A Man of Honor.

Chapter 37: Spitting Atlas in the eye.

"Always carry this motto: When you lose your money, you lose nothing. When you lose your health, you lose something. When you lose your character, you lose everything." ~ Meyer Lansky.

Melanie's leg swung up at me and I raised my left arm to block the strike. A glowing blue translucent disk appeared on my arm and absorbed the blow which I used to guide her bladed heel away and moved in with Astuzia.

The special Schneelex watch worked perfectly. As per Neo's suggestion we had visited Marcello and he was more than happy to set me up with one of his pricey gold watches with built in dust dispensers and custom hard light projectors that he was pleased to calibrate to my specifications. And since the watch was to act as a deployable shield I had Kaiu do some custom work on Astuza's hilt adding a stud that I could press to send a signal to the watch to deploy it making it easy to turn on and off in a moment's notice.

Which was handy considering the small watch could only carry so much hard light dust and only be active and absorb so much damage before running dry. It wasn't practical to keep it constantly on so we developed a convenient way to turn the projectors on and off as I needed to keep the shield effective for as long as possible. After all the hard light dust wasn't cheap and easy to come by.

With the kick deflected away I moved in with a thrust towards Melanie's abdomen. Her leg lifted to parry the blade and I knocked the bladed heel away with the shield and redirected my blade to deliver several slashes that all found their mark. Her aura flared from the blows but she didn't let that stop her as she hopped back and swung a roundhouse kick in my direction.

I ducked the attack and lowered the shield bringing Vendetta up and squeezing off a shotgun blast before leaping back ready for her to counter attack.

"I think that's enough Melanie." Miltia said, holding up her scroll to show that her aura was down to the red. "You're at twenty two percent." She told me.

Melanie gave a low curse. "What's Jaune at?" She asked her while I sheathed Astuzia and turned the weapon back into its cane form, leaning on it and feeling a bit proud of myself. That had been my best fight so far.

"Forty eight percent." MIltia said, holding the scroll back up to see that I was still well within the yellow of my aura levels.

Melanie looked me in the eye and crossed her arms. "I went easy on you," she said to me indignantly.

I grinned triumphantly at her. "Admit it! I beat you!" I said looking over at Neo who wore a proud smirk on her face giving me a silent nod of approval.

"Whatever." Melanie said with a roll of her eyes. "If it was a real fight I'd have you by the balls right about now."

"Well... maybe not right now," Miltia said earning a glare from her sister. "Jaune you're aura levels are a bit high, that first kick you took from Mel only brought you down by six percent. I've seen some people get knocked down by ten or even fifteen percent from a blow like that."

"I've been told I've got quite a bit of aura before." I said, remembering when Pyrrha had first unlocked it in the Emerald Forest. I didn't realize the significance of that then but I was starting to learn just how much of an edge that extra aura was giving me.

"It's - true." Neo told me, stepping up and taking my arm slipping the watch off my wrist as easily as any master thief could. "You - can - certainly - take - more - than - most." She signed to me checking the watch and showing me the little meter on the side that displayed just how much dust was left in the watch.

I immediately saw that the gage was just below thirty percent. I had apparently used up quite a bit of the expensive dust in just that one fight alone which wasn't a surprise considering how small the watch was. I understood her point. It wasn't like the steel heater shield that came with Crocea Mors, it had limits.