18

Blake didn't like baths.

Well ok, that wasn't quite accurate. She didn't like submerging underwater.

Cat ears that sat on the top of one's head weren't easy to get the water out of. When she was four she'd gotten one of them waterlogged and infected and that was awful. Genuinely an experience she'd hope to never repeat again.

The sensation of being underwater though?

It was like being enveloped. It could be scary, but it could be comforting too.

It was a little scary if you were submerged in the dark. Even if Faunus had darkvision, it didn't change the fact that everything went greyscale. Mostly. Some tinges of color could still sometimes shine through.

But she was in some sort of… box. It glowed a faint, soft green as she floated in it, taking in deep breaths as her hair floated in serene black tendrils about her.

Groggily, she suddenly realized she was underwater and held her breath, a hand flew in front of her face to cover her mouth and nose as she floated and curled into a ball.

Her legs sank instantly as she did so, causing her head to bump into the ceiling of her box.

She let out a yelp of pain, muffled by the liquid.

Then she realized she could breathe in the liquid.

What? But-

Jaune. It had to be Jaune.

Blake let out some nervous laughter, muffled by the liquid.

Wait. Her shorts were different than she last-

She recalled her tight bladder when the Grimm attacked and flushed in horror.

She was begging any god that would listen that she hadn't wet herself in front of her totally not crush, just kind of cute friend.

Her shirt was the same, just not her shorts.

She gave a weak laugh as she gave up mentally.

That was it. Blake was going to lay in this box forever and wait for the liquid to drown her. Breathable liquid be damned.

Her head made soft thump-thumps against a gel-like square pillow as she beat her head against it.

"Mmrghlg."

Blake froze as she heard a groan from outside the box.

There was a yawn, and a sniffle.

"Mmm? Ah!" An excited shout could be heard outside the box.

Nononononono.

"Jaune! Jaune wake up!"

NONONONONONONO.

"Mmmgh. Y-yang? Morning."

NONONONONONONONONONONO.

"Blake's awake! Your machine says status conshiuhs."

"She's conscious? Blake! Thank the gods your mother shares your blood type! Lemme get the Mold open!"

Blake blinked.

Blood type? Why did that matter?

She felt a little bit of suction below her draining some of the breathable liquid moments before the lid of the box she was in swung open on a hinge.

Her hand reached out to grab the edge, but a strong grip grasped her by her half-limp and slippery wrist pulling her out into a hug.

Jaune's Aura flashed against her, spiced pine and fragrant fruit.

She could feel her own- she could feel her Aura.

She tried to express her surprise and excitement, but instead of words she coughed up a wet pile of wet pink slimy fluid. It spewed from her mouth and all over Jaune's back, spilling over him and onto the floor.

Yang burst out in laughter as Blake wanted to crawl into the nearest hole and di-

She stumbled as she fell back, feeling like she'd made a short warp through space itself. Her back landed against something metal and firm as a black shadow made of her Aura was left in Jaune's arms.

"Huh?" She was confused, especially as Jaune looked suddenly wildly uncomfortable.

Blake tried to stand up, but her legs were way heavier than she remembered, struggling like a baby deer from the bit of dissonance.

She wanted to crawl under her sheets further, struggling against her slippery hands and the smooth metal surface of the Mold thing she'd come out from.

"Let me help you up." Jaune reached out, not taking no for an answer as he stepped around the strange clone she'd left behind.

He was still dressed in his skintight scale bodysuit, just missing all the bladed and spiked armor pieces, now looking more like some sort of odd secret agent rather than a dark knight. And the back of it was coated in her barf-slime.

Blake flushed as she took his hand this time, Yang joining in to help pull her up, grabbing her other hand.

Yang also looked like she'd been crying and hadn't slept very well at all, hair tied back in a high ponytail with her expensive looking orange and black ribbon.

"You're going to have trouble walking for a little bit." Jaune warned. "I made sure your new legs were as light as possible, but accounting for growth and giving it some future proofing bone expansion emulation, it's still going to be a bit awkward here and there."

"Oh ok, I-" Blake blinked. "N…new legs?"

Yang shuffled awkwardly as her fingers started to run nervously through her long ponytail, her hair pulled over her shoulder for the girl to fidget nervously with.

"I-"

The door opened to the room behind them as Mama Kali tired walked in with a platter of snacks and cups of tea.

"Kids, you better be-BLAKE! My baby!"

The platter was thrown to the side as her mother leapt to hold her, flooding Blake's face with so many kisses she was overwhelmed in an instant.

"Blargh! M-mama! My friends are here! Ah! I love you too, stop!"

She lifted Blake up in a tight snuggling hug, though she took slightly longer to pick up Blake than normal.

"Oh, I'm so thankful that you're alive." She put Blake back down, gazing into her eyes with love.

She then smothered Jaune and Yang into her bosom as she began to pepper their faces with kisses too.

"And thank the both of you for staying by my daughter's side! You especially Jaune, we'll pay you-"

"Really! No! No payment! Blake's my friend, there's no transactions to friendship!" Jaune protested immediately, "Absolutely not!"

Mama Kali laughed as Blake felt a warm fondness. That was actually a line from a book she'd shared with Jaune over messages. One of the ones he'd responded with more enthusiasm, a tale of three Huntsmen called the Three Balladeers.

"Well if there's anything that we can do to make your stay more comfortable, you speak up ok?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Even if it's embarrassing to admit to."

"Yes ma'am."

"And you'll share beds with Blake."

"Yes ma-WAIT!" "MAMA NO!"

Blake flushed as her Mama Kali cackled in good cheer as she danced out the room.

"Ghira, dear! Our little angel's awake!"

Blake ended up going through a similar experience once her Papa came up to see her, the large man picking her up and refusing to put her down for a full five minutes until Jaune stated that he'd have to check that she was fully adjusted to her new legs before they moved onto anything else.

Some more moments of chaos passed, Jaune got to while her barf-slime off, she got to drain the liquid from her Faunus ears, before Jaune and Blake were allowed some privacy as he finished some final check ups.

Blake poked at her thigh. It jiggled more than she remembered. It was kind of fun. It still felt normal, still. Sort of heavier, they felt fine. It just looked a bit different than she remembered.

She poked it again.

And again.

"It looks so real." She marveled as Jaune ran some kind of scanner over her knees.

The only thing odd about her knees were that they lacked any sort of wrinkles at the moment.

"Yup." He popped the P. "It's going to be heavier than you remember, and your center of gravity will be lower though. I made it as lightweight as I could, but I had to account for the fact that you're going to grow and adjusted the bones to expand to match your expected height, so that ended up adding some of the weight back. We'll probably have to replace them every two years though no matter what."

Blake swallowed.

She remembered Specialist Noire's statements that Jaune's prosthetics and work was priceless at the moment.

That made her shift uncomfortably.

"I'm a little worried about the expanding caps for the tops of the artificial femurs. If they cause too much wear and damage to the socket of the pelvic bone we'll have to reinforce those in the future. Aside from that, everything looks good. Artificial nerves are linked, the angelskin has been grafted without issue, and the artificial valkyrie muscle strands are in sync and adjusted for bone expansion for the next two years."

"Uhm. How much-"

"Not you too." Jaune groaned, "Blake we're friends. If anything it's my fault for not getting you out of the way of the-"

"That's not your fault!" She quickly amended.

He wasn't to blame and neither was Adam. Actually where was Adam?

"Not my fault?" Jaune looked irritated, at himself, not at her. "Not my fault that my friend lost her legs and I had to follow a trail of clones buried in the sand as she tried to escape by crawling away? I had Aura. I helped kill The Burrower, I should have-"

Blake didn't remember doing that, but realized why Jaune had been so uncomfortable when she'd warped backwards with a clone in his arms.

Oh no. That must have felt awful when she'd unconsciously run from him.

Blake threw herself in his arms, feeling embarrassed already at the action, her face flushing with heat. But he'd keep rambling if she didn't cut him off. Also it was a form of wordless apology.

"Nobody controls the Grimm." She held him feeling his arms wrap comforting around her back. "It's not your fault."

"...feels like it is." He mumbled into her neck and hair, making her skin buzz from the vibration of his voice.

"Not your fault." She assured. "You helped save me. You… you gave me new legs. I think you did everything you could."

Jaune let out a choked laugh.

"Always could have done more."

"We're kids." Blake shook her head, snuggling into his neck, feeling his Aura warm against hers. "I'm just lucky to…" She took a shuddering breath. "...to be alive at all."

"I-"

A long whistle broke their two man pity party as the cutely smug grinning face of Yang XiaoLong snapped a picture on her Scroll.

"Is it getting hot in here, or is it just-"

"YANG!" Blake leapt to try to snatch the Scroll away, only to overshoot from her more powerful legs (plus the combined force of Aura) and slamming face first into the doorframe, her Aura flashing with a smokey dark purple-black. "Ow! G-give that back!"

"Gonna have to chase me for it, kitty-cat." Yang grinned, pumping her arms as she ran full sprint down the hallway.

"YANG XIAOLONG!" Blake roared in shame and anger as she pounced forwards, overshooting to the side, planting her new bare foot into the adobe walls of Belladonna Manor, bouncing like a pinball through the halls as she chased her madly cackling friend.

"Hey! Take it easy! We don-" Blake couldn't hear the rest of Jaune's words as she chased Yang.

Yang might have had her Aura longer, but Blake had been faster when they first met, only getting outpaced by her human friend when she'd started training under her mothers.

Now?

Blake felt an odd giggle of exhilaration spill from her lips.

She was speed. She could run.

Yang rounded a corner, intending to descend down the stairs.

Blake knew a shortcut.

She'd have never taken it before, obviously. She wasn't crazy. But now-

She leapt out an open arch into the central courtyard, her feet sliding down the bark of the palm tree.

Her arms spread out to maintain balance, not used to such extreme movement, but having Aura made her feel like she could do anything.

She could feel the grinding of the bark, but either the nature of her new legs or Aura, or both, but she felt no pain from it.

She'd been warned by her parents before that once she'd unlocked her Aura she'd have to stay calm because she wouldn't be invincible. That there were kids who had been hurt before as a result of it. She finally understood why they tried to teach her that.

Aura felt amazing.

Like a junglecat she pounced at Yang who'd just hopped down the stairway, a look of genuine panic on her face.

"Whoa!"

But Yang had more training, sliding down the stairs, sending Blake tumbling with a bit of pain against the rounded-edge steps. But Blake had played all her life with the more rough and tumble kids of Menagerie and worked in the Fang.

She could play rough.

She rolled up, flipped around, planting her feet against the back of the stairwell and leaping into Yang, this time tackling her blonde friend to the ground.

"Give me that!"

"AH! Blake! That tickles, stop!"

"Blake?"

Blake paused her impromptu wrestling with Yang, one hand on the human girl's shoulder, the other grabbing the wrist of Yang that was holding onto an expensive looking Atlasean Scroll.

One of her new legs twisted around Yang's, while the other had flexibly extended forwards its toes buried in her friend's Scroll holding armpit, wiggling her new smooth and soft toes and artificial toenails.

"I-Ilia! Be a pal and get that Scroll from this traitor's hand for me?

"Ilia! I waited with you for Blake! We got ice cream together, we're friends right?" Yang struggled in Blake's grip, screaming out in peals of giggles as Blake wriggled her toes further into Yang's armpit. "Bwah ha ha Blake no pleasaahhahahaha!"

Ilia just quietly pulled the Scroll from Yang's limp fingers.

"What's all this even happening ovaaaaa-"

Illia just quietly deleted the photo as she looked at it..

"Ah wait!" Both girls on the ground called out.

Blake sort of just a little bit wanted a copy maybe or maybeitmightnotbenecessary-.

She coughed as she stood back up, feeling her torso rock back a bit, although her legs didn't shift back at all, being weighter than they should have been.

Actually her butt and abs felt a little tense from the extra work her glutes and core muscles had to work to move her heavier legs.

Wouldn't that be a growing pain.

Ilia just tossed Yang's Scroll back to the blonde girl still laying on the floor, her chameleon scales flashing purple, yellow, then pink as she wrapped Blake in a big hug.

Blake giggled as she hugged her childhood friend back.

"I'm glad you're alright." Ilia sighed into the hug.

"It was scary. But I'm fine now." Blake didn't really want to think about what had happened. Just too much occurred in too short of a timespan. "How about you? Was everything alright with your family?"

"I happened to be helping Mrs Arc with some groceries. Nora and Ren were there too and they had some guns to scare off smaller Grimm even with basic training rounds. Mrs Arc took care of anything that got too close with a Hard Light greatsword." Ilia laughed weakly as she stepped back. "I was lucky. My parents are fine too, but a lot of people got injured, but somehow nobody died. Yang and Ruby's moms are really strong."

"Darn tooting!" Yang grinned, rolling back onto her shoulders and popping back on her feet in one smooth pop up motion. "My mommies are the best!"

Ilia nodded with a smile.

"They're amazing. Do we know who the one armed man was though? People are saying that someone overheard that he was the one that set up the giant wall around Menagerie."

That was the moment Jaune had walked into, his scaled bodysuit rippling as he walked.

"That was my Big Brother Juniper!" He puffed his chest out proudly.

Ilia just leveled an unimpressed look.

"Mhm." She hummed, clearly not believing him. "Sure, your imaginary friend is the One-Armed Huntsman."

Blake and Yang just exchanged eye contact.

Didn't Jaune request them keep all that stuff with Juniper a secret? Or was it just supposed to be that strange golden Card?

Jaune just pouted.

"Nobody believes me." He sighed, "Oh well."

That was strange. Oh!

Blake knew what he was doing! He was presenting the truth in a way that made people disbelieve him. Hiding in absurdity! There were books she read where heroes (and villains) did the same thing!

"Whoever he was," Blake deflected, "He's definitely a Hero."

Jaune perked at the compliment, his tail wagging excitedly.

"Yeah. Super cool." Yang added casually, grinning as Jaune's ears stood at attention and swayed in satisfaction. "Big badass."

Blake giggled. She still disliked dogs, but the sight of Jaune's eager tail wagging was kind of nice.

Kali hummed as she stirred the large stock pot, her right cat ear flicking back as a waft of steam tickled it.

She glanced out the kitchen window to the giant swirling curls of ice in the distance by the Solar Farm.

Against all logic, the thing hadn't melted yet. Nor was it showing any signs of doing so.

The Burrower, the biggest concern and threat to Menagerie, was frozen within the wall of permafrost, looking as if engulfed in a tidal wave frozen in time. The Grimm had begun to dissolve, parts of black streaking into the ice, as if the Grimm had begun to dissolve but could not.

That meant somehow, Menagerie currently had the only preserved Grimm in existence.

Wasn't that a funny turn of fate?

Ghira had almost immediately sent photos of it out to any researcher that might give them the time of day and was sure that it would be another angle of attack for Menagerie to gain legitimacy for the future.

And as a bonus, almost as if they were frightened that something similar would happen to them, other Grimm were staying away from the northern deserts that the giant ice structure lay.

Luckily the way the curling ice structure was positioned, the little genius boy Jaune had declared would likely deflect more sunlight straight at the Solar Farm between him assisting the treatment of the wounded, watching over the Mold that held her daughter, helping make sure the Solar Farm- actually maybe the boy was working too much. He'd need some more R&R that kid.

A frozen little silver lining according to the child genius.

Still it was true that he was shouldering too much for a child. So to better keep an eye on him and make sure the little hero wouldn't overwork himself, she'd convinced Ghira to help make some more room in the Manor to allow the Arcs and the Rose-Branwen couple to stay with their kids here.

The Defiant Blue felt less safe with whatever had hacked and corrupted its systems anyways.

And the diplomatic fiasco with the Siren Ferry was a completely different issue to be addressed later.

Honestly, in truth they had enough room to even house both FULL families if they just repurposed some of the lounges into temporary living spaces in the first place. Her dear husband was just being too protective of their little angel.

She thought her heart would stop when Jaune had brought her daughter back in his arms.

He'd applied something to stop the bleeding, but her baby's legs had been missing from the upper thigh down. A result of The Burrowers attack.

Kali had almost fainted, only the thought that her angel needed her keeping herself going.

The rest of the children, as well as the unconscious Specialist Noire of Atlas, who had apparently fought one of the twin heads to a standstill, were all on a bunch of sleds that the boy had bound with rope and tied to himself, dragging it along with sheer force of will. The boy that had turned seven just recently.

All while carrying her daughter.

He certainly looked the part of little hero then, even when he looked like some gilded Grimmspawn.

She supposed the boy must have thought he had looked 'edgy' and cool, but the unnecessary extra blades and back spikes just gave off the impression of a Grimm, no matter how he'd painted it up with gold and green.

Still, that was the boy that saved her daughter's life. And she seemed decently smitten.

Of course it might just be a passing childhood crush, but Kali had the feeling that the chances of that kind of casual connection might have passed at this point with the life-saving and all.

At the very least it likely wouldn't pass until she was in her later teens.

She had been the same way for Ghira when he'd saved her from a Beowolf when she was young. Kali had decided she was going to grow up and marry Ghira then and there. She'd pined after him for years.

It almost hadn't happened as she'd grown up to have many suitors and Ghira began to distance himself as he began to form the Fang.

It took a random party that they'd both happened to be at when she'd stumbled across him socializing that she'd drunkenly and impulsively just jumped his bones and that kickstarted their relationship.

Ah memories.

Kali stirred the large stock pot of stew again as her thoughts drifted back to the aftermath of the Grimm attack.

Jaune had just promised he'd make it all right and pushed Blake into a giant purple metal contraption with no further explanation. The self-assured way children did assuming everyone would understand their line of thought. It looked suspiciously like a coffin.

That design wasn't doing him any favors. Truly.

Even though Ghira looked like he might murder someone, Jaune just calmly explained that it was a sort of portable surgical suite for his prosthetics work. The same device he'd used to save Summer Rose almost a year ago.

And hearing her name from the other room, the cheerful white haired woman popped in to ask what was happening.

She was happy to reassure the two of them, stating that Jaune had effectively 'given her a new lease on life' and giggled as if that was funny.

Truly all of the strongest Huntsmen and Huntresses were a bit odd at times. Kali just assumed it was all just coping mechanisms from the horrors they faced against the Grimm.

And after her actions in helping protect Menagerie, they'd no choice but to give the benefit of the doubt.

Not as if the boy wasn't owed such from the beginning, but this was their daughter. They couldn't be blamed for being worried regardless.

Kali did need to donate some blood, however, as it had taken Jaune some time to find her daughter in the sand after The Burrower struck. Her blood pressure had dropped and she'd lost a large amount of bone marrow to generate more blood naturally from.

She'd hooked up to the Mold willingly for a bit as it transferred her blood to her daughter within.

Now her daughter was walking. With her own, well her new, two legs.

She'd even caught a bit of her chase of her friend Yang as she, good gods, jumped out from the second floor, slid down a tree, and pounced on her friend in the stairwell.

Kali had just been getting some extra potatoes from the cellar, certainly not looking for any extra heart attacks!

There was a reason why she and Ghira were hoping to wait until she was ten to get her Aura unlocked.

Children could be so reckless. Aura made them doubly so.

But seeing that Blake was so full of life still and walking made her cry a little from happiness.

And while Yang stood by Blake's recovery without leaving the room where the Mold was being held, Jaune had been assisting with dealing with the injured during the day, spending his nights by the Mold, occasionally accompanied by his adopted siblings Ren and Nora.

He'd offered some sort of miracle drink for people that needed to be patched up just enough to be stable, though they'd run through his limited supply of two dozen bottles rather quickly. They bought time for the most critically injured for sure.

The rest of the injured needed direct attention and Menagerie only had three doctors at the moment, one was a specialist for childbirth and pediatrics who was unable to assist, grieving the loss of his husband, and another had been injured and unable to help.

So only Jaune and Doctor Spinel, their only remaining able doctor, had been addressing the injured, with volunteers managing simple things such as changing bandages and sterilizing items and wounds. Jaune only came back to eat and sleep in the Mold room for a week.

Kali Belladonna wished she could say that there had been no true casualties, but despite the overwhelmingly horrifying situation, only a mere seven deaths were recorded. That was, frankly, a small miracle in itself. They were a settlement without walls that had been pinned in by Grimm by both land and sea.

It was like a fairy tale that they'd survived so intact.

And thankfully the worst was over now.

Even though his Fabricator thingymabob had broken and become a part of the Glacier of Menagerie, Jaune luckily had a spare, the little workaholic.

And so the work on expanding the Solar Farm was progressing exponentially now that so much infrastructure was being rebuilt.

Now more homes were being rebuilt but with proper electricity to boot, now that their settlement could afford to provide more power for everyone. At dirt cheap costs as well. Free for a few months for anybody helping repair buildings or expand the Solar Farm too.

It was an effective incentive that assisted in rapid reconstruction.

Jaune even occasionally helped speed up the clean up of the destruction, sucking up large piles of debris from broken buildings with his Semblance and piling out the reusable materials in heaps for the builders to access.

He was a hard working, earnest boy. Definitely good son-in-law material, even if her Ghira would grumble that nobody was good enough for their angel.

She'd definitely have some competition from her friend Yang though. Kali was pretty sure the human girl liked Jaune, but hadn't exactly processed she'd formed a crush. Perhaps she'd go the way of her mothers though and just learn to share. Who knew?

Either way, her daughter's potential love life would become her new favorite cute little romcom.

That was something Kali was sure of.

Blake felt awful.

She always was willing to put in work, no matter what it was, when it came to the things she was passionate about.

She hated the sweat that came with it though, even if the sense of satisfaction from hard work could be enjoyable.

But her stomach and butt hurt. The muscles of it, of course. Her muscles in her butt and stomach hurt. Her legs never felt more heavy. Intensive exercise made that worse right now.

She laid in the shade of a palm tree, recovering from her physical conditioning, as she watched the other kids train.

She thanked Ruby, as she brought Blake a cup of cool water.

The younger girl now recently turned five in their time apart. Even though the Ruby would still hang off Jaune's back and pet his ears given the opportunity, she'd definitely physically grown a bit. A gray wolf cub plushy hung off her waist nowadays, her new favorite toy.

Yang's younger sister giggled as knelt, allowing Blake to give her a few pats on the head from her place on the ground, walking off to get more water for the other kids.

Nora, despite being always full of life and energy, currently lacked the longform stamina to keep up her boundless energy for extended intensive cardio. Unlike Blake who was forced by Jaune ("Doctor's orders!") to lay down for recovery, the orangette was slowly walking in small circles as she was recovering her breath.

Her obvious crush Ren, her fellow adopted Arc (though Lie Ren kept his original name, she didn't know all the details), was barely keeping his pace, sweating heavily as he maintained his breathing the best of all the other kids. Black hair with a streak of lotus pink plastered to his forehead as he ran with determination.

Raven Branwen was jogging backwards as she set the minimum pace, not letting any kids run slower than her, forcing anyone that started to straggle behind to either keep up or hit the shade.

She'd been the one that forced Nora to stop as she was no longer holding up to her standards. And despite being dressed in her full mercenary outfit, she was barely breaking a sweat.

Speaking of that, there were now some similar outfits already popping up in Menagerie now after Parabellum's defense of the town. Some of the proceeds were being used to help pay the members of Branwen's Parabellum for their help of the town as they enjoyed the few tropical luxuries the town could offer.

Apparently the majority of them were enjoying the beach and getting various massages. A lot of massages. Blake didn't know why so many of Raven's mercenaries would emphasize the massages so much, often with waggling eyebrows.

Did they really feel that good?

Still it was remarkable that Raven was barely sweating at all. Aura could maintain a shield against the environment, hot or cold, but not against exertion from within. She wasn't overheating from the amount of exercise she was performing it seemed.

That just meant that for the Huntress this level of exercise didn't really mean anything.

Ren was barely keeping up, but he was maintaining pace with a steely determination. Blake saw Nora keep shyly eying him out of the corner of her eyes. That was cute.

Adam maintained his pace ahead of the two. He had always been training with the militia and was strong from his time growing up as a miner. Also as there wasn't too much to do for entertainment on Menagerie at times, so he'd been regularly receiving lessons from one of the few retired Faunus Huntsmen on the island.

But it was clear he'd never been pushed quite as hard as Raven was drilling them.

Still he was performing well. Maybe because he was four years older.

Blake found her eyes drifting at the shape of his calves as they stretched against his taut skin as he ran around the improvised track. Ok, so she could see what the other girls her age meant when they said Adam had nice legs. She got it a little now.

Blake felt Ilia shift next to her, as her friend napped in the shade with her.

Blake had seen him perform explosive short sprints before, and it was definitely where his strengths lied, but his extended running stamina wasn't anything to sneeze at either it seemed.

But somehow in front of him, having lapped the rest of the kids three times, was Yang burning through her aura with Burn causing waves of Aura to waft from her golden hair like heat as she tried to keep pace with Jaune as the boy encouraged Yang to keep up her current speed and intensity with short breaths strained by exertion.

Jaune could definitely outpace Yang if he was jumping. Despite his rabbit Faunus features having nothing to do with his legs, he apparently could jump inhuman distances and heights with ease, actually making his leaping speed faster than his running speed.

But Yang could keep up as long as he didn't cheat with those monstrous jumps.

Blake giggled as she saw the competitive blonds run another lap around at their full speed, lapping Ren and Adam one last time before Yang finally burnt out, her Aura mostly depleting.

She'd tired out too much and began to collapse.

Jaune held Yang in a laughing hug as he stopped her fall, making Blake remember how Jaune had carried herself over to the shade when her own body gave out before her new legs did.

It was comforting as she had felt Jaune's aura, warm and eager, spicy and sweet, tasting as always like juniper berries, as he'd carried her to the shade when Blake had been unable to keep up.

Unlike Nora, she was ordered to rest fully on her back, as even with the pain of lactic acid, the muscles that she had worked had effectively been different to the others and couldn't just be walked off given her specific circumstances.

That and she had the least physical conditioning of the group at the current moment.

Blake was sure that Yang was now enjoying the same comforting sensation of Jaune's Aura as he helped support Yang's weight by holding one of her arms over his shoulder, one hand on her wrist, the other on her waist.

Yang's hair was tied back, but the pale girl was red from exertion and coated in a sheen of sweat as Jaune helped get her to shade. Blake was always curious that Yang hadn't developed any tan though she'd spent almost a full month in Menagerie.

Apparently Aura protected against the sun's rays as well and would never really tan.

Blake wasn't very tanned, spending a lot of her time indoors, but she did have a light healthy tannedness to her, but she was told that her Aura would result in her paling over time.

She wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Yang took the cup of water from Ruby, as Jaune gave her an affectionate pat on the head in her sister's place, still helping support Yang's shaky legs.

Ruby giggled and ran off to get another cup of water for Jaune now.

Yang slowly left Jaune's supporting grasp as she pressed the palms of her hands into the back of her waist, straightening her back, and taking some slow, shaky steps, as she gingerly walked in small circles with deep and slow breaths.

Jaune waited patiently for water from Ruby, taking some small sips before giving it back to her, asking her to hold onto it for him.

Blake giggled as she saw Jaune bounce on his toes, the scaled bodysuit glimmering from under his loose cotton shorts and shirt, and rejoin the cardio conditioning session.

She watched fondly as now he stuck with Adam, maintaining pace and making conversation as they ran, the older boy just grunting in the positive or negative as they ran side by side.

Blake was glad her two closest male friends were getting along. Or getting along as she could expect.

Adam was still a bit standoffish, but he'd taken the fact that he couldn't protect her pretty hard, taking it just as personally as Jaune did. He'd claimed that he'd owed Jaune for helping save her, though and started being slightly nicer to Jaune. Only a little though.

That was a lot for Adam who still viewed Jaune as someone that wasn't one of his.

Blake still wasn't sure what had happened in the end. She just sort of assumed that Juniper was responsible for them all surviving, and what a thought that was that the imaginary big brother was real, for the giant glacier that now was a new unmelting feature of Menagerie.

It was already becoming a sort of weird rest area for people that were bad with heat, as the giant ice structure was like a strange giant air conditioner. Specialist Noire spent a lot of time around it in her off time actually, stating that the coolness of it reminded her of Atlas.

Jaune wouldn't really talk about it, clamming up when she'd brought it up, so she stopped asking for any details of the incident that'd cost her legs again.

But Jaune was the one that had dragged everyone back in the end. The only one that'd remained conscious to the end. So the truth would likely die with his silence.

But that was enough for Adam to take her injuries as his responsibility. He'd been hanging around more just to help Blake with random mundane things and had started sparring with Jaune.

She watched as the two boys walked to the side, recovering their breath, getting some water and cooling off. She knew that after Adam recovered the two boys would begin sparring.

Jaune just casually began doing some stretching that reminded Blake of the gymnastics Mama Kali was teaching her since she'd come out of the Mold about a week ago.

Then Blake grimaced.

"Jaune! Fight me!" Vernal Branwen (adopted by Raven's mercenary clan, no biological relation) rolled out of her hammock, not having joined them for their exercise at all.

She claimed she already trained with the rest of Mrs. Branwen's mercs all the time and this was supposed to be time off.

"C'mon! Let's spar!"

The lightly-tan tomboy with slightly chubby cheeks, reached into her side holsters and pulled out a pair of chakram blades as she ran in Jaune's direction, a pair of SMG vambraces clicked into position on her forearms.

Blake narrowed her eyes at the rude girl as she threw her chakrams forwards without getting an answer from her friend.

Jaune just spun dodging one of the chakrams as he flicked his hands, a spinning normal spear with a solid metal shaft, unlike his more pretty and ornate usual weapons, appeared as it spun in a circle behind him as he twisted about, flicking the second chakram away.

Yang growled behind her, Blake's left cat ear flicking to the sound of her human best friend (they really were best friends now, weren't they?) as she approached Blake's side.

"She's so rude." Yang complained, "I don't know why Mommy Raven lets her act like that."

The chakrams returned into Vernal's hands by some method that Blake couldn't see, though there was the glimmer of a faint line in the air. Wires?

Jaune laughed as he ducked under Vernal's training rounds (they should be training rounds, but knowing Vernal they might have been live ones) as he twisted his whole body like an uncoiling spring, throwing his spear forwards, his hand still around the shaft of his spear, snapping with a death grip near the end of the butt, killing the momentum of the thrust as it knocked Vernal back.

"I don't like her either." Blake agreed. "She's so rude."

Vernal took a grazing blow from a follow up thrust as she peppered Jaune with rounds from her vambraces again, Jaune taking only one or two shots against his Aura as he bounced up. His form jumped in a mighty aerial reaching about two meters above Vernal, his long steel spear lashing out as he vaulted upside down, smacking against Vernal's arms and deflecting her aim to the side.

The spear spun again as he blocked shots from Vernal, twisting and thrusting again.

Vernal let the spear thrust through the loops of her chakrams, pulling them in opposite directions, twisting to attempt to disarm Jaune, making a triumphant smirk as she, for the first time (having ambushed Jaune for almost a week straight at this point), disarmed him.

"What?" Yang spat out, in surprise.

And Jaune's foot landed in Vernal's face, twisting as if it was a hand, it pulled her off balance. It knocked her back and sent the rude girl rolling back into the tree where her hammock was hanging from.

Blake snickered.

"Serves her right."

"He just let her disarm him?!" Yang fumed on the other hand, even though the corner of her lip curled at seeing Vernal lose, "I haven't managed to do that yet! What the heck, Jaune!"

"That's what you're upset about?" Blake laughed incredulously, feeling Ilia lean over to her side in her sleeping state, her head rolling onto Blake's shoulder.

Yang grumbled that Blake would understand when she'd be allowed to start sparring and Blake watched as Jaune helped pick Vernal up, though now the girl was refusing to give him his spear back.

"Mine by conquest." Vernal stubbornly held the spear to her chest.

"I'm the one that won!" Jaune threw up his hands incredulously.

Vernal gave a grin that Blake didn't like. It was knowing and happy. Blake didn't like that smile and she wasn't sure why.

"Yeah, you won. You defeated me." She agreed with a grin, "Whaddya want?"

"What for winning?"

Vernal shrugged.

"Sure."

"Uh… Water? I donno."

Vernal spun around, taking Jaune's spear with her as she ran to get a cup of water for Jaune from the table of refreshments that Summer and Ruby were manning together, the Huntress playing with her daughter they did so.

"I really don't like her." Blake muttered.

Her amber eyes narrowed as she watched Vernal smile confidently at Jaune who drank the cup of water she'd gotten for him, his spear held behind her back as if being held hostage in a tight grip.

"She's literally the worst." Yang agreed with an angry scowl next to her.