"Package for a Jaune Arc, penned by the Young Lord of House Hitenmaki!"
He ignored a few odd looks from both customers and classmates as he signed for the package, verifying his identity, as he took the thick manilla envelope. With a big tip of Lien he pulled from his Inventory, Jaune waved the man off.
This was heftier than he'd been expecting. Luckily even though he had a later shift today, Yang and Blake wouldn't be coming by for another hour or so.
"Is that from Kamina-sensei?" Emerald's attention was apparent when her old tutor was brought up, quickly delivering cups of coffee to her table before appearing at his side. She was a bit over two centimeters taller than him now, although she didn't wear elevated footwear. "It's rare for him to send anything documental."
"Yeah. Just sent him some stuff and asked for a bit of help on looking into something two days ago." Jaune nodded, walking off to the side, breaking the seal and pulling the reinforced cardstock envelope open. "This is a lot. And oddly fast. He must have sent it express with a private Bullhead."
He had personally traveled via Shadow to Haven to drop off a package for his old senpai, being told he was coming back from a mission (Jaune had worn a disguise, of course). Despite the fact the Vytal Festival was around the corner and there were a lot of foreign students experiencing what Haven had to offer (Team CRXN was also present, although he didn't end up spotting them), there was a bit of an odd air around the teachers.
There was definitely something that the adults were keeping hidden.
Even his Big Brother Juniper was being a bit cryptic, saying that while he honestly had no direct information, that the Vytal Festival was a potential point of upheaval, the same message that he had Jaune relay back to Uncle Qrow.
The first page of the papers was a warning. A mission report that ended in failure of a request to cull Grimm in northern Animus. A mission that Kamina himself had been on.
Sketches of a carapaced humanoid monster, though the more he looked at the admittedly well drawn images (apparently one of Team KRCA was a bit of an artist) it looked suspiciously mechanical.
It alone wasn't a cause for concern. The look of it was rooted in a somewhat Atlasean design, though certainly a bit more aggressively intimidating in the embellishments. The issue was the notes on its supposed performance.
Atlas had androids in the Atlasean Knight series, but they were (in Jaune's personally opinion) more akin to mobile turrets. And not much faster than an adult human at that. But this armored figure had killed a local Huntsman in early retirement that had been acting as a scout for Team KRCA. Ambushed him instantly and put him down with two jabs of its metal tail.
While it could be a coincidence, that seemed much like a certain scorpion Faunus that Jaune knew. But how could he have obtained that armor?
While it was true that Adam had been forced to give up a single Mobile Armor to The Crown to maintain his facade, there wasn't anybody that Jaune knew that would have been able to recreate…
No.
There was one person.
His stomach felt bitter. It churned uncomfortably.
Did Salem have a connection to The Crown after all? The only two people Jaune himself knew that would be capable of taking his tech and turning it around was the good doctor Polendina and his rival Doctor Arthur Watts. The man that had attempted to kidnap him about six years ago.
Despite being a coding genius, the good doctor had once said that Dr. Watts had been nearly (more accurately he was the closest to the good doctor himself, even if there was a marked difference between the two) equally talented in robotics and engineering as himself.
He'd been especially decent at miniaturizing technology, even if that resulted in some loss of efficiency at times.
Also apparently Raven's mercs had found and saved him and his team. At least he could ask a few questions to his surrogate aunt and learn things from her answers, or a potential lack of them.
Quickly he reached for his Scroll and asked Raven about the team she'd found yesterday and dropped off at Haven, giving descriptions of Kamina as he brought it all up to her.
Her response (too fast, in all honesty) was to stick his nose out of it and let the adults handle it.
That cinched it.
Tyrian Callows must have been in the armor frame copied from his tech. Fuck.
This was why he hadn't ever let anyone in on fusion energy. He had Shadows guarding the few Fusion Cells he'd even installed into anything now, just in case. Even if the science to comprehend it didn't exist on Remnant, he didn't want to risk anything.
Hell with how much of a cursed Death World Remnant was, someone would figure out how to irradiate something instead and cause untold destruction by pure accident.
"Master. You appear distressed." Emerald's eyes were filled with concern (though he was sure normal people wouldn't be able to see that), despite her neutral expression. "Is there anything I could do?"
"...Could you maybe get me a cup of tea? Lemon, please, one sugar, thanks Em."
"As you wish, my master." Emerald bowed, quickly barging into their cafe's kitchen, ignoring their classmates' complaints.
Jaune couldn't help but to let a small laugh leak from his lips. He was really lucky to have Emerald.
He began to speed read the rest of the documents (he could investigate things in detail if they seemed important), flipping through pages, observing other sketches, taking in rumors that were being passed along in the northern side of the Animus continent.
…and apparently he could already repay Kamina-senpai by helping him with his teammate's severed ankle tendons. He'd swing by Haven later tonight to help fabricate something, but this was probably going to require some prosthetics, either way.
A message was sent via Scroll to the contact number that his old senpai had given him, requesting a timeframe where he could do as such.
Well this was interesting.
Qrow had only vaguely suspected that there was something odd about the Caravan due to his experience with The Crown, but regardless of whether or not the Vacuoan criminal organization had a hand here, the vehicle he'd hitched a ride on had belonged to the Black Knights.
Yang had said they were probably the assholes that stole Jaune's Multi-Fabricator from Menagerie, so he'd pass that on to the kid when possible.
Well, he'd have to make sure Ozpin knew of it as well, but regardless of anything that Ozpin might have to say, he'd do so regardless.
Rather Ozpin seemed to enjoy that Qrow was being a lot more free willed nowadays, taking his own actions for the sake of the good fight. It sort of made Qrow wonder if he'd been hoping that Qrow would take a bit more control of his own destiny from the beginning.
"I have no quarrel with you." Rainart rumbled threateningly as he stared down the squad of black and yellow suits of armor. He set down the coffin on his back. "Leave. That is your one warning."
The clear leader of this small squad of Knights stepped forwards, his Chainsaw-Greatsword chugging as it let off a faint trail of heat under the rain. His armor looked bigger and better protected than the rest of his peers, a high crest upon his helmet that was being matted down by rain.
"That is not possible, for we require information from you. You will come with us, Hazel Rainart." The Leader spoke, his voice warped and rough.
Well. Qrow wasn't going to step in quite yet, but currently this was promising that the Black Knights didn't seem like they were in cahoots with Salem's lot. A small bit of good news.
"I see." Hazel reached to the side of the metal coffin, pressing his hand against the side. "Then there is no need for further discussion. I'm sorry, but I gave you a choice."
He opened the coffin, revealing a mass of twisted metal within, tearing off his raincoat, reaching into the coffin and burying his arms into the elbow.
"Bring him in alive!" The Leader roared, resulting in the smaller armored Knights to leap forwards, Hazel turning back around to meet them face to face.
Steel crawled up Hazel Rainart's arms, roaring as he punched away a pair of armored suits with raw strength. They formed in a strange almost long closed pincers over his hands like some strange armored knuckle or a blunted blade.
The hell? Since when did Hazel have weapons? That coffin wasn't some sort of mere luggage, it was a full suit of mecha-shifting armor!
He'd always been a Dust manipulator and brawler, even before he had gone off the deep end and joined Salem, though.
Qrow had only known the man in vague passing from those days, however. His twin sister had been a year above him back in Beacon, dying in a training mission in an accident during her final year.
But he remembered the cheery girl always bragging about her twin (baby brother, she said, but boy Hazel was massive) brother that was working to help put her through Beacon, doing mercenary work for villages in need as an unlicensed fighter, even forgoing a weapon to forgo any maintenance costs.
That even though he didn't want that life for her, he still worked to support her dreams.
"Impossible. How… do you have such an armor?!" The Leader roared in fury, his weapon revving as the teeth SPUN. "ANSWER ME!"
The rest of the metal crawled over Hazel's massive form, forming an even greater giant of steel. No remainder of that metal coffin remained behind.
Shit, what happened to having Reversed Misfortune?
Nothing about this was lucky, dammit.
Black armor with white body segments with gold cresting pieces lined the metallic frame, a few dull gray segments glinting grimly on its body, appearing like weapon systems.
"I do not answer to you." The shoulder pauldrons opened up revealing three tubes in each. A single tube on each shoulders injected (Dust?) into Hazel's body, compressing the tube before the armor closed up. "Farewell."
The long pincers on his hands opened up, revealing something akin to canons, wind erupting from one and ice from the other, as a funnel of concentrated blizzards blew towards the Knights, engulfing whole armored bodies as it swept from side to side.
What the fuck?
The bigger concern was where and how did Salem's side even manufacture these things? It would require some level of industry, something that should have been one of the few things Salem lacked. Unless they had sunk their fangs into a company somewhere?
Also vaguely possible they'd kidnapped small settlements and forced them into labor in the unnamed continent where the Queen apparently lived.
On top of that, Raven had passed along that while everyone else was sleeping in Vale she'd 'been forced' (which was to say she'd probably gone looking for a fight) to confront Tyrian in an armored suit that seemed to be powered by magic. Qrow's hand still itched at the memory of when he'd missed Tyrian's brain by such a small amount. He had been so close.
The Leader actually seemed to have some proper Huntsman training, though, bringing his Aura to the surface over his armor, breaking the ice that encased over his form to bring down his Chainsaw-Greatsword down on to Hazel.
One of the cannon arms closed up, a swirl of green winds encasing it as it rose to block the heavy swing, a buffer layer to help keep the weapon from grinding away too heavily at its surface. The teeth still made some minimal contact, scratching at the black metal, sparking as it left equally black scratches on its surface.
The ice cannon closed up and began to let off a cold hiss as rain droplets hit its surface to instantly turn to ice, slamming up against the Leader's side, knocking him back rather significantly, despite the added weight of their heavy metal armor.
From a mixture of rain and Dust, a creeping frost began to form over the Leader's armored ribs, seeping into the gaps.
Aura pulsed and the built up ice broke off, taking away black coating, revealing a soft golden yellow beneath.
The way their armors were built and coated were different, both in material and style.
Maybe something had gotten stolen from the thieves themselves?
Still Qrow wouldn't get any answers from just watching in the eaves. The other Knights were mostly frozen, anchored by hardened frozen mud, a few of them struggling to free themselves, but clearly lacking proper Aura training.
There went their claims at all being Huntsmen. Maybe some training was had at best.
Two of the other eight members of the armored squadron had broken free enough to raise their rifles, some old Atlasean heavy assault rifles from the Faunus Revolution thirty or so odd years back. Qrow had handled a few growing up in the Tribe as well.
Those things could take a beating and work even under some of the roughest of conditions. Even the Faunus during that time were said to have used it, stealing armaments from the Kingdom of Atlas due to its reliability.
Shots struck the armored body of Hazel Rainart, though it didn't do much to damage or impede him. Even so it was distraction enough for their Leader to swing a flurry of heavy, carving blows, the arms of Hazel's suit coming up to block and deflect.
But ice and a chainsaw blade didn't mix, and even though an application of Aura fixed the jam near instantly, it bought just long enough a moment of breathing room for the gray segments of steel at Hazel's waist to jerk up and released two sets of twin blades, glowing crimson, as they rocketed forward (like little literal rockets, thrusters and all) and slammed into the Leader's torso.
It sent him flying back, cutting into the surface of his armor (though not nearly as far as when Hazel had struck him with his own arms) before reeling the four blades back with the metal cords they were attached to. The screeching sound of metal tearing at metal rang through the forest beyond the sound of falling rain.
They were simple, but powerful. Something not out of the ability of the former Vice-Head of Mechanicus, Arthur Watts. They weren't aware of anyone else in Salem's employ that could do as such at the moment.
Shit.
He didn't want to help the thieves that stole from his nephew, but it might not be bad to step in, have these sons of bitches owe him something. Hmmm.
Qrow paused to think, watching the battle continue before he could decide on the next step.
In battle it was the few moments his mind found peace.
He'd become an animal, relishing in combat, no matter what he claimed or said. No justification could hide the truth within.
Sometimes when I fight I just really FEEL alive, you know?
Funny how he once called her a barbarian as a joke. She'd been a bit upset. But now she wasn't allowed to feel anything.
Nor could he.
Even so Hazel saw his vision rock as something struck him from behind. An ambush? Again?
It was a Branwen. Specifically one of Ozpin's number, as the female twin was still avoiding the Fake King, even if she worked alongside her team once more.
But he still had his twin.
That was enough to boil over with ugly jealousy and hatred.
Slash Harkens fires from his waist, two of four searing forward at Branwen, one being deflected as the other casually grazed by, missing his form as he performed a quick aerial, striking against Hazel's form with a heavy slash that scratched deeply into his Frame's ribs but failed to breach the reinforced alloys.
But now he was severely outnumbered. And his Knightmare Frame wasn't that much stronger than the Tallgeese the yellow commander of this section of Black Knights bore, even if it was better equipped.
The remaining two projectiles struck back against the Chainsaw-Greatsword wielder behind, both being irritatingly well deflected.
And then there were all the weaker Leo units to worry about that were breaking free from the ice as their firearms began to rock his form.
All four wires began to reel back, the Branwen lashed out to grab one in an attempt to trip him up. His heels dug half uselessly into the wet mud as he slid before finding a firm tree root to act as an anchor.
The Hadron Cannons that doubled as pincer knuckles opened up, blasting a full force blizzard at Qrow Branwen as he let go, yelling something inane.
Inside the arms of his Frame were a few buttons that allowed simple pre-programmed actions to be activated. His index finger extended from his handle inside his cannons, quickly tapping one such button three times.
Hazel's HUD flashed, acting upon the input.
Although it might have been awkward adjusting to fighting differently to how he'd become accustomed to over the years, it was necessary. Mastering the use of an armor fueled by the Queen's magic for the sake of gaining power for his revenge wasn't a benefit Hazel would ignore. Not when it could bring him closer to killing Ozpin.
To kill the man that doomed the world to suffer.
Ammunition rocked his form as he spun to spray the Leos down with Dust empowered frost once more.
Though he found it distasteful, a shortwave signal was sent out to one of Dr. Merlot's creations. A fusion of Grimm and machine. One of their newest collaborators thanks to the efforts of the Queen's young Arcana.
What had been done to that child was near unforgivable, but they'd come out happy and kind. An odd breath of fresh air in his dark alliance.
Precious.
Regardless, the mad doctor's perversion of Grimm would call for nearby Grimm in the area regardless of their make, and draw them to his location. A desperate action if it weren't for the Queen's power that fueled his Knightmare with Watts's new Semblance at play, as her influence would keep the monsters off of himself.
Whatever cooperation Watts had figured with his new Semblance and the Queen's gifts were beyond his comprehension anyways. Hazel had been working most his life, a mere warrior and occasional construction laborer. His lack of proper education wouldn't allow him to comprehend such, no matter how well read he'd become in recent years in memory of his sister.
Already howls, screeches, and roars echoed in the distance.
Hazel ignored the shots from Branwen's weapon shattering against his armored form as he blasted the ground with more ice and wind, only for his cannons to sputter out.
Odd. Perhaps these Dust crystals had been lower quality than he'd been led to believe. No matter. He still had plenty more Dust installed.
His Agravain Grave held firm as he spun to block Branwen's weapon, his Hadron Cannons crossing to absorb the blow. His fingers maneuvered inside, striking an input to the targeting AI inside his Frame.
Without further input, the four Slash Harkens at his waist fired backwards, three contact notifications buzzed in the corner of his vision, a small window from the rear facing camera appearing in his vision.
The yellow Tallgeese had twisted his weapon, letting two lead wires get caught up around it, the teeth grinding with sparks to try to cut through the metal.
A third had cleaved through a segment of armor, cutting into the arm mount where a shield was normally attached. The defensive armament lay uselessly on the frozen earth.
His shoulder pauldrons opened up, ready to inject him with two new chunks of raw Dust. Why had his first injections already run out? They should have been still good for much longer. Even if it wasn't a problem, it still irked him.
Hazel's vision swum momentarily as his head rocked back, a greatsword spinning as it cleaved through a segment of helmet, cutting through one of the eye cameras, before breaking apart into the curved edge of a war scythe and swinging back around to catch his throat.
The left hand cannon clamped down on the tip of the weapon, trying to pry it away from Hazel's protected throat, the thinner flexible layers already giving some way as he saw Branwen's feet upon the tops of his pauldrons through his remaining functional eye-cam, using Hazel's own body as a fulcrum.
"I need him alive!" The Tallgeese called out as shotgun shots echoed tearing closer to Hazel's throat as Dust entered into his system, breaking through skin.
"That's not my- hnnggrraahhhh!"
Electric currents ran out of his left hand cannon-arm, feeling the force run through his own body as well as Branwen's weapon grazed the skin of his throat.
Hazel endured with his force of will, his right hand cannon clamped onto Branwen's leg, briefly erupting in flame to scorch the leg of his pants, wet from rain, only for the right side Hadron Cannon to sputter to a stop.
Never had his weapons failed him yet. Damn. This was why Hazel had always preferred the reliability of his own body. Even a powerful Dust channeling tool like this wasn't impervious to mechanical failure.
Or perhaps it was the man's rumored Semblance at play. Hazel had never yet been let down by his Agravain Grave until Qrow Branwen had shown up. Nor even from his Dust itself.
Hazel roared from inside his Agravain, firing a crack of yellow lightning at the Tallgeese that had managed to sever the two Slash Harkens around his weapon.
Qrow Branwen's body flung after, though in a moment of wordless cooperation, the flat of the Tallgeese's Chainsaw-Greatsword allowed Ozpin's pet Huntsman to springboard back at him.
That allowed the scythe using Huntsman to avoid the Beringel crashing through the treeline, crashing into the Tallgeese behind him.
Hazel swung an electric wreathed cannon hand, only for Branwen to vault up with Recoil Tech and back down, crashing into a pauldron with his weapon, returned into a greatsword.
Hazel grit his teeth, feeling the Lightning Dust in his body seem to suddenly weaken, as if the impact had broken the Dust crystal in a way that separated a chunk of it from his form.
It wasn't exactly easy to feel anything exacting under the influence of his own Semblance deadening his nerves.
The mouthguard of his Frame opened up as he let out a roar, channeling the unbroken Burn Dust through his body, a jet of flame rushing over Qrow Branwen's body.
Gears churned as Qrow Branwen tanked the gout of flame, his weapon flicking down into a pure firearm configuration. One of the Huntsman's weapon's shotgun barrels rammed between Hazel's teeth, his teeth clamping down instinctively as he subconsciously ceased to spit fire.
He'd snapped his mouth shut too late.
Aura protected Hazel's throat, but powerful 10 Gauge blasted into his esophagus making him feel nauseous. But with the Knightmare Frame enhancing his already great strength Hazel flung Branwen away, spinning in a circle with his whole body. Still, a second blast rattled the soft inside of Hazel's mouth as the Huntsman was sent flying, tumbling into the mud.
His Aura felt low. Dangerously low. His HUD flashed that his Aura had dropped into a mere fifteen percent.
His right side cannon pincer pulled the weapon out of Hazel's mouth as he stomped on the weapon, cracking the mecha-shift mechanisms inside as the greatsword twisted. The flat of the blade curled heavily, as without its wielder there was no Aura to protect the more delicate components within.
"You rat bastard!" Branwen spat. "Fu-"
It didn't matter what Branwen had to say. Hazel had the means to escape now that the Grimm were here, seeing the still half frozen Knights fighting desperately against their monstrous combatants.
The urge to remain and risk it all to slay one of Ozpin's closest was TEMPTING, however it would bring him much more joy to do so in front of the Fake King himself.
"You are fortunate I cannot be tied up here today." Hazel waded past the attacking Grimm, the monsters seeming to ignore him as if recognizing him as one of their own thanks to his Frame. One of his pincers dug into the mud to grab onto a pair of lead wires holding the Slash Harkens at the ends. "The next we meet, you won't get to live so easily. You and Ozpin both."
He didn't wish for anyone but Branwen to die, but he'd offered them all the choice to avoid combat. The world had no place for fools.
The good news was that Hazel Rainart was in enough of a rush to leave that he'd not noticed that one of his weird rocket blades had been torn from the wire, allowing Qrow to bring it in for evidence later.
His foot had hit up against it in his boots as he helped fight off the Grimm with his currently mangled Harbinger, the weapon was able to flick the greatsword back up (barely) and click into that configuration, but ceased responding afterwards. That meant his shotgun shots were out.
Sure one of the twin barrels would hit the enemy, but the other would just shoot into the curving greatsword throwing off both his aim and damaging his weapon further or wasting more of his Aura. So yeah, not really much of an option.
So he let his foot slip out of his boot, going around with one bare foot, the mud kept from clinging to it thanks to Aura. Just for later, as a sort of marker.
It wouldn't do to have to fight over the damn thing if the Black Knights wanted it as well. Better to let them be unaware of it at all.
Also, since he was helping save their fucking asses, these weirdo Knight people were going to owe him. At least enough that they'd probably let him go away without fighting.
Due to the fickle nature of luck, both good and bad, Qrow had after his own mistakes, tried to not let it let it run his life, to not be overly reliant on it, but would it have killed Reversed Misfortune to just let him have the win?
Weapons failure was great and all, but a nice take down would have been easier. Maybe it didn't let him have that when he was surrounded by a group of souped up armored freedom fighters though?
They did seem to want Hazel Rainart alive for some reason. There was definitely a bit of a conflict of interest there. Qrow didn't really want to kill people, but you know, he was working for the Queen of the Grimm. Getting rid of her hands and feet is just a service for all of Remnant, right?
Spring cleaning.
Harbinger awkwardly cleaved through another Beringel, the internal components creaking as it cut through. The blade straightened more, but something inside sounded strained and on the verge of snapping. Fuck.
Ruby had entered some sort of weird weapon whispering phase recently, calling him a pervert and telling him that Harbinger wouldn't shut up about how many women (and the few men) he'd been with. Still she was (unsurprisingly) bonding closer to all of the weapons of Team STRQ house and it'd been… a thing.
Either way she was going to be livid when she saw Harbinger in this condition. Yeesh. He'd have to make sure to get his partner fixed up properly before he met up next. She shouldn't be able to pick that out and if she did… well then Jaune was responsible somehow, he just knew it.
The SECOND bit of bad news was that he was probably going to have to come back for his boot and the piece of Hazel's armor (weapon?) later as Qrow assisted the retreat to the Caravan, helping drag an unconscious Knight. Fuck their armor was heavy.
Hazel he could understand, but how did the Black Knights lug these things around? Qrow needed more details, but it was probably that they stole some of Jaune's tech and reverse engineered something. No easy feat, but not impossible, he supposed.
Harbinger was slung onto his back at this point, the weapon hanging weirdly. Qrow's free hand grabbed the unconscious (hopefully not dead) fighter's rifle and used Aura to strengthen his arm so that he could fire one-handed into the chasing Grimm.
By through what an outside observer might see as merely sheer dumb luck, they managed to load every armored body into the quickly fleeing Caravans, Qrow boarding along purely because he had some questions. A LOT of questions. Like why most of them were Faunus.
No.
He was pretty sure all of them were Faunus, just that some of them had more subtle traits to make them appear human. It wasn't obvious, but he visited Menagerie on the regular. There were Faunus there that had gotten so used to pretending to be human that they had to readjust to not having to hide such.
He'd noticed things merely in passing. He had plenty of little casual love affairs in Menagerie before he and Glynda had hooked up, after all. Being called uncle by Jaune in public had been pretty good for getting laid for a while. Almost a shame he couldn't bank on that shit anymore now that he was taken.
But now that the battle was over, even though nobody in armor had taken it off aside from the one unconscious one he'd helped drag into the Caravan to safety.
He was fine. Mostly. Definitely had a concussion, but that was survivable. Usually.
The bumpy heavily shaking Caravan definitely wasn't helping, but his Aura hadn't broken yet, so eh. He was probably mending fine. Aura enhanced biology was pretty resilient even with smaller Aura reserves. It was only an issue once one's Aura broke.
It wasn't as bad as having five Kalashnikovs pointed at your head demanding your compliance and silence.
"You know I'm not threatened by this at all, right? I'm Qrow fucking Branwen. I guarantee you that if you pulled the trigger, four of your guns will jam and the fifth will miss by default. Believe me. Everyone misses the first shot on me. It's how it works."
Two of the fingers pulled the trigger.
Both of their rifles, borderline legendary for their near-infallible reliability, jammed. The two armored freedom fighter's helmets turned to their guns, as if they couldn't believe what had just happened.
"I really should have boarded the one with your leader on it." Qrow sighed, pulling his bent weapon off his back to fall back into one of the empty seats built into the side walls. "You guys got walkie-talkies? Shortwave comms? I just want some fucking answers to very simple questions and if I don't get them, I'm going to jump off this Caravan and go tell Jaune about the lot of you. I'm his fucking uncle."
Qrow whipped out his Scroll, flipping to an image of him and Jaune laughing together at a beach in Menagerie, him with a beer, Jaune with a soda.
"Cuz I'm pretty sure some of you have to recognize me by this point."