20 -|||

By the time we made our way back to the centre of town I was dead on my feet and the others didn't look much better.

The sun was starting to peek up over the horizon now, the light of a new day shining down on the shattered but still standing town.

The townsfolk were out of the bunker, had been for a while at this point.

The first thing they'd decided to do upon exiting was throw a celebratory feast in response to their survival.

They'd moved with surprising efficiency, pulling a hodgepodge of chairs and tables from different houses and buildings and before I'd even known it there was a full on street party blazing away in the town, with music and laughter so loud you could have heard it from anywhere in town.

And despite the fact that I wanted to do nothing more than sleep, despite the fact that the I wanted to slam my sword into the speakers until it was nothing more than it was nothing more than a sparking smoking wreck, I accepted that it needed to happen.

Even though the defences were essentially non-existent at this point the celebration served a far more important purpose. It was a constant reminder of their good fortune, a reason for them to be glad, to be happy, to drown out the negative emotions bought on by the bandits, Tyrian and the Grimm, the death and the destruction that they bought and replace it with something better.

The food looked amazing.

And it smelled even better.

But we had a more pressing issue at hand.

Ruby, Ren, Nora and I were all crowded into a room with a single bed one of the villagers had allowed us to borrow, upon which Qrow currently lay, his face contorted into a painful grimace.

"Not good." Ren said finally, the aura around his hands sputtering out as he swayed where he stood only a quick grab from Nora stopping him from over. "The poison's progressed even further then I'd feared."

"How bad is it?" Ruby asked frantically, looking from her injured uncle to the exhausted Ren and then back again. "Could we try to carry him to the next town? See if they had someone who could help over there?"

"If I had a week, I could tell you all the reasons that wouldn't work." Ren replied, rubbing a hand over his eyes as he fought to stay awake. "None of us are in any condition to be travelling right now, and what happens if we run into some Grimm on the way there?"

Ruby's expression dropped and she fell silent, looking down at her uncle with a worried expression.

Ren wasn't wrong.

Qrow would be a travelling buffet table to them, with an abundance of aura and next to no way to defend himself.

Not to mention our own battered state.

Nora stood up from where she'd been sitting cross legged on the floor and flung the shield gauntlet she'd been working on at me. "I've managed to get the basic shield functions working again after I altered the gemstone by removing the fragments. Only downside is that it won't be able to do anything larger then a kite shield and even then, I wouldn't bet on it holding for long." Nora gave a frustrated look at the gauntlet as I slid it back over my left hand before throwing her hands up in the air. "Without any supplies or a forge there's nothing else I can really do for it."

"Hey you've done a million times better then anything I could have done." I said reassuringly, flexing my fingers in the gauntlet to see if I still had good enough flexibility with it. I felt something prod at my wing and I turned to level a flat look at Ruby as she poked it with her finger once more. "Quit it." I grumbled, pulling the wing away from her probing fingers.

"I can't help it!" Ruby exclaimed, looking at my wings once more. "I mean they blocked Tyrian's stinger without so much as a scratch!"

"It's just like your shield was!" Nora marvelled, going to tug at my other wing before remembering that she was the only reason that Ren was still standing and catching him before he hit the ground.

Ren gave Nora a flat look that had her sheepishly rubbing her head before he turned back to face me. "Or maybe it's the other way around." Ren said thoughtfully, his eyes staring off into the distance as he pondered.

There was a knock at the door and Ruby rose up to answer it, pulling the door open only slightly as if attempting to shield her uncle from the cacophony going on outside.

"There's an airship approaching!" I heard Mary's voice call out and with the door opened as it was I could hear the sound of something mechanical spinning through the air. "They should be able to take uh…Raven was it? To the hospital."

I laughed a little at that. "Close, but his name is Qrow." I answered, stretching out as I moved towards the door. "I'll go greet them as they arrive and send them over towards you guys so they can get you guys."

I grabbed my sword from where I had it propped up by the door and slid it over my shoulder to adhere to the back of my coat as I adjusted one of the straps that decided to start digging in to me with the added weight.

The airship that was just now coming down land in the centre of town was far different from the Bullheads that I'd seen in Vale and flew on as a student of Beacon. Rather than the purely economical form that I was used to these ships looked far more graceful, some strange hybrid between a sailboat and exotic fish that was an amalgamation of wood, metal and even sails. It had two turbines spinning away at either end of the ship with two sails akin to the fins of a fish flapping on it's sides as it came to a stop.

As soon as the airship came to a stop, no longer kicking up dust from the force of it's turbines one of the wooden panels on the side pulled back revealing a man in some kind of full body suit in a subdued off purple. The man wore a full head covering which hid all his features from view as well as a breathing mask that he still wore. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of goggles with lens that reflected my own image back at me.

The next moment half a dozen people all wearing the same flight suits all jumped down from the ship all raising rifles or some kind of short swords in separate directions on the lookout for danger before dropping them after one of them gave a hand signal, and started approaching us, leaving his rifle to hand from a strap on his shoulder.

Some of the other townsfolk were already crowding around the approaching force, cheering loudly at the coming of assistance, offering them food and drink as they approached but hey waved it off as they came to a stop before Mary and I.

"How are you all doing?" The…I am assuming it's a man based on their build, their voice horrendously distorted by the mask into something I couldn't discern anything from beside the words themselves.

It was creepy.

I guess I could make sense in a way, if everyone wore things like that then it wouldn't matter how scared you might be because your tone wouldn't give you away.

But at the same time there something decidedly, unnatural about the mechanical voice. It was as if they were only pretending to be people.

"We're alright, but one of the huntsman who was protecting us was injured, he's very badly poisoned." Mary spoke up, answering the man's question.

"Calm down, everything is going to be all right." The same man who spoke answered her, his body language very clearly reassuring. "Just show us where they are and we'll be on our way to take them to the medical attention they need."

Mary nodded and turned, dashing off towards the house where the rest of my team was currently residing, a squad of flight suited men following after her.

As they did I dropped my head, breathing a sigh of relief.

Oh thank the heavens.

We were safe.

The same man who had spoken before waked towards me, gesturing towards the damage that was done around the town, vast furrows in the ground and buildings, the occasional crater and a very morbid pile that was the bandit remains hidden underneath a black tarp. "This all your doing?" The distorted voice asked me, the goggles looking expectantly towards me.

I walked over to him and shrugged my shoulders, marvelling at just how much damage had been done to the town. "Not all of it." I admitted, shaking my head. "It's a bit of a long story."

"Not to worry." The distorted voice replied, an arm reaching out to clap me on the shoulder. "We'll have plenty of time to hear the details from you later Jaune Arc."

I nodded in response to the man's word before I paused, my mind going over what I had just heard.

"What did you just call me?" I asked, turning my head to face him directly.

Something cracked into the back of my head and I dropped to my knees, my head spinning as pain surged through me.

What the hell?

The other soldiers turned, raising their rifles and fired upon the rest of the townsfolk,, much to my horror, but what met my ears was not the sound of regular gunfire.

Instead in was more like a light hiss followed by a cough over and over again, the people dropping to the ground.

Through blurry eyes I stared at the bodies only for relief to surge through me as I saw that they were still breathing, their chests rising and falling with steady breaths.

"Get him aboard." The captain ordered, gesturing towards me. "The rest of his allies should have already been collected and we need to be on our way before the real reinforcements turn up."

I struggled, trying to push myself up onto my feet once more, but it was no use.

I was spent from the earlier battles, my aura depleted.

"Sir he's still awake." I heard a voice say, no doubt referring to me.

I heard the sound of boots approaching me, and I fought to push my head up, to glare if nothing else at the bastard who had just attacked us without any provocation.

And then a fist came down, filling my vision before it faded into blissful unconsciousness.

Reality reasserted itself slowly, a throbbing headache informing me that I was awake as my eyes tried to reassert themselves once more.

I went to go and grasp my head only to find that my arms seemed to be stuck, something binding them together.

Had the twins pulled another prank on me?

"Morning sleeping beauty." I heard a familiar voice murmured beside me. "Don't get up just yet. Get your bearings. We aren't alone." Ren warned me.

I tried to examine my surroundings, a task made difficult by the fact that my eyes seemed to be refusing to focus on anything.

We were in a room of some kind, wooden panelling with metal running through it at reinforcing points. I could feel it swaying slightly, almost as if we were on a boat but something told me that wasn't the case.

And then I remembered just what had happened to lead me to this situation.

"Where are we?" I murmured quietly, taking care to act as if I was still regaining consciousness.

"Inside the airship that the soldiers arrived in." Ren whispered back just as quietly. "They came in to the room with Qrow and took him hostage, forced us to come aboard their ship and get restrained. The townsfolk were down, not dead. Looked like some kind of tranquilliser."

I looked around and saw that Ruby and Nora were also here, each of them with their arms bound similarly to how I was guessing Ren and I were was well.

Well mine were bound in front of me, probably due to the fact that I could still feel the weight of my sword on my back.

Standing at the other end of the room was a man in one of those flight suits, facing away from us for now, fiddling with something on the wall.

Qrow was here as well, not bound like we were but given how pale his face and ragged his breathing was something told me that he wouldn't be able to help us anytime soon.

And there right next to Qrow was a small window, far too small for any of us to fit through it, but what I saw through it told me something very important.

That we were currently travelling over water, probably even the ocean given how far it seemed to extend into the distance through that little window.

"So you're awake." The same distorted voice from before spoke up and I looked up to see that the person in the flight suit had turned around, revealing that it was the person who had been talking to me before, wearing the same outfit but this time he had an insignia of some kind pinned to their chest, something small and metal that I couldn't quite make out the details of.

"Now I'm going to ask you a very simple question, and you're going to answer it for me." The masked soldier said raising his rifle and pulling back the ratchet in a clear attempt of intimidation.

"Where is Alan Quatermain?"

I blinked at that.

"What?"

Got to admit, that was not the question I was expecting in this situation.

The rifle drew back for a moment before he slammed the butt of the stock into the side of my head in a vicious movement, my head rocking to the side and I could feel a little blood welling up inside of my mouth.

That stung.

"Alan Quatermain." The man repeated, lowering his rifle once more as he glared down at me through his mirrored goggles. "Tell me where he is."

"Why the hell would I know where some old Huntsman is anyway?" I bit back, spitting out a glob of blood onto the man's boot.

He didn't seem to appreciate that if the way it caught me under the chin and knocked me to the ground was any indication.

I heard Nora call out my name as the person came closer, shaking their head disapprovingly.

"It doesn't seem like you're listening." The man said, his distorted voice making it impossible for me to tell anything else from what he was saying. "Now I am going to count to three. And by the end of that count I am going to expect an answer from you, or we find out just how strong your aura is when compared to a bullet fired at point blank range."

"One."

The man raised his rifle and pressed it against my forehead, the cold metal of the barrel a decidedly disconcerting sensation.

Come on Jaune, think, think.

I pulled at the restraints binding my hands behind my back to no avail, the ropes too tight for me to pull myself loose.

"Two."

There's go to be something, anything that I can do.

There was the sound of some kind of electronic bell that filled the air and the man.

A distorted growl came out of the man's mask at that as he spun on his heel and stalked off out of my sight.

"What is it this time?" The distorted voice questioned, the response lost to the garbled static coming from what I assumed was some kind of intercom system but it seemed that the man with the gun knew what it meant. "I'll be on my way."

He walked over to the door and thumped on it three times and a person in the same outfit as the man who had knocked pulled open the door, the only defence being the lack of insignia on the man's shoulder, leading me to assume they were of a lower rank.

The man shoved his rifle into the newcomer's hands and pointed directly at me.

"If any of them try anything, anything at all, shoot that one in the head." He commanded, giving me one last look before he stomped out of the room, the door closing behind him before the one holding the gun could even give a response.

The newcomer stood there for a moment before shaking themselves and walking forward, aiming the rifle directly at me.

I gazed up at the barrel of the gun levelled at me and swore internally.

Damn it.

I was already buggared after the last fight.

I was not up to a fight like this.

Especially with Qrow as an invalid behind us.

There wasn't really much room for us to make use of either, and with walls to either side of us and guns before us they had us dead to rights.

I saw Ren catch my eye and shook my head minutely.

Not yet.

Wait for an opportunity.

So…

I paused, narrowing my eyes as I heard something just at the edge of my hearing.

Was that…something rattling?

CLANG

The sound filled the air and something slammed into the wall behind us with an explosion of noise, chips of wood showering my back like tiny bullets.

I turned over my shoulder to see what appeared to be a harpoon sticking through the back wall of the airship, the four massive barbs of the weapon outstretched and having grabbed a tight hold of the rear door.

Before I could do more than comprehend that fact there was a great yank, and everyone was thrown forward as the harpoon went backwards, dragging the airship along with it back down towards the ocean.

Well if that's not an opportunity then I don't know what is.

I threw myself forward and tackled the soldier with the rifle around the legs, just as Ren bounded up and snapped his fists across the man's face, smashing his head into the side of the airship.

The man let out a chocked scream before slumping to the ground, unconscious.

"Jaune, stay still." Ruby commanded, wriggling over behind me to rub her bonds against my blade's edge, trying to saw through the rope. "Once I've cut myself free, I'll free you."

Ren in comparison had already managed to free himself from his ropes somehow, probably some crazy martial art bullshit like always, and was already hard at work at freeing Nora from her bonds, the bubbly berserker still a bit groggy from the hit to her head.

In no time at all Ruby had managed to cut herself free and then with a little precision work from Crescent Rose managed to free me as well.

I rubbed at my wrists, trying to force the circulation to pick up as the feeling of pins and needles momentarily seized my hands.

"Any ideas guys?" I asked, honestly at a loss at what precisely we were supposed to do at this point.

"So we got kidnapped by bad guys, and then those bad guys got kidnapped by other guys," Ruby reiterated cocking her head to the side in that puppy like way she did when she was thinking hard. "which makes these new guys the good guys?"

"Or just other bad guys." Ren grunted, helping a swaying Nora to her feet as she did so, the dizziness clearly fading with each passing moment.

I walked forward, trying for the heavily reinforced door that served as the only way in or out of this room only to curse as I found no way for it to open from this side and when I tried to kick it down the only thing I achieved was jarring my leg,

I propped Qrow up on one of the side walls and turned towards the others, drawing Candidus Mors from my back with one hand and shaking loose my shield gauntlet with the other. "Okay so plan so far is we wait for the door to open, force our way through and then we improvise."

Ren gave me a dry look at that. "Not much of a plan there Fearless Leader." He said wryly, Stormflower held in both hands in a loose but ready position.

There was another loud shudder that shook the whole ship and the clanking sound vanished, while the sounds of conflict beyond the door only intensified further, becoming more frantic and desperate.

Nora had Magnhild in its war hammer form, the grenade launcher being rather useless at the moment given the fact that it didn't have any ammunition. "I like it! Nice and simple."

It was at that moment that the light above us winked off, leaving us in near total darkness if not for the light spilling out from the cracks in the door.

I heard the sound of footsteps approaching the door and I motioned for the others to be quiet, holding up fingers to give the others the proper timing.

'Three' I mimed, quietly deploying Aegis, its dim white light illuminating the dark hold further, giving us a little bit more perspective to work with.

'Two'

Before I could move to one there was a massive tearing sound as the back end of the room was wrenched away, blinding white light blazing in from the new entrance, ruining our eyesight entirely.

I threw my shield arm up in front of my face to block most of the light, Candidus Mors still held at the ready by my right arm.

There was the sound of heavy footsteps approaching before someone jumped through the newly made entrance to the back of the ship.

I couldn't make out much in the way of colors, but the person who entered was tall, metallic armor covering their legs and their chest while the arms were left relatively uncovered, save for a single bracer around her left wrist.

The figures face was hidden behind a blank mask, two eyeholes revealing bright yellow eyes like that of a hawk gazing imperiously forward. The only color I could really make out beside the eyes was a vibrant red scarf that rapped around the figures head, save for the mask further obscuring the individual's identity.

On the figures left was a round shield, that was about the size of my own albeit a different size, the exact details impossible to make out.

But in the figures right arm?

The same rattling sound I had heard before met my ears, as my eyes gazed upon the harpoon that had torn the airship we were in from the sky held solidly in the hand of the person in front of us.

I swore internally.

To be able to tear an airship from the air in mid-flight? Seemingly through sheer brute force?

That was something I'd only ever seen Penny manage to do before and that was with the added benefits of one; that the Bullheads were both a lot lighter and had only just taken off at the time and two; that Penny was a freaking combat android with strength far beyond that of a regular human.

I resolved myself to not so much as attempt to block a blow from that harpoon.

I'd have better luck trying to block a diving Nevermore if my luck held the way it had.

"Jaune Arc." The figure in front of me intoned, gesturing at me with their weapon as they did so.

Then they turned their weapon slightly. "Nora Valkyrie."

"Lie Ren."

"And judging by the scythe I'm assuming that's Ruby Rose."

I blinked, stunned into silence for a moment.

Huh?

How the hell did this person know our names.

I went to ask them as such when I suddenly heard a loud gurgle sound out behind us, followed by a wind that ruffled my hair and clothes and almost had me closing my eyes as I turned to face the new sound.

What I saw shocked me.

Behind us, having opened the door to hold was one of the soldiers who had captured us, their short sword like weapon held firmly within their hand.

Clearly, they'd been attempting to sneak up behind us when we'd been distracted.

The thing that was capturing most of my attention however was the harpoon that was impaled through the woman's chest, with a long chain trailing away back into the waiting hand of the armoured figure.

I hadn't even seen the throw that had killed the woman, only felt the aftermath of its wake as it passed me by.

That was...unbelievable.

"Are you all alright?" The armoured figure asked, their voice still muffled by the mask going to walk out of the downed airship. But even with that, there was something about them.

Something familiar almost, yet I know I had never met this person.

I was acclimatizing to the change in light now, and I could make out what looked like a large wooden deck, with several different people, faunus as well as humans, in a mish mash of outfits that were only really identifiable by the blood that was coating some of their weapons as well the symbol that was emblazoned on all of them, sometimes on clothes, sometimes on armor, hell even one time I saw it tattooed on the shoulder of some kind of faunus with scales on the edges of his face.

A long spear, with a circle surrounding it.

"I'm sorry, but how do you know us?" I asked apologizing as I did so.

The person almost fell over at that.

"What?" They squawked in outrage, their voice sounding decidedly more feminine then it had before. "You seriously don't know who I am?"

"Captain!?" A voice called out from the crowd in concern, one of the women holding a rifle with a bayonet on the end stepping forward as they did so.

The person before us, the 'Captain' I'm assuming, waved them off and stood up straight again, coughing awkwardly as they tried to regain their demeanour. "Ahem, yes. So, introductions. I'm Thetis, otherwise known as the Queen of the Mistralian Seas and the Goddess of Waters." The newly named Thetis said nodding her head forward politely as she did so in greeting.

She raised her head again, her eagle like eyes clearly waiting for some kind of response.

I honestly had no idea what I was supposed to do here.

I was sure I'd heard that title once from Vulcan or maybe Neptune's father Triton but only in passing and whatever it was it wasn't ringing any bells.

I flicked my gaze to the others to find they were in as much the same boat as I was, clearly having no idea who the strange woman in front of us was.

Was I supposed to introduce myself as well? But she already knew my name.

Maybe I was supposed to give out a title as well?

Did I even have a title?

My mind immediately leapt back to some of the kinder ones Tob gad gifted me with during training and I shuddered.

Those were never going to see the light of day again.

"Uh," Ruby spoke up, hesitating as the eyes of everyone, both those of us onboard the airship as well as those waiting on the deck outside of it turned their attention towards her. "That's…nice?" Ruby said finally, unsure of herself as I said it.

I barely restrained the urge to palm my face and sigh.

I actually witnessed one of the people waiting outside fall over at Ruby's response falling heavily to the deck in a cacophony of noise.

"Really!?" Thetis said finally, throwing up her arms as she did so, the chain of her harpoon making that same unmistakable rattling sound as she did so. "I mean I'd understand Ruby not knowing who I am but you three? What on Remnant I-"

One of the figures outside, a decidedly distinguished looking gentleman who should have looked decidedly out of place compared to those around him and yet seemed to be perfectly at ease at his situation, coughed loudly in a clearly fake manner drawing Thetis attention towards him. As she turned he tapped at his face with a rather dry expression.

Thetis froze at that. "Still wearing the mask aren't I?" She asked aloud before raising a hand to find out and proceeding to swear in a way that would have had Tob stand from his wheelchair and clap in appreciation.

The crew proceeded to chuckle quietly at their captain's mishap before becoming remarkably straight faced when she whirled around to look at them.

The bronze mask was casually tossed to one of the men outside who caught it with ease before she impaled her harpoon in the deck of the airship, both of her hands reaching up to grasp the red scarf that was wrapped around her head.

Wait.

The scarf was removed, revealing hair that was just as brightly red, the scarf deftly being tied around her hip in a way that was as familiar to me as slap to the face.

The woman turned and I staggered in place as the face of my partner stared back at me.

I could hear the others gasping beside me as what I could only call Pyrrha's twin sister walked towards us, that same kind smile on her face as Pyrrha's as she approached.

"I'm Pyrrha's mother." She said simply before a wry grin spread across her face. "Although it is kind of you to say such things Jaune."

I felt myself flush.

Had I said that aloud?

Blast it.

"You coming?" She asked before she jumped down the short distance to the deck below, walking briskly forward through the path that the crowd made for her.

We looked at each other for a moment before I shrugged, following after Thetis with the same causal walk as she had given herself.

The crowd of people in front of us we're staring at us intently now, their gaze not malicious in anyway but it was still rather disconcerting to have that many people staring at us like that.

A sharp whistle filled the air and the crowd started before dispersing in every direction, some running to the sides of the ships, others running below deck, and the rest making their way towards the masts, a few even pulling themselves up the masts as smoothly as I would up one of the trees of Freshwater.

We walked up the well worn steps up to the upper deck of the ship or whatever it was supposed to be called, where Thetis stood at the helm of the ship, taking the wheel from a shirtless tattooed man who nodded respectfully before he made his way elsewhere.

"Where are we?" Nora asked taking in the surroundings,

"Currently? You're on board my ship, the Argo." Thetis said, both hands firmly around the wheel as she talked to us, her gaze locked on the ocean ahead, twisting the wheel this way and that on occasion for reasons that were unknown to me. "Granted it's more like the Argo mark 8 and a half but that doesn't really roll off the tongue now does it?"