AN:

Chapter 5: Black Hole Sun

Arc 1: Behold a Pale Horse

'I need to just drown my fear!' Gilles declared in his mind grimacing as an empty pit of terror formed in his chest while imagining the task before him.

He'd never thought that he'd find himself so terrified, but he was completely out of it staring down the pool in front of him.

One of the many things the twins had been put to doing as a part of their classes at Beacon was a brief lifeguard course to acclimate all of the aspiring huntsmen to moving around water and saving those who might be stuck in it. This was all a part of the Rescue and Recovery class taught by several of the school medical staff, this particular portion was being helmed by Kalm the head nurse at Beacon.

As it turned out however, Gilles was scared of water because he couldn't swim, after all there weren't any chances in the Grimmlands to learn. While he struggled to get a hold of his fear his sister on the other hand wasn't having the same issue, but instead had literally leapt at the chance to 'play' in the water as she saw it.

Eventually however Gilles was forced to deal with his fear when his sister had enough of his pussyfooting around and pushed him in so that the lesson could get underway, standing out too much wasn't exactly on their list of things to achieve after all. Of course they knew they had already stood out for other reasons but there was a fine line they wanted to walk of being just enough of a grey man and in the light at the same time as to go more unnoticed for it.

Once the lesson was underway and the staff were getting through their introductions for the course proper with basic skills everyone needed to know or learn for the class Abigail found herself in love with swimming having always seen it from afar and thought she'd like it, and though it took a while for him to make peace with his rapid heart beat the Pale boy eventually found he enjoyed the experience over all. As well it calmed the nerves of Gilles to see that there were other students also suffering from similar fears so knowing he wasn't the only one helped justify it a little but the teacher of the class Kalm gave some wisdom to the students- whether or not it was helpful or useful was for those who heard it to decide.

"You're right to fear water, it's an unnatural place for us Humans and Faunus, we weren't evolved to exist in it and we weren't made to actively participate in its ecosystem. However that is all the more reason we should familiarise ourselves with what it is we aren't naturals at so as to know how to handle situations where we are forced into interacting with it- this goes for everything in life really- but with the swimming pools, understand you are safe here and no one wishes to see you hurt. Phobias are a good thing but they need to be pushed aside when the time comes so later in the year when we take on trips to do live exercises in the bay near the port you won't need to conquer it, just accept it and control it. Do not let fear control you." The man said in a long speech after helping a student who was caught up in their own panic so much they nearly drowned another.

Neither of Salem's children had ever heard someone speak in such a way causing them to stop what they were doing and just listen, so often all they heard were their mothers orders or care, the instructions and declarations of their instructors. But it was never that they had heard someone like Kalm, which made him all the more intriguing to the two, they owed it to the man living a life in the Kingdoms and not in the wilds as they had. Though that was how they viewed a lot of the new experiences they had been coming into contact with, like many of the female students of Beacon wearing makeup or actively spending time detailing their appearances despite them only going to classes through the day and the 3rd and 4th years being the only students who could leave Beacon through the week whereas 1st and 2nd years had to wait until the weekend to go into Vale.

~{Fears}~

The twins had two classes with the Deputy Headmistress as everyone in the school did, firstly there was Team Building with the second year students which was mostly a stress test of relationships performing basic tasks under tutelage of the older students or even facing off against the older students with the purpose of exercising plans of attack or the strength of trust amongst many of the teams. Secondly there was Sparring and Gym which was somewhat self explanatory with students being matched up against one another in one on one, two on two, three on three and Team against Team battles, for the second and third options the Headmistress would often keep teammates from pairing up and have students pair with random partners for the spar to see how they could perform with another person they hardly knew. The Gym side of things was more or less time for students to actively work out, be that cardio, strength, grip or other types of training.

Right now they were headed to the final class of the week, it was a two hour long Sparring class with Professor Goodwitch. At the moment they were getting the broad explanation of how the class would work in tandem with a few of their other classes that had such physically active aspects.

"As you can see on the screen above me, there are scores assigned to each student for their performances, these scores are given based on effort and actual work put in. Many of you may notice that there is a 0 next to your name and that is because we found your work in the Emerald Forest during initiation to be lacking- those of you with actual scores were those who stood out or shone a little brighter than the rest when it came time to fight or help others." The tall blonde hair woman said, adjusting her glasses on the ridge of her nose as she took a small moment to breathe.

"How exactly it is you are scored will be decided by How you perform, the impact of blows landed- such as their effect on your opponent and not the outright strength of it- whether or not you can stay calm in the face of potentially being overwhelmed if you are matched in a lopsided battle and lastly how much you improve." The professor finished speaking, letting her words settle in the amphitheatre that looked down on the large arena platform where the battles would take place.

There was a roar of excitement from across most of the students who began talking of ways to get higher scores or how they were in the lead of numbers over another.

"Ahem!" The woman cleared her throat and though it took a moment the room went silent. "I will state clearly and concisely that your scores are Not a leaderboard, but a representation of where you are and where we as staff at Beacon hope to see you go. If any of you wish to challenge that idea then be my guest and challenge a fourth year student. I'm sure they are more than willing to show you what it is we expect your ability to be like at the end of your tenure." The blue eyed woman shook her head when she heard a few cocky students offhandedly say they could match the polished abilities of the graduating students.

"Now I will call two people down here shortly to spar and they will follow the guidelines given, so please be quiet and wait your turn." Causing any stir in the room to go deathly still she eyed the list of candidates on her Scroll in its Tablet form, the same list as was displayed on the large screen hanging some forty feet above the arena floor.

"Abigail Foxe! And Cardin Winchester! Please make your way down here without any fuss and wait for my order." Glynda said spying two students she thought would provide an interesting first look into how people fought one another for the rest of the class.

"Yes Ma'am. Yes Headmistress." Two voices said from separate sides of the raised seating as they stood and descended.

Eyeing the boy she had called, the woman scraped as much detail from the initiation as she could remember about him and started making a mental profile. For his appearance He was tall, had burnt orange hair, indigo eyes and fair skinned. He wore a steel cuirass tailored to his form with golden accents and a large bird spreading its wings on his chest, his arms were protected with pauldrons and bracers, however his remaining armour was only tassets on his hips clipped into a belt around his waist. His underclothes were dark in colour with a red trim and he wore boots.

Then Glynda turned her attention to the girl who was descending with a calm aura about her, though she couldn't think of anything that stuck out about the girl from the initiation or the other class she had seen her in. Though Abigail appeared a fairly normal girl with long golden blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin bordering pale. She wore a dark shade of green hooded cloak over a light blue long sleeved shirt and navy blue breeches with black combat boots on. Though the girl carried herself in a way that kept the cloak from opening up.

When the pair reached the arena floor she noted the weapons they had brought. The boy had a large two handed mace with a long haft to it with a fire dust crystal in the tip, the head was hollow made up of a ribcage set of 8 sharp blades curved into the form of the mace head. She had seen him wield it with fairly exceptional skill against Grimm, but had her doubts about melee against a humanoid target as it lended to heavy long winded hammering strikes and being wielded like a golf club.

As for the girl Glynda knew that she carried a pair of machine pistols and a heavy calibre rifle, however had forgone the rifle for this class. As well the girl had a pouches on her hips that she had told the staff had throwing knives attached to wire in them, all of her equipment told the older woman that the girl wasn't expecting to fight Grimm as much as Humans and Faunus.

It would have been a worry to the Professor if she hadn't read the story that came along with the Foxe twins transcripts, the pair had come from a dark place on the frontiers of Vacuo's worst territory. Mirage was a place that boasted some of the most frequent and brutal raids by not only Grimm but Brigands. The stories that came out of places like that made her wonder how it was the two children would act, if they would go too far or be able to stop themselves- she would need to see them in action first before deciding whether they could continue in the combat classes without worry for the other students safety.

"Now I will tell you the rules of engagement for this duel." The Deputy Headmistress said and the two before her nodded their heads. "The battle will end if either of your Aura's reach the orange on the gauge displayed on your scrolls and the screen now, it will end if you reach the end of five minutes with no winner, it will end if grievous injury is caused intentionally and lastly No Dust ammunition or Crystals."

"Alright take your positions and make sure to sync your Scrolls properly to the arena display. When I say go you may begin." Finally done with her introduction the teacher herself was starting to get tired of she stepped back to a slightly raised viewing platform and raised her hand in the air before bring it down in a chopping motion-

"Start!"

~{Fight}~

Abigail moved like a heat haze in the desert shimmering from one spot to another on the large arena floor, her speed was much faster than most in the audience could keep up with and the few who could were very impressed watching intently as she swooped in on the much larger boy she was up against.

Cardin for what it was worth was able to keep his eyes on the girl he had prior to being pinned in spar against her thought attractive and honestly would have considered asking her out. But when his body failed to keep up with his eyes and his horizontal swing missed wildly and the hooded blonde girl slid under his weapon and pushed up into his chest- a pair of sharp dark metal 12 inch blades shot upward nearly hitting him in the jaw-

"Ah!" He yelled out, flicking his head back out of the way, watching the blades rush by with a fierce intensity before he seized the opportunity and wrapped his arms around the girl attempting to lock her in black and crush her until she gave up.

His plan was foiled immediately as Abigail happily continued to move around seamlessly slipping out of the space he attempted to hug easily before taking some steps back and eyeing her opponent in his short stupor recognising what had happened.

"I'm sorry but I am not looking for free hugs, I'm sure there are other girls here who would be happy though." The daughter of Salem cracked a smile while she spoke.

Abigail waited until her opponent grunted his response and readied himself to launch an attack at her, she wasn't bothered the attack failed, in fact it was a good thing, she had only been checking what his reaction speed was and seeing how he responded to her speed. She was glad at least he could see her otherwise she did worry it would cause problems with people or him thinking that she had cheated a win and had more eyes on her than if she just showed her hand a little. Also it let her team see her skills which she had failed to be given a time to show off for them due to fate by any account, every time it might have come up they were shortly stopped and shipped off to different classes or were in the position of working together in such a way that she couldn't.

Strafing around her large opponent the hooded girl almost unseen to those watching sheathed the large daggers she had attacked with and swapped one of them for her guns. Now she held a dagger in her left hand and an auto pistol in her right, holding the dagger point out at Cardin she kept her gun near her side only really intending to us it for creating distance-

"Huuuuurraaaaaahhhh!" The burnt orange haired boy yelled out raising his hefty weapon over his head as he rushed forward bringing it down in a brutish strike, Abigail just barely shimmered out of the way to give the illusion she wasn't as fast and able as she was.

Her counter attack had her ducking into a crouch and shooting up into his chest punching the breastplate with the tip of her knife with enough force to wind him and sending him back a few feet skidding on the ground scraping his knees before his stop. Going into a follow up Abby kicked off the ground and sent herself shoulder first into the boy she planted her foot against his chest and knocked him on his back so she stood on top of him and had her gun aimed pointedly at his head, to emphasise what she thought was her win she let the audible click of her guns safety do the work and the boy's shoulders slumped as he released the tension and spoke.

"I forfeit, my loss." He called out to Goodwitch who nodded her head tapped something on her scroll and the screens hanging above the arena showed a graphic that said Abigail won.

Stepping off the boy the daughter of Salem reached down and lent a hand to him and helped pull him up, he begrudgingly accepted it finding himself surprised at the strength she showed in the moment, almost no pull on his part as she made a near instant of standing him up.

"Thank you Foxe, Winchester. Please seat yourselves while I call the next pair." Goodwitch said sending the two off as she took to the centre of the stage again.

"The next pair will be-" Glynda started scrolling through the names before tapping on two.

While she called out the next fight Abigail started thinking about her fight, she was impressed with the strength of the boy even if he'd failed to land a hit. She had seen stronger of course, not only in her brother but the man Hazel who their mother used, though her brother had always been one of the unfair comparisons. The reason for that being that his Semblance completely shattered any… well- semblance of scale and power in any fight.

Her own Semblance was monstrous but was limited heavily by the fact that it had the side effect of putting her out of working order for anywhere from a week to months at a time, the strain of it was intense. She was no stranger to the idea of putting her life on the line to achieve the optimal outcome, though she had only ever used her Semblance a handful of times and even then four of those five were under direct supervision of Salem.

Abigail did with her Semblance what she did with most things in her life she had control over, which was naming it after something from one of her favourite t.v. shows that she had seen when given time off from training. Khronos Trigger as she called it, did something foul and wretched on a level no person who had been hit with it could even begin to comprehend, it ripped apart their Aura and made them unable to recover as though it had been snuffed out. The ones that survived after howled and screamed in agony.

Exactly how it worked she didn't understand, the only real explanation that her mother had come up with was the Time theory based on her examination of the remains after the fact.

As for her brother's Semblance she had also named that because he wouldn't do it when she bothered him about it, but at least they could understand her brothers better. She called it Evening Bell as for a reason unknown to them a town bell could be heard ringing five times after Gilles used it. They only understood his Semblance better because their mother had him test it extensively due to it causing no stress on his part.

Gilles Semblance caused death, death that of which seemed like an omniscient kind as though the strings on a marionette had been cut.

"That was a splendid fight Abigail!" A cheery voice cut through the thoughts of the blonde girl catching her attention.

Her teammate, the red haired Pyrrha looked fairly excited about having finally seen her partner fight properly as she often turned down sparring with her for Pyrrha's morning training. It was mostly an issue of Abigail not wishing to get sweaty after waking up rather than anything else.

AN: I like Kalm a lot and enjoyed writing the fight