Who: Qrow and Jaune When: Recently What: Training Session Where: Somewhere where swords (and maybe a scythe and shotgun?) wouldn’t be noticed Status: Complete, IF for Intense Feels. Some talk of violent dream events.
One of the reasons Qrow had agreed to train Jaune Arc was that just like his dream counterpart, Jaune had been thrust into a situation he didn’t ask for, had very little understanding about and was basically left to stand his ground or get trampled over. And Qrow preferred if none of his nieces’ friends got trod on, thank you very much, Orange County.
Plus Qrow felt a little responsible for the kid. He’d had him in class a while ago. Yeah, sure, Jaune hadn’t exactly been an exemplary student, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. He was a good kid. Meant well and he had a certain level of determination in that well-meaning attitude. Qrow had gotten a brief glimpse of it when Jaune had gotten his poisoned ass to a hospital and then stayed at his hospital bed (and had insisted on staying there) at least until Tai had arrived. If Jaune could get a little self-confidence behind that determination, he’d go far, Qrow was sure of it.
University learning -- it seemed -- was now out of the question, but training the kid to fight? Hell, Qrow could do that. He’d been fighting long before he took on the mantle of a professor. Long before the Dreams had started too, but the added combat experience of the Dreams was a welcome addition, particularly when it came to melee style fighting. Qrow had trained Ruby in the Dreams and in this world. He could do the same for Jaune.
He set up a spot to do training somewhere out in the unincorporated part of Orange County. A place away from other people. This was done for a couple of reasons. One may have looked a little askance at Jaune’s sword and shield, but Harbinger was an entirely different story. A sword that turned into a scythe and shotgun was going to raise a few brows. Plus there was the issue of semblences. Jaune didn’t have a speed boost or the ability to absorb and redirect lightning, but not having to waste time explaining anything considered otherworldly to roommates or nosy-ass neighbors was preferable. Besides, when it came to Qrow’s own semblance it was best not to tempt fate more so than was necessary.
The only thing that Jaune was certain about when it came to his own ability to fight was that he was behind everyone else and needed to get better. In the dreams, he'd let his pride get in the way of the help Pyrrha had offered him at first, and that had only set him back further.
All of his sisters in either world had been capable. Most of them were trained and in the military, training TO be in the military, or working on rising up in the ranks of this or that martial art. Jaune had tried his hand at a few of those at their insistence, and still trained some with Ren. In the dreams, it seemed, he was definitely improving. In the real world, it took a lot more effort.
It was effort he was well capable of putting in. Deciding to train to be an EMT had been a good turning point for him. And the fact that Qrow believed in him had been a huge help.
He arrived that day in his dream armor, weapon strapped to his side, ready to learn. "Man, you would not believe the looks I got on the bus wearing this. I think everyone was like - 'hey, is there a convention in town?' but no one wanted to ask me."
Qrow may have been staring at the kid when he arrived too. Jaune did look as though he was on his way to a convention sporting the world’s most detailed and professional looking cosplay. He’d actually rode the bus while wearing his armor…?
Qrow snorted a soft laugh and shook his head. Well, why the hell not? “I doubt anyone will question you about it, either,” he said. “If something is easily enough explained away by ‘there must be a convention in town’, than no one not associated with the network is gonna bat an eye. You’ve seen the cover stories that go out every time someone’s Dreams regurgitate a fresh new hell on us. The masses eat that up without question. Besides, I don’t think I’ve seen you take that get-up off once in the Dreams.” He shrugged. “May as well get used to wearing the weight here, too.”
Not that Qrow really had any first hand knowledge regarding armor weight or getting used to it. He didn’t have armor, and he hadn’t so much as looked the clothes his counterpart wore since they’d appeared in his closet. Now, his weapon on the other hand, that was completely different. He never went anywhere without it. At first lugging the thing around had been more so in reaction to the grimm attack the year prior. These days it was second nature.
So, of course he had it with him now, secured on his person in it’s “inactive” mode, patiently waiting for Jaune to arrive. Now that he was here, they could get down to business. “We’re gonna work on your offensive today, kid,” he said.
"I take it off to put my pajamas on?" Jaune replied, shrugging a shoulder and looking down at his chest. "But I always manage to do it when no one else is around so this one time when I upgraded it? Everyone finally saw my hoodie. Man that was a rough few seconds."
The battle before that had been a rough one, too, and just carrying on without Pyrrha on their team had been the worst experience of his life. In his dreams, he was angry and felt completely useless, and Jaune spent a lot of his real world time just trying to keep it from bleeding through. Training definitely helped with all of that.
"My hoodie has a bunny on it. Nora is never gonna let that go. But okay? Offensive? Like a bad joke or- No I'm kidding I know what it means we've been doing this often enough. But my ability to attack you? Also laughable." Jaune rambled, as he got his sword and hung his shield on his arm.
Qrow had a hard time reconciling the angry kid he’d met in the dreams with someone who wore a bunny sweatshirt. Wait…wasn’t there some kind of rabbit mascot used in Anima -- a grey cartoon bunny that hawked cereal to kids? Pumpkin Pete, right?
Qrow tried to stifle the laugh that lurched up at the thought, but only managed to succeed in turning it into a kind of snort. He quickly tried to cover it with a sniff and cough. If Nora (who was essentially energy given physical form) was giving the poor kid flack, then last thing Jaune needed was Qrow laughing at him. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well…it doesn’t matter whatcha got on under the armor so long as you got on something.” Then he smirked despite himself. “Though, you may not want to go spreading that bunny bit around.”
That was enough stalling for now. A click of the lever on Harbinger’s handle and the weapon transformed from its inactive mode into a broadsword. Eventually, Qrow would have Jaune take him on while wielding his scythe, but for now it was best to have the kid focus on sword vs. sword combat. It seemed to be working. “I’m not askin’ you to beat me,” Qrow said, sliding into a defensive position. “Just land a coupla hits. Let’s say…three to start.” Which sounded easy enough and was something Jaune was capable of doing at this point in his training, though Qrow never made it easy for the kid, even while remaining strictly on the defensive. Making it easy would have defeated the purpose. “Whenever yer ready, kid.”
It wasn't easy, and Jaune would be the first to admit that he preferred it that way. He'd struggled with his pride in the dreams when Pyrrha had offered to train him, but those days were over. She'd never made it easy for him either, and Jaune had learned that progress required work and determination.
So he prepared himself to attack, relieved that Qrow was still keeping his weapon mostly leashed and out of scythe mode. Everyone who'd ever seen Qrow fight in the dreams knew that scythe mode was for when 'shit got real'. His first attack was a little too obvious and easily blocked, but Jaune decided he was just warming up. He turned his tactics brain on and by the time he'd landed the third strike on Qrow, it had been a more complicated move involving a feint to one side and a little bit of trickery with his shield.
He let out a little victory cheer, "Hah! Take that, evil Grimm! Or... something."
Jaune really had improved over the last several months. When they’d started it would have taken him all afternoon to land even one hit on Qrow. Lately it was considerably less. Eventually, Qrow wanted to get him to the point where he wouldn’t have to strictly defend and Jaune would still be able to land three hits on him. To his credit, Jaune was a quick study. Now if Qrow could get him to use those tactics from the start, he’d be well on his way.
“Good job, kid,” he said. “You gotta watch yourself on those opening salvos, though. Your enemies are gonna do more than just defend so you gotta be careful not to leave yourself wide open. Don’t be afraid to use your tactics from the start.” He fished a water bottle out of his bag and tossed it to Jaune. “Take a breather.”
"Hey... I knew that, I was just... testing you." Jaune replied, catching the water bottle in one hand while using the other to put his weapon down. He stared at it for a few seconds before actually taking a drink and wiping his mouth dry. "I mean... I should know it. Pyrrha used to say the same things. She'd pick on my stance, tell me I was telegraphing all my movements, crash right through my defenses. She didn't even need to use her semblance. But I guess I kind of feel like the times I got the upper hand? It was because I made her underestimate me first."
It was strange talking about her in the third person. Pyrrha was still alive, but the one that was here with him in this world was different. Those shared times were still shared, but they didn't happen here. "Look, can I ask you something? Have you had to deal with anyone in the dreams dying that was still alive here?"
Jaune had no idea what can of worms he might be opening.
Qrow paused what he was doing when he heard Jaune mention Pyrrha. He felt bad about what had happened to her -- responsible. He understood Jaune’s anger in the Dreams, better than Jaune probably realized or understood. Pyrrha may have been a good candidate to be the Fall Maiden, but what right had they had thrusting that decision on her? Even with Salem’s forces breathing down their necks, how had they expected Pyrrha to react? Yes, Qrow blamed himself for what had happened to the girl every bit as much as he blamed Cinder. And Pyrrha’s death hadn’t been the first.
Qrow let out a long breath. Instead of picking up the second water bottle, he reached for his flask instead. “Yeah,” he answered, after taking a pull. “I’ve had to deal with that.”
"Is that-" And Jaune motioned towards the flask that Qrow had just taken a hit off of, "The only way to really... deal with it? Because... I don't know how to deal with it. In the dreams, I'm scared, and angry, and falling apart. Just trying to keep it together so that we can get where we're going - I mean, you know that. You met us out there."
And Jaune had dreamed about the night it had all been explained. Or at least, as much as Qrow could explain it all. He knew that anger had let itself out in front of Qrow in the dreams, and he wasn't interested in getting into another shouting match. "I just need to know how to deal with it, here. She almost died in my arms. I still remember what that felt like, the blood on my hands. That's not how it happened, there, but it was still this same- You know, like you can't do anything. And I was so tired of feeling helpless already."
He stared down at his waterbottle. "I feel bad. She lived, I should be happy with that. I am. But every day I wake up I have to remind myself I'm not that angry kid whose girlfriend ran off to die without him."
It was as though Jaune had unknowingly found an open festering wound and ground salt deep into it. Qrow wanted to hate him for his honesty, but… Jesus, this kid. It made Qrow sick how much of himself he saw in him, all of his terrible traits that he despised, but didn’t know how to be rid of. Jaune was too good to be headed down that path so early.
Qrow looked down at his flask. His hand tightened around it as his eyes moved over his symbol etched into the leather covering. He thought of Summer. He thought of how Tai had fallen apart when they’d received the news of her death. It had happened there and it had happened here. And in both places, Qrow hadn’t been afforded the luxury of falling apart with him. Someone needed to be there for Yang and Ruby -- Yang especially, who had managed to lose two mothers before she’d even turned six.
It had come naturally, bottling all that pain and anger. Qrow had done it practically his entire life. Both of his lives. Constantly taking the blame whenever things went wrong, because…how could he ever prove otherwise? It was just easier to accept it, bury it and move on. He was good at it. And when Summer died, he’d buried that pain as well, drowned it in alcohol and kept himself together. And there was a part of him – a part that was becoming larger every day -- that suspected that he was somehow responsible for Summer’s death in Remnant.
Finding Summer alive in Pahrump, Nevada, had torn everything open. Raven had made it painfully clear that she didn’t remember them and she never would. The news reopened old wounds for Tai, for Yang and made new ones in Ruby. Qrow could still see the look on Summer’s face when she’d seen him for the first time in fifteen years. That blank look, as though he was no one, nothing of consequence. That would have been one thing, but for Yang to see that look as well… All Qrow had wanted to do was give his niece the chance to confront her mother, get some answers, say her piece. Instead, he’d just brought the entire family a whole new world of pain.
He looked up towards Jaune. He really had come to the wrong person looking for guidance. But, here he was and Qrow had to tell him something.
“No,” he said after what really had been much too long of a silence. “This,” he indicated his flask, “isn’t the only way. Not for you, at any rate.” Jaune was owed something. Hell, Pyrrha was owed something as well. An apology. An explanation. Something. Qrow screwed the flask’s cap back into place.
“What happened to Pyrrha in the dreams shouldn’tve happened,” he stated. “I take responsibility for that. No matter how desperate the situation may have seemed, we didn’t have the right to force that kind of a decision onto anyone, much less a student. In the end, she accepted the responsibility and did what she felt she had to do. She was a hero. But we never should’ve put her in that position in the first place. For that, I’m sorry.”
Qrow tucked the flask away and instead lit a cigarette. One vice for another. “For what you’ve both gone through you have every right to be angry,” he said. “So, let yourself be angry. Yell. Scream. Hit something. Get it out of you and let it go. You don’t want to hang on to shit like that. It damages you and if you hang on to it too long, eventually the damage becomes irreparable.”
"No!" Jaune didn't mean to shout that out, but it definitely ended up being shouted in Qrow's direction. His grip on the water bottle was so strong that it had collapsed part of the plastic, making an odd crackling sound that seemed to punctuate his word. "No. No, you don't get to apologize. I didn't even- I wasn't looking for one. All this time, every time I talk to her about it, she tells me it was her choice. Look- sure, you hid a lot of stuff from us. And I don't mean YOU you, I mean... general, you adults, you. Professor Ozpin especially did. Was it right? I don't know. Was she good enough to accept that power? Yes. Would she have used it wisely? Better? Kept it controlled for you? Probably."
Jaune started pacing a bit. He chucked his water to the ground, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I mean- I hate that she chose it. I hate that she dragged me down into a vault in the middle of a fight we were never going to win so that she could claim a power that wasn't hers to begin with. I hate Cinder for taking that away, for taking OZPIN away before we got more answers, for taking Pyrrha away. But he didn't make her get into that machine. She got in. And he asked her if she really wanted to. He made her say it out loud."
Maybe none of them deserved all of this because they were too young to be fighting when the stakes were this high. It was a lot to take in, and Jaune's dream self could barely sift through it all. His waking self was at least afforded the ability to be a little more objective. "I'm not mad at YOU. You don't get to apologize. I can't make HER apologize for choosing that. I can't make her apologize for shoving me away. What was I going to do? What abilities do I have against someone that powerful? I can't make Ozpin apologize for putting us in the middle of that. But it wasn't just your decision. You were just... you were doing your job."
Jaune’s words, especially the last, rattled in Qrow’s skull. They sounded like an excuse -- as though the kid was giving him an undeserved out -- but he was right. Qrow had been doing his job. The same job he’d been doing for the better part of his life. Did that make it ok, or did it make it worse? Qrow wasn’t sure, but it didn’t make him feel any better about the situation.
But this wasn’t about him, or his anger, guilt, pain or any of that shit. This was about the kid pacing in front of him like some sort of caged animal ready to snap. Qrow wasn’t about to take back what he’d said, but he wasn’t going to let Jaune stumble around unable to get past what had already happened, either.
“There wasn’t anything you could’ve done, Jaune,” he said. “Sometimes people -- people you love -- are gonna make those kinds of decisions. And they’re gonna hurt. They’re gonna piss you off. But, there isn’t anything you can do to control them or to stop them…” Despite his desire not to, Qrow couldn’t help but to think of Summer again and then, much to his own surprise, Raven. Feeling a knot forming around his voice and a pain starting to pound behind his eyes, Qrow pushed both of them away.
He cleared his throat and took a drag off his cigarette. “There are different kinds of power,” he went on as he blew out the smoke. “There’s the kind that involves strength, the kind that involves skill and the kind that involve smarts.” He pointed at Jaune with the lit end of his cigarette, “right now you may lack in the strength department, but yer smart and there’s no denying that you have some raw skill. You wouldn’tve come this far if you hadn’t. So the question isn’t what you could’ve done. The question is what are you gonna do now. What do you want to do? Do you want to focus on the past, on what’s already happened? Or do you want to prepare for whatever happens next, so you can use that brain of yours to help your team and your friends?” Qrow flicked the grey ash off his cigarette before taking another drag. “I can’t make that decision for ya, kid. You need to tell me what it is you want and I will try my damnedest to prepare you.”
Jaune stopped pacing and looked down at his hands. "I want to win. I don't know how that translates to here. But I just- I need to be able to do a little more than just be the goofball that stands around trying to come up with smart ideas."
His mind went back to his recent dreams, the ones where Cinder had returned. His anger had come straight up to the surface and he'd lost all control, entered into a fight he had absolutely no chance of winning. Maybe if he'd learned to use his smarts the way Qrow was suggesting he'd have outsmarted her instead of ending up being forced to watch while she speared Weiss.
That was actually the last dream he'd dreamed recently. He only knew Weiss was okay because she'd dreamed past it. "You're right. I can't let my anger get the better of me. I want to stop being so angry and feeling so helpless. I thought the EMT training would help, and it- it does, kind of. I know I have some kind of purpose at least? But I want to be good at this. Fighting, leading my team. Actually being useful to them. When we saw Cinder again I lost it. I was willing to die so that they all could survive, because I thought I didn't matter. I don't know what happens after that, but I'm supposed to be a leader. I can't be the guy that loses it. I guess what we're doing already covers all of that. Maybe."
Qrow dragged on his cigarette as Jaune spoke, a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. Haven had been a disaster. They’d gotten the relic out of the vault, sure, but the cost had been high. Leo had betrayed them. Raven had betrayed them too, and Qrow was still smarting over the realization that his own sister had set him up…
(“We’re not family anymore.” Qrow winced. “Were we ever?”)
…Every time Qrow analyzed what had happened from this side of the Dreams it amazed him that they had all managed to come out of it only slightly worse for wear. Between Hazel ‘roiding out on dust, the terror twins putting the screws on Yang, Weiss being impaled, Ruby getting knocked out and the White Fang literally lurking around outside ready to blow them all to kingdom come, it was a miracle they hadn’t all been torn apart. Qrow had suspected they were walking into a trap, but even he hadn’t expected that. And what had actually happened in the vault? Qrow had a hard time believing Yang’s story that Raven and Cinder were gone by the time she got down there and only Vernal’s body was left behind. He hadn’t dared try to press her, though. Maybe he should…if it wasn’t already too late.
As for Jaune’s actions leading up to the fiasco…despite Qrow’s best attempts to keep everyone calm, the kid had been itching for a fight for a long time. Seeing Cinder saunter out of Raven’s portal had exposed a wound that hadn’t been allowed to properly heal. And Cinder knew exactly how to poke that wound to get the response she wanted. Even if Jaune had managed to keep his cool, the fight was inevitable. The entire group, Qrow included, had been played like finely tuned instruments. It pissed him off.
He exhaled a lungful of smoke. “You gotta stop living your life in ‘maybes’, kid,” he said. “You wanna be a better leader? That’s what we’ll work on. You wanna be a better fighter? We’ll work on that too. But you have to work on your confidence. Deal?”
"This is like a... yoda moment, isn't it?" Jaune blurted out, breaking some of the seriousness of the moment. He gave Qrow a momentary sheepish look, "Do or do not, there is no... try? Except-"
And there, Jaune stopped himself. Part of being more confident likely involved far less nervous, dorky rambling to explain your point. If he couldn't even be sure of his own words when he spoke, then how were others supposed to have confidence in his abilities either? He squared his shoulders a bit, and nodded. "Yes, I get it. No more maybes."
This felt like one of those moments where, usually, people would shake on it. But Jaune picked up his sword instead, switching it into greatsword mode. "Deal. Let's get started."