Author's Note:
these chapters had titles at some point but I don't know what they were
Chapter 3
There was a growing level of confused concern washing over everyone on the cliff's edge lined up to start the initiation as the Headmaster went through a rousing speech that made him sound insane and incompetent as a human being. Firstly whoever you met eyes with first upon landing in the forest was to be your partner on the team you had for the next four years, I wasn't sure if he meant that if he was just saying that because I was here-
Was it like some poor attempt at humour because one student of the one hundred and fifty was wearing a mask?
Though I understood my sister's message now. Miss Goodwitch and Ozpin discussed us needing a landing strategy for landing in the supposedly Grimm infested forest. While sure I could use my wings I also wanted to use them as like a trump card only when I really need to because I had gotten really over reliant on them for getting places back home.
Aside from my other reasons of course.
As the first few students were launched a blonde guy wearing probably the most armour I had seen on a person excluding myself, Pyrrha and the ginger bruiser that glared at us- was in the middle of questioning the Headmasters sanity or that was how I chose to view it when he asked about the landing strategy.
When it came to me though since I was about thirtieth in the first line of students being launched from the metal plates I sat down getting a few laughs and giggles from onlookers as I waited for the pad to dislodge me from the cliff.
It was probably an awful time to think about what I wanted to do on my next date with Serqet wasn't it?
Yeah… I'll wait until I've landed in the Emerald Forest at least before I do.
The sounds of people getting launched with varying levels of excitement and yelling about heights or similar things got closer until the blonde girl, Yang, next to me put sunglasses on while winking at Ruby on the other side of my and that was all I got to see before I was launched into the air several hundred feet above the forest, though while I was considering altering myself mid flight the blonde flew by me nearly hitting me with a huge shotgun blast apologising as she did. I rode the air in the same cross legged position I had been in on the plate before I reached the peak height and began to descend at which point I burst out into a spread eagle pose- heh spread eagle.
As I got closer to the canopy of the forest I focused my semblance as I raised the mask briefly and used my Khukri to quickly cut the line of a tree I was almost on top of and used it toppling toward me as a slide to skate down and combat roll out of.
Though it did cause me to wince as I felt my wings get a little crumpled and squished in an awkward way.
Sheathing the Khukri I rolled my shoulders to make sure I this armour I was wearing wouldn't suddenly cause me problems and I began slowly walking through the forest.
I wasn't all that concerned about the possible Grimm in the forest for obvious reasons like the fact that they couldn't exactly just move some Alpha Grimm into it for a test like this or else they'd likely kill a bunch of people. As well as my semblance of course, while I could still see lingering death lines with my mask on it was a lot easier when it was off because of the effect on the mask.
Actually now is a decent time to talk about that, so I've said my mother made the mask, but that's not really true.
What I mean is that her Semblance allows her to block other people's Semblances, this works to varying degrees depending on how strong a Semblance it is or how well she understands it. Anyway an evolution of it she managed to reach was one that allowed her to imbue things with her Semblance but parting with a little Aura into whatever was being used as the medium for it-
Which is why it's super fucked up and she didn't do it except for mine because of what happened when I was a kid in that story I told Ozpin. Which is why I'm quite protective of the mask and why it's so strong because it literally had part of my mothers soul in it in the form of her Aura.
Anyway, because my semblance was so… particular… her Semblance imbued into the mask made it so I couldn't see all of the death lines, I could see about one third of them so I could prevent myself from accidentally snatching them- my Semblance was a real pain in the ass and this mask really made me feel like I could be almost normal.
I had no clue how I would react if the mask was ever broken, damaged or stolen.
Death would probably be the answer to whoever had done the deed.
Even if Mum had always instilled it in me growing up that I should be the one to stop fights and keep from that sort of thing because of the power I had, I would gladly throw that to the wind and mince whoever broke it…
Stopping I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes as I blew the breath out.
I needed to stay calm otherwise I might do something I didn't want to-
There was a rustle of bushes, sounds of fast footsteps and slight panting. Not waiting to find out who or what it could be I jumped up the nearest tree waiting above crouched on a big branch, waiting for a minute a person appeared-
"Darn..." It was Pyrrha, why was she? "I was sure I saw him land in this area."
Ah I see.
So I dropped down onto the ground behind her as silently as I could, which didn't end up being very quiet without the assistance of my wings so I just thumped the ground making her turn on a dime and nearly blasting a hole through me with Miló.
"Oh my gosh I'm so sorry!" she immediately bowed and continued to apologise while I kept my heart from leaping out of my throat, but then again I don't know why I expected anything else.
I sighed and put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry about it Pricil- oh-ah Pyrrha that was my fault." She seemed to ignore my flub of names.
"The ruins where the relics are being held seemed to be over in that direction-" the redhead pointed off into the forest changing the direction of the conversation.
Shrugging I motioned for her to lead the way and we were walking for a few minutes before it hit me.
"Hey Pyrrha." getting her attention I slid the mask to the right revealing one of my eyes for a moment so that they could actually meet and the Headmaster couldn't pull some fuckery later and say we never actually met eyes.
"What was that?!" the sight of my eye appeared to have shaken her some.
"I'll tell you later, let's go get this relic or whatever." I began walking towards the direction she pointed out earlier.
The walk was fairly quiet between us as we travelled, it seemed like she wanted to ask me something but was holding off on it for whatever reason. Not that I was all that bothered by the lack of conversation, I was used to long stretches of silence, but she really seemed to want to get to know me more. I will admit to being somewhat curious as to hearing more about her but I could wait.
'This is going to be a long couple months isn't it? I mean if she's like this now then how long will it take for her to be comfortable enough to ask other questions?'
The forest was very boring outside of how green it was, after about twenty minutes of walking we had yet to encounter a single Grimm. Rolling my shoulders I dug my right hand into my top and pulled out my scroll and began playing a game on it, this earned the ire of the red head next to me who I now realised was much taller than I had first thought. I wasn't exactly on the short side, but she certainly was on the tall side of the women I'd met.
"So?" I asked tilting my head so she knew I was now focused on her.
"Uh?"
"What did you do before coming to Beacon Pyrrha?" It was a simple question and I could start fishing for the information that I wanted from her, plus maybe she'd ask about whatever that question she had was.
"Oh… I competed in tournaments while I lived in Mistral with my family, I moved here to join Beacon because of all the constant attention." she sounded a fair bit sombre, her mood dropping significantly while thinking about her previous situation.
"Really? That makes sense, like I mentioned on the airship though I lived in a village near the border of Vacuo with my mother, sister and brother- I'd say my father as well but he left us a while ago." I shrugged at the mention of my father, I really didn't remember much about him anyway.
"Did… did he die to Grimm?" She asked finding herself a place to come away from her fame.
"Nah, it's much simpler than that, he just left my Mum, my older sister and I right before my mother found out she was pregnant with my younger brother." Scratching an itch on the back of my neck I paused a moment. "But since Mum moved us from Vacuo straight to that village I mentioned right after we never saw him again."
I shrugged again seeing as I was only two or two and a half at the time so I had no recollection of his face, but Priscilla said he was similar to how I was on a good day, but otherwise if he could he was off getting shitfaced in some pub.
She wasn't sure why Mum was with him and sometimes it seemed like Mum wondered that as well.
Not that Mum would trade us for anything in the world as she's fond of telling us as embarrassing as that can become, if endearing.
"Do you have any siblings?" The redhead brightened right up as soon as I asked.
"I do, I have an older sister as well." her bright smile was really nice.
"What's she like?" it was always an easy out when you talked about people you were close to, so I was more than fine with switching up gears and discussing something like this.
"Hm… she's nice and really kind… someone I always looked up to." there was a pause as she noticed something to our side-
We had both pulled out our guns and fired upon a Beowulf that had appeared from the forest which was soon after followed by a dark head of hair and a bright golden blonde head of hair as the two people of whom they belonged to stood behind where the Grimm was dissipating.
Yang immediately jumped to introductions and hellos dragging her assumed partner into it, who was the girl from yesterday that had informed me of who Weiss was even if that wasn't actually why she was there, that's what I remember her for anyway.
After the quick round of intros where I learned Blakes name and the other two learned mine seeing as they seemed to already know who my partner was. Which reminded me I never looked into who Pyrrha was.
Yang asked- "Hey so do you two know which way the ruins where the relics are being held is?"
I was giving the blonde a blank stare that while none of them could see it my mask appeared to do enough in that department.
Before Pyrrha could answer she stopped as there was an echoing hellish sounding screech that shook me to my core as the thundering sound of the forest collapsing around us, the cracks of entire trees snapping, the sound of thumping reached us.
"Fuc-" I was cut off as two enormous pincers came down upon us.
[Crabby Patties]
"Pyrrha please tell me those muscles aren't fake and you could carry me if I stumble!" I yelled over the sound of an Enormous Mutated Deathstalker running us down.
There was a hollow chuckle barely audible that I caught as her response, I was serious when I said that, my legs were feeling rough and my muscles were beginning to ache at the insane pace we were being made to keep up with. The worst part was that the opening that we had come to before it had showed up was really small and not the one we wanted with the ruins and relics we were told about.
Everything was getting out of hand, I heard Pyrrha's voice cut through the thundering sound of the beast behind us.
"Azrael- jump!" With her words we jumped in sync getting out of the way of a swipe of its entire arm.
"WHO THE FUCK PISSED OFF THE SCORPION!" I yelled as Yang and Blake dived out of the way of another sweeping claw attack by the Grimm.
I was sure I heard a girlish shrieked 'sorry' echo out from the otherside of the forest.
We continued running from the titanic beast for what felt like an hour though was probably more like ten or fifteen minutes, I was used to running with weights for endurance sure, but that didn't change the fact that our current pace was too much.
This thing was on our heels like nothing else.
As we finally broke out into an enormous opening this time we were rewarded with the site of ruins, relics and people- thanking whatever god or goddess would take it I was just glad we were finally going to have some help with this thing. I was beginning to think that I'd need to use my Semblance, but I would need a minute to catch my breath aside from people keeping its attention so I could go in and kill it.
The thing about Grimm and people for that matter was that everyone had a main line of death that was connected directly to every system in their body and related to their bodies point at which it ceased to function, but there were smaller ones if I wanted to be more accurate and only disable a small part of something.
So say I wanted to blind someone or a Grimm there were lines over their eyes I could cut from a distance and blind them with, the same thing applied for every organ in the body- though if I just wanted them to die on the spot I could just cut the cord so to say of their heart.
Using Ozpin as an example from our meeting, the reason I said he had an innumerable amount was the fact that while he had the same amount as a normal huntsman, which was six large lines, his heart and soul were a messy affair of hundreds of little ones that I would need to separate individually if I was going after him.
Which I'm not, he's just an example-
"WOAH!" I called out as my head was nearly cut off making me stumble around forward until I could find my ground again. "Someone help please!"
I noticed Blake and Yang had managed to get away from the Deathstalker making me curse.
Getting distracted by the sight of all the people just standing there watching Pyrrha and I run away, resulted in me being smashed in the back by a claw and near instantly having my Aura halved as I got thrown across the clearing slamming right into a stone pillar nearly knocking me unconscious.
My back, skull and shoulders felt like someone had taken a sledge hammer to it as I struggled to sit up before a piece of rubble dropped down and landed on my head forcing me back down with a groan of pain.
"You alright?" a voice asked as a hand came into view, I reached out for it and felt as though my arm was on the verge of coming out of its socket.
"Fuck whats with the Gorilla grip Yang!" I cursed while making sure my arm hadn't actually come out of the socket- it had, so I was down my left arm now.
Gods what a dumb way to loose an arm.
Wincing I glanced around the twenty odd students that were still here at the moment, amongst them was the ginger haired guy in full armour currently running away with the blonde that had vomited on the airship as it was docking. Yang was standing next to me holding a golden knight chess piece about the size of her head, with Blake on the other side of her with an expression I could only describe as 'thinking face'.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" was all I heard before I felt my spleen feel like it had been snapped as someone had landed on top of me.
Had I mentioned the Deathstalker halved my Aura yet? Because I think it just dropped to like a quarter.
"Oh! I'm so sorry Azrael!" Pyrrha's voice came from above me as I watched her stand up and move to the side offering me a hand and unlike Yang gently pulling me to my feet.
It might have had to do with the fact that my left arm was completely floppy and limp at the moment, which was a problem because I liked my left arm. Ignoring this I strained myself to pull the heavy sword on my back out of its sheath resting it on my shoulder-
I said it was heavy before, but I hadn't described how so. The executioner's greatsword I had was at least two to three times thicker than any normal sword that had been in Mauzers when I was there, the blade length was like five foot with a two handed handle.
It was an unwieldy weapon that was fitting of the title I gave it.
The sounds of harrowing squawks and cawing was followed by an enormous Nevermore that flew over us, two girls screamed at the top of their lungs as they descended like meteors bouncing off the ground nearby protected by their Aura's.
"Great now that we're all here we can die together!" the same Yang said not a few seconds later after Weiss who was with Ruby and they appeared to be the two who fell from the Grimm.
"Not if I can help it!" a familiar squawky voice said as it got further away followed be a yell to wait.
"Gods damn it." The words fell from my mouth as I watched Ruby run towards the Nevermore as it landed behind us on the ruins that stretched out up to a cliff that seemed to be the other side of the valley that held the Emerald Forest.
"C'mon Ren lets go catch some big game!" The pancake eating girl rushed off with her friend to help Ruby and Weiss as said white haired girl had just saved the red cloaked girl from being killed.
"Hey Pyrrha" my partner turned to me ready to hear what I had to say. "Yang, Blake you too- I need you guys to distract the Deathstalker for a minute or two and I can kill it for us." The three women gave me sideways looks like I was insane.
"Okay if it's only a minute then sure." Pyrrha said and began heading toward where a pair of students was in the middle of already distracting the Grimm but were very close to being killed.
"How do you plan to kill it mister Mask?" Yang asked while her partner stood nearby with a just as interested expression.
I debated where or not just to quickly show them what I could do by killing some patch of grass but I didn't want to waste my opening that Pyrrha was just now starting.
"Like this." to just get straight to the point I removed my mask and revealed my eyes to the pair getting, well wide eyed expressions. "My Semblance lets me rush something to its death, so if you could distract it for long enough I can cut the right string that's marionetting it."
They nodded seemingly accepting my explanation and went off to help Pyrrha, thankfully despite being the size of the hill it had a glaring weak point in its lines of death that was this massive red line, which was generally a sign of it being connected to their fated time of death in my experience.
So I rushed in after my partner and the other two the heavy sword on my shoulder as my left arm flailed as I ran up to where they were fighting it and jumped as high as I could and brought Macellaio down threw the death line into the scorpions head and it thankfully killed the Grimm instantly.
Hitting the ground with a thud as I fell back onto the dirt right in front of the now dissipating carcass of the Deathstalker. My sword fell onto the grass from where I had let go of it.
"Holy shit you weren't lying!" I heard Yang's boisterous voice say as she walked over to where I was laying down on the ground.
I grumbled a curse to myself as I managed to pull my mask back down over my face as I felt my body become heavy, it was normal for my Semblance to tire me out and fatigue my body, but this was probably brought on by how little Aura I had before using it-
Everything faded to black as I heard distant sounds of someone calling my name.
[The Sight Of It All]
My body hurt.
That was my first thought upon waking up, my eyes were heavy and my back felt like what I assumed it was like for someone that threw there's out while lifting weights. Everything was stiff as well, it was an awful feeling to be alive right now, my wings also felt crumpled and squished.
Opening my eyes I found a bandage wrapped around my head covering them, I wasn't really sure why but it was making things hard to see, anything I could make out was rough silhouettes.
As I went to try and move my head around and sit up a hand was placed on my chest and I was pushed back down, this was followed by a voice-
"Good you're awake, but please do try to stay still and rest while you're in here for the time being." It was Serqets voice, her tone was soft and gentle yet firm and instructing.
"A...h" my throat was so dry and sore.
"Oh you're thirsty, I can imagine why you've been unconscious for two days now." There were sounds of her moving around the vinyl floored room to a sink basin with a faucet, this was followed by water splashing into a plastic cup and her turning the faucet off and walking over to me. "You should be thankful that I managed to persuade the head Nurse and doctor the school has that I would be more than enough to look after you."
Water was poured into my mouth as the cup touched my lips, it was probably the most refreshing a cup of water had been in a long while.
Finally having my throat feel up to it I asked.
"Why am I wearing this bandage over my eyes?" I heard her attempt to stifle a laugh.
"For some reason the Headmaster and the deputy headmistress had it in their heads that you'd accidentally kill everyone if your eyes weren't covered at all times."
"Oh yeah thats my fault, Ozpin wanted to know about my semblance so I told him the truth but bent it a little to scare him off of trying to recruit me- Priscilla said he might try something like it before I left so yeah."
"She would say that wouldn't she? Well she wasn't wrong then, by the way Az- do you remember any of the rest of your sister's and my team? Because you have met them all, since you didn't recognise me I just wanted to know if you couldn't remember them either." She sat at the end of the bed near my feet.
Taking a moment to consider what she said I drew a blank and so shook my head.
"No clue, guess my memory is just bad." I scratched my cheek.
"Well don't go and try to fuck one of them like you've tried to with me then will you, one other of our teammates works here at the school, so I'd rather you not try hit on them as well." there was a short laugh from her as she slapped my leg playfully. "Plus stay out of your own team's pants will you? Those girls on your team might be good looking but we're still dating let alone the fact that it would get real awkward for them."
I hadn't tried to sleep with Serqet so I'm not really sure where that comment came from, but okay.
Otherwise it was sound advice I suppose, but it wasn't like I had any plans to do anything of the sort so it was redundant, it made me wonder why she said it though.
"Wait who're my team?" that was probably more important at the moment.
"That redhead who wins all the tournaments, some girl in all black that looks like she's repressed and reads smut and lastly a blonde with really long hair and a bright smile." there was a hint of appreciation and commendation in her tone.
Guess she liked them or something.
"Oh if you were planning to keep your wings a secret then the cats out of the bag on that, they know about them from having carried you here and one of them unfurling from around your body."
There was a lul of silence as she sat at the edge of the bed. I assumed she was scrolling through a website on her Scroll before he got off the bed. She walked up alongside the bed and I could hear as she got closer until she whispered-
"I am glad you're safe." into my ear and parting the room after planting a small kiss on my forehead after which I felt very heavy and tired, finding no problem in falling asleep almost as instantly as the door closed behind her.
[Something More]
When I woke again there was no longer a bandage over my eyes and I could see the room properly, well as clearly as was normal for me so really everything was covered in the floating lines of death.
Nothing changed, same old same old…
She had kissed my forehead hadn't she? Why? I can't imagine I'd made enough of an impression to deserve that much, much less the hug if I was honest. I couldn't actually believe she reciprocated it at the time, I mean I still can't.
The room was empty aside from a few bits and pieces of medical equipment, there was a window that was open with its curtains parted as a soft breeze blew into the room.
Blinking slowly I took a deep breath and sat up in the bed, my large ashen coloured wings stretched out to my sides nearly knocking over the stuff on a small table next to the bed where there were three orange translucent bottles of pills with white lids. By the looks of them they were vitamins and painkillers of sorts like Ibuprofen.
Rubbing my face I rolled the sheets off of my legs and I swung them over the edge of the bed and hopped off onto the cold ground, I realised my clothes were sitting in the corner of the room on a counter, as well as that I noticed I was wearing something more like a hospital gown at the moment.
My Scroll was sitting next to the clean clothes of mine that were on the counter, it looked like someone washed them for me and got all the sweat and muck out of them from the Initiation. Turning the Scroll's screen on several messages appeared, two from Mum, one from Priscilla and one from Castus.
Maybe I ought to give them a call or something?
As I was about to dial my mothers number the door to the room opened and I turned to see Ozpin, Miss Goodwitch and Serqet following behind them.
"Good morning Mr. Solatium, it's good to see you're already walking around." He eyed my wings as did Miss Goodwitch.
"Oh uh good morning Headmaster, Headmistress." I put my Scroll back down next to my things.