(Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or Harry Potter. RWBY is owned by Roosterteeth and Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling.)
Nothing Left
Chapter 7: Testing and Internal Problems
The following weekend was the first time that the first years would get to fight each other and see where they stood in relation to their peers. Glynda Goodwitch was charged with supervising the fights between the students to keep the amount of injuries to a minimum and to grade each of the students.
Over the course of the week, team RWBY and JNPR were getting more and more excited at the thought of battling others to see how good they were. However the ability to make some extra money on the side through betting was also an appealing prospect. Everyone, even the normally reserved Blake was starting to get into the fighting mood, and could not wait for the weekend when the class would be held. Harry on the other hand had a relaxing week. He was finally getting out of his 'battle' mode that he had stayed in for more than a year without any breaks. He was finally acting more like the teenager he was instead of the soldier he used to be.
Harry and Oz had met a couple of time to discuss small things. It was mostly Ozpin talking about some of the more promising students and Harry giving commentary to him while they enjoyed their tea. They did get into arguments about certain topics, but it was all in good fun. Glynda had even joined them on one occasion after accidentally stepping into the room where they were talking. Surprisingly enough, outside of her teaching position, she was relaxed and caring person. it seemed that the only time she was strict was when, she was working or trying to keep Ozpin doing his job and not off with one of his hobbies. During one of his talks with the headmaster, Harry did get a more indepth idea about the mission system the school held.
Evidently some of the teachers thought that it was a good idea to start handing out missions during school for the students to be able to get used to how it would be outside of the academy. F ranks were basically chores, D ranks were higher than chores, but there was little or no combat expected. Things like picking herbs from the forest so that medicines could be made in the medbay. C ranks were things like escort detail where a caravan of dust trucks hired huntsmen to protect them from grimms as they travel from one place to another. B ranks were search and destroys for grimms that were causing problems, and A and S ranks varied from search and destroy to protecting high value targets
The entire reason of the fights on the weekend was to test the students in a controlled situation and assign each of them a rank so that the school would know what they could or could not do.
The weekend finally rolled by and Ruby was literally shaking in anticipation. The entire class had gathered in the amphitheater, where Ozpin announced the teams. All of the seating was removed to create room for the duels. Harry joined his team as they melded into the crowds to hear what they were going to do. Professor Goodwitch stood on the stage and tapped the mike to get the students attention. Everyone quickly stopped their chatter and directed their attention to the blonde professor.
"Today, we will be having combat training, but before I can teach you how to improve yourself, I have to see how each of you fight individually. I will observe you all in duels to assess your abilities. I will rank you accordingly and you should receive the rank in a couple days." Glynda said into the mike. "Each one of you will be assigned a partner to fight against. During the fight, I have the ability to stop a fight and declare a winner. If you do not listen to my every instruction then you will find yourself kicked out of my class. Now I will be handing out some dust that you will spread on your weapons to make it so that they can't cause lasting harm to anyone. Please come up to see who you will be fighting," The students quickly crowded the stage as they found who they would be paired up with. Harry noted that Pyrrha and Ruby were paired together and Ren was sent to fight Blake. Yang was assigned to fight Weiss, Jaune was paired up with the greasy Cardin Winchester, and Nora was paired with a faceless student that Harry had not cared to know the name of.
Once the crowd had dispersed away from the stage, Harry went over to see who he would be fighting. Goodwitch looked a bit more ruffled than usual after the excited crowd of teenagers surrounded her, but she still retained her cold countenance.
"So who am I paired up with today, Ms. Goodwitch?" Harry asked as her as she straightened her dress and fixed her hair. He put some of the dust that she had laid out on his sword and watched as it obtained a small glw, but left his rifle bare. Since it was not a dust weapon, he would have to set it down for the match.
"You will not-," Goodwitch started, but Ozpin interrupted her as he walked across the stage, his cane clicking on the floor with every other step. His appearance quickly drew people's attention and they all started watching the headmaster walk towards Harry and Professor Goodwitch.
"You will not be facing any of the students today," The grey haired headmaster stated when he got over to them. "None of them would be able to push you enough that we could see where the problems lie and accurately rank you."
"He is correct, I would normally be the one to test you in such a situation, but headmaster wanted to be the one to do so," A glare entered her eye. "And he was quite adamant about it too." Ozpin smiled sheepishly at her, but did not deny his actions. The way the two of them acted, reminded Harry of Ron and Hermione's relationship. One being the strict one of the pair and trying to keep the other on track while the other just wanted to relax or do what they wanted. A sad smile appeared at the nostalgic memory.
"Everything alright there Harry?" Ozpin asked worriedly as he noticed that the teen's eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
Harry quickly wiped his eyes and plastered a smile on his face, embarrassed at how he let his emotions go in front of them. He quickly reigned in his depressing thoughts. "Yeah, you two just reminded me of some of my old friends. They used to act the same way you two do.
"I'm sure you'll see them again later," Ozpin said to reassure the student.
Harry's answer was a silent shake of his head. Ozpin took a second to realize what it meant, before nodding his understandment. Glynda watched from the side as her boss/best friend held a silent conversation with one of her more interesting students. She did not understand much of the byplay, but she did get the gist of it. Something happened that made it so that Harry could no longer see his friends again. She wanted to know what it was, but it was neither the time or place for her to ask.
"Well, come on. Let's begin our match." He beaconed for Harry to follow him on the stage and took a sip of his tea before handing it to Glynda. The students that had been loitering around, waiting for the signal to start, soon started to gather around the stage to see one of their own fight the headmaster. A couple people complained, but they were quickly silenced by their peers who wanted to see the fight. A couple of bets broke out about how fast Harry would lose to the headmaster.
Team RWBY and JNPR gave out their encouragements to Harry from the sidelines. "Good luck!" yelled Yang from the side, "Be safe," came from Blake, and "Break his legs!" came from the orange haired menace that was hanging off Ren.
Glynda pushed several buttons on her scroll and pictures of Harry and Oz appeared on the wall behind them. Underneath the pictures were green lines that indicated aura reserves. "Start whenever you are ready." She said to the pair and brought up a barrier in between the crowd and the two combatants so no one would get hurt from the fight.
The duo took a moment to analyze their opponent. Harry knew that he had a very little chance of winning against such an opponent. Ozpin had years of aura manipulation and weapon training that Harry never had, but he wanted to give it his best and put on a good show for the crowd.
The tea loving man at first glance looked relaxed and like he was about to go for a stroll rather than fight. It took a trained eye to see the muscles tensing up, the slight movement of the feet to get into the best position to intercept an attack or to kick off and start his own.
Harry himself was in his standard beginning stance. His hand a bit lower than his sheathed sword, with his off hand holding his sheath, preparing for a quick draw or a dash. His body was low to the ground, giving him the ability to quickly move out of the way of any strikes that he would encounter. What troubled him was that he did not know what Ozpin's cane did. He assumed that it was swung like a sword, but in this world where a bat could be changed into a rocket launcher, it could be anything.
They stared at each other for a moment. Harry carefully pushed aura into his legs, enough that it was there, but not enough that wisps of smoke started to appear and hinted that he was ready to attack. Then right before everyone's eyes, Harry disappeared.
With a strong surge forward, Harry covered the dozen feet in the blink of an eye. His sword flashed out of the sheath and at Oz, who had been carefully watching the entire way. He raised his cane and stopped the blow with a loud clang. It seemed that he had not been paying attention to Harry's fight with the chimera because he was able to surprise the man by unhooking his sheath from his belt and swinging it at his head. Unfortunately for Harry, Oz noticed it just in time and was able to dodge it by leaning back. Harry disengaged the man and then brought his sword back down to press his temporary advantage.
The students watched in awe as one of their peers was fighting Ozpin with speeds only a few could match. The sounds of metal meeting metal changed from the two crashing together periodically, to a constant drone that filled the air. Harry's sword and Oz's cane were a blur as they rose and fell in synch. Then something would tip the balance in one of their favors, whether it was that one of them had to dodge or change positioning. They both would disappear from one place on stage to another, striking at each other with lightning fast blows. They were always moving, circling each other as metal split the air around them. It was a dance between two opponents then a duel between two people.
If one looked at the fight, they would see two evenly matched fighters, but the aura reading was telling a different story. Harry's inexperience with aura was showing through as his gauge was steadily going down and was already halfway gone, whereas Oz's was going down at a much slower pace, and his was only down an eighth. Harry's jacket had long since been ruined in the fight and just barely hung onto his frame. Oz was not without his signs of battle either. His scarf and glasses had been knocked off sometime during the fight and his once immaculate suit was torn in several places.
Suddenly the fight picked up even more speed as Harry's aura changed, Instead of being black and green wisps that poured off his body. His aura seemed to solidify and cover the skin on his arms and legs in a black coating with green tribal designs running across the surface. Harry was surprised at the increase of speed and strength that was granted to him by the cover. He wanted to test his aura-magic mixture in combat and this was the result. However the second skin was not complete. It was made of more holes than not.
His speed and power increase was not without it's toll though, as his aura and magic reserves rapidly started to fall. It was only after a couple seconds of fighting with his new aura 'skin' that his aura gauge fell into the red. However during that time, he was able to land more strikes on Ozpin than he had been able to for the entire match. Glynda activated the buzzer and ended the fight.
The students watched as Oz disengaged the fight and backed up, Harry doing the same. The crowd stood, mouth agape. Silence reigned in the room before team RWBY and JNPR started to cheer. It was like a wave, soon the rest of the student body started to cheer as well along with some groans as gamblers had to hand their money over to the winners. A good majority of it ended up in Ren's hands, who just smirked as his supply of liens grew by the moment.
After the cheering calmed, the crowd quickly dispersed into separate parts of the auditorium and prepared for their own duels. Their blood pumping from watching the headmaster's and Harry's duel.
"That's new," Oz said to Harry as they rested from their battle. "I have not seen aura shaped like that in years. Normally it takes a long time to build up the control necessary to do so. That begs the question though. How did you do it?"
"It is not really aura shaping as it is aura mixing." Harry admitted as everyone around them started their matches on Glynda's signal, "I have a second energy supply, that you have probably seen me use before. Don't think I do not know about the cameras in the woods. My ears have only gotten better since my change. I just hope that you do not plan to show anyone my fluffy ability. It is rather special to me and I do not wish anyone to know about it without my approval." Oz nodded his head at that. The only one besides him who saw the change was Goodwitch and she would not gossip about it.
"When I mixed my two energies a couple days ago. I found that it boosts the effects that my aura has, but it's very draining and does not really seem worth using at the moment as anything besides a last ditch effort. I'll have to practice keeping it active for it to be stable enough to use in my fights." He pulled a pair of water bottles from his neverending pouch and handed one to Oz, who accepted it with a raised eyebrow, but did not say anything about it. He was starting to get used to Harry's strangeness.
Glynda came over to the resting pair and handed the grey haired one his tea mug. "I am unfamiliar with the style that you used, but I did see some errors you made. When you do an overhead strike, you move the blade further back than needed, extending the amount of time you are open to attack. Also your elbows tended to slip out of position and left small holes in your guard that a grimm could use. Other then that, your speed and sword skills was superb. Your strategic skills were rather interesting, but they could use some work. Whatever you did with your aura at the end was foolhardy and could have ended horrible in any other situation. It was a needless waste of aura that was not worth the reward." She scolded, Harry ducked his head in embarrassment. It really was a stupid move, he had to concede that to her.
"The only thing that I could not test you on was ranged combat. Why did you not bring your gun into the duel?" Goodwitch questioned. Harry's response was picking up his rifle, which was leaning on the wall next to him, and pulled back the slide of his rifle, popping out a round. He caught the cartridge and handed it to Glynda so that she could examine the round. "I can't train with these. My gun is made to kill and only to kill, sparring was never the idea when I made her." Harry then explained some of the key differences between his weapon and some weapons found on remnant. The two teachers look mildly disturbed at the new information. Both were wondering why a teen such as Harry would need use of a weapon that could only kill. "If you want, I can shoot at some targets so that you can see how I stand with that." He offered her. Harry got up while she thought and stretched out his sore muscles, his aura already working on repairing them and bring them back to tip-top shape. "I could do with some time on the range, it has been far too long since she and I've gone shooting together." He said while patting his rifle like one would a pet. While he was not like Ruby about weapons, he cared greatly for his sword and rifle.
Goodwitch nodded at his request, "I will get that setup for you later. I have to go now and check to watch the last of the duels. I will see you both later." and with that, she left and went back to watching the other students fight. Oz and Harry stood in a companionable silence, watching some of the other student's duels.
Harry watched as Jaune fought Cardin. Jaune had some potential in him, but he needed some proper lessons in how to handle his sword and aura. That along with some self-confidence would have him become one of the best swordsman in the school. Cardin on the other hand, just brute forced his way through the fight. He had no style, finesse, or grace to speak of. He just kept swinging his mace to try and beat his opponent into submission. Harry commented on this to the man next to him and Oz nodded his head in agreement.
Ruby and Pyrrha had an interesting duel. Ruby would move at high speeds and try to catch her off guard, but Pyrrha would be able to block the attacks with her shield and return with a volley of dust shots from her rifle/spear, Milo. They repeated this several times until Ruby switched strategies and made Pyrrha be the one on offensive. It was not until then, did Ruby land a couple of hits on her amazonian opponent using clever counter attacks and parries that Harry did not think was possible with a scythe. Harry's eyes drifted away as the fight continued to see how the rest of his team was doing. Blake and Ren were both speed oriented fighters with much different weapon, so observing their fight was interesting to say the least. Blake's gambol shroud and Ren's Jade dragon pistols were ablaze with gunfire. Blakes grace and shadow like abilities to flit around was enough to match Ren's unorthodox fighting style and speed. Gambol Shroud flew around the area and tried to catch Ren at any angle it could get to, while Ren was making great use of his dual pistols by using one for defence and another for attack. An explosion cut Harry's thoughts short and when he looked over at what or rather who caused it, he could not suppress a snort in amusement. Nora was sitting on top of her smoking opponent with a huge grin on her face. Her giant hammer was resting right beside the poor unconscious boy who never stood a chance.
The fights kept going and slowly, one by one they stopped either by Goodwitch or when a victor came out. Yang ended up winning her fight because Weiss was not used to fighting an opponent who stayed inside of her guard. Her aura glyphs did little to stop Yang when she could not form them in time to catch the blonde before she could strike. Blake's duel eventually was stopped with Ren being the winner, he had rationed his aura better throughout the fight and pulled out the victory through attrition. Pyrrha won against Ruby, just barely. It was more of the inexperience on Ruby's part than anything else. Ruby had only fought grimms and did not know how to properly fight another person while Pyrrha was the three time winner of the regional championships and knew the body cues and eye twitches that gave away attacks and defences.
The duo watched the fights come to a close, each sipping on their refreshments, until Oz stated that he had to go and then left to presumable do his work after saying his farewells.
Yang and Weiss were the first to work their way over to where Harry was. He had a couple of water bottles laid out waiting for them. Yang had a grin on her face so bright that the sun would be jealous while Weiss was brooding at her loss.
"Cheer up, princess! So what if I totally kicked your ass this time, next time might be different!"
"Subtle, Yang real subtle." Harry sarcastically said, he handed both of them a bottle.
Weiss' mood only further worsened at what Yang said. "You did fine, Weiss." Harry reassured, "Yang was one of the worst people you could face, but it did teach you a lot and showed where you needed improvement so you won't lose next time, " Weiss looked slightly better, but still put out that she lost.
Harry looked over their shoulders and saw a rather interesting sight. Nora had decided to jump on Ren's back somewhere between his fight and the time it took to walk across the hall. She was rambling on about nothing in her own special way while playing with Ren's ponytail. "Did you see me? Huh did you, Ren? I hit him and BOOM!" She mimicked an explosion with her hands, sending Ren staggering to the side before he caught his balance and got back on course. It showed just how much patience he had with her when he did not even twitch as he stumbled. "I won! Though Ms. Goodwitch said that I was too hyper and impatient. Do you think that I am too hyper Ren? We have been together for a long time, well not together-together, so you would know if I was, wouldn't you." Ren just sighed, but he made no move to dislodge the rambling orange haired girl. Blake, who had been walking with them, quickened her pace to get away from the babbling girl and made her way over to the group. Ruby was the next one to get to them with Pyrrha in tow. After handing all of them their own water bottles, he asked. "So what did Ms. Goodwitch say about your fights."
"oh...oh...oh, me first!" Nora said bouncing up and down with her arm waving in the air. It was not long until Ren could not keep his balance and fell over. Nora jumped right up like nothing happened while the green cloaked boy staggered to his feet. "Ms. Goodwitch said that I was okay, but rushed the fight. I could not help that the other guy was too weak!" She pouted. After she was done talking to the group, she turned to Ren and started talking to him.
"She said that I was good, but inexperienced," Ruby said downtrodden.
To which Harry replied, "Remember what I said, you'll get more experience the older you get."
"I am plenty old enough! I drink milk!" Her cheeks puffed out like a hamster. The rest of the group laughed to themselves. Everyone except Pyrrha who was looking off in the direction that Jaune was. Harry tapped her shoulder and waved her off towards where Jaune sat. The amazon quickly walked off to help him and bring him over.
As she was doing this, Weiss said, "She said that I am too rigid in how I fight. I'm also too slow when it comes to creating glyphs for them to be useful at close range."
"I need to be more careful with my aura, but other than that she said I need more experience to iron out my style." Blake said and Ren nodded saying that he got the same assessment. As they were speaking, Jaune was dragged over by the persistent redhead.
"What about you, Yang?"
"She said that I am too impatient and don't think before I attack." The rest of the group silently agreed with what Goodwitch said. Yang was one of the most hot-headed girls that they had ever met.
"I am not aggressive enough when I fight," Pyrrha informed them. "Other than that, I'll know what I need to fix when I get my rank tomorrow."
Jaune stayed silent throughout the conversation until Harry clapped a hand on his back. "Don't worry, Jaune," He said to the boy, "I watched the fight and all you need to do is to believe in yourself more. You hesitate when you strike and block, which is what threw you off. That and you need to practice using your aura, but I'm sure that Pyrrha will be happy to help you with that." Harry winked at the amazon who was starting to blush.
Jaune the ever oblivious boy turned to the girl and asked, "Really? You would do that?" His answer was a shy nod from Pyrrha.
Yang suddenly interjected. "We having been dancing around for long enough! I want to hear what was up with your fight Mr. Soul Thief."
"I fought Ozpin...That's it. I need to work on my aura manipulation and fix some of the smaller errors in my swordsmanship. Later today, I will go to the target range and have my shooting tested." Harry was trying to fight off a grin at the looks on their faces. He knew that they wanted to hear about how he got as proficient as he was, but it was such a great opportunity to mess with them that he could not, not take it. Surprisingly enough it was not Yang to blow her top and try to get him to answer, but Ruby.
"How were you able to move so fast, it took me years to reach that speed and several more to be able to even use it." Harry supposed that it was a matter of pride for the small girl.
"Well before I unlocked my aura I went through special training for my muscles. What are the ways that you know to increase your speed and strength?" Harry asked.
"Lift weights and run and keep doing it until you get faster and can lift more." Harry nodded his head and waited for her to continue.
When she noticed that he was waiting for more she asked, "Is there another way?" light shining in her eyes, the thought of becoming even faster danced around her head..
"Well yes, while i did build up muscles like you did to get faster, I also forced them to work harder and output more power too. The downside is that it destroys one's muscles almost beyond repair." She immediately deflated and the rest gave him a questioning look. "I had a very short period of time to learn how to fight the way I do. So I took shortcuts that ruined my body. I practised every day for 11 hours, over two and a half years which were followed by a year of almost constant combat to get to where I am. When you all first met me, I was wasting away with probably a couple of years left of being able to walk. That was the price I paid to be able to fight like that." Harry was not exaggerating either, Himura was able to limit the damage done because he would fight sparingly and have long periods of rest in between that Harry could not afford. Harry's method of repairing muscles was good, but not foolproof and could not fix all his muscles completely. Slowly, but surely the damage that could not be fixed kept increasing as he went along, but Harry was not able to stop and let his body take a break. "However luckily when my aura unlocked, it was able to fix the damages I had done to my body."
The entire group was in a state of shock, Harry clapped his hands to bring them back to reality.
"Why would you do that?" Jaune asked horrified.
"Because it was necessary at the time. Anyway It does not matter anymore, it's over and done with and now I am as healthy as a hippogriff." The group wanted to continue questioning him, but over the last couple weeks of getting to know the black haired teen. They found that if he did not wish to talk about something, then he would not talk about it.
The rest of the time they spent together was just them watching the remaining battles, talking about small things like class and just hanging out. Somehow during the conversation, Ruby and Nora got into a friendly argument about which is better, strength or speed. Everyone was eventually drawn into the argument and had to take sides. It ended with Harry, Ruby, Ren, Blake, and Weiss in the side of speed, against Pyrrha, Nora, Yang, Jaune on the side of strength.
"...What is the point of dancing around like a twinkle toes if I can knock people through a building?" Yang eloquently put.
"It does not matter if you can do that if you can't hit your target," Harry interjected. That was the conversation that Goodwitch walked into.
"I think that a balance between the two is what one should strive for in combat," Glynda said from behind Ruby, making her squeak in fright. She darted behind Weiss and peered over her shoulder to see who snuck up on her. "We need to test your ability to shoot that rifle of yours. Your friends may come if they wish." She spun on her heels and walked towards one of the exits.
The two teams followed the blonde haired teacher out of the auditorium and to one of the fields that surrounded that school. On the field was a couple dozen targets and past that were a few that were more than a hundred yards away.
Glynda stopped right next to a marked out circle where Harry assumed that he would be placed. "The closest targets are for the speed trial while the one's farther out is for range. Each of the targets have a damage gauge to see how much damage is done when one is hit. Please stand in this circle and fire when you're ready." She took a step back next to the two teams and was watching the scroll that seemed to always be in her hand. Harry drew out his rifle and started running his occlumency exercises to calm himself down and focus on his task.
It was a neat little trick he picked up from some guy named Henry, who was a great duelist. He taught Harry that meditating before a fight would help immensely and after Harry tried it out, he found it worked wonders for his concentration. After he had finished his rituals, Harry quickly brought up his rifle and started firing his high caliber rifle at each target as fast as he could. The loud booms from his rifle and the gusts of air that blew against his face were ignored, as he shot at the targets. It only took him a quarter of a minute to put all two dozen targets down with a hole in them. After that was done, he dropped into a prone position and started to find the longer ranged targets.
The first one was only a hundred yards out and was blown apart as soon as his crosshairs rested on it. The next was another hundred yards farther out and the pattern followed as he continued to hit each one as fast and accurately as he could. He finally reached the last one. It was almost a mile and a half away and from what Harry understood from dust weapons. They were not supposed to be able to go that far. He sensed a certain grey haired man had a role in its placement.
Harry adjusted his sights to compensate for the wind and distance, and had the runes engraved on the scope activate so that he could zoom in further and see the target clearly. A second later, the bullet had left the barrel and was on it's way to the center of the target. Harry let out the breath that he had been holding and packed up his gun.
He turned to find that most of the group, even Goodwitch had a look of shock on her faces. She was staring wide eyed at the scroll in her hand.
Ruby summed up all their thoughts in one sentence, "That was loud, but awesome!" The rest of the group gave various sounds of agreement.
Goodwitch cleared her throat. "Well you scored perfect on the long range portion, but you were slower than average on the rapid fire. Overall you did wonderfully." She stated still stunned over the numbers that were being shown on her scroll, "You will get your rank and report the same time as everyone. Have a nice day everyone," She then left the teams standing there in the middle of the field.
"You are going to show me your weapons, Harry." Ruby ordered with a glint in her eye. Instead of handing over Sudden Death. He casted a duplication spell on one of the pistols that he kept in his boot. He did not duplicate Sudden Death because of all the runes and magic that went into the rifle. He unloaded all the rounds from the pistol so that she would not hurt herself and tossed it over to her. "Have at it," He gave her a brief explanation of the safety features the gun had before letting her tinker with it. He warned her that the gun would fade after a day and if she wanted to continue, she just had to ask for another.
"Now then, I am hungry so lets go eat." and as if on cue, all of their stomachs rumbled.
The group went off to the dining hall and grabbed some of the food the school was serving. It was not as fancy as the food served in Hogwarts, but not everyone could have an army of house elves toiling away in the kitchen to feed an entire school population.
When they sat at a table, everyone started doing their own thing. Ruby was still distracted by the pistol replica that Harry gave her, Blake had her face buried deep in a book and Jaune was sitting in his chair thinking.
Nora started to tell about some adventure that she and Ren went on. At least he thought that it was an adventure they had. It sounded like something that Port would tell. "So! There we were, in the middle of the night..."
"It was day." Ren corrected her
"We were surrounded by Ursi..." She tried to add a storyteller's lilt to her voice, but failed miserably.
"They were Beowolves."
"Dozens of them!" She screamed and stood up on her seat. Yang seemed to be half listening to the story, but everyone else continued doing what they had been doing. Only Harry and Pyrrha were politely listening, but she kept glancing at Jaune out of the corner of her eye so Harry could tell that she did not have her heart in it. Ren did not count because he was forced into helping tell the story.
"Two of 'em." Ren sighed out exasperated at her embellishments.
"But they were no match for us... And in the end, Ren and I took them down and made a boatload of Lien selling Ursa skin rugs!"
Ren sighed again and stated "She's been having this recurring dream for nearly a month now." Nora looked put out at having her adventure be discounted. Then she noticed that everyone else was looking over at Jaune.
"Jaune, are you okay?" Pyrrha asked him with her hand on his shoulder.
Jaune was snapped out of his daze when she asked the question and was startled to find that everyone was looking at him. "What? Oh yeah, I'm fine." He gave them a weak thumbs up and a anxious laugh.
"Are you sure?" Pyrrha asked, "You don't look so good,"
Suddenly the sounds of people laughing drifted over to the table. All of them looked over to find team CRDL surrounding a girl with rabbit ears, making fun of her.
"Jaune, is this about Cardin? I know that he has been picking on you since the beginning of the year."
"Who? Cardin Winchester? Nah... He just likes to mess around! You know, practical jokes!" Jaune said trying to play off the bullying like it was nothing.
"Jaune, I know practical jokes. Hell I used to be friends with some of the biggest pranksters in my old school and I know the things that he does, are not jokes. He is a bully." Harry gently said. Jaune was doing the same thing that he used to do and down play his problems to not bother others.
"Oh, please. Name one time that he has bullied me." Jaune tried to deny what Harry was saying, but others in the group started to tell about how Cardin had been bullying him. They told about the normal stuff like him getting him stuck in doorways and pushing his books to the floor, however the worst was when Jaune was pushed into a rocket propelled locker and launched out of the school. "I did not land that far from the school," Jaune said trying to laugh it off. It clearly was not working for both him and his friends. They could obviously see that he had a problem with Cardin, but did not want to bother them.
"If you ever need help Jaune. You can just ask us." Pyrrha offered with Ren nodding. Nora even went so far as to hop up on the table with a demented smile on her face.
"I know what we can do." the orange haired menace announced, "We can break his legs!" Yang raised her fist in agreement.
"Guys it is fine. It is not like he is just a jerk to me, he is a jerk to everyone." Jaune said. Suddenly the sounds of silverware hitting the ground and cries of pain came from where team CRDL was.
"Ow! Please stop!" The rabbit faunus cried out. "That hurts!" the students that surrounded them looked away from the blatant bullying.
"I told you they were real!" Cardin said to the gathered bullies. His voice carrying over the hall.
Harry was not going to interfere until he heard Russell's reply. "What a freak!" The word 'freak' was always one of his triggers. It was a constant reminder about his care under the Dursley's. Harry noticed that Nora was about to get up to help the faunus, but Harry stopped her.
"Nora, you can't break his legs." Nora looked saddened that she could not use her hammer on someone. Yang was about to speak up, but was cut off by Harry. "Bullies like him won't learn that way. You need to make a lasting impression and I know how to do that." Harry stepped away from the table and made his way over to the rabbit faunus and Cardin. Eyes from various tables followed his trek down the hall to the group.
"Please, listen to the lady and let go of her," Harry said when he arrived at the table. All of them turned to look at him, but Cardin did not let go of her ears, he even tightened his grip on them causing the brunette to let out a gasp of pain.
"Look it's another one of those freaks!" Russell said, getting right up into Harry's face. "So did your mother like to sleep with animals too? Or maybe it was your father," An aura enhanced punch had him doubled over and a knee to the face kept him from getting back up. All because Harry was pants at fighting hand to hand did not mean that he couldn't. He could brawl, but that was about it.
The cries of pain got everyone's attention. The hall suddenly going quiet after Harry brought his foot down on Russell's arm, shattering it with his heel. Russell curled up in a ball, taking deep breaths to try and ease the pain.
"Don't you ever talk about my parents like that again, or I will rip out your tongue! " Harry snarled out the teen on the ground. After Harry finished glaring at him, he straightened out his suit jacket and plastered a gentlemanly front on his face. The calm inviting smile that graced his face caused a shiver to go down everyone's spine. What made it worse was the splatter of blood that had landed his face and the icy green eyes. "Now that, that unpleasantness is out of the way. What do you say to letting go of her ears? You would not like it if something of yours was hurt, would you." The subtle threat in his voice seemed to go over Cardin's head.
"Why should I, freaks like you do not deserve anything better." He sneered at Harry, whose smile was getting more and more sinister as it went along. "After I am done with her, I am going to have to teach you a-" The rest of his sentence was cut off when his throat was grabbed by a hand covered in black smoke and then lifted into the air. His hand letting go of the faunus' ears and grabbing onto the hand that was crushing his throat.
"No, Cardin. It is me who is going to teach you something." Harry growled, he flashed some of his fangs with a sadistic grin, at Cardin, who whimpered in fear.
Dove seemed to take that as a cue to try and attack Harry from the side, but with a wave of Harry's hand and a silently cast bone breaker curse, the arm that he cocked back to punch gave a loud crack and bent in the wrong direction. He dropped to his knees in agony, clutching his newly broken arm. Harry's eyes never left Cardin's. "I can do much worse then that, so remember. Do not bully anyone again. If you do, I will find out about it, and I will find out. Then I will come back and when I do... there will be no third time." With that threat, Harry dropped Cardin on top of the whimpering Dove. He looked over to see Sky backing up slightly with his hands raised in defeat.
"You're a monster!" Cardin accused him as he rolled off of Dove.
Harry was silent for a moment before saying, "Cardin, you do not know monsters," Harry watched with dispassionate eyes as Cardin and Dove dragged themselves out of the room with Sky trying to carry Russell without further injuring him.
Harry may have seem calm on the outside, but he was berating himself on the inside. He had more control than that, years of meditating should have fixed those outbursts, yet one or two words set him off. A small voice in his head said that it was still a better reaction than before. He used to kill any death eater that spoke about his parents like that in a particularly gruesome way. He resolved to better work on his self-control and get a handle of his returning aggression. He just hoped that he could manage it.
"Come along, my dear." Harry said to the faunus. Wiping the blood from his face with a napkin he grabbed from the table. "You can sit with us." She cautiously nodded and followed Harry to his table.
"My name is Harry Potter-Black," He introduced himself as they made their way back to the table.
"I'm Velvet Scarlatina, thank you for helping me." The brown haired girl carefully told him and his friends.
"No problem," Harry said as they joined up with the rest of the group. "I have been wanting to do that for awhile."
After a round of introductions from the table, Blake skeptically asked him. "That is how you deal with bullies?"
"Well yeah," Harry said as he speared a potato, "You got to make them fear you enough that they listen to you. Why do you think that I have Soul Thief stitched to the back of my long coat. It is not because I am proud of the name or how I got it."
"How did you get it?" Ruby asked with her eyes full of curiosity.
Harry reached over and rubbed the top of her head, much to her annoyance. "That is not a story to tell while we are eating." Ruby pulled out the puppy dog eyes, but they did not work this time. After realizing that it failed, she pouted and turned back to playing with the gun. The hall slowly went back to normal and Harry's own table decided to try and get to know the new faunus.
"So where was your team?" Yang asked her.
Velvet was slow to reply. Eventually she shyly said, "My team and I do not exactly get along. So I usually eat alone."
"Well that won't do! You can sit with us whenever you want." Velvet hesitantly nodded at Yang's offer.
Nora suddenly jumped up and said, "Yay! A new friend!" She leaned over the table and wrapped a shocked Velvet into a tight hug. She started to rapid fire questions at a flustered girl, not giving her any time to respond. Everyone just looked on in amusement as the girl tried to deal with Nora.
Suddenly everyone went quiet and Harry felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to find that Goodwitch was standing behind him with an irritated look on her face. "I can't leave you alone for more than an hour without you causing trouble. Get up, we are going to the headmaster's office." Harry said his farewells to the group and followed the teacher down the hall.
"I just had Mr. Winchester and his team all come into the infirmary with broken bones, and Mr. Winchester with a partially collapsed windpipe. All of them are saying that you did it, do you have anything to say for yourself?" She stopped and turned to the black haired student.
"I do not regret doing what I did, ma'am." He said honestly, "Winchester and his gang were bullying Velvet for no reason beyond that she was born different then them. It was disgusting and had to be stopped."
"He seemed to have left that part out of his report, however we have faculty to deal with issues like that." she replied. "Mr. Winchester would have been handled by them."
"I was waiting for someone to intervene for several minutes. It was not until they became physically violent did I involve myself." Harry said as they started walking again.
"When it got to that point, you should have just informed a faculty member. We would have handled it."
"Yes you would, but how much damage could be done in the time that it takes for me to go get one and get back." Harry said. They had finally reached the headmaster's office. Harry stepped into it to find that Ozpin was perched in his tall chair working on some paperwork.
he looked up when the duo entered the room. "Well this is an unexpected surprise, I thought that you had classes today Harry."
"He is not here for a social visit today," Goodwitch told him. "Mr. Potter here, put three of the members of team CRDL in the infirmary a couple of minutes ago with severe injuries."
"Tell me what happened," Harry then began his story. He told of all the events that happened starting from when he first saw the bullying and finished with him inviting Velvet to his table.
Ozpin took off his glasses and wiped them on his sleeve before saying anything. "You know that I can not let you off for this right. I can't have people think that it is okay to do this kind of thing no matter what the reason is. That being said you will serve detention with Ms. Goodwitch here after school for the next couple weekend."
"I understand and I am fine with that, sir," Harry said.
Ozpin nodded, "You are dismissed, please report to the auditorium for detention. Other then that, I will see you later for some tea. Make sure that you bring some of those tea leaves from last time. I particularly enjoyed those." Harry smiled and left in a rush to get to his next class on time.
"Aren't you being too easy on him," Glynda said to her boss. "He put three people in the hospital and all he gets is a couple days of detention."
"Glynda, I can not punish him too harshly for helping another student." Ozpin said as he looked out his window. "What picture would that paint. That we don't want students helping those in need and allow bullying? I don't want chaos in my school so I have to find a happy medium."
Harry arrived in his next class with barely any time to spare. he found that his team had saved him a seat in the middle of the room. The wolven faunus noticed that Velvet was sitting in the row with them and Jaune was across the room and in front of surprisingly, Cardin. He was a bit worse for wear though.
His neck was covered in a white brace and his clothing was ruffled from his and Harry's little exchange in the dining hall. Cardin looked at him with hate radiating off of him, but Harry brushed it off and went over to his team. The classroom, much like it had been since he first entered it was a mess. There were papers, maps, notes, and all manner of junk littering the room. On the front board was a map with papers pinned to each part which detailed the basics of each country and a brief synopsis of their history. It was only after Harry had barely taken a seat and reassured the girls that he would tell them what happened after class, did the green haired teacher come into the classroom. The first time that Harry had saw the man, he thought that he was teleporting around the room, but that theory was later shot down when he saw the man down three cups, not shots...cups, of straight espresso in under a minute. The man just moved too fast to see. Bartholomew Oobleck opened the class like how he usually did. He grabbed a whole bunch of notes from his desks and quickly read through them at speeds that should not be possible to remind himself of what he was teaching. Oobleck was a naturally disorganized and scatter-brained person and his caffeine addiction multiplied that tenfold so he would almost constantly have to remind himself of what he was teaching.
"Good morning class," He announced to get everyone's attention. "Today we will be learning about the Faunus Rights Revolution, more popularly known as The Faunus War!" He disappeared from his desk and appeared in front of the map on the board with a pointer in hand. "Humankind was quite, quite adamant about centralizing Faunus population in Menagerie." He smacked the pointer onto the southeast continent where the Menagerie was presumable located. He disappeared momentarily and reappeared as he finished off the last of the coffee in his mug and refilled it with the syrup like expresso.
"Now! While this must feel like ancient history to many of you, it is imperative to remember that these are relatively recent events! Why, the repercussions of the uprising can still be seen to this day!" As he was speaking, he kept disappearing and reappearing throughout the front of the room in no particular order. "Now! Have any among you been subjugated or discriminated because of your Faunus heritage?" Harry looked around the room, as did many of the others in the class to see who raised their hands. Almost every faunus in the class raised their hands, including Velvet. Oobleck suddenly appeared in front of Harry and got in his personal space. He had to restrain his instinct to send a banishing charm at the quick footed man.
"How about you?" the man asked as he guzzled his coffee, "Have you ever been discriminated for having wolf ears?" Harry hesitantly nodded with a raised eyebrow at the man, who was standing a bit too close for comfort.
The man disappeared again and came back into view in front of the class. "Dreadful, simply dreadful! Remember, students, it is precisely this kind of ignorance that breeds violence!" He finishes off another cup of espresso as he talks. "I mean... I mean... I mean just look at what happened to White Fang! The formerly peaceful organization is now one of Vale's largest terrorist organizations. Now back to the topic, which one of you young scallions can tell me what many theorize to be the turning point in the third year of the War?" He waits for a reply and sees that Weiss raised her hand to answer the question. "Yes?"
"The battle at Fort Castle." Harry thought that, it had to be the stupidest name for a fort ever, but he was not really one to talk because he used to go to a school with the words hog and warts in it.
"Precisely!" Bartholomew cried out, "And, who can tell me the advantage the Faunus had over General Lagune's forces?"
Harry saw Cardin fold a paper football and was about to flick it at Jaune's head who was too busy taking notes to pay attention to the going ons behind him. Harry silently casted a waddiwasi jinx at the paper football while it was in the air. The piece of folded paper, stopped for a moment while the magic took effect and shot back to where it came from and struck Cardin straight in the forehead.
"Ow," Cardin muttered quietly, but not quiet enough because Oobleck was invading his space a second later.
"Would you like to answer my question, Cardin?" He said, slurping his beverage.
Cardin looked over at Harry and Velvet and said, "Well it is much easier to train an animal than it is a soldier," Oh how Harry wanted to show Cardin his place again, but he restrained himself, he did not want his anger issues to get him into anymore trouble for the day. Ozpin went easy on him the first time, but a second time would not exactly be well received. Oobleck shook his head and rushed back to the front of the class.
"You are not the most open-minded of individuals, are you, Cardin?" Pyrrha said,
He gave his best sneer, but it had nothing on Snape's old one. "What? Do you have a problem?"
Much to Cardin's dismay, she replied, "No, I have the right answer. It's night vision, many faunus are known to have near perfect sight in the darkness." Cardin growled at being showed up in front of the class.
The black haired girl next to her picked up where Pyrrha let off, "General Lagune was inexperienced, and made the mistake of trying to ambush the Faunus in their sleep. His massive army was outmatched, and the general was captured." Blake turned to Cardin and said the not so subtly disguised insult, "Perhaps if he'd paid attention in class, he wouldn't have been remembered as such a failure."
"Quite right you are," Oobleck said, "Lagune was indeed unprepared. His poor planning lead to the death of hundreds of people and his loss spelled the beginning of the end for the war. Let this all be a lesson to you," He took a sip of his coffee and seriously stated, "Information can be as helpful, but also as deadly as any weapon. Mr. Winchester, I want you to stay after class to discuss some things."
The rest of the class continued with no hiccups, well unless you count Oobleck running out of espresso and leaving the class for several seconds to pick up another thermos from his office down the hall. After class finished everyone was leaving to grab a quick bite to eat from the cafeteria before heading back to the dorms, or in Harry's case to the training fields to work on some techniques he had been dying to try out. Pyrrha had another idea and dragged Jaune away to talk to him somewhere.
"Pyrrha, I know I'm going through a hard time right now, but I'm not that depressed." He jokingly said as he peered over the edge of the roof to the ground far below them.
Pyrrha looked at him for a second like he had gone mad before horror at what he was implying crossed her face. "N-n-no!" She grabbed a laughing Jaune's arm and pulled him away from the edge. His face flushed bright red, because of where Pyrrha had placed his arm.
"Pyrrha..." He did not know how to go about having her release his arm without embarrassing her, "Can you let go of my arm, it is sort of distracting?" She looked down and "eep'd" with a blush reddening her cheeks and let go.
"That's not why I brought you up here!" She tried to catch herself and get back on track. "Jaune, I know you're very smart, but not one of the strongest of fighters, so... I want to help you!"
"Wh-what?" Jaune said surprised.
"We can train up here after class where no one can bother us!" Pyrrha said, She was secretly hoping he would agree so that she could spend some more time with him alone.
Jaune decided to mess with her a bit and said with a large grin "So you want me all alone and to yourself, I did not know you were so forward Ms. Nikos."
"N-no! No, that's not what I meant." The blush that was bright enough to rival the sun was not really helping her case.
"But you just said it." Jaune kept prodding her. He would never think of teasing anyone before he arrived at the school, but having a group of friends that encouraged him did wonders for his confidence, at least for anything outside of fighting.
"Fine," Pyrrha said, "If you do not want my help then I may be able to get Nora to help you."
"You would do that to me?" Jaune gasped in exaggerated horror his hand over his heart. "Nora would kill me, if that is how it is, than I will have to accept your proposition."
"Well I guess that you have to," Pyrrha said with a smile,
Unbeknownst to the two of them, just a floor down was Cardin hanging his head out the window, listening to every word that the two said. His face gained an evil smirk and plans started to form in his mind. This was perfect, Russell, Dove, and Sky may have been cowed by the freak, but Cardin was made of sterner stuff and soon if his plans worked. Then he would be able to get his revenge for his humiliation.
(A/N: Hello everyone, that is the end of this chapter of Nothing Left. I hope that you have had a merry Christmas or whatever else you celebrated.
This has to be the longest chapter that i have written to date with over 10k words. I have had writer's block so for the past couple of days, I have tried and failed to write more. Hopefully it should end soon and I can get back to writing again. Now onto some information.
The aggression that Harry has been displaying and his increased sadism. I have several sub-plots floating around my mind for this.
now with Jaune not being useless. The entire thing with Jaune obtaining fake transcripts from the actual show just rubbed me the wrong way. Ozpin seems more responsible than that. He runs a well established academy and does not run background checks on some more high profile characters like an Arc, no, it just does not fit. Jaune from the show is the butt monkey to everyone, his only point is being the comic relief and as much as I like some comic relief, I want Jaune to play a bigger role than just being there. He is the leader of his team and I want him to act like it while also retaining his own charms. He won't be a genius and will make mistakes, but he will not be the idiot that thinks 'binoculars' is a valid answer to why faunus are better than humans.
I appriciate all the reviews and I want to thank everyone of you for sticking with me this long. Have a good day.)
