Alicia could barely move Detergeo fast enough to intercept the small brass bound clubs her opponent from Atlas kept swinging at her. But she was starting to sense his pattern.
High, low, left and right, left and right.
On the next swing she met his strike, concentrating aura to avoiding breaking her fingers. Ripples of red light flashed where their fists met, then she moved.
Alicia raised her hand higher slicing the blade across his knuckles. The blond haired boy hissed in pain at the minor cut, anger flashing through his eyes. She pointed her left hand down at his black boots, made a glyph and sent it shooting back across the floor. Taking his feet out from under him.
At the same time she spun kicked high right and smashed her own boot heel into his square jaw expediting his fall towards the fifty foot square of floor their match was contained too.
His head bounced of the tiles, but the fall only stunned him for a moment. He spun on the ground kicking for Alicia's ankles.
She jumped over his legs and their uniformed pants, spinning the Dust selector and freezing his legs in a small pillar of ice when he spun around again.
Around half a dozen other combat pairs were dueling alongside the two of them in the arena.
Kad was only watching his partner out of the whole group. Quietly laughing as Alicia pinned her frozen opponent on the ground, kneed him in the stomach and started punching his face in.
The long wait to fight wasn't something he had expected. The tournament listings had him facing a soon to be determined opponent in another day.
Officials or the organizers didn't want the cream of the young Hunter crop to show off too early, and so there were going to be two elimination rounds. The ones today and early tomorrow which would whittle the large amount of trainees down until only the best of the best remained.
So he was here with around a dozen other highly skilled trainees who had chosen to spectate rather than explore the delights of the Vytal festival, enjoying the show and evaluating their future competition.
He heard Pyrrha next to him wince and quietly groan seeing her leader's performance.
The red haired Huntress didn't know any of the other students singled out with them in this box so she had elected to sit beside Kad in one of the seats that were once again too small for him. He was on the stairs next to a wall separating these VIP seats from the rest to the crowds. His giant sword laid at his feet.
Kad could picture her cringing expression, seeing her partner and leader Jaune Arc down there scramble to his feet hiding behind his shield again. Maybe Arc would win maybe he wouldn't, odds were leaning heavily on him winning if the results of his recent training regimen had any effect.
"Almost feels like home doesn't it?" Kad asked Pyrrha, hoping to start a conversation to pass the time.
Her concentration on Jaune broke, pausing and thinking for a moment drumming her fingers on the armrests of her chair before answering.
"Actually no," She smiled trying to balance friendly eye contact to her left with Kad and still keep an eye on her team leader. "I didn't get many chances to be a spectator."
Kad laughed once, "Hmph, yeah, I believe you."
Lights above the arena squares began to snap on as duels came to a close, some more quickly than others. Contenders stood either victorious waving their arms to the crowd or slowly stood heads hung in disappointment.
Kad did find it odd that there was such a mixture between younger and older students participating. But the way a few of the matches ended with first years winning against third and even a fourth year student in one case it didn't seem to matter.
"So, do you like your odds?" he asked the Mistral champion, unable to think of another subject to continue with for the moment.
Pyrrha stared into the distance, focused somewhere between the arena floor and the other spectators.
"We'll see," She replied, "There are a lot of strong fighters this year."
"A couple yeah."
"Still nobody else who's beaten a Goliath to death." Pyrrha joked with a grin.
Kad closed his eyes, groaned deep and rubbed a palm against his forehead for a minute. Pondering who started butchering the story about village security.
"Who said that?" he asked with a groan.
"Trust me," Pyrrha said knowingly in a quieter tone, "I know how things can take on a life of their own sometimes. Nothing you can do about it."
"It's not like I just went up and throttled the thing with my bare hands." The giant tried to explain,
"It doesn't matter Kad, details become fluid for a while if you do something like that."
"Still I bet it was Thrush, maybe Co'Balt."
"And what are you going to do about it? I don't think you have time to go around correcting everyone at Beacon."
"Well I'm a very focused person."
Pyrrha just sighed in response shaking her head, but before their talk could continue they were interrupted by a quiet greeting from the other ginger haired girl that had walked up through the stands to them seemingly from out of nowhere.
"Excuse me," Penny spoke quietly, barely loud enough to be heard over the clash of arms down below and the sounds of the audience cheering them on.
Surprised, both Pyrrha and Kad looked to their right. Pyrrha recognized the other girl, having been briefly introduced recently "Penny, right?" she asked, just to be sure.
Penny smiled at the familiarity, "Correct," she raised up a hand in greetings, "Salutations."
Kad reciprocated her wave briefly, "Morning,"
"Do you mind if I sit with you?" Penny asked, "I want to get to know a few more people from Beacon."
"I didn't know you been accepted," Pyrrha replied, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.
Penny smiled shyly, at the same time turning her head and avoiding eye contact, "I will be, hopefully." She concluded as she sat directly next to Pyrrha.
Sensing her hidden tone, the ever friendly Pyrrha tried to be supportive and ignore the breach of her personal space. "I'm sure you'll make it, did the professors give you some condition or something."
"That would be rather dickish of them wouldn't it?" Kad interjected.
Penny ignored both of their comments, the two of them found it odd but they respected her silence.
Penny was too occupied to converse at the moment.
She was busy processing another look at what she had seen when she had met Kad several days ago. So far she had only confided in her father what she had seen, and he was just as perplexed as she was about the boy she had encountered on her first day at Beacon.
Her father had always told Penny she was a gifted girl, it didn't matter to him she had been built and not born. He had given her many skills even the superhuman Huntsmen and Huntresses could only dream of.
Advanced strength, durability, reflexes, agility.
Eyes that could see a multitude of things.
Heart rate, muscle density, magnetic resonance imagery, aura levels, among other things.
But she didn't know what to make of them when she looked at Kad. Her father was nowhere near as good of a biologist as he was with his other fields of expertise, but he didn't see how Penny's preliminary scan could actually be real.
Kad was massive in stature but his limbs were proportioned in a normal way. His muscles were far denser then nearly everything Penny could think of, she could barely detect his bones through the thick cords of tissue. Those may not have been metal but they might as well have been from what she could see.
Blood flowed fast and hard through his veins, even just sitting there idle whatever worked his circulatory system moved with enough force to give an elderly human a heart attack. But he seemed perfectly normal sitting on the steps watching the duels.
His body temperature might suggest he was running a fever, but once again he didn't show any signs of discomfort. What little else she saw in his chest she did not understand. Redundant organs that were twisted with a complexity that defied current anatomical understanding.
Penny was perplexed and wanted to know more. Her father could only think of one explanation if what she saw was true and that made her,
"Penny!" Kad asked again with a much harsher bark in his voice from being ignored again.
She shook her head and masked the shock of breaking her contemplation with a smile, "I'm sorry, did you say something?"
"I said, where are you from?"
Penny replied with only one word "Atlas."
Pyrrha looked at Kad with an awkward question phrased in her gaze, Penny said she wanted to meet people but her behavior at the moment seemed strange.
Kad just shrugged his shoulders slightly and waved a hand dismissively, he didn't have an answer. As far as he was concerned people had the right to be as strange as they wanted to. And so the three of them all settled down to watch the next round of contenders walk forward to fight.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid…"
Yang berated herself starting to think she never should have agreed to fight Raven, she could have found another way to get the girl off her back. Reason, force, something, anything,
She could have talked to her team.
That thought was eating at her more than anything else, remembering the last semesters of school and all of their adventures. But Weiss and Ruby were recovering from their recent victories and Blake was still out with Sun.
There was no time.
But then again a part of Yang was confident there would be plenty of time later to feel like a hypocrite once she sent Raven packing. And she was already halfway through the tunnel in to the arena.
Yang held her head high walking past all the others coming back who had finished their duels one way or another. Appearances were a big part of her, she wouldn't let her doubts show.
Raven was facing away from her on their designated pad settling the red armored gloves firmly on her hands. She hadn't worn her mask but the rest of her black and crimson outfit was just as Yang remembered.
"I appreciate this Yang," the dark haired girl began, slowly turning around hands on her hips, "I didn't expect anything less from you."
"You don't know me," Yang replied her eyes narrowed in concentration, simmering with rage while she raised her fists opened Ember Celica and began to walk to her left circling. She didn't like the carnivorous smile that crossed Raven's face one bit.
"I know a bit." Raven retorted, "If you want to avoid this unpleasantness," she continued with a wave of a hand, "We can talk some."
The banners displaying the duels to the crowds flashed brilliant green and Yang didn't waste another second.
Eyes red and screaming she leapt through the air at her antagonist, fingers interlocked to bring her weapons down on Raven with all her might.
Raven leaned smoothly backwards and flipped away from Yang's first strike, the yellow gauntlets smashed into the floor sending shards flying in every direction. Her aura sparked as the shrapnel scraped her skin.
This only stopped her for a moment, she followed up punching and shooting at Raven, who swept her ōdachi out of its sheath with unbelievable speed and knocked the fiery projectiles off course and into the ground.
"You're predictable." Raven taunted,
It didn't do much to Yang who was barely conscious of her actions at the moment. Her hair awash with fire she shot both of her weapons at her feet and flew at Raven once more. The dark haired swordswoman calmly stepped back one hand on the big revolving sheath and the other dancing with her sword twisting and blocking Yang's rapid punches.
The blond drove her across their arena square. Raven threw her sword to the air distracting Yang for a brief second then ducked low to the ground spinning and sweeping Yang's legs out from under her.
She easily caught her falling blade with a flourish and pressed it down against Yang's throat while she was stunned on her back.
"Point,"
Yang made a sound halfway between a shriek and a roar as she grabbed the edged metal against her neck in her right hand and pushed it away. She spun up still holding the sword and launched a strong left hook at Raven's smirking face.
Raven turned Ember Celica didn't land with all of Yang's frenzied strength behind it the gauntlets just brushed against the side of Raven's head.
Yang struck back with her other hand, Raven brought up her left arm away from the Dust filled sheath caught Yang's right wrist and turned. Wrapping her sword arm around the fist that had almost hit her face. Before Yang knew it she had been flipped up over Raven's shoulders and was sailing through the air.
She landed on her feet looking for Raven.
Instead Yang saw the swirling portal Raven ripped open close then felt a boot hit the middle of her back. The blonde fell forward hard onto her face and elbows.
But she was nowhere near down yet.
Rolling forward she stood again. Raven said she was predictable, so Yang was trying a new stance. Defensive.
She needed too, as she beat down all of her aggressive instincts Yang felt her strength drained from each half thought out blow. Her anger doing nothing to conserve her economy of strength. Raven dashed forward swinging down at Yang. Her red sword crashed into Ember Celica crossed in front of Yang to block sending her sliding back.
Raven ducked forward lowering her shoulder to charge. Yang snapped her right knee up and contacted with her stomach. Raven let herself be knocked backwards by the underhanded blow. Then spun and struck for Yang's head.
The ōdachi drew a long shallow scratch across Yang's right cheek, not deep enough to draw blood or leave a permanent mark but it was the final straw. In their duel and their little situation.
A severed strand of Yang's long blond hair fell to the floor.
She shut her eyes,
And the world exploded around her.
Even the other duels in the arena paused when the blistering heat that passed over them, the whole stadium looked over to where Yang stood glowing like a star and screaming her lungs out searching for her opponent.
But Raven was too fast.
And Yang had burned off most of her energy.
The dark haired swordswoman shot out of another portal and cold cocked Yang with one strike to the head, punching her off her feet and too the ground.
Raven saw Yang about to lose control and opened a portal. She was careful traveling slower with her semblance she was in the netherworld her portals ran through when Yang unleashed her wrath. Yang tried to rise, bringing up her fist to fire at Raven again. But the lights came on and she froze looking to the scoreboard.
It was over, her aura was in the red.
She lost.
Raven flashed her sword in a graceful arch before sheathing the slender blade and bowing to Yang.
"We had a deal," Raven spoke softly.
Yang slowly got her feet beneath her and glared at Raven. She could keep fighting, but she couldn't escape this. Yang knew deep down that there was nothing she could do now that wouldn't get her in more trouble. It was time to pay the piper.
"What do you want?" Yang asked in a tone fragile with her despair.
As the sounds of combat resumed around them. Raven walked up to Yang.
"I'm sorry it had to come to this Yang, but I can help you. And we had a deal…" Raven reminded her again, "Don't tell your teammates you're going with me. But I'll tell you everything."
Yang's guts lurched at that added stipulation, closing her eyes tight together in concentration for a heartbeat, "Everything about what?"
"Everything about this problem you don't even know you have… And the things I know you've sought for a very long time."
Yang's hurt was lost under a sudden sense of curiosity. Raven smirked leaned closer to the defeated blond, "Things about your real mother."
"My lord, finally you've arrived we began to grow worried."
The Master of Mankind laid a gilded hand on his kneeling son's black armored shoulder. It was true the journey had taken him longer then he had anticipated, but he had arrived all the same. Now deep within the massive battleship in the Primarch's private sanctum he could calm his troubled son.
"The warp is a fickle sea to sail Ferrus." He said, his warm voice echoing around the cold forges. "It is no one's fault."
"But still," the gorgon replied "We have wasted valuable time here."
"No matter my son, let us be off. I have already given your navigators our course… I presume you know why I am here?"
Ferrus Manus stood and a rare smile crossed the stern face of the lord of the Iron Hands.
"You have found another of our brothers?"
"Indeed." His father replied, "We shall depart at once. I fear time may not be on our side."
A/N Well that answers one question, I can sense people want me to get to the crusade but I can't figure out how to do that and still wrap things up on Remnant before you know what happens, which is turning out harder then I anticipated.
But don't worry I'm trying to pick up the pace, Follows, and favs keep me goin. Got a question? Drop me a line.
I'll see you all later, thanks for sticking with me. I hope the wait will be worth it.