Chapitre 27: Chapter 27
[||||=LEVEL 27= ||||]
"Can't you just… I dunno…. Do some rune stuff?" Ruby looked at me hopefully. I looked to her sadly.
"No Ruby. Homework has to be done. Runes only work so much…. Actually I could do a compulsion rune." Ruby shivered.
"Nope! Never mind then. I'll just fill this out…"
"Good enough. Personally I just ignore half my homework and rig the grades." Ruby looked to me with a betrayed expression.
"What?! Why am I working on this boring math work if you can just rig my grade?!"
"Firstly, it's easy for you. Just time-consuming." Ruby pouted but didn't refute that. If you sneak in yourself and change it yourself then fine but just know that you might be expelled if you're caught." Ruby sighed and got back to work.
"Ah, changing your grades to get out of homework." Raven reminisced from across the room. She was currently cleaning blood off of her blade into a small basin since she had just gotten back. "Summer and Tai actually did their homework. Qrow and I just changed ours every end of quarter before the teachers changed it. We bribed and blackmailed a few times. Oh there was also a few times we were able to threaten a student who had access to the mainframe into changing them for us."
"Is it a universal thing?" I asked. Raven shook her head.
"Only among those who are more intimately affiliated with the underworld. Beacon doesn't mind it too much if you're subtle, actually deserve it, and use your free time well. My team used our time for extra combat training so they even looked away a few times. At the end of our fourth year we were beginning to work for Ozpin… or, well, Summer was. It was enough that we were given some leeway without even trying that hard. It's very easy for a teacher to click the wrong button when marking an assignment missing. And grading essays is so subjective."
I nodded. "I just blackmail my math teacher now." Raven laughed.
"That was the one class that Summer hated. She despised math so much that she actually got cloak and dagger with her math teacher. It was amusing but she actually did get her math grade good without spending all her time studying."
"Am I the only one who actually likes math?" Ruby complained.
"Qrow is alright with it. Tai loves math." I said. Raven nodded agreement.
A moment of silence rang as I finished writing my letter to Pyrrha. Ever since getting her first letter over three months ago we had struck up a correspondence. Pen pals, basically. Pyrrha was… well she was awesome. She was nice, smart, surprisingly funny, and not super lonely or anything. She doesn't have many friends apparently since she's far and above the best at sanctum, which was Mistral's equivalent to signal.
"Is that your secret long distance girlfriend?" Ruby asked mischievously.
"It's Pyrrha, yes." I said, ignoring the secret girlfriend part.
"Have either of you confessed your undying love yet?" Raven cut in with a hidden smile. Ruby's grin said that she was going to say the same thing. "Of course not. We need some guy or girl to try to date one of us. We'll let it stew for a while before we burt into the other's wedding and proclaim our mutual love."
Ruby giggled and Raven rolled her eyes. I smiled just a little at their antics. "And what about you two? Is your secret project coming along? Or finished the schematics for my weapon yet?"
Raven shook her head. "Roman found a lead but following it is taking some digging."
Ruby smiled brightly. "Almost. I'll have it ready for the Vytal festival so long as you can get the infusal thing down. Have you managed to get that down?" I grinned slightly. Getting down infusing an element into an object permanently was difficult. Doing it on it's own put roughly one hundredth of the affinity infused into the object or weapon. However… with runes…
I had constructed a rune to contain affinity and push it into a weapon. It held the attuned mana inside the rune, where the weapon would lie, and push the attuned mana into the object. I had so far managed to infuse forty two percent of my attunement into an object. Mostly I used my wind attunement, which I had grinded through my parallels immensely along with my purity element.
Affinities:
Air: 527 (+600) (x64)(190%)= 137,043.2
Purity: 216 (+200) (x16) (140%)= 9318.4
Electricity: 214 (+200) (x16) (190%)= 12,585.6
Consumption: 210 (x8) (140%)= 2352
Unity: 198 (x8) (140%)= 2217.6
Ice: 174 (+51)(+59) (x8) (140%)= 3180.8
Metal: 157 (x8) (140%)= 1758.8
Heat: 149 (x8) (140%)= 1668.8
Space: 146 (x8) (140%)= 1635.2
Light: 135 (x8) (140%)= 1512
Water: 102 (x8) (140%)= 1142.4
Nature: 82 (+19)(+63)(+20)(+8) (140%)= 2150.4
Motion: 88 (x8) (140%)= 985.6
Life: 80 (x8) (140%)= 896
Plasma: 32 (8) (190%)= 486.4
Swift had grown to a greater elemental and gem to a minor elemental. If Ruby asked for a spar now I just sent Swift to do it now. He was a huge serpent normally. He could change his form if he wanted to but apparently that serpentine form was the most comfortable for him. I made him shrink a little since he didn't fit anywhere otherwise.
Unfortunately the mimic had died. Being so weak for so long had made his soul fade a little. Losing hope of escaping just made him irretrievable. I had siphoned a lot from him though. Unity made my elements more easily mesh with each other. I could use that frostfire spell easily that I had discovered in the tower. I hadn't had much time to focus on the new spells sadly but I had gotten that one down along with a few others.
The plasma affinity was something I had tried to get for a while. Lightning was composed of eighty/twenty composed of electricity and plasma with plasma guiding the electricity down a path. Plasma was stronger on it's own but it was REALLY expensive to use. You needed a massive affinity to use it.
But lightning wasn't my end goal. Water, lightning, heat, nature, and wind grants the storm affinity according to the primer's section on affinities. Storm makes using any of it's component elements quite easy since it's compounded with the other elements to support it. In other words, it was my ideal affinity. Strong and versatile. The only issue was that it was an absolute bitch to raise and get, which wasn't a problem for me since I had nine free parallels meditating full time on it.
I had only gotten plasma so far and I was focusing on acquiring lightning at the moment but compounding affinities is REALLY hard. The affinity, I'm pretty sure, starts with the affinities of both the elements added together or it had better be since this is way too hard for an affinity starting at one.
Luckily I had a nice little surprise. My 'The Storm' title changed for me.
By acquiring an additional facet of a storm your title has upgraded:
The Storm
-Reduces mana costs of air, plasma, and electrical magic by 20%
-Increases air, plasma, water, and electrical affinities by 50% (After modifiers)
-Increases mana capacity and regen by 25%
-can be upgraded by acquiring additional facets of a true storm.
I love the upgrade and I have a suspicion that it will become truly insane when I get my storm affinity.
With subI things had toned down a little. Bella was having a horrible time getting information on the managuard but I have a suspicion that my selective karma skill was playing a part in her getting good results. Well in information and her dates with Qrow. Apparently nothing had been horribly unlucky between them. Qrow was stumped by it but Bella took it as a sign that I was doing something. I mean… I sort of was.
Anyways, Bella had found a few sites. Site hellscape (fire), site windswept (probably wind), site waterlogged (water it think. It's underwater), and a site cavern (probably earth). Hellscape was far in the north of Mantle by an active volcano. Waterlogged was north of Menagerie but there was nothing there due to 'a massive shark-like entity'. Windswept was in Mistral's southeastern part around some steep cliffs with high winds. Cavern was underground in northern Mistral.
Bella hadn't stumbled across trigger words like magic yet but I think she either thought this was all a crazy sham or something. She collected the locations since I gave her nice dates with Qrow (I made a portal to nice places).
The other members of subI were just fine doing as they did. I hadn't had much to do for them so I often had them work with Roman. They had warmed up to him a little and Roman started trusting them to do more important things.
And finally… finally! Roman had conquered the entire Valean underworld. He seemed kind of scared I was going to make him the criminal boss of the world but I laughed at him. I didn't want him to ba that big of a target to the criminal underworld. I told him to fill out Vale. Get all the crime here nice and stable. World domination was for nature's bounty, which he was focusing on now. I did some of whatever he really needed me to be it making land fertile or growing more trees. I was working on making a tree with a purity affinity and results were looking good so far. Sometimes they died though or didn't produce sap. So I was working on fixing that and optimizing them to make the most sap and grow the best.
Raven was still working on her little project and, having more free time, was making Roman's empire better. I think she has well and truly thrown her hat in with me. If she was just being hired she would only be doing her job and then screwing off. But nope. She was with me through and through.
Ruby was working hard on becoming stronger. I think the icy forest gave her some perspective on things. A little bit of Raven rubbed off on her. She respected strength more now and worked towards it. I made sure she didn't hurt herself. She was also in on whatever Raven's little project was. It makes me curious but both Raven and Ruby agreed to keep me in the dark.
Some things were moving on without me but I was alright with that. In just one week we're going to Mistral anyways; Raven, Ruby, and I. Pyrrha actually offered for us to stay at her house. Well… me, Ruby, and my aunt, whose name I was skirting around.
I have to say that for the first time in awhile even the pessimist in me wasn't speaking up. Everyone was happy, nothing horrible was happening, I wasn't stressed, I was growing stronger by the day with my training and researching of things from the icy forest… Life is good.
[|||| == ||||]
Dear Pyrrha,
It's good to hear from you. I heard a bit about you at sanctum. Sort of like you're the anti-me. You're being top of the class in combat and a prodigy and blah blah blah. I'm sure you hear enough of that already.
To answer your question I'll be attending the Mistral regional tournament. I believe there's another up-and -comer, Arslan Atlan, there too, right? Is she not enough of a challenge? If not I'll be sure to give you one. Though you may want to keep training. I sure haven't.
It's nice to hear from somebody on something personal for once. I've had plenty of people send marriage letters or something ridiculous like that. Being unknown was nice. Well, relatively unknown. I hope to hear from you at the tournament. Perhaps we should meet up beforehand? I don't know my way around Mistral. I briefly visited wind path but didn't get a chance to go underground, where all the fun was. I had to leave within an hour. I've heard good things about the city though.
Sincerely,
Abyss Mavros
Dear Abyss,
I would love to escort you around! Mistral is a wonderful city but it does take some experience to get your way around. Not exactly a tidy place. The lower parts of the city are rather dark and sketchy though. There's nothing really good down there for anyone unless you're intimately involved in crime. I've never been there.
The upper city, though, is beautiful. Mistral is built in plateaus so you can divide the districts and their wealthiness by how high they are with Haven at the top. The culture is diverse as well but you can generally classify it as western or eastern with eastern being sushi and noodles and plenty of plays for the upper classes. Western is more along the lines of marble pillars, philosophy, and political ideas.
I can't say I'm much for philosophy myself but the fighting style of the eastern culture is something I'm very well acquaintanced with. I had to learn a little of each to better combat them for the tournaments. Not much but I know the absolute basics of them. I myself learned my clan's style, the spartan style, though I altered mine to better suit me. I've altered the style again recently but I'll keep that as a surprise for the tournament. I'm extremely excited to fight you with it. It's something like the exact opposite of your style… and with more explosions.
Sorry if I went off on a little tangent for combat. I just really like fighting! I'm all for meeting with you before the tournament. It actually takes about a week for the tournament to go full cycle with four days of preliminary matches, two days of cutting down the real competition, and the final day is the final matches. At the end of that last day is the first two matches to determine who will be fighting in the final match and then the big match. Everyone in Mistral sees it. Classrooms still in school normally put their classes on hold to see it televised.
With that said, finding lodgings is very hard due to Mistral having the most popular and competitive tournament scene. If you don't have any perhaps you might want to stay at the clan holding of my clan? Well, since clans were abolished more than a half century ago we aren't really a clan but we kept the compound. Since some of the complex bills that were passed state that we don't have to pay taxes on it so we stay here. We have a few guest rooms and somesuch if you want to stay. It would give us more time to get to know each other properly. My father is also eager to meet you or your uncle. Not for some convoluted business reason, I can confidently say. Let me know if you're interested.
Sincerely,
Pyrrha Nikos
Dear Pyrrha,
I would love to stay at your home! I wasn't too concerned about finding a place to stay but a hotel room is… well it's kind of a boring place to stay. All the tourists would be there and people might give us issues for being faunus and then there's just figuring… actually it just occurred to me that we don't need to figure transport out. Being able to teleport regardless of distance is my most useful facet of my semblance. I suppose I can tell you that. It makes class field trips almost bi-weekly. I have this lovely deserted island - well several of them but … well I'll keep my semblance mostly a secret (But I'll give you this. You're not the only one who can make explosions in their fighting style).
To get to the point, yes I would absolutely love to stay at your home for a week. Seeing Mistral with you also sounds fantastic. However, I'll have to leave your father disappointed. My uncle isn't coming with me. He's quite busy. And no I can't teleport back and grab him for a minute. It's part of the intricacies of my semblance. I'll fill you in after the tournament if you tell me about yours.
If I were to come over I would have my aunt, adopted sister, and myself over. My aunt takes care of me more than my uncle, though. She's from my sister's side of the family by the way. Is that alright? Be a few I assume you have enough but I don't want to impose.
Ah, you like talking about your fighting style, right? Well I just told you that I have the ability to pretty much travel as I please, right? Well I also happen to have a lot of time off at signal. If your school doesn't mind me dropping by once and a while I could fight you. I also have a lot of pull at my school (not company power. I earned my power at my school first. Then the company started) so I could stop by and have lunch with you sometimes or something. I have my own friends at signal but making a new one is always nice.
Sincerely,
Abyss Mavros
[|||| == ||||]
We took off for Mistral the day before the tournament. Schools lent a week and a day off for those competing in the tournament so I was fine. It didn't really matter to me. I could lose a week of school unexcused and be fine at this point. Pyrrha had school two days before the tournament began though, and she was actually studious.
Raven changed from her typical armored dress to a grey duster that cut off at her knees and very dark maroon leggings with a black long-sleeved shirt. She kind of looked like Yang after volume 3's timeskip. Mistral was apparently somewhat chilly so she dressed appropriately.
She could have worn an illusion cloak but we all agreed that it would be weird. Especially since she would have to wear it all the time. She was rather unknown outside of Vale though so she would probably be fine. If not we can cross that bridge.
Ruby wore her normal clothes of red and black. Since she wanted to fight Pyrrha she obviously brought brought eclipse rose. She always wore a bandolier around her waist and basic runed body armor when sparring so she brought that too. It wasn't a real huntsman's outfit but it was enough for now.
Raven and Ruby packed two suitcases and their weapons in cases to travel. They weren't going to spontaneously make their suitcases appear so they had me take them into my soul space. It wouldn't look out of place if I were to make them appear. I'm not really famous but someone in a crowd would know me if asked.
I myself just wore a dark grey hoodie and a very dark purple shirt with my symbod of a pit on it but simplified. It looked like a purple circle with grimm crawling out of it. The one I had made up and put on Jaune in a simple hunter symbol. I was planning on putting it on all my gear. Ruby had actually finished my weapon, which I had in my inventory. I'm not going to reveal it before the tournament though. I want it to be all dramatic. I'm going to be using my mechashift shortsword/halberd and fake dustcaster first.
For my hunter attire, however, I would wear that. Just not yet. Who wears huntsman attire on a plane? Oh right. Summer. I didn't know any better…
As for the flight I had been given some crap over being a faunus by security and being accused of a white fang sympathizer, which I sort of was, but Raven unleashed her most powerful attack, her glare. We didn't get anything after that.
It's also good that nobody noticed that Raven was… well Raven Branwen. She's not that famous I suppose. It's easy enough for her to travel if she wasn't in her huntress outfit. It's like seeing your teacher at the supermarket. Also, she's with me and Ruby. We both look a lot like her with our dark hair. I especially look like her since I have a similar skin tone as her.
We got into a taxi easily and that was that. I already had Pyrrha's address so it was easy to get there. Travelling was really quite easy in remnant. So different from earth.
"So this is the Nikos clan holding." Raven said curiously. A white marble wall up to her forehead blocked passage from us to the holding and two dark wooden doors stood blocking the entrance. Not huge doors or anything. I glanced at the buzzer and microphone next to then and rang it. A moment passed of nothing. I waited for a few seconds and wondered if I should just teleport in.
*Crackle**Crackle* "Hi! Uh…. who is this?" A young feminine voice asked curiously.
"It's Abyss." I said.
"Oh! Abyss! Whoa your voice is deeper than I… wait you're outside… Sorry!" The voice cut off and I rolled my eyes. I wonder who that was? I could hear the door open and close a ways away. It creaked a lot. My ear flicked in irritation. I actually put a rune on all the doors at the apartments and the Xiao-Long household to keep them from creaking. I just hate the sound with my sensitive hearing. My parents were the same for the brief time I knew them. I put the errant thought out of my head as a pattering of feet came to the door.
The door clicked twice as Pyrrha unlocked it and opened… with a very loud creak. Pyrrha looked out with a nervous smile and bright green eyes on a pale face. She wore a casual long shirt and red leather jacket, which I didn't expect actually, and black sweatpants. Yeah she definitely changed in the years leading up to her time at beacon.
Pyrrha took a moment to take us in. Raven tried to be as un-intimidating as possible, wearing a patient look on her face. Even so she was tall. Pyrrha was slightly taller than me too, which irked me a little. I was taller than average even… well we're teenagers. Girls are naturally taller than boys at this time anyways.
Ruby, being tiny and sweeter than honey, wore a happy smile looking up at Pyrrha. It seemed to actually put her at ease.
"It's nice to meet you in person." I said calmly to Pyrrha. She blinked twice. It occurred to me that I could observe her but I can't help but feel that it would be more fun to fight her without knowing all of her weaknesses. She wasn't digging into me for my fighting style, after all. I should do the same.
"Oh! Yeah, definitely. I've got stuff planned out and everything to get to know each other better. Um… come in! I know Abyss but I don't know your names. You are…?"
"I'm Raven." Raven said easily.
"I'm Ruby! Ruby Rose. You're a lot taller than I thought you'd be." Ruby said innocently. Starting a conversation for her? You're so socially competent! It makes me want to shed a tear.
"Oh yeah! It's really useful. It helps a lot in fighting too. Aren't you in signal?" Pyrrha waved us inside and we filed through. She walked alongside us as we talked.
Ruby nodded happily. "I use a scythe, shorsword, and sniper." She looked down a little more sheepishly. I'm, um, sort of a prodigy. I suck at using dust though. Abyss is great at it and auntie is good at it."
"I only recently started trying dustcasting. I'm also terrible at it." Pyrrha said understandingly. "Instead of raw dustcasting I had to find a way around it." Ruby looked interested.
"Around it? You mean like some sort of easy way to do it?"
Pyrrha smiled slightly mischievously. Oh she was definitely different from canon. "You'll see when Abyss and I fight. We agreed not to reveal much until the tournament." Ruby sighed.
"Dangit."
"I myself am bad at normal dustcasting." Raven said, trying not to lurk into the background. "I have to use my blades to use dust. Even so I can't do half the things Abyss can." I shrugged. I had grinded dustcasting for a year with a few parallels and boom. Level eighty or so. I was at ninety seven now. My passive skills also helped.
"So other than combat what do you do for fun?" I asked. Pyrrha perked up a little more, shedding some more of that nervousness. We reached the front door
"Recently it's mostly been combat but I've tried some cooking and a lot of reading. I'm not good at cooking really but I wanted to try something creative. As it turns out I'm not quite the kind of person who's good at experimenting or feeling things out. Repetition, memorization, and practice is what I'm good at. That's why i like reading. History, specifically. I read a lot of that before going to sanctum. I've had a lot less time on my hands with school and keeping up training."
Ruby nodded happily. "I've barely had any time either. Schoolwork takes a ton of time for me and Abyss just… well he rules the school. I'm pretty sure he has all the teachers in his pocket through blackmail or they just don't care about him since he does so well."
Pyrrha looks surprised. "Blackmail?" She looks towards me. "Really?"
"I never claimed to be an honorable warrior. Besides, I earned that blackmail fair and square. I know the subjects and do the tests and classwork. I ace them all. With the teachers who just don't care anymore she just means Qrow, the combat teacher. I fought on even terms with him, a veteran huntsman in his own right, for about thirty seconds and beat any students he throws at me. I'm allowed to just walk out sometimes." Pyrrha looked vaguely surprised at the ending but frowned.
"I don't know about blackmailing the teachers. If you know the subject it's alright I suppose but you still shouldn't."
"It's not always blackmail." I explain. "In subterfuge and intelligence, or subI, I actually do work hard. It's the only class truly useful to me besides when I spar with Qrow. And Bella, the teacher of subI, nearly admires me for setting her up with Qrow."
Ruby whirled to me on that. "What?! Uncle Qrow is dating and I haven't met his girlfriend?!" I smiled lazily and nodded. Ruby looked angry.
"Oh I'm going to give it to her. And uncle Qrow for not telling me." Meanwhile Pyrrha seemed to be considering whether it was okay for me to blackmail the teachers.
Glancing at the stairs showed that there was a basement and upper stairs. I flashed mage sight to get a feel for the house. Three stores of a ground floor, bedrooms and such, and an attic. The basement was rather large, spanning under the house but also under the yard quite a bit. The attic had a small library too.
A masculine voice came from an upstairs. "Pyrrha? Is Abyss and his family here?"
"Yes dad they're here." Pyrrha called back. She glanced at us again and seemed to realize something. "Wait, where's your luggage?" Raven and Ruby looked to me and I took out Ruby's suitcase.
"Hammer space. Well, actually a pocket dimension but close enough." Pyrrha looked at it in surprise but then looked off to the side with a slightly jealous expression.
"That's so useful…" I chuckled.
"My semblance is amazing, yes. But it took a lot of dedicated practice to get better at. It's not all-powerful either. Simply very flexible." Some of Pyrrha's irritation disappeared at the mention of hard work.
"Well that's understandable." At that a large man came walking down the stairs.
"Ah so you're Abyss!" The man held out his hand and I shook it firmly.
"Good to meet your sir." I said with my spymaster smile. He raised an eyebrow and looked to Pyrrha.
"I like him. When's the wedding?" Pyrrha turned red in embarrassment and Raven and Ruby looked to have received a sign from heaven. A glance was shared between them. I'm certain they were planning my demise judging by the smirks on both of their faces.
"We're planning for September." Raven said. Mister Nikos' eyes glittered
"It's a nice empty space and gives them time to get to know each other." Ruby agreed. A large smirk spread across Mister Nikos' face.
"Oh dust it's universal." Pyrrha whispered. I made eye contact and gave her my saddest, most resigned look. I don't think I could have expressed camaraderie in misery any better.
"How about on Vytal? I hear it has some lovely scenery." Mister Nikos offered.
"That sounds lovely." Raven agreed.
"Can I choose Abyss' outfit? I don't trust him to pick something decent." Ruby said.
"Absolutely." Raven agreed. Mister Nikos made eye contact with Raven.
"Call me Leonidas or Leo." He said with his grin. "You two should as well. You'll be staying here about a week. You, future step-son, should call me Leo."
"Thank you Leonidas." I said as irritatedly as I could convey. I was going to say Leo but I'm not giving now. He laughed at me. Pyrrha glared at her father but she was too embarrassed and un-intimidating for it to have any effect.
"Oh that's good! I'm going to like having you all here! Ah, come on. I'll show you all to your rooms." Leo led us up the stairs but paused. "Uh, where are your suitcases?"
"Abyss has a sort of pocket space." Pyrrha said. Leo raised an eyebrow to me.
"Sounds useful. Hm." Leo dismissed it and continued onwards. "On the left there it my and Helen's room. My wife. She's not here right now. She's supposed to arrive in a month or so. Emergency huntress mission. Across the hall is Pyrrha's room. I was tempted to put Abyss in there but a pregnancy isn't what I have in mind for her future."
"Dad!"
"Heh. Kids stay there and there. Right next to Pyrrha's room. And you… what's your name?" Leonidas looked to Raven.
"It's Raven. I'm Abyss' aunt." Leonidas nodded.
"You'll be in the room next to us. Dinner's already being made in the oven. Come on down soon enough. About fifteen minutes should do it. We're having chicken casserole."
"Thank you." I said gratefully. I doubt it's as good as what I can do but food tastes better when someone makes for you. I got out Ruby and Raven's gear and handed it to them. Ruby accepted it with a smile and slid into her new room fo the week.
"Thank you." Raven said. She glanced towards Leo. "We won't take long." And she retreated into her room.
"I'll be down in a minute." I said.
"Of course." Pyrrha said with an honest smile. Not even any nervousness this time. I suppose she's comfortable with her first impression. Good. Those are always the hardest.
I walked into my new room and got out my suitcase, which I had only bothered to pack because using my soul space all the time makes me seem like I'm showing off. I saw happily that I had me own bathroom and put my toiletries in it. Done. And… what now…
I couldn't think of anything that I didn't need to do later and walked out easily. I flashed mage sight and saw Pyrrha and her father talking in a living room downstairs on a three sided square of three couches. I didn't want to eavesdrop or lip-read with mage sight and just walked downstairs to them normally.
"That didn't take as long as I thought it would." I started as I walked in. I took a seat on the unoccupied couch.
Leo looked away from Pyrrha to me. "Ah, good for you to join us kid. We were wondering about your aunt. We never heard about her from all those interviews and stuff you and your uncle had to do. Your sister, I think, was mentioned, but what about Raven?"
"Raven's not really a public person." I said, meaning to explain this with as little lying as I could get away with. "She's sort of Ruby's aunt. Her partner had Ruby but after her death Ruby's father wasn't really in a good place to take care of her. So I did. Raven met with me a few times a week for some personal reasons and she and Ruby just sort of drifted closer together. Ruby immediately claimed her as her aunt and Raven went along with it after a while. Now Raven lives in the same apartment as we do and we do most things together."
Pyrrha frowned and Leonidas looked disapproving. "Her father is fine but he just… couldn't take care of her? Why?" Leo asked.
"Ruby's father isn't really… an emotionally strong person." I said with a frown of my own. "He was married to Raven before but had a rather nasty divorce. Then he married Ruby's mom and she died. That's some complex family business though. I'd prefer if you don't dive into that. Raven might be fine with telling you but Ruby would be uncomfortable with it." Pyrrha nodded understandingly.
"I'm alright not knowing the details. On to more pleasant topics though, do you have anything in Mistral that you want to see?" She asked.
"Nope. I'm completely fresh to the city." I said with a small smile. Pyrrha smiled back.
"That's fine! I'll just show you everything. After the tournament's preliminaries, I mean."
"Are you worried that we'll face each other before the championship?" I asked. Leo snorted.
"The only high profile people in the tournament are you and Pyrrha. They're probably sure that you're both going to go straight through the competition so they're going to hype a match when they're certain you're going to fight. It earns them more publicity for that final match and raise prices. The selections for who you fight isn't randomized so you'll meet in the finals probably. Unless they're being stupid, which I doubt."
Pyrrha bit her lip and looked somewhat conflicted. "It works for me I guess. It may be a bit biased on the popular ones going to the top but it's what people want. On the other hand I would prefer a randomized tournament but that doesn't work economically." I nod. The tournament was there to make money and spread the glory of Mistral or whatever they cared to call it. Making it completely fair doesn't work.
"Not much is very fair no matter how you cut it. There's semblances that are unfair in an arena setting, families able to offer training, the wealth to get better gear, and all the small stuff. Fairness is a luxury most can't afford. The kingdoms especially so." Pyrrha sighed resignedly and nodded. Leo looked to me approvingly.
"I've said the same thing for years, kid. Anyways, we've practically been grilling you. YOu have any questions of your own?"
"Yes actually." I said. It's nice of them to not make this conversation them asking and me replying. "How did Pyrrha get so good in the first place? I have my semblance helping me out quite a bit but Pyrrha doesn't have any blatant semblance. Is it one of those ones that's hard to see or just immense talent or hard work?"
"All three." Leonidas said with a smirk. Pyrrha rolled her eyes. "Alright. So she's mostly hard working but everyone calls it talent. Sure she's talented but she's talented because she's hard working. Not just talented. Her semblance is also powerful and subtle the way she uses it. However, she prefers to not use it whenever possible since my little girl's a stickler for fairness."
"If you don't face someone on equal terms can you really say you beat them?" Pyrrha asked to either of us.
"Absolutely." I said.
"You sure can!" Leonidas said with a grin. The two of us locked eyes and had a mutual moment of sneaky people meeting another. I like this guy. Pyrrha shook her head in disappointment.
"If you're not bringing your full might against an opponent can you really say you're not insulting them?" I asked Pyrrha. She frowned, sensing a trick question, but nodded anyways. "Well dirty tricks make you stronger. So if you're not cheating you're not trying." Leonidas grinned.
"I like that one. Helen is the one who rubbed the whole honor thing on Pyrrha. I've only seen her cheat a once before when she needed to win a bet no matter what."
"It was important!" Pyrrha protested. Leonidas scoffed.
"Anyways, I totally cheat all the time. Not so often in an arena since I don't really need to. It's more trouble than it's worth when I can just fight somebody but in a real fight I'll absolutely be unfair. I pulled a height advantage on Ruby all the time until she finally figured out how to combat it."
"I did the same on Pyrrha." Leonidas smirked. We shared another bonding moment while Pyrrha leveled an angry look towards her father. When he's not teasing me I actually like this guy a lot. He's like a fatherly and less gruff Qrow.
"That's it. I approve. You can get married. Do you have a dowry already or do you need some time before the wedding?" Leo teased. I lost all joy on my face.
"And just when I was starting to like you…" Leo laughed at my expense again. Pyrrha blushed again and I stared him down more.
"Oh are we teasing Abyss again?" Raven walked into the room and sat down beside me.
"We were discussing how cheating is fair play." Leo said mirthfully. "He and I agree that dirty tricks are fair. You?"
"Dirty tricks are a staple of fighting." Raven said in a tone that suggested she was nearly offended somebody could disagree with her.
"Exactly!" Leo agreed. "Oh! Pyrrha once fought a guy that specialized in fistfighting and had to be convinced that she was allowed to use her weapon! It was almost admirable but god that was stupid."
"Abyss once teleported out of a fight between us and waited for me to get bored and walk out of the arena, which was a forfeit. Technically he didn't lose since the rule was to not touch the arena outside the circle." Raven said with a smirk.
"Pyrrha was challenged to a fight right by a lake by a guy with a water based semblance. She was well within her rights to say no since she could only lose reputation and all but she agreed because 'he challenged me fairly so I should accept fairly!'" Leo shook his head amusedly.
"He opened a portal to the ocean and dumped a load of saltwater on me in a spar to get my eyes irritated. Then he fought me while I was blinded."
"Oh that is good! Pyrrha was challenged by five guys, one after another, with the intent for one guy to say he had won against her. She beat them all one by one."
"Abyss poisoned me a few times before a fight."
"Pyrrha apologized in the middle of a fight with her cousin because he challenged her while she was in high heels and she kicked him."
"Good one. Abyss made a portal to his friend Kerrigan and claimed that since he could summon him into the arena with his semblance that it was fair to let him fight for him. This was based on the semblance of one kid that let him summon items or people that he's touched recently to him. Signal had to make a rule against summoning people. Then Abyss summoned a motorcycle and attempted to run his opponent over. Last I heard he brought in a turret."
Leonidas looked stumped at that one. "… Alright. That wins it. Summoning a vehicle to fight a guy? That takes it. Pyrrha is honorable. She doesn't do dishonorable things. She's not chivalrous. She's not going out of her way to be honorable. But that? That's fair but dust it's unfair."
"He doesn't know how to drive." Raven snickered. Leo chuckled at that.
"It only makes him more dangerous."
"Why would you do that sort of thing when you can simply beat them?" Pyrrha asked me in disbelief.
"The poisoning thing was for Ruby. She was feeling down and I felt like she really needed a win. But everything else… well I just get bored of doing the same thing all the time. I need to mix it up a little sometimes. I don't know who's motorcycle that was though."
"Did they ban using the turret?" Leo asked.
"They said you can't bring in fortifications you didn't make yourself. So I made one out of some wood. But they gave up on that one so I switched it up again and used whole braces of grenades and just chucked them at my opponents with a pin pulled. They just took their hands off me entirely and hoped I would get bored and stop summoning things… then I summoned saltwater through a portal and flooded the arena. The arena is waterproofed so nothing was damaged but I received a personal threat of 'disciplinary sparring' from Qrow, the teacher of signal's combat class."
Raven was holding back laughter while Leo was nearly howling. Pyrrha laughed with him but more tame. "Please never come to sanctum." Pyrrha said half-pleadingly. I laughed with them this time.
"I think I'll definitely spend some time at sanctum." I laughed.
*Ding!* I blinked at the sound. Was that a notification? I didn't get those that often. "Oh the casserole's ready." Leo said. He got up and walked to the oven with a broad smile on his face. Huh. His oven sounds like a notification from the gamer power. Weird.
Dinner passed easily after that. Some anecdotes worked well as an icebreaker. I'm glad that everything went smoothly meeting the Nikos family. Ruby came down not long after dinner started and merged into the conversation pretty easily.
It was an hour of talking later that we all broke off one by one to go to bed. First Raven then Pyrrha and Ruby and finally Leo and I seperated. It was a good night and a promising start to a friendship.
That casserole was pretty good too.
[|||| == ||||]
"For the tournament this year we have four main competitors predicted to reach the finals. Kerrigan Granite, Arslan Atlan, and the two main events Pyrrha Nikos and Abyss Mavros."
"What's the relationship between the two?"
"Well miss Nikos is the nearly undisputed champion of sanctum, having beaten much of the competition there. Not many, if any, can compete with her there. Besides that she's the maker of her branch of fighting, the achilles style, which has had praises lauded on it from professionals that experience it. Mister Mavros, on the other hand, is something like signal's champion. He's competed with Qrow Branwen, veteran huntsman and member of the now disbanded legendary team STRQ in signal's arena though details about the event are vague. He's also made his own style, the sting style, from the ground up though it is claimed to resemble several styles focused on weak points."
"So there you have it, folks. Two heavyweight champions, prodigies amongst prodigies in both their schools, coming head to head in the greatest youth tournament in Mistral. We can only wait excitedly for that final showdown. Will both these champions hack and slash their way to the finals or will the unexpected happen? But on to other matters, what about Kerrigan Granite and Arslan Atlan?"
"Both are the runner-ups in the tournament for their schools unofficial position as champion. Kerrigan Granite is supposedly a good friend of Abyss Mavros though details are once more scarce regarding signal. Arslan Atlan is a self-proclaimed rival of miss Nikos' and bitter enemy, as stated in an interview last week."
"Interesting! Let's make sure to keep an eye on each of these four promising hunters in training! Eyes around the world are watching as the throw-down is coming to a head."
[|||| =LEVEL END= ||||]
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If like it please drop some POWER STONES
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
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