Lemons.
That was the first thing in Jacques Schnee's head as he stood amid the carnage. Lemons.
Not because they had any poetic meaning or connection to the madness around him. No, it was simpler than that. He hated them. Absolutely despised the sour little bastards. He wasn't even entirely sure why they popped into his head right now; maybe it was Tyrian's psychotic grin, or the acidic burn in his lungs from overexertion, or the memory of an ex who thought shoving those yellow horrors into everything was "culinary genius."
He don't give a fuck the twits on the net said it was healthy, it tasted fucking horrible, and it gave him the shits!
But it probably was not the lemons, that scrambled his thoughts, at least not directly. No, it was the lights. He was caught up in what glorious quote about life and lemonade and Honored Ones to drop to the cameras in his post-Faunus-beat-down-Player-of-the-Year worthy-performance interview when the heat and glaring light blast from his utterly magnificent, completely unparalleled lightning attack—it was his, after all, and unless some other schmuck from Earth got dumped into this world too and started snitching, no one could prove otherwise—had fried his brain for a second.
Short-circuited him, really.
And while he was busy thinking about lemons, he was also very aware of the cameras. Oh, the cameras. The choppers circling above were capturing every moment of this showdown. Every angle.
Every glorious second.
He adjusted his stance, smoothed back his hair, and flexed just a little harder. The lemon thought finally fizzled out, replaced by something far more important: He needed this to look amazing.
Jacques lowered his hand with all the deliberate, dramatic flair of a man who knew he looked good doing it. This wasn't just a gesture—it was a declaration! A full-on flex for the circling helicopters with their conveniently live broadcasts, and every poor soul glued to their screens watching him pull this off.
He threw a lazy, half-lidded glance toward the nearest chopper, letting a crackle of electricity flash in his eyes, because why not? Then, as if he wasn't the living embodiment of goddamn greatness, he casually turned his gaze forward, with an expression that was basically screaming: You're lucky I'm letting you witness all this god-tier magnificence.
How humble of him!
Never mind that his right arm was absolutely fucked. The skin was raw and red, blistered and peeling in places where the lightning backlash had kissed it too long. Every nerve was screaming at him to sit his ass down and chill. Oh, and let's not forget the bleeding slash from his ear to his nose or the gash poisoned running shoulder to hip which was starting to make him kinda dizzy. Each throbbed with the kind of pain that would have most people crying on the floor, but nah. Jacques Schnee didn't cry.
Why? Because he was a proper High-T bloke, raised to thug it out no matter how much it hurt. Ol' Pa didn't raise a pussyo, and he sure as hell wasn't about to let millions of peasants watching from their cheap living rooms think he was sweet out here.
So, with the sheer willpower of an absolute legend, he sucked it up and pretended like the stabbing, burning, excruciating pain was just a mild inconvenience. Gotta love that oversized slave of a donkey of his that helped him build up his pain tolerance.
When in doubt, Thug it out!
Jacques crossed his arms—Ow— and made a point of seeming to admire the sheer devastation his Kirin had left in its wake. He couldn't lie, though—his bigass fuck-off electricity dragon was a masterpiece. Buildings crumbled into blackened rubble. Streets were melted into slag, the edges still glowing faintly red. The air reeked of burnt metal and ozone, the ultimate cologne of destruction. The streets below looked like something straight out of an apocalypse flick.
That was how glorious his Kirin, and by association Jacques was.
But he wasn't about to let his inner hype slip. Nah, for the hoes watching, he had to keep it chill.
With a loud, exaggerated sigh, Jacques released some steam into the icy Atlassian air, making sure it added that dramatic touch against the night sky. He surveyed the wreckage below, his face twisting into a practiced and default scowl while making sure his lips moved clear enough for all the professional lip readers out there to have a field day later.
"For my Kirin to have become so feeble, unable to even pierce through the breadth of the entire Flying Island…" he clicked his tongue like the scale of destruction disappointed him. "To think, I have sunk to such a deplorable state and grown so pathetic." He lied through his perfect teeth.
Then, because he wasn't just a fighter but also a philosopher, he added with a bitter chuckle that built into a full-on guffaw: "Ah, but such is the nature of existence, is it not? Even I, in all my magnificence, cannot elude the relentless toll of time upon both my spirit and form!"
He paused for added effect, a smug grin creeping across his face as he leaned into his own self-indulgence. "But truly, to be humbled by time is to be reminded of one's own grandeur— for what is the measure of greatness, if not the contrast of its inevitable decay?"
Boom. Fucking nailed it. Cold as ice, hard as a steel beam, and dripping with just enough suspense to make every idiot watching think, Holy shit, this is him holding back?! Jacques knew they were eating it up. He's so experienced! So strong! So mysterious! I wanna have his babies!
They'd be whispering in awe, 'Oh my god, Jacques was definitely a totes amazing and experienced fighter that I should absolutely not fuck with if this what he considers pathetic! Like, for real, let's just keep a safe distance and maybe throw in some ass-kissing while I'm at it'—complimented with a dash of aged wisdom and humility at the end.
'Mwah!" Exactly how he liked it. Prime Jacques low-diffs your favourite huntsman better be trending by the end of the night!
And to top it all.
"Come," he commanded badass-ly, his voice easily heard in the quiet aftermath.
From the stormy sky above, the remnants of the Kirin—whatever birds hadn't been merged into the main attack—streaked down like glowing arrows. Tens of them. Each one moved with purpose, slotting into place behind him like pieces of an electric puzzle. In seconds, they formed makeshift almost holographic wings.
Above his head, the First Sparrow—the brightest of them all—hovered into position in the shape of the crude outline of a crown.
"Himmel König." he called it as he really was that vain.
It served absolutely little purpose, it didn't actually give him the ability to fly or even hover, and there were much better ways to keep the Thousand Bird at his disposal,
but! It looked fucking cool
At least it looked cool when he tried it in front of a mirror last month. And judging by the sound of someone inside the helicopters losing their shit—probably creaming their pants even at a distance—it was clear others thought it was fucking cool too.
He didn't need to hear the words to know every camera was glued to him.
Don't sperg. Don't sperg. Don't fucking sperg, he repeated in his head, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning like an absolute lunatic. He could feel the giddy laugh bubbling in his chest, and the overwhelming urge to start shadowboxing and hype himself up, but there was no way he was ruining the moment.
Not when he was absolutely killing it.
After several moments, he managed to rein his amusement if only because it all had been nearly perfect. but it wasn't.
As such even in the midst of all his self-wank over the sheer theatrical genius of his display, Jacques couldn't shake that gnawing sliver of genuine disappointment.
His Kirinwas a failure.
Sure, the lightning dragon had been nothing short of awe-inspiring—melting buildings, carving scars into the city itself, and looking like something straight out of a Final Fantasy boss fight. But… it wasn't enough.
It had taken too damn long to charge. It guzzled his Aura like a drunk at happy hour. And worst of all, it wasn't even close to being as fast as real lightning. For a technique he'd "created" with the express purpose of handling Mahoraga, it had flopped in all the departments that mattered.
And if his Mahoraga had been buffed like all other shikigami...
The realization stung almost as much as his busted arm.
The building beneath him groaned ominously as the charred remains were barely holding together. He felt the faint wobble beneath his boots and knew his time to look cool up here was limited. No way in hell was he about to end up on a highlight reel titled "Schnee Falls Flat on His Ass—Live!"
With what was probably too much flair for someone as injured as he was, that was the point, Jacques flexed his Aura. What little remained of it crackled faintly around him—probably had a quarter left at best. He leaped with his coat flaring out behind him in a way that he was sure looked impossibly badass.
Jacques landed lightly on the scorched asphalt below, boots crunching against what used to be a street. The immediate wave of heat and acrid air hit him, and his body really wanted to gag or wave a hand in front of his face. He held it off and straightened to his full height (important, since posture was half the battle).
He strode toward ground zero getting a better look at the remnants of his own colossal fuck-off dragon. the ground had melted, still glowing red in places where the lightning had lingered the longest. Anything within the blast radius was completely unrecognizable. Street signs were twisted heaps of slag. Lampposts had been reduced to stumps. He reached the exact spot where the dragon's head had struck—ground zero. The pavement was nothing but a deep, molten crater, seared smooth like glass.
Jacques paused there, the heat rippling upward, catching faintly against his tattered coat.
He tilted his head.
He sighed.
"… I'm beginning to believe you're more cockroach than scorpion." He clicked his tongue in irritation. Behind him, the crackle of his makeshift wings grew louder as thin arcs of lightning zapped from his growing frustration that bled into his summons.
He didn't receive an answer. He didn't bet on receiving one.
In the middle of the glassed crater, Tyrian remained kneeling in the same position his Demon Dogs forced him into like some charred monument. His body was a wreck—blackened skin hung in grotesque patches, burned patches of clothing doing the minimum to preserve whatever dignity he might have possessed in places while other places were little more than exposed scorched muscle and sinew beneath.
His hair had been completely burned ashen, leaving a few melted strands stuck over his face covering his eyes. His twisted grin revealed bare teeth gleaming like ivory against the blackened ruin of his face, with his lips long since seared away.
And yet, despite it all, the bastard still breathed. A ragged, wheezing sound rattled from his chest, faintly but surely. Even like this, he was still trying to laugh.
Jacques frowned as he descended into the crater.
Tyrian's arms were raised in what could be confused for some reverent prayer, though they ended in jagged stumps burned clean past the elbows. Jacques' lips thinned as his eyes traced the lingering scorch marks that spiraled out from the center of the blast.
He tried to counter it.
Tyrian's Semblance must have flared in the small moments after the Demon dogs dissipated and before the Kirin hit, dispersing just enough energy to leave him breathing. It was a feat worth noting,
The fact the lunatic was still alive annoyed Jacques more than he cared to admit.
Another strike and his dissatisfaction with his attack grew.
"You persist. Against reason. Against sense. Against the wrath of nature itself." Jacques said calmly. He doubted Tyrian could even hear him, but maybe he could. He wanted to think the cameras probably could. "Perhaps you are worthy of praise after all."
The rasping breathing persisted.
Jacques stopped a few feet away, tilting his hand into the shape of a pistol. His lightning birds crackled as several peeled away from his wings, spiraling in disjointed cone-like patterns around the length of his forearm. The energy condensed at the tips of his index and middle fingers, growing brighter with every second.
Tyrian's chances of survival were far too slim. Without immediate and intensified treatment, no one could save him, let alone allow him to fight back. But Jacques was far too genre-savvy to let his guard down or to make such a rookie mistake as letting his enemy live because of carelessness.
You always double-tap the enemy.
The charge on his fingertips grew blinding.
Jacques smirked faintly, leveling the glowing barrel of energy at Tyrian. "Take pride in your strength," he spoke coldly. "And die."
The gathered energy reached critical mass, the blinding light flaring like a miniature star. But just as Jacques prepared to release the killing blow, a sudden twinge ran up his spine.
Danger.
"Not happening!" Jacques barked, twisting mid-air. He aimed his glowing fingers at the Grimm as it coiled around Tyrian's broken body, trying to drag him into the crater. A quick shot hit its side, blasting apart half its exoskeleton. It screeched but didn't stop moving, shielding Tyrian as it kept digging to run away with him.
Jacques landed hard, boots crunching against the scorched ground. Another charge built at his index and middle fingertips, brighter and deadlier than before. He aimed at the Grimm. The energy hummed as it reached its peak to blast both Grimm and Faunus.
Yet once more, a threat tingled at the edge of his senses from behind him, one far too familiar to miss.
The ignition Spark that preceded an explosion.
Jacques spun, instincts kicking in as he abandoned his target and pivoted sharply. He dragged the charged blast in a wide arc, firing just in time to meet the bulkier Grimm surging out of the smoke. His eyes caught the glint of massive Dust crystals embedded in the beast's thick arms—a walking bomb waiting to go off.
His lightning collided with the explosion before it fully expanded, triggering a premature detonation that offset the worst of it.
Even so, the remaining force and shockwave slammed into him like a bitch. His senses were nearly overloaded as he was hurled backward. He felt his body crashing through several structures. Each impact sent fresh jolts of pain through his already fucked up frame until he finally skidded to a stop, half-buried in rubble.
For a moment, everything was quiet.
A vein throbbed on his temple.
The rubbles over him were blown to dust by the mixture of the lightning surrounding him and his aura exploding outwards.
"So fucking be it!" he barked, his patience snapping like a dry twig. To hell with theatrics—he was pissed now. "If you bastards are so goddamn desperate to die by my hands, then who the fuck am I to deny you!"
Knees bent, Jacques launched himself forward, turning the rubble beneath him into dust as he shot through the air like a fucking rocket, tearing through the smoke. The Grimm—a massive mole-looking bastard with claws the size of Jacques himself—came charging at him. Dust crystals were crudely embedded all over its body. No wonder the filthy terrorists sneaked a bomb unnoticed. The bomb was thinking underground digging piece of shit.
It roared, swinging its massive arms, trying to catch Jacques in its grip. But he was quicker. He caught claws in his hands and slammed his boot into its ugly, masked face with a satisfying crack, lifting it off its feet.
The creature thrashed and tried swinging its arms wildly. Jacques released one of its limbs and used the momentum to move behind it, his feet slamming into its back with another loud crack.
The Grimm staggered forward, its back arching as Jacques' kick landed hard. Jacques didn't waste a second. He spun, drawing back a fist, and drove his fist to the creature's side, feeling the crunch of whatever substituted for its ribs under his knuckles.
Jacques raised his boot to stomp on its ugly head, when he felt blood pool in his throat, and his balance dip to one side. Oh right, he was poisoned and bleeding. The Grimm's backhand slammed into him, sending him crashing through a truck and out the other side. His feet dragged through the asphalt, but he stopped himself.
Ignoring the pain in his side and the blurry vision, he slammed his palms together. Thousand Bird on his back sang that sweet Fuck-off tune, amassing energy in his fingertips. He launched it— a beam of light that crashed into the Grimm, punching a hole in its side, cracking several of the dust crystals on its body before sailing into a building behind it, turning the top half into a molten slab.
The Grimm staggered, and the dust crystals on its body began to hum ominously, crackling before—
BOOM.
The Grimm exploded in a burst of fiery light, the shockwave throwing Jacques off his feet once more, while a huge cloud of dust and fire obscured the view.
"Very funny, Salem, you bitch," he muttered seeing the shitty too on-the-nose irony, "Using a Dust Grimm to take out the Dust Man... clever as hell, isn't it?"
Jacques dismissed Thousands of Birds and swiftly returned his Aura to mimic Tranquil Deer. It was far inferior to summoning the actual, oversized donkey, but he'd rather not do that next to an exploding Grimm loaded with Dust.
This is why your husband and kids left you, you bitch!
Still, the passive healing started taking effect to at least soothe his aching body and stop it from fucking itself up further.
A blue hue shimmered from the cloud of dust, but since he was a man of sensibilities and good survival instincts, Jacques used the shine of things to enlarge his shadow before lifting it in front of him protectively, just in time to avoid the blue jet of azure flames. It breathed magical fire, because it fucking did!
Where the fuck did Salem find this fucking Grimm?!
A reasonably valid and appropriate question, but it was abandoned halfway when he jumped to the side to avoid the stabbing claws of the creature trying to skewer him. He dismissed his shadows and took a step back to avoid the follow-up swipe. The fucker overshot and Jacques took the chance, aiming to cave the mole's face in. Yet the moment his palms grabbed the fur of the Grimm, his Aura went berserk, and the Grimm let out a shrieking scream.
Not a roar, a human scream.
Both of them were caught off guard when the spot where Jacques grabbed began to harden into a rock-like substance, and as a piercing light began to shine from inside the screaming Grimm's chest, its dark fur bubbled like tar and its body ballooned and deflated in place.
Out of his depth and confused as hell, Jacques let go and jumped back. The Grimm did not chase after him, simply thrashing around, slashing at its own body, and ramming itself into whatever it could. The light intensified and broke through as the Grimm seemed to try and split into two.
The scream continued, growing more and more human until, out of the fucking blue, the bare upper torso of a man—a human man—burst from the chest of the mole Grimm, silver eyes releasing a blinding light.
A Silver-Eyed Warrior,
Jacques realized with wide eyes, just as the dead human, silver eyes looking ahead and unfocused as the light died out again. It slumped forward and the Grimm stopped its thrashing.
It collapsed to its legs, but the ballooning didn't cease. In fact, it seemed to increase, as the flames it released started licking at the Dust Crystals still imbued in its body.
Jacques vaulted backward, the gravel grunting as his boots pushed against the ground just as he realized what was about to happen. An explosion was coming—one that, given the flames and the size of the Dust crystals on its back, would be even bigger than the one that had disintegrated the mansion.
The Grimm continued to enlarge, the light starting to rip through its form as the explosion built up, its body stretching to the point of grotesque distortion.
Even he wasn't stupid enough to try and take that head-on. The sheer force of it would annihilate everything in the vicinity.
He just hoped his family was far enough to be spared the worst of it.
He bent his knees, pushing as much Aura as he could into them in preparation. The Grimm began to disintegrate.
A blinding light filled the Sky of Atlas.
There was no explosion.
Jacques halted his retreat, confusion setting in as he was hit by a wave of searing cold that seemed to turn his bones into icicles. His breath came out in a puff of freezing air, instantly solidifying into ice as it fell from his lips. All around him, the world was white, thick, and stubborn layers of ice and snow, the freezing winds howling so loudly that they nearly deafened him.
He looked ahead at what remained of the Grimm—or, more accurately, what was left of it. The creature was frozen solid, its body locked in an unyielding state of ice down its fucking cells.
The explosion finished before it even started. Even the damn shockwave was encased before it could spread further than a meter. The Dust Crystals embedded in its form had turned into dull, lifeless dirt. As hard and sturdy as they were—and Jacques knew his Dust could survive a lot of shit— there was no way they'd survive this kind of temperature. Even the flames had been frozen; not even put out, but outright flash-frozen in place.
Yet, as cold as the ice around him was, it paled in comparison to the cold dread and the icy chill creeping down his spine. His instincts screamed at him in that primal, fight-or-flight way. The presence behind him was suffocating.
With a half-smirk, Jacques turned to face her.
She stood in the middle of the blizzard like it was a spring breeze, wrapped in a frilly pink cooking apron and wearing a pair of goddamn floafers. The sort of your senile aunt might shuffle around in while burning soup. If not for the swirling vortex of ice and the faint promise of death on the wind, one might've assumed she'd wandered out here looking for the kitchen.
Her short, pale blonde hair fluttered gently in the air, utterly unbothered by cold winds that nearly froze Jacques' balls. But not her. No, she just stood there, dressed like a deranged grandmother caught between a murder and a bake sale.
Utterly ridiculous. And somehow more terrifying because of it.
Jacques's gaze flicked to her side, where Tyrian's broken, burnt, and unconscious body hung in an icy prison. The large, insect-looking shards of frozen Grimm clung to the structure painted a pretty clear and decent picture of what had happened to the Grimm fucker that had taken Tyrian.
At that moment, both Jack's mind and Ol' Moustache's body recognized her. Different means, same conclusion.
He finally remembered who the hell Willow's master was.
Fria.
The goddamn Winter Maiden.
Her dark blue eyes, surrounded by swirling sky blue flame-like light, turned to meet his.
Running on fumes, completely exhausted, Jacques relaxed, if only a little. He straightened, and then, with a clear and confident voice, he greeted his ally.
"The fuck you looking at?!"