Son of the Snake
Cold Steel and Broken Chess
The stone colonnade of the ancient ruins rose above the jungle canopy like the fractured ribs of a long-dead leviathan. Moss-draped arches cast jagged shadows across an overgrown courtyard, where several stone pedestals displayed an assortment of ornate chess pieces.
From fifty yards out, perched on a thick bough shielded by dense vines, Jaune observed the perimeter through a pair of compact digital binoculars.
"Thermal sweep shows two cold contacts already on-site," Jaune whispered, not turning his head. "Two relics missing. That means someone came through ahead of us, or dropped in earlier."
Blake knelt beside him on the branch, balanced with the effortless grace inherent to her feline nature. Even without shifting his gaze, Jaune could feel the subtle shift in the air as her ears twitch beneath that black ribbon.
"Can you identify who it was?" she asked softly.
"Footprints in the soft moss near the eastern arch," Jaune said, adjusting the focal dial. "Heavy boot prints with an aggressive tread pattern, paired with lightweight running flats. Probably Yang and that girl in orange."
Blake tilted her head, a faint smirk touching her lips. "You can tell all that just from the dirt?"
"Every combat boot has a distinct heel strike," Jaune said, lowering the binoculars. "Yang favors her right heel because of the recoil from her gauntlets; the ground under her right foot is packed three millimeters deeper. Dad made me spend two months tracking wolves through the Ansel tundra just by reading crushed twigs and snow compression. You learn to pay attention."
Blake watched him carefully. There was an earnest, quiet pride in the way he spoke of his father, but also the heavy discipline of someone who had never been allowed to be merely a child. She recognized that weight. She had felt it in the tents of the White Fang, under the relentless gaze of men who saw childhood as an unnecessary delay of a soldier's duty.
Yet Jaune didn't carry bitterness. His posture was alert, but his eyes were calm, anchored by an inner resolve that seemed almost bulletproof.
"He taught you well," Blake noted. "Most people who grow up around weapons carry a hunger to show them off. You carry them like a necessary burden."
Jaune glanced at her, offering a wry, half-crooked smile. "War isn't an exhibition, Blake. If you draw iron, it means someone's life is on the line. Flaunting it just invites a sniper's bullet." He tapped his thigh. "Speaking of which, we should secure our objective before the noise gets any louder."
"Agreed."
They dropped from the branch simultaneously, hitting the ancient flagstones without a whisper.
Moving in low, staggered bounds, they crossed the clearing and stepped into the circular sanctum. In the center, half a dozen pedestals held golden and obsidian chess pieces. Jaune scanned the remaining options: a pair of white rooks, a black queen, and a set of obsidian knights.
"Which one?" Blake asked, reaching a gloved hand toward the queen.
"Take the knight," Jaune suggested calmly. "The black knight."
Blake paused, her hand hovering over the dark stone carving. "Why the knight?"
"In chess, knights are the only pieces that can jump over obstacles," Jaune said, stepping up beside her and lifting the obsidian horse head with a soft clink. "They operate on unconventional angles. They don't charge straight down ranks or files; they flank, strike from unexpected vectors, and disrupt the enemy's formation. Sounds like a tactical doctrine we can both agree on."
Blake stared at the carving in his gloved palm, then looked up into his clear blue eyes. A gentle warmth spread across her chest, chasing away the instinctive chill she always felt when surrounded by strangers.
"Unconventional angles," she murmured, a genuine smile curving her lips. "I like that."
Before Jaune could stash the relic into his tactical webbing, the treeline to the north detonated in a cacophony of breaking timber and manic laughter.
"Yeeee-haw!"
A massive, armored Ursa crashed into the clearing, its eyes wild with terror as an orange-haired girl rode atop its shoulders like a rodeo cowboy, hammering its skull with her fists before driving it headfirst into the stone floor. Behind her, a quiet young man in green sprinted through the foliage, panting heavily.
"Nora," Ren gasped, resting his hands on his knees. "Please... don't do that again."
"Aw, but Ren, it was so fast!"
Moments later, a high-pitched scream cut through the sky above. Jaune immediately drew his sidearm, tracking the sound upward. Plunging toward the clearing was a familiar red-hooded figure, rapidly descending without any apparent deceleration method.
"Look out below!" Ruby screamed.
"Rookie," Jaune muttered under his breath.
He holstered his Mark 23, kicked off the mossy stones, and positioned himself directly beneath her trajectory. As Ruby fell within reach, Jaune stepped into the kinetic path, caught her around the torso with one arm, pivoted his hips in a smooth CQC redirection throw, and rolled across his shoulders to dissipate the crushing downward force.
He ended in a crouched recovery, bringing Ruby smoothly to her feet beside him.
Ruby blinked, staring at the tall blonde boy in the gray sneaking suit. "Whoa... that didn't hurt at all! How did you do that?"
"Kinetic transfer," Jaune said, his breathing barely elevated. "Use your momentum against the earth instead of letting the earth break your bones. Are you injured?"
"Nope! Thanks, Jaune!" She beamed, then whipped around as a thunderous screech shook the temple pillars.
Circling overhead was an enormous Nevermore, its razor-sharp feathers glinting like black obsidian against the midday sun. And from the eastern forest path, crashing through stone and timber with the fury of a derailed train, burst a giant Deathstalker—its massive golden stinger poised to strike, its chitinous armor deflecting several rounds of gunfire from Pyrrha Nikos, who was currently backpedaling toward the ruins.
"Well," Blake said, drawing Gambol Shroud and stepping up to Jaune's left shoulder, her amber eyes narrowing as she assessed the converging threats. "It looks like the quiet part of the mission is over."
"That stinger is a biological railgun," Jaune observed, unbuckling the primary retention clasp on his modular combat harness. "And that bird is maintaining high-altitude air superiority. If we engage both out in the open, we're funneling ourselves into a crossfire."
Weiss Schnee sprinted into the clearing, followed closely by Yang Xiao Long. "What is that thing doing here?!" Weiss shrieked, pointing her rapier at the towering scorpion.
"It followed us!" Pyrrha yelled, skidding to a halt beside Ruby. "Our weapons aren't piercing the main carapace!"
"Because you're shooting the thickest plates," Jaune shouted back, his authoritative, baritone voice cutting cleanly through the panic. The sheer command in his tone made everyone—even Weiss and Yang—instinctively halt their frantic movements.
Jaune unlatched a heavy, olive-drab tactical case secured across his lower back, swinging it into his hands with practiced efficiency. With three swift, metallic clicks, the modular assembly snapped open, locking into a man-portable missile launcher equipped with an infrared tracking unit—a specialized Stinger-pattern launcher his father had rebuilt specifically for large-scale bio-mechanical suppression.
"Blake," Jaune commanded calmly, his blue eyes locking onto hers.
"I'm with you," she responded without a heartbeat of hesitation.
"You and Pyrrha draw the scorpion's center of mass toward the ruined bridge to the south. Keep its pincers busy, but don't commit to a close-range bind. The joints behind the walking legs have zero armor plating—slash the soft connective tissue to compromise its mobility."
Blake nodded sharply, her eyes burning with fierce determination. "Understood."
"Ruby, Weiss, Yang," Jaune continued, pivoting to face the others while shouldering the heavy launcher. "The Nevermore is looking for an aerial strafe. Weiss, use your glyphs to anchor its descent. Ruby, Yang, use high-caliber kinetic suppression on its wing joints. Don't try to kill it in the air; force it to ground!"
Weiss opened her mouth to snap back an arrogant retort, but the sheer, icy authority radiating from Jaune choked the words in her throat. He didn't look like an untrained initiate. He looked like an operative who had survived a dozen warzones before breakfast.
"Move!" Jaune barked.
The group scattered like shrapnel.
Blake led the vanguard toward the Deathstalker. With blinding agility, she launched Gambol Shroud's kusarigama ribbon around a cracked pillar, swinging beneath the beast's snapping left pincer. When the stinger lashed down with supersonic speed, Blake vanished in a flurry of dark shadows, leaving an empty duplicate that shattered into splinters under the impact.
Appearing behind the scorpion's flank, Blake delivered a reverse two-handed slash directly into the exposed joint of its rear leg. Black hemolymph sprayed across the stone, and the massive arachnid shrieked, listing heavily to its left.
"Pyrrha, now!" Blake called out.
Pyrrha hurled her spear with pinpoint accuracy, embedding Milo straight through the opposite leg joint, effectively pinning the creature's lower body to the stone pavement.
Meanwhile, the Nevermore swooped low, unleashing a volley of razor feathers that pinned Yang and Weiss behind a ruined colonnade.
"It's coming back around for another pass!" Ruby yelled, struggling to track the bird through Crescent Rose's sniper scope. "It's too fast!"
"I've got tracking," Jaune said, his voice a steady metronome amidst the chaos.
He knelt on his right knee, resting the launcher against his shoulder. His left eye closed; his right eye pressed firmly against the Stinger's optical sight. The HUD flashed red as the thermal seeker locked onto the fiery heat signature beating inside the Nevermore's massive chest.
*Beep... beep... BEEEEEEEP.*
"Fox two," Jaune said softly.
He pulled the trigger.
The launcher kicked with a muted hiss as the cold-launch canister popped the missile out of the tube. A fraction of a second later, the solid-fuel rocket motor ignited with a deafening *ROAR*, tearing through the canopy on a trail of thick white exhaust.
The Nevermore attempted to barrel roll, but the missile's proportional navigation fins corrected instantly. The high-explosive warhead struck the beast square in its left wing root.
*BOOM!*
A shockwave rattled the forest floor. The Nevermore's shriek of triumph warped into a wail of agony as its shredded wing failed, sending the monstrous avian crashing directly into the stone bridge where the crippled Deathstalker was struggling to free itself.
The two titans collided in a tangle of broken bone, feathers, and snapping chitin, their sheer bulk fracturing the ancient masonry beneath them.
"Jaune!" Blake shouted from the edge of the chasm, vaulting onto a high archway to avoid the collapsing stone. "The bridge won't hold them, but the stinger is still active!"
Jaune dropped the spent launcher tube, pulling a handheld detonator from his tactical belt with his right hand while his left drew his Mark 23.
"I prepped the pillars on our way through," Jaune said, loud enough for his comm to transmit clearly. "C4 composite charges at the stress points. Blake, get clear!"
Blake didn't question him. She launched her ribbon, swinging clear of the bridge and landing gracefully beside Jaune on the solid cliffside. Her breathing was light, her amber eyes shining as she looked at him.
Jaune flipped the protective safety cover off the detonator switch.
"Rest in pieces," he murmured.
He clicked the button.
A synchronized series of sharp, concussive cracks echoed beneath the bridge arches. The stone support pillars vanished in clouds of gray dust and orange fire, cleanly severing the span from the cliff face. With a catastrophic groan, hundreds of tons of stone collapsed into the deep abyss below, carrying the shrieking Nevermore and the thrashing Deathstalker down into the crushing dark of the gorge.
A heavy silence descended upon the Emerald Forest, broken only by the settling of dust and the distant whisper of the wind through the pines.
Ruby lowered her scythe, her jaw slack. "Did... did you just blow up a whole bridge with little gray bricks?"
"Plastic explosives," Jaune said, calmly securing the detonator back into its pouch. "Lightweight, stable, and delivers eight thousand meters per second of detonation velocity. Never leave home without them."
Yang walked up, whistling low as she stared down into the smoke-filled gorge. "Remind me never to tick you off, vomit boy. What kind of huntsman carries missiles and bombs in his backpack?"
"The kind that wants to make sure everyone walks away alive," Jaune replied evenly, meeting her lilac eyes without a shred of hesitation.
Yang blinked, the playful smirk fading into a look of genuine, albeit startled, respect. She crossed her arms, nodding slowly. "Fair enough."
Pyrrha retrieved her spear, her emerald eyes glowing with admiration as she stepped toward Jaune. "That was incredible tactical coordination, Jaune. You assessed the terrain, weaponized the environment, and minimized Aura depletion for everyone involved. I've never seen anyone fight like that."
"Just the basics," Jaune deflected humbly, scratching the back of his neck as his cheeks flushed slightly. "Good soldiers use what's around them."
Standing half a pace behind him, Blake watched the interaction with a quiet, possessive warmth tightening in her chest. She saw how Pyrrha looked at him, how Ruby practically bounced with awe, but she also saw that Jaune wasn't interested in their praise. He wasn't preening. He was simply checking his magazine, resetting his sidearm's safety, and scanning the horizon to ensure no second wave of Grimm was approaching.
He turned toward her, his blue eyes softening as they met hers.
"You took out those rear tendons with textbook precision," Jaune said, his voice dropping to that intimate, quiet timbre that seemed meant only for her. "Without that mobility kill, the missile wouldn't have caught both of them."
"I told you I'd watch your six," Blake murmured, stepping close enough that their shoulders brushed. "You gave the opening. I just took it."
Jaune held out his hand, opening his palm to reveal the black obsidian knight, miraculously untouched by the dust and debris. "Looks like we have our ticket back to the cliff."
Blake smiled—a small, radiant thing that she didn't bother hiding. She reached out, her fingers curling gently around his gloved hand to hold the piece together with him.
"Let's go home, partner," she said.
***
That evening, the grand amphitheater of Beacon Academy was bathed in the warm glow of hanging chandeliers. Hundreds of students stood at attention, dressed in their finest uniforms, murmuring nervously as Professor Ozpin took the stage behind the podium.
"Russel Thrush. Cardin Winchester. Dove Bronzewing. Sky Lark," Ozpin's voice echoed through the hall. "The four of you retrieved the black bishop pieces. From this day forward, you shall work together as... Team CRDL. Led by Cardin Winchester."
Polite applause rippled through the audience.
Jaune stood in the queue, his black dress uniform sharp and unwrinkled, though he still wore his combat boots beneath the trousers—habits learned from his father were not easily discarded. Standing directly to his left was Blake, her posture poised, her hands folded neatly in front of her. Beside her stood Ruby and Yang.
"And finally," Ozpin announced, adjusting his spectacles as his keen gaze drifted toward the remaining four. "Blake Belladonna. Ruby Rose. Weiss Schnee. Jaune Arc."
Jaune stepped forward in step with Blake.
"You four retrieved the black knight pieces," Ozpin continued, a faint, cryptic smile playing upon the Headmaster's lips. "During the trial in the Emerald Forest, you demonstrated not only exceptional individual combat capabilities, but a rare and profound grasp of battlefield command, environmental utilization, and tactical pragmatism."
Ozpin locked eyes directly with Jaune. For a fraction of a second, Jaune recognized the look in the old man's eyes—it was the look of a veteran who recognized the phantom of another soldier standing behind the boy.
"From this day forward," Ozpin declared, his voice carrying absolute authority, "you shall be known as Team BJRW—Team Badgers. Led by... Jaune Arc."
The amphitheater erupted into cheers. Ruby pumped her fist in the air, Weiss offered a polite, dignified clap, and Blake turned to Jaune.
Her amber eyes were glowing with fierce, quiet pride. She raised two fingers to her temple, offering him a sharp, crisp operator's salute.
"Lead the way, Boss," she whispered, the corner of her lips curving into a secret, devastating smile.
Jaune returned the salute with a steady hand, feeling the weight of his father's dog tags cold against his collarbone, and the warm, unbreakable tether tying his future to the shadow standing right beside him.
"Mission accepted," Jaune murmured.