RWBY: Beacon
Day Four
The energy that the people of Remnant called Aura was a fascinating thing. In its most crude, basic form, it could be used to form a sort of shroud over the user's body in order to protect them from harm. Some amount of force and sensation could still bleed through the barrier, but as long as it remained in place it was almost impossible to seriously injure the user.
On its own, that ability was not all that impressive. It took some amount of focus to maintain the shroud and a few good hits would rapidly deplete a person’s aura, ‘shattering’ it in a burst of brilliant color and leaving them as vulnerable as a normal muggle. According to Glynda, who had unlocked my Aura for me, I had an unusually large reserve of the energy––something I attributed to my Spark and magical ancestry––but even then a simple protego shield could endure more punishment than the ‘light of my soul’.
Fortunately, that was not nearly the extent of what Aura could do. With some practice, that shroud could become reflexive, a defense that remained in place even when fully disarmed or unconscious. It could also be greatly improved, turning the initial loose haze of aura into purposeful plates that shrugged off blows that would have instantly shattered a basic shroud of aura. The basic shield could be further evolved into an even more focused defense, creating small but incredibly powerful barriers that consumed a fraction of the aura needed to protect the entire body.
Then there were the many other benefits and skills you could learn with practice. Aura gave its users a sixth-sense for when you were being watched, something that could apparently be honed into a precise danger sense keen enough to detect hidden threats like poison or an assassin lost in a crowd. Raven claimed to know of a Huntress who could even feel when people were plotting against her a continent away.
Furthermore, if you did manage to get hurt despite your Aura, just having it unlocked could improve healing by an order of magnitude, something that could be improved even further with training. There were huntsmen who could reattach limbs by pressing the severed stumps together and some could regrow organs and missing digits fast enough for it to be relevant in the midst of a running battle.
Though I had yet to meet the woman in question, Professor Peach––the local herbology teacher––was apparently skilled enough to regrow her heart after a particularly dangerous alpha Grimm impaled her through the chest with its tusks. The Grimm had thrown her away, thinking her dead, and she’d regenerated the majority of her chest cavity, killed it, completed the rest of her mission, and only then returned to the nearest settlement for a medical check up.
And that was only on the defensive side. Huntsmen reinforced their bodies with aura, allowing them to achieve inhuman feats of athleticism. Most huntsmen were already as fit as even the most athletic quidditch player––something about how aura-based healing compounded the effects of exercise––but I’d seen Raven jump ten feet straight up without a running start and Professor Port could pick up and carry an entire bullhead on his shoulders, something that was completely impossible for a wizard without the aid of spells or potions.
Beyond that, aura could be infused into fists and weapons, producing shockwaves, launching blades of cutting energy, and amplifying blows. Glynda’s crop was made from wood and fine leather, but she could shatter boulders and block blades with it even without the help of her semblance.
Then of course you had to consider semblances. Anyone with their aura unlocked could eventually discover their semblance, a unique and often powerful ability that could turn even the most unimpressive huntsmen into a serious threat. These too could be improved with training and often were the defining feature of a huntsmen’s kit.
According to the books I’d consulted and the people I’d spoken to, a semblance could be literally anything. I had my doubts about that claim, but there certainly was a vast range of possibilities. Glynda’s was telekinesis, and her control with it was both precise and devastating. Raven––who had continued hovering around me ever since we’d returned from our trip into the wilderness––could create portals at will, something that I’d only ever seen Kent do with magic. I’d also seen students who could fly, create ethereal copies of themselves, teleport short distances, control aura-infused paper, and many other interesting and exotic abilities.
I’d really had to reassess the danger level of the people around me in the past few days. Sure, none of them were as versatile as a proper wizard, but that did not make them weak. I was confident that my magic could put down even the strongest or the students and trained huntsmen I’d encountered, but if someone was able to take me by surprise…I was far less confident in my ability to win that fight.
I doubted that I would ever reach the level of mastery that some of the professors showed with aura––I simply had too many much more valuable, versatile, and interesting skills to learn and practice––but I couldn’t deny that gaining at least a passable level of skill was a must. Most of what aura could do could be copied or surpassed by spells, but an instinctive, constantly-active defense could be lifesaving at some point in the future. There had already been several instances where the shield charm on my necklace had saved my life, and not having to depend on an enchanted object that could be lost or stolen was certainly a motivating proposition.
The rest of it…Well, I’d learn what I could, and I’d improve over time with use, but none of it was really that big a priority. Physical strength, speed, and reflexives were nice, but only so far as they helped me cast faster. The other offensive aura skills felt mostly useless to me, and many of the advanced techniques would simply take too long to master to be that worth pursuing.
Discovering my semblance would be nice, but I wasn’t sure how useful it would end up being. Many of the abilities I’d seen could be mimicked with magic, while others were mostly pointless or required an immense amount of time and training to use effectively. Finding your semblance was also a very inconsistent proposition––there were huntsmen who’d gone their entire careers and retired without ever discovering what it was. I’d had no luck so far, but perhaps that would change in the future.
Fortunately, I currently happened to be living at one of the world’s leading institutions in training Huntsmen to use their abilities. The leading institution, even, according to the moderately biased teaching staff. There were very few places better suited to helping me learn to use aura.
Unfortunately, they had a very…hands on approach to such training. I frantically raised an arm the way I’d been shown and my current training partner’s spear slammed into my forearm like a battering ram. Green and silver flashed at the point of impact and I slid backwards, barely keeping my footing.
“That was much better!” Glynda called out, “your aura should feel smooth like a sheet of glass, not grainy like sand.”
“Yeah,” Pyrrha added, her spear held loosely at her side. “You’re already doing a lot better than last time.” I wasn’t sure if it was intended as a compliment or a shot at my frankly abysmal performance compared to what she was capable of. It certainly felt like the latter with how casually she was slapping me around the training hall.
I nodded and Glynda continued. “Let’s try one more time and then we’ll call it. Your aura is starting to get dangerously low.”
I nodded in understanding and Pyrrha and I both took our places at the center of the mostly empty training room. It was just me, Glynda, Pyrrha, and Zatanna, who was reading a book in the corner. Well, sort of. I was absolutely certain that Raven was watching us through a tiny portal somewhere in the room, but she wasn’t physically present so it didn’t count.
I raised my arms in front of me and focused on my aura, feeling how it sluggishly flowed around my body like a cocoon of water. With a thought, those currents froze in place, forming a thin, hard sheet. “Ready,” I said softly.
Pyrrha casually raised her spear and pointed it at me. She looked completely at ease, her muscles loose and her clothing pristine. “Ready.”
“Then begin!” Glynda called out.
Pyrrha moved first, slowly approaching me with her spear pointed at my chest. She could have crossed the distance between us in a single bound––I’d seen her do just that during one of the combat classes I’d sat in on––but instead she gave me time to prepare. There would be no point otherwise, of course she was better at this than I was, I’d only had my aura unlocked a few days ago and she’d been using it actively in combat for years.
I knocked a slow, telegraphed thrust away with my wrist, carefully forming the surface of the aura that made contact with the spear's shaft to maximize strength and minimize energy waste the way Glynda had shown me. Pyrrha let me parry the thrust, giving way when I knew she could easily have pushed past the amount of force I’d used to push her weapon away.
The next attack was a sweep towards my chest, this one just a little bit faster than the last. Aura flowed through my legs and I took a half-step backwards, allowing the tip of the spear to fly past me. Then came another thrust that I sidestepped, another slash I blocked with my forearm, and finally a thrust that came too quickly for me to respond and send me flying backwards, the breath knocked from my lungs.
I collapsed onto the ground several meters away from where I’d started and took a deep, shuddering breath. My chest hurt and there were bruises all over my body, but that was the worst of the damage. My aura felt wispy and fragmented, but not shattered.
I slowly stood up, marveling at the fact that I hadn’t broken anything. I really, really should have, but instead I’d be fine after a few hours of rest. I rubbed my chest and winced in pain. Ugh. And there was sweat all over my face too. This sucked so much but I could feel the incremental improvements with every lesson. A little pain and discomfort now was much better than a lot of pain and a broken spine during a life or death battle.
“Excellent work, both of you. Pyrrha, wonderful control. Hydrys, you’re really starting to get the hang of things. I do believe we’re just about done for the day, Hydrys’ aura is all but depleted.”
I looked up at the display that showed Pyrrha and I’s aura levels. My bar was almost completely red, with only a tiny green sliver showing my remaining aura reserves. Pyrrha’s on the other hand was the opposite, only a tiny sliver or red showing that she’d used up any aura at all.
I smiled tightly. “Thank you, Pyrrha, thank you Professor. I appreciate your time.”
“Don’t worry, Hydrys,” Pyrrha told me, “I’m learning a lot too.” It was an obvious lie, but she sounded genuine enough. “I’m going to get going. I have some team training coming up this afternoon.”
“Of course, Miss Nikos. I appreciate your assistance and your dedication to your studies is commendable. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”
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The red-headed girl nodded and hurried out of the training room.
Glynda turned to me. “From what I’ve heard from the Headmaster, you’ve more than earned it. I’ve never seen Ozpin look so optimistic about the future before.”
I smiled charmingly, or at least as charmingly as I could with my sweat-slicked hair stuck to my face and my limbs feeling like they were filled with lead. “I’m glad I’ve been able to help. Your work here is so important and I’m proud to be a part of it.”
Glynda, Zatanna, and I left the room together, the teacher insisting on walking me back to the room I’d been assigned. Along the way she continued to give me feedback on what she’d seen during our lesson. As far as I knew, Glynda primarily fought with her semblance, but I was still learning basic enough aura skills that any huntsman worth their salt could help me improve and she had more than a decade of experience training students my age.
As we neared my room, I turned to her and asked, “Did Ozpin tell you anything about the experiment I was hoping to conduct?”
She paused slightly between steps, “Ah, yes. We have spoken on the topic. There are a number of candidates he’s been considering, but I don’t believe he’s come to any final decision yet.”
I nodded slowly. “Are you interested?”
“Me?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“Why not? You fit all the qualifications and I’d prefer someone I’m familiar with than a total stranger.”
She was quiet for several seconds. “I…would have to consider it. Discuss the topic with the Headmaster, you understand.”
“Of course. Just don’t wait too long. I don’t think I’ll be able to do it more than a couple of times and there’s not much time left.” We stopped outside my room and I used the ‘scroll’, a sort of cellphone with an illusionary screen instead of a glass one, I’d been given to unlock the door. “Thank you again, Glynda. Think about it.”
“Of course. Have a nice rest of your day, Hydrys.”
I had only just entered my room and started taking off my sweaty training clothes, the enchantments on them not quite able to keep up with how much I’d been perspiring, when Raven appeared through a swirling red portal. I stared at her silently and finished taking off my shirt. “Yes?” I asked, surprised and slightly annoyed by the intrusion. I really, really wanted to take a hot shower right about now.
“I don’t know about Glynda, but I am certainly interested,” Raven said flatly.
“You’ve spoken to Ozpin, then?” I asked.
“I have.”
“And you know my conditions?”
“Immaterial. What you do elsewhere does not concern me. My strength does.”
Fair enough. Well, Raven had been one of the people I’d had in mind when I’d spoken to the Headmaster about my idea last night, so I was glad I didn’t need to convince her of anything.
“Okay,” I agreed easily. “Sit down and get comfortable, this might take a bit.”
This time it was her turn to be surprised. “Now?”
“No time like the present.”
Raven took a seat on one of the unused beds in the room I shared with Zatanna. We’d ended up in one of the rooms typically reserved for visiting Huntsmen teams and Huntsmen almost always worked in groups of four. We’d pushed two of the beds together to sleep in and shoved the other two against the back wall to free up some space.
I sat down beside her and frowned. “Actually, this will be easier if you lie down.” I imagined that Raven was scowling behind her mask, but she compiled nonetheless.
I put one hand on her belly and poked the tip of my wand into her shoulder between two armored segments. Then I began to slowly run a stream of mana into her body as my mind sank down towards my Spark.
Unlike with the Grimm, I immediately felt some resistance fighting back against my magic. “Control your aura,” I ordered. Some of the resistance withdrew, but not all of it. Still, it was enough.
Slowly but surely, my magic flowed down my wand, through Raven’s body, up my arm, and into my spark. It took much, much longer than it had with the Grimm, nearly ten minutes, but eventually I felt the Blueprint snap into place. Raven Branwen, huh. Wasn’t that the same name as one of Ozpin’s other trusted subordinates? I wondered if they were related.
She was a very attractive woman under that mask. And she also cost just as much mana as Kent and Solomon Grundy, meaning she might be even stronger than I’d initially suspected. Like I’d thought, she was indeed one of Ozpin’s Maidens. A very good addition to my repertoire. It was unfortunate that she cost a Color of mana I didn’t currently have access to, but that would be fixed with time.
With that taken care of, I moved on to the part Raven was actually interested in. I reached out to my newest land, feeling for the secondary ability I’d spent the trip back from the memorial contemplating. Mana flowed from my other lands into me, then from me down my bond with the Huntsmen’s Memorial, and than back through me and into Raven.
The muscles beneath my hand tensed and I felt the bed shake as one of Raven’s legs rose up and slammed down onto the mattress like an anvil. She took a deep, shaky breath. “Is it done?”
I opened my eyes and cast the aether-sight spell. There was a sparkle of Mana permeating Raven’s entire body. Barely anything compared to how Zatanna and even Ozpin looked under the spell, but more than the nothing I would have seen before.
“I think so. Do you feel different.”
Raven was silent for several seconds. “I…think so. Yes.” She fell silent again. Then, “I need to go.” A portal opened up beneath her and she fell through it, the red disk snapping shut a moment later. That was fine though. I’d gotten everything I needed from the woman. Now though, my sweat was starting to dry and I felt sticky and gross. I really, really needed that shower.
About an hour later, clean, dry, and wearing a fresh set of clothing, I found myself walking down one of Beacon’s many white-walled halls, Zatanna at my side. I had my hand outstretched, running my fingers along the cool, smooth stone.
Zatanna was speaking softly, complaining really, but I was mostly tuning her out. It was something I’d heard a half-dozen times already. “It sucks that we’re here together in another school but I can’t learn the same stuff that you can,” she grouched, “I know I’m a copy and it doesn’t matter because the original wouldn’t get anything out of it anyway, but aura seems so cool! I could be like uncle Kent and Superman at the same time! All these books are interesting and stuff, but it's not the same.”
I hummed noncommittally. I understood where she was coming from, but at this point Zatanna was just complaining for the sake of complaining. Professor Goodwitch, Ozpin, and I had all tried to unlock her aura, but nothing had come of it. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was a copy or if the aura was just non-compatible with people from that Plane, but in any case, Zatanna had been greatly disappointed by that outcome.
I could empathize with how she was feeling. Just imagining being at the Conservatory or Hogwarts without the ability to use magic sounded like pure torture, but I couldn’t really help her and the complaints were starting to get a little grating. If this was the real Zatanna, I probably would have been more patient, but as it was the only courtesy I extended was not snapping at her to shut up so I could focus.
We rounded a corner and Zatanna fell silent, perking up slightly as she saw a familiar group of girls. “Oh! Hi girls!” she called out to the quartet.
Ruby whirled around. “Zatanna!” She shot towards us and nearly knocked Zatanna off her feet with a hug. “ Oh, hi Hydrys! I didn’t see you guys in class today or yesterday!”
Zatanna hugged the slightly younger girl back briefly. “We were a bit busy. What are you guys doing here?”
Ruby’s smile turned into a pout and she visibly deflated. “We’re doing homework,” she whined. “I already did it, but Weiss insisted that it wasn’t good enough so now we’re going to the library.”
Weiss, Blake, and Yang walked over at a slightly slower pace and the six of us exchanged greetings. After spending the entire trip from Forever Fall to Beacon talking to them, Zatanna had become fast friends with several of the members of team RWBY. We’d also sat in on a few of the classes they were taking and often ate at the same table during mealtimes.
I didn’t have any particularly strong feelings about the group one way or another, but they made Zatanna happy so I didn’t mind spending time with them when it was convenient. If nothing else, the eye candy was nice and they weren’t nearly as annoying as some of the other students I’d met so far.
“It's important to do your homework right, not just finish it,” Zatanna chided. “I know it can be boring, but you guys are learning important stuff. How are you going to be a good Huntress someday if you don’t learn the things a Huntress needs to know?
“But it's so boooring!” Ruby whined.
Zatanna laughed softly. “Here, me and Hydrys are also heading to the library. I can sit with you and keep you company while you work.”
We made it to the library a few minutes later and settled down around one of the many circular tables scattered throughout the room. It was a bit of a tight squeeze––the tables were clearly designed to seat four––but we grabbed two extra chairs and made it work. Weiss immediately set to browbeating Ruby and Yang into redoing whatever assignment they’d been assigned. Yang had apparently not even started it, while Ruby had only theoretically completed her work.
Blake had apparently already finished and submitted the assignment in question and took the seat between me and Yang, pulling out a thick book and quickly becoming absorbed by the pages. I left Zatanna to help Ruby and headed off into the stacks to find some of the reference books I was interested in.
Beacon’s library was smaller than I would have liked, but bigger than I had feared. Part of it was that there was a lot of information available on the student’s scrolls, so many basic books had been excluded from the collection. There was also a lot less bookwork involved in studying to become a Huntsmen compared to learning magic.
I grabbed two books on aura training, a Grimm bestiary I had yet to peruse, and an interesting-looking account of a huntsmen team that had fought in the war between kingdoms nearly a century ago. Returning to my seat, I was quickly engrossed in my reading.
Some time later, I looked up when I noticed that Blake was leaning over beside me, peering at what I was reading.“Why are you reading about Teryxes?” she asked softly, “Those are only really found around Atlas.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t huntsmen supposed to be able to operate anywhere on Remnant? I’d think it's even more important to learn about Grimm you aren’t likely to face during your schooling so you aren’t surprised when you come across one as a fully trained huntress.”
“I guess. But you’re not a huntsman.”
“Maybe not, but it's important to know what kind of dangers are out there.” And what kind of fascinating Grimm I would like to eventually add to my growing collection of Blueprints.
Blake was silent for several seconds. “Teryxes are mostly dangerous to airships. They’re big and strong, but they’re not very nimble or smart. Their bodies are pretty durable, but if you damage their wings while they’re flying, they can die by just plowing into the ground.”
I filed the information away. It wasn’t too far off from what was written in the book, but it sounded like a first-hand lesson, which was interesting. “I’ll keep that in mind in case I ever run into one,” I told her, “thanks Blake.”
She fell silent again, but didn’t look away from my book. “Is there something you want?” I asked slowly.
Blake jabbed the book at the bottom of my stack. “This one is garbage. You shouldn’t read it.”
I pulled the book out. It wasn’t a very large tome, about two-hundred pages long with a plain brown cover and the title and author’s name embossed on the spine. “Why, what’s wrong with it?”
Blake wrinkled her nose. “The author wants you to think she’s a big hero, but she and her team were awful. They committed all sorts of terrible crimes against the faunus during the war and played them off afterward. She and her husband were two of Menagerie’s most wanted until they died a few decades ago.”
“Huh, I didn’t know that. Thanks Blake.”
She nodded jerkily and went back to her own book. I shrugged, pushed the book aside, and went back to my reading.