A/N: So, a guest user rose a pretty good point. How can zombies infect aura users if their aura fights it? I'm not sure if this is canon, but I don't believe that aura fights off regular illnesses. By the time that aura recognizes the zombie virus as something irregular, the virus will be too strong to be destroyed. Aura can't destroy the virus, merely prolonging the inevitable. Meanwhile, the virus is slowly consuming the person's aura. Hence, the Dead Rising drug Zombrex. It's the way I justify the 24 hour infection time. Also, reviews are appreciated, and I'm warning you now, I suck at writing fight scenes.
Who would've thought that investigating a conspiracy as big as this would be so boring? It had been a few hours since he and Yang had gone to rest, and now, with Pyrrha and Nora on patrol, things had been surprisingly boring. Everyone was doing whatever they could to entertain themselves, with Ruby and Weiss working on their weapons, Yang bouncing a tennis ball at the wall, Ren meditating in the corner, and Blake reading her book. The only people doing productive things were Jaune, who was looking for news on the outbreak, and Velvet, who was still diligently watching the cameras. It seemed like a blessing from God himself when Velvet called Jaune and Yang over and said she had something. At least, until they saw what it was.
"Blake, you're in on this too."
"Me? Why?"
"We found Adam. He has a hostage."
Blake was by their side watching the camera immediately. With her there, Velvet rewound the footage and they watched as Adam dragged a girl who appeared to be a dog Faunus into a bathroom. She was kicking and screaming, and Adam went as far as to kick her at one point to get her to stop. "Velvet, where is this?"
"The bathroom at the amusement park. The one in the back of the park."
With that, Jaune, Yang, and Blake were gone and through the air vents as fast as they could possibly go.
"Blake, we need a crash course on how to fight Adam. Now."
"He mostly relies on his sword, but he also has a rifle that will damage your aura severely if he hits you, so close range is the better option here. He tends to launch his sword from the gun to start fights, so charging is not an effective start. Other than that, his semblance is extremely powerful: he channels all of the power from attacks he received into his blade and releases it in one big strike. He usually waits as long as he can to use it, so more often then not it's deadly, even with aura. Charging at him if he's taken hits will just allow him to kill you, so wait for him to attack first."
"Good to know. Yang, stay back unless it's absolutely necessary. Hand to hand won't really work here. Blake, looks like you're taking the lead in this fight."
"Wouldn't have it any other way."
"What happened between you two? Seriously, you really look like you want to kill him. I mean, I'm sure you know him because of the Fang, but still."
"I'm sure he'll say it Yang. It disgusts me even thinking about it."
"As much as it interests me too, we're almost there and we shouldn't broadcast ourselves any earlier than necessary."
They were standing in front of the bathroom where Adam was, and Jaune peeked inside. He had to duck back immediately because it almost made him gag.
Adam had made that bathroom his home, and it showed. Everything made of glass was broken, blood was smeared all over the walls, there were dead bodies inside; it looked like the end of the world had started in that room. Adam had been in the center of it all, with the hostage in front of him, like it didn't even bother him. Hell, he's probably the one that caused all the destruction. One thing he did notice that helped, however, was a vent inside. Noticing that there was one outside as well, he turned to the other two.
"Guys, I have a plan, but you're probably not gonna like it."
Jaune and Yang, knowing the plan, entered the bathroom after Blake signaled that she was in position. Adam hadn't moved an inch, and it looked like he was doing some sort of chant. "The movement is growing. Soon, we'll all be part of the change." Jesus, this is a ritual sacrifice! Before Jaune could say anything, he accidentally stepped on a piece of glass, and the crack got Adam's attention.
"You... You're the one I had to impersonate."
Jaune acted clueless for the sake of the plan. "Impersonate? When?"
Adam didn't answer the question, lost in his insane ramblings. "At first, I didn't understand the point. But eventually, I saw how much this means for Faunus equality. It may be desperate, but if everyone has to die to be equal, then I'll be the one to make it happen."
"Don't really see how that makes sense, bullhead."
Adam was so gone he didn't even catch Yang's insult. "Don't you see? No one will be different. There'll be nothing that separates the humans and the Faunus anymore. Every monster is equal. The day that I've been working for for years is finally here."
"You really have lost your mind Adam."
Blake had dropped out of the vent behind Adam halfway through his small speech and tossed Jaune's scroll back to him, having finished recording. Adam turned around and opened his arms to her. "Blake, my love." MY LOVE?! "You have finally returned to me."
"Stop calling me that. That's not who I am anymore."
"Oh no, my love. That's all you'll ever be. And if you won't return to me, then you will suffer for you're betrayal."
"Between returning and being punished, I'll take the punishment any day."
"I'm sorry, my love. But I won't hold back."
With that, he drew his sword and beheaded the hostage with one swift motion. Blake drew her weapon and they were clashing swords before Jaune and Yang could even react. But what happened next changed Jaune's life forever: Yang punched him across the face.
Yang had noticed that a zombie had exited one of the stalls to Jaune's left and had gone to punch it, but when Jaune had noticed it and stepped forward he took the blow instead. But neither of them expected it when Jaune, instead of practically passing out in pain, flashed white and made YANG grab her now probably broken hand.
He killed the zombie before realizing that he hadn't felt any pain from a blow that should have knocked him out. Checking his scroll, he saw that his aura hadn't taken any damage at all, but Yang's had almost completely drained.
Is that... My semblance? Attack reflection? When he noticed that Blake was losing her fight, he had one final plan: Only one way to find out, I guess.
"Yang," he said, getting her attention. "I'm gonna do something that's gonna seem really stupid, but I need you to trust me. If it works the way I hope it will, it'll give you an opening to finish him off." Yang, though completely and utterly confused (and still nursing her hand), nodded her head just as Adam kicked Blake into her. With that, Jaune yelled and charged.
He saw Adam prep his sword for his power swing.
Blake saw him charge and was about to run in herself when Yang held her back and gave her a look of 'he has a plan'. She still got nervous when Adam got in his power stance, but she had faith in Jaune.
Jaune got close enough, and Adam swung.
Adam struck, and Blake and Yang almost screamed until they saw Adam get thrown back. Jaune collapsed, winded but otherwise alright. Adam, meanwhile, had to locate his sword that had gone flying after the swing.
Yang saw how stunned Adam was from the fact that his blade was missing and realized her opening. She used Ember Celica to dash forward and deliver one strong punch to the chest and another to his head to knock Adam into a nearby stall, aura destroyed.
Yang pulled Jaune up, but before either of them could say anything, they heard a crunch and a bloodcurdling scream from where Adam was. They could do nothing but watch as Adam walked out of the stall holding his now bleeding neck with a zombie behind him, said "it wasn't supposed to go down like that", and picked up a piece of glass from the broken mirror.
Adam Taurus was dead before he even hit the ground after slitting his throat.
Jaune and Yang just stood there, looked at each other, and walked away. After seeing a full decapitation twice already, they were past having to puke after seeing someone die. They stood outside and watched as Blake walked to Adam's body, spit on it, called him a disgrace to the Faunus race, and left. With that, they started to walk back to the security room until Ren appeared at the entrance to the amusement park, grabbed Blake, and they left for their patrol.
Velvet, Ruby, Weiss, Pyrrha, and Nora had watched that all happen from the cameras.
Ren had left before the fight had started to intercept Blake for their patrol, but the others had been watching with interest at how the fight went. Pyrrha and Ruby especially got excited when Yang punched Jaune and he didn't even flinch. Their emotions went on a roller coaster after that, from excitement to horror as Adam killed himself.
They just stared, jaws dropped, as they watched the trio leave Adam to rot in the bathroom. No words needed to be said, so none were, before they realized that Jaune and Yang had come back while they were distracted and were trying to get their attention.
The next thing the blondes knew was they were being tackle hugged by Nora and Ruby respectively, with Ruby crying into Yang's chest and Nora spinning Jaune in the air congratulating him on his win.
After 10 minutes of reassuring Ruby they were fine and Jaune having to do his best to not puke again, the hugs were finished and Jaune could breathe again. He was incredibly surprised when he looked at Pyrrha and, instead of congratulating him or encouraging him or anything positive, she walked up to him and slapped him across the face.
"Ow! What was that for?"
She looked like she was about to cry. "Why didn't you tell me where you were going?! I was scared to death and it didn't help that you seemed suicidal in that bathroom! Besides, you've never worked with Blake before, so why would you take her?!"
"Whoa, calm down, P-money!"
"Stay out of this Yang!"
Jaune could take being yelled at, but Pyrrha snapping at Yang like that crossed the line. "Pyrrha, the only reason why I even brought Blake is because we needed help from someone who knew him! I was too busy paying attention to the information that would save my life to contact you while you were patrolling so you could save more lives! Besides, Blake was in it for a personal reason and that made my call make even more sense to me. So can you stop freaking out and let me make my own decisions like a leader is supposed to?!"
Silence. No one had any idea what to say to that, even Pyrrha. So she did the only thing she could think of: she bowed her head, said sorry, and walked out to the roof. Why do I always do that? Realizing what he'd just done, he sighed and followed her.
The awkwardness was so strong you could touch it, until Nora said "I guess it's a good thing I didn't bet on Arkos then." They had a laugh, albeit a forced one, and went back to what they were doing before.
Pyrrha was leaning on the railing surrounding the rooftop watching the burning city when the elevator dinged and Jaune stepped out. "Pyrrha-"
"Don't. I'm the one that needs to apologize."
Jaune was stunned, but stayed silent to let her continue.
"I've been too overprotective for your own good. But what you need to understand is that it's just out of concern for you. You're my partner, the brother I never had, even my first crush. I can't stand the thought of something bad happening to you and it doesn't help you seem to be charging headfirst into every problem we're facing." Pyrrha was openly crying now, so Jaune pulled her into a hug. I've been giving a lot of hugs recently.
"I understand that Pyrrha. Trust me, I do. But I'll never be able to grow as a fighter or a leader if I always have you there keeping me out of trouble. I need you, I'm not saying that I don't, but what I am saying is that if I'm ever in a situation where you're not there I need to be able to hold my own. You just need to let me off the leash a little bit." She nodded, still crying into his shoulder. "I'll be fine Pyrrha. You trained me after all."
With that, she pulled back and, with tears still running down her face, kissed him on the cheek. Jaune's heart skipped a beat. Cupping his cheek, she said "You may not be my crush anymore, Jaune, but I've still always wanted to do that." And with what she wanted out of the way, she walked back to the elevator. She waited to see if Jaune was coming too, but when he didn't move she went back downstairs.
Jaune just stood there, not paying attention to the burning city or the sound of Stormflower shooting in the distance. He knew that Pyrrha didn't like him that way, and he didn't like her like that, but that didn't change the fact that a girl, Pyrrha Nikos no less, had just kissed him. He was on cloud nine until he remembered oh yeah. I've been framed for a zombie outbreak and walked back to the elevator.
If he had been in the security room, he would've seen another blonde watching the cameras with a surprising amount of interest.
Yang had watched the entire interaction between the Jaune and Pyrrha with an interest that even she couldn't understand. Why do I care so much? It's Jaune and Pyrrha, not me. So why am I still here? She would've continued to just stand there confused if Ruby had not tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to everyone else.
Pyrrha, Nora, and Weiss were all sitting in a circle, looking at her with confusion in their eyes, especially Pyrrha. Ruby led her over to the group, sat her down, and explained: "We're waiting to talk about Jaune's semblance."
Yang nodded, and they waited until Jaune walked in. "Am I interrupting something? Like a girl talk?" Ruby, in response, used her semblance to grab Jaune and sit him down before he could move a muscle. After his world stopped spinning, he said "I guess not. What do you want to talk about?"
Weiss obliged. "It would appear that you have unlocked your semblance, Jaune."
He nodded and replied "Attack reflection".
She continued. "We wanted to know your thoughts. It is an extremely rare semblance after all."
He thought about his wording very carefully before he replied. "Well, I mean, it makes perfect sense that I would have that as a semblance." Noticing the confused looks on everyone's face (Still the wrong choice of words), he continued.
"Semblance is connected to aura, right?" They nodded. "And aura is directly connected to who we are as people right? They're our souls." They nodded again. "Then most semblances are connected to who we are. Pyrrha, your entire shtick as a tournament fighter is that you don't take a hit. So, you have a semblance that lets you do that."
Pyrrha had never thought about that before, but as much as she hated it it made perfect sense now that she did. She nodded.
"Get to the point, lady killer. What makes you able to drain my entire aura by me punching you?"
"Well, Pyrrha and Nora can tell you that I've taken a lot of hits for the team before. Right?" They both nodded, although everyone noticed that it was a sad nod. Everyone except for Jaune of course. "With taking hits for the team, combined with my general inexperience, my semblance allows me to throw all those hits back instead of letting myself get killed."
No one had expected Jaune to suddenly throw all this logic about semblances, of all things, in their face, so they weren't able to respond for a while. Until Weiss responded "now if only you were that smart in history, you wouldn't have to copy my notes all the time."
They all shared a laugh, and Jaune spoke again. "So, what do you guys think my semblance entails?"
"I would assume that it only entails what we know so far: you take the strength of attacks that hit you and reflect it back towards the attacker while it's activated."
"You're probably right, Pyr, but when we get back to Beacon can we do some training to see if there's anything else?"
She nodded, and Jaune got a grim look on his face. "So, here's what we know about the outbreak so far." They all started paying more attention. "Someone paid RT to give Adam the bomb which he then used to start the outbreak."
"Wait, when did we find that out that RT was paid?" Yang asked.
"We didn't. I did. When RT handed the bomb over, Adam asked why he cared about Faunus equality, and he said 'if it gets me money I care about it.' He also said 'you have someone to meet' right before the bomb traded hands. Aside from that, we know that Neo is here for whatever reason, so we've got two big questions right now: who paid RT and why is Neo here. I wouldn't be surprised to find out they're connected. Our best bet would be to try to track their movements, so Velvet!" She looked from the cameras. "If you see RT or Neo anywhere on the cameras, let us know. That'll be our lead." She nodded and turned back to the cameras.
He let out a sigh before putting his head in his hands. "I just wish I could understand what I did to deserve this." They all got somber looks at that, with Ruby patting his back. The silence was deafening. "But for now, Yang and I are gonna rest. So, good luck on your patrols, guys."
They all nodded, and he and Yang left the room for their own.
"So, lady killer, what's the deal between you and P-money? It looked pretty intense."
He sighed. "Well, things were pretty awkward for a while after the dance. Our friendship got pretty rocky when I told her that I didn't like her like that, but eventually we actually got closer than ever. She's like another sister." Jaune had a sad look on his face, but Yang didn't notice. "Since we got closer, though, she's been overprotective. It was pretty constricting, but tonight I got my point across. I don't like the way I did it, but she's moving past it, so I will too."
"So, you two aren't dating?"
"No. We're not."
Yang felt... relieved? Wait, why do I feel relieved?
"Why do you ask?"
Jaune's voice broke Yang out of her trance. "Uhhhhh..." She couldn't come up with a lie. "I may or may not have been watching you guys on the cameras."
He froze in his place.
"So... You saw..."
"Yeah, I saw. But I'm not gonna tell anyone. No one else was looking at the rooftop camera."
"Still, Yang! Why would you watch us? That was private!" She didn't have anything to say to that, but before she could think of anything Jaune continued, much calmer than before. "I'm sorry for yelling Yang. I've just had a really messed up day. So we just need to sleep and hope that Velvet finds something."
She nodded before they entered their room. As they were settling down, she went back to her usual teasing self. "So, lady killer, excited to sleep with me again?"
He groaned loudly. "Can you stop saying it like that? I don't want everyone else to get the wrong impression. Who designs a safe house this big with only one bed in a room anyway?"
"Oh come on. Most men your age would kill to be in your position!"
"Well, the difference is they look at you and only see boobs and hair. I look at you and see one of my best friends. One of the few people that didn't see me as a worthless oaf not capable of anything." He sighed again as they sat on the bed. This won't end well, but I might as well tell her. "Yang, how many friends do you think I had before Beacon?"
She thought about it and said "7-8?"
He actually laughed at that. "That's about half of the amount of people that pretended to be my friend to have a shot with my sisters. I had one person that I would truly consider a friend."
Her eyes widened at how low the number was.
"Her name was Janet. We were inseparable, kinda like Nora and Ren. We'd known each other for 7 years by the time we reached high school. We were both outcasts: me because I'm a geek and her because she was a Faunus. She was the only person who thought my dream of being a huntsman wasn't completely ridiculous. She even decided that she wanted to be a huntress too." He had to pause to get ready to finish the story.
"Three years ago, I asked her out on a date, and she said yes. I was excited beyond belief. I mean, it didn't hurt that I considered her hot, but she was the nicest person I ever met. And then, that night..." He was starting to cry, but Yang didn't do anything yet. "I was walking through the park, and I saw a body hanging from a tree." Yang already knew where this story was heading. "I decided to investigate, and it was her..." And he lost control.
He put his face in his hands and started crying. He hadn't cried over this before: even during her funeral he had been too angry at the people who killed her to cry. So he let up all the emotion that had stored during the next three years of being tormented and told that the world was better without her. He was only somewhat surprised when Yang hugged him and let him cry into her shoulder while rubbing his back (This is like the third or fourth cry hug I've been in today alone) and didn't even try to fight it. He just let it all out.
Yang, meanwhile, was shocked. While she was confused as to how the conversation suddenly took such a dark turn, those thoughts took a backseat compared to the now crying boy in front of her. It was then that she realized how lucky she was. She may not have had her mother, but she still had other people she could've leaned on at the time. Friends. By Jaune's own account, he had no one else to talk to, as he'd said in the past that his family wasn't around that much due to hunter work.
Hell, based on this reaction, she was probably the first person he ever talked to about this.
After a couple minutes of crying, he was able to form coherent sentences.
"That's why I value you guys so much. You guys actually believed in me. It was like having her back again times seven. That's also why I'm nervous over simple things like sleeping in the same bed as you. Not only have I never done anything like this before, but I also don't want to do anything that might make me lose you guys. I can't lose anyone else. Not again." He cried again, but not as long this time.
Eventually, he moved to pull back, but Yang kept him there. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. You deserve better than to have that happen to you." She sighed before continuing. "I can't say that I know how that feels, but if you ever need someone to talk to about anything like that, I'm here for you, okay? Not just me, too: my team and yours. We're not going anywhere if we can help it Jaune. Remember that."
There were a few things Jaune had expected her to do. Offer him this much support wasn't one of them. He tightened the hug. "Thanks Yang. You're a good friend, you know that?"
Yang took the opportunity to lighten the mood. "Of course I know that. It's me."
It made Jaune laugh as he let go so she called it mission accomplished. "Right. I was thinking you'd be humble. Should've remembered who I was talking to."
That made them both laugh. When they stopped, they looked each other in the eyes, and they both had to look away to hide their blush. "So, we gonna sleep or what?"
"Sleep sounds fantastic, so yes. Can you do me a favor though?"
"Sure, Jaune. What is it?"
"Can you breathe a little quieter? Hearing any sort of noise that reminds me that I'm sleeping next to you makes me have a heart attack."
"Well, you can expect very loud snoring then."
"Shouldn't have asked..."