Argus Schnee
There were many words that could serve as labels to describe the Prince in a word, and the one any individual person chose to use would often come down to their experience with him. Most of the servants in the castle would call him 'polite', anyone else who came through the castle would usually say 'proper' or even 'refined'. His teachers and tutors on the other hand? They all - baring one - came to the same conclusion. 'Arrogant'. Whether it was comments on his confidence in his own intelligence, or comparing him to his grandfather, all of his tutors seemed to forget that just because they stepped out of the room dosent mean he couldnt hear them.
Those particular comments about him being similar to Jacques Schnee had spurred him to ask his mother about his grandfather... which resulted in quite a few of his tutors being replaced. Between the regular turn-around rates of the people meant to educate him, their lack of tact when describing the process of teaching him, or simply how boring all of it was... It left the Prince not exaclty 'thrilled' to attend his lessons, which there were usually multiple of per day.
All of that had an exception however. One tutor who didn't repeat things more then necessary, who didn't whisper behind his back, and one he fully respected and always listened to. His favourite teacher, of course.
"Goodmorning, Ms Goodwitch!" A bright smile completed his ensemble, gone were the usual regal clothing that probably costed more then what any of his tutors were paid in a year, and instead in their place was clothing resembling closer to what his mum would wear. Of course, still incredibly expensive. The least posh looking item the boy was wearing was his cloak, but in terms of value it easily outclassed everything else he wore... and maybe everything else in the room.
"Your Highness, I trust you slept well?" Glynda had a particular energy about her. She wasn't someone anyone would feel comfortable calling 'teacher' rather, 'professor' was the proper title to use when talking about her. Between her expression of total seriousness with an undercut of a smile, and her overall aversion to treating him like he was stupid, Argus would never compare her to any of the other 'tutors' he was forced to listen to.
"Yeah! My Great Uncle came back yesterday and I got to meet him! It was awesome!" Not exaclty an answer to her question, but information he had gladly wanted to share regardless.
"Yes, I'm aware. Qrow's return is bigger news then you're aware of, it seems." She took her seat, and he wasn't far behind. The room was structured similarly to a classroom, but there was only two desks.
"He's a Harbinger, right?"
"Yes. Tell me, what do you know about Harbingers?"
"Umm... their the strongest titles right? Aunt Pyrrha and Qrow both have one, I think."
"Correct." Not long after sitting, she stood again and stepped over to the blackboard. "I suppose we can cover this today, you seem interested." Her words were accompanied by the sounds of the chalk scraping against the board. "Titles exist in two categories. Unique and Shared. Shared titles are much more rare, but essentially they are Titles that multiple people can have at once. Unique titles on the other hand, only one person can have at a time."
"Shared are rarer?"
"If we're counting the Titles themselves and not how many people have them. The Vampire Lord Title is a good example." She finished drawing up a table of some kind, one that listed quite a lot of Titles. Some he knew, like the Harbingers and the High Wizards, others he didn't recognise like the Valkyrie and Masamune... then, she listed the Dragon Titles.
"Rose Dragon... Frost Dragon... Solar Dragon... Dust Dragon... that's Mum, Mother, Aunt Yang, and I... the others though..."
Ice Dragon, Fire Dragon, Snow Dragon, Abyss Dragon... she just kept writing them down. For as many names as Argus could come up with in his head for the different elements and even things to do with the elements... no, even more Titles then that. She had reached the bottom of the board before he watched her almost write one more next to it... then rub it off. The only part of it he had seen was 'Gri'.
"As you can see... Dragons add a lot to the pool of Titles." Her voice almost had a chuckle to it, almost.
"Wow... what's the strongest one??"
"You are your mothers child..." That confused him for a moment, before he realised that she was probably talking about Ruby. "If you mean what the strongest Dragon Title is... then the Rose Dragon is a good contender. But, there isn't any definitive answer."
"That's... Mums Title... right?" He wasn't aware that she was that strong.
"I only say that because it has some of the greatest potential. Given that it's power is dependant on the skill of the user when it comes to using rituals and crafting magic weapons. The best example of this-" She stopped for a moment, her eyes settling on him as if she had a realisation... then deciding to move on instead. Argus got the impression that Glynda wanted to say more though. "As for the strongest title altogether? That comes down purely to which of the four Harbinger titles you prefer." She pointed at the Death Title written on the board. "If you simply have need to vanquish one opponent, then Death is unquestionably the strongest... however, my personal opinion is that-" She moved her hand over and pointed at another. "Conquest is most likely the most powerful."
"Why do you say that?"
"Conquests ability to copy Affinitys of a fully subjugated individual, it grants access to one of the most powerful theoretical scenarios in the world." She focoused her eyes onto him, and he felt the weight of her words without a hint of playfulness or fun. "Someone who could use more then one Penta-Affinity at once."
"Multiple Penta-Affinitys...?" He knew quite a bit about how Affinitys worked. The difference between someone without an Affinity at all and one with a five times Affinity in one type of Magic was greater then the difference between night and day. It wasn't a gradual build-up. Each tier you had in the same Affinity just compounded to make it stronger and stronger, doubling the effect again and again, until you were left with mana-effiencey of about thirty-two times greater. Not to mention how easy it became to cast spells of that typing. Yet, one thing about that still eluded him. "Why does everyone say that five is the max? Isn't it... possible to get more?"
"Theoretically. If you recieved multiple titles at once-"
"You can have more then one!?"
"Don't interrupt, Your Highness." She shot him a look, and he mumbled a timid apology. "Yes. You can have more then one Title... though the process is exceedingly rare. The only case I know of was in a record dating before the Great Erasure. A Dragon with the Title of Death."
"Wow... that's... that sounds-"
"Strong. Yes... yes she is."
" 'Is'...?"
"As for having over five in any given Affinity... it simply dosent work. While in certain circumstances it should be possible, in reality it dosent work. For whatever reason, the World dosent allow us to achieve that state."
"Maybe it's because that's the purest kind of Magic?" She tilted her head, an odd sight to see for the Prince. "Well... that's stronger then Dust is right? But Dust is meant to be pure mana... so... what's the difference?"
"I suppose that it's not a matter we need worry about. Perhaps, it's simply for the World to know, and for us to ponder."
"Speaking of pondering... what is the World?"
She looked him dead in the eyes. "In the simplest of terms? God."
"I thought the Gods were all-"
"The gods are all dead, yes. But the World is this realms God." After that Glynda treated him to a helpful diagram of the big three planes of existence. Heaven, Hell, and Remnant. Heaven was empty, all Angels and gods having been wiped out a long time ago. Hell was still full of Demons and Devils, Demons being the results of Humans being turned into slaves of the Devils after being trapped there. Which just left Remnant, their home plane. The World was Remnants stand in for Gods or Devils, and of course, all the creatures from Humans to Dragons were the stand in for Angel's and Demons. "Now... anymore questions before we actually start today's lesson?" This time she definilty had a smirk.
"Oh! I heard that there are more then four forms someone can take! Is that true?"
"You should be careful when listening to Qrow..." Glynda seemed to somehow instantly know where he had heard that. "A base form, half transformed, fully transformed, and a Mastery form. These are the four states any person can enter baring Humans. These are different from Ruby's ability to turn into Rose petals, or Qrow's ability to turn into birds. These states don't take effort or energy to remain in, only requiring mana to change between."
"So... why don't some people just... stay in different forms?"
"There are certain groups that chose to do so. Some of the Lycanthrope squadrons in Vacuo stay fully transformed at all times. But, the two forms that our society most grants access to are the base and Mastery forms."
"How do you get a Mastery form...?" He definitely wasn't planning anything malicious with this information.
"My wiser senses are telling me not to disclose that information to you... but I'm lucky in that I more then likely won't have to worry about that. A Mastery form takes at bare minimum a century to learn... though, I suppose... if someone were to devote all of their time and training to learning it... perhaps it could be mastered much faster."
"A Mastery form huh...?"
The perfect union of one's base form, and full transformation. In truth, calling any form ones 'true form' would be laughable, but the closest form one could approximate to that would be the Mastery transformation. All three states one can usually achieve, combined perfectly. For someone that can change shapes, one who had multiple forms, would their true form not be all of their shapes at once?
Ruby Schnee
"One two three four, one two three four, one two three-"
Nope, it wasn't working.
She let out a rather unrefined scream as she was once again thrown to the floor by her opponent. The training weapon that had been in her hands was now next to her resting on the ground, and her opponent smirked at her with an expression she could only feel nostalgia towards.
"I don't fight that simple, kiddo." The raspy voice elicited that same feeling.
"I know, I know... and don't call me kiddo! I'm grown up!" She stood quickly and stamped on the ground as she whined, probably not doing a great job of proving her point. "Plus, i would have done way better if I could've used my gear!"
"This is training, kiddo. Plus, if you got to use your fancy magic items and weapon, then I'd be allowed to use magic."
Her response to that was a stuck out tounge and a frown. "I could win!" She really couldn't.
"Alright then, go grab that fancy weapon of yours." She faltered a little as he called her bluff.
"I... I will...! Just..." Her voice dropped to a mumble. "Once I make it..."
"You still haven't made a weapon??" Evidently, she hadn't whispered quiet enough.
"I'm trying, ok?! It's just... really hard. I want it to be perfect, but... I just can't." It was frustrating to say the least. Her skill at making magic weapons was more then likely unparalleled in all of Remnant currently - baring whoever had Masamune - but still, she couldn't craft a weapon that perfectly melded with her style. She needed... more. Inspiration, or just time. Eventually, she was sure that she could throw something together that would be perfect. But until then, there was only one way for her to instantly gain the knowledge she needed in order to make such a weapon. And that route was one she had no intention of walking.
"It dosent have to be perfect. Besides, you're a Dragon, kiddo. You kinda already have plenty of power to use." That was true, however...
"Not enough to bridge the gap..."
"The gap? Trust me, thats not something you need to worry about." Her head tilted in response, and he elaborated. "So long as I'm here, so long as Conquest is here... hell, so long as Yang and your wife are here? You don't have to worry, Ruby. It's not like real fights have to be stuck as one on one." His gaze cut straight through her.
"Am I that obvious about it...?"
"Trust me. So long as all of us are here? You never have to worry about Carmine." The incident was something Ruby still hadn't forgotten about, and likely something she never would... but it had shuffled back in her mind, instead opening up and letting her see the full picture rather then just the end of that fight. Ruby had lost... badly. The second Carmine had started fighting seriously was the same second that Ruby stopped being able to fight back... that feeling wasn't a good one to look back on, especially now that she had double the amount of people who's safety was her responsibility.
"I'm going to protect Weiss... I'm going to protect Argus." Conviction was all that could be heard in her voice, but it wasn't really a sentence that needed to be said aloud.
"You're already strong enough for that. I could count the people you couldn't beat on one hand, kiddo."
"What about Nora?" She had to assume that Qrow's five people were the Harbingers and Carmine.
"Ok well... saying 'on one hand' sounds better then saying six."
"That's true." They shared a bit of a laugh, and Ruby was yet again fueled by a wellspring of nostalgia... it was funny, it didn't even feel like that long ago since he'd been a big part of her life. In reality, how long had it been since they'd seen eachother? "I'm... I'm happy."
His eyebrow raised for a moment, and he seemed to scan her over to see if that was true or not. "I know." The answer wasn't a hard one to find. "Just be careful with that, ok? Dragon's can lose track of time really easily when they're content."
"How do you know that?"
"Oh..." He turned his head, staring over at his weapon, Harbinger, sitting on one of the benches. "An old friend of mine knew a lot about Dragon's."
"Mum knew a lot about Dragon's... huh."
How did she know what the Rose Dragon can do?
Ruby frowned. She didn't like remembering Rory or anything he said to her... but it was something that haunted her, never to be forgotten. Especially when it was relevant to whatever else she was thinking of at any given time.
"I wonder how she knew so much..." A shake of her head stopped that train of thought. As sad as it was, that didn't really matter anymore, instead... she had to look forward.
And looking forward right now made her smile.
"His output has improved." Silver eyes glanced to her left and focoused on Glynda, both of them stood by the wall of the training room, watching Argus as he practised. The boy himself was sitting in the middle of the room, surrounded by mounds of light blue crystals. "It isn't temporary either... his 'Dust creation' makes the real thing, without difference." They had only been watching for about ten minutes so far, and in that time he had made more then enough to power the cities barrier for a month... though, if that was a testament to his speed or Ruby's own work was left to be said. Most rituals needed specific kinds of Dust however. "Can he only make the one type?"
"Ice Dust comes easiest to him... for a while I thought it was all he could make, but a few weeks ago he ran up to me with a orange crystal." That had practically guaranteed that he would be able to make all the elemental variations... the more advanced types had left to be seen however. Spatial, poison, illusion, support, just to name a few. Time Dust and Anti-magic Dust had never been seen, but perhaps that was a testament to their rarity rather then their non-existence. "Sometimes I'm worried that he'll have to spew out Dust constantly when he's older..."
"Argus is the crown Prince. I assure you, Ruby... he'll never just be a farm."
"A 'farm'... huh..." That term didn't sit well with Ruby. If a report she had read a few years ago was to be believed... then there was another child out there currently that could be used in a similar way. "This practice is because he wants to do it... right...?"
"I truly hope so. Argus is intelligent... incredibly so, even. But... he's still a child. His behaviour and his goals are difficult to trace the purpose and reasoning for. To be honest-" She chuckled. "I sometimes forget I'm not speaking to an adult when I talk to him."
"I feel the same way." A small smile formed over her face. "A long time ago... I had a dream of him at about this age... back then, when he was still a baby... I was honestly so wrong about what kind of person he'd be."
"That isn't a bad thing."
"I know." Her smile grew, Glynda had been so quick to try and comfort her. "Honestly... I'm so excited to see what kind of a person he grows up to be... and to watch him grow into that person." Her smile grew brighter, and almost at the exact same time did the boy they were speaking of jump up from his seated place between mounds of Dust.
"Mum!" His voice was full of excitement as he ran over, his hand clutching a Deep Blue crystal, Water Dust. "Look! Look!"
"Woah, he can make more then Ice Dust?" Ruby was interrupted before she got the chance to praise him, turning her head and smiling to Qrow as he walked in. "That's awesome, kiddo." For as bad as he probably first looked at it, Qrow actually really liked kids. "Mind if i steal your mum for a minute?"
Argus nodded with a small sigh, to which Ruby quickly pat his head and rushed over to Qrow. "What's up?" Admittedly, she was mildy annoyed that he had interrupted.
"We far enough away?"
Ruby glanced back. "Maybe, he probably shouldn't hear us."
"Here." His hand flexed and he showed her a piece of parchment... a familiar looking object that she had only seen once or twice. A list.
It had changed since she'd last seen it. There was a scratched out name that she could assume was Roman Torchwick, Ravens name was still there, Cinders name was unchanged... and Neo's... hers was glowing a soft red colour.
"Its here, then..." Her words were mumbled, yet carried an air of seriousness that was more then likely foreign sounding to Qrow.
" 'It'?"
"I'll explain later. Stay with Argus, make sure he's safe." She had already begun moving, heading for the door to the training room and not even slowing as he called after her.
"Are you sure??"
"Yeah... we planned for this."
"I am sick of these people escaping."
"Neo"
It didn't make any sense.
Between all of their mana and an Anti-magic Affinity, why couldn't they cut through the defenses? They had attempted to enter from countless different places, but the castle seemed impenetrable. Each time they found some kind of foothold or possible entrance, a gap in its armour... it was another red herring. Or worse, a trap. So far, this building had already cost them eight lives, each trap had proved lethal and worse even was that they regenerated. The barrier that seemed to warp and weave its away around the whole castle like a skin-tight suit was a oddity to look at. It shifted and moved like a liquid, you could hit the same spot twice and trigger two different traps. They knew that there was no way that all their attempts would trigger an alarm, this barrier probably kept insects out too, no way would it risk sounding an alarm for every ant or spider.
More then likely, there was a room on the inside. A place where all that information went, and so long as no one initially knew they were here, they could attack it from the outside as many times as necessary without being discovered.
"Transform."
"Yes, transform."
"Our full power, we can crush the defences."
It had started. An overwhelming surge of voices were screaming inside their head. A theatre filled to the brim with a crowd who refused to have anything less then complete control over what took place on the stage.
They were split. On one hand, transforming may help... but on the other? It would probably just result in showing off that they were here.
A vote was cast, and they decided to continue what they were currently doing. No matter how good the defences were, there had to be some kind of a weakness. Some gap... some-
Their eyes widened as they hit the barrier again, rather then triggering a trap this time, it was like the defences reached out and grabbed them. The barrier twisted and contorted and without pause it opened a tear in space and threw them through it. That hadn't been a trap the same as the others... that was more then likely an activated condition of the defences.
"How did they know we were here??"
"Someone saw us!!"
"Its him! His list!!"
"Death!!"
"He came back!!"
Finally opening their eyes and looking around, their mismatched orbs scanned their surroundings... an arena? It was large... incredibly large. At least a fifty metre radius before it moved into high walls with rows upon rows of seats after them leading to the roof. The only arena of this size anywhere near Vale was Amity... but... what was the point of sending them here...?
"Welcome!!" A voice! It echoed throughout the arena, probably coming from the announcers booth... this was definitely Amity. "You're probably wondering what's going on... see, me and my friends have sort of... how do I put this..." The almost bubbly voice turned into one filled with malice. "Gotten sick of you people escaping. So-" Back to pleasent sounding, they recognised this voice... Ruby Schnee. "I improved this place. A few adjustments here, a few upgrades there... and a lovely new addition to the barrier covering the arena itself. See, it was already strong enough to resist the combined blast of two Harbingers spells colliding... but now it also acts as a spatial wall. No getting in, or out... until it's turned off."
They looked around with worry now... before finally seeing what was probably the most important detail they had yet to register.
They weren't alone in here.
One other person stood in the arena. She was wearing armour befitting a friend of a Technical Wizard, enchanted to a degree of ridiculous levels, and in her hand was a sword glinting with that same power. Her getup was mostly bronze and gold in colour, but along her hip was a sort of cape like cloth that was a deep red which matched her hair colour. She had another weapon with her, a javelin like weapon which radiated even more magic then her other gear... but it was sitting on her back for now.
She wasted no time in transforming, her body becoming covered in black tattoos and her skin besides that glowing with a radiant light.
"I am aware of your condition... and I truly apologise..." She assumed a stance, and they reacted quickly by assuming a defensive one of their own. "But I'm afraid this will hurt."