AN
I finally decided to stop being lazy and start powering through the chapters leading up to the fall. In my absolute idiocy, I wrote 4k words instead of 3k words, and now, after just editing it once, I'm posting it.
BTW, thanks a lot for 300 follows! And we have breached 70 reviews as of today.
I am so, so grateful for all the support that y'all have been giving me. As a new "author" (I guess content creator in this case?), this is monumental to me.
(Wattpad flashbacks)
Anyways, enjoy the chapter!
…
Warning: This may be cringe. Character may be OOC, but lmao idk about this stuff. Again, I'm just a newbie "author".
Stories from Before the End: From their Eyes #1 (Emerald 1rst person POV)
I always had one thing in my life. Well, my life after she unlocked her aura.
Illusions.
It was something to give me an opportunity to steal valuable items, my ticket into Cinder's group, and something to fall back on.
(But Cinder wanted me in their "group" because of Cinder's genuine concerns for me, right?)
(Right?)
Shaking off insecurities, I even cast an illusion on her own face to make Mercury see my face cockily smirk at him to reassure both him and myself.
After all, this was my opportunity to prove myself again.
(To make sure that nobody ever threw me away again.)
Mercury and I had discussed strategy beforehand for fighting this… Yun. A former Mistral Regionals Champion, Mercury had analyzed his fighting style in his televised match with the Not-so-Invincible Girl. That moniker was intimidating while it lasted.
Yun's nickname, the Flowered Mask, or whatever the media called him, was much less intimidating. Instead, it was made to play up the mysterious air around him and to encourage citizens to read more about the identity of this mysterious huntsman in training.
Yun tended to fight with a hit and run style, so our plan was to have Mercury pursue Yun while I slinked back into the forest to cast an illusion when the time was ripe and then...
He was toast.
After all, we had utter control over the terrain and the matchups. Mercury and I knew his weaknesses (his aura didn't properly shield him) and his strengths, along with his overreliance on precision.
One good kick from Mercury and an illusion negating his block would be the end of him.
Mercury subtly stepped forward and I edged towards my intended destination, so I was very surprised when Yun violated every single thing we thought about him and jumped straight at me, sword out and ready to slash.
Out of a reflex, I jumped back, pulled out my pistols, and pressed down the trigger. The automatic pistols spewed out a barrage of bullets, heading straight at Yun's figure. Surprisingly, he had a new weapon this time, armor over his arm that he wore under his robes, and the bullets pinged off of it.
Thankfully, Mercury intercepted the charge with an attack of his own, sparing me from using my aura to defend and allowing me to disorient Yun as I saw fit.
One of my bullets met its mark, grazing Yun's side, as some red trickled down his black robes. Mercury, taking advantage of the opening, kicked Yun straight in the gut, who fell back and ran into the tall grass.
We searched the grass for a bit, shooting the stalks to see if he would get hit or move rapidly to dodge the projectiles, before deducing that he was in the forest.
Mercury cast a glance at me and I nodded. We both hid in the bushes, but once I spotted a lock of white hair in the foliage, I cast an illusion in a clearing that Mercury was prepared to ambush. An image of me looking around, searching for the very prey we were hunting.
Predictably, he fell for it, leaping from tree to tree with an admirably small amount of noise, and then jumped down from a tree, striking at the image.
Obviously, it wasn't solid, and Mercury's kick rendered him prone on the grass. He recovered fast, but I shot another volley of bullets at him. He held up that annoying armored arm to deflect most of the bullets, but one hit him in the leg and he had to retreat.
His aura didn't protect him from attacks, instead healing him, meaning that he now either had a bullet healed into his leg by his aura or a continuously bleeding leg wound.
Predictably, his aura tricked down to a forty percent as we located his wheezing figure. He suppressed a scream in pain, before stepping out from behind the trees. I could see a hole in his robes, where my bullet had hit and the fire dust inside had exploded.
The area looked freshly healed, with blood splattering the area. No wonder he was in so much pain. He must have had to get the shrapnel out by hand or something.
Mercury shot a bullet from his boots at him, and it was blocked, but Mercury used this distraction to advance and perform a sweeping kick. I let Yun get into the rhythm of the fight, getting used to parrying the blows-
And then, Yun stabbed the sword into the earth, somehow trapping Mercury with his sword. Then, he punched with his arm, encased in heavy metal. The hammer fist did a lot of damage to Mercury's aura, who was barely able to recover and then escape before a second blow came down.
I unleashed the scythe mode of my weapons, the unspoken signal making Mercury smile and run to the side, before jumping up and aiming a kick at the side of his face.
I twisted the image, refracting it and reorganizing it so that Yun saw the attack coming from the front.
The attack sent him sprawling onto the ground. The buzzer sounded, and I retracted my scythes and prepared to stow them away, but somehow, our opponent still had 30 percent aura.
"W-well, the match is back on then!" the announcer stuttered, before the arena was silent once more.
I was slightly confused, but I made my weapons click open, sending the signal for Mercury to attack again.
He ran up to Yun from the side again, and I made it seem like he was attacking from the front. As he approached, he wound up for a kick, the finishing blow…
And then he was blocked.
What.
I could feel my aura trickling down, and a quick glance at my reflection in my scythe blade told me that my eyes were glowing slightly, the tell-tale mark of my semblance usage.
How was he able to get past my illusions? Panicked, I made mercury invisible to Yun's eyes, but he still caught his drop kick with a fist, before punching Mercury as he fell, sending him flying. He hit a tree and didn't get up again.
And then he turned towards me. I cast as many illusions on him as I could, generating figures of me running in all directions as I, too, scurried towards cover in a nearby bush.
He still followed me, unperturbed by the illusions.
My heartbeat in my throat, and the pound of blood was deafening. This was not supposed to happen. I was supposed to disorient him, and it did work the first time! What happened?
Was I… just becoming useless? Were my illusions not strong enough?
I gritted my teeth and sent images of myself running at him, miming attacks. This normally sent people into a panic as I tried these tricks in the streets, but Yun just kept on running towards me.
As he got close, I could see that his eyes were closed.
Was he just locating me with sound? There was no way. His semblance was aura draining, right? Not echolocation or some other sensory power.
Well, since his eyes were closed, I took a deep breath and shot him twice.
The world seemed to slow down as he grabbed the first bullet with his armored arm, which also had a metal glove, and threw it at the second bullet.
His throw missed the bullet, but I had to jump off the tree to dodge his retaliation.
How did he just catch a bullet?
In my moment of disbelief, he opened his eyes and looked straight at me.
I gulped and then did the first thing that came to mind: I made his vision see nothing but black, before jumping to the right, raising my scythes and preparing to strike.
He turned, eyes somehow still focused on me, before using his armor to block the blow and grab my weapon.
I didn't want to believe it, but I was defeated. He read me like a book. He saw past all of my tricks, and somehow could locate me without even seeing me.
I was pulled along with my weapon, and a punch was all it took to finish me off.
I lay on the grass for a while, suppressing some emotion within me.
And for the first time in many years, I felt true fear.
Because me and my illusions were no longer invincible.
…
…
The third round was rapidly approaching, and I had to actually understand dust before then.
Dust was energy. Sure. And it's not magic.
Except it totally was. There was no way there was a lightning crystal that had scientific explanations. Just no.
Still, this was my life now, and I had to understand this.
I channeled a bit of Chi into the armor I was wearing, and for convenience's sake, instead of just calling it "armor", I guess I'll name it.
I racked my brain for ideas, before settling on something that was the least headache inducing.
Uh… Ice… Breaker?
Sure, why not. It couldn't be worse than calling it Arm Armor in my head.
Channeling chi into Icebreaker, I could feel the cold seeping out of the tiny, blue crystals embroidered onto the chainmail-platemail hybrids, before coalescing into something that was just a thin layer of ice.
But what if… I poured in more power?
The crystals started glowing, and I first took preemptive measures like getting the hot water running and mentally plotting out the course to the beacon forges to defrost maybe half my body, before going further.
More energy went into the crystals, and they were almost too bright to look at.
At last, it reached a limiting point (which was about 15 percent of my Chi gauges) before flash freezing my whole arm.
I looked at my immobilized limb, and nodded.
It wasn't as catastrophic as I thought it would be.
I took out a chipped hammer I had "borrowed" from the forges (nobody would miss it anyways), and began removing the ice from my already freezing cold arm.
Would this have any combat applications?
Well, if freezing my arm together, locking the joints of the armor , or suddenly giving myself frostbite was a tactical advantage, then sure.
Hmm… well maybe I could… use the refractive properties of the ice?
I shook my head as I swept the ice fragments into a trash bin. The odds of that specific matchup were actually pretty small, and after all, and it might not even work.
…
The setting for the last round of the tournament was… disappointing, to say the least.
Instead of a potentially awe inspiring tirade of combat throughout various biomes, we were instead confined to… a flat surface.
This was horrible and all, but the worse part was that the white plate led to a fifty meter drop down to my inevitable death.
This was doing wonders for my psyche. I totally was not freaking out as the other person on the ascending platform was just smiling and standing motionlessly, horrifying green eyes staring into my soul.
Yes. My opponent was possible murderer, Penny Polendina.
Imagine you know somebody that can use lasers to melt an entire airship down. Multiply that by the fact that they're currently staring blankly at you right now, and you get absolutely terrifying.
This was literally the matchup that I dreaded the most.
I was probably over dramatic about my current situation, but I began panicking and thinking about battle strategies anyways. Better safe than sorry.
"Her lasers have a charge time, and even if they can probably melt this whole arena, she can't kill the spectators. That means that she'll be limited to weaker laser blasts and hopefully not painfully maim me? Her blades did spin during the blast of homicide last semester at the docs, so maybe if I could stop the spin, I could potentially stop the laser. But she's a goddamn sword telekinetic! She can just throw out the swords really far into the air, use her lasers from there, and then roast me to cinders."
All in all, I was screwed. Basically dead meat.
What was I thinking when I had entered this tournament?
The stage finally ascended to its full height, and an ominous ding sounded across the arena, signaling the beginning of the commentary.
"This is the third round of the finals, between Yun Wu of Beacon academy and Penny Polendina of Atlas!"
The countdown began. I could barely hear anything over the roar of the crowd, the drums beating in my chest, and the ache in my head.
Maybe I should surrender? There was no shame in doing so, right?
"And… Begin!"
It was way too late for surrender. Penny's blades floated out of her backpack, performing a whirlwind of death in the air theatrically before flying towards me.
My mind lagged as the deadly projectiles went for my head, arms, torso, and legs respectively, but I shook my head and began to think.
"I'd rather turn this into an endurance match, considering making a laser beam with a semblance must cost a lot of aura. And I can both stall and stop her lasers if I restrain her weapons."
I jumped into the air. The swords, predictably, followed. Penny's eyes brightened, as if already seeing an ending to the match. The swords raced up to meet my body, and…
I kicked the air, generating momentum to spin my body ninety degrees, before grabbing onto one of the sword's handles. It struggled to stay afloat in the air, lagging behind its stabbing fellows and slowly drifting down. I released Icebreaker's grip from the weapon just in time to grab a second one going straight for my throat by the tip of the blade, the metals making awful scraping sounds.
I couldn't let her blades escape this awkward situation, and since she only had ten at her disposal, and assuming that they were linked in some way, containing two would already be a great disruption.
I channeled a bit of Chi into Icebreaker's palm and allowed myself a small grin as the ice froze over the sword. Soon, a chunky block of ice glued my armor to the weapon, and the attack fell apart. I parried other attacks with the swords I had in my grip, and though Penny's influence still lingered in my blades, it was disorienting enough that the rest of the blades stopped attacking and tried to go back to their owner.
I was unceremoniously dropped onto the ground. Thinking quickly, I stabbed the sword in hand into the ground and stomped on it, hoping to secure the weapon into the floor.
The sword threatened to jerk out of the white stone-like material, but I gave it one good kick and it stilled. I could hear the twang of a string snapping.
For the other blade in my hand, I tried bending the metal as best I could, and I only minutely disturbed its structural integrity before I was forced to crush the ice between my fingertips and let the blade go free, lest I was pulled with it.
But with these interactions came the revelation that would dictate most of the match.
Penny's swords were run by cables. Very thin and barely visible cables, but still breakable cables. Also, the swords themselves were not immutable.
I looked at the static sword in the ground, before pulling it out and throwing it off the edge for good measure.
Penny's eyes narrowed in slight irritation, and this time, she ran at me herself, instead of attacking at range with her swords. Her nine remaining blades twirled behind her as she did complex arm movements to direct them through the air.
I met the charge myself, since there was nowhere to run. We were on a platform without any obstacles to hide in, after all.
Holding out Icebreaker to tank several of the blows, I immediately regretted the decision as each one felt like a jackhammer, making my bones vibrate in their sockets. The arm wearing Icebreaker felt very sore, and the armor was even dented.
Still, I survived the initial onslaught.
As the swords made their way around her shoulders for a second volley, I dashed in closer so that without striking herself, she shouldn't be able to attack me.
She noticed this too, of course, because a blade suddenly accelerated and blocked my attack, leaving tears in my robes and scratches that my aura healed almost immediately.
I was pushed back, and looked up only to see Penny rushing forward, propulsion beams coming out of her backpack(?)
What.
How were her clothes not burning? Why wasn't she just sent straight up and out of the stratosphere?
Disregarding this crime to aerodynamics, I braced myself for impact by not bracing for it. I ducked under the blades that tried to impale me and under the flying rocket that was my opponent.
I grabbed onto her boots and held on for dear life. The heat was almost unbearable, with the superheated plasma (or whatever the stuff was) shunted out of her jetpack burning my forearms, heating up Icebreaker to uncomfortable levels. I quickly let go and tumbled onto the ground, possibly sustaining more injuries than I could have gotten by taking the impact head on.
Oh, wait. Ring outs were a thing. Nevermind that. I made the right choice by dodging the rush.
The acrid burns on the forearm bereft of Icebreaker made me wince before my purplish aura healed it with a single pulse. The blackened skin flaked off and dissolved into tiny particles, blowing away in the aftermath of Air Penny.
Said jet plane had slowed, and turned to face me once more. She tilted her head robotically, before nodding to herself and starting to charge her laser from a distance.
This was what I feared.
Apparently, Penny had adapted to only having nine blades, because the signature glow of the charging weapon started up without any trouble, arcane lightning cracking between the handles of the sword and the growing orb at the center of the vortex.
And then it spiraled out of control for her.
I had a theory as to how it happened, though there was no time to debate its merits and possible faults. I had bent the blade that had briefly been frozen to Icebreaker, and that had caused the delicate process of charging up what might be compared to a miniature storm cloud to go out of control. This was due to the extra friction that the bent blade produced, making some aspects of the attack malfunction.
The explosion sent lightning crackling about in that area, and she was blown back near the edge of the arena. I was stopped in my tracks by a particularly vicious blade of wind produced by the explosion, and I shielded my eyes from the bright light that was the discharge.
Penny wasn't bothered that much (somehow), and just staggered to her feet, ran her blades in front of her eyes, and then resumed charging her laser with eight blades instead, one blade (presumably the bent one) instead flying out to attack me.
I grabbed the lone blade as it sped towards me by the point, Icebreaker taking the brunt of the attack, before grabbing the weapon by the hilt and sending as much chi as I could through to the sword, into the string, and hopefully into Penny.
She winced and stumbled backwards at the influx of offensive chi, but her laser continued charging. I took this opportunity to try and sever the blade's cable, but it was resilient enough to last through my sudden pull, and was retracted to a defensive position, where it whirled in front of Penny as a preemptive defense
I was approaching the laser, and the orb had a definite green glow to it. The blades still spinning around it subtly changed directions, pointed at me, and fired.
In response to it, I sent a chi burst into the arm that wore Icebreaker, the chi leaking out and instantly causing large, jagged crystals of ice to form around the arm. Ignoring the pain and the torn muscles that a chi burst left in its wake, I held it out to the laser and hoped that the basic physics of the laser stayed the same across universes.
Lasers were photons, and jagged crystals were very good refraction mediums to disrupt the concentration of photons necessary to reach a certain amount of heat and start melting the ice, the armor, and me.
The only downside to this was that the ice made by ice dust was nearly pure, meaning that it was rather lacking in disruptive ability.
Maybe it worked, and maybe it didn't. Still, when the laser stopped and the blades began charging up a second shot, I was alive, and only half of the ice had melted off my arm.
Heedless of the restraint that the ice was on my arm, I charged at Penny, who only had one blade to defend herself with. The blade cleaved towards my head, but I held up my still iced arm and the blade got stuck in the ice, unable to continue through the protective layer of ice and into Icebreaker.
Hooray for physics.
Anyways, With her only defensive option disabled, she had to stop charging her laser and send her blades to defend herself with.
Instead of the panic she expected on my face, I smirked.
Drawing my own sword, which had been in my scabbard the whole match, I chopped at the area that was a direct line between Penny and her swords.
It didn't break the cables, but the external force on the taut wires was enough to tangle the configuration. Penny struggled with her disorientation as I knocked both her arms out of the way with Icebreaker, completely exposing her guard, dropping my sword, and landing a textbook palm strike into her sternum.
An odd metalling tang echoed throughout the arena, and I looked up in horror to find Penny totally unperturbed by the same palm strike that had rendered an Ursa's ribcage into mere bone shards.
Then, an uppercut hit my chin and I was knocked back into the ground.
It was painful. But not as painful as the gunshot. And then, the buzzer sounded. I waited in anticipation for the second burst of aura that usually came after my aura shattered, but it didn't come.
Confused, I turned my head to look at the aura meters.
Yun: 3%
Penny: 60%
I closed my eyes in resignation as the commentary filtered back into the arena, declaring the end of the match, along with whatever fanservice or bad pun that came afterwards.
In the end, I was still not strong enough.
And with that, Fifty Thousand Lien, my prospective funds for building a prototype of the electric generator, flew out of my grasp.
…
For all of you that thought I would make Yun a Gary Sue, behold! Him losing a fight… for what must be the billionth time in his life.
(Seriously. Remember him getting beaten up by Xin for over ten years and almost getting gutted by Raven? And Yun getting his face frozen by an ice dust blade? Honestly, Yun losing to a combat droid made to guard a whole city is not a surprise at all.)
Penny is kinda broken please nerf Rt
Oh well… they can't really do that anymore, can they?
That being said… Anticipate more alternate perspective "excerpts" so I can make more of you cringe with my horrible characterization of all of the canon rwby cast!
(Well, hopefully not.)
See y'all in the next one!
-Spirit