Zavala’s proposal settled over the room like a shroud. An army of immortals. An end to the Grimm. It was the answer to a prayer no one had dared to speak, and Ruby felt an instinctive, primal terror at the sound of it.
Ozpin, however, looked entirely unfazed. He regarded the Titan Commander not as a savior or a conqueror, but as a piece on the board that had unexpectedly declared itself a player. “An ambitious offer, Commander,” he said, his voice as smooth as polished stone. “But you speak of raising an army on our soil as if you have already won the war at home. Your Ghost claimed you were refugees, the last of your kind.”
Before Zavala’s stony expression could harden further, Ikora Rey stepped forward. “The Ghost’s perspective is limited,” she said, her voice cutting through the tension. Her gaze fell on the small, hovering drone. “You were a scout unit, operating beyond the reach of our compromised networks. You registered as lost. We are not. Our connection to the Last City is attenuated, fraught with peril, but it is not severed.”
Zavala gave a curt nod, a general confirming a subordinate’s correction. “We can establish a transmat relay. Bring in personnel and materiel. A small forward operating base to begin. Experienced Guardians. Engineers. A cadre to support this world’s… defenders.” His eyes flickered toward Team RWBY. “We are not here to replace your huntresses, Headmaster. We are here to reinforce them.”
The distinction was lost on Yang. “By turning more people into… that?” she shot back, jabbing a thumb toward the gurney. “Taking away everything they are so they can be one of your soldiers?”
“The Light chooses those with the strength to carry it,” Zavala rumbled, his patience wearing thin. “It is a gift, not a curse.”
“He had a family,” Blake said, her quiet voice sharp as a blade.
As if her words were a key, a low groan came from the gurney.
Every head snapped toward the sound. Jaune stirred. His armored fingers twitched, then clenched into a fist. His head moved, the motion stiff and unnatural, as he fought his way up from the depths of his healing trance. The Ghost darted to his side, its light flaring with alarm and concern.
“Guardian? Your Light levels are still critical. You must rest.”
“Threat… neutralized,” Jaune mumbled, the words thick and distorted, pushing out from behind teeth that hadn’t spoken in weeks. He forced himself into a sitting position, his armored torso creaking. His helmet was still on, the blue visor a blank mask. “Sector… secure. Awaiting… orders.”
His voice was wrong. It was his, the low baritone they remembered, but it was hollowed out, scraped clean of any warmth or inflection. It was the voice of a machine reading a script.
A chime from Glynda Goodwitch’s scroll was an unwelcome intrusion. She glanced at it, her face paling slightly. “Professor… they’re here. The Arc family has landed.”
The name hung in the air. Jaune’s head tilted, the motion of a predator tracking a sound it doesn’t recognize. “Arc?” he repeated, the name a foreign syllable in his own mouth.
Ozpin looked from the bewildered Titan to the horrified faces of Team RWBY. “Let them in, Glynda.” He then looked to the Vanguard commanders. “This is not a negotiation. It is a family matter. You will be observers.”
Zavala gave a single, solid nod of assent. Ikora’s gaze was fixed on Jaune, her expression one of intense, scholarly fascination. This was a new variable, a test of her “blank slate” hypothesis.
The office doors slid open. A man and a woman stood on the threshold, their faces etched with a sleepless blend of terror and desperate hope. Nicolas Arc was a tall man, built like a retired brawler, his kind eyes swimming with unshed tears. Behind him, Juniper Arc, a woman with the same kind face and a will of iron, clutched his arm. Standing just behind them was a young woman with familiar blonde hair and determined blue eyes—Saphron, Jaune’s eldest sister.
Their eyes found the gurney. They saw the impossible white and gold armor, the hulking frame of a warrior. And then they saw him sit up.
“The Ghost,” Weiss whispered urgently. “His helmet.”
The Ghost seemed to understand. It zipped to Jaune’s head. “Guardian, your visitors are civilians. De-escalate.” With a soft hiss of pneumatics, the seals on the helmet unlocked and it retracted, folding back into the armor’s collar.
And there he was.
His face was thinner than they remembered, pale and marked by a faint scar that ran across his brow, but it was him. The same unruly blonde hair. The same blue eyes. The boy they had mourned.
Juniper Arc made a sound, a wounded gasp that was half-sob, half-prayer. “Jaune,” she breathed, taking a hesitant step into the room.
Jaune’s head tracked the movement. His brow furrowed in confusion. His eyes, once so full of laughter and insecurity, were empty. They were the eyes of a stranger.
“Ma’am,” he said, his voice flat and formal. “This is a secure area. Identify yourself.”
The words struck his mother like a physical blow. She staggered, and Nicolas caught her, his own face crumbling. “Jaune, son… it’s us.”
Jaune looked from the weeping woman to the distraught man. He processed their faces, their emotions, and found no corresponding data in his own mind. He looked past them, to Saphron, whose face was a mask of cold horror. He saw the four girls in odd combat gear. He saw the giant in blue armor. Threats? Allies? Unknowns. His hand reflexively reached for a weapon that wasn’t there.
“My designation is Crusader-1,” he stated, his voice gaining a sliver more strength. He was reciting his creed, the only truth he knew. “I am a Titan of the Last City. I am the wall against the Darkness.”
Saphron finally moved, pushing past her parents. She stopped a few feet from the gurney, her eyes locking with her brother’s. “Jaune,” she said, her voice shaking but firm. “Crocea Mors. Your grandfather’s sword. The one you were so proud of.”
His eyes flickered. A ghost of a memory, a phantom limb, ached within him. “Weapon…” he mumbled. “Lost.”
“No,” Saphron insisted, tears welling in her eyes. “Not lost. Your family is here. We are not lost.”
He looked at her, at the tears on her face. Fear. Distress. These were concepts he understood. They were the mission. “The civilian is compromised,” he said, his gaze shifting to Ruby, to the nearest person in uniform he recognized. “Protocol?”
Ruby couldn’t speak. Her throat was a knot of grief. She was watching a family have their hearts broken in real time, by the very miracle they had prayed for. This was so much worse than him being dead. Death was an absence. This was a presence, a mockery, a stranger wearing her friend’s skin.
It was Ikora Rey who answered. She stepped forward, her calm presence drawing every eye. She looked not at Jaune, but at his family. “He is not the man you lost,” she said, her voice gentle but unflinchingly honest. “The process of his return was violent. It left him… untethered from his past. What you see is the foundation. The will to protect. It is all he has left.”
Nicolas Arc straightened up, holding his wife. He looked at the Warlock, then at the empty vessel that was his son. “Can he be fixed?” he asked, the question of a father who just wanted his boy back.
Ikora was silent for a long moment. Her eyes met Ruby’s across the room. Ruby saw the truth there, the hard, scholarly assessment she had hoped for. A puzzle to be solved.
“We don’t know,” Ikora admitted. “But we have never encountered a Guardian with known associates from their past life before. This is… new territory.”
The Arcs stood before their son, a family of ghosts trying to speak to a man who was already a ghost himself. Zavala watched, his face a grim mask of duty; this was the cost of service. Ozpin watched, his mind calculating a dozen new variables.
And Ruby watched, the last of her naive hope burning away, leaving behind a cold, hard resolve. The Vanguard wasn’t here to fix him. They were here to use him. His family couldn’t reach him. It fell to them. His friends. They weren’t known associates. They were his team. And they would not leave a man behind.