"…out cold."

The voice filters down into Jaune's ears as if descending through water. It's peaceful where he is right now, so he doesn't respond in the slightest.

"…so punny, Pyrrha."

He wants to tell the mystery voices to shut up and let him sleep, but his body has all the responsiveness of a wet noodle. At best, he twitches. Maybe a small puff of air escapes his lips.

"I know…way to tell… alive…"

"…can't punch a cripple!"

[I so can't believe you. With just one chakra unblocked, you still managed to blow up, like, half the school.]

The words are crisper and cleaner this time. There's also a familiar valley drawl to them that he can't exactly place.

[You are, like, soooo popular now. Faunus won't stop talking about you and your epic cockfight like you're the newest thang to grace Menagerie. As if!]

Not that he cares about his latest mystery guest. As a vegetative cripple, he still has rights to privacy—his right to sleep.

[You totally stole our thunder. We've had to delay our big reveal.] A quiet pause, and then the same voice speaks again only in a completely different manner: quiet, timid, and plain. [At least, Melanie's grand entrance.]

There's something important that's niggling at the back of his mind, reminding him that he really should open his eyes and confirm her identity… but catching as many Z's as possible is a pretty big priority too.

[Melanie says I should stop opening up your chakras…] The voice shifts from ditzy to soft-spoken as light fingertips come to rest on his forehead. [But I won't, as long as you promise to remember me…]

A foreign word rustles through his mind in the same way that a drop of water disturbs the tranquility of a smooth pond surface, sending ripples of thought into every corner of his consciousness.

{Weiss.}

{Weiss.}

{Weiss.}

{Keep your friends close and—}

He's rudely reintroduced to real life by a small electrical shock. His jumbled thoughts

{—enemies closer}

fade away as his eyes pop open, taking in the darkness of his surroundings. Whitewashed walls and blue curtains drawn all the way around his bed. Medical room? There's a beeping sound that he can't place, but when he tries to turn his head in that direction, his body refuses. In fact, despite the return of sight and sound, Jaune's entire body still feels like a numb rubber extension. This is all too familiar of a feeling…

{Weiss' opening nuclear bomb!}

"I am glad you are awake!"

Jaune's head whips towards the familiar voice—in his mind, at least; in reality, his body is a lot less responsive, and his head doesn't turn as much as it lolls to the side, allowing a small pool of accumulated saliva to trickle out the corner of his mouth.

{That's one way to keep friends close...}

Penny grins widely back at him from a seat at his bedside. "It worked!"

Jaune stares blankly at his Chameleon friend. It isn't a hard expression to make, especially since his facial muscles are refusing to cooperate. "Wuh?"

"Though I already had the data on sympathetic nervous systems stored within my long-term memories, I was mostly unable to access the information until prompted by external stimuli in the form of the Cat!"

"Mmf?"

Penny tilts her head quizzically. "Don't you feel it? The epinephrine, dopamine, testosterone…?"

"Feel wut?"

"In her exact words: 'This should wake up the pervert.'" The orange-haired girl shakes something that she's clutching right against her heart. It looks… it looks a lot like a hand.

A hand attached to an arm.

His arm.

{Your first contact with the female anatomy and you can't even feel it.}

Penny frowns and gently places his arm next to his unresponsive body. "Despite the strong sympathetic reaction of your nervous system," she muses, "You look like you want to cry." She pats his arm comfortingly, though with his nerves disabled, the only way that he knows she's done so is visually witnessing it.

"Ugh. What happened to me?"

"You defeated Weiss Schnee and half the student population by immobilizing them all in a small glacier! And you almost died."

Jaune tries not to choke on his own spit. He also tries to sit up and look less like a vegetable but instead does a pretty good impression of a nearly dead fish.

"Are you having trouble?" the girl questions, hopping back a step from a swing of an arm that would have looked a lot like an accidental grope had it landed—and he would have been mortified, had not Penny looked not the least bit offended. In fact, her expression never seems to change from its innocent (and slightly vacant) expression. It's probably a good thing that she's his first faunus friend—more opportunities to break in his awkwardness, hopefully.

"Umf. Jus' gimme a few secs." If he can just get an arm behind his torso, maybe he can lever himself up… it's not like this is a completely hopeless situation. He renews his desperate struggling, telling his dignity that moving up from plant to reptile is definitely an evolutionary upgrade. His dignity says that it can't argue back because it's currently in shattered bits all over the floor. He tells his dignity to stuff it, and the imaginary entity goes off to latibulate all by its lonesome.

The flip-side to Penny's innocence is that she doesn't know how to pull her punches. "No, you look a beached octopus with all its arms except two chewed off. But that is good, because I am here to help you!"

Before he can stop her, she flicks his temple.

{AAAAAAAAHHH WHAT THE GRIMM.}

It feels like she just drove an electric spike through his head. He falls to the ground, convulsing like an epileptic at a neon highlighter rave party for a humiliating three minutes, in which he hears several people entering the room, probably to point and laugh and the misfortunate of the universe given human form in Jaune Arc.

Ahem. Jaune Arc of Lemming. The faunus dude. Right.

He comes to rest against yellow sneakers.

"Kissing the ground at my feet? I like this guy already."

A helping hand enters his vision. Jaune looks up into the familiar face of another blonde, and the first words out of his mouth are, "You're not going to kiss me again, are you?"

Mischievous light dances behind Sun's emerald eyes. "Keep those lips below the belt and I won't have to."

Jaune frantically scuttles backwards in a manner reminiscent of a terrified virgin crab. "Whoa. Stay away from me."

His flight is halted when his back hits knees. His upward glance meets the gaze of Yang Xiao Long, who immediately reaches down and ruffles his hair. "Aw, you're so adorable when you get all flustered like that," she coos. "I am going to have so much fun with you this semester!"

"Oh Light please don't." Jaune hesitates. "Hold on. Does that mean that I passed initiation?"

"Of course!" Ruby chirrups from her spot positioned on the edge of Jaune's bed. She swings her legs like a small child, grinning wide when Jaune stares at her as if she'd popped out of thin air. She's still wearing her crimson cape, though now it's over the school uniform—a brown jacket over a white shirt and shoestring tie clasped with a badge in the shape of a silver tiger head. "You were still frozen during the actual welcoming ceremony, weren't you?" Ruby continues. "So you wouldn't know which Direction you got sorted into…"

Ruby and Yang simultaneously angle their heads to look at… {oh no...}

"Welcome to the Dragon of the East," smirks Sun. "You will now further address me as your Monkey King."

Yang messes with Jaune's hair again. "You'll be living with Sun for the next two years! How cool is that?"

{No. Nonono.}

When Sun catches the panic reflected in Jaune's expression, his eyes sparkle playfully. "We had a lot of faunus sorted into Eastern Dragon this year," he muses, adopting an exaggeratedly thoughtful pose. "We're pretty tight on dormitory space. Who knows, we might just have to share beds for the first week or so…"

"WHAT?"

Yang injects, "Well, even though you had all the life of a month-old cabbage the last time Ru-Ru checked up on you—"

"Yang!"

"—I think you're well on your way to a full recovery," the Dragoness finishes without missing a beat. When she offers Jaune a hand, he makes sure his legs are solid this time {no need to faceplant into Yang's chest in front of her boyfriend. Her awfully flirtatious boyfriend who would probably arrange a threesome without hesitation... and then they'd see just how puny your sword is} before getting to his feet.

Yang's smile turns absolutely feral as she adds an afterthought, "I've got to head back to Southern Phoenix now, but how about I get a hospital discharge for you on my way out? That way, Sun can get you moved into Dragon dormitories right away!" She grabs a solid fistful of Ruby's cloak on her way towards the exit. "Com'on, lil' sis… let's give our boys some private time~..."

Ruby yelps as the slack in her cape snaps tight, jerking her off the bed and onto the floor. Jaune practically throws herself at her feet then, hugging her formal flats with all he's worth. "Nooo! Don't leeeeave meeee!"

Yang loops her arms underneath Ruby's armpits in an attempt to bundle her out the door. "Umf. For such a puny Lemming, you've got a really strong grip."

He doesn't miss how she emphasizes his alleged species, recalling that he had initially told her and Sun that he was Possum. Of course that would come back to bite him—it was probably why she and Sun were giving him such a hard time now. At this point, Ruby is the only protection he has against Sun's forced entry, so he hooks one leg around his bed to anchor himself and hugs her feet even tighter. "Please, Ruby! You know Sun, he'll pull out all the Sun surprises he has!"

"Oh, I'll give it to you."

"Nooooo…"

"Alright, I promise that I won't pull out."

Jaune attempts to direct his teary puppy eyes around Ruby's skirt and at her face. "Can't you see what I'm talking about?"

"The only one thing I see here is an innocent underage teenager stuck between an overprotective older sister and a lovable panty-peeker."

As a collective entity, Yang, Ruby, and Sun glance curiously at Jaune, who only just realizes that his attempts to beg that Ruby stay while hugging her shoes might a lot less like an attempt to catch her eyes and more… m-m-more like a gaze of tearful awe at her underwear.

Ruby's face flushes as red as her cape. Sun proudly adds, "A man after my own heart," as Yang's hair literally explodes into golden fire. Okay, so now he knows that he definitely wasn't imagining it his first day here when her irises snap from a calming indigo into a furious red. He drops Ruby's feet like they're hot potatoes and scrambles backwards until he realizes that this brings him waaaay too close to Sun… but Yang is literally on fire… oh man, what to do…

"Jaune? I saw destruction and fiery expl—oh good, you're awake!"

A uniform-clad Pyrrha waltzes into the middle of this like there's nothing wrong. She squeezes past a flaming Yang, steps over Ruby's stretched legs, and only flinches a little bit when Jaune immediately hides behind her legs like a terrified three year old.

Sun immediately slings an arm around Pyrrha's shoulder. "Ms. Nikos!" he grins. "Why don't you stay here and mop up Jaune's mess while I show our favorite blonde around the East campus?"

"I'dmuchratheryouguysswitchroles, okaythanksbye!" Jaune blurts, practically dragging Pyrrha out the room. In fact, he doesn't stop running until he's reached the bottom floor and burst through the hospital doors into the freedom of open air.

Pyrrha pats down the fly-aways in her hair that were kicked up during Jaune's panicked flight and smooths down her plaid skirt. "Jaune, what was that about?"

A window opens up on the top floor directly above them. "See you in bed tonight, honey~" Sun calls.

A quarter of a mile later, Jaune drops Pyrrha's hand, finds the nearest garbage can, and tries to throw up. However, because he'd already upchucked his breakfast during his duel and then was cryogenically preserved for a week, his stomach is beyond empty.

Pyrrha hands him a water bottle. "Rehydrate yourself," she advises. "Then we can go for a meal."

It takes a moment for his body to realize it's ravenously hungry, but when they actually get to the cafeteria, Pyrrha doesn't let him have anything more than an apple and some nutritious oatmeal mush.

"You've been starved for a week," she explains as he begrudgingly spoon-feeds himself at an agonizingly slow pace. "If you eat too much all at once, you're just going to barf it all up again."

"What, you've had personal experience with this before?"

He immediately feels like a jerk when Pyrrha not-too-subtly changes subjects. "The ceremony for incoming freshmen was actually yesterday, so we will need to get you moved into the dormitories as soon as possible; classes do start tomorrow, after all."

Hope surges into his heart unexpectedly. "Hold on a sec: you're in Dragon too?"

Pyrrha smiles faintly. "Yes. It will be good to have a friend in the dorms."

Contrary to her words, she doesn't actually look too happy with this. Tentatively, he stammers, "Is… isn't being in Dragon a good thing?"

"...Yes."

"You hesitated."

"So?"

"Hesitating before starting a sentence means that whatever you say will actually the complete opposite of what you mean," he teases, trying to inject some levity into her sudden gravity. "So. Spit it out. What's so bad about Dragon?"

A smile makes its way on Pyrrha's face at his logic, though it fades as she speaks. "Nothing is wrong with Dragon in and of itself… often the greatest leaders arise from Dragon, as it values strength of mind. But, as you know, the faunus' natural instinct is to display the power of the phoenix, the speed of the tiger, or the perseverance of the tortoise. Intelligence and wit is not immediately apparent, so it's generally looked down upon."

Oh.

"Tifa's in Phoenix," murmurs Pyrrha almost to herself, resting her chin on her fist. "Cloud, Hitomi, Nora, Weiss—"

He has to do a bit of mental searching to remember that the South Direction specialized in offensive maneuvers, but once he does, he interrupts, "Nora in South?" He laughs. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Well… she spends most of her nights over at Ren's dorm…"

Jaune flinches. "Um… speaking of sleeping quarters… you don't sleep with anybody, do you?" Pyrrha admirably doesn't react in the slightest, even as Jaune immediately whams his head against the cafeteria tabletop in horror. "That… that was not… I wasn't—that came out wrong, I'm sorry."

"I do have a roommate, if that is what you're asking."

"But it's not like you have more than two people in a two-bed room, right?"

Pyrrha gives him a funny glance. "Are you suggesting…?"

"No! Not at all! Definitely not. …Just what did you think I was, uh, suggesting?"

"Room assignment is generally randomized," she responds, "So I would not mind you moving in. My roommate Kairi is absolutely pure of heart as well, so I do not believe that she would disagree either."

Jaune drops his spoon and makes a weak noise of protest against Pyrrha's assumption, but his heart {sleeping with two girls at once... oh Jaune, you playa! Wait till Roman hears about this WOOOOO YEAH!} isn't really behind it. "N-n-no… I wasn't… but if you w—"

"Oh." Her eyes light up in realization as she exclaims, "You were referring to the heartfelt farewell at the hospital! No, there are still empty rooms at the Eastern Dragon dormitories. I highly doubt that Sun will force you to reside with him overnight, though that is not to say that he certainly won't invite you."

Jaune's brain momentarily grinds to a halt before speeding right back up to double-time. "What—I thought he was dating—but what about—"

"I suppose our shirtless leader has succeeded in making you feel as uncomfortable as possible?" smiles Pyrrha. "Ignore about 80% of what he says and filter the rest. Don't show weakness and you'll be fine."

"So… try not to look like a boy toy and eventually he'll stop playing with me, right?"

The redhead looks like she's putting a lot of effort into keeping a straight face when she responds, "Yes. That shouldn't be too hard for you."

"At least now you know he's not always a pervert…"

Jaune shakes his head vigorously, reading over the message on his scroll once again. "One official-looking text from Sun doesn't make up for an entire two days of unashamed perving. Besides, I know there's a hidden innuendo in here somewhere."

"He is the Director. He couldn't have reached such a high position without some professionalism."

"Or maybe it's because he's in such a high position that he gets away with all his crap." Jaune snaps the scroll closed and looks at the dormitory room before him. "Y'know, I bet the reason why he gave me a single was so he could screw around with me at nights without any witnesses."

"Perhaps." Pyrrha steps in after him.

Jaune's head snaps towards her so quickly that he almost gets whiplash. "You're not going to give me a reason why Sun isn't—"

"Well, Sun certainly made a conscious decision to be a pervert," she replies, disappearing into the depths of a walk-in closet. "Some might even consider it more honorable than one who frequently pretends to be an accidental one."

"What, wait are you talking about? I'm not—"

"Here we go!" Pyrrha announces cheerfully, emerging with a really nice set of clothes on a coat hanger. "This is your official school uniform. Welcome to Zodiac Academy, Jaune!"

Seeing as his friend has moved onto the next topic at hand without an ounce of offense at his supremely unfortunate luck, Jaune drops the matter, takes the uniform off her hands, and spends a moment inspecting it.

{Wow. This really is it. This is the beginning of a transformation from wimpy wannabe into awesome military hero. The legend begins the moment I put this on.}

"Stay here," he calls, hopping into the closet, which, by the way, is tons larger than he'd expected. Maybe it's meant to store gigantic weapons or battle gear, but it's not like he entered the capital Zodiac with anything other than his wallet. He begins to unlatch his chest plate and arm guards. "Tell me how I look."

The jacket is softer than any material he's ever felt. It's black with a gold trim that seems to almost gleam in the relative darkness of the closet. As per his Direction, an emblem of a dragon head is embroidered on the left breast. He reverently folds the jacket and places it on a nearby shelf to access the white shirt and black pants underneath.

Whoa. If the jacket was soft, then the shirt and pants… downright sleek and smooth and somewhat form-fitting. Like the material meant wick moisture off sweaty skin. Which would actually make sense; this is a battle school, after all… but still… "Are we supposed to fight in these?"

"Sometimes," comes Pyrrha's voice from outside. "We can change into our regular battle gear during simulations; otherwise, the uniform is pretty much required for all other school-sanctioned activities."

Ah. That knowledge diminishes the downright sensual feeling of the uniform against his skin. Still, he's got to find out what these uniforms are actually made of. It molds so perfectly into his body that it almost feels like a second skin. Totally unlike all the other stiff and starchy uniforms he'd donned in the human world.

Wait a second.

"Pyrrha…?"

"Yes, Jaune?"

"…How did the school know my shirt and pants sizes?"

"Sun probably took your measurements while you were unconscious."

"Oh." He swallows his gag reflex and distracts himself with the long strip of blue cloth looped around the coat hanger neck. "Do we… do we have to wear the ties?"

"It's recommended."

"But not mandatory?"

"Highly recommended."

"But not needed, right?"

"Ahem. Highly, highly recommended."

"Oh." He stares down at his shoes. "Um…"

He can literally hear the gracious smile in her tone. "I know, right? A necktie isn't exactly battle gear. Here, come out and I'll teach you."

Having grown up as the son of businessman, Jaune's worn his fair share of ties—but after Roman tied hanging him from ceiling light with the strip of cloth when he was eight, Jaune's only ever worn clip-ons. If he could just try to remember…

He steps out from the closet, the tie cloth hanging about his neck. What does it say about his manliness that he can't tie a tie, yet Pyrrha can? He should just trade his for her no-skills-required shoestring tie, with its easy dragon-head clasp…

His mind is completely wiped off all other thought, however, when Pyrrha slips behind him and loops her arms around his shoulders before he can object. N-n-not that he would, with her body so close…

{Eep.}

She's wearing her school uniform. That means no chest guard. That means he feels it. Like literally, because of his second-skin shirt, it feels like two voluptuous hills are pressing into his bare back. There's only one word playing on a loop in his mind as she lifts both the tail end and the thick end of the tie.

"You'll want the tail end to match up with the stitch on the inside of the body…" she instructs, but then she rests her chin on his shoulder to get a closer look at her own work and he is gone. There's nothing else more important in the universe than the gentle cadence of her voice, the sensation of her breath puffing against his neck, the oneness of her body up against his, and the minor pain that blossoms into his consciousness when she smacks him upside the head and he immediately faceplants into his bed because he doesn't have enough blood left to support his legs.

"Light!" Pyrrha gasps, immediately seating herself by his bedside. "Jaune, are you alright? Are you feeling unwell? I am so sorr—"

"Not…" he gulps, shaking his head to redistribute blood as he pulls himself up to a seated position. "Not at all… I'm fine."

{Light dammit, you're not a perverted teenager anymore.}

{Still a virgin though. Same difference.}

{Ooooookay, time to think about something else.}

"Textbooks!" he blurts. School. He might not be the world's best fighter, but if there's something he's pretty good at, it's smarts. He can do that easily enough. "We should buy textbooks."

"If they're not all sold out by now."

"If they're what?"

There's a glint in her eyes when she states, "Because classes start tomorrow, most of the textbooks have already been bought up. But that's alright, because you can just use mine."

Jaune's irises expand to twice their size and water with gratitude when she says this, though they swoosh right back to normal as suspicion overtakes him. "Hang on a second. What's the catch?"

"In the week that you spent inside of the frozen Lake of Zen, many of our classmates took the time to do research on you. Somebody in Western Tiger hacked the school databases and pulled up your impressive academic record." She smiles faintly. "You're fairly popular, Jaune, though whether or not this is a good thing has yet to be decided. I'd like to help you become famous and rather than infamous."

He really wishes he could have looked at his own transcript before he turned it in. It'd be nice to keep his story straight. Though at least they got the academic stuff right. "So… what are you saying?"

"I'd like to exchange resources," states Pyrrha plainly. "If you're going to visit my room on a regular basis to use my textbooks, I'd like you to tutor me as well."

He would have said {DONE} right then and there, but then Pyrrha continues, "And in return, I'd like to help you train."

It takes him a second to catch up to that. "Say wha?"

Pyrrha seats herself on Jaune's bed, looking up at him almost imploringly. "It's… it's okay to ask for help," she says softly. "I'm asking you for help, Jaune, because I'm deficient when it comes to coursework. It was easy to bypass or ignore all together in combat training, but here at the Zodiac, academic studies are almost as important as the battles are. I foresee that I will soon need help when it comes to classroom learning. And… well, in return for your tutoring, I'd like to help you improve the basics of combat skills."

Jaune sees what she's saying. It twinges his pride ever so slightly when she's obviously referring to the catastrophic failure that was his duel with Weiss, but to see her make herself vulnerable makes it easier to accept help from her. "That sounds like a great idea."

Pyrrha nods once, getting to her feet. "Alright then, Jaune. That concludes our tour of the Dragon dormitories. Can I help you with anything else?"

"Can I drop by your room later? To check out the textbooks?"

"Yes, but not now. I need to run some errands first, but I will probably be done within an hour. My dorm is on the northern corner on this floor." As if at an afterthought, she spontaneously hugs him. "I will see you later, Jaune."

She's out the door by the time Jaune can move again.

The novel delight of this uniform is quickly giving way to a horrified realization that, though Pyrrha might not seem to notice, if Jaune doesn't habituate himself to this second-skin feeling, Sun will catch on instantly.

Months later, while musing over the culmination of his life's decisions, Jaune will wish that a pervy Sun had remained the biggest of his problems.