You could hear a pin drop in the ominous silence throughout the room until the bell rang, the tension was that great. Vertyia, though, wasn't sat there in panic. She was carefully looking at the Nevermore, trying to find any potential weak spots. However, the bell rang just before she'd checked everywhere, so in order to give herself a bit more time, she chucked the yellow card that was in her fingers at the Nevermore, hitting it square in the face. The Nevermore shook its head, but it did little more than stun it for a second. However, when the Grimm looked back to where its prey was, there was nothing. Having activated her semblance, Vertiya was repositioning, still trying to find a chink in the armour. Soon enough, she spotted one, and deactivated her semblance, chucking a blue card at the Nevermore's foot, freezing it to the floor. Vertiya followed up with a small barrage of red cards, carefully thrown towards the Nevermore's head. The Nevermore shrieked as it got hit by the cards that exploded on contact, trying to dodge them to no avail thanks to the ice sticking it to the ground. That wasn't long lived, though, as the Grimm flew upwards, breaking the ice that trapped its foot, and once it was up in the air, it dived downwards at Vertiya. Vertiya, however, grinned. Working out the speed it was diving at, within the last possible second Vertiya activated her semblance again, becoming invisible and diving out of the flight path, leaving the Nevermore to crash into the ground. This merely dazed the Nevermore, however, and as Vertiya attempted to follow up with another card after deactivating her semblance, the Nevermore swung its tail, catching Vertiya in the chest and flinging her towards the edge of the arena, causing her to hit the barrier hard. Vertyia dropped to the ground, a little winded, but got back up just as the Nevermore flew back up into the air once more. Vertiya was starting to realise that single cards, or even multiple thrown cards were doing little to damage the Grimm, even with her aim. She was going to have to try something else.
Vertiya didn't have long to prepare different techniques, though, because as soon as she was back standing, the Nevermore had dived again. Vertiya threw a blue card into the air – not at the Nevermore, just up in front of her – and as it started to fall back to the ground, she threw a red card, hitting the blue card in mid-air. This caused what seemed to be an explosion, but rather than fire, a weird ice formation erupted out of the card, spiking out and causing the Grimm to crash straight into it. The Nevermore shrieked as it hit, but it still crashed straight through it, although it did seem more rustled by this than Vertiya's previous attacks, and its flight pattern was a little off balance as it returned to the air. Vertiya had little time to celebrate, however, because the Nevermore flapped its giant wings, and a bombardment of feathers almost as large as Vertiya herself rained down on her. Vertiya was doing her best to duck and weave through the feather volley, throwing green cards at the ones she couldn't dodge and hence dissolving them, but it wasn't long before one of them caught her, leaving a nasty looking gash in her cheek. Groaning, Vertiya slapped a pink card on it, which healed it up enough to stop it from bleeding. That wasn't the only thing however – the pink card that had healed Vertiya had left her with a small pink glow, that lasted long enough for her to rip out a feather from the ground and launch it at the Nevermore, landing it straight through the torso and causing another shriek to erupt from the Nevermore, which dived again, however rather than head first, decided to lead with its huge and lethally sharp talons. Vertiya attempted the ice explosion combo again, but as the Nevermore led with the talons, simply grabbed the ice and slammed it into Vertiya, shattering it upon impact and leaving Vertiya visibly weakened. Vertiya struggled to get back to her feet, throwing a red card through a green card and creating a noxious looking gas aimed at the Nevermore, which flew back up to avoid it. Vertiya, however, was running out of aura, and hence was losing time.
The Nevermore, although weaker, was still attacking with as much power as it could, except by this point Vertiya was struggling to fend off the attacks, barely keeping the Grimm at bay. Vertiya still had one trick up her sleeve, but she didn't want to use it unless she had no other option. Revealing that ability now would mean it couldn't be used as a surprise later.
That being said, the Nevermore whipped up a gust of wind at Vertiya, who wasn't able to stand her ground and got blown into the barrier again, falling on all fours and breathing heavily. Turning to the right, Vertiya caught Yimesz in the crowd, who, with a concerned expression, nodded.
Vertiya looked back to the floor, but her eyes were no longer just the usual emerald green that they normally were. The whites and pupils of her eyes had also gone emerald green, and were glowing with enough luminosity to light up her whole face. Pushing herself up off the ground, Vertiya started floating a metre above it, but that wasn't the main surprise. Her cards had started rotating in a circle just behind her, and it wasn't just fifty-two – there were what looked like hundreds of various coloured cards in the circle. Without a hint of expression on her face, Vertiya gracefully extended her right arm, her index and middle finger pointing towards the Nevermore, and cards started breaking free from the circle. After they broke free, the cards started launching themselves towards the Grimm's head at machine-gun speed, causing it to shriek and fly backwards as it was pelted with various coloured explosions. Vertiya didn't stop there, but immediately followed up with what looked like a flap of her own arms, resulting in cards flying up in two lines perpendicular to each other, which curved in and slammed into either side of the Nevermore's neck. The sheer impact of the attack forced the Nevermore to go to ground, and it was visibly wounded from the card shower. Vertiya raised her left hand now, but rather than pointing towards the Nevermore, she had her hand out with an open palm as though offering something, and the remaining cards flew into a line from her towards the Grimm at her head height, all of which facing her. She reached into her hair, and pulled out a pure white card that glowed with an angelic light, before taking aim, and throwing. The white card flew through every card in the floating line, causing each card to shatter as it flew through, with the white card gaining small spots of colour with each card it broke. By the time it got to the Grimm, it had gone from white to black, and it went straight through the neck of the Nevermore and out the other side, causing the Nevermore to collapse to the floor, decapitated. Vertiya, however, had little time to celebrate, as her eyes returned to normal, and she fell almost in slow motion to the floor, unconscious from the effort she just exerted.
Vertiya awoke to a very white room, with more lights than she'd like on her, and a bed a little too comfortable to be normal. Her eyes were slow to open, and all Vertiya could feel was a splitting headache that caused her to shut her eyes again in discomfort.
"Ah good, you're finally awake."
That familiar voice forced Vertiya to, albeit hesitantly, reopen her eyes, and slowly turn to see Yimesz sat there, texting on his scroll. "You know, you're something of a celebrity at the moment after your feat," Yimesz added, not looking up.
Vertiya remembered little of the ending. She knew she had thrown the white card, but after that, she only remembered darkness. "Wait… Did I actually kill the Nevermore?" Vertiya asked. Her voice was softer than usual, and slightly hoarse. She didn't like it.
"Well, if you count beheading as killing, then sure," Yimesz replied, finally looking up. "You kinda passed out after you used your Hylae, and although some people were uncertain as to what that meant for the result, Ironwood was pretty clear: defeating the Grimm you were up against meant you moved on. You defeated the Grimm, so you're through."
Yimesz spent the next period of time explaining what Vertiya had missed through being unconscious: there had been fifteen knockouts in total, meaning that there were only fifty-six left. The next stage wasn't for a couple of days, but they had been told it was a race of some form, and the first forty to cross the line would be the ones who moved on to the penultimate stage. However, they had been told in order to complete the course, they'd have to complete it with someone else alongside them.
"You would not believe the amount of people who have asked me if I can tell you to do the race with them. I guess people clocked on to the fact we're related," Yimesz concluded.
"Urgh… You're meant to be the one who gets all the attention, not me," Vertiya sighed, exhausted. Vertiya didn't like attention. She was the introvert. Yimesz was the extrovert. They had that balance set to perfection. Sure, Vertiya had been getting a bit of attention from guys for the last year or so, and she wasn't entirely sure why – there were plenty of girls who obviously flaunted their looks, and Vertiya tried to avoid doing that – as well as the fact she, well, wasn't entirely comfortable in her sexuality yet. But she could still avoid crowds relatively easily, mainly because Yimesz was able to draw them in so much. He knew how to woo girls, befriend guys, use his looks perfectly – they were twins, but not identical, and Vertiya was pretty convinced he got the better genes – and was just a social king.
"Well, if you ever need teaching, maybe I can be the coach for a change," Yimesz suggested, laughing. His laugh was cut short, however, because into the ward came no other than General Ironwood himself.
"Yimesz, would you mind if you could give myself and your sister the room?" Ironwood asked Yimesz, who nodded, pushing himself up to his feet. "You did well against the Alpha, by the way," Ironwood added as Yimesz got to the door. Yimesz smiled, opening the door and letting himself out, closing it behind him.
"General Ironwood? To what do I owe-" Vertiya said, interrupting herself with a cough, before continuing, "the pleasure?"
"Well, by the sounds of things, I should be the one thankful to be in your company. Your feat against the Nevermore has impressed all of the initiates we have, as well as some of the teachers as well," Ironwood replied, taking a seat in the chair Yimesz was sat in moments before. "I've rarely seen power of that magnitude, especially seeing you aren't a fully trained huntress yet. In fact, I can only think of one other who has displayed such ability."
Vertiya was reasonably sure who he was talking about. "My aunt? Women in the Hylae bloodline have always had the ability to use extreme power collaborating with their weapon in a pinch, but often at the cost of depleting aura. My aunt is… different, however. She's learnt to harness it so it doesn't use her aura." To call her an aunt was making her sound old – she was only a few years older than Vertiya herself, it's just she was her father's sister, so technically that was her title.
"Indeed. I've actually had the rare chance to see her in battle, and it was astonishing," Ironwood said. "Which is part of the reason why I wanted to get you into Atlas. Having seen a Hylae battle, I knew I'd want to see the growth of one myself," he added.
Vertiya had just gotten a thought off that, however. "The Nevermore… was that entirely random?" she asked, curious and now sitting up in the bed.
"Admittedly, no. I was fairly confident that none of the other initiates wouldn't be able to take on a Nevermore, and I wanted to see if you'd be able to, so I threw you in at the deep end, and it seems to have made you rather famous," Ironwood explained to her. "That being said, I don't want you getting knocked out on the next stage just because of the fight with the Nevermore. I suppose you could call it bias, but if you're not going to be recovered by the next stage, I can push it back. I think the other initiates want you on their team now as it stands, anyway."
"No no, don't hold the next stage for me, I'll recover by then," Vertiya said, coughing again. If there was one thing Vertiya didn't like, it was people waiting to do things because she was indisposed. "Besides, a little race can't be that hard, can it?"
Ironwood simply smiled in response, pushing himself up off the chair. "I did notify your parents purely because you were unconscious and I felt they needed to know, but I have also told them you are recovering fine. They are incredibly impressed and proud that you managed to take on a Giant Nevermore, even if it was a simulation, by yourself. If you need anything, you can always contact me, but I'm sure all you need right now is rest," Ironwood said, heading to the door.
"Erm, General Ironwwod, one more question if I may. Why were you battling alongside my aunt?" Vertiya queried, as Ironwood lay a hand on the door.
Ironwood stopped with a hand on the door, not turning to face Vertiya. "There was a Grimm invasion along the east of the main city of Atlas a couple years back. Myself and the military were holding them off, until a giant, praying mantis shaped Grimm appeared, and started crushing its way through our forces. We would have had to retreat, had your aunt not showed up. I'd heard of tales of what she was like when she was training at Haven, but to truly it with my own eyes… Makes full sense why her team was the only team known to win the Vytal Festival both times they competed," Ironwood explained. "But I'm sure you know of that last part already. Get some sleep, if I'm not going to be delaying the second phase, I want to see you at your best for that point," Ironwood said, exiting the room.
Vertiya rolled over, slowing falling into a daze. She hadn't actually seen her aunt in a while, and in their brief encounters, she rarely spoke of her adventures. But Vertiya was definitely going to ask about them next time they met.