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Where’s my food dunce?
Four words that inspired more fear inside him than anything he felt when he stood against Grimm, no matter how monstrous the creatures of Darkness could become.
Four words that terrified him more than when Cardin Winchester had blackmailed him over his transcripts all those years ago, and he felt that his dream of becoming a Hunter was coming to a swift, ignominious end.
Four simple words.
Four words from a Weiss Schnee with cravings. Particular cravings. Food cravings. Particular food cravings.
Pickles. For some unknown, inexplicable reason, Weiss Schnee wanted pickles.
And he was the poor bastard who’s middle name was ‘Fetcher of food’.
“Do you have any pickles?” Jaune panted, leaning heavily against the counter and startling the dull-eyed cashier who had been staring into space moments earlier.
“Er…what?” The teen asked, blinking rapidly and making Jaune want to scream in frustration.
“Do you have any pickles?” He demanded, and the cashier blinked again, glancing at something on his side of the desk thing.
“Er…no?”
With a frustrated cry, Jaune left the seventh grocery store he had been to so far.
“Do you have any pickles?”
“Humandabah.”
“Do you have any pickles?”
“Humanahumabanabadah.”
“Dooo…youuuuu...hhaaaave…anyyyy…picklesss?”
“No.”
“God damnit Shopkeep.”
Jaune?
One word. One word that inspired more fear inside him than four simple words.
He was dead. Doomed. Defeated.
His back hurt. His lungs hurt. His legs hurt. His feet hurt and soon enough his ears would hurt too after the chewing out he’d inevitably receive from Weiss when he returned to their apartment pickle-less.
“Hey you.”
Jaune perked up, seeing a shadowy figure leaning against the corner wall leading into a shady looking alley.
“Me?” Jaune asked, pointing a finger at himself to make sure he heard whoever it was correctly.
“No, I’m talking to the idiot behind you.” Whoever it was snarked, muttering something about crows underneath their breath. Jaune took a moment to take in the noticeably empty street around him, completely devoid of life apart from a flashing neon sign across the way.
Deciding it would be best not to get involved with this clearly disturbed person, Jaune began making his way onwards down the street, using a feature on his scroll to try and find any grocery store he had yet to visit.
“I was being sarcastic, you dolt! Come over here now if you want some pickles.” The figure yelled before stomping into the alley. Jaune took a moment to stare at them, and then the Crocea Mors that hung from his hip.
Then he started a recording on his scroll camera and slid it in his pocket. Hopefully the video would be enough to justify self-defence if worse came to worse.
“Now listen up carefully as I will not repeat myself twice. There is a man currently at a bar called the ‘Crow Bar’ which is an amusing play on words for innumerable reasons. Go there, speak to him and he will guide you to the place where Vale’s pickles have been taken to. He has red eyes and will likely be the drunkest person there, so keep an eye out for someone rowdy.”
Jaune blinked under the flurry of instructions, and in that time it took for him to blink the mysterious stranger had disappeared, melting away into the same shadows they had appeared from.
Just what in the hell was going on?
His scroll buzzed again in his pocket, and he didn’t need to look at it to know that it was Weiss.
Follow a cryptic clue and go on a wild goose chase or return home and face Weiss’ wrath?
Wild goose chase it was.
The Crow Bar. A neat play on words if he didn’t say so himself.
It was also a clearly dying business, with only one familiar figure sat slouched at its counter. Figuring he’d do his part for the local economy, Jaune ordered a stiff drink, having earned his drinking taste (though thankfully not habits) from the person he now sat beside.
“Fancy seeing you here Qrow.” Jaune greeted amicably, and the veteran Huntsman rolled his eyes, slamming his glass onto the table to give him a deadpan look.
“Don’t be cryptic kid.” Qrow grumbled, crimson eyes looking more tired than they had been when they had been travelling the world in search of the Relics. Apart from a few more greys on his head Qrow didn’t look all that much different. “It’s bad enough I’ve been dragged into this mess as it is.”
“What is this mess exactly?” Jaune asked, nodding at the bartender and sliding over some Lien before taking a sip from the small whiskey glass.
“I’d tell you the right answer except I’d be beaten up by the quote unquote ‘mastermind’ of all this.” Qrow chuckled, taking another sip of his alcohol. “Long story short no one in the city is going to sell you pickles. There’s a Grimm nest just outside the city walls that has a jar of pickles, but you’ll have to kill your way through Grimm to get it. Good luck kid.”
With that Qrow stood, downing his drink and stretching his legs.
“Wait!” Jaune exclaimed. “Where’s the nest?!”
“Outside the city.” Qrow proclaimed louder, sheltering his mouth as if he was yawning and mouthing ‘North’ before he stumbled out of the bar.
Jaune knew better than to chase him down. He also knew better than to thank him.
Something weird was going on, but if the missed call from Weiss was any indication then he’d want to find those pickles and fast.
In hindsight, north of the city of Vale wasn’t a very good clue. It could have meant going to Atlas for all he knew.
Fortunately the site of the pickles being a Grimm nest narrowed it down significantly. All he had to do was make some inquiries with the Border Guards at Vale’s walls and flash his shiny Huntsman licence in order to learn a few miles north of the city a small Grimm nest had been established in a cave. The only reason it hadn’t been cleared already was because most of the authorities thought it was a joke.
Jaune had decided to check it out anyway. Jaune regretted that decision.
“Weak!” He growled, slashing a Beowulf across its snarling snout. “Puny! Waste of…words!”
The Beowulf whimpered before fading into nothingness after a horizontal slash from Crocea Mors cut it in half. Its fellow brethren of evil and darkness charge forward, only to be hacked apart in a flurry of blows.
If Jaune had been an average Huntsman-in-training, it would have been a challenge. Not hard to overcome but had the potential to go wrong if you made a mistake, which was more likely and the whole point as to why you were just a Huntsman- in - training.
If it was for a Jaune Huntsman-in-training it would’ve meant certain death. Fortunately he wasn’t the same person he used to be.
“Failure! Idiot! Fool!” Jaune howled, whaling into the Grimm like they were nothing. Wait. Was he projecting onto the Grimm?
His thought process was broken when a huge paw slammed into his back and sent him hurtling forwards. His aura absorbed both the blow and the landing, though it was unable to prevent his hoodie from being scuffed up by dirt and dust.
He stabilised, planting his feet and readying himself as he turned to face his new opponent. Facing him was an Ursa Major, and strapped onto its head with duct tape was a jar of pickles.
Instead of asking why, Jaune charged forward and unleashed a battle cry.
“He’s not coming.”
“He is.”
“We’ve been here half an hour.”
“We’ll be here another half hour then.”
“For the love of! Winter. We both know the kid. He probably got lost trying to find the city walls.”
“So he will be returning here, tail between his legs and finally proving irrefutably that he is not worthy of my little sister.”
“I thought you approved of him? You had that hole heart-warming thingy majig with little Ice Queen and the kid back in the day at Atlas?”
“
I did. But people change. If he truly wishes to be worthy of a Schnee, he must be prepared to be tested anywhere, anytime and above all else-to succeed. Also my family is ridicoulsouy wealthy and I have too much money spare. Bribing every shop in Vale to not sell the boy pickles was amusing to me.”
“Jeez you need to cool it down a few notches Ice Queen. Besides the…the kids right there…”
“What?!”
“He’s right there with…no way! I did that for a joke! He wasn’t supposed to actually find it!”
“Move please.” Jaune grunted, eyes fluttering as he barged past the shocked adults. “Gotta…give…pickles…”
“Well then.” Qrow murmured, watching as the kid stumbled up the stairs like a him after a good night. “That just happened.”
"Weiss!" Jaune groaned, unlocking the door to their apartment. "I'm home!"
"Welcome home Jaune." A sickly sweet voice greeted him. "Care to explain why you're returning home at one o'clock in the morning?"
"Pickles." Jaune replied weakly, turning on the light to see his extremely angry girlfriend sitting on their couch with her arms crossed and murder in her eyes. He raised the jar and shook it weakly.
"Why didn't you answer any of my calls and texts then?" Weiss demanded, sniffing the air and narrowing her eyes further. "And why do you smell so sweaty? Doing something strenuous."
She was hinting at something. Jaune didn't really know what though. He was too tired at this point, every inch of his body aching from the wild goose chase he had been sent on and the skirmish with the Grimm he had endured.
"Pickles." Jaune re-iterated, placing them on the table before keeling over and falling onto the ground, snoring the second he hit the cold floor.
Weiss blinked, worry overtaking the anger she had felt. He had left her worrying for hours with her imagination, leaving her in a cesspit of torturing images of what Jaune might have or might not have been doing. She sighed, still angry at him but not angry enough to leave him to freeze to death on the floor, so she dragged him onto the couch next to her, his scroll sliding out of his hoodie as he did so.
Weiss picked up and noticed it was filming something. She stopped the recording and went into his camera roll to find a three hour long clip that she had just ended.
"What the...?" She muttered, clicking on it and scrolling across the sidebar at the bottom to skip ahead. The bulk of the footage was completely dark, though every now and then there was flashes of light.
She plugged the scroll in to charge and sat next to Jaune, giving him a suspicious look. Until she could review the footage, she would withhold her judgement of him.
So she turned on the TV and settled in for a late night, Jaune snoring next to her. She glanced at the pickles he had collected for her, a soft smile growing knowing that he had probably been on a wild goose chase going store to store for it.
It was a shame Ruby had bought her some from the shop across the street. Though it did make her wonder why Jaune couldn't have just done the same.