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Chapter 17 - Several Different Battle of Wills, Both Physical and Physical
Beacon Academy, Thursday Morning, 4th day of school, Second Period Combat Class with Professor Goodwitch, Immediately Following Jaune's Spar With Breccia Coal…
After stowing away his weapons in the locker room adjoining the auditorium, Jaune returned to the arena and began walking up the stairs back to the stands.
It was quiet. It was far, far too quiet for the amount of people that were currently filling the room.
Casting his eyes from one side of the vast room to the other, Jaune could see that he was being stared at by quite literally everyone in the room. Unfortunately for Jaune, the scrutiny that he was currently being shown wasn't all that mysterious. There were just too many inconsistencies where he was concerned for anything about him to make sense to the rest of his class.
On the first day of classes, Jaune was slower than even the slowest and weakest boy in the class, and he only won the fight that he'd taken part in because he'd shamelessly exploited Shale Pines' weakness of both Semblance and character.
On the second day of classes, Jaune was quite a bit faster, fought better, and displayed what might be some kind of telekinesis Semblance when he floated a small cloud of rocks within Aiden Ochre's incorporeal chest.
Once again on the third day of classes, Jaune moved faster and fought better, making it seem as if he'd just been moving at half speed on purpose up until that point, so that his opponents would actually stand a chance...
Then, finally, just four minutes earlier, Jaune had bested Breccia Coal, when her seismic air Semblance seemed to just pass directly through him to damage the wall at his back, making it seem like he had more than one Semblance, which of course everyone knew was completely impossible…
Long story short, no one in the stands knew what to make of 'John Freeman' at the moment,' and they were stuck staring at him as a result.
Jaune tried very hard to act as if he didn't even notice the scrutiny that he was receiving as he walked around the circular stands to sit down among his friends. Every member of his Platoon seemed to know exactly what he was up to, as they were all giving him looks of poorly hidden amusement.
"You're so suspicious," Blake pointed out while biting her lip to conceal her amusement.
"Even when it's appeared that you're at a huge disadvantage, you've still always ended up leaving all of your fights with over seventy percent of your aura remaining," Pyrrha added with a nod at Blake. "People are starting to make up theories…"
Since Jaune wanted to change the subject, he decided to do so by asking a question that he needed to ask anyway. "Why am I encountering people with powerful Semblances like Hawthorn and Coal at the bottom of the rankings?"
They're slow," both Pyrrha and Weiss immediately answered.
"Ochre could only move a little over two times faster than a civilian, while Hawthorn and Coal could move two and a half times faster," Weiss continued. "With the exception of you, John, all of the people in our Platoon can channel all of our aura all at once to briefly move at least five times faster than our baseline attributes. It's tiring, but it's essential if you want to climb to the top of the ranking system."
"I max out at five and a half at the moment," Blake agreed with a small wave of her hand.
"five and two-thirds," Ruby added less than a second later.
"five and a quarter," Yang admitted with a slightly hangdog expression on her face.
Behind everyone else, Penny raised two hands so that she could hold up six fingers.
If I push for it, I can actually move over six, and I'm striving hard to get to seven every single day," Pyrrha sheepishly admitted.
What we're trying to say," Weiss continued, stopping everyone else from weighing in. "Is that none of us would've been caught by Hawthorn's Semblance because we would've attacked him right away with our far superior speed, and we would've ended the fight almost immediately."
"While you were putting away your weapons, we heard some of the teams around us gossiping about how the utility of Hawthorn's Semblance was emailed to everyone in his class by Cardin Winchester back when the two of them were still prep school students," Ruby explained with a dark look over at the far off bully boy. "According to the rumours, Hawthorn hasn't been a real contender in the rankings ever since, because he's not all that good at channeling aura."
I've actually fought Breccia Coal in the past," Yang added with a nod in the direction of the sullen looking Mistralian girl. "She's only slow because she relies too heavily on her Semblance, and never trains her fundamentals. At first I dodged her Semblance easily enough because her attacks move outwards from her fan in an expanding cone shape, which means circle strafing at full speed at a medium distance is all it takes to avoid taking damage. Then I just stopped dodging altogether. Don't get me wrong, taking a hit from her fan was both painful and it knocked me on my ass, but the hundreds of thousands of tiny little blows that it rained down against my aura field allowed my Semblance to give me a massive power up."
Everyone in Platoon number one winced at the beating that Breccia must have received that day…
"I've always known that Semblances alone aren't the only aspect of becoming a powerful Huntsman or Huntress, but I'm still catching up from a practical standpoint, so I'm learning a lot with every single spar I take part in," Jaune admitted.
"Well, you're going to have to learn quickly if you want to beat Brittany Fluorette tomorrow," Yang suddenly cautioned. "She's an outlier in the rankings, as she should be somewhere in the middle of the pack. She can move at least five times normal speeds, and she makes the most of her Semblance with that weapon she uses."
"I might be able to get my speed up to three and a half times normal by tomorrow if I'm successful at upping my aura control to twenty percent," Jaune brainstormed out loud.
"With your muscles, three and a half times the norm is more like four and a half, so you might not end up being that much slower than Brittany, but I still think we need to arrange a training exercise for you tonight," Pyrrha announced.
"I'll take part in whatever you decide to offer me," Jaune immediately agreed.
With a nod, Pyrrha cast a glance around the Platoon, presumably to see who else might offer her some assistance, and then she smiled happily when everyone appeared perfectly happy to help. Then she looked back in Jaune's direction and a blush slowly but surely grew across her face.
Jaune was giving his redheaded squad leader a very proud expression that very noticeably said the words 'see, you are a wonderful leader!'
Beacon Academy, Thursday, Lunchtime…
"Hey Pyrrha," Penny loudly called out as she caught sight of the redhead walking towards the main dining hall. Thankfully, she quieted down to a completely normal volume when she finished dashing up to the arena champion's side. "My brother has advised me that you might understand my desire to increase my social group and cultivate many, many friendships. I would be very interested in eating lunch with you so that we might… bond."
Of course, Pyrrha was somewhat taken aback by the orangette's sudden proposition, but then she could hear the extreme sincerity in the woman's voice, and she recognized John's handiwork when she saw it. "I… I'd like that very much. I'm sorry if John pushed you into asking…"
"In my experience, John doesn't push," Penny mused with a thoughtful finger to her lips. "First he persuades and coaxes, and then he tries to cajole as a last ditch effort, but then he ultimately leaves well enough alone if you resist him."
"I've actually experienced that much for myself," Pyrrha admitted with a small glint of amusement in her eyes. "Do you want to go to one of the smaller dining halls to find out if we have anything in common?"
"Yes, although I'm worried that my current lack of hobbies or interests will hinder the process, so I propose that we also talk about what interests we hope to pick up from this moment forward," Penny added.
"Monty Oum, your brother was right," Pyrrha laughed out with a highly amused shake of her head. "You and I do have a lot in common."
Penny only nodded at that. Her brother's intel gathering skills were solid. She'd never worried that this friendship attempt would end in failure… Yes. Jaune was right. He usually was…
Just eight meters down the hallway, Ruby swung her right leg in a lazy kick as she watched Penny walk off with 'the' Pyrrha Nikos.
She wasn't jealous! She wasn't jealous at all!
She just felt an intense desire to grab her partner by the arm and make a run for it…
Of course, Penny was a very thoughtful girl, which is why she'd already explained that she was going to pull all of their Platoon-mates aside over the coming days in order to get to know them one by one, and Ruby could only admire the bold and assertive way that her orangette friend approached most aspects of her life. Unfortunately for Ruby, she was an introvert, which made approaching people like Penny just did a doomed plan right from the get-go.
"Penny warned me that you might be feeling a little bit lonely this afternoon, so she asked me to run some interference," a clear masculine voice suddenly called out from just a few meters behind Ruby's back. Whipping around, Ruby saw that her very first friend at the school had come to rescue her, and what's more, he was holding a box of cookies!…
"I'm… a little overwhelmed with gratitude right now," Ruby sniffed out melodramatically as she ran over and hugged John around the waist… He smelled really good… but that was probably the cookies…
"Penny and I are your friends and we care about you," John assured her with a smile and a pat to her shoulders. "I do want you to work on becoming more assertive though. You could've joined Yang and Blake, Nora and Ren or maybe even Weiss…"
"Maybe even Weiss, John?" A feminine voice interrupted from almost directly behind John's back. "Am I truly that difficult to spend time with?"
Both Ruby and John swiveled around to find an intimidatingly beautiful Platinum-white haired woman standing just a few feet away from them, with her hands resting on her hips.
Ruby almost eeped. Oh no! They'd made Weiss mad!
"Prove me wrong then," John challenged with a smile, rather than offering any sort of apology.
Ruby marveled at the man's daring.
After glancing back and forth between Ruby and John for several seconds in a row, Weiss finally seemed to come to a decision. "Come! We will all eat lunch together, and you will see that I am the very soul of both care and consideration."
As Weiss Schnee walked down the hallway ahead of them, Ruby looked aside at John with eyes full of open hero worship... and hands full of cookies…
Another eight meters further down the hallway, Yang stood next to Blake where they watched all the drama unfold with twin expressions of blissful uninvolvement.
"What's your favourite kind of cloud," Yang suddenly asked in an exceedingly casual tone of voice.
"Cirrus," Blake immediately replied. "I don't like rain.
"Ruins the hair," both girls announced at exactly the same time. Then they fist bumped without ever even looking at each other and continued their trip towards the dining hall.
John's suggestion that Blake and Yang ask each other many simple questions had evolved at some point into a game where they tried to think of the most obscure and useless question imaginable. Originally, they were only spoofing some of the inane and unimportant questions that their Platoon Captain suggested they ask each other… and then, for reasons that neither of the girls could really figure out, the questions almost always did reveal something that was useful or at the very least interesting about their partner.
Neither of the girls were willing to recognize that fact out loud just yet. Instead, they just enjoyed the game, as well as its 'unintended' side effect…
Beacon Academy, Thursday Afternoon, 4th day of school, Third Period Dust Engineering Class with Professor Aria…
Today was the day. Now was the time. After a week of classes in Professor Aria's Fourth period Dust Engineering Lab, John had finally proven that he had a good enough handle on the subject that he could look into projects of his own once he was finished with the material.
Finally!
With an excited smile on his face and a large sheet of diagram paper in hand, Jaune moved over to stand to the right of Penny and Ruby and he began sketching out ideas.
And he waited…
"Hey John…" Ruby began, curiosity leaking out through her tone. "You're not drawing prototype weapons are you?"
"And a shield," Jaune corrected. "Although, if I do this right, the shield might end up being just as useful offensively as my sword…" He'd attached the bait… The line was dropped…
"Will… Will you please let me in on this," Ruby suddenly pleaded with unconcealed desperation in her voice. "I live for this stuff John!"
"Are you sure you want to spend your time helping me when you could be focusing on projects of your own," Jaune asked in return as he looked down at her schoolwork.
"I could do this stuff when I was seven," Ruby immediately revealed, that adorable puppy dog expression in full force upon her face.
Jaune couldn't help the smile of amusement that grew across his own face in response to Ruby's almost cartoonish desperation. "I'm sorry Ruby, I was teasing you. I always intended to ask for your help, because Crescent Rose is one of the most impressive pieces of tech I've ever seen outside of the military.
"Awww you mean it," Ruby gushed, with a vibrant red blush growing across her face as if Jaune had said something extraordinarily charming to her.
"I do mean it," Jaune insisted. "Penny here's already agreed to help me with the detail work because she's amazingly talented with machinery, but neither one of us are designers. I have several ideas, but I'll have trouble realizing them without your help."
"Ooooooohhh I'm so excited," Ruby suddenly squee'd towards the ceiling. "It physically hurts me to see you using such rudimentary weapons, John. I can't wait to get started!"
For the Oum only knows what time since he first met Ruby, Jaune wondered just how a girl raised by 'that man' could end up this unrelentingly adorable. Then he shook out his head, and smiled his thanks to the girl. "I'm really grateful for your help, Ruby, so I want you to let me know if there are any ways that I can pay you back."
"Why don't you help maintain and sharpen Ruby's weapon then," Penny casually suggested from her spot just to Ruby's right.
While Jaune perked up at the excellent suggestion, Ruby merely looked confused.
After catching sight of Ruby's puzzled expression, Jaune raised a finger in a 'just a moment' gesture, ran to the corner of the room to grab up a mundane sword. Ran back over to Ruby and then picked up a nearby block of wood used to hold things in place. First, he pressed the edge of the wooden block against the sword edge and nothing happened. The sword was dull. Then, he slowly ran his finger down the edge of the sword blade, leaving behind a faint yellow tinge that quickly ebbed away. Finally, he pressed the wood against the sword edge again, and it split down the middle as if the sword was a scalpel cutting through air. Zero resistance, zero friction. He'd sharpened the sword down to a monomolecular edge…
Fwump…
Penny just barely managed to catch Ruby's armpits, as the girl's legs completely gave out from under her.
"Able to repair, clean and sharpen weapons down to the molecular level," Ruby breathed out, staring up at Jaune as if he was a unicorn riding a dragon.
"Uhhh yeah… got it in one," Jaune confirmed.
"This, this is big, this is special, this is… I might have to give you a cookie," Ruby breathed out as she slowly rose back up to her feet.
"Your help developing my weapons is more than enough for me," Jaune assured as he turned back towards his designs. "Would you like to take a look?"
Over the next few moments, Ruby migrated over to Jaune's side of the table so that she could lean heavily against his side and stare down at his ideas.
"Okay so here's the idea so far," Jaune began with his hands flattening out the paper on the table. "I can cause the elements all around us to do things that would normally take a lot of energy using my Semblance. What that means is that I want to….
Jaune spent the rest of the class explaining his various ideas…
Beacon Academy, Thursday Morning, 4th day of school, Fifth Period Officer 101 with Staff Sergeants Oetger and Shaw…
After filing into a much busier, more populace version of Officer 101 with Officers Oetger and Shaw, Jaune and the rest of his Platoon moved over towards the seats that were saved for them as a perk of their attendance during the Tuesday class. Then they were immediately asked to stand up again, as the two female Officers gestured for the much larger class to follow them out of the room.
Over the next five minutes or so, the first year class marched quickly behind Shaw and Oetger and resisted the urge to ask them what in the hell was going on. Then they arrived at a completely massive building that looked like a defunct VTOL storage warehouse that had the words 'Training Exercises' written over an over-large garage bay door.
During every Thursday's class, Sergeant Oetger and I will be meeting you all here for some drills and training exercises," Sergeant Shaw announced with a grand wave of her arm. "Today, we'll only be showing you around the facilities, but don't bother trying to memorize the layout, because it's fully programmable, and capable of changing at a moment's notice."
With her explanation completed, Officer Shaw began opening the massive garage door with a press of a button on her scroll, and the interior of the building was slowly revealed.
Massive stones, crates, vehicles, boulders and columns spanned the entire room, creating a maze-like structure that looked like the ruins of a large city block. Everyone's eyes widened in surprise as they took in what looked like a devastated series of streets, full of craters, hidey-holes, sewers, rooftops, and small blind alleys. One thing was clear from the very beginning. This mock-up wasn't a happy place. It was an apocalypse simulator…
"Sergeant Shaw and I are not here to turn you all into Hunters," Oetger suddenly called out in a very loud and commanding tone of voice. "There are plenty of classes and Professors at this school that are already aiming to do exactly that. What the two of us are here to do is teach you all coordination, organization, and discipline! We're here to make you officers over and above being Hunters. What that means is that in this building, during the missions that we'll be assigning you, you'll be training as if you're a civilian. If you're hit once during the exercises that happen within this building, one time, by anything at all, Dust round, blade or beam, you're dead as a doornail, and you're of no use to your Platoon-mates…"
"But we are in fact Huntsmen," Cardin immediately called out in a disgusted sounding voice.
"Then go be a Huntsman elsewhere," Shaw loudly interjected from far off to Oetger's right. "Here, in this class, we're teaching Officers, which means your fancy little aura means absolutely nothing to us if you can't work as a team!"
Nobody in the first year class knew what to make of this sudden turn of events. Everyone was suddenly way out of their element and wondering how they'd do.
Pyrrha looked uncertain, Ruby looked nervous…
Jaune looked ready to begin…
Beacon Academy, Thursday Afternoon, Immediately After School…
For the first time since Jaune started joining Glynda Goodwitch in her office after school, Jaune survived the Grimm swarm long enough for the C ranked Grimm to begin trailing in after their lower level brethren. In the end, Jaune's head was torn off by a heavily armoured Ursa that suddenly joined the dogpile of Beowolves, Creeps and Sulferfish. It ended up happening so quickly, he barely had the time to notice that this larger Ursa was only the first of many…
"Well done Jaune," Glynda offered as she pulled the haptic helmet from around his head. "That Ursa was the beginning of what is known as the second wave. You've officially survived the very weakest of all the Grimm residing within my simulation." Despite the words coming out of her mouth, the young blonde Professor did in fact look extremely pleased with Jaune, as she moved to his side, looked towards the monitor, and began giving him several dozen different aura control pointers ranging from the mundane to the extremely esoteric.
Mostly due to the fact that Jaune was a healer with intimate knowledge about the mechanisms comprising the human body, Glynda also proposed that the mitochondria contained in every human cell was potentially an amazing spot to focus small, and intensely specific pockets of his aura, because these organelles drove chemical energy production within the cell and could give his entire body an explosive boost of efficiency. It wasn't an aspect of aura control that she'd ever demand of anyone else, but because Jaune could theoretically do it, she fully expected him to try…
By the time Glynda was finished with her explanation, Jaune thought that he might actually be in love with his mentor. It was all just so intelligent, so unbelievably detailed, organized and logical, even when what she was talking about was extraordinarily complex. The way that Glynda's mind worked and the way that she carried herself while using it was so unbelievably attractive that Jaune was forced to control his body chemistry using his Semblance. Then Glynda quietly moved in behind Jaune's back to run her hands in exceedingly intimate circles around his chest, shoulders, back, neck, and scalp, and he was all but certain that this woman was actively trying to drive him crazy.
"Have you heard the rumours about you yet," Goodwitch suddenly asked in an increasingly quiet tone of voice. As she spoke, she leaned in over Jaune's shoulder to look him right in the eyes, causing her hands to rub down his chest and rest flat atop his abdominal muscles.
"I've… heard of there being rumours, but I don't know any specifics as of yet," Jaune admitted, his eyes opening wide and his breath catching in his throat.
"They believe you work for me," Goodwitch revealed with an amused expression growing across her face and a glint in her eyes that Jaune caught from extremely close range. "They believe you're a long con, a plant that I'm using to teach them hard lessons. They think that you're staff, and that you're much, much stronger than you let on…" By this point, Glynda's face was just inches away from Jaune's, and he felt the warmth from her breath against his cheek.
"You sound pleased," Jaune pointed out, his words calm and controlled, but his aura, heart rate and body temperature revealing the sudden intensity of his thoughts.
"Oh, I am pleased," Glynda slowly admitted, her full lips just barely parted. I desire... for this rumour to continue. I want you… to make your classmates speculate."
Jaune was no fool, but he was just a man, and a teenager to boot… At this point, he was just seconds away from doing something extraordinarily foolish…
"Your aura is slipping Mr. Arc," Glynda suddenly pointed out in little more than a whisper. Then, in the seconds that followed, she oh so very slowly drew herself back up over Jaune's shoulder, dragging her splayed out, flattened hands along every muscle that lined his stomach in the process.
Okay, now Jaune was sure of it. Crazy… His mentor was trying to make him crazy...
Beacon Academy, Thursday Evening…
After walking back to housing arrangement number seven, unpacking his book bag and having a long ice cold shower, all with his newly recalibrated bracelets vibrating on his wrists and ankles, Jaune walked back down the stairs and peaked his head into the living room.
Ren was sitting on the couch with his head laying back over the top of the cushions as Nora watched a cartoon with her head resting on his lap.
Jaune almost looked away because of how intimate the scene looked, but then Nora called out for one of the cartoon characters to Detroit smash another one, at which point Ren woke up from his nap, and stared down at his childhood friend as if to say 'just when did you get there?'
So they were the same as always… for good or ill, Jaune had no idea. Either way he poked his head into the room again, intending to say a quick hello before he moved on to do some homework.
"Hey Johnno! Come with Renny and I to get some ice cream," Nora called out as soon as she saw his face.
After a brief pause where Jaune hesitated to join Ren and Nora on a social outing like that, ignoring the fact that he's supposed to be their leader rather than their friend, Jaune finally decided that he'll join the pair in order to get to know them better. With an old t-shirt that Jaune actually stole back from Penny and a pair of the Beacon PE shorts, Jaune walked out the front door with Nora and Ren and he allowed their easy back and forth (or lack thereof) to relax his mind and body. Nora and Ren were cute. They were closer than close without being obnoxious about it, and they were very welcoming to the people around them.
In order of appearances, Nora talked about her preference for sunny days over rain, her desire to eat a stack of pancakes covered in a banana split, her enjoyment of the new cartoon remake of a comic that Jaune had never even heard of, the fact that she was queen of sloth kingdom, how much she was enjoying hugging Weiss (and the way it made the woman squirm), how cool and dependable Pyrrha was, how she kind of wanted to snuggle Ruby like a teddy bear, how her favourite kind of dog was actually a Faunus named Ted who lives in the outer wilds. How her pink clothing just wasn't pink enough lately, so she was looking for a pinker shade of pink with a lot more pink in it, how Ren was looking and acting so much more energetic lately what with a bed to return to every single night (poor boy), and how she was trying to figure out a way to make her explosive grenades harmless to her so that she can launch them directly down and explosion leap up into the air.
Then the three of them were in the ice cream shop, Ren and Jaune were buying Normal chocolate and vanilla ice cream cones respectively, and they were leaving Nora behind to make the poor ice cream parlour staff lady suffer a nearly endless series of extraordinarily hard to pull off requests.
"You were torn about coming with us," Ren quietly pointed out as the two of them reached a booth seat. "I noticed, Nora didn't… yet. Are you seeking to avoid us for a reason?"
"I assure you that I like Nora and have no intention of hurting her feelings," Jaune responded with his attention on his hands resting on the table. It was clear that the normally very taciturn and quiet Ren was extending himself quite a bit right now purely out of concern for his female friend. Jaune could understand that. He could respect that. He would explain the problem… "I have a working knowledge of how the military usually operates, and one of the more common aspects of maintaining discipline is that those people who are in positions of leadership shouldn't become too chummy with their soldiers. It makes it hard to be objective when someone is being disruptive, and it makes it hard to make decisions that involve risk during live combat. I haven't been told that I need to emulate this behavior, but it seems that I'm trying to regardless."
For almost a full minute, Ren visibly mulled Jaune's words over, taking small bites from his ice cream cone and staring at his face. Then the boy rested his hands on the table and drew in a very slow breath. "Non aura using soldiers in a military are replaceable and expendable by the very nature of their training. Everyone in our Platoon is vital to its success and brings something unique to the table…"
"None of our Platoon-mates are expendable, so avoiding friendships in order to act like they are expendable is a mistake," Jaune extrapolated.
Ren only nodded, but then he visibly mustered up the will to continue speaking. "You don't think like someone who will ever allow your team to suffer losses. You don't make sacrifices. You change the surroundings and the circumstances of the fight to bring the objective… closer… to negate risk..."
This time Jaune smiled even as he nodded his head. Ren's words were quite flattering especially considering how rare it was for him to speak at all…
"We are your team, and unless something tragic happens we always will be," Ren finished with a meaningful look on his face.
"Which means if I follow through with my 'uninvolved leader plan,' my entire career will involve unhealthy amounts of social isolation," Jaune finished, continuing Ren's thought to its natural conclusion. Then he was staring down at his hands again, as somehow every single word that Ren said carried an immense amount of weight. The boy was smart as well as extraordinarily thoughtful. "Thank you Ren," Jaune finally sighed out as he leaned his head back against the plasticky red seat at his back.
Once again the black haired boy nodded his head.
Crash, smash, rattle. All of the sudden what looked like thirteen ice cream cones were creating a cabin-like structure around a small stack of pancakes in the middle of the table and Nora was sitting next to Ren with a wild and happy smile on her face.
Neither Ren nor Jaune could stop themselves. They smiled at the orangey/redhead in return.
Later that night, after Blake and Jaune finished their daily Kata ritual, everyone in Platoon number one gathered in the middle of the training room to surround Jaune on every single side. Everyone was holding either a whip in their hands or a training Dust rifle with Dust rounds that have less penetration power.
"What am I looking at right now," Jaune asked with a puzzled expression on his face.
"Brittany Fluorette wields over a dozen very long chain sickle weapons called Kusarigama that have Dust pistols attached to the unbladed ends," Yang explained with a gesture at the whips and rifles. While I don't think we can make it so that you're prepared to avoid all of the blows that she's going to rain down on you, with some practice, you might survive her attacks long enough to pull off a 'John' on her.
"Pull a John," Jaune repeated.
"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about," Yang replied with a roll of her eyes.
Jaune just shrugged. He did know what she was talking about. He just didn't want to name it 'pulling a John.'
Without a word, the members of Platoon number one started circling the sparring ring that Jaune was standing in with their rifles and whips poised at the ready…
Beacon Academy, Friday Morning, 5th day of school, 5:30 Am, Daily Weight Conditioning, Jaune Arc's current aura control is approximately 20 percent…
Once again, for the third time in a row, when Jaune completed his morning weight lifting regimen, he found that his strength and speed had gone up with his newly improved aura control. At this point, he was capable of channeling twenty percent of his aura throughout his body even as he moved and focused on other things. With that new ability came another 1.5 times improvement on all of his baseline attributes.
Jaune was now three and a half times faster and stronger than he was without recruiting the use of his aura.
If Yang's intel was accurate, then Brittany Fluorette could move four and a half times faster than her baseline or maybe even five. Still… Jaune's baseline attributes were quite a bit better than the norm, so the two of them might actually move at around the same speed.
After the beating that Jaune had received the night before from the other members of his team, Jaune had a little more experience ducking and diving away from endlessly swinging whips and randomly fired Dust rounds. What he didn't know was how Brittany actually controlled so many chain scythes with so much accuracy at exactly the same time…
It had to have something to do with the woman's Semblance…
Jaune would just have to keep his eyes open, and wait for his opportunity…
Beacon Academy, Friday Morning, 5th day of school, 1.5 Hours Before Class….
At some point since the first day that Jaune completed the aura/massage treatment in the storage room, all of the women that comprise Platoon numbers one had bought themselves some sort of very short and strappy, insubstantial little tank top, and equally tiny little shorts, that revealed maximum amounts of their necks, shoulders backs and lower backs, without having to go fully in the buff. It was very clear that the women wanted him to touch more of their bodies during the aura treatment, but they didn't want to be too obvious about it.
Well they'd failed… This was pretty obvious…
With the exception of Nora, every single woman that laid down on the massage table in front of Jaune, looked more like they were taking part in a 'porn massage' than a real one. Yang Xiao Long especially, looked like she was about to spill out of the tiny black number that she was wearing, and the noises that she made when Jaune actually began channeling his aura into her lower back were nothing short of obscene…
Jaune kept an ongoing tally of what each woman wanted most out of her aura treatment/massage, because he was a perfectionist at heart and wanted to excel. This was only a problem because the signs that the girls were happy with what he was doing were always dramatic in the extreme.
Yang loudly and unreservedly moaned and gyrated her hips down against the massage table when Jaune focused a lot of attention on her shoulders, presumably because even with aura she was a little bit top-heavy and it caused quite a few knots to form in her shoulder-muscles.
Pyrrha whimpered and weakly pawed at the table as if she was trying and failing to get away when Jaune smoothed the muscles just inside of her shoulder blades, running his fingers down underneath the fabric of her tiny red tank top. She was especially vocal in her sighs and assorted pleased noises during these times in order to let him know that it was okay to touch her underneath her shirt, as if she were afraid that he would be too shy or reserved.
Ruby was easy, in the sense that his slightest movement set her off, had her panting for air in tiny fast paced breaths and looking back over her shoulder at him as if he was a God or something. Jaune almost didn't even want to touch the woman's thighs though, because every single time he did, her body went completely haywire…
Blake was a cat… It was a wonder that Jaune hadn't noticed from the beginning. She arched her back like a cat when his hands ran down a particular spot on her spine towards her tailbone, she mewled and purred like a cat when he channeled aura into her lower back and thighs, she slinked and slid along the table in the languid way that only an extremely contented cat can, and she always ende up pressing her body up against his waist at the side of the table like a cat rubbing itself up against its owner.
Weiss was like Ruby, only with less hero worship and a lot more inner thighs rubbing together. She twitched and she trembled and she kicked and slapped the table even as she visibly moved to prolong the contact that his fingers made with her red flushed and goosebump covered skin by lifting her body up against his touch and pressing her pelvis down into the table. She huffed and she puffed and she groaned low from her throat in a way that strained even her far superior vocal range.
Penny casually and devastatingly was very, very communicative about where she liked him touching her, how hard she wanted him to touch her, how she didn't want him to stop touching her, how his hands were electric against her skin, how his aura felt like bliss, how she was completely addicted to his touch, and how she didn't know what she'd do without him... Penny was just being her normal completely candid self, but that didn't mean she wasn't driving Jaune right up the wall with how provocative she was being.
Long story short, by the time Jaune was finished with his aura treatments for the day, sweat was beginning to drip down from his scalp, and it wasn't because the treatments were tiring or hard to perform. The only reason that Jaune was able to withstand the onslaught sent his direction from almost all of his female teammates with any class at all was because he knew that they weren't actually trying to seduce him. The difference was subtle but it was there.
Glynda Goodwitch, on the other hand, was becoming a problem because she was beginning to make him lose sleep at night…
She was going to need to be shown the error of her ways sooner rather than later…
Beacon Academy, Friday Morning, 5th day of school, Second Period Combat Class with Professor Goodwitch, Jaune Arc's current aura control is approximately 20 percent…
When the names Brittany Fluorette and 'John Freeman' were called out by Professor Goodwitch and the two of them began walking down the stands towards the arena floor, the occupants of the auditorium slowly but surely quieted down until it was very, very quiet. Jaune didn't really know what to make of it, but he figured this was more of what Goodwitch had described to him the day before in her office. Some of his classmates thought that he was a plant, a spy, staff... again. They thought that he was Goodwitch's minion, and he was only acting like a trainee on the rise to provide abject lessons that Goodwitch could expand upon…
Break out your tinfoil hats you bunch of conspiracy theorists, Jaune thought to himself as he disappeared into the locker room and grabbed up his various weapons. Then he was re-entering the arena and moving to stand in front of Brittany Fluorette.
It had to be said that Brittany Fluorette was cute. She had a small heart shaped face, a button nose, chestnut hair, and almond coloured eyes. Her body was also covered from head to toe in chains and cutting edges that made her body look thick to the point of being chubby. The chain sickles were wrapped around her body dozens and dozens of times until she looked like she was wearing a full set of chain mail consisting of thousands of black iron segments. Brittany Fluorette clearly didn't give a damn about visuals. This girl was all about results.
Jaune approved, even as he shook out his body and prepared for a struggle. This girl wasn't talking smack. This girl wasn't scoffing at him. This girl looked completely serious and focused, and as a result, Jaune felt a powerful surge of adrenaline coursing throughout his veins. This girl meant business, and his body was reacting appropriately.
"You both know the rules, so I shall not speak of them," Goodwitch called out as she queued up the hologram to show their aura levels and statistics to the rest of the audience. "Are you ready?"
Both Jaune and Brittany nodded their heads. Yes… He was ready…
"Fight," Goodwitch barked out before leaping away to the side of the arena.
It was Goodwitch's immediate movement to the side of the room that alerted Jaune to what was about to happen, and he immediately leapt backwards to do the same. In doing so, he barely managed to avoid being cut to ribbons by a wide swatch of different blades that flew through the air almost too fast to see.
In the split second after the fight started, the chain sickles that were wrapped all around Brittany's body exploded outwards in a massive swath of wide swinging circles that cut in every direction without the girl ever moving a single muscle. Was this magnetism?… No… The chains were clearly bouncing off of each other at random rather than moving with any coordination. This girl had a method to manipulate the metal in her weapon, but it wasn't an absolute variety of control.
Even before Jaune landed at the side of the arena, the chains wrapped around both of Brittany's wrists bounced back to collect around her waist again, but by then she was already aura dashing in his direction with two of the sickles in hand.
Jaune circle strafed to the right with his sword and shield at the ready, at which point he saw that Brittany was moving at least five times her baseline norm because she had a noticeable speed advantage on him. Jaune couldn't avoid the woman using normal movements and evasions, but judging from her tiny little arms, he probably had a leg up on her in regards to raw strength.
Jaune would take speed over strength any day of the week, but he was used to making due with what he had and in that sense today would be no different.
Brittany Fluorette closed the distance with him, waved her sickles at his head which in turn forced him to leap aside, and then when he was committed and flying through the air, her chain sickles suddenly jangled loudly, whipped out in his direction, and were swerving towards his face.
Jaune raised his rifle-shield to block some of the sickles, and then he used his hand to grab yet another before it could cut into his aura field, but he missed several more as they slashed at his thighs and legs and feet. Then the alternate side of the chain sickle weapons, the weighted base on the other end of the chains were flying in Jaune's direction from behind, and over a dozen Dust rounds were slamming into Jaune's back to propel him forward through the air.
Somehow, without having to touch the guns attached to the unbladed ends of her chains, Brittany could make those Dust pistols turn in his direction and then fire. Her ability manipulated the metal. Her ability had something to do with the reason her weapons were made of iron, a metal that was rarely used anymore because of the advent of Unobtanium. Even as Jaune was forced into a messy forward roll to avoid another volley of Dust rounds, he was channeling a massive amount of aura into his brain to slow down his perception of time and find out what Brittany was doing.
Even as Jaune rose to his feet, a kick slammed into his thigh, a sickle in Brittany's hand sliced at his left forearm, and then the rest of the chains were whipping in his direction from both sides like an iron maiden closing. Jaune leapt backwards again, and then kicked off of the wall at his back as hard as he could to body check Brittany and break free of her trap. Then he was being judo thrown over her shoulder, and it was only by holding onto her armpit that he managed to avoid being slammed down into the ground.
This was bad. Jaune was being overwhelmed. Jaune needed to start learning the pattern of her attacks so that he could dodge her flurry of blows.
And that's when he heard that sound again, and he started wondering what it meant
Jangle! Jangle!
Even as he leapt backwards once again to avoid a persistently waving series of harassing chains, Jaune's aura bolstered perception saw that small protrusions of iron were growing out from within the chain segments to slam against the floor and other chains and rocket the chain sickles through the air. These protrusions… these growths…
Brittany was an alchemist… She could manipulate the metal, specifically the iron in her weapon, to make it move in her desired direction, bounce and turn in the air, and depress the trigger of a Dust pistol without having to physically touch it.
The only reason Jaune was still in the fight up until now was simple. It appeared that Brittany could only cause these protrusions to explode into place in large groups all at once rather than hundreds of them at random all of the time. If Jaune paid attention to that jangling noise and then watched where and in what direction the protrusions were pushing the different chain sickles, he might be able to dodge the attacks that followed.
Yeah… simple… not!…
Jaune assigned a part of his fully aura saturated brain to mapping out the trajectory of the various sickles, timed it to happen when he heard that jangling noise, and then began moving in to attempt an attack of his own. He had a plan in mind at this point, but he needed to look like he was trying to hurt his opponent in a normal way in order for his real intentions to remain undiscovered. He managed to avoid the first swing of Brittany's chains and then sidestep and second despite the fact that it should have come as a surprise when they changed direction at random behind him. He saw the moment when Brittany realized that he was on to her and was modifying his movements. He saw the dangerous glint in her eyes and he recognized that she was about to step up her efforts.
A tidal wave of sickles careened down towards Jaune's face, he rolled forward to avoid them, they jangled and pursued him, he rolled to the left and a crater was gouged into the floor where he'd just been laying. He grabbed a hold of several of the segments and attempted to pull Brittany through the air, only for a rash of sharp little protrusions to grow out of the side of the chains and cut into the aura field over Jaune's hands. He slapped a wide segment of chains away seemingly in frustration as he rose to his feet. His aura field had dropped down to below sixty percent at this point because of the hundreds of Dust rounds that were pinging off of his back and the slashes that were sliding along his legs and thighs. Completely avoiding Brittany's weapons appeared to be impossible even as Jaune recognized how the woman used her weapons and grew more efficient at avoiding the worst of her attacks.
Over the next minute or two, Jaune sidestepped and backpedalled and rolled his way through a constantly sweeping flow of blades and guns and chains as he attempted to make headway in the direction of his opponent. His sword and his shield were a blur of motion as he slammed aside and parried hundreds and hundreds of blows.
Almost without even realizing it, Jaune finally managed to get himself close enough to swing his sword in Brittany's direction. The sickles in her hands intercepted his attack and held it in place long enough for her chain sickles to attempt to wrap around him from every single side, Jaune slapped and punched the chains away, seemingly in a desperate attempt to try for a second attack, and then was forced to back away when a volley of Dust rounds reduced his aura to fifty-two percent. As he broke away, Jaune fired two-dozen Dust rounds from his rifle-shield that Brittany blocked by wrapping her chains all around her body.
Brittany looked like she was having fun.
So did Jaune.
Brittany noticed the smile on Jaune's face, and hers dimmed a little in response.
Then she noticed it. There were dozens and dozens of dull yellow splotches attached to the iron chains that were currently wrapped all around her body. Her eyes widened in surprise, they flicked up to Jaune's, they contained an odd sense of fatalism…
Jaune's face suddenly scrunched up in effort, and it happened. The segments of chain wrapped around Brittany's waist and arms, instantly turned red hot, caught fire and began burning like red hot slag against Brittany's aura fielded body. Brittany immediately yelped in pain, dropped to the floor on her side, and began trying to use her Semblance to begin bouncing the segments of chain away from her body. Too bad for her, the newly red hot metal completely ignored her ability. Something was changing the chemical makeup of her chains so that they weren't iron anymore, or at least they weren't only iron anymore, and the process was making them catch fire directly against her skin.
Over the next couple of seconds, the segments of chain that were on fire started turning a dull red colour before dropping away like sand or… rust…
Over the course of their fight, Jaune had recruited a massive amount of pure oxygen from the air, and then combined it with the iron comprising Brittany's weapon whenever he touched it with his hands. Then, when he was finally ready to spring his trap, he forced the oxygen and the iron to meld together in a process called oxidation. Under normal circumstances, when a metal oxidizes and ends up becoming rusty, it happens very very slowly and the heat that the process gives off is negligible. When that same process happens within only a matter of seconds however… the heat that it gives off is immense…
Brittany gasped in surprise once again as large segments of her fiery red weapons turned to red flakes of powder and then dropped to the floor, but then a sword was slamming down into her head, her face was slamming into the ground, and a foot was cratering her face down into the concrete of the floor over and over again. Jaune slammed his sword into the woman's back and shoulders, kicked her head as hard as he could and fired dust round after Dust round into her hands and feet to keep her unbalanced.
Finally, finally, after almost half a minute spent delivering a completely savage one sided beating, Brittany Fluorette's aura levels dropped below ten percent, and the fight was at an end.
"Winner, John Freeman," Professor Goodwitch called out, ending the fight with no specific emotion in her voice.
The trainees filling the auditorium were quiet. They stared down at John Freeman as if he had two heads or multiple Semblances… that second thought being much more likely than the first.
Brittany Fluorette allowed 'John Freeman' to help her back up to her feet, and then in a move that was a surprise to quite literally everyone, she wrapped one of her arms behind his back in an affectionate manner, leaned in to whisper into his ear, and then kissed his cheek before breaking away.
By the time Brittany Fluorette walked into the dark entrance to the locker rooms, most of Platoon number one was staring at the back of her head.
In the days that followed Jaune's first week of sparring, he would continue winning his fights and rising through the ranks. No one knew what to make of him, and no one could predict his reactions, because his Semblance behaved differently with every single fight that he took part in, and his attack style followed suit.
The two predominant theories among the students of the first year class was that John Freeman was either Professor Goodwitch's TA plant that was showing everyone how to think outside the box, or that he was Platoon number one's ringer, who had figured out that there would be a point stealing system, and had tanked his Initiation Test on purpose so that he could strip everyone of their points on his way up the rankings.
Immediately After School…
"You know, Glynda," Jaune breathed out, as once again his mentor was basically draped over his shoulders, where she was fussing at his chest and shoulders, and teasing his skin into a mass of tingling nerves with flat palmed sweeps of her extremely smooth little hands... "I've been giving most of the members of my Platoon a daily massage as part of that aura treatment that I told you about… The process has become enormously popular as I've been told that my aura is quite… relaxing… Would you like me to rub your shoulders before I leave here today?"
"After several moments went by where Glynda didn't say anything at all, she finally leaned in very close to stare into his eyes with an extremely interesting look in her eyes. "You're massaging all of the women in your Platoon?"
"It's very platonic, and it's an effective way to transfer my aura to where it needs to be," Jaune explained, somewhat truthfully.
"I… suppose I wouldn't mind finding out what all the fuss is about then…" Glynda hedged. "But only for a few minutes and only my neck and shoulders."
"You got it," Jaune agreed with a completely innocent smile on his face.
Revenge was going to be sweet…
Beacon Academy, Friday Evening...
It was with a happy bounce in his step and a look of intense satisfaction on his face that Jaune re-entered housing arrangement number seven, reconnected with his Platoon, and joined Ren watching the news in the living room. At the same time, it appeared that all of the ladies of the platoon were fussing over their clothing because tomorrow they were all supposed to go out together to socialize and such.
Jaune had plans the next day as well… Well, it was more like he had a loose end he wanted to take care of, but knowing the man that he planned to visit, Jaune would probably enjoy himself regardless.
Of course, the difference between Jaune and the rest of the ladies in his Platoon was that they had hundreds of sets of clothes and they couldn't figure out what to wear, and Jaune had no casual clothing and thus had zero choice in the matter. What's more, he was broke, and he'd remain broke until the military finally started using those gravity barriers.
Idly, and without expecting anything to have changed, Jaune opened up the banking app on his scroll and looked down at the screen. Then he squeaked… loudly… and his scroll dropped from his newly paralyzed grip.
What's up John," Weiss asked, as she model walked her way into the room with an extremely attractive white and blue sundress on, only to find Jaune staring fixedly down at his scroll. With curiosity written clear across her face, she walked up to the scroll, picked it up and looked down at the screen. Then she dropped the scroll into Jaune's lap as if it had bit her.
"So… So many zeroes," Weiss gasped out, with her hands up and pressing against her cheeks.
"I'm filthy rich," Jaune quietly agreed.
"So… so what are you going to do then," Weiss breathed out, almost as if having money was a problem.
"I'm going to buy a brand new wardrobe, get myself a haircut, and I owe a man a cowboy hat," Jaune absentmindedly listed off.
Of course, at the mention that Jaune was going shopping for a new wardrobe, six different women suddenly peered into the living room as if they were leaning sideways through the door.
It appeared that the ladies of Platoon number one had an interest in what clothing Jaune would buy, and they had zero interest in missing out on this opportunity.
Without a word, Ren rose to his feet to walk quietly but quickly out of the room.