: Wouldn't that make it the potential discovery of a century? That's borderline the closest thing we have to a dead Grimm corpse then.

ClearTripwire: Huntsmen have caught Grimm before for scientists to study. Never an Elder Grimm though. THATS what makes this actually important. Also if it died, it'd disappear no matter what.

BrassRaquet: Then what happens when the ice melts? Hey give us the rest of the footage! NEW VIDEO! NEW VIDEO!

KarateOnion: NEW VIDEO!

UncleTomata: NEW VIDEO! (Also sorry, yeah it was dumb joke)

CandlelightChili: NEW VIDEO!

So Farbiglas had done more or less what they'd wanted.

Then had to fight the last bit of GEN-Lock nonsense as she'd fought to get the video through their censorship laws, even needing to reach out to the Atlasean recording company that General Ironwood had connected them to get some assistance as she was sure that her footage qualified as a HappyEnd video and thus wasn't allowed to be censored over stupid GEN-Lock final bylaws.

Firstly she'd cut out all the moments where Jaune had done truly unexplainable things. Like summon Juniper Arc the spirit of one of their ANCESTORS.

Secondly, all audio had been stripped from the footage she'd finally decided to upload, just in case, to acquiesce to her promise with her brother to keep a few things secret. Most of it could still appear like powerful Semblances and nothing more.

The sight of Summer Rose-Branwen-XiaoLong leaping from building to building, zooming in with the high powered Atlasean Scroll camera capturing her almost unearthly beauty. As well as, much to the excited messages from her viewers, something called jiggle physics.

Her leaping from building to building, holding a MONSTER of a HMG with twin barrels and feed systems, her vaulting effortlessly with the heavy weapon and a reinforced bandoleer of three more unimaginably heavy giant drum magazines, landing on the top of the central mast of the Defiant Blue and immediately shutting down the turrets on Siren Ferry with overwhelming firepower took the internet by storm.

Then her brutal eradication of all Grimm that burst out of the surface of the water like a one woman jiggle physics super Huntress turret.

She'd taken a little extra time to include a slide in visual of a close up of the smiling and beautiful young mother alongside her Huntress ID which had already been updated to match her new appearance.

A fanclub formed. They were very disappointed to learn she was married. But curious that she had a wife. And husband. Though it was more jealousy towards the latter than anything.

Then the sight of Raven Branwen, stylish military cap and uniform in the wind, dashing across rooftops as she began opening about a dozen portals and instantly setting up a defensive line of approximately fortyish people that stepped out of her gates.

She'd commanded her mercenaries with absolute domination and with a brutal hand, crushing approaching lines of aquatic Grimm.

A close up of her scowling form (comments of MOMMY flooded the descriptions) in her mercenary uniform, the gold tag labeled 'BIG BOSS' over her left breast pocket, was also shown alongside her recently reinstated Huntress ID and her Mercenary Company License ID.

Another fanclub formed with the same realizations as the Summer Rose Fanclub.

Farbiglas was sure the stern and gruff woman would appreciate the business. She definitely wouldn't curse her for getting her Scroll to blow up with requests and scream in fury about getting her private nookie with her wife and husband interrupted.

Also there were a LOT of people who commented jealously that Taiyang XiaoLong was married to both of these women.

Still a much smaller fanclub formed for Taiyang regardless, some calling him the modern-day Harem King for being married to two super powerful Huntresses.

Farbiglas decided the internet was an odd place.

Then the footage skipped, cutting out Jaune's summoning of what he'd called a Servant Saber as Juniper Arc appeared from thin air.

But the footage included Juniper spreading the Hard-Light shield over the whole of Menagerie from coast to coast, his arm dispersing to set up the mobile fortress.

There were demands for his Hunstman intro details.

She'd had a slide in just calling him the 'Mysterious One-Armed Hero' but there were many that hounded for his Huntsman ID. She'd responded that she didn't know and that he hadn't given his details.

What else could she do, really?

She'd also blurred the image of his Arc Family Crest. It was a bit harder to justify to the curios masses and it made a lot of people mad. Still she didn't need people making any annoying and unfortunate realizations or demands.

Even Mistral CCT admins slid into her private messages asking about the details of the man that was so clearly North-West Mistralian in origin from the nature of his garb. She only responded that she didn't know and that he'd requested his crest be censored.

An attempt to cover her butt as she was sure the inquirers weren't happy about it all.

The sight of Grimm launching at the shield and being instantly flung back with bursts of Gravity and dispersing as they crashed with immense force against the ground. Got replayed often and people made something called 'Memes' about it.

Something about begging to be let in?

Some ignorant people made fun of Atlas for not having such tech. Others demanded Atlas to make such tech. Others demanded Juniper to give up that technology.

People were messy and foolish.

Other fools asked to have his babies.

Equally foolish.

Juniper Arc was an ancestor to the Arc house. He was but a spirit. Though maybe it was possible to conceive during the short moments when Juniper Arc had a mortal form as a Servant?

She wasn't sure. She was suddenly curious.

There seemed to be plenty of willing participants. Perhaps she would… broach upon it should Jaune find a method to call him into existence in a bit more permanent manner. If such a thing was even possible.

She'd also gotten bits of Specialist Noire fighting The Burrower to buy them the time they'd need to run.

Naturally she'd got a cut in too, specifically choosing an image that Farbiglas had taken of the woman in just a sports bra top pouring water over herself to cool off in the heat and sun of Menagerie.

Her fanclub formed nearly immediately. But unlike the ones seemingly forming for Summer and Raven, Noire was still single. That must have inflated some numbers for sure.

Then the next scene revealed the moment she'd been sent flying in a burst of sand from below, the camera turning down, forced to be played in slow motion revealing the other end of The Burrower, launching them all up and away.

She'd landed somewhere, unconscious, in the sand.

Her Scroll on the other hand, sort of recorded her brother Jaune's fight against The Burrower.

The footage was blurred over the sheen of sand over her Scroll making the details not perfectly clear.

She realized as she edited the form of her brother leaping through the air and tearing multiple holes through the Elder Grimm that she'd never added the footage of her brother putting on his armor.

She shrugged.

Oh well. That worked better for her anyways. She wouldn't have to cut out another large chunk of footage.

A cut in of her brother in full armor from an angle that mostly covered the backside so it showed as little skin as possible. Including the removal of the visual of the odd and easily recognizable abdominal cutout in his bodysuit. Thus so much of his form was covered that it made it impossible to tell his age when it was blown up in size to match the cut outs of all the other adults.

On another note, that bodysuit felt like it was made with actual scales. Not metal in feeling. They layered masterfully over each other almost like leather armor with a scale coating. The scales felt smooth but somehow warm against her fingers.

He was just labeled as 'Bladed Huntsman'.

People were dubbing him the 'Edgelord Huntsman' alongside the 'Grimmposter'.

And of course, more demands for his Huntsman ID. She couldn't and didn't provide any.

But nobody could deny the distant and literally grainy sight of him tearing hole after hole in the beast as Jaune flew through the sky, appearing as if he was jumping from invisible platforms in the air as a thin layer of scattered sand interfered with the visuals, being blown about more as Jaune as well as The Burrower slammed into the ground again and again.

Unfortunately the final blow he'd landed to kill one of the heads of The Burrower sent enough sand flying that it had even sent the Scroll flipping upside down so that she'd missed whatever had caused the giant iceberg that preserved the Elder Grimm to be encased in ice.

Oh she herself had heard her brother call out for another one of his weird clearly actual magic bits of voodoo insanity, likely gifted from their ancestor. Farbiglas was perfectly aware that from her ancestor's training and gifts, Jaune had managed to freeze The Burrower. Nothing else made any logical sense.

But nobody else would be allowed to, especially once she'd deleted that audiofile. That fact would die with her.

Farbiglas then included the recording of when she'd walked around the new Glacier of Menagerie the day after she'd woken up and been cleared to go and walk about, accompanied by her mother Noelle. At least proving the giant frozen landmark with an embedded Elder Grimm was certainly no photoshop.

She felt a bit guilty about keeping the secret of what exactly happened from her mother, but she did make a promise.

She was pretty sure an Ancestor Spirit sort of superseded the authority and truth due to her mother.

It was for the best.

Luckily though, Specialist Noire was allowed to get her hands on the footage of her Ancestor's oceanic push towards the Leviathan on a purely diplomatic vessel with weakened defenses.

The sight of Summer and Raven demolishing all the Grimm that approached from the Starboard side was also well received.

And unlike her own footage, this one still had its audio.

"Today!" Her ancestor roared triumphantly upon the prow of the Defiant Blue as they approached the roaring Leviathan. "We fight for the future!"

"A foe." Juniper spoke as he raised his sword arm, his weapon almost beginning to vibrate. "'Tis a most mighty, a most terrible foe!"

His lone arm rose, the tip of his ancestral blade rising to the air, erupting like a volcanic eruption of twisting and beautifully swirling scarlet and white-gold Aura and what only Farbiglas knew had to be magic.

It was… beautiful... unlike his haircut.

"Crocea Mors!"

The ancestral blade of House Arc swung down with finality, disintegrating the Leviathan. In a single blow.

Farbiglas felt she'd done her noble duty of recording and spreading the footage of her Ancestor Spirit act as a defender of Humanity and Faunuskind one last time as he'd faded away into the almost setting sun.

Eventually she got so fed up with the endless comments though that she would disallow further comments on the now most watched video on ViewTube account.

Juniper could still feel Pyrrha.

She was even more dormant now, as there was no prana within him. She could only respond in a much more muted manner. But knowledge of her presence and just having that occasional sensation of his Partner was enough to maintain his will.

And once Jaune's Command Seals were fully recovered and restored, he and Jaune would test if Juniper could absorb the Prana from the release of a seal naturally and without Gacha items.

Hopefully that'd be enough to let Pyrrha be a bit more active within his soul, no, his Saint Graph.

Though he was no longer a Servant, the foundation to allow his summoning one day in the future remained.

The small possibility of the relief of a human form once more.

The core of his being where Pyrrha lay dormant within.

He watched as Ozpin opened up a small briefcase filled with a small layer of sand that glimmered with the sensation of mana.

The magic of the world.

Or, more accurately, this must have been infused with the remains of Ozpin's Od, his inner mana that was no longer refilling properly. If at all. Likely he and the rest of Team RWBY had suspected that he was just hemorrhaging what little remained every time he used it.

Ironwood and Ozpin had requested Jaune and his family to stop by Atlas for just a few days as they accompanied Specialist Noire home.

Surprisingly the woman did keep her promise to say nothing… about the Card.

Through his spiritual snooping, Juniper saw that she'd claimed that the Unknown One Armed Huntsman seemingly appeared from nowhere and she couldn't recall exactly when. She'd continued to maintain that she'd lost part of her memories of the conflict, but did inform that Juniper seemed to have appeared for Jaune, though she wasn't sure if he would do so again.

She did not lie, but to the military court, she might as well have.

Still, legally, it was hard to actually hold that excuse against the Specialist, as fighting Elder Grimm were traumatic experiences that often resulted in the deaths of many a Huntsman or Huntress. The fact that she'd held her own against one of the heads of The Burrower was, frankly, nothing short of a miracle as well as proof of her desperate will to live.

Even with all her training and her dedication, surviving near singlehandedly against an Elder Grimm was almost unheard of. Normally she would have been commended and rewarded, but to her questioners, it was obvious that she was obstinate in her keeping some piece of information from her superiors. Though Ironwood had final say and seemed to support her to some extent, it was still necessary to inflict punishment as well.

Thus Specialist Noire walked away with nothing.

Some might argue that she was lucky that she'd earned Jaune's trust and thus she wasn't demoted. Demoting her would be an act that would lose Jaune's trust and was not something Atlas was eager to accept.

Although perhaps she might have never been in such a situation without Jaune in the first place.

"Hello." Juniper etched with a finger in the sand. "I am Juniper. Nice to meet you."

Ironwood frowned.

"Greetings." He was curt. "Please explain-"

Ozpin interrupted with a diplomatic tone.

"Great Spirit." He entreated, "Apologies for our… frustration. We'd obviously have had some rather drastic events to adjust to from the result of your descent. We were not aware that it was even possible for such a thing in this age."

"Normally not." Juniper began to bullshit. "However Jaune Arc's soul is able to resonate with my own."

"If you don't mind me asking, what does that mean?" Ironwood asked impatiently.

"...it means that young Jaune can occasionally tap into Juniper's magic. We have a magic wielder beyond the Maidens now."

Ironwood's brows shot up.

"That's good news! Then let us begin to protect him immediately! We'll relocate the Arcs-"

"No." Juniper scrawled large letters into the sand.

"But-"

"First"

Juniper paused, waiting for both men to calm down.

"Have all electronics in this room been disabled?"

Ironwood suddenly became focused.

"Wait... The coding languages. The insistence from Jaune that everything we received from him was to be kept recorded on paper and out of the system… Are you saying that we have a mole for the Queen?"

"Unclear. I am not Djinn."

Juniper grinned as Ozpin let out a cold hiss of air.

Hook. Line. Sinker.

"Djinn? What does that mean, Ozpin?"

"So you're a Spirit of Wisdom and a Guardian Spirit? I had thought I was mistaken from the footage, that I was wrong the first time. That it couldn't be… I suppose there's no reason it can't be both." Ozpin muttered quickly, rubbing his chin. "This is good. This is good."

He let out a short and tired laugh. As if decades if not centuries of relief had been pulled off his shoulders.

"To answer the first question." Ironwood finally spoke clearly confused over his friend's laughter, "This separate office has no electronics to be interfered with other than the lighting. Well. Aside from a coffee dispenser. It doesn't even have an onboard computer."

"Good. I warn thee: current trajectory results in the hack and downfall of the CCT."

"WHAT?!" Ironwood roared.

"How accurately can you predict this future?" Ozpin inquired, his hand tightening on his cane, The Long Memory. "This is a large claim, even for a Spirit."

"There are variables and constants. This is a variable that verges towards a constant." Juniper kept bullshitting, hoping that he could change the future.

"...Ozpin can we trust this Juniper?"

"From what we've seen from it expending so much of its dwindling mana for us? For Menagerie? For Jaune? Undoubtedly. However, prophecy has always been messy. Nothing is guaranteed and sometimes we become instruments of our own downfall."

Ironwood took a long sigh with his eyes closed.

"...I shall have some of my scientists focus on mastering this new coding language and getting ready for largescale updates to the CCT systems."

"I will arrange for upcoming Vytal festivals to have them allow Atlas to have CCT access to store the updates and have it listed as additional maintenance. We will update them all at once so that they'd take our enemies by surprise."

"The longer we wait-"

"Sometimes subtlety does matter, General."

"...Fine. We'll do it your way. However, I want this to be kept entirely in house."

It didn't matter to Juniper as long as it got done.

"Secondly a Constant"

Juniper felt his fingers tense as he gained the attention of the two Headmasters, wondering if the following was a bad idea.

"Leonardo Lionheart will one day be turned by the one known as Salem within this upcoming decade."

Ozpin let out a sad sigh with true pain in his voice.

"Leo. No. No this can't be."

"This is a serious accusation." Ironwood spat.

"It may even already be too late."

Through the equivalent of a magic etch-a-sketch, two of the most powerful men on Remnant discussed the future of their star with the echo of Juniper Arc who was but filled with half-baked knowledge of the future.