I do not own RWBY
Unwinnable
Chapter 9: Have I Mentioned My Muse Has ADD?
[?]
The weather was perfect. With every step, he could feel the cool grass beneath his feet, and the babbling of a nearby brook filled his ears. The scene was, to put it simply, picturesque. Blue eyes follow the sparkling waters, the sunlight thrown off the water in every direction making the brook look like a long line of diamonds. His lips turned upwards and he took a deep breath of the fresh air. Then; he stopped. He tilted his head, another sound reaching his ears, barely audible over the sounds of the running waters nearby. Someone was...singing?
He trudged his way through the dream-like landscape, the breeze whistling through the grass, seemingly a backup to the beautiful vocals which grew louder with every step. Eventually he found himself at a glade, the sound of a woman's humming coming from within it. Moving forward, he descended into the glade slowly, until at last he stood within it, where a lone tree stood. Next to it sat a log, and upon it, a familiar figure sat, flame red hair flowing in the gentle breeze. She tucked a lock of it behind her ear, and continued humming.
His lips turn upward as he approaches her. The girl was wearing an extremely delightful schoolgirl outfit, black with a tartan skirt. He stood a few feet behind her, hands in his pockets. "Lovely tune. What do you call it?"
She turned around, emerald eyes sparkling and she smiled an enigmatic little smile. "Why don't you tell me, Jaune?"
Jaune cocked his head to the side, frowning. "What's that supposed to mean, Pyrrha?"
"Well, this is your dream, Jaune." 'Pyrrha' replied softly.
"Wait, wait, what? I've never had a dream outright tell me it's a dream…" Jaune scratched his head as his expression morphed into one of further confusion. "So...you're not actually Pyrrha then?"
"Nope. I'm actually a manifestation of your Semblance."
Jaune's expression instantly and comedically deadpanned. "What."
"I've taken the form of Pyrrha as I've noticed you've been closest to her. I figured we could have a little chat, now that you're asleep."
"Huh." Jaune replied. He fell silent, his body shaking. Then, he began to laugh out loud, a very disturbed sounding laugh. "So, you're the bitch who's been ruining my life!" Jaune roared, pointing in accusation at 'Pyrrha.' Behind him, clouds began to darken and gather on the horizon.
'Pyrrha' cocked an eyebrow. "Ruining? I've been helping you. If it wasn't for me, you would have never gotten together with Pyrrha in the first place."
One of Jaune's eyes twitched furiously. "HELPING ME?! Is that what you call that...that...disaster back in Vacuo?"
"Which wouldn't have become a disaster if you'd simply chosen a girl...or twenty!"
Jaune sputtered, his eye developing an even nastier twitch. "I am not going to have twenty god damn girlfriends! That way lies madness! And death by snu-snu!"
'Pyrrha' huffed, blowing her flame red bangs upward and rolled her eyes. "Oh relax. You're an Arc. Having copious amounts of sex is like breathing for your bloodline. Your great-grandfather once made love to sixteen women in one single day and was fine for Hunting the next. Regardless, you need to stop fighting this! I'm only doing this for your benefit!"
"My benefit? My benefit?! I had to run for my life from ninety percent of the female population of Vacuo Preparatory School! Did it ever occur to you that I don't want to have multiple girlfriends?!"
"And why not?! Any straight male would kill to be in your position! What could possibly be so important about your obsession with monogamy?!" She stood from where she'd been sitting, her face flushing.
Jaune's eye continued to twitch in a combination of irritation and indignation as he spoke up again, arms gesticulating wildly. "How about devotion? Or even having the time to spend with all of them? Have you ever thought about how difficult it would be to show the same kind of love and affection to two different women, much less twenty?!"
"People do it! All the time, in fact! Ever heard of a polyamorous relationship?! Love isn't a finite resource, Jaune; loving someone doesn't take away from someone else!" She was furious now, pacing up and down the glade, he white shirt bright in the sun- Wait... when had she taken off her jacket?
The blond male blinked as he followed 'Pyrrha' pacing back and forth. He shook his head, clearing it of cobwebs. Damnable Semblance, looking like his dream girl. "No, but time is a finite resource! Wait, why am I arguing that aspect when the moral issues are far bigger? Do you know how hard it is to find girls who are willing to share, much less with a bunch of other women?"
She interrupted- "But I've already taken care of all of that! I put so much effort into crafting the perfect options for you to use, to win their hearts and ensure they're willing to share! You don't appreciate the effort I put into saving the world!" She turned to face him, striding up to him, and poking a hard finger into his chest.
Jaune glared up at his Semblance, blue eyes narrowed into near slits. "And how the hell is getting me involved in this supposed to save the damn world?!"
As intense as her anger was, that only made it more surprising when she calmed. Instead of moving to sit on the log where he'd found her, she sat down where she was, the log somehow disappearing and reappearing beneath her. The way she was, her face was about level with Jaune's crotch, something she'd apparently realized, as she winked up at him.
"Do you have any idea how long mankind has been fighting the Grimm? Pretty much since there was a mankind. People have been fighting, and dying, since before we knew what dust was, aura, robotics, mecha-shifting; we have been fighting them so long and we're still fighting them. But why? We have all those things now. But what hasn't changed?" She didn't wait for him to respond.
"Us. We haven't changed. All of this extra security? It's just given us a cushion to get complacent and bicker with each other, which just makes more grimm!" She threw her hands up again, and her breasts shifted underneath her shirt. Weren't more buttons buttoned a minute ago? "Technology, technique, science, dust, none of this will ever work because- because-" Jaune couldn't help but notice just how attractive Pyrrha, or at least this dream version of her, looked when she was angry.
"Because we're divided!" She pointed at him, as if she had just realized something. "The only way to stop the Grimm forever and to ensure humanity's safety is to achieve unity." She stood up, the log disappearing as soon as her- wait... no, he was sure of it: her skirt had been longer when he'd first seen her.
With a rapid movement, she pushed at Jaune's shoulders, and instead of staggering back, he fell onto the log, which had moved behind his own legs. He could barely think before 'Pyrrha' plopped into his lap. "Nothing unites people like love, Jaune..." Her face was very close to his.
Jaune felt himself leaning forward toward the dream version of Pyrrha, his anger momentarily forgotten in the haze of seeing her so close, and with vanishing clothing. It flared up a moment later though and with a growl, he pushed 'Pyrrha' off his lap, getting to his feet and pointing back. "Oh, that sounds great and all, but how the hell am I supposed to bring about this utopia? I am but a single man, if you haven't grasped, and it's not like you're giving me the power to split into multiple people! This doesn't help things at all in the grand scheme of things, only unites a select few people! There has to be a thousand better ways of uniting the populace than through my...my…" Jaune's face flushed as he found himself unable to speak the rest of the words, although his gaze dropped down to his crotch.
She grinned up at him, "Your dick?" She chuckled at him, before standing from where she had fallen. "Jaune, people touch other people... not like that, well, not yet; I'm working on it" she smirked "people affect each other. You could bring together every young woman on remnant, hell, even if you could unite 500 huntresses? Imagine the good that would have on the world, if you just..." her smile had slowly faded, and her hands balled into a fist "stopped. FIGHTING ME!"
The young Huntsman-in-Training walked up, pointing a finger up at her face, teeth clenched in a snarl. "No! I am not going to end up as some international manwhore to unite the populace! There are a thousand other ways that I could help people that doesn't have to involve dating a bunch of women! Much less sleeping with them!"
She turned around and screamed at the glade. "Why are you making this so difficult!? Your great-grandfather wasn't nearly so hard to convince!" Jaune was ashamed to notice that her skirt had disappeared entirely, leaving her in a flattering pair of dark purple underwear. She turned around and pointed at him, finger almost shaking. "Look, I realized that Vacuo was a bit much to start with. A hundred and twenty-women was apparently more than you can accept! So, let's just... try again. This time, it's just five. Just. Five. Five beautiful, lovely, compassionate, sexy-as-all-hell girls! Once you've learned to manage them, we can expand."
"Expand?!" Jaune screamed. "EXPAND?! No! Just one! One! One freakin'-" He stopped in mid rant and blinked. "Wait, great-grandfather?"
"Yes, your great-grandfather. Why's that so important?" She pouted, and idly unbuttoned another button of her shirt.
Twitch. "Will you stop that?!" Jaune snapped, before shaking his head again. "Great-grandpa Isaac was a man of virtue! A hero! There is no way in hell that he'd be willing to sleep with a bunch of women! He was dedicated to great-grandma!"
Pyrrha massaged her forehead, her eyes scrunched shut. "The two aren't mutually exclusive, knucklehead. Isaac loved your great-grandmother very much, in the same way that he loved his eventual 11 long term partners. I was young, then. I didn't have the concentration to balance the affections of the 130-or-so he slept with at one point or another. Damned marriage laws. He and I had to choose one to marry."
Jaune's mouth opened and closed like a goldfish in shock. "One...one-hundred...thirty...no. No. No, no no! I refuse to believe it! I refuse to take part in this!" He stepped back, shaking his head, finger outstretched. "I am going to become a Huntsman, make my parents proud and have one, and ONLY ONE GIRLFRIEND!"
His back hit something as he backed up, and he whirled to see 'Pyrrha' standing behind him, causing him to jump in surprise with a comedic squeak. "You know, I'm tempted to punish you for being so difficult. I could have you sleep-walk into Pyrrha's bed. The problem is, I'm not sure that she would mind. You fell asleep before she changed, but her underwear is atrocious-, uh... Delightful, I mean. You're gonna love it." She smirked. "But then again... you're gonna love Blake's pajamas when I get you to see those."
She shook her head, as if clearing her mind. "Jaune, answer me this: do you care about the members of Team RWBY? Are they important to you?"
Jaune blinked and tilted his head in thought. "I...guess? I've just kind of met them. I mean, they're friends, sure, but I really only have gotten to know Yang and Ruby so far. I barely know much about them." He scratched his chin, his anger now replaced with a quiet contemplation.
"Just Yang and Ruby then. If they were hurting, would you want to help them?"
"Well, duh."
'Pyrrha' stepped forward, placing both hands on his shoulders. "Then listen carefully. You WILL win their hearts. That's not a debate, it's not even a question. Your grandfather was very active, and I have a lot of practice." She released his shoulders, and sat back, folding her arms across her chest. Jaune wasn't even surprised to find that her shirt had disappeared, leaving her in a bra to match her underwear.
"But Jaune, if you reject them... imagine how that will hurt them." She began to circle around him, her eyes judgemental and hard. "They just want to love you, Jaune. But because of your pig-headedness, they're going to be in so much pain. Ruby's going to cry herself to sleep, more than once. Weiss won't; she'd never let her team see her so emotional. No, Weiss keeps it all in, so long that it aches, and then she goes into an empty classroom and sobs. I can't tell you her full story, but Blake is broken inside. She has compromised everything she once stood for to do what was right, and Yang?" She shook her head, her face stern. "Yang wants to be loved. More than any of them. She has been taking care of people for so long- her father, her sister, her uncle- that she has never had a chance to take care of herself. She needs someone to rely on, and if you reject her?" Her head shook back and forth, again. "It will crush her."
She eventually completed a full loop, coming to stand before him. "And all of this pain?" Emerald filled his vision as she stepped forward, her hard finger pressing again into his chest. "It will all be your fault."
Jaune gave a choking noise as white hot fury began fill his conscious thought. "You...you...you...manipulative, conniving, underhanded…" Jaune snarled, the storm clouds that had been gathering on the horizon now advancing upon the once peaceful glade. "They wouldn't be in pain if it wasn't for you!" Thunder rumbled, a skyward roar to match Jaune's now fierce temperament.
"Oh, they would. You need to understand, the love they'll feel once you accept them far surpasses what they're going through right now, and what they're going to go through. It will all be worth it. I'm starting the healing process, you're just dragging it out." She seemed to ignore the thunderstorm. Her hair didn't even blow in the growing wind. "Like… you're peeling off a bandaid slowly. The bandage had to happen, and it has to come off, but you think you're being kind by slowing things down." She tsked and shook her head, wagging a finger at him. "You're not, by the way."
"Oh, and I can't help them as a friend?!" Jaune snapped back, once again gesticulating wildly, the glade now shadowed by the stormclouds. "They don't even love me yet! I'm just a friend, and I plan to stay that way!"
"Nope. That won't help them the way you need to. Besides, this isn't up for debate. This is happening. But I think the funniest thing is how little work I've had to do! Some of the biggest increases in interest haven't come from the dialogue options at all. The cliff, the interactions with Yang and Ruby. Hell, half of Vacuo… that was all you, lover boy!"
Jaune shook his head, frantic at this point. "No! That's not true! That's impossible!"
'Pyrrha' grinned. "Search your feelings, Jaune; you know it to be true…but there's one sure way to get what you want, Jaune. You could always… choose the mean choices. I make sure to load them full of vitriol and hate; you could always do that. RWBY's interest would go down and stay down. Sure, Pyrrha's would too, but that's the price you'd have to pay. You can't, though…it's not who you are." She blew a kiss at him. "And that's why I'll win."
She paused, and looked up at the sky, as if distracted by something. "Oh, Pyrrha's coming to wake you up." The false 'Pyrrha' gasped, delightedly. "And she hasn't changed! Wow! Those are nothing short of astounding! I just want to bury your face between them and- ugh!" She was very excited. "You have got to see these." She did… something with her hand, and Jaune's body started to float up.
Pyrrha called up to him as he floated ever-faster toward the sky. "We don't have to be enemies, Jaune! You're only making this harder on them, and yourself, if you keep fighting this!"
"Wait, hang on!" Jaune shouted, eyes wide and arms flailing. "I'm not done talking to you! You're the one giving me these choices! Hey! Let me down!" As he was lifted higher and higher, and the now naked form of Pyrrha was so small he couldn't see anything beyond her waving her hand up in the air, he gave one last shout. "Pyrrha! PYRRHA!"
As the clouds covered his view of the ground below and everything began to grow black, Jaune heard something, something strange.
It sounded like…
His own voice?
"Damn whippersnapper..."
[Beacon Academy - JNPR Dorm]
Jaune's eyes flew open and he froze. Emerald eyes stared back, blinking in surprise. There was silence. Where was he? Oh, right. His dorm. With his team. The events of the previous day came rushing back to him. He had, once again, become the leader of a team, this time team Juniper, consisting of himself, Pyrrha, Ren and Nora.
"Um...hey?" Jaune replied, cocking one eyebrow slowly.
"I-I-" Pyrrha began to stutter, a look of embarrassment on her face, her cheeks turning the same color as her hair. She quickly backed up, and Jaune noticed with no small enjoyment that she was indeed wearing a very lovely outfit for her sleep clothes. Nothing risque, and yet the buttons that were unbuttoned left a wonderful view of her ample cleavage that he drank in like a man dying of thirst. "I'm sorry!" She replied before promptly rushing off into the next room where the Team JNPR bathroom was located.
Blinking bleary-eyed, Jaune rose from his bed, scratching his head. "What was all that about…?" He mused aloud. A girlish giggle caught his attention and he found his gaze snapping to the room's other two occupants, Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie.
"You were…" Ren cleared his throat. "You were murmuring Pyrrha's name in your sleep." The quiet young man explained, turning away to make his bed.
"Renny!" Nora shouted, stomping one foot. "You're interrupting the natural processes of love!"
Jaune blinked. He should have felt embarrassed, but the events of the dream were still running through his mind. His Semblance seemed to be working against him, insisting that his great-grandfather was...was...that! To make matters worse, it had a good point. As long as Jaune kept picking the kind options, it would end up being Vacuo all over again! Ignoring the bantering between his two teammates, Jaune ran his hands over his face and groaned.
He had his work cut out for him. He wasn't going to give up though. There had to be a way out of this, right?
Right?
B/N: Bahahaha! Search your feelings Jaune, you know it to be true! Yes, I wrote all of 'Pyrrha's lines for this chapter, because, well, this is just a rehashing of the arguments Lefou and I have all the time. I think Jaune should sleep with all of them by the end of the story, and Lefou, well, doesn't. All we did was lay out our reasons, and then add some flavor around them. Although, Lefou did nix my idea of having real Pyrrha wear lingerie to sleep. (Oh, you can also thank me for the two Star Wars lines XD)
A/N: There we go, another chapter down! I wasn't expecting this dream sequence to go on for so long, but I think it kind of explained a few things, as well as set up one of the big struggles Jaune faces this semester. Someone did mention that it seemed incongruous that Jaune didn't want a harem, but kept picking the right options, which is true. However, notice how the choices in the previous chapters keep seeming to hedge him into picking the option that gets him more attention? Combine that with his naturally kind personality and Jaune's kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. Which, let's be honest, is exactly where you readers want him. Special shout out to my beta for this, Spooky, who actually helped write this chapter with me, mainly Dream!Pyrrha's lines.
I'm close to finishing the next chapter of Moonlit Sonata and Innocence will actually have another chapter as well! Look forward to those in the coming future. Signing off for now, LaughingLefou.
