Once again, blame Clever for the music, while I blame myself for not making Saff a bird Faunus, because dammit that perch joke would have been so much funnier.
||| "You didn't mean to do that, but dammit that was awesome enough that you're going to act like you did." DC 13, Roll: 17. Success!
Before your rage wanes, you send your sword to the centre of the maze, jamming it into the block that Saff is standing on by sheer luck. Not fazed by your luck, the outer lights brighten on a mental command, revealing the buck Faunus to those still able to shoot at him. Needless to say, people begin shooting at him. You try not to find his sudden suffering funny and fail miserably.
{Ok, one, why, two, why, and three, what's the plan?}
Unbidden, your Aura flares, bolstered by the sheer... mindless fucking rage you feel towards him right now. Hidden depths you didn't know were there, hence, hidden, break open, empowering you with an energy you've never quite felt before.
And with it, an idea. This maze... needs to go. Not just enough to let you get out, no, the whole damn thing. Everything must be put back as it was.
Process requires more memory than is available. Shut down running tasks?
א0:\user\JauneArc> Y
Closing tasks... Function: Spiral() will be ended in order to free up processing power. Execute systemwide Reboot?
א0:\user\JauneArc> Y
"System Restore." You hiss under your breath.
The eye of your sword flares, the entire maze covered in a wireframe mesh for just a moment, before you remember to close your eyes as the sun explodes in your eyes.
When you open them again, the light is almost blinding anyway. Your eyes have been in a low light for so long that you're still blinking away spots.
"SHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT-"
Thud.
... Welp, you knocked Saff off his perch.
{SHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT-}
You snap a hand out, stopping the Transistor in its tracks an inch above Saff's face.
... You let it drop the last inch and savour the sounds of him eating sand before bringing it back.
"SON OF A BITCH THAT FUCKING HURTS-" Ada screams, her tiny frame somehow producing the kind of volume you associate with a jetplane taking off, or a concert.
... Or a jetplane taking off at a concert.
"Agh, my eyes! Why didn't you say something?!" Creme yells at you, covering her eyes as she gets used to the post-10,000 flashbangs to the face world.
Medical scan underway.
... Ah. You... probably should have told them to close their eyes.
"... Sorry. Slipped my mind."
"Slipped your mind?! SLIPPED YOUR MIND?! 'OH HEY YEAH THIS COULD BLIND YOU' SLIPPED YOUR FUCKING MIND?!"
"You're fine, just keep blinking!"
She stares angrily at the space directly to the left of your head but starts blinking rapidly anyway.
Med-scan complete: no damage detected- rapid heart rate and phasic shift detected in Ada- assume a combination of pain and Semblance effect. Low priority, but worth noting.
Hrm.
You look around and see the two injured persons and another taken by Professor Moss. Nobody seems to be interested in fighting at the moment, trying to rub the blind spots out of their eyes like you just told Creme to instead.
{Hrm. I wonder if we could incorporate some kind of automatic eye protection? Maybe try and shift the energy out of the visible spectrum?}
And what, dose everyone with ultraviolet light? No thanks, you'd rather not give your class skin cancer, you think as it reaches your grasp again. Besides, this is good. Sitting ducks are sitting ducks.
Lumen makes a slight gurgling noise, and you find him... standing perfectly still, sweating bullets.
"... Dude, you ok?" Ada, surprisingly, asks first.
"Move away." He manages to grind out after a moment, forcing the words as much as he can.
For some reason, none of you move, instead standing there like a bunch of morons.
"Move away! Now!"
The desperation in his voice cuts through your collective confusion, and you all swiftly get away from him just in time to watch as he explodes in a wave of... what'd he call it- luxin? The odd substance sloughs off him, a thousand shades blowing from his fingernails, his eyes, his mouth, nose, ears, covering his entire body in a forest's worth of green and an ocean's worth of blue. It layers over itself again and again until he's about twice his size, at least 12 feet tall. His new armour is featureless, almost blob like in shape, the head a perfect sphere with a small divot to see from.
He marches off in Saff's direction, hands forming spiked bludgeons. You note that one of them is his sword.
Saff notices this, and soon he's on his feet, staff at the ready.
... You could interfere...
[] ... But Lumen's got this. You can go pick on the stragglers while they're still half-blind. And while half your team is half and three quarters-blind themselves. It'll be fun to watch them try, at least.
-[] How?
[]... But Moss is still out there. You should probably go deal with him.
-[] How?
[]... But nothing. Let the humiliation conga begin!
-[] What beat are you running this conga to?
[]... But you're not Jaune Arc. Jaune Arc's wearing his big boy pants. (Character Switches are only in place for as long as someone else doesn't win one)
-[] You're Creme Daylaw, and you're definitely interested in helping him.
-[] you're ada doyle, and you don't really feel like yourself right now.
-[] You are Lumen Tessaro. Really, how the hell do you help yourself here?
Adhoc vote count started by Prok on Sep 3, 2017 at 3:51 PM, finished with 801 posts and 22 votes.
[X] ... But Lumen's got this. You can go pick on the stragglers while they're still half-blind. And while half your team is half and three quarters-blind themselves. It'll be fun to watch them try, at least. -[X] Find those with the weakest aura and start picking them off with your team while they are still recovering. You will personally start the attack by attacking the person with the weakest aura and the most isolated from everyone(to lower the chance of people interfering) else until their aura gets low enough to disqualify them then repeat the process while Creme and Ada will pick a target near you so that you can help if need or the reverse if you end up needing help. Attacks will consist of Jaunt, crash and Breach.
[X]... But you're not Jaune Arc. Jaune Arc's wearing his big boy pants. (Character Switches are only in place for as long as someone else doesn't win one) -[X] You are Lumen Tessaro. Really, how the hell do you help yourself here?
[X]... But nothing. Let the humiliation conga begin! -[X] Jaunt on over there and use Turn() to surprise Saff. Break his guard so Lumen can knock him out fast. If he's still up, whack him with the Transistor. It can just man up and take it.
[X]... But you're not Jaune Arc. Jaune Arc's wearing his big boy pants. (Character Switches are only in place for as long as someone else doesn't win one) -[X] You're Creme Daylaw, and you're definitely interested in helping him.
[X]... But you're not Jaune Arc. Jaune Arc's wearing his big boy pants. (Character Switches are only in place for as long as someone else doesn't win one)
-[X] you're ada doyle, and you don't really feel like you're here right now
Votes are closed, and, at a glance, becoming the one eyed man in the land of the blind wins!
On a much less serious note, I wrote this over the course of a day and this is STUPID and I LOVE IT and you should all go LISTEN to the FIGHT KNIGHT SOUNDTRACK because it's the BEST THING
More seriously, this is kind of like if the Fist Of The North Star, Gurren Lagann and KSBD choice had a kid together. Master on an entirely unheard of level, unconventional weapon, brutal violence, not in the slightest bit serious- really, if I'd put this down and it won I'd probably be having a hell of a lot more fun writing this quest, and that's saying a lot.
|||
Your fists itch. You watch the blonde girl below beating Cardin black and blue and all you can think about is how much like your own fighting style hers is, and by extension, how much her fighting style is like your master's.
You wanna fight her.
"Cease!" Goodwitch calls out, throwing Cardin for a loop, trying to halt his mace mid-swing. "Stand down, Mr Winchester, your Aura is critical."
He growls in frustration but doesn't continue his assault.
"Ms Xiao Long, impressive as usual, though your reliance on your Semblance worries me. One more hit and I doubt Mr Winchester would have come out conscious, let alone unscathed, and you yourself are not invincible."
Her victory grin becomes a little more forced as Goodwitch turns to the rest of the class. "Still, you will never learn if you do not fight. Can you go another round?"
Your fellow blonde affirmed her ability and willingness to keep fighting, and Goodwitch went about the process of picking her next opponent, which as far as you can tell consists of a silent game of eenie-meenie-miney-mo.
It often went like this when you weren't split into sparring partners, according to one of the second-years. Goodwitch would make the winner fight more, allowing them to fight more, and improve more until they got too tired to keep going, and then the cycle would repeat with the next one. The rewards for winning a spar were more spars. You thought at first that that would be unfair, rewarding those who didn't need the extra credit, but you realised quickly that Goodwitch has a very... firm grasp on exactly who could do with being first on the chopping block, so to speak.
"Mr Arc, you're a pugilist yourself- perhaps you might learn something from each other."
Snapping out of your thoughts on your instructor's teaching methods, you find your fists clenching up tighter, the leather of your gloves creaking under the pressure, the metal not doing much better. A fire has been lit in your heart, and you know exactly what you need to quench it.
Battle.
Quickly standing up, you make your way to the edge of the seating area outside the arena, hopping onto the stage with perhaps just a little too much enthusiasm if the thud of your boots on the wooden floor is any indication. You make your way to centre stage while Yang does the same. Once you're there, and you both signal your readiness for this, the "Fight In Progress" klaxon buzzes out.
"Begin!"
Immediately pointing her gauntlets behind her, an explosive round propelling her forward, Yang comes for your head, aiming a punch at the space you no longer occupy. You dodge to the side as you were taught, bringing your fists up and swiftly shifting back to your starting position, getting a few punches in at her ribs.
From there, the fight never really moves- while you're both fast, you're also both close-range. Besides shifting between the same four square metres to dodge her blows and blasts, and her attempts to upset your static nature while you duck and weave and lightly strike her arms, stomach, ribs, chest, whittling her down and more annoying her than anything else, neither of you really move. You know her strategy- take big hits, give bigger hits back.
Any strategy that relies on taking a hit is not a good strategy, Semblances be damned. Annoy her into one of her soul-enabled temper tantrums, dodge, take her out when she's emptied the tank.
At least, that would be the plan against a lesser opponent- as is, you're being kept on your toes for the first time since you fought that Ursa, and it's fitting that Yang is the one to do it- deceptively fast, for such a brutal style, but straightforward and somewhat predictable, once you've learned the patterns. You note, as you block a blast with the back plates of your gauntlets, that prediction and reaction are very much not the same things, and find yourself almost as frustrated as she looks.
Except... is that...
A smile?
... She's enjoying this. She's frustrated because you're turtling up, but she's enjoying this because you're of a like mind. Of a like style. You're doing her a disservice by playing this safe.
Well. 'Don't disappoint a lady,' he always said.
You discard caution, throwing punches as fast as Huntsmanly possible, your arms becoming a blur of raw violence. Yang's put on the defensive quickly, dodging and blocking strikes like nobody's business, her smile slowly beginning to widen as she realises what she's provoked you into doing.
Oh but honey, you haven't even started.
You focus on your soul, and the techniques your master taught you float to the forefront of your thoughts, time slowing down by just a fraction. You discard three, keeping one, and your Semblance takes control, forcing your arms to move at speeds normally far, far beyond you.
[[STAR-EYED SPECIAL!]]
Your fists blur in front of you, each impact a mini-crack against the sound barrier, barely controlled by your mind, powered only by your soul. The blonde Ursa can barely keep up, not really able to dodge the unending assault of steel and leather you direct at her torso. Eventually, Yang manages to block a few with her gauntlets before she begins an onslaught herself, her weapons...
Striking your own.
Every punch, met with a punch, every strike, met with a strike, not once after that moment do you hit anything other than her own fists, and you have the sinking feeling that this is exactly what she wants.
But fuck if you care, this is the most fun you've had in a spar for months! The hint of a smile on her face has grown into a sadistic grin, and you feel your own lips pulling up as well. Eventually, your Semblance begins to fade, and you both trade speed for decisiveness, properly trading jabs finally. As she dodges a nose-breaker, you notice that sadistic grin widening as her eyes go red, her hair beginning to glow an almost painful yellow.
... Ah, dammit.
Her next punch, you estimate as your gauntlets, her fist, and the front and back of your skull all have a very intimate moment together, puts you firmly in the yellow, and you're sent skidding back several feet. Working some feeling back into your nose rabbit-style, you decide it's time for another technique. She rushes forward, and you let time slow down as your Semblance begins to work its magic one more time.
[[KING KONG CRASH!]]
Power floods your legs, and you leap high, before breaking physics over your knee and slamming back into the ground, a wave of Aura-enhanced force pulsing out from the impact point. Yang is sent flying over your head, and you just barely dodge a last-ditch effort to blow your brains out with her shotgun gauntlets.
... Shotgauntlets. Shotgunlets- you have so many more important things to do right now, like dodging her fist oh god how did she land right behind you?!
You duck low, coming back up for a brutal uppercut, snapping her head back so violently you're almost concerned you snapped her neck. It's only the slow turn back that tells you you haven't just committed a murder.
Her eyes burn through your head, and you come back to a neutral stance, silently hoping your opponent will get the message and do the same. After a moment, she does the same, and a silent accord is made.
'We end this. Now.'
... You have one last technique in you. Time slows, and you let your Semblance take over for the final time. You watch as she reels back for an attack, twisting to use her entire body behind one conclusive blow.
Funny. You're planning on doing the same.
[[100-INCH PUNCH!]]
Aura fills your legs, and you skip back, bringing up a finally unclenched fist, palm open and facing her, again, alternating palms and legs as you find yourself leaping back halfway across the stage, a feeling not unlike a rubber band around your legs and a stake just where you were, trying to pull you back as best it can-
You let it. Leaping forward ten times as fast as you leapt back, you draw a fist back and aim for her little snub nose. As you watch her fist approach your own face, you can only admit that this was a good fight, and you're gonna have to thank her for it when you get out of the infirmary.
|||
And then you woke up in bed.
Not your bed, mind, the infirmary bed. Your eye won't open, and it feels heavy, for some reason.
"Yo." You hear beside you. Turning to look, you see Yang in the bed next to you, her right eye swollen shut just like yours. "Hey, we match! You got my right, I got your left!"
Something about that makes you grin, and it's not long before she's grinning with you.
"... Thank you." You say after a moment. "I... had fun. It's been a while since I've fought with someone so... like-minded."
"Yeah? I gotta admit, it was... yeah, it was fun! It was just so..."
"Visceral?"
"I would have said freakin' awesome, but yeah, visceral works too." She looks away for a moment, hand reaching behind her head to rub her neck. "But, uh, I don't think Goodwitch is gonna be keen on a rematch."
"And? Who said we needed to do it on her time?" You tell her bluntly. What goes on in Goodwitch's classroom is Goodwitch's problem, but out of it...
"... What are you suggesting?"
"You, me, dorm roof at six o'clock once or twice a week?"
She raises an eyebrow, giving you a look that suggests you just said something you're gonna regreyeaaaahhhh there it is.
Why can't you realise these things before you say them?
"Jaune Arc, it might be the concussion talking, but that almost sounded like you trying to make plans for some alone time with me."
... You know what, roll with it, roll with it, you're this deep already, no reason not to keep digging.
"I am." When the other eyebrow goes up, you continue. "Look, you said it yourself, that fight was freakin' awesome. If nothing else, we get a couple days a week where we can enjoy and improve ourselves by whaling on each other-"
"Hey. I never said I was opposed to the idea."
... O-oh.
|||
In a dark tower, Flavius Cassius Agrippa, a decorated veteran of the Mistral gladiatorial circuit, bearer of the Empty Hand, and one of only two people mad enough to chase the aformentioned Tower, is beating up a group of skeletons and goblins some childish part of his mind had come to call The Notorious R.I.B.
He had no idea why it called them that, or why it's so funny, but it is, and he can only giggle internally as he punches another skull off another set of vertebrae.
As he lifts up another goblinoid necromancer, a chill runs down his spine. He stands stock still, the small creature ineffectually batting at his hand to make him let go of its robe.
While it slowly succumbs to suffocation, Agrippa can only feel a certain sense of... pride in his apprentice.
... Hmph. The boy must have found a new sparring partner.
He hopes she's good for the lad. Now, where was he?
I have a Fist of the North Star interlude planned out, which is why I avoided using the music here, and the music from the demo is a cast-iron bitch to find- I had to record it with Audacity just to get it for my own personal listening. Not that the new music is bad, it's just... a bit different. Besides, not using the Fight Knight soundtrack in an interlude inspired by Fight Knight made at least partially to shill Fight Knight doesn't feel right.
... Lumen seems like he's gonna be ok. He's gonna have fun!
He can handle himself. Probably. Anyway, you, and possibly Creme and Ada, are gonna go pick off some stragglers! Yeah, they're pretty much half-blind, and you're not, and you trust your teammates to look after themselves, and even if they can't, well, you're there.
If the one-eyed man in the land of the blind is king, what does that make the two-eyed man in the land of the Cyclopes?
{An archer?}
You snort a little.
"Come on, girls, time to mop up."
"What? Uh, Jaune, in case you haven't realised, we're half-blind. Probably more than half for Ada."
"Fuck you, Daylaw. You're right, but fuck you." Ada replies, just about managing to not sound completely venomous.
"Like I said, keep blinking, and the afterimage should clear up. Besides, I'm not taking on three people by myself, half-blind or not."
You look at your opponents and see two that you're not surprised made it this far- Haru Chinatsu, and Naia Sendoa.
Haru is cautiously moving around, hands up, palms open and faced up, eyes open but unfocused. Searching for an opponent, you suppose. Naia, by contrast, is trying to regain his eyesight as quickly as he can, blinking and rubbing his eyes as much as your own teammates are, his long, studded bat sitting on the ground next to him.
Between them, and trying her best to sneak away, is a girl you honestly cannot remember the name of for the life of you.
...
{Do you really care?}
You suppose not. She seems to at least have an idea of where the others are, considering how good a job she's doing of staying away from them, but otherwise, she doesn't seem to be in the mood for a fight.
Looking back at your teammates, you see they're left squinting, but otherwise seem to be able to focus on you.
"... I guess Lumen can handle himself." Creme admits after a minute.
You look over at Lumen and see Saff barely managing to bring up walls in time to block a volley of blue spikes and red blobs. Arrows and bolts litter the green armour, sprouting out like pin feathers on a bird, but apparently not doing anything to Lumen Aura-wise.
"I can't see shit yet, but Saff is seven different types of fucked, isn't he?" Ada asks nobody in particular.
"Oh yeah." "MY EYES!" DC 15, Roll: 8. Failure!
With that, you lead the girls, verbally guiding Ada when she got a little too off-course, to your opponents. Fortunately, or unfortunately, neither group seems to have completely regained their sight.
... God, this is gonna be like shooting fish in a barrel. With a grenade launcher.
You walk right up to Haru, and queue up a Crash()-
"ATA!"
His leg snaps out in a high kick which you just about lean back to dodge-
Before you can even ask for an explanation for that, you've been placed in front of the nameless girl instead, and you turn around in time to see a gout of raw plasma burst from a point directly in front of his foot, raising something by several units. You... don't think you've seen that symbol before.
Um. Nuclear whatnow?
{Ok, you know atoms? Well, those can be split apart, and the energy let out is... nasty, to say the least. We can talk about it later.}
... Moving along from the fact that you're now privy to an entirely unexplored field of science, You turn to the girl in question, calling out to your own girls at the same time. "Time to Custer the fuck out of this shit." DC 13, +1 bonus from Tactics, Roll: 18. Major Success!
"Focus on Naia, don't get near Haru!" You yell at Ada and Creme, prompting a yell of fright from the girl. You still don't care enough to remember her name, though you admire her choice to attack you half-blindly with her electrified baton.
You wonder, as you step out of her way and give her the good old Crash()-Breach() one-two, if 'admire' is the right word. She's sent rolling, and you wonder on the word. Respect? No, no, it's like... you find it kind of cute, almoaaaaaarghfuckthathurts!
Your left leg locks up in spasms as the once-rigid baton turns into a whip and wraps around your calf, quickly paralysing you. You fall to the ground in a twitching mess, your Aura dropping rapidly-
Activating automatic defences.
The Transistor snaps out of your still locked up hand, and flies towards the girl at blinding speeds, catching her-
Ooh.
Oooohhhh. Ouch.
… You really hope that wasn't a tooth you just saw. She's whisked away, and you're left rubbing some feeling back into your legs while watching Ada and Creme deal with Naia. The answer is, really quite well. He's still kind of blind, you think, because his swings are wild, and wide, only coming near either of the girls through sheer luck. They're running circles around him, whittling down his Aura as best they can through his armour.
By the time you're back on your feet, knees knocking together like a newborn colt, Haru's decided to join the fray, putting his Semblance to work on Ada, splitting the girls between them.
Ada is a blur, dodging unarmed strikes and jabbing at him with her ridiculously proportioned sabre with more speed and a certain frenzy that seemed to shore up whatever weaknesses there were in her technique.
Creme, however, seems to take a different approach now that Ada is out of the way- whenever Naia's club came near her, she would simply reach up and tap it, arresting its movement entirely while she shoots him with the tiny pistol hidden in the handle of her hammer, each round punching a fist sized dent in Naia's armour.
... Is... is she stealing his momentum for her bullets?
{Looks like it.}
WARNING: NUCLEAR FISSION DETECTED- ADA AT RISK. ALERT IMMEDIATELY.
Haru strikes out with an open palm and a yell, drawing it back from Ada's face at the last second.
"Ada! Duck!"
It's too late. Now that you know what you're looking for, you see the slight twinkle before the gout of plasma hits Ada in the face...
Goes... through Ada's face.
Phasic shift detected. Ally currently occupying perpendicular physical plane. Effect is similar to theoretical 4-dimensional creature.
As the stream dissolves into a harmless ionised gas, Ada stumbles back, flickering in and out of view like a bad TV signal. Eventually, she solidifies, and you can hear her breathing heavily from here, sword clenched hard enough to turn her knuckles white.
Before Haru can do anything more than stare at what just happened, your teammate screams her own rage out, raising her blade and slashing him across the chest, across the face, ending with a brutal stab to the jugular that sends him to the ground, thrown off-balance by her sudden fury. Creme, sensing her partner's wrath and deciding not to take the chance of her pulling a Lumen, dodges Naia and takes a low swing at Haru's face, snapping his head to the side and putting him below whatever threshold was set, because he flickers out of existence, this time in a much more permanent fashion than Ada.
Ada collapses to her knees, and you can see her shaking from here.
Extreme heart palpitations detected- possibly physical strain of Semblance, but the combination of tremors and shortness of breath points to panic attack. Vocals detected- amplify?
Y
Almost immediately, you hear her voice as if she's speaking right into your ear, and you don't like what you hear.
"I'm ok, I'm ok, it's just my Semblance, this is all real, I'm fine, I'm ok, and I can't do this fucking shit right now, I need to focus-"
{... Geez. Wonder what that's about.}
So do you, but at the same time it's not really your business, is it?
{... Guess not.}
Creme rushes to Ada's side, asking her what's wrong, and only gets breathing in response. Ada seems to... become more aware of where she is and tries to force her panic down as a result. Creme seems to be at a loss for what to do, poor girl.
Naia takes the moment to try and attempt stealth, shifting his club underarm, the end opening and the whole affair widening into a carried cannon. Neither of them is paying enough attention to notice the seven-foot guy with the handheld artillery gun pointed at them.
No, no, no- queue Spin()!
Spin() currently locked. One more data cycle required to free enough RAM to run the program.
Shit.
Er, queue Jaunt()!
{On your legs? What are you gonna do, cartwheel him into submission?}
SHIT. "Time to be relevant again!" DC 10, roll: 20. Crit success! For someone else! But it works for you! Success for everyone!
Before you can say anything to warn them, the friendly neighbourhood mole-man appears. Salem shoots out of the ground, eye set against the sights of his rifle, aiming it directly at the back of the giant's head. The shot rings out, deafening, and Naia is on the ground not a second later, the back of his helmet dented straight in, Moss disappearing into the ground as soon as he hits it. And he's still not been taken away.
Or getting up.
... Medscan, now.
No medical complications detected, Aura unbroken, above the critical threshold, and still reading as conscious. No reason for him not to be moving.
{So he's taking a minute.}
... That's fair. You imagine you wouldn't be in much of a mood for moving if you just took a bullet to the back of the head.
... Well. You guess you're... just, kind of waiting for Lumen to finish up Saff and Naia to get off his fat ass and face you, then it's Moss, then... you're done.
Status Effect gained- Bambi Legs- like the infant colt, your legs aren't quite working like what they're supposed to, and it'll take a while before you can become the majestic beast of the forest you were always meant to be. All movement rolls will be rolled by you, and suffer a -3 penalty without doing anything to mitigate it, and failure will result in your legs giving out, ceasing movement for a turn. The DC for the winning vote will be decided, well, when it wins.
System Restore() Throttling Disengaged- Spin() Queueable!
... Now what?
Aura: 85/150.
Current Loadout: Crash(), Breach(), Jaunt(), Spin().
Turn() Available.
[] Write-in. Yep. Entirely up to you for once. Naia's down, but not out, you can barely walk, Ada sounds like she's having a breakdown that's just about winding down, the moleman can't decide what side he's on, and Saff really needs a mouthful of soap. Have fun!
[] Character Switch
-[] Creme
-[] The Green Goblin Lumen
-[] Ada
-[] Someone Completely Separate From This Bullshit (Interlude Only) (D2)
You take a few shaky steps before your knee gives out and you have to take a moment to steady yourself. Nope. Walking is not on the agenda right now. Get over here.
The Transistor floats over, lying flat behind you so you can...
Urgh.
{Side-saddle's comfier, and we both know what happened to the last pair of jeans you wore trying to do this the normal way.}
Urgh. That doesn't make it less weird.
As your sword begins to float, taking your weight off your poor, abused legs, you gently ride over to Naia, still laying on the ground.
".. Bracket, are you sure-"
No medical problems detected. Aura stable, subject is conscious- possible theory is that he is taking a short rest to compose himself and restore his eyesight.
... Well, damn. Better deal with him sharpish, then.
Queue Breach() when in range.
Error: unable to perform Breach() while user is mounted.
... Of course. You're not sure how you forgot about some Functions' limitation of requiring the Transistor to... well, actually strike something in order to trigger. Well, Crash() and Breach() are the only ones, but you have a couple in the works that seem to fit in the same category. It's annoying either way.
{Hey, you coded them!}
You know! You know the exact line that forces that restriction, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot get rid of it without turning it into useless junk, at best, or dangerous junk at worst!
The moment of revisited outrage takes your mind off your legs as you float towards your target at what probably equates to a jogging pace. "You want to fuck with me? You wanna fuck with me?! I AM THE ONE WHO FUCKS!" DC 15, Roll: 1. So, who wants to see what fucking up Dust Sorcery looks like?
Once you're close enough for Breach() to perform its works, your sword tips you off at an angle, letting you hit the ground good leg first. After a couple moments of hopping, you grab your sword and queue Breach() a couple times-
And Naia's up, crouched low, a red Dust crystal in his hand.
"God I hope this is worth three month's allowance-" You hear him mutter from beneath his helmet.
... Wait, what?!
He pulses his Aura through it, glyphs appearing around his hand as he reels it back to throw at you. Turning Dust into an IED is pretty much the simplest thing you can do with them- some Aura, hell, a good throw will do the trick if it's powder, but in the end, it's still a grenade.
{Rich bastard.}
You wonder, as he sends it at you like a fastball, if that's really the point Blue should be fixating on. "Batter up!" DC 15, Major Failure Bonus +2 + Swordsmanship Penalty Negated, Roll: 20 + 2 = 22.
Without thinking, you step back, flailing your sword in the magical grenade's direction, not particularly bothered with edge angles or anything like that, you're just trying to get it away from you before it blows up. In the process, however, you manage to, one, hit it with the flat of your blade, two, not immediately have it explode in your face, and three, manage to bat it back to Naia, who raises his own club to bat it back.
Unlike you, however, he misses the crystal, and it slips beneath the collar of his armour as the barely-held club flies off into the distance. Listening closely, below Saff's sailor-shaming tirade as he looses arrows into the now less green than blue golem chasing him, you hear it gently clink as it makes its way through his chest plate. Once the tinkling stops, he looks you dead in the eye from beneath his helm.
"... Oh, fuck off, Jaune."
"Understandable."
Fire roars from every gap in his armour, from his collar, from his helm, from his gloves, from his knee plates and his boots, a solid five seconds of red-hot flames following the initial blast, before only wisps of smoke are left, curling up and around his body. Slowly, Naia gently tilts backwards, not collapsing, not stumbling, simply a perfect geometric transition from standing to on his back.
It, alongside the huge thump that comes with his finally reaching the ground, is one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen.
You wait a moment.
... He... isn't, going anywhere- seriously!?
How much Aura does he have?!
The screen says 60/500. Just above critical threshold- all Functions available would break his Aura and allow physical damage to commence.
... Ok, so what now?
... Physical attack with your weapon recommended.
{Er, no, Bracket, let's not use get used as a sword, because that armour looks like it would shatter us!}
Before the argument can devolve any further, Naia raises an arm at the elbow, bringing it down again with a large thud. And again.
He flickers out of existence, and out of the corner of your eye, you see Professors Moss and Teal helping him into a seat.
{... Did... did he just... tap out?}
You... think so.
Convenient.
... Shouldn't they be stopping you now?
You look up at Moss and Teal and see them looking over Naia and the two injured students. They seem to be more occupied with them than with ending the test, now that there's only six left.
{Must be dealing with them first. Which... fair, I guess. Maybe check on Ada while we're waiting?}
Good idea. You hobble over to your teammates, using your sword as a makeshift walking stick when you realise your knee is still incapable of acting as a knee and eventually limp your way to the girls.
Both of them are up now, gawping at you a little.
"... You- I- no, no, that is fucking bullshit, you did not just do that!" Creme is the first to jump on your case.
"What the fuck are you, Arc?! How do you get away with this shit?!" Ada isn't far behind.
"I just got lucky. Look, enough about me- are you ok? When you dodged Haru, that... looked rough." You say, shifting the conversation away from your lucky strike and towards Ada's own health.
The tiny girl goes quiet, suddenly incapable of looking you in the eye. She seems to shrink in on herself, and you wonder if bringing it up was a bad idea.
"... 'm fine." She whispers after a moment, sounding very obviously not fine.
{Drop it for now. It's not the time or the place, and she's obviously not keen on talking about it.}
"... If you're sure. Anyway, that should be six people now. I don't know why they haven't called it yet."
Before you can react to that, Sini's out of the ground again, a thin patina of dust whitening his face, his pistol pointed at the back of Creme's head.
"Me."
He pulls the trigger, and Ada's head jerks forwards, prompting her to finally react and twist around to stick him with her sabre, Creme following suit with her hammer. Ada misses, going high and just about giving him a little off the top, while Creme goes low, managing a strike to his throat before grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and physically dragging him out of the ground.
"GET UP HERE YOU GLORIFIED WHACKAMOLE!" She yells, throwing him at Saff. For a moment, Lumen's golem freezes mid-swing, globs of luxin and arrows both halting in mid-air and dropping to the ground, all just before Salem inexplicably, speeds up mid-flight. "AIM FOR THE SOFT THING-" DC 10, Roll: 10. Success!(?)
Mini-Moss slams into Saff, before slamming them both into the wall. And you do mean into- much like several sections of the arena wall already thoroughly abused by the other students, they've dug their own section into it, their bodies sprawled within its confines, and over each other.
The blue-green golem looks for his opponent, before apparently coming to the decision that that's enough goleming for today. The blue luxin begins to crumble, flaking away into a chalky residue, the green falling away like pine needles. As the layers come away, red, orange, yellow, all other sorts of colours flow out from cysts within its shell, quickly becoming dust and residue themselves. Once the smell hits you, a litany of chalk and pine, with undertones of tobacco and almonds and eucalyptus...
It's... heady, to say the least. The girls seem to agree with you, breathing deeply to take it in.
{He's a walking air freshener.}
Saff and Salem, however, don't seem to agree, considering their apparent inability to extricate themselves from the wall.
"Agh, you're crushing my hand-"
"You're crushing my leg! Ok, look, move your hips a little so I can get out a little-"
"YOU CAN MOVE THROUGH WALLS, WHY ARE YOU EVEN STUCK?!"
"WALLS, NOT PEOPLE!"
"THAT'S A FAIR POINT!"
"THANK YOU!"
... Moving along- Lumen, free of his shell, takes a moment. Even from here, you can see a thin sheen of sweat on his face and body, his hair left thin and stringy. Tilting his head back, he takes a few deep breaths of the symphony of scent he just created, before stumbling to reclaim his sword from the small river of orange luxin it was floating away on and looking around for you three.
As he plods along to meet you, you realise how out of breath he sounds.
Symptoms of nausea detected.
"H-hey guys." He says, a slur to his words. Now that Bracket's pointed it out to you, he really does sound ready to blow chunks.
"... WHY IS EVERYBODY ELSE ON THIS FUCKING TEAM SO TERRIFYING?!" Ada screams her frustration to the heavens, drawing a wince from... well, everybody.
{Good God she's loud.}
Theory: secondary Semblance of sonic manipulation.
Was... that-
{Bracket, was that a joke?}
... Affirmative.
... Your lil' Bracket's growing a sense of humour. He's on his way to becoming a real boy.
Brings a tear to your eye, it does.
After that moment of faux-fatherly pride, Saff and Moss finally extricate themselves with some imaginative use of their Semblances. Granted, the wall looks like an architectural nightmare by the time they're done, but it worked, you guess.
Saff yelps as they flop onto the ground still tangled together, before swiftly extracting themselves from each other.
"Ok!" He says, sounding more chipper than he's sounded since this test started. "So, are we doing the whole, teaming up with each other as a last resort thing, enemy of my enemy is my-"
Salem answers him in the form of a headshot.
{He's fond of those, isn't he?}
Saff, now on the ground, again, flickers over to the stands.
"FUCK YOU, SALEM."
"Understandable." Salem calls back to the more than angry Faunus, before moving towards your own team, drawing his cavalry sabre.
"Erm, e-excuse me!" Teal calls down. "That- there's only five of you left! You don't need to fight anymore!"
Despite thinking much the same thing, you join the others in looking at her like she's grown a second head. Quickly, her usual blush deepens even further, and she sits back down.
"What Professor Teal is trying to say is that if you wish to leave the fight, there's nothing stopping you."
"And what if we want to keep going?" Salem asks, his slow advance stopping for a moment.
"... Why? You're, in the top six! There's no reason to keep going except..." Something seems to dawn on him. "... You know what? No skin off my nose, Sini. If they want to fight, you fight."
You watch him as he sits down and folds his arms over, wondering what he knows that you don't.
{... The maze... did have that hole in the top. Do you think he heard...?}
... Oh.
{Yeah.}
OH.
{YEAH.}
HE KNOWS. ABOUT THE THING.
{I THINK SO YEAH.}
"Well? You heard him. We fighting or nah?" The short boy asks you, puffing his chest out and spreading his arms wide as he does.
"... Salem, do you really think you can take out four of us?" Lumen calls back. "Because, uh, no. You can't. One, sure, two, maybe, three, if Jaune wasn't one of them, all four of us? No. Give up, dude. Joint first... is still first."
{I mean, Lumen has a point. At the same time, if we beat him... are we taking the victory as a team, or do people start backstabbing?}
"I won't know until I try. And I just have to try."
"Er, sorry, would you mind if we just, take a moment? You know, discuss this among ourselves?" You call out, turning your team's heads.
"I'm in no rush." He says after a moment.
Everybody gathers up, forming a little circle.
"... Lumen, what the fuck? Why do you wanna stop?" Creme hisses at the gangly boy.
"Because I get ill if I draft too much luxin, and holy shit I've drafted way too much luxin! If I draft anymore, I'm probably gonna be taken off the field for illness anyway!" He hisses back.
"What, not even to jam his guns or something?"
"I... I'll need a couple minutes to settle down, but, yeah, I think so, if you keep him distracted- wait, no, no, don't distract me like that! I'm just... look, I can't fight, not right now." For a moment, he looks away, almost ashamed. "...Sorry."
"We all have our limits. There's nothing to apologise for. Ada, what do you think?" You ask the diminutive cyclops.
"I think Sini's a smug ass and the idea of taking him down a notch is very, very nice. I'm all for fighting, even if Lumen does puss out, but I'm not doing it by myself."
"Fuck you, cyclops."
"Go shit a rainbow, rainbow-shitter."
After a moment of glaring at each other, one of them snorts and it just devolves into giggles from there.
"Hello? We doing this or not?" Sini calls out.
That brings everyone back to the task at hand, and they look at you.
"... Jaune? What do you think? You're, pretty much the team leader, so... your call, I guess." Creme says, prompting you to make the decision. Lumen and Ada don't dispute the assertion, so you're definitely doing this.
Aura: 85/150. Full Function Suite Available. Turn() Available.
[] "... No. We're done." You're number five. At worst. You're happy with that, fuck Salem and his need to prove himself to a girl that isn't even here. He wants first place? Ok. Doesn't mean you can't make it as unsatisfying as possible in the process.
[] "Well you see, Sini, here's my opening offer-" Track him while you charge, then send a Spin() to hit ten feet in front of him. Should catch the fucker off-guard.
-[] And then?
[] "Just a moment, we're at something of a stalemate-" Lie, then plan. Since you're being afforded the moment...
-[] What plan? Who's doing what?
[] (Write-In)
Or perhaps I might tempt you with... a deal? NO YOU MAY NOT.
[] OVERKILL. BEST KILL.- Unknown to all but Bracket, for a price paid in processing power, you can... remove certain limits on certain Functions. Normally, this would require an Access Station, but Overkill Opportunities were never meant to follow the rules anyway. Remove the cooldown on Spin(), for a short while, reduce the Turn() cost to negligible amounts, and then...
Well. Checkumatu-da.
Since this is within the same scene, and a genuine bending of the rules, you will be rolling double- a D60 this time. With your bonuses adding up to +11, plus five if you decide to shell out for that bonus, the lowest you can safely roll is...
Ah. That would be telling.
THIS VOTE IS NULL AND VOID BY ORDER OF THE QM
Adhoc vote count started by Prok on Sep 14, 2017 at 5:31 PM, finished with 900 posts and 21 votes.
[x] An offer he shouldn't refuse: Make a plan, then offer Moss a deal: the team drops out if Moss pays for the team's victory dinner. If yes, great. If no:
-[x] Jaune: bait. Moss is an opportunist, so Jaune baits him into an attack of opportunity. Get off the sword, act like he's preparing something big. When Moss closes in, drop the sword a few times so Creme can gather a charge.
-[x] Creme: rearguard/hammer. Creme provides ranged support and if/when Moss gets close she hits him with all the force she can gather.
-[x] Ada and Lumen advance but they're allowed to let Moss get past. These two are least likely to cause friendly fire if Moss decides to stand and fight. Lumen doesn't need to draft, he just needs to put up enough of a fight that Moss goes after a softer target.
[X]Accept the offer personally but mention to the other members of your team that if they don't want to fight that they don't have to but you are going see this through to the end. -[X]Use ()jaunt to move where he is then use ()Crash followed by ()Breach
Oh that is interesting. Does that mean that armor damage effectively reduces someone's maximum aura? How does it account for attacks that bypass armor and aura both?
Removing someone's armour lowers their maximum Aura, and if an attack bypasses Aura, it accounts for it by adding a 'dead/critical injury' tag to them, usually. The entire point of the exercise is to equalise the damage output- so a Crash()-Breach() combo is always worth 30 points or more of Aura damage, for example. It's partially for the purpose of fine-tuning its own sensors so it eventually won't need to hijack people's scrolls to figure out their Aura, and partially a psychological thing for Jaune's sake.
It's so he's doing some decent damage against a much harder opponent, instead of looking like he's plinking away uselessly at a much easier opponent, then saying 'nah fuck this' and giving up that fight. It's a persistence tool- the problem is with the enemy's defence, not your attacks. I'm sure a psychologist somewhere just started crying, but EH
More seriously, that Dust Crystal took off about a quarter of his Aura, simply because it didn't have to deal with getting through the armour. Actually, if anything, it helped. The Dust crystal, that is.
Also you technically get two updates today, which is why this is so late.
|||
...
Nah. Fuck it. You're done. Lumen's sick, Ada's on the tail end of a mental breakdown, Creme... seems to be fine, you guess, but you're guessing she's just as tired as you are, and your legs can only just about keep you standing now. Three-quarters of you are not in fighting condition and the fourth will only make that worse if she gets hit.
"Personally? Lumen's sick, and you're going to transfer whatever damage you take to one of us, right?" You ask Creme, gently sidestepping whatever Ada's problem is.
"Not always. Or it might go back to Mini-Moss, that happens, sometimes." She replies somewhat defensively.
"... No. There's no point! It's-it's like Lumen said. Joint first... is still first. I'm too tired to care about pride. I don't know about you three, but I'm... I'm spent." "Please listen to my sermon!" DC 8, roll: 10. Success!
Your teammates go quiet, looking at each other for a moment.
"... Yeah. Honestly, I just want to get out of here and get something to settle my sturrmach." Lumen tells you, a light burp causing him to wince slightly. Already, you can smell the slight acidity of his breath.
"I just wanted to take him down a peg, but after getting kicked in the face with fire, I'm... not feeling great either," Ada replies, shifting uncomfortably at the memory.
Creme doesn't say anything of her own but nods gently.
"So we're in agreement? No fighting?"
{Looks like it. Go do the talking, champ.}
Waiting a moment for that to be confirmed, you walk out of the circle to meet Salem. He begins to shift his sabre into a rifle, and you shift your sword to a reverse grip, lifting it high, then lobbing it to the side, letting it hit the ground with a little whomp and a puff of sand.
{DICK.}
"No. We're done." You announce to the short fuck in front of you, feeling your limp begin to act up as you lose your only crutch. "Lumen's sick, I can barely walk, let alone do any of the stuff I'd need to do to fight you, and the girls aren't much better off. We can't fight you, nor do we intend to." You turn to the audience, looking at the teachers in particular. "We yield!"
And then you're up in the stands, Lumen on your left, Ada on your right, and you sit down. After a moment, your sword is teleported up to the seat next to Lumen, leaving Salem alone in the middle of the arena, gripping his sword tight.
He takes a good, deep breath, before sheathing his sword and letting himself be swapped with Moss and Teal.
"... Well!" Moss starts, beginning to walk about, probably happy for the chance to stretch his legs. "That was... several types of interesting. I've never actually seen the arena in worse shape than this, honestly."
He looks around, actually taking in the scene in around him for a moment.
"... Good gods what are we feeding you kids these days- er, normally, you would be just allowed to home, or in the case of those injured, to the medbay for a once-over, but there are a few points I want to make about today."
And just like that, any kind of levity is dead and gone. He raises a single finger.
"One. Some of you may be angry at others for what happened. Don't. What happened in the arena stays in the arena. They had the same goal as you, they were simply better prepared, better trained, better equipped, better supported, or just luckier than you. Don't hold that against them, and instead strive to work together to become better than you could have ever been on your own. Huntsmen and Huntresses work in teams for a reason."
He raises a second "Two. Only two groups formed the standard team of four. There were a few pairs, and one group of seven, for some reason I cannot fathom. Of those two groups, one of them broke down due to backstabbing, which immediately backfired, and the other only formed after the maze. But, the majority of groups, were groups of one. Frankly, I'm a little disappointed in you- we've trained you all in teams, and yet a large number of you seemed to be more infatuated with the idea of being the lone wolf, making it to the end by yourselves. That is the exact opposite of what this vocation is about. In Beacon, you will be sorted into groups of four, with a person you're paired with in the initiation. There is no choice. There is no way to guarantee who you're partnered with. It's entirely chance, and you will have to learn to work together, because this path, this world, is very cruel to the lone wolf."
Out of the bottom of your eye, you notice a few people's heads dip, unable to look their professor in the eye.
"Wait, but Mini-Mo- er, Salem was by himself, and he... well, he won." One of the girls points out, interrupting him.
Professor Moss smiles.
"Wait, no he wasn't, he joined me and Haru near the start, then he... disappeared..." Naia points out, starting strong then growing weaker, both in clarity and in conviction. His voice is hoarse, the Fire Dust obviously taking its toll on his throat even if it didn't break his Aura.
"Yeah, and he was with me in the maze, when my Aura broke." The girl with the shattered kneecap answered.
"Yes, my carbon copy was by himself. But, let me ask the class a question- raise your hand if you were personally saved by Mr Sini in some way."
It takes a few seconds, but hands begin to raise, Ada and Creme's included. After a moment, Lumen raises his too, gaining an odd look from Moss.
"Mr Tessaro, when did Salem help you?"
"He sideswiped Saff near the end. He probably didn't mean to, but it was still helpful."
That gets a small laugh from everyone, Saff's flipped bird garnering a larger one.
"Now, now, that's quite enough." Moss cuts through the giggling, some humour in his voice. "The point I wish to make is this- Salem was never on any team, but he made a point of never acting like he wasn't on any team. Transient alliances are alliances still."
He raises a third finger, leaving thumb and pinky curled. "Three... hrm. I'm not really sure if I had a third point I had to make..." He turns to Teal. "Did I?"
She freezes at the sudden attention but quickly forces a teacher's face on. "E-er, no, but... may I?"
I said she did it quickly, not well.
Moss smiles, and gestures to the audience, giving her the floor.
"... I... this, isn't the first time I've had to heal someone after a test. However, they aren't... horror story-worthy. In my time as a teacher, and a-as Signal's nurse, I have had to reattach fingers, limbs, repair arteries, and more bullet wounds than I can count. A shattered kneecap and a sliced forearm, while regrettable..." She takes a deep breath, her hands unconsciously clenching into fists as she looks away. "... are not the worst thing that could have happened. So, I ask both the injured and those who hurt them, please, don't hold this against each other, o-or Mr Mel!"
You blink. People begin to look towards Saff, suddenly remembering that, hey, yeah, that's his fault.
"No! Please, don't! I-if anyone should be blamed, we should, for not ending the fight prematurely once he rearranged the arena so much that Professor Moss couldn't use his Semblance! We should have... done more. We should have told you all that he can't use his Semblance if he can't see you, we should have ended it early, we should have moved so we could see in, we should have-" She begins to ramble, not quite focusing on the audience, not quite... not.
She stops herself, gripping the fabric of her ankle-length skirt, taking deeper, but shakier breaths as she looks away. When she continues, she sounds much more rigid than before, obviously trying to keep herself in check.
"... I know several trained Huntsmen who can't tell when someone's Aura has broken without a scroll. To expect the same from you, in a pitch black room, is simply unfair. As such, I believe no punishments should be handed down to those who caused the injuries."
She says nothing else, just biting her lip as silence follows.
{Sounds like she's seen a lot.}
You can't disagree.
Moss is the first to break the silence.
"... I can't say I disagree with her on this one. Anyway, that's really all I wanted to say. If you have any questions or concerns, I'll be in my class until around eight tonight, and Professor Teal's door is always open. Class is dismissed for the day- go home, go into town, but I wouldn't do anything too strenuous for the day. Ah, one thing though- Mel, Lye, my office before you go."
Saff and Emi both look at Moss, then at each other, trying to figure out their connection to each other, and everyone else stays still, looking at them too.
"... That wasn't a joke, people." Moss says after a moment, wondering why nobody's moving. "Go! Be free! Gods know you rush out of every other class like the room's on fire!"
Whatever tension was left breaks with that, and people finally begin to leave. Teal asks the injured and Naia to come by the medical room before they go, for a slightly deeper checkup, but aside from that, nothing else of note happens until you stand up. Your left leg, traitorous as it is, decides it wants to give out yet again, and you find yourself grabbing the person in front of you's shoulders for support.
"Hey! The hell, Arc?!"
"S-sorry!" You tell the redheaded boy, quickly shifting your grip to the seat. You grit your teeth and wince as the pins and needles flare up again, leaving you immobilised for a moment.
"Jaune? What's the matter, dude?" Lumen asks, concern obvious in his voice over his nausea.
"Leg's still useless. God, what did she do to me?"
Electric shock of around 100,000 volts at .5 amperes, cause of current inability to walk unknown- medical scan shows no logical reason for it. Current theory- psychosomatic. Suggest visiting nurse's station to talk to Professor Teal.
(Having her give you a once-over might help you feel better, at least.}
True.
You move to the edge of the arena, Ada and Creme following you, your sword floating to the edge with you. Once you're clear of the seats, Lumen shifts you, throwing one arm over his shoulders and supporting you before you collapse. Creme quickly moves to do the same, and you finally feel steady on their feet.
Ada just sort of hangs around you, and Lumen gives her a look.
"What? Do you want me to lift him onto my fucking shoulders or something?"
"... It'd be funny if you did."
Ada... seems to seriously consider that for a moment.
"You wanna go see Teal?" Creme asks, cutting off that line of thought before it goes anywhere.
After a moment, it's decided that most of your team could do with a visit to the resident healer, and you're on your way.
"... Uh, by the way..." Ada starts as you all try desperately not to get lost in the winding corridors of the academy. Even though you've all been here for, like, three years, you all manage to get a little lost anyway. "Thanks. For, not turning off the lights in the maze."
You blink, unsure how to react to that.
{'You're welcome' is a good start.}
"You're welcome. It wasn't like you were asking for an arm and a leg or anything."
She huffs a little, giving you a warmer smile than you've seen out of the girl so far. You take a moment to actually take her in, the raven black hair, surprisingly long, reaching down to her waist, the deep brown eye, the bandages not quite covering a nasty looking scar...
You stop looking at her before you begin to stare at it.
"It's just... I didn't really mean to ask for it, it just kind of slipped out, and I'm... I'm glad you did." She continues, a light blush tinging her cheeks.
Before you can respond, Creme suddenly drags you, and Lumen by proxy, down a hallway she recognises, claiming she knows the way from here. You spend the rest of the route chatting to them, listening to Ada and Lumen argue over every little thing, enduring exactly one question about your sword, warding off all others by immediately diving into specifics because dammit you're tired and not in the mood for an hour of question time, and generally...
Having fun. With other people.
... When was the last time you did that?
{Does it matter, if you're doing it now?}
It occurs to you, as you hobble along, that... no. It doesn't.
You're alright with this.
Achievements Unlocked:
Full House!- Grab a team of four people and keep them all alive until the end of the exam. Somehow, this achievement is easier for an armed combat test than it was for my maths exam. 10 Fate Points added!
Almost-Superman- Don't fall below half Aura for an entire combat scene. 5 Fate Points Added!
I- you- HOW ON EARTH- Bat Naia's Dust crystal back at him, turning his armour into a furnace. 5 Fate Points Added!
WE'RE NUMBER FIVE! WE'RE NUMBER FIVE!- Place in the top six. It's joint first, but not first first. 10 Fate Points added!
New Fate Point total: 60.
Traits Gained:
Diplomatic- You prefer words and non-confrontation when dealing with other people, at least. +2 to all rolls to do with mediation and de-escalation. ... Look, I'll be honest. Like, super honest here.
I cannot make this next scene interesting to save my life, and after all that up above, that's saying something, so, interlude time. It's forced, yeah, but trust me, whatever I come up with here, it's better than the alternative. None of these are taking place at exactly the same time, you'll join back up with Jaune once he gets home, and finally... finally... this test will be over. Vote for up to three, if you wish. Three different ones.
[] Nobody
[] Unlikely Pair
[] Couple Of Lovebirds
[] small notreallyhere girl
[] Doe, A Deer, A Female Deer
[] Luxbrah
[] CARING NURSE SCENE OR WE RIOT
The Fate Shop has opened. New wares are available.
God help you all.
Adhoc vote count started by Prok on Sep 19, 2017 at 5:03 AM, finished with 1001 posts and 23 votes.
Post-fuckup edit: huge thank you to @Algalon for pulling this from the aether with his spooky mod powers!
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Your name is Ada Doyle, and your eye hurts.
The sun is still high in the sky as you walk home, blade safely sequestered away in a quick sheath of wrapped leather- non-shifting weapons aren't legal to carry bare on a preliminary Hunter's license, as you found out the hard way- but it's on its way down, the horizon touched gently with pinks and oranges. The end result is that, naturally, you're being blinded by the sun as you walk home.
"Fucking sun, gotta shine right in my eyes while I walk home, what kinda right's it thinks it's got, pulling that shit..." You grumble to yourself as you navigate.
The pain flares up, and you have to stop for a moment, gently gritting your teeth and palming the gauze covering the source of your pain, gently rubbing it. It's not very effective, but the intent matters, you suppose. After a few moments of head-pulsing pain, it fades again, and you're left wondering what caused it. Taking a few deep breaths, you press on.
It's nothing fresh gauze and painkillers can't fix, you hope.
Once it settles down to a more typical pain, you walk on-
a hot breath on the back of your neck becomes a high, shuddering laugh-
You whip around, eye wide, machete out of your scabbard in a flash as you feel yourself flicker, ready to...
... Get caught up in old memories.
You take another deep breath, trying to calm down your heart so you can't feel it pulsing in your chest, in your wrists, in your neck... nothing there.
There's nobody there. It's nothing to worry about, she tells herself as you slip your blade back into the scabbard, and walk home a little faster anyway.
|||
Your apartment is a small, not quite dingy affair, but... lived in, you'll say. Granted, it's still situated in one of the rougher parts of Vale, but it's cheap, and the landlord doesn't ask questions about why a 17-year-old girl with a missing eye needs to rent an apartment by herself. You walk past that odd picture frame in the hallway that you can never quite bring yourself to take down, showing a girl the same age as you. Same hair, same eye colour, same eyepatch...
Walking past it, you untie your makeshift sheath from the belt loops on your trousers, leaving it in a bucket near the door, and pull your poncho off, hanging it up as you walk past the otherwise empty coat hooks, happy for the chance to bring some order to your life.
You walk into the small kitchenette cum medical facility you call, er, your kitchen, and, after some effort, manage to get up onto your counter and into the cupboard with the gauze and eyepatches. You suppose you should move them down to the lower cupboards, but in truth, she knows she just likes climbing on the counter.
It's a simple pleasure.
Taking out the gauze, the painkiller tablets somebody your size really isn't supposed to have, and antibacterial solution, you set some water on the hob to boil. While waiting for that, you begin the process of unwrapping the bandages around your head, laying the small pocket mirror in the kit in front of you as you do.
Pulling the patch away, you find nothing too concerning- tears, sure, but that's normal, no real mucus buildup, no blood, perfectly healthy eyehole, as far as your not medically trained ass can tell. As you look at yourself in the mirror, she sees how her eye is sunken, the lids drooping and deformed from years of having nothing to shape them. And beyond that, bright pink flesh, not inflamed, thankfully perfectly healthy.
You take pride in the fact that, despite years without formal medical attention, you've only had one eye infection, and that was when someone played dirty and threw sand in your face during a spar. Not hard enough to trigger your Aura, and too fast to react with your Semblance.
Ass.
Taking the water off the heat, you turn the hob off and leave it to cool, taking the time to think about... well, today.
You... passed your test. That's good. Hell, that's great! You're going to Beacon! You made...
Friends, you guess. There's that Arc guy, he's... quiet, but nice. Lumen's... a bit of a dick, but not in a bad way, and Creme...
It was weird, having someone check on her during the aftermath of one of her more severe episodes. It was nice, but it was weird. You wouldn't mind having that happen more often, on reflection.
But, yeah, it was... it was fun! Just, joking around with other people who aren't dicks that ask about your eye, or why you're so short, just, four people having fun and laughing about it.
... You didn't get their fucking Scroll numbers, you fucking dumb bitch-
Ugh. You can deal with that tomorrow- lockers still have to be cleared out, yearbooks, projects- eh, you'll probably run into them again at some point. No big deal.
Checking if the water is cool, you dip a cotton ball into the liquid and put a couple drops of disinfectant on it.
... Get it over with Ada. Putting it off isn't going to make it hurt less. You need to do this, she tells herself.
Gritting her teeth, you watch from afar as she gently wipes the mix of boiled water and disinfectant across her eyelids, wincing as the pain hits her. You feel it too, but it's just so... distant.
You find yourself pondering your feelings on today as you watch yourself clean out your eye socket on autopilot, observing yourself and your thoughts as time passes.
You passed. You made friends. Both of these are good things. Very good things. And yet, you find it... hard to care. You observe the disinterest, not quite connecting to it yourself, treating it more like a metaphorical curiosity to be turned in the hands. An oddity. Not one you can throw away.
As you wrap up your bandages, placing another patch just before you forget, you quickly down one of the painkillers with some water, before finishing the job, and wandering through to your bedroom.
Ha. Bedroom. Broom closet, more like. It's messy, as one would expect from someone your age, but you made your bed this morning, so that counts for something, right?
You flop down onto it, just about managing to kick your shoes off as you do. Ugh... you hurt all over. As soon as you hit the mattress, it's like every latent ache and pain in your body from the weird tingling sensation in your face from where you got a faceful of... what, fire? No, what's that other shit- plasma?
Plasma, yeah, sounds about right. Then there's the bullet to the back of the head, that hurts like shit, especially since you weren't even the one that got shot in the head, ugh. At least it makes all the other aches and pains kind of... not matter, in comparison.
You'll take that.
Without meaning to, your thoughts slowly drift towards that disinterest from earlier. You're... happy, about passing, about, about managing to make new friends through it, but you don't... think you're as happy as you should be.
For a moment, you wonder what that says about you. What this disinterest says about you. What your inability to be just truly, honestly happy about your own accomplishments says about you.
You feel those questions on your chest like physical weights, for a moment, and you can't help but feel a little short of breath for it.
Once again, you're watching yourself from the third person, and you find it... easier. You see yourself begin to flicker and imagine what it would be like to just... let it happen completely. Would you disappear, completely stop existing, just like that? Would you sink through the floor, through the earth, all the way down to the planet's core? What would happen then? Would you burn? Would you suffocate? Or would you just be kept there, unable to move, breathe, do anything to help yourself until you starved, or died of dehydration?
Some basic survival instinct gently clears its throat and you remind yourself that none of those are actually desirable.
Before you find yourself completely engrossed in those thoughts, you pull your Scroll out from your pocket, your earphones from another, and play some music to calm your nerves.
... And cause permanent hearing damage, but that's just a bonus. As the sound of soothing low-fidelity music fills your ears, you close your eyes and let it flow over you.
You feel the impact of thin knuckles on thinner wood more than hear it, and you open your eyes. A completely different song is playing in your ears, and the sky through your window is much pinker, twilight settling in properly. You must have dozed off.
Removing your earphones, you get off your bed and walk to the door, passing the living room, the hallway mirror, and up to the door.
Cracking the door open a little, leaving the chain on, you see an old woman in grey waiting outside.
"Hello, Ada!" She chirps, still managing to sound bright and cheery at her age.
"Oh. Hey, Mrs Pearl. Hold on-" You close the door and quickly undo the chain lock, opening the door for the old woman. You like Mrs Pearl. She knows how to keep you grounded. And she lives right across from you, so, you know, might as well make friends with your neighbours.
"I remembered that today was your test, so I thought I would make something special for the two of us. Have you ever had chargrilled shellfish?"
Immediately, your mouth begins to water as the smell of the dish wafts from her still open door.
"No, but if it tastes as good as it smells, I'd love to."
Her smile widens, a little croaky giggle escaping her.
"Well, come on, let's start before they get cold! You can tell me all about your test."
You find her smile infectious as you follow her, closing the door behind you and taking in the heavenly smell of marinaded shellfish slowly grilling.
"Well, I think it went well..."
It's... odd, the more you think about it, but your eye doesn't hurt so much anymore.
Tried that. Colours are easy to find- colours that translate well into names? Not so much. The RWBY name generator's good, but... some of them are pretty stretched if you ask me. Maybe I'm just picky. Then again, I did roughly name the guy who uses atomic karate "one hundred summer suns," so maybe I should lower my standards to match my talent.
That's technically only a recolour of Red, mind. While a nice idea of what he'd look like with the Transistor in tow, and perhaps a nice idea for a wardrobe change, should people be so inclined, I'm currently sticking with canon clothing for now. Not that you won't have the option to change before Beacon rolls around, but right now the armour-obscured Pumpkin Pete hoodie and jeans is what you've got.
|||
You shift a little in the bus seat, trying and failing to find a comfortable position that doesn't have you sitting awkwardly on your tail.
You'd never admit it, but you're kind of envious of the other does who ended up with ears, or a nose, or even just monkey Faunus- at least they can wrap their tails around their waist instead of having to either sit on it or have it jab into the seat and feel their entire spine get pushed up a disc. Spotting your stop, you palm the buzzer and get up, ignoring the looks you get as you walk past people, your tail finally freed from its confines to draw the looks of others. You're not sure how many are looks of ugh, Faunus, and how many are looks of oh tail ok kinda wonder what it feels like, but you don't particularly care anyway.
Let them stare. Maybe if they look close enough they'll see the hammer-axe on your hip and think twice about doing anything.
As you leave, you hear the driver mutter something under his breath.
"Thank you!" You chirp at him as you step off, watching with a little bit of pleasure as he freezes, knowing full well he'd just been caught red-handed. You walk quickly before anyone catches the tiny smirk on your face.
'Thanking them takes their power over you away from them. They want you to be hurt, to be scared, so when you turn and thank them, and it just slides off you like water off a duck's back, it throws them for a loop! If they don't hurt you, then they just end up hurting themselves in the long run.'
Your grandma understood people. She understood why they act the way they act, why they feel a need to lord it over you just because you happen to have a black nose, or a second set of ears, or tusks, or claws, or, like her and you, eleven inches of fluffy tail, and she understood how to not let them hurt her.
Either that or she decided to get philosophical one time and got really lucky, but you like to believe the former. Walking home, earphones in, the tones of the Achieve Men in your ears, one left a little loose so you can hear things come and go around you, but otherwise you're happy to let the bass rattle your skull a little.
... You wonder if buck Faunus feel the bass in their horns? Eh, you'll ask your brother when you get in.
As you get closer to your house, and the river you'll need to cross, you pull them out, happy to listen to the sounds of nature instead. The birds are singing, the brooks are babbling, the sun is low, slowly changing from a blinding white to a disk of deep red, painting the sky brilliant shades of pink and purple as it makes its journey over the horizon.
You reach the river, and, after a moment's judgement, hop from one bank to the other with a quick shot of Aura to the legs. It's only... what, 50 feet across, and it's closer to your house than using the bridge, and, Huntress, so why not?
Raising your head, you sniff, and the scent of wild garlic reaches you. Following your nose, you find the small bulbs hiding near the riverbank, and with a few quick tugs, have some new herbs for the kitchen. Then you see the wild parsley, and some rhubarb, a little further back, you can see grape vines, round, fat, black things, they look delicious, some small fig trees, some of those would be great-
By the time the sun's getting low, your pockets and bag are stuffed with wild fruits, herbs, roots...
Hrm. The sun is getting pretty low. Faunus or not, you should probably get home.
|||
You close the door behind you, hanging your hammer up on the small loop of leather your father bolted to the coathanger for you.
"Creme? Is that you?" Your mother calls from somewhere around the kitchen, you think.
"Yes, mama! I stopped to grab some stuff from the riverbank!" You call back.
"Get anything good?"
"Figs, some grapes, couple heads of garlic, bit of rhubarb-" You give her a quick list of the fruits and herbs stuffing your bag and jacket pockets as you make your way to the kitchen to deposit your well-earned loot. It's a small room, pretty much a narrow corridor with counters on each side, but it works for your mother, as she stirs a pot of something, little black nose twitching as she smells it. Lamb hotpot's on the menu tonight, you think.
"None of that grows near the bridge." Your mother says with, giving you a look. "Creme, you know I don't like you jumping the river- what if you fall in and get caught in a salmon hole, eh?"
You don't even bother trying to lie about it. It's your mother, like hell you can lie to her.
"Mama, I could make that jump before I got my Aura. My problem isn't falling in, it's not slamming into a tree on the other side."
"And it does my heart no good hearing about you trying it without Aura! You have a doe's tail, not a doe's legs!"
You pull out your cornucopia, and as each thing goes on the table, her eyes widen a little. Especially the figs.
Mama loves her some figs.
"... Just cross the bridge next time." She relents, before remembering something. "Oh! Your brother started shedding his velvet today! Largest set he's ever had!"
"You say that every year." You argue.
"Well, it's true every year. I think he's started to file them down if you wanna go and see them before he's done the deed. Oh, tell him dinner will be ready soon while you're up there."
Ah... prefixing a request with a suggestion with an implication. Classic mom tactic. You leave the kitchen and make your way upstairs, listening for the sound of filing.
"Bruno?" You call out, listening for the sounds of filing and, going off your father's experiences with the practice, copious swearing.
You hear neither.
... Mildly concerning. You look in the bathroom, and, as usual around this time of year, find a mass of bloody skin and fur in the bin, the smell of iron permeating the small room.
Ugh. He could have at least put it in a sandwich bag or something. Would stink less.
Leaving the bathroom, you walk across the hall to his room, and in a moment of mild irritation with him, forget to knock before you walk in.
True to mama's word, he does, in fact, have a large pair of antlers. Compared to the slightly fuzzy, thick tines of before, the thin, brownish-red material, gently curving from the sides around to the front, tines splitting off at several points, numbering five on each side, tapering off to a thin, but dull points. Combined with his height, and his musculature- he's not training to be a Huntsman, but he keeps in shape anyway- they look genuinely impressive.
But that's not what you're focusing on. You're focusing on something entirely different. Something you've never ever wanted to see your brother have in his hands. His head snaps up, and he quickly shifts himself around, hiding it as quickly as possible.
"Gah! Creme, why can't you knock?!" He yells, fixing you with an angry look.
"Same reason you can't clean up your velvet properly. You realise it stinks up the whole bathroom, right?" You tell him, moving on before he can get a word in, moving to sit next to him. He shifts further, still trying to hide it from you. "Besides, I wanted to see your horns. I gotta say, bro, they're looking good."
You make a point of looking straight at them, acting clueless about it as you poke at one of the tines, putting him in the awkward position of trying to swat you away without revealing what he's hiding. You don't know if he buys it, but it's still fun to watch him wonder if you actually saw anything. You'll have to have a serious talk with him about it later, but for now, you're content with messing with him.
"Uh... yeah. I'm, gonna have to file them down, though. They're tall enough that they catch on the doorframes, and mom already gives dad enough crap for that."
You giggle a little, remembering the odd week's grace papa gives his antlers every year, which generally consists of dull thunks and cursing of varying volume, followed by a full day of filing.
"Fair enough. Uh, mama said to tell you dinner's gonna be ready soon."
"Oh, ok. Guess I'll start filing them down after dinner." He says, still sounding somewhat nervous, silently begging you to please leave. You decide to oblige him, leaving him with a quick bye.
You close the door behind you and lean against the wall beside it. Slowly, you feel something like ice creep up on your heart, the disbelief in what you saw unable to hold up under the memories.
You know what you saw. Smooth.
Shiny.
Bone white. Red markings. Four eyeholes, a pronounced beak, reminiscent of a raven, or its counterpart.
Your name is Creme Daylaw, and you're coming to terms with the fact that your brother may have joined the White Fang.
Actually, the figs take care of that problem! At least, if the wasp has crawled into a 'female' fig, which means it can't lay eggs safely, so it dies, but it does pollinate the fig in the process, and once it begins to ripen, an enzyme called ficin dissolves the corpse. So all you're crunching on are seeds, not wasp carcass, but every ripe fig has had a wasp inside it at some point. Then again, most pigs have probably had something less than savoury inside them at some point, and we still eat bacon.
Never say this quest isn't educational, and that figs aren't fascinating.
Now I have an idea for a story in which each chapter is an interlude from the perspective of someone in the last chapter, until it finally comes back to the first person.
I've played about with the idea of a quest that expands on what's happening in the Fate Shop right now, where you actually play as the Seosten, and you have to possess people around your initial host in order to make it to a place worth being in. Then I looked at how my last original quest did and just kind of didn't.
And now, the mystery interlude. It's a three-parter.
|||
You hurt.
You got the call in the small hours of the morning, and you let it motivate you. What would be a three-day mission for you and your team, you completed in seven hours by yourself, and you hurt for it. Your hands of flesh and bone made steel through your soul tore the Grimm to pieces, but they took their pound of flesh in turn. By the time you were done, your Aura was broken, your body with it, gouges of flesh taken by the Grimm, your arms slashed to ribbons- Nevermore feathers sprouted from your back in such numbers that you seemed to be wearing a cape as black as spilt ink.
Your team saw you, the horror in their eyes as you stumbled into the camp, then out the other side, not allowing yourself to stop, to falter, only one thought in your mind.
Lennie tried to stop you, telling you to stay so he could treat your wounds, but you silenced him with four words.
"Can't stop. Baby's coming."
For a few more shambling steps, there was silence. Then he only said one thing.
"... Godspeed, you crazy fuck!" He yells, the rest of your team cheering you on to get your ass to the hospital.
You didn't pay it much attention. You were focused on your feet.
You stumbled, the rhythm broken, and suddenly you were next to the hospital- a small, squat building, barely a large brick hut. You must have stopped thinking about how far you were from the village.
You shambled to the door, pushing it open with a clumsy shoulder and giving the receptionist a small heart attack as she saw what state you were in. Her screams carried through the entire building, and suddenly you're the centre of attention.
"Roy?!" Doctor Mul yelled, her voice panicked as she rushed over to try and support your frame. Considering you're about half-over her size and twice her weight, you appreciate the thought if nothing else."Wh-what happened?!"
"Grimm." You told her as if that explained everything. "Where's Nella?"
"Wh- you're in no condition to see her, you have to-"
"Please. Just... before I pass out. Let me... lemme see..." You felt your head come over with a haze, words and thoughts began to blur together. You forced it away, refusing to let something as trivial as some blood loss stop you. You focused, using the pain as a catalyst to grind out one last sentence before speech left you.
"Let me see my kid."
Mul looked at you like you'd gone insane, but she looked up at you, past the long, thick beard, below the jutting brow, into your eyes, and she must have seen something you're not aware of there because she stayed silent and took you by the hand, leading you by it.
"Just try not to fall on me. Or get blood-" She glanced behind her, taking in the floor with a mild grimace. "-nevermind, too late for that."
You're led into a small room, curtains drawn around a bed, the sound of your wife screaming in pain, the midwife trying her best to keep her calm, instructing her in how to birth a child.
It hurt you, to hear that. You felt your heart gripped and squeezed and contorted with every yell of pain, and you found some reservoir of strength cracked open by it. You stood tall, your bald, bloody head easily poking over the top of the curtain, and you walked over, no longer shambling, no longer stumbling, because Nella needs you, and Nella needs you strong.
You poked a hand through the break in the curtain, drawing a yelp of surprise from wife and midwife both.
"R-Roy?! Is that you?"
"It's... me." You tell her, straining to get the words out. Your lips feel leaden, nearly impossible to move to form the words you want to say.
"B-but you're supposed to be hunting the Grimm!"
"I... did."
"... What do you mean you diiIIIAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
"You're crowning! Keep going, you're almost there!"
Resting your calloused hand on the rail, you felt her hand take yours, pain and stress giving her a frankly cruel level of strength to be subjecting your hand to, even if she couldn't actually wrap hers around it all that well.
She began to scream again, and you grit your teeth as your hand is subjected to the worst crushing sensation you've ever had to experience. You don't know how long this went on for, this cycle of screaming, hand crushing, and heavy, panting breaths. You felt your teeth grind, a miracle you didn't crack them, the pain was so intense. Still, you stayed silent but for small words of encouragement.
Then? Then came the crying. High, keening, begging for attention. A slight gurgling to it, like it was being done through a thin layer of mucus. You hear the midwife curse under her breath before scrambling for a tool of some sort. A moment later something was sucked away, and the gurgle disappeared, leaving the sound clear.
The baby. Your baby.
"... It's a girl!" The midwife said.
It was a girl. You had a daughter.
You had a daughter!
Your wife was breathing hard, and a snip later, the baby was cut from the umbilical cord, laid down on a small table next to the bed, where the midwife started to check it for... things, you heard something about heart rate. All you could see were silhouettes, the curtain still drawn around Nella's bed. The midwife handed your daughter to her after a few moments, and your wife went silent while you resisted the urge to rub your hand.
"Roy? Come in and see her." She asked you, the smile in her voice so, so obvious, it lit the room around you just to hear it. Everything that she'd just gone through didn't matter anymore because she was looking her baby in the eyes, and it was good.
"... I don't... I don't want you... to see me like... like this." You told her.
"What? What are you talking about?"
"I'm... not exactly... in great... great shape right now." You explain, every source of pain flaring up once more.
Nella stayed silent for a moment, the midwife still working around her, ahem, lower bits for the moment.
"... Ok. I understand. Er, Sister, could you... hand her to my husband?" Nella asked, and you find yourself smiling. She always did understand why you felt the need to be seen as... a rock.
"Of course." The midwife said, quickly getting off her knees and taking the baby from her mother. You stepped back as she shifting her way through the thin, blue curtain, managing not to open it too far. You shifted around, making sure to stay out of your wife's line of sight, which was the point where your knees simply gave out, leaving you to drop to them. When she finally spotted you, the young midwife, probably not even twenty-five, gave a slight yelp, before cutting herself off with a bit lip. Taking a deep breath, she handed it to you, squeaking out some instructions on how to hold her, and suddenly you're left with a bundle of fabric in your arms.
Small enough that you could fit her in the palm of your hand if you felt like it. But... this was good. Looking at your daughter, her tiny face with those deep, muddy brown, too large eyes, looking back up at you with more curiosity than anything else, noting how the tufts of hair on the sides of her head left her looking almost as bald as you, you felt the pain just... melt away. Suddenly, the cuts along your arms meant nothing. The Nevermore feathers might as well have not been there. The holes, left by Boarbatusks trying their best to gore you, simply stopped existing.
You felt your Aura again, bolstered by the sheer... wonder, you feel, looking at your child. A smile, foreign to you at the best of times, tugs at your lips. The thin, blue light of your soul, still weak, still fragile, but getting stronger with every passing moment, began its task of keeping you alive for just a little longer. Long enough to enjoy this.
"She's beautiful, isn't she?" You heard Nella say.
"... She's... so small."
"Only to you, you big lug!" She answered playfully. "... What should we name her?"
Oh God. You had no idea. Even if you weren't on the brink of unconsciousness, you would have no idea.
Then, unbidden, a flash, one final thing to say before you gave in to your injuries, numb as they were at that moment.
"... Ada... I... I like Ada..."
"... Ada Doyle." Your wife agreed. "It's beautiful, Roy."
You didn't respond. You wanted to remember this face forever. You wanted to commit it to memory before you...
Before... you...
As consciousness left you, you distinctly remember... not hurting anymore.
|||
You are nobody.
And you hurt.
You are sitting in a bar, nursing a bottle of beer, trying to think on the best day of your life.
You're trying. Which is better than some days.
The girl behind the counter doesn't seem to pick up on your unsaid desire to be left be and tries to strike up a conversation with you while she continues polishing a glass.
"Lien for your thoughts?" She asks, looking up at you. And up. And up.
... And up.
"Nothing much worth a lien going on up here." You tell her. "Besides, don't you have others to serve?"
That's a lie. This bar's mostly dead, except for some equally sad drunks and a small party going on in one of the booths by the sounds of it.
For some reason, she takes that as something to laugh at.
"Nah. See those fellas over there?" She asks, pointing subtly at some... rather rowdy fellows. The aforementioned party, you realise. "College tournament team. Good fighters, sure, can't not root for the home team, but I doubt there's a thought worth a lien rattling in any of those heads."
One of them begins chugging their drink, the others cheering them on. Full pint in fifteen seconds.
Amateur.
Slamming his glass down, he lets out a victory belch, echoing through the bar like a thunderstorm.
"Eurgh." The barmaid wrinkles her nose. "See? Animals, the bunch of them."
You snort, a sound much like the snuffling of a bull, but otherwise choose not to comment on it.
"Alright, I get it." You relent. "I was... thinking about the day my daughter was born."
You can see her heart softening already, her gentle smile growing. "Yeah? What's her name?"
You bring a hand to your head, rubbing an old scar. If you watched carefully, you would see her suddenly take in... all of that. Every line, every patch of scar tissue, all gathered over the years and put on display across your body like a tapestry of old aches and pains.
"... Ada. Her name's Ada. I'm, looking for her. A lot of stuff happened, back home, and she had to run. I'm, trying to find her again."
"... Oh. Well, I won't pry there. Any luck?"
"'Fraid not. I tried Vacuo, nobody there'd heard of her, so I'm going up to Vale. She would have been stuck to walking or hitchhiking, so I'm just kind of... hoping she's still on Sanus."
"... Wait, Vacuo and Vale? You don't know?"
You shake your head.
"I... just told her to run. Wasn't safe to tell her where, or ask where she was going."
She gives you a sympathetic look.
"Grimm attacks are harsh like that. At least she got out, right?"
You wince before you can catch yourself, and decide she probably saw.
"... Not Grimm."
Memories of a grin splitting a face in half, hair, golden, wild, a painfully anorexic body holding your daughter by the neck as those damned fingers roamed across her face-
The sound of crinkling glass in your hand brings you back. You look down and see that you've managed to crack the bottle, your grip was so tight.
The barmaid tenses up, dots suddenly connecting in her head. The glass in her hand slips free from the cloth, and you just about manage to catch it as it drops, your arm easily reaching the other side of the bar, your hand enveloping the glass completely. You place it on the counter, gently.
"... I'm, so sorry. I-I didn't know you came from-"
"It's fine. I was lucky."
So was she.
... Suddenly you don't want to talk so much anymore. Ignoring the leaking, you down the rest of your beer as quickly as you can, gently setting down the bottle so you don't actually shatter it.
"... I'll, go. How much do I owe you?" You ask her, palming yourself for your wallet.
"Nothing." She says, choosing not to look at you now.
You raise an eyebrow at the sudden charity, but don't question it.
"... Alright then. Thanks for the beer."
"Anytime. Good luck finding your daughter." She calls as you leave, and you raise a scarred arm in thanks.
So! I wrote out part 2 of The Nobody interlude, looked it over, and realised I would probably step on some toes if I published it as is. Not your toes, no, moderator toes. The ones that actually matter.
The toes that stub back.
... This analogy is breaking down- my point is, after some heavy editing, I sent off the main problem part for approval, and now... I'm just, waiting, and I don't wanna start actual story updates back up until I've finished it, so, have an interlude instead.
|||
The world fades. Not into grey, but into purple. The mark on the back of your hand, black at the best of times, shines even darker through the gloves you use to cover it up. You watch Pyrrha slow to a standstill, halfway through asking you what you meant by 'I shouldn't be here.'
"Well? What did you mean by that?" The man with the black eyes and the red leather jacket asks you. "Were you talking about your failure at school, unable to utilise your abilities to their fullest, scared of being discovered, and subsequent faking of transcripts? Or were you referring to your pact with me specifically?"
You don't respond to him at first, before realising he's not going away.
"... Both, I suppose." You relent. "I mean, the transcripts would get me kicked out, but... this..." You gesture to your left hand, the sparking, tingling sensation of a forced Time Stop leaving it a little numb. "This could get me executed."
"The Abbey has no such power in Vale. You may be given a cold shoulder, but I hardly doubt you'll be hunted down unless you decide a trip to Atlas sounds like fun."
You finally turn to face him.
"And that's better? I don't, I don't want to become the next, the next Steele, the next Auntie Goodwitch, I want to live a normal goddamn life, just for a little while!" You tell him, unconcerned for anyone overhearing you. A conversation held betwixt moments cannot be overheard by those who cannot slip between them like you.
"And yet you took my Mark. I can't help but sense a certain dissonance between your actions and words, Jaune."
"You say that as if they're mutually exclusive! Am I not allowed both?! I'm a Huntsman, is that not entertaining enough for you?!"
"There are many Huntsmen. None of them tried to beat down three people twice their size at ten for hurting their sister. You take my gift, and you squander it, and I can see why you do."
"Really? You can see why I squander your gift? Well, fucking enlighten me!" You yell in his face, to no effect.
"You are scared."
The words cut through to your core, and you find yourself... surprisingly calm. Almost relieved that somebody finally said it.
"You feel you will be ostracised the moment that you tell someone, so you don't tell them, you know you will be found out the moment you use it, but you know you're going to fail if you don't... a vicious cycle, with no easy answer."
You stay silent, your chest numbing as you realise he's right.
"... Will you continue like this? Allowing yourself to stew in your own anxiety, crippling yourself by not using my Mark, and perpetuating the cycle, or... will you take the plunge?"
You stare at him, silently uncomprehending. Noting your look with some mild annoyance, your benefactor nods to Pyrrha.
"The Invincible Girl. She only wishes to help. Does she seem like a follower of the Abbey? I know nothing of her, but... I would not say so. Indeed, she seems a safe haven in a stormy sea. If she takes it well, all is well. If she doesn't, then you have no reason to hide your powers anymore."
... For a moment, you consider his words. He does have a point.
She's from Mistral, and, yeah, Mistral, they might not be as bad as Atlas, but they're... not far behind. Still, she hasn't done any of the preaching bollocks you've heard Schnee go on about, so either she's quiet about it, or she's not a follower. Either way, she'll have heard all the propaganda about the Outsider and his worshippers, and that... ugh. Even if she doesn't try to kill you, she's going to be as uncomfortable as anything around you, assuming she doesn't accidentally blurt it out to someone, then it's just... ugh.
"If you don't tell someone, you will only destroy yourself."
You feel your fists ball up, and you move back to the edge of the rooftop with a speed that would probably have Pyrrha scared shitless.
You don't jump off, of course. You simply stand there and scream your frustration for nobody to hear.
By the time you finish, you feel... quite a lot better, actually. Screaming until your throat is hoarse is surprisingly therapeutic. You take a deep breath, before looking back to the black-eyed man.
"... Ok. Ok, fine. I'll... I'll tell her."
"What you choose to do is your choice alone. Telling her is but one of the many options you have, Jaune. All I ask is that you pick an interesting one."
With that, The Outsider fades away, and the world... unpurples.
"...mean?" You hear Pyrrha finish her sentence, before looking around for you. "Huh? Jaune, where did you- ah!"
She starts slightly, seeing you directly behind her, and just barely keeps from throwing herself off the roof in your place.
"Whoa, hey, you just pulled me back from that ledge!" You tell her, quickly grabbing her hand and steadying her.
"Wh- how did you- you were right in front of me!" She says, before coming to some revelation. "... Jaune, did you discover your Semblance?"
"No." You cut off that line of thought before you can use it as an excuse, and take a deep breath, trying your absolute damnedest to just take the plunge. "I... can I, ask you a personal question?"
Testing the waters is always a good idea before plunging into them. Right?
"... Go on."
"How... how do you feel about the Abbey? Specifically, their beliefs?"
She blinks, but brings a fist to her mouth in thought anyway, seeming to seriously consider the question. The ten seconds or so that it takes her to formulate an answer are the longest ten seconds of your life, and you regularly talk to a godlike being who stops time on a whim.
"I... respect those who follow its teachings, and the teachings themselves, but I do not follow them because there are certain parts of it that..." She looks down for a moment. "Rub me the wrong way. It is... flawed if followed blindly. That's the only way I really know how to put it."
You nod, finding her answer at least somewhat comforting.
"... And... what about their teachings on the Outsider?"
Pyrrha freezes, and you fear you may have just stepped on a landmine.
"The Outsider's cultists are savages, but..." She looks away fully this time, turning to look out towards the tower. You could hear the uncertainty in her voice, the lack of conviction in her answer.
You hear her mumble something.
"... I'm sorry?"
"... Nobody deserves the stake."
... Oh. Oh dear.
"... I'm so sorry." You tell her.
"It's fine. It's... been some time. I... I like to think I've moved on." She tells you, her voice cracking ever so slightly.
You don't know if you should do this now. Like, after that, it just seems kind of... tasteless.
And the whole savage cultist comment doesn't help-
"Can I... ask why this came up?" Pyrrha asks after a moment, and you freeze up. "I doubt that you're just asking out of curiosity."
You stay silent, words leaving you. She looks at you with those big, green eyes and smiles warmly at you.
"Jaune... we're teammates. If we can't talk to each other, who can we talk to?"
You scoff, immediately regretting how dismissive it sounded, before rolling with it and turning away from her for a moment.
"Pyrrha, I appreciate the sentiment, but... this isn't the kind of thing you just go and tell people. It could... it could get me killed, at worst."
"... What... what are you talking about?" She asks before you hear a gasp, suddenly connecting dots in her head. "... Jaune, do you worship the Outs-"
You whip around, cutting her off quickly before the thought can settle.
"No! It's... just... look, Pyrrha, I-I like you, I really do, I respect you as a fighter, as a teammate, you're honestly one of the nicest people I've met, and I can still barely manage to work up the trust I need to talk to you about this!"
Silence. Nothing but your breathing in your ears, and your heart pounding out of your chest from sheer nerves, you almost wonder if she's about to just break and run, leaving you to stew in your stress once more.
"... They caught her with a bone charm." She starts, walking over to you. "She had no idea what it was, except for the fact that it was warm when she was cold, and that it whispered to her, small comforts, nothing bad, just encouragement to keep going. She needed it, a lot of days."
You look up at her just in time to feel her hands on her shoulders.
"Her name was Euphemia. I met her every day on my way home from practice, this homeless girl just my age, and we were... friends. She showed me it, one day, let me hold it, and it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, this, crudely made trinket of bone and metal. It loved her, and she loved it, because with it, things just... felt ok."
She leads you to the bench near the door, and you both sit down for a moment.
"... The Overseers caught her. Even with laws against passing down harsh sentences for minor crimes in place, they just wouldn't stop pushing. It was like they were trying to make an example of her- everybody knew the judge was in their pocket, they were pressuring the jury, and in the end... she burned."
She looks away, trying to hide the tears in her eyes.
"... My parents tried to stop me. They tried to stop me from going to see her one last time, and I regret not listening to them because nobody should have to watch someone they love burn at the stake." Her voice cracks, and you find yourself...
Speechless.
She looks at you again, not even bothering to hide the cracking of her voice or the shine of tears in her eyes.
"... Please. I... I want to know. You say it could get you killed, and I want to know, so it doesn't have to be a surprise if we end up losing you to the Abbey as well. I don't- I don't want Ren and Nora to go through what I did. Even if you don't trust them with it, trust me, for them."
... What do you say to that?
What can you say to that, but the truth?
"... Ok. If you're sure."
You pull off your left glove and show her the back of your hand. After a moment of looking at it in the dark, Pyrrha gasps, her own hand covering her mouth to muffle the noise. After several, painful seconds, the shock passes, and she speaks.
"... You... how? Why? Why would you-"
You cut her off with a raised hand, silently begging for silence.
You take a deep breath, and you tell her your story. How, at ten, you were given his Mark in the middle of trying and failing to beat up three high school punks who were beating your sister for not having money, how you didn't really understand what you were agreeing to but fuck, man, it was your sister, and when the world started again, you felt stronger, faster, you could move from place to place without occupying the space in between, how taking down all three of them was effortless...
Nothing is held back. You give her the cliff notes of what you can do, and seven years of baggage all in the space of ten minutes.
When you finish, you feel... lighter. So, so much lighter.
"... And you... talk to him?"
"I talked to him not even fifteen minutes ago. You know, when I just suddenly appeared behind you?"
She replays the moment in her head, suddenly realising what it meant.
"... Oh my heavens I wasn't even 20 feet from the Outsider."
"Yep."
Pyrrha... chooses not to ponder on that for the moment, you think.
"You have a direct line to the being that the Abbey despises, and his Mark on your hand- how do you cope with that kind of stress?"
"... Honestly? I don't. I've just, gotten so used to it that I don't even notice I'm stressed out anymore. It's my norm."
She seems to go through several emotions hearing that, before settling on near-heartbroken.
"... Did it feel good? To get it off your chest?"
"It was the best decision I've ever made. You're the only other person who knows about this, now, and I didn't realise how much I needed that. Well, you and the Outsider, I guess. You?"
"... It... made me realise I probably haven't moved on as much as I hoped I had."
You both stay silent for a moment, just... watching the starts together.
"... Do you want to talk about it more?"
"Do you?"
"More than anything else."
And so you talked, about her friend, about your Mark, about the Outsider and the weird tasks he sets you every now and then, and the night passes by.
By sunrise, you both find yourself drifting into sleep, not enough to keep the other awake.
Your bodies may have suffered, but your minds were more than grateful for the sacrifice.
Well I was just hoping you'd go "go ahead and write it" but rewards are even better. Have a HeroAca crossover. Specifically, have Part 1 of 3 because I don't have infinite downtime at work and I don't trust drafts as far as I can throw them.
Your name is Jaune Arc, and you don't have a Semblance.
This isn't normal, by any stretch of the imagination. A Semblance is practically required in this world, after all. Everyone has one, an ability crafted from the shape of their soul. Everyone who isn't you, anyway. No, your power comes from others: nine other souls that stand behind yours, the ninth of which is currently standing opposite you, sipping from a coffee mug and smirking at you in that way he does when he has some kind of plan.
That's the Huntsman Deku, known to you and select other people in his life as Izuku Midoriya, one the few surviving veterans of... Pretty much every armed conflict Vale has been part of since your parents were infants, and successor to Toshinori Yagi, another Valean legend almost on the same level of mythos as the Maidens and the Wizard from the fairy tales.
Your power isn't really yours, not yet at least. It was a gift from your hero, nay, your idol; Deku always laughs when you call him that, and he won't tell you why. You shake your head and focus yourself on the task at hand. Standing on a launch pad, about to be fired into a forest of questionable lethality is a strange time to ponder the nature of power and how you got yours.
Speaking of your power, you should really figure out how to use it and what it has to do with eating one of Deku's hairs before-
BOING!
Oh shit this is going to hurt.
You let out a battle cry as you soar majestically through the sky. That's your story, you're sticking to it, and anyone who said you tumbled head over heels through the sky screaming like a little girl is a vicious liar.
Your mighty declaration of contempt for gravity and inertia is interrupted as a javelin snags your hoodie and pins you to a tree. You could probably free yourself with just Aura, but you feel like there are worse things than being suspended on a tree while you're not sure how to actually use your gifted Semblance. Dire warnings of limb removal echo through your brain as you recall Deku explaining, once again, the reason he didn't give you One For All before you graduated Signal. While you're trying to decide if you feel anything different about your Aura, that white-haired snow angel walks into the clearing, looks up at you, and turns around to leave for some reason.
You think you hear Ruby's joyful shouting about someone coming back, but you don't pay it any mind. More footsteps distract you again, this time belonging to the Pumpkin Pete girl, what was her name again, oh, right, Pyrrha! You're pretty sure this is her spear/sword/gun, so you yank it out of the tree with an effort of strength and just a little Aura.
"Hey there, Pyrrha!" You greet her cheerfully, offering her the handle of her weapon with a smile. "Thanks for the save, I was a little distracted."
The Spartan-looking girl accepts her weapon and deliberately looks you straight in the eye. "It was my pleasure. Jaune, right?" She questions, looking hopeful. At your nod, she continues; "It's good to meet you properly... partner."
