I don't own anything related to the RWBY franchise
Chapter 22 - Black, White, And Many Shades Of Gray
Author's note:
Genetically speaking, humans have a 60 percent similarity with bananas, and a 99 percent similarity with chimpanzees.
After boarding one of the airbuses traveling from Beacon Academy to Vale Colony, Blake Belladonna pulled her hood down over her face, clutched a trunk full of clothing to her chest, and then sank down into a secluded seat at the very back of the fuselage. She needed to move unnoticed by all of the happy and self-assured students that were heading into the Colony. She needed to leave both Beacon and Vale Colony behind. She needed to completely disappear, and she needed to do so NOW… And it hurt... It hurt so much more than she'd ever imagined possible…
A state of mind that left Blake feeling absolutely miserable, even as she realized that she was growing as a person.
As it turns out, Blake Belladonna was fully capable of respecting, and even liking, non-faunus people. She could recognize and acknowledge their positive attributes. She could appreciate their strengths, and she could empathize with their weaknesses. She could make enough room within the boundaries of her convictions to grow close to the same people that she used to see as enemies.
What's more, in a truly surprising twist of fate, Blake Belladonna was nowhere near as reclusive, stoic and antisocial as she always thought she was back when she used to live with the Fang…
And now she was going to suffer because of that newfound change in attitude.
Suffice it to say, Blake's memories of Yang Xiao Long and Jaune Freeman were going to hurt her for quite a while. While Ruby and Penny were adorable, Pyrrha was sweet, Nora was funny, Ren was considerate, and Weiss was… Weiss… Jaune and Yang had become important to Blake in ways that she hadn't seen coming.
Long story short, for the second time in a little over a month, Blake was running away from everything that she'd built for herself, and yet this time was quite a bit more upsetting…
This time, Blake actually felt like she was losing something.
While it couldn't be denied that Blake spent the majority of her teenage years in an established romantic relationship, she couldn't truthfully say that the man involved ever actually considered her his main priority, as he never sought to make her feel especially cared for or vital in his mind…
And yet Blake couldn't call that description truly honest or accurate either.
The fact of the matter was that Blake's longest romantic relationship was always muddied up and complicated by much larger concepts such as loyalty to a cause, the willingness to sacrifice oneself, and the unyielding resolve to change the status quo… Blake and her ex-boyfriend, Adam Taurus, spent all of their formative years completely immersed in these concepts, with the end result being that they struggled to relate to each other as normal people with normal cares and concerns.
At least, that's how Blake had always felt in relation to her ex and the disconnect that she'd felt growing between them over the years… In the end, she had quite literally no idea how he felt regarding her, because the man NEVER EVER communicated anything outside of his basic wants and needs.
Thankfully for Blake, how Adam Taurus felt about her was completely immaterial. She was done with the man, done with the Fang. She could no longer countenance the casual cruelty and spite that had become the driving force for all of Adam's actions, or the uncalled for level of violence that he was committing as a result. Oh sure, Blake was willing to steal both Lien and Dust, sabotage tools, equipment, vehicles and robots, abduct people, extort information, blackmail government officials, attack, injure and even kill (if necessary) those people that preyed upon faunus-kind, or perform any number of street level crime, but she never signed up to take part in the premeditated murder of completely innocent humans, and she straight-up refused to take part in it.
After all, what Blake really wanted to achieve was true, long-lasting peace and equality, as over time, she'd finally come to understand why her father refused to be the ultra-militant leader that she'd always desired he be…
Ouch.
As per usual, that line of thinking caused Blake some damage, but she was intimately familiar with that variety of heart-ache. She held it close. She clung to it like a burr. She used it to sharpen her resolve… One of Blake's core beliefs nowadays was stolen directly from her father's mouth, back when the man was BEGGING her not to join up with the newly remodeled White Fang.
"To seek equality by mirroring the very worst behaviors and attitudes of the people oppressing you, is worse than merely counterproductive, it's catastrophic, it's an abomination! The goal should NOT be to oppress your oppressors, but rather to achieve true civil-rights for all, which is why any violence committed outside of self-defense should be both reasonable and proportionate!
Back when Ghira Belladonna yelled those words towards Blake's retreating back, she didn't even bother to turn around in response. She didn't even slow down to indicate that she heard his weak-willed and submissive drivel. She was sick of watching her friends live in little better than hovels. She was sick of being censored and disenfranchised and looked upon with disgust. She was sick of seeing SLAVERY prettied up under more socially acceptable terms such as essential-service quota, penal-labour sentence or debt-bondage. She was sick of it all and she would CHANGE IT! She would do what was required! She would leave, and she would NEVER come back!
And now, over half a decade later, after watching the White Fang slowly change its end goal from equality into supremacy, Blake was well-aware that she could never, ever, go back home… She was a terrorist now, reformed or not, so she'd never be able to look her father in the eyes.
No… Blake wouldn't be returning to Menagerie. Heading in that direction wasn't even an option for her, and neither was Atlas where she'd immediately be identified and then 'disappeared' by the SDC. Blake would either need to go to Mistral, where she could hide within the criminal underground, or to Vacuo, where no one would even consider looking for her. The reason she needed to go to these lengths was completely obvious, at least to her…
Earlier that day, the Vale News Network broadcast an extremely high-quality holo-video of Blake defending Croftlan Airfield while taking part in Beacon Hunter Academy's Initiation Test.
And the White Fang have access to mainstream news media just like everyone else on Remnant.
By now, members of the White Fang will have watched the holo-footage of Blake, their 'young miss' (what amounts to a princess), fighting side by side with an Atlesian Noble in the form of Jaune Arc, and she was a hundred percent certain that they were losing their collective minds over it.
Without a shadow of a doubt, some of the White Fang's most dangerous Officers were already heading in Blake's direction, with orders to stuff her head in a bag, and they were going to attack all of her friends in the process. Blake knew this for a fact because she knew exactly how the Fang's recently-formed 'Red-Tat Slaughter Squads' actually operated… Their merciless attitude and brutal methods were the straw that broke the camel's back after all. They were the primary reason why Blake decided to leave the Fang. They were also the reason why she had a few extremely important objectives to accomplish before she could fade into obscurity.
-First of all, Blake needed to find out who exactly was leading the White Fang's new Vale-side operations, to see just how bad her current situation really was.
-Next, she needed to get herself 'accidentally identified' while causing a ruckus at one of these operations.
-Lastly, she needed to catch a transport heading to another continent, while leaving just enough breadcrumbs to reveal her departure.
If Blake could stir up the hornet's nest enough before leaving Vale Colony behind, she'd likely distract her pursuers away from her newfound friends. She could do it, She WOULD do it, for Yang… for Jaune…
As a mental picture of her Platoon Captain suddenly appeared within her mind, Blake figured the man wouldn't actually become angry with her when he found out that she was gone, but rather he'd feel quite disappointed with her instead, exactly how you'd expect an eighty year old to react… The frown on Blake's face momentarily smoothed out at just the thought of it, which, in turn, caused her heart to throb painfully in her chest.
One thing was completely obvious to Blake right from the get-go. Jaune Freeman was DEFINITELY going to blame himself for her sudden disappearance. The man was far too smart not to notice that she ran away on the exact same day that his broadcast was aired. What's more, her departure was going to hurt him, because he legitimately cared about her health and happiness, and he was going to scour all of Vale looking for her... Blake would be willing to bet her life on this outcome, because every single day since Tuesday morning, she'd received aura treatments from the man.
Jaune's aura treatments brought forth a tidal wave of KNOWING, of both the psychological and the spiritual variety, granting Blake what felt like a lifetime's familiarity with her Platoon Captain in just a single week's time.
Yes indeed… Jaune Freeman's aura treatments revealed a whole lot about who he was as a person… but they also revealed a lot about how he FEELS about the person that he's treating. Jaune thought that she was brave and selfless, he thought that she was slick and capable, he thought that she was graceful and poised. He also thought that she was kind to the extent that her jaded upbringing and incredibly sensitive embarrassment threshold would allow…
Jaune thought the world of her, and he cared about her far more than his tightly held ultra-professionalism would allow him to admit.
But that wasn't all.
During the time that Jaune was massaging her body, Blake could feel that the man was very carefully trying NOT to notice just how attracted to her he actually was.
Blake shivered at just the thought of it, even as a blush grew across her face over what she ended up doing in response… As Jaune's highly-calloused and powerful hands massaged her neck, shoulders, back, ribs, hips and thighs, releasing aura deep into her body in euphoric waves of pleasure, she felt the man doing his very best to ignore just how sexy he thought she was, at which point she found herself responding in several very provocative ways. She slinked and slid atop the table as her body pressed back up against his hands, she stretched low while arching her back until her ass was up in the air (like a cat), she pressed her body against his waist, she sighed, whined and mewled her pleasure, showing absolutely no restraint whatsoever…
Long story short, Blake Belladonna maximized her sex-appeal with every single sound and movement that she made, because she wanted to stretch her Platoon Captain's self-control to its very limits.
She wanted Jaune to want her…
And now she'd never get to have him.
By the time the air-bus was up in the air and flying over Forever-Fall Forest on its way to Vale, Blake's hood was pulled so far forward only her chin was visible, and she was curled up into a teeny tiny little ball.
Forty-five minutes later, after leaving the Vale Transportation Hub and finding a hole in the wall motel near the red-light district to stash her clothing, Blake moved as stealthily as possible through a rat's nest of red-bricked alleyways as she actively sought out trouble. She observed the local thugs and gangsters peddling their wares on every street corner. She watched a seemingly never-ending tide of U-haul-esque trucks moving up and down the street, and she scrutinized the heavily armed people that were sitting at the wheel. She studied the lines of sketchy street-vendors and unhygienic food stalls that butted up against each other on both sides of every street.
And then she saw a blond teenaged boy nab an apple from a stall, all while being stalked by two plain-clothes Policemen.
With a sigh and a shake of her head, Blake instantly dashed out of the alleyway that she was hiding within, slammed her shoulder into the side of the blond boy's back, wrapped his forearm within a section of her chain scythe, and then yanked him down the alleyway on the other side of the street.
Within one instant and the next, the blonde boy disappeared from within the congested foot traffic filling the street, and the Police officers were left scratching their heads in confusion.
Halfway down the alleyway, hidden behind a trio of stacked boxes, Blake pointed her finger towards the two Policemen, because the blond boy standing in front of her was squaring up for a fight. Then, after seeing the light of recognition growing in his eyes, she immediately started running towards a conveniently located fire escape.
"My name's Sun, I'm a Hunter trainee from Haven Academy," the boy called out as he reached out towards Blake's retreating back.
"Don't care," Blake called back as she wall-jumped off of the brick under the fire escape, just barely caught the bottom rung of its ladder, and then swung herself up onto the metal catwalk above. Then she gaped in surprise as the newly named Sun followed her onto the stairs by using his tail as an appendage while running up a nearby drain-pipe.
"So, I'm new here… Let's be friends," Sun continued in an incredibly casual tone of voice.
"I'm not friendly, I'm not a local, and I have important business to attend to," Blake called back as she sprinted up the stairs to the roof and started leaping from building to building.
"Let me help you then. I owe you a favor," Sun exclaimed as he kept pace just a few meters behind Blake's back.
Sliding to a stop, Blake suddenly pulled out Gambol Shroud in its katana form and then pointed it in the direction of Sun's face. "Let me make myself very, VERY clear… I don't know you, I don't trust you, and I don't want to spend time with you."
"So you're another one of those super prickly White Fang types then," Sun finally guessed with a hugely disappointed sigh. Then he yelped in surprise when Blake's sword instantly pierced into a brick chimney over his right shoulder and Blake was studying his neck with a knife pressed up against his jugular.
"Not a long-standing member that I recognize and no sign of the tattoo," Blake finally breathed out. "Tell me EXACTLY where you encountered the White Fang."
"I 'ran into' a super uptight and hostile deer faunus with a pale-white Beowulf tattoo on her neck after I disembarked from a ship near dock forty-two," Sun immediately explained in a rapid jumble of words. "After noticing that I was a faunus just like her, the girl finally sheathed the shotgun-mace that she was aiming at my face. Then she told me to either get lost… or get dead."
"White-tat, Dock number forty-two," Blake repeated to herself even as she yanked her sword from within the brick. "Thank you, I'm sorry, and goodbye."
"You're not a Fang member then," Sun realized, as he started following Blake again. "You're a vigilante."
"If I was a vigilante, I'd have broken your legs for stealing that apple," Blake countered with a sigh. "For reasons of my own that I have zero intention of sharing with you, I'm about to do something very, very dangerous, which is why you need to back - the - hell - off…"
"You're cute and you kept me from getting arrested, so I think I'm gonna tag along for a bit," Sun immediately decided with a wide and carefree smile upon his face, and his right hand tapping at a pair of pistol-nunchucks (or gunchucks) that were holstered at his waist.
"I'm a lesbian, and I'd rather you mind your own business," Blake called back as she suddenly took off again, roof hopping in the direction of Vale's seediest harbor district. Although she moved as quickly as she could in an attempt to leave the boy behind, his monkey traits made parkour as easy as breathing, and he kept up with her with almost comical ease…
Within just the next thirty minutes, Blake and Sun were laying on their bellies on top of a dock-side warehouse, where they were spying on the movements of a small group of recently recruited White Fang members... These members, in turn, appeared to be keeping a lookout on dock number forty-five, the many, MANY crates of Dust that were resting within its walls, and the mundane looking Security team that was patrolling around the perimeter.
"Sooo, uhhh… Are you a gold-star lesbian… or are you open to negotiation," Sun suddenly asked, his whispered words shattering the stony-silence blanketing the rooftop.
"Oh thank Oum," Blake breathed out in reply, as just a single instant later she FINALLY saw a pair of suspiciously fast moving bullhead VTOLs flying in their direction from over Lake Vale, where they rapidly started dropping in towards the dockyard.
In what Blake would begrudgingly call a fortunate series of events, she'd managed to locate the White Fang that were operating in Vale in less than four hour's time.
With the roar of downwards facing Dust-jets, and an expanding cloud of debris, the bullheads settled down onto the concrete and rebar dock, before a duo of drop-bay doors slipped away from their fuselages and slammed into the ground. Then a ten strong Platoon of low level White Fang soldiers sprinted out of the airships, where they rapidly (and violently) subdued the shipyard's hapless Security team, and began moving to crack open the containers of Dust.
While Blake did wince at the violence being perpetrated on the dockyard's Security team, she also didn't move to intervene. She knew how the Fang operated after all... First the low level grunts sweep the area for threats, then the leadership enters the scene to smooth over any surprises…
Well, Blake intended to BE the surprise this time, so she needed to wait until the time was right to act.
"Hey… What's the hold-up," a human man with a cane, a white suit-jacket and a black bowler-hat suddenly called out as he strolled down the drop-bay ramp below the right-side airship. "We're not exactly the most inconspicuous of thieves at the moment, so why don't you animals try to pick up the pace!"
"This is wrong," Blake breathed out in her confusion and shock. "The White Fang would NEVER work with a human, especially not now, especially not with someone like him…"
Crack! Slam!
All of the sudden, a petite woman fashionably dressed in a mixed brown and pink motif was defending the white-suited man from a White Fang operative that just FLEW down from the sky. The White Fang member, a well-built man with honest to Oum bat wings sprouting from his back, was bearing down upon the much smaller woman with his Dust torch-sword raised, and the woman was holding him back with what appeared to be… an umbrella…
"This is really freaking bad," Blake whispered, as a bead of sweat suddenly grew into place on her scalp. "That's Yuma, an elite White Fang assassin, which can only mean…"
Blake's thoughts were briefly interrupted as the situation below grew increasingly volatile...
"Roman Torchwick, you disgusting piece of trash… If you don't learn to respect your betters ASAP, you won't survive to receive the blood-money you're betraying your species for," a gray-haired, female, White Fang operative called out towards the white-suited man, as she moved up behind her teammate Yuma. "The entire reason that Red-Tats like us even EXIST, is to make IGNORANT FUCKING WRETCHES, such as yourself… disappear… So please, please… give me a reason!"
"Sun, roll to the right HARD and then run away, NOW," Blake instantly barked out directly into Sun Wukong's ear even as she slammed her hand down onto the cement in between their bodies to launch herself into a rapid sideways roll.
In that instant, Blake Belladonna knew without a single shadow of a doubt that she was currently under attack. Yuma the bat faunus and Trifa the spider faunus were unbelievably skilled and professional White Fang operatives, which meant that they NEVER entered a situation without a pair of eyes already on the ground…
And those eyes on the ground, the Red-Tat's infiltration slash reconnaissance specialist, was the very last person in all of Remnant that Blake wanted to deal with right now.
Crack, sizzle, hiss, grunt!
At exactly the same time that Blake frantically started rolling her body to the left, a slender, auburn-haired woman aura-dashed out from the shadows where her body had been all but
Invisible. As a result, the yellow-Dust fueled sword attack that she slammed down into the roof where Blake had been laying caught Sun on the left shoulder instead, and then discharged a high-voltage current of electricity into his aura-shrouded body. Even with his aura blocking the very worst of the electrical damage that he was receiving, Sun immediately stiffened up as his nervous system went completely haywire, and then he was launched clear off of the roof by the woman's follow-up field-goal kick.
"Fuck, shit, no," Blake cursed as she bounced up to her feet, rapidly unsheathed Gambol Shroud, and just barely managed to deflect another attack aimed towards her face. "Ilia, please stop! I don't want to fight you, and that boy has nothing to do with this!"
Ilia Amatolia, the third and final member of the White Fang's newest and most versatile Red Tat assassin squad, hissed like an enraged serpent, as she whipped her sword back and forth and lashed out with several highly agile kicks. "You should've stayed away, traitor! You should've disappeared, but you didn't!.. Instead, you allowed the entire Fang to catch you cozying up to the enemy!"
"By saving those people, I've proven that faunus and humans can work together," Blake loudly countered, after flashing out of existence, reappearing on the other side of Ilia's attacks, slamming her katana into the woman's aura-armored thigh, and then leaping away from a blisteringly fast counter-attack.
"You made yourself subservient to an ATLESIAN NOBLE," Ilia barked as she twirled to regain her balance, and then sprinted in Blake's direction with her sword pointed like a joust. "You followed that Arc boy's orders! You came when he called like a pet!"
"I helped him protect the weak and innocent," Blake argued even as she intercepted another triplet of electrically-charged attacks with her sword, dodged an elbow to the face, and then knee'd Ilia in the chest hard enough to launch the woman several meters away… "Now more than ever, I'm convinced that I made the right decision! I won't punish the vast majority of people over decisions being made by the one percent! I won't help prove that true, lasting peace is completely impossible!"
"Stop spouting such idealistic bullshit," Ilia screamed at the top of her lungs as she discharged another arc of electricity out through her sword-whip that split apart a concrete pillar at Blake's retreating back. "You used to see things the exact same way that I do!.. The exact same way that Adam does!.. You know better than ANYONE, after all… If no one's going to stop the human's that are ENSLAVING us, then the only choice that we have left, is to destroy them!"
After cartwheeling over a slash attack, deflecting yet another whiplike sword sweep aimed at her face, and then launching a counter riposte that forced Ilia to leap away again, Blake slid to a stop at the very edge of the warehouse roof, and then glanced down towards the shipyard below.
And what Blake saw down there didn't look promising in the slightest.
A newly returned to his feet Sun Wukong was currently being surrounded by the ten White Fang members, with Yuma and Trifa squaring up across from each other on both his right and left sides. Off in the distance, Torchwick and the pink themed woman were using a pair of grav-sleds to move containers of Dust into the drop-bay of their bullhead.
After ending her split second glance down towards the shipyard, Blake returned her attention to her longtime friend slash recent enemy, adopted a sad but resolute expression upon her face, and then shrugged her shoulders in a helpless fashion…. "Yes, Ilia… You're right… Not so long ago, I would've died for the cause, I'd have died for the Fang… but I refuse to become a murderer for them… so I guess this is goodbye…"
In the split second following Blake's (purely metaphorical) goodbye, she allowed her body to fall backwards off of the roof with her legs held straight and her upper body relaxed, and she plummeted away from the roof just in time to see a burning yellow whip-sword scream through the air just inches above her face... Then she was kicking off of the side of the warehouse wall in order to dive outwards towards the shipyard below, was rolling her body through an extremely acrobatic crash landing on the concrete, and was bouncing back up to her feet at Sun Wukong's side.
"I KNEW you weren't a gold-star," Sun immediately called out, as if Blake joining him was a romantic gesture of some kind.
"My joining you is a moral obligation, Sun, not a love confession," Blake growled back even as she squared up at Sun's back and raised her sword in a defensive position.
"You should've just lied, because at this point, I don't think it'll make a difference," Sun pointed out as he looked up towards the sky… "I mean, I'm pretty sure… we're boned…"
"Yes, well… You are kind of cute… I guess," Blake slowly amended, as Ilia dropped to the concrete at the base of the warehouse, another five bullhead VTOLs descended from the sky to aim their weapon systems down at them from above, another thirty White Fang members repelled down to join the soldier's that were ringing them on every side, and the noose around their necks tightened up in the extreme.
"Now that's more like it," Sun enthused, as if his rapidly decreasing chances of survival were completely immaterial.
No one else present within the shipyard thought Sun's irreverent banter was amusing in the slightest… Beyond the thick ring of Fang soldiers, Yuma and Trifa stared at Blake with white-hot hatred in their eyes, and Ilia looked as if she was just seconds away from exploding… The moment was electrically charged. It was stifling.
And then it was over.
With a single whistled command from Yuma, every single White Fang grunt in the shipyard exploded into movement, dashing in towards Blake and Sun at exactly the same time with their rifle-chainsaws raised above their heads… Then they were all blasted backwards again, by a pair of roundhouse kicks that led into a series of attacks.
Gambol Shroud, Blake's variable-chain-scythe-katana was a blur of twining blades and firing Dust that left all of the low level goons that were approaching her ragdolling away from her in every direction. At her back Sun Wukong was a similarly talented fighter, casting an impossible to track barrage of Dust rounds out of his rapidly spinning nunchucks.
But the goon level fighters were never intended to be the people who take Blake out, as Yuma, Trifa and Ilia knew exactly what she was capable of. No… The goons were merely a distraction as the three of them moved in for the kill.
And Blake knew it.
"We need to break free," Blake called out to Sun, even as she ducked a trio of chainsaw swipes, clocked the closest woman in the jaw, wrapped her chains around the woman's wrist, and then bodily threw her into the other two attackers stacked behind her with every scrap of her aura bolstered strength.
"I'm open to options if you have them, but I'm a little preoccupied with NOT DYING at the moment," Sun immediately responded in a voice that was so damned laid-back, Blake realized something just by hearing it… Sun Wukong's demeanor of calm, casual, confidence was an affectation that he was adopting. It was a suit of armor that he clung to even tighter when things started getting rough… His relaxed attitude was nothing more than a front… and the boy was completely freaking out…
Shit.
Truth be told, Blake Belladonna was accepting of the metaphorical masks people tend to hide their true selves behind, as she wore more of them than most people could possibly imagine… but at the moment what she needed most from her teammate was…. Hope… Real, solid, stirring, meaningful hope… and while she knew that she should provide that particular emotion for herself, and that only she could fully resolve her problems with the Fang, she also knew what she truly wanted deep inside…
"Jaune."
The whispered name just barely slipped past Blake's lips, as she tossed a soldier to the side, caught sight of a band of webbing flying in her direction, and was far too late to avoid it in time. Even after using her Semblance to dodge the very worst of Trifa's attack, Gambol Shroud's mechashifting ability was hindered by the silky gunk that had just slapped onto its side, and Blake's offensive ability was diminished in the extreme.
At exactly the same time, Sun Wukong started receiving a series of sword stabs that were punching in under the attacking soldier's arms and legs as if their bodies weren't an obstacle in the slightest. Yuma, the person launching all of these stabbing attacks, had an echolocation Semblance that allowed him an absurd amount of spacial awareness, and this awareness allowed him to avoid slicing into his goons as he quickly cut away at Sun Wukong's aura field.
Blake hopped over a pool of webbing that Trifa splashed down at her feet even as she blocked a powerful sword sweep from Ilia, with the end result being that her body was slammed back against Sun's. Then Blake was popping out of existence to avoid another current of electricity being released from the tip of Ilia's sword, Sun was far too busy blocking the soldier's chainsaw-rifles to effectively deflect away the tip of Yuma's sword, and the both of them started running out of the room that they needed to move.
Even as she took an electrically charged sword slash to the ribs from Ilia and then a follow up knife slash to the right forearm from Trifa, Blake screwed up her focus and then forced herself to move even faster! She'd fought her way through worse situations than this in the past! She'd do so again!.. All she had to do was survive long enough for her circumstances to change, for an opening to appear…
As if such a convenient thing was ever going to happen.
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee!
All of the sudden, the ear splitting screech of metal being torn away from metal filled the entire shipyard, everyone looked up towards the source of the noise… and then they flinched at what they saw happening directly above their heads.
The gigantic dockside crane used to unload full-sized container ships had been sliced apart about halfway up its length, the top half was toppling down onto the shipyard like a massive metal cross, and it was about to shred everyone beneath it within an explosion of debris.
And hanging onto the cockpit of the enormous falling structure was a black-haired, black-suited man holding a glowing green sword in his hand.
"Get low below the cockpit, NOW," the black super-tech suited man screamed out, even as the Fang soldiers, Yuma, Ilia and Trifa all ran or leapt away from the falling metal machine.
Blake never even hesitated. Not even for a second.
Long before Sun could even begin running away from the massive falling crane, Blake grabbed the back of his shirt, yanked him clear off of his feet, and then bodily hauled him down to the ground where the cockpit was about to land… Then she watched with a mouth hanging open as time seemed to slow down, and paradoxically, Jaune's body sped up into a blur of frenetic movement.
Within just a second or two at the most, Jaune flipped his body underneath the falling crane's cockpit, pointed his neon-green sword up towards the sky, and then delivered two swift and efficient cuts that melted through its metal cross-beams as if they were made of butter. Between one instant and the next, Jaune had cut the crane into four separate pieces with a sword that was shooting a burning green beam of pure aura-energy up into the sky.. Next, Blake saw Jaune claw his way up in between the four newly separated segments of crane, and then heave all of them outwards in every direction with an unnatural level of strength, creating an expanding safe-zone in the middle right where his body was about to land.
In the split-seconds that followed, Jaune's feet pounded a pair of craters into the concrete ground just half a meter away from Blake's head, the rest of the newly sliced up crane slammed down into the ground in a wide circle around their bodies, an explosion of dust and debris began flying outwards in every direction, and Jaune was reaching down towards Blake's body.
"Both of you, grab onto me wherever you can! We're moving, NOW!
Before Jaune even finished yelling out his words, Blake was scrambling up onto his back, leaving Jaune to hoist Sun up by his shoulder when the boy failed to do the same. Then the three of them were soaring up into the sky, as a shining green laser-sword levitated them up and out of the billowing cloud of debris.
Not even five seconds later, Blake, Sun and Jaune were joining Penny atop the same warehouse from earlier, Jaune was releasing the green sword that he'd been holding in order to unsheathe his own weapons, and the warbling sounds of rapidly approaching sirens could be heard off in the distance. It appeared the Vale Police force was taking an interest in the gunfire, explosions and green laser-fire that was originating from the docks.
"You're incredible Penny and that was perfect," Jaune called out to the orangey-red haired girl, before pointing at the various Bullheads hovering over their heads. "Bring them down, Penny. We need to prevent the Fang from taking off with all the Dust."
As if in response to Jaune's words, the Bullheads' suddenly started firing all of their Dust-cannons in their direction, forcing them all to dodge out of the way of a steady stream of bullets. An attack that Penny retaliated against, when a series of neon-green swords grew out from her hands, and then a barrage of laser fire streamed up into the sky. Within the next ten seconds, a bullhead lost a wing and plummeted from the sky, a second bullhead lost a chunk of its fuselage, and the rest of the VTOL's began to pull away.
"I don't want you to make an enemy of the Fang," Blake called out even as she rolled, flipped and cartwheeled her way towards Jaune and the far side of the roof. "I came here to get noticed for a REASON!"
"Yes, I know, I understand," Jaune yelled back even as he watched Torchwick's airship just barely escape from Penny's laser fire. "You're a faunus, you're ex-Fang, and you're trying to draw attention to yourself to protect your Platoon… I get it Blake, I do… but I refuse to let it happen!."
Very suddenly and very thoroughly, Blake knew two things with a picture perfect clarity… Jaune Arc knew EXACTLY who and what she was, and he'd been tracking her every move all damned week using Penny's technical voodoo… That set of circumstances was the only one that made any sense, after all. She'd only been missing from Beacon for four hours now, and yet Jaune had already managed to track her to the most obscure part of Vale's dockside slum.
And with that realization, Blake Belladonna began aura-dashing in Jaune's direction, the man stared back at her with a resigned expression upon his face, and he allowed the black matte material covering his jaw to slip down around his neck.
Crack, boom, rattle, clatter!
After being powerfully roundhouse kicked directly in the face, Jaune's body crashed into and then through the wall of a nearby rooftop shed, leaving him crouching within a pile of loosened bricks and newly torn up metal siding.
"I'm going to cooperate with you, FOR NOW, because I owe you my life, but you have a LOT of explaining to do," Blake screamed as she stormed up to the destroyed shed and yanked Jaune back up to his feet.
"Thank you for being so reasonable," Jaune immediately agreed.
"Are they… friends," Sun suddenly asked Penny, who merely smiled as her laser-swords continued to launch her aura towards a trio of retreating bullheads. Since she only had about one-third the aura capacity that Jaune did (still an extremely impressive amount of aura), she was currently down to about fifteen percent capacity, but she'd succeeded in the task that was given to her, so she was quite pleased with herself nonetheless.
But then Penny caught sight of Ilia, Yuma and Trifa landing atop a nearby warehouse roof and running in their direction, and she looked to Jaune for guidance. She wasn't going to be able to spam aura beams at these guys like she had been up til now... They were going to need to fight more conventionally.
After nodding his understanding of Penny's nonverbal communication, Jaune quickly turned his attention towards the blond boy and nodded his head in greeting. "Your name's Sun, right?... Is your Semblance suited to front-line or back?"
"It's Sun Wukong… I'm better suited to back row," Sun slowly, somewhat cagily admitted.
"Stand behind Penny then, as she's an excellent midrange defender," Jaune suggested as he and Blake stepped forward as the fighter and the tank. "What can you tell me about these guys, Blake?"
After tearing Trifa's spider-webbing away from Gambol Shroud, Blake raised the weapon up in front of her body, and then drew in a very deep breath. "Yuma, their leader, the bat faunus on the left, can fly short distances and has an ear piercing shriek that pairs well with his echolocation abilities, Trifa, the extremely dangerous spider faunus in the middle, can create webbing, and can coat her weapons within a layer of poisonous aura, and Ilia, the chameleon faunus on the right, can camouflage herself almost perfectly."
With a nod and a shake of his sword arm, Jaune decided to continue acting like the leader, despite the fact Blake was pissed off at him and Sun noticeably didn't trust him… "Penny, please use your Semblance to keep track of the chameleon girl's movements for us, Blake and Sun, wherever possible please fight Trifa as a team to reduce the risk of being poisoned, and I'll try to focus on Yuma since my suit can protect my ears… Oh, and while we're fighting, please keep the shit-talking to a minimum. I want to see if these Fang Officers can be… negotiated with."
"They can't," Blake immediately warned, as she, Jaune, Sun and Penny formed up at the edge of their warehouse's roof with weapons at the ready. "Yuma and Trifa are especially fanatical, like cultists, and they DON'T condone desertion."
"They're upper echelon operatives though, which means that they must be loyal to the Fang's best interests," Jaune stated with just a hint of inquiry in his voice.
"Yes, but their idea of what's in the Fang's 'best interests' would completely horrify you," Blake whispered as she watched Yuma, Trifa, and Ilia line up across from them atop the adjoining warehouse.
Jaune merely nodded, as he could see a familiar light of fanaticism glowing in these Fang Officers' eyes, and he knew exactly what he was looking at… No act, no crime would be too great for Yuma and Trifa of the Fang… Ilia actually looked conflicted in the extreme, but since she wasn't the leader of the trio, she wasn't his concern.
Then the three Fang operatives were aura leaping over the gap between the two warehouses, Trifa was releasing a dozen bands of thick, sticky webbing down at Jaune's group from above, they were forced to give way allowing the Fang group to land, and Ilia immediately disappeared as she activated her Semblance.
"Give us the deserter's head, NOW, or face the wrath of the Fang," Yuma barked out, his voice slamming against Jaune's newly shielded ears even as his sword slammed into his rifle-shield. "We know exactly where you live, Jaune Arc, and we're not afraid to make… house-calls."
"Murdering Blake won't just deter your current members from defecting… it'll also deter the normal faunus population from deciding to join your ranks," Jaune immediately pointed out, even as he channeled aura throughout his brain to speed up his cognition. "If you assassinate Blake, it'll do FAR more damage to your organization than it could POSSIBLY do you good."
"Your argument only carries weight if any of you survive long enough to provide proof," Trifa snarled as she was confronted by Blake and two glowing yellow clones of Sun Wukong, and her knives began glowing a sickly yellow-green.
"Well… You're half right," Jaune allowed after breaking away from an inhumanly fast barrage of sword slashes, deflections, counters and counter-counters that had him and Yuma spinning around in a series of frantic circles. Then he was pointing his rifle-shield hand up towards a tall building about four-hundred meters behind himself, and a shit-eating grin was forming upon his face as a series of camera flashes lit up a top floor window. "The part that you three are forgetting, is the fact that I have a ton of money, manpower and resources to call upon... For instance, I currently have a vassal with an incredibly sophisticated holo-camera filming absolutely everything that's happening here, and I've been live-streaming the audio of this event the whole entire time… The White fang will NOT simply murder Blake… At least, not without every civilian faunus on all of Remnant finding out exactly why…"
"The Fang is REVOLUTION," Trifa instantly barked out, as a purple vein in her chest visibly throbbed with her rising anger, a powerful stream of webbing consumed both of Sun Wukong's clones, and her knife sliced through an afterimage of Blake's neck. "We have no NEED for such weak willed and undeserving faunus!"
"According to my informants, there are three separate White Fang recruitment events happening tonight alone throughout the slum areas of Vale," Jaune loudly countered, while increasing his reactive armor up from fifty percent up to seventy-five. "Tell me again that you don't need the people, Trifa! Tell me again that these new recruits aren't completely vital to the White Fang's future!..." Along with his words, Jaune suddenly lashed out at speeds that he'd never displayed so far tonight, slamming aside Yuma's sword with his own, grabbing a hold of the man's wing where it meets his shoulder, wrapping his other hand around the man's bicep, and then yanking the two limbs apart with every scrap of his armor bolstered strength.
Pop! Grunt!
After dislocating Yuma's shoulder and viciously tearing the ligament in his wing, Jaune reeled back and front kicked the man hard enough that Trifa almost fell off the roof when she caught him in the air.
After dropping Yuma back on his feet, Trifa started crouching to leap in Jaune's direction, but then she was stopped when Yuma pressed his uninjured hand down upon her shoulder... "Mr. Arc," he said in a hiss of anger and pain. "You are making yourself a NUISANCE to our cause. You're going to… regret… this decision.
"A GRIMM WAR IS COMING," Jaune immediately yelled back rather than addressing Yuma's threat. "Human's and faunus need to find the equality that the Fang used to STAND FOR! It absolutely MUST happen if we're all going to survive!"
Even as Jaune finished yelling those words, Ilia dashed in to stab and then electrocute him from behind… At which point a trio of incredibly powerful laser-beams suddenly slammed into her right shoulder, ribs and thigh, cutting away almost all of her aura in a single devastating attack before launching her clear across the roof to land at her teammates' feet.
Jaune had been right after all... With Penny's infra-red vision allowing her to see Ilia's body-heat as a red and orange silhouette, the orangette had known exactly where the invisible woman was the entire time she spent skulking across the roof, which is why she'd waited for the perfect time to use the last of her expendable aura. The fact that the perfect moment came while the woman was trying to stab her brother in the back, only made the success of her attack all the sweeter…
Long story short, Penny Polendina was smiling from ear to ear as she wobbled weakly up to Jaune's left side and felt the man slide his shield bearing hand up the length of her back. Then she released an involuntary gasp through a pair of newly slack jawed lips, her glowing green eyes widened to the size of saucers, her back arched like a bow, her hands lifted out at her sides, and a dozen brilliantly bright laser-swords exploded into being above her upraised palms.
As planned, Jaune had just refilled Penny's aura capacity, but even she hadn't known that her brother could completely energize her within just six or seven seconds. It was remarkable, and exciting, and it felt so, so sooooo freaking GOOD!... On the other hand, it also left Jaune himself with just a few minutes remaining with his reactive armor maintained at approximately fifty percent power… Penny knew that her laser-swords were being used as the big and flashy deterrent at the moment, and that their presence would help Jaune be as persuasive as possible, but the man was going to need to act quickly, or he was going to drop from aura exhaustion.
"The four of us have the advantage here, Yuma," Jaune calmly pointed out, as if he wasn't soaked with sweat and subtly trembling as a result of rapid aura depletion. "The fact of the matter is, I could destroy all three of you right here, right now, merely by keeping you here for the Police to fill with holes... but if I do that, then more Red-Tat squads will follow your lead… Instead, I'd like you three to deliver a message for me. If you, or any of your compatriots attack my friends, my school, or myself, I will submit the holo-footage that I've collected here tonight to every single news network, view-tube channel, holo-cast and radio station on all of Remnant, and then I'll begin using my vast resources to make you regret forcing my hand… Let me be as clear as possible… You will stay away from Blake Belladonna, or you will suffer the consequences."
After popping his arm back into its socket and failing to move his newly damaged wing, Yuma spat in Jaune's direction and then sheathed his Dust-torch-sword. "You Atlesian Nobles disgust me… Always plotting. Always maneuvering. Always seeking advantage over the strong!"
"You're not wrong about Atlesian Nobles... or me," Jaune calmly admitted with a small shrug of his shoulders... "I want you to give this idea some thought, however.. What if, in your desperation to destroy your human oppressors, you were to ally yourselves with the Creatures Of The Grimm, the most inherently evil existence on the face of the planet… If that were to happen, what would that alliance say about your mental health or spiritual well-being?
Jaune watched the three assassins very carefully the entire time that he described his newest half-baked theory… and sure enough, he learned quite a bit in the process.
-Yuma's eyes shook for just an instant in his surprise, but not because of how galling he thought Jaune's wild idea was, but rather because Jaune was way too close for comfort.
-Trifa was furious for exactly the same reasons, which he could see in the way that her knuckles were clenching white at her sides.
-Ilia looked completely appalled, which could only mean that she had no freaking clue what Jaune was even talking about…
Very, very interesting.
"We will indeed send your message to our superiors, but we'll also be putting out the word that YOU, Mr. Arc, need to have an… accident… at the very first opportunity." With his death threat delivered, Yuma gestured for his two teammates to follow his lead, and then he aura-leapt in the direction of the shipyard and the Lake.
An instant later, both Trifa and Ilia were careening off the side of the warehouse roof and melting into the darkness…
In the wake of the Red-Tat's departure, Blake slowly turned in Jaune's direction and then gawked at the newly unarmored, sweat-damped man with a mouth hanging open.
"The Police are coming. We're running out of time," Sun suddenly pointed out after curling a hand around Blake's forearm near her wrist.
Sure enough, the Vale Police were entering the shipyard, which meant that it was time to go unless they wanted to answer a quarter-million exceptionally hard to answer questions.
Without another word, Jaune, Blake, Penny and Sun aura-leapt off of the building and then parkoured their way out of the slums.
A full hour of sneaking, skulking, backtracking, loop-de-looping, and trail-concealing later, Jaune, Blake, Penny and Sun finally arrived at Blake's run-down little motel, with no signs of anybody tracking their movements. While at first, Jaune had thought about taking Blake to his newly refurbished Garage where they could all be much more comfortable, he didn't intend to take Sun Wukong, someone that he didn't know or trust, to one of his secret bolt-hole properties. This was a problem because Sun Wukong was acting very solicitous and defensive of Blake for reasons that were completely obvious, and Blake didn't appear willing to tell the boy to scram.
With that much in mind, Jaune sat down in a small armchair next to an equally small card/drink table to the right of the motel room bed, nodded at Penny when she sat on the other side of the table, and then turned his attention to the bed where Blake and Sun were sitting cross legged,
"How much do you know about me, when did you find out, why are you tracking my movements, and by what means are you tracking me," Blake suddenly rattled off all at once.
In the wake of Blake's questions, Sun started glaring at Jaune, as he immediately jumped to some pretty alarming (if not entirely unjustified) conclusions.
Jaune merely nodded his head at Blake's very sensible questions, and then leaned back in his chair as he drew in a deep breath. "You, Blake Belladonna, are the daughter of Ghira Belladonna, the old leader of the much more pacifistic White Fang, and according to the Atlesian Military's records, you're suspected of being a member of the current White Fang Terrorist Group… A fact that was brought to my attention on Sunday afternoon…"
"So you've been tracking me all week because you found out who I am, and you're suspicious of me," Blake sighed out as she curled into a tight little ball, and stared down at her knees with a truly remote expression upon her face.
By this point, Sun Wukong was grinding his teeth as he clearly had no interest in remaining even the slightest bit impartial.
"No, I'd trust you with my life, Blake," Jaune disagreed in a quiet but meaningful tone of voice.
"Blake, listen," Penny continued immediately after Jaune finished speaking. "You've felt Jaune's aura every single time he's repaired your torn up muscles this past week. He can't hide his true feelings from you during that process. His opinions are right there for you to feel with your body…"
In the seconds that followed Penny's words, the little ball that Blake was forming atop the bed loosened up quite a bit, and her golden hued eyes reappeared from underneath her bangs.
"Wait!... Whether or not Jaune TRUSTS YOU is the part of this that you were most worried about? What about the fact that the boy's been STALKING YOU ALL WEEK," Sun loudly questioned in an incredulous tone of voice.
Due mostly to the fact that Sun was right on the money, Blake didn't know how to respond to his question. She merely shrugged at the boy before turning back towards Jaune and staring at his face with an unblinking intensity. The man had only answered two of her questions, after all...
"I can't in good conscience tell you why every single one of the ribbons that you own currently contains an exceptionally sophisticated tracking nanite," Jaune admitted in an extremely serious voice. "I can only tell you that these nanites have NOTHING to do with a lack of trust, nor are they an attempt to stalk you throughout the school…"
Can you believe this guy," Sun breathed out in an increasingly frustrated tone of voice.
"I do believe him," Blake breathed out, in just the tiniest little whisper. "What I want to know more than anything is… Why is he… sorry… Why are you, Jaune, putting yourself at risk for me?" By the time Blake finished choking out her question, the woman was squirming left and right atop the mattress, as if making herself vulnerable was hurting her physically.
After blinking his surprise for several seconds in a row, Jaune shook out his head, crouched on the floor next to the bed, crossed his arms on the mattress near Blake's calves, and then looked up at her face from below. "I have a few different answers for that question, Blake… First of all, I'm your Platoon Captain so I feel responsible for your health and safety. Then there's the fact that YOU defended ME from MY powerful enemies just last night, so I'm merely returning the favor while establishing a mutually beneficial arrangement. Finally, there's the fact that you've become extremely important to me… a state of affairs that I THOUGHT I was keeping to myself…"
Both Penny and Blake smiled in amusement at that last line, as apparently, up until now, Jaune had no damned clue that he was broadcasting all of his emotions during his aura treatments, and that knowledge was amusing to the both of them.
"I knew she wasn't a gold-star," Sun quietly repeated to himself, as he rose to his feet, and then made for the door. "Well, that was fun guys, but I better make trails…"
"It was good to meet you, Sun," Blake called out in an ultra-friendly and laid-back voice, as the blond boy waved over his shoulder and then exited out the door. Then she turned back towards Jaune and Penny, only to find them looking at her with a pair of odd expressions on their faces.
"Weird," Penny began in a speculative tone of voice.
"First she was honest and vulnerable, now… she's being bubbly and friendly," Jaune confirmed.
"Oh, wow yeah! Now that you mention it, I feel…" At the tail end of those words, Blake suddenly wobbled atop the bed, before leaning forward in her ball, draping her arms atop Jaune's shoulders and resting her chin atop his head. "I feel loose, dizzy, and euphoric, but the euphoria might be because you came… You came for me… You don't want me to leave. I don't have to be alone… I tried to stay angry at you just now. I tried to focus on the way that you've invaded my privacy... but I… can't do it… I'm just so… relieved."
"The woman's under the influence of something for sure," Penny quietly pointed out as she rose up from her chair, kneeled atop the bed, placed a hand on the side of Blake's neck, released several hundred thousand nanites into her skin and soft tissues, and then started scanning her body at the cellular level. "It's… not a drug that I can pick up within her bloodstream, nor is she sick with any virus or bacteria beyond trace amounts of the usual suspects…"
"It's an aura effect then," Jaune surmised before his eyes suddenly widened and he gently withdrew himself from under Blake's arms. " Blake… Did Trifa manage to cut you earlier?"
"I received a knife slash to the right forearm," Blake immediately admitted as she curled up with her chin on her knees. "But I still had about three-quarters of my aura remaining at the time, and I've heard that Trifa's poison Semblance can only take root when your levels are low."
"What are the symptoms of the woman's poison," Jaune asked in a carefully calm and casual tone of voice.
"Loss of motor control, judgment and inhibitions like a powerful narcotic, followed by loss of consciousness, decreased brain activity… and death," Blake breathed out in a loopy little voice. "If it actually took hold, I'd be dead by now…"
After looking aside at Penny, Jaune saw that the two of them were on exactly the same page. Blake did, in fact, get poisoned by Trifa's Semblance, which was quite a bit more lethal than the spider-faunus was allowing people to know about, but it took much longer to come into effect because Blake wasn't aura depleted at the time.
"Blake," Jaune began while lifting up Blake's limp and languid form in a princess carry, and drawing her up towards the headboard of the bed. "I'm about to be a little bit… affectionate with you. I'm going to sit you down here between my legs, I'm going to hug you from behind, and then I'm going to tell you a story while performing an aura treatment upon your body."
Even as Jaune said those words, he sat down against the bed's headboard, settled Blake down between his thighs so that she was leaning back against his chest, slid both of his hands up under the woman's black, under-bust corset from behind, and then flattened out his palms against her nonexistent little belly. Then he felt goosebumps grow across his skin, as Blake lay her head atop his right shoulder, nuzzled her cheek into his neck (like a cat), and started rubbing both of his forearms within a pair of fussy hands…
GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME, Jaune mentally screamed at himself, as his body shivered and his hair stood on end. The only reason that he and Blake were sitting in this position at all was because he wanted to keep the woman sitting in an upright position! He wanted to keep her conscious and interacting with him for as long as physically possible!
"I'll tell the story, Jaune, so you focus on the treatment," Penny offered as she cat-crawled up the bed and then sat down cross legged between Blake's wide open legs.
"So you're going to tell me why you put nanites in my bows," Blake breathily asked, proving once again that she was a very, VERY sharp-witted young woman.
"Yes, Blake… I am," Penny agreed as she placed a hand upon the woman's knee and stared into her eyes. "You see, Blake, you and I actually have something in common. We're both almost, but not quite, human…"
At this point Penny officially had Blake's undivided attention, as the woman studied the orangette's body, looking for horns, feelers, gills, or some variety of animal trait. A focused sweep of her eyes that came to a shuddering stop when Jaune started releasing his aura into her body through her belly, causing her to shiver, squirm, and release a cute little nyah sound from her newly parted lips.
"You, Blake, as a faunus, are 99.55 percent identical to a garden variety human from a geneticist's perspective, which is close enough for most scientists to view humans and faunus as two variants of the exact same species," Penny continued with the air of a University Professor… "I, on the other hand, am only 99.21 percent human, as my body is genetically tailored to meld perfectly with the nanotechnology and cybernetic components that comprise my skeleton and nervous system… I'm part robot, Blake… I'm a cyborg."
In a bid to prove her point, every holo-screen and scroll within the motel room suddenly displayed Penny's face floating up in the air, and then mirrored her facial expressions as she continued to speak. "When Jaune and I first met in a government funded laboratory deep within an Atlesian military base, I was nothing more than an aura generated artificial consciousness existing within a vast bank of supercomputers…"
"This is… wild," Blake gasped out, as the aura flowing within her body caused her to shake and shiver within Jaune's arms, and Penny's revelation caused her flagging consciousness to snap back into a highly stimulated state. "While I agree that your skin, hair and physique is… eerily flawless… otherwise… you're completely indistinguishable to any other human woman."
While nodding her head in agreement, Penny sidled forward in between Blake's legs, placed her hands atop the woman's violently trembling thighs, and then began telling the black haired woman a story containing the following things:
-Penny's origin as a vast stockpile of data and programming that was granted a soul through the use of both Pietro's Semblance and Jaune's aura
-How Penny's father Pietro utilized titanic amounts of the aura that was stripped away from Jaune in order to fuse her consciousness into a much more streamlined cybernetic consciousness
-How Penny met and then got to know Jaune, when he accidentally broke into Pietro's lab
-How Jaune helped Pietro fabricate, grow, transmute and genetically engineer Penny a (mostly) biological body that was as physically perfected as possible, while still incorporating every system that a normal woman's body would make use of
-How the nanites reproducing within Penny's cybernetic skeleton granted her the choice to either age along with everyone else or remain immortal and unaging for hundreds and hundreds of years
-How Jaune eventually caught on to the fact that Penny was falling in love with him, and then ran away across the Abyssal Ocean so that she wouldn't decide to grow old with him
-How Penny had zero intention of suffering the absence of her brother, which ultimately led her to Vale Colony and Beacon Academy.
-How Penny's Atlesian military programming wanted her to arrest Blake on sight, which she refused to do because she was a person rather than a machine, and she wanted to exercise her own judgment
-How Jaune vouched for Blake when she asked him for help on the matter on Sunday afternoon
-How Jaune's suggestion that she put nanite tracking chips in Blake's ribbons allowed Penny to exist around Blake without having to actively resist the compulsion to arrest her.
-How she was the one who created the light flashes up in the skyscraper near the docks, by turning a bank of holo-monitors on and off with her mind, and how she and Jaune planned to do so from the beginning
By the time Penny was finished explaining everything up to the present, Blake was red-faced, wide-eyed, and gawking at Penny in a way that was causing the orangette to squirm with sudden anxiety.
"A forbidden love… So romantic, so sexy, just like one of my novels," Blake finally panted out with her hands pawing weakly at Jaune's hands where they were releasing increasingly powerful waves of aura into her belly.
"While Jaune does actually view our relationship as a personal failure of some kind because he was trying to resist my charms, the silly boy has actually received my father's blessing already, so the taboo only exists in his mind," Penny immediately supplied.
"Really, REALLY cute," Blake haltingly whimpered, as her head lolled back atop Jaune's shoulder again, and her half-lidded eyes drifted up towards the ceiling.
Taking advantage of the fact that Blake's attention was elsewhere for the moment, Jaune stared at Penny until she noticed his eyes, and then he silently mimed saying the following words… "I'm having some issues fully resolving Blake's problem, as Trifa's Semblance is particularly brutal. The poisonous aura that Trifa releases rapidly devours and replaces her target's aura until they die of aura depletion, and while I've completely replaced all of Blake's aura at this point, I still haven't managed to filter out all of Trifa's… I'm getting better at it though, so… soon, I'll succeed… Please keep Blake occupied in the meantime, as we need to keep her awake and alert, and my focus is going to be elsewhere."
With his silent message delivered, Jaune's eyes suddenly closed, his brow furrowed, and he drew his chin down to the top of Blake's shoulder.
"Let's do the… girl talk stuff," Penny immediately suggested to Blake, after reading Jaune's lips with her facial recognition software running. "Do you like cute boys, Blake? Are you interested in anyone in particular?
"Yes, I like cute boys, but it's… complicated, because as it turns out, I like cute girls just as much," Blake haltingly supplied in a loopy little voice.
"With men being as comparatively rare as they are, strictly hetero females are becoming increasingly uncommon," Penny pointed out with a shrug and a smile. "Personally, I haven't felt an intense pull in that direction, but I will admit all of the women in our Platoon are absolutely gorgeous."
"I'm not attracted to Sun Wukong at all, which I find interesting since he's an extremely good looking guy and I developed a thing for blonde hair this past week," Blake supplied, seemingly oblivious to how revealing her words actually were.
"I like blond hair too," Penny instantly enthused. "While I do think Jaune looks really, REALLY good with black hair, I still think he looked even better back when it was blond."
All of the sudden, Blake's eyes snapped wide open again, her head slowly turned atop Jaune's shoulder so that she could stare at his profile, and then she released an oddly pained sounding moan/groan into the side of his jaw.
"I… I think it's my turn to explain something about myself," Penny hedged in a slightly bashful tone of voice. "Jaune here… He and my father actually DESIGNED my body… and in the process, I always pushed for him to incorporate all of the physical characteristics that he found particularly… arousing... What that means is that I know for a fact that I am EXTREMELY attractive to Jaune Freeman… A level of certainty that prevents me from experiencing one of the uglier and more intrusive human emotions…"
"Jealousy," Blake whimpered, as Jaune's hands pulled her in tight against his chest in his single-minded focus, his aura went wild inside her body in all the best ways possible, and she struggled not to moan in the intensity of her pleasure.
"That's the one," Penny agreed, even as she watched Blake shake, shudder, spastically kick her feet, tightly curl her toes, and rub her hands down both of Jaune's upper-thighs.
"Am I… that… transparent," Blake breathlessly stammered out, when she finally returned to the here and now.
"Well… Not normally, but the events and circumstances surrounding Jaune's life are of extra-special interest to me, so I'm watching, I'm observant, and my ultra-advanced senses can detect the hormones flowing within people's bloodstreams," Penny gently explained. "Jaune is… he's very, very popular…"
"Penny… I'm sorry that my presence is leading danger your way… and that I'm complicating your life in various ways… but… I really do want to stay at Beacon, with the Platoon... with Jaune," Blake sighed out.
Rather than responding using words, Penny sidled forward until she was straddling both Blake and Jaune's thighs, wrapped her arms around both of their bodies, gently pressed her forehead down into the crown of Blake's head, and then smiled when Blake's continuously trembling arms curled around her back in return.
And that was exactly the position that Jaune found himself in when he finally finished drawing the last of Trifa's poison out of Blake's body. He was resting at the bottom of a very warm and thorough hug, and it was comforting enough that he almost passed out right then and there… Within the next two minutes, he allowed his body to slide down onto the bed until his head was laying atop a pillow, he drew a newly unconscious Blake off his lap so that she was curled up at his side, and then he smiled when Penny cat-crawled her way up the length of his body. Soon enough (and mostly because he was completely exhausted), Jaune was out like a light with Penny curled around his waist…
Two Hours Later…
After waking up with a start because of a house-fly that landed upon her arm, Blake took in the poorly painted ceiling above her head, felt the body-heat warming the left side of her body, rolled onto her side to study its source, and then just lay there like that for several minutes in a row.
Jaune Freeman was unconscious and snoozing with Penny Polendina tightly hugging his side, and her adorable little face pressing down into his shoulder... Penny looked so damned happy like that. She looked so freaking comfortable…
She'd left enough room for Blake to do the same.
In a series of slow-paced, careful movements, Blake drew Jaune's arm out straight at his shoulder so that she could rest her head atop his bicep. Next she curled her legs around his right leg, and slid her arms around his ribs. Soon enough, Blake's cheek was laying where Jaune's shoulder meets his chest, her body was pressing flush to his ribs, waist and hip, her calves were cinched tightly around his upper-thigh and knee, and she was snoozing like a baby with a smile upon her face.
To Be Continued
Author's Note:
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