A javelin soared through the head of the oncoming hologram before pinning to the wall, causing the opponent to fall to the ground before dissipating into the air. Pyrrha quickly dodged out of the way of the strike of another one of the practice A.I's, blocked another's attack with her shield, and jumped and rolled out of yet another potential blow.
She backed up, giving herself space. The three remaining holograms advanced with weapons outstretched, their blank faces showing no signs of mercy. Pyrrha, with a quick flick of her hand and a bit of focus, magnetically pulled her javelin out of the wall, reverted it to xiphos form, and willed it towards her metal wristband. The sword spun through the air as it advanced towards its owner, cutting through the heads of two of the oncoming holograms. Pyrrha outstretched her hand, grabbed her spinning weapon handle first with practiced skill, and used it to intercept the strike of the remaining hologram.
While holding his blade at bay with her own, she bashed into his head with her shield, causing the hologram to stumble. Given the opportunity to attack, Pyrrha mercilessly battered her sword into its chest, once, twice, three times before stabbing it clean through. The hologram, it's manually programed health depleted, fell back first onto the ground before fizzing out into small sparks of neon blue electricity.
Pyrrha stepped back, breathing heavily. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead and the bridge of her nose, causing her to reach up to wipe it off in irritation.
"Round ninety four of artificial solo training completed!" A pleasantly neutral and robotic voice rang out of the training hall speakers, its declaration heard by Pyrrha and Pyrrha alone. The entire training hall was empty at this time in the morning. Unable to fall back to sleep, and given that she had no classes until her team left to their mission in a week, Pyrrha saw fit to train.
"Considering your ninety four consecutive rounds of training, I suggest that you take-"the artificial intelligence voiced before Pyrrha interrupted it. She'd heard variations on this message for the past eighty four rounds, after all.
"Activate round ninety five of artificial solo training," Pyrrha tiredly called out, gulping for breath after the request. She held her right shoulder and spun her arm in circles, trying to give her tired muscles a form of reprieve. After stretching back her shoulders and hearing a terribly satisfying crack, she widened her stance and spun her xiphos once in her hand.
"Are you sure you-"
"Yes!" Pyrrha shouted out, long since the point of sharing pleasantries with the glorified school equipment. Not wasting any time, the program generated twenty holograms to surround Pyrrha. Their weapons ranged from war hammers, swords, and maces to submachine guns, revolvers, and shotguns.
Pyrrha didn't even blink.
Pyrrha held back a scream of pain as a compressed explosion sent her into the wall of the training hall. She tumbled to the floor, her weapon and shield flying from her hands and scattering onto the ground. Bracing her arms beneath herself, she began to push herself back up before her shaky arms gave out. The hologram, a battered and injured brute armed with a machine grenade launcher, aimed its weapon at Pyrrha before fizzing out, the program completed.
"Round one-hundred and nine of artificial solo training failed!" The familiar robotic voice boomed in the same pleasant, neutral tone.
Pyrrha, for her part, said nothing; she was too busy panting and heaving, trying to catch her breath after hours of intensive physical exertion. Once again, she tried to push herself off the floor, but her body just wasn't having it.
However, her mind was far more stubborn. Her muscles would rip and tear before she gave up.
Her palms against the floor, she pushed up for a third time. Her arms shook terribly, her entire body twitching in protest as she slowly but surely raised herself up. She quickly pulled her knee up, giving herself more support as she managed to lock her elbows. Her other knee pulled up, and she hunched forwards, sitting on the heels of her feet and gripping her thighs tightly. She stared down between her legs at the floor, her breath heavy and labored. She had nothing to focus on but her own exhaustion and pain, but when that faded…
…her thoughts of Jaune would return.
"R-Repeat…repeat previou…p-previously failed roun-" Pyrrha began to utter stubbornly before she heard a shout that sparked her dormant mind.
"Pyrrha? Are you in here?"
Her pupils dilated, and her eyes immediately darted towards the source of the call. Standing at the doorway of the training hall was the source of her mental torment, and the indirect source of her physical dilemma: Jaune. He had clearly just woken up, his armor and hoodie looking as if they had been hastily thrown on in a rush. His hair was tussled as well, but he clearly didn't care much about his appearance. Not for Pyrrha. Not for his friend.
The look of weariness left his face as his cerulean eyes met Pyrrha's fallen form. He hesitated for a moment in shock before running up to her, leaping onto the stage and kneeling beside her.
"What happened? A-Are you okay?" Jaune asked frantically, panicked at her appearance. Much of her bare skin was blackened and blued. Her entire body shone in sweat, the perspiration flowing in slow rivulets. Her mouth hadn't closed since he had entered, breath being her body's first concern. As for her mind's first concern, it was kneeling less than a foot away from her. Pyrrha turned her head towards her leader and braved a smile. She couldn't decide if it was a real one caused by his intrusion, or a fake one to dissuade him from worry.
"Oh, h-hello Jaune," she said as brightly as she could with her entire body enveloped in a vicious maelstrom of fiery pain. "Good…huff…g-good morning!"
Jaune paid little attention to her stilted reply, instead leaning in and trying to help her up. He put out a gloved hand that she graciously accepted. As he stood, she inwardly screeched at the burning in her legs, but with his support she managed to get to her feet.
"Pyrrha, what happened?" Jaune repeated concernedly, not willing to let his initial question be left unanswered. He let go of Pyrrha's hand, but as soon as he did, her legs began to wobble horribly. He reached down and gripped her hand once again, swiveled his head from left to right as if to find a solution before thinking to get her to a seat. As he led her off the stage, Pyrrha voiced her objection.
"Thank you, Jaune, but...this is…is completely unnecessary," Pyrrha protested between breaths. She was painfully aware that she was completely drenching Jaune's glove in her sweat.
"Weren't you the one who told me to accept help from a friend?" Jaune pointed out, just a bit of his normal humor finally leaking into his voice. Pyrrha didn't have a decent reply to that, and instead remained quiet until she was comfortably seated. She was quiet before realizing that Jaune was still waiting for an answer to his twice stated question. After finally catching her breath, she leaned back in her chair, doing her best to be casual.
"I woke up early this morning, and decided to get in a bit of training," she explained cryptically. It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't the whole truth.
"Don't you think you overdid it a bit?" Jaune asked, looking her up and down, paying particular attention to her dark bruises. Pyrrha followed his eyes, her own widening as she seemed to notice her injuries for the first time. Her armor had taken most of the impact from the practice holograms, but most of her bare skin was spotted with reminders of her rigorous training.
"…I, um, suppose I did." Pyrrha laughed nervously, avoiding eye contact with her leader. "Don't worry, Jaune. I've been through far worse many times."
Her mind was flooding with thoughts of him, her voracious emotions towards him beginning to creep over the pain that she had practically inflicted upon herself for the express purpose of biting those very emotions down. On the battlefield, she was in the moment, not reminiscent. Now she was in the moment as well, but in a completely different way, a way that she was extremely uncomfortable with.
"I'll just take your word for that," Jaune said good-naturedly in an attempt to take her appearance in stride, but couldn't help but hold a glimmer of worry in his eyes. He knew that Pyrrha was a capable person, that she was the last person that needed to be fretted over, and that she definitely didn't want him doting over her for something she wasn't concerned about, but still couldn't let go of his distress for her wellbeing.
She was his friend, after all.
"Uh…you sure you don't want someone to look at those bruises? Or…I dunno, check you for internal bleeding?" He sounded as if he was joking with his added question, but his voice contained just the slightest bit of seriousness.
Pyrrha steadily got to her feet, flashing Jaune a small smile. Her heart had lit up briefly at his voiced concern, but she quickly mentally doused the flames. She walked down the aisle of the student seating and to the steps of the stage.
"Jaune, if I wasn't okay, you'd be the first to know," Pyrrha called out.
Both a lie and a truth.
She walked around the stage, ignoring her still searing thighs and the pounding of her heart. Holding out her wrist, she focused her aura. Her shield shook feebly like a leaf before flying towards her and attaching itself to her metal bracer. Her arm was pushed back from the force, and her arm lit up in pain, but she bit it down. Her javelin soon followed her shield, flying towards her wrist before she caught it in the opposite hand, the hardened calluses on her hands pushing against the metal pole roughly.
"Uh…whatcha doing?" Jaune spoke up, approaching the stage. Pyrrha pretended she didn't hear him.
"Repeat previous failed rou-"she called out before she was once again interrupted by Jaune.
"Woah, woah, woah!" Jaune burst out, jumping up onto the stage and walking around Pyrrha to face her. "What are you doing?"
"Jaune, I came here to train," Pyrrha said tiredly, holding back the fear she had for another round of tortuous combat. The mental benefits far outweighed the physical hell, as far as she was concerned. The very person she was trying to get off of her mind was standing before her, telling her to stop her efforts, leaving in more of a want for fighting than ever.
"Pyrrha, no offense, really, but you look like someone threw you into a blender, and then blew up the blender," Jaune said bluntly, not one for social tact.
"No offense taken…I think," Pyrrha began before entering a battle stance. "But could you please move off the stage? I wouldn't want you to get caught in the crossfire, so to speak."
Jaune blinked, full of disbelief at her stubbornness.
"You know, Ren's probably made breakfast by now," Jaune said, suddenly sounding casual. "I'd hate for Nora to eat all of the pancakes he made for us, but if you'd rather train than eat pancakes…" he trailed off, a trying smile plastered on his face.
Pyrrha paused, looking off to the side. Jaune's smile slowly slipped from his face as the silence stretched between them.
"Could I try rephrasing that?" Jaune asked rhetorically in a small voice. "Do you want to stay here make me worry like heck about you, or do you want to go eat pancakes with your team?"
He didn't want to guilt her with his concern, but guilt tripping her seemed more desirable an option than letting her stay and continue to put herself in harm's way.
Pyrrha remained silent for a horrible minute, her mind playing out a civil war. She could leave and be forced to let her thoughts creep back in, to let her emotions slowly torture her. She could stay until her bones broke, letting pain and focus engulf her and shut out her conflicted feelings. She could let herself worry over Jaune worry over her until it broke both of them, or throw herself head first into a foreign land of passion and confusion. She could box herself into her safe world of the known, or let herself free from her cage and into a world of both promising and terrifying unknowns. She was silent for too long. Jaune took a step towards her and outstretched a hand as if to place it on her shoulder.
Pyrrha pulled away and turned around, walking off the stage, leaving Jaune's arm suspended in the air.
"…Pyrrha?" Jaune called in confusion out as she walked towards the exit of the training hall. Pyrrha just turned around and gave him her new conflicted smile.
"Are you coming, Jaune?"