Chapter 2: Tutorial mission.
Jaune stood in front of the door to his team's room, fumbling with with his Scroll as he attempted to unlock it.
"Stupid door…!" he grumbled, going through the Scroll's settings, "I knew I should have set this thing to 'auto'..."
"Would you like some help?" Pyrrha asked, hesitantly looking over his shoulder. "I can unlock it for you, if you want?"
Jaune shook his head. "No no," he assured the redhead, "I got this! Just...give me a minute."
"...if you say so," she shrugged.
As Jaune continued to fumble around the Scroll he began to wish that he hadn't asked for privacy from Kyu; it would have been really nice to have to have someone to give him advice that only he could hear so he didn't have to lose face in front of Pyrrha. He probably should have ask her in the first place...but he'd assumed that he actually remembered how the dang door worked! He'd heard the explanation of how they worked along with everyone else, but he'd been more focused on all the attractive girls and hadn't really paid attention to the explanation.
Just another great decision courtesy of Jaune Arc…
Then he felt a tiny prick on the back of his neck.
"Ow!"
"Jaune? Is something wrong?" Pyrrha asked.
"I think something bit me," he said, finally getting the door to unlock. He pointed to the back of his neck, "Does it look like something bit me?"
Pyrrha examined Jaune's neck. "No," she said, "it appears fine to me."
"Oh, OK then." He gestured for Pyrrha to go ahead of him. "Ladies first," he said.
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On the balcony they both leaned on the safety railing, looking down at the campus below them. They could just make out the other students milling about on the ground, looking like ants from so high up. Outside of the academy grounds lay the Vale countryside, with both the adjacent mountains and the glistening sound visible from the chosen vantage point. There were a couple of airship buses flying over the water as they ferried to and from Vale city, and puffy white clouds skirted around the mountain peaks.
All in all, it looked pretty darn spiffy.
"Mmm!" Pyrrha stretched her arms above her head, letting out a contented sigh. "The breeze up here feels quite pleasant, doesn't it?" she asked Jaune.
"Yeah…," he said, only half hearing the question; he was too focused on person asking to care about what was being asked.
Pyrrha Nikos was a very beautiful girl, there was never any doubt about that. There was a reason why the redheaded athlete was featured on a cereal box, after all; her toned, powerful body, waist length crimson hair, and gentle face were all painfully obviously, even to an idiot who literally didn't recognize her until he was reminded that she was on the front of Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes. Not to mention her four consecutive tournament wins, but that didn't really have anything to do with how she looked.
"...do I have something on my face?" she asked quizzically, breaking Jaune from his daze.
"Huh- Oh no! No! Absolutely not! It's just, your face looks…." He tried to think of a way to smooth talk himself from looking like a totally loser, but wasn't really having much success. "Your face looks like what I puked up the order day"? Absolutely not! "Your face likes like an angel"? Not that either; it made him sound too desperate, and kind of creepy to boot.
Geez, why is this so hard?! he bemoaned silently, It's not like I haven't spoken with her before, we're freaking teammates for crying out loud! Man, why can't girls just like me for my confidence?
Suddenly, he got and idea. He had no clue if it would work, and it didn't really match up with the advice his dad gave him, but he wasn't coming up with anything better at this point….
"My face looks...what?" she asked.
Well, what have I got to lose?
"Your face looks… really nice," he said, "I never really noticed until now." Then he waited, bracing himself for whatever was about to happen.
Though in all the possible scenarios that ran through his head, her acting bashful surprisingly wasn't one of them.
"That's…," Pyrrha blushed, "that's really nice of you to say…." She rubbed her arm awkwardly, looking embarrassed. "B-but really, you don't need to flatter me…."
"I'm being serious," he insisted, "I know you must hear this all the time, but it's true."
Pyrrha blushed even further, her face now resembling the color of her hair.
Oh crap, did I goof?
"Uh…." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "...did I say something wrong?"
"Oh, n-no, n-not at all!" she stammered, quickly composing herself, "I-it's just, I wasn't prepared for something so...sincere…."
Now it was Jaune's turn to look embarrassed; it wasn't like he said anything that was untrue, if anything he was simply stating a fact...but that didn't stop his face from trying to match hers for color.
"So...do you come here often?" he wondered, trying to break the oppressively awkward silence between them, even if (in retrospect) it was with a corny line.
Pyrrha nodded. "I like come up here to unwind after my training sessions," she explained, "It's so peaceful up here, and the view!..." She sighed longingly, "If I were asked, I'd say this is my favorite spot on all Beacon."
"Yeah," Jaune agreed, nodding, "I can see why."
After that they mostly made pointless small talk, chatting about school and the like. Once the initial awkwardness passed Jaune found that Pyrrha was surprisingly easy to talk to. She was considerate, letting him say his piece before she spoke, and she didn't tell him to get lost like every other girl he tried to talk to- ...OK, it was more like "hit on" than "talk to", but the point still stood that she actually wanted to talk with him as much as he did her.
Eventually though, she said she had to go meet with one of the teachers.
"What about?"
"Professor Goodwitch asked me if I would help with a demonstration for her next class," the Mistrali Huntress explained, heading for the door, "If you're not doing anything else then feel free to come watch."
Jaune didn't have anything going for the rest of the day, (thank Monty today was a half day for him!), so he had time to spare. Apart from the grueling Initiation he hadn't really seen Pyrrha, a world renowned tournament champion, fight, and even then he'd been too preoccupied to really pay attention in detail to anything but the Grimm they were fighting at the time. Besides, as Team Leader (he still didn't know how that happened!) it was probably a good idea to be familiar with how the rest of his team operate-
Suddenly Kyu popped up in front of him, wagging her finger with a disapproving look on her face. "Hold you horses, Sport," she said, "you're still booked with me."
"Uh…?"
"There's still more Honeys out there," she told him, "you can't just settle on one of them right away; there's options, shop around a bit before make your purchase!"
Jaune rubbed the back of his head uneasily. What it sounded like the fairy (he was never going to get used to saying that…) was suggesting, at least to him, was something his father warned him against. "Stick with one girl, Jaune," he'd said, "Take it from me, trying to juggle multiple girlfriends is not as fun as it sounds…"
"Jaune?" Pyrrha called, "Are you coming?"
"Pffft!" Kyu snickered. "Nope, no he's not!"
It was a testament to Jaune's self control that he didn't react to the jab. (Though he died a little inside because he understood the joke.)
"Maybe some other time," he said (ignoring Kyu's giggling), "I...actually have something else going on right now."
"Oh…. Well, some other time then." She waved goodbye, leaving the scraggly Huntsman in training alone on the balcony.
Well, if you didn't count the fairy impatiently tapping her pink, heeled shoes on the floor….
"I wanted to go with her," he told her, "Why'd you stop me?"
"Like I said, there's still a bunch of fine ass Honeys out there, each of them unique in their own way; who's to say you won't meet someone you like better than Cereal Box there?" she asked, her eyebrow raised knowingly.
Though hesitant to admit it, Jaune could definitely see her point; there was no guarantee that he'd find "Mrs. Right" immediately, and it might even take him a long time to even do that. Even his dad warned him of that before he left home.
"See?" She clapped him on the back. "Now let's get out there and talk to some more broads!"
Still, he really wanted to talk with Pyrrha more now that they were on speaking terms…
"Can't I just look in on Pyrrha for a minute?" he asked. "I mean, she did invite me-"
"I said...," Kyu growled, gritting her teeth; it would have looked kind of cute on her if she didn't follow it up by pinching his ear and dragging him towards to door, "let's go talk to some BROADS!"
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" he cried, praying that he'd still have both his ears by the end of the day.
to be continued….
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Kyu's Naughty Confessions blog })i({
"Arc" you serious? Pt.2: Tutorial Complete!
Kyu})i({ here again! I know it's a little early (^-^'), but I figured that an update was in order with what's about to go on here.
For starters, the Date; I was right, the spot they were going to was totes romantic! (o^-^o) It was an admittedly ordinary looking balcony, as far as balconies went, but hawt damn, the view was freaking gorgeous! You could literally see everything for miles! Like, words don't do it justice! (Though personally, there wasn't enough chiffon for my tastes. |-D ) Anyway, the two of them talked for a little while, and Jauney Boy even managed to work in a smooth line or two. ;-D Completely by accident, of course. |-D |-D |-D Still, they definitely made a connection (Pyrrha = Hearts x 2), so we'll see if he can do something else with that further down the road.
But that's for another day. In the meantime, we're off to find Jauney Boy his next Honey to mack on! "There's plenty of fish in the sea" as the saying goes, so check back next time to see who the next catch will be! I saw some really fine prospects already, so go check out that poll I made and see what might be in store! Hopefully I won't need to resort to my contingency plan… (-_-;)
Only one comment from the last post: "OG_Cupid" says "I'm not weird, Sugardust; need I remind you exactly WHO was doing this gig since before you graduated from your training wings?" To which I say...why haven't you retired yet? Nobody uses arrows anymore, and you've put on too many pounds for that toga to even work anymore; I didn't even think it was possible to do that! /(*o*)\
Anyway...until next time, keep voting on the poll! See you sexy people later!
