A.N. Hi all. I am sorry if the chapter was a little short. I am planning on making Azure change over the course of the story. I also am trying to figure out what to call his semblance. You'll see what I mean as the story goes on. Also, I wasn't sure how old Velvet actually is, so I am putting her as one of the newcomers on the ship. Anyway, read and review.
Azure found himself on an airship with several other teenagers. Several were in groups and all of them were older than him. He looked around. Many of them had weapons that he could see. The ones that didn't have weapons that he could see, scared him. They were either arrogant, stupid, or very strong. He looked into the programing on his contortion gale. The problem was that he needed to actively focus on the changes. What he needed was some preset weapons systems. He delved into the programing, creating specialised weapons modes. It would be faster, but would also take off some of the malleability. That would need to be it's base function. He quickly added that as a preset as well as a voice recognition that would allow for better change time. He delved into his work again to increase the functionality of the weapon. This could take a while.
Ruby was on the aircraft as well and was extremely nervous. She was two years younger than all the others, and she didn't know anyone. She paced as she thought. Suddenly she was grabbed on the shoulder and she jumped.
"Yang!" Ruby scolded. "Even though you're my sister, you shouldn't do that!" She was suddenly engulfed in a hug by her sister. Yang was a taller blonde, around seventeen. She had Violet cheerful eyes, and had two golden gauntlets on her arms. She relinquished her hold on Ruby and began to compliment her on getting ahead of everyone. Ruby turned and saw Azure looking at his scroll and typing. "Hey I know that guy!" Ruby exclaimed.
"Which one?" Yang asked.
"That one!" Ruby said pointing. When Yang still didn't see who it was, Ruby sighed. "The one with auburn hair. Blue eyes. On his scroll. He helped me stop that robbery. And got arrested with me."
Yang saw who Ruby was pointing at and her eyes widened. "That guy?" She glanced at Ruby. "He's kinda cute!" She looked back over to see Azure looking at them.
"You guys know I can hear you right?" Azure asked with raised eyebrows. Yang gave a slight blush and Ruby burned red with embarrassment.
Azure went back to typing until the news turned on. He saw the picture of Roman Torchwick and clenched his hands. He began to mutter under his breath. Ruby and Yang walked over to him and he glanced at them before shutting his scroll. He had gotten used to it pretty quickly, especially because he had been always out in the wild.
"So what's your name?" Yang asked. "And how old are you. I've never seen you before."
"I'm Azure, I'm sixteen and I wasn't taught at one of the other academies."
"Oh," Yang frowned. "Where's your weapon?" She looked around for it.
"Yeah, I remember that was a cool weapon!" Ruby exclaimed. "It was so weird! I could change shapes and you used it like an extension of your own body!"
Azure smirked. "You like weapons, don't you?" Ruby nodded. "I can tell," he said. He concentrated, and again, some black dust streamed out of his pockets and formed into a small ball in his hands. He focused on the ball and began to shift it into a miniature form of Ruby with her scythe. It looked just like her, but completely black. The sisters stared in amazement as the miniature began to execute scythe moves perfectly, and exactly how Ruby would.
"Okay, that was awesome!" Yang said. "But what kind of weapon is that?" More dust streamed out of the pocket and attached to the miniature and as the shape disapeared it began to form a gauntlet, that looked just like Yang's but black. Then blue light began to form into the exact same patterns that were on Yang's gauntlet onto his. Yang was impressed at this and Ruby's eyes were as big as they could get. The gauntlet dissolved back into dust and streamed back into his pocket.
Then a hologram of Glynda Goodwitch flashed in as she began her pre recorded speech. Azure looked around and saw many different people. There weren't any who stood out. Suddenly he felt something. He felt a small pressure in the front of his skull. It was almost like an itch, but was steadily growing more painful. As the pressure got stronger, he felt it in almost an arrow. He twisted his head and felt the pressure shift. He turned and felt it move to different parts of his head, but still from the same direction. He felt it getting stronger, and began to seek out the source of his pain. Ruby and Yang were left behind as he followed the sensation to a back corner where a larger youth had cornered a faunist with brown rabbit ears. The faunist had long brown hair and her eyes were shut tight as the other larger man whispered to her. He was tall and had a heavy mace. He had light brown hair that was carefully sculpted. He seemed to be threatening her and Azure moved closer. The young man's back was turned to Azure and he began to reach out with his semblance. He could feel his aura and began to place a trace on it.
"I believe that you are scaring her," Azure said. He finished with the trace which would tell if the teen would attack with his semblance. He noticed that the pressure in his head was changing. It was feeling cold, but now it was warming up. It felt like it was more focused on the teen in front of him.
"What's it to you?" The teen said with a sneer. "She's just a filthy faunist."
"Simply put, I don't like bullies," Azure said calmly. He focused on the dust in his pocket and readied for a confrontation if necessary.
"You little punk!" The teen snarled. "You better buzz off like the insect you are before I swat you!" He shoved the girl away and lifted Azure by his shirt. Azure looked on calmly and the teen felt a sharp poke at his neck. He turned his head carefully to see a black sharp spiked tendril touching his neck. He turned back to Azure and carefully put him back on the ground. He stalked off and Azure pulled back the tendril of dust. He turned to the faunist girl and saw her crying. The pressure from before had gone back from hot to cold and he began to realise that the heat was from the angry teen, while the cold was from this girl.
"Are you okay?" He asked her. She nodded and gradually stopped crying. She looked up and Azure saw her gray eyes. She shuddered and looked at him.
"Yeah," she whispered. "Thank you. I'm Velvet."
"Azure. You shouldn't let him treat you like that," Azure recommended. "You have got to be a fighter to get into this school."
She nodded. Azure stood up and began to walk towards the door only to get knocked aside by a tall scraggly boy with blonde hair who ran to a nearby trash can and began to vomit. Azure rolled his eyes and turned to see Ruby and Yang shouting about vomit getting on Yang's shoe.
"That's disgusting!" Ruby exclaimed while Azure calmly wiped the vomit off of Yang's shoe. As the ship landed they noticed the blonde haired kid still throwing up into a trash can. Ruby and Azure looked around in awe at the spires, buildings, and courtyards of the campus. Ruby started to fawn over different weapons, and Azure noticed a prim white haired girl walking with a few servants it tow.
"You should make some friends," Yang recommended to Ruby.
"But I don't need friends," Ruby countered. "Not when I have you." She said.
"Well you also have Azure! That's a friend!" Yang said with a small smile. "Oh! There are my friends! Got to go!" Yang took off so fast, Ruby was spun around till she was dizzy.
"Wait! Do we go to our dorms? Do we have dorms? I don't know what I'm doing." She fell backwards and knocked a few bright white cases down. Azure walked over to help her.
"What are you doing!?" Azure looked up to see the girl with white hair scowling at them. "Do you know how much damage you could have caused?" She snarled and snatched one of the cases from Ruby. "This is dust! Mined and purified in the Shnee quarry!" She opened the case and pulled out a bottle of red dust. "You could have blown us off the mountain!" She shouted as she shook the her hand in exasperation. Some dust flew out and clouded around Ruby. The girl was oblivious to this and kept talking while Ruby tryed to hold in a sneeze.
"Hey!" Azure said. "Knock it off!" He grabbed her wrist. "You shouldn't be shaking that, especially when it's partially opened genius." Ruby sneezed and an explosion covered Azure and the girl in soot. The bottle flew up into the air and rolled to a black boot.
"This is exactly what I'm talking about!" The girl began to screech. Azure looked at her more closely and saw her eyes were ice blue and for all of her bluster, she was much shorter than himself. She was even shorter than Ruby. She did have a rapier at her side however, and Azure could tell she knew how to use it.
"Look we're sorry princess, now shut up already!" Azure said quietly, as he was trying to keep from getting too angry.
"It's heiress actually," a voice said. The three turned and saw another teen with yellow eyes, raven black hair and a black bow on her head. She was taller than the other two girls but still a few inches shorter than Azure. "Weiss Shnee, heiress to her father's dust company, one of the most profitable in the world."
"Finally some recognition," the girl, Weiss said arrogantly.
"Also the most controversial," the black haired girl continued. "For it's controversial labor forces, and shady business partners." Azure snickered at the remark as Weiss indignantly replied with some snobby remark. Finally, unable to make a comeback, she stormed off.
"I'll make it up to you!" Ruby called out.
"Save it," Azure remarked. "She'll never be happy with it." Ruby turned to him and noticed that the veins in his neck were turning black. Azure closed his eyes and took deep breaths as the blackness drained away. They turned to see the black haired girl walking away. Ruby slumped sadly. Azure turned to his scroll to look for a map and was startled by Ruby flopping over onto the ground again.
"Welcome to Beacon," Ruby said to herself. Azure turned and helped her up. And saw the blonde boy from the ship walk over.
"Hey," he said. "You two okay?" he said.
"Yeah," Azure said, looking at the scrawny kid. Though he was almost as tall as Azure, he was definitely thin, and did not look the part of a fighter. "Aren't you the kid who threw up on the ship?"
"All I'm saying is that motion sickness is a bigger problem than people let on," the kid defended himself. Ruby laughed while Azure still looked for a map of the place. "Name's Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue, ladies love it!" Jaune boasted.
"Do they?" Azure said trying to hold in his laughter.
"They will!" Jaune defended. "At least I hope they will. I mean my mom always says that… nevermind."
"So I got this thing," Ruby said trying to start conversation. Her scythe popped out and planted in the ground as Jaune jumped back with a shout.
"Is that a scythe?" Jaune asked nervously.
"It's also a highly customisable, high velocity sniper rifle," Ruby explained.
"A what now?" Jaune asked.
"It's also a gun," Azure monotoned from the side. "What do you have?"
"I got this sword and shield," Jaune said. He pulled out a sword and the shield unfolded. "The shield can fold up so if I get tired of carrying it, I can put it away." He then began to fumble the shield as he lost hold of it. "What do you have?" He asked Azure.
"I can't pull it out right now, it's updating," Azure monotoned. "And wouldn't the shield still weigh the same?" Jaune blushed. "Finally!" Azure said. He showed the other two the map of the grounds he had pulled up. "We've been going the wrong way! C'mon!" He began to run in the opposite direction from where they had come from.
Azure and Ruby ran down to the building where they were supposed to be and stopped outside the doors. They turned and saw that Jaune was far behind them. They waited as Jaune caught up out of breath. He leaned over and panted. "How the heck are you two so fast!"
Ruby smiled apologetically. "I used my semblance."
"Same here," Azure said. Ruby looked at him in surprise. He turned to her. "What?" He began to stress out. Crap, my semblance is definitely one of a kind, and is very noticeable, but hopefully she won't push it. Thankfully she didn't.
"Ruby! Azure!" Yang called. "I saved you a spot!" The two quickly ran over and Yang turned to Ruby. "How was your first day?"
"You mean since you left me and I exploded!?" Ruby asked.
"Yikes, meltdown already?" Yang asked.
"No," Azure chimed in. "She literally exploded." He turned and saw some of the others that he had met before. The large teen from the ship dwarfed everyone with sheer size. He was over six feet tall! Ruby was busy retelling the incident to Yang and Azure saw a head of bright white hair behind her.
"Cripes," Azure muttered.
"YOU!" Weiss yelled.
"AH! It's happening again!" Ruby yelled and jumped at Azure who caught her. He set her down and she hid behind him. Azure rolled his eyes at her antics.
"You're lucky we didn't get blown off the side of the cliff!" Weiss yelled.
"Yeesh, you really exploded," Yang muttered.
"It was an accident!" Ruby claimed. Weiss pulled out a pamphlet and shoved it in her face. Weiss began to recite a lengthy monologue, and to Azure, it sounded like she was steadily speaking faster and higher pitched.
"You really want to make this up to me?" Weiss asked. Ruby nodded. "Then read this and don't ever speak to me again!"
"Look, I think you guys just got off on the wrong foot. Why don't you just start over?" Yang asked.
"Yeah, and we can paint our nails and talk about tall blonde and scraggly over there or Mr. Ice cold right here," Weiss drawled.
"Really?" Ruby asked. Weiss glared at her.
"That's a no," Azure said. "Leave it Ruby, Ms. Ice-Queen just thinks she's too good for you."
Azure recognised Professor Ozpin walk onto the stage and begin his speech and Azure began to feel pressure in his head again. This was almost like a mosquito bite, it was an itch you couldn't scratch. He looked for the source and saw Weiss fuming by herself. Stupid Grimm Empathy. He thought to himself as he ignored the pressure to hear Goodwitch's instructions for where they would sleep. He smirked. He didn't need to sleep. He just needed an hour of meditation to tighten his hold on this plane of existence. It wouldn't do for others to see him in his...other form.
Azure looked around the room and saw some rafters in the air. He tapped into his semblance and raced up the nearest wall. He perched on the rafter, and watched as people began to talk. And Jaune! He was wearing blue footie pajamas! Why? Why is he so naive? He laughed and shook his head. The white haired girl was on the other side of the hall and the pressure in his head had dulled somewhat. He closed his eyes. Lights flickered and began to take the forms of people. He saw bright lights of strong aura's and the weaker lights of weaker auras. He 'looked' at himself and still saw nothing in the darkness. It was so frustrating! He opened his eyes and sighed. He looked around the room and saw Ruby and Yang talking to the black haired girl from earlier. Having nothing better to do he began to listen to the conversation.
"I'm Blake," the black haired girl said. She began to read again. Azure stopped listening. It wasn't really worth it. However, there was definitely something happening at the other side of the hall. He began to feel the pressure in his head again, but this one was hot, almost searing. He grasped his head and tried to focus on it. He began to hear the argument and recognised the voice of the rude teen from the airship. He leaped from rafter to rafter, until he was above the area from this pain. He looked down. There were a three faunist kids, one boy with a pair of antlers, one girl with a cross between muttonchops and a full beard despite his young age, and one girl with a pair of bat wings sprouting from her shoulderblades. The one with the beard seemed to be in charge, and the larger teen seemed to be the instigator of this argument. Azure listened in.
"You freaks, you shouldn't even be here," the teen snarled.
"Shut up Cardin!" the bearded boy said venomously. "We have as much right to come to school as you!"
"You're nothing but freaks! All of you!" Cardin said back with equal venom. "You're all worthless degenerates. The only problem is that you breed like the animals you are so we can't get rid of you!"
Azure decided he had heard enough. Dropped down in between the two and turned to Cardin. "I was wondering what your name was," he turned and smirked. "You just can't seem to leave people alone. Three on one odds. Wow you must be confident!" Dust spiraled out of his pocket and formed a small dagger. "But, I know better. You act all confident, and want to climb up the ladder and get to the top, but you can't. You're only a small little dagger. And the only way daggers are used is by stabbing someone in the back. Well, I'm no dagger. I'm a sword. Better reach, and stronger too. I can go through the front. That's why you feel like belittling others isn't it?" He looked up into Cardin's eyes, and the dagger dissipated. "You want to beat a sword with a dagger? Forge it till it's hard enough to break the sword. You are nothing right now. Try to become something and then we can actually have a conflict."
Cardin backed away and glared at Azure and the other faunists. "You'll get what's coming to you freaks," he snarled as he turned away.
The faunists turned to Azure and looked at him. The leader stepped forward and offered his hand which Azure accepted. "Thanks. It's not often that we find others who'll help faunists," he stepped back and gestured to each in turn. "I'm Desmond, he's Nathan, and she's Amber."
Azure shook each of their hands. "Azure. Does Cardin do that often?"
"Yeah, he does that to everyone," Desmond clarified. "He's terrorises everyone he doesn't like. You probably just made the top of his crap list or at least close."
Azure smirked. "Then that just made my day. It's been too long since I've put some jerk in his place," he chuckled. "I'll see you guys at the test." He walked off and run up the wall back up to the rafter where he began to set up his area He tied a rope around the beams and around his waist. It wouldn't do for others to see him fall from such a height. As the others began to settle down for sleep, Azure noticed that Velvet was all by herself. She was joined by another student. Who had dark shades and was significantly smaller. The weird thing was the briefcase she had. Azure shrugged and sat down on the beam with his legs crossed. He placed his hands on his knees and closed his eyes. Though it would only take an hour, it would be able to help him rejuvenate and be ready for the next day.
Azure opened his eyes to see darkness. He was standing in a circle of white that was ringed in blue. A coil of light was wrapped around his waist, and and pairs of bright red eyes looked in. A pair of them raced forward and stopped as a blue light with red cracks rose up. The cracks got larger as the light illuminated the outline of a form of complete darkness. No features were visible except for it's eyes and it's four muscular legs. It shook itself and snarled. Azure sighed he placed his palm on the ground and lifted. A pillar of light raised up under his palm. He slammed his palm down and the circle of light grew. It flooded out and the shadowy figure disintegrated. Azure took down the blue barrier and walked to the edge of the circle. He began to walk around the edge and with each step a symbol formed that looked like an two A's one overlapping the other so that the middle lines were, one. Once he got all the way around, he drew the infinity symbol with his finger which was to tie the circle shut. As he finished with the symbol, the edge of the circle glowed blue and a shield of blue light went up, devoid of all cracks. He took a few steps in and started again, creating a new shield. This would take a while.
He finished three shields, five shields, ten shields, twenty five shields in total. He wiped his brow and stepped back into the middle he sat down cross legged again and closed his eyes. Already, the creature was back and was beating against his shields. The shields would hold for a week at least. Azure felt like he should build more shields this time, because who knows when the next chance would be for him to build the mental shields.
Azure opened his eyes and looked at his scroll, only an hour had passed, which he had expected, but now he had nothing to do. He looked at the update he had installed on Contortion Gale. It had finished during his meditation. He considered the response time for his weapon. He looked into his different programs. Each had a long range and short range form, but he only had two forms, there were many other applications, and Azure smiled as he began to work again.
He had the unbound form, which required much more concentration to get it to do what he wanted, but was infinitely versatile. He had his aerial form, which would give him a height advantage as well as speed, but was also very light on armor. He had his assault form, which focused on ground attacks and speed. He had his guard form which would be much more focused on shielding himself and others. The one with trouble was his subsections on his different settings. He began to rework the programming and as he got more frustrated, he decided to tap into his semblance to speed things up. He was the only one who had this problem. He stole others semblances, and it made it rather confusing. He had met a woman sometime back who had a semblance that allowed her to manipulate technology and even move the metal itself. The weirdest part was that she could give the creations their own ability to move themselves, though they would fall apart after so long. He began to work, more talking directly to the program to get what he wanted, rather than write it himself. It was rather helpful, but it would be problematic if anyone found about his ability to absorb other's abilities into himself. There would be too many questions. He laid down on the beam and waited for the program to finish uploading to Contortion Gale.