Greeked Lightning Reflexes

As you continued to fall towards the ground, you flailed around helplessly while yelling out. When you noticed that your flight path took you towards a tree, you put less effort into flailing and more into yelling. Just as you were about to give up and brace for impact, you were rocketed away by a javelin impaling itself into your hoodie and stealing some of your forward momentum. Your auraless body did not take the sudden direction change well as the wind was ripped away from your lungs and did not come back until you finally came to rest, stuck in a different tree.

"Thaaaank you..." You say to no one in particular once you were allowed breath again. Even if you didn't know where your savior was, you figured they were close enough to hear you if they were close enough to save you.

"I'm sorry!" Pyrrha's far-off voice responded back, faintly.

Well, judging from the sound of her voice, you figured your hero would take a while to reach you and retrieve her weapon. With that in mind, you took a moment to rest before immediately getting to work trying to pry Miló from the tree and set yourself free. No reason to let her do all the work, not to mention how you'd look less pathetic if you were waiting for her on the ground instead.

You grumbled at the spear as it seemed to be lodged into the tree rather well. While doing that, you noticed that the sound of everyone's landing strategies faded away and were replaced by the sound of Ruby talking to someone. Oh, she must've found someone already. Good for her! You looked down when you stopped hearing her, feeling like someone was looking at you, to see Weiss staring at you incredulously.

"heh heh, ehh..." you meekly laughed and gave an embarrassed wave.

"...No," Weiss said as she turned around and started walking away.

"Don't go!" You yelled out while holding out your arm before she could leave or be out of earshot.

Weiss stopped in her tracks, turned around, and returned to your tree. She took a moment to think about her options before sighing deeply and looking up at you. "Do you need any help?"

"Yes, I would greatly appreciate some help."

"Wait! We're supposed to be teammates!" Ruby shouted out as she appeared from the same patch of land Weiss did. After looking up and noticing you, she adopted her usual smile. "Oh, hey Jaune!"

"Hi, Ruby." You said, mildly less embarrassed to have Ruby see you like this.

Weiss ignored Ruby as she impaled her sword into the ground and created a trail of near-black purple glyphs up towards you. "Do you have a partner yet?"

You continued to try to wrench the weapon from the tree, albeit with less effort from splitting your focus, while you talked to Weiss. "Not yet, and I'd love to have you as my partner, but it seems like you've already found someone. Haven't you?"

"No."

"Yes you did! We made eye contact and everything!" Ruby exclaimed. It wasn't like she was too stoked about being partnered with her either, but she wasn't going to get in trouble all because Ms. Bossy Skirt didn't want to follow the rules.

"Is that true?" You say before remembering that you own Weiss and quickly adding a command. "Tell me the truth."

"...Yes."

"Wow, Weiss, I didn't think you were much of a rulebreaker. I mean, I thought the headmaster's instructions were pretty clear."

At the insinuation, Weiss' concentration broke, which shattered the glyphs, and her face turned red. "What? I- But- I mean-" She sputtered out while Ruby giggled softly in the background. Once she got wind of that, she gathered her strength, took a deep breath, and centered yourself. "Well, what about you? You don't have a partner yet, and I was the first person you saw, so there must be something in place for this kind of situation."

---

"Do we have a plan for this scenario?" Glynda asked Ozpin as they watched the scene unfold from his scroll.

Ozpin took a sip from his mug of cocoa before responding. "Let's see how this plays out first."

---

As you thought about that and if it'd be okay for you to partner up with Weiss anyway because of that fact, you saw Pyrrha appear from the bushes. "Jaune? Are you okay?"

"Oh, just...hanging around," you joked, which earned you a light chuckle from Pyrrha and Ruby, as well as an eyeroll from Weiss.

At the same time, you couldn't help but notice that you had a perfect view of Pyrrha's cleavage. Well, you already promised the gods that you'd do better at actually doing, and they delivered, so you put a reminder in the back of your mind to set something up between you two.

"That said, if you could be so kind as to remove this..." You said, gesturing to Miló. Soon after, Pyrrha aimed her hand at it and pulled it off of you with very little effort. You fell to the ground with a soft "ooph".

"Sorry..." Pyrrha apologises.

"It's alright," you respond after picking yourself off the ground and dusting your shoulders. "You wouldn't happen to have a partner, would you?"

"No, I hadn't run into anybody before you," she said, showing no concern for the other two girls near you. Looks like your ownership of her doubts held up. "What about you?"

You turned your head towards the heiress. "Sorry, Weiss, but it looks like everything worked out. Guess you're still with Ruby."

"Terrific..." she muttered before getting pulled into a hug from behind by Ruby.

You watched as Weiss struggled to escape said hug. "Now play nice, Weiss," you tell her, "I don't want my possessions not getting along." You really didn't. The last thing you wanted was for your girls to grind against each other. Not in this way and especially if they were stuck together as partners for the next four years. It wouldn't be too bad of you to fix that yourself. Just some minor taking advantage of your situation to help them out.

"What? Both of them?" Pyrrha said to herself, confused and slightly alarmed, before her eyes spotted Ruby's mark as well. "Oh, that makes sense."

"What? But...Alright, fine," she deflated in Ruby's arms.

"Yay! Thanks, Jaune," Ruby said.

"You play nice too, Ruby. She's clearly uncomfortable in that hug," you say while giving both of them some sympathy for their situation.

"Thank you," Weiss said after being released from Ruby's grasp.

You clapped your hands together as you remembered the situation you're all in. "Okay, so, everyone's got their partner, right? Let's go find that abandoned temple!"

The four of you walked together. For everyone else, it was just a matter of convenience. You were all already together, so you might as well have. It wasn't like this whole thing was a competition. They never mentioned it, but you probably weren't being graded on who got there first. Not to mention that between your two possessions and your partner, nobody had a problem with walking with you.

But for you, the reason was a bit more...subterfuge. You still didn't know how to fight and as great as Pyrrha was, it wouldn't have hurt to surround yourself with more excellent fighters. Not to mention that Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch were watching everyone and it would be less suspicious for you not to fight if there were three people fighting everything instead.

As you allowed yourself to get lost in thought again, both for thinking how best to hide your lack of fighting and when/how to involve yourself with Pyrrha, you missed when said woman moved a tree branch out of her way. The same branch sprung back as it left her hand and smacked you in the face, leaving a mark and knocking you onto your ass.

"Jaune!" Ruby and Pyrrha said in unison, the latter being a step faster than the former in regards to attempting to help you up.

"Sorry... Are you okay?" She said, extending a hand to you.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a scratch," you said as you accepted it and got back on your feet.

"Why didn't you activate your Aura?" Ruby questioned from behind, seeing the gash not healing.

"Huh?" you responded. What was 'Aura'?

"Your Aura," said Pyrrha.

"Gesundheit."

"Jaune, do you...know what Aura is?" Weiss spoke up, very confused as to how someone could make their way into a Huntsman academy without knowing what Aura was...

You scoffed at the question and planned to improvise to stop them from questioning things. "Of course I do! Do you know what Aura is?" Perfect! No one will suspect a thing!

Everyone found that response varying levels of suspicion. Weiss looked at you incredulously again. Ruby was concerned over your lack of basic knowledge, but figured that if she could get in early, then maybe you had something going on that would explain everything. Pyrrha was mildly upset at such a situation, but her ability to doubt if you'd be fine never surfaced.

"Aura is the manifestation of our soul. It bears our burdens and shields our hearts. Have you ever felt like you were being watched without knowing someone was there?" Pyrrha explained.

"Uh...yeah?"

"With practice, our aura can be our shield. Everyone has it, even animals," she continued.

“What about the Grimm?” You asked.

"No, they don't have souls," Ruby piped up before Pyrrha continued.

"By baring your soul outward as a force, you can deflect harm. All of our equipment and weapons are conduits for Aura. You protect yourself and your soul when fighting."

“Oh, like a force field!” you exclaimed excitedly.

"Sure, like a force field," Weiss face-palmed while saying that. She couldn't believe her owner was getting a basic summary of Aura in the middle of initiation!

Pyrrha took a step closer and touched the side of your head. "Close your eyes and concentrate."

"Uh...Okay..." you say as you do what you're told.

"It is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death." As she recites these words, you can feel your body grow slightly warm. "I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee." She stumbles slightly from fatigue, Weiss taking a step towards her before realizing that she was fine.

As you open your eyes again, you catch the tail end of your body glowing as you feel the wound closing and healing itself. "Whoa..." You look down and see your partner slightly hunched over. "Pyrrha?"

"I'm alright," she reassures you as she gets back on steady feet.

"What was that?" you ask.

"Oh, just some ritual. It helps me focus. I used my Aura to unlock yours, but the energy you have now is your own. You have a lot of it." As Pyrrha finished saying that, Ruby had a look of realization spread across her face. She figured that must be why you were allowed in.

"Wow... Thanks, Pyrrha," you say.

"We should keep going," Weiss piped up, slightly irritated by the momentary distraction, before the four of you continued towards the abandoned temple.

After a few minutes and a misadventure with a Death Stalker (which you all ultimately ran from), your little group made their way to your destination: a circular stone temple that held a bunch of platforms within it. As your group got closer, you realized two things: On the platforms were a bunch of chess pieces, and Yang and Blake were already there.

"Hey guys!" You call out to the two of them. Yang waves back while Blake just kind of stares at you.

"Are these the relics we're supposed to grab?" Weiss says as she looks at the game pieces around her.

"Some of them are missing. More than there should be missing," you say while glancing at Yang and Blake's, "Looks like we weren't the first ones here."

"Hey, that's what I said!" Yang exclaims excitedly, "Great minds, am I right?"

She holds up her arm for a high five, which hangs there for a few moments before you finally decide to humor her and slap it.

"Whatever. Can we just grab ours and go?" Weiss said impatiently. Before anyone could respond or do anything, rustling noises and a faint growl could be heard from a distance.

"Yeah, let's do that," you said. You looked over all the available chess pieces remaining. You didn't exactly know how the teams were going to be set up, but you understood that all the second- and third-years were in teams of four and, excluding the missing ones you can't know about one way or another, there seemed to be four of each type, two white and two black. Not wanting to deal with the headache of having your two possessions on someone else's team ('that headache can come later', you think to yourself), you grab all four of the rooks that were still available and tossed the black ones to Ruby and Weiss while tossing one of the white ones to your partner.

"Awesome! Let's get moving!" Ruby said.

"See you guys later," you yelled back over your shoulder at Yang and Blake before they were too far away again.

Ten minutes into your trek back to the academy, things were going well. You got the relics, the Grimm were being taken care of by your posse, and Weiss and Ruby kept their bickering to a minimum, like the good possessions they were.Minimum being the key word, as they still weren't perfectly in sync and they couldn't always hold back their tongues.

A misstep here and an improperly chosen word there, and the two of them would find themselves back at it. It would've been a real drag on you, the thought that your possessions were always going to be like this, if it weren't for your saving grace: your partner.

Pyrrha has been an absolute delight this entire time; She saved you from falling to your death. She saved you from the headache that was the partner situation between Weiss, Ruby, and yourself. She unlocked and taught you about your Aura. She had not a single bad thing to say about you or your lack of fighting, although you had to remind yourself that that one was your own doing with her doubts. She was efficient and talented in the ways she fended off the Grimm herself. She had her eye on the prize and was on top of things.

Not to mention that she was a knockout. Her eyes, her face, beautiful hair, beautiful body, slender arms, well-sculpted legs, shapely ass, gorgeous tits...

As far as you could tell, she was the best possible choice for a partner you could've accidentally gotten. The total package. A beautiful warrior.

Such a moment of peaceful thinking, praising, and ogling was interrupted by the, unfortunately recurring, sounds of a Grimm approaching them (this time a Beowolf), Weiss and Ruby fighting it themselves, and then fighting with each other after it was gone.

"You absolute dolt!" Weiss yelled out as she picked herself off the ground. "Are you even capable of watching where you're going?"

"I said I was sorry!" Ruby replied as she just watched her partner get up by herself. She had already made the mistake of trying to help her up, only to have her hand slapped away and more venomous words thrown at her for her efforts. It wasn't a mistake she felt like repeating again.

You let out a tired sigh at the scene before you. "Is this going to be a thing with the two of you? You're partners. You need to find a way to be okay with each other for the next four years. Can you please try harder to get along?"

Weiss turned her head in a rather tsundere-like fashion while Ruby merely looked down and grumbled something inaudible. While they were your possessions and would do what you said, it seemed like their problems with each other wouldn't be fixed that quickly. They were still themselves, after all, much to your own frustration.

Unfortunately for all four of you, the collective negativity was so bad and so unable to be masked by Pyrrha that the worst thing possible happened.

The Death Stalker.

After you all escaped the cave it was in and gave it the slip, it seemed to have found you all again. This time, however, you all were out in the open. Running wasn't going to be an option and the time spent in between visits from this particular beast saw that everyone's aura was more drained from additional fights thanks to the red and white beacons beside you.

"I knew we should've just finished it off," Weiss complained while getting into a battle-ready stance. She was so certain that she alone could've taken it out before, but if her owner said to run, she ran.

"Don't worry, everyone," Pyrrha said optimistically while entering a battle-ready stance of her own, "We got this."

Well, this was it. There was a giant monster in front of you all, blocking the way forward. Everyone's aura wasn't at their best, except for you, on account of the lack of fighting you've done. You couldn't run because it'd just find you again. You couldn't hide because you were being watched and unlike the other times, you'd be pressing your luck if you did nothing while the three of them fought off this threat.

Like it or not, now was the time for some action.