Hey again everyone! I was taking a break trying to determine the course of the tournament and hoping to get some feedback before I continued. Since I kept getting favorites and no reviews I figured I was doing good.


Chapter 7

The Heir of Ironwood


After the fight had been called I left the arena and walked towards where Serena's fight is supposed to take place. Serena was already in the waiting area so I did not see her. The spectator area was curved around the arena similar to many sports arenas. Of course there were stalls all over the place selling goods, food and the lines which never seemed to decrease. I guess the Atlas student tournament was extremely popular to come watch. I wonder if the people who saw my fight were disappointed by the speed of the battle it only lasted around fifteen seconds after all. Looking through the glass I could see two students fighting. Glancing at my pamphlet my next match would not start until round one finished. If each fight was between ten to thirty minutes, I have a long break… I watched the two students fight each other fiercely. One of them wielded something like a morning star but it had holes at interesting locations. Just when a standard attack would come at you, suddenly his attack would gain massive speed as he fired off a dust round or another time it would stop and blast you backwards with a dust round. It was quite a good weapon all things considered.

The only reason I did not favor using dust rounds as much as others did is because I had developed my aura strike skill and a couple others for long range and frankly, my abilities hit way harder. Still I lacked one major element others could capitalize upon immensely, I lacked a proper semblance. While I could gain skills at extremely abnormal rates it was technically the same skill anyone could learn. One day I knew I was going to run into a hunter who knew just as much as I did but also had a semblance. Although I hoped my stats would far surpass theirs and make up for the difference. Or perhaps I simply needed some gear. Gamers are usually pretty weak without their legendary items and the only item I still had was the vest I was wearing. Granted the vest gives me amazing bonuses with that 20% damage reduction but it still did not boost my attack damage or anything else and eventually as I kill more powerful Grimm it should give me better ideas.

After a short while the battle finished up. The morning star user managed to chip away at his opponent's aura until his victory was called. Then there were several brief couple minutes as someone ran onto the field and he started returning the arena to its original state before the battle began. Using observe I could see that he had an earth controlling semblance allowing him to shift great quantities of earth. Somehow he wound up as the arena reset guy. Personally I would hate that. Then it was Serena's match. The competitors walked out from opposite sides and prepared for battle. I saw aura swirling around Serena as she must be preparing to jump the moment the battle begins. Using observe on her opponent, James, I could see that he utilizes a moment impairing semblance. It seems like he ejects clumps of aura that sticks to users. The question remains if it would prevent Serena from teleporting or if it will be ineffective here.

The bell rings out and Serena vanishes from sight reappearing a distance away on his right. She shoots off a dust round and then teleports to her opponents left shooting another dust round that uses ice dust. On contact, James becomes covered in a frosty nip and I could see he was struggling to break some ice at his feet. Serena however, did not give him the chance. Appearing behind him she performed a hit combo shaving away at his aura. The force of her strikes rips her opponent free from the ice and sends him flying. Serena moves to pursue but then falls on her face. Looking at her I could see that sticky aura was spread on the ground and had completely gripped her body to the dirt ground. It was all over her sword as well. In fact every slash at James made the aura fling off in globs and stick all over the place.

While she attempted to free herself James had recovered standing to his feet and turned his weapon towards her. He utilizes a high powered halberd that could fold into an axe if he needed. At the joint it had a high powered rifle equipped he used for long range presumably. James shot off several shots nailing Serena in the back. At this point Serena teleported across the arena to the other wall. When my eyes caught up I could see she was still covered in the gooey aura and it was restricting her movements. That is probably a just barely better then worst case scenario there… James eyes flickered around the arena searching for her. Upon discovering her location he brought his rifle to bear and let it rip firing off shot after shot. I would probably do the same thing. The chances of reaching a teleporter before she teleported is quite slim. Serena disappeared after the first shot and continued struggling against the goo elsewhere. I saw her aura spike and suddenly all the goo attached to her flung off like it was repulsed by a magnet. Her aura also dropped a decent amount and I wonder if that was worth it. Then the fight settled into a long range warfare. Serena knew better then to close in and attack and James could not get close even if he wanted to. However as the fight progressed more of James aura started coating the floor of the arena as he systematically moved whenever an area was sufficiently covered.

Finally Serena teleported to the last zone left to be coated and James dashed towards her. They both had about half their total aura left and one really good swing or a few decent hits from either could toss them into the red. Serena teleported right before James swipe connected and appeared behind James. I saw her sword glow quite bright as she forced tons of aura into her weapon and swung at James. James rolled forward probably assuming it was the safest direction and Serena narrowly missed. Serena did not look too perturbed though as she dashed forward lunging at James while he recovered from his roll. James brought his weapon up to block at the last moment but clearly the blow hurt as he flew backwards into the wall.

In training, Serena had not decided to raise her strength instead she continued raising her INT and WIS and then utilized her abundant aura to strengthen her attacks. Of course such a strong hit had covered Serena in James aura again. I could see her scowling as she tried to raise her weapon up to continue firing at James. Utilizing her aura she forced her weapon to raise and started hammering away at James. Her first shot was an ice round and latched him harder against the wall hitting his legs and both arms with subsequent shots. Her next shots were all fire rounds as she started hammering his chest over and over. Then a strange thing happened as I saw James recover from his disorientating introduction to the wall, his aura sitting at his feet oozed up in a wall in front of him shielding him from Serena's ranged attacks. While James continued to remove his ligaments from the ice that had him stuck to the wall, Serena frowned as she noticed the wall continued to remain no matter how much she hammered it with shots. Instead she returned her attention to herself and carefully began removing the gooey aura from herself like using a scalpel. By the time she finished James was on his feet shooting at her while using his shield to defend. Serena was nimbly dodging by rolling and teleporting but it was clear who would win at this pace. Then Serena leapt onto the gooey aura on the floor in order to dodge. However it did not slow her in the least. I glanced at her feet and saw that she was using her aura to repel his. It did not seem to be draining her that quickly and with a nod she vanished appearing behind James. James eyes widened as he felt that sword stab hard into his back sending him forward across the arena. Serena utilized the same technique to prevent the aura from sticking to her and followed with a teleport. She pursued James mercilessly, dodging his strikes and teleporting to his blind spots until finally his aura hit the red and the fight was called.

You have leveled up!
You have leveled up!
You have leveled up!
You have leveled up!

It had been a close fight. Serena was barely above the red herself keeping all the gooey aura off herself was quite taxing. Before the next match could begin everyone had to wait for James to clean up his aura because no one could walk properly in the stuff. Serena must have noticed me because she teleported to my side as soon as she was released from her battle.

"Hey" she said.

"Hey" I replied. "Nicely done. I was sure you would lose until you managed to start repelling that aura during the fight at the end there."

"I had it perfectly in hand." She responded succinctly "Sure I was mildly worried the first time but as the fight progressed I was confident I could handle his semblance."

"Sureeeee" I drawled. "You looked pretty panicked every time that stuff covered you."

She crossed her arms and glared at me as I chuckled.

"Did the others lose or win?" She finally asked breaking the glare. I glanced at the monitor in the waiting area showing the other battles progress and looked for Aaron and Jon's name. Normally we would watch each fight but Serena, Jon, and Aaron all had a fight at the same time. Sadly it seemed they had both lost already.

"It seems they lost" I replied

Serena frowned "I figured it would turn out like that. While they had the fastest growth of any fighter I have ever seen it was not enough to close the gap to these practically full blown hunters."

"mhm" I replied sadly. "We will just have to pick up the slack and make sure we make the finals. There is still the team competition after this to determine the best team to tackle the team rounds."

"Quite so! We aren't out of the individuals yet and there is always the team competition. In the meantime I'm starving after that battle and let's get something to eat!" Serena said happily

We moved towards the food stalls and picked some food and chowed down. Considering Aaron and Jon had not come to find us they were probably sulking somewhere about their losses. As we ate, the matches rolled by until finally our opponents had been decided. My next opponent to face is Craven Ironwood and then Serena was facing Octavian Fisk.

"Hmm I wonder if Craven's related to James Ironwood the headmaster/general/military dictator here." I mused.

"Maybe" She chuckled "But I wouldn't let anyone else hear you call the headmaster a military dictator…"

"Mm" I grunted in agreement. This time our matches were at the same time. "Make sure to win and I will see you in the finals."

She nodded "I will. You better make sure you win."

Then we headed off to our different waiting areas and waited for the matches to begin. Then Craven walked in and I gulped.

-The Heir of Ironwood-
Craven Ironwood
Level 140

HP: 89051
MP: 56632
STR: 205
VIT: 223
DEX: 129
INT: 103
WIS: 89
LUK: 0

Well. This was going to be fun.