Hello everyone and welcome back to HellFall! I've given up on introduction information. PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW!
Turns out I left my moped at the arena, so I had to take the bus there. I would take my team's truck, but I tried asking and they denied me very loudly, so I left quietly.
While on the bus someone looked over at me, "You expectin' a fight?" He asked.
I looked over at him, then down at my waist. Arkynshihn was attached to the back of my belt. I'd forgotten that I had it there, as I often did. It had become part of who I was lately.
"I'm going to the Hunters' Tournament" I replied.
"You a competitor?" He asked.
"Yep" I replied, staring out the window.
"Nice." He said, "Good luck with that"
I turned my head, "Excuse me?" I asked.
"I wished you good luck" He replied.
"No, no," I replied, "your tone of voice, repeat it"
"What?" The man asked.
"Don't talk to me like that"
"Like what?"
"What are you, stupid?" I asked, "Just shut you're can"
"You were asking me a question," The man said, "so I was answering. Jeez, chill out"
I started to stand, but stopped myself. I rarely acted on my anger to civilians. Something is wrong I thought.
"You competing today?" The man asked. I was surprised that he was still talking to me.
"Nah," I replied, "Yesterday"
"And?"
"Onto the next round"
"Nice." He replied, "Then why do you have your weapon?"
"I bring it around everywhere typically." I replied, "I don't know, force of habit"
"I see" He said.
"You?" I asked.
"What?"
"What's your business?" I asked.
"Work"
"Ah" I turned back to the window.
"Is this your job?" The man asked me. I turned back to him. "As a huntsman?"
"Yeah" I replied.
"It pays okay?" He asked.
"If you're decent" I replied.
"Huh" He said.
"If you want to make a living off this you have to start young." I added, "If you haven't already started then you won't make anything off of it"
"Good to know" The man replied.
Looking at the man for a moment longer, I felt like he was familiar. "Do I know you?" I asked.
The man shrugged, "Beats me" He replied.
I looked him over, head to toe. He had an orange colored mohawk, mustache, and chin-beard. His ears were pierced several times, and his skin was tan. His eyes were purple colored, and he wore a heavy brown jacket with an orange interior. His shirt was purple and buttoned up just to his chest, where he wore an orange shirt underneath. Lastly, he wore dark blue jeans on his legs.
Somehow he looked familiar still. I shrugged, "Hmph" I grunted, turning back to look out the window.
The bus arrived at the arena, and I got off along with several others. Sure enough, there was my moped parked along the side of the arena, next to several other bikes and smaller than normal cars. I checked my moped, making sure it was still safe and secure where it was. It had to be to have survived all night. Either that or the crimson color wasn't attractive enough to thieves. How could this not have been stolen? I wondered, It's beautiful, who wouldn't want a moped like this?
I cleared my head of the thought, then headed into the arena to find a seat. Thunder was already in our usual spot.
"Your late" He said.
"Sorry," I replied, "I left my moped here, so I had to take the bus"
"You haven't done your work either" He stated.
"How did you know?" I asked.
"You were late." Thunder replied, "If you mess up once, you're bound to have messed everything else up"
"Do you really live by those words?" I asked, "Because that's not exactly fair"
"Did you do your work?" Thunder asked.
"No"
"Were you on time?"
"No"
"Did you leave your moped here?"
"Yes," I replied, smiling. "See? I did something…" I trailed off as I realized that the only positive thing about that was the word 'yes'.
"Exactly my point." Thunder said, "Look it over tonight, along with the next batch of competitors"
"Got it" I replied.
"Promise you won't get drunk?" He asked.
"I can't make any promises like that" I replied.
Thunder looked at me disapprovingly. So disapprovingly that it scared me. "I promise" I said.
"Good" He said, turning back to the arena. "The first fight already started"
As the fights cycled through I paid extra attention to the fights, looking mostly for hidden gems. The ones that moved on I knew were good, but the rare times where the fight was evenly matched and both teams were exceptionally talented.
The day of fighting ended, but Thunder and I stuck around a bit longer.
"We are whipping through these fights." Thunder said, laying his match-ups sheet on his lap, "Second day and we're already halfway through"
"The whole thing?" I asked.
"No, idiot." Thunder replied, "The first round. Let's look it over thus far"
"I can look it over at home tonight" I pointed out.
"I know." Thunder replied, "But I don't trust you"
"If you know I can do it, then why don't you trust me?" I asked.
"People are capable of anything." He said, "Just as you are capable of carrying out this simple task. I just don't trust that you will do it"
I sighed and spread out my sheet on my lap.
"Alright." He started, "So I know that I want you guys and RWBY. What about you?"
"CRDL," I replied, "And JNPR"
Thunder looked over the sheet, "Both of those teams lost." He said, "One of them to you"
"I know," I replied, "I saw real potential in CRDL. Heck, they probably could have beaten us. I at least want to see a bit more of them"
"Fine." Thunder said, "But what about JNPR? They were uncoordinated. Especially that leader, Arc or whatever his name was"
"Yes," I replied, "but they have Pyrrha Nikos"
"So?"
"Do you not know the Nikos family?" I asked.
"I've heard good things" He replied.
"Good things?" I asked, "That family is known as the strongest in the world"
"But why the whole team for one person?"
"First of all," I started, "because she won't budge without her team. And secondly, the rest of them are exceptional. Jaune Arc may not look like much, but I see Pyrrha all over him. Trust me, if he isn't already great, he will be"
Thunder sighed, "Fine." He replied, "Any other losers you want?"
I shook my head, "None as worth looking into as these two"
"Any winners?" He asked.
"No," I replied, "It's too early to see who's truly the best"
"How early do you want to get home tonight?" He asked.
"As early as possible." I replied, "But I'm not cutting work to do that. Honestly, most of these people are probably holding back. We'll see who's been holding back and who hasn't in the later matches"
Thunder sighed, "Fine." He replied, "We'll talk again after the second round"
"Okay" I replied.
Outside, I returned to my moped which sat mostly alone in the small-vehicle parking lot. Looks like I'm not the only forgetful one here, I thought, starting up my moped and driving off, back to the home of team PHGG.
"How'd it go?" Petunia asked when I stepped through the door.
"Fine" I replied, walking into the living room and sitting down on the couch.
Petunia hopped up to her feet, "Forgot something." She said, "Come with me"
I sighed, standing.
"Are you seriously tired?" She asked, "After sitting in an audience and watching fights all day?"
"Hey, the seats aren't comfortable" I pointed out.
She laughed as she led me farther into the living room. The room curved around the kitchen, and at the end were two staircases.
"Downstairs is the laundry, storage," Petunia started, "and Steam's room"
"Steam sleeps with the storage?" I asked.
"He's fine with it" She said, turning to the other staircase, which led up. "Come with me"
We started upstairs. "Up here we have my room." She pointed to the first door on the right, "Hail's room," she pointed to the door across from it, "The universal closet." She pointed to the door next to hers, "Your room." She pointed to the door next to Hail's, "And the bathroom" She pointed to the door at the end of the short hallway.
"I have my own room?" I asked.
"Yep" Petunia replied.
"I don't even live here" I pointed out.
"Yes well," she started, "you still are part of team PHGG. You have to have a room. Plus we were hunting you down already when we bought this house. You're a lot harder to track than you think"
"I try" I replied, smiling, and walking to the door.
"Go on in" Petunia said.
I walked in, and the room was empty other than a bed. The walls were pure white, the bedframe was white, the mattress, sheets, blankets, and pillow were all white. The only thing that wasn't white was the window glass, but that didn't really count.
"Nice" I said sarcastically.
"Just fill it up yourself," Petunia said, "we may have paid for the house, but we aren't paying for your crap too. That's your job. We've provided the necessities, but that's it"
"A bed and a window" I commented.
"You're lucky to have that window, by the way" She said.
I smiled, "Thanks." I replied. "I'll be sure to fill it with all my little treasures and what-not"
"So you're staying?" She asked.
I nodded, "Sure," I replied, "Why not?"
"Great." Petunia said, "We just need you to make a few payments. Hold on"
"Are you serious?" I asked.
"Yes." She replied, "People may say love makes the world go round but it sure as heck doesn't pay the bills. We may be friends but you still need to pull your own weight"
"Alright" I replied, smiling and reaching into my pocket.
"One second" Petunia headed out.
I pulled Arkynshihn off my belt and leaned it against the back of my bedframe, then sat down on the bed and looked around. It was a small room, but not so small that it was uncomfortable. I'm home, I guess, I thought, it'll need some serious work, but I'm home nonetheless.
So there you go. Not a whole lot happened, as usual.
To answer Sup (Guest)'s question of "How old is Steam?" he's mid to late-40s. Initially in my mind he was just a super old guy, so my initial thought was 50-60 years old, or even older. But that didn't feel realistic enough, considering the fact that he did go to Beacon with the rest of Team PHGG and is still physically capable of winning a fight with someone younger. He would have been accepted into Beacon when he was 40-50 years old if he was 50-60, and considering everyone else is 17-ish his motives would more likely be pedophiliac than actually wanting to learn how to hunt. Although he would have been accepted into Beacon when he was about 30, so that's still older than most people. By the way, I don't actually know if you can get into Beacon after a certain age, so this is just me guessing. If you do the math everyone in PHGG has been hunting for a little over 10-15 years.
When Gazini said "I saw real potential in CRDL. Heck, they probably could have beaten us. I at least want to see a bit more of them" That's exactly how I feel, the last part in particular. CRDL, despite being the bully team, is one of my favorites in the series. The last two volumes have disappointed me when they didn't really get any screen time, so they will be somewhat important (at least in Part 2) in this story.
Also, reading over the line "Jaune Arc may not look like much, but I see Pyrrha all over him" it sounded like it could have been taken differently by different people. so just to clarify, Gazini sees her fighting style all over him, not her physically on him. That'd be weird (I do ship Arkos though).
(CAPS FOR ATTENTION) I was a little disappointed to find only one review, which is better than the usual zero, but still disappointing. Although it has come to my attention that some people don't actually read these intros and outros, which I don't see why some of you don't (I don't write these to fill my word quota for each chapter, because I write these on a separate document so that I know how long each chapter is without the commentary in them). I don't want to sound like I shun those who don't read these, but I just think its kind of disrespectful when I put effort into writing this and then no one bothers with it. Again, not trying to sound ungrateful or anything.
Also, remember last week when I said I'd start posting another story elsewhere? Well, I won't be doing that anymore. I'm still writing the story, but with summer fast approaching I won't be able to post as much as I'd want to. I'll be gone for the vast majority of the summer vacation, so the posting day for HellFall will be moved to Saturdays, when I return home for the weekend. I won't be able to guarantee another chapter on that day, as I may have other things going on, but I'll do my best. I'll remind you guys of this when the time comes, as well as go more into it (unless you don't read these, then you'll just be confused with the day switch).
I don't even know why I'm telling you guys you should read these intros/outros in an outro. If you don't already read them, you won't get the message anyways. Maybe I should have some form of caps for attention or something (see above)
That was a lot longer than I thought it'd be, but anyways, as usual, favorite, follow, review, tell your friends, tell your enemies, or don't if you don't want to, and I'll see you all in the next chapter.