The LUCID simulation chamber was set to an endless white training stage that swallowed seemed as if it swallowed both distance and depth alike. The floor was matte and faintly reflective. The walls were invisible beyond a certain point. It was a place stripped of distraction, a void meant for one purpose only.
Combat.
Liquid metal slid across the floor like living things, thin ribbons of silver gliding outward from Pyrrha's position. They twisted and coiled, responding to her will as naturally as breath. In her hands, her spear spun with effortless grace, its haft blurring as she redirected another rapid strike.
Jaune pressed forwards with grace and power.
Lux Aeterna cut a pale arc of light aimed at her shoulder. Crocea Mors followed a heartbeat later, slicing low toward her hip. The timing was vicious and the angles tighter than they had been, even a week ago.
Pyrrha deflected both.
Her spear snapped into place, metal ringing loudly as it met Lux Aeterna, then slid down to catch Crocea Mors with a flick of her wrist. The force of the blows pushed her back a step, then another, but her footing never wavered.
Jaune didn't let up.
He flowed into the next exchange with frightening speed, blades weaving together in a relentless pattern. Each strike was precise. There was no wasted motion or flourish. He was attacking weaknesses that he didn't know existed a month ago, exploiting fractions of timing that most fighters would never notice.
However, Pyrrha was able to meet him strike for strike.
Her Ferrous rune hummed with power in her mind as a constant presence. At comprehension, it was no longer just control. It was awareness. She could feel the metal in the chamber like a second nervous system. The spear in her hands. The liquid metal on the floor. The faint iron trace in Jaune's blood, moving with every shift of his muscles.
She knew where he would be a moment before he arrived.
And yet.
Jaune knew too.
His Weakness rune thrummed in response to every motion. Jaune felt the fragility in his own stance as he committed to a strike, corrected it mid swing, shifted his weight before the flaw could be exploited. He sensed the narrow window in Pyrrha's defense not as an opening, but as a possibility. Something that existed for less than a breath, then vanished.
The clash became something strange. It was no longer a contest of strength or even skill alone.
It was prediction layered atop prediction, intuition crashing against intuition. Each of them adjusting in real time, learning from failures that never fully manifested.
Liquid metal surged upward.
Spears erupted from the floor beneath Jaune's feet, sharp points racing toward him from impossible angles. At the same time, a metallic tendril snapped toward his ribs, guided by Pyrrha's will and her unerring sense of where he would be.
Jaune did not slow.
He stepped forward, blades crossing as if the attacks were not even there.
At the last instant, the metal spikes lost cohesion.
They collapsed back into liquid, splashing harmlessly against his boots and armor, flowing around him instead of through him. The tendril struck his side and liquefied on contact, spreading like spilled mercury before sliding away.
Pyrrha's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
She recovered immediately, spinning her spear and bringing it down in a powerful overhead strike. Jaune caught it between his swords, the impact echoing through the chamber. For a moment, they were locked together, weapons pressed close, faces only feet apart.
Pyrrha smiled.
It was bright and genuine at first, exhilaration flickering through her eyes. This was what she loved. The challenge. The push. The feeling of being tested by someone who could truly keep up.
Then she noticed his expression.
Jaune wasn't smiling.
His eyes were like whirlpools of focus. It was... an intimidating look. There was no anger in his face, but there was something else. A depth. A weight. Pressure that shouldn't have belong in a sparring match.
Pyrrha empathized with Jaune. The information about what happened in Belmont city was now common knowledge to all LUCID operatives. The slaughter of an entire branch of LUCID. An experience like that... it was bound to affect him negatively. It would likely take some time for him to come to terms with what had happened.
Pyrrha herself could scarcely believe the news. Half-expecting it to be fake. But, it was confirmed by some of the older operatives.
An official statement had yet to be released to members, however. Pyrrha figured that commander Ozpin was dealing with the fallout first before giving an official statement.
They broke apart in a flurry of motion, both retreating several steps. The liquid metal flowed back toward Pyrrha, pooling back around her feet. Jaune reset his stance, blades held low but posture relaxed and ready.
Neither of them were breathing hard. Their conditioning and body stat ensured that spars like this couldn't sap their stamina.
The chamber hummed softly, its systems idling as if waiting to see what would happen next.
Pyrrha tilted her head slightly. "Comprehension. It's certainly something, Jaune. You're a lot faster," she said. "And... more sure with you strikes too."
Jaune nodded once, his eyes a little distant. "Yeah. The rune is... a lot different now. You're amazing too, Pyrrha."
Her smile returned, softer this time. "That was not a compliment to myself."
She flicked her spear, sending a thin ribbon of metal sliding outward again. "Your awareness has changed. You are not just reacting to attacks anymore. You're fighting style is a lot closer to mine now. You're… correcting attacks before they fully connect."
Jaune glanced down at his hands, then back at her. "It is hard not to. I can feel every mistake as I make it."
Pyrrha's eyes softened with understanding. "That sounds... exhausting."
"It is, but it's good. It'll bring me one step closer." he admitted.
"One step closer? To Rank 2?"
Jaune paused before his eyes seemed to gain a distant look. He snapped out of it and gave Pyrrha a simple smile. "Yeah... something like that."
Pyrrha wanted to ask more, but decided instead, that fighting would help more to Jaune in this instant, rather than words. If he needed a distraction, she was all but happy to provide.
They circled each other slowly, the black floor reflecting their movements like a dim mirror.
Pyrrha spoke again, more thoughtful now. "Your Weakness rune. It's different from the meta runes which I've encountered."
Jaune frowned slightly. "You've encountered many?"
She shook her head. "Sort of. My previous team, when I was rank 0 had a meta rune user. I know what they feel like, and yours has that same interesting weight to it. That inevitability."
She lifted her spear, letting the metal hum faintly. "But his functioned differently. It boosted him in a... permanent manner, so to speak."
"Boosted him?"
"Yes. His revolved around the concept of heroism. It was quite interesting, to be honest." Pyrrha replied.
"Heroism... kind of altruistic, but... considering that he's a rank 2 now, I guess he really knew what he was doing eh?"
"Yes. He was strong. Sometimes I wish that my own rune was a meta type. Mine's just metal control boosted on steroids'. Control, awareness etc. I trained it until it stopped feeling like a tool and started feeling like part of me."
Jaune studied her for a moment. "Sometimes it feels like what you're doing with it should not be possible."
Pyrrha laughed softly. "I have been told that before."
They moved again.
This time, Pyrrha attacked.
She lunged forward, spear thrusting toward Jaune's chest while the liquid metal surged behind him, cutting off retreat. Jaune twisted, parrying the spear with Lux Aeterna while Crocea Mors swept low, aiming for her legs.
She jumped, spinning midair, liquid metal forming a platform beneath her feet for a fraction of a second before collapsing. She landed lightly and drove her spear forward again.
Jaune reacted the instant Pyrrha committed.
Her spear lunged forward in a clean, lethal line, its tip aligned perfectly with the center of his chest. Jaune twisted into motion, his body flowing sideways into an acrobatic flip that carried him over the weapon by inches. The world inverted briefly, the endless white stage rolling beneath him as Lux Aeterna spun in his grip. He used the momentum of the flip to bring the blade around in a sharp, whipping arc aimed straight for Pyrrha's face.
She had already seen it coming.
Pyrrha sidestepped with practiced ease, her head turning just enough for the blade to cut empty air where her cheek had been. It should have been clean and enough, yet... her foot slipped.
The matte surface beneath her suddenly lost all cohesion, turning viscous and unstable as if the floor itself had melted. Pyrrha felt the shift through her boots an instant too late. Jaune's Weakness rune flared as he weakened the molecular bonds in that precise patch of ground, converting solid footing into treacherous slurry.
Pyrrha reacted immediately.
Metal surged from every direction, snapping together around her in a reflexive shield. Liquid silver hardened into a curved barrier just as Jaune's blades came crashing down a heartbeat later. The impact rang through the chamber with a deep, resonant clang that vibrated through Pyrrha's arms.
But she was already counterattacking.
Part of the shield liquefied and reshaped itself mid impact. Her spear burst forward from within the metal like a striking serpent, its point aimed directly at Jaune's torso.
It would have hit. Except, Jaune had already predicted the attack.
The air beneath his feet hardened, the world itself obeying to his will. He kicked off nothingness, striking against invisible resistance, and vaulted backward in a blur of motion. The spear passed through the space he had occupied a fraction of a second earlier, slicing only empty air.
They landed several paces apart, both already resetting their stances.
Pyrrha exhaled slowly, eyes bright.
Then her expression shifted.
A devious glint crept into her gaze as she thrust her free hand forward, fingers curling as if grasping something unseen. Her Ferrous rune flared to life in a way she rarely allowed during sparring.
Jaune felt it something being pulled at him from within.
The iron in his blood responded to her will, his body lurching forward as if yanked by invisible chains. His muscles resisted and his aura flared outwards instinctively, but the force was undeniable. Pyrrha did not often use this technique. It was costly to use in battle and demanded a tremendous amount of focus and aura expenditure, especially against someone whose Aura stat was equal to her Will stat.
Her spear suddenly expanded.
Metal flowed and thickened, its density unnaturally increasing beyond what a weapon that size should have allowed. The weapon swelled into a massive pillar like construct and Pyrrha brought it down with overwhelming force, aiming to crush Jaune beneath its weight.
Jaune vanished.
Space folded around him in a blink.
One moment he was being dragged forward, the next he ceased to exist in that position entirely. It had the added benefit of severing Pyrrha's control over his body as cleanly as a cut wire. He reappeared behind her, both Lux Aeterna and Crocea Mors already mid swing, blades angled for her back.
Pyrrha reacted on instinct.
Her spear slammed into the floor, the impact sending a tremor through the stage. The metal surged upward from the embedded weapon, forming another shield in a heartbeat. Jaune's swords struck the barrier, sparks flying as the metal absorbed the blows.
Then Pyrrha felt as the shield began to change.
Jaune's Weakness rune dug into the structure, forcing the metal at a molecular level to lose cohesion, to revert toward a liquid state. Under normal circumstances, the barrier would have collapsed instantly, flowing away and leaving Pyrrha exposed.
But this time, it did not.
Her Density rune activated in tandem with Ferrous, reinforcing the mass and resistance of the metal even as it liquefied. The result was something strange and paradoxical. The shield flowed like mercury, yet resisted like compressed rubber, impossibly heavy and slow to yield.
Jaune's blades cut into it, but instead of slicing cleanly through, they dragged as if moving through thick, weighted liquid. The resistance disrupted his rhythm, forcing him to adjust mid strike.
Pyrrha expanded the shield outward in a sudden surge.
The liquid metal bulged and pushed, releasing stored force that sent Jaune skidding backward across the floor. He caught himself smoothly, legs digging in as he slid to a stop, blades raised once more.
Pyrrha reformed her spear, drawing the metal back into its familiar shape. She rolled her shoulders once, runic force flickering softly as she settled back into a ready stance.
Jaune straightened and looked at her.
There was an annoyed smile on his face.
"Didn't we agree on three rules?" he asked calmly, "We weren't going to use our second runes, me using weakness directly on you and you not controlling me?"
Pyrrha shrugged lightly, her own smile unapologetic. "I thought it would be interesting to see if you could sense the weakness in that attack as well."
Jaune shook his head, the annoyance fading into something faintly amused. "You're trouble."
Her smile widened just a little at that.
Seeing even a hint of levity return to his expression, eased something in her chest. The distraction was doing its job. At least for now.
They began to circle each other again, footfalls light against the white floor, liquid metal stirring lazily at Pyrrha's command. The chamber hummed around them, silent and expectant.
Then the entrance door slid open.
Both Jaune and Pyrrha turned.
Blake stood in the doorway, dark hair framing a relaxed expression. Her eyes flicked briefly over the scene, the disturbed floor, the scattered metal, the charged atmosphere still lingering in the air.
Blake often joined the two of them while they were training, which was why this interruption was quite normal.
Jaune almost believed that she was here to join in the spar, until she raised a hand slightly in a weird greeting. "Hey guys, follow me for a little bit. Got something fun to show you two."
"Something fun? What is it?" Jaune asked, a hint of curiosity flashing in his teeth.
"Gotta' come and see it if you want to know." Blake replied, with a roll of her eyes.
"But Pyrrha and I—"
"It's fine, lets take a short break and continue later." Pyrrha interrupted.
"Hurry up."
Jaune lowered his swords and Pyrrha relaxed her stance, the liquid metal retreating and dissolving back into thin air as if it had never been there.
They exchanged a glance.
Pyrrha tilted her head and smiled, just a little cheekily. "Call it a draw?"
Jaune nodded, the faint smile still present. "Yeah. A draw."
They turned and followed Blake out of the chamber, the white void behind them fading as the doors slid shut.
.
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AN: Not sure if I can release a chapter tomorrow. So... Merry Christmas!
Advanced chapters are on patreon