On the Way

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Like he did every Friday, he gave Nora a big hug at the end of the last lesson of the day and waved his goodbye as she dragged Ren off for dinner. Nora wasn't a very patient person at the best of times, but Fridays were when they served the Mistralian menu, and she refused to be even a minute behind the rest of the students arriving for dinner. It was mostly fried rice dishes with a variety of meats, or meat wraps using rice, but Nora loved it. Enough to burn through most of her monthly stipend on more than she could eat, boxing up the extra to eat through the weekend.

And Ren loved that it saved him having to cook dinners, so letting her drag him off was a win-win.

"I almost feel bad for him, you know." His partner murmured beside him, watching the other half of their team vanish in the crowd. Hugging her book bag to her chest she chuckled and smiled thinly, "Nora is a handful for three of us, much less two.And tonight, he will be only one, assuming all goes well."

"It'll go fine, Pyr." He reassured her, patting her on the back and smiling when she stiffened. "Don't stress out over it."

"I'm… I'm not stressing out over it." She tried, sighing weakly and rolling her eyes when he gave her a knowing look. "Right," she sighed, smiling warmly, "your mute friend has made you far more perceptive than when we met. I'm still adjusting to that, I'm afraid."

"Yeah." He nodded, turning to head to their dorm with her. As they walked, he spoke, "You don't have to be so nervous, though. It'll go just fine."

"I mean…" She sighed, hugging her pack against her stomach more tightly as they walked, "I know you know your friends, Jaune, but I don't. I can't know this will go well, beyond trusting your words. And them. And considering who we're meeting…"

"They're not bad people, Pyr." He sighed again, "Even if you don't get along, they'll just want you to… You know."

"Stay quiet?" She guessed, dropping her tone as they entered a sparsely populated hallway. The last one, before they reached their dorm's hallway at least, which was empty with everyone off for dinner. "Protect their little havens? Enable them?"

"Don't say it like it's some… Horrible evil, Pyrrha." He argued, giving her a look, his brows furrowing with his own kind of anxiety now. She frowned, avoiding his gaze entirely, and he sighed, "Just… Please, just trust me, Pyrrha. If these were really bad people, you know I'd turn them in, friends or not. Even with what that would mean for me."

"I know, Jaune." She smiled more warmly, this time, and relaxed her crushing hold on the innocent bag of books in her arms. "I know, I promise." She reiterated seriously, "There's just… Well, there's a lot going on, in my head, right now. Like, a lot, and a lot of emotions beside it."

"I get that." He nodded, trying to be satisfied with it. "I'm just… I guess I'm anxious, too. About what you'll do, how you'll get along with my friends. I love you, Pyr, like an eighth sister. A-And I love them, too. And I just… Want everyone I care about so much to at least tolerate each other, even if they don't get along."

"I know." She nodded as they reached their dorm and she fished out her Scroll to unlock it for them. "I will try," she promised, "if only because you asked me to, Jaune. I make no promise as to the results of my trying, but I will try nonetheless."

"Thanks, Pyr." He smiled, giving her a simple, one-armed hug as he brushed by and into the room. She stiffened at the affection, surprised more than anything from what he could see on her face, but relaxed after a second. Dropping his bag on his bed he went to get his spare clothes and said, over his shoulder, "I'll grab the first shower if you're fine with it? We have about an hour before our flight."

"I was… Going to use the communal shower, actually." Pyrrha answered, waving a hand at Crocea Mors at the foot of his bed. "I supposed I would use the chance to retrieve Milo and Akouo. And beside the matter, a hot shower to relax for a time sounds nice before our, well, our venture."

"Works for me." He shrugged, grabbing his city clothes and turning for their shower before pausing and offering quietly, "I'll see you when I get back?"

"Mhm." The woman nodded, gathering up her own clothes in a simple Beacon backpack and turning for the door.

He watched her go without another word, pulling the door shut behind her with a quiet little click and then the buzz of the electronic lock settling in. A moment passed and he sighed, plopping down on his bed and resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Gods, this was not how he'd planned to start his weekend… Okay, maybe the 'Neo kicking his ass' part that he was pretty damn sure was coming was, but all the stress with Pyrrha?

Yeah, no, definitely not something he had in his plans.

"It'll be worth it in the end." He didn't add the 'hopefully' part for fear of jinxing it and stood, headed for their bathroom.

A hot shower sounded very nice, right about now…

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Like always, he tucked his light armor into the bottom of his pack, under his spare clothes, and pulled on the rest of his mostly normal looking outfit.

His jeans were rather plain in appearance, but well made and sturdy. It looked basically the same as his older pants did, but was a darker blue and made for a Huntsman, with thicker layers of insulated denim that would hold up well against wear and tear as well as the hits he'd take. His hoodie, though, was… Well,just one of half a dozen matte black hoodies he'd bought with the money he got from Roman.

The lack of his technically not trademark since he'd get sued if he said that Pumpkin Pete rabbit on the front was kind of a problem, but...

"Well, at least it's warm." He murmured, pulling the hood up just to see how it felt. It was thick and larger than he needed, strictly speaking. Large enough that he could hide his face and hair in it easily enough.

"As little as I need to do that…" He chuckled, "Probably better people downtown recognize me, honestly. Then they know not to mess with me, thanks to Neo."

And Roman too, he supposed.

But he was pretty certain it was mostly because Neo was the single most terrifying, stab happy little murder loli in the Kingdom of Vale.

A knock at the door tugged him out of his musings and he sighed, taking a seat at the end of the bed and checking that he had everything one last time. Knowing it was still way too early for Nora to be done eating, and that Ren would very much not leave her behind, he called out, "I'm decent, Pyr."

"Alright." He heard her muffled voice, the door swinging open as she stepped into the room, her weapons tucked under one arm with her bag slung over her shoulder. Smiling as the door shut she asked, sheepishly, "How does this do, then? Do I look alright?"

Pyrrha's outfit was simultaneously as subtle as she was likely capable of being and entirely on brand, ready for a fight.

Like Pyrrha had told him, she knew how to dress down to avoid catching eyes, at least for the most part. Her long, normally flashy hair had been tied up in a pair of tight buns on either side of her head, set back just a hair from her ears to frame her circlet which in turn framed her face quite well. For her top she was wearing thick, very baggy navy blue hoodie that, like his, had a hood large enough for her to hide in.

She'd foregone her customary red sash but not, he noticed, her A-line combat skirt, which hugged her waist as tight as always. Under the skirt she wore relatively simple, very snugly fitted black denim pants, accented nicely by patterns of swirling red leaves that began on her outer thighs and flowed down to her calves. The pattern was cut off by, of all things, heavy leather military boots, kind of like what he'd seen Atlesian soldiers wearing downtown whenever he happened to notice them.

"You look… Great." He said after a moment, looking her over and smiling at her little blush. Smiling, he added, "Very sneaky, but definitely still… You, enough to not be weird."

"As I said, I know how to dress for when I'm going out and don't want to be seen." She smiled, moving to her own bunk across the room and setting her bag down on it. "I just need to pack away my weapons and we can go. We are on time, yes?"

"Yeah, we're fine." He nodded, watching her work on getting her shield and rifle into her bag. "About fifteen minutes and our ride will leave. Tickets are handled, we'll get dropped off near enough to the warehouse district. And the apartment."

"Apartment?"

"Yeah." He chuckled, "I mean, where did you think they slept?"

"I don't suppose I had thought about it much." She shrugged, "Though… I would have wagered motels and warehouses rather than proper apartments, if I had been made to do so."

"Watch a lot of old spy movies do we?" He joked, laughing when the woman straightened and turned a playful, pouting little glare on him, "Hey, it's fine, don't look like you're about to kill me or anything. I said the same thing the first time Neo told me where the apartment was."

"Oh?" She blinked, zipping up her backpack and half turning to ask him, "And how did that go?"

"Roman laughed at me, and Neo kicked the back of my knee so I fell over." He shrugged, and then laughed when Pyrrha's eyebrows shot up in surprise and, he could tell, a bit of worry. "I wasn't noticing her trying to talk to me, so she… Well, took the fast route to me noticing that she wanted to talk."

"Why not just say something-" She blinked, "Ah, right, mute."

"Yeah." He smiled, "You'll get used to that, don't worry. You know, eventually."

"I… Suppose so. If all goes well." She said quietly, pulling her full pack onto her back and giving him a smile. "Shall we get going, then? I'd��� Hate to be late meeting your friends, after all. And missing our flight would be, well, a bit problematic, no?"

"Yeah." He nodded, swallowing the last of his anxiety and tugging his pack on, "Let's get going."

They were lucky enough that the transport Jaune had bought his ticket on had a few spare seats for the evening. Technically speaking, Bullhead pilots didn't have to sell additional tickets at the launch pad. And most would refuse to, since that meant extra paperwork that had to be filed on the quick to get logged in time for the daily reports to be properly written up. For obvious reasons, Beacon Academy liked to keep track of when students and faculty came to or left the Academy's grounds.

A few months ago, Jaune would have said it was in case either needed help.

Now? He was just cynical enough to pin it on insurance policies.

The pilot of his own Bullhead was much the same, a stickler for the rules and making life easier for himself. And, from what he could tell, a very healthy anxiety about messing up his paperwork and earning a visit from the Headmistress to rectify the issue. Unfortunately, that meant that just because he had the Lien for a ticket didn't mean the man wanted to sell him one. Not without a massive raise in the ticket price, at least, which Jaune wasn't sure as something that the pilots were allowed to mess with.

Luckily, the man was a Pyrrha Nikos fan, and an autograph for his daughter was well worth the effort he'd have to go through later.

"It's fine, Jaune." Pyrrha reassured them as they walked through the warehouse district, passing through the outer portions of it on their way to Roman's favorite apartment. He sighed and she smiled, going on, "I do not enjoy leveraging my fame, but sometimes it can be... Quite useful."

"Yeah." He nodded, though he knew better than to think it was the kind of useful he could actually use regularly.

She'd despise that, and he would too.

For a while they walked in quiet, enjoying the evening breeze even if it was just a bit chilly. Their hoodies offered decent enough protection against that, though, even if Jaune was sure they'd probably need proper coats inside a couple weeks. Unless they just wanted to let the temperature eat at their Aura constantly, which… Didn't seem anything but wasteful, frankly, in his opinion.

After a while, though, he noticed Pyrrha starting to get tense. She walked with her head down, feet avoiding every crack in the road like a game meant to distract her. Her shoulders were scrunched up, too. Like she was expecting to get hit, or something, and flinching ahead of it.

Which was twice as strange since Pyrrha never cared if something was about to hit her.

More than just worried, he asked, "Are you okay, Pyr?"

"Yes, I'm fine." She said, giving him a weak attempt at a reassuring smile.

"Pyr." He murmured, giving her a concerned and unconvinced look. "What's wrong? Are you getting anxious about the-"

"No, I'm not- I mean, I've been anxious about that the entire time, but that isn't the problem right now, Jaune." She sighed, flicking her gaze around them as they passed another alleyway and turned onto the last street, where Roman's apartment actually was. "I feel like my, you know, disguise isn't working."

"Really? I thought it was a great disguise..." He blinked, looking around them and catching a handful of passersby looking away from him anxiously, like they were afraid to get caught. Chuckling, he explained, quietly, "You don't need to worry about it, partner."

"You sound so certain." She murmured, giving him a questioning, though not disbelieving, look from under her hood. "How could you possibly know for sure?"

"They're looking at me, Pyr, not at you." He explained simply, clasping his hands behind his head and sighing, ignoring the curious, and sometimes concerned, looks as he always did. ���I mean, it makes sense, if you think about it."

"How so?"

"I'm not hiding who I am." He had his hood up, of course, with the chill. But unlike Pyrrha he hadn't tucked it down, tight against his head, to hide in it. "Down here, I'm a known face. Even if my name isn't really known, or all that much about me, they know that people avoid me. Heck, I bet some of them don't even know why they do besides the fact that other people do it."

"People do it because they see others doing it." Pyrrha summarised, "It's instinctive, and sensible, to act in accordance with what you see others doing."

"I don't know about that." That kind of thinking led to some really bad places, he'd come to understand. Even if he knew for a fact that pyrrha would never use it to make any of them, it was still there. "But yeah, that's what they're doing. Just… Following the herd, so to speak."

"I see…"

"Most of it is tradition and reputation more than, like, actual violence or anything, you know, bad like that." He explained for her, like how Roman had explained it for him weeks and weeks ago by now. As they got closer to the apartment he slowed, wanting to explain this before they got there. Pyrrha, walking beside him, slowed to match and listen while he spoke. "It's just… How things have always been. Roman, Neo, some of their friends and all of their rivals, they all have power. Money. And you respect that."

"It sounds like how Weiss speaks of her family being treated." Pyrrha offered, "Respect because they have money and power, and you respect those things A bit circular logic, I think, but an old kind."

"Yeah." He nodded, "And don't get me wrong, Neo would hurt someone if they threatened Roman. Or me. She'd probably enjoy it, too, but that's just how she is."

"Not instilling a lot of confidence in me, Jaune…"

"Right, yeah, uh…" He blinked and blew out a long breath, trying to think of a way to explain what he meant. He was terrible at words, he knew, but he had to at least try. And besides, Pyrrha listened to him, "She likes fighting like Yang does, I guess, but with a bit more of a… Vindictive kind of bent to it, if you've done something to someone she likes. Or threatened it."

"I… Suppose I can find little fault with that." She hummed, coming to a stop a step after he did and giving him a confused look. "Jaune?"

"We're, uh, here." He laughed, waving a hand at the completely normal looking, if a bit weathered, apartment building.

"It's…" She blinked, "So normal looking."

"Yup."

"I mean, like…" Pyrrha laughed, shaking her head, "There are planters in the windows, Jaune. Planters."

"Yeah, I'm planning on putting in some perennials once spring comes rolling around." He shrugged, smiling as he watched some of the anxiety leave his partner. Melting away in the face of something both concrete and normal, instead of whatever her imagination could drum up. Smiling still, he went on, "Roman doesn't mind me doing it, he says. And hey, gardening can be pretty fun, sometimes."

"You garden?"

"Country bumpkin." He shrugged, "Part of me wants to put tomatoes in some of those planters, come spring."

"I'm sure they'd be delicious." She laughed, shaking her head and then, after a moment, sighing. Quietly, she asked, "I… Suppose we should go in. They're expecting us, I presume?"

"Oh yeah." He was not dumb enough to come and do this without giving them a warning. Sighing and taking the first step up the steps towards the entrance, he waved for her to follow him, "Nothin' to it 'cept to do it, I guess."

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More Pyrrha and Jaune scenes, instead of the meet-up scene.

Sorry 'bout that, wanted more time to explore anxious Pyrrha a bit and have them get to know each other better now that certain conversations have been had. Also, I was just… Super in the mood for some simple dialogue.

Sorry 'bout that, you guys.

Next chapter will have the Neo and Roman stuff back in, no worries and all promises.

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Bukkake No Jutsu :

I try to think everything through in stories. Smaller scale ones like this are easier for that, so it tends to come out better and more readily.

Zenith Tempest :

Copper Knight is Penny x Jaune, iirc.

Just a Lazy Sloth Dude :

I do write Arkos, sometimes. Just not in this specific instance.

Nine Yetis :

Ye, as I said earlier, I like to try and stay super involved with the details of each character. Smaller scale stories like this make that easier, so I get to do stuff like that. Is fun!

Nya Nya Kitty Face :

Copper Knight is Jaune x Penny iirc.

Never Real :

The jealousy and secret keeping going wrong is a legit way to set up some early days drama and tension when magic and bs isn't involved. But in this, I wanted to take a different bent, so *shrugs* s'what I did.

Happy you enjoyed it!