Author's Notes:
-Hey guys and girls. Looks like with the last chapter, I've reached over 100,000 words. Yep, this is a long story.
-See if you can guess the slowed down version of the song that Pyrrha plays on her scroll. (I'll give you a hint-it's from RWBY)
Thirty minutes later, after a cleansing shower to freshen himself up, Jaune was dressed in more casual clothes- a fresh pair of jeans, a blue polo shirt and he did not wear his armor. As his bare feet went down the stairs, he noticed that Indigo was the only one downstairs. He slid open the door, entering the backyard and found it had turned completely dark outside, with the only source of light coming from the outdoor wall lamps. The only sound heard was the sound of the crickets chirping and his own footsteps. He looked around, but he didn't find her.
"Pyrrha?"
Behind him, a voice answered, "Hello Jaune."
He turned around to find her standing there, in front of the holed tree, wearing a red maxi dress that matched her hair, similar to the one that she wore at the Beacon Dance without any shoes. He then looked at her hair, which had been undone, flowing down to her waist.
"Wow. You look beautiful."
"Thank you."
He squinted his eyes at her for a brief moment. "Wait a second..." She came closer to him. "Isn't that one of Rouge's dresses?"
She smiled at him. "Yeah. What about it?"
"Nothing. Nothing." He felt the heat rush to his face as he tried to be honest and say what he meant. "It looks better on you anyway."
Pyrrha chuckled to herself briefly before she set her scroll down on the table and played some music. She gently wrapped her arms around his neck. "Shall we dance?"
[cue music-Ed Sheeran-Perfect]
He put his hands around her waist. "Certainly."
The lovers began their dance, a slow waltz, as Pyrrha stepped one foot back and Jaune stepped one foot forward. They made another step in that same direction so that each of their feet were parallel to each other. Each partner brought one foot to meet the other.
The gladiator girl smiled at him and asked, "You remember the last time we danced like this?"
Pyrrha took a step forward as Jaune stepped back.
They repeated the same steps from earlier as Jaune answered, "Yeah, during the Beacon Dance."
"It was a magical night."
He moved his left foot forward before moving his right foot up and to the side. As he did this and took his left foot to meet with his right, he took her hand and gently spun her around as she came back to him, he gave her his response. "How could I forget that? You looked gorgeous that night, and you still are."
"Oh come on, compared to that night, I'm a mess."
He whispered, "Darling, you look perfect tonight."
Pyrrha smiled and felt her face warm up a little.
As the second went to the second verse, Jaune thought, Look at her- she's beautiful, she's strong, she's amazing.
Starting with his left foot in front of him and his right foot way in front of him to the side, he took his right foot backwards before taking it forward to the right, still holding onto Pyrrha's hand as he did so. She did a similar maneuver of steps, following his lead.
He held her up, his arm around her waist as she seemed to melt into his arms, staring at him lovingly as she stroked his cheek. He twirled her around, locking arms with her and Pyrrha glancing at him before the dance resumed.
The young blond then preceded with a change in the left foot, two right turns and with a change in the right foot.
Could Rouge be right? He looked at the woman he was dancing with, the woman he loved. Do I really deserve her?
As the song and the instrumental part progressed, Jaune looked sad for a brief moment as the dance continued.
Pyrrha noticed this. "Jaune, is something wrong?"
He sighed as he put his left foot forward. "Pyrrha, I need you to be honest with me and answer me what I'm about to ask you."
Pyrrha put her left foot backward. "What is it?"
He looked at her sadly, crossing his left foot behind his right. "Why did you agree to train me? Even though I didn't deserve it, you wanted to help me. Why?"
As she crossed her right foot behind her left, setting it in promenade position, she placed her hand to his cheek. "You were honest. You needed help, and I gave it to you because I saw that if you were guided on the right path, that you could become the hero you wanted to be. Also, I didn't want you to go..."
Jaune looked at her, the most beautiful woman in the world. He didn't want anything or anyone to come in between them.
He smiled halfheartedly before looking down in sadness. "I almost feel like I don't deserve you."
Pyrrha smiled at him, her fingers tilting his chin up, and as he looked at her in surprise, she looked at him lovingly - his sky blue eyes staring into her emerald eyes. "I would say otherwise." They closed their eyes and locked lips for a few seconds. The music slowed down and ended as they stood with their arms around each other.
Unbeknownst to them, all of the Arc sisters were watching them by the end of the dance.
"Aw, that's so adorable..." Acacia smiled brightly.
"Long live Arkos!" Amethyst cheered.
"To say that they're cute would be an understatement." Azura stated.
Indigo nodded in agreement. "I agree with you a hundred and ten percent."
"If you hooked up a generator to the amount of love between those two, you could power up the entire city of Olympia." Emerald said. "Maybe even several cities."
Tangerine smiled as she crossed her arms. "I gotta admit, I'm not much of one for enjoying all this warm, mushy-gushy romantic stuff, but I have to admit, those two are really damn adorable."
Rouge briefly rolled her eyes. "I really don't get what she sees in him... But, as long they're happy together, who am I to judge?"
Acacia looked at the fashion model as Jaune and Pyrrha switched from a slow dance to a tango. "Aw, you're just jealous because Jaune found his soulmate and you haven't."
"Not true!" Her face fumed red as Azura gave her a smug, knowing grin. She sighed and relented. "Ok, that's true."
The truth teller held her smirk. "Even without my lie detection semblance, you are a bad liar."
"Your face says everything." Emerald pointed out.
The femme fatale sighed in frustration. "Must you remind me of this?"
"How many guys we up to now?" Acacia asked.
Amethyst answered, "Still fourteen, I think. Am I right?"
Rouge nodded in acknowledgement before she sighed again. "This has been a bad day."
Tangerine snickered. "Bad for you, maybe."
"Good one!" Indigo gave her a low five.
Rouge took her red hair and started to redo her side bun, spinning it as she gave a look that bordered between curiosity and doubtfulness. "Do you really even believe they're soulmates?"
Amethyst gave her frown. Azura, Indigo, Emerald and Tangerine rolled their eyes before Acacia elaborated, "Come on, Rouge. First of all, Pyrrha accepted him, even after she found out the truth about his admittance to Beacon Academy. Next, Jaune tried to stop Pyrrha from fighting Cinder. Then he lost his mind after she ran away to fight the evil huntress and eventually went after Pyrrha all by himself. If that doesn't scream true love, I don't know what does."
"You don't even know what true love is." Indigo said.
"She's right ya know." Emerald added.
"Let it go, Em!" Rouge finished setting up her bun.
Meanwhile, in Fiti, Nora and Ren were back in the treehouse. On her way over to the couch, the red-head took a red marker and crossed out November 17th. The two former Beacon students sat on a green couch in front of a green oval rug.
Ren smiled. "Looks like the first day was a success."
"One day down-twenty seven to go." Nora noted.
"Twenty seven days." Ren took off his shoes. "I think we can get through that."
"Interns working at Beachside News." She chuckled. "It's crazy, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it does." Ren chuckled. "I never imagined this is what we would be doing with our lives."
"Aside from being hunters, was there anything else that you wanted to do in life?" Nora asked him. Ren looked at the girl beside him- her turquoise eyes illuminated with curiosity, her vibrant orange hair, her smile, the way her cheeks turned rosey pink...
"Ren?"
He was snapped out of his thoughts. "Can't think of anything."
"You seemed like you were lost in your own thoughts."
"Maybe I was."
The dark stone walls of Argus Harbor Max Security Prison were very good at confining prisoners. Too good, the prisoner in cell block N, cell 15 would say. The woman sitting on the raised wood rack sat with her legs curled to her chest, and took her hand using her fingers to glide through her short grey hair with nearly faded light brown streaks. The moonlight illuminated her face, showing thick greyed eyebrows, brown eyes and fair skin. As she set her feet down, knee high light tan wedge heeled boots touched the cold stone floor, her white tights and a grey tunic along with a silver owl shaped necklace. Behind her, she had dark grey owl wings protruding from her back, currently bound with super thick black cables. But she couldn't fly, even if they weren't bound.
The room was only ten inches wide from one wall to another by eight inches floor to ceiling, which meant that even if her wings weren't bound, she wouldn't be able to fly three feet before hitting her head on the ceiling. She hated being boxed in.
Stupid claustrophobia. she thought to herself.
The faunus sighed loudly, but no one heard her. Since she was deemed too dangerous by the warden, all of the other prisoners on her floor were moved to a different cell block. There also weren't many guards, not to mention that they were on the opposite side of the hall, slacking off, sleeping on the job. Occasionally, she could hear their snoring. She sighed again, this time softer. She never understood the need for her captors to bind her wings. She couldn't escape either way.
She looked at her cell- a small window a few feet above her with three metal bars in the way, and the bars separating her from the rest of the hall. It didn't seem like anything was going to get better for her. Suddenly, the owl faunus thought she heard the sound of footsteps. Loud, somewhat clumsy footsteps. Eventually, the source of those steps came close to her- a faunus with pale skin, jet black hair, red eyes, ram horns and Greek designed battle armor.
"Ares? What are you doing here?" She leaned her arms against the bars and glared at him. "You ran away during the invasion."
The ram faunus sighed. "I know, and I'm sorry. Once Ash lead the students into battle, I feared that this plan wouldn't work. I fought til the very end, but me and a few other faunus successfully fled right before the authorities arrived."
She smiled and rolled her eyes. "You're the worst. What took you so long?"
"Yes, I know, it took me forever to figure out which cell block you were in. I know that I have a lust for bloodshed, but I couldn't just rush in blindly. I also had to get back your weapons." He had two different weapons on his left side in addition to the sword on his right. "I apologize for making you wait forever."
"Looks like you've taken my advice to heart."
"I have. I owe you. You saved me from going splat when I fell off that cliff in Mistral. And now I'm returning the favor- by getting you out of here." He got the key and unlocked her cell. She stepped out and approached him. "Now turn around and hold still."
She did as he instructed, Ares got out his sword and cut the cables around her wings and she unfurled them, stretching them out.
"Ugh... Ah... Feels good no longer being bound." He handed the owl faunus her weapons- two boomerangs filled with fire dust, and a pistol that converted into a grappling hook. "Thanks. Now to make our escape."
She took one of her boomerangs and threw it against the wall. Since these boomerangs had fire dust in them, the wall exploded, creating a huge hole in the wall and a deafening boom was heard as her boomerang returned to her. An alarm went off as the sounds of footsteps were heard. The guards that were asleep were coming right towards them.
"I think it's high time we get out of here."
"Agreed."
Ares took her hand, getting a smile and blush from the owl faunus before the two ran to the edge and jumped, with the owl faunus taking off into the sky with her wings. The cool night breeze blew gently around them as they made their escape.
Back at the prison, the guards saw the empty cell and the hole in the wall.
The first one looked around frantically. "Where did she go?!"
"Oh man, don't tell me that she escaped!"
"Oh great. The warden is going to kill us."