"GIVE ME ANOTHER!"
Elm's voice grated on me. Her face was leaned right over mine as she shouted, and she was looking down with a dangerous smile. I steadied myself and made my move. The steel weights that just barely touched my chest moved again, climbing steadily as the pectorals in my chest burned and twitched from the strain. Blood rushed through my veins and I felt every pump, only to have the feeling renewed when the weight hit the top and I released my breath. I took another and let the weight down slowly, feeling every contraction.
"I KNOW YOU HAVE MORE, ARC! KEEP GOING!" The specialist belted out with excitement. With a sheen of sweat on my skin I obliged.
It's been two weeks since the Strength Serum was administered. The experience was something I'll never forget. I still have brief glimpses of the pain I endured as my genetic codes were amplified by the injection. It felt like magma coursed through every cell in my body, charring them and moving on to the next. After many minutes of suffering through the experience I eventually passed out, and that was for the better. I was out for about a day and when I woke up it was straight to medical evaluations.
The first thing I noticed upon regaining consciousness was a considerable strength increase. At first it seemed uncontrollable, but as the days passed by I figured out how to control myself. Before the first day was over I'd ripped a shower handle off the wall, snapped about twenty forks in half and left handprint depressions in various surfaces all over the Atlesian facilities. There were a series of tests conducted that tested my starting limits, and I can say they were far above what I could have done before. From what I'd gathered during the explanations from Ironwood and Polendina, the changes would come exponentially. So over time I would get even stronger. That honestly blew my mind.
I completed an additional sixteen reps as Elm hovered over me shouting, then called it quits. I rested the weights on my chest briefly before pivoting to sit upright on the flat bench. The 250-pound dumbbells slammed onto the floor of the training room with a loud bang, and I took a second to simply huff after the DB Press. A firm hand smacked my back, and I glanced at the perpetrator.
"Ha! You're getting strong fast, Jaune!" Elm Ederne laughed, smacking my back a few more times as I looked at the offending hand balefully. "I knew you had it in you, though I'm surprised. It took me months before I could touch the 250's… though I was sick initially, wasn't I?"
"That procedure is something else. Before I feel like I would struggle to even grab those." I breathed out, rotating my shoulder and feeling how the well-worked fibers in my chest contorted with the movement.
"Perhaps not, Jupiter. I'm sure your semblance would let you press these prior to the injection with ease!" She teased, slapping my back again for good measure before moving away.
"Jupiter my ass…" I grumbled as she snickered. Despite my efforts, Elm eventually heard of Winter's amusement at the title, and she decided to join in just to tease me. It wasn't all bad though. Her interest in both teasing me and in our matching Serums had her mentoring me over the past two weeks, something that inevitably led to her dragging me to one of the various training rooms.
I've developed a taste for lifting, surprisingly. My enhanced body has taken to it like a fish to water.
"Enough procrastinating, Jaune. We're moving to INCLINES!" She shouted in my ear excitably. I simply scowled at the woman and got a cheeky smile in return.
"I don't know why you waste your time with this guy, Elm." A familiar voice said snottily. I stood from the bench and turned to look, tugging at the stringer my training partner had convinced me to wear. Predictably it was Harriet, leaned against the side of a cable machine and glowering at me with crossed arms. I just quirked an eyebrow at her and she scowled.
"I see this as no waste, Hare. Arc is learning quickly the proper way to strain his muscles with me as his mentor!" Elm touted proudly, puffing up her chest with a toothy smile on her face. "His body is taking well, his strength and control is increasing fast!"
The specialist scoffed before popping up from her leaned position and gestured at me.
"Inflate his ego, why don't you?" She spat, glancing at Elm just to try and wave me away. "So what if he's got the Serum, that still doesn't mean he's worth anything compared to us or any of the Ace Ops."
"You got a problem?" I asked flatly, more or less ignoring the stream of insults and derision. Her eyebrow twitched, and I watched as she locked eyes with me and began stalking towards me. With just a few feet she squared up on me, trying to get in my face despite her short stature. With me towering over her, her face was mere inches from my chest.
"What'd you say, punk?" She ground out.
"Hard of hearing?" I questioned blandly, watching with some amusement as she glowered at me.
"Listen here, do you really think a little bit of muscle puts you on Elm's level? Let alone mine?" She spat out, her bunny ear shaped fringe bouncing as she jabbed her finger into my chest.
"Little bit of muscle? He's gained just below twenty pounds in a period of two weeks. That's more than a little…" Elm said, basically talking to herself as she watched the spat between us develop.
"I don't understand all the special treatment you're getting from General Ironwood, Arc. You're nothing special. As far as I'm concerned, you're just some kid who's out of his depth!" Harriet insulted, trying to get even further in my face. I heard Elm snort from the sidelines.
"You do remember you are not much older than Jaune, yes?"
"Wha-? Th-that doesn't matter!" The specialist asserted quickly. Seeing how she scrambled to keep up her tough exterior really took the magic away. I huffed at the situation.
"So you're saying you're infinitely better than me, great." My voice compiled what I'd gathered in an uninterested tone, cutting through the brewing awkwardness. "Anything else?"
"Are you mocking me?" She snapped, to which I answered immediately.
"Yes."
"I bet you think you're hot shit just because you killed some overgrown lizard, don't you? Well, I bet that any one of the Ace Ops could take you down a couple pegs." She hissed. "If it were me, you wouldn't last a second, Arc."
I stared at the annoying woman in front of me with burgeoning acceptance. This girl has had a problem with me from the second I stepped off the transport from Vale to Atlas, and in the weeks since the Serum was administered she's only gotten more prickly. She's sought me out countless times to insult me to my face, and seemed to go out of her way to find and follow me around. In most cases I just ignored her insults and went on with my day, but occasionally I'd throw barbs back at her. My current impression of her is that she's a person that can dish it out, but can't take it herself.
"Willing to test that, shorty?" I proposed, watching her with hidden amusement.
"Shor- I'LL TAKE YOU ON RIGHT NOW, ARC!" She shouted up at me in indignation, cutting herself off from parroting my schoolyard insult.
"Ahem." Elm cleared her throat, cutting off the glaring contest between us and drawing our attention. While Harriet was basically growling at me the woman had begun doing dumbbell shoulder presses, looking at us in the mirror as she heaved up 300-pound weights. "Very much hate to break the flirting, but neither of you have equipment at the moment. Servicing and reforging, yes?"
"I'M NOT FLIRTING!" Harriet barked, turning on me faster than I could blink. "I don't need Fast Knuckles to beat your ass, don't forget it."
I scoffed at the statement.
"You're wrong about whose ass is getting whipped. Besides, Crocea Mors would be wasted on you." I sneered. My possessions had been handed off to the ring of Forge Masters that populated Atlas, along with a general list of what I wanted. The fact that Harriet was also gearless was just luck.
"Follow. Now." She growled out, punctuating each word by jabbing a finger into my chest.
She stalked off and I followed her. We must have looked out of place to the people we passed, with both of us in simple gym clothing without weapons scowling at each other as we moved. We didn't have to move far as all the Specialist facilities were relatively close together, weight room and training rooms included. A metal door inlaid with black hissed away into the wall as we passed through, and the tension followed the two of us inside. The training facility was a unique one, as when it was in standby it looked like nothing more than a room lined with metal plates on every surface. When it was activated though, the entire environment would change.
'Nothing but the best for Atlas' best, I guess.' I thought mildly, remembering everything Clover had mentioned it could do when he showed me around. The metal plates would raise into columns and morph the environment much like Amity Colosseum could, though on a less impressive scale. Right now though, everything remained a consistent slate gray.
We squared up a small distance from each other. I kicked my heel against the large tiles of the floor experimentally, listening to the loud clangs that answered each impact. My eyes remained fixated on the Specialist across from me, narrowing when she pulled out her scroll and flicked it to life.
"Calling for help already?" I teased, bringing my fists up to my chin in a cheap imitation of what I'd seen Yang do. She tapped the screen quickly without looking, instead choosing to glare at me.
"You wish. They'd just keep me from brutalizing you." I huffed out a laugh at the threat, and Harriet threw the scroll to the side. As the device clattered across the ground to rest against the wall, three steady tones played through the room with lined lights flashing in time on the ceiling. The girl adopted a similar stance to me, and a final distinct tone beeped.
A fist impacted my face in less than a second.
"Geh!" I spat, my head bobbing back from the surprise hit. I clicked my tongue in distaste, quirking my eyebrow when I found the hit left a crackling sensation in my mouth like static. My focus returned, and I looked to see Harriet back in the same place she started. "Spicy."
A vein popped on her forehead, and she shot forward covered in electricity. A flurry of attacks landed across my stomach when she darted close and my aura immediately came forward brightly.
'They feel so light…' I thought as I reeled back. 'Wonder if she realizes.'
My fist clobbered the side of her head with an anchor punch… or so I hoped. Electricity surged, and it was the only thing that met my knuckles as she ducked and pirouetted just to my side.
"Must suck to be slow, hu-KUH?!"
The second the words left her lips, my shin slammed into her side. The impact sounded like a gunshot and Harriet was sent tumbling across the metal plated floor much further than I figured she should. A grim smirk slit across my lips as I stared her down and stalked towards her.
"Talk less." I grunted, watching as she began getting to her feet. My foot took another step forward and I prepared myself to lunge in her direction, but the floor shifted under me the moment my foot landed. The metal plate lanced upward and a square pillar beneath it jutted towards the ceiling, killing my balance and throwing me to my back. I took the fall with a roll and landed crouched. A quick glance around me showed the metal tiles all over the room beginning to rise.
"A maze." I mumbled, watching the room morph into a more dynamic environment. "Great."
"It is great, ain't it?" I recognized Harriet's voice right before her foot smashed into my cheek. My head snapped to the side but I managed to stay upright, and flashed my hand upwards. When my fingers clasped around her ankle, I smirked.
"Eh, what?" I stood to my full height and lifted her with me, leaving the specialist dangling in the air by her leg. Despite her position, she still glared at me. "Think you're tough just because you're strong, Arc?"
"Shut up already."
My words came just before I spun the girl around, and with a scowl I slammed her into the sharp corner of a pillar. A pink sheen of aura flashed over her body on impact and the corner dented around her body, but a loud crackle from the pillar seemed more interesting. I let her go immediately, and the moment I did small arcs of electricity lanced from the metal surface and right into Harriet. The woman yelled and convulsed until she slid off and fell to the floor. I was enraptured as snaps of electricity jumped from the surface of the pillar, but refocused myself quickly.
My shoulders were squared and my fists brought up as the Specialist hopped back to her feet, and I took full advantage of the daze. A left punch to her midsection nearly sent her off her feet and she fell back against the face of the pillar, which she flinched away from and lurched forward. I reeled my right arm back and threw it forward as hard as possible… but missed. My hand barely brushed the tips of her mohawk as she ducked and surged away, and by that time it was too late to stop the attack. My fist went straight through the metal plate that made up the side of the pillar, and I could feel the various internal components that shattered and contorted against my knuckles. Once my aura flared in response to the steady series of shocks the pillar delivered, I ripped my fist back out and left jagged metal behind.
I clicked my tongue in annoyance as steam erupted from the hole in the plate, and ignored the heat that washed over me from the steadily growing cloud. A path of lightning flickered in front of me, and my arms brought up my guard reflexively… but nothing came. By process of elimination, I decided to follow the maze and carefully made my way through. The pillars raised and dropped at odd intervals, leaving me with no option other than to adapt to the changes as they came. I turned a corner in the maze and immediately jumped back to avoid the gout of fire that flew from a pillar.
Something swept the back of my legs before I had the chance to land.
The impact to the back of my knees folded me, and when I landed on my back a heel was aimed for my face. My body rolled out of the way almost automatically, and when Harriet's foot banged against the metal flooring I threw myself back to my feet.
"You're decent, I guess. Still nothing special." I lashed out wildly at the sound of her voice, firing my fist like a bullet towards it. I hit nothing but a stream of electricity, and a series of hits peppered my back for my trouble. My elbow slammed into her lips after I threw it behind me, but she was gone by the time I turned around. Her trail zoomed all around me, weaving in and out of the pillars faster than I could see.
It was to great effect, since she was able to run full steam at me and slam both feet into my side and send me flying. As she fell to the ground, I smacked against a pillar.
"KAH!" My entire body jerked away from the structure. It was like leaning up against a body-sized stove top, and that brief contact led to my aura flaring intensely to protect me from it. The second I was off the burning surface Harriet was on me, a flurry of punches identical to the others assaulting my chest. My knuckles lunged forward but she dodged and continued to launch attacks on my side, and when I lashed out again she repeated. The entire thing was a flash of movement and frustration.
"Come on already!" She shouted out between flashing around, practically snarling at me. "This is really all the oh so famous Jupiter is capable of?!"
I'd quit lashing out at her at this point, and she kept up the position changes all on her own. I simply watched her with a placid expression on my face, calmly taking the punishment she dished out. She jolted to my front in a shower of electricity slathered movement and launched the same flurry as before. Everything was the same, except…
"What?!"
… my hand closed around hers before it could hit.
"You favor your left, every time…" I grumbled, tightening the hold on her wrist as the shock on her face deepened. She launched her other fist at me, and though it landed twice in the blink of an eye it was caught just the same. I stared into her wide pink irises, silently enjoying the look on her face as she stared back. When I was satisfied, I reeled back and then clobbered her with my forehead. Pink aura flickered and wobbled from the hit and her neck whipped back harshly, she almost seemed to go limp from the headbutt. "Arc, Jaune, Jupiter, call me whatever you want. I'm still gonna be the one kicking ass."
I stepped forward, and the dazed specialist was forced to stumble back to keep on her feet. With a nasty smirk I continued on, moving faster and faster until her back smacked into a pillar.
"AHEEH!" She squeaked out suddenly, catching me off guard. The frost covering the pillar gave me a hint, so with a wide grin I pushed her further against the metal. She squirmed in my grip but couldn't shake me. I was having a great time, up until her knee landed in my crotch. I grunted painfully, but the victorious smirk on her lips drew more of my attention. I let one of her hands go only to grab her by the face and slam her head back into the pillar. The metal contorted around her skull, and her smirk turning to a pained grimace through the pink aura brought relief to me. I decided to go even further, letting her other hand go to grab her stiffly on the shoulders and pin her in place. Then my knee drilled into her solar plexus.
Harriet was dropped to the floor when I let her go and back-peddled a few steps to watch her cough on the ground. Lights flashed dangerously from the ceiling, flooding the room harshly as an automated voice called out.
"INITIATING BLACK-OUT MODE IN 3. 2. 1."
Before I knew it, the training facility was thrown into inky blackness. The only light was a red timer that appeared on the paneled ceiling, counting down from thirty seconds.
"Heheheheh." I recognized my opponents voice behind the laugh, and snapped my head towards where she was. Even though I couldn't tell from the extreme low light, my instinct told me she was already gone. I brought my fists up, prepared for the same tactics she'd been using. "Maybe you ain't half bad, Arc."
A current of electricity brightened up the dark, moving away and ducking behind a pillar that blocked me off from the rest of the facility. Calmly I observed the streaking arcs that flew around in the darkness, and partially admired how they navigated the maze of pillars.
'I can see her clear as day like this…' The thoughts came quickly as I watched the Specialist zoom. 'I'd be an idiot not to capitalize!'
Dropping into a crouch I used my hand to begin feeling around on the flooring of the facility. Cold, smooth metal met my touch, and within a second so did the seam between the panels. A ghostly smile crossed my lips as I raised my hand and slammed it down into the floor. My straightened fingers pierced straight into the seam by bowing out the metal around it, and I went to work. I clenched and internals and metal shattered from my strength, and with some careful applications of force the entire five-foot wide panel of metal ripped away from the floor with the sound of warping steel. Sparks shot briefly from the wound in the floor and stung against my skin but quickly stopped, and I stood with the panel.
"Just like swatting a fly." I muttered to myself with a mischievous smirk, grabbing one side with both hands. I stood tall with the ridiculous improvision, watching carefully as lightning arced through the area at breakneck speeds, only to disappear and reappear again. I stepped forward lightly, but something crunched underfoot. In the next second the electric blur appeared from around a blacked-out pillar and came straight at me.
THONK!
I slammed the panel ruthlessly into my opponent with all my strength. She was sent flying from the impact and I was witness to a bright flash of pink, but nothing else was clear in the darkness. Red lined lights flashed to life from the ceiling, and the voice emerged again from the room itself.
"BLACK-OUT MODE PRESET COMPLETED. SELECT ANOTHER."
I snorted and threw the dented panel to the side like a frisbee, watching casually as it sliced itself deeply into a pillar in its path and cleared the distance to Harriet. She was half stuck in a pillar that was in the process of rising, so I grabbed her by the front of her cropped hoodie and yanked her free before she got too high up. Now back in the land of the living, she had the nerve to scowl at me from her position dangling in the air as steam sprayed from the hole she left in the pillar.
"What are you looking at, Hot Shot?" She grunted out roughly, curling her lip at the mere sight of me.
Then she shot a wad of spit, one that splattered against my chest.
I stared at her blandly, and she smirked back smugly. In the end, a twitch of my eyebrow heralded the end of my patience. I slammed the girl into the ground and quickly straddled her waist, pinning her to the ground. My fist kissed the side of her face and left a flare of pink aura behind, and I quickly sent my left fist to do the same. I hit again and again, dealing calculated punishment to the annoying jackass I had pinned to the floor as she growled with each punch. I slammed down one more into her smug face, and watched in satisfaction as that pink aura of hers flickered and finally shattered, leaving her to slump from brief exhaustion.
Air filled my lungs slowly and with control as I breathed deep to ween off the adrenaline. A chuckle left my lips as I grinned down at the Specialist with my hand gripping her hoodie.
"I think that's my win." I uttered, something that surprisingly got a giggle of all things from my competition.
"Yeah, yeah, ease off the tough guy act. Your win. I just wanted to make sure the General was putting his trust in the right guy." She admitted with a grin. I felt off at the change in her. "You beat me in my own specialty without your weapon… I'd say you're alright."
"… thanks. Don't sell yourself short. I can see why you're a Specialist, Harriet." I admitted, finally standing from my position on top of her and lifting her with me. I sat her on her feet gently, noticing the bright look on her face from the compliment.
"Call me Hare." She said confidently. Her bright look turned intense quickly after that, and she grasped roughly at my stringer around my chest. She pulled me down by my clothes, and before I could process it her lips smashed into mine. I met her passion with blank confusion, but matched her movements until she let me go. She looked satisfied, while I absolutely had a blank expression as I stared at her.
"Say Arc, I think I can still go a couple rounds if you're up for it." She propositioned slyly, changing her hand from its position gripping my shirt to trailing along my clavicle.
"Huh." I vocalized flatly, fighting to keep my brain from flatlining. "Was Elm really right all along?"
"Who knows?" Hare answered just as curiously as me. "All I know is I have steam to blow off, no strings attached. You in?"
I stood like a stoic statue in front of this woman, feeling entirely out of place as she eyed me like a tiger. I honestly didn't think much before I answered.
"Why not?"
[AN- Welcome back. Thanks for the comments and the ridiculous number of follows and favs last chap, I appreciate them. Keep in mind the time gap I set out, it'll save on confusion. Spend some time with everyone's least favorite Ace Op, she actually ain't so bad. Big shout out to Jauney-boy for slaying his sneaky link lmao. See you next time.]