Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lying in bed, relaxing, the breeze cooling warmed flesh, I felt. . . good. Happy. Whole.
For the first time, in over a decade, I had someone I could trust.
Someone who wouldn't suddenly turn on me, for reasons they refused to tell me.
Someone who wouldn't disappear, without even a word.
Someone I knew wouldn't abandon me.
It was stupid, and childish, and just another thing that was wrong with me, but. . . it was what it was.
Pyrrha reached up, and boop'd me on the nose. "Stop it, Jaune," she chided, lazily, but smiling as she did so. I shot her a confused look. "You were brooding again."
"I wasn't. . . okay, I was," I admitted. "I, just. I'm still just surprised you said yes. But. . . I'm happy. Happier than I've been in a while."
A soft yet calloused hand trailed down my chest, stomach, before coming to rest on semi-hard flesh. "I can tell," Pyrrha teases. "Ready for another?"
Smiling, I prop myself up, gathering her to me, though she wriggles delightfully into my arms, and lean down to give her a smoldering kiss, allowing my Talents to guide me to hold tight, possessive, not that I need the advice to do that. Pyrrha is mine, on a level that almost scares me, but in a way that is just so right.
Positioning myself, I once again sheathe myself in her, warm and wet gripping me just as tightly as I'm gripping her. Unlike before, there is no frantic energy, no need to prove myself, we'd both been satisfied repeatedly, so now I take it slow, enjoying myself, both of us with enough strength and endurance to just move against the other, pressure enough to almost hurt, but with a closeness so deep it's almost possible to forget where one of us ends and the other begins.
We fall into a pattern, as we slowly couple, our breathing syncing up, in opposite patterns, breathing not like a fight, but like the long sparring sessions we'd had, where she was working on her longevity in battle as much as I was my technique. Soon enough, she shudders around and under me, and I continue, setting off another tightening, clenching, flowing orgasm, as she pulls herself painfully tight, nails digging into flesh, mouth latching onto my neck as she lets out a long, whining moan.
"Again," she begs, and I thrust, almost lazily, setting off another chain of shudders throughout her body, feeling the rising sense of my own relief, and, growling, pull her tight as I thrust one last time, releasing myself deep within her, a moaning "yes" escaping her as I let myself fall backwards, pulling her with me, to rest, once again, on our bed.
I have to resist the urge to slip into sleep, that content with how I am, but rest, half-asleep, hand lazily drawing patterns across Pyrrha's smoothly muscled back. "Doing this on a bed was a good idea," I commented, getting an amused chuckle from the gladiatrix.
"Doing all of this was a good idea," she agreed, gripping me tightly for a moment before shifting off me. "Now, I'm going to get some water, and take a shower. Want to join me?"
Maybe it's my draconic nature, or my talents, or the situation, or just Pyrrha herself, but I perk up in more ways then one.
My lover's eyes dart towards my waist, and she turns around, smiling, her red hair, unbound, following her in a crimson trail, walking out as she comments, "I'll take that as a yes."
DR
After we'd cleaned up, got dirty, and cleaned up again, we regretfully dressed, Pyrrha noting, with surprise, that the drawer she opened held three copies of her standard school outfit.
"Oh, yeah, it does that," I shrugged, dressing myself. "Not sure if it destroys the old clothes, or just cleans and restocks them."
"This place can make clothing," Pyrrha had asked me incredulously. "Then, Jaune, why do you still wear. . ." her eyes flicked to the hoodie I was putting on, cartoon dragon head and all.
I shrugged, "'Cause it's comfortable, and it worked. But when I needed this," I waved the mask, before putting it on, "it just read what I was thinking, and made it."
Pyrrha just stared at me for a long moment, expression inscrutable, before she closed the drawer and concentrated, brows drown together in effort. The drawer jumped slightly in its track, and opening it up, she drew out a lingerie set done in what looked like golden thread, though from the way it moved it was obviously fabric. Smiling, she stripped, putting that on instead, and I had to repress a grin of my own as she turned and poised. "Well, Jaune, what do you think?"
"I think if you're not careful, we're not gonna leave here before nightfall," I answered honestly, her own grin widening, but I had to turn away and finish getting dressed. "But we should get back before dinner, to avoid attention if you want us to sell the entire thing with Yang."
"Yes, Yang," my lover replied, thinking. "Are you going to offer her what you offered me?"
Pausing, I thought about it. "Not now," I decided. "You. . . we've spent time together. I know you, or at least I'm pretty sure I do. And you know me. Yang. . . eventually, if you want me to, I will, but now? No."
"I think that's a good idea," she agreed. "I'm sorry, Jaune, but you were terrible at making your offer, and if you did the same with her, she'd either say no, or say yes without really meaning to. From what I know of you, that's the last thing you'd want."
"If she says no, she says no," I countered, not really able to disagree with her about my presentation, before nodding, "but yeah, option two is. . .well, what I'm trying to avoid."
She nodded in turn, and we made our way to the portal room, Pyrrha watching, fascinated, as I dialed in the destination, noting that the 'captured' total was still zero. Right, the Stamp takes three days to manifest fully, I realized, which meant that what'd come after her Stamping had still been all her. Part of me wondered if I was losing something, by doing it this way, but what I was gaining was so, so much more, that I pushed the thought from my head.
"It's awfully complicated," she commented, watching it all spin together and work. "All this just to go home?"
"There's more to it than that, but I'm still trying to understand it," I revealed. "But we have nothing but time, when it comes to this."
"I suppose we do," she said softly. "I expected to feel. . . different, with everything you said."
Considering it, I slowly replied, "It takes a few days for everything to implement, but, theoretically, you shouldn't feel that different. Most of what it does doesn't affect you but makes it so other things can't affect you in turn. If you suddenly became immune to fire, you wouldn't know until you weren't burned."
"I suppose I wouldn't," she nodded thoughtfully, as the portal stabilized. "It's quite different from this side."
I shrugged, and walked out, only to bump into a Beowulf, who was sniffing at the grass where we'd been. It made a sound that was half confused yelp, half menacing growl, and my hands were automatically in motion, pulling my blade.
It must've been young, because it barely moved as I stepped forward, smoothly beheading it as it started to stand, its black arms only starting to rise as I slew it. glancing around, there were a couple more, now looking up, as Pyrrha exited behind me, cheerful expression turning to one of disgust as she got a face-full of not only the conceptual smoke that was Remnant, but a snoot-full of the vaporized corruption that was a dissipating Grimm corpse.
"What is that?" she demanded, blinking slightly tearing eyes clear, as she looked around, pulling her weapon. "Grimm?"
"I got these two, you have those three?" I asked in turn, getting a nod from her and charging my chosen targets. Compared to the Tide, to the Grimm native to Forever Fall, this was child's play. I realized that, with even a fraction of the skill my partner had, what had been a serious challenge during my initiation was now little more than a chore. The first Grimm reared back, attack as slow as it telegraphed the blow, and I paused to let it swing by, stepping behind the Beowulf and cutting it practically in half, from shoulder to hip.
The second, which had merely watched, now growled and charged, leaping for me, arms outstretched. Ducking, with my shield up to slam into its snapping jaws, I stabbed upwards, rooting myself as I lifted it, gutting the Grimm as I used its own momentum to help cut through it, dumping it behind me as I turned to see if Pyrrha needed help.
She didn't, but had only dispatched one, spear spinning back and forth as she didn't go for kill shots, but minor blows instead, opening up bright red rents in black flesh, dancing between her foes. It was only when one was completely open that she moved forward, slamming her spear into its throat and beheading it, turning and kicking the last injured Beowulf as it tried to go after her. Jumping high, she came down on it as it fell to the ground, with an impressive dive, slamming her spear right through the center of its chest, the force of her strike causing something inside it to crack, and it went limp.
Considering what just happened, it'd been easy enough to clear out the enemies that'd appeared, but this had made the second time I'd opened a portal in the wilderness, only to come back to Grimm sniffing about. It was something to keep in mind, and to be aware of the next time I did so, in case I ran into something more dangerous than a few stray Beowulfs.
Sheathing my weapon, clipping it to my belt, she stowed her own, and we started to walk back to Beacon. After we'd left the dead Grimm behind, Pyrrha stopped, wrinkling her nose once more. "I thought it was the Grimm, but, Jaune. Why does the air feel. . . dirty?"
"It's always been like that, it's just Home that it's clean. I'm pretty sure this is a 'fish doesn't know it's wet' issue," I offered.
At that she just shook her head, "I suppose. It would raise too many questions if we slept there, would it?" she asked, her forlorn tone already telling me she knew the answer. "Can we return tomorrow?"
"I don't see why not? We can spar outside, and if we get. . . distracted, we don't have to worry about someone walking in on us," I offered.
"A bit of a loss, but well worth it," she replied, which didn't make sense, and from the teasing smile she shot my way, she seemed to understand that. With an extra swing of her hips, she started to walk towards Beacon once more.
DR
The next day's 'How do you not already know this?' class was about how vehicles worked, gasoline being phased out in exchange for 'combustion dust', a fairly cheap mix of Fire and Wind Dust, as both the quality and the amount needed to fuel a vehicle were miniscule, allowing for greater range between settlements without issue.
Thankfully, gasoline was still a thing, the crude oil mostly coming from Atlas, though Vacuo was a close second. Vacuo itself was something of an odd situation, almost like the Middle East, but far more laid back, almost Aladdin-esque in its outlook, only there had been no religious takeover. The other three nations had instead jumped straight to the colonialism phase of that region's history, but of a more of a 'take your resources' variety, like England and India, than the 'we want to live here too' variety like America or the early days of South Africa.
Nowadays everyone got along, to a certain degree, but none of our group were from Vacuo so we couldn't see how they felt about what'd happened. However, I knew that, after the Fall of Beacon, everyone just let Vale's Huntsman academy stay over-run, at least for long enough to kick off the travel-plotlines of the later seasons of the show I'd only heard of secondhand. That meant, while they might be nice, they weren't going to be of any help if things went wrong.
However, while I was willing to share some of my secrets with Pyrrha, now that I knew she wouldn't turn on me, I needed to figure out how. Thankfully, I had time.
"You're looking better, Jaune," Ruby had told me, after we'd wrapped up covering, as Weiss put it, 'Engineering so basic I wonder how you've not picked this up just from existing!'
I paused at her comment, and looked at her inquisitively. Her eyes dipped down to my uncovered scars, and she quickly added, "Not those. Not that those are, bad. I mean, they aren't that bad-" I gave her a look, "Okay they are, but I meant you just seemed better, like, happier, you know?" she asked, lamely.
In return, I nodded. "Weirdly enough, I do. And, I guess I am?" I asked back, shrugging, glancing first at Pyrrha, who smiled at me, then at Yang, who winked. "Just finally settling in, I suppose." Grinning, Ruby's eyes darted down for a minute as the gesture pulled a little at my scars, but she dragged her eyes back up. "I guess it's feeling real," I admitted. "I really am here, and I'm-"
I hesitated, almost saying 'not alone' but that was a bit too. . . personal. "I'm part of a team, I'm leading a team, and that's. . . different. In a good way."
"Didn't you have, like, ten sisters, Arc-light?" Yang asked, teasing.
Even though the memories weren't exactly mine, or at least tempered by the experiences of my previous life, my eye still twitched at that. "Seven," I ground out. "And. . . let's just say that wasn't a team, and I was the farthest thing from a leader." I didn't before, but know I knew the reason that Jaune crumbled under feminine authority was that he had been trained to, nearly from birth, and whining was the only way he could exert any power, passive-aggressive as it was.
Hell, even that stupid 'short, sweet, rolls off the tongue, the ladies love it' line had been something he'd been told by his eldest sister, which, when called out on it, is why he'd backtracked so fast, as he realized it was just another lie he'd been told because his sisters thought it was funny, while hoping that this time it wasn't.
I shook my head. "Besides, I was supposed to be a farmer. According to them, I'd never make it as a Huntsman, and it was stupid to try." And the worst part was that, in a way, they had been right. Without Pyrrha training him, because Glynda wouldn't, Original Jaune was the type to get himself killed, at least at this part of the timeline. However, that was mostly because his family had made sure he wasn't ready, hoping that would stop him from leaving, and that he'd crack, and bow to their demands, again.
We were allowed to go home during the one-week break between spring and summer terms.
I wasn't going anywhere.
However, ultimately, they didn't matter. My team did, Pyrrha most of all. "So, yeah, this is nice," I said, realizing the others were looking at me. Well, Yang, Ruby, Pyrrha, and Blake were. Weiss was putting her projector away, and Nora was trying to convince Ren to make pancakes for dinner.
"Well, I'm glad you're glad!" Ruby cheered. "Also, Yang mentioned that you helped her with Port's essay?" I nodded. "Um, could you help me too?"
"This would be the essay that's due tomorrow?" I asked, and the young girl blushed, embarrassed, but nodded earnestly. "Sure, I can look it over. It needs to be at least eight-hundred words, how much do you have?"
"Um," Ruby hesitated. "Counting the title?" she asked, and I nodded. "Four."
I sighed, and Yang laughed, the tiny team lead giving her sister a dirty look. "Fine," I sighed. "We'll work out an outline, you write it, and I'll give it another look after dinner. Sound like a plan?"
"Thanks!" Ruby cheered, disappearing in a cloud of red petals, and Nora gave me a hopeful look.
"You too," I nodded, and the other girl bounded out of the room to get her work as well, and I couldn't help but smile, happy to help.
DR
"Is that a cow?" I had to ask.
Port's class was the same as it always was, but once again I was skipping Glynda's to work with the Wizard himself. I'd gotten my flames down into a cube, well, a cube-like shape, and Oz had said we'd be trying something different.
"It is indeed," the white-haired man nodded, with ill-concealed amusement from his place at the table, sipping his tea.
"Okay. Why?" I questioned, when more answers weren't forthcoming.
He gestured to the glass jar in the center of the table, where I'd dropped some Fire last time. It'd been sealed, to see if it needed air. It didn't. We'd left it there to see how long it'd take to burn down, but after diminishing a little it'd stabilized, and had apparently stayed at that level all week long.
With a sinking feeling, I turned to look at the cow again. "You want me to test what my Flames do, don't you." It was more statement than question, but he merely nodded. "Alright," I sighed. "Anything special I should know about? Anything special I should do?"
The cow moo'd, tied to a post, and shuffled away from me.
"Well, for one, I've awakened it's Aura," the Wizard noted blandly, and I had to turn and stare at him again.
"Why would you. . . . oh. To test what my fire does against Aura, right?" I asked, starting to see where this was going.
Oz nodded. "By your own recollections, you have used it on the Grimm exclusively. While I appreciate your caution, not turning it on your fellow students, there is a line between caution, and fear. It is best to allay those fears, before they gain a foothold, and accumulate power over you." His mouth quirked into a half-smile, "Fear can often show a person's nature, but I do believe you've already had a glimpse of your own, and unnecessary fear lacks any such insightful qualities. No, this is something that needs to be addressed."
I winced at that, though I wasn't really sure why. Was it the fact that I'd apparently given something away? What was it? Was it good? There was also the gentle, but undeniable rebuke that I very well should've done this earlier, and now I had no excuse. "So, what, just breathe on it? Burn it to death?"
"It would be best to start with enough to injure first," the Headmaster suggested. "And keep in mind it has far less Aura than your average Huntsman, let alone being gifted like your teammates."
I turned to look at the animal again, but, again, I hesitated. It was a cow, even with its Aura awakened, that might put it on dog-levels of intelligence, once it had a few years to get used to it. Even then, using my Fire on something actually alive felt like I was taking another step on a road I didn't know the end of.
It was somewhat odd, as there was a part of me that straight up didn't care. That wanted to burn it, just so, maybe throw some spices at it first, then transform and eat the entire thing in a few bites. But that part felt. . . harsher, vainer, colder in ways I couldn't really describe.
"Mr. Arc. Did you not slaughter cattle on your family's farm, or were you not part of that?" the Wizard asked, sounding honestly curious.
Oz wasn't wrong to be confused. Hell, from Jaune's memories I knew how to slaughter cattle, had memories of doing it, and then crying and throwing up. But. . . that was kind of the issue. "Except this isn't slaughtering," I countered. "I'm going to burn this poor thing to death. Even if its Aura takes it, it's still going to feel like I have. That's. . . not something I'm going to like doing."
The Headmaster started to respond, before he paused, nodded, and waited. Trying not to think too hard about what I was about to do, I pursed my lips, concentrating on the process itself. One of the upsides of the training I'd received during these sessions was that I could shape the Flame, just a little. Reaching down, I brought up enough, forming and concentrating it, spitting out a small baseball sized concentration of Fire.
My aim was terrible, but cows aren't exactlysmall, and the fire hit, the compressed Flames exploding slightly, spreading a prismatic blaze out across its flank. The animal cried out in pain, and tried to run, the Flames seeming to slide off it as it bolted, until the rope tied around its body went taught and brought it to a halt, causing it to give another bellowing moo of distress, as it turned and tried to put as much distance between itself and the Fire, still burning on the ground, as possible.
However, it looked to be completely unharmed.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. On one hand, if it could somehow bypass Aura completely, I'd have one hell of a weapon here, one that'd trick more arrogant foes into getting hit, assuming they could tank it. On the other, I could actually use it around others. I was well aware that, had it been as dangerous as I'd thought, using it against the Grimm Tide had been risky as hell, but it was the only option I'd had. Now, if someone got caught in the crossfire, they'd get their Aura drained, but be fine.
"How much?" I asked Oz, starting to clarify my statement, but he was already answering, having understood me completely.
"That hit was equivalent of somewhere between Ms. Valkyrie's grenades and Ms. Xiao Long's gauntlets, though still less than Ms. Rose's shots," he revealed, having been monitoring the cow's Aura levels, because of course he was.
I nodded, able to work with that, and build a general idea of my other moves. That, actually, made it less powerful than a Fire Dust construct of the same size and density. Nora's projectiles were more kinetic push then devastating overpressure, so while the explosion from the fire was smaller, their equivalence made sense. Eventually, I'd need to try the same thing with Dust-enhanced Flames, but I was in no hurry to do so. "Now what?" I asked, dreading the answer.
However, Ozpin instead motioned towards the chair opposite him. Thankfully taking a seat, he had me continue working on shaping my Flame, increasing the speed and accuracy of it, ever so slowly.
It was when our time drew to a close, that he looked over at me and said, "You know what you must do."
I winced, asking, just to be clear, "You want me to kill it with my Flames, don't you?"
"You might not be able to," he argued, though without a hint of reproach. "You might only be able to cause it injury, or you might not be able to injure it at all. We won't know until you try."
Hanging my head for a moment, I still got up, and approached the cattle. It had calmed down, but, as I got closer, it got increasingly nervous, sensing the danger it was in now. I looked at it, before glancing back. "I can kill it quick? Minimize its suffering?"
"We'll get less data that way," the Wizard pointed out, but that wasn't a no, and he said nothing else.
"Quick it is," I said, waiting for him to contradict me, but he didn't. Nodding, I reached deep, pulling on all my reserves, focusing on as narrow a stream as I could make it.
Inhaling I braced myself and let the Flames flow, in a long, scorching stream that engulfed the front half of the cow, which started to bellow in pain, even as I felt my Flames rush down its lungs, cooking it from the inside out.
Then, it exploded.
Not like a bomb, but its skin split grotesquely, like an overcooked, unpunctured hotdog, spilling steaming viscera out behind it, splattering the floor. A red and pink and purple mess that was the oddest mix of well-cooked meat, coppery blood, and something foul.
Yet, again, some weird part of it all made me salivate a little, wanting to breathe again, and cook the rest, but I sat on that, letting the majority of myself remain dominant, face twisting in disgust. Turning my back on it, I asked Ozpin, "What does that tell you?"
"It tells me to ask you not to do that to a student, as it would do as much damage as if Ms. Xiao Long activated her Semblance, and kept punching a defenseless target until it ran out, only without the time between blows to check if more are needed," he answered. "Or if Ms. Rose unloaded a full magazine directly between your eyes, and then unloaded another few shots after that for good measure."
So I could take it, maybe, maybe not, if I was at full, I thought, nodding. I was out of my Fire, and would be for another several minutes, forever in a fight, so it was an all-or-nothing attack, and, according to Pyrrha, using those worked far more rarely then one would think. "Got it. If you'll excuse me, I'd rather not stay here. Not particularly fond of the scent of exploded, half-cooked cow."
"Understandable," the immortal Wizard smiled, seemingly not bothered by the smell in the slightest. Then again, with what he'd likely experienced, that was to be expected. As much as I disliked it, this didn't hold a candle to the stench of something like a day-old battlefield, which Oz was sure to have experienced during the Great War, at least.
"I'll see you next Monday," he informed me. "You mentioned that you could use Wind Dust? We'll begin with that. In its unbridled state, you'll only be pushed around, instead of burned."
I nodded, and walked to the door, though I had to pause at the threshold. As much as I didn't trust him, I had been putting off doing the exact kind of experimentation we'd done today. I likely would've continued to hold back using it when I needed it, for fear of what I might do if it'd been as deadly as I thought it might be. Or instead I might've thought it more powerful than it actually was, a trump card that was only a Jack, instead of an Ace. "And. . . thanks, Oz."
Without another word I left, going to join the rest of my team for dinner. As I walked up to them, Pyrrha looking over and giving me a bright, sunny smile, the sound of almost comically malignant laughter drifted over to me.
There, sitting in full armor, was Cardin, next to the rabbit girl, Velvet. His teammates had surrounded her, one obviously holding his hands up to mime her Faunus ears, though it more looked like he was trying for moose antlers.
Cardin, a consummate bully, had almost certainly realized he couldn't push me around, without me even having to butt heads with him to drive the point home. However, just because he wasn't harassing me didn't mean he stopped harassing everyone else.
It struck me that, with everything that'd happened, with everything I'd gone through, I was still in Volume 1. In a way, that meant my knowledge of the future, what little I had, and what little hadn't already been torched and burned to ash by own actions, was sill viable.
As Velvet did her best to ignore her harassers, which only pushed them to double down, I started to stalk forward. Jaune might overlook this sort of thing, as, apparently, could the others, but I'd repeatedly come within a hairs-breath of being suspended in school for intervening in these sorts of things, never being punished officially because I didn't break the rules.
Despite myself, I felt a grin start to stretch over my scarred flesh. Cardin was not ready for what was about to happen. More than that, though, I was starting to realize the fact that, in the small bit of time in the series timeline that we'd moved through, I'd progressed this much? Going from my own experience, with a sprinkling of Jaune, to someone who could fight Pyrrha Nikos and get hits in?
Cinder wouldn't know what hit her.
AN: Yes, nearly two books in and we've just reached episode 11, or 1:10 into Volume 1. God were the timeskips in Canon egregious.