Chapter 4:
Chill Winds
Reevaluation T minus 27 Days
"You've got to be joking?" Weiss was appalled as Jaune showed her his abhorred idea for her first exercise. Unfortunately the look in Jaune's eyes said it was necessary. So Weiss reluctantly conceded and grabbed a hold of it in her right hand. It was hard and stiff in her hand as she simply studied it, not quite sure what to do with it.
"Just give it a few pumps," Jaune instructed.
"I know what to do with it Arc, I've done this before!" Weiss stated coldly. As she put a tighter grip on the lifting weight (What? What did you guys think it was?), and pulled it level with her shoulder, then repeated the motion a few times disinterestedly until she had to ask, "What is the point in this again?"
"You said you can't properly hold Myrtenaster in your right hand partly because of its weight right?" Weiss nodded, so Jaune continued, "So if you practice holding something of equal weight, you should be able to hold your weapon more effectively,"
"I don't find this very effective," Weiss pointed out as she continued what she thought was an irrelevant exercise, "I have only a month to become passable with my right hand, and you have me lifting a simple weight,"
"It's not the only thing we're going to be doing Weiss," Jaune explained as he walked over to a desk in the empty classroom the two now occupied and started setting up some papers, "Once you get tired of the weight lifting, you're going to write an essay,"
"Excuse me?!" Weiss shouted.
"It will help you with your dexterity using your right hand, I want you to try and write as neatly as possible and as quickly as possible," Jaune elaborated.
"What do you want me to write about?"
"You're knowledge on Dust, the weather, the thousand and one reasons why you're head over heels for yours truly, it doesn't really matter," Jaune suggested, mentioning the last suggestion with that intolerable smirk of his.
"That last one wasn't really clever you know," Weiss pointed out as she continued to exercise with the weight.
"Anyway, after that you and I will have a sparring lesson just to see your current skill," Jaune finished, "So, any questions?"
"Yea, do you really think me sparring with you will prove anything about my current skill?"
"We're just doing a baseline, if you can beat me with your right hand easily then you can Spar with Pyrrha next time," Jaune promised as Weiss finished her exercise with the weight and went to sit at the desk Jaune had set up. Jaune then took a seat next to her and pulled out his scroll and set it to the stop watch setting.
"How much to I have to write?" Weiss questioned.
"Mmhhh, three whole pages, front and back, remember, I'll be timing you and I'll have Blake read it later to score it for neatness," Jaune explained, "also, no erasing to correct mistakes,"
"WHAT!"
"And go,"
Weiss then started writing. It wasn't something completely out of her element; she wrote essay's all the time, it's just that she had never written with her right hand before and found her hand writing to be sloppy at best, her lowercase n's all looked like lowercase h's and her letters were crooked and better resembled children doodles then actually words. By the time she finished she was completely frustrated.
"Forty-nine minutes and thirty-eight seconds," Jaune said as Weiss finished. Next was the sparring lesson.
The two stood at opposite ends of the classroom with their weapons raised as Jaune went over the rules, "Okay, you just have to disarm me and the sparring will be over, no using your glyphs as this will be a test of your swordplay, we will restart if I get a hit on you, okay?"
"Sure," was all Weiss said.
With that Jaune held his longsword in both hands, not bothering to use his shield as he figured that wouldn't be necessary. Weiss did a mental check up to make sure her posture was good, only putting her left foot forward to accommodate her right hand instead. The two simply circled each other as they both remembered their varying degrees of training. Both sizing up each other's strengths and looking for an opening.
Jaune, even with his limited knowledge in swordplay, knew that Weiss' pasture was well guarded, if a little unsteady given her required usage of her non-dominate hand. He figured she could block any attack he threw at her, but at the cost of getting disarmed.
Weiss then went in for an opening in Jaune's own defense and thrust forward with Myrtenaster. Jaune barely had time to knock away the attack, throwing Weiss' arm outward leaving her open for an attack that Jaune took with a stab of his own. The tip of his sword hitting her midsection, were it not for Weiss' fully charged aura he might have hurt her.
"Argh," Weiss scoffed before she regained her composure. She can't believe Jaune managed to get an attack on her.
"Okay, let's restart," Jaune said as they took their places again. This time Jaune was the first to attack, Weiss instinctively brought her weapon up for a block only to have the weapon knocked out of her grasp; Jaune didn't even bother poking her with his sword.
"I bet you're simply enjoying this, aren't you Arc?" Weiss scolded was they took their places yet again.
"Under normal circumstances yes," Jaune admitted, "But I'm here to help you improve, not myself,"
Jaune then thought for a bit before he got an idea, "Why don't you try dodging my attacks? Until you master blocking again,"
"That's… actually a good idea Arc," Weiss said in what sounded like approval. They started again with Juane taking the initiative and striking first, Weiss dodged to the side and thrust out with her weapon before Jaune could recover, getting him in the side.
"Good job," Jaune complimented as they continued their sparring…
V
It had taken four more rounds of sparring for Weiss to disarm Jaune, by then they were both exhausted from the training and went to get some lunch as it was nearing noon. As they made their way down the hall the air was surprisingly more pleasant between them.
"Thanks again for the dodging tip, I can't believe I hadn't thought of that," Weiss admitted, as they entered the cafeteria and got in line for lunch.
"Yea well the important thing is that you're not hopeless- Weiss gave Jaune a dirty look at that -and that we might be able to help you get good again," the two then took their seats at the usual table with the group of Teams RWBY and JNPR.
"Hey guys, why isn't Ruby and Nora here?" Jaune asked while noting the empty seats.
"Something about finding Ruby's missing weapon," Blake explained without so much as taking her eyes off of the book that was always in her free hand during lunch.
"How was the training?" Pyrrha asked.
"Going okay, if a little unorthodox," Weiss admitted before she picked up her fork and started eating.
"Come on, it wasn't that bad," Jaune complained.
"You had be lifting weights and writing an essay," Weiss pointed out.
"To help with your strength and dexterity," Jaune countered.
"OUCH! STOP IT PLEASE!" everyone turned their gazes towards the sounds to find Team CRDL picking on Velvet yet again. This time Cardin Winchester and Russel Thrush each had an ear in their hands and were pulling them in opposite directions, causing the Faunus extreme pain as the other two members taunted and laughed.
"Monsters," Jaune heard Pyrrha mutter to herself as they watched the cruel event. Before he knew it, Juane was standing up and walking over towards the team of bullies. He vaguely heard his friends calling him back and to not interfere, but he didn't listen as he walked straight up to Cardin and socked him in the face, forcing him to let go of Velvet's ear as he stumbled.
The bully gave a growl as he muttered, "Alright shrimp, I've officially grown tired of you,"
Jaune suddenly found himself on his back with the room spinning. As he regained his vision he saw Cardin with his weapon raised and ready to smash his face in.
'So this is how it ends,' Jaune thought, 'dying while doing the right thing'
Jaune flinched as the weapon came down, but strangely he felt no pain, bravely opening his eyes to see what was happening, he said a black snowflake shaped glyph hovering just a few inches above him, holding Cardin's mace in place.
"Leave him alone you dunce!" Jaune looked over to his right to see Weiss with her right hand outstretched, maintaining the glyph. She then did a quick motion with her hand to turn the glyph red, forcing Cardin's mace to swing back into his already bruised face, knocking him out cold.
Seeing their leader unconscious; Russel released his grip on Velvet's ear as Sky and Dove picked up Cardin and leave for the infirmary.
With the bullies gone, Jaune pulled himself up and walked over to Velvet, who was currently rubbing her ears soothingly, "You okay?"
"Yea… I think so," Velvet said weakly until she noticed who had saved her, "Didn't you two share an exam team with me?"
"Yea," Jaune then held out his hand, "Jaune Arc, in case you forgot, and my this is my friend Weiss,"
"Pleasure," Velvet said to the heiress, who could have sworn heard a hint of resentment in the Faunus' voice, but chose to ignore it.
"Where's your team Velvet?" Jaune asked.
"They have a different lunch period then I do, lousy schedules and all that," Velvet explained, "They're good guys; I only wish that we shared the same lunch,"
"Well why don't you eat with our teams?" Jaune offered.
"You sure they won't mind?" Velvet asked worriedly.
"Of course they won't mind, none of them are like Cardin," Jaune promised, Velvet eyed the heiress for a brief second, and then nodded her approval.
As the three walked back to their table, Jaune spoke up, "By the way, thanks for the save there Weiss,"
"Don't mention it," Weiss replied as they sat back down at the table.
Author's Note:
Sorry for the abrupt ending. The next chapter will be a bonus chapter that is irrelevant to the main plot. The reason I'm doing bonus plot chapters is to have a sense of Beacon life continuing on and not simply revolve around Jaune and Weiss.