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"Gods, it's almost nostalgic, isn't it!?" Jaune shouted, almost laughing as he swung Crocea Mors around, the power of his Aura filling the blade and letting loose with massive arcs of power that cleaved through the endless horde en masse, his eyes darting about as the shine of his soul was reflected against the others. Nora, Ren, Pyrrha, all of whom fought with him as they defended Atlas at every turn, the black hordes of grimm parting with the strengths of their souls and weapons- ignoring Atlas and Mantle in favor of trying to annihilate the four souls that shone like the sun, like a beacon of hope.

"It would be if we weren't fighting for our lives!" Pyrrha shot back, bumping shoulders with him briefly before she flung out Akoúo̱ like the disc of the sun- the bronze glowing with sheer force as it shredded through grimm on an outward spiral up until the point that it embedded itself halfway through the face of a Manticore and sent the beast sprawling to the ground before dissolving into smoke. "Are you really having fun at a time like this, Jaune?"

"What? I'm a hero! Heroes have to enjoy their work and it's actually nice fighting stuff that permanently dies!" Jaune protested, huffing indignantly as he scrubbed his hand through his hair and lightly brushed against the shorter, slightly more neatly kept beard he sported. "Besides! I'm young again! I wanna enjoy my youth!"

"Jaune, we're in our mid twenties now. I'd hardly call that young considering we're still at least seven years older than we're supposed to be," Ren pointed out, appearing out of nowhere behind Jaune and vanishing just as fast as an assortment of pink and green lines slashed out of nowhere in a wide circle around them and caused every grimm they intersected with to erupt into a shower of smoky, dissolving giblets. "As for being a hero… well. I'd be remiss if I didn't also say I kind of missed just fighting grimm. Though, you are doing much better than you did before we left for Atlas the first time."

"Oh sue me, I was younger and dumber and barely knew how to use a sword," Jaune sighed, rolling his eyes as he stabbed an encroaching Beringel between the eyes and blew a hole through its chest and the next several monstrosities behind it with Crocea Mors' railgun shield (was it really still a railgun if it was using rails to guide a plasma bolt instead of propelling a physical projectile?) before throwing the corpse away. "Anyway. Looks like Nora's having fun out there too."

"She is and it scares the hell outta me," Ren deadpanned, all but gliding through the battlefield as they advanced little by little, flaring their Auras as high and as hard as possible to match the sheer power of Ruby and Penny's that had been intermittently been going off in the distance. Seriously- how were the two of them so damn strong? Regardless.

Nora was in the middle of a battle frenzy, and the armor clad valkyrie was currently making every single grimm she hit regret existing as she sent their corpses flying into the air with such force that they disintegrated from sheer air friction on their way to the stratosphere. She was also flinging lightning around with her bare hands and zipping around like a slightly slower Ruby- which, even so, with Nora's sheer bulk and muscle density, meant that she was less like Ruby's speeding bullet and more like an out of control train crash.

"INCOMING!"

Case in point.

KRA-THOOM

"WOOOOOO! TWELVE POINTS BABEYYYYY! YEAH! OH HEY GUYS!" Nora shouted, bouncing over and shaking the dust out of her hair as the entire tide of grimm paused at the edge of the massive crater punched into the ground by Nora's sheer force of impact. "Guys! Guys guys guys! Our scrolls actually work again! That download I was working on the last time we were in Atlas finally finished too! It's been stuck on pause for like, thirty years or something!"

"... What, that copy of VR Trattoria Simulator that you wanted to play?" Ren asked, scratching his head with one hand while the other snapped off a few shots from Stormflower, ending a few encroaching Ursas in a spray of bullets and wind. "I haven't thought about that game in decades…"

"Well, it's only been like, a year and a half since we were gone, so it's actually probably still pretty popular, come to think of it," Pyrrha hummed, tapping her chin with the butt of her spear before shifting it back to sword form in order to snap a Lancer out of the air and crush it beneath her polished bronze boot. "Oh, that means that I can get back to Glyphscape!"

"I'm still never going to get over the fact that you of all people were my Glyphscape girlfriend and we never noticed until right before we got here," Jaune sighed, blushing in embarrassment at the memory of having admitted to Pyrrha that he had to break up with his Glyphscape girlfriend… only for them to somehow bumble their way into figuring out they had been internet dating sort of for the longest time now. It had been both funny and sad. 

"I can't believe that you haven't changed since you first started roleplaying the gallant knight that wanted to protect others even if your skill level and actual level was lower than the people in your party," Pyrrha giggled, bumping elbows with Jaune as the two of them fought largely on instinct, firing railgun shots and Aura enhanced rifle bullets out into the slowly thinning herd around them. In the distance, a single scout Manta approached, bearing a familiar set of Aura signatures within as it slowly made its way out of Atlas airspace. "I also can't possibly imagine what we're going to tell our families once this is all done.

"Ugh, tell me about it. I mean, my dad's gonna be so pissed," Jaune sighed, palming his face before sheathing Crocea Mors back into its sheath/shield, drawing the entire thing from his arm as an oversized bastard sword before bringing it down with such force that it launched out a line of gold power and disintegrated even more grimm into ashes with that single mighty blow. "Rrgh! Gods damn it feels nice to be back! And stronger than ever, it turns out!"

"Who knew that spending almost a century in the Ever After… or at least a few decades… would be very good for physical and Aura training?" Ren snarked, appearing behind Jaune again with the scent of bamboo leaves on the wind, ephemeral and distant as he continued to draw deadly lines through the horde- the whale in the distance listing and detonating internally as the fight within raged on and on and on. Who knew how well it was going, honestly. "I certainly wouldn't have guessed."

"Yeah yeah, yuck it up. I'm just as good as the rest of you now!" Jaune shook his head with good cheer, snagging Ren by the arm as he passed by again and pressing a kiss to the rogue's cheek. "Mwah- for good luck, babe."

"Aww, thank you babe~" Ren snickered, returning the affection with an athletic slap to Jaune's ass. "Go get 'em."

"Will do!"

"Should I be concerned with how you gave Ren a kiss but I haven't gotten one since we returned to Remnant?" Pyrrha asked teasingly, stroking Jaune's arm as she danced past in a flurry of red and bronze and white and gold, long hair trailing in the wind as she nipped at Jaune's ear. "Because I want one. Now."

"And you'll get one later," Jaune huffed, catching Pyrrha around the waist and pulling her into an almost ballroom dance-like pose, twirling and dipping and stepping around each other while their swords and shields flashed and swung in time around each other… up until the point that Jaune's lips brushed against Pyrrha's. "Or now, I guess."

"Hmph, see if I let you top tonight with that attitude!" Pyrrha snickered, pushing Jaune away and sweeping Nora into her arms with a solid bridal carry, both of them sticking their tongues out childishly. 

"Joke's on you, you never let me top anyway!" Jaune paused, halfway through impaling an Alpha Beowolf through the eye with a backhanded stab of his sword. "... Wait."

"Bottom! Gods you're still such a bottom!" Nora laughed, planting a sloppy kiss on Pyrrha's lips before leaping out of her arms to go tackle Ren into a tight hug, cackling all the while as she swung her lotus rogue around and they did their long practiced Flower Power team attack (that they had finally figured out after gods knew how long in the Ever After). "Even now!"

"Yeah yeah…" Jaune sighed, grumbling as he focused on the fight once more, watching in the distance as the other Huntsmen and the Atlesian military began to close up around the tide- unfurling from where they were defending the interior and walls of Mantle and Atlas like a great set of jaws in order to come and surrounding the grimm tide like the teeth and fangs of a steel trap. In the same maw-like analogy came Team CFVY, acting as the "tongue" spearhead as Coco's Gianduja blew a smoking line through the still thinning tide.

… 

Huh.

Shit.

Jaune blinked, whistling lowly as the tide seemed to turn little by little, explosions ringing out rapidly in the distance as he spoke. "... I think we might actually win this."

Pyrrha snorted, all of JNPR lining up as the grimm horde parted into a million smaller battles, little by little. "Gods, I hope so."