MERRY CHRISTMAS!

"Looking at it now, I perfectly understand the Mistralian natural aversion to enchanted forests. I mean, have you ever seen a baby deer? With its huge eyes and clumsy legs?

Bloody terrifying, I tell you!

The only good thing about them is the best housecats come from there!

Surely you'd know! With your fluffy ears and all. Im sure your dad found lots of House cats!"

-Julius Arc to the Head Chairman of the Faunus Rights Commission, right before the start of the Faunus revolution.

Pyrrha Nikos had never felt so terrible. Every part of her felt like it was trying to evacuate her body at the same time, even as her lunch did the same, and somehow everything around her made her feel worse.

Pyrrha would freely, and privately, admit that in many ways she was a romantic at heart. So the picturesque view of the forest clearing she found herself in should have had her marvelling at the beautiful flowers that rested among the lush green leaves of the trees around the retching champion. She should have smiled as the melodious birdsong graced her ears, lifting her soul just a little bit, or even marvelled at the beauty of the multi-coloured insects making their homes in the grass she was kneeling over. Even something as the perfect sunlight should have brought a small smile on her features.

However, that wasn't the case. The flowers' colours hurt her eyes as she gazed at them while the trees themselves inexplicably sent her stomach reeling. The birds sent chills down every bone in her body every time they chirped, and the sight of the beautiful insects left her skin crawling.

The area was beautiful, full of life and perfect in almost every way.

So why did it feel so… wrong?

Pyrrha took the chance to gaze around her for her companions, immediately regretting it as her entire being recoiled from a simple glance at a particularly beautiful rose bush.

Gnarl, the demented walnut, was standing a small distance away with a massive grimace on his face, seemingly preoccupied with cursing his surroundings as much as possible. Other than that, he seemed fine, if greatly annoyed.

Jaune was… worse. Way worse than she felt.

His skin had gone pale as literal snow as he retched out the contents of his stomach a small distance away. Pyrrha's heart leapt to her throat as she saw blood dripping from his mouth and mixed with his partially digested lunch under his kneeling form. He breathed in deeply and Pyrrha could see that his eyes had gone near blood red when his pained eyes met hers.

Seeing Jaune in such pain, with how she felt now? This wasn't natural.

Did Gnarl do this? She hadn't heard of a teleporting stone doing this in the old legends her father used to read to her but Gnarl knew about them more than she did. Did he cause this, trying to kill Jaune?

Pyrrha gritted her teeth as she raised her self to one knee, each movement on the grass causing her muscles to almost seize up if it weren't for how she forced them to move.

Blood having iron within it was useful sometimes.

As she half-stumbled, half-crawled over to Jaune, she put her thoughts of impaling the diminutive creature with Miló's javelin form at the back of her mind. She needed to help Jaune now, Mistral style revenge could come later.

Despite the short distance between the two teens, it still felt too slow for Pyrrha. Finally reaching her team leader, she placed her hand on his back as she spread her semblance through him, past the armour he was wearing and into the organs themselves. She dimly noticed just how much of a relief that she didn't want to recoil from her teammate and partner's touch.

She almost gasped at what she felt.

She thought that she had felt that everything inside her was trying to evacuate her body but… Jaune's…

With her semblance, she could feel Jaune's blood leaking out of holes that spanned across what seemed to be every vein and artery inside his body. Every organ was losing blood, all the way from his stomach to even his eyes. Why? What was causing all this? She had heard that to most people, Huntsman included, that Internal bleeding was a serious issue, even life threatening at the worst of times.

Forget life-threatening, She quickly admonished herself. It felt like Jaune's aura is the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

Pyrrha stifled her initial reaction of panic. She had experience with Internal bleeding and she couldn't afford to waste time, especially if it was this bad. She shook off the small feeling of doubt that was pooling in her currently nauseous stomach. Her own injuries had never been this bad, ever, but a little experience in dealing with internal bleeding was better than nothing.

Closing her eyes in concentration, Pyrrha reached out with her semblance and tried to grab hold of the iron in Jaune's blood and slowly pushed the free-floating blood back into his body, using her hand on his back as a reference point. It wasn't much, but keeping the internal wounds clear of blood would allow Jaune's aura to close them significantly faster. Her face contorted into a frown as she saw Jaune's internal wounds closing too slowly despite her efforts as Jaune's own blood started puncturing the arteries in what seemed to be the most bizzare and gruesome escape attempt she had ever seen.

Her teeth gritted in fury as she pushed her semblance harder, putting pain that her own organs were going through to the back of her mind as she cursed the necessity of what she needed to do next. Her semblance was irritating like that, her semblance relied on the creation of magnetic waves to influence magnetic substances. However, magnetic waves were invisible to the human eye but luckily her Semblence came with a sort of magnetic ping, allowing her to feel magnetic fields and magnetic surfaces.

The problem with that was, this sense was the only way to use her semblance. Want to defeat a team by using their combat robot as a wrecking ball during a Stadium match? No problem.

Want to do that in the middle of the forest? Nope.

Pyrrha could only create magnetic fields in relation to another magnetic field. In a stadium or city where every power cable was generating a field, it was easy to direct her semblance exactly where she wanted. In a forest with only herself and other humans to guide her semblance, it was significantly harder.

What that meant for her current situation was that manipulating the blood inside someone, which would be difficult even in a powered room, was excruciating here in this… demon forest.

Unfortunately for her sensibilities, Jaune's injuries were already almost too hard to treat without being limited by not being able to accurately direct her semblance.

She needed to get a larger field closer to Jaune.

Closer than it already was…

Glad that she was in too much pain to feel embarrassed, Pyrrha crawled closer to her dying partner. With a grunt of exertion, Pyrrha slowly placed herself on Jaune's back so that her heart, the centre of the magnetic field her body naturally generated, would be just above his spine.

Jaune let out a grunt as he felt the sudden addition of Pyrrha's weight on his hunched back. He probably had no idea that Pyrrha had even moved before she was on his back thanks to the bleeding in his ears and eyes. Pyrrha waited for any response from the Royal Heir that she was currently lying on but after a few seconds of silence, it seemed that Jaune was in so much pain that he didn't even notice.

Pyrrha felt an odd sense of gratitude that Jaune had no idea of the position she was in.

Almost instantly after positioning herself, Pyrrha's awareness of the exact position of Jaune's blood sharpened to the point where she could almost feel every blood cell.

With far more precision than earlier, Pyrrha forced the cells back into the deteriorating circulatory system while also making sure that the hyperactive blood couldn't cause even more damage.

"Well, Well, What do we have here?" Pyrrha's focus broke as she heard a familiar, almost malevolent, voice approaching from behind some of the Devil bushes. "I've known a lot of mistresses in my time and, while most of them were certainly eager to please their master, I can't say that any of them were so eager as to lay with their master in the middle of dying."

As Gnarl stumbled his way out of the bush with a lecherous expression on his face, Pyrrha felt a deep and powerful urge to punt the diminutive creature back the way he came.

For the moment, intense rage only complemented the feeling.

"You!" Pyrrha hissed. "You did this!"

From the first time that she had seen Gnarl, she hadn't liked him. Despite what she had heard many in Beacon whisper, she wasn't some idiot girl from the West of Mistral which was part of Vale in all but name. She was a Shield Heiress of Mistral and she had heard the ancient tales of goblins and minions whenever her dad had gone starry-eyed every time another artefact from the Overlord era was dug up. She knew just how Evil the minions had been. Even if Jaune seemed unaware of what Gnarl exactly was, and she forsomereasoncouldn'tmanagetotellhimbecausehelookedsocutewhenhewasdetermined, she made sure to always keep in mind where the diminutive creature was.

Pyrrha's initial impression of Gnarl wasn't helped by catching him looking at both her and Nora's… assets.

She had no doubt that anyone she knew, even Jaune on a bad day, could have defeated the ancient minion in a straight up fight.

But an ambush with some sort of forgotten magic, isolated from any help.

A creature like Gnarl, would be fully capable of pulling that off.

"Ooh?" Pyrrha gritted her teeth in a mixture anger and pain as Gnarl's face revealed an amused grin. "This is the first time I've been accused for almost killing someone before I had actually tried it."

Pyrrha's eyes narrowed.

"Non-existant betrayals aside, this is quite the problem…" Gnarl mused as his face morphed into a deep frown. "There wasn't supposed to be this much Light energy floating about the place. That inbred mutt must have slacked off on the desecrations!"

"Light? What are you talking about? Why is this happening?"

Gnarl slowly turned his head towards Pyrrha, his eyes locking onto her furious eyes. Silence reigned between the two for a brief moment before Gnarl let out a long suffering sigh.

"Really? You have no idea?" Gnarl tutted. "What kind of Goody twoshoes thought you didn't need to know about the most annoying, most disgusting and itchiest magic that has ever existed? Seriously, It seems the quality of a good Evil education decreases every generation. Well, besides the obvious difference in naming, Light energy-"

"Gnarl!" Pyrrha yelled at the elderly minion through gritted teeth, interrupting him. "I don't care! Help me save him!"

Gnarl's eyes casually glanced to the dying Jaune below Pyrrha, causing her to feel a pang of anger at the sheer dismissal that the Elder minion had in his eyes for her Prince and Partner.

You're lucky that I can't leave Jaune's side at the moment. Pyrrha's mental voice spat at Gnarl. I swear you will regret your Insolence for looking at His Majesty with such disdain!

Pyrrha's mind stalled to a halt. Where had that come from? Insolence? Was that how she saw Jaune? As more of a Prince than the admittedly loveable idiot on that initiation day?

Looking down at Jaune underneath her, she realised that she was in too much pain for that level of introspection now.

For what seemed to be an eternity to Pyrrha's tortured body, there was only silence from the old minion.

"Gnarl!" Pyrrha yelled, letting a tinge of the anger building within her to colour her tone.

Gnarl let out a heavy sigh, with a very resigned look on his face.

"To save the young master there, all you need to do is pump some mag- Aura into his gauntlet. His own aura should be able to power it from there.

Like a shot, Pyrrha reached past the heaving blond's head, who heard nothing if the blood leaking from his ears were any indication, and grabbed the sinister looking gauntlet that still covered Jaune's left arm.

She could feel her muscles protesting from the activity of reaching such a short distance, her own blood inside her arms resisting the act of getting closer to the terrible grass on the floor below.

What was once a simple movement, turned into a herculan journey as she had to slowly force her arm closer to the floor. This extra time let her study the gauntlet.

What a fool did the Minion think she was? There was no way that the Gauntlet could help, even if Jaune hadn't been misled into thinking that this was the actual gauntlet of the Overlord. While she had only known Jaune for a short while, and she could say many charitable things about him, it was easy to see that he wasn't the best when it came time to notice someone's true motivations.

He did believe that Weiss was playing hard to get and not trying to avoid him like a particularly nasty BillyWitch, much to constant amusement.

To be honest, it was unfair of her but Weiss still occasionally reminded Pyrrha of some of the most annoying Mistral nobles she had ever met and she took a small amount of pleasure whenever she saw her figuratively run away screaming whenever the Royal Heir of Remnant attacked her with poorly written romance poems.

With Jaune's unfortunate gullibility in mind, it was easy to see that someone as naturally devious as a Minion of legend would have no trouble in deceiving Jaune into thinking that the Gauntlet was, infact, one from legends. She felt terrible

There was no way that simple steel in the shape of a gauntlet could stop… whatever was happening.

She still reached for the gauntlet however. Regardless of her opinion on it, there was still a miniscule chance for Gnarl to be telling the honest truth, even if the legends said creatures like Minions couldn't do that at all.

A chance to save Jaune, and her, from literally ripping themselves apart was worth pursuing.

Slowly and laboriously, Pyrrha felt her finger tip touch the cool steel of the gauntlet where she immediately pushed as much of her aura into her finger as she could manage.

She expected nothing to happen, she expected to hear derisive laughter from the minion standing infront of the dying members of JNPR as Pyrrha foolishly put her faith in a literally Evil creature from legend.

She didn't expect to suddenly feel her Aura being drawn out of herself through the tip of her finger as though the Gauntlet was a dehydrated man desperately drinking water. She didn't expect the large jewel on the gauntlet to light up, almost blinding her with its orange radiance.

She didn't expect for that same light to banish the pain from her body.

Pyrrha let out a relieved sigh as all her muscles spontaneously relaxed from the sudden lack of pain throughout her body.

A small grin accompanied her sigh as she felt her partner's blood cease its unnatural, hyperactive movement, as though the orange light had somehow calmed the unthinking blood cells.

And then, things got weird…

When Pyrrha had relaxed, she had relaxed totally and her concentration on maintaining the Aura supply to her finger had gone along with the pain she had been feeling.

Apparently, it was fine because the glowing gauntlet had stopped drawing her aura all together.

Instead, it felt it was drawing from everything else instead.

Pyrrha's eyes widened as the devil grass under the Gauntlet lost its disgustingly rich shade of green as it withered and died. She could feel her mouth drop open as the effect spread, the grass around the two students of Beacon dying in what seemed to be a five-meter radius from Jaune.

The flowers nearby wilted and died.

The birdsong was replaced with silence.

The trees seemed to shy away from the literal circle of death.

At the centre of the unnatural devastation, one could be forgiven for feeling scared, anxious or even wondering where they could attain a fresh pair of pants. Pyrrha felt none of these things. Beyond all logical reason in her mind, Pyrrha was most relaxed she had felt since she had left her home in Mistral. Pyrrha yawned, the orange light somehow soothing her muscles to the point where the exertion of the day made her feel sleepy.

It didn't hurt that whatever she was lying on was oddly comfortable.

"Aah! Finally!" Gnarl shouted enthusiastically. "Its been so long since I've felt dead grass between my toes and the smell of Evil in the air! Oh, it really takes me back!"

Pyrrha didn't particularly agree with Gnarl, but she didn't have the energy to voice any disagreement, further nuzzling into her pillow as it rhythmically moved up and down.

"…Pyrrha?" Her pillow choked out as his throat finally healed.

In a second, all that had gone on for the last two minutes was brought to the front of Pyrrha's mind.

She suddenly didn't feel very tired.

With what was definitely not a squeak, she threw herself off of her recovering partner, using her semblance on the metal plates of her armour to increase her velocity.

Pyrrha watched as Jaune groggily stood up, his extremely large aura no doubt almost finished fixing his injuries, as she tried to use her semblance to stop the burning sensation in her cheeks.

Gnarl's delighted cackling wasn't helping.

"Uh, Pyrrha?" Jaune's voice was raspy as he balanced on unsteady legs. "What happened?"

Before Pyrrha could say a word, Gnarl's cackling reached a crescendo in tempo and a devious smile spread across his lips.

No, He wouldn't!

"Well, my Lord. It seems that your teammate took the opportunity to enjoy your company a little more than- URK!"

Pyrrha had moved faster than she remembered moving ever before and was on her feet in the fraction of a second, punting the Elderly minion with a well-timed kick before he could say another word.

Gnarl went flying out of the dead circle and into a particularly colourful rose bush.

"AIEEEE!" Gnarl screamed as he felt the gentle caress of the numeous blunted thorns on the bush's branches and the soft texture of its leaves, the concentrated Good in the plant feeling as though there were Hot coals under his skin.

Pyrrha turned back towards her partner.

Looking at Jaune, she was surprised to see that a small grin had grown on his face while he looked on to Gnarl who was struggling to unentangle himself from the rosebush he had landed in.

"I…" Pyrrha began but the second Jaune looked at her with a quizzical expression, her voice died out.

Clearing her throat, she tried to begin again.

"I… You had massive internal bleeding and your aura wasn't doing enough to stop it." Pyrrha winced at how clinical she made Jaune's potential death sound. "So, I used my semblance to try to stop the bleeding, but… I… needed to be very close to you."

"So, you needed to lie on top of me?" It was an innocent question, free of implication or undertone.

Pyrrha nodded at her oblivious partner. In a way, Pyrrha would have preferred Jaune to pick up on the unfortunate subtext without her spelling it out for him.

At least she wouldn't have to wait to be embarrassed that way.

"There were too many internal injuries. I needed them to be closer to my heart so that I find them and stop the bleeding." Pyrrha closed her eyes, trying to ignore the excessive burning in her cheeks. "I could barely move… so I needed to climb on you to…"

Pyrrha tried to say more but she was interrupted by the feeling of a pair of strong arms wrapping around her. Her eyes shot open and received a practical eyeful of her partner hugging her.

"Wha?" Pyrrha eloquently stated.

"Thank you."

"For what?" Pyrrha asked, her mouth moving on its own as it felt that her train of thought had derailed several stations ago.

"I… I'm not going to lie, Pyrrha. I was scared I was going to die." Jaune's voice was so soft that Pyrrha could only barely hear it. "I had never felt so much pain in my life, except for the time Bianca caught me helping Melina with one of her pranks. That and all the blood and it felt as everything was going dark… I felt that I was going to die here. Then I felt you."

The burning in Pyrrha's cheeks intensified exponentially.

"Then I didn't feel so bad. There was the pain but it felt like I would survive…"

"So… Thank you for saving me, Pyr."

"It was a pleasure, Jaune." She said after a while, her voice completely calm.

WHAT! Why did I say it like that? What the Fuck was I thinking? He's holding me and thanking me for saving his life and I reply like "Oh. It was fun. Let's do it again soon!"

Oblivious to her internal turmoil, Jaune disengaged himself from the hug and gave her a warm smile.

Maybe she chose the right wording after all?

At that moment, a panting Gnarl managed to crawl into the circle safe from the intensely lushious plants.

"*GASP* I'm glad that you are alright milord." Gnarl forced out between gasping breaths.

He took a look at Pyrrha that was a mix between baleful and Lecherous.

"I see you'll fit in nicely at least…"

Jaune took a step forward towards Gnarl.

"Gnarl, What exactly happened? What was that?"

Gnarl stood up, shaking himself off of the rapidly decaying leaves that had gotten caught in the folds of his cloak.

"I will inform you of everything my Lord, but, can we speak on the way, our first destination is very nearby to us."

"Fine." Jaune said after a few seconds of thought. "But you need to start talking now."

"Yes, Yes, Of course my lord."

With that, the three of them departed, the circle of death following them as the dead plants in their wake rejuvenated back into their pristine forms after the two Mistralians and the Minion moved far enough away.

"The first thing you need to understand is that Evil has an annoying tendency to want to flee from good magic, Evil blood especially…"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

AN: Was going to get more stuff done in this update but considering the original plan for this small section of Plot was about a thousand words at most, I decided to cut it off her otherwise my rampant writers block could screw with this further.
Next chapter is probably going to be a long one though as more happens in it but world building and character relationship development.

So hope you guys enjoyed your Christmas Present!