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Chapter 15 - Settling In and Working Out
Beacon Academy, After school, After Jaune Arc meets with Professor Goodwitch...
Immediately after being dismissed from Professor Goodwitch's office, or perhaps he should start calling it Glynda's office, Jaune quickly walked back to housing arrangement number seven so that he could help oversee the delivery of all of their new furniture and gear. Thankfully, when he arrived back at the house, the rest of his Platoon was also milling around, but the job still took time, and it was still a bit of a trial. A seemingly never-ending series of drawers, chests, bookshelves, side tables, desk chairs, computers, holo-monitors, and other assorted furniture were dragged into the house one after another by a duo of harassed looking movers. Nevertheless, by the time dinner rolled around, everything was unloaded in its proper place, and everyone was feeling pretty satisfied with the results.
The ground level of housing arrangement number seven was a fifteen meter by fifteen meter-wide square room, with high ceilings and mirrored walls, that housed two sparring rings, a half a dozen holographic projectors, and a large amount of vaguely human dummies to hack and slash apart. The holographic projectors could do everything from playing back what a trainee just did so that they can take a look at their form, all the way up to providing a group of incorporeal adversaries for you to fight against. Equally impressive were the vaguely human shaped dummies, as they were made of a somewhat tough but fleshy inorganic material that repaired itself immediately after it was cut. All told, Platoon number one's training dojo was a marvel of both efficiency and convenience. It had everything that they needed to train their martial arts.
It couldn't really come as any surprise that Jaune spent the rest of the night facing off against a holographic adversary, while attempting to maintain the flow of his aura to Glynda's training bracelets.
It also might not come as a surprise that he wasn't succeeding... like, at all...
So far, Jaune was finding it extremely difficult to spar without interfering with the aura that he was supposed to keep coursing throughout every inch of his body.
To fight at the level that was demanded of a Beacon trainee required the use of aura, and when Jaune needed to channel his aura, he generally ended up yanking it this way and that throughout his entire body at an extremely rapid rate. The problem with allowing himself to continue manually controlling his aura was that normal Huntsmen or Huntresses have their bodies fully saturated with their aura the entire time that they fight. They don't have to move their aura into the leg or arm that they're trying to use before having it move with increased speed and strength. The aura was already there. The aura was already waiting. What this meant for Jaune was that using his Semblance as a crutch was making him quite a bit slower than his classmates.
When Jaune thought back to earlier in the day, and how he'd struggled to keep up with the movement speed of Shale Pine, the second to last ranked boy in their whole entire year, he found his knuckles turning white around the hilt of his sword. Things could not remain as they were... He needed to figure this out...
Despite having an intense desire to change and the will to work his ass off, Jaune still wasn't making any headway when it came to maintaining simple aura control in a fight. He could do it during normal activities like reading, walking and talking. It was when he needed to empower high speed movements that he started micromanaging his aura in the extreme...
Jaune didn't know what to do...
"I think you're trying to run at a full sprint without ever learning to walk," a feminine voice suddenly called out from halfway up the stairs.
Turning in place, Jaune saw Blake Belladonna staring back at him from a crouch similar to the one that she'd been in at the beginning of the Initiation Test. Apparently, she'd been observing him again, and just like back at Croftlan, it felt like she was weighing him with her eyes...
"Have you ever performed a sword Kata before, John" Blake added as she slowly rose up to her feet and leaned against the stairwell bannister.
"I've performed several sword forms before, but Katas are..." Jaune stopped speaking as Blake suddenly hopped off the stairs and started moving smoothly across the room.
"While sword Kata are similar to forms in that they're useful for beginners, they tend to be far more involved, and they're more like Tai Chi in the sense that you can find peace in them, find a type of meditation in them." As Blake reached Jaune's side, she pulled out Gambol Shroud in its katana form and then took up a ready stance facing the nearby mirrored wall. "If you follow my lead and memorize these forms, you can slowly increase your movement speed over time and practice properly channeling your aura."
With an immediate nod of his head, Jaune ran over to the nearby hologram projector, cued it up to record every single second of Blake's upcoming movements, and then ran back over to join her. Then he held up a hand to pause Blake for a second as he looked her in the eyes. "Thank yo..."
"Don't thank me John," Blake immediately interrupted with a very compact but expressive shake of her head. "You saved me more than once back on that wall... and more importantly... you were right..."
"I was right," Jaune repeated as he thought back to the rampart wall and tried to figure out what his black ribboned teammate was talking about.
"You were right... We survived for the twenty minutes, and... and people really did come to rescue us... They came for the right reasons. They came because it was the right thing to do..." At this point, Blake was looking away from Jaune, but he could still see her blush in her reflection. Apparently, Ms. Belladonna had a very low threshold for embarrassment.
Quietly and with a carefully neutral expression on his face, Jaune unsheathed his sword, and pulled his rifle-shield up into a neutral position. He actually did want to make a much bigger deal out of both Blake's generosity and her tenuous, newborn faith in humanity. Truth be told, Jaune actually felt an intense desire to hug the girl... On the other hand, he was well aware that Blake wasn't a receptive audience for that kind of thing, so he bit his tongue, smoothed out his aura, and then waited to begin.
For the next hour and a half, Jaune and Blake flowed through a seemingly endless series of sword katas, and as it turns out, Blake was right. Not long after he grew used to completing the various cuts, slashes, parries, stabs, spins, lunges, chops, blocks, etc that made up the katas, Jaune really did end up finding some meditation amongst the movements. He found that the movements regulated his breathing. He found that the movements made him aware of himself as a body in motion rather than any specific bodily function or limb that needed to be empowered. He found that there really was a sense of spiritualism residing in the proper movement of his body with his sword.
Within the hour, Jaune could tell... This... This was exactly what he needed, both to help with his aura control and to increase the strength of his spirit... It wouldn't happen overnight. No. Of course not. But this would work, and he could feel it...
Without ever even needing to focus on it, Jaune managed to keep a low level of aura coursing throughout his entire body for the remainder of his training...
Beacon Academy, 2nd day of school, Jaune Arc's current aura control is approximately 5 percent...
5:30 Am the next morning found Jaune running through the Beacon Campus again, but this time he fully intended to make his way over to the school's various gym facilities to start making the most of the equipment available.
Unlike during his normal training routines in the past, Jaune fully intended to work-out his muscles while making use of the low level of Aura that he was currently channeling throughout his body, and he was curious to see just how much it might passively bolster his strength. He could already tell that his base running speed and cardio was being bolstered by a significant margin, which was extremely surprising considering how little aura he was actually maintaining throughout his body. At the moment, Jaune wasn't capable of maintaining a large amount of aura without making use of his Semblance, but he was more than satisfied with the improvement that he'd managed to achieve in a little less than a day.
Jaune seriously owed Blake a favor and that much was for certain...
Speaking of Blake, the black ribbon girl appeared to have joined the ranks of the morning work-out crew along with Yang, Pyrrha, and Nora, and just like the rest of them, she was wearing a variety of skintight PE gear that the school apparently provided.
Now, all four young women were flanking Jaune on both sides as they ran through campus, as if the four of them constituted some kind of protection detail...
And it's possible that's exactly what they had in mind...
During a conversation that took place while they were all completing their morning stretches, Jaune had explained how he intended to find out just how much strength he'd gained with access to a small percentage of his aura. It was during this conversation that the girls caught on to the fact that he was intending to try out the school's various gym facilities, at which point they'd expressed a desire to go together as a group.
Secretly, Jaune was all but certain that the girls were aiming to protect him from potential harassment, given his current low class ranking and rather infamous status at the school, but since he didn't mind the company, he wasn't all that concerned about their motives. In return Jaune offered to heal any wear and tear that their morning work-out might cause their muscles before they moved on to their morning classes.
In response to Jaune's offer, Blake immediately shied away to the other side of her partner with what looked like a faint pink blush attempting to grow across her cheeks.
Of course, when Yang caught sight of such a dramatic reaction from her extremely stoic and inexpressive partner, her interest immediately skyrocketed to record high levels. "Blake..." She began with a very mischievous tone to her voice. "Tell me something... What did John's aura feel like to you?"
Blake didn't deign to reply to Yang's words except to give her partner a scowl paired with a narrowed set of eyes. The girl really, really, didn't want to answer that question.
Yang knew right away that she needed to find out more about this aura healing technique.
Jaune didn't quite know how to respond to Blake's sudden skittishness, even though he did remember her rather dramatic response while they were up on the wall. Back during the Test, he'd just figured that the woman's intense reaction was because of the size and the strength of the aura that he was channeling into her body... In the past, whenever he'd practiced sharing his aura, he'd always done so by channeling a much less powerful flow into Penny's body with her laying face down on a table. Penny always implied that his aura felt... nice, pleasant, relaxing... After the first time that the two of them had tried out the exchange, Penny had started asking Jaune to gift her some of his aura on an increasingly regular basis, and usually just for the hell of it...
Of course, that was the moment when Jaune started wondering just what nature of feelings and sensations he'd been causing his little sister, and his eyes slowly trailed back towards Blake...
Soon enough, Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha and Yang, were staring at Blake and waiting for her response.
"It... it doesn't hurt, like at all, and it'll fill you with an amazing amount of energy," Blake finally described. "Just... just try it out for yourself and you'll see... but don't do it in front of a crowd."
That last provision made Pyrrha's eyebrows arch up in curiosity even as a somewhat lecherous smile grew across Yang's face. The only person who appeared to be taking this matter in stride was Nora, and the hyperactive girl's peace of mind was causing Yang to give her a questioning look.
"Aren't you nervous about receiving John's aura," Yang asked with a soft elbow to the orangey/red haired girl's ribs.
"For the most part, I won't need John's aura to recharge my batteries," Nora explained with a mischievous smile of her own. Then the girl was pulling what electricians tend to call a death cord from her pocket and was waving it up in the air. It was the type of electrical cord that would normally lead to an appliance like a hair dryer or a clock radio, only it was severed before it met the appliance so that its wires were exposed at the end. The cord that Nora was holding was very, very dangerous, as you could plug it into an electrical socket, and then electrocute yourself with the exposed wires.
"Ah hah hah, sorry, I'll explain," Nora began when everyone started giving her a series of very concerned looks. "My Semblance allows me to channel electricity directly through my muscles to more than triple my speed and strength, and I can even convert some of it into aura to recharge my core. I won't need to experience John's lecherous aura refueling technique unless we're out in the wilds without any batteries on hand."
"That's an awesome Semblance Nora and it suits your ultra-energetic personality," Jaune immediately offered. "Let's get Ruby and Penny to begin drawing up designs for a compact yellow Dust rig that you can wear on your body, so that you'll always have an abundance of electricity on hand."
"Is that even allowed," Nora immediately wondered in return. "I'll be completely terrifying if we do that. It won't even be fair..."
"I feel like I'm going to repeat these words a lot in the future, but we're not attending this school to learn about fair-play and sportsmanship," Jaune immediately replied. "We're here to learn how to completely flatten swarms of high-level Grimm, or defeat S ranked criminals that are endangering the innocent. I want you to keep this fact in mind Nora, because if I find a way to miniaturize an entire Dust reactor and hang it off of your back, I'll expect you to use the damned thing to lay waste to our enemies."
"Holy moly," Nora slowly breathed out as her body started shaking with what looked like a nearly out of control variety of excitement. Then, when the four of them started running towards the gym facilities again, the young woman seemed even bouncier and more animated than usual.
Within the next couple of minutes, Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, Blake and Yang entered the gym, with its highly vaulted whitewashed ceilings, fully mirrored walls, hundreds of muscle training machines, and seemingly endless amounts of free weights. All of that was very normal and to be expected, but there was something strange going on in Beacon's gym facilities that Jaune had never seen happen literally anywhere else. There were currently far, far more men in attendance than there were women. It appeared that every single male in the whole entire school wanted to be seen working out in the gym, while only a normal number of women had decided to get in a work-out before classes.
Cardin Winchester and his cronies were also present in the room, and they were all staring at Jaune with varying levels of resentment and or jealousy on their faces. Of course, Cardin actually looked completely murderous instead, but since the boy wasn't likely to attack Jaune within easy reach of his Platoon members, not to mention nearly a hundred witnesses, he was currently the least of Jaune's concerns. Instead, Jaune was far more concerned about how his blonde-haired teammate was holding up.
The level of testosterone that was flowing throughout the room was almost stifling, and Jaune could see right away that Yang was getting pretty keyed up in response. This was a concern for Jaune, because the four extremely attractive and famous young women standing at his sides had already caught the attention of every boy in the building, and the boldest among them were already moving in to have a little chat.
After drawing in a deep breath in order to compose what he was about to say, Jaune collected a series of forty-five-pound weights to fill both sides of a nearby bench press bar, and then gestured for Yang to give him a moment of her attention.
"I'm aware that you've been working on your... aversion towards men," Jaune quietly admitted with a small shrug of his shoulders. "These boys are about to hit on the four of you, because you're all exceptionally beautiful young women. I'm not worried about you Yang. I'm worried for them."
At first Yang looked frustrated that Jaune could see through her so easily, and then she looked like she might blush right along with Pyrrha at how he'd called her 'exceptionally beautiful.' Finally, she drew in a deep breath of her own and cast a glance at the group of boys walking in their direction. "I'll be gentle... I'm trying..."
"I've noticed," Jaune agreed with a small smile and a nod. Then he was returning his attention back towards his weights and clamping them in place. He highly doubted that he was the reason why this group of boys were walking up and posing themselves as if they were a boy band or something, so he figured it was okay for him to just ignore their presence entirely.
Nora and Blake also looked perfectly happy to grab up some free weights and act as if none of these boys even existed, but Pyrrha was far too polite for something like that, so she affected a puzzled expression on her face as she turned towards the boys. "I'm sorry, can we help you?"
"We wanted to introduce ourselves to the girls of Platoon number one," a very tall boy with short, dyed green hair explained with a gesture towards his friends. "My name's Jayden and this here's Hunter, Cooper, Chance, Aiden, and Brayden. We're all on different Platoons and we're all over the place in the class rankings, but we're all extremely strong... unlike some people..."
Jaune wasn't the least bit concerned about any of these boy's opinions, so he kept himself busy by laying down on the bench-press bench and drawing his hands up towards the bar. Then he was lifting the bar off of its metal cradles and was allowing its weight to force his arms down towards his chest. Once again Jaune was struck by how much just a little bit of free-flowing aura was passively bolstering his strength. The weights that he was currently lifting were usually around eighty percent of his max benching weight, but this morning they felt as if they were quite a bit lighter... Jaune settled in, focused on maintaining good form, and aimed to find out just how much strength his newfound aura control was granting him...
"Well, okay then. It was nice to meet you guys. Have a good morning," Pyrrha said to the group of boys in a fashion that made it clear she was finished with their conversation.
"Aww, don't be like that," the newly named Aiden interjected from the end of the row. "We're really nice guys and unlike some people, we're not relying on cheap tactics to win easy fights at the very bottom of the class rankings. We've got more class than that."
"That's right," the boy named Brayden added with what looked like an attempt at a charismatic smile. "We may not be at the top of the class like you girls, but we definitely have more to offer you than a few dirty tricks and a weak flimsy body."
"Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen," Yang suddenly interrupted, as she stared down at John and the absurd amount of weight that he was lifting over and over and over again. She was going out of her way to act bored, as if she already knew exactly how powerful her Captain was, despite the fact that the man was lifting approximately three-hundred and fifteen pounds (three forty-five-pound weights on both sides of a forty-five-pound bar) over and over again as if it was nothing. If his arms and chest were twice as big as they were and if he was channeling a good chunk of his aura throughout his entire body, John's efforts wouldn't have been all that unusual, but since his body type was visibly geared towards speed and agility and everyone could sense that he was only channeling a small fraction of his aura...
'John Freeman' was an absolute beast, and everyone just stood there gawking as he completed a completely astonishing twenty-one bench presses...
Completely oblivious to everything else around him, Jaune had been pushing himself through press after press after press, aiming to find out where his newfound strength and stamina actually ended. What he was lifting was normally a perfect amount of weight for about three sets of eight presses, and yet his newfound passive aura was allowing him to more than double his normal routine. It was amazing, if a little bit inconvenient, because this newfound strength would make his work-out take two or three times longer than normal... Jaune was definitely going to have to add quite a bit more weight to the bar if he was going to get it all done in time for class, but that would also take time and he was going to have to document all of the results...
Long story short, Jaune Arc had a ton of things on his mind as he slowly pushed himself through bench press, after bench press, and the boys that were gawking down at him definitely weren't of any concern.
When Jaune finally finished his first set of bench presses, he dropped the bar into its cradle, rose back up to a seated position, stretched out his arms, and then looked around himself. The members of Platoon number one were alone... "Sooo... Did you manage to fend off the boys with any civility," Jaune asked Yang as he rose back up to his feet and sought out two more forty-five-pound weights.
"Sort of," Yang hedged, once again with an amused expression on her face.
"She's just being modest," Blake quietly interjected. "I thought what she did was clever..."
"It was amazingly effective," Pyrrha agreed with a sly grin on her face.
"How are you so strong when you're channeling so little aura," Nora suddenly asked as she grabbed a hold of John's arms and started shaking him with a greedy look in her eyes.
After reeling back a foot or two in shock at Nora's sudden intensity, Jaune grabbed Nora's shoulders in return and held her in pace. "Woah, breathe Nora and I'll explain. I need to explain anyway because I plan on completing a similar process with you ladies..."
All of the girls immediately stilled and stared at the man because they wanted to hear his explanation.
"Ever since I learned to use my Semblance, the ability to move and manipulate extremely tiny objects such as the cells and the chemicals that make up my body, I've been manually altering and repairing my physique little by little over time," Jaune began with a wave down at his own body.
"Altering your body," Yang repeated with a newfound wariness in her voice.
"Yes, altering my body," Jaune immediately repeated. "While I was actually pretty fit to start with, my normal muscles have all been modified into an extremely dense variety of fast twitch muscles since then, and they represent far more speed and tensile strength than their appearance would normally indicate. Likewise, the calcium phosphate and collagen that make up my bones are strung together in an extremely durable weave pattern similar to, but quite a bit stronger than fiberglass. Contrary to what my more acrobatic body type looks like, I'm actually quite strong without ever channeling my aura, and I'm very, very durable..."
"If you ever learn to make full use of your aura...," Yang began.
"Monster," Blake agreed.
"It might take full use of my Semblance to take him down," Pyrrha mused as if to herself.
"I want in," Nora yelled out with a pump of her arm up in the air and a maniacal smile on her face.
Blake suddenly looked torn in two different directions.
By now, Jaune was just a little bit embarrassed because he didn't think a mere strength or speed gain was going to make him the match of the Arena Champion Pyrrha Nikos. If the way that the girls were thinking was correct, then Jaune would've won against Taiyang while he was wearing his reactive armor. He hadn't... Strength and speed doesn't trump training or technique. Jaune had to continue working on his martial arts and that much was obvious... Still... Jaune was quite happy that his teammates could see his potential.
"Okay then," Jaune replied to Nora's demand. "We'll get started immediately after today's work-out..."
Blake finally nodded her head as she came to a decision. "Fine... Let's do it..."
1.5 Hours Later, 1 Hour Before Classes Begin...
It was a very, very quiet trip back to housing arrangement number seven, as Pyrrha, Yang, and Blake couldn't seem to look in Jaune's direction for any real length of time and they were all blushing to the roots of their hair. Jaune could only thank Monty Oum that receiving his aura didn't seem to be having any effect on Nora, as they all walked up towards the house and the showers contained within.
Of course, immediately after the four of them entered the front door of the house, all four girls suddenly broke out into a dead sprint up the stairs, and Jaune was left in their dust knowing full well what was about to happen.
Slam, Slam!
The women had entered the showers...
After grabbing a towel, some toiletries, and a change of under-things, Jaune walked back out into the hallway, leaned his back against a wall and he waited.
And he waited, and he waited...
Ten whole minutes later, Nora finally re-emerged from the showers with a vibrantly bright smile, a squeaky-clean body and a noticeable bounce in her step. The girl skipped down the hallway, slapped Jaune's shoulder in a friendly manner and then disappeared back into the recesses of her barracks room.
Well, okay then...
By the time they arrived at the bathrooms the girls had been moving very fast, but Jaune did vaguely remember that it was Pyrrha Nikos who entered the bathroom that Nora just came out of. Cracking open the door just slightly, he turned his cheek towards the interior in order to give the redhead some advanced warning. "Pyrrha... I'm about to come inside. Are you ready?"
"Yes, yes, do it, come inside, I'm ready," Pyrrha replied in an absent-minded, breathless and shaky little voice.
Jaune instantly froze into a human statue just outside the threshold of the bathroom, and he stayed that way for several moments in a row before finally managing to shake the perversion out of his thoughts. No... There was just no way...
Moving with a will, Jaune finally dashed into the bathroom and hustled into a shower.
After completing a quick and extremely cold shower, Jaune donned the tank top and boxer briefs that everyone agreed was modest enough for the boys to be seen in, stood in front of the extra-long mirror, and shook his head at the current state of his hair. Long... His hair was way too long. It was like a mop curling down over his face and ears, and it gave him that boyish look that he'd discarded soon after he escaped Arc castle. It couldn't be helped really. It'd been well over a month since Jaune had both the time and the cash to do anything but just keep it dyed, so there wasn't much that he could do about it. He also would've liked to have gone back to wearing his grey color contacts, but he hadn't brought any extras to Vale with him so his bright blue eyes were on full display for everyone to see.
At this point, Jaune couldn't do anything about his eyes. Too many people had already witnessed them to even bother trying... The hair though... As soon as he received the money from the military, he was going to get it cut.
In the end, Jaune managed to shave and brush his teeth without Pyrrha ever emerging from the shower. It was only as he was leaving the room that she suddenly burst out from within her stall wearing nothing but a towel, and almost careened directly into him. They didn't pull off the stereotypical lucky pervert spiel, but it was close. They both just barely stopped in time with Jaune catching the woman by her shoulders. In her surprise, Pyrrha still ended up staring up at Jaune with eyes as wide as dinner plates.
"I'm sorry Pyrrha," Jaune offered as calmly as possible.
"Don't be," Pyrrha replied in little more than a whisper.
Then the redhead was gone, moving quickly out of the door without ever looking back.
With a sigh, Jaune finished getting dressed, moved back out into the hallway and began rousting the rest of his Platoon. He plastered an easy smile on his face as Weiss and Ren walked passed, but then he began tapping his feet as Penny shambled out of her room. Even as Penny slowly wrapped her arms around his waist and he hugged her gently in return, Jaune was leaning down so that he could whisper his question directly into her ear. "What in the hell did I just subject my Platoon-mates to, Penny?"
"I don't follow," Penny slowly whispered back in an extremely contented sounding voice.
"After this morning's work-out, I began the process of bolstering Yang, Nora, Pyrrha and Blake's muscles and bones with my aura," Jaune quietly furthered. Then he grimaced when Penny's entire body stiffened for just a fraction of a second. The orangette had attempted to hide it, but he'd been paying very close attention and he'd caught it. Penny knew... She knew exactly what he was asking her...
With his mouth forming into a thin little line, Jaune immediately started channeling aura directly into his little sister's body, and he whispered out a single word... "Explain..."
"It feels really, really, really good," Penny admitted in a squeak, while attempting to hide her growing flush by burrowing her face into Jaune's chest.
"How good is really good," Jaune immediately asked.
"...I don't have a point of comparison for something this good, but I really, really like it." At this point, Penny's forehead was pressing down into Jaune's diaphragm and her face was looking down at his rib cage.
"Does it feel physical or spiritual," Jaune asked as his free hand ran through Penny's hair in an oddly supportive fashion.
"Both, together and separate at exactly the same time," Penny explained with a small amount of whimper growing into her voice.
"Why didn't you tell me," Jaune finally asked with his chin resting gently atop her head.
"Didn't want you to stop doing it. Feared you'd decide it was too intimate," Penny slowly breathed out. "It is too intimate. It's really, really intimate... I love it."
"Then I won't stop," Jaune assured with a hand running down the orangette's back. "I won't stop. I promise."
"Don't know what I'd do without you, big brother," Penny breathed out along with a renewed snuggle that had her draped all around Jaune's entire body.
Over the next thirty seconds, Jaune slowly cut off the flow of his aura, and Penny moved with a brand-new energy down the hallway towards the showers. For the moment at least, the drama was at an end...
Then Jaune turned away from his sister to find two huge silver eyes staring back up at him from the other side of a barely cracked open door. Ruby Rose was staring at him, and the way that she was staring was giving him a suspicion.
"You saw and heard absolutely everything just now." Jaune stated in a very calm and accepting tone of voice. The last thing he wanted to do was make Ruby think that he was angry at her merely for trying to leave her bedroom.
Ruby quickly nodded her head, but she continued to stare up at him and she didn't say a word.
"Do you want to talk about it," Jaune asked as he leaned back against the wall.
"My sister... probably won't want you to... strengthen my body," Ruby slowly announced very quietly and discretely. "I want to get stronger too... I also don't want to be left out..."
Jaune merely nodded his head because he understood both Ruby's intentions and her fears, but he also looked up at the ceiling and sighed. He was the Captain of Platoon number one. He was supposed to be detached and uninvolved from his Platoon's lives when he wasn't offering them support and leadership... This.. this didn't feel the least bit detached...
This... was going to be a problem...
2nd Period Combat Class with Professor Glynda Goodwitch...
The second day of Professor Goodwitch's combat class had Yang fighting and losing against Pyrrha, Lie Ren successfully defending his position in the top ten rankings from Melanie Malachite in a very close fight, Cardin Winchester completely crushing a girl by the name of Josie bright, and a whole lot of "heeyahs."
Then it was finally time for 'John Freeman' to either continue his winning streak or lose and languish at the bottom of the class rankings...
"Start causing each other some real damage boys, we don't have all day," Professor Goodwitch yelled out from her spot standing below the combat class ranking system.
Of all the people that he could've been paired up against, Jaune was currently fighting one of the kids with the 'den' at the end of their names from earlier that morning in the gym. If he was being completely honest, Jaune couldn't actually remember if this guy's name was Aiden or Brayden, but his last name was Ochre, and he was extraordinarily difficult to land a hit on.
In the seconds leading up to the fight, Jaune had caught on that his adversary was relatively composed, even though the boy was looking at him as if he was a monster of some kind. With that in mind, he decided to save all of the miscellaneous nick knacks that he was holding in his pockets until they'd do him a little more good. When the fight started, Jaune immediately circle-strafed to the right, aimed his rifle-shield at Mr. Ochre's upper body, and fired about a dozen rounds in less than three seconds.
And nothing happened...
Mr. Ochre appeared to quickly weave his head from the left to the right, and Jaune's red Dust rounds careened past him as if it was child's play... The thing is... Jaune hadn't aimed at a single spot... He'd fired his rounds in a somewhat loose spread on purpose merely to see what this boy would do. The fact that the boy remained rooted in place and that the relatively simple dodge that he'd performed was enough to avoid all of the Dust rounds... It was fishy.
Then Mr. Ochre was dashing in towards Jaune with a laser-hatchet in one hand and a pistol knife in the other, and Jaune was forced to pour on the speed. Right away, Jaune could feel that his attention on his aura was interfering with the passive aura running throughout his body, but it didn't appear that he'd lost it all because he was still a step faster and stronger than he'd been just the day before. Jaune was keeping up with Mr. Ochre in terms of raw speed, which is the only reason why he was still in the fight despite the fact that he couldn't touch the damned boy. Over and over again, he thought that he was landing a hit, only for his blow to miss by a hair...
With every single encounter, Jaune grew more and more certain that something wasn't right. Then he started recognizing a pattern of sorts within all of Ochre's movements, and his mind raced through a flurry of different possibilities.
When the next clash of weapons came just a moment later, Jaune ducked low to slide beneath a neck cutting swing of Mr. Ochre's hatchet, blocked a knife slash with his shield and then swept his sword through Ochre's rib cage... and once again it looked like he'd missed his mark... In return, Ochre slashed his knife down into the back of Jaune's thigh and his aura decreased from eighty-seven to eighty-three percent.
"So, in the end you're nothing but a useless little damage sponge," Ochre loudly concluded with an extremely cruel smile growing clear across his face. "Why don't you just surrender Freeman. I have you outclassed in every way imaginable. You're a loser. You're a fraud. You shouldn't even be allowed at Beacon, let alone be Captain of the school's number one Platoon!"
As he drew in a very deep breath, filled his lungs with air, and then slowly let it all back out again, Jaune forced himself to see his adversaries' current behavior for what it truly was. Mr. Ochre didn't want to have to wail on him for however long it would take to whittle away the rest of his aura. The boy was trying to break his spirit instead. He wanted to reduce the number of opportunities that anyone in the audience would have to see through the utility of his Semblance... Well jokes on him...
Mr. Ochre was already far too late to keep that from happening...
Jaune already knew... He'd figured it out, and the fight was already over...
Slowly and calmly, Jaune dropped his left hand down into his pocket and drew out a handful of rocks.
"Hah!" Ochre was visibly amused at this point "Are you going to throw rocks at me like you did that boy yesterday? Do you expect me to flinch and cower like that loser Shale?"
Jaune slowly shook his head in the negative, and then held the rocks tightly in his shield bearing hand.
"All you're doing is ruining your ability to properly hold that shield," Ochre growled out in an ultra-menacing tone of voice. "You're done, Freeman! Your little tricks mean nothing to me!" Then Ochre was dashing in towards Jaune, with his hatchet and knife moving in a flash of steel and iron.
With a feral smile of his own growing clear across his face, Jaune piled on the speed, poured a fantastically powerful surge of aura into his sword arm, upward slashed Ochre's hatchet out of the way, parried aside the boy's knife thrust, and then swept his sword downward towards his heart. Up until this point, Jaune's attack was just like any other that he'd made so far, but this time, in the last split second before his sword would've pierced through Ochre's chest, Jaune opened up the fingers of his shield hand to reveal that he'd completely crushed the rocks that he'd been holding, and he threw the handful of yellow glowing rock-dust into the location where the hit would've landed.
Ochre's eyes immediately widened in alarm, and then his face transformed into a rictus of extraordinarily powerful anger. The boy knew exactly what Jaune had just done to him, and he absolutely hated him for it...
In the moments that followed what looked like a completely senseless attack, Jaune's forward momentum had him skidding and swiveling around to the back of Mr. Ochre's body. Then he slowly raised his sword up towards the back of the eerily motionless boy's neck, and he smiled as if he was staring at a particularly beautiful sunset... "It's time for you to surrender now, Ochre."
"Kiss my ass," Ochre immediately belted out even as a bead of sweat started running down his temple...
"I have you in a legitimate death trap, and you'll run out of aura far faster than I will," Jaune pointed out in a very casual tone of voice. Looking up to the hologram of their stats, Jaune confirmed that Ochre's aura was dropping by a point with every two seconds that passed.
"Go fuck yourself," Ochre snarled back, his face a monstrous caricature of his earlier menacing smile.
"Mr. Ochre here," Jaune suddenly called out to the audience sitting up in the stands, "has an intangibility and illusion Semblance that makes it look like he's dodged blows that've actually travelled directly through his body... Thankfully for me, his Semblance appears to come with a few rather strict rules."
"Stop it," Ochre suddenly belted out in a completely rattled tone of voice.
"Surrender then," Jaune immediately demanded.
"Eat shit and die!" At this point, Ochre was red in the face, shaking and panting like a racehorse.
"The first rule to Mr. Ochre's Semblance is that he cannot move more than once between the time he activates his intangibility and the time that he ends it," Jaune explained as he walked a slow circle around his adversary's body. "What that means is if you can find a way to make it lethal for him to return to normal, Mr. Ochre will almost immediately lose his ability to move..."
"Stop it now! I demand that you stop," Ochre screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Surrender then," Jaune demanded again in a very cold and commanding tone of voice. "Turnabout is fair play Mr. Ochre! Surrender to me right this very second and I promise to keep your little secret!"
"I'll never surrender to a bottom-feeder like you," Ochre growled, his voice filled with both scorn and defiance.
"The second rule that governs Mr. Ochre's Semblance exists merely as a matter of self-preservation," Jaune called out again in a very matter of fact tone of voice. "Even though Mr. Ochre can indeed make his body, clothing and weapons incorporeal, his body still has mass, it still has weight, he's still subject to gravity, which means that he must leave his..."
"I surrender to John Freeman," Ochre suddenly shrieked up towards the ceiling, his words loud enough to drown out the tail end of Jaune's explanation.
"Fight over! Winner John Freeman," Professor Goodwitch immediately called out, before biting her bottom lip to conceal what looked suspiciously like a laugh.
With a casual wave of his hand, Jaune scattered the rock dust that he'd been holding in the air approximately where Mr. Ochre's heart was housed within his chest. Then he started walking out of the arena, but not without pausing to speak very quietly to his newly collapsed adversary. "Mr. Ochre... If you or any of your buddies ever attempt to get revenge upon me, be prepared for every little detail of your Semblance to be emailed to the scroll of every single student in the whole entire school... Do you understand me?"
The still unnamed Mr. Ochre's head started moving downwards in the beginnings of a nod, but by then Jaune was already walking away...
"John's a complete barbarian," Weiss repeated, up in the stands with the rest of Platoon number one. Her voice didn't sound the least bit disapproving this time, but the excitement still remained...
"Yep, he's brutal, but that Aiden kid was also kind of medi-ochre," Yang added with an extremely happy smile on her face that only grew larger as everybody groaned.
"Well John's improvement certainly isn't mediocre," Pyrrha suddenly pointed out. "Sure, he won by exploiting the weakness of his opponent's Semblance... again, but this time he was also the better fighter."
Penny merely nodded with what looked like a shit eating grin on her face. Her big brother was the absolute coolest in the whole entire world. Of that there could be no doubt...
Blake wasn't the type to emote, but she still found a smug little grin trying to grow at the corners of her lips.
For several seconds in a row, nobody spoke and Platoon number one was at peace...
"So are we going to talk about that aura treatment that John can give our bodies," Nora suddenly asked, ending the silence and completely nuking the peace.
Weiss, Ruby and Penny, immediately perked up at Nora's question even though Weiss was the only one that was completely unaware of what they were talking about.
"Aura treatment," Weiss asked with a curious tilt to her head.
"Yeah," Nora exclaimed with a punch of her arm up towards the ceiling. "Our Johnno can perform nearly superhuman feats of speed and strength without ever using his aura because he's used his Semblance to alter his body over time."
"That would explain how he managed to finish off that last Gryphon Grimm even after running out of aura," Weiss murmured in a very distracted tone of voice.
In the seconds that followed Weiss's words, everyone in Platoon number one turned to stare at her in question. She didn't even seem to notice. She was far too busy staring off into space with a thoughtful expression on her face.
"Anyways..." Nora continued, when Weiss continued to stonewall them all. "John's offered to begin bolstering the strength and durability of our bones and muscles as well using his Semblance, and the process feels really, really good!"
"Oh? How good," Ren immediately asked in an exceedingly casual tone of voice.
After casting an evil grin at her lifelong crush, Nora leaned in and looked Ren right in the eyes. "If you finally admit to being jealous, I promise to show you a purely physical act that's similar..."
"Cough! Cough... I... I merely wanted to know if the treatment will be impossible for me..." Ren deflected while looking off to the side.
All of the girls in the Platoon immediately looked back and forth at each other with slightly distraught looks upon their faces. "Ummm Ren," Pyrrha began while looking aside at the "R" in her team. "Well, you see, ummm... John's aura feels good in part because of how unbelievably intimate the sharing feeling is, and the fact that his spirit is very uh... warm and... strong and, oh dear..." Slowly but surely, Pyrrha's face started to burn an incandescent red, and every woman who'd ever felt John's aura found themselves sympathizing...
Weiss and Ruby's faces slowly but surely took on expressions of newfound determination.
Penny saw where the wind was blowing and decided that she needed to get to bed early tonight...
Lunch...
"I'm not the least bit concerned about how gay John's aura will make me feel," Ren finally yelled out in response to Nora's persistent arguments against him performing an aura exchange with Jaune.
"But John's aura feels really, really good, and I don't want to lose you to the other team," Nora loudly persisted.
"I'm sitting right here you know," Jaune reminded the duo as he chewed his way through a chicken salad and some veggies.
Both Nora and Ren immediately gave Jaune piercing looks that adequately conveyed the words 'this is all your fault!'
"Are you in love with me now Nora," Jaune asked with a fork pointed at the woman.
"What, no, of course not, I'm... Ohhhhh." Nora immediately released a very relieved exhale of air and smiled aside at her partner.
"See, Ren's going to be fine," Jaune assured with a shrug. "It's not like a magic spell or anything. It doesn't have anything to do with sex, let alone sexual orientation."
Sitting cross-legged to Jaune's right in the grass, Penny turned to look at Yang, Pyrrha and Blake, only to find them all doing exactly the same thing back and forth. As true as Jaune's words were, the man was clearly underestimating the effect that his aura could have on a woman...
"Hey John," Ruby suddenly called out from her spot laying on the grass with her head resting on Penny's lap. "Your fighting noticeably improved between just yesterday and today. What are you even doing with Professor Goodwitch up in that office of hers anyway?"
At the surprise direction of Ruby's completely unexpected question, Jaune's eyes widened and he froze in place for just a single instant before he drew in a deep breath and launched into an explanation. He left out how Professor Goodwitch had spent at least half of their allotted time together teasing him into a highly motivated frenzy. He left out how the very stern and professional woman was telling him to call her by her given name. Of course he did. He wasn't an idiot... Other than that however, everything that he said was true.
Of course, Penny immediately caught on to Jaune's momentary lie response, which meant that she was well aware that he was hiding something.
Jaune could see Penny giving him a very amused expression at this point, and he knew that he was going to receive a much more thorough questioning from his sister later in the day. Rather than being jealous, Penny was driven by a powerful curiosity about the world around her, with the circumstances of his life being of extra-special interest to her.
In the end, Jaune merely micro-nodded his head in response to Penny's stare and the orangette somehow managed to blink happily back up at him.
5th Period...
The extra fifth period that happened every second day was called Officer Training 101, with Officer's Shaw and Oetger. The two young women were career military, they were both Staff Sergeants, and they weren't necessarily thrilled to be teaching a bunch of children how to Officer...
"Does anyone in here know anything at all about the military," Officer Oetger called out as she walked to the front of the almost completely empty auditorium. It appeared that attendance at this class was nonexistent at the moment, because the first-year class lacked any and all common sense. Jaune already knew that their current attendance problem was going to end when the various Platoon Captains started catching hell from the Professor Mentors. Thankfully for him, everyone in Platoon number one was sitting in the pews with their books out and pens at the ready.
With his primary focus dwelling on just how fortunate he was to lead the best Platoon in the whole entire school, John raised his hand in response to Officer Oetger's question without any hesitation. Then he looked around and saw that he and Penny were the only two people that had done so.
"Oh, and where do the two of you come by this knowledge?" Officer Oetger didn't look like she disbelieved them, but rather she looked like she was completely desperate for someone she could relate to.
After giving Penny a glance and getting a nod in return, Jaune cleared his throat as he quickly thought up a plausible answer. He definitely had no intention of saying that he'd trained for over a year in a Spec-Op simulation rig or that Penny's brain was made up of highly classified military hardware. No. He was going to lie... again... Thankfully, his newest lie was going to contain a whole lot of the truth. "Sir, my name is John Freeman, and this here is my sister Penny Polendina. The two of us have done work for the Atlesian Military's R&D division, during which time we gained a working knowledge of the command structure, doctrine, organization and tactics used by both Vale and Atlesian Militaries."
"Why would a teenager working in the R&D field need to know so much about the tactics used by a foreign military," asked Officer Shaw from far off in right field.
"Sir, among several other things, the two of us worked in the medical robotics field and some of our work ended up being commissioned by the Vale Military," Jaune answered as he turned to regard Officer Shaw. "You can't program a surgical robot to follow a chain of command or stick to military protocol without first knowing the details yourself."
After exchanging a series of glances back and forth, Shaw and Oetger smiled as if they'd just won the lottery.
"Well well well..." Oetger breathed out with a bright smile for the two teenagers sitting in front of her. "Since the two of you are probably only sitting in this class to receive the quals on your records, and will most likely be bored to tears, me and my associate were wondering if you want to help us with some teacher's assistant, technical support and odd jobs stuff..."
After glancing aside at Penny again and receiving a look of confirmation, Jaune returned his attention back towards their teachers and steepled his hands atop his desk. "Sir... If the 'odd jobs' that you speak of are legal, ethical, not-too-time-consuming, and won't get us expelled, then we'd be happy to help."
"Oh, we like you," Oetger breathed out in a very amused tone of voice as she turned away to walk over to the dais. "Now... Let's start this class by learning some basic Military chain of command..."
Immediately After School...
After being killed by the never-ending Grimm swarm residing within Goodwitch's simulation, Jaune once again returned to reality covered in nothing but electrodes and a pair of boxer-briefs. He'd survived the Grimm swarm a single minute longer than the day before, which was actually quite a bit of time when you're being mauled to death from every single direction, but it sure hadn't felt like anything special while it was happening. With that trial done for the day and in response to his recent improvement, Jaune was ordered to channel a slightly larger amount of aura throughout his whole entire body as the two of them watched the nearby holo-monitor.
In the minutes that followed, Goodwitch kept an eye on the holo-monitor displaying Jaune's body, as she once again proved that she was a genius in her field and a veritable goldmine of useful information. Glynda pointed out several different ways that Jaune could channel his aura more efficiently throughout his meridians (which apparently are a real thing), and she explained how his veins, arteries and lymph nodes are also very efficient pathways that should be fully immersed in aura at all times of the day. Using very plain and helpful language, she carefully detailed extremely precise and useful ways that Jaune could immediately improve from an aura control perspective.
After allowing Jaune some time to digest what she'd already said, Goodwitch next launched into an explanation of a theory of hers. She believed that the more Jaune was able to maintain a body fully immersed in aura, the more useful his Semblance would be both inside and outside of his body. She pointed out that Jaune's ability to rapidly fill a limb with aura would become even more powerful an ability if the limb in question was already fully saturated with his aura, because it would be like he was supercharging that arm or leg to the point that it was amazingly durable or extraordinarily destructive.
With that idea still swimming through Jaune's mind, Goodwitch also went out of her way to remind him that the current way that he uses his Semblance would also be extremely useful in the future. Due to the fact that Jaune's Semblance allowed him to pick and choose when, where, and how powerfully he channels his aura, he could choose to use it in very brief snippets for very specific, enormously efficient purposes. Glynda pointed out that Jaune's durability and longevity up on the rampart wall was at least partially attributed to the fact that his Semblance gifted him absolutely incredible amounts of aura efficiency.
While Jaune's nearly obsessive desire to become stronger had already led him to figuring out quite a few of his new Mentor's theories, to have someone with such a vast amount of experience fully supporting his improvement and offering him feedback felt... euphoric. It felt almost too good to be true...
Long story short, Jaune Arc was completely floored. He was amazed. He was forced to school his features to conceal the true extent of the hero worship he felt towards the blonde Professor standing at his side... And then, very suddenly, he didn't have to control the expression on his face anymore, because his Mentor was no longer standing in front of him.
Silently, calmly, and without any warning whatsoever, Glynda Goodwitch circled behind Jaune's chair bound body, where she began massaging her hands up and down his neck, shoulders, upper arms, upper chest and back.
Goosebumps slowly grew across Jaune's air cooled skin as a pair of warm smooth hands moved gently up and down his upper body, and yet the holo-monitor indicated that an increased amount of aura was flowing uninterrupted throughout the entirety of his body. It would be hard to describe the kind of satisfaction that Jaune was currently feeling, except to say that it was among the most decadent moments of his whole entire life...
Glynda's office was silent for several minutes in a row, as Jaune allowed his entire attention to settle on his mentor's hands and the subtle body heat that she was giving off.
"You know Jaune," Glynda finally voiced, her tone full of amusement. "I wasn't challenging you to prove me wrong when I said you wouldn't be able to outsmart all of your opponents..."
"That may be so, but identifying and exploiting potential advantage has become a part of my personality," Jaune replied with a slightly sheepish quality to his voice. "Besides... I'm not the fastest, I'm not the strongest, nor am I the most offensively powerful Huntsman in my year, and yet I appear to have the attention of 'the' Glynda Goodwitch... I think you appreciate resourcefulness far more than you're admitting..."
At first, Glynda merely hummed in response to Jaune's words, even as her hands slowly rubbed up the back of his neck to the top of his head so that she could gently comb her fingers against his scalp. Then, finally, after several very quiet moments passed, she ran her hands back down Jaune's neck towards his body, leaned in over his shoulder and breathed her words directly into his ear. "I'm actually a huge fan of cleverness, Jaune... Clever's my absolute favorite... but I don't ever want to see clever slowing down the improvement of your martial arts. So far at least, you're excelling on both fronts, which is why I'm very, very pleased with you..."
The thinly veiled intensity present in Glynda's voice, paired with the way that she was tightly gripping at his upper arms caused Jaune to shiver ever so slightly from his head to his toes. He didn't think that he was imagining it when he sensed a satisfied smile growing across his mentor's face. He could feel it in her aura. He could feel it in the pressure of her hands against his body. He could feel it...
At the end of their hour-long session, Jaune was given a newly recalibrated set of bracelets that would take a slightly increased level of aura to activate, and once again, Glynda warned him that their lesson the following day would only happen if he managed to defeat his opponent in her class...
Jaune almost felt sorry for whatever poor sap ended up being his opponent...
Later that night Jaune and Blake once again flowed through a slightly faster version of her sword Katas. Jaune had been just a little bit surprised that the black-haired girl intended to continue helping him, but she claimed that the sword Katas were a part of her daily ritual and he had no reason not to believe her.
The major difference between today and yesterday, was that everyone in Platoon number one was settled in and beginning their daily training regimens, which meant that Penny was running on a very powerful treadmill in the corner to practice high speed physical movement, Yang and Nora were kicking the crap out of a pair of dummies in the middle of a sparring ring, Ruby, was a blur of motion nearby, fighting it out against a group of holographic enemies, Weiss was doing the same on their other side, and Ren was completing Katas of his own. The training dojo was a full house tonight, with absolutely everyone in attendance...
Pyrrha wasn't training yet... Instead, she was staring at Jaune's movements with her feet dangling off of the unused sparring ring in the corner.
After a little more than an hour, Jaune and Blake were finished with their Katas and once again Jaune felt like he'd made some real progress where both movement and aura control were concerned. Then he turned around and saw Pyrrha beckoning him up towards the sparring ring, and a grim little smile immediately grew across his face. Yes... Of course, this would definitely be helpful...
It was also going to be quite humbling...
Pyrrha never said a word. She didn't have to. They both knew that she had a lot to offer him. Jaune merely nodded his head in both acceptance and thanks, raised his weapons up into a ready stance, and then waited to begin.
As is customary where friendly sparring is concerned, the two of them started slow... Jaune's sword sliced diagonally down towards Pyrrha's body at which point she ducked it and stabbed towards his feet. Jaune hopped up over her blow to sweep his shield at her face, but then he was tripped up when her spear suddenly swept sideways and batted his feet aside in the air. With a grunt of effort, Jaune managed to plant a foot, kick at Pyrrha's ribs with the leg that was still up in the air, push off the shield that intercepted his kick, and then backpedal in a turn with his shield slamming aside her advancing spearpoint. All of the movements that they'd just completed had happened far faster than physically possible for a civilian, but compared to Pyrrha's max speed it was as if they were children wading through chin deep water.
Pyrrha gave Jaune a look to convey that she was going to pick up the pace.
Jaune drew in a very deep breath and then nodded his understanding.
Over the next forty minutes, Pyrrha Nikos revealed more gaps in Jaune's defenses than he'd ever even imagined possible, as every movement and countermovement that he made in response to her spear thrusts, slices, shield bashes, turns, kicks and throws, opened up into another devastating attack that she'd clearly been aiming for from the beginning. The woman was a chess master of a fighter, her every movement geared towards leading him directly where she wanted him for a follow up attack, and only by reacting in ways that she didn't expect in response to attacks that were corralling him in specific directions did he ever find even a moment of respite. These were also the moments when Pyrrha Nikos revealed the most radiantly beautiful smiles, as if she lived for that moment, that surprise, that delay in her plans. Pyrrha Nikos was a born that way competitor, and as much as she wanted to get away from the arena, she couldn't escape the trappings of her own challenge seeking nature.
Of course, every time Jaune managed to thwart Pyrrha's attacks even in the slightest, she would pick up the pace by just the tiniest of margins, and Jaune would find himself having to fight even more desperately...
Despite the fact that they were sparring and not fighting to the death, Pyrrha eventually stripped Jaune of most of his aura, at which point they were forced to bring an end to their training. Of course, by that point most of Platoon number one were standing around at the sidelines and watching them go at it with rising amounts of interest.
"To be honest, your fighting still isn't all that impressive," Weiss commented to Jaune with a glance back at the sparring ring that they'd just vacated. "What is impressive is your level of improvement. If you'd fought that well against Shale... You wouldn't have needed to outsmart the boy..."
"John was deconstructing my movements in real time the entire time that we fought," Pyrrha acknowledged with a happy little smile at the man. "I've only seen two or three extraordinarily well-trained fighters do that in the past, and they were among the closest and scariest fights that I've ever taken part in. I'll tell you right now, I'm never going to allow you to see the full utility of my Semblance until we actually fight it out for real..."
Everyone paused at that declaration because Pyrrha's words implied something that they all found extremely unlikely.
"Unless one of us finally beats you, you're going to hold the first-place spot any day now," Weiss pointed out to her redheaded team leader. "You believe that John is going to fight his way through all of us and then compete with you for number one?"
In the end, Pyrrha didn't explain what she meant by her words. She only smiled, twirled her spear slowly through the air, and then moved towards a hologram projector to continue her training...
"So, Professor Goodwitch is... motivating you, through sex then," Penny finally asked as she leaned back against the headboard of Jaune's bed.
"Not even sex, but through the excitement of being teased with sex by someone in authority," Jaune expanded as he turned away from his desk where his homework was almost finished. "The possibility of sex is real I suppose, but I'm of the opinion that Goodwitch is merely trying to get a rise out of me."
"How would you know either way though," Penny asked with her head tilted to the side. "You were captive until you turned fifteen and then you lived hidden in a military lab for two years. Pardon me, but you're not what I'd call... experienced."
"Atlesian nobles raise their children to pick up on such things, and not for no reason. I was originally supposed to end up married to over half a dozen extremely manipulative heiresses," Jaune pointed out, even as he turned back towards his desk and completed another Trigonometry question in his notebook. Fourth period Dust Engineering was a fascinating class, and he needed to truly excel if he was going to convince Ms. Aria to let him create a new weapon...
Then Jaune's thoughts were completely derailed as a soft pair of hands rubbed down his chest and slid down the front of his stomach to his ribs.
"You know big brother... I might just decide to start teasing you as well," Penny suddenly purred directly into Jaune's ear as she wrapped her arms around his body and hugged him tightly from behind. Then the girl's lips were forming a smile directly against the skin of his neck in response to his heart rate and body temperature skyrocketing, and she was walking out the door to get some sleep.
Jaune was left just staring at the door that Penny had left through with a mind that was no longer functioning properly. He'd thought that Penny already was teasing him, and that could only mean that there was trouble on the horizon...
Beacon Academy, 3rd Day of Classes, 5:30 Am...
The next morning came bright, early and with a sense of quiet potential that caused a smile to grow on Jaune's face as he moved down the stairs towards housing arrangement number seven's courtyard. With a massive indrawn breath full of night-cooled morning air, Jaune vaulted down the steps leading towards the lawns and then turned to the right to begin his stretches on a nearby bench.
Then Jaune froze in place and his mouth dropped open into an "O".
Everyone, every single one, of Platoon number one was awake, dressed, and taking part in some variety of stretch.
Ruby Rose and Penny Polendina were stretching their hamstrings back to back, but they both looked like they were supporting each other because the alternative was to slump backwards onto the grass...
Ren was awake, wearing the t-shirt shorts mixture provided by the school, and looking enormously listless... On the other hand, the man always looked listless so it was hard to tell how he felt at the moment compared to normal.
Weiss Schnee was the only person present not wearing the school's provided work-out clothes, but she might as well have, because the white and red work-out gear that she was wearing was skin tight just like everyone else's.
As Jaune stared at the members of his Platoon that weren't early risers, he briefly thought about explaining to them that he could perform the aura treatment at any time throughout the day, and that getting up at the crack of dawn to join him in his work-outs wasn't the least bit necessary...
Then he didn't. He had more self-preservation instincts than that.
Maybe later...