So before I begin, I need to apologise. Looking back at some of my past reviews I've noticed that there are some questions that I haven't answered, so I'm answering them all right here.
Tejerina: Yes. Honestly surprised that was the reference you noticed.
Guest: I've said it before and I'll say it again. No, the RWBY cast will not be getting Pokémon unfortunately.
UltimateDeku: While it's an interesting idea that even Greninja brought up, Kai will be the only one with aura, not his Pokémon.
Lone Wolves: Honestly that's just a coincidence. My only experience with Fire Emblem was when I played through the first third of Awakening, so I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough to make a Fire Emblem Fan Fiction.
Alright, sorry for the delay. Without further ado, let's get the first chapter of this new arc rolling.
-Afternoon, Beacon Academy-
October 13th
After arriving in Hoenn I immediately headed to Mt Pyre, a location said to hold the key to controlling the legendary Pokémon of the sea and the land. However the mountain was much more dreadful than I ever could have predicted. The mountain served home to a Pokémon cemetery where the locals would pay respects. Up until now I had not even comprehended the idea of Pokémon dying, I had always envisioned them as magnificent creatures that would live forever unless killed by outside forces, similar to how Grimm could live for hundreds or years without tiring. Regardless, I made my way through and reached the top where a couple waited for me, guarding two peculiar coloured orbs. However they would not let me pass any further, I explained my situation to them but still they refused, stating how the power of the legendary Pokémon wouldn't help me. It was infuriating! I was not going to abuse their power for malicious deeds, my heart was pure and yet I was forced away. I do not know what my next move is, but I hope that the next people I meet are more hospitable.
Under the entry was a drawing of Mt Pyre, a Pokémon tombstone and the two orbs, one with a 'Ω' symbol and one with a 'α' symbol. Kai stared at them with intrigue from inside an empty lecture theatre as he took a sip from a bottle of water. An alarm went off and Kai checked his scroll to see a timer at 00:00:00.
"Breaks over." Kai muttered to himself and he sighed as he put his scroll in his pocket and his book in his bag. From across the table he saw his personal project.
It looked like a pair of black mechanical arms. The hands were more of a grey colour and had four segmented fingers and a thumb on each hand. On the back of each hand was a glass dome and on the hands palm was what looked like a round camera shutter.
Kai walked up to the arms and looked at them for a brief minute. "Where were we?" He said to himself before taking a deep breath.
'Come on Kai if you don't finish this you will fail. If you fail then you will most likely be kicked out of this school. If you do that you will die! You will leave your family all alone, you will disappoint everyone, and-' Kai continuously gave himself these stressful thoughts and he began panting before controlling his breath, his eyes glowing blue.
"This semblance is great and all, but there must be an easier way to get it to work." Kai moaned. He examined the arms and pulled the hand off the right arm revealing them to be connected by a thick wire. "All right let's see." Kai used his perception to see a spring trap mechanism inside of the arm, he placed his hand inside and wrapped his fingers around five individual elastic strings. He tightened his fingers and he saw the vibrations pass along the wire, making the fingers and thumb on the hand clench. "Good, good." Kai murmured before pushing the hand back into the arm and aiming it at one of the Grimm posters pulling his fingers back fully… But nothing happened. "Right, that was the problem." Kai moaned as he despondedly lowered his arm.
"Having trouble with your weapon?"
Kai looked across the empty room to see Professor Port walking towards him.
"Oh professor. I'm just… Working out some kinks."
"I see." Port walked up next to Kai. "You know, when I was a young Huntsman…"
'Oh boy, here we go again.' Kai thought unenthusiastically.
"I remember one particular occasion when my own weapon started acting up. It couldn't have been at a worse time too, because right in front of me was this enormous blah! Blah blah blah blah…"
'He's standing right there, I must… Concentrate.' Kai thought to himself as he tried to keep his attention focused on Port.
"Blah blah blah blah. Blah would have been blah, were it not for the blah arrival of a good friend of mine. Do you understand why I'm telling you this?"
Kai looked at Port. "Yeah… Sure…" Port leaned in closer disapprovingly. "Okay no. I don't get it."
Port leaned back. "The point I'm trying to make is that for three weeks now, you've been coming to my room when it's empty to work on making your weapon. Now there's nothing wrong with that, it is actually quite admirable. In fact it reminds me of a story from my youth…"
'And we're still not done yet.'
"But this is not my story we're talking about. It's yours Mr Emblem." At the sound of his name Kai got more alert and invested. "Arriving here must have been hard for you especially arriving late, but you don't need to stress yourself out and keep yourself isolated to keep working and moving forward. Sometimes enjoying time with a friend can help you out when the time comes."
"Professor I get what you're saying now, but hanging out with other people isn't exactly something I'm completely comfortable with… Unless!" Kai suddenly got up putting his metal arms in his bag, heading out of the room.
"And where do you think you're going?"
"To see a friend about something!" Kai answered as he left the room.
Port put his hands behind his back and hummed to himself. "Still got it."
Team RWBY was hanging out in their dorm, Ruby was lying on the floor surrounded by paper with doodles on them as the rest of her team were sitting in their respective bed.
"And then you use the ribbon to speed yourself up by spinning and boom! You punch the enemy right in the face!" Ruby exclaimed. "So, what do you think?"
"It sounds absurd." Weiss critiqued.
"Of course you'd say that Weiss. That's why you're not part of this combination. What about you Yang?"
"Shooting myself sounds awesome!" Yang cheered. "… But I still don't get the name."
"It's you and Blake working together. Your hair is yellow, hers is black. Bumblebee's are yellow and black!"
"Technically my hair's blonde."
"That's just the specifics! What about you Blake?"
Blake looked outside of her window at the dusk sky before slightly turning her head to Ruby. "Yeah it's fine." Blake responded quietly before gazing out of the window again.
"Are you alright Blake? You've been distant, well more than usual." Ruby asked sincerely and Blake turned to face her team.
"I-" Blake was interrupted by a series of fast knocks on their door. "Someone should get that." Blake got up from her bed, walked to the door and opened it. "Kai?"
"Hey! Listen can I-" Kai noticed the drawings on the floor. "Am I interrupting? Because I can come back."
"It's fine Kai, really." Ruby insisted. "I was just talking about coming up with team attacks."
"Team attacks?"
"You know, special techniques that can only be accomplished by working together."
"Huh reminds me of double battle strategies." Kai mumbled.
"What?"
"Oh that's not important. Could I talk with you Ruby… In private."
Ruby gave a confused look. "Um sure."
"… Now would be nice." Kai insisted and Ruby got up.
"To be continued…" Ruby told her team before leaving the room closing the door behind her.
Blake slowly went back to her bed and stared out of the window.
"Don't think we're dropping this." Weiss stated. "Ruby's right, you are being distant."
"If you need to talk, we're here for you Blake, always." Yang reassured.
Blake sighed. "Thank you, but I don't have much to talk about. I'm just thinking."
"And that's all it is?" Weiss pressured.
"For now yes. I promise that if things are serious, I'll tell you."
"Well if you say so." Yang said concerningly as the girls lay on their beds in silence.
Kai and Ruby stood in the hallway alone.
"So what's up?" Ruby asked.
"I need some advice." Kai stated.
"Advice on what?"
"Well you're kind of a weapons nerd so…" Kai pulled out his metal arms holding them in front of Ruby. "It still a work in progress but-"
"Wow! I've never seen anything like it!" Ruby exclaimed grabbing the arms and caressing them. "How long have you been working on them?! What are they made of?! What can they do?! Tell me everything?!"
Kai staggered back surprised. "You really like them?" Ruby nodded. "Good because I'm having trouble with making the weapon… Actually a weapon. So I was wondering, could you help me-?"
"YES!" Ruby shouted grabbing Kai's arm. "Come on let's go!" Ruby ran at high speed across the hallway.
"Not this again!" Kai complained as he moved at high speed feeling his arm getting pulled out of place.
Ruby stood with her weapon on the main avenue, while Kai put his metal arms on.
"So what are they?" Ruby asked.
Kai stared down twisting his arms freely. "Well they're sort of like gauntlets, only they stop right before the hands."
"So how do you move the fingers?" Ruby flexed her fingers and Kai took one of the gauntlets off, showing Ruby the hollow interior.
"Look here, there are these elastic bands which when I put my fingers in, they pass along vibrations that make the fingers on the hand move correspondingly."
"Cool! But why did you do that?"
"Because if I just had regular gauntlets then I couldn't include this." Kai pulled the hands forward revealing the wire.
"Wow! It extends!"
Kai smirked. "This isn't a single wire you know?" Kai pointed at the wire. "If you look really close you can see that it's made of lots of compound fibres tied together because-"
"It's lighter, stronger and more durable than a single long material." Ruby finished.
"Right." Kai put his hand in the gauntlet and started making the fingers move before slotting the hand back into the arm. "And when you flex it into a fist and pull it even further…" Kai clenched a fist and aimed it in front of him only for nothing to happen. "You forget that that's the reason you needed help in the first place."
"That's okay, what's it meant to do?"
Kai lowered his arm and unclenched his fist. "Well it's supposed to shoot it out the fist like a rocket to punch someone, and since I can move the fingers I could use it like a grappling hook… Or to pick up the TV remote without leaving my seat."
"YOU'RE A GENIUS!" Ruby applauded.
Kai sighed. "No. A genius would actually get it to work."
"Well let's get started."
"Right just… Let me get into the zone first." Kai said as he got into thought. He remained still at first then began breathing rapidly and shaking.
"Kai! Are you okay?" Ruby asked concerningly shaking Kai out of his trance.
"Wha- What!" Kai grabbed Ruby's hands and took them off him. "Ruby I'm fine!"
"You didn't look alright. You were shaking and breathing weirdly."
"That… That was just me trying to use my semblance."
"You shake and breathe uncontrollably when you use your semblance?"
"No, I just have to, to get it to work. My semblance… Activates when I'm panicked, so I think about things that panic me."
"Like what?"
Kai paused. "It's not important."
"Yes it is. You shouldn't have to feel panicked to use your semblance."
"Well I'm not as lucky as other people. In a fight it's no problem, people are trying to attack me. But outside of that, I need to think."
"Then don't use your semblance outside of fights."
Kai started walking away. "It's not that simple… I'm not good at this." Kai stopped and looked towards the sky. "I'm not: strong, or smart. I don't know how to make things, or fight things, I've always had my Pokémon. But that's not enough here and without them… I'm nothing."
Kai felt a tugging on his arm, he turned his head to see Ruby holding onto it preventing him from leaving. "You're not nothing Kai."
"Name one thing I'm good at: on my own, without using my Pokémon."
"That's easy: you're kind." Kai scoffed. "And you're selfless, you take care of your Pokémon like family, and you're a great friend. And I don't like how you're hurting my friend by stressing yourself out."
Kai stopped and looked to Ruby sadly. "But that's not good enough in Remnant. Here I need all of that, and I need to be a good fighter, like you."
"What, me? I'm not that great."
"Really." Kai said unconvincingly. "You wield a deadly weapon that you designed easily, you're a leader, always optimistic and never want to give up, you inspire, you push through obstacles, for goodness sake you joined two years early!"
"Well you joined and you never even trained before."
"That's just so Ozpin can keep an eye on me, I'm nothing special."
Ruby hummed to herself then looked at Kai slamming the end of her weapon on the ground making a slamming sound getting Kai's attention.
"I was total garbage when I started at Signal." Ruby started to explain. "Everybody is when they start anything new. That's why people train for years before getting accepted, but you never had that. You came here after what? Three weeks of staying in Vale. And look at you now: you have aura, a semblance, you've been making a really cool weapon, you've killed Grimm way bigger and stronger than you."
"But I had help." Kai said depressingly.
"So, that doesn't make it any less impressive how far you've come. You've been at Beacon for over two months and look how far you've come. It's incredible, in comparison I'm just a girl with a passion for weapons."
Kai and Ruby stood in the silent, peaceful atmosphere. "You really think I'm all that."
"Yeah I do."
Kai smiled. "Thank you Ruby, but…" Kai took Ruby's arm off him. "I feel just a little uncomfortable knowing how much you care. I… I'm not used to people especially… Friends."
"I know how that feels. At least with making friends."
"Well I've never been sociable, I've always kept to myself. Barring some occasions."
"Occasions like what?"
Kai paused for a moment. "… You know how when Cardin was picking on Velvet I dropped everything and punched him in the face?"
"Yeah?"
"That wasn't exactly the first time I've done that."
10 years ago…
-Afternoon, Santalune City-
The trainer school in Santalune city was a place for those who want to learn the basics of Pokémon battling, and improve their skills before heading out on a journey. The entrance was a white and yellow tiled floor that had two bookcases to the side of the walls leading into the classroom. The classroom itself had a wooden floor arranged in a pattern and six tables, three on the left and three on the right with red seats, facing a whiteboard with lots of information on it. On the table closest to the back was a boy.
He had brown hair neatly brushed to the right but had several bits of it sticking up out of place. His face was round and smooth, with a couple of cuts here and there. His eyes were brown with the right one being slightly swollen and bruised, and he wore a plain yellow T-Shirt and brown shorts that were covered in dirt. The boy looked down at the table not saying a word when someone sat down next to him.
"So, the teacher told me what happened today."
The person said. They were a man close to middle age with very dark brown hair, they had a round face though this face was covered in stubble, his eyes were brown with glasses over them and he gave a subtle smile. His attire was a buttoned up blue shirt and tie with professional black trousers held up by a belt.
"Do you want to talk about it mate?" The man asked.
The boy looked away. "You wouldn't understand, you'll just think I'm being a nuisance."
"I'm your dad Kai, I know you better than most. I know you wouldn't get into a fight normally, so tell me what happened."
Kai sighed and looked at his dad with tears in his eyes. "It wasn't my fault! This big kid was picking on this little one and everyone just let it happen!"
"And what did this big kid do?"
"He… He called the kid names… And made them cry."
"Come here." Kai's dad put his arm around his son. "Kai, standing up for others is great, but you can't just fight someone you don't agree with. You should only fight when you need to protect yourself or others from harm. Do you understand?"
Kai sniffed. "Yeah… I guess…"
Kai's dad patted him on the shoulder. "Cheer up champ." He got up and Kai did the same. "What do you say we get some ice cream."
Kai nodded his head and the two of them walked out of the school. Kai saw the other kids playing and when they saw him they looked away and moved somewhere else.
"It didn't start then I was normally quiet. But when the quiet kid blows up and fights someone seemingly out of nowhere… People tend to stay away." Kai looked down.
"Well you don't have to be alone any more now Kai." Ruby comforted. "You have your Pokémon, and you have us!"
"Us?"
"Us! You know: me, Yang, Blake, Weiss I think, Jaune, and everyone else you've talked to at Beacon."
Kai smiled. "Yeah, I guess I do. Still weird though."
"Well if it is weird, then we'll feel weird together!"
Kai laughed. "Thanks Ruby. Although without me using my semblance, this is going to take a while."
"No problem, we'll stay up all night if we have to." Kai pulled his gauntlets off and kneeled on the ground reaching into his bag for some tools. "And Kai, your dad sounds pretty great."
"Yeah… He is." Kai said quietly pulling out a screwdriver.
The sky had gone from dusk to night as Ruby knelt in the cold night air.
"Brr. How long will this take?" Ruby shivered.
Kai rolled his eyes twisting a screwdriver. "Weren't you the one who said 'we'll stay up all night if we have to'?"
"I didn't actually think it would take that long."
"Then why did you say it?" Kai remarked as he got up removing the screwdriver. "Okay I think that's it."
"Just like you thought it worked the past three times."
"If you just didn't make me feel good about myself, my semblance might have sorted this out ages ago. Now then…" Kai put the gauntlets on and flexed the fingers. "Okay we didn't break those, good start." Kai clenched the fingers into a fist. "Well here goes nothing." Kai looked to Ruby who gave a reassuring thumb up. Kai pulled down on the bands shooting his fist, travelling through the air until the wire jerked back reaching its maximum length.
"It worked. IT WORKED!" Kai cheered.
"That was awesome!" Ruby applauded.
"All right measure it!" Kai asked and Ruby pulled out a tape measurer and started measuring how far the fist flew.
"Fifteen feet!"
"Really?" Kai stated confused looking at the wire. "I may have overdone it with the wire. Oh well. Does it move?!" Kai started pulling on the bands and Ruby witnessed the fingers at the end move.
"Yes!" Kai smiled as Ruby ran back. "This is great, we should do this again."
Kai smirked. "Well I do have some ideas I'd like to implement."
"Plus, it's nice hanging out with you."
"Same Ruby." Kai agreed as he started pulling back his arm. "Uh-oh."
"Uh-oh?"
"I don't think I can pull it back."
Ruby sighed heavily looking at the moon. "All right let's try and finish this quickly."
Kai nodded placing his gauntlet on the ground. "Let's get started."
Sorry that this chapter is shorter than normal, but a lot did happen in it.
Focusing on the main development, is Kai's weapon (which I haven't got a name for, leave your suggestions if you think you have a good name for it). The main inspiration for a gauntlet weapon came from 'Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness' where the main protagonist had a Snag Machine that looked like a big metal hand. The idea for the main appearance and it's grappling hook feature came from the anime 'Made in Abyss' (which you should really watch by the way) inspired by Reg's arms. And for those of you worrying that Kai will be too similar to Yang, don't worry Kai will be a lot more of a ranged fighter as we'll see soon.
Anyway I'm going on holiday next week so no chapter then unfortunately, but the week after I will have the next chapter ready so until then this is Kallerston signing out!