NOVEL NEXT Chapter 39: The Demonstration
“S-Sorry, I-!”
“Shh. Who am I? Let’s answer that, shall we?”
To Yang’s credit, she almost immediately realizes she’s erred and tries to backtrack hard when she takes half a moment to remember just who she’s talking to. It’s obvious that her interaction with Raven has made her blood boil, and she’s spoken out of turn. So obvious in fact, that even Yang can see it.
However… Jaune doesn’t let her finish her apology for two reasons. One, he can see in her eyes that she’s not regretting her words because of him, but because of her previous experience with Salem. He’s clearly come across as too nice and kind for Yang to understand who and what he is. Two… he’s already decided that he’s going to show her exactly who and what he is. So backpedaling now is pointless.
Yang is pale as he gives her a grin and a wink. Then, he turns to the other women in the room and spreads his arms apart.
“A proper showing seems to be in order. Yang Xiao-Long has asked what gives me the right to decide if she’s ready to fight Raven Branwen or not. It’s a fair question, given her lack of experience with him. So… let’s show her what gives me that right, shall we?”
Everyone is tense, none more so than Yang and Ruby of course. Jaune doesn’t necessarily want to scare either of them, but at the same time… he doesn’t like being disrespected in his own home. He’s not even sure he can call that a Grimm thing. It’s probably just a ‘him’ thing at this point. Regardless, he takes a moment to look around the room, making eye contact with everyone before nodding to himself as if coming to a decision. Truth be told, he’s already decided what’s about to happen. But there has to be a little bit of showboating, he figures.
“Cinder, Vernal, Raven, and Glynda. It’ll be you four against me. You have five minutes to prepare.”
The four women in question stiffen up, each reacting rather similarly but also in their own unique ways. Then, one by one, they nod their heads in agreement and begin getting ready. Whether that means doing some stretches, or checking over their weapons and gear, it doesn’t really matter. Jaune doesn’t get the chance to watch them, because Ruby, surprisingly enough, is suddenly at his side.
“U-Um, that’s not really necessary. You don’t have to… to fight them. We understand that you’re dangerous…”
Jaune can’t help the amusement that wells up inside of him as he turns to regard the young woman. Summer’s youngest daughter stares back at him with those incredibly dangerous silver eyes of hers. Though, Jaune doesn’t detect a single ounce of ill-intent in Ruby Rose. Honestly, he’s just glad that Salem didn’t choose to remove Ruby’s eyes while he slept. He would have been very upset. The fact that she hadn’t showed just how far the Queen of the Grimm had come in the past couple of years.
Now if only her ex hadn’t gone in the exact opposite direction. It was almost as though the saner and more reasonable Salem had become, the more insane and maddened with paranoia Ozma needed to be in turn. Like they were stuck in an inescapable cycle where Salem’s softening of her approach forced Ozma’s own efforts to grow all the harder… and frankly, illogical.
Regardless, Yang is giving her sister an incredulous look, so Jaune just smiles at Ruby and tilts his head in Yang’s direction.
“Your sister doesn’t seem to agree. She doubts my abilities even now. But don’t you worry. Just keep her company while I go and prove you right.”
Yang sputters when Ruby throws her older sister a pouty glare, as if to say ‘look what you’ve done’. Finally, the blonde seems to properly understand that Jaune isn’t playing around… and that he also would not have gone so far as to challenge all FOUR of the women he’d challenged if he wasn’t fully confident in his abilities to handle them all.
Suddenly, Yang glances over at them all and blanches for a moment before looking back to him.
Jaune can’t help but snort in amusement, one brow raising at Yang’s audacity. To not only ask him to show mercy to one of his opponents, but also not include all the others? The girl was certainly something else. Regardless, he doesn’t answer her. He just heads on over to one end of the room.
The five minutes have come and gone before anyone knows it, leaving Jaune facing off against the four women who are all standing across from him looking… relatively uncertain. Or at least, not entirely willing to attack him. Technically, they’re the perfect size of a normal Hunting Squad.
But of course, there’s nothing team-like about the group that Jaune now faces. Cinder, Vernal, Raven, and Glynda are about the furthest thing from a team that there is. And Jaune is including the ill-fated ‘team’ led by Winter Schnee to try and assassinate his Queen in that list. They beat out even that sorry lot, to be frank.
Still, Jaune lifts a hand and beckons them all forward.
“Come on then. Come at me, you four.”
There’s a beat of hesitancy… and then Cinder draws her bow and fires an arrow that Jaune easily dodges. From there, the fighting begins. It’s… rather scattered. Their efforts could certainly be a lot better than they are. Cinder and Glynda are both ranged fighters, with Cinder shooting arrow after arrow while Glynda uses her semblance to fling things at him telekinetically.
Meanwhile, Raven and Vernal are both melee fighters, wading in and striking out at him with their swords. Jaune dodges around all of them of course, easily avoiding their attacks, while his own attacks take the form of gentle slaps across the backs of their heads, or outstretched feet for them to trip over.
Jaune is playing with them and they all know it. More than that though, they’re all very clearly afraid to go all out. None of them is truly trying to hurt him. They’re just trying to get through this little demonstration. Unfortunately, that rather ruins the point, doesn’t it?
A glance over at Ruby and Yang only confirms that for Jaune. Ruby’s eyes are sparkling with excitement, the younger of the sisters clearly enjoying the spectacle. But Yang… Yang has her arms folded over her chest and a frown marring her pretty face. Yang at least knows that that’s all it is. A spectacle. It’s not a real fight, and so of course Yang doesn’t feel like it’s really worth her time. She can tell that neither Jaune nor his opponents are taking this seriously.
Letting out a rueful chuckle, Jaune stops in the midst of the four women. Cinder and Vernal are already panting, but then to be fair they’d been fighting each other before he arrived so it’s not exactly like they’ve had much time to rest or recover. Meanwhile, Glynda and Raven are barely breathing heavily. Still, when he pauses, they all pause too, almost like they’re expecting him to end the spar there or something.
… But that wouldn’t do. No, that wouldn’t do at all.
“Let’s kick things up a notch, girls. And since you all seem to need some incentive, I’ll go ahead and sweeten the deal a little bit. If any or even all of you manage to land a blow on me… I promise I will consider one favor each that you four might ask from your King.”
That gets their attention. Eyes widen on all four faces as his words hit their ears and they realize what he’s offering. Jaune barely has time to grin before they’re back on the attack just like that. And this time? This time they’re not holding back. Cinder’s arrows are suddenly dust-empowered, Vernal is suddenly using her ring-blades’ capacity to utilize lightning dust, and both Raven and Glynda are suddenly scarily focused in a way that they definitely weren’t before.
Amidst all of this, Jaune makes out a hitched breath from Yang as he’s very nearly struck by all four women right off the bat. Wouldn’t that have been embarrassing, to make such an offer and then immediately fail to live up to his own bravado?
But no. He’s only very nearly struck. In the end, dodging among their attacks is still possible, it’s just not as easy. Still, Jaune can’t fight them all with kid gloves anymore. Especially not when they’re trying their damnedest to land that blow and get their favor. Cinder and Vernal are particularly desperate, likely because they recognize that not only are they worse fighters than Raven and Glynda, but they’re already dead tired from their previous sparring.
It's not fair to them by any stretch of the imagination, but then the world rarely is. Jaune promises he’ll make it up to them… by ensuring NONE of the four women manage to extract a favor from him in this fight.
Moving around Vernal’s strikes, Jaune’s hand comes down on the back of her neck in a chop, disabling her in a heartbeat as she goes down in a heap. At the same time, Cinder pulls apart her bow, turning it into two shortswords that Jaune knows she’s trained extensively with. Darting in under the cover of Raven’s much more powerful attacks and Glynda’s constant projectile-flinging, Cinder aims to slip a blade across Jaune’s ribs, scoring a hit that won’t hurt him but will still count for the purposes of this contest.
Unfortunately, she never manages to land the blow, Jaune’s hand closing around her neck and clotheslining Cinder right then and there. If he’d insisted on holding onto her, she might have had a chance of retaliating, but he throws her against the far wall a moment later, getting a cry as she strikes hard and slumps to the ground, just as much out of the fight as Vernal.
With the two lesser fighters down for the count, things don’t get easier for Jaune, contrary to what most might expect. No, they get harder. Neither Glynda nor Raven are team-oriented fighters. Glynda might have taught students teamwork and all of that, but she hadn’t fought as PART of a team in just as long as Raven. Their lives had taken different paths, but they were still both solo types at the end of the day.
As such, having lesser warriors like Vernal and Cinder removed from the battlefield gave the two more room to work with, rather than limiting their options. Since they weren’t really working with the younger women in the first place, having them out of the way was only a good thing.
As well, unlike Cinder and Vernal, who had gotten in each other’s way early on in the fighting, Raven and Glynda were both experienced and capable enough fighters to be able to bounce off of each other, despite their almost complete lack of actual teamwork.
More than all of that, the two women were highly motivated to land a blow on Jaune and ask for their favor, whatever it might be. As he dips, dodges, and weaves around Raven’s sword strikes, while at the same time having to move out of the way of Glynda’s attempts to box him in, Jaune lets out a single breath… and smiles. It would seem it’s time to pull out his trump card.
Raven’s next swing is an overhead one, coming in with as much speed and force as the former bandit leader can properly manage. Jaune can see the triumph appear in the red-eyed woman’s gaze when instead of dodging, he holds up his hand. After all, she won’t be able to cut through his bones, he already proved as much back in the forests of Mistral, but she didn’t need to, she only needed to land a blow.
Unfortunately for Raven, that wasn’t happening. Jaune’s Aura comes roaring to life. Unlike normal human beings who have their Aura Awakened, Jaune’s isn’t always ‘on’ so to speak. Or rather, it’s more like he has to push extremely hard to get it to come out of his skin, like it’s all nestled just below the surface.
He’s essentially the exact opposite of Summer, who has expanded her Aura so far that she can use it to see. In comparison, Jaune has to work hard to get it to extrude even an inch from his skin. And work hard he does, the entire room lighting up as he blocks Raven’s sword strike not with his actual flesh this time, but with his hand.
At the same time, Glynda is not idle. She sends a spear at the back of his head from a nearby weapon’s rack, trying to catch him off guard while he’s standing still and busy with Raven. She fails, of course, Jaune’s other hand coming up and grabbing the spear in midair right behind his head.
Both Raven and Glynda look gobsmacked as Jaune, a Grimm Humanoid, blazes with the light of his Awakened Soul. His Aura flares even brighter as he pushes Raven’s sword away and throws the spear into a nearby wall. And then… he moves.
The fight doesn’t last longer than half a minute more after that, and even then it’s a testament to Glynda and Raven’s skills that they’re both able to survive a full thirty seconds once he’s gone on the offensive. But ultimately, they’re both taken down soon enough, with none of their attempts to attack him afterwards managing to get through his aura and actually touch his skin. Not a single blow lands by the time they collapse to their knees, the exhibition match completely done.
Smiling, enjoying how good it feels to let his Aura out to play, Jaune studies himself for a moment before turning to face Yang and Ruby. He’s expecting them both to be a little cowed and maybe even a little afraid if he’s being honest. He’s ready to handle their fear. However… he’s not ready to handle their adoration.
“That was AWESOME!”
“You were soooo cool! You went swoosh and swish, and then bang and clang a-and… and!”
“And you took them all on like it was nothing! Holy shit, can you teach us to do that?”
“Yeah! Train us to fight like you! I’m fast! And Yang’s tough! We can do it!”
One thing Jaune was not expecting after all of his interactions with the sisters so far… was this. The two of them suddenly tag-teaming him, having apparently came away from watching his one-sided battle with the four women not afraid… but in awe of his skill, strength, and might.
Blinking owlishly, Jaune considers for a moment. Technically, he COULD give them both a little fighting lesson until Summer woke up, he supposed…