AN: Well I've had a lot of people suggesting names. Several people asked for 'Valor' being a name which is one of the names I was mulling over. So far the names I got are Valor, Knight, Noir, Blanc. Although I am moving to Valor, I think it would be more bad ass if at one point I wrote them going "We are The Knight" at one point.

Symbiote Knight

Chapter 6: Self Improvement

It was the weekend and Jaune was going to start the new phase in improving himself. The training with Pyrrha and his new symbiote were helpful in getting skills he needed but his new partner was pointing out that unless he had the physical skills to really make use of them. So here Jaune was early Saturday morning in Beacon's gym.

He knew Nora liked to work out here, but she liked to sleep in on the weekends, and Pyrrha went for a morning run. Ren said he liked to take the extra time in the morning to meditate somewhere quiet so Jaune was on his own. Thankfully he got some simple gym clothing, a pair of black shorts and white t-shirt.

Looking around he could see a few other students that looked to be early risers doing their own workout routines.

"So…what do I try first?"

The symbiote gave him a mental nudge to bench press. It was simple and he had to start somewhere. Jaune shrugged and got a bar and paused, how much should be put on? He put on twenty pounds on each side and tested it out. It wasn't bad but he felt he could do more. So he added in ten more pounds.

He didn't know much about working out only that on average you should do an exercise ten times, rest and then do it two more, at least he thinks that what you do. He had just finished his first set and put the bar back overhead and took a breather.

"You really should have a spotter for that." A familiar voice told him.

He tilted his head back to see one Yang Xiao-Long standing there also in tight black shorts and a tight orange top with her usual golden symbol in the center of it.

"Yang?"

"That's my name, so here I was doing my morning routine when I noticed a new face." She knelt down to get more at eye level with him.

"I didn't know you worked out here in the morning," Jaune stated.

"I like to get in a morning workout," she explained. "Normally I work out with Nora but she doesn't get here for like an hour later on weekends."

"Yeah, she likes to sleep in."

"Yep," Yang stood back up. "So again, what's with you being in the gym this early?"

He sat up and turned to face her. "I need to improve my physical strength, so I kind of figured that the gym is the perfect way to do it."

Yang nodded her head. "Okay so what's your workout plan?"

"My what?"

Yang stared at him for a moment. "Did you just come in here without a plan? Like what are you focusing on? Upper body, lower body, stamina, strength, core?"

"Uh…I was, just you know, going to wing it?" He shrugged.

Yang face palmed. "Okay Jaune, yes you can work out like that but it's not effective. You need to switch it up to get an even workout, plus you need to put in rest days to recover for instance."

~Not an issue with me here~

Jaune mentally nodded with his alien partner as Yang went on about how a proper workout could go. He suddenly found that there was a lot more than he thought there was to it. He really should have done his research or at least asked Nora and Pyrrha for some help.

"Wow Yang, you really know your stuff." He told her.

She grinned at him, and she gestured to her body. "Hey, I worked hard to get my body looking like this, good genes only go so far and I prefer to be in top shape if I'm going to be a Huntress."

"Yeah, that's why I want to improve too, I need to get better." He said as an idea hit him. "You think you could help me out? I mean even if it's just for tips I know you want to get back to your own workout."

Yang considered this, she looked Jaune over and while he had a decent build, but it could be better. She could use a workout partner and besides he could use the help. If there was one thing she could respect Jaune for it was that he was working hard to improve himself. Hard work was something she knew very well given she busted her ass to get where she was now.

There was also the fact that he was her little sister's best friend here. The first real friend she had made and honestly she liked Jaune as a friend. Sure he was dorky but he did make things interesting like this cringe attempts to ask Weiss out. There was also the fact that unlike some guys in the past, he wasn't nice to Ruby just to get into Yang's good books. She had learned to spot those guys from a mile away.

He treated her little sister like the best friend that he was and without any ulterior motives and that went a long way in her books. Ruby always had issues making friends, so it was nice to see she had started to at Beacon.

One more factor that went into his favor was that he hadn't tried to look down her top when she bent down. Now Yang was used to looks, she got them all the time and she looked herself. When you 'look' you gave a brief glance to appreciate something and then go back to whatever you were doing. That was fine in her mind, it was the leering that was creepy. She had seen people stare at her ass while jogging on the machine or at her chest when doing certain upper body exercise.

Yes, she knew she was hot but you were supposed to look, not stare. Jaune never stared at her and treated her like a person.

Yang shrugged, "Sure why not. Get back into position while I spot you and then you can return the favor."

"Thanks Yang, I mean it," he got back to it as Yang stood by his head her hands out under the bar just in case he needed it.

"Alright so let's get started," Yang told him as Jaune started to do his next set. Yang could give him a few pointers to help.

Jaune was glad for the help although he did have to keep his eyes on the bar. He knew that he wasn't exactly the most observant at times, but one thing was clear. Yang was a very beautiful young woman and being this close and given the angle part of him wanted to look up. He could see those twin peeks above, but he kept his eyes on the bar. The last thing he needed was to get a hard on staring at her, she would think he's some kind of creep and he didn't want that.

He liked Yang, she was a good friend, she was full of energy and life, he actually wished he could be more like her at times with how confident she carried herself and could just walk into a room and start to socialize with total strangers. Maybe that's why he was closer to Ruby, they were both just dorks with trouble being social with others.

At the end they switched, and it was Yang's turn on the bench. She of course put on more weight, and he hoped he could lift it if she needed help. He did the same as she had placed his hands under the bars as she started.

After she was done she was sweaty and breathing a little hard but stretched herself out.

"Damn that felt good," She got up. "Okay so first lesson in gym etiquette"

"There's gym etiquette?"

"Oh yeah, first is when you're done, wipe down the station." Yang led him to where a spry bottle and paper towels were. "You use these to clean it off, no one wants to work out in someone else's sweat."

"Ah, that makes sense," After a clean they continue one. They followed Yang's morning workout as Jaune really wasn't sure what to do so he just followed her lead. Yang would give him advice on what he should and could work on and how. He would help out when needed when she needed a spotter or just to someone to talk to.

By the end of two hours Jaune felt like he was ready to drop. Yang seeing this took pity on him and led him to the benches. She refilled his water bottle for him and handed it to him.

"Thanks," he started to down the cool liquid.

She sat down next to him. "Well how was your first real taste of gym life?"

"Hard…but worth it," He breathed but slowly started to feel the symbiote going to work cleaning up the toxins built up in his body and repairing the muscles.

"That's the spirit," Yang slightly bumped his shoulder with her fist. "Keep this up and we'll get you into shape yet."

He thought about something, he really could use advice on how to properly work out and Yang really knew her stuff. Maybe he could have her help him with it if she was up for it. "You know I really enjoyed myself today."

"Yeah, it's nice to have a work out buddy," Yang leaned back. "Working out alone is nice and quiet but also a bit too quiet. Ruby barely keeps up with her physical training, and Blake and Weiss have their own thing.

"Well, I'm up to joining you and Nora if you don't mind," Jaune told her. "I could use the help and I get the feeling it would something nice to do. I really need to improve, and I think with your help in my physical training it could work."

He knew he could ask Pyrrha, but she was already helping him with his combat skills, he didn't want to impose too much on her as he felt he might be holding back her own training if he relied too much on her. He wanted to give her a chance to have the time work on her own skills after all.

Yang thought about it, it had been fun, and Nora couldn't always make it. Besides it was nice to have someone new around and Jaune was a good guy. It might be fun to have a new workout partner plus she saw Ruby and Jaune hanging out all the time so maybe it was time for the big sister to try and get to know him better.

"You know what, you got a deal."

-Later-

After a nice hot shower and a change Jaune went to the library. He did have some homework but now he was doing a different type of homework. It was something his symbiote needed, more knowledge of the world. Actually, to be honest he had to admit that he needed to learn more as well. He looked through the stacks wondering where to start.

He saw a book about Grimm so maybe that could help. He reached for it not noticing someone else had been looking for books as well. Well, his symbiote saw it but decided that unless they were going to collide no warning was needed.

He was reaching up when a pale hand reached up at the same time as they brushed against each other.

"Oh! Sorry I didn't see you-Weiss?" Jaune gulped as the shorter white haired girl looked up at him with annoyance in her ice blue eyes.

"And what are you doing here?" She demanded. She swore if this was another of his hair brained attempts to court her, well she wasn't sure what to do as he was fairly harmless just annoying.

Jaune cursed himself why did he have to bump into the girl he had a crush on at first sight? And she was already annoyed with him, great. Part of him wanted to play it off maybe make a comment on how her eyes looked. His symbiotic partner however while not fully versed in human body language, with all its experience was giving him warnings.

Listening to it he paused before maybe just going with the truth?

"I'm just trying to get some research done, you know things like Grimm, dust, maybe some other stuff."

"Really?" She slowly placed her hands on her hips gut her guard was up for anything he might try. She didn't see any flowers or something on him so maybe it was totally random.

"Yeah well," he rubbed the back of his head. He wanted to sound cool and act confident but that hadn't gone well. He remembered how that went in the weapons locker room on the first day with her. Jaune wasn't sure but with the memory he swore he could feel the symbiote give a mental face palm.

"You know I'm not the best in class."

"Understatement if there ever was one," She said coldly.

Okay ouch but not entirely uncalled for, he was most likely dead last in all subjects. Granted he had a handicap of no formal training like everyone else, but he couldn't exactly say that and then explain the obvious question of how he even got into this academy.

"So, I'm trying to make myself better, I've already started on the physical stuff but now I need to work on you know, the book stuff."

She cocked an eyebrow at him the one with the scar. "So, you wanted to improve with studying a book about advanced Grimm knowledge?"

"Wait what?" He looked at the book more closely as he saw the full title was 'A Grimm Study: Advanced Edition for theories and practical use'.

"Oh…that might be a bit much then," He sighed. "Wait why are you reaching for it then?"

She placed a hand on her chest, "I am already well familiar with basic Grimm knowledge, so I wanted to expand on it. I wanted to be prepared for anything in the future."

"Makes sense," He nodded. "Well I'll let you get back to it."

Jaune went back to looking for any book that was more his speed as Weiss was curious as he just walked off. Not one making a comment on her hair, or eyes or voice. Maybe he was finally learning that 'no meant no' and he was moving on. She picked up the book when Jaune's called spoke out again.

"Hey Weiss?"

She resisted the urge to groan, here it comes, it was another pickup line or something.

"Do you know of any good books that I can use that might be helpful?"

She cast him a sideways glance as he looked totally lost. She sighed, while she wanted to get to her own research maybe if she helped him out this one time it would get him out of her hair for a bit. She had a full day planned out and wanted to get as much in as possible.

"Fine, let's start with this," She picked up a book on general Grimm knowledge and handed it to him.

"Oh great, now I just need one on dust, maybe Faunus as well and some science books."

Now she was confused, dust she could see but guy Faunus and science books? She placed her free hand on her hip looking at him.

"And why do you want to know about those things, exactly?"

Jaune couldn't just come out and say 'because the alien living in my body needs more information' so he just wanted to come up with something. He felt a nudge from his partner and went with it. "Well dust is obvious but the others, well I don't know much about Faunus history, and it might make me understand them more. Science books, well I'm behind on that."

She guessed that made sense but there was just something odd about Jaune Arc lately, he had been acting stranger than normal. His meals were unbalanced, while he looked like he didn't fully pay attention in class he could easily answer verbatim questions when asked and his improvement in the combat classes was another thing. He also hadn't bothered her for a date in over a week now which was a record.

If there was one thing she hated, well a few things actually, she was pretty sure she could make a whole list of things, it was a mystery. She liked to have answers to questions and not having them made a small annoying itch in her brain.

"Fine, let's get you started."

Weiss showed him how the library was organized as Jaune was lost on what to look for she help to narrow it down. By the end if he had several books as took a spot at a table and started to read through it. Weiss for some reasons he didn't fully understand sat at the same table. Only a little distance from him, she could early have found an empty spot on a Saturday but she was curious as to why Jaune suddenly was trying to learn so much.

She was ten minutes into her book before she realized something, Jaune was going through the pages quickly. Was he even reading them? If he was not taking this seriously after her hard work to help him, she was going to be mad. After another ten minutes he placed the book down and picked up another.

That was it for her, "Are you even reading?"

"Huh?" Jaune looked up.

"You're just flipping the pages, you can't be reading all that."

Jaune hadn't noticed how fast he had been reading while he didn't get everything, he found he could remember stuff he read. "I guess it's just natural for me?"

Weiss narrowed her eyes as she got up and went over to him and got the book and randomly flipped to a page. "Very well then how much do we know about the Grimm organs?"

Jaune paused for a bit before the information was suddenly there. "We don't know much of anything because when Grimm die, they fade away and capturing a Grimm tend to be hard unless it's a smaller type. There have been attempts to vivisect Grimm, but they soon die too quickly to get any study done."

Weiss had been reading the page and it was word for word. She quickly flipped to another random page. "What's the largest pack of Grimm ever reported?"

"That would be the Marine Pack named so because of the Marine City that was attacked and eventually destroyed over one hundred years ago. It was a group in the hundreds which is sometimes referred to as a Horde."

Weiss stood there in silence, so Jaune did have kind of photographic memory, that had to answer some questions but if so, he should have known all of this already before coming here. It just seemed like the more questions she answered the more that popped up. It was a little infuriating for someone that liked things that were nice and orderly.

"At any rate I had a question about dust and I'm hoping you can help since you know a lot about it." Jaune remembered Ruby explaining to him about exploding on the first day. Plus, Weiss always did seem to know a lot when the subject was brought up.

That got another look from Weiss that said 'you're kidding right?' like he asked what color the sky was. "Of course I would know my family owns SDC."

"The what?"

Weiss gapped at that. There was no way, he was messing with her he had to be. "The Schnee Dust Company!"

"Oh! Yeah, I remember people talking about that. Oh, so that's what SDC stood for, wait you're family is part of that?"

Weiss was nearly broken, how, just how had he not known this? "You have to have heard of the company! We supply most of the world's dust!"

"No! I mean Yes, I mean…kind of?" Jaune tried to explain. "You see my family and I are from a small town, not exactly a city, we have walls to keep out the Grimm but nothing like say Vale. I never really considered where dust came from all I knew was that you just buy it at the store?"

It also didn't help that he didn't use dust in his weapon like everyone else. The only time he had to handle dust products were the commercial ones for homes and businesses and even then he didn't really handle it personally most of the time.

"You never noticed the SDC logo on any of it?"

"Well I noticed but it only said SDC on it. I didn't pay attention to what it broke out to." He sank back from her feeling a little embarrassed. This was the downside to living in a small town you lose a lot of information. He hadn't even known how famous Pyrrha was, he never heard of the tournaments she took part in. He most likely had seen her on a box of cereal but hadn't recognized her in person.

So just like with SDC he never gave it much thought because, what did it ever have to do with him? How many people would think that one day you would be interacting with a family member that owns a major company?

"It just didn't seem important. It's that kind of thing people don't really care about in isolated areas, we're more concerned with crop seasons and Grimm movements. I remember seeing the logo and stuff but didn't know it was that big. It was just the company that we got dust from to me."

Weiss stood still as she started to take all that in. She supposed what he said did make some sense, it's not like they advertised to every village only the larger cities who then bought it and sold it to villages and towns. At most he might have at least seen some commercial ads but Jaune didn't seem to care about that stuff so he might had just tuned it out?

Then something else hit her.

"Wait so when we met you had no idea what the Schnee Dust Company was or that I was the heiress for that company?" She asked him.

"No, I only found out you were from a rich family from talking with Ruby. She only said that your 'family is supposed to be super rich from some major company in Atlas' she didn't explain what the company was or did. I just was never really interested that," he scratched the back of his head. "I did look you up after that on the internet, but I was more interested with your singing, which is really pretty by the way."

"I did see you were part of a Schnee Company, but I didn't really look much into it once I found your videos online of you singing."

Weiss was well aware of how some people had recorded her concerts to post for later, honestly, she didn't care about that, she did appreciate that people liked her singing. She was just confused because all this time she thought he was just trying to get in her favor because of her family's company. It was pretty normal for back home at those galas and parties where men from notable families tried to win her over hoping to one day forge a marriage into one of the largest most powerful companies on the planet.

She was used to men constantly trying to court her for their own selfish reasons, but Jaune hadn't known who she was. Part of her wondered why he even tried to ask her out so often, but she stopped herself. This was getting too personal, and she already felt the mental drain hitting her from too many revelations at once. Besides if she asked it might invite him to keep asking her out and she just didn't want to deal with that at the moment.

She signed and sat down putting the book she still had back on the table. "So…what was your dust question?" She asked sounding a bit tired.

"Oh well where does it come from?" He asked and saw the look again. "I know it's in the ground, but I mean, has anyone thought why there are these crystals that just seem to have elements in them? And why don't they work in space? It almost seems like they aren't natural that way."

Weiss thought about it, these were questions people have been asking since their discovery. "Honestly? No one knows for sure, the space part the leading theory is that they are somehow linked to the planet and being away drains them but that's unproven."

"The same goes for their origin, no one really knows. They've been shown as far back as history but it wasn't until fairly recently we found out they could be weaponized against the Grimm. As for them not being 'natural' you could say that about the Grimm as well."

"Yeah, I see your point," Jaune nodded his head, although he could feel the symbiote a little frustrated with the lack of answers it seemed to accept what she said.

"Well, if that's all I have my own studying to do." She got up and went back to her seat.

"Thanks Weiss, I really mean it, you've been a big help." He honestly told her.

She paused and simply nodded her head and went back to her book. She had to admit that when he wasn't pestering her attempts at a date, he wasn't totally annoying. Plus at least he knew how to be quiet unlike a certain hooded partner she could name as the two of them silently went on studying things.

The symbiote had been studying the girl the entire time, his host was very enamored with her, for reasons the symbiote could get from the host. He was charmed by her beauty and confidence on that first day they met. Although the alien wasn't sure his host actually stood a chance but there had been worst cases that the alien had born witness to or had memories of even worst mismatched pairings that somehow worked out in the end.

At any rate the first thing was to take in all this helpful knowledge and then it could worry about its host's love life.

TBC…