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Chapter 20 - Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)
Author's Note:
I made a minor change to the end of the last chapter just a day after submitting it. In this change Jaune expressed his desire not to continue fighting the Malachite twins immediately after they realized that he had their fighting style completely figured out. He did so mostly because he didn't want to endanger his friends and all of the civilian's filling the bar.
Of course, Jaune's attempt at diplomacy didn't work, so there haven't been any major changes to the flow of the story.
Sunday Morning, Beacon Academy, Housing Arrangement Number 7...
When several different... somethings... gently rubbed along the length of his chest, ribs, stomach, thighs and legs, Jaune's eyes suddenly snapped open and he began taking in his surroundings through heavy, grit filled eyes...
Well... Damn.
Jaune was currently in a bit of a bind, both physically and socially... He was only wearing a pair of boxer briefs, he was laying atop what felt like a dozen blankets thrown haphazardly all over the central portion of team RPBY's barracks, and he was covered from head to toe in passed out, scantily clad Huntress trainees...
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Penny was currently clinging against his side like a burr with both of her arms wrapped firmly around his ribs, but Ruby was also using his shoulder as a pillow, Blake was curled up like a cat atop of his lap, and Yang was hugging the both of them from the side. Even the women that weren't in physical contact with Jaune were very close by, as Weiss and Pyrrha were spooning each other on his right with Pyrrha sandwiched against Penny's back...
A moment later, when Jaune finally managed to lift his head to take a look around the room, he found an unconscious Nora wrapping herself around an equally unconscious Ren like a sloth hugging a tree. The lifelong friends were passed out in a heap of limbs just a few feet beyond Yang's back.
How in the?... How did this happen?!... With an extremely long indrawn breath, Jaune closed his eyes, and began completing a self-assessment even as he attempted to return his biology back to what he considered his physical baseline... He purged both his bloodstream and his brain of the intoxicants that were currently causing him an unpleasant mixture of headache and nausea, he repaired any and all damage that he might have done to his body at the cellular level, and then he attempted to sort through his scattered memories.
Jaune needed to figure out how he ended up getting nearly blackout drunk, and then he needed to remember what led to this unbelievably messy little sleep-over...
Slowly but surely, it all came back to him, and he was left biting his lip over an enormously complicated mixture of emotions.
Flashback sequence...
Saturday Night, Vale Colony, Vale, Junior's Nightclub...
After diverting a bladed kick aimed at his face by catching Melanie Malachite's upraised thigh in one arm and then her waist in the other, Jaune turned to interpose her body in between himself and Miltia, and the woman barely managed to stop herself from slicing her claw weapons into her own sister's back. Making use of the twins' momentary surprise, Jaune immediately broke away from the girls, leaving them standing there and staring at him with an irate form of realization growing across their faces. They knew... They could finally tell that he'd figured them out...
"So you girls are empathically linked," Jaune remarked with a small nod of his head and a non-threatening smile on his face. "Cool Semblance... Cool fighting style too. Look, I'd much rather just dance it out with you two than continue endangering all of the civilians filling this bar... Any interest in putting aside the weapons?"
After staring dumbstruck at Jaune's friendly and amiable demeanour for several seconds in a row, Miltia and Melanie suddenly turned towards both their teammates and all of the Security Guards that were surrounding them in every direction, and then gestured for every single one of them to move at exactly the same time. "Don't just stand there you idiots! Get him!"
Without a word or a single moment's hesitation, all of the red-ties that had been making a thick perimeter circle around their fight began advancing inwards in Jaune's direction.
Damn.
While Jaune still thought that his attempt to diffuse the fight by keeping his hands to himself had been well worth the effort, it was becoming increasingly obvious that the Malachite sisters fit in entirely too well with their Platoon-mate Cardin Winchester. Neither of the sisters appeared to give a damn about such trivial matters as civilian safety, obeying the law, or the fact that they were supposed to be holding themselves up to a much, much higher standard.
No... The Malachite sisters simply didn't care... They would not, could not, be reasoned with or dissuaded away from their current course of action.
They were going to need to receive similar treatment to what Cardin Winchester received on the first day of school...
In the split second that he had left before the red-tied goons finished approaching from every direction, Jaune channeled even more aura into his massively overstimulated brain, and increased the percentage of the armor that he had activated from forty to sixty percent. He was going to burn through his aura quite a bit faster this way, but since his attempts to keep the fight small and under control had failed, it was officially time to unleash an ultra-brutal level of efficiency instead.
And then, at the very last possible second, Jaune's options suddenly grew by a significant margin.
"Ooohhh, this looks like fun! I think we should join in too," a bright, feminine and unbelievably confident voice suddenly yelled out from well outside of the perimeter being made by Miltia and Melanie's goons.
The voice immediately caused all of the red-tied henchmen in the room to bodily flinch in painful remembrance, even as team MMAD and every other club goer that was standing helplessly at the sidelines turned towards the front door of the club.
Every single female member of Platoon number one was walking into the club, looking like supermodels in their tight little cocktail dresses. In a perfect contradiction to the class and sophistication of the dresses that they were all wearing, every single woman standing in the doorway was cracking their knuckles, and smiling menacingly down at the thick ring of red-ties...
Well, to be honest... Ruby and Penny didn't actually look the least bit menacing. Instead, they mostly looked adorable as they tried their level best to copy Yang and Nora by squeezing their little knuckles into the palms of their opposing hands. Weiss, on the other hand, really did look menacing, but she had her fists pressed down into her hips instead. Blake and Pyrrha, likewise, looked ready to raise all hell, even though they were merely standing there with their hands slightly raised at their sides.
For the most part, the danger was visible in the ladies' expressions. The threat was in their eyes...
When the circle of red-ties surrounding Jaune suddenly broke away in order to face the line of Huntresses instead, the first thing that Jaune did was seek out Penny's eyes across the room. Then, when their eyes locked, he began pointing up towards the warehouse style roof where a visible Wi-Fi network was paired up with a bank of cameras recording everything that they were doing.
With an adoring smile and a playful little wink, neither of which fitting in with their current circumstances, the orangette gestured that she had the matter completely under control. Then Penny closed her eyes for just three or four seconds at the most before nodding her head to let him know that she'd succeeded...
Next, Jaune turned towards Weiss, locked eyes with the heiress, pointed meaningfully over at Greg and Payla, and then smiled gratefully when the woman immediately nodded her understanding. During the next few seconds, Weiss launchpadded herself clear across the bar to stand in between Jaune's civilian friends and the army of red-tied Security Guards. Finally, Jaune regarded the rest of his Platoon, pointed at Melanie and Miltia and then growled out the word "mine" both loud and clear for absolutely everyone in the bar to hear.
All of the women filling the doorway into Junior's club nodded their heads in immediate understanding.
Melanie and Miltia flinched at the aggression in Jaune's voice, before scowling angrily and adopting yet another fighting pose.
As Aurora and Dove began to realize that they weren't fighting at an overwhelming advantage anymore, they pulled out their weapons as they attempted to ease to the back of the room. Then they saw Yang and Pyrrha flanking them to keep them in the middle of the dance floor and they understood that there would be no sneaking out the back door.
Nora, Blake, Ruby, Penny, twelve of Penny's laser-swords, and a new arrival in the form of Lie Ren, fanned out to completely encircle the red-ties, their intentions clearly geared towards containing the fighting in the middle of the dance floor. Even as they did all this, they made sure to usher people towards the door and demanded that they immediately leave the club.
Jaune beamed in pride even as he slowly stalked closer towards the increasingly furious looking twins.
For several seconds in a row, no one said a word as they all stared towards their intended targets, and moved closer in small but energetic movements.
Then the entire nightclub went to hell in a handbasket.
Yang's Perspective...
When the tight circle of red-tied security guards surrounding John suddenly expanded outwards, leaping towards the rest of his Platoon, Aurora Snow began sprinting off to Yang's right, hoping to slip past her in all of the chaos.
She wasn't going to make it...
Instead, Yang's arm launched out directly in front of Aurora's neck and she was clothes-lined down hard onto her back with a pain filled grunt and a growl of rising anger. Then the woman was bouncing back up to her feet and waving her shotgun-maul at Yang's head with a cry of aggression and a pale blue pulsing of her aura.
Pouring on the speed, Yang dodged aside Aurora's blow, and then stepped in again to return the favor with a one two punch, only for an invisible force to strike her in the face not just once, but twice, staggering her back a half a dozen steps because of how powerful the blows were.
Interesting... Very, very interesting... Aurora wasn't half bad...
Undaunted by the damage that she'd just received, Yang dashed in again to clash with Aurora, stepped back to avoid a poorly timed strike to her ribs, stepped in again, and was violently slammed aside when she was struck twice in the exact same location that Aurora had just swung her weapon.
After grunting in surprise and bouncing away from Aurora for a second time, a maniacal smile slowly but surely grew clear across Yang Xiao Long's whole entire face...
John Freeman wasn't the only person who could figure out the mechanism behind an enemy's Semblance after all...
Aurora Snow could make her attack have a type of echo effect, a sharp spike in air pressure that repeatedly beat at the air behind her weapon for a second or two after it leaves the area, and Yang had just taken damage when she moved within the Semblance's area of effect. Truth be told, Yang had actually fought against something similar to this in the past, but never invisible and never using a heavy weapon like a maul as the medium. This was interesting... This was fun... Yang's smile grew both wider and eviler by the second, and Aurora Snow's face paled just as much in return...
Then Yang's eyes began burning a bright and fiery red, and she started weaving a route towards Aurora's body that avoided locations where her weapon had recently passed...
This shameless little skank had attempted to ambush her Platoon Captain.
Her ass was grass...
Pyrrha's Perspective...
Instead of launching in Pyrrha's direction, Dove Bronzewing immediately aimed his rifle-sword at Pyrrha's body and began firing Dust round after Dust round at her with a desperate intensity that made it clear he thought this was his one and only chance. Pyrrha was completely unarmed, which was apparently giving Mr. Bronzewing hope that he could damage her merely by spamming projectiles at her upper body.
The boy was wrong.
With a sharp stomp of a high-heeled shoe down against the rim of a discarded drink tray, Pyrrha bounced the metal disk up and into her hands just in time to wave it in front of her chest and deflect a rapid barrage of Dust rounds up towards the ceiling. Then she was spinning and swerving towards the boy in a rapid blur of motion that had his eyes widening in alarm and his sword waving back and forth in a desperate bid to keep her at a distance.
Pyrrha would have to admit that she was disappointed. Dove Bronzewing was a massive let-down. For all the posturing he does whenever he's with his friends or team, he was only capable of that kind of bravery when he had a clear advantage. The boy was a chump, a fool, a loser. He was waving his free hand down towards the ground as if he was hoping for some sort of miracle to save him...
And that was the moment when a pale green flash covered the floor beneath Pyrrha's feet, and she found herself grinning at the boy with a nasty type of enjoyment on her face. Maybe Dove wasn't as hopeless as she'd thought. At the very least his little trick was keeping things interesting...
Using his aura in the form of a Semblance, Dove Bronzewing had just removed any and all friction from the floor in a wide circle around the two of them, causing Pyrrha's planted feet to slide across the club floor with no control over her destination.
Depending on how he used it, Dove Bronzewing actually did have a rather useful Semblance. It really was too bad that the boy was nothing but a cowardly follower type with no personality or creativity to speak of... As was usually the case, the boy's Semblance reflected his personality... The boy was as spineless and slippery as an eel...
His Semblance wasn't going to be anywhere near enough to protect him.
With an increasingly violent glint growing in the depths of her emerald green eyes, Pyrrha began activating her polarity Semblance at a low level, directing it into the metal tray that she was carrying in order to maintain her balance atop the newly frictionless floor. She was basically holding herself upright by clinging to the tray in her hands, and planting her legs as straight as she possibly could against the newly slippery floor. The tactic would work, but Pyrrha had to admit that she disliked having to use her Semblance in a way that could potentially be noticed by other people. She was going to have to make this quick. She was going to have to make this painful. She was going to have to channel all of her frustrations into every single one of her attacks.
Thankfully for Pyrrha, just a few minutes prior, Dove Bronzewing and his little pack of degenerates had attempted to injure John.
Pyrrha had plenty of frustration to draw upon...
Her opponent was going to regret it...
Weiss's Perspective...
The role that Jaune had tasked Weiss with performing was a relatively simple one all things considered, and yet she still felt herself preening just the tiniest little bit over how he was trusting her with the safety of his friends.
Of course, in the seconds that followed that very quick but somehow significant thought and the uncomfortable self-awareness that it caused Weiss to experience, she rapidly shook out her head to dispel the embarrassment and chagrin that she was feeling. This variety of simpering obedience simply could not be countenanced! She needed to maintain better control of herself. She refused to be some sort of swooning damsel! She was Weiss Schnee, trainee Huntress, critically acclaimed pop idol, and Heiress of the SDC Dust Company!
Still...
No one, nothing, was going to go anywhere near Greg O'Neil and Payla brown... Of that Weiss was absolutely certain.
Even as that commitment solidified within Weiss's mind, she began waving both of her hands back and forth, in order to activate several Glyph barriers around her and the two civilians standing directly behind her. Both a dark pink and a light blue patchwork of stylized Glyph patterns formed in the air in front of them, creating a field of unidirectional anti-momentum and slow barriers that would ensure no random Dust rounds managed to penetrate into their booth.
A split second later, when the expanding ring of red-tie wearing henchmen collided with the encircling members of Platoon number one, they were immediately slammed into the ground, the air, or into each other in an overly dramatic ragdoll effect, and Weiss was smiling wickedly at the carnage that was being unleashed upon Jaune's attackers.
"You ladies have a habit of coming to John's rescue," Greg pointed out after cracking open a fresh beer and moving to stand on Weiss's right hand side.
"That does appear to be the case," Weiss slowly allowed without ever turning her attention away from the tightly contained ultra-violence that was happening in the middle of the dance floor.
Despite the fact that Weiss was far too preoccupied to respond with anything even resembling wit, Greg O'Neil still appeared to be amused by her reaction as he drained the last of his beer in one prolonged series of chugs... Then the man suddenly reeled back and heaved the empty glass bottle clear across the over-large room with no warning whatsoever.
In the split second that followed Greg's random outburst, Weiss opened her mouth to ask the man just what in the hell he thought he was doing... Then the words never escaped her throat, as her question was immediately answered in a spectacular fashion. The thrown beer bottle had just smashed down directly into the chest of a man wearing a massive teddy bear mask that was drawing twin large caliber machine guns out from underneath his DJ set-up. The bear themed DJ was immediately knocked clear off of his feet in a shower of broken glass, knocking the two guns out of his hands and taking him out of the fight. Greg's attack had been so effective and so well timed, the DJ never managed to fire even a single Dust round at Platoon number one.
After nodding happily at a very surprised looking Weiss and then winking playfully at his begrudgingly impressed girlfriend, Greg leaned back against their booth table, drew Payla to his side, and then watched the rest of the fight with an enormously entertained expression on his face.
When her moment of extreme surprise finally came to an end, Weiss allowed just a trace of amusement to show on her face as she returned her attention back towards the barroom brawl. Lie Ren and Blake were karate chopping goon after goon unconscious like a pair of professional assassins, Nora was kicking and punching one leg after another like a bone breaking machine, Ruby was tenderizing everyone that she encountered with a crowd control post (velvet rope holder) that was a barely visible blur of rapid movement, and Penny was using the hilts of her laser-sword Semblance to whack several henchmen unconscious with every single moment that passed.
The fight against the red-ties was unbelievably one sided.
Mostly due to a lucky turn of events, Pyrrha and Yang's fights weren't much better
In a mysterious bubble of open space amidst the red-tied henchmen, Yang was proving herself to be the worst possible matchup for a heavy hitter such as Aurora... With every hard impact that Yang took, her Semblance powered her up just as much in return, which is why it would've been a far better idea to have Dove fight her and attempt to whittle away her aura with hundreds of smaller blows while her footing was compromised. Instead, Yang continued to block and then absorb all of the power being delivered by Aurora's triple strength attacks, until, finally, she forced her way below the woman's upraised arms, and delivered an absurdly powerful uppercut punch into her newly unprotected chin. Then, when Aurora's feet completely left the ground, Yang leapt to follow the woman's body up into the air, throwing three more punches deep to her adversary's stomach before ending the combination attack with a powerful sweeping kick that launched the girl five meters across the room.
With a bright flash of light, Aurora's passive aura shielding was destroyed when she slammed into a concrete pillar, and she collapsed down to her hands and knees with blood dripping from her nose in a state of aura shock. She gasped for air, twitched and trembled as she tried to rise back up to her feet. Then she slumped down onto the ground again as a fist bonked her on the back of the head and she immediately lost consciousness.
Not even five meters away, Pyrrha was also proving herself to be a ruinous matchup for Dove Bronzewing to have to fight against, by somehow sliding back and forth across a patch of floor that was quite a bit slipperier than ice, while raining down dozens of blows against the boy's weakened defenses. Dove's Semblance obviously didn't give him any specific ability to move on surfaces with zero friction, beyond the fact that he always wore shoes with enormously sharp metal spikes built into the soles, which is why Pyrrha's continued ability to get around at a rapid rate was causing him a great deal of trouble. Over and over again, he took blows to the body and the face, and his return sword swings were no match for one of the most celebrated martial artists on the face of the planet.
After only a little more than a minute of fighting, Dove received a hard haymaker punch to the mouth followed by an elbow to the neck that dropped him to a knee, just in time for a foot to kick his chin back up into his head. With a bright white flash, the boy's aura field completely shattered, but this time no follow-up blow from Pyrrha was ever necessary. Dove Bronzewing managed to knock himself unconscious when he slipped backwards on his own Semblance slick floor and hit his head against the concrete.
Finally, as the bar-room massacre came to a sudden end and the red-ties were scattered like bowling pins, the battle between Jaune and the Malachite twins was revealed for everyone's viewing pleasure.
Everyone in Platoon number one slowly moved towards Weiss, Greg and Payla, as they watched the fight unfold.
Jaune's Perspective, 2 Minutes Earlier...
Now that he'd activated his reactive armor up to sixty percent, Jaune only had a little over six minutes remaining in his aura usage. Thankfully, at this point, he was mostly making use of the armor in order to impart a sense of shock and awe. The reason for that decision was simple. Considering the lengths that these girls had been willing to go in order to injure him, merely defeating them wasn't going to be anywhere near enough. No... Jaune needed to win his current fight so thoroughly, so decisively, he also won any other fights that the twins might think of having in the future...
He needed to make himself lethal... He needed to make himself cruel.
He needed to scare the living shit out of the Malachite sisters.
With that much in mind, Jaune concentrated his aura into the armor around his hands until two pitch black double edged daggers formed and extended out past his wrists as if he was wearing assassin gauntlets. Next his attention turned towards his elbows, where twin spikes grew into place as if he was wearing a particularly cruel set of plate armor. Finally, with a slow and almost indifferent crack of his neck, he began stalking towards the twins like an alpha predator.
The twins didn't like what they were looking at. They didn't like it at all.
With a half wild look back and forth at each other and then a furious snarl of aggression both girls launched into some of the fastest movement that Jaune had ever fought against so that they could begin circle strafing around his body at a rapid rate. So far in their fighting, Jaune had always been stuck standing in the middle of the two girls, as one of them tried to dominate his attention and the other attacked from behind. Up until now, Jaune had always allowed them to have that advantage over him because his intention had been to try to de-escalate the fight. Well that hadn't worked... like... at all... so now he was going to change up the formula.
When Miltia blurred by his chest and swept a clawed hand at his neck, Jaune instantly lashed out in a blur of barely controlled speed, managed to catch the girl around the forearm with crushing strength, heaved her body around his own with all of his armor bolstered strength, and slammed the girl directly into her sister when she attempted to kick him from behind. Then, even as both girls flew across the room towards a more secluded area of the bar, he followed at an absurdly powerful sprint, and slashed his gauntlet dagger into the side of Miltia's thigh and knee.
Of course, when the Malachite twins finally slammed into a concrete wall in the corner of the bar, it was feet first and with a counter-attack already in mind, and they launched themselves back at Jaune with their weapons weaving an impossibly complex web of slicing metal.
Jaune's eyes could take in and perceive the trajectories of the twin's newest high speed barrage of attacks. Likewise, his armor bolstered body was capable of moving fast enough to avoid the blows. Unfortunately for Jaune, neither of these facts made the act of utilizing his entire brain at exactly the same time anything but a torturously painful and overwhelming experience.
As his perception of time slowed, and the sensory data that he was receiving both broadened and intensified several times over, the slightest sensation that Jaune experienced suddenly became an event, it became an outpouring of information that barraged his mind in a tidal wave of miscellaneous data.
-He felt his diaphragm heaving to create negative pressure outside of his lungs in order to have them expand and draw in the oxygen that his body needed so desperately
-He felt his heart steadily pumping red hot blood throughout his veins to an extent that made him aware of just how liquid the human body really was
-He felt his sweat being pumped out of his various glands to flush through the layers of his dermis and bead in between his skin and his suit
-He felt his muscles screaming with lactic acid buildup to an extent that he'd never noticed in the past, and he noticed the oxygen in his blood breaking it back down into a mixture of carbon dioxide and water
-He felt the electrical signals that were being sent back and forth along his nervous system hundreds of thousands of times a second all over every inch of his body, as if his mind was a violent storm lashing his body with lightning that powered his thoughts and movements
-He felt his aura pulsing, shifting, soothing and activating every cell within his body, as he moved faster than he'd ever moved in his whole entire life and yet experienced it at nothing more than a painfully slow and plodding crawl.
Jaune was sensing it all, everything, all at once, and it was akin to an explosion of knowing, a violently awful, all consuming, present, that simultaneously aided and punished him with every single millisecond that passed.
At the same time, it was working. It was enough... and that was all that mattered.
A single instant after Jaune dropped to a knee, a claw slash from Miltia flew just an inch over his head. After he rose back up to his full height and tilted his head forty-five degrees to the left, a knife heel slice from Melanie careened right past his ear. After he slid just three inches to the side, a second claw slash screamed down his side to slam into the ground, and just an instant after he leapt a foot off of the floor, a sweeping kick flew through the air just an inch under his feet.
In the crystal clear and painfully acute clarity that Jaune was currently experiencing, he repeatedly forced his screaming muscles to heave him out of the way of the twin's rapid-fire attacks, until he was finally clear of their barrage and growling purely for dramatic effect.
After kicking off of the nearby wall for the momentum required and careening back down again from his dodging leap, Jaune slammed the heel of his foot down into Melanie's face with crushing force, used the back of her head as a starting block, and sprint/dash his shoulder directly into Miltia's body. An explosion of gritty grey rock dust flew in every direction as Jaune cratered the brunette girl's back deep into the wall behind her, but then he forced all of the rock dust to press in through Miltia's aura field and directly into her face with a very sudden and powerful application of his Semblance.
It was cruel. It was dirty...
It was working.
Jaune wasn't playing around. He wasn't being nice. He never even paused when Miltia coughed and hacked, and released a pain filled yelp. Of course, the girl would never have fought fair during any of the very one-sided fights that she'd taken part in in the past, which is why she'd be both surprised and scared over the sudden damage that she'd taken to her eyes.
The idea that they might actually lose this fight had never even occurred to the sisters. The idea that they might actually get hurt wasn't even a possibility in their minds... They were brats. They were fools... They weren't prepared to deal with what Jaune was doing to them.
Good.
Without a single moment's hesitation, Jaune kicked off of the wall on both sides of Miltia's newly struggling body, flew back towards Melanie just as she rose to her feet, and was just in time to rabbit punch her right in the chest with both of his gauntlet daggers. Even after delivering such a powerful and damaging attack, he didn't relent in the least. He had no intention of allowing Melanie to ragdoll away from their fight and potentially regain her bearings. With that in mind, he grabbed the woman around her knife bladed ankle just before his own attack could launch her clear across the bar, and then he began swiveling in place at a rapid rate to swing her around his body in a blur of speed that would make Ruby proud.
A moment later, when the timing was juuuust right, Jaune finally released Melanie's legs and watched her soar towards his target.
When Miltia finally managed to clear the grit out of her newly stinging eyes and pull her body from within the crater that she'd created in the wall, she found Melanie's body flying at her at the speed of a Dust round and both girls were slammed back into the concrete of the wall in yet another explosion of gritty grey dust.
Even as Miltia could be heard coughing and hacking and scrabbling to pull herself out of the wall again, a rhythmic pounding sound began impacting against the ground over and over again. Then, a few seconds later, when the squad leader of team MMAD finally managed to crawl out of the dusty cloud that she'd created in the concrete wall, she was still much too far away to stop what she saw happening.
Jaune had his fingers threaded through the back of Melanie Malachite's hair so that he could slam her face down into the floor, cratering the concrete with her forehead, orbital bones and cheeks over and over and over again.
And that's the moment that it happened.
With a bright white flash, Melanie's aura field completely shattered, her defences ceased to exist, and the next blow of her forehead into the ground would crush her head like a watermelon being hit by a sledge-hammer.
"Wait, stop, Melanie doesn't have any aura left!" Miltia immediately screamed out with her arms outstretched in supplication.
"So what," Jaune instantly growled back, even as he allowed one of his gauntlet daggers to flow back into his body, released Melanie's hair, and pulled her dominant leg up over his knee instead. "Were you two planning to stop assaulting me when my aura ran out? No... Of course you weren't. If you've proven only one thing to me tonight, it's that you believe a person can do whatever the hell they want just so long as they have the strength to pull it off... Well... I believe I have enough strength to leave little Melanie here with a permanently "S" shaped leg."
Melanie's eyes instantly widened and she tried to struggle out of Jaune's grasp, but he instantly punched her hard in the face with his unbladed fist, causing steady rivulets of blood to spill from her nostrils and split open lips.
"Try to move again and I'll stab both of your kneecaps with my punch dagger," Jaune warned in a feral sounding growl.
Of course, Miltia had also tried to force herself back up to her feet while Jaune was distracted with her sister, but she dropped down to her knees again when his eyes swiveled back to spear her in place.
Jaune looked back and forth between both girls for several seconds in a row as if daring them to move. Then, when they didn't so much as breathe, he finally broke the silence. "This little ambush of yours has proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that you girls are nothing but gangsters with Huntress training. What's more, you've both demonstrated a willingness to endanger innocent civilians to an extent that I can neither condone nor allow to continue. The way I see it, the two of you are destined to become "B" or maybe even "A" rank criminals, which means the wisest course of action is for me to just end you both right here and now..."
"No," Melanie began.
"We're," Miltia added.
"Huntresses," Melanie finished in a desperate gasp.
"Huntresses," Jaune repeated, incredulity and disbelief adding emotion to what would otherwise be a completely deadpan tone of voice. "You two rabid Chihuahuas actually have the gall to call yourselves Huntresses, the people that put their lives on the line to protect society's walls, to protect the civilian population?" As he said those words, Jaune pulled Melanie's calf firmly against his thigh again, and then he gave the twins a very menacing look. "Go ahead girls... Tell me again that you're Huntresses... Say it and mean it. Make me feel your conviction through what's left of your aura... I dare you."
Neither woman said a word. The silence stretched on for well over fifteen seconds...
"I thought so," Jaune finally spat out as he threw Melanie's leg down onto the floor as if it was nothing more than garbage. "Neither of you have the faintest idea of what you are or what you want… You're nothing but a tough upbringing and a massive, ugly, chip on your shoulder. You're nothing but wasted potential. As you are right now... you're worthless… I'm going to spare you your leg this time Melanie. If I'm ever forced to come back for it, I'll remove the whole damned thing from its socket."
Then Jaune was walking across the empty dance floor towards the rest of his platoon.
"If you're so fucking great, what would you have us do," Melanie suddenly screamed towards the ceiling, her trembling body flat to the floor, her eyes tightly shut, her hands balled up into fists, and her nose leaking blood all over her face.
"First I'd suggest that you stop imprinting like baby chicks on every single man that kicks the crap out of you," Jaune loudly replied without ever turning around. "Then I'd aim to be... better... or at least a little less repulsive..."
Leaving behind the two newly silent young women to lick their wounds in the corner, Jaune finished moving to stand in front of his Platoon, where he found Weiss giving him an exceptionally curious look.
"You took mercy on those two girls despite the fact that they were trying their utmost to ruin your body," Weiss suddenly pointed out. "Your actions seem... out of character."
After nodding his head because Weiss's confusion made sense, Jaune began gesturing for Penny to explain what they were about to send to the twins' scrolls. Then he was suddenly interrupted by a loud slamming noise in the background and he was forced to turn his attention back towards the bar.
"Stop it right there you punks!" Junior, the owner of the club, suddenly yelled out as he dashed out of the back area of the nightclub and then jumped up onto the bar with his grenade launcher weapon in hand. "One more step and the Police will receive this holo-footage of you assaulting my staff!"
With a flourish, Junior cued up a very large holo-image in the middle of the room that showed Jaune attacking the Malachite sisters, and the rest of his Platoon ragdoll affecting the red-tied Security Guards. Of course, the camera footage was heavily edited so that it looked as if it was Platoon number one that were the aggressors...
"Penny," Jaune immediately called out in a very tired and impatient tone of voice. "Can you show this fool how blackmail is actually supposed to work?"
With a nod and some rapid typing on a data-scroll in her hand purely to conceal her technopathic abilities, Penny replaced Junior's highly-edited holo-footage with the real camera-footage that had the Malachite twins, Dove, Aurora and the red-tie gang attacking Jaune for no apparent reason. On the right hand side of this holo-projection was yet another image that featured Junior's extremely secure office computer booting up all by itself, and then having its data files opened one after another at an extremely rapid rate. Within a matter of only a minute's time, Penny located, saved and then secure-file-transferred hundreds of different documents regarding the man's money transfers, banking records, contacts, emails, and any other dirty information that she could find.
All of it. She found all of it...
Every single piece of information regarding Junior's long and sordid life of crime was now firmly in Penny's possession... Penny Polendina owned Junior, AKA Hei Xiong, son of single mother Su-Li Xiong of 122 Arbour road, Anvil Colony.
She owned the man body and soul... and he knew it.
By this point Junior looked like he was going to puke all over the wooden finish of his bar.
"Do you have any more harebrained schemes to try out on us, Mr. Xiong," Jaune asked in a low toned and feral sounding growl, making sure to use the man's real name in order to underscore just how vulnerable the gangster had just become.
"After looking all around the club for backup, only to find the twins staring at the hologram with shocked senseless expressions on their faces, and every other man in his organization unconscious, Junior's shoulders slumped and he sat down on the edge of the bar... "What will it take to keep you from completely destroying me?"
"First, the understanding that you... work... for ... me, and then answers to all of my questions," Jaune slowly replied as he quickly read a small info dump that Penny had just emailed to his scroll. "According to the intel packet that I just received, you've managed to keep your crimes mostly centered around smuggling and information brokering. You're very fortunate that such is the case... You see, I'm of the opinion that someone even worse than you will immediately take your place if I... remove you from existence... For that reason alone, I'm going to spare you the short and violent fate that you'd normally experience for trying to blackmail me and mine... Instead, I'm going to make use of you as a data mine, and I'm going to insist on veto rights to whatever work you take from this point forward."
"I do like the sparing my life part of your plan, but I'll lose my operation if I get too selective about what work I take," Junior immediately pointed out. "I won't be able to pay my men."
"I know that, which is why I have every intention of paying you for your services," Jaune replied with a knowing nod of his head. "According to the information that I'm looking at, you usually charge twenty-five-thousand Lien for every job that you take, and that your best week in the last year saw you completing four assignments. I'm willing to pay the difference up to what you'd make for completing four jobs per week for the length of time that I require your services. In return, I want you to act like everything's business as usual, while keeping me informed about any organizations that are buying, selling, or doing anything noteworthy."
"So you're some kind of amateur crime fighter trying to make a narc out of me," Junior asked with a look of growing disgust on his face.
"No... I assure you that I'm not an amateur anything... I don't have the time to worry about petty theft, street drugs or prostitution. I'm more concerned about the bigger picture," Jaune countered slowly and with great intensity in his voice. "Truth be told, I'd prefer that you come to understand how fragile Vale Colony truly is, understand my desire to keep it safe, and then conclude that helping me actually benefits you... Unfortunately, neither you nor your twin attack dogs appear to be the altruistic type, so I'll say this instead... If any of you attempt to kill, abduct, extort, betray, blackmail or even just lie to me or mine, ever... this holo-footage and all of your personal information will be superimposed over every hologram throughout the entire colony, sent to the Police, and then emailed to Ozpin. I have ways of knowing both where you are and who you talk to, and I'll be keeping a very close eye on all of you."
After taking a quick look over at Penny only to find the orangette studying a hologram of the security cameras littering the compound of rooms beneath the club, his actual home, right into his bedroom, Junior shivered from head to toe, gave the Malachite sisters a completely furious look, turned back towards Jaune, and then nodded his head in understanding. "What do you want to know?"
"Tomorrow night, I'm going to call your personal scroll number," Jaune began in an all business tone of voice. "At that time, I'm going to have a very long list of questions for you, and I'll expect you to tell me everything that you know. Then I'll use my own sources to verify what you tell me, and if your information checks out, you'll continue to have a future."
For the second time in less than a minute, Junior was reduced to nodding his head in understanding.
Outside of the nightclub, clinging to some nearby buildings and peering in through a line of grimy warehouse windows, were half a dozen 1.5 meter sized, spider appendaged robots, with several different telescopic cameras and thermal image capturing devices growing out of their carapaces. These Hunter robots observed the events that were unfolding within the nightclub with a level of interest that mirrored the human behind their current programming.
Olivia Arc's home programmed Seeker-bots had finally found their target based on parameters that she'd designed into them all by herself. Among several dozen other identifiers, these bots could recognize their target using voice recognition, bone structure, skin tone, and eye color, and all of the parameters they were seeking were a perfect match to the man currently fighting it out within the nightclub.
The Seeker-bots immediately launched into the second phase of their programming.
Jaune's Perspective...
When Platoon number one, Greg O'Neil and Payla Brown exited Junior's nightclub, every single member of their group that wasn't Penny were staring at Jaune as if he had two heads.
"You're not just a barbarian, you're also a gangster," Weiss murmured in a breathy little voice, with her hands balled up just under her chest.
"Not a gangster," Jaune argued with the heel of his right hand pressing up into his temple.
"You just blackmailed control of Junior's gang away from him, and you never even hesitated," Weiss argued in return, her voice sounding much more excited than it did upset.
"Junior was going to be a problem for us, so I brought him on side by force." At this point, the pain-filled sharpness filling Jaune's mind was finally easing away, and he could open his eyes without being completely overwhelmed by sensory data. Still... Ouch... That mind mastery technique was going to need a ton of ironing out... With his thoughts returned to the here and now Jaune regarded his mussed up black shirt and dark blue jeans with a sigh. Why was it that an aura field couldn't protect clothing like it did skin? He was covered in concrete dust...
"From what I saw, it's Penny here that's the scary one," Blake pointed out with a sideways glance at the orangette. "I've never heard of anyone, anywhere being anywhere near as talented a hacker as you are, and you were only using a data scroll at the time."
Instead of answering with words, Penny merely smiled with her eyes closed and rubbed the back of her head as if she was embarrassed by Blake's "praise."
"Penny and John are always such a good team," Ruby added as she moved in to give her partner a hug from the side.
"Actually, I was extremely impressed with everyone's teamwork just now," Jaune pointed out with a happy smile and a nod at his Platoon. "I would be interested in hearing how you all knew that I was in trouble though."
"We didn't," Yang immediately clarified. "We just decided it'd be fun to see what you're like when you're drinking."
"We were curious," Weiss added soon after Yang finished speaking.
"I called Renny to join us when I found out that we were crashing your party," Nora concluded with an arm wrapped around her partner's back.
After gesturing aside at Ruby and Penny, Pyrrha coughed and then drew in a very deep breath. "Actually... The three of us have never consumed alcohol before. We figured you'd help us do it right, or at the very least detox our bodies if we get completely hammered."
Blake only shrugged as if her attendance at Junior's Nightclub couldn't have been helped, but judging by the smirk that Yang was giving her partner over her shoulder, she hadn't resisted coming along for very long, if at all.
"With a look aside at a very amused looking Greg and a very interested looking Payla," Jaune nodded his head and then gestured at the group as a whole. "Well, Junior's is a bust, so which bar did you girls come from?"
Soon enough, the ladies of Platoon number one were drawing Jaune and his friends down the street to a nightclub called The Bridge that was blissfully devoid of red-ties.
Greg O'Neil's Perspective...
John Freeman was the man, and Greg O'Neil was highly amused.
Earlier in the evening, before Junior's nightclub unraveled into a scene from an action movie, John had described his life at Beacon in a very thorough but clinical sort of fashion. The man had described his Professors, his classes, his atrocious aura control and how he was trying to fix it, etc... One thing that John had not explained, was the fact that he was the Captain of a Platoon full of supermodel caliber beauties, some of whom were legitimately world famous.
As Greg took in the looks that Platoon number one's ladies were giving John when they thought that he wasn't looking, or the fact that he hadn't managed to leave the dance floor for more than a single song since they first arrived at this new club, he found himself grinning aside at Nora and Ren, who appeared to understand exactly what he was thinking.
Soon enough the three of them were laughing evilly down into their beers, and Payla was elbowing Greg's ribs to make him explain what was so funny.
"John's as dense as unobtanium," Greg finally explained with a laugh.
"Nuh uh," Nora immediately countered. "Our Johnno's sharp... He's just a world class bullshitter.
"You can't be serious," Greg retorted in an incredulous voice. "Why would he act oblivious?"
"He's the Captain," Ren offered by way of explanation. "He's trying to remain aloof."
For several seconds in a row, everyone at the table just stared off into the distance, where John was slow dancing with Ruby, and the girl's cheek was pressed into his chest like a picture from a postcard... At the sidelines of the dance floor, the rest of Platoon number one talked and drank as they waited for either the music to pick back up again... or for their turn at a slow dance.
"Well he's failing," both Greg and Payla finally announced in a rare moment of perfect synchronicity.
For the second time in less than a minute, the table unraveled into raucous laughter, but this time Payla was in on the joke and was just as amused as everyone else.
2 Hours Later...
Jaune's Perspective...
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Jaune found himself immensely grateful for the dance instruction that he'd received during his preteen years.
Dancing with one woman is easy, dancing with two is doable, dancing with six is impossible. Nevertheless, the women of Platoon number one appeared to have exactly zero interest in dancing with the scattered civilian boys that were bold enough to approach them. No... Instead, they claimed that they were taking part in a team outing, and they weren't interested in being hit on or groped by randoms.
The issue with this was easy to explain. Unless Ren suddenly decided to risk Nora's wrath, Jaune was the only man in Platoon number one that was available to dance.
And the ladies really wanted to dance.
Thankfully for Jaune, most of the music that was blasting out of the massive speaker set-up in this club was the kind that you jumped around to or simple rhythms that you could bop around to with a drink in hand within a group.
However... Every once in a while, a slow song would come out of nowhere, and Jaune never knew what to expect.
On Remnant, with the gender ratios being what they are, women are actually a little more likely to ask for a slow dance than the men are (although Jaune was perfectly happy to do so). What this ended up looking like was some kind of absurd game of musical chairs... with him being the chair.
The first to strike was Ruby, making excellent use of her speed Semblance to dart in front of him just a split second after a slow song started. She didn't actually ask him to do anything. She just ran up, wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, and lo and behold, they were slow dancing. Ruby was really, really cute about it though, and the little red dress that she was wearing was obviously something of a group effort, because it was quite a bit more mature than he'd have expected from her.
So far as dancing went, Ruby was a savant in the sense that she didn't know how to slow dance at all, but she was so light, she merely allowed her feet to rest atop of Jaune's whenever necessary and they moved around without a problem.
Next up was Blake, who 'just so happened' to be very close by when the next slow song came around, caught his eye at exactly the right time, and then stared at him in such a way that he knew what was expected of him. After he extended his right arm in her direction, she took it without a word, and they began dancing as if they'd made prior arrangements.
Blake's dancing was slinky (like a cat) and erotic because of the way her generous hips moved back and forth in her strappy little black dress, and the way that her hands not-so-subtly roamed around his chest and stomach muscles. Blake could attempt to hide it with her quiet demeanor and omni-present stoicism, but behind that mask of calm she was a high-level pervert, and her favorite book series proved it.
When Pyrrha started approaching him at the beginning of the next slow song, Jaune immediately called out to her to ask if she wanted to dance, because her face was so unbelievably red, he feared she might just keel over at any second. Obviously, the beautiful young redhead was working hard on growing beyond her shyness, but she wasn't quite there yet, and she needed the support.
Of course, once they actually did start dancing, Pyrrha was exceptionally graceful and had no trouble at all moving around in Jaune's arms. Her sheer, forest green dress went really well with her eyes, her legs were long and lean and prone to rubbing against his as they moved, and her arms were slim and extremely soft around his shoulders. By the time the song was coming to an end, Pyrrha appeared to have put aside most of her nervous energy, but it felt like her body was melting into his with the sudden release of all her tension. Her chin was settling onto his shoulder, her cheek was pressing into his, and her curves were pressing into his body to an extent that he could hardly believe. Long story short, it felt more like he was wearing the woman rather than dancing with her, and he found himself taking very deep breaths in order to maintain control of his body.
By the time the next slow song began, heiress Schnee had used all of her Atlesian nobility powers (a hand gesture and a look) to let him know that she expected him to ask her to dance. Jaune complied by approaching her very directly and asking her extremely politely if she'd give him the honor. The dance that followed was also extremely provocative, because A) Weiss was a very talented and sensual dancer, B) she was astoundingly beautiful in the skin-tight white dress that she was wearing, and C) the specific way that she was holding him against her body had special significance back in Atlas.
The way that Weiss's left hand was resting on Jaune's right shoulder and her right hand was cupped behind his ear, wasn't something that would mean anything at all over here in Vale, but it wasn't something that he'd miss and she knew that. Of course, Jaune had no desire to deny Weiss the same consideration that she was giving him, so he drew his left hand back across her ribs to her tailbone and his right hand up to rest between her shoulder-blades. Then he immediately felt Weiss shiver from her head to her toes, and the message was delivered. They were close. The way that they were currently dancing broadcast that closeness as clear as a tornado siren. Their posture didn't necessarily translate into romance, just that they were very, very closely allied, and in the eyes of almost all Atlesian nobles, this was much more meaningful than any makeout session could ever hope to be.
While slow dancing with Yang Xiao Long was unabashedly erotic from beginning to end, it was also lighthearted and carefree enough that Jaune unconsciously found himself breathing a sigh of relief. Yang moved passionately even during a slow song, smiled like a cat that caught its canary as she ran her hands up and down his back, pressed her abundant, yellow wrapped cleavage against his chest with every single step that they took, and appeared to be genuinely interested in seeing how far his self-control would last. Long story short, it didn't... Jaune wasn't entirely modest by the time the song was coming to an end, and Yang seemed thrilled with herself for provoking him to such an extent.
If Jaune had to guess, Yang had expected him to try to kiss her the night before when he tucked her into bed, and her pride had taken just the slightest amount of damage when he didn't. Now she was as happy as a clam again, because she'd forced him to start growing hard in his jeans during their slow dance together... The girl's actions were silly. They were immature... They were also kind of exciting and fun though, which is why Jaune had very few complaints.
Of course, there was never any doubt in Jaune's mind that Penny would want to dance. The vibrant young woman wanted to experience everything and travel everywhere, and she wanted him to join her. He knew it, she knew it... Maidens... Jaune really needed to figure out how to reliably alter his genetics.
In the meantime, when the next slow song started, Jaune immediately sought out his adoptive sister, and then met her in the middle of the dance floor when she was doing the exact same thing. Jaune gave the orangette a massively embellished courtly bow with plenty of arm flourish. Penny curtsied in return, which was just as funny because her ultra-tight fitting white and green dress didn't have much skirt to speak of, and she was in danger of flashing her panties. In the end, Jaune reached out with his hands to push down both Penny's hands and the hemline of her dress, and she smiled adoringly up at him as if she'd just won a bet.
Without withdrawing his hands away from Penny's waist, Jaune drew her closer and then enfolded her in a hug. That hug transitioned into a normal dancing posture, but not right away, and not before the orangette snuggled her face into his chest. By the time the two of them were dancing normally, Penny had the most radiantly happy smile on her face, and as happy as Jaune was to see it, he also wasn't sure what was bringing it on. Truth be told, Jaune was the one who first taught Penny how to dance back in the lab. This was nothing new for them. This shouldn't have been anything earth shattering or extra-special for her, but it was... He could see that in her eyes...
Then Penny said it, and Jaune's arms tightened around the women's body in response
"I love you too."
"You," Jaune's question immediately trailed to a stop because he knew exactly what she'd done.
Penny merely nodded into Jaune's shoulder.
"Rude," Jaune breathed out even as he pressed his cheek down into the orangette's hair.
"Didn't invite me, talking about me, rude," Penny countered in little more than a whisper.
"I don't want to kill you," Jaune whispered, very real concern couched within his voice.
"Dying is just another part of this 'human condition' that you value so highly," Penny quietly retorted.
"I'll quite happily become a shameless hypocrite if it means keeping you safe," Jaune murmured, even as his arms tightened even more around Penny's back.
"I know, I love you too, now say it," Penny demanded in a whisper.
"I love you Penny. I really, really do."
"I know."
For the rest of the song, Jaune and Penny didn't say a word. They merely held each other tightly as they danced and did their absolute best not to freak the hell out.
By the time Jaune and the rest of Platoon number one left the nightclub, Jaune had detoxed most of the girls to a certain extent at least once, so that they could continue to stand and walk like the bipeds that they were. The funny thing about Jaune being able to cleanse their bloodstreams of toxins was that his Platoon took this as an excuse to party extra hard.
Well, no matter... Everyone was still a little bit drunk (including him), but no one was completely shitfaced, which Jaune decided was a win.
On the other hand, everyone was juuust drunk enough that they thought the idea of eating a fully loaded shawarma at three Am in the morning was a fantastic idea, and they were all piling into a little deli just off of Vale's main thoroughfare.
Mostly due to an aversion to eating after seven Pm, Jaune took the opportunity to stand out in the cool evening breeze and attempt to collect his thoughts. For all that he was a very happy man at the moment, he also had a lot on his mind.
Pop, fwip, fwiiiip.
Jaune was just distracted enough that he didn't immediately notice the sound of an approaching zip line or rope until it was almost beneath him, and then it was far too late. Even as he looked down, saw a grapple hook flying at his leg and attempted to leap away, another grapple wrapped around his other leg, and he was yanked down an alleyway by an incredibly powerful engine. By the time he entered the alleyway, his heart was racing in his chest because he recognized this particular capture method. Then he saw that the entire alleyway that he was being dragged into was full of a vibrant green coloured gas, and he drew in a very deep breath in order to hold it in for as long as possible.
It didn't work.
A massively powerful metallic impact slammed into Jaune's stomach, and while it didn't injure him because of his aura field, it did manage to squeeze an exhale followed by a reflexive inhale out of him because he hadn't seen the blow coming. Then he was seeing spots in his vision. Then he couldn't feel his feet. Then he felt warm, comfortable and sleepy. Then he didn't feel anything at all...
Penny's Perspective...
When Jaune's aura armor bracelets suddenly took off heading south at a rapid rate, and then the signal strength suddenly dropped indicating that he'd been dragged underground, Penny Polendina immediately threw her food to the table, pulled out her data scroll merely as a prop, queued up a visual representation of what she was sensing on the holo-screen and then turned towards the rest of her Platoon.
"Food down Platoon one," Penny hollered out even as she jogged towards the door. "That group that Jaune's been running from all this time just snagged him off of the street and they're heading South on Main towards the Economy District. I'll explain more on the way!"
"How do you," Weiss's mouth snapped shut, as she visibly decided that she didn't care about the hows. Then she was flying to her feet along with everyone else and they were running for the door.
Jaune's Perspective...
When next Jaune opened his eyes, it was to find himself laying on his back in the middle of what looked like a mechanical room or a pump house, but that wasn't the part of his current reality that was upsetting him.
Jaune's arms and legs were thoroughly tied up in layer after layer of metal cord, to the point that he could hardly move a muscle.
On the far side of the room, were half a dozen spider-esque Seeker-bots, and on the floor just three meters away from his body was a holo-monitor and a camera set-up.
Someone wanted to have a face to face chat with him... Someone who was very far away... The holo-camera was already rolling. The red light over the lens was on.
Fine... You want to talk, let's talk.
"I, Jaune Arc, hereby renounce my family name! I'm emancipating myself, and I'm assuming the name John Freeman from this point forward! The Arc family has no say in what I do, where I go, or what occupation I have! I'm a Beacon trainee both accepted and Initiated, which makes me legally an adult! I have an aura! I have a Semblance! I'm a Platoon Captain in only my first year! I'm not weak! I'm not helpless! I'm not going to be a prisoner to the Arc family's fear and sickness ever again! Never! Whoever you are on the other side of this holo-recording... Feel free to fuck yourself!"
"He's right... He's not weak... and he's not going back."
"Penny," Jaune gasped, as his back arched and he flopped on the floor. "Watch out Penny! The Seeker-bots! They come armed with a paralytic gas!"
Of course, by the time Jaune flopped like a fish to look back into the corner containing the robots, they were all nothing but scrap metal, having been cut to pieces by Penny's laser-swords. Then Jaune craned his head to look back at Penny, and found the rest of his Platoon moving up behind her to look down at the holo-camera.
"Your family member, Jaune Arc, is gone... Only John Freeman remains," Penny announced in a cold and terrible little voice... "If you try to take him away from us, you'll have to fight your way through both Ozpin and the Vale military, because John's already established himself as a hero and inventor of uncanny skill.
"We'll rally absolutely everyone we've ever met to oppose you, until the cost of your efforts far outweigh the benefits," Ruby added as she stepped up next to her partner. "You will not take him. You will not take my friend from me."
"Forget Ozpin... forget our friends... forget the military... The worst part is that you'll have to fight your way through us," Yang countered with her hands crossed under her chest. "We're not giving up our Platoon Captain to a bunch of paranoid cultists without raising all hell every step of the way."
"Broken legs for as far as the eye can see," Nora confirmed from next to Ren in the background, her maniacal smile revealed in the dim lighting as nothing but a pearly white wedge in the dark.
"I'll also go to the media and expose your mental illness to the whole entire world," Pyrrha added, after stepping up to reveal exactly who she was in better lighting. "Those Atlesian nobles that you own won't be able to ignore the testimony of both Pyrrha Nikos, the Goddess of Victory, and Weiss Schnee, pop idol and Heiress of the Schnee Dust company. It'll be too public, too embarrassing, too shameful."
"You blew it big time," Weiss summarized as she stared down into the lens of the camera. "Jaune Arc, John Freeman... He's ours now... You can't have him back."
"Now... Get yourself out of those metal cords, John," Blake demanded. "That foolish family of yours has underestimated you again."
With a nod and a heave of hard spiritual effort, Jaune finally managed to activate his aura armor and snap his limbs free of the hundreds of metal cords that had been binding them in place. Then he was slowly rising to his feet, and he was rejoining the rest of his Platoon. "Thanks," was all he currently had it in him to say on the matter. Not only was he a little bit out of it emotionally, but that paralytic gas was playing havoc with the alcohol that he'd already consumed.
Long story short, Jaune felt hammered, and he stumbled up to Penny and Weiss so that they could support his balance with their bodies.
"Let's take him home," Penny suggested.
"The camera... the robots," Pyrrha asked.
"That footage and the robot's findings will be long gone by now, transmitted in real time to a cloud system operated by the Arc family," Weiss explained.
"Nothing to be done about it then," Yang muttered before punting the holo-camera into the wall and shattering it into a million pieces. "Still felt good though."
"I was born Jaune Arc," Jaune quietly admitted to his Platoon. "It's the name I call myself in my head. It's the me in my inner monologue."
"It's not so easy to deceive yourself," Blake mused.
"Not so easy to deceive my Platoon either. I'm glad that's over with," Jaune breathed out absentmindedly. "Still... This is going to get rough, and I really didn't want to bring this down upon my friends."
At that, there were nods all around because the Arc family was world famous for their power, prestige and the fact that they had seven Huntresses ranging from "B" rank to "A" rank or maybe even "S" rank... They weren't a family that you wanted to fight against.
With another small nod, and a long indrawn breath, Jaune allowed himself to be drawn from the mechanical room.
Within the next hour, Jaune and the rest of Platoon number one returned to housing arrangement number seven, where Jaune was not allowed to go back to his own room because no one knew what affects the paralytic gas was going to have on his body.
Instead, over eighty-five percent of Platoon number one (the women) insisted that they all have a sleepover in the RPBY barracks room so that they could keep an eye on their Platoon Captain, and the two boys in the Platoon played along because they knew what was good for them.
Of course Jaune actually was okay (other than being wasted), but by the end of the following hour, Penny, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Pyrrha, and Yang were all passing the hell out in a massive dogpile on top of him, to the point that his body was completely concealed from view.
Author's Note Part 2:
The next chapter will be released in three weeks on the 5th of September.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you then!