Beta reader/Editor: Wyncrer the Sage

+ some helpful advice from Korzark

"I'm gonna do it!" Yang announced to her friends. "Today I'm gonna start training Jaune!"

Blake looked up from her book, not trying to hide her annoyance at the loud interruption, as Ruby paused in the middle of eating and Weiss barely glanced up from her bagel.

"Wow guys, try not to overdo it on the excitement," Yang said when no-one voiced a response.

"Well, you did kinda have a point when you said you didn't have much in common with his fighting style," Ruby reasoned. "So when you say something like that, we're less excited and more…" Ruby's face scrunched up as she tried to think of the word she was looking for.

"Apprehensive," Weiss supplied.

"Yeah! What Weiss said," Ruby agreed.

"Oh come-on, it's not that bad," Yang argued. "I've been thinking, and there are a few things about fighting with magic that someone like him might not know that I can teach him. And since Pyrrha shut me down when I asked her to train him, someone's gotta teach the guy to throw a punch."

This got a stronger response, with Weiss' eyes widening and Ruby sitting up straight. Unfortunately, Yang saw none of this as she was already moving away from the dining hall table in search of Jaune.

"Why doesn't she know Pyrrha's already training Jaune? Weiss quickly asked Ruby.

"I thought she knew," Ruby answered with a shrug. "She told me she was going to ask Pyrrha, and then with everything that happened after, I never asked how it went."

Jaune raised his shield arm and ducked his head, hiding behind his shield as blows rained down like metal hail. The shield in question wasn't the one he made with his magic, but the metal one that doubled as his sheath. Previous attempts had shown that he could not hope to match this opponent in speed and skill, leaving him to desperately defend himself as he tried to find an opportunity to counter.

His opponent's short sword flashed across in a horizontal strike that Jaune blocked straight on with his shield, the force behind the blow adding to the growing ache in his shield arm. He had no time to rest, though, as his enemy made another horizontal slash, this time towards his right, forcing him to step back with his right foot, to block it with his shield.

Unrelenting, Jaune's opponent drew their arm back to lunge forward with a thrust. Knowing he couldn't last much longer, Jaune took a chance and instead of blocking, he swung his shield to smack the incoming sword off track.

Seeing the opportunity he had been waiting for, Jaune stepped forward with his right foot as he swung his sword down diagonally, aiming to cut through his opponent's centre of mass. The strike was easily blocked by their circular shield, but Jaune didn't let up, pivoting on his right foot to bring his left foot forward, in doing so putting his entire weight behind his strike as he swung the blade horizontally towards his opposition's midsection. Again, the strike was blocked, but this time the force was enough to slightly stagger his enemy.

Seeing this as an opening, Jaune lunged forward with his sword held out in his right hand.

Jaune realised he had over-extended himself in the same moment his opponent side-stepped his stab , before stepping into his guard and smacking the pommel of their short sword into his forehead.

"Ow!" Jaune called out in pain as he stumbled backwards rubbing his forehead, almost falling over onto the training room floor.

"Sorry!" Pyrrha called out as she sheathed her sword on her back and rushed to check on Jaune, pushing his hand out of the way to see if she had caused any damage to his head.

"It's fine Pyrrha. I was just being overdramatic, it didn't even hurt that much," Jaune reassured her. "Seriously, if you need to check on anything it should be my arm, you really have one heck of a swing."

"Consider it a lesson in shield use; while the shield is more durable than skin and bone, it doesn't miraculously stop all damage. Next time you should try using the shield to deflect blows instead of catching them all straight on," Pyrrha finished with an encouraging smile.

"Well, I think I'm gonna have a hard time forgetting that lesson," Jaune said with a small grimace as he stretched his left arm.

"Sorry. I was trying to hold back," Pyrrha replied sheepishly. Jaune just looked at her in shock.

"I'm probably going to be feeling this fight for the rest of the week and that was you pulling your punches?" Jaune asked sounding dismayed.

"Yeah," Pyrrha replied nervously with one hand coming up to scratch the back of her head.

"Okay, yeah, that's fine. I mean it makes sense, you've been doing this for years you're obviously way ahead of me," Jaune rationalised. "So just out of curiosity, how much effort were you using, in terms of like, percent, and be honest."

"Are you sure?" Pyrrha asked, clearly feeling uncertain about answering Jaune's question.

"Don't worry Pyrrha, seriously. I'm a big boy, I can handle it. What were you going at? Like fifty, sixty-percent? Something like that?"

"…Ten," came the quiet reply.

"What was that?" Jaune asked, sure that he had misheard.

"Ten percent," Pyrrha said loud enough for Jaune to clearly hear as she looked down at the ground. When a few seconds passed without Jaune saying a word, Pyrrha looked up to see Jaune staring at her slacked jawed.

"Jaune?" she asked tentatively. Hearing his named seemed to snap him out of his trance like state, as he closed his mouth and a hand came up to massage his brow as he let out a deep breath.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," Jaune repeated, trying to convince himself. "Just, ten-percent? Really?"

"Maybe less," Pyrrha admitted.

The hand that had been massaging his forehead slid down his face in defeat. "And my self-esteem just jumped off a cliff."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Pyrrha insisted, holding out her hands in a placating gesture. "It's just like you said earlier, I've been doing this for years and you've only just started." Unknown to her, though, this simply further cemented in Jaune's mind just how far behind his new friends he was.

"It's fine Pyrrha," Jaune said unconvincingly. "D-do you mind if we leave it there for today?"

Pyrrha opened her mouth as though to say something, but changed her mind and closed it. "We've done enough today, you can go," Pyrrha said eventually, sounding disheartened.

She watched silently as Jaune exited the room, wondering if her talent as a fighter and a wizard had once again cost her a friend.

Jaune needed to clear his head. He had always known the others were well ahead of him, but finding out that Pyrrha found a fight against him about as challenging as a warm up jog was a harsh wake up call. And with his arms still throbbing from the struggle of swinging the antique pieces of metal he called weapons around, it wasn't something he could easily forget or push aside.

"Hey! Jaune!" A boisterous voice called as he walked through the dining hall. He looked towards the source of the voice to see Yang jogging over to him.

"Hey Yang," he greeted, doing his best to push thoughts of the training session to the back of his mind and smile for his fellow blonde.

"You busy right now?" Yang asked eagerly. Jaune thought for a moment, he didn't have any plans for the rest of the day and could use something to distract him from his thoughts.

"I got nothing planned. What did you have in mind?"

Yang positively beamed at the response and answered with a single word. "Training."

Oh Gods no, was the first thought to enter Jaune's head, but as he looked down at Yang, all smiles and excitement, he couldn't say no.

"Sure, why not?" he replied, with a smile that he hoped didn't look as forced as it felt. Yang, thankfully, didn't seem to notice as she grabbed his sleeve and took off at a run, heading towards the exit.

Jaune had thought that training with Yang meant a return to the training rooms, and so he was surprised when she instead led him down Beacon's cliff to the Emerald Forest.

The area they were moving through was thicker than what they had passed through during Merlot's attack and Jaune found himself relieved that his armour was off being repaired as it would have just been something else for the branches to snag onto. As it was, Jaune found himself enjoying the weight difference that came with swapping armour plates and a hoodie for a white t-shirt.

It was as they made their way through the thick forest that Jaune voiced a question that had been nagging him.

"How strong is Pyrrha?"

"Well that depends," Yang replied, turning to look at Jaune while continuing to walk. "Are you asking how much she can lift, or how tough she is in a fight?" Yang laughed at the half-hearted glare Jaune sent her way before continuing. "I'd say she's above average."

"Come on Yang, I'm trying to ask a serious question," Jaune commented, unimpressed by Yang's answer.

"Sheesh, you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or something?" Yang asked rhetorically, before stopping and taking on a thoughtful expression, seemingly thinking hard about how to answer Jaune's question.

When she opened her mouth to speak, she looked none too happy about what she had to say. "Honestly, explaining how powerful Pyrrha is can be done with a single sentence. She achieved S-class earlier in her life than anyone else, ever."

Yang didn't even need to look at Jaune to know the expression of awe that would be overtaking his face right now. It was the same look everyone had, herself included, when they heard the feats of the legendary Pyrrha Nikos for the first time.

"What's S-class?"

Yang's head whipped around so fast she almost gave herself whiplash, but as she levelled a disbelieving stare in Jaune's direction, he just looked back at her with confusion.

"I mean it sounds really impressive and pretty catchy, but I kinda, sort of, totally have no idea what it means."

As Yang's hand made contact with her face, she was pretty sure that if she facepalmed any harder she would've broken her nose.

"Sometimes I could swear you lived under a rock before coming to Vale," Yang said mainly to herself. "S-class is a qualification of sorts. Once you have proven yourself worthy of being counted as an S-class wizard, you can take on more dangerous, and therefore more profitable, quests. These quests are considered so dangerous that a single wrong move could mean death, either your own or someone else's. Those that have achieved S-class are considered the elite of the wizarding world."

"Woah," said Jaune, clearly impressed by the enormity of what it meant to be S-class. "So, it goes without saying that you have to be crazy strong to be S-class?"

Yang shook her head slightly. "Being powerful in combat is one way to earn it, but there are other ways. Take Oobleck for example. I'd beat him in raw strength, but I'd never be able to hit the guy because he knows my moves. He's smarter than every wizard in the guild in almost every subject. That's why he's S-Class."

"Wait, you're telling me that Dr Oobleck, the guy we went looking for at Mount Glenn, is an S-class wizard?" Jaune asked as Yang kept walking.

"Yep, but enough of that. We've arrived," Yang announced as she pushed aside a branch to reveal a large clearing.

The clearing was roughly circular, with enough space to comfortably land a Bullhead. The trees that surrounded it were many times taller than Jaune, with the thinnest being as wide as Pyrrha's shield.

"Welcome to our new training field!" Yang announced as she walked backwards into the clearing, her arms held out wide and such a large smile on her face that you would think she was revealing a five-star gym.

Before Jaune could argue the difference between a training area and a random clearing, Yang excitedly announced "For your first lesson, I want you to punch that tree!" as she pointed at a random tree on the edge of the clearing.

Not more arms training, Jaune moaned in his head as he somewhat reluctantly moved over to the indicated tree and got himself into the classic boxing stance. It was the first thing Pyrrha had taught him when they began training, she had explained it as a good foundation from which to learn to fight. His left foot came forward as he went up onto the balls of both feet, next his arms came up into a basic guard, high enough to protect his face but not so high they would impede his vision.

When he was ready he threw a cross with his right hand, his back-foot pivoting and his hips turning to add force to the punch as it impacted the tree.

"Not bad," Yang commented as she regarded the recently attacked tree. "Decent stance, pretty good form, all-in-all a passable punch for a civilian."

Jaune was starting to see where Yang was going with this but decided to humour her. "For a civilian?"

"Yeah, a civilian," Yang repeated. "If you want to throw a punch like a mage, then this is how you do it!"

As Yang finished her sentence, she pulled back her right fist and Jaune saw it glow with magical energy as flames started to flicker around it, and a moment later Yang slammed her fist into the tree, shattering the wood and leaving Jaune to desperately scramble away as the tree fell to Remnant.

"That's how a mage throws a punch," Yang proclaimed proudly through the thunder of the fallen tree.

Jaune stared dumbly at the broken tree, awed by the destructive power his friend wielded. As he struggled to form a coherent thought, Yang started explaining. "Now, what you want to be doing is gathering your magic in your arm and concentrating it into your fist. You want the magic to flow into your muscles. This will increase your strength beyond what is humanly possible.

"Do this enough and it starts to increase your natural strength. Because of this, a lot of experienced mages can pull off super-human feats without even having to use their magic." To demonstrate her point, Yang moved to the next tree along, and without any build up, punched the tree and left an inch-deep indent in the hardwood.

Jaune's mind was reeling from this new information. A part of him was aware of Yang smiling proudly, having finished her spiel and expecting a response, but he was too busy thinking of about how Ruby, small and adorable Ruby, could probably flip a car, while he struggled to make fifty push-ups.

"You wanna give it a try?" Yang asked, tearing Jaune from his train of thought. As he looked at his fellow blond, he saw she was no longer smiling, but looking at him with thinly veiled concern.

"Actually, I'm feeling a bit tired, mind if we do this another time?" Jaune asked sheepishly. What he said was half true, he was tired and sore from training with Pyrrha, the real reason was that he felt he needed some time alone to process how truly out of his depth he was among his new friends.

"It's only mid-morning, how are you already tired?" Yang asked, looking very unimpressed

Seeing no reason not to tell her about his earlier training, Jaune opened his mouth to do just that.

Yang stormed through the dining hall, roughly shoving aside anyone unlucky enough to get in her way as she searched for a certain scarlet haired mage. She found her target sitting alone on one of the long tables and made a beeline towards her. In place of a greeting, upon arrival Yang slammed her fist down on the table and nearly shouted in her ear.

"What the heck Nikos?!"

Pyrrha was clearly startled by the sudden and violent arrival of her guildmate, and before she could respond, Yang continued.

"I specifically recall asking you to train Jaune and you saying, word-for-word, 'I won't be training Jaune'. So, mind explaining why Jaune just told me he couldn't train with me today because he was already worn out from training with you?!"

Pyrrha found herself momentarily stunned by Yang's outburst before speaking up in a calm voice to try and explain herself. "Yang, I can explain-"

"Explain what? How you decided it would be great fun to lie to my face, then go behind my back and make me look like an idiot?"

A part of Yang's mind acknowledged she was being irrational, but it hadn't been easy for her to decide to step up and take on the responsibility that Ozpin wanted her to accept. Deciding to dedicate herself to the role of teaching someone had been one thing, but she had spent the last few days constantly brainstorming what she could teach someone with such a different fighting style and magic type to her.

Discovering that someone had already stepped into the role made it feel like a wasted effort. It made her feel angry, and right now Pyrrha seemed like the perfect target to let out her frustration.

What she didn't know was that Pyrrha, believing she had driven away another friend, was in no mood to stoically endure someone's temper tantrum, especially when it was centred around the aforementioned friend. Placing both hands on the table in front of her, she pushed herself to her feet with enough force to topple her chair backwards.

"It's not like that!" Pyrrha declared. "When you asked, you were just trying to offload your responsibility to someone else. However, when Jaune asked himself, it was because he had just been kidnapped and tortured, thanks to you I might add." Yang flinched at the words. "Not only that, but he wanted to learn to defend himself. In which case, I can't help but agree with his decision to ask me instead of you."

"That was a low blow, Nikos," Yang growled out as her fists clenched and her eyes turned red.

"Well, sometimes the truth hurts," came Pyrrha's terse reply, not even trying to avoid a fight at this point as she stared unflinchingly into Yang's eyes.

"If you two must fight, could you please do it somewhere where you won't damage the guild."

The no-nonsense tone had the two girls whipping around to see the guild's Second-in-Command, Glynda Goodwitch, standing there with her arms crossed and a terrifying glare on her face.

"Now if you're done acting like children," Goodwitch continued. "The Guild Master has a quest he would like Miss Nikos to handle."

With a final glare shared between Yang and Pyrrha that promised that their business wasn't over, Pyrrha turned fully to give her attention to Goodwitch.

"My apologies for causing a scene," Pyrrha said respectfully, having regained her composure far better than Yang, who still glared at the back of her head. "Might I ask what this quest entails?"

Goodwitch seemed pleased with the response as her glare lessened. "A group of mages have taken up residence in a rural town, deposed the local leadership and are now harshly reigning over the town's populace."

After some thought, Pyrrha spoke up. "Is the Guild Master insisting that I take on the quest?"

"The quest is of some importance to the guild, so when it came up, you were the first person he thought of to get it done quickly. That said, it doesn't have to be you that completes the quest," Goodwitch explained.

"In that case, if you don't mind, I would rather not take on any quests right now," Pyrrha replied. With a small nod she made to leave, before Yang spoke up. "If Nikos is too chicken to take on the quest, then I'll take it."

Goodwitch seemed surprised by the announcement, but quickly recovered. "I suppose that is acceptable. Though I would suggest taking a couple others with you."

Now it was Yang's turn to be surprised. "You didn't say anything about that to Pyrrha."

"Well unlike you, miss Nikos is an S-class wizard," Goodwitch replied.

The words had Yang once again looking ready to start a fight. "Fine," she growled from between gritted teeth. "But one of them is going to be Jaune," the last part directed in Pyrrha's direction.

"Well Mr. Arc wouldn't be my first choice, I suppose it's acceptable," Goodwitch conceded, ignoring the bitter look Pyrrha sent Yang's way.

"Great," Yang said, smirking victoriously at the look Pyrrha was giving her. "Do we have any idea who the guys terrorizing the town are?"

"Actually, you know them quite well. The ones in question are Beacon's very own Team Cardinal. Is that going to be a problem?"

Caught off guard at first, a smile quickly found its way to Yang's face. "Actually Miss G, I think that's the best news I've heard all day." Yang then turned to Pyrrha. "Last chance to get in on the action."

Pyrrha didn't voice an answer, instead turning her back to Yang and walking away.

"Suit yourself," Yang commented idly, as she turned away. As she walked, she pulled out her scroll and called Blake. It took a moment, but Blake answered after a few rings.

"What?" came Blake's voice.

Without missing a beat, Yang replied. "Put your porn down, we've got a job."

AN: This chapter and the next were originally meant to be one chapter, but things in this chapter ended up taking up more room than I expected so I decided to split it into two parts. A result of this is CRDL only getting mentioned instead of making an appearance.

I also feel the need to say that some characters may seem OOC (e.g. Pyrrha being more confrontational) but that is because this is an AU. An effect of this is that the characters all have at least slightly different backstories and therefore will have developed differently with some slight changes to their personality.

As always constructive criticism is appreciated.