Rozen declared that none of his injuries were serious, just some bruised ribs. He had been given pain medication and allowed to leave for his quarters to rest, with orders to rest at least two days since his aura had gotten low during the fight, almost to the point of aura depletion.

He heard that the attack produced no casualties. Just material damage that they were working on quickly to fix.

Xiang personally thanked him for protecting the workers and the soldier. The soldier is on his way to recovery and also sent his gratitude to Adam.

A couple of days later he walks by the courtyard where he and Mizer fought against the grimm. He stops for a while, observing the workers as they fix the wall and the miners that are carefully removing the crystals left behind by Mizer's flames. It brings a sense of deja vu when he was a slave in the SDC mines. Only that here nobody is being forced to work against their will and nobody is being punished for making the smallest mistake.

The crystals are hard to break and there are some dense clusters, but coincidentally they are useful in crafting weapons, armor among other things or so he has been informed. Xiang didn't get mad that the courtyard would have to be remade. New trees, soil and rock are being placed.

Rozen had explained previously to him that Mizer's flames could get extremely hot and cause the formation of crystals, when the flame gets in contact with the different minerals in the soil. He was even told that Mizer's flames could create dust crystals when they turned white or blue, it didn't always happen, but when there was enough magic in the air naturally or Mizer's own inborn magic it did.

Mizer hesitated using his flames nearby buildings and important areas because he couldn't breath out a normal yellow/orange flame on his own, for that he had to cast a spell.

The temperature his flames could reach was the reason for his wardrobe choice, he mostly wore special clothing that could withstand them. And all his fire resistant clothes had been at the seamstress minus what he wore, which apparently was a bathing suit, something about having a busy week.

Adam's favorite trio of students for the remainder of this week had to take an extra hour of classes to make up for the lost time because of the invasion. Apparently they had also gotten involved in the fighting and required rest. So no training with them while they were busy catching up.

When he leaves the courtyard he is heading to the arena alone to train. The fight the other day had been a good exercise and gave him an idea on how far he has come along.

As usual he starts by stretching and warming up.

He feels himself being watched not long after he began but, no matter how much he tries he can't find anyone watching him, he has turned in all possible directions acting like he was warming up. With the breach the grimm made the other day in the castle it makes him feel on edge. Frowning when he still doesn't spot anything and trusting his instincts, he grips Wilt's handle ready to fight, then he feels a hot breath atop his head.

Looking up he stares in awe, right above him there is a huge wolf head, the mouth centimeters from his face. Just how, did the wolf get behind him without making a sound? Not a few seconds ago he had checked in that direction. This wolf could practically swallow him whole and he is no small man.

The wolf right side of its body is black with several white areas, the left side is a reverse mirror image, being white with some black areas. The ear on the right is white and the one in the left is black. The two wolf tails follow the same pattern as the body. And the eyes he knows them very well, the mostly emotionless but predatory green and blue eyes.

"Vicious?", asks Adam with a bit of uncertainty.

The wolf opens his jaws slightly, yup the amount of teeth and fangs confirm Adam's suspicion that this is Vicious.

Without making any noise and Adam wonders how someone so big is capable of doing it, Vicious walks to the opposite end of the arena, facing Adam.

Having an idea on what the king wants, Adam takes a stance, spreading his feet apart, gripping Wilt's handle and Blush.

When Vicious reaches the other end of the arena, without any warning sign he sprints to the faunus at high speed, with extended claws, tearing the ground leaving deep marks, small electric discharges exiting his paws, the loose soil rising from the ground in a cloud following him and growing in size. Adam readies himself to jump out of the way, when Vicious slams on the breaks, the dust cloud enveloping them, forcing Adam to close his eye, a small dust devil forming, surrounding the faunus.

Adam is already used to fighting blind, he slightly takes Wilt out of it's scabbard to stop several projectiles aimed at him, charging his semblance. By the noise they make, it seems like they were peebles or small pieces of bones given Vicious abilities. He extends his aura to pinpoint Vicious location but to his surprise he cannot feel it anywhere. And yet has to protect himself from the projectiles coming from random directions.

He forces himself to keep a cool head, the dust devil hasn't settled, slowly it's growing in strength. He cannot hear, see or sense Vicious with his aura. The dust devil particles flying around him, the sound of static electricity and the wind are messing up with his senses, he is able to detect the projectiles when they are near him.

Concentrating he searches for something that might give Vicious away, the man always had a slight scent of blood on him but that doesn't help right now, the dust surrounding him makes it impossible, moving scents all over the place.

He turns to the left side and parries a massive paw, he had sensed a slight change in the speed of the winds in that direction. "Good", is the simple praise he receives for his efforts.

As he struggles with the weight of the paw he is blocking a swipe from Vicious other paw comes at him, he braces himself for the hit, his aura protecting him as it connects to his side. He grips his weapons tightly as he regains his balance and exits the dust devil.

When he opens his eye he can see Vicious standing near the dust devil and then the thing divides in two and Vicious is running once more to him. His tails each one protruding a long tail bone are facing opposite directions and the dust devils are following them. "The hell, you can control the wind too!?", Adam asks exasperatedly.

"No", is the short answer he receives. And suddenly the tail bones move forward, one to the left and the other to the right, the dust devils right after them. Adam curses and jumps back. An electrical discharge flows underground and zaps him, his hair becoming frizzy and curly.

Adam lets out a surprised yelp but he doesn't stop moving. The energy he has been able to accumulate for his semblance he uses some and an arc of red aura slams against one of the dust devils breaking it's formation. He moves swiftly towards the wolf and produces a clone when he is near, as he expects Vicious attacks the clone slamming it with his head, Adam losing aura because the clone doesn't get reabsorbed back to him.

He uses the precious seconds available to him and goes for a quick strike to Vicious right shoulder, he unsheats Wilt fast and in the blink of an eye he delivers 4 fast slashes, unfortunately there is a noise of Wilt hitting something solid. Vicious had raised a shoulder blade from his body to meet Adam's attack.

Not wanting to give up, Adam aims Blush to the wolf face and fires several times, forcing Vicious to dodge. He follows after the wolf pretty much like Vicious did when they first sparred trying to not give him any distance, a bold move considering that Vicious could eject the bones from his body suddenly. Adam just hopes that given the lack of distance will give him a chance at an opening.

He tries connecting a hit to Vicious' back only to be blocked by parts of the spinal column turned to spikes. He runs to the king's underside but when he slashes upwards the rib bones stick out to stop the slash, almost losing Wilt in the process.

Adam tries and tries again to land a solid hit but to no avail, he knows he is still no match for Vicious and that he is allowing him within his personal space to gauge his growth.

The match ends when Adam swings his sword at Vicious back legs only for the wolf to do a backflip, change size while in the air to a much smaller one, catching the faunus by surprise and ram him in the back when he was dodging, mistaking the area he had available to dodge Vicious.

With a groan Adam lets himself fall forward short on breath, Vicious tail bones prevent him from falling flat on his face and they help him lower to his knees. Vicious turns back to his normal form releasing Adam after he is sure he is not going to topple over. "You did good".

Adam sighs tiredly running his fingers through his hair, noticing how fluffy and curly it has become due to the electricity. He digs in his pockets fishing out his communicator and activating the selfie mode, then he begins to laugh at seeing how ridiculous he looks. He looks more like a ram than a bull faunus. He holds his belly letting out a wheezing laugh not having recovered his breath yet, shaking his head he speaks "This is going to take a while to tame".

He continues laughing for a while, when he thinks he is about to stop he continues again and he relishes the feeling despite feeling dizzy and short of breath.

A water bottle is offered when he is able to control himself, slowly he begins to drink. He needs a shower badly and some after rest. His whole body is covered in dirt. Curiosity however override those needs. "I need to know how. If you can't control the wind, how the dust devils were following you, how did you even form them?"

Vicious hand emits a visible electrical current on his hand the loose dust on the ground hovers around his hand. "Electricity attracts dust". With the sparks still noticeable so Adam can see, the dust begins spinning fast around his hand.

"So the wind is because you made the dust move with your electricity?", asks Adam intrigued.

"Yes", he stops but due to the residual static electricity some particles hover the air still. Approaching Adam he calls forth the electricity again making a pulling motion several of the dust particles in Adam's clothing detach themselves and follow Vicious hand motion.

"I had never seen something like this before", Adam exclaims in awe.

"Your semblance has a lot of potential… you are an expert manipulating aura...think outside the box", with those words the king retires, leaving Adam to ponder his words.

Adam does as he walks back to his quarters for a shower and some rest.

/ Author's note:

.To give you an idea of Vicious maximum size, he is around the same height as Moro's from Princess Mononoke, and another piece of lore the were-beasts can control the size they can when fully transformed in beast form Vicious smallest size can be that of a big draft horse. Also they can keep growing in size for as long as they live, some individuals reaching gigantic proportions.

. And there is an logic explanation why the dust rose from the ground like that when Vicious ran to Adam, if you read this article you can understand the concept better if I was to explain it news/2016/07/static-electricity-strengthens-desert-dust-storms

There are several articles and studies out there that explain how electricity can attract dust particles. The electricity Vicious used when he first made the dust devils wasn't that visible, he made an exaggerated show to Adam so he could see. That and his goal was not to hurt Adam badly.

.I have several plans in mind on how Adam's semblance will end up evolving so stay tuned.