CRACK!
Jaune's head snaps back from a violent blow. He falls to the ground hard, his assailant standing above him. A look of satisfaction spread across her face. The girl backs up and lets her victim get to his feet. Not willing to let the opportunity pass him he scrambles to his feet and tries to get as far away from her as he can. The man's heart races as he prepares fro another flurry of blows.
Standing across from one another are Jaune and Neo, both of their weapons drawn. For the last 5 fridays now Jaune has been getting his soul beat out of him by the mute thief. He's definitely improved defensively against the girl being able to block, deflect, or even on the rare occasion evade around half of the attacks she throws at him.
On the other hand though he hasn't been able to land a single hit since he started sparring with Neo. His offense has pretty much stayed at the same level with some very small improvements that have only been noticed by Neo. Jaune has definitely gotten more confident in himself, after his defense got to a suitable level, but his footwork whenever he went on offense was lacking to say the least, and nearly non existent to be completely honest. It was almost like someone was controlling the bottom half of him.
Jaune and Neo meet in the middle of their makeshift arena, parasol meeting shield. Jaune has been doing much better tonight than he usually has. Several of his strikes have almost met their marks on the small girl. In some cases this could be seen as a sign of improvement by the knight but in truth? Neo was distracted.
A new player had entered the game, and it had immediately flipped Roman and Neo's life upside down, because why wouldn't it? Things had been going too well for them or at least some higher being must've thought so or else Cinder Fall wouldn't have been thrown into their lives like a flaming meteor.
For the last 3 weeks Neo had been mildly involved with Roman and Cinder's new partnership. Trying her best to get information on the woman without making her aware of her presence, and even helping Roman occasionally when he was too tired to make his quota. Apparently though she had been in town for a little over a month and a half, and had immediately contacted Roman about a 'business opportunity'.
He was able to keep everything that was going on a secret from Neo for a solid minute. One night though she followed him wondering what he was doing that would wear him out to the point where he was almost always sleeping whenever he was home. The few times he was awake were to go on regular robberies with her and even then he wasn't all there mentally.
She followed Roman for about thirty minutes before she saw him go into a warehouse. From there she watched him and a woman in a red dress flanked by a boy and girl talk for over an hour. Both the boy and girl were probably around her age or maybe even a little younger. Possibly bodyguards, but the way Roman was acting physically, and when he seemed to insult the two, but shrunk as soon as the woman berated him told her that it was her that really scared him. Neo had rarely seen Roman shaken the way he was when she spied on him that night.
After the meeting was over she went back to their place and confronted him when he came through the door. Watching the man deflate as he told her how he didn't have a choice, and that the reason he's been so tired is because he's been having to rob dust daily to keep up on the woman's quota.
Roman answered all of the questions he could, but from what he told Neo he had barely any information of his own outside of the name she gave him. The names of her two lackeys, and the location of where he's supposed to store the dust.
Neo had immediately offered to help, but Roman told her not to get involved unless she had to, and that Cinder didn't know about Neo just yet, and he wanted to keep it that way. Neo argued, but Roman shut every argument she had down quickly.
Neo hadn't 'talked' to Roman for a few days after that but eventually came around. She couldn't be mad for too long he was just thinking about her safety after all, but still she couldn't help but constantly think about the situation.
She had even started robbing dust shops herself occasionally to try and help. Robbing dust shops under the disguise of Roman whenever he couldn't was strenuous especially when authorities showed up, but she managed. The man was so out of it that whenever some of her heists were on the news he blew it off as being too tired to remember the job. She wished she could help out more, but she just couldn't think of how-
WHACK!
Jaune's shield slammed into the girls chest, and Neo is forced violently back into the present, and into the ground. Neo lays still for a moment both her and Jaune shocked at what just happened. Jaune is the first to move a wide smile spreading across his face. It's not smug by any means just proud, but gods does it piss Neo off. It was a cheap shot while she was distracted, nothing close to a real hit by any means.
Jaune can't help but be ecstatic. He finally managed to land a hit, and it wasn't even just a glancing blow it was a full on smack that knocked the girl off her feet. Usually Jaune would offer to help someone up, but he was too lost in the moment to care at that moment.
"WOOHOOO! I did it! I finally landed a hit!" Jaune celebrates not seeing that his sparring partner had gotten up, and was not looking happy. In fact Neo looked like she was going to strangle him until his aura hit zero and then beat him to death with his own shield.
Neo did think about going through with the violent fantasy for a moment, but instead decides on teaching him a valuable lesson. Hush slams into the knights undefended stomach making him keel over and fall to his knees. Jaune holds his midsection, and Neo takes out her scroll, and starts to type.
'Cheap shots dont count.' 'Now get up.'
Jaune looks at the scroll and a look of disappointment and confusion crosses his face. Wasn't it a little hypocritical of her to hit him with that move then if cheap shots don't count? Curious Jaune asks her this question.
'Cheap shots don't count against me, because I am your teacher.' Jaune can't help but mentally roll his eyes knowing if he did it for real he would be getting "taught" some more lessons.
"If you're my teacher can you teach me how to get better at attacking?" Jaune asks looking up at Neo.
'Its really more of a sparring session than actual lessons, and with your style and weapons, I can't teach you much.'
'Of course she tells me she's my teacher right before telling me she can't teach me.' Jaune groans internally. He might as well ask what little she can teach him then. "I only have a month left till Beacon I will take even useless tips that you've told me before."
'Your footwork falls apart when you even attempt attacking which makes your moves which are already shit even worse due to the fact that you are off balance whenever you even try.'
"Do you have any advice on how to get better?"
Neo thinks for several moments, before a thought pops into her head. 'How good are you with dancing?'
Jaune perks up. "I'm pretty good at it, and even trained in several styles, but I dont really see how this is useful."
Neo is shocked to hear that little piece of info. 'Trained?'
"Yeah." Jaune says "A few of my sisters got really into dancing, and nobody better to practice with than me I guess. After a while of constantly practicing with several of your sisters you start to get pretty good even if you aren't taking the classes yourself." Jaune shrugs. "How does this relate to my footwork though?"
'If you know how to dance as well as say then you know you have to be smooth on your feet and have good timing.' Jaune nods slowly starting to understand what Neo is getting at. 'If you start treating it like your dancing instead of fighting you'll become a lot more fluid as your legs and arms start working together in sync.'
"I think I'm finally starting to get it." The knight says his hand on his chin in his best thinking pose. Neo could practically see the old rusted gears in his head start to turn. "Maybe I could even incorporate a few moves into my style then."
'Good just dont get too complicated or try anything fancy, and you'll be moving better in no time. If you plan on incorporating actual moves dont forget your strengths or else you'll just have a move that you cant use.' Jaune's smile comes back with twice the strength.
"Thank you so much Neo!" Jaune grins "That might've been the best lesson I've gotten so far. All that's left is to start practicing." His grin vanishes, and he looks at Neo full of determination to get started on working on it immediately in a practical scenario.
Jaune gets set, and Neo gets ready across from him her mind off the Cinder situation even if it is just for a moment. The two fight for another hour before Jaune finally taps out. He sits on the ground his back against one of the many crates. Neo sits down to rest as well. It's the first time that she had just sit down to cool down after one of their sessions. His stamina was absurd, and tonight he just refused to tap out until his aura was almost completely drained.
"Hey, Neo?"
The girl perks her head up, and looks at Jaune. "Are you doing okay?" The boy asks concern very clear in his voice
Neo looks a little surprised, and offended. 'If you think a single hit like that can hurt me then you might have brain damage.'
"If I do then you're the one who gave it to me." Neo smiles at the joke before Jaune speaks again. "What I really meant was are you doing alright mentally? I couldn't help but notice that you've been a little lost in thought over the last three sessions. I know its not my business, but if you need it I'm here to listen. It's the least I can do for all that you've done for me with helping me prepare for Beacon."
Was it really that obvious? She thought she had been able to hide it fairly well. Maybe Jaune was just more perceptive than she thought. Especially if he had noticed three weeks ago. Right around when she had found out about Roman's situation. She wanted to be irritated, but the concerned look in Jaune's eyes told her that he was actually worried.
So instead Neo asks a question of her own ' If you were concerned then why did you wait to say anything?'
Jaune scratches the back of his neck and looks down. "I wasn't going to say anything originally, because it's your business and all, but after how distracted you were earlier tonight. It made me realize that it must be pretty serious if you didn't notice my shield coming right at you."
'It's nothing that you need to worry about.'
"I know it's not nothing Neo, and its kind of hard not to worry at least a little bit. I have 7 sisters after all. I don't mind if you don't tell me what's going on, but don't lie, and say its nothing when it's to the point where you cant fight effectively enough to move out of the way of strike from a guy with no training. I just thought that maybe getting it off your chest might help out a little."
Neo can't help but feel slightly weirded out. For a guy who comes off as pretty dumb he's got pretty good emotional intelligence. Maybe it just comes from the whole golden retriever vibe she gets off him sometimes though. Neo is really starting to consider checking for a tail or ears hidden under his mop of blonde hair one of these days.
"I'll share whats been going on my end if it makes you feel more comfortable."
Neo decides that if nothing else she can at least waste some time here listening to the knight. So she shrugs and nods. Jaune starts to speak about what happened the night before. Neo was already a little familiar with the story from earlier in the morning, but she didn't mind getting more info on what happened…
Jaune had just gotten off work for the day, and was finishing putting everything away and making sure everything was in place when the doors to the club opened. Both of the Malachite twins, and Junior entered the club, and spotted Jaune immediately.
"Arc. Glad to see you. I'm going to need your help tonight." Jaune's shoulders slumped. He had been having to help do other jobs around the club for a little bit now. Apparently a good amount of Junior's men had been getting arrested for the string of dust robberies that have been happening around town. Leaving Jaune to do odd jobs, like wait tables, bartend, break up fights on the dance floor, and between drunk patrons. Hell Junior even had Jaune act as a bouncer at the entrance last weekend.
Jaune was exhausted, but he owed Junior too much, and the man was paying him for the extra work. Jaune told him he didn't have to but Junior insisted and he didn't argue after that.
"What's the job for tonight?" Jaune asks
"Nothing much just a bit of waiting, if you see any problems handle them, and if it gets beyond you then get Melanie, or Miltiades. You know the basics already."
"If I may ask?"
"No."
"Alright." and with that the conversation ended. Jaune's question about how many men that Junior had lost the night before dying behind sealed lips.
For the next hour and a half Jaune made sure that he was prepared to serve the guests. Melanie, and Miltia hovered around him trying to annoy him or probe for information about him, for a bit before eventually disappearing into the back. They would be back in a bit and Jaune knew they were just getting ready themselves.
Not very many people knew about the twins job and it was supposed to be that way. They were good at blending in the crowded club, and that was so they could always pop out if a big problem started, could overhear useful information Junior could sell, or even take clients to the man if they overheard that someone needed Junior for a different purpose than just bartending.
Jaune had only seen them pop out and deal with rowdy customers a few times, and it was definitely a different method than he used to de-escelate situations. Jaune never saw their weapons deploy, and he had hoped he wouldn't really need to either. Unfortunately he would get to find out what they were later this night.
Soon people started to flood in and Jaune got lost in the bustle of the crowd. Serving people at tables, and booths around the club, waking up and cleaning up after patrons, and breaking up people who were getting a little too heated. Sadly for Jaune that meant both types of heated.
Everything went normal for a while, until Jaune spotted Roman Torchwick walk into the club. He knew of the man from the news, off his reputation around the city, and even a little from Junior and the twins. He had seen the man come in before, and usually it meant that some of Jaune's coworkers were going to jail for a bit.
He didn't really dislike the guy seeing as he had never even formally met him, but he didn't like that everytime he came in it meant more work, and less help. Roman eventually leaves and Junior slumps over the bar Melanie and Miltiades at his side. Junior waves them off right as a blonde girl walks up to Junior's other side.
The girl talks to the bartender before turning to Junior, and the two converse. Jaune pretends to do some work, but always makes sure to keep them in his line of sight as he moves around. The conversation takes a literal twist as the girl grabs Junior below the waist causing the man to keel over. The girl then pulls out her scroll and shows him something to which the man quickly speaks.
Several of Juniors men take notice and line up in front of Jaune's line of sight. The two then walk closer to the dance floor and to Jaune splitting up the men, and letting him see what was going on again. He was extremely surprised when both the blonde and Junior leanned in to kiss. They must be pretty familiar if Junior's willing to kiss her after the way she was grabbing him, but the man was also pretty drunk if the empty bottle still lying on the counter said anything.
CRASH!
Jaune watches Junior fly through the air, and a pillar of glass. That was going to be expensive Jaune couldn't help but think immediately before his mind went back to the fact that his boss was just punched across a club, said man slumped against the far wall. Jaune looks back towards his assailant and watches her bracelets start to transform and go up her arms turning into gauntlets and ejecting a shell as she smiles brilliantly. Jaune hopes that Junior's men can keep her occupied for a moment or even better beat her.
His priority at this moment is making sure Junior is alright. Jaune sprints to the man, and shakes him, waking the man up. Jaune knew he had aura so he wouldn't be too badly injured, but he needed to wake the man up because his fellow coworkers weren't doing all that well against the other blonde, and Jaune couldn't do much right now seeing as he had left Crocea Mors in his apartment. So that left it up to Junior to handle the situation.
Junior gets up, and both of them watch for a moment as the girl finishes off the last of the men. Junior sprints towards the bar, and Jaune quickly follows him jumping over tha bar and landing squarely on his ass. Behind him he can hear the sounds of fighting and when he looks over the counter he sees Melanie and Miltiades trying their best to fight off the girl.
They cant seem to land a single hit while the girl proceeds to decimate them. Jaune knew the twins were proficient with hand to hand, but this girl was on another level. The only time she even kind of struggled was when Melanie hit her with a flurry of kicks, but even that didn't do much damage when the few that got past her guard hit. With Junior currently occupied looking for what Jaune hopes is a weapon that can take this girl out, Jaune decides he might as well do something, and picks up a metal serving tray.
Melanie and Miltiades get knocked out of the fight in quite brutal fashion as soon as he leaps over the bar and Jaune realizes that his plan of giving them time to breathe just backfired, and now hes about to face this girl by himself in the open with a metal drink tray.
Seeing as his weapon has little use he throws it at the girl like a frisbee. The tray bounces off her a small flash of aura telling him that he hit her hard enough to cause even a small amount of damage. The girl turns around and faces Jaune. Her eyes lit up with excitement at the prospect of another fight.
"Didn't realize there were any other blondes here." The girl says shaking her arms and deactivating the shotgun gauntlets, before getting into a boxing stance. "I'll go easy on ya." She says with a wink that caused Jaune to blush.
Jaune didn't know much about hand to hand outside of blocking Neo's attacks whenever she managed to get his shield and sword away from him. So he wasn't really in a good position to fight anyone except maybe some thugs on the street like this. Steeling his nerves Jaune gets into a stance of his own. A high guard meant to protect his head, with little offensive purpose.
The girl looks at him and laughs a bit before rushing at him. She's fast. Almost as fast as Neo when it came to closing speed, but judging from her handiwork earlier she probably hit even harder than the mute. The girl launches a quick left jab that Jaune barely moves out of the way from. She moved a little slower, and telegraphed her moves a bit more than Neo when it came to attacks, but that didn't matter when she hit like a freight train.
Jaune made sure to put his aura up with as much intensity as he could, and he was glad he did because while he managed to very barely avoid her first few attacks when one inevitably connected it sent him flying through a wall, and into a private lounge. Jaune quickly got up, and rushed back in. His whole chest felt like he just had his heart punched through his back for a moment, but after focusing on the spot the pain went away. The other blonde was surprised, but didn't seem angry in the slightest infact her smile grew, and she started to taunt Jaune as she pummeled him.
Each hit made Jaune feel like his bones were rattling, but he managed to stay on his feet most of the time, and even managed to take some of her inhuman punches without getting moved too much. Offensively Jaune was unused to unarmed combat, and his skill level was probably similar to his offensive skill with Crocea Mors. The best he could do was try, and grab the girl which didn't work well when you have no technique, and the person your fighting is clearly a pro. Jaune was managing to tank her hits, and the girl slowed down a bit. She was getting tired, but it didn't matter when she still hit as hard as she did even when slowing down a little. "You sure are one tanky son of a bitch."
Jaune grimaced. He knew he could tank a lot especially after his sessions with Neo, but he was starting to finally feel the hits through his aura, and the girl could tell. Luckily Junior decided to finally step in and hit the brawler with a massive baseball bat knocking her across the club. The bat shifts into a bazooka in Juniors hands and he fires several rockets at the girl which she dodges most of, and the ones she doesn't she tanks.
When the smoke clears Jaune notices that the girls hair is on fire, and she's really amped up. She launches herself at the two of them or more specifically Junior who shifts his weapon back into its bat form. The two tussle for a little, before Junior gets a hold of the girl by the hair. She manages to get away, but with a cost as in Junior's free hand is a small clump of blonde hair.
Jaune watches the girls lilac eyes go crimson, and he realizes that Junior just made a massive mistake. The girl literally blows up destroying even more of the club, and charges Junior. Jaune tries his best to get in between them, but cant manage to get there, and sees Junior get punched so hard he flies out of the window and onto the street.
Jaune turns towards the still flaming girl, and decides he might as well follow through on his bad decisions, and charges her tackling her to the floor, before she realizes whats happening. His plan actually works for a minute as he wrestles her to the ground. The flames coming off of her lick at Jaune, but he doesn't feel like he's burning infact the flames actually feel rejuvinating.
The girl seeing that the position she's in isn't good starts to burn even hotter, and Jaune realizes what's coming a little too late. The knight gets blown into the ceiling by another one of her explosions. Jaune hits the ground after bouncing off the roof, and rolls onto his back. He wasn't out of aura, but he was definitely out of the fight.
Jaune watched from his spot on the floor as the girl got up, and jumped through the hole in the window, and disappeared onto the street below. After he was sure she was gone Jaune got up, helped the twins to the office laying them down, and taking care of them until their auras activated, and started to help them more than he could. He didn't realize this was part of the job he agreed to…
Neo was engrossed in the knights story all the way until the end. First off she didn't realize Roman was at Junior's last night so that was important news to her. The big thing though was that Jaune just got the everloving shit beat out of him less than 24 hours ago, and he was still ready to 'spar' with her with no signs of injury or fatigue.
'That's not that bad.' Neo showed her scroll to the boy who pouted. 'You made it out alive, and to the training session so you cant be too injured.'
"You're right." Jaune said his pouting stopped immediately as he remembered why he told the story in the first place. "Now do you want to talk about whats on your mind?"
'Not really.' Jaune looked disappointed, but didn't press. 'But if you think it will help I might as well.'
Jaune perked up, and started to read as Neo sent text after text talking about how she got a new boss, and it was negatively affecting her and her partner, who she cared about more than anyone else in the world, and how everything has been kind of flipped, and causing her to stress out about their wellbeing. Neo made sure to keep everything vague, and didn't tell Jaune that she was in any actual danger. Jaune didn't try and give her solutions, about how to deal with Cinder or Roman but just read, and asked the occasional question.
Neo answered the best she could, and kept going until she was finished. Jaune took a little bit more time, but when he finally got though. He turned off his scroll, and looked at Neo. "You need a break Neo, at least that's how I see it. You've been covering for your partner, and while I know that you want to keep helping I think a day where you can just relax, and not think about all the bad things going on would help a lot. Hell from what you just told me you're even slightly ahead of the quota. You can rest I'm not telling you that you have to do anything, and I sure as hell cant make you, but I think you just need to turn your brain off for a day, and separate yourself from the situation entirely."
He was right. She was getting herself so mentally involved in something she wasn't actually involved in that it was actively hurting her mentally. Jaune could see that he got through to her fairly quickly, and a look of satisfaction spread across his face, his eyes closing as he drifted off to sleep.
Neo sees Jaune sleeping, and it hits her. He hadn't slept yet. He had been up for two days without rest, and still came to get training in, and then tried to help her when he was out of the fight. He really was dedicated to becoming a huntsman. Neo watches him sleep for a bit on the warehouse floor, before she hops down from her perch and walks over to the boy taking Crocea Mors out of his hands. Neo sheathes the blade, and lays it on the ground before lightly shaking the boy awake.
Jaune's eyes open, and Neo tells him that he fell asleep. Jaune apologizes to Neo who tells him not to worry about it, and the boy gets to his feet. Jaune picks up Crocea Mors, strapping it to his hip, and thanks Neo like he did after every spar. Neo nods and exits the warehouse Jaune following soon after. Neo always disappeared as soon as she left and he never really wondered where she went. It wasn't his business after all.
Tonight though? Neo decided that she had nothing better to do, and followed him home. It was always useful to know where someone lived after all. She watched Jaune walk down street after street. The way he was walking almost made Neo think he was walking back to Juniors to go back to work but once he got onto the street where the club was she saw him walk into an apartment building instead. He sure did live close to work Neo thought as she watched him enter her eyes glancing over to the darkened club which had immediately closed its doors after the brawl the night before.
Seeing him go into his building Neo decides to head home as well. She was pretty tired herself after all. Running from rooftop to rooftop following after him, and then running all the way home. Neo made it to her and Roman's apartment extremely quickly even if she was twice as tired as she would've been if she just walked. Neo opens the door from the roof, and walks down the stairs until she reached hers and Roman's floor.
She walked into the apartment to nobody there. She shouldn't be surprised Roman was hardly home anyways since he started working for Cinder Fall, and when he was he was asleep. Neo is too tired, and sweaty to think about that right now though so instead the girl strips off her clothes, and hops in the shower letting the water wash away the grime, and the stresses of the day.
Feeling refreshed Neo hops out of the shower, and wraps a towel around herself before walking to her room, drying off and getting dressed for bed. She must've been more tired than she thought though, because as soon as her head hits the pillow the girl is immediately out like a light. The world of dreams, and nightmares taking her in its warm embrace.
Authors Note: I'm back early!
I wrote a quick chapter in two days cause I had ideas as soon as I got back and thought you guys would appreciate it. I thought I would be gone for longer but life had other ideas so I'm back.
I hope everyone is doing well. I thought this would be a nice chapter to kind of bring Jaune into some of the events of RWBY even earlier on. I thought him being a tank even with minimal training was a good idea seeing as he was already learning to take hits from Neo.
I thought it would be pretty ironic if Neo of people would be mad about a cheap shot, and I hope you guys can find some humor in it as well. I loved reading all your reviews when I came back and a couple of you even figured out immediately why the most recent fight in RSSH went the way it did.
As always though I hope you enjoyed the chapter and enjoy the story. Feel free to leave a review and tell me what you do and don't like or what I can do better, as well as any theories or ideas you have. I love reading all of the reviews and I hope you all have a great day, night, morning or whatever time it is. :)