Chapter 36: Random Encounter

Chapter 36: Random Encounter

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryugii. This has been pulled from his Spacebattle publishment. Anyway on with the show...errr read.

Random Encounter

I remained calm thanks to my power and looked at the man without flinching or paling, which should have earned me a medal.

He knew about me, I was certain of that. But how? And how much? What had he seen? He couldn't have been aboard the White Whalenot only would I have been shocked if he could evade all my senses for such a prolonged period of time, but I'd seen him on the ground when I left. I hadn't paid him that much mind at the time, which I regretted slightly even if I had been more focused on other matters, but he'd been there. He couldn't have been on the ground and in the ship.

Unless it was his Semblance, somehow? Or some planted bug I'd missed? The latter was unlikely when I had both Crocea Mors and Vulturnus, but the formerthere was really no way to know. This was Professor Ozpin, he could

No, I stopped myself calmly.Follow current novels at novelhall.com)

I knew the power of a well-crafted reputationI only had to look at the one that had formed around me. It was something that had very real power.

But that wasn't the same as it being real.

I knew, if somewhat vaguely, about Ozpin. He was famous, a legendary Hunter and trainer of Hunters, a man even my parents looked up to who'd looked after Vale for decades and had friends and allies everywhere. It would have been easy to fall prey to that, to assume he knew everything, had seen everything, that he'd lurked beside me the whole time and somehow kept me unawaresbut that didn't make sense for a lot of reasons. While there was the possibility of him having a Semblance that allowed him to know all and see all, there was nothing to support that possibility but awe and fear. If I excluded unsupported fear, what did that leave me?

Logic.

He couldn't have been on the ship; it didn't make sense and if he had been, he'd have needed to stay with me for the entire duration of my trip even when things were going to hell. It meant not revealing himself even when it would have been wise to do so, not stopping me and making me turn the ship around at any number of points, not reacting to Ziz, notit didn't make sense and I couldn't see an easy way for him to do it. Any time after that and I'd probably been off the grid.

What about before the theft? That opened up a few more possibilities. It wasn't impossible, or even unlikely, that a man with Ozpin's power and influence could keep track of me while I was in or near Vale if given cause to do so. If I put myself in his shoesI could think of a few ways to do it pretty easily. Maybe not everywhere I went, depending on a number of factors, but the stuff at home? He could have seen that with some cameras, maybe, or an informant positioned nearby. Though I had no way of knowing how good his intelligence was, he could easily cover a lot of the stuff in town, too; he'd just need to follow the car, see where I went, and respond appropriately. Depending on how prepared he was and what he'd set up over his decades protecting Vale, he could monitor everything from my house towho knows. I couldn't let myself assume he was all-powerful, but I could see him being aware of many of the things leading up to the mission. If dad had given him a heads up and a reason to actively lookyeah, I could see it.

And if he knew that, all it would really take were some friends in Atlas to know what I'd done over therelike, say, the General. I needed to avoid overestimating him, but he was a very old, experienced Huntsman with a lot of friends and I couldn't underestimate that either, especially when I wasn't sure what resources he had available. Hell, maybe he did have some secret camera network.

The question, then, was what to say. Even if he didn't know the specifics of everything I'd done, he probably had enough to peg me as the criminal even if I said nothing, so actually lying to him probably wasn't feasible. On the other hand, he wasn't arresting me right now, so

"Professor Ozpin, isn't it?" I asked. "It's an honor to meet you, sir, though I can't say I expected it."

"Likewise, Mr. Arc," He replied, taking a sip from his mug. "You had us all worried with your abrupt departure."

I scratched the back of my head, giving a fake rueful smile. I saw my mom open her mouth to speak but Ozpin shifted his gaze slightly and she hesitated, looked like she was going to say it anyway, and then bit down upon it. I saw her look over my head at my father, but whatever they communicated, I didn't see anything when I turned to face him. Feeling somewhat left out of the silent conversation, I looked my dad in the eye and tilted my head very slightly in the Headmaster's direction. My dad glanced to the side and I was pretty sure that he communicated something with Ozpin as well before he gave me a very shallow nod.

There were so many people not-talking in here, I mused, that it was a wonder I could hear myself think.

"In the interests of saving us all a lot of time and effort," I said, turning back to Ozpin. "Shall we cut right to the chase?"

I heard my mom sigh and saw her pinch the bridge of her nose. She moved to speak again, but halted again as Ozpin raised his cup in acknowledgement.

"What would you like to know first?" I asked, just to make sure that he knew what I thought he knew. Even if I was pretty sure, wellit would be really embarrassing if he actually knew nothing and just tricked me into thinking he did.

He gave me a knowing lookwhich may or may not have meant anything. I could give a pretty mean knowing look myself because pretending you already knew something was a surprisingly good way to learn things you didn't know. I waited patiently as he took another sip of coffee, making sure he saw me completely at ease.

"Generally, one should start at the beginning when telling a story," He said and I gave serious thought to starting with my birth just to be a sarcastic twit before he smiled and shook his head slightly. "But as you said, in the interests of saving time, let's begin with what happened after Ziz flew off with you. I must admit, I was rather worried for your life, Mr. Arc, especially after your extended silence. Your family was quite distraught."

I remained focused and passive, even as I felt the guilt rise up. Though I could only see her out of the corner of my eye, I could see enough of her expression to tell we weren't done talking about that, but after what I'd put them all through.I deserved it.

Even so, I had to focus. I could take his words as confirmation that he knew everything up to the White Whalemaybe. Unless he wanted me to think thatno, simplest explanation for the moment.

"Yeah, sorry about that. Ziz made thingscomplicated." I said, watching him carefully even as I considered what to say. He didn't react so I made sure not to, either. "Last I saw, it was back to sleep, by the way; I can show you where on a map, if you need me to."

"Good news," Ozpin mused, looking down into his cup. "Certainly, that would help matters. There's been rather a panic over its whereabouts lately; we'll need to arrange an explanation for how we came by the information, but"

I shrugged.

"If needed, I can send a message," I said, not elaborating. He looked at me obliquely for a moment, taking another sip of his drink.

"I suppose you could." He acknowledge as if we were talking about the weather. "Your story, then, Mr. Arc?"

"Well, it's a long story so forgive me if I summarize a little bit, butZiz carried me off to an island south of Atlas and tore the White Whale apart," I answered promptly, having put my story in order. I'd decided to tell the truth, but I didn't want to let any major details slip in front of someone I didn't even know, so I abridged things slightly. "I fixed the ship and flew up towards Atlas itself to do some stuff, which was when I sent the message. A few days later, I hit the mining town, fought some people they sent after me, won, and flew off with about a thousand Faunus that were being kept as slaves. I came back, dropped them off, and went home."

I shrugged and gestured at myself.

"Jaune," My mother spoke up at last, sounding simultaneously tired and annoyed. "Good God, that's not how you give a report."

"Don't listen to her son," Dad disagreed. "The only thing that happens when you give good reports is that people make you give more. Your mother's had to give every report for our team in the lastuhtwentythree years? Since the Vacuo embassy thing."

"Shut up, Jack," She said, sounding even more tired.

For his part, Ozpin just nodded in acceptance. I wasn't sure if he'd learnt everything he'd needed from that or if he just didn't care.

"A rather remarkable adventure you've had, Mr. Arc," He said evenly. "Perhaps there will be time for more details later. Nonetheless, I'd say you've performed rather remarkably given the circumstances. A number of your actions were questionable, butwell, I imagine such matters would be best left for your mother to address. Isabelle?"

"Oh, yes, sir," She said in a tone dark enough to blot out the son. I figured whatever she'd done to dad must have taken the edge off.

I sighed.

"I'm pretty sure I could do it with at least red, yellow, and green Dust," I said. "I'll have to test with the other types, butstill, Haste is great and Feather Fall turned out to be surprisingly useful. It's really nice to not get smashed into stuff, you know?"

"Trust me, I know. I've been through some walls in my day. And rocks. And trees. It's not fun." He shook his head. "Healing, supporting, awakening Aurasnot bad, son."

"Thanks," I fiddled with my drink absently, not really paying it any attention. "Still need to train them all, especially the Aura one, butit's cool. Not sure how I could explain any of it, but"

My dad gestured dismissively.

"Some of it will be hard, but I'm sure Oz will think of something for the basics. Trust me, the guy writes enough fiction to be a novelist and it'd be great to have at least an emergency healer on standby. You knowI could probably get Oz to bend some rules and bring you with me on a few missions, if you want?"

"Yeah?" I asked, eyebrows going up. "Me?"

Dad shrugged like it was nothing.

"Sure. Let me tell you, if you know the guy, it's really not hard to get Oz to bend the rules. Nothing major," He said, seeing my look. "No offense, but I wouldn't bring you along on the type of Search and Destroy missions I get sent onbut there's some Village Security stuff and such that could work. A lot of places like that have their fair share of sick and wounded. My team could deal with the actual security while you healed them. Might not be the most glamourous or exciting mission, but it could save some lives and I'm sure there's some way of making it fly as extra credit or something. You could make some friends along the way, some connectionsI mean, if you want."

"Please," I said immediately, justimagining it. Going on a mission with my father, if as the medic. "I'd love to."

He smiled.

"I'll talk to him, then," The Arc Patriarch said. "Maybe it'll even count as one of your Quest things?"

"Maybe," I nodded, not even sure I cared. He seemed satisfied with the answer regardless.

"Any thoughts on what you're gonna do next, then?"

"Uh" I tilted my head to the side. "Probably just keep training. Working out for my physical states, reading books for my Intelligence, that type of thing. I want to hone some of my new skills, too, like awakening Aura's. I figured I'd start small, though, in the hopes nothing goes wrong."

"Oh?" He asked. "What'd you have in mind?"

"I was thinking about starting a garden, honestly," I admitted. "I don't know how well it'll work, but maybe awaken some flowers or trees to start with. I figure the odds of things going catastrophically wrong will be lower than if I start with animals. After I know what's liable to happen and am confident I can handle it, I'll upgrade to some goldfish or something, and then advance up to stuff like dogs. I can probably get a skill to train them, too, so"

"Could work," He agreed. "It takes a fair amount of training to bring out their full potential, but good Hunting dogs are invaluable. There's plenty of stuff you can work on if you're interested. Let's seeI saw one guy who'd trained a falcon like that awhile back and a few other animals. Plantsthere've always been a fair number of experiments along that vein for crops and such, but I don't really know much about it. They never really implemented anything that I know of, but I don't know if they had problems or if the issue of awakening enough crops to actually matter just made it unfeasible. For something we grow just to eatI don't know. You can probably find something on that, though."

"Huh," I said. "I'll look into that. I hadn't heard anything about that."

"Like I said, I don't know how that's worked out for them; never really thought about it until now." He paused. "Well, there was this one time, but it turned out to just be a guy who could make plant minions with his Semblance."

"What was that like?" I asked, somewhat surprised I'd never heard this story. Dad's brow furrowed.

"Surprisingly horrifying. It's easy to make fun of a cabbage until it unfolds into layers and layers of teeth," He shook his head. "Naturally, we ended up fighting the guy in the middle of a forest, too, and at night. It was"

He exhaled loudly.

"Something." He took a sip of his coffee, blowing away the last remnants of steam. "It shouldn't be an issue for you though. I know a few people down in the Agricultural District if you're looking for anything in particular, though."

"I'll have to look into it," I said. "I never even considered the idea until today. I could just start with the trees and plants around here butit's something to look into. Maybe see if I can awaken seeds and test them against normal versions of the plants, see if different breeds react in specific waysit's neat to think about. I'll look into it."

My dad chuckled.

"My son the botanist," He said. "And the doctor and the captain."

He was silent for a moment.

"I'm proud of you, you know," He murmured. "Despite the danger and what happenedI won't say everything you did was flawless and you scared a lot of people, but I know why you did it. And despite the risks, you saw it through, even when you were alone and no one could have blamed you for turning back. I wish you'd called, that you'd told us, thatI wish a lot of things. But I get why, even as scary as it had been, and I'm proud that you saved those people, Jaune. You did good, son."

I ducked my head but was pretty sure it didn't fully hide my smile. For someone who was probably an internationally wanted supervillain, I couldn't keep from lighting up at my father's praise. He shifted slightly to bump me with a shoulder and I laughed a bit before sobering and looking up.

"Mom's been quiet," I whispered.

Dad sighed slowly and nodded.

"You about done, dear?" He asked. She flipped a page in the notebook to scrawl something and then clicked her pen.

"More or less," She said, pushing her chair back and rising. "Come with me, Jaune."

I rose and came around the table with a nod.

"Where are we going?" I asked. After a moment's pause, I continued. "Did you decide on my punishment?"

"I'm not going to punish you, Jaune, I'm going to teach you something," She answered calmly. "Which is why we're going into the forest to train. Follow me."

I nodded wordlessly, casting a glance back at my father, who saluted me with his coffee mug. I knew she wasn't really mador not mad about the things I feared, at leastand given everything I'd done

This was fine. I'd take my medicine like a man.

It's not like I feared pain or effort anymore.