He was forced to wake up his Big Brother Juniper and have him inform the General of the news.
Apparently he'd brought the device that Headmaster Ozpin had fashioned in order to communicate with his brother with him, in a small suitcase, so that was thankfully alright. As long as he informed the General that his brother had a message to pass, the General had accepted it without question.
So he'd be passing along the news that Cinder had become the Fall Maiden.
Their presence in Animus had been all just a big distraction for their true goal.
While the world had its attention pulled away by the Vytal Festival and Ozpin and the General had been focused on the fact that Tyrian and another member of Salem's retinue had shown up in Animus, Salem's forces had snuck into Sanus to slay the Fall Maiden.
The Fall Maiden that was required for… something that he wasn't ready to hear of.
It was all a big distraction. Some things in the world were simply routine and they'd taken advantage of it by making them all believe these movements were with the goal with interrupting the routine in mind.
Luckily for them, Amber's final sacrifice had been to spit in the face of her killers to the last.
Unluckily, Cinder wasn't in a fit state to fight. At least, not without revealing her magic. Not without some assistance, at least.
And it was too late to hide magic from Xayah and Rakan now as well.
"Shit. At this rate, I might as well just remove the whole central computer system and install my own in the next few hours." Jaune kicked the 'supercomputer' that the Mistralian Defensive Network was centralized on, the whole thing having been bricked, likely by the good doctor's old rival Arthur Watts. "If I bring in my BOLT units, I can definitely make it in time."
And since all the technicians had been kicked out so he could focus, he could get away with it.
And it wasn't as if the computer was junk either, outside of the aftermath of whatever Watts had done to it had made it such.
None of the hardware was fried, but that might have been preferred, so that the technicians would have taken stronger and more drastic measures to do something about the problem. Most of them were the second and third sons of influential families, coasting on an easy government job rather than actually well trained technicians, after all.
Well, maybe they wouldn't have been able to do much anyways, then.
"If you need us to move or bash something, we'd be more than happy to help, Jaune." Rakan offered, posted up by the one entrance to the MDN's central hub. A rebreather mask hung off his neck, a bit of overkill precaution from Jaune's insistence just in case Arthur Watts had prepared for his intervention and placed something in the ventilation system.
"Don't worry, I got this. Just keep an eye on Cinder and make sure she's alright."
"Princess and I are on it." Xayah assured, her arms wrapped around Cinder's shoulders comfortingly, their masks clattering together as they hung off their necks. "We won't let our precious Team Mom fly off the handle like that."
Cinder didn't even retort, just snorting quietly as she accepted her teammate's display of affection as Jaune began warping in BOLT after BOLT and commanding them to unplug and take apart the whole system.
Even Trivia was patting the girl's lower back, ready to act if anything happened. Her other hand was typing masterfully with a single hand on her Scroll, giving Cinder as many quick tips about manipulating her magic as possible.
Actually would it be possible to extend and boost the range of Scorching Caress with magic? Would an opponent be able to feel that if they-
No. Focus on the job, Jaune.
"Ok, boys and girls." Jaune turned to the three dozen BOLTs he'd summoned, already beginning to take apart the system piece by piece, doing their best to not break anything as they performed a rush job. After a scrubbing, these parts might still be reusable, after all. "Let's aim to take this apart in the next hour. We'll be refitting Menagerie's Protection Grid spare central computer in its place the hour after that, then I'll have to do some personal touches to force my targeting software onto Mistrals turret system. Gogogo!"
"Blake"
"I'm going to kill him."
"Blakey."
"After everything Jaune did, he-"
"He also helped save his life."
Blake flinched as Yang reminded her fellow practice buddy what they'd seen today.
"Look, I'm not jazzed about it either. Like holy shit, right? But he learned something was wrong and did something about it, even if he knew that some of us would figure out it was him, right? Let's listen to his reasons later and focus on helping people right now."
Yang bought a large bag of sweets from a local vendor with a Lien card that had landed in her hair minutes ago.
"Helping people, like just throwing Lien into crowds to distract them from the Grimm on the horizon?" Blake pointed at the big colorful balloons that had been sprayed over with the logo of the Black Knights, an angular bird of some sort with a sword behind it, tossing down money into excited throngs below. "Lying and pretending things are just going to be ok?"
The police force of Mistral bitterly only intervened when any fighting broke out, pocketing a bit of the cash when they could get away with it. Aside from that most of the wealth was being scattered all throughout the Capital, focusing more on the middle and lower tiers.
Yang let out a sigh, trying to figure out how to best frame the situation.
"A case kinda like this happened back in Vale two years ago. A vigilante got kidnapped and was about to get executed live on air by a crime group or something. I still don't really know all the details, especially since all of Vale's crime gangs apparently took a huge reform after that. But that vigilante girl killed, like, everyone that came to watch her die in person. It was messed up, but there were a lot of people that were happy with it. Grimm activity dropped. I still don't really get it, but even if it's dangerous, bad things can do good. It's just like a super gray line."
"I don't like that. That feels inexcusable to me." Blake grit her teeth, hands clenching against her flowing hakama pants. "That feels like an excuse."
"I mean, they are. That vigilante did kill a bunch of people. The Black Knights stole from a lot of people as well and killed people, too. I'm not even sure if we can say either of them did it for the right reasons, but right now we have Grimm coming. People need to be happy and slow them down or even shake away what they can." Yang tossed handfuls of candy at a bunch of street kids passing by, watching them giggle as they began to happily scramble for the colorful treats wrapped in paper. "They need to buy time for us to properly get our defenses ready, right?"
"..." Blake roughly shoved a hand into Yang's bag of candy and tossed them at the happily cheering kids.
Her kitty-cat was pouting, but seeing a pair of Faunus siblings in the mix with the other human kids and laughing over free candy must have been putting her in a better mood.
"You can yell at that asshole later. Hell, let me join you, girl. Just like we're going to yell at Jaune later for exposing that he can both teleport and sort-of resurrect people."
"Yeah, that latter bit caught me off guard." Blake's right hand rose to rub at her arm. "It's one thing to have an idea that it's possible, but it's another thing to see it outright."
"Yeah, Jaune's put himself into the middle of another shitstorm again." Yang nodded with a sigh, "He hasn't even thought about what he's done, has he? And we can't even contact him because ol' Ironhead's got him fixing the issues with the turrets. I don't think we were even supposed to be allowed to know that, just given enough details to know we should shut up."
Yang found herself following Blake's gaze, at the line of black that was beginning to layer on the horizon, the sun beginning to set and show the unevenness of the rippling black line.
"Don't worry, Ma Raven is going to get us out safe and help defend the Kingdom."
"...I want to help them."
"Huh?"
"I want to understand just why he works and trains so hard. Why I saw on that screen that he had a smile on face." Blake stared with a complex gaze at the horizon. "I want to understand the boy I love. Because I don't understand… and that scares me."
Yang gulped, feeling her skin burn at Blake's sudden confession. She wanted to say the words out loud too, but it was scary. Wanted those words to be selfishly directed at herself. Wanted to let Blake know that… she… she loved her and Jaune too. Wanted it to be the three of them forever.
She chickened out.
"Hey there. That's crazy. There are professionals around and we're not ready. Gods, we're even getting volunteer Huntsmen from Vale to aid in the defense using Ma's Semblance. We can't even pull too many, cuz even if it's not a lot, it still costs a little Aura every time somebody passes through."
Yang gave Blake's hand a hold, lacing their fingers, trying to ignore her own heart rapidly beating.
"He did it for Menagerie. Don't I owe it to him to try for Mistral?" Blake's voice was weak and shaky.
"Jaune doesn't even like Mistral." Yang rebutted.
"But he's still working to save it."
Yang felt her nose wrinkle.
"Our parents aren't going to let us stay and fight. And if we snuck off to try to do so, Jaune'd find us and that'd pull away from his work. I don't like it either, but we can't. But hey, if another world shaking event happens while we're at Beacon, nobody can force us off. We'd be adults then. Or close to it. I wouldn't be seventeen until December. Jaune too."
Blake let out a defeated sigh, a fluttering purple Lien bill dancing in the breeze and landing in the jet black tresses of hair that extended from the bottom of what was once Jaune's favorite beanie.
"I guess that's our cue to go spread more cheer." Yang grinned, plucking the bill from Blake's hair with a giggle, "Come on. Joy fights the Grimm as readily as a bullet."
"I suppose it's the only way we're currently allowed to fight." Blake bemused quietly, giving a soft smile that gave Yang goosebumps. Jeez Blake was pretty AF. Something about her smile was always kinda mysterious, for some reason. "Candy for kids, or cheap rounds of beer for adults?"
"Half and half." Yang shrugged, "We might as well be fair about it."
"I can't believe I missed all of that in the bathroom." Sun heard Velvet mutter as they both volunteered to help set up sandbag fortifications inside the lower levels. "I left for ten minutes. I always miss these big moments. How'd it go so wrong?"
"Yeah, those bathroom lines are killer." Sun joked, catching the sandbag his girlfriend tossed at him, tossing it back to the next person in the line.
Tossing might have been even an exaggeration, as they were all standing more or less in a line, all in arms reach of one another.
"No! The whole crazy assassination attempt! What the hell? Why all the Houses? That… actually, is it an attempt if the majority of the nobility died? If assassination is for a single person, no, is it just for the singular? Can you grammatically assassinate a group of people?" Velvet mused curiously, seemingly oblivious to the look of mildly morbid confusion from the person she received a sandbag from.
"I don't think the terminology matters, Vel." Sun took the bag from her, passing it down to the next volunteer. "We just need to help."
"Yeah, you're right, Sunny. I just didn't expect something quite this crazy." Velvet laughed, keeping up a bright smile, even if the topic was a bit heavy. "Like, what's up with that? To think all the… hmmm. Unexpected, for sure."
Despite the words that were passed earlier, seeing a pretty girl smile was still soothing for him and a lot of the other volunteers. Luckily nobody directly racist had been placed in close proximity, allowing him and Velvet to lend a hand in relative peace. Though it did seem their line of volunteers had more Faunus than the neighboring one leading off to a different side.
Other volunteers also attempted to lighten the mood, crack jokes, and so on in the face of the Grimm on the horizon. Cheer fought the Grimm, was the saying, though putting that into practice was hard.
"If yon sweet couple don't mind an ol' feller for asking." A grizzled looking tan man asked from behind Sun, taking a sandbag and passing it on. "Ye've got the looks of Huntsmen and ye've no accent from a region I'm familiar with. Where be ye from?"
That was an odd way of talking, but Sun just shrugged. He'd heard stranger from the nomadic clans that wandered the sands, rather than sticking to oasis settlements.
"I'm a Vacuoan boy, born and raised. Great Sages of West Horizons Clan. It's a mouthful, I know."
"Born in… either Vale or Atlas. Actually I'm not sure without finding a birth certificate," Velvet laughed, tossing another bag Sun's way. "I've been living in Vacuo with my Sunny for, oh, two, three years now? Honestly, time's flown by. I'm not really sure."
"Hey, isn't your Semblance literally a form of Photographic Memory?"
"Technically it's a form of eidetic memory. Plus I lose track of time when I'm with you, Sunny."
Sun blushed as some of the other volunteers in their line gave some hot whistles.
"Gah ha ha, ye've gotta burn hot while ye're young." The grizzled man behind him clapped Sun on the back before taking his bag of sand and passing it on. "Ye're a lucky boy."
"Naw, I'm the lucky one." Velvet teased, a sly grin on her face, "Sun said he'd love me even if I was a worm."
"Or a Grimm." Sun joked, getting the brightest smile from his girlfriend.
"Aww! I love you, Sunny."
Yeah. He'd do anything for that smile.
Fuck he was whipped.
"This is preposterous! Untold amounts of Lien! We-"
"Can't use it if you're dead." Adam spoke from inside his armor, Tsuki (Moon) still humming with power inside of Chi-Kyou (Mirrored Blood), his shotgun sheath. Mistralian rooted names to better suit his lies. "At least this way it buys us all some time bringing joy to the populace."
"That was NOT your money OR decision to make! YOU-"
"The matter is that nobody has the manpower to deal with the Black Knights with the Grimm closing in." The General of Atlas shut down the argument. "What matters is that they've offered to assist as manpower to defend the Capital."
It wasn't a popular choice with his men.
The majority of them would be happy to let the Capital burn, but he'd pointed out that it would mean that a still sizable number of their fellow Faunus would go down in the blaze like kindling alongside the crooked Capital. That Jaune Arc would not abandon the Capital when there were so many innocent here.
That'd put things back into perspective for them.
"Yes. We Black Knights are sworn to defend those that cannot defend themselves." The Faunus would burn first if they'd left Mistral to flounder on its own. "We shall not forget our oaths to our people."
"...As long as you will help protect the Capital, Atlas assures we will look the other way this time." The General assured, despite the Mistralian Governer's complaints. "We simply need to buy enough time for Atlas's 2nd Airfleet to come to Mistral's aid."
"Yes, well, aside from having to rely on the efforts of thieves," The Governor spat, "We would be happy to accept Atlas's assistance in our time of need."
Groveling pig.
Adam was sure that the man was showing no such deference before the events of today. But he'd had his whole support group cut out from underneath him. While it wasn't clear exactly who had died from that strange bolt of heavy lightning, it likely meant that the Traditionalist Faction had been nearly wholly eradicated.
Although it was certain that members of the Idealist Faction had also been present in the Mistralian section of the VIP layer.
Adam only hoped it hadn't been too many.
"It's not on the level of Atlas, but Clan Hitenmaki had been funding the formation of an airship fleet." A blue haired man spoke, currently missing an arm. He was shirtless, aside from bandages wrapped around his arm and abdomen. He'd been one of a total of three survivors of the gray lightning, having been saved by the swift action of a fellow clansman. "A total of thirty Valiant Class ships are being armed and sent over for support from Oniyuri as we speak."
Ah. Luckily an Idealist. And Hitenmaki… that was one of the Great Houses, was it not? Adam had always found it odd how it could be sometimes called the Five Great Houses, when the sixth House Goten as the 'Guardian House' for the other Five Houses could also be considered a Great House.
Why not Six Great Houses? Honestly, Mistralians.
"I always knew you were planning an insurrection, Heir Kamina Hitenmaki." The Governor sighed in defeat. "I hope you hadn't been thinking a mere thirty Valiant Class ships would have been enough."
"They were only ever meant to be a proper defense force for bandits, Lord Governor Ji-Han Geumnamu." The one-armed Kamina smirked. "Mere Valiant Class are merely good for bombarding landbound Grimm and the odd sky-soaring variant. Certainly not for capturing as grand a city as Mistral's Capital. In addition, I am now Clan Head Hitenmaki, as the former Head has perished. You will give me the difference that is owed, Governor."
"...My apologies to Lord Head Hitenamki. Yes, though tampered with as it is, our own aerial fleet would have matched up in more than equal measure." The Governor's eyes were narrowed, as if challenging the notion. "Rather, it seems rather convenient that the Capital's air defenses are also defunct, like the MDN, isn't it?"
The blue haired Kamina's eyes narrowed.
"We have our differences, Governor, but I would never stoop so low as to impair the Capital's ability to defend itself from Grimm."
"That's enough from the both of you." Adam cut off their passive aggressive politicking, "Lord Kamina Hitenmaki, we will appreciate the aerial support. Will any additional firepower approach?"
It was good that the Governor had called out the blue haired man's name outright, as Adam hadn't known who he was. Would have looked bad if he hadn't been able to name the man outright, claiming to be Mistralian as the Black Knight's leader.
"Young Lord Hitenmaki has discussed this with me prior." The General of Atlas stepped back into the conversation. "Like Argus to the NorthWest and Kuchinashi in the South, Oniyuri will be sending an armored train via the Animus Rail Network. None of them will last long against the swarming Grimm, but they'll provide an extra target to hit, as well as additional mobile firepower."
"Not to mention, they'll have a series of detachable, self-powered motor cars in the back with a long range artillery cannon manned by willing volunteers from Sanctum from Argus, Taima Prep in Kuchinashi, or Kuoh Academy in Oniyuri."
"That's a suicide mission. They won't even have the walls to help defend them. They'll be completely in the open."
"Volunteers only. Unfortunately we expect it'll be mostly retired Huntsmen and teachers, though we aren't going to be picky if a student is willing to risk their lives for the Kingdom. It'll look damn good on their resumes if they survive, and they'll be given a free ride into Haven for any that do." Kamina shrugged, not seeming to like it, but accepting the current situation for what it was. "They'll mostly be manning some turrets and helping defend the artillery, with the whole thing retreating if the heat gets to be too much."
"It should never have come to this, but it doesn't change the fact that the Grimm won't discern the differences in age." The General too, looked strained. "The artillery cars furthest back will be manned by the youngest volunteers for priority evacuation."
Adam maintained his concentration on Tsuki, not letting any remaining power overflow. Lucky it didn't cost Aura to hold the force within, even if it still required his focus and concentration.
"I still have the majority of the power attempted to assassinate young Jaune Arc stored within my blade. Judging from the power it unleashed, it will be no small amount of force. Depending on our needs I shall unleash it upon either the largest Grimm or the biggest swarm of them I can."
"I'd been wondering why I could see that katana of yours rumble like a hot Scroll." Kamina Hitenmaki laughed, slapping his knee. "I don't know if that was exactly half of the force or not, but if that's really the case, a big blast like that won't go unappreciated. Is it straining your Aura to hold that at all?"
"Merely my attention. Not enough to pull me away from the details of our conversation."
The rudimentary HUD in Adam's vision blipped with a notice from his burner Scoll, a message from Jaune. Only the fancier Tallgeese units had pieces of Scroll holotech built into their helmets.
Almost done with Mistral Defense Network problems. Have something for your 'performance problems' so I'll need to meet soon. Looks like thanks to your people's efforts, we've bought an extra hour and a half. We'll need it to swap out everyone's batteries. If you lose what I'm going to give you, I'll beat your brains out myself.
Heh.
"Then I'll go and ready my Knights by the walls on the lower levels, as this seems to have wrapped up. I'll be tuned into the radio frequency we've agreed upon for coordination."
"Godspeed." The General nodded, "Take out as many Grimm as you can."
"I plan to."
Weirdly knowing that Team CRXN were behind him under Trivia's Semblance filled him with a confidence he didn't know he'd need for this.
It was only when Trivia had held him by the hand that he'd realized how sweaty it was under his bodysuit. Though only he and the rest of Team CRXN could see it, the gold and silver Ring of Feather Falling on Trivia's right hand middle finger shone in the light of the setting sun.
It was something he had to give to her years ago after she'd learned Cinder had the Decanter of Endless Water and had gotten jealous.
Her selfishness was oddly cute to him. He wasn't sure why. Usually he found such behavior unbearable in people.
His right hand extended as it opened his Inventory, letting a pile of a new type of battery he'd put together pile up on the ground in front of the silent Black Knights.
A small cylinder, filled with four portable fusion cells and a sort of twisting antenna at the top appeared in his hand as he handed it to Adam, still dressed and disguised as Zero.
"You'll want to swap out your batteries for these. They'll give more maximum charge than whatever you lot are probably using at the moment and can be charged remotely. Maybe even lighter, too. The dimensions should still match, though." Jaune spoke calmly, having practiced this under his breath for the past half hour as he'd finished forcing the MDN to accept his new code and targeting AI protocols with brute force. "The Energy Tower has a pretty idiot-proof switch for turning it on and off. As long as there isn't a lot of blockage in the way, it'll effectively power you all as far as five kilometers away."
He ignored Trivia's hate stewing behind him, as Team CRXN had at least been made aware of the fact that the Black Knights had stolen some of his tech, even if he'd come to an understanding with their leader in private.
She'd wanted Adam's identity, just in case, but Jaune had begged her to leave Adam alone, only even giving her his first name. He really couldn't bear to even try to lie to her, somehow.
He and Adam would probably never truly repair their friendship, and as much as that hurt, he'd begun to come to terms with it.
Still, the older teen (he'd be hitting twenty soon) intended to protect the Faunus, and Jaune had the means to stop him if he ever truly became too lost in his path. He still valued the memory of their friendship enough to let Adam pursue his goals, even if he was more than willing to kill him, if it came to it.
He truly hoped Adam was being dramatic, and that they'd never find themselves on that crossroad.
"I promise to forgive you all. To turn a blind eye to everything, in exchange for your promise to help defend Mistral. I hate this Kingdom. It's ugly and messy. Honestly it's the worst. But I was still born here. Other Faunus like me were born here. Protect them. Please." Jaune bowed, his waist bent low, feeling Trivia's hand tighten angrily. She really didn't like seeing him do this. "And please don't die. I know it's selfish, and asking for a lot. But live. I don't want to see any of you die either."
None of the Knights spoke a single word.
He sensed both guilt and shame, as well as pride that he'd come to them with a request.
It was messy and muddy, and Jaune didn't know how to feel about the mass of emotions that congealed above his bowed head.
Metal footsteps rang out against cobblestone, the faint whirr of the exoskeleton hidden under armor as one Knight performed a salute. Then another. And another.
Jaune looked up, seeing over fourty armored Faunus saluting at him wordlessly, Adam, no Zero, in the lead, still holding the portable Energy Tower in his other hand.
They'd given him their word in what way they could.
"Thank you." He smiled. "One day, if fate wills it, let us share a meal beneath the shattered moon."
Though they probably wouldn't understand the meaning, it was the Mistralian way of telling them all that he wished for them to survive.