The Ghosts of a Wanderer - Chapter 9
"Do you guys here that? What the hell is that noise?" The leader of team CFVY Coco Adel asked, her face distorting into a look of confusion as she looked around the room for whatever was making the strange hissing noise.
Coco's question caught the attention of some of the students around her as they too began listening for the offending sound.
Coco looked at the same entrance used by Goodwitch when she was in the class the year before, she and her team were in the class in order to assist the teacher to demonstrate more advanced attacks and defenses, which would be too difficult for any of the underclassmen.
Only the best teams of the previous year are allowed to assist in other classes, and them being there alone spoke volumes of there ability, alone and as a team.
However the first thing Coco noticed was that during her class the previous year, Goodwitch had never been late to class, in fact she was normally in the classroom before any of her students. The professor had always chastised any students that came in late by telling them they would be awoken the next day an hour after herself, the result was rather comical as the student ended up never sleeping at all, instead cleaning the entirety of the arena and helping Goodwitch with the mountain of paperwork that the crazier students that year had piled up from all of their pranks gone wrong.
Coco was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of something crashing into the center of the arena, causing the entire room to shake, and some students to lose balance and fall to the ground.
As soon as the tremor concluded, all eyes were on the center of the arena where there stood a huge hulking humanoid form, shattered glass rained around it, covered in what looked like thick steel plates, the helmeted figure scanning the room and all of its occupants with an intimidating 'T' shaped visor.
The room seemed to pause in fear of the figure that had fallen into the arena through the skylight, a couple of students reached for there weapons, while others stood frozen in fear.
"I, am James Hardigan," 'James' stated, his helmet distorting his voice and adding a twang of static, "And I, will be your new combat instructor from now on."
At that the class's collective jaws dropped too the floor as 'James' began to pace around the arena, his hands behind his back, and his armor's hydraulic systems making a dull hissing sound every step he took.
"Now that I have introduced myself, out of you all, who is the most skilled student in this room?" James asked, his question surprised many in the room, however many of them unanimously agreed to hesitantly point at Pyhrra in fear of inciting James's wrath.
Pyrrha looked around in surprise and started waving her hands in front of her in order to deny their claims, but before she could say anything, she was interrupted by James.
"Than we will fight, and I will test just how skilled you really are." James stated with a nod, Pyhrra just nodded in defeat and made her way towards the arena.
James and Pyhrra positioned themselves across from each other, while Pyrrha adopted a low crouching combat stance, James pulled a long serrated sword off of his hip and stood casually. Both of the fighters stood at the ready and sized each other up. Pyrrha looked up and down at James and nodded her head in acceptance, her mind taking note that his entire body was covered in a thick layer of steel as she formed an intricate plan in her mind to defeat him.
James looked on at Pyrrha and smiled wickedly, James had come across Pyrrha's file the night before, and too say the least, he was not impressed, in his opinion her moves were too flashy and she always had mercy on her opponents, it confused him, she was such a good fighter, but in the end she always let them live, he reminded himself too ask her in the future.
The two stood and studied each other carefully for a couple of seconds, waiting for the other to make the first move.
As surprising as it may have been, it was Pyrrha who had taken the initiative and attacked, bounding straight for James as she transformed Akoúo̱ into it's Javelin form and threw it at James in hope of distracting him so that she could shield bash him.
Now if James weren't in his armor, he could have easily dodged the throw like a paper airplane, However with the bulkiness of power armor, he had to take the brunt of the damage and ended up with a Javelin embedded inside of the servos of his right arm, effectively putting his dominant arm out of commission.
James commended Pyrrha on her tactically sound move to disarm him as he yanked the weapon from his armor and threw it too the ground. Her plan would have worked if he hadn't have been ambidextrous, after having his dominant arm broken in the middle of firefights, James Learned to fight with both hands quickly.
James began backing up as Pyrrha jumped high in the air in hopes of getting an advantage on her opponent, an attack from above of sorts.
Pyrrha flipped in mid air and nailed a flashy three point landing, with shield in hand, however as soon as she landed she felt the presence of a strange metal disk near her and looked down at the ground in front of her. Only to be greeted by a flashing orange light and a rapid beeping that she somehow not heard in the process of her jump.
It was safe to assumption that the disk was dangerous, so Pyrrha made for a bound to safety in hopes of getting away from it and assessing her situation. She was just a few feet from the disk as it exploded into a ginormous ball of blue electricity. The ball caught her right at the edge of the mine's radius and pumped just a little under 50,000 Volts into her body, causing all of the muscles to tense up, effectively putting her out of the fight in seconds..
Pyrrha fell to the ground with her eyes screwed shut as she cried out in pain, the class gasped in surprise as James held up a single fist to silence them.
James walked up too where Pyrrha laid and assisted her too her feet and back to her seat before moving back to the center of the arena to finish his first and most important lesson.
"What you have just witnessed here today, was a rookie mistake." James said loudly, causing both teams RWBY and JNPR too look at James with surprise, and a select few in anger. *Cough* Jaune *Cough*.
"Ms. Nikos did a flip in mid air, which allowed me the time to plant surprise at her landing point," James paused to let the information sink in, "Had she not been flashy with her jump she would have had the chance to defeated me with some extra effort."
The majority of the class had looks of surprise etched on their faces, mainly because the great Pyrrha Nikos had just been defeated, and by something that seemed so simple.
However Pyrrha did not hold a similar look to the other students, instead she held a small smile on her face as she nodded her head in appreciation, many in the room would think Pyrrha would feel annoyed or upset at the fight, instead Pyrrha felt exactly the opposite, in fact she felt happy that someone had finally shown everyone that she wasn't as untouchable as everyone thought, that she too could made mistakes and learn more.
"Not one of you are invincible, and not one of you are gonna be able to defeat me any time this year. So buckle up buttercups, You're gonna go on a of ass kicking and BULLSHIT!" James finished with a yell, causing the entire class too erupted in laughs at the prospect of the giant steel plated man whom had been so serious at the beginning of class, had actually been a cliché idiot the entire time.
James pulled off his helmet and looked at his new class with his own bright blue eyes, his short black hair covered in sweat with a large smile on his face.
"This success calls for a drink!" James quietly whispered to himself, opening a pouch on the side of his armor to reveal a comically small bottle of whisky for James's power armored hands, a comically small bottle of whisky that he immediately popped the top off of and chugged with vigor before beginning his walk to the arena's exit.
"Oh, and class is dismissed, don't die over the weekend" James said waving his hand above his head while his other hand reached for another comically small bottle of whisky. Seriously where are all of these coming from?
James's statement caused the entire class to begin standing up and begin making for the same exit he was.
Until of course he was stopped by an adorable voice he recognized call his name from behind him.
"James, wait up!" Velvet yelled as she ran in his direction, Yatsuhashi and a guy and girl he didn't recognize following shortly after her.
"Oh, hey Vel, what can I do for ya?" James asked as he turned around to face the bunny faunus and took a large gulp from his new tiny as shit whisky bottle before it was nimbly snatched out of his hands.
"You know this will kill you?" Velvet asked with a faint hint of sadness in her voice, "Promise you'll stop?" she asked, her ears drooping over her back as she looked at him with Puppy eyes? or Bunny eyes? Aww hell I don't know, this is way above my pay grade man.
James groaned as he stared at the adorable face in front of him, as he through through his few options.
Option one was get shit faced, But never having a chance with Velvet, but option two was drink only in his room and have a shot at getting with Velvet. A hard choice for James as he was normally one hundred and ten percent drunk at all times.
James made up his mind as he lowered his head and smiled at Velvet.
"You know I can't say no to that face." James said, causing Velvet too giggle adorably, Yatsuhashi too shiver in fear, and Coco and and Fox's eyes to widen in shock. Would Fox still widen his eyes, I feel like he would, again, this is way above my pay grade.
"Good," Velvet said with an excited smile, "you should come and have dinner with my team and I, It's Fajita Friday™, and Fox makes the best Fajitas!." she explained with a small hop of excitement.
"I'd Love too Vel." James said, smiling cheerfully back at Velvet, he normally wasn't this cheerful, but Velvet's attitude just seemed to ooze out happiness and make him smile like a bloody idiot.
"Awesome, Come to my dorm at seven,' Velvet said, grabbing the hand of Coco as she pulled her confused team leader out of sight before she could object and break down her plans.
James's oblivious smile immediately shrunk into an awkward one as soon as Velvet and her team left the room.
Glynda walked up to James's flank and placed a hand on his shoulder while adopting a look of both anger and warning, her eye twitching every couple of seconds, James was able to easily decrypted the message behind the look.
It was a 'Good luck, but do anything unethical and i'll hunt you down and murder your balls off.' kind of look if he had ever seen one.
James nervously chuckled at the look and began booking it too the student garage in order to store his power armor and repair the damage to the servo system as soon as he could.
'Maybe I should make myself look a little more presentable.' James thought to himself as he strode through the hallways toward his destination.
A/N
WHAT'S THIS? Two chapters in one week, how absurd am I right?
But really, last chapter caught me in a hole of writer's block and depressing shit, but I crawled out of it and came out with ideas galore. While it was some work, and Nuka world took my attention more than a few times, here it is, the second fight scene, James Vs. Pyrrha, a fight of wits and stupid ass bullshit flips, I wanted James to not be super OP, but Pyrrha was taught to fight for the cameras.
At least that's just my opinion.
Now some might say "Well of course Pyhrra doesn't kill it's only a tournament." Just remember that the dense as fuck James still hasn't realized he's in another world, because he's a fucking idiot, and all the tournaments he has ever encountered in the wasteland were things like The Pitt, and The Thorn. Which we all know, aren't exactly the nicest places in the world.
Oh, and James has a hot date, and Glynda is gonna be hovering over his shoulder? Next chapter is gonna be a bit of a cool down chapter, more of that comedy You all know and love.
Anyhow, Thanks for reading and I hope too see you here for the next chapter of 'The Ghosts of a Wanderer', Peace.
Oh, and again, If there is anyone who would like to be my official BETA reader, that would be much appreciated, I try hard to revise this story, but one pair of eyes can only do so much.