This is the first time I've ever seen snow.
And holy shit.
First off, life on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is hot. Where I lived, we were somewhere between the Tropics. So that being said, it's not common to see snow on that island.
Not common is an understatement. Perhaps the only way to be able to see that would be surviving a nuclear winter.
Anyways.
Second point: the Argent family - i.e. Dez, Mom, Dad, Cinna, and I - all lived in Midwestern Sanus. The last time it snowed there, I was 2 years old. And not let outside.
Signal just finished the first semester, so now we're all on winter break.
Let me summarize my first ever experience with snow: it's AMAZING.
It's so soft and so cold and you could make things out of it. Truly a marvel of nature's processes.
But it's cold. Really fucking cold. I was pretty relieved to know that auras can help combat the temperature.
So while that's fun and all, I move onto graver news.
The White Fang's presence is going to intensify. They're having more and more recruitment rallies all over Vale, Patch included. I'd been secretly patrolling the streets of the city near the bridge on Patch at night. Stretching my budget thin on overnight stays was probably the least of my worries.
I called it quits for now after a couple dozen close calls with thugs. Aura and physical training be damned, I am not getting fucking shot.
-XXXXX-
It's been... what a month since the winter break? Snow melted and all that. I understood why people don't really like the white stuff all that much now. I have to deal with that for the rest of my life?
Moving on...
We're doing something incredibly dangerous for aura training class. Today we're learning what it's like to have our auras broken. The worst part?
We have to do this the cheapest way Signal can see fit. It's being forcefully broken.
"Okay, class," Ms. Astra began. "Today will be a day you will not look forward to." She looked down grimly at her desk. "You will experience for the first time what it is like to have your auras, the very manifestations of your souls, broken. Shattered. Your spirit and your confidence will be the same." In just a few sentences, she managed to have a good portion of my class frightened beyond belief. "Prepare yourselves, children."
There was an exception to the first time thing: Yang. She had her aura broken at least once before. In any case, she was hardened moreso than any other of our classmates.
We began in a pseudo-alphabetical order. Desiree was up first.
Ms. Astra knelt and had Dez sit in one of the soft beanbag seats in front of her. The room went dead silent for a minute as the final words were exchanged during the calm before the storm.
"Ms. Argent," Astra addressed the young woman. "Are you ready?" Desiree gulped.
"Y-yes, miss." Ms. Astra put a hand on Dez's shoulder. Desiree closed her eyes.
The whole classroom was a bundle of anxiety. Nobody said a word. Nobody moved an inch.
I observed the procedure with intense concentration.
In a second, a dark red film began to run over Desiree. Then, from the shoulder which had Ms. Astra's hand, could you see the layer fading.
As our instructor retracted her hand, Desiree opened her eyes.
I couldn't exactly remember how it went, but I could say it was as if she was being eaten alive.
Desiree's expression went from uncertain to downright terrified. She cowered before some invisible force in front of her and screamed. She was mortified. She wanted to kick, to swing her arms, to fight back. She couldn't.
It wasn't long before she was whimpering. It hurt me to see my sister like that. I suspected some of my classmates were smug or cocky over this but no. Turning to face them told me otherwise. All of them were panicking.
"Mr. Argent, could you assist your sister please?" I did so without hesitation.
I went to Desiree and stood her up. Her limp body held no resistance and her motionless eyes did not move. I slowly aided her in walking to the back of the room. I blankly noted how much she felt like a body.
Ms. Astra called for some help on her scroll and received a substitute teacher to assist in what I conjectured to be what I was doing now. Lord knows she would need the assistance.
Sitting Dez back down was easy, but she managed to muster up enough strength to grab me and pull me into a hug. I reciprocated, but flinched when the next person began their aura "tempering."
Desiree released the embrace and I sat with her in silence. Silent as possible with people bawling their vocal cords out. One by one, everyone was reduced to a shaken mess. Throughout the lesson, Ms. Astra's face was permanently set into a frown.
It took more than a while, but Desiree came to her senses. She seemed... different. I wouldn't be able to put my finger on it just yet, but I think she became stronger because of this.
Everyone was hit hard by this. Yang took it the best; she barely made any noise. However, she was paralyzed and had a dumbfounded look afterwards.
As much as I dreaded it, I had to go too.
"Mr. Argent... You're up." I took my seat. My feet were cold and my hands trembled. My breathing became hard and I could hardly think straight. My throat pulsed in beat with my heart.
Ms. Astra ran through the whole process. She asked for my confirmation.
"Are you ready, Mr. Argent?"
"Yes." I barely managed to whisper out.
Ms. Astra put her hand on my shoulder. All of the muscles in my body tensed. My aura shimmered in my ears alone and I
-XXXXX-
woke up in a hospital bed. A machine to my side beeped incessantly and made my headache worse.
I was covered in bandages and hooked up to an IV. My head wasn't the only thing pulsating in pain. My entire torso felt like it was being crushed underneath the clean white blanket on top of me. Breathing by myself was hard, but an uncomfortable oxygen administrator made sure I got enough - or perhaps too much - oxygen.
The machine somewhere to my side picked up its pace.
To that end, I faded in and out of consciousness. My glimpses back in were met with familiar voices and that godsdamned beeping.
About the... 11th time? I was able to wake up just in time to see a doctor checking up on me. He must've known that I would be going back to sleep since he talked about a relapse, but who was I to complain?
I couldn't for the life of me look at the ECG so I could not determine my aura or anything else pertaining to my recovery.
One particular time I was able to gather enough resolve to power through my pain and rip my mask off. I opened my mouth to loudly voice my discontent, but no word or sound escaped.
I decided against tearing the IV out and instead opted to push all the buttons on the side of my bed to get an attendant in here.
It worked. I fucked up all the settings for my bed, but it worked. The nurse, to her credit, helped me out. She fixed the bed settings and left to get a doctor, but not without putting the oxygen mask back on me when I started wheezing.
I kept awake this time. A man wearing light blue scrubs did some type of test on me with a light and all that. Again, I tried to take off my mask. This time, he did so for me. He asked me a number of small questions to see if I was orientated.
I, through coarse voice and dry throat, asked him my question.
"How's my..." I took a deep breath and broke out into a small fit of coughing. "Aura?" I finished, again hacking through a dry mouth. He stared back at me sideways
He glanced back at the nurse. She shrugged.
"Son, I don't know what you're asking." What? Aura? The lifeforce keeping me alive or whatever? I furrowed my eyebrows in frustration. Maybe I didn't say it loud enough.
"Is my aura back yet?" I eeked out. The man shook his head.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." He looked over at the nurse. "Is he on painkillers?"
The woman shook her head.
"Nope. Just antibiotics and," I'm not quite sure what she said, but it sounded like, "N-S-AID."
He held his head in thought. He turned to me.
"I'm sure you're tired son. You'll need your rest. I'll notify your family that you are feeling better. Don't take your mask off again because your right lung is collapsed, alright?" He stood up and left.
How could they not know what aura is? The only possibility I could think of is that I'm...
Back on Earth?
My mind was racing with all these different possibilities. However, the machine next to me began to pick up speed. Fast.
The nurse, about to leave as well, heard the machine accelerating. She turned around faster than I could blink and rushed towards me.
-XXXXX-
I woke up in the sterile facility of some sort of hospital.
I sighed. I can't remember what just happened. My aura tempering began and then I woke up here. I felt like there was something in between then and there...
That can't be what everyone else felt, right?
A quick look around the Signal infirmary confirmed that I was alone with the school nurse, Ms. Birch's brother. He was occupied with a computer.
I sat up in the bed and cleared my throat.
"Sir?" Mr. Birch, a young, lightly bearded man with thick framed glasses, spun around and walked to me. Pulling up a plastic chair, he sat relatively far from the bedside. The man asked some questions that were familiar, but I couldn't remember where or when I had heard them.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Argent. I'm Roy Birch, Signal's nurse." He began. "How are you feeling?" to which I answered,
"I'm tired. Tired, but pretty normal I guess." He followed up with,
"Do you know what happened?" This perplexed me.
"No, I don't." I asked him the big question. "What happened?" He then told me what I needed to know.
"You were having your aura tempered for Ms. Astra's class, which means it was going to be broken." He brought out a scroll and began tapping away, all the while informing me of what I missed. "Normally, the first time someone gets their aura broken, they experience emotional and mental trauma, though this diminishes with training and familiarity."
He looked up at me and squinted.
"Typical cases of first occasion aura temperance leaves the trainee with little strength. In short, they basically experience sleep paralysis. You," he pointed a single finger at me, "on the other hand, became violent." I blinked.
"Wait what? So what happened then?" He did a semi-sigh and told me,
"You had to be restrained by the teacher's aide. And then you passed out." Wow. Okay.
"Umm... Does this count as an infraction?" I carefully wondered. What I said was a joke, of course. But I did want to know...
"Ha ha... No. You'll be fine." He showed me his scroll's screen to let me see my aura level. It was nominal at about 60%. "Don't worry. You weren't the first case on either count. Both just doesn't happen often."
I breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't quite done talking either.
"On the other hand, you have been out cold for about 3 hours now. And this won't exempt you from any work assigned today. If you're feeling any better, you can just sign out."
I wasn't feeling worse per se, so I did that. Going back to my dorm room added a confrontation to my list of things done today.
The first step I took back into my room earned me a quiet glare and an impromptu interrogation from my sister.
"How are you feeling?" she asked with a tone of slight... uh oh. I can't identify this emotion. She at least wasn't mad, as far as I could tell.
"Uhh..." I began. "I'm feeling fine?"
At no further questions, I assumed she was done. Oooookay?
I didn't pay her much more mind though. My homework and all that needed to be done and was later so. Sleep was the next best thing I could do.
-XXXXX-
The lowest level of Signal's arena tower was a firing range.
We were firing guns in that level for our next quarter of weapons training.
The loud reports of firearms were old friends in this otherwise foreign world. My ancient marksmanship team senses came back to me like a flood.
Mr. Palm himself commended me for my aim. Before we used aura.
Aura changes so much. You could literally resight your target while your weapon is still cycling when you're under the influence of aura. Silhouettes hundreds of meters away stood no chance. It felt good hearing that satisfying 'clunk!' from some metal shaped like either a grimm or person.
Desiree is also very good. She's an outstanding marksman.
All manner of firearms were shot. Small calibers were first, followed by more specialized or standardized guns. Pistols and rifles were given the most time seeing as how they were basically the bread and butter of any firearmed person.
Yang, unfortunately, is just slightly below average standard with weapons like that. She likes their kick and power, but can't seem to master precision.
Fortunately, she absolutely adored the shotguns. Explains why her Ember Celica had them.
This training was to let us get to know whether we wanted guns in our weapon designs or not. I always did, so I just used this training as an excuse to shoot things.
Mr. Palm told us to begin designing our weapons or to at least know what we want in them. Everyone would come up with their own individual designs. However, the most vanilla, i.e. the most common weapon I'd see would be a sword-assault rifle. A lot of people would go with that.
I wanted something different, so I sketched out a proposal for a weapon that has an undeniable inspiration from a design from Earth.
The base would be a melee weapon. A lance that could be thrown with assistance from a gun's recoil. With the FN Herstal P90's magazine somewhere in there.
I sent the concept to the designer, who gave me a blueprint so that the forging process could begin.
Weapons manufacturing overtook the physical training with an ultimatum provided: finish your weapon before the 3rd quarter ended or be expelled. Procrastination and hesitation were everyone's enemies. You couldn't get away with saying that you are your weapon, because there is always something that can make you more deadly.
So my blueprints came back like this:
A lance whose haft was mostly a barrel. Up towards the lancehead was the action. Lying parallel to the haft was the magazine well, which housed the P90-style magazine.
The entire thing could fold into a sleeker, larger, loosely P90-shaped firearm. The action was shifted forward more, giving the gun a more "traditional" aesthetic, though the magazine remained above the action.
To prevent me from being unarmed after a throw, there were schematics for a gravity dust attractor in the gun. I was given the schematics for the attractors and made 3; 1 for the lance, 2 for each hand.
A novel idea. A welcome one.
I began working at the forges. I used my time after school to put more effort into forging it and was quickly ahead of my classmates.
Hot forges, steam from stoking the blade, and scalding metal burs took up the first week. Aura helped, though it still brought sweat to my brow.
Once I had the fundamental pieces of the lance, Then came the fine, smaller parts of the gun action. Milling my receiver would be the only way I would want it, no compromising for time.
That took more work since they had to be to exact measurements. I made a set just barely too small and had to refer to the blueprints again.
A rookie mistake. I swear.
That took about a week and a half.
The easiest part of the weapon was the barrel-haft. It was a heavy barrel and was rifled with this small tool that was pulled through. The designer recommended as much.
Attaching the parts and having clearance for the transformation was the hardest part. I almost had to restart the entire thing.
Once it was all put together, I stylized the lance. I made most of it gray with some dust techniques and the weapon was finished, after I planted the attractor in it.
I then took some black gloves with hard rubber knuckling and put the other 2 attractors in the palm. Simple, easy, and done.
By the end of it all, I was exhausted. Hammering out the metal, slowly and carefully milling the firearm parts all contributed to my fatigue. Thankfully, I was now armed.
I took sharpening the lancehead easy, but still labored over it. A fine grit whetstone made the blade more than razor sharp.
I was very pleased with the weapon.
In as little as a month and then some, the weapon was turned from a concept, an abstract, a mote of imagination into a full, 4 foot, polished, and gleaming tool of destruction.
The round it was chambered for was higher powered, as per design requirements and request. Semi-automatic was a bit of a letdown, but otherwise didn't hinder my pleasure in play with this thing.
I got a feel for the lance. Particularly, the method of firing when I threw it. The trigger was nowhere near where my hand would be, but it would fire with what equated with me flexing my aura.
I'm glad I got what I didn't know I wanted. This lance would be my best friend for the years to come.
Seeing how I was brought to this world in the first place, I gave it a name alluding to both a song I liked and, morbidly, my death:
Thunderstruck.
Well, not exactly, but close enough.
-XXXXX-
I pulled Thunderstruck out of the tree I had hurled it at. The attractors worked their nonexistent magic and did all the work for me.
For the 46th time out of 100, I had thrown the lance with proper form.
One Mr. Bastani Sonnati was my weapon trainer. A blonde, pudgy man with a calm voice and thin mustache, Mr. Sonnati was my personal trainer.
"Gainsboro, 92," he graded. "Good job, son." Today had been nothing but projectile training, which he called javelineering. I had made a marked improvement from when I first started training under him.
The reason behind that: after you complete your weapon, physical training gets replaced by personal weapons training. There are different trainers for different sets and styles of weapon use.
Mr. Sonnati taught projectile spear and lance styles to me and 2 juniors and a senior. They weren't in since they had grimm exterminations to tend to.
The man was quite interesting, having worked at Signal for more than a decade. His weapons were a rack 5 tubes that extended to small, thin, but nonetheless deadly spears. He threw no more than 4 and used his 5th as a normal spear.
Now came the part that I dreaded. After javelineering came practical lessons. Which was essentially me getting knocked around for 30 minutes straight.
"You know what to do next, Gray." He stepped out into a clearing. "Normal rules, you land 3 on me with the lance, you win. You hear your scroll go off, or you get pinned, you lose."
He forgot to mention that he made me set my scroll to beep when I got to 20% aura.
I took position a good distance from him. It didn't matter, since that distance would be closed in a matter of half seconds.
"When the timer starts," he said. His scroll was on its stopwatch function and was loud enough for me to hear.
I steeled myself for pain. "5..." I got a better grip on Thunderstruck. "4..." I flexed the gravity dust attractors, feeling the lance shake smoothly. "3..." I waited. "2..."
I was ready. "1..."
Mr. Sonnati's size was not an indication of his speed. He moved like a flash of light across the clearing, closing in up on me in no time at all. Halfway across was when he threw his spears.
Within the frame of a second, all 4 of his disposable longarms were launched like literal bullets. Each throw was punctuated by a loud "snap!" and the spears were headed right for me.
I jumped back a few feet and held my lance above and behind my head. My left hand was held out, like a gun sight, in front of me.
The 4 spears each made their mark in the ground, sending large plumes of debris up and towards me. I paid that no mind as I held Mr. Sonnati in my vision, keeping him just above my left hand thumb. In one, slick motion, I loosed the lance and fired the gun within, feeling the jolt of recoil just before I had let go.
The gray and black armament flew. Spinning, the lance lodged itself several feet behind my insructor, who equipped his last weapon.
I picked up one of his spears with my left and pulled Thunderstruck out from behind him. He always started the same way, so I planned to capitalise on his confusion.
Unluckily for me, he grinned in pride.
"You're learning. Good," he said as we were in our weapons' preferred melee distance.
Thunderstruck flew backwards through the air behind him, aimed squarely at his mid back. I held his spear ready for a thrust to prevent him from simply sidestepping Thunderstruck's haft.
And he ducked.
I should have seen that coming.
Thunderstruck flew into my hand fast enough that it made me spin. I used this momentum to clear away from an upwards stab.
Sonnati converted his miss into a jump. Held squarely above his head, he came crashing down with the spear.
I narrowly avoided the stab that likely would have ended the fight. So much energy was transferred into the ground that I literally felt the ground shake beneath me.
Thankfully, his weapon remained atuck in the ground, allowing me to get a free jab in. The lancehead bounced harmlessly off his aura.
I stepped back and poised myself for another strike with his spear that I still had.
A long frame of air gave me all indication I needed: he had dodged. With one final yank, his spear was now free. I leaped away further than I ever had before.
Stabbing Thunderstruck in the ground near me, I tossed his spear into my right hand and prepared to throw. In an instant, he was sprinting right at me, spear held put to attack.
I threw his weapon to him. I misjudged the distance he would be, however, and watched as the thin line fell right in front of him. He didn't lose any speed as he ripped that one out of the ground.
Godsdamnit.
I took Thunderstruck back and folded it into it's rifle configuration. I aimed around and in front of him to slow him down. It worked, but only for a little.
He picked up his pace even more.
Lance mode, Thunderstruck was held out in front of me, like a pilum rampart. Once he had closed in, I fired the mechanism and felt the lance connect.
It wasn't worth it.
It really wasn't worth it.
Overextended, I was helpless as he let the lance bound off of his shoulder. He then used that very shoulder to check me, sending me so far off balance that one poke with his spear set me up for a fall.
On my back, I looked straight up past the canopy. My view to the sky was blocked by him staring down at me, spears held on either side of me throat.
I sighed.
"Well." Concealing his 2 spears in their holsters, he gave me a hand.
"Good job, Mr. Gainsboro. You're learning." Pulling me up to my feet, he patted me on the back. "Maybe try not to panic like that again, though. You keep trying to get me to stop with your rifle, but you never actually hit me. And I know you can."
I folded Thunderstruck into it's compact, box-like form and stuck it onto a gravity dust hardpoint on my back that acted like a holster.
"I guess," I replied. Mr. Sonnati then pointed to his last 3 spears.
"If you would?" I gathered the 3 weapons and brought them back to him.
I'm glad I was improving.
The rest of the course was him walking me through some drills. After that, the rest of my day went without a hitch.
No homework gave me a chance to sleep as soon as I got back. I did just that.
-XXXXX-
"You are not alone," said a strong, firm voice.
I opened my eyes to a clear landscape. Below me was a lush forest of green.
"Nice," I said plainly. I already knew who this was. "May I ask why you have brought me here to tell me that?" I inquired respectfully.
"You will find one other who knows as much as you." I looked to the direction og the voice, but instead cane face-to-face with nothing but a ceiling light. I blinked, but said nothing about it. "They will believe that what they are doing is right. It is not."
"Why? What are they doing?" In contrast to the answer I was looking for, I got something else.
"I had brought you here to seek a better future. Your knowledge of this world, while limited, would have been enough to unite all of humanity. Your actions would bring the change you doubted you could make." The ceiling light morphed fluidly into a lamp. "My brother, though opposed to your intervention, has... agreed... to let you do what you must.
Immediately, I felt the hairs on my back rise. Something was behind me.
That something was... a broken lightbulb.
I sighed.
"So what do I do with this information?"
The lightbulb spoke in a deeper, demanding speech.
"I will not tell you. That will work against my favor." Turning to the lamp... which now was a flickering torch...
"I will not tell you. That would disrespect my brother." I sighed again.
"Will I even remember all of this?" I asked. Looking down, the green forest shifted from green to yellow.
"No." The lightbulb, now a dark cloud said.
I shrugged.
"Well, if that's all I'm gonna get... Can I go now?"
My feet gave out beneath me. The invisible floor dissipated to nothing but still air. I was thrown headfirst into the forest, now turning red.
I oriented myself to look back up. The cloud and torch became the fractured moon and sun, respectively. I felt myself slowly going blind as I stared into the sun's rays.
-XXXXX-
(A/N: Sorry that took so long! I aimed for about 5K words this chapter. Hopefully now I'll be able to upload monthly, but the schedule will likely remain loose. Thanks for reading!
Cheers, Rico.)