The Branwen Tribe Pt. 3

A/N: Just a reminder, new chapter here officially means new chapter over on the P atreon now, where my patrons are currently voting on the future direction of this story!

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Jaune Arc would have surrendered. Jaune Arc might not have ever gotten himself into this position in the first place… though he likely would have made some attempt at playing the part of the big damn hero, before getting ruthlessly smacked down even worse than Pyrrha had been.

… Alas, he was not simply Jaune Arc. He identified by the name. It was where his human nature came from, wholly and utterly. But the human in him was only a part of the greater whole. Yes, he was not simply Jaune Arc, but the Grimm Prince as well. He was his Queen's creation, and the King of the Grimm did not back down from a fight so easily.

That moment of fear of discovery, brought on by his human side, passes without mention. Jaune straightens his spine and glares Raven down, even as she in turn glares right back at him, the sparks of her magic obvious in her ears, at least to someone with his knowledge. To everyone else, they were just seeing their boss pushed closer to her limits than ever before.

When Raven lunges at him with the lightning dust blade of her sword aimed for his throat, Jaune dodges… much faster than he was before. He has to be, has to give up some more of his true capacity, if he wants to avoid her magic tearing through his disguise. The spell that Salem cast upon him was an excellent piece of work, but undeniably fragile… to one thing and one thing only. Other magic.

He just hadn't expected to be facing off against other magic so soon after leaving on this journey. But no matter.

As he dodges the swipes of her blade, Jaune isn't remotely surprised when the bandit leader gets more and more frustrated with him. Its obvious she's trying to hold back just as he is, likely for the same reason. She wants to avoid discovery, wants to keep from showing too much of her power. Those flickers and sparks coming off of her eyes… they can't be all she's capable of.

Both of them have something to hide, but Jaune is the only one who knows everything, who knows his AND Raven's secret. In comparison, Raven Branwen simply assumes him to be some extremely confident, inordinately powerful mysterious individual. She has no way of knowing that he is in fact aware of her magic.

Probably why she thinks the first lightning strike she uses will do the trick. It comes, seemingly without warning, and there's a vicious smirk on Raven's face as she does it, slashing her blade, but at the same time, firing a bolt of lightning directly at him that he shouldn't have been able to dodge. After all, there should have been no way for him to see it coming.

… He saw it coming from a mile away. The increase in sparks coming off her glowing eyes, the growing smell of ozone… yeah, Jaune wasn't a fucking idiot. More than that, his Grimm memories consisted of dozens encounters with Maidens over the centuries. Raven Branwen was the Spring Maiden, that much was abundantly clear to him by this point.

He dodges, mostly. The lightning barely catches him, but he's able to take himself almost entirely out of harm's way. To Raven and her bandits, as well as the people of Shion and Pyrrha's platoon, its insanity. He DODGES a lightning strike, the movement too fast for most of their eyes to even track. When they see him unscathed in the aftermath of the blinding flash of light, eyes widen all across the clearing.

But for Jaune, it's the beginning of the end. Because while he mostly dodged, he didn't manage to get all the way out of the way. And while the lightning didn't do any true damage to him… it caught the outer edge of Salem's spell, beginning the process of unraveling it. Like a thread pulled out of a shirt, it was only a matter of time now before his disguise failed entirely.

A flash of red hot anger rushes up inside of Jaune, and with a snarl, he retaliates with a brutal kick to Raven's midsection. Holding nothing back, he takes a massive chunk out of the bandit leader's aura and sends her flying back into the forest that surrounds the town. She disappears from the senses of her tribesmen and their prisoners, but before they can do more than squawk in shock, Jaune is gone as well, following after her.

The lightning clipping him is rapidly doing its work. The magic is flaking off, even as he catches up to Raven, who is already bringing her sword up in a guard. Too slow though. Much too slow. Arriving in front of the bandit leader, Jaune grabs her by her sword wrist and squeezes, HARD. The grinding of her bones together is audible as an involuntary cry of pain. Her fingers twitch open, and the hilt of her dust sword begins to fall from her grasp.

To her credit, Raven is fast. Adaptable. Cunning, even. The bandit leader drops to one knee and her other hand comes around to try and grab that hilt, ready to cut him down right then and there while he thinks he has her on the back foot. Unfortunately for her, his foot meets the hilt before her fingers can close around it, sending her weapon spinning away into the forest and bashing her fingers somewhat badly against his inexorable flesh.

Raven tears herself back with a howl, half desperation and half snarl. Glaring at him, she drops all pretense now that they're alone, summoning the full might of her Spring Maiden magic. The sky above their heads turns cloudy, and the winds ratchet up to speeds that would strip the flesh and blood from the bones of an Aura-less individual.

The effect this has on Jaune is immediate. His disguise was already unraveling… now its outright shredded in mere moments, revealing his pale white Grimm flesh, his red and black eyes, and the black veins coming off of them. Raven summons the storm and the storm… the storm does fuck all to Jaune, save for expose him for what he truly is.

Interestingly enough is Raven's reaction.

At seeing his true appearance, at witnessing his Grimm nature, Raven's own red eyes go as wide as can be, and she blanches in abject terror. This is not the generalized terror of a human facing off against a Grimm though. Nor is it even the slightly more personal terror of facing off against something one thinks shouldn't be possible, such as a Grimm humanoid like himself.

No, this is the even more personal terror of someone who knows exactly what she's facing off against. The look that spreads across Raven's face is the look of a woman who knows Salem personally. Except, Salem never mentioned a Raven Branwen… so perhaps Raven was one of Ozma's? But then, neither Summer nor Glynda had mentioned her either. Curious.

Before Raven's fight or flight instinct can even activate, Jaune is in front of her, grabbing her by her wrists and shoving her back against a tree. The Bandit Leader shrieks and promptly discharges her magic into him… to no real effect. Jaune is a lot tougher than your average Grimm. Salem would be just as unfazed by the might of a single Maiden.

After all, it was Ozma's plan to eventually bring all four Maidens together with all four Relics in a bid to defeat Salem once and for all. One Maiden, even armed with one Relic, which Raven was not, would not stand a chance against the Queen of the Grimm. And perhaps because she wanted Jaune to take control as he had, perhaps just because she was afraid of what might happen to him… Salem had made him just as strong and just as powerful as she was. If not more so.

At seeing him no sell her magic without issue, Raven… promptly loses it.

"P-Please… please don't kill me! Please, I left! I left Ozpin and the rest! I knew Salem was too strong! I didn't want to fight her! I haven't helped Ozpin once!"

Talk about whiplash. The bandit leader goes craven faster than Jaune can even blink. Though, he supposes her panicked begging does fill in a couple of blanks. She WAS one of Ozpin's creatures, same as Summer and Glynda. But the reason her name had never passed through either of their lips in his presence was because she'd left. She'd ran and hid. She'd abandoned the fight against Salem in order to come to Mistral and lead a bandit tribe of all things.

How had she gotten the Maiden Powers though? Jaune couldn't imagine a world in which Ozpin let Raven just take the powers of a Maiden with her as she ran away from him. Which meant she must have gotten them after abandoning the cause and retreating from the fight, right?

As he considers this, Jaune sees Raven glancing to the side surreptitiously. Whipping his head in the direction she's looking, he sees a portal has swirled into existence a few feet away, showing what looks to be the hallway of some sort of school, with the back of a blonde girl walking down it a few feet away from them.

Raven's mouth opens, but before she can call out, Jaune claps a hand over her face and yanks her away from the portal. Shaking her none too gently seems to disrupt the woman's focus, because the portal fizzles and disappears, swirling out of existence before the blonde can turn around.

"None of that now. If you want to survive, you'll do exactly as I say."

Raven's eyes glass over in sheer terror. It's a wonder that she doesn't mess herself, from the fear he can feel wafting off of her. But no, she at least keeps that much control. For things to go from them fighting to this in such a short period of time… ugh, this wasn't what Jaune wanted. But then, how was he supposed to know Shion would end up being the site of a bandit attack, or that Pyrrha and her platoon would be assigned here? More than that, how was he supposed to know that the one bandit leader he'd decide to challenge to a fight… would end up being the Spring Maiden of all things?

It was just his luck, that he'd ended up in this position. Still, could any of it be salvaged? Was there any way to turn this around?

He's just about to let go of Raven's mouth now that the portal has closed, when he hears voices coming from the direction of the village. The bandits are coming to look for their leader, it would seem. Yanking Raven upwards, Jaune moves through the trees, evading the bandits and taking their leader to another part of the forest entirely. Relocating so they won't be disturbed is the work of a minute at most. Which is good, because Jaune is well aware that he needs to make a decision here, and fast.

Though… that portal of hers…

"Was that your semblance?"

Still trembling in fear in his clutches, Raven hurriedly nods, too scared to even speak.

"I see. How does it work, exactly?"

For a long moment, Raven doesn't answer him. He really doesn't intend to kill her… but, well, it's obvious she's deathly afraid of him all the same. And so, he slams her up against another tree and snarls in her face.

"Answer me!"

Very clearly, Raven Branwen's earlier confidence was all an act. She is deeply, deeply terrified of Salem, and thus him as well, the only other Grimm Humanoid she's never even heard of. With a yelp, she hurries to respond.

"M-my semblance allows me to create portals between me and people I have a strong emotional connection to!"

Interesting… very interesting.

"Is there any limit on distance?"

"… N-Not that I've found."

She still looks terrified, but also confused now. Which, to be fair, him questioning her on this is probably quite confusing indeed. Cocking his head to the side, Jaune hums to himself.

"Can you open a portal to Summer Rose?"

Raven's confusion only grows, her brow furrowing.

"S-She's dead…"

His patience fraying, Jaune gives the defeated bandit leader a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes as he reaches up and wraps a hand around Raven's neck, squeezing ever so slightly.

"Just… try."

Stiffening in renewed fear, Raven squeezes her eyes shut. A moment later, and a portal opens up a few feet away from them again. This time, Jaune recognizes the location for what it is. His and Salem's Palace. Specifically, one of the training rooms. Jaune can see Summer working out, can see the blind woman currently lifting weights at the moment.

The portal opened up far enough away from Summer that her aura sensing ability probably isn't detecting anything, because she doesn't react to its presence. Not like she can see him or Raven anyways, but she clearly doesn't even know they're there.

Jaune just smiles. This is perfect. He can use Raven to get back to Salem like this, and Salem can recast the illusion, turning him 'human' once more. After which, they'll have to decide what to do with Raven, but honestly, Jaune isn't all that bothered by that. With this, no one but the bandit leader will have seen his Grimm featured. His cover will be intact.

Except, just as he takes a step towards the portal, Raven in hand… he stops dead in his tracks as a thought hits him. Pyrrha. Pyrrha, her soldiers, and the villagers. Jaune doesn't think for a second that with Pyrrha down for the count, pinned to the ground with her own spear, that the rest of her platoon will be able to hold the bandit tribe off.

Even with their leader suddenly missing, without him there to do anything about it, Jaune can't really say what the bandits will do to the villagers of Shion and their Mistralian protectors. He can't say that Pyrrha will even get the proper medical attention she needs.

… Does it matter? Does he care? With Raven's semblance, they could potentially return to Shion within an hour, the illusion restored. But only potentially. And an hour… an hour was a long time to leave a bunch of rapacious bandits to their own devices.

Alternatively, he could swear Raven to secrecy, relying on her soul-deep terror of him to keep her in line, and cover himself up so his Grimm features weren't visible. Then, he and Raven could go back right now, and he could… what, force the bandits to surrender? No, they probably wouldn't go for that. But he COULD play bandit leader, pretend like he was in charge because he'd beaten Raven, and then use that as a cover to help the villagers and soldiers and Pyrrha until they were all safe.

Lips thinned out, Jaune found himself at yet another crossroads. Summer, and his Queen's castle, were right there in front of him, just through that portal. But Pyrrha and her all too green soldiers were back there in the village, as helpless as the villagers they were sent to protect. Did he really want to risk it? Or did he turn back for now, and try to make this clusterfuck work in his favor?

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