All at once I was awake inside my own body again. The heart monitor beeped in my ear and the stale air of the hospital filled my lungs. Jaune's sword was no longer positioned on my neck, but I felt his presence still in the room.
My eyes opened and I found myself still glaring into Pyrrha's own green eyes. She looked tired, but now entirely sane. With her eyes opened I was roughly shoved out of the way as her team crowded around her and were generally happy and caring. Tears were shed, hugs were given. I waited patiently to see if Jaune and his team still wanted a four on one fight. Patient as I was however, I interrupted the show after about three minutes.
"Hey." I said loudly. Jaune gave me a look along with the rest of them. "Are we all fighting now, or can I leave?" I asked. Jaune looked between his other three members before answering.
"I don't think Pyrrha will be up to that yet." Jaune answered. His rage seemed to have faded, and made me wonder how long I had been inside Pyrrha's head. Pyrrha however slowly grabbed Jaune's hand and pulled herself to a sitting position. The aura rating on another monitor next to her was slowly filling.
"I'll need an hour." She said, and pulled out the saline drip from her arm. She started on the heart monitors, but likely decided not to give the nurses a scare. "An hour and a half. I feel it will take some time for them to let me out." She surmised.
"I'll be there." I told them and left the room. It was late when we came to the hospital wing, but now the clock read 2:35. The windows told me that it was still dark, so I must have been out for quite some time. My team was asleep, and probably for the better. I left for the training room.
It was at the opposite side of the school and the walk would have normally given me time to think, but I currently had no thoughts. A vague disappointment mixed with odd surprise and a twinge of encouragement lingered in the back of my head.
My plans for the school had no obvious next steps as I continued to wait for the Vytal Festival and Amity Coliseum. Cinder had given me no more reports of importance other than her own detailed plans of the tournament. I was impressed at her plans, but slightly put off at her enthusiasm towards it all. Still, none of it was worth the thoughts.
Thoughts about Blake and my promise to train her floated through my mind. She had drive and reasons to get better, but I still had very little idea as to how I could make her better. Two ideas floated in my mind. One would be of little effect, and the other would be dangerous.
The first one was quite simple, and she had already started on her own. Using dust to enhance her clones could give variety and an unpredictable edge. This would work doubly so If I could increase her controlling capabilities to that of Sun, and increase her aura levels.
The second was a fickle and powerful thing. The Focal Point. You've probably heard of it in lenses and light manipulation, but it is something different in combat. The two strongest emotions are anger and sadness.
Anger initiates adrenaline, makes the brain move faster, and gives more drive than anything else, but makes you sloppy. Sadness crushes the body and mind, but if overcome will push someone to never have to experience it again. Sadness also makes you able to look at things more clearly, and make your next decision with full coherence. In short, they contradict and help each other.
The Focal Point is a combination of blinding rage and crushing sadness, both perfectly balanced in your mind and body. It will allow you to fight at all times with the same strength that only comes from immediate life or death situations, or fighting for family.
There are two problems. One, to use it someone must have had a life hard enough that they can experience both of these emotions at their strongest, while still retaining the ability to feel them and the mental stability to control them.
I had no doubt that Blake could do this, but the second worried me. Reaching a focal point has unintended effects on the mind. On one of my experiments before Beacon I pushed someone to unlock theirs, and they instantly snapped into attacking. The problem is that they retain the strength of the focal point, making them dangerous to the opponent and themselves.
Unfortunately it seemed the only viable choice as Blake's semblance looked to be too specific to evolve. We would work on it soon, but not today. She needed more discipline, and starting too early could be catastrophic.
It looked like I did have a decent amount of thoughts to organize and I had made my way over to the training hall just as my train of thoughts stopped. There were no clashing swords or the reports of guns. It was much too late. I had the training room entirely to myself.
It wasn't much more than thirty or forty minutes before the newly reformed JNPR stood in front of me in full combat gear. I scanned their faces. Jaune had hatred spread across his face, Ren and Nora looked tired but ready. Pyrrha herself was oddly blank.
"You all still certain of this? It won't be easy. You'll probably lose." I told them. Jaune cracked a small grin that probably would have terrified some people and made a few kids cry. You know what it looks like. The type of smile that says 'solitary confinement is my favorite room'.
They each gave me their confirmation and I slowly drew my sword and held it lazily at my side. Looking at ease often unnerves the enemy. If it did then JNPR gave no notice. They each slowly drew their weapons and pointed them at me. Ren fell into an altered boxing stance. Jaune raised his shield at me with the sword tip in the same direction. Pyrrha mirrored him and Nora held her hammer with one hand behind her, the head on the floor.
To start things off I tapped the floor twice with my sword. On the second tap I felt almost immediately that the sword would not move again. Pyrrha was holding it in place while Jaune rushed me and Nora switched to her grenade launcher. The battle began.
Jaune's first strike fell to the side as I kicked his sword out of the way. In a movement of skill he carried through and bashed me with his shield. I let go of my own weapon and flipped backwards, narrowly avoiding the first explosive pill.
Jaune swung around again and I summoned a small shield to block it. Heavy pinpricks from Ren set the ground around my feet into ice. I ducked under Jaune's next swing and threw a punch at him. The blow bounced off his aura, but stunned him enough for me to break one of my feet out.
I didn't need to break the second out as Nora impacted my chest with her large hammer. A good deal of anger was suddenly breaking the surface of her composure. When Nora had rushed me earlier she had still been holding back.
I bounced roughly off the wall behind me and attempted to bring my sword to me. It did not listen. Pyrrha was still holding it down to the floor. With three attackers I did not have the time to overpower her semblance.
Ren was flying at me when I regained my footing. He brought down both of his blades in a cross chop. I responded in kind by blocking with my palms. Without missing a beat Ren wrenched sideways and clipped the right side of my head with both hooks of his weapons. They had been training, and I had underestimated how much better they had gotten.
Ren jumped back when Nora yelled for him. I summoned a shield to block the next pill.
"Rebound!" Jaune yelled. Nora's aim switched to her teammate and she fired. The pill bounced off his shield and behind mine, exploding between me and it. She fired another and I caught the pill, crushing it in my hand and containing the pink explosion.
A moment of respite gained, I called for my sword a second time, pushing power into it. Jaune saw the opportunity and took it as Ren returned with him. I let go and heard Pyrrha grunt as the pressure removed from her semblance.
Jaune attacked first once again, but I was done playing around. I caught Crocea Mors in my hand and wrenched the blade from him. A heavy right hook caught him in the jaw and he staggered backwards. I ignored Ren's proximity and launched myself at him.
A bullet hit me in the side and threw me off. Knowing Pyrrha's concentration was shifted I quickly called my blade for the third time. It moved without hesitation and fell smoothly into my grasp. Using a finger on my left hand I shot a small bead of condensed power at Pyrrha. It passed through her raised shield and impacted her in the center of the head. It was a heavy bead and was specifically made.
The second it impacted a loud shrieking filled the room for a few seconds. Jaune, Nora, and Ren covered their ears, but Pyrrha dropped to the ground in pain. Her aura would protect her from the worst of it, but her focus and hearing would be broken for at least a few seconds.
Everyone else was off guard, so I began attacking. I chose an animalistic style I had learned from consuming the soul of an old waste lander. My strike looked like it would pierce Jaune, and he prepared for this. I dove the tip of the blade into the ground and swung myself low around him and jumped into a spin, slashing at the base of his back where the chest plate ended. He turned and I uppercut him with a summoned stake that tossed him up off is feet.
In my hands I changed the stake into a crossbow and fired a bolt at Ren. He rolled to avoid it and I brought my blade down onto him. His aura rippled as he shouted in pain. I lifted and spun around in a sweeping motion. My sword clanged off something and vibrated almost painfully.
Pyrrha, eyes clouded and disoriented, had blocked my strike in a crouched position. As I took in the impressiveness of her new drive I felt a painful sting. She had fired her spear into my abdomen and it had pierced my aura slightly. I expected nothing less. I hated her, but her weapons were masterfully made, and the edge was perfectly sharpened.
Nora screamed and bashed my right leg in, and I buckled without a choice. She followed through and hammered me again. I pivoted off the spear tip, which only drove it deeper, and flew over Pyrrha. The tip was now at least three inches into my body, close to stabbing some vital organs that humans can't live without.
As I stood up the spear wrenched itself out and flew back to Pyrrha. Her eyes lingered briefly at the blood on her blade. I was tempted to remove my first limitation, but I was actually enjoying this. I can only assume my smile was more of a 'mental institutions are VERY fun' image.
I cast my metal sword aside and summoned two broadswords two work with. I attacked first out of the brief pause. Halfway to closing the distance a line of fire spread across my chest. My shirt was ripped. Jaune was using projected aura slices. I ducked under the next and came up in a swooping motion at Pyrrha. She blocked and Ren countered, digging his weapons into my shoulders and throwing me into the wall once more.
I ducked under his next swing and tackled him into the floor, using the momentum to get closer to Jaune. His swings rippled the air as I dodged, getting closer each time. He attacked, I ducked, and sliced deeply into his side with one of my swords.
I watched him buckle before I swept upwards with the flat of my blade and launched him away from me. Facial scars caused by me would give the wrong ideas. Footsteps echoed behind me and I turned around in time to clash blades with Pyrrha. Her eyes flashed dangerously dark for a brief moment and I felt the most intriguing pain of my life. The blood in my heart pulsed against natural motion and refused to move.
Icy fire spread from my chest as she sliced me in the torso and kicked me away. The pressure relived and I saw her slump slightly. That was dangerous, and very satisfyingly dark. To control someone's blood was oddly deranged for her. Maybe I put the pieces of her mind together wrong.
While on the floor I rolled to the side as Nora tried to crush me. Ren peppered me with bits of fire that singed my shirt and skin. Before Jaune recovered, I needed to get rid of someone. I looked Nora in the eyes and smiled as I raised my arm. A blast of purple hellfire cascaded across her upper body. She stumbled back while screaming and I kicked up onto my feet.
"Nora!" Pyrrha shouted her name in concern while Ren turned to me and loaded new clips. The bullets he fired were less pricks and more punches. I was driven back with my feet dug into the ground. He was using gravity dust. I shouldered myself out of the stream of bullets and rushed him.
My swords had gotten lost when I fell, but I summoned a large hammer not unlike Nora's and struck Ren's jaw. His eyes went white and he slumped to the ground. One down.
Nora stared at me with burns on her face and her orange hair melted to her skin. She only looked more pissed off. "Pyrrha, light me up." She said. The champion shifted her weapon at Nora and fired three rounds from a separate clip and knocked Nora down. Needless to say, I was dumbfounded.
At least I was, until I saw sparks and she got up glowing with aura. Lightning transmuted into power for her. She fluidly switched to her launcher and fired a pill at the ground, flinging herself at me. Midair she switched to her hammer and I raised my arms.
The resulting clash was second in force only to Oobleck's last ditch effort. I flew back into the wall that was at least thirty feet away. She wasn't done. I heard another shift of metal and an explosion. With the composure I had I rolled out of the way. Her hammer head dug into the near indestructible wall. I reared back and punched her head into the wall. She yelped and I did it again, aiming for the temple.
I kept smashing until the rippled of aura no longer appeared, and then once more for good measure, and to knock her unconscious. At this point Jaune and Nora had almost made it to me. I looked at them with arms outstretched.
The anger in his eyes now was even greater than before. He jumped to attack me and I caught his sword in my hands, drawing blood. For the second time I threw it away. He leaned over as I punched him in the stomach. I spun and kicked him in the back and he fell to the floor.
My last punch cracked off his shield as he raised it quickly. Annoyed, I grabbed and pulled. He screamed in pain and Pyrrha shouted in concern. The leather strapping broke with most likely a few muscle tendons.
I dropped to my knees over him and punched him in the mouth. His aura rippled and I swung again. And again. I did not stop when I saw blood. I did not stop when his aura went out. I did not stop when I dug a shard of tooth out of my knuckle. I stopped when I smelled ozone.
If you don't know what that means, the smell of ozone, or more likely burning air, is the smell before a rainstorm caused by lightning. We were indoors. It was clear outside. I looked over to Pyrrha and her green eyes had turned black with her semblance, and she almost absorbed the light around her. She had a tear running down her cheek and more rage than I've ever seen in a person. I knew the look. She reached her Focal Point, and I was about to pay the price.
The air shifted, and a general feeling of absolute danger and wrongness filled me. I readied whatever defense I could as everything exploded and I felt my world turn into pain. Light filled my eyes, then everything was dark.
It was worse than the railgun. Worse than the golem Grimm tearing my chest apart. My ears rung and I couldn't see. I tasted blood and smelled smoke. I was probably lying on the floor, or maybe whatever happened destroyed the floor. Through the haze of pain my mind began to theorize.
She had power over magnets, but that also meant magnetic fields. I knew altering those could do some very interesting things to matter and create vast amounts of energy. What I didn't know is if it was possible to rip the atoms around you apart and set of a runaway reaction. It must have been. Few other things could have done this to me.
Soon light began to peek through my eyelids, and I realized they were closed. My skin cracked slightly when I opened them. The white tile of the training room, a material meant to withstand the ballistic semblances of dozens of students, was shattered and burnt in a small circle.
I could see this because I had somehow become slumped against the wall on the opposite side of the room. Before I tried to move, I took in my surroundings with just my eyes. Pyrrha was in the center of the circle of burned and broken tiles. Possible alive. Likely dead.
Jaune was out of my view, but likely damaged from being just as close to the blast as me. Nora and Ren were thrown against the wall perpendicular to me, a small puddle of blood forming under Ren.
The ringing in my ears faded and I realized that there was a very real ringing also sounding. Some sort of alarm was going off. A thought crossed my mind. I was already on thin ice with some people, and on the edge of suspicion with my team.
People could think I caused this. I needed to prove them wrong. I needed to be helping. I needed to be saving them. My skin cracked and my charred clothes broke into rags. I stood up. The pain was unbelievable and I forced as much power through me as I could with my focus, all in an attempt to heal myself.
Looking probably like a ghoul of some sort, I shuffled across the room towards Pyrrha, glancing behind me to see Jaune in similar condition to me. Unconscious. Possibly dead. I lurched another step towards Pyrrha, halfway there.
The closer I got the worse she looked. Her armor had blackened and melted in parts. Her skin was similar in looks, red and black. The symbolic red hair of the Mistrali Champion was a melted and matted mess. I stood over her and focused. Pain ebbed back as I tried to feel the presence of the souls around me.
There were four in the room, one fading. I didn't bother to check which one. There was a large group of other auras heading towards the room. I shut my mind to it and refocused on strength. Slowly I picked up Pyrrha and slung her over my shoulder. I had to keep up appearances. Luckily my healing was starting to take effect. I headed for the door.
The lights in the room were flickering while I made my way to the door. Almost there I saw the doors spring open and a team of medics, teachers, and a few students were behind it. Glynda, Ozpin, and Port were among them. Some nurses rushed passed me and two of them took Pyrrha off my shoulders and into a stretcher.
I turned around to go help before Ozpin grabbed my shoulder. My skin burned at the contact and he took his hand away. I sat on the floor and leaned against the door frame. "You've helped all you can. Leave it to the professionals, and take this." Ozpin told me, and handed me a small syringe. Morphine.
Though the pain was fading, I injected it into my leg anyways. The reaction was an almost immediate dulling of my senses and the near complete fading of the pain. Ozpin crouched down and looked at me.
"Can you walk yourself to the infirmary?" He asked. I nodded. "Good. I'll be over in the morning to get some answers. Try and rest." He told me. I nodded again and stood up. My burned clothes crunched more as I walked.
Medics ran past me wheeling all members of Team JNPR past me. I got a glance at Ren. He had a large piece of tile lodged into his side from the blast. Nora seemed only badly burned, but Jaune was strangely unharmed, comparatively. This was especially interesting considering he was the closest to the epicenter.
When I made it to the infirmary, more to rest than anything else, I was accommodated by an amateur nurse, a new shot of morphine should I need it, and a hospital gown that I refused. My bed had water next to it and I drank it in one sitting.
The pain was mostly fading and my remaining power was working on healing my burns and bruises. The situation around me was apparently much less relaxed. Nurses and more qualified medics ran to and from ER's and OR's that the JNPR members were based in.
My own team visited come morning and helped convince the nurses to discharge me. I would have left for classes anyway, but less conflict meant less difficulty. They let me go after realizing my injuries had healed to a superficial level and that I could walk.
My team had their questions. What happened? Are you alright? Are they alright? I explained how I had helped heal Pyrrha with little detail, focusing more on telling them how my intentions were to make amends. I told them that JNPR picked the fight with me and that I accepted.
The brutalizing of Jaune was toned down so that I would receive less dirty looks. The explanation for Pyrrha's explosion was halfhearted, but I eyed Blake enough for her to know I would explain more to her specifically.
We checked on JNPR before leaving. Jaune was sitting in bed and eyed me suspiciously, but with considerably less hatred and anger than before, or maybe he was just tired. Nora was unconscious but stable. The real situations came from Pyrrha and Ren.
As I said before, Ren was unfortunate enough to have a large piece of shattered training tile lodge into his sternum area. At least I thought it was shattered. Turns out most of the tile remained intact and dug deep into him. We were not allowed to see him, but were informed that the tile missed his heart by just one centimeter, and that he was being operated on.
Pyrrha was stuck into a recovery aura pod. She showed no signs of aura at all aside from questionable readings on the monitors and slow healing due to the pod itself. She was stable. Things became more peculiar when the readings also showed that instead of her brainwaves slowing and decreasing in number, they were remaining well into the levels one would experience wide awake in combat.
I chalked that up to another theory in my head that would have to be confirmed or denied later. My team walked with me back to the dorms and I laid down to sleep, excused from today's classes. Drugs still floated in my blood and I had been awake the entire night. I didn't care enough to burn the morphine out of my system. It was pleasantly warm after all.
In my sleep I healed myself entirely and bounced around the theory that Pyrrha might still mentally be in the Focal Point, even unconscious. This could either be dangerous and she would be a time bomb, or she was learning. The second one gave the same feeling in my stomach that you would experience before skydiving. Ensuing fun with lingering danger.
I woke up at night and caught the dinner rush. Ruby and Yang had gone off to train and Weiss was doing maintenance to her weapon in the forge. I found Blake in the corner of the loud cafeteria with tuna and tea, reading one of her books.
I grabbed some random food myself and sat down. I needed to explain both what happened to Pyrrha, and that the same thing would happen to her if she wanted to get stronger.
"Hello Darren." Blake said blankly without looking up.
"Do you want to know what actually happened to Pyrrha?" I asked. Her eyes came off the book quickly and she closed it with a bookmark, a sign that she was actually going to listen, not tolerate my words.
"During our fight, I pushed all of them, as combat would. While she stayed back according to plan I attacked her teammates, people she cared about. Even when she joined in I excluded her and focused solely on them." I started.
"Testing her reaction, or having a bit of fun?" Blake asked, slightly angry. I sighed.
"A little of both, but mostly testing. I'll admit that I was a little less than gentle with Jaune, and perhaps pushed her too far." I said.
Blake looked skeptically at me. "So she exploded? I saw the aftermath in the training room."
"Yes," I answered plainly, "but it isn't that simple. I pushed her into something called the Focal Point. Many semblances and almost all aura are influenced by emotions. The Focal Point is the balance between rage and sadness, or misery." I explained to her.
"So the mind turns into overdrive, adrenaline releases, and all restraints are off. Am I getting the picture?" She asked. I nodded.
"Yes. It forces the body and mind to react in a last ditch effort state, usually resulting in some barriers being crossed and the body sometimes not being able to hold up. As for what happened, think about what Pyrrha's semblance is, and what that can do if the scales are tipped to strongly." I said. Blake got a thoughtful look before her eyes went wide.
"She could rip atoms apart, right? A runaway reaction." She said. I nodded.
"I told you I would train you, make you stronger. The problem is that your semblance is very linear with not so many possibilities. I don't think I can evolve it the way I can the others." I told her.
"So you want to push me over that edge and what, see how the dice roll? What if it kills me like it almost did to Pyrrha?" Blake asked.
"That's the risk. It's also the reason I chose different routes for the others. I don't think their minds or bodies could take the stress without collapsing or losing control. You on the other hand have had a hard enough life to gain discipline. I think you could do it, and the results would be more than you ever thought possible. What do you say?" I asked. I knew she would say yes, I could see it in her eyes.
"Fine. When do we start?" Blake asked.
"Now. Finish your food and we'll head to the rooftops. I think the training room will be off limits for some time." Blake nodded and re-opened her book, reading while she finished. Behind the nonchalance of those actions though, I could see unease festering. Her eyes didn't move across the pages, and none were turned in the ten minutes we took to eat.