So, got a lot of feedback that yes to uploading on other sites. I guess I'll look into starting that once I'm free from my business. I expect that to happen this month to be honest. Finally.

Cover Art: Solace O'Autumn

Chapter 61

It was times like this, as Pyre – totally not Pyrrha – Nathan sat down with an arm looped around Guitar – definitely not Jaune – Cutie's waist, that he wished he'd unlocked the ability to communicate telepathically. Dad had always said women were impossible to understand, but he'd thought it a joke about his inability to predict mom.

Apparently, it was very much literal!

"Y—You're dating Cutie…?" Chae-young whispered, stars in her eyes. It seemed she was utterly struck by Pyre, which didn't surprise Jaune in the slightest. Pyrrha looked like a male model for a metal-rock magazine.

"Yes." Pyre's voice was still a little feminine, proving Pyrrha wasn't any more adept at faking one as he was a woman's, but that somehow just made him more enigmatic. "But it's a secret from the world. Can we trust you to keep it?"

"Yes! Yes! Totally! Oh my lord I have a secret with Guitar Cutie! One no one else knows! I'll take it to the grave!"

Jaune believed her. Not only because she was trustworthy, but because she wanted to be the only person on Remnant to have a secret with her idol. Chae-young wouldn't give this up even under torture.

"How did you meet?" Chae asked.

"Oh, it was pure luck. I was going through some tough times when I heard this beautiful melody being played right while I was at my lowest. I followed it before I knew what I was doing, and then I saw her, lit against the moonlight, playing her guitar as the stars shone against her hair."

Where was Pyrrha getting all this trash? Had she picked up a garbage romance on the way here? Now if only he hadn't made his female persona mute, he might be able to speak up and counter some of the worrying things Pyre was saying about them, but he hadn't, and the fact he was blushing up a storm probably didn't help!

Chae-young looked hooked on the trashy story as only a girl too young to know better could be.

To someone her age, this was an incredibly romantic story. The same as how Jaune had once thought the romances in his childhood RPGs to be deep and meaningful, when they often just came down to the main character being loved by multiple women on principle.

"I didn't dare approach the angel and reveal myself at first," Pyre waxed poetically. "I was afraid she would fly away and I'd never see her again." Chae-young gasped. Jaune gagged. "But then, as her song began to end and she stood as if to leave, I felt my heart constrict. I knew I couldn't stand by and let this angel walk away."

Please stop. Please.

"W—What did you do?"

"Well, I—"

Jaune, seeing a chance to get his own back, placed a hand over Pyrrha's lips and mimed to his own, spilling his hands out his mouth as if vomiting, but posing with his eyes closed and swaying with music.

Chae-young caught on. "He sang…?"

Pyrrha balked. "Uh…"

Jaune nodded with a cute smile.

"That's so sweet! You played, he sang – which you can't do – and then did you begin to play again?"

"Actually—" Pyre tried.

Yes, Jaune nodded, clapping his hands to his cheeks and faking a girlishly silent giggle. He'd seen his sisters do it enough times to be remarkably convincing. Chae-young squealed excitedly at the romantic story of two star crossed lovers playing and singing together on their first meeting. Jaune drove the nail deeper by pointing at Chae, then at Pyre, and mimicking to her mouth again.

"Yes!" Chae agreed. "I want to hear you sing, Pyre."

Given Pyrrha's incredible PR training and all-around talent, it was entirely possible she was an incredible singer and would put his teasing to shame. It was possible, but the look on her face – like what Jaune imagined a child would look like in front of a speeding Beowolf – did not suggest that was the case.

"Uhhh… That… uh… well…" Pyre desperately scrambled for a convincing answer. "I… uh… I mean, I can't here. Uh. Because Cutie doesn't have her guitar. And I can't reveal her in public! Yes, that's right. She's in disguise for a reason and me singing would draw attention to us." Pyre nodded his head quickly. "Otherwise, I'd love to sing for you."

Pyrrha's foot stamped on Jaune's under the table.

Payback's a bitch.

"But enough about me!" Pyre said. "Let's talk about you. We've heard so much about you from Jaune. He's a friend of both of ours, though he's becoming less of one by the second," she grumbled. "Ahahaha. Ignore me. I joke."

Pyrrha's foot-fu eclipsed his, catching his ankle between her shins. She rubbed them up and down, twisting his skin until Jaune buckled over the table and tapped out. Chae-young was far too amazed at knowing her teacher knew these two people to notice the ongoing skirmish happening in front of her.

/-/

A few hours later, they stopped at a park outside with ice-creams, after a hectic day of Pyrrha and Jaune trying to one-up and sabotage one another in front of Chae-young. Never to make the other look bad, but to try and talk one another into corners and trip each other up. Of course, once Chae-young started talking about her family situation again, they both stopped sparring and got back to the real problem.

"You should trust Jaune," Pyre said. "He's a lot more capable than he looks."

Jaune shot him a tight smile and a raised eyebrow.

"He is!" Pyrrha defended, having the grace to look a little embarrassed. She tried to recover. "He may look like a normal guy – friendly, cool, nice – but he has some special skills that make him more than that."

Jaune grumbled but let it go with a nod. As long as she was saying he was more than average, rather than dumb, he'd let it go. Special skills, though. Yeah, that was definitely one way to describe his Semblance. Maybe she was right to say that made him more capable than he looked. No one else knew what he could do. Cinder knew bits and pieces, but not how it all worked. That was much too personal to share.

"Cutie said that as well," Chae admitted, smiling faintly. "But I'm scared for him. Jaune believed in me, and I let him down. To know he's still believing in me even now is incredible, but my family won't play around. They'll hurt him. Mom told me the whole reason she sabotaged me was because she thought it would hurt me less than the way my father would do it. That he might have killed Jaune to turn me off music forever."

"He'd have regretted that," Pyrrha hissed.

Not half as much as I would have regretted being killed, Jaune thought.

It was nice to know Pyrrha would avenge him, though. Maybe Cinder would, too. They could work together to capture his murderer and bring them to justice as the totally-law-abiding huntresses that they were.

"Can you tell Jaune to be careful?" asked Chae. "I… I hope he'll succeed but I'd rather be trapped never being able to play than live knowing he died trying to help me. If he dies, I don't think I'll ever be able to look at a guitar without thinking about him."

Guh. So cute. Morbid, too. Morbidly cute.

"Precious…" Pyrrha whispered, all feminine voice. "Ahem. I mean, of course," he said, in a deeper one. "We'll warn him. And I will do my best to protect him as well. I'm quite capable in a fight. More so than most would think. I have huntsman training, you see."

Chae's eyes widened. "Really!?"

Her surprise wasn't as crazy as it sounded. Pyrrha's toned and muscled limbs looked bigger on a woman than they did on a man, and even if Pyrrha hadn't gained or lost mass for wearing a disguise, her arms looked slimmer if only by expectation. A lot of huntsmen weren't overly muscular. His dad had said it was something about usable muscle and aesthetic muscle, the latter being what so many men in gyms aimed for. Given that, it was actually quite hard for most people to tell who was a huntress and who wasn't, unless they were wearing a weapon or had scars to tip them off. Not everyone got a handy status window telling them who a person was.

"Thank you." Chae-young bowed. "And thank you for coming out with me, Cutie. I know it… I know you don't do it for anyone else. I'll keep this a secret, I promise. No one will know you're in Mistral. Or that you have a boyfriend."

Jauen smiled behind his mask, reached out and ruffled Chae-young's hair as he'd wanted to so many times before. It would have been untoward to do so as a man and her teacher, but he could absolutely get away with it now and did so shamelessly.

He didn't even have a quest to help her anymore; there would be no rewards for doing so.

Jaune didn't care.

/-/

"So…" Chae-young had left, allowing Jaune and Pyrrha to retreat to a quiet area off one of Mistral's parks. It also allowed him to speak at last, which he put to immediate effect. "What the hell is this about!?"

Pyrrha smiled adorably. "What is what about?"

"Ha ha! No. You don't get to play dumb, Pyre Nathan. What the hell. Who even did this to you?"

"Nora."

"Of course it was Nora. Of course it was. Damn her and her incredible ability to cross dress others. It's a wonder she hadn't utterly femboy'd Ren given how androgynous he is."

"He is, isn't he!?" Pyrrha hissed, leaning in. "Given what I know about how she cross-dressed you, part of me wondered if she wasn't always a girl and crossdressing as a boy. But if not, then he's so pretty!"

"Don't change the subject!"

"You brought Ren up."

"Then don't let me change it either," Jaune growled. "Why are you dressed as a man and why – why on Remnant – did you say we were dating?"

Pyrrha blushed and looked away. "Can you not think of a reason why I'd do that?"

"Of course I can!" he said, making her gasp and go wide-eyed. Jaune knew he was bad at reading women, but he wasn't that bad. "You're always uncomfortable with the attention of your fans when we're out. I notice it every time someone looks at you and starts to whisper. So, you saw how convincing my disguise as Cutie is and decided you wanted something similar."

Pyrrha sighed dramatically. "Yes. Yes, that's totally the reason."

Jaune nodded. He'd thought so. "I don't begrudge you that, Pyr. Of course I don't. I'd have been fine to hang out with Pyre on my own normally as well, if only to make it easier on you. I just don't see why you want to open the can of worms that is dating Guitar Cutie."

"Eh?" That caught her by surprise. "Can of worms? Wait, you're upset because you think I'm in danger?"

Jaune crossed his arms. "Do you think you're not? You do realise just how many people are looking for me, don't you? And how many fans I have."

"I have fans too. As Pyrrha."

"Yes. And how rabid would they be if they knew you got a boyfriend?"

"Pretty bad…"

"Exactly. My fans are the same. They're male fans obsessing over a female celebrity."

"You can call them simps."

"I cannot," he lamented. "As they are my beloved tier-seven subscribers."

"Jaune, no…"

"Ahem." Jaune blushed. "The point is, they're the kind of crazy that would lose their minds if they thought Cutie was hanging out with a boy. I don't care about that so much, but I will care if they come and try to harm you out of jealousy."

"Okay. That's sweet. But counterpoint." Pyrrha made finger-guns at him. "I'm a huntress-in-training that is higher level according to your Semblance than just about everyone you've ever met. Aside from other huntsmen."

Huh…

Touche, Pyrrha Nikos. Or Pyre Nathan. Touche.

"Well… yes… but…"

"And you're going to get the other kind of fan soon," she pointed out. "The ones that see you being single and think that's a problem they can take care of. I've had marriage proposals in the mail, Jaune. Those are embarrassing, but far worse is the fact I've had rich businessmen twice my age make me private offers to spend a weekend with them at a resort for vast amounts of money."

Jaune leaned back. "Aren't you sixteen!?"

"Yes."

"So, that's illegal."

"Sure. But they're rich. Rich people always do illegal stuff; they just have the money to get away with it. I can say no because I can fight back if they try anything, but you might not be able to. But if you had a boyfriend—"

"Then they wouldn't care because it'd turn them on more to steal me away from you."

It was Pyrrha's turn. "Touche."

"I feel like you less had a plan and are more making up excuses for why you did this," Jaune said. Pyrrha bushed awkwardly and looked away. He'd caught her. It must have been an impulse then. Maybe she'd just wanted to meet Chae-young and this was the only way she could think to make it happen.

To be fair, she's been really invested in me helping Chae, so it makes sense she'd want to see her in person and make sure she was feeling okay. I guess that's not so bad. She's actually really cute when she's being all maternal like that.

Not that he had the guts to call Pyrrha cute to her face.

"I guess I can let it go," he stammered. "Just be careful is all I'm saying. I've got those bad people – some related to a queen of Grimm – after my male form. It's dangerous enough you're friends with that without adding this in."

Pyrrha cheered up. "But if they ever do find out I'm friends with you then we can keep being friends in our disguises."

"Friends? You mean boyfriend and girlfriend?" he asked, sarcastically.

He didn't expect Pyrrha to get in his face, all red and breathing heavily. "Yes…"

"R—Right." Jaune broke eye contact first. "So, we should probably get changed back into our real selves and discuss how to deal with the criminal thing. We need to save Chae-young and fast. I can't stay in Mistral forever and you're graduating to Beacon in a bit."

"Less than a month," she confirmed. "And I'll be seventeen in three weeks. You're invited to the birthday party."

"As a guest or a musician?"

"Both. Kind of. You're invited to the fake birthday party as a musician, because it's a stupid event hosted by my sponsors and agents, and I have to go and pretend to be happy as random people I've never met with me a happy birthday."

"Oof."

"But there's my real one after that's just going to be me and my parents." Pyrrha smiled awkwardly. "It'd mean the world to me if you'd come to that."

"Of course I will. I'd say nothing could keep me away but… you know. Criminal gangs. Queen of the Grimm."

Pyrrha giggled. "If you can't make it, I'll assume the worst."

"Probably for the—"

.

New Quest: A Birthday she won't forget

Pyrrha Nikos' birthday is coming up soon and it promises to be a memorable one. Ensure that the event goes to plan and that nothing goes wrong.

Success: +Exp

Failure: ?

.

"Uh-oh…"

"What?" she asked. "Are you busy that day?"

"No. I just got a quest. About your birthday."

"What does it say?"

He told her. As quests went, it was pretty vague, but it seemed to be hinting at one thing: that something was going to go wrong with her birthday.

"Well that's not ominous at all," she muttered. "I think I'm going to ask for a little more security than usual."

"Good idea."

"You don't think it's related to your criminal quests, is it?"

"I… I don't think it can be," he answered, after a moment's thought. "That'd make sense if the gang knew you and I were friends and wanted to hit your party to get back at me, but they don't know. They might once I reveal myself as a gang boss and try to make a deal with them for Chae-young's future, though. Can my Semblance really predict future events before I've even made my own choices?"

It was a scary thought if it could. There was no quest for him to pressure Joo-won over his daughter, so there shouldn't have been any quest chain related to it. He had committed though, so maybe his Semblance knew that, and this was a vague warning as to the fact they might want revenge on him. Although, it could also be something else entirely. The people from Vacuo might be catching up with him and find out about him at Pyrrha's birthday party.

Or it could just be one of her rabid fans confessing to her, and it was to be his job to stop that before something went wrong. The idea of "something going wrong" didn't have to mean fatally wrong, or violence. It could just be Pyrrha breaking a heel on stage and flashing her underwear at her fans. Embarrassing, and a poor end to her day, but not world-ending in its consequences. He told her as much.

"It'd be all over the internet within the hour, so it'd feel world-ending to me," she grumbled. "But I get your point. Still, maybe we should go with better safe than sorry on this one. Your Semblance hasn't been wrong before."

"Would you like me to reach out to Cinder? She's insanely powerful for her age and might agree to come along. At least for the official birthday part. The quest doesn't actually say which party I have to protect."

Pyrrha shook her head. "My family thing is literally at home with a cake and food. If something is going to go wrong, it's going to happen at the big event. And yes, I think Cinder would be great. Tell her I'll be happy to pay her as security. It'd be my agents paying anyway and it's not like money is a issue."

"I'll let her know." Jaune offered his hand. "Here's to a non-disastrous birthday party."

/-/

Bon-hwa bowed to his lord. "Sir. A representative form the Concert Cartel wishes to arrange a meeting with you."

Joo-won paused in the documents he was signing. "I'm not familiar with the group."

"They have recently taken over the Spider Gang. Lady Malachite was removed from command of the group, and later found dead."

"Killed?"

"Hard to say, sir. Her home burnt down."

Murdered, then. A woman like that wouldn't die to something so pointless as an oven left on too long. Hostile takeovers were not uncommon among the criminal families, especially those where command was centralised in a single figure like it was with her. He had a family who would inherit if he died, and contingencies in place. He had loyal men like Bon-hwa who would follow his orders even after he died.

Malachite did not. The woman had hoarded power and alienated her own children, and she'd refused to appoint a second in command for fear they would try and supplant her. Now, it had come back to bite her, as simply killing her had removed all obstacles in the path of the new leader.

Perhaps this one would prove more capable than the last.

"Arrange a meeting, Bon-hwa. I will speak with them, though I expect their leader to attend in person. If they send a lackey, tell them I will consider it a grave insult and a declaration of hostilities between our groups."

"I expect he will come in person, sir. He came in person to deliver the request."

Oh? Curious. That could be seen as weakness, humility, or respect. It was up to Joo-won to decide which, and caution dictated he go with the latter. He had not grown to his position, and old enough to have a family, by being reckless. If the boss had come in person then it was because he – for Bon-hwa had said he – wanted to be taken seriously.

"Investigate them for me. Put our best intelligence experts on it. I want to know the new leader's name, skills, methods and their aims for the Malachite gang. A hostile takeover almost always means restructuring. That might open fresh opportunities for us. I want it all on my desk by tomorr—" A folder fell on his desk. "—ow…?" He stared down at the file. "Bon-hwa, I respect you and you have always been a loyal and capable servant, but even I do not expect you to be so capable as to conjure up information mere seconds after meeting someone."

Bon-hwa smiled faintly at the praise. "We already had the information on hand, sir. The new boss of the Concert Cartel is someone who was known to us, and who we had already performed background checks on."

Hm. Interesting. A noted player in the city, then, one that they had pegged as a mover long ago, and who had finally made their move. Joo-won opened up the file and looked at the first page, where the name and picture lay. "What…?" he asked. "There must be some mistake."

"No mistake, sir. He came in person. Jaune Arc has overthrown and supplanted Lady Malachite, and now leads his own criminal organisation – which he has renamed the Concert Cartel."

No wonder Bon-hwa was smiling. He liked the boy. He'd liked him long ago, often speaking well of him when Joo-won asked how the man was interacting with his daughter. Even if he wanted Chae to fail and learn her place, he had not trusted a strange man with his little angel. He would have skinned the boy alive had he touched or bullied her, but Bon-hwa assured him he had not.

Joo-won knew he was not what most would call a good father. He had sabotaged his own daughter, after all. But he did love and cherish her despite all that. It had hurt, in no small way, to crush her dreams.

But dreams were for dreamers. Dreams were never real.

Sometimes it was better to do what was right for your children, even if they hated you for it. If Chae-young came out cruel and vindictive and despised him for it, then all the better. She would grow into a fearsome woman.

"Arrange the meeting. Let us see what our old friend wants."

Next Chapter: 9th March

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