"Well done Miss Xiao Long, the match is yours."
"Aww, thanks Glynda. It was nothing really."
Jaune Arc sat in the stands around the sparring ring, watching the fight with his teammates. "Yaaang!" Ruby whined as her sister helped the red cloaked girl to her feet. "Don't say it was nothing! I almost had you that time!"
"Sure you did, little sis." Yang mussed her sister's hair affectionately as the two of them headed back to their seats. "Maybe you will soon. There's a first time for everything." The red head flopped down in her seat next to Jaune and let out a humph of disappointment.
"Hey you did really well, Rubes. You lasted longer than I would have, for sure." Jaune patted Ruby on the arm, trying to comfort his younger friend. Ruby sighed.
"Thanks Jaune." She didn't sound convinced. Both of them looked up as Glynda Goodwitch cleared her throat.
"For the next match our fighters will be…" She paused to glance down at her scroll. Jaune sat frozen is his seat. He didn't want to suffer another humiliating defeat in Professor Goodwitch's class. Please don't pick me, please don't pick me. "Jaune Arc and Blake Belladonna.
"Aw, nuts."
"Don't worry, Jaune. You've gotten so much better than you were before." Jaune looked over at his partner. Just remember our training and do your best. It doesn't matter if you win or lose."
"You're right Pyrrha. It's not like anyone expects anything from me anyway, so I'm not going to disappoint anyone. Thanks!"
"Uh, sure. Don't mention it" Feeling better that he wasn't going to mess anything up too badly this time, Jaune strode confidently down the stairs to the central sparring ring. The effect was spoiled a bit when his foot slipped on the bottommost step and he nearly fell, earning some snickers from the other students. See this is good. No one has any expectations for me!
Getting to the edge of the ring, Jaune drew Crocea Mors from its sheath and unfolded his shield onto his arm. They felt heavy in his hands, but not as awkward as they had at the beginning of the first semester, before he had started training with Pyrrha. He eyed his opponent from across the ring. What did he know about Blake? His mind was racing. She was fast, that was for sure. Not Ruby fast, but she was quick, quicker than he was. While her weapon wasn't that powerful as a gun, at mid to close range she was deadly. He needed to be careful of an unexpected attack with that ribbon of hers. He gave her a friendly smile at his opponent. "You ready?" Blake's only response was a brief nod.
"All right. Begin the match." Glynda waved her riding crop and the lights dimmed, the only illumination coming from directly above the ring. Time to fight.
Jaune charged forward as Blake did the same. As the two reached the center of the center, Jaune raised his shield to block a possible attack and swung his sword out at the incoming Blake. As he did so, he saw something black blur past the corner of his eye and then his sword passed through the faunus girl. Not encountering the resistance he expected, Jaune stumbled forward, thrown off balance. He felt a blow to his back and was sent sprawling forward. Her semblance! Jaune scrambled to his feet, shield at the ready. He had been fooled by her shadow clones. Her semblance was mostly defensive in nature. Trying to hit the clones would only leave him vulnerable. His best chance was to hunker down behind his shield. Blake jumped high and swung down at him. Jaune lifted his shield to intercept the series of blows. He pushed with his shield, hoping to drive her back. Blake's feet landed on the shield and she jumped away, using Jaune's push to help propel herself.
Blake unfurled the ribbon of her Gambol Shroud and threw it across the room. Jaune, too slow to react, found Blake's gun hooked on the edge of his shield. With a yank, he was sent stumbling towards Blake. Pulling on the ribbon again, this time she sent herself towards Jaune in a flying kick. His first instinct was to lift his shield to intercept her kick, but he stopped, remembering how he had fallen off balance after swinging through her shadow clone, where he thought she would be. Instead of blocking, Jaune juked right and swung his left arm in a shield bash that caught Blake in midair and sent her rolling across the floor. That actually worked? How did I pull that off? Leaving no time for Jaune to celebrate, Blake bounced back to her feet, rushing towards him and swinging the heavy cleaver of her sheath. Jaune lifted his shield, but instead of a straight block, he angled it so that the flat blade skated down the length of the shield, turned Blake away but letting her continue to stumble forward, while Jaune took advantage by making a backhand cut at her legs, sending her to the ground again.
That's it! Blake expected him to try and block her with his big shield and planned her attacks accordingly. When Jaune didn't she was thrown off by her own momentum. Elated, Jaune swung down at the prone Blake, only to have his sword once again effortlessly cleave through her and into the ground as the real Blake rolled to safety. Suddenly, Jaune felt something wrap around his leg. Uh oh, he had time to think before Blake pulled his legs out from under him. His shield was attached to his arm, but he lost his grip on his sword, and Blake wasted no time in kicking it away. Barely managing to roll away from Blake, Jaune scrambled to his feet again, only to be knocked back by a series of shots to the chest from Blake's pistol. Now armed only a shield, he retreated before Blake's continued strikes, these ones carefully measured to not throw her off balance if she missed this time. Before long, he found himself at the edge of the ring, with both of Blake's blades pressed against his shield. If he took another step back he would be eliminated by ring out. I have to do something! His mind raced backwards to all of his training sessions with Pyrrha. All of a sudden he recalled a move that Pyrrha had used on him many times in situations like this. Suddenly crouching, Jaune kept his shield above his head and swung his leg forward, sweeping Blake's feet out from under her. As she tried to stand up, she had no time to avoid Jaune's shield as he swung it into her side, sending her reeling. Similarly, she found herself too disoriented to dodge his full body shield bash as he charged into her. The force of the blow sent her flying back to the center of the ring, and the whole class watched as Blake's aura level dropped into the red.
There was silence for a solid ten seconds. "Well," Glynda said, bring the lights back up, "It appears you have won Mr. Arc. Your progress is remarkable." There was another moment of silence as the class digested what they had just seen. Then a single voice rang out
"YEAAAAAH JAUNE! THAT'S MY FEARLESS LEADER!" It was followed by whooping and a single pair of hands clapping. Jaune looked into the seats as Ren tried to calm the excitable Nora.
"The two of you return to your seats," Glynda said. "We still have time for one more match." Jaune walked back to his chair, still in a daze, He snapped out of it slightly when Pyrrha threw her arms around him as he sat down.
"Oh Jaune! I knew you could do it! Congratulations!"
"Um…Thanks Pyrrha," replied Jaune, somewhat startled by the hug. Seemingly realizing what she was doing, Pyrrha quickly withdrew her arms and faced forwards, spots of color appearing on her cheeks.
"Well, well, well." Yang leaned past her sister and smirked at Jaune. "You actually did it, Vomit Boy. Guess there really is a first time for everything."
And the day went on.
Author's Note: Congrats Jaune, your record is now 1-47. Anyway, welcome to my new 'story.' This is where I am going to document random, mundane-ish events that happen to the students at Beacon. Just slice of life stuff. For example the next story I'm going to write for this is about Ruby writing an essay for class. Seriously. If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, that's alright, this is kind of an experiment for me. If you read my other story, A Bodyguard or Partner, don't worry, this really shouldn't interfere with that. I'll just be writing ideas as they come while focusing on my main story. I wrote this one in a day, so it shouldn't take that much time out of my writing schedule.
Also, I intended for this to be a quick one-shot, but it ending up being longer than either of the chapters I wrote for my main story. Oops.
