It was definitely odd, and also way easier than he had expected. 'So I'm just supposed to choose one of these chess pieces? Are you sure?' Jaune asked Adam, who had been the one paying attention to what the headmaster had said before they were launched.
After arriving at the ruins of a temple with items on pedestals, he had been told to grab one by the other soul in his body.
"Haaa," Adam made a sound like he had sighed, "Jaune, hurry up and pick one already."
'So… like, is this a test or something? Which one am I supposed to grab?' Jaune asked another question. Everything had been too easy so far. Adam had made sure he landed safely, then soon after he was partnered up with Ruby, they encountered even more people, and those girls had eagerly eliminated every Grimm that had come near them.
His first time seeing a Creature of Darkness up close had been rather uneventful. In only a few seconds, the monster started fading away after being quickly killed.
"It doesn't matter. Choose any," Adam growled at Jaune. He could feel the annoyance and frustration building up in his mind.
Jaune signed, the normal way, and then he reached a hand wearing a fingerless glove out to grab a rook piece.
The relic was then waved in the air by a hand wearing a fingerless glove. "I'm queen of the castle!~" Someone sang.
It wasn't Jaune. His hand had met the empty air. He turned his head and saw the orange-haired girl from breakfast dancing around with a rook piece in her hand.
The girl paused her song and dance, then looked at him. "Listen up, chump." She said with a playful smile. "No one challenges Nora Valkyrie and gets away scot free." She puffed up her chest, and she placed her fists against her sides with her elbows pointed away from her body.
Jaune blinked at the strange girl, who had once again taken away something he had reached for. "Uh… okay?" He didn't really understand her. 'I'm pretty sure I didn't challenge her, and she got the food in the end, so what's her deal?'
"Nora." The boy she had been with earlier, the one she called Ren, said in an exasperated tone as he walked up behind her. "We've been over this. He didn't attempt to show dominance by fighting over food with you. It was likely just a coincidence."
"Rrr-eeenn." The girl, Nora, groaned like a child. "Trust me, I've seen it happen countless times."
"Between animals, no doubt." Ren sighed and then he looked towards Jaune. "I'm sorry for her behavior." He apologized like he had done so countless times.
"Uh yeah, no, it's not a big deal." He hadn't really been that bothered by her in the first place. "Don't worry about it. It's not like she took the last one or anything." He quickly grabbed a relic off of another pedestal and held it up. "See? Now I have my own, so everything's fine."
"If you say so," Ren said, and then he began walking away. Nora quickly followed him after she stuck out her tongue at Jaune.
'What's up with her?' Jaune wondered about the odd girl he had met.
"I'm pretty sure that her gesture was meant to demonstrate ferocity and defiance. It's an old custom from Mistral." Adam chimed in. "She probably intends to fight and prove that she's physically superior to you."
'Uh, well, I'm pretty sure that she was just being rude. There's no way she would pick a fight just because we grabbed the same breakfast tray.'
"Jaune!" Ruby, his partner, called out, and she suddenly appeared next to him. "Are you ready to go?" She asked with a smile as rose petals drifted down around them.
Jaune blinked and opened his mouth to respond affirmatively to her question. "What's your Semblance?" His mouth asked instead. "Adam?" He mentally asked the person who suddenly took over.
Ruby's eyes widened a little. She stood up a bit more and her smile grew. "Speed, it's called Speed." She quickly answered in a cheery tone. "It lets me move faster from across a distance."
"And how are you doing that?" His body asked Ruby.
"Adam? What's up? Why the sudden questions?" Jaune asked Adam.
'Be quiet for a minute.' Adam responded to him.
"Uh, I… don't know? It just happened one day and I've been doing it ever since. I haven't really thought about how it works." She scrunched up her face as she answered.
"Hmm? And what about these petals?" He asked as he held out a hand with disappearing rose petals. "These are made of your Aura." 'Her soul.' "And you're leaving a trail of them behind."
As Jaune began wondering what he was getting at, he felt information unravel in their mind. When Adam overloads something with an abundance of energy, far beyond its breaking point, he causes the object to disintegrate. And although he himself was uncertain behind the principles in progress, he had been loosely informed that what he was doing was disrupting bonds at a molecular level.
The scene of a large mechanical spider fading away in the wind as a collection of ashes that resembled flower petals played out in their mind.
"Yeah, it's, uh, pretty cool, right?" Ruby awkwardly asked, slight confusion was showing on her face.
He blinked and stared down at the girl, who was sacrificing bits of herself for short bursts of speed.
Jaune needed a second before he recognized that he was back in control. "Uh, y-yeah, pretty cool." He awkwardly answered, even though he had gained some information, he didn't quite understand everything. At least he didn't believe he understood it all.
"Don't worry, it's unlikely she could go fast enough to completely disappear, probably."
Even after Adam's reassurance, Jaune couldn't quite get his mind back in order, so he left Adam in charge of their walking.
The trek back was also uneventful, and soon enough the cliff was in sight. A few Grimm had charged at their group, but Schnee and Pyrrha were quick to respond from a distance. Ruby and Yang had played the part of, probably unnecessarily, protecting them from the agile or bulky ones.
Blake, from up in the trees, played the part of relaying the information on the Grimm she could see around them.
'It is really almost over? I… thought this would be harder.' He wondered. His earlier fear had seemed silly now.
"You're just lucky. If I wasn't in control, then your corpse would be Grimm food by now." Adam had sounded somewhat bitter, and Jaune could feel that he was disappointed because he had wanted to show off.
"A herd of Boarbatusks are coming in from the east." Blake said as she suddenly appeared next to Jaune.
He blinked at her. For some reason, he felt like she was acting oddly, but he didn't really know her enough to claim that. "Thanks." He smiled at her, then he turned towards the rest of the group. "Blake says a herd of Boarbatusks are coming in from the east!" He loudly told everyone.
Schnee and Pyrrha had been having a conversation together, same with Ruby and Yang, then when he told them what he had been told, they fell silent and got ready to fight.
After a few seconds, a few small boar-like Grimm appeared through the low bushes and were immediately tossed into the air by a large black Glyph that appeared beneath their hooves and then Pyrrha shot them in their exposed stomachs. The girls continued this tactic for a while.
And when the bigger Boarbatusks appeared, Ruby would dash next to one and swung her scythe blade from below and into their guts. Yang would simply taunt them into charging her head on before she grabbed them by a tusk and lifted them up, then she would punch them in the gut as she also shot off her gauntlets point blank.
Then, for the first time, the sheer number of Grimm combined with the slightly more complex elimination method, allowed one to slip by the two sisters. And perhaps the fact that this specific Grimm was currently an eight-foot spinning mass moving at high-speeds also contributed to that.
Originally, their formation had been structured so that they could handle incoming enemies from the front, but when they had prepared for the Grimm from the east, the formation rotated to accommodate that. So basically, Schnee and Pyrrha were no longer acting at either of Jaune's sides but instead were currently behind him, and he was now in the middle of the path of a large spinning Grimm.
'Oh, fuck!' He thought as he realized his situation. His hand shot to his side. He needed his sword. No, his shield, no, he should jump out of the way. He didn't have a reflexive plan. He had nothing prepared for an encounter like this. He didn't have time to prepare. This wasn't a standoff where he could formulate a strategy. He was about to be trampled.
Doubt and confusion clouded his mind, and his body couldn't react appropriately to his thoughts. He needed his weapon to defend himself with, so he yanked it off his waist, but that was pointless. He needed to move, and then his contradictory plans made him release his grip on his weapon.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the creature was already a few feet in front of him, and he watched helplessly as his sword and sheath were slowly drifting through the air out of his hands. His death was almost a certain outcome.
'Adam!' Jaune mentally screamed as his soul retreated far into his own body and he forcibly switched who was in control.
Adam felt a jarring sensation wash through himself as his soul was easily pushed around, and he felt incredibly uncomfortable as Jaune had hid within himself as well. However, he was used to operating with an adrenaline fueled mind, so he quickly ignored everything else and focused on his survival.
He used his Semblance to release small bursts of energy from the elbow and shoulder of his left arm to launch his hand forward and he gripped the sheath. Another burst exploded from the surface of his knuckles, shooting his arm back to his body, and when the hilt was in reach, he shot his right hand forward and grabbed it.
Then he focused briefly as he injected some energy into the sheath and sword, afterwards he exploded the energy within the sheath, which sent the blade flying out still in his grip. He released another burst from his right shin and after a moment from his right knee, his foot shot into the ground as he changed into a defensive stance.
His right arm had directed the blade behind him and he held it there as his left hand flicked the switch that transformed the sheath into a shield and grabbed the handle then he braced the spine of the shield against his arm as the spinning Grimm was finally upon him.
Aura flared through his body as the large monster spun against his shield, and even though he was using his Semblance, he couldn't consume enough of the creature's kinetic energy to offset its forward momentum. He could only hold out for a few seconds at most before he was overpowered.
Adam closed his eyes and focused. He ignored the sensation of his bones creaking and his muscles screaming as they tore. Those weren't important. The force of the monster against the shield, against his left arm, he was sending nearly all of that energy from that straight across his body and towards his other arm.
If he wanted to defend, he would have channeled that energy into the shield and repelled the Grimm with its own force. If he wanted to escape, he simply would have exploded off from his location. And if he wanted to demonstrate his strength to Jaune, he would have to defeat this Grimm.
A handful of seconds had elapsed already, and his current body was at its limit. It couldn't handle the transfer strain of his Semblance. He used a significant amount of his Aura to push back the Grimm. It didn't even budge a full foot away, and yet that didn't matter. He just needed a single moment to move his left arm out of the way.
Micro-explosions went off all over his body and a large explosion went out over the edge of his sword, sending it flying once more. His body had already been prepared, and he easily directed his swing to slice cleanly through the notoriously tough bone plates of a large Boarbatusk. Then, after his blade entered the body, he released the rest of the energy he had stored and a white glowing slash cut the Grimm in two.
The large portions of the creature, which had been moving rather fast, had lost intent and were no longer controlled, so they collided against each other and were sent flying off wildly into the woods.
Adam could see that Ruby and Yang had taken to their role with more intensity, so it was unlikely another Grimm would slip by. He also saw that the Glyphs and shooting tactic were still in play, so those two girls were still okay. Without another immediate threat to deal with, he focused on healing. His new body was rather unfamiliar with extreme physical stress.
"…wow." Jaune whispered from within.
Adam sighed. He struggled to even think about where he should start with Jaune, sure it had been unexpected, but his reaction to danger was beyond pathetic. Deep inside, he lost all sympathy for the boy who couldn't even stand tall to accomplish his dream and cowardly fled instead. Now he was almost eager to hurry up and get rid of him.
He needed to shift his attention before his secret thoughts surfaced, so he turned around.
Blake, who had been behind Jaune when the large Grimm appeared, was now up a tree and on a branch.
'Again Blake?' He thought. She had always been awkward in the face of immediate danger, always putting distance between it and herself, yet unlike the many cowards who ran away, she was different.
It was something he truly admired her for, that although she was just as scared as the cowards, she never strayed far. Blake had conquered her fear and stuck around, no matter how bad things got. Adam knew she wasn't the strongest mentally. He couldn't count the amount of times he had to hear her whine about night terrors and her own doubt, and yet she never gave up.
'She's amazing.' Adam thought with a smile as he stared up at her. He wasn't doing this solely to distract himself, he wasn't aware of the reason, but when he was with Blake or even just thinking about her, he remembered why he could go on in this world and that caused his injuries to heal faster.
"…Sorry." Jaune had also shared in Adam's thoughts about Blake, the ones about her conquering her fear. "I promise that I won't flee again. I… do want to be stronger."
As Adam blinked, Blake had disappeared, likely having gone on ahead since things were wrapping up here. 'Whatever, let's just get this over with.' He relented and gave up control over their body.
Thanks for reading! I'm always open to feedback, so please leave a review, or reply in my forum, about what you liked or hated about this chapter or the whole story. If anyone wants to be a Beta Reader, then PM me and we'll talk details.
Sorry for the late chapter. I can only write about an average of 2.5k words a day and I used most of my energy on Aug 2nd fleshing out my plot notes for this story, so I didn't have anything ready for Aug 3rd. (I used what little I had left that day to edit one of my other fics: The Blind Knight.)
Also, I'm sorry this chapter was lacking in content, but since there wasn't any big fight going to happen, I wanted to hurry past the Forest. I probably could have squeezed in a fight scene, but I struggle to imagine the point of what that would add.
And since the partners have changed, I felt it would be forced to make them fight the Deathstalker. And just the Nevermore could be easily handled by everyone working together. Everyone reading already knows what everyone here can do combat wise, so there isn't a need to describe their moves unless it's being directly commented on by Jaune or Adam.
There's some tension between Jaune and Nora as he grabs a relic. Adam wonders about Ruby's petals, then he shows a scared Jaune what he is capable of, and then admires Blake's commitment to the cause.
