Symbiote Knight

Chapter 20: Full Contact

Jaune woke up to a day where he felt a bit lighter, mainly because the weight on his shoulders that he hadn't even realized he had, was lessened a bit. His team finally knew about the secret alien residing inside of himself. It felt like this wall he had put up was torn down between them all. Sure, it took a little getting used to be supposed but he felt in the end this would only make the team stronger as a whole.

They met with their sister team, team RWBY as usual at the tables. It was a very familiar setting and Jaune had to admit that he was getting used to the fact he had people he looked forward to seeing every day at every meal.

"So have you guys seen the news?" Yang asked them during their morning meal.

"What news?" Pyrrha asked her.

"Looks like Vale is going nuts," Yang pulled out her scroll to show them news reports on various incidents the last few days. It showed buildings and stores being vandalized, physical assaults, muggings and the like were going up and the police were starting to stretch a bit thin one insider source claimed.

"Vale is usually a lot nicer than this," Blake thought out loud. It was the reason she had picked Vale to go to Beacon. Well, it was the closest one as well after she left Adam on that train but given her four options Beacon seemed liked it was one of the better choices. Haven was too far and while it had a Faunus in charge, she wanted to keep her Faunus heritage under the radar. Atlas was right out for many reasons, Shade well it was just too hot for her. Plus, Vale had better access to things like books and sea food which she loved.

It also had a history of a more tolerant nature towards Faunus.

"Usually, the kingdom of Vale is a bit more peaceful," Ruby tilted her head thinking on it. She and her sister might be from a small corner of Vale but that didn't mean they weren't unaware of the status of their kingdom after all.

"Yeah," Yang nodded her head. "Something is going on."

"Should we cancel the plans to go out Friday?" Pyrrha asked.

"It would seem a shame to change our lives just because of a few dissidents." Weiss put her thoughts out there. She and her family had a long history of doing just that, even despite all the acts and threats of violence against her family from extremists like the White Fang, her family would not be brought down by such tactics.

"I say we go, I refuse to alter my plans just because of this," Weiss stated sitting up even straighter than normal. "If you allow yourself to have others walk over you or push you around, they will be doing it to you all your life."

"Well, can't argue with that logic," Yang shrugged.

"Cool, this should be fun," Ruby's eyes lit up. "We haven't had the chance to do much as a team in town anyways and this could be fun."

"But maybe we should be prepared in case of the worst," Blake commented.

"Fair enough," Weiss nodded.

It wasn't illegal to walk around armed after all if you have either the permit for it and given their status as students of Beacon they had those permits. In fact, you had to have it in your first year in prep-school in such places like Signal. It was a bit looser outside of the major cities where Grimm attacks were more common of course but that wasn't really part of the issue here.

~I hope the music isn't too loud~ Valor groaned.

'Why?' Jaune asked.

~Extreme noise hurts like fire does, it's a lot less when I'm inside of you though.~

'Well okay but let me know if it's too much and I can make an excuse like needing to go to the bathroom. Remind me to tell the others, maybe they can help cover or make sure the music isn't too loud.' Jaune offered.

He had a sense of thanks from the symbiote as he went to dig into his breakfast. He had other things to go over today, mainly for tonight's full on sparing match with Pyrrha. He was both thrilled and a little hesitant. This was Pyrrha after all, it was painfully obvious she was possibly the strongest student at Beacon and not just for the first years. He was going up against her and this time he couldn't hold back.

He wasn't sure if they were ready for this but a part of him was curious, just how far could they go? He wasn't the same person he was when he first showed up to Beacon, he had grown, he had gotten stronger, and he wasn't alone.

He felt a sense of encouragement coming from Valor as he was thankful for it.

Tonight, he was going to see what they were made of and no matter what he was going to do his best. It was time to see what all his training up until now had done for him.

-Later that Night-

Team JNPR were walking down the large stone bath that ran in front of the school. Jaune and Pyrrha were geared up while Nora and Ren were not wearing the school uniform. The sun had set so they were taking advantaged of the night to get in the special sparring for their team. Pyrrha was looking forward to this to see just what Jaune and Valor were capable of without holding back. Halfway down the long path they took a turn into the light woods that were on either side of it.

They didn't want to go too deep, but this would be a nice out of the way area and by this point no one should walk in on them. They walked through for about ten minutes before they found a nice open area that they could use.

"Okay then, let's link up our scrolls," Pyrrha walked over to Nora and Jaune walked over to Ren as their paired them linking the data. While their scrolls would keep track of their aura, they didn't have the school's system to link to in order to see where they were. That's why Ren and Nora were here, they would monitor each of them to make sure they didn't go into the red or beyond.

After that was done both partners went to their positions, Ren and Nora by the trees while Jaune and Pyrrha were in the center of the clearing.

"Are you ready?" Pyrrha called out.

"Almost," Jaune pulled out his weapons as suddenly the symbiote covered him in the white armor he was used to using. Pyrrha grinned as she got ready her shield up and her main weapon turned into rifle mode with it resting in the grove of her shield at eye level.

"Alright you two," Nora said smiling as she raised an arm and then quickly dropped it. "Go!"

Pyrrha started off shooting at Jaune/Valor as he moved forward using the shield to block each shot. She focused to take shots at his head to make him move the shield there. It was a tactic she used to blind others that used them so she could move to a new position. However, as she jumped to the side and kept firing Jaune reacted without hesitation.

The shield was still up but he was quickly closing the distance as if he could see her. Then she realized her mistake, Jaune could see her. Or at least Valor was and was relaying the information to Jaune. Valor had no 'eyes' technically and viewed the world with a 360 degrees around himself. She didn't let that little surprise get to her as she quickly changed tactics as she switched her weapon into sword mode and went on the attack.

Jaune could feel the strength of his symbiote as they worked together, it was strange it was like everything was heightened when Valor was outside of him.

~Here she comes~

Jaune mentally nodded as sword met shield and they exchanged blow after blow. He had to admit that Pyrrha's attacks were strong and fast but with his symbiote he just might be stronger and almost if not just as fast.

Pyrrha could feel the force of each blow she took on her shield or she had to deflect with her weapon. The impact of them were far more than she had ever felt from someone. She wasn't sure just how much stronger he was with the symbiote, but she was sure it was a lot stronger than how Jaune was normally. She felt the impacts hit her hard, they were very big blows given his size and frame. She had to adjust to start deflecting the blows more or else he would wear her down if she took the blows straight on.

Jaune could feel pushing himself to get better as the spar went on, he had never gone full out before with Valor so they were both learning how to be in sync at this level of combat. They were slowly learning what their top speeds were, what their top strength was. Pyrrha was pushing them to find what their upper limits were. Ther was a sense of thrill in it as Jaune finally felt like he was starting to stand on par with her.

~I think it's time we take this up a notch~

'Agreed,' Jaune mentally nodded as his arms seemed to shoot out and extend.

Pyrrha's eyes widened as she suddenly found the gap between them no longer existed as his arms holding the sword and shield extended with the weapons. She quickly moved out of the way of the shield deflected the sword off her own shield but as they moved in midair, they suddenly changed directions as the 'arms' could bend at any point.

Thankfully her semblance helped to keep her ahead of them. She could feel the metal of Jaune's sword and shield, she tried to deflect them as per normal but felt resistance.

"That won't work with us," Jaune/Valor spoke as one. "We know that little trick of yours."

Pyrrha continued to move like a dancer, dodging, flipping and countering them as she could. She waited as she gathered up her semblance and in one large burst, she first set up a reverse polarity field to send his weapons way and then on her own weapons and armor to send herself shooting forward.

Since they knew about her semblance her usual tactic of being subtle with it wasn't going to work, so she was going to switch it up and go all out. Using her magnetic ability to make herself go 'faster' was a hard trick to master but it was worth it. It was why she wore more metal armor than most students over her body. It wasn't just for protection but so she could use her semblance on herself as well.

She dashed through the gap between them like a rocket as she kicked him once in the chest and followed up with a vertical slash of her sword as she spun around and hit him with face of her shield knocking him back.

The symbiote extended from his back and pushed off making his backwards fall turn into a half backflip as he landed on his hands and knees his arms pulling his weapons back.

~Okay…that was impressive~

'Yeah, she's one of the best for a reason,' Jaune slowly got up as the two started to circle each other.

~That magnetic power is annoying to deal with since your weapons are metal, I'm trying to keep them going but it's like fighting against a current, thankfully I'm not metal so she can only focus on the weapons~

And idea hit Jaune as the symbiote could see what he was thinking.

~Ohhhh, that just might work~

'Okay she changed things up so let's do the same.' Jaune shifted his stance as Pyrrha waited to see what he was up to.

"This is getting good, what do think is going to happen next?" Nora asked excitedly from the sidelines.

"I'm not sure but they seem to have something planned," Ren watched closely. It was rare for a single person lasted this long against Pyrrha so far in school, in fact they were reaching most likely the record for how long she had fought in the combat class.

Pyrrha had her shield up and sword resting on it getting ready. Suddenly the symbiote went over the sword and shield and just like that her sense of them vanished. It was like the weapons were suddenly not there. She could see their outline, but she couldn't find them. That's when Jaune launched the attack like last time but this time she couldn't sense the weapons.

She couldn't alter their path or keep them away. She was so focused on them she didn't notice at first when Jaune started coming closer this time he was coming to her. She saw it and did a jumping spin kick to his chest but instead of a solid hit she felt her foot impact something a lot less solid.

"Not this time," they said.

She noticed she was falling now, except for her foot. She caught a look of it stuck in his chest looking like her foot stepped into white mud as Jaune then twisted his body and then suddenly the grip on her foot was released. She tumbled to the ground, but she rolled with it and then kicked up into a crouch. A strand of her red hair had come loose into in her face as she tried to blow it out of her line of sight.

"Someone is having fun," Jaune/Valor said.

"What makes you say that?" Pyrrha asked.

"You're grinning."

She paused as she realized she was grinning she was in fact enjoying herself. It had been so long since she felt she could push herself and Jaune with Valor was doing just that. She couldn't rely on her semblance like normal and had to use it in ways she hadn't normally done until this moment. The symbiote gave Jaune such a versatile way of fighting it was hard to tell what would happen next.

The thrill of it all, she hadn't felt like this since her first tournament. After that everything seemed to just get easier and easier. There was no real challenge in it for her anymore, it was one of the reasons she retired from the tournaments. She just stopped enjoying them.

Today though in this moment in time however, Pyrrha was enjoying herself as she launched herself forward to attack again.

Nora and Ren's eyes widened at the renewed attack that Pyrrha was doing, she was moving faster now but Jaune was somehow keeping up with her.

"I've never seen them go out like this," Nora watched as the two seemed to not tire but just kept attacking and defending. Neither of them getting in a solid hit despite them trying. Pyrrha was using years of training and experience to keep ahead of Jaune who, while impressive, wasn't used to fighting with Valor fully.

"It is impressive," Ren took note of Jaune's aura levels but they were still good. "How is Pyrrha's levels doing?"

Nora jumped as she had forgotten to check. "Still in the green."

~We can't keep doing this, we have to break the stalemate.~

'I'm open to suggestions,' Jaune thought back trying to keep up his concentration. Valor was right, Pyrrha would take advantage of any opening they left for her. 'Isn't there any previous host that might have helped?'

The symbiote thought about it and gave Jaune a few quick ideas, Jaune saw them in his mind as flashes of insight as sone caught his attention. Since this was going nowhere it was time to overpower Pyrrha and overwhelm her. He waited for a few strikes when she was focused on his sword coming back when he unleashed the new attack upon her.

This time twelve tentacle-like appendages came out of various parts of his body, from the side of his arms, his chest, his back and thighs, they all came as several tips would form either copies of his shield or of his sword. Jaune was leaving the full control to Valor, there was just too much going on for a human mind to fully take control over.

Pyrrha was once again taken by surprise, she hadn't expected such an attack. She tried to keep up but there were just too many things to keep track of. She felt a hard blow to her leg, to her shoulder, to her side and one clipping the side of her head. Then three of the shield limbs slammed into her sending her flying back.

She landed hard and rolled but only managed to be face down her head swimming from the hit. She shook her head looking up to see the distance and Jaune seemed to be waiting for her. While she appreciated the kind gesture, he needed to learn to press the attack. She got to her knee and quickly changed her weapon and started firing at the extra limbs.

The symbiote this time took the hits to its form, Jaune's shield wasn't protecting it from the fire dust rounds as they impacted. Jaune could feel the pain from each shot, every shot felt like he was setting stung by a bee and Pyrrha was firing a lot of rounds.

~This really hurts!~

'I know,' Jaune gritted his teeth their assault stopped as the symbiote pulled back it's mass to try and protect itself in vain. If only Valor had aura to help, wait, aura could be expanded to a short degree so what if he expanded it around Valor?

~Worth a try(Ow)we need to(Ow)do something-OW! Okay that one really hurt!~

Jaune had never tried this before, but he felt for his aura, Pyrrha had been helping him understand his aura in their training, she said it would help him discover his semblance on day. While he had no idea what his semblance was, he felt for that warmth inside of himself and gently pulled it to the surface. He pushed that feeling into Valor through their link.

He could feel Valor sigh in appreciation as her shots weren't hurting him as much. Both felt the impacts, but the searing pain of the fire was manageable now. Jaune's limbs reached out trying to latch onto Pyrrha as she pulled away.

She could tell something was different, her shots at first were doing something but now she could see the pale-yellow impact on Jaune's aura now on the symbiote. She smiled knowing what he had done, now she had to break his aura to get at the symbiote who was also protecting Jaune. It was like a double layer of defense now.

She hadn't used her weapon in javelin mode in yet but if she could find just one hole to get a good shot and threw with all her strength it might be enough. His aura had already taken some hits so while she knew he had a lot of aura it might be enough to break it or at least weaken it. She switched modes to the third and final form of her weapon as she continued to dodge the extra limbs. She was trying to keep track, but it was so very difficult to do.

'There!' she thought her eyes widened at the small gap in defense. She was moving into position and about the throw her weapon.

"STOP!" Ren called out as both combatants stopped to look at him. Ren pulled up his scroll to show them. "Jaune, your aura just entered the yellow."

"Wait what?" Nora asked looking at him in surprise and then as the scroll in his hands.

"But we weren't hit," Jaune stated in confusion as the symbiote pulled away from his head as the limbs retracted.

Ren's brow knitted together as he looked at the scroll. "Actually, your aura is still going down, are you using it?"

"Oh right," Jaune stopping pour his aura into his symbiote. "How's that?"

Ren took another look and nodded. "There, it's stopped."

Everyone gathered together to look at the results of the spar, Jaune pulled back the symbiote. Pyrrha for her part felt her breathing recovering. Jaune and Valor had really pushed her, and she was disappointed that the spar ended the way it had. Still, at least with this she got a better understanding of what Jaune could do with the symbiote. There was still a lot more that could be discovered, and she was looking forward to it. She had been pushed to match his strength and speed using her semblance on her own armor for most of the fight there at the end.

She would have to refine that technique if she didn't want to be left behind once Jaune got more comfortable using Valor and they gained more experience working together.

"See look at this," Ren showed them the recording of the aura level for Jaune as they looked together at his scroll. "Your aura was steadily draining at this point."

~Using your aura like that must drain it trying to push it into me~

"Valor thinks that when I used my aura to cover him it created some kind of drain." Jaune looked at everyone. "Does that make sense?"

Ren thought it through closing his eyes deep in thought. "You can extend your aura to protect yourself." Ren remembered doing just that to block the fang of the King Taijitu as he continued one. He even used his semblance back when he and Nora were children to hide both of them from the Grimm that day in the village when they became orphans.

"I know you can push aura into others and into objects," Pyrrha spoke up. "But it's usually limited in some way to the aura levels of the person."

"We still have no idea how exactly the symbiote uses the aura." Ren tilted his head looking at the data. "It doesn't make sense for it to drop this fast, given it's the same mass and size as Jaune."

~Oh, I think I see the problem, let me talk~

Jaune nodded as the symbiote covered him as he started to talk. "I think I can explain that you see symbiotes size, weight and dimensions are not as fixed as we appear. We can change all that to suit our needs like this."

Suddenly Jaune's form bulked up looking twice as large as his muscles grew to looking like a champion weightlifter as he few two feet in size. Then he shifted back down to normal again. "As you can see, we can change not only our size but volume. There is an upper limit we can reach however."

"That…makes no sense," Ren blinked in confusion. "What you say goes against the laws of physics."

"Only the ones you know about," Valor replied a 'smile' forming on the face of the mask. "We symbiotes are living extradimensional tesseracts."

"Uh…what does that mean?" Nora asked raiding her hand slightly as though she were in class. She looked to Pyrrha and Ren, but both weren't sure what that was either. Jaune had heard this before, but he still wasn't sure what it meant.

"Okay how to explain this," Valor sighed and thought about it. "Okay you live in three dimensions; well, a tesseract exists in four. Think of a square, when you unfold it, then you get six squares. Now when you unfold a tesseract you get eight cubes."

"I…think I need visual aids," Nora blinked as Jaune mirrored it and was bonded to the alien.

"I'll try to do one later," Valor sighed wishing he could just show them. Wait, he could just show them. "Okay I can show you, everyone hold hands with me."

He placed his hand out as Pyrrha placed hers on top, Nora eagerly jumped in although Ren was a little hesitant. He slowly placed it on Nora's as the white symbiote slowly oozed over them. Pyrrha had this sensation before but now it was joined by two more minds. Nora and Ren were shocked by the ability to feel all the minds in the group like this.

Then the images started to appear in their mind of a cube, withing a cube with lines connecting the corners. They saw the cube expand to one side as it all morphed but suddenly the inner cube was replaced seamlessly. It was like the cubes were swallowing each other. Then the image sopped as it 'unpacked' itself and a line of cubes was revealed with one section having a cube on each surface making a small 'dagger' like form but all in cubes.

The symbiote pulled back at the link faded leaving Nora and Ren a little loss as the sudden mental gestalt they had shared left them.

"Whoa, is it always like that?" Nora asked.

"It felt more deeper when I did it," Pyrrha commented. Every time that happened it was like she had to reorient herself.

"That was…an experience," Ren had never felt anything like that before. It was so hard to put into words. He heard the term to 'bare one's soul' before but now he felt he truly knew what that phrase meant.

"Okay cool, I think I get what this tessa-thingy is," Nora looked to Jaune/Valor. "So how is it that using your aura with him drains it?"

"Because he's pushing it into something a lot larger than it appears to be," Pyrrha suddenly realized what was happening. The symbiote was basically 'bigger' than it appeared so when Jaune was pouring his aura into it, it took a lot more than what you would normally expect.

Ren picked up on this train of thought too. "So, by pushing your aura like this you drain it a lot faster."

The symbiote pulled back once more to let Jaune speak. "Okay so, I guess this means I can only use this for limited time."

"I would say so," Pyrrha nodded her head. "While you can use it to protect Valor it is a weakness. Why were you using it like that?"

"It's the fire dust rounds," Jaune explained. "Fire is kind of his weakness; it really hurts him."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Pyrrha hadn't known that fire round was just one of the many generic rounds she used.

"It's okay, it's kind of like getting stung for us," Jaune shrugged. "Besides I'll come across that again, better be ready for it. I guess I could use my aura to help defend him against just fire and turn it off when it's safe."

"That could still drain your aura quickly," Ren told him. "And if it's drained and the fire overwhelms Valor, you'll be defenseless with your aura gone."

~This is something we'll need to think about~

Jaune nodded his head, "Yeah looks like we learned a bit more out of this than I originally thought we wound."

"I have to admit I enjoyed myself," Pyrrha told him. "I haven't had to go that far in a long time. I hope we can do this more often."

"Oh yeah with two super awesome team members we're going to destroy all the other teams," Nora proudly cackled.

"Jaune can't just go all out though Nora," Ren shook his head. "I'm not sure if having him suddenly covered in a living suit can be passed off as a semblance. It's just too radically different from everything I've read about."

'Us too,' Jaune and Valor thought at the same moment.

"At any rate we better get back," Pyrrha noticed the time. "If we walk back now, we can be back before curfew."

"Yeah, let's not get on Professor Goodwitch's bad side," Nora while respecting their teacher also had a healthy does of fear for the woman. While fair she was also hard on you if you broke the rules.

"Maybe we should try this on the weekends when mostly everyone is going to the city to blow off steam or having fun?" Jaune asked.

Pyrrha nodded her head. "That could work plus the curfew is a lot laxer on weekends."

"Well sounds like a plan but I want a shot at them too," Nora grinned. "Seeing you two go at it makes me want to have a turn."

Pyrrha smiled at the shorter girl, "I'm sure that can be arranged, after all we need to know what Jaune and Valor's full potential are since he can't come out in combat class, and we can't use the training rooms in case someone walks in."

"At any rate," Jaune stretched out his arms, "I need to figure out a better way to use my aura to protect him, so it doesn't drain as much."

"I'm sure we'll think of something," Pyrrha told him.

With that team JNPR walked out of the forest and hit the main road back to the school.

TBC..