Chapter 16: The Exam

Weather was something that had never really bothered Six. Even as the rain poured down like a series of tidal waves and the wind howled like some kind of distant, feral animal, she didn't really feel all that discouraged. In fact, she felt pretty good, as today was the day where she'd finally get to take her combat exam.

As much as she'd grown to lament the horrors of combat, this didn't really feel like that. It was like being back at Camp Currahee, a stiff competition, not a slaughterfest. She had always been very competitive, and it just so happened that this competition was one that she was well-suited for.

When she finally got a look at her competition, she wasn't sure whether to be relieved or worried. Most of them didn't seem all that dangerous at a glance, but she'd thought the same thing about most of team CFVY, and they'd proven to be fairly capable in a fight. Most of them seemed to be around her age, either in their late-teens or early-twenties. Most notably, and matching what she had learned to expect from Remnant, the vast majority of them were dressed extremely chaotically, sometimes casually, sometimes formally, with only the odd individual having any armour at all.

The weapons were also… different, again, keeping true to Remnant's nature. Most of them had, thankfully, neglected to bring guns. Granted, Coco somehow concealed a Gatling Gun in her purse, so perhaps appearances were deceiving, but it was a small comfort nonetheless. Some individuals had brought guns, such as a girl with a bow in her hair, who had a sword with a pistol instead of a handle, but the vast majority had been reduced to melee combat. Which was a good thing as far as Six was concerned as it meant fewer chances of her catching a stray bullet and winding up dead thanks to her lacking an Aura.

There was just no getting around it, while the bits of armour she'd taken from various recovered ODST suits was a heck of a lot better then her skin (the helmet gripped in her left hand was especially reassuring) it was just impossible to ignore how useful the inbuilt force field most of the examinees had was. Six had to avoid as many attacks as possible, and with how slow she was without her augmentations this was going to be a challenge.

Still she had prepared as best as she could. In the two days that had passed, Velvet and her had mounted the Gravity Dust to her hammer, taking the nearly forty kilo weapon down to about a tenth of its previous weight, and that wasn't the only thing that had changed.

Coco had apparently gotten bored of sitting around, and had joined them in the weapons workshop on the second day, creating a holster for Six's Magnum. It was apparently rare for the beret-wearing girl to make something like this, but still, the skill was evident. Six had spent a good chunk of her free time practising drawing from it. While she still preferred a magnetic holster, she'd quickly grown to appreciate the classical design.

Now all we're missing is a poncho, a wide-brimmed hat, and a bit of wheat held between our teeth.

Let's not give Coco any more ideas than she already has.

Touche.

They were being taken into the hall for the entrance exam in groups of eight where they would then proceed to fight each other. Or at least, that was Six's guess based on the sounds of blades clashing and the very occasional roar of gunshots that peppered the air. Right now, Six was still a few groups away from going in, waiting at the back of the line behind a girl with vivid orange hair and a very active mouth.

"I can't believe we're here Ren!" She babbled, bouncing from foot to foot; her sunny disposition classing with the heavy rain crashing down around them. "We actually made it to Beacon!"

The boy in green who was just in front of her nodded, pulling out his guns and silently checking them over. Six could respect that, as well as the fact he just appeared to have guns as his weapon; even if he had mounted his bayonets wrong.

"Seriously, we've been training for years! We're gonna nail this exam, or at least, I hope we will!" The redhead continued to babble as Six decided to look over her weapon again, if only to try and focus on something other than the girls talking.

Remember when Jun was considered a chatterbox?

Yes, can we go back to those times?

"Hey, another hammer user!" The girl beamed, causing Six to brace herself, she was going to have to deal with this now wasn't she.

"Erm, yeah." Six said, looking at the silver weapon mounted on the girls belt. While it looked like a grenade launcher to her but this was Remnant, if Coco could hide a minigun inside a bag this girl could turn that thing into a hammer.

"Cool!" The girl grinned, reaching out to touch her weapon. The Spartan's hand reacted in an instance, catching the hand out of the air as she fixed the red headed girl with a glare.

"Don't touch it." Six spat, eye twitching slightly. 'Don't screw with weapons that you don't understand' was something she assumed would be common knowledge on a planet where standardised kit appeared as often as unicorns. For all anyone knew you could touch a button and the harmless teddy bear could convert into a razor sharp flame throwing chainsaw sniper rifle.

"Gah! Right, sorry." The girl said cheerily, pulling her hand back but bouncing up and down as she looked at the weapon. "I just don't meet that many other hammer users, Oh, we could be hammer buddies!"

Six stared at her blankly. She was no expert on 'buddies' but she was fairly confident they needed to be based on more than just utilising similar tools to hit shit with. Still, the cyan eyes were filled with such hope she hesitantly responded.

"Yeah I guess we could, if we both get in."

"Of course we will…" The girl said with a grin, before apparently realising something.

"Noble Six." The Spartan responded, watching as the girl visibly processed the name.

"Huh, well then Six, I'm Nora!" The Redhead declared, offering her hand which Six shook. "The quiet guy behind me is Ren."

Six looked at the dark haired boy and nodded, earning a similar response back.

Okay, I like this guy's style.

"So, where are you from?" Nora asked as another group of four entered the hall, letting them move further along the path, and stepping into a particularly large puddle.

"It was called Reach, I don't want to talk about it." Six said, surprised when the pair nodded back.

"That's cool, we've been there." Nora agreed, looking up at the awning laid across the path and nodding. "Just wanted something to talk about, standing in line ain't much fun."

"You said you were a hammer user, if I know how this place works I'm going to assume that the Grenade launcher on your belt is yours." Six said, gesturing towards the silver weapon as she lent back, sticking her head out from under the overhanging roof to enjoy the feeling of the rain pouring down on her face.

"Oh yeah, Magnahild is pretty special!" Nora declared, grin back on her face as she pulled out said weapon. Six watched in amazement as it shifted into a Hammer. In contrast to her gravity hammer, it boasted a significantly smaller rounded head. "Normally I have a lot more explosives, but right now I'm stuck with concussion rounds, I blew through all of my actual explosives to a Grimm attack on the way over."

Six nodded, they were presumably homeless going off the dirt on their clothes and grease in their hair. However they'd been travelling had either lacked protection, or they'd been forced to help out. Still, it couldn't have been that bad, as the pair still looked happy. Well Nora looked happy, Ren didn't seem to have any expression at all, but somehow Six suspected that was perfectly normal for the boy. Also, he hadn't told Nora to shut up even though she had been rambling for about an hour now, so she supposed he must like her.

Either that, or he's just built up an immunity to her.

Do you always have to be so cynical?

Depends, do you still expect them to be alive in another few years?

"Hey you're still alive." Six pointed out, leaning back out to enjoy the rain again. "Doesn't seem like you wasted any of it."

The rest of the Spartan's time in the queue was spent like this, idly chatting with Nora; mostly about explosives and the best way to cause damage. Nora did seem to agree with Six that demolition was inherently fun, but they disagreed on the best way of doing it. Six was arguing that careful planning and planting on a carefully discovered weak spot worked best. Nora was arguing that it was far easier to just plant bombs everwhere under the logic one would probably be on the weak point and you didn't have to waste time looking for it. Six was left baffled that someone who worked with limited resources could have such a cavalier attitude towards wasting equipment.

She never got a chance to find out because they were called in before she could ask. She, Nora, and Ren, as well as five others walked into the room. Looking around, Six noted the damage done to the walls and bullet casing discarded on the floor, as well as the conspicuous lack of blood on the ground that usually came with such damage. Glynda Goodwhich and a large man in red with a well-groomed moustache were standing on either side of the raised platform students spared on.

"Welcome Future Huntsmen and Huntresses!" The large man cried, his voice carrying easily as the group gathered together at the edge of the ring. "I am Peter Port, Miss Goodwhich and I are your examiners today, you will be called up in random pairs to fight; we will observe your skills and decide if you have the skills to earn a place at our academy."

"We would like you to know that winning will not guarantee you a place here in the same way losing will not automatically cost you one." Headmistress Goodwhich said with a lot less enthusiasm than Port had. "You should also know that the fights are over when we say so. So if we end a fight, you have to stop and if we say it's still going, it shall continue."

Six nodded and resisted the urge to say 'Yes Sir.' aloud even if she did mutter it under her breath, earning her a raised eyebrow from the dark haired girl standing next to her.

"Right, so first I would like to call Miss Noceda and Miss Diaz up as our first match." Port rumbled, stepping back as two girls in a blue and red hoodie respectively walked up onto the rings. Noceda was a cat Faunus armed with a flaming baseball bat while Diaz adopted a fighting stance, a pair of silver knuckle dusters forming over her fists.

She looks well taught for someone outside of a Kingdom.

That Bat looks nasty, we did check our hoodie was flame retardant, right?

Ain't like burns ever slowed us down before. Pain is an abstract, remember?

Yeah, but the teachers will probably call off the test if we catch fire.

Six felt bad for the Noceda girl, she was undeniably skilled and did manage to land a good few hits on the Diaz girl which certainly looked like they hurt, but the other girl was just too fast for her, dodging most of her attacks and striking back with punches and kicks that went for vulnerable areas with merciless efficiency.

Hey she might be fun to fight.

We can take her.

Doesn't mean it won't be fun.

"Marcie Diaz wins this match, Up next we have Miss Belladonna and Miss Noble." Port read aloud as Six moved towards the stairs, she vaguely heard Nora wish her good luck but she didn't respond. She was in her element, and for the first time since she got to this planet, actually felt ready for one.

"Oh good, we don't have to watch another animal fight." A boy in the crowd muttered as the two human fighters got up on stage. Six shot the speaker the dirtiest look she could, noticing with some satisfaction that her opponent was doing the same thing.

Said opponent was a tall girl with black hair and yellow eyes, with a black bow in her hair. Oddly enough she didn't appear to draw her sword, freeing her sheath from her back with the sword still in it. Though the logic was soon clear as she drew the gun, revealing a smaller sword with a pistol in the hilt. This act also freed a hand hold for the dark haired girl to grip it with. As she held the weapon up Six noticed the sharpened edge. She wasn't sure if turning your swords sheath into a second sword was clever, or really dumb.

"Begin!" Port declared as the buzzer sounded.

Six instantly brought her hammer up into a guard stance, she'd seen her opponent flex as the buzzer sounded and recognized it as someone who was about to pounce. She caught the larger sheath blade with her hammer's handle, before she lashed out with her foot, trying to kick her opponent, only for her foot to not connect. Belladonna seemed to dissolve into a black blur while the bow-wearing girl jumped out of the way, landing and firing several shots at the purple haired Spartan who threw herself to the side before turning on the ball of her foot and launching an attack on her opponent.

Crap, did any of those pierce the armour?

Don't think so, we'd be spilling our guts everywhere if they did.

Belladonna fought back, this time going for a combo with both her blades which Six deflected before shoving the girl back. She'd not made contact with the actual girl, but she hadn't meant to. Whatever the clones were, the original couldn't move that far away from them and had to put effort into dodging, meaning she couldn't do anything to counter Six swinging her gravity hammer at where she guessed she would be.

The weapon made a satisfying impact as it collided with the dark haired girl, slamming into her guts and knocking her off her feet and crashing to the ground. Six stood over her and freed her pistol, aiming it at the girl's head.

Apparently that counted as a finish, because the match over buzzer sounded. Six was slightly disappointed, even if she had secured the win. The girl probably could have done something else in an actual fight. Then again, in an actual fight the girl might very well have ended up dead.

Before the fight, Six had deliberately disconnected the power system in her hammer from the Gravity Field Generators. As jealous as she was of everyone with a functional Aura, she wasn't delusional enough to believe that they could withstand the localised gravity forces of a couple gas giants, in addition to getting whacked in the head with a gigantic hammer. And while Beacon Academy was apparently prone to sending students into live combat exercises against Grimm, she was still of the mind that turning a potential student into a puddle would probably be a bad thing.

Six returned her magnum to its holster and went to jump off the stage before hesitating and turning around, offering a hand to the dark haired girl, which she took as Six hauled her up; once again earning an odd look as the Spartan instinctively muttered 'On your feet soldier.'

"Noble Six wins this match." Glynda said, looking Six over as she jumped off the stairs and rejoined the crowd as Ren and Nora moved up to fight.

They actually managed to surprise Six by having the longest fight of the day, they seemed ready for each other's tricks and were both fully capable of reading the other and dodging strikes. In the end Ren had won thanks to throwing one of his guns in Nora's face before hitting her in the guts with a well placed punch.

I guess this world has more hand to hand combat specialists then I've given it credit for.

Two is still not a high number.

Three, we're here now, remember? Imagine what these guys could do with a few lessons in Teukgong Moosool. I bet they could bring an Elite to heel with bare hands alone.

Now you're speaking my language.

Six shook her head as she watched the next match, the guy who had insulted Noceda was smirking at his opponent, idly toying with his black ponytail and flexing muscles Six highly doubted he'd gotten purely from working out. Not that she was one to frown upon using steroids, of course, but at least she wasn't a racist cunt.

Still, his opponent was a much smaller girl with a pink stripe in her white hair and wearing an oversized striped sweater. She stared dissineteredly at him before cracking her knuckles and adopting a very relaxed stance at him, her staff aimed at the ground.

"The Match between LeGume and Sabrewing begins now!"

It was not a long match. Saberwing ducked under the blunderbuss shot LeGume sent her way before she started glowing. Using what Six assumed was her semblance to turn into some kind of dark green shadowy form which ducked into LeGume. The Boy stood up tall before spasming, dropping his gun and slamming his head into a pillar repeatedly until the match was ended.

"That was a fine first round." Port declared happily. "Now you've all had a chance to see each other fight. We can begin round two."

The fights were short but very interesting to watch. Six was somewhat disappointed when Diaz failed to bring LeGume down, his bulk seemingly able to tank the girl's strikes and a blast with his Blunderbus brought the girl down. Noceda on the other hand had a lot more success than her predecessor… mostly because she'd wasted no time and had instantly swung her bat at his crotch.

Six personally thought she'd been very sensible, the catgirl having earned her respect before they fought. It was another good fight, but Six's armour had protected her from the girl's bat and the Spartan had been able to sweep the legs and pin her with her hammer. Her earlier fears about catching fire were, mercifully, not vindicated, even if she was probably going to smell like ash and soot for the next day.

The Belladonna girl was also doing very well, beating LeGume, Noceda, Diaz, Ren and Nora in her respective fights, only losing to Saberwing because she hadn't been ready to deal with her staff because it was topped with ice dust that had managed to trap the dark haired girl.

Six, meanwhile, had yet to lose a fight, Saberwing had made a mistake of trying to freeze the Spartan, not ready for her catching the staff with her hammer and using the momentum she'd built up to drop and roll, throwing the white haired girl out of the ring.

LeGume hadn't been fast enough to stop Six getting up behind and smashing him around the back of the head, though his Blunderbuss shot had managed to to hit her chestplate and grazed her shoulder beforehand. That had actually managed to draw a little bit of blood, but thankfully, Port and Goodwitch hadn't called the match because of it. It was also the first time that everyone else realised she wasn't using an Aura, which caused more than a little bit of murmuring amongst the other contestants.

"Is she crazy? She's gonna get herself killed doing this."

"I don't know about that. She's clearly made it this far, so she's doing something right."

For Diaz, Six had actually chosen to leave her hammer behind and fight the girl hand to hand. The purple haired girl was pleasantly surprised at how invigorating the fight had been, feeling more like sparing over a proper battle. With Six scoring the win because while Diaz was skilled at Karate, the Spartan III had been taught several martial arts, and had managed to Judo throw the girl off the ring.

Noceda had lost purely because her bat didn't have the reach to defend properly against Six's hammer, even if the Spartan did have to wrap her burnt fingers between fights.

Her match against Ren had been another hand to hand brawl, which Six had been able to win thanks to Ren misjudging a punch that had ended up hitting her holstered gun. While he wasn't all that phased by punching metal, it had thrown him off enough for Six to mercilessly capitalise on the shock to deliver a quick punch to his head before kneeing him in the gut.

Nora did not look happy as she stepped up to fight Six, the two hammer users preparing to square off at other ends of the ring. Six stared intently at the orange haired girl. She had a very solid stance, and methodically transformed her weapon to its hammer state.

Nora went for Six's head as soon as the match started. Her helmet thankfully took most of the damage as the Spartan fought back, striking Nora with the pommel of her hammer. The weapon connected but her opponent wasn't that phased, recovering quickly and going for another hit that Six quickly countered.

Something the purple haired Spartan realised quickly was that Nora was very skilled with her weapon. Clearly having more training with it then Six did with her own. Not only that, but she was faster than Six was, and could block most of her attempts at counter attacks.

It was upon realising this fact that Six elected to go for something very stupid. She threw her hammer at Nora, finally catching the girl off guard. A punch to the gut wouldn't work, the girl was wearing some kind of metal harness that would be bad to punch directly.

So she went for the chest; there was a heart shaped window acting as a target. Nora was not ready for the impact of Six's fist, which was then followed up by another punch to the face. Seeing Nora was completely thrown off Six grabbed the girl's hammer to restrain it and then slammed her helmeted head into Nora's as hard as she could.

It stunned Nora enough for Six to wrestle the silver hammer out of her grip, throwing it away. Forcing Nora to fight bare handed. To her credit, her form wasn't that bad, Ren had probably taught her at least the basics. The problem Nora faced was that the basics were not going to save you against a Spartan.

"And the final match goes to Noble Six!" Port cried, walking over and slapping the Spartan on the back. "That was some fine fighting Miss."

"Thank you, Sir." Six said with a weak smile before walking over to Nora and offering her a hand up, which the girl accepted.

"That was cool!" Nora grinned, looking at the Spartan appreciatively. "I'm looking forward to kicking your ass while we're both here!"

"I look forward to it." Six said before jumping off the stage as Nora yelled out.

"I will be the hammer Queen!"

Six actually smiled, before shaking her head. Today had been good, she was about to leave when Professor Goodwhich stopped her with her weapon; apparently it was a riding crop according to Velvet… why Coco had started giggling at that was beyond Six, and frankly, the Spartan didn't care to lose the brain cells figuring out why.

"Miss Six, We need you to come with us." She explained, stern gaze fixed on the Spartan who nodded firmly and followed the deputy head while Port talked to the rest of the examinees.

Six was led to the elevators and taken up to the top of the tower, entering the large office and trying not to stare at the cogs and gears turning around her to focus on the Headmaster. He smiled at her, taking a sip from his mug before setting it down and gesturing for her to take the seat in front of him. She quickly sat down and the Headmaster spoke.

"Well then Noble Six, your results are in, it's time to figure out your place at my School."


Author here, you may have noticed one or two cameos from other things in this chapter. I'm mildly curious to see how much my tastes and the readers overlap so let me know who you think they were, if I remember I'll put the answers in the next chapter. If those are already out… I dunno.