Gray
"When man first arose, remember this. It was not with steel swords that we defended ourselves, but with spears of wood and copper."
A resounding hit on a gray helm causes a dissonant sound to echo all around the arena.
"Aura in the red! Red, out! Gray wins!" A referee called out.
"It's uncanny how easy it is now." He stood over his downed opponent, a guard hired by the Nacht family to not just guard but assist as well in the training of its scions. This one was relatively young when it came to the guards of the Nachts, but he wasn't any less deficient when it came to combat; it was just a shame that he was tossed on over to Alban to assist him in training.
Would've worked too, if it had been a few years before. Now the pale-haired lad was simply too swift, too sharp in both mind and body for any guard to deal with. "You alright my good man?" He extended a hand, raising the man up when he took his hand, "I hit you quite hard, will you be okay?"
"Of course sir, 'tis nothing but a scratch, to be honest." The guard replied, the smile on his face evident and genuine, "I think I'll be quite alright."
The sound of boots stepping on reinforced tiling was enough to interrupt whatever reply the white-haired youth's had for the guard. Soon enough, an older man arrived, with hair similar to his but was instead chest-length, and marred by a singular lock of black hair. Aged sea-green eyes met youthful gunmetal gray, and the gaze was held for what seemed to be both a long time and a moment before being broken away by the man's nodding.
"Well done son, you seem to be progressing above and beyond expectations, unlike your other siblings…" The older murmured the last part inaudibly, though the younger seemed to have picked up on what he would say regardless, "At this rate, you'll be well prepared for whatever and whoever you'll be facing at Beacon, and perhaps beyond." The youth straightened up slightly at the implied praise.
The young spearman's gray eyes wandered slightly, "Of course, it was only through your tutelage that I was able to excel, father." He bowed slightly with a hint of a smile on his face, "It is an earnest hope of mine, that all these theoreticals be finally applied when I get to Beacon." A slight nod was all the response he got to most of what he said.
"Hmm. Well then, I suppose that is so, with all your training at Signal and whatnot." There was a slight trailing off, and then he smirked, "Must needs test you a bit further, Alban." The youth's father clapped his hands, and soon a group of six guards filed into the room in two straight lines of three. They then flanked his father, and were all armed with sword, axe, and spear.
There usually only was one spearman, swordsman, and an axeman each. For his father to double the amount, he wanted him to prove something. "Must be important then… Bring it on." Sarissa Argenta was raised, the pale and mechanically ornate staff glistening with a soft metallic sheen in the arena's light.
His father raised his hand. His eyes narrowed.
And it was lowered.
"Come on!" First move advantage was something ingrained in him from the get go. "If you see an opportunity to dictate the tempo of battle, then do so swiftly." And dictate he did, with a sweep of his staff disorienting the first swordsman to rush at him, timed impeccably to trip the man into the way of his approaching comrades, "And strike true!"
The sweep's momentum was ceased near instantaneously as he reared Sarissa Argenta back, and with the four disoriented men charging at him, he was in the position to thrust the staff's blunt end forwards against the helm of the second closest man, a female axe wielder. "Set the stage, and begin curtain call!" With that man stunned, he activated the tip of his staff with a shift of his hands by the haft, causing a hooked spear-tip to appear at the staff's end; Sarissa Argenta was many things, it was a blunt staff, it was a spear, and it could very well be a sword.
Either way, with the hooked spear-tip, he snagged it in a joint of the axewoman's armor, granting him enough leverage to pull and trip the poor guard into the direction of the other guards, staggering their combined attack on him even further and increasing the cracks in their seemingly unified front. "Divide and conquer." Pull back, thrust, pull back, thrust, pull back, and thrust; ten times ten times a thousand, all in the span of a few seconds, causing the six to hastily pull back from the sudrgetaden onslaught of spear thrusts.
Such blistering speed was to be expected of Gerold Nacht's middle child, these guards had seen it before, but this… He had been raising the bar, getting much higher, so high. As organized as the retreat from the barrage of spear thrusts was, there was always going to be a weak link in the chain; and it proved to be one of the swords as she tripped as they retreated, and Alban's eyes glinted in recognition, "Exploit every weakness." Sarissa Argenta shifted back into a staff, and he leaped and spun in the air, and with the momentum of his spin, struck the guard right on her helmeted head.
That dissonant noise earlier was but a paltry whisper compared to the veritable gong-like reverberation that rang through the arena. "Aura in the red! Blue 1, out!"
"That's one." He thought, giving the cries of the referee no heed. Battle was still being fought, and one's hesitation could be to the opponent's advantage.
"All of warfare is based on deception." Or, if one was skilled enough, it could also be to the opponent's detriment. The staff in his hand transformed into a spear.
"Hiya- uhk!" And what a detriment it was for the two charging axe wielders, now slammed into each other thanks to his spear's hook and his strength. Not wanting to hold back, he pulled the axeman he had initially snagged with Sarissa Argenta closer, and after less than a moment's worth of transforming the spear into a staff, followed immediately with a crushing blow on the man's back, sending the axeman sprawling on the floor. He finished him off with a simple kick to the head.
"Red 2, out!" And then there were four.
He couldn't help but let a slight smirk grace his face, "You know, coming at me one at a time doesn't seem to be a good strategy, no? How about a real four-on-one this time, friends?" He remarked with a flourish of his spear, and to top it all off, he made a bow while doing so.
"Get him! Flank while you do!" The remaining swordsman barked out, his orders getting to the other three after a slight delay. Alban quickly found himself flanked by a swordsman and an axe wielding woman, the latter was somewhat brutish in her build, while the former was a reedy, nimble man. In front of him were the spear bearers, their advance slow and steady with their spears aimed directly at him. Soon enough, those flanking him began to edge closer as well.
"Much, much better now. Unfortunately…" He stepped backwards once, and no more than, "There's still a spanner in the works." He immediately bolted for the pair of spears, acquiring as much momentum as he could with the acceleration he could achieve with the empty stretch leading to the spear bearers. And at the very last moment, he transformed his run into a slide, seamlessly so, with his staff held horizontally with both hands.
The gap was somewhat too narrow for him to slide on through, but there was always the forceful option of kicking the shin of the spearwoman on the left to widen the gap, and though he had not expected his kick to have fully knocked her over, his arms quickly shifted his staff to a position that it could be used against the other spear bearer with full force. Both shins were smashed into by the silvery steel of Sarissa Argenta, and a groan of pain was heard, along with the thud of a person knocked down right afterward.
Leaping upwards to recover from his slide, he swiftly sent the butt end of his staff into the helm of the spearwoman. He focused on her first as he knew she would have- no matter how miniscule- the largest amount of time to recover from the shin-kick he had given her. "Blue 3, out!" And with that, there were three.
The remaining spear bearer wasted no time in recovering from his fall, and Alban found himself quickly beset with a bevy of thrusts and overhead strikes, all the while the other two guards began resuming their flanking maneuver. "There's no doubt about it, I'll have to finish the spearman off first." Alban thought as he managed to successfully parry a thrusting strike from the guard's spear by grabbing it, and promptly pulling the guard in close enough for him to headbutt the spearman, giving him enough time with the dizziness he just induced to land a wicked haymaker in the man's jaw, sending him sprawling for a second, and final time.
"Red 3, out!" And then there were two, who had managed to close the gap between them and him, as the axe wielder had managed to land her axe directly on his shoulder. "Gah! Sonofa-" He had barely any time to dodge the next swing from her axe, but that left him quite open to receive his other remaining opponent's sword thrust to the chest.
Aura flaring up from the blows landed, he tumbled away from them, staff still firmly grasped in his hand. "Well done, you managed to hit…" As he stood up, he immediately ducked to dodge the axe swing coming for his head, "Me… Alright then, let's this over with, shall we?"
The axewoman committed herself towards a leap strike, an overhead blow that would send him sprawling to the floor if it were to hit. "Too bad it isn't hitting, nor is she moving any time soon for that matter." He grinned as he felt his semblance flare up, creating a Steadfast Presence around himself. The axewoman's overhead leap strike was suddenly stopped mid-air as she seemingly hit an invisible wall, and similarly so with the swordsman who had begun charging into him from the left, both immediately fell, though it was more tripped in the case of the swordsman. Momentum was interrupted, silenced, nullified…
"Not." He slammed his staff into the gut of the axe wielder as she was falling, sending her flying with the sheer amount of force put into the blow, "So." He leapt and spun three times in a row, each set of leaps and spins ending with a reverberant blow on the man's helm, "Fast!" And finally, he transformed Sarissa Argenta into its spear form, and with a sonorous war-cry, threw it in the direction of the axewoman.
His projectile soared through the air, whistling with each meter crossed, and as the axe wielding woman slowly arose from the gut strike that sent her sprawling some distance away, the spear hit her directly in the narrow slits of her helm. Had it not been for her now low aura, that strike would've been fatal.
"Red 1 and Blue 2, out!" The resonating voice of the announcer-slash-referee echoed throughout the arena, "Gray wins!" And for a while, silence reigned as Alban stood alone in the arena, panting slightly and with his hands clenching as if his spear was there.
And then, the clapping started.
Gerold was clapping with a vibrant smile on his face, "Well done my son, well done!" He stepped down into the arena as the fallen guards began to hobble away for their much needed rest, "There can be no doubt that you are more than ready for Beacon now."
Still panting from his fight, Alban stayed silent, giving only a visible nod to his father, though you could tell he stood straighter than usual and had a smile on his face, his happiness in making his father proud clearly evident.
"Well son, I haven't anything else for you now, other than 'great job' and 'do well when you get there'." Gerold told his boy with a pat on the back, "Come on then, get going and rest yourself. Gods know you need it."
He nodded again, leaving to pick up Sarissa Argenta up from the ground before departing from the arena's premises for his room, the doors automatically opened to reveal well-lit hallways of steel gray and complementing blues.
As he walked through the paradoxically vibrant grays and blues that made up the majority of the Nacht household's hallways, he felt some vibration in his pocket. "At this time of night? Must be him them." He pulled out his scroll, which was currently vibrating from the call notification; stopping by a window, he slid his finger across and then held it up to his head, "Mmm-yello?" He drawled, greeting his friend.
"Yo! Al-buddy how are you man?" The loud voice boomed from his scroll, and though he was used to it, Alban couldn't help but flinch a little from how loud it was.
"Err, doing fine, I suppose? How about you?" He replied in an even-ish tone of voice.
"Dude, I just found out my sis got into Beacon, more than fine!" At this, Alban couldn't help but roll his eyes at the obvious.
"Oh wow, what a shocker that is that both you and Yang managed to get into Beacon, hooray." He deadpanned with a sullen sniff.
"No no no! Even better, Ruby ALSO got in!" Now that was surprising.
"Red skipped and got in early? Wow, now that IS a shocker." His eyes widened, and he began walking away from the window, now captivated by the conversation, "Please, do tell what exactly happened…"
"Well well well, lil' Ruby along with both blondies… I suppose this year's going to be quite interesting, oh yes." Alban thought as he listened along to Huang's tale.
May he live in interesting times indeed…
A/N: And with that, we've got our full roster for our future Beacon team: Huang Xiao Long, Rufus Herstal, Bruno Rutherford, and Alban Nacht! But before we dive into the Initiation section we'll have to do one last introductory chapter first, something that will tie into a lot of things I promise you, something that will do a little worldbuilding (presumably also trolling), something that will definitely be a big thing later down the line (definitely, too deep to pull back now).
For the time being... I guess rest and relax for the release of next chapter? Probably on the weekends or in some odd day, my habits don't really lend themselves to concrete schedules, that's why I don't make many promises.
Oh and uh, for my first reviewer (thanks by the way!) Mr. merendinoemilano, I uhh... Yeah! There's gonna be changes like that, yes!
Seriously though the Arcs should have an Aura activation ceremony and tradition methinks, as an old family and all.