"Training day!" Cobalt shouted as he leapt down the last couple of steps and landed on the bottom, nearly toppling into Vincent, Ivory, and Rowan. "Whoops! Sorry, guys. Didn't expect you all to be here when I landed."
"Something tells me that you don't plan for a lot," Rowan replied. He chuckled as Cobalt gasped.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Cobalt asked.
"Calm down boys, you're both pretty," Ivory told them stepping in between and pushing Cobalt back. "Say, Vin, when is that doll of a girlfriend of yours coming back anyway?"
"And you want Cobalt and Rowan to calm down?" Vincent asked with a chuckle as he sent a message to Ilia.
"You know that I would never steal her from you, even if I really want to," Ivory replied. "I'm only curious."
"Bicurious!" Cobalt shouted putting his hand up for a high five from Rowan. "No?"
"No," Rowan told him.
"Feel free to kick his ass if needed," Tawney replied as she ran down the steps with Lykos and Bái close behind her. "He's not the best at socializing, you know? I'm trying to keep an eye on him, but he just runs off and gets into trouble anyway. Kind of like an annoying little brother."
"You think of me as a little brother?" Cobalt asked.
"I said 'like'," Tawney clarified. "Now come on or we're going to be late." She dragged him away and waved back to them.
"Catch you later!" Cobalt called back. Ivory waved them off.
"Whatever!" She replied.
"Is that girl on their team that one weirdo from Mistral?" Rowan asked.
"Hey now," Ivory said, "Don't talk about her like that."
"Why not? You've heard the same thing, right Vincent?" Rowan inquired as they headed towards their next class.
"I mean, I wouldn't use those words, but her semblance is kind of unconventional, and she has almost frozen people on several occasions, but maybe it's just that she has a hard time controlling it," Vin suggested.
"I think Vincent hit it right on the nose," Soya said as she closed her locker and joined them. "Nothing is really known about Bái from before she came to the school, it's almost like her past was wiped away. It's strange that she wouldn't remember any of it at all. She's always telling Cobalt she doesn't know what happened, I wonder what was so traumatic that she suppressed it and it gives her PTSD."
"I don't think it's any of our business," Vincent told them.
"Don't be such a killjoy," Rowan told him. "You want to know, don't you, Ivory?"
"I'm with Vin this time, I think that's up to her to decide," Ivory replied. Soya brushed them off and pulled Rowan aside.
"Ignore them, I have a proposition," Soya told him as she walked away with him. Ivory watched as they left and shrugged.
"We need to get to class Rowan, you can't be late again," Ivory yelled to him.
"Whatever! Tell Professor Xiao Long to add another tally to my absentee count!" Rowan shouted back as he left with Soya. "Where are we going?"
"Somewhere private where we can talk," Soya told him.
"Taking me up on my offer from before?" He asked.
"No," she answered him flatly. "You said it earlier, that Bái girl is a freak, and I still need to get back at that Faunus with the eyes. Not to mention Cobalt for the incident at the bar." Rowan stared at her for a moment.
"Neela?" He asked. Soya blinked.
"Was that her name?" Soya asked. She brushed him aside as she shoved him into an empty classroom and followed him in. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that I know they hang out, NITE is good friends with CBLT and so by association, anything that we do to Cobalt's precious team affects the other. Now, I'm just as curious to find out what Bái is all about as you are, so I think that we can probably do each other a favor. She needs help remembering."
"How do we do that?" Rowan questioned.
"I'm glad you asked," Soya chuckled as she sat on the end of one of the benches. "You see, instead of the team trying to have Bái talk through her problems, they've decided to have Cobalt make a device that keeps her memories locked away. I'm worried about her psyche, keeping those traumatic recollections hidden is only going to cause even worse issues later on in her life. We wouldn't want that, would we? She deserves our help."
"So we destroy the device?" Rowan guessed.
"Precisely," Soya said. She threw up her hands. "Only as a favor. She'll start having those sudden outbursts again, but it's better that we tolerate them now and help her through the anguish than deal with it all at once later in some sort of school destroying event. We all saw what she did to Ilia during their match of capture the flag." Rowan nodded.
"We all saw it," Rowan said.
"Like I said, she's a danger to us," Soya explained one last time as she stood. "I don't want to ostracize her, I only want to do what's best for all of us."
"What do we do?" Rowan inquired once more.
"We all ready?" Cobalt asked.
"I was born ready!" Tawney shouted out. Pyrrha stood roughly fifty yards from them, bouncing on her haunches as she let them finish their pep talk, her shield in front of her as the fingers of her right hand lightly danced across her spear, preparing to charge in for an attack.
"You kids can prepare as much as you want, this still comes down to performing the best that you can," Pyrrha called out to them. "That doesn't necessarily mean beating me."
"Just wait!" Cobalt yelled. He lowered his voice and looked at them. "On my signal, okay?" Bái nodded as she glanced at Lykos for approval.
"Will this really work?" Lykos asked.
"It's the best plan that we've had for fighting Pyrrha yet," Bái replied. Lykos sighed.
"True," Lykos agreed.
"I'm waiting," Pyrrha taunted.
"Let's go!" Tawney shouted aimed his laser, well aware that Pyrrha would make an attempt to block it with her shield and therefore obscure her line of sight just long enough for them to have moved in, his plan had few holes in it. Lykos formed a Grimm decoy before them, forcing Pyrrha to have to look through it to follow each of them, using an explosion from Tawney to get Bái in close. Bái swung around Pyrrha's defense with her sword, prompting Pyrrha to disengage, attempting to leap back as Lykos caught her ankle with his whip and kept her in place. She smirked, exchanging blows with Bái's ice sword against her javelin which she spun around with alarming speed.
She knocked Bái back for just a second, flipping her spear into its gun form as she placed it in the divot of her shield, hitting Lykos square in the chest and sending him back, forcing the whip to release. The laser slammed into her, absorbed harmlessly into her block as Tawney landed behind Pyrrha.
"Got you!" Tawney exclaimed. Pyrrha spun around without a second of hesitation, Miló had already taken its xiphos form and Pyrrha redirected blow after blow from Tawney. As she heard Bái approaching from behind she threw back her shield, it flew through the air like a frisbee, cutting Bái's ice sword in half to the girl's surprise before slamming off of her chest and returning to its owner. Pyrrha used it to push Tawney away from her and leap out of danger as Lykos pursued her.
"You're better than this CBLT, show me what you've got!" Pyrrha yelled at them. Cobalt rushed in to assist his teammates, as Lykos reached Pyrrha she swept his feet out from under him, throwing him into the air and leaping off of her shield, hitting him several times before slamming him against the ground and backflipping out of the way of Cobalt's rush attack. Her shield returned to her, giving her plenty of time to block against Bái who kept her force on Pyrrha, her ice shield sliding against Pyrrha's as they each tried to push the other back. "You think you'll be able to move me?"
"That's actually the opposite of what Cobalt was thinking," Bái replied. Pyrrha's smile was swept away as she glanced down, her feet were coated in an absurd amount of ice. Bái leapt out of the way of Tawney who charged in, her tonfas locked together as they slammed against Pyrrha's shield, throwing it out of her hands and giving Tawney an opening.
"This is it!" Tawney yelled. Instead of deflecting Pyrrha fired her rifle at her feet, freeing herself and lessening the already heavy blow as the blast threw her away, she landed on her back and toppled over herself once more before leaping up and grabbing her shield out of the air, blocking a swipe from Cobalt in the nick of time.
"We're serious about becoming the best team out of the first years," Cobalt told Pyrrha. She couldn't seem to move him away and she wondered if it had something to do with his armor. He smirked, forcing her to fight him. She lowered her defenses, swinging around her xiphos as she slid back, meeting each of his strikes with a thunderous crash, the opposing forces threw waves away from them, pushing Bái back slightly and pausing her advance.
"Wow," she stammered as she watched.
"Bái, come on!" Lykos yelled running past her. She nodded and followed close behind, he scattered his shuriken, hoping to distract Pyrrha with them but then immediately recalled what her semblance was as they all fell to the ground instantly and he noted the corners of her mouth turning up.
"You're good Cobalt, I won't deny that," Pyrrha told him. "It would be unwise to underestimate an enemy, even if they are just my students."
"You're pretty good yourself," he said drawing a chuckle from his instructor. If only they knew how much we hold back against them.
"Incoming!" Tawney shouted. Pyrrha shifted, her shield blocking Cobalt for her using her polarity and she backflipped, kicking Tawney's shot into the air. The shield jerked violently, forcing Cobalt to stumble into Tawney and they bounded away, Tawney yelling at him the entire time. "What's your problem?!"
"Mine?!" Cobalt yelled in disbelief. "Maybe you should stop announcing that you're attacking!" Pyrrha shook her head as she leaned back instantly, Lykos's whip grazing her breastplate before passing by her eyes and she followed the motion through, bouncing off of her hands and posing before being knocked onto her ass by a giant ice fractal. She attempted to freeze Pyrrha to the ground but didn't have enough time, instead watching as Lykos sprang to action and snatched her shield, forcing her to throw him away with it in hopes of getting it back. Cobalt rushed in, attacking her once more as they exchanged even blows again, an ice dome forming slowly around them.
Pyrrha attempted to leap backward but found Lykos in motion to bat her back into Cobalt and as she redirected his attack, Tawney appeared from behind Lykos, slamming her back into the confined space anyways. The dome formed more quickly now, and Pyrrha drove Cobalt back against the side of it, pinning him there.
"You didn't expect getting to fight me one on one would result in a victory for your team, did you?" Pyrrha asked. "There were better ways to do it."
"Maybe," he shrugged. "But you don't have your shield and this is exactly how I planned for it to end."
"Tawney, now!" Cobalt shouted from outside of the trap. The clone in front of her disappeared and Tawney's tonfas smashed a hole in the wall, allowing Pyrrha to watch the laser being fired off at the last moment. It slammed into her, the impact of exiting through the back of the ice barrier broke her aura and she tumbled across the ground, landing next to where Lykos had left her shield on the ground. Pyrrha lay in shock for a long moment as the rest of Cobalt's team looked at him.
"Overkill much?" Tawney asked. Cobalt looked at his sword and jogged over to Pyrrha to check on her with the rest of his team.
"Are you okay Mrs. Arc?" Bái asked as she checked Pyrrha over.
"Well, you all passed," Pyrrha groaned as she struggled to her knees. "Cobalt, you did well, but maybe don't try to kill the person that you're fighting. Apprehension is preferred over murder."
"I may have got carried away," Cobalt said. "I wasn't sure it'd be enough so… I might have… fired two charges at the same time."
"You think maybe that was too much?!" Lykos asked.
"In hindsight, way too much," Cobalt replied. He kneeled on the ground and looked up at his teammates.
"Agreed," Tawney added. Cobalt shot her a sideways glance.
"Alright," Cobalt murmured.
"Way over the top," Bái finished.
"Okay!" Cobalt yelled. "Got it! Made a mistake! Can we drop it?"
"Probably not," Pyrrha chuckled. Cobalt threw up his hands, standing back up and walking away. "I guess for the rest of the hour you all can have an open training or study or whatever sounds good. I need to let my aura recover."
"Mrs. Arc!" Soya yelled out as she crossed the field with Rowan beside her. "I have a request… Oum, are you okay?" Pyrrha stood up with Lykos's help and nodded.
"I'm fine Soya, what's your request?" Pyrrha asked.
"I'm the top student of the third years, and I heard that Team CBLT is on their way to dethroning NITE as the top team. Isn't that right, Cobalt?" Soya asked.
"After our 'date' together, I'd prefer to pretend you don't exist," Cobalt told her.
"Whatever," Soya waved him off. "I want to see if you guys are really better than NITE. I did fight Neela after all."
"And you lost," Tawney mumbled. Soya glanced at her with burning eyes. "Problem with that?"
"Anyways, what Soya's trying to say is that she wants two of you to take on the two of us," Rowan said.
"Why you, Rowan?" Cobalt asked. "Why not somebody else from Soya's team?"
"None of them wanted to give you the time of day," Soya replied. "Can we face them, Mrs. Arc?"
"I'll leave that up to them," Pyrrha said. Cobalt shook his head.
"I decline," Cobalt said. "I've had enough of Soya for one academy attendance."
"Same," Tawney agreed as she began to walk away with him.
"We'll do it," Bái replied excitedly.
"Bái, you don't need to do that," Cobalt told her.
"We have to prove that we're one of the best, don't we?" Bái asked him. Cobalt groaned.
"Well yes, but… if you don't want to, it's understandable," Cobalt added.
"Let's do it!" Bái exclaimed.
"I'll join you," Lykos said as he stepped forward and stood next to her.
"Great! Whips against whips, fire against ice! It'll be a great showdown, a real testament to the power of Team CBLT," Soya exclaimed. Lykos raised an eyebrow.
"If we beat you that is," Lykos said.
"Right," Rowan agreed. Cobalt glanced at Tawney.
"What's going on here?" He whispered to her.
"I'm not sure," Tawney replied. Lykos and Bái walked back away from Rowan and Soya, preparing to fight them.
"Are you ready, Bái?" Lykos asked. She nodded at him.
"What's the plan?" She asked.
"Something seems off, so stay back if you can, to begin with," Lykos told her.
"I can handle myself…" Bái said sheepishly. "And why did you let me agree if something seems wrong about it?"
"Like you said, we need to prove we're one of the best," Lykos told her with a smile. She nodded up at him with a grin and turned to face their opponents. "Are you two ready?"
"After you!" Soya shouted. Lykos stared ahead, planting both of his feet and forming his whip as he prepared to take off in a sprint. Soya chuckled as she glanced over at Rowan, his wings spread wide as the fire lit within his eyes, he undid the hooks holding the chain to his body, taking one in each hand and anticipating their first attack. Lykos came in with a sudden burst of speed, the illusion throwing Soya off just long enough that she didn't find him until he struck out as Rowan who deflected the incoming shuriken. Soya moved to attack, only to find that both of her whips were frozen to the ground and she glanced back up to see Bái closing in quickly. A wall of vines burst forth from the ground in a weaving lattice, separating the two of them as she freed her whips and leapt back, Bái's ice consuming her wall and destroying it as she crashed through with an ice shield and short sword.
Rowan swung wildly, Lykos dodged his blows in addition to deflecting them, using his whip to redirect Rowan on occasion and pull him away. Rowan's patience waned, he attacked Lykos again and this time allowed himself to be ensnared, flying away from Soya and Bái with a powerful flap of his wings, dragging Lykos with him. Rowan stopped suddenly, forcing Lykos to stumble towards him, Rowan's hook meeting Lykos's neck and trapping him to the ground.
"Checkmate," Rowan said. Lykos chuckled, Rowan's face searching his opponents before he was dropped to his knees by a sudden barrage of shuriken against his legs, allowing Lykos a clean blow to the face which sent Rowan reeling. He freed himself, tossing the hook away as Rowan pulled it back in and scowled.
"You didn't expect me to be that easy to defeat, did you?" Lykos asked.
"Would you be angry if I say yes?" Rowan asked chuckling.
"I'd be disappointed more than anything," Lykos replied as his whip formed again.
"You can't possibly hope to take me, you're just a first-year," Rowan reminded him.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Lykos told him as he charged in again. Meanwhile, Bái was keeping Soya on the ropes. Soya's vines lashed out for Bái but the girl cut them down as though she was able to read Soya's thoughts.
"Impossible, nobody's that fast!" She yelled at Bái.
"Maybe you shouldn't have picked a fight with Team CBLT!" Bái shouted back at her beaming. Pyrrha stood next to Cobalt and Tawney holding her side, watching as Bái fought off every attempt from Soya.
"You guys meant it when you said that you wanted to be the best," Pyrrha said captivated by Bái's ferocity.
"Like no one ever was!" Cobalt added.
"Bái's been trying harder than any of us," Tawney said sullenly. "Even though I feel like I'm the one who wanted it the most."
"Bái has no memory of her past and with her short term goal more or less being to win the love and affection of Lykos, she has no long term goal," Pyrrha told them. "She wants nothing more than to feel like she belongs and she'll do whatever it takes to prove that to her friends." Bái deflected vines and whips, moving ever closer to Soya who found slight disbelief in just how good the girl was, but she'd been holding back just a touch. As soon as she had Bái where she wanted her, she'd make her move.
"You're not as bad as I thought you'd be," Soya informed her.
"You know what they say about underestimating the abilities of your enemies," Bái told her, ice rolling off of her continuously as she began struggling with keeping up her defenses against Soya's plants. Bái intended to move on quickly and end it but before she was able to a thick vine grabbed her ankle from behind and captured her, trying forcefully to pull her away but Bái refused to be moved, two more vines finding the girl and yanking on her. She wouldn't go down, she couldn't! Not if it meant proving that Team CBLT was the best! Bái's body began coating itself in ice in a desperate attempt to remain unmoved, forcing Soya to stifle a laugh.
"Did you think that staying still was the best option?" Soya asked as she began to walk over to Bái. "I'll place a dome over us like I did in my fight against Neela and I'll end this quickly for your sake."
"I don't think so!" Lykos yelled as he vaulted over the crude shrub-like wall that Soya was trying to create. Her whips met his, glancing past him for Rowan, but was unable to spot him and wondered what had happened.
"You've got a lot of fight in you, that's for sure," Soya told him as she tried to pull him in. As she tugged on her whips she backpedaled, his own weapon coming apart and the shurikens flew from him, dancing around Bái and cutting her free long enough to thank him before one of Rowan's hooks was at her waist and he pulled her out of the mess of plant life Soya had formed.
"I want a round with the ice mage," Rowan called out as he pulled Bái towards him. "You know, the other students say that you're a little on the strange side considering that you don't have a normal semblance and don't remember much, if anything, about your past. You're alright with me though, my semblance isn't conventional either." His body burst into flames, they danced along his chains and engulfed his hooks, freeing Bái and letting her regain her bearings.
"Why did you unhook me?" She asked.
"Wanted a fair fight against you," he replied.
"Stop messing around," Soya yelled to him as she was raised into the air by a giant flower that jutted up from the ground. Vines shot out from the plant's stem, forcing Lykos to slide away and deflect them away with his whip. "Beat her already, we can't have these first years showing us up."
"I wanted to toy with her a bit!" Rowan replied slicing a large ice spike in half, Bái charged at him with an ice dagger in hand, forcing Rowan to become defensive but also forcing her away as his flames melted her weapon and ice armor that she'd formed. "I think you might have met your match, Lung."
"Think I'm only as powerful as my ice?" Bái asked. She charged in again, deflecting the hooks and sliding in, hammering him hard in the chest, able to coat her fist in ice just long enough for Bái to deliver a more meaningful blow. Rowan stumbled a bit, dazed and confused at her speed, unable to distance himself before she leapt higher than should have been possible for someone her height, kicking him in the chest and bouncing back off of her hands. As she landed on of Soya's whips gripped her by the wrist and pulled her to the ground, Soya leapt down from her perch and waved her hand, the flower opening up and careening over Lykos, waiting to strike.
"Was she able to do that in her fight against Neela?" Cobalt asked.
"I don't think so, that fight was indoors and it would have taken too much out of her to create something like that," Pyrrha told him. The flower's leaves swatted at Lykos, hissing at him and throwing pollen all over Lykos. He slid back, tossing his shurikens and sending them into the plant, guiding them through the plant with his electromagnets as he was swatted away with a thick vine.
"Lykos-kun!" Bái shouted. She turned to sprint but Rowan's hooks caught her arms and Soya spun around, her whip striking the bracelet and cracking it.
"Soya! Rowan! Enough!" Pyrrha yelled. "You've won!"
"No!" Bái shouted. "We can still win!" Pyrrha began walking over but stopped as she spotted Lykos sprinting at full speed towards his targets, his eyes red and matching Rowan's who released Bái and tripped backward over his own feet.
"Soya, behind you!" Rowan shouted. She turned, seeing the Grimm first and not piecing together that it was Lykos's semblance until it was too late, his whip tore through her as he nailed her in the face with his fist, Bái tripping Soya and slamming her ice-coated fist into Soya's chest. Soya cried out in pain, her aura cracking before Bái's second blow broke it altogether.
"Soya's out!" Pyrrha shouted. Soya glanced around bewildered, meeting Rowan's eyes.
"Rowan! Do it!" Soya yelled. Rowan smirked as he flew towards them, his flames suddenly became larger and hotter, the heat pushing Pyrrha, Cobalt, and Tawney back, the ground around him searing instantly and Lykos pelt caught fire at the bottom. Bái turned and tried to put it out, her ice powers unavailable to her and she shoved him away, causing him to land on his back, the force enough to put out the flames, but Rowan's seemed to continue intensifying.
"Rowan!" Pyrrha demanded. "You need to stop now!"
"No can do teach, the first years need to be brought down a peg!" He laughed loudly. His hook caught Bái exactly where he intended as she lifted her arm to block, shattering her inhibitor bracelet and pulling her towards him. Pyrrha ran quickly across the field as Bái stared at her wrist in shock. Rowan's chortling quickly died as he noted that Bái wasn't being affected by his flames, instead, they were shrinking and he looked at her in shock. Her eyes had completely iced over, looking at him before taking a step back.
"Not the fire…" Bái whispered. "What did they do to me?!" With her outburst a wave of ice crashed through the air, freezing the grass around her, rushing past Rowan and encapsulating half of Soya before Pyrrha's shield slammed into her temple, knocking her out and dropping her to the ground. Lykos glanced over in shock before leaping up and rushing to her. Pyrrha checked her over, ensuring that she was okay before handing her off to Lykos and turning to Rowan.
"Goodwitch's office, now!" Pyrrha shouted at him. Rowan turned away, walking slowly for the administration building as he hooked his chain back into place, hoping to overhear Soya's punishment. "Satisfied?" Soya struggled against the ice on her legs, Tawney walked over and smashed it apart, grabbing Soya by the collar and dragging her to her feet, the upperclassman struggled and grunted.
"Let go of me, you bitch!" Soya demanded. Tawney gritted her teeth before dropping her.
"The next time you cross us, I'm going to make sure that nobody stops her," Tawney growled as she shoved her away. Cobalt joined Lykos and Pyrrha, doing his own check of Bái and looking around for the shattered bits of her inhibitor.
"Can you make her a new one?" Tawney asked.
"It'll take me a week or so, but I can get on it right away. I'll just need my dad to transfer some funds but it won't be a problem," Cobalt stated. Lykos held her close as he began his walk to the nurse's office.
"I never should have agreed to that fight," Lykos said.
"None of us could have guessed that it would have ended that way," Pyrrha reassured him. "You both did your best, you should be proud." Lykos looked at his girlfriend, she breathed lightly. He wasn't proud. He was angry and scared.
What will come of Bái's broken inhibitor? Next Week, Chapter 85 - Mercury vs Athena!
A big thank you to Helihi, Cadhla182, Carlomontie, Nliast, Y8ay8a, Sa-Dui, Diyaru4500, Demize00Zero, TheCipherNine, SketchHungry, Ookaminoki, Lightning-in-my-Hand, and Dishwasher1910. All of their artwork can be found at Deviantart, you can search Silent-Celica and under my favorites tab, I have a collection for NITE.
Until next week, stay classy!