Symbiote Knight
Chapter 28: Sap and Stingers
Jaune was once again thankful for Valor keeping his air sickness in check as they flew over the forest. Currently team JNPR and RWBY were in the same airship as were other first year teams in a couple of others. They were on a goal to get some sap for Processor Peach, apparently this sap was very sticky but also important to her research and could only be gotten in season.
Jaune wasn't sure why exactly the professor needed so much but this field exercises were graded and was given them some experience in completing missions out in the wild. Granted he wasn't sure how many Huntsmen or Huntresses went out sap hunting but small steps right?
He sat in the middle seat with Pyrrha on his left and Ren on his right, Nora taking the other side of Ren as Team RWBY sat across from him. They all held jars that they were going to use but he also couldn't help but notice a few things. Pyrrha was sitting very close to him as Yang and Weiss were giving her looks. Nothing malicious but obviously they would rather have taken up a spot next to him.
'At least they aren't being overly hostile,' he mentally thought.
~They do seem to be competing for your time, they must all know they like you~
'I'm starting to think so,' Jaune had been noticing it a lot. The subtle ways they acted around each other, usually when one of them wanted to do something then one or both that were left out tried to find a way to join them or have a similar encounter. Things like studying together (which was fine as usually the entire teams joined in), but he was starting to have to schedule training between the girls and team training, then his free time one of them would always come up for something to do after classes.
The other two would always share a look and after Valor pointed this out Jaune had to admit the girls did seem to be arranging something between them all. At least they weren't being hostile about it, he had seen enough of his sisters getting into a romantic squabble now and then to know he wanted nothing to do with that.
Still, all the time he spent with them made it only harder to choose than easier. They were each wonderful people in their own right and he liked spending time with them.
He enjoyed watching things like Weiss slowly opening up and trying out new things like that board game they did in the library last week, she had really gotten into it in a funny way. It was nice seeing her drop her guard and just enjoy things. Yang was always this big ball of fun and energy, always wanting to push for new experiences, she made Jaune want to try and be more adventurous. Pyrrha was his close confidant compared to the others, he felt relaxed around her, and she had this calming feeling just being around her.
"So, you think we'll see any Grimm?" Nora asked excited at the idea.
"It's possible," Blake answered. "The forest does have Grimm in it."
"As long as we all stick together and watch out for each other we should be fine," Ruby spoke up.
The others nodded at the advice since going into the forest meant that encountering a Grimm was always a chance. Jaune might have been worried once before but now with Valor and not being the same Jaune he had been when he first started out, he was more confident in himself and his ability to fend off a Grimm. The fight in Vale against those Twins and the gangs before that gave him a bit more confidence in a real fight than the combat classes and sparring with everyone.
There were rules in those instances to keep you from getting too hurt and Grimm didn't follow those rules.
~I am eager to slay any of those vile creatures~
'A little bloodthirsty, aren't you?" he asked a little worried.
~I tried bonding to one before you remember, they are not natural. They feel toxic to the touch and are creatures of pure Darkness. All I felt was hate and a hunger for violence from them~
Jaune could hear the capital D in Darkness and guessed there was more to it for the Symbiote. He could feel Valor's loathing for the Grimm in a way he had never felt from his partner before. It was like the Grimm just naturally brought out this distain from the alien, like their very nature was repulsive to the Klyntar.
In another of the airships was team CRDL, Cardin like everyone else had a jar but in his backpack, he held another surprise. A box of rapier wasps, they were attracted to things like the sap they were to collect. Now a few were an annoyance but the amount he had, well while aura could protect you for a bit, eventually all those stingers would break your aura and then you'd get stung all over your body.
It wouldn't kill Jaune, but it would put him into treatment and most likely have stings all over his body for about a week as his aura slowly started to heal the body. Jaune had started out as a weak punching bag, but the boy had started to get a bit too confident. First was him stepping in with that bunny Faunus girl, then there was getting stronger to the point of beating his team members in combat class and now he was just casually flirting with three hot girls in their year?
Cardin liked to think of himself as the top dog of their class and Jaune was starting to piss him off with how he was rising up. So, it was time to take him down a peg or two and this field exercise was the perfect way to do it. He even managed to get a couple of extra jars for him and the boys, so they didn't have to use their own. His father always told him that if you weren't at the top then you were at the bottom, and if you had to step on people to get to the top then so be it.
The Winchester family valued strength of arms and his whole life his father pushed him to be the best and he had been. At least before Beacon, now his position was being threatened and all he could hear in his head was how disappointed his father would be in him if he wasn't top of the class. The Vytal festival was coming to Beacon this year and he wanted to show the world just what a Winchester could do.
Not long later the craft landed as all the students gathered around Glynda who was leading the exercise. It should have been Professor Peach, but the woman had done one of her disappearing acts again, something that annoyed Glynda. That professor was even more adapt at dodging work than Ozpin, at least with Ozpin she could get him to do his work with some terse words and a glare but Peach? The woman just seemed to have the uncanny ability to fade away at the perfect time.
Ozpin once joked she could make for a great spy if she could keep her focus on work and not her experiments.
Glynda had to admit he could have a point there but once again she was to cover for other professors. Looking around she saw all the students for the first years had gathered up. "Listen up students, we are here to collect a special sap that only grows in this area. You all have your jars but be warned, the sap is extremely sticky and if you get it on you, you won't be able to get it off until we return to Beacon where your clothing will have to be washed off and you'll be spending a long time in the showers."
"The sap also has been known to attract certain animals, mostly insects. Those outside of certain species you don't have to worry about, yet?" She saw a student raise their hand.
"What kind of insects do we have to worry about?"
"Well, there are rapier wasps, razor hornets, blood mosquitoes as well as certain animals like bears." Glynda told them. "However, most of those are not native to this area or are usually found much deeper in the forest so the odds of you encountering them are low. Be warned though, the insects attack in swarms and they will task your aura to the point of breaking it down, you have to get rid of them or outrun them before they do because then you will be vulnerable."
"There are rivers you can use to evade them so if you find a river keep it's location in the back of your mind, or return here, we have medical supplies to help, and you can find safety inside of the shuttles."
Glynda looked over her students. "Anymore questions? No? Well then one final warning, there are Grimm in the forest so keep together, keep in teams and never go off alone. If you can and keep everyone you are with in eyesight. If you run into trouble, use your scrolls and use the emergency alert app that should be on all of them. With that I can track you and be there quickly to help."
"Now with that out of the way, you are all free to start." She finished.
With that the students broke off into groups, teams RWBY and JNPR went off together in one direction, the two teams considered each other a 'sister team' with how close they were and thought there were strength in numbers. What they didn't know was that they were being shadowed by another team not too far away.
The red tree forest was vast, but it wasn't too hard to start finding what they needed. Jaune looked at the red tree in front of him.
"So do we just poke a hole and that's it?" He asked everyone as he had never done this before.
"Yeah, it's usually that simple," Ruby nodded taking out the spike that came with the jars. "This reminds me of the sap season on Patch."
"Those were always fun," Yang got her spike lined up with the tree and literally punched it in. She put her jar under it as the sap was coming out of the hollow hole at the end of the spike. "Hey sis, remember that time you got sick from downing all that sap that one year?"
"Don't remind me!" Ruby blushed and then looked at her sister. "How about I remind you of that time you got sap stuck in your hair?"
"Hey that was a traumatic incident for me!" Yang shot back at her little sister.
Jaune smiled at the sisters' antics, it was good that they had such a close relationship, reminded him a lot of his own with his sisters. "So, there's a time on Patch where you gather up sap?"
He decided to ask more about their home to help pass the time and hopefully distract them from the current topic.
"Oh yeah we call it Fall Festival," Ruby nodded. "We all gather sap and made all these treats from them."
"God, now I'm missing a sugar paw at the moment," Yang had a far off look on her face remembering the first time her dad got her that special treat.
"Oh, those were great," Ruby sighed and looked at the sap. "You think we can take some, even a little to try and make a few?"
"Professor Peach needs this," Weiss told her as she reminded her that this was technically an assignment not a day trip. "We have no idea how much she needs."
"Man, that sucks," Ruby pouted she really wanted to make them.
Weiss saw her look and rolled her eyes. "Maybe we can ask or at least get some later."
Ruby's eyes shined as she quickly zipped over to hug Weiss. "Thanks Weiss you really are my BFF!"
"No," Weiss said in a deadpanned tone.
Ren had finished with his jar handing it over to Nora as he got an empty, he thought he heard something and when he looked behind himself Nora had already downed the entire jar. She only smiled innocently at him.
"What? I wanted to see how it tasted."
"Nora," he sighed.
"How did it taste?" Yang asked looking at her jar.
"Pretty good," Nora grinned sap still around her lips.
Yang took another look at her jar and was about to dip her finder when Blake spoke up. "Remember about it being sticky, you might not get it off your finger until we get home."
The blonde paused as she mentally cursed forgetting that this stuff was a lot stickier than normal sap. Looking at Nora who was still trying to get the sap off her face made the blonde brawler think twice. "Damn, thanks for reminding me."
"Well, it might not be the most glamourous mission but at least it gets us out of the regular grind," Jaune commented, it wasn't that he didn't like school, but a break was nice from the daily routine.
"Yeah, plus maybe we'll get to fight some Grimm along the way, with all of us here it should be too much trouble," Ruby commented.
"Not unless a huge pack shows up," Blake shrugged.
"You think so?" Nora asked excited by the idea.
"Please don't jinx us," Weiss sighed rubbing her head, she didn't even want to think of the trouble that could cause. Initiation was bad enough, granted they were all better and had more team work than that day but just the idea of a flock of Nevermores was not the kind of thing she wanted to run into today.
"I'm sure as long as we're working together, we have nothing to worry about," Pyrrha smiled as she picked up her jar. "Well, I'm done."
"Almost done with mine too," Jaune called over as he watched his jar fill up.
With his back to a small hill, Cardin and his team were already set up. He had the wasps and the extra jar of sap. Everyone was busy and they weren't looking in this direction.
"Okay Jauney boy, time for you to get into a sticky situation," the larger boy said as he aimed and threw it as hard as he could.
While Jaune was distracted Valor wasn't, he noticed the jar flying at them.
~Jaune, behind you!~
Jaune jerked as he felt the warning as he turned and pulled out his sword and slashed at what it was in a single move. This was thanks to the muscle memory of hours of training both in his mind and in reality, unfortunately this quick reaction was before he could asset what was actually attacking him. His sword cut the jar, and the contents flew out and onto his breastplate and part of his hip and arm.
"What the?!" Jaune looked down at himself. "Oh, come on, really?"
"What happened?" Pyrrha being the closest looked over.
~Someone threw a jar of sap at us~
"Someone threw a jar filled with that sap, now I got it all over myself." Jaune was thankful most of it was on the metal of his armor but the portions on his clothing was already feeling sticky.
"Okay who thew that?" Yang demanded looking around.
Cardin had ducked back down, he was surprised by Jaune's reflexes, he wasn't even sure how the boy knew something was coming at him from behind like that. Well, no matter, he took the box and shoved it over the ledge as the brown box hit the forest floor and broke open. Just peeking over he could see the wasps break out easily now. They swarmed and didn't look happy at being dropped he figured.
The swarm was instantly gone from a rage to hunger as the scent of the sap was found and the swarm quickly made for Jaune. The buzzing of their wings was loud and clear as everyone in the area looked to the swarm.
"Oh no," Jaune looked down at the sap on himself as he figured out why someone threw the sap at him.
"Jaune, run!" Pyrrha told him.
"To where!?" He asked as the swarm was quickly on him, they hadn't passed a river or anything on the way here and blinding running into the forest wouldn't help. He was trying to cover the side of his head and body with his shield while slashing at the large insects. They were much larger than a regular wasp, uglier and deadlier looking too with a large stinger. The problem was they were still pretty fast, and he could only get one or two with each swipe of his sword.
"Weiss can you freeze them?" Ruby asked her partner.
"Not without hitting Jaune," Weiss was turning the dust container in her weapon. "But I have another idea."
She activated her wind dust from her weapon as a funnel of fast spinning air hit Jaune sending the rapier wasps flying. Jaune gave a thankful look to Weiss before the buzzing returned, it seemed they weren't to be deterred that easily as they swarmed him again even more aggressively now as a few broke off to attack the others now.
Jaune's aura flared with each sting from the creatures as he felt his aura getting lower and lower, a normal person's aura would have collapsed already from the amounts of stings but his was quickly running out.
~Jaune I have to come out!~
'But the others are here!' he knew that his symbiote partner was very cautious about coming out to others.
~We can just claim I'm a semblance~
Jaune wasn't sure that would work as in his research on semblances while trying to figure his own out, he never heard of one that came close to how his symbiote worked.
~We don't have time!~
"Arrggh!" Jaune's aura collapsed as he felt a sting in his arm.
~That's it, I'm coming out!~
With that the symbiote covered Jaune, it took on the mostly white form with golden highlights, the smooth mask with large 'eyes' on the front, an armored form with his golden crest featured on the front of the breastplate. His team members weren't sure what to do, as they were surprised that Valor just suddenly came out.
"What is that!?" Ruby yelled out as she was currently zipping across the field trying to lead the wasps chasing her into Weiss' line of fire, already a small swarm of the bugs were frozen on the ground around her.
"Jaune, are you okay?" Yang asked jumping back to fire off a burst short taking out the last of the wasps attacking her using the concussive force of her rounds exploding in the air to knock the bugs down.
"Uh, yeah, fine," Jaune's mind raced on what to say next. He could feel that Valor was protecting him from the stings now, their stingers couldn't penetrate the symbiote. In fact they looked stuck on him as he noticed that when the stingers hit him, Valor's 'skin' just seemed to reach up in those places and was holding on to them.
"It's his semblance," Pyrrha quickly stated.
"Since when!?" Team RWBY asked as one.
"Uh, just recently, was saving it as a surprise," Jaune managed to say. "Weiss can you hit me with the ice now, I think with this on I'm safe."
Weiss raised an eyebrow, but she turned the canister on her sword and got the ice ready as she warned him. "I'm not going for a full blast."
Jaune nodded as she sent a blast of ice at him, without his aura she was worried of harming him because she had seen his aura shatter but if he said this strange semblance would protect him, she would trust that he knew what he was doing. The wasps frosted over as their wings stopped moving, at that point Valor let them go as they fell to the grass in a pile.
It was still pretty cold though even with Valor protecting him as he had a layer of ice and frost over his body.
~This wasn't full power?~
'Be thankful she used ice and not fire.' As Jaune knew his symbiote couldn't take fire attacks.
~Right, this is preferable~
"Oh man that's cold," Jaune shook off as much as he could off his body.
Everyone encircled him to check if he was okay, usually stepping on a bunch of the frozen bugs as they did so.
"Jaune are you okay?"
"Is that really your semblance?"
"That looks so cool, how does it feel?"
"How do you see out of that?"
"Hold on," Jaune said putting up his hands at all the questions. He was getting swarmed again only this time by team RWBy asking him questions, he wasn't sure where to even start with them asking all at once.
~Personally, I'm more interested in who caused this~
'Oh right!'
"Did anyone see where the bugs and sap came from?" Jaune asked.
Everyone paused as they looked around suddenly remembering why the wasps had attacked them. There were various reactions from both teams but all of them were clearly not happy.
"If this was someone's idea of messing around this was screwed up," Yang angerly looked but didn't see anyone hiding behind any of the red trees.
"Someone obviously doesn't like Jaune," Blake commented since he had been the target.
"No one does this to our fearless leaders and walks away," Nora already had her weapon out in his war hammer mode eagerly looking for someone to smash with it.
Pyrrha and Weiss while silent has colder and stern expressions on their face.
~That way, up the hill~ Valor mentally pointed out the location as Jaune turned to face the hill, he thought he caught a glimpse of something.
Cardin had just ducked down, and he was not in a good mood.
"What now?" Sky asked.
Cardin was fuming over this, how the hell did Jaune have something like that as a semblance? He had never used it before and that was only making him more pissed off. Had he been hiding that the entire time? Was he just acting like a clueless idiot the entire first few weeks of school just to mess with him? All that time and preparations and it was all for nothing, it hadn't been easy to get those rapier wasps or to keep them hidden on the trip over here.
Hie negative emotions just kept rising and they were noticed, a lone lumbering Ursa Major the larger of the Ursa types had been slowly walking the forests. The large bear like Grimm had sensed the negative emotions like a beacon in the dark. Letting out a small growl the dark emotions only seemed to grow making the large beast even more eager.
Cardin and his team didn't even notice they were being hunted until the tree behind them was literally pushed out of the way by the Grimm's strength, snapping the wooden trunk. The four young men turned and immediately knew they were in trouble. They scrambled getting to their feet and pulling out their weapons.
"Damn it, is that an Ursa?" Sky asked.
"Look at the size, it's got to be a damn Major not a Minor." Dove judged the beast as it was twice the size of an average Usra Minor. That meant that the creature was older and much stronger than what they were used to fighting for their class.
As you go up in years you get sent to fight tougher and tougher Grimm to prepare you for what you'll face, this was something only third years were supposed to fight.
The best let out a roar as it charged them, the ground seemingly shaking slightly from the huge mass of the creature.
Down below the hill everyone heard the tree snapping and then the roar.
"That's got to be a Grimm," Pyrrha wasn't' sure which type from the sound but it obviously had to be.
Fighting could now be heard from the hilltop as well.
"We got to help them," Ruby spoke up knowing that whoever was up there was most likely was responsible for the sap and wasps but that didn't matter to her, people were in trouble. First, they would help them and then deal with the other issue after the fact.
"How do we get up there?" Ren asked looking at the steep cliffside.
"Weiss?" Ruby asked.
"On it," She made a few movements as white glyphs ran up the side of the cliff face.
"I always wanted to try this," Jaune muttered to himself, he saw Ruby use this to take out that Nevermore and thought it had looked pretty cool.
Everyone started to use her semblance to run up the side of the cliff, it was an odd experience for those that hadn't used it before, feeling the pull of the glyphs while also feeling gravity pulling on them from the front but in a much lesser strength than it should have been was just an odd sensation for them. Weiss was taking up the rear since she had to maintain her semblance and was the last one to the top.
Jaune blinked behind the symbiote mask seeing team CRDL trying to fend off an Ursa, the other three members were down but still moving while Cardin was fighting a losing battle.
Jaune could feel the urge to fight and destroy the Grimm coming from Valor, just looking at the creature seemed to set off his symbiote. He could just feel his alien partner's urge to destroy the thing in front of them all. It was this overpowering urge to kill it, it was kind of frightening.
"Make sure the other three are okay!" Was the only thing Jaune said before he rushed off.
"Wha- he's going after it alone?" Weiss stated surprised by how quickly he just ran off.
Pyrrha felt something was off, this wasn't the usual Jaune he felt, aggressive to her for some reason. Snapping herself out of her thoughts. "We need to help those hurt first, Jaune can take care of the Grimm."
She had faith in his ability, after that sparring session when he was able to go all out with Valor she had seen what their full combat power was, or at least a good idea of it. One Grimm, even one that was stronger than an average one, shouldn't be a problem. She could see mixed emotions that everyone wanted to help but they were taught that if there were wounded or hurt people in a battle to get them to safety.
Team RWBY shared a look and nodded as they split off into their partnered pairs, going for Sky and Dove, leaving the rest of JNPR to look after Russel last.
Cardin felt his arms burn this Grimm was stronger than what he was used to. He had been trying to keep it busy hoping his team would get back up with a second wind but so far, no luck. He barely registered others arriving as he had to keep his focused or else this Ursa would take his head off. His mace smashed a clawed paw aside feeling like he was hitting a concrete wall.
The problem was, while he was confident in his strength he wasn't confident in his speed. He had taken some glancing blows but even those were tearing his aura apart. The beast roared at him, and he thought it was going for a bite, so he jumped to the side ready to smash its head in. Turns out it wasn't what it was going to do, he felt the large paw slam into his side knocking him hard to the ground. He felt his aura break and the weapon slipping out of his hand.
Cardin rolled on his back as he locked eyes with the creature and for a moment, he felt time slow to a crawl. Was this is? Was this how things ended for him? Killed because of a stupid prank? He felt like laughing at how absorbed it was. The beast made a move for him as Cardin could hear his father's words echoing in his mind.
'A Winchester doesn't show weakness son!'
'You have to show the world how strong the family is, let no one trample on you!'
'If you have to step on people on the way up then so be it.'
'We come from a long line of warriors boy, never forget that.'
'A warrior isn't weak, never show weakness.'
"Sorry dad," Cardin muttered knowing his dad would be disappointed in him when he found out about how he died. He had never felt so weak and helpless in his life, unable to fight back against the beast in front of him.
That's when the white blur yelling a battle cry slammed into the Grimm right before it lunged at him. Cardin blinked as he saw the white figure holding those familiar old weapons that Jaune used before he remembered that Jaune had some kind of white thing covering him before he ducked out of site.
"The hell?" Cardin was frozen until he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Are you alright?"
He looked to see Pyrrha there holding out his weapon, he mutely took it as he wasn't fully comprehending things. "I…I guess, my aura is gone."
"Then stay behind me," She told him was she went to guard him as they looked to see Jaune fighting the monster with an almost ferocious attitude.
Jaune felt anger, he felt pure distain from Valor as they fought the Grimm. It was such a powerful set of emotions being pumped into him from his symbiote. These negative motions only seemed to spur the Ursa on. It got up on its hindlegs roaring at him attempting to pin him with its massive form.
The old Jaune would have been scared, the old him would have got out of the way, but he wasn't that old Jaune anymore. He was stronger now, in fact with the symbiote now outside and them working together he was even stronger. He stuck his sword into the ground tip first as he grabbed the Grimm's falling chest and with effort he tossed the creature onto its side, making the ground tremble from the impact.
He felt his muscles burn from it but Valor was quickly numbing the pain and repairing any damage. He picked up his sword as the Grimm was trying to get up, slightly stunned both physical and mentally. Jaune with a swipe of his shield slammed the head of the Grimm, the white bone like mask ringing off of his shield. It tried to swipe at him but it was too disoriented to make it count.
Jaune however took advantage and sliced the limb off making the creature howl in rage and pain as it stumbled back, its balance gone from the missing limb. Jaune cried out as he leaped forward and pierced it with a thrust of his sword into the eye and deep into the head of the Ursa. It let out a strangled cry before slumping over and going still. The Ursa fading away as all Grimm did as they died leaving Jaune panting as the battle fury seemed to slowly leave him.
'Valor, what was that all about?'
~Sorry I just…I just can't stand these creatures~
'Well please work on that, I really didn't like feeling like that, I know we share emotions and stuff but that was a bit too intense.'
~Sorry Jaune~
Jaune could feel that the alien was sorry about it, the instant regret he could feel coming from his partner told him all he needed to know. He would have to have a long talk with his symbiote about this later. This type of anger couldn't be healthy, and he was starting to worry about him now.
"Wow," Yang said as the battle was over, she was really surprised when Jaune just lifted the Ursa Major and slammed him into the ground like that. "He's a lot stronger than I thought."
Yang had to admit, it was kind of hot seeing him fight like that.
"Hell yeah!" Nora cheered. "That's our fearless leader."
Ruby however silently watched Jaune, she had never seen him like that either and she was worried something was going on with her friend.
Jaune called back the symbiote since the battle looked to be over as she saw Pyrrha helping up Cardin. He should have known he was behind the sap and the wasps, it was the kind of thing he could see the boy doing. Part of him was angry, there was no one that wouldn't be but looking at him now, well nearly getting killed was more of a punishment or revenge than anything Jaune could think of.
He saw the others were helping the rest of Cardin's team who looked to be doing better, no one was seriously hurt at least so that was good.
"Is everyone okay?" He asked Pyrrha for her opinion.
"I think so, we got here in time to stop the Ursa Major from doing too much damage." She nodded.
Cardin just looked at Jaune, his mind was confused to say that least. This is the guy he had been picking on since the start because Jaune had been just so weak when they started. But there he was standing without a scratch taking out that Grimm single handedly while it took out his entire team. Cardin could only imagine the shame his father would have at how weak his son had been when it counted.
He wasn't sure what kind of freaky semblance Jaune had, he certainly never heard of anything like a white suit covering a person, but he could only guess it seemed to make the blonde even stronger. He also was having trouble figuring out why he had bothered to help, it didn't take a genius to know where the sap and bugs had come from. Yet here he was making sure they were all okay and they all tried to help them despite it all.
He knew if he didn't ask now, it would just eat up his thoughts until he did.
"I don't get you man, you had to know I was the one who threw that at you." He locked eyes with the smaller boy.
"Yeah, I figured when we got here." Jaune sighed and nodded.
"So why help?" He continued. "You could have just let that thing attack us and who would blame you?"
"Well, I would," Jaune's response surprised Cardin as Jaune went on. "I don't know about you, but I was raised to help people. That's why I wanted to become a Huntsman, to help others when they needed it because we all need help."
Cardin's eyes darkened a bit at that last part. "Asking for help is a weakness if you can't stand on your own then you should fall."
"Well, I can't agree with that," Jaune shrugged. "Even I needed help, still do. I can't do everything on my own, why do you think we got teams in Beacon?"
Cardin chewed on what he wanted to say next because honestly, he didn't really have a good counter point for it.
"I know I was pretty weak at the start of the school year, actually I was pretty bad," he scratched the back of his head. "That's why I've been pushing myself like crazy to catch up to everyone, but I didn't do it alone. I've had help this entire time from my team and my friends."
'And from a certain alien.' Jaune thought to his symbiote as he felt Valor being thankful for the compliment.
"It's one of the reasons I fight for," Jaune shrugged.
"Reason you fight for?" Cardin asked him back.
"Yeah, I mean you had to have a reason you wanted to be a Huntsman, right? Mine was so I could fight for others, to protect them, to help them. I wanted to be a hero like my ancestor, I know that seems childish and maybe it kind of is, but I just wanted to help. That's why I train so hard, that's the reason I found to fight for. What do you fight for?"
Cardin might have wanted to say he fought for himself but looking at his team and seeing them banged up, he wasn't so sure anymore. He became a Huntsman because it was expected, he was from a long line of warriors but in the end, what did he fight for?
Thinking about the attack if their roles were reversed would have had helped Jaune if he was being attacked by a Grimm? It pained him to think he wasn't sure of the answer, or maybe he was just afraid to answer it.
"Well anyways I got to look after my team," he turned to leave but after a few steps he stopped. "And…thanks."
With that he walked off as he went to make sure the other three were okay and to start thinking about a few other questions he had.
Pyrrha came up to him placing a hand on his shoulder. "I think that was well said."
"Really?" Jaune gave a half-hearted smile. "You don't think it sounded too corny? I mean I think I might have gone overboard on a few things, and I was worried I might be rambling on a little."
"It came from the heart," she told him and looked at Cardin. "I just hope some of that reached him."
Jaune shrugged. "I'll guess we'll have to wait and see we better get the jars and get back to the ship." He looked down at the sap still on his clothing. "I'm not sure how I'm going to explain this, this stuff really is super sticky."
TBC..
Since Cardin doesn't have a backstory I figured to give some reason why he is the way he is.