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"You should go and talk to her…" Neo told him as they ate, the girl chewing on a piece of toast guiltily across from him. Jaune looked up at her, unsurprised at the words but curious to see if she had more to say. She didn't, but she didn't need to, he could feel her emotions running wild ever since Pyrrha had left. Jaune had sensed her irritation and… grief, almost, until she left his range of 'hearing', headed into the forest.
Confusion. Anger. Guilt to a strangely large degree... Curiosity?
"Why?" He asked simply, to prompt a better explanation form the small woman.
"Because she's right." Neo said simply, Jaune raising an eyebrow at her. She closed hers taking a breath while she gathered her thoughts, "I did do all those things. She has a right to be… Angry, hurt, whatever. I'm not a good person, and I… hurt her, and enjoyed it, and I made damn sure she knew I was enjoying it."
"I know..." Jaune said quietly, looking down at his eggs and thinking for a few seconds. "But… You had to. You had to protect people you cared about, and Pyrrha was an obstacle to that. And… And she got hurt, but you're regretful about that. And I forgave you for it, and… You've been trying to be better."
"And?" She asked weakly, avoiding his eyes as hers flashed pink and brown, then to white and then back. "I can try all I want, but I'll still enjoy hurting people. And manipulating them, like you did to her."
"What are you-"
"Osmosis. That's what you called it, right?" She asked, interrupting him and looking at his eyes suddenly, hard shards there boring into his eyes. "You absorb things from people, just from being around them. Right?"
"Yeah, why?" He asked nervously, already knowing where she was going.
"Because, Jaune. Because you're… becoming me." She said, sighing and pushing a slice of bacon around her plate idly. "Or, well, kind of. I can see it, though. You're becoming more manipulative, and… And I like it, it excites me to watch, but…"
"But you want me to stay the same as I am." Jaune said, sighing weakly and nodding. "Right?"
"No!" She almost screamed in his head, chewing her lip and avoiding his eye contact again. Her mind raced faster than he could follow, her emotions. "I'm saying that… I don't know. You handled her wrong, the way she feels, what she wants… What she deserves."
"Because the only thing that would satisfy her is me, Neo. What she deserves I have already given away, to you, Neo." He said quietly and firmly, watching her closely for a long moment before adding, "I… I want to be faithful. With everything I have done, all my mistakes, screwups, the things I've done… I wanted at least that."
"I know, I'm not…" She sighed and rose, "Just stay here? I'm going to go talk to her myself."
"That's not a good idea, Neo." Jaune argued, standing and moving to follow her towards the door before she rounded on him, scowling up at him as he approached and slapping his chest playfully. "Neo… How are you even going to talk to her?"
"Trust me, okay, Jaune? I'm Neopolitan, the cutest assassin this side of everything Remnant has to offer. I can handle one angry sort of girlfriend." She asked seriously, smirking up at him in a cocky, surefire way that was very much betrayed by the subtle tremor in her limbs, and the racing nervousness he knew she felt as it echoed into him. She was scared, frightened by what she was going to do by going to talk to Pyrrha… But she wanted his trust.
"Okay, Neo. Just… be careful, okay?" He said, the girl guffawing mutely and waving her hands as though to say 'I'm always careful' and Jaune raised an eyebrow, "Neo, I mean it. Pyrrha is angry, and she's angriest at you, and she is a... great fighter." He'd almost said dangerous, but he caught it just in time. "Are you sure?"
She nodded, slapping his chest again and turning to leave, and he watched the door for several seconds before turning and slamming his fist down onto the table, "Damn it all to the Grimm…"
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It didn't take long for Neo to find the Mistralian champion, she left plenty of carnage for her to follow. Damaged trees, splintered limbs lying on the grass here and there from wild, uncontrolled attacks or just plainly enraged ones, charred and smoldering on the forest floor. Grimm plating was scattered about, the only thing usually left once a Grimm fully dissolved. The ground was oddly clean though, unmarred and not torn up much, like when people normally fought Grimm. The ground was always torn, churned up from the armored boots of fighters and the claws and hooves of the beasts themselves.
And yet, the ground was barely scratched anywhere except where the plating of the Grimm lay, meaning they'd died there before they could do much more than react to a person's presence near them.
"Neo," a drone started, one of two trailing behind her protectively, part of the still-active security measures the ship was programmed to have. She'd asked, and he'd rattled off Atlesian procedure codes and her apparently accorded rank as a 'lieutenant', though she had no idea how she's gotten that. Roman, probably. "We are nearing the location of Nikos, Pyrrha. A drone following her has advised, she is irate and in reports indicate she has encountered a Beowolf pack."
No duh on either of those claims, she could hear the blasts echoing from here already, and see the faint flashes as well as lightning and fire arced against the creatures. Raising her hands and turning to sign at the droid, she asked, "Can you keep up if I run? I don't want to lose her."
"Negative." The drone responded, reaching into a compartment on its hips and extracted a small cylinder which pulsated with a soft green glow at the end is it was offered to her. "The ship this unit is attached to can monitor your location wit this, ma'am, and this unt will follow using it. So if you lose your way, we will locate you. Also, a drone is on-site with Nikos, Pyrrha. It will relay to this unit your location as well."
"Got it." She signed, rolling her shoulders and taking off at an easy sprint, leaping over logs, limbs and rocks, enjoying the feeling of simply running for the first time in months. She'd never quite been a free-runner, but she still enjoyed using her acrobatics to leap, roll and jump off of rocks, trees and so on to cover the distance.
She leapt over a fallen tree laying in front of a healthy one into a large clearing dotted with dead and dying Grimm, ducking under a Beowolf as it careened over her head and slammed against the tree behind her hard enough to snap backwards around it, collapsing limply. Neo took a moment to look around, mainly out of fear of the Grimm, and whistled mutely at the battlefield. Charred, burned, smoke starting to clog the air and the earth churned from blasts, bolts, gusts of wind if she remembered what little she'd seen of Cinder's fighting. Plating was scattered around the ground from Grimm already gone, and Pyrrha hurled her spear as she turned on the spot in the middle of the field, catching the last Grimm in the chest and watching it collapse at her feet before turning angry, literally smoldering eyes on Neo.
"What do you want, harlot?" She demanded hotly, holding a hand out as she approached the small woman, her spear flying into her hand. Neo swallowed nervously, the droid that followed Pyrrha stepping up beside Neo from behind a tree where it had taken cover. "To rub what you have in more, maybe?" Pyrrha flicked her wrist, her spear shifting into a sword as she came to a stop a few feet away, cocking her hip and resting her shield-hand on her hip, "Or perhaps you thought to try and end me out here, so I couldn't bother you anymore? I would wager that is harder than you think, though."
"I already know I can't beat you in a fight." She signed nervously, the droid translating for her as she did so Pyrrha could understand. She chuckled at the shorter woman, almost dark enough to worry Neo, and she added, "I came to talk, not fight you."
"Talk? Laughable, coming from a mute." Pyrrha dug at her, Neo blinking in surprise and hurt, before her face hardened in anger. Pyrrha laugh brightly, leaning forward slightly at her hips. "Oh? Did I strike a nerve there? Are we a bit self-conscious about the fact we can't even speak readily with anyone?"
Neo fought back against the anger spiking through her, eyes closing as her eyes flashed colors rapidly to show her anger, before letting out a breath, "Stop trying to start something, I'm trying to bury the hatchet."
"Was a time you tried to bury me." Pyrrha dismissed easily, eyeing the smaller woman for several seconds before sighing. "But fine. Say what you to to feel like you tried I guess. Not that it will change anything, but I will at least offer the courtesy of an honest hearing."
Neo kept her opinion on just how honest the hearing really was to herself, instead nodding and signing again, "I just wanted to talk about what happened, at Beacon."
"An apology won't change what happened, nor how you have stole Jaune away from everyone who has a claim to him. Sparse and loose as such claims are, his team mates for a few week have stronger claim on him than his kidnapper." Pyrrha argued simply, shrugging as though it were the most obvious thing in the world that Neo would come for that.
"I'm not here to apologize, and I won't ever." Neo said simply, signing away as quickly as she could. Pyrrha's eyes narrowed on her and Neo sighed mutely, "I had to do what I did, kidnapping him. The only people I care about, really, were in danger. I did what I had to to protect him. Just like I have done for Jaune."
"What do you mean?" Pyrrha asked curiously, head tilting as she considered Neo's words. Neo sighed mutely again and started working her shoulders to slide out of the leotard's upper half, Pyrrha watching the milky expanse of her chest as her breasts came into view and she pushed the leotard down, the Mistralian flushing and looking away, "W-Why are you disrobing, Neo?"
"To show you what I have paid as a price for Jaune already." She signed simply as she turned, the robot translating for her and allowing Pyrrha to force her gaze back to the woman.
"Gods…" Pyrrha murmured weakly, blinking at the image before her and the contrast it brought against the milky, flawless skin on her neck and chest and - Goddess if Pyrrha didn't flush as she thought it - the moderate swell of her breasts.
A wicked scar, like a large chunk resting on her back, flaring out from the center of her back like flames and fingers, but more ragged. Like broken glass, shatter outwards, ragged and violent looking. The ugly pink and red scarring, with light ridging in the very center where the flesh turned a darker red and Pyrrha could barely make out the divets of her spine and the curve of ribs where the damaged skin clung taught against bones and muscle, and another long line of that red, raw looking flesh reached from her left shoulder down to her right hip, the flame-like scarring following it out. The edges of the massive burn were wrinkled in an ugly way, where the skin had been just barely damaged and tried to heal.
"I knew you got hurt protecting Jaune, but… Gods, it looks like you were burned alive." And it did, truly, and Pyrrha felt her anger ebb as her natural sympathy rose for the young woman. She took a step forward, Neo watching her over her shoulder, and Pyrrha swallowed nervously, "May I..."
"Be gentle." Neo said simply, swallowing nervously and forcing herself to stay still, quashing the instinctive panic and resistance to the idea. She hadn't even allowed Jaune to touch it yet, not the way Pyrrha wanted to, but… She was here to reach out, after all.
She shivered when she felt soft, gloved fingers touch the skin at the center of her back, sending painful sparks through her enough that Neo couldn't help but stiffen. "I'm sorry!" Pyrrha almost cried, recoiling before reaching out to brush the outline of the scar stretching across her back, gentler and more tenderly, "This is… You took an axe meant for Jaune, correct?"
"Yeah. Atlesian soldier had it, it electrified the skin through your Aura to inflict damage regardless. It still helps protect you, but it hurts. And without mine at the time, well…" She paused, grimacing as she tried to recall everything. "I don't know how it felt, I passed out when it happened."
Pyrrha stepped away, mouth working as she thought, and Neo turned towards her again shamelessly, her bust still showing. Pyrrha flushed as she thought, murmuring, "Would you… cover yourself, please?" Neo nodded, pulling the leotard back up, and Pyrrha watched her closely for a few seconds before speaking, sighing before she did, "You truly love him, then?"
"I'm an engineered sadist and a sociopath." She signed simply, shrugging when Pyrrha raised an eyebrow at her. "I don't truly know if I love him. Not at least the way most people think of it. But…" She trailed off, hands hesitating in the air as she sought out words that would work, "He makes me happy, makes me feel welcome and safe. Accepts me. Even Roman was always a bit off put by my proclivities."
"As he should be." Pyrrha asserted, Neo looking at her. "Your… tendencies are a bit dark, Neo. Monstrous, even. People like you, who exist only to harm others and lavish in their suffering, you should be seen as the danger you are. But..." Pyrrha paused to take a breath, sword hand bouncing with the weapon in her hand anxiously, "But everyone wants to be loved, I suppose. Accepted." Neo nodded, and Pyrrha continued, "So I… Guess I understand, in a way, why you'd cling to an empath. He'd understand you better than anyone else ever could, you can even speak to him.."
"And he does." Neo agreed simply, nodding with a small, warm smile on her face. "I don't know if I love him, I don't know if I can love anyone, but… I want him to be safe and happy." She looked up at Pyrrha, taking a step towards the woman, close enough now that their bodies almost touched while she looked at the Mistralian, who swallowed anxiously and looked down at her, refusing to give ground to the woman. "And he can't be that without you. WIthout his friends and his family. So what can I give you to fix this? To make up for what I did?"
"I-I don't-"
"What do you want?" She asked simply, signing with her arm to the side, interrupting the Mistralian as the redhead took a step away, "What can I give you? Revenge, maybe?"
"Revenge?" Pyrrha asked curiously, raising her eyebrow. Neo nodded simply, clearly disliking the premise even as she offered it. "What do you mean?"
"I hurt you. I cut you and enjoyed it. Relished in it, got off on it even. The way your eyes followed the knife, your muted voice..." Neo explained simply as she could, looking at Pyrrha's chest above her bust purposefully before returning her eyes to Pyrrha's. "Do you want to do the same thing to me? Will that satisfy you? To cut me, make me scream? I won't judge you for it, I'm the last person who has a right to do that. So is that it? Do you want to take from me like I did to you?"
"N-No, I would never do that." Pyrrha argued simply, shaking her head and trying to steady her sword-arm's sudden tremble. "I… Petty revenge isn't what I want. Even if it would… would feel good, for a while, Jaune would never forgive me for it."
"Then what do you want? You can have anything I can give, so what do you want from me?" Neo asked again, Pyrrha's mouth working in an effort to form some answer to her question. Neo's eyes narrowed when Pyrrha's eyes began to roam almost unconsciously, first to her lip, then her bust, then back towards where Neo had come from, towards the ship. "I won't give up Jaune, I will be with him. I refuse to back down on that."
"T-That makes him happy, yes. But I don't… I don't know what you have which I could ask for. I won't ask you to leave Jaune, that would hurt him as much as you. And I would never take joy from that. No from anything that causes him pain..." Pyrrha said after a second, while Neo watched her and thought. "I don't know…"
The jealousy when she and Jaune were intimate made sense if Pyrrha wanted Jaune for herself and only Jaune for herself. That made perfect sense with Neo's assumptions of Pyrrha's desires, to bed with Jaune and be his. But the way she had flushed when Neo took off her leotard, the embarrassment she'd shown at the mere sight of her bust, that made less sense. A champion fighter must have shared a locker room, and while her reaction would have made sense in an intimate setting regardless or with someone whom she cared for, here it made none. So why had Pyrrha reacted like a teenage boy with his first pair of tits in front of him?
Unless Neo was wrong in her assumptions about what Pyrrha wanted, who she was deep down, especially after everything that had been done to her.
And that prompted Neo's mind to race further, until she asked herself, did Pyrrha want Jaune for herself or did she just want him period? Because the former wasn't something Neo could tolerate, not something she could stand for. But the latter… Neo would be lying if she said Pyrrha wasn't attractive.
But what did Pyrrha want? To take something from Neo, obviously. To take of her. To get her pound of flesh, violate Neo as Neo had violated her. A vicious cycle, sure, but one that made sense especially as changed as her mental state was according to Jaune. But she still had some semblance of morality, some restrictions on herself. While Neo couldn't tell if it was Pyrrha's qualms, or Pyrrha's worry about Jaune's, or just societal influence, it was clear Pyrrha wouldn't give in to a violent answer.
And if Pyrrha wouldn't violate her with a knife then maybe Neo needed to give her another outlet to do it… A way to violate Neo, or at least feel as though she had without any violence, or harm, or a knife. And that gave Neo an idea, odd as it was, based on her past experiences hunting targets.
When in doubt, let them have your body and see what they did. People would find what they wanted, if they didn't know what it was.
"Do you want me?" She asked out of the blue, head tilted to the side as her suspicions came to a head. Pyrrha flinched as though struck, and Neo smirked knowingly and mockingly as she stammered out a denial, her grip tightening on her weapon and her shield. "It's okay to, you know. To want me and Jaune, it's okay."
"N-No, I don't… I don't love you." Pyrrha said sternly, stepping away as Neo stepped forward to close the gap. Smirking, she stepped forward and watched the Misralian panic and back away, following the champion fighter. Corralling her until her leather-armored back hit a tree and Neo stopped, giving the woman enough space to put her shield between them, eyes looking her up and down warily. "W-What are you doing, you little… Sadist."
"So what if I'm a sadist? You'd be the one doing the taking, not me." She said simply, signing with one hand and running a finger along the rim of Pyrrha's shield with the other. "And when we get back, I'll explain to Jaune that we're… Sharing."
"S-Sharing?" Pyrrha asked, watching Neo's fingers drummed along the rim of her shield, glancing between them and the young woman's eyes with a nervous, anxious expression. "I-I don't understand."
"Don't try to." Neo signed simply, pinching the rim of the shield and pulling it aside. It took some effort, but the resistance Pyrrha offered was barely a token show of fight than anything, and she didn't even try when Neo pulled the shield from her arm and laid it against the tree beside the Mistralian, close enough she would feel safe with it near but far enough to give her space. "I don't know if I love Jaune, I don't know much about it. But I do know about desires, about people wanting things they think they can't have. You want Jaune, you want to have him press you against a mattress and ravish you. And you want me, if I don't know how you want me. I don't know what you want to do, but I know you want to do something to me."
"I-I don't want anything from you…" Pyrrha argued, but Neo knew better if only because the Mistralian 's eyes never left her own lips. Following them, curiously and demandingly, and then trailing along her jaw towards Neo's neck. Neo was good at watching people, it helped in her line of work, and she noticed when Pyrrha's fingers twitched when Neo tilted her head to the side cutely and exposed her neck more to her. "D-Don't think you can… Can read my mind. Only Jaune can do that."
"No." Neo signed with one hand, gently reaching out to grab Pyrrha's hand by her wrist, bringing it to her throat and closing the fingers around her neck under her owns, taking note when Pyrrha swallowed and licked her lips. "I am an assassin, I read body language. Follow a person's eyes to where they are looking at you, show it off, get them alone to make your kill…" Neo let the hand go, leaning into the grip a bit, and Pyrrha squeezed experimentally. Too hard, and crushing her air pipe for a second, but Neo would let it go for now. To make the 'kill' here, so to speak. "I know what you want. You have been looking at my lips, my throat, even my chest for a while now. Just take it. I'm offering it. Me and Jaune and you, sharing."
"But isn't it…" Pyrrha paused, feeling Neo's breathing through her throat and rubbing her thumb along it gently. Curiously. Before she finished, she felt Neo's pulse rise and then felt her own mirror it. "Isn't it strange? We don't love each other, I… I can't help but despise you. But you… You're letting me… I could kill you right now, you wouldn't be able to stop me."
"You could." Neo agreed, forcing her hands to hang at her sides limply, even though they craved that she fight, only allowing them to raise slightly enough to sign for the drone to translate from behind her. "You could snap my neck, with a simple twist of your wrist, and I wouldn't be able to react. Even my Aura wouldn't stop it."
"And yet you allow me to do this…" Pyrrha mused, squeezing experimentally and almost purring when Neo's eyes rolled closed and she leaned into her hand, playing the part even if she didn't enjoy it. "Why?"
"Because it's the best result." Neo signed simply, and completely honestly. "Either I do this, or we fight. One of us dies or leaves either way in that, and that hurts Jaune. Or we stay as we are, fighting, squabbling, and that hurts him too. Or I let you have Jaune, and I lose what I want. Between all of that, and letting you do what you want, it's an easy choice. So take what you want."
"But I don't know what to…" Pyrrha flushed at the slip, even if she'd murmured it. She knew Neo couldn't have missed it, and when the smaller woman smirked cockily at her, Pyrrha sighed and finished, "I don't know what to do."
"Whatever you want." Neo said simply. "Experiment here, do whatever you like, so you won't hesitate when Jaune is there too. Or back down, and give up on him entirely. Up to you now. But if you don't take this now, don't dare try to fight me for Jaune later."
"I won't give up on having him… He will be mine!" Pyrrha growled hostiley, pursing her lips when Neo raised an eyebrow. "But I don't…" She seemed to make a decision, pinning on the spot and slamming Neo into the tree hard enough her back ached, holding her up by her throat while the small woman gripped her forearm in very real fright. "I won't have you claiming I did something to you to Jaune, harlot. I won't let you manipulate him like that."
"I won't breathe a word." Neo signed weakly with a hand, toes just barely scratching at the ground below her, and she blinked when Pyrrha stabbed her sword into the bark threateningly, "I swear. I just want to fix things between us, for Jaune."
Hesitantly, Pyrrha lowered her, leaving her weapon embedded in the wood, she licked her lips as Neo caught her breath, "You better keep your word. I won't wait long to speak to Jaune about it, if he doesn't come to me. You understand?" Neo nodded, and Pyrrha hesitated a moment before adding, "Don't do anything. Okay? Just hold still."
Neo nodded, and Pyrrha reached up to her chest, feeling the breasts under her fingers experimentally, unsurely. She was nervous, and inexperienced, and Neo could tell she had no idea what to do even as the Mistralian used her free hand to yank at her shoulder straps greedily, until Neo helped the redhead slide it down her shoulders and pull her breasts free. She closed her eyes wen Pyrrha knelt, kissing along the fleshy orbs searchingly, while her hand held Ne's throat and pinned her against the tree.
Neo sighed to herself, letting Pyrrha do whatever she wanted. This wasn't about the sex with her, not really. Neo had met her type… This was about Pyrrha dominating the one who had dominated her. Neo had violated Pyrrha, and Pyrrha was doing it right back, even if she couldn't condone hurting Neo outright for it. Pyrrha's 'affections' were primal, demanding, painful in some ways, because this wasn't intimacy.
Jaune better appreciate what Neo did for him… Pyrrha had no idea what she was doing, and Neo couldn't even give her hints since she couldn't move to sign at the machines nearby.
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"First, we should head through to Vale. I can pick up some smuggling stuff, and offload our other merchandise from here that needs to be there with the drones. Then we hit towns along the way to Vacuo, and then to Vale, then here and up to Atlas." Roman suggested, drawing lines along the map to show the large, L shaped circuit he had in mind. "It should make us enough money." "To get by, at least… Until I get my contacts running things again."
"You and Cinder are in charge of it, Roman." Jaune said distractedly, sighing and trying to pay attention through his worry. "I trust your judgements won't do anything that puts us behind." Even if the reason for that was less loyalty and more self-service, at least on Roman's part. "When can we get under way?"
"Could go now, if ya wanted. But gimme a few days to get everything loaded, make some… arrangements, so to speak, in a few of the settlements." "And Vale, of course." Roman responded, leaning against the control console of the ship. "But if we leave too soon, we won't have all our stock from here. Which means less Lien wherever we stop, and we need supplies for the trip anyways. Food and water, among other things."
"If you wish, Master, we can go and visit your father. Perhaps he can help us with some supplies?" Cinder suggested, eyeing him worriedly when he grunted a response where he stood, leaning against the wall and staring at the floor. "Is something wrong?" "I will go myself, if you wish."
"Pyr and I had a fight over Neo, and Neo went to talk to her." Jaune explained, pushing off the wall. "I'm… worried about her. Pyrrha was really upset, and Neo is still hurt. If Pyr starts an actual fight…"
"Here." Roman said, tossing a small silver Scroll at him, "Just swap through, drones would be with 'em out in the forest. And they gotta be there, we'd hear any fighting if they weren't. Especially when the redhead starts hurlin fireballs." "Not that it's fun having cameras everywhere…"
"You can access their video feed with it, it's the security chief's Scroll. Let's the officers in charge monitor things through the drones." Cinder explain for him, standing beside him politely and watching him open it and start flicking. "Unfortunately, we don't know which drones went with her, so you'll have to search for it."
"I got it." Jaune said, nodding a second time understandingly, "Cinder, get our supply situation handled if you can. Roman, plot out an exact course and get everything you need settled."
"Yes, Master." Cinder said reverently, bowing her head before turning and leaving.
"So, Boss Man, got any requests to stop in at along the way?" Roman asked, chuckling to himself. "Cuz we got nowhere, nowhere, Vale, and then sandy nowheres all just waiting to be seen." "Ugh, I hate sand… Coarse and rough… And damned if it doesn't just get everywhere!"
Jaune finally found the right drone, and nearly choked as an image of Neo and Pyrrha on the ground, the Mistralian's chest piece laying next to her and her sash used to tie Neo's arms above her head while the two kissed aggressively and Pyrrha pressed against her, one hand wrapped around Neo's throat. Roman gave him a look and he closed the link and quietly tagged the location for droids to surround as the evening began to draw to a close, and the sun descended beyond the mountains.
"Just, uh, pick wherever you want. I'm gonna go and work out a bit." Jaune said simply, pushing off the wall and feeling… strangely relieved, honestly, not to have to worry about them being at each other's throats.
Well… Okay, so maybe they were at each other's throats, but they weren't trying to kill each other. And that was at least a starting point, at least. But he hadn't expected that to be how things turned out to say the least!
If he could stop stepping in 'strange' at some point, it would be quite nice.
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Winter awoke to a gentle shaking of her shoulder, blinking up at the droid looming over her before stretching languidly, "Report."
"It is approximately six-forty-five in the evening, the sun is beyond the mountains in this region until you reach the settlement nearby and here, Specialist." The droid reported, using her rank to refer to her as it likely didn't know her name. Probably because she was off-record as being here. It held out a small pack to her, with some emergency supplies and a Scroll loaded with the information she'd requested, and added, "All supplies are prepared, Specialist, and you are cleared for your operation."
"Understood." She said, rising and stretching, pulling her muscles to limber them up. "Code Authorization : A-1-T-6-LAS."
"Recognized. Awaiting command input." The droid responded after a moment of running the code, Winter nodding.
"Send this order to all your networked droids." She ordered, the machine nodding slightly after a moment to update the parameters under the authorization code. "Wipe all record of my presence here from this point on from all networks you have access to. Classify it Tier viewable by General James Ironwood and Specialist Winter Schnee."
"Confirmed." Nodding, she stepped out and into the hallway, headed for the forest.
Headed for her target.
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By the time Pyrrha was done with her, Neo's back was aching from lying on it too long, the skin all along her back and arms was itchy from grass. She sat up and got to work fixing her leotard, pulling the clingy fabric across her tender, flushed, swollen orbs gently and grimacing at the discomfort it brought, her over-sensitive nipples sending aches through her chest when the fabric settled against it. Her neck was flushed and red, numerous bite marks, a couple scratches, and trailed kisses leaving it sensitive and aching as well, and Neo's lips were bruised by now. Aching and swollen a bit, from over-aggressive kisses and biting at her lips.
Absolutely nothing new to Neo, after her line of work.
Pyrrha sat a couple feet away from her, her back to her while she refastened her leather armor and adjusted the cloth she wore under it to prevent the chafe, her head hanging and hands shaky, and Neo sighed, waving at a droid to get its attention before signing, "What's wrong?"
"I don't…" She sighed, looking over her shoulder at Neo before turning back around, "I'm sorry. I… shouldn't have done that to you. It was wrong of me."
"Yeah." Neo agreed, stretching once she'd stood up, trying to work out the kinks in her back and neck and grimacing when her back stung in pain. "But that was the point. Let you work out your demons and have fun while you do it. Like I did to you."
"But… You enjoyed it, and that makes sense. You're a sadist, you'd enjoy hurting people, right?" Neo nodded when she looked over her shoulder, Pyrrha pulling at her ponytail and playing with it absent-mindedly when she turned back around. "But… I'm not a sadist, and I'm not gay, so why did I…"
"Enjoy it?" Neo asked, Pyrrha's head bobbing an affirmative and the duo falling into silence while Neo thought it through. "Well… Are you sure about that?"
"Quite sure." Pyrrha responded simply, giving Neo a look over her shoulder and watching her walk around to Pyrrha's front, looking very much not willing to get into it much further. "I know my sexuality, Neo. I am not so naive. And what I did, how it… felt. That's new. I've never been… 'into that', I suppose is how you'd say it."
"Okay, well… You did that mind merging… thing with some chick right?" Pyrrha gave her a heavy look, her jaw hard and eyes lighting with anger, and Neo waved her hand in front of her to calm her down. "Not disrespect, no disrespect. I just don't know much about it. How it works and, you know, what it does."
"Neither do I, or the people who did the procedure." Pyrrha said quietly, turning away from Neo again to look out at the darkening forest around them and grimacing lightly. "I… It was an experiment, to see if it could work. If it could be done, the transferring of one's very soul into another person. It worked, at least I gained the powers of the Maiden. What was left anyway." The words sounded bitter, almost. Sour and agitated at the loss of the power she'd meant to have. "It hurts, you know. Aches, deep inside of me, nonstop. Like a hunger that can't be sated…"
"I can sympathise." Neo signed, Pyrrha raising an eyebrow at her. "My… Proclivities. The urges I have, to hurt people the way I love so much... it's always there too."
"So what?" Pyrrha snarked up at her, Neo standing a little under two feet away and smiling down on her, somehow still feeling to Pyrrha as the one in control. Even after everything Pyrrha had just done, Neo was still completely confident in what she was. "We're some sort of… Comrades?"
"I wouldn't go that far, no." Neo signed, "We are both batshit insane though, in our own ways."
"What do you mean?" Pyrrha asked quietly, eyes narrowing in suspicion when the girl squatted in front of her, tilting her head to the side almost cutely, but on Neo's face was more mocking than anything. "I'm… perfectly sane."
"A perfectly sane person wouldn't have done what you did to me." Neo signed simply, Pyrrha flinching back as though struck by the accusation. "She wouldn't have left everything she knew in Beacon, Vale and Mistral to get on a stolen warship, to be with a boy in a relationship with someone else, either."
"And this is in your expert opinion on what a sane person is?" Pyrrha asked sarcastically, but Neo noticed it lacked a certain… Fire. The animosity Pyrrha had held towards her was gone, as far as she could tell.
"No, it's in my expert opinion on insane people." Neo responded, crossing her legs and sitting in front of the Mistralian while the redheaded champion thought and listened, two things Neo never would have expected previously. "You, my red haired hate-fucker, are as messed up in the head as I ever was. And I think it's because of what they did to you."
"They… I did have some issues with memory, when the procedure first finished. My name, my home town, even my Semblance took time to come back." Pyrrha said, grimacing at something though Neo wasn't sure what. Either it was what had happened, or it was because she was opening up about this to Neo of all people. "They… Warned me of the chances of my mind being warped by the procedure. But… I just wanted to help."
"The road to the Grimmlands are paved with good intentions. And dead Huntsman, but no one ever adds that part, usually." Neo signed simply, "But I don't hold it against you. You did what you had to to get what you wanted. I can respect that."
"I'm sure…" Pyrrha groused, sighing and tucking her hair back over her shoulder. "But… That doesn't explain why I was…" She sighed, gesturing to the bite marks and bruises on Neo's neck, even as her Aura worked at healing them "That. It doesn't explain all that."
"Why not?"
"Well… Amber was a woman too, so it doesn't make sense that our merging would-"
"Was. She. Gay?" Neo signed slowly, so Pyrrha would get where the small assassin's thought processes had gone.
"I-I, uh…" Pyrrha blinked as she thought about it, shrugging after a second. "I do not know. They… didn't tell me anything about her, really. Beyond what I needed to know to become the Maiden. But… That would make some sense, I suppose."
"Yeah, it would." Neo nodded, smirking cockily. "I wasn't sure until we were out here, kinda suspected it though for a while."
"Why?"
"Intuition." Neo signed simply, shrugging when Pyrrha made a dissatisfied face at the revelation. "What? I'm a killer-for-hire. Intuition has saved my cute little ass more times than anyone has even seen it. It was just a suspicion, 'til I came out here."
"So all that about letting me cut on you, that was a bluff?" Neo shook her head, leaning over and fishing in her pocket for a minute before holding up a small black oval. Clicking it, a silver knife sprange out, edged in a red metal that Pyrrha recognized instantly. Pyrrha blinked, "You were serious? Why?"
"Same reason you do all the crazy shit you do." Neo said simply, closing the knife and returning it to her pocket. "Jaune. He needs us, collective, supportive and friendly enough. Not hurling tables across the room and screaming at each other. Well, you screaming. I can't do that."
"You're… right." Pyrrha said, sighing and bringing her knees up to her chest, resting her chin there and taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry about what I did, still."
"Forget about it." Neo shrugged, "As long as you got all that tension out of your system, I'm good as gold Dust."
"I… Do feel better, yes." Pyrrha sighed, watching Neo for a long moment. "But… What now?"
"What do you mean, 'what now'?" Neo asked, genuinely confused at the question.
"I mean what do we do? What do we tell Jaune?" Pyrrha groaned, pressing her forehead against her knees. "Ugh, I don't even know if my mental state is stable now! I thought I was fine, and now this. What happens when I start losing it again? Why on Remnant is something like this eating away at me, out of everything? I have so many questions now..."
"I can't help with most of your stuff there, Red." Neo said, shrugging when Pyrrha peeked over her knees at the smaller woman with a dour expression. "Best I can do is offer to let you work out any tension you build up. On my own, until you know what you're doing."
"What do you mean?" Pyrrha asked, sounding almost affronted.
"Girl, you had no idea what you were doing." Neo said, leaning forward enough to pat her knee condescendingly. "It's fine, it wasn't like you were focused on me anyways. You were havin' fun, that's all. And I doubt you've ever gone to third base with a woman before."
"No…" Pyrrha admitted, sighing and looking up at the darkening sky, "The sun has sunken beyond the mountains. Soon, it will sink behind the horizon as well. We should return soon, before it becomes too dark to see."
"Yeah." Neo agreed, hopping up and offering the Mistralian her hand. Pyrrha looked at it, then to Neo with a curious expression, and the woman rolled her eyes, "What? We're good now. Right?"
"Right." Pyrrha agreed hesitantly, letting Neo pull her up, looking down at the woman with narrow eyes and a fist on her cocked hip. "I won't forget what you did to me though. But… For Jaune, I will put it behind me."
"Fair enough." Neo agreed, Pyrrha turning to head back towards the ship.
Smirking, Neo stepped past her, giving her a harsh enough slap on her behind as she did and taking off as soon as Pyrrha squeaked. "Y-You harlot!" Summoning her weapons back to her, she rolled her eyes and followed Neo into the forest, calling out, "That was quite rude!"
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Jaune sensed them well before they reached the cafeteria, Neo rounding the corner at a run with a mischievous smiled and leaping up to slide across his table and hide behind him as Pyrrha rounded the corner, glaring until she saw Neo hiding behind Jaune. She stopped on the other side of the table, cocking her hip and resting her shield's rim on the table threateningly, and Jaune looked between the two in concern for a moment.
"Don't hide behind him, Neo." Pyrrha growled quietly, looking at Jaune too, "And don't you let her."
"Uh, what did she do?" He asked, holding a hand up to tell a droid carrying his food to wait, the machine obediently stopping a few feet away with the tray in its hands. He flushed though when he thought of all the things they obviously did, and Pyrrha raised an eyebrow. "I-I mean, not that you have to… You know, tell me."
"If you must know, she keeps slapping my behind whenever I'm not paying attention. It is as annoying as it is demeaning." "Even if it feels somewhat nice in a weird way..." "I-I didn't… You weren't… Jaune, ignore that." Pyrrha explained, flushing lightly at it and scowling when Neo snickered mutely behind him. "Little harlot."
"She loves it, don't let her fool you." Neo said to him, Jaune rolling his eyes at her.
"I take it you two… worked out your differences?" He asked, flushing again as their 'work out' popped into his mind again. Pyrrha raised an eyebrow at it and he rubbed the back of his neck nervously, "The, uh, drones have a Control Scroll. And it… taps into their video feeds."
"C-Cameras?" Pyrrha stammered, her shield falling from her arm as her Semblance failed her and her face turned a color to match her hair, the hand covering her mouth embarrassedly as Jaune felt a assault of shame, shock and other emotions he couldn't identify. "S-So you saw… We… Video of us…" He nodded and she fell into a chair, holding her head in her hands and whining weakly, "Gods…" "That's not fair! Not at all!"
"Wait, those have cameras in them?" Neo asked, signing so one of the droids could speak for her, mainly for Pyrrha's benefit. "Like, the footage is saved? Permanently? On the ship's memory whatevers?"
"Yeah." Jaune confirmed, Neo leaning against his shoulder and smirking at Pyrrha.
"I'm not ready for this…" She whimpered, head slowly falling to the table with a muted thud, her face turned to the side as her ears burned red. "What did you see, Jaune?"
"J-Just your back. You were, um… On top of Neo." He explained, Pyrrha groaning weakly as she remembered her state of undress at the time. "I d-didn't, you know, see anything though. But, uh, what was all that about?"
"Long story short? Amber was probably gay, Pyrrha is straight, and that got mixed up." Neo explained, Jaune nodding as she 'spoke' through the drone holding his food. "So basically, extreme sexual frustration, a lot issues with that, and her being pissed about what I did to her."
"How does that translate to…" Jaune trailed off, sparing Pyrrha a glance where she lay on the table before sighing, How does hat translate to her choking you out and doing… Stuff to you, in the forest?"
"I dunno. Best I could think up, since she kept looking at my tits."
"I was not looking at your… chest." Pyrrha groaned weakly, "Don't make this worse… Please?"
"Fine, my neck and my lips." Neo sighed, rolling her eyes, "And they are very sore, by the way! She is very, very kinky, as it turns out. Always the last one you expect, huh?"
"N-Neo!" Pyrrha groaned, standing up and leaning over the table to glare at the woman and giving an accidental show of the expanse of skin above her bust. "S-Stop teasing me!" Neo pointed, and Pyrrha flushed, slamming back into her seat, "Can we… eat please. I'm quite hungry."
"I bet, she worked up quite the appetite. And to think, she spent so much time biting and never actually ate anything while we were out there." Neo snarked, the two at the table both groaning that time.
Now what had Jaune gotten himself into, for Oum's sake?
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So, just gonna… Do a lump response here. I understand that the way Jaune handled Pyrrha in the last chapter was abrasive, dismissive and wrong in a wide, wide variety of ways. That was the intent. Hence the chapter titles, Confrontation and Resolution. I considered this chapter being part of the LAST chapter, but elected against it as it would have been far longer than I normally make them, and I try to at least be consistent THERE.
Jaune isn't perfect. Sure, he can read minds and emotions, but so? Something the X-Men rarely touches on is learning how to comprehend what you feel. What does Jaune feel from Pyrrha? Grief, confusion, pain, an echo of Amber in there somewhere, desire and obsession. He can empathise because of his ability, but he fails to understand.
Bear in mind though that this isn't supposed to be a wholly healthy relationship either. Not entirely, at least. The relationships here are mostly dependent ones or codependent ones. Which is surprisingly common, especially among people in their younger years. So yes, this is not a healthy relationship. And also yes, that is quite on purpose. You can't throw a sadistic sociopath, a mind slave, a career criminal and a teenager together in a situation like this and get any healthy relationships.
So, sorry for the issues there and please bear these considerations in mind. I hadn't thought that through. If I had considered this issue, the internal argument of a short or long chapter kinda… pales with the reaction that received. I even made this one longer to fully explain Pyrrha's problems, and so on, so I hope to have fixed that issue. Just another part of exploring her mental state and the effects of merging two human minds.
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ChimaTigon :
Sorta?
The Plan Man :
Yeah. I think it stems from the idea that all relationships are, or should be, entirely healthy. That therefore Neo and Jaune's relationship is bad, and Pyrrha would be better, though she is obsessed. People are… complicated more than that allows though.
The Impossible Muffin :
It was also only half the conversation, as you have no doubt figured out.
Josh Spicer :
Yes. She does. But he heart isn't rational. Arguments, while logical, aren't what sways it.
CJ Hoax :
*coughs quietly*
Zenith Tempest :
*coughs again*
Althos Hol :
I may steal that, actually, for a separate fic.
Duplicate User Name :
It's less unfocused than you might think. This entire segment of this story is all prep, fixing the issues between people and establishing a working friendship of some kind. That's the focus, so Pyrrha's troubles and the arguments and fights, they're well within what needs be done. It's also an effort to narrow the cast down, for a more focused story, ironically.
Only mentioning it because my PM didn't address it. Wanted to actually show it first then tell you.