The Agency
“…It is with great honor and sorrow that we dedicate this memorial to the brave huntsmen and huntresses who gave their lives during the Vale attacks a month ago. May their sacrifice always be remembered and inspire those that come after them.”
As the last speaker finished and stepped down from the podium, the crowd began to disperse, some moving closer to the memorial, some talking among themselves. Qrow and Jaune were among the latter group.
“Those council folks sure know how to spin a loss into a celebration, huh.” Qrow scoffed and then took a swig from that ever-present flask.
All of the names of the fallen hunters were organized by team. Jaune’s eyes came to rest on two names from the hundreds on the marble wall: ‘Jaune Arc’ and ‘Pyrrha Nikos’. Seeing Pyrrha’s name on that wall hit him again with the reminder that Pyrrha was gone, replaced by this girl named Autumn.
“It’s kinda surreal, isn’t it?” Jaune said, his eyes scanning through all the names of the fallen hunters, “Going to your own funeral, I mean. Have you ever done anything like this?”
“I wish kid.” Qrow chuckled as he took another swig, “It would’ve made things a hell of a lot easier for me. Could’ve avoided so many angry boyfriends.” Qrow’s front pocket beeped, causing him to pull out his scroll. After reading the message he turned to Jaune. “That was Oz. He and Autumn are about here for ya. Ready to head to The Agency?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” As the two walked towards the road, Jaune asked, “You’re not coming too?”
“Nah,” Qrow held his hands up with a shrug, “Ozzie’s got another job for me. We got a lead on a White Fang warehouse somewhere on the edge of Vacuo. The stuff I find there might help you out with the search for Cinder.” His gaze followed a car that was pulling up. “But you’ve got other things to worry about, kid. Looks like your ride is here.” As the dark-haired man turned to leave, he added over his shoulder, “Just don’t go out there and waste all that training by dying.” He raised a hand in a quick wave as he strode away.
“John come on! Ozpin’s waiting for you.” The voice that came from behind him was one he recognized, but the inflection still so foreign to him. Autumn’s hair—she’d kept it short, although her last haircut had been handled with someone with more skill than Jaune—bounced with every step as she jogged towards over to where Jaune was standing, stopping when she made it in front of him.
In the month since the invasion Ozpin and Autumn had attended numerous meetings with officials from every kingdom to discuss the attack and how to keep disasters of that magnitude from happening again. The result was The Agency, a collection of hunters from each kingdom whose main purpose was to hunt down those who threaten Remnant. It was an endeavor that would have been unheard of not long ago, but a massive Grimm and terrorist attack tended to change peoples’ views on things. Many of the students who had participated in what was being called “The Battle of Beacon” had been given the option to join as a form of work study—currently these students made up the Agency’s backbone.
“C’mon, we’re going to miss the briefing.” Autumn reached out to grab John’s arm in an effort to drag him along faster, but he sidestepped the grab.
“They’re not going to introduce us until the end of the briefing, it won’t matter what time we get there as long as we’re there before it’s over.” John headed in the direction Autumn came from, while Autumn followed closely behind trying to convince John that it would matter if they were late.
“John,” Professor Ozpin greeted him once he’d climbed into the back of the car and fastened his seatbelt, “How was the ceremony?” John answered with a shrug.
The travel to The Agency took them through the center of Vale, past the construction to fix everything that was destroyed during the invasion. The building they entered looked just like any of the other skyscrapers that dotted Vale’s skyline. Once they entered, they walked straight into the elevator. Ozpin inserted a key and pressed the numbers ‘6-3-6’, causing the elevator to hum to life and begin to move.
“How far up are we going?” Autumn asked nervously.
“All the way to the top. The Vault was too far underground for my tastes, so I decided to have The Agency be above ground.” The professor took a sip from his coffee cup, which he seemingly pulled from nowhere.
The elevator arrived at its destination with a ding, the doors opening to a scene almost identical to the ground floor. Natural light from glass windows lit up the reception area.
“Follow me.” Professor Ozpin led the two down a hall, “Miss Adel should be almost done with the briefing by now.” Autumn muttered, “I told you we were gonna be late,” and attempted to give John a little nudge, but both the nudge and the comment were deftly dodged.
The trio walked until they reached a set of doors that opened into a small bare room, presumably the annex to what John understood as the briefing room. “Wait here and I will see if they are ready or not. And John.” Ozpin motioned for John to come closer, he leaned down and spoke in a volume low enough as to not be overheard by Autumn. “When you are introduced it will be as John. Do not react. The Agency members have also been instructed not to make any outbursts. I will pull Autumn away at some point so you can have a few moments alone with them so don’t worry.” With that Ozpin exited through the door that lead to the briefing room, only to return a few moments later. “They are ready.”
The briefing room looked less like a conference room and more like a smaller version of a Beacon classroom. John quickly surveyed the seated and noticed that he recognized every face. Most were his classmates from Beacon, including Ruby, Blake, Yang, Ren and Nora. There were also larger monitors featuring the faces of Nebula from team NGDO of Shade, Arslan from team ABRN of Haven, and Flynt from team FNKY of Atlas. They must have been the representatives from the other hunter academies. Yet another monitor held the image of Weiss Schnee on what appeared to be a Dust Plane.
“Standing before you now are the current Fall Maiden, Autumn and her Shadow, John.” John could feel the eyes on them and allowed himself a look at the others. He was met with varying levels of recognition and surprise. Nora looked about ready to leap at them, instructions or no. “They will have their own separate missions for The Agency and at times your missions will be to assist them in theirs. Should that occur they are the ones in charge and you will follow their orders, got it?” The beret wearing woman that John recognized as the leader of team CFVY waited for confirmation before continuing. “Your first missions will be distributed tomorrow, until then you are dismissed.” Everyone in the room rose from their seats but didn’t make to leave just yet.
Professor Ozpin, as if acting on cue, approached Autumn from behind. “Autumn, your armor is ready. You can return to socialize once we retrieve your armor.” Ozpin and Autumn exited the briefing room. The moment the doors shut, a Nora-shaped torpedo knocked John to the ground.
“JAUNE!” Jaune had been crushed by Nora’s hugs before, but all those seemed like nothing compared to this. “You’re alive! We were so worried when we couldn’t find you and Pyrrha. We-thought-you-were-dead-then-they-said-you-were-dead-and-we-cried-then-Professor-Ozpin-came-into-our-dorm-and-told-us-that-you-guys-were-still-alive-and-we-could-see-you-again-if-we-joined-The-Agency-so-we-did-and YOU’RE HERE! AND YOU’RE OKAY!” She punctuated her speech with another bone-crunching squeeze.
“Nora please, air.” Jaune choked out.
“Oh. Sorry Jaune!” Nora released her grip and Jaune took deep breaths to refill his lungs.
“What Nora is trying to say,” Ren walked over to Jaune and offered a hand to help him up, “is that we were very concerned for you and Pyrrha’s safety when we couldn’t find you after the attacks.” Jaune took the hand and let his former teammate pull him up.
“Oof. Sun!”
“Is that really Jaune?” A blonde-haired monkey faunus shoved past Arslan to the forefront of the Haven monitor. “It is. Hey Jaune. Nice scar, makes you look really cool.”
During everyone else’s antics, team RWBY made their way to where Jaune was standing. Jaune noticed the tiny leader staring at the blade that rested on his back. He knew where this was going. “You want to check out my new sword Ruby?” Jaune swore he saw hearts appear in Ruby’s eyes. She reached up to try and take Jaune’s sword from its sheath to no avail. “You are never going to get the sword out that way,” he told her, “the sheath only responds to my aura.” Jaune reached up to the hilt of the sword and let his aura flow down the blade, the sheath opened and freed the weapon. As he handed it to Ruby, he added, “Careful. This one’s also a gun.”
“So how much of what happened that day have you all been told?” Jaune asked the room. After a moment of silence, Yang answered.
“Only that Pyrrha now has superpowers and that now you’re her handler or something.”
Jaune explained about what he knew happened that day: about Cinder’s attack on Amber to try to take all of the Fall Maiden’s powers, about the aura transfer to put the remaining power inside of Pyrrha which created Autumn, about the training with Qrow in order to become a Shadow, and about their goal to get the remaining power from Cinder.
“That sounds like our uncle all right. My training was a little bit softer, but that was probably because we are family so he kinda had to be nice to me.” Ruby handed Jaune’s sword back to him and softly asked, “Are you okay?” Before he could answer, sound was coming from Weiss’ screen.
“Atlas has an advanced and extensive intelligence community, and the Schnee Dust Company is influential enough that I should be able to pull some strings. If Cinder or any of her allies make any move, we will be able to find out. I’ll see what information is available once I land.” Weiss’s voice came from her monitor.
“Thanks Weiss, that means a lot to me.” Just then, the door reopened and Professor Ozpin entered alongside Autumn.
Autumn had picked up here new armor and was currently wearing it, no doubt to get used to the feel. The armor had more protection than the armor that Pyrrha had used in the past, with plating covering much of her chest, shoulders, and arms. It was the same bronze as her old armor with red accents adorning the edges.
“Hey John, d’you think this looks okay?” Autumn spun in place, showing off her new armor. “It covers a lot of my body but it still allows me a large range of movement.”
“As long as it protects you, it could look like scraps of metal.” Just like that, Jaune Arc was gone and John the Shadow was back. Slight looks of surprise graced the faces of the others in the room as they saw the person they had just been talking to change with a single sentence.
“I think it looks pretty cool.” Ruby took the situation in stride, smiling up at Autumn, “I’m more of a weapon girl myself though. Can I see yours?” Autumn took off her weapon to show the younger girl, then went about introducing herself to everyone else.
Professor Ozpin gave them a few minutes to mingle before he spoke up. “I hate to ruin the fun, but Autumn and John have to be leaving now. They receive their first mission tomorrow as well and have much to prepare before they can leave.” They said goodbye to everyone—Autumn with a cheerful wave and John with a nod—then made their way back to the car.
“They all seemed so nice,” Autumn gushed as she scooted into the car beside John, “I can already tell that they will be great friends. Don’t you think so, John?”
“We will be fine on our own. If they’re assigned to help us then we will be even better off. Hey Ozpin, just let me out at the memorial and I’ll walk the rest of the way back.”
“Are you sure John? Your mission assignment is tomorrow so you will need to pack and get your rest.” The Professor sounded more concerned than John had expected.
“I’m already packed and I’ll get enough sleep to be fully awake and functional for the mission tomorrow. So just drop me off.” John replied still staring out the window. “I promise I’ll be home before midnight,” he added with a chuckle.
“Alright.” The car stopped at the memorial, allowing John to exit the vehicle. Autumn attempted to leave as well but was stopped by John.
“Autumn, no. I heard you tell Ruby and Nora that you hadn’t even started packing for tomorrow.”
“Fine, just don’t stay out too late. I know you can handle yourself, but I would hate if something were to happen to you the night before we get our first mission.” Amber replied, first puffing out her cheeks but then ending with a smile.
“Don’t wait up for me.” The car drove off and John turned, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked towards the memorial wall.
He approached the wall with reverence, coming to a stop right in front of where his and Pyrrha’s names were engraved. He reached out and touched the names, looking at them in silence before speaking up.
“Pyrrha.” He paused, biting his lip, then continued, “I know you wanted to do this, but… I feel like I‘m doing the exact opposite of what you would have wanted.” Jaune’s hand clenched into a fist as he stared at the wall as if expecting a reply, even though he knew he wouldn’t get one. “Everything in me wants to hate Autumn, to hate her because she took you away, she took you from your friends, your team. From me. But then sometimes, I see a little bit of you coming through and I just forget all that hate.”
Jaune stood in silence for a few more moments then he walked over to the hollow tree he’d been standing beside during the ceremony. He pulled a single red flower from the inside, then returned to the wall and placed it under where their names were written.
“I made a promise, remember?” Jaune murmured, “To always be there for you. Well, what I’m doing might not be the smartest thing, or what you would have wanted me to do. But even if I don’t use that name much anymore, I’m still an Arc; and an Arc never goes back on his word.”
Slowly, Jaune turned and began to walk in the direction of the Vault. When he got to the edge of the memorial he turned back long enough to say one last thing.
“That’s enough for me to know that this is the right thing to do.”