The Berserker's Dilemma

by YuriSmirnoff

A young berserker named Alexei is about to graduate from Signal Academy. He has problems with his anger, low self esteem, and loads of self doubt and hatred. A certain blonde has been trying to get past his shell, but he can't decide whether to let her in or push her away. Little does he know, his semblance will show itself soon. He faces a certain dilemma. (Rewrite of Gray Death)

2. Chapter Two: Path

For another three days Alexei was in the hospital. Marcus and Aaden both came to visit him once. Aaden looked guilty while Marcus and Alexei tried to keep things light. None of them really felt like addressing what had happened in the arena yet. The few times that Alexei did so, he turned it into a self-deprecating joke fairly quickly, which would make Marcus laugh and Aaden shift uncomfortably. When the two had gotten up to leave, Aaden had turned to Alexei as though he had meant to say something, but then decided against it.

Yang and Ruby visited him all three days after school. He found it strange. While he had hung out with them before, it was rarely more than once a week. Each time Yang tried to get him to talk to her alone, but each time he managed to avoid it. Twice it was by provoking Ruby into a long conversation on weapons and different handling methods that could benefit Alexei. She mentioned that her and her uncle were working on a new modification to Gray Death, which, as she said, they might as well have. His maneuver in his match had done more than ruin the stock. The moving parts that extended the stock to turn it into an axe head were broken. The barrel had been bent ever so slightly due to the strain. Even the receiver had been damaged when the handhold above it had bent inwards.

During their last visit, Yang had managed to get Ruby out of the room, but Alexei fought back by turning the conversation around on her every time she tried to get through to him until she left in frustration, slamming the door shut as she went. The guilt growing inside him told him that this decision was stupid, and that he was an idiot. His fear told him otherwise.

His mother visited once. During her time she asked him multiple times whether or not he was okay, throwing in the occasional sentence that told him she didn't like his decision to be a hunter, though she never stated it directly. She explained that she had had a few dreams in which she relived the match and watched him get impaled again and again. He felt more guilt.

On the last day, his mother had managed to drag his father with her to help with getting Alexei out of the hospital. The ride out of the hospital had been like the last few days after his surprise visit from the headmaster: uneventful, until they had decided to stop at Alexei's favorite restaurant on the way. Once he was home, his mother went over the medication he had to take. The first was a pain pill. It only provided a little more comfort than anything that could be bought over the counter and was only for his first week out of the hospital. The second was an aura booster, something considered highly illegal without a prescription. The final pill would help make sure that his aura was focused entirely on healing. With the three combined, it was expected for him to be back to normal within three weeks, at the cost of some drowsiness.

The doctor gave him a note saying that he would be off of school for Friday, meaning that his injury had cost him a full week of school at that point. He wasn't sure what he felt about that. He spent Friday evening in his room. Normally he tried to spend time after class in the school gym. When at home he spent the majority of his time on his computer. His time that night was divided amongst playing video games as well as watching videos online. Whatever he could do to avoid thinking. Yang had been messaging him. He responded each time. Occasionally he would receive one or two from others, but it was rare.

After he finished watching another video on old Valean tactics for war he noticed that it was four in the morning, and decided to finally get ready for bed, skipping his shower, and going to sleep. His next day was similar. The day after that was the exact same as well, except that he went to bed earlier so that he could get up for school the next day. That didn't mean that he wasn't on his scroll until he fell asleep.

When he woke up, the first thing he noticed was the scroll still on his chest and the earphones that were still in his ears. The alarm clock and it's annoying barrage of ever-loudening electronic boops were the second thing he noticed. After throwing himself to his feet and attempting three times to stop the alarm and finally succeeding, he stumbled and flung himself back on his bed, the scroll still connected to him by his earphones.

He awoke again to his mother yelling at him from the kitchen. Alexei got up, instinctively trying to use his right arm, causing pain to shoot throughout it as he tried moving it inside the cast. No longer did sleep bother him.

After stumbling out into the hallway and into the kitchen, he grabbed his plate of food and began to eat. His mother always tried to keep breakfast varied, but the end product almost always involved eggs and toast in some fashion. This time it was two eggs done over-easy in between two slices of toasted wheat bread with cheese and sausage. He drank a cup of milk alongside it and ate a banana afterwards.

After an argument on whether or not he could drive himself, (which he lost, but had stubbornly won anyways) Alexei drove to Signal and parked in his usual spot. Luckily, he usually used his left arm for lifting his duffle bag around anyways. Though he was completely ignoring his doctor's advice to avoid heavy lifting for the next few weeks. In fact, the only intelligent thought in his stubborn head on the walk to his first class was, 'This hurts like shit.' The pain carried over into his chest, as his mostly healed stab wound began to ache.

The walk to his class seemed to last far longer than usual. The students all watched him, occasionally whispering to each other. It had to be more than just his injuries, after all, being a combat school, it was fairly common to see a small fraction of the students wearing some form of bandage or another at Signal. No doubt they were talking about his match. Those who hadn't seen it personally were probably already informed about it by their friends who had.

Finally, he arrived at Professor Night's history class. The man was a half foot taller than Alexei and possibly one of the most overweight people he knew. He stood in front of the door watching out for students as they came in, occasionally talking to the professor standing next door. When he saw Alexei walking in he spoke.

"Heard about your match. From what I heard I'm sad to have missed it. Never would have guessed you had that in you, but the quiet ones are always the craziest. Don't worry about any make-up work. You don't really do your assignments anyways despite getting good grades on your tests." Out of all the witty responses Alexei could have given his favorite professor, he just gave a grunt and a nod in response. He took his usual seat, at the back of the room. The seats around him were mostly empty, the few students in the room at that point were seated away from him.

The room slowly began to fill with his classmates, a few sat near him, but didn't acknowledge him. Eventually, Professor Night closed the door and walked into the room before sitting down roughly in his swivel chair. "Right!" he exclaimed. "Those of you who actually did your homework, go ahead and pass it forward to the front row. Those that didn't, well, just go ahead and pass the other peoples' homework forward like you always do."

Class with Professor Night went much the same way as it always did. Alexei and the rest of the class listened to their instructor as he read the notes on overhead projector. Some of the class listened. The rest frantically copied down the words on the screen that the projector illuminated. Professor Night was the only professor that Alexei knew of who still used the old piece of equipment. The professor himself was one of the oldest instructors in the whole school. That combined with how out of shape he was made Alexei worry that he could suffer a heart attack at any time.

Alexei's thoughts ceased as Professor Night stopped suddenly in the middle of his lecture. The professor was looking at a girl who was on her scroll. She held the device behind her books in an attempt to hide it. Professor Night scooted around his desk in his swivel chair and stopped beside her. His infamous whacking tool, a roll of several old calendars all rolled up and duct taped multiple times, was in his hand. The poor girl slowly looked up to realise that the professor was next to her, staring at her while the class did the same.

She opened her mouth to speak, "Hi Professor Ni-"

"Chloe!" he yelled suddenly. The girl flinched before breaking into a somewhat nervous giggle, most of the class joined her. The professor rolled back towards his overhead projector to look back at the notes he had placed there.

"As I was saying, the island of Patch wasn't settled until decades after the main city was established with a solid series of walls for protection. A family of hunters got the bright idea that it would be far more sensible to inhabit an island. Something far easier to defend than a large area connected to a continent teeming with the damn Grimm. Now, tell me what was the name of the family that first came to our delightful little slice of Remnant? Ciara, care to give us the answer?" he yelled similarly to how he had before, causing the tan-skinned girl two seats in front of Alexei to jump. She had been in the middle of copying down the notes on screen.

"Uh..." she sat still with a blank expression on her face. Alexei had never understood why the girl was so popular with both students and teachers. As far as he was concerned, the only reason she had good grades was because she studied religiously, and she got on his nerves often.

"Oh come on dear, it's not this difficult." One of the reasons Professor Night was Alexei's favorite was because he rarely played favorites. He teased and mocked everyone equally, but Alexei never thought it was out of any actual spite.

"They were the Patch family." Alexei spoke, though it took a few seconds for the words to actually leave his mouth.

"Yes." said Professor Night. "They came here and almost single handedly wiped out all of the grimm. The four brothers and three sisters all helped their parents settle this island. When they grew too old, got injured, or just got tired of fighting, they'd settle down and go into construction or real estate. They had a monopoly on both seeing as how they and a few friends were the only ones on the island. Needless to say, they became filthy rich."

"Professor?" one girl with light brown hair raised her hand.

"Yes, Hazel?"

"Were you a hunter?"

The class was silent. Alexei himself was curious for an answer, however, it was hard to believe that a man in such poor health as Professor Night could ever do anything as physically exhausting as combat. "No." the professor said finally, "I wasn't."

"Why do you teach at a combat school then?" asked a muscular boy named Orville.

"Because the pay's good." Professor Night's response was quick and half of the class laughed at it. Once it had become quiet again the professor began to stare at the floor and rock back and forth lightly in his chair. "No, I wasn't a hunter. Oh I wanted to be, almost any boy and girl wants to be when they're a kid. I was a paramedic when I was younger. None of you would recognize my older pictures. I used to lift weights a lot. The pay was great, but the work…" his eyes drifted around the room, looking between the ceiling, the two shelves of old history books at the back right of the room, (where Alexei sat) and the door. "It could be pretty stressful. I saw some pretty awful things. The body is very fragile without aura. As I'm sure our resident voluntary mute, Alexei, understands fairly well by now. Unlike the majority of you, I never got mine unlocked. There was never a need to."

"What was the worst thing you had to do?" asked Orville again. Alexei thought the question was rude to ask, but he shared the same morbid curiosity.

"There's so much to pick from." he said. "I got shot at a few times. I saw people with their bodies broken into pieces. I had to help move hunters a few times when there was a breach in Vale or here on Patch. That was some of the worst. Grimm are monsters, and that showed then. We didn't always get every part of the hunter we were trying to rescue. Most don't survive wounds like that, fewer still do so intact. In spite of it all though, I enjoyed the job. I knew what I was doing was good and that I was helping."

"Why did you quit?" Ciara asked, somewhat quietly.

"Well," he began with a heavy sigh. "I got hurt. One day, I was driving home from work at the hospital. I saw a kid, a little girl lying in the middle of the road, not the sidewalk, the actual road. She was still breathing. I got out of my car to check on her. I could see as I got closer that she was hurt. Soon enough, another car came down the road. They had to be going over a hundred miles an hour, the dust engine sounded like it was pushing way past its limit.

"I don't know what I was thinking. Before I knew it, I was on the other side of the road were the kid had been with her in my arms. The next second, the car, despite having tried its best to slow down, still hit me. I went flying with the kid in my arms. I managed to twist in the air so that I'd take most of the damage. Keep in mind, this was a hot summer night and I was far younger and much better looking, so I was wearing a muscle shirt and shorts. Have any of you ever gotten road rash before?" Two boys in the class raised their hands. "Good. Now what I got was third degree road rash. It's similar to a third degree burn. I skidded across the ground with this kid in my arms and lost a lot of skin on both my left arm and leg."

Most of the class winced or groaned at the thought. Even Alexei, despite his current injuries, couldn't imagine how painful it must have been. "How did you survive?" Orville asked again.

"Well, me and the girl were lucky that the guy that had just run us over was nice enough to stuff us into his already full car. He drove us back to the hospital I worked at. The place was already packed with people who had been attacked by Grimm, I learned later on that there was a small breach. The guy who hit me was driving his whole family away. I never saw the girl again. It took months for me to finally heal up. By then I'd lost my muscles and so I couldn't keep up with my job. My wife had already left me so I didn't really have anyone to help me around. I decided to pursue a career in teaching with a speciality towards social studies and here I am today. Letting my students derail my lecture by getting me horribly off-track." A few students, Alexei included, chuckled at the man's humor. The thought still lingered, however. Alexei realized how he had never truly thought on how much aura truly was necessary. Injuries like the one Professor Night had suffered were common among hunters, without his aura he would fare no better against a creature of Grimm than a highly trained soldier. "Regardless, we need to get back to the lesson at hand." Professor Night spoke before changing the notes on the projector, causing a few students to groan. "Oh come on. My dog copies faster!"

Alexei soon found himself wondering whether or not a failure in the hunter career would lead him down a similar path to Professor Night.

---

Once again Alexei found himself struggling not to fall asleep in statistics class. His teacher was standing at the whiteboard, marker in hand as she wrote a new equation on the board. Alexei fought hard to keep his eyelids separated. With his cheek resting on his arm, he lost the battle soon enough. His eyes finally closed all the way and he drifted off for a minute until he heard his name being called.

"Alexei?" Professor Dew looked at him over her shoulder. "Please try getting more sleep at home. You really need to start paying attention, especially this close to finals. You need to bring your grade up." Some of his fellow classmates laughed at what she said. He could never tell if the times she called out her students was an attempt to push them to do better, or for her own enjoyment. By her tone he could only guess both. Despite her attempts at getting him to work, he still had trouble paying attention and gave up on doing his homework in class.

---

For Introduction to Grimm Studies, Alexei made his way to his seat in the back to sit. Once he was fully seated, he turned to realize that there was someone standing next to him. The girl next to him was undeniably beautiful. Her skin was almost as pale as milk and her long blonde hair was tied into a braid that left it out of her eyes and ears. Her eyes weren't on him despite the fact that her body was facing him directly. While they were open, her pale blue eyes were staring at the wall next to him.

"Uh, hello?" his words came out as though they were unsure of themselves. He recognized the girl immediately by her face, she sat in the front row usually.

"Hello, I'm Avarna." the girl said, continuing to stare into the wall next to him. Without thinking, he slowly turned to look at the same spot, only to see a blank patch of wall. "It's a pleasure to meet you." she gave a small laugh, "There's nothing on that wall. I'm just blind."

Alexei felt embarrassment at the fact that he hadn't noticed that a girl who had been in his class the whole semester was without sight. Suddenly it dawned on him why he wouldn't have guessed it in the first place. "But you get around so well." he cupped a hand over his mouth. 'That was fucking rude of me.'

She gave another laugh at that. "Don't worry about offending me, I'm well aware of the fact that I'm blind and that I'm good at making it look like I'm not. After I got my aura unlocked I realized that I could focus on the aura of others to see the way they move. I can even project parts of my own aura to read my surroundings. I could tell by the way you walked that you were injured so that's how I knew who you were."

"Oh." Was all that Alexei could manage to get out, he took a few more seconds to think before he uttered his next words. "Not to be rude, but do you want something?"

The girl's expression turned into something between a pout and a frown. "Why can't I just be interested in making a new friend?"

"Why haven't you talked to me before then?"

The expression vanished, however, the smile didn't return as she responded. "Okay, you've got me there. I wanted to say something for Aaden."

"He couldn't say it himself?" Alexei mentally kicked himself again for how unfair he was being, but he found it hard to drop the harsh tone and words.

"He's a good guy but he's pretty bad about saying what's going on in his head."

"Really?" Alexei had never thought of the shining knight on any kind of personal level, so he had never imagined that the guy in the first place at Signal had any amount of insecurity. More importantly, Alexei wondered what he had to worry about hurting him over.

"Yeah, he might be first place, but he's human like the rest of us." she wore a small frown. "He told me last night that he saw something during your match that freaked him out, but that he wasn't allowed to say what it was. He usually tells me everything that's on his mind, so it must have been big."

The mention of how close the two were got gears turning in Alexei's mind. He had been trying to work out where he'd heard her name before, but he finally had it. "You're Avarna! Avarna Sato. You and Aaden are dating, aren't you?" his exclamation wasn't much louder than his normal quiet voice.

"Yep!" she said almost proudly, "That's kind of why I came over to you. Aaden talks about you sometimes so I decided it was time to finally get to know another one of my boyfriend's friends."

Alexei found it odd that her mood could change so quickly. He was sure that she was getting tired of talking with him. Then he registered what she had said. 'Aaden talks about me?' He was clearly quiet for too long as Avarna's expression changed to one of confusion.

"Something wrong?" she asked. It would be difficult to get used to someone who didn't look him in the face when they spoke. It made it slightly unnerving, as her expressions were no different from a sighted person's, but the fact that those expressions were targeted at the wall instead of him made him feel as if she felt he was unimportant.

"It's nothing. I guess I was a bit surprised that he talked about me. We're not particularly good friends or anything."

"Well he seems to consider you one at least. You really sell yourself short. Come on, you've got to be some good if you're number four."

"I suppose. Though some people think the number four is a sign of bad luck."

Avarna's perfect posture was broken as her shoulders slumped slightly and she let out a small sigh. "You're really hard to get into a good mood, aren't you?"

"Sorry," said Alexei, "It's just been a rough week."

"I understand." she went back to her normal posture and put on a normal posture. "I think that class is about to start up, so I'm gonna make my way back to my seat. It was nice to meet you. Aaden can be pretty shy too, so if he acts like he doesn't want to be friends it's probably because he's not able to say so. It'd be great if you could be friends with our little group. Us top-tenners have to stick together after all. If you ever learn what it was that freaked my boyfriend out, be sure to let me know."

Aaden analyzed her words as he watched her leave, trying his best to not stare at a girl who was taken by someone he now considered a friend. 'Us top-tenners?' He felt incredibly stupid after he finally remembered where he had recognized her face from other than the front of the class: the leaderboards. 'Avarna Sato. Second place on the leaderboard. Extremely close range fighting style that involves targeting specific weak spots on her opponents.' He remembered the small bio he had read of her on the tournament handouts. He had missed her match however. It must have been interesting to see a blind person fight. Once the professor had entered the classroom he found himself distracted by his own thoughts too much to focus on the lesson.

---

Once Introduction to Grimm Studies had finished, Alexei made his way to the cafeteria for his lunch break. After picking out a chicken patty sandwich with fries and milk he made his way to a table off to the side from the rest. He began to appreciate that his right arm was broken in a location that still made it possible to use both hands, albeit with a great loss of mobility and comfort. With his destination reached, Alexei rested his tray on the cafeteria table's top and took the top bun off of his chicken patty to add mayonnaise. He put the top bun back on after he had finished, satisfied with the amount the condiment he had managed to put on. He felt the table move slightly as Marcus sat down with his own tray. Two sandwiches and twice the amount of fries that Alexei had gotten for himself. Marcus had also gotten himself chocolate milk instead of white, unlike Alexei.

Marcus nodded to Alexei and gave a greeting of, "What's up?", before putting his own condiments on his sandwiches. The two began to eat in what was a mostly un-awkward silence. Soon afterwards, the table moved once again as a second year named Irving sat next to Marcus. The two began talking as Alexei kept eating. A fourth person sat down next to Alexei. He didn't pay much attention to their conversation as he ate his meal. The other two boys were more Marcus' friends than his.

"Hey Alexei, has Aaden talked to you yet?" asked Marcus after he finished his last piece of food.

He looked up once his name was spoken. After he finished chewing, he swallowed his next bite of sandwich and spoke, "I haven't seen him yet today, why?"

"He was telling me that he was thinking about sharing a graduation party with his girlfriend and was going to invite us."

"I guess I could go. You know how I am at parties though." said Alexei before taking another bite.

"Come on man. How are you going to be a huntsman if you spend all of your time in your goddamn house?" Marcus spoke somewhat tiredly.

"I'm just not good at those kinds of things. They bore me."

"Last time you said it was because you hate crowds or some shit." Marcus tried to catch him in a lie once again, a game he liked to play at times.

"You caught me." Alexei deadpanned. "My parents were murdered by a crowd. Now I'm triggered at the mention of them."

"You make that 'triggered' joke way too often." said Marcus. "Seems like you're running out of jokes."

"Whatever, asshole." Alexei replied, smiling thinly in spite of himself.

"Damn dude, I just said there was going to be a party, you didn't have to be such a bitch about it. What's got your panties in such a bunch?"

"Oh I don't know, I doubt it's got anything to do with this cast, or the bandaged up stab wound, or my still aching shoulder."

"Just take a pain pill or some shit. They didn't give you any at the hospital?" Marcus asked, the edge in his voice dying down.

"I just...don't feel like I- I don't want to get addicted to them or something else fucking stupid like that." Alexei stumbled over his words a bit, being quick to stop what he was going to say and replace it with a sentence that was not the correct truth.

"Okay, okay. I get it, man." Marcus backed down. The conversations at the lunch table turned mostly mundane after that. There was some talk about the match Alexei had taken part in, but not much past that. Some was about any attractive girls that passed by their table. Throughout all of it, however, Alexei's mind kept wandering back to the real reason why he had chosen not to take his pain pills. While it was true that he didn't want to become a junkie, the truth was that Alexei had an entirely different reason for not taking the pain relief.

---

For weapon engineering class, Alexei mostly sat at his own workbench completely silent. Without a weapon, his first ten minutes in the class went unused. The classroom was unlike most in schools, but then again so were the majority of classes at any combat academy such as Signal. Students were talking loudly over the sounds of power tools and metalworking machines. Professor Qrow busily walked around the room, helping students with their weapons and maintenance. Some of the students were weapon geeks like Ruby, and had taken the class multiple times, others were like Alexei who took the class mainly because it was a strong recommendation for any student looking to go to a hunter academy. While a hunter could easily buy a weapon, it was generally recommended that they make their own weapon in order to form a closer bond with it. It was true that a hunter's weapon was just a tool of destruction like any other, but it was one that they would have to use for years or even decades to slay monsters.

Alexei personally thought that it was strange to have such a close connection with something that was only built to take life. Though that was a dilemma that constantly left him confused. Was it better to respect those that destroyed in the name of good? Or those that rebuilt from the aftermath? Or maybe both? Of course, Alexei considered himself to be paranoid. He always found it hard to believe that there was no way that they couldn't destroy the Creatures of Grimm at any time. There were teams of hunters all across Remnant who had kill counts into the hundreds of thousands, and yet they couldn't work together with the armies of the four kingdoms to take back entire sections of the map with relative ease?

He always thought that the most likely explanation was that there was simply not enough lien to fund such an operation. Every time he looked at the profits of any megacorporation such as the Grimoire Corporation, the Schnee Dust Company, or Winchester Firearms, however, he always had more thoughts on his mind. Did the wealthy prefer the current situation? Where the poor and middle classes were forced to hide inside of the walls of the kingdoms and were easy to manipulate? Perhaps it was far more lucrative for the population to constantly live in a state of unease. Perhaps breaches only occurred because the rich allowed it. It would explain why grimm showed up in places such as Patch. An island should have been an easy place to defend from an enemy who didn't have the intelligence required to build a means to travel across an ocean. He was torn from his thoughts when a bag hit his workbench with a solid thump. Alexei lifted his head from the wooden table to look up at a smiling Ruby.

"Hey, Alex? You doing okay? You don't look so good." she asked, her tone innocent as ever.

"I don't think people are supposed to look good five days after getting an entire rapier shoved through their chest." Alexei said with a low voice.

"Oh, ah. Sorry. Yeah, I guess that was pretty dumb of me to ask." Ruby rubbed the back of her head with a nervous laugh.

Alexei sighed. Ruby had a profound ability to accidentally make him feel guilty after being too snide with her. She had to be doing it on purpose. "No, I'm sorry Rubes. I really haven't been feeling good. I'm still in some pain, and I've bitten off a lot of people's heads today."

Ruby looked confused for a second before making a small noise of realization. "Oh it's an expression." she said so quietly in the loud room that Alexei barely heard her. He laughed lightly at her cluelessness before wincing slightly at the sudden movement in his still-healing lung. Ruby gave him a worried look before talking again. "But if you're in pain then aren't there some kind of painkillers you can take?"

"I'm allergic to most painkillers." he lied to her without thinking about it.

"Oh, that really sucks." Ruby said.

"So why were you late to class today?" Alexei asked, "You're usually here the earliest."

"Oh yeah, I forgot!" Ruby exclaimed. She turned to the bag she had set down on his table and unzipped it. Pulling open its flaps she unveiled Gray Death before unfolding it into its rifle mode.

"You fixed it already?" he asked as he looked at the weapon, noticing a fresh paint job and slightly different looking stock. The shape seemed less bulky than before. The end of the stock was curved instead of flat as it had been. "What's with the new stock design?"

"Well, I did more than just repair it."

"What's different about it now?" he asked as he picked up the rifle and turned it around in his hand, noticing that the rifle had been changed in more ways than one.

"Well, since you proved to my uncle and I that not even our best steel alloy was good enough, we whipped up a magnesium alloy for you. It's a lot lighter now and stronger. Honestly if this stuff can't hold up then you're going to have to think about taking it easier. That pushing match was cool and all, but it did a lot of damage to Gray Death, not to mention Aaden's Ruinous Reflection." Ruby had taken on a tone similar to a mother scolding a child as she usually did when telling him how to treat his weapon.

"I really just wanted to break his shield at the time. I wasn't really thinking." said Alexei, "There was no other way to do that other than just pumping as much aura into the push as I could. At least enough for the shield to be overloaded."

"Well there's another modification that I hope will help with that." Ruby raised her left index finger as she said this before pointing to the handhold above the rifle's upper receiver. "We also strengthened all of the grips on the weapon and added more grooves to make it easier to keep ahold of. Along with that, we also added a trigger on the handhold. It'll fire the rifle when it's in its axe mode."

Alexei found the trigger with relative ease. "And why would I want that?"

"Well," Ruby started. He always felt that if Ruby had glasses, these moments where she explained a weapon's functionality would be the perfect time to push them up the bridge of her nose. "I remembered that I read in some design manuals that one of the first techniques that hunters thought up when guns were first made and integrated with the current weapons at the time was to use the recoil to strengthen the swings. It really helped against bigger grimm with thicker armor and stronger bones. I figured that that could help you with some of the swings. They'd be stronger and faster. I set up a bunch of recoil compensators to make sure all the force would be directed towards the axe blades. You could even use more powerful rounds to make your hits even harder."

"Wow. Thanks Rubes." Alexei continued to look over the weapon with a close eye. "That should really help me out."

"It was nothing." Ruby said shyly. "I was thinking about using it in the design for a scythe I'm gonna build for myself."

Alexei looked up at her. "A scythe? Really? I mean sure they're unique and really cool looking, but their design is really impractical. The blade doesn't even face the enemy."

Ruby puffed her cheeks slightly. "Well it worked out for Uncle Qrow."

"Qrow was also an s-class hunter back in his day. You can go for it, but everything about a scythe just doesn't fit in on a battlefield. The blade is heavy and unwieldy, there's no balance on the whole thing, and not to mention the lack of good handholds."

"Okay, Alex, I get that old weapons are your forte and mine are modern ones, but I think I can come up with a design that doesn't have those problems." Ruby spoke with a confident tone that she didn't put on too often. He knew that when it came to firearms and high-tech weaponry she was always willing to debate someone. "I was going to make it so that the blade changes positions mid-swing so that it cuts better. I'm not stupid."

"Sorry Ruby. I should've known better than to question your weapon design. You helped me build this beauty after all." he paused to think about what he had said. "And by that I mean built the whole thing for me. Though I grateful for all the lessons on modern weaponry."

"It's nothing, really." Ruby seemed to be blushing. Something incredibly obvious on her pale cheeks. "I just really like weapons, and you've always been nice to Yang and I. You get along with my uncle too."

"I guess I am just perfect, huh?" he said with a joking smirk. "God, how am I still single? It even shocks me sometimes."

"You're such a jerk." Ruby giggled through her blush. She went silent, causing Alexei to stop talking as well. He had no idea what to say to the crimson-haired girl. She rubbed her arm as he was about to turn back to resting on the workbench. "Hey, Alex?"

"Yeah?" he turned back to her.

"Why did you go with the rifle-axe design?" her tone had gone back to the innocence from before, mixed with curiosity.

Alexei thought before giving an answer, "I guess it just fit me. I don't really know."

Ruby scrunched her eyebrows together as she took in his answer. "That answer really doesn't tell me anything."

Alexei looked her in the eyes. "I guess it really doesn't. The design fits me in a lot of ways. Ways that only I could really understand."

"Like what?" it became obvious that Ruby's curiosity was reaching a breaking point, but Alexei was always known for pushing things.

"It's a secret." he said with a coy smile.

"Oh come on!" she whined. "I can keep a secret. Tell me, please."

"Come now, Ruby. It's as they say, two people can keep a secret, but only if one of them is dead." Alexei held up two fingers and lowered one in display. "Besides, you're not fooling me. I know you'd turn right around and tell Yang the first chance you got."

"That is so not far." her cheeks puffed out again. Then she blinked and looked at Alexei, her silver eyes widened as she looked into his gray irises. She cocked her head slightly as she asked him another question, "Why wouldn't you want Yang to know?"

Alexei's eyes widened slightly. His eye contact broke with Ruby as he realized the hole he had just dug himself into. "No reason." His words can out uneasy. He took a breath and looked Ruby in the eye again. "I was just giving you a hard time."

He had to endure Ruby's scrutinizing gaze for a few seconds until she spoke indignantly. "You really are a jerk. I almost want to take back that nice thing I said about you earlier."

Alexei sighed silently, grateful that Ruby was as innocent and blissfully ignorant as possible. Their conversation after that went back to weapons, something that both could talk about with ease. Both prefered polearms or two-handed weapons over one-handed weapons. Alexei because of the extra power of both hands, and Ruby because of the extra room they allowed for a firearm to be incorporated into the design. It had always intrigued Alexei how the Ruby that talked to him about rifles, pistols, swords, axes, machine-guns, shotguns, and other man-made instruments of death was completely different from the shy, timid girl that Yang had introduced to him as her sister. Alexei usually shrugged it off, however, as he himself found it awkward to talk to another person if he didn't have a reason to talk to them other than to make conversation. He figured that he needed to stop questioning Ruby's shyness when he himself was just as guilty of the same thing half of the time.

---

Being someone who was generally drawn to stories, both historical and fictional, Alexei generally had trouble paying attention to anything related to math. Science was a different matter. Mathematics was a heavy part of science, so Alexei doubted he'd ever be very successful in the field, however there were many parts that he still enjoyed. Biology was one that interested Alexei, though his interest never carried much further than a desire to attempt to understand the basic causes and effects of nature. The science that interested Alexei the most, however, was psychology. The mind fascinated him. The class he was about to enter was a strange combination of the two. Metaphysiology was the study of aura, semblance, and the soul as well as their relationship with the body and mind. While there was proof for the existence of a soul, it was a widely argued topic in the science world on just what it was the soul did. Many believed that it was what gave humans and faunus their personality, ambitions, and desires. This majority usually believed that the soul came from some form of deity or deities, and that its existence was proof of theirs. Others argued that the mind was what gave faunus and mankind their thought, and that through experiences and struggles a personality could be built and formed along the way. This second group proposed that the soul simply powered life, and gave it the ability to produce aura.

Personally, Alexei agreed more with the latter group. It made more sense to him at least. Strangely enough, he felt that the only reason he hadn't taken the more religious approach to the debate was because his parents had answered every question he had had as a child, but he had never asked if there was anything beyond the world he lived in. He had still learned about religion due to the fact that his mother was religious despite not being particularly open about it. Alexei had no idea about his father, as he rarely had a meaningful conversation with him. So while he understood the concept of belief in a higher power, it wasn't something he himself ever believed in, even as a child. It was only when he started going to primary school that he met people who were far more open about their beliefs and typically expected an answer from him. It was then that he discovered he was different from most people. Scared of being bullied over something in addition to the torment he already received over his weight, Alexei lied to his classmates and said that he was just as religious as they were. He began using the same figures of speech that religious students used and even took to insulting any students who talked about any scientific ideas that contradicted any teachings of religion.

Despite these efforts, it only drove Alexei further away from others. In a twist of irony, he felt uncomfortable around his fellow students due to all the lying he had to do to fit in. As a result, he began to avoid most students, primarily those who talked about their religion the most. Though this was only one factor that led to Alexei turning into an outcast amongst his peers. His weight had been a major factor, as well as his lack of knowledge in sports and preference for for video games over outside activities. Eventually he began to bury himself in his indoor hobbies and distanced himself from other children. He rarely went to play dates or birthday parties and felt uncomfortable when made the center of attention for any reason at all. By the time he had begun to wish he had friends to spend time with, he found that it was already too difficult for him to understand how to talk to people. He brushed it off and ignored his feelings for years.

Alexei shook his head, a physical attempt to try and get his own thoughts back under control. As he usually did after long trains of thought that leapt from topic to topic, Alexei tried to remember how he had thought about his pointlessly tragic childhood. One that he was ashamed to describe as such. 'Let's see. Childhood from religion. Before that was my own views, and before that was… science and metaphysiology. Probably because of the class I'm in.' Like all his other classes, Alexei sat towards the back in metaphysiology. Marcus sat next to him, talking to a few girls seated near them. Alexei yawned and tried to focus back on the classroom's front to take himself out of his thoughts. The front desk was empty. It looked like their instructor was going to be a few minutes late, as usual.

Alexei turned to Marcus. "Did I miss any assignments in here?"

Marcus continued talking to the girls, so Alexei jabbed his left hand into his friend's spine to get his attention. "Ah! The fuck man? Can I help you?"

"Yeah, sorry to play cockblocker, but I tried to ask your horny ass if I missed any assignments in here." Alexei's tone was deadpan as ever.

"No. I'm pretty sure he didn't give us anything to do. He doesn't give us much anyways." Marcus said. Once he was done talking he turned back to the girls again.

Professor Taiyang Xiao Long walked through the classroom door a few minutes late, just as Alexei had predicted. His boots thumped against the floor. Despite being much older than his students, as well as having a head of slowly graying blond hair, Professor Xiao Long was still considered remarkably attractive. Amongst the female student body, he had a few admirers. Of course, whether or not they were attracted in equal parts to his physical looks or the still recovering widower underneath, Alexei had no clue. Though for some reason, he felt as though the professor was eyeing him with a particularly sharp stare.

"Good to see that everyone is here. I guess it's time to start." he stood in front of the class and leaned against his desk. A posture that many of his colleagues would consider unprofessional. "The past few weeks we've been going over semblances. I'll give a quick recap.

"So far I've taught you that semblances are arranged into separate classes. At the bottom there's F. An F-class semblance isn't good for anything beyond a party trick. Lighting a candle, lifting light objects with your mind, or changing your eye or hair color. All of these have been observed and while they could be of some use in day to day life, they'd be worthless on a battlefield. A D-class is something that could prove useful in battle if applied correctly. C-class is undoubtedly useful. B-class could potentially make someone a great hunter. A-class is considered to be the best of the best. Something that could be used easily against a goliath or drake.

"Keep in mind that this rating system is applied to battles only. A semblance that would allow one to change their appearance completely wouldn't be very useful against a grimm, but it would make for a kickass spy. Another good thing to remember is that with enough effort, one can raise the rating of their aura through training and discipline. Many huntsman and huntresses were born with semblances originally rated at F, but managed to raise them to A through sheer will." Taiyang pushed off of his desk and walked back and forth at the front of the classroom. "Not everyone discovers their semblance. Of course those who unlock their aura never will, but even among those that do, there are a few who never discover themselves to possess any known power. Don't worry yourselves too much though, for some it can take years. Others discover theirs directly after unlocking their aura."

Alexei felt as though the professor kept looking at him the entire time after he had began moving around. The paranoia grew inside of him until he found himself staring at his instructor for any suspicious activity, but he found none.

"Now I know there's one subject that I haven't touched upon that some of you may have been curious about since we started class. While the rating system is considered mostly perfect, there is another class of semblances." Taiyang Xiao Long stopped his pacing and seemed to look directly at Alexei. "S-class semblances."

"You mean death semblances?" asked a girl towards the front.

"Yes." said the professor as he went back to leaning on his desk. "That's what they used to be called. It's a boring and uninspired way to refer to them, but people back then didn't have much to do other than make the population bigger and build more walls. S-class semblances are a special case and incredibly rare. They occur in less than point-zero-zero-zero-one percent of the population. They are usually more dangerous than A-class but come with a whole host of drawbacks.

"For one, the reason they were called death semblances is due to the fact that they caused a lot of death. S-class semblances are volatile, and impossible to control for the majority that use them. They will use up their user's aura and then go on to force the soul to produce more aura, putting intense strain on the body and potentially ripping their own soul to shreds if left unchecked. People with these kinds of powers are generally found to be emotionally or mentally unstable. The problem is, due to the rarity of the semblance and the fact that most who have it don't survive for long in life or go completely insane, there haven't been enough owners of S-class semblances to effectively study them. The reason I only set aside one day to discuss them is because there isn't much to discuss."

"We don't even know how many people have had one?" asked a boy a few rows in front of Alexei.

"Well, just about everyone who has had an S-class is well-known. Off the top of my head, I can name about three or four." Taiyang Xiao Long held up his hand and lifted a finger for each S-class user he named off. "Chandan, last name unknown. Born in Vacuo eighty years ago. As far as I can remember he supposedly grew up in a desert caravan. He could control extreme quantities of sand. At twenty-two he caused a breach when a massive amount of sand that he had unknowingly attracted to the wall overnight destroyed the structure. It was the second worst breech Vacuo experienced. Tens of thousands died. He went insane because of all the grief and exiled himself into the desert.

"There was one who had the ability to slow time to a near stand still. Atlas was going to use him as an assassin during the Great War, but he somehow reversed the ability on himself, making him permanently slowed down while he sees everything else as sped up. He's still alive actually, but only because his metabolism moves at a snail's pace. Nobody even remembers his name, and he can't communicate with anyone. Doctors can only guess his age range is somewhere in the mid twenties despite the fact that he has to be over a century old.

"A woman from Mistral had a lightning based semblance. She had to wear rubber at almost all times. They say she was going insane from the inability to touch anyone. She couldn't even bathe for extended periods of time. She died at twenty-six when she lost control of her semblance and her body heated up to the point that her skin charred off and her internal organs melted. Of course when she died like that she exploded into a one megaton electrical blast, frying her team and an entire forest of grimm. She even took out half of the electronics in Mistral.

"Another man who was born somewhere on Mantle outside of Atlas seemed to have complete control over his semblance. He had the ability to control earth, rock mostly. He went on a one man war against Atlas. After a few years and several breaches, they finally took him down. It took nearly all of Atlas' military, and as a result, he leveled a mountain in a ten-point-five earthquake as he died, killing thousands of soldiers.

"Of course that's not even counting all the cases of people dying simply because their semblance overrode their soul and tore it in half. There's only one with the semblance to this day, Vale's own Eren Tod of Team HRSE." some of the class nodded in response. "Eren is one of the few that seems to have complete control over it, which is pretty shocking. I've met him multiple times and he's unstable, psychotic, and unpredictable. Most of his past is classified. All I really know is that he was born and raised by faunus mercenaries code named, the Animals. His semblance is just plain horrifying. I've seen it in action. He can bend and morph his body in ways that aren't natural in any way."

"Why do you think they are the way they are?" asked another girl. "They don't sound bad, but their semblances sound horrible."

"I don't really have a clue." the professor stood up straight. "But I know that they can be incredibly dangerous. That doesn't mean they're evil. They're just people who got the short end of the stick. Ultimate power sounds great, but in the end it's not realistic to expect to live with it for very long. All of those people I mentioned were young when they died. People with this semblance are just like the rest of us, but the fact remains that they're dangerous."

"And nobody knows why they have these semblances?" asked the first girl.

"There are plenty of ideas, but in the end, nobody knows. I think that we may never know. Every person's semblance is unique, but many are known to be so similar that the only difference is how they're activated. All we know is that people with S-class semblances are incredibly dangerous, to themselves and to others."

Alexei still felt as though the instructor was talking to him directly, as though there was some fact that Alexei was made unaware of. He would spend the rest of class pondering his professor's words. Of the many conclusions that Alexei had reached, one of which was that it was possible that he himself had a Death Semblance, but he immediately decided that couldn't be the case. Something as rare as a Death Semblance would only happen to someone who was important, something that Alexei was not.

---

While Alexei had gotten Gray Death back from Ruby earlier in the day, he hadn't bothered to bring it to combat class, for obvious reasons. Class for him was going to involve no participation whatsoever. He sat down in the first row of the bleachers as his classmates began filing in. Unlike most other classes, hunter combat class was specifically for students looking to become hunters, as the name would suggest. This was due to the fact that fights were always one on one, unless the students were going through a training routine with the training bots. Combat classes for students looking to go into the Vale special forces generally involved techniques more suitable for men and women in squads and platoons rather than solo fighters or four man teams. Hunters were trained far more extensively. Alexei's classmates were filling in until the bleachers were filled with the entirety of the school's senior class. The large and imposing man, Beathan, stood in front of the bleachers with a clipboard in hand was taking attendance until the last student entered the doors. He was one of a very small few who taught at Signal without being a professor. He was also the only one who had no formal education, so little in fact, that he could barely read and write. Being a natural born knight of the minor Kingdom of Tyr meant that he was still more than qualified enough to teach at a school that trained warriors. Marcus and Aaden both sat next to Alexei, who took note that Aaden's girlfriend was sitting several rows over with some girls that appeared to be her friends.

"Right," came Beathan's voice from in front of them in his accent. "It appears as though that's everyone for today. The end of the school year is fast approaching, and many of you will will start your finals soon enough. In combat class, there will be no such thing. Instead, I'm just going to analyze your skills in some tournament style duels over the last two weeks of school. Of course if you're not going to be able to fight, like some of you who got the piss beat out of you in the tournament we had the weekend before last, you'll be exempt. I'll just have to grade you based on how you did there." Alexei immediately felt disheartened at that idea. Even if he had delivered the last blow, he had still lost against Aaden. His thoughts began to wander from there, wondering what he'd do if he didn't pass combat class, until he remembered that Headmaster Ozpin had already handed him a spot at Beacon.

"For our first match, I want," the instructor looked down at his clipboard and read off the two names. "Amanda Llinos, and Marcus Rohan. Go get your weapons and come back here."

Marcus looked at his two friends and stood up. "Why do they have to pair me up with the girls so often. Win or lose, people are gonna give me shit."

"Well, good luck." said Aaden. "Amanda might act and look meek, but she is number seven. I wouldn't underestimate her."

Marcus shrugged. "And I'm number three. Sure the top ten are really close in skill, but I think I can take her." he wore what most would assume was a cocky grin, but Alexei could tell that it was mostly an act.

Marcus turned and walked off the bleachers to retrieve his weapon. Alexei saw Amanda walking by and made eye contact with her for a split second before she looked away. She too walked to the locker room to get her weapon.

Aaden was quiet, leaving Alexei to stare down at the arena, thoughts of the fight he had there five days ago swirling through his head. The fighting area had already been fully repaired. Signal maintenance staff rivaled Beacon's, it appeared. Beathan read off more names, sending off a dozen or so more students to retrieve their weapons and prepare for a match.

"Alexei?" Aaden spoke. "Are you thinking about the fight too?"

"Kind of hard not to." he responded. "It was pretty fun."

"Your definition of fun is different from mine."

"That was sarcasm."

"Oh. Well, I still apologize for the stab wound." said Aaden with a regretful tone.

"I've lost count of how many times you've said that." Alexei said, annoyed. "It's not your fault. You attacked when you saw an opening so that you could get my aura down but I was using all of my aura offensively. You couldn't have known that."

"It wasn't like that." said the other boy.

"I mean I was the one with the rapier in my chest. I think I know how it was."

"No." Aaden turned to face him. "When you charged at me, something about you was different. It was frightening."

"I've been told that I can be scary when I'm angry."

Aaden sighed. "This isn't very easy to talk about, and you're not helping."

"Sorry." Alexei felt remorse for his constant teasing, especially against someone like Aaden.

"There was a lot of aura flashing between us, so it could be that my mind was playing tricks, but it appeared as though your eyes became a solid gray, and your teeth looked like that of a shark." Aaden said after a deep breath. "It horrified me. Your mouth was twisted into something I could barely call a smile. I stabbed you from behind my shield out of panic rather than strategy. At any moment beyond that I could have easily gotten out of the stalemate by backing away or moving my shield to send all of the built up energy anywhere else. After seeing you take that stab wound, however, I could hardly think. All I could do was fight back. You looked like a…" The silence that Aaden took was due to him cutting himself off.

"Like a what?" Alexei asked tentatively.

"Like a monster...with a human face."

Alexei sat quietly, digesting the information. "I didn't look that ugly, did I?"

There was a silence between the two. It lasted until some of the students sent out to retrieve their weapons began to return. Eventually Aaden finally responded, "Why are you joking about it?"

"I don't know." said Alexei. "Honestly, I think it's like what you said. There was a whole lot of aura flashing between us. It probably just made you see things that weren't there."

"You really think so?" Aaden asked sounding unsure.

"I doubt it was anything. Sure my aura raised, but people have done that before. I'm sure it's nothing." Alexei tried his best to be convincing. "Nothing to get worked up over at least."

"You're probably right." he looked out at the gym. "It looks like Marcus is back."

Their friend walked to the fighting area, the long chain of his kusarigama barely above the ground. He had changed into dark red cargo pants similar to the ones that Alexei wore for combat. On top of that he had a red muscle shirt with a yellow smiley face with a sinister grin across its face. His own boots were smaller than Alexei's and brown.

Marcus carried himself with confidence as he walked into the arena, he let the five pound ball hit the floor of the fighting area. It too was decorated with a smiley face exactly like the one on his shirt.

Amanda entered the arena as well. She had changed into the loose fitting pants and shirt that she wore for combat. Both were the same shade of deep green that contrasted with her long bright red hair. Her sleeves usually extended past her hands, but she had to roll them up to carry the double-headed ten foot long qiang spear in her hands. On her back was similarly long bundle secured tight by rope and covered by simple brown tarp.

She walked up to the fighting area much more meekly than Marcus, the green horse-hair tassels below each of the spear heads shaking with each nervous movement. Briefly, she made eye contact with Alexei, which both were quick to break. Once she was on the opposite side from Marcus, and all of the other students had settled back down, Beathan whistled loudly to attract everyone's attention.

"RIght, so this is our first match. Since there are a lot of you, I'm going to limit these to three minutes apiece. Aura in the red is still an out, so is a successful disarm. Are you prepared, Rohan?"

"Yes, sir, I am." he said, the smirk never leaving his face.

"And you, Llinos?"

"Yes, sir." Amanda replied in a quiet voice. Her hands wrapped tightly around her spear. One the weapon's heads rested on the ground.

"Alright then. When I say start, go at it. And try not to kill each other." Beathan crossed his huge arms and watched both of the teens closely. Amanda stood straight with her spear while Marcus held the scythe of his kusarigama at with his other hand wrapped around the chain. "Start!"

Marcus instantly yanked the chain so that the ball was in the air before he began spinning it. Amanda took a few steps backwards and leveled her spear at her opponent, her knees bent. Once Marcus had built up the ball's speed, he moved forward, aiming for Amanda's spear. She quickly moved the spear, it's shaft bending as she did so. With her opponent's front open, she thrusted forward with the qiang. The spear head came close, but was parried away by Marcus' scythe quickly enough. He attempted to bring down the chain to wrap around the spear, but Amanda quickly parried away the ball, changing the chain's direction entirely. For at least half a minute the battle continued on that way, with both attacking only to be parried or dodged. Amanda's spear appeared fragile in how it bent with each quick move, as did her movements, which looked almost like dancing to Alexei. Marcus on the other hand fought with more harsh movements. While the chain of his kusarigama was useful for disarming his opponents or otherwise render them unable to attack, each time he needed to change the ball's trajectory quickly he had to twist or jerk his arm in a way that looked extremely tiring.

Amanda brought around the spear from Marcus' right. He crouched to one knee in an instant and threw his chain again but aiming for Amanda's legs. The short girl jumped at least five feet to dodge the chain. She remained in the air and began spinning her spear with both hands, using both heads and making things difficult for Marcus, who was forced to go on the defensive. Amanda landed the first few hits of the match. Alexei could see the dark red of Marcus' aura flash each time one of the spear's two heads hit him. The spinning stopped as Amanda pointed her spear at Marcus and bolted towards him. Rolling away at the last second, Marcus barely avoided the attack. The qiang pierced the arena floor and Amanda allowed the spear to bend and used the leverage to pole vault herself further away where she stood at the ready.

Alexei swallowed and looked at his scroll. Barely over a minute had passed. Marcus leapt to his feet. Yanking on the chain, he caught the ball in his hand and threw it directly at Amanda who knocked it away with her spear. Using the opening to his advantage, Marcus ran forward, knocking away Amanda's qiang as she attempted to keep him at the spear's reach. She tried to back away as quickly as possible, but Marcus was moving faster. He reached his opponent and slashed not once, but three times at her, hitting her aura directly and getting in his first direct hits.

Amanda kicked him back successfully and slid back along the arena without using her feet. As she had been the one pushed back. Once far enough back, she thrust forward using her whole body. Marcus dodged to the side and quickly tried to close the distance again. Amanda responded by using the qiang to sweep Marcus' feet out from under him. She twisted the spear back and slammed the whole thing downwards, which Marcus barely avoided by rolling on his side. He flipped himself onto his feet and parried another of Amanda's attacks. The ball of his kusarigama was put to use once again as he swung it widely in an attempt to hit her directly. Ducking down, Amanda reached up and lightly touched the ball as it passed overhead. The effect became immediate and obvious.

Marcus' arm was nearly pulled from its socket as the ball immediately fell upwards towards the ceiling, carrying him with it. The full fifteen feet of chain along with the ball pulled him upwards, until the ball thumped against the ceiling, leaving him dangling from his chain by one hand while the other clutched at the scythe. He struggled and attempted to pull down the weighted end of the kusarigama, but instead wound up pulling himself up.

Several members of the student body laughed at his predicament, making him cease his struggling entirely. Amanda wore a small, satisfied smirk on her innocent face. Marcus held on tightly to his weapon, making sure that Amanda wouldn't win on a disarm technicality. He glared down at her, but when he saw her preparing to leap, his eyes widened.

The girl in green appeared to float upwards, and turned midair to land on the chain. Nearly the whole room gasped. Amanda was standing on the dangling chain as though it were solid ground. She was completely sideways to them, yet her hair hung down her shoulders rather than towards the ground as Alexei would have thought it would. The bundle on her back still held tight to her back. It seemed as though gravity had changed for her completely, and the thin chain was what her body seemed to accept as its source of gravity.

"Looks like she's really improved upon her semblance." said Aaden next to Alexei. "If she gets any better, I feel as though I may not be number one anymore."

Hanging from the end of the chain, Marcus was just as astonished as the crowd. Shaking off his shock however, he pulled himself up and swiped at Amanda's legs with his scythe. The attack collided with her aura, causing her to react by thrusting the spear directly into Marcus' chest, which his aura also blocked. The two traded hits there, both getting rapidly tired and losing their ability to effectively parry any attack the other made. The spear collided with Marcus' left arm, causing him to lose his grip on the chain completely. He hung by his right hand. With a flash of movement, he grabbed a tiny vile of dust, the color of which was impossible to see for Alexei, and crushed it in his hand.

With his now dust-filled hand, he grabbed the chain again. Soon enough, despite the thrusts of Amanda's spear, the kusarigama's chain began to glow red. Amanda jumped back down to the ground, landing gracefully on her feet. Marcus on the other hand flopped back down to the floor along with the five pound weight, which barely missed his head.

Marcus slowly rose to his feet, his breathing heavy and arms no doubt burning from holding his entire body weight for nearly forty seconds. The chain slowly burned into the arena floor, leaving scorch marks. Amanda watched her opponent carefully, holding off an attack in order to catch her breath.

With what seemed to be a very drained amount of energy, Marcus managed to get his chain spinning in the air. A humming began to sound throughout the arena. Amanda readied herself by keeping her knees and bent and spear prepared. Once Marcus was satisfied with the momentum he had built up, he moved in and tried to hit her, this time with the chain instead of the ball. She ducked down and thrusted at him. Dodging successfully, he brought the chain down, cutting off the first head of the spear.

Surprise filled Amanda's face, but with quick wits and reflexes, she managed to hit Marcus in the head with the now blunt end of the spear. Marcus was staggered but managed to bring around the chain again, cutting off more than four feet from the spear's shaft. Amanda brought back what remained of her spear and slashed at her opponent. He parried with the scythe and managed to cut off the spear's second head, turning it into a five foot staff. Amanda threw the remainder of the spear at Marcus as though it were a javelin. He responded by slicing it cleanly in half, down the center of the shaft, causing the remnants of the destroyed spear to miss him.

The green-clad girl stood with no weapon, and yet Beathan didn't call the match. Amanda grabbed the bundle on her back and in a quick and practiced motion, she undid the tightly-tied ropes and threw off the tarp. Twelve more spears tumbled out before being lifted up to float in the air a few feet above her.

The entire crowd stared in disbelief, Marcus as well. Right as Amanda went to grab a spear out of the floating mass above her, however, a buzzer sounded, causing both to stop dead in their tracks. Amanda's spears fell to the ground as Marcus let the weighted ball hit the floor as the chain's glow faded until it was non-existent.

"Quite the match." said Beathan, stepping forward into the arena. "With how you two look, I doubt either of you would have lasted much longer past that. Right, I'll evaluate you. Rohan, for some reason, perhaps overconfidence, you didn't use your semblance and stayed mostly predictable throughout that fight. Just because you're at a higher rank does not mean that she's not capable of kicking your arse."

Marcus gave no response to his instructor, instead he picked up the ball and began to wrap up the chain. Beathan gave a shrug and turned to Amanda instead, who had gathered up her spears and started to wrap them up in her tarp. "Llinos, you've really improved since last time. I'm happy to see you found a way to control the extra spears. I would have loved to see how you handled all of those things, too bad we ran out of time. If I had to call a winner, I'd say you came closer than Rohan. You appeared to get more hits in. Right, now both of you get out of the arena, and clean up those extra bits of broken spear on your way out. Next two!" the man shouted as Amanda carried out the task she had been assigned.

Alexei watched on as Marcus walked straight for the door, to clean up or pout over his technical loss he had no real clue. Amanda finished tying her spears together and strapped the bundle back onto her back and gathered up her broken spear. She too walked to the door, turning back and making eye contact with Alexei on the way out. For once, she looked proud of herself. Of course due to being distracted she forgot to adjust her bundle of spears, meaning that she hit them on the doorframe and had to wave her arms to regain her balance. The pieces of her spear came tumbling out of her hands and onto the ground where she hurriedly bent down to collect them and run out through as quickly as possible.

"She's rather...quirky." Aaden observed.

"She's just shy." Alexei countered. "I don't think she spends much time around other people."

"Perhaps." his friend responded.

"With how dry you are I'm shocked you managed to get a girl like Avarna to date you."

Aaden immediately broke eye contact at the mention of his significant other. "Yes, well, I wasn't exactly the one who started things between us. Opposites attract, or so they say."

Alexei gave a light laugh. "Yeah. I guess opposites do attract."

The rest of the class nearly bored Alexei to sleep, in fact he fell asleep at least twice. None of the matches afterwards were nearly as exciting, after all, Marcus and Amanda's match was the only one that day between two of the top ten. The rest nearly appeared amateur in comparison.

Only one train of thought ran through his head. 'Opposites attract.' If that was the case, then who was Alexei's opposite? He eventually decided that he knew so little about his own character that it was impossible to figure out. Besides, he was seventeen and had no experience with girls (or guys for that matter, though he had become quite sure of his own sexuality after many years of gym class and locker room experiences) and had reached a point where he was nearly convinced that if any girls ever did become interested in him, (which he doubted) he'd probably find some way to fuck it up for himself. He always did.

---

In the gym, Alexei sat on a bench. He had changed into a t-shirt and comfortable pants as he often did for a visit to the gym. Normally, he'd be exercising, but he wasn't sure how to go about doing so with his dominant hand in a cast and his other being attached to an arm that wasn't supposed to get too much strenuous use. His eyes wandered over the empty room. It was almost always deserted after classes were over. It, along with other buildings on campus, were allowed for students to access after classes were finished and he chose this time to work on keeping himself in shape. Exercise wasn't something he did nearly as strictly as some of his friends. He just stuck to things that would help his training and rarely did anything else. He had been overweight through most of his life but had started losing weight to meet the body requirements for application at Signal. When he had first arrived at Signal, he still wasn't much to look at. Once he had met Ruby and Qrow through Yang and had Gray Death made, he had begun to train and gain enough muscle to effectively wield the rifle-axe hybrid. His muscles weren't something he was particularly proud of. They weren't really something he wanted, so much as needed.

Alexei stared down at his usable left hand and considered what he could do with it. The door to the empty gym opening caught his attention.

Yang strode in, her golden hair swaying with her footsteps as usual. It almost seemed to shine in the artificial light given off by the ceiling lights. She wore the orange tank top with the flaming heart emblem and black short shorts that were far shorter than what the dress code allowed for. Alexei realized he was staring and moved his eyes back to her face, which was currently in a concerned expression that he rarely saw on her.

"You sure you should be hitting the weights right now, Alex?" she asked, her eyes studying him.

"Well, none of my exams worry me too much. I don't study much anyways." he replied, his tone mostly sarcastic.

"You know I'm not talking about exams." Yang rolled her eyes and sat down next to Alexei. Her closeness made him shift away naturally, which he wasn't sure if he noticed or not. "I honestly don't think you know how worried we were. None of us want to see you get hurt."

"I'm fine Yang, I don't need you to baby me over this. If I wanted that I'd be home right now." Alexei said, irritated.

Yang gave him a slightly annoyed look before sighing. "I'm sorry. Are you really alright though? Like are you in a lot of pain?"

"I'm fine, Yang, really. It's not that bad. Plus my insurance couldn't afford painkillers."

"Ouch. That sucks." she turned to look at the ground, absentmindedly playing with some of her hair. She didn't speak for a few seconds. "So, did you get a cool scar out of it?"

Alexei looked at her with curiosity. "Are you just looking for an excuse to get my shirt off?"

"What?! No!" she said suddenly before looking up to see the amused look on his face. She blushed slightly from her outburst.

"I made the shameless Yang Xiao Long blush. I must be the first guy to do that." Alexei boasted. "What an occasion."

"Shut up." she mumbled.

"No really, I think I deserve some kind of medal." Alexei kept on going. "Maybe I should write this down and capture the memories."

"Okay, jeez. I get it." she lightly shoved him. She put on a grin. "What if I was though?"

"What?" he asked flatly as his smile dropped.

"What if I did want you to take your shirt off?"

"Yang...uh…" Alexei felt his voice shake slightly as he spoke.

"What's the matter? Don't like it when the tables are turned?" she leaned in, causing him to back up. "You know we're all alone right now, you could do whatever you wanted with me right now and no one would know."

Alexei couldn't speak. His mouth had gone entirely dry as his heart hammered in his chest and a certain part of his male anatomy began to stand at attention. His eyes lowered to stare straight down Yang's tank top. He felt his hands begin to shake. She leaned forward even more, causing him to lean back and grunt in pain as his healing wound sent signals of pain throughout his body.

"Are you okay?" Yang's overly flirty tone was gone as she moved away from Alexei.

"Yeah," he groaned. Rubbing at the wound didn't help at all. Yang's hand on his arm made him tense up even more and his aura pushed her away.

"I'm sorry." she pulled her hand back. "Aren't you taking something for the pain?"

"I just told you, the insurance didn't cover it. We would get some but we couldn't afford to get any." Alexei lied for the third time that day.

"Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot." Yang said, she lost eye contact with Alexei. "You really shouldn't be in the gym though. I think you should go home."

"Last time I let myself take a short break I gained ten pounds." Alexei said dryly.

"Well this time you need to take a break, and I don't want to beat up a crippled friend to stop him from hurting himself." Yang said. She stood to her and held her hand out to help him up.

He looked at the pale hand of Yang Xiao Long before he grabbed it with his own. Her hands were different from the hands of many other girls. Years of boxing had left calluses along her knuckles and the insides of her palms. It was clear, however that she had used some form of treatment to smooth them out as best she could. His own hands had developed calluses, mostly around his trigger finger and palms, due to handling Gray Death. The calluses on his hands, however were untreated and dry. In the winter they would crack and occasionally bleed. She put her hands through much more, and yet they were far more taken care of and overall, much more pleasant to touch than his.

Realizing that he had held her hand for long enough that it bordered on creepy, he let her help him to his feet, and immediately let go of her hand once the action was completed.

"I'll walk you to your car, okay?" she said.

A nod was her only response. Most of his responses on the walk to his vehicle were brief. He found that his mind was stuck on the subject of hands, and all that they could mean. Several times he looked at hers, conjuring up the memory of how they felt. Eventually, they stopped once they reached his car. Yang asked him if he needed someone to drive him. He insisted that he could make due with one hand. She said that she'd trust him and said her goodbye. Before turning to walk away, she hesitated, as though there was something that she wanted to say, but she didn't speak. Instead the two made brief, and awkward eye contact before she turned and walked away, leaving him to start the engine and drive off alone.

---

For another night, Alexei sat alone in his room, just as he did every night. Most days he spent most of his time inside as well. He sat in front of his computer monitor, something else that was very similar to most nights. His gray eyes stared through the wall behind his monitor, nothing holding their gaze. The only difference was a slight change in his posture, which he had to alter to accommodate his cast-wearing arm.

Only the dull buzz of the ceiling fan could be heard in the room. That changed due to a small vibration on his computer desk. Without thinking, he looked at his scroll immediately, expecting a notification from his email, or perhaps a message from his service provider. Reaching forward with his good hand, Alexei could see that the screen showed he had received a message. Once he swiped his finger to unlock the device he could see that it was from Yang. Immediately he opened the message to see what it was.

'Why did you lie to me today about the painkillers?' the message read.

He felt a chill wash over his body. Soon enough, the scroll vibrated again.

'Ruby and I do talk you know. Maybe if you had told the same lie to both of us then I wouldn't have found out. So why did you lie to me?'

Alexei typed his response quickly, almost without thinking.

'I don't know.'

A few minutes passed as Alexei tried to focus back on the video he had been watching, with no success. Another vibration came.

'Do you think you deserve the pain or something?'

Alexei stared at Yang's response for several minutes. He couldn't think of a response and typed one by instinct.

'I don't know.'

Alexei leaned back in his chair, a familiar feeling coming over his body. It made him feel as though he was too weak to continue holding the scroll in his hand. Another vibration made him look back at the scroll again.

'How many more chances do I need to give you before you open up to me?'

Again, Alexei typed back his response.

'I don't know.'

No response came immediately. Alexei was convinced that she was finally done with him. It didn't surprise him, many times he found that people became sick of him. Perhaps, however, it was this constant fear that caused people to leave him. A self-fulfilling prophecy that he had been letting terrorize him for years.

Slowly, he reached for the knife on his desk. The vibration of his scroll stopped him. He picked up the device and read the message he had received.

'You know I care about you right? Even if you make it hard to sometimes.'

Alexei read over the message multiple times. It took him at least a minute to respond.

'Sorry, I've got to go to bed early tonight.'

A response came back quickly.

'Okay. Goodnight. I hope whatever's bothering you stops soon.'

Alexei put down the scroll and looked back at his knife one more time before moving to lay down in his bed. Once he was there, it didn't take long for his exhaustion to win out, causing him to fall asleep.

---

AN: Well hello there, I'm not dead. No such luck. I really hate giving excuses, but with school starting up and a hand injury at work (second degree burns from scalding hot water) that made it impossible to type with both hands for around two weeks, my writing slowed to a snail's pace. Other than that my general lack of motivation destroyed me as well as my love of doing things that aren't really productive. My friends have been taking some of my time as well. I fucking hate that it's taken me three months and a week to update but at least this chapter is long as hell, hopefully that makes up for my tardiness. I did mention that I'm update challenged. Thanks to my Beta reader, Twisted Fate MK 2, once again. They looked over my chapter despite having so much on their plate already so be sure to check out some of his many stories as well. I liked what I saw.

Now I guess I'll write out some responses to reviews.

Twisted Fate MK 2

Well, of course it looks good. I've got you to thank for that.

DePlexx

Perhaps. I'll make no promises. Glad that you're enjoying this version as well.

titansFire

I'm trying to write the canon characters here as though they are a year younger. It's the reason why Yang isn't nearly as confident as she appears in RWBY. I'm glad to hear that I'm doing good with them though. The suggestion that I have to give people as far as keeping canon characters down, is to either watch the hell out of the show, or keep the RWBY wiki open in a separate tab to read their personality when unsure of what to do. I'm just guessing with Qrow and Taiyang. I could be completely wrong and Qrow could be complete joker. As it is I feel like I made him a little too similar to Ozpin. I'm thankful for all the praise.

NugiSpringfield

Thanks. That might be a little too much praise, but eh, I'll take it.

Ionized Rose

Well then clearly you haven't been reading any good stories. I'm joking of course, thank you. Yes, Alexei is heavily based on myself, though there are some minor details. This whole damn fic turns into self therapy at times, which may be why I don't update as much as I should. For anyone else who's curious about Gray Death's design, here's a copy-and-paste of my full explanation to Mister Rose:

Gray Death's design changes in my head practically every time I imagine it. I've tried drawing it a few times but it rarely works out. I imagine it to have the body and grip of a Kalashnikov. (due to Alexei's mostly Russian design) The barrel and magazine are Barrett-like in their make. The handhold mentioned to be above the receiver would be similar to the G36 in it's look. It's mainly used in its axe form as better leverage for a swing. The stock would be bulky and square-like. It needs to be in order to house the huge axe blades. When it folds out, it no longer resembles a stock, it looks more like the head of a battle-axe, meaning that the only way it can really be used as a rifle is by firing from the hip. The bayonet itself would look like one straight out of WW1. At two feet long, it makes the rifle almost like a glaive hybrid before the axe is even brought out. So in short, it's like a Frankenstein's monster of rifles smashed together.

Im Sammeh

Thanks for the push to get to work. And yes, I think the time shift fits way better. This time the characters are actually getting introduced.

Anyways, my feelings are very mixed with this chapter. I feel like it really could have been shortened, seeing as how it's almost entirely geared towards further fleshing out Alexei. Though quite a few side characters got fleshed out WAY more than they did in Gray Death.

So anyways, reviews are appreciated, though not mandatory. I'll never lock chapters behind review counts. These chapters take way too long to come out anyways. I'm just as happy to receive a PM with your thoughts as well. Don't be afraid to critique me. I think my work could always use improvement, which requires criticism to exist.

The next update will come out when the next blue moon occurs, so look forward to that. (sarcasm, I have no clue when it'll be ready unfortunately) Hopefully I'll see all of you next time. Buh bye now.