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Chapter 18 - Transactions, Interactions and an Action Movie
Flashback sequence…
Beacon Academy, Friday Afternoon, Immediately After School, Professor Goodwitch's Office…
"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 or do anything at all, she finally leaned in very close to stare down into Jaune's eyes with an extremely interesting expression upon her face. "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… but then, there was also a far more altruistic reason why Jaune wanted to perform an aura treatment with his mentor.
"Listen… Glynda… When I release my aura into a person's body… they feel it," Jaune continued, even as he pulled the remaining electrodes off of his body, and rounded Glynda's desk to stand behind her chair. "What that means is that you'll feel exactly where I'm channeling my aura throughout your body. I assume you understand why this might be useful to you specifically?…"
By this point, Glynda looked legitimately touched, which likely meant that she understood exactly what Jaune wanted her to do...
"That's such a… You know, Jaune… You really are a very thoughtful young man… Yes. Yes, I understand what you have in mind," Glynda finally confirmed with a soft smile on her face. "I'll piggyback my aura on yours in order to learn what it would feel like to cast my telekinesis Semblance throughout my own body."
After smiling in satisfaction at his mentor's intelligence, Jaune drummed his fingers along the top of Glynda's chair in an inviting fashion. Then he remembered one more thing that he had every intention of doing that he hadn't brought up yet, and he gently caught the woman's arm as she moved to take a seat. "There's one more thing that I want to do for you… I want to start giving you the same bone, tendon, and muscle density bolstering that I've been performing on my Platoon. I think it'll be helpful because my body's noticeably more aura conductive than it was when I first started. I don't know if the results will be as noticeable with you, but if they are, it might make using your Semblance within your own body a little bit easier.
As he spoke, Jaune eased Glynda down into her chair where he began gently smoothing his hands down the elegant slopes of her shoulders. Then he was surprised when one of the Professor's hands suddenly covered his for just a split second before the woman gasped and slapped her hand back down against her thigh.
Of course, by the time Jaune managed to start moving his hands again, he was smiling down at Glynda's bright blonde hair. He couldn't help himself. While there was a very good chance that the career educator sitting below him really was just a bit of a sadist, as she was unbelievably Spartan in her teaching and training, and she really was an incorrigible tease, Jaune was beginning to catch snippets of an exceptionally warm and caring woman beneath that very cool and aloof exterior.
With a small squeeze of his hands as a signal that he was about to begin, Jaune began gently channeling his aura down through the woman's shoulders, deeper into the core of her body.
Whimper… whine…
Jaune didn't stop when he heard the two tiny little noises that managed to escape Glynda's mouth, but he did lean just a little bit to the side to take in some of her face. Pink… Glynda's cheeks were turning pink. So far at least, the woman was reacting somewhat as he'd learned to expect, with the only difference being that she had exceptionally good self-control.
After nodding his head in respect for his very strong and unaffected Professor, Jaune slowly increased the strength of the aura that he was channeling, cast it down into the muscles, bones and tendons of Glynda's legs, and began focusing on the task at hand. A task that became that much harder to accomplish just a few seconds later, when Glynda began to ever so subtly wiggle and squirm under his gently kneading fingers. Then he consistently had to remind himself that it was supposed to be him that was on the attack right now, and not his very alluring Professor.
Get your head in the game, Jaune...
After shaking out his head and drawing in a very deep breath, Jaune poured his entire focus into an especially intense and thorough aura treatment, bolstering his Professor's body in a dozen different ways while removing any and all knots or tension that he could locate within the various muscles of her neck and shoulders. Of course, by the time he was nearly finished, the woman was melting into a languid puddle in her seat, but her head was also lolling back over the edge of her desk-chair so that she could bite at her bottom lip and release several very quiet moans almost directly into his ear.
For all that Jaune really did want to think that he was currently achieving a decisive victory over his mentor, the truth of the matter was that Glynda clearly had him completely figured out, and she was retaliating with everything that she had… No one, not even Yang, had ever made their reactions anywhere near as devastatingly erotic as Glynda currently was, which was actually extremely impressive given how quiet and subtle both the noises and the movements that she was making actually were.
Without doing much of anything at all, the twenty-eight-year-old Professor was managing to make her every movement sensual in the extreme, and her tight white dress shirt appeared to have lost its top two buttons along the way in order to tease him with just the tiniest amount of pale white cleavage…
Once again, Jaune was reminded that Glynda Goodwitch was a very, very formidable woman…
Despite Glynda's words to the contrary, Jaune's aura treatment went on for just over fifteen minutes, at which point a friendly little chime on her holo-computer announced that Professor Aria was asking for a moment of her time.
Slowly and reluctantly, Glynda's hands rose up to cover Jaune's so that she could draw them off of her shoulders. Then she was using her newfound freedom to lean forward over her desk and type in a confirmation to her colleague. Finally, with a long and unreserved sigh of contentment, the Professor opened what appeared to be a refrigerated compartment in her desk, pulled out two ice cold bottles of water, and silently handed Jaune the second bottle.
"Ahem… Jaune… That was very… educational, and… pleasant," Glynda slowly allowed, with just the slightest amount of hitch in her normal smooth and ultra-ladylike voice. In an almost perfect contradiction to the composure that she was currently affecting in her voice, when the educator finally drew the water bottle up to her lips, she drank nearly half the bottle's contents in one very long pull, and then she pressed the cold plastic surface to her forehead and cheeks as if her very climate controlled office was as hot as a summer day on the beach. For well over five seconds, but certainly no more than ten, the woman allowed herself to just sit there visibly cooling her body. Then Glynda was collecting Jaune's uniform from atop her desk, rising from her chair, and handing the clothing back to him just like she had every other day that week.
"Considering how... instructional I found that process just now, and how… relaxing it was, I suspect I'll request that you perform that... treatment, for me again," Goodwitch haltingly admitted while staring Jaune directly in the eyes. "Is that something that you'd be interested in doing for me?"
After receiving the folded up uniform and pressing it up under the armpit of his left arm, Jaune took a single step closer to Glynda so that they were standing only a foot away from each other, all without ever breaking eye contact with the woman. Then he forced his expression to become contemplative for two or three very silent seconds, before responding in a very measured, quiet and meaningful tone of voice. "I desire… to be of help to you, Glynda. I want you… to benefit in return for being so good to me."
When Glynda's breath hitched in her throat for a single instant, her eyes widened ever so slightly, and the pink flush present in her cheeks deepened just the tiniest little bit, Jaune slowly stepped away from the woman again and began to pull on his uniform shirt. It appeared that the two of them would have company any second now, and Jaune knew enough about his mentor to know that their time together was coming to an end.
Still… Jaune's suspicions had been correct. Revenge had indeed been sweet… He also couldn't wait for his mentor to finally notice the side-benefit of his aura treatment that he hadn't explained to her.
It would be extremely unwise for a gentleman to ever bring up such matters after all…
Beacon Academy, Friday Evening, Housing Arrangement Number 7, 1 Hour Later…
"So… So many zeroes," Weiss gasped out at the site of 'John Freeman's' new bank account balance.
"I'm filthy rich," Jaune quietly agreed.
While it had to be said that the Schnee family bank account made Jaune's newfound absurd wealth seem like a single grain of sand on a beach by comparison, the fact that he was an independently wealthy, 'self-made man' couldn't possibly be denied. Jaune figured this more than anything was the reason why the heiress currently had such an amazed/shocked expression upon her face.
"So… So, what are you going to do then," Weiss breathed out, almost as if Jaune having lots and lots of money was going to be 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 to be shopping for a brand new wardrobe, six different women suddenly poked their heads into the living room as if they were small animals peeking out from behind a tree.
It appeared that the ladies of Platoon number one had an interest in what clothing Jaune would end up buying, and that conversely, they had zero interest in missing out on this opportunity.
At the exact same time that the women were filing into the living room, Ren was rising up to his feet without a single word, sound, or sideways glance, and was moving out of the room as quickly as he could manage without drawing any attention to himself.
Of course, Jaune saw exactly what his only male teammate intended to desert him to, but he resisted the urge to grab at the silent boy with all of the desperation of a drowning man. There was no sense in dragging Ren down with him, especially considering how poorly suited his personality was to the chaos that was about to follow.
Speaking of chaos…
"I'm making a few ground rules," Jaune immediately called out as Penny, Pyrrha, Blake, Yang and Ruby slowly moved into the room, with Nora trailing a few meters behind them.
"Oh? And what pray tell, are these ground rules," Weiss asked with a look of wry amusement on her own face.
"I have enough sisters to know exactly what's happening here," Jaune began with a very wary expression on his face. "I can see that you girls are interested in picking out my clothing as if I'm a human dress-up doll or something. I won't try to stop you because I'm not dumb enough to believe that I'll succeed, but I do intend to limit the chaos."
"At this point, several of the girls had looks of growing amusement on their faces, as well as a lack of anything even resembling sympathy, which is why it meant so much to Jaune when Penny asked a question specifically geared towards helping him out. "So, what do you mean by limiting the chaos?"
After making a point of giving his sister an exceedingly thankful look, Jaune drew in a deep breath and steepled his hands atop his lap. "So far this year, every single piece of equipment and furniture that I own has been gifted to me by all of you, as I received zero points in my Initiation Test and didn't enter this Platoon with any resources of my own. Tonight, when we head into Vale, I will begin paying you all back for your generosity with various clothing and gear, but only if you pick one and only one article of clothing for me…"
"So we uhhh, we get to buy clothing tonight as well," Nora asked, in an extraordinarily nonchalant tone of voice.
Jaune could see right away that there was a wealth of different emotions hidden within Nora's carefully bland tone of voice, which made an unfortunate amount of sense. The orangey/redhead girl had explained to him on the very first night that they met that she and Ren were orphans that grew up in the outer wilds. It appeared that the girl's foot chest wasn't as full of clothing as everyone else's as a result.
Jaune immediately gave both Penny and Pyrrha a pair of very discreet glances, to which the two enormously astute young ladies subtly nodded their heads in understanding. Nora wouldn't be coming home tonight without a small fleet of delivery VTOLs scheduled to drop off her massive new wardrobe.
Returning his attention back to Nora and the rest of the women standing at her sides, Jaune nodded his head and then pulled a notepad out of his pocket. "Yes, we're going to buy some clothing, but we're also going to buy whatever other gear might help us complete our upcoming missions both in urban and rural settings."
With that much said, Jaune picked up his scroll again intending to email Glynda for advice, only for an exceptionally attractive holo-image of his mentor to suddenly appear on the device's palm sized screen all by itself.
Glynda Goodwitch had somehow added her name, number, and a very classy profile image of herself into the contact list of Jaune's scroll, and she was currently in the midst of calling him…
Everyone present in the room saw the holo-image of their Combat Class Professor lighting up the air just an inch or two over Jaune's right hand, causing them all to stare at him in slack jawed amounts of surprise. Emails were the norm when it came to contacting their Professor's for questions or vice versa… Exchanging their personal numbers to make random scroll calls back and forth on Friday evenings was an entirely different matter…
Jaune could see the women of his team speculating so hard that their brains were in danger of catching fire, but he had something a little more immediate to deal with than whatever conclusions they were currently jumping to... "John speaking," Jaune began after pressing the touch screen button to accept the call.
"Why do I look over five years younger," Glynda immediately asked, without any preamble.
"I highly doubt you look fourteen," Jaune immediately replied in self-defence.
"Cute response John, but I'm being serious right now," Goodwitch persisted. "What have you done to my skin?"
Goodwitch sounded just a little bit frazzled at this point, which, if Jaune had to guess, probably meant that her coworker, Ms. Aria, had freaked the hell out when they met up for their little appointment.
"I helped your body create a mixture of collagen, elastin and Hyaluronic acid and then I spread it out throughout your skin to begin restoring it to peak condition," Jaune explained in a very quiet voice. The renewal obviously isn't permanent, but it'll last about six months without me reapplying the treatment. On the other hand, if I perform the treatment on a regular basis, you should eventually look similar in age to the women of my Platoon."
"You're de-aging me," Goodwitch asked in an extremely incredulous tone of voice.
"Not really, no. I haven't yet figured out how to increase the number of times the cells that comprise the human body can divide and reproduce without immediately giving them cancer," Jaune whispered after walking to the far off corner of the room. "At this point, the changes that I've made to your skin are purely cosmetic…"
"At this point," Glynda repeated very, very meaningfully...
"I have Dr. Pietro Polendina looking into stem cell and telomere research with the different applications of my Semblance in mind," Jaune replied very, very quietly. "He's relatively confident that I'll eventually be able to slow the aging process or maybe even…"
"Stop it," Glynda suddenly interrupted.
"Reverse it," Jaune immediately corrected.
"No, I mean stop your explanation," Glynda sighed out. "You shouldn't speak of something so important and revolutionary outside of a lab with anti-espionage tech surrounding you on all sides."
"Ah, well, okay then," Jaune allowed with a wary glance at his scroll. "If you don't have any other questions of me, I actually have a question for you and then a series of requests that might be a bit of a pain."
"You've earned the right to inconvenience me," Glynda replied with almost no inflection in her voice.
"First, my question," Jaune began. "Has Ozpin received the money that I owe him?"
"Yes, he has," Goodwitch immediately responded with a sly amusement in her voice. "Your debt to Ozpin was paid off directly from your military payments as soon as you received them, which is why it took this long for your bank account to reflect the amount of money that the military is paying you. You are debt free Mr. Freeman. Every single Lien in your bank account is yours… Spend it wisely…"
'Yes, well that brings me to my next request actually," Jaune hedged. "I'm about to go to Vale to purchase a great many things including but not limited to….
Over the next ten minutes, Jaune explained what he had in mind, and then wrote down a list of hardware that would suit their needs and a list of contacts that could help get him organized as quickly and efficiently as possible. Then, after thanking his mentor several different times, Jaune ended the call and returned his attention to the rest of the room.
Every single female in Platoon number one was staring over at Jaune from their spots upon the sectional couch as if he and his scroll call were a prime time television show… None of them would've heard what he and Glynda were actually talking about, but it appeared that the clandestine nature of his whispered words were only making them that much more exciting.
"My my my John," Yang drawled out with an evil/playful quality to her voice. "You must know that we're gonna want the goods on you and Ms. not-so-Goodwitch…"
"Calling up a student at random at 4:30 Pm on a Friday night," Blake added with a comically embellished look of disapproval upon her face.
"Just how hands-on are these… sessions of yours, in that very comfortable and isolated office of hers," Yang asked with her trademark salacious grin running full power across her face.
While pulling together every single technique that he'd ever learned during the carriage and mannerism control training that he'd completed back at the castle, Jaune very carefully ignored the fact that, yes, his tutoring sessions with Glynda Goodwitch were indeed turning out to be very, very hands-on. Instead, he gave everyone sitting on the couch a very deadpan look for several seconds in a row, before walking across the room and handing over the list of different gear that he'd just written down…
For the next ten seconds, everyone on the couch craned their necks to read the list sitting in Yang's lap, at the end of which time, their suspicion and curiosity dulled back down to normal levels of interest.
"Boo, boring," Yang finally announced, with a gesture at the list in her hands. "Why do we need all of the survival and military hardware on this list? We're Hunters and maybe even Officers, but we're definitely not soldiers."
"Officers Oetger and Shaw are definitely going to end up making us learn how to soldier because you can't lead what you don't understand," Jaune predicted with absolute confidence in his voice. "Even if they don't, and I'm wrong, I'll eventually want you all to learn how to set up a secure base of operations in any environment including the wilderness, how to rotate patrols, how to properly use vantage and choke points, and so on and so forth. It's information that might save your life if the shit hits the fan and you end up roughing it far from a colony's walls."
Nora and Blake appeared indifferent to Jaune's idea because doing what he was describing was already second nature to them, Ruby, Penny and Pyrrha appeared genuinely interested in learning everything that Jaune was talking about, and Yang merely looked resigned.
Weiss was visibly appalled.
Forty Minutes Later…
Fourteen times a day, once an hour between the hours of ten Am to twelve Pm, bus-sized VTOL shuttles ferried people back and forth from Beacon Academy to the nearby super-colony that was Vale colony, Vale.
Beacon wasn't more than a five hour walk from Vale colony, and that distance could be aura-dashed to make the trip take only a fraction of that time, but if you wanted to wear casual clothing and hang out with your friends on the trip then the bus-shuttles were by far your best way of going about it.
"Hey Johnno… What are you goingta do when all of us girls go out on the town tomorrow," Nora asked after pulling her arms back from around a noticeably wiggling Weiss.
"I've arranged to have dinner with a friend of mine, Penny's father, Pietro, and then I'm supposed to meet some other friends for a beer or two at a nightclub called Junior's," Jaune idly replied while enjoying the view out the window on his right.
What Jaune failed to catch was the shocked expressions that grew across everyone's faces at the idea that Jaune would 'get a beer or two with friends'...
"I don't think I'm being rude when I say that I can't picture that," Yang admitted. "I legitimately can't imagine the super upright and health conscious John Freeman, drinking on a Friday night."
"That's because what you're actually trying to imagine is me getting completely hammered, and that's unlikely to happen." At the tail end of his words, Jaune finally turned his attention away from the forest below the airship to take in the various women sitting all around him. Penny, Ruby, and Pyrrha were sitting on the bench directly ahead of him while Yang and Nora were sitting across the aisle. Blake was sitting directly to his left with Weiss on her other side.
Yang currently looked like she wanted to make him drink too much just for the hell of it.
Ruby looked both excited and nervous at the idea of drinking alcohol, as under normal circumstances she'd still be considered a minor until she turned sixteen. She was only exempted from the normal drinking laws now because her Beacon trainee status automatically made her a Huntress in the eyes of the government.
Judging by the glances that they shared back and forth over Ruby's head, Pyrrha and Penny had never consumed alcohol before even though they were both of legal age to do so, and they were looking to see if they had that in common. Then they grinned in amusement when they realized that they actually did, and their friendship further solidified.
Jaune found that entire moment heaping helpings of cute…
Weiss looked completely unsurprised, which made sense as she'd already be well aware that he knew how to mix, pour, share, and drink alcohol responsibly like any number of well-groomed Atlesian nobles... She also knew for a fact that Jaune had tailed her to several different bars and nightclubs back during his protection detail days, which is why she wasn't going to bother trying to act like she was some kind of puritan. She liked to have a drink and a dance or two, and she wasn't going to deny it.
It didn't take a genius to see that Blake wasn't a party animal, but the young cat faunus appeared to be interested in Jaune's weekend plans nonetheless. What this probably meant was that it was the friends part of his explanation that was catching her attention...
Then Blake proved Jaune's suspicions correct when she turned to regard him at close range with an intense look upon her face. "You've made friends in Vale, despite the fact that you're still hiding who you are, John?"
"I've decided that Greg O'Neil and Payla Brown are my friends, and my secrets don't cheapen the sincerity of my feelings," Jaune immediately replied, with a meaningful look back at the black ribboned girl. He wanted Blake to really think about what he was saying, both because he liked her despite all of the secrets that they were keeping from each other, and because he wanted her to develop real, meaningful friendships with the rest of their Platoon.
"Those names… Aren't they… the machine gunner and the engineer from the airship," Weiss asked.
"Is this airship the reason why Payla is such a fanatical follower of yours," Blake interjected, following up on Weiss's question.
After freezing in place for just a single moment at Blake's repeated use of the word 'fanatical,' Jaune gave the black haired cat faunas what he hoped was a very gentle look of disapproval. "Please don't use that word to describe my friend, Blake. For all that Payla's a civilian and is justifiably terrified of the Grimm, she's also an amazingly brave young woman. You and I represented the only hope that she had back there in that airfield, and she was strong enough to focus on that feeling to the exclusion of everything else..."
What Jaune refrained from saying out loud was that the words fanatical or fanaticism strongly reminded him of his days stuck in captivity. To him, those two words represented powerful, all-encompassing and purposeful delusion. They brought forth images of sick, twisted, and fearful desperation, concealed within a thin but tightly woven veneer of absolute resolve… The word fanatical unnerved Jaune at a base, almost instinctual level...
In the silent moments that followed his quietly spoken words, Jaune saw Blake slowly come to recognize why he was upset with her, at which point her eyes dropped towards her hands, and her bow drooped down against her scalp. Blake Belladonna was an immensely distrusting individual that had trouble seeing the strength and integrity of the people around her. What made her cynicism even more unhealthy was the fact that she also turned it inwards and did damage to herself in the process. At the moment, Blake appeared to be beating herself up quite a bit over what amounts to a poorly chosen word, and Jaune couldn't allow that to continue…
After allowing his hand to drop to the bench seating between their bodies, Jaune slowly, subtly, reached out, gently wrapped his hand around Blake's forearm near her wrist, and then locked gazes with the woman when she twitched and her eyes rapidly snapped in his direction. Then he was releasing just the tiniest amount of his aura into her body, in an attempt to convey a series of feelings. He liked Blake. He thought she was a good person. He wanted her to ease up on herself.
At first, Jaune didn't think his efforts were getting him anywhere, because Blake wasn't reacting at all. Then he remembered how much strain just shaking his hand had caused the female faunas back when they first introduced themselves on the airship, and he realized that touching her at all was quite the privilege. Finally, the woman nodded her head at him as if to acknowledge his feelings, and Jaune slowly allowed his hand to drop away.
When Jaune's frustration with Blake interrupted the explanation that he likely would've given, Weiss decided to offer one up instead. "I'm sure you've all heard of how I saved the Jango with the help of a 'mysterious black haired Atlesian man,'" she said with bunny fingers in full effect.
Everyone sitting within the bus-shuttle nodded their heads because the fact that the black haired Atlesian was probably their Platoon Captain was already a much discussed topic.
"After the bandits retreated off the airship, John here piloted it through the mountains while I guarded the civilians on the lifeboat back on the coast," Weiss explained in an offhand manner. "From what Payla told me during the time when the Vale Military was flying us all back to Vale, John could use the tech in his reactive armor to interact with the airship's damaged controls, but most of his attention was going towards operating the ship's two main cannons to fend off a massive swell of approaching Grimm, which is why he obeyed her flight commands like a helmsman-robot would and she Captained the ship. So you see… The two of them worked together to make it through the mountains. I imagine Payla trusts John because he trusted her first."
"Wait. You just stepped forward out of nowhere and solo piloted a military gunship," Blake immediately asked in an incredulous tone of voice.
"Yes, but not well," Jaune clarified, equally quickly.
"That's not what Greg told me," Weiss argued in return. "If I recall correctly, he called your flying… gnarly."
"And Greg is the machine gunner," Ruby asked, with her eyes bouncing back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match.
"I suspect he's the same machine gunner from the right side tower of the barrier-wall at Croftlan Airfield," Jaune explained.
"Oh, so he was completely amazing, and he saved your ass like a dozen times over," Nora immediately predicted.
This time Jaune merely nodded his head. Yes. The man had done exactly that...
While Vale Colony was one of the three largest in all of Remnant and had several different shopping malls in the offing, the one location that everyone always pictured when they thought about performing extravagant levels of shopping was the West-end commercial district. It had everything that anyone could ever dream of purchasing, and it was the location of over three quarters of the contacts that Glynda had recommended to him….
Jaune and his Platoon would be heading in that direction very soon, but first he needed to make some arrangements that would, among other things, make their future trips to vale quite a bit more convenient in the long term. The first place that Jaune and his Platoon visited when they landed in Vale Colony's central bus-shuttle terminal was a real estate office that catered to small businesses.
"You want what," the stuffy looking real estate agent that Glynda recommended as being very discreet barked out in an incredulous voice as he stared at the teenager sitting in front of him.
"I wish to purchase a large, two bay Garage with second level office spaces in the downtown area as close to the main Shuttle terminal as possible," Jaune repeated in a very businesslike tone of voice. While he was tempted to use Glynda's name to assure this man, this Mr. Bowman's cooperation, he wasn't the type to exploit his friends and colleagues except as a last resort.
"Are you some kind of amateur mechanic then, because let me assure you that starting a new business isn't something that you can just do on a whim over the weekend," Mr. Bowman lectured, while eyeing up Jaune's age and mismatched clothing.
"I'm not a mechanic. I merely desire a location to..." After clicking his mouth shut on the explanation that he'd started giving, Jaune closed his eyes, drew in a very deep breath, and changed his entire persona seemingly on a dime. Very suddenly and very thoroughly, Jaune's demeanour was that of a young Atlesian lordling, with money, power and influence to spare, and no patience whatsoever for the impertinent questioning that he was currently receiving. By the time Jaune's carriage and mannerisms had finished changing, he was giving Mr. Bowman a very stern and disapproving look, making it extremely obvious that he thought the man was an ill-bred and unsophisticated yokel.
Mr. Bowman visibly flinched at the piercing stare that he was suddenly receiving from the very cold and unimpressed young man sitting ramrod straight in front of him.
"Are you perhaps not interested in having my business, Mr. Bowman," Jaune asked in a very slow, crisp and condemning tone of voice. "I assure you that I can find any number of agents such as yourself." The way that Jaune said those words made it exceedingly obvious that he thought Mr. Bowman's entire existence was completely insignificant.
By the time Jaune was finished with his little production, a bead of sweat was trailing down Mr. Bowman's right temple. Then he was waving his hands in a rapid negative and was scrambling towards a massive file drawer in the corner of his office.
The women standing in the doorway of the office all exchanged looks back and forth, presumably in response to Jaune's rapid character change and how effective his ploy ended up being. Then they started grinning back at him when he gave them all a sly little wink…
The derelict Auto repair shop that Jaune ended up purchasing from a very surprised Mr. Bowman no more than forty-five minutes later was a large, cube shaped monstrosity ringed by a tall graffiti covered perimeter wall that was ruining the curb appeal of an entire row of small businesses. Structurally, the building was basically immortal as it was nothing but thick concrete and steel walls, with solid steel garage-bay doors dominating two thirds of the front of the building.
Visually... it was disgusting…
The building itself sported a solid steel man-door both on the ground floor leading to the garage, and up a stairwell leading to the office spaces on the second floor The interior of the building also contained a metal stairway that bridged the office spaces and the garage level. For all that the building was suffering from a mixture of time and neglect, it was a large, secure, and easily fortified location, and the second level could quickly be converted into a rather large and comfortable living space.
Just five minutes after completing a tour of the building, Jaune knew for sure that he'd found exactly what he needed, and he sent a large sum of money to Glynda using his banking app so that she could purchase it for him. Of course, he could have bought the property for himself, but he never wanted there to be a digital record or transaction that tied him to this, or any, location. To do so would defeat the entire purpose… Thankfully, he trusted his mentor to transfer ownership of the property to his name using far less detectable means.
Over the following twenty minutes, Jaune and Glynda arranged for a contracting company to triple the thickness of the concrete, metal, and rebar comprising the perimeter walls, add a metal rampart on the inside of said walls, replace all of the shattered windows on the second floor of the building with extremely durable safety glass, remodel the second floor office spaces into a large, loft style, four bedroom apartment, renovate the building's basement into a fortified bunker, add a large reservoir of red dust in the sub-basement beneath that bunker to fuel a new top of the line and efficient power generator, add a sophisticated suite of communication and computer equipment in the bunker itself, add waist high barrier walls ringing the roof of the building, add a rooftop access stairwell capped with yet another thick solid steel door, add a massive cistern to collect and purify rainwater in the middle of the roof, paint every wall on the property a nondescript white, and repair whatever needed repairing.
By the time Jaune slipped two of the sixteen keys that Mr. Bowman had given him into the front mailbox of the property so that the contractor team could get to work when they arrived later that same day, his newly swollen bank account was well over two-million Lien lighter. Thankfully, Jaune was rich enough that no zeros were being taken away from his bank account balance.
"Uhhh John," Ruby hedged, when their Platoon had walked a single block down the street from the Garage and were heading in the direction of the mall. "When you said that you were going shopping, you didn't mention that you were going to be making such… massive purchases."
"When Yang's motorcycle is brought over to Vale, where is she going to keep it," John asked in reply.
"A storage space…" Ruby said before she trailed off. "Wait… You bought an entire building to use as a storage space?"
"Storage space, garage for various vehicles and equipment, and a highly defensible rendezvous point in case of emergencies," Jaune clarified as he handed out a set of keys to all of the women walking at his sides. "Beacon is one of the safest locations that Remnant has to offer, but when we graduate we're going to end up travelling the entire world on various assignments. Eventually, I plan on having one of these bolthole hide-aways ready and waiting in locations all over Remnant."
"Once again, the women of Platoon number one exchanged several glances back and forth, but this time the predominant expression on all of their faces was confusion and curiosity.
Once again, Jaune noticed the expressions on everyone's faces, but this time he didn't want to explain what it was that had him preparing to such an extreme extent.
The Grimm had a leader… Monty Oum and his Maidens, the Grimm had a leader...
When Platoon number one finally arrived at the West-end shopping district, Jaune briefly took possession of Penny's scroll, programmed his banking app into it, set up his bank account to approve any purchases that she makes using her fingerprints as the method of authentication, and then sent her and Pyrrha on their way.
Nora visibly didn't know what was going on when Pyrrha and Penny suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders and started bodily dragging her down the street towards a very pink and sporty looking clothing store, but she still ended up smiling at her friends and playing along like the carefree individual that she truly was.
Jaune smiled at the threesome as they disappeared down the street, even as he thanked Oum once again that he had Penny to help him with matters that were gender specific or sensitive in nature.
The two provisions that Penny had made before leaving to help get Nora's clothing sorted out was that she actually did want to help him pick out his clothing, and she really, really didn't want him to cut his hair too short. She liked it the way it was right now, because it was long like this when they first met. It was around that point in their conversation that Pyrrha found out about his intentions to cut his hair down to military regulation length, at which point she'd back Penny up with surprising amounts of intensity.
Jaune was left just shaking his head on the matter... He had no idea why his current wild mop of hair was so popular... It made him look like a character from one of Nora's cartoons pre their first evolution.
Keeping Penny's desire to help him pick out his clothing in mind, the first stop that Jaune brought Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang to was a store that had been suggested to him by Glynda that catered to S ranked Hunters going on long term expeditions in the outer wilds. The store carried every variety of gear or survival tech imaginable, but then Jaune had a long list of items that he wanted to pick up.
After turning to look at Ruby and Weiss specifically, Jaune held a hand up to his chin in thought. "For the most part, what I'm about to buy in this store isn't going to be used at Beacon or even during most of the training exercises that Oetger and Shaw have us perform," he finally began with a thoughtful quality to his voice. "Don't get me wrong ladies, I actually am a fan of combat dresses in general as I see them as a versatile type of armored clothing that can be worn in various different occasions. Nevertheless, within the next few minutes, I'm going to have the two of you try on a few different varieties of highly sophisticated BDUs."
"Ruby and Weiss immediately turned to look back and forth at each other. Huntresses and Huntsmen that wore BDUs (battle dress uniforms) generally did so at the orders of an employer or a Guild that they were intensely loyal to. Until that time came, most Hunters wore what felt comfortable, worked well with their fighting style, and matched their sense of aesthetics. In essence, what Jaune was asking them to do was wear a uniform for him specifically, and Jaune could see right away that they were rebelling at the idea.
"I know, I know, you don't want to wear a uniform for me, and that makes sense because I'm not your boss, Lord, employer or anything," Jaune continued, attempting to get ahead of the girls' concerns. "The reason I want you to try on clothing that has pant legs is because of the gear that I'm about to buy all of you. By the end of the day, I want every member of our Platoon to have duty belts with attached climbing harnesses, several clip holders for extra Dust, and a drop leg thigh pack to carry water, rations and regen medicine. I want us all to be ready for anything, and that means we need to be able to carry supplies without sacrificing maneuverability.
"Need I remind you that our Platoon isn't actually a Special Forces unit," Weiss grumbled as she looked through the front window of the store towards the skin tight synthetic BDUs lining the walls. "I'm a lady, John. I'm not a bodyguard, mercenary or vassal..."
"Weiss, you could wear paper bags for shoes and filthy rags for clothes and you'd still look every inch the sophisticated and dignified lady," Jaune assured the girl with an entirely sincere expression on his face. Then, when the Atlesian heiress's frustration was suddenly replaced by a pink flush growing on both of her cheeks, he turned to address everyone else as well. "Blake, Yang, neither of you need to buy BDUs because the gear that I'm buying can be worn over what you currently wear, but that doesn't mean you can't buy an expensive set of synthetic armor on me. This store has the best lightweight impact absorbing material in all of Vale so far as Ms. Goodwitch is concerned so feel free to take a look around. Ruby, you don't need to wear anything that makes you uncomfortable, but please buy at least one pair of pants. I need you to be able to climb up or belay down walls without flashing your panties at our enemies.
And that was the moment when all four women understood what John was actually trying to avoid.
"Pants, right pants," Ruby murmured to herself with her sister rapidly nodding her head at her side.
Within the next few minutes, all four women were moving in and out of dressing rooms where they were trying on several sets of sleek synthetic battle gear in the color schemes that they usually wore, and Jaune was picking out similar gear for Ren, Nora, Pyrrha and Penny. Picking a color scheme for the girls wasn't actually all that difficult all things considered. Nora was all pink and white with a bit of pale blue to match her eyes. Pyrrha was red and bronze with brown accents like her normal arena attire, but with a tiny bit of green thrown in to match her eyes. Penny's BDU's were likewise the same color scheme that she gravitated towards most days, with lime green, forest green and neon green being tastefully separated by borders of pure white synthetic material.
Lie Ren's BDUs were actually the hardest to arrange because he liked to wear dark green and white, but with a shocking pink on his wrists and forearms. In the end, Jaune was literally forced to draw a color scheme on a premade template that the store clerk provided him, and then pay extra to have the items custom made.
Of course there was a chance that the skin tight, armored BDU's that Jaune was buying everyone would never need to be worn, and that he was just being a survivalist lunatic, but he'd rather be overly cautious and waste a ton of money then be too carefree and suffer the consequences. The same could be said about the duty belts, climbing harnesses, thigh packs, backpacks, water filters, canteens, ration packs, utility knives, hiking boots, one Kg ultra-light tents, ultra-light survival tarps, Tact Bivvy (bivy sacks are four ounce sleeping bags used by the military), ultra-efficient red Dust lighters, Dust medicines, and various other survival gear that he was purchasing for everyone.
Okay, fine... Jaune was going a little bit overboard, and he knew it...
Long story short, Jaune wanted his Platoon to be prepared for whatever might happen on their future missions, which is why he was buying multiples of everything that he picked out, with the intention of having the duplicates delivered to his new hideout.
"Hey John," a teeny tiny little voice suddenly called out from behind the furiously survivalising young man. Jaune immediately turned around to find Ruby standing at the entrance to a nearby dressing room wearing a very stylish black, maroon and red catsuit (skin-tight onesie) and a very uncertain expression on her face. "Do I… Do I look… okay?"
Right away, Jaune got the impression that Ruby was extremely shy about how the revealing suit was showcasing her every curve, most likely because her tight little body wasn't quite as physically mature as the rest of her teammates, and she was looking for a half decent reason not to wear it. Neither that knowledge nor the knowledge that Ruby really was an extremely attractive young woman made answering her question any easier, because Yang's face was poking out of the dressing room directly behind her sister, and she was giving him a very, very meaningful look. Still… Some things were more important than playing nice with overprotective older sisters…
"I think the suit looks great on you, Ruby," Jaune assured with a warm and encouraging smile on his face. "You're quick, agile and graceful, and the suit accentuates those qualities to make you look like a femme fatale assassin from a movie.
"What's a femme fatale," Ruby asked with a curious expression growing on her face.
"It's a type of female character from quite a few of the novels that I like," Blake instantly supplied, as her head suddenly popped out of a nearby dressing room. "John's saying that you're a female spy type that's as seductive as you are dangerous." With her explanation given, Blake immediately disappeared back into her dressing room, leaving behind an ecstatically happy Ruby, and a very conflicted Yang.
Jaune was actually pleased with Blake's most recent explanation despite the fact that Yang was giving him a very conflicted series of looks, because Ruby needed the confidence boost and it was nice to see Blake actively supporting her teammate.
Of course, now that everyone knew that Jaune was critiquing how they looked in their suits, the rest of the women present exited their dressing rooms with newly expectant expressions upon their faces.
In the moments that followed, Jaune was reduced to drawing in very deep breaths in an attempt to wrest back control of his mind, his face and most important of all, his body.
Monty Oum…
Weiss was a vision of perky curves adorning proud, dignified lines, in her predominantly white catsuit, with bright red piping and ice blue accents around her ribs, wrists and ankles.
Blake's leonine and graceful hourglass figure flared out seductively at her hips, under a catsuit with a black and white motif that closely followed what she wore on a daily basis. The woman looked like a comic book cat burglar, as if her faunus traits simply refused to be concealed.
Yang was… sexy. She was so so sexy and she knew it. She was outstandingly curvy despite her ultra-low body fat (which made literally no sense), and that much was made completely obvious under a catsuit that was a dramatic blend of oranges and yellows separated by bands of dark brown and black.
Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang stood side by side in a line like in a superhero movie, and the visual impact of their current appearance was enough to stop Jaune's brain right in its tracks.
"So, speak up, Casanova," Yang teased with a super smug expression on her face. "What do you think of our super-spy get-ups?"
"I think, I just managed to weaponize sex appeal," Jaune breathed out just a split second before his mind re-engaged and he swallowed heavily at how wildly inappropriate he just was.
Of course, by the time Jaune managed to click his mouth shut around his inner monologue, it was already far too late, and all of the women standing in front of him had subtle blushes growing across their faces. "My apologies," Jaune slowly added in as casual a voice as he could manage. "What I meant to say, or at least what I should have said... is that you're all amazingly beautiful young ladies, and I deserve every single second of the jealousy sent my way for having the opportunity to spend time with you..."
This time there was nothing subtle about the pink flush that was growing across Ruby and Weiss's cheeks.
"So it's all worth it then," Yang asked with laughter leaking into her voice.
"Every single second of it," Jaune immediately assured.
"Good, because you really will have to fight your way through every single one of those jealous boys over the next month or two," Blake added while biting her bottom lip in sudden amusement.
"Bring it on," Jaune breathed out just loud enough to hear.
Due to the fact that Penny and Pyrrha were still busy spending a small fortune on Nora's new wardrobe, Jaune attempted to leave Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang behind at an ice cream shop so that he could get a haircut. His efforts amounted to nothing. When the girls found out what he was up to, they came along, and then they back seat drove Jaune's new barber into a state where the man didn't feel safe removing any of his hair.
After twenty minutes sitting in a chair with a man fussing at every single hair on his head with a magnifying glass, he left the shop with a haircut that was a quarter of an inch shorter than before at the most.
The girls seemed extremely pleased with themselves.
Jaune seriously didn't get it…
After rendezvousing with Penny, Nora and Pyrrha, Jaune and the newly formed superhero squad called team RWBY ate dinner at a family restaurant that made a pretty good vegetable stir-fry, and then they moved on again to hit some nearby clothing stores.
By this point, Nora looked as if she wanted to avoid clothing stores for quite a while, but she rallied in strength when she was assured that it was Jaune's turn to experience what she'd gone through earlier.
Jaune found the idea that super, ultra, mega energetic and enthusiastic Nora Valkyrie was tuckered out by what he was about to go through completely horrifying.
Everyone else was amused.
Jaune attempted to remind everyone that they were allowed to buy clothing for themselves just so long as they didn't treat him like a human Ken doll. Penny was the first to say that she already owned more than enough clothing, and that she'd much rather fuss over her brother. Not long after that, Weiss seconded Penny's idea, under the auspices that Jaune was her Platoon Captain and as such the state of his clothing reflected upon her personally.
One by one, the rest of the women of Platoon number one plopped themselves down outside of the men's changing room with their arms full to bursting with the clothing they'd picked for him to try on.
"No mercy at all," Jaune murmured as if to himself.
"No, but at least us girls are getting to bond and spend time together exactly like you wanted," Penny whispered while hugging Jaune tightly from the side. Then the orangette was rejoining the rest of her new friends with a smile that stretched from ear to ear, and Jaune was realizing now more than ever that his sister had him completely figured out…
The hour and a half that followed wasn't necessarily torture, but there could be no denying that Jaune experienced a wide array of emotions as he was alternatively insulted and objectified depending on how positive the reaction was to whatever get-up he was wearing. One thing that immediately struck Jaune as odd, was the fact that the girls were also choosing a new wardrobe of boxer-briefs and tank tops for him to wear, with their flimsy excuse being that he always wore them during his morning grooming ritual so they wanted to make sure that they were modest enough for mixed company.
Jaune didn't believe a single word that they were saying.
The girls were fully aware that he didn't believe them.
Jaune did it anyway because it was simpler this way, and because he wasn't shy.
The girls had a very good time…
All of the girls reacted in a slightly different fashion. Nora liked the way Jaune looked, but was extremely casual and calm the whole entire time. Weiss tried to sit like an Atlesian Noblewoman would, straight backed, with her legs crossed and her hands resting on her knees, but she also wiggled in her chair, bit at her bottom lip and blushed far too much to maintain her usual ultra-dignified and ladylike persona. Pyrrha and Ruby both blushed a lot, covered their faces with their hands, peeked out from between their fingers, and squirmed as if they were being overwhelmed. Blake didn't do much at all, but when she really, really liked something, she bored a hole into Jaune's body with her eyes. Yang made her appreciation completely obvious with nearly endless innuendo and jokes.
Penny… Well… Penny was somehow the worst of all of the girls present merely by being completely candid about how much she approved. She approved of his muscle tone and physique. She approved of his height, facial features, bone-structure, and smooth unblemished skin. She approved of his long spiky hair and the fact that the recently formed team RWBY hadn't let him cut it short. She approved of the way that he carried himself when he moved, walked, crouched and bent over. She even described in excruciating detail just how much she approved of the way that he filled out his boxers…
It was at that point that Jaune would've pulled Penny aside to explain what was and was not appropriate to say about people in mixed company, but judging by the super amused expression on the young woman's face, his adoptive sister knew exactly what she was doing, and she was enjoying every single moment of it.
By the time Jaune had a very large series of bags bought and arranged to be delivered to Beacon overnight, he had a very comprehensive wardrobe. Thankfully, through a mixture of grim determination and the fact that the girls really did seem to have his best interests at heart, he was never pressed to buy anything with any outlandish colours or patterns, and for the most part he was wearing more masculine colors such as reds and blues, blacks, whites and greys. As it turns out, the women of Platoon number one did in fact want him to look good, and thanks in part to their help, he was confident that he would.
More importantly, Jaune wasn't all that in the know about Vale's casual clothing culture, so it was comforting to know that he could blend into a crowd.
Two Hours Later...
Later that night, when they all piled back into housing arrangement number seven, Jaune collapsed onto the living room couch, turned on the news, and then promptly had the remote stolen from his hand by a quick moving blonde.
Without a word or any signs of hesitation, Yang launched herself down on Jaune's right hand side, with her back leaning back against the armrest of the couch, and her legs laying across his lap. Then the holo-monitor channel was changed to the beginnings of a super campy sci-fi action movie from a couple decades earlier, and Yang was smiling as if her every wish had been granted.
Jaune stared down at the legs laying across his lap, and then cast a glance aside at the blonde that was reclining back more and more with every passing second. "I'm going to ask this question even though I don't want to ruin this relaxed and wholesome moment that we're sharing… You're not uncomfortable spending time with me anymore?"
After glancing sideways at Jaune, looking away again and then putting down the remote, Yang turned her body to look directly at Jaune and then drew in a very deep breath. "I'm not going to go so far as to say that I'm completely relaxed around you, but I will say this… In every interaction that you and I have ever shared, you've tried your absolute best to be… everything… every single little thing that I've been raised to believe men are incapable of being…"
"I… I think that might actually be one of the most sincere and meaningful compliments that I've ever received," Jaune replied after taking a few moments to unpack what Yang had actually said. Then he grinned, patted Yang's foot, and lounged further back into the couch cushions. "Well then, since I'd really like a chance to get to know you better… Do you want company watching RoboDoc three and RoboDoc four: Revenge of the Nanobotvirus?"
"Only if you massage my feet for five minutes every time RoboDoc says a robot doctor themed one liner," Yang replied.
"So, for literally the entire length of both movies then," Jaune mused in return.
Yang only nodded her head with an enormously contented smile on her face.
Five Hours Later…
Ruby Rose woke up at some point in the dead of night, with a craving for some milk and or cookies that drove her downstairs and into the kitchen
And that was the moment when she saw it...
John Freeman was asleep where he was reclined back on one end of the living room couch.
Yang was asleep with a blanket covering her body and her head laying on John Freeman's lap!
Without a single moment's hesitation, Ruby Rose pulled her scroll out of her pajama pocket, opened the camera app, and began taking picture after picture after picture. This, this was big, this was momentous. This moment needed to be recorded for posterity!
It was only after taking several dozen photos that Ruby looked at where her sister's head was laying, and really thought about what that might feel like. Then the girl was returning to her bed with a blush on her face, leaving behind a plate of completely forgotten cookies...