MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
Escape
As was becoming a staple of my life, my plan was a work in progress. Thus far I had 'escape with my life' down as my end goal and a fair number of question marks between here and there, but I figured that the important part was that I had my priorities straight. Get out of here, get to Atlas, save the people, survive it all—I knew what I wanted to accomplish.
And all told, I'd say it was going pretty well, in a relative sort of way. Using their reluctance to fire over the city against them had gotten me to the limits of Vale and then some strategic thinking and careful flying had shaken them off my tail and given me a chance to take them down. I wasn't worried about firing at them over Beacon, because I knew the people onboard the ships would be fine thanks to the Hunter passengers I'd confirmed were onboard with Observe and the crashed ships themselves were unlikely to do any harm to the Hunters-in-training down below. That had bought me a fair amount of time to fly into the Emerald Forest before anyone else came along to continue the chase.
At that point, well…bringing the Grimm into the equation had been a calculated risk. Beacon had been built on the edge of the Emerald Forest long ago, a defense for an early Vale against the hostile creatures that lurked within, which was also why it was situated so close to Forever Fall. That wasn't to say the other untamed places that surrounded Vale weren't dangerous—it was an untamed place on Remnant and therefore extremely hostile—but the worst breeds of Grimm had come from over what had long-since been nicknamed the Dread Mountains.
Since then, however, years of predation by hundreds of people training to be Hunters, as well as by the staff and alumni keeping things in order, had diminished the threat. Not enough to remove it by any means or even make it less than extremely dangerous to the unprepared, but in comparison to the beasts that had once stalked Vale's borders…
These were nothing but an annoyance.
Which is good, because an annoyance was exactly what I needed until I could get far enough away to throw myself into horrific danger. I'd fired on the forest, carving a scar across it to disturb its inhuman inhabitants, and watched as the dark creatures had taken to the skies. It was often debated just how intelligent the Grimm were and no one could say for certain—sometimes they showed almost senselessly suicidal behavior, while on others they seemed to organize extremely intelligent, simultaneous attacks on vulnerabilities.
Whatever the case, though, they were definitely predators. Different from any other kind, to be sure, with no fear of death or danger, but predators nonetheless—and, as such, given the choice they would strike at the weakest link, the isolated, injured, small, and alone. They'd fearless strike at the powerful, too, but only if they didn't have something more fragile to devour first. And while I couldn't be certain how they'd react when I drew them to battle, because I was being chased and I was weak compared to those who followed me…they didn't know that. Even though they had Hunters aboard, the pursuing craft were vastly smaller than the White Whale and I had displayed my power by wreaking havoc on their home. Given that, I figured they'd consider them a smaller threat and, sure enough, much of the dark flock directed its attention toward my hunters, buying me precious time to get further away.
And then I rose above the peaks that separated Vale from the horrors beyond and got my first, true glimpse of a world still untouched by man. Without so much as a glimmer of industrialization, of things shaped by muscle or machine, I saw an almost impossibly long slope of pure white snow, until it gave way at last to land in the distance. My first thought as I flew beyond for the first time was that it was a beautiful, remote place.
But it wasn't empty.
As we came over the peaks with shrieks and fire, we drew the attention of the beasts that lurked beyond civilization. Tyrant Scales rose from the mountain sides at the noise, taking to the air around us—massive beasts, at least as big as Giant Nevermore and even more dangerous. I'd seen them before, if only in my parent's gallery, but these creatures had scales of pure white Grimm bone without a trace of black flesh. Some of the beasts exhaled a mist-like fog that left ice forming in the air around it while others breathed fire that turned stone to slag. I felt lucky for the fact that I didn't see any with multiple heads as I flew past as quickly as I could, hoping not to give them time to regain their bearings.
Okay, I admit it, my plan at this point was to just run away really fast so the monsters couldn't be bothered to wreck my shit. I didn't even use any tricks or stunts or anything, but simply flew straight on with all the speed I could muster, trying to keep ahead. Not the bravest or most ingenious plan ever, but it seemed to be working for the moment and I was glad to stay out of the fighting if it meant getting the hell out of here.
All the while, however, I watched my Map carefully and kept an eye on my pursuers through my Elementals. Most of the ships on my tail had apparently decided to continue the chase a bit farther, with only a scarce few drawing back and away, withdrawing from the danger. I was a little disappointed, but sadly not surprised—I'd expected to need to go deeper into the Badlands to escape from Hunters. I was lucky, at least, in that the creatures swarming about me still seemed to find them a more appetizing target and I drew out others with chaos and noise as I flew boldly onwards. Between the passive bonuses of my flying skills and the boost from my Nature Affinity, I think I did pretty well, gliding over the snow covered fields while maintaining a steady distance from those chasing me. From here on out, so long as I aimed well and made sure any Grimm that rose did so closer to them than me, I should be okay, but I still needed to figure out a way to shake them off—
I paused mid-thought, looking at my Map carefully before looking back in front of me. Geological structures were etched accurately onto the screen, though the two-dimensional view wasn't ideal for a three-dimensional flight. That was mainly just me being greedy, though, and I compensated for that weakness somewhat with Crocea Mors and Levant—it was undeniable that my Map was a godsend when it came to stuff like this. It let me keep track of how many people were chasing me, where paths were, kept track of landmarks and notable things, and, when I needed it to, it could even draw me the fastest route between my current location and a destination. It was extraordinarily useful and I trusted it a great deal.
Which left me a bit confused, because according to it, the mountain I was flying towards was a lot smaller then it appeared to be—half the size, if that. I'd looked up everything I could about the Badlands before this mission, had drawn on pictures and paintings and everything I possibly could concerning it, just in case. I was flying towards the Anzu Mountain and it looked the same now as it had in Leopold's drawing over a hundred years ago. There was nothing wrong with it, that I could see and I wouldn't have paid it any mind if not for the attention I'd paid to my Map.
I wondered for a moment if it was simply wrong—and immediately dismissed the thought. I'd gotten to the point that I trusted what my power told me above my own eyes or even a hundred years of history. Besides which, I was nowhere near lucky enough for 'there was nothing wrong' to be a remotely plausible explanation to me anymore after noticing something was strange. Indeed, it seemed fairly safe to assume that if my power told me something didn't add up, it mean something bad for me.
I frowned down at my map for a moment, looking for any clues in the limited data it revealed to me. It didn't tell me anything about the structure itself—whether it was somehow an enemy unit, some kind of hologram, or what—but after a moment, I noticed that the Grimm which had once been harrying my pursuers were swiftly breaking away to hover at a respectable distance. Almost as if they were…waiting.
Suddenly shifting to flat-out worried, I ignored the ships that were now closing in and squinted at the mountain, Observing it. What returned to me was almost entirely hidden from my sight, but what little I could make out left my mouth slackened and my eyes wide.
No, I thought. Please no.
Lightning struck at my ship and hail rained down on it, jolts and impacts that briefly sent my heart hammered—not in fear of the attacks, though Levant and Crocea turned their focus to defense in my stead, but of what they might cause. It shouldn't have been an issue, not if at least a hundred years had passed to no effect, but I could feel dread rising in my belly even so. As I drew close, I began to Sense Danger, windows appearing to helpfully inform me of the skill's increasing level.
Please no, please no, please don't—
I heard thunder rumble as Levant deflected lightning bolts, heard explosions and gunfire and shrieks of air. I didn't turn my gaze away from the Mountain, already shifting my course as best I could without letting my pursuers gain too much on me, hoping that I wasn't this unlucky.
Predictably, I was.
Stone suddenly cracked, a sound that dwarfed the thunder from before. Fields of snow fell loose as things shifted, an avalanche rushing abruptly down the mountain side.
Or rather, down the side of what we'd thought for so long was a mountain.
Wings spread suddenly, flapping wide in an irritated stretch as we disturbed their owners slumber. Before, they'd been curled around an actual mountain, leaning against the massive structure in their sleep, but now I could see what had, for perhaps hundreds of years, been hidden. A beast of Grimm that I hadn't seen in my parent's gallery, but recognized nonetheless—a creature lost to the tides of history, recorded but unseen for so long it was thought half a myth. Some thought that it must have at last been killed by some great warrior, a feat many had claimed but none had proven. Others thought it was an exaggeration, born of fear superstitions in ages long past. Believers thought it might linger to the North, on the Fallen Continent where so many horrific creatures gathered.
In truth, it must have just been sleeping, right in front of our eyes.
?
LV?
Ziz
Ziz, the lord of all the things that fly. Said to be a beast that could stand with its feet in the sea and scratch the sky with its brow, whose breath ended nations, whose wingbeats tore away forests. It stood before me now, a horrific amalgam of creatures—a head perhaps like a twisted, scaled Nevermore, the wings of a Tyrant Scale writ impossibly large. Both features slid down into a body that was at once furred, scaled, and leathered, patterned white and black. Here, I could see a resemblance to the insect monsters to the West, from the Blood Flies to the Sky Weavers. There, a strange resemblance to a Nemean. But all of it was massive, dangerous, unbelievable—enough so that even the twenty-story Goliaths that stalked the edge of the Kingdom would have seemed tiny and insignificant in comparison.
I was looking at a reminder of how unforgiving the world we lived in truly was. I was looking at a creature that had once been worshiped as a messenger of God, carrying word from on-high. Just one word, really, or so the story goes—'Begone.'
It rose sluggishly from its mountain side, dwarfing it easily as it stretching its wings wider yet—and then flapped them once.
Just once.
And a tornado erupted in the midst of the mountains and the plains. It wasn't aimed at me or my hunters or anything at all, really, but simply created in its wake. A terrifying cyclone of wind, a column of air that stretched from heaven to earth—and then it opened its mouth, fire erupting from its gullet to ignite the storm, such heat and light arising that I thought he'd set the sky aflame. I must have been nearly two kilometers away and still I felt the heat, saw steam and smoke rise in torrents towards the sky.
I stared for a moment at that casual display of power from a beast that didn't even deign to fully rise from its resting place. I wondered if it was luck or Luck that had resulted in this meeting. In a certain light, I was bearing witness to something unseen for generations, a display of godlike power that beggared description from a monster straight out of myth and legend. I was unspeakably luck just to see it, from that perspective. In fact, just thinking about the probability…it was like I'd stumbled across a one in a million secret boss on my first trip outside the Kingdoms. I must have beat some pretty damn long odds for this to have occurred.
I considered that for a moment, marveled at how unlikely it must have been to encounter such a rare opponent on accident. Especially given my Grimm Quest—or perhaps that played a role in this meeting. It wasn't uncommon to find enemies that couldn't be encountered unless you'd activated a specific quest. Perhaps that was what this was, my power telling me to slay another specimen of Grimm and retrieve its mask.
"God no," I said, turning my ship to run like hell. Those perusing me evidently agreed and had given up the chase to flee as Ziz rose from its mountain throne, scattering in every direction in the hopes of improving their chances. But before I could even fully turn the ship, I knew it wouldn't make a difference.
After all, it wasn't after them.
I felt the White Whale shake in a sudden bout of turbulence and had to struggle to keep it steady as Ziz took to the air, but I already knew it was too late to escape. With speed that was unfair for a creature so large, it closed the distance between us with a single flap of its wings, it's ten massive eyes gleaming with intelligence. There was something strange there, something familiar to what I'd seen in the Beowolf before, and the sight of it almost made me wonder if…
But I suppose it didn't matter, I thought as the White Whale shuddered, steel groaning as Ziz plucked it up in a single claw. It was over now.
XxXXxX
Or maybe not.
"Why did I even bother investing in Luck?" I muttered to myself, sitting back with a sigh. "Should have just kept the damn points. I could have had Bai Hu's next technique by now, but no—I had to push my literal goddamn luck. Shit."
It seemed that after snatching me up, Ziz had decided to stretch its wings a bit in a display that had filled me with terror. Despite how far I'd flown from Vale during the chase, we were all but in spitting distance of it for a creature of Ziz's size. If I'd woken the beast up, if I'd set it upon my town…I'd never forgive myself. I also probably wouldn't have had to worry about it for very long, granted, because I'd have probably died shortly thereafter—if it had attacked Vale, I'd have crawled out of the ship to face the beast, even knowing I'd probably accomplish nothing.
I sent off praises to every god I had ever heard of when it didn't fly in that direction, appearing apathetic to everything around it. I didn't even care, in that moment, that it had chosen to fly off with me instead and had felt nothing but relief when the ship was rocked by the thunderous sound of its wings. It wasn't until later, after I was cut off from the light of the sun and plunged into darkness by the creature's titanic body and even larger wingspan, that I'd considered resisting and contemplated ways to try to run and escape. I didn't dare risk it until we were far enough away from the city that it wouldn't go search for more prey if I succeeded, but when I thought it safe to try, nothing I'd done had made Ziz's grasp so much as budge. When I'd put the whole of the ship's power into trying to slip loose and escape, it had accomplished nothing but making Ziz tighten its colossal grasp, causing the ship groan and warp.
I'd considered unloading all of my weaponry at the beast but hesitated, completely certain it would do absolutely nothing but maybe convince the creature to kill me that much more quickly. Purely out of a desire to prolong my life, I'd waited.
And waited.
And waited.
In Ziz's clutches, I watched the world go by beneath me. Despite its size—or perhaps because of it—it flew impossibly quickly, faster than anything I'd ever even heard of. In what seemed like minutes, land turned to sea, though it should have taken me an hour or two to get that far. I spent a while staring down at the shifting depths of the ocean, at the waves below, and it was…
Boring. Surprisingly peaceful, perhaps even beautiful, but after a while, really dull. The Gamer's Mind kept me calm in any situation, so fear was never anything more than a momentary distraction, blunting the terror of even such a creature's presence. Even beyond that, though…it sounds odd—or maybe even impressive—but it's like…it's like knowing someone is out there and any minute he could come in and kill you and there's no way for you to stop him or reason with him or do anything, but he's taking his sweet-ass time about it.
The first few minutes of that were really nerve-wracking, even calm as I was; the simple knowledge that my life was a toy in someone else's hand, to be crushed and discarded. Even if that didn't fog my thinking, didn't make me panic, didn't get to me directly, it was a fact that I knew, considered, and had no way of refuting.
Then half an hour had passed and still nothing had happened. I'd distracted myself and found things to do. I wrote a few things on my scroll that I realized I'd never gotten around to doing. I wrote a will, though I had no way of making it official and it was unlikely anyone would ever find it. I wrote letters, too, just on that off chance that someone did, apologies and last words to my friends and family. I sighed and ruefully wrote a list of the things I regretted not doing, just to keep them in mind, and then a list of things I would do if I somehow survived.
Then an hour had passed and still nothing had happened. Levant stayed by my side through it all, gaze more curious then frightened, whilst Crocea Mors was unshakable as ever. Between them and the Gamer's Mind…it's really hard to be worried while feeling calm and being surrounded by friends who just weren't. I browsed through my scroll even though I was far out of range. I read my emails, mostly stuff from Blake after our last exchange, and then played some games on it. None of them took me very long to complete, sadly, because of my enhanced Intelligence and Wisdom made the solutions rather obvious once I got the hang of it, but it was a good distraction. I kind of regretted not downloading any books onto it or anything but the built in games, really, but what can you do? Live and learn, I guess, though I wasn't sure that was applicable to this situation.
I looked up after the third hour, saw that I was still over the sea, and sighed. I probably should have abandoned ship the moment Ziz had seized me up and just walked back to Vale or something, but I'd been resolved, hopeful, stubborn. At first I hadn't wanted to do anything that might cause it to shift its attention and after I was sure that wasn't an issue, I'd still wanted to save those people so bad I'd tried to wrest the ship free instead of abandoning ship. Well, it had probably been too late even by that point, since I'd already been out at sea. And now…
Maybe if I climbed out I could swim somewhere? If I could get to shore or something, I should be able to contract with a Water Elemental with some effort. The mission would be a failure, but there was a chance I'd get home alive. Of course it was more likely I'd just be eaten by water-faring Grimm, but…
I checked my Map again to determine where we were and then looked to my World Map to try and make a rough guess as to where I was going. Southeast, roughly, though that could lead anywhere at the speed we were moving. With a sigh, I decided to wait in the hopes Ziz would hit land again—and hopefully not attack anyone. I considered going to sleep but…no, I'd rather be awake for this. Especially since there was an off chance of there being an opportunity to escape, however slim. I waited, relaxed as best I could, and watched the world go by.
And then we abruptly made landfall. Ziz set down suddenly on a shore I didn't recognize, walking inland with steps that must have shaken the world. I was about to rise, ready to leave and face…whatever was coming, but was knocked back into my seat before I could even do anything. The entire ship shook as a horrible ripping sound tore through it and I held my breath as if he might hear me. There was a long moment of silence, a tense moment as if I was being judged and—
Suddenly, I was flying. Not like Ziz had taken to the skies again or like I was flying the ship. Like I'd been thrown, tossed aside like worthless trash. I lost my balance for a moment and slammed first into the ceiling and then a nearby wall before calling upon Levant's power to hold myself steady. Even then, it took me a moment to realize that was exactly what had happened and I scrambled for the controls, trying to control my flight and, more importantly, my descent. Half my controls didn't seem to work and the rest seemed sluggish to respond, but I managed to turn a chaotic tumble into a wobbling, uncontrolled landing and survive it with an exhausting use of Aura Crash. I was smashed around a fair bit as the ship tumbled and felt my MP drain as I tried to keep it together despite it all. When at last the ship settled and rocked to a halt, I just…sat for a moment, stunned and amazed that I was alive.
Then I got out of my seat to figure out what the hell had happened. Figuring that one out had turned out to be pretty easy, because it became evident to moment I walked out the door—there was a giant hole in my ship. I stared at it disbelievingly for a moment before Lunging my way up through the exposed bowels of the craft so I could take a look around outside.
Several kilometers away, Ziz rose into the air and flew a ways before diving into the sea in a move that flooded the beach he'd been on. I watched for a minute, but when he didn't emerge I turned my attention back to the mildly pressing issue of the hole in my ship. Swearing to myself, I knelt down and put a hand to the hull, feeling Crocea Mors within it. I felt her map out the damage in my mind, compared it to the blueprints in my head, and—
Was torn from my thoughts as Ziz erupted from the sea with a deafening shriek. Clutched in its talons was a bleeding blue creature that would have been large if it hadn't been in Ziz's hands. It took me a minute to realize what I was looking at.
"Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding me!" I snarled—quietly, in fear that it might actually hear me. "You dragged me across the fucking world because you were hungry!? You don't even need to eat!"
Ziz casually tore off the whale's head, scarfing it down absently before slicing the creature neatly open to draw out the softer squishier bits. I wasn't sure why it was bothering, since it couldn't possibly need it—even beyond the usual Grimm thing, there was no way a creature that size, or any of the larger Grimm, survived on conventional biology. Maybe it was bored or it was an Aura thing or it just liked watching large things die; I didn't know.
What I did know was that I was pissed the hell off.
"Hey, here's an idea! Maybe you should have checked to make sure you liked to taste of steel before carrying me off to…where the fuck am I!?" I snarled again and stomped on the ship's hull. "You flying feathered fuck. We're gonna have words about this when I'm level a hundred!"
I growled to myself as I calmed unnaturally, well aware there was nothing I could do about the Grimm right now. For its part, Ziz had finished scarfing down the rest of its snack and was preparing itself to dive back into the ocean for more. I looked around and had no idea where I was. I looked down at my ship and had no idea if I could fix it.
And then I sat down on the hull of my ship and put my head in my hands.
"Fuck." I said, trying to put all my anger and frustration into that one word.
I gave myself a moment.
And then I got back to work.
XxXXxX
MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
On Track
The situation could have been a lot worse, I grudgingly admitted. Ignoring…everything evenremotely related to Ziz, I was unbelievably lucky.
Not because of the ship, even if things weren't as bad as they could have been. The ship was horribly damaged, Ziz having skewered it with its beak to see if it was worth eating and punched a hole most of the way through it in the process. It had thankfully missed a lot of stuff that was reallyirreplaceable, but it had still ripped through wires and metal and more; you couldn't inflict that much damage on an Airship and not hit something important. It hadn't eaten the engine or anything, but it was still pretty bad.
Not really because of where I was, either. I was on Mantle now, which might have seemed lucky, but as a continent, Mantle was kind of, uh, big. I was on one of the frigid islands to its west, which I wasn't even sure counted as part of Mantle proper, even if my quest had apparently accepted it—though I didn't even get a level out of it, which was making me start thinking I wasn't getting paid enough for this shit. I mean, I was used to annoying, dangerous quests for pretty shitty rewards, but that was in actual games. Given that I was taking my life in my hands here, I figured I should get more meaningfully compensated.
Regardless, I was on Mantle, but though there were plenty of worse places to be I was still hundreds of miles away from my destination and without a ship I'd have to trek across an ungodly amount of ice and snow to reach my destination. So that wasn't the reason, either.
But the saving grace was that my power, as always, was bullshit. Because of it, I'd figured all of that out in less than a minute. With it, I thought the situation may not have been completelyhopeless. It was pretty much built for situations like this, honestly—situations where I had few solutions but a lot of time, because it's not like I was going anywhere without the White Whale.
The ship itself, I'd quickly realized, was fucked. I didn't have the skill to fix it and I didn't have the parts; it was beyond my ability to completely repair. Or rather, beyond my current ability to repair. Since my power boiled the issue down to my skills being too low, however, I was better off than pretty much anyone else in the world would have been. I had the blueprints in my head, a full understanding of how the ship should have worked, and I had some of the materials and a way of actually working with them.
I'd turned everything off to keep from wasting power, gathered up some of the new scrap metal, and started grinding my Crafting skill, making simple things at first, then more complicated things, building them up and melting them down with Crocea Mors, again and again. The sun rose and set several times, and the skill improved until I could ply it roughly to my purpose and started repairing some of the damaged portions of the ship. A good amount of the damage was beyond me regardless of my efforts, for I simply didn't have the materials or a way of working with them, but the metal portions which made up most of the huge hole in the ship? That I could do something about and I did.
By noon on the third day, the obvious damage—the huge hole, primarily—was gone, though parts laid exposed for later repairs. I'd accomplished the work of heavy machinery and hundreds of men with just my brain, Aura, and Crocea Mors, fixing it up. It wasn't the prettiest patch job ever, but that was fine because I wasn't trying to win a beauty contest with it.
But it still wouldn't fly. I'd mended the superficial bits but airships, like beauty, were more than skin deep. I couldn't fix all the damage on the ship by twisting metal alone, not with the damage to the wiring and various systems within it; getting the ship in the air again would have been, for anyone else, a hopeless prospect.
I wasn't anyone else, though. I was the Gamer—and I was stubborn as hell.
As another point of dubious luck, Ziz had chosen a more or less empty island. I'd explored it during my first day here and hadn't found any sign of human civilization, past or present. As far as I could tell, there were no Grimm on the Island, either—if there ever had been, they'd either left or ran away after Ziz's arrival and hadn't come back even after it curled around another mountain and went to sleep again. That was both good and bad; no Grimm to fight meant I couldn't level up but it also meant I didn't have to put up with the constant distraction of attacks, allowing me to focus on my current problem.
And maybe, just maybe, a possible solution.
I'd kept Levant and Crocea Mors manifested and by my side at all times. Part of that, of course, was to continue to train my Elemental skills—but a larger part was simply so I wouldn't be alone on this island, immediate danger or not. Either way, it was for the best, because of what I needed to do next.
I'd meant to do this for a while now, but had never had the time. The last few weeks had been a constant rush, an effort to get so many things done in too little time. But now, thanks to Ziz Airline's horrible flight, I had all the time in the world and a pretty pressing need.
"I, Jaune Arc, call upon the ancient contract of ages past to summon thee," I said, standing before a trio of prepared circles, readying myself for one ritual after another. I wasn't certain this would work, but…nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? "I hope that you heed my call. Come, Fire Elemental!"
The makeshift fire I'd built in the first circle erupted suddenly, blazing higher than it should have. A small figure gathered at the center of the flame, bronze skin and blazing red hair. He was a diminutive figure but somehow cut an image of nobility despite that, garbed in cloth of shifting patterns in reds and blues. The cloth left half his chest bare in a fashion that seemed dimly familiar and he looked up at me with eyes that glowed like coals.
But I wasn't done yet.
"I, Jaune Arc, call upon the ancient contract of ages past to summon thee," I spoke again, voice rising. "I hope that you heed my call. Come, Water Elemental!"
From a bowl I'd crafted and filled with sea water rose a small, beautiful figure. A formal gown of deep blue was trimmed in the white of sea foam—the same color as her hair, white trailed down her back like a waterfall. Her skin was light blue, darkening as it dropped lower to royal colors by her hips. Below that, her legs were amorphous, calling to mind both the liquidity of water and the scales of a snake or fish. Her eyes were solid black, like the depths of the ocean, glimmering slightly in the light.
"I, Jaune Arc, call upon the ancient contract of ages past to summon thee," I spoke once more, exhaustion beginning to set in as my power was drained away. Nonetheless, I was determined to continue—and it would have been rude to stop now besides. "I hope that you heed my call! Come, Lightning Elemental!"
Lightning fell from the blue sky, reaching down to strike the circuit I'd made out of a few spare parts on the ship and some yellow Dust I'd set within the last circle. I hadn't been sure it would work, with the ritual predating the discovery of Dust, but Lightning was vital to my plans. Hell, I was glad this was working period—I'd prepared for it by meditating one the elements beforehand like I'd done with Crocea Mors, but even with my Nature Affinity, I hadn't been certain I'd succeed. I'd been relieved and overjoyed when I'd developed the necessary Affinities.
Nonetheless, I was extremely glad when no thunder followed the strike, though I was performing the ritual as far from Ziz's mountain as possible. Instead, the bolt gathered, congealing into a final figure. The only way to describe him was 'bright.' His flesh, his clothes, his hair—the entirety of his form was colored as if someone had trapped Lightning in a human form. Which, I suppose, I had. White cloth, white skin, white hair, white eyes, he seemed solid but only momentarily, shifting slightly between blinks of an eye. At times, he would flicker, momentarily facing another direction before facing me. I couldn't make out precisely what he was wearing, because it seemed to shift, merging with his body for an instant before tearing itself away in bizarre, twisting shapes.
You call upon the sea—
The storm—
The flame, Fire finished. Why?
I knelt and bowed, putting all the respect I could into the gesture. Whether because of their natures or my proficiency with Summoning Elementals, they seemed more eloquent, intelligent, and dangerous.
"I'll begin in accordance with the ancient rituals," I replied. "My name is Jaune Arc. You have heard my name; please tell me yours."
The three figures looked at me, tiny but judging, and for a moment all was silent. I wondered if I'd erred in summoning more than one, if I'd made a mistake or insulted them. There hadn't been anything about it in the knowledge I'd gotten about Summoning Elementals and I was pressed for time, but…
Suddenly, I was gone. I was torn away in a storm, drowning, burning, falling, and flying all at once. I flew apart in a million pieces and gathered, flashing into existence and fading. I grew and devoured, growing larger as I moved, wiping away all in my path. I covered the world, flowed through it, a power that was everywhere, enormous, and yet somehow unseen.
I saw myself and I was unravelling, coming apart in light and sound, unable to control where I was going, unable to remain. I lived and died between moments and yet in that moment I lit up the world.
I saw myself and I was burning, being devoured even as I devoured in turn. I grew, expanded, ignited, and consumed even as I lost my figure, my form, and became nothing more than heat and light—and I shared both with the world.
I saw myself and I was melting, liquefying in an instant and falling to the ground in a splash. I felt my pieces separate and recombine, was immobile even as I shifted and grew to be everywhere, in everything.
Abruptly, I was not alone. Three figures stood with me, or rather one figure did from three different perspectives. Even as I unraveled, I came together, racing through the sky to return to my body. Even as I burned, I found myself centered, the brightest flame at the core. Even as flowed away, I returned, rising from the earth and falling from the sky to return to the shape I knew.
I felt them and they felt me and we felt free.
My name is Vulturnus, the storm whispered.
I am Xihai, said the sea.
Know me as Suryasta, spoke the flame.
We are one as the ancient contract dictates.
"Our souls are one," I agreed.
I am Vulturnus.
I am Xihai.
I am Suryasta.
"I am Jaune Arc."
Until our souls meet their ends—
"We will be forever one."
Then know; should the skies be torn through with light—
Should the land fall beneath the sea—
Should the whole of your world burn to ashes—
Even then I will protect you.
The moment they finished speaking, I was gone, dropping into a deep sleep. I wasn't sure how long I slept, but the sky was dark when I woke. My dreams had been at once bizarrely joyous and troubled, of a world that was burning, drowning, and fading away, wrecked by titans of fire, water, and thunder. I stood amongst them, beside them, within them as they fought and felt at once like nothing but an insect and all but a god.
When I opened my eyes, I was not alone. I felt Crocea Mors humming in my gauntlets and Levant curled up at one side. Xihai rested at the other and Suryasta and Vulturnus at my head and feet respectively; far enough not to shock or burn, but close enough that I knew they were there. They didn't need to sleep, I knew, but they didn't want to leave me alone while I rested—and somehow, I'd held onto them even whilst sleeping.
A skill has been created through a special action! Through practice with many elements the skill 'Elemental Mastery' has been obtained!
You've obtained the title 'Elementalist'!
I huffed out a quiet breath as I sat back and waited, not wanting to wake them up. I'd let them sleep for now.
And then, we'd see if I could make a broken ship fly.
XxXXxX
Later, I sat in the cockpit of the White Whale, my eyes closed in meditation. As I felt rivers of power flow, converge, and then separate in the world around me, the whole of the White Whale was revealed to my senses—as were my Elementals within it. Each stood at a different position within the ship, serving a different purpose as they sent tides of power flowing through the White Whale.
As ever, Crocea Mors moved through the ship itself, refining, hardening, and compensating for things around it. He made some parts harder, others more flexible, and strengthened the engine so it could hold up to the strain it was being put under. Suryasta and Levant stood within the belly of the ship, power mixing within the engine in a cooperative effort working to fuel, empower, and breathe life into the ship itself. Levant drew in air and, together with the ship's normal processes, Suryasta heated it, aiding the ship in generating thrust. Turbines spun while hot air expanded, aiding the White Whale's super jet. The two of them focused the result, keeping ahold of the expelled heat and air even as it fed directly into the energy converter.
There, Vulturnus was waiting. As wind energy was converted into electricity, he took ahold of it, bolstered it with his own strength, and feed it back into the system—and back into the engine itself. More than that, he guided it through the ship impossibly, sometimes between broken wires that I still needed to connect. I was already considering what alternatives I could make with Crocea Mors help; safer and more efficient replacements, if ones that wouldn't function without the aid of someone capable of manually controlling electricity. But for the moment this was just a test, a practice run to see where I stood and if it was possible.
And so far, it seemed to be working. Lights that should have been cut off from power turned on, parts of the ship that should have been inactive responded. Taking advantage of the systems already in place within the ship, of the loopholes and tricks a structure as massive as the White Whale used to soar, I thought I could do the same despite the damages. I wasn't powerful enough to make the ship fly solely on my own power—not yet, at least—but by combining my power and control with the processes the ship was designed around and the Dust it used for fuel…
It was possible. It was possible. I was absolutely certain of that, even without rising from my meditation, because I could still feel it. Despite all the reasons it shouldn't have been able to, this broken ship was flying, hovering just above the ground.
It was hard. I could feel my Elemental's focus, their concentration on their goals. I'd minimized the costs as much as possible to make it easier during my brief moments of lucidity, cutting corners where I could the save us all the effort. Systems that were unnecessary for now were checked once to confirm whether or not I could use them and then deactivated. I'd stored all the perishables on the ship in my Inventory and shut off the lights, the air conditioning, everything else I could to conserve power. With nothing but the bare essentials, I focused entirely on the ship, stretching my power through it as I pushed myself to the limits.
We had been at this for days now. I'd scarcely broken my meditative vigil since we'd begun, so I wasn't entirely certain how much time had passed, but I was certain at least that much time had gone by. Xihai stood beside me, using her power to aid me however she could, whether to heal me or help restore my strength, but even with her help the first…long time had been hard, like an impossibly vast weight I couldn't put down. Even with the restorative power of my meditation, I'd quickly found my clothes soaked through with sweat; a distant, only mildly distracting sensation on my physical form, away from it as I was. The exhaustion that had caused it, however, was something I'd been extremely aware of with my enhanced perspective.
Raising the ship off the ground required constant, precise use of my different Elementals. The only reason I'd been able to maintain it at all in the beginning was because of Soul of the World, of precisely how it worked and how far I'd leveled it. When I'd first gotten the skill, all I'd been able to do was fall into a deep trance to see the flows of energy through the world around me, focusing carefully on a precise flow to make it function as I wished. I brought the energy up through my body and back out, a careful, measured, controlled change to the natural world as I became one with it.
And, really, that was still all I could do. While meditating, I had to focus almost entirely on a single, repetitive pattern.
It's just that in this case, the pattern was a little different.
I'd summoned up all my Elementals in their immaterial state before falling into my trance and then I'd focused on exactly what I needed, narrowing my view of the vast world. I'd imagined exactly what would need to happen, every shift in the engine, the motion caused by heat, every movement of the wind, every flow of electricity, every part of the process that governed the ship. I blotted out everything else until I was a machine dedicated to that single cycle, of imagining that one thing again and again and again to the exclusion of all else. My Elementals felt those thoughts through their link to me, and through them I'd made it a reality.
The result was amazing even to me in the moments I could spare it attention; something only made possible through a number of different factors lining up. If my Elementals had not been capable of so accurately making my thoughts reality while immaterial, I couldn't have done it. If not for the MP regeneration my Wisdom granted, I wouldn't have had the power for it. If not for the tremendous focus I had while meditating, I couldn't have even successfully thought it. And even with all of those things, I wasn't sure if it would have been feasible without my new skill and title.
Elementalist, the title I'd obtained by gaining five Elementals, simply increased all my Elemental Affinities by ten while I had it active, greatly increasing the power of all my elementals as a result. Elemental Mastery, the skill I'd received for apparently the same reason, was a bit more complicated in how it worked—but even more valuable. The first effect was similar to my physical Mastery skills; a percentage increase to attack and defense and such. Both seemed based on my Affinities as much as the skill's level, though, producing some interesting results and implications. I couldn't be sure, but if I got the skill to a hundred and an Affinity to a hundred…would I be immune to the Element in question? The multiplier I received towards attack was much greater than the damage reduction, but gaining immunity to specific elements wasn't unusual in games by any means. Generally there was a bit more balance, except with really powerful, hard to acquire items but…with my ability…well, I really wouldn't be surprised. Between that and Physical Endurance, I just had to shrug. Maybe I'd be immune to harm if I could get all my defensive skills maxed out, maybe not. I'd know the truth someday, probably, but I had a long, long way to go before then.
Its other ability, however, was what made it truly powerful—Elemental Mastery effected how the skill which had produced it functioned, improving Summon Elemental. Summon Elemental worked in a very specific way as it leveled up; rather than a percentage based increase per level, roughly every five or six levels I became able to summon another elemental. For example, when the skill had been level twenty, I'd been able to summon three Air Elementals. Instead of doing that, however, I could also just summon one, and it would have the power of all three combined. While there were situations where quantity surpassed quality and a small number of carefully positioned Elementals might be preferably, I generally just made the strongest ones I could because of the expansion to range, versatility, and power. Summoning different Elementals worked rather similarly, dependent on my 'pool.'
That is, when I summoned Crocea Mors and Levant to aid me with the White Whale, I'd had a pool of eight possible Elementals and had split that between them because I'd needed the skills of both. Generally, I made each level four, though depending on the situation I could go all in for one or the other or any combination of the two.
But Elemental Mastery changed that. Because of it, I could maintain completely different spells for individual Elementals, using multiple Summons that each allowed for a full 'pool', up to a limit determined by my Elemental Mastery. I couldn't use multiple castings to summon many versions of the same Elemental, but I could summon Crocea Mors at full power with one spell and then Levant with another, paying the cost to maintain them separately—an added cost, perhaps, but one far below the additional benefit.
It was an amazing increase in the skill's power. Originally, I'd planned to use them while they weren't manifested, channeling my own power through them to use their Elements instead of summoning them to fight independently. I'd have split my power four ways between Metal, Air, Fire, and Lightning, calling each with two Elementals worth of power. Summoned that way, they would draw directly upon my MP, of which I had a great deal, to hopefully overcome their individual weakness.
But…it was an inefficient use of the skill, at least for something this prolonged. While they didn't draw power except when in use while not manifested, they required MP proportional to that use and focus to control the result. If I channeled my power through Suryasta, for example, and used it constantly for high-performance stuff like this, the cost in power and concentration would quickly become overwhelming and wasteful. It was the difference between a maintained skill and an Active one, with the former perhaps having a higher base cost but the latter needing to be paid with each and every use. Depending on what I was doing, one could be a better idea than the other, but for something of this magnitude…just lifting the White Whale like I was doing now cost well over two hundred MP a minute and I couldn't do anything else.
I'd figured that, honestly. That had been the real reason I'd summoned a Water Elemental…the truth was that I'd been all but completely certain splitting my power that way wouldn't be enough to accomplish anything. Four Elementals at two 'points' most likely wouldn't have even been enough to make the White Whale fly like this again, much less accomplish anything with it—but I'd wanted to be able to say I'd done everything in my power to try and succeed before returning home a failure. If that had happened, I'd have put my power in Xihai and tried to sail for land; I'd probably have tried to get to Atlas and then figured out a way home from there.
But five Elementals with the power of ten or more? That was something else entirely.
I'd grinded my skills relentlessly the moment I figured out how they worked, trying to raise Elemental Mastery as high as possible, so as to increase the number of Summons I could use at once. In the process, maintaining multiple Elementals had improved my Summoning skill, especially as I had done literally nothing but meditate, maintain, and use their power for literal days. The constant meditation had been good for training Soul of the World, though that skill insisted on being slow as all hell in improving, and it seemed that even just hovering helped improve my skill as a Pilot. With the latter's passive bonuses affecting the performance and efficiency of the ship…
I could feel my power growing, just as I could feel their power doing the same. My Elementals strengthening as the days wore on, growing as my skill increased and then faster when I was able to maintain their existences. I wasn't certain how that worked exactly—if they were growing with me, if I was reaching out to grasp power that I couldn't touch before as represented by the Summon skill—but it didn't matter. One spell became two then three then four. I guided them fully with my mind at first, directing their power through the White Whale as we reached higher together, submerging myself in the flows of the world until I was nothing but a recording, playing the same image over and over. I concentrated wholly on that one goal to the point that I left my physical body completely in Xihai's care. I all but abandoned the material world in my concentration and it worked. The strain that had at first seemed unbearable had lessened and become something we all lifted together. I empowered my Elementals and they supported me until what had seemed impossible was in my grasp. My power grew as I struggled, stretching out to my allies, my friends, and I knew.
If it was like this, I could do it. If it was like this, I wasn't alone—and together we were strong. I could still complete the mission and I would. It was too early to give up, too late to turn back, and time to move forward. We could do this, I know we could.
I took a deep breath and slowly drew myself from my trance, opening my eyes to watch the sun set far in the West. As my concentration eased and then faded, I felt my friends stepping into place to take up the burden.
The ship shuddered but did not fall.
XxXXxX
Name: Jaune Arc
Class: The Gamer
Level: LV23
Title: The Tiger
HP: 1270/1270
MP: 2230/2230
STR: 41+26.7 (65%) = 67.7
VIT: 44+28.6 (65%) = 72.6
DEX: 41+26.7 (65%) = 67.7
INT: 60+39 (65%) = 99
WIS: 60+39 (65%) = 99
LUK: 33
Status: Metal Element Affinity 10, Air Element Affinity 10, Fire Element Affinity 10, Water Element Affinity 10, Lightning Element Affinity 10.
POINTS: 20
MONEY: 49800 Lien
MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
Contact
I gave myself a few more days of practice to be sure and then began to move. I was at once hesitant and eager—I wanted to get this done now, both to save the people I came all this way for and to get back home, but wisdom tempered that desire with caution. Whatever I wanted, I wouldn't help anyone if I screwed things up and I didn't come all this way to do this wrong and make everything that had happened pointless.
I still had the advantage in that everyone must have thought I was dead. I'd turned the tracking device off long ago, after I'd resolved to keep going with the mission despite the…unexpected detour. I'd left it on before then, so that people might know where Ziz had gone if I died, though it wouldn't have surprised me if the monster had flown us out of range. Regardless, I was pretty sure the whole faking my death strategy had been pretty successful and as far as I could tell, no one had seen fit to follow Ziz—or, at least, to come close enough to risk bothering it if they had. Everyone probably thought I was long gone.
I made a point of not dwelling on that too much. That had been the plan, of course, to vanish into the wilderness, lay low, and make it seem as though the White Whale had fallen before making a surprise reappearance, but I admitted that I hadn't planned for it to be quite this convincing. I was sure that the footage of my robbery—and, more importantly, of Ziz—had been shown all around the world and I cut off from civilization as I was, I could only speculate over what a mess that must have been causing.
What I did know, however, was that I didn't have any way of contacting Adam or Blake and they'd probably last seen me flying off in the talons of a fairy tale monstrosity. We'd made contingencies for…well, for what we'd thought at the time to be the worst case scenarios, but getting tossed aside on some distant island hadn't meshed well with any of that and I hadn't been able to contact them yet.
That didn't bother me. Well, no, that was a lie; it bothered me quite a bit because I figured they'd be blaming themselves for this, but soon they'd find out I was back, I'd underplay it and act smug about how they'd thought they'd seen the last of me, we'd maybe argue, probably not mention a lot of stuff, and…it'd be okay.
My parents on the other hand…I'd already broken one promise to them, I was sure, because they'd probably rushed back home when word about Ziz got out—along with every other Hunter, in all likelihood. God, my whole family had probably come back to Vale to find out that I wasn't there. Worse, I hadn't come back or sent word or anything for days, a week, maybe longer with no word, no explanation.
I told myself I'd deal with that as I came to it and tried to ignore that I had absolutely no clue what I was going to do about that. But I would deal with it because I would come to it, I promised myself that. And even before then…
Still, there was too much on the line to rush in and just hope for the best. Even if I hadn't lacked any backup but what I could summon, discretion would have been the better part of valor—it just probably would have been Blake doing all this stuff. Circumstances change, though, and plans had to change with them and it was up to people to notice and respond correctly.
I could probably assume a few things safely. Given Ziz's supposed awakening—and really, just the reminder that the world we live in is hostile to a degree that beggars the mind—odds were that border security had likely been increased, just in case it attacked or was spotted or whatever. At the moment, I may well be the only person aware that it had gone back to sleep and even I wasn't sure that was a comfort. It was still an enormous super monster that could wake up again and if at that time it did feel like attacking…
So border security had probably gone up. Up from the already impressive usual, that is, because even when there weren't creatures out of legend flying around, Grimm could and would take advantage of any opportunity they could to attack. There was a sincere risk of being spotted the moment I went over the line in the White Whale, which I'd need to in order to get to the company town; it was near the outskirts of the Kingdom of Atlas, set in an area found during one of its most recent expansions, but it was in Atlas.
Given that I was flying a unique ship that had been stolen in what must be an extremely high-profile incident at this point, it seemed likely that there would be a response once I was noticed. Between the fact that I was flying a stolen Schnee Company super-ship and the fact that I'd last been seen in Ziz's claws…well, I'd need to move quickly once I started, because I was sure there'd be a lot of heavily-armed men and women who'd want to speak to me and I just didn't have the time.
The town itself probably wasn't changed much by the situation, relatively speaking, though they might have increased production. Statistically speaking, that's what Dust Mines did when there was a national or international emergency and, yeah, if I'd seen Ziz and I was the Atlesian military or whatever, I'd probably want more Dust, too. But while there may be some additional personnel and perhaps adjustments to security, I doubted there had been time for any major changes yet. Infrastructure was hard to change quickly and I doubted a specific Dust mine was the first priority, though Dust mines as a whole were probably up there.
Still, before I did anything else, I needed to know what I was getting into. Adam and Blake had people inside, but even if I wasn't temporarily cut off from them…well, trust but verify.
Which was why I set the White Whale down about a hundred kilometers outside the border and ran the rest of the way there. I probably could have gotten closer if I was careful, but there was no sense in taking chances this early, especially when I didn't need to. The security out this far was more for detecting larger threats than small fry, because the simple truth of the matter was that if the entire military—robots included—was dedicated solely to border control, they'd probably be spread out to the point of utter uselessness. Defending the kingdoms was more about applying what they had in the right places, with certain, careful lines of defense to protect important areas, rather than trying to constantly defend everything.
That's why an army trying to invade would be noticed pretty much instantly, but a single person like me could go border-hopping. It didn't help that the 'peace time' defenses weren't designed with the intention of keeping people out of the Kingdoms. I crossed into Atlas—at least, the area known as Atlas on a map—with no trouble at all simply by walking over it.
Inside the Kingdom, I ran for a bit and used my Elementals to search for what I knew would be somewhere nearby. After a while running back and forth, I found the military base, still looking pretty new—which made sense, as I was pretty sure the most recent Breakthrough for Atlas had been…three years ago? The base couldn't have been in use too many years before that, assuming it hadn't been built afterwards. As a kid, I'd always thought of the Breakthroughs as something amazing, the forces of Humanity pushing back the Grimm in great battles to seize more of Remnant from the monsters.
Now that I was older and literally wiser, I was left with the depressing though that it actually had more to do with infrastructure; building roads and supply lines, getting power to new places, setting up communications, and so on, which must have been a pain when there were a bunch of monsters liable to come along and start breaking your hard work. The world was sounded so much cooler when I was a kid.
Military bases like this mainly existed to keep that from happening and partially to act as first responders, delaying a major problem that somehow got this far until the Hunters showed up. Thinking about it that way, it sounded like the type of job that was usually tedious and annoying, with rare bouts of utter terror. Most of the time you're probably standing around making sure no stupid monsters chew on your wires or something and then once in a blue moon, a Deathstalker comes along.
As someone getting used to experiencing shit like that, I empathized. I also didn't want to hurt any soldiers just trying to do their job, so I didn't. I did, however, swing by the back of a truck when no one was around, pop it open with Crocea Mors, and steal a spare uniform before slinking away. I ran the rest of the way to the mine in about three hours, found a good position, and just watched for the rest of the day, through the night, and into the morning. I stuck to the shadows, to the trees, and remained as far away as I could while still watch—which was pretty damn far.
I saw Faunus workers as the moved through the town, noted where they lived, where they went, and in what order. I watched the human employees as well, noting names, faces, roles. Liberal application of Observe told me the purpose of each of the different structures and Crocea Mors, Levant, and Vulturnus spread throughout the town, slipping through their respective elements to see what was hidden, to tell me exactly how things worked from both an infrastructure and personnel standpoint. Several times, I had to move to get a better look and I noted everything that I thought might be important as I went—exists, communication lines, names, faces, numbers, weak points, and more.
Because it was a Faunus town, activity did not stop during the night, so I didn't get a chance to enter the town itself and examine things directly, but everything I could do, I did.
And then I left and ran the rest of the way to Atlas. Between my Elementals and how quickly I recovered from exhaustion, I got there only shortly after night fall, found a place to take a bath with Xihai's help, and then found an alley to meditate in for the night.
When dawn came, I changed my clothes, disguised myself, and calmly walked into the CCT to make a call.
XxXXxX
"Hello! Welcome to the CCT. How may I help you?"
"Communications room, please," I requested.
"Absolutely! Could you please place your scroll in the terminal to verify your identity?"
I withdrew my scroll and scanned it casually.
Being terrorists made a lot of things more difficult for the White Fang, as one might expect. ID checks, for example, did not mesh well with terrorism—and anyone who wants to make a cross-continental call needs to have a scroll registered to them and have it scanned. The location of the call also needed to be stated, so who you were calling was an issue as well.
Luckily, the White Fang had long since adapted to such difficulties and as I was sort of with them for the time being, they'd showed me how—both in person and in the security books Blake and Tukson had fed me. The scroll that Blake had given me was registered to a false ID, though it was a bit more complicated than that due to what it took to keep things that way, both in the hard and software of the scroll and in terms of the infrastructure that supported them. The long and short of it was that if you knew how and you had a few things in the right places, you could make your scroll say what you wanted it too; an invaluable skill, if you knew how to use it, due to how much relied on Scrolls nowadays and what you could get on and off them with the right equipment.
And I'd gotten pretty good at doing it, as part of my Disguise and Theft skills.
"Perfect," The automated voice said once it was finished. "Thank you, Mr. Younis."
I waited patiently as the elevator took me up, a pleasant smile on my face. When the door opened, I walked up to the hologram manning the desk.
"Welcome to the Atlas Cross-Continental Transmit Center," She said, giving me a gentle smile. "How may I help you?"
"I need to make a call to Tukson's Book Trade in Vale, if possible," I said.
"Certainly," She replied. "If you could head over to terminal four, I'll patch you through."
"Thank you," I nodded at her politely. "Have a nice day, ma'am."
"You too, sir." She replied as I walked away.
I couldn't really take the credit for this next bit; most of it was having friends in the right places. A fake identity can get you through the door pretty easily, but once inside, all CCT transactions were recorded. This was an obstacle when you were, say, wanted criminals communicating across the globe, but only a minor one if you're properly prepared. Odds were good that Adam and Blake had changed IDs already, if not their scrolls, but that wasn't too uncommon among White Fang operatives on their level. It could make them hard to reach in an emergency, however, because if something happens, suddenly they're someone else.
For that reason, the White Fang had a number of go-betweens who would take such messages and pass them up whatever line was needed to reach their destination. Tukson served such a role, at least in part, and Blake had told me to reach them through him if the mission went badly enough that we got separated and sent on the run. And yeah, it was yet another way spying was ruined by practicality. Secret messages, encryptions, and cyphers may have been cool, but it was amazing how far you could go with an answering machine and some common sense instead.
The screen beeped several times, trying to get the message through, but no one answered; I wasn't surprised, given the time zones involved, and it didn't matter. When it prompted me to leave a message, however, I spoke.
"Hey, it's Jonah," I said. "Sorry I couldn't make it; my flight got delayed and something came up. I just wanted to tell you I'd be there as soon as I could. I wanted to thank you and Bee again for the books. Can you tell the others I'm bringing back something? Just tell them to call the moving guys, okay? Talk to you when I get back."
I hesitated for a moment, finger hovering over the button that would end the message. He'd get the message, I was sure of that, and Blake and Adam call their friends at the town to help get things in order. That's all I really needed to do here and it'd be wise to leave—not because of any danger, but because of the temptation to do something unwise. I looked at my reflection in the table, watching as my smile faded, and wanted nothing more to make another call.
There were a lot of reasons that was a horrible idea. At this point, my mom—assuming she wasn't in prison for murdering my dad and hadn't escaped—must have been tearing Vale apart looking for me. If I sent her, or anyone else in my family, a message…I didn't doubt for a second that they'd do everything in their power to hunt me down. It'd be easy to figure out that the message had come from Atlas and I didn't put it passed her to come over here in person or, assuming the situation didn't allow for that, calling in all the favors she could to have me hunted down and express shipped back to Vale. I loved my mother, but she could be terrifying when she was angry and I was five million percent certain she was.
There was no situation in which calling my family was going to result in anything but more complications. The smart thing to do was say absolutely nothing, send the message, and walk away.
I tried to imagine how my family must be feeling right now, no idea where I was or if I was even alive. How my dad must feel knowing he might have facilitated my death. How my mother must be terrified and enraged. How my—
I closed my eyes and remembered all the times I'd been on that side of things. When mom didn't call back at night, when everyone left on missions and patrols, when duties and obligations had to come before family and convenience. I'd hated it, been worried and scared and mad and sick, even with my babysitters attempts to calm me down. Being alone in a house that just seemed to get emptier and emptier. Before, it hadn't been so bad, but…
The descendants of Julius were invincible—unstoppable warriors that would never fall, never fail to return. I knew that, had believed it with every fiber of my being since it had first been whispered to me in warm arms.
How could I not believe it when I'd told it to myself a thousand times on a thousand nights? If I didn't…
I wondered what my family would tell themselves and tried to imagine it before heaving a sigh.
Maybe…
"Also, if you get a chance to call my parents, tell them 'Sorry I'm late; I hope I didn't make anyone worry. Things are taking a little longer than expected, but I'll be home soon. Tell everyone I love them. Please don't ground me forever.' It's not an emergency, so…well, you know, I guess." I said, wondering what I was saying. "I'll try to be home in a day or two, but you probably won't be able to reach me for a bit. Just call the guys and don't have to move everything myself and be fine, though. So…yeah. See you later, alligator."
I sent the message and leaned forward, elbow on desk, mouth on hand. I hoped that wasn't a mistake. Tukson was smart; he wouldn't send the message while the mission could be jeopardized, even without my urging. Maybe he wouldn't send it at all or he'd send it while I was flying home or…I don't know. That wasn't the point; the point was that I'd spoken the message, had given it to him. It was a compromise between wisdom and guilt and I knew it, but…
"Yeah, I'll be home in a few days," I murmured, rising. I thanked the hologram again as I left the tower and walked back into town, towards the edge of the city and, beyond it, the edge of civilization.
As night fell, the White Whale glided across the border—a monster swimming in the night with its captain at the helm. If there was a response, I paid it no heed as I flew passed.
I'd always believed there were some lies you could make true.
If so, there was no stopping me now.
XxXXxX
MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
Invasion
The White Whale flew smoothly through the night air, all but completely restored. I'd reconnected wires that had been cut—the metal parts, at least, though there was little I could do for the insulation; Vulturnus dealt with it regardless. Not much to say for the broken glass, either, though I'd cleaned up the shards and Levant used her power to shield the ship. After over a week of preparation, we were strong enough for it.
Nothing stopped me at the border, but then, I hadn't expected them to. I'm sure I was spotted pretty much instantly, though; I'd considered trying to make cover of some kind, like a massive sheet of mist, but given the effort it would take to create, maintain, and move such a thing such a vast distance, it just hadn't been worthwhile. And really, were they going to be less suspicious of a giant cloud of mist covering vast distances while staying together in a climate that didn't really fit it? Probably not. I'd considered my options and had eventually just settled on flying as fast as I could. With any luck, I'd get in and out before anyone figured out where I was going and got to me.
And because, whatever my status screen claimed, I didn't have any luck, I came dressed for a fight. Lenore covered my face even as my body was cloaked in Dreary Midnight, of course, but I'd also cleaned and redesigned my gauntlets with my higher Craft and Crocea's increased power. My Elementals were ready beside me, now so used to the ship's processes that they didn't even need to be on the spot. Together we watched the world roll by below us and after the time we'd spent together, it was a familiar, comfortable silence.
But as the White Whale rose over my target at last, I spoke.
"Levant, Vulturnus, Xihai," I said and the three raised their hands. What happened next was something even I couldn't see, an invisible play of molecules in the air to begin a process that Vulturnus assisted—or, perhaps more accurately, which assisted him. A moment later, lightning fell from the clear sky. Two more followed in quick succession, each directed towards a different place, a different weak point.
Even as the White Whale began to lower, the few remaining lights in the town flickered out and died. Here, on a clear night away from the city and light pollution, a million stars cloaked the skies in a display of natural beauty around the crown jewel of the moon. A cloudy night would have been more convenient, but I couldn't deny it was breathtaking to look at.
I doubted the human inhabitants of the town agreed, whichever ones were still awake. Even with the light of flickering stars and a waning moon, the night got dark this far from civilization in a way that was hard to describe unless you could see it. People mocked others for being afraid of the dark, something easy to do in cities like Vale and Atlas where it never got dark, not truly. There were always lights on in buildings, lamp posts, towers and beacons. However childish people claimed it was to fear the darkness, we did everything in our power to distance ourselves from it, to escape it.
After all, it wasn't that long ago when we couldn't. When we didn't have Dust and hadn't pushed the darkness back. And in a world without that, when the Grimm were so at home in the night…darkness was something to be feared, something synonymous with danger and death.
It still was, really—once all the lights went out.
I looked at Vulturnus who flickered and flashed beside me, looking in every direction, watching everything and everyone. He didn't look at me or even twitch at my attention, but I felt his shifting presence at the edge of my thoughts and there was an image drawn in it, made of sparks and circuits of light.
There are still many sparks, Vulturnus spoke into my head, a hum to the not-words. Shall I snuff them out as well?
"Kill any other lights you find and cut any communications that are still working," I said. "I'll meet you there."
There was a flash of glowing teeth in lightning's changing face and then he lost form entirely, dematerializing and rushed out of the ship. The few lights that had been on, mainly the ones near him, flickered out.
Suryasta and Levant handed the landing and the ship immediately died as they pulled away their power. Crocea Mors withdrew into my gauntlets as the others dematerialized as well, returning to a completely spiritual form.
It was…a questionable move, tactically speaking, but also one I'd thought about extensively. Unless I absolutely had to, I didn't want to reveal I could summon Elementals, because there was more at stake than just the battle. Part of that was, yes, because if people saw them while I was disguised, I'd never be able to summon them in my normal life…but that was honestly a relatively minor reason, simply because I wasn't sure I'd be able to summon them normally anyways, because of the attention it would draw as a power out of a literal fairy tale. I was still unsure how I was going to make all my powers fly in my normal life, especially since after this I wouldn't want people to asktoo many questions about me. I could get away with a lot as a scion of the Arc family, but if I went crazy, people would eventually start going 'Wait, what?'
Since he was subtle while materialized, I could pass off most of what Crocea Mors did as a result of pure skill. Levant, Suryasta, Vulturnus, and Xihai represented wind, fire, lightning, and water, the four basic types of Dust, so I could pass off most of that as a talent with Dust while they were dematerialized. But if things out of a famous fairy tale followed me to school…well, People would ask questions I couldn't or wouldn't answer. I was fine with my friends knowing about my Semblance and I'd tell my family once I got home, but random people? My enemies? No thanks. If my mother didn't murder me when I got home, she might be able to think of a good explanation for what I did or cover for me or something, but for now…
So it wasn't really a desire to keep them from being seen, per se. A better reason was the element of surprise, to keep an ace in the hole. Inaccurate information, much like poor communication, tends to be bad for one's health, which is great when it's happening to your enemies. That was a pretty good reason and was why most people didn't advertise the precise nature of their Semblances.
But the truth was that I just didn't want my friends known as terrorists. The fact that I wouldn't be able to use them as easily came in distantly second to that, a minor issue in comparison. I knew it probably wouldn't bother any of them in the slightest what people thought of them, but…
I shook my head, reaching up to tap a finger against Lenore. If I didn't know any better, I'd think it had something to do with how I got while wearing it, but…hm. It didn't matter, I thought as I left the ship, striding out into the night air. My arrival hadn't gone unnoticed by the Faunus of the town and I saw people moving hurriedly as I stepped into the open air and floated down from the White Whale. I got a lot of strange, fearful looks as I glided to the earth, as did the monstrosity behind me, but no one ran as I landed. I guess they thought the promise of a new life was worth the risk.
I cast my gaze over the crowd, scanning titles more than faces, and stopped on one in particular.
"Faraj," I murmured, using Levant's power to make my voice carry. I tilted my head at the White Fang member I'd seen a few days ago and gestured him forward with a finger. He was already dressed in a hood and mask, but he hesitated for a moment before approaching, probably off put by how easily I'd identified him despite his state of dress and having no memory of me. "I see word reached you."
"Yes, sir," He confirmed, uncertainty in his voice. "Just in time. We were about to, uh, pull out. Because of the video, I mean, we…well, we'd thought…"
"That I was dead," I answered with forced boredom.
"Um. Yes, sir," He replied. "You were…"
He dropped his voice, as if afraid to be overheard—whether by those around him or the beast in question.
"The Ziz," He whispered. "Was it really…?"
"Yes," I replied, tone unchanging.
"Then, uh…" He looked at me and then at the ship—the broken windows, the lightless depths, the superficial scars I hadn't wasted metal on repairing. "How…"
I huffed out a shallow breath and smiled very slightly, which made him fall silent.
"Ziz will not be an issue for the time being," I assured, gesturing dismissively to put a halt to his questions. It's all about image, about avoiding questions, about making people think you had the power and were in charge. "Now, if we may proceed…?"
Faraj stared at me for a moment, eyes hidden but probably widened, before bobbing his head.
"Yes, sir," He replied. "We were contacted this morning and told everyone to get ready. Most of them didn't have much to pack, so…well, here they are."
I scanned the crowd quietly for a minute and went down the mental list I'd made previously. My Intelligence was high enough to memorize something after seeing it once and I was pretty sure I'd seen most of the town. The list dwindled quickly as I looked over the crowd, but a few names remained. I waited for a moment as a few other people gathered near the ship, late arrivals, and struck them off the list.
"Where are Nyarai, Eavan, Edan, and Samual?" I asked. I saw surprise and confusion flicker across Faraj's face, along with even more hesitation, but he swallowed once and replied.
"I think Eavan asked her brother for help cleaning up," Faraj. "The other two may have come along to help; I was busy getting everyone in order."
I clicked my tongue once and felt Levant reaching outwards into the dancing air. What she sent back to we was a strange image, things seen through the air their displaced and breathed. I lifted my head and spoke.
"You four, stop wasting my time and get back to the ship. I'll handle the town," I said, voice reverberating strangely as it stretched out to distant ears. I felt them stop, saw them speak through how it moved through the air, and, finally, obey. I nodded to myself and looked back Faraj who swallowed again.
"All of you," I said and though I didn't lift my voice, I made it carry far. "You are free. I am here to take you away from this place, to the Kingdom of Vale where you can start new lives. Better lives. Come with me and I will give you a chance."
As speeches go, I don't think it was very impressive and it probably would have been better if it hadn't come from a dark figure standing in front of an even darker looking ship, but while I didn't get any applause, no one ran away. I called that a success.
"Lead them to their seats," I said to Faraj. "There are signs on the walls."
Then Levant lifted him suddenly into the air, raising him up to the ship's entrance as he gave a sudden yelp. Sadly, I didn't have any hydraulic stairs, so I had to make do.
"Form a line," I said to the crowd. "We'll leave as soon as everyone's aboard. Emil, keep things in order."
The other White Fang member—who must have been new because his title had been different a few days ago—started at being addressed but nodded quickly. He wasn't wearing the outfit or anything else indicating what he was. I saw him look at me, open his mouth, and then close it. He wanted to know, but didn't want to ask.
I watched for a moment to make sure everything was in order and then walked passed them into the town, leaving an invisible Levant behind. I already knew where the humans inside it were—hiding in their houses, mainly—but I ignored them, uninterested in 'cleaning up.' I was here to save the slaves, not punish the master, whatever their crimes. Maybe they did deserve to be punished for what they'd done, but I'd done my fair share of horrible things these last few weeks and I didn't really want to add murder to the list. I was pretty sure Blake wouldn't have wanted that, either, even if I had probably ruined her plan already.
So instead, I found my way to the top of a large building, wondering when things would go wrong. I watched the skies with my four eyes, on the lookout for approaching danger, my Elementals stretching out their own senses to assist me. Vulturnus returned and joined me in watching the skies, Xihai sitting down beside me while Suryasta stood with closed eyes. Even with the occasional startled scream coming from the ship's direction, it was almost peaceful.
Then Vulturnus turned his face to the North and ruined it.
I see more lights.
I followed his gaze and then rose with a sigh.
"Yeah," I said. "Me, too. A little faster than expected, but…oh, whatever."
I wondered, in Levant's general direction, how the loading was going and sighed again at the image she returned. I'd need to buy some time, it seemed.
Seven lights, Vulturnus said as the ships in the sky continued their approach. With more inside.
More machines? Well, we were in Atlas. If anything, hopefully we'd face nothing but machines.
I glanced down at Xihai inquisitively and she blinked her shiny black eyes at me before shaking her head.
Empty.
"Hm…is it actually my lucky day, then?" I wondered. "That can't be right…what else do you see, Vulturnus?"
The Elemental watched the ships, surprisingly focused. He didn't shift or move, but watched it with interest.
Something bright inside, He said before pausing a moment as if searching for the words to explain. In the end, his expression flashed into a frown for a moment which I took as a failure. And something bright inside.
"I don't understand," I admitted.
He paused for a moment before giving up on words and showing me, letting the world unravel into circuits and charges, actions and reactions. I saw what he saw and understood.
There was something bright inside and it was bright inside.
"Still not my lucky day, I guess. Shocking," I murmured. "Just…shocking."
I snapped my fingers and a flash of lightning blew away the night.
XxXXxX
Don't fight enemies that have control of the skies.
Just don't. If it's even remotely possible to avoid, do so. You do not want any of that action. There are a lot of reasons for it, tactical and strategic—the advantages of mobility, supply lines, transportation, the conducting of otherwise impossible operations, information gathering, and many more. Most importantly in the immediate sense, however, is that a group who controls the skies can shoot a lot of shit at a group who doesn't. Whether bullets or bombs, it didn't really matter; you weren't going to enjoy it. If you had any way of dealing with that I suggest you employ it as quickly as possible, before they can get into position.
Which was why I shot them with lightning. Well, that's not quite true—the amount of energy required to create lightning is…well, large. I could probably do it, but it'd likely be a, no pun intended, charged attack and a very costly one. When I had time, I'd practice it and see what I could do on that front, but in the meantime, I cheated.
This was another occasion where I was grateful for high Intelligence and Wisdom—and grateful for the fact that I studied a lot to increase the former. See, while it was difficult to create lightning directly, doing so indirectly was another matter, if you knew how. It's a matter of charge separation, the collisions of water molecules in the air, and other facts; the many things that came together to create lightning in nature. With the power of Levant and Xihai, I drew water into the air, stirring it, cooling it, and occasionally heating it with Suryasta's aid. Vulturnus wielded his power at its most basic level, manipulating charges by repelling them or attracting them. Vulturnus and Levant can together to ionize air and create a conductive path in pretty much the opposite way that I'd once used Levant to defend against lightning. I wielded my power carefully over the air, over my target, negative here, positive there, linked thusly—
And lightning was born, a flash of light that cut through the air for an instant before fading away. It would have been better if it had been a cloudy night—or, even better, an already stormy one—and my creation was only a fraction as fierce as it could have been.
But it was still lightning and in its wake rumbled the thunder. Worse yet, it was lightning controlled and directed by a human mind. I singled out the most dangerous ship—the one that ferried something which shined so brightly—and I created a path to a vulnerability. Like any aircraft nowadays, it had lightning protect, built to deal with the almost inevitable strikes they would create or receive over their course of use, but that was mainly designed to deal with the results of luck and chance. For something meant to strike out and sabotage…that takes something else.
Sadly, it didn't seem like Atlas had created any robots able to directly use yellow Dust yet.
Lightning struck the ship and lights flickered as the thunder rumbled. I saw, through Vulturnus' eyes, lights die out throughout and within the ship as it began to wobble before starting to careen towards the earth far away from me. Yet as I watched, the light that shined brightly within it did not so much as dim.
I guess that was too much to hope for. I didn't even know what it was, but I was pretty sure I wanted to keep it far, far away from me and told myself to be satisfied when it crashed in the forest, out of sight. Of course, being out of sight and surrounded by much taller objects made striking at it vastly more difficult, but I didn't need to win, I just needed to keep them at bay.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and shifted my focus to the next ship. There were seven in all, a fairly major assault for what must have been short notice, but given everything that had happened I guess they were on high alert. Or maybe they'd just gone above and beyond to make me feel special.
Either way, I pointed a finger at the next one and focused, my Elementals, even distant Levant, doing the same. Air and water gathered and shifted and collided, heat flowed, charges repelled and attracted, electric fields strengthened, air ionized. Water, fire, air, and lightning, the four basic types of Dust, came together towards one purpose, a display of nature's power.
I tracked the ships course as seconds passed and power gathered—and then, with the twitch of a finger, it was falling. I paused for a moment to breath in the scent of a storm on the air and moved on the next, clearing the skies a ship at a time while the seconds ticked by and jagged lengths of light writhed in the skies.
It wasn't fast, but it didn't have to be for this. One by one they fell, none even reaching the edge of the town even though they'd advanced fearlessly through the lightning I'd conjured. I watched dispassionately as the last crashed to earth nearby, falling with an echoing crash of groaning, tearing steel. I saw sparks, broken glass, and smoke, and glanced at Vulturnus with one set of eyes. His head flickered between watching the ship in sight and staring at something in the distance, so I shifted my gaze to match.
There was a rattle within the box like ship, followed by another groan of abused steel as a door came loose. A robot, one of the Atlesian Knights, walked from the wreckage, dragging a ruined leg behind him, and slowly his remaining fellows gathered, in similar states of repair. In the darkness of the ship, I could see twisted, broken forms laying still, but the defenders of Mantle had been created as fearless as they were relentless and were intent on completing their mission, however reduced their numbers.
I watched them for a moment before sighing slowly, scratching a cheek with my left hand before leaping down to the ground and walking slowly out of the town. I stopped when I stood before them all, nineteen total, and remembered my first real fight, the first time I got involved with the White Fang and fought these same machines. Looking back at it, it seemed like such a long time ago, but it was only about a month.
Back when I was level two.
"Intruder," Spoke the nearest machine. "You are under arrest for your crimes against the Schnee Dust Company and the Kingdom of Atlas. Surrender—"
I cracked my neck and looked at the head I held, the fingers of my right hand curled over its face. Behind me, its body crumbled to the ground with a dull rattle of steel. I mused at its head before letting it fall from my fingers and roll across the ground. Around me, the robots shifted at my sudden movement, some limbs responding more slowly than others. For a moment, I just stared back at them speculatively.
These things had been pretty dangerous when I was level two, I recalled.
But I'd come a long way since level two.
Limbs shifted into guns and opened fire, but I was already gone, reacting the moment I sensed danger and lunging away. Crocea Mors made their steel brittle at the touch, Vulturnus making machines fry, but I barely needed it. Even if I could wield my power easily over these Aura-less machines, it made no real difference one way or another. It was almost refreshing, really, to fight opponents that were legitimately, objectively far weaker then I was, and I tore into them as I had with the Grimm during my training. It was short and brutal, blurring motion, torn limbs, disemboweled circuitry. I tore them apart and brushed the remains off my hands when I was through.
It was short and brutal and easy—a reminder that however many horrible situations I got into, however many powerful opponents I faced, I had gotten stronger. It felt almost like fate throwing me a bone.
So I felt rather justified feeling suspicious. Not because of my horrible luck—though, I admit it, that played a role—but because it didn't make much sense for Atlas to respond to a major threat with Atlesian Knights. They were meant to defend areas, fight minor threats like Beowolves or mob things like Ursa, combatting the little threats to buy time, protect low risk locations, or assist greater forces. Given what I'd done, what they had last seen of me, who I'd attacked, and what I stolen, it didn't make sense for them to respond to me as if I were a minor or even middling threat.
Or…perhaps what I'd originally thought of as a major operation was in fact the opposite? Could they be understaffed? It would make a sense, given what I already suspected about Ziz's recent appearance; Hunters would have been called back to Atlas and sent to reinforce and defend key areas. The larger machines, like the Spider Droids and such, would have been positioned similarly, layers of protection around places and people off import. The Gamer's Mind had muted my fear, but I was sure many people must have been in a panic at Ziz's reemergence, so there was also the matter of placating the public even in ways that weren't necessarily effective—even if a Droid placed near some district or town wouldn't so much as slow Ziz down, having something to look at an remind people of Atlas' protection could go a long ways towards keeping down panic.
But even more then dedicating its forces to border control, that would stretch their forces thin. Given that, if something unexpected happened at a location that wasn't major, I suppose it wasn't that strange if they'd had to cobble together whatever they could on short notice. A bunch of cannon fodder to assist a heavy hitter may well be all they could spare until they rearranged their forces elsewhere.
Frowning, I checked the ship and took count. Adding to the nineteen outside, there were about fifty of the machines in this one ship. Seven ships makes that over three hundred which I supposed was a pretty major investment given the situation, but…
I directed my attention to Vulturnus who was once more focus entirely on the forest and felt his mind slide over my own as the world dissolved into a portrait of charges and light. I saw some of those lights, other robots that had survived the crashes I assumed, coming towards me with variable speeds, but I focused my attention on the brightest of them all, the shining beacon of light that illuminated the Elemental's senses. Whatever it was, Xihai hadn't sensed enough water in its form for it to be human, which meant…I don't know.
Trouble, probably. Even if they were stretched thinly, they'd send something big. If possible, I'd rather not find out what.
Levant, I reached out to check her progress. With nearly a thousand people needing to be transferred one by one into a small opening, it was slow going and not really something to be rushed, but…
I sighed at the image she returned and prepared myself. All my sustained skills were up and running and all my Elementals were out. I opened my status screen with a whisper and glanced over it, wondering if I should distribute my points now and, if so, how. I was very close but I still hadn't leveled up—which really seemed kind of unfair, but I could distribute my points to take two of my physical stats above fifty. I'd gotten some mild training in this last week, running to and from Atlas, but…the truth was that I didn't know what I'd get or what I'd need. Should I go for Strength, Stamina, or Dexterity? I had no idea what skills my physical abilities would give me. Stamina would probably be something defensive, Strength would probably assist damage, Dexterity…could go either way or something in between. Without knowing the specifics of them or my opponent, though…
I decided to be patient and wait for my enemy to appear. When they stood before me, I'd Observe them, decide what I needed most, and make my choice.
Assuming I didn't die before I could, of course.
So I closed my eyes as the seconds passed by, feeling Levant moving passengers in the back of my mind as I watched the world through Vulturnus' eyes. I slid out of sight, into the shadows of a building, fists ready beneath my cloak even as the light reached the edge.
For a moment, there was silence as it—she—came into sight. A girl, my age or a bit younger, with short and curly orange-red hair. About half a foot shorter than me, maybe a little more, I saw freckles on her skin, beneath bright green eyes. A blouse and overalls, a collar and matching stockings, she looked…not at all like I expected.
But I didn't relax even as her eyes scanned the periphery and focused on me easily, though the shadows and partial cover. She smiled brightly at me and lifted a hand, but it did nothing to disarm me.
"Salutations!" She greeted. "I have been sent to apprehend you!"
However she seemed, appearances meant little to me. For floating in the air above her head…
A Real Girl
LV59
Penny Polendina
XxXXxX
MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
Choice
Whelp.
I was fucked. I was pretty sure of that when I saw her sign and just about certain of it when I Observed her. The difference between us was tremendous, whether based on levels, stats, or whatever else. In fact, going by pure physical abilities, she was by far the strongest person I'd ever been capable of Observing. This wasn't like fight Grimm or even like fighting the Nevermore; this was an intelligent, presumably trained individual with skill and versatility to back up her tremendous power.
Even so, I stayed calm. I'm not gonna lie—I owed that fact entirely to the Gamer's Mind—but I didstay calm, analyzing the situation as I searched for a way out, a way through this. I recalled what I already knew and reminded myself that I didn't need to win this battle, I just needed to buy a little time.
Even if standing in front of a level fifty-nine opponent made it suddenly seemed like a lot of time.
I considered my options quickly but before I even knew what I was doing, I'd stood up and walked fully into sight, standing before the young-looking girl beneath the moon and stars. A moment later, my brain caught up with my body and I almost nodded to myself—my cover had obviously been ineffective anyway and if the point was to buy time, this was probably my best bet. I'd have preferred to run, but even beyond the issue of defending the White Whale and the people being loaded into it, when it came to people significantly more powerful than me, my prospects for escape tended to be uncertain at the best of times. No, this was smarter; I was…well, doubtful I'd be lucky enough to make it through on this alone, but it could do nothing but help.
"Penny Polendina," I said clearly, thankful as always for how broken Observe was while I scanned her profile. "The first synthetic person capable generating of Aura; Dr. Polendina's daughter and masterpiece. I didn't expect to meet you so soon—but nonetheless, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Most people would have probably been off put by someone reciting hidden or private details of their life, but Penny just waved.
"That's me!" She said brightly. "I'm afraid I don't know your name though."
"I tend to avoid introductions, I'm afraid," I replied demurely. "You see, surrounded as I am by so many amazing individuals, I feel rather embarrassed doing so—who could possibly recognize my humble self?"
"I'm sure that's not true," Penny said kindly. "I've heard a great deal about you! You must be a very skilled criminal to have taken the AS-WW. People all over Remnant know about you!"
"It's kind of you to say so," I thanked her in the same tone. "Nonetheless, this is a good opportunity. Before the situation degenerates needlessly, may I speak with you, Penny?"
Penny tilted her head to the side and blinked at me with bright green eyes.
"You seem very polite, but I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," She said, shaking her head. "And also, it's very important that I apprehend you and return what you've stolen."
"Strangers?" I asked. "But didn't you just say you knew a lot about me?"
She blinked and nodded.
"So I did," She agreed. "But I don't even know your name. And part of what I do know about you is that you are a criminal. Which, considering it, I believe even trumps being strangers—though I am uncertain."
"That seems a fair assumption, Penny," I conceded politely, eyes narrowed considering as I began to find my stride. "Yet I would argue that circumstance forced my hand. In return for a moment of your time, I would explain. As for my name, however, I'm afraid that may still be an issue—for you see, I am wearing a mask, an item meant to conceal one's identity; a task I would be subverting if I then simply revealed it to you. I could remove the mask, but you see, it is much akin to military uniform and it would be tasteless—perhaps even insulting—to remove it in the line of duty. I can assure you that despite my fame, you would not recognize the face beneath, nor even my name, so I'd ask that you allow it to remain in my possession."
"Okay," Penny nodded, watching me. "You wish to confess then? I believe that's allowed, though I will still have to take you into custody afterwards."
I gestured at her noncommittally before continuing.
"Are you aware of where we are?"
"Becheur, a mining facility owned by the Schnee Dust Company in Southern Atlas, Seventh Ring," She answered promptly. "Or do you mean in terms latitude and longitude?"
"That won't be necessary. However, perhaps I should rephrase my question. Do you know what this town's purpose is?"
"It's a mining facility owned by the Schnee Dust Company," Penny answered, blinking owlishly at me. "Presumably, it is a facility meant to mine Dust for the Schnee Dust Company."
Couldn't argue with that.
"But are you aware of the process through which this occurs?" I asked.
"I assume it is mined by miners, hence the name. Perhaps with the aid of mining equipment, also hence the name," She said and if she was being sarcastic, she hid it tremendously well.
"That's entirely accurate," I allowed. "But paints a false image. For you see, this is a company town, if you are familiar with the term. Everything in it is owned by the Schnee Dust Company, including, for all intents and purposes, the people. You may not be aware of it, but this mine is run almost entirely on Faunus labor and they are paid solely in company scrip—a form of currency that only holds value to the company that possesses it. They spend this scrip to buy their essentials from the Schnee Dust Company, but its value is entirely controlled by their employers for it has value nowhere else. They determine what can be purchased, when it's available, and how much it cost, determining not only how much their employees are paid but the worth of what they receive. Due to the state of Faunus on Mantle, they can get away with a great deal in this regard and it is effectively a legalized form of slavery."
"What?" Penny asked quietly. "But that's…"
"Horrible," I finished for her. "And the reason why I am here. The situation, you see, forced this result. I'm sure you would agree that I had to act, but my options were limited. I needed to transport a large number of people a vast distance, you see, and I had no means of acquiring an appropriate vessel except through the ignoble means of theft. Nonetheless, I had no choice but to act; you, if anyone, must understand why."
I was getting wordy, I realized, and it strangely brought back memories of school; trying desperately to hit the word limit on an assignment at the last minute by bloating things, meandering on the topic. Sadly, it also brought back another memory—of presentation day, when I'd found myself nearing the end of my speech with way too much time left. I could feel Levant working in the back of my mind, raising figures into the White Whale one by one—but God it seemed to be taking forever. We'd practiced this and I knew she was keeping an amazing pace given her task, but…
"What?" Penny asked, looking surprised. "What do you mean?"
"At the risk of sounding cliché, I think you and I are rather similar," I said, refocusing in an instant. I honestly wasn't sure where I was going with any of this, yet; I was just doing my best to make the leap from thought to thought, to keep talking without sounding foolish or mad. As I came to an idea I thought had potential, I seized it and pressed onwards. "In the eyes of others, we are naught but an animal and a machine. Not people, just tools to be used. Look around us."
I gestured encompassing—at the town, at the machine's broken on the field, at the world.
"Could there be a more fitting place for us to meet? A town where Faunus are enslaved and forced to work for human masters. A field of broken machines, sent to be destroyed by those same masters. It was my hand which ended them and I did so thoughtlessly, for which I must apologize, but it was they who sent them against me. And what does that mean for you, Penny? They don't even deserve to be compared to something as amazing as you, of course, please don't take the comparison as an insult—you are so much more than a machine, while these are simply programed to act in defined ways. They aren't alive and I felt no guilt in destroying them thusly, but…Faunus are alive and yet still used. Perhaps even treated worse than simple machines. What can we expect, then, of those who might follow you, Penny? Of your brothers and sisters, of your children and kin? Will they be treated like us? Will they be forced to act as their master's desire, programmed to do so instead of being given life, choice? Will they ever get a chance to live like you, Penny, or will you be left alone?"
Penny seemed to shrink into herself at my words, a figure of tremendous, unbelievable power looking abruptly frightened, hesitant, confused—and I tried not to let that bother me, but I failed.
And yet, as with Weiss, I stood firm.
"You…you're wrong," She said. "I'm…I'm not a real girl. I'm not alive."
"If that's what you believe, then you are wrong or else you've been lied to," I answered after a moment, looking her over. "I can see it so clearly. Emotions on your face, in your eyes. Innocence and uncertainty in every line of your body. I can see the light of Aura burning within you, Penny—the light of your soul. Only living things have an Aura, Penny, and that means you're alive. It's plain to see that you are a real girl and anyone who disagrees is blind."
"I…" She tried, taking a step back, a step forward.
"We aren't enemies, Penny," I said soothingly. "Or we don't have to be. Let's not fight. I haven't killed anyone; the humans are still huddled quietly in their houses, waiting for this to be over. Just let me take the Faunus from this place and I'll leave, just like that. There's no need for senseless violence."
"…I can't," She said after a moment. "I…I'm…"
"Would they punish you, Penny?" I asked. "If you let slaves go free? What does that imply, then? For us…and you. For whom living and letting live is a crime. If that's how things truly are, perhaps you should question the world you know…and the people you think you do. Penny, you aren't anyone's property. You aren't owned or owed to anyone. You are a living, thinking being—a miracle of life and innovation both. And if they would punish you for that, try to control you, and then theyare wrong."
She was silent for a moment, blinking at me rapidly, lips forming silent words, but I kept going after only a moment's pause. I wondered a bit about my words, at how swiftly they could turn from a lie to buy time to something else, something I could put passion into—or was that part of the lie? Either way, I continued.
"Penny…you don't need to be afraid of anything. You're strong…and if you wished, I could take you away from this place. I could take you wherever you wanted to go—anywhere. If you wanted to escape and be free, I would do everything in my power to make it possible and protect you. You can come with me, if you want. Or you can stay and go home. Whatever you want, it's your choice. But let's not fight for them. I don't want to be your enemy. I'd rather be your friend."
I saw emotions on her face and more in her status screen—uncertainty, wonder, hesitation, fear, curiosity, worry, sadness—and realized how innocent this enormously powerful girl must have been. About life, about the world, about everything. Really, she was very much a child, hypocritical of me as it might have been to call her such.
And maybe that was where I'd made my mistake. Or perhaps, it had simply been inevitable. She was a child—uncertain and innocent and curious and afraid and everything else that could mean—and faced with all of that, she did what any child would do.
"No, this is…I can't. This is wrong," She shook her head. "Something's wrong. There must be a mistake. You shouldn't have to…they shouldn't need to…something must be at work here. My father, he would know what to do…"
She turned to her parents.
I saw my only real hope dwindle before my eyes.
"You love him," I said, abruptly tired.
"He's my father," She said simply, extending a hand. "He and General Ironwood built me and…he's my father."
I nodded, understanding what she struggled to put into words. It didn't make this any easier.
"He told me to bring you in. There's an emergency—the White Whale, Ziz, it's…it's important," She said. "But we still don't have to fight. I can take you to him, let you explain. I'll vouch for you. I still want to be your friend. But I have to…"
"You have your duty," I finished for her. "I understand. And I still want to be your friend, too. But I can't go with you. I have my duty, as well. There are people relying on me, counting on me, and I won't let them down; I'm sure you get that. Are you sure you can't let me go? If it's about Ziz, I can tell you where it is."
"I…" She looked down. "Don't understand what's happening. I know I don't understand what's happening. But I trust my father. He's not a bad person. Whatever's happening…I trust him and I know he'll understand. So…I have my duty to the people of Atlas and of Remnant. Even if I want to be your friend, to believe you, I can't make any mistakes. I have to protect everyone. Please, come speak to my father, tell him what you told me and…"
I was silent for a long moment, more in an attempt to delay the inevitable than anything else. I couldn't go with her. Even if I had some way of know that her father could do what she wanted to believe, even if I knew he had that much power and was a good person and would listen to me, I had too many lies that could be uncovered. And too many enemies. The Schnee, at the very least, would…
"I can't," I said at last. "I'll miss my flight. We have to do this, then?"
Penny looked down at the ground and nodded shallowly, looking miserable. I inhaled deeply.
"A pity," I said and meant it. "Such a pity."
For me, I couldn't help but think.
XxXXxX
"I'll make this quick," She said and I barely saw the first attack before it hit me. I heard metal scraping and saw starlight gleam of a razor edge as a sword unfolded behind her, held by nothing and multiplying abruptly with a sharp sound—and then I was sent flying back. The White Tiger's Hide held under the impact for a moment before shattering, tearing apart with a rush of sensation that I felt against my very being as the blades bit further inwards. I felt my MP drain as my Aura took the hit, soaking it in place of my body, but didn't have time to check on any precise numbers as I was hurled back into a wall.
Or, more accurately, through a wall.
And the one behind it and the one behind that. I felt cheap wood breaking under my body and I was flung into what seemed like a small work room, over several small desks or tables that I only noticed peripherally, out the other side into the street where I was sent for a rough tumble into the dirt, hit something like a curb, and was sent flying into a thin metal shutter of some kind. The door crumbled beneath me and I went rolling across a warehouse floor.
It hurt. A lot.
But only for a second before the pain faded, swept away by the Gamer's Body. Still, for a moment all I could do was lay there, stunned by the pain and the confirmation it had carried with it. I was strong and I had trained hard and I'd layers my defenses. Between me and any attack was the White Tiger's Hide which soaked a large amount of damage before failing, my Metal Aura which reduced any damage by a large fraction, and my Aura which made damage roll over to my MP before touching my HP, to say nothing of my Physical Endurance, which also reduced any source of damage by a large fraction. It was a powerful effect, taken altogether, especially with how highly I'd leveled all my skills; for someone my age, for someone who'd only trained for a month, it was an amazing defense.
And if not for all of that, this fight would have ended in that one blow. Penny had hit me with enough force that even with all of that, she'd still stripped away nearly half my MP—and I was pretty sure she was holding back, especially since I'd felt the blade draw away from me a second after impact. I wasn't surprising, really; I'd always known about the difference between me and some of the ridiculous opponents I fought. Hell, just earlier, I'd killed a bunch of robots a little less than half my level effortlessly and the difference between Penny and I was a fair bit larger. Even if I hadn't gotten to experience it first hand, 'a hit from an opponent nearly forty levels above you would hurt like a bitch' went without saying.
So I wasn't surprised, really. I wasn't even scared, really, even ignoring the effect of the Gamer's Mind. As I lay on the warehouse floor for a second and just stared at the ceiling, I just…accepted it. She was vastly stronger than me and she had the speed and versatility to back it up. She was, in every sense of the word, above my level.
But I got up because that didn't change anything. I still had a job to do, I still had things to fight for, and I was still going home, somehow.
I tried to think of a plan. I considered trying to fly away or at least out of range but there were more than a few problems with the idea. Levant could lift and hold a single person fairly easily now, allowing me to walk on air or even carry me around. But…that wasn't quite the same as being able to fly myself. Ideally, Levant would be materialized and holding onto my back as she had during our practices, at which point I would either relay instructions to her or let her do what she thought best—and either way, the result was amazing but not ideal for a fight. In the former, there was a delay between thought and action, like telling someone how to drive in your place. It was a short delay since I could rely on Levant for most things, but if there was something precise or if I needed to dodge something fast, the fact remained that I wasn't doing it the moment I thought about it, I was thinking of it, telling someone else to do it, and waiting for them to.
Levant was amazing, but adding steps to a process like that was going to cause delays no matter how good you were. Leaving things to her was better—a lot smoother, certainly—but it had the problem of someone else being in control of my movements. Even if Levant didn't need to focus on evacuating the Faunus and could manifest and guide my flight, having another person effectively controlling my legs while I fought was not going to make this any easier. And if that first hit was any indication, if I made a mistake once, there were decent odds I wasn't going to get a chance to make another.
All of which was a moot point, I supposed, because of the situation. I couldn't be certain of the range on those blades of hers, but they hit fast and from what I'd seen, could be used without her touching them. Given that, I pondered what I would do if I were designing such a thing and figured they probably had a pretty huge reach. Being able to hit at a distance was rather the point of a ranged weapon, after all. Even if I could afford to draw Levant's attention away from evacuation—dealing with the effect splitting her power would have on both my mobility and the time it meant I'd have to buy—whether it'd be enough to save me was, ironically, up in the air.
If I was just trying to run away…maybe, but for this? No.
Stealth, perhaps? I'd leveled it up some, though it had never been a focus given the plan. Still, I might be able to lead her on a chase for a bit while remaining unseen—assuming that no one involved with the construction of a super robot had considered the numerous advantages of sensors and enhanced vision, which seemed rather unlikely. If you were creating a combat robot for…whatever reason, why would you stop at normal human capability for such a major thing? Iwouldn't have. Hell, if it was me, Penny would have been able to see Ultraviolet light bare minimum, and as much of the rest of the Electromagnetic Spectrum as I could manage. I didn't know the limits the top scientists in Atlas might have in that regard, but hell—they'd created life. Assuming they'd had fun thinking of ways to ruin things they sent their robot at seemed reasonable.
Can't talk, can't fight, can't run, can't hide, which kind of left me out to dry. No matter how I looked at it, I couldn't think of anything that had a real chance of stopping Penny. Or slowing her down. Or doing more than momentarily inconveniencing her.
Which was worrisome, since I could feel her approaching.
I looked around, prioritizing quickly. Right now, I needed to survive long enough to figure out how to keep surviving. I scanned the warehouse for a way out or anything useful—
I paused, suddenly realizing where I was. All around me were neatly arranged crates, boxes, and various other storage containers, all looking read for shipping. Given this town's purpose, it wasn't hard to guess what was inside them and a quick check with Observe confirming it regardless.
I was in a storage warehouse surrounded by tons and tons of Dust—all of it carefully stored and prepared but no less potentially explosive for that fact. If something happened to a warehouse like this…Well, assuming whoever was responsible for looking over my remains gave me a funeral, they'd be able to bury me in a petri dish. There was enough Dust in here to wipe away this whole town easily.
Maybe even enough to take down an unbelievably strong android, a cold—or maybe just frightened—part of me whispered before I hushed it. That was a horrible strategy no matter how I looked at it for many, many reasons. From a practical standpoint, while it may well have been enough to defeat even someone as powerful as Penny, uncontrolled close-proximity explosives did not lend themselves well to survivable strategies and there were a lot of people who could be caught up in one as big as this. I would be endangering the very reason I came here on such a desperate strategy and I'd probably die pulling it off besides.
Just as importantly, if it could take down Penny, it may very well kill her in the process. Desperate attempt to buy time or not, I'd meant the things I said and I couldn't do that. It seemed kind of unfair that I had to worry about the safety of my opponent as well as myself, but I couldn't endanger her like that. If I had a lot of time, full knowledge of Penny's abilities and limits, and had a lot of experience with using Dust in such a way, maybe, but setting of a bunch of explosives and crossing my fingers? No.
Although…
It gave me an idea. Not a very good idea, unfortunately—it would have been more honest to call it a fool's hope, but that seemed self-defeating. But as the Gamer's Mind kept me calm and all my other options had run dry…
Vulturnus, I reached out to my Lightning Elemental and he was by my side in an instant. Though he was immaterial, I couldn't keep a shiver from going down my spine as I saw him standing in a room full of Dust, imagining it exploding. Vulturnus didn't even look at me at first, gaze focused towards where Penny must have been.
When I told him what I wanted, however, he shifted to look at me. The uniform color of his entire body made it hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure he was staring at me in disbelief.
You're my only hope, I told him seriously. Go.
He remained as he was for an instant—and however long that must have been to a Lightning Elemental—and then was gone. I felt him in my mind, crossing my senses like the element he represents as he flashed towards Penny.
And as he moved right passed her, leaving he untouched and unaware of his presence.
I will return. He whispered back as he stopped near the edge of my range. Don't fade away.
Then, with a sound almost like static, he fell silent and my awareness of him slide to the back of my mind to join Levant.
I tried not to feel any less confident then I did already, but with Vulturnus gone I had one less Elemental by my side and I'd gotten used to their constant presence and support. Still, he'd be more useful where I'd put him then by my side, even if he was one of the best choices for facing this situation—which had probably been the reason for his unusual focus until now. He and Crocea Mors had the best chances of hurting Penny, after all.
But they wouldn't let me win this. If Penny was something else—if she was a Spider Droid or even a super Spider Droid—I would have any reason to fear her. If she was just as strong and a normal robot, I'd tear her apart regardless of our level difference. It might be difficult in a few ways and a tad dangerous in others, but I was almost certain I'd win such a fight. Crocea Mors could let me tear strips of metal from the White Whale's hull with about as much effort as lifting a bed sheet. Vulturnus could reach into and cause havoc on any electrical system, tearing up the power and letting it run loose. Between the two of them, I was certain that if I had to face a Spider Droid or two or even three, I would win. Not so much because I was powerful, but because I could literally just reach inside them and turn them off.
But Penny wasn't just a super advanced robot. She had an Aura, a soul—she was a real girl.
And that changed things. I couldn't reach into her and mess with things, even if I wanted to. I could sense her, the metal and electricity that made her run, but I couldn't control it—or at least, not like I did with everything else. It was a matter of my Aura and hers and it would mean a clash that she'd almost certainly win. If I could touch her, fight it directly, and hold on for a while, maybeI could do something, but I was pretty sure what would actually happen was that my body would be introduced to realms of physical discomfort previously unheard of.
There was a serious risk of me dying in fact, now that I thought about it. Though I had no desire—and limited ability—to hurt Penny and doubted she really wished to injure me, as far as she'd be able to see, her attacks would seem ineffective because of the Gamer's Body. It was possibly that in her attempts to take me down, she might instead drive me to the grave because nothing would happen until I lost my last HP point.
I briefly entertained the idea of explaining that to her. My power was strange enough that I was sure I could buy a fair amount of time with that explanation—but no. There was a better then good chance that anything I told Penny would find its way to the people above her, one way or another. It might save me from dying here, but if I was captured and they knew about my power…
I'd take my chances risking my life. Besides, seeming invulnerable gave me a psychological advantage, if one probably lost on Penny.
Instead, I tore open one of the boxes and palmed one of the Dust crystals. A yellow one, reminding me of Vulturnus.
"I'll buy you some time," I murmured to myself even as I opened my Status Screen in preparation. "Soulforge Restoration."
I felt power and vitality flow into me on the wings of strange sensations—a crispness to the air, a scent of the wind, hair standing up along my arms, water on my face, and the distant rumbling of thunder. I felt my HP and MP return to me and exhaled slowly, looking at the window that appeared before me.
The Status Effect, "Haste", has been created. Duration: 20 seconds.
God, I hoped this worked.
XxXXxX
MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
Timed Battle
The basic premise of my plan was simple and time-honored—I was going to heal myself liberally at the vaguest hint of danger to try and stay alive in a situation where I otherwise shouldn't. Countless fierce opponents had been slain through such clever and careful use of items and abilities to restore the brave warriors who fought them.
In games, that is. I'd done it myself a fair number of times, tackling much stronger enemies with a load out of potions and other restorative items to keep myself going while I whittled them down. It really was a time-honored strategy in that regard and I'd beat a fair number of, in my opinion, amazing things that way.
Granted, I usually died a few times before I did it right which was the type of thing that did little to reassure me when I couldn't push a button and go back like nothing happened. Whatever I did, the fact remained that Penny had kicked my ass with what amounted to a casual backhand—if I managed to survive more than two of her attacks in a row, I'd be absurdly lucky. Especially considering the way she'd kicked my ass, knocking me down and tossing me halfway across the town. Once this battle really began and she realized that one hit wouldn't be enough to stop me on its own or if she put in more of an effort, if I went down again…
The margin for error here was very, very slight. Too slight. Basic probability and simple observation made it pretty obvious that the odds were not in my favor here; I'd barely noticed that first attack, much less reacted to it. Now that I was on guard and had some grasp of the attack's nature, I might be able to take advantage of the brief warning Sense Danger gave me, but never get hit? That seemed unlikely. The skill would strip away the advantage of a surprise attack if I kept my wits about me, but that wouldn't matter if she could still hit me anyway.
So I turned to my power, bullshit as it was.
Beyond healing, Soulforge Restoration had a few other powers when used with a Dust crystal—a restoration of MP among them. Because I'd leveled up the skill a fair bit, I could restore enough to make that very useful—and to get me out of a sudden predicament, in the eventuality that I found myself in yet another bind.
Arguably just as useful were the…variable effects it could produce. A mere side note in the profile I had seen a month ago, I hadn't been able to test it until I'd begun training with Adam and Blake—but when I did, I'd understood.
Soulforge Restoration was, in the end, all about the transfer of Aura. It was more complicated than that—it took a great deal of precision, precise control, and careful direction to achieve the desired result, and many other things, but the base concept was that a person's Aura would attempt to protect and heal them. Or, arguably, to keep them in their normal state or return them to it. A person's Aura is an expression of their soul and a person's soul is an expression, or maybe reflection or embodiment or a number of other theories, of that person. If a person was wounded, their Aura would try to heal them back to normal, whatever 'normal' happened to be.
It was for this reason that healing was a relatively rare ability. You can't simply pour your Aura into another person to top them off and assist them at healing, because the answer to the question 'Who is Jaune Arc?' was different than 'Who is Adam Taurus?' or 'Who is Blake Belladonna?' In a fashion very similar to different blood types, a transfer from one person to another rarely took. The odds of it ending badly were far lower because people usually just shed Aura they wouldn't use, but there were rare cases that…well, hadn't ended well.
For a transfer to occur, one of two things had to be true. The target and recipient had to possess the same Aura—that is, be the same person—in which case there was no problem. When I healed myself, it was simply a matter of directing my Aura to its purpose; especially easy in my case because I didn't actually receive physical damage, I just lost HP. I just cast the spell and didn't even need to direct it to important areas like someone else might need to if they hurt themselves.
If you aren't capable of healing yourself effectively or lacked the Aura to do so, however, you're probably out of luck barring tremendously strange and unique circumstances. People were unique which meant you weren't going to stumble across a person capable of giving you a magic blood transfer easily. I was Type Jaune and I was the only person who was Type Jaune.
Healing, however, remained possible. If you thought of different Auras as different blood types, you could think of healing as producing Type O blood, stripping away all the things that would cause another person to reject it and rendering it into a pure state that could be consumed and processed by anyone. Reducing it to a blank slate, effectively.
And using it with Dust was like shining light through a crystal, drawing up all the power within to color that energy, but not in a way that would cause a…reaction. Tricky to do, but Aura seemed to react with Dust in a number of unique ways and it would accept things from it that it wouldn't take from another person. And because Aura was all about trying to protect and maintain, if you added the power of yellow Dust—of lightning—to your soul…well, suddenly the answer to the question 'Who am I?' became, in small part, 'lightning.'
I felt myself grow faster as the effect took hold, my heart beat feeling steady even though it pounded thunderously in my chest. The world around me seemed to actually slow as I moved, sharpening into sudden clarity as I quickened. I wasn't the only person would could do something like this by any means but using it directly on oneself was a rather archaic method of enhancement. Most people capable of it, like Weiss, channeled it through a weapon or some other item instead, but this was the only way I knew how to do it.
I drew out three other crystals—red, blue, and green for all three basic types of Dust. They were by far the most common types of Dust as well, at least in terms of what formed naturally, which is why they were all I found at a glance. Odds were that there were a few natural examples of other types somewhere in here, but I was in a rush.
The Status Effect, "Firepower", has been created. Duration: 20 seconds.
The Status Effect, "Regeneration", has been created. Duration: 20 seconds.
The Status Effect, "Feather Fall", has been created. Duration: 20 seconds.
With each casting of the spell I felt more of my power returning and new power growing in leaving me feeling mighty and strong. Of them all, Firepower was probably the least useful as a general offensive boost. Haste's effect was obvious, as was Regeneration's; quickening me and improving my healing ability respectively. Feather Fall mainly just meant I wouldn't take damage from falls, but it worked on being thrown into stuff, too, which I thought would be depressingly handy soon. All told, though, they were tremendous boosts to my power and left me feeling almost giddy.
Beyond the quick tests I'd done, this was my first time really using this technique. This wasn't a tactic I made use of regularly—I couldn't afford to. There was no deeper meaning or moral explanation to that; I just literally couldn't afford to. Dust crystals were expensive, selling for anywhere from over a thousand to five or ten thousand lien a pop, depending on size, weight, and type. The dust form was cheaper, but my power needed crystals and I didn't want to draw attention by dropping a huge amount of money to empty out a shop, much less rob it. And for a twenty second boost for a single use…I wasn't made out of money. The White Fang had gotten me a set of crystals on short notice that I'd been saving for a particularly awful day.
Given that all this Dust had been mined with Faunus labor and slavery, though, I figured it was fine to steal some of it to help save them. I lifted the box with a sudden heave and poured it straight into my Inventory and considered going for seconds—but time was running short and I had another thing to do. I'd come back for more later, if I could.
I turned to my status screen and, with a series of rapid button pushes, raised both Vitality and Dexterity above fifty.
The skill 'Iron Body' has been created through VIT rising above 50.
Iron Body (Passive) LV1 EXP: 0.00%
An ability given to those rare few born with surpassing vitality. The user possesses a body with great resistance to harm and unending strength to endure.
50% Increase to Stamina recovery rate.
20% Decrease in Damage from physical attacks.
10% Increase to total HP amount.
10% Increase to total Stamina amount.
30% Increase to VIT related skill effects.
The skill 'Amazing Grace' has been created through DEX rising above 50.
Amazing Grace (Passive) LV1 EXP: 0.00%
An ability given to those with tremendous mastery of their own bodies. The user possesses refined control and coordination, displaying elegance in everything they do.
50% Increase to Movement Speed.
30% Increase to Attack Speed.
10% Increase to Evasion.
30% Increase to DEX related skill effects.
I shuddered as the windows appeared, feeling my body shift and change as the power took hold, before suddenly relaxing with an exhale. Flexing my fingers, I looked down at my hand as I abandoned the improved defense of my Metal Aura and replaced it with Air. With Lenore, Dreary Midnight, and my Elementalist title, my Air Affinity was at forty-five, far higher than any of my others, but I'd gone with the reduced damage from Metal at first for the damage reduction since I didn't know what to expect.
But it wouldn't be enough to reduce damage against Penny. I needed speed, needed to stay ahead if only for just a little while. With my Aura drawn around me, my body enhanced, and the power Dust giving me strength, I was as ready as I'd ever be.
Although, it really seemed kind of unfair that even with all of those advantages, I was still going to be fighting an uphill battle. I was breaking out everything I'd kept up my sleeve just to try and stay alive for a little bit longer.
I suppressed a sigh before taking a deep, resolving breath and turning to face the entrance my body had made, for all appearances waiting calmly. Only seconds having passed since my impromptu entrance, but even that short pause meant Penny had taken her sweet time waiting for me and I wondered if she was dragging her feet or if she just knew I wasn't trying to run. Or perhaps she was just letting me stew in my thoughts, allowing the tension to build and wear me down following a display of her tremendous power. That seemed a bit manipulative for Penny to do consciously, but perhaps she was doing it without thinking, trying to get me to stop fighting without hurting me too bad.
When she stepped around the corner a moment later, I met her eyes, gauging her with my four eyes as she stared back at me. If not for my mask, the moonlight would have shadowed her figure and the silence lingered for a moment. I wonder what she saw when she looked at me and I smiled at her widely for lack of anything else to do, touching a hand to my chest.
"A fair first blow," I said with confidence I couldn't feel. "But perhaps a bit more care would be in order? What if I'd hit one of these containers? Dust can be quite…volatile."
Slowly, she turned to face me, expression a mixture of sorrow, revolve, and surprising ferocity.
"Do you surrender?" Penny asked at last.
I rushed her by way of replying.
XxXXxX
She reacted quickly, the swords floating behind her whirling into place at a speed I'd scarcely been able to track before.
But that was before. They were still fast now, faster than I could move, but not too fast for me toperceive—and there was more to battle then speed, however advantageous it might be. Distance, for example, was always a factor; even if the blades could strike faster than I could, I needed to cover less distance. As the blades struck like a many tailed scorpion, I danced back a step and jumped slightly to the left as the first sword bit deeply into the concrete. As it did, I caught sight of a glimmer in the air, light reflecting off of something very slight as it extended from the blade towards Penny.
Wires, I realized before abandoning the thought and continuing my evasion. It was good to know and something to keep in mind as another thing to navigate, but I was too preoccupied at the moment to take advantage of it. A moment after the first blade landed, the others adjusted, angles shortening even as tips turned. I crouched slightly to let the second flash past my face and skated a pair of steps back to let a third dig deeply into the floor in front of my feet. A moment later, I rose, a quick hop letting my plant my foot on the blade's pommel and I dodge the fourth and fifth with Lunges, a step taking me to rest neatly atop the first blade and then up into the air above.
In an instant, unblinking green eyes were on me, all but glowing as my danger sense rang out in warning. In an instant, her remaining blades came together like a whirling star set to cut me in half even as my left hand rose in defense. I couldn't hope to deflect the blow, I knew that, but I didn'thave to as long as I wasn't hit. At the last second, air gathered in my hand and around my body, turning me impossibly in midair as it changed my angle of descent. I watched as the spiral of blades rose passed me just inches from touching my hand's guiding fingers. I Lunged again as I touched the ceiling and hit the ground hands first.
A rush of air pushed me into a true handstand as Penny drew all her blades back to her, cutting edges going by just beside me as the hand stand turned into an assisted flip. The moment I was back on my feet, I Lunged after the returning blades, closing what distance I could to the android. The blades stopped to hover beside Penny again and I had another moment of warning before a larger pinwheel of swords came hurling towards me.
I went to my knees instantly, dropping into a slide as I leaned back as far as I could, watching the blades go by and focusing once more on the strings I had caught a glimpse off. I wondered for an instant if I might be able to cut them somehow, strip away her weapons, and so used Observe—before abandoning the notion with a grimace. That wasn't happening.
I hauled myself back to my feet with carefully controlled wind and felt another flash of danger a moment before Crocea Mors alerted me to the source. I flipped over backwards as hard as I could as the pinwheel suddenly halted and reversed, the claws of my left hand just barely scraping along a blades edge. I used the force to turn my uncontrolled jump into something with direction, and, with another touch of air manipulation, came back to my feet with barely a stumble.
Tossing myself forward, I kept my eyes on Penny even as the pinwheel broke back into ten blades and rushed at me in unison. Now that I was focused, I could see the strings by the Aura Penny channeled along and through them and I memorized their locations before leaping hard into the midst of the blades. As they came down upon where I'd stood, I was already passed them, rising into the air above Penny.
I kept an eye on her all the way through the leap, even as I felt my hands grasp the upper edge of the broken shutter door and swung myself down and up, flying high into the air as my abilities came together. In the end, I wound up upside-down in the air, looking back even as I held myself straight and flew high. It was an awkward position, but I let my Elementals guide me so I could keep my attention focused on the real threat—but Penny merely turned her head to look at me over one shoulder, drawing her blades back around her but not attacking even when I was forced to turn myself right side up to land.
The moment I touched the ground, however, I wished I hadn't. My senses rang out that I was in danger as the black pack on Penny's back flashed open, two more blades emerging and unfolding from within. I managed to rise out of the way of on, but at the price of taking the other to the chest. My Hide shattered again as I was knocked back into another building.
The good news was that secondary impact didn't hurt nor did I crash through the wall as I had before. Despite being hit by the same amount of force, Feather Fall meant I all but bounced off the wall and back to my feet. It saved me from the additional damage of plowing through the town, even if the hit itself had still taken its toll on me.
The bad news was that the blade I'd dodged had sunk into the ground and anchored itself as Penny jumped back and reeled herself in, coming to land far too close for comfort.
I summoned my Hide again as she came close, drawing it around me even as I swept a hand through my open status screen, palming another Dust crystal in an instant. In the brief moment I had left, I drained the crystal for life and power, resetting Haste's timer in the process.
Penny came at me an instant later, closing the distance with stunning speed, moving even faster than before. Her blade's rose again, but did not fire at me, instead floating just out of reach of her fingers. They trailed one another such that a single swing could mean many blows and I was pushed back by her first attack as the individual blades reached out further until the last struck out nearly four times as far as the first. I suddenly found myself being forced to retreat with each attack, because evading just one would leave me open to many others, yet as I fell back, she just pushed harder.
When I leapt away, she extended a pair of blades after me, driving them deeply into the ground before reeling herself after me. With the rest of her blades, she struck at me from a distance, raining blades down on me to keep me occupied dodging. It wasn't just the blades I needed to avoid but the wires which were thin and strong enough to serve as weapons all their own and which could curve and cross to almost make a maze in the air. I wound up wasting time trying to maneuver through it, giving her precious moments to catch up and force me into personal combat.
And I couldn't dodge everything. I tried, I even did well, but as we fought she began holding back less and less, coming at me harder because she thought I could take it. But I wasn't so sure I could, at least not for much longer. Even with my keen eyes and my hastened speed, keeping track of all of her blades, the strings, and a superior opponent was…more than difficult. At first she struck at me with sweeping gestures, attacking with a dozen blades of variable length and leaving me no hope but to get out of the way, but then she started playing hardball.
It began with her 'dual' wielding, splitting twelve blades into a pair of sixes. She struck at me with both arms then, one set of blades reaching out further if I dodged the other until the only way I could keep from getting hit was by Lunging away as fast as I could, reducing this from a defensive fight to full on running for my life. I'd managed to stay out of her reach, mostly, and heal what did get through, so she'd changed things up again. Now…
I danced back one step for the first two swords and a second for the next pair, four eyes watching closely, and hopped back a third to get away from the last one. Then she brought around her right arm and four more blades were swung my way, these ones stacked like an elongated staircase, the tip of one blade level with the hilt of another. I Lunged straight back to avoid them, already knowing what would happen—two blades flashed passed me, missing but leaving strings to either side. The two remaining blades came my way a moment later, lashing towards me with quick, alternating jabs that reminded me bizarrely of someone typing.
Now that she'd had time to take my measure, dodging in midair had got harder. It wasn't a matter of truly evading harm anymore, but of deciding which hits to take, what I could survive. After having been forced to do some testing, I'd determined I could take two hits in a row by soaking one with my Hide and Aura and the other with my HP, Iron Body, and Physical Endurance. Since Soulforge Restoration gave both HP and MP when used with Dust, I could stretch things out a bit further by carefully switching between them, but…
But the fact was I had to, just to stay alive. I pretty much always took at least one hit after the longer sweep after she sent me running, hedged me in, and then started attacking. If I managed to dodge them, however, it scarcely mattered because she used the first two swords to pull herself right after me, shoving me straight back into melee, where she'd go back into her sweeping turns and attacks, blades following her limbs like sharpened after-images.
The worst part was that I could see the exact pattern, knew it all by heart, and there was still nothing I could do about it. Sure, sometimes she'd throw surprises in there to try and catch me—kicks or thrusts instead of sweeps, bladed pirouettes, more of those whirling stars—but on the whole she kept to her steps because she had no need to deviate from them. She was scoring blows, pushing me back, and there was nothing I could do to stop her or contribute. I knew the dance but I couldn't match her pace and I was steadily being pushed back. It grated.
I wondered what the hell was taking Vulturnus so long—and wondered even more if it was hopeless. I couldn't ignore the fact that it was completely possible that he just couldn't do what I needed; if so, that wasn't on him, but on the situation. Despite his power, if the pieces weren't in place, if there weren't enough guys left over…
I clamped down on the thought. I couldn't think that way. If he couldn't, he couldn't and I'd…do…something, I guess. But until I was beaten, I'd hold onto hope and faith and believe I just needed to buy him a little more time.
But I wasn't going to manage that this way. I couldn't last just by playing defense, because so long as she had no fear of a response, she could just wail on me until she battered through all my defenses or got lucky—and she'd do one or the other soon, I was sure. She was getting better as this fight went on, learning to match me even as I tried to match her. Blows came closer with each cycle and she was quicker to respond, to pursue. Eventually…
Well, I guess she'd cut my strings.
I needed to keep her at least a little wary, lighten the assault, but I only had one method I thought might actually work and it could be risky.
My back wasn't exactly breaking under the weight of my options, though, so I did it anyway, reaching into my Inventory to withdraw a blue Dust crystal to consume and a red one that I held tightly in my left hand. I looked up as I heard Penny zipping towards me and tried something.
For much the same reason I hadn't gotten to train much with my buffs, I didn't have much experience with using Dust. I couldn't very well train the ability up when it would take thousands of castings to do so and Dust crystals were so expensive. There was a surprising amount of difficulty finding training manuals for the more archaic methods, too—there were plenty of books about Dust, about how it was first used in its raw form, and so on, but ones that actually taught the art were uncommon. Possibly because it was so dangerous and easy to lose control, possibly because of the relatively quick shift to using rounds, I wasn't sure—all I knew was that of the three books Tukson had possessed on the subject, two had been about the theory, one had been a historical account, and none had qualified as skill books. Given the odds of blowing myself up, the noticeable nature of such a skill, and the severe expense, I'd laid off the skill.
But hey, I was already living dangerously—why not play with fire?
So that's exactly what I did. Fist clenched around it, I focused my will into the crystal. If I was honest, I'd wanted to try this for a long, long time; my Mana, Nature, and Elemental Affinities, my Elemental Mastery, and even my title all seemed built to help me with this, to make it stronger. I'd held back on using the crystals for anything but healing here since if I ran out before I got a chance to get more it'd be the death of me, but…well, if I didn't do something I'd die regardless. Firepower was my least useful buff—though, actually, it might help with this—so I pulled out a red crystal, gathered my power, and called for help.
Suryasta, I said. Please don't let this kill me. Thanks in advanced; you're awesome.
And then I unleashed the power, up at an angle to strike at Penny. I'd hoped for something like a stream of fire and I'd gotten that—sort of—but the power…it didn't go out of control, per se, but mostly because I never had it in control to begin with. It lashed out in a jagged burst towards the android, sprayed back at me through the gaps of my fingers, and quickly began to deteriorate from there. I felt Suryasta step in, calmly placing his fingers over my own, and helping to guide the power, keeping it from burning me too badly. What got through before he got involved did little through my resistance and I took the opportunity to leap away before Penny crashed into the ground.
A skill has been created through a special action! Through the applied use of energy propellant, the skill 'Dust Mastery' has been created!
I ignored the window, focusing on the smoke and making sure I was ready for whatever she tried next.
"Was that your first time using Dust in its raw form, by any chance?" Penny asked before the smoke even cleared, surprising me. "It was a bit…"
"Sloppy?" I suggested, trying to smile. Being less than competent didn't really fit with the all-knowing villain persona, but I tried to mask it as best I could. "Forgive me—no, I don't have much experience with Dust. But though I'm rather late to the trend, I like to consider myself a quick learner."
Drawing out another red crystal, I tried again—and this time it was far more streamlined and controlled, a result of both my new skill and Suryasta's skill. The flame flashed into the cloud, towards where I felt Penny and I heard something akin to an impact—
And then I saw Penny running straight through the blast. I aborted my attack, throwing myself to the side as she came, but her swords merged together, blade folding in half to form a gun. I saw a flash green hit the ground below me before an explosion sent me flying into another building. Feather Fall let my bounce off and I immediately started running, but she was already behind me. I felt her reaching out towards me and tried to duck, but she grabbed ahold of Dreary Midnight and with me pulling one way and her the other, it came free.
I nearly hesitated at that, but the Gamer's Mind kept me going, drawing a new crystal and throwing it at my feet, tossing myself boldly away with the resulting explosion. I came careening back to earth a building over and scrambled to keep moving, for whatever it was worth.
Penny's voice carried through the smoke.
"That was an amazing second try," She praised, sounding honestly happy as she congratulated me. I could feel her approaching through Crocea Mors and though it was probably pointless, I ducked behind a building. "You are very skilled at fighting, as well, and very tough, too. However, I have been pushing you back since this fight began. You should surrender now—no one can question your skill or loyalty for going this far for what you believe in, but please give up. I don't want to hurt you anymore."
I hummed thoughtfully, more to buy time then for anything else, but shit. My Air Affinity had dropped a fair bit when she removed Dreary Midnight and with it my speed. I'd meant to buy a little more time by fighting back, but all I'd done was make her go that tiny bit further to finally crush me. If we started fighting again, with my speed lowered…it would not end well. In fact, I felt pretty doomed.
And then my miracle came through.
Your level has increased by one!
Vulturnus, lingering at the edge of town, had been crushing every machine that that managed to get near the town—all the surviving AK's. I figured that there had probably been something on the order of a hundred remaining, if the ship I'd seen was anything to go by and I'd known I'd been close to leveling up. Really, really close. I'd fought Grimm back in Vale, gotten experience from quests, encountered a few more Grimm to and from Atlas, and had shot down a bunch of robot filled ships. I'd been pissed off that I still hadn't gotten that one last level I needed.
Hoping Vulturnus would be able to get me that last little bit I needed wasn't the greatest plan I'd ever had— though I preferred to think of it as having faith, it had been nothing but a desperate hope, really. In fact, it still was, because all that one level gave me were the points I needed to place my hopes on something else. But I figured and hoped and prayed that Luck would finally come through for me, given all the shit it put me through.
And really, it was the penultimate technique of the forgotten martial arts style of an ancient warrior king. It had to help somehow. And given the huge pre-requisites, there had to be something great about it.
First things first, I opened my status screen and raised my Strength to fifty-one.
The skill 'Heroic Strength' has been created through STR rising above 50.
Heroic Strength (Passive) LV1 EXP: 0.00%
An ability given to those blessed with tremendous power. The user possesses great physical strength, casually reaching beyond the limits of most men.
50% Increase to Physical Attack Damage.
50% Increase to STR related skill effects.
And then I look out my book.
You've obtained the skill 'White Tiger's Five Hundred Years.'
White Tiger's Five Hundred Years (Active) LV1 EXP: 0.00% HP: 500 MP: 500
Legend tells that from five hundred years of war, a tiger rose to rule as king of all beasts. The penultimate technique the legendary Bai Hu, Lord of the West.
500% Increase to Physical Attack Damage.
500% Increase to Attack Speed.
500% Increase to Movement Speed.
Additional 500 HP used per minute.
Additional 500 MP used per minute.
I actually managed a real smile at that before raising my voice.
"Shall I take this a bit more seriously, then?" I bluffed, feeling just a little cocky.
XxXXxX
MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
Counter Attack
It was hard to describe the rush of power that came over me. After a quick gesture to change my title, I drew upon Bai Hu's lost art, my life and power draining to fuel the flames as I burnt at both ends—though I was rather hoping I'd do better at lasting the night then a candle. It hurt for an instant, an agony like something was tearing me apart from the inside and eating me. After a moment, however, the bars on my status screen ceased their decline and I felt nothing but power. It flowed through me like blood and settled into my flesh and bones, reinforcing and empowering every aspect of the same body it had devoured for energy.
And yet, despite the cost, despite the pain…I felt amazing. I felt strong, stronger now then I'd once even dreamed of being, and I wanted to laugh out loud at the feel—or perhaps roar, declaring the might of Bai Hu's art for all the world to know. I restrained the urge calmly, but couldn't stop the smile that rose to my lips. It was like I'd felt that first time, when I'd put together Bai Hu's style in the forest outside my house; a rush of power that was at once humbling and uplifting, showing me how far I had to go but also giving me a taste of what it was like.
For a moment, I actually thought about winning. Honestly considered the idea that maybe it was possible—that I could beat Penny. It was so strange to even entertain the thought, but it lingered in my mind. It wasn't impossible, I allowed, considering it briefly. Not only that, but it was a lot more possible then it had been a minute ago. Unnecessary, too, of course; I didn't need to win, I just needed to buy time.
Although…how much longer? I wondered, thoughts turning slightly. With Dreary Midnight gone, it would probably take longer, as Levant's power would be greatly reduced without the cloak. Would it take five more minutes? Ten? Longer? That was a long time to run Penny around, especially with this style. Bai Hu's art wasn't about prolonged fights or wearing the opponent down—it was about crushing them, completely and utterly, in moments. It traded enormous amounts of power for brief surges of unstoppable might. It paid only passing heed to defense with the shield that could be removed and leave the fighting style otherwise the same, while all the other techniques built off of one another, pieces to a puzzle.
The White Tiger's Five Hundred Years was no different, making me run faster, hit harder and more frequently, but not making me any more durable, per se. It wasn't about withstanding attack, it was about evading them and putting the enemy down before it became an issue. I could rely on my natural defenses and Aura in addition to that, substituting durability and healing for a firmer defense; perhaps Bai Hu had done something similar. In a fight like this…
If I got to some more Dust, I might be able to last anyway, restoring myself heavily each minute. So long as Penny didn't hit me, I could drag this out, maybe. But…hadn't I already considered the disadvantages of a defensive battle? I was a bit better equipped for this fight now, but much of that still remained. No, more than that, it wasn't just loading the passengers I needed to be concerned with, was it? I had to escape with the ship itself, too, and with the reach of Penny's swords, she might make that difficult. It wasn't unfeasible—perhaps not even unlikely—that she could get aboard or inside the White Whale itself as we tried to take off. I needed to do more than just buy time, I'd need to stop her from pursuing somehow. And, if it was at all possible, recover my cloak.
Or maybe I was just trying to justify things to myself.
Maybe I just really wanted to play with my new toy.
I dashed around the building, emerging into the street. Cold air brushed against my bare chest as my four eyes turned to the android. I saw her blades bobbing casually around her, watched as green eyes shifted to focus on me in turn—
And I was already closing the distance. I watched as her blades stiffened in midair, noticed them turn under her controlling strings, and saw them shift at last into motion. They were fast, still, even to my sharp eyes—but only about as fast as my body now was or maybe even a shade slower. As the first blade reached me, the knuckles of my left hand brushed against the flat of the blade, pushing hard. I didn't try resisting Penny's inhuman power directly, even with my new power, but I didn't have to. A little force shifted the angle of the blade a bit further left and it slide passed my face. My body leaned forward as I did, letting the second blade swing over my head, watching everything around me as much with Crocea Mors' senses as my eyes.
I leapt forward, extending my right hand as I did and settling it on the flat of the third blade as it flew parallel to the ground. Such was the force of Penny's weapons that even as I settled my whole weight upon the blade, it only sank slightly and I used that to my advantage. With the blade as my platform, I drew myself up and flipped into the air, feeling the fourth, fifth, and sixth blades pass through a target that was no longer there and settled my eyes on the next four.
As I reached the apex of my ascent, they rose up to meet me, each aiming to stab deeply into my flesh. Settling my weight on not-so-thin air, I grabbed the seventh by the hilt with my left hand and pulled myself down passed it, reaching out with my right to touch the eighth with my clawed fingers. There was a metallic sound as the blades slid along one another, but it was only so that I could push against it—and here, with us both in the air, I was the one to move. I slipped to the side as it stretched passed me, falling just a hair faster and further then I should have.
I rested my feet against the backs of nine and ten and Lunged the rest of my way to the ground, landing gently despite the force. An instant after touching the ground, I was rushing towards Penny again, speed boosted by Bai Hu's techniques. The final pair of blades hovered just above her hands. Dreary Midnight was grasped lightly in one of the hands and the other was held out at my, fingers twitching with short motions.
I lifted my eyes to meet slightly widened green ones, saw actual surprise covering Penny's face, but I didn't let it give me pause. Where before I had scurried in a desperate attempt to avoid it, I now stepped boldly into melee range with the mighty android. I felt a premonition of danger, felt her begin to move with Crocea Mors, and still didn't hesitate in my advance. When the right blade rose and struck out towards my eye with startling speed, I twitched my head to the side, letting the blade graze my cheek rather than stop. The left blade rose a fraction of a second later, driving towards me with that same speed, but I Lunged again, boosting my speed further as I closed in.
There was a sharp clang as my fist drove into her stomach. Touching her so, I felt her through Crocea Mors, felt vibration rock through her from the blow, and felt, more than anything, the sheer, massive weight of her.
But I still didn't back down. In that same moment, I used Double Strike for the first time in a real battle, two different blows connecting as one, each enhanced with Power Strike. I felt her rise to the tips of her toes and then off the ground completely, but I was already turning away from her, Lunging backwards to slam my back fully into her chest, lifting her ever so slightly higher. As I did, I reached back, on hand grasping her hair and the other her rising arm.
Then, with the full might of Heroic Strength, with Jaws and Rip, with the martial arts knowledge I'd gained from Tukson, I heaved with all my might, using my body as a pivot to bring her up, over, and then down to the ground. I sent her crashing into the concrete hard enough to send a spider web of cracks racing out in all directions and I still didn't let up. Before she could withdraw her blades, I descended on her again, fist pounding down into her face with another Doubled Power Strike, hammering it down like a nail until most of her head was below ground level with fissures stretching away from it.
As the blades spun back towards their master, however, I withdrew, free hand reaching out to snatch my cloak from the robot's fingers and she didn't try holding on. She didn't even try to stop me as I danced several meters away, though I saw brilliant green eyes follow my every move as I did before looking away. Above her, the twelve swords spun in a short circle, blades pointed down, ready to strike but waiting for something.
"Huh," Penny voiced at last, staring at the sky ponderingly for a moment, apparently paying me little heed. In fairness, I glanced away from her myself as a new window popped up and a cheery tune sounded in my ears.
You've received the title 'The White Tiger.'
Glancing at Penny quickly, I bounded another dozen meters away before turning my back. I watched her like a hawk through Crocea Mors and felt certain she was doing the same to me somehow, but since she was giving me a moment's reprieve—likely preparing something of her own—it seemed foolish not to take advantage of it.
The White Tiger
Obtained through the use of long lost power, the Tiger's tail has finally turned white. By incorporating the Five Hundred Years into Bai Hu's White Tiger, you have earned your position among his elite warriors! Train even harder to prove your skill further and uphold your title as Bai Hu's legacy!
60% increase the damage of White Tiger techniques.
60% increase to the defense granted by White Tiger techniques.
30% decrease in the cost of White Tiger techniques.
Status: White Tiger's Star [Low]
As expected, an improvement on the Tiger and the Tiger's Child…I wasn't certain what the status did, but every bit helped so I changed my title—and had to keep myself from bowling over, a sudden flash of pain extending through me, fire running down the length of my body to gather behind my eyes, in my teeth, at my hands and feet and the top of my head, tingling through my hair. After a moment, it faded, except in my hands—until I felt Crocea Mors shift my gauntlets slightly, extending the claws as…
As my claws extended behind them.
I touched my fingers to my mouth even as I prodded sharpened teeth with a tongue and wiggled my toes slightly. Though I couldn't see my eyes, I glanced up at my open status screen, searching…and wasn't sure whether to laugh or sigh.
Race: Faunus
So even stuff like this was…?
Well. It didn't really matter, did it? I guess this was a lie I'd made come true—and with any luck, it wouldn't be the only one.
"Are you alright?" I heard Penny ask and glance at her. She hadn't gotten off the ground, though she tilted her head back in its crater to look at me with concern. "You look…"
"Oh, nothing worth the mentioning," I gestured dismissively, drawing Dreary Midnight about my shoulders. I didn't offer any explanation because, really, why would I? And it's not like I understood, either. "And you, Penny? I'm sure I didn't hurt you…"
She blinked slowly at me before smiling again.
"I remain combat ready," She confirmed, still not getting up. "You surprised me, however, so I'm trying to think of a solution."
I suppressed another sigh and turned to face her fully.
"Oh?" I asked. "Did you come up with anything?"
Penny put her hands to the ground on either side of her head and half-flipped to her feet in an instant. Twelve blades became two before folding in half, returning to their more gun-like shapes.
And without another word, she opened fire.
I was already moving, alerted by Sense Danger, Crocea Mors, and Common Sense. I Lunged to the side, landed, and Lunged again with barely a moment's pause to determine my destination. Bullets flew past me, flickers of steel and light I could just barely make out as they flashed through the air.
It was easy to see Penny's plan—it was pretty much my plan turned against me, in a way. In the same way that I'd been able to dodge the swords when they'd moved faster than me simply by gauging where they were going and moving shorter distances, faced with my suddenly increased speed she had chosen to respond with an attack that required less movement. From this range, a small turn in her floating weapons could result in a vast change in the direction of bullets. Added to the speed of bullets…
It was a good plan. As far as Penny knew, I was a primarily close range fighter, after all, and she'd basically shrugged off my Dust attack like it wasn't even there. I'd proven that I could advance even against a tide of her blades so she was choosing a form of attack that she thought had a better chance of hitting me, changing her strategy from forcing me into melee to keeping me at a distance. Whether it was because she was a robot or very skilled or a combination of both, I knew that Penny could track my movements and plot out forms of attack with tremendous speed. There seemed to be limits, possibly because her body couldn't keep up and maybe also because calculating every possibility on a battlefield is pretty much impossible—but even as fast as I'd been suddenly moving, she'd been able to make slight adjustments to individual blades to try and get me.
A pair of guns aided by that same ability…minute adjustments made literally in-between shots as she guided the weapons towards me…I couldn't deny that it was a pretty frightening combination, not just to be the target of but even to bear witness to. In moments, what seemed like a hundred bullets cut through the air, each drawing closer than the last as she calculated and compensated. As I dashed and dove, bobbed and weaved, complete evasions became near misses. What started as almost random fire turned into something more controlled as she learned from success and failure both. The shots of one gun began leading into those of its partner, bullets started guiding my dodges towards other threats…
I suppose it shouldn't have been surprising, but Penny was a fast learner. All told, those weapons under her control…it was a good plan.
But not perfect. There was no such thing as a perfect plan, not truly, and this one had a flaw. And it wasn't the person shooting as it might have been for someone else—it anything, Penny was thestrongest link in this combination.
It was her weapons.
That might have been a bit surprising for most people. There was a reason guns were such a common choice of weapon, after all; they were generally incorporated into pretty much all Hunter armaments in one form or another, even. And there were a lot of good reasons for that. Weak or strong, small or large, man or woman, anyone who could pull the trigger could fire a bullet. How well it was aimed could vary great, as well as a number of other factors such as rate of fire and reloading—but at its most basic level, anyone who pulled that trigger could fire that bullet. It might hit for one person and miss for another, fire rapidly for someone skilled and slowly for someone inexperienced, but given the same ammunition, the same weapon, and told to fire once, the result would be roughly the same no matter who you had firing. It wasn't dependent on strength or speed and, though it definitely had its place, even skill wasn't as big a concern as with earlier weaponry.
And in many ways, that was a virtue. If you gathered a thousand normal men, gave them guns, and trained them for a week or two, you could get a far greater result then if you did so with, say, bows. With the introduction of dust rounds especially, that was invaluable and had played a large role in much of Remnant's recent history, in the rise of the Kingdoms and the defense of Mankind. For the average man, there was no question that guns were by far the best choice of weapon.
But things got a bit murkier when Hunters got involved. It wasn't uncommon to see a Hunter parry bullets or evade them. While the adage of bringing a sword to a gun fight held true generally, if the swordsman was a trained Huntsman…well, I'd seen enough robots shredded to know how that went. Though there were many advantages to guns—hence why they carried them and incorporated them into everything under the sun—the same held true even between Hunters, in many ways. There were a lot of reasons for it, but in the end it boiled down to this: It didn't matter who held a gun. How fast you are, smart you are, strong you are had no effect on the bullet once it was in flight. With the possible exception of me, I guess, depending on how the appropriate skills worked.
And while that was definitely an advantage for the majority of the planet, when you got into the outright insanity that defined most Hunters…
Penny's bullets were shot well, fired with inhuman accuracy and precision. She attacked carefully, a point to every bullet, a strategy unravelling. But though Penny was ungodly strong…that didn't make her bullets hit any harder than if she'd been anyone else in the world. Though a solid hit from her swords could send me flying and sheer away half my health…that didn't mean the same was true of these bullets.
So I did something that would have been insane for anyone without the abilities of a Hunter.
I advanced through the bullets.
Not in a straight line, of course; there was no point to making it easy for her. I flickered between points, zigging and zagging with the Tiger's Lunge, my reenergized Air Aura bolstering my speed even more. There were two sources of the bullets—her two guns—and I kept a set of eyes on each even as I monitored them with my Elemental senses. With two lines of fire, it was hard to dodge them all.
So I didn't. I outpaced what I could, staying ahead by sensing the danger and noting where the bullets were aimed. Of the bullets that made it through, I blocked what I could with my left gauntlets; when that wasn't possible, I chose what hits to take and tried to minimize the damage. I was grazed a few times, bullets brushing the skin of my upper arms, shoulders, and legs. Other times, I was shot outright, not entirely physical bullets driving into my chest.
But I didn't go down. My defenses held, minimizing the damage, the Tiger's Hide even withstanding a pair of solid shots before breaking, and I closed the distance with speed that amazed even me. I leaned to the side to escape a bullet's path, bobbed my head once to evade another, leapt over a third, lowered my arm and then brought it back up to deflect a fourth and fifth, and Lunged forward, taking a sixth to the shoulder.
Penny brought her arms up defensively the moment she saw me closing in, crossing them over her face, but I went under her guard at first, driving a hand into a chest with Double and Power Strike aiding the blow to lift her just off her feet. Her Guns rotated in midair to point at me, opening fire again in an attempt to drive me off and push me back.
I ignored them completely. As my Hide broke under the first set of bullets, I drove Penny back with another set blows, pushing her higher and further. Crocea Mors sent flashes through my mind, images born from each stroke, and I sent a single thought back in return without letting up. I felt shots connecting, striking my Aura next, but still didn't break away. I rained blow after blow down on Penny, pushing her back through the air, across the street, into the wall of a building, and, because it seemed fair to return the favor, continued my assault to drive her straight into it.
I kept an eye on my MP bar as it steadily drained, each blow biting into it swiftly even as I activated the Tiger Hide again and again to block a few extra shots—and then, once it reached the halfway mark, I turned my Aura off. The pain of the blows sharpened in an instant as the damage switched over to my HP bar, but I didn't let either fact stop me from smashing Penny out the other side of the building and into the streets once more. Grabbing her with my left hand, I drove firm blows into solar plexus, throat, and stomach even as I halted her flight with main strength and then grabbed her fully by the head and flipped her over onto the ground once more, turning my body into her chest to serve as a pivot.
She hit the concreate with a crash that drove her shoulders into the ground and sent cracks running out even further than before. I didn't stop, though, but came down astride her and began pounding down on her crossed arms with steady, lightning fast blows. While her bullets chewed through my health, I drove her deeper and deeper into the ground with resounding, metallic clangs, the images from Crocea Mors coming in quickening flashes with each hit. I beat her down until her entire upper body was below the concrete around her and still didn't stop.
I only hesitated when the bullets stopped coming—and it wasn't out of any worry for Penny. A glance revealed gun barrels glowing a bright green and my various skills—aided by my functioning brain—told me that was bad.
I leapt into the air a moment before they fired and green lasers drove large fissures into the ground on either side of Penny. A moment later, the android uncrossed her arms and placed them on either side of the hole I'd put her in. She rose from the ground as I landed, standing with the sound of breaking concrete and smiled at me.
"Well, that didn't work," She said, brushing off her arms and shoulders. Her sleeves had torn when she used her arms to defend herself and so had the false skin beneath, revealing now somewhat dirtied steel. I gave her a moment as she stood from the hole, mainly to take the chance to draw out and consuming another round of Dust crystals to heal the damage I'd received and restore my MP. "Maybe, hm…no, but…oh, but…I have another idea!"
"Oh?" I asked, bracing myself on the logical assumption that it wasn't good for me.
Penny grabbed the handle of one of her guns and it unfolded back into a sword again a moment before she leapt into the air. I saw bullets race down at me from her remaining gun, but it was the sword she threw that I dodged, dancing a step backwards as it slammed to the hilt into the ground. A moment later, I had to dance back another step as she reeled herself back to earth and slammed her free arm up to her elbow into the concrete even as the other grasped her sword and pulled it loose easily.
Without showing any sign of discomfort at the landing, she rose fully to her feet and ran towards me, sword in on hand, the other covered in powdered concrete, and a gun floating behind here.
It was the type of image a smart man probably would have run away from.
It probably said something about me that I returned Penny's smile, reactivated my Aura, and ran towards her instead.
XxXXxX
MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
Result
The speed my new technique granted me was both a blessing and a curse and for similar reasons. Things happened, strangely, both more quickly and more slowly, in several different ways. On the Brightside, obviously, I attacked and moved much faster then I'd ever dreamed of doing, exchanging hundreds of blows, doing attacks that would have been too quick to see before, shifting through the chaos with an easy grace. Despite that speed, everything seemed slowed down to my eyes and mind, allowing me to think about, plan for, and react to things I might otherwise barely have noticed. All of that was tremendously useful and were literally lifesavers.
On the other hand, attacking five times faster meant spending energy five times faster, too. Even with my greater speed and attack power, truly matching or pushing back Penny required drawing on my other skills as well—Lunging at great speeds to close or create distance, Power Strike to strengthen my blows, using my Elementals to assist me in subtle ways, and much more. In fact, it was even worse than that, because of Double Strike, which effectively allowed me to hit twice with a single blow, but with each blow needing to be enhanced individually. The base damage of each hit was lower than a normal attack, but still high enough to make it advantageous, especially when I was leveling it up so quickly—none of which changed the fact that it drained MP like a sieve.
My entire strategy was enabled by my situation—on easy access to an effectively endless supply of restorative items. Any chance I had of victory was founded entirely on the fact that I was able to cheat like a son of a bitch, giving myself effectively infinite HP and MP so long as I didn't run out of items, didn't let my MP hit zero, and wasn't taken out by a single blow or quick series of hits. Without that, without the removed concern of how much damage I could take or power I could spend, I would have lost this fight very, very quickly. If I had been using solely my own power, I think I would have run myself dry in about a minute. Maybe less, possibly a bit more.
I hit fast but tired fast, as was normal with all of Bai Hu's techniques. As it was, I needed to restore myself every twenty to thirty seconds and occasionally turn off my Aura to tank blows physically just to keep myself going. Things went fast and so did my power.
But they also happened painfully slowly. They had before, of course, as I'd known they would; with a ship as big as the White Whale, a lack of hydraulic stairs was a painfully serious issue. I'd worked to compensate with Levant, had trained to do it as quickly as possible, but I'd known it would take a while, just as I'd known that it was unlikely we'd get out before there was a response. If Levant moved at top speed, there were no complications on either side, and the passengers cooperated perfectly, she might have been able to get everyone loaded in about fifteen minutes. Realistically speaking, odds were better that it would have taken twenty, twenty-five minutes instead, allowing for difficulties and general stupidity. Far from ideal, but there's only so much you can do when you have to transport a large group of people while lacking a lot of infrastructure and under fire.
Given the circumstances, though…it might be pushing higher than that. I'd gotten back Dreary Midnight fairly quickly, but I'd also had to split her focus occasionally. Because of that, it may well push as high as thirty, though I held out hope I was highballing it. That's a lot of time to buy in any situation.
When your perceptions were enhanced as high as mine were, it was a length of time that seemed to drag on forever.
Penny and I traded blows beyond counting, metallic impacts filling the night air in a symphony that brought to mind the marching of soldiers and the hammering of drums. It was hard not to lose myself in the battle, simply because a large part of me wanted to, wanted to let time flow past around us as we clashed—but I had to pay attention to the details and the moments, so it stretched on endlessly instead. I felt bullets beat a steady rhythm on my skin as we came together and heard metal ring as we parted. Every touch carried with it staccato images I perceived through Crocea Mors and Vulturnus, images that flickered and vanished in almost the same instant they were made, an instant of perception. I felt pain and power flow through me as I was wounded and healed, exhausted and invigorated, and Penny and I fought like tireless machines.
And all the while, I counted the glacial passage of seconds. I had to, needed to pay attention to every moment, focusing my thoughts towards their intended purpose even as I kept track of the slow boarding of passengers. I monitored the skies around me even as I watched every move Penny made, on constant alert for new threats regardless of source. Penny swung her blade in an arc I ducked under it, left arm coming up to brace itself against the androids reaching free arm even as I stuck a blow to it further up with my claws. Her sword stopped more abruptly then it should have been able to before it changed directions, coming back for another swing at my head that I stepped away from, driving a palm into her forearm as I went.
Penny followed, advancing as I retreated, never stopping or slowing. She swung her blade again, gun firing above her as her free fingers flexed. She was silent again, green eyes wide and almost glowing as she stared at me intently, taking everything in, processing it, reacting. At first, her swordsmanship had been very clean and precise, almost literally textbook, but also very basic—something I suspected may have been literally programmed into her. She was good at it, but not great, because every attack was too exact, too precise. Predictable and formulaic, responding to problems in the exact same way.
Within a minute, that had changed. She began to vary her attacks as they proved ineffective, incorporating things she'd tried before to improve it. In mid-swing, she released her blade, letting it fly from her fingers in a wide, sweeping arc that I ducked under. Almost the moment I did so, she moved forward, jumping forward and coming down with enough force to lift small slabs of concrete. I leapt into the air the moment Sense Danger alerted me and touched earth the same moment she drew her sword back to her hand and swung it over her, releasing it once more to bring it down on me. It bit deeply into the ground at my feet as I stepped back, but she just used that to reel herself towards me.
An open-palmed strike passed through where my head had been a moment before as I ducked low, driving the heels of my palms into her knees and thighs in a series of quick blows before leaning back as she drew her sword from the concrete and brought it back up, tip arching just before my eyes. I turned the motion into a handspring, coming back to my feet as she took a step forward and swung her sword down again. I brought up both my hands, touching her forearm as I leveraged myself to the side before letting go. My right hand clenched into a fist and my open right covered it as I drove an elbow into her chest. Her other arm rose, outlined clearly to Crocea Mors and Vulturnus' senses as I touched her, and I dropped to a knee as it tried to seize me, guiding it over my head with a pair of gentle touches.
There was a moment's pause as I drew to the side, subtly palming a crystal from my inventory and consuming it to keep myself going as she turned to continue—and we were back in the fray.
All the while, I kept my attention on her, as she did to me. Every moment I looked for a way in or a way out, a way to strike or to defend. Penny was crushing power, unending strength, a machine that never tired or faltered, and yet, for all that, intelligent and methodical. Every mistake she made was corrected, plans were modified on the fly. Successes were noted and incorporated into further actions as she drove endlessly, relentlessly forward. Penny may have been innocent, but she wasn't stupid and she learned quickly. She drew ever closer with each attack, every failure building towards the hope of future success. I kept just ahead of her, slightly out of reach, and hit her a hundred times to seemingly no effect. I saw the damage it did, chipping away at her in almost meaninglessly minute amounts, and kept going anyway, deeming it unimportant. I was speed, precision, great power applied accurately, carefully, deliberately, all leading towards the same end, each blow making careful progress, however small—not trying to match her power or even compete with it, but aiming for something else.
We were different designs leading towards the same goals. I watched her grow stronger as we fought, learning and improvising with each moment. I did the same, skills improving quickly just to stay that one step ahead, considering her, predicting her, striking her as best I could to drive forward. We were like blades being tested against one another, being driven to our limits just to learn how to surpass them—and for a minute we seemed matched.
The battle ran on, through the streets, atop the sides of buildings. The gun floating behind Penny took to shifting, sprouting into six controlled swords again, attempting new tactics as she tested new things. For a moment, she moved through them, blades driving into the ground and walls to pull her this way and that, drawing her through the air and altering her path. I drew her into a building, engaging her in close quarters and evading a dozen swords as I continued to pound into her. They consolidated into another sword afterwards as we dueled in limited space and I weaved in between blades to get to her until she drove me back to—and through—a wall. The blade returned to its gun form in the streets as I had more room to dodge and maneuver, keeping on me with steady, mild damage as I drew closer again. We exchanged hundreds of blows as the minutes passed and still seemed matched.
We went up and down the streets, over and through the buildings, came together and parted a thousand times, and through it all seemed matched. Each of us was building towards something, drawing closer with every success and failure alike, yet seemed even through it all. To an outsider, it must have looked like it could go either way.
Looks can be deceiving. As the fight drew on, things slowly changed as planted seeds began to grow. I kept her in the center of my attention, but the nature of it began to change, shifting with every action as we drew closer and closer to the end. What started as a battle became more of a dance and I found my place in the dangerous, shifting steps and felt completely calm, with perhaps just a hint of something that might have been anticipation and might have been dread as the flow quickened and rose. All I had to do was—
"Let's stop," I said as we fell down to the streets, drawing away suddenly instead of stepping forward. "There's no point in taking this any further."
"What?" Penny asked, hesitating in her advance.
"There's no point to taking this any further," I repeated. "This fight's over."
Penny tilted her head to the side, blinking slowly.
"Are you surrendering?" She asked.
"I'm afraid not," I said. "I'm just winning. The ship will be loaded soon and I will depart. There's little reason to continue this fight anymore. It was fun playing with you Penny, but I'll need to leave soon, so let's end this here, okay?"
"I cannot allow that," She replied, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, but I still can't let you go."
"It's not a matter of allowing," I corrected. "I've already won and I'm going to leave now—I don't want to hurt you to do so, though, so please. For my sake. Stand aside. You've already lost."
"No, I haven't," She said. "I am combat ready—and I will never give up so long as I can still fight."
She took a step forward and then began to run, but I didn't move. I didn't turn away, I didn't back down, and I didn't flinch.
I just sighed quietly, stepped forward, and whispered just high enough to be sure she would catch it.
"Right arm," I said as I stepped just to the side of the blade, dodging along the outside of her arm. My left hand came up to grasp her wrist, my right her shoulder. With each hand, I used the Tiger's Jaws, doubled with Double Strike, multiplied with Power Strike, Rip, and Crush, pulling it back behind her with all my might.
But really, that was just the final blow, the straw that broke the camel's back. What happened next had been long in the coming. Penny and I had both been working towards something, trying to guide the battle in our favor—but the advantage had been mine, for I held the most powerful weapon of all.
Information. I knew, if roughly, what she was capable off, but there were many, many things she didn't know about me. Her plan had been to wear me down, to improve her strategies and plans to fence me in and push me back, all leading up to a final blow—but my plan had literally been built with every blow, every exchange, whenever I touched her. It had been in gentle touches, seemingly pointless strikes to her defending arms, to her legs, a work in progress from the very beginning striking at weak point she hadn't even known to defend.
So though I applied careful pressure and force, put my entire body into accomplishing on thing, and hammered, grasped, crushed, and tore with all my might, what happened next wasn't a matter of my strength. No, that was a small part of it, in all honesty. In truth, it was a matter of careful build up, minute applications of Crocea Mors in a thousand instants of contact and flickering images, the buildup of many minor changes through her Aura as the minutes dragged on, all leading up to one moment, one final push, an instant of strain that even her soul couldn't compensate for.
And with a crack and a pop and a groan, with a small rain of bits of metal, with a sudden force giving way—with all of that, I tore off Penny's arm.
She stumbled then, as her body came free of her arm, and then fell. She tried to catch herself, realizing a moment too late that one of the arms she'd sought to do so with was absent, and then fell on her face.
"I'm sorry," I said honestly, looking at the arm for a moment before setting it down on the ground. "I'd hoped to avoid that. But with this, it should be clear. Your father can fix that when you're retrieved, so just sit this one out for now, okay? I've won, Penny."
Penny lay prone on the ground for a moment, not moving or saying a word. Ideally, she'd see this as a sign of overwhelming power and give up, or wonder how it was possible, or any number of other things but…after that moment of stillness passed, I saw her lift herself carefully with one arm, compensating for the absent one as if it were natural for her and slowly rising to stand.
"No," She said, looking at me with her green eyes. She didn't seem hurt or even scared—she didn't seem different at all, really. "I already told you, I will never give up so long as I'm able to fight. Something like this…it doesn't even hurt."
The sword in her dismembered hands grasp twitched once before withdrawing. I watched it return to the side of its mistress, floating in the air near where she would have held it, and sighed again.
"Penny, you are amazing," I told her. "To get up, despite that, to refuse to give up—you are simply amazing. But there is a difference between being brave and being reckless. There are times when you need to put everything on the line and fight, but for you…this shouldn't be one of them. Whether it hurts or not, don't put yourself at risk for something like this. This shouldn't be a battle you need to stake your life on. Accept your defeat."
"I haven't lost yet," She said stubbornly, striding forward more warily this time. "I won't accept defeat—no matter what, I will fight until my body is broken. For my father…I have to protect this world. I am ready…I am. So I won't lose to anyone."
I looked at her quietly, Observing her resolve, and exhaled slowly.
"This really means a lot to you," I noted. "I hope you father knows how proud he should be of you for that. But…you can't always win Penny. And if you tear yourself apart trying to anyway, imagine what that will do to the people who care about you. You're still a child; you don't have to protect the world by yourself. Walk away from this fight, get stronger, and we'll play again some other day. But give up, Penny. Sit down and watch me leave. This isn't a battle you can win; you should know that already."
"I know no such thing," She said, stump of an arm sparking. "It's only minor damage. I am still combat ready."
"You're missing an arm," I stated.
"I don't need my arms to fight," She reminded, twitching her strings. "And as long as I can keep fighting—"
"You won't give up," I said calmly, nodding as I stared her down. "You sure about that, though?"
Her float sword lashed out at my, flying through the air every bit as fast as before. I sidestepped, mind already shifting into action, focusing on the contingencies. I'd hoped it wouldn't come to this.
That didn't mean I didn't expect it.
"Left leg," I spoke.
I Lunged low, hand thrusting up into her chest, a series of blows that lifted her off her feet. I turned then, leg coming up to hammer into her stomach, driving her down into the concrete and then I grabbed her left leg as it was kicked into the air. With feet planted, I grabbed her hard, twisting with my entire body—and weakened metal came loose.
I dropped her leg to dodge out of the way of her returning sword, brushing off the bullets of her gun.
"There," I said, rising and turning away. "Even if you can fight without an arm, you shouldn't be able to follow me with just one leg. I'd hoped it wouldn't come to this, but…just wait here until your father comes to get you, okay?"
Instead of replying, her gun unfolded into six swords, driving themselves into the ground and surrounding buildings before pulling taunt, lifting Penny in the process. The sword she'd been using followed suit, giving her a full twelve blades, several of which moved to steady her, wires wrapping tightly around her upper body.
"You're incorrect. If needed, I can keep fighting without my arms or legs," She claimed.
I sighed, looking over my shoulder at her.
"Penny, don't be a sore loser," I said chidingly, trying a different tactic. "You lost fair and square, so sit down and wait for your father to come get you."
"I haven't lost," She insisted, sounding almost petulant.
I looked at her, frustrated, saddened, and, more than anything, tired. I wondered how likely it was that she'd actually try to follow me if I tore off her arms and legs—and how likely it was she'd succeed. Despite her words, there was little to be afraid of, though; with the amount of effort she had to spend to just stay upright now, she was no threat to me. Regardless of her level, with one arm and one leg, I wasn't worried.
Not about her actually stopping me, at least. How she was so stubborn that she'd literally tear herself to pieces before giving up, though…
And yeah, it may have been a bit hypocritical of me to be upset about that, but my body could actually take whatever I put it through—and I wouldn't risk my life unless there was a good reason. Penny was…
"Are you scared?" I asked suddenly, pieces coming together. "Of not being good enough to live up to their expectations? To be unable to fulfill your purpose?"
I saw her hesitate and suddenly wasn't sure what to do. I'd been on the other side of this issue before and I honestly had no idea how to resolve it. I didn't know what I could say or do to fix that—if there was anything, no one had ever told me, certainly. But…
"Penny, you are a living being," I said. "You're your own person, whatever you were created for. But if it's that important to you to fight, then so be it. I have a few more minutes; I'll fight until you understand."
"I haven't been defeated." She insisted again.
I closed my eyes for a moment, opening them as I felt my body strum like a chord.
You've received the title 'Heir of the White Tiger.'
Heir of the White Tiger
By proving your might in battle, you have obtained a position above all others. By fighting under the effects of the White Tiger's Five Hundred Years for one thousand straight seconds, you have proven yourself worthy of carrying on your master's legacy! Even so, continue your training to obtain true mastery and stand above all as the White Tiger of the West!
80% increase the damage of White Tiger techniques.
80% increase to the defense granted by White Tiger techniques.
40% decrease in the cost of White Tiger techniques.
Status: White Tiger's Star [Intermediate]
I looked down for a moment before swiping a finger.
"I'm sorry, Penny," I said as what felt like a bolt of lightning raced down my spine. "But you have."
XxXXxX
"I lose, huh…?" Penny sighed, resting on the ground amidst her pieces. I patted her head reassuringly as it rested on my knee, idly brushing away the chips of concrete that had tangled in her hair over the course of the fight. As if in response to her admission, screens began to appear around me. I made mental notes of most of them and then ignored their presence, though several cause my attention briefly.
Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one!
"You fought well," I said after a moment, tail curling around my waist for want of anything better to do. "You went above and beyond what anyone could have expected or demanded. Do not be ashamed of being defeated, but consider it an experience to learn from. So long as you are alive, people can struggle on and improve themselves, going further and further despite the odds. So…don't throw your life away because you are too afraid to admit defeat. Your life is too important for that."
Penny was silent and still, though the latter probably had more to do with the general state of her body than anything else. I'd ripped off her other arm and leg shortly after the fight began and cast them aside. She'd tried to compensate with her blades and strings, suspending herself in the air, but though it had allowed her to keep fighting—after a fashion—it had also seriously limited her mobility and preoccupied a fair number of her weapons at any given time. With a serious limit on her ability to fight at both close and long range and a serious drop in her defensive capabilities due to her loss of limbs…this battle had been over before it had even started.
I'd known that. I was pretty sure she had, too, even before I'd pried open the mechanism on her back and tore her strings out.
That didn't make admitting it any easier to admit, much less accept. No, more than anything, I guess I knew—when you are weak, when you're not good enough, and when nothing you do is enough to change that…that's when its hardest to accept the truth. If anything, Penny was taking this far, far better than I had when I'd finally been forced to confront the fact that I was weak. She went silent and sad.
I'd cried.
It wasn't quite the same, of course; she was, after all, still an amazing person and a wonder of engineering, with tremendous skill in probably countless fields, whereas I'd been a failure at everything I'd truly wanted for such a long time. But whether you've lived a life of power or weakness, I suppose defeat was a bitter pill to swallow; perhaps even more so, for the knowledge that you still weren't up to the task.
"You'll get stronger," I continued. "You learnt a great deal in this fight and you'll learn more as you keep on living. That's what being alive is all about, Penny, and you still have a lifetime to grow and learn and improve. No, even more than that, you are unique, Penny; you're different from everyone else and that's not a bad thing. If there are things you want to protect, then repair your body, improve it, and grow stronger and stronger as a person until you can."
Her eyes fluttered closed and she nodded slightly, not looking assured, per se, but at least listening, taking things in.
"I'm surprised you're telling me this," She said when at last she spoke. "I'm surprised you're still here."
I taped an armored nail chidingly against her forehead but allowed the change in subject.
"Things that are important should be handled with care," I replied.
"I thought you were in a hurry?"
"My flight is in the last stages of its boarding," I answered. "But though important, that's not what I was referring to. Lives…children…It's worth it for you to learn these lessons now rather than destroy yourself pointlessly in the future."
I looked down at her for a moment, thoughtful and just a tad worried.
"Penny…does your father love you?" I asked.
She looked up at my, surprise in her eyes. Even so, she answered without hesitation.
"Yes," She said. "Very much."
"I see," I nodded slightly, deciding to trust her and shelves my concerns, hard as that was. I didn't see any signs of dishonesty or worry with Observe, so… "I guess he'll probably be terrified when he sees what happened to you."
"Yes," She said, eyes suddenly downcast. "He worries a lot, even though he knows I'm strong. When he found out I was being sent on this mission, he was so scared, and I…"
Had probably told him it would be fine. That she'd stay safe and be smart and that nothing would happen. Like I'd told my father.
I guess that made us both liars.
"I'm sorry," I apologized, closing my eyes. "I guess I'm causing you both a lot of trouble. But…that's why you need to understand, Penny. You can imagine it, right? How scared your father must be and how he'll feel when he finds out what happened? And if you died…"
She looked, if anything, even more miserable, but nodded again.
"Yes," She said simply, but one word was enough for this. I could hear it in her voice and see it with Observe—the sadness she felt, the honest sorrow at the pain she was causing someone she cared about.
I patted her head again, understanding completely.
"It's fine as long as you understand," I said. "But…since you got hurt because of me…"
I sighed slightly, musing as I palmed a blue Dust crystal. I…might have been able to heal her, though I wasn't certain of how Soulforge Restoration would interact with such extreme wounds, much less a robotic body. In fact…
"I suppose your Aura doesn't heal you normally, does it Penny?" I asked, look over her status screen. She had a fair number of status effects I'd never seen before, like 'Ex Machina,' which I assumed had some effect of preventing natural healing. Though she still had some Aura left, even her smaller wounds, like her torn skin, had yet to close. I suppose that shouldn't have been surprising given it was artificial skin—no, more than that, dismemberment wasn't something many people could recover from regardless of their Aura. The fact that Penny could get new arms was itself amazing and I knew she wasn't in pain. I could just leave her here and she'd most likely be fine.
On the other hand, it just felt wrong to tear off a girl's arms and legs and abandon her in the middle of nowhere with no way of doing anything until someone came to get her.
Gee, I wonder why.
"No," Penny replied. "Because I'm a machine."
I sighed slightly, feeling bad but still thinking.
"Something like that…" I mused.
I might have been able to heal her with Crocea Mors, though I wasn't completely confident in my Craft ability or knowledge of how she worked. I'd only caught glimpses after all, her Aura fighting my control and blurring my vision each time—but it was possible. Of course, then her limbs would be functional again, which was itself a potential problem—I didn't want to leave her wounded but if I healed her…she probably wouldn't continue the fight now, but even so…
However, that made me wonder. Even if it made sense for her to be unable to heal normally…no, rather, because of my power, even something like this…?
Yeah, after all, how many robotic teammates have I had in games? And healing spells always worked on them despite that, too. For me, whose powers worked off abstract things like HP rather than physical damage and biology, what did it matter if she was a robot? She had an HP bar, after all, and my skill didn't say it couldn't be used on robots. The issue of her getting up remained, but if it was me…
I looked at my Dust crystal. I'd devoured dozens of the crystals while fighting Penny, drawing life and power from them to sustain myself. I'd felt the power within, used it to fuel my Aura and color it to change myself, again and again and again. Because I'd experienced it so many times, perhaps it was possible? Certainly, I'd done far stranger things—and I'd considered the idea, as the fight wore on.
I closed my eyes for a moment, falling into a trance in a moment, my senses focused on myself, the patterns of light that shot through my Aura, and the crystal that blazed like fire in the palm of my hand. I knew how the process worked, had experienced it so many times during the fight, and I knew how it felt. When I used a Dust Crystal as part of Soulforge Restoration, I drew the energy out of it to replenish my Aura and colored myself with its light in the process. The buff I received was a side-effect, really, if a very useful and powerful one.
But did it have to be that way?
I focused and felt my Aura change and it felt almost familiar—both because of how I'd felt something similar recently and because of Xihai. I guided my Aura along its course and watched as it came together, an imitation of what I'd seen and felt.
A skill has been created through a special action! Through the manipulation of Aura's form and nature, you have created the skill 'Regeneration'!
Regeneration (Active) LV1 EXP: 0.00% MP: 100
A skill to manipulate the body through the alteration of Aura. By imposing the element of Water, swift healing can be granted.
+50 HP per minute.
+50 SP per minute.
Duration: 30 minutes.
I drew in a deep breath, smugly self-satisfied. As expected of my bullshit power—the effect wasn't as quick as the status Soulforge granted which restore ten HP per second for twenty seconds, but as an effect with a much longer duration?
"Something like that," I said more confidently. "Means nothing to me."
I touched Penny's forehead and felt my power flow over her. Her eyes widened slightly at whatever she felt and my tail uncoiled from its place at my waist, wrapping around the arm I'd placed beside her body and bringing it closer to her stump—and smiled slightly when I same her HP go up a point after a second, metal edges twitching unnaturally. I did the same with her other limbs, reaching over her body to bring her legs closer, and then stood.
"I have a few things to take care of first, but it's about time I take my leave. It might take some time to heal, but you should be mostly healed in about half an hour," I said, brushing dust off my pants. "Until then, try not to do anything to aggravate your injuries—and remembered what you learned today, Penny."
"But…" Penny asked, looking honestly surprised for the first time. "How…?"
"It's the nature of the soul to try and return an altered body to normal," I said. "As the nature of your body kept your Aura from doing so, I gave it a little help."
"That's…impossible…" She said, lifting her head to look down at her still separated limbs with wide eyes.
"Impossible?" I asked. "Why would it be impossible for a real girl? Difficult, perhaps, but you have a soul like any other, Penny. Rather than something as small as this, remember that."
I smiled at her and turned to walk away.
"You never told me your name," She stopped me before I could go. "I…you already know it, but my name is Penny Polendina. What's yours?"
I paused in my stride for a moment, glancing over my shoulder contemplatively. I considered leaving her in silence, the mystery man who appeared and then vanished without a trace, or giving her a meaningless lie. I certainly wasn't going to tell her my real name, but…
The vague concern I'd felt niggled at me, a quiet, hopefully baseless thing.
She'd seen the fake tattoo on my back, I reasoned. Maybe. I had no idea what she could truly see through Lenore's effect, or if it work on her, or what it's limits where. She'd probably seen my tail, at least, and she retained details about the fight. And, given the situation, would it do anything but strength the mask? Given I actually was a Faunus like this, the odds of people making the connection were…
I closed my eyes for a moment and chuckled slightly. No, more than any of that…
"Jian Bing," I said. "Should something ever happen, should they forget that you are a person rather than a weapon, search for that name. Goodbye, Penny, and fair thee well."
XxXXxX
MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
Return
"You're unharmed, sir?" Faraj asked, waiting for me as I glided into the White Whale. I'd taken a quick trip through the town to make sure no one was being left behind before swinging into the Dust Warehouse to rob it blind. I felt a little bad about that, theft and all, but as it had been mined with what amounted to slavery and …well, the feeling passed pretty quickly. Was that a justification to make myself feel like I had the right to take it? Maybe, but whether for the return trip or once the refugees reached Vale, I was sure it'd come in handy.
I glanced at Faraj and then closed my eyes for a moment, smiling confidently. I still had my mask on, but my cloak was now around my waist, my upper body and tail 'revealed.' Faraj was the only one nearby, which made me wonder whether that meant the others were scared of me or if they were busy getting passengers in order. I could sense others nearby through Crocea Mors, drawing just close enough to peak glimpses at me, but the majority had withdrawn into the various seating areas in the dark bowels of the ship.
I didn't answer the question, partially because I didn't want to invent a response and partially because casual arrogance portrayed a more reassuring picture of strength. Being under the wing of someone who'd won effortlessly and thought nothing of it looked better than being under one who'd been thrown around, nearly got crushed, and only won thanks to bullshit and cheating, even if the latter was true. The funny thing about image—it was a powerful thing even if it was built out of lies. I was reminded of that just by looking into Faraj's eyes and seeing the awe there.
"We saw your fight," He said, following me as I walked past. "Against the Hunter. At least bits of it, when buildings weren't in the way. All of that and not a scratch…and when you won…"
"Is everyone in place?" I asked easily, smoothly interrupting him. A part of me, a big part, felt uncomfortable that they'd seen me tear Penny limb from limb. As far away as they had been, even Faunus probably hadn't been able to make out details which would hopefully preserve Penny's secret, but…I wondered what the people I was saving thought of me, having seen that fight. Were they uplifted by the image of a powerful protector or terrified that they'd climbed aboard a monsters ship.
I felt Crocea Mors hum through the ship, reminding me of where I stood—of broken windows and scarred metal, of barren steel and torn carpets and cloth. And the White Fang with them, bearing witness as I dismembered one of their enemies…it was hard to imagine a savior flying this monster of a ship.
"Um," Faraj said, stiffening as he got control of himself. "Yes, sir, or just about. I sent the others ahead to make sure everyone was seated. We're, uh, ready…"
He trailed off, sounding nervous, so I gave him my attention.
"Um, sir," He almost stuttered under my gaze. "I…I don't know if anyone else has noticed or how many, but…the ship…"
He gestured vaguely.
"It's…damaged, sir," He finished lamely. "I'm a pilot myself and, uh…I saw some damage so I checked and…it won't…"
He trailed off as I continued to look at him, swallowing slightly. I tilted my head, understanding what he meant, and then snapped my fingers.
The ship rumbled to life. After a moment, I felt it begin to move, systems shifting and aligning to lift the ship and slowly withdraw the landing gear. I waited patiently as my Elementals went through the well-practiced motions, power slowly draining to fuel their actions. I'd like to materialize them as soon as possible, but first things first.
"There is no need to concern yourself with the ship," I said simply and he nodded quickly, eyes wide. One of the things I had I admit I was going to miss when this was over? Not having to explain myself. As a dark, mysterious, dangerous figure, no one asked me any questions—of courseI knew how to fly a ship, fight, heal, and any other skill I happened to require, however unlikely; no, there was no need to wonder how. I mean, what was I, a normal person?
Supervillains—or superheroes or criminal masterminds or whatever it was I qualified as now—didn't need stuff like logical explanations. If a sixteen year old boy had snapped his fingers and made a massive, lifeless ship fly, there would have been questions, shock, confusion, demands for an explanation. But when the man in a Nevermore mask did it?
Faraj just accepted it.
"Return to the others and make sure that everything remains in order," I commanded calmly. "It's about time we left."
"Sir," The Faunus bowed, taking a step away before lifting his head and turning away.
I continued the rest of the way to the cockpit alone, drawing my Elementals around me as I closed the door. With a moment's effort and few things from my Inventory I'd given them form as well and felt the burden of the ship shift, settling on many shoulders instead of just my own. I cast one last look out the window, glancing over the town. With sharp eyes I spotted a small figure prone on the ground, Penny slowly beginning to move her limbs with quick twitches and jerks before going still. Even as she did, she looked up at me, green eyes bright.
Without another word, we were off.
XxXXxX
The beginning of my voyage home was thankfully less…eventful then my trip away from it. We left before any new pursuers had arrived and flown full speed out of Atlas. I'd kept an eye out for trouble and done my best to make it as hard to follow me as possible, but for once it seemed I was lucky and I hadn't spotted anyone else in the skies—no one I hadn't left quickly behind, at least. Maybe it was just chance, maybe they were leery of devoting more resources to me than necessary with the potential threat of Ziz still on the horizon, I didn't know; no one attacked me, though, and I was fine with that.
It had been a long day.
I sat in the Captain's seat, eyes closed beneath my mask. I wasn't sleeping, of course—too wasteful and I couldn't afford it now—but I was unwinding within a trance, trusting my Elementals to keep us flying straight and trusting myself to notice if something arose. Meditating aboard a moving airship was a strange and beautiful experience, like watching the world turn from far above. The patterns of energy that made up the world changed as we flew across the sea, colors of energy rising and falling, spreading across the surface and gathering in the deep. Being able to just watch it was…relaxing.
So was the fact that the mission was almost done. For the better part of a month, every hour of every day had been devoted to somehow getting to Atlas, somehow saving them, being strong enough, being ready, fighting the unknown and the uncertainty with constant effort. But now that was…not quite done, but…soon…
I was going home, now.
I'd actually saved them.
It was almost hard to believe, after everything. Again and again, my attention would return to them, to the many tiny lights held in the sky by a cage of steel and thunder, wind and fire. I'd counted their numbers five times now, making sure they were all still there. Weiss and the White Whale, the chase and Ziz, Penny…all of that and somehow, I'd still done it. Though my mind's eye was cast out to the world, inevitably I'd find it wandering back to them, watching to make sure they really were all safe. I saw some lights darken and others brighten, some go still and others pace, each tiny light a life I'd saved, changing with every moment as they lived.
And I…
I drew myself back out of my trance and opened my eyes. I sat in a circle with my Elementals, one of five points with Crocea Mors at once in my hands and all around me, and looked at their faces before quietly leaving. I felt minds touch my own as I moved through the ship and touched them back gently, reassuring them as I made my way to the people above.
Conversations died as I entered the passenger section, eyes turning towards me. Other voices continued in low whispers, confused by the sudden quiet, until they noticed me as well, and the process continued, spreading like a plague until it was silent but for scattered whispers. I saw Faraj rise from a seat and then hesitate as the room hushed at my mere presence, casting glances at me that seemed uncertain, almost worried.
I looked over them for a moment, glancing from face to face before speaking.
"You must be hungry," I said, drawing food from my Inventory, the meals I'd emptied the White Wave of to prevent spoiling. Since food going bad wasn't a concern with my power, I'd heated them while training with Suryasta and then stored them again.
All at once, the looks changed and I almost chuckled before quirking a finger at Faraj, gesturing him to the front. In minutes, I was watching people move down the aisles, passing out food to hungry Faunus who'd probably eaten far too little for far too long. They seemed to enjoy the airplane food, which really said all you need to know, and I saw spirits lift as stomachs were filled. I watched, looking at the faces as watching as friends and families spoke to one another, filling the dead ship with lively chatter that faded into background noise. I leaned against the wall up front, drifting in and out of focus as I made sure nothing went wrong, inside or outside of the ship. When necessary, I withdrew more food, smiling at the looks I received and more so at thanks and kind words, but otherwise just…watched.
It was nice. Just seeing them act hopeful and enthusiastic, even happy, because of something I was doing…it was nice. I'd seen them in horrible pictures, in the midst of exhausting labor, but now I was watching them just be people. This was the reason behind everything I'd done and if so…that's okay, I think. Maybe.
…Kind of fragile though, I noted. It hadn't really been a priority when I noticed before, but there were a fair number who seemed sick, more who bore various injuries. The nature of the mines, I supposed. The boy in the fourth row had coughed thirty-eight times since I'd sat down; the young woman on the left side of the seventh was eating with a broken arm. I saw cuts and bruises, scratches and scars, crude bandages, various men and women I states of illness and malnutrition and worse.
It was a reminder that I was, hopefully, giving them better lives. I trusted Adam and Blake to see it through, once I'd delivered them to their destination. Still…I wanted to do everything I could. I just wasn't sure if I should.
I could heal them, of course—would heal them. But there was one other thing I might have been able to do, maybe. I'd never done it before, but I knew the basics and I could probably do it easy enough, but the issue wasn't 'could,' it was 'should.' If I did, there was no way of knowing what they might do but I could still guess where a few of them were probably headed, just statistically speaking. Even so, should I withhold the opprotunity for a potential risk? Even knowing what could happen, wouldn't it be worth it for those that it could keep that much safer? And even if I didn't, they could find someone else if they wanted it enough, and I was sure a lot of the White Fang would be happy to help. Before that, shouldn't I give them a chance with no strings attached—at better, safer lives?
I closed my eyes for a moment and nodded to myself, rising. I made my way to the coughing boy, people moving out of the way as I did.
"That's quite a cold you have there," I said to him. "What's your name?"
"Fieval," He told me, though I'd already known, looking up at me with wide brown eyes as small ears twitched. His mother swallowed, putting a hand over her son's and holding tight. I smiled at her reassuringly—or as reassuringly as I could in a Nevermore mask—and placed a finger on his head. I felt my power shift and flow as the boy coughed loudly one more time and then seemed to breathe easily.
"There you go, Fieval," I said kindly. "That should be better. Now you're not sick anymore."
His hand went to his lips as seconds passed and nothing happened, his mother and those around us turning to stare in awe.
"How…?" He asked.
"Do you know what Aura is?" I answered his question with another, kneeling to look him in the eye as he shook his head. Around us, I saw understanding on some faces, confusion on others, and smiled slightly, remembering. I closed my eyes for a moment, not that he could see beneath my mask, and found what I was looking for. "For it is in passing that we achieve immortality…"
XxXXxX
We took a winding course back to Vytal. With my Aura-supported fuel economy, taking a little longer wasn't an issue and there was no point in taking any chances. I flew us down between the continents and then around the unpopulated coast of Vytal, keeping far out to sea. We didn't have any major issues, my luck finally seeming to take a turn for the better—there were the occasional Grimm, of course, but nothing truly nightmarish. With my Elemental's assistance, I generally spotted them first and just flew widely around anything I didn't like the look of. So what if it added a few dozen kilometers to how far we needed to go when fuel wasn't an issue? It was a lot better than risking any of my passengers.
But besides the occasional change in direction and a few minor incidents with persistent Grimm that needed a hint, it was smooth sailing. Once everything in the cockpit was set up, it was mainly a matter of sticking to the course, beyond the occasional adjustments. Barring very rare exceptions or a screw up, there wasn't anything but Grimm to run into in the sky and the route I was taking wasn't near anything; even the relatively rare inter-Kingdom flights wouldn't so much as cross my path, much less at such a time that it might realistically endanger anything. With the amount of practice I had with the ship, it wasn't too difficult to fly the plane even outside the cockpit.
So as I brought the White Whale around the underside of Vytal, avoiding any paths common to man and treading carefully around the Grimm, I did it among the people I had saved, drawing out the lights of their souls.
Throughout history, there were a lot of different ideas and opinions about awakening Aura, many schools of thoughts, and countless different methods stemming back as far anyone could remember—to say nothing of the myths about where it came from—and the commonality of it varied throughout history. At times, powerful users of Aura had lorded its use over others, rising to power on the protection they could provide people from the Grimm and demanding payment in return, while in several cultures, one's Aura could literally decide their role in life very early on. The nature of Semblances had further resulted in many traditions believed to influence them, some quite barbaric if arguably historically successful.
Depending on how far back you go in Remnant's history, you could find children being taken away from their families at a young age to be trained, marriages between peasants and kings based on the nature of Aura, physical and mental brutality meant to influence the development of Semblances in what were deemed useful ways, and countless experiments and forms of governance all surrounding it. No matter what age, however, the size and quality of ones Aura was important and it had been a power sought and wielded by countless heroes and villains, shaping the world into what we knew today.
There were dozens of ways to awaken one's own Aura and countless more suspensions and myths about the process. The Ice Lords of ancient Mantle had used done it through a shockingly well documented process involving careful administration of medicines, areas that were later found to be above Dust deposits, now worn machinery believed to be a primitive ways of channeling the trace energy below, and horrifyingly specific forms of sacrifice to cause a reaction using the dormant Aura within living things—and maintain it for several hours for the sake of Mantle's oldest confirmed Aura users. There were the monks that trained themselves for years to achieve it, grasping the power within through enlightenment. The oldest records of Mistral told of ritual battles being fought to awaken the participants Aura as well as of the greatest libraries of the ancient world, with warrior sages fighting their ways across the continent to receive it. Vacuo had stories of the King of Forty Flames; supposedly an exile stripped bare and sent into the desert to fend for himself, yet who returned with great power.
They'd found the King's tomb several decades ago, with carvings to match the stories and his honor guard all in place, proving the truth of his existence, if not necessarily the truth of his story. Remnant's history was often like that, with it being neigh impossibly to separate fact and fiction because a nation had succumbed to the Grimm or war or countless other things. There was no way of confirming if the Ice Lords had based their experiments on earlier methods because the documents they referenced—the cities they referenced—had been destroyed. There was no real way of saying if the Prometheans had merely stolen the art from another society, because both were dust. And whether it had come to Vytal in one of the Freeing Queen's thousand and one stories…well, only about three dozen had definitively survived.
Every kingdom and culture had its history and legends and tales, but…the reason we called our world Remnant was because it was all that remained. We couldn't even say where Dust had come from or if the simultaneous emergence of different methods had been the result of independent study or somehow related.
But there was one thing that was agreed no matter where you were—the easiest way of awakening your Aura was to have someone else do it for you. We didn't know where that method came from, either, but what few records we had seemed to imply that there had been a wide-spread shift to the method somewhere between one and three thousand years and knew for sure that it was considered the common method in Anserini's texts five hundred years ago. At some point, pretty much everyone had shifted to the method and for good reason; it removed the complexity of the experience and just made it difficult.
There was a process to it, of course, some tricks and methods and even a few risks, but if done properly, anyone can have their Aura awoken—because everyone had soul and that's all you truly needed for the ability. Certainly, the quality and quantity of Aura could vary tremendously based on God only knows what; Semblances, the expression of who you are as a person, even more so. But the basic act of using Aura was within the grasp of anyone who had a soul, given a proper push.
Well. It was a bit more complicated than that, granted. But mainly because you had to push really hard. But in the end…
Awaken Aura (Active) LV1 EXP: 0.00% MP: 2000
A skill to draw out the potential of others, enflaming one soul with another. Through the granting of great power, sweep away the lies that hide the light within, releasing a soul kept bound by mortal flesh.
Effect: Awakens the Aura of another living being.
"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality; through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee." I spoke again, power rising as my soul shined through base matter, burning brightly in the dark room. I felt it touch another, completely different in nature and shape yet undeniably like my own. It seemed trapped within something, blinded and deafened and bound. Alone, it struggled futilely.
But I set it free with a warm touch and bright power, breaking chains and giving light to unseeing eyes.
In the end, Aura was one of those things that was easier given then grasped on one's own. A lot of important things were like that; faith, love, happiness. The process was exhausting even after it had started leveling, my most expensive skill by far in terms of MP even if it was a one-time expenditure, and yet…
I happily cast it again and again. I could afford to, thanks to the Dust I'd taken from the town—and though it was costly in terms of the crystals, somehow this seemed like the most fitting use for them and though there was a part of me saddened by the loss of resources I could have used in other ways, there was a much larger part that was simply…pleased. As I saw lights rise up in countless colors and intensities, I felt quiet doubts dwindle away, felt more sure that they'd be safe when they left. If this was it, if the only impact I'd have on their lives was to save them once and bring out their own power, I thought I'd be content with having given them a chance.
"Done," I said kindly as the navy blue Aura receded into his skin. "Be sure to take care of Zora, Bosko. Next."
"Lord Jian," He returned, bowing lowly as he withdrew, something that had started early on. Even as he did, I saw him looking down at his hands in wonder and could remember the rush of power I'd felt such a short time ago. He retreated to his Daughter's side, a small girl with dirt-smudged cheeks who I'd healed first and then enlightened. Many of the miners had minor wounds or illnesses of one type or another and in-between consuming crystals I generally had a moment to fix them. With any luck, it'd fix some of the damage and avoid later complications.
As he did, he passed Faraj, who stood with the other White Fang members and just watched me in muted disbelief as I'd enlightened five people in a row—and gone on to ten, a hundred, and now nearly a thousand times, something that should have been—was, honestly—too exhausting for anyone to do. With only someone powerful and experienced capable of it in the first place, given the cost…well, it wasn't something that could be done casually. Generally, there was about a month or so at the Academies like Signal where Hunters gathered from volunteered and worked in shifts to pass it on to the new crop of students.
To be able to do it this quickly…even I was amazed and I was the guy blatantly cheating to do it.
"Raisa," I said, turning to the woman next in line before pausing and raising a finger. I followed the touch on my mind outwards, images flitting across my vision. "Ah, it seems we've made good time."
I rose smoothly and looked over the remainder—less than a hundred Faunus, now, perhaps another hour and a half of work or a bit more.
"I apologize, but I'll need to speak with my companions below," I said, honestly sorry. "We'll continue after, however, as I'm sure it will take quite some time to get everything organized. Please forgive this delay."
As I spoke, I heard mutters go through the crowd as people pressed up against windows, eager to catch a glimpse of what was outside. I kept my eyes focused on Raisa and the men and women behind, and saw her eyes widen as she realized I was actually asking for her forgiveness.
"Yes," She blurted and then flushed slightly in embarrassment. "I mean, of course, Lord Jian. I, uh…we understand and, uh…"
I inclined my head at her slightly smiling.
"Don't leave until we get another chance to speak, okay?" I asked.
"Sir!" She nearly stuttered. "Yes, sir."
I was already walking away, moving towards the nearest broken window and sliding out into the open air. I fell for a minute and then felt the air catch me, letting me float my way slowly to the ground below. As I did, my smile widened and at once became something simpler.
"Hey," I said as I floated close enough for them to hear. "Long time no see. Do anything fun while I was away?"
Adam and Blake watched me as I descended.
XxXXxX
MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
Reunion
I looked around discretely as we landed, glancing at the long empty buildings. We were in what had once been a town outside the Kingdom of Vale, up until everyone inside of it disappeared never to be seen again, as towns outside the Kingdom's were wont to do. Since then, it had apparently be decommissioned into the occasional training camp and rendezvous point for the White Fang. I saw about two dozen uniformed men staring at me through their masks, standing beside smaller ships, including a small fleet of Bullheads and large, heavily modified shipping crates. With a gesture, I had Levant tighten the air around us to make sure we could talk freely, and then focused fully on my friends.
Adam spoke first, looking me carefully up and down.
"You took your time getting back," He said, as if I'd just run to the store for some milk, playing it off like it hadn't been anything major. Even so, I could see the smile on his lips and didn't believe for a second that he hadn't decided in advanced how to greet me. "Something come up?"
"Mm, yeah," I answered in kind. "You guys missed your flight, I caught the wrong one, and it was all downhill from there. JBA's Radical Vacation Adventure died young."
"The good always do," He shook his head and then looked at me quietly for a moment, smile fading into seriousness. "I'm glad you're okay. I still owe you that drink."
"Yeah, well," I shrugged like it wasn't even a thing, smile on my lips. "You know me, always flying into danger, sort of crashing my way back out—"
"I'm sorry," Blake interrupted, voice quiet. "You shouldn't have had to do this alone."
I looked at her—which was hard, with the deep bags under her eyes making it obvious that things had been hard for her. It wasn't hard to guess why, when last she'd seen me I'd been in death's clutches, stolen away by a mythological monster for a mission she'd brought me in on—thinking, most likely, that she killed me even while probably on the run from whatever attention had fallen upon her and Adam. Even if it had only been a week…
Adam had a mask to hide if he'd been affected, but it hurt to look at Blake.
I could only imagine how much more it'd hurt to look at my family.
"Why?" I asked her reasonably even if reason didn't have much to do with guilt. "None of what happened was your fault or anything we could have prepared for."
"I knew how horribly the odds were," Blake denied and I could see that her eyes were red. "I knew this mission was doomed to failure but I saw your power and I just…I just guilted you into it despite that, because I needed your power. You didn't have anything to do with it, but I—"
"Did nothing but ask," I interrupted her gently. "I could have backed out. I probably knew the risks even better then you did, even if I didn't see any of this coming. I accepted because it was the right thing to do and I don't regret that—and I certainly don't blame you for things you didn't have any control over. Hell, if there was anything at work here, it would probably have my fault because of my Luck stat, and while that may have influenced things, I don't think it was the cause of anything. And, in fairness, I was lucky enough to make it back, apparently, so I'll call it even."
I shrugged easily, maintaining the smile.
"Let's face it; there were factors involved that we didn't know about and couldn't have planned for," I continued seriously. "I don't know what happened on your guys' end—"
"A local named Torchwick interfered, working on something else," Adam put in. "I had to interfere to stop him before he ruined everything; I'll tell you about it later."
"—But a lot of that stuff would have happened one way or another," I said, nodding at Adam. "The specifics might have been different but there's no way of knowing if they'd have been better or worse if not for my luck or our actions or whatever. I've complained about it a lot, and probably always will, but there's no way of measuring what my luck did or didn't do and that applies to everything—the road not traveled and all that. We'll never know if things would have been better or worse if they'd been different. But what I do know is that if not for you, this mission never would have gotten off the ground and I never would have been able to save those people up there."
A saw her look up at the White Whale and pressed on.
"If not for what we did—and I never would have made it if not for the books and training you guys gave me—over a thousand people wouldn't be here right now, wouldn't get a chance to start new lives. Rather than how dangerous it was, I'd prefer to think that all's well that ends well. And in my eyes, this ended pretty well."
"…Yeah," She said, at once seeming to agree and sound unconvinced. I saw her nearly smile before the expression became strained and faded slightly. "Thank you for…everything. I mean it. You didn't have to…but…"
"No problem," I shrugged, smile becoming honest again and I gazed at the White Whale. "I was glad to do it. Really."
"I'm…" She began before stopping herself and starting again. "Thanks. For helping me. And them. If there's anything…"
"Well…" I mused looking back at her. "I'm level thirty now…if you're up to it and my mother doesn't murder me, I wouldn't mind making a party and killing some Grimm together. I'm a lot stronger now, so we can try our hand at some bigger targets, split the experience fifty-fifty, and gain some levels. What do you say?"
"Somehow, I'm completely unsurprised," Adam shook his head. "You've got a one track mind. Be on the lookout, Blake; you've seen what kind of insanity follows him around. I wish you luck."
"Hey, don't think you're getting off light, either," I told him, pointing at him with a mock glare. "I only have a few levels to go before I'm within ten levels of you and then we're all gonna have fun. I learnt the next of Bai Hu's techniques and let's just say I think we can make our Giant Nevermore strategy even more fun."
"Oh joy," He replied. "Oh fucking rapture."
"The ship, boys," Blake reminded, still looking exhausted and sad but somewhat less of the latter. "There's still work to do."
"One sec, wanted to give you the heads up and talk about a few things before we take care of them," I paused, looking around the small town. "You can take care of them all, right?"
"Yes. We're still waiting on several ships and it's taking a bit longer to get everything in place because of Ziz," Blake said, pausing for a moment in midsentence to close her eyes, apparently struggling to get her thoughts in order.
"Everyone's on guard so it's harder but we'll manage." Adam clarified.
"Okay," I nodded, deciding where to begin. It wasn't a hard choice, because there was something I wanted to put off. "Anyway, I wanted to tell you I woke up the Aura's of the Faunus onboard."
There was a moment of silence as they looked at me, staring.
"When you say you woke their Auras…" Adama began. "How many do you mean?"
"Uh," I said. "Over nine hundred. I told the rest I'd need to speak with you guys before finishing the job, but I'll get the rest later."
The silence returned.
"Yeah," Adam said after a minute, Blake looking like she had a headache or at least a worse one then she'd had before. "I assume this is the result of some application of bullshit but I'm still going to need an explanation for this one."
"I figured they'd be safer if I woke up their Aura, considering the world we live in and how Faunus are treated. I knew the general concept from the books I've eaten and read, so I figured I'd try it at least, give them the best odds I could," I explained. "It worked, too, but the thing cost two thousand MP each time I used it, at least initially. Thankfully, when I was at the mine I stole the local store of Dust—probably a day's worth or so. I told you the healing skill I used could restore MP, right? I used it to restore myself between castings. Did it about a thousand times or so."
"…I reiterate," He said. "Bullshit. That's…"
He paused for a moment, frowning slightly to himself as he began mouthing what seemed like numbers to himself, probably calculating the effective cost, before shaking his head in irritation.
"Has it been improving?" Blake asked and I nodded.
"Pretty quickly, too…sorta," I said. "For an Active technique, it's gone up pretty fast relative to the number of castings; as an example, most of my Active skills take between twenty-five and forty castings to reach level two and then go up quickly from there. For this, I reached the second level after ten…but it took about as many minutes and twenty thousand MP. Each level reduces the cost by about twenty MP, which would be really amazing if it wasn't such a ruthless bitch to begin with. I'm almost at level twenty now, though, which…still leaves it exhausting."
"Still, to draw out the Aura of nearly a thousand people in a day…that's amazing," She said. "If you could somehow get it low enough to cast at a reasonable rate or if you had a steady supply of Dust…no, if you could get the skill to a hundred…"
"Yeah," I said, smiling. "I know. It's cool, even just thinking about it. If I could train it enough to use it easily…it'd take an enormous number of castings or a huge amount of Dust, but…I want to. Be able to enlighten people easily. If I could do it to a thousand people in a day at this level then in a few years or however long it takes…"
I shook my head.
"I just…" I chucked slightly, not even entirely sure what I wanted to say. "Could I do it to a whole city? To everyone I met? If I could do that…"
"How are you going to train it, though?" Adam asked. "The math is kind of against you. How many more Dust crystals do you have if you used a thousand?"
"A fair few," I said. "Enough to have some on hand after this is over. You're right though, on its own it's not gonna cut it, not even if I keep improving Soulforge. I'm still working on how to handle that, even with the lower number of castings needed. I'll use it whenever I can, but it'll take a long time to level up that way. If I want to make headway any time soon, I'd need either a lot of money, a lot of Dust, or an even more absurd way of restoring my MP. For now…if I survive my triumphant return home, I'll practice it nearby."
"You'll draw a lot of attention that way," Blake warned. "People who awake others under the table always do."
"I know," I said. "Thinking about if I even want to do it that way; it'd be a good way to make money, I mean, and I'm sure Junior could hook me up, but…the type of people I'd be awakening that way would probably not be the cleanest of characters. I could do it for free, but that'd draw a lot of attention…maybe not in a bad way, though? But for now, I think I'll stick to practicing it on animals."
"Animals?" Adam complained. "Really? I mean, is Vale not weird enough without a population of super animals?"
I shrugged, still smiling.
"It's an easy way to practice subtly, if I'm careful," I said. "And I always feel bad for things in the wild who have to survive among the Grimm; that must be tough as hell. I'll try to keep it far enough from the city to avoid a horde of fire-breathing squirrels or something and I'm sure I have some animal related skills, but…"
I shrugged again.
"Yeah," I said. "Anyway, getting back to the point—I unlocked their Aura's and healed their illnesses and injuries, so they should be fine on that note. I just wanted you know so you weren't surprised later. Anyway, I'll stick around to finish up the remainder, stick around long enough to see everyone off safely, and then probably head home, I guess. Besides that…what I really wanted to ask was…did you, uh…"
"Get your message, through?" Blake asked quietly and I nodded, feeling nervous and guilty and worried. "Yes. We sent it anonymously after we were sure you'd be in the clear. They should have gotten it by now."
"Okay," I nodded. "Right, yeah. Okay. That's…that's good."
"It's good you messaged us when you did," Adam said, continuing even after Blake shot him a glare. "Before you called, we'd been discussing how to deliver the news of your death to family. We were gonna have to speak at your funeral and everything—and trust me, you wouldn't want that; it doesn't end very well when we have to write speeches."
"That is good," I said. "If you'd told them how I died, you'd have joined me shortly after."
Adam snorted.
"Still might have to go to your funeral, huh?" He asked. "Do me a favor? Just go ahead and leave me everything in your will to make up for the inconvenience."
"Do me a favor?" I returned. "Go fuck yourself off a building. I'm bringing the ship down."
XxXXxX
I watched the Bullheads rise slowly, lifting the shipping crates into the air. I'd bid goodbye to the Faunus aboard, made sure they were all safely seated, and even used Observe on everyone flying the ships to glimpse their motives and intentions, just in case. Now, I watched them go, off towards new, hopefully better lives in Vale. With any luck, I'd see some of them around town, be able to keep an eye on them, and make sure they weren't having any problems. Maybe even lend a hand now and then, if anything happened. Of course, there'd be no way of truly knowing where any of them would end up until after the White Fang's work on that front was finished, but I could probably arrange things with Adam and Blake…
I sighed. I knew what I was doing.
I was looking for ways to stall. Now that I was so close, I found myself dreading the idea of going home, even as I wanted it more than ever. I'd resolved early on to tell my parents about my power eventually. I loved and trusted them and knew they felt the same way towards me, so I hadn't really worried about them knowing my secret. On top of that, I knew how strong they were and knew that they could help me grow stronger, too, so it only made sense to tell them eventually and ask for assistance.
However, more than anything…I knew from the beginning that I'd tell them eventually because I wanted them to be proud of me. It was strange, in a way, how that worked; I'd kept it from them initially for no other reason than the fact that I'd still been weak. I'd wanted to strengthen myself, prove my worth, and rise to the challenges I'd failed before first, prove that I could do it—even if I knew I didn't need to be strong to earn their respect or approval, I still…
But now I was strong. I still had a ways to go, still had higher to climb, but I knew how much stronger I was than before. Some of the things I'd done had been due to luck, but not all of it. I'd stolen the White Whale and made it fly because of my own power and skill. I'd fought stronger opponents and braved the lands beyond the Kingdom, trained myself around the clock, mastered skills, and won. I knew how extraordinary some of the things I'd done were, had seen it in the eyes and faces of hundreds of people now. Yeah, I'd cheated a lot to make it happen, but against the odds I'd faced, who could blame me? It was still impressive as all hell and I'd have been glad to have told my parents about it.
If not for the whole terrorist thing.
As expected of any plan, when theory met reality, things had gotten a little complicated. When I'd stolen the White Whale, when I'd awoke Ziz, when I'd been stranded, when I'd reached the town—stuff had happened that I hadn't planned for. That was unsurprising, because you couldn't plan for everything; the unfortunate truth about strategy and, really, life was that stuff just happened sometimes and you had to deal with it. I'd known from the very start that I wouldn't be prepared for all the things I'd face. I knew that for all the planning I'd done, all the effort we'd put into preparation, in the end something would catch me off-guard.
Nonetheless, knowing you could be caught off-guard was not actually a defense against being caught off-guard. Things had happened and I'd been forced to think on my feet, roll with the punches, and try to make it through. I liked to think I'd did pretty well on that front, what with surviving and all, but I couldn't much had gone according to plan.
Originally, we were supposed to take off together, remain unseen, and get a massive head start on any pursuers. Instead I had to antagonize and harm someone who'd done nothing to me, organize a hostage situation in broad daylight, and act the part of a villain. Then, instead of getting to the 'safety' of the Grimmlands, I'd woken up an ancient super monster and been whisked away. When I'd finally made my way to the mine after a huge delay, instead of hanging back while Adam and Blake dealt with anything that came up, I fought an amazingly powerful robot and ended up tearing her limb from limb.
I had no idea if what I'd done in Atlas had circulated yet, but it barely mattered, I knew the picture my actions must have painted of me. I didn't regret what I'd done—well, no, I regretted that it had been necessary to do those things. But the fact that I'd saved these people? Never.
But I did have to wonder what my parents would think, when I told them everything. Would they see it the same way? Would what I fought for matter in their eyes? Would it seem worth it to them, justify my actions and crimes? Or would they be disappointed? Angry? I'd saved a thousand Faunus from captivity and reintroduced the world to Ziz in the process. I'd liberated the enslaved and held a young woman hostage, defeating her and wielding her against her father. I'd threatened and bluffed, but who could tell what was truth or lie. Would they believe I wouldn't have hurt Weiss or the people around the airport? Would believing me matter?
I think it said a lot that I wasn't worried very much about the repercussions of them disapproving. Even in the worst case scenario, I knew they wouldn't kill me or anything. I'd probably find myself in jail in short order which, honestly, was fine. I mean, the nature of my power meant that I could improve my skills by struggling with something, so if I found myself in prison I'd just grind my skills for getting out or meditate or whatever until it wasn't an issue. With my Elementals, odds were good I could probably escape wherever they put me anyway, at least the first time I got arrested, and Adam and Blake would probably try to help, too.
It'd make things harder, crush most of my plans for the future, and generally ruin things for me…but honestly, even that didn't worry me too much. It was almost odd how little it worried me, really. I guess it was because, even if becoming a Hunter had been what I'd dreamed of my whole life, I was smart enough—or perhaps wise enough—to know I could help people in countless other ways, Hunter or not. I could heal people, fight to defend them, awaken Auras, and countless other things. If I found myself a known fugitive and forced to run and hide…I could deal with that pretty easily to, I thought.
But if my parents thought I deserved it, if I'd really let them down that much, if I'd enraged them, if I could never go home again…
I closed my eyes.
I was over thinking things. I'd wasted all the time I'd reasonably could. I'd unlocked the Aura's of the remaining Faunus, stood guard over the town with Adam and Blake, and seen the people I worked to protect away safely. My mind supplied other things I could do to put things off, some of them rather strange—but it was time.
Even if, thinking about, I did have to wonder what, if anything, would happen if I awoke the Aura of a plant.
"Jaune," Blake said, evidently noticing my discomfort and guessing its source. "You don't need to go back yet, if you don't want to. They'd have only just gotten your letter. You've done more than enough to earn a break if…"
Adam grunted in agreement and I smiled at them both.
"Nah," I said. "I don't sleep and I'd rather not dwell on this longer than I have to. Really…I shouldn't be worried; my parents are awesome. I guess I'm just worried about disappointing them but…at the same time, I want to see them a lot. It's stupid."
"No," Blake said, shaking her head slowly.
But there was a lot of weight to that one word.
Adam looked over at her and actually smiled—at her and then at me.
"No," He agreed without any sarcastic remarks.
My smile became a little sadder, a little more real.
"Yeah." I agreed quietly.
"Do you want us to come?" Blake asked.
I chuckled.
"Do you think that's a good idea?"
"No," She said. "But we'll do it anyway, if you need us to."
I looked at them both for a moment before chuckling again, looking down.
"Thanks," I said. "That means a lot. But no; I want to talk to them alone."
I removed Dreary Midnight and stored it in my Inventory, Lenore joining it a moment later. I stretched, tail uncurling from my waist, and then dropped my arms.
"I guess I'll stash the White Whale somewhere for now," I said with a sigh as I floated upwards. "Until we can make sure no evidence has been left behind, at least. One thing at a time, I guess. I'll see you guys later, though; don't forget, you owe me training and drinks. And just…keep in touch."
For a moment, they just watched me go silently. It made me feel cool and dramatic.
"Wait, what's with the tail?" Adam ruined the moment as Blake tilted her head to the side.
A little annoyed by the interruption, I said nothing and continued my ascent.
XxXXxX
After stashing the White Whale in a safe, out-of-the-way place—or as safe as any place outside the Kingdoms could be, that is—I ran the rest of the way to Vale, getting there a few hours later.
Tailless, of course.
I felt a little self-conscious, sweaty and dirty as I was, but I ignored the part of me that wanted to put things off just that little bit further and take a bath. Instead, I unlocked the door to my house and walked in, taking a deep breath. And though I'd thought about it extensively…there was really only one way to return home.
"I'm back!" I shouted. "Sorry I'm late!"
There was a moment of silence that was promptly broken by the sound of motion. I barely saw what grabbed me and lifted me into the air, but I was already laughing.
"There you are!" My dad said, doing much the same. "You're okay!"
"You're alive!" I said, hugging him back.
He pushed me away a moment later, hands on my shoulders, expression darkening.
"Boy, you don't even know what you put me through," He said severely. "When we got called back and you were gone and Ziz—I thought I was going to die. And then you took a whole week to tell us you were okay? Really?"
"I was busy," I defended. "It was important!"
"More important than your father's life!?" He demanded incredulously. "Boy, when this is over, you and I—"
"Jack, shut up."
At that voice, we both went silent, turning to face my Mother. I hadn't even noticed her approach, but in the face of her severe expression my senses warned me of danger. I stood my ground as she approached, literally pushing my father out of the way.
"Jaune, what were you thinking?" She demanded. "Do you have any idea—"
Her voice broke off into a sudden snarl as grabbed me and pulled me close in a hug that felt warm. It may have just been the burning wrath of her ire, but I preferred to think of it as the soothing warmth of home that was temporarily keeping that inferno at bay.
Either way, I hugged her back with everything I had.
"We were so worried," She continued, voice no less furious despite how closely she held me. "When we came back and you were gone…everything was going crazy because of what happened and you—"
"Mom," I interrupted, more than a tad regretfully. "I know. I was there. I need to tell you what happened."
"—Then you have impeccable timing, Mr. Arc," A voice I didn't recognize made me go still. "We were just talking about you."
I looked up to see him standing there, cane in one hand, mug in the other. He was dressed all in green but for his black shoes; suit, vest, scarf, and pants. Against all of that, his grey hair stood out starkly—and while I didn't recognize the voice, I recognized the man.
I looked to my father who shrugged helplessly.
"I had to ask somebody to keep an eye on you while I was away, especially when you said you might be going into danger," He said in defense. "It's not my fault you went above and beyond."
XxXXxX
MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
Second Interlude – Penny Polendina
She closed her eyes and listened, the sense going far beyond the limits of a human being as she shifted her internal workings. She knew she shouldn't, but…she had to.
"How could you let this happen!?" She heard her father rage, even far away as he was. "I told you she wasn't ready! She could have died—"
"Enough, Polendina," The General interrupted, voice tight. "I am well aware of the error on my part but it was an emergency. She was the only person available for the job that we thought might actually be successful and it was not something that could be left alone. I sent the best person I could with all the resources I had available and hoped it would be enough—it wasn't but you know full well I had no possible way of knowing that. What would you have had me done?"
"Go yourself!" Her father said. "Rearrange your forces, send someone more experienced! Anything but send my daughter into harm's way!"
"She is my daughter, too!" She heard a hand slam against a desk, perhaps the general rising. "Don't you dare speak to me like I wanted this, like this was easy! But I know her! And I told hereverything I knew! I told her about the situation, the dangers, the risks, and gave her the choice to make for herself! It would have taken too long any other way!"
"She's just a child," Dr. Polendina returned.
"She is a Huntress," Ironwood stated. "The only Huntress we had available!"
"She is not a Huntress," Polendina snarled back. "Not yet. And she was only available because shewasn't ready to fight! If this clusterfuck is proof of anything it's that!"
It occurred to her that this may have been the first time she'd ever heard her father swear. And considering why he was swearing…
She curled slightly into herself, touching the damage on her arms, her legs. The signs that proved what her father had said—that she had been defeated.
That she wasn't good enough.
"If that's what you think after seeing Penny's fight, you are a fool!" Ironwood returned sounding just as angry, startling her. "She fought with everything she had, with the strength and will of any Huntress—that she was defeated speaks only of the strength of her opponent, not of her weakness. She has the character, will, and heart I'd want in any Hunter."
"Heart? There's more to victory than heart! We've always known that Penny had a heart worth of anyone—but heart didn't keep her limbs attached, Ironwood! I told you it would be years before all her combat systems were complete!"
"Then complete them," Ironwood said, calming suddenly. "She came home safely, Polendina, and she tested her strength, will, and mind. She learnt more from this one fight then the last three hundred simulations and improved herself with tremendous speed. That she was defeated speaks only of the inadequacy of the tools with which she was provided."
"You son of a bitch. You have the gall to blame me for this?"
"No," The General answered, remaining calm. "The fault is just as much my own—we've all failed to make a body that can keep pace with the life we've created. But remember, that is the only reason she lost. Don't shift the blame onto her for not being able to win."
She could all but hear her father seething.
"I don't," He said after a minute, sounding a little bit more controlled. "I know that this was not Penny's fault. She is…has always been perfect. I would never blame her for not winning. But I blame you for sending her into a fight she couldn't win."
"As do I," Ironwood said quietly. "It won't happen again. Because of the recording of her battle—what parts of it I shared, at least—we've already received significantly more funding for the project, especially from the Schnee Dust Company. You should have all you need to finish your work and ensure that next time, she'll return safely."
"Schnee," Her father must have sneered, focusing on a part of the statement. "He's the cause of all this. I've told you before—"
"And I've told you before," Ironwood cut off. "That things are more complicated than that. The economics of the situation—"
"I know the economics of the situation!" Her father interrupted in turn. "And all knowing has done is make me more cynical!"
"Yes, well. Economics will do that from time to time," The General tried to jest before sighing at something. "But you should know full well why I can't just snap my fingers and make all the socioeconomic problems in the world go away! As horrible as it is, it's not something that can just be done away with—and the SDC is not even close to the only group involved in this matter. Even if I could make it so that every Faunus miner was paid as befits their labor, that wouldn't make things better. The company's profits will plummet and a basic cost/benefit analysis will result in most of them being laid off and they'll be shoved into the streets again, where they'll either be forced to work for a competing company or into an even more reprehensible situation. I do what I can."
"And I'm sure that comes as a great comfort to the children who live in bondage and watch their parents die in mining accidents."
"It must be at least as comforting as it is for the children who watch their parents forced into whorehouses and servitude to try to get by, knowing they'd grow up to do the same. Both options are horrible but I'm sorry, I just can't wave my magic wand and make hundreds of years of problems go away! They're in a horrible situation that breeds from a horrible environment and that's not something quickly changed, especially amidst other problems, and the only quick cures would be worse than the disease! Tell me, Polendina, what would you have me do to fix it? Would you like me to overthrow the Council and reign as a Tyrant, making everyone obey my demands? Do you think it will make things better if I plunge Atlas into war and slay thousands to retain my power even as threats surround us? Or do you have a quick solution you've neglected to inform me of? Because I'd love to hear it."
"I know that the problem is not simple," Dr. Polendina said. "They never are. But you sent Penny todefend it?"
"I sent Penny to apprehend a wanted criminal who's proven to know far too much and who's been the cause of some of the biggest problems we've faced in decades. The awakening of Ziz alone…he is a problem that can't be ignored, made even worse by the fact that we knew nothing about him until he threw the whole world into chaos!"
She heard a beep and briefly wished she had video as well as audio.
"You weren't there for the initial meeting after Penny returned, so I doubt you've seen all of this," Ironwood said. "Even if you have, I cut out a fair amount of it for Penny's safety."
"That's him?" Her father asked. "Are we sure it's the same man as in Vale? It's…"
"That's the distortion effect that surrounds him," Ironwood explained. "And it makes identification rather difficult, yes—but we've been cleaning the image as best we can, both from Penny's footage and my own, and I'm as sure as I can be. Body type is the same, height appears to be about the same, comparable physical features seem identical, with some room for error due to the cleaning process. He identified himself as 'Jian Bing,' to Penny."
"So? He's far from the first to take the White Tiger's name," Dr. Polendina replied, though there was a musing quality to his voice. "No?"
She was confused by the word for a moment before realizing it must have been a reply to something she couldn't see.
"It's definitely possible he's just another person taking the name, but I went over the footage several times and I'm not so certain. Watch this."
It was quiet for a minute and she assumed the video was silenced, leaving her to wonder what they were looking at.
Apparently she wasn't the only one.
"Am I looking for something specific?" He father asked, but he did sound like he was focused. "If you want an opinion on his fighting style, there are better people to ask than me."
"As a matter of fact, yes, there are—which is why I asked them," Ironwood answered. "Something about his style seemed familiar, so I sent the footage to a friend in Vacuo, who passed it onto Dr. Mfalme, the head researcher of Bai Hu's relics. Apparently, he was both amazed and excited by it, confirming that it possessed many similarities to how they expected Bai Hu's style would have looked, even going so far as to say it may have been a more accurate depiction then their current theory and that he'd like more data to further clarify things."
"You suspect him of being a student of the style, then, taking the name of the master? Or perhaps a descendant assuming an ancestor's family name?" Dr. Polendina asked, sounding intrigued. "Strange but…it's not unheard of for such a thing to occur; Humanity's lost so much, it's only natural that we'd occasional find things. Granted, it's a bit unusual for it to do so in this manner, but some families keep their secrets well. They could have been outside the Kingdoms or lain low through the wars, perhaps? I'm not sure what this has to do with me."
"Those are all possibilities—perhaps even the most likely possibilities—but a more worrying idea came up," The General said. "Look at these pictures? Notice any differences?"
"…It's not unusually for a Faunus to have retractable claws or fangs. Relatively uncommon, perhaps, but—"
"And this? Watch closely."
"…Did he…did he grow a tail?" Her father asked, sounding more uncertain.
"Yes," Ironwood said. "Note these images. This one was from when Penny removed his cloak. This one was from when he took it back. And this one was from just before he ended the fight. Even with the difficulty resulting from the distortion effect, he definitely had four limbs in the first two pictures and five in the last. Taking his other physical changes into account…"
"A Semblance?" Her father mused. "Physical alterations are relatively rare, as are effects that grow stronger over time or because of some variable, but neither is unheard of. If we assume he's a student or descendent dedicated to living up to the name…if that drive was defining enough, itcould result in a Semblance that changes his body accordingly. It's…it's mostly guesswork, but I wouldn't say it's impossible for a Semblance to manifest in such a way. Though really, you can never truly say what is and isn't possible for them because they're so variable."
"I considered something similar," Ironwood agreed. "But at this point, we've attributed so many things to his Semblance we might as well admit we have no idea how he's doing what he does and the features didn't some any obvious signs of fading. Another theory came up during review and…it's out there, but I sadly can't say that it's impossible so I want you to be informed of it. Listen."
This time, there was audio and she recognized it instantly.
"Something like that," He had said. "Means nothing to me." The lifeless steel of her writhed strangely, moving without her input. She'd felt it shift and flow and…and Her body had started to heal. As if she were alive.
She almost missed the next words, lost in the vivid memory.
"So he really…" She heard her father sitting down. "You checked?"
"I did. The wounds healed. Not entirely—the effect eventually wore off—but most of the damage was gone by the time she was reached. And it was new material, things that hadn't been in place before; not just steel but new wiring that hadn't been in her body before and more. She healed."
"How…?"
Instead of replying, Ironwood continued the video.
"It's the nature of the soul to try and return an altered body to normal," The man said. "As the nature of your body kept your Aura from doing so, I gave it a little help."
"I called in several of the experts we'd consulted in the past to discuss the matter. They were dumbfounded and said they'd need to modify their theories accordingly, because they had no idea how he'd done it—but when I had them watch several parts of the video, they came up with several different hypothesis. Initial testing hasn't yielded many results, but…well, you know them. They're excited. What interested me, however, was a related possibility they raised about Jian Bing."
"They…" Her father began slowly, apparently guessing what he was getting at. "You can't be serious. They think he might actually be Jian Bing?"
"It's nothing but a guess," Ironwood dismissed. "Unfortunately, it may be the worst case scenario as well and I can't immediately shoot it down."
"The hell you can't. Bai Hu lived and died a long, long time ago. Do you really think he's some immortal warrior? And if he was, do you really think he'd only appear now?"
"Of course not; it doesn't make sense for him to have been alive all this time and only just get involved, instead of during, say, the War. But his words were true, possibly to a greater extent than we'd ever realized—the nature of Aura works to restore a body to the state it finds natural. If this is something that is true even of something inorganic…do you remember? Everybody who awakens their Aura hears it at least once, so you must have."
Her father was abruptly silent so after a minute, the General continued.
"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality," He said. "Through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee…It's strange; we've been saying those words as long as anyone remembers and we don't even know why. Where did they come from? What do they mean? Immortal, infinite in distance and unbound by death…I'd never really thought about it before today and now I can't stop thinking about it."
"…Even so, it's a ridiculous theory," Her father said.
"It is," Ironwood agreed. "At least as ridiculous as the idea that a soul could be created within a machine, I'd say. I wouldn't have thought you a skeptic, my friend."
"That was…" He father paused before admitting. "Yeah, okay, granted. Still…"
"It's only a theory—one of many and probably untrue. But…he knows too much and we too little. He was a complete unknown until recently, someone we'd never even caught hint of, and after appearing, look what he did. He flew straight towards Ziz as soon as he escaped Vale and somehow escaped after it seized him. He played with Penny until his business was done and then tore her limb from limb. He trivially did something with Aura that experts I pay hundreds of thousands of Lien a year did not even know was possible until after he'd done it. The list of things he's done in the short time we've known he's existed might as well be titled 'Wait, how?' It's possible, even probably, that any theories we come up with will be wrong because we have no idea how he's managed any of this. But we still need to be ready and prepared."
"…What do we know? For sure?"
"He goes by the name Jian Bing. He uses a style an expert agrees is probably the real thing. He's strong enough to fight Penny easily for a prolonged period of time without injury and then crush her quickly when he's done. Over the course of that fight, he began to develop more obvious Faunus traits which, if not permanent, did not fade in the recorded aftermath of the battle, and seemed visually reminiscent of a feline. Immediately afterwards, he displayed a tremendous ability with Aura, accomplishing what was believed impossible with the explanation that Aura attempted to restore a person's to their proper form. He is a powerful member of the White Fang." Ironwood recited. "Beyond that…little. But whether he's a student or a copycat or a reincarnation or God knows what else…I don't really care. I just want you aware of the possibilities and prepare for them. Because if they fight again…make sure he doesn't win."
"…Okay." He said. "Then…we should…"
"We need to speak with Penny," The General said. "She deserves explanations from both of us."
She opened her eyes.
XxXXxX
It took a minute to recognize what she was feeling, it was so new her. Nervousness, uncertainty…she wasn't accustomed to such things. Yet as she waited and the seconds passed so slowly by, she felt certain that had she possessed a heart, it would have pounded in her chest. Her fingers, still moving a bit clumsily, twitched slightly without her consciously asking them to, clicking slightly against the chair. She was more aware then ever of the world around her and the slow approach of her creators—and, at the same time, more unsure of what to do than she had ever been.
When the door opened, the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
"It's true, then? What he said?" She asked, her voice sounding strange, colored by emotion she hadn't heard in it before. Sadness, fear, confusion, anger…she wasn't sure. All of them? None of them?
Dr. Polendina looked at her and sighed, not seeming surprised or upset but merely tired.
"Penny," He chided gently. "We've talked about this. You shouldn't eavesdrop on the conversations of others—"
"Yes," General Ironwood interrupted with blunt honesty, barreling passed his friend's attempts at a lesson, as he was wont to do. "And no—though more of the former then the latter, perhaps, so…yes."
As Polendina put his head in his hands and sighed, the General sat down in the chair next to her.
"Penny…" He said, shaking his head. "Your father and I didn't want it to come to this. We had hoped to shield you from this for at least a while longer. We'd tell you when you were older, we said, though we never could decide when you'd be old enough—in truth, I think we didn't want to tell you at all. That if we could, we'd hide this fact and keep it secret for as long as possible. But Penny…you deserve to know, and it would be hypocritical of me to treat you as both a Huntress to be sent into danger and a child to be protected and deceived. The truth is…this world we live in…it's as terrible as it is beautiful."
"What do you mean?" She asked though she was starting to think she knew. Her creators glanced at one another and Dr. Polendina sighed again, nodding slightly before the General continued.
"There are reasons," He said. "And excuses. And often times, one is hard to distinguish from the other. The predations of the Grimm, the unforgiving nature of this world…Humanity has done a lot of things to survive. The awful truth behind the world we live in now is that it was all built upon someone else's pain. Our nations were built upon suffering and a history of atrocities going back far before the Kingdoms. Where the dangers of the Grimm met the terror and desperation of Mankind…"
He closed his eyes for a moment.
"Horrible things have happened throughout our history. Sometimes there were reasons, other times people looking for those to blame or to use, but a lot of the time…I'd say we've come a long way and it'd be true, but it doesn't change how far we've yet to go. It's hard to truly explain the tragedies in our history simply looking back; perhaps it is because we've lost so much of our history that we now cling to the few remnants we have left, however awful. The prejudice against the Faunus is an old hatred, so deeply rooted that it's hard to even begin to extract."
"What about the Council?" She asked. "Couldn't they change things? They're…"
"Yes, perhaps," He answered, shaking his head tiredly. "Yet the Council is nothing but a representation of the wills of the people. Some of them hate the Faunus or fear them—while others merely hate and fear change. Some know the numbers and worry because of them and others know only what they are told. Some are intent to preserve their power, their way of life, their…world. But others are different. They try and fight, to change things. As is, Mankind as a whole still does not accept the Faunus but…slowly, I think we are taking steps towards being able to."
"Is it enough?" She asked, images rising to her mind, of the building she'd explored after the White Whale departed. "Does taking small steps matter when things are so bad?"
"That's the question, isn't it?" He wondered, as much to himself as to her. "I wish I could say I knew. I hope so, not just for the Faunus but for everything—I work as both General and Headmaster to try and protect and improve our way of life, to keep things safe even as I hope things change. However much work it is, it's my hope that with the power those positions offer, my friends and I might be able to make things better. That's what I've worked for, hoped for, since I was a young man, even if the goals have shifted over the years. But do we do enough? Can we protect enough? I don't know. I honestly don't know if I do enough to matter…but I do my best and hope it's enough. Penny…I've always wanted to be able to give you the answers, but here…I just don't know."
"Are they right then?" She asked, laying her hands flat on her lap to stop them from trembling, long since unsure how she felt. "The White Fang? I researched them when I returned and they…aren't they the bad guys? I read about what they've done and it's…but if they're really…then aren't they…? I thought we were…"
She tripped and stumbled over the words, uncertainty leaving her tongue clumsy, her mind uncertain—but the meaning behind them still seemed to go through. The General and her father looked at her sadly, as if watching something beautiful fade, and her father moved to take the seat on her other side, each placing a hand over one of her own.
"I'm sorry, Penny, but that question doesn't have a good answer, either," Ironwood said, raising the side of a fist to his mouth. "They do horrible things. They kill, destroy, and terrorize…but they're angry and hurt and scared. For so long, the Faunus have been subjugated and abused and no matter how hard they fought things scarcely seemed to improve; can they be blamed then, for fighting for their people? Before, the White Fang was a peaceful organization and yet accomplished so little—can I honestly blame them, then, for using the tactics that proved to work when so much is on the line? Can I decry them for refusing to protest ineffectually? How can I blame people for fighting against their oppression the only way they can? And yet…how can I stand aside, when their actions hurt others? I can't do either."
He moved a hand on her shoulder, pulling her closer and she let him, resting her head against him.
"Penny…I'm sorry," The General said. "More than anything, I want to do the right thing, to be an example for you to look up to…but knowing what the right thing to do is can often be the hardest thing in life. And I…I can't tell you how to find the answers. Sometimes, it's not even there to begin with. I don't have any easy solutions, Penny; I just try to help as many people as possible…even though helping people often means hurting others. Some days…Penny, some days I hope I'm the hero. And other days…I just hope I'm not the villain. And that…the worst part is, that's probably the legacy I'm going to leave to you. I don't want you to have to face decisions that have no answer, or do things while knowing it'll hurt people; I wish I could make things easy for you and give you a happy life and simple decisions, but…"
"What about me?" She asked and had she been able, she might have needed to blink away tears. "Is what he said about me true, too? Isn't that why you keep me hidden? If people know that I'm a machine, will they—"
"You are not a machine," The General said, drawing her fully into a hug. "If anything he said was true, it was that. You are a person, Penny, and as good a one as anyone I've ever met. A better person, even, then me. Don't forget that's true, even if people get scared or angry at you; you're real and you're a hero, Penny. I've worried since the day you were born what people would think of you, what world I was preparing you for, but I believe in you from the bottom of my heart. I can't lie and say your life will be easy or that there won't be people who hate you, but I believe that you are someone beautiful and special, that you're something new and unique, and you'll change things. I hope that others will see that, too; that with you as an example, we might avert the tragedies of the past, that those come after you might find a better world awaiting them."
"But I," She blinked rapidly, meaninglessly. "I don't, I can't, I…"
"Shhh," He said quiet, resting his chin on her head. "I know. And I'm here."
XxXXxX
MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
Random Encounter
I remained calm thanks to my power and looked at the man without flinching or paling, which should have earned me a medal.
He knew about me, I was certain of that. But how? And how much? What had he seen? He couldn't have been aboard the White Whale—not only would I have been shocked if he could evade all my senses for such a prolonged period of time, but I'd seen him on the ground when I left. I hadn't paid him that much mind at the time, which I regretted slightly even if I had been more focused on other matters, but he'd been there. He couldn't have been on the ground and in the ship.
Unless it was his Semblance, somehow? Or some planted bug I'd missed? The latter was unlikely when I had both Crocea Mors and Vulturnus, but the former…there was really no way to know. This was Professor Ozpin, he could—
No, I stopped myself calmly.
I knew the power of a well-crafted reputation—I only had to look at the one that had formed around me. It was something that had very real power.
But that wasn't the same as it being real.
I knew, if somewhat vaguely, about Ozpin. He was famous, a legendary Hunter and trainer of Hunters, a man even my parents looked up to who'd looked after Vale for decades and had friends and allies everywhere. It would have been easy to fall prey to that, to assume he knew everything, had seen everything, that he'd lurked beside me the whole time and somehow kept me unawares—but that didn't make sense for a lot of reasons. While there was the possibility of him having a Semblance that allowed him to know all and see all, there was nothing to support that possibility but awe and fear. If I excluded unsupported fear, what did that leave me?
Logic.
He couldn't have been on the ship; it didn't make sense and if he had been, he'd have needed to stay with me for the entire duration of my trip even when things were going to hell. It meant not revealing himself even when it would have been wise to do so, not stopping me and making me turn the ship around at any number of points, not reacting to Ziz, not…it didn't make sense and I couldn't see an easy way for him to do it. Any time after that and I'd probably been off the grid.
What about before the theft? That opened up a few more possibilities. It wasn't impossible, or even unlikely, that a man with Ozpin's power and influence could keep track of me while I was in or near Vale if given cause to do so. If I put myself in his shoes…I could think of a few ways to do it pretty easily. Maybe not everywhere I went, depending on a number of factors, but the stuff at home? He could have seen that with some cameras, maybe, or an informant positioned nearby. Though I had no way of knowing how good his intelligence was, he could easily cover a lot of the stuff in town, too; he'd just need to follow the car, see where I went, and respond appropriately. Depending on how prepared he was and what he'd set up over his decades protecting Vale, he could monitor everything from my house to…who knows. I couldn't let myself assume he was all-powerful, but Icould see him being aware of many of the things leading up to the mission. If dad had given him a heads up and a reason to actively look…yeah, I could see it.
And if he knew that, all it would really take were some friends in Atlas to know what I'd done over there—like, say, the General. I needed to avoid overestimating him, but he was a very old, experienced Huntsman with a lot of friends and I couldn't underestimate that either, especially when I wasn't sure what resources he had available. Hell, maybe he did have some secret camera network.
The question, then, was what to say. Even if he didn't know the specifics of everything I'd done, he probably had enough to peg me as the criminal even if I said nothing, so actually lying to him probably wasn't feasible. On the other hand, he wasn't arresting me right now, so…
"Professor Ozpin, isn't it?" I asked. "It's an honor to meet you, sir, though I can't say I expected it."
"Likewise, Mr. Arc," He replied, taking a sip from his mug. "You had us all worried with your abrupt departure."
I scratched the back of my head, giving a fake rueful smile. I saw my mom open her mouth to speak but Ozpin shifted his gaze slightly and she hesitated, looked like she was going to say it anyway, and then bit down upon it. I saw her look over my head at my father, but whatever they communicated, I didn't see anything when I turned to face him. Feeling somewhat left out of the silent conversation, I looked my dad in the eye and tilted my head very slightly in the Headmaster's direction. My dad glanced to the side and I was pretty sure that he communicated something with Ozpin as well before he gave me a very shallow nod.
There were so many people not-talking in here, I mused, that it was a wonder I could hear myself think.
"In the interests of saving us all a lot of time and effort," I said, turning back to Ozpin. "Shall we cut right to the chase?"
I heard my mom sigh and saw her pinch the bridge of her nose. She moved to speak again, but halted again as Ozpin raised his cup in acknowledgement.
"What would you like to know first?" I asked, just to make sure that he knew what I thought he knew. Even if I was pretty sure, well…it would be really embarrassing if he actually knew nothing and just tricked me into thinking he did.
He gave me a knowing look—which may or may not have meant anything. I could give a pretty mean knowing look myself because pretending you already knew something was a surprisingly good way to learn things you didn't know. I waited patiently as he took another sip of coffee, making sure he saw me completely at ease.
"Generally, one should start at the beginning when telling a story," He said and I gave serious thought to starting with my birth just to be a sarcastic twit before he smiled and shook his head slightly. "But as you said, in the interests of saving time, let's begin with what happened after Ziz flew off with you. I must admit, I was rather worried for your life, Mr. Arc, especially after your extended silence. Your family was quite distraught."
I remained focused and passive, even as I felt the guilt rise up. Though I could only see her out of the corner of my eye, I could see enough of her expression to tell we weren't done talking about that, but after what I'd put them all through….I deserved it.
Even so, I had to focus. I could take his words as confirmation that he knew everything up to the White Whale—maybe. Unless he wanted me to think that—no, simplest explanation for the moment.
"Yeah, sorry about that. Ziz made things…complicated." I said, watching him carefully even as I considered what to say. He didn't react so I made sure not to, either. "Last I saw, it was back to sleep, by the way; I can show you where on a map, if you need me to."
"Good news," Ozpin mused, looking down into his cup. "Certainly, that would help matters. There's been rather a panic over its whereabouts lately; we'll need to arrange an explanation for how we came by the information, but…"
I shrugged.
"If needed, I can send a message," I said, not elaborating. He looked at me obliquely for a moment, taking another sip of his drink.
"I suppose you could." He acknowledge as if we were talking about the weather. "Your story, then, Mr. Arc?"
"Well, it's a long story so forgive me if I summarize a little bit, but…Ziz carried me off to an island south of Atlas and tore the White Whale apart," I answered promptly, having put my story in order. I'd decided to tell the truth, but I didn't want to let any major details slip in front of someone I didn't even know, so I abridged things slightly. "I fixed the ship and flew up towards Atlas itself to do some stuff, which was when I sent the message. A few days later, I hit the mining town, fought some people they sent after me, won, and flew off with about a thousand Faunus that were being kept as slaves. I came back, dropped them off, and went home."
I shrugged and gestured at myself.
"Jaune," My mother spoke up at last, sounding simultaneously tired and annoyed. "Good God, that's not how you give a report."
"Don't listen to her son," Dad disagreed. "The only thing that happens when you give good reports is that people make you give more. Your mother's had to give every report for our team in the last…uh…twenty…three years? Since the Vacuo embassy thing."
"Shut up, Jack," She said, sounding even more tired.
For his part, Ozpin just nodded in acceptance. I wasn't sure if he'd learnt everything he'd needed from that or if he just didn't care.
"A rather remarkable adventure you've had, Mr. Arc," He said evenly. "Perhaps there will be time for more details later. Nonetheless, I'd say you've performed rather remarkably given the circumstances. A number of your actions were questionable, but…well, I imagine such matters would be best left for your mother to address. Isabelle?"
"Oh, yes, sir," She said in a tone dark enough to blot out the son. I figured whatever she'd done to dad must have taken the edge off.
I sighed.
"I love you, Mommy," I told her resignedly. Honestly, I wasn't even scared or upset. Considering everything…
"I love you, too, sweetie," She answered, patting my shoulder with a kind, gentle smile. Dad and I shared a look and I acknowledge that it was my turn to take responsibility for my actions.
"You're not going to arrest me," I stated, refocusing on Ozpin as I took a guess. "But you still want something, right?"
"I'm afraid I merely came to inform your parents of the news I'd received from Atlas," Ozpin said, adjusting his glasses slightly. He let that statement linger for all of a heartbeat before ruining it. "Although, now that you're here…I could think of something for you to do."
"Oz," My dad sighed.
"Me," I asked. "Or me?"
"You, naturally," Ozpin answered without missing a beat. "Though should you so desire, you may turn to yourself for aid."
"Ozpin, he only just got back," Isabelle Arc stated firmly. "There are things that take priority."
The Headmaster of Beacon chuckled slightly, gesturing with his mug in acknowledgement.
"Merely a joke on my part," He said. "I wouldn't dream of sending him away from you before even receiving his punishment, much less so soon after such an ordeal. It's nothing urgent—just some whispers in Mistral. Now then, I should leave you to your reunion. Jacques, Isabelle."
He nodded to each of my parents as he walked by, before pausing a moment to put a hand on my shoulder.
"We'll talk again soon," He said with such quiet surety that I just accepted it as true and nodded. "Good luck, Mr. Arc."
As the door closed behind him, I heard my mother sigh.
"That man…" She said, shaking her head.
"Hm?" I hummed inquisitively, not sure exactly which part she was referring to.
"Never you mind," She said, pinning me with a look. "Now then…he left so we could speak privately. I think you owe me an explanation, young man."
"Yeah," I nodded. "I do."
XxXXxX
I told them everything.
They were my parents; I was allowed.
I started, of course, with my power, giving them the longer explanation I'd promised Dad. I'd explained the reasons I'd gone on the mission, how things had broken down and eventually escalated, my actions onboard the White Whale and in the mining town—I told them everything I'd considered mine to tell. I was pretty sure they'd been able to make the connect between Tukson and the White Fang, seeing how they'd met him right before I got involved with all this, and from there it wasn't a huge stretch to the rest, but…
But I told them. How my world had changed literally and metaphorically, why I'd associated with a terrorist organization, why I'd caused them so much worry and pain.
They listened silently until I finished, not saying a word but reacting differently. My Dad occasionally nodded, raised his eyebrows, or frowned, depending on the subject, at first standing by the counter as he waited on the coffee machine. When it finished, he poured a cup for himself, one for mom, and brought both over to the table where he sat beside me.
I was aware of this mainly because I was trying not to focus on what my mom was doing; namely, writing something down on a notepad she'd produced from a drawer. I was tempted to use Observe on it, but it was like…I wanted to know, but I didn't want to know.
"You're right," My dad said at last, finally breaking the silence that followed the end of my speech. "Your power is bullshit."
"I know, right?" I nodded quickly, smiling hesitantly for a moment before doing so more fully as he gave me a sure grin.
"Life as a game," He mused. "Not a Semblance I'd have thought of off the top of my head, but if you think about it…"
"It's amazing," I agreed wholeheartedly. "I mean, it took we awhile to figure out how to use it right and all, but once it did…well, I don't mean to boast, but I can throw a pretty mean punch if I need to."
"Pretty good at infiltration, too, sounds like," He said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table, fingers wrapped around his mug. "You know, a lot of people don't believe it, but I used to be pretty good at some of that stuff myself."
I took a moment to imagine it and laughed.
"Bars?" I guessed.
"It's a tough job but somebody's gotta do it," He shrugged, smirk growing. "A lot of people don't think about that type of thing when it comes to getting information out of people, but—"
"I know," I nodded. "It was almost disappointing when I realized how easy it was."
"A lot of things are like that," He cracked his neck before resting his chin on the palm of a hand. "They seem really amazing and difficult, but it's really just a matter of knowing what you're doing and practicing it. Well, I'm sure the people who make robots probably think that, too…"
I hummed an agreement as he looked at me ponderingly.
"You know," He mused. "And don't take this the wrong way, because I'm not trying to knock your fighting skills or anything—but you would make a pretty amazing doctor. I always thought healers were pretty amazing. I mean, don't get me wrong, being able to slaughter monsters with a stick is pretty awesome, but there's a lot of times…well, I wouldn't have minded having someone there to heal people. Maybe not the most glorious job, but saving lives with a touch…pretty amazing. I'm not trying to sell anything but…"
"Yeah," I said, understanding. "I know. I haven't…well, life's been hectic, but I've thought about it, too. I mean, I definitely want to get as strong as I can at…everything and become a Hunter, but healing the sick and the wounded…I have the power, right? And there's a lot of people I could help, if I keep training the skill."
"Nothing wrong with saving lives," Jacques said. "We could brag about our son the doctor. Right, honey?"
Mom looked up from her writings to give him a glance and shallow nod before returning to her work. I watched her drum her fingers, waiting for her say something, but it never came. After an awkward moment, my Dad continued talking, apparently trying to brush over the lack of response.
"Yeah," He said forcefully. "Really, you've got plenty of options. That Regeneration thing you mentioned was from blue Dust, right? Think you could do it with the other types? If you can heal, empower, and fight, you'd make a great addition to any team."
"I'm pretty sure I could do it with at least red, yellow, and green Dust," I said. "I'll have to test with the other types, but…still, Haste is great and Feather Fall turned out to be surprisingly useful. It's really nice to not get smashed into stuff, you know?"
"Trust me, I know. I've been through some walls in my day. And rocks. And trees. It's not fun." He shook his head. "Healing, supporting, awakening Auras…not bad, son."
"Thanks," I fiddled with my drink absently, not really paying it any attention. "Still need to train them all, especially the Aura one, but…it's cool. Not sure how I could explain any of it, but…"
My dad gestured dismissively.
"Some of it will be hard, but I'm sure Oz will think of something for the basics. Trust me, the guy writes enough fiction to be a novelist and it'd be great to have at least an emergency healer on standby. You know…I could probably get Oz to bend some rules and bring you with me on a few missions, if you want?"
"Yeah?" I asked, eyebrows going up. "Me?"
Dad shrugged like it was nothing.
"Sure. Let me tell you, if you know the guy, it's really not hard to get Oz to bend the rules. Nothing major," He said, seeing my look. "No offense, but I wouldn't bring you along on the type of Search and Destroy missions I get sent on—but there's some Village Security stuff and such that could work. A lot of places like that have their fair share of sick and wounded. My team could deal with the actual security while you healed them. Might not be the most glamourous or exciting mission, but it could save some lives and I'm sure there's some way of making it fly as extra credit or something. You could make some friends along the way, some connections…I mean, if you want."
"Please," I said immediately, just…imagining it. Going on a mission with my father, if as the medic. "I'd love to."
He smiled.
"I'll talk to him, then," The Arc Patriarch said. "Maybe it'll even count as one of your Quest things?"
"Maybe," I nodded, not even sure I cared. He seemed satisfied with the answer regardless.
"Any thoughts on what you're gonna do next, then?"
"Uh…" I tilted my head to the side. "Probably just keep training. Working out for my physical states, reading books for my Intelligence, that type of thing. I want to hone some of my new skills, too, like awakening Aura's. I figured I'd start small, though, in the hopes nothing goes wrong."
"Oh?" He asked. "What'd you have in mind?"
"I was thinking about starting a garden, honestly," I admitted. "I don't know how well it'll work, but maybe awaken some flowers or trees to start with. I figure the odds of things going catastrophically wrong will be lower than if I start with animals. After I know what's liable to happen and am confident I can handle it, I'll upgrade to some goldfish or something, and then advance up to stuff like dogs. I can probably get a skill to train them, too, so…"
"Could work," He agreed. "It takes a fair amount of training to bring out their full potential, but good Hunting dogs are invaluable. There's plenty of stuff you can work on if you're interested. Let's see…I saw one guy who'd trained a falcon like that awhile back and a few other animals. Plants…there've always been a fair number of experiments along that vein for crops and such, but I don't really know much about it. They never really implemented anything that I know of, but I don't know if they had problems or if the issue of awakening enough crops to actually matter just made it unfeasible. For something we grow just to eat…I don't know. You can probably find something on that, though."
"Huh," I said. "I'll look into that. I hadn't heard anything about that."
"Like I said, I don't know how that's worked out for them; never really thought about it until now." He paused. "Well, there was this one time, but it turned out to just be a guy who could make plant minions with his Semblance."
"What was that like?" I asked, somewhat surprised I'd never heard this story. Dad's brow furrowed.
"Surprisingly horrifying. It's easy to make fun of a cabbage until it unfolds into layers and layers of teeth," He shook his head. "Naturally, we ended up fighting the guy in the middle of a forest, too, and at night. It was…"
He exhaled loudly.
"…Something." He took a sip of his coffee, blowing away the last remnants of steam. "It shouldn't be an issue for you though. I know a few people down in the Agricultural District if you're looking for anything in particular, though."
"I'll have to look into it," I said. "I never even considered the idea until today. I could just start with the trees and plants around here but…it's something to look into. Maybe see if I can awaken seeds and test them against normal versions of the plants, see if different breeds react in specific ways…it's neat to think about. I'll look into it."
My dad chuckled.
"My son the botanist," He said. "And the doctor and the captain."
He was silent for a moment.
"I'm proud of you, you know," He murmured. "Despite the danger and what happened…I won't say everything you did was flawless and you scared a lot of people, but I know why you did it. And despite the risks, you saw it through, even when you were alone and no one could have blamed you for turning back. I wish you'd called, that you'd told us, that…I wish a lot of things. But I get why, even as scary as it had been, and I'm proud that you saved those people, Jaune. You did good, son."
I ducked my head but was pretty sure it didn't fully hide my smile. For someone who was probably an internationally wanted supervillain, I couldn't keep from lighting up at my father's praise. He shifted slightly to bump me with a shoulder and I laughed a bit before sobering and looking up.
"Mom's been quiet," I whispered.
Dad sighed slowly and nodded.
"You about done, dear?" He asked. She flipped a page in the notebook to scrawl something and then clicked her pen.
"More or less," She said, pushing her chair back and rising. "Come with me, Jaune."
I rose and came around the table with a nod.
"Where are we going?" I asked. After a moment's pause, I continued. "Did you decide on my punishment?"
"I'm not going to punish you, Jaune, I'm going to teach you something," She answered calmly. "Which is why we're going into the forest to train. Follow me."
I nodded wordlessly, casting a glance back at my father, who saluted me with his coffee mug. I knew she wasn't really mad—or not mad about the things I feared, at least—and given everything I'd done…
This was fine. I'd take my medicine like a man.
It's not like I feared pain or effort anymore.
XxXXxX
MurazorChief EncyclopedistSuper Awesome Happy Fun Time
The Games We Play
Shift
The pain faded after a moment, but I laid there breathing hard, body pushed to exhaustion. I could already feel Regeneration working to alleviate that, though, and I healed myself to hasten the process, clamoring to my feet just moments after going down. As long as I was alive, as long as I had power to fuel my skills, what happened to my body was almost irrelevant, so I pushed on through, looking at my opponent.
"You've gotten stronger," My mother praised, waiting patiently as I rose. We stood together in the clearing I'd made during my training back…wow, sometimes it was hard to remember that it was really not all that long ago. It was only a week or two ago that I'd been wasting away some time out here, training myself for the mission. I wasn't sure when she'd found this place, though it probably hadn't taken long after finding out I was missing. I wonder what she'd thought when she saw it? She must have known I came out here to practice, but what'd she think when she saw the pockmarks I'd left behind beside the disturbingly pristine trees I'd healed? Did she see something in the marks, go over them again and again trying to discern some hint as to my whereabouts?
I didn't know and it made me feel guilty again. But now I was…
Well, getting my ass kicked, honestly. She'd brought me out here to train, asking about my skills to begin with. I'd given her a rundown of what I could do, where I could give specifics—the MP costs, my MP and HP bars, how regain my SP and HP by healing myself, how I replenished HP and MP at a rate of one percent a minute prior to other modifiers, and the general stuff about the Gamer's Mind and Body—all of which she'd dutifully noted down in her notebook. I'd even listed my exact stats and given the general descriptions of most of my skills, though a lot of those things were more relative. As a result, I wasn't surprised in the slightest when she'd demanded a sparring match to test my strength. I wasn't surprised when she asked I show her my full power, either, though I'd warned her.
Not about any danger to her, of course, because that'd just be silly. I still couldn't see her level which meant she must have been…I wasn't sure, but at least level seventy-something. I had neither fear for her safety, nor any delusions of victory. What I'd warned her about had been, quite simply, about the costs of the White Tiger's Five Hundred Years and that just because the Gamer's Body and my various skills made it look like I was invincible didn't mean I wasn't taking damage. I didn't want her to splatter me on accident or something, so I made sure she knew my limits and that I might need to heal myself periodically.
She'd nodded in acceptance and told me it wouldn't be an issue.
It hadn't been. She'd just put me down hard and then let me scrape myself off the ground before going again. Even with my vastly enhanced speed, she kept up with me without a single wasted movement. Her eyes were alert and her face expressionless as she calmly parried each of my strikes with her sword—probably more to test my strength than anything else.
"You used your fists as your weapon on your mission?" She asked as we fell into what probably counted as a relaxed rhythm when your level was in the stratosphere.
I went to nod but aborted it to shake my head.
"I had gauntlets," I said, hands on the restored Crocea Mors as I tried with all my might to push her back. I wouldn't succeed, but that wasn't the point of the exercise.
"Even so," She said, take a step closer with no apparent effort, pushing my feet back along the ground. I couldn't use Observe on her, so I wasn't sure how her strength compared to Penny's, but she wielded it with an ease and grace that set her apart. There was strength and surety in every motion, a silent confident in her casual stride as she pushed back. "Is that your weapon of choice now?"
I half-shrugged, trying to stay upright and braced against the immense weight.
"I needed a fighting style that was different from my own," I explained distractedly. "Fell a little behind because I trained my martial arts so much, but the type of weapon doesn't really matter. I wanted to work on my swordsmanship some, though."
She hummed and made a gesture like she was shaking something off her sword.
I went flying again, barely managing to get my feet beneath me and bounce off the tree.
"Not that I don't enjoy this—because I do," I said honestly. "But you're not trying to show me that there are bigger fish or something, are you? Because boy, do I know. Half my plan was trying to avoid getting into fights against people I could lose again. I can use Observe, too, and see peoples levels and stats and such, so…well, I know where I stand with most of the people around me. Even if I can't see their levels and stuff, that just means they're out of my league. It's pretty hard to me to underestimate people, honestly. I mean, I'll fight them anyway if I have to, but…"
"Good," She said, coming to my side with that same casual serenity. She presumably passed through all the points between point A and B to get there, but I couldn't confirm that—I just reacted to my Danger Sense and brought up my shield in defense. Parrying even an absent attack sent shocks of pain through my arm and hammered me down hard enough that I felt dirt brush my ankles. "Knowing where you stand is vital to any battle. Knowing when you have to fight and when you can avoid it, perhaps even more so. Your ability makes such things easier for you than most and that's good. If you had fought the wrong person…"
I heard worry color her voice a moment before the pressure on me lightened. I didn't relax, still aware of the danger, but instead brought up my shield. She flicked her blade several meters away and threw me back.
"You did well, Jaune," She said, voice steady once more. "I know something of the opponents you had to fight, the odds you had to face, and you did very well. And I won't insult you by saying you got lucky—"
"Nah, luck had a fair amount to do with it," I shook my head. If I'd fought Penny anywhere but a Dust mining town…
"Because I can see how far you've come," She continued as if I hadn't said anything. "But it's precisely because you've come so far that this is necessary. You've decided, haven't you?"
I knew what she was asking and the answer was obvious—but I saw the gravity of her expression and knew how serious this question was, so I considered it silently for a moment. There were a lot of arguments to be made either way, but even so, the answer was still…
"Yes," I said at last. "I want to help people. Hunter, healer, it doesn't matter—but this is who I want to be. It's all I ever wanted."
She nodded, looking at once saddened and proud.
"Then, if your mind's made up, I will train you," She replied. "You don't need anyone to tell you that stronger opponents exist; you know that better than most your age. Your heart is in the right place and, though we'll discuss your actions later, I trust it and I trust you. Though you've made some choices I consider foolish, you made them for reasons I can see and understand and you took my words to heart when it came to the value of wisdom. Granted, if I had known how deeply such words would shape you…well, it doesn't matter, does it? You turned out well, Jaune. However…"
She turned her face away, looking up at the sky. I don't know what she saw there, but it probably wasn't just the stars.
"You probably know this, too," She said quietly. "But we live in an unforgiving world. It's cruel to the innocent and the weak—and crueler still to those who'd fight to defend them. If you make a mistake out there, I can't promise you'll ever get a chance to make another one…and the awful truth is that we all make mistakes. I…"
Her lips tried to form words but couldn't seem to give them breath. After a moment, she closed her mouth, apparently changing her mind.
"I'm glad that I got to see you grow up," She said. "All of you. I had friends who never got to do so for their children…and others who died too young to even consider having them. A lot of Hunters simply disappear one day; go out on a mission that no one knew was special and just…never come back. Sometimes they leave behind bodies, sometimes…sometimes we don't even know until a week becomes a month. Your father and I have avoided that thus far, as have your sisters, but…someday…"
"Yeah," I said quietly, looking at the ground, remembering a child's fears, a sister's words, lies we all hoped were true. "I…I know."
"I've seen a lot of good men and women go," She continued after a moment. "Some of them…maybe stronger than me. That I'm here and they aren't was only because of…luck? Skill? Maybe a mixture? I don't know. But…I do know that strength alone isn't always enough. Nor skill, nor even luck. The odds are against us, because we can win a thousand times, but we only have to lose onceand it doesn't—"
She cut herself off for a moment, closing her eyes before continuing.
"Maybe that's why," She said, shaking her head. "I didn't…I didn't want this. I'm sorry, I told myself I wouldn't stop you and I won't—but I didn't want this life for any of you. But your sisters…one by one, they excelled. What I've seen others struggle with for years came to them so easily and they were each so different but from the moment they could answer it was like…"
She shook her head.
"They all wanted to be Huntresses. They never wanted to be anything else and everyone knew they would be great. One day, I knew they'd all surpass me. And some days I thought…God, some days I wondered if it was a punishment for…for living where others died, to send my children away to fight one by one. I'd never thought about it, even when I left home to do the same, but…and then you were born and I saw how much it hurt you every time you struggled and it was horrible of me, but at the same time I thought that maybe, if you…"
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"No," She said, shaking her head. "Don't be. I'm proud of you and I'm proud of them. But I'm also scared for you all. And when you didn't come back, I thought that maybe this was it. The first. But you came back."
"I did," I agreed awkwardly. "And we'll…they're all strong, so we'll…"
"Yes," She agreed. "They were all so strong…maybe it was inevitable that this would happen, too. I always expected it, really, that one day you'd find your way—and I wouldn't stand in it. But even if you're strong, strength isn't always enough to let you win. So I trained all of your sisters, when they decided what they really wanted. As best I could, I made sure they'd be safe."
"Is that why…?" I hesitated, unable to finish the question.
"Why they hate me?" She asked calmly.
"They don't hate you," I protested immediately, even though I'd raised the topic. "They just…don't like coming home…"
I trailed off lamely.
"They probably don't hate me, not really," She shook her head. "Though if they did, I wouldn't blame them. I certainly hated my teacher, even if I owe her my life. I trained them hard, even when things came so easily to them, and I didn't let up. I told them what I told you, about the risks they'd face as Hunters, and then I did my utmost to prepare them for it. I want to protect you all, but the truth is…I can't. So I'll make sure you can protect yourselves, even if you hate me for it. For you especially…I know what you can withstand and I wouldn't go easy on you, not when the things I teach you might save your life. Knowing that, is this still what you want?"
"Of course," I said instantly. "I'm not afraid. This body of mine will keep going no matter how badly I get hurt and I don't sleep and I barely get tired. I heal quickly no matter what happens and I learn fast. Whatever it is, I'm ready—but I want you to know, I won't hate you."
She looked me up and down, sighing slightly.
"We'll see," She said gently.
XxXXxX
Unsurprisingly, my mother chose to focus on training the skills she deemed most important, in addition to my more general training. Which was good, really; I had a fair number of skills I considered useful, but which were hard to train for whatever reason—Physically Endurance, for example, though undoubtedly usefully, was at once tedious to train and slow to improve, especially when I spent so much time training myself not to get hurt, if possible. Even with the training I'd underwent with Adam, and though I'd gotten a few extra levels in the stat during my fight with Penny, the stat was fairly low level in the mid-twenties.
However, my mom was pretty good at getting past a lot of those difficulties in her drive to help me improve.
Which is to say she'd started our training by lighting me on fire and it had steadily progressed downhill from there. Apparently content with the evidence I'd provided as to the effectiveness of the Gamer's Body, she'd shown no hesitation in hurting me badly and had quickly gotten creative.
I got hurt repeatedly. Incessantly, even, with only my healing ability letting me withstand it all. She'd experimented at first, asking me calm and probing questions even as she twisted the sometimes-literal knife. She was systematic about it, even drawing up a chart that took into account my MP regeneration, how much HP I had, and the cost of Soulforge Restoration to produce a very detailed chart of precisely when she could hurt me and how badly, periodically updating it as the skill's improved and almost absently testing if there was a relation between physical pain and the rate of improvement. After she'd had time to accurately test it, she quickly set a tightly controlled pace and forced me to abide by it.
I was cut, I healed, and was cut again—and it was almost frightening how tight of a grasp she obviously had over her own strength. Once she'd finished testing me, she hit me for exactly a thousand damage, with the next blow doing the exact same amount. Whenever I told her the skills had improved, she modified her blows accordingly without even needing to test it, probably keeping track of the trends in the skills mentally.
Over the course of twenty minutes, I had to heal myself over five hundred times, maintaining my Elementals all the while. When my MP was all but drained, she produced a blindfold, secured it tightly around my head, and sent me stumbling into the forest blindly with orders not to use my Elementals to see. She'd then proceeded to attack me more times than I could count, even as I was tripping over roots and walking into trees, all to improve my ability to Sense Danger and respond accurately too it.
When I failed to do so, I got stabbed. My reward for evading properly was not getting stabbed. She gave me more time to breath then when we'd trained, but I wasn't entirely sure whether it was to let me recover MP or to throw me off. There was no pattern to her attacks in timing, direction, or form, no rhythm to find and stick to—nothing to go off of but my remaining senses and my advanced warning of danger.
It wasn't much to go off of with no experience, especially with surroundings as confusing as a forest could be, but she made me adapt and keep going through literally thousands of attacks. They were just slow enough that if I reacted quickly, I could evade them, so I knew she was holding back tremendously, but if I messed up she wouldn't stop the attack. I couldn't improve my ability to sense bloodlust because she didn't want to hurt me—but she wouldn't keep from hurting me, either.
I knew what she was doing, of course. Physical Endurance and Sense Danger were two of my most useful skills, at least potentially, as well as the most likely to keep me alive if something happens. Reducing the amount of damage I took by a percentage…notifying me of threats…I knew exactly why she was helping me train them both. Before anything else, she trained me to survive and come back home, to endure the same things that had ended so many Huntsmen.
"We'll do this first thing, every day," She'd said when she removed my blindfold. "At least for the time being. Three hours of survival training before we get to work."
After that, we'd started training other things—focusing on my body, for now. It was basically what I'd been doing before, but more extreme. Mom led the way to one of the training rooms in the basement and set me to lifting weights and such, though that might have been underselling it.
"Since it's the first day, let's start with ten thousand reps." She said as she loaded more and more weight onto the bar—which had to be heavily reinforced to not bend under that much weight. Even so, she lifted it with one hand and passed it too me, an experience that nearly bowled me over. "That should be fine with a body like yours. I'll work on a more complete workout schedule in the coming days, but we'll focus on Strength for now."
I'd grunted an agreement as best I could beneath the massive load that had been set on the bar, getting to work without complaint. There were many times I thought I pulled things and even more where I felt things tear. Once, my arms pretty much gave out and I felt them break under the strain—but as she'd said, with my body this was nothing. The pain faded after a moment and left me unharmed, so I just healed the damage to my HP, and struggled my way back into position, continuing where I'd left off. She watched me silently for a while before moving over to a machine herself and we worked in silence but for my occasional grunts of effort and pain.
At least until dad interrupted.
"Hard at work, huh?" He said, a bag in one hand and a drink in the other. He sipped from it idly like an asshole as I struggled breathlessly with each rep. He must have seen the look I sent him because he smiled brilliantly and lifted it to brush condensation across his forehead, briefly closing his eyes in contentment. "I'd join you, but I'm already done for the day. Right, dear?"
"If you got what I asked for, leave it and go," She said without looking away from the ceiling. "Don't antagonize him."
"Just watching my lovely family trying their best, my love," He said, setting the bag down beside my bench and patting my head. He held the car above my face, little drops of water occasionally falling to my face, brushing little streaks of moisture across it with a thumb. "This was nothing compared to what I had to go through when you were gone, just so you know; I didn't get off with just a work out. That's why you're getting off so light—she vented all her rage at me."
"Jack," Mom said serenely, still not looking at him.
"It's really not that bad," I said, half to him and half to mom. "It's just hard, but for me…it's not a problem, as long as I don't die. What'd you get?"
"Swung out to pick up some stuff from a friend at the University," He said, reaching into the bag to draw out a book as he took a seat on the edge of the bench. "He said he'd ship most of them later, but these should keep you entertained for a few days."
His fingers covered a word—a name?—but I read the rest of the front cover upside-down.
"Theory of Games?" I spoke the incomplete title aloud. "Is that a textbook?"
"Yeah," He chuckled, thumbing through it. "I saw it and I knew I had to get you this one. It's not as fun as it sounds, though."
"Shocking," I said, tilting my head for a minute. "My Intelligence?"
"There's no point in just training your body if we can train your mind as well. You said you could increase it by studying, right?" My mom asked. "Then we'll make sure you have plenty to study. I'll set aside specific times for it later, but for now, you can just do so through the night."
I nodded in acceptance.
"What about school?" I asked. "I usually studied there, before…you know."
"Canceled, still," Dad said, closing the book and squinting at the back cover. "Because of Ziz. City's on alert in case it needs to evac, so school's closed until the situation drops a class or two. Probably have a week or two before Ozpin gets everything fixed."
I mulled over that for a bit before wondering aloud.
"Should I even bother going back?" I asked after a moment's hesitation. "It's kind of a waste of time now, isn't it? And I don't need to finish to get into Beacon, do I?"
"Not much point now," Dad agreed absently. "You'll be done with the material and then some soon, anyway."
"I already finished reading all my school books, actually," I said.
He snorted.
"Nerd," He drew the word out for several seconds, ruffling my hair. "I'll handle it and I rather doubt it'll matter once we get you some street cred."
"Please stop," I asked, smiling at him. "Another step closer, huh?"
"Mm," He replied nodding as he put the book away. "Keep taking steps like you have been and it won't be long now. How long do you plan on training him, dear?"
I followed his gaze to my mother, curious myself. She was silent for a minute before putting up the bar and looking our way.
"However long it takes until he needs to fight Grimm to advance further," She said. "What level do your stats need to be to learn Bai Hu's final technique?"
"Physicals at seventy, mentals at ninety," I answered promptly. "I can probably get the physical stuff up that high in a month or two. Should be able to raise my Intelligence to seventy or so in that time, as well, if I have enough books. Beyond that, though…I don't know how long it'll take to keep improving. I'll stick at it, but improving them gets harder and harder. Raising them to a hundred naturally could take most of a year."
"Then until his physical abilities and Intelligence are at seventy," She said calmly. "It'll take some time to get everything in order, but we'll train his physical abilities and important skills by day and he can study and practice on his own at night, until they reach that point. Improving Wisdom and raising Intelligence beyond that is likely better done through leveling up, so after that we'll start taking him hunting; he has thirty points already so he'd just need four levels."
"Sounds good," I said, starting to pant a little again. "I think I'll get something good once I raise my skills past a hundred, too, though."
"Eight levels, then" She corrected. "After that…we'll see."
Dad nodded.
"Two months or so for the basic stuff though, huh?" He mused and chuckled, ruffling my hair again just because he could. "Pretty lucky timing. If you get done on time…"
"What?" I asked, pausing for a moment as I brought the bar down. My dad smirked and opened his mouth to say something—probably not an answer but something—when my mom spoke again.
"Jack, don't distract him," She said. "Jaune, keep working."
"You heard her," Dad said cheerfully, already at the door. "Goodbye, my nerdy son and beautiful wife. Don't train too long or I'll order your favorite foods and come down here to eat them in front of you."
"You'd probably die doing that," I informed him though quick breaths, giving him a nod as he went. "I would have neither the ability nor desire to prevent your murder."
He chuckled and closed the door. I made a note to ask him about his words again later and went back to work. I did another hundred thirty reps before Mom spoke up.
"Jaune," She said. "You're father's right; the timing is good. If we get done in time…Ozpin asked me to look into something, as somewhat of an expert. If we get done in time and it's safe, would you like come with me back to my homeland?"
"To Mistral?" I asked and saw her nod out of the corner of my eye.
"It'd be just in time for the festivals," She said. "It's…I think you would like it. Do you…?"
"Of course," I said. "I'll make sure to work hard."
XxXXxX
