The new semester started with a quiet return to the grind instead of the BANG Ruby hoped it would. Rather than a huge food fight to kick things off, our teams ended up just glaring at each other interspersed with long bouts of ignoring each other. Blake took her friends in the divorce and I swear Yang took the breakup as her chance at revenge for my rather brutal smashing of her over inflated hot chick ego last semester. The blonde girl became a bulldog just chomping at the bit, much to her younger sister's horror. Poor girl felt like she didn't have enough friends to afford losing any to civil war.
Team JNPR took to our new combat class as expected. Ren and Nora started taking beatings from the older students, but Pyrrha and I ended up in the same position as in the first and second year classes, smacking them about with impunity. In truth, the third and fourth year students didn't have anyone stronger than the second year Team CVFY; instead, they just possessed a wide variety of people around that level - giving Pyrrha and I the opportunity to work on beating around a hundred students with wildly varying weapons and semblances. The experience we could pick up in this class more than made up for the meetings I had to put up with Glynda Goodwitch's winning personality to get us here.
With two self-study courses that benefited greatly from not having the Hogwarts level teachers of questionable quality we had no trouble staying ahead of our less blessed classmates while simultaneously gaining increased free time. Free time we spent in Beacon Academy's Hunters Workshop. This place beat the pants off my collection of power tools and handmade brick forge back in Ansel. I'd hesitate to call it state of the art considering the Atlesians were currently producing robo-cops and knightmare frames, but the workshop had everything I would ever need to get my work done.
My team became my dedicated apprentices in our efforts in armoring. Each of them had experience building custom weapons, but Skyrim lied to you. Forging a thousand iron daggers teaches you nothing about how to make an articulated suit of plate armor. Armoring required a far more diverse skill set than hammering out a blade or assembling a rifle. Fortunately, Ren and Nora chose to make my life easy by making a suit of Mistrali laminar armor that pulled influences from both china and japan in its make, and a scale coat with the scales being in the shape of hearts. All I needed to do was pull up classic designs for the scales and lames and put a blueprint into the workshop's water cutter to start producing everything they needed for the bulk of their armor.
Not that Nora wanted to make my life easy. The girl set her heart on an Ursa skin cloak, and after a few trips to the Emerald Forest we perfected our ability to take trophies from grimm. The self cleaning grimm evaporate after death, which means any trophies needed to be taken from the beast while still alive and required aura to be channeled through until the beast fades away in death. Nora's Ursa skin cloak required us to wrestle down one of the massive bears while Ren carved its hide off its chest and belly like an Asian Ramsey Bolton.
We all chose to keep the theme with Nora and each took a piece of grim for our gear. Ren lined his gear with Beowulf fur, Pyrrha got a crest made of nevermore feathers, and I got a pair of tusks added to my helmet like horns and a neat detachable fur collar.
I felt like a bit of a forge god when I finished up all my work on schedule, I'd even made a new primary weapon for Ren in the form of a green glaive that doubled as a cannon like a bigger version of Torchwick's cane cannon. He just gave me a non-committal hum when I told him he would soon be awash in female attention now that he was a leading figure in the new sensation that is sweeping the nation. Poor guy just didn't know that bitches love cannons, but he'd learn.
I spent the majority of my attention on Pyrrha's plate armor. While I could get away with a more simple sci-fi white knight look, Pyrrha needed to look like the champ. I kept with the avian aesthetic from her crest and added thin aluminum feathers atop her hardened steel plates and a few images of eagles. My double headed eagle crest adorned her chest, and I ended up with her red spear emblem on the rondels that protected my armpits. Once her gear got back with its new gold and hot rod red paint job I had no problem declaring her the Empress of Mankind.
So we ended up with the Empress of Mankind, her White Knight, the Green Samurai, and the Valentine's Day Viking. All with the combined theme of sci-fi from the advanced helmets I'd built everyone and bullet hell from all the ammo we carried. We turned a lot of heads when we showed up in combat class after midterms and started working with the new gear.
Nora had no problems swinging about her bigger hammer, especially since it now produced electricity for her to amp up her power with her semblance, High Voltage. Ren's spin to win style he developed with the Storm Flowers translated incredibly well to the Green Dragon glaive. He generated an obscene amount of torque with all that leverage and focused it all into the sturdy blade of the glaive, allowing him to one shot most grimm and any human enemies dumb enough to not dodge the hugely telegraphed attack. Pyrrha probably caused many a nightmare when she started swinging her buzz saw shield around and had a habit of knocking people over with her powered up marksman rifle.
I'd forged another shotgun gauntlet after messing around with the way my spiked pavise mounted to get it easy to mash together with my broadsword to make my new greatsword. After wielding the big beast for the first time I found what I'd always been missing in life. I felt like an anime protagonist swinging around a sword that golden age Guts wouldn't mind wielding, capable of crushing through anyone trying to block my strikes. I could also catch anyone trying to dodge around my sword by firing off the twin automatic shotguns. The only way to safely engage me in melee was to close distance and try to fight me up close. A poor choice considering I had a shotgun on each limb and could crush concrete with my punches and kicks.
After two lifetimes as fighters I finally felt like I'd turned myself into an unsolvable combat puzzle. I was too fast to keep at range unless you're Coco or Pyrrha or Goodwitch with their bullshit semblances, and too powerful to engage in melee combat.
While Team JNPR wouldn't win any popularity contests, our inner team interactions reached an all time high this semester. I had an incredible girlfriend, a stoic best homie, and Nora. My relationship with Nora changed dramatically after one weird day.
Pyrrha and I crashed into the dorm room door like a pair of wrecking balls, damn near tearing the sturdy construct right off its hinges. Still making out I reached out for the handle and felt the sock I must have left on it from earlier in the day. It was the work of moments to get Pyrrha stripped and moaning under me on her bed. I felt like nothing could ruin my satisfaction when she began quivering a few minutes later in climax, until I heard Nora's voice say:
"Oh yeah! Give it to her, Jaune! Wreck that pussy!"
I did not continue to 'wreck that pussy'. I froze and turned my head to see a naked Nora working her breast with one hand and her clit with the other while watching us from her bed. It was then that I realized I fucked up. I didn't leave the sock on the door from earlier, I'd violated the sacred trust of sock on the door meaning go the fuck away.
"What's wrong Jaune?" Pyrrha asked under me, "Get back to wrecking this pussy."
"Ahem," I cleared my throat, "Nora is right there."
"Does it look like I care?" Pyrrha replied to me in an annoyed tone.
I would have expected her to care a lot, but could not find a single sign of a fuck given about the fact that her pal was in the other corner of the room schlicking herself silly while watching us make love. Wild.
I'll admit, dominating one of the strongest and most beautiful women in the world while her hot bestie jacks off and shouts encouragement to us did things for me that few other experiences could replicate. It felt like I shot half my soul straight into Pyrrha's core, and I collapsed just past the finish line - unable to find any strength to keep myself up. We managed to work ourselves into a spooning position that left us looking at Nora as she smiled ear to ear.
"God damn that was the hottest thing I ever saw!" the short stack ginger declared in joy, "The net has nothing on the show you two just put on."
"Sorry about that." I apologized, "I thought I had just left the sock on the door from earlier."
"Sorry?" Nora barked in amusement, "It's like my birthday and Yule came together this year and you're sorry! How much do I have to pay you guys to be sorry more often?"
"Keep up the dirty talk and we're golden." Pyrrha answered her in a husky tone, "It was so hot."
"You got it champ!" Nora agreed, "You bring the show and I'll bring the filth."
And just like that my love life gained a regular voyeur.