Symbiote Knight

Chapter 24: Rock meet Hard Place

'What am I going to do? Seriously what am I supposed to do here?' Jaune's mind had been going over and over what Yang had said, and he just kept looking back on his life trying to notice the signs that he missed. He wasn't used to being popular with girls or at least popular enough to get at least two and maybe three to notice him? He was so used to just being ignored by the women he liked that he just didn't think anyone would take an active interest in him without him trying to gain their attention first.

'So how in the world did I end up in this situation?'

Valor was not enjoying his freak out. The bond meant he could feel all the apprehension, tension, fear and confusion that Jaune was going through, and it was not pleasant. Also, Jaune kept thinking in circles and it was starting to give him a headache, or at least the Klyntar version of one.

~Jaune stop~

Jaune's body still clad in the costume on the roof top he was currenting running on froze as the symbiote took over.

~Take a moment and breath~

"Okay…breath…yeah I can do that…" He took a few breaths before the alien gave him back full control of his body.

~Look you can't change what happened only deal with it, take it slow. Let's just focus on getting back and take it one step at a time~

"Right one step…god how am I going to face Pyrrha?!" his hands went to his head. "We live in the same room Valor! How can I even look her in the eyes now?!"

Valor mentally sighed, well he had tried.

Eventually Jaune made it back to the Bullhead station, he had put away the suit as soon as he was close enough to see it and out of public view. As he arrived, he was glad to see everyone there but Ruby and Yang, he figured he had a few minutes lead on them anyway since the rooftops were quicker. As he looked around and as his eyes locked with his partner he froze slightly.

"Jaune, where were you? Pyrrha said you had to check on something?" Nora asked glad to see him.

He looked to Nora and then to Pyrrha who shifted a bit, she wasn't the best of lairs and hadn't been able to come up with something decent to explain his absence from Weiss and Blake.

"Oh uh, I dropped my scroll?" He pulled it out. "Found it."

"So that's why you weren't picking up," Ruby's voice called out from behind as he looked to see the sisters not far off just as he thought as they quickly made their way towards them.

"Huh?" Then he remembered she tried to call him. "Oh, right sorry I saw you called and was about to call you back. Where uh, what happened to you two?"

He of course knew but it was better to act clueless.

'Apparently I'm very good at that.' He thought to himself as he looked from Ruby to Yang. They locked eyes as she seemed to give him a small smile. 'God how did I miss it?'

~I did try and say she and your other partner would be good alternatives if things with Weiss never worked out~

'I know! I just didn't expect it to actually happen.'

"Jaune you won't believe it!" Ruby came up with him looking all giddy as she showed him Yang's scroll which she still had. "See, we met the Vale Knight!"

And there was the picture she took of 'him' and Yang talking. It was kind of surreal as half the people here knew the real story behind that picture, but the other half didn't. He felt a bit bad about that.

~What you want to tell more? You do know if you tell them then Yang will know what she said to you~

Jaune mentally froze again at that, 'Yeah…let's put a pin in that for later.' This whole situation was awkward enough and he didn't want to put Yang in that kind of position either.

He figured all that would now be Future Jaune's problems as he smiled and tried to make it look like he was excited. "Oh, wow that's crazy Ruby."

"What's crazy is that suit of his, it moves around like it's alive at times," Ruby was getting into weapon maniac mode as her eyes got that look in them whenever she talked about weapons. "I wonder how he does it, maybe it's some kind of material that he can control with a semblance? Like metallic fibers and magnetism?"

~Nice try but not even close~

Pyrrha raised an eyebrow at that, while she knew how the 'suit' worked Ruby was making her wonder if she had clothing that was metal threads could she make them do something similar? Not entirely like how Valor could move of course, magnetism couldn't shape metal, at least as far as she knew, hers couldn't.

"Still, we better get on board," Blake stated noticing the time. "The last one is about to leave for Beacon unless we want to walk all the way to school."

It would take all night to walk through Vale, and then back to the school so they all eagerly used their student passes to take the last ride. On the way to their seats Weiss stopped and turned to look at Jaune.

"I just wanted to say...thank you."

"Oh? Uh…for what again?" Jaune blinked.

Weiss shifted a little in her stance not used to this kind of thing. Rarely anyone did anything nice to her, at least before coming to Beacon. Sure, there was Klein but mostly when someone had been nice to her it was for some ulterior motive behind it. "For standing up for me about what that brute said."

Then it clicked for him. "Oh! Right, yeah well, I know you could have taken him easily."

"I could." She nodded.

He gave a small smile at that, "But I don't like anyone talk about my friends like that, plus my parents brought me up that you shouldn't say certain things to people and not to ladies especially."

Weiss felt a small smile on her face, from the look in his face and from how he said it, he honestly did sound genuine about that. It actually made her feel a little warmth in her that there were still people who could be gentlemanly and treat others with respect. She was starting to see Jaune in a different light lately.

Sure, his approach before was a bumbling fool, and he still had a bit of that, but as she got to know him more, she could see that he had a good heart. That was something she rarely experienced in Atlas, she always had to be on guard, and she knew it made her a little…difficult to deal with at times. Still, she was starting to see layers in him she hadn't noticed.

"I appreciate that," she turned to leave as Jaune wondered if he was starting to get somewhere with her.

~Uh oh~

Jaune was wondering why Valor said that when he looked to see Pyrrha shifting uncomfortably with a plastered-on smile and Yang looking away a bit trying to pretend she was looking at something else.

'Oh right, this is troubling,'

"Come on," Ruby told them. "You guy are going to miss it."

Yang, Pyrrha and Jaune snapped out of it as they quickly boarded the last flight to Beacon. Jaune was hoping to catch a break until he sat down and soon round Yang on one side and Pyrrha on the other with Ruby telling Nora across from them everything that happened. Blake, Weiss and Ren were in the seat behind her listening in.

Jaune kind of zoned out since he was very aware of how close Yang and Pyrrha were, knowing that both liked him totally changed the dynamic. He also tried to ignore the fact that now that he knew, he couldn't help but look at them not just as friends but as attractive young women.

Okay, yes he was fully aware of that fact, actually there wasn't an unattractive female at Beacon that he could name or point out. He just never really thought about it before, because he never thought he had a chance with either of them.

Pyrrha was like on a pedestal, she just seemed to be so above his reach, so perfect and it was kind of intimidating. For Yang, there was the fact she was his best friend's sister, and her outgoing sunny personality made him feel like he couldn't keep up with her.

'Since when did my life get so complicated?'

~From what I can see, the day you ran away from home taking your weapons and trying to get in with forged papers~

'Yeah…sounds about right…'

It was a very long flight for him, he was glad when it was all over when they landed, and said their goodbyes before going off to their own dorms.

"Man, what a crazy night," Nora stretched out while in the dorm as their front door closed.

"It was a lot more excitement than what we planned for," Ren nodded his head.

"I'm glad you and Valor were able to help Ruby and Yang," Pyrrha turned to face them. "But is what they said true bout them turning to glass at the end?"

"Kind of?" Jaune was getting his sleepwear ready avoiding her gaze at the moment. "It was more like she put up an illusion made of glass? It's kind of hard to explain."

Pyrrha thought about the description of the small girl and her obvious semblance. "It sounds like some kind of illusion style of power, a very powerful one if she can instantly put-up illusions without anyone noticing."

"We were just wondering how they got away so quickly." Jaune and Valor were both wondering as it was only a split second, at least they thought it was. It was hard to tell when the girl threw up the illusion but at the most it was only a few seconds.

"Maybe she layered it." Pyrrha surmised.

"She what now?" Jaune paused to turn to look at her.

"She might have been able to place one illusion of them there and another to hide them running away." She further explained.

~Damn it, I should have thought of that~ Valor did not like missing that possibility. ~That little one if we ever meet her again is going to be a pain to fight~

Jaune face palmed as he sighed, "Well…next time we'll have to be ready for that."

Nora yawned as she stretched out again. "Well, this has been a day."

With that team JNPR did their usual bedtime rituals with the girls using the bathroom first to change. Jaune tried so very hard not to think that Pyrrha was changing clothing. It already took him time to get used to the fact that he was sharing a room with girls that weren't related to him for once. Now with how she felt towards him, that awkwardness was back.

By the time he was in bed he looked over at Pyrrha as she was resting. He was feeling anxious at the moment and normally he guessed he wouldn't get any sleep tonight, thankfully his symbiote could knock him out for him. He soon felt his eyes close as sleep overtook him as he entered the dreamscape they used at night.

The current set up was the usual Beacon classroom as Jaune was now pacing in the open space between the student desks and where the teacher sat.

"Oh man this is insane," Jaune paced as the black formless image of Valor was sitting at one of the desks. "How do I not make this awkward?"

"I'm not sure," Valor shrugged. "Even after all the hosts I've had, while I understand emotions like love and attraction the nuances of it always escapes me. Every culture has its own take on it."

"Yeah, I remember you explaining some of that," He sighed. He laid down on the floor looking up at the ceiling. "You know, I never thought anything like this would happen to me. I'm not the kind of guy that walks into a room with a girl under each arm, I'm not the guy that girls fall over, I was never the cool guy growing up so what happened?"

"Things changed, you changed, you've become a better version of yourself."

"Yeah, thanks to you," Jaune admitted that with Valor's help he had changed a lot. He was stronger now, a bit more confident, it was kind of scary thinking about how far he had come in just a short amount of time. He knew he was slowly changing before he met Valor, before they joined but after he had just been improving so much faster.

"Is this really me though?" He wondered.

"Everything changes, that which does not is fated to be overtaken but that which does," Valor explained to him using an old Zen-la teaching. "The universe hates stagnation, if you don't adapt and change with it, then you will be replaced by something else."

Jaune blinked. "That sounds kind of uncaring."

"The universe cares not for your feelings it is what it is."

"It is what it is, huh?" Jaune sighed. "Okay so I got two girls that like me, I like one other girl who is warming up to me…what are my choices here?"

"You can choose one which will hurt the others, choose none where all get hurt, or try to see if you can take them all or those that are willing to join."

"Seriously what's up with that last choice?"

"Plenty of species work like that as I told you, I believe you call it a harem route here?"

Jaune blushed, "where did you even learn, wait…was it those games my sister Azure liked to play?"

"Among a few others, when I joined with the rest of JNPR that time I gained access to more knowledge. Apparently, Nora likes these black and white comics called manga from Mistral."

"Okay, I didn't know that."

"She reads them on her scroll when bored, usually listening to music."

"Ah," Jaune turned back to stare at the ceiling. Just what was it he was supposed to do here? He could go up to each one and talk things out? Talk it out with them all? No that might not work, he wasn't even dating any of them.

"Why not ask them each out on dates to see which is more compatible?" Valor innocently asked.

Jaune thought about it, it wasn't the worst idea, but he also didn't want to make them think he was cheating on them. Well one date doesn't mean dating, right? Still, he would have to be upfront about something like this and once again the choice to talking to them all would have to come up.

"I just wish I knew if they really liked me or if it was a crush, like do I really stand a chance with any of them?" He asked out loud just voicing his thoughts at the moment.

Valor was silent for a long moment thinking deep on it. "How do you honestly feel about them?"

Jaune blinked, how did he feel? Sure, he was attracted to Weiss but now that Yang and Pyrrha were on the table too how did he feel? He had a close friendship with each of them, but could he see himself actually dating them? He imagined himself with each girl, things would be different with them.

Weiss would be more in charge, but he felt there was a softer side to her that she didn't like others to see, with him maybe she would let her guard down and he could get to see the real her.

With Yang he saw a very passionate relationship, someone bright and full of energy with a smile that lit up the room.

Pyrrha he could see what they already had, a special bond but on a deeper level.

Jaune groaned, this wasn't helping, he could see himself with each of them, the problem was he didn't have any experience to know which one he preferred or which one suited him the most. Each had their own unique traits that he liked, all of them were beautiful, all of them were special.

He ran his hands over his face in frustration.

That's when he felt a slight shift, the hard ground was now a bed under him and suddenly he felt a weight on him. He pulled his hands away to be met with an image of Weiss on top of him smiling down at him.

"You know Jaune, you could have one of us," she said in a testing tone he only ever heard in his dreams.

"Or you know," this was now Yang who he realized was cuddling up to his left.

"You can have all of us," He look to his right to see Pyrrha mirroring Yang.

"Valor!" Jaune's blushing face yelled out as the images faded.

"Just trying to see which one got you more excited," the symbiote explained. They were now in the dorm room with him sitting on one of the chairs facing the bed.

"And?" Jaune asked frustrated.

"Inconclusive," Valor shrugged as Jaune fell back onto his bed. "You are very indecisive about this."

"I know," Jaune moaned trying to get the image of being surrounded by all three of them, no matter how nice it had felt.

"Maybe take things small, try to get to know them each more personally and see where that goes?"

"So…not dating but just, hanging out with them?" He thought about it, if he just said they could hang out alone it would help with things. "You do know that if things with either Yang and Weiss get closer, I'm going to have to tell them and their team about you too?"

Valor crossed his arms and nodded his head. "Yes, I know, so far team JNPR has been supportive, so it looks like it was a good choice to trust them. If you trust team RWBY, I don't see why not expand it to them, but only when you feel the time is right."

"Deal," Jaune stated now he just needed to think of how to go about the next step on getting to know the girls better and figuring out which one he liked the most before asking one out on an actual date.

-Elsewhere in the world-

Arthur Watts was in his lab in the castle as he normally would be working on another project of his. However, a few hours ago Cinder from her source had gotten more video footage of this person in the white suit. It was much closer now and with audio this time. His scroll was plugged into a jack as the video was playing again and again on the larger screen in front of him. He needed more information and a better view than just the scroll.

"How are you doing that?" He muttered rewinding the video again. He had several parts of the video playing on repeat in several windows as his mind tried to analyze what he was seeing. He was a genius, possibly the smartest person this world had ever seen and yet he couldn't think how that suit operated.

There was no clear power source and it looked like cloth but then it would react and act like a living creature. At first, he wondered if someone had been using Grimm to create a living suit but that didn't make sense, even Doctor Merlot's experiments weren't this advanced, and Watts refused to believe that anyone else could have Grimm research that was this far advanced other than himself. Even Merlot's work didn't touch his own given all hear learned from working with Salem.

"Hmmmm," he stroked his facial hair thinking on it. "Maybe some kind of genetic engineering? Or some kind of fusion between cybernetics and organics?"

Whatever the secret was he was going to find it, there was no way someone on this planet could make something he could not figure out and then use for his own purposes. He was at the top of the world in intellect, and he wouldn't let some unknown persons get past him. And it had to be an unknown, someone new maybe? All of the people that he could call his peers were still beneath him, so maybe it was someone that came into the science field after he faked his death, he had to admit he wasn't in the inner circles of academia anymore because of it.

"You are burning the midnight oil." A feminine voice casually said as he froze. That was the one voice that terrified him.

He turned around to see Salem there standing by his doorway looking at him. He hadn't even heard her as she silently stepped inside looking at the screens as though they were barely perceived by her. For someone as ancient as her it took something she cared about or exceptional to gain her interests. What mattered to a self-proclaimed 'goddess' if most things she saw would live to see turned to dust by time?

"It's something that Cinder has asked me to look into, she thinks Atlas has created some kind of new combat suit and is testing it out in Vale. If they have this might prove to be an unknown variable to the plan." Watts showed her the images and to his surprise there was something in her face.

It was a little bit of surprise but there was something else there he noticed, recognition.

She stepped forward looking at the images again as a glint in her eye grew. She took the scroll from the jack. "I need to show someone this."

"Oh, uh of course, do you know what this is?" He asked as he wasn't going to say 'no' to her, that was a quick way of ending his life with a woman that would kill you on a whim and not even think twice about it.

"I believe so," was all she said to him as she traveled the castle. She went deep, deeper than anyone else went. Even her most trusted servants weren't allowed down here. She went into the dungeons, the lowest levels of her castle. These were dark pits where she kept her darkest of secrets. With a wave of her hand lights light up along the walls as the cries of those in the cells could be heard.

She walked past them, the forms hidden in the shadows moving and moaning at her. One such creature was a man slammed himself against the bars, half his face was covered in Grimm parts as was most of his body as he moaned out to her.

"Please…kill…me…" He moaned out.

She coldly looked at the man's face and into his single silver eye, the eyes she hated the most in this world. She silently moved on, that had been one of the failed experiments, but she was getting close. In fact, she couldn't wait to see the reaction to the creature she kept at the end of this hall. After all it was because of it that she gained the idea and knowledge to merge Grimm with humans.

Those in the cells were in various states as she used the Silver Eyed Warriors as her own experimental subjects, since they were her greatest threat she felt it was ironic for them to turn into her greatest weapons. Finally, she reached the end of the hall to a large and thick door, she waved her hand over it as a glyph of pure red formed and then vanished unlocking the door. It slowly opened as the lamps in the room flickered to life in her presence.

This wasn't much of a room as it was more of a containment cell as the only other thing was in the center. A small pillar stood there with central part made of tempered glass. It was airtight and she put powerful wards over it. Inside was a dark liquid that looked to be frozen in mid movement, which was because it was.

She waved a hand as the simple spell that once upon a time was used to preserve food by stopping time for a period of time. It was one of the old spells that were long forgotten by the world, she had to charge it now and then but with her magic powers that was nothing to her. With the spell now gone the creature was free to move once again.

There was slow movement as the liquid seem to turn and move almost like there was an invisible flow to it. She stepped closer as the liquid struck out at the glass in anger at her. She didn't even flinch, she only smiled as she pressed the scroll to the glass.

"Tell me, does this look familiar to you?" She played the video as a head seemed to form with large white evil looking eyes formed. The eyes suddenly widened as it quickly pressed its face again the glass, clawlike fingers scrapped the glass.

"Oh…so this one isn't a friend then?" Salem had been using this creature on and off for a few thousand years now. It had fallen to their world from the stars and had quickly made itself a nuisance. It had been causing problems all over the place for years, taking people, eating people's brains, leaving husks behind as well as destroying her Grimm.

Well, that is until she had gone out and captured the creature herself. She had spent a century breaking it to her will, it had taken a lot of effort and even still it wasn't completely subservient, but it knew that Salem knew how to hurt it and that she wouldn't hurt it as long as it did as she commanded.

When she needed an agent to do the work no one else could, she would then find a host and send it out. When it was done, she would put it back into here under stasis. She had also spent many centuries studying the creature, how it bonded with organic creatures was what inspired her to merge Grimm with humans and gave her the blueprints on how to get it started.

She had created various experiments with this, like the one in Cinder that allows her to steal the powers of the Maidens or what she was currently working on with the Silver Eyed Warriors was all thanks to this creature.

It was a shame it couldn't bond with her Grimm or that she couldn't use it herself, but her half-Grimm nature made that also impossible. If she could have bonded with this creature, she could have been even more powerful.

"Don't worry, I think I have just the right host lined up for you." Salem's red eyes glowed at the statement.

TBC…

Bet none of you saw that twist coming, ever since we saw that the Hound was a person inside of a Grimm it made me think, what if it was because of a symbiote she got the idea for that? And here we are. And yeah, this isn't one of the good ones either. So Jaune has a good one, Alas has an unknown spawn and Salem has got and evil one.