A Simple Bet Between Friends

Chapter 4

Jaune had finally been right about something, he still hadn't perfected a landing strategy, and this time no spear was sent by a champion class fighter to aid him... life was cruel like that sometimes.

Jaune landed into a poor roll and twisted back onto his feet. It was far from graceful and left his bones feeling like they had been broken but he was standing. It took about half a second for him to realize he was now on ground level with the person who had attacked him. In addition to the already bad situation, several of the bullheads had decided he was worth the ammo to shoot at.

Thankfully his shield stopped most of the projectiles from hitting and those that made it past stopped at his aura. One of the bullheads moved back and was about to fire when something hit its engine and sent it smashing into the warehouse. Jaune looked up to see Ruby taking shots at the other bullheads who were now rethinking going on a direct path to shoot him.

His luck had apparently felt bad for abandoning him.

Jaune's moment of ease was short lived however, as soon as it was clear the bullheads were busy the far more dangerous threat set his sights on Jaune.

Roman Torchwick left the fight with Blake and the other guy to some of the White Fang grunts and made his way over to where Jaune was currently standing. He hoped that the criminal's plan was to just disengage with the two competent combatants and leave via bullhead, it would make sense to cut his losses, that way Jaune wouldn't have to fight him and th-

"Jaune! Don't let him get away!" Or Ruby could force him to fight a criminal way out of his league.

I'm not gonna do it, I'm not gonna do it... aw hell, I'm gonna do it.

Jaune put himself firmly in between Roman and one of the bullheads, stopping the crook from retreating. He spent a moment to look the man over more thoroughly. He used a cane that also functioned as a gun of some kind, but other than that he didn't seem to have any other weapons. Jaune had the advantage both in weapon and armour.

Surely that would be enough, right?

Jaune learned quickly that he was wrong once again. The flamboyant man had hooked his cane around the corner of his shield and almost ripped it out of his hands in one move. It took everything Jaune had to not let go, and it quickly became clear that not letting go was probably a mistake.

Jaune was pulled forward, directly into his opponents waiting fist. The gut punch left him lost for air and unprepared for the follow-up wack with the man's cane, sending him hurtling past to the ground.

He had enough common sense to twist over and throw himself back onto his feet to ward off the next attack, but none came. Instead, Torchwick kept walking. For a moment Jaune thought about letting him, in a few short seconds the guy had completely thrown him around. Jaune steadied his shield and rushed back after the man.

The crook seemed to hear him and let loose a heavy sigh before turning to face him. "I have places to be, kid. Could you just hurt yourself or something?" Torchwick dodged Jaune's thrust with his sword and sighed again. "Guess that's a no."

He brought his cane up and hit the underside of Jaune's chin causing him to stagger. He flicked his cane around in his hand to get a better hold on it and smashed it into the side of Jaune's arm.

Jaune's arm ached as he tried to hold onto the blade. The follow up attack struck the same spot, as did the next one. Jaune turned to put his shield up and block any follow-up attacks, but in doing so lost sight of his opponent.

Crocea Mors arched over his shield and down with as much force as Jaune could manage, only to miss the criminal entirely. This time when the cane came down it hit Jaune's wrist and he was unable to keep a grip on his weapon. The blade had barely left his hands before Jaune was being pushed back away from it.