Ch 28: Mischief And Madness

When the week started and classes picked up, the team fell into their normal habits. After classes continued with Yang training the teammates that needed it. She did question where Jin was as only the two showed up and worried about her state of mind but Sterling and Indi assured her she seemed ok and was instead focusing on her doubles training.

Indi was finally getting to the point of landing at least a few of her own punches and Sterling was now entering the fray for some hand to hand training as well to help him find other means than his summons. Yang was wearing them to the depths of their auras and then some. Ruby was also joining them for rang training, having joined Beacon as the new Grim Studies teacher this semester when the previous one retired.

—-

Jin and Spadix entered the empty training room they had booked. Jin was strapping into Fang Fists, testing the thumb triggers to latch and release the talons back and forth, getting accustomed to it while Spadix got Nox Oculus garnered on. It always amused Jin how easily Spadix could move with such grace and skill with those large blades on her body, as if they weighed nothing at all when in fact Jin knew first hand that those blades were not light.

She took that moment to remind herself of how Spadix had seemed annoyed by being treated like she was too delicate. Jin had been overlooking her strength this whole time and felt stupid. Of course, Spadix was still the weakest one physically on the team but she wasn't weak.

As they came together in the center, Spadix glanced at Fang Fists on Jin's hands, "Should we go straight into combo training or do you want to get a handle on the new extensions first?"

Jin stared down at them and triggered the talon claw mode on them grinning, "it can't be that hard right? You do it every day."

She could feel the judging smirk under Spadix's mask as her girlfriend flipped her blades into an offensive forward position, striking at her quickly. Jin was thrown off guard. When she tried to dodge, she got hung up on the talons still in the extended claw position and dragged to the ground when Spadix looped the blade in a spiraled swirl towards the ground.

With a loud noise, Jin's recoil bounced her back into the ground again and she felt the hit twice groaning. Spadix rounded on her, lightly holding her to the ground with a foot, her toe talons which were smaller, tickled at Jin's back. Spadix leaned in, her voice seething with a bit of condescension and spite, "When I finally got to grow my talons out, it took me a year just to do something as simple as dressing myself. Don't get so damn cocky Golden Dragon. It's not that easy."

Jin growled and rolled to get Spadix's foot off of her before heaving her weight, flipping onto her feet. She shook off her irritation and prepared herself, "Again."

The owl smiled. She lifted a hand, curling her finger to beckon her antsy brawler forward. Jin bared her teeth and rushed in. As Spadix spun out of her reach, one blade turned to a defensive backwards fold to block along her back as Jin turned the taloned strike her way, metal scraping metal with flying sparks. The owl then stepped behind Jin with the foot she was recovering her turn on, the offensive blade easily catching the talons from the defensive blade's surface and slinging Jin again to the ground, her foot pinning her lover again.

It had been a while since Spadix got to just enjoy training for what it was, training. Stretching out counter moves that weren't risks to your health and just having fun while someone got to learn something. She was greatly enjoying having the upper hand on the always confident brawler who normally could easily throw down with the owl and have spadix in a sweat and running to try to avoid that dangerous recoil. To say it was giving her a new sense of thrill she didn't know she could enjoy would be a truth she wasn't willing to admit.

She tickled the annoyed dragon with her toe talons again as she leaned down, "Come on Jin, use that pretty head of yours."

She heard the dragon growl again and push herself up forcing Spadix to step back. As Jin stood up she clenched her fists. She could feel her blood starting to boil. 'How the hell is this so fucking hard!?' her brain was screaming.

She glanced over at Spadix watching her. Spadix wasn't rushing her. It wasn't a strategy or trick. Spadix wanted her to learn. Spadix wasn't going easy on her but she definitely was pulling her punches, so to speak. She'd seen that owl be fierce. 'Alright Jin. Think. What does she want you to learn? She designed them for you. They are based off her hands. Hers can't retract but… ughh why is this so complicated!'

As Jin felt her fiery core rising she continued to think about Spadix and that serene calm she loved that was often on her face when she worked on things she loved. She felt her body relax and cool down, allowing herself to concentrate. 'Her talons don't retract but… her blades do! Her blades change shape based on what she needs!'

Jin watched the mechanisms move, silently counting the seconds the movements took as they changed positions. She took in the way they laid back along the length of Fang Fists' knuckle area like gates almost or guards but were too open to be hooked onto. The triggers were easy enough to click and light, allowing an almost instant pull without being in the way for normal punches or being too far for a delay in response time.

Spadix placed her defensive hand on her hip and waited. Jin stared at the talons as if calculating something. Spadix watched her click the trigger on, off, on, off. She could see her girlfriend's gears turning in her mind and she smiled under her mask, 'there you go beautiful. Use your head, I know you can do this.'

Jin looked up with a smirk, "Again."

Spadix taunted her once more, enticing her with a calling curled finger. Jin gave a snarl through her smile and shook her head, "Nah… you come over here gorgeous."

Spadix chuckled and made a dash for her, her defensive blade instantly clicking into an offensive position as she slid in for Jin's feet. Jin leapt over it, quickly turning as Spadix recovered in a 180 rotational spin for her back, catching the edge of her left swing in the retracted guard of the talons and clicking the talons as she rotated her position, causing the blade to be twisted as the talons snapped into their clawed position.

With the blade strapped to Spadix's arm, this forced her to rotate with them. She spun with it into a quick turn, bringing herself under in a spin and the right blade over to break the left free when the other set of talon claws caught her blade and hooked the claws on the edge, sliding along the length until she was face to face with Spadix, pressing the right blade into the ground, the claws hooked on and locked the blade in a trap to the floor.

Jin winked and kissed her nose, "How's that for using my head?"

Spadix rolled her eyes and rotated her hands, gripping her own talons on Jin's bare areas of hands in her weapons with a few clicks on her skin, "Better, but don't forget I have my own natural defenses too. Now let go, you're hurting my left arm actually."

Jin chuckled and released her, helping her up from the awkward twisted kneeling state she'd been forced into. Spadix stretched her left arm and rolled her shoulder to relax it. They took a small break for some water. "I never realized how you have to think about each form you need and when to change it at every moment because I never had that. But I was watching you stand there and I remembered how easily you use yours in every form it has and it just…clicked," Jin said before swigging down half her bottle of water.

Spadix was currently drinking. As she lowered her bottle she let out a refreshed sigh and closed the lid, "Eventually, you don't even think about it. Like an extension of your own body really. Instinct just tells you what to do when and you just do it. You'll just have to train and work hard to catch up with the rest of us until you get there."

"You enjoy training like this don't you?" Jin asked, smiling at her as they got up to continue.

Spadix stretched and nodded, "I miss it a little yea. It's nice sometimes to be able to just enjoy training without basically going back bruised and bleeding all the time or it ending in everyone mad at each other. Just learning something new or helping someone grow. Anyway, enough about that. I figure we can spend the first half each day warming up with you and Fang Fists, then after a water break we can work on some combo work yea?"

Jin had been smiling at her. The owl amazed her yet again. She wouldn't have guessed in all this time on a team together that Spadix also just enjoyed a good healthy training workout for the sake of getting better or learning new things. Had she thought the clever bookworm liked it she would have invited her to the training rooms forever ago. The dragon nodded at the suggestion and the two considered their skills, strengths, and weaknesses.

The hardest part about the duo was going to be that they didn't have the most complimentary semblances or combat types. They spent the rest of this session trying a few things and not really sure about much. They did know for certain that at the very least they could make it work if all else failed to some capacity and hoped to get lucky with the arena selections should they come up with nothing else.

—-

The rest of the week flew by. Both Indi and Sterling were easily passing out exhausted each night bruised and tired but growing rapidly in their training. Each session Jin was getting better and better with her weapon upgrade and while she and Spadix had yet to find anything perfect together, they had landed on a happy medium of Spadix's eagle eye semblance and bow as a ranged assist over Jin's up close fighter style as the best approach while still working on keeping Spadix in shape for close combat should the first option fail. Fighting Jin's recoil really doing a number on Spadix in their hand to hand efforts. The two also tired most nights and fell into Spadix's bed for rest so Sterling didn't have to climb the bunks and could use Jin's.

—-

Upon the second week, only a week before the festival was to start, vendors began moving into the area to get ready on the academy grounds while students from other schools started to get into their temp dorms on campus. Team JSSN watched Spire Academy start to arrive that Monday, curious of the odd young academy. They were watching from their dorm window, though Jin spotted team SLVR seeming rather irritated in the quad by the presence of Spire students.

"Makes sense," Sterling said as he caught what Jin saw, "I heard out in Laurel, or at least at Spire, they hate faunus there still. And they apparently aren't fond of Schnee's either. Laurel stayed isolated from the rest of Remnant after the battles when they rebuilt. A lot of blame got thrown around. Not a single faunus lives out that way."

Jin growled glaring back. Far as she could see, not a single student was a faunus either. None of them seemed to interact with any of the Beacon faunus students, but they did interact with the human ones. Spadix was looking out from over her shoulder. She could sense her shifting nervously and reached a hand back to hold the owl's calmly, "Wait til they find out our Headmaster and her assistant are both Schnees."

The team chuckled, breaking the tension. When Jin glanced back out, SLVR was gone. A part of her hoped the random selection in the festival gave SLVR a Spire team in the pre-qualifiers so they could get some pain in on them, but another part of her hoped not so that there wouldn't be any added fire to the hatred.

By the next day, students from Shade Academy were filing in. Nothing special there except most of them were desert worn and tired looking. They didn't really seem to engage with other students either, even amongst each other. Knowing Vacuo is a pretty hard place to come from, JSSN didn't question it and rather found it more sad than anything else.

By the middle of the week, vendors had their tents and carts set up but closed, ready to open when the festival activities started the following week. Students from other schools were attending classes with Beacon kids to keep up with their studies, though with such vastly different kingdom climates some learning curves were apparent as well as the rooms were hot and packed. The final school students were arriving.

Jin seemed on edge as Haven Academy arrived out of the airships. Spadix held her hand and stood, resting her chin on Jin's shoulder while the dragon sat on the window sill. She knew what Jin was watching for. Sterling seemed to be impatient too. As students flooded out, there came a young woman with half white and half black hair going to her jawline with the white having a swoop to her shoulder hiding one eye. The visible eye was red. She was wearing a white jacket with a fluff rim and short white shorts, a black top underneath with an exposed midriff. A black belt, tights, and a black belt at the hem of her jacket. Her white boots seemed to have no high heeling to them and laced up with black and went to right under her knees.

She was tall and walked with a purpose next to a pink haired girl with pink eyes wearing a black long sleeve crop hooded shirt and denim shorts, her long hair pulled up in a black small ribbon tie and a rather aggressive look to her relaxed face. Behind them another girl and guy that were fairly average and non-striking in comparison but clearly part of their team.

Spadix felt all of Jin go rigid and an almost death grip on her hand. She poked Jin's hand with her talons to get some of the strength to loosen so she wouldn't crush her hand and nuzzled her head, trying to help her relax. Jin took a deep breath as she felt Spadix's comforts and rubbed a thumb over her talons to reassure the owl she was still ok.

Sterling sighed, "Team LVDR from Haven. I hear they are a force to be reckoned with and top of their fourth year class. The leader is the pink one, Loki Valkyrie. Venere Stone and Raiden Cane are tough too but then there's Dove Branwen, Loki's partner."

Indi's eyes started to glow as she glanced over the team, but at this distance with so many students around she struggled to get a good read. Sterling stopped her, "No need, I know what you want. Loki's crass, kinda a rude asshole, and annoyingly intrusive. Her semblance is called misery. She can amplify negativity to the point where she can affect the way your aura and semblance balance or your mental clarity. Dove is generally fine to most people. She's surface level at best with everyone really. Hard to ever say what she is actually thinking though. Her semblance is glyphs. She's a Schnee. However, she cannot summon or anything. Her glyphs can only affect people and she has to touch you to place them. They can do a range of things. Amplify semblances, completely deactivate semblances, drain auras, the works. I'm not sure how many she can maintain at once anymore. It used to be only one at a time but that was years ago. Venere is your basic tranquil type and can turn her body to a hardened material. Raiden is a lot like Venere in personality except a lot more bland and boring and he can control lightning and summon lightning from dust so it's usually in his clothing and stuff. Real vow of silence kinda guy. Usually sticks very close to Venere."

Indi rubbed the back of her neck, rapidly typing in her manifest, "Hopefully we won't have to face them in the festival, none of that sounds like fun."

Spadix laced her arms around Jin's shoulders and gently pulled, "Come on Jin, let's go to class ok?"

Jin nodded and unwillingly got up, the team finishing up their day. To Jin's dismay, Dove's team was stationed in their dorm. It was the only place left to place the remaining Haven students. Sterling and Indi were in the library studying already as Spadix and Jin came across Loki and Dove in the dorm lobby below. Jin growled, fangs bared, ignoring Spadix's tugs at her wrist to get her moving.

Dove raised a brow at Jin, watching the other small faunus as realization clicked for her. Loki frowned at Jin's form, "Yo Dove, this girl got a problem with you? Cause I got two fists that wouldn't mind solving that ugly mug straight."

Spadix frowned, grabbing at Jin before the fighter could react and pulling her back, stepping out, "Excuse me?! Who on earth do you think you are talking like that?"

Dove held out a hand to Loki before she could get too amped up, "it's fine Loki, I got this, go on back to the room."

The pink haired girl looked to protest but then scoffed, "Yea alright Dove. I know you got this babe."

The two weren't a couple, or if they were, no one could say on the matter, but Loki just talked like that with her. They were team partners and rather close and that was how Loki was with her closest friends. Dove had simply learned to accept it over the years. Loki shoved her shoulder into Jin's challengingly with a defiant smirk as she passed them towards the elevator, leaving.

Once Loki was gone, Dove closed her scroll and put it away, staring down the small faunus that was staring daggers into her, "you must be the girlfriend then? You are so much tinier than I thought you'd be. You can chill angry bird I'm not here to mess with your hot blooded fool. I am honestly just trying to go to bed."

Spadix didn't relent, keeping Jin behind her, talons at the ready. Dove took in her protective stance, eyeing the talons. She wasn't stupid. She could tell those things were dangerous. While Dove was an excellent fighter, she doubted she could fully avoid getting cut by them entirely if this became a fight, "look bird brain I am not looking for a fight ok? And I'm not here for your kingsize salamander. Seriously, they put us in this dorm building and I'm tired. It's been a long trip and a long day and I just want to go to bed. Loki is a bit of a bitch sometimes I'll tell her to back off. You happy? Can I leave now?"

Spadix relaxed, gesturing past them for the elevator. She didn't take her eyes off Dove as the woman passed her, and Dove didn't drop her gaze either. Jin refused to look at her. As Dove passed them, she spoke under her breath, "you two animals aren't worth getting burned over anyway."

Spadix narrowed her eyes at Dove as she disappeared in the elevator. She felt Jin's tense body slacken and turned to her. Jin let out a deep breath and sat back on a lobby chair. Spadix gently stroked through her hair as they waited for a bit to be sure the elevators would be a safe retreat to use.

Once in their own dorm, Jin kicked her shoes off and tossed her jeans away, crawling into her bed weakly. Spadix got changed and crawled in beside her, curling up into her side and holding her as she watched Jin lay there. Jin was staring up at the bunk above them, one arm lazily around Spadix and the other under her head but her mind seemed so very far away.

Spadix's voice pulled her back, "Jin… don't you dare bury yourself in the dark again."

She felt Jin gently rub her arm and knew she got her attention. "Sorry, Spadix. I was just thinking."

"Oh no, that's dangerous," Spadix teased lightly, earning a light squeeze from the dragon.

She tucked her head under Jin's chin, listening to her heartbeat as she cuddled into her warmth. Jin closed her eyes, "Maybe so. Let's just go to bed yea?"

The owl nodded, already being lulled to sleep by the rhythm of Jin's heart.

—-

They sat in Yang's class, Jin could feel Loki eyeing her. Dove was paying them no mind, buried in her scroll per usual. The woman's use of her scroll could rival Indi's though Jin had no idea what could keep her so enraptured on it for so long.

As Yang called for volunteers, Loki opted herself up. Jin felt herself go rigid, the owl watching carefully as Loki cockily headed down to the training area. It was customary that a volunteer could pick their opponent. Jin felt those bright pink eyes burning into her as the woman glared right at her with a wicked grin when asked who she would want to challenge.

In the packed room full of four academies worth of students, she could choose anyone. But clearly this woman liked to hold vendettas. Jin could feel Spadix's hand grip hers as the woman pointed out the dragon faunus without any delay or hesitation, "how about that smug looking cunt right there?"

Yang's eyes flashed red for the briefest of moments, "reframe from profanities in class Miss Valkyrie. Jin Xiao Long, please come down."

Loki instantly chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck in realization at her profound mistake at insulting the teacher's blood, but only because she didn't like looking stupid not because she actually cared, "my bad, I'll watch my mouth in the future."

Jin growled slightly and stood. Spadix didn't let go at first but when Jin ripped her hand away, the owl sighed, watching her lover walk down with a prickled ego. Indi leaned over, all of them already sitting close in the confined space of the cluttered room of students, "she seems madder than usual…"

Spadix sighed, rubbing her face, "this is going to end badly…"

The team watched their leader join the smirking pink woman in the ring. Yang got the screen setup that allowed them to monitor auras. Jin locked on Fang Fists while Loki pulled out Ragnorok, battle axes that can become sawed off shotguns.

Spadix glanced back at Dove, who seemed bored on her scroll but as the two squared up to ready for the match to start her eyes glanced up from her device, her body otherwise making no motion or indication of caring. It infuriated Spadix, as if Dove already knew something they didn't.

Jin stared at Loki with a frown as the woman was maliciously grinning back at her. It was unsettling to the dragon. The woman chuckled suddenly, "hey, how many times have you bit your own tongue?"

Jin looked confused. Before she could respond, the noise of the match starting went off. Loki rushed her. The woman was fast and strong. Fang Fists came up in a block as the axes bared down hard into her. The recoil threw Loki back but the woman used the power to redirect herself easily like a boost and forcing herself forward again into Jin's gut before Jin could protect herself.

She felt the spasm of her insides wanting to come up at the force of the blow with her own recoil's strength behind it and could hear the woman's laughing like a fierce echoing in her ears. She grabbed the axes and tossed Loki away coughing but trying to keep her lunch down. The weird echo bouncing in her ears as she heard Loki's voice, "Wow those teeth are really something huh? You are almost a cutie if not for those hideous things in your maw."

Her body felt slower, her mind tired listening to Loki's nagging continue in her ears. She was able to catch several throws with the talons on her weapons but she also caught several with her face, eventually catching one from the back side of the axe on her chin as Loki swung upward into it that smashed her teeth into her tongue.

Jin let out a guttural howl and held her mouth quickly in one hand, grabbing Loki by the ax and smashing her furiously into the floor with full strength. She could still hear Loki's dark laughter while the pink woman looked up, her aura depleted and nose bleeding as Jin had blood streaming down her face backing away and writhing in pain, Jin's own aura was also tapped out before Loki's, having not noticed Loki's semblance had zeroed out her protective aura covering her before the last strike to her face.

Yang rushed in, clearing the tension and pulling Jin back. Spadix was standing in her seat, finally noticing she was standing at all as Indi was tugging her to sit down before she caused a scene. Dove had already stopped watching a while ago and gone back to her scroll. Loki was still laughing as she went back to her team with her sleeve attending to her bloodied nose. As she passed Spadix, she winked, "what a weak bitch you dating sweetheart. That was too easy."

Indi had to hold Spadix down to keep her from flying out her seat at the woman, gripping her wrists and feeling the hands twitch and the fingers flexing dangerously, eager to strike. Sterling was watching Loki try to get Dove to be amused but Dove just rolled her eyes and told Loki the display was uncool of her.

Yang dismissed class as she left with Jin who was still squirming and growling in pain holding her gushing mouth. Spadix pulled out of Indi's grasp and rushed after the duo, catching up at the infirmary in time to catch Yang coming out of a room. Yang caught her by the wrist, "Slow your roll there Miss Umbra. You can't go in there right now."

Spadix turned, talons twitching on her other hand and eyes narrowed in an aggressive fashion before backing down, "but…"

Yang shook her head, not swayed by the display of predatory prowess, "you'll have to wait out here for now while they fix her up. She's going to be fine. She bit clear through a chunk or two of her tongue. Took a good bit of it off as well. They need to get the bleeding under control and we will only be in the way. I know you're worried but we are more helpful staying out of the way right now."

Spadix stared back at the door and nibbled on her own lip before going slack. Yang let her go, feeling her relax, knowing she wasn't going to rush in. The two took seats in the hall to wait. What felt like an eternity to Spadix passed and they were finally allowed to come in.

Just as Yang had said, Jin was fine. She did lose a lot of blood but nothing life threatening and she would be miserable and in pain for a while with a liquid diet around stitches and slurs to talk but otherwise she was ok. Spadix gently ran her talons through Jin's hair, watching as the dragon's tired eyes looked over to her and took her hand.

Jin's aura was depleted, her mind groggy from being worked on, and on pain meds, and unable to talk much at the moment. Yang just sat back in the room, reassured her daughter was ok and messaging her wife of the status of things, letting Spadix handle the rest.

When Yang was sure that Jin was in good hands, she stood, "Jin, I'll be back to check on you later, I'm sure Spadix can handle things here. Reach out if she needs anything."

She had said the last bit to Spadix as she headed out. She had accident reports to file now and other classes to teach as well as the other student to check on and Dove to threaten. Once alone, Spadix gently slid in the bed next to Jin and cuddled close to her, gently stroking her hair.

Jin relaxed against her girlfriend, calm and dozing off. Loki's semblance had long since worn off and she was already feeling fine. In her loopy state on painkillers, Spadix's embrace felt so soothing she was easily falling asleep. After a few hours, the doctors released her back to her dorms seeing that she wasn't having any side effects. They gave Spadix the care instructions being she was more coherent but expected between her aura and meds she would be ready for the stitches to be removed by the end of the weekend.

Getting Jin to drink down some water and soup through a straw before bed, Spadix read through the instructions. Curiosity getting the better of her, she gently pried Jin's mouth open while the dragon slept and glanced at the damage. Her sharp points had sliced through the middle of her tip of her tongue a bout in inch down as well as chopped off the edge of the entire left side like it had been sliced along the side. It was at least narrow so it wasn't incredibly lopsided but it seemed like it had been caught at a slant between her teeth maybe? There was also a stitched up hole in the right side where Spadix could only assume a fang went straight through though that one would seal up. The slit would probably not close as there was a chunk missing from it in the middle.

Spadix let go and closed her lover's mouth, gently nuzzling her cheek sadly. She couldn't imagine how much this must hurt. She curled into her dragon to rest as their teammates quietly returned, Indi setting copies of classwork on the desk for them. The two didn't bother to prod at the faunus teammates tonight. They had seen the bloody mess and heard Jin's howls of pain so they knew Jin was probably exhausted. And for Spadix to miss the rest of classes could only mean things were bad.

—-

Spadix skipped class the next day to care for Jin, not too worried as it was Friday and classes were going to be on hold next week for the festival. Her teammates left, making sure they could help keep up for everyone. Before Jin woke, she checked in on her mouth again.

The sliced side was already healing over from her aura and simply looked very raw and irritated under the stitches holding the edges together to get it to close around the missing flesh. The same was happening to the other area where the chunk was missing. The doctors had decided to bring the edges together rather than stitch the whole area closed as there was too much missing and it would pull the muscle too much to bring the two sides together. The hole also was starting to close on the inside under the stitching.

It brought Spadix some relief that the assumptions of the doctors were correct. She let go as Jin stirred. When her eyes opened and she gazed at Spadix, the owl moved hair from her face, "Hi there. How do you feel?"

Jin mumbled awkwardly, rubbing her eyes and wincing uncomfortably from her aching mouth. Spadix got her up and to the sink for the morning medical mouthwash solution though Jin nearly spit it out instantly it burned so much. After, since they were healing well, Spadix switched jin to the oral medicines with the applicator per the aftercare instructions.

When Jin nearly bit her fingers because it hurt, Spadix gave a threatening glare that got the dragon to behave instantly. Once the medicine soothed the injuries, Jin groaned and relaxed, body also sore from the beating it took from Loki.

They got through the day, liquid foods and medicine as needed, Jin taking naps in Spadix's lap while the owl read, and when night came around they tucked in to sleep. With the amount of rest Jin was getting, healing with her aura was happening at a great pace.

By the next morning, the two chunked and sliced areas were just sore new flesh and the hole was down to just the top and bottom of the tongue still trying to heal. Spadix carefully removed the stitching from the healed areas according to the instructions and gave the list over the Jin along with the mouthwash now that Jin could easily care for herself so that she could try to catch up on missed coursework.

With LVDR in the same dorm building, team JSSN resigned to spending the weekend in their dorm, Sterling and Indi taking turns for food runs and the team sharing scrolls for movies or news as it caught their fancy. Jin was definitely not in the mood to risk running into Loki at this point and everyone was worried if Spadix saw the woman she might actually lose her cool and go feral on her.

By the end of the day on Sunday, Indi and Sterling were going through exercise reps on the floor while Spadix helped Jin remove the rest of the stitches from the healed hole. When she finished, the sounds of their teammates counting for each other in the background, she watched Jin awkwardly move her tongue around in her mouth trying to get used to the new shape of it and all the damaged nerve areas on the one side of it.

She placed a peak on Jin's nose, getting the dragon's attention, "It'll be ok Jin. You'll adjust to it. It'll feel weird for a while but eventually you won't even notice anymore."

Jin stared for a bit before chuckling softly, holding Spadix's hand and rubbing her thumb across her talons, "Thanks Little Bird."

They watched their partners trying to get in the last few sparring sets in the small space to stay practiced before tomorrow but chose to just rest instead themselves. Jin propped herself up on a pillow and Spadix tucked into her arm, snuggled into her side as Jin opened her scroll and they went over notes they had been keeping on their own doubles training.

They had not chosen to be the ones moving forward for any strategic reason beyond the fact that Indi wasn't a great combat choice in smaller groups and Sterling wouldn't last as long. It was more about avoiding their team weaknesses than aiming for their best combinations. The disadvantages that stuck them with were a task they still weren't sure about but the end goal was still to bank on their aggressive faunus drives and their one complimentary factor of ranged and close combat duo coverage of one another. Spadix made an excellent ranged partner and Jin was a great close quarters partner so long as she wasn't up against difficult semblances or stuck in a situation where she couldn't protect her weaker areas. Having a ranged partner would easily help with that though and much of their training had helped them find combos to make that work for them.

Indi and Sterling took their showers and everyone turned in for the night. They were ready for the Vytal Festival.