Thank you for reading after all this time of not updating. Moving, and getting settled into my new place and the upcoming training for the next will be taking up the next several months (can't work on becoming a Ranger without going through Ranger school ya know). So, here's what I have so far for the story, if I'm able to get Jaune and Cinder's date for next chapter written before my training starts I'll get it out.
CHAPTER 11 - Sparring
"Still recording our training, Jaune?"
Jaune looked up from placing his scroll upright to record the room, taking a moment to glance behind him and look Pyrrha in the eye. "Well, you know, I'm trying to get better even when you're not here. And the easiest way to do that is recording all of our training."
The second semester was in full swing, and with Cinder catching up through direct tutoring from Ozpin. Nora and Ren were on a 'not-date' to see some movie that Nora drug her partner to. Team RWBY was doing their own training, which left Jaune to grab his own partner to not feel like he was becoming complacent. His time with Cinder had put a new flame inside of him, and now he wasn't working to prove himself, he was working to feel like he belonged next to Cinder. To represent her properly in front of his peers and mentors.
Cinder had helped him improve his skills and techniques over the last semester, and he now was winning against Cardin and his other teammates every other match. The goal would be to be able to do it consistently by the end of the semester, Jaune knew that a different outlook on his methods might be the right choice. Pyrrha was up to the task, and it doubled as a chance to build their teamwork as partners. Tripled if the promise to her being fulfilled was counted too.
Pyrrha smiled at his antics, "Well, I suppose anything that helps is fine. As long as you think so. Training isn't all we're here to do Jaune, I hope you still understand."
"Of course." Jaune said, grabbing his gear and putting it on while he walked over. "How about we make it fun? Every time I get a hit on you, I'll ask something. Every time you win, I'll answer anything."
"That sounds fine by me." Pyrrha said, grabbing her gear that was sat on the nearby bench. She walked to the middle of the sparring circle, getting in her usual stance to begin. "Ready when you are Jaune."
Jaune sighed, knowing it would be better to get his beating over with. There would be no avoiding how much Pyrrha would demolish him, and if she didn't he would immediately assume that she was going easy on him. It was difficult to actually hope to get beat up, but it had been the only way he had a chance to get better. The efforts had already shown, especially against Cardin and his team. Even though they were ranked close to the bottom, it was something. And that something had a chance to turn into more than that, potentially the top half of the class if Jaune did well enough.
It was a short few strides over to his position across from Pyrrha, "Alright, lets get going then."
There was milliseconds to react once Pyrrha shot forward and swung her sword at Jaune, only allowing him to block with his shield in reaction. Jaune could tell that he was extremely slow, sluggish from the vibrations of the powerful strike. A step forward, and counterattack resulted in a miss. But it wasn't supposed to be a hit for Jaune, just a feint that caused Pyrrha to come in closer. He shoved his shoulder in her, getting her off balance but not enough to knock her down. Another swing and this time blocked by Pyrrha with her own shield.
"Good Jaune! Keep that momentum, don't turtle." She said, shooting rhythmically at Jaune. It pinned him, letting Pyrrha move into position for her next attack. She sprinted at him, tossing her shield first, following right behind it. Jaune hit the shield with his own, leaving himself momentarily open to attempt his best swordsmanship against bullets. Problems arose immediately as his aura was whittled away. Then Pyrrha's shield flew back to her, she cartwheeled forward, hitting the shield with the flat of her foot, and sending it straight into his neck, flipping him and ending with him on the ground.
Jaune's breath grew ragged as he attempted to gain back the air that had been forced out. Before he could take a third gasp, Pyrrha had placed her foot on his chest. The first round was over, a new personal best of forty-five seconds. It was a far cry from perfect, but better at least than initially when Jaune would purposely dive out of the circle. Pyrrha might have been scary inside it and pleasant outside, but Cinder didn't care until his aura was red even if he had retreated outside, then she would become nice again. Which forced Jaune to become comfortable inside the ring and actually attempt to fight somewhat.
"Well, I guess we've got a few minutes of rest to talk. What do you have for me?" Jaune asked, grabbing his water bottle and sitting on the nearby bench.
"Let me think." Pyrrha had some sort of colored drink with some extra electrolytes, a testiment to how much effort she put in such a short time frame. "I think I would like to ask you more about Cinder Fall. What caused you to fall in love with such a...a tyrant. Apologies, I could not find a better word."
Jaune gave a light chuckle, "I'm not surprised you think that. Not to harp on you Pyrrha, but out of both teams you've spent the least time with her. I mean Ruby and Blake literally have the key to her room. Yang spars with her now, while Weiss is always discussing some sort of strategy or what if politics. Nora apparently is learning how to bake things from her. Even Ren is teaching her some meditation and yoga techniques on Wednesdays, speaking of that's our next team training."
"I know, I know." Pyrrha sighed, "I would like to understand more, I promise. That's why I'm asking, to maybe find something in common."
"Well, I can't say we've sat down and professed our undying love by any means." Jaune grinned, trying to alleviate any possible underlying stress that Pyrrha might have. He knew another unsaid problem that neither would broach was Pyrrha's feelings. As much as they had reconciled and went back to normal, Jaune knew at least from his experience with his sisters that those feelings would not simply disappear after one talk. It would take time. "It's not a perfect relationship, I'll be honest. She's had a much harder time than I think anyone realizes. Her actions didn't come around suddenly, she essentially never had anyone to tell her literally anything positive. I want to be that for her, the one that she can come back to recharge her batteries and take the world on again."
"I see." Pyrrha hummed, "I think that helped. And I already know my next question, so shall we?"
"We shall." Jaune sat up, taking one last sip and returned to his previous position in the ring. "Let's get this over with, I need a nap or something to ease the soreness. Best two out of three?"
Pyrrha cocked an eyebrow, "Counting the last win for myself?"
"Yeah," Jaune shrugged, "Mine as well keep that knight's integrity that I have going for me."
The round began differently this time, with Jaune dashing forward. He dove forward, getting himself within feet of Pyrrha, and slammed his shield into the ground. Using it as a push-point, he vaulted over it, essentially performing a one-handed cartwheel and kicked at Pyrrha as he pushed off. She brought up her shield to block, allowing him a full landing zone and subsequently steadying himself on the shield. A second later Jaune slid down the shield and grabbed it, putting his knee into the bottom and a little physics, he pivoted the shield, flinging Pyrrha over him and attempting to slam her into the ground.
Pyrrha, the superior athlete she was, figured it out immediately and let go of her shield. She landed between Jaune and his shield, firing at him. Jaune used the tactically acquired shield of Pyrrha to block the shots, crouching to hide as much of his body as he could. The iconic ping of the dust clip ejecting from Pyrrha's weapon alerted Jaune to its emptiness; she had forgotten to reload before their new match.
Jaune grinned, "Lucky."
Running again at Pyrrha, he launched the shield with all his might, rolling on the ground after throwing it. The shield flew under Pyrrha, who had jumped over it, sailing into Jaune's shield and bouncing off toward Pyrrha's back. She gracefully twisted her back to narrowly avoid her shield, while Jaune finished his roll by springing up with his unsheathed sword. A textbook over head swing into Pyrrha's side nicked a chunk of aura off her. She landed clutching her side.
"A fantastic hit Jaune, great thinking." Pyrrha commented, huffing and puffing from the gymnastics she had performed.
"Thanks, guess I have a question for you then." Jaune said, after taking a good amount of generous breaths.
It wasn't too unique of an opportunity, considering they saw each other every day and something had to create conversation. Whether it was eating, hanging out, or on the way to class there was no time that questions weren't being asked and it showed in the bonding that Team JNPR had accomplished. So what could Jaune possibly ask that he didn't know already? He knew her favorite color, he knew about her past with her popularity and the hardships that came with it, but what didn't he know. Jaune used his water break to think of the question.
"Okay." Jaune finally said, placing his bottle down. "So, what made you choose your weapon and style? I know we've always talked about what goes into making them, the fighting style, and all that, but why the spartan-like weapons?"
Pyrrha stretched as she answered, always doing something that might give her the edge. "I always admired the culture, and if you research into it there is an interesting mentality to everything. I would say it parallels the train as you fight mentality that we have, especially me, now. It has always been about staying in that mentality, and the weapons are all apart of that. My father was very invested into their tactics, always preaching about how similiar they are to today's and influenced me too for the choice."
"That makes sense," Jaune reasoned, "I can see why now. That's pretty cool though, Pyrr. Ready for our last bout?"
"Of course, why wouldn't I be ready to win?" Pyrrha grinned, cracking her knuckles.
Jaune laughed, "I like the sass! Haven't heard that in awhile, come on let's get this going. I'm gonna hear enough of this from Cinder when you beat me."
"You know, I think you might need to hear what my mentor always used to say." Pyrrha smiled, looking fond at the memory. "It's never too late too quit."
"W-what?" Jaune choked on his spit, not expecting the advice. "Who would tell you that?"
"My father." Pyrrha replied.
"That's even worse, why would he say that." It didn't seem right, there was no way she should be as peppy as she was about such a comment. Maybe he misunderstood something, it was so out of pocket to hear.
"We were on our way back from my first tournament in Mistral," Pyrrha's eyes misted over remembering the moment. "I was in the back seats, while my parents had been talking about how well I did. Saying they'll be able to watch me in the next ones, even the national competitions. I started to complain about the tournaments and what had happened from succeeding. Granted, I had said that I wanted to do them, that I was going to do everything I could to prepare for becoming a huntress."
"That doesn't sound too bad." Jaune commented, still not seeing where she was going. It sounded like she had a great relationship with his parents. He had never had that much freedom, looking at Pyrrha, it looked like that environment had put a different kind of stress on her than most had.
"Of course, it wasn't. Not with my family, they were always supportive. Always telling me to do what made me happy, but when your father is a world-renown hunter and did it for longer than you were alive. Well then Jaune," Pyrrha gave an uncomfortable laugh, "You tend to occasionally complain about the difficulty of keeping the legacy going. So, I did just that on the car ride back. My mother was patient, listening and being supportive. My dad was supportive, in a different way."
"Oh yeah? How so?" Jaune asked, invested in the story at this point. Not mentioning to Pyrrha that he enjoyed the lengthy break from getting beat up, his body thanking her for the rest.
Pyrrha laughed lightly, recalling what her father had said, "Well, he turned around and says 'it's never too late to quit'. Mother wasn't too happy, but I took it the way I think he meant it."
"Okay, what did you get from it?"
"It was a challenge." Pyrrha answered quickly. "Every time I did any competition from then on, I thought about that time and what my father said to me. I would think about how he's right, I could quit and be done. I suppose I was a tad spiteful to think that I wouldn't quit so I didn't have to hear about it. But it would set a precedent for myself every time I did it again. So, since then I've always kept it as a personal mantra. Something to keep me going through the tough moments."
It made more sense once she had explained it. Jaune was initially worried that he hadn't heard enough about Pyrrha's parents over the last months to decide how he felt and thought about them. But now, it was an interesting look into her mind and how she ticked. His parents had always mentioned that while most hunters and huntresses were pretty normal, people you wouldn't even pay attention to in the street, but the others were all stand out a-type personality people in the open. Jaune could see clearly now that Pyrrha was one of the latter.
"That's definitely an interesting way to look at everything." Jaune said, moving to the circle and getting in his ready stance. "I think we'll have to get this last bout in. See if you can overtake this master of battle."
For the third and last time they readied their beginging stances, facing each other with determination. This time was the chance for Jaune to prove to himself that maybe it was the right decision to put his family's reputation on the line, to come to become a hunter without any training, and show Pyrrha that her efforts had been worth it. All it would take was one hit, one sliver of aura depletion to prove it.
"Ladies first." Jaune said, trying and failing to hide his smile.
Pyrrha grinned back and began her first move, chucking her shield in the air directly above Jaune. "Don't get too ahead of yourself leader, think about the second and third order effects of my actions." Her words drew his attention to her rifle, which was not pointed at him, but the shield above. Shots echoed in the training room and bullets riccocheted off of the shield, directly into his aura shield. Each hit putting Jaune off balance, until Pyrrha sprinted forward and jumped to drop kick the falling shield into his stomach.
Thoughts of quitting filled Jaune's mind as his breath left him, and as he tried to catch any semblance of it, he realized the meaning behind Pyrrha's mantra. It really wasn't too late to quit, end the pain and tribulation immediately. It was just training, and they could always fight another time. But like she said, it would set that precidance, that Jaune could and would stop when it got a little harder than difficult.
Jaune rolled away, still keeping hold of his weapon and shield. Pyrrha had retrieved hers and continued to pressure him, shooting, hitting, and maneuvering to keep him on the defense. He was given no time to think, to plan his next move. There would need to be some reliance on intuition and gut feeling, and Jaune just had to get one hit in anyway. "Come on Pyrr, I'll give you tomorrow's triaining session off if you go easier on me."
"I could say the same to you Jaune," Pyrrha replied, her rifle becoming a spear right before she threw it at his feet. "But that would be fibbing would it not?"
As much as Jaune was happy that she had broken out of her shell in the recent months, he still wasn't used to the quality quips she had begun to produce. "Yeah, yeah."
In his tiredness, one blink of his eyes caused Pyrrha's foot to be in his face. She had used the staked spear to pivot around and kick him, his aura now in the yellow. He sighed, or more coughed spit up, considering how Pyrrha had probably lost more aura from blisters from fighting than he had caused. It would have to change, and Jaune finally had an idea how.
The plan all started with Jaune continuing his defense, waiting for a sliver of oppourtinity and luck. And his luck began with a hit on the rifle from his shield, right as Pyrrha shot at him. His other hand came down with his sword at the same time, the hardest he had swung the whole fight, into the top of the rifle.
Click. Click. Click.
Looks like the workouts with Yang were, well, working. The sword had cut into the rifle, lodging itself in the metal. After Pyrrha's last shot, the rifle was unable to chamber another round, blocked by the sword. It left both of them without direct weapons, but not for long.
"Sorry Pyr, need to use this real quick." Jaune swung his shield, using Pyrrha's confusion from her weapon not working to slam it into her side. Her grip loosened, he grabbed the rifle by the barrel after letting go of his shield and whipped the butt into Pyrrha's cheek. She didn't move an inch, not even a step back, but her aura shimmered from the hit. The bar dictated that a few percent of her aura had been drained.
Pyrrha smiled, swallowing spit that anyone else would have released onto the floor. Even at a loss, she still held herself with dignity and integrity above anyone Jaune had seen before. "That was a fantastic play Jaune, I think that gives you the win. The round and this training are yours. Now what might your final question for me be?"
"Well, let's see." Jaune took some seconds to get ahold of his breath, slowly making his way to the bench. After some gulps of water, a wipe of his brow, and some more huffing and puffing, he finally figured out what he wanted to ask. "I will always appreciate what you've done for me Pyrrha. It's been a blast being your partner, and I think I will always be using these training videos, even when I might not need them anymore. But I've never slowed down to ask, do you regret being my partner? You could have had someone of your skill level, like Weiss or Yang, but you looked out and found me."
"Jaune…" Pyrrha gave a look that could only be described as pure pity. It wasn't what Jaune was looking for. He could deal with a lot of looks, but that was not at the top of his list. She sat down next to him, lifting her arm up to touch him but stopping before making contact. Her arm fell back to her side, "I found you so I could have a reliable partner." She paused, getting a little flustered. "W-well, that's not to say that I don't like Weiss or Yang. But, from what I knew, and still know, your goals, ideals, anything that I needed to consider all lined up with mine. You looked to get something done within everyone's abilities, not what their titles or ego said could happen. It's why your JNPR's leader, not me or Nora or Ren."
"That's, thank you Pyrrha." Jaune replied, unable to put into more words how much better that makes me feel. I would totally hug you right now if I didn't feel like I just came out of a slip and slide."
"Well, how about we get cleaned up and I can cash in this hug afterward." Pyrrha said, getting up from the bench and offering Jaune a hand.
"I think we can arrange something, I'll have to talk to my people."
"So much more important than when I first knew you." Pyrrha joked, "If only I had contracted you sooner, I'd be making more money than my pumkin pete royalties."
Jaune picked up his step, getting to the exit first and holding the door open for Pyrrha. "It's alright Pyr, I think everything will work out in the end. I'll still mention you in my acceptance speech."
"Oh please do, I need all the exposure I can get nowadays."
"Don't we all?"
I appreciate everyone making it through the story and chapter so far. It can't end however without a good old ramble, and maybe more of an explanation of Pyrrha's saying she mentioned. Well, the short story behind it.
When I was returning to my second semester of a freshman year at a military college, the backseat filled with myself and roommates, we were all complaining about going back. As would anyone, not actually meaning the complaints, just saying it to say it. My father, an alumni of the college and who still has more months of combat deployments (round 60) than I've had years involved with the Army, looked back at us and grinned, saying: "It's never too late to quit."
We laughed it off, and it was always a good story to tell, but as I trained, competed, and experienced different things in the Army I found myself thinking back to the saying. Anytime I was considering quitting, I would think of that moment, and essentially think how Pyrrha explained herself. I could quit, but that would set a precedent for myself and my mind, because anytime a similar event would occur I would know that I was comfortable with quitting.
With all that, I felt that Pyrrha probably experienced similar things. It seemed that it was a good place to put it, and a nice reason behind it. Plenty of other things I've learned and been handed down have made it's way into the reasonings this story holds, but Pyrrha's talk was the most word for word so far.