Chapter Five
"Knock knock," I said, lightly kicking team RRWN's door, my hands full of tray.
The voices on the other side quieted, the door opening up a crack, a silver eye on the other side. "Hel-Jaune!" Ruby cheered, throwing the door wide open, provoking an offended squawk from Weiss, who was still in her pajamas, and then closing the door just as fast.
The sounds of arguing came from the other side, before they stopped, a door slammed, and the door in front of me opened at a slower speed. "Hey Jaune," Ruby greeted me normally, opening the door enough to stand in, but leaving it mostly closed. "What's up?"
"I made breakfast, and I figured, after we unpacked, we could head to one of the training halls and both our teams could get better acquainted," I shrugged.
"Breakfast?" Nora asked, leaning over so she was in sight. "Is it pancakes?"
"No, breakfast shakes," I replied, Ruby standing aside and waving me in, Weiss nowhere to be seen. Nora expression fell, even as Ren glanced over interested. "They've got chocolate." Like an emotional see-saw, Nora brightened and Ren lost interest. "And Matcha." And Ren was interested again, even as Nora, glancing over and seeing his expression, looked at the drinks warily.
"What is this 'matcha' you speak of?" she asked suspiciously.
I tried to figure out how to explain it quickly. "Green tea concentrate."
Ren started to disagree, but paused, tilting his head in a subdued 'kinda' gesture. I held out my tray, only to discover there were only three cups instead of four. A slurping sound came from my side, Ruby having drank the entire thing, having produced a straw and trying to get the last little bit.
"You said chocolate," she offered, unabashedly. "Can I have another, that was really good! Like reaaaaaally good! Please?"
Blinking wide silver eyes up at me, I had to laugh. "Puppy-dog eyes don't work on me," I replied.
"That's what they all say!" she shot back, grinning.
"So, you want me to make more again tomorrow?" I asked.
She fist-pumped, "Puppy-dog eyes win again!"
"Holy spamoly this is A-maze-ing!" Nora exclaimed having swiped one of her own. "It's almost as good as pancakes!"
Ren took a sip as well, nodding. "That's high praise from her," he informed me. "And this is suitably nourishing ."
"That's Ren for he likes it," Nora explained conspiratorially, eyeing the remaining cup. "So, can I have that one?"
"What, no, that's Wiess'!" Ruby exclaimed, looking to me. "But if she doesn't can I have it?"
I shook my head, "If she doesn't want it, split it. It's a drink, it's easy to divide."
"Three ways," Ren added, the two girls glancing at him in surprise, but he didn't say anything else.
"That's up to you, just tell us when you guys are done," I told them, putting the tray down on a desk and heading back to my room.
The girls were busy putting things away themselves, Bake slotting books into a bookshelf, Pyrrha hanging up a sword that looked very similar to her weapon's sword form, and Yang was putting away several copies of the exact same outfit. At my questioning look the blonde replied, "I'm kinda hard on my clothes, bein' this awesome, and I like my look."
Given that Pyrrha's off-duty clothing was literally armor, and Blake had a similar set of matching clothing, that made a lot of sense. Checking my own suitcase, while I had a variety of t-shirts, and more onesies (WHY?), between the jeans and the hoodie he always wore, Jaune'd be just the same.
Unpacking some, I made a note to take this over to the mansion to get better clothes, and took out a few picture frames. Looking at them provoked... complicated feelings. A group shot of Jaune with all his sisters, and their... our mother, it reminded me of who I was, or had been, or had taken over.
I'd chosen Jaune because I needed an in for the plot, but there was more than that to it. I'd liked Jaune, at least at first, but while he got better, which wasn't saying much, he never became... more. He should have been there to help Pyrrha, but he hadn't, and she'd died. I didn't know the particulars, only that, if he'd been stronger, he could've saved her. It had torn him up inside, but from what I'd heard, while it made him push himself to get a little stronger, he hadn't gotten smarter, always second, or even third fiddle, to the rest of the cast.
I wasn't going to be secondary. Not again.
I could remember all of... my sisters, whatever family I'd had before so far away as to essentially be dead and gone, and Jaune's family was my own now. I'd make sure that, as the world went to hell, they'd be safe too. Our teams weren't separate from everyone else, we all had connections, even if they were second-hand. Well, Nora and Ren didn't, being orphans from a town destroyed by the Grimm, but everyone else did, and I wouldn't forget them.
I'd make sure the eight of us would be strong enough to shut down Cinder's plans, and after that... who could know what would happen.
Putting the pictures up on my desk, despite my desire to leave them packed away, I shoved my luggage under my bed and started to use my scroll to peruse the school's intranet, tracking down answers to a number of my questions.
"That's it?" Yang asked, looking at my mostly bare desk, and the open spaces of wall above it and my bed that were mine to decorate. Walking over, she picked up the picture. "Holy shit, you do have seven sisters."
I shrugged, "I packed light. I'm sure I'll pick up more stuff later." Glancing over to the now mostly full book-case, I wondered how Blake, an ex-terrorist on the run, had found time to gather that much literature, let alone carry it. Mecha-shift could let you pack things in tightly, but did nothing to lessen the weight, and it looked like she had an entire murdered tree's worth of novels, though a small one, a birch instead of a pine.
The sounds of commotion came from across the hall, as well as power tools. Exchanging a look with the rest of my team, we moved over to RRWN's room, and I actually knocked. The doors opened, and they'd constructed the room team RWBY originally had. At least, in part. Weiss's bed was still suspended by ropes, a sheet hung over it to create a four-poster-like canopy. Nora and Ren's beds, however, had been pushed together to make a single European-style king bed, the bedding sewn together to cover them both adequately.
Turning to look at Nora, she grinned, a needle and thread in her hands. "I think you should make another shake for her," Yang drawled. "Because that girl is thirsty."
"Oh, can I have another too!" Ruby asked. "I'm still a little thirsty, and they were really good!"
Yang laughed, tousling her little sister's hair and ignoring her offended 'Hey!' "Never change, sis."
"That was you?" Weiss demanded staring at me through narrowed eyes. "I thought she was the one who made them," she pointed at Yang, who snorted.
"If I made it it'd be burnt," she disagreed.
The heiress turned to her, hands on her hips. "You can't burn a drink!"
Ruby winced, "Uh, yeah. Yeah, you can. Trust me."
"I kinda want to know now," I commented, looking over to her.
"How was I supposed to know you were supposed to roast the beans before you made the coffee?" she asked. "But we're not here about me. So, why don't we get a day off, fearless leader?"
"Yeah," Weiss added, turning to face me. "I was going to spend today preparing for class!"
So glad she's not on my team, I thought, feeling sympathy for Ruby. "I've reserved a training hall, so grab your gear and meet me here," I told them, sending the coordinates to their scrolls. "We're gonna be working, and fighting, together for the next couple of years, so we should get a handle on everyone's abilities."
I looked around at them, "Over-generalization can be a bad thing, but over-specialization can be just as bad. Jack of all trades, master of one should be the name of the game," I explained, using, what I had heard was the original phrase, instead of the insulting dig it'd apparently become. "But to help with that I need to know what you're good at, to find what you're not."
That led us all to meeting back up in the training hall, everyone in the stadium seats, kitted out with their armor and weapons. "Okay, we can do this two different ways," I told them, standing at the bottom of the stands. "The first is show-and-tell. The second is by beating the hell out of me, since that is what I can do." The fact that it'd given me ample experience to help hone my own skills, letting Martial and Soul talents get a workout, was an added bonus.
"Um, I know ya said you were a tank, but doesn't that seem, a little, you know, excessive?" Yang asked, unsure. "I like a good scuffle as much as the next girl, but askin' us to run ya through the gauntlet..."
"Counter point, how much would a full-on shot from Ruby's sniper rifle drop your Aura?" I asked. They didn't have a way to measure the amount of Aura someone had here, at least not scientifically, but our scrolls, if they were on us, could monitor our 'levels' and tell us how much we had left, as a percentage.
The fact that, until yesterday, my scrolls would've said zero was another mark in the 'Staff knows about my bullshit but didn't say anything' column. Given that Ozpin had been happy to throw me into a forest full of Grimm, that didn't exactly say nice things about his character. Given that it'd let me get into his school, I was okay with that.
The blonde looked at her younger sister, who grinned back to her. "I don't know, twenty-five, thirty percent?" she offered. "But that'd be a full hit, and I'd never stay still long enough for her to get one off on me."
I opened my arms. "Okay Ruby, shoot me."
"What!?" Weiss shouted, but Ruby, bless her hyperactive heart, didn't hesitate, whipping out her weapon and blasting me in the face.
It hurt. A lot.
While Aura could stop damage, it couldn't stop physics, and I was thrown off my feet, flying back at least a yard, hitting the ground hard as Pyrrha yelled, "Jaune!"
"I'm okay," I wheezed, getting up, the pain only a phantom one to tell me 'don't let that happen again.' I had a feeling I wasn't going to be listening to it. Opening up my scroll, I sent the display up on the screen that rested over the coliseum, displaying a pseudo health bar.
It currently read '92%'. As we watched, it ticked up to 93%. "Oh, I knew yours was large, but I had no idea," Pyrrha commented, hands to her mouth in shock.
Yang grinned, opening her mouth, before she closed it, shaking her head. "Too easy."
"Like I said, tank," I reiterated. Being a dragon in human form had a lot of upsides, and increasing Jaune's already large Aura reserves was apparently one of them, taking it from notable to fucking ridiculous. Then again, given that it was a measure of one's soul, and I didn't spend the hundreds of years it'd take to hit maturity as a dragon, the Company seemingly having done the heavy lifting on that front, it also made sense.
Having someone capable of being the Big Bad on your team was a definite plus. The fact that this probably wasn't enough was a definite marker of the dangerousness of Remnant. "I've got tons of Aura. Now who wants to beat the hell out of me first?"
"I do!" Nora cheered, launching herself out of the stands, barely giving me enough time to grab my shield to defend myself as her hammer slammed down at me, the impact forcing me down to a knee, not prepared for it. Triggering her weapon she launched herself back while shoving me to the ground.
Seeing her flip up, recognizing the move from the Death Stalker, I rolled to my feet, even as she hit the apex of her flight upwards, firing her weapon at an angle to come down at my new location. Hoping this would work, I prepared, holding my sword and shield at the ready.
At the last moment, I tried to sidestep her as she came down, spinning with her hammer, deflecting it to the side with my shield as I drove my blade into her side as hard as I could.
I still took a bit of the blow, my shield slamming into me and sending me sprawling, but Nora went flying, catching herself on the wall, and jumping back towards me. Glancing up, I'd dropped down to 90%, but Nora's stats weren't up on the screen.
"Hold!" I yelled, and Nora, flying towards me and already pulling back for another blow, dropped her shoulders with a "Do I have to?", landing easily.
Pointing up at the screen, which only had my face on it, she gave an "Ooooooh", slipping out her scroll only for her grinning face to appear, Aura already down to 68%, versus my 91%.
Making a 'come on' gesture, she grinned and charged me. With her hammer raised, I got ready for the blow from above, but at the last moment she twisted and spun around, hammer coming in from the right, so I couldn't block it with my shield.
"Gah!" I cried, stumbling back, narrowly dodging the blow by inches, but she took another step and spun, the hammer coming in low. "Shit!" I swore, jumping over it, catching a malicious grin from her as she took a third step, this one faster than the others and spun a third time, hammer coming up to smack me out of the air.
Panicked, I manifested my wings, trying to flap backwards, and while I got my body out of the way, the hammer clipped my extended wing, sending me flying, Aura the only reason I didn't break anything.
Trying to even out my flight, the room, large as it was, wasn't quite big enough and I hit the wall, sliding down it even as Nora shifted her hammer to a grenade launcher and started lobbing explosives at me.
I was able to knock the first aside with my shield, but the second hit to my side, the blast knocking me right into the path of the third, though I was able to flap my wings and dodge it, pseudo-riding the blast-wave to get some distance.
Diving towards her, she took a 'batter's up' stance and there was no way I was going to be that stupid, pulling up to fly over her.
She swung anyways, clicking the trigger to cause her hammer to fly up towards me, riding it, but I got my shield up, blocking it and twisting. Rather than try to strike her with my sword again, I lashed out with a harsh kick, sending her flying once more.
Now it was her turn to panic, trying to use her hammer to come back at me, but messing it up, flying for first the ceiling, then the floor, before launching herself directly into a wall, which she hit with a crash, hard enough to stick to, slowly sliding down.
"Ouchie," she called, her Aura down to 45% and causing a buzzer to sound, while mine was only at 79%, despite the hits I'd taken.
"And that's good enough," I called out as Nora started to get back up with a look in her eyes that promised pain, and that she'd have a great time inflicting it. "One of the conditions of using the training hall is that we have to stop when your Aura drops below 50%, and the staff are notified if it drops below 25%. So," I turned to the peanut gallery. "What do you guys think?"
"You started off well, but you lost the initiative quite quickly," Pyrrha noted. "Also your technique needs refinement, though you were already starting to improve. Were it not for your Aura reserves, and your Semblance, you likely would have lost."
I winced. "I meant about Nora."
"She was awesome!" Ruby cheered.
"I meant about Nora tactically," I corrected.
"Looks like she hits like a freight-train," Yang noted, giving the girl in question an approving nod.
I turned to Blake, who stared back, finally noting, "Long lead."
"Exactly what I noticed," I nodded, looking to Ruby. "She's strong, probably the strongest on your team, but her moves take a bit to get going so she's vulnerable to counters, or speed if the other person is fast enough, which I'm not." Yet. "Any battle tactics will need to account for that, making openings for her to hit the opponent with. However, she reacts quickly to changing circumstances, not making her a complete Mighty Glacier." That got me some odd looks. "Strong, and tough, but slow."
I turned to look at the girl we were talking about, "But you didn't use your Semblance. Is it not combat related?" I knew the main team's, along with Pyrrha's, from the show, and Jaune's, from other sources, but not Ren or Nora's.
"Couldn't use it. If I get shocked, I get, like, super strong, but how are you gonna get lightning in-doors?" Nora commented with a laugh. "That'd be cra-zy!"
Directing my attention, towards the resident Dust expert, I asked, "Is lightning Dust a thing?"
"Of course it's a 'thing'! What kind of back-water school did you get your education from?" she demanded.
"Home schooled in a farming community," I replied absently, Yang and Pyrrha both turning disapproving looks to the white-haired girl. "Can you shoot lightning with those runes of yours?"
"They're Glyphs, not runes," she corrected snootily. "And I've never seen a reason why I should."
I looked at her, then at Nora, then back to her, then back to Nora. Weiss folded her arms, not saying anything.
"Um, Weiss?" Ruby asked, "Can you learn, please? It'd help out the team."
"Fine," the heiress responded, as if this were some great hardship. "But you better be thankful!" she demanded.
"You're going to be fighting all of us, right?" Blake asked, deadpan. I nodded. She looked at the Schnee girl. "Good."
Shaking my head, I asked, "Next volunteer?" Pyrrha immediately stood up. "You're last." I told her. As I was now, it would be a particularly humiliating beat-down, but hopefully the experience I gained from fighting the others would help. Martial Talent, just like all the other Talents, had a rubber-banding effect where the larger the gulf between you and your opponent/teacher, the faster you learned. I wanted to work my way up to her, to get the most practice possible, given she was undoubtedly the best fighter here, in our grade, and quite possibly in our school, at least for gladiatorial combat like this.
I was still going to have my ass handed to me on a silver platter, that wasn't in question, but I'd hopefully do better than the three move KO she'd probably hit me with right now, were it not for my monstrous reserves of Aura. Pyrrha, however, looked oddly hurt.
"We know you're the best, and I need the practice before I face you, if I'm gonna last long enough to get any kind of handle on your abilities," I told her with a grin. "I'm sure there are things you need to work on when fighting giant murderbeasts, but when it comes to personal combat against people you're the most experienced one here."
She hesitated, before nodding, sitting down, but that left the question of who'd be-
"Ren'll be next!" Nora yelled.
"I will?" asked the man next to her.
She nodded, before grabbing him and hurling him at me. I dodged, and he twisted mid-air, landing on his feet, if skidding slightly. Standing up and dusting himself off, he nodded, taking out his scroll. "I suppose I am. But won't you be at a disadvan... tage." he paused looking up at the screen. Following his gaze, I saw that, according to the display, my Aura had fully regenerated.
"Woah," muttered Yang.
"What?" I asked, suddenly unsure. I knew almost nothing about Aura, other than it, you know existed. "It's supposed to regenerate, right?"
"It normally takes two to four hours to recharge fully, when comfortably at rest," Ren informed me. "Not..." he paused, thinking, "Twenty or so minutes."
Was this a Jaune thing, a dragon thing, or a Dragon of Creationthing? I wondered. I just shrugged, "Hadn't really thought about it to be honest. Well, that just means you all get to beat on me even faster. Joy."
The other man nodded, "It does seem a double-edged sword, but one worth having. Are you ready?"
I nodded, and he reached down to his thighs, pulling off the two automatic pistols, long blades coming down from the barrels to come around his hands. The effect was something akin to a snake's fangs, only without the venom, the green of Ren's clothing not helping the comparison at all.
He took off to the left, circling around me as I pulled my shield up and at the ready. Raising one of the pistols, I raised my shield in turn and tried to protect my head, only for him to shoot my legs. Okay, that was dumb, I realized, charging him instead.
However, I quickly found a problem. While Nora was strength and adaptability, Ren was skill and speed. And, lacking a ranged option, I couldn't hit him. He occasionally closed, slashing at me as I tried to strike him with a counter, but he flowed around them like I was standing still. However after a few hits I started to get a handle on him, striking back when he darted in. He dodged, barely avoiding my weapon, dragging his blade across my extended arm in retaliation, shaving off another slice of Aura.
He darted in again, but this time I managed to catch him with my sword. He twisted around it, turning it into a glancing blow, darting away once more. One last attempt had him waiting for my blow, which he tried to move around, only to catch a face-full of shield which sent him flying back. He hit the ground in a roll, smoothly leaping back to his feet as I charged after him, darting to the side, one dagger-blade catching my sword while his pistol unloaded on me at point-blank range, before dodging away.
Taking to the air, to get some space and figure out my next move, he just started shooting at me, and when I dived at him he'd just dodge at the last moment. I growled in frustration, knowing if I shifted to mid-form I could probably move fast enough to catch him, but I shoved that thought down, focusing on the fight. Glancing over my Aura was only at 81%, while his was already at 77%.
As if reading my thoughts, Ren announced, "It's regenerating as I shoot you. You're getting faster, but I'm done. If this were a fight, I'd run."
"Boo!" Yang cried from the stands. "All you did was run around!"
I had a thought as I landed, after the... odd fight. "You and Nora, did you go to another school before this, or did you test in?"
"We tested in," he commented blandly, reloading his weapons.
Nodding, I told the rest, "He's a reverse Pyrrha."
That got me a lot of weird looks. "Uh, what?" Ruby asked, cocking her head.
"Against Grimm, he's deadly effective, we've seen that," I said, looking to him. "Because you've mostly been fighting them, right? Not human enemies?" He thought about it for a moment, before nodding. "As opposed to Pyrrha," I continued, turning back to the others, "who's been fighting them almost exclusively." I paused, looking back to Ren, "What's your Semblance, if you don't mind?"
"Tranquility. I can suppress my negative emotions, or those I touch," he announced calmly, which was actually a little worrying as it edged the line of Mind Control. Could he suppress panic or anger if he was doing something bad? Would they have enforced calm, or just logic? Eh, I thought, stopping myself before I ran down that rabbit hole. It either wasn't Mind Control, or it was but wouldn't work on me because of Mind Defense. Not that big a deal.
Shaking my head, I motioned towards him to the others. "And a Semblance that's only useful when fighting the Grimm, but would let him sneak up on them in a way that no-one else can. Pyrrha, what's your Semblance."
Her eyes widened, "I, oh, well. Nora has her lightning, and Ren has his Tranquility. My Semblance... is Polarity."
"Woah," Ruby commented, in awe. "You can control poles!"
"No, you dunce!" Weiss chided. "It means she has control over magnetism!"
"Magnets are cool too," Ruby nodded, in a tone that suggested that she probably wasn't getting what was meant.
"He really is a reverse Pyrrha," Yang noted, Ruby giving her a questioning look. "Well, most Grimm don't wear that much metal, do they?"
Ruby just looked confused. "But she controls magnets... Oh... Right... yeah, I knew that," she stated, lamely. "Um, I'm next!"
She zoomed out of the bleachers, even as Ren slowly made his way back to his seat, trying to force a topic change. "C'mon!" she said as I held up a hand. Once she'd logged in to the training hall system, her face appearing above us, and my Aura hit 100%, I readied my sword and shield, nodding to her.
She dashed in close, but her speed Semblance made her stop to swing, and that was terribly slow. At least compared to Ren.
Blocking the scythe blade with my shield, I struck with my sword a half-second later, barely missing her as she darted back out, darting back in for another blow, coming in from my right.
Blocking that blow with my sword, and with her eyes darting to my shield, I sparta-kicked, really push-kicked, her in the stomach, sending her flying backwards with an "Oof!"
She folded up, rolling along the ground, slowly getting up. I waited for her, watching, weapon at the ready.
Pointing her scythe towards me, I had a moment of DANGER as I brought up my shield, deflecting her shots, peering over it as they paused to see her flipping her scythe around, bracing against it. She shot it again, launching herself towards me with the recoil, and I jumped, Ruby streaking past where I just stood.
She flipped her weapon around, and I brought out my wings, flapping as she shot again, like an edged pinball, trying to chase me down. Unlike Nora, she had a much better handle on this, and I couldn't dodge fast enough, the third pass catching a wing and sending me spinning.
Why was it always the wings?
As I tried to stabilize myself, I felt two hammer-blows mercilessly striking out as I flailed, Ruby shooting me as I fell. I hit the ground, rolling to my feet and swinging out blindly with my blade, hoping I got lucky.
I did.
Ruby appeared in front of me, Scythe at the ready, only for my sword to hit her, blade-first, sending her flying once again. Glancing up, she was down to 63%, but I wasn't much better at 68%.
The black-and-red haired girl got to her feet, eyes narrowing, and she blasted towards me, seeming to teleport as she came in at a low, trying to kick my feet out from under me. I jumped, and she slammed her scythe into the ground, point first, and spun around it, trying to kick me as she circled, but a flap took me out of the way.
She shot her weapon again, twisting around faster, and yanked her scythe up, spinning like a human buzz-saw, but that told me exactly which direction the attack was coming from, letting me turn to block with my shield, catching the blow.
I was still knocked back from the force of the blow, but as I was forced away I threw my sword at her, seizing on the opportunity to hit her as she paused mid-air, vulnerable, and surprised at me blocking her technique.
Which was when I learned that was a horrible idea.
Not only did I miss, badly, but she shot her weapon again, launching herself upwards and dodging even if I had been able to hit the broad side of a barn. Which I wasn't. Landing on the roof, standing upside-down, she twisted and fired again, coming down on me in another buzzsaw spin.
I blocked that too, but the second I did she fired once more, using her weapon as a catapult and hurling me towards the ground. I tried to flare my wings out to slow myself, instincts screaming at me, but it wasn't enough, and I slammed into the floor back first as the air was knocked from my lungs.
Another shot and she came down, buzzsawing again, and while I brought my shield up to protect my body, she slammed her scythe down on my wing, carving off a full quarter of my Aura, and setting off the buzzer.
"Fuck!" I swore in pain, having been sure I was going to figure her out and win.
"Language!" Ruby chided, though she was grinning like a loon.
I laughed, though my ribs hurt, and called to the others, not bothering to get up, "And that, I'm pretty sure, is why she's team leader."