CRLN and LSLI were only two teams in the sea of first-years flooding Sentinel's Practice island. Nothing had changed in the weeks since initiation. The hard-light barriers separating the horseshoe of stands from the entryway were yet to be repaired, static buzzing off the cracks the Bullfiend and Beowolves created. Scores and pits still marked the dirt, where the Bullfiend's claws and horns tore away at earth. The scars still marked him, too. He only wore the sling for a week, but his arm still ached when he bent it the wrong way. And everytime he thought too hard about the fight, looked too hard at the battlefield, he felt the beast's crushing weight on his arm. Its foul breath on his cheek.
"As you are all aware," Headmaster Skye began to speak, "Today marks the first of many mandatory training sessions you will participate in during your time at Sentinel Academy. So, please allow the Headmistress and I to explain your task."
"The most simple way to explain this is as a game of capture the flag," the Headmistress chimed in. "Your team will be randomly assigned to face off against one other. Bring the enemy's flag back to your side, and you will be victorious. Though it is not the focus of this exercise, eliminating all members of the opposing team will result in a victory as well. Safety parameters will be set at twenty percent, as they will be for all future training exercises."
On the screen above the couple, a map of the practice island displayed, with five zones outlined in bright blue. "In the interest of time, we've prepared five courses, into which you will be randomly assigned. So you do not accidentally end up in another team's game, the boundaries will be explicitly marked," Headmaster Skye continued. The screen above zoomed into the first zone. Eight blank squares sandwiched the screen, four on top and four below.
"Combat assignment for the first set of teams begins now," the Headmistress stated. With her words, a set of faces appeared.
The faces of Teams CRLN and LSLI.
Caspian blinked, and looked at the screen again to make sure he saw correctly. To make sure it was actually their assignment, and not an example of what other students would see. Lazula's hazel glare stared back. He looked to his side, where the first traces of a smile showed on his sister's lips.
"This can't be real."
"Ohhhhh, shoot!" Rowan exclaimed. He clapped Caspian on the back. "You ready to fight your sister? I'm not!"
"Yeah, no," Caspian replied. The screen shifted to display the second zone within the city, and Caspian gestured to it. "Is there no way to trade? This team... BLCM looks a bit more promising."
Caspian's Holoband provided his team directions to their flag, at the top floor of the shell of a building. It looked to be modeled after some kind of office, though by design the interior was gutted and the walls threatened to crumble. Caspian stood in front of the strange-looking cylindrical object he and his team had to protect, analyzing a holographic map of the course.
He let out a deep breath, shaking his head slightly. "There's no way Lazula doesn't play full aggression," he analyzed. "I see two possibilities. Either she sends Snow, Laurel, and Ichigo to us and stays back as her team's last line of defense, or she leads a full assault on us. Either way, she knows she's their ace. And either way, we need to play defensively. If we're able to thin out their numbers before fighting head-on, we'll have more of a chance."
Noxis's tail lashed. "So, you're gonna try to win this thing by assuming we can't beat them?" he questioned. "Makes a whole lotta sense."
"We can't beat them in a one-to-one fight," Caspian argued.
"Speak for yourself," Noxis spat. "As soon as the match starts, I'm leaving. Follow me."
"Please, stay back with us," Caspian pleaded. "We'll thin out their numbers, and–"
"They'll come here and thin us out, if you're so intent on losing to them," Noxis interrupted. "I'm not gonna sit around and wait for that."
"I-I'm sorry, but I really think you might be underestimating Lazula," Caspian warned.
"I'm starting to get the feeling that anyone can be leader at this school. I'm not afraid of her." Noxis turned his head. "Anyone else coming with?"
Lilly sighed. "I'm going to stay. Dust may be useful in defending the flag."
"Yeah, I'm with Lilly and Cas on this one," Rowan added. "Cas's strategy is–"
"Of course you are," Noxis snapped. "Guess I'll win it myself, then. It'll be easier without anyone in my way."
Team LSLI's flag sat on a roof, seventy feet above the edge of the city zone. After locating the flag, Lazula took a second to examine her surroundings. Behind her, a swath of pine gave way to a craggy mountain face. In front, the rest of the city. She couldn't tell from where she stood which of the buildings held Team CRLN's flag, but finding it would be easy enough once the match started, especially with the area map uploaded to her Holoband.
"So... what's the plan?" Laurel asked, leaning against a vent. "Just send Lazula at them and win?"
Lazula smirked at her team's gazes. "That was my plan, actually." She flicked away the map that spread from her wrist. "Noxis is a bit of an unknown, but I'm sure I can take them. You three stay in the area. I'll take the flag, and return it here. It shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes."
"What if you run into all four of them?" Laurel questioned. "You win one-on-one, easy. But it's gotta be a little bit harder facing an entire team."
"I'll be fine," Lazula assured. "More enemies just means more force to deflect."
"Want me to ping their Holobands?" Ichigo asked. "There's probably some kind of jamming signal because apparently hacking into animatronics during the entrance exam is frowned upon. But give me a couple of minutes, and I'm sure I can get past it."
Lazula shook her head. "No need. I'd rather have you patrolling the perimeter. And not getting us eliminated for cheating." She nodded to the faunus next to her. "Laurel. Keep an eye out from up here. If you see any of them, contact Ichigo and open fire."
"You're the boss."
"Snow. You're our last line of defense," Lazula ordered. "Do not let the flag out of your sight. As a whole, we're stronger than them. You could probably beat any of them one-on-one. But Cas is clever, so don't let him pull any tricks on you."
"Understood."
"Good. I'll let you know if anything happens to me, or I reach their flag," Lazula stated. She looked from Snow to the others. "Let's move. If all goes according to plan, this will be an easy win."
At the tone that marked the beginning of the training exercise, Noxis pushed through a wall of his team's protests and into the broken streets. They were quiet, still. No sign of LSLI. The faunus skirted the side of a structure, eyes flicking to the empty streets and ruined towers in front of him.
The wall six inches from Noxis's head exploded.
He flinched, raising his arms against the plume of shrapnel flung from a crater in concrete. He flattened out of instinct, and ducked behind the twisted shell of a ruined van. His eyes flicked to the gash carved from the wall, and he chanced a glance through the long-hollow window frames of his cover.
There, on the roof a couple of blocks away, a woman lined up another shot.
Noxis lurched his head between his knees and covered his ears against the cacophony of shearing metal. The bullet lodged somewhere before him, but he didn't care to find out where. He dashed out from hiding and took off across the street, finding refuge in an alleyway. He took a few seconds to catch his breath, and chanced a peek around the corner. The woman's figure had moved to the front of the roof, and her eye lined up with her weapon's scope.
Noxis wrenched back around the corner, and another gunshot echoed through the street. A bullet screamed through the air where his head had been, clipping the corner and piercing a dumpster at the other side of the alley before clattering to rest inside. With one last breath of pause, he took off down an alley. He turned a corner, down another alley, and clung to the shadows on his approach.
"Yep, that's where I am," a hushed voice commented from around the nearest corner. Noxis tucked himself toward the wall, tail shifting as he leaned in. "Wish me luck."
Noxis pulled his shotgun, Renegade, from its mount on his hip. With a deliberate scrape of his boot across pavement he shifted into view, cocking his head back and pointing his gun with one hand.
"Gotta go! Call you ba–"
A shotgun blast rang through Laurel's Holoband.
The blast tore into a wave of aura across Ichigo's chest, taking a majority of his aura in one blast and sending him to the ground. Noxis cocked his gun and lined up a second shot, but lowered it as a makeshift shield against a barrage of shots from Ichigo. Noxis grit his teeth against the ones that whipped past Renegade, pricking him like dozens of needles.
"You're wasting my time," Noxis hissed as he pushed against the bullets of dust. He transformed his weapon into a bat and swung. Ichigo managed to push Noxis's first swing to the side, but his elbows buckled under the weight of the faunus's second; a two handed bash over his head.
Renegade still raised over a shoulder and fury still flicked in Noxis's eye. But he paused. Lowered his weapon. He scoffed at the Red X projecting from Ichigo's Holoband and left before the sniper could find him.
He arrived at her building. If she'd actually hit her mark, she would have been useful to her team. But all she did was tell the faunus exactly where their flag was hidden. The creak of footsteps above broke the silence, and a cloud of dust floated through the single shaft of light pouring in an empty window frame. They were fast, from one corner to the other in a handful of seconds. Noxis pulled Renegade back out from its sheath, holding it at the ready and looking to the stairwell.
Noxis's smirk spread to a grin, grin grew into a chuckle. He cocked his head back and slung his gun over his shoulder, looking at the tall, tattooed woman who held her axe at the ready. "Just a few weeks in, and I already get the chance to bash your skull in," Noxis relished. "What a treat, Miss Verdi."
Laurel's eyes rolled up to meet Noxis's. "And who are you?"
"The son of one of your dad's old coworkers," Noxis growled. "Professor Corvis wrote a decent book. She could've done a better job at hiding the real Twilight Crusade's identities, though. Anyone with half a brain would realize your dad was the 'Phantom.'"
Laurel took a step back, eyes narrowing as she held Snake Eyes a bit closer. "And what is it I'm about to be blamed for?"
Noxis shook his head as he stepped closer. "Never knew exactly what happened. Just that your dad jumped ship from the White Fang. And when he ran, with his tail between his legs, he managed to get the only person my dad ever grew to care about killed." He spat. "Well, besides himself."
"And?"
"And he hasn't been sober a day since," Noxis snarled. "He'd beat me half to death on a whim before I unlocked my aura. The 'Phantom' betrayed the White Fang, and all these years later his daughter's a snake faunus. Fitting."
"What my dad did thirty years ago doesn't make me to blame for your daddy issues," Laurel retorted. "Now were you going to 'bash my skull in?' you'd better get on with it. Lazula's probably done with your teammates by now."
Noxis cocked Renegade. "With pleasure."
"Man, I kinda thought our first training exercise at Sentinel would be a little more exciting," Rowan complained. He looked out a shattered window. "Just a little arguing, and a lot of standing around."
"Perhaps Lazula decided to play this carefully as well," Lilly offered.
Caspian sighed, shaking his head. "...Did I make the right choice?" he asked no one in particular. "We really might have had a better chance if more of us went with him."
"Nah, he doesn't deserve that kind of credit," Rowan protested.
"Or maybe we could have split and guarded a decoy site, while one person guarded the actual flag," Caspian continued to mutter. "We draw them into a decoy, then whoever's left of the party guarding it goes on the offensive afterward– shoot. That would have been such a good play…"
"There's no way of knowing what the 'right choice' was," Lilly reminded. Her smile caught Caspian off guard. "All we can do is our best."
Caspian returned Lilly's smile sheepishly before looking to the ground and fidgeting in his coat pocket. His moment of reassurance was short-lived. A loud bang drew the attention of all three in the room, shaking the floor and rattling the fragile walls with its force.
It sounded like a door was kicked off its hinges on the ground floor. Then, silence.
"Want me to check it out?" Rowan whispered.
Caspian bit his lip, listening in for more sound. He finally shook his head. "It's best we stay in one place. It's open enough to fight in here, and the more people near the flag, the better."
"Got it," Rowan confirmed. He pulled Sanguine Storm from the sheath behind his hip, and pointed its tip to the stairwell. Caspian lined up Undertow, finger hugging its trigger. Lilly's hands folded on the grip of her weapon, Elysian Bloom, as she propped it up in front of her like a cane.
Caspian had grown up with his sister. He had seen her nearly every day of his life, and had countless memories with her. Yet, as she stood alone with sword unsheathed and shield at the ready, cape flowing in the draft from downstairs, he began to tremble.
Her very presence seemed too much for one person.