-Chapter Six-

Doctor, Oh Doctor

Teams ABLN and LNSR walked through the door to Dust 101.

The classroom was a rather bland affair of sterile white walls and tile floors, with multiple islands scattered throughout the room. And at the head of the room, in front of the blackboard, was Professor Peach.

Peach was a trim, full figured woman of four foot eleven – in four-inch heels – with a light caramel complexion and ample curves. She bore a round face with a button nose and pouty lips, with large, peach colored eyes framed by a pair of red square framed glasses. Her orange hair was cut into a feathered bob that reached to just past her jaw with a singular cowlick sticking out from atop her head.

She was dressed in an orange, floral patterned gogo dress with a pair of matching red leather, thigh-high gogo boots, and an oversized, white lab coat that draped across her frame.

"Oh, students!" Preach beamed before rushing towards them. "Hello! Welcome to Dust-"

Unfortunately, in her haste, Peach's gogo boot caught on an uneven tile, causing her to trip forward and launch into the group of students she was so eager to welcome. Thankfully Jaune, who's sisters were far from graceful, jumped into action and caught the diminutive teacher – though her glasses unfortunately continued forward and landed on the floor.

"Ooh, not my glasses!" Peach whined. "I can't see anything without my glasses!"

Peach wiggles out of Jaune's grasp before falling to her knees and groping around for her missing glasses. Luckily for her, Ruby bent down and retrieved said glasses.

"Here you are, Professor." Ruby beamed.

"Oh, thank you!" Peach beamed back as she put on her glasses. "But it's Doctor, actually, though I don't particularly care if I'm called as such." She looked up as Jaune offered a hand. "Oh thank… you…" Her eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Oh, you're… tall!"

Peach bit her lip and shivered while looking Jaune intently in the eye, before remembering where she was and clearing her throat. "Well students, lets all get partnered up and begin!" She hopped up and hurried over to her desk, almost falling as she did so. "Instead of using the partners assigned to you during initiation, I will be assigning you partners at random!"

Five minutes later and everyone was partnered up, some of which were ecstatic with their partner – like Nora, who had been partnered with Ren – and other less so – like Blake who was partnered with Weiss. Then there was Jaune, who had been partnered with Yang – unfortunately for the blondes, neither were very knowledgeable when it came to handling raw Dust.

Now neither were hopeless on the subject – Jaune's been making Dust bombs since he was eight and Yang regularly experimented with the mixture of Combustion Dust to get the best performance out of her bike. It's just that the pair had never experimented much with raw, unprocessed Dust. As it was much too expensive to do so, especially the pair as they both grew up outside of the Kingdoms and their easy access to Dust.

"You ready, partner?" Yang smirk.

"You know it!" Jaune smiled back.

"Alright!" Peach cheered. "Now that everyone is partnered up, we'll begin today's lesion!" She pulled a small sliver of Dust and held it up for the class to see. "We'll start off easy to gauge every one's level of expertise – I want you all to take a piece of combustion Dust and pour a tiny amount of Aura into it, and don't worry, with such a small amount of Aura it will only glow a little!"

"Sounds easy!" Yang smirked, bouncing over and plucking up two shards before returning to their island. "Let's get 'er done!"

Yang gingerly held the shard between her thumb and forefinger and poured a small amount of Aura into it. The shard briefly flickered a little before turning into a low, steady glow.

Yang beamed at Jaune. "See, easy!"

"So it is." Jaune smiled, picking up his own shard and pouring his own Aura into it.

And despite using less than half a percent of his total Aura, the shard glowed as bright as the sun at noon and promptly exploded with the force of a supped-up hand grenade.

Yang, fortunately, saw the explosion in time to bring up her Aura to block the brunt of the explosion. Jaune, meanwhile, couldn't reroute his Aura in time to act as a shield and took the full brunt of the explosion – which, thankfully, was more force than anything – causing him to fly violently backwards and make an indent into the plaster of the back wall, promptly passing out from the violent launch.

When Jaune awoke again he found himself laying in an uncomfortable, one-person bed surrounded by a white privacy curtain, in a white walled room that strongly smelled of chemicals. Groggily, Jaune scooted back and propped himself up on his elbows, knocking his blanket askew.

"Why am I naked?" Jaune groaned, noting his lack of clothing.

"Ah, you're awake." Came a slightly shy, feminine voice.

Jaune looked to the voice and saw a tall, voluptuous, Mistralian woman who stood at six feet even with a tawny, oriental complexion and trim build. Her face was heart shaped and bore nearly closed, amber brown, monolid eyes with a small, circular nose and full lips. Her feathered black hair framed her face in a wavy lob that graduated to a brilliant orange at the tips, with a long, white scaled pangolin tail trailing behind her.

She was dressed in a Mistralian collared, asymmetrical hook-up, white dress, with a pair of red caducei on each shoulder and one over her left breast, underneath this she wore dark stockings that lead to a pair of white Mary Jane heels.

"M-My name is Thiên Cham." She introduces, demurely. "I've been looking after you for the last… two days."

"What?!" Jaune roared as he sat up, ramrod straight.

Thiên flinched slightly at Jaune's volume. "Y-Yes, f-from what I understand, there was a mishap in Dr. Peaches class, and you were badly injured – which is strange, she's done this test every year since she began with out anything happening before, but you'd have to ask her what went wrong, I'm not very familiar with Dust."

"I-I don't understand…" Jaune near babbled, also not very familiar with Dust.

As if on cue, Professor Peach's head popped into the infirmary. "T, is he awake?" Her eyes widened to the size of saucers before she burst into the room, rushing towards Jaune. "Oh, I'm so sorry! That wasn't meant to-kyaa!"

Only to trip on her own feet and launch herself face first into Jaune – specifically his crotch. Subsequently, this made Jaune realize he was only wearing a hospital gown, and nothing else. Peach groaned and grabbed Jaune's wrist to haul herself into a sitting position.

"Ow…" Peach moaned. "Thank you, Mr. Arc." She looked up when Jaune didn't speak. "Mr. Arc?"

As she looked up, Peach noticed that Jaune was pointedly looking anywhere but at her – and Thiên was as well. The second thing she noticed was that both of Jaune's hands were gripping the bars on either side of the bed.

"Oh." Peach said dumbly, before looking down and admiring what she was – still – holding. "Oh…!"

"Seventeen years of failing to get a girlfriend." Jaune thought humorlessly. "And within a week I'm molested by two of my teachers. Could this get any worse?"

As if to taunt him, Professor Goodwitch chose that exact moment to walk into the infirmary.

"Thiên, is Mr. Arc awake- Celestia! What are you doing!" Glynda practically roared. "Unhand Mr. Arc's…" She glanced at Jaune's crotch before looking away with a furious blush. "J-Just unhand him!"

Jaune, who had so little fucks left to give that he had inadvertently reached a zen state, calmly looked to Thiên. "Could you put me in a medically induced coma for like… ever?"

-/-

Glynda – who had used her semblance to dress Jaune fast enough to give him whiplash before promptly sending him on his way – glared at the sulking Peach.

"Explain to me." Glynda growled, trying – and failing miserably – to scrub her student's "greatsword" from her mind. "How Mr. Arc ended up in a coma for two days?!"

"I don't know!" Replied a teary-eyed Peach. "I've always done this test! The worst that could've happened was a minuscule explosion – no more powerful that a microscopic firework! – which should've just hurt their fingers at the worst, not this!"

"Then how did… this happen!" Glynda growled.

"It shouldn't!" Peach cried. "Not unless he has a latent Semblance that enhances Dust to a…" She mutters to herself, doing some quick math. "Roughly two hundred percent!"

"It's possible…" Glynda admitted after a moment's thought. "Boosting Semblances due tend to run in his family."

"But what if it's not Dust." Peach spoke quietly.

"What do you me?"

"I-I think his Semblance might affect Aura, not Dust." Peach spoke quickly. "M-Ms. Adel's Semblance does enhance Dust, b-but never to… to this degree!"

"But if it enhances Aura – even while still latent." Glynda mumbled before her eyes widened. "Then it might even effect Semblances!"

But while Peach and Thiên chatted away excitedly about this potentially new discovery and its consequences, Glynda couldn't help but think if it could boost other properties of Aura – maybe even heal Amber…

-/-

The Forge was a sweltering affair of high, semi-domed, well-ventilated ceilings with scorch marked concrete walls and a heavy, titanium reinforce door.

Teams ABLN and LNSR – minus Ruby as she had the advanced course – were huddled as close as could bear in the immense heat of the Forge.

"Hello children, I am Professor Mulberry." The Professors voice boomed as he introduced himself. "It is my job to teach you how to fix, maintain, and create weapons, armor, and anything in between."

Professor Mulberry was a short, broad, pot-bellied man of five foot five, who bore a deeply tanned complexion and wide, brawny frame. His face was squared and resembled carved granite, with a red, bulbous nose, dour pulled lips, and beady burnt orange eyes. He bore a mane of dark red hair that graduated to black at the tips atop his head, with a matching, thick, wild, mountain man beard that covered his face and ended at his sternum.

He was dressed in a red muscle shirt over a pair of black cargo shorts with white trainers and a thick, brown leather apron covering the front of him.

"Today we will start off with something easy." Mulberry announced. "Gather some materials from the far table, we'll start by making a dagger, or knife if you prefer."

"Uh, why would we need a knife?" One student, a mousy girl with a shock of red hair and matching eyes, asked.

"Cause yer not gonna always have or need yer weapon." Mulberry replied. "Sides, s'always useful to have something to do menial labor with."

Over the course of the class, Professor Mulberry taught the class the basics of smiting – from designing their blades to heat treating and drawing out the metal, from what metals to use and even how to pattern them with complementary metals.

"You can even use less optimal metals scrounged from the environment – broken down car, crumbling industrial building, to even ball bearings and screws melted into a caste." Mulberry explained. "But today we're gonna start slow with designing and making a blade blank. So, either group up or fly solo, doesn't matter."

The two sister teams decided to group up and discussed varies things as they designed their blades.

Jaune chose a simple drop point camp knife with a stacked leather washer grip and simple bronze bar guard and end cap. Ren chose a southern Mistralian kukri, with a polished Vacuan ebony wood grip. Blake chose to make a kunai – a historical leaf-shaped blade, instead of the highly stylized diamond shape – made from titanium with a spare black ribbon from Gambol Shroud. Pyrrha choose a traditional knife from her hometown of Argus, the Puukko knife, which she would make with a bronze-like metal and a handle made of mahogany with an embellished ivory end cap.

Yang chose to make a bowie knife, with a gold S-shape guard and matching end cap between an antler handle. Nora chose a broken-back seax knife, using shark-tooth pattern damascus and a nordic knot carved cherry wood handle with a simple steel bar guard and end cap. Weiss chose to make a parrying dagger, similar in style and function to Myrtenaster, which she would make from the same material of her titular weapon.

Yang looked at Blake's drawing and snickered. "Weeb…"

"I-It's a legitimate design!" Blake whined defensively, looking desperately between their group. "Tell her Ren!"

"Uh…" Ren replied intelligently. "It is a bit… stereotypical."

Blake, red faced from embarrassment, scowled. "Well… it's a better design than Weiss'!"

"From a survival note, sure." Jaune agreed, looking over Weiss' design. "But it does make for a good ace up her sleeve in a fight – or even as a backup weapon."

Weiss preened under Jaune's praise, before lifting her chin and throwing a smug look towards Blake – who had become a sort of frenemy for the wayward heiress.

"Bitch…" Blake grumbled under her breath.

Sorry for the short chapter, but it's been a while, and I couldn't think of anything else to add. Also sorry for the wait, I fucked up my hand and had to wait like a week for it to even vaguely resemble something useful.

I think I'll do a time jump for the next chapter and start addressing the plot – as I'm not good enough at the small details to continue writing this like a slice of life story. I'll see if I can do a better job, but as I'm not a professional writer, don't expect anything too good.

Thank you all for reading, reviewing, and following.