Hello everyone, this has been a busy few days for me. Three chapters having been released, that is unheard of! With 'The Sword and Spear' now finished, I can start turning my full attentions towards A Rose for the Champion, and oh boy am I excited for this one. Anyway, here is the next chapter, enjoy.
Jaune grunted as he slammed into the cold and unforgiving stone of the rooftop for what seemed to be the hundredth time that night, putting fresh tears in his clothes and grazing yet more of his flesh from both his knees and elbows. It had always been the same result to begin with, he and Pyrrha would spar and he would have the seven shades knocked out of him until he was physically too numb to get back up again. Even then the champion wouldn't ease up on him, she would sit the two of them cross legged in the centre of the roof to work on his aura manipulation.
It was a relentless, no-holds-barred kind of training and yet it wasn't for nought. The first change that the blonde had noticed was the alteration and re-profiling of his body. He had been stripped of any baby fat that he had, and slowly shifted and changed into a much more lean and, to his immense joy, muscular form. Unlike when they had first begun and he had regularly been going to bed beaten black and blue, their fights had shifted and become a little more even. He by no means matched her in skill, far from it.
Rather he was able to hold his own for more than a few strikes and even counter attack when the opportunity had presented itself. In stark contrast to his heavy-handed, flailing attempts at combat he had grown and developed. He had a far greater grasp on what was going on around him and his attacks now flowed more smoothly and naturally. He now wasn't the only one going to bed with bruises after their training sessions.
Of his Partner, Jaune couldn't have possibly asked for a better teacher. She was insistent and determined in her efforts, often pausing their sparring matches to adapt and repeat a specific set of movements until her pupil could have performed them upside-down and blindfolded. She proved to be incredibly patient when instructing him, a quality that he was eternally grateful for.
Her gloved hand entered his view and taking it, she hauled him to his feet. She gave him a soft smile and clasped his shoulder with her hand giving it a quick and reassuring squeeze.
"That was very good Jaune, just remember your to move your feet a little more. It doesn't do to stand still on the battlefield."Jaune nodded shy She spoke with an air of confidence, born through years of training sessions just like this one. Merciless and unrelenting, very much a sink or swim environment. Jaune had learned that on day one. He had been forced to hit the ground running as match after match was thrown at him. To say it was a shock to his system would have been a severe understatement.
"Let's go over the forms again." She said as more of a suggestion than anything.
Jaune nodded and adopted his 'en garde' stance with his feet shoulder width apart and his shoulders back with Crocea Mors held out infront in a relaxed grip just like the Champion had taught him to.
"Very good." She stepped up behind him and pressed into him using her own hands and feet to guide his as they swept through the various forms and transitional movements. Jaune blushed and felt the hairs on his neck stand on end as he felt her 'assets' pressed against him. He locked his eyes forwards and fought to focus solidly on the wall ahead of him.
He completed the movements over and over until Pyrrha was seemingly satisfied with his execution, standing back for the final few to observe his technique. With a nod of finality she stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder prompting him to stop, he turned and looked at her in confusion.
"I think that will do for tonight Jaune. We can resume tomorrow, for now I think it might be best if we took an early night. You've been working very hard lately and we don't want to be too tired for the field trip tomorrow, come on." She smiled.
"That sounds good." Jaune replied, he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Folding away his shield, he sheathed his sword and walked at her side as they left the rooftop. They enjoyed pleasant small talk on their way back to the JSPR dorm, talk of things other than training and weaponry for once, making for an enjoyable break from the usual tempo of their talks and giving them a chance to be the teenagers that they were.
Jaune listened intently as Pyrrha told him of a time she found a gyrfalcon with a broken wing back in Mistral and had taken it in nursing it back to health again over a period of many months.
"Her name was Fawkes. It was in the woodlands by my childhood home when I was no more than ten, I was walking as I often did in the summer months when I heard her distressed cries. By the time I found her she was so very weak, the carrion birds were beginning to circle and I believe that she had given up on hope. I rushed her home to my father with tears in my eyes. He took one look at her and told me that she was too far gone, that I should take her out into the woods and finish her off. I begged and pleaded with him to save her and together he and I set her wing, dressed it and fed her. Every day I would run home from school to check on Fawkes. I even built her a nest in my room out of a shoe box and some old clothes, nothing made me happier at the time than coming home after school or training than being met by that bird. But eventually her wing grew strong enough for her to fly and we had to let her go. I walked with her in her little shoebox nest out to a small lake and released her. I was so sad to see her go, but watching the sheer grace with which she flew after so long trapped on the ground and seeing the look in her eye when she was finally free after so long, I knew I had done the right thing. All those months of care and tentative love had all been worth it in that single moment. My father asked me when I came home why I had done it, why I had gone to all that effort to save the life of that creature and I told him; No hunter of the skies should end its days as prey. Better they die on the wing than pinned to the ground. That was the day I decided to become a huntress, so that I wouldn't end my life as prey." She finished as they entered the hall containing their dorm. The redhead looked at him with a soft smile and a solitary tear running down her cheek. It had been a long time since she had shared that memory with anyone, and to finally do so had brought forth more emotions than she had anticipated. She was surprised when her partner wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a warm embrace, rubbing her back in a slow and soothing pattern. Her cheeks steadily turning red, she was slow to reciprocate at first, she rested her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms tightly around him.
Their hug was interrupted by a loud bang and the sound of splintering wood as Nora burst through the door to BRNY's dorm and set off at a break neck sprint down the corridor. Jaune and Pyrrha were forced to separate and throw themselves off to either side as the Valkyrie ran past laughing maniacally. Followed by an enraged Yang, eyes red and hair aflame, her semblance having kicked in.
"Nora you get back here right now!" the brawler bellowed as she gave chase.
Jaune and Pyrrha turned back round to look at the door of BRNY's dorm room. Ren and Blake were both stood with wide eyes gawking down the hallway after their partners. Walking over to them Jaune was the first to speak, snapping them out of their stupor.
"Uh... Why did Yang just run after Nora with murderous intent written all over her face?" He asked with a nervous laugh. Ren was the one to explain, he sighed and shook his head woefully.
"I made pancakes and Nora splashed a little bit of syrup on Yang's hair... She thought Yang's reaction was funny and before I could stop her she had dumped half a jar on her..."
"Huh... so you pushed the hair button... you shouldn'ta did that..." The blonde said with a smirk. "In all seriousness though, don't you think you should go after them before Yang rips apart half the school?"
Ren and Blake both looked at each other and rolled their eyes setting off at a dead sprint in the direction that their partners had taken off. Once they were gone Jaune looked at his partner, and she at him. They were silent for a moment before breaking into side splitting laughter, falling to the floor in their mirth.
Weiss opened the door to JSPR's dorm behind them and stepped out with her hands balled into fists and rested on her hips. She had her hair up in her usual ponytail but was wearing an apron with the slogan 'This chef does it with spice!' emblazoned across the front and had a spatula in hand. All she needed was a set of glasses and she could have resembled a culinary Goodwitch.
"Just what is going on out here?!" The diminutive heiress demanded.
Both the knight and the champion stopped for a moment and looked up at the heiress, tears of laughter still rolling down their cheeks. They took one look at her and broke down laughing again. Their lungs burned and begged for air, their sides ached and it hurt to smile any longer when they finally brought their laughter back under control. They felt bad for laughing at her, it was simply that the image was so bizarre.
"Are you quite finished?" She asked with a bright blush.
"Y-yes... Sorry Weiss..." Pyrrha said with a suppressed giggle.
"What's with the outfit Snow Angel?" Jaune asked with a smirk, using her most hated nickname.
"Well if you must know, I was making us all dinner for when you got back from training. I thought that we might all need some decent food before our trip tomorrow." She explained, still sounding a little flustered.
"That sounds lovely Weiss, thank you." Pyrrha said with a smile stepping past her and into the dorm room making for the shower.
"Finally some appreciation!" She cried turning around and heading into their dorm room's small kitchenette. It wasn't a big room, but it was fitted with everything that they could have possibly needed. There was a small fridge, cooker and work surface. Set on the wall were a group of three cupboards, all ready-stocked with pans and plates. They had been eternally thankful to find the kitchen fully kitted out on arrival, saving them having to shop for pans, plates and cutlery.
Jaune stepped over to his bed, undoing the leather straps that held his armour in place and dropping the white metal plates to the floor with a clang. He groaned and stripped out of his down to his boxers. He grabbed some fresh clothes and headed for the dorm's bathroom.
Team JSPR's en-suite was a modest affair, nothing too fancy but, like the kitchenette, it catered to their needs. The walls were covered with white tiles while the floor was made up of slabs of slate, every hue of the rainbow. Set along one wall was a single long surface, above which hung a large mirror. Across from it was their shower-bath, into which the knight stepped.
He switched the water on and almost leapt back out with a yelp, it was freezing cold. After a few seconds the water reached temperature. He stepped back under the torrent and allowed the warm water to flow over his bruised and weary body. He could feel his various muscles beginning to relax and the knots begin to work themselves out.
JSPR had just finished with the bathroom when Weiss finished plating up. Ruby had returned from a small excursion into the emerald forest, her clothes covered in fresh blood from a multitude of Grimm. Jaune winced at her stories and felt what he was sure was pity well up within him for any of the beasts that were unfortunate to cross paths with the little Rose. She was quite literally 'the Grimm Reaper.'
Weiss handed them each a plate before settling down on her bed with hers on her lap. She looked around the room at each of her teammates with something like hesitant expectancy. Jaune looked at the food she had given him and to her credit, it looked good. It wasn't anything too complicated but it was wholesome. Mashed potatoes, carrots and swede with some sausages all covered in onion gravy.
Jaune shrugged and took his first bite. He was pleasantly surprised, the potatoes were creamy and the sausages perfectly done with a crispy skin and moist. He looked at the Schnee with a surprised expression.
"Weiss, this is incredible." He said with a mouthful. "Where did you learn to cook like this?" Weiss seemed to bloom with pride at his compliment.
"I grew up in the family mansion in Atlas. Being surrounded by such wealth meant that we could afford for the finest chefs world wide to cook for us. One day, I went to the kitchen's and asked for a recipe. The chef was only too happy to show me how he made these recipes. It soon became a regular thing, I would go into the kitchens before dinner and he would take me through his processes step by step. After a while I would cook alongside him cooking my own meals. He was my best friend at the time, but one day my father found out and flew into a rage. He kept going on about how I was a Schnee and shouldn't be seen to be performing such menial tasks. He fired the chef and I never saw him after, though a couple of months later a parcel arrived for me. When I opened it, it turned out to be a ragged old leather bound book in which he had hand written every recipe he knew. I kept it hidden from my father until I left for Beacon, I brought it with me and even to this day, It is my most prized of possessions." She explained. She looked saddened at the memory.
"Well he must have been amazing if he taught you to make things like this!" Ruby said with a grin before she resumed shovelling mounds of mashed potato into her mouth. Weiss chuckled and began to eat her own, albeit a little more ceremoniously than the others.
Not long after, Jaune stood and made his way around the room collecting the plates, when Weiss made an attempt to protest he silenced her with a wave of his hand. She sat back down and gave him a quizzical look.
"What? You cooked it, that means you get to sit back while we wash up. It's only fair." He said with a smile and headed into the kitchen. Setting the plates on the side he ran a bowl of hot soapy water. As he did, Ruby jumped to her feet and skipped out to help him.
"I'll help! You wash I'll break." She giggled and grabbed the tea towel from its place over the oven door handle.
With the two of them working together, Jaune cleaning the plates and Ruby using her semblance to dry and put them away, it didn't take long before they had finished the task. Heading back into the main room they found Pyrrha sat polishing her shield and Weiss curled up in her bed with a thick book in hand.
The knight staggered over to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. His fatigue finally catching up to him, he shuffled on dead feet over to his bed and collapsed on it. He allowed his body to bounce for a moment before worming his way up to the pillow and settling in for the night. Afterall they were due to head out to Forever Fall forest the next day and he had a feeling he would need all the rest that he could get. Closing his eyes he drifted off to sleep.
The engines on their bullhead aircraft shrieked out as they burned sky and propelled them forwards. Blue azure sky passed by the small porthole windows as they flew, providing restrictive view of the ground below.
For Jaune at that moment, the ground couldn't have possibly been close enough. They had only been flying for half an hour yet for him, curled up in the fetal position on the floor of their craft clutching at a small brown paper sick bag, it had felt like an eternity and couldn't possibly have ended soon enough.
The pitch of the engines changed and a slowing of their momentum could be felt as the aircraft settled into a hover as it might when going in for a landing.. This couldn't be right, the drop zone was still another half hour away by aircraft. Slowly the rear ramp on their craft crept open revealing the red canopy far below.
From a projection plate in the floor of the aircraft a hologram of Ozpin was played. He was stood back at Beacon in front of the great statue in the courtyard. On his face was set the same old knowing smirk that he always had. Holo-Ozpin took a drink of his coffee and cleared hie throat.
"Students, by now you have undoubtedly realised that something is up, and you are correct. You have been issued the task of retrieving a jar of sap from the trees in forever fall forest this is indeed still the case. As you may have noticed, the aircraft that you are all currently onboard have stopped prematurely. You will be disembarking a...little earlier than you perhaps intended. You shall be air dropped into the forest below you. Once you land, each team shall continue on with your pre-explained task; gather one jar of tree sap per student, the only difference is that this is now a survival exercise. Once these have been gathered you are to travel the remaining one hundred miles north where you will be picked up in two days and your jars counted. Details for your evacuation will be sent to your scrolls. You shall be graded according to your performance and how well you work within your teams. As always, the very best of luck."
The hologram cut out as he finished his speech. The students looked to one another with a groan. Was he serious? They actually had to jump out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft? It was madness. Jaune crept over to the loading ramp and looked out. Far below, some several thousand feet down was the forest canopy. No lakes to be seen to save him this time.
Once again the pitch of the engines change and the whole cabin began to tilt, slowly angling its way into the vertical so that the open hatch was directly below for them to fall through. Around him the students ran and buckled themselves into their seats to prevent their ejection from the aircraft.
Jaune's eyes darted around for an empty seat that he might buckle himself into even as the aircraft passed the fourty-five degree tilt. He caught sight of one to Weiss' side and threw himself at it, his arms stretched out in a desperate attempt to save himself from what he was sure would be certain death by falling.
His attempts were futile however, as the floor dropped away from below him and he had to fight against gravity. He hung in the air, a few scant inches from the harness he had been aiming for with his arm still outstretched. Looking around at his teammates with blinked at the members of his team hanging in their seats around him with something akin to helplessness as he began to fall. He passed straight through the open ramp screaming bloody murder.
"So will you be saving him again or shall I?" Weiss asked her teammates and rolled her eyes. The heiress drew Myrtenaster and unbuckled her seat restraints. With a sigh she slid off of her seat and out the open door followed in short order by both team BRNY and the rest of her own team.
The air roared as it whistled past the heiress' face and made her eyes smart yet it was the least of her problems. Narrowing her eyes she searched below her for any sign of her falling leader, any sign as to his presence.
After a few tense moments of frantically looking, she found him. He appeared as little more than a speck below her, the closer she looked she found him flailing wildly as he somersaulted end over end is what she guessed to be a desperate attempt to right himself.
Holding Myrtenaster out above her head to increase her aerodynamics she settled into a vertical dive. The wind whistled past her as she flew past terminal velocity towards her falling leader. As she drew close she could hear his scream above the wind, high pitched and effeminate. As she closed the gap she threw her arms and leg out to either side, straining her shoulders as air resistance kicked in and slowed her down rapidly.
With as much haste as she could manage she tilted her body to manoeuvre herself to be directly above him. Once in place she tucked her limbs in again to speed her descent and dive straight for him. She held off for a few seconds for the opportune moment before completing the dived and locking her free arm around his waist.
With a flick of Myrtenaster, a string of glyphs appeared below between them and the rapidly approaching forest canopy. As they passed through each subsequent one their speed diminished rapidly. Finally, once their speed was sufficiently low she summoned another glyph of a different design, tilted on an angle. Her feet met with it and she kicked off towards another ready and waiting. Holding tightly onto her hapless leader the heiress skipped from glyph to glyph bringing both herself and a thoroughly astonished leader through the forest canopy and safely down to the ground.
They reached the forest floor safely and in one piece. Releasing her grip on the blonde, Weiss collapsed to her knees panting heavily with her chest heaving. The exertion both during free fall and in her efforts to slow two grown people down from near terminal velocity had placed a great deal more exertion on her that might have been expected.
A hand grasped her shoulder softly. Looking up she was met with the soft cerulean blue eyes of Jaune. He gave her a nervous smile and scratched the back of his head with his free hand,just as he always did when feeling bashful. In a way, the heiress couldn't help but find it a little endearing and calming, especially after the near death experience they had just shared.
"Thanks Weiss, You uh... You just saved my life, I thought I was a goner..." He said.
"That's...Alright Jaune... Its what... teammates do..." She managed to say in between breaths.
"Well, we made it... Guess we just have to wait for the others." He shrugged, motioning up to the sky. He shivered when he saw the tiny black speck of their aircraft countless thousands of feet above them. Weiss nodded and fought to bring her breathing back under control and to a steady level.
As it turned out, they didn't have long to wait before the next waves of students. Pyrrha was the first to join them, crashing through the branches overhead and dropping into a combat roll on one of the gnarled outcroppings close to the trunk. With a satisfied 'hmph' she caught sight of her team and dropped down to walk over to them.
"Remind me to work on developing your landing strategy." She giggled placing a finger on the very centre of his chest. The knight gulped nervously.
Ruby was the last to drop in, her arrival signified by a series of earth shattering gunshots as she used the recoil to rapidly slow her descent. At the last possible moment she threw the head of her over-sized scythe out in a wide arc and hooked it onto a low lying branch. She pan a couple of loops around it as her momentum dissipated. Once slow enough she unhooked and landed solidly on her feet by the others.
"Well, we all made it." Weiss said with a slight smile, clearly glad to have that over with.
"Well since its quiet, we should spread out and gather the sap. Stick in twos for safety, we don't know what's out the-"
He was cut short by a blood-chilling howl as several pairs of burning red eyes lit up in the darkness around them. Team JSPR drew into a tight circle, drawing their weapons and preparing themselves for battle.
A whole pack of Beowolves emerged from the trees around them and formed a solid ring of black fur and gnashing teeth around them some two deep. It was clear that they weren't just here to make friendly with them. Behind them was the great hulking figure of the pack alpha-male. A huge creature that must have been over ten feet tall with spikes the size of Jaune's whole arm protruding from its foreleg. The bone plate across its face had been rent in two leaving a wide scar underneath that extended the full length of its snout.
Jaune raised up his shield and settled into his 'ready stance' with practised ease after hours of Pyrrha's training. Crocea Mors' blade gleamed with a ruddy light as the sun shone through the red leaves above. He steadied his breathing and concentrated on the moment rather than his fears of what might be about to happen.
Thusly, when the first of them charged he was ready for it. He waited for his moment and brought Crocea Mors down in a sweeping arc, cleaving its skull in two and sending a fresh spray of gore into the air and staining the grass underfoot.
Before he could take the time to appreciate his kill, another was on him. The blonde ducked under a back handed stroke as one of the beasts sought to drive it's arm spikes through his head and neck. With a cold smile playing about his lips he span around and hacked the arm clean off with a blow just above the elbow, the monster gave a ear-piercing howl of pain before he drove his blade through its throat and silenced it permanently. He drew his sword out with a squelch sending droplets of blood flying and spattering across his face.
Taking a brief moment to look around the knight surveyed his teammates situations. All had turned to anarchy once the attack had begun, the circle they had been enclosed in was filled with the rapidly decaying corpses of the Grimm as well as those that had yet to fall. His team had been scattered to the four winds in the mayhem.
Ruby was over to one side, surrounded by a press of Grimm, though it was no problem for her. She danced around them with an expression of child-like joy, halving four of them with each subsequent swing of her gargantuan scythe, leaving mounds of fresh bodies all around her feet.
Weiss' combat style seemed a little more calculated than the reckless nature of her partner. She worked with a precision which was both impressive and frightening to watch, switching between the various dust canisters on her rapier without so much as a glance, working on memory alone. Dodging out of the way of a swiping paw she darted forward and hit the beast with a shot of fire, incinerating it in an instant and leaving nothing but ashes behind.
Finally he turned his attention to his own partner, she was hewing her foes to ribbons with a grace and fluidity that was terrifying to see. Every stroke of her weapon sounding the death-knell for another of the beasts. Her weapon itself seemed to constantly shift within the flow of battle, switching between its three forms whenever another would prove to be of a more advantageous nature.
Before he could watch on, a harsh roar erupted from beside him. A huge paw flew through the air and smote him in the side, launching him off and to the ground. He grunted on impact and scrambled back to his feet raising his shield. Peeking over the rim he just had time to throw himself out of the path of the rampaging alpha. The great wolf sprinted at him swiping at anything that go in its way, friend or foe.
He leapt into a roll and back to his feet, taking the time to drive his sword through the back of an unaware Grimm. Turning back around he watched with fear as the Alpha bore down on him again. It threw its arm at him from above in a wide arc. The knight ducked under his shield, his legs nearly buckling under the sheer force of the impact.
Underneath his shield he grunted and pushed back against the Alpha as it hammered relentlessly on his shield, the loud clangs triggering a ringing in his ears. Looking forward he saw the creatures exposed legs and with it, his opening.
Tightening the grip on his shield he drew his arm back and darted forward deflecting the monsters attack and setting it off balance. Before it had the chance to react Jaune had swung his sword in a mighty swing and hewed its leg off at the mid thigh. He felt the various tendons fray and snap as the razor sharp blade drove its way straight on through, thick black blood pouring from its open wound.
The creature reared up, screaming in pain and collapsed flailing violently, the loss of its leg ruining its balance. Jaune hesitated for a moment before leaping to drive Crocea Mors' point straight through its black heart.
With a sweep of its paw it caught him in mid air and sent him flying. He lost grip on his weapon on impact with the ground, sending it sailing out of his hand and embedding it in one of the nearby creatures, the Alpha in between him and it. Jaune groaned in pain, thanking his lucky stars for aura as he felt it kick in and begin to heal the bruises.
Left unarmed and with a flailing Alpha in front of him, he cast his eyes about for any kind of weapon. They landed on the severed leg of the Alpha, lying in a pool of blood. Protruding from just above the ankle joint were two long bone spikes, it wasn't pretty but it would do.
He ran forward, and grabbed it by the fur lifting it, soaking his clothes and besmirching his armour with the blood. He was surprised by the sheer weight of it. He hefted his grisly new weapon an charged at the beast. It looked at him with what looked to be horror as he gave a powerful swing driving the bone spines straight through its chest with a sickening crunch. There was a blood-curdling howl from the beast before the rage and hatred faded from its eyes and it lay still, dead.
All around him the remaining creatures turned to face their dead leader, pausing in their combat. With a collective howl they withdrew, some still falling to the attacks of the three huntresses as they retreated back into the woods, their tails between their legs.
"Well... that was fun..." Weiss sighed sarcastically as she made her way over to him. Followed closely by Ruby and Pyrrha. Together the three of them surveyed the decaying corpse of the alpha, its snout still twitching slightly.
"Did... did you just kill an Alpha Grimm with its own leg?" Ruby asked wide eyed in surprise.
"I-uh... yeah... I did." Jaune replied, just as surprised as the gravity of what he had done actually hit him.
"Where's your sword?" Pyrrha asked with a look of confusion. Jaune explained what had happened as he made his way over to where is sword lay, the corpse of the Grimm having vanished leaving nought but his sword and a sizeable blood stain in its place. He picked the blade up and wiped it clean on his jeans before sheathing it once again in his shield.
"For all our sakes, I think we had best hold off on the sap collection until we are in a more defensible location." the champion suggested when he returned. Jaune nodded and checked the GPS on his scroll, if they had a full hundred miles to cover by the next evening they would need to set off as soon as possible.
"We should get going or we'll never make it tomorrow." He sighed looking round at his team, the three girls nodded collectively and together they set off Northward. Their survival exercise had begun.
And there it was, I hope you like it. Leave me a review and let me know what you thought. Like I said I am super excited to really be able to knuckle down on this one and get to working. We see Jaune a little way into his training here so he's a little bit more competent in terms of his abilities. Next time we'll see them survive the nights together. I might introduce team BRNY in this arc and develop on their characters. Let me know what you think. As always, don't forget to favourite and follow if you enjoyed this, next update should be in about a weeks time.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you all, in the next chapter.