Here we are again. I know I'm putting this chapter out early compared to the most recent ones (about a day, give or take 2-3 hours, between each) but this is basically going to be a "lore dump" chapter, more or less this story's equivalent of canon's "World of Remnant" videos. I also forgot to mention in the last chapter that Ruby can speak a bit of ancient Draconian and that some words that are normally tame (such as "nox") are, at best, borderline profanities when used by the Rose family for their connection to the "Traitor in Black." So yeah, basically I made Ruby swear in a more or less dead language and then casually forgot to mention it. Oops…

Since this is a lore dump chapter, I've decided that when I plan to do them, I'll try to get them done first thing in the morning when I wake up, post them, and then take a break before releasing a normal chapter later in the day. For the time being, any chapter that starts with "Bisman: On" for the chapter name or "Bisman:" in the chapter selection will be a lore dump on the topic. This will change at some point, unless I happen to get all the pre-volume 4 relevant lore explained before late volume 2-early volume 3. If the format of the chapter titles changes, I'll be sure to let you know ahead of time. I know a few of you, such as FrisbeeDog, are really interested in the lore I'm putting in this as well, so I hope you guys enjoy!

Chapter 8: Bisman: On Semblances

"The Rose Storm is one of our family's three powerful advantages over the Grimm and those who threaten us and those under our protection, but you must learn caution when using it, lest you find your comrades and charges dead by your own hand after a battle" -Aurelius, attempting to teach a young Rose how to use their family's semblance

Beacon Academy, Professor Bisman's classroom

The members of Teams RWBY and JNPR sat quietly as the watched the man at the front of the class try to organize a haphazard pile of books, maps, and scrolls on the long desk just in front of the wall, thinking back on their day of relaxation. Ruby had awakened her team early to unpack and organize the room, giving them time to socialize as they worked. Weiss had been dismayed to find that the faunus girl wasn't lying when she claimed to have owned every one of her albums, both digital and physical copies in some cases, but was surprised to discover a sizable collection of books, mostly on history. "Then again, if she knows so little about her family, maybe she's hoping that she'd find out something about them? I-I feel sorry for her if that's the case…"

Once the room had been organized and they found there wasn't enough room for the beds, they attempted to make bunk beds. A glance at Weiss's nervous face had Ruby scurrying out of the room before she came back, announcing that the Academy's staff would be bringing in proper bunk beds for them. The rest of the day was spent setting the beds up before going to eat and explore the Academy or, in Ruby's case, work on translating the writings from the Forest Temple.

The class was drawn out of their thoughts as Bisman let out a sigh and stepped around the desk, apparently giving up for the time being. "Alright everyone, allow me to introduce myself. I am Arthur Bisman, Professor of Ancient History and Mythology here at Beacon. It's my job to teach you about the less well understood parts of Remnant's history in the event that it can become useful to you. Today we will be speaking about something relatively simple and well understood: semblances and how they work." He walked over to the board on the wall and started writing.

"First of all, we need to discuss "aspects," specifically, what they are, the difference between them and a semblance, and how they form a semblance. An aspect is a single trait that can fit into exactly one of a number of categories. This could be something as simple as increasing a person's strength, or as complex as bringing entire objects or beings into existence. The categories used for identifying the function of an aspect are Speed, Strength, Mental, Elemental, Perception, Illusion, Transition, Transformative, Summoning, and Reactive. Except for Reactive aspects, each one has downsides tied to it if it isn't mastered." He took a deep breath before going into a quick explanation of each.

"A Speed aspect is one of the more complicated categories due to the fact that it has to be measured and sub-categorized on a number of things: a target for the effect, the precise degree of enhancement, the presence or absence of a time-dilation effect, and the degree of time-dilation. A Speed aspect usually takes the form of either a speed-increasing effect applied to the user, but could affect others instead, as well as decrease the target's speed, however, no Speed aspect can both increase and decrease the speed of a target. The effect is easily measured by having the user or a willing target run a certain distance without the effect and then run it again, allowing a relative measure of the strength of the effect. Speed aspects that increase speed often involve a time-dilation effect, allowing those affected by it to react more easily to what happens around them and to their own momentum. This is measured by having the target count out the number of seconds they think passes for ten seconds outside the effect, then combining this into a ratio of perceived-to-real seconds."

"Speed-increasing semblances without a time-dilation are known to cause issues with movement when people can't react in time to avoid crashing into things, while ones that have a time-dilation are notorious for the "time lag" as the effect gradually wears off. For people who have little or no experience with a Speed aspect, it can also cause muscle strain or tearing for the first few uses. Transition aspects are generally a Transformative/Speed hybrid category, allowing near-instant movement over short distances, even though solid objects, but with similar downsides to both."

"Strength aspects are generally the easiest to understand: they increase the user's strength or, rarely, allow them to decrease the strength of others. The downside to a Strength aspect is usually an increased rate of fatigue as well as muscle strain early on, similar to Speed aspects."

"Mental aspects are aspects focused on the mind: they can be anything from improving a person's ability to process information, to increased learning speed, to more sensitive senses, to even precise, conscious control over the user's body. I remember once seeing a Huntress lose her right hand in a battle and, within minutes of waking up after treatment, taught herself how to write and work with her left hand. She went so far as to claim she had simply altered the nerve pathways in her brain and arms in such a way that everything down to the muscle memory was mirrored onto her left arm and hand. Summoning and Transformative aspects are sub-categories that allow the user to either conjure objects, creatures, or people they've met into being in the case of Summoning, or reshape their bodies or other targets at will in the case of Transformative. While this gives Mental aspects a clear edge in most situations, they're also ranked number one in threat to an inexperienced user."

"This is because, unlike many other aspects, the downside doesn't start to take effect immediately, but appears as soon as no mental aspect is being used, building up the entire time they're active. The downside of use is a headache with severity ranging from a dull throb to a full-blown migraine. Even more distressing, Mental aspects are the only category besides Speed and Transition aspects that's been confirmed to be "non-unique," meaning that a semblance can have multiple Mental aspects that need to be mastered individually and accelerate the buildup of the backlash effect. It's entirely possible for someone with multiple Mental aspects to slip into a coma or experience complete memory loss of the timeframe during which one was active if they use a number of them for too long, making it advisable to train with an individual aspect instead of all of them at once."

"Elemental aspects are ones that allow a person to manipulate their bodies or the world around them in ways normally associated with Dust usage, with minimal or no requirement to actually use the related type of Dust. Temperature-manipulation is a common example where a person gains the abilities of Burn or Frost Dust, allowing them to alter the temperature of their body, the air, or objects around them in a controlled way, either increasing or decreasing it. It also allows them to make objects melt or combust if tied to Burn, or freeze and extinguish objects if tied to Frost. Two other examples are Wind and Lightning, sometimes called Shock instead. Not only does an elemental aspect allow someone to use their abilities without the related dust as they become more capable, but they provide immunity to their own usage and make a master immune to the effects of same and opposing elements."

"Elemental aspects are unique in the fact that they cause changes to the surrounding area even when inactive. The Rose family's semblance has long been suspected of having a Wind aspect due to the fact their cloaks move in an air current that only exists around the user, for example. Another example is that the user's mood can alter the local conditions even while their semblance is inactive. People with Burn aspects are known to cause temperatures to spike and water to boil when enraged, while those with a Frost aspect have been known to chill the air and burst water pipes if their mood worsens. A person with a Shock aspect can disrupt local power grids or cause lightning strikes, while someone who manages to master a powerful Wind aspect could create a thunderstorm when angry enough."

An Elemental aspect's downside is tied directly to exactly which type of Dust it's associated with: Frost can lead to hypothermia, Burn can lead to heat stroke or extreme dehydration, Shock can cause tremors from the extra charge built up, and Wind can literally suck the air out of the user's lungs. Modern technology allows a person with an Elemental aspect to counter, or at least negate, the downside of their semblance outside of combat while training with it."

"Perception aspects, contrary to their name, usually don't focus on amplifying the basic senses of the user, which is something Mental aspects can do. Instead, they allow their user access to different senses or alter how the basic senses work, such as changing what spectrum of light a person can see in, changing what frequency of sound they can hear, or simply allowing them to see things for what they truly are in some cases. My own semblance is tied to Perception aspects: I'm able to focus on a point on a map, a person, or a period of time, and see what happed to that person, at that location, during that timeframe."

Jaune raised his hand. "S-so you can see the future then?"

Bisman sighed. "No, one limitation of Perception aspects when it comes to gazing through time is you can only ever see a precise possible future or get a vague image of what will happen. I don't bother trying to look into the future simply because I've had it happen where all I get is riddles about a vague event happening sometime within a five-year timeframe or a clear image of something that could happen that, by the time the vision had ended, was literally no longer possible." Bisman took a breath before continuing. "The major downside of Perception aspects is that they can cause the user to see or hear things that aren't really there for days or even weeks after using it. I've had a few experiences where I've wandered the halls and looked into a classroom to see a different professor standing at the front teaching a class, only to find out that the instructor died decades earlier. Until a Perception aspect is mastered, its user must quickly learn how to separate illusion from reality or risk slowly going insane."

He took a deep breath as he continued. "Illusion aspects can be divided into three sub-categories based off how they work: Physical, Perception, and Mental. Mental Illusion aspects alter the messages sent from your senses to your brain, or even mess with the signals within your brain, to make you think something is happening that really isn't, ranging from seeing a long-dead relative to being convinced you've lost a limb. These are the only Illusion aspects that can have a direct effect on a target's body, but they also only appear for a specific target or, in rare cases, a group of targets. They also share the downsides of Mental aspects. Perception and Physical Illusion aspects alter the way light and sound travel to change the appearance of people or objects in the environment and, in the case of Physical Illusions, can even create tangible illusions that you can interact with, often resulting in them being compared to a form of Summoning or Transformative aspect. The downsides of Perception and Physical Illusions are more complex and unaffected by mastery, usually resulting in someone with such a semblance losing one of their senses or the ability to speak within moments of the semblance first activating."

"Mental and Physical Illusion aspects also interact in unique ways with Mental and Perception aspects depending on the type. Mental Illusions are usually weakened or completely negated by a Mental aspect in use, at best managed to negate the Mental aspect, and they often disrupt a Perception aspect while mimicking the actual function and downside so perfectly that the target takes even longer to notice what's going on than average. This relationship is reversed for Physical Illusion aspects: a person with a Mental aspect in their semblance will often adjust their mental image of the battlefield around physical objects that aren't there or suddenly appear, allowing their opponent to make the illusions vanish or real objects disappear to disrupt and disorient their opponent, while a person with a Perception aspect will usually be unaffected by attempts to hide objects as well as being able to "sense" the fake ones."

"Reactive aspects are the simplest of all and the only ones that never appear on their own. The user has no conscious control over them and has no reason to master them as they trigger on their own in certain situations. In essence, a Reactive aspect is a part of a semblance that triggers when a certain condition is met, such as taking a hit or being in a close proximity to the aspect's "user," to amplify or change the function of the other aspects of a semblance."

"Now then, we've covered the full list, but I'm sure a number of you that haven't fallen asleep are wondering, "what's the difference between an aspect and a semblance?" Well, the difference is simple. A semblance is a collection of aspects that can either be activated individually or in combination to change how each part works or to amplify their individual effects. When a semblance first awakens, every aspect of it activates or triggers simultaneously briefly without any of the normal downsides. This means that any aspect that presents itself is a part of that semblance, but it also means a semblance with a Reactive aspect will only awaken the first time the Reactive aspect's conditions are met after the person awakens their aura. The only exception is when a semblance has a Speed, Transformative, and a Transition aspect, where the Transition aspect of the semblance only awakens when a high enough mastery is reached for the Speed and Transformative aspects, which the Transition aspect will be a hybrid of. Most semblances have one or two "active" aspects with either one or no Reactive aspect, except for purely Mental semblances, those with a Transition aspect, and dual semblances. In the case of a person who has a dual semblance, they usually have a hereditary family semblance as a "primary" semblance and a unique personal "secondary" semblance. No matter what, the "primary" will always awaken first, and they never awaken at the same time. Now then, would anyone like to share their semblance as an example?" He looked around the room before Ruby shyly raised her hand. "Ah, Ms. Rose, an extremely rare pleasure to find out more about your family perhaps?"

Ruby took a breath before speaking up. "M-my family's semblance, the Rose Storm, is made up of four or five aspects. The most obvious part of it is a Speed aspect that can more than triple my speed right now and has a time-dilation effect of about maybe 10:1." Ruby tried to ignore the shocked look from the white-haired girl sitting next to her as she continued. "After that, there's a mild Strength aspect, which helps with my fighting style."

"I see, that would explain how you were able to decapitate a Giant Nevermore, even with all the external help you received," Bisman responded.

Ruby nodded. "Other than that, I also have an Elemental Wind aspect that lets me increase my speed even further or slow me down during a fall. The fourth aspect is Transformative and is where the name comes from when combined with the Elemental aspect. I-I'm able to convert my body and anything in contact with it into rose petals with enough focus and control them through a Mental aspect. The Transformative aspect also happens to amplify the Speed and Elemental aspects, letting me move faster or increase my control over the wind currents in or around the cloud of rose petals."

Many people in the class were watching the girl curiously as Bisman began speaking again. "This is an interesting combination due to the fact that the Transformative aspect could allow you to quickly combine the more utility-focused Speed aspect with the more defensive and offensive focused Elemental aspect into a highly destructive combination, which is fitting for the reputation of the Rose family's semblance. Even the small, delicate, lightweight petals could become deadly projectiles inside the hurricane created by the Wind aspect of your semblance, however, training with both of these would be extremely difficult, possibly requiring an oxygen tank or other equipment. I do, however suspect that at higher levels of mastery, you may unlock a Transition aspect once your Speed and rose aspects are sufficiently mastered." Ruby nodded quietly, processing this information as she revised her training regimen around what she had learned.

Weiss thought for a moment before raising her hand. "Is it possible for someone born into a family with a hereditary semblance to fail to manifest it?"

Bisman blinked at the question before carefully responding. "No, as far as my research has found, once someone develops a dual semblance, the primary one will be passed on to all of their children. The only theoretical exception would be if both parents have a different hereditary semblance, which on their own are so rare and are found in families with such vastly different morals and beliefs that there's never been a confirmed example of it happening. At present, a number of scholars, philosophers, and scientists, including myself, have been debating this for the last fifty years, with popular support fluctuating between the inherited semblance being random or the children receiving both family semblances."

Before he could continue the bell rang and he let out a sigh. "Okay everyone, I'll see you all in a few days. Please take the time to write a short paper on your individual semblances, what aspects you think they have, and how you think they interact with each other. If you either feel unwilling to write a paper about your semblance or somehow don't know what it is…" He briefly pinned Jaune with a glare. "You may instead either research a famous Huntsman or Huntress and write a paper identifying the aspects of their semblance or write a paper about the interactions between various Elemental aspects and the ways Illusion aspects interact with Mental and Perception aspects."

As the students filed out, a few yawning as they did so, Bisman blinked as he saw a figure wearing a white cloak stand up at the back of the class with a man with black hair, red eyes, and grey shirt with a red cloak hanging off his back following her. The two seemed to be talking happily together, the woman's wolf ears twitching occasionally as they left the room. Bisman shook his head with a sigh. "So, I guess Summer and Qrow sat in this room at least once… I wonder how much Ruby even knows about her past though…"

And the first pure lore chapter is done. I'm getting worried about the length of these now. This is twice in a row it went over 4000 words counting the AN at the beginning and end.

As you can guess from this, I've created a collection of checks and balances between a number of aspects that result in canon characters being strong or weak against each other and Bisman. Weiss' family semblance will have a pair of mental aspects: one controlling the Glyphs and the other for her summoning. The result of this is that if Team RWBY and Bisman (if he ever got into a fight) encountered Emerald, Ruby's Analysis gives her perfect immunity to Emerald's semblance (Manipulation) by making her immediately aware that something's messing with her mind when it's active and allowing her to alter the connections to disrupt or filter out the illusion at the cost of (at present) an extreme headache after the battle, while also leaving Emerald unaware that her illusions have failed until it's too late. Weiss' ability to use Glyphs or summon would be heavily disrupted, giving her enough awareness to rely on her purely Elemental Flash Freeze to surround herself in ice and remove herself from the battle, forcing Emerald to either pick a different target and let Weiss return to the fight once she realizes she's not affected anymore or keep her semblance targeting Weiss and leave herself completely exposed with her own semblance more or less useless. Bisman would probably be killed fairly quickly, both due to his low fighting ability and the fact that it would take him longer to notice the illusion than most. In a battle with Neo (who uses a Physical Illusion semblance), the situation is reversed. If Neo sets up the battlefield ahead of time, Ruby's Analysis would immediately create a completely wrong mental map of the area that she'd use in tandem with Rose Storm to move around quickly, risking her splattering herself against objects hidden by Neo or allowing her to remove solid illusions to deny Ruby mobility. Weiss wouldn't be affected by the illusions at all unless she uses her Glyphs to increase her speed, however, she might accidentally place a Glyph on an otherwise invisible object, leaving it "floating" in the air and letting her know there's something hidden there. Bisman's Insight would make hiding objects a waste of time or energy since not only is he unaffected, but he could relay the locations of fake/hidden objects to Ruby and allow her to quickly create a correct map of the battlefield. The result is that silent Neo (who may be a mute because of her semblance) serves as one of only four true, hard counters against Ruby, Bisman is a hard counter against Neo, Emerald is a hard counter against Bisman, and Ruby is a hard counter against Emerald.

Likewise, Weiss's Flash Freeze and Yang's Dragon's Fury are hard counters against each other (if at equal intensity/mastery). Short of running into a Maiden with a love of fire and explosions, Yang's Dragon's Fury is actually the hardest normal counter against Ruby, with Burn dust being a close second, because of a quirk with the Rose family and a unique trait regarding the Rose Storm. Yang is such a powerful counter against Ruby in this story that spars between them require both sides to agree to avoid using their semblances and the duo can't even have a combination attack like the rest of Team RWBY. In fact, Ruby will make a point to stay out of the 20-foot max range of Dragon Fury's passive aura when Yang has it active.

Lastly, Bisman's "vision" is basically meant to show what a minor hiccup caused by earlier use of his semblance causes while also hinting at a difference in this story compared to canon.

The next chapter will be out some time in the next 6-8 hours. To give you an idea, it's currently around 12:20 PM for me, or around 4:20 PM Greenwich Time to make it easier to find the precise time for everyone outside my time zone.

If you have any questions or requests for what I should have the next chapter like this be about, (or chime in on my "am I making chapters too long?" dilemma) feel free to post them in a review or, if we already have a conversation going, just message me directly. It's currently planned to be either the "basics" of Dust in this story's lore or the early period of Sanctuary's history, with plans to start leading into later timeframes and the history of the Rose family.