A/N: If you're enjoying this story, feel free to check out my discord server at discord dot gg slash RD3Y5pM7u2
Training Arc
To my surprise, my teammates were all awake when I scanned myself into the room, and after checking through the cracked door that they were decent I leaned against the doorframe and smiled. "Ready to get started, or do you need to eat breakfast?"
"We ate," Blake assured me, glancing up over her latest book.
Pyrrha looked as composed as ever, calmly going through a yoga routine in the only open floor space. Ruby's hair was still tousled from sleep and she pouted at me for daring to be awake and ready to exercise, but it was almost 08:00.
"We'd have to be up for class by this time tomorrow," I told her, unmoved by her adorableness. "It's not like I woke you up early; I've been up since 06:00."
"You're always up at 06:00," Blake pointed out.
Which was fair, but on the other hand… "You only know that because you wake up whenever I do."
Blake raised her book to cover her eyes, and muttered, "I learned to sleep light."
Pyrrha and Ruby looked concerned, but rather than make a point of it, I jerked my head back toward the hallway. "C'mon, let's get started."
While Saturday had been a longer session of Friday nights' pair-training, this morning was about working out. To my slight surprise, Beacon actually had denser than standard barbell plates, enough so that I could still exceed my passive STR limit and get a workout from it, for as little as it would help. Lifting was more a meditative thing these days, since with such a high base it would take forever to actually gain another stat point for it, but I didn't sweat that.
After all, I was making my teammates lift as well, which none of them were particularly used to. Pyrrha knew her way around a gym well enough, but her trainer and manager for the Mistral Regional Tournament had primarily had her on calisthenics and gymnastics rather than strength. Blake and Ruby were starting from nothing when it came to resistance training, so we first had to establish a baseline for them. And because we were Hunters, we naturally did it in full kit.
Ruby's weapon of choice was quite heavy for a girl of her size and weight, so it wasn't as if she was beginning from nothing, but her style also relied heavily on her Aura to augment her strength so she was mostly redirecting momentum from the barrel instead of generating it herself. After some coaching on form, we managed to find her 1-rep max for the standard strength exercises of back-squat, bench press, overhead press, and deadlift. Her upper body strength needed the most work, so she actually needed to use dumbbells for those exercises. Blake wasn't very far ahead, but her maxes used the barbell for everything, and Pyrrha had plates on every bar.
The results confused me at first, since Blake had the lowest STR score according to my Semblance, but eventually I realized those numbers were accounting for Aura augmentation. I hadn't realized, because my own base scores worked differently on account of [Gamer's Body]. Since other people's HP and MP scores also worked differently to mine, I figured that [Observe] tried to give me the best numbers for quick comparison, so Ruby's bio listed 21 STR compared to Blake's 16 because Ruby was better at augmenting her strength with Aura. Thus, she was listed as comparatively stronger, even though Blake could press more weight unassisted.
Ruby sulked extensively over not being allowed to use her Aura, but working out with Aura active prevented muscle fibers from tearing. This was useful in combat since it let you go at full strength for longer, but was unhelpful for exercising since muscle fibers needed to tear in order to grow back stronger. The better play was to lift unassisted, then use Aura to speed your recovery. I wasn't planning to keep Blake and Ruby on the strength-focused exercises I favored anyway, although Pyrrha seemed fairly eager once she realized these were the same lifts her cousin Bia did.
By the time noon rolled around, I had made my notes for everyone and set them to do their preferred routines. I was deciding on programming for each of them when I was interrupted by my Scroll ringing in my pocket.
"Counting all the assholes in the room, well I'm definitely not alone Well I'm not alone–"
"Yeah, no," I muttered, hitting Ignore and sending it to voicemail.
"Who was that?" Ruby asked curiously from the treadmill. "I heard that ringer yesterday."
"My father," I said shortly. Ruby looked concerned, so I added, "I've spoken to him twice and he's pissed me off both times, so I'm not in the mood to–" I was cut off when my Scroll started ringing again.
"I don't need you to worry for me 'cause I'm all right–"
I hit Ignore again.
"…Your mother?" Blake guessed.
"Bingo. Now, let's–" My Scroll rang again and I pinched the bridge of my nose in exasperation.
"When the light begins to change, I sometimes feel a little strange; a little anxious when it's dark–"
"Why can't people just fucking text me?" Heaving a sigh, I answered this time. "Talk to me. What's on fire, why am I getting blown up?"
Indigo's voice was amused. "Nothing's on fire. I guess you're a hot commodity, but I was hoping I could pop over."
"I'm in the middle of working out with my team."
"Which room exactly?"
I blinked. "Uh, gym Echo in the South wing."
"Hit the lights, I'll be right there." She hung up, leaving me staring that the Scroll.
"The hell does that mean?" Shrugging, I walked over and flicked off the lightswitch, leaving the room lit only from the windows. Long beams of sunlight poured in, so we could all still see, but the wall I stood against was cast in shadow.
…Shadow which seemed to be getting darker by the second.
No sooner had I realized that than Indigo stepped out of the darkest section of the wall, panting slightly. "Hah, I've still got it," she said, pumping a fist in triumph.
"How the heck-?" Ruby gasped, stopping her run and letting the treadmill carry her off it before darting over next to me. "Who are you and how did you do that?"
"Ruby, Pyrrha, this is my sister Indigo, she's a Beacon graduate from a few years ago. Blake, I'm sure you remember." I turned the lights back on and raised an eyebrow at her in silent inquiry.
Indigo gave me the same eyebrow right back, folding her arms. "Don't look at me that. I'm not here to make excuses for them; I just wanted to hang out. Especially now that training you won't give me a migraine."
"Hmmm…" I rubbed my chin. "Well, if that offer extends to my team, there's a sparring room next door."
Indigo was already walking past me, so I shrugged and waved for the girls to follow us.
"Brace yourselves," I warned them as we stepped into the ring that was gym Delta.
"Why do you say that?" Blake asked, as my sister strolled over to stand in the middle of the ring.
"Because if sis is helping, we're gonna be training Arc style," I sighed, connecting my Scroll to the speakers. "How do you want to do this?" I asked Indigo, even as the opening drums of This Is Gonna Hurt faded in.
"All of you are going to come at me." Indigo crouched down and reached into her shadow to pull out her weapon. It was the first time I'd actually seen it, aside from the family portrait. It was a short spear, a little over a meter in length. Roughly two-thirds of that was the carbon-black metallic shaft, while the rest was a leaf-shaped blade of blackened steel. "We'll stop when you hit half Aura."
[Duel Alert!]
[Combatants: Team ABRN vs. Indigo Arc]
[Victory Conditions: Reduce Indigo Arc's HP to 50% or obtain a surrender.]
[Loss Conditions: Surrender, all members reduced to 50% HP]
[Victory: 20,000 EXP, increased closeness with Indigo Arc]
[Loss: 5000 EXP, direct lessons from Indigo Arc, increased closeness with Indigo Arc]
I nodded, having expected something like that. "Formation one, and get ready to go to bed sore tonight, ladies," I said, and immediately charged, drawing my sword and aiming a clean cut at Indigo's shoulder.
My team didn't seem to realize that it was on from the moment the music started, but sure enough Indigo was already moving, angling her spear to deflect my opening swing. As I caught her return thrust on my shield and we both tried to kick each other in the knee at the same time, I finally heard Pyrrha moving to support me as Blake and Ruby split up in opposite directions.
"Your teammates need better initiative," Indigo observed, keeping the pressure on my shield and trying to punch me in the face with her offhand.
I tilted my head and her fist whizzed by my ear. "Some things come with practice," I pointed out. I brought my sword around again and Indigo ducked, trying to kick me in the knee again. "We've been working on coordination, though," I added, skipping backward.
Pyrrha had finally caught up, so I stepped in again, this time with a shield bash so my partner could harry Indigo with her own spear. Indigo grabbed the top edge of my shield and yanked down hard; when I resisted the motion instinctively, she used my leverage to haul herself up and spring over Pyrrha's stab before planting a boot in redhead's cheek.
Pyrrha went staggering backward, and I shoulder-rammed Indigo before she could land. My sister's Aura flexed, but she had managed to get her weapon in front of her, and landed easily on her feet a couple meters away. "You're too unbalanced, I can't get a feel for anyone else," she decided. "The three of them can face me while you're busy."
I wasn't sure what that meant until her shadow rose up from the floor, twirling its own spear, and lunged at me. I raised my shield again instinctively, and astonishingly there was an impact. I swung the Family Sword in return, and it passed harmlessly through the shadow, which nodded as if to acknowledge my point before immediately trying to stab me again.
"Oh come the fuck on," I groaned, settling in to weather an attacker every bit as fast and strong as Indigo, but who I couldn't actually fight back against since it would just revert to an intangible shadow when I struck.
Indigo herself, meanwhile, had turned on her heel and charged at Ruby, who had been lining up a shot with Crescent Rose. With a cry of "Crapbaskets!" Ruby vanished into rose petals just before Indigo's spear hit her, reappearing a dozen meters away.
Pyrrha had regained her balance by this point and threw her buckler to interrupt Indigo's next charge. Indigo switched to a two-handed grip and smacked the buckler aside, but Pyrrha simply raised her offhand and directed it to ricochet off the wall before returning to her hand. By this time she was between Indigo and Ruby, and shifted Miló into a sword to protect her partner.
I saw Indigo nodding approvingly as she reengaged Pyrrha, before Indigo's shadow almost took my head off with a brutal wheel kick and I lost track of the others for a bit. I managed to lean back, but its momentum brought it around fast enough that I had to activate my [Aura] to block the follow-up from its spear.
The shadowy spearhead blew past the [Steadfast] threshold and skidded off my barrier, actually taking a chunk of my MP. I brought my sword down on its extended arm in response. It was pointless; I already knew it would just go through but it was the counterattack I would have made against any other foe. And then I blinked as the Family Sword cleaved through the shadow's shoulder, its spear-arm dropping to the floor and vanishing.
A hiss from Indigo brought my attention to her, finding her being harried by Blake from behind and Pyrrha in front, while Ruby had dashed out again with her Semblance to find a clear shot. Indigo was favoring her right shoulder, which Blake was trying to take advantage of without success as Indigo dove into a roll to put Pyrrha between them.
I looked from Indigo, who had stood up rubbing at her shoulder, back to her one-armed shadow, then the shadow and I both glanced down at the Family Sword. With my Aura active, it was sparkling slightly in a way that the overhead lights didn't account for. [Sabre de la famille Arc, Awakening], my Semblance had called it. 'It reacts to the presence of Grimm.'
The shadow wasn't a Grimm, but Grimm were the creations of the god of Darkness. They still carried some of the 'flavor' of his power; that's what I was sensing with [Detect Grimm], I had realized once I started practicing [Detect Magic]. Semblances were the power of the soul, and since Semblances were just diluted and personalized magic, it followed that magic was also the power of the soul. I hadn't considered it before, but the fact that I could cut a shadow suggested that what the sword did was react to something that was conceptually 'dark'. Wonder if I'd have gotten all that that so fast without 128 points in INT?
All of those realizations came in an instant, but I was still in the middle of a fight. Before even looking back up, I exploded onto the attack, driving the shadow backward and forcing it to dodge repeatedly. I didn't let up in case it could recreate its spear somehow. The shadow's movements got increasingly frantic as the tip Awakening Family Sword cut wisps from it, until its back hit the wall. The shadow immediately lost some definition, becoming a silhouette once more, and I pulled my last attack before it cut into the wall. The shadow nodded again before stretching back across the floor to the correct position under Indigo's feet.
Let it out, let it out, you can scream and you can shout
Keep your secrets in the shadows and you'll be sorry!
At the same time, my sister caught Blake's cleaver on her spear, dropped under Pyrrha's stroke at her neck and kicked Blake's feet out from under her, tripping her into Pyrrha and knocking them both to the floor. Indigo popped back up easily and smoothly hurled her spear at Ruby who had just reconstituted out of petals in what had been Indigo's blind spot.
The short spear threw the sniper rifle's aim off just as she pulled the trigger, and the practice round caught a rising Pyrrha in the stomach, making her Aura ripple and knocking her on top of Blake again. By the time Ruby gasped, Indigo was up in her guard with a hand on Crescent Rose's shaft and a spearhand strike jabbing into Ruby's solar plexus.
Ruby wheezed, but refused to let go of her weapon, so Indigo dropped into a backward roll and planted her boots in Ruby's stomach, flinging the little reaper over her head into Pyrrha and Blake and knocking them both to the ground yet again.
"Break," I called. "Let them reset or they're not gonna learn anything." Indigo nodded, rubbing her shoulder again, and I offered her a hand. "Want a top-up?"
[Duel Alert!: Team ABRN vs. Indigo Arc]
[Result: Defeat by surrender.]
[You have gained 6850 EXP! Increased closeness with Indigo Arc.]
[Your level has increased by 1!]
Huh, forgot I was that close to a ding.
Indigo glanced down at her shadow, which was whole once more, and then let me [Lay On Hands] to replenish the 15% or so HP worth of Aura she'd lost over the course of the fight. Activating [Gaia's Pulse] at the same time was second nature by now, only requiring that I hold still to massively spike how fast I could heal someone. Restoring Aura was slower than physical health, even when it was 'HP', but still way faster than waiting for it to regenerate on its own.
From what I'd seen of her fight against my team, most of that was from me cutting her shadow. As I could attest from six months of spars, Indigo was very slippery in a fight. That seemed to be true even when she was outnumbered.
"Observations so far?" I asked, as the girls finally disentangled themselves and flopped down to wait for their turn.
"Your swordplay is finally actually decent," she said bluntly. "Which combined with your strength puts you in a different weight class than the rest of your team."
"Are you calling me fat?" I demanded, which she ignored.
"I can see what you were aiming for with your formation, but it falls apart without you to anchor it, and that's not good." She looked over at the girls. "It's not a question of bringing you to his level; that's not a reasonable ask because Jaune is a freak of nature. But you need to be able to function without him."
I moved over to heal Pyrrha next, since she'd taken the brunt of Indigo's assault with me off dealing with her shadow. Accordingly, Indigo gave her advice next.
"Pyrrha, your past training has you adding flourishes that look good on camera but leave holes in your guard, and you have a very hard time reacting to someone willing to fight dirty."
Pyrrha nodded thoughtfully. "I can see where Jaune gets his… directness in combat," she said carefully.
Indigo shrugged. "You can say 'brutality'. It comes down to having different goals. Your previous goal was to put on a good show and look untouchable, and you're good at it. But you're a Huntress now, and the most important thing you can do in a fight is end it. Grimm don't care how good you look; they want you dead. And if you die looking good, you're still dead and so are the people behind you."
Pyrrha nodded again, more slowly this time, and Indigo turned to Ruby as I walked over and ruffled her hair, using that to channel Aura back into her.
"You're fast, but you only move in straight lines, so your feet give away where you're going to anyone who's dealt with speedsters before. Freehanding your sniper is tempting in closer quarters like this, but it means you aren't bracing properly and that means your aim can be disrupted. As demonstrated. That said, most gunners would have gotten frustrated and taken bad shots, but you stayed patient and waited for a clear one even though it never came. That was the right call. I was also expecting you to panic much more when I got in your face; it's good that you don't get rattled easily."
"My sister is a berserker," Ruby groaned. "And my Uncle Qrow always taught me to never take a shot that wasn't already a sure hit before I pulled the trigger."
"Listen to the old drunk, he's forgotten more about Hunting than most of us ever knew," Indigo said as I switched to healing Blake. "Now Blake, your style is closest to mine, but you need a fallback for when your main distraction–" she jerked her head at me, "–isn't around and there's no shadows to hide in. I recommend improving the kusarigama style, since it's the least common and hardest to read, but you could also work on speeding up the daishou style instead which would arguably work better against Grimm."
The girls all nodded, and I extended a hand to haul them to their feet one by one, before Indigo added from behind me, "Now, get ready for round two."
My team shot me looks of betrayal, and I could only give a rictus grin in return. "I did warn you. We're all going to bed sore."
The next song started, and I spun around to catch the attack that I knew was already coming at my back. The Family Sword crashed against Indigo's iklwa, and she bore down on me, grinning and trying to shove me off balance. As I shoved her back, I found a grin growing on my own face as well. What a change this is from that first Duel.
Name: Jaune Arc
Level: 58 (Next: 04.72%)
Title: Academy Student
Race: Human
Age: 18
Job: Beacon Student
Class: Paladin
Semblance: The Gamer
HP: 7545/7545
MP: 3675/4122
STR: 212 (100)
CON: 261 (101)
DEX: 150 (53)
INT: 128 (50)
WIS: 105 (52)
CHA: 143 (52)
Points: 97
Money: 947,938L
Status: Cursed – Yellow Death [High]
A/N: Little bit longer than last time. I almost went into excruciating detail of BRN's workout plan before deciding I was the only one who cared and cutting it. TL;DR: their programming is designed to help each of the girls get better at her role.
Can Jaune take Indigo in a fight? Short answer, no; long answer, we're getting to the point where it's complicated. Jaune's stats are bonkers even for his level, his level is already higher than some graduating Seniors, and his Skills are getting to the point of respectability, but his sisters all still have the benefit of experience. Indigo in particular is a weird matchup, since fighting head-on is not her style — as implied, she works best with someone like Jaune taking aggro from her — but she's also incredibly difficult to actually hit, and that simple rule of thumb from Chapter 2 still applies: if you can hit your enemy, and he can't hit you back, you win every time.