Hello all! Are you ready too see Harry test his new skills? I sure am!
You'll have to bare with me over the next few weeks, Masters exams are no joke apparently! I'll try and get you out a chapter a week still, then a more regular schedule again once exams are done.
Enjoy!
Team JNPR had one their fight handily, in the end not a single member of the team, not even Jaune, had been eliminated in their fight. Harry had also learned to be very, very scared of Nora, and to never, ever hit her with anything electrical. Team SSSN had also got through, though the margin was much closer than JNPRs. In a day of surprises, Harry had also learnt that Neptune, the ultimate smooth sailor, was afraid of water.
Dinner had come and gone, and the majority of students had retired to the dorms the days excitement. Team RWBY however were currently in the schools largest sparring gym, their auras had been linked to the big screen by a small, ingestible pill that wore off after half an hour and there were just about ready to begin.
Initially, Harry had been very confused by the choice of Weiss and Yang for the doubles round. Surely there were other combinations that made more sense? Yang and Blake, or Weiss and Ruby would've been his first thought, given that as partners they surely worked even better together than any other combination. The more he fought about it however, the more it made sense. Weiss and Yang seemed to cancel each other's weaknesses, Yang could take and dish the damage that Weiss could not, and the heiress provided unmatched versatility and precision with her semblance and use of dust.
"And you're sure it doesn't explode anymore?" Blake asked nervously as she loaded ice dust into Gambol Shroud.
Harry chuckled. "No, it still explodes, but I have to actually be holding it for a few seconds at this point. Whatever's causing it seems to be diminishing, albeit slower than I'd like."
"Alright team and Harry, listen up!" Ruby called from the centre of the room. "Today's match is Yang and Weiss vs Ruby, Blake and Harry!"
"We don't need an announcer you dolt, let's just get this started so we can actually get some practice in." Weiss snapped at the younger girl.
"Right, Blake and Harry will start, and I'll tag in as necessary. The goal of this session is to test Yang and Weiss's teamwork! Let's go!" Ruby zoomed away with her semblance, and just like that the match had started.
He and Blake had already agreed to try and separate the two girls from the beginning, to see how they would react to being unable to fight as a team. Blake would take Weiss to start, and that meant Harry was left with Yang. The blonde brawler smirked cockily as she stood opposite him and gave Harry a cheeky wink as Ruby called for the match to begin.
Harry started quick. Summoning his energy into his legs, he leapt across the sparring floor, closing the distance between himself and Yang rapidly. Normally he'd have fought her from a distance, but his lack of ranged weapon didn't allow for that strategy. Yang, smile still on her face, reacted quickly, and unleashed several blasts towards him from her gauntlets.
It was now or never, the moment of truth and trial by fire as it was. Harry brought his hand up before him, summoning his magical shield. "Protego!" he cried. It wasn't necessary anymore to use words, but it seemed to help him concentrate on the spell in the split seconds where it mattered. He was working to break the habit, but it would take time.
The shield held firm, and a cloud of smoke kicked up from the impact of the blasts against it. Harry carried on his forward charge, hidden in the smoke. He leapt high in the air to make his final attack, catching Yang by surprise as he descended on her from above.
"How?" Yang asked as she rolled away from his strike. She hadn't seen him dodge the blasts, and his aura reading was still at 100, so he hadn't just tanked them either.
"I told you!" said Harry, reviling in his new power. "I have a few tricks up my sleeve!"
Harry pressed his advantage. The speed drills he had spent the past months doing day in day out were paying dividends, and he weaved in and out of Yang's range, striking rapidly against her solid defence. He didn't score a hit, but he was on top for now at least.
One over-extended attack changed that however. Yang grabbed his wrist and flipped him away from her, his breath violently leaving his body as he crashed onto the hard floor. He rolled away from her follow up attack, but he was now firmly on the defensive. He ducked, dodged and dived under the blonde's fists. She had been helping him with this for weeks now, and so he soon spotted one of her patterns. Left, right, kick, right, uppercut, left and… there! Harry parried the strike with his sword, sending the shotgun blast into the floor where he had stood seconds ago. He knew where her next strike was going to come and raised a shield to meet it.
Yang, who had been smirking in seeing his guard open like it had was now shocked as a translucent blue dome of energy stopped her hand from hitting her exposed opponent. It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, but the moment's hesitation was enough.
"Gotcha!" Harry smirked. He ranked his sword against her aura as she skipped away from him, taking it down by a good twenty points.
"What was that!" she cried.
"Spoilers!" Harry replied. He knew that trick wouldn't work again though, and so he switched tactics again. "Blake, switch!" and he leapt backwards, into the spot where moments before Blake and Weiss had been locked sword to sword. Blake was no longer there, so she had clearly heard his command.
He now found himself face to face with Weiss. The girl's eyes widened upon seeing him, but only for a moment. They soon settled back into their usual steely determination, flashing brightly at him.
"I won't hurt you." Harry whispered, just loud enough for her to hear. He still didn't know what had gone down in that workshop, but he needed her to know he would never hurt her intentionally, and this was the first time they had been somewhat alone since then.
"Oh," she said fiercely, "I know you won't."
White glyphs appeared around him, one by one until he was entirely surrounded. Weiss launched herself from one to another, each move faster than the next until Harry couldn't keep up anymore. Once she reached full speed she struck, once, twice, three times. Harry tried to block, but he was simply guessing where she was going to come from, so fast was the white blur.
He glanced at his aura meter, it was going down by the second. Another strike barely missed his throat, scratching his aura level down by another three points. He needed to stop this, and fast. Harry crouched down between attacks and began to focus his magic. He heard the heiress launch off another glyph, no doubt aimed straight at him. Harry summoned a shield around him, encasing himself in a semi-transparent blue dome. He both heard and felt Wiess impact the shield, and the cry she gave as her attack bounced right off it.
"What!" she cried.
Harry did exactly what he'd done to Yang. He pressed his advantage. With another reckless leap he charged his opponent. Weiss darted away, and shot a blast of ice dust at him, which he just about raised Excalibur to block. A black glyph formed at his feet, and he leaped to the side. Weiss however had predicted this, and a second black glyph appeared behind him. Before he could even register it however, he was being struck directly in the chest by the pristine, and very sharp heeled, boots of Weiss Schnee.
Harry fell back through the glyph, and a sound buzzed across the room.
His aura had dropped below fifteen. He was out.
"Ruby!" he called, but it was unnecessary. The red bullet was already streaking towards Weiss, who could only roll away from the attack, avoiding it by a hair's breadth. Blake was faring well against Yang, the two so familiar with each other's style that it was impossible to break the deadlock. Harry's strikes had lowered the blonde's aura however, and so she simply couldn't outlast the combined attacks of Ruby and Blake, who switched up to working as a team to take the two down. Both Blake and Yang had been eliminated by the time Ruby scored the winning hit on Weiss.
"So, err, what was that?" Yang asked Harry as they rested on the cooling floor after the fight.
Harry, of course, knew what she was on about. Still, it would be fun to make them wait a little longer. "What was what?"
"Don't play dumb! That… that thing you did with the… thing!"
"Oh, you mean my semblance?" Harry said nonchalantly. It was the cover story he and Ozpin had come up with. It would do for now, Harry's magic wasn't yet anywhere near that which Ozpin had described others in this world had, and so his simple shield spell could easily pass as a semblance.
"You never mentioned it before? That's so cool! What can you do!" Ruby asked excitedly.
"Well, it just never came up. My semblance is energy projection. I can summon or project energy into shields to take hits I would otherwise be taking." Harry explained. He had rehearsed this in his head since he had decided to use it in combat against RWBY that morning.
"Can you make anything else?" Ruby pressed. "Like in video games! Like… like… Can you push people with it… or move things?"
"It's energy projection you dolt, not telekinesis." Weiss tried to reign the small girl's excitement in. She wouldn't be sleeping for hours if she stayed like this!
Harry gave his own smirk, getting up from the floor and heading to the showers. He couldn't give away all his secrets now, even if he wanted to. He had been warned by Ozpin how rare magic was, how he would be hunted for his powers by dark forces that remained a mystery even to the headmaster. He trusted the members of team RWBY, but some of them, Ruby especially, tended to blurt things out. Still, he could wet their appetite.
"Oh, I'm sure one day I'll be able to do more than shields. It's still quite new, y'know." Harry waved as Ruby's mouth dropped open even further. She tried to splutter out something, but he was already gone.
"Well," Yang said from the floor, "that was a thing."
