Angelfusion : Winter and the Ace ops are supposed to be the best of the best, so there wouldn't be many people like them. Moreover, I'm going with the idea where the best of the best would be either Hunstmen spending their whole lives fighting grimm, or people working for either Ozpin or Salem. In both case they wouldn't participate.
Most importantly, Pyrrha being champion of a tournament everyone can participate in serves two purposes.
First it makes her more broken than Neo, who has her cheat, to show that she's not at a level that's completely unattainable. Of course, Ember already achieves this in some way, but it's better to have more than a single example.
Second, is that it makes Pyrrha deciding to go 1v1 Cinder at the end of V3 an actually decent idea, instead of being plain suicide. Since she's used to winning against actual Huntsmen, then she'd expect having a good fighting chance against a maiden Ozpin would have already weakened.
Finally, with her current stats, Pyrrha would be perfectly capable of winning her top spot in the tournament, so long as I nerfed her opponent a bit. However, she wouldn't be able to do it without being hit, and that's why the "it's way harder to hit if you don't expect the AC bonus" exists. That and to allow Neo to actually participate.
In the end, this plot-device is just that, a plot-device to allow Pyrrha to win as thoroughly as she was said to in the show, and I've then been able to use it to allow Neo to participate. However, I don't think I'll really use it after this tournament mini-arc.
Minor spoiler : Neo will gain use of her aura at some point. I already have it perfectly planned out, and you won't be ready for it x).
2 Years had passed since Neo had went to see the tournament, and a lot had happened.
The twins had grown a lot, and their training had paid off in the form of them developing aura on their own. When it had happened, Neo had instantly observed them to see their growth.
Name : Miltiades Malachite
Age : 14
Level : 1 (0%)
Class : Dancer [You've got the moves. They might not all be effective though]
Path : None
Title : The Best Twin
HP : 10/10
AP : 12/12
STR : 11
CON : 10
DEX : 18
INT : 13
WIS : 12
CHA : 14
Semblance : None
Status effects:
Child of Remnant [You are from Remnant and follow different rules than other worlds. Your HP is always equal to your constitution and any bonuses that would normally improve it are transferred to your aura]
Defenses:
AC : 14
For : 11
Ref : 17
Will : 13
(-)
Name : Melanie Malachite
Age : 14
Level : 1 (0%)
Class : Dancer [You've got the moves. They might not all be effective though]
Path : None
Title : The Better Twin
HP : 10/10
AP : 12/12
STR : 11
CON : 10
DEX : 18
INT : 12
WIS : 13
CHA : 14
Semblance : None
Status effects:
Child of Remnant [You are from Remnant and follow different rules than other worlds. Your HP is always equal to your constitution and any bonuses that would normally improve it are transferred to your aura]
Defenses:
AC : 14
For : 11
Ref : 17
Will : 13
With their training over – at least as far as they were concerned – and their rebellious side really starting to show, the twins decided they wanted to get away from their mother. After much debate, and a lot of shouting, they were allowed to go to Vale so they could live with Junior, who had quickly promised Lil' Miss Malachite that he'd make sure they wouldn't end up in trouble.
With the twins gone, Neo was now out of a job. With Malachite still refusing to employ her as either a guard or an assassin, and Neo staunchly refusing to end up as a gopher, she turned to the one last thing her skill-set allowed her to do. Taking on missions against the grimm.
Well, she wasn't taking any official mission. She'd need a Huntress' license for that. However, not every mission was made known to Huntsmen and Huntresses. Everyone wanted to destroy the grimm to some extent, and some people wished to avoid having any lawful type looking too closely into their activities. That is where the The Spiders came in.
Lil' Miss Malachite had quite the reputation as a broker. She could give you any information you wanted and sell any item you stole. However, her real strength came from elsewhere. She was the Godmother of the underworld. She didn't rule anyone, but she protected the people of the underworld.
She stopped the law from interfering in the slums. If you paid enough, she could even get the cops entirely off your trail. But that wasn't the most important.
No, Lil' Miss Malachite had another business running. That of dealing with grimm.
It was never a good idea in the underworld to openly say you had a problem. Others might use it as an opportunity. However, when it came to grimm, if they asked Malachite for help, then she would deliver. She would post a job offer to deal with the grimm while hiding who was asking for it, and where it was. Only Huntsmen and Huntresses she trusted would ever take on the threats, and they would be the only one to ever know anything.
This made her position unshakable. Only she had been able to build enough trust to offer this. If anyone ever dared going against her, then everyone in the underground would attack them in fear of losing their one safe way of killing the grimm.
Of course, Malachite wasn't about to let Neo take on any of those missions. She knew the girl was good but she wasn't about to believe she was at the level of a Huntress. However, Neo didn't give her a choice.
For, while sneakily searching for something interesting to do in Malachite's files, Neo found the detailed descriptions of every ongoing mission. There, she picked some she believed would be easy, and with the help of her semblance, made sure once on site that she wasn't in over her head.
Could Neo have searched for something else to do ? Sure, but the amount of cash listed as the reward under each mission made her quickly ignore all the other options. Plus the grimm proved to give a decent amount of experience.
Once she completed her first quest, and proved to Malachite that she hadn't cheated by completing her second, Neo got her reward and was finally allowed to take on missions directly from her.
Ember wasn't sure what to do.
She had befriended Neo, that had been easy enough, but she still fell short of her actual objective. Every time she thought about bringing up joining Salem, she just couldn't find the words.
Moreover, since Neo was a maiden – or so she thought – then did it mean she would have to kill her to take her powers ? Sure, Salem would use Neo for as long as she could, but the plan was for Ember to get all four maiden powers. Otherwise she wouldn't be able to change the world.
This wasn't the only thing bothering her too. Ember had wanted to go outside in order to finish building her resolve, but all this time she had done nothing but falter. She had always considered humans to be inherently evil. Not only because Salem had told her so, but because of her own life experiences.
The grimm were supposed to wipe out the gall that was humanity, leaving Ember with only a few survivors she could then properly teach to bring about a new age of goodwill and kindness. That was her hope. Her goal.
Yet, everything she had lived through these past two years had made her doubt. Humans weren't perfect, the twin's prank sessions were a prime example of that, along with the disastrous state the lower districts were in. However, living there had shown her that humans weren't all evil. That most had both bad and good inside. Even the twins were nice once she came to know them.
Ember still wished there would be more good in the world. But she was starting to doubt if it was worth destroying most of humanity in order to do so.
She would think about it later though. When Neo had told her that she planned on participating in Mistral's tournament, Ember had offered to join as well. Not only would working together bring them closer together, but Ember also wanted to see how she fared against the best Huntsmen out there. With this tournament, she would be able to prove her worth.
Watts been hard to convince, but she managed to get a mechashift version of her bow. Bringing grimmwood inside the arena would be suspicious, and since she couldn't use Dust she would have to switch between melee and range more often.
Finally, when they day of the tournament came, she was ready. Neo and she had signed up earlier, and they were now looking to the matchups.
"This sucks !" said Ember, "We won't be able to face off against each other until the finals. You better not lose early on."
Neo rolled her eyes, and pointed at Ember's first opponent. Pyrrha.
"So what if she's the champion ?" asked Ember, "She's still only my age. I'm confident I won't lose."
Neo softly shook her head as Ember was called for her match. She really liked the girl, but she couldn't see her winning this fight in a million years.
Neo observed the two participants as they entered the arena.
Name : Ember
Age : 16
Level : 10 (100%)
Class : Archer [You can use bows as both a ranged and melee weapon]
Path : None
Title : Black Pawn
HP : 10/10
AP : 57/57
STR : 11
CON : 10
DEX : 20
INT : 12
WIS : 15
CHA : 14
Semblance : True aim [Your ranged attacks ignore any malus from cover]
Status effects:
Child of Remnant [ You are from Remnant and follow different rules than other worlds. Your HP is always equal to your constitution and any bonuses that would normally improve it are transferred to your aura]
Grimm presence [?]
Overtrained [Your training far surpasses one of your level, giving you plus 1 to your half-level bonus]
Defenses:
AC : 21
Vig : 18
Ref : 23
Will : 19
(-)
Name : Pyrrha Nikos
Age : 16
Level : 10 (100%)
Class : Gladiator [You spend your life fighting in the arena. Your skills are built for it and you value Dexterity and Endurance above all else]
Path : None
Title : The Invincible Girl [5 bonus to Charisma checks outside of combat if your target knows you]
HP : 14/14
AP : 70/70
STR : 15
CON : 14
DEX : 20
INT : 11
WIS : 12
CHA : 10
Semblance : Polarity [You can move metals around, allowing you to increase your attack result or AC to any amount you want in exchange for aura. You can improve the result up to plus 5 before it becomes noticeable]
Status effects:
Child of Remnant [ You are from Remnant and follow different rules than other worlds. Your HP is always equal to your constitution and any bonuses that would normally improve it are transferred to your aura]
Overtrained [Your training far surpasses one of your level, giving you plus 2 to your half-level bonus]
Defenses:
AC : 28(33)
Vig : 21
Ref : 24
Will : 19
Pyrrha had also improved during those two years, gaining another point in her Overtrained effect. Did the champion really have to train so hard ?
Neo didn't bother thinking more about it, because the match was about to start.
As soon as the bell rung, Ember quickly took out a couple arrows and shot. Pyrrha rushed her, aiming to close the gap before being riddled with holes. She put her shield forward, yet the two arrows avoided it and bent towards Pyrrha.
For a moment, the champion froze, and it seemed like the arrows would hit the untouchable champion, and the crowd hold their breaths. However, at the last moment, Pyrrha suddenly ducked and slid under the arrow, which bent to lodge themselves into the ground.
Neo was captivated. It seemed Pyrrha had tried to push the arrows away, only for Ember's semblance to cancel it. The fact that Pyrrha had already lost some aura seemed to point to that fact, and this should make the fight much more interesting.
Emphasis on should, because right after that, Pyrrha was ready to close in on Ember. The archer managed to shoot one last arrow before shifting her bow into a metal staff, however Pyrrha was unfazed by it.
No. Much to the crowd's pleasure, rather that be endangered by the arrow, Pyrrha brought her sword forward and neatly cut it in two, before finally getting in a melee with Ember.
She smashed away Ember's weapon with her shield, then stabbed her with her spear before shifting her weapon back into it's sword form and slashing down.
- 13 AP
- 8 AP
In just two hits, Ember was almost at 60% aura, so half-way down. She tried attacking by stabbing Pyrrha with her staff, who evaded the attack and stabbed Ember again.
- 12 AP
Then Pyrrha brought her shield to push Ember's staff away again, and finished her off by a large slash with her spear.
- 14 AP
That brought Ember's aura down all the way to around 17%, right into the red area, and the bell signalling the end of the match rung off.
Back in the changing rooms, Neo met with a grim Ember. She looked truly devastated at having lost this fight.
Neo tapped Ember on the shoulder, with clear worry showing on her face as to tell she was asking if Ember was all right.
"I... I just don't feel like I'm worthy anymore..." said Ember.
Neo cocked her head to the side, unable to understand what Ember was talking about.
"It's just... No matter how much I was showing off before, I didn't really think I'd be able to win you know." explained Ember, "But I never thought I would've lost so badly."
Neo tapped Ember on the back, then grinned and proudly swung Hush, now disguised as a rapier, showing she was ready to fight.
"Yeah. You're right." said Ember with half a smile, "I'll be cheering for you in the stands, so you better avenge me and win this thing."
Neo beamed, glad her friend was at least a bit better, and got ready for her match.
To be continued on April 17th
Friendly reminder that Ember had a 40% hit-chance (before plot-device), and Pyrrha had a 95% hit-chance (since natural 1s are still failures). So this fight was never going to go her way in the first place... At least her semblance counters Pyrrha's, so she's got that going for her.
Name : Neo Politan
Age : 15
Level : 14 (33%)
Class : Illusionist [You add both your Intelligence and Dexterity modifiers to your AC and to Dexterity or Intelligence based attacks as long as you can still cast illusions]
Path : Me, myself and I [You live for yourself first and foremost, no matter what pain you might cause others]
Title : The Gamer
HP : 10/10
AP : UNUSABLE
STR : 11
CON : 10
DEX : 18
INT : 21
WIS : 12
CHA : 16
Semblance : The Gamer
Status effects:
Gamer's body[Your body follows game-like mechanics. You can restore 1/4th of your total HP (rounded down) by resting 15 minutes. You can only die if your HP reach 0 and you fail your last breath]
Child of Remnant[You are from Remnant and follow different rules than other worlds. Your HP is always equal to your constitution and any bonuses that would normally improve it are transferred to your aura]
Fighting for your life[Your aura behaved in the only way that would let you survive, and will continue to do so until you overcome your trauma. You cannot use aura, but you can will any item you wield for it to reflect 100% of any attack that hits it]
Words that shouldn't be said[Your last words almost caused you to lose your life. You cannot talk until you overcome your trauma]
Defenses:
AC : 25(29)
For : 18
Ref : 24
Will : 22