"So…" Ghira Belladonna, leader of the White Fang protest movement coughed, "Can you explain what exactly is going on here, my darling daughter?"
Blake, his little angel, blushed at his addressment of her with an angry pout. Why, though? She loved the attention at home, preened and relished in- ah that was right. They were in public. Yes. Ah that was it.
Normally he was only used to this sort of chaos in the comfort of his own home. Usually because it was he and his lovely Kali that had to deal with the various disputes, domestic and otherwise, of Menagerie, as well as the more joyous ones.
Like the one he was looking at now.
A blonde rabbit Faunus boy shaking hands left and right as various older adult Faunus shoved food into a plate in his other hand that kept piling up as a little human girl gnawed at cookies, spilling crumbs over his shirt and shoulder as she hung off his back. Below her a golden tail limped awkwardly. That was also another thing strange about the child.
They boy did look mortified though as he kept mouthing to a long haired blonde human girl in an orange shirt for help and she shrugged back, looking just as confused.
"Jaune came and donated his bonus for working alongside Dr. Polendina. I don't know who he is, but he sounds important, Papa."
"He is, darl- ahem, daughter. He's the Head Scientist of Mechanicus, the people in charge of all the scientific advancements in Atlas. He's a very big deal."
Blake's eyes were swamped in confusion, amber eyes glimmering as they flickered in thought.
"That's crazy. He's Huntsman trained. When would he have the time to learn science stuff?"
Now that was an interesting development. And certainly made things more muddled and confused. Still that didn't change the fact he was currently a benefactor.
"I don't know. But he must be quite intelligent."
His angel shot him a look and turned to stare at Jaune who was currently trying to take a bit of a piece of brisket hanging off a fork in the hand of his human backpack while he shook another hand.
"Intelligence and wisdom do not always walk hand in hand."
Blake snickered.
"Ok Papa."
"..I was told that he donated quite the sum. I assume that's what all this ruckus is about?"
His angel nodded before smiling with excitement.
"How much exactly is forty five million, Papa?"
Ghira blinked. He must have misheard that. Maybe his ears had gone back from all the deflections by the SDC today.
"Did you say… million?"
"Mhm."
He frowned. That was an honestly absurd amount of money to come from a child. Enough so that he had to ask the following, although with admitted some reluctance.
"Did anyone point out how much money that was and ask him if he wanted to reconsider?"
He thought the world of his people, but greed destroyed and decayed morals. And despite how much they needed the money, they couldn't be seen tricking a child out of forty five million Lien.
He didn't wish to fall into the same trappings. He had to do more, be more, if he wanted to lead the White Fang and bring a better tomorrow.
"Mrs. Orshi explained how much money it was but he didn't seem bothered at all." His angel smiled just a bit too happily for paternal comfort. "He actually seemed happier that it would make a big difference. He said he just wanted to help!"
And she let out a happy sigh.
It was faint, but for an instant he felt like his daughter was… It couldn't be… was she… was she swooning? Ghira wasn't sure if he liked that. She'd be turning seven in a month. It was too soon to be concerned with boys!
Ghira took a deep breath. His paternal panic put to the side, forty five million truly was an incredible sum. In all truth the White Fang always ran on a bit of a deficit, only barely managing to replay their dues thanks to the generosity of their fellows. The past year hadn't been great for them especially as they were currently three million in debt.
Oh the debt was to people that did not necessarily pressure him or want any timelines for the return of the capital, but the White Fang wasn't a business that would and should take advantage of such kindness. He had every intent to pay it back.
Now he might be able to.
Thanks to the boy with a greasy brisket being poked into his cheek with a plastic fork and cookie crumbs spilling on his shoulder.
And no, he wasn't imagining it either, his precious angel was beginning to swoon and she didn't even realize she was doing it. His wife, who had been accompanying him the whole day and only just arrived to meet with their darling daughter, was even happily taking pictures in secret instead of her normal habit of grabbing up their angel in a big warm hug.
Though she wasn't the only one, judging from a white haired Huntresses taking pics of the Jaune boy and cooing at the girl hanging off of his back.
Still this meant that his little angel didn't even realize what she was doing and could be guided back and away from boys. Good.
Gods, if she was in her teens Ghira could bite the bullet and understand that was the way hormones and puberty was. He had been at that age once and hated when his parents had gotten all 'parenty' but boys were coddled less than girls during those years. He could imagine how much worse it could have been judging from how testy he was already feeling, but she was seven. Or would be next month.
He already had her present picked out.
Either way, once her teens hit, he would be the cool dad that let his daughter date around a bit. Even if he'd destroy anyone foolish enough to break her heart afterwards. Preferably with his bare hands. Claws included.
Still, once again, this was the kind of bout of madness that he had become accustomed to more in the privacy of his home back on Menagerie. Ghira was still somewhat befuddled that his home ended up being so grand. He and his family didn't need such a thing, but his advisors weren't wrong in that there was some presentation required when they inevitably received guests from other Kingdoms, even if they hadn't yet.
For now it worked fine to settle more in house complications.
Well. He turned to see a young boy huddled up in a blanket like it was a cloak behind him.
He needed to deal with the out of house complications as well.
"We should make sure to get some food in you." His voice rumbled low and comfortingly, "Have you had barbeque before?"
The boy shook his head, though Ghira could catch the barest flicker of him licking his lips to the smell of food in the air, all sweet and smokey.
He gestured to one of the volunteers manning the grills and whispered to the boy to get some food.
Honestly if he knew it wouldn't cause a huge fuss he'd have brought all of the other children that the White Fang now had recent custody of from the SDC with them.
But this boy was the only one that hadn't been branded like cattle. He couldn't bring the rest with him to a public event. Especially not the poor bull Faunus boy that had been half blinded by his brand. Not when this had to be a joyful occasion to inspire people to understand and support their people and their message. Ghira had already sent a message ahead that any leftovers would have to be taken back to feed the orphaned mining children.
And then there was the issue with building more housing back in Menagerie.
Which… admittedly, might be easier now that there was a sudden influx of forty two million Lien to work with.
Finding the way to stretch that out as long as possible while paying everyone a fair wage would be the next problem. But that was a problem for later.
"Now, now." He laughed, approaching Jaune with a handful of paper napkins. "Let's give the boy his space, as thankful as we are, we aren't so overjoyed that we keep a growing boy from eating his fill, are we?"
His jovial but elevated brow was enough to get his eager men and women backing off with sheepish looks and laughter in return.
He looked down to see Jaune let out a breath the boy probably didn't realize he was holding, brisket rubbing against his temple.
"Yes, I want to eat the brisket. Thanks Ruby." He spoke with his eyes closed.
"Y'welcome." The girl chirped with a mouthful of cookie crumbs.
"Perhaps, it might be best to let young Ruby down so that you can eat your food." Ghira mused, "Instead of using it as facepaint. We have separate booth for that, if you'd like it."
The blond Faunus boy blushed in agreement as he knelt down to let the girl off his back, much to her dismay and crys of "No, up! Up!"
The other human girl, with a long unruly mane that made Ghira think of lions, walked up and pulled her away with a, "C'mon sis."
Hmm.
Perhaps they were adopted by the white haired Huntress? They did head straight into her loving arms as she held her children as gingerly as possible. Lovingly. The image of a perfect mother. Quite remarkable.
He once again offered the napkins, the boy accepted gratefully as he wiped his face and the crumbs from his shirt, shaking the cloth a few times to let the crumbs that had rolled under his shirt free.
"Thank you, sir." He politely thanked Ghira, making him smile. The boy was well mannered indeed. "That was a bit overwhelming."
"Well, in their defense they were simply very grateful."
"I… I mean I'm glad they were, but I didn't do it because I…" He shuffled awkwardly. "I didn't want the money anyways."
Oh? Most boys his age would be blowing it all on sweets, comics, and video games at this point.
"I'm already being taken care of and General Ironwood was giving me stipends for things I wanted to experiment with anyways. I didn't need anything like that."
"You didn't want the money?"
"I don't feel like I deserved it. I-"
"Whatever you did, it seemed that it was worth giving you that money for."
Jaune looked up with a bit of an exasperated look on his face, like he was tired of hearing that.
"Sure to them. But for me, I was fine with just giving it for free. All I'm doing is filling in the gaps anyways. I didn't even want to explain everything, but Atlasean technology just… it's weird. It genuinely doesn't even make sense half the time!" He began to ramble in frustration, taking bites of his barbeque meat and swallowing with almost no chew in his frustration as he spoke.
"Like their Knight designation combat androids developmental lines aren't even generational upgrades! It's just a rearrangement of some internal parts and coding updates for multiple iterations with surface level cosmetic changes and then they seemingly randomly get full redesigns with new technological innovation like they suddenly skipped multiple generations of development and someone's been just handing them new designs every twenty years! And don't even get me STARTED on the compressed Dust relays being used to brute force power and operate AI instead of coding alone!"
Ghira could feel his hair begin to stand on end as he felt the boy's frustration as he began clearly stress eating.
"And batteries! Declared a borderline dead end technology limited to small devices like Scrolls because why make a reusable storage device for energy when you can shove new Dust in? You could EASILY make them more efficient and better with some lithium! It's like nobody is even trying!"
Hold up. That sounded really useful. Menagerie didn't have much in the way of Dust, but they did have a lot of deposits of various metals. Lithium included.
"Next thing you know I'm sure they'll be telling me they've never looked into nuclear or fusion power because of Dust! Like you mine Dust from the ground, it's a depletable resource and it's the one thing that everything runs off of! Apparently we have geothermal potential under Mantle, but no! Use a Dust heating system for the whole of the Kingdom and fill up the land under the city so that we can't even access it without leaving city grounds anymore! I assume somebody smarter used to make use of it a long time ago and that's why Mantle could even exist in a tundra biome!"
Jaune had the same haunted look as some of his accountants did as he scarfed down a chicken drumstick, his sharp and hard teeth cracking even the bone open and gnawing out the marrow. A bad habit among many Faunus children that were more carnivore aligned. Ghira remembered having that issue too even into his teens.
But right now what was more important was:
"Well. If… say, Atlas was in a desert? What would be best then?"
It was a question asked out of curiosity, as it seemed the child had ideas on forms of energy that didn't involve Dust at all. Which firstly was unheard of. It was the sort of things in the sci-fi books he enjoyed in his private hours. Those not occupied by his loving and physical wife, anyways.
Frankly that was Menagerie's biggest weakness. The land the Faunus were given as a Kingdom, that wasn't even recognized despite their victory in the Faunus Revolutionary War, had been more or less mined out of Dust by Mistral centuries ago.
The only reason that it had been abandoned and available for the Faunus was the fact that Grimm eventually encroached upon the isle and forced the Mistralian colonists off, despite the fact that the Faunus had managed to hold their ground.
"Depends on a variety of factors, but probably solar. Probably not enough water for hydro power, sand and grit will clog up mechanisms for energy generated via wind power animation turbines in a real desert. Solar is reliable and cheap after the initial cost of setting up the panels." The boy dug into a roasted veggie skewer. "And that isn't even that hard or expensive if you just look at the raw material costs."
Ghira stared at the boy. He wasn't lying. Not boasting. Just… frustrated.
It didn't make any sense. If what he was saying was true, and Ghira was taking it all with a grain of salt, only really listening to the boy's explanations as a result of knowing that for some unexplainable reason that the Head of Atlas' vaunted Ordos Mechanicus was willing to pay the boy an incredible amount of money for one summer of working together, then somehow one of his countrymen's BIGGEST problems could be solved without dealing with the SDC.
And perhaps it was… childish of him, but Ghira found himself putting some faith into the words of a frustrated boy still stress eating the pile of food in his hands, already half done with his meal.
"Say that it was a desert island with a coastline and there was water."
"More viable for wind power with the moisture to keep sand and grit down, but salt wears down things just as quickly, but that wouldn't matter when suddenly you can use turbines to catch energy off of the ocean waves themselves. The ARK-" The boy coughed, "I mean I could figure out like thirteen ways that it would be theoretically viable. You'd want to weather proof any solar panels just a bit more as well, but that's easy."
Another skewer evaporated. The boy enjoyed his vegetables. If only Blake would eat her carrots half as well as young Jaune.
"Like there's so many ways for power and everything in Atlas runs off Dust and Dust alone. I don't get it. Even if we skipped coal and leapt into nuclear power which can result in some dangerous waste products, it'd be efficient. I'd make them leap straight past even that straight into fusion power and not deal with radioactive byproducts, but that wouldn't solve Atlas's weird tech gaps and instead be making one of my own! I can't solve this issue! I'm not even going to be seven until December!"
The piled up plate of food in the boy's hand was empty when the rapidly speaking and equally rapidly stress eating boy reached for the damp paper plate.
"Oops." Jaune muttered. "When'd I finish- nevermind. I want some ice cream. Do we have milkshakes? Trivia and Neo make them sound super good over texts."
Ghira smiled amicably. He still wasn't exactly convinced of everything the boy spoke of, but it was clear that he thought he knew what he was talking about at least.
"We can go see if refreshments can provide. Have you had any thoughts in visiting Menagerie? It stays warm even in winter and we've got some very beautiful beaches."
"O-oh. I've… I've never seen the ocean before the flight to Atlas from Vale."
"How about you come and take a look this winter? Playing in the ocean is a lot of fun. Plus I'd like to ask you a few questions about solar power. What is that even?"
"Just generating power using the ambient heat and solar radiation from the sun. Why?"
Ghira almost faltered in his step.
What did he mean energy from sunlight? That was possible?!
…He had an itch for a sci-fi novel now.
The rest of the summer passed quickly for Jaune.
There was the chaos of Raven stopping in on Saturdays, which tended to end up stretching to encapsulate whole weekends as she and Summer found moments to spend private time together, eventually managing to drag Taiyang in with them on a regular basis.
Raven was, in her awkwardly brutish way, doing what she could to make up with her husband despite him having his own reservations at times. It was clear they still had their issues at times, but they were working on leaving it all to the sides for their children. That and despite everything that made him still upset at his other wife, they still held a torch for each other.
Still, they did have a bit of a spat when Raven also stepped into help teach Yang to fight.
Despite treating her daughter like fine china most times and somewhat desperately spoiling the girl rotten, when it came to teaching her to fight she was brutal, often going too far and needing people to step in and force her to limit… everything.
Yang had cried once or twice, but when it came to her 'Mommy Raven' teaching her, she muscled through everything like a trooper, much to her mother's pride and everyone else's frustration, desperate for her praise despite the fact that she got it from everything outside of training aplenty. Perhaps even that was the reason. It had suddenly become such a norm that the harshness of both her training and words was like a splash of cold water reminding her that she and her 'Mommy Raven' were still sort of strangers.
It didn't help that Jaune could actually keep up with Raven's instructions and Yang took that as a baseline she had to catch up to, though she didn't have the advantage of a magic potion from the Gacha.
Though needling Jaune for, in Yang's words, "Super-Science Thingamagigs", help and a bit of luck from the Gacha, he caved and gave to Yang something to eat in secret to help her keep up with her mother's training because she insisted on keeping up with everything Raven was told to not do.
Of course only after swearing her to secrecy while telling her it was super secret medicine he could only make once on a pinky swear.
R Rarity Consumable: Body Refining Pill
Origin: Tiny Realm of Cosmic Yanxia Realm #TGD001
Description: A product of alchemy refined elixir in the form of a simple black pill the size of a small plum. It is said that the raw materials for such pills were quite expensive as they resulted in the increase of the consumer's strength. There were many variations of this pill, this specific one using the vital essence of a Sunfire Carp and Angel Hair Grass, during the Sacred Empire Era. However, much of these elixirs and recipes were lost to the chaos of the Age of Darkness.
Yang woke up screaming bloody murder because she had awoken to her hair, favorite pyjamas, and sheets covered in a sort of black gunk.
There was some chaos over it all, but Jaune made a show of testing the material with a basic forensics kit he dug up out of his inventory (and that raised some eyebrows, but the adult Huntsmen and Huntresses kindly didn't ask Jaune many questions in general) proving that it was just a kind of odd mix of chemicals and substances that naturally existed in the body and that Yang must have sweat it out.
She was taken to a pediatrician to get checked up, but Yang had become healthier than before (after some upset and vigorous washing of her hair and angry glares at Jaune for not warning her of the pill's side effects, which he admittedly didn't know either) and more importantly, stronger.
Raven especially seemed to take an extra vested interest in Yang's training, much to the girl's excited and desperate appeals to keep her birth mother's attention. All the adults definitely gave Jaune a strange look after that even, knowing somehow he had something to do with it all. Raven especially kept snooping around him for a few nights after, teleporting to him while he was asleep and asking about what he did to Yang.
He spilled nothing even when Raven gave him a noogie. It hurt, but she avoided his ears, so he just endured and grit his teeth.
Juniper called Raven a bully and a grown up that was somehow still a child and Jaune agreed.
Satisfied that he was able to help his sort of adopted sister/cousin (he himself being pseudo adopted by this point) and having seen what happened to Yang, once the heat from the event cooled down Jaune ate the second pill he had pulled as he slept naked in his hotel bathtub and washed away his black gunk in the morning.
Nobody had to know, right?
He did have to brush Yang's hair every weekday evening for a month for the girl to forgive him though, despite the fact that he had been the one to give her what she wanted. So unfair. He had to sit still and let Ruby pet his ears during it all too.
Unfortunately for Jaune this eventually wound up somehow into him promising to brush her hair once a week regardless. How did that happen?!
Then he often found himself sneaking around during or after White Fang events to leave a handful of Shadows in Atlas and Mantle, which seemed to be amassing their own little squadrons of actual mice. Unfortunately Blake couldn't stay long and had to return to Menagerie with her parents and were headed off, ironically enough, for Vale.
Still they'd begun to message each other more regularly, with pictures and other messages. Her questioning had cooled off quite a bit more, but they'd share regular conversations when they found the time. They'd also begun to share books that they liked, though Jaune didn't understand why she was read quite so many romance novels. He didn't really understand them all, but he skimmed through the ones that Blake liked and recommended so he could keep up with their conversations.
She was also very excited for him to visit and stay with the Belladonnas this winter, and had sent a bunch of photos of Menagerie. Nothing was particularly exciting or cool, but the beaches were very pretty. Jaune also kind of realized (ok, so Juniper had to point it out for him) that the reason Ghira was so keen to invite him was that Menagerie was the theoretical coastal desert Kingdom (even if it wasn't officially recognized) that the leader of the White Fang was talking about.
It was lucky that Jaune had also gained an SR Multi-Fabricator that could work on getting solar cells printed out inside his hotel room while he was busy. Getting the raw materials would have been difficult if he couldn't just fill out a form for materials he wanted for personal experimentation that was being paid for by Mechanicus.
Also an accident resulted in Jaune finding out that his Shadow mice could hide in people's actual shadows and had to buy more mice in a pet shop in Mantle so that he could leave a pair with each member of his current surrogate family. The easiest way he found was to have them hide in the hem of long sleeve pants and slip inside as he walked over their shadows.
Soon he realized that he should just keep a small army of them in his own shadow and just crossing shadows with other people was easier.
Raven kept giving him more side eye though, as if knowing he was up to something, just not sure what. Which was unfair. Jaune was always up to something, how could she know whenever it was specifically something involving her?
Of course he was still working with the good doctor the whole time and had even allowed the man to observe his 'design', aka pulling up mental blueprints, of prosthetics for General Ironwood amongst giving the man pointers for his own work.
Doctor Polendina had pointed out to Jaune that all of the part design looked too feminine for the General. That wasn't exactly Jaune's fault as they were still NIKKE parts repurposed as prosthetics, which was common enough in the ARK. Still, Jaune had blushed and had to improvise based on protocols for using NIKKE parts as human prosthetics for men (how had he forgotten that existed?) mixing some extra strands of artificial musculature, recoil gel, and even some subdermal armoring to get it to have a more traditionally masculine appearance.
Jaune offered to use the Mold (which had somehow evolved from a Consumable to an Equipment due to the new knowledge from the Ring) to perform the operation, but both the General and Dr. Polendina wanted to have the process visibly recorded.
They had even, without his knowledge, pulled strings to get him certifications to perform whatever operations he needed to put his knowledge into practice.
Now that was a bit unnerving to carry around in his wallet as a near seven year old.
Either way the operation went smoothly and without issues aside from a few regular prosthetic engineers and surgical operators that protested Jaune being the head of the process. Even after Dr. Polendina's name was changed to be recorded to being the Head Surgeon (the man had multiple doctorates, apparently, the real genius that made Jaune feel like more of a fraud) it was Jaune that actually was made to do a majority of the work.
He had been told only to perform until he had gotten tired, but he had a level of endurance that a seven year old shouldn't have and with his Ring induced medical and NIKKE knowledge managed to finish the prosthetics upgrade from beginning to end.
There were a lot of underhanded rumors that spread that Jaune would fail and the parts be rejected, that the exemplar General Ironwood of Atlas would even perish from the operation, but two days later the General awoke.
That was faster than Jaune had expected, especially as three damaged segments of the spine had also been reinforced, but a mixture of his Aura's regeneration as well as whatever his Semblance itself was enough to bring him back to wakefulness.
He was still confined to bedrest for two weeks minimum, but preliminary scans revealed that he'd only need a week more at most to fully adjust.
Naturally the General took that as incentive to order the doctors to allow him to get up and start working again after five.
Ironwood had given Jaune a big smile and a curt but sincere pat of the head.
"I don't think I've been able to breathe nearly this comfortably in a long while." Ironwood took a deep breath of air with a soft smile. "Thank you, Jaune."
Jaune couldn't wipe the beaming smile off his face for the following week out of pride, even though he knew that it was only because of the Gacha. He felt guilty over it, but also couldn't help relishing in the attention of a hero.
That and General Ironwood going through the paces and testing his new enhancements blew all the metrics of his previous prosthetics out of the water. Including his new eye that could operate in infrared and nighttime conditions without issue. Rather that was where a different kind of problem began.
The videos of Ironwood's enhanced abilities and the name of the young genius that designed his prosthetics were leaked.
Not including the fact that over a dozen well known scientists in Mechanicus were releasing new research papers that listed him as an equal co-writer despite the fact that all he had done was provide some calculations and insights, and suddenly his name was on the front pages of the media of Atlas.
Luckily no photographs were available thanks to the General's intervention, but the comparative data showing the differences in Ironwood's combat ability leaping almost threefold meant that the name Jaune Arc became a household name overnight.
"Jaune…"
"...h-hi mom."
Jaune trembled as the teary eyed form of Noelle Arc, who clutched with a white-knuckled grip over her thick black coat. Her hair looked as if she hadn't been taken care of in the past day, in too much of a rush to come to Atlas for her son.
Her hair, normally dyed blonde to fit her children, was now faded into more of its original silvery gray as it stuck up at odd angles, making Jaune think of his sister Clarent who was the big tomboy of the family. He supposed she had to get it from somewhere.
A wet sob escaped before she took some shy steps towards him.
Pepper gave him an apologetic look, having had to bring her after she had contacted the Atlasean government about news of her son. Noire's was unreadable from her side of the door, but she was only staring at Jaune.
Jaune didn't step forwards, just dreading what might happen even with Juniper at his side whispering encouraging words.
His mother knelt in front of him and pulled her into his arms.
Jaune burst into tears, running ugly wet lines into his mother's coat, not caring that Summer, Taiyang, and Qrow were watching.
"I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry. Mommy was wrong. I'm sorry."
Jaune couldn't respond through his tears.
Qrow knew that this idyllic summer would never last.
He flipped a coin in his hands. Heads.
He, alongside the rest of the family, had known and prepared for it, though the kids could never really be ready to say goodbye to their new friend. Was it even a friend? Or a brother? Cousin maybe?
It was hard for him to say just what exactly the weird ass kid was. But Qrow knew one thing.
The boy was family.
If Julius fucked up and Jaune ran away a second time, Raven would snatch him up and bring him back to them. His crazy bitch of a sister had already decided he was hers, after all. Hell if there was any issues, they'd just hide the kid with her.
Fuck, wasn't that a crazy thought.
The coin flashed in the air. Heads again.
Raven had been enforcing some changes making the bandits something more legitimate. There were a lot of dissenting voices, but Raven wasn't exactly running a democracy. She'd let anyone who dared disagree leave, but even if Qrow didn't agree with it, he had helped hunt them down and make sure they'd never be allowed to terrorize anyone again.
Despite the fact that she would still spit at the ground whenever Ozpin's name or face appeared in front of her, she took advantage of his olive branch of pardons and new identities for her former tribe, now mercenary company.
He still didn't know how the fuck she convinced Jaune to supply her with a smattering of weapons. He knew that the kid wasn't ordering any large supplies of steel to be handing her crates filled with guns and blades.
Still, there was a sort of wordless agreement in Team STRQ to question nothing that the boy did. Not because they trusted everything he did, but it was less of a headache. Whatever his Semblance did was confusing.
He pat the armored undershirt he wore, feeling the small bulge of a good luck charm that the kid had handed him. It was a red and white talisman, not unlike those of the various Mistralian shrines that Qrow had visited on Huntsman business. But…
He flipped the coin in his hands.
Heads.
"Fuck. The kid's just magic." He huffed, scratching the back of his head. "There's just no explanation at this point."
Hell he had weird tattoo like markings on the back of his right hand that was like the ones that the Fall Maiden Amber had in the center of her back, though his was more complicated. And Red. Like blood and flame.
Another flash of coin.
Heads again.
"A talisman that reverses luck, huh? Shit, wish I could see that Juniper spirit and thank the fuck outta him." He grinned. "This is a helluva goodbye gift."
He watched as the SS. Tsubasa lifted from the airport as his nieces cried, waving up at the luxury airship.
"I wan him baaaaack." Ruby sobbed as she hugged a plushy of a grey wolf pup to her chest, a farewell present from the kid.
"It's not fair!" Yang stomped, burning a hole in the ground as both her hands waved in the air. Her hair was tied back by a bright orange and black ribbon, a low ponytail held in place by the small piece of fabric. Also a gift from the kid. "Why can't he stay with us! He could- could start at Signal with me next year! He promised-"
"You made him promise, firecracker." Qrow sighed as he pat is niece's head. "But that was before his mother appeared. You know how it felt when Raven came back, right? Are you really going to selfishly deny him that?"
Yang turned up her head at him, her lilac eyes turning a strange red. That was odd.
"But he ran away! They were mean to him! Why are we letting them-"
"And his mother came to apologize." Taiyang pulled his daughter up to his chest, letting her clutch at him for comfort. "She crossed the ocean from all the way in Mistral to find him. She loves him, even if she was mad before. She's like Rae. Do you hate Rae?"
"N-no. Mommy Raven is amazing too." Yang's eyes still smoldered like hot coals. "But-"
"If anything goes wrong and the kid runs away again, we'll bring him back to us. Fuck whatever Noelle and Julius say." Qrow interrupted.
Summer gasped.
"Qrow! You can't-"
"Raven and I both agreed." Qrow's eyes steeled as the coin in his hand rolled over his knuckles back and forth.
Tai laughed.
"Shoot. That serious, huh? Rae really likes him, even if she bullies him a lot."
"Kid's special." He shrugged. "Plus he saved one woman crazy enough to glue all of Team STRQ together."
Summer groaned into her hands, her white hair fluttering in the wind prettily, making Qrow's heart beat a bit harder.
"I'm never gonna be allowed to live that down am I?"
"As if we've ever let you live down anything, Partner."
He ignored her hands cutely and angrily beating at his chest as he laughed, the coin falling from his fingertips.
It rolled to a stop, flashing heads on the tarmac.