AN- Here we are with another one, Thanks to all of my reviewers from last chapter
AssessAndConclude- I have a different plan for Neo and she won't be running into Marcus anytime soon. I've already said too much, thanks for the review!
Zeldawolffang- I'll think about it, but after all the positive feedback from the little tease I showed it's definitely a good possibility.
Astra- Trust me i've already come up with dozens of cutesy and intense moments that all of our characters could have. And to that last thing, no Bahamut is not a thing in this story but maybe one day I'll introduce it, Summer and Salem both fought each other one on one and unfortunately Summer lost. Thanks for the review and your kind words.
Tigervolcano5000- Hector is friends with everyone, Ilia is actually one of the characters he doesn't know much about since he didn't do a lot of thinking about her during his time in the real world, so out of everyone she is closest to a "stranger" on the side of the good guys, excluding all the random civilians and new enemies of course. Ilia isn't really a heavy hitter of sort but she is definitely powerful, she just uses her speed and skill to stab, whip, and slash so fast and so many times and before the enemy realizes it they are already full of holes. That's what happened to the Grimm-wurm, and of course that may or may not happen ;). I had a goal of showing you guys that at least in my story Mercury wasn't always a dickhead, and I had to give everyone some insight on how Marcus is alive after that last chapter before people started calling it bullshit, i'm glad it came out as well as it did. Marcus has gotten a few disorders over the years, one of those disorders happens to be split personality of sort, there's a serious one, and the psychotic taunting one. Salem prefers the more serious one obviously, and she could kill him very easily but as much as she hates to admit it she needs him to make her plans go a little smoother. Salem and Summer fought on Remnant by the way, Salem's finishing blow was what destroyed the moon, I don't think Summer can survive in the vacuum of space but it would be awesome now that I think about it. Thanks for the review and I look forward to your next one!
Well since literally every review I got last chapter gave me positive feedback about last chapter and wants Summer. So I'm here with the good news that the probability of her making becoming an addition to this story definitely skyrocketed. Luckily I already have a plan for her, and it involves… something that will surprise you ;).
I have my next serious story that will take most of my attention after this one is either done or close to it, It's one that I've been thinking about since the last episode Red vs Blue Revelation. Seriously, when I start that one it's gonna take AGES until it's finished, and it's going to feature a certain very dangerous mute. The tile of this story is "Red vs Blue AU: The Meta lives" and just by the title you should already know what is going to make this Red vs Blue story an AU. But this story is FAAAAR from even being started so I'll just leave that hanging in the air for the next couple of months or maybe even a year or maybe even more than that. Or maybe i'll surprise you all and start it tomorrow. You'll never know, I just noticed that Red vs Blue doesn't really have a lot of fanfictions and I had a dream about the Meta/Maine fighting Felix and Locus, so that sparked this idea. Tell me what you think about it!
And now that everything I wanted to cover is covered lets get on with next chapter of this story!
Chapter 24- Training the Wolf
I wake up still in my sitting position from watching over Rhea. I had a dreamless night which is much more preferable than the previous nights, I look over to the still sleeping Maiden as I stand up and begin my little morning stretch routine.
"It looks like she is sleeping peacefully, despite almost everyone she knew has died brutally." I whisper quietly so I don't wake her.
'That… is brutally honest and disturbing that it came from you.'
"Truth always hurts." I respond as I sit back down in the chair.
'What are you going to do when she asks about the Fall Maiden before her then?'
"I… don't know, when it comes it comes and we'll have to deal with it then."
'The longer it takes the more it will hurt, she already trusts you and-'
"Oz how do you tell a young girl that you killed a part of them in the past? I can't just say "Hey, you know why you were so scared of me when we first met? Well I actually stabbed the last Fall Maiden in the chest with my hand, electrified her with enough volts to kill a hundred men, and then threw her into an abyss where she fell to her death." Yeah, it's a lot easier said than done." I reply again, this time thinking my answer to Ozpin just in case Rhea is awake.
'Hector, take this from a multi-milenia year old man, the longer you hide the truth the more damage it will do when it is eventually revealed. I can't force you to tell her but know that it needs to be done soon.' Ozpin lectures.
"Damn it, I hate it when you're right." I respond after a few moments of thinking on what he said.
"Who are you talking to?"
"Holy shi- okay how long have you been awake?" I ask the now awake Fall Maiden, startled by the sudden sound of her voice.
"Just about half a minute, It looked like you were focusing on something so I let you think until you realized I was awake. But when you spoke like someone else was in the room I got confused." Rhea explains, stretching her arms out and yawning.
'Well she is certainly a smart one.'
"Yeah, I tend to do that a lot." I mention, attempting to dodge her question from earlier and failing miserable.
"That doesn't answer my question though." Rhea points out, crossing her arms and squinting her eyes at me suspiciously.
"Do I have your permission 'Oh powerful wizard?'"
'Please don't call me that…'
"I'll take that as a yes."
"Alright smart girl let me elaborate than." I say as I get up and move to the end of her bed, placing my hands on the bed frame as I look her in the eyes with my own. "You might not believe me but this body actually has two souls, the one you're talking to right now, and the Headmaster of Beacon academy."
Rhea's eyes widen as she stares at me like I'm crazy, but then she tilts her head at me as she thinks more about it. "You mean the deceased Headmaster of Beacon? The same one that hasn't been seen since the fall?"
I answer her question with a smirk and a bright green flash coming from my eye, letting Ozpin take control. Rhea feels a different aura entirely eveloup my body, now green instead of the usual dark red. Also, for the first time ever something else happens to my body when Ozpin takes control, my hair now changes to a silvery gray color, and my eye changes color from dark brown to a lighter shade of brown, even my skin turns paler to the point where it can me mistaken as someone else's skin. Overall I look like a much younger Ozpin with my features. Ozpin takes a deep breath and smiles at the young Maiden, who in turn widens her eyes even further at my transformation.
"Ah, I was wondering when this stage was going to come into play." Ozpin says in an echoing voice that merges both of our own.
'Why does my everything feel different?'
"I'll explain later."
"So? Does this answer your question?" Ozpin asks Rhea.
Rhea opens her mouth to respond but nothing comes out, she has lived in a mostly secluded village all her life with news about what is happening in the world coming every few weeks. The last news she got was about what happened at Haven. She had no idea that people like this existed. "W-wow, that is so cool!" Rhea shrieks as she jumps out of bed and grabs Ozpin's hands, looking up at him with gleaming eyes. Even her Faunus ears straighten up happily, if she had a tail I'd bet it would be wagging to. Then again she might have one but keeps it in her pants.
"Well, this was not the reaction I was expecting." Ozpin says with a chuckle.
"Everything about you looks so different now! Even your aura, it feels so powerful, not that the other guy's wasn't powerful or anything but yours is much different." Rhea points out.
"I can assure you that you haven't even seen the beginnings of either of our power." Ozpin informs with another chuckle.
"Really? Can I see?"
"I don't see why not."
'Wait Oz are you sure this is a good-'
Before I can finish that thought Ozpin hands me back the controls, all of my features return to normal in a flash of red.
"Time for this?" I finish my sentence unintentionally as I 'wake up'.
"Yes!" Rhea exclaims happily, letting her young age show itself for the first time in a long time. She certainly got over everything that happened yesterday fast, must be the Cinder part of her that came with her eyes and the power.
"Wait a sec I don't think you're ready to see that just yet." I say as I take my hands away from the young girls grasp.
"Why not?" Rhea pouts adorably, the added cuteness coming from her wolf ears twitching and almost flattening against her head.
"Because I don't want to scare you." I answer honestly, closing my eye and hanging my head at the memory of her being terrified of me even when I saved her from Marcus.
Rhea's mood does a complete 180 as she thinks of the same thing. She doesn't hang her head like I do but she is visibly saddened at the memory. "That's um… understandable." Rhea mutters as she grabs her elbow shyly.
"Before we get all depressed how about we have some breakfast huh? If you want to see it so bad I'll show you later." I say with a smile on my face, putting a hand on Rhea's shoulder. She smiles at how fast I can change the mood from sad to cheery so easily and nods at me
'Oh my.'
"Oz I swear to god do that one more time and I'm finding a way to get you out of my body."
'Oh my.'
"ARGH!'
"I'm going to go see if the others are awake, it's still pretty early so I might have to kick em out of bed again so if you hear a lot of thumping don't freak out." I joke despite knowing very well that they most likely kept watch the whole night in case any of those hybrids came by the house and the trolling I am receiving from Ozpin.
"Okay, I'm going to freshen up." Rhea says as she heads into the bathroom I didn't know was there. Geez how many restrooms does this guy have?
"Don't freshen up too much, today you and I are going to train." I mention with a wink, wait a second…
"Wait what-"
I close the door before she can properly come up with a response that I would have heard. I think it was among the lines of "Are you serious" or something else that would have been too incoherent to describe.
"You're going to train me?!" Okay so THAT's what she said, nearly busted my eardrum with that shriek even through the walls.
I chuckle as I walk to the next room beside me, thinking about the look that must be on her face after I left her with that little reveal. I knock on the door to the rest of my teams room and enter. Unsurprisingly, Ren and Nora are both asleep (in separate beds), Jaune must be awake still from his watch so he is either outside or downstairs. Nora has had the most sleep since she was quite depressed with the fact of having to Grimm hybrids who were once human not too long ago. I've managed to adjust to it quite quickly but it's going to be a while before my team can fully adjust. I move to Noras bed and sit next to her, gently nudging her to wake her up. Of course it's not going to be that easy, instead of waking up she grabs my arm and pulls me halfway into the bed with her monstrous sleeping strength, and trapping my arm between her head and shoulder and nuzzling into it.
"Oh gosh not again." I whine as I just let it happen, no use resisting at this point, if I try to pry myself away all it would do is cause chaos around the room. Geez how did Jaune handle this back at Beacon? He probably didn't have to since Ren and Pyrrha was always there to help him out.
"Oh dear, how is it that you are the one to always be at her mercy." Ren says in a tired voice as he pushes himself up to a sitting position on his bed.
"Help." I whisper loudly to him.
"Nora, stop that people are going to get the wrong idea." Ren states simply.
At the sound of Ren's voice Nora snaps her eyes wide open and shouts, "Pancakes?" Well it looks like someone doesn't feel too bad about yesterday. Too bad she didn't even let up on her grip on me at all.
"Oh good you're awake, makes this less awkward." I say as I finally manage to slip my hand out of her grasp.
"But you're so warm." Nora whines at the loss of her source of warmth.
"Well my semblance does make me hotter than Satan's asshole so that makes sense." I point out with a shrug. "So where is Jaune?"
"The last time I saw him was downstairs so he may still be there, Tai could very well be awake as well." Ren answers.
"Whats a Satan?" Nora asks, clueless of what I am talking about.
"Oh geez, basically the Salem of my old world to put it as simply as possible." I answer as I get up from the bed and head toward the door before I have to explain that. I am possibly the worst person to explain something like that. Luckily I make a quick escape before they could stop me, but before I close the door I remember what I came there for. "I got plans for all of us today since we managed to get to the Fall Maiden about two months ahead of schedule, so freshen up and I'll explain during breakfast." And with that I shut the door.
A couple minutes later and lo and behold everyone is at the dining table eating breakfast, Tai said he didn't have any pancake mix but somehow Ren managed to make some anyways. Honestly I think the guy keeps some in his magical back pocket at all times just for situations like these. Since Rhea doesn't really know anyone else and I gained most of her trust she is sitting next to me. She took down her hood to let out her wolf ears after we all insisted that we don't discriminate Faunus, it was a good step toward her trusting us more and we need to keep it up if we are ever going to fully earn her trust, I just happen to be a badass so I am on her good side so far. But thinking about showing of my full power to her is making me nervous, earlier it was implied that she might have gotten some of the previous Maidens memory and me showing off my red fiery aura might trigger something that will not be good for any of us, or she can just it can go the absolute opposite and do what she did when Ozpin transformed my body when I gave him control.
"So how did you lose your eye?" Rhea asks out of curiosity, I was the only one who didn't notice that she has been staring into my scar where my eye used to be. The rest of RNJR all wince at the question since they know that was a sensitive topic for me in the past. Despite me seemingly getting over it over the weeks afterwards when I was joking about it all the time. But that was with people I was comfortable with.
"I am cosplaying Snake from Metal Gear." I answer sarcastically, lazily turning my head to look at her. Rhea tilts her head in confusion at the reference I just made.
"Who?" Rhea asks, not catching on to my sarcasm.
"Nothing I was messing with you. I got into a really intense fight, almost lost and got infected with something nasty, I had to remove my eye in order for me to live." I answer, leaving out all the fucked shit that happened that night in the cave with Tyrian.
"I feel like there's a lot more to that story, but I'm sorry for asking." Rhea quickly mutters that first part out before she noticed my discomfort and apologized. Everyone keeps quiet and nervously shift in their chairs, for some reason or another.
"Why are you all being so quiet and awkward? It's not the end of the world when someone asks me about my eye. And to you it's not problem, maybe someday when I feel like it I'll tell you the full story." I point out with a chuckle to lighten the mood. Luckily it works and everyone chuckles along with me.
"So are you going to tell them or am I?" Tai asks, breaking the little moment we were all having.
"Oh yeah, almost forgot about that." I look toward Jaune, Ren and Nora. They all look back with serious looks on their faces, ready to soak up whatever plan I have in store for them. "You guys are going to be training with Tai today."
Well that is not what they were expecting at all.
"In a form of fighting I've noticed that none of you are very familiar with. He just happens to be an expert in that form of fighting." I explain further, everyone quickly catches on to what I am saying and each let their heads fall onto the table, just missing their plates of food by mere inches.
"Do we have to?" Nora whines.
"Yes, one because I said so, and two because if any of you get disarmed while in a fight what are you going to do?" I bring up a fact that none of them like to admit, the only one who is actually a little decent in hand to hand is Nora, just because of her strength, Jaune has only ever trained with his sword and shield so you can just put that to your imagination, and Ren I actually don't know he is weak in that area or not, but judging from the not too worried look on his face he might at least have some experience. Well I guess we'll find out later.
"What am I going to do?" Rhea asks, already forgetting what I told her earlier.
"You, my young friend are going to be trained by me to control your powers." I reveal to the others for the first time. They all think it's crazy at first, but once they remember that I have went up against not one, but two Maidens in the past and killed one of them myself, they trust me to handle myself in case she gets too out of control.
"Oh yeah! You're going to show me how strong you are to right?" Rhea excitedly asks, geez this girl and her complete 180's.
"If you really want to I guess it'll be alright, for that I need Jaune here to make sure I don't end up killing myself." And with that Jaune, Ren, and Nora all head outside to wait for us.
"Why do you need him?" Rhea inquires, not knowing the abilities of anyone here besides a little bit of my own.
"Because power always comes at a price." I answer vaguely, though she understands that all too well if her time in the village was anything to go off by.
"I'm actually pretty curious myself, I've never seen you go all out before, I bet it would be a sight to see before I retire." Tai says, standing up to go outside with a smile on his face, it has been a while since he had anyone worthwhile to train since his daughter is somewhere on the other side of the world and the students at Signal aren't exactly a challenge. After he leaves the house I get up next and stretch my back, pushing my arms into the air above me and standing on the tips of my toes.
"Ahhh that felt good, well come on let's get this over with." Rhea stands up and we leave the house together, I tell her to stop by the others and keep walking a good couple meters away from the house, so I don't end up damaging it unintentionally. Jaune is on standby with his arms at the ready just in case I end up breaking myself again. After a couple of moments I drop into a lower stance with my hands at my hips and soon my body gains a familiar red flaming aura, purposely taking it slow to make it look more epic when I eventually release it all. Rhea hasn't ran away crying yet so everything is going well so far.
"Does his semblance have anything to with that red flame? I saw him engulfed in all that back at the village." Rhea asks with a curious look on her face as she observes me.
"Yes, that is one of the side effects that comes with his power." Ren answers for her.
"Just wait, it gets even better." Nora excitedly adds, she always likes it when I show off my power, it gives her goosebumps every time.
"Alright Rhea, this is when the good part comes in." I state with a smile on my face, my aura flares up even more and a wave of heat washes over everyone and everything around me. Jaune, Ren, Nora, and Tai all begin to sweat from the heat, but Rhea however is completely fine, instead she is just surprised that someone else can generate this much heat without having powers similar to hers.
"How are you not being affected by this?" Jaune asks when he notices Rhea not being affected by the heat.
"I got used to it." Rhea answers simply, not even looking at him when she did so.
"KaioKen!" I shout before anyone else can add anything more. Over the months I have trained my semblance and myself to go to higher levels of power, and while doing so actually lessening the unfortunate side effects that involve too much pain and possible seizures. While it is still possible I can now manage it more easily, and having Jaune around really helped out with pushing myself past my limit. Before Raven came and teleported us over here I may have destroyed a couple of acres of forest while I was training at full power. Luckily the only casualties were the unfortunate Grimm that were around so basically no harm was done. Another side effect of that training gave me the ability to raise my body temperature along with my power, so long explanation short I can rival the Fall Maidens heat when she gets pissed off now. Slowly I climb the levels of power that I have stored away within myself, the temperature around me begins to rise and the colors of my friends face turn red from the heat, and that's just from being a short distance away from me, imagine if I was in their faces fighting while fighting them.
"You think you can calm down with the heat?!" Tai shouts at me through the ripping winds I am causing.
I calm down on the heat a good bit and my friends sigh in relief as a cool breeze was over them. In truth I was just making myself as hot as possible in order to show Rhea that I can handle some heat, since even to me while I was holding her hand it was very warm to the touch. Probably because she was scared and had no control over her powers at the time since. I know that because when she grabbed my hands earlier when Ozpin took over they were normal temperature like everyone else's. I stop my flow of power suddenly, feeling my body instantly relax and my body cool down satisfyingly. I let out a long exhale and walk back toward my team, it wasn't full power, but I'm confident that it was more than enough to show off.
"Was that enough for you?" I ask the stunned Rhea.
"Well it was definitely enough for us. C'mon let him do his thing, I gotta get you guys into shape." Tai says as he beckons over the rest of my team. Jaune and Nora mentally ask me to reconsider this decision but I flick my head over the gesture them to get going. As the reluctantly walk by Ren gives me a nod.
"I'll make sure they don't die, don't worry." Ren jokes, wait…
"Did you just make a joke?" My answer was him shrugging as he made his way to join his longtime friends. "Well that was definitely a great answer that I understood completely." I mutter sarcastically with a roll of my eye. I notice that Rhea is still stunned and I wave my hand in front of her face. "Yo, you still there? Earth to- wait a sec- Remnant to Rhea here."
Rhea blinks her eyes a couple of times and her wolf ears twitch as she finally gets brought back into reality. "O-oh yes, sorry I was just… remembering something?" Rhea says that sentence as more of a question then a statement. Not sure herself of what was going through her head.
I frown unnoticeably at what she said, even if I keep it from her the power itself is going to share those memories, I wish I knew that was going to be a thing before I threw Cinder off of a cliff with a hole in her chest. "Yeah, remind me to tell you about the previous Fall Maiden after we're done training for today."
"Okay but I think you're going to have to tell me about everything if you want me to understand completely… how are we going to start? I never actually trained to fight before" Rhea points out, awkwardly raising her fists to get into a noobie fighting stance.
"I'm not exactly going to train you to fight with your fists, you need to learn how to control your power and that is going to be the main focus, once you get the hang of it we can think about getting you a weapon." I explain, pushing her fists down with one of my fingers.
"But what if I hurt you?!" Rhea cries out. "The last time I tried to control it I burned someone, and the second time I tried I almost burnt down the village."
"Which is why I am here. Go all out." I demand nonchalantly.
"Huh?"
"I said go all out, I can handle it." I repeat myself in a stern tone.
"But I just told you that I-"
"DO I HAVE TO REPEAT MYSELF?" I shout at her, going for the aggressive approach.
Rhea flinches from my shouting but nods, knowing that I did it with the purpose of getting her to get on with it. If my little display of power was anything at the very least she won't kill me. Rhea forms a ball of fire in her hands and weakly throws it at me, I easily deflect it into the ground.
"I don't think that's all you've got, that last fireball you threw completely incinerated that last Grimm into ashes."
Rhea makes another stronger ball of fire, her eyes also catching flame as she reluctantly uses more of her power. This time when she throws it I have to use my whole arm to block it, it disperses and fades away as it wraps itself around my arm.
"That's better, the flames in your eye is what I am looking for. The reason I am telling you to go all out is to show you two things: That I can handle it, and that you can control it."
Rhea reaches up to her temples and feels the flames wrap around her finger harmlessly, when she takes her hand away the flame sticks to her fingers like glue, she freaks out at first but when she realizes that she feels no pain she calms down. I chuckle at the sight, since I know that most likely she is immune to all sorts of fire or heat attacks. Luckily these clothes are fireproof, it's perfect for training someone with magical fire abilities. Rhea weaves the flames around her fingers, tossing it to her other hand a couple of times. Eventually she hold it with both hands and focuses on making it as powerful as possible, not even saying a word the whole time, she is in her own little world right now as she makes the flame larger and more powerful. Powerful enough to make me worry a bit but I am confident in my ability to shut it down if anything bad happens. Rhea looks to me with wide eyes and smiles, excited that she managed to make the most powerful flame she has ever created. She is definitely a fast learner.
"Look at this! I never made something so pretty and strong at the same time!"
"You are a fast learned, I guess that is good." I say as I get into a stronger stance just in case it all spirals out of control.
"What do I do with this though? I don't want to use it as a weapon." Rhea surprises me with that one, now that I think about it I don't know if Maiden powers can be used to do other things like heal, or anything besides destruction. What surprises me more is that right after her declaration the flame in her hands actually turns paler, almost like a white but still with the orange outline.
"Well that's new, hey Oz can a Maiden use her powers to do something other then destroy?" I ask Oz, looking to my right to see his astral form standing next to me, every now and again he does that but no on else can see him besides me… I think.
'I gave the first Maidens their power so that they can bring balance to the world in all sorts of ways, The Fall maiden can heal almost any injury with her magical flames as well as use them to do battle in combat, The Winter Maiden can use part of her power to cure disease or use her frozen flame to destroy any enemy, the Summer Maiden can use her electrical abilities to power any sort of electrical equipment or anything else in that regard with no limitations, or can use them in the same way you do in combat only much much more potent and has a much wider variety of use, and lastly the Spring Maiden can change the weather for those who need it, for example if a village or kingdom is going through a drought, Spring can cause a storm with heavy rain that can last up to a year to fill up the water supply, and well you know what else she can uses her powers for.' Ozpin explains with a smile as he looks to the young Maiden who is playing with the white flame.
"What'd I say about short and to the point explanations?"
"What'd he say?" Rhea asks, noticing the question and answer that wasn't directed to her or anyone else around so she assumes I'm talking to the other "me".
"Short version is that he said yes, it's very possible. Now let's get back to training, since you achieved a new power I want you to test it out on me." I say as I enter into a guard again, this time a more powerful guard with my arms out in an X formation. My back up plan is to have Ozpin use his shield ability just in case it's too much for me to handle on my own.
"So blast you again?" Rhea asks that in a much more relaxed tone then before, she knows that i'm tough now and i'm not even using my semblance at the moment so most likely I can take much more punishment before I can be fatally wounded.
"Thatta girl." I say with a wink, oh wait…
"Did you blink or wink? Or are you always winking since you only have one eye." Rhea wonders, placing her hands on her chin and taps her foot, thinking about it.
I was about to scold her for getting off topic but now that I think about it I really don't know, am I always winking? I still have my eyelid but it is all scarred up and permanently closed so maybe?
'Mister Rivers please get back on topic, you're the teacher here.'
"Uh don't think too hard about that, let's get back on topic." I say after snapping out of my train of thought, luckily nobody can hear my thoughts or else that may lead to a lot of embarrassing moments.
"Oh did the Headmaster scold you?" Rhea sassily asks, reading me like a book.
"Oh shut up and blast me already."
'Uh-'
"NO!"
Rhea does as she is told and forms the same ball of now white flame, this time it grows in size before constricting down to a smaller, more powerful ball of flame about the size of a softball. She juggles it in her hand for a couple moments before looking to me, seeing if I am ready to take it on. I get into the same stance as before, giving her a small nod to let her know that I am ready. Without a second thought she throws it, but as it travels through the air something dangerous happens, the ball increases in size about twenty times larger than before, now the size of a small car, I barely activate KaioKen fast enough to toughen up my body and disperse the flames with a right hook, the flames all dance around me, some sticking to the grass beside me, and the tree beside me now burning down. All of this happened so fast that Rhea didn't even have enough time to panic, but after processing everything that just happens after a few moments she runs up to me, tears threatening to break free from her flaming eyes.
"I'm so sorry! I-I thought I could control it but… but."
"Calm down I'm fine." I wave off her worries, my red aura dies down as I look over to the burning tree, I scratch my head and chuckle nervously, which confuses Rhea. She thinks she almost killed me and I'm laughing about it? "Maybe I shouldn't train someone who specializes in fire in a forest." I say as I look down to the Faunus Maiden. Rhea can't help but smile and join me in my chuckling fit which only grows in intensity despite the tree burning down in front of us and the blistering heat coming from it that would scare away any average human.
"Uh… what happened here?" Tai asks, coming around the corner with Jaune, Ren and Nora all standing with him, sweating bullets from the first couple minutes of their training session.
"I may have underestimated the flames of our young wolf here." I explain simply, barely looking in his direction. As if on cue the burning tree falls over, luckily in the opposite direction of the house, even more luck that it somehow missed any other trees and is burning harmlessly on the ground. The sound the tree makes makes me and Rhea flinch visibly, worried about the reaction Tai is going to have after seeing part of his property getting burnt down.
"My dad let me play on that tree when I was a kid… I think that was my favorite tree." Tai states sadly.
"Uh, i'm sorry?" Me and Rhea say in unison.
"It's… oh geez its fine, there's plenty of other trees around. But we're going to trade places since I don't feel like letting you guys burn down the island. It has much less foliage there. How could I not think of that? Both of them can generate enough heat to burn down a house and I am letting them train in the forest of all places…" Tai thinks that last part out to himself as he facepalms.
Rhea and I listen to his order without hesitation, me reverting back to my irrational fear of a crushes father and Rhea just following what I do. I avoid the gazes from my teammates that just screams "Help me". Even Ren is having trouble with it but doesnt share the same expression I just whistle as I walk by and around the corner into a much more open training area. Perfect for the training for Rhea I came up with since I can deflect or block any of the fire attacks
"Okay, I probably should have put that probability into thought before playing with fire." I say with an unintentional pun as I look back at the girl behind me. The whole time Rhea's eyes have kept their flame.
"I forgot how to turn this off." Rhea admits without any shame, I get an idea that may or may not go well. "Alright, let me help with that."
"What are you gonna do?"
I answer her by covering her eyes with my hands, I feel the hot flames against my skin but persist in attempting to smother the flames.
'What are you doing?...'
"I don't think it's going to be that easy…" Rhea states.
"Well I think it will so shush."
After about a minute of silence and complete concentration on my part I finally take my hands off of her eyes, she opens them and her eyes reignite instantly, which in turn makes me groan in disappointment and sadness. Rhea giggles at my rather immature antics.
"Aren't you supposed to be the teacher here?" Rhea asks between giggles.
"Ugh don't say that, I'm only 19 and I already feel old." I whine playfully.
'That may be because I am a part of your being.'
"Probably but it could also be taken as a joke."
"Wait really? I thought you were like in your late twenties at least." Rhea points out.
"Ouch, well I'm shaving tonight now." I say, feigning hurt as I scratch my scruff.
"Well your scars make you look much older to, maybe I can…" Rhea trails off as she pulls at my sleeve, gesturing me to kneel down so she can touch my face. Hesitantly I listen and I kneel down, she reaches toward my face and I wince a bit as she touches the area where my left eye used to be. I stare into her face as I feel a warmth on her hand grow.
"You said I could use my powers for things other than to destroy right?" Rhea remarks.
I nod my head at her inquiry, too nervous to speak at the thought of possibly getting my eye back. Rhea tries her best to focus her power nondestructively, her flaming eyes actually dissipates as it travels down her neck, to her shoulder, down her arm and eventually to her hand. I glup and close my eye as I the soothing flame reaches the palm of her hand. I can feel something happening but I don't feel my eye come back. Rhea drops to her knees and almost passes out, I catch her and she rests her head on my shoulder. I still can't see out of that eye so I assume that the attempt failed, which is to be expected due to the mass amount of inexperience that Rhea has. I touch that part of my face and widen my eye at the contact, instead of the scarred tissue that I've become accustomed to I feel smooth skin as if it was never damaged. Before I had two distinctive scars on the top on bottom of my eye from when I tore my eye out using Ebony. After a few moments of feeling out my face I can feel Rhea stir from her passed out state. Not long after she wakes up and pushes herself off me gently, then looks into my face, I couldn't help but get a little emotional, but not crying due to me holding it back.
"I haven't felt smooth skin there in a while, thanks for that." I say as I stand up, ready to get back to business.
Rhea smiles and nods at my show of gratitude, but it fades away when she notices that my actual eye is still missing. "But… your eye."
"Don't beat yourself up about it, that was literally your first try at something like that. Which is actually great, it means you're an even faster learner then I originally thought." I compliment. "But now it's time to get back to business." Before Rhea could get too happy about the compliment I gave her, her wolf ears slump back down atop her head.
"I think I'm better at controlling the more restorative parts of my powers, why don't we just focus on that instead?"
"Because what If I'm not there to protect you?" I answer her question with another question.
"I can hold them off with the power that I have." Rhea weakly argues.
"HA! And what if that someone is as strong as me? Or stronger than me?" I respond with more rhetorical questions.
"What? There's no way anyone is stronger than you! I saw how a fraction of your strength and I know you can go higher."
My tone and demeanor gets much more serious in my next sentence. "Rhea, I don't win every battle. I lost my first real fight and might have won the second, don't rely on me, your power is sought after by less than kind people, I thought you'd understand that when you were nearly kidnapped by the guy with white hair."
Rhea goes back to her depressed state as her mind wanders back to just yesterday night, that man was so terrifying to her, despite her releasing her power for the first time with the intent of injuring someone it did nothing to him. I notice my mistake right away and sigh.
"Sorry for bringing back those memories, but think of it this way, next time you're in a village being attacked by Grimm wouldn't you want to be able to protect those who can't protect themselves?" I ask in a more gentle yet still serious tone.
Rhea doesn't answer but does nod to confirm her answer, I uncross my arms and crack my knuckles, after hearing the disturbing but satisfying crack Rhea looks back up at me.
"So are you ready to stop moping and learn how to fight?" I ask with a confident smile.
"Sure." Rhea answers with a playful roll of her eyes, slowly getting back to her earlier cheery mood.
"Good, now since you have at least some control over some of the weaker version of your power I'm going to train you to fight, so come at me with any strategy and during this training session I'll tell you what you are doing wrong, don't worry I'll be going easy on you."
"But… I don't even know how to begin."
"Did you not hear like half of that sentence? I said use whatever strategy you can think up. Use your powers, and anything you have at your disposal."
"Okay." Rhea mutters, getting into a basic fighting stance, trying to mimic my guard from earlier when I was blocking her attacks. It's a fully defensive stance that forces the attacker to be on the offensive if they want to do anything other then stare at their opponent, unless they have ranged weapons of course but luckily for her I don't have any of those. Guns are overrated anyway. I want to test her reaction timing so I dash into her face faster then her untrained eyes can see. I don't attack or anything but she does jump back after about a second of staring at me.
"You got to react faster then that for someone faster then you, if I attacked you'd be laid out right now, just like this." I dash toward her again but this time I knee her in the gut, not hard enough to do any real damage but hard enough to knock the wind out of her and knock her off of her feet, landing with her face in the ground. I noticed something as my hit connected though, her arms were crossed just in time to minimize the damage, but since I got a strong knee it got through it anyway, she probably managed to do that just in time since I basically announced my attack, but it could have also been her reflexes.
"Good job, you managed to block it just in time."
"You could have been a little more gentle." Rhea groans out through her light pain, before finally taking a deep breath.
"I am being gentle, you just need to toughen up your body, now get up and stop being defensive, I might break you before making a fighter out of you otherwise." I say as I enter a lazy but effective stance due to my experience. Just simply turning my hips toward her while having my arms to my sides, my legs just spread out enough to pass my shoulders.
"Oh like that is going to do anything to help me out against you." Rhea bitterly states.
"With that attitude no you're not. But you might land something on me if you focus, remember that you ca use your powers, conjure up a weapon or something I don't know."
"I can do that?" Rhea asks, curiosity taking ahold of her.
"Probably." "The last one could do that but that might have just been her semblance." I think that last part to myself.
Rhea conjures up flames in her hands and pushes her fists together, I raise an eyebrow at her concentration but don't do anything to stop her, I'm too curious to see where this goes. Although in a real battle I doubt that an enemy would just let her do that in front of them and I make a note to point that out once she is finished. Rhea pulls her fists apart and what looks like solid flames with embers falling off forms between her fists, it bends the farther her fists spread apart and eventually it falls to the ground, Rhea exhales deeply and examines her new first conjured up weapon, its a fucking fire whip.
"Well that is new." I say with a look of approval on my face. "Good job for being a Mary Sue and conjuring up a weapon, I didn't know you could do that already."
'Any Maiden can quickly learn how to use their powers, some departments may be faster to learn and some not as fast, but the longer they wield their powers the more powerful they become. In our dear Rhea's case she is learning and adapting quite quickly despite being as inexperienced as she is. That may be because she is in my presence, and well I believe you can fill in the rest.' Ozpin explains for me. Thank god he is here or else things would be much harder to understand.
"So being around me can make her stronger hm? That's good for now but how does that affect the other Maidens?" I ask as Rhea plays around with her new whip.
'Only newly born Maidens are affected by this but it doesn't last a long time, by my estimations I give her approximately one month left before her learning and adapting capabilities begin to diminish, at that point there it will be like training any other huntress unless it is in her nature to be a quick learner, only this one would have a very powerful magical power.'
"Huh, well that's convenient."
"Alright are you done playing around?" I ask as Ozpin and I finish our conversation.
"Oh! Yeah sorry, I tend to lose track of what I'm doing a lot. Before we begin round two what should I call you? I don't remember your name." Rhea asks, unashamed about forgetting my name despite me protecting her.
"Wow thanks for the show of gratitude. You can just call me by my name, which is Hector Rivers by the way, never RJ, and never say Mister beforehand. I'm barely five years older then you anyway."
"Okay, RJ then, it rolls of the tongue easier." Rhea says, completely ignoring my request.
'Haha.'
"Shut up."
"Oh gosh fine, I guess I deserve that after kneeing you in the- Woah!" I get cut off as Rhea uses her whip to try and whip me in the face, I barely dodge it by a hair after I pull off a matrix dodge.
"I'm getting bored of talking, you do that too much." Rhea confidently fires at me with a cocky smirk on her face.
"Oh you little cun-"
'Language.'
"SHUT UP."
"Fine, lets play dirty then." To her surprise the next time she tries to crack my face with the whip I grab it with my bare hand, ignoring the sizzling sound my hand is making as it comes into contact with the solid fire. My aura is doing a great job at protecting me anyway. Rhea tries to pull it away but I am too strong for her. I gently tug it back and Rhea almost falls on her face, scraping her knee against the ground, once I notice the bleeding I immediately stop my aggression and slide to her side.
"You know it would have been great to know that you didn't have your aura unlocked." I say as I help her to a log in the shade of the woods, carrying her bridal style because that's just how anime worlds work.
'To be fair you should have realized that when she actually felt pain after you kneed her in the stomach.'
"To be fair you should have realized that already after you kneed me in the gut." Rhea and Ozpin state almost in perfect unison.
"Alright, nobody's fault." I say as I set her down on the log. I sit next to her and rub my face with my hand at this setback. "Uh Oz what should I do about this?" I honestly have no idea how to help with aura unlocking, I just got mine randomly while fighting beowolves so I don't know how to even begin to explain it.
'Unlock it.'
"What? Oz how would I unlock her aura anyway? In case you forgot she is also a Maiden." After I say this Rhea perks up, her wolf ears also give off the emotion of curiosity as the stand up atop her head.
'I know you can, I am well aware of her Maiden status but the Maidens have to unlock their auras the same way any normal Human or Faunus do, all you must do is place a hand on her temple and reach her aura with your own, chanting a chime while doing so will make it easier but it has to be completely unique.'
"You say that like it's an easy thing to do. Wait how was she able to chuck fireballs at me without aura?"
'She wasn't using her aura as a source of power, she was using magic, and it will be easy, once you do it once. Give it a try, it is nearly impossible to fail. But remember that you will have an emotional link once it is finished.'
"Alright fine, well Rhea Oz convinced me to give it a go." I say as I stand up and kneel down in front of her.
"YES!" Rhea excitedly screeches, before realizing what she just did and slapping her hands against her mouth to hide her excitement, also going red from embarrassment.
"Ow my ears, okay just sit still and let me concentrate." I instruct as I gently place a hand on her right temple. Rhea nods once to give me the go ahead, I focus my aura into my hand and try to do what Ozpin instructed earlier, It actually wasn't hard to find her aura and now I just have to pull it out so to speak. But I can't even make it budge, I begin to sweat as I keep trying to pull it out and my eye clenches shut, Rhea goes through the same thing as I am trying to force her aura out.
'You're forgetting one of the steps Hector.' Ozpin points out.
I very well remember what I am not doing, I just decided not to do it, but it seems like I have to come of with something to get this to work properly. So off the top of my head I think of a chant. "Through this… I become your guardian… Through this… I use my own power to unlock yours…" As I chant me and Rhea both relax as her aura deep within begins to allow itself the be brought out. As the seconds pass I manage to come up with more. "It is through trust do we uh… become closer with one another." I continue hesitantly, now it's time for the final part. "Lastly, I offer my shoulder to you, and promise to be there for you for anything."
After that last probably cringey part a flash amber colored aura nearly blinds me through my closed eye. After a moment I reopen my eye to see Rhea hovering just a few inches off the ground, the color of a Maiden's aura flowing around her body, the minor injury on her knee healed almost instantly. After a few moments she plops down on the ground with a soft thump, and looks at me with glistening eyes. She is excited, and I can feel that radiating off of her.
"I've never felt this relaxed and safe before." Rhea says as she examines her hands feeling out her newly unlocked aura.
I stay sitting on the ground, leaning my back up against a tree, panting and sweating a lot. Rhea notices this and rushes to my side, sensing my discomfort.
"Are you okay?!"
"I'm fine i'm fine, that just took a lot out of me." I say between pants. I guess unlocking the aura of the Fall Maiden can be pretty draining.
"Should we cut this session short then?" Rhea asks as she sits down next to me, bringing her knees up to her chin and rests her head on them.
"Yeah, don't get used to it though. But I guess this give me a chance to tell you about the rest of the Maidens now." I bring up, leaning forward.
"Are there others?" Rhea asks right away, I nod to say yes but I end up explaining anyway.
"Yeah, there's a Maiden for every season, you're the Fall Maiden, though I'm sure you already know that. Then there's the Summer, Winter, and Spring. I met Spring before but not the others so I don't know much about them, and Fall should be self explanatory."
"You fought them right? At Haven?" Rhea asks, surprising me at how she knew that already, the whole "public" story was just me facing off against impossible odds and winning.
"Yeah, the previous Fall and the current Spring Maiden." I reveal hesitantly, slowly getting nervous as I know what her next question is going to be.
"The… previous Fall Maiden. What was she like?"
"I… am going to be honest with you. She was not a good person, remember the Fall of Beacon?"
Rhea's eyes widen as she puts two and two together, but has to confirm if her thoughts are what actually happened. "She was the one responsible for that?!" Rhea asks as she begins to get teary eyed. Horrified at the thought of her predecessor causing so much pain to the world.
I hesitate to answer, but I know I have to if she is going to learn the truth about what is going on in the world. "Yes, she ended many lives, both huntsman and huntsman in training alike, she also killed the headmaster, which was the main cause of him transferring his soul into my body."
Rhea begins to cry at this point, tears stream from her face as her lip quivers. "RJ… How did I get these powers?" She almost doesn't want to know the answer to that.
Even more hesitation fills my mind as I try to figure out a good way to reveal this. Ozpin remains silence to give us some space in the best way he can in his current situation. He is surprised that I am going to tell her this so early but with all the bonding we've done today I figured that I might as well get it out of the way before a whole arc gets made out of it.
"She was at Haven, trying to steal The Relic of Knowledge, I'll explain more about that another time. I had to stop her, all of my friends were in deep trouble at the time, and I was the only one standing, I used my semblance to the maximum in an attempt to take her down. I almost won but it wasn't enough since my body gave out, at the time I wasn't nearly as accustomed to the pain and heat that my body gives off while I'm using it, hell even my clothes burnt off. About ten minutes later one of my buddies Jaune, healed me, I got back up and took care of the weaker enemies up top before I went below ground. I skipped a lot so let me explain, after I was knocked out the Spring Maiden went down into the Vault, and tried to steal it for herself, Cinder went down there and spotted this, and she killed who she thought was the Spring Maiden at the time, who was really just a decoy, back to present I jumped down there and saw her pinning Spring up against a gate, draining her of her power with her Grimm arm." Rhea only gets worse after hearing this, but doesn't make any motion to stop me. "I… cut off her arm. At that point the fight was won before it even started, I grabbed her by the throat and electrocuted her with my Gauntlets and then threw her off the bridge. She fell to her death. After that I fought Spring and I don't know If I would've won that or not but in the end it was a general victory. That's all there is to it." I end the story, not able to look at her after revealing to her what actually happened that day.
To my surprise Rhea actually places her hand in mine to get my attention, I look to her instinctively.
"That's why I was so afraid when I first met you, besides that one lady that I never got a good look of in my visions you were the only other person that she was afraid of." Rhea says through her tears. "Don't worry about how this affects you and I. I understand how you must have felt, she caused so much pain and deserved what happened to her." Rhea says as she wipes the tears from her eyes and squeezes my hand.
"Oh, well that makes everything much easier." I say as I wipe my eye of a single tear that may or may not have gotten out.
"Wait were you crying?"
"No! It was my allergies combined with the emotion of sadness... Okay shut up yes it was a tear, I could feel how sad you got and it made me sad." I say as I fully turn to look at her with my slightly bloodshot eye.
"Hmph, you are such a softie." Rhea says as she punches my shoulder playfully.
"Well how was I supposed to know that you would take that so incredibly well?"
"Fair point."
The rest of the day passed without us realizing it, we went back into the house and found the others face down on every couch panting and coated in sweat. After making fun of them for it and high fiving Tai we go upstairs, shower (not together please) and move back into the room where me and Rhea slept in the night before.
"Do you still need me here to protect you while you sleep or are we good?" I playfully ask as I lean on the door frame.
"Is there anywhere else you can sleep?" Rhea asks as she plops down on her bed in her onesie pajamas that Ruby had for some reason when she was younger. God if I havent lost my scroll a while back I would have take a picture of her in it.
"Well there's the couch that the others are sweating all over and-" I cut myself off as a red and black portal cuts it's way through the air. "What the? Already?"
"Rhea stay here." I demand as I shut the door. Rhea could sense my seriousness and determination so she listens without any rebelling. But just in case fighting begins to happen she is ready to blast the door open without a second thought.
"Well… you're here early." I greet as Raven slowly steps out of the portal.
AN- ANNND Cliffhanger! I just could not help myself I am so so sorry, I was way past the limit of words I had planned for myself and had to end it before I wrote another ten thousand words. I enjoyed writing Hector and Rhea together, I'm trying to go for like a big brother/little sister kind of relationship for these two, hopefully I'll get better at it in the future. Next chapter is for RWBY and Mercury since I gave them a very small portion of last chapter and skipped over a lot of things. I'm going to try to write out what's going on between all three adventures next chapter, covering RWBY, RNJRR (Third R is for Rhea), and Ilia, in smaller portions of course, and see how that works. Because I just know you guys are going to be on the edge of your seats to see what's going on with RNJRR after Ravens arrival, but mainly it's going to be RWBY, Mercury and Ilia.
Raven is early? What could this mean for RNJR and Rhea? Find out next time in the next installment of RNJR and Rhea!
I think you guys are going to be surprised with what I do with RNJR next chapter. Might be something you guys don't expect, unless you're smart and make a very accurate prediction.
For those who are fans of Neo… just keep in touch for the next couple chapters.
Please leave a review and tell me what you think! I'm open to anything you guys want to say, any ideas? Thoughts? Critique? I read every single review multiple times.
And before I spoil anything, I'll see you guys next time! Whether in Team HAMR or Oh Gosh.
Disclaimer- I do not own RWBY in any way shape or form.