Black Paladin

by Vorlonos

When a boy with power over Grimm, and somewhat familiar features is added to Team RWBY, how will the girls handle it? How will the world handle it? Will he join Salem? Can he be the focal point for change across the kingdoms? Read and find out.

18. Disproportionate Strength

Black Paladin

Chapter 18: Disproportionate Strength

I sat in the front row of the massive coliseum that had been flown in. Almost two full days into the festival and I felt the population of Vale nearly double. It sucks being an empath sometimes.

I looked down into the combat ring where the rest of RWBY was preparing to fight team ABRN of Haven Academy. I didn't expect RWBY to struggle with the foursome. The Fire and Ice biomes were interesting, but not looking particularly hazardous. The combat had been regularly commented on by the overzealous commenters, Beacon's own Professor Oobleck and Port.

Obviously, the commercial break was over as Port began again, "Hello! It seems that we have another astonishing bout ahead of us! Wouldn't you agree, Professor?"

Oobleck continued, almost annoyed, "Doctor." before brightening up immediately afterward, "And yes Peter, I think it's safe to say this match may be the closest we've seen of the four-on-four round of the tournament!" He has said that almost every time so far. The only one we hadn't heard that for was CEMN (Carmel) which we were almost a full minute late for and missed everything but the medics taking HLNY out on stretchers.

Port continued, "For those of you just now joining us, welcome to the Vytal Festival Tournament, broadcast live from the Amity Colosseum!" he pauses dramatically, and I have to wonder why given that the screens are only showing the competitors. "If this is your first time watching, allow us to break down the rules."

Oobleck begins to explain the rules for the tournament, which shouldn't be required on day three, but whatever. "The tournament is divided into three distinctive rounds; teams, doubles, and singles. Age and school year are irrelevant! In this tournament, your only attribute being tested... is skill."

Port continues, "Correct! Barring certain teams, the winner of the first stage will elect two of their members to represent them in the doubles round, followed by the winners of that round choosing one member to advance once again. The remaining combatants will then fight their way through the final bracket in the hope of achieving victory for their kingdom!" I look up, and I could feel him looking at me with that statement.

Oobleck steps in, and for some reason, I am reminded of Ping-Pong, "And yes, Peter, these certainly are some spectacular spectacles on which to spectate on! I don't think anyone tuning in around the world is going to disagree with me on that!"

After a further dramatic pause, Port continues, "Ahh, and why would they? Now, let's get back to the match between Team RWBY of Beacon and Team ABRN of Haven."

I look down as the battle really kicks off and Reese steers her board through the ice. She hovers absently, but intent on Blake. She launches her hoverboard at Blake, but Blake is more than capable of dealing with something moving that slow. Blake launches it again, but the board rotates back to its wielder just as Blake pushes her back. I smirk as Blake feels disappointed and her shadow clones dissipate behind her instead of circling around and hitting her from three sides. Reese uses her board as a shield until she can retreat slightly, before rushing towards Blake. Blake is little more than amused, steps out of the way and cleaves her board in two. I am only surprised when the halves float into her hands, only for the halves to become dual pistols of some kind. Reese fires a few wide misses before she utterly fails the landing. So much for no hazard.

I turn over to the loudest noise and see Yang landing mere feet away from Arslan, who backs away momentarily before she and Yang trade blows. Standing up to Yang's blows one for one is impressive given the shockwave, proving she isn't a pushover, but Yang is almost bored holding back like she is. Yang and Arslan are both briefly thrown back, but Yang launches into the fray trying to deliver more blows until Arslan uses her rope dart to throw Yang skitting across the ground and onto the ice. While Yang tries to get her balance back, Arslan rushes forward and knocks her back even further.

Nearby, Nadir tries aiming with his assault rifle at Yang before a sudden burst of Ice dust explodes behind him and leaves the rifleman frozen up to his thighs.

Ruby's voice audible even from here yells, "Got your back!"

Bolin waltzes up behind her, bo-staff in hand, and I almost need to laugh at the fight he has chosen. He asks "But who's got yours?"

Ruby turns as Bolin twirls his staff, right when a black snowflake glyph appears diagonally across his legs and Weiss kicks him, and through a rock into the fire zone.

Ruby, calls, "My BFF!"

Weiss's quiet annoyance is palpable even for the average schmuck, as she pursues the staff wielder.

Ruby pumps her fist with no small amount in glee.

Bolin crouches, placing a guard as he looks at the glyph appear in front of him. A second later, Weiss dashes by and slashes at him, then leaps up and attempts an overhead jab, which he is capable of blocking. She readies her sword while preparing a glyph behind her, and Ruby uses it to launch herself straight up and come down an accelerated liner slash toward Bolin, who drops to his knees but isn't actually hit by the blade. Ruby grimaces and fires directly into his face, and lands protectively at Weiss's side, as Bolin rushes the two of them, rolling away from the shards of ice that rain on him and jumping over Ruby's swing as he continues running without engaging them at all.

Ruby's question rings out, "Whaaat!?"

Bolin reaches an orange crystal deposit and breaks off a shard, which he throws to Reese over in the icy half of the stadium. With Dust in hand, Reese fuses it with her board, turning the light green into a light red. She uses the board's heat to free Nadir from his icy snare.

She comes back to Blake and slams her board into Blake's blade, but throws herself backward and knocks Blake through a frozen pillar. Reese attempts to use her board to slam her foe into the ground, followed by several fiery slashes. But Blake's far from the burning attacks using her shadows. Changing tactics, Blake lures the a-perceptive Reese into seeing 'Blake' facing away near the edge on the ring. I actually laugh at her display, as Reese attacks blindly, and in mid-air, Blake knocks she her board against the field, to a loud buzzer.

Port explains the scoreboard floating about the contestants, "Ooh, a double whammy! Reese Chloris is eliminated by ring-out and Aura level!"

Oobleck snips, "Oh, she really should've worn a helmet!"

In the Ice area, Arslan is using her rope to skate with Yang pursuing, using shotgun blasts to propel and steer. Nadir rolls and aims his rifle at Weiss as she launches Bolin at him. The two teammates are frozen as Weiss creates a whirlwind from underneath them and slams the two together until she traps them in a giant ice sphere. She shoves the ball and it rolls around the field. Arslan moves, sliding into the path of the ball with an annoyance almost rivaling Weiss at her own efforts. Arslan readies her stance and drives her hand into the sphere, which shatters and frees her allies.

Weiss calls, "Yang!" as she creates a large frozen slide-like shape, "NOW!"

Yang blasts herself forward and skims over the wall of ice, catching Blake's pistol as she uses Ruby as a launch pad to jump off of towards the gathered members of ABRN. The trio look horrified as Blake whips a screaming Yang around to land a devastating punch that sends the trio flying into their elimination.

The team gathers and celebrates.

Port announces, "And that's the match! Team RWBY is victorious!"

Ruby screams, "WE DID IT."

Afterward, I met up with them at the fairgrounds located on Vale proper and immediately hear her complain. "Is anyone else starving?" hunched over, looking remarkably like Zwei when he is hungry. Or about to fireball me. Which he does. A lot.

I shrug, joining the group, "I'm good. But I can join you."

Blake comments, leaning onto nothing, "I may have worked up an appetite." the loud bestial roar from her stomach proves her statement, much to her embarrassment.

Weiss asks sarcastically, "Gee if only there was somewhere on campus to get food around here." waving to the fairgrounds they are standing in, and says, "Oh, wait."

Ruby takes Weiss' shoulder, and "It's okay, Weiss, I forget about the fairgrounds, too." I pause, visibly from the look on Yang's face, wondering if Ruby is being sarcastic, or honest. Not sure which is worse.

Weiss slaps Ruby's arm away, "I was being facetious?" Weiss sounds like she is wondering too.

Ruby demands "Gah! Well if you were hungry, why didn't you say so!?" A smirk on her face.

Yang interrupts, "Come on! I know just the place."

We all begin to follow Yang, but Weiss suddenly stops after hearing a ringtone on her Scroll. I turn to the pit of anger that opens up momentarily as she looks at it, ignores it, and fakes a smile as I turn a questioning gaze on her.

Emerald walks up to Ruby, "Hey! Might be hard to eat without this." Holding out her wallet, with a smile and a deep undercurrent of loathing that I still can't understand.

Ruby freaks saying, "No, no, no, no!" patting herself like the wallet wasn't in Emerald's hand.

Emerald laughs, and says, "Good to see you, Ruby."

Ruby takes it, saying, "Oh! Thanks, Emerald! Oh. Guess I dropped it. Girl pockets are the worst!" slouching.

I walk up, smiling, "I keep offering to fix that for you."

Yang asks, "What's up, Em?"

Emerald comments, "Just left the stadium after your amazing fight! You guys were awesome!"

I comment. "Not nearly as fast as you were."

Ruby blushes and mumbles, "Oh, shut your stupid little face…"

Blake asks, "I heard your team progressed to the next round too."

Weiss mutters, "You know, I feel that we haven't seen your other teammates in a while."

Yang asks, "How'd they do in the fight?"

I comment, "Yang they were first today. I was a minute late to the ring, and missed it completely."

Emerald deflects, "They were only a first-year team."

"So are we." Yang defends jokingly, and Emerald backsteps.

"They were a below average first-year team."

Ruby comments, "That's great. Uh. Why don't we all go and get victory food together?"

Emerald gushes, "Oh, gosh, that's so nice of you, but my teammates are all kind of…" we all look at Mercury, as he sniffs the inside of a boot, "...introverted. Really socially awkward."

I nod with Yang as she comments, "Ooh, yeah, I could see that."

Emerald probes, "Oh yeah, looks like Merc and I are going to move on to the doubles round. What about you guys?"

"The B team has my first round this afternoon. I'll think long and hard about who gets to move on up." I drawl, to a sigh from Weiss.

Ruby begins, looking pretty proud of herself, "Well, as the leader of this team, I thought long and hard about this decision."

Weiss reminds her, callously straight-faced, "We put it to a vote."

Ruby backtracks, "Yes, so, but I decided that we should put it to a vote."

Blake deadpans, "We voted for Weiss and Yang."

Weiss curtsies, "I will happily represent Team RWBY."

Yang slams her fist together, "Yeah, we're going to kick some butt!"

Emerald laughs, "Well, if Mercury and I see you down the line, don't think we'll go easy on ya."

I smirk, nodding "If you last that long."

Yang and Weiss return Emerald's confident smirk with their own, "Wouldn't have it any other way."

Emerald turns and walks away, calling "Alright, well we're going to catch some more fights."

Ruby waves, calling "Have fun!"

Emerald says, "See you later!" , loathing drapes her and Mercury as they walk away.

Yang slowly leads us to a booth labeled 'A Simple Wok'

Yang orders, "I'll have a bowl of the regular, please." a colossal bowl of noodles lands before her.

Ruby stares, "Oohhh... I'll take the same." an identical colossal bowl of noodles lands before her, as she clasps her hands in excitement.

Weiss asks quietly, "Do you have anything with a low-salt ...?" I laugh as another colossal bowl of regular noodles instantly appears in front of her instead, "Um... okay…"

Blake merely gives a nod and smile to the Shopkeep, who returns the gesture as he rushes through one door of his shop. After cutting and boiling noises that I can only assume are for demonstration given how fast he moves and comes out the other to leave a large bowl of noodles topped with fish in front of her. Blake's eyes light up as she drools over her order. While Weiss looks strangely at her teammate, she gladly offers her Schnee Dust Company credit card to the Shopkeep.

Yang asks, "Aw, Weiss! What's the occasion!?"

Weiss says, "Consider it thanks for sending me to the doubles round." then the card embeds itself in the wood, and the annoyed Shopkeep points to his register as it beeps 'DECLINED' "What?! How can my card be declined? I was barely into my monthly allowance!"

Blake panics, and attempts to slowly slide her bowl closer to herself before I take out my wallet, "I'll get it."

Simultaneously Pyrrha asks, "Maybe I could help?" The rest of the team turns and I spin around to see team JNPR arrive.

Ruby flings her arms wide in delight, yelling. "Pyrrha!"

I float my card to the Shopkeep, "I've got it."

Pyrrha comments, "Well, either way, I think you all earned it after that battle."

Jaune asks, "Mind if we join you?"

Everyone but me eats their fill, and I simply sit amongst the content people contently.

Ren asks Pyrrha, "Are you sure it's wise to have eaten before a fight?"

Pyrrha responds as the shopkeep cleans up, "Of course! It will give us energy!"

Nora belches, which sounds like a bomb going off in a cafe more than any human noise.

Jaune looks sickly, and leans over the counter, saying, "If I barf, I'm blaming you."

"You're the one who finished a bowl the size of your torso." I scoff.

Nora grins like the maniac she is, "Ooh! Aim at the enemy!"

Ren comments, "Nora, that's disgusting." and I go to agree with the ninja, "But if you feel the urge …" and then he says things like that.

Jaune gives a weak thumbs-up, "Got it."

Pyrrha stands up from her stool, "Well, we should be off."

Ruby asks, "So, you think you guys are ready?"

Nora gestures to each of her teammates, "Of course! We've got a world-renowned fighter on our team, one's basically a ninja, I can bench five of me, Jaune's like indestructible, we trained all year, our weapons are awesome, and Glynda barely yells at us anymore!"

Nora says aloud, "Don't be so nervous! The worst that can happen is we lose, that is just a few more years of walking around school with everyone knowing we're failures, our friends will slowly abandon us to preserve their social status, we won't be able to show our faces in class, no one will sit with us in the cafeteria, Ren and I have no parents, we have no home left to go to, we'll be officially renamed Team Lose-iper!" her mad laughter turns into sobs as she slams her head on the counter, cracking it further and I actually leaned back as fear and doubt poor out of her for a long moment.

Ren is somehow unperturbed, "So, yeah, we're feeling pretty good."

I ask aloud, "Is no one concerned about the...what ever that was?"

Pyrrha will shake her head as she stands taller, "Don't fret. If anything, we should be looking forward to a fight with actual guidelines, and not, well, ...murderers."

Yang scoffs, "Yeah, don't sweat it, we've all faced way worse before."

Blake counts off the threats on her fingers, "Let's see. Grimm invasions, violent extremists, a destructive sociopath, rooming with a living WMD…"

I ask aloud, "Me or Yang?"

Blake sighs, as Yang pumps her fists, "The one with a weakly scheme to throw us all into the deep end."

"So Yang?" I ask sarcastically.

Ruby squeals, "And that's all while we're still in training! Oh, imagine what it would be like to graduate!"

Weiss sarcastically mumbles, "Maybe then I'll be able to pay for a meal."

Port voice crackles over the loudspeaker, "Would Team JNPR please report to the battlegrounds immediately!"

Oobleck adds, "Yes! Like they were scheduled to, several minutes ago!"

Pyrrha says, "Well, it looks like this is it."

Ruby calls, "Go get 'em!" as they walk away.

I turn to my team, "I'm on after them, I'm going to get my swords, and see you all in the stadium if I have time before I go on."

A wish of luck and I was off.

I ran into the Coliseum, hoping to catch some of JNPR's fight, and as I crest the tunnel to the airships, I see JNPR in a huddle.

And the BRNZ near a burn mark in the shape of a heart.

As I start wondering what's going on someone from the other team calls to JNPR "Hey! What do you think you're doing!?

Jaune yells, talking down the man, "Trying to have a team meeting, thank you very little!"

Nora says, "Yeah! Team ears only!" pointing to her own ears to demonstrate.

The man yells back, angrily, "WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIGHT!"

Jaune turns back and screaming even louder, "AND WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A CONVERSATION! WHAT DON'T YOU GET ABOUT THAT!?"

Pyrrha taps him on the shoulder.

Jaune seems to realize where they are, signs in frustration and waves his shield.

Nora hefts the hammer, jumps over to them, and slams the four of them into the field.

Port says, "And with that, it appears Team JNPR wins by knockout, literally! ...Can someone go make sure they're okay?"

I laugh, only Nora, and head for my assigned bay, ready for my fight to start.

I shift into a set of combat clothes and walk out onto the field. As I do, I see almost exactly what Weiss commented about when we discussed the stereotypes of the four schools.

Three crisp, white and gray Atlesian uniforms, weapons shining, and at attention. The fourth throws me slightly, the red and black almost ruffian garb, more Vacuoun than Atlesian. He hefted a decent sized one-handed ax and stood slightly apart from them and I swear I recognized him.

They had a caster, given the dust infused tower shield in the middle of the formal three. Another had a large machine gun, that looked to be partly a chainsaw, which I gave points for, and the final had a massive broadsword that he had just above the ground. Nothing I hadn't seen better of, but I wasn't going to ignore it either.

I felt the animosity between them, and as they spoke among themselves, I only grew agitated.

The shield bearer said to the one alone to his left, "Try not to get beaten up too badly, he is only a first year."

Which the gunner followed up with, "An overconfident brat at that."

I casually ask, "So I can guess your heights, but you have them listed right?"

The three will look at me, but the forth will widen his eyes, and his smirk widens, as I finish Spartum's favorite anecdote "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter, the casket will be closed regardless." Before drawing Duality, and pointing it at the three.

"It's ok I can shave some off the top." The rugged one says, smugly.

"Yeah, but.." I wave the spear, "...Nature's Wrath isn't exactly the cleanest."

He nods, "I recognize you."

"Same." I nod.

"Asteriidae, Asteriidae Reolin, everyone calls me Aster."

I blink, "Tech Semblance?"

He nods, "Yep, how did you…"

"Obsidian Sinclair."

His eyes narrow at first. I smirk as his eyes then widen, and fear takes root.

"Crap."

"You know him?" The Shieldbearer demands.

"Both of us are from Spartum. He … got out early." He says, only a slight crack in his voice.

"What can he do?" Demanded the shieldbearer.

"Telekinesis. Very advanced Telekinesis."

"Mage, given the dust in the spear." The Gunner said calmly.

"Well, he was a front-liner with a claymore last time I saw him."

I bothered to look at their names on the board and laughed at the results.

Gray Header: 100/100

Roudoph Louis: 100/100

Asteriidae Reolin: 97/100

Nickle Louis: 100/100

"Gray, the adults are talking." I snark, as Port begins, and the ring rises.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, for battle number 6 of today, we have Obsidian Sinclair of Beacon, and Team Green of Atlas Academy. You heard that right, a single competitor from Beacon, on an exceptionally rare team of five, that was divided due to the maximum team size of four in the competition."

The Gunner, Nickle, demonstrated her lack of intelligence, "Why didn't they divide three and two, better odds? Or doesn't Beacon teach you to count?"

I sigh and look around. The ice backdrop behind them and the forest behind me, I felt the need to wonder if it was intentional.

The countdown appears above us, and I reach out, deciding that while most adversaries deserve respect, I was done with already this trash.

The timer hit zero, and I snap my fingers, three icicles break and launch themselves from behind the three, all three icebergs almost the size of the three students in question, and flatten the three to the ground. At that moment I grip their auras and their weapons and hover them in a loose semicircle around me. I look back up, mostly out of curiosity, and nod.

Gray Header: 90/100

Roudoph Louis: 85/100

Asteriidae Reolin: 95/100

Nickle Louis: 68/100

I decide to truly humiliate them. Physically tearing into their weapons floating before them, and I take the dust that remained and coil all of it together in the beginnings of a decent size dust bomb, and in that brief moment, the elimination bell tolls.

Gray Header: 51/100

Roudoph Louis: 39/100

Asteriidae Reolin: 97/100

X: 20/100

I froze, and I dropped them. I looked over at them, and see their aura's visually appearing, fraying at the edges like a torn cloth.

I repressed the abject horror at what that could mean, and I slide the eliminated one out of the way, onto the ice. Then I move the homemade dust bomb into the groaning pile of the one that used to have a shield and the one who used to have a claymore. I detonate it and the elimination bell tolls again and I turn to see the board.

Xr: 28/100

X: 3/100

Asteriidae Reolin: 92/100

X: 20/100

Repressed as I am, the humor of the situation bleeds through. As I turn, down three opponents some eleven seconds into the match, and ask, "So are you going to even try?"

His aura drops another few points, fear is exceptional at crippling the natural output of aura.

He raises the ax and asks, "If anything you did me a favor; they only get in the way. That aside, I like this ax, can you leave it in one piece?"

"Are you going to be interesting enough for me to bother?" I smile and ignite my spear.

"I'll certainly try."

He smirks as he charges. I smirk back. He leads with an overhead strike, and as I go to block, I see the subtle shift in the ax, as it begins to ark with electricity. I smirk, and I electrify the sword, and when they connect I begin siphoning the electricity. He looks shocked that I could block his attack, and as I smirk over the crossed blades, I backpedal, and course the collected lightning through him, enjoying his wince. "Come on now man, I've seen that trick a few dozen times, try something new."

"Sorry to disappoint," he grunts, "I'll try better."

He gets a dangerous look in his eye and he seems to look at something behind me. I suddenly feel a weight lift from my back as he takes Fovos from me.

"Dang, this thing is pretty nice," he says, holding it out and admiring it.

My vision goes red; nobody takes MY weapons. Fueled by rage, I swung my spear hard, and accidentally remove his arm from his torso. Shocked by this, I pause, terrified by his missing limb.

There was a solid moment of silence until a hearty laugh breaks it. "Well, that's fun!", he says as his arm slowly begins to regrow from the stump, "I can be a lot more aggressive than most with my regeneration."

I look at him and his arm, and ask aloud "Is that part of your semblance?"

Aster laughed, "Nope." With that, he will come in for an overhead slash, that he pulled out of, into a set of knife slashes toward my arms. I spin my spear like Ruby does with Crescent Rose to force him to back off, and as he does, morph the spin into forming a glyph to strike him with wind dust, pushing him back toward the ice.

I laugh aloud and ask "So, are you going to try, because so far I have lobbed off your arm, and have yet to so much as scratch my aura.

He scowled, and demands, "Well then Mister Still-At-Full-Aura, have you even broken a sweat?"

I tilt my head, "The leather jacket is rather hot." And with that snark, and his fear turning to rage, I wave Duality again, and a glyph appears below him. The wind glyph creates a small tornado, that tosses him across the arena. He lands near the edge of the forest and disappears into them.

I smirk and wave Duality again, this time creating a line of fire glyphs across the ring that ignites the forest half of the arena. Not Nora'esque and only a patch, no. I lit the forest on fire. I see his aura begin to drop on the board as he rushes out of the forest, dodging a tree that may or may not have been pushed toward him.

He looks back, "That wasn't excessive.", his voice dripping with sarcasm.

I laugh and thrust my hand toward the ice half of the arena. Huge ice slabs rise, and I shatter them into spikes, before orienting them toward him and launch them in three waves. They splinter in the air, adding more ammo to the ice blizzard, and shove him back into the forest, blanketing a swath in an icy parody of snow.

He slowly crawls back out, and I glance at the board.

Xr: 28/100

X: 3/100

Asteriidae Reolin: 34/100

X: 20/100

I smirk. "So, you have just enough left to hit you with something small." I point Duality again, and a purple sphere forms. I wave my spear, and it turns into a thin purple crescent, about six feet long. I tap it with the spear in the middle, and it launches toward him.

He leaps out of the way at the last moment, and calls, "You missed."

I smirk, as the still burning tree behind him begin to tilt. He stands, confused at my lack of concern, and turns, as the tree finishes its downward arc and lands on him, stripping him of the last of his aura as he grones. As the buzzer tolls, I toss the tree into the forest.

Port announces, "In a marvelous display, Obsidian Sinclair of Beacon is victorious!"

For a long moment, the crowd is silent and I turn over toward team RWBY, and the newly arriving team JNPR, and quote one of Yang's favorite lines, "Are you not entertained?"

The silence that met me was disappointing.

I head into the changing room and see team GRAN, I walk over, and ask, "No hard feelings, right?"

Cinder

I began watching the video Mercury recorded of the last battle with no small amount of confusion. Ninety-eight seconds. Almost as fast as the seventy-four seconds, her own team was being praised for. Another confusion was the name Obsidian vs Green, as she had no information on a team Obsidian. She began and was shocked. Not team Obsidian, the RWBYO member Obsidian verses the Atlesian third-year team GRAN.

She observed him as he waved his hand and disabled the three first by holding them with a level of telekinesis that he has never shown before, and then removing their aura?

Cinder replayed the video several times and could barely believe it. Then the dust he uses with his spear, he hasn't demonstrated any of this power before and did it without breaking a sweat. Given the complete lack of drop in his defensive aura he was obviously holding back significantly.

Cinder looked more closely at the spear and the sword that the White Fang recovered from the tunnels after the Breach and remembered something that, then, hadn't seemed suspicious. His weapons were forged from Grimm. Not any listed method, but the material was clear. Cinder thought back to the day of the Breach and RWBYO was in the center of that whole affair. He was in Vale, Salem's weapon was in Vale, but they didn't know who it could be.

Cinder pulled up his file and compared what she knew to his file. First in his year for combat, and clearly holding back. A powerful caster and frontline, with a mind for tactics and rumors of a secret that divided him and his team for a short period of time. Something that no one in the school knew for certain, but rumors circulated about his past in Spartum and the things he had done there.

Spartum...Cinder brought up the town, and it's listed information. Essentially ruled by the Steel family for generations, and known for its underhanded practices across the board, an affiliation with Atlas, and occasionally rented out its members to governments across the world for any number of acts.

Cinder smiled. Regardless of his possible state as Her weapon, he was powerful. As someone who has cut ties with his team before, he could be persuaded to do so again, especially with the flexible morals toward human life Spartum was apparently infamous for, yes. A useful pawn, and how delicious it would be to clean up the last silver eyed girl with a member of her own team.

She could work with this.

"What was that?" Weiss demanded, "When did you learn how to do that?"

I looked between the four other members of team RWBY and I admitted, "I didn't know that I could. I had been experimenting with taking apart things like I can put them together, and I… I accidentally used it on them. I still don't understand exactly what happened, but I tore their aura apart like I have been experimenting with on non-aura infused materials."

Blake interrupted, "When?"

"When what?" I ask, confused.

"When did you lose control?" Blake continues.

"I'm not sure." I stuttered out, "When did their aura begin to drop?"

Yang pulled up her scroll and opened a video. As she did, team JNPR came into the room, lead by Pyrrha to ask, "What happened? We came out to hear it was over."

Yang looked to the video and gestures them over. We all crowded around the scroll, and we stood silently as the video played. The video ended almost ten seconds after my quote. The silence afterward was nearly as long as the video itself.

Nora broke the silence in the way only she could. "That was amazing! I would have said break a leg, but you hacked off his arm all like, skink! Gasp! Shloop! And then it grew back. I thought only you could do that!"

A chuckle went through most of the circle, Pyrrha only grew more distant with her silence.

"Can we have the room?" I asked quietly.

As the room emptied, I felt her emotions grow hotter. Less shock, more broken anger/sadness.

I slowly began, "I don't know what that was."

"It looked like you were experimenting with them." She spat.

"I didn't know what was happening until it was over." I tried to explain.

"And your powers decided to disintegrate stuff all on its own?" She demanded, growing louder.

"I didn't know I could do that to them." I defended.

"You think this is only about them!" She demanded.

I pause, "I..umm...yes?"

"You revealed powers you had never used before, powers beyond anything most people have ever seen before on international television!" She yelled. "Do you really think that people will accept that you can destroy aura without so much as flinching laying down? I don't care that you won, or even that you can disintegrate things, I care that you obviously didn't even care that you were exposing power so flagrantly!"

Her anger bled into concern, even terror. I was stunned at the intensity and the way she concealed it so effectively.

"Hunters who are too powerful are restricted and get drafted. Sent on harder and harder hunts until they finally slip up and die, or grow strong enough to tell the country that drafted them to shove it. My mother was one of the first, but she didn't live long enough to become the second. I can't...I can't lose someone else I care about to fear of their powers. I can't."

I pull her close, and for a moment I can't think about what I can even say. As the silence flickers with her quiet tears, I say, calmingly as I can, "I won't be stopped by a few people who think they can control me."

Some of her fear dissipates, and a brief flash of guilt, "I shouldn't be unloading this onto you."

"Pyrrha, you take on the burdens of everyone around you, you care about the people around you so much. The least I can do is be there when you need someone to talk to. You are strong too, but you don't have to be invincible."

She smiles and begins to laugh, her melancholy fading. "It's kinda my job. Invincible Girl and all."

I can't help it, I laugh.

AN: Getting the characters to react authentically to situations that don't exist in canon is more difficult than most would think, however, I think it was nailed down here, it just takes time.

Beta Requests: Google the full name of the regenerating OC.