'Wow. She still hasn't noticed I am on autopilot.' Pyrrha thought as she looked down at the petite heiress of the Schnee Dust Company. She kept her face pleasantly polite and made well ingrained noncommittal responses as the little woman in white discussed - at length - the many pros of them teaming up in the coming Beacon Academy Initiation. The pros certainly existed for the team up between the four time champion of Mistral and the heiress to the single largest corporation in the world. Weiss represented resources and connections to the highest possible degree, and all Pyrrha needed to readily tap those resources was give up her soul.
At times Pyrrha felt that way about the many sponsorships and advertisements she secured using her status as the world's premier combat athlete, but none of those came close to the dousing her being in sewage that would come with teaming up with the SDC. The international juggernaut was known as an absolutely ruthless corporation before Jaques Gele (now Schnee because the man is just that sleazy) took over and launched a one man crusade against ethics and good sense. These days the Schnee dust mines operated more as concentration camps, and any profit generated from turning his workforce into surfs was lost in manning the defenses that keep the workers in and the Grimm attracted from hundreds of miles in every direction out. Atlesian cruelty at its finest.
So no, Pyrrha was not going to team up with Wiess Schnee and desperately needed an out from this conversation. Fortunately it came in the form of Captain Super Swole walking up with a smile on his face and a good morning on his lips.
"I have my stuff stored right between you two." he explained his approach.
"You!" Weiss barked venomously.
"Hold up." He ordered her while lifting the wrecking ball he had on the end of his wrist in a placating gesture, "I believe we agreed to not get to know each other better till you calmed down and reflected on your behavior. Your tone implies you haven't done one of those things at least."
The physical choking noises that emerged from the little woman as her face turned bright red in ballistic rage almost made Pyrrha chuckle, but hours spent training her public composure prevented it. The man opened his locker, removing two well stuffed duffle bags and took off his shirt, completely stalling any attack coming from the Atlesian Front of this conversation. He would of stalled any opposition from her as well.
'That is impossible.' Pyrrha thought as she drank in every line generated by his perfect musculature, 'No one's chromosomes line up that well.'
His muscles connected long down the bones for generating powerful leverage, with a rippling and symmetrical core providing torque. He wasn't just a man built for heavy lifting, he was built for knock out power, built to destroy.
Averting her eyes for a moment allowed her to see the stupefied look on the SDC heiress's face as she had her gazed fixed on one specific point of the man's anatomy. Pyrrha followed the other girl's line of sight to find the man had stripped to his briefs and she remembered nothing else until a fully armed and armored giant waved them good bye.
"See you two perverts out in the field." He called in a robotic voice as he turned to leave, "Good luck."
Pyrrha's face squished in confusion until she realized what happened, then came the heavy shame and embarrassment.
"We never speak about this." Weiss hissed at her, and Pyrrha silently agreed.
They never would speak about the morning they both ended up hypnotized by his hog.
Most people who felt the level of embarrassment Pyrrha felt after this incident would be unable to face the man again, but most people weren't champions and Pyrrha had learned to stuff down her anxiety and keep performing. Rather than avoid him for the remainder of their time at Beacon, the red head champ chose to make him her partner.
She kept her eyes on the man at the initiation site, a cliff top overlook of the Emerald Forrest. After the headmaster explained that partnerships would be formed by eye contact and that the pairs needed to retrieve a "relic" from a temple in the woods the man began hurling the students over the treetops below via launch pads. While this method of delivery may have prevented some of the students from gaining their desired partners for her it was super easy, barely an inconvenience to secure hers. How one may ask? Her target wore head to toe steel, a material Pyrrha could move with her mind. She simply adjusted his flight path to land him right next to her.
While many methods of safe landing existed, and were employed. Pyrrha and her partner chose to just focus their aura into maximum protection and smash through the forest canopy and into the dirt. Landing in perfect three point super hero poses. It hurt like hell, but the laughter of her new partner made it worth it.
"Only besties land like that together." His smooth jazz voice distorted by his helmets air filtration system sounded, "Or is it execute pedophiles together?"
"Are we going to execute pedophiles together?" Pyrrha asked him, deeply concerned.
"Only if the opportunity should arise!" he laughed, then froze, "Partner, make sure I never say arise in regards to pedophiles ever again. It ruins my good mood."
She made the mental note but doubted she would ever be vigilant enough to save him should he need it. She looked over at him while he raised the blocky visor that closed off his helmet completely, providing sight via six cameras spaced across it in a hexagon. Their eyes meet and her masterful plan completes. How many of the others managed to perfectly manipulate the initiation process?
"I'm Jaune Arc." the man introduced himself and they shook hands.
"Pyrrha Nikos." She said after he closed his visor once more.
"Well Pyrrha." Jaune began and she could feel the grin hidden under his helmet, "Don't sweat the whole peter peeping fiasco from earlier. Who can blame you? I certainly can't. But you will have to save staring at my genitals for later, because now we must embark on a journey of Jolly Cooperation!"
For some reason Pyrrha felt the sudden urge to Y pose, and that staved off the complete humiliation of Jaune's casual reference to her earlier blunder. The pair began their hike through the danger infested woods with the big man in front, allowing Pyrrha time to assess her new partners equipment.
The thick homemade plate armor covered Jaune completely, and would render useless most strikes, gunfire, and explosions. Fighting him without her semblance would be a real chore as he had very few points she could actually attack and he likely could defend those vulnerable areas with ease. The five shotguns she counted on him likely helped. One mechashift broadsword shotgun hybrid, one hidden under his collapsible spiked pavise strapped to his off hand, one shotgun gauntlet ready to deploy on his sword arm should he drop his primary weapon, and two attached to his greaves able to add some kick to his kicks. The bright red fire dust ammunition secured in his shotgun cadies finished off the picture Pyrrha painted of his combat role. TANK!
As they made their way through the woods, they came upon a cave sporting paintings of people hunting a deathstalker, one of the more fearsome grimm.
"This is either here to warn us of danger, or encourage us to go in. Maybe as shortcut, maybe death?" Jaune mused, "Shall we?"
With a nod of her head and the crack of a glow stick he handed her, the pair made their way into the cave. It didn't take long to discover that the cave markings indeed warned of a full grown deathstalker living in the cave. The giant scorpion grimm took all the horrible qualities of regular scorpions and grew them thirty feet long. Tough as nails with pincers capable of crushing stone and glowing gold tail that could pierce steel and deliver lethal poison, unexpected deathstalker encounters proved deadly even for fully trained hunter teams, let alone a pair of fresh faced students.
"Engaging Deathstalker." Jaune announced as his broadsword shifted into its shotgun form and the spike on his shield pulled back as his off hand shotgun thrust foreword.
The deathstalker charged into range to attack Jaune and for two glorious seconds automatic shotgun fire brightened the cave like twin gouts of dragon fire. The scorpion moved its pincers as shields too late and after it pulled away from its source of pain Pyrrha saw the charred and cracked chitinous armored face with eyes ruined by the still red hot buckshot.
"Weak point created." Jaune declared while his shield retracted and his primary weapon shifted again into a sword spear that he held on point with both hands.
Jaune exploded into motion as fast as anyone she ever fought in professional matches. How many rainbow farting fairies had she smashed in one hit because they disdained armor for slowing them down or limiting their range of motion. Her new partner just proved that a real man isn't slowed down by the weight of his gear, it just adds mass to the destructive formula of his charge. When he rammed his spear into a crack in the deathstalkers armored head he proved that the only range of motion a man needs to kill his enemies is what is provided in full plate armor.
The formerly deadly grimm began releasing the signal smoke of its death even before Jaune pulled his unblemished sword spear from its body. A quick shift back to sword mode had it hanging once more from his back via magnetic lock.
"I wish that was some kind of record." Jaune sounded disappointed, "But I am sure some prick with an OP semblance has killed twenty of its kind in the same amount of time."
"Even so that was damn impressive." Pyrrha told him in complete honesty.
In truth she had no answer in her current set up that would allow her to beat the deathstalker without a long battle of attrition, and she doubted any of the other initiated did either.
"This was exactly the kind of fight I built my kit around. Burn dust to weaken grimm armor, and auto shotguns to deliver it as fast as possible without much worry about aiming." Jaune explained to her, "Its a turtle crushing build."
Jaune had put a lot of thought into his combat role, far more than she had. Combat Specialization was a class in the third year of Beacon's program. Year one was mostly general knowledge, year two was mostly guided field experience. Year three was for finding the most effective way for a person to fight, and year four was for making final adjustments and polishing a student's skill set.
Pyrrha had been content to allow Beacon to mold her into her most effective role for hunting, but now she felt a little inadequate in the face of another initiate so far ahead of the class. She had pushed her skills and equipment for human opponents far ahead of her peers and became a national champion for it, so why had she been satisfied to let others dictate the pace of her growth as a huntress?
This performance by Jaune had elevated him well above a smoking hot bod and a mesmerizing cock. It was now obvious that her new partner could push her to new heights, maker her better than yesterday, and for that Pyrrha smiled.
"I believe this day is the first in a very beautiful partnership." she told the armored man.
"Didn't you hear me earlier?" Jaune asked her, "This is Jolly Cooperation!"
After sharing a laugh together they continued their hike but had to back track out of the cave and reorient themselves to find the hidden temple in the woods. As they entered the clearing that housed their objective, they came upon six other initiates finishing a fight with a giant nevermore. The avian grimm shrieked its last as girl in a red hood decapitated it via scythe cartwheel.
Jaune joined the celebrating students after grabbing a golden rook chess piece.
"Sick cut work, Ruby." Jaune greeted the little huntress in a red hood that took the head of the giant grimm.
"Oh hey Jaune," Ruby startled at the man's eerily silent approach. "Or are you some Atlesian mecha soldier that just kinda sounds like Jaune?"
"That's my man under all that gear." another girl called out as she walked up to them and Pyrrha's heart dropped somewhere near her spleen.
Gorgeous completion and physique, fashionable black and white outfit, and haunting golden eyes met her green orbs as the girl introduced herself to Pyrrha.
"I'm Jaune's girlfriend Blake."
And with those words Pyrrha's wonderful day took a nosedive.