Winter Break Part 7

Jaune barely had time to raise the practice-sword before his father's swing came raining down on top of his head; a loud clacking noise, echoed throughout the canopy as their swords met, Jaune raised the wooden sword in retaliation and lifted the weapons away from his head as he pushed back.

Lance smiled at the strength Jaune was showing, however, this wasn't enough, a slight push of his Aura made Jaune fall to his knees.

Jaune struggled against Lance's power, but when he sensed Lance's Aura his jaw dropped.

His father's Aura was at least, 2 to 3 times stronger than his old self, it suddenly spiked even more as his father activated his Semblance.

"My Semblance is called Aura Boost Mode, it amplifies my overall Aura by 25 times, and anywhere in between, if I so choose," Lance explained.

"That's BS!" Jaune shouted as his father kicked him in the gut.

Lance chased after Jaune's rolling body and swung down his sword while Jaune was still on the ground.

Jaune rolled to the side to see Lance's sword stop inches away from the mat, Jaune pumped his Aura full throttle, with his unnatural strength, he let out a shout as he kicked, Lance smiled and hopped over his leg while kicking him in the face, before Jaune could get up, his father used the Aura Sword Technique to encase the practice-sword in Aura.

Jaune looked on in surprise, "How can simple wood handle our Aura?"

"Oh, you can do this too right? I almost forgot, however, your Aura Control for this technique sucks," Lance said causing Jaune's face to turn red.

He knew that his Aura Sword was still at level 5 and it frustrated him to no end, yet here his father was, doing what he thought was impossible.

"First thing, you have to practice using weak objects to send your aura through, my training consisted of turning a twig into a sword, be thankful you have a practice-sword, as for your Aura Skin, it's perfect, your Aura Armor is a little lacking as well; your image of the armor and shield is a little off. Honestly, the only thing you have going for you right now; is your abnormal strength." Lance chopped at Jaune causing him to jump back.

Jaune looked at his own sword and shook his head, "Okay, but I got this far on my own, I didn't have you to teach me these things, and if you had taught me sooner, do you think I would be in this predicament?"

Lance suddenly hit him with a spinning kick to the head, "I'm teaching you now, to get smart with me, you may a little be older in spirit, but you are still my son."

Jaune snapped and jumped at his father, he knew that the moment he attempted to put his Aura in his wooden blade, it would explode, however, he was planning on that. The moment Jaune came into contact with his father's Aura, the wooden sword exploded and sent debris everywhere, Lance focused and hardened his Aura Skin so the wooden projectiles wouldn't do anything to his body, however, the moment Jaune grabbed his wrists, his eyes widened and he let go of the sword to jump back.

"Not bad, trying to use my own Aura Sword against me, at least you have brains," Lance gave a compliment making Jaune smile.

"Hey, I was called a good leader, even when I had no skills to brag about, I had to use my head in order to make up for the lack of real combat skills." Jaune pointed the new wooden sword at Lance's head, "Now you're unarmed."

"Am I?" Lance replied as he raised his hand out and created a sword entirely out of Aura, Jaune's jaw dropped as he said, "This is true mastery of the Aura Sword Technique."

Jaune blinked and it was all over, he felt his body go weightless as his father kicked his feet from out under him and pointed the sword at his neck once he hit the ground.

"I didn't even see you move," Jaune looked over to see an afterimage of his father fading away like a shade, "I'll admit, this Aura Shade Technique is a step up from the usual creations I've seen, but, there are ways you can use it that you're not thinking of, remember, when power fails you, it's tactics that will save your life. That idea you had with the cockroach was a pretty good idea."

His father kicked him off the ground and said, "Get a twig, we're not leaving here until you can reinforce that piece of wood until its as hard as steel."

Jaune grunted in pain as he stood upright and said, "That's what she said."

Lance lifted his brow and a soft chuckle escaped his lips, "What was that?"

"Sorry, been hanging with Yang a little too much." Jaune pulled out a large branch from the trees he had taken in, he then cut off a few dozen sword length pieces of wood off it.

After taking on into his hand, he looked at his father and said, "So, about this whole reincarnation deal?"

Lance sat down and undid his Semblance, "What about it, we believe you, Jaune."

"That's it!? We, believe you? Don't you have questions!?" Jaune said as he raised the stick into a proper sword stance.

"Of course, we have a million, but we don't want to rush you, I know that you've changed, you may not be the Jaune that ran off to Beacon, but you are still our Jaune," Lance said figuring this is what was bothering him.

"So you still consider me your son?" Jaune raised his eyebrow.

"Of course you moron, it doesn't matter what timeline you came from, Ozpin said it best, you have the same soul or else the fusion would be impossible. You are still my son."

Jaune smiled and hid his embarrassed expression, "You know, I think that I would have liked this rougher side of you; you're usually so..."

"Tame?" Lance finished, "Well, you're my son, and I love you, but when I train people, those emotions have to go, now get to work maggot."

Jaune chuckled as he channeled his Aura into the twig, just a bit, however, even just the smallest amount caused the stick to blow up.

"Again!" Lance demanded.

Jaune picked up another twig and continued to practice for several hours, the sun had already set and it was getting close to midnight, Jaune had gone through almost the whole branch that he pulled out from his inventory, his hands were covered in blood from receiving constant explosion of the twigs he was trying to reinforce, however, he never once cried out in pain.

This both impressed his father and made him sad at the same time, he was giving Jaune pointers every now and then allowing him to progress much faster than alone.

Jaune held the new stick in his hand and calmed himself to the point where his entire body went numb, the only thing that existed was his Aura and the stick in front of him.

Jaune took a deep breath and slowly channeled his Aura through the core of the twig, unlike before where he would just use a clump of his Aura to shape, he sent in millions of tiny drops of Aura no bigger than a blood cell, he noticed that on this level, it was much easier to form shapes, and he could move his Aura through things like the circulatory system inside the wood, only instead of carrying water to the leaves, this was filled with his Aura.

Little by little Jaune began to focus his Aura outside the stick, it slowly rose up, almost like a white mist, and with a single focus of Jaune's will, it shaped into the form of a sword.

"Not bad, that training cheat of yours comes in handy, it took me 3 weeks to do what you just did in six hours," Lance clapped his hands.

Jaune looked at his Aura Sword and Armor Technique, they were both level 7 now, he suddenly realized that a new Aura Control Skill popped up, it was called Advanced Aura Control, and it was only Level 1.

Jaune shook his head and looked at his hands, "I did it."

Lance walked over to Jaune and said, "Heal your wounds, I can't have your mother beating the crap out of me when she sees your current condition."

Jaune laughed and quickly began recovering his wounds, he then looked to his father and asked, "Why didn't you run?"

Lance gave Jaune a stare and said, "Because this whole place is like my family, I couldn't leave them behind, and I know it was the same for you, why else would you come back."

Jaune lowered his head, "It won't happen this time, I have a plan, but I'll need some help to pull it off. The key is the Barrier Technology, it's expensive as hell to make one, but after the fall of the 4 kingdoms, money really isn't a problem. I need to get into contact with Ironwood."

"James Ironwood?" Lance lifted a brow.

"Yeah, you know him?" Jaune asked with a surprised expression.

"He was on a rival team back when I attended Beacon, our sister team STRQ really butted heads with them often."

"So that's how you know Ruby's mom, you never talk about your time at Beacon," Jaune tilted his head, "You were in Team GLRY(Glory) right, Gwen, Lance, Raiden, and Yuki?"

Lance closed his eyes in pain as he heard the last two names in his team, "Raiden died in combat against the Grimm while Yuki was carrying his child, because of the situation of a Grimm Stampede, the danger, plus their lack of equipment made for a terrible situation, Yuki died giving birth, and her child was lost in the evacuation. There was nothing left of the two, your mother and I searched for years to try and find their child, but, once they get into the child care system, things could go very wrong."

Jaune frowned, he placed his hands on his father's back and said, "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"You would have liked Raiden, he was a funny guy with loads of energy, the dude could hardly sit still, Yuki was soft, passive, very shy, the two were like Yin and Yang, complete opposites that fell for each other."

Jaune smiled, "What about you and mom,"

Lance laughed, "That woman, she put me in my place, so I went to follow her to the academy to prove her wrong."

"Ohh, tell me more." Jaune sat down and waited for his father's story.

"Well, I was kind of like you, my brothers forced me to keep my Aura sealed, one day I thought, since I'm the best with the sword, then I don't need Aura to fight Grimm."

"You're kidding me?" Jaune asked with a look of surprise.

"Nope, I went out and managed to slay quite a few Beowolves, however, an Alpha appeared and well," Lance shot back.

"You got your ass stomped," Jaune said with a grin.

"Your mother came along and saved me, she berated me, called me a moron, and then said I was weak. Of course, she didn't know I just got through killing a few packs of Beowolves seconds earlier," Jaune's dad bragged.

"So, what happened?" Jaune tilted his head.

"I asked her to unlock my Aura," Lance said with a depressed expression.

"Whoa, you used mom!" Jaune frowned.

"I'm not proud of it, but well we both regret that day a bit, or wish it was different, but we got into an argument about if I had Aura that I could wipe the floor with her." Lance scratched the back of his head.

"And?" Jaune looked at his father while tapping his foot.

"And nothing, she unlocked my Aura and beat me into submission, I had a lot, but didn't know how to use it."

Jaune laughed at his father and said, "Hahaha! I guess some things never change. I was the same way with Pyrrha, you should have seen how cocky I got when we first spared."

Lance chuckled, "Well, anyways, I couldn't go home after unlocking my Aura against my parent's wishes, so I followed your mother."

"Wait, mom said you fell for her at first sight and followed her home after giving up your title?" Jaune said with a confused expression.

"More like I wanted to beat her in combat to prove I was superior in combat, man I was a real prick to her back then, I was silent, secretive, and really unresponsive to your mothers attempts to pull me out of my shell, it was always, fight me, fight me, fight me," Lance sighed.

"So, how did you two fall for each other?" Jaune asked.