"Well, I guess I should have expected this," Yimesz mumbled to himself, circling the Alpha Beowolf. The bell hadn't rung yet, so Yimesz was simply waiting, getting ready to make the first strike. Vertiya knew full well that Yimesz wasn't trying to think up tactics – his usual style was go hard or go home, punch first questions later. She disagreed with it, but it worked for him.
However, Vertiya couldn't really spend any more time in anxiety as the bell rang, and both Yimesz and the Beowolf leaped at each other, claw meeting fist with immense power. Both Yimesz and the Grimm slid back on the floor from the rebound of the impact, but within seconds they were charging at each other again.
"Well as much as I assumed he'd be sub-par thanks to his personality, your brother seems to have started off reasonably well," Fen said, arms folded and watching Yimesz with the tiniest hint of interest.
"Yeah, he's both full of himself and he has the fighting ability to back it up," Vertiya explained, as Yimesz connected a hard uppercut into the Beowolf followed by multiple head shots from the revolvers he had swapped his knuckledusters into. "Kind of annoying really, but I've gotten used to it."
"I can definitely tell you have the standard brother-sister relationship at least," Fen replied, as the Beowolf got back up and swiped at Yimesz, causing him to jump back a couple of feet in order to avoid the attack. "Let me guess, he's the brawn, you're the brain?"
"Something like that," Vertiya responded. "Like don't get me wrong, I love him and all, he just does a great job of getting on my nerves way too often. It's thanks to me he's even here in the first place, to be honest," she added, over the sound of Yimesz's revolvers firing.
"Not able to get in himself, hmm?" Fen queried, quirking an eyebrow. "I'm going to assume that, considering his physical prowess, it was due to something more in the academic region that he struggles in?"
"Yeah, he never really had the effort to bother with studying," Vertiya said, as Yimesz went hard in, landing multiple punches in quick succession, but eventually got hit by a hard swing from the Beowolf straight to the jaw, knocking him off balance, followed up by the Beowolf picking him up and throwing him into the barrier. Yimesz took a little time to get up, but after clicking his neck, he dove straight back in.
"Does he have, like, a defensive state, or does he just go head first into everything?" Fen asked. Yimesz was dishing out hits, sure, but he was starting to take a few as well at this point, and there were visible injuries starting to show. Not only that, he was tiring from the fight.
Vertiya knew what was coming though, and hardly looked concerned. It may be that she was just able to read people well, but Vertiya could read through what Yimesz was doing. "Not really. But then, he does have his semblance," Vertiya said.
Sure enough, Yimesz had backed off a little bit, and was doing odd movements with his arms, almost like tai chi. After a couple of seconds of this, Yimesz thrust out his hands, and a weird, red stream started coming out of the Beowolf and towards Yimesz. The longer it went on, the more of Yimesz's injuries vanished, until eventually he looked as good as new. The Beowolf fell onto all fours, breathing heavily, which gave Yimesz ample time to walk up to it, position himself, and punch the Grimm smack in the head, vaporising it. A loud cheer erupted from the group that was cheering him up, and Yimesz gave a small bow, grinning as he exited the arena.
"Did he just drain the life out of that Grimm?" Fen asked, her expression mildly surprised.
"Yeah, that's his semblance. It's more or less the reason he doesn't ever go defensive – if he gets injured, he can just steal the aura out of an attacker, or life force if it's a Grimm, allowing him to be back up at it and his opponent more vulnerable," Vertiya explained. Secretly though, Vertiya was relieved. Although she got less concerned throughout the fight, she had that underlying anxiety from the start. But at least Yimesz made it through the first stage. Vertiya needed to focus on getting herself through now.
Vertiya had spent the last few fights carefully analysing the people who had been fighting – after all, they could either be the people she ended up teaming with, or they could be the team that she'd be up against in the final round. As such, Vertiya wanted to be prepared, and researching people was something she was good at. However, she got interrupted by the sound of a familiar voice in her ear.
"So, did I get an A plus for that fight?" Yimesz asked, leaning an elbow on Vertiya's shoulder and grinning.
"Well depends, do you want me to give you the nice response, or the one where I point out the ineffective punches you threw out, the unnecessary hits you took, and the bullets that completely missed?" Vertiya replied with a quirked eyebrow.
"Being extra savage today, it seems," Yimesz replied, laughing it off. He half expected a response like that, to be honest, but he thought he'd ask anyway.
"Hold on, you're calling ME the savage one here?" Vertiya said, nodding her head over to the arena, where a boy was almost literally ripping apart a Grimm with his hands. It wasn't quite his hands – his arms were covered in a blade each – but it sure looked like it. "To be fair, you did do a good job. Good usage of your semblance, powerful knockout punch… You won't be coming up against many Alpha Beowolves I'd imagine, but just be careful otherwise. You did well in a 1v1, but the way you handled it, if there were more, you'd struggle."
"Shouldn't you be there to back me up though?" Yimesz teased, as the boy who was ripping up the Grimm left the arena. Vertiya was just about able to make out the fact he was a Faunus before the next name was called.
"Ruzovi Saffyer."
"I didn't realise the Saffyers had a daughter," Vertiya thought out loud, as a girl who looked tiny made her way up to the arena. On her back was a quiver of arrows, as well as a bo staff which looked larger than her.
"That's because you don't keep up with anything that isn't academic," Yimesz pointed out. The Saffyers were a well-known family in Atlas, renowned for owning the finest weapon making factories in Remnant. They were almost at a celebrity status. "That being said, I thought she was only like, what, 14?"
"Well she definitely looks younger than everyone else here," Vertiya pointed out. It was true, Ruzovi had very young-looking features, and her height didn't help her at all. "Wonder what she'll be up against."
The Grimm started flashing on the screens, slowing down to something that made near everyone gasp. Soon enough, a giant, two headed snake started constructing in the arena.
"Well, I suppose if you don't want kids too young to get in to your academy, you chuck out a King Taijitu at them," Yimesz said, who had now stopped leaning on his sister and had his arms folded. "My money's on two minutes before she gets knocked out."
"One day you are going to stop gambling, and the world will be a better place," Vertiya sighed, exasperated, as she watched the tiny girl and the giant Grimm stare each other off until the bell rang. This fight she was particularly interested in.
Ruzovi was locked on to the black head of the Taijitu, following its movements but neither going for an attack. However, the white head was slowly making its way to behind the young girl, and Ruzovi hadn't seemed to notice it preparing for an attack.
"Changed my mind. Make it one minute," Yimesz whispered to Vertiya, resulting in him getting an elbow in the side. Vertiya had an inkling of a feeling that Ruzovi was trying to bait the Grimm, but she wasn't totally convinced. Nevertheless, the white head of the Taijitu raised up, before lunging at the back of Ruzovi's head. However, Vertiya was proven right with her assumption, because without breaking eye contact with the black head, Ruzovi's staff ended up in her right hand, and she twisted her body, slamming the end of the staff she wasn't holding straight into the side of the white head of the Taijitu, which shrieked, and pulled back. Smiling, Ruzovi followed up, leaping towards the black head and feinting an attack to the neck of the black half of the Grimm, before slamming the bo staff into the top of its skull.
"Still one minute?" Vertiya asked, as both heads of the Taijitu lunged at Ruzovi, who bent backwards in such an inhuman way that the two heads crashed into each other, leaving Ruzovi to complete the backwards bend with a kick into a backwards cartwheel that sent the Grimm a few feet backwards. "That being said, that flexibility is… uncanny."
"Semblance?" Yimesz suggested, which Vertiya nodded her head in agreement with. There was no way she could be that bendy – her shins would have broken with the angle she was at. Ruzovi was making the most of the fact that there was a gap between her and the Taijitu though – her bow had bent backwards into a bow shape, and she reached towards the quiver on her back, pulling out two arrows and firing them at the same time, hitting each head in the right eye.
"Well, this fight is definitely not going the way I originally predicted," Vertiya said, but she was still taking in everything. The Taijitu, now with only one eye in each head, was enraged, and was attacking at Ruzovi with extra force, but with superb control of her bo staff, Ruzovi could deflect and parry near everything: blocking bites, parrying tail whips, and even counter attacking at expertly timed intervals, and soon enough the white head of the Taijitu fell, and didn't get back up.
"You're not the only one surprised," Yimesz added, and as the black head lunged again, Ruzovi blocked the attack with her staff head on, which pushed her back a few metres but not knocking her over, and in one swift move she knocked up the black head of the Grimm, and as it came back down, she lunged forward, piercing her bo into the other eye of the Taijitu, killing it. Near everyone's mouth was ajar at this feat as Ruzovi put her bo back onto her back, leaving the arena.
"I guess that's how she got in here then," Vertiya said, but she did have a small smile on her lips. Ruzovi had just beaten perhaps the hardest Grimm that had been seen so far, as well as doing it in the quickest time. She was definitely one to watch – or even befriend.
"That or the parents," Yimesz pointed out.
The last bunch of fights went without much happening. Vertiya paid attention to when Fen went up, using her fans with great skill to quickly dispose of an Ursa, and Vertiya did not miss the hooks that came out of them which Fen did a smooth finisher with – flipping over the Ursa, hooking the Ursa by the head and launching the Grimm as she landed, sending the Grimm flying towards the walls of the arena, killing it upon impact. Soon enough, Vertiya was the last one left to fight, and she was more than ready to take on a Grimm. However, she was set a little aback by the look on Yimesz's face. The last time Yimesz looked at her with that much concern, it was because of when she was at her dad's factory and an explosion almost killed her.
"What's up Yimesz?" Vertiya asked, furrowing her eyebrows and putting her hands on her hips. However, she soon noticed Yimesz was not the only person looking at her. A lot of people had eyes on her – some with fearful expressions, some grimacing, and others shaking their head.
"Do you remember what General Ironwood said at the start of this trial?" Yimesz asked, his voice a little quieter than usual.
"What, about it being one versus one? I can handle myself," Vertiya replied, a little confused as to what Yimesz was trying to imply.
"No, not that. The bit where he said the one type of Grimm that no one has beaten," Yimesz explained.
It was at that point that Vertiya realised what Yimesz was trying to imply. "The Nevermore," Vertiya said, her voice also quiet now.
"Ironwood said that there is always one kid who has to fight it. It hasn't been seen yet, and you're the last to go up," Yimesz continued.
"Vertiya Hylae."
"You better get your act together to get through this academy on your own for me or so help me if you come back home I will kill you," Vertiya whispered, as she made her way through the crowd of kids to the arena. She got a short period of eye contact with Ironwood – who for some reason, didn't have an expression of concern, more something resembling curiosity – before she was stood in the arena. She didn't bother to look at the screens as they flicked through the Grimm, because she already knew what was coming long before the giant black crow started constructing, roaring at her when it was fully formed.
Vertiya, however, was flipping a gold card through the fingers of her right hand behind her back, pushing her hair out of her eyes with her left. She knew that the chances of her getting through this stage now was infinitesimally small. But she was damn well going to try.