Chapter 7 – Prodigies

"So... what's your name?" Corvus asked the girl next to him.

She looked at him with a nervous smile. "P-Pyrrha. My name's Pyrrha."

"My name is Corvus" he said, giving her a small smile of his own. "You look nervous. Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, I'm ok. I'm just bad at talking to people."

"Well, just practice. My mom says if you practice enough at something then you can be the best at it, but you have to put the effort in."

Pyrrha gives another smile at this. "Your mom sounds really smart."

"Hey!" They both turned to look at Qrow. "If you two are done flirting, would you care to watch this fight? You can learn a lot from seeing real hunters in action."

Pyrrha blushed at the flirting comment, but Corvus furrowed his brows in confusion. The poor kid had no idea what his uncle meant meant.

"Must you be so crass, Qrow?" Chryseis said exasperatedly. "He is right, however. There are valuable lessons to be learned from observing others."

Corvus and Pyrrha watched the two veterans fight, or tried to anyways. The two were so fast it was difficult to keep track of them. Despite this, they were still absorbed by the spectacle. As were many others in the training room, as the duel had attracted a small crowd.

The fight ended when Chryseis' aura flickered a dangerously dim gold after a brutal strike from Qrow. The armoured hunter fell to the ground but was given a hand up soon after.

"Getting rusty, old man?" Qrow said with a large smirk.

"You fought well Qrow, though if it weren't for that semblance of yours…"

"Ahh, excuses, excuses. I don't remember you being a sore loser Chry'."

Chryseis was about to respond with a quip of his own but was interrupted by Pyrrha coming over to check on him.

"I'm fine, dear." He reassured, sensing her concern.

Qrow saw Corvus approaching him and looked at him with a cocky smirk. "So kid, whaddya think? Cool enough for you?"

"Ok, you were pretty cool, I guess." Corvus said, folding his arms. He thought the fight was incredible, but he wasn't going to admit that to Qrow.

"You guess? Do you want to fight again? I'm sure your mind will change after that." Qrow said, folding his arms and mimicking Corvus' posture.

"Nah, I wanna fight Pyrrha." He said, looking to her.

As the girl heard her name, she looked over at Corvus and then back to her father.

"Go on dear, just remember what I taught you and you shall be fine." He said, taking her scroll before gently nudging her towards the sparring area.

"Corvus, do you have a scroll?" Qrow asked.

"A what?" Corvus responded with a tilt of his head.

"Of course…" Qrow said with a sigh. "Alright, c'mere. You can use mine for now. This keeps track of your aura level. When yours or Pyrrha's aura goes into red…" Qrow gestured to the bar showing Corvus' aura, indicating that it's at 93 percent. "…we'll stop the fight, to make sure neither of you break the other's aura."

Corvus nodded. He understood that part well, and wasn't very fond of the idea of having his aura broken. It'd happened a few times when training and he hadn't enjoyed it one bit.

He and Pyrrha stood facing each other in the sparring area, both holding their weapons. Corvus with his Shoto and Pyrrha with a small Javelin which she held with both hands.

"Alright kiddos! Remember, you only fight until one of your auras are in the red. Your scrolls will let us know when that happens, then we'll stop the fight. If either of you keep fighting after that point then… well, I'll leave that up to your parents." Qrow said from the sidelines. "Alright, let the match begin!"

As soon as he heard that, Corvus rushed forward. He was planning to do the same tactic he did with Qrow, and so as he neared Pyrrha he unleashed a flurry of strikes against her. Pyrrha clearly wasn't expecting such an aggressive opening move and was caught of guard. She tried to retreat and make space to be at a more comfortable range but her opponent was making it difficult for her. She was barely managing to block and evade his blows as she tried to retreat, some of them managing to graze her. At some point she saw an opening and jabbed her javelin into his midsection which managed to halt his assault and allowed her to make space before he recovered.

As soon as he did, he charged her again. But Pyrrha was ready for him this time, stabbing and poking at him as he tried to close the gap. She was successful at keeping him at bay, for the most part. He was starting to grow wise to her strategy and had begun to take a more cautious approach. By doing this he had occasionally managed to get inside her effective range and land his strikes, but it never lasted long as she would always manage to make space again.

This little game of theirs continued for a short while, until Corvus decided to strike at Pyrrha's weapon in an attempt to disarm her, and it succeeded. Caught off guard again, Pyrrha was at a disadvantage with her weapon on the floor and her opponent close enough to strike her, she could only try to keep her distance, but it was a much more difficult without her Javelin and her opponent going full offense once more.

She saw an opportunity when Corvus charged at her, and she took it. As he neared, sword raised above his right side ready for a diagonal slice, she dropped to her left and swept her foot. She had managed to trip him. She took the brief moment of peace to grab her weapon and ready herself once more.

Corvus was not very happy at that moment. Not because he was losing, but because he realized he got reckless. He had the upper hand and he lost it because he wasn't careful. He knew his mother wouldn't be any more happy with that than he was. He got to his feet with a growl, trying to ignore Qrow laughing at him being dropped by a girl he had a nearly full head of height over. He readied himself once more, but this time he didn't charge her. He stayed put with his feet planted and his guard up. Pyrrha saw this and cautiously moved in, Javelin at the ready. As she neared however, he lashed out once more, hoping to catch her by surprise once more. It worked, but not as well as he'd hoped. She recovered quickly and managed to put him in the back foot. After some back and forth between them, they heard Qrow shout out.

"Match over kids!"

The two looked to him as he approached them. "Sorry Corvus, but she beat you." He said as he showed them his scroll. Corvus' aura was indeed in the red, though only barely. "Maybe next time you won't get so careless when you have the upper hand, eh? Still though kiddo, you did good. Both of you."

"You two are quite talented for your age." Chryseis said. "I believe we may have a pair of prodigies on our hands Qrow." He bent down on one knee and places a hand on each of their shoulders. "You two will make exceptional hunters one day, of that I am certain. However I'm afraid that'll have to be it for today." He said as he stood up. "We were only supposed to have one more spar, but we've been here longer than we'd planned. Your mother won't be happy if we're late for dinner, will she dear?" Pyrrha shook her head and moved to her father's side.

"Could we spar again tomorrow?" She asked him. He looked to Qrow, who shrugged.

"We'll be here for a few days, so yeah. There's no harm in it. Unless Corvus is afraid to be beaten by a girl again." Qrow said with a grin.

"I'm telling mom you said that." He said, which quickly wiped the smug look off Qrow's face.

Chryseis and Pyrrha chuckled at this, before the elder spoke. "Let's hope you sister if in a good mode when she returns, hmm? Though I'm afraid we really should be going now. Farewell Qrow, farewell Corvus." He said as he made to leave the training area.

"Goodbye!" Pyrrha waved to Corvus before she followed her father. Qrow turned to Corvus, smug expression back in full force.

"Looks like someone made a friend. You looking forward to tomorrow kid?"

"Of course, I enjoyed fighting her. It's more fun when they're not twice as big as you."

"Just wait till you're fighting Grimm kiddo, they'll be a lot more than twice your size."

Corvus almost shivered at this, the comment reminding him if the various stories he'd been told, most notably the one he'd been told earlier that day. Qrow spoke up before he could dwell on it further.

"Maybe 'Chry has the right idea, it's getting quite late and I could do with another meal. You could too after all that. C'mon."

The two stopped for a meal at the same place they did earlier, with Qrow getting them both food that may as well be alien to Corvus, though he enjoyed it nonetheless. Afterwards they returned to the hotel and they both sat in Qrow's room. Raven hadn't returned yet so the two were chatting, mainly about Corvus' fight with Pyrrha. Qrow was telling him what he was doing wrong, what he did right and what he couldn've done better, and Corvus absorbed the information like a sponge. Once they had finished the conversation had devolved into small talk, with Qrow telling the occasional short story about his conquests, Grimm-related of course. This continued for a while before Corvus asked Qrow a question.

"Why did you leave the tribe?"

It made Qrow pause, he hadn't expected this question at all. He gave the same answer he gave to everyone else who asked.

"It uhh… It just wasn't the right place for me y'know?"

"But the tribe is family. And everyone's really nice! I mean, they can sometimes be… umm…"

"Rowdy?" Qrow offered.

"Y-yeah, but still, the tribe is soo cool, why would you leave?"

Qrow sighed. "Because the tribe wasn't always like that kiddo."

"What do you mean?" Corvus asked with a confused look.

"When your mother and I grew up, the tribe was nothing like it is now. It's only as 'nice and cool' as it is now because your mom's in charge. It was a much meaner place when we were growing up and it's left too many bad memories for me to stay. Besides, I found a new home. One that I'm happy in. So don't worry about me kiddo."

Corvus seemed satisfied with that answer, which Qrow was happy about. The less spoken about the old Branwen tribe, the better. The two continued talking about other topics for a while longer, until Raven returned via her semblance.

"Mom!" Corvus immediately moved to his mother and latched onto her, wrapping his arms around her midsection.

"Hey there little bird, how was your day?" She said, returning the hug as he looked up at her with a large smile.

"It was great! I sparred with this girl earlier, she was soo good and I almost beat her!"

Raven smiled gently at her son's excitement and patted him on the head. "Well done Corvus. You can tell me all about it, but go to our room first. I need to speak to your uncle about something."

After Corvus left, Raven looked at Qrow with a serious expression. "We have a problem. There's a Grimm that's been stalking these woods lately. Its behavior is worrying, and I don't like how close it's gotten to our camp before. We're going to try and hunt it down over the next few nights. Can you help?"

"Sure I can sis, don't worry. We can deal with it."

"I hope so, because if left alone this could grow into a greater problem and that is not what the tribe needs at the moment!"

"Relax will you? Like I said, we'll deal with it."

A/n

That's another chapter. Took over a month to get it out which I'm not happy with, but at least it's here.

I was very unsure about bringing Pyrrha in at this point but I decided to anyways cos I liked the idea and what I could do with it.

Also I keep forgetting to bring this up cos it always slips my mind when I get to writing these author's notes, but we've surpassed 70 follows and we nearly have 50 favorites! I did not expect this story to get the reception it has. Thanks to you all for reading this!

As Always, I hope you enjoyed. Feel free to leave a review for advice, criticism or just to comment, I always respond.

See you next time!