Chapter 3

Jaune walked down hallway, he was heading towards the roof for his so called training. He didn't know what it would normally entail but he had his own ideas for this time.

Earlier he had met up with his teammates and their friends. He stayed with them for about an hour before leaving to restart his exercising routine. Honestly they were about what he expected for a bunch of teenager. He found most of them annoying. He didn't speak much as he wanted to observe them without his input but by now he had made his first impressions.

They were disappointing overall and a few of them could probably get kicked out of a PDF regiment. To start with the two cocky ones Yang was overconfident and that was a deadly killer on the battlefield. She often acted before thinking and annoyed him greatly. the mere fact that anyone would call one the Emperors finest warriors 'vomit boy' was just insulting. Liability.

Weiss was your know it all rich kid. He had seen her type in the guard before and they were always the first ones to get pushed under a tank by 'accident'. She should've taken whatever job her father could've gotten her but instead she wanted to play hero and joined Beacon. Liability.

Blake was weird. She seemed normal enough being introverted and shyer than most. But… something just seemed off. There was something about her that he just didn't like but he couldn't figure out what it was. Potential use.

Nora was … an interesting case. He couldn't think of a single time she stood still for more than five second. She had more energy than even the largest Imperial weapon and never went too far away from Ren. She might be good in a fight with that mobility but even an ogryn would be better at hiding than her. Potential use.

Her friend Ren was almost the polar opposite. He somewhat reminded him of one of those vindicare assassins rarely speaking and observing everyone else. He could be a great asset in any sort of stealth scenario assuming he has the combat skills. Useful.

Pyrrha seemed to be the best overall. She seemed calm and collected as well as being an actual warrior. She had won several combat tournaments though how much that really meant was unclear. He was glad to have her on his team and assuming she was as good as people said she would be very useful. Though of course he now got an opportunity to put that all to the test. Useful.

Finally there was Ruby. In all his years he had never seen someone quite like her. To begin with she was clearly too innocent and naïve of the true nature of the world, a rare sight in the Imperium. She had the social skills of a Kreigsman and the exact opposite personality. Even with her high speed he would consider her a liability but below the surface he felt something else. There was something about her, he couldn't put his finger on it but there was something special about her. Unclear.

He reached the door to the roof and despite his body's tiredness it was the first time he'd felt exited for a long time.

—

Pyrrha watched over Beacon. It looked truly beautiful this time of night. She remembered back, back a few weeks ago. She looked up at the stars and wished Jaune would be alright. She had always heard 'be careful what you wished for' but thought it was just a line for the fairytales her mother told her. Now with Jaune having recovered though… it hit differently.

He was alright but just wasn't the same person. Ozpin said he had just forgotten about a few things but she knew better than that. He had changed, for better or for worse. Most would go and say how he's just a bit different from how she remembered him but he was just… different. What he said when he first woke up still stuck with her.

"While I thank you for aiding my recovery I need to return to my chapter as soon as possible, if you could help me get a ship or if that isn't possible get an astropath to inform my brothers of my survival."

It was the longest sentence she's heard from him since his reawakening. A chapter? An astropath? His brothers? He had never mentioned that, he said he had nothing but sisters. The only chapter she knew of was the book kind and that made no sense in the context. Worse was the word astropath. She had asked a dozen students and every teacher about that word, even checking the libraries dictionary before he arrived. That word didn't exist yet it didn't seem made up.

She knew it was hopeless but the real reason for immediately asking about the training was for the possibility of seeing the old Jaune there. The boy she taught to fight and the person that she… held regrets about. Now she saw it for what it really was, a selfish act not thinking about him. Surely he needed some time to recover but now he might feel pressured into something he wasn't ready for. The headmaster even mentioned he likely suffered muscle cramps.

Hearing the door open she spun around, to be honestly she hadn't expected for him to come.

"I see I kept you waiting and for that I apologise."

"It's fine I wasn't waiting long."

"Good, now I believe we need to discuss training correct?"

"Yes, I believe with your month of abstinence you might have some work to catch up on. Now if you're tired or want a bit longer to get used to everything that's fine we can discuss this another time."

"Actually I wish to begin as soon as possible, right now would be preferable."

Pyrrha hadn't expected that. While she wanted to go along with that she didn't want to pressure him into pushing himself.

"Are you sure? Professor Ozpin mentioned your muscles were unused to working due to your unmoving state. Surely a few days would be needed to recover?"

"I can walk therefore I can still fight."

She felt a bit bad now but it looked like he was determined to do this. "Fine if you are so insistent on beginning it now we will. First how much do you remember from before?"

"Actually I feel it would be easier to just do a practice fight of sorts."

"A practice fight?"

"Just a friendly tournament, from there you can judge where I need to improve. It's until someone reaches 10% aura right?"

"Alright but we will stop if you get hurt ok?"

"Well then, if we are in agreement, let's begin."

Pyrrha saw Jaune taking a defensive stance. It was clear he intended for her to make the first attack. She tighten her grip on Miló and Akoúo, her short sword and shield, and their first clash begun.

—

Jaune saw Pyrrha's attack coming and easily parried it. He swung hitting her shield. Pyrrha retaliated with a slash at his arm that he deflected. Both Jaune and Pyrrha fought neither one hitting the other. This went on for almost a minute.

Pyrrha went for a low blow only to be met with another parry. He seemed to have improved his sword play a lot. Though he didn't use his shield much which was strange. But how had he improved? He was in a coma for almost a month and what's more it seemed as if he was going no that couldn't be possible could it? These thoughts suddenly left Pyrrha as felt a heavy blow to the chest.

—

Jaune and Pyrrha had been fighting for about a minute now without either hitting the other. Jaune had to admit she was certainly decent, she was able to put on a convincing performance. But now he grew tired of this act. Time to end this little charade they had.

Pyrrha made a swing towards him which he effortlessly deflected in a way to disorientate her and swung across hitting her chest.

The hit was precise and calculated winding her and forcing them a few steps back. Pyrrha looked up to see Jaune facing her, standing in the same place having barely moved with his face showing no emotion. Pyrrha had never seen him pull a move like that before.

"I see you can put on quite the show but I'm sure you saw what was going on didn't you?"

She knew it. He was going easy on her to test the waters and get an idea of how she fought.

"You weren't actually trying there were you?"

He smiled. "So you did notice, I wanted to learn the basics of your fighting style before I stopped playing nice. Your attack left an easy opening that any experienced fighter would exploit but I get the feeling you knew that already."

He knew she wasn't trying and used it to learn more about how she fought. How on Remnant had he improved this much?

Jaune laughed. "You may have lost some aura there but you can still fight. How about we have a real battle this time?"

Pyrrha didn't know what to say. It had been so long since she ever had a potential challenge and to find that Jaune had suddenly become possibly her equal? It felt like in but a day everything had changed so much.

Now he wanted to fight her. A real fight with her. She could just say no but how would he react? Actually this was an opportunity to get two birds with one stone finding out both how strong he is and possibly how he improved so much.

"I agree on the condition you tell me how you learned all this."

He seemed in thought for a moment. "If you prove yourself worthy of the title 'the invincible girl' than I will consider it."

Well it was the best she was gonna get. She prepared herself for this. If before was just some act or pretend then this was going to something else. She was going to have to use everything she had.

Jaune took a defensive stance again. And the true battle commenced.

—

This fight, compared to the first time, was on an entirely different level. The first one wasn't that different to the usual fight between two students, the second one was more akin to a tournament people would pay to watch. Pyrrha changed Miló into a rifle she took a few shots which Jaune easily dodged. In a blur of motion she changed back into her short sword and charged slashing at him. Jaune blocked and swung his blow hitting her shield. He dodged her sudden thrust and landed the first hit on her thigh. They engaged in a brief flurry of attacks both landing a couple small cuts.

At one point Jaune swung low, he almost hit her across the chest but his sword was further back than he thought it was, strange. Pyrrha, stepping back, threw Akoúo at him which he knocked away with his sword. It bounced back to her and she went for another strike against him.

The shield bounced back to her? Perhaps it was some technology or some aspect of aura.

The battle raged for several minutes.

Jaune noticed something was off, several times he had tried to hit her only to find his sword was just slightly off. As well as that when he tried to block her attacks he often felt as if his very sword objected against his movements. It's probably just that he was too used to his force sword.

Pyrrha went for a high kick which he barely avoided. The two went on slowly whittling down each others auras. Jaune parried the swing against his arm and tried to hit her but once again came up short. She used this to bash him with her shield. He hit her with the swords hilt in retaliation. Several times she tried to shoot him but never hit her mark. This time he charged her feigning a dash to the right but instead stepping left. He hit her side disorienting her but she was quick to recover and his second attack came short, something felt wrong about that. He quickly blocked her retaliation attempt and hit her with his shield. By this point both their auras had reached below 40%.

They continued exchanging blows. Pyrrha went for another thrust into his chest which he blocked and countered with an upwards swing. Once again he just missed with Pyrrha stepping back to avoid it. He could feel his aura weakening with every blow he took, both he and Pyrrha were low now. She tried to swipe his legs but failed. He thrusted out and hit her chest.

Pyrrha launched Akoúo at him, he deflected it easily but was too late to block Pyrrha's second follow up which finally reduced his aura down to 9% and into the red.

Pyrrha had won with a meagre 13% aura left.

With the adrenaline wearing of she finally gave in to her body and collapsed on her knees exhausted.

Looking back Jaune seemed deep in thought. He was clearly going back over their battle. He appeared to realise something.

"You can manipulate objects can't you?"

He figured it out? She always tried to hide it but she might have used it too much this time. She nodded and said "metals" weakly. She could barely speak.

Strangely he smiled at that. "I'll admit you are skilled at hiding it, I only realised on looking back, you were making it harder for me to swing or block the entire time."

He chuckled. "You have certainly passed my wildest expectations and I will explain everything as I said I would, though I imagine you'd prefer if we did that at another time."

She simply nodded her head.

"Do you need help with returning to bed or?"

"I'll be… I'll be fine."

"If you insist."

Jaune turned walking away.

"I look forward to our next training session. I'll have a few more tricks for next time."

He wanted to do that again? That was the hardest battle she'd ever fought and he's just walking away as if it's nothing. Trying to get up she failed and fell on her back. She had never felt this tired before and the idea of sleeping on the ground here seemed pretty appealing at the moment.

—

Jaune walked back to his dorm. His entire body was In agony with every joint and muscle screaming at him to get a break but in his mind he had never felt better. Pyrrha had proven herself a formidable opponent and, were they male, would've made for an excellent recruit. She had actually beaten him in their little practice tournament. Granted he was far from peak condition and didn't use his powers but it was still an impressive feet.

Her ability to influence metals was likely one of those 'semblances' Ozpin mentioned. Could he train her and grow this power? She may be a psyker of the telekinesis discipline even if she only affects metals. Probably some effect from the unusual warp presence here. It was possible that there may be entirely new psychic powers held by the people here but he'd need to do more research into that.

He entered the dorm. Ren and Nora were asleep. He lied down on the bed his body finally giving out. Within moments he was sleeping.

—

He awoke in darkness. Everywhere he looked led off into a void. He decided to walk forward and slowly the world around him changed. There were many short visions of events both familiar and foreign. He saw images of both Remnant and Imperium.

There were moments of him with his brothers, fighting to preserve humanity but also moments he didn't recognise like throwing a jar of red liquid at someone. Everything he saw felt so familiar to him but he forgot about them the moment they went away.

Once again it all shaped around him the darkness emptying his vision as a bright light blinded his sight. There he heard a voice, a voice he had heard before but from where he didn't know. It spoke something familiar to him but he couldn't make out what it said. The only word that went through his mind was something or someone repeating the same message, "remember".

—

Suddenly it went back to a pale light as he opened his eyes back in his bed. He could see the morning light creeping in through the window. Quickly forgetting the dream he looked around, only Pyrrha's bed was empty.

He still had some time before breakfast. He got out of bed preparing to head to whatever gymnasium Beacon had, he needed to get back in proper shape if he was to accomplish whatever his mission was. It was time for Jaune to begin his first full day back in Remnant.

—

And so ends chapter 3. Hopefully the fight was enjoyable to read, I don't have any prior experience writing fights other than the small little bit in the prologue. Speaking of the fight.

Just to sum things up, Pyrrha, who is one of the best combatants in Beacon and is using her semblance polarity, was barely able to beat a tired, pained space marine that is in much worse shape and without any of his implants. I want to avoid the '40k character crushes everything with ease' thing while still showing a space marines strength. Jaune is very powerful but not invincible. Pyrrha may have won but it was incredibly close. Guess you could call it a pyrrhic victory? And had Jaune used his psychic powers he definitely would have won.

All that aside the next chapter will most likely include Jaune's reaction to the faunus and Pyrrha learning more about what happened to her team leader.

Also as a general note for the future, unless said otherwise, expect updates once or twice a week.