25

Chapter 25

"Friends!" Ruby cheerfully addressed both her team and team -LAN. "Blake and me have an idea!"

Ruby and Blake had gathered their teammates in the training room that had been so far used mostly by Ruby and Yang but now they decided to make it into a shared place. Surprisingly, nobody disputed their claim over the room.

Before Blake could start explaining what was on today's agenda, Weiss interjected.

"It's Blake and I." She said to Ruby who didn't really care about the tiny mistake.

"Well, Weiss is right." Blake gave Ruby a small smirk. "Anyway, I and Ruby had a small chat about starting joint team training. Like extra spars, tips and if we can convince Goodwitch we may even have some time in the Emerald Forest."

"And we are all here now because…?" Ilia asked. They were already tired after a whole day of school and now they were dragged around for even more work.

"Because we are all future hunters! We have to help each other!" Ruby excitedly answered her question.

"Yes, something like that. And seeing that my fight with Yang may have brought some… concerns-" Blake gave Pyrrha a sheepish look. She did get an earful from her after the fight for, allegedly, trying to cut Yang in half. "-we decided that all of us should get a better idea of what it was and maybe learn a few things. Pyrrha… this is not a class. Put the hand down and just talk."

"Um, right." Slightly embarrassed, she spoke. "Well, I just wanted to ask, what is the point of learning it? It's banned from use in the arena and pretty sure professor Goodwitch will stop anybody else who would try to do it."

"That's silly." Ruby attempted to placate her. "It's not for the spars, it's for fighting grimm. Think about how easier it would be to break through the boneplates instead of trying to look for weakpoints."

"That, and in case any of us would end up fighting any criminal who can do it. Without knowing how aura boosting works, you would be at a big disadvantage." Blake added her piece.

"Then how did Yang beat you?" Nora chimed in.

"Because she already knows." Ren answered his partner's question. "If I may. Did you only practice the technique or you follow the teachings behind it?" He addressed Yang.

"Mostly just practice. I know the philosophy behind it but aside from a few mental exercises and meditations I don't follow it."

Ren exasperatedly signed. Why would nobody do it the proper way?

"Okay, just so we are all on the same page." Blake got everyone's attention. "Yang and Ren clearly know much more than me, and I know that Ilia has never tried but I don't know about the rest of you." Her eyes scanned over Nora, Weiss and Pyrrha.

"I know how to do the muscle part but never worked on weapon strengthening. It's not that god with blunt weapons to begin with and I didn't want to waste my time." Nora answered her team leader. Yang snorted at the second part of her answer.

"I know the theory, somewhat, but I've never got time to practice properly." Weiss admitted. Once more she found herself severely lacking, it was becoming a very bad trend lately.

"I'm a bit out of practice with muscle enhancement and I have never used it with a weapon."

Ruby gave her team a once over and declared. "Okay then! Yang, can you take care of Weiss, please? You are better at explaining this stuff anyway." After getting a nod from Yang, she looked to Pyrrha. She smiled back and also nodded, understanding the change in partners.

Blake waited for Ruby to finish and then did the similar thing, leaving Ren to teach Ilia while leading Nora away so that nobody would be too close when she would start swinging around her hammer.

Yang felt a bit conflicted over teaching Weiss. She taught it to Ruby a long time ago and after years of practice the process was almost like a muscle memory. And now she had to start from a scratch and teach her the basics she herself mostly forgot. There was also the part about Weiss' aura fluctuating from time to time. It was very similar to the moments when she and Ruby would try to fight for dominance at their fullest, their auras crashing into each other creating a clear but very volatile border. Weiss had something similar but it was taking place inside her body and from what she saw it usually correlated with her mood. And considering that for aura boosting it was necessary to have a very good control over one's aura, having such a mess taking place would lead to nothing happening at best or her aura internally damaging her body at worst. Oh well, she already knew where the infirmary was.

On the other side of the training room Pyrrha was slowly doing her warm-up routine and trying to remember what she already should have known about the process. After ten minutes and some failed attempts, she was able to channel her aura around properly. Now was the part to channel it into her weapon.

"I know!" Ruby exclaimed after five minutes of fumbling around with her explanation. With a wave of her hand a large cloud of petals appeared. With another wave it gathered into a straight line. Soon, there was a ten feet long pole of intertwined petals.

"This will help!" She proudly declared.

"How exactly?" Pyrrha was impressed with the ability but didn't understand how it would help her train.

"Well, the petals are held together by my aura so if you push yours in, it will cancel mine and part of it will fall apart." Rube explained and with a snap of her finger, a few inches of the pole fell apart. "If you can make it the length of your weapon then it's pretty much a success!"

Pyrrha put her hand on the end and focused. Slowly she started to push it in. What Ruby didn't know was that while her aura would serve as an indicator of success, it also had much greater resistance than a normal weapon. And so after a few minutes of trying Pyrrha was able to take away only a handful of petals.

This was going to be a long day... "Ruby?" Pyrrha asked, still kneeling over the laid out pole. "Remember when you mentioned that we could use this place for spars?"

"Damn it! I completely forgot!" Ruby shouted out in realization. "I can give you the access code, so you and Weiss can come as well!" She started to search her pockets for her scroll.

"That's not what I meant." Pyrrha said and let out a soft laugh. "I was thinking about the two of us having a session. If it's alright with you and Yang."

"Oh! Sure." Ruby quickly answered. "It's not like we have a schedule. I'll just tell Blake that we will be taking the room for some time."

How the hell do I do it?! Weiss internally raged. Yang had talked her through the process and now she spent about twenty minutes sitting on the floor, trying to get any progress of boosting at least one part of her body.

"Maybe if instead of complaining you calmed down and focused, you would be more successful…"

Not helping!

Yang was at her wits end with Weiss' training. She didn't want to dig into the whats and whys of her aura but it seemed like unless something was done about it, Weiss wouldn't be able to fight at her fullest. Frankly, the longer she was trying, the stronger the fluctuations were becoming.

"I have an idea, can you calm your aura down and sit still?"

Shut up and let me focus!

.

.

.

Argh! For brothers' sake, fine! Do whatever you want!

Suddenly, the disturbance almost fully disappeared and Weiss' arms and legs were slowly lit up with dim white light. Strange, her aura was alway light blue in color. Yang didn't pay it any mind. As long as she managed to do it and it worked properly, everything was alright. As long as she didn't blow herself up.

But why did she look even more angry now, after she already succeeded?

-BBW-

The previous day of training left most of them with quite a bit of headaches. For Ruby and Blake it was because professor Goodwitch had given them both an earful after Nora almost brought a wall down during a practice. Pyrrha spent all of her aura reserves getting through the damn pole and she was only half-way done when they had to finish. It didn't make sense to her why going through would require so much aura but after a lecture from Yang she learned that she kept wasting her aura in the transition between her hand and the pole. Apparently, while using the aura within the body had almost perfect efficiency, pushing it outside came with greatly diminished returns unless you knew what you were doing. Ruby spent the rest of the evening embarrassed and kept apologizing over and over for forgetting to mention it.

Weiss and Ilia had it the worst. While their teammates were actually practicing, they were sitting in one place trying to do at least something with Yang and Ren babysitting them.

Yang had no problem skipping the spar, saying that she was expecting a delivery and she might have to go pick it up at any moment. Weiss didn't want to see the room in the near future anyway so she was more than content to stay at the dorm.

"3…2…1…Go!" Ruby started their match and immediately lined up the first shot.

Pyrrha blocked that with her shield. Rubber. She felt a bit cheated, Ruby wasn't giving her all into the fight but on the other hand she really didn't want to push the kind girl into compromising her values.

For some reason, Ruby wasn't using her semblance. That allowed Pyrrha to close in rather quickly and start a fierce melee.

It was exhilarating.

She was used to the tournament fight where most people used very common weaponry and rather similar fighting styles.

Now she was dealing with a giant scythe swinging at her at ridiculous angles while keeping up its momentum by firing bullets into the air.

She even had to use her semblance to angle the attack slightly differently unless the blade would catch her legs.

She expected that as soon as she would be able to break through Ruby's guard and get behind the scythe's effective range, it would be an easy victory.

Instead Ruby fired off Crescent Rose once more and Pyrrha had to hurriedly jump over the blade lest it hit her across her back.

With a few more shots Ruby further enlarged the distance. In the small reprieve she took a look at her weapon and briefly switched the hand placements.

The weapon transformed into a warscythe and now Ruby was on the offense. What followed was a flurry of swipes and thrusts, every second of them accompanied by a large caliber bullet.

Finally, Pyrrha was able to bash the weapon away with her shield and go in for a thrust.

Instead of backpedaling or trying to get her weapon into a more optimal position Ruby dropped the warscythe.

From her sleeve, a small sword handle came out and in a flash of light she barely parried Pyrrha's attack.

Pyrrha didn't expect Ruby to have another melee weapon hidden and in a moment of confusion, Ruby was able to kick up her main weapon.

Pyrrha now had to jump back, unless she wanted the large spike at the end of the scythe to be in her face.

Ruby grabbed the weapon with one hand and swung in a large horizontal arc while also jumping away.

Once more there was a pause in the fighting. To Pyrrha's surprise, instead of covering her in rifle fire, Ruby turned off the sword and opened the lid on her weapon's inner compartment.

"Is everything alright?" Pyrrha called out to her. Normally she would be quite offended that somebody decided to end the spar on a whim but she was already quite used to Ruby's various quirks.

"Hopefully." She replied, still more focused on studying the insides of Crescent Rose. "I built my sweetheart with heavy blows in mind. I'm just making sure that magnetism didn't damage any of the smaller parts."

Pyrrha was rooted in place. In one short spar Ruby had figured out her semblance. But instead of trying to deny it or asking Ruby to keep it secret. "I'm sorry!" She knew how much Ruby cared about her weapons. Hell, she pretty much ripped hers out of her hands when she showed it to her for the first time and started gushing about it being a triple-changer.

In response to the apology, Ruby gave her a beaming smile. "It's alright, semblances are a fair game so nothing to sweat. Everything seems fine too." She brushed it off. And even if Pyrrha did damage her weapon, it would just mean that she would have an excuse to spend more quality time with it!

"Speaking of semblances" Pyrrha walked up to Ruby so she would have to shout over half of the room. "Why haven't you been using yours?" That one really puzzled Pyrrha. Ruby could close distances in the blink of an eye and become pretty much invulnerable, yet she only used her weapons.

"Well, when I spar with Yang we agreed not to use it. Yang's is… a bit heavy on collateral damage and Yang always complains about fighting something she can't hit."

"It can't be that bad." Pyrrha laughed it off.

"Ask her if you want." Raby laughed as well. "By the way, what exactly is your semblance? I figured it's something magnet related. You know, things like maximum weight, amount of control and that stuff." She asked as she put her weapon onto her back and pulled out a notepad.

"Ehm… why do you need all of that?" her instructors always told her to keep her semblance secret and as a last resort. Now her leader was asking for everything she knew about it.

"For future training! Also for weapons! Gimme a second." Ruby pulled out a handgun and put it on the floor. "Okay, can you lift it?"

Pyrrha did so.

"Okay… now, can you feel it or you can only know about it while looking at it?" She stood next to her and was waiting for every word.

"... not much. I kinda feel it but it's somewhat foggy?" Pyrrha replied unsurely. She always trained to use her semblance quickly and subtly. Precision, especially at a distance, was never her priority.

"Okay… try to level it horizontally and pull the trigger."

She was able to get it somewhat stable but when she tried to pull the trigger she snapped the whole slide with a loud metallic screech.

"I think I won't be able to shoot a gun that way."

"... what about remotely swinging a sword?"

"Why are you so insistent on it?" Pyrrha asked as she levitated the broken gun into Ruby's hands.

"Because your semblance is one of your best helpers!" Ruby exclaimed and with a twist of her hips she flipped her cloak and summoned a small whirlwind of petals. "And I can't have a friend going out hunting unless they are on their best!" The shining silver orbs looked into Pyrrha's vibrant green and with a beaming smile she made a promise. "I'm going to make sure nothing will be able to hurt you."

"That sounds awfully one-sided." Pyrrha commented. She did appreciate the gesture but… "Shouldn't teammates help each other and not just have the team leader babysit the rest?" She playfully added.

"Well… oh! You are really good with a one-handed sword. I know a few things but I never had a proper instructor for that!"

"Then we have an accord." Pyrrha gave the reaper a warm, honest smile. "I will help you with swordsmanship and you will… show me new ways to kill grimm."

The two of them shook hands to seal the deal, although none of them took it too seriously.

Soon enough they left the arena with Ruby blasting off into a different part of campus.

Hopefully Beacon wouldn't mind if she fell asleep at the forge.

Maybe I should ask Yang to come pick me up.

-BBW-

Weiss gave up on having a normal stay at Beacon.

Pyrrha's spar with Ruby ended with their leader monopolizing the forge and Pyrrha decided that she had some more time to get some practice against training droids.

She felt like a complete dead-weight. And apparently the rumor network worked very fast at Beacon and her teammates were now referred to as NNN. Pyrrha, the iNvincible, Yang, the uNstoppable and Ruby, the uNtouchable. It was really stupid and somehow none of them seemed to even care. Well, Ruby would hide in her cloak but that was about it.

The only silver lining she was able to find was that the Vytal Tournament was firmly in their pocket.

Worst of all, she let the annoyance have her way one time.

And now she wouldn't shut up!

"Please… we both know that you do appreciate me."

No I don't! You are a complete nuisance! Weiss was laying on her bunk in their dorm. She was trying to find anything useful on aura theory.

"Really? I thought that I was quite a helpful presence." She condescendingly replied with a shit-eating grin on her way.

I need to buy a scroll that doesn't have a mirrored screen.

"Unless you want a scroll without a screen to begin with, you are out of luck."

Weiss growled in anger but quickly suppressed it and looked at Yang, who was laying on the opposite bunk. Her eyes were closed and she had earphones on, so it wasn't likely that she noticed but Weiss didn't want her teammates to question her sanity.

Stay quiet now! I'm trying to learn something useful and I don't need to listen to your babbling. I swear, if it isn't Ruby, it's you.

The reflection rolled its eyes. "I already showed you how to do it, you know. If anything, you should be asking me."

Yes, and your plan to help me is to take over my body! I know what you are trying to do!

"As if… I just think it would be easier for you to understand if you could take a backseat and watch from the side how it's done. Although I wouldn't mind a good bath and some pampering. I miss Klein…"

Shower is the best you can get on Beacon so stuff it. I'm not giving you MY body!

"Fine, if you want to shoot yourself in the foot out of stubborness then be my guest. You still could have at least listened to my advice."

I did it like that! I know how to guide my aura!

"No you don't. At least not in a right way. You are guiding it without a destination. That only works with dust casting when the destination is outside of your body. You need to keep it inside. Think of it like a balloon. Then when you need the extra power you puncture the balloon in the right area and-"

Stop lecturing me! You are like father, being all high on power while sitting behind closed doors and doing jack!

"Don't you dare compare me to that asshole!"

"Take it outside you two. I'm trying to relax here."

Weiss turned her neck so sharply that it actually hurt. Yang put away the earphones and was glaring at her in annoyance.

Instead of any intelligent reply, both inhabitants of her body could produce only one thought.

"What?"

"What?"

/

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Replies:

To Kyunin9: It's not magic related. At least not directly. I will make it brief but the three "main'' condition are:

The starting point

Adherence/training

Power source

Now, what qualifies as the starting point will remain a mystery for now, but know that the characters I named either achieved it or are close enough.

Training is self-explanatory, but the training is a bit specialized and unless they know what to do to a certain extent they may fumble around for decades without progress.

Power source is also easy. Simply, normal huntsmen don't have enough aura to be able to fully proceed. Unless their name is Arc and they have unreasonable amounts of it. That's why Yang needs to wear a suit covered in what are pretty much dust batteries. Salem, when it comes to raw power, is the strongest being on Remnant. In Ruby's case, her eyes, being a de-facto divine blessing act as a power source. Same happens with maiden powers.

Salem actually knows what it is and would be able to use it but because of [redacted] she chooses not to.

If you want to spoil the story for yourself then I can PM the full explanation but fic-wise, it will be fully explained… either at the end of Beacon arc or even later.

I haven't read Silver. Frankly, the only Jaune centric fic I have read to some extent was Forged Destiny and I drooped it after some time. As you may have noticed from this story, I'm not the biggest fan of Jaune. He was a waste of screentime during the first 3 volumes and while he did a comeback later on, the abundance of selfinsert garbage spoiled any story with him in it.

/

To bankleo305: Keep the whiterose deman locked up buddy. There will be shipping but

It will most likely be extremely cringy

Right now I'm only certain about some form of freezerburn. For Ruby i'm thinking either Pyrrha, Blake or Penny. Or I might say screw it and achieve the legendary harem ending.

Renora will of course stay.

Shipping was never to be a focus of this story but there will be some drama involved.