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Hope everyone had a good week! It's Friday, and that means it's time for another Remnant Light chapter!

I hope you enjoy it!

"So, I do it like this?"

SKREEEE!

"No! Too much pressure!"

Jaune pulled his hand away and winced, both at the high-pitched shriek the blade of Crocea Flos made as he fucked up with the whetstone he was using and at Ruby's somehow higher-pitched shriek at the mistake.

It was early in the morning on the day after they'd gotten back from the Survival Class assignment, and everyone was already up, having gotten used to the sleeping-early starting-early schedule that they had used the previous 6 days.

Jaune glanced around the room as he hurriedly wiped at the spot he messed up sharpening Crocea Flos' blade with a rag Ruby had given him.

Weiss and Blake were sitting in their respective beds, and both of them were reading, looking rather engrossed in their books. Ren had woken up even earlier than the others and left a note saying he was going to be hanging out with Nora today, and Yang was… Somewhere.

She had left with an evil grin on her face, and not knowing where she was, or what she was planning, turned out to be rather terrifying.

From the fact that Weiss' book was a history book and Blake's was 'Ninjas of Love 2: The Samurai's Desire' he could guess that they were so engrossed in their chosen literature for very different reasons.

"Here, let me show you how you should be doing it."

The sound of mecha-shift tech erupted next to him as Ruby plopped down onto his bed and unfolded her war-scythe, grabbing the whetstone from out of his hands and gliding it over the edge of her blade.

"You have to make sure that you're using just enough pressure to sharpen it, but not enough to make giant scrapes along the blade. It should be making a noise like this if you do it right."

She smiled at him as she ran the whetstone over the blade of her war-scythe a few more times, and Jaune tried to engrave the sound it was making into his mind so that he could match it for Crocea Flos.

She finished giving him an example and handed the whetstone back to him, watching intently as he tried again, running the whetstone over the blade a bit more gently than before and grinning wildly as the sound that came from the blade was much closer to what she had done.

"You're getting it! Great work, Jaune. I'm really happy that you're willing to put so much effort into learning this stuff. Most people don't appreciate their human-sized weapons enough, thinking that they are just practising for the Ark-sized ones. It's a shame that such nice weaponry gets mistreated like that…"

Jaune tilted his head to the side, intrigued by that as he smiled at her. "Of course, Rubes. I have to take care of it, it was a gift from you! And what, do people just usually not do this level of maintenance on their human-sized weapons? Why?"

Jaune hears Blake's covers rustling slightly as she leans forward and looks at him and Ruby, who seems embarrassed by his praise. "Mainly because most people's Arks have dedicated engineers who are supposed to maintain them. Your average Huntsmen or Huntress doesn't need to know much about tech maintenance on that scale other than how to keep their Ark running while it's damaged in a fight."

Ruby nodded sagely at Blake's words, giving her a thumbs up. "Exactly. Then you also have people like Yang and my Dad who just punch the Grimm and don't have any kind of person-sized weapon… Yang even said no when I offered to make her some gauntlets or something which sucked."

Jaune perked up at that. He knew that Yang didn't have any weapons on her, instead focusing on perfecting her hand-to-hand combat style, but he hadn't known that her dad was a Huntsman as well. "So your dad's a Huntsman too? Is that why you wanted to be one?"

An odd look appears on Ruby's face. She nods in response to his question though, sending a small smile his way. "Both him and my mum are my main inspirations for becoming a Huntress, yeah. Dad mostly fights with his hands and feet as well, and he's taught Yang how to fight since we were kids. And mum…"

She pauses after that, her expression dropping. Jaune can sense that this is a touchy subject for Ruby and doesn't want to pry, as she clearly is conflicted about telling him anything more. So instead, he pulls out a time-honoured tradition for distracting sad people.

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

He intentionally messed up the next go on the whetstone and saw how her attention snapped back to the present moment as the sharp noise stabbed into all of their ears. She practically lunged at him a moment later, draping herself over his shoulder as she tried to snatch Crocea Flos from him, an aghast look on her face.

"Jaune! Nooooo!"

As he plays keep-away and attempts to fix his intentional mistake, she starts to laugh, playfully swatting his shoulder when he proclaims that he 'totally has this down pat, that was just a little mishap.'

He can see Weiss and Blake watching their playfight with smiles, but when they notice him looking their way, Weiss rolls her eyes and goes back to her book with a softly spoken 'dolts.' Blake just grins and starts cheering for Ruby, sticking her tongue out at him.

The lighthearted mood is shattered a moment later, however, as the door to their dorm room is practically kicked open, revealing Yang with her feet wide and her arms crossed, her hair up in a ponytail and a fuzzy headband around her forehead.

"ALRIGHT! LISTEN UP, MAGGOTS!"

Jaune's eyebrows shoot up at the way Yang yells at them as she stomps into the room. He thinks he can hear a confused Weiss mumble 'Maggots?' but she is overshadowed by the crackling sounds of their teammate's flaming hair.

"EVERYONE ON THEIR FEET, NOW! LET'S GO GO GO GO GO!"

Jaune instinctively rises to his feet and turns to glance at Ruby to see if she is as well only to spot a terrified look on the girl's face, one that sends a spike of fear down his spine. What was Yang planning that had Ruby looking like she was about to 1v1 a Leviathan without an Ark?

"IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT SOME OF OUR TEAMMATES GOT INJURED ON THIS LAST ASSIGNMENT!"

Jaune saw Blake cock her head to the side, an amused smile on her face. "Yang… You were there. You literally carried Ruby a bunch and helped Ren with his arm, too."

Yang seemed to break… Whatever character she was playing for a moment as she turned to Blake and pouted. "Yeah, I know. I'm doing a bit, just roll with it okay, Kitty Cat?"

Jaune laughed softly at the way Blake's hackles practically rose at the nickname but turned his attention back to Yang, who had pulled herself together and was back in character. "TO HEAR THAT FIRETEAM JASPER DIDN'T GET A PERFECT RUN ON THIS ASSIGNMENT IS AN INSULT TO OUR POTENTIAL! THAT IS WHY… WE ARE GOING TO BE DOING A BOOT CAMP TO MAKE SURE WE'RE READY FOR WHATEVER BEACON THROWS AT US NEXT!"

Jaune could see how they all froze in fear as the words "Boot Camp" left Yang's mouth. Fewer things were scarier than Yang when she was attacking you… But he knew from experience that Yang training you was as much of a gruelling endeavour.

There was a flash of movement to his right as Ruby activated her Semblance, trying to escape from the clutches of Drill Instructor Xiao-Long… Only to be caught by the scruff of her cloak as she passed by Yang, dangling pathetically in her sister's grip.

Yang then turns back to the three of them and the evil grin from this morning returns to her face. "IT'S TIME FOR YANG'S BOOT CAMP! BY THE END OF THIS, WE'RE ALL GONNA BE MONSTERS!"

Jaune gulps and meets Ruby's eyes, already fearing for his body's structural integrity.

"ALRIGHT! THAT WAS THE LAST LAP! TAKE A BREATHER!"

Jaune collapsed onto the floor as his legs gave out of him. Every part of his body hurt, his muscles were exhausted, and the only reason he had lasted this long was because of his Aura reserves.

Looking around, he finds that most of his team isn't really in any better shape than he is. Ruby was face down on the ground and not moving, Weiss was lying on the bleachers next to the running track with a bit of Ice Dust on her forehead and her legs completely limp, and Blake was lapping away at the nearby bubbler in a way so close to that of a cat drinking water that would likely be rude if he said it out loud.

The only ones that seem fine are Yang herself, and Ren… The weirdly cardio-fit bastard.

As he forces himself into a sitting position against the wall, he spots the clock and almost throws up as he realises they've now been running laps at full tilt for nearly five hours under Yang's 'supervision and encouragement…'

Jaune was certain he could take her to court for some kind of war crime here and walk away with a victory. If she had pushed them to go for any longer he was sure he would have started losing limbs from them straight up falling off, that's how much he felt like death warmed up.

With a smile on his face, he can only thank whatever gods watch over them all that Yang seems to be finishing up with her insane training session… Until his good mood is shattered by Yang getting to her feet and clapping her hands together.

"Alright! That was a good warmup. Now let's get into Part 2!"

Every instinct in Jaune's body tells him to run, and he can see that the others are having much the same thought… They're just far too tired and sore at the moment for any of them to feel confident in outrunning Yang. Even Ruby looks like she has accepted her fate, and she is the fastest of them all.

Yang paced back and forth, looking almost none the worse for wear after their workout… But Jaune was a little hearted to see that even she had been affected by it, a slick sheen of sweat on her arms and face and her breaths deeper than normal.

"I'm gonna split us into pairs based on how good we are at hand-to-hand combat so that we can spar! It seems like it's doing good for the Chief here, so I thought; 'why not just get everyone to give it a shot?' and here we are!"

Yang pointed to Ren, grinning. "You'll be fighting me, Ren. Blake, you can fight Jaune, and that leaves Ruby and Weiss to fight each other. Ren and I will go first so I can watch all of you after we're done, so take the moment to rest, you look like you need it, hehe."

Jaune sent her an attempt at a death glare for her lack of tact… But found the muscles in his face unresponsive from how exhausted he felt. So as Yang and Ren started their spar, trading blows in a manner that looked far more trained than his bouts with Yang did, Jaune let his body relax and breathed deeply.

He watches Ren and Yang's fight closely, even if he doesn't really understand the minutia of what they're doing, he's sure that watching two people who seemed to be on fairly even levels skill-wise spar each other would be good for his own growth. And while they did seem to be even when it came to outright skill… Yang had the strength advantage, which was clear from the way Ren winced when a hit got through his guard.

More blows were traded back and forth until eventually, Jaune saw Ren do… Something with his hands and feet, footwork and a well-timed parry caused Yang to stumble forward right into a palm strike to the forehead from Ren that sent Yang careening out of the area she had determined as the boundary for the spar.

.As Yang groaned in pain, Ren bowed in her direction before moving and sitting near Jaune, taking off the outer layer of his training outfit and leaving him in just a singlet and pants. Jaune was glad to see that Ren now seemed almost as tired as he was. "That was a neat trick!"

His partner smiled down at him, rolling his shoulders and letting his aura sit over them. "Thank you. I have been sparring with Nora since we were young, so I know how to fight someone who has such a massive gap in strength, making it a weakness."

Ren's smile turned a bit smug as she looked over at Yang, who had one hand clutched to her head -where Ren had hit her- and was motioning for Blake to enter the ring. "Don't tell Yang, however, that Nora was able to far exceed her physical strength if she got into our Dust supply before a match."

Jaune just gulped at the image of someone even stronger than Yang, vowing to never challenge Nora to a spar, fight, or any other contest that could result in her hitting him in any way, shape, or form.

Jaune watches as Blake walks up to Yang -who seemed to have recovered from the palm strike- and glances over in his direction, motioning with her head to summon him as well. Jaune just groaned in pain as he stood up, heading into the ring.

Why on Remnant where they humouring Yang about this Boot Camp thing again?

Oh yeah, the threat of physical violence, that's right.

Glancing back at Ruby and Weiss, he is fairly sure they have both fallen asleep. He doesn't envy them for having Yang wake them up after Blake and his spar just to throw them in the ring against each other. As Jaune gets nearer, he can hear Yang speaking to Blake, and both of them glance at him as Yang stage-whispers to her.

"Yeah, this is the least fair of all the fights but don't beat him up too badly, alright?"

Jaune just rolled his eyes and joined Blake in laughing at Yang's comment. "Right right, pick on the guy who's only been doing hand-to-hand for like a month and a half. Real classy, Yang."

Yang stuck her tongue out at him and grinned while she motioned for the two of them to get into position. Jaune set his feet like Yang had instructed him to and raised his hands, bringing his Aura into position around him.

He saw Blake get into a slightly lower stance than him, but with her hands in a similar setup to how he was holding his. He saw the brief fizzle of purple Aura around her that signified she was ready, and then Yang was whistling to get them started.

Immediately, Jaune was on the back foot as Blake used her lower centre of gravity to dart forward and try to slip under his guard. Jaune dodged the uppercut she was sending his way and attempted to counter with a jab… Only for the image of Blake to fade like smoke in the wind.

It was then that he realised why Yang had called this the least fair matchup. Not just because Blake had more experience in a fight than he did, but because she also had a Semblance that made it crazy hard to actually land a hit on her.

His realisation was interrupted as Blake's leg impacted the Aura covering the back of his knees, and he discovered that protection from damage didn't equate to protection from physics, as they were pushed forward from the impact, sending him falling onto his back, where in a flash of movement he found himself face-down on the floor, trapped in an armbar with Blake's ankle on the back of his neck.

Jaune doesn't even bother with any attempts at a struggle at that point, and promptly taps the ground with his free hand, and sighs in relief as Blake lets go of his arm and helps him to his feet.

Blake then gave him a smug smile and bumped her shoulder into his. "I tried keeping from beating you up too bad like Yang said… How'd I do?"

Jaune bumped her shoulder right back as he glanced over at Yang, who was waking Ruby and Weiss up for their spar and receiving the expected amount of vocal resistance from the both of them. Or at least from Ruby. He'd expected Weiss to be all-in on intense training like this but he guessed that even she had her limits to how hard she could push herself.

"Honestly I think you could have held back a little more. My pride will be feeling those bruises for days to come."

A small bark of laughter escaped Blake at that as she stretched her arms out over her head, her hips cocking back slightly as he saw her currently-uncovered cat ears twitch. Jaune almost instinctively blurted out 'big stretch' as Blake performed said big stretch, but felt like it might have gotten him into another armbar if he did.

Blake and he vacated the 'sparring area' and saw Ruby and Weiss stagger into it, with Yang whistling to get them to start… Only for it to turn into less of a hand-to-hand fight and more of a race to see who could burn the most Aura with their Semblance first.

Ruby's Petal Burst was too quick for Weiss to do much about with her Glyphs, but Weiss' Glyphs were too versatile and omnipresent for Ruby to get many hits in either. They were somehow worse at this than he was, and that was really saying something.

In the end, though, it seemed that Ruby held out stronger for longer, eventually weaving in between two sloppy Glyphs and decking Weiss back down to the ground with a right hook, only to collapse on top of the other girl as her legs gave out on her.

Weiss was so tired and dazed that she barely even seemed to care about Ruby lying on her, a hand coming up to weakly try to push her off but succeeding more in patting her head than anything else with how tired her muscles were.

Yang lets them rest for a moment as she hops up and down and shakes her arms out with a smile on her face, and Jaune and the others glare at her for her seemingly unending endurance and smug look.

"That was really great, guys! I think if we can try and do stuff like this at least two times a week we'll see some really good improvement! Now… What do you say we move on to Part 3 of my Boot Camp?"

There is silence for a moment as the rest of Fireteam Jasper gives Yang a collective look of outrage, shock, and fear… And then it is Yang whose expression turns to worry, as they all nod to each other. "Guys? What are you doing?"

Jaune darted forward and grappled her right arm while Blake grabbed her left, spinning her in place on the spot and yelling out. "Weiss! Do it now!"

Weiss nodded to them, and with an Ice Dust shard in one hand, cast a Glyph at Yang's feet that encased everything up to her neck in a block of ice that was such a deep blue Jaune and Blake could feel the cold air wash over them as they narrowly avoided getting trapped inside the ice-block with Yang.

He had to give Yang some credit, however, because the instant she was frozen stiff, her hair ignited in the ice block and her eyes turned to glare at them, promising a harsher training session than they could dare to imagine.

"Everyone! Make a break for it while she's stuck!"

Jaune isn't sure who yelled out at that point, but he is so exhausted from Yang's Boot Camp that he doesn't care. Summoning the last of his stamina, and likely burning through some Aura to do so, he sprinted for the door out of the training room Yang had booked, briefly waiting to open the door until Blake gave him the all-clear that her bow was on properly before they all escaped, leaving Yang trapped in a block of ice in the middle of the room.

They ran away from their terrifying teammate with grins on their faces and laughter echoing around them, even knowing that they would have to deal with a feral, vindictive Yang later on when she thawed herself out of the ice.

Pyrrha Nikos hadn't expected much when she enrolled into Beacon Academy.

She had planned to hopefully find a teammate that didn't worship the ground she walked on, befriend them at least, if not her whole team, and then do her best to impress her teachers with her skills and graduate Beacon with honours as one of the premier Huntresses of her generation.

That hadn't seemed too much to ask for to her when she had picked Beacon over Haven, where she knew she would have been idolised and put on a pedestal like she was used to being. And to be fair, she did find a Partner who didn't seem to care that she was practically the face of the AuraBattle Fighting League in Nora Valkyrie, who seemed more focused on pancakes and 'Ren' than any fame Pyrrha might have had.

If only the rest of her Fireteam was anything to speak about…

Still, she was working hard on the other parts of her plan and felt like she was doing well, especially since Professor Goodwitch seemed to take some kind of special interest in her and her Semblance from early on in their enrollment. The woman hadn't approached Pyrrha with anything yet, but she couldn't help but secretly hope for some kind of apprenticeship.

Some of her fans might balk at her of all people expressing that she wanted to be an apprentice to someone, but she wasn't so vain as to think that she didn't have anything else to learn, especially when it came to piloting an Ark and fighting Grimm.

"And then she sprung this blasted 'Part 2' of her Barbaric Boot Camp on us like she didn't just have us running for hours on end!"

Pyrrha giggled softly at the way Weiss Schnee's hands gesticulated wildly as she told Pyrrha about how one of her teammates -Yang Xiao-Long if she recalled correctly- had terrorised her team with training earlier.

She honestly couldn't help but kind of want to challenge Yang now, or at least train alongside her, if that was how she normally did her training… But she felt that asking for Weiss to introduce her to Yang could wait until the girl was done complaining about said girl.

"Oh? And what did Part 2 entail?"

She smiled at her friend as she practically slumped in her seat, recounting the 1v1 spars that Yang had forced them into, and how she had been so tired that her Glyphwork got sloppy and cost her the match.

Pyrrha had been ecstatic to find that Weiss had also enrolled at Beacon at the start of the year, and had been periodically organising times to 'hang out' as Nora called it whenever she found time between her studies and training.

She'd met Weiss almost 5 years ago at one of Lady Schnee's galas and became fast friends with the girl when she had walked in on Weiss training her swordsmanship in a side room and joining her.

It felt a bit morbid, but Pyrrha was happy that Weiss' father wasn't the one hosting the Galas anymore, for… Obvious reasons. Her parents had gotten invitations to them but never accepted, not wanting to be attached to Jacques Schnee's… Less than honourable reputation.

That meant that if the incident had never happened regarding Jacques Schnee, Lady Willow would never have been forced to take control of the SDC again, and she would have never met Weiss and become friends with her!

Weiss eventually finishes her story by telling her about how they had frozen Yang in a block of Ice and ran… And Pyrrha can't help but laugh her heart out at the image. "Oh my goodness, that's priceless! I hope she won't be too upset with you, though."

Weiss waved her hand at her by way of dismissing her concern, a Glyph over her hand. "I am not worried about Xiao-Long… Mainly because I had decided to keep a few Ice Dust crystals on my person at all times for the next few days."

Pyrrha laughed at that, and Weiss joined her after a moment of trying to keep a straight face. "Anyway, I've been talking for far too long. How is your team going? You mentioned your partner was good, but the rest of them…"

Pyrrha can't help how her shoulders drop at Weiss' question. "Ah, there has been no real improvement there, unfortunately. Other than my partner… One of them is a 'bare-minimum' person in regards to schoolwork, two still can't talk to me without fanboying, and the last seems to dislike me due to my skills 'overshadowing' his own."

"Do they?"

Pyrrha blushed as she waved a hand back and forth. "I don't mean to be rude, but… Oh, how did she put it? 'He would have to have skills to begin with for me to overshadow him' is what my partner said, I believe."

She grinned as a snort escaped Weiss, who just sighed, leaning back. "That's a shame, but we cannot control who we get as teammates, I guess. Although I've found that grilling them to study and train harder has worked wonders with mine so far."

Pyrrha couldn't help the small, conspiratorial smile that grew on her face as Weiss mentioned that. "Oh, yes! How is 'Arc' going? From the plans you've shared with me for study sessions, you seem to be working him pretty hard."

Another sigh escapes Weiss, but Pyrrha has known her for long enough that this one was a 'content' sigh, not one begrudging anything. "My original plan, when I did not believe him worthy of being appointed Fireteam Leader, was to work him to the bone and 'force him to improve'. Either he would, and everything would be swell, or he wouldn't, and I could take my rightful place."

Pyrrha grinned and bounced her knee up and down slowly. "Oh? 'When' you didn't believe him worthy? Has that changed?"

Weiss hummed, her chin coming to rest on her palm as she tapped a finger to her cheek. "As much as the 'me' from a few weeks ago would be loathe to admit it, I believe that it has, yes. We had an… Interpersonal issues within the team during our assignment, alongside the supply issues."

Pyrrha nodded, understanding how tough it had been without proper supplies as well. Nora had been their guiding star during that assignment, keeping them afloat with her knowledge from years of living on the land until Beacon came to collect them.

They might have been able to get back like Fireteams Jasper and Crimson if her other teammates had pulled their weight, but that was neither here nor there.

Weiss saw her nod and continued, a soft smile coming onto her face that Pyrrha did not miss. "Arc managed to -with the help of Yang, that is- sort out the Interpersonal issue, and was practically impressive when it came to his ability to guide us through the wilderness. My work seems to have helped him grow into a halfway-decent, respectable leader."

Pyrrha thinks back to the other times they've talked about Weiss' team, and particularly about 'Arc'... and smirks as she notices how the positive comments about him have become more and more common as the weeks went on.

It was after Weiss had told her about how Yang and Jaune traded Ruby Rose on their backs after the girl had fractured her ankle that Pyrrha saw something miraculous, though.

Weiss Schnee, the boy's biggest critic from the start… Had a small blush on her face as she described the way Jaune had complimented her on a meal she had helped with when Lie Ren had also gotten injured and required rest.

She smiled at the girl and nodded at the rest of her stories about the Survival Class Assignment, but felt a little distracted by the excitement in her chest at the way Weiss spoke about her fireteam's leader. She had never really 'shipped' anyone before, having bad memories of those kinds of people as a whole by way of being a celebrity, but…

She found herself mentally chartering a boat and hoisting a flag of white and gold.

'Oh, this is exciting!'

Hey hey hey!

So, what did we think? If the previous chapter was like a mid-season finale, then these next few chapters will be the rest of my Volume 2!

See you all next Friday!