Chapter 13: A Chat, Another Chat, and a Call

Epizon looked on with faint amusement as the fight between the ironically named team CRDL, lead by Cardin Winchester, was completely dominated by Pyrrha. Entertaining to watch, but not in and of itself all that interesting. Or at least, on the surface it wasn't. It was what he could see beneath the surface that interested him. Pyrrha was holding back while CRDL was throwing everything it had at her. Faint Semblance usage from one or two of them, the rest most likely not having discovered theirs, while Pyrrha didn't use her Semblance at all. He'd have to set up a more difficult fight if he wanted to figure it out since it appeared Cardin was just an idiot. A decently strong idiot, but nothing special other than brute force and relatively decent strategy, though their teamwork was complete trash. Hitting your allies was never a good idea unless there was more to the plan than just hitting them to hit your opponent. Even so, as much as it annoyed him, Epizon had to admit that given a couple years, CRDL and Cardin himself might actually be worth something. Never as much as any of the supposed prodigies of this year, but they wouldn't get downed easily. Maybe worth teaching a few tricks, but his own biases didn't appreciate some of their opinions. He could always beat their opinions out of them though. Pyrrha however. She would be something great, assuming she wasn't killed first. She fought well, held back enough to let CRDL think they had a chance, and did it all while keeping her Semblance out of sight. She would be worth teaching a couple techniques. He chuckled to himself as Cardin got slammed into and partially through the ground. A very entertaining fight.

He pushed off of the wall he had been leaning on and clapped twice for Pyrrha. "Good job Pyrrha. Took them down fairly easily. If you ever have time, I wouldn't say no to sparring with you. As for team CRDL… Well you guys are a bunch of egotistical idiots. You might be worth something one day, but for now, keep your mouths shut, listen to what I teach you, and for the love of god don't try to piss off anyone stronger than you, which is pretty much anyone smarter than a bag of bricks. Now we have like 5 or 10 minutes or so left, and while I could have another spar take place, instead I'll let you kids talk and stuff and if anyone has a question, they can ask it. As for you Nikos, I'd like to talk to you after class. Nothing to be nervous about, just a little chat."

He sighed as he leaned back against the wall as she walked back to the locker rooms, CRDL dragging themselves in behind her. He'd need to start raiding Qrow's stash every morning if he wanted to keep himself from going completely sober every day at this rate. That would not be good for his mental health. Though on second thought, at least he never got drunk like Qrow. It was hilarious seeing Qrow's expression when he lost the drinking contest last night. Then he got so caught up in trying to outdrink Epizon that he knocked himself out. That might explain why he didn't wake up Epizon. Not that Epizon blamed him, even if Epizon hadn't chosen to beat Qrow in a drinking contest. It wasn't as if Epizon could just make himself get drunk easily. If he could he definitely would. He'd also probably try to see if he could drink himself to death, but he would still fail. He yawned as he saw the students begin to talk to one another before he saw 4 older looking students walking up to him.

A short brown haired one wearing a beret stepped in the front of the rest to talk to him. "Hi new teach. I'm Coco, leader of team CFVY, and these are my teammates, Fox, Yatsu, and Velvet." She pointed at her teammates, a fairly average (for a Huntsman) maroon haired boy with white eyes, possibly blind, though Epizon wouldn't assume yet, a tall muscular guy with short black hair, and a brown haired rabbit Faunus girl.

"Ok? What do you want? Just because I'm drunk off my ass whenever possible doesn't mean I won't get stuck with something important at some point."

Coco looked meaningfully at Velvet. "My teammate Velvet has some questions for you."

Epizon sighed. "Ok? Ask them or don't. Time is an extremely valuable resource that I have a shortage of, so if you don't mind, get to the point."

Velvet looked at him with wide eyes as she gaped. "Are you ok? Do you need to see the medical wing? Is it your liver? I'm sorry for wasting your time if you have something important to do Mr. Akoníto!"

Epizon sighed. "Kid I'm not busy right now. Ask me your questions. As for being sick or whatever, I'm fine. My liver is better than Qrow's, and I am not dying of cancer or something like that. As for dying, Hunters die all the time. It's pretty much part of the job description, so even if I'm not a Hunter, as someone who works in a field dealing with eliminating targets, whether they be h8man, Faunus, or Grimm, I'll die at some point, just as you kids probably will. Technically everyone is dying all the time because they're growing older, but no one makes a big deal out of it, so even if I were dying of something, as long as I go out on my own terms after finishing what I've set out to do, it doesn't matter much, now does it." He paused as he noticed Velvet's pale face. "Anyways, ignore my rather dark philosophy for now, you're not going to be at as much risk as a Hunter for a while yet unless something goes horribly wrong. Now what are your questions?"

Velvet stared at him before smiling nervously. "Well, I was wondering if I could photograph your weapons and maybe some pictures of you fighting? It would help me grow better. My Semblance, Photographic Memory lets me copy people's movements, including fighting styles, and Anesidora, my weapon, let's my temporarily copy their weapons from photographs."

Epizon blinked before smiling. "That's a pretty nice Semblance. Good synergy with your weapon too. Probably the reason you hamade that specific weapon. As for your request, feel free to copy my weapons so long as you don't try to permanently recreate them. I would recommend you not use my fighting style though, at best you should butcher it and take one or two of the moves from it. If you use the full fighting style, while your combat capabilities would go up, you'd probably die or get severely or lethally injured a lot quicker."

Velvet nodded as he responded before frowning at the end. "If your fighting style is as dangerous for the user as you say it is, then why do you use it?"

Epizon chuckled. "Think of it this way. I am a mercenary who makes a living by eliminating my targets, which is usually Grimm or criminals. The fighting style makes it easy to eliminate targets quickly for a price. I already had to adapt to having a low Aura, making it so that I either had to rely on not getting hit, or giving worse than I got and recovering quickly, or I'd get my ass kicked 9 times out of 10. I have both, but only because I adapted an older style and twisted it, before adding it to the end results of a separate style's modifications to suit my needs, resulting in my style. If I had to name it, I would name it "Deal of the Devil" for ironic reasons, and because it relies on paying heavy prices for extreme damage, while maintaining the flexibility to survive. You could use my style, and I don't doubt you could master it and survive using it fairly quickly given your Semblance, but all it would take is one instance of you using it when you shouldn't, and while you would last longer than I would since you have greater Aura reserves, you'd still be in deep shit. So take the best parts of it and leave the rest. Hell, even with your Semblance, I would recommend you dedicate yourself to creating your own style blending all or most of the fighting styles you know, and mainly use that, so as to get familiar with it, because while a jack of all trades usually gets downed when facing people who can overpower, outmaneuver, overtake through speed, or otherwise maintain mastery over one key aspect to the fight, if that jack of all trades masters one to master all, they will be better off. To be fair to you, you probably shouldn't pay all that much attention to what I say since I'm all but half-mad, so you do whatever you like so long as you don't involve me. Now, since class is almost over and I'm too sober for my tastes, pretty much yes to both so long as you're prepared to pay the price." Epizon looked at the kids in front of him before furrowing his eyes slightly at their blank expressions and slack jaws. "What? Did you think that just because I'm an almost completely drunk jackass I'm incompetent enough not to warn you exactly how bad an idea it is to use anything relating to me? If I was, I wouldn't still be alive kids. Now shoo and take your pictures at some other point in time. Class time is just about over."

At that moment the bell rang and the class stormed out, followed closely by team CFVY, who were looking at him a bit strangely. None of his business what they thought of him. Hell, if they told everyone he was a complete idiot who was off his rocker he'd give them free grades on anything he could. He was taken from his thoughts as Pyrrha cleared her throat in front of him. "What is it you wanted to discuss Mr. Akoníto?"

Epizon sighed. "Why were you holding back so much? You're wasting your time and mine by doing so, along with every other student's."

Pyrrha frowned. "I don't know what you mean. It was a fair fight."

Epizon chuckled. "Kid, I know when people are holding back, especially when you didn't use your Semblance. Either way, I don't care about that. What I want to know is simple. What's your Semblance and why don't you use it?"

Pyrrha's frown deepened as she paused before responding. "No offense Mr. Akoníto, but Semblances are very personal. I see no reason to reveal it to you when I have out so much effort into not revealing it. As for not using it, I think it would be unfair to use it in a fight."

Epizon paused and looked at her before bursting into laughter. "Ok I guess we're doing this. So let's start with the whole fairness thing or whatever. You say it would be unfair to use it, but isn't it more unfair to your opponents not to use it? You're basically treating everyone you've fought without using it or using it seriously with contempt. If you feel like that then continue, but something tells me you don't, so I'd recommend you use it, even if it is covert. And don't try acting like you use it because I can tell when someone uses their Semblance. Now, as for the Semblance sharing, what would I have to do for you to reveal it?"

Pyrrha flinched as he spoke before pausing at his latest question. "A Semblance isn't just some superpower Mr. Akoníto. I know you're not a Huntsman, so you might not understand, but Semblances are as much a representation of the soul as Aura, except while Aura is more defensive in nature, Semblances are the offensive byproduct of Aura. If someone wants to keep their Semblance a secret, you should respect that."

Epizon's smile disappeared as he frowned at her. "Nikos, I can assure you that whatever your Semblance is, it can't be as bad as mine is, or as negatively descriptive of your soul. Now, I don't really hate to do this, so I'll put it this way. Either you tell me straight out, we exchange Semblance information, I use my position as a teacher to ask for it, or you don't tell me and I get to enjoy handing out a suitable punishment. I'm not exactly going to spread this information around or anything, I just need to know to teach you better, because if you don't use your Semblance you will never be able to use it's full power."

Pyrrha frowned at him before closing her eyes and sighing. "If I must then I would like to know why you think your Semblance is worse than mine. Mine is unfair against any human or Faunus."

Epizon nodded his head. "So are you going to tell me or are you going to keep stalling? I know you've probably already shared it with your team or team RWBY, so is this reluctance just you not wanting someone who's basically a stranger to know?"

Pyrrha winced as he saw through her misdirections. "Fine. My Semblance is polarity."

Epizojn paused, waiting for more before staring at her. "Really? That's it? You're this strung up about a magnetic Semblance?"

Pyrrha frowned. "Of course I am! My Semblance is useless against Grimm, but is unfair to-"

Epizon interrupted. "Nikos, there's no such thing as a fair fight. Remnant isn't a fair world where everyone gets happiness either, but there are still people around. Faunus are discriminated against, enslaved, in some cases put into fighting rings where they either die or kill to merely survive, but Faunus are still around. Sure, some of them ar fucking idiots, but not everyone can take down terrorist organizations. Your Semblance is a damn good one, but not unfair. You could carry razor sharp iron shards with you and use those to shred Grimm, but you don't. That's your fault for not realizing you could, get more creative and use your full potential. Now that we've got that out of the way, anything else or were those your only reasons for not wanting your Semblance to be known?"

Pyrrha gaped at him before nodding. "Those were my only reasons. I will take your... advice into consideration Mr. Akoníto. I would still like to know why you think your Semblance is worse than mine. You seemed particularly passionate about this."

Epizon shrugged. "What can I say, I'm a bit of a philosopher sometimes. As for my Semblance, it's one of those things where if I tried to tell you what it is past the most basic of basics you'd tax your mind. Trust me, I went to a guy who works with Aura for a living and he could only wrap his head around the first couple sentences. Nice enough guy, damn smart too, but no one understands my Semblance."

Pyrrha smirked at him. "Turnabout is fair play Mr. Akoníto. Stop stalling."

Epizon smirked. "Mercenaries often lie. Thanks for the information, but I'm not going to go around telling everyone my Semblance. After all, that'd make killing me remarkably easier for anyone who wanted to." He paused as a frown briefly showed on his face before his smirk came back. "Also it's not the kind of thing you would want to know about Nikos. You'd probably get nightmares or something. Now let's head to lunch, shall we?"

Pyrrha frowned at him. "I guess I'll just have to ask the other teachers then."

Epizon smiled. "You do that. Fair warning, it won't work. There are a grand total of three people on Remnant who know what my Semblance does, and you're not going to find the other two in Vale any time soon. And also none of the three actually know what exactly my Semblance is, we just know what we think it does. It's a complicated pain in the ass like that."

Pyrrha looked at him in confusion as her frown dropped. "How can you not know what your Semblance is? Shouldn't it be fairly easy to test out?"

Epizon paused before shrugging. "Who knows. Maybe it's super simple and I'm just an idiot. Maybe I actually know my soul and understand it but wish I didn't. Maybe you would understand exactly how stupid that comment was if I told you some more information. All of these and more could be true, but I can assure you that the last will not come to pass. Now I've got a call to take before lunch, so if you don't mind, go top your friends and chat. Make sure they won't drag me over either."

Pyrrha frowned and walked to the door to leave before pausing and turning back to him. "Who are you calling?"

Epizon shrugged as he chuckled a bit. "I would say an old friend, but we both have reasons to agree on her hatred of my guts. We're business associates of a sort. Now head to lunch Nikos. I already get enough trouble from you Beacon kids with team RWBY, I don't need any more nosy people."

Pyrrha sighed before leaving Epizon where he stood, looking at the area with a frown as he was in deep thought, interrupted by the ringing of his Scroll. "Right on time." He took out his Scroll and unlocked it before quickly swiping the screen to accept his call. "Hey Becca. How've you been doing up in Atlas?"

"I've been doing fine. There's been some interesting research flowing around lately, and I met one Doctor Polendina who's great with all things Aura. He even made a synthetic human with it's own soul. I'm thinking that if I work with him I might be able to help you more."

Epizon smiled before it was replaced by a frown at the end. "Becca, I've already told you to stop trying to help me with this. It's my problem, and it's most likely impossible to solve anyways. Get yourself a boyfriend or something and start a family already, and then do your best to forget about me. Hell, don't forget me if that's the problem, but stop trying to help me. At most stick to just helping me with the occasional mechanical problem, but you should stop wasting your life."

The voice replied, filled with snark. "Ah yes, because you're such a horrible person and have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and I should just move on and live my life happily." The voice lost its snark as it shifted to plain exasperated. "Look, I know you think I should hate you or whatever, but I owe you so much more than I could ever repay. The least I can do is help you be able to be yourself. You haven't done anything to deserve my hate except make a few mistakes, and those aren't your fault. You did what you could, and I'm sure that she would be proud of you for it. I'm also sure that she would do the same thing I'm doing to help you. Except she'd probably be better at it."

Epizon sighed. "You don't owe me shit Becca. You and I both know that Alice wouldn't have died if not for me, so how about we skip the you trying to say you owe me, me telling you that you don't because I failed miserably, and get to actually talking. How have you been not relating to helping me."

He heard a sigh on the other end of the call. "Sure. I've been doing good, business is fine, even better since you helped me movie up to Atlas a while back, but other than that it's more of the same old stuff, other than some little bits and pieces I've found to help a certain ungrateful, overly self-critical mercenary. Speaking of, I've heard from Pietro that there's a certain abnormal mercenary who has both met his daughter and works at Beacon. Interestingly enough, you didn't bother telling me any of that. You also didn't tell me that you're drinking again Epizon. You know that as little effect as it has on you, it could still technically count as activating your Semblance. You need to cut down on your drinking or I'll call in some favors with Pietro and make you cut it down by force."

Epizon snorted. "Yeah yeah, whatever Becca. You and I both know you can call in those favors and I could still get away with trying to drink myself to death. As for my very recent employment at Beacon, which I am surprised you know about, that was a bit of a compromise on my part. Certain people were willing to give me information about the jackasses who butchered my family if I helped them take down said people. It wasn't that hard a compromise to make. It helps they're letting me have the combat instructor job so I can take out my bouts of spite on the occasional aggravating students, or in the case of today, team RWBY, who blew up my best shot at drinking myself to death. You know how I am, I'm a spiteful jackass. Glad that Beacon will accept that, since they seemed like the kinds of people who wanted a nice, friendly, honorable and caring person on their side rather than me. I was only too happy to shatter their expectations and keep as much information about myself as I could away from them."

He heard a faint snarl from the other side of the call. "Damn it and damn you. You know that we could have given them that person if you helped me help you! You don't have to be this person, you and I both know you can choose to-"

Epizon interrupted her with a faint chuckle and a smirk, only one of which was noticeable to Becca. "Bad choice of words there Becca. You and I both know that you're wrong. Flint, Alice, the person I used to be, they're all dead and gone, and you and I both know it's my fault. You and I both know that for me, there is no choice other than who I drag with me when I die. Now, how about we call this conversation over with and I get to lunch? I've got some things to do, some sleep to barely get, and alcohol that won't be much use to me. Though Becca, I will say, there is one thing you can do to help me that I'll be willing to let you do without nagging you about."

Becca's voice lightened as a sense of hope grew in it. "How? Name what I need to do to help you."

Epizon smirked as he lowered his thumb towards the hang up button. "Find a way to make it so I can drink myself to death. Barring that, find something to make it so I can at least forget some things without drinking for hours on end. See ya." BEEP

Epizon began to put his scroll away with a faint smile before shaking his head as he heard it begin to ring, unlocking it before setting it to ignore her calls for a couple days and then putting it away. "Well at least that's one thing done and over with. Now let's get lunch." He walked towards the door and stopped as he realized his face was set in a faint frown, before shrugging and covering it up with his signature smirk as he exited the classroom and headed towards the cafeteria. It looked like things would at least be interesting around here.

Funny how Nikos acted with her Semblance though. I mean really, sure it was more specified towards fighting humans and Faunus, but that didn't mean she should ignore it's versatility. Not that it mattered to him anyways. He would help his students so long as he saw fit to, and no more. He had goals of his own, and something told him that Ozpin wouldn't approve of his plans. Not that that mattered much to Epizon. Epizon just needed to continue killing until he couldn't. If he found out why his family and their curse were considered important enough to eliminate every man, woman, and child? That would be a nice bonus. For now though, Epizon had a bunch of alcohol and food with his name on it. He wondered if there were any fish sandwiches in the teacher's lunch menu. They wouldn't bring much joy, but they'd bring more joy than the other food options would. Unimportant as it was, it did remind him of something, now that he thought of it. It mattered little though. The few choices he had left lasted for short periods of time before being replaced by what his life had become. It was amusing in its own horrific way. Or at least he thought it was probably horrific. Becca certainly acted like it was. She always had been against this. He had too once upon a time. Sadly, once upon a time was a cliché beginning to every fairy tale. Though now that he thought of it, it was rather amusing the lengths people would go to to make it seem like fairy tales were tales of heroism and happiness. They weren't. Or at least the uncensored ones weren't. Death, misery, rage, betrayal, irony? Those were the lessons of the original tales. Unimportant though. Philosophy didn't fit him as well as Becca thought it would. It didn't distract him as well as she thought it would either. They both knew how this would end. He shook his head sharply as his vision snapped into focus and he saw the cafeteria in the distance, him having somehow automatically made his way towards it. He yawned as he opened the doors to the cafeteria and walked through the sounds of intermingling conversation towards the staff specific lunch room in silence. What day was it again? He pulled out his Scroll again and looked at the date before frowning. No wonder he was starting to slip. He always had been a bit unstable around this time of year. Maybe Ozpin would let him take the day off? He hadn't ever been here for it before, but he might as well head there this year if he was going to be in Vale. He owed them that much, and it would hopefully help hold him together for a bit longer. He'd rather not have to use the more complicated portions of his Semblance again. They hurt like a bitch. That was to be expected though.

AN: 1 review

Alduin(Chapter 12): Glad you enjoyed the chapter and the fight. As for a crazy Semblance and Aura, I have no idea what you mean... Epizon is a completely normal person. That is able to survive very well. Nothing else to see here. No sarcasm either. I'm glad that I;'ve got at least one person going insane trying to figure out the simultaneously simple and complicated bullshit that is Epizon. I'd like to think that means I'm succeeding. As for Nurse Port, I can assure you… There shall be a reckoning like none other. Nurse Port shall appear from the depths of hell and torment Beacon Academy... Insert cartoon villain laugh here. Hope you enjoyed this chapter .

Now that that's over with, hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. It was pretty tame compared to the last chapter, but that's because this chapter was mainly here to hint, introduce, world-build, and continue the insanity that is Ozpin's decision to hire Epizon. Not much to say here about the chapter since this chapter is mainly meant to hint at and explain things in such a way that you will (hopefully )only understand some things later on, so explaining what's in the chapter would kind of get in the way of that. Past that it's just the same things as usual, though I will say I did not expect to get as many follows and favorites on this story as I have, so while I don't have time to thank people individually, I will say that I'm glad people enjoy this fanfiction. Now for the new things, the only real new thing is that my update schedule will change a bit to adapt to changes in my life. It'll still be basically the same schedule, the only difference is that if I ever fail to complete a chapter on the Thursday it was supposed to come out, it will come out as soon as I have the time to finish it up and I'll do my best to keep it to the same schedule as usual the best I can. For now though, all I've got to say otherwise is that I hope everyone is staying safe, I shall laugh at Alduin's upcoming bouts of insanity, and if you haven't heard of the utterly satisfying karmic justice that just hit Wall Street hedge funds, look it up. It's amazing. See ya!