Cover art - Mike (You might know him)

Chapter 2 - Grievous Fortuna

The next morning, everyone who wasn't Yang woke up refreshed and ready for combat class.

As Jaune watched Weiss and Russel fight in the arena, he wondered who his opponent was going to be. He doubted it would be Cardin. Now that he had finally beaten him, Goodwitch would likely pair him up with somebody else, giving someone new a chance to thrash him around. Don't worry, folks, everyone will get a turn pummeling him.

"Death..." Yang hissed under her breath. "Kill… must… kill…"

"Ren, give her another dose of that calming technique," Ruby said.

"One Yang pacifier coming up," Ren said, getting up out of his chair and jabbing the back of her neck with two fingers. Her body tensed up for a second, then relaxed. Her eyelids drooped.

"Kill… kill…" she continued to whisper, albeit a little calmer than before.

Jaune gulped. If there was one person he didn't want to fight, it was Yang. His fears from last night were confirmed- she definitely had a hangover, and it was a rough one. Her hair, which was normally relatively tame, was now frazzled and wiry. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses, and she kept clenching her hands into fists.

The girl was a timebomb just waiting for an excuse to go boom!

"Arrgh!"

Russel skidded across the floor, his aura now in the red. Game over for him. It was a close fight, but Weiss had won this one. Goodwitch gave them her usual spiel, talking about what they could both improve on, before addressing the rest of the class again.

"The next combatants will be Jaune Arc-"

Please don't pair me with Yang. Please don't pair me with Yang.

"-and Blake Belladonna."

Blessed salvation.

"Oooh, you hear that? Jaune and Blake are gonna be fighting," Ruby said. "This'll be cool. It's about time we saw you fight someone other than Cardin for once."

"I agree, it should be interesting," Pyrrha said. "Best of luck to the both of you."

She said that, but he knew in her heart that she wanted him to win. That little bit of encouragement helped him rise out of his seat. Blake would still probably wipe the floor with him, but it felt nice fighting a friend for once and not a personal tormenter.

As they made their way to the locker rooms, Blake said, "I'm grateful that you put that racist idiot in his place, but don't expect me to go easy on you because of it."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he told her. "I'm just grateful I'm fighting you and not your partner. At least with you, I won't lose a limb."

She smiled. "It's not limbs I break. Only pride."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up while you can. See you in the ring."

In the changing room, Jaune opened up his locker and pulled out his weapon and armour. As he geared up, he thought about the upcoming fight, trying to come up with some kind of strategy.

Okay, so what did he know about Blake's fighting style? She had that katana of hers that could transform into a gun- Gambol Shroud, was that the name of it? How did people come up with these names? It also had a ribbon attached to it, so that she could swing her blade around like the world's deadliest yo-yo. It also allowed her to grapple onto things.

She was fast, nimble, and had many years of experience over him. This was gonna be tricky, and to be honest, he wasn't expecting positive results on his part. Trying to match her speed would be pointless.

But he had a strong defence. He was likely gonna have to tank most of her hits until she wore herself out. Then he'd be able to zone in and dish out some damage himself. It wasn't a great strategy, but it was all he had right now.

Once he was dressed, he stepped out into the ring. Blake was waiting for him in that familiar black and white attire of hers. Someone like her didn't need heavy armour to defend herself. He was a little envious of that. Not everyone was able to jump around like the whole world was a trampoline. But as it was, his sturdy defence and high aura levels would be his best friend in the fight.

"Begin," Goodwitch called out.

Blake leapt up into the air with the grace of a circus acrobat, then manoeuvred herself so that she went striking down to divekick him.

Preparing for the black and white missile heading his way, Jaune raised his shield to block it. But Blake didn't stop there. She flipped herself off the shield, landed behind him, and landed a kick to the back of his head. Jaune's vision swam. He turned himself around just in time to block the flurry of kicks and sword strikes battering his shield.

She was moving ridiculously fast. Jaune was scared to poke his head out from behind his shield, just in case he received a boot to the mouth. He couldn't even attack; all of his strength was going into blocking her attacks. He had gotten it all backwards- she was the one trying to wear him down.

Frustrated, he dropped his guard and tried to swipe her away with his sword. For a second, he thought he landed the strike, but the second his sword touched her, her body vanished- literally vanished. She disappeared into thin air.

Confused, he looked all around and saw her foot crash into his left cheek. He swore he saw stars spinning around him. He lost his balance and fell to the ground, rolling from the strength of her kick.

Her semblance. Her damn dodging semblance. How did he forget about that?

He spat out the taste of boot on his tongue and readied himself. He didn't ready himself fast enough. She was upon him again before he could blink. With his shield down, she kicked, slashed and punched him in every place imaginable, using her semblance to dodge any blind strike heading her way.

She moved like a blur. Trying to get a read on her moves was like trying to read in the dark- a complete waste of time. He felt like he was fighting in the middle of a tornado, getting bombarded by all kinds of crap from all sides.

His hand madly reached out, and with a stroke of luck, he managed to grab onto her leg before it could kick him. Blake's eyes widened. Her momentum was gone. She was thrown out of the loop now.

Jaune hauled her off her feet, spun her around, then let go. She was once again in the air, only this time she was flailing madly and uncontrollably. Her landing involved crashing onto her back. With her kind of defence, her aura was sure to suffer from that.

But she recovered quickly. She kicked herself off the floor, doing a cool little spin as she did so. She pulled back her arm and then, to his surprise, threw her katana at him. He raised his shield and didn't even get scratched. That was too easy an attack to block.

But then he saw the blade hooked onto the edge of his shield. Uh oh…

Pulling her ribbon towards her, Blake tugged with all her might. Jaune's shield was ripped from his hands.

"No, I need that!" he cried, but it was too late. The shield went flying out of the ring, completely out of his reach. He couldn't rush out to retrieve it; leaving the ring would be an instant defeat.

Blue eyes locked with amber. Oh yeah. It was a competition now.

Blake charged at him again and assaulted him with her usual bombardment of kicks and slashes, occasionally throwing some gunfire in the mix just to spice things up. With no shield to protect him, Jaune was forced to his sword to block her attacks. Fat lot of good it was doing him though. Without his shield, Blake was free to attack him from all angles. It was all you could kick at the 'beat the crap outta Jaune' buffet.

Jaune growled. This was a nightmare. He was enduring most of her hits, but the speed at which they were coming from was exhausting. He swung his sword like he was trying to swat a fly. He never hit anything. Blake would always be out of reach, or she would just use her semblance to dodge out of the way.

Alright, time out! He needed a time out!

He stopped blindly swinging and forced himself to focus. He ignored the stings from her attacks, He could take them. He just needed to get a hold of himself. Deep breaths.

He saw her sword coming down at him.

CLANG!

He blocked it! He freaking blocked it!

The impact of their blades clashing sent huge tremors up Blake's arm. She had the speed, but he had the strength. Blake gasped and staggered back, unable to handle the force of his attack.

Revenge!

He closed the distance and started hammering his sword down at her. He was nowhere near as fast as her when it came to attacking, but her reflexes were currently sloppy. She could only try to parry them away as his blade chipped away at her aura. Every time she tried to block an attack, her arms would give way from his power.

Jaune couldn't afford to let up. Blake was far from out. If he gave her even a second to recover, she could turn this fight around in seconds. Her kept wailing on her until he was given clearance to stop.

Blake snarled and threw a spin kick his way. Her foot collided against his breastplate, pushing him back. It didn't hurt, but it caught him off guard. This gave her enough time to cartwheel away and put distance between them.

Speaking of distance, she had learned her lesson not to get close to him, because she started using her ribbon to swing her sword around to attack him. Crap. He really needed to start investing in long-range weapons.

Jaune jumped, ducked, and rolled out of the way of the swinging blade. Every time he tried getting close to her, the katana would push him back. Its range seemed to be endless, and Blake controlled it with ease.

"Yikes!" he yelped as the blade narrowly missed his cheek. It then came back around and nearly swept his legs out from under him. This was the most jumping exercise he had gotten in years.

"Think fast," Blake grinned as the blade flew straight for him. With barely enough time to react, he tried blocking it with his sword, which turned out to be a BIG mistake. The ribbon got tangled around Crocea Mors' blade, wrapping tightly around it.

No! If he lost his sword too, he'd be completely helpless!

The moment Blake started to pull back, he grabbed onto the ribbon and started to pull it his way. The two of them were caught in a game of tug of war, both fighting for his sword.

"Let go!" Jaune said through gritted teeth.

"You first!" she struggled.

"You've got your own!"

"Well, I want yours too!"

Jaune dug his feet into the ground. Using both his arms, Jaune pulled the ribbon with all his strength. It was a miracle it didn't break from the constant straining. That thing must've been made from some pretty powerful stuff.

What was also a miracle was how hard Blake was yanked forward. She yelped as he once again overpowered her. She lost her footing and with it, her balance. Yes! He was on the winning side. All he had to do now was reel her in.

He pulled and pulled until she was within arm's reach. Deciding to have a little payback, he tried doing the same thing she did. He grabbed her wrist and attempted to pry her katana out from her fingers. If he got it, he would throw it out of the arena.

Understandably, she was not too keen about that. She planted her foot on his chest and tried pulling away from his grasp. The image of what was happening reminded him of when he was a kid, when his bigger older sisters tried taking his favourite toys. In that sense, he felt a little bad for Blake, but victory was so close now!

Just a little further. He could see the katana slipping out of her palms…

Blake growled, opened her mouth, and sank her teeth into his hand.

Chomp!

Pain!

"Ow!" he cried, immediately pulling back his hand. Screw trying to grab her sword. If she was gonna behave like that, she could keep the damn thing.

He looked at his throbbing hand. He hadn't been able to raise his aura in time, so Blake had left a couple of teeth marks and a bit of drool on his hand. Disgusting. At least he wasn't bleeding.

A horrified gasp came from somewhere in the audience. It sounded like a man's voice. He briefly looked around to see where it came from-

-just in time to see Blake's foot flying into his face.

Oh yeah, the fight. He had forgotten about that…

She kicked him so hard, all his memories of that morning were replaced with images of her bootprint. Hard ground greeted the back of his skull as he crashed into it. Dazed, confused and battered, he didn't try to get back up again.

"Mr Arc's aura is now in the red! The winner is Ms Belladonna!" Goodwitch announced.

Yeah, that sounded about right.

As he was lying on the ground, he looked at all the other students. His eyes landed on Cardin. How strange. He thought the leader of CRDL would be overjoyed to see him get his ass kicked. Jaune expected him to be wearing a smug, satisfied grin at the sight of him beaten.

But even with his blurry vision, he could tell Cardin wasn't looking like that at all. Instead, he looked… terrified?

[/]

"Does anyone here actually wash their feet?"

That was Nora's first question as they sat down for lunch.

"Nora, what kind of question is that?" Pyrrha sighed.

"A totally reasonable one about personal hygiene," Nora said. "Think about it: we spend so much time making sure our pits smell good, and that our hair's all shiny and healthy. But when's the last time anyone's made the effort to take a bar of soap to their toes? Can you imagine how crusty some people's feet must be?"

Jaune had a headache, and he wasn't sure if it was from the fight or this conversation.

"I mean, I've always thought they'd get clean from standing in the shower's water," Ruby said. "You know, because it's full of suds and stuff. It's not like we have baths in our dormrooms."

"Why are you even thinking about something like that?" Blake asked.

Nora shrugged. "I dunno. I guess it occurred to me when I got a whiff of Yang this morning. Mind you, she smells like she needs to wash more than just her feet."

Speaking of Yang, the poor girl still hadn't fully recovered yet. She had her face buried in her mashed potatoes. Jaune could see her jaw moving up and down. He didn't know if she was chewing, or muttering death threats to herself again.

Nora pointed to Yang. "See! That's just what I'm talking about. We gotta be hygienic if we wanna save the world, or else we end up like Yang. I betcha Weiss washes her feet in the shower. Am I right, Weiss?"

"I'm not even having this conversation," Weiss sniffed.

"Nora, you can't ask people such a personal question like that," Ren said. "How about we talk about something different? Like, say, Jaune and Blake's fight? That was impressive, I must say."

"Agreed," Blake said, turning to Jaune. "I gotta admit, you had me on the ropes there. For a moment, I thought you were gonna beat me."

"So did I," Jaune said. "Until you bit me, that is."

Blake grinned. "I didn't know what else to do. And hey, it worked, didn't it?"

"I still can't believe you did that," he chuckled. "That took me completely by surprise. Do you normally bite people in fights?"

"Of course not. I'm not a maniac."

"Just asking in case I'm sparring with you again. Next time, I should probably wear gloves. You have pretty sharp teeth."

"I'm just lucky you didn't have your aura up at the time," she told him. "If you did, I probably would've broken them."

Jaune's stomach grumbled. He looked down at his plate and saw it devoid of fries. That simply wouldn't do.

"Speaking of biting things, I'm gonna grab some more grub." He stood up, picking up his lunch tray with him. He turned to Nora and said, "Nora, when I get back, I don't wanna hear any more talk about feet."

Nora responded to his order by blowing a raspberry at him.

As Jaune walked to the lunch line, he took a moment to stare down at his hand. He could still see the faint bitemarks Blake had given him. His skin tingled as he recalled the memory of her chomping down on him. It was without a doubt the weirdest way he lost a fight.

He briefly considered using his aura to make them fade away. Would there be much point?

He was too busy looking at his hand to notice Cardin waiting in front of him. He bumped into his back.

Jaune grimaced. "Oh, Cardin. Sorry, man, didn't see you there-"

Cardin turned around and Jaune saw it again. That same frightened look he had during combat class. The big guy immediately backed away from him. "Oh, hell no! You stay the hell away from me, you freak!" he cried.

Jaune blinked. "What?"

"Don't come any closer! I don't need your disease-ridden spit slobbering all over me, you goddamn plague-bearer!"

"Cardin, what the heck are you talking about?" Jaune said, genuinely confused about all this. "And who are you calling plague-bearer? Even 'Jauney boy' sounds better than that."

"Don't go acting all clueless with me," Cardin growled. "I saw what happened to you in that last fight. We all did. You've got the mark of the beast on you!"

"Mark of the beast?"

Cardin pointed to Jaune's hand.

"Oh yeah, Blake bit me," Jaune shrugged. "What of it?"

Cardin shook his head. "So stupid," he muttered to himself. "Of course he'd be this stupid. No way an idiot like him would understand."

Jaune's temper rose. "How about you stop acting like a nutjob and just tell me what's going on! Don't tell me you're still afraid of cooties or something."

"Fine. Let me explain it to you in terms you'll understand: you're cursed, dumbass! You've got bad blood running through your veins! You were bitten by a faunus! Don't you know what that means?"

"Enlighten me," Jaune said.

"It means you're cursed to turn into one yourself!"

Silence.

Jaune waited for the punchline to come. He waited for Cardin to drop the gag and get serious. But as he looked at the expression on his face, he realised this was Cardin being serious. He said that last sentence so passionately, he could be mistaken for shouting. He honestly believed what he was saying was true.

"Cardin, buddy, friend, compadre," Jaune began. "I have just come back from listening to Nora lecture me about the importance of washing my feet. I don't have enough brain cells to spare on another pointless conversation."

Cardin leered at him. "You calling me a liar?"

"No, I'm sure you believe what you're saying is true. I'm calling you an idiot."

"It is true! That's how those freaks multiply! They spread their disease onto humans, infecting them, turning us into one of them! You think the faunus just appeared out of nowhere one day by accident? Bullshit! It was all due to poison in the bloodstream, with them being the carriers! They spread their sickness to the rest of the world!"

"Do you have to practice to be that racist, or does it just come naturally?" Jaune asked.

"Doubt me all you want, but this shit is real!" he snapped.

"Tell me, where did you even get all this wisdom from?" Jaune quizzed. "Are there any documentaries about it? Preferably ones that aren't werewolf movies?"

"Aha! So, you do know what I'm talking about!"

"Oh, for God's sake," Jaune murmured.

"You don't believe me yet. But you will. One day, you'll start to feel a change within you. You'll start to forget who you are, what you're supposed to be doing. Your mind will slip away from you and then… you'll be just like one of those animals."

Jaune hummed. "So, I'm destined to turn into a faunus, eh? Well, here's hoping I'm a flying faunus. I've always wanted wings."

"Look, you can make your jokes. But when you start growing a tail and acting crazy, don't come crying to me. I don't need you infecting me too. Some of us like keeping pure."

Jaune nodded his head. "Sure thing. I'll just go to the nurse about my transformation problems. I'll be sure to let her know that the racist wacko sent me. Hey, you know what? Why don't you come with me? While we're at it, let's see if she can cure your stupidity."

Cardin shook his head again, then slowly backed away from him. "You were warned, freak..." he whispered. "You were warned…"

As Cardin disappeared from view, Jaune stood there wondering what the hell he had just seen. Turning into a faunus? What would that make him? A werefaunus? Give him a break. What kind of superstitious bupkis was that? As terrible as it sounded, Cardin had somehow found a way to make racism entertaining.

Oh yeah, fries. That's what he came here for.

He made his way back to the table with fries in tow and sat down next to Pyrrha.

"You took your time getting here," she said. "Was the queue really that long?"

"Nah," he said. "I just ran into Cardin while I was in line. We spoke for a bit."

"Really? What did he have to say?"

Jaune briefly glanced down at his hand. A small smirk formed on his face.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "It was stupid."