Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Prelude

The observer was no longer himself. He no longer slept in his bed. He no longer was in his home. He was another man entirely now. He could feel the movement of the man, see his tanned arms, felt the warm wind his face, felt everything about the moment. The dreamers name was not him own, no his name was Jean le Arc and he ruled the Caribbean. He ruled not through decree in some cold palace in Europe, ruling not by owning a trade empire that crushed private enterprise, he ruled with blood and plunder. Indeed other pirate lords were masquerading his actions as if they were part of some republic called the Brother Hood of the Coast, yet the truth was thus, they obeyed their true king.

Jeans fleet was floating in the Hispaniolan inlet. This wasn’t an invasion however, Jean could of launched that as he had the men and ships to take colony after colony and make a true empire. Beholden only to the lion skull flag of their pirate king, a lion skull with a double arc acting as almost a halo around its head. This was a hunt pure and simple. Yet this was not the hunt for pigs as one might expect for buccaneers, nor was it a hunt for slaves or concubines, Jean had plenty of both. No this was a hunt for prey that only he had the right to. Prey that filled him with a want in his heart no maiden could fill. It was the type of hunt the observer craved and desired, a true test.

So it was that he stalked into the jungle with his team of most trusted huntsmen, the lion share of men were building his court back on the beach. The fewer of men with him the better, so he brought along only three. There was Patrick the Irishman, a red headed and perpetually sunburned man whom seemed to push his constant anger into his grenades and boarding pike. Ol’ Nick was a Russian from whom had left for the Caribbean due to it having ’nicer weather’ then Moscow as he had put it and carried with him a truly massive metal sheathed maul. Then there was the Rou Xuan, a Chinaman that Jean had found in the Philippines, he was armed with a brace of pistols and wicked long knives at his waist sash.

Jean himself was a Frenchman with blood from across Europe. He was darkly tanned with blonde hair and dark blue eyes. While his body was massively built and hulking, looming over all but Nick, who stood with arms that could face a bear in an arm-wrestling contest and win. As for his attire, Jean wore a black silk shirt and blue pants, with a red silk sash across his belly. At his hip there was his ancestral sword, Crocea Mors, a short, straight bladed sword named after the famous blade of Julius Caeser himself, though in this case it was in a cutlass hilt rather then anything resembling from the Roman empire. He carried not a pistol or rifle, he didn’t need to, not for this prey.

After hours of marching under the light of the full moon, the party finally had found their prey’s den. A chateau built overlooking a derelict plantation village. The candles lit the chateau ahead of the men as they made their way up the village path. Rou drew his pistols as he heard the eerie creek of a door softly swing in the dead of the night. Jean joined his friend as he to felt the moment was nearing where his blade would taste death soon.

Yet there was a curious sight that gave the men pause, near the heart of the village was a destroyed carriage, the horses were dead, and their throats ripped out. Jean paused as he looked at the sight and noticed a lack of flies or of bloating from the horses. The carriage sat near the exact center of the village, and he could tell it was ambushed recently. He looked to his men and then silently pointed to move to the left side of the street. Jean and his men moved, hugging the walls of the cabins. 

As Jean neared the village center, he looked into one of cabins broken shuttered windows and then ducked back down. He looked at his men and pointed at round sphere at Patrick’s waist. Patrick handed over the sphere and Jean withdrew from his waist sash a flintlock device, it held no barrel but instead was just the exposed lock with powder already set in the pan. He looked to his men, and they had readied their weapons, knowing their leader was about to start the cavalcade of violence.

Jean pressed a fuse attached to the grenade into the flintlock powder tester’s pan and pulled the trigger. There was a flwoosh as the grenade fuse caught fire. Jean threw it into the Cabin through the window before he and his men fled to the center of the street. Dark shapes were illuminated in the cabin as the grenade exploded and made the cabin rumble and nearly collapsed, while catching the roof on fire at the same time. Dark shapes began crawling from the door, their bodies broken and their forms black as night save for their white upper skulls being exposed.

Across from the destroyed cabin more figures emerged, pouring out into the moonlight. These were once men and women, their bodies now jet black, wearing the rags of slaves and one an expensive brocade red coat. Much like the others from the first cabin, these creatures had the upper parts of their skulls exposed, bone white with the beady eyes of red glaring hatred at the intruders. Some stumbled forward as others ran. Rou was the one to claim the first kill, one of his long-barreled pistols caught his grim ambusher in the eye and blasted out the back its skull. The next shot caught another in the chest.

Jean was the next to make a kill, stepping forward he swung his short sword in an arc and sliced off the head of another ambusher in flash caught in the moonlight, before striking with his free hand and snapping the neck of another of the transformed slaves with a thunderous back hand. Patrick worked together with Ol’ Nick, the Irishman’s boarding pike had pinned a nearly naked attacker to the ground and Nick brought his maul down to destroy the head of the pinned ambusher. Rou sheathed his pistols and rushed to Jean drawing his own blades. Whenever jean was exposed Rou was there to slice the tough limbs of the walking dead, allowing his captain to slay the beast properly with a stroke of the blade.

Again, the men repeated the process, working together, following their leader as thy slew the monsters with a practiced ease only true professions could muster. Then they were free of the town center and the last of the attackers were laying on the ground behind them smoke was rising from their now dead forms, the first slain by the huntsmen already nothing but a skull that was beginning to crumble.

Rou reloaded his pistols, while Jene prepared his powder tester once again. From up on the hill the team heard a woman’s muffled scream from the desecrated chateau. Jene then looked to Patrick and the Irishman handed over another grenade, a half smirk on his face. With Grenade in hand Jean began to make his run up the path, outracing his comrades.

The Chateau had been ruined, what was at one time a white painted manor that belonged to a plantation owner, had been corrupted. Blood coated the wings of the plantation and blood had been painted around a pair of windows and the entrance. Now the façade of the building looked like a giant skull bloody skull that sat atop of a hill.

Jean heard the screams and watched to where the greatest light came from and saw that both came from the west wing. Unlike the cabins in the village below, the windows here were glass and Jean could investigated the manor. The glass was soot covered and Jean could make out the appearance of what looked to be a man with his arms outstretched with cane raised high, while he was back by the fireplace.

Jean could have gone through the front door, it was open, it was welcoming, it was beckoning. Much like the center of the village would have been a few hours ago for the carriage driver and his charges. Jean instead took the direct route. He had a good running start and lifted his blade’s hilt before he leapt through the air. His protected fist smashed through the window before the rest of him tumbled through into what had been a study.

Jean was unharmed and uncut by the glass seemingly by a miracle as he rolled into a kneeling position. He looked up and saw that there was dark skinned man standing before the fire, his chest was painted white with stripes of paint to make it look like rib bones as he himself wore a human skull mask. In his left hand he held a cane, topped with what looked to looked to be a child’s skull, while in his right hand appeared to be a bag of some sort. The man was far from alone however, as there appeared to be well dressed undead around him, both with the bodies of the young and old, with their skulls exposed. While immediately before Jean was a young white woman in her late teens that had been shackled to the floor. She had black hair and a torn aquamarine dress, her green eyes looked at Jean as she shouted in French. "SAVE ME!” Words that the observer could understand as clear as his own mother tongue.   

The well-dressed undead turned to Jean and began to charge at him, claws reaching out to grasp and mouths opening to tear the flesh of the pirate king. Jean though would not be so easy to slay. With the ferocity of a tiger, he slashed at hands and broke the jaws of one of his assailants as he circled to the left, the observer learning, feeling each movement as if it was his own. As Jean fought the zombies their lord shifted and circled to the left to keep his distance from Jean, that pouch he carried tossed to the side and instead drew a rusted machete from his hip. The woman pulled at the shackles as the battle raged around her as she cried for aid.

Jean though focused on slaying the beasts, moving from side to side as the blows rained down on him. Yet Crocea Mors feasted well. It took heads, it sliced bodies in half, it slew these creatures with practice ease only its true masters could deliver Then came the last of the zombies, this was the finest dressed of them all, heavily fat and clearly at one point a noble man. Jean drove his sword into the belly of the monster yet did not kill it. The once man kept on pushing with superhuman strength against Jean, its teeth gnashing and biting at the pirate kings face.

Jean pushed back and strained his muscles, his shirt straining against his bulging muscles as he lifted with his blade, pulling the obese dead man up. He roared out and then rushed forward. Using the momentum to throw the dead man into the fireplace.” FATHER!” The woman shouted.

As the zombie started to catch on fire, pinned into the fireplace due to its bulk, Jean turned to the cause of its creation. The Boko was preparing for a fight, raising his cane before him defensively as he held the machete back for a high strike. Jean readied as well, drawing back his arm to lunge at the cause of this suffering.

From the side, where the main entrance to the plantation would have been, there was the scraping of claws and then banging of floorboards. The Boko grinned his teeth flashing light in the dark as the door to the study was busted off its hinges and a new nightmare had arrived. It stood at eight feet all, its entire body was black with no hint of sheen in its fur. Yet it was coated with boney protrusions and an armored head with a bone carapace protecting its lupine features. The voodoo man seemed pleased with the turn of events and knew that his pet would slay the interloper. As the wolf like creature surveyed the room, Jean had a look of annoyance on his face rather than anything close to resembling the screaming fear of the woman chained at the circle. He turned his blade from a lunge to bringing it back into a throw. As the creature turned to Jean, Jean threw his sword into the chest of the monster. The monster scrambled at the blade with its claws as Jean turned and lit the grenade in the fireplace and rushed the beast.

As the monster had pulled the blade out of its chest, Jean was on the creature and punched his left hand into the chest cavity of the armored werewolf with the lit grenade within its chest! Jean was back handed and tossed across a desk by the monster, but the grenade still was lit. As the boney werewolf stalked across the study in mid step, its chest and upper body exploded in a shower of red and black. Its lower body flopped and fell to the ground mid stride.

Jean twisted and turned to his feet to fight the master of death and destruction. Yet what he saw was the backside of the Boko as he ran towards the entrance of the chateau, the bastard having chosen to run rather than face Jean. Jean stood and chased after him, picking up his fallen blade. Only to be confronted with the sorcerer stopped in the doorway the end of a boarding pike sticking out of his back.

Patrick was just outside the door with the boarding pike impaling the voodoo man, who’s mouth hung open in shock. Jean walked up and spoke to Patrick. "Merci Patrick. I’ll handle the coup de graces though.” He gripped the sorcerer’s head with his left hand and then swung. With a single flash of steel in the moonlight the sorcerer was beheaded, and his body fell limp, then a moment later falling to the wayside as Patrick retrieved the pike.

Behind Patrick was Rou and Nick, looking pleased with the result their actions had brought. The woman however decided to ruin the moment with her own concerns, she shouted out in French.  "Hello? Anyone?”

Patrick snorted and spoke. "I see ye got to the lass in time cap’n.”

Jean smirked. "Luckily, she is a screamer.” He turned and looked into the plantation house and spoke. "I think I’ll leave you three to search the chateau as I handle the girl.”

There were smirks from the men as they knew what was coming. Jene turned and walked back to the study, his men taking their time to explore the plantation, as the woman was pulling at the chains that were hammered into the floor. She looked up to him and spoke in French. "Praise god, you’re here to save me.”    

Jean looked over her body taking in her looks now that they had a moment of peace. The woman was nineteen at the eldest, she wore an aquamarine dress that was trimmed with lace and was clearly torn. Though he did not see the obvious signs of rape, in fact her top was still intact. Looking past her dress Jean saw how her breasts were full and straining within her top, while as her legs moved, he saw the contours of those curves. Lust was in his eyes, and he had his prize laying before him.

Jean walked over to a cabinet that had long since been broken into, as he did, he asked. "May I know your name?” He selected an intact wine bottle and read the label.

The woman spoke. "My name Marguerite Lavigne I’m… you know who I am don’t you?” She asked as she looked over him. "You… you also heard about troubles in my family plantation and came here to help?” And where there was once gratitude, there came a questioning tone that did not hide any sort of fear, no it was quite blatant.

Jean then used his blade and sliced open the bottle of wine with a single clean cut. The woman cringed as she watched the scene, the blatant desecration of her families’ belongings. Jean grinned and spoke. "I was after the skull faced bastard. Not you. However-” He then took a swig of the wine. "I think I’ll take you as part of my prize.” The observer saw a vision, a vision of what may have been an memory or a prediction of things to come. He saw himself fucking this woman upon a throne, her body facing away from him with that pert ass on his hips. One of his hands gipping her long hair, the other her full breasts. Her eyes were rolled back as her mouth opened in a scream of pleasure. Then came the explosion of seed that sealed her wombs fate.

The vision ended as the woman started to pull at her chains and spoke in a fearful understanding. "No… no! Please I lost my whole family to that fiend!”

Jean looked at her struggle, a predatory grin on his face as he watched her strained at the chains. Like a cat watching a mouse try and squirm away. He stepped to the woman and set his boot upon her shoulder and flipped her onto her back so she could stare up at Jean. Jean spoke. "Oh please. This is the natural way of things.” He then pressed his sword down onto dresses top where her cleavage split. She was panting hard watching the blade descend. "Our mutual enemy thought he was strong enough to take what he wanted. He did come close as well. However-” His blade pierced into Marguerite’s dress causing her to gasp out as the blade point almost pierced her flesh. "He forgot I am the strongest.” And then he split her dress down her cleavage, exposing her tits and flat belly to the Caribbean air.

She looked at him and spoke. "You… you bastard even father didn’t the negros like this.” There was a curse in her voice as she insulted her rescuer and enslaver.

Jean smirked and pressed down his boot harder into her shoulder. Margueritte gasped out and was silenced, though she continued to give a look of hatred at Jean. The pirate king spoke. "It is a shame that your father didn’t learn about power and how to use it. Maybe if he was more suspicious or spread more righteous fear, then that sorcerer would not of wormed his way into the village below. Or maybe the Boko came here and became friends with your father, eh?” He asked and twisted his boot.

“You’re cruel.” Marguritte gasped out.

Jean leaned down and glared into her eyes. "I’m right, because I win.” He then raised his sword up. Marguerite screamed out as the blade fell.

The blade flashed down and had smashed through the iron chains that kept her right arm tied her to the floorboards.  Then the blade came down and broke the chains that held the other arm.  Yet the woman was far from free as Jean flipped her onto her belly and used the remains of her dress as binding for her arms. Jean then spoke. "There we are. Now you can’t get away, even if you did decide you’ll be naked and ready to be ravished by the first man that finds you. A much worse fate than what I have to offer.” Jean then smashed her chains holding her to the floorboards, his blade not even nicked from the feat of strength and steel. Finally, he moved her onto her feet and spoke. "Now walk.” He commanded as he gripped her bindings and made her walk.

As her reached the entrance Jean saw that Nick had a dark-skinned maiden over one shoulder who looked catatonic. "I found this one in one of the bedrooms.”

Marguritte cried out. "Sister!”

Jean looked at his captive with a smirk and spoke in French. "Well, it looks like your father was more than just ‘kind’ to his negros.” He looked to Nick and spoke in English. "It looks like that once she comes to, you’ll have a fine bed mate.”

Nick laughed. "I got sloppy seconds, but they’re still warm leftovers!”

And Patrick emerged next with a jewelry box under an arm from another door and then a straining Rou followed with a heavy wooden chest.  Rou spoke as he descended the steps. "Silks and cloth. Can make good profit and hand off to my girls.” He spoke in accented English. Rou had his own harem going, having earned it with his service to the crew. Jean made sure his men were rewarded for their work and his men rewarded him with their loyalty.                                                            

Jean then spoke to his men. “Well gentlemen I am sure the quartermaster will have a field day dividing up the rest of the treasure here. But now we must be leaving. Patrick care to carry that sorcerers head on the end of your pike?”

Patrick agreed. "Of course, cap’n.” And then stabbed in the neck and held it aloft as he joined the others in the walk back to the shore.

The scene changed, there was no long march through the jungle back to the court of the Pirate King. The observer had been one moment standing in the doorway of the plantation house and the next he was walking through the tree line. His prize led along.

Before Jean was a sight that pagan warlords had seen centuries earlier. Set upon the beach was an encampment, tents were built, fires were burning, and drink flowed. As the word of the return of their king had spread, his subjects emerged from their tents and music had struck up, fiddles, drums and a hurdy gurdy were playing at the arrival of their king. Jean felt a pride swell in his chest as he was greeted as a returning hero, with the trophies of his hunt carried by himself and loyal retainers.  

That feeling was double so, as Jean saw his throne. Set above the sand upon boards, elevating the silk bound chair, the throne awaited Jean along with his harem. Concubines surrounded the throne, wearing little save for light skirts and cut down blouses that covered their breasts. For many of the women, their bellies hung low with his bastards, or they carried the pirate kings spawn in their arms. These women were collected from the races of the world, several whites and blacks, a mescal Spanish, an Arabian beauty, a pair of twins from China with others speckled in. Some of the women wore collar’s as they were bought or captured by Jean, some wore jewels to show greater status, but these women, seeing their king and the father of their children all shared joyous looks as he arrived.

Yet there was one woman who stood above all the rest. She sat upon the right arm rest of Jeans throne, her plump pirate booty barely contained in the maroon and black striped pants. She wore a white blouse that was supported by a golden yellow bodice that was at one time part of some noble woman’s dress and helped to enhance her considerable curves. While flowing from her head was long, red hair that framed clear blue eyes. Eyes that held a bit of humor in them as she commented. "I see you went out hunting and came back with naught a skin or beast, but instead a woman and gold.”

Jean laughed and stopped before his woman and lifted Marguriette. "Better for me to breed and leave a bastard, then just another skin of some boar on the wall.”

Marguerite begged in English. "Please if you have a heart let me-“Anne slapped the French woman with a left backhand had enough to turn her head and silence her.

Anne spoke with a harsh tone. "You be speaking to the wife of the king.” And she then gripped Marguerite’s chin and forced her to look at her. "You haven’t earned the right to speak yet. But I’ll make sure you’ll cry little bird.” She lifted a chain attached to the throne, ending in a slave collar. With a practiced ease she wrapped the collar around the French woman’s neck and then pushed her onto her knees at the base of the throne.

Jean smirked as he saw the display. 'The perfect woman to match me.’ He thought proudly. He then took his seat as Marguerite looked down and away from the assembling pirate horde. Anne though took her place upon her own throne. Laying back onto the lap of Jean, that plush posterior landing right on top of his clothed length. She wrapped an arm around Jean as she looked up to him with lovely eyes.

Jean started to lean down to kiss her, yet his love put a finger to his lip and spoke. "Love ye got a wee bit of blood on ya face.” She then began to fish out a mirror from her a pouch at her belt. "Ye have to look your best, what with Teach here and his proposal from the British.”

Jean sighed, Teach was one of his best lieutenants and administrative officers he had, having taken part in the running of Nassau. He had to at least put on an air of civility for Edward.” Just some spit and I will be as pretty as any prince at Versailles.” He took the mirror from his wife and held it up to his face.

Jaune Arc looked back at himself, a teenager and not a pirate king. Not a man whom had sitting upon his lap his queen and equal. Not a man whom had a harem of beauties collected from the seven seas. Not a man whom had an army of cutthroats willing to carve a path of destruction between Vera Cruise to the very shores of Europe. No, Jaune looked at his blood-spattered face and one thought entered his mind. 'This is where you belong.’       

Chapter 1: The Slog Part 1

Remnant, Arkansas, U.S.A., February 28^th ,2025 A.D.

As all dreams must, the vision came to an end and the dreamer had awoken. Jaune Arc had awakened early in his bed, the same time as he had been doing for the past two years ever since he had hit puberty.  Early enough to not awaken anyone else in the mansion and to hit the family gym. He rolled out of bed and pulled on his sweatpants and tank top. The tank top did little to hide his massively developed frame, he was only seventeen and already stood at 6’5 with a body that would give Arnold in his Mr. Universe Days pause for concern.

Despite being the son of a multi-millionaire wrestling and film star, his room was spartan as a teenager could be. There was his bed, a king-sized mattress covered in white sheets, a set of drawers and a closet for his clothes and a gaming PC set upon a desk. There was not the flair of tossed about clothes, trash laying around or the smell of drugs in the room that might of been common with other youths his age, which added to conflict of what was to be expected rather then what was found. There were not even posters or flags on the wall showing his desires or political identity. Instead, there were two bookshelves, one which contained his schoolbooks and the other that contained fiction. The latter of which contained books by Robert E. Howard, S.M. Stirling, Bernard Cornwall, Tolkien, Moorcock, Flint, Johnstone, and other adventure fiction that had kept him entertained as a boy. Yet now had laid untouched for months now as a new obsession had overtaken his interests. He took a hamper with him holding his school uniform as he walked to the door.

Jaune slipped out of his room and made his way into the hall of the second-floor east wing of the Arc manor. This was where the Arc children resided, while the west wing was where their parents called home. Directly across from Jaunes door was the room of his youngest sister Lavender, while next to his room was that of Azora, his second youngest sister. Then leading to the north were the rooms for the other five Arc children. Some had moved out already, Saphron had her wife and her own home, Marigold was a fresh college graduate who worked in the city itself with her own apartment. That left Chloe, Opal, Blanch, Jaune, Azora and finally Lavender at home.

Jaune stepped carefully past his sister’s rooms as his mind began to work its poison. 'You know you could dipped into one of their rooms and take them in their sleep?’ That damn dark voice protested as he walked by. 'Lavender couldn’t struggle much, not when you can hold her down with one finger. You can make that bitch Azora moan your name.’

‘Shut it.’ Jaune commanded harshly. Every day that voice would rear its ugly his head and each day he would whip it back into the pit that it had crawled out of.

Yet the Shadow of his mind persisted as Jaune walked further on towards the gym in the north wing. 'Opal and Blanch would be easy, you know they sleep in the same bed, just use your meat for a sister sandwich.’

Jaune’s knuckles turned white as his fingers dug into his free hands palm. Pain worked to tame that beast and would make it retreat each day. It was just that it was becoming more tolerant of the pain and bold. 'Hmm, Chloe has a good tan going, you should explore just how much of her really is exposed to the sun.’ Jaune bit the side of his tongue and that was enough for Shadow to make its retreat. The man was left in peace for the moment as he made his way onwards through the mansion.

The mansion and compound upon which it was set was sprawling. The original Arc home, a plantation house in the district of Vale, had been demolished and rebuilt two separate times over ever since Remnant was founded two hundred years before. The first time the house was demolished was during the civil war, then it was rebuilt and stayed much the same a decade after the war, that was till the early 2000s when his father finally had the money to buy the family estate and update it. Jaune was a toddler when the last of renovations was complete but ever since, he had known nothing but luxury.

There were the public rooms that dominated the south wing and first floors. Where guests were given entry to a grand foyer/ball room, led through to trophy rooms, dining rooms, public living rooms or more private studies and offices on the west side. Of course, all of it decorated with memorabilia from his father’s movies where he took on the roles of the squared jawed hunky hero or hammy villains. While the second floor was reserved exclusively for family and guests. Finally, the north wing of the Arc home provided recreation for the family, with their swimming pool, family living room and of course the gym.

It was fully stocked and had to be, with a movie star and former professional wrestler as head of the household and his brood of eight kids and of course a wife that had kept up her own looks through the years. Each of the children had their own preference for exercises. Chloe preferred morning runs and the treadmill. Opal and Blanch raced each other in the pool. Azora worked her core. While Jaune preferred to use whatever technique that gave him the most amount of pain to keep the Shadow tamed, which meant most of his body was like coiled steel now.  

Jaune had decided to begin the day’s focus and self-imposed torture with stretches to limber up his body. As he turned and twisted his muscular body, that Shadow emerged from its ugly hole yet again. 'You remind me of a story we once read.’

Jaune grunted as his body settled into its routine, bending his legs, stretching his arms, it allowed him to have something of a conversation with his darker side. At least until the burn started and he could shut away the voice. 'And here we go again, each day the same stupid arguments.’

Jaune did not act on his Shadows arguments, no matter how persuasive it would have been for him to hear. Yet again the persistence of Shadow clawed at Jaune. 'The story of that heiress, who wanted to build the perfect mansion for her guests. But she never stopped building, instead forcing the carpenters to keep working and changing the building plans, so that the house continued to get larger, but was never used. You remember what happened to that heiress?’

Jaune grunted and walked over to the dumb bells, selecting the fifty-pound ones to begin with, taking them into both hands. 'And here we go.' He gave a mental sigh.” She died old, the mansion unused and everyone thinking she was insane.’ The same song that Shadow argued with, as Jaune danced with his reasoning. All the while he worked on his routine.

Jaune began to hold out the dumb bells and squatted. Yet there was Shadow again to make the point. 'Your body is that mansion. You’re building it but you’re not using it. You can fight all you want against lusting after your sisters, but you know you’re a damn fool for not using this body on those sluts at school.’       

Jaune began to lift his arms holding the weights out. 'And those sluts are my friends. Their girls who are working for an education and so am I. I know what you would do to them if you got your claws into them.’

Shadow retorted, annoyance in its voice as it spoke. 'Our claws into them. I am you and you are me. You know they want you too, you can see it in their eyes. You don’t want to take a risk to break them, but they bloody well want to ride on that Arc cock.’

Jaune growled under his breath and started to move his body faster making sure that the burn would begin to drive away Shadow. 'And you know what that risk is? Its baby’s, babies before I even graduate high school before any of us see a diploma.’   

There was more of an angry tone as Shadow spoke this time, it felt like he was screaming into his right ear. 'You’re going to graduate in a couple of months you idiot and all those beauties are going to be disappearing. You’re turning eighteen in two days, live up your last days in school you stupid bastard!’ 

Jaune whipped around. "SHUT UP!” He roared in the empty gym, lifting weights like he was about to strike at the demon whispering into his ear. There was nothing there, there was nothing but his own echo as it filled the room.  

Shadow had retreated for the moment. Jaune took a breath and knew he could not let up. The pain sharpened his mind and it had allowed himself silence. He set the weights down and decided to work on his core with crunches. It was going to be a long day at school, and he needed to make sure that the pain lasted as long as it could. Because Shadow was right about one thing. That school was full of beauties and if he wanted to graduate his mind needed to be razor sharp.

For the next hour Jaune did his exercises, while he focused on his legs and arms of his body, he did not neglect the other muscle groups and maintained his shredded physique. As his family were just awakening Jaune had taken time to wash in the men’s showers attached to the family’s gym and pool. The mansion was large enough with enough guest rooms that it warranted separate showers for both genders for those that had the privilege of staying at the Arc home. When his sisters and mother filed into the gym, pool and to take their morning run, Jaune had already begun work on breakfast.   

Work was another distraction for him, work made it so that he could concentrate on doing a task worth doing. Something his father had agreed on, since he had his family maintain the family home mostly themselves rather than rely on staff. It had allowed each of the family members to work on different portions of keeping the home in top shape. Chloe had worked outside the most with her doing the yard work, Opal and Blanch had worked on the gym equipment and maintained the pool, Azora had kept up the laundry of the siblings, while Lavander handled the sorting of mail. Jaune meanwhile, dressed in his Beacon uniform, wore an apron that his sisters had gotten him last year as a gag gift. It was a pink, frilly, apron designed for a land whale of a woman with the words ‘Kiss the Cook’ written across the chest in flowing calligraphy. While it was a gag gift, meant to emulate ‘his boyfriend Ren’, it was at least seized for him and made sure to protect his custom-made Beacon uniform. So, he made sure to rock it in front of his sisters and give them sass as if the apron was made just for him. There was another apron that was plain black however he would wear when guests were over. 

The uniform he wore looked much like the regular uniforms of the other students at Beacon. He wore a black suit and pants with gold trim, while his vest was blue. What made this different was the dimensions of the outfit. Due to Jaune being so large he was unable to fit into any other male uniform, when he tried to when he first attended Beacon, he had busted open the readymade outfits by just flexing. 

However, as he prepared a feast of bacon, eggs and pancakes for himself, while working on his own sisters preferred foods, Shadow crawled back out of his hole. The scent of serotonin had caused it to worm its way back into his mind. 'This is woman’s work.’ It declared sullenly.

Jaune was busy making waffle batter as he answered. 'Now that is a stupid argument. You ever seen Gordan Ramsey?’

There was an groan from his dark conscious. 'And you are never going to be a Micheline chef. You’re more than likely to break a customer over a table if they back talk you than to serve one.’   

Jaune gave a grunt of annoyance, he did have an anger problem caused by that voice in the back of his mind and raging hormones. 'I very much doubt I will be piledriving one of my sisters through a table.’  He poured the batter into the waffle iron before closing it.

There was a chuckle from Shadow. 'No, you’re more likely to put your baby batter into one of them.’

Jaune gave a terse warning. 'Shut it.’

And Shadow continued to prod Jaune. 'Hit a nerve there? Having a moment to imagine one of your sisters with a bun in the oven? Maybe two of them at the same time, Opal and Blanch hmm?’

Jaune took a breath after setting down the batter. The image was forced into his mind, Opal and Blanch, both blonde beauties, a few years older than he. He saw them laying next to each other on their sides, their legs over his shoulders as he was fucking them sideways. Their lips meeting as his eyes traced down to milky tits that were falling onto the tablecloth of the family kitchen and their bellies fat with his children, twins within each at least!

Jaune forced the image from his mind and turned to the bacon, flipping it in the pan as he tried to focus on the food. 'You’re a bastard.’ Jaune had mentally spoken defiantly. 'If I wasn’t going to get disowned for having a child with someone outside of the family, dad would make bloody sure of it if any of his daughters were knocked up by me, then I would be thrown out into the cold.’

 Shadow scoffed. 'You’re accusing me of this? This is always at the back of your mind. But instead you could imagine some other girl leaking milky tits if you don’t want to go Sweet Home Alabama?’

Jaune begged as his hand paused over the bacon. 'Don’t.’ He begged.

Yet imagine he did. He imagined Yang Xiao Long riding on his cock, wearing cow print gloves and thigh high stockings. Atop her head was a set of cow horns that looked like they grew out of her long, golden locks. Her lilac eyes focused on only him as her mouth was open in a moan. Her juicy, gigantic breasts, leaking milk out onto her heavy child carrying belly and Jaunes hand reached out to-

Jaune gasped out as he pulled his hand back from the frying pan, it had been burned by grease that popped off the meat. The pain had awakened him from his dream and made Shadow recoiled. 'See, a woman’s work.’ It growled from the darkness of Jaunes mind.

As Jaune rubbed his hand on his apron, he heard a voice from behind. "Trying for guitar lessons bro?” Asked Azora as she walked into the kitchen.

Jaune turned to her and was surprised to say the least. His sister was dressed not for school, but instead she was still in her nightwear. A pair of aquamarine booty shorts with white trim that was bought several years ago, that her ass was straining in and a white t-shirt that hugged her large D cup bust. Her hair was long and framed with bangs the same blonde color as Jaune, while her dark blue eyes were set behind a pair of silver rimmed glasses. She stood at 5’2 compared to Jaunes 6’5 frame, though with the curves of her body she was far from petite. She was seventeen years old though acted more like a bratt to him then their shared youngest sister Lavender. She was also the one sister who had given Jaune the most banter growing up. She was drop dead sexy in all the right places that made him so glad he was covered with an apron and wearing pants.

Jaune finally spoke. "And are you trying for some sound cloud rapper groupie? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for school?” Giving her a hit with proper sibling banter.   

Shadow chimed in. 'Or maybe you’re getting ready for some mattress pounding with your brother?’ Jaune couldn’t tell if it was Shadow’s or his own eyes that were checking out his sister in that instant.  

Azora walked to the kitchen table, none the wiser that her brother was committing her appearance to memory. She answered back as she took her seat. "I had a late-night studying, leg day can wait, Peaches quizzes can’t.” Peach was the biology teacher at Beacon Academy and was the second youngest teacher at the school after Glynda Goodwitch. "Anyway. How much longer till breakfast is done?” Asked Azora.

Jaune turned back to the stove top, tearing his eyes away from his sister. "Well, it was going to be another five minutes. But just for you, I’ll make it ten.”

Azora rolled her eyes as Jaune continued to work on the feast for the family. "Maybe I should get one of horse whips from the stables and that’ll make you work faster.”

Shadow answered in Jaunes mind. 'Bend that mare over the table and give her flanks a smack as you breed her.’

 Jaune meanwhile kept an outwards appearance of coolness. He turned to her and put his hands on his hips and gave an overblown impersonation of a housewife. "Here I am slaving each day over the stove to feed you and your sisters. Have I no respect in my household?”

 Azora looked at him, her eyes looking at his outfit and body. Then she gave a laugh and rested her hand on her forehead. "Oh Jaune.” She spoke with a giggling sigh. "Just finish the waffles and I’ll be happy.”

Jaune seemed satisfied at the moment and gave a dramatic huff. "I work day in and day out for this family.” He added with a fake grumble, his back turning to the work at hand.

The Shadow spoke, this time with a true grumble and hatred for its companion. 'Maybe you would be better off going to see about getting castrated then pretending to be a man. You act like a woman more and more.’

Jaune countered. 'Oh me? I’m a comedian. You’re acting more like a dog that needs to be neutered.’

 Jaune heard Azora move and shift, walking over to the refrigerator. He watched her out of the corner of his eye and watched her side profile. Azora opened the fridge and bent down, reaching into it. Jaune could see how very much like Estelle she truly was, her breasts swung and pressed to her top, with the cold air hardening her nipples against the fabric. While her juicy ass, so soft and tender looking, was on full display with it straining in in her shorts. Azora’s thighs looked exquisite and would be fantastic around his waist. Jaune had to pause as he saw what she had to retrieve from the fridge, whip cream and strawberry jam. The idea began to form in his mind, of using both on her as she laid on the kitchen table an-

Jaunes right hand slipped and hit the waffle iron and the burning sensation caused him to retrieve the hand with a quick intake of breath. Azora looked over to Jaune, looking at him favor his hand and quirked an eyebrow. "You know, maybe I should finish cooking breakfast. Your off kilter enough that your likely enough to run yourself off the road then get to School”

Jaune shook his head and took off his apron, stepping away. "I think my feng shi’s messed up.” The meal smelled delicious, it was only a few moments from being finished and he wanted to stay, but he began to walk away. He needed to get away. He could not stay any longer in the presence of his little sister.

Azora asked. "Wait, why are you leaving?” Jaune looked back at Azora and had a great view of her backside now, he could see how much of her booty was on display, he could see how with the size of her tits, they spilled out and he could see her side boob from behind. "Why don’t you join me? Its been forever since we spent time together.”

Yet in his mind the image of Azora was not of a concerned sister. He saw her naked, her ass jiggling at the slightest movement. Her body begging to be grasped and groped, her pussy lips tempting wet and waiting for him. Her hair flowing down her back in an alluring waterfall. While her eyes were showing an Invitation to Jaune. "Why don’t you join me? Its been forever since we spent time together?”

Jaune clenched his fists, the pain making his vision return to normal. Finally, he spoke. "Not this time.” And forced himself to walk away, blood coating his nails.

Azora turned and spoke in frustration. "You never have time for any of us.”

As Jaune walked out of the kitchen Shadow spoke mockingly. 'I am the dog? No. I am the lion, and you are the broken dog.’

Jaune let his mind go quiet, no arguments, no snapping comeback. He let Shadow have its laugh. He had school to prepare for.

Usually, Jaune would of stuck around to of had his breakfast in his room, but after the arrival of Azora he just could not bear to stay in the same room as her, even if it meant spending a few extra minutes to collect his food. Jaune retreated to his room to prepare for the long, lonely day, he had fetched his school bag, wallet, keys and his phone. The latter of which was a locally produced model. While Apple and Samsung dominated the international phone market, the Scroll X was a popular model of phone that was rising to take the top spot of smart phones. It was a folding phone, able to be stretched to tablet sized and collapsible to be as small as a wallet. It was the last innovation from Nicholas Schnee before his death and all of it was thanks to Dust, the conductive resource used to transform Remnant from sleepy state capital to a mega city. For Jaune though, it was just another device to slip into his pocket.

Jaune himself fled to the detached family garage where the fleet of vehicles were kept. There were convertibles, sports cars, vans, and personal vehicles for each of the Arc children that lived under the Arc mansion roof. Mason meanwhile had his personal garage with his own vehicles and an M4 Sheman. Only Lavender was without a car so far and so she rode with Azora to Beacon. Jaune meanwhile had his black 2024 Hyundai Santa Fe, a blocky but practical SUV for his purposes.

Jaune settled into his vehicle and looked at the radio. 'Do I really want to be alone with my thoughts, listen to the same songs I’ve heard a hundred times before or shall I listen to rest of the world’s problems for my daily drive?’ He thought.

Shadow added. 'Am I really that boring of a companion? I thought I was the best friend you had?’

Jaune replied with a level. 'No.’ After a moment. 'That reminds me.’ He fetched out his scroll and opened it. He then sent off a pair of messages to two of his friends, Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie. The message was short and to the point.” Hey, you two, just letting you know that I’m going to be early, by about ten minutes.” He would be leaving about half an hour earlier than he usually did, but it gave himself time to think as he listened to the radio.  

So it was that Jaune left the family compound as he heard the local news. After a few commercials the announcer finally spoke. "This is Alec Shade bringing you the news for Friday, February 28^th. We begin our broadcast with the biggest news story of the month, that being the currently on-going water trial against the Schnee Dust Company remains contested. Jacques Schnee testified through a lawyer that due to his company using the already in placed infrastructure and his own companies track record of improving said infrastructure, that the SDC should not be held liable for the leakage of dust residue in the drinking water of Menagerie and Mistral.”

‘And what a crock that is.’ Thought Jaune sullenly. 'The biggest scandal involving watermains since Flint and of course anyone that would be found responsible will be able to weasel their way out of the charges. That company has been causing nothing but trouble since it started, with Faunus popping up ever since that mine started operating.’

Shadow chimed in. 'If you feel so strongly about it, why not take it out on the princess of the company, she sits right next to you in class.’ And Jaune was struck with the vision of Weiss Schnee, his powerful hand wrapped around her throat, her soft thighs wrapped around his waist as he fucked her on her desk. Her eyes begging for him to go harder, begging him to punish her.   

Jaune shuttered the thought away. 'She isn’t responsible for that, even if her father or grandfather is. Remember my family is still getting hounded for what my grand dad did in Africa. Lavender can’t hurt a fly and gets lumped in with grandpa as a murdering racist.’  

After the soundbite ended with the Schnee lawyer in the court room repeating the same information the announcer had given, which was on track for most news announcements, Alec continued. "Last night also saw mostly peaceful protest turn violent in Downtown Remnant, after police shooting of unarmed Faunus teen Tyrone Hoover was declared justified. Members of social activist group The Fang were on the scene when our reporters arrived on the scene after the protest began.”

To that Jaune rolled his eyes as the soundbite played. 'I can get why their angry, they're the newest homegrown American minority. The same time near constant riots every time something doesn’t go their way for the past ten years and fighting over minority bragging rights with every other race just makes me not care.’ The Faunus were a new human minority made up of the various races of the city of Remnant, that had been changed over the past two hundred years by exposure from Dust. For some reason exposure to raw Dust has caused mutations in the population, turning hundreds of thousands of people into beastly folk that had animal traits, traits that could be passed down to their children making them an entire new racial minority separate from what other race their skin or ethnic origin may have been generations before. Now it was a population in the low millions. 

Shadow gave a hearty chuckle. 'Ha, you know if you want to teach those animals a lesson there is one girl in your class that can use a taming.’

Again Jaune was hit with a vision of the lovely feline Faunus Blake Belladonna, bent over her desk, her arms being held by him as he fucked her from behind. That fat, dark, Belladonnabooty slapping against his hips as he rammed into her, a cute pink collar wrapped around her neck that jingled with a name tag declaring Jaune her owner. A moan coming from her lips."Master….”

Jaune pulled himself from the vision and back to the road. 'Blake is not part of The Fang anymore then her parents are now. She doesn’t deserve that.’ Over the past thirty years The Fang had gone from a local faunu's social aid group to militant’s that had far outstripped their rivals like BLM when social upheaval hit the US. They were far from national however as their power resided mostly within the Menagerie district, where the water from the mines had initially been dumped into. It was there that Sienna Khan ruled unofficially, while Ghira Belladonna acted as an official city councilor for the district.

Shadow sniped at Jaune. 'Don’t you forget that kitty only just left the Fang. She needs to learn her place and what better way then making her realize where she should have been all the time. Beneath you.’ Blake had officially and finally cut off her ties to The Fang after entering her sophomore year at Beacon, when she had become part of a new clique at school called WYPB, or whipped, the word taking the first letter of each of the girl’s names in the clique. In this case WYPB stood for Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao long, Pyrrha Nikos and Blake Belladonna. That seemed to be a trend at school with group names, at least there wasn’t a group with all the same name like Heather, however the role of top bitch squad was filled by NDGO.

The interview ended and Alec continued, giving Jaune a thankful distraction. "It's not only protestors that are filing the streets as of late. There are more reports of wild animals in the city, in the Mistral District there has been a mauling by a pack of dogs. A black bear has also been reported to be in the Menagerie district. Fish and Game agents are currently searching for the bear to relocate it and are asking the public for help for to track it.” What followed was another interview with a Fish and Game officer who gave the hotline number for tips. Reminding the public not to call in sightings Faunus and such a use of the system will be considered as harassment.

That did cause Jaune some concern. 'More animals? First it was that pack of hogs in Vacou, now we are having feral dogs and bears. I bet even animal control is wondering what the hell is going on. I wonder if their getting run ragged with those pranksters calling in about Dogmen and Sasquatch being in the city.’

For once Shadow said something positive. 'I think we can take one of those dogmen. Why don’t you go hunting for one? Give yourself a challenge.’

For his part Jaune shut down that conversation immediately. 'Go hunting for a cryptid? For one I don’t own a gun and for two, I have overheard Ruby enough to know that I would be a feather weight compared to a dogman. Eight feet tall, claws, fangs and six hundred pounds of ‘roided up German shepherd? I have multiple personalities disorder, not a death wish.’

Of course, Shadow was far from done with Jaune. With praise there also came temptation. 'You know. You’re right. You should hunt for an easier prize. Ruby would be an easy enough to take and mount as a trophy.’

Jaune cursed as the thought struck him, one of his dear friends, made into another imagined conquest. Ruby was a perfect mix of his former female friends, full breasts, round bubble rump, soft thighs and enchanting silver eyes that set her apart from all others at the school. He imagined Ruby’s wrists were bound and held above her on a deer antler rack, his hands reaching out to grasp her thighs as her legs were wrapped around his waist, ankles locked. A red ball gag only making her moans and cries sound like bestial braying as her stud fucked her to the point when her feet next touched the ground, she would be pregnant.

Jaune banished those thoughts. He had been distant to Ruby and Yang for a reason. That reason was because he didn’t want to be left alone with them when he had these urges and dark thoughts. Fighting the urges when he was at home was tough enough as is. Fighting them when he was alone with a pair of girls who were both beauties in their own right? That was downright impossible in his current state of mind. With Yang having her own bike it meant she could pick up and drop off Rubes when they went to school, giving him some relief. When it came to Nora though he had the excuse she was some other guy’s girl, specifically Ren’s, one of his old friends, thus it allowed him some leeway and the fantasies would subside.

The news meanwhile prattled on. "in other news, plans for the 200th anniversary of the founding of Remnant have been approved by the city board to go forward after partitioners attempted to cancel the celebrations. Protestors have said that since Remnant was founded by slavers along with Arkansas fighting for the Confederacy, celebrations should instead focus on the past century and the contributions of subsequent waves of immigration along with a focus on Faunus rights. The city board has compromised with protesting elements and will be revealing plans for the official celebration, which will be held memorial-day weekend at Vytal stadium.”

Jaune had a passing interest in that topic, after all his family had taken part in the city’s founding and were some of the first families to settle in the county of Vale. So as the news went on to the subject of the nation at large, Jaune instead fell into thought about his hometown. The city of Remnant was an oddity in Arkansas. It was a city that laid at the heart of the state, yet it did not feel like a part of it. Indeed, the previous city of Little Rock upon which Remnant now stood was wholly different geographically to what stood now in its place. The great earthquake of 1825 had leveled what was once a frontier city, killing most of the settlers that lived in the region as the ground was split and the land torn asunder. Little Rock was destroyed, now where Menagerie stands, and in its place the survivors called this land Remnant, thus it was renamed to something more fitting.

After two hundred years since the city’s re-founding, war had seen the land coated in blood, raiding had left the earth scorched and the breaking of chains had left the city rattling ever since. It was a modern city built upon the remnants of the past; it was a city that was one of the most advanced in the continental U.S. but also one of the most divided. A city Jaune was born and raised in. One that his family was equally revered and despised in.

Jaune thought of his father when he thought of Remnant, due to what his old man had done sanitizing the image of the Arcs. The biggest step in that’s transformation was when Mason starred in the Lion trilogy which were the films Lion of the South, Lion of Mexico and Mountain Lion. It saw the then young star wrestler break out into film almost thirty years ago. The film themselves told the fictionalized story of Johnny Arc, one of Masons and Jaune’s direct ancestors where he fought first for the Confederacy, then for the Emperor of Mexico before becoming a bandit in the mountains of the west. Mason was able to catch one of the last waves of southern pride when movies featuring confederate protagonists could of still been done without an forced redemption arc. It was also the movie series that saw Mason meet Jaunes mother Estelle, an actress in her own right, and the romance subplot of Mountain Lion resulted in the pair marrying once the attraction continued after the camera’s had turned off.

Since then, Mason had been busy with movie deals, promotions, rebuilding the family manor and plowing his wife’s fertile fields to make a large family. But that also meant Mason wasn’t around much for the family, especially with him on a shoot of a Doc Savage film in Japan right now, keeping him away from his family for the past two months. The last time Jaune had seen his father was Christmas, but he had sent messages to the family in the meantime and video messages with the rest of the cast. So, while his father was distant, it was a loving distance.

Jaune smiled. Mason arc was one of the few positive things that kept Jaune sane. If anything, to avoid disappointment from him.

Jaune had taken a slower, less direct route to the suburbs that his friends called home. It allowed him to take in the sights of Vale and to clear his mind. This place was his home, he had been born in this district and raised on the old family home stead, he had walked the streets here as a child and now as an young man he drove the roads. His city was a strange one, where beastfolk co-existed with regular humans, where the biome varied wildly from district to district and where history clashed with the modern era. This was a storied city that Jaune’s ancestors had helped shaped and now could reap the harvest of. 

Vale was considered the most solidly middle class of Remnant districts, save for the neighborhood of Mountain Glen on the south side, holding the most temperate biome of the varied districts.’ Well except for Forever Fall Park.’ Jaune thought. Much like the rest of Remnant, it was another of the strangeness of the city that made it so different than any other in the US. The Forever Fall Forest, as it was once called, was a forest that was in constant fall foliage, as bright as any New England state in the middle of autumn. The reason why the trees were that way turned out to be the same reason for much of the strangeness in the city, exposure to dust. Over the past two hundred years however what was a great forest had shrunk down to a large park on the north side of Vale. 'Nice place to take a walk, if it wasn’t for the cute joggers there, I could visit it more often.’

Shadow added. 'Even more reason to visit. Plenty of leaf piles and bushes to have your fun with those girls.’

Jaune bashed Shadow aside. 'That’s prison time you horny fucker.’ Jaune gave a mental sigh. 'I wish I could visit allot of places I used to go as a kid without feeling like a monster that is just one slip from spilling blood or going on rape frenzy. Atlas makes me feel like a gorilla in a suit.’   

Atlas and the capital of Remnant were considered the upscale districts where if you wanted to live, you needed to have an income in the six-figure range to even consider an apartment. 'I remember going to parties there till a few years back. Then puberty hit me like a ton of bricks. After that, pretty dresses were suddenly ‘sexy’ pieces of cloth to rip off.’

His families’ connections and money meant they could of settled there, but Mason had firmly stuck to the roots and bought the manor from his mother when he finally had enough cash to pay for it and she to head to Florida. Though just because his family did not buy into the richer parts of the city, that they had avoided Atlas all together, when he was a child, he did go to fund raisers and had rubbed shoulders with the other well to do families. The Schnee’s were amongst those that his mother had dragged him to parties to the most, he had gotten along well with them and even Nicholas when he was alive.

Shadow though could not leave well enough alone with Jaune’s wistful memories. 'You also got along well with those Schnee girls, shame you didn’t listen to me when I first kicked in and put Weiss in a toilet stall and knock her up.’

Jaune snorted. 'Yeah no, I doubt that there would be a shotgun wedding as much as it would have been just a shotgun. Also fuck, from the bottom of my mentally unstable heart, you for coming out of nowhere at that party and making me a nervous wreck.’

Now it was Shadow to sound incredulous. 'Me, cause you to be nervous? I’m your confidence. Just because you vomited when you realized what you wanted to do, don’t blame it on me for first suggesting it.’

Jaune countered. 'It was because of you suggesting that I fuck a girl on a toilet that I threw up. Ever since Weiss has treated me like I’m some white trash from Vacuo.’     

To the west of Vale was Vacuo, one of the poorer districts of the city. That was where the poor whites had settled once Vale and Remnant had been rebuilt after the civil war. It was also one of the most extreme environmental changes in the city where it was partially a desert, which was an contrast to the cooler and greener parts of the rest of the city and state. The desert had left the district of Vacuo to resemble something closer to the old west, that was till in the 50s and 60s when urban development had partially reformed it when some entrepreneurs had invested into the area, adding Arabian flare. While there were public buildings and some neighborhoods that outwardly looked like they were part of some sheik’s realm, that did not mean there was money that followed the wave of middle eastern migration into that district.

Shadow just couldn’t help but take an opportunity to punch at Jaune again. 'Your family is just a step from that trash, embrace it. Take Yang or one of your sisters and become king of the trailer park. You’re being wasted at school, at least in a trailer park you can fight rowdy’s and fuck bitches and leave your girls barefoot and pregnant.’

Gritting his teeth, Jaune gave an angry growl. 'So, you’re falling for that propaganda about my family?’ He and his family were the targets of occasional waves of cancel culture despite his father’s work to reform the image since the Lion Trilogy. Yet there was the fact Jaune had a white African warlord for a grandfather that always got brought up despite how far his father pushed away from the past. Jaune did not want to see that hard work disappear down the drain all for some horny personality. 'Screw off! I’m not sharing a bed with one my sisters, let alone in some flee infested trailer for your sick fantasy.’

But if there was one thing that Shadow was, it was insidious. It had seen a weak point and attacked.’ Oh? I noticed a lack of defense of Yang. Those big tits of hers getting to you? Maybe that blonde hair of hers can remind you of your sisters when you fuck her. Wanting to tame that dragon runs deeper then you admit.’ Shadows tone was prideful as it knew that Yang was a sore subject for Jaune.

Despite Yang Xiao Long having a name that made her sound like she should have been born in Mistral or a Chinatown in some other part of the nation, she was whiter than some native Europeans. Long golden blonde hair, eyes that were of a soft shade of lilac, a body that was the perfect mix between pornstar and MMA fighter. If her looks did not stun then her fists surely would, since she was built for actual combat as much as looks. She was also a girl he was close to for years since he grew up alongside her at elementary school, then Signal Middle School and till recently Beacon Academy. That all changed though when his mind and body began to twist into the miserable pile of muscle and depression it was now. Yang went from ‘tomboy friend’ to ‘bombshell buddy’ overnight, with her little sister Ruby following her example soon after.

Jaune had to push himself away from Yang, no more friendly sparring with her or Ruby, no more study nights that turned into fighting game tournaments. Lest those three-way tournaments turned into actual three ways. Jaune had to break all but the most casual of interaction with Yang and Ruby. The only interaction he had with them outside of Beacon was picking them up for said school, but that changed when Yang got Bumblebee for her Christmas gift from her parents. Jaune had both hurt himself and Yang especially when he said they needed to take separate ways to get to school once Yang had her bike. Yet there were fantasies he held about her, about being the only one in the same car with her, laying her in the back and just going to town on her. He couldn’t risk that becoming a reality, he couldn’t destroy the friendship they had if he forced that on her, no matter how badly he wanted to plow her in the back of his car. After that meeting at school though they may as well of had finished their friendship totally, she had not spoken to him in the past month and with his crippling fear of what he was capable of, he had not reached out to her.

Jaune admonished Shadow. 'You forced my hand you bastard. I don’t want to break her; I don’t want anything that you force me to imagine to happen. This is 2025, in Arkansas for god’s sake, not some meet and fuck game with anime sluts with blue hair.’

There was a beat before Shadow replied. Then it hit Jaune with a truth. 'You do know that you are talking about Remnant? You have girls in your class that have purple hair that are all natural. You go to the other parts of your city you’ll be seeing sluts that may as well be from a hentai. Hell, you go over to Mistral, and you may as well be in an twenty four hour anime convention.’ 

Mistral was the eastern district of Remnant, it was where the waves of immigrants settled or whatever wave of hippies, hipsters and gen z trendsetters called home, at least it would be home till they moved out to one of the other districts or away from the city once the current excitement of their generation died down. It meant that Mistral was the most diverse and ever changing of neighborhoods, with fashion that combined elements both traditional and the avent garde depending on the movements or immigrant wave at the time. It also was the district, besides Menagerie, that had the greatest amount of mutation caused by dust exposure. Though unlike in Menagerie which saw the Faunus to arise, the mutations were instead of different hair and eye colors that in the rest of the world would have been impossible otherwise. Green hair, blue hair, pink hair, hair that combined multiple tones and eyes that were just as varied. It made migration to the district popular for outsiders to purposefully attempt to be mutated.

Jaune though fought back against Shadow. 'Oh lovely, would you like to change the laws of the state and federal government? I don’t know if you noticed but there are consequences for those sorts of actions. Hell just sleeping with a girl consensually can get me the rape accusation if she doesn’t like me in the morning. What the hell do you think will happen if I decide to actually rape some girl? You got DNA evidence, then you got video camera’s everywhere and picking me out of a lineup is going to be pretty easy unless you have some linebackers from the Remnant Woodsmen show up.’ Jaune gripped his steering wheel with a white-knuckle strength as his mind was filled with conflict. To him he felt as though he was squaring up for a scrap.

Shadow pestered Jaune, unrelenting in his attack to break down the young Arc. 'You’re ruled by fear and what ifs. You deny yourself pleasure. What for? It's you right to enjoy life, you’ve locked yourself away in your room. Get into a real fight and break some bones, get out there and use your daddy’s money to live it up, use that body and make your parents some grandchildren. Those animals in Menagerie are breaking into shops, beating up humans, breeding bitches in their porno’s and are getting away with everything by donations to their ‘struggle’.’        

Those ‘animals’ Shadow spoke about, Jaune knew what he meant. The Fang, or when his family used to associate with them, The White Fang. Jaune could not let this slight go however. 'The Fang have good people in it still. Menagerie is full of good people, Faunus and human alike. The Belladonna’s are a family of those good people. They’re not animals.’

The district of Menagerie had faults. After Remnant was rebuilt the first time it was home to freemen and natives, then after the civil war it was home to free blacks and whites that were poor enough, they couldn’t even live in Vacuo. The trend started to develop over the next hundred years that the losers of Remnant would flow to Menagerie no matter the race, to put together a life somehow and stick it out.

Then the newest sub-species of the human race started to pop up in Menagerie all the way back in the 1830s, then really exploded in population in the 1970s. As it turned out the old saying of ‘Black and white will team up to beat up the orange and blue’ had been prophetic when Faunus started to mutate and be born in greater numbers then ever seen before. Suddenly there was a new bottom rung on the social totem pole in Remnant and what followed was twenty years of exploitation, criminal slavery, kidnapping and in a few cases forced experimentation on those sitting at the bottom of said rung.      

There had been attempts to change things, waves of public spending to improve the situation, yet it usually ended in failure with the district tuning into the worse aspects of Detroit, Gaza, Portland and San Francisco. But some people kept trying to improve the lot in Menagerie, the Belladonna’s were one of families that had arisen to the challenge. They were second generation Indian immigrant stock, Ghira was half English with his wife Kali being full blooded, though both were of the baby boom generation Faunus born in the late 70s and 80s. The Belladonna’s were some of the first founders of The White Fang back in the early 2000s as a social group dedicated to improving Menagerie, by taming the gangs, getting legal recognition as a minority and labor offices to put people to work.  

Shadow though had other ideas. 'That wasn’t what you were thinking earlier. You may of grew up with Blake, but I saw what you really want to do to her. I’ve known for years what you’ve wanted to do to her. Especially after each break up she had. What was it. Oh yeah.’ Come here little kitten, let me give you a pet. That’s my girl, you like masters scritches don’t you’. Oh I love this line-‘

Jaune Inwardly groaned. 'For the love of god don’t.’ He pleaded.

Shadow was having none of Jaunes whining, not when he could remind Jaune of his own lust and cringe.’ Put on this collar, my kitty, so others know who you belong to.’

Jaune recoiled from those words. His imagination had won out far to many times when it came to Blake and dehumanizing her. Usually, those visions came at night when he needed to relieve himself of the ever-constant blue balling he put himself through. He had known Blake since they were exceptionally little, when they were kids escaping from ‘boring grown-up talk’ at donation drives by diving under tables or finding places no so they didn’t have to listen to the speeches the ‘old folks’ made. That was till a decade ago when the social environment changed with radical racial politics taking hold. The White Fang dropped the ‘White’ from its name as it was deemed as being ‘possessive of a race’. Soon after his parents found themselves no longer welcomed at those donation drives, instead protestors greeted them with ‘Enslaver’ and 'We’ll never be tamed’ placards. Things only got worse after Ghira and Kali left the Fang and Sienna Khan took over, that’s when The Fang really became the paramilitary organization it was today.

Blake stayed on with the organization even when the riots broke out in 2020, running working directly for them for three years. Khan meanwhile made sure to use that chaos as a ladder after the SDC had killed Asterion Taurus on Memorial Day after he was broken in one of their facilities. The details of what happened next were murky, Blake was not forth coming after she left, but the results were that the Fang had cleaned house of the old guard and what followed was three months of burning, looting and murder that left The Fang as the only true political force in Menagerie, forcing out the human centric racial groups. The gangs were ‘eliminated’, some human owned businesses were destroyed, and the municipal police had practically retreated out of the district. Only Ghira remained in power out of the old guard due to himself being a city commissioner and his popularity with the moderates and older residents of the district.

All of those past few years had put a bitter taste in Jaunes mouth and left him resentful to Blake. She was the only Faunus friend he had growing up and she had thrown her lot in with The Fang, the same Fang that betrayed his family, the same Fang that had led what amounted to a soft occupation of Menagerie. Yet he was conflicted about Blake especially once his puberty took hold and he distanced himself from his old friends, he felt like a monster and wondered if she had felt the same way before leaving the Fang. They didn’t talk much but they did look at one another on occasion. Jaune wondered what had happened between them and he questioned if she thought the same thing.

He had heard rumors that she had broken more than a few hearts in Menagerie, but they had all ended by her second year in Beacon. But if there was one thing he knew about Blake, it was this. 'She isn’t an animal.’ Jaune spoke defiantly. 'She is a human, I do anything I fantasize about and she will go running back to The Fang and she’ll tell the others that they’re right. I am a monster, an enslaver and a man from a family that treated Faunus like political pets.’

There was a pause from Shadow, Jaune had hoped that was enough. That this would see the darkness silence for the day as he drove to pick up Ren and Nora. Yet the darkness was far from finished. 'You act like you’ll just let these women go. If you do let them go, they will act as you say. Own them. Start with the weakest of them. Start with the bunny.’

Jaune felt his breath catch as he knew only one rabbit Faunus in his class. 'Leave her out of this.’ Jaune commanded, his mental tone harsh. His hands sunk into the grip of the wheel almost like he was forming fists. The plastic bending around his fingers.

Shadow knew it had struck an nerve and pressed to make Jaune squirm. 'She is so weak compared to you, a broken home, bullied by Cardin. She wouldn’t even need to be broken to be your slut, just a warm place on your lap would be enough. She would be easy to-‘

Jaune had had enough. "I will fucking wrap this car around a telephone pole if you say another god damn word!” He shouted loudly, the scream filling the SUV and most likely a few passersby on the street would of heard it if there were any this early in the morning. Then silence, welcome, beautiful silence. It was only broken by the rumble of the engine and the sound of the radio as the announcer was onto sport teams. For long moments Jaune’s mind was still and his fingers released the steering wheel, the indentations remaining as he finally relaxed.

Eventually he reached the entrance to Kuroyuri, a large suburb built in the 80s and early 90s by Japanese investors with a suitably mixed Japanese and American feel to the buildings. There waiting for him at a corner were his two classmates, the stoic Ren and the ever-bubbly Nora. Ren was a mixed raced teenager; his father was of Chinese descent and his mother a white native to Mistral. While Ren did have his mother’s pink eyes and a streak of pink hair, he took more from his father with his build being wiry and hair being pure black. The stronger build was from being an apprentice bowyer to his father and also being an accomplished archer in his own right. Nora on the other hand was what could be called a short stack. A red headed, five foot nothing with the assets nearly equal to Yang. Full breasts, plump ass and thighs that even she called thunderous. All of it contained in a cute schoolgirl outfit that belonged to Beacon Academy.

Nora practically hung off the side of Ren as she waved at Jaune while Ren gave a smile and nod. Jaune rolled up and put on his own smile as he spoke. "Good to see you two up so early.”

Nora opened the door to the back seats and spoke. "You did spook me when I got that text. I barely had time to scoff down breakfast before I had to pull old sleepy head out of bed.” She took her seat in the middle of the back, while Ren settled next to her.

Ren added as he and Nora strapped their seat belts on. "So may I ask why your picking us up so early? Usually your more punctual.”

Jaune came up with an easy lie. "It’s my birthday weekend. I may not be having a party, but it doesn’t mean I can’t go easy on myself. So I decided to cut my work out early. I’ll have a cheat day on Sunday and pay for it on Monday.” His stomach grumbled loud enough in annoyance of not being fed to betray his lie.

Nora spoke. "Damn that was loud enough to shake the car. Did you miss out on eating a whole horse?”

Ren meanwhile raised an eyebrow and asked a more direct question. "Are you sure it was the workout you skipped or the breakfast?”

Jaune sighed. "Alright, so its because I got to talk to Peach about a late assignment. There my secret failing of a student has been revealed to all.” He looked in the rear-view mirror. "Ren old buddy, old pal? Can I ask for the best way to kill my self honorably as a failure? Surely you have some far eastern wisdom you dad has taught you just in case you got an B+?”

Ren rolled his eyes at the casually racist joke. "My dad isn’t a Tiger Parent. But if you talked to him that way, the best advice he would give you for a rather painful death is to show up at a Fang meeting with a collar in one hand and a brand in the other and ask.’ Where the in-heat bitches at?’”

Nora giggled and added. "If you’re lucky Sienna will be there and she’ll claw you herself. That way you can get the whole ‘Tiger’ experience in one gory explosion.” She then raised up her hands and went. "Sploosh! Jaunes blood and guts on the walls, the ceiling and somehow in someone’s hair.”

Jaune chuckled at the humor, he had set himself up for the fall and it felt good to get that laugh out after the awful morning. As he began to drive for Beacon, Nora spoke. "So big guy.”

Jaune asked in reply. "So, gnome?”

Nora responded to the tit for tat with. "I was going to ask how the weather is up there. But since you’re so tall I’ll break you legs so I can talk to you at eye level.” She had a sharp grin on her face. "No, what I was going to ask is how do you feel about a few of us in the old gang show up at your house to hang out on Sunday?”

Jaune gave a sigh. "Nora, I said I didn’t want a party this year.” Then silently Jaune added. ‘Or for the past two years really, not ever since Shadow showed up.’

Nora brushed aside Jaunes words. "I said hang out, not have a party. Me, Ren, Yang and Ruby all together at your place one more time before graduation. Come on it’s been forever since we all hung out, especially since Yang started driving Ruby to school.”

The sprite knew what words to use on Jaune to make him feel guilt. He needed to talk to Yang, at least once more so that they didn’t end their friendship like Blake had with him all those years ago. Without nary a word between each other and him wondering what had went wrong between them. With a tired voice he finally said. "Alright, you need to convince Yang though. She has been giving me the cold shoulder since I told her no more rides for her and her sister. Tell her that I need to talk to her, to apologize at least.”

Jaune saw in the mirror Nora give a knowing smirk to Ren and he gave a sly smile in return. 'What are those two up to?’ Jaune asked himself silently.

Nora looked back to Jaune. "You got it big guy. Who knows there might be a birthday surprise for you as well.” She gave a cheerful smile.

Jaune however had a vision of Nora in the rear-view mirror, her nude body on full display, legs open and pussy glistening with want. Her grin an open invitation and the words filled Jaunes ears. 'Enjoy your birthday surprise big guy.’

Jaune shuddered and looked back to the road. "I can’t wait for it.” And he gripped the steering wheel tightly yet again. Nora was not his, nor would she ever be his. She and Ren were together, and he was happy for them.   

’You’ll never be able to destroy these desires, only yourself.’      

Yang Xiao Long was a woman of action, at home she was playing video games, or making use of the punching bag to practice between bouts at the gym or her family, or her new favorite activity, riding her bike. She was not a woman that wanted to be at rest, especially as she leaned against her bike and was scrolling through her apps on her scroll, waiting for her little sister to finally finish getting dressed for the ride to Beacon. Though she would rather be in the garage next to her baby then wasting away in her room. It had taken four years of yard work around the neighborhood, saving as much as she could from allowances and begging her parents, but it had all paid off two months ago when at last her bike was finished and delivered on Christmas day. It was a custom job, with bright yellow-orange panels that made it a bright streak of yellow when she was finally allowed to hit the throttle. The bike was her pride and joy, it was her pet, it was her baby. It was her Bumblebee.

It was also the source of her recent frustrations.

Soon as she rolled up to school post-Christmas break, showing off her bike to the rest of the students, Jaune took her aside and told her in no uncertain terms that the carpool with him and the rest of the old friend group was over. That she now held the responsibility to take her sister to school. She thought he was joking, after all who would drop that bombshell out of nowhere? But he had held firm after she tried to laugh it off. The argument that followed saw Jaune be the most bullheaded stubborn man she had ever seen and left her seeing red when the bell rang, forcing them to drop the issue. Since then, she had not talked to him for over a month and it was grating on her.

Yes she had stopped talking to him, but he was the one that had insulted her and her sister by dropping them without warning. It was Jaunes responsibility to talk to her. She liked talking to the big guy, she liked hanging out with him and now all of those years she had spent with him didn’t mean anything at all because she could get around on a bike now. Hell, even then she couldn’t go to school some days due to Summer insisting on if it was raining she and Ruby had to take a car. So the car pooling could of still worked. Instead on rainy days she and Ruby now had to ride with their dad to school. Luckily today wasn’t one of those days.

Yang sighed as the cool morning air filling the open garage as she looked at her social’s. She was distracting herself with those videos, rather then listening to the caw and cry of ravens that seemed to hang around her home. She looked across the road at one in particular raven that she could pick out from the others, due to its ruffled feathers. It was like that one had latched onto her sometime in the distant past, maybe she fed it and forgot about it, yet it stuck around.

Yang shook her head, she had better things to worry about then a bird, she had her buddies to think about. While she had her own friend group to hang out with WYPB, she also had Lie, Nora and even Ruby for the old pre-Beacon days gang. But there was one person she still missed hanging out with the most, the big lug Jaune. Even watching a video from Li Rens workshop brought back memories of hanging out with Jaune. She and her company of friends would go to Black Lilly Bowyers and test out the composite bows, even showing up in a few old commercials in the background. Though they would also do uncredited roles from time to time in costume in promo videos. Those shoots were fun, from the target shooting, to the archery jokes and even improv they would do in said costumes when the cameras weren’t rolling. She missed how Jaune was cast usually as the yeoman heel in those videos and took it in stride or how he could come out with some great insults out of nowhere.’ Pluck you Yaldson!’ was one of those insults he threw around that was so strange and out of left field it left her a giggling mess.

But it wasn’t all fun and games. She remembered watching Jaune with the bows and how quickly he went from hilarious heel, to ace archer as soon as he picked up each model. It really didn’t matter if it was a training short bow, a long bow, a composite bow or a two-hundred-pound long bow. As soon as Jaune was sending arrows down range it was like watching a re-incarnated Little John up showing an Asian Robin Hood, of course played by Li Ren. Yang remembered those days and how she would lean on her own long bow and watch as she imagined Jaune’s naked muscles worked the ancient weapons. She wasn’t the only maiden that eyed the boys either when at the range, Nora was clearly torn in her vision between Jaune, Lie and the dilfy Li, while Ruby failed at her own attempt to keep her own eyes from stripping Jaune.

Yang grimaced as the memory turned sour. "Dammit Jaune.” She closed the video and zipped the phone away into her sheep skin bomber jacket, not wanting to be further reminded of good times turning bad. "You ruined that to.” She was certain that Jaune had caught sight of the girls lusting after the boys and that was why he refused to go to any more shoots or archery practice at the Rens.

“Why is it that whenever we have fun together you need to ruin it.” Yang’s lilac eyes looked up at the ceiling of the garage, her arms wrapping under her considerable bust. She took comfort holding herself, it felt like she was being held by someone else, in particular it felt like someone was holding her curves. The feeling her strong muscular arms granted however was hollow compared to the real arms she wanted around her, holding her and tightly touching her breasts. Her bust was a triple D cup, having gone up another size in the past year. Her brown bomber jacket, decorated with a golden Chinese dragon on the back, hugged her girls and snugly wrapped around her hourglass waist. Her full hips, soft thighs and generous ass meanwhile was contained in a pair of tight leather pants. With her boots adding a few extra inches onto her 5’7 body and made her curves pop even more when she walked. While her golden blonde hair flowed behind her.        

“Sis?” Ruby asked as she in the garage doorway. "Are you talking about me?”

Ruby was two years younger than Yang and looked like a completely different woman compared to her half-sister. Ruby had short black hair with a reddish tint and beheld a pair of silver eyes. Her body followed after her mother Summer Rose as well, with her being 5’2 compared to her sisters 5’7. But she made up with the height difference with having a more petite frame that was able to better show case what curves she did have. From her plump booty to her BB breasts and soft thighs, she was already a teenaged beauty that was destined to look like a taller more filled out version of her mother. She wore a red and black racing jacket, blue shorts and black leggings, while on her back was her oversized school backpack. The latter of which contained her books and her school uniform for when she had to change when she got to Beacon.

Yang shook her head as she turned to Ruby. "Nah, I’m just thinking about a certain tall, blonde and bullheaded prick.”

“Yourself?” Ruby asked with an almost innocent tilt to her head.

Yang grinned. "Glad to see my sarcasm is wearing off on ya sis.” She reached across from her and picked up a pair of bike helmets from a counter. There were a total of four helmets, one that was a simple yellow helmet, another was a yellow full-face helmet with a pair of cat ears on it that looked to be used more for cosplay, while the last two were red and yellow full face covering helmets of the same model. Yang offered the red helmet to her sister.

As Ruby picked up the red helmet she spoke. "Either it rubs off, or it rubs me the wrong way.” She smiled as she put on the helmet. Her sister likewise followed with her own helmet before hopping onto the bike.

As Yang rested on the bike, she turned the key in the ignition and starting up the motorcycle, she spoke. "Helm, sync with Bumblebee.” With a purr the bike turned on and a heads-up display appeared on her helmets visor. It depicted in the corners of her vision transparent markers and gauges. On her bottom right was a minimap and GPS, to her bottom left was her gauges and speed. "Helm, activate sync with Ruby’s system." After a moment her sisters profile picture appeared in the top left corner of the display.

Ruby’s voice broke through the internal com’s of the helmet as she moved to sit on the back of Bumblebee and wrap her arms around her sisters waist. "So what’s the plan after school?” The voice was clear and could be heard over the engine as Yang started to drive. The sound dampening system in the helmet kept out most residual noise.

“That depends on the homework load. Hard to ignore it when dad is one of our teachers.” Yang answered. "But I’m thinking of cutting loose and heading back home, get the weekend started early. You?”

“Pretty much the same. I want to fiddle around with my AR when I get back home.” Ruby replied.

While other 16-year-olds would be begging for their first car, Ruby had instead begged for an AR-15 and gunsmithing tools when she was closing in to her birthday last year. While many parents would of said no outright to their child’s request, both Summer and Tai had decided to get their daughter the firearm. That was due to Ruby being responsible for the maintenance of the families’ firearms for the past few years when she showed a knack for both disassembly and assembly of the weapons. She showed both a love and a hatred for weaponry only armorers and gunsmiths could really display. A career that also had money in it. So It was that her parents had gotten her a rifle, tools and parts and left their gun nut of a daughter to drool over her birthday present.

Yang was happy that her sister had a hobby and a future career, but…. "What about ROYL?” She asked about her sisters clique as she took a tight turn.

Ruby answered easily as she leaned into the turn. "Olivia is busy with her brother at the Botanical Club, Yaami is getting into arguments with her family about arranged marriages and Lavender is juggling schoolwork and her Pathfinder campaign. Me and the girls are planning on hanging out once break rolls around though.”

"Lavender is running a game now? What about you’re old campaign?” Yang questioned with an intrigued tone. She had been the first to graduate from boardgames to Dungeons and Dragons, then again to Pathfinder when the latter system turned out to be cheaper to get into and more in depth. While she loved her video games, boxing and her bike, the tactical options in RPGs had been far more rewarding in the long run. She had been in an on again off again campaign with Ruby and a few other friends, however things had changed recently.

“Well its kinda dead since our Champion decided to flake out for the past six months. So Lavender has decided to step in and make a new campaign for me and the girls. You want in?” There was a hopeful tone in Ruby’s voice.

‘I’d love to.’ Yang thought.’ Butttt.’

“Its happening over at Jaune’s house isn’t?” Yang asked.

Ruby sputtered to answer. "Well yeah, but it doesn’t mean that Jaune-“

It was at that point that there came a ding and in the upper right corner of Yang’s visor was the profile pic of Nora with a message notification. "Hold that thought sis.” Yang said to Ruby. "Helm mute conversation. Helm open message from Nora.”

In an instant the transparent text message appeared in the right side of her HUD. 'Hey Yang, so me and Ren are in a carpool with Jaune and we got to talking about weekend plans. Well, Jaune overheard us and after a while he asked us to hang out at his house this Sunday!’

Yang rolled her eyes. 'Fantastic, good for them.’ She thought before she continued to read.

‘Anyway, we also talked some more about you and I think Jaune is tired of the cold shoulder, and he wants to talk to you in person. I think he has really come around to the idea that you were right and that he wants to apologize! Isn’t that great!?’

’Jaune has come around at last.’ Yang smirked in her helmet. 'But that doesn’t mean I can’t have my own fun when we meet up. I’m going to make that big lug realize what he’s been missing out on.’

Aloud Yang spoke. "Helm, transcribe reply.” The HUD changed and at the bottom of Nora’s text was now a blank space ready to write down Yangs reply. "Thanks Nora, I was wondering when he would come around. I want to mess around him for putting me through the wringer. When I meet him at Oobleck’s class should I go for sinful schoolgirl seductress or bubbly big, boobed bestie?” Before she made the command to reply she had an epiphany. 'Shit, I didn’t get Jaune anything for his birthday.’ So she added to the reply. "Also any suggestions for gifts for the birthday boy? Helm send reply.”

After the message was sent she spoke. "Helm resume communication.” As she reconnected with Ruby, Yang spoke. "Hey Rubes, I got some good news.”

“OMG you’re pregnant!” Ruby shouted excitedly.

Yang snorted. "That ain’t happening till I got a championship belt around my waist. Nah, Jaune is going to make an apology for what he did to us.”

Ruby squeezed Yang’s hips tighter. "Thats even better news. I was afraid that he’d never talk to us again after that blow up last month.” Then a moment later. "Or at least with you. You were kinda the one taking charge of that convo.”

“Hey someone has to take charge and make a stand against injustice of the innocent! Remember how many times I had to correct your meal when some idiot forgets to remove the pickles?”

“Yang!” Cried Ruby. "They’re just trying to do their job. You keep on doing stuff like that and they’ll call you a Karen.”

“No they won’t.” Yang spoke cheerfully.

“Wait why?” Ruby questioned.

“That’s because I always use a fake name if they ask for it.” Yang gave a laugh. "I don’t know if you noticed, but I look a hell lot more like a Barbara than a Yang.”

“Yang that’s fraud!”

“That’s a little white lie!” And there came a pop up from Nora’s text reply.” Hold that thought sis. Gotta reply.”

Yang opened the message and read. 'Oh tote’s sinful, that will drive the poor guy up a wall. Plus it gives you some more wiggle room for more of an apology from him than if you went with the bestie attitude. As for what to get him for his birthday, don’t you worry. Me and Ren both got you and Ruby something special to give Mr. tall, blonde and moody when we meet up on Sunday. You guy’s will love it~’

That piqued Yangs interest. "Helm record response. Care to give me a preview so I can get in on the joke?”

The reply came a moment later. 'Nah!’ The message ended with an emoji sticking out its tongue as one eye was closed.

‘What is she planning on doing?’ Yang asked herself. 'Most likely she is going to do something that is going to make us three look like idiots. I know I would do that for a gag. Well I am not the idiot who is gonna be blindsided by this. Hmm.” She thought. 'Better listen to some tunes to think.’

“Helm play Spotify.” An ad began to play as Yang settled into the drive to Beacon Academy. Her mind worked out problems as the music started to finally play, an older song called ‘Kings and Queens.’