Chapter 14
The ringing of a bullet impacting steel signaled the start of Beacon's first year combat class exercise. The students were taking turns in pairs of two, running the "buddy bounding" drill across the length of the combat classroom stage, at full speed, as opposed to the dry fire and walk speed exercise they performed the day before. Wooden barriers had been placed across the stage at irregular intervals, and two steel plates sat at the end of the course.
Ren and Pyrrha were the first two to participate in the exercise, with the tournament champion firing two rounds in rapid succession with a break of a few seconds between to conserve what limited ammunition in each magazine she had. Ren on the other hand, would fire a full burst of five bullets in the times Pyrrha wasn't shooting, emptying one gun before switching to the other, simultaneously reloading machine pistol he'd just emptied. While the two were far quieter than they should have been, they finished the course on par.
The second pair to demonstrate was a team mixed at Glynda's request, a student from CRDL, and one from SPGL. Halcyone and Sky Lark both stepped onto the circular stage near the start of the course, and eyed each other, before the class's non-stage lights dimmed. The buzzer sounded, and Halcyone pulled her machete rifle out of its holster. After the weapon popped into it's full size, she repeatedly pulled the trigger at nearly the cyclic rate, emptying the thirty rounds in the magazine down range at the steel target, hitting it probably half of the time, before she took cover. Sky, meanwhile, had not even leveled his halberd rifle. By the time he had taken his first aimed shot, Halcyone had already reloaded, and begun shooting again, though now in bursts of three. "Come on ya' slow fucken' wanka', I could have killed 'em both by now!" She shouted, as Sky was finally set at the first barricade.
"SET!" Sky shouted, before letting off another aimed shot.
"I fuckin' know!" Halcyone said, before she came out from behind cover, and ran to the next barricade in her lane, not bothering to put her weapon on safe, as she shot two rounds while running. Once set at the second barricade, she fired again, and Sky lagged behind, not moving. Halcyone looked over her shoulder and groaned. "Come on!"
"You didn't say set!" Sky said loudly. "Moving!"
"I'm shooting, ya' fuckwit, it means ya' can move!" Halcyone said loudly, as Sky finally reached the next barricade at a jogging pace.
"Set!" Sky said, before Halcyone took off from behind her cover towards the third barrier. "WAIT WAIT! I'm out!" Sky yelled towards Halcyone, who ignored her temporary partner and instead fired again before she reached the next barrier. Before Halcyone could make it to her point of cover, Glynda pressed the buzzer on her remote, and ended the exercise.
Halcyone looked confused as the room's main lights turned on, and Sky groaned. Clayton had his face in his hands, and most of the class just looked concerned. Glynda turned to face everyone. "Well class, if there was a demonstration of what not to do during one of these exercises, Miss. Lacquer, and Mr. Lark would have earned exemplary marks…" She turned to Sky. "Mr. Lark, I can already see that you are much slower than Miss. Lacquer here despite what physical ailments she has, and while you might have communicated properly for the most part, you did slip up once by informing your partner that you were set, despite being out of ammunition to cover her with."
"Sorry, Professor. I don't do good in enclosed spaces." Sky said, rubbing his neck.
Glynda huffed, before looking at a seemingly irritated Halcyone. "Miss. Lacquer… I understand that some huntsmen in training who did not attend a primary academy, such as yourself, might believe your skills are above that of a first year's due to early experience in the field, but your refusal to communicate with your partner could have possibly gotten you shot. Moreover, you violated several safety practices for the course. Weapon safety negligence, shooting while moving, which is coverend under next week's class, and the use of "mag dumps" all could have put your partner, possible bystanders, and yourself in danger."
Halcyone rolled her eyes, though that went unseen from beneath her amber lensed goggles, before she pulled them up to her hair. "I hear ya', Professor. None of the gang shit no more."
"Your use of profanity could also do with an adjustment as well." Glynda said, before the two students went back to their seats. "Our next pair will be… Mr. Garnet, and Miss. Rose."
As the two new partners got up from their seats, Clayton leaned over Halcyone's shoulder and whispered to her. "You and I are having a talk after class."
The room's main lights dimmed once Siniy and Ruby had taken their starting positions, Ruby with Crescent Rose on it's waist carrier, and Siniy with Seal Club resting over his shoulders, one hand on the stock, the other on the end of the barrel shroud. The buzzer sounded off, and as Ruby quickly deployed her sniper, taking a shot at the steel target down range, Siniy pulled his weapon off his shoulders, taking it by the carry handle and stock, then took cover. Once there, he racked the charging handle of his weapon twice to chamber the first round. (The safest way to carry his gun was empty, as it had no manual safety mechanism)
"Contact, front, 100 meters!" Ruby said, her voice almost cracking, as she posted behind her barrier.
Siniy planted the bipod of his machine gun on the wooden barrier's second lowest L shaped shelf, allowing him to stand up and shoot. "I'm set!" He said loudly, before shootin a three second burst of automatic fire.
"Moving!" Ruby said loudly, before she engaged her gun's safety, broke cover, and aided by her semblance, zipped to the next barrier in a blur while Sinny let off a short burst of fire. "Set!" Ruby said, before turning her weapon's safety off, then shooting another round.
"MOVING!" Siniy said, pointing his gun's muzzle towards the ceiling, and scrambling his little legs over to the next barrier as Ruby put another round on steel. "SET!" Siniy said, just seconds after planting his barrel shroud against the barrier, and firing off a short burst of only four rounds, then letting another full six second burst go.
"Moving!" Ruby said again, as she broke her cover, engaged her safety, and in a flash appeared at her third and final barrier. "SET!" She shouted back to Siny, before disengaging her safety, and firing another round.
"MOVING!" Siniy said, as he pulled away from the barrier and pointed his machine gun towards the sky. As Ruby spent the last two rounds in Crescent Rose, Siny reached his last barrier. He planted his bipod, and fired off a bust of two rounds. "SET!" He yelled.
"Reloading!" Ruby said, her initial six rounds now gone. Pulling a spare magazine off her waist carrier, while Siniy continued firing. Once she had chambered a fresh round, she shouted to her partner. "SET!"
The buzzer sounded off, and the classroom's main lights turned back on. Ruby and Siniy both turned their attention to Professor Goodwitch, who was slowly clapping. "Excellent job you two." She said, before looking at the rest of the students in the room. "Can anyone tell me what it was about Miss. Rose, and Mr. Garnet's performance that was so excellent?"
Clayton raised a hand, and Glynda nodded in his direction. "Ruby put Crescent Rose on safe every time she moved?"
"And, Mr. Garnet, despite not having a safety on his weapon, pointed it in a safe direction at all times." Glynda said. "What else about their run was exemplary?"
Blake raised her hand, and Miss Goodwitch pointed to her. "The two communicate every move they made, despite the fact they both clearly understand how to provide cover and move under it."
"All well and good, but I was going to point out a third thing. Miss. Rose, for those of you who could not see her, was utilizing her semblance of molecular decoupling to temporarily shed mass, and decrease air resistance, allowing her to quickly rush from point to point without exposing herself, and only during Mr. Garnet's active gunfire. This is what I was talking about in regards to tools to be utilized. Miss. Rose's weapon of choice, being a sniper rifle, is not suited to sustained fire, but with her semblance, she was able to take her positions of cover faster than her partner, and provide accurate fire for him to move under… Now again, this is something for next week, but who in the room has a semblance?" Glynda asked. Over a third of the class raised their hands, and Jaune, sheepishly retracted in on himself.
"Well that's more than last year's class… Can someone tell me what a semblance is then?" Glynda asked. Jaune raised his hand. "Mr. Arc?"
Jaune swallowed forcefully before speaking. "It's… It's our aura's defense mechanism, or something like that. Our soul puts up a last ditch effort to preserve itself by giving us a superpower. It can be anything really, and I think my dad told me something about it being dependent on the situation that created it, but it's tied to the individual's aura, so it's also unique from person to person."
Glynda smiled softly. "Quite knowledgeable for taking the huntsmen courses as electives." She said quietly to herself. "That is correct Mr. Arc. Semblances emerge when the body is under extreme distress, and no two semblances are exactly the same, however what was not mentioned was "semblance degradation." If a huntsman or huntress unlocks their semblance, and does not come to control it, as they would their mind, body, or aura, the power can wither, and in extreme cases, a huntsman can lose their semblance entirely."
"Mike, J Sullivan." Cardin said with a snap, speaking without raising his hand. Everyone looked at him in confusion. "Oh come on? No one? Great War and Faunus War veteran and hero? Human obviously. Legendary pre-academy age hunter? Big Blue?" Still receiving only confused looks, Cardin groaned. "Mike Sullivan was a soldier that unlocked his semblance in battle, a warcry so powerful it could reduce most men to a weeping puddle, but after he got older, and the Faunus War was over, he lost his fighting spirit, and his semblance went with it."
Blake raised an eyebrow at the "Human obviously," portion of Cardin's little story, but took everything else he said as a good lesson.
Glynda cleared her throat. "While a fanciful tail, Mr. Winchester does provide a good example. A semblance is tied closely to the self, and losing one's self mentally, or emotionally, can deprive someone of their semblance." Shortly after Glynda finished speaking, the bell rang, and the class was free to go.
Skulking away from the combat classroom, Halcyone felt a hand clap onto her shoulder and pull her away from the rest of the students. "Yeah, yeah, I remember, I'm in trouble." She said finding Clayton to be the one pulling her aside.
"Any particular reason you have for blowing up at Sky like that?" Clayton asked.
"Come off it mate, he's shit huntsmen material, and you'd know it from looking at him once." Halcyone said.
"Shit, or not, he was still your partner for the class, and you should have just babied him through it." Clayton said, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"I shouldn't have to." Halcyone said, holding her hands to her chest. "I worked my ass off to pay the tuition fee for this school up front, that's over a hundred fucken' K, so I could get out of the fucken' slums, an' have a job, an' a life afterwards. Pretty boy back there probably got in on his dad's dime, and clearly he didn't care enough to actually train before getting here, because if he did the two of us could have aced the course without sayen' a fucken' word, like Pyrrha and Ren did"
"Yeah, I get it, school's expensive, my dad was an asshole about how much cheaper it would have been for me to practice law, but saying words was the whole point of the exercise, Halcyone." Clayton said, crossing his arms.
"Fuck you mean by that?" Halcyone asked, looking confused.
Clayton huffed. "The point of the courses was to force us to communicate. Pyrrha and Ren are both silent professionals, they didn't yell enough to communicate, but got through on skill. Ruby and Siniy are both fighting their own weapons and biology. Ruby's got a high pitched voice and can't generate a lot of volume, plus a gun that rings your ears even with an aura, and Siniy's got to talk over his machine gun, and he's got sensitive bear ears… You and Sky are opposed personality wise, he's a follower, and you're… Eager to get into fights. If you took the training seriously, you would have communicated what you wanted him to do, before making your own moves, and he would have executed."
Halcyone broke her eye contact with Clayton and stared blankly ahead. "Huh…" She said.
"Lesson learned?" Clayton asked.
"Yeah… Yeah that makes sense… And I probably just made our team look like a bunch of morons." Halcyone said, pulling her golden scarf down, exposing her scarred jaw. "I… Look, Clayton, I'm a complete bunghole most of the time, so I appreciate that you didn't just kick my ass over this."
"It's fine, just…" Clayton paused, he sounded like his dad. "Just don't lose your cool like that in class."
Halcyone chuckled. "But outside of class is fine? You got a deal mate."
"Don't push it." Clayton said firmly.
