Disclaimer: I own nothing of RWBY.
Ash
By: Imyoshi
Combat class.
Jaune Arc's deadliest foe.
The antithesis to everything he was. Human versus Grimm. Only today they became comrade-in-arms. That was if he played his cards right for once in his life.
The silence of an empty classroom captivated Jaune upon entering. Pyrrha tagged beside him, hovering over his shoulder. A quick scan of the room revealed them the first ones there, beating even Professor Goodwitch. Made logical sense since they had been roaming the hallways while everyone ate away at the Mess Hall, but he figured for professors to be lounging around their classroom during the final minutes. Ah! No matter. He would be lying to say he felt relaxed from their encounter. Feelings and talks that needed to happen had passed. Now, where the next step decided to whisk them away was left to chance.
He looked forward to it with a sense of dread.
Pushing aside their talk and haunting awkwardness, they traveled toward the end of the class. Chattering from other students could be heard from outside the hallway. They barely took a seat before in torpedoed Nora Valkyrie. She zoomed with the hyperactivity of a ticking-time-bomb with Ren calmly following her shadow. She was giggling at some random thing the calm sloth said, clueless to how loud her voice carried in the room. There existed a chance he said something serious, and she saw it as a joke. Wouldn't be the first time. Definitely wouldn't be the last either.
Nora needed only about four seconds before she spotted them. She instantly waved and pointed at them before tugging Ren by the sleeve, rushing toward the pair in an endless vigor. Ren never got a say on the matter—he rarely did—and was promptly pushed into a seat with her tagging behind him, beaming mischievously while her fingers began to dig away into his flawless strands.
The remaining members blinked.
"Nora?" Ren bent his head backward, ignoring her innocent smile. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing! Now put your head back, silly!" Nora forced him to comply, fixing his head stubbornly into place. She effortlessly went back to playing with the bangs of his hair, occasionally flicking some for fun. Her favorite happened to be the pink strand. "I wonder how your hair would look if I made it look like Weiss'? Have you ever wondered that?" Of course, not. "Let's see what it'll look like!"
"Nora—?"
"Shush! Momma's working!"
Their leader openly chuckled. Ren sent him a cold glare. Ah! Thanks to Nora's amusing distraction, any lingering thoughts of the Vytal Tournament vanished. Now he just sat idly by his team with his feet resting on a nearby seat. Aura already leaked throughout his body with his focus shot up, and his body reacted accordingly to the boost. Muscles stretched to accommodate for the added strength. Senses sharpened. Everything worked perfectly without a hitch. To make matters beyond extraordinaire, he silently enjoyed the way Nora played with Ren's hair and smiled when Pyrrha futilely tried to stop her with the Lie making absolutely no attempt to stop either of them, content to allowing his Valkyrie to pull and tug on his precious locks.
Team JNPR at its finest.
Glancing down at the arena, he hadn't a clue why, but a feeling in his gut told him today was going to be more life-changing than he previously believed. The sensation of foreshadowing settled deep in his chest. Like a calm before the storm type of deal—instinct gripping and hair rising. It irked him was what he tried to convey.
Nope! Not today.
He dropped the looming feeling for now. The impatient drumming of his fingers on his forearm preoccupied his time as everyone waited for Professor Goodwitch to arrive. For the second time ever, he wished to fight during class, instead of hiding behind a body of students, more than ready to impress his fellow peers and onlookers with Aura charm. Heck! The minute the professor arrived he was eager to volunteer to go first. The Arc would challenge anybody, even painful Yang. Excessive? Maybe. Not to say he wanted to spar against her, but temptation made a man do crazy things.
Suffice to say the leader acted more than a little excited. Very excited! Borderline Nora Valkyrie level of excitement!
He clocked his head to the side as he went over a list of flashy ideas to implement once he revealed his Aura abilities. Then things hit a one-eighty when an unforeseen force of invisible influence pressed down upon his body. Like a weight, it virtually shrouded him in a wealth of power. The power itself was neither suffocating nor heavy, but he felt it bearing down on him nonetheless from all conceivable directions. Like an unseen mass of water surrounding him.
Jaune hiccuped, and before he managed to turn around and question whether his teammates felt that, Professor Goodwitch stepped into the room and the enigma rocketed up in intensity as she purposely waltzed across the arena. A nasty frown—way beyond the norm for her—graced her lips with a sense of instability noticeable from first glance. However, nothing beat the outline of violent purple Aura hanging close to her body like a layer of second skin.
Well now, this was new.
His eyes traced each of her steps as she wordlessly stalked across the room. That puzzling intensity started to lessen as she quietly counted from afar. He blinked. Whatever this was might have had to do with her emotions because as her livid appearance dampened, so did that force. An honest guess. The only reason he felt confident in that was it appeared no one seemed to be affected by the out-of-nowhere pressure. Hardly any of the students even realized she entered the room.
Yup! Something new was going on here. He rightly felt it.
Jaune ignored everyone around him. He didn't know what to make of this, but based on the way their professor took a hard look across the entire class, he figured to the best of his abilities that her sparkling Aura was the culprit, or what he assumed was her Aura. No other logical choice made sense otherwise to an Aura user. Of course, it was all moot on his point. A complete guess. He lacked any real evidence to make any viable assumption, let alone that one. He still believed confident in it. By purely guessing on the way their professor was pinching the bridge of her nose and his influence over Aura, he felt justified in that observation.
Only one way to find out.
Time to experiment. A quirk he had quickly picked up the more he studied his Aura. Thus he quietly hummed in his seat, no longer focusing on his Aura too much, paying extra-close attention to how composed his professor was getting. Emotional influence over Aura was a concept he researched occasionally, and he believed this might be such a situation, more so as no one in the room seemed to notice the sudden shift in the air. Her Aura just kept getting less unstable with every breath she took to calm herself down before it vanished entirely.
Odd.
How weird? He allegedly discovered something new about Aura by accident. The only question floating in the air was why? Why now? Of all times for this to happen, why did it have to be now? What brought on this strange turn of events?
Going into Aura Obsession Mode, he stealthily attempted to appear bored—a complete contrast to seconds earlier—but stopping his eyes from hardening as he shifted his entire focus on the professor became next to impossible. First things first, concentration. Nothing happened when he concentrated on his Aura, and he grunted, starting to imagine if his extreme Aura-paranoia was behind this? No! He knew better. A pressure of weight fell upon him when the professor walked in. Something like that didn't just up and vanish. A reason existed for everything. Nothing worked without a purpose.
Like Excalibur. Like Shooting Star! Like his Aura. Even like the pain of hitting one's head on a bedpost only for the pain to relieve itself. A reason existed!
A few minutes pass and nothing. No more invisible pressure.
Perhaps it had all been in his head? Some silly fantasy his ill-fed mind conjured up to punish him for skipping Meaty Monday. Yeah. Not one of his better ideas. Close to the bottom three. Next to serving Nora coffee and talking in Doctor Oobleck's class. The man lived to handout Saturday detentions if someone so much as peeped. Grumble! Hn? Maybe Ren might have some of those nasty but strangely addicting health bars on him? On second thought, he was perfectly fine starving.
"Miss Valkyrie and Mr. Sky! Please proceed to the arena." Glynda ordered, pulling him away from his Aura based thoughts. "You'll be the first spar of the day."
Distracted, the leader mentally sighed, falling back into his seat with a weak grin. Darn it. All that testing and useless observations made him forget to volunteer. Oh well. He could always go second. Might as well concentrate on his Aura again and—!
Pressure!
Deep blue eyes stretched cosmically as the same weight from before—not nearly as powerful—overcame him in another blanket of pressure. He instantly sat up. The vague stress bore down on him from all angles. Its familiarity was impossible to ignore. Then, from the corner of his eyes, a subtle glow of turquoise, bridging between the barrier of a hint of green, burned next to him that seized all of his attention, and a small shift of perception revealed the culprit. The spectacle stunned him once it was clear at who was creating his vacuum.
Nora?
She jumped out of her seat with Magnhild out and ready to deliver leg-crunching pain. "Time to break some legs!" Nora's Aura reacted violently, resembling jolts of lightning and it covered her entire body in a fabric of nonsense. She then crouched in her seat, gripping her weapon tightly and lunged forward. "Watch me, Ren!"
He said nothing. Not as if Ren had much of an option, and when did she grab her weapon? What was the point of weapon's lockers if everyone just carried around their weaponry?
Amazed, Jaune couldn't divert his attention away from Nora as she landed explosively in the arena, saluting to her fellow teammates with a battle-hungry grin. She spun the hammer in her hands for proper balance as she excitedly sat on the head of Magnhild to await Sky for his sentencing. A friendly, but bone-chilling hum passed her lips, and he felt for the poor guy. Every strike of hers had bone-rattling precision.
The entire time her pressure slowly dialed down.
Eventually, it vanished altogether, but if he concentrated hard enough, he could feel some lurking power coming from her. It remained close. Not being suppressed but guarded firmly to her body, almost copying that of a suit of armor. A minuscule heat radiated off of her, something he didn't notice when the pressure spread all across his frame. This turquoise glow must be her Aura with the way it shined a maniac hue.
He acted stunned. Okay. So he wasn't going crazy. Good. Now if he wasn't losing his mind, then what was happening? He kept staring at his volcanic teammates to figure out what he sensed. Not an easy feat when he couldn't get up and personal with the anomaly. Force of habit demanded he reached for his Aura notebook he kept stashed in his bag for such an occasion, but before that happened, another wave of pressure occupied the space around him, just not as powerful as Nora's.
"... What?"
Turning around, he noticed Sky Lark from Team CRDL unleashing a wave of that same pressure of his own. By his narrowed vision, Sky's Aura had more of a dirty blue color than anything else. The Aura waved hazily around the guy in a mist-like foam, acting like smoke. Just like Nora's his compressed closer to his body, lessening the pressure between each step down the stairs. Jaune closed his eyes upon noticing the force. His lips thinned in absolute concentration.
Seriously! What was going on here?!
The fighter sighed. Sky, as calmly as possible, called for his weapon's locker and grabbed his halberd. Then he trudged each step down toward the arena, silently fearing for his legs. Everyone in the room knew that area was Nora Valkyrie's favorite point of attack and she never disappointed. Meanwhile, Jaune sat on the edge of his seat with all his thoughts of fighting pushed to the side. This new Aura discovery he accidentally made was far too important to ignore. At least he assumed it had to do with Aura and that he wasn't just stepping into a realm of Nora level of insanity. There was no turning back once someone hit that stage.
Pulling out his Aura notebook, he scribbled down some quick notes, eyes fixated on the two fighters below the arena. It was only when Professor Goodwitch said begin did both their armors of Aura expand, creating in terms a vacuum of pressure that had a unique space.
Actually? He kind of enjoyed that name.
Space!
That was what he would call this strange phenomenon. Space! It rolled off the tongue smoothly enough. Fit all his name naming criteria. Space!
He penciled in a few notes to go along with newly named Space. Then he spent the next few minutes watching the battle between Sky and Nora with scientific curiosity. Anything and everything that he could observe and interpret got quickly written down. For example when it came to pushing the other back with sheer physical force alone, whoever dished out a higher level of Space virtually won that battle. Not to say it always ended up like that, but the majority of the time it did. Then came the aspects of Space itself. For such a mysterious concept, specific differences existed between Nora's and Sky's.
Oum!
He observed that the more they fought, the less Space they could use. After a certain point, and after taking direct hits from the other's attacks, he noted their Aura armor and the Aura monitor in the class were linked. Both of their shields chipped away from the prolonged battle and so did their Aura on the meter. Yes, a connection existed between the two. Space and Aura were correlated.
Exuberating!
He grinned. Not that he understood much of what he wrote, but he discovered the weight that attributed to Space affected him very little. His body got used to the coercion quickly enough. Like Aura's elusive property to avoid Remnant's gravity, Space's existence harbored none, but he felt its presence upon him nonetheless. The weight was everywhere and nowhere. Scattered around every corner in the room but affecting nothing it touched. Such a mystery alluded him as he struggled to make sense of a concept only he could feel, observe, and interact.
Stuck writing and blind to the world around him, he failed to notice the other two members of Team JNPR staring at his odd behavior, finding it exceptionally strange for him to be writing notes down in his notebook during this class of all periods. His partner vaguely recalled him using that notebook, but Ren was far more perceptive than the champion. He had witnessed his friend writing more than once in that journal between classes with his favorite being the fast-talking doctor's. None of this was news to him. Strange? Certainly. New? No.
However, his eyes only spared him a sharp glance before looking away.
Ignoring his leader's quirky habits came easy, and he shifted all his attention to Nora's battle. If he learned anything at all from his hectic life with Nora, added in with the few months of living under one roof with Pyrrha and Jaune, their leader would spill eventually. Pyrrha, on the other hand, held no such experience and appeared worried about his strange behavior. Not to say her worry wasn't justified, because it was. Jaune rarely took notes and even when he did, he never wrote so frivolously. Above all else, he bothered doing so in the one class that required no notetaking whatsoever. Yes. Her worries were warranted.
Nothing added up.
Pyrrha grabbed her partner by the shoulder and stole his attention away from his notebook. Despite herself, she smiled. "Jaune? What are you doing?"
Jaune found all the words he knew stuck in his throat. His pencil's lead left a smudge on a detailed observation he never finished. Now? How to explain this situation? Couldn't exactly share the knowledge of his secret Aura notebook. Not yet at least. Nope!
"Taking notes?" Good job, mouth. Tell them exactly what was going on.
"I can see that..." A hint of humor captured her voice. "But why?"
His eyes zoomed between Pyrrha and Nora—who was trying to smash Sky's legs into a bunch of bite-size pieces—searching for last minute inspiration. His search lasted some time with the cry my legs ringing somewhere in the background as an occasional low magnitude tremor followed from Nora's hammer passing unmovable judgment.
Ah! What the hell! Wing it!
"As the team leader, I thought it would be a good idea to see how Nora fights for the upcoming Vytal Tournament." Huh, sounded reasonable enough. "Someone has to come up with the killer strategies, so the other teams won't know what hit them, and that's my job as the team leader and all! So I was thinking of some team combination attacks!"
Ugh! Little things hurt the most, and this was no exception with the pit of his soul churning violently. Like his striking realization of his ability to fib to his friends with a straight face. A sensation pooled at the center of his chest, aching his pride with a knife to the back. He loathed the familiar feeling. Lying went against the Arc word and code. A tugging emotion, guilt, chewed away at his oath. On an unrelated note, between all the discrepancy circling him, killer strategies sounded like a marvelous idea.
Team combination attacks!
Yes! Those would be perfect! Throw in some zesty one-liners to incorporate into their fights to spice things up. Perhaps a cool catchphrase? Excellent. He better start working on those soon! Maybe start thinking of team names, too? Like maybe Ren and Nora could be called Flower Power or Renora? Well, Renora sounded boring. As if he didn't even try to come up with a charming name for the pair, still, such things eluded him as his mind raced.
Pushing all that aside, for now, he saw the hesitant wince when he mentioned the Vytal Tournament to Pyrrha but barely cared much for it. Their problem was already out in the open. Best to figure it out and learn to embrace the challenge and not shy away from it. If that meant openly talking about it, then so be it, but he preferred not to.
"Oh?" Pyrrha whispered while looking away with a strained smile. "That's good. Keep it up, Jaune."
He wished to add more, but a sudden spike of Space filled the entire room. Strangely—without the need to turn around—he instinctively knew it was Nora's. A particular charge in her Aura resonated with her, different to Sky's, burning with a fire reminiscing to thunder. Explaining the ability was difficult. He couldn't properly put it into simple words. More like he felt her. Knew it was her from the start because something sparked differently with her. All of this went without saying that no one else in the room noticed the sudden force of pressure. Clueless to the phenomena that only he was cursed to study.
Pressure!
Another wave of Space came crashing down on him as he turned to watch Nora deliver a vicious swing of her mighty hammer to the improperly defended side of Sky. A crunching sound filtered across the room as her opponent flew across the arena. The crash to the wall that followed after shook the classroom with Jaune focused entirely on Sky's Aura. Through some straining effort, he saw his Aura's armor dimly lit where she had landed the deciding blow with his hue all but gone. It practically flickered before him, depleted in the midst of battle. Made sense to him.
After all, the Aura meter on the wall read Sky's Aura reached below five percent threshold.
"Alright! That's enough!" Professor Goodwitch walked up the arena, signaling the match. "Victory goes to Miss Valkyrie. Mr. Lark! I recommend you head to the infirmary." Sky Lark didn't argue, crawled out of the crater, and silently left with a wince in his step.
Nora grinned, waving to her opponent. "Look on the bright side! Your legs are still working!"
Technically with Nora that was a bright side.
Observing her Space, Jaune felt the imposing force dwindling as she jumped for joy, no longer stuck in the heat of battle. Every joyous step she took running up the stairs diminished her Space until nothing remained. By the time she plopped right down, no Space was left to be felt or observed. Her turquoise Aura vanished. Both vanished without a trace, and no one but him noticed any of it. All anyone bore witness to was Nora's desire to mess around with Ren's hair and Pyrrha's fruitless attempts to stop her.
"Okay! Time for the next match." Glynda hummed, pulling a list on her scroll. "Hn? Mr. Lie Ren and Miss Rose. How about it?"
Pressure!
Professor Goodwitch needed no confirmation from Ruby Rose as a tornado of rose petals swirled excessively in the arena with a focused spot, nor did Team JNPR's leader as he felt her Space instantly, much weaker than what he would have believed Ruby to possess. Her crimson shaded Aura burned with flower petal-shaped Aura particles that endlessly looped around her body. The sight was something else. Not like he expected her to have any color but her name, but he still jolted all the information down with a hungry thirst for knowledge. Another thing to catalog was how each Aura allegedly retained a different size, color, and shape than previously known. Like Nora's static and wild one. So no two Auras looked the same?
Interesting to say the least.
Whelp! He glanced over his shoulder with his pencil stuck between his fingers, waiting for Ren to make his choice. What kind of Aura did the Lie maintain? He tapped his foot impatiently just thinking about it.
"What are you waiting for, Ren? Go!" Nora grinned cheerfully, laughing and frantically messing with his hair. "Show everyone what the mighty Sloth King can do!"
"Sloth King?" Ren stood, ruffling up her hair and fixing his in one clean swoop. "I'm pretty sure I'm not the king of anything, Nora, very less of sloths."
She pouted and kicked her legs out. "Aw! But that'd be so amazing! Can't you at least pretend to be the Sloth King? For me?"
"Nora—?"
"Mr. Lie Ren?" Glynda interrupted, hiding her slightly amused smile. To think she thought these two wouldn't be able to function as partners. "Are you fighting or not? Miss Rose is waiting."
Ruffling up Nora's hair one more time, Ren dodged her swipe and calmly walked down the stairs of the class, calling his weapon locker in the process. He didn't flinch when it landed in front of him. He merely reached inside and pulled out StormFlower while mentally preparing himself to fight a ball of sugar. Fortunately, Ren held experience dealing with sugar-fueled short-stacks. This one shouldn't be any different. Meanwhile, throughout the whole ordeal, Jaune noted how unlike Nora's, Sky's, or Ruby's Aura and Space, Ren's steadily climbed up in force and didn't spring up all at once. It only grew until the opposing Space advanced passed the point of Nora's Space with his pink Aura wrapping around him in a cool shade of pink armor.
Ha! Jaune grinned. Ren's control went beyond everyone else's. He expected nothing less from him the friend who knew about Aura control. Mediation was the key, right, buddy? A clear mind!
Leaning back into his chair, he sighed contently. Progress was being made if slowly. The more he watched, the more he learned. Space could only be studied when someone was actively using their Aura. That much he knew. He felt no one else's except for his friend's and Ruby's and perceived that Aura appeared to be interlinked emotionally. All five earlier displayed some resemblance of truth. Be it intense anger. Battle-hungry risqué. Vigor with a hint of determination and eagerness or a serenade calmness, Aura reacted based on the person's emotional outburst. Funny thing was he already knew that. The only question plaguing his mind was why now? Why was he starting to feel and see other Auras Now?
"Begin!" Glynda signaled. Ruby vanished in a breeze of rose of petals.
Aura exploded to life in the leader. A more in-depth touch of Space flourished for their Auras. He watched the spar with an intensity rivaled whenever he fought Ursai. His impressive control carried him far. Ruby's blurring speed in the arena became nothing more than a blur with her Aura trailing behind her. Every move she made had a trace following. He kept at it, tracking her movements—something he couldn't manage before—and began to learn. Keeping up with her speed, somewhat, pushed a tiny smirk on his mouth that he hid behind his palm.
Experiment time.
He lowered his Aura control and that in-depth attribute dwindled the weaker his authority became. Soon he couldn't follow the reaper anymore. Space still existed, assaulting him from all directions but hardly in his weak state of control. A lack of focus for better words. Weaker power meant a limited observation. Vice versa for an exceptional concentration. Space required a high amount of Aura prowess to access fully.
"Hn?" Jaune scratched the side of his chin while again sharpening his Aura. He grinned modestly. "This is interesting and weird, but still interesting."
His eyes followed Ruby dashing across the arena circle with Ren's Space giving a skew indicator of how much power he planned to dish out once he managed a clear shot. Deep instinct revealed somewhat of their anticipated moves. Interesting. Space permitted him to scout an individual's Aura and gauge an appropriate response toward their movements and future attacks. It was an odd discovery. A nifty ability to measure a person's power. One he planned to practice as time passed, but for now, there was another idea he wanted to try out.
Forgoing his Aura control entirely—he felt nothing.
No Space. No pressure. No vacuum. Nothing! He felt nothing. The leader couldn't even see Ren or Ruby's Aura anymore. The only indicator of Aura damage came from the Aura meter hanging above their heads. Everything was back to normal and right again in this insane world. Nothing more than just two teenagers fighting each other to prove who was the superior one.
Putting his Aura journal away, he decided to watch this fight between Ren and Ruby, far more content to write in Doctor Oobleck's class. Whatever control he used to measure their Space came from a measly spark of his Aura. Practice to further increase his range and prosperity of the ability. Would it work? Heck! That was half the fun of learning. Trial and error never sounded so fun. The thoughts of possibly discovering other techniques raised a smirk. Testing the limits of his Aura knowledge to push what he considered another breaking point of an Aura only fueled his desire for more, still, he questioned how this discovery came so late to be this far into his Aura game.
Maybe?
Just maybe, and he was purely running on speculation, but perhaps it was because he tried using Aura around others? Scratch that! He never tried using his intensify control around others, and for the few times he had, fighting wasn't exactly on the table at the time. It would make sense with training with Pyrrha since he never actively used his Aura during those spars, offhandedly knowing it'd be a waste. Crocea Mors always ended up destroying his Aura concentration during fights, and when he learned of the sword's ability to disrupt Aura restriction, he stopped. Even during combat classes with Professor Goodwitch, the Arc had chosen to use Crocea Mors, all the more disrupting his Aura authority, never allowing him to sense any presence of anything before. The opportunity, as far-fetched as it was, never came up to sense Space.
Who knew how long he could've been doing this?
It was all a theory of course—purely speculation.
He snorted instantly. What rotten luck. Eh, he guessed it no longer mattered. What was done was done. Time to move passed the irony and focus on the here and now, and now included wondering what advantages this ability could have in fights. Craziness aside, being able to sort of predict and read opponents' movements sounded as unfair as he made it out to be, but some give-and-take must exist. Even then he wasn't entirely confident that was Space's doing or simple Aura reflexes adjusting to his concentration of Aura? A high chance of that being the case made more sense, which wasn't bad, but a bummer.
Hard to say.
"Go, Ren!" Nora yelled as she bounced in her seat. Where did she get that flag with Ren's name on it? "You can do it! Aim for her legs! That's her weak spot!"
"Isn't that everyone's weak spot?" Jaune poked, finding another flag with Ren's name on it pushed into his hands from a shushing Nora.
"Shush! Ren's fighting!"
Pyrrha and Jaune stared at the flag in his hand, blinking innocently. Their Fearless Leader then shrugged, waving the flag alongside Nora with an equally large grin. Technically, she was right. Ruby's weak spot was her legs. Having a super-speed Semblance did make targeting them the utmost priority in a spar. A vulnerability Ren couldn't exploit due to his weapon's design. Nevertheless! His friend needed all the support he could get, and he liked the flag Nora pressed into his chest.
"Go, Ren!"
Hearing them supporting their team member, Team RWBY yelled equally as loud, except Blake, for Ruby to win the fight. Yang even somehow found a T-shirt with Go Ruby sprawled across the center in child-like writing.
Seriously? Where were they getting these items? What student store sold miniature flags?
Down below Ren narrowly dodged a swing from Ruby's scythe. He backflipped away before she had a chance to retaliate with another violent swing, but was forced to maneuver StormFlower up in a defensive stance, arms crossed in a sheath when the speedster used her super-speed to crash right into him with the edge of Crescent Rose connected against StormFlower's blades. Sparks flew. The duo slid across the arena floor in a speed force. Speed was weight and weight was power. Two things he understood very well with his lithe body. Maybe even more than her, who was rapidly swinging her weapon in dramatic arcs, but not sufficiently utilizing her ridiculous speed to the fullest. After all, the faster an object moved, the higher impact it had based on one of the three laws of motion.
Ruby Rose allegedly missed that memo.
Time to take advantage of the stalemate.
Ren huffed and lightly tapped Crescent Rose on the barrel where the rifle sat at, pushing some of his Aura into it and something else. This act didn't go unnoticed by Jaune and Nora, but everyone else remained painfully blind. Nora knew what he was doing, harboring a sneaky grin. Jaune could only glare, literally seeing some of Ren's pink Aura crammed into the handle of Crescent Rose that exhibited a softer hue. The glow was a beacon in contrast to Ruby's Aura.
"Oh! Oh!" Nora whisper-yelled, fidgeting in her seat even more. "Don't blink, this is going to be awesome!"
Pyrrha turned, frown present. "What's going to be awesome?"
Nora only grinned in response, waving her mini-flag faster. "You'll see!"
Pyrrha didn't see what Nora meant, but Jaune sure did. He watched it all unfolded with his very Aura sensitive eyes. Jumping away from Ruby, Ren unloaded a round of Dust ammunition upon her, focused on pushing her to the limit. Meanwhile, she used her super-speed to dodge the incoming hail of iron, appearing behind him and taking aim with her high-caliber sniper-rifle, fully intent on taking a big chunk of his Aura out.
Click!
Her rifle didn't fire.
"What—?"
Lie Ren was already on the offensive before she figured out what happened. Using one of his StormFlowers to push and hold her weapon down, blade sickle to snath, he used the other to aim directly at her frozen head. All the while one of his feet had been used to hold Crescent Rose in place while he relied on the other to steady himself on the mass of metal, adding another layer of weight her body couldn't possibly lift. There was a distinct cheering going on in the background that Ren just knew came from Nora. A tiny smirk bloomed on his ordinarily lacking features. Then he bumped his enemy on the noggin with StormFlower, signaling her defeat.
"Winner, Lie Ren!" Glynda announced, calling the match.
"What did Ren do?" Jaune asked Nora, still seeing Ren's pink Aura in Crescent Rose.
"Sorry, Fearless Leader!" Nora chimed, zipping her lips. "That's a secret!" Tilting his head, Jaune shrugged harmlessly, waving the Ren flag once more with a sense of ironic pride.
Fair enough.
Freeing her weapon, Ren calmly stepped off the garden tool and walked away from Ruby with the intent to relax after such a spar. Such a troublesome thing to do. Fighting. Sometimes, during the rare moments when he stumbled upon the chance to think, meaning Nora was preoccupied and thoroughly distracted, he questioned his purpose at Beacon Academy. Why did he wish to become a Huntsmen again? What compelled him? Way too much for this sloth. Sleep sounded way better. Possible under a tree with just the right amount of sunshine and only two birds chirping. Wasting energy just wasn't something he enjoyed doing, never had been.
His fighting style reflected that. Lie Ren went only for the minimalist approach. Once he saw an opening, he took it and ended the fight with swift precision. No need for flashy moves or weapons. Hand-to-hand Aura-pressure combat more than satisfied his requirements. A quick burst of speed helped.
The more stairs he climbed, the more he heard the leader fumbling around with her weapon, undeniably a pout on her lips. "Aww! Somehow Crescent Rose's firing mechanism got jammed!" Ruby grumbled, stomping her adorable legs. "I just tuned her last night! How did this happen?"
Click! Click! Click!
Ren closed his eyes from the drumming of her configuring her weapon. He breathed and calmly recalled his Aura from her scythe, feeling more of his strength returning. Too bad it didn't make him any less tired or ambiguous to it. Control over his Aura always put a strain on his soul. More so than other fortunate people.
How troublesome.
Click! Click! Boom!
Now Crescent Rose was working.
"Hey! It's working fine now!" Ruby appeared in front of him before he could finish walking up the stairs, rose petals and all. She pulled stubbornly at his sleeve. "I want a rematch!"
He stared at her pout before calmly pulling his sleeve free. Ren then effortlessly poke Ruby on the forehead in a slow manner with a smile that seemed oddly sarcastic. A lie, simply. Of course, that couldn't be the case. Ren, teasing his antagonist? The sloth showing emotion? No. Not likely. He was not that type of person. Besides, no one would believe her word over his.
"Maybe next time."
They both already knew there wasn't going to be a next time, not as long as he could avoid it, and she appeared sad for a moment, hurt even, but then she ran over to Yang to hide behind her amused sister's shoulder, glaring daggers at the retreating Lie with Crescent Rose resting firmly at her side. She even went as far as to hide inside the comforts of her hood with a low growl that was both adorable and somewhat nerve-wracking. The ninja blinked once and then twice. Thinking for the smallest margin of second that he might've mistakenly created a rival out of sheer bad luck?
Great, just what he needed, Nora was so going to get enraged after she finished laughing her guts off.
Overlooking Ruby's lovable scowl, which only caused it to deepen in adorableness, he found his seat in front of Nora again. Already her fingers attacked his hair, scrubbing the scalp while pulling hungrily at his mane. Once he moved passed the idea of looking like Weiss, it eased the tension in his shoulders and prevented a building headache. He wasn't going to lie, once she reached deep enough into his roots, it numbed some feeling and made the experience relaxing. Not even her overly thrilled movements upset the balance.
Not to say they weren't negligible.
"You won, Ren!" Nora cheered with a giggle escaping. She redoubled her attempts to fashion his hair into Weiss' style and met no resistance from a pesky champion. "This calls for a celebration! Let's go to Vale! Pancakes on Jaune!"
"What?!"
"I would like pancakes, too." Pyrrha added, enjoying her partner's sigh of defeat.
"Pancakes do sound good." Ren lightly smirked.
Jaune spluttered at being made the team's pancake maker. That was Ren's job! Grumbling, he set his sights on a guilty Nora whose face threatened to split in half from her child-like grin. So help him! An itch! The desire to ban pancakes grew the wider her smile stretched. No. Banning pancakes would be too easy. Better options existed for his palette of sweet and tangy revenge.
"Fine." Accepting his Fate, he waved the remark offhandedly, already wondering how on what ingredients were used to make pancakes. Were eggs involved? How about milk? Did she want him to buy the pancakes? "But only for tomorrow. I'm not making squat today."
Nora hummed happily in her seat, nodding her head to the side while tying some of Ren's hair off to his left. She stuck her tongue out when it came to doing a bun. A quick peek over to the cereal mascot had her grin turning devious, and the champion sighed, unhooking one of her metal chains attached to her headpiece to be served as a makeshift scrunchy. Pyrrha had long since abandoned her quest to stop her, content to allowing her mad teammate to do whatever she pleased. Her interests centered on how Nora Valkyrie did it. How did she easily get their leader to fold? Why wasn't Ren putting up any appearance of a fight? Perhaps she had both Jaune and Ren wrapped around her trigger-happy finger?
Pyrrha needed to learn her secrets.
Before long, Ren's hair was fashioned to resemble Weiss' with a quick pull here with some curling there and voila! Practically twins! Except, well, he had thicker banes and his style, however, had the strand of pink hair pushed in a curve, much like his doppelgänger. His stoic appearance only helped cement the mirroring image, and the Lie always maintained a calm and perfect posture.
"All done!" Nora cheered, attracting Team RWBY's attention.
The brawler nudged Weiss on the shoulder. "He makes a better Weiss than you do, Weiss." Yang's comment cut across the room, grinning like a Cheshire cat with Ruby stubbornly nodding alongside her sister.
"Shut up!"
Disregarding the bickering between Team RWBY and the dark, ominous raincloud that formed over Weiss Schnee, the professor flipped through her Scroll, looking for another match. Eventually, she got a little lazy and settled to hit the random button.
What? Nobody had to know. No one was perfect.
Beep!
"Hn? Interesting?" Glynda mused, forcing herself not to tilt her head. This match should be intuitive. "Miss Belladonna and Miss Xiao Long, are you two up to fight?"
"Heck yeah!" Yang roared, thumbs up, already having her weapons locked and loaded. Time to show everyone who was the boss! "C'mon, Blakey! I'm gonna kick your sorry butt!"
Blakey merely rolled her eyes and drew the weapon ribboned to her back with a precise pull. Gambol Shroud gleamed freeing in the air with her twisting the katana upright into her wrist. Strategies moved before her. Battleplans meant to throw her partner off-guard. Maybe a sneak attack from behind? A frontal assault? Yang didn't have many openings she could exploit without getting some rebound of backlash in exchange. Kind of the give-and-take system someone had to deal with when fighting Yang Xiao Long.
Next to awful puns.
Meanwhile, above the stands, Jaune watched Yang's flaring Aura anxiously as her Space shook his core. Her Aura was blazing like a never-ending flame, lashing out in fury and life in a bright exuberant of orange and red. Her Space was impressive, too. Blake, however, had yet to concentrate on her Aura. A puzzle for him. Part of him would love to see how Blake's mysterious persona reflected her Aura. He was half expecting it to be tame with a shade reflecting her amber eyes. Maybe she copied Ren when it came to unleashing Aura and allowed it to increase at a steady margin?
Yang smirked.
She jumped from the railing and landed gracefully with passion in her eyes. Back straightened, fingers clenched, and fists formed. The brawler pumped herself up, throwing a few one-two combo jabs into the air for practice. Blood pumped in retaliation to her dramatic flair. She danced, light on her feet and her Aura compressed itself into a fiery shield like everyone else's. The only notable difference Jaune saw was that her Aura seemed way more active than everyone's else's. More energized and outgoing. Like a constantly burning fire in the dark.
Her partner showed the exact opposite amount of spotlight attention.
Taking the stairs like a rational person, Blake walked calmly across the arena, gathering on what Jaune perceived to be violet Aura. That black bow on her twitched at the aspect of a fight, and her hands tightly gripped down on Gambol Shroud, knowing full well that her partner had no qualms about holding back. Throwing half-powered punches wasn't her game. Everyone deserved a good beatdown. At least that was what her partner believed. Easy mode? Uh? No.
Yang Xiao Long was going to go all out.
Jaune blinked. He couldn't help but stare at her Space and Aura with curiosity fitting for a cat. Her growing Space was powerful, nothing he didn't anticipate, but her Aura had something bizarre. Compared to everyone else's Aura—as far as he'd seen in this class—her Aura was way different. Primal. Livelier, and then not? No matter how he looked at it, there was a certain flair that sparked in her Aura. In a way, mirrored Ren.
Cool and composed.
At the same time, she wasn't. Not entirely.
For someone who was calm and collective in their free time, he bit his tongue at her wild Aura. If he thought Yang's Aura burned with a deep-rooted passion, then this one was straight up animalistic. It moved, not like fire or a blazing inferno, but like a tiny million hairs sticking up. He might even say it wanted to fight—to scrap! Likewise, she appeared to desire no such brawl, but her Aura said something else. The leader felt it reminded him of a cornered animal or an apex predator about to pounce on their prey with a silent stalk before the finishing strike.
"Are you two ready?" Two nods, both different. "Very well, begin!"
Yang made the first move with her fists out, locked, loaded and all natural blond. She sprinted forward with a bold charge with one of her fists thrown back. Each step only ignited her smirk to grow. During her partner's mad dash, Blake had unsheathed her weapon, dual-wielding. She silently prepared for Yang's incoming strike, sliding her foot back to intercept the tremendous force her partner carried.
Crash!
Yang hardly disappointed, hitting the edge of her weapon with her fist, forcing the girl back from the mild shockwave. Balance wobbled. A stinging sensation spread to Blake's wrist. None of it mattered. Her partner's other fist was already heading for a direct course toward Blake's exposed stomach during the scuffle with absolute strength and manic enjoyment fueling the force behind it. The crashing of her foot down to increase her overall striking power only served to double Blake's instinctual need to evade the promising blow.
Countering the attack, she released her sheath in other to prop it with her finger to twist the metal. A fist connected with a slanted blade, but her momentum carried over. Blake used that momentum to retreat with the strategy earning her a few feet away from Yang.
"Not bad, partner!" Yang readied her gauntlets again, feeling the burn. "Now that we're warmed up! I hope you're ready to get serious!"
Eyes narrowed. Blake flipped the weapons in her hands, ready to counter as her life depended on it. Because when fighting against Yang, it sometimes did.
"Ready."
The grin on Yang's face couldn't get any broader if she tried, and she dashed forward, arm out. Blake took two steps onward before dashing as well, bow twitching. Her instincts were getting to her, in a good way. Yang moved first by throwing a fist that Blake narrowly avoided from colliding to her face, itching forward with Yang's arm outstretched. A swift kick to her stomach followed after, and Yang grunted, taking the brunt of the damage before countering with a headbutt that caused her partner to stumble. Then she grabbed her partner by the shoulders and tossed her across the ring.
She landed on her feet.
Stuck up in the stands, Jaune penciled in each time Yang's Aura armor took a hit from Blake's quick and precise kicks and slashes. The Space she emitted kept increasing in force, but the actual glow of her Aura dimmed more and more by the hits. None of it stopped her momentum. Her Space increased via a decrease in Aura. Blake's superior agility worked against her as each hit Yang managed to land only multiplied in power. Each punch pushed Blake's Aura meter down more notches than the prior. Damage equaled strength. Basically, who would hit red on their Aura first? A ninja with the knack of picking at her opponent's Aura or a brawler whose one-two hit combo delivered more bang for her buck for every injury?
While he noted Aura and Space anomalies and similarities, he drew in a unique feature of Blake's Aura. Around her head area, surpassing all the rising hair peculiarities of her Aura, an unusual shape took place there with its out-of-place occurrence. Unlike a sphere of Aura covering her head, like a dome with some minor Aura characteristic, there was that and a pair of weirdly shaped triangles that twitched every few seconds into the fight.
Jaune had no idea what to make of that.
Things took a turn for the weirder when Blake vanished in a shadow to dodge Yang's uppercut to the jaw. A clone remained for him to observe before Yang dispersed it. Even though Blake sharply stood a few feet away, scraps of her Aura had survived in the shadow clone, right until the moment it scattered. Then she did it again. First a shadow before reappearing to a side. Residue Aura. Then it was rinsed and repeat from there. He was inclined to say they had a Space of their own, but they never remained long enough behind for him to test that theory.
Like a waltz on the battlefield, she danced around Yang's punches, getting her partner's fury to rise as an unfortunate side effect. Not many people were lucky enough to see this dance. Blake's cat-like reflexes, agility, and Yang's explosive fists that created smoke hid most of everything between the viewers, but not him. Not entirely. The smoke couldn't thoroughly erase Blake's shadows or her presence. She radiated through the dust particles like a lighthouse. Occasionally she switched places with the obscurations left behind. How a Semblance worked, or how hers worked he wasn't accurately sure, but they acted outside the norm of Aura.
Down at the arena trouble was brewing. Yang's temper was rising. Her partner's Semblance was hard to fight against, a real thorn on her side, and she never knew which one was the real Blake. Such an inconvenient Semblance for a fist-fighter. Her fist gripped tighter in concentration, hoping to land one more blow on her bookworm of a partner. All she required was one brutally powerful punch to the gut to end this.
Anger building. Semblance burning. Yang lived in the heat of the battle with nothing to lose! She concentrated solely on Blake's quick movements, intercepting a sudden swipe from her katana with her gauntlet, firing her weapon to push her partner back. She then lashed out her other hand to hit the blade downwards, knocking Blake's concentration, and disarming one of her weapons from the jerking motion. Her bonus strength fueled her, and Yang maneuvered in for the comeback.
Smirking into her followup strike, she intended to deliver one blow on her partner's staggering figure, only to find her grip destroying another of her shadows. It took the subtle breeze in her hair for her to know that Blake was flickered behind her, probably trying to neutralize her movements.
Not this time!
Yang threw her fist back in an attempt to use her still built up momentum to deliver a harsh blow. Instead, she found her wrist caught in an uncomfortable angle, and a blade was pressed to her back almost mockingly. To add insult to injury, Blake chuckled only loud enough for her to hear.
No doubt about it, Yang planned to get Zwei to lick Black's stuff again.
"Match." Glynda called while mildly frustrated at the amount of damage Yang caused, again. "Miss Belladonna wins."
Sheathing her weapon, Blake calmly pulled Yang's shoulder. "C'mon. It was a good fight."
"Yeah, yeah..." Yang mumbled, acting very childish, arms crossed. "You and those darn shadow clones are so hard to hit."
Blake allowed the smallest of smiles to appear. "And you hit hard. Let's call it even."
Unable to stay too mad at her ninja-y partner, Yang slapped the girl on the back, leading her back to their team with a glaring Ruby—poor Ren—and a distracted Weiss who kept stroking her hair slowly, lightly glaring at Ren from time to time from over her shoulder. Damn Ren! Poor guy couldn't win.
His leader ignored it all.
The glaring from both adorable marshmallows couldn't pull him away from his thoughts. Jaune was too busy mulling over what few discoveries he had seen so far. Lie Ren's mysterious power? Probably his super-secret Semblance no doubt. Blake's strangely shaped Aura and her Semblance needed a page cataloged to themselves. Yang's fluctuating Space and Aura integration could be added in with Blake's page for a comparison between Semblances. Ruby's super-speed Semblance was straight-forward. So far the Arc only gained a small bit of understanding when it came to this strange new Aura power he had. Aura concentration allowed for a higher dimension of Space observing and vice-versa, and this included Aura reactions and Semblance observations.
A new power, groundbreaking in its own right, and in need of serious experimenting.
Pushing down his pencil to add more to his Aura notebook—!
Beep! Beep!
"Hooray!" Nora yelled, pumping her fist up and knocking Jaune in the process. The slight tumble caused his notebook to fall down a few steps and into the arena. "Yes! Just one more class and then sweet freedom! After boring history, let's do something fun. Oh! I know! I've always wanted to see how the chefs make pancakes! Maybe they'll make me some! Maybe they'll teach me how to make some! Ren never wants to teach me! C'mon, lazy butts!"
Before anyone attempted to stop her, she skedaddled away, skipping in her merriment to sleep through history class. Ren said nothing and fixed his hair back to his original style and calmly left to retrieve her. Would the chefs of Beacon teach her? Hope not. Nora was a terrible cook. She once burned water. Pyrrha, on the saner side of the spectrum, wisely decided to avoid catching the walking, talking bolt of lightning, and instead chose stay and follow her partner.
"Jaune?"
"Hn?"
Jaune answered distractedly, wondering how Nora got him into these messes. Now he needed to fetch his notebook, and he forgot to fight today. Darn Aura discoveries. Lucky inconveniences. Always in the way of his plans. Why couldn't life be simple and less scattered, like a linear path? Shooting Star moved in a straight path, and that worked.
"What are your plans after history?"
Huh? What a great question.
What were his plans today? Revealing his Aura powers in front of a spectacle of onlookers got stabbed in the heart upon discovering Space. He guessed tomorrow would have to do unless somehow that crashed and burned too. He also distinctly remembered Weiss saying something about asking—forcing—her team to go to Vale to celebrate the upcoming Vytal Festival. Judging by the way she practically dragged out toward the door, she desired to leave right after history.
Maybe he could tag along?
Then again, he craved to test out Space some more. Maybe get some practice in at Emerald Forest before it got dark. Aura training for the past few days had been lacking. Blake's intervention and occupation of their team's room forced him to give up precious time to learn, grow, and mature, not to mention offered him the opportunity to murder Ursai.
"I don't know..." Jaune finally answered, eyeing where his notebook had fallen. Then he bent back and smiled up at her. "You got something?"
"No..." Remembering where their overly hyper teammate had run off, she had a bad feeling come over her if something wasn't done to stop Nora after history. "Perhaps we should go stop Nora before she destroys Professor Oobleck's classroom or worse?"
"Doctor!" Jaune corrected, smiling in a teasing way. "But sure!" Getting up, and seeing everyone but Professor Goodwitch and them gone, he began walking down the steps to the arena. "I'll catch up! I just need to get some stuff down."
Seeing his distracted look, Pyrrha peered over the class until she spotted a slightly stress Professor Goodwitch, looking over her Scroll, and figured Jaune needed to talk to their professor about stuff. Probably based on his past combat performances? She knew he hadn't gotten much better in the past few months, and the semester was close to ending. Maybe he needed to talk about his grades?
"Alright." Pyrrha moved to catch up to Ren and Nora. "Try to hurry up before Nora finds a way to cause a mess. And don't be late to class!"
"Sure, sure! It's my dream to help clean up Nora's messes." Jaune absently waved to a retreating Pyrrha. The moment the champion exited the room, his grin vanished. "Time to get my notebook."
He stepped down the stairs in search of his Aura notebook. He had to pass a distracted Professor Goodwitch. An oddity. She was regularly so focused. He didn't even think she regarded him passing by her. Either way, he found his notebook underneath the stairway. He was already pocketing the journal away and walking up the stairs with his Aura concentrated to practice between here and history when Headmaster Ozpin's voice was heard.
"Glynda." Ozpin entered, shutting the door behind him, sounding strictly serious. "I do hope you got my message."
The Arc paused. He was about to announce his presence, but a powerful pressure of Space crashed down upon him, outclassing everyone he knew. It was oddly familiar to him until he recalled Professor Goodwitch's Space from earlier, and he still hadn't a clue how, but he knew it belonged to her. Call it instinct, but he felt that he could separate Aura by an invisible force that was rebounded differently between Aura users. Still, weightless or not, this one almost brought him down to his knees.
"Is this about the Dust explosion?" Glynda asked.
"Precisely." Ozpin answered, and Jaune swore he heard him sip some of his beverage. "It's been confirmed that a student had attempted to cheat on their Dust exam."
A pregnant pause filled the room. It stretched. The leader considered the next best course of action, factoring in why he hadn't announced his presence yet. He unmistakably wasn't supposed to be here, listening to this, but their professor's Space made it hard to speak. Instinct at its purest restricted his movements, warning him to be quiet.
"Sir?" Glynda finally spoke after the long silence. There was an edge in her tone. "The student was expelled? Right?"
Sip!
"Of course... however, that's not the problem here."
"Yes, I agree. We're going to need a new Dust lab. Should I call—?"
"No!" Ozpin cut in, sounding surprisingly sad? "No. It's not that. There's more. After being caught, their team was informed about this serious problem. And from furthering questioning, I learned that the team knew about their teammate's attempt at cheating and hadn't said or done anything to prevent it."
Silence—complete silence filled the room. The Arc felt the air escaping his lungs could give away his location any second. That was how loud his breaths sounded to him. Even the heavy sound of his heart beating quickly against his chest made more noise than he did. The resonance thumps in his eardrums sounded like a distressed song.
"They were all expelled, weren't they?" Glynda knew already, unleashing a torrent of Space that made it hard to breathe.
"Yes... Those are the rules. It's unfortunate, but it had to be done." Another pause. Another sip. "Knowing and not doing anything is just as bad as teammates holding back vital information that can compromise a mission. Any form of cheating is not tolerated here at Beacon. We cannot accept it. If we cannot trust the word of Remnant's future Huntsmen, then who can we trust? Certainly not those four individuals. A Huntsmen's word is everything in this time of peace."
"What do you need me to do, sir?"
Walking away, Ozpin headed out, needing to fill out the expulsion papers. "Nothing. I will personally handle this matter. Please make sure there's a new Dust class by next week. The semester's coming to an end soon. Best prepare for the transfer students."
"Right away, Ozpin."
Hearing them move away, he stayed as silent as possible, not wanting to get caught. When he heard the door shut he remembered to breathe with his back falling to the wall, sweat clinging to his skin. Like a harsh slap to the face, Cardin's warning suddenly came forth and trapped in him a stranglehold that prevented him from screaming his lungs out in frustration. The best he could afford to allow his heated emotions was a swift strike to the wall. His whole arm shook upon knuckles colliding with a reinforced wall. His body then slid down on the steps of the stairs, burying his head between his hands. Panic overcame him. His Aura responded negatively to his uncontrollable emotions, glowing brightly in a torrent of white.
You know you can't just lose, right?
"No."
Losing... I know you, and you're thinking of backing out of the tournament. Well, I'm here to tell you, you don't have that option.
"No!"
Think, Jaunie-boy! You heard what our damn Headmaster said. If you lose, they'll check your background, your name, your school... your transcripts.
"Damn it!"
A nasty urge tugged in his soul. Ozpin's cursed words worked like venom. Damn it, Oum! Damn it! If he was reading into this correctly, then that meant if they discovered his fake transcripts, then his team could get expelled alongside him. Of course, they could lie and pretend they knew nothing about his fake transcripts, but Nora couldn't keep a secret and Jaune doubted Pyrrha had an inferior bone anywhere in her body to lie directly to the Headmaster's face if the time for that ever came! Only Ren might be able to lie boldly to the Headmaster, and even that was stretching it.
No. Something had to be done. Anything!
He stood up with a sudden weight pressing down on him, not long after he figured it to be guilt and felt like throwing up. Yes, guilt. Heart-wrenching, soul-crushing guilt that threatened to tear his soul apart in every foreseeable direction. Leaving the Arc to pick up and sew the broken pieces back together.
Perfect.
They were all expelled, weren't they?
Yes... Those are the rules. It's unfortunate, but it had to be done.
Something akin to rage boiled his blood. He backed away from the stairway and glared around the room with his Aura blazing to life. The Aura notebook gripped between his fingers mattered naught. All he cared about was what now? How the hell did this week suddenly take a complete one-eighty—three times! First, his team got chosen for the Vytal Tournament then a bomb was dropped on him about his fake transcripts, and now he learned that his whole team could get expelled for his fake transcripts!
"Why me? Why is this all happening to me?" Hitting another Aura fueled fist upon the wall, he came to a dangerous decision. It wasn't fueled by anger or sadness, but by caring and selflessness. Pulling out his Scroll, he sent a message to Pyrrha. "I'm not going to class. Something came up. Team meeting later. Make sure Nora knows she has to be there."
He didn't bother waiting for a response, burning with too much passion. Mad, he headed directly for Emerald Forest. For the first time since coming to Beacon, he wasn't only skipping class, but he actively went Grimm hunting. Hoping to find some answers and to burn off some excessive steam.
He wished he fought in combat class today.
...
The Grimm wasted no time hunting him.
Negative emotions plus Grimm equaled an unfortunate prey. For the Grimm. The negative emotions Jaune Arc unleashed attracted the monsters lurking in the forest like a lighthouse in a raging thunderstorm. Good. Exactly as planned.
Growl!
A weak Ursa Minor howled in pain as Jaune stabbed it through its back and out its chest with Excalibur. The burning sensation traveled throughout its body with the smell of burning flesh escaping into the air. A swift kick to its back dislodged it from his blade, and the Grimm dissolved quickly enough. The leader didn't spare the withering ash a second glance and focused Aura spheres into his palm, waiting for the next random Grimm to locate him. So far only three Ursai have found the Arc and met their timely demise. Not very challenging to say the least. Not when he wasn't practicing for the sake of practicing or gloating.
He did everything with a burning passion.
Each fell to Excalibur's might. He killed them fast. No playing around. No experimenting. Nothing. Stab, kill. Dead. Now if only a greater challenger confronted him. Granted, Ursa Minors weren't very robust, to begin with, and he reacted due to hatred and guilt, a very dangerous combo for any person with explosive weapons at their disposal, but he grew bored. Ursa Minors only sedated his need for battle for so long. Their experience, or lack thereof, sickened him.
The rustling of nearby vegetation caught his attention. He concentrated on his Aura in retaliation with his muscles growing in strength. Senses got pushed beyond their physical capabilities, and he prepared himself as two more Grimm rushed out from between the forest trees. A Beowolf and another Ursa Minor. He grimaced and spared the Beowolf a humiliating death with a shot directly through its chest with Shooting Star. The Grimm died before even reaching he, turning into ash from the crash impact.
Nothing more than a passing footnote.
The Ursa Minor, however, attempted to slash him across the chest, narrowly missing the Arc by a hair's length. Good. He countered by firing Shooting Star at its back limb, crippling and bringing down the smaller sized Ursa. The Grimm barely had time to look up from the ground before being beheaded by Excalibur, a head without a body. The cut was clean, precise, and left behind a light glow of snow that contrasted deeply with the ash of the Grimm.
His fingers squeezed Excalibur's handle.
Watching these soulless Grimm dissolve solved nothing. It didn't make him feel any better. None of these monsters ranked or compared to an Alpha, Major, or Monarch level Grimm. Common sense beckoned to him. Sure, he shouldn't be itching for a fight, and he never fought something like a Monarch or seen one, but it was the principle of the matter. Not only that, anger pushed him hard to find an outlet, guilt moved him to fight, pride demanded tougher Grimm, and sorrow didn't allow him to abandon his quest to fight. Common sense had no place here.
What an awful cycle that tore him apart at every inconceivable edge.
Gritting his teeth, he formed a fist and willed more Aura spheres for Shooting Star. "It's not enough."
He lacked the strength. He needed to get stronger and the only way to accomplish that was to push himself and his Aura to the limits. For that, he required tougher Grimm than the bottom of the barrel.
Growl!
Turning around and glaring into the forest, he narrowed his vision when a pack of Beowolves stepped out to the clearing. His heart raced, blood flowed, and skin crawled in excitement and fear. The edge of his Aura clung to his body, enhancing his muscle structure in ways only he understood. Slowly, ever so slowly, he moved Excalibur up, sinking his soul into a sea of passion.
Wish granted.
Their numbers varied, ranging to at least ten, nine little ones and an Alpha Beowolf for what he figured to be the pack leader. That Alpha Beowolf contained a wider area of bone plating protecting it, proving to be much larger, taller, and denser than the rest of the specimens. A gash scar existed right between its torso and upper left shoulder, crossing boney appendages. The advanced Grimm even moved more tentatively than the rest, taking slow, brief steps to test out his withering patience. Experience drove its movements, calculating the Arc's strength with a subtle gauge.
The leader jeered. He didn't care. His Aura flared up in anticipation. "Finally. Something with a little meat on its bones."
Carefully preparing for their charge, he aimed Shooting Star toward the group, hoping to get collateral damage on the younger ones before they all mad dashed up at once. That plan sadly came to a screeching halt when Remnant's earth began to shake with the loud crash of trees stealing everyone's attention. His rotten luck sunk deeper when a Death Stalker shrieked out from within the forest, disregarding the lesser Grimm to head straight for the human. His muscles tensed between the thunderous footsteps. Half of his soul was caught off-guard, and his feet remained frozen in the place. The other half gripped Excalibur tightly, not so dull as before.
Last time he saw one of these beasts was during initiation. He remembered it well. Seemed like only yesterday that one these monsters flung him across the forest. At the time taking down such a Grimm required the combined effort of four Huntsmen in training. That day dawned his leadership capabilities, or so Headmaster Ozpin said, cementing him the position as the leader of Team JNPR through tactics needed to bring down such a creature.
Now he was left to defeat one all on his own.
Extraordinaire.
"Great!" Jaune growled, raising his arms toward the advancing Grimm. Aura fueled his confidence and erased his fears. "My life can't possibly get any better. Why not give me a Nevermore while we're at it?"
Aiming Shooting Star, he hastily fired at the approaching Death Stalker, hitting and slicing through one of its pincers. The Grimm howled in immense pain and quickened its pace to crush the human, and the leader didn't have the opportunity to fire again. He was forced to lift Excalibur to his side to avoid a direct hit from the damage-free pincer, using both arms to mirror the unstoppable force pressing against him.
Feet strained to remain still, the earth inevitably gave from the torque, and the force sent him tumbling across the forest floor. He smashed into a nearby tree with a solid thud of impact. Several crunching sounds came from the tree, bark bending and breaking from the high-velocity crash, but for him, it hardly hurt much, and he was already getting back up—narrowly dodging an incoming pincer meant to cleave his head in two!
What a close one!
The Grimm's claw ripped through the bark with ease, lifting it off the forest floor, roots and all, in an attempt to free its trapped pincer. He used the opening to hack and slash right beneath its exposed underbelly, achieving a modest, narrow cut across its arm and downward. Seething, the Death Stalker tried to retaliate by crushing him underneath its sliced arm, but the Aura blade didn't bend beneath the magnitude of the force, only his legs trembled. Sheer luck was on his side as Excalibur began to cut into the Grimm's body, burning the flesh instantaneously and forcing the Death Stalker to move a few feet back.
Once he was free from the Grimm's weight, he tilted his head to study the damage he dealt. Two damaged pincers and a direct cut that ran from its arm and down to a part of its main body. He couldn't stop his grin from spreading. Accomplishment spread throughout his body. Here he was, fighting a Death Stalker one-on-one and by the looks of it winning. Not bad for a fake transcripts fighter.
He wistfully wasn't given much time to appreciate his handiwork. The Grimm was out for blood. Already on him again with its deadly tail trying to pierce his body. Jaune cautiously sidestepped the attack with his Aura granting him the speed to carefully maneuver out of harm's way and allow an opening for a counterattack, but his Aura only awarded so much leeway. Counterattacks ended in awkward bends that pushed him to evade. Without Excalibur's ability to withstand virtually any opposing force, he preferably not imagine the outcome of such a fight. At least for him, it appeared that the Grimm's pincers were too damaged to be used anymore.
What a shame.
Waiting for another sting, he barely dodged the strike, gracing the violent movement by a hair. Driven by rage, he quickly stepped forward, cutting the Death Stalker's stinger clean off its tailpiece, savoring for a split moment the howl of pain before the remaining tail quickly tackled him, full force, against the ground. The earth beneath him cracked in various places, indenting him into the framework.
"Arg! Yup. That hurts! That's going to leave a mark in the morning."
The leader barely reacted before being grabbed and trapped within the grip of the Death Stalker's pincers. The crushing went slowly with his chest piece bending. Armor cracked and dented. Metal deformed and began to stab into his skin with his Aura working overtime to dilute the damage. The Arc grunted painfully and called upon his one free arm. During the scuffle, he lost control of Excalibur, having accidentally it willed away from a lapse of concentration, leaving him only with a stored sphere of Aura to call his weapon.
Feeling his Aura armor cracking underneath the Grimm's increasing force and his metal chest piece, he aimed at the monster with his free arm, forming Shooting Star and coughing out bits of blood in the process.
"Soar, Shooting Star!"
A bright sphere of Aura scarcely missed the Grimm's head and made a direct impact against its abdominal instead. Bone plating tore apart from the high-velocity projectile, ripping chunks of bone and bits of flesh off. Pain ripped through the Grimm, and it dropped Jaune in screeching agony. A blazing heat spread across its body, and before he had much time to concentrate, the Grimm was back on him in an undiluted rage with the smell of burning hair infiltrating the air. It aimed both sharp pincers aimed at his sides, intent to kill as swiftly as possible.
Time slowed down for the Arc. He forced his body to move forward and thrust his palm out in an ever-increasing speed. Not many options left. No time to form Excalibur or reload Shooting Star. All he had left was the unnamed Aura ball to use for an assault. Striving for nothing else, he made an Aura sphere in a brilliant light of concentration and drove it straight at the Death Stalker's head.
All or nothing!
The pincers almost reached his sides, but his Aura ball made direct contact with the Death Stalker's head first. An explosion broke free, throwing dust and dirt in every conceivable direction. The power behind the Aura sphere was undeniably massive and daunting, the only problem, the Aura ball wasn't strong enough to pierce through the Grimm's resilient bone structure, not entirely, not without at least more time. He was left to do damage control, trying to add more of his waning Aura to the attack to increase its destructive power.
It failed to work.
He quickly lost stability and Aura reserves in trying to keep the sphere alive. If only he had a vaster control over its manipulation, then he could feasibly consolidate a higher magnitude of Aura into the orb, but he didn't. Aura had limits—he had limits—and he reached them. The pit of his soul only fought so vigorously.
Unlike an Ursa Major, a lesser monster, this Grimm ranked higher on the food chain. A simple one-to-one ratio of Aura and power didn't mix too well with a Death Stalker. A simplistic abundance of weight counteracted his concoctions. The mixture table required a higher degree of control he lacked. His reference table only documented so much. Again, time proved to be his handicap. Whatever power he unleashed just needed more time to take effect, but variables blocked his path at every corner.
The might of his Aura proved lacking.
Feeling the Aura ball becoming unstable, and the Grimm going for the retribution, he closed his eyes, knowing he wouldn't be able to dodge the Death Stalker's next attack from this range.
... Damn it.
He grew tired of being weak.
Damn it.
Weariness gripped him for his unwelcome stay at Beacon Academy.
Damn it!
He was just so tired of lying!
Lub dub!
A very chilling presence abruptly washed over him with a familiar pull tugging away at his soul. The harsh coldness forced his eyes open. It shivered his bones and swept his soul in undulated darkness. Everything warm and comforting Aura gave got stripped away and replaced with an eternal abyss of loneliness that made it hurt to breathe, and for a wild second, his snowy, bright Aura turned deathly pitch-black. Every inch of his body got encased in a never-ending torrent of grief and sorrow without any speck of hue.
Such coldness.
The feel of the intense rush of power from the black Aura burst apart the Death Stalker's remarkably impervious shell, shredding apart its head in a dark-and-light display of unmatched intensity and hopelessness. Alarmed, he couldn't begin to find comfort. This power wouldn't allow him such joyous emotions. Every positive sentiment in his body was robbed and thrown away into an endless void where screams couldn't be heard from, leaving him a husk of a shell filled with bitterness and emptiness. He couldn't even smile at the thought of winning.
Nothing made sense.
The leader huffed. He felt the Grimm's head getting torn apart between his frozen fingers. Confusion took hold of him as he watched the Death Stalker's pincers eventually fall helplessly to the floor with bone fragments condensing slowly around his Aura like a pull of intense gravity. Before the technique finished, the monster stopped moving, signaling its demise. By the time he ultimately ceased with his control withdrawn, the Grimm was dissolving into obscurity and his pitch-black Aura dissolved along with it. Sensations returned. The light in his eyes restored and the crashing of the Grimm's body shook his core, along with the earth beneath his feet.
No one blamed him for taking two steps back, examining his palm critically.
He didn't even have the opportunity to feel ecstatic that he not only survived but beat the thing. His mind raced. What was that Aura back there? Something new that was for sure. A note worth adding to his Aura development and Aura notebook. Pride had no business here. Not when there were discoveries to be made.
"What the heck was that?"
Extending his palm out, he tried to re-summon the dark Aura or whatever that was, into a sphere or glow, but nothing came but his normal, pure, white ones. Curious, he attempted multiple times, receiving the same result over and over again, the original definition of insanity. Frustrating to say the least. Nothing. Any attempt of converting his glow to resonate a shade of black was a wasted effort. Completely ambiguous to his current extent of Aura knowledge.
He couldn't seem to use it again.
Jaune Arc breathed. Whatever that was, real or not, he was glad it happened.
Growl.
Oh? Right? He turned his head to address the pack of Beowolves he had forgotten. The Death Stalker's appearance sort of overshadowed their importance. For some odd reason, they allowed them to duke it out alone. Probably too afraid to get stuck in the crossfire. Death haunted all creatures. Grimm and human were no exception. Still, he frowned, testing his Aura reserves. Not much, but not too little. Just right to keep him on his feet.
First things first, he grunted.
Shoulders and torso ached. Steel poked into his ribcage and other areas of his skin. Wasting Aura to mitigate damage was downright wasteful, so he unclipped the piece of scrap metal and pivoted his shoulders up and down. Useless armor, only slowed him down, anyway.
Another grunt and he was forced to push aside this crazy discovery for later. For now, he prepared to summon Excalibur like regular with his passable levels, but he felt a shift in his Aura. Something different that he never felt before. Powerful. Unique to the Paragon of Aura. A variation that changed the entire spectrum of his Aura. Life-changing even.
Instinct drove him. A lift of the hand came to rest underneath the high sun. Aura danced to life around his body with specks of it crumbling away to build a sphere of heat of their own to eclipse the ball of fire in the sky. Control over the orb beckoned to him. Power over his Aura felt different. That shift came back to haunt him. Without even thinking about it, he silently summoned Excalibur from that very sphere with only the use of one of his hands, not two.
It stole his breath away.
"I can't believe it." Jaune gasped. Never had he ever created Excalibur with just a single hand. Trust him. Fruitless efforts and skipped dinners spoke of a similar tale. "No way! I've been trying to do this forever!"
Unable to contain his excitement, he lifted the blade into the air with the sun contrasting against its hue. Laughter escaped him. He laughed at nothing and a new sense of pride, power, and resolve wormed its way into his soul. Maybe, just a glimmer of a chance, everything could still fall into place like a perfect puzzle. Things didn't appear so dim anymore, not with a light at the end of a very dark tunnel that beckoned with promises of power and endless possibility, and he wanted it all. An opportunity and nothing more.
He grinned and pushed the early celebrations for a later time. Best not overlook the Beowolves a second time. A light glare over to their direction concluded they were still there, waiting for him to make a move. His feet moved and walked over the discarded armor and past reflection of himself. He failed to understand it, but this new shift in Aura control healed a generous portion of his wounds. Reserves felt dainty, moderately low. Even Excalibur benefited from this shift—outside of one-handed summoning—and required only a reduction of Aura to maintain.
Exquisite!
Simply exquisite!
Watching the human walking up toward their pack, some of the Beowolves began to step back after witnessing a greater Grimm get torn to shreds by said human. Some wanted to fight him, anyway, mighty or not, but it was the Alpha Beowolf that stopped them all from foolishly attacking and throwing their lives away with a low growl.
Stepping forward, while using its massive arms to push the lesser Beowolves back, the pack leader commanded all the weaker Beowolves to run while it stayed behind to fight and hold him off. Years of life experience had taught the Grimm a thing or two about dangerous fights. Of course not all accepted this command until the Alpha Beowolf growled at the younger ones, demanding they flee.
Bloodshed of their kin would be the result of a battle with this human.
As pack leader, it was its job to defend them. To make sure it never had to crawl over the bodies of its pack.
The Alpha growled once more, and the smaller Beowolves finally scurried away, leaving their leader to most likely perish by the hands of a human. It wasn't until only those two remained that he stopped in his tracks. The situation baffled him. Stunned being a close second. The Alpha Beowolf had sacrificed itself for its pack, like some Courageous Leader? That sparked something new in Team JNPR's Fearless Leader.
It made him think, consider, and plan.
"Hn? I wonder?"
Aiming Shooting Star at a retreating Beowolf, he prepared to fire, Aura sphere glowing in retaliation, but the Alpha Beowolf jumped in front with its body as a shield, blocking his target. That finally set the Arc off. Slowly lowering his arm, he unloaded Shooting Star, unable to think anymore. This Grimm was protecting another Grimm? Not only that, but this Alpha had purposely thrown its life away for its comrades to escape and live to fight another day.
Unimaginable!
Interesting. Eyes narrowed in wonder. The Grimm moved slowly in anticipation for an attack. "This Grimm... sacrificed itself... for them? The leader? For its pack?"
Excalibur lowered. The act of selfless bravery spoke to him on a personal level. It inspired the leader to act, rather than hide in the forest like some coward. Ha. It would've been funny if it wasn't so darn perfect. Imagine! This Grimm just handed him the best idea he needed. He found his answer in the last place he expected to encounter it. Ridiculous considering it came from humanity's greatest threat, but it was the answer he longed for regardless.
In a way, he now knew how to protect his team.
Willing away Excalibur, Jaune cracked some of his bones into place, feeling all trace of his anger dying all at once. He began to walk out of Emerald Forest, absently waving to the suspicious Grimm with his back foolishly turned. Idiotic or not, that Beowolf proved to be a better Fearless Leader than himself, and for that he walked away, confident in his shuffling intuition.
A leader like that shouldn't be cut down.
"... Thanks."
The Grimm never once attacked.
...
Inhale.
Exhale.
Jaune Arc sought fruitlessly to control his dreaded nerves and press the button. Forcing his hand on the impressive elevator door alone robbed him of much of his strength and confidence. His heart beat a mile-a-minute with his Aura reserves practically drained against what he previously believed to be a surplus only moments ago. Still, he pushed the button and felt the torque of the elevator almost too much for his legs to bare. They refused to move once he reached the top, wanting to hide a bit longer in the steel box. Honestly, his entire body was sore all over. Muscles hurt. A numbness crawled up his spine. He thought more than once of backing out, but if a Grimm could be selfless in the face of overwhelming odds and sacrifice itself for others, then so could he.
For them—for his team—for his friends!
Ringing the elevator door open, the Fearless Leader stepped in, finding every part of his body tensing up in absolute fear. Fear gripped his soul heavier here versus that Death Stalker he fought one-on-one against. At least then he had some remnant of hope of coming out of that battle alive. This predator before him offered no chance of winning.
"Mr. Arc, this is a surprise. I didn't expect to see you come through my door."
"Headmaster Ozpin..." Jaune breathed, trying to meet the calm man in the eyes and failing at it. Turning back was no longer an option. He was betting everything on this. "There's something I must tell you."
Author Notes: Rewritten.
