Light Sparring

Vacou, early morning. The sun had barely started to rise and the heat hadn't attacked the desert sands yet; the perfect time for some light sparring for Carmine. The sixteen year old stood with her hands stretched up high about thirty feet away from her home. In front of her, Jaune, her very tired father. The man yawned loudly as his daughter patiently waited for him to loosen up. “I take it, you are ready?” He said.

“Yep!” She grabbed her sword, holding it with both hands directly in front of her. “Just waiting on you. Come at me whenever.”

“Pretty sure that’s my line. Remember the rules, there aren’t any. Just come at me with the intent to kill.” Yep, just another day of training. Time to get things started. Jaune was still mid stretch as Carmine began running at him. The seasoned huntsman sidestepped to the left, avoiding a downward slash. The blade then swung at his ankles and missed when Jaune leapt over it. He watched Carmine pull Stamen back before thrusting it towards his chest. Jaune took another sidestep and placed his hand on Crocea Mor’s hilt.

“Uh oh.”Carmine gasped, flipping backwards several feet. She took off in a mad dash around Jaune as he drew his blade. Carmine could feel herself getting excited. She’s never bested her father, or any of the heroes of Remnant. She was good, but not that good. Plenty of experience has really progressed her skills to an insane degree; today, she was feeling pretty damn good about her efforts.

“You scared!?” Jaune smiled. Carmine laughed, “Ha! Of a cereal endorser? Not a chance!” Carmine sent an aura slash right in his direction. Jaune countered with his own, making a sand cloud form for Carmine to jump out of; in an effort to leave Jaune open. The strategy was pointless. Her sword clashed with his perfectly, shaking the ground below them. Right, lefty, upward, downward; the blades would meet each other before their users. The constant back and forth made sparks fly around them. It was almost rhythmic, with Carmine leading their waltz with Jaune defending flawlessly. Jaune could feel the weight behind each attack. The shifting flow of the curved blade as his daughter spun and twirled to keep a steady momentum while making it tricky to land a direct blow.

Carmine went for a right slash mid twirl. She watched carefully to see her old man ready to counter. “Now’s my chance.” Carmine thought. She leaned into the swing more until her blade was centimeters away, then whipped her body in the opposite direction. She made contact with Jaune right side, sending him sliding back from the ballpark swing. “Keep the pressure going. Keep him guessing!” Carmine flung her sword overhead and sped off after him. Jaune could only see a flash of red like a lens flare, his daughter zigzagging towards him. Ruby would’ve been proud.

Jaune brought his shield out and raised it to protect his chest. “She’s either gonna be tempted to flank me now, or…” He watched Carmine go into a cartwheel when she closed the distance. Her feet slammed against his shield and she bounced off it like a springboard, grabbing Stamen as she flew past it. Jaune readied himself to go on the offensive until the sound of gunshots made him put his shield back up to block slug shots. He peeked from behind it to see Carmine pointing her tactical baton, Pistil, aimed right at him. Fresh smoke coming out of the barrel before another round was shot into the air to send her back to the sand. Another was shot behind her so the recoil could send Carmine right back into close combat.

The beginning of a fight was vital. Carmine knew she couldn’t let Jaune do as he pleased. In a contest of aura, he had her beat. She had to chip away at it while remaining as unharmed as possible. Jaune knew this. That’s why neither of them used their semblances yet. A deficit between their aura consumption could change things. Carmine had it rough though. Not only did she have to remain aggressive to control the flow, but Jaune had to stay close or he could easily start regenerating his. Stamina consumption was all on her.

Jaune’s sword clashed with Carmine’s in another flurry of swings while his shield arm was busy blocking the attacks from Pistil. He ducked a slash then jumped another leg swipe. Carmine made a complete 360 with her left scraping the ground, flinging sand his way. “Agh!” Jaune was forced to squint and raised his shield higher but quickly regretted it when Carmine shot his right thigh, making him buckle.

“Now…” Carmine went to slash his other leg but Jaune was too quick. He raised his foot just enough to wedge the blade between it and the ground. Carmine abandoned the blade all together in less than a second. Another gunshot sent her set up a shoulder bash that pressed his shield against his chest, knocking Jaune completely off balance by the sudden force. If she wanted to win then she had to get a little brolic with her old man. Carmine was only an inch shorter than Jaune and rock solid. She gave him a quick headbutt to put more of a lean on his body then struck the underside of his chin with a right jab. Jaune started falling backwards but not before swinging his sword at her exposed midriff, forcing her to dodge backwards. It barely grazed her, but she wasn’t expecting another aura slash to come off of it and send her flying away until she landed right on her back. “Damn! Got careless!”

Carmine jumped off but wasn’t ready to see Jaune right in front of her. There was no time to react to the slash that struck across her body diagonal, then went up in the same reaction. Carmine tried swinging Pistil but Jaune grabbed her by the rest.

“Too slow-” Jaune also got careless. He forgot just how scrappy his own daughter was. He didn’t even get to finish speaking before Carmine jumped straight up with his hand still on her. She grabbed his arms and pulled herself forward, wrapping her legs around his neck tightly. Jaune raised his sword to strike her back but Carmine flung her weight to shift everything on the leg she had just shot.The sudden change sent them both to the ground hard. Jaune landed on his shield while Carmine had already gotten up and took his sword that had slipped out of his hand. He instantly rolled away, letting out a sigh of relief as he saw Carmine stabbing the ground where he was. “Now I know I said with the intent to kill…”

Carmine was already smacking tempered steel against his shield and armor again. She might as well have been a cat on a scratching post. Crocea Mor was lighter than Stamen by a wide margin. Combined with the swings of Pistil, Jaune couldn’t block all the attacks. Every third strike or so manages to graze him or hit his armor. It wasn’t heavy damage by any means, but every bit helps. The relentless assault was starting to wind her unfortunately. “Come on!” She shouted, “Just one good hit!” Carmine took Pistil and wrapped her left arm around her waist, having the gone pointed horizontally behind her and sligh pointing forward on the other side of hip. One gunshot sent the girl spinning like a top. Each rotation brought the sword buzz sawing against Jaune’s shield. Sparks flew out like full blown fireworks.

“Paying for ballet lessons was worth every penny.” Jaune thought to himself. It was not about to make him lose though. Jaune tilted his shield up to direct the blade slice at an angle. This gave him room to kick Carmine, hard. She spun out, but what came next was unexpected and terrifying. Jaune was going to follow up with a bash but his daughter turned into petals instead of falling. He bested a clone. “When did- the fall we took!”

A long, curved black blade shot out from over his right shoulder and was coming backwards to give the definition of a close shave. Jaune put his hand up and let it catch the blade instead of his neck. White aura flowed through the hand to negate any damage as he gripped it. Jaune flung the rest of the scythe in front of him with Carmine holding on to the end. Carmine smiled, “cool as always.” The bottom half of the scythe detached to revert back into Pistil. She had another clear shot, time to play mind games. Jaune’s shield followed it to block his leg from another bullet. Too bad that was a faint. Carmine kept her arm moving in that direction but bent her wrist to aim for his face. “This won’t tickle…” the slug hit him right in his face, craning his head back. She saw his aura flicker from that hit. Anybody would take massive damage from a thing like that, except Jaune and Yang. Her aunt would’ve just been pissed and melted the bullet. Her father? He put his head down and his body became enveloped in total white. Jaune held the bullet in between his teeth and smirked as he spat it out. Yep, cool as always. Carmine had no response to him chucking her sword at her at insane speed. She managed to grab it but not before the tip stabbed her abruptly.

Sweat started forming on her brow. Dealing with Jaune with his semblance activated usually spelled the end, usually. Carmine transformed her weapons back into Rosebud while Jaune made his great sword by adding his shield to his sword. He watched Carmine slowly back up, her red aura outlining her body. Their eyes were locked onto each other’s every movement. It was time for the fun part.

“You’re improving leaps and bounds.” Jaune praised her. “All of your mixups are keeping me on my toes.”

“Then prepare to dance…”

“I’d love to.” Those were his words before Carmine saw only a ball of light dashing everywhere around the desert. Turning a support semblance into an all around boost to himself was the kind of out of the box thinking that proved to Carmine how she shares more than hair color with her father. If it wasn’t for Ruby, Carmine couldn’t imagine keeping up with such movement; but Jaune’s speed was not on that level. He was fast, not near instantaneous. Carmine felt his presence close in from the right, before going around to the front. Carmine raised Rosebud up and slammed it hard on the sand. The force pushed out a shockwave that made a massive dust cloud. The two clashed inside of it, the visibility only good a few feet ahead of them.

Each swing Jaune did disturbed the sand and his speed would mean sand would defend get in his way, but the stinging was relieved by his aura constantly. That wasn’t an issue; Carmine’s rapidly spinning scythe was! It was hard to tell the exact length like this. The girl embodied the grace of her mother as Rosebud swung constantly. The weapon went around her arm before Carmine popped it up with a flex, continuing to spin as it went around her neck and down to her hips like a lethal hula hoop that still countered another sword swing. Carmine raised her knee to bop it up. The poll hooked around her leg once before she grabbed it with her hands again swiped Jaune away. On the way down, the tip lined up with his back step and she shot him in the chest.

From the outside of the cloud, the only thing visible was the flash from the gunshot and Jaune’s shining body moving sporadically. A real testament to just how much the two were moving was the constant shifting sands. Stray aura slashes of red and white flew out, carving the ground. Ruby, who had been watching from the porch, was enjoying the spectacle. However… “When will they learn that thirty feet is still too close to the house!” She said, bouncing her four year old son on her knee as he was still sleeping. A few gunshots woke him up early but quickly meant nothing to the boy’s drive to sleep.

Jaune wishes he was sleeping right now. If there was one thing consistent about training with Carmine was she was unpredictable. He wasn’t that tired but all the overwhelming back and forth was keeping him on edge. He’d been in a world of pain if he slipped up. This sandstorm had to go. Jaune gripped his blade until his knuckles turned white, swinging it with enough force to blow the storm away along with Carmine. He could barely see her get swept away like a tumbleweed. He couldn’t rest though, not by a long shot. That storm served two purposes apparently. Disguising weapon length, and the flowers made around him; four red and six yellow.

The yellow ones bursted first. Six Carmine’s with pure blonde hair and yellow eyes were armed and ready. Jaune gulped, immediately retreating at high speed. “Yellow means…” The sudden sound of electricity made him jump in the air. Six currents of voltage danced around him in an energetic chase. The moment one got near, it formed back into a clone to attack before having to catch up again. Two branched off towards the original to form a ring around her and the four identical clones.

“I don’t care how much stamina you have. It has to run out.” Carmine said, catching her breath. Her clones were made hastily. The distribution of aura was completely off and the attacks Jaune landed earlier didn’t help. Her aura had to be at least 40% by now. She knew Jaune would stop the moment it would drop below ten. “Alright me, let’s get to work!”

“Leave it to us!” The clones shouted. Two regular clones were picked up by the lightning ones, then rushed towards Jaune. The man had been running in a straight line in order to keep his pursuers roughly in one spot. He let them get closer and closer before suddenly stopping as they formed two weren’t ready to stop and got close lined. Jaune immediately destroyed one wby stabbing it. He grabbed the other one by the leg then threw it at a third. Grabbing his sword would take too much time so he opted for the Xiao Long approach, axe kicking the two tangled clones hard enough to burst. The fourth went to rush him with her scythe, but Jaune was ready to catch it, pitting it in a struggle of strength it was quickly losing. The clone tried her best to push back but he wasn’t budging.

“Gah! Come one, not even an inch!?” It cried out!

Jaune chuckled, “Arm wrestle your aunt and god mom, then try pushing me like this.” Nora and Yang had groomed an absolute wall. Jaune was not losing like this. Carmine grunted . “I’ll put it on the to do list! But for now….” The two other lightning clones caught up and formed a triangle around him. “Bye!” All three exploded simultaneously. Intense currents of electricity went through Jaune, stunning him as he dropped his weapons. He was left at the mercy of the other two regular clones descending from above.

One carried two swords while the other had the batons. Jaune could only stand still as the dual swords came straight down him and proceeded to give him a series of slashes. One after another cut through the amplified aura until it flew dimmer, a good sign that he was returning to normal. However, the attacks knocked the feeling back into his body. Jaune grabbed a cross slash then was immediately shot in the back. He winced in agitation. “She’s really covered all her bases!”

The dual wielder broke free and drove her knee upward to his chin. It brought the swords back down on top of Jaune’s shoulders. Jaune returned the headbutt from early with five times the amount of force, but the clone remained. It was only after grabbing it to use it as a bullet shield did it fade away. The other doomed followed with a sudden low tackle that Jaune used to scoop up the clone and slammed it right into the ground, hard enough to make it tremble. Finally, he could breathe. “Thank the gods, that was hell!” He said to himself, while retrieving his sword. Now he was getting tired. The fact that Nora could get shocked by lightning and smile about it became that much more terrifying. Nothing about that experience was nice! It downright sucked! He looked across the sand dunes. Carmine had been busy. He saw what he assumed to be his daughter, two clones with the same weapon setup that he just beat, ten blazing red roses on the ground by their feet, a light green eyed clone with matching tips to the far left, and a light blue eyed clone to the far right. Clearly a plan had been set into motion yet again, but what? Carmine was a girl who had her bases covered. That’s why she was so amazing, beating her meant you were simply better; something he was by a long shot, but apples tend not to fall far from trees. Underestimating his own flesh and blood would be stupid.

“Standing here means I can let my aura charge, but she’s obviously doing the same thing. More clones mean more ideas, more possibilities. It would be a drawn out battle to say the least.” Jaune groaned at that idea. He's in tip top shape, but teenagers are way too scrappy for their own good. Food fights and adventure taught him that. “Guess that only leaves one option, overwhelming force!” The man took off at high speed. From Carmine’s perspective, all she saw was a trail sand shooting high into the air like a geyser. Quickly getting closer.

All the active Carmines ready themselves. “Bring it on. Where are you headed!?” Jaune got closer and closer to the center until he darted off towards the blue clone. She gasped, startled by the approaching threat. The sight of her father’s sword coming for her face made her duck. The clone reached into her pocket and pulled out a hidden blazing rose.

“What!?” Jaune gasped.

“No matter the direction, the plan remained unchanged…” The blazing rose exploded into flames, taking out the clone and knocking back Jaune. The very ground beneath turned into heated glass. From behind, ten other blazing roses had turned into scarlet red haired versions of Carmine. All ten ran around Jaune in an instant, including an extra one that the green one had. The clones exploded as well to create an even bigger explosion that added more glass and did damage.

In the middle, Carmine herself pulled out a vile of fine grained ice dust. She placed it between her palms to form an ice blue rose that burst into another light blue version of herself. “You know what to do.” Carmine said, dropping to her knees exhausted.

“Ma’am!” The clone said, taking off towards the glass. It showed no fear in sliding across it, chilling the material before reaching Jaune to explode,trapping his feet in ice.

Jaune was completely thrown for a loop. She’s never gotten this elaborate before. He broke out of the ice easily but the two regular clones were already on top of him, coming from above. Jaune went back to using his shield to block the rain of bullets headed his way, but each one missed. On purpose. The target was breaking the glass, the second accomplished that by striking his shield from above with both blades. The impact shattered all of it nice and easily. “Cover your eyes tight.” The clone said, actual concern was present in its voice before both of the clones exploded into petals. The shockwave knocked the shattered glass into the air, along with his shield. Jaune got a good look at the green clone closing the distance.

“Oh…” was all Jaune could say before covering his eyes tightly. He understood the warning. The sound of the clone exploding was faint, but the massive gust of wind sounded like a train. The wind pushed and swirled the shards of glass around Jaune. Each piece scratched and stabbed him again and again like a thousand cuts that finally shredded his aura far passed returning him to his normal fighting state. The assault lasted for a couple of minutes until the wind started to go down.

Carmine waited patiently for her moment to strike, when the wind stopped, it would be game over for him. That’s what she thought anyways. The gust had made a small cyclone of glass like she wanted, but it also swirled sand into the mix. Carmine had expected Jaune to be standing there with his eyes still covered, but he wasn’t. Jaune was gone entirely. He had used the sand cyclone to slip away. “What!?” Carmine looked around frantically. “How did- Where did he go!?”

“Behind you…” Jaune whispered. Carmine only turned around to receive a punch right in her gut. The air in her escaped in the form of a heavy cough as she hunched over in pain. Her began to flicker before it finally broke.

Jaune let out a sigh and bent down to comfort her. “Match over. Good j-aaaah!” He screamed as the ground beneath his feet sank until he was buried up to his ribs. “What!?” he shouted. Carmine let out a pained laugh as she fell down by him. Her amused laugh trailed off as she passed out. He really did knock the wind out of her. Another patch of sand moved, rising from the ground. It was another clone. One with brown dyed tips and brown eyes. She held her Scythe comfortably before putting the blade around Jaune’s neck. He couldn’t believe this insanity. “When did you make the earth clone!?”

“I’ve been hiding since the time the real me put you in that leg lock and flung you the ground. She made a clone that fought you while she ran to grab Stamen, then made me while you were still distracted.” The earth clone explained. “You have got to keep a better eye on me. I’ll pull a fast one the moment you aren’t looking. Not that it matters.”

She swung her scythe without holding back. The blade definitely hurt Jaune’s neck but it also broke, turning into brown petals. “I was made with basically nothing and you knocked me out. I could grab the real weapons but I’m guessing you still have aura to spare.”

“Yeah if I had to guess I’d say about 45, maybe 50 percent.” Jaune said as he wiggled out of his sand prison to get on his feet.

The clone let out a long sigh, “Of course, why wouldn’t you still have half a tank? If I had a bit more time and control I could’ve made another 23 clones no problem on top of 27 I already did.”

Jaune didn’t want to think about fighting that many clones. He picked up his real daughter and stared at her tattoo of the Arc crest right above the left side of her waist. “I’m surprised you didn’t use this.”

“It’s a pain to have it on cool down and training isn’t life or death. Even if the intent was to try and kill you. Speaking of which…”

“I didn’t mean to punch you that hard.” He laughed nervously, “Ruby might have a fit about this.”

“I’m fine. Tell her I was tired. Get ready for next time! One of these days I’m beating you and mom. That’ll be the day I’ll use every hat trick in the book. Making glass is just the start.”

“You knew how to make glass but you can’t get above a C in science?”

The clone started to fade away. “What? I can’t hear you, I’m out cold. Byyyyyeeee…..” Jaune only shook his head as the clone completely turned into petals and was carried by the wind.

“Well then, let’s get you safe and sound on the-” He lost his train of thought the moment Ruby appeared in front of him. “.......”

Ruby put her hands on her hips. “I know that silence. It’s the silence you do whenever you wanna fib, but you love me and think you should come clean.”

“I...I uh, hit her a little harder than I meant to”

“I saw that.” Ruby took Carmine, carrying her daughter like a piggyback ride. “She’ll probably wake up hungry, frustrated, and thinking it was cool.”

“Yeah, she is your beautiful kid after all.” Jaune said, smiling to ease any wrath that could happen. Ruby gave him that classic “you’re a dork” look and gave him a peck on the lips.

“She’s our beautiful kid, and now she’s gonna miss breakfast thanks to this. I don’t cook eggs for them to get cold, you know!?”

“Hehe, I will make her fresh ones when she wakes up.”

“You better. Now get your butt home, breakfast is done, if that wasn’t clear.” Ruby darted off back to the house. Jaune picked up all the weapons and started the walk. If this was his punishment then he could live with this easily. Yep, just another day of light training.