Silver

by Imyoshi

Forced to admit that Crocea Mors didn't feel right in his hands—no matter how he held it—Jaune Arc struggled to overcome this obstacle through the insane idea that Aura could become more than just the armor that protected him. Barriers broke as he pushed past the limits of what Aura was capable of, creating and forging his very own weapons from the manifestation of his soul.

15. Anchor

Disclaimer: I own nothing of RWBY.

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Anchor

By: Imyoshi

Order—an impossible concept that cannot exist as long as free will continues to reign supreme.

No such thing as a perfect world truly prevails.

Fear crushes dreams and gives way for control to thrive.

Then and only then can order be truly possible when free will is controlled by fear.

Poke!

There's a distinct pressure building on his face. Jaune Arc can just feel it—and not in the Space sense, but the literal sense of actual physical contact. Almost like someone or something is poking him without a cause, reason, or even justification, simply just to annoy or pester him. Perhaps it's all an elaborate scheme to ruin his day? Or maybe worse, just for laughs.

Poke! Poke!

Finally opening his tired eyes, Jaune meets Sir Scrabble's emotionless, blood orbs with both of them taking the time to blink slowly at each other with no words or sounds being exchanged. Somehow the Grimm escaped Nora's cuddle hold and perched itself on top of his chest, lying flat with its limbs spread out and claw resting on his cheek as to further explain all the stubborn poking that lured Jaune away from slumber. And all before the sun's barely peeking over the horizon.

What a way to wake up. Bright and early with classes not starting for at least another two hours. Three if he's lucky.

Narrowing his eyes, Team JNPR's Fearless Leader makes no attempt at getting up or even shaking the Grimm resting casually off his chest, only fixing the emotionless beast a sigh that strangely resembled Ren's, minus all the patience and trust the stoic guy possess.

"What?"

Poke! Poke!

Part of the Arc blames Nora for this. Not even three days with the sloth Grimm and it's already picked up some of her more eccentric habits. Poking being the apparent winner in a long list of things she does to annoy him. Next thing he knows, Sir Scrabbles is going to sign him up for cooking classes and meetings with the guidance counselor to help build trust and create the perfect pancake. Just more of Nora's failed schemes and misguided ideas.

Some portion of Jaune—the sensible and reasonable chunk he likes to call it—still doesn't trust Sir Scrabbles and it shows with his lack of smiles around the monster. Another part of him prefers to keep Nora happy and lively to avoid Ren's deadly wrath. So, there's that. It's not a love-hate relationship. No. Nothing simple like that, just the idea of hurting Nora again and not wanting that to happen overpowers his hidden disaffection towards the sloth Grimm.

Doesn't make the situation any easier to accept.

Ignoring Sir Scrabbles, Jaune yawns and sits up with the Grimm slowly sliding off his chest to another part of his bed which included hiding under his sheets. He looks outside his team's window and spots the sun peaking over the mountains, signaling the beginning of the new semester. And his team is still asleep with both the girls snoring the morning away. In a sad way, it's comforting.

Watching his team sleep, Jaune notes the various ways a person snoozes and how it speaks volumes about their personalities. Nora likes to toss and turn with a goofy smile on her face and trail of drool tracing down her cheek. Every so often words like pancakes and Ren escape her mouth, and speaking of Ren. He's the exact opposite, still as a log and even quieter than one. Pyrrha, on the other hand, needs something to latch onto in her sleep that something being her pillow which is pressed tightly to her chest while she mumbles nonsensical things.

And he's the leader of this team? Monty help them.

Letting his team sleep, Jaune decides to take advantage of his early wake-up call and heads towards Beacon's washroom to get an early shower. Yesterday's prank in the woods has left him covered in dirt and grime and he rather not be covered in evidence for either Yang or Ruby to find. Plus, he's already too wide awake to fall back asleep now. Not with Sir Scrabbles watching his every move. Just waiting for the perfect opportunity to poke him.

Grabbing his school uniform, Jaune leaves with a soft click of the door.

...

He's brushing his teeth after a lengthy shower with his hair still wet when a hand grabs his shoulder with the owner of that hand smirking into the foggy mirror, "Well, if it isn't my favorite punching bag. Been awhile, Jaunie-boy."

Against all odds, Jaune still manages to find a way to smile, "Cardin? What are doing up so early?"

He moves past Jaune to brush his own teeth, using the mirrors to talk, "Isn't it obvious? If I want to avoid having to share bathroom space with every other loser in this dorm, gotta wake up early. Perfection like this takes work you know." He flexes his muscles, smirk growing, "Maybe one day you'll know how it feels to have guns like these."

Jaune can't help but laugh at the pose he makes, liking this side of Cardin when he's not bullying anyone. Granted, he's gotten much better on not picking on anyone. As a matter of fact, Jaune can't remember the last time he's heard Cardin taunting anyone or just being a plain nuisance. Rumors have even been floating around that he's been seen eating with Velvet Scarlatina of all people recently!

Lies! Obviously!

The sound of brushing teeth fills the silence that falls over them before it becomes too much to bear for Jaune, "So... aren't you going to ask me how I'm handling the Vytal Tournament problem?"

Cardin spits into the sink, glaring into the bathroom mirror, "Tch! Why would I ask you that? What do I look like? A damn therapist?"

Jaune overlooks Cardin's disdain, fixing the man a comforting shrug, "For what it's worth, thanks. If you hadn't had warned me, my team would've been in big trouble."

Cardin wipes away the water from his face, walking off without so much as a care, "Whatever."

Jaune wipes away the fog from the mirror, barely seeing Cardin offering him a casual wave from behind in the reflection. By the time he turns around, Cardin's already gone from the bathroom and Jaune's left alone with the steam from the showers still hiding much of the washroom and his confusion. But in end he feels much better when he returns back to his room, already finding the rest of his team up with Nora wearing Ren's cloak and jumping on his bed while Sir Scrabbles is attached to Ren's neck.

Pyrrha's the first one to notice him come in, blinking once at his still dripping hair, "Hello, Jaune. How was your morning?"

He shrugs his shoulders, brushing a stray hair away from his vision, "Fine."

...

Drumming his pencil aimlessly on his notebook, Jaune's nerves feel drained as he listened to Professor Port go on and on about the wonders of the Grimm. And it's not typical boredom that sedates him. No. It's listening to his professor talk about the Grimm in a way that made the Arc question the man's profession and apparent expertise he had on the subject matter at hand. Never before has he ever been so intent on listening to the old man's stories.

"Remember class! A Grimm will always fight even when injured!" That was a lie. "They're beast that cannot be reason with!" Nope. "They cannot be trusted!" Tell that to Nora and her love for Sir Scrabbles. "Never show them an ounce of mercy because they won't hesitate to rip your throat out!" Jaune's starting to wonder how much Professor Port actually knows about the Grimm. "Let me tell you a tale when a ripped off a Nevermore's wings with my bare hands—!"

And that's when Jaune tunes him out, finding solace in the sketches he's made of a dark Lore blade by accident when he peers down on his notebook. The sword is pitch black and is missing parts of the sketch due to some wall Jaune can't seem to overcome—basically the hilt of the blade. It's easy to draw Gravity and Black Hole, those are techniques he can physically reach out for, but this sword still eludes him. Haunting him even in his random doodles and that vexes the Arc.

Especially if more Grimm decide to attack. Your Lore already can't do anything to fight back if it comes to that.

Jaune's pencil almost snaps in half as Ren's words come back to haunt. Maybe it's looking at the picture of the half-finished Lore blade or hearing Professor Port talk about the Grimm, but he hated the feeling of powerlessness that overcame him at the mere mention of fighting the Grimm. That's a feeling he hasn't had in a while. And it's not one he's too keen on inviting over anytime soon.

Angry with himself, Jaune presses his pencil down to finish the drawing, connecting led with paper in an effort to make the hilt, but stops himself. No matter how much he tries to move his hand, the pencil won't budge because he just doesn't know what the blade looks like. No clue whatsoever. So it's impossible for him to draw something he cannot imagine, visualize, see, and feel.

Glaring at the fragmentary drawing, he gives up for now, flipping to the next page of his notebook to doodle an Aura shard and then a Lore shard instead. Other than trying to unlock the mysteries of Aura and Lore, he's still got to head over to Vale and pick up more white Dust shards. Not exactly something the Arc wants to do, but doesn't really have much choice unless he wants to forgo Aura shards altogether. And that's just a whole other bottle of issues he rather avoid opening since Nora absolutely adores those rock candies and taking them away would be problematic all on its own.

Never mind the aftermath.

...

Not even walking more than three steps into his first day of Dust class and Weiss is already roughly shoving something into Jaune's hands that has an oddly familiar cold touch to it. The tiny frown on her normally elegant face is something Jaune's used to, just not when he hasn't messed up yet. It's rare if not never that Weiss is ever actively mad before he even throws in a greeting. She's more reserved than that. So either she's taking her undirected anger at him for something someone else did or she's in a crabby mood today and Jaune Arc should trend lightly or face the wrath of a hundred and ten pound Snow Angel.

"Here," Weiss leaves him without another word, trending only to pick up the assignment and take a seat that's known as their lab station. There she waits patiently for Jaune to sit down, reading over the assignment dully in the meantime.

Checking his arms, Jaune's surprised to find the special ice Dust shard Weiss had worked so hard on abandon in his hands. The cool touch of the shard hums lightly on his skin and feels delightfully pleasant, to the point Jaune has to keep the shard gripped tightly between his fingers so the rest of the sensation doesn't spread throughout his body.

Walking over, he reaches their work station and takes a quiet seat, waiting for Weiss to make the first move. She doesn't. Jaune apparently has to reach out for the both of them because the Heiress is too stubborn to budge.

"Uh, Weiss?" he shakes the Dust shard in his hand. "What's this for?"

She makes no attempt to look at him but answers his question, "It's the ice shard we worked on. Turns out it's only good for freezing objects the very moment you add Aura. It's impossible to use in a combat situation and requires an influx of constant Aura to even maintain the effect." There's a lace of disappointment in her voice, "It's useless. Even all the Dust scientist at the Schnee Company said so."

Blinking at the shard, Jaune added some Aura and the cooling effect intensified, almost freezing his hand in place. In a way, if this is the payoff of using this shard, then it's technically useless. But still, "But why are giving this to me?"

She shrugs her shoulders, losing her glare momentarily, "I have no use for it. I've been meaning to give it to you anyways. You could have it if you want. You already have the other one. Throw them away or break them. It no longer matters to me." Her frown grows, "It was a waste of my time."

Now he sees the problem, "Hey! C'mon! You invented a new type of ice Dust! That's not a waste of time. Who knows? I bet someone could really use this one day! You never know!" Jaune attempts to grab her shoulder as an act of support, but Weiss shrugs it off immediately. Something tells him there's more to this than meets the eye. "... Are you mad at me?"

"Yes."

Wow, straight to the point, "Why?"

Her anger returns and this time she's actually looking at him, "I was up all night trying to soothe Ruby and Yang after you're little prank," Jaune's about ready to deny her claim but Weiss shuts him up with a tired glare. "Don't bother lying. Blake already told me you had something to do with it."

Not sure what to say, Jaune smiles weakly, "I'm sorry?" Weiss turns her head away, adding a crossing of her arms to drive her point home. "Okay, what do I got to do to make it up to you? Anything! Just ask."

Fixing him a sideways glare, Weiss pouts her lip and moves her fingers up and down on her arm, "I'll think of something."

Figuring his Fate was sealed one way or another, Jaune looks down at the Dust shard Weiss created, knowing his friend didn't waste her time no matter how much she beats herself over it. Okay, maybe it's not the most practical Dust shard, but so weren't the white, brittle ones that he's somehow found a way to turn into Aura shards. If he's learned anything from Weiss and her Dust lessons, it's no Dust is useless, no matter how fragile or inconvenient.

But somewhere along the way, Weiss Schnee forgot about that and has given up.

Clutching the Dust shard firmly, Jaune swore on his family's name to find some way to repay Weiss. Because along the lines of everything that has happened to Jaune, Weiss has largely contributed to the creation of his Aura shards and even gave him the power to save Nora's and Pyrrha's life.

None of that was a waste of time.

...

Some things never change. Like the sun rising or the moon shining above their heads in the dead of night or even Blake tailing Jaune from the shadows so she can read in peace in his team's room during lunch. Though he doesn't see the point of her sneakiness? Maybe she's just bored and needs something to do. Maybe she's polishing up on her ninja skills. Perhaps even both. Or perhaps even none.

Hard to tell with Blake and her forever mission to be secretive and closed off.

Reaching his team's room, Jaune's not surprised when Blake suddenly pops out of the corner with one of her books locked between her fingers with a light, smile adorning her features. It's only until she's standing right beside him that he can see how weak her smile truly was or even how much force she put in to making it.

Letting her in, Jaune just remembers one crucial detail he forgot to warn Blake about and her catlike eyes are already zeroing in on Sir Scrabbles perched on top of Ren's pillow with one of Pyrrha's socks in its claws the moment she takes a step into Team JNPR's room. Both sets of eyes blink at the Grimm lazing around in the room with prey and predator exchanging no words between each other. Then, before he can say or do anything, Blake's already rushing into his room and towards the sloth Grimm.

"Blake! No!"

Panicking, Jaune quickly focuses his Aura to stop Blake from doing something drastic that will undoubtedly hurt Nora, but comes to a sudden stop when he feels no pressures from Blake's nonexistent Aura. Instead, he's met with a scene he didn't think could ever happen. Not with Blake Belladonna at least.

Hugging Sir Scrabbles tightly, Blake presses the Grimm close to her chest, "And who's this little guy?"

Confused, it takes a moment for Jaune's brain to restart and when it does, Blake has made herself comfortable on Ren's bed with the sloth settled between her legs. One of her hands is rubbing her fingers through the Grimm's head, messing with the pitch black fur while the other is still holding her book yet she's not making any attempt at reading it, diverting her attention between him and the Grimm.

She's waiting for an answer, "That's Sir Scrabbles. Nora's new pet. It's a sloth." Thinking logically for a second, "Don't tell anyone about him."

Rubbing the little guy's head, Blake hums, "Don't worry. I'm good at keeping secrets." Something tells him that Blake would just prefer to hog the Grimm all to herself. "Mmm, Sir Scrabbles. I like that name."

Crisis averted, Jaune's able to let go of the breath he didn't know he had been holding, taking immense relief when Sir Scrabbles only peered up at Blake as she opened her book. Strange enough, their darken appearance matched really well, like Ren and Sir Scrabbles and Jaune has to wonder if Blake even knows if Sir Scrabbles is a Grimm or simply doesn't mind.

From a different point-of-view, without the bone platting or murderous glint that most Grimm have, Sir Scrabbles looks like any other sloth to anyone else. Just pitch black and with large, emotionless blood eyes. So Jaune can see how Blake can't tell Sir Scrabbles is a Grimm. He just can't figure out how the monster managed to capture her heart in the span of a few seconds. Nora he can understand. But Blake's not made out of sugar, spice, and everything nice.

Lost, Jaune can't help but compare the two to maybe find some common link between them, except for the nonobvious one he cannot see. They're kind of alike. Sir Scrabbles and Blake both have emotionless eyes. Both favors the color black—although that's not much of a choice for Sir Scrabble's case. And neither one of them like to make much noise. Next thing he's going to learn is that they both like lazing around during a warm, summer's day. Now wouldn't that be something?

Unable to solve one of life's great mysterious, Jaune decides to stay in the room to avoid any unnecessary trouble that may happen if he leaves Blake alone with Sir Scrabbles. If anything happened to the little guy, Nora would be absolutely devastated. And Jaune's not too sure Ren would just stand back and let Nora be sad and teary-eyed.

"Thanks," he lies down on his bed, trying to catch on some sleep he missed because of Nora's pet and makes the mistake at looking at Blake one more time. For a moment, he watches with the seconds soon turning into minutes and the idea of sleep soon becomes a distant dream. "Hey? Blake? What's wrong?"

A slight pause is the answer he receives as Blake's eyes narrow for the briefest of moments. Even now it's too late to hide her surprise, both Jaune and Sir Scrabbles see through her mask she quickly fixes. Yet she fights anyways. Hoping to hide whatever emotions she has away from them.

"Hn? Me? Nothing. I'm perfectly fine."

Of course the Arc doesn't believe a word she says. It would be more convincing if Sir Scrabbles didn't refuse to take its eyes off of her. It's attracted to her that much Jaune sees. And that could only mean one thing. She's feeling a semblance of sad or anger dwelling inside. Only except she's keeping it bottled up. Typical Blake.

Normally, Jaune would leave it alone since Blake's not exactly an emotional type of person but his inner instincts don't believe in that idea. Not anymore. Talking about their problems is like tradition by now. Not talking about them would be breaking tradition and that's not something Jaune Arc can do.

Breaking tradition is like breaking an Arc's words—doesn't happen. Especially not with his friend hurting inside, "No... you're not."

"Oh?" she challenges hotly, hardly lowering the book. There's a thin vile of distrust in her words, "And how do you know that?"

Sitting up, he points at her book, "Well, first you've been stuck on the same page for about six minutes now and you normally only need two to finish. And your eyes aren't even settled on the book, they're looking off to the side."

Lowering her book completely, Blake's normally composed features have fallen away. Leaving nothing but utter confusion and a hint of emotion in her tone, "You noticed that?"

He grins, "Of course! We're friends!"

Might just be his imagination, but Blake's bow lowered, "It's not your problem to deal with."

Jaune scoffs, standing up now, "Didn't I just say we were friends? And friends don't let friends hurt inside. Any problem you're dealing with is my problem too! There's no way I'm going to let you be sad while I'm trying to help!"

Widening her eyes, Blake puts down her book and looks down, lightly hugging Sir Scrabbles close to her chest. Somehow the Grimm acts as a great stress reliever as Blake finally looks back up to Jaune, hesitant and not exactly scared, but timid.

"It's more of an issue I rather discuss with my team."

He understands that completely and smiles sympathetically, "Then talk to them."

Blake loses her nervous expression to only adopt an annoyed one, "They're all too busy with their own problems to notice. Yang and Ruby are stuck in their own little world and Weiss is too busy sulking quietly over her own problems. We're a team, but we're not." There's that sadness he was looking for, "They don't care."

Jaune doesn't have to believe to know that's not true, surprising Blake from the passion lacing his words, "That's dumb. Trust me, they care. They just need a little push."

"And if they don't care?"

"You and I both know that's not true."

Not knowing what else to say, Blake pressed the Grimm closer to her chest, finding comfort in the black sloth. Jaune wonders how Blake would react if she knew Sir Scrabbles was a Grimm? Then he pushes that amusing idea aside to sit next to Blake with his posture the same as hers, minus Sir Scrabbles.

His smile remains strong and heavy, filling the atmosphere with positiveness and hope. No words are said but Jaune knows his message got to her; she's just busy trying to sort the meaning all out. And that's fine. He'll sit here as long as it takes. No matter what, he's not moving.

Eventually his patience and friendship pays off when Blake smiles softly without any of hidden emotions lurking behind, "When did you get so good at giving pep talks?"

"When did you start reading in our room?"

Blake's smile grows and Sir Scrabbles boops her on the nose.

...

Lunch ends and combat class feels different for Jaune. Not in the sense he's feeling any different. No, it's his partner Pyrrha who can't seem to muster up a smile for some strange reason. Usually she's all high spirits about beating some poor sap down into the ground, but he's noticed she's been slowing losing the enthusiasm for Professor Goodwitch's class for a while now. Before even they took their two week break in Emerald Forest.

At the time, Jaune hadn't thought much of it. Chalking it up to maybe Pyrrha just wasn't feeling well. But now he's worried. Worried and deeply confused to why Pyrrha isn't smiling in her favorite class or why she's not volunteering like usual.

"Jaune Arc!" Jaune jumps at the sound of his name being called and he looks down to the arena to already see his opponent waiting for him. And he's not sure whether if the universe has it out to get him. "Please hurry up and get down here."

"Yea, Jaune-Jaune!" Nora grins down from below with Ren's trusty StormFlower gripped tightly in each of her fist. There's a mechanical gleam in her eyes, mixed alongside her poisonous smile. "Hurry up and get your butt down here! Don't make me come up there, Fearless Leader!"

Sighing to himself, Jaune reluctantly overlooks his partner's quiet deposition to walk down the steps to the arena and get the slaughter over with. He's already concentrating his Aura and can feel Nora's Space crashing down on him with every inch of pressure. The Arc almost halts in his movement, feeling something amiss with Nora's Space, but manages to keep moving to avoid any unneeded suspicion.

It's stronger. Nothing compared to her Aura when she was lying in bed all those days or still recovering from Lore infecting her system. Nothing simple like that. That would be purely easy to understand. But this current discovery is making the hairs on his neck stand up.

Feeling something wrong, he silently thinks to himself as he makes his way down, unable to understand where the stronger Space was coming from. Sure, she got stronger during the training trip, there's no denying that, but he could've sworn he knew the limit to extent she reached back in Emerald Forest before the Lore shard incident happened. There's just no way she gained this much power between then and now without him noticing.

Something must have happened to her Aura when he wasn't paying attention. Some strange power or some strange spark must've ignited a part of her soul? Because this strange boost of power oddly reminds him when he first used Lore, his control over Aura just skyrocketed after that faithful day. Even the turquoise Aura around Nora isn't as chaotic as it normally is. Although, he does notice a bit of oddly shaped static currents orbiting around her frame that definitely hadn't been there before.

Could Lore have been the cause of this? Did having Lore in her system do something to her Aura? Or is it something else entirely? Some larger problem he's just not seeing? He can't see any other possible reason to why her Aura has reached a whole new level of power in a very short period of time. Nor he could find the excuse to whisk her away and test the results of this confusion in the privacy of their room.

Oh well. If nothing else, there's no better time to test the limits of her newfound Aura control than right now. In Professor Goodwitch's class with all his friends and peers silently judging him.

How... exhilarating.

"So... I see you're still using your teammate's weapons?" Professor Goodwitch comments easily with her face indifferent when Jaune finally makes it down. "How long do you plan to keep up this team building exercise, Mr. Arc?"

That's right. Team JNPR's currently lying to Professor Goodwitch, using each other's weapons to cover up Pyrrha's lack of a weapon and to make Jaune look weak in comparison for the upcoming Vytal Tournament. Throwing off suspicion and making their team look like an unstable bomb about to go off was just a bonus for the upcoming Vytal Tournament.

Still fixated on Nora's Aura, Jaune's eyes are only locked onto Nora's predatory grin, "That's a secret."

It's not a lie. It's not the truth. It's a little of both. Nonetheless, Professor Goodwitch accepts the answer because over the weeks Jaune's been improving—even if it's in hand-to-hand combat and not swordplay—and she doesn't want him to fail and fall back down after all the improvements because she forced him to rely on a weapon he didn't seem to good on wielding from the start. And the rest of Team JNPR never complained about their weapon switches.

Smirking lightly, Professor Goodwitch fixes her glasses in place. "Begin!"

Shuffling his feet back, Jaune squares his shoulders while keeping his legs light and hands centered towards his chest. If anything's come out of Nora's insane idea, it's his appreciation for hand-to-hand fighting. The Arc can't say there are no uses on only relying on one's body to fight even if his forms are barely sloppy at best. In more ways than one, he's even quicker on his feet and more observant when it comes launching an attack than humbly thrusting, hacking, or slashing Excalibur around.

And using only his hands does give him a reason to use his Aura without Crocea Mors disrupting it.

Seeing Nora dash forward, Jaune has to slide away to avoid the hailstorm of bullets she's raining down at him with a crackle and dangerous tint in her eyes. She's running closer to him, using the Dust embedded bullets to keep him on the defense, eventually getting within his personal circle and attempting to hack him with Ren's bladed guns.

Jaune uses his Aura enhanced reflexes to dodge a few of Nora's attacks, but not all of them when aimed for his chest, needing to keep up appearances for Ren's plan to work. Jaune has to lose. If Ren's plan is going to work, he has to appear weak and fragile. So even if he can keep up and quite possibly block and dodge Nora's barrage of attacks, he doesn't. Nora may be fast, but she's not that fast. And the Arc has to force his Aura to deplete with more than average after each blow, willing it to not harden as armor around his body.

Appearances or not however, he can't just keep dodging forever, some of his peers actually expect a little out of him. And he can't say he's not sorely tempted to deliver a few well-earned fists right at her.

"C'mon, Jaune! You can do better than that!" Really, really tempted!

Catching her wrist with his forearm and stopping her apparent slash coming down from above, Jaune takes a step into Nora's bubble and delivers a quick jab to her stomach, connecting another one soon after on her cheek and then nose. And throughout the short ordeal, he both noted how Nora's static force field came and focused on the area he hit her and how her Space didn't decrease much in pressure as he came to expect.

Brushing off Jaune's attack, Nora shakes her head and glares gleefully at her leader, feeling strangely better after getting nicked. Her blood feels hot and there's this pleasant tingle traveling throughout her body that reminds her of the sensation of goose bumps crawling up her skin.

Taking a swing, her leader's eyes widen as he jumps back, but she's not having any of that, already lunging forward before she can give Jaune a chance to breathe.

"She's faster?" Jaune whispers, narrowly dodging another cut aimed for his cheek. He tries to block her arm with his, but is stunned when her strength surpasses what she normally dishes out. "She's stronger?"

Dodging a swipe aimed for his shoulder, Jaune carefully experimented while landing a few strikes on Nora's chest, uppercutting her with enough force to drive her back. Each time he did, he noticed how that strange charge centered on each and every blow that had landed, effectively increasing the amount of pressure she was releasing while her Aura slowly depleted. And before he knows it, her speed has practically doubled and she's pushing him back with impossible strength.

Locked in a power struggle he could only overcome if he concentrates more on his Aura, Jaune barely has time to register that Nora's eyes have some electrical current running in them with her entire body feeling like a giant conductor before he slides back from her newfound strength. By now it's impossible for him to miss the tiny bits of electrical currents running up and down her body and how heavy her Space feels on his body. And he's not the only one perceiving the strange power, Nora, too, is staring down at her body with a rare, reserved expression.

Looks like Nora's just learning about her newfound level of Aura control as well.

Then her grin returns back stronger and she grips StormFlower tighter, feeling the electrical impulses running rampant in her body react to the weapon's metal coating. She doesn't know what's happening, but she feels freaking fantastic. Her muscles feel tight, just like when she ate her leader's Aura shards, except she's lacking any such handicap. Every cell in her body feels so energized each time Jaune manages to hit her that all she wants to do is fight until her legs give up on her.

Jaune Arc doesn't know this or Nora for that matter, but when Nora Valkyrie's body had been pushed to the brink of death back at Emerald Forest, her Aura fought valiantly to keep her alive, igniting a new spark to burn in her soul to live and grow kind of like the same way his Aura responded to his fight with the Death Stalker when his life was on the line. That sparked took a lot of time to manifest itself with little Aura to nurture it and help it grow as at the time, it all had been used to keep the host alive and away from Death's iron grip.

But the Valkyrie, free of her deathbed and not yet ready to join her family in the big hall in the sky, has risen as a new warrior from the ashes to become someone stronger to fight once more. A warrior who's learned to turn her opponents forces against him in the literal sense. Who refuses to fall in battle again after fighting off Lore trying to corrupt her system. But in an ironic twist of Fate, Lore is what made her Aura and semblance evolve.

Turning kinetic energy and vibrations received from physical attacks into electrical currents, Nora's semblance has evolved to the point of becoming a shock absorber, utilizing damage and backlash for her personal gain. Each blow her body takes only fuels the electrical currents running rampant in her body, and before long, she's reached a new limit to where she can feel the buildup of static residual dancing across her fingertips. Almost to the point she can call the electricity to obey her!

Lost within the euphoria of power and having no way in controlling the energy, Nora's emotions become clouded from the increase of currents running through her muscles and she dashes forward at Jaune with renewed speed and strength. Her Fearless Leader manages to catch her wrists before she can bring down Ren's weapons on his shoulder, although, the raw physical exertion alone brings him to his knees. She can even see static building on his fingers.

Forced to up his Aura concentration, Jaune manages to push Nora off and look to Professor Goodwitch without missing a beat, "I forfeit."

The bomber's eyes widen as her leader drops his stance, eyeing her critically, "You're giving up?! No!" she cries. "Things were just starting to get good!"

"Sorry, Nora!" Jaune grins without any real sympathy. He even adds in a mock wave, "You're just too strong."

"That is for the best," Professor Goodwitch throws in, smiling lightly at the boy and impressed with Jaune's progress. "The match was Miss Valkyrie's, but you did well to fend her off and even knew when to retreat. You're making headway."

It's hard to make the leader of Team JNPR blush in embarrassment from praise. Glynda Goodwitch does it without even trying.

Releasing the tension in his shoulders, Jaune motioned for Nora to follow him back up to the stands where the rest of their team was watching while she pouted at the unfairness of ending the match early. No one seems to have notice Nora's sudden power up except for them two. Just as Jaune thought, knowing no one else can see Aura or measure the physical strength on a person from simply observing a match.

When they make it to their team, Professor Goodwitch has already set up another match and Team JNPR can hear the fighting going off in the background, but their leader's tense eyes make it impossible to look anywhere else. He's quiet for a moment, silently staring at Nora who suddenly feels small under Jaune's unnatural apprehensive glare. Even Ren's feeling the pressure of Jaune's eyes on Nora.

"Jaune?" Ren tries to ask, but his leader is already answering.

"Team meeting after dinner," he says with finality and looks away towards the new fight going on.

They don't try to get anything out of him, knowing full well he doesn't want anyone to hear what he wants to discuss if it has anything to do with Aura. Pretty much all of Team JNPR is shrouded in a cloak of secrets. It's nothing new. Just seeing their leader acting so serious all of a sudden is throwing them in one heck of a loop. But they all have other things to think about.

Especially Pyrrha who has a sort of longing in her eyes as she watches students fight with their weapons. Only fueling her desire to hurry up and start this secret she wants to test. Almost to the point of desperation. And desperation can lead people down a dangerous path.

...

Dinner comes and goes without much commotion and before they know it, they're back in their room. Lucky for Jaune, Blake's taking his advice to heart and has left to go talk to her team with a newfound vigor and beaming confidence. Although, no one would be able to tell unless they really knew Blake's facial expressions and body language from spending so much with the bookworm. To anyone else, she's relatively fine.

Reaching for his Aura notebook, Jaune stands in the middle of the room with his team waiting for him to start this team meeting. It takes a moment for him to get his wits right, flicking through some pages of past notes before he shuts the notebook closed and stares keenly at Nora.

"Nora? What's your semblance?"

She's caught off-guard, frown forming, "To control electricity and all electrical currents." She adds quickly, "All that electrical stuff makes my muscles even stronger."

That's the first time he heard about the muscles bit, but that makes total sense to him if that's always been a major factor of her semblance. What doesn't however, "I thought you said you needed an outside source in order to use it?"

"I do."

He knows she's telling the truth; Nora's not very good at lying, not under pressure at least. So he takes a seat on his bed, fixing Nora a glare while he concentrated on his Aura. "Focus on your Aura."

Part of her wants to ask why but Jaune's rare glare makes her comply and she spots his eyes widening ever so slightly when she concentrates. She feels nothing different, but clearly her Fearless Leader sees something else entirely. And it's when he's flipping through his Aura notebook again that's she acutely curious to what he sees. Even more so as he begins to sketch on a page already filled with timeworn sketches, taking every few seconds to stare back at her before adding more to the picture he's drawing.

Silence surrounds the room with only the sound of Jaune's pencil scratching against the fabric of paper. Time moves too slowly for everyone apart from Jaune, but he's done before the silence becomes too much to bare, already showing off the sketch he's drawn.

He's pointing at an old sketch with bubbly Aura, "This was what your Aura looked like before, Nora." He then points at a new sketch with a tiny electrical current surrounding the Aura. "And this is what your Aura looks like now. See the difference?"

They all do.

"What does this mean?" Pyrrha asked.

Jaune sighs, losing his glare, "I don't know. I've never seen someone's Aura change before. I'm guessing the Lore you ate might be at fault here. I'm not too sure. So far all your Auras have remained relatively the same and I never thought they can change. But now I do know they can and it happened during our fight."

Nora grabs the Aura notebook, looking down at the pictures, "What about our fight? Was something wrong with my Aura?"

Jaune immediately noticed Ren getting tense and Sir Scrabbles making an appearance from under his covers. The sloth Grimm is already being plucked away from his bed sheets from Nora who's coddling the Grimm in a comforting hug. Only ironic for a Grimm and a human yet completely effective in drowning out the sudden uneasiness in the room.

"I'm not sure, but I have an idea." Standing up, he motions Nora to follow, making sure to leave Sir Scrabbles on the bed, "Don't stop concentrating on your Aura. I'm going to hit you and don't worry Ren. I'm not going to hit her too hard."

Grinning at Ren's expression, he hits Nora on the shoulder lightly, noting how the electrical current focused on his point of contact. Meanwhile, Nora's looking down at her shoulder, feeling a sudden buildup of shock she hadn't noticed before during their spar. Jaune then hits her again on her forearm and the same mechanics happen with that buildup of shock dispersing throughout her entire body. And before long, Jaune's hitting her harder and the buildup keeps increasing with every blow.

Ren almost reaches out to stop him when Nora actually stumbles back from a strike, but he stops when Nora begins to laugh.

"Whoa!" she breathes happily, feeling a powerful electrical current beating all over her body. "I feel awesome! Like I can take on a whole army of Grimm! What's happening?"

Losing all forms of seriousness, Jaune smiles weakly, "Honestly, I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out. During our fight the same thing was happening every time I hit you. It's like... it's like. I don't know," he gives up, not really good with words. "It's—?"

"It's like your semblance managed to find a way to turn any force turned against you into raw, physical power." Ren adds in, poking Nora's shoulder and feeling a slight residue of static backlashing at him. "You're like a walking... shock absorber."

Nora pokes her own shoulder, feeling the electrical buildup. She almost feels as powerful as when she eats one of Jaune's Aura shards, "Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Shock absorption is the process where kinetic energy and vibrations from an opposite force is absorbed and converted it into electricity or other forms of power. Namely, absorbing shock reduces the force acting upon each other while gaining something for nothing!" Pyrrha answers confidently and she's met with three sets of eyes, all blank, all very, very lost. Eventually, she fidgets in place, openly embarrassed. "What? Am I the only who pays attention to Professor Port's lessons?"

This only confuses the rest of the team more.

"So what you're saying is..." Nora hums seconds later, shifting her hands out as if she's holding a box. "I can turn punches and kicks into raw power?"

Pyrrha nods and Jaune's adding that note into his Aura notebook, captured by the evolution of Nora's semblance and Aura. "That makes a lot of sense. Explains why every time I hit her, her Space kept getting stronger but her Aura was weakening. Somehow your Aura found a way to evolve. Why? I don't know. But this can come in handy for—Nora! Stop hitting yourself!"

Nora stops her fifth fist from making contact to her face and she's staring innocently at them with a bruise already forming on her cheek. Ren's on her before anyone else can react and he's pushing away her hands to check the bruise forming on her cheek, tching as a small trail of blood begins to poor down her nose.

He quickly tilts her head up and accepts the tissue Pyrrha grabs for him, "Look what you did. You bruised your cheek and gave yourself a nosebleed."

She smiles a bloody grin at Ren, "Just wanted to see if hitting myself worked too." Judging off her misguided laugh, "It didn't. Sorry."

Pressing the tissue gently to her nose, Ren glares weakly at his clueless childhood friend, knowing full well he could've told her that without needing to know the properties of Aura. Still, here he was, stopping a nosebleed and rubbing the aching bruise that's already healing. Meanwhile, Sir Scrabbles climbs up his shoulder to get a closer look of Nora's nosebleed, captivated at the thought of a human hurting themselves and wondering why the Grimm even bother.

"Don't do that again, okay Nora?" Ren wipes the blood away from her nose, tossing the bloody tissue onto one of their desk. He's checking for any other damages, glare unbelievably intense that begins to melt her resolve. "No more self-inflicted injuries. Promise me."

She stands no chance, "Okay. I promise."

Glaring weakening, Ren rubs the spot where she struck herself, running his thumb gently over the sensitive spot. "... Stop making me worry so much." Her face begins to heat up, "Are you getting a fever now?" she shakes her head even though her face continues to heat up.

Not wanting to break up the little moment but knowing he has to, Jaune shuts his Aura notebook and looks at the retreating sun in the background. The day's gone faster than he had hoped and it was going to get dark soon. He prefers to pick up the white Dust shards now before the sun sets than hold it off for another day. Maybe he can even get some Lore training down before it was time for lights out.

"Okay, okay, Nora's no longer hurt and she's not sick. We can work more on her semblance later. It's time to head to Vale!" Jaune declares, knowing Nora loves going to Vale for any reason and any excuse to get away from Ren's magic fingers. "So c'mon, hurry up already... unless you guys don't want any more Aura shards?"

Nora's already pulling Ren towards the door and Pyrrha's standing right beside Jaune, "I do still need to pick up something as well."

He fixes her a smile, "You gonna tell me what you're getting?"

She doesn't give him an answer, only smiling wistfully at her leader before embarking on the quest to reach Nora and Ren. Jaune, in the meantime, shakes his head, amused at the karma of secrets being thrown at him. At least he knows she's being opened about it, but damn is he curious.

He runs out after them, barely stopping as he searched his pockets in haste. When he doesn't find what he's looking for, he's yelling down the hall, "Just go one without me! I'll catch up in a minute! I left my wallet back in the room!"

By the time he finds his wallet—under Nora's mattress of all places—Sir Scrabbles is looking at Jaune from underneath Ren's sheets. Jaune takes a moment and closes the blinds, petting the Grimm on the head before running out the door while yelling over his shoulder.

"Stay here and guard the room."

Obviously it's a joke but some part of Jaune thinks Sir Scrabbles understands him when he gets a yelp sound in return and Team JNPR's leader is too confused when he runs out his room. When he's done getting his thoughts focused, it's after crashing into someone in the hall while using Aura to increase his speed.

"Ah! Oh! Sorry!"

Jaune lands on the floor, looking up at whom he crashed into. A woman is glancing down at him with fiery eyes, a soft smile; ravish locks with her offering her hand to help him up. There are two others standing beside her. One is a girl with red eyes, darkish skin, and mint green hair. The other is a male with silver hair and a cocky grin that sort of resembles Cardin's.

"No worries," she says so kindly, helping him. "Next time you should probably watch where you're going. I can't imagine running while looking the other way can be easy."

"Yea," Jaune grins, rubbing his neck awkwardly. "My bad. I'll work on it. By the way, I'm Jaune. I don't think I've ever seen you in this dormitory before?"

Her orange and fire eyes burn with intensity, "We're visiting from Haven actually. For the Vytal Tournament I'm sure you know." Jaune fights the urge to groan. He hates being reminded about the tournament.

"Oh..." Jaune blinks, pointing his finger towards the eastern side of Beacon. "You do know the exchange students' dorm is that way, right?"

"Heh, looks like we just got a little lost," said the guy with the silver hair. He seems fun.

"Oh, believe me," Jaune laughs. "I know how that feels. I got lost on my very first day here at Beacon. Happens to the best of us! Just head that direction and you should be fine."

They walk past him except for the fiery woman who takes a moment to observe him. To recognize him, "Thanks... by the way, aren't you on the team chosen by Vale to compete in the Vytal Tournament?"

This time Jaune does groan, "Uh... yea, Jaune Arc at your service. I'm the leader of Team JNPR." At the mere mention of his team, Jaune panics and quickly concentrates his Aura, already running past her. "I'm sorry! I just remembered I'm late for something." He does a quick stop, smacking himself on the head before running back up to her, "Where are my manners? Welcome to Beacon!"

Now he runs away from her, offering the woman a halfhearted wave as he turns a corner, never noticing the woman's eyes burning with a low intensity. He never even got her name.

...

Catching up with his team and reaching the Dust shop takes little time and no effort; it's actually ringing up the price of Dust that's become the problem. And Jaune Arc or any of his team for that matter is none too thrilled about the sudden skyrocket in price for even the most useless of Dust.

Seeing the price for the brittle Dust, Jaune bangs his head on the counter, "What do you mean Dust prices have gone up?"

The old man manning the counter smiles regretfully at Jaune, unable to help out too much, "Sorry, youngster. With all the recent Dust robberies, Vale barely has enough to go around. Even the cheapest stuff is selling for four times they're face value."

All Jaune hears is that he's only able to get one-fourth the amount of white Dust shards he wants. That's if they even have that much. "How much white Dust do you have left?"

The old man checks and comes back with a handful, "Only about twenty shards or so."

Sighing to himself, Jaune reaches for his wallet, figuring he might as well buy the remaining Dust shards before prices even go higher and he can't even afford one measly shard. Pyrrha offers to throw in some of her money but the Arc waves off her concern, saying something along the lines of it being his responsibility for team leader and all that whimsical nonsense. So she excuses herself, searched through a section of the store and comes back with a book between her hands that she pays for herself. And when it's all said and done, they walk out the Dust shop with their leader all sad and mopey.

Nora tries to cheer him up by offering him a great big hug and Jaune politely declines, not wanting to be crushed under her strength. Didn't matter in the end, she hugged him anyways, squeezing the Arc in a death struggle. And he won't admit it, but the hug did make him feel a tad bit better. Not great.

But better.

...

When they get back to their room, Nora immediately searches for Sir Scrabbles and feeds him an Aura shard Jaune made just for him. Meanwhile, Pyrrha takes the dried tissue of blood from the desk and various bandages she's kept stored in her bag with the book in her hands and leaves the room with sudden determination. She tells them it's all part of her super-secret training and they decide to let her be, liking the payback their Fearless Leader is getting. More so when Jaune tries to appear uninterested and totally fails at it.

Plus, it gives them all time to do their own things. Nora to love and cuddle Sir Scrabbles, Ren to relax and eat more of his health foods, and Jaune to practice more on his Lore control in hoping to achieve the damn sword he can't imagine at the far end of the room and away from Nora. Occasionally, the bomber asks if Ren can help her practice her newfound Aura control and she's met with a glare that says no and does things to her.

Back to Pyrrha, she reaches the rooftop where Jaune and she used to train before everything happened. All the memories are still fresh and a sad smile crosses the champion's face from all the good and bad memories. Part of her misses those times but another part of her is happy Jaune's strong enough to no longer need her. Isn't that what all teachers want for their students?

Taking a seat on the cool concrete, Pyrrha lays out all the articles of cloth that contain some kind of blood, spreading them all out evenly. She then opens the book she purchased on the human body, quickly flipping to the pages that had to do with blood. Most of what she reads flies over her head, a little too complicated or not interesting her peeked and focused interest until she finally reads something along the words of iron.

Scanning the page, she learns that blood needs iron in order to help move oxygen from a person's lungs to their entire body. The iron itself is comprised together with a protein called hemoglobin, making up two-thirds of the body's iron composition. Less iron meant less healthy red-blood cells which in turn meant less oxygen being supplied throughout the whole the body. Not only that, but blood's chemical formula consists of other elements as well.

That would also explain why blood takes like iron in her mouth.

How fascinating.

Now she can see why her leader likes learning about his strengths.

Although, she doesn't know what she can do with other elements with them all being nonmetal, but she makes sure to remember they exist because that's what Jaune would do. Maybe someday she'll find some other use for them. Maybe not. It's a weighing factor in the future if they're even worth her time.

Setting the book aside, Pyrrha concentrates on her Aura with her hands hovering over the bandages and tissues of her team's and her blood. "Okay, let's do this."

She's not trying to control the blood—that much she's learned from the reading—instead she focuses her time and energy on the Fe molecules embedded inside the blood's chemical composition. Blood isn't metal, but the iron holding the chain of blood is. That was her mistake from the beginning back at the cabin—focusing all her time and energy on the blood as a whole. This time she knows what to look for. Knows what to concentrate on.

Only downside, after half an hour of useless struggling and judging off the book's notes, Pyrrha's learn she can't concentrate on the blood she has as the iron inside has seem to have rotten away alongside the blood itself. Parts of it she can control and other parts are usable just not everything. Only Nora's recent bloody tissue seems to lightly respond to her call. And even then that's a give and pull system. The iron moves just fine, that she can feel.

Just not the blood.

Maybe if she didn't have dried blood it could work. Based off the book, blood needs to be kept cool to remain healthy for longer periods of time and the champion had neglected that.

Determined, Pyrrha focused all her Aura on Nora's tissue, feeling the tiny bits of iron respond to her call, but the blood fails to move on her command. The iron moves just fine, but with the chains of the blood work broken, that's all she's moving. Without life to sustain the crimson liquid, the reach she's looking for simply no longer existed for her to pull. No matter how much Aura she pours into it.

She needs blood not yet broken down. She needs fresh blood!

Looking between the parchments, Pyrrha moves them around and stops herself when she sees her own hand outstretched. An insane idea passes her and she almost ignores it, but rethinks to herself when she realizes all three of her teammates have followed their own versions of insane ideas and have come out on top. Maybe it was finally her time to shine?

"I won't know unless I try."

Smiling to herself, Pyrrha wonders if that's what Jaune thought when he had the idea of creating weapons from Aura. Did her leader just sit around and look up at the moon until everything just clicked?

Feeling more confident in her idea, Pyrrha looks back at her hand, forming a firm fist and releasing a light breath.

Calling out her semblance, Pyrrha's hand gets wrapped around by an invisible energy and she feels the metals all around her from Beacon's structure but she forgets about those and focuses intently on her body. Now that she knows what to look for hypothetically, it's not too hard to find what she's looking for once her mind is set on the task. She can feel the iron moving in her body and even sense some fragments of metals residing in her skin.

Dancing her fingers close to her forearm, Pyrrha wills the blood to move and is only slightly surprised when she feels a tiny pull of pressure binding down on her skin. She's not targeting the blood, only the tiny bits of iron and even then the blood beckons to her call.

Yet, it all confuses her to no end. If she can control her blood so well, why can't she make the dried up parchments of blood heed her call? Pyrrha can understand the idea of the blood breaking down, but how come in Emerald Forest she was able to will the blood outside her body to move? In theory, Pyrrha should be able to move the blood outside her body as well if that was the case.

It's just not making much sense to her.

Maybe this was what Jaune had felt when trying to discover the secrets of Aura as well? Frustrated and terribly confused.

Groaning, Pyrrha falls back and tries to recall if anything triggered her to force the blood to move, but nothing unusual comes up. And without any solid ideas or clues to why the blood moved the way it did back then, she's stuck on a different plan, one that's insane but that's why she's even tempted to do it in the first place. Because insane and Team JNPR might as well be synonyms in the dictionary.

Like the ancient one she brought back from that cabin in Emerald Forest.

Taking a quick, deep breath, Pyrrha looks down at her hand, forms a tight fist and releases it. Before she can stop herself, she sits up and moves up her thumb and takes a small bite on her skin, tearing it away and forced to will her Aura not to heal the injury immediately. It takes a moment, but a small splotch of blood travels down her thumb and into her palm, building up a small pool for her to see.

"Now or never."

Reaching out with her semblance, Pyrrha felt around for the iron residing in the blood, finding it in seconds and willing her control over the molecules. She then wills the iron to move up on her command, trying so hard to keep her control steady with the utmost amount of concentration she can call while keeping her Aura from healing the injury.

Then, to her forever amazement, the blood moves alongside the iron she's controlling, twisting upwards a few inches into the air. It moves within her control as she wills the blood to move in random directions, or more importantly, as she wills the iron to move in random direction. Years of controlling metal has made the process not to ambiguous or strain consuming and before long, she's creating a tiny ball of blood in the center of her palm. Yet, the very second she stops adding Aura to her blood is the moment the ball begins to become harder and harder to control until minutes later it breaks apart in her hand.

Just like how blood breaks apart without iron or life to keep it going.

But she's not sad, not angry, or any emotions that the Grimm find tasty. She's happy, "So it needs Aura, huh? Isn't that..." she can't believe she's going to say this, but it's a rare victory. "Ironic."

No wonder Yang likes making puns.

At least what happened in Emerald Forest made a lot more sense to the champion now. Her blood may have been outside her body, but it was still coated in a layer of Aura, the essence of life in a way. The chains holding the composition hadn't broken just yet because life was still all around it, thus having allowed her to command the metal resting inside and turn it into a weapon.

Strange what a person learns about themselves after a near-death experience.

Grinning, Pyrrha practices into the next hour, making more and more balls of blood until eventually getting enough blood out of her body to create a thin point of a lance before she starts to feel lightheaded and woozy. It's then she remembers she kind of needs her blood if she wants to keep on living and stops practicing, channeling her remaining Aura to clear up the wound as she heads back inside with a slight wobble in her step.

Her skin is a mild paler, but not enough unless someone pays extra close attention. Even her confidence has lost some of its shine when she makes it back into her team's room before crashing down onto her bed, ignoring her team's concern because she simply does not have the energy to care anymore.

Though Nora does make that hard to do with her loud voice and it's the first time the blood crazed girl wants to take Nora up on her offer and hit her.

...

The next three days pass by with little concern, except for Nora taking each and every chance she can to take some form of physical damage, much to Ren's constant stress, and the end of the first week of the new semester is tomorrow. Pyrrha's only seemed to get more and more depressed with her progress and Jaune's noticed. He's made many attempts to ask her what's wrong, but his partner has shrugged it off as nothing, hiding behind fake smiles that oddly remind him of his. Nonetheless, Pyrrha's friends keep a close eye on her and she's grateful, but if her Fearless Leader can somehow find a way to create his weapons all on his own, then she can too!

Call it her champion pride! Call it stubbornness! Call it anything, but Pyrrha Nikos has always succeeded. Why should this challenge be any different?

Well, maybe it's because every passing hour makes the challenge seem more like a dream rather than an actual possibility. And the thoughts are hurting the girl's pride, destroying that confidence she's built up for herself throughout the months with her team who still try to get her to talk.

Damn her pride!

...

Stuck watching some of the exchange students fighting, Pyrrha sighs sadly as each student uses their own weapons to their fullest. She loves Crocea Mors, she truly does, and she'll never forget how selflessly her leader gave it to her when she needed a weapon, but Pyrrha misses having a weapon to honestly call her own. Maybe she's slightly envious of her leader and his weapons or maybe she's just missing having a weapon to beckon to her call and moved the way she wanted like Miló and Akoúo̱ had.

That had been her plan at first. Step one: solve the blood problem and then step two is make the problem a solution. But... things didn't turn out exactly as Pyrrha had hoped for the past few days after. She's run into a whole mess load of problems. Like blood's pesky problem to break down minutes after it leaves her Aura or how the liquid composition didn't exactly make it such a versatile weapon to begin with. And even then there's the problem of keeping it healthy outside of a fridge.

All of these problems posed a challenge for the champion that she doesn't know whether she can overcome them on her own. She doesn't even think they can be overcome at all.

Discovering the problem hadn't made the solution any easier. So what if she can call out her blood to aid her in battle? Pyrrha rather not be bleeding if that's the case. Even if she does want to find a way to create a bloody weapon—too easy Yang—there's no way she can keep supplying the blood, the Aura, and the concentration to keep the weapon available forever. Essentially, her dream and idea of creating a weapon from blood is an impossible one.

And that's pretty much drained away her happiness. Even to the point she's no longer faking smiles for her teammates. But the last straw comes with watching Ruby fight some kid and beat him down after turning her weapon into a sniper rifle, scythe, and then back into a sniper rifle in the span of a few seconds. Just watching Ruby be one with her weapon finally pushes Pyrrha over the edge.

So much that Pyrrha gets up the second combat class ends and hurries over to her team's room, pretending not to hear her leader's call. A part of her feels bad for keeping this a secret now. It wasn't supposed to be a problem but a blessing, but it turned into one and she didn't want to burden her team when they were all still trying to get used to their own powers. Like Ren and his cloak, Nora with her semblance upgrade, or Jaune and his Lore. They all had their own issues to deal with. And it's only after her teammates head towards their room with dinner for her that they learned what she has been doing all this time alone.

...

Jaune's the first in their room with Pyrrha's plate in his hand and it falls effortlessly out his palm as he's already running up to Pyrrha before the plate can even crash down on the floor. Ren and Nora are quickly right beside him as they take in Pyrrha's arms bloody appearance. But what shocks them the most is seeing a large cut on Pyrrha's palm with a blade in her hand over a bucket of blood.

"Pyrrha! What are you doing?!" Jaune yells, sliding up beside her to check for damages. He sighs in relief when the only actual damage is the cut on her palm and makes a grab for the knife.

She lets him take the knife away and answers as if it's the simplest thing in the world, "I needed more blood."

Looking up, Jaune's Aura overcomes him as his emotions get the better of him, "Need more blood for what?!"

She tries to look away, but Jaune's having none of that. Not after three days of worrying and walking onto her doing this of all things. And for what? Blood! Why did she need so much blood? Who needs this much blood?!

"Pyrrha," Jaune growls, already searching for an Aura shard to heal away the injuries she's inflicted on herself. He's willingly to look at her way if she meets him halfway, "Why do you need so much blood?"

Instead of answering him verbally, she reaches out towards the bucket that has fourth a liter of her own blood in it and wills to bend up. It does and Ren has to stop Nora from saying something childish under the serve circumstances. It moves so majestically that Jaune's stunned at how well she controls it... until it begins to break down slowly and Pyrrha has to let it sit.

"I was trying to find a way to turn my blood into a weapon," she says suddenly, breaking the silence. "It's not going so well. That was the secret."

Figuring out part of the problem, Jaune breathes heavily for a moment, looking between his partner and the bucket of blood in the middle of his room. Time doesn't even seem to be a factor as he's finished searching for an Aura shard for her to consume.

Pressing the crystal in her hands, Jaune closes her fingers around the shard, voice soft, "Why didn't you just ask for help?"

Taking the shard, she consumes the rock and feels her Aura levels almost return to normal. Yet she doesn't feel any better, "You didn't need any help. You never asked for help. And it's not like I was trying to hurt myself. It was the only source of blood I can find on a whim. I need fresh and healthy blood."

Finally seeing the whole picture, Jaune sighs, believing he should tackle each problem one at a time, "What do you mean? I asked for help. Ruby told me how a gun works and you taught me how a sword works. Even Weiss helped me with my Dust problems. I didn't just know off the top of my head how to create an Aura weapon or Aura shard. A lot of that came from some of my own hard work and help from others. Heck! Nora helped me reach the level I'm at today with her ridiculous Dust counting. You even gave me my Aura."

Feeling foolish now, Pyrrha tries to look away but Jaune grabs her shoulders, "Hey, hey, look at me. I could've never survived here at Beacon without your help." Then he says something that makes everything alright. "It's okay to ask for help... no one's invincible."

Pyrrha's heart skips a beat at the mention of everyone's vulnerability. Unlike everyone else who thought she was some unbeatable champion, her leader and partner saw her just as another person. Just like their very first day at Beacon. Not some person on a level that cannot be reached. Not some pedestal that's too high for her to jump down from. None of that silly nonsense. Just another person who sees the good and bad inside her and doesn't shy away from her accomplishments.

Even now, after everything they've been through, he's still surprising her. Still being that awkward knight who she pinned to a tree in Emerald Forest and knew nothing about Aura, Grimm, or even how to wield a sword for that matter. And he couldn't have gotten this far without help. Especially how frustrated he got sometimes. Jaune Arc never shied away from asking for help.

He just had that pesky Arc pride to hold him back a little. Exactly like the stubborn champion pride that follows her shadow.

Smiling foolishly now, Pyrrha grabbed his hand, holding it up with hers that's been cut. "... Can you help me?"

He returns the smile, "Sure, now tell me—tell us what's wrong. Why can't you use the blood as a weapon? Which by the way sounds amazing!"

Laughing, Pyrrha goes into a lengthy detail to why creating a blood weapon is next to impossible. Her teammates listen, taking into account everything she says and Jaune's writing down some notes she can't even begin to imagine. Then when she's done, he looks down at the bucket of his partner's blood and frowns at the idea of Pyrrha constantly needing to hurt herself to gain access to her weapon. Just another one of the problems she's facing with this blood issue. Its way more complicated than Aura but just as important.

Rumble!

Team JNPR looks towards Pyrrha's stomach and the girl blushes, "I'm going to go get some food before the mess hall closes."

The door to their room closes with a soft click as she runs out and they all sigh, with Jaune beating Ren by a long shot. He's even sitting on his bed, running his hands through his messy locks, glaring at the bucket of his partner's blood.

Jaune shakes his head, "I just don't get it. Why would Pyrrha purposely hurt herself to get blood? And all just to practice her control?"

"It's not so different compared to you," Ren counters smoothly. "You use your own Aura as a base for all your abilities. Aura normally is used as an armor and not really a weapon. Essentially, you're hurting yourself in the process as well by depleting that life force and leaving yourself vulnerable. Even Lore has its drawbacks. She's giving something up in order to gain something. Only difference, hers has a bigger cost compared to simply exhausting out your Aura but Pyrrha's willing to pay that cost to achieve results." Staring down at the container of blood, Ren's eyes centered on the murky reflection, "That's exactly what you did... just not so extreme."

"So what? We're just suppose to stand by while she continues to hurt herself?"

"I never said that. If we're going to help her, we have to overlook the negatives to see the positives." Jaune wants to argue but Ren raises a finger. "There were days all of us were scared you would exhaust your Aura to the point you would die, Jaune. Lucky for us, those ended up only being fears."

Quiet, Jaune sighs defeated, "Fine... but still! This is a big problem. How is Pyrrha supposed to fight with blood if it needs Aura to keep it within her control? I don't know how to fix that."

"Not only that," Ren adds with the book Pyrrha was reading in his hand. "Blood rots overtime in warm temperatures, destroying the chemical composition. You need to find a way keep the blood stored in cold temperatures below six degree Celsius to even keep it working. And that's not something easy to fix for a fighter."

Kicking his feet back, Jaune looks down at the crimson liquid, wondering how he can have a constant influx of Aura to keep the fluid alive hypothetically. Not an easy problem for the Arc to solve, but the alternative of Pyrrha being sad and quite possibly hurting herself in the near future is too much to accept.

So far the only problem with multiple variables staring them in the face is simply preservation. Keep the blood cold and alive while having a large enough quantity of it is what they're aiming for here.

Jaune looks up, "Anyone got any ideas?" He's met with silence. Then he looks down at Sir Scrabbles clutching onto his leg while holding a tiny fragment of his Aura shard. "What about you, Sir Scrabbles? Got any bright ideas?"

The tiny Grimm tilts its head at Jaune before looking down at the bucket of blood that belongs to the blood haired woman's. Then, without warning, it tosses the Aura fragment into the bucket of blood, fixing Jaune a stare that almost conveys emotion before scampering off to Nora's waiting arms.

Yet, none of Jaune's attention is diverted to Nora and her excessive spoiling of humanity's greatest enemy, rather focused solely on the bucket with an Aura shard floating inside. He quickly concentrates on his Aura and spots a thin layer of pure Aura reflecting off in the blood component, clearly responding to the living part of the crimson liquid. The glow's weak, but then again, so was the fragment Sir Scrabbles threw inside the bucket.

Standing up, Jaune surprises his team when he fills a white Dust shard with the equivalence of three Supernovas, before crushing up the Aura shard in his hand and tossing the fragments into the vessel. A light glow shines from making contact with the blood, but Jaune's more absorbed on seeing if the Aura trapped inside is fading away.

It's not and he can't help but smile, "That's it! The Aura shards can keep the blood alive outside of Pyrrha's body!"

Amazed, Ren walks over to look down at the pool of blood, fixing the sight with a heavy glare from the rim of his cloak, "That solves one problem. But how can we keep the blood from rotting without needing to carry around a freezer or even have it maintain a physical form for long periods of time?"

"Yea," Nora cuts in, hugging Sir Scrabbles, sadden that Pyrrha has no way of creating her new weapons. "It's not like Pyrrha can just freeze the blood anytime she wants. There's nothing that can do that."

Freeze?

The word echoes a few times in the Arc's mind, bashing his skull with a sadden memory of a certain Snow Angel. Sometimes Jaune Arc doesn't know if Nora Valkyrie is a genius or is just messing with him or even if possibly both. Maybe some point in the future he'll learn, but for now, he's busy searching through the contents of his drawer and bag for a particular pair of snow Dust crystals that were labeled by a committee of Dust scientist as useless.

When he finds them, he whispers a promise that he intends to keep, "They're not useless."

Ren peers over his shoulder, "What?"

Turning around, Jaune opens his palms for his team to see, smiling heroically as he shows off the Dust crystals Weiss created with love and care, "They're not useless."

...

Pyrrha Nikos fully intended to go get dinner the moment she left her team's room. She really did, but some strange force was calling out to her and before she knew it, she was back at the resting place of her old weapons. Back at the place Jaune and her fought until Miló and Akoúo̱ met their end under Jaune's Aura weapons, Aura weapons that destroyed what was hers without much effort, proving how powerless metal stood up to Aura. Sometimes she thinks back to that time with even a ghost pain haunting her cheek from where he had cut her with Excalibur.

Her semblance allows her to find her broken weapons, leading her to the spot where the elements began to bury them and she reaches down to grab one.

Picking up the broken half of Akoúo̱, Pyrrha almost believes she can still feel the intense burn from the cut Jaune did to her after their intense power struggle that day. Maybe some strange part of her misses that feeling they felt during the fight. Misses their wills battling against each other for a different cause and struggle? Or perhaps she misses fighting with Akoúo̱ and Miló.

Looking around, Pyrrha finds half of Miló slowly succumbing to the elements. The cut's still clean even after all this time, and there's a distinct feeling lurking in her soul that tells of rust trimming along the edges of the shield even if she cannot see it. Nonetheless, she carefully picks it up from the floor before she sighs sadly, dropping the forgotten metal in the dirt after it's impossible to see her reflection shining back at her.

A harsh wind blows as the sun sinks in the horizon and stray strands of her free hair get tangled in her face. The blood from her hand has left a mark on the shield and she covers it up with more dirt, not wanting to see the damage she has caused but her hair doesn't let her forget, being the same color as the crimson mark she's left behind.

Rumble!

Knowing now she should go get some dinner before she's forced to eat Ren's healthy alternative, Pyrrha takes a moment to glance one last time at her rusting weapons, saying goodbye to them before heading back to Beacon.

...

When Pyrrha returns to her team's room after eating, she expected to find her teammates still trying to solve her problems, not standing around two buckets of what looks like to be more blood? Her suspicions grow as she spots the bandages wrapped tightly around all three of her friend's arms and Nora's beaming face. Even Ren's cloak can't conceal the light smile in his eyes and her heart soars.

"What's going on?"

Moving up, Jaune grabbed a bucket of what she can now see is more blood and slides it beside her foot, "What you needed help with. See?" she looks down and see many glowing fragments drowning in the liquid. "We solved it."

Pyrrha can't help but take a small step back, unable to take her eyes off the glow of light coming from the blood in the bucket. In just a short trip down to her weapon's graveyard, they've already managed to solve all her problems? It's just not possible. The problems before her had been too much to fix. There's just no way they did.

Did they?

"H-How?"

Jaune laughs, taking out an Aura shard, "What can I say. These little guys really can do a lot. Even keep the blood alive... for a long time. And they're easy to make, but now I'm gonna take you up on that offer to pay for some of them. These things aren't cheap."

Lost, Pyrrha looks down again at the liquid and the bright glow shines back her reflection in perfect view. She can even see the tiny smile threatening to burst forth. Still, it doesn't solve everything but it does bring up another question.

"Where did all this blood come from?"

Nora laughs, jumping forward to grab Pyrrha's hand, "Where else, silly? Us! We know you needed some more blood and we didn't want you hurting yourself again..." Nora can suddenly feel Ren's glare on her neck and now knows why he's been keeping close tabs on her and her new semblance development. "So we gave you some of ours! The guys each gave about a liter and a half I gave you a full liter. You might need a little bit more, but that can wait until tomorrow!" She hands her a bucket full of blood. "Here! This one has all of ours! Including yours!"

Confused, Pyrrha looks down at the second bucket that held less and is met with a tired sigh from her leader, "That one is mine. I gave you more than a liter."

Pyrrha's eyes widen, looking positively shocked at Ren and Jaune, "How are you two standing?!"

This time Ren answers, pulling out an Aura shard from his sleeve, "As Jaune said these things can do a lot."

She can tell they're joking for her expense considering they're wobbling a little and looking a little bit pale. An adult male can lose about two liters of blood, but that's still a lot to lose... just for her. And it hurts. She's touched—so much immensely that it actually hurts. But with joy comes pain. And with pain comes disappointment.

Lowering her head, Pyrrha smiles sadly, "There's still no way to keep it from rotting."

Nora shakes her head, invading Pyrrha's personal bubble, forcing her to look back up and not be all depressed, "Got you covered!" Nora moves over to Jaune, laughing lightly at her Fearless Leader. "Sir Scrabbles's figured it all out! But Jaune can tell you. Tell her! Tell her!"

Reaching for his pockets, Jaune pulls out a pair of uniquely colored ice Dust shards that emit a cool wisp of air. "These are a new type of ice Dust crystal. They're pretty much useless since adding Aura causes them to freeze before you can throw them and they need a constant amount of Aura to stay frozen. And even then, it's only real target is liquids. But you wouldn't freeze the water in your hands."

"Unless you're you!" Nora adds, pointing at the champion while waving the liters of blood in front of Pyrrha's face. "This way you can keep your weapons frozen and cool! Just make sure that the blood's touching the Dust shard before adding Aura when you change your weapon!"

Pyrrha doesn't know what to say, so Jaune walks up to her, foolishly grinning as he grabs one of her wrist to hold up. And within the center of her shaky palm, he presses the ice Dust shard into her hand, lightly closing her fingers around the abnormally cool crystal.

"One for your weapon." He then does the same for her other palm, never allowing his smile to waver, "And one for your shield."

The ice Dust shards feel immensely cool to the touch and Pyrrha just knows they're below the certain degrees of Celsius she needs to keep the blood healthy. "W-Where did you get these?"

"I can't take all the credit," he grins while looking over his shoulder towards Team RWBY's room. "Weiss helped—a lot. She gave them to me after being unable to find a use for them and even I can't use them, but you can. So I'm giving them to you. And don't worry about needing to constantly use your Aura, I got that covered." He pulls out a few overly charged Aura shards, proud and calm, "Now this is something I can take credit for."

Crushing the Aura shards in his hand, Ren and Nora join in as well, taking a few to crush up until they're nothing but the shape of bite size fragment. Then they drop the pieces into the pools of blood, drowning the crimson liquid with a flood of Aura and life alongside the other fragments.

"Just use your semblance to move the Aura shards around to interact with the ice Dust crystal to change it's state when needed." Ren decides to clear her in on the mechanics behind it, "The Aura's not wasted. Not entirely. But it's impossible to truly keep the influx of power constant between the blood and the ice Dust shard forever. Eventually more Aura shards will need to be added to replace the amount that gets drained away. Luckily, for you Pyrrha, that future is very far away and easy to prepare for."

Pyrrha grips the ice Dust shards tightly, feeling that cool sensation burn against her warm fingers. Parts of her chest feel heavy and the beating of her heart rings softly in her ears as she sets her tactical gaze over towards the litters of blood her team—her friends donated so selflessly. And it takes a lot of willpower not to shed some tears.

"Go on!" Nora encourages her with a shooing motion. "Try it out already!"

Catching her breath, Pyrrha focuses her semblance on the liters of blood and finds the iron molecules responding easily to her call. The iron within the blood slowly moves on her command, centering the life giving liquid between the cracks in her grip. Eventually, she gets the blood to completely form around the shard in her hand in the shape of a sword similar to Miló, enough to finally add Aura and feel the effects of the ice Dust crystal take instantaneous effect.

In seconds, the blood freezes completely into the shape she created, remaining cool to the touch and strong as the iron she commanded. The tiny Aura shards trapped inside leave behind a light glow that keeps the blood frozen and iron locked for Pyrrha so she doesn't have to expend any unnecessary amount of Aura to keep it going while supplying an increase of destructive and defensive power. The only thing she needs to do is will the blood to any shape or form her heart so desperately desires anytime she wants. Be it the heat of battle or combat practice. As long as the heat of her Aura takes control and stops the influx of Aura from aiding the ice Dust crystals.

Gripping the other ice shard firmly, Pyrrha looks down at the bowl containing all of her team's blood mixed into one and silently calls the iron towards her outstretched fingers. Just like before, the blood condenses around her hand until her desired shape resembling Akoúo̱ comes forth and the Aura shards she holds fuel the Dust shard so she no longer has to will her Aura to constantly fuel the Dust.

By the time she's done, she standing in the room with bloody versions of her old weapons, minus the gold coloring. Only this time, Pyrrha's new weapon are only limited to her quantity of blood—which she'll build up over more time—and no longer breakable. Not with her semblance acting as a barrier and allowing her to reshape them back together.

Nora moves closer to inspect Pyrrha's new weapons, eyes bright, "What are you going to call them?"

Stuck, Pyrrha looks first at her shield with the mixture of all their blood, coming to a name that resembles her feelings in a way she'll never forget. "Moirázo̱."

Looking then down at her blood sword and all around personal weapon, Pyrrha bites her lip, unable to properly think.

Now this one is a bit more trickier. This sword is made solely off her leader's blood with a small hint of her own with Jaune's Aura shards thrown into the mix. So in a way, her leader personally created this weapon for her. Ironic since he destroyed both Miló and Akoúo̱ in the first place. Practically forcing her to wield his sword and shield until she could find another to call her own.

And now she has.

Finding the irony amusing that she gave him Excalibur and now he's giving her this, Pyrrha settles on a name closely resembling Excalibur to keep the tradition running.

Giggling silently to herself, Pyrrha decides to add her own special touch to the sword's name, removing that pesky ex her leader loves so much, and instead throwing in an N somewhere else for Pyrrha Nikos and to make sure she never forgets the feeling of what caused her past weapon's death in the first place. That very burning feeling she felt. The same one that burned her cheek and burns her soul.

Burn.

Unlike Jaune, she won't add it to the beginning, but towards the end. As to signify the end of a journey she had never known she began.

Holding her new weapon up in the air, it shines alongside the fading sunlight in a glow that's both cold and warm. And just for a second—one meaningful second—Pyrrha finds universal peace in a world consumed by fear.

"Caliburn."

---

Author Notes: I hope you're all paying attention to detail from past chapters because no one has pointed out one of the biggest ones yet. I mean that Dust Weiss created is five chapters back and actually had a point to the story just like her teaching Jaune how the properties of Dust work which led to the creation of Aura and Lore shards.