[#4]
The previous night...
"Great Scott, Penny! How did you overheat your own motherboard? You had innumerous cooling components meant to prevent an error like this."
To say Pietro was astonished would be an understatement. There he was, sitting in his multi-legged chair while running a diagnose on his daughter with the help of his machines. Penny was put on sleep mode for the whole procedure until the doctor could properly reinitialize her.
"…Is she going to be okay?" Blake asked, more out of curiosity than actual concern. Should she feel concerned? It's not like Penny was on her death bed or anything, but still.
"It will be alright. Technical difficulties are bound to happen once in a while. And even if it was something more drastic, she already cheated death before!" Pietro coughed frantically as he looked away from the monitors. "…Sorry, I shouldn't be joking about that. Regardless, do you mind telling me what happened again?"
"Uh…" Blake briefly glimpsed at Jaune from across the workshop, who was currently snoring on a mattress, before facing the doctor. "…She powered down out of nowhere. For no reason whatsoever."
She technically wasn't lying, per say. At least it didn't feel like it. What else could it be? Was she really going to explain how Jaune's physical appearance caused this?
That aside, it was really kind of him to carry Penny all the way to her father's workshop, despite claiming to be extremely tired from tonight. He dropped like a rock a soon as Pietro said the word 'bed'.
The doctor sighed. "Whatever the cause might be, you two have my gratitude for bringing my daughter back in one piece. You and your friend may rest here for as long as you need."
"It was nothing. Penny is our friend." Blake scanned the room. "You… Don't happen to have another spare mattress, do you?"
"I suppose I don't." He let out a grouchy chuckle. "Forgive me, I'm way better with machinery than with furniture. Feel free to rest on that couch over there. Unless you don't mind sharing the mattress with him."
She looked at Jaune sleeping again. The offer felt tempting for some reason, but… "I'll take the couch."
"Hah!" An old female voice sounded by. "Kids these days, am I right? Can't even bother to share a bed without feeling embarrassed about it."
The former Grimm Reaper herself strode through the doorway with the help of her cane.
"Maria, what a surprise!" Welcomed Pietro. "How are the glasses?"
"Everything still looks blue, thanks for asking." Maria noticed the android laid on the table. "What happened to miss protector over there?"
"A problem with her cognitive subroutines." Pietro was back on the keyboard. "Caused by a sudden overload in her systems, if my suspicions are correct. No matter, I'll be switching her interface to Schnleenux. Hopefully it will do the trick."
"Doesn't it bother anyone that the SDC holds domain over every tech brand out there?" Blake interjected. "Like, seriously?"
"Does it really make a difference if literally every company in the industry works under the same name?" Argued Maria. "Now, what you and sleeping beauty over there have been up to?"
Blake looked back and forth between Jaune and Maria. "Nothing much. We just got finished with a mission and brought Penny along. And now we kind of need a place to stay for the night."
"Awn~" The old-lady cooed at the sight of Jaune sleeping. "Look at him napping. He almost looks like a huge baby. Oh, I didn't even get the chance to see his new hairdo. It really looks cute on him-"
"Don't!" Exclaimed Blake, snapping Maria's attention to her. "Just… Don't."
Bright cyan eyes blinked.
"…Okay missy, don't go getting your panties in a bunch." She walked up to Pietro. "Anyway, I came to deliver these as promised."
Maria handed him a tiny box.
"Well, I guess you won't be needing them in the meantime now that your glasses are fully calibrated."
"What is it?" Blake asked.
"Oh, just a pair of used hearing aids." Responded Maria. "You know, those things old people use?"
Pietro waved his hand. "Now, now… Don't go underselling my own gear in my presence. These aren't mere hearing aids. Which begs the question, are they properly sterilized this time?"
"Of course they are, you old fart." Maria retorted.
"Good, good. Where was I? Oh!" Doctor Polendina turned to Blake, opening the small box and showcasing a pair of thin, curved grey pieces. They indeed looked like hearing aids, except that both devices were missing the speakers. "These are my patented Wrencons! An everyday auxiliary tool for those occasional handicaps."
Blake blinked. "So, like… Regular hearing aids?"
"Well… Not quite. Their name is short for 'Wave-Reading-Enunciators', along with a complementary con at the end." He hummed. "They are designed to be the perfect fallback for those troublesome situations. When placed on the back of your ears, the Wrencons consistently scan your brainwaves for any foreseeable impairments. Similar to, let's say, Ms. Calaveira temporarily losing her vision because of some malfunction with her glasses."
"I'm still waiting on that shock-proof addon you promised last week." Maria groaned.
"When activated, the Wrencons amplify any of your remaining senses whilst significantly increasing your overall situational awareness. Like a wake-up call for your brain, with the main purpose of preventing the user from getting bewildered in the field. Not just for veteran Huntsmen, but for the youngins' too! Even greater in your case particularly."
"In my case?" Blake inquired.
"Hypothetically speaking, it could. Thanks to your Faunus heritage." He amended. "It is still a prototype in its latest stages. Maria was kind enough to experiment with them up until now, but I could always use more data. If you're interested, I could lend you a pair for further testing. After a few adjustments to suit your physique, that is."
Blake pondered over it for a bit, but her tiredness spoke louder. "…I appreciate the offer, but I think I'll pass. There's a lot going on right now and I'm not sure if I'm the best candidate for this."
Pietro shrugged as he pocketed his invention. "Understandable. I'll be here if you happen to change your mind. My doors are always open."
She nodded, letting out a long yawn afterwards. "Thanks again for letting us stay. I'll be by the couch."
"Anything for my daughter and her friends." He went back at nursing Penny with his computer. "Now to make sure my little girl is combat ready before sunrise."
Maria had bid farewell and taken her leave by the time Blake laid on the dusty leather of that couch. The short-haired Huntress glanced one last time at the sleeping form of Jaune, knowing she still had dinner with him on the following day.
Tomorrow couldn't come any later.
Tomorrow had come a lot sooner than Blake would've liked to.
And as if her eventual non-date with Jaune wasn't enough, now she found herself sitting before something beyond her wildest, feverish dreams.
Nora giving her a lecture.
"Hey! Pay attention, everyone!" She slammed a ruler against the whiteboard. "Class is in session!"
Blake looked around the completely empty classroom Nora had forcefully dragged her inside. And here she thought that Atlas, the most prestigious and uptight Academy in the entire world, would refrain from letting anyone linger around in their property without supervision, but apparently that wasn't the case. Same thing with Beacon back then.
Seriously, why would they allow free reign for students and visitors alike to enter their classrooms and do whatever behind closed doors? These were private institutions for gods' sake.
"I SAID…" A ruler smacked on Blake's desk. "PAY ATTENTION!"
She recoiled from Nora's assault on her desk. After Blake nodded for compliance, her impromptu teacher went back to the whiteboard to finish her scribbling, which consisted of a bunch of mathematical formulas.
Surprisingly enough, Blake did try to follow her lecture. Nora clearly knew her quadratics and whatnot, she gave her that. But what really stumped her was stuff like the square root of a smiley face, the function of a beating heart and the drawing of a jalapeño over π. She knew better than questioning that last one.
"I GOT IT!" Nora proudly jumped away from the board to face her only student. "At last, I have deciphered the perfect method for you to survive your romantic dinner with Jaune!"
Blake abstained from correcting her and sighed for all it was worth. "Finally… You know, I was having second thoughts about this, but now that you have a definitive answer-"
"You have to counter-seduce him!"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…I'm not even going to dignify your statement with an outburst reaction like you expect me to." Blake said with a straight face. "I'll patiently wait for you to elaborate on your batshit-insane theory before I walk out that door."
Nora huffed. "Fine. Be like that. Anyways…"
JNPR's grenadier and apparent extraordinaire mathematician pointed at… Somewhere on that board.
"You see, it all starts here. Jaune got hold of a new haircut. That much we already know. But the real problem lies here." She pointed at the following diagram. "The size and shape of his hair somehow bend the rules in ways we have yet to know, affecting the way people perceive him: As the most attractive Huntsman in all of Solitas! Like a singularity of attractiveness, where nothing escapes from its radius."
Nora flipped the whole board in its axles, showing off a collection of pinned old black-and-white photos and printed passages connected by a series of red strings.
"This all here is just speculation, mind you. I have found sources that indicate such specific haircut had been lost to time, with the only method of preservation being through manuscripts dating back to the Great War itself." She turned to the board all inquisitive like. "To think something like this has made it all the way to contemporary works is astounding, to say the least. Now, where exactly can it be found nowadays and who was the individual dumb enough to bring such thing to reality through Jauney is beyond me at the moment."
Blake shrank on her seat, doing little to conceal herself.
"And this brings us here!" Nora flipped the whiteboard back to her extensive calculus homework. "The only way to combat that cursed haircut is by playing its game. If you try wooing your way into fearless leader's heart, it'll cancel out its powers! It's completely foolproof according to my calculations."
Yet again, Nora stood proudly over her thesis.
Even looking at all the basis written on the whiteboard, Blake sat there agape. "So what you're basically saying is… I should court Jaune and hope that alone will stop me from falling for him?"
"Like I said, it's foolproof! Think of it like… Two gay peacocks flashing their plumes at each other."
Faunus ears folded down as she scoffed. "I am not 'flashing my plumes' at Jaune! I'm not interested in him in that way! Neither is him!" Blake took a breather to calm down. "Look Nora, I know you sort of have a habit of acting as Jaune's match-maker…"
"What makes you say that?" The whiteboard behind Nora slowly spun, revealing a list of 'Potential Candidates', with photos of Blake's team and derivatives. She punched the board without looking, spinning it back to her formulas.
"…But don't you think this is a bit too much? I enjoy being friends with him, I really do. More so than I initially thought. And I don't want to ruin things because of some stupid haircut."
"Girl. That's exactly what we're trying to do here." Argued Nora. "How do you think he will react if you end up acting like an infatuated zombie during the whole date?"
"Ugh… I know." Blake groaned. "But I- Do I really have to?"
"You got any other ideas?"
As a matter of fact, Blake had brainstormed a few solutions during her time in that classroom. She could sneak out of there and leave Nora to her own devices. She could call Jaune and tell him she couldn't make it to their dinner tonight. Better yet, she could forget all of this and simply follow the rest of Volume 7's storyline accordingly.
But what would that accomplish, really? At the end of the day, it would all amount to her repeating old-habits such as: Running away from her problems when things were getting too dire.
Blake gripped her own palms from under the desk. She swore to herself she would be handling things differently from now on. She had reunited with her team, beat Adam and made it to Atlas against all odds. And she would honor her new haircut in the process.
For she was the new Blake now.
"What else do you have in store…" She asked away.
Nora cleared her throat. "Aside from your seductive speech, which is practically nonexistent, there are also other aspects we should focus on. For example, your looks."
Blake stared down at her own clothes. "What's wrong with how I look?"
"Nothing at all! If we were fighting together in the depths of the mines, I could easily spot you in a heartbeat. But during a date? Nah, it's a little busy on the eyes." Nora examined with a hand on her chin. "Hmm. Tell you what: Why don't you lose the jacket for tonight?"
Blake inclined her head. "You want me to meet Jaune in just my bodysuit?"
"You'll look great! Trust me, less is more! I'm sure he'll love it." Declared Nora. "Next up, your table manners."
"I don't chew with my mouth open and don't fiddle with my scroll."
"That'll do." Said Nora. "Lastly, let's talk contingency! In other words, how we should deal in case you fail to keep yourself in check."
"I mean, so far I was able to-" She did a second take. "Wait, what do you mean We?"
"I'm coming too, silly!" She responded. "What, did you really think I was gonna let you go all by yourself? If so, I'm genuinely surprised you haven't even considered that."
"But how are you going to follow Jaune and I? Our dinner will be at a restaurant in Atlas. You can't just go in there and be on standby in case everything falls apart."
"I have my ways." Nora just shrugged. "You know, for motivational support purposes."
"It's an invasion of privacy, is what it is…"
"Oh, now you care about privacy? You keep telling me it's just a friendly dinner between you two. What is there to warrant privacy?"
"I-" Blake bit her own tongue before even attempting to argue against that.
"Look. From what I've seen, you can't even look at him in the eye for more than twenty seconds without being blindsided by the sheer charming-ness of his haircut. If push comes to shove, you're gonna need a fallback."
She tsked. "I know you are trying to help here, but-" Then she realized something.
A fallback? Where has she heard that word before?
Blake stood up from her desk and made her way to the door.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Nora called after her. "We still need to rehearse your flirtatious repertoire for your upcoming date!"
She looked back to her friend. "I just remembered I got something important that I need to take care of. Thanks for all the help, I will take your lessons to heart."
"Oh. Cool." She replied. "So, meet you near the restaurant at eight?"
"Yeah, sure." Blake knew there was no way to talk Nora out of coming along. "See you at eight."
She closed the door on her way out.
"Great. Now what I'm supposed to do with this?" Nora pulled out a bunch of bananas she had been keeping in store for their rehearsal. She shrugged, peeled out one of them and chomped it. "Nhowm!"
Meanwhile with Blake, she kept marching throughout the hallways with the sole purpose of reaching the bullheads as soon as possible. She had an appointment with a doctor to make.
'I'll show that haircut.'
