Black Paladin
Chapter 8: Pain and Reconciliation and More
AN: So Quick Timeline, to keep you informed, and to keep me straight.
Just over 16 years - Spartum
~1 month - In Vale before Beacon
Beginning of RWBY
Season 1 through Weiss and Ruby's argument = four days.
About 3 weeks to Jaune's admission of cheating.
About 3 weeks of Jaune under Cardin's thumb.
About 3 weeks until the day with Sun.
2 Days looking for Blake
Total time of season one, 9 weeks and 5 days.
Ruby says in the beginning of Season 2, Best Day Ever about the second semester.
So I have 8 weeks to play with, according to the American school system.
On to the show...
I woke to a hastily set alarm on my scroll. I slowly dragged myself out of my tent, and looked around. The roof. The previous night flashed through my head, and I just wanted to curl back into my tent. I sighed. I have overcome worse than a little hatred. I get out my scroll, and see it is Tuesday. Great. Class.
I dress, summoning a set of clothes from the team room. I walk downstairs, go to the cafeteria, sit far from our normal spots, and watch, to see if tempers have cooled. As Ruby and the rest of my team walk in, Weiss, Yang have calmed down. Ruby hasn't. I breath, and expand that aspect of my powers, something I have avoided, as, I can't hide my eyes when I do, but at this distance, it shouldn't hurt.
Blake is still concerned about me, and is entirely understanding of having a secret that you are terrified of sharing. Especially given the results.
Weiss is afraid of what my power means, but isn't angry at me for keeping it. Thinking about the new hole in their wall. I have to snort at that.
Yang has been appeased by the two calmer members of the team, and wants to know the truth, but will support her sister.
Ruby is still pissed. Her disdain of being outright lied to, coupled with her black and white world view, and her view of Grimm, as well as her wild guesses as to what I am, has lead her to an angry conclusion that I can't really follow.
I sigh, knowing that half of the team is upset doesn't help my mood any.
I turn up my tray, and calmly walk to class, hopefully, I can keep my head down.
"Alright class. Today, and every week we will be doing competition fights. You can all be randomly selected, if you aren't challenged by a volunteer. You can be chosen as teams, or as individuals. You can volunteer as a team, a partial team or an individual." Glynda says, all the while, flicking data about on a scroll. "Are there any questions?"
The silence of a morning classroom stares back at her.
"Good. Now any volunteers." She asks.
Surprisingly, Carden and his group stand, as he says, "We will."
"Ok, Mr. Winchester, who would you like to battle?" Glynda asks.
"We would like to fight…" He looks around, and finally lands on Pyrrha. "You."
"Miss. Nikos, would you be willing to fight team CRDL?" Glynda asks her.
"Unfortunately not today." She says. "However I am sure that my team and I would be up for the challenge."
"Well Mr. Winchester, team JNPR?" Glynda asks.
"No, how about Obsidian?" before looking around, and asks Ruby, "Where's your friend?"
"Hiding elsewhere." Ruby remarked scathingly, and surprises not only Cardin, but the whole room.
I slowly come down the stairs, from the back of the auditorium. As I get down to the level of everybody else, I say, "Sure."
The glare Ruby throws my way still hurts, but since Cardin volunteered, I may as well.
"This will be a standard dual. If you go into the red, you are out." Glynda says. "Obsidian, if you would like to involve your team, you may, if not, you can choose to go it alone."
I turn to her, saying, "I can manage."
"Fine then." Glynda says, calling up the necessary images to the screen.
"Begin." Calls Glynda as we all ready ourselves on the field.
As his teammates charge, Cardin calls, "So, Obsidian, not so hot with your team? Trouble in…"
He is violently interrupted, as Diva hovers at his throat, before slashing at his face, and returning to my hand. As the other three, reach me, the shorter one, Sky, swings with his Halberd, horizontally, nearly hitting his teammates. I block with Balta, as Diva gets back to my hand. Then, I transform Diva into a pistol, and while forcing Sky between me and his teammates. I take aim, and fire. The shot catches Russell flat footed, directly to the chest knocking him deep into the yellow, and backward almost a foot. Dove moving around Sky, attempting to hit me, takes a round, point blank to the chest, sending him to the ground, and knocking him out of the fight. I charge Balta, and create a glyph between me and the retreating Sky, and strike him in the face, knocking him farther, past Cardin, and right into the red.
As Russell stands, Cardin pushes past him, swinging. Apparently having forgotten our last fight. His horizontal strike, while heavy, isn't enough to break my guard, and slams into Balta, shaking my stance, but not moving me more than an inch. We pause, his aura still pristine, and his impact having chipped at mine, but leaving me in the high nineties. He swung again, and I stepped out of the way, before separating my sword. With the twins, I case a wave of ice at Russell and one of fire at Cardin. Cardin absorbed the fire into his mace, and Russell begins striking at the ice, while the second wave knocking Russel from the fight, and the fire impacting the ice, as I knew they would, and combining as they would in Balta. And creating lightning.
As the lightning sparks through his mace and flows toward the ground, it gives him a nasty shock. I come in swinging as he recovers from the shocking result, and give three quick, powerful slashes, one across the legs, over across his chest, and an x slash across his neck. It breaks his aura, and ends the fight. I combine, configure, and sheath my weapons, then walk out of the ring.
As I walk past Ruby, I can feel some of her anger has dissipated, but not a lot. As I extend my abilities, attempting to feel what she is thinking, a wave from Yang alerts me to her. She, while curious, has forgiven me for my deception. When I look at Ruby again, I can feel, she had some idea as to what I was, and that had made her so angry. A calm talk was in order to soothe feathers. I sit with them, and mutter, loud enough for them to hear, "After class."
As such, Team Ruby was back, now I just had to live through telling team JNPR. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire.
We take lunch in our room, and as we have our first free period of the week, we talk.
As I sit, my stuff having somehow found it's way back into it's usual space. "I am sure you have questions."
"Well, how are you a Grimm?" Ruby asks.
"Simply, I am not." I say, "My semblance has given me the ability to use the abilities of a Grimm, and in some occasions, control them. Much like your petals, the prolonged, or extreme usage of my abilities causes a Grimm-esque appearance."
Feeling understanding, I continue, "It also allows a rather intrinsic understanding of emotions around me. Negative emotions being easier, but all other are recognizable."
Then Yang's curveball, "Can you feel what we are feeling all the time?"
"No, I need to focus on it, like now, I want to know how you are feeling, at least generally. With more concentration, and…" focusing, and waving to my now red irises. "More exposure to my abilities, I can get specifics. It is one of the reasons I was expecting your question Ruby."
"In class, that's what I was thinking!" Ruby says, excited again.
"Exactly." I say, as the red fades from my eyes. "I didn't want to hide this from you, but I was terrified that you would… Well exactly what you did. However Blake, your thoughts were harder to read, and were surprising."
"You are easily the best on our team, if not our grade. If you were going to try anything, you could have done so in the forest, or in the ring, or during training, or while we were sleeping, and probably have gotten away with it." She explains, to the shock of everybody in the room.
"Oh." Was the most vocalized response I could formulate after that statement.
"Weiss, the clinical experimentation?" I ask, after we all regain our senses, causing her to redden, and pause again.
"Well...I...Grimm don't…" She begins, before stopping, breathing, and saying, "A subject to see if we can build a chemical weapon to use against Grimm would be an exceptional find, and one that can vocalize their level of discomfort would be even better."
All of us were shocked by her apparent callousness, something we weren't anticipating from her.
"Well now that all of our dirty laundry has been aired…" I begin still disturbed at Weiss's admitting a desire to test chemical weapons on me. "I was going to move back into my corner?"
"Yes." Ruby says, "You are our teammate."
And just like that, telling my team worked out fine.
However, "So, precisely how much are you holding back when you don't use your Grimm-ness?" Yang asks, looking over her shoulder.
We all pause, knowing that without, I am coasting for best in our year, and to find I had an untapped well…
"I don't know." I admit.
"What does that mean?" Yang asks.
"Well, beyond controlling Grimm, my experimentation had been minor, as I didn't want to get caught. So, I really have no idea how far these can take me." I say. And slowly creeping into all five of our hearts, is a tendril of fear. How deep would that well go? And did we really want to know?
Given that it was Thursday. We got up and went to breakfast, and class, and after, I met Pyrrha and the rest of JNPR in the training room.
"Today, Ren you against Pyrrha. Nora, you and me. Jaune, you need to practice your blocking, I nearly cleaved you in half yesterday."
As we all get ready, "So why did you break off from our team yesterday?" Pyrrha asks, and I realize I need an explanation and vague honesty seem like it will work, "Minor team mentality issues."
"What…?" Jaune begins to ask.
"You have seven sisters. Some things don't need explaining." I respond. Fact, disconnected reasoning. Avoidance. And given his red face, he did too.
"Let's go, Nora." I say, activating the room. I quickly switch Balta into the twins, as I have learned, lightning and Nora equals pain. I charge, and docked, a rain of grenades, and as I get close, her warhammer swings down, as I parry it off to the side, and lash out with Glacem, freezing her in place, and then using her hammer, to jump back across the ring. Then I slash with Flaros, and my signature flame whip sprouts, and disarm her in two fluid motions. She looks most upset to be out.
I look over, and see Pyrrha and Ren locked in combat. Her sword flowing into his attack like water, stopping his advance whenever he tries one. Then, her advance, for six of seven slashes, cutting his aura by an even third. Deep in the yellow, he pushes back, at what looks like… intentional overextensions, guiding him down a specific path, before stopping him cold, and starting again. As she hasn't even been touched, I walk over drawing Diva, and sheathing Balta, and begin a second round.
As the room announces "Begin", she turns to see me, and I dash forward, treating Ren and Nora to a spectacular duel.
I impact with my first jab, and twist, activating the transformation in Diva, as it twists, it strikes her arm around the shield. While twisting my arm, I jumped, and kicked off her shield. While in the air, I fire a shot with Diva, which normally hits hard, but this time, she has something new.
An almost invisible aura around her, more a haze, that stops the bullet cold. Then it explodes, and the shrapnel takes a small hit to her aura, but what's impressive, is the new aura.
"You have created an impact based electron field." I say, having landed, and summon a wrench from across the room. As I walk up, I swing, and it stops, about an inch from her, and I can see the beads of sweat run down her face. "As I look over this new field," I say, "If you make it move, like a true electron field, it may…" As the field visibly starts spinning, and a glorious smile crosses her face. And the wrench is ripped from my hand, and spins around her in an increasingly accelerated rate, before being launched and embedding itself in the wall on the other side of of the room. All eyes widen, and a truly evil laugh is pulled from me.
As all eyes turn to me, I mutter between bouts of laughter, "So the...Invincible Girl... becomes the Invincible Railgun."
I hold her hand up pointing at the wrench, and summon some small lug nuts, and toss them at her, as they circle about her, they climb, and as they reach her arm, going almost faster than I can track, slide down at random trajectories, and put small holes in the wall across a wide area, and Pyrrha's aura shifts again. With my proximity, I can see a small degree of ripple, which seem to form elevating rings, like a screw. Another handful of lugnuts, and she puts her name in the wall, with her mind, and small directional changes from her finger.
"Those walls can hande Yang against an electrified Nora, for a dozen blows of so. You can carve your name from across the room, with fragile metal bolts. If we gave you nails, or specially designed ammunition, you…" I pause considering. I call from the engineering lounge, a magfield tester, for the...ambitious students, who have small railguns. And the gunships.
I hold it up, near her coils, and the screen measures a descriptive electron acceleration of.. 2000 m/s.
After a moment, I ask, "How powerful can you make this field?"
"I don't know, this is the first time I have used this for longer than a second of so." Pyrrha responds.
"Can you try?" I ask.
"Sure." Then you can see beads of sweat form, as she concentrates, and I sprinkle some metal shavings, and for a second, they are launched, then they start spinning off at random angles, but I firmly remember the number they last hit the wall with. Acceleration of 3600m/s.
Given the nuts, it accelerates for 3 seconds. That would be a little over 10000 meters per second. Enough to send a slam a small ball bearing through my entire team, full aura. Enough force to end any engagement she will ever have. There isn't an armor I can forge, nor a speed I can move. This woman could kill me.
And apparently something showed on my face. "What's wrong?" Pyrrha asks quietly.
Acceleration of 3600 meters per second. Continuous for a little over 3 seconds. That is the maximum acceleration you are capable of, controlled, currently. That is, at near your target, 10000 meters per second. Atlesian Battleships, and their primary railguns are capable of 4000 meters per second…"
"Nothing truly spectacular then, right?" Pyrrha asks, both of us afraid.
"...for .62 seconds." I say. "Capable of a standard speed of 3600 meters per second."
We look at one another, and I can feel fear that I will treat her as some kind of monster for her newfound power. I turn back, and ask, "Can we have a moment?"
As Ren nods, and drags Nora out, I ask, "Do you trust me?"
"Yes, but why…?" She begins.
"I also have a secret." I say, stepping back, "I revealed it unintentionally, when I was protecting Ruby from some, interesting circumstances." I turn away, and begin, "However I was going to tell you first, as I hoped you would accept me."
As my hair turns white, I turn around, and she gasps. "My semblance isn't telekinesis, though that is within my abilities. My semblance is the ability to use the powers of Grimm, and the side effect, is this. Like Ruby's rose petals, or the black aura you get using your powers intensely, I look like this."
She pauses, and several emotions flow through her. From the beginning of my talk; Curiosity, happiness, fear, anger, resentment, then a deep understanding, and finally concern. "This is huge." She says, now a little numb.
"Yes, it can be overwhelming." I say, stepping forward. Wings, encircling her as she looks weak.
She looks up, "So both of us wield terrifying powers."
"Yes, we do." I say, "This is also the reason you have such a hard time against me."
Her eyebrows scrunch, "What?"
"When a Huntsman forges their weapon, they put a piece of themselves into it." I say, "Well, These swords, and knives… These were forged of a hyper dense version of Grimm armor, that I grew from my arms, and shaped into these at a forge. And due to the… interesting effects water has on cooling Grimm bone, I cooled it in a liquid a little more understanding of their unique properties."
"What do you mean more understanding…" She begins, "Oh." Her eyes widen.
"Blood, sweat and tears went into by blades." I say, calmly.
She looks apprehensively at my swords, "Why would…"
"These are me. Forged by my hands, for my hands. I wanted to ensure that they were going to be exceptional." I say, running my hand over it. "This also brings me to my second point."
"What do you follow up…" She begins, as I summon two shields from the changing rooms.
One a fortress shield. And as I catch it, I secure it to the flat of my left, and it curls into a gauntlet. The other, a tame red center, almost gold, a thin ring or black floral outlining to the center, and a true gold outer ring, with a black floral pattern accenting the outer rim, the two indentations in the side, breaking the outer floral pattern. As she takes it, I say, slowly, "I know that Akoúo̱ is precious to you, just as mine weapons are to me. But I was hoping you would accept Zvýhodniť."
She looks down, and I can feel her surprise as she feels the metal, and the fact that it is almost weightless. "What is this metal?"
"That is a specialty blend that we used in Spatrum, it is a specialized electricum, used for the defensive rail cannons. It is, when forged with lightning dust, a room temperature superconductor. When forged with magnetic dust, it can maintain a magnetic field nearly indefinitely."
"Obi, I don't, this is a wonderful gift, but, Akoúo̱, I created it, I can't just…" She says.
"I haven't finished my offer yet."
She looks up, into my still red eyes, "What could…"
I pick up Akoúo̱, and gesture to the leather strappings, then I take Zvýhodniť, and gesture to the same area, where there are no straps, only thick indents, into all layers of the shield. Then, I take out a vile of refined fire dust, and gesture to the metal of Akoúo̱, and she realizes. "You don't want me to give up my shield."
"No, I want to protect you, but I would never ask for you to give up a piece of yourself."
"Yes, I can combine them. Thank you."
"If you are interested, there is a second part."
"What could…?" She begins, as I look pointedly at Miló. "Miló took almost a month, to gather the right pieces, and shape them properly, and then, most of all, to fit them together seamlessly, and…" She looks at me, and sees my evil looking smirk. "What?"
"You told me that. Months ago. I know what I would be signing up for." I say. "However…"
"What?" She ask, concern growing.
"Creating Νίκη, would cost you." I say.
"Cost me what exactly?" She asks, defensively.
"How about…" I say, pretending to think, "You let me take you out this weekend."
"Why, Obsidian, are you asking me out of a date?" She asks, understanding.
"Why, I believe I am." I ask, sweeping her back into my wings, and asking, "Would that be acceptable?"
"The cost seems a little low. How about next weekend as well." She smiles, confidently.
"I think, Ms. Nicos, that you have a deal."
She leans in, and whispers, "How shall we seal this agreement, Mr. Sinclair?" before she kisses me. And what a kiss is was.
AN: Sorry fans of Arcos, but I have decided that ship has sunk. The newly christened Sincos sails anew. Though seriously, she liked Jaune because he treated her like a normal girl. Obsidian does, and can keep up with her. Even sticking with her as she learns about a new, and highly destructive power.
That and an relationship with RWBY would change what I have planned in the future.
*Ominous organ music plays*
Huh, where did that come from. Oh well. Doesn't matter.