Chapter 22: Chapter 22
Thankfully, Weiss eventually ended her assault, panting as she stood there still glaring at me. Good grief. I know I planned for her to get upset, but I'm still surprised...
"Feel a little better after venting all that anger of yours?"
"What are you tal-" Weiss stopped as she realized what she had just done and how completely undignified she was as she pummeled me. She gripped the hem of her battle skirt, shame appearing on her face. "I-I can't believe I just did that..."
"I know right? This whole Ruby thing must've really been bothering you."
A look of realization hit her. "You WANTED me to vent my anger?"
"Guilty as charged. You feeling any better?"
Weiss bit her lip and looked down, this time embarrassed. 'Heh heh, she's feeling better but she's too prideful to want to admit it.'
"Well." she snapped out of her embarrassment as I spoke up. "If you want some advice, I think you should go talk to professor Port."
"Professor Port?"
"Yeah. Tell him how you feel about Ruby being the team leader, and how you think it should have gone. That'll solve the real problem."
Weiss stopped for a while taking a moment to study me, her sapphire-colored eyes passing up and down over me as if looking for something. She cocked an eyebrow before letting out a sigh. "You're not just messing with me again are you?"
"Weiss! Why I am hurt you would even suggest such a thing." I chucked a moment, deciding to stop since Weiss glared at me once more. "But no, I'm not messing with you, promise."
Weiss took a deep breath to compose herself, taking her long silver hair into her hands, she tied it, returning it to her signature ponytail. "Fine, I'll go talk to him." she turned around jabbing a finger in my direction. "And you...you better not tell anyone about my little outburst just now."
"Don't worry princess, your secret's safe with me."
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"Alright everyone." The other three members of Team ARJN straightened up and turned towards me. "Sorry I kept you waiting, I needed to make some minor preparations before we got started."
"I'm so excited!" Nora said, lightly shaking and letting out a girlish hum. "Our first little activity as an official team! I gotta take a photo! If only I had a camera..." She pondered for a brief moment before her face lit up again. "I know! I'll take a mental photo." She put her hands in front of her face imitating a camera, squinted her right eye and looked at Ren. "Click." she giggled, winking her left eye.
"So what are we doing way out here by the forest?" Jaune asked.
"Click." Nora said winking at Jaune.
"This is what we're doing." I held out four small sticks in clenched in my hand."
"Click. Click." this time she winked at my closed fist and then a close up of my face.
"Twigs?"
"For now, I'd ask that everyone take one of the sticks in my hand."
Without a word, the three of them took their own sticks, leaving one behind for me.
"Hey, mine's blue! So is yours Aero."
"Me and Ren got red." Nora announced, holding her twig up high.
"I colored the bottoms of the sticks. When you've got your color, then you go with the other person who matches you. That means you're paired with Ren first."
Ren made a pondering expression. "So this is a team exercise."
"Yep. In this little exercise, we're going to be fighting each other."
"Fighting each other?!"
"YES!" Nora happily pumped her fist.
"Let me explain. To work as a team, we need to know everyone's strengths and weaknesses. And what better way to do this than real combat? Finding out a weakness in your enemy will allow you to exploit it. However, finding the weaknesses of your allies will better allow you to cover for their shortcomings later. For now, we'll just have one battle with the people we drew the same color as."
To be honest, I'm the one who needs this exercise the most. I'm not a stranger to combat, but I'm pretty sure most students here far outclass me.
"That...actually makes sense..." Jaune said mulling it over. "Aside from giving us more experience working with each other. This will also come in handy practicing to find weak points in our enemies too. It's like killing three birds with one stone."
Hmm, not bad Jaune I'm starting to see why you were a team leader in the previous timeline. "Alright! Pair up with your partner and get started."
As the four of us trudged off in different directions, I couldn't help but feel nervous, remembering my last fight and the feeling of danger. I took a deep breath, calming myself down. 'It's cool man, you got this. Unlike last time, if this battle gets out of hand then you can stop it at any time.'
"READY!"
Ren and Jaune tensed, the two of them waiting for the signal. Similarly, Nora seemed like she could barely hold herself back out of excitement.
"GO!"
The moment those words came out of my mouth, there was an explosion to the right of me.
"WOO HOO!"
Nora immediately rocketed forward towards Ren, propelled by the explosion of her weapon.
'Well...at least she's eager.'
Pushing off of the ground, I bolted towards Jaune, lashing out with my spear in a left sweep. He raised his sword, awkwardly stopping the weapon and throwing him off balance. I tried to follow up by jabbing at him, but Jaune immediately hunkered down with his shield and then immediately went on the offensive.
Seeing the blade coming too quickly to block in time, I gave up on the idea of defending and jumped back for all I was worth to weaken the blow.
"GUHA!"
The sword still slashed my stomach, nearly knocking the wind out of me and adding an extra oomph to my jump. Landing on my back, I used the momentum to flip back onto my feet and checked for any injuries.
'Wow.' But...there wasn't any. My shirt wasn't cut, there wasn't any blood, hell, it didn't even hurt anymore. 'This aura is gonna take some getting used to, I wonder if I could-'
"HAAAAA!"
'Oh. Right. Fighting...'
Holding the spear horizontally, I caught Jaune's attack as it fell like a hammering blow. The two of us struggled with our weapons locked, both of us looking to gain an edge. Taking a step and shoving my weapon forward, Jaune's sword arm was sent back leaving a small gap. I lashed out with my foot, planting it on his chest and sending him sprawling back.
'Now!'
Capitalizing on the moment, I brought down my weapon onto my fallen opponent slashing his shoulder in a clean strike. But once more, Jaune raised his stark white shield, deflecting my second attack into the ground, and getting rid of my opportunity.
"Gotcha!"
He quickly scrambled to his feet, closing the distance between us. I pulled my spear from the ground and swung at him, but Jaune didn't even bother to stop it. Instead, he moved forward even faster. Jaune smirked as he passed by my spear's blade radius, the pole part of the spear smacking his chestplate but not doing a lot of damage.
"Spears aren't so good at close range Aero!"
"You cocky little- URGH!"
Jaune's running charge mercilessly slammed his sword into my chest and staggering me. Another swipe cut down my shoulder sending an additional wave of pain through me. Right now my spear wasn't much use to me at this range.
'Dang it, I need to get some distance, my entire body is shielded with aura right? Let's try this!'
Continuing his attack, Jaune's sword flashed towards me. Shifting to a one-handed grip on my spear, I reached out with my arm and smacked his weapon, parrying it to the side.
"You-wha...with your hand?!" The surprise and confusion on Jaune's face was absolutely priceless. I wish I could've enjoyed it a bit longer but...
'SWEET MOTHER OF GOD!'
My arm felt like it was just about ready to fall off. As if it were cut open by the dullest possible butter knife that'd been left out for years to rust. Immediately jumping back while Jaune was still surprised, I surveyed the damage. On my left forearm, there was a long red cut running down its length. Despite its size, the cut wasn't actually that deep. While the skin was broken but barely so.
'Son of a motherfu-'
Thankfully, the pain disappeared as quickly as it came, leaving a slight stinging sensation. But suffice it to say, it still hurt like hell. Aura is durable, but not invincible it seems. I'll have to remember this the next time I think about swinging my arm at a blade.
"HAAAH!"
I looked up in surprise as Jaune's battle-cry shook me out of my thoughts.
Thrusting my weapon forward, I narrowly missed my opponent as Jaune panicked, raising that annoying shield of his and stopping his advance. 'Okay, I need to keep my distance. Since I'm not very experienced, my range the only thing I've got going for me. Hate to admit it, but Jaune's more skilled than me. It's going to take more than this to win the match.'
The two of us stared each other down, neither one of us wanting to make the first move. Jaune cautiously took a step forward, prompting me to immediately take a step back.
All of the sudden, I sprang forward, just barely entering the range of my weapon. Taking a deep breath and holding it, firmly planting my feet. Jaune moved to take a step forward but...
'Oh no you don't!'
**CHING!**
I drove the spear forward, meeting his shield and forcing him back. Taking a step to the side, Jaune opted to press forward again, but was met with a series of stabs from my spear. My plan, if it could even be called that, was simple. Attack him from a distance where he couldn't reach me and don't let him get close.
I lashed out with as many thrusts as I could to keep him back. Unable to retaliate, Jaune was forced entirely on the defensive, only able to slowly make his way forward. One of the thrusts stabbed into his exposed thigh, slowing him down. However, he kept moving. All manner of sounds and sparks coming from his shield but still he advanced.
"HI-YAH!"
'Shit!' Jaune finally stopped one of my thrusts with a side sweep of his blade after getting in range. The weapon sailed out of my grip and lodged itself into the ground. The very next moment, I found a sword pointed at my face.
"Alright, alright..." I muttered, irritably raising both of my hands. "I give."
"Phew." Jaune made a relieved expression and sheathed his sword before wiping his face. "You really made me work for that win huh Aero?" He smiled and held out his hand. "Good battle."
For a moment, I just stared at the outstretched glove. 'I really don't want to shake his hand but...' Jaune raised one of his brows in confusion, still waiting with his arm out. I sighed, taking his hand and giving it a shake. "Yeah, it was." 'Like it or not, he's my teammate. I suppose I should at least try to be a LITTLE polite even if I don't like losing.'
"Oh look." Jaune said pointing to the right. "Ren and Nora are done too."
A fair distance away, we could see Nora helping Ren up. He was a bit shaky for a moment before dusting himself off. 'Yikes, guess I'm lucky Jaune was my opponent instead of Nora, she would have crushed me.' Come to think of it, Ren would probably beat me pretty easily too huh?
My eyes shifted to Jaune. 'Maybe having Jaune on my team is actually a blessing in disguise.'
Right now I desperately need to get better. The best kind of opponents to improve from are ones that are around your skill level. While Jaune is better than me, he's not HUGELY better than me like most of the other students.
"Alright!" Nora gave Ren a rough slap on the back that made him stumble forward. "Good job!" The two of them made their way over to us. "On our very first day we got to meet our new teammates AND fight them. Talk about a meet and beat!"
"Okay everyone," I began "Good job. We're gonna be doing this again tomorrow, but we'll be switching up partners each time."
"How often are we gonna do this?"
"Hmm, about once a day. In addition Jaune, you and I are going to be fighting THREE times a day."
"What?! Me? Why just me!?"
"Because..." I paused for a moment. 'Because I'm too weak to improve against anyone else.' No way I'm saying that... "Because. That's why."
Jaune groaned and hung his head. "Guess I've really got a long road ahead, huh?"
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EternalEden
EternalEden Poor Jaune, feels bad man...
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