AN
First sentence of the first chapter of my first fic. Hope you enjoy.
I looked around. I had arrived but ten minutes ago, and now everyone was standing on small metal pads. We were all out, on the Beacon Cliffs, with Headmaster Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch in front of us. I was a first year student at Beacon, and was looking forward to becoming a Huntsman. Although I was listening to Ozpin's speech, I only really heard the key words, and got a sense of context. At first I did this because I was looking around. Then I did it out of nervousness, because he had mentioned "Landing Strategies", and I was in my combat gear. My main combat gear. Now, I have always scoffed at those Huntsmen who decide to wear normal clothes. They go "Mrah, I'll wear shirts that make me look cool, and eat every hit with my aura!". I, on the other hand, feel that I should be tough. My Aura is fine-and in combat school, I had made it a point to fuel it and train myself to be tough and constituitous-but I have decided that going into battles with Grimm, wild animals, and bandits was dangerous, and so I wear armour. Three-quarter inch armor. Made of titanium steel. Now, you may ask how I carry this. I manage through making every day a work out, and having a robotic exo-suit, which holds the weight.
The end result of this is that I, a 6' 2", heavy set guy, am wearing armor and equipment that weigh three times my body weight, which made me understandably nervous about any situation that required my to land, which in my experience, comes after falling. Oh, well. I slowly picked up the gist of the monologue: "Partners… First eye contact… Relics… Forest… Hostiles… Come back soon." I braced myself-would we jump off a plane? Go off the cliff? My question was answered when the person next to me flew off the cliff, when the pad he stood on through him. My findings were too late to help, as I was thrown next. I barely cleared the teachers and clipped the precipas of the cliff, and smashed into an outcropping of rock. The bottom was still far away, but it was coming closer. Fast. Then, I felt a pull, and my vision blurred into a purple color. I felt myself sink slightly, then get thrown, as if by a giant, into the sky. "Thaaaaaank yooooooou!" I yelled, and prepared for landing.
As I smashed through the first layer of the canopy, I drew my dual handguns from my leg holsters, and thumbed the safety from "OFF" to "JUMP". I controlled my spiral, then- "CRACK, CRACK! CR-CR-ACK-ACK! My speed didn't change much, but I was now moving more sideways than down. I sighed relief when a trunk came out of nowhere. I pulled my soul out and formed my aura, while curling myself together, and flew into the tree, sending the top creaking over, and coming to a near standstill on the other end. I felt like throwing up, but instead checked below me. There was a cloud of leaves-I was through them, there were trees- and I saw a massive tree limb, right in the path of my fall. This time, a remembered my training, stayed calm, and then refined that calm into will, strength, form. My semblance formed, and an almost invisible barrier of bluish light appeared below me, and smashed through the branch, seconds before I too fell past the damaged tree. The bubble was moving with me, and hit the ground before I thought to collapse it, and the hit broke my thoughts into splinters, much as the barrier did before dissolving. I barely managed to fire my weapons downwards to slow myself before impact, and then I made landfall.
I must have lost consciousness for a fraction of a second, because after I fell I was lying still, with no intermediary bouncing and rolling. I took a few deep breaths, repairing my aura and soothing the splitting headache that came whenever my semblance was broken. I called my semblance "Will-to-Form". The name is pretentious, but it fits. I can form three-dimensional shapes of bluish light around me, which act as semi-transparent walls, when I keep my head clear. It sort of feels like thinking about something really hard, and moving a non-existent muscle. It is useful as armor and as a weapon, but when it is hit, the force hits my mind. Enough damage, and my concentration is broken, and the barrier shatters like glass, and I feel like being hit normally would have been preferable. As I got up, I checked my weapons, changed the safety to "FIRE", reloaded, and re-holstered them. I got my bearings, and started into the forest.
I was having a rather nice walk through the woods, brushing leaves off the tinted glass of my facepiece, when I heard it. A low growl. I thought Bear, or Beowolf? and drew my weapons. I kept an overwatch as I sunk into a crouch and slowed my pace, slowly turning to see all possible directions. As I completed the first half of my pivot, I felt instinct within me and dived, rolled, and fired a shot that scattered bark as something big landed just befond me. I was pretty sure now that it was a- Beowolf! The thing had not wasted time pouncing again, and had instead done a fast turnaround and smacked into me. It drove me down, and gouged into my chest armor. I raised my left arm to shoot it, but another claw smashed my hand to the ground and threw the gun from my grasp. I twisted my other hand to get an angle, and squeezed a blast into the beast's torso, then did it twice more. It reared up, freeing me, and roared. I rolled away and managed to find my other gun, when I fired again into the pantomime of a wolf as it fell to the ground. I reached for my lost gun when it swung both front paws down. I parried with my right arm, and felt a pressure on my aura. I grabbed my left pistol and raised it, fired to, and smacked it into the monster's front claws in one motion. It fell from my arm, and I again rolled, raised into a crouch, and jumped at the Grimm, while thumbing the slider on the grip of my right gun, and transformed it. The handle extended to exactly one-and-one-half times it's normal length and the tip of the muzzle became a secondary trigger. The transformation from firearm to melee hammer took under two seconds. As I flew at the Beowolf, my right arm swung forward and gave a muffled thud as the tip of the gun pressed in a fired a shot. As the beast half fell-half scuttled back, I switched my other gun into a hammer, and raised Dual Fury into a two-weapon stance-right above and behind, left down and in front. When the Grimm regained it's footing I jumped at it again,bringing my right arm in for a strike, while my left arm pulled back to give another hit, before I gave a cross-body stroke to the head with the right-a classic three hit combo. I twirled and brought both hammers in a simultaneous strike, bringing all my momentum from the spin, continuing the motion of the last attack. Had I given the monster time to recover the battle would have continued, but as the Beowolf fell to it's back I stepped on it's chest and smashed my right hammer into where it's collar bone should have been, if it wasn't a Grimm. The red innards of the Grimm was shown, and one of it's legs dissolved into mist. I switched my weapons back to their handgun form, spun them, and replaced them in my holsters.
As I started walking, I heard a crackling noise almost straight ahead. I drew and reloaded, then started running towards the sounds.
I ran into a clearing where a young woman was facing off against an Ursa Major. The beast swung a claw at her, but her arm flew up and her forearm, which appeared to be covered by a sheath of metal, caught and deflected the blow. I would have watched further and joined, had not another Ursa jumped in front of me. It slowed it's charge and the girl, and turned to face me, before running at me with hostile intent. I was offended, and fired once with each gun, before transforming both, ducking the Ursa's pounce, driving it to the ground with both hammers, transforming again, and firing with both weapons four times into the Grimm's torso. The whole ordeal consisted of "Pad Pad Pad Pad CRACK CRACK THU-THUD, Cr-CRACK C-CRACK C-CRACK C-CRACK ROAR." The symphony was concluded with a crackle from behind. I turned back to the Huntress candidate. The Ursa she was facing had a long streak on it with all the full burned off, as if a bolt of dust had glanced off of it. As I watched the Ursa gave three strikes, of which only one managed to get through the flashing defence of what I could now see were vambraces. The Huntress' aura took the strike, and she proceeded to give a flurry of strikes that put my attack to shame. All I could make out was that each vambrace contained at least one short-sword length blade that was mounted on a spring and acted as an arm-mounted blade of doom, and that these were capable of containing dust charges. The Ursa fell back from her with several cuts, three major stab wounds and a hold burned through it's hide from a lightning bolt. The Huntress cracked her neck, drew back her hair and said "I would have gotten it sooner, but it had a friend". She turned. "I'm Coria. From Mistral. We're partners?" I said "Ulian. Vale. I guess so." I bowed to complete the bit. She snorted. "Let's go. Formality can come when we aren't stuck in a forest waist deep in Grimm." "If you say so." I replied, and fell into step behind her as she walked on through the forest.