What's up guys and sorry for not updating last week. Studying for AP exams and Finals are a bitch, plus my friends keep pulling me on Rainbow Six Siege for ranked XD.
Means that the update schedule will be a bit more erratic and probably bi-weekly instead of weekly, but I'll try to supplement that by doubling the usually chapter length from around 3k words to ones like this with 6k.
Remnant
Beacon Academy
It was a peaceful day on Remnant, the sun had just risen oven it's southern continents and was casting beautiful rays of morning light on the landscape. The birds were chirping, deer where grazing, and teens were bickering.
"Hurry it up damn it! I still have to get a shower and head to the cafeteria, class starts in 40 minutes! " An irritable and slightly sleepy Jaune growled, "Yang!? If you use all the hot water I swear-"
"Oh keep your panties on you crybaby."
The sound of the shower shutting off and the frosted glass door that served as the shower entrance opening could be heard through the closed door. Then the click of the dreaded blow dryer being turned on followed.
The blow dryer, one of man's worst enemies. Its telltale electric hum was responsible for many of late appointments, reservations, and all around despair for husbands and boyfriends alike.
Jaune groaned, laying back down on his bed. He looked up and spotted other two teammates almost done putting their school uniforms and collecting school supplies.
"You guys can go ahead and go to breakfast without us. We'll catch up after Yang's done tanning, pruning, waxing, and drying her damn hair."
"Luscious hair!" Yang sang from the bathroom and over the hum of the hair dryer.
Rolling his eyes Jaune reached over and grabbed his scroll. He powered it on to see if he had any missed calls or messages while waiting for the bathroom.
"Jaune, in case you don't have time to eat would you like for me to grab you an apple or such from the cafeteria? I'm sure the professors would let you eat it in class." Pyrrha offered before she and Blake left.
"Yes, if you wouldn't mind. Thank you...uh." Jaune trailed off.
Mentally panicking the blonde knight tried to recall the redhead's name. He had only just met her yesterday during the initiation, and despite remembering her introducing herself he just couldn't recall her wasn't entirely his fault. After all, at the time they had been fighting two higher tier Grimm. Plus he had been passed out in the medical wing with Ozpin the night before initiation when the initiates had continued interacting with each other.
Seeing as this situation could go two ways, either trying to play off not knowing her name or just asking her straight out and possibly pissing the redhead off.
Sighing, he decided to bite the blaster bolt. Might as well not risk getting caught lying and having an awkward situation come out of it.
"I'm sorry but I seem to have forgotten your name." He said sitting up and looking at her, "And for the life of me I just can't remember."
Instead of looking hurt or offended Pyrrha simply offered a smile.
"It's fine, we were introduced under rather strenuous circumstances. My name is Pyrrha Nikos." She said, slightly loathing what she knew was probably about to happen.
"Nice to meet you Pyrrha." Jaune nodded before laying back down.
Pyrrha's eyes widened a bit. Did he not know who she was?
Blake crossed her arms, "Do you remember my name?"
"Uhh, Blake right?" Jaune questioned.
"Blake Belladonna." She confirmed before turning to Pyrrha, "We should get going. At least we won't be late if Yang takes any longer."
"I suppose your right." Pyrrha said and opened the door to leave, "Try not to be late if you can help it Jaune, and I'll still try to save you something if you're late.
The knight offered his thanks as he heard his teammates walk out and the door click shut. Just in time for another door to open.
"Your turn Jaune!"
"About time… Yang, where are your clothes?" Jaune deadpanned as his partner walked out of the bathroom clad in only wet body towel that clung to her so tight it essentially hid nothing.
"Left them out here." She said and then followed with a smirk, "Why, see something you like?"
Jaune rolled his eyes. While he would admit that his partner was indeed beautiful and had quite the *ahem* assets, he'd grown up with nine sisters, six of them older than him. He was nowhere near shy about seeing the female form.
His monthly subscription to Faunus Girls Gone Wild didn't hurt either.
"Nice try Sunshine." He said pushing himself off his bed, "But you'll have to try harder than that to get me flustered."
Grabbing his uniform he walked straight past Yang and into the bathroom. All the while hoping that there was some hot water left for him to enjoy.
"Why Sunshine?" Yang asked before he closed the door.
Pausing he looked at her, "What do you mean."
"You asked the reason why I called you Sci-fi and I told you. So why did you decide my nicknames Sunshine?"
The Jedi simply raised an eyebrow, "Pretty obvious, isn't it? Your name, it's old Mistralian, right? Translates to light dragon or dragon of sunshine if I remember my language lessons correctly."
Yang was a bit taken aback that he had gone that deep for just a nickname and that he knew some Mistralian. Only her father had ever used her translated name, calling her his sunny little dragon.
"Well now I just feel bad that my nickname for you isn't as complex."
"Very funny Yang," Jaune said with a roll of his eyes and shut the bathroom door.
"And put on some clothes!" He shouted through the door.
Stripping down and turning on the shower Jaune shivered as a blast of ice cold water hit him. Despite having turned the handle to the hottest setting.
'Son of a Bantha.' He mentally cursed out his partner, all the while trying to get his shower done as fast as possible, 'Next time she uses her hair dryer I'll have R2 cut the power and … speaking of R2, where is that glorified trash can even at? Didn't Ozpin promise to have him delivered to the room?
Beacon Tower
Ozpin sighed at the current report in front of him, taking another sip from his mug. It seemed that Vale's scientists had run into a roadblock in reverse engineering and understanding the designs for several of the technologies they had discovered on the alien ship.
Namely the energy storage and ammunition.
While they now knew roughly how the plasma rifles and pistols operated, they had no idea how to power them. Some of the designs spoke of using energy-rich gas that could be converted into plasma, but such gas was in short quantity on Remnant. They would need some way of getting to a gas giant in order to harvest such resources.
Something that wouldn't happen in the near future. The new fuel sources could soon let them send the first drone or spacecraft out of orbit, but it would be a long while before they could send something to the gas planets in their own systems such as Mattis, Sorola-B, Alpha-Ramsey, or even the biggest one, Burns.
They could possibly substitute it with some type of a powerful energy source such as Lightning Dust by draining the crystals and converting them into pure energy inside some type of battery.
If they had a battery that could hold that much energy while still be small and compact enough to load into a weapon, which took even the newer lithium batteries off the table. Strapping huge power backs onto infantry was not an option.
"Veep?" An electronic sound chirped from the headmaster's side.
Ozpin's head snapped away from the reports in surprise at the noise, only for his eyes to settle on a white and blue trash bin.
"Beep?" The train bin once again chirped.
It was then that Ozpin realized that it was no trash bin, but the droid that Jaune had asked to be brought to the academy with him.
'How did it get into my office without me noticing?' He thought with a raised eyebrow, "Hello my little robotic friend. Are you perhaps lost?" Ozpin asked the droid.
R2 rocked up and down.
"Hmmm, well now we can't have that. Jaune is in room 12 in section A of the student dormitories. I expect that you can make it there on your own if you snuck up here."
The droid once again rocked up and down, but instead of turning and leaving, it instead turned it's site to the reports Ozpin had been going over on his holo-screen.
The headmaster noticed the droids gaze and an idea came to mind.
"Tell me, my little friend, do you perhaps have any data or blueprints on your hard drive that could help us?"
The Astromech seemed to consider for a moment before responding with a single, "Beep."
The holo monitor that Ozpin had been using began to flash as a pop up appeared on the screen. It lasted for several moments and then shut off, leaving some new files on his drive.
With great curiosity, he brought up the files and his eyebrows raised in surprise at the content of said files. Schematics of compact batteries, chemical compositions for various materials, and what he could only guess was a more advanced or totally complete periodic table seeing as there were many elements listed that he had never seen on the ones that Remnants scientists used.
It was marvelous.
Turning back to the droid, Ozpin nodded.
"Thank you, my friend, you have been a great help."
With one last chirp, the Astromech turned around and began making its way out of the office and towards Jaune's dorm.
Leaning back in his chair Ozpin took another sip of his drink. His day having gone from frustrating to a pleasant surprise.
Beacon Academy
"Mr. Arc and Miss. Xiao Long, are you aware that you are 10 minutes late for class? Normally I would have to report you as absent and give you a failing grade for the day, but seeing as it is the first day I will excuse it. Just don't let it happen again." Professor Port admonished the tardy students.
"Yes sir." Jaune responded and nudged Yang, who hadn't even been paying attention.
"Oh uh yeah, sure thing professor."
"Glad to see we have an understanding. Now both of you take your seats."
They both nodded and walked over to where the other half of their team was and sat down. Which Port took the sign to continue the story he had been telling before they had interrupted class.
"Now back to my story. I had been a lad of only twelve years of age when…"
Jaune immediately began to drift off as the story went on, not understanding how the professor boasting about his achievements was useful in any way for the class.
"Pssst." A whisper from his side got his attention.
Looking over he saw Pyrrha sliding over an apple and a box of juice towards him. Grabbing both of them he mouthed a thank you to the redhead and was met with a nod and a smile.
With his stomach rumbling he went to take a bite of the sweet fruit, only to be met with an elbow in the side from his partner, who was looking at him with a pout.
Jaune let out a sigh. He had forgotten his partner hadn't eaten either.
Focusing on the apple he called the Force and put pressure straight down the middle, cutting it cleanly in half and offering her one of the sides. Which she accepted with a smile.
"Now which one of you think you have what it takes to be a true Huntsman?"
. . .
"As most of you already know, my name is Glynda Goodwitch. I will be your combat instructor for tenure at Beacon." Goodwitch said, addressing her freshman class.
Sitting next to his team near the top and with team Roadrunner below them, Jaune paid attention with mild interest. His other classes had mostly consisted of lectures and book learning, such as History of Remnant and Dust Application & Uses.
Which he'd quickly found that he wasn't fond of. The Jedi Knight had really no use for Dust as his weapons didn't require it and while the History of Remnant was somewhat interesting, he would much rather be reading more about galactic history.
"While I'm sure many of my fellow professors went easy on you today, with it being the first day of the year and all," Goodwitch continued, "I will not be. With my class being combat and fighting oriented I cannot simply show you or lecture you about how to fight. That was the job of your combat schools. In my class, you will be learning from practice. This will not only allow you to gain experience by fighting a variety of opponents but will also allow me to observe each of your unique fighting styles and advise you in areas that need improvement."
Jaune nodded in agreement. Now, this was a teaching method he could appreciate, almost similar to Luke's in fact. His master always puts an emphasis on "learn by doing", whether it was about lightsaber practice or the use of the Force.
Yang cracked her knuckles, "Finally a class I can get behind. Being able to crack a few skulls and not get in trouble for it on the first day? Hell yeah!"
Blake sent her teammate a deadpanned look, "That's not a healthy way of thinking."
"Don't care!" The blonde replied.
Goodwitch cleared her throat to get their attention.
"Now the matches will proceed as so. Both opponents will change out of their school uniforms and into their appropriate combat gear. You will then meet inside the fighting ring and your Aura levels will be displayed on the overhead screen. First combatant to have their Aura knocked into the red or out of the ring loses."
Jaune's eyes narrowed at the mention of their Aura monitored. It might come up as a problem when he got hit or used his semblance if his Aura meter didn't drain.
His was unlocked technically, which meant it could be measured, but he had to keep it in its passive state at all times unless he wanted a repeat of the other night.
"Today's first match will be between Kasai Hoko-Sha and Pyrrha Nikos."
Pyrrha nodded and stood up to head to the locker room to change, smiling as her team wished her luck.
With Pyrrha out of site, Jaune turned to the rest of his team, "So who do you think will win?"
"Nikos, of course you blonde moron, anybody with more than two brain cells could figure that out." A voice from below them said.
Looking down Jaune saw a white-haired chick glaring, Weiss if he remembered right, giving him a look that made it seem that he was the biggest idiot in the room.
The knight was about to make a smartass comment in retort but saw Ruby was sitting next to the girl and realized that the two were probably partners. Not wanting to insult Ruby's partner, he reigned in the lessons of sarcasm that Luke had instilled in him over the years.
Jaune took a deep breath, "What makes you so confident that anybody with two brain cells could figure it out?"
"Because she's Pyrrha Nikos!"
"Yes, I already know that. So what's the big deal?"
Weiss bristled at his apparent stupidity, "She's the champion of the Mistral Tournament, four times in a row! She was the top of her class when she graduated from Sanctum academy! She's the daughter of Pallas and Styx Arc, two of the current twenty super Huntsman!"
"Oh… cool."
"Cool! That's all you have to say! You should be thanking Oum that you have someone like Nikos on your team. Afterall not all of us can be lucky enough to have someone competent on our team." She said with a glare pointed at Ruby, causing the younger brunette to deflate slightly.
Anger swelled within the young Jedi before he pushed it back down, knowing better than to let dark emotions control him, but it didn't mean he could ignore the jab at his friend.
"Oh yeah, and what makes you so special? Is it the condescending attitude or the inherent bitchiness?"
"Why you-" She snarled, "I'm the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company and was trained by some of the best trainers and Huntsman on Remnant."
"Yet for all of that, you still had to apply to Beacon and be accepted right?"
"Of course! Everyone did."
"Yeah… no." Jaune said before pointing at Ruby, "Your partner right? She's 15 and was personally invited by Ozpin."
Weiss started to fidget, "Who are you again?"
"Name's Jaune Arc."
The heiress stopped fidgeting and her eyes widened.
'Arc? As in the Arc family!? One of the most prestigious families in the world whose current patriarch and matriarchs are legends in the Huntsmen community. Whose seven oldest daughters are top of their class in Atlas academy or have high positions in the military. That Arc family?' Weiss thought in a bit of shock.
There had to be a mistake. She had met some of the older Arc daughters before at gala's and other events were influential families, politicians, and ranking officers in the Atlesian military where invited, seen them attend council meetings with General Ironwood for the ones that had joined the military, and the younger ones who where still in the academy fight in the annual Vytal festivals for Atlas.
They were beautiful, educated, graceful, born leaders, and immensely powerful thanks to their lineage. Which is why she couldn't believe that the blonde moron she was arguing with, who didn't even know the most internationally famous huntresses in training, was related to those women.
Yang rolled her eyes and noticed that both Pyrrha and her opponent took their positions on the stage.
"Listen, ladies, you're both very pretty. But if you could turn the noise down so that the rest of us could watch the match, that would be great."
Both Jaune and Weiss looked over and saw the match was indeed starting. With a huff, Weiss turned back around while Jaune shifted his focus to the stage.
The two were dressed in their combat gear and stood on opposite sides of the stage. Pyrrha with her shield and shortsword out and Kasai with an odachi.
"The match between Pyrrha Nikos and Kasai Hoko-Sha will start on my mark." Goodwitch said, "Three, two, one, begin!"
Kasai clicked a trigger built into the base of his odachi, causing the sword's blade to burst into flames. With a battle cry, he charged Pyrrha.
The redhead simply stood still, waiting until her opponent closed the space between them. Then with practiced ease, she deflected a strike from him, before using the opening to go on an all-out offensive.
"Damn." Yang whistled, watching her new teammate fight, "Red's has some serious skill."
Blake also seemed to be a bit impressed, "Got that right. Guess she didn't graduate top of her class for nothing."
Jaune, on the other hand, wasn't paying attention to their comments. He was far more invested in the fight itself, namely observing Pyrrha's fighting style. If for no reason other than he might one day be on the receiving end of it.
And from what he'd seen so far, it was a hell of a unique style. Despite the fact that her sword had two other forms and she was constantly transforming it, he barely saw any change in her fighting style. She chained her attacks with the different weapon variations flawlessly. Something that shouldn't exactly be possible for most fighting styles.
Such as lightsaber combat. If one had a keen eye and experience with the seven forms they could easily see the change in form. Even masters of the art like Luke somewhat showed changes and transitions. From shifting into different stances to the demeanor change, caused by the philosophy of each form. The calm and collected attitude of Form III contrasting majorly to the aggression of Form VII.
This made whatever combat style or combination of combat styles Pyrrha used all the more intriguing to Jaune.
Something else about Pyrrha caught the young Jedi's eye as he continued to observe the match. Her face or her expression would be a better term for it, was completely laid back, holding a small smile and a twinkle of twinkle of mirth in her eyes.
All while she completely destroyed her opponent.
'She's going easy on him.' Jaune thought, 'Probably didn't want to embarrass him in front of the entire class by taking him out in seconds. Though that begs the question if she's this good when barely trying. What's she like completely serious?'
But just as he had finished his thoughts, Pyrrha decided to finish the match. With a final twirl of Miló, it shifted from a spear to a rifle, which was aimed point blank at Kasai's chest.
*Bang*
With a single shot, the rifle flung the young man a dozen feet or so backward, knocking his Aura into the red.
"The winner of this match is Pyrrha Nikos." Goodwitch announced.
The class's burst into applause at the years first match.
Mistral
"You know, you were scaring looking when I first met your kind. Now though? I think you guys may be the most kriffin ugly beings I've ever met. Which is saying something since I personally know Han Solo himself." Luke taunted the Alpha Beowolf and its pack.
The Jedi had been traveling since yesterday. First having an airship take him as far as they could before they ran out of fuel, then hiking on old trails towards his destination, which was a recently abandoned village that went dark.
And of course, as soon as he was beginning to make some good time, a group of Grimm decided they wanted a piece of him.
With his saber hilt in hand, he waited for the Grimm to make the first move. Fortunately, they didn't make him wait very long.
The Alpha ordered it's pack to attack the Jedi with a howl and twelve Beowolfs charged him.
Before the wolves could reach their target a green blade of plasma was ignited and Luke blurred forward.
The Alpha blinked in confusion when the human disappeared and it's entire pack seemed to be decapitated in an instant.
It also didn't understand why the ground seemed to be coming closer despite the fact it had been standing upright.
The answer, of course, was the Jedi master who now positioned right behind the fallen beast, holding the weapon that had sliced it in half.
Deactivating his lightsaber, he holstered the weapon and continued forward. Hoping that he wouldn't run into any more distractions on his journey.
But of course, just because the universe had a new chew toy, didn't mean it forgot about its old favorite.
A monstrous roar ripped through the forest, followed by the cracking of trees being destroyed.
And it sounded like it was heading in Luke's direction.
"Force dammit."
Beacon Academy
"The winner of this match is Yang Xiao Long." Glynda said, "Now both of you go get cleaned up and return to your seats. We have time for one more match today before class is dismissed."
Yang smirked and headed to the locker room to change. Meanwhile, her opponent groaned as his team picked him up and helped him go to the locker room.
"Now that was just brutal." Blake commented while watching the kid get carried away, "I didn't think she actually took the care of her hair that seriously."
"It was particularly violent." Pyrrha admitted, "When Yang activated her semblance I don't think I've ever heard a guy scream in that high of a pitch before."
'Maybe I should trash the idea of messing with her blow dryer.' Jaune mentally gulped after seeing Yang fight.
His partner's style was quite different from Pyrrha's, even if they did use different weapons.
Pyrrha's seemed to focus on speed, dodging, and agility. Yang, on the other hand, used pure strength and tanked any hit that came her way. Though judging by the fact that Pyrrha hadn't used her semblance nor took her match seriously, she was probably at a higher level.
All that left was Blake. Maybe he'd get to see her fight sometime in the next couple of days.
"So you guys enjoy the show or what?" Yang asked while sliding back into her seat.
Jaune nodded, "It was a great match. But did you have to beat the guy into unconsciousness?"
Yang petted her hair, "Of course I did. I had to set the example for the rest of the year, you know, put some fear in them. My hair is off limit."
Goodwitch made her way back to the center stage and grabbed the attention of the class.
"Now that you are all settled we can continue. As I said we have time for one more match… Mr. Arc." She called.
Jaune straightened up from the slouch he had been in, "Yes professor?"
"You will be the in the final match for today. But because it's the first day and I'm feeling particularly generous, you may pick your opponent."
"Really?" He asked incredulously.
"Really." She confirmed.
A bit floored by the opportunity his mind went to his own teammates. He honestly hadn't been that impressed by any of the matches that excluded his team and Road Runner. It might have been interesting to fight Ruby, she was still recovering Aura from her own match.
That left him with two people who he wanted to go at since Yang was also recovering Aura from activating her semblance, which was apparently draining on her reserves.
Blake or Pyrrha, and while he wanted to see how Blake fought, he also really wanted to how Pyrrha did when she was serious.
"I choose Pyrrha as my opponent." He declared.
Goodwitch frowned, "I'm sorry Mr. Arc but your teammate has already fought today. Please pick so-"
"It's fine Mrs. Goodwitch. My whatever bit of Aura I used has long recovered. I'm perfectly capable of fighting again." Pyrrha interrupted, a bit of disappointment underlining her tone.
Goodwitch rose an eyebrow, "Are you sure Miss. Nikos?"
"Yes Ma'am."
"Well alright then, both of you go to the locker rooms and change."
Jaune got up to go to the men's locker room, hearing the class muttering and whispering the whole way.
From what he overheard, apparently Weiss wasn't the only one who knew of Pyrrha's fame, and that he was batshit crazy for picking a match with her.
. . .
"The match between Pyrrha Nikos and Jaune Arc will begin on my mark."
Jaune and Pyrrha stood directly across from each, the redhead in her crimson and bronze armor and the blonde in his black T-shirt and grey jacket that nearly bankrupted Luke.
"Three, Two."
Pyrrha shifted Miló to its spear form.
"One."
Jaune grabbed a hilt from his holster and ignited it, a small hum filling the room with the appearance of the golden blade.
"Begin."
Silence permeated the room as both combatants didn't move despite the match beginning.
Jaune frowned, Pyrrha was going to let him start on the attack first just like she did with her other opponent. It was a trap. She was going to try and bait him into attacking so she could counter like before.
Well as Luke always told him, "Spring the trap."
Shifting his saber to a single hand rather than double gripping it, Jaune decided on Form IV to test the waters. With a surge of the Force, he leaped from his position and swung his blade in an arc at Pyrrha.
The redhead's eyes widened, clearly not expecting for Jaune to leap or cover such a great distance with the jump.
Instinctively she brought her shield up to block the strike, actually sliding a few feet as the force of Jaune's strike and his own weight crashed into her.
Regaining her footing she looked up to see Jaune flip over, giving her enough time to transform her spear into its shortsword form and spin around to block another slash from his saber.
Jaune continued on slashing and thrusting, which forced her to keep blocking, only ever time she blocked or tried to parry her weapon kept getting warmer in her grip. With one last transformation of Miló into its rifle form, she opened fire at close range causing Jaune to disengage.
Finally having some space she looked at her weapons, only to find that parts of Miló were almost molten and Akoúo̱ had scarring from where it had been hit.
'His sword reaches that high of temperatures? This isn't good, if I keep fighting him as is he'll eventually just burn right through my weapons.' She grimaced before noticing the metal hilt to his weapon.
Realizing that she would be at a permanent disadvantage without being able to use her weapons, she decided to use her semblance instead. Spreading her senses and activating her magnetism to sabotage Jaune's swings, only to find that the entire length of his blade was surrounded by a magnetic field.
Realizing that the blade was kept in shape by a magnetic field gave Pyrrha an idea.
Deflecting the last Dust round Jaune readied to begin his offensive again, if it wasn't for the fact that his lightsaber started flickering before the usually solid plasma beam seemed to burst, shutting off the weapon.
Jaune blinked in confusion and looked down at his weapon.
'Did the plasma just dissipate? No, that can't be right. Unless something screwed with the containment for- arggg." Jaune thoughts were interrupted as a boot smashed into his face while he was distracted.
Flying across the stage from the power of the kick he managed to right himself, but he wasn't giving much time to recover as Pyrrha rushed him. Barley having enough time to pull out his old saber and holster the malfunctioning one.
Taking a Form V stance he began blocking any blows that Pyrrha sent at him.
After parrying a particularly fast thrust, he launched into one of Form V's numerous counters, bringing his saber overhead and then down on the redhead with Force-enhanced strength.
Only some invisible force seemed to grab the saber and make it go wide left before the sapphire blade sputtered and shut off like it's golden counterpart.
The spartan smirked and flicked her wrist, causing the silver hilt to jerk out of his hand.
Realizing he was completely open without his lightsaber Jaune jumped as far back as he could to create some distance.
'Alright, that ain't a coincidence. Pyrrha's doing something to short out my sabers. Probably her semblance, whatever the hell it is.' He thought, 'Fine then. Guess I'll just fight semblance with fake semblance.'
Seeing her opponent completely defenseless Pyrrha changed Miló into its spear form and threw it at him. All while using her semblance to accelerate and control it.
Instead of trying to dodge like she thought the knight was going to do, he instead stretched his hand out making a blocking motion.
Miló slowed to a crawl in midair until it completely stopped, suspended between the two unmoving.
Pyrrha's face contorted with effort, trying to move the spear forward with her semblance, but it just wouldn't budge.
Continuing to hold back the spear Jaune took his free hand and starting to collect the Force in it, causing energy to start rippling in the space around the hand.
'Now's my chance.'
His other hand thrust forward and unleashed a Force pulse at Pyrrha.
The girl grunted as the blast connected and flung her out of the arena.
Silence permanent the classroom for several moments before Goodwitch broke it.
"Pyrrha Nikos has been knocked out of bounds. The winner of the match is Jaune Arc." She said before looking at her scroll, " And class is dismissed."
As if a switched had been flipped the whole class broke out into a commotion.
"Holy shit… Nikos actually lost!?"
"Damn. Guess her nickname needs to be changed. Not very invincible anymore."
"That doesn't count, right? He didn't take her Aura all the way down, he just knocked her out of bounds."
Jaune ignored them and breathed out a sigh of relief, his plan worked.
Shifting his focus to the still floating spear, he pulled it into his hand to get a closer look at the weapon. The state of which caused him to grimace.
The beautifully crafted crimson and gold weapon was now scarred with burn marks and points where the metal had warped. Though the fact his sabers didn't cut right through it was a testament to whatever the hell the weapon was crafted from.
Jaune made his way off the stage, walking down to the redhead who was sitting on the ground. She seemed to have a hollow look of disbelief in her eyes.
"Great match Pyrrha! Gotta say you had me on the ropes there when I lost my weapons."
The young woman still didn't say anything.
"Uhh Pyrrha, is something wrong?"
Life seemed to filter back into her eyes as they locked with Jaune's.
"No, I'm fine." She replied and stood up, "I have to say Jaune, you have quite a semblance. I've never heard of anybody with psychokinesis at such a high degree of power and control."
Jaune chuckled and scratched the back of his head.
"You have quite the semblance yourself apparently. How did you short out my lightsabers?" He asked.
"That? My semblance is polarity, meaning I can mess with and control magnetic fields. You swords for example-"
"Where covered completely by magnetic fields, that's why they started to short out." He finished for her.
That could be a problem in the future. He would have to talk to Luke when he saw him eventually, see if there was any way they could protect their sabers from that type of attack.
"Oh, and speaking of weapons." He said while handing Miló over to her, "Yours is a bit trashed."
Pyrrha looked the weapon over and sighed, "It's fine. We don't have combat class for another couple of days. I'm sure the repair and maintenance shops have Mistrali Steel on hand I can use to repair it with."
'Mistrali Steel huh? Might have to look into that stuff if it can somewhat handle a lightsaber hitting it.'
"I hope they do. Oh and sorry about ruining your winning streak, Weiss mentioned you were apparently a champion in Mistral."
Pyrrha looked up Jaune, remembering his nonchalant attitude when he had learned her name earlier that morning.
"You didn't know that I was champion of the Mistral tournaments?"
"Nope."
"Than why did you challenge me?"
"Because I noticed that you weren't fighting at the level that you are capable of, you were going easy on your opponent. I wanted to see you at your best, and I suspect you still weren't during our match." He said with a shrug, "Still a good match though. See you at lunch Pyr."
The knight walked away, picking up the lightsaber that had been flung across the room as he made his way to the men's locker room to change.
Meanwhile, Pyrrha stayed still for a few more moments, thinking about her first real loss in the ring. Training and spars with her parents none withstanding of course. She still wasn't at that level yet.
But as she stood there, a smile slowly etched its way to her face. If losing meant that she could gain friends that treated her normally… maybe she should lose more often.
She also liked that nickname.
"Huh that weird, Arc's Aura meter didn't budge the entire match. We should probably tell Mrs. Goodwitch that the monitor's broken." She overheard a student say as they walked out of class.
The redhead's eyes traveled up to the monitor where both Jaune and her Aura levels where displayed. Sure enough, while hers had drained a bit, Jaune's was still at 100%.
Weird.