//------------------------------// // Chapter 26: Three... Two... One... Fight! // Story: Fillies and Monsters // by Solaris Vult //------------------------------// The mare raised her head to the sky… Up there, in the darkness of the night, a moon shone down, but this wasn’t Luna’s moon, this was different, the moon was broken, shattered, pieces drifted through the void above as if it were a broken mirror… Good, this was indeed another world, she reached into her mind and felt a dreadful emptiness… Definitely another world, her connection to the queen, to the hive, was gone. Not for long… She looked around, she was in some kind of forest, the leaves were a shade of brilliant red, and in the distance, she saw the lights of a city, good… Out of sight, yet close to civilisation, and food… This wasn’t an ideal location, but a more permanent portal could be set up later, for now, she just needed to report her findings, thus, in a field of acidic green magic, the mare drew a small device, resembling a scarab, pulsing with powerful magic. She planted the device on the ground, and with a simple spell, it glowed, a pulse of energy resolving itself into a warped sphere, inside which was the image of her queen. “Report, were you successful…” “Yes, my queen…” The mare let the magic surrounding her body go, and in a pulse of green fire, she returned to her true form. “It seems the rumours were indeed true…” “Good, very good… I shall see this alien world for myself, keep this portal open, I’ll retrieve some more drones and we will set to work finding a location for a proper hive.” “Yes my queen.” With that, the figure vanished from view. The only things present to witness the creatures that came through the portal a few minutes later were the plants, bugs, and a single, black, crimson-eyed, raven. The students were surprised when, for their next class, they were taken into the auditorium. Glynda walked out on to the stage and said, “Welcome students, I will be your teacher for your combat classes… These classes will put student against student in friendly sparring matches, it is my hope that the competitive atmosphere of this class will help you all become better fighters in the end… This class also serves another purpose, as many of you know, huntsmen and huntresses do not just fight the creatures of grimm, many of you may find yourselves needing to fight your fellow humans and faunus. Such as chasing down a notorious criminal, or combating bandits in the wild… You will find humans and faunus make far more dangerous foes than the creatures of grimm. However, it is also important that you do not underestimate the monsters of the world, so we may go on field trips into grimm infested territory, or, as some of the second-year students can attest, we may take on some actual assignments later on in the year… So, shall we begin… Who of you wishes to go first?” In a heartbeat, Scootaloo was jumping up and down, her hands flailing in the air, “Ooh, I want to go!” “Scootaloo Allgood is it… Very well, anyone want to be her opponent?” “I’ll do it,” Said a student in the back. “Dove Bronzewing, very good… Get into your combat equipment, meanwhile, everyone else will sit on the stands,” Glynda gestured to the seats encircling the floor. As Scootaloo dashed off to the girl’s locker room, Apple Bloom stopped her. “Here, it put it together between classes,” She pulled out a bottle containing a violently glowing yellow fluid. “Thanks!” Scootaloo replied. A dozen or so minutes passed and out into the auditorium stepped Dove, dressed in his bronze plated armour and carrying his sword in one hand. Meanwhile, Scootaloo walked out of the locker room in her leather jacket, pistols in hand, potion on her belt, and wings flared. Up above, on holographic displays, it showed the faces of the two combatants above green bars. “As eager as you are to begin,” Glynda addressed the students, “Let me tell you the rules before you fight… As you can see, those bars represent your aura, your scrolls will have similar displays, they can also connect to the scroll of any other student in Beacon… So, remember to keep track of your aura and the aura of your teammates… Now, when your aura bar turns red, that means you are down to ten-percent or less aura, and that you are disqualified from combat… In a dual between teams, this means you are forbidden from assisting your teammates, and the team that has lost all its members is declared the loser. This is a singles match, so teammates won’t be of concern, just whoever is disqualified first is the loser.” “Do you understand?” Glynda finished. The two students nodded simultaneously… “Good,” Glynda began moving out of the way of the combatants, “Three… Two… One.” Scootaloo raised both her pistols, meanwhile, Dove pointed his sword directly at the girl, “Begin.”  Almost the exact same second, there came a pop from Dove’s weapon, as a pair of hissing blasts of heat came hurtling toward the boy. Dove screamed and staggered back as he was hit in the chest by the concentrated heat, a trail of plasma from the impact points all the way back to Scootaloo’s pistols dissolving back into gas almost as quickly as it had formed. Meanwhile, Scootaloo shouted as a hard and sharp pain struck her in the shoulder, she glanced down to see a bullet bouncing off her jacket and grunted as she lifted herself back up.  Dove recovered just as quickly and started firing a volley of bullets toward the girl as he marched closer, meanwhile Scootaloo quickly learned to get out of the way of the bullets, and started running around the stage. She raised her guns and fired, one bearly missed the boy and melted part of the wall behind, meanwhile the other passed over the boy’s arm and he dropped his sword. Before Scootaloo could take advantage of the boy’s moment of weakness, Dove dropped and rolled forward, grabbing his sword back into his hand a second later and slashed upward, slashing Scootaloo across the chest. Scootaloo fell backwards, but, learning from her opponent, rolled out of the way to avoid the blade. She pulled from her belt the potion that Apple Bloom had given her, and in a single motion pulled off the cork and started to down the contents, savouring the electric feeling that flowed through her body. Meanwhile, Dove took his chance to reload, shoving more rounds into the revolving cylinder on his sword. He looked up to see the girl, electricity flowing across her arms and wings, her eyes glowing a bright golden yellow, and sparks flying from her mouth with each breath. Dove leapt to the side as a stray bolt of lightning flew from the glowing girl, who leapt into the air, leaving behind a trail of ionized gas in her wake. Some of the students on the stands screamed as lightning arced from Scootaloo up across the arena, but were surprised to see force fields blocking the stray bolts from the students. Scootaloo collected clouds around her arms, meanwhile, Dove raised his sword to fire at the girl, a series of bangs rang forth, but Scootaloo bearly noticed over the energy flowing through her body, then she pointed her arms, humming with energy, toward the boy. There was a flash of light so brilliant the students in the auditorium had to shield their eyes as Dove shouted, his aura dropping by over half in a heartbeat, but he was still in the yellow… That wouldn’t have been so bad for the boy if Scootaloo’s aura had dropped too, but even after her fall back down to the ground after floating so high inside the arena, she was still in the green. Dove took advantage of Scootaloo’s daze and charged forward stabbing as slashing, but the pain brought the girl back to the present, and she delivered a hard kick to the boy’s crotch as she rolled to recover her dropped pistols. Dove growled as he aimed his sword again and fired at the girl, who screamed as a pair of bullets struck her in the side, but Dove looked down in shock when on the third pull of the trigger, the blade simply clicked. Scootaloo lifted Flames, she didn’t have the time to go find where the other gun landed, she held her pistol in both hands and aimed, pulling the trigger. From the end of the gun came a torrent of fire dust, glittering as it burned, sending a wave of fire down on Dove. He thrashed, trying to get the dust off his body, as Scootaloo saw where her other pistol, Fire, had landed. Dove, his armour still burning, charged at the girl and gave a hard kick to her stomach, then stabbed forward with his sword, hitting Scootaloo in the gut. Scootaloo coughed as the wind was knocked out of her, and she aimed her pistol up toward the boy’s face, but it simply clicked as the dust had been expended. Dove loomed over her, still burning, ready to slash downward, when Scootaloo looked at the knife mounted to the end of her pistol and stabbed forward, hitting the boy in the gut too. Dove was knocked on his back and Scootaloo finally got her other pistol into her hands, she saw the dust that remained in the tank and twisted the knob to the third setting, one she had yet to use in an actual fight until now, the one that used everything still inside the gun in a single blast. Dove had recovered and slashed to the side, Scootaloo falling to the ground, grunting in pain as she fell on her fragile wings. “Stay down you damn featherbrain!” Dove spat, slamming his boot down on one of Scootaloo’s wings. Scootaloo replied by pointing the end of Fire at the boy’s head, and pulling down on the trigger. There was a loud popping sizzling sound and a buzzer signalled the end of the match. Scootaloo still had half her aura, but Dove’s was now firmly in the red, he sat on the ground, dazed, swearing at the burning sensation that danced over his head as if he just buried his skull in thermite. Scootaloo ignored all the phantom pain on her shoulder and gut and wing, and leapt upward, hovering for a second as the air in the stadium swirled around her, she let out a loud “Wooh!” and applause and cheering started to rain from the booths, her team celebrating loudest of all. There were several in the students who weren’t cheering, even a few who were booing, particularly Dove’s team, but, none the less, this was the most praise Scootaloo had ever been given, and it filled her heart with a joy unfathomable. The first day of proper schooling was over… And with it came some rather, unsettling, realization… The Schnees were not the only family with a hereditary semblance… That Apple Bloom girl, a faunus of all things, had one, she had described how her family used their powers on their orchard for generations during lunch. And that Scootaloo girl, how could she handle all that dust in her body, even just a pinch of dust could be painful for someone so young… And that Sweetie Belle girl, she lifted a boarbatusk into the air with little effort, without any gravity dust… At least none Weiss could see… Glynda could probably do it, but Sweetie was just a child, bearly a huntress, from what Ruby had said, she hadn’t even unlocked her aura when she arrived in Vale. Sweetie Belle, that crazy girl who rambled about magical powers and talked about Weiss’s own semblance like it wasn’t anything special, like it was simple… She had the audacity to call her semblance inefficient! Overcomplicated! As if she could do it better! There must be some kind of trick, some kind of secret, something that could make sense of this… The Schnees were the only ones with a hereditary semblance, they were the only ones with such a versatile and powerful semblance, she would not be outdone by them, she would not be outdone by animals, those creatures that had attacked and ridiculed her family for years! She would find it, Weiss would get to the bottom of what kind of trick they were using. And she knew Sweetie Belle was at the center of it all...