She muttered the litany one more time, the line once said to her, the line she had said four times now to four individuals… “For it is in passing that we achieve immortality, through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee.”
Pyrrha stood, staring at the four faunus children, she had just finished unlocking the aura of the short blonde haired one with the golden eyes. They all had spectacular weapons, Neptune’s handiwork no doubt, Pyrrha wouldn't trust anyone else other than herself with Milo and Akouo, and she could tell his style just from a cursory glance... They certainly had the willpower to become huntsmen. But, the thing that both impressed, and to some extent, scared Pyrrha was their aura. They had more power than any other person, human or faunus, she had ever met… Compared to them, her own power, something she had been praised for as a child, seemed insignificant.
As she finished the ritual on the last of the three, the light in her home died down... These four had shown up looking for training, they explained that they wanted to join the huntsmen academies to find friends who had joined not too long ago, they explained how Neptune had told them that she was the best student fighter in all of Anima, possibly in the entire world.
She was surprised at how these four had no prior knowledge of her, nor much knowledge of the huntsmen and huntresses in general... Even more surprising, when she wanted to spar with one of them, to see for herself how strong they were, she found that they didn't even know what Aura was. The most surprising part of these children was the sheer power they possessed, they didn't just shimmer or glow when their aura was unlocked, they burned, they shone light strong enough to cast shadows.
“We should start training, aura and weapons aren’t the only things you need to become great huntsmen and huntresses.”
The girl with silver hair and a silver tail, the one who had introduced herself as Silver Spoon, turned to Pyrrha, “We would hate to take up more of your time, you said that you would be leaving for another kingdom in a few days.”
Pyrrha replied, “Yes, but that just means we have a few days of training, you are clearly new to combat, and I won’t allow you to get yourselves killed on the long trek to Mistral… There are plenty of dangers between Haven and Argus… In many ways, the trek itself is a form of final exam for the students from Sanctum… Come, let’s see if Sanctum is willing to lend us their sparring arena.”
“You’re a huntsman?” Asked Scootaloo. The fillies found themselves sitting at a low table, a sofa on one end, and a few chairs dragged over to provide seating for everyone. The girls’ father, Taiyang, as he introduced himself, had brought in a tray covered in plates of warm bread and cups of fresh tea.
“Ex-Huntsman,” Taiyang replied, “After my team broke apart, I haven’t been taking many missions… I just want to live a peaceful life now, and I don’t want to have a part in Ozpin’s business anymore,” He paused, looking sad, as if some dark memories were clawing at his mind, “But that’s enough about me,” He forced a smile to his face, “I want to hear what you’re stories are.”
The girls looked nervous for a moment before Diamond started saying, “I don’t particularly want to talk about it, but we came from a town called Ponyville.”
“I don’t suppose you’d believe us if I said we were magically sent here by a magic snake?” Apple Bloom said.
“It’s ok if you don’t want to talk about it,” Tai began, “we’ve all had friends and family taken by the grimm.”
There was an awkward pause before Ruby said, “Hey, dad, these girls don’t even have their aura yet, we were thinking you could unlock them.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep.”
“Huh…” He turned to the fillies, “I don’t suppose you girls have ever gone to combat school?”
“No, but we’ve fought plenty of monsters before,” Scootaloo said.
“It was mostly thanks to my magic that we survived,” Sweetie continued.
“Magic?” Tai said, confused and worried. The other girls looked both confused and intrigued.
“Yeah, look,” Sweetie began as she raised her hand, enveloping her loaf of bread in a shimmering field of a pale minty green light. Soon she had raised the bread into the air and started taking bites out of it.
“That’s you’re semblance!” Ruby shouted, awed.
“Semblance?” Sweetie asked, intrigued.
“Yeah, look!” Ruby said, and, in a flurry of red rose petals, she flew around the room, before coming to a stop right behind the girls, putting a hand on Sweetie’s shoulder, a grin on her face. Sweetie dropped her bread as she stared at the speedy human girl.
“Yeah, and whenever I get hit, I can absorb that force and add it to my own next time I hit something,” Yang said.
Tai stared at the girls, “I guess magic might be one way of looking at semblances and aura… Impressive semblance there, I’ve never heard of someone learning how to control their semblance before unlocking their aura, but I guess there’s a first for everything.”
The girls continued eating, discussing Semblances and Aura. Once they were finished, Tai led them all out the back door and out to the yard.
On a lonely cloud in an otherwise cloudless sky a pegasus sat, rainbow mane and tail dangling down over the world below, “Hey Discord…” The mare said, casually, almost disinterestedly.
“Rainbow, Rainbow, Rainbow… I believe it’s your turn to berate me?”
“No… As I said before, Scootaloo’s a tough filly, and I have no doubt she’ll be ok… I just wish I could have said goodbye to her…” She said, somberly. “I wish I could see the awesome adventure she could be going on, right now… I wish I could be there with her.”
Discord smiled, and had to stop himself from just snapping his fingers, no… Not just yet. “Perhaps I could send you there… But, it’s a dangerous world, and you’re a bit old to join the other girls in monster-hunting school.”
With that, discord slithered away into non-reality. Leaving the mare to sit there and think… A few moments passed, then Rainbow dash got to her hooves, popped the cloud with a solid kick, and flew off.
Taiyang placed his hand on Apple Bloom’s chest, the other on her head, “We are the guardians of the world, we bear on our backs the duty of a warrior, and fight the embrace of darkness. Our spirit is our sword and shield, and upon our death we pass into the halls of immortality, I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee,” He spoke the litany for the second time in his life, and as he did so, power swelled in both him and his subject.
He was illuminated by a faint yellow shine, Ruby and Yang looked on in awe, but as the ritual finished, the subject of their awe changed, as Apple Bloom started to glow a bright red, not just shimmer, but properly glow, at the ritual’s apex. She seemed to shine like a small red star, brilliant enough that she cast shadows across the yard.
Tai took a step back and stared, eyes wide, “Y-Your aura, I’ve never seen someone that strong…”
“Woah…” Apple Bloom stared at herself, her arms pulsing with power, she almost felt like she was burning, but in a pleasant sort of way, like a reinvigorating sting across her entire body, then the sensation dimmed as her glow receded before she returned to normal.
“Ooooh… Me next!” Scootaloo shouted, bouncing up and down. Soon, a dull purple glow, just as bright as Apple Bloom’s filled the yard, followed by Diamond and a brilliant pink light that shone just a little brighter than the previous two… Finally, it was Sweetie Belle’s turn. Tai was nearly collapsed from exhaustion, his own aura nearly depleted.
Sweetie Belle glowed like a brilliant minty green bonfire, a light so bright that it proved hard to focus on, one could bearly distinguish the person underneath the light, then it too faded, and Tai allowed himself to fall to his knees in exertion. “Wow…” He gasped, “You girls…” He breathed, flickering with a pale orange light, “Are incredibly strong. Not even Summer had that much aura…”
“So… Does this mean we can fight now!” Scootaloo began.
“Hold your horses there,” Yang said, only to receive strange looks in return… “We need to make sure you can control it first… Apple Bloom, come here a moment.”
Apple Bloom did as commanded, “Now, feel that warmth and pressure inside yourself, and try to pull it outward,” Yang continued. Apple Bloom wore a look of concentration for a few moments, but nothing happened…
“D-Did I do it?” She asked.
“Well, only one way to find out,” Yang said as she proceeded to smack Apple Bloom in the gut, and although it carried much less force than her first time getting punched by this woman, she still fell to the ground, gasping. “Nope, didn’t feel anything…”
The others clearly tried doing what Yang told Apple Bloom, but nothing happened at first, that was until Sweetie Belle spoke up, “You mean like this?” She asked, a softest shimmer of green glowing from her body.
“Well, it certainly looks like it,” Yang began, she moved over to Sweetie Belle, who shrunk into herself a bit, bracing for the impact. Yang’s fist hit Sweetie Belle, who did indeed fall over, but this time she didn’t lose her breath, nor feel any pain… In fact, she couldn’t feel anything, the impact and subsequent fall didn’t even register.
She got back to her feet without any effort and stared at herself. She proceeded to smack herself in the gut, only to elicit a wheezing “Ow…”
“Well, at least you understand how to protect yourself… But for all your power, you need to learn to control it a bit better,” Tai said once he had recovered some of his stamina, “As you can see, it’s a bit trickier to block a hit from yourself... Plus, if you're glowing like that all the time, you won't exactly be sneaky.”
Yang, Ruby, and Tai all started giving instructions, and in just an hour, everyone was successfully punching themselves and each-other without the slightest bit of pain or damage. “Ok,” Yang said after a dozen or so minutes of them running around, having fun. “Now, the real training begins… Apple, we still up to a fight?”
“Of course!”
“Well then,” Yang chuckled, “Here I come,” She yelled, punching out at the filly who stood there, ready.
With a set of alchemy tools and a cauldron, a pony with a yellow coat and brown mane, a mare with bright green eyes, went to work… She carefully poured a vial of green liquid into the pot, followed by various other fluids and powders. Soon, the boiling cauldron was wafting blue-coloured smoke into the room.
She retrieved a shard of stone, a soft grey with a hint of blue and green, it shimmered in the light. Steadily, without using her magic, the mare placed the stone into a mortar and pestle, grinding the stone into dust. With the stone safely ground into powder, she poured it into the cauldron.
The room’s lights started to turn a sickly shade of green, and the now turquoise smoke filling the room cast everything in shadows. The brew started to glow as magic roiled inside, and the violent bubbling filled the room with the noise of boiling liquid. Slowly, the magic settled, and the fluid started to turn from green to black, and the room returned to normal… The mare extinguished the flames, and let the cauldron cool.
She had been perfecting the brew for years, and now, at last, here was the perfect sample. She poured the ebony liquid into vials and threw them into a saddlebag, making absolutely sure not to leave a trace of the liquid in the cauldron.