Chapter 15: The Risk was Calculated
Saturdays within the Team VIEW dorms were normally quiet and started unsurprisingly late. Normally only Winter and Eckhart would be up before 10 AM and even then both wouldn't normally leave until the cafeteria was serving lunch.
This Saturday, however, wasn't typical or anywhere close to normal. At 7 AM a loud alarm woke every member of the team in the dorm. Groaning, Viralious lifts his arm and slams it down on his scroll, planning on turning it off. Realizing the noise didn't turn off after that he lifts his head, opens his eyes and glances around the room. Winter was also still in bed and equally confused at the noise. Eventually the noise stops and Eckhart walks through the door.
"Good to see you're finally awake. Today's plan is to eat breakfast, then we will do some training until lunch, then weapons maintenance until 3 PM today. So, get up and get ready." Eckhart says in a commanding tone before walking back out the door.
Viralious glances over to Winter both looking annoyed, "I'm already regretting this idea." he says deadpan.
Winter chuckles, "Well don't complain to me it was all your idea."
Viralious rolls his eyes and gets ready for the day.
Breakfast and training were fairly simple affairs. Eckhart simply had them run through some basic drills to make sure weapons and semblances were in order. From those basic drills, Eckhart actually did a tactics review and explained how he expects for his team to handle everything.
"First off, Team CARD individually sans Celica are weak, but allowing them to team up greatly increases their combat capabilities. So, our focus is going to be keeping them separate." Eckhart says in a serious tone.
"So how exactly do you want us to do that?" Ifiral says in an annoyed tone clearly still annoyed from being woken up this morning.
"Simple. Viralious will target Celica and try to keep her from dancing. Leave Ariel to me. She's easy to manage. I can give orders while keeping her at a distance. Winter, you'll take care of Russet. It might be an uphill battle, but I need Ifiral to break through Delphi's defenses." Eckhart responds simply.
Ifiral nods, Viralious raises his hand slightly,
"So, anything specific we should know other than who we're fighting?"
Eckhart shakes his head, "No, I believe that simply keeping them apart would be the best strategy. Simply focus on keeping them isolated."
"So, no teamwork?" Winter ponders
"Irrelevant. It will only give them more of a chance to regroup." Eckhart responds.
Viralious thought for a brief moment at Eckhart's plan
It's half of a good idea. I would agree that pairing us off isn't a bad idea, but I would swap Winter and Ifiral. I can see this plan possibly working but if my hypothesis with Celica's semblance is correct then it's unlikely. As for the semblances of Ariel, Russet and Delphi, I really haven't seen them applied in a combat sense… There are too many unknowns for this plan to work… Eckhart must be thinking up an alternate path and this is his baseline.
Viralious then thought further and realized that this had to be Eckhart's ONLY plan as he fled before learning Russet's and Delphi's semblances and there would be no way for Eckhart to know the actual specifics considering Viralious didn't really understand them. He quickly goes to inform Eckhart. "I think that-"
"No need Viralious, this plan should hold firm, nothing you say is going to change that. So please, just stick to the plan." Eckhart interrupted simply.
Viralious exhaled and rolled his eyes "Alright, so what drills do you want us to run through until lunch."
"Yes, just some simple drills focusing on quick footwork for you, I'll focus on giving orders while fighting. Ifiral, I want you to work on breaking through a tough shell. Winter… Honestly just practice your glyphs." Eckhart says in a scholarly tone.
With that each other member of Team VIEW gave a short grumble but complied. After all, Eckhart was the leader for the day.
Slowly, the day moved forward and after a quite boring 4 hours of practice drills they FINALLY reached lunch. Taking up their normal spot in the cafeteria they eat quietly only discussing the recent weeks and their expectations for the fight… that is until Eckhart excuses himself to use the bathroom. As soon as he is out of earshot, Ifiral pipes up.
"If this is how Eckhart is going to treat us as a leader then I'm already sick of this horse shit." Ifiral says in a low growl.
"I disagree with the comparison, but Ifiral's right. He's treating us like pawns and individual pieces. He's not seeing how they connect together." Winter adds.
"Look, you're right, I'm not thrilled about his style either but give him a fair shot. I'm not that great of a leader and I have to admit my plan and Eckhart's are pretty similar with only a few minor tweaks. For all we know his method might work best for Atlas Academy. So again, please just have an open mind, besides he could just be hyper focusing on this fight and instructing us specifically for that." Viralious says in a pleading tone.
Ifiral exhales sharply before speaking, "Fine, but if he makes me practice proper footwork for another 3 hours, I'm making him eat the burnt leather of his shoes."
Winter nods before adding. "I'll try to keep an open mind. That being said, I agree with Ifiral. I don't think the training he's having us focus on is that great."
"You never know when it will come in handy." Viralious responds thinking earlier where he was practicing flips to try and dodge Celica's chakrams.
Just then, Eckhart sits back down, and they go back to simple conversations and finish their meals a little while later. As for the time between them eating and the actual spar they just ran those same drills then performed basic weapon maintenance until 3pm.
As 3pm approached Team VIEW came down to the combat training classroom and began preparing it for their spar against Team CARD. Everyone is tense, the energy in the air is a mix between excitement and dread. They have a feeling that this fight is going to be manageable but still intense. At 3:01pm Team CARD enters the classroom.
"You're late." Eckhart says in an annoyed tone.
"Oh, snuff it, it's a minute. Seriously, what's got your panties in a bunch." Ariel shoots back.
Viralious shakes his head and motions to the console for them to link their scrolls to monitor their aura. Shortly after all four members add their readings to the large screen behind them:
Viralious: 100%
Ifiral Phenrix: 100%
Eckhart Slate: 100%
Winter Schnee: 100%
VS
Celica Rhulk: 100%
Ariel Arc: 100%
Russet Ghermain: 100%
Delphi Amethyst: 100%
Shortly after the readings appeared on the screen, Viralious started the countdown and the two teams moved to line up and unsheath their weapons. Slowly, Viralious takes a deep breath spinning his weapon in his hands. He glances over to his team to observe their pre-battle stances.
Winter has her weapon lowered elegantly pointed in a 45-degree arc towards the ground as if she is ready to summon a glyph at that location. She seems calm, but Viralious can see in her eyes that she's dreading going against Russet's rocket launcher.
Eckhart on the other hand had his pistol in his hand ready to fire. His glance trailed to his opponent as if anticipating their next move. His face showed no emotion.
Ifiral had his weapon held firmly in front of him at a 65-degree angle and looked as if he was ready to rush at his target. His face on the other hand showed that he was bored out of his mind.
Taking in one last breath, Viralious waited for the countdown to conclude.
3…2…1…0: BEGIN!
The fight immediately opened with Eckhart firing his pistol square at Ariel using the momentum to send him back into a gate that he opened up behind him. Ariel blocked the shot but was struck with another from behind.
Winter immediately tried to summon a glyph to create a stream of fire isolating Russet from the rest of his team but was interrupted by having to dodge a rocket flying at her. Barely rolling out of the way, Winter shifts to rush forward using a glyph, deciding that an axe would be easier to trap than a rocket launcher.
As soon as the counter hit zero Viralious unloaded a clip in Celica's direction, rushing towards her while reloading Viralious shifts his weapon into their Blade modes. Celica catches his blades with her silver pair of chakrams.
Ifiral rushed forward, colliding his blade with Delphi's large shield, barely causing her to flinch. He quietly said to himself "Oh this is Tan-Fucking-fastic."
–
Character Change: Viralious- Winter Schnee
Location Atlas Academy: Combat Classroom.
–
Winter dodged right to avoid the axe swing to the left of her, digging her left heel into the ground she shifts her weight and jabs her blade towards Russets stomach. The blade connects and causes Russet to stumble backwards slightly giving Winter an opening, seizing this chance she jumps backwards and begins to summon a yellow glyph below her feet. She starts to activate the time dilation glyph before she is suddenly blasted backwards by a large gust of wind. Barely catching herself before a ring out She notices that Russet had used his weapon to defuse Wind dust from the launcher attachment causing a large tail wind to send both of them to opposite ends of the arena. Gritting her teeth, Winter summons multiple white glyphs behind her and begins firing a volley of curving projectiles from it.
Russet, taking notice of these projectiles, rolls to the right and shifts his weapon from an axe to its rocket launcher form. He then fires two rockets, one red and one blue. The red rocket files towards Winter before bursting into a volley of red slag and molten metal. The blue rocket on the other hand follows the path of the red rocket halfway before dropping to the ground and creating a creeping trail of ice heading towards Winter.
Seeing the two differing elements flying towards her she dodges to the left while creating a wall of ice to block the molten slag flying towards her. Once again realizing that the rocket launcher is going to be a problem, Winter creates another glyph below her feet to launch herself towards Russet. Pulling the parrying dagger from the hilt of her blade lowers into a fencer's stance and activates the glyph to fly forward.
Russet finishes reloading his weapon and shifts it back into its axe form, seeing Winter rushing towards him Russet lowers the axe to the side and stands at attention. Smirking, he allows for Winter's blades to collide with his stomach. Taking the blow in stride Russet pushes back against Winter and uses his axe to swing upwards knocking Winter back.
Winter stumbles from the surprise hit and is only able to cause for Russet's attack to be a glancing blow instead of a miss. The attack cuts across her stomach and definitely would have nearly depleted her aura if she didn't dodge. Going onto the backfoot Winter shifts, placing a repelling glyph below her and Russet to launch into the air. Using the surprise change in elevation Winter places a small kick to Russet's stomach and pushes off of it to make some distance between the two of them. Eventually they both land back onto the ground and glare at each other. Winter takes a deep breath before raising her blades ready to rush forward again thinking to herself.
When this is over, I'm going to give Eckhart a piece of my mind for pairing me against Russet. Seriously, this is ridiculous.
Character Change: Winter Schnee - Eckhart Slate
Location: Atlas Academy: Combat training classroom
Eckhart continued his volley of shots towards Ariel, his current plan was to keep her at a distance and observe the battlefield with his drones. Currently his plan was holding steady he was firing two or three shots before Ariel would get close to him and he would then open a gateand jump through putting him on the opposite side of her. It was a regular game of cat and mouse… and Ariel was not a smart cat. She kept turning and running towards Eckhart only blocking shots or taking them to the chest. If this kept up Ariel would be knocked out in a few minutes.
Eckhart gave a smirk at the prospect but was surprised when his last shot connected with her chest but didn't cause her to stagger or seemingly take any damage. He notices a soft yellow glow creating a sort of armor around Ariel's torso. His smirk fell.
Ariel stood tall with a yellow glow around her torso, bringing her saber to the ground. She suddenly launches into the air and shifts her momentum to fly towards Eckhart. Eckhart opens a gate sidestepping where Ariel was to land, as he exits the second gate suddenly in front of him a sword made of Aura lands at his feet narrowly missing him. Eckhart grimaces slightly, this was going to be a bit more complicated than he initially calculated. He starts rerunning the plan in his head before figuring that while providing a slight setback it will not cause any major interruptions to the plan. Gritting his teeth, Eckhart unloads the current magazine he has loaded and shifts it loading in one containing electric dust rounds. He then opens a gate to his side and fires one shot into it before quickly firing one straight at Ariel.
Ariel blocks the shot fired straight at her by swinging her saber in a circular pattern. She is then suddenly struck in the head by an electrically charged bullet from a gate opened above her. Electricity flows throughout Ariel causing her to stagger, giving Eckhart his opening to fire multiple shots into her. Shot after shot connects, causing Ariel to take a large amount of damage, Eckhart just smirks knowing that this is all going to plan.
Character Change: Eckhart Slate - Ifiral Phenrix
Location: Atlas Academy: Combat Training Classroom
Ifiral slammed his two-handed blade onto Delphi's shield, the sound of metal clashing boomed throughout the classroom. Gritting his teeth, Ifiral attempts to drive his blade farther into Delphi's block hoping to make her stumble back and get an opening. She however blocked the strike and even pushed Ifiral back. Something that surprised him as he figured he had 50 pounds on her. Delphi suddenly brings her shield away from her front and interjects with a stab of her halberd. Ifiral dodges the slow stab by jumping backwards but is caught off guard when an explosive round is fired from it striking him in the chest. It was relatively weak, but still it pissed Ifiral off as it meant he would have even less openings to get around Delphi's defenses.
Suddenly, Delphi brought her shield back up and slammed the back of the halberd into the sound of a round chambering echoed through the room. Seeing this, Ifral shifted his weapon into its dual shotguns and fired blindly at Delphi while running in a perpendicular direction locked onto her. Shot after shot is fired, but Delphi somehow manages to block each and every volley of the molten fire dust. Growing pissed, Ifiral decides to try something stupid, as he's circiling Delphi suddenly he jumps into the air and brings his shotguns behind him and fires. This gives him a quick boost of momentum that sends him towards Delphi, quickly bringing his shotguns together he expels the rest of his fire dust into an explosive fireball flying straight towards her. As the fireball travels, he brings his weapon back into blade mode and shifts his momentum landing on the ground. He starts running towards Delphi full speed.
Delphi brings her shield and halberd together and stands almost in a praying position before she suddenly moves the halberd to be in front of the fireball and firing a explosive round into it, this causes the dust mix to ignite early and explode in a range that while going to shower her in small fires isn't going to cause major damage. She then shifts her shield to block Ifiral's sudden attack on her left.
Ifiral just looks the deer faunus in the eye and questions why she would let Kris pick on her, he then grits his teeth and pushes against the shield again. He then says outloud one of Kaine's sayings, "If you can't break through it, fucking hit it harder!"
Character Change: Ifiral Phenrix- Viralious
Location: Atlas Academy: Combat Training Classroom
Viralious pushes forward onto Celica's chakrams knowing he has to do everything in his power to stop her from dancing. Shifting his right foot forward Viralious attempts to slash with his right blade into Celica's leg but it's caught by her shifting her waist to throw the golden pair of chakrams in a blocking position before the spin around once and land back on her waist. Viralious smirks as he studies the furled brow adorning Celica's face and takes notice of her heels slowly rising and falling, not very rhythmically though.
Current hypothesis: She stores energy while dancing and transfers it into her weapon increasing its striking power.
He then suddenly gives an opening in his guard for Celica to strike him with the chakram in her left hand. Taking the hit in stride he returns the favor with a cut at her midsection before spinning around and catching her right chakram barely before it struck him in the face. Taking a gamble, he glances to the screen of the aura read out.
Viralious: 98%
Ifiral Phenrix: 97%
Eckhart Slate: 100%
Winter Schnee: 96%
VS
Celica Rhulk: 94%
Ariel Arc: 90%
Russet Ghermain: 97%
Delphi Amethyst: 99%
Time elapsed: 45 seconds
He then shifts low and swaps the blade in his left hand into its SMG mode and unload's it's full clip into her stomach causing for Celica to stumble backwards slightly before she throws the silver pair of chakrams into the air. He smirks as he reverses the mode of both of his weapons and shifts his right hand to fire at the chakrams in the air.
Out of the 32 shots that Viralious fires, only 4 connected as trying to hit a disk with a hollow middle is harder than it looks. He really only needed 2 to connect as they knocked the chakrams off balance and as he sent them flying away from Celica, he gave a small smirk. His highlights suddenly shift to white and eyes to a deep blue as a black and purple glyph appears beneath both of them. Suddenly both are thrown into the air and Viralious uses this as an opening to spin his blades around breaking Celica's guard. She makes a surprising play and throws her golden pair of chakrams to orbit her leaving her unguarded. Taking advantage of her unguarded state, Viralious brings his blades inward and uses a glyph to shift himself into a short spin before slamming into Celica, sending her downward slamming into the ground. Landing a few meters away from her he takes advantage of Celica having to get up to first reload his weapon and load in fire dust into each. As the red glow appeared on his weapon Viralious took a moment to glance at the current standings.
Viralious: 98%
Ifiral Phenrix: 95%
Eckhart Slate: 85%
Winter Schnee: 75%
VS
Celica Rhulk: 80%
Ariel Arc: 62%
Russet Ghermain: 87%
Delphi Amethyst: 98%
Time elapsed: 100 seconds
Smirking, Viralious is about to rush forward at Celica when he's struck in the chest by the silver pair of chakrams that he had launched away. The hit was strong, much stronger than it should have been. Grimacing, Viralious pushed forward and blocked the now flying gold pair. This, however, caused a slight slow in his momentum as this pair was also stronger than previously. His brow furrowed as he once again locked blades with Celica before jumping over her delivering a glancing strike to her head before resuming the struggle holding their blades together and giving him the perfect view of the aura readings and getting annoyed by the light lifting and lowering Celica's heels as their weapons clashed together.
Viralious: 86%
Ifiral Phenrix: 94%
Eckhart Slate: 84%
Winter Schnee: 71%
VS
Celica Rhulk: 77%
Ariel Arc: 45%
Russet Ghermain: 82%
Delphi Amethyst: 97%
Time elapsed: 115 seconds
He lost 12% of his aura in a single strike. While Viralious wasn't the wellspring of aura like his stepdad, he had a good amount. In fact, just slightly above average, so to lose that large of a percentage in a single strike was nearly unheard of. Gritting his teeth, Viralious came to one conclusion; his hypothesis of Celica's semblance was wrong. Using his time between blocking and dodging metallic disks Viralious pondered the actions that Celica had taken during their fight just now and compared them to her fight with Kris.
During this fight and her fight with Kris, Celica tried to do two things, one always keep herself and the chakrams moving, maybe that's why she keeps lifting her heels… She also threw her weapons to the side leaving her unguarded while we were in the air.
He suddenly blocks a stray gold chakram he didn't notice she threw with his left blade giving her a slight opening to slash at his midsection with her left chakram.
But why would she carry two pairs of the same weapon? Why abandon one pair almost immediately by throwing them in an orbit? To keep opponents away? No, she's not been trying to force me away, if anything she's trying to keep me close. Why then when she dances does she let go of the chakrams for a minute?
Suddenly after watching Celica catch the gold chakrams shortly after throwing the silver pair the answer comes to him.
Kinetic energy! She must store the kinetic energy that the chakrams get while moving when not in her hands before unleashing it into powerful strikes. It would explain the dances and the high focus on continuous movement.
Gritting his teeth, he knows he has to formulate a plan or he's just going to be a sitting duck. Just then a horrible idea, something that anyone with a rational bone in their body wouldn't do… Luckily for Viralious, he had a habit of doing irrational things. Creating a black and purple glyph beneath his feet, Viralious stops dodging and allows for the silver chakrams to slam into his chest before he suddenly activates gravity glyph, causing the pair of chakrams to fall onto the ground. He then smirks and throws his blades at Russet trying to give Winter an opening before he bends down and picks up Celica's Silver chakrams. They are awkward to hold and definitely not made for him, but he figures that he can make them work. Smirking, Viralious rushes towards Celica and locks blades with her, this time he sees that Celica was the one gritting her teeth.
–
Character Change: Viralious - Winter Schnee
Location: Atlas Academy: Combat Training Classroom
–
The fight against Russet was not going well. In fact, it was going the exact opposite of well. Each time Winter thought that she could have an opening she was either dodging a rocket or getting hit with an axe, both were starting to wear her patience thin. She once again summons a glyph in front of her to block the incoming rocket, before summoning one below her to launch her in the air. While in the air she does a small backflip onto another glyph and uses it as a springboard to launch herself straight towards Russet when one of Eckhart's drones gets in the way. Slightly cursing her temporary leader Winter tries to recenter her target but is going to slam into Russets axe when for some inexplicable reason he moves it to block… something thrown from his left.
Winter used this distraction to strike him clean in the chest, causing him to stagger back quite a bit. Taking this opening she summons five glyphs, first a time dilation glyph below her feet then two platform glyphs on either side of Russet and two more platform glyphs angled at 45 degrees above him, she then dashes forward bouncing off of each glyph over and over again slowly chipping away at her opponent's aura.
Suddenly she hears the sound of an elimination buzzer going off and she quickly glances to see if it is Russet who was eliminated. Suddenly she feels a hand grabbing her leg before it slams her to the ground, winded she tries to get up before being struck in the back and sent flying out of the arena eliminating her.
Groaning in pain, she hears Viralious call her name before glancing to the scoreboard.
Viralious: 79%
Ifiral Phenrix: 85%
Eckhart Slate: 82%
Winter Schnee: ELIMINATED
VS
Celica Rhulk: 67%
Ariel Arc: ELIMINATED
Russet Ghermain: 66%
Delphi Amethyst: 95%
Time elapsed: 185 seconds
Gritting her teeth, she gets up and takes a seat in the stands hoping to get out of the line of fire. Looking around the arena she becomes confused when she sees Viralious' weapon on the ground near where her and Russet were fighting, and he was using a pair of Celica's chakrams. Blinking, she watched Russet moving towards Eckhart.
–
Character Change: Winter Schnee - Eckhart Slate
Location: Atlas Academy: Combat Training Classroom
–
Everything was going according to plan. Currently, he was continuously firing shot after shot into his gates that were bouncing around and striking Ariel continuously. Sure, she was blocking some with her blade or her semblance, but she could only block so many as he emptied magazine after magazine into the gates. He took this moment to glance around the battlefield. Winter seemed to be struggling a bit, which was to be expected. As soon as he was done with Ariel, he would move to assist her. He's taken slightly aback as he suddenly sees Viralious' weapon fly at Russet forcing him to block. While this gave Winter an opening Eckhart turned to Viralious and saw him fighting Celica with a pair of her own chakrams.
I don't know what idiotic plan is running through Viralious' head, but that is probably the dumbest thing I have ever witnessed… and I've seen Clover fight.
Refocusing on his target he keeps up his attack eventually deciding to gate himself straight into the face of Ariel and fire one last high explosive round in her face. The blast sends both of them flying back slightly when he hears the buzzer signaling an elimination. Looking through the optical feed of his drone he sees that it was in fact Ariel. Smirking he moves to reload his weapon before he hears the buzzer go off a second time, this catches Eckhart off guard as everyone's auras was still fine. Gritting his teeth, he sees that it was Winter who got eliminated. Shaking his head slightly, he moves through his gates to get closer to Russet and begins peppering him with bullets, hoping he can repeat his strategy from Ariel and buy either Viralious or Ifiral time to eliminate their opponent and come help. After all, Russet was their designated target after they finished off theirs.
Eckhart fired two shots before opening a gate to his left and firing a third through it. Using the optical feed of his drones to see Russet's weak points he opens a gate angled 68 degrees on his left. Russet is struck by two of the three bullets before he switches his weapon to its rocket launcher mode and fires one rocket directly at Eckhart. Seeing this coming Eckhart opens a gate and jumps through it dodging the blast. He's however surprised when stepping through and a second rocket collides into him throwing him back a good 5 meters. Dazed slightly, Eckhart balances it to luck of the draw and opens a second gate to his left, firing two bullets through it and aiming at Russet before finishing his current magazine. Using his drones, he puts in the order to fire on Russet to distract him while he reloads as he's reloading however, he notices that Russet blocks his shots fired through the gates before turning and blocking the shots Eckhart had fired straight at him. Furrowing his brow Eckhart finishes reloading and notices that his drones didn't fire upon Russet. Chalking it up to being an error in the software, he opens a gate to his left that would link to Russet's right side when suddenly one of his drones barrels into his back sending him into the gate. On the other side, Russet is waiting and has already begun to swing his axe.
The axe head slams into Eckhart's back dealing massive damage and sending him flying out of the arena. The elimination buzzer sounds long before he stops and eventually, he lands near the mid row of the audience stands. Groaning in pain as he's fairly certain he's broken something. He looks up to observe the current state of the battlefield.
Viralious: 55%
Ifiral Phenrix: 66%
Eckhart Slate: ELIMINATED
Winter Schnee: ELIMINATED
VS
Celica Rhulk: 32%
Ariel Arc: ELIMINATED
Russet Ghermain: 59%
Delphi Amethyst: 75%
Time elapsed: 260 seconds
Gritting his teeth, he curses under his breath as his two drones land neatly next to him, not attaching to his back like normal.
–
Character Change: Eckhart Slate - Viralious
Location: Atlas Academy: Combat Training Classroom
–
Viralious swung right striking Celica directly in the jaw forcing the fox faunus to stumble backwards. He was correct about Celica's semblance and the fight was no longer trying to prevent her from moving. She could no longer plan attacks in advance and block with her second pair. His thought process is suddenly interrupted by hearing the elimination buzzer and a bang somewhere from the stands. Gritting his teeth, he knows that it's Eckhart as he somehow doubts Delphi could launch Ifiral a good 50 meters. Thinking quickly Viralious summons a glyph below where his discarded weapons are and launches them towards himself. He then does a handspring dodging backwards striking Celica in the face with his foot as he goes. Shifting his momentum, he jumps into the air and throws Celica's silver chakrams back at her, then he catches his dual blades and pushes off another glyph sending him into a powerful overhead strike.
The silver chakrams collide with Celica dealing minor damage, but the follow-up is powerful. Viralious ends up on the other side of Celica after the strike and the fox faunus falls to the ground a moment later motionless. Then the elimination buzzer goes off. Letting out a long sigh, Viralious moves to make sure that the faunus is still conscious and notices her give a drawn-out groan. He smirks and offers her a hand up which she quickly takes.
Celica gives Viralious an annoyed smile before winking and hobbling off the field. He then turns around and sees Delphi standing behind him actually waiting. Confused, he asks "Weren't you fighting Ifiral?"
Delphi smiles before saying, "Yes, but Russet wanted a piece of him, besides I went to check if Celica was alright. Thanks for helping her up by the way."
"No problem, now then shall we get back to beating the shit out of each other?" Viralious half jokes before switching his weapon into its SMG mode and firing the full magazine into Delphi's shield. Performing a quick backflip Viralious lands on a glyph and rockets towards Delphi hoping that speed will allow for him to break through.
–
Character Change: Viralious- Ifiral Phenrix
Location: Atlas Academy: Combat Training Classroom
–
Ifiral was pissed off and it showed in his fighting style. Going up against Delphi he knew it was going to be slow going and that it would be a battle with a wall. He however wasn't expecting the deer faunus to be an immovable object, Seriously Ifiral tried everything and still Delphi blocked it. Overhead strikes? Blocked. Feints with the blade to a punch to the face? Blocked and retaliated by getting a rifle shell in his stomach. Slashing upwards, somehow blocked! The only thing that Ifiral was able to do that had any effect was grabbing a magazine full of fire dust striking Delphi's shield with his blade and reaching his arm past it and igniting the dust. Sure, it was powerful but extremely dangerous and stupid, so much so that Ifiral's armguard was still glowing slightly from the heat. Unfortunately for Ifiral again Delphi caught on pretty quickly to what he was doing and was making sure he couldn't do it again. Swinging his blade down again it's unsurprisingly blocked by Delphi's shield; they clash for a good few seconds before separating again. Suddenly the buzzer goes off and Ifiral attempts to do an upward spiral slash. He actually manages to glance Delphi, but it only sends her staggering back slightly and she recovers before he can make a follow up. Sighing Ifiral goes to slam the blade onto the shield basically going through the motion at this point when it's surprisingly blocked by Russet's axe. Ifiral glares into Russet's eyes before saying, "Perfect, I needed a distraction." and gritting his teeth.
Russet smirks before turning to Delphi, "Go help Celica, I've got him!" before pushing upwards and trying to strike Ifiral. Delphi nods before walking towards Celica. A few moments later, the elimination buzzer goes off again. Ifiral smirks before letting his left foot fall slightly causing him to dip down, bringing his arm back he activates his semblance and punches Russet square in the gut forcing the camo drenched student to stumble backwards. Pressing his advantage, Ifiral swings his weapon into an overhead strike hoping to catch his target before he could recover. Russet dodges out of the way before using his axe head to sweep at Ifiral's legs. Ifiral jumps into the air as a response and uses the momentum of his blade spinning for another overhead strike. Russet clashes his axe into the large two-handed sword placing them into a nearly contest that he was surely on the back foot.
However, in a moment Russet grins and activates something on his weapon causing a large burst of wind to send them both flying towards opposite ends of the arena. Ifiral catches himself before he can be eliminated and smirks, his opponent gave him an opportunity to reload. He starts pulling out fire dust magazines before he hears an elimination buzzer go off.
–
Character Change: Ifiral Phenrix - Viralious
Location: Atlas Academy: Combat Training Classroom
–
Viralious spun around once and jumped onto Delphi's shield before hooking his blades behind it, shifting his weight he moves to do a backflip hoping to take the shield with him, however he miscalculates sending the Deer faunus flying with him. While in the air Viralious notices Delphi say a small prayer before firing her halberd at him, something he doesn't properly have time to dodge sending him flying back.
Both land on the ground and turn to face each other, it was a more even match than one would have expected considering their weapons and semblances. Viralious looked at Delphi's halberd and had a horrible idea.
If it worked for Celica maybe it would work for Delphi… I wonder how similar the weight is to my old scythe.
Dashing forward Viralious feinted going for a cross slash that he knew Delphi would try to block and stab him while blocking. Shifting his left foot, he started the cross slash and waited until Delphi had thrust her halberd towards him. Dropping low, Viralious dodged under the thrust and stabbed his blades into Delphi's arm. He then quickly dropped his hold on his blades and kicked them backwards before grabbing onto the halberd with both hands. He then quickly summoned a repelling glyph below him and used the momentum from that to rip the weapon from the deer faunus' hand before doing a backflip and landing next to his blades. Viralious looks at the panicking Deer faunus with a satisfied down Viralious picks up his blades and reattaches them to his waist before spinning the halberd in his hands.
It's heavier and less balanced than I expected, but I think I can work with this.
He then rushed forward halberd at his side. Spinning it around he slams the head down onto Delphi's shield and uses it as a fulcrum to spin himself up and kick her in the face forcing her to stumble back. Recovering quickly, Viralious moves and does a low sweep of the legs, tripping Delphi slightly before shifting the halberd to spin around him like a majorette. Delphi is able to block most of the strikes but a few bleed through diminishing her aura. She suddenly bashes Viralious in the chest with her shield causing him to jump away. Refocusing on his feet Viralious pulls a fire dust cartridge from his bag and throws it at Delphi, he then slams the Halberd onto the ground and pulls the trigger. The cartridge explodes, dazing Delphi and sending her shield to the side, Viralious takes this chance to vault the halberd like a javelin at her. Quickly afterwards Viralious goes to pull his blades off his waist to seal the deal when he's suddenly struck by an explosion that sends him flying out of the arena eliminating him. He lands a few feet from the stands and stands cursing himself for not paying attention to Russet.
Viralious glances around the battlefield while walking towards the stands after he gets up. Delphi was being helped up by Russet while Ifiral was on the other side of the arena reloading his weapon. Glancing at the scoreboard, Viralious lets out a long sigh.
Viralious: ELIMINATED
Ifiral Phenrix: 60%
Eckhart Slate: ELIMINATED
Winter Schnee: ELIMINATED
VS
Celica Rhulk: ELIMINATED
Ariel Arc: ELIMINATED
Russet Ghermain: 47%
Delphi Amethyst: 45%
Time elapsed: 330 seconds
As of the current standings Viralious knew Ifiral had to do something unexpected to pull a win from this fight.
–
Character Change: Viralious- Ifiral Phenrix
Location: Atlas Academy: Combat Training Classroom
–
Ifiral grit his teeth and stopped loading his weapon, it was practically hopeless he wouldn't be able to win this by trying to break through Delphi's defenses and overpower Russet. Just then he looked down at the red dust cartridges he was loading and had a horrible idea… something he was definitely going to regret come tomorrow. Ifiral then continued to load his weapon.
Across the arena Delphi was fully back up and Russet was looking at Ifiral before turning to Delphi and speaking.
"Blast dash?" His tone is excited but questioning.
Delphi nods before placing the halberd behind her and giving her partner a smirk, "Blast dash."
Russet smiles across his whole face before he puts his weapon behind him. Glaring at Ifiral he knows what's coming next. Delphi counts them off of three before they both pull the triggers on their weapons, sending them both rocketing across the arena towards Ifiral.
As the two reach Ifiral he suddenly pulls the bag containing his dust cartridges from his back in front of him and slams it to the ground. Blocking Russet's overhead swing and Delphi's short stab, Ifiral activates his semblance and slams it into the pile of red dust cartridges on the floor between him, Delphi, and Russet.
The explosion is huge, the building itself shakes from the blast and the metal lining the outside of the arena flexes and warps. Barely coming over the sound of the explosion is the elimination buzzer but it's magnitudes deeper signaling more than one elimination. Ifiral opens his eyes and his whole-body hurts. Groaning, he pushes himself up and finds that he's upside down in the front row of the stands landing barely 5 meters from Winter and Viralious both with horrified expressions on their faces. Russet and Delphi on the other hand are in a pile in front of the door to the locker room.
Glancing to the screen, Ifiral sees that his plan had worked.
Viralious: ELIMINATED
Ifiral Phenrix: ELIMINATED
Eckhart Slate: ELIMINATED
Winter Schnee: ELIMINATED
VS
Celica Rhulk: ELIMINATED
Ariel Arc: ELIMINATED
Russet Ghermain: ELIMINATED
Delphi Amethyst: ELIMINATED
Time elapsed: 345 seconds
The screen the quickly cleared and displayed a new message
ALL CONTESTANTS ELIMINATED! ROUND IS A TIE
Smirking Ifiral puts his arms up signaling victory… before it sends him sliding onto the floor.
Viralious looks at Ifiral and just shakes his head before turning and looking at Team CARD. "So that match ended differently than we expected, but I think it just gives us something to strive for tomorrow. So, you're still on for 3 PM tomorrow?" he yells cupping his hands around his mouth.
Delphi gives a small groan before putting up a thumbs up and is helped up by Celica. Team CARD gives them one last wave before entering the locker room. Viralious then turned back to his team and noticed Eckhart coming down towards them. Coughing to clear his throat he addresses them all, "Alright since the match is over, I'm the team leader again. For now, take a break, hit the showers, do some homework or whatever, but think about the fight and at five we are going to have a team meeting and discuss the match and come up with a new strategy. So, if you all excuse me I'm going to take a nice long shower." He says in a simple tone before turning heel and walking towards the locker room. Ifiral gives a small groan but follows behind. Winter nods and starts walking with them. Eckhart stays behind for a moment clenching his fist and after a minute follows.
A/N+Short story
This chapter is a little bit longer than I expected it to be but it's still nowhere as long as chapter 9. So, think of this for making up for the two slightly shorter previous chapters. I will say I don't know how people write fourway fights. Keeping track of everything was exhausting even when I had PHYSICAL pieces tracking where people were (Winter was a mint while Viralious was a leftover piece of my wristband from homecoming). But I think the fight ended up being pretty good even though it jumped around a bit. With that let's break down what happened in this chapter.
The morning and lunch are simply just to show how different of a leader Eckhart would be for the team and to allow for them to get some insight into Eckhart's plan for the fight and give some foreshadowing on how it's going to go wrong. Something I think I did to a decent degree. Some of the finer points will be gone over in the next chapter.
As for the fight itself, let's break it down by each pair at a time. Starting with Russet and Winter. I wanted this fight to show that yeah Winter could possibly win but it's an uphill battle for her since, well it's a rocket launcher, and Winter needs some grounding to summon glyphs and an axe is a much better suited for close range combat. Overall, I tried to show that yes Russet had the upper hand but if Winter could get a few openings, she could have clutched out a victory. Not really much to talk about here. The move she uses to attack him is similar to the attack Weiss uses against the White Fang lieutenant on the train in Volume 2. A nice little callback.
On to Eckhart vs Ariel then vs Russet. Starting with Ariel we learn her semblance: Aura Justice. There are two ways to use it: First is to use a part of your aura to create a defensive barrier around a part of your body increasing your resistance to attacks. It only lasts for a short amount of time. Second part is "Aura Limit Cut." By sacrificing the same amount of aura, a large blade of aura comes down and strikes a target. It's based off of Garen's W and R from League of Legends. It takes aura to use so she's a feast or famine type of fighter. Eckhart is able to win this fight so easily as his gates give him optimal mobility, trickery and angles to fire around. Something you may have noticed is that he's using the visual data from his drones to decide where to place his gates giving him nearly a 360 view of the whole battlefield something that actually gives him trouble when he goes to fight Russet as since Russet is a technopath he could see the same stream of information and plan accordingly to it hence why he knew where his gates would go to.
Viralious vs Celica was the strangest to write since it had an overarching flow that it needed to follow, Viralious had to win but take damage and observe so he could figure out exactly what Celica's semblance is. Which to reiterate is she is able to store the kinetic energy of an object she has thrown and expel it in a strong strike at a later time. The part with Viralious stealing her chakrams was a spur of the moment thing and I figured would make a good weakness and give Winter the opening she needed. As for his fight with Delphi, I wanted to make it a small joke with Viralious stealing her weapon and trying to wield it like his scythe, hence why it happened.
Ifiral vs Delphi was just meant to show that Delphi is pure defense and you have to move quickly to defeat her, hence why Viralious was having an easier time against the deer faunus. Eventually it brings us to the final part of the match where Ifrial basically uses a tactical nuke at his feet bringing mutually assured destruction.
Overall, I think that this was a good chapter, and I can't wait to show you the fall out and what happens in the next fight. This is also where I would like to thank my editor AmoebaHewdraw for looking over this story and I think he's starting to get into it more and more giving me lines and chapter titles, without him the grammar would be MUCH worse.
Amoebahewdraw's NOTE: You can blame me if Ifiral ever makes a Yakuza reference.
Now then, it's doubtful that Ironwood would let an unsanctioned fight occur on his campus, so there must be something that was keeping him up. So, in this short story we will see what occurred. That's right, it's the scariest thing of all! Budgetary meetings at Atlas Academy. (Yes, this is canon like all the other short stories)
On this particular Saturday at Atlas Academy the professors and headmaster were currently gathered in the teacher's lounge sitting around the metal table sharing polite conversation and sipping on coffee. At the far edge of the table sat Ironwood, looking relatively tired. Ironwood clasped the bridge of his nose tight. It was currently 2:45 PM and the meeting had been going on for well over thirty minutes, yet they had yet to even reach the topic of the meeting. That being Atlas Academy's budget.
Letting out a long sigh, Ironwood slams his hands down on the table getting the attention of everyone in the room. The chatter that had held the meeting up for the last thirty minutes suddenly vanished.
"If we are done wasting time, we can move on to the roll call." Ironwood says, rubbing his eyes. "Makoto Cinnamon."
"Present." Cinnamon says curtly before Makoto takes control yelling, "HERE GENERAL!" before giving control back to Cinnamon who is shaking her head muttering something to herself.
Ironwood nods before speaking again, "Kairi-Tsugumi Basil."
"P-p-pres-present sir." Basil squeaks out.
Ironwood takes note of the timid mouse professor and thinks about what had led her to joining the academy. Silently cursing himself before continuing, "Anthony Lute."
"Present, Lieutenant General." Lute calls out confidently.
"It's 'General.' Lute, it's been years since the promotion." Ironwood says, raising his voice slightly.
Lute chuckled, "I know I just think it's funny that you still get worked up over it General. I mean it's just a title. Not worth losing your head over it."
Murt smacks Lute on the back of the head and speaks, "Don't tempt fate, Lute, you've been here for 15 years no need to lose your job for something stupid."
Lute rubs the back of his head and glares at Murt. "I'm not going to get fired, Murt, I'm making a joke. Besides, I'm the only medical staff, and the only one helping you cook the meals until we actually get the damn cafeteria staff back here."
"Don't poke the tin man, Lute." Cinnamon says.
"He's not going to sack me after I fixed him up when he lost that arm." Lute says while shrugging and lazily pointing to Ironwood.
Ironwood grabs the metal table leaving a large crack in it.
Basil looks around the room before coughing, getting everyone's attention. "Wh-why d-d-don't we j-j-just con-continue with the roll call and m-m-meeting?" in her normally shaky voice.
Ironwood breathes in before looking back at the rest of the professors at the table and clearing his throat. "Right. Murt?"
"Here." Murt responds lightly, waving his hand.
"Tyler Beryl."
"Present on the stage general." Beryl says in his normal flair.
"Tali Kaine." Ironwood says.
The room is silent before Cinnamon pulls out their scroll and texts her.
"Well, if Kaine is not here we might as well-"
"She's running a little late, had a long night and didn't set an alarm." Cinnamon says calmly.
Ironwood blinks before sighing and starts pulling something up on his scroll. In the meantime, the clock strikes 3:01pm and Basil pulls out her scroll pulling up a camera feed seeing eight students lining up in the combat classroom. This piques her curiosity and in response she places the scroll on her leg taking occasional glances. Cinnamon looks over Basil's ears and occasionally looks at the scroll.
"Alright then, let's begin with making a plan to get the budget under control. Starting with getting the cafeteria staff back." Ironwood announces and everyone's face except for Murt and Lute lights up.
"What are our options, Sir?" Cinnamon says in a stern tone.
"We have three courses of action. First is we declare a state of emergency and get the Atlassian Military involved." Ironwood says matter of factly.
The room goes quiet for a moment before a Murt speaks up, "James, that's the dumbest fucking thing I've heard since Lute said he could take five guys at the same time."
Lute spits out his coffee onto Beryl before turning to look at Murt and screaming, "I MEANT IN A FIGHT!"
Just then the door to the teacher's lounge opened and Kaine walked in… Though she had a slightly odd hitch to her step as if she couldn't walk that well. Sensing everyone glaring at her, Kaine takes a seat at the far edge of the table and asks Cinnamon if she could get her a coffee. Agreeing to it, Cinnamon hands her a cup of coffee with her normal 5 scoops of sugar.
"So, Kaine, mind telling us the reason you arrived so fashionably late?" Beryl says interest clearly piqued.
Kaine takes a sip of her coffee before putting the cup down. She then grabs her scroll and pulls up a picture on it before closing it and lifting her left hand. Something catches Basil's eye distracting her from the fight playing on her scroll. She looks at Kaine's hand as sees a shiny engagement ring.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH TALI'S GOING TO GET MARRIED!" Makoto screamed while flying off of Cinnamon in a paper like light. Deafening everyone in the room and perhaps a few students walking by.
Basil looks at her pink haired co-worker and smiles "Congratulations, Kaine! I'm really happy for you." hiding a feeling of regret and pained sadness beneath her words.
Each professor and Ironwood give Kaine a round of congratulations before asking some obvious questions. Lute is oddly silent after saying a curt congrats.
"Well, for starters we're waiting until June. We know it's cliché but It's honestly the best time considering our schedules open up around then. We are looking at holding it at Ruefeller Hall, but Regis is a little iffy on the price." Kaine says beaming with excitement.
Lute then suddenly slides a small plastic package across the table into Kaine's hand. Kaine looks at him questioningly before he says, "Hope you were using one of these last night." His tone is joking.
Kaine responds by throwing the rest of her coffee at him and using her semblance to grab the rest of the pot from the coffee maker behind Ironwood, making it follow suit.
Beryl and Murt have gone bright red at their colleagues' comments. Cinnamon has a small smirk on her face and is hiding a blush before going pale and wide eyed when Makoto suddenly blurts out, "OH MY GOD! KAINE YOU'VE GOT TO TELL ME HOW YOU USED YOUR SEMBLANCE DURING IT! IT HAD TO BE AMAZING! DO YOU THINK YOU COULD GIVE ME AND CINNAMON SOME POINTERS! I WAS THINKING THAT WE COULD-" The squirrel professor is suddenly knocked unconscious and turns back into paperlike light flying towards Cinnamon. This is due to the fact that Cinnamon has fallen over smacking her head on the table falling unconscious herself.
Basil looked at the fallen squirrel faunus with sympathy as she knew that Cinnamon did that on purpose. She, however, was bright red in the face and extremely flustered. Her mind began to wander.
I mean I'm a little curious too… but I think it would be better for… Maybe if it was two girls… I wonder…. OH NO DON'T START THINKING ABOUT HOW YOU CAN USE YOUR SEMBLANCE DURING-
Basil's thoughts are suddenly interrupted by her glancing at her scroll and seeing two students rushing at Ifiral before suddenly...
A large boom is heard throughout the room. Kaine shoots up from her chair, hands balled in a fist. Everyone looks on edge. Cinnamon even gets up having recovered from the self-imposed nap time. Ironwood looks pissed. Basil spares Cinnamon a worried glance before pressing a button on her scroll, deleting the footage, and disabling the cameras in that part of the school. Hoping to save her and Cinnamon's chosen team from harm.
Ironwood facepalms and mutters, "I'm trying to train the world's next defenders of humanity… I don't even want to know what that was. Now then, If we could please get the conversation back on track that would be great." Ironwood says gripping the table leaving a dent with his non robotic hand and ripping a chunk out with the robotic one.
"Right… Let's" Basil squeaks out.
"Now the other option rather than just bringing in the military is to accept their request for increased pay… Something I am not too keen about as it would cause us to go over budget and they had just gotten a pay raise the year prior." Ironwood says calmly.
"What's the last option, General?" Cinnamon says having gotten up from the floor.
"We let Murt and Lute become the cooking staff for the rest of the year." Ironwood deadpans.
The whole room goes quiet for a minute before Kaine speaks up, "I say option 2."
"Agreed." Everyone except Murt drones out afterwards.
"Alright then I'll talk to their representative and try to work something out. I will tell them that with the current budget placed by the council I can't give them all the 10% they asked for but I can get 5%." Ironwood says
Ironwood then pulled up his scroll again and said, "Now then, I think we should talk about the repair fund."
Beryl raised his hand "Um sir, don't we normally talk about that fund last?" he says confused.
"Yes, Beryl, but for some reason I have a feeling we should increase our limit on it." Ironwood says glaring at the hole in the table he made.
Suddenly, Basil knew it was going to be an extra-long meeting.
This is honestly the weirdest thing I've ever written… and I've written a paper where the crux of the whole thing was to make a joke from Hellsing Ultimate Abridged by Team Four Star! (It was surprisingly topical and actually was used as an example as a good paper in the class later on.)
Like I said before, this is canon and gives you a little bit of insight into each of the professors' lives… Some more than others. You also learn each and every one of their first names. Going through them quickly Makoto Cinnamon is her full name and I mean come on. Next was Kairi-Tsugumi Basil, her having a two toned first name is story significant, and it will be explained. It's a reference to who she's based off of and a drawing of the Kingdom Hearts trio as mice my friend gave me. Next was Anthony Lute, that's just derived from the person who inspired Lute. Murt is just Murt as I thought that would be funnier, although I originally was going to have him be Thomas Murt. Tyler Beryl was chosen using a random number generator and Tali Kaine is a reference to the best character from Mass Effect… Fight me. As for the content in this side story… I mean it's rated M but I tried to keep the side story somewhat T rated… I am sure my Editor Amoebahewdraw will have words to say about it.
AmoebaHewdraw's NOTE: Only thing is that I'm surprised that adjustments to the table budget weren't addressed given Ironwood's behavior.
But I think it ended up being a great comedic story that developed the characters a bit more, the whole reason for these short stories. (I mean it's almost as long as Chapter 0 and takes up 5 pages in my notes script. It's the longest side story by far.)
Until Next time Xcom Out.