(There's an A/N at the bottom explaining where I've been amongst other things)

Chapter 27

Inside one of the training rooms of Beacon, the sound of metal on metal rang out as a single student cut down the last wave of practice bots she'd been fighting. Sweat rolled from down Vernal's body, a testament to the hours she'd spent training. But as she leaned forwards, hands on her knees as she took the moment of respite to suck down air, all she could think about was the bane of her existence since she'd joined this team.

Lie goddamned Ren.

A whopping twelve times they've fought since her arrival, and not a single one of them were her wins, regardless of whatever the professor said. And outside of the ring, nothing the tomboy did could even begin to faze him. Pranks, ambushes, attempting to steal his belongings; none of it amounted to anything, and it was driving her nuts.

After a while, she'd fallen back onto what Raven had taught her about the rule of strength and followed his orders, not that this stopped her from constantly challenging him during combat class, hoping to secure a victory she would be able to properly savor. She grit her teeth before she threw her head back and let out a scream, falling onto her behind after she did, recalling the first fight she had with her male teammate.

(Flashback)

"Well that's not going to happen, so what're you going to do about it?"

Vernal dropped into a stance before dashing towards her opponent, hoping to overwhelm him up close, watching as his gunblades fell into his hands. As the calm teen raised his Stormflowers to fire, she lowered herself even more, preparing to start her assault from a low position, before her eyes widened as she saw bullets beginning to spray into the area where she would be in the next few seconds.

Quickly, Vernal hit the brakes so as to not literally run headfirst into the gunfire, but wasn't expecting the calm ninja of her team to simply continue holding down the triggers as he brought the rain of bullets towards her legs. She was forced to awkwardly jump around to avoid as much gunfire as she could, but felt her aura protect her a few times, informing her that Ren had taken first blood.

Irritated at having to dance to the Mistralian boy's tune, she jumped high before throwing one of Wind and Fire's blades towards the boy, who ceased his fire as he rolled away from the crescent blade. The tan girl wasted no time in using her new window of opportunity, and fired a beam towards his crouched position.

Having seen the girl pointing the barrels of her weapon at him, Ren twisted his body, managing to only get clipped by the laser, dropping his aura to only being just above his opponents. Standing up and dusting himself off, he watched as the other blade returned to Vernal's hand, who just landed across the ring. A glance up to the screen to check on aura levels revealed to Vernal that she was at eighty-nine percent, while her opponent was at ninety-one.

Looking back over to the sole male of team PRVN, she let her toothy smirk take its usual place as she went to speak.

"Well, looks like you have some fi-"

The girl's eyes widened as Ren threw two small objects towards her. Instinctively, she brought up her weapons and fired at what she assumed may have been rocks, but only further caught off guard when upon being hit, they erupted to fill the arena with smoke.

'Shit!'

Her first instinct was to escape the smokescreen, however, Ren had already moved to capitalize on her disadvantage. The quiet teen was an ever flowing shadow of violence, constantly slicing and striking at her from different angles before repositioning to her blind spot.

The tan-skinned girl knew that she was only going to lose slowly if she did nothing, and while the measure she was about to take was possibly a bit overkill, it would be enough to level the playing field. Raising her guard, Vernal managed to block a few of Ren's attacks at the last moment, but nothing that would give her the precious few seconds she needed. Luckily for her, she'd managed to notice two things that would be her key to victory.

The time window between the Mistralian boy's sneak attacks had slowly begun increasing over her time in the smoke, and her lazy teammate seemed to have fallen into a pattern. Biding her time, the girl counted to herself before she preemptively spun on her heel and jumped, cocking her leg back before shooting it out towards where Ren had appeared from.

The ninja-like teen barely managed to put up a guard with his Stormflowers before he was sent a good distance backwards through the smoke. Realizing this was the window she'd been waiting for, she wasted no time as set to work. Almost tearing at the metal of her weapon, the bandit girl managed to remove the dust cover for one of her blades, removing the glowing crystal from its slot.

Putting a small bit of aura into the crystal, Vernal threw it in the direction she'd sent Ren before firing at it, the resulting boom managing to rid the room of the smoke cloud that the lazy teen had created. Uncovering her eyes, the tan girl expected to see her opponent either unconscious or out of the ring, but to her surprise, Ren was nowhere to be seen.

Scanning the room, there was no sign of her ninja-like teammate. Before she knew it, a hair stood up on the back of her head before she instinctively jumped back desperately. A mere moment later, Ren's leg slammed down where she'd stood, spreading cracks across the ring towards its edges. Removing his leg from the rubble he'd created, the quiet teen watched without any emotion as Vernal scrambled to her feet with weapons in hand.

A tiny, ghost of a smirk painted itself across the mouth of Lie Ren for only a fraction of a second, so brief and so faint, the girl almost thought she imagined it, but as her opponent turned his head upwards and to the side, she followed his gaze, and her eyes widened.

The quiet, lazy, pushover Lie Ren, had managed to drop her aura to below forty percent, while his aura rested above a comfortable eighty.

'That smokescreen shit took more out of me than I thought. I need to turn this around and end it. Now.'

The girl looked back to her opponent and narrowed her eyes and what she saw. His right hand still held one of his weapons, but his left was fishing for something in his pocket. Once satisfied, he removed his hand from his pocket and allowed his other Stormflower to fall back into his grip. The two studied each other for a moment, before Vernal steadied herself and took the initiative.

A few steps turned into a sprint before she enhanced herself with aura, rocketing towards Ren with a renewed vigor, and to her surprise, the lazy teen only steadied his stance as she rapidly approached. A wicked grin spread across the tanned girl's lips before she reared and arm back to make the first attack.

As she spun her arm around to attack with her blade in hand, the quiet teen managed to surprise her yet again. Instead of moving to block or attempting to dodge, in the blink of an eye, he'd taken a step towards her and positioned his forearm to collide with her own, halting her attack without their weapon's ever meeting.

She attempted to put more strength into the arm lock they were engaged in, but before she could try to bear down on her teammate, he swung his arm down, the sudden lack of resistance causing her to lurch forward. In a swift motion, Ren flicked the weapon in his left hand back into his sleeve, and spun on his heel as Vernal was falling to grab her arm and force her into a standing armbar, the bandit girl bent at the hip.

Before she could even think to wrench her arm free, she was left breathless from a kick to her chest. Ren, quick to adjust the leverage, allowed her to stand straight after his kick, keeping his grip on her wrist tight as he yanked her towards his incoming elbow.

The impact muted the world to the girl for a moment, but as it slowly came back she could only watch disoriented as her opponent spun the both of them as his body began to twist, and by the time she'd come full circle to look at him once more, the tip of the quiet boy's boot was there to snap her head to the side, sending her to the ground unceremoniously.

The girl had to steady the arm that almost gave out on her as she attempted to push herself up, swinging her head wildly trying to repel the darkness at the edges of her vision. Looking over to where her opponent had been, she saw that he hadn't moved from where he was.

"Get up."

Hearing the boy's mutter, she met his eyes and saw something that made her tremble for the slightest moment. It wasn't anger, it wasn't spite, it wasn't joy. There was nothing. Only pure indifference. Vernal would never admit it, but ever since she'd seen Ren use his semblance the first time they'd trained, his presence would make her a bit perturbed. The blank look he was giving her now and lack of any emotion in his voice was cranking that feeling only Ren gave her up to the max now.

Not even Raven during her training wore such a look, the bandit leader always wearing either a look of disappointment, and on occasion, the faintest hint of pride.

Pushing herself to her feet, she didn't bother wasting the energy to glimpse at the aura screen. She knew her aura better than anyone, and one good hit was all she was good for at this point. No aura to use her semblance, no energy for an engagement, and one hit left before loss. Her fate was sealed and everyone knew it, but in that moment, she gave Ren her feral grin before finding a burst of energy she didn't even know she had.

Leaving her weapons behind, Vernal wanted to get just one more good hit in before she lost. Winding up for a punch as she ran, she put everything she had left into a straight that met the monkish teen's cheek. The sound of the contact made quite a few students either wince or lean in.

Vernal stood there, fist defiantly pressed against her teammate's cheek, his head turned to the side. Slowly, Ren reached up and gently grabbed the tan girl's wrist, who in response opted to rear up another punch, just as Ren extended his semblance onto Vernal.

And then she froze.

Letting go of her wrist and stepping away from her, the girl seemed almost statue-like save for the new sweat beads forming and the shiver that had overtaken her.

Vernal wasn't someone who hesitated to take what she wanted or say what she pleased. This reflected itself in how she lived and how she fought; everything she did she put her whole being into, and attacked it with the intent to dominate it.

So having Ren's semblance forced upon her was like having her entire identity stripped away. All of the anger and excitement that had been coursing through her suddenly vanished. The sensation was like being in a loud room for hours and suddenly having it be perfectly silent.

The clearness that overcame her once the storm of emotion had been hidden from her made her swallow numbly. She wanted to run, or better yet, to kick, punch, scream-anything. But no matter what she tried to tell her body to do, it was like she'd retreated into herself, and none of her thoughts translated into action. She continued to stand there with a blank expression on her face.

This feeling; she hated this more than anything she thought she'd ever hated before. She despised this. This isn't how people are supposed to be. People are meant to be who they are and show it. This feeling of suppression instilled a fear in her that she didn't know she was capable of. Panicking inside her own mind, the girl managed to take a step back from Ren.

The girl's teammate took a step forward, raising his hand before slamming it down in a chop to the outside of her neck, shattering her aura and causing her to crumple to the ground near instantly.

(Flashback End)

A roar escaped the girl as she finished off the last group of bots for the program she'd selected. Sweat rolling down her body as she glared towards the imaginary visage of Ren she'd sliced away.

Worse than being absolutely humiliated by the boy, Raven had been watching, and the next day, she'd been subjected to punishment at the hands of the bandit chief. She'd been sloppy and undeservingly arrogant, allowing herself to be the victim of a completely one-sided match that should have been hers for the taking.

A minute went by as she reigned in her breathing before starting up another program, watching as the bots reassembled themselves before taking stances. She couldn't let things stay as they were. She wouldn't.

(Atlas Academy, Same time)

While Vernal was busy training, team Wick wasn't slacking off either. Having spent the better part of the afternoon training their 'new' maneuvers, it had been a rewarding few hours.

"Alright team, let's run through them one more time."

Receiving sounds of acknowledgement from his team, Whitley focused his attention towards the stationary hardlight megoliath that was being projected.

"Ready team?"

"Ready!"

"Alright. Frozen Roses!"

Summoning two glyphs in front of his partner, the girl's hands twitched before she quick drew her weapons and began firing at their target, creating large chunks of ice on impact as she emptied her cylinders. The end result was the grimm's trunk being stuck in a chunk of ice attached to the floor, with other large pieces of ice spotting it over.

"Permafrost!"

Wordlessly, Kobalt shot forwards towards the restrained grimm while Whitley froze the floor in a wide area around them. Shifting from a run into a slide, the blue-haired brawler took a breath before kicking off the ground and shifting the dust in his gauntlets to fire before bringing his fists down with a roar. Moments later, the ice sheet that covered the ground cracked upon impact before the fire that flew through the channels created a thick steam smokescreen.

"Fool's Mate!"

Creating a multitude of glyph platforms in the air, Whitley shot a look to Ivori, who adjusted his glasses before leaping up to them and beginning to rain down whip lashes from above, adjusting his position after every strike in time to his leader. The younger teen had created movement glyphs for himself at ground level before striking past his target to another of his glyphs.

The maneuver continued for another few moments before the pair finished their attack before Ivori leapt off his platform, hearing the next command.

"Blue Beetle!"

Looking for his partner, Ivori didn't have to search long before spotting Kobalt running towards him from below. Doing a bit of a twirl before sending the tip of the whip towards his partner, upon seeing that the blue-haired teen had a firm grip, pulled with all his strength to slingshot the brawler towards the Megoliath. Having had time to gather his aura while airborne, he slammed his gauntlet into the simulated grimm's bone mask, and was rewarded as spiderweb cracks began to spread outwards, black ichor seeping through.

Upon landing, the hardlight enemy fell to nothingness before a pair of sabyr were projected with Whitley calling out the last of their maneuvers.

"Dragonfly!"

Ivori's arm became a flurry as he moved his whip, causing the bladed end to appear an unending storm. One sabyr was sliced to pixels while its partner jumped, however, unfortunately for it, there was no way for it to maneuver once it left the ground, and Ciel was waiting with the barrels of her weapons trained on the simulated grimm. Two gunshots later, and their exercise concluded.

"How was that?"

Whitley looked over to Kobalt with a look of thought before he responded.

"Better, but I think we can still perform better. My sister's team's attacks are really versatile, and they execute them fluidly. If we want to make these our own, and disrupt their momentum during the Vytal, then we'll need to bring them up to the same level, and make a few of our own. As for today, Ciel, how do you feel about our move?"

"I don't have any complaints. I think the only issue we'll need to find a way to avoid is you potentially calling for it when my cylinders aren't full or near it."

The white haired teen nodded before addressing his team once more.

"Any more input for our maneuvers? Any feedback you all have is welcome."

Ivori adjusted his glasses before he voiced a thought he had about one of their moves.

"Personally, I feel like Dragonfly may need some tweaking, it feels very awkward to pull off despite this being training. Another thing I wanna bring up is about all of our moves; I'm sure they'll feel better later, but they all seem purely reactionary. Do you have any ideas to make them more proactive so we can take the initiative?"

The young leader brought a hand to his chin as he digested the feedback from the tan teen.

"Not at the moment, but I believe if the four of us come together to find a solution, we can take care of that."

As the group of four huddled together to continue going over their feelings on where the maneuvers were at, having made quite an impressive amount of progress on what they wanted to accomplish, the same couldn't be said for their friends.

Team JCKP was having a hard time adjusting to what should have been a call for celebration; Jaune having found his semblance. The interference was that his semblance, for all the obscene physical power it seemed to give him, was now the ultimate hindrance.

The feat he'd managed against the apathy just a little over a month ago felt so far off now, almost alien. Worse still, his semblance was giving his normal life a few more hindrances as well, what with it activating at random or in response to his emotions. If he wanted to have any chance of proudly standing with his team, then he needed to get this under control.

"Anything?"

Jaune looked up to see Flynt standing next to him with an even look.

"No…I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for. And the more I try to find it, the more frustrated I get, and then I start thinking and-"

A cracking sound drew his and his team's attention as they looked down to see his hand having taken a chunk out of the floor tile while he was distracted. A sigh escaped him as he sat back and watched their sister team run through their own practices while Flynt moved to rejoin his other teammates.

'What am I doing wrong?'

Changing how he sat, he looked down at the floor as he thought about everything important that led up to his semblance awakening when he was back at the abandoned farm with his friends.

Jaune sat there stuck in his mind for a few moments before a cane struck his shin harder than it had any right to.

"OW!"

Bringing his leg up to chest, he looked over towards the offender to see Maria standing there with an unimpressed look.

"Miss Maria?"

The elderly woman let out a gruff of air as she returned her cane to its normal position.

"Took you long enough Boy. I sat here trying to get your attention for almost a full minute."

Maria shuffled over to the bench and took a seat before continuing to speak.

"Now, what's got you so stuck in that head of yours."

The blonde looked down to the floor where he'd accidentally cracked the tile.

"It's…my semblance."

"Oh? And what is it?"

"We're not sure yet. All we know is that I unlocked it back at the farm. We had our position overrun by the Apathy, and I'd been out of the fight through, well, all of it. Just when things got really bad, I didn't feel weak anymore. I felt…I don't even know how to describe it."

"Try."

The blonde thought for a moment before he met eyes with the wise woman again.

"Like I could face anything. Every step I took made me feel like I'd shatter the ground if I pressed too hard, and even when I almost ran out of aura, I still felt like that. My eyes were hot; so was the air, and my muscles felt like they were on fire, but at the same time, I don't feel like I would've been able to stop fighting if I had to."

Maria appraised him for a few moments, digesting the words he'd just presented to her before she responded.

"What were you thinking about when your semblance appeared?"

"Huh?"

"Any specific emotions you remember? Thoughts?"

"I dunno. I just…I didn't want anyone to die if I could help it."

"Anything else?"

"I guess…I-uh…really wanted to see Penny again."

The woman's face turned smug as she looked at him with a knowing expression as Jaune blushed and looked to the side towards his partner, still in her practice.

"For many, using semblances at first is only possible because of our emotions. Slowly, as we begin to understand not just our semblance better, but ourselves, we become able to use them without having to rely on them to fight."

The Valean teen sat thinking on the woman's words before he responded.

"Was it like that for you?"

The woman smiled solemnly as she looked up, and Jaune felt he asked something he shouldn't have, but before he could apologize, Maria spoke.

"Something like that. I have a…strange semblance to say the least, one thing I used to be able to do required my eyes and for me to think of happy memories. But as time went on, I was able to call upon that power in any situation."

The two sat in comfortable silence before Jaune craned his neck to the side and stood to his feet and stretched before walking back towards his friends. As a hardlight sabyr flickered into existence, the knightly teen walked forward, his shield raised and his sword ready to swing.

As the simulated grimm roared and leaped towards him, he kept his eyes trained on it and took Maria's words to heart. At first, his mind flooded with all the negative thoughts he'd been keeping bottled up, but then a ghost of a smile appeared as he began thinking about the friends he'd made since coming to Atlas.

The smile began to stretch wider as he thought not just about his team and friends, but all the people who were doing so much to help him, and his arm began to glow as the grimm continued its descent. His smile now a full blown grin, his mind reviewed all the progress he'd made, how far he'd come after starting from nothing, to feeling like he was approaching where his friends were.

Finally, his mind landed on Penny and all the little things that he'd come to know about her, and as she smiled in his mind, Jaune let out a shout as the glow extended to his blade, and he swung forth towards the grimm.

Not only did he cleave clean through the hardlight construct, but he managed to leave a scar from the ceiling to the base of the training room's wall. The other occupants in the room stood silently in shock as Jaune breathed heavily through his smile. A moment later, a searing pain shot up his right arm causing him to inspect it, revealing the skin an angry red color.

The pain intensified and he dropped his sword before cradling his arm, his friends rushing towards his side.

"Are you okay!"

Penny's cry was met with a strained expression, before the group unanimously decided to end their training session and escort their friend to the Medical Wing, wanting to know what happened. Watching them rush off, Maria thought about the blonde knucklehead's arm before her eyes narrowed.

'Semblances aren't things that should ever be harmful to their users, so why did the boy's arm suddenly get mangled. And more importantly…'

She looked up to the aura monitor where Jaune's information was visible.

'Why was aura climbing?'

(A/N)

Sorry for how long it's been since I posted. Things this last half-year or so have gone from crazy to insane, and I'm just trying to keep up.

But, I want to let y'all know that I never stopped working on this despite how long it took. For a while, I was worried that I was/already had written myself into a corner, and overall, I think that what would've been V2 of my story, (a point where we transition into the Vytal very quickly), might just merge with V3 to be one cohesive thing. It takes a lot of time to write a chapter that I feel is decent, and since I can't help but daydream about some of what I have planned for the festival, I'm going to try and shorten this arc a little further while, I hope, not creating any huge plot holes. I want to get to the Festival to show you guys everything I have planned.

Aside from that, I want to say that, when I can't find the motivation to work on ASC, I chase little story ideas that pop into my head all the time. I actually have one idea that is at ten-thousand words if y'all would like a sneak peek at what the story would be, but that brings me to a couple questions.

One: Do you want to see the story as it is so far? It's Jaune as a street racer. If so, I have it ready to post.

Two: Would you like the sneak peak to be its own posted story like what I did for Hate Breeds Hate (For those of you that remember what I'm talking about), or would you like me to make a new story post, that would be like a collection of stories that I can work on whenever inspiration or motivation just comes out of nowhere?

Anyway, I don't really think there's anything else for me to ramble about, so I'll try and start working on the next chapter soon. Hope you enjoy, and be sure to review so I know what you guys are thinking.