A new chapter his here, and it's the last one until I get six more done. Not much to say, but I hope you all enjoy.


Chapter 1: Testing Grounds

About five years before the arrival of Ruby…

It was a normal cloudy January day in London. People were going about their daily business in the capital city, bundled up to fight off the cold. Many children eagerly awaited the end of the school day. In one particular school there was something else on the mind of a girl with white hair tied into a long ponytail. She was a student at one of the many hero academies in the UK.

Much like the rest of the education system, the structure of hero schools in the UK is determined by the governments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland for their respective regions, with the UK government as a whole handling England. For english schools, The hero academies are considered post-16 education. It runs for two years. Because of this it isn't uncommon for those looking to go into heroics to take either private lessons, or extracurricular activities if a school provides it. After two years of hero school, graduates are given a test to determine if they receive their heroes licence. Those who fail will have opportunities to try again. For the International Competition of Heroic Students, all hero students are eligible to compete to become one of the eight representatives. This includes those who've just finished their second year when it happens, since the tournament would occur the summer right after they graduate.

Currently this girl was lost in her thoughts.

"Weiss…" Another girl called out.

Weiss didn't hear her, too lost in her own thoughts.

"Weiiiiiss…" The girl spoke again.

Again, Weiss didn't reply.

"Hey Weiss…" The other girl tried again.

Weiss didn't reply

"HEEY!" The other girl finally shouted while shaking Weiss.

"Wah huh what the…" Weiss blabbered out.

She turned to see the girl standing next to her desk looking down at her with an annoyed look. The girl had long waist-length straight black hair that faded to blue at the bottom.

"Oh hey, Nina… I was spacing out again wasn't I?" Weiss questioned.

"Yeah, school let out like five minutes ago." Nina replied. "You're still worrying about the preliminaries for the ICHS(International Competition of Heroic Students) aren't you?"

Weiss sighed.

"Yeah…" She expressed. "Can you blame me this is the only shot I've got to get in."

If I don't, my friends or anyone I know from Remnant might not know I'm here. Even if I do make it I still have to make a big showing to get my name out there.

"I know why this is important to you, but still, have some confidence in yourself. You're easily one of the strongest in the whole school if not the strongest." Nina pointed out.

"But I'll be ultimately competing with many of the country's top hero students for only eight slots." Weiss returned. "Uhg… I wish there was an easier way to get my name out there."

"Well you can worry about that later." Nina declared. "We're having a girls night to get your mind off of this."

"Not that I don't want to, but I should focus on training. The preliminaries start tomorrow." Weiss replied as she got up out of her seat.

"All the more reason you need to come with me and relax." Nina declared.

She grabbed Weiss by her wrist and dragged her out of the classroom.

"H-h-h-h-hey!" Weiss shouted. "Let me go!"

"Nope your coming with me for girls night. You're stressed, which is going to do more harm to you than any lack of training for the coming matches." Nina declared.

She's in full 'Big Sister Mode' right now, meaning there no stopping her now. Might as well go along with it then. Besides, it'll probably be a good way to get my mind off of things.


The next day…

Weiss and Nina walked together along with many of their fellow classmates who had come to compete in the preliminaries. The building they were going to appeared to be a large enclosed stadium. Weiss took depth breaths to try and calm her nerves. She looked around to see many more students from other nearby schools coming to compete as well. The manner in which each school determines who they send to compete in the preliminaries is determined by the individual schools. Each preliminary testing sight determines how to narrow down the number of people sent to it, the only rule being that it must be narrowed down to eight. From there, each set of eight compete with one another to determine who will move on to the ICHS.

"Looks like we've got a lot of competition." Weiss noted.

"Yeah, kind of nerve wracking, but we'll do just fine." Nina declared.

"I hope so." Weiss muttered.

They were all directed to the changing rooms so they could get into their hero costumes. Nina's hero outfit consisted of a simple light-blue knee-length flowing dress. Her long hair was also tied up into two tightly braided buns. Once everyone had changed into their hero costumes, they were all led into various large waiting rooms within the large facility. Weiss was quick to notice how they had deliberately separated those from the same school as best as they could. I see how this is. She kept herself ready, while doing her best to calm her nerves. She gripped her rapier, ready to draw it at a moment's notice. The PA system came to life.

"Aaaaaalright everyBody!" The voice of a male spoke up. "I hope you're ready, because the first test will be starting momentarily."

Weiss looked around as everyone began to murmur amongst themselves.

"Before we start, I need to tell you what you'll be doing. As you can see, you have been split up into a total of eighty different rooms. Your goal is to be the last man standing in each of these rooms in order to move on to the next round." The man announced.

Weiss began to prepare herself subtly, to avoid attention from the others. A small glyph formed in her hand.

"Few quick rules, no killing so you have to either knock out or immobilize the competition." The man explained. "That's all from me for now. Good luck and START!"

Weiss slammed her palm onto the ground. A large glyph formed around her, which was in a shape similar to a snowflake. Ice shot out from all around her. It twisted and turned as it went out, encasing many up to their heads in it. She smirked.

"You guys should really have been more ready." She expressed as she stood upright. "The minute he said we'd be starting soon you should have been ready to go."

She leapt over an attack from behind. She used a glyph to push off of and shoot towards her attacker, slamming him into the ground. She quickly went on the offensive when two more people who had dodged her initial attack charge at her. She used her glyphs to dance around them and quickly incapcitated them.

"GAAHH!" She heard someone cry in pain.

She turned to see a girl fly through the air and crash onto the ground. Her gaze fell upon the person who sent her flying, a young man with an effeminate appearance and shoulder length green hair. Around him were other students knocked out. The young man looked at her, smirked, but said nothing. Weiss eyed him cautiously. The green-haired boy took the initiative, a gust of wind raced towards her. The minute it slammed into her she was sent flying into the air. She quickly recovered. As she was in the air, she saw the green-haired boy rushing forward. He must only be able to control the wind within a certain radius. In that radius he seems to be untouchable, possessing incredible offense and defense. So, I'll need to be creative if I want to get around that.

Weiss created a glyph to kick off of to put some distance between herself and the green-haired boy. The minute she landed she used her glyphs to increase her speed and skate around to his flank. The green-haired kept his gaze on her. His mind working on how to best catch up to her and corner her. He was careful to watch her make sure she didn't try and surprise him with anything as he followed her. Weiss then smirked.

A blunt pillar of ice shot up on an angle and slammed the green-haired boy in the stomach. While moving, Weiss had laid down a glyph that was small in size, making it difficult to notice. She activated it once her opponent had gotten close to it. His concentration was broken and the wind dissipated. Weiss took the initiative to land the finishing blow, knocking him out. There was a ding from the P.A. system.

"Weiss Schnee will move onto the next round. Please wait in your waiting area until the other matches have concluded. If possible we would appreciate it if you could release all those you have immobilized." She heard a woman speak of the system.

Weiss breathed out a sigh of relief.

"I guess Nina was right, I should have more confidence in myself." Weiss expressed. "Speaking of which, I wonder how she's doing."


Meanwhile…

Nina knocked out an attacker. Unlike, Weiss group, there was no one who could do massive, wide-range attacks. As a result it was complete chaos in her room. A girl tried to attack her from behind, however Nina was able to notice it just in time and turn her body into water. Nina's quirk was [Hydro-Body]. It allowed her to convert parts of her body into water. The more of her body she converts the more difficult it is to maintain her form, which requires her concentration. Breaking concentration causes it to reform. Nina's hero outfit was made out of fibers produced from her hair in order to change with her. She fazed through the girl, returned to her normal form, and quickly counter attacked. The other girl tried to block, but Nina's arm became water and went through it. Her fist shifted back to normal before slamming into the other girl's face. Another fist slammed into the girl's gut before another punch delivered the knockout blow.

Right as she knocked her out, a guy came up and tried to grapple her. Her whole body turned to water he fazed through her. She shifted back to normal and was able to get him into a choke hold, dropping him instantly for a brief second. She used that time to fully incapacitate him.

"It feels like there's no end to these guys." She muttered.

She took some time given that no one was focused on her at the moment to look around the room. About a quarter of us are left. It seems everyone is focused on their own fights right now. Hmm… I might be able to sneak to some obscure corner and bid my time while resting up. As they say work smarter not harder. She tried to sneak away to do this. However, someone who had just finished their fight noticed her and went on the attack. His fist fired out with a chain attaching it to the rest of his arm. Nina noticed this just in the nick of time. She narrowly dodged the attack. However as the fist retracted back to the man who attacked her, it had been moved down and was able to grab her arm, pulling her along. Nina came hurtling towards the man who had attacked her. He readied a punch. Right when she was near he sent in forward. However, her whole body turned into water, fazed through him, and returned to normal. She skidded on the ground, spun around, and charged the man. Her elbow slammed into the man. He was stunned by the attack and quickly knocked out by Nina.

She turned to see that there were only ten students left, not including herself. They each eyed one another. There was a brief lull in the battle. No one moved, waiting for someone to make the first move. Then one moved first, the rest followed, and the battle continued. However, Nina simply waited as they fought each other, biding her time to see when the best opportunity to strike would be. After sometime the numbers thinned to the point where only one person was left, who was a girl with long blond hair. Nina immediately went on the offensive catching the now exhausted girl off guard and finishing her quickly. There was a ding from the P.A. system.

"Nina Cleddyf will move onto the next round. Please wait in your waiting area until the other matches have concluded. If possible we would appreciate it if you could release all those you have immobilized." She heard a woman speak of the system.

"Yes!" Nina cheered.

She felt a vibration in her pocket. She took out her phone to see she got a text message from Weiss. It read, 'I passed the first test, how about you?'. Nina smiled and texted back, 'Same', before putting it away.

"Now to just wait for everyone else to finish up." She expressed.


Later…

Weiss, after releasing everyone from her ice, had taken the time until the next test to relax. As she stood there waiting, the PA System came on.

"Alriiiight… good job to everyone who passed the first test. To those who didn't make it, sorry to say but you won't be going to the ICHS." The announcer stated. "But don't let it get you down, lots of people don't make the cut. Anyways it's time to move onto the second test. For this test, the eighty of you remaining will have to navigate your way through a multi-floor maze. A screen in your room will show you the maze layout and your exit point and the current location of the screen. These will also be scattered throughout the maze. The goal is to be one of the first sixteen in order to pass.

"However, don't think this will be just any plain ol' maze. We've set various traps within it you'll have to avoid. Also don't think these walls will be easy to break. If you do break them, the maze will reconfigure around you, including where the exit point is. Also, after some time passes, whatever wall you broke will be replaced with a new one. Good luck out there the test will begin, NOW!"

The door to the room opened up on it's own. Instead of rushing out immediately, Weiss took the time to examine the map. Quite an interesting test. It's not too complex but there's a lot of depth to it. For one the maze itself is large, covering at least three floors. It's the only real complex part of this test. It's likely set up so no one has a clear edge by sheer luck of being in a well placed room. Then there are the traps. It's safe to assume they'll be trying to get in our heads and make us second guess what is and isn't a trap. Even if the traps don't slow you down, your own hesitance will. Then there's the fact they took into account people just busting their way through things. The strong materials that make up the wall will make it difficult to do, especially consecutively. Then there's the fact that the maze itself will shift each time someone does it.

She noticed the maze shift slightly on the screen. However the exit point didn't change. It's likely a 'smart maze', breaking stuff away from the exit point means very little in terms of reaching it. Unless I see otherwise, it's likely only if you break a wall near an exit that it'll shift, not if you're just near an exit. But I can shelve that line of thought for later if it ever arises. For now I need to be more concerned with the mazes shifting mechanic. It's a very simple tool yet effective tool for sabotaging your opposition. Due to the randomness, even if you did team up, you could at most mitigate its effect on how you go, not really turn it in your favor. It's also effective at allowing you to escape a more powerful foe if you can manage it, shifting the maze so you no longer have to deal with them.

She noticed the maze shift again. She also noticed it only shifted on one floor. Though that's one good sign a shift is limited to the floor you're on. Get an early lead and find a way off the floor and you can make a lot more progress. Maybe even get luck and have the maze on the floor below you work out more easily. Another thing to note is they seem to shift around these rooms not the rooms themselves. That could prove useful later down the line. There was a ringing from one of her pockets. She smirked. She took out her phone and answered it when she saw it was Nina calling.

"Told you it'd be a good idea to bring these." She expressed.

"Oh ha ha ha… very funny… but I will concede that you did good in noticing we were never told to get rid of our phones." Nina replied over the phone.

"It makes sense. From what I was able to gather, cooperation is an important part of the early stages of the ICHS. It makes sense to test for it, which is probably what this is for." Weiss noted.

"Very astute of you oh wise Weiss, is there anything else your boundless wisdom uncovered?" Nina questioned sarcastically.

Weiss rolled her eyes, but still chuckled lightly.

"Nothing I'm sure you couldn't have figured out." Weiss replied. "Anyways, let's focus on our plan of action. A good plan would be for one of us to stay behind and use this projection as a way to direct the other. Once one of us gets close to the exit, our roles would switch and they lead the other to them."

"It might also be good to find others we can team up with." Nina pointed out.

"True, the only problem is getting them on our side." Weiss expressed. "They're encouraging competition which would make it hard to foster cooperation. In fact it's not a bad strategy to just take out the competition to increase your chances of being one of the sixteen. Still worth a shot though."

"I thought so as well. But we should probably get going soon, so do you want to head out or should I?" Nina questioned.

"Hmm… I feel like you'd be better at guiding me through the maze then I would you, especially with the way it can shift around. Though that seems to have slowed down." Weiss noted.

"I don't think I'm that much better, but even so, since we'll eventually trade places, it doesn't really matter." Nina pointed out. "Hmm… I'll take the role of the guide first I guess. What room are you in?"

Weiss took a look at the screen. She saw all the rooms were arranged in two circles, one large and one small. They appeared to be evenly spaced, meaning there were more rooms in the outer circle than the inner circle. Weiss found her location.

"In the inner circle count two rooms to the right of the room at the 12 o'clock position and that's me." Weiss answered.

"12 o'clock and one, two… there got it." Nina mumbled. "Hmm… it'll take me a little bit to figure out the best path, in the meantime try and see if you can find someone to team up with. I'll call you back soon."

"Alright, see soon then." Weiss replied before hanging up.

She slowly walked out into the maze. She remained on high alert as she went out, given she couldn't see around the corners. She went around the area, running into many dead ends along the way. As she rounded a corner, a young man came flying towards her. She quickly avoided him. He flipped in mid-air before landing and skidding to a stop, allowing her to get a good look at him. He was an average height young man with a clearly muscular build. His hair was blond and short with a somewhat wild look. He was dressed viking esque. She then looked the way he came from. A fairly unassuming girl with short black hair walked towards them.

"Hmm… looks like another one, lucky me." She spoke with confidence.

Weiss drew her rapier.

"Care to team up?" She asked.

"I can take her." The young man replied.

"I meant long term, work together so we can both pass." Weiss replied.

The young man looked at her skeptically before turning his focus to the black-haired girl in front of him.

"We'll see. For now, stay out of this, she's mine." He declared.

Weiss merely shrugged as he walked forward. His pace picked up until he was full on sprinting towards his opponent. The girl smirked as he drew near. From her shadow erupted a black clad meaning yet odd looking humanoid creature. With a roar it charged towards the blond haired young man.


Weiss: Finally, gods it took the author way too long to get to my story.

Nina: To be fair he had a hard time figuring out what to write.

Weiss: Excuses, excuses... anyways we have to do the next chapter preview. My distaste for the writer's laziness can wait.

Nina: Best I'm gonna get. *Clears her throat* Next time we hop back to the main story for some more matches.

Weiss: I hope Ruby does well in her match. Amai looks like she can be a tough opponent.

Nina: Well whatever happens, I'm sure it will be interesting.

Weiss: Next time, Chapter 41: Battle for the Top, Part 2.

Nina: Look forwards to it.


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