Pyrrha blinked in surprise. "Well that's an… interesting... semblance?" she offered. Jaune sighed. They were all sitting in a circle on the floor of their dorm.
After being with team JNPR for a few weeks, he had felt that he could trust them enough to tell them about his semblance. He was still building up the courage to tell team RWBY as well, but he figured he may as well spill to his own team first.
Nora frowned with a look of disappointment on her face "So you didn't really one shot that Deathstalker?" she asked. Jaune shrugged.
"Well I did kill it, technically" he argued. "I just had some...extra help." Ren gave him a doubtful look, and after a brief silence, spoke up.
"So you're basically a fraud" he stated in a deadpan, matter of fact voice. Jaune stammered over himself in an attempt to respond.
"W-Well I wouldn't go so far as to-I mean it's not that bad-" he paused, and reconsidered. "Yeah. That about sums it up." Pyrrha looked at him thoughtfully.
"If you've been reliant on luck your whole life, your actual skill must be pretty underdeveloped" she mused, rushing out a hurried "No offense Jaune" Jaune shrugged.
"None taken" Pyrrha sighed inwardly with relief and continued hesitantly.
"Well, as your teammate..." Nora nudged her "I could, perhaps, if you'd like..." Nora nudged her again, harder this time. "I mean, if you really feel like you need it..." Nora smacked her face into Ren's shoulder, groaning something that sounded vaguely like "hopeless" Pyrrha coughed awkwardly, composed herself and took a deep breath before finally asking.
"Would you like me to train you, Jaune?" The words tumbled out of her mouth as one long string. Jaune blinked in surprise.
One would think she was about to ask me out or something. He thought inwardly. Outwards though, he said, quite simply: "Sure. That'd be great. Thanks Pyrrha." Nora grinned.
"But before you do that, can you just show us your semblance one more time? I wanna see what all the other numbers do!"
xxx
Jaune took a deep breath as readied his sword. He was facing a robotic training dummy which they had "appropriated" from the training arena and snuck outside in the middle of the night for Jaune to beat up on without the danger of incurring Glynda's wrath.
Nora cheered enthusiastically, while Ren and Pyrrha looked on with intense concentration. All of them were a good 20 meters away behind a log, just in case.
"Here goes nothing…" he muttered. He charged, raised his sword, and brought it down on the dummy's head with the intention of bisecting it. He closed his eyes and focused his semblance into the blade's edge as he swung.
Jaune didn't hesitate, eagerly rolling the die the second he appeared back at the table. The entity was somewhat surprised by this and looked on with mild amusement without saying anything. The die bounced across the smooth wooden surface. Two pips looked up at him from the table.
It's been a long time since I've rolled a two. He mused. Forgot what it does. Oh well. Guess I'll find out.
There was a small "pop" sound followed by a rather strange "thunk" as his sword impacted something.
Huh? He thought. That doesn't sound right. Those dummies are made of metal. Should be more of a "clang" if anything.
Jaune raised his head slowly and opened his eyes to see what had happened. The world came into focus. He was in a small office dimly lit by a single lamp. His sword appeared to be lodged halfway into a stack of papers haphazardly piled on top of a large desk which was cluttered with many similar looking stacks of papers.
Behind the desk sat a very familiar looking blonde woman, who paused in her writing and slowly looked up at him. She slowly extracted her glasses from her face and looked directly at Jaune with piercing green eyes that promised pain and suffering.
"Mr. Arc" she said through gritted teeth. "To what to I owe this pleasure?"
Jaune looked on in fear as he watched the metal pen in her hands bend and snap into two pieces before clattering onto the desk's surface.
She didn't even use her semblance to do that.
There are no words that can describe the regret I'm feeling right now, he thought as he gulped in fear.