Bud 3.1

I could have probably stood to make some kind of plan for how I'd be engaging, but… nah. It wasn't necessary, and I didn't need to push them too hard.

I scattered through the catwalk beneath me, coming down right on top of Gallant, planting my feet on his shoulders and launching off into a backflip as he went sprawling. I hit the ground in a roll, came to my feet, and launched myself toward Shadow Stalker just as she dropped through the floor. Triumph shouted in my direction, both attacking me and letting his teammates know I was there, but the wide cone he was using was barely scratching my Aura so I pushed on.

Unlike the Wards, I kept an eye and ear on my surroundings. I heard the light whirring of Gallant's suit helping him keep his balance and the humming of Kid Win's hoverboard overhead. I caught a glimpse of Vista trying to get through Clockblocker's barricade using her power before giving up, jumping a good thirty inches into the air from a standing start, plant her feet on one side of the barricade, and vault over the other side in one of the more impressive feats of parkour I'd seen from her yet. I didn't miss the way she landed though - favoring her left foot over her right one, and wincing just a bit when she started running.

As I ran towards Triumph, I saw the shape of his eyes widening behind his visor and felt my Aura warn me of a concentrated attack that would soon be aimed at my chest. I knew it was coming, so I could prepare. As the area of his attack shrank to a fraction of its former radius, I scattered into a missile, momentarily going blind to the outside world as I propelled myself forward and up, over Triumph's head. I was moving slower than I could have been, but it was working to my advantage. He kept his attack focused on me as I rose, and I rode the force of it like a kite, as I soared to the ceiling.

I couldn't see or hear when I was in this state. I'd long since suspected that of being the reason my senses were so strong elsewhere, as a way of making up for the relative blindness to my surroundings I experienced when I had no eyes or ears to sense with. Whether that was the reason or not, however, my senses did give me an advantage here. I waited in my other form for one second, then another, until my Aura warned me that something was about to impact it. A fraction of a second before it flared, I shifted back into Ruby, kicking Kid Win off his hoverboard as I materialized.

I'd heard where he was and where he was moving from the ground, and he hadn't changed his pattern in the seconds before I scattered, so I'd correctly guessed that he would still hold to that pattern.

He missed the third-level catwalk that we were just above at the time, but he hit the second. He'd be fine, he's taken that kind of hit in the warehouse. In the meantime, I bailed off his board, dropped back to the first-story catwalk that Vista had risen to while I was in the air, and promptly had to scatter around a beam of light that was aimed at my center-mass. Gallant had shifted his focus to the bigger threat, and from the looks of things, the rest of his team was doing the same thing.

Behind me, just within Vista's eyesight, Clockblocker was climbing a newly-shaped staircase to the second floor to check on his teammate while Vista herself put as much distance between us as possible. At the same time, Aegis flew down to tackle me from above, Gallant and Triumph unloaded everything they had, and Shadow Stalker jumped through a wall on the level above me, firing a pair of hand crossbows that she'd found… somewhere.

That was a few too many attacks at once for my taste. I fell through the floor, rolled out of the way as Triumph tried to bring it down on my head, and ran for the wall. Then I ran up the wall, kicked off it to reach the second floor, dove through Shadow Stalker as each of us phased through the other, kicked Aegis in the head as he flew down the catwalk toward me in an attempt to grapple, and caught Clockblocker totally off-guard by wrapping my cloak around him. He froze it, probably purely on reflex, and got himself stuck just like last time.

"Alright, timeout!" I called. The approaching Wards, in various states of confusion, came to stops all around the room and began moving closer, eventually settling in the vicinity.

As the approached, I was putting together a short round of advice on how they could improve. I was beaten to it, however by Clockblocker. With a hardness to his tone that probably had something to do with his still being frozen in midair, he said, "What was that for? I thought this was going to be a normal sparring match?"

His tone and the question both caught me off-guard, and Kid Win butted in before I responded. "I got knocked down in the exact same way I did last time, and I couldn't do anything to stop it. What's the point of this if you don't give us a chance to learn anything?"

Vista looked almost insulted, and Shadow Stalker was pretty unreadable, but everyone else was nodding along. I spoke up so that I wouldn't get drowned out by more people talking. "How are you going to learn to avoid that kind of attack if you only see it once? I'm not intentionally bringing you down the same way, I'm trying to get you to watch out for the most obvious methods of using your powers against you. It was the first thing I learned back when I first found my Semblance - if I rushed ahead too quickly without looking to see what was going on, I'd run into something or get taken down instantly some other way."

Triumph was the one who replied this time, raising a hand to stop anyone else from interrupting. "People here don't fight like… like your people seem to. Watching for people using our powers against us is important, but very few people are able to do it in the ways that you're able to."

Gallant responded next. "I… think I speak for everyone here when I say that this isn't quite what we expected out of this. Hand-to-hand, agility training… not getting knocked out of the air fifteen feet above the ground, having someone almost dislocate your shoulders with a kick, or getting frozen in what looks like a really uncomfortable position for an extended period of time."

He finished that statement with a smile, at least. They weren't too mad. Still, though, I was having trouble grasping the argument. "That was agility training. Kid, when I flew up and knocked you off your hoverboard, you had plenty of time to swerve out of the way. Clock, your teammates bought you enough time to figure out how to avoid me."

"You're a speedster, and you're expecting us to- oh shi-" Clockblocker was interrupted by my cloak unfreezing and his falling to the walkway. After picking himself back up, to the great amusement of the rest of his teammates, he continued, "You're expecting us to keep up with you with no practice. Seems a little unfair, doesn't it?"

I was going to respond, but Vista beat me to it. "No, it doesn't!" The entire group looked to her in surprise Don't you get it? It's hard, sure, but so is an actual fight! If we never train hard, then how are we ever going to improve? We might not get any worse, but we sure won't get any better, either."

Several of the Wards looked ready to respond to that, but I cut them off. "That's exactly what I was going for. Most of the reason I'm still alive is that I had the advantage of training with people who were way, way beyond me in skill."

"This isn't your home, Scatter." That was Aegis, and the words bit deep. "Nobody here is that good, so it's not nearly as important to be at that level."

Shadow Stalker gave him a sharp look, surprising me and triggering a round of complex expressions around the group. "The stronger we can get, the better off we'll be. There are combat thinkers out there, people who have trained for years. The first time any of you runs into one of them, you're doomed. Scatter certainly seems skilled enough to match them, so if she can get us to that level, then we could beat just about anyone. Seems worth it to me."

That was exactly my point, but the way she'd put it… Stalker seemed very focused on fighting others. It was true, and certainly the point of this kind of training on Remnant, but it wasn't what I was trying for here.

...Maybe they had a point, actually.

"That might be true," Gallant said, "but we're Wards. Training is important, but not so much that we need to get ourselves hurt over it." He glanced at Vista when he said that, and I didn't miss the small flinch she gave at his words. What was that about? "If I could make a recommendation, I think it would be a good idea to break for the evening."

I wasn't offended when he looked toward Triumph to ask permission, but I didn't miss the implication, whether Gallant intended it or not.

Triumph responded, "That sounds like a good idea. Anybody who wants to stick around can do so, and the rest of us can head back to the Wards HQ. If that's alright with you, Scatter?"

I wasn't sure if Gallant meant what he was implying, but I could immediately tell that Triumph didn't. He was legitimately asking permission, and I suspected that, had I said no, he would have ordered the Wards to stay a while longer. I wasn't about to do that, though. "...Alright. We'll see about trying this again in the future. Who's staying?"

Vista's hand rose immediately, but hers was the only one. Even Shadow Stalker had apparently decided to stick with the others. I hadn't been expecting that at all, but I suspected that she had some reasoning behind it. That was confirmed when, as the rest of the Wards left through the elevator, Stalker instead walked to near the center of the room, looked down, and dropped through the floor.


"So, I think we need to talk."

Vista looked confused. "About what?" She was watching me carefully from the second-story catwalk, preparing to jump in whatever direction she needed to in order to avoid my next hit.

"About this." I rushed her straight on, and she barely managed to roll to the side as she stretched out space behind her to keep me from following too closely behind. I stopped shy of actually landing atop the catwalk, instead catching myself on the side, kicking off back to the ground, and running after her there. She saw me coming, but not before I caught up to her. I jumped upward, scattered through the floor, and gave a light kick just above the ankle on her back foot.

Normally, that wouldn't have done more than trip her up. The way she'd been moving up until now, she should have recovered instantly, but the graze sent her sprawling. I'd seen the weak spot, how she was favoring the one leg ever so slightly, but it looked like it was worse than she'd been letting on - I was thankful she didn't end up falling.

"Oh no, are you okay!?" I called out. I hadn't been expecting that at all.

"...ow," Vista responded. She grabbed onto the railing and pulled herself to her feet, carefully putting weight on the injured leg until she was sure it would hold up. "What happened?"

Here it goes, I thought. "That's what I was going to ask you. That ankle's been weaker than normal all day, and I know I didn't cause it. What happened?" I suspected I already knew - I'd seen this kind of thing before, if not in the same way.

She paused for a second, in thought. "I twisted that ankle a couple of days ago. I can barely even feel it now, so I thought it had healed."

That was a lie and I knew it. "Can I ask how you twisted it?"

I saw her brow scrunch in light worry, before relaxing in what looked like… acceptance? "...I was practicing doing this kind of thing in my room. I made a big parkour setup to do it, and I tripped and fell."

Yeah, that was what I'd expected. Also exactly the kind of thing I might have done at that age and in her situation, but it was a bad plan. "Why weren't you doing it here? You could have gotten more seriously hurt than that, and without the medics nearby."

Vista didn't miss a beat before almost growling her reply. "Because they won't let me! I'm only allowed to train for a handful of hours a week, thanks to the Youth Guard. I had to do it where the PRT couldn't find out, or I'll never get good at this!"

...That explained a lot, actually. "So that's why you've gotten so much better at this than the others. How much were you doing that?"

"A few hours a day… on top of what we'd been doing here." Vista looked at me guiltily, but it didn't strike me as guilt at breaking the rules. A few hours a day… estimate two or three hours, plus the time we'd been training together, and I was looking at twenty-five or thirty hours a week. I hadn't been putting in that much time at Beacon when I was in training. "You just told me that you can see it's been working, and I've been getting faster with my powers, too! Look, I can show you."

My eyes widened. "Uh, Vista…"

The room expanded to half-again the size it was before, the floor rising to meet us where we were sitting. Segments of the wall stretched out into platforms and barriers, and the catwalks above and around us curled into waves and loops. In the span of about three seconds the layout of the entire room had shifted into a parkour arena worthy of Haven Academy. When it stopped shifting, Vista turned to face me, and I found myself at a loss for words.

"...Woah."

Vista nodded. "See? I couldn't do that a week ago, and it's because of what I've been doing on my own!"

She was getting upset, and I could see the signs of frustration coming to the fore. She really needed to talk to someone, but I would need to tread carefully. If I set her off, I could accidentally alienate her, and that wouldn't go well for either of us.

After a moment of consideration, I said, "This… seems like it must be pretty important to you, huh?"

Vista must have noticed the hesitation in my tone, and she took a breath before nodding. "You could say that, yeah."

"Would I be right in guessing that it has something to do with your age?"

She hesitated, but sat down after a few moments with a quiet exhalation. Good, she didn't hate me for that. "Did you know that I've been here longer than any other Ward except Gallant?"

I shook my head. "It doesn't surprise me, but no, I didn't."

Vista took off her visor, revealing bright green eyes. She turned it around in her hands and looked into it from the front. "I've been here for almost two years. I even have more hero experience than a couple members of the Protectorate, and yet they don't see me as anything more than a little girl."

I was starting to see the problem now. "So you felt like, if you were able to prove that you were as good as the others, they would let you operate on your own."

"Exactly!" She dropped the visor into her lap and looked up at me. "They let Stalker patrol on her own, and she even goes out into the docks. Me, though, I'm too young and inexperienced to even walk between the Rig and the PHQ without a… a chaperone. How am I ever going to become the powerful heroine people keep talking about when it comes to my future if they won't let me fight anyone scarier than- than Leet?!" She seemed to start for a second and I saw her eyes widen before she took a deep breath and lowered her voice back to a normal volume. "If they would just stop treating me like a little kid, then I might be able to accomplish something."

Well, that certainly sounded familiar. I could certainly relate to what she was saying, but I needed to figure out the best way to put it.

"...I know how you feel."

Vista looked up at me, confused. "You do? How?"

I sat down cross-legged on the floor across from her, folding my hands in my lap. "I haven't told you about my team, right? From back home?"

She thought for a second, before shaking her head no. I hadn't thought so. I thought back, focusing on the happiness of those days rather than any of the stuff that came after.

"Where I come from, people with activated Aura and Semblances are almost always Huntsmen, and we get a whole bunch of training as we grow up. It's what I'm- what I was trying to do with you guys, even if it doesn't seem to be working. Either way; most of the really good Huntsmen and Huntresses start their training and conditioning young. I had my aura unlocked when I was four, and my uncle started drilling me with a practice sword a little over two years later, but I think that's really early even for Huntsmen families like mine."

Vista was staring at me in shock. "Your uncle started you doing this when you were six? Wait, no, hang on - you got your powers when you were fou-"

She cut herself off, putting her hands over her mouth. I continued, not really sure what that was about, "Yep. It was pretty early, but not unheard of." Vista seemed to calm down a little at that. Not much, but some. "Anyway, the official schooling starts at age thirteen, and there's a pair of four-year schools you have to go through to get licensed. For the first level, there are a bunch of different places you could go to complete it, but if you want any level of respect as a Huntsman, you went to one of the big four schools for your second-level; Beacon, Shade, Atlas, and Haven. One for each of the Four Kingdoms."

"Four Kingdoms?" Vista interrupted. "It almost sounds like a fairy tale- not that I spend a lot of time reading those, but-"

I cut her off with a cough. It wasn't that I was upset at her interrupting, really, I just wished she'd stop focusing on the differences. "I knew that I'd be going to Beacon when I got old enough - it's where my parents had gone, it was the one for our Kingdom, and it was the best. At least, that's what everyone around me said. Things were going according to plan, right up until about a week before my sister was due to leave for the school. I was fifteen, then. I was in… some kind of store, I don't even remember what it was now, and somebody tried to rob it while I was there. Things got out of hand, I nearly got myself killed trying to stop the thieves' leader, I got saved by one of Beacon's professors, and twenty minutes later I'm face-to-face with Headmaster Ozpin himself as he offers me a plate of the second-best cookies I've ever had and early admission into his school."

Vista was nodding along, paying rapt attention as she put the pieces together. I continued, "A week after that, we went through Initiation - a test of our fighting abilities and Beacon's method of assigning people to teams. For reasons that I still don't really understand," because, of course, neither Ozpin nor Oscar had ever felt the need to explain it, "I got put in charge of my team, as the youngest team leader in the school's history. At the time, I thought everything was gonna go great! My sister was on the team, and I'd sort-of bonded with my other teammates, but… well. Surprise surprise, putting a fifteen-year-old in charge didn't seem to work out so well. I felt like I needed to prove myself, or I'd be the biggest failure of a leader Beacon ever saw."

Vista blinked at that. I could practically see the gears turning as she processed it. "So this is going to be some kind of lesson about how that doesn't work the way I'll expect it to?"

"Nope." Vista looked up at me in surprise. "I did end up proving myself… just not quite in the way I'd expected. I rushed into a fight in Initiation and almost got killed for it. What ended up earning people's trust was proving that I could do my job well - but especially in realizing that my job wasn't just in fighting things."

Vista's face fell from interested to annoyed in an instant. "Is that where you were going with this? The whole 'being a hero is about helping people instead of fighting them?'"

Oh, that's what that was about. "Not quite. Fighting is still important. For me, it was arguably just as important as the other stuff." I wasn't so sure if that still applied here. "For you… maybe not as much. You're powerful, and unlike a lot of Huntsmen, I think you've got the potential to do a lot of good outside of combat."

It was… something to consider for me as well.

Vista took that in, thinking through it. She was still breathing a little too regularly though, overcompensating while trying to school her reactions, so I could tell she was still a little upset. "That's true, but shouldn't I be able to fight well too?"

"Yes, but not if you end up hurting yourself doing it. I had Aura to help me with that, an extra line of defense that let me push myself further without risk, and it's… kind of taken until now to really register what it means that you kids don't."

"So what, then?" Vista asked. "Are you going to stop training us?"

I didn't have to think before responding. "No, my original reasoning still stands. You kids need to get out there more. I'm just going to need to… rework my approach."

My decision made, I stood and helped Vista to her feet. "Are we going another round?" She asked.

"Not quite," I responded. "It's getting close enough to midnight that you should probably be getting home. We'll try something like this again tomorrow, as long as I can convince Piggot that the whole idea isn't a mistake."

"How are you going to do that, with what happened with the others?"

"...I'll figure it out. I hope."


As you've probably figured out by now, I absolutely love these two characters.

Alright, this took way longer to get together than it should have considering I had 3/4 of it done when I posted the last chapter, but at least I'm decently happy with it. This conversation is one I've been excited about for a long time, so here's hoping other people enjoy it as much as I do. The first bit should probably have been included in the last chapter so that Ruby and Missy's conversation could stand on its own, but that's not a massive deal.

Spacebattles still hasn't happened. I honestly did mean to get to that at some point while on winter break, but... yeah, that didn't end up happening, and now I'm back to school. I'll get it one of these days, I promise.

I think that's everything I've got to say. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time!