He almost gives himself whiplash, turning his head so quickly in an attempt to catch the source of the ethereal voice, clear as crystal despite his minor hearing damage. The sound isn't quite behind him. It's sort of… everywhere.

[Everywhere and nowhere can totally be the same thing.]

"Miltia?" Penny has nothing on this girl's disappearing act. Show up on the first day, disappear for two weeks, reappear abruptly as if nothing's changed—seriously, just who is this woman?

[Do I have to have a mega-complex answer hidden inside an uber-secret ulterior motive? Why can't I just be Miltia Malachite?]

Okay, that's it: he's officially gone insane. He talks to himself enough; he really doesn't need a foreign valley drawl interrupting his own thought processes. It makes it really hard to think, because every time it buts into his mind, he's forced to stop and listen.

[Well, sorry for butting in. But I'm partially synchronized with your aura thanks to opening up your chakras, so you're gonna have to deal with it.]

Maybe this is a telepathic semblance? But semblances have always been physical, never psychological. And it can't be invisibility, not when he can hear her voice so clearly in his mind. Jaune doesn't want to even consider that this might be a second personality. Penny turned out to be a real faunus, so what if this new voice is—

[Not your replacement imaginary friend, thank you very much. Just a helpful Sheep.]

{What are you doing in my head?}

[Is it really so hard to believe that I'm telepathically linked to you? 'Cause it was a side effect, y'know, kickstarting your accelerated healing and enhancing your strength and stuff. You should be grateful.]

He freezes. Okay. Becoming one with a gigantic ice cube should and would have killed him, had not AURA MAGIC® intervened. And forming a special bond with the girl who made that magic possible… he can see the logic in {who are you kidding? This doesn't make sense at all! There is no logic or reason behind a mind link; how is it even—}

[You promised me you would remember; is it so hard to believe?]

"Where are you?" He pinches himself. Ouch. Okay. So even if he might not be able to accept the impossibility of a second voice in his head, it's happening right now at the very least. That makes it completely possible—

{though it's also possible you're going insane~}

{shut up}

He can worry about the mechanisms of psychological semblances later. "Y'know, it'd really help with the not-imaginary-friend thing if you'd at least show your—"

[Can't. Sorry.]

"Why n—?"

[I don't have the energy for it. Neither do you.]

"Can you stop interrupting me?" Seriously, it's hard enough that he has to speak aloud just to better differentiate his own mind from the new girl's, especially when she makes it all a moot point by replying to the conceptual thought before the tangible words are out of his mouth. Not to mention all the important questions she hasn't answered. "Why now? After two weeks of silence, why talk to me now?"

[You weren't alone.]

"And why can't there be anybody else with me?"

[Because I'm not an imaginary friend.]

"…Touché." {Worry about supernatural telepathy later, ask important questions now; establish rapport by reusing words she considers important.} "Okay, so I've remembered you, even after you disappeared for two weeks. And seriously, that just made me freak out a ton, so at least answer me this: where have you been all this time?"

Miltia doesn't reply straight away, which is sort of suspicious, considering the fact that in all of his previous questions, she's cut him off with an answer almost immediately.

[Everywhere. Nowhere. But don't worry about me. I don't need Cardin to protect me when I've got you.]

Well, that pretty much stops his brain in its tracks. Things are moving waaay too fast. But hey, second important question of the day: "Cardin!"

[Forget about the Stray. He's just a figurehead; he is nothing. You're the one who really matters.]

He can't keep up with the information she's chucking at him. Answering vaguely on her whereabouts, brushing off Cardin's responsibilities, abruptly focusing her attentions on him; it's like everything he doesn't know about the Malachites is being turned on its head, but he can't even stop and clarify because he might lose sight of her again. Figuratively speaking. "At least tell me that Melanie knows where you are. That you're okay."

Miltia answers straight away this time, and for the first time in their conversation, he gets an inkling of bitterness in the statement. [Melanie has a pretty tight leash on me, so you could say I'm fine. But hey, look, I see you're still healing from minor hearing damage—lemme get that for you!]

Before he can really say anything about it, he gets that familiar sensation again of another chakra opening: the pins-and-needles warmth that trickles through his nerves and spreads throughout his body. His ears pop, wheeze, and abruptly are back at 100% power. His vision is unexpectedly sharper too; he's seeing vivid shades of red and purple he'd never even thought could exist.

This can't be a bad thing, can it? Being able to see infrared and ultraviolet? Except human beings aren't usually able to detect that spectrum of color even with the help of AURA MAGIC®. This, right here, is groundbreaking new territory.

This, right here, is a Situation With Too Many Unknown Variables.

Sure, getting chakras opened and aura enhanced has gotten him pretty far through these first few weeks within Zodiac Academy. Ultra-accelerated healing. Enhanced senses. Increased stamina. The superhuman survivability of a cockroach. In return, all he has to provide is a questionable friendship to what pretty much currently consists of a telepathic voice in his head.

Nothing can go wrong with this arrangement, right?

Address the most pressing concerns first. "I don't know where you are, but I will be able to actually see you soon, right?"

[Soon.]

"Ooookay. Great. Because, uh, y'know, this imaginary-friend thing? Isn't going to work out. So how soon is soon?"

[Probably not until the Hunting.]

"The… the what?"

"And the who?"

Jaune startles so badly that he drops his scroll. A whirl of green and orange flashes beneath as Penny dives, rolls, snatches his scroll out of midair, and pops straight back up to her feet. She pirouettes in a perfect 540 spin before presenting his unharmed device back to him. "You dropped this!"

"Penny! I was…" he scrambles for thoughts. Thoughts! Voices! {Miltia! What's the Hunting?}

No reply; Miltia seems to have pulled a Penny and vacated the premises, leaving nothing behind but vague information he can't really process. He can't brush everything off as an auditory hallucination because his hearing is back at full capacity; that's the physical evidence that Miltia Was Here. Jaune tries to curb his frustration as he whirls on Penny, because seriously, she just cut short a conversation he was having with a psychic Sheep in his head, and… there's no way he's going to say that aloud to her.

Said friend blithely smiles at his voice trails off. "Do not worry, Jaune. I too practice conversations with companions in my mind regardless of their physical presence!"

"…Oh. Yeah. That's totally what was happening."

"Indeed! For instance, the woman with the glowing yellow eyes said I should keep you out of harm's way no matter the cost! Because we are friends, and friends do not let friends get in trouble."

Glowing yellow eyes… Blake? He wouldn't be surprised if they shone in the dark. Never mind that; he's touched that he has friends (aside from the invisible imaginary girl) watching out for him. "Aw, thanks, Penny."

"Do not thank me yet! If you do not register your scroll with the main office in the next five minutes, your disciplinary warning will go on your permanent record."

In horror, Jaune pulls out his scroll and notes that it is indeed five minutes till noon… and the main office is practically halfway across campus. He doesn't even have a legitimate excuse either… not one that anybody would believe, anyways. He might as well… "Um. Penny, what are you doing?"

Said friend is currently crouching on the ground with her back to him. She shoots him an expectant look over her shoulder. "What are you waiting for?"

"What…" The way she's holding her arms, as if she expects him to thread a leg through each… "No. No way. I'm almost a head taller than you are. I've got to have at least fifty pounds on you. Do you really—"

"Do not worry, Jaune. I am always ready!"

A piggyback ride? Down three flights of stairs and about half a mile to the main office? Ridiculous. Then again, it's about four minutes till the deadline. Assuming that she doesn't trip and break their necks on the way down a staircase, he figures he can tell her on ground floor that time's up. "Alright… if you say so…"

He's barely hooked his arms around her neck before she's off, jogging at a steady pace and quickly accelerating to an uncomfortable sprint, and then into breakneck speeds. {She's not even headed for a staircase why are we headed for that window holy Lights above NO PENNY NOOOOOOO—}

"Why do you have glass in your hair?"

Jaune ruefully combs his fingers over his head, ruffling out the last remaining debris of wood splinters, leaves, and algae. "I took the express route out of a building and through a park."

Pyrrha looks like she wants to question just how gooey bits of pond scum managed to make their way into his scalp. Seeing as nobody really knows about Penny's existence, however, he has a feeling that Pyrrha wouldn't believe him if he said his piggyback-er leapt out of the third story of a building, hopped from tree to tree like an insane squirrel acrobat, and managed to run across a lake using lilypads as stepping stones.

Sure, he experienced it firsthand—if one could call a three-minute blizzard through nature's worst an experience. It all just happened so fast...

Pyrrha finishes off a set of stretches instead before speaking, her movement eased without the restrictions of her tight school uniform. Currently, all she's wearing is a low leather v-neck and biking shorts. In tandem with her show of skin—erm, trust—Jaune pointedly keeps his eyes on her face.

"Are you feeling ready for combat practice?" she questions as she does a split against a locker. {Eyes on her face, not those leeeeeegs...} All around them, students are changing into their regular combat outfits in preparation for their next class. "I hear that today is the only time in the entire year when we're encouraged to go 'out of control.' Whatever that means."

He knocks a fist against his armored chest proudly. Already he feels more confident with his old, familiar gear back on. Sure, it didn't do much with Weiss' magic Dust powers, but at least with this, he can take a punch or three. "I won't be screwed over so easily this time—I've got protection!"

Pyrrha pushes off the locker and falls into a back handspring. Instead of flipping back to her feet, however, halfway through she converts her momentum into a spinning kick at his chest.

He takes the easy way out and hops back a step. "Hey!"

"Just testing your reflexes," she grins, righting herself.

"Hmph. You're not going to take me out that easily."

He enters the gym in good spirits, thanks to Pyrrha's encouragement.

Their combat coach subsequently announces, "In order to synchronize the health bar on your scrolls and have it accurately reflect the full extent of your capability," their instructor—more like a drill sergeant—bellows, "You will partner up with somebody at a similar battle level. Then you will do battle with your partner's Familiar until you no longer have the energy to move. Do I make myself clear?"

Aaaaand he's officially a goner.