[Erytheia Hellebore]

The noble warrior stood, and the people looked to her.

For she was a beacon - hope given form, yet still only human.
Within that truth there was great promise.
If one could stand against the night, then so too could anyone - everyone.

In her hand the warrior held a Rose. And her aura burned bright.

❝

Erytheia listened and waited for Deraine to finish, much as he had afforded her the same courtesy, only slightly raising an eyebrow at what seemed to be a more aggressive response than usual that was reined in almost immediately. The Hellebore couldn't help but smile, though, when Deraine attempted his way of giving her a pep talk. It was clear that his way of leadership was much more down to earth than the own idealized banners her family held aloft, but the fact that he was trying was enough to give her a little boost to her spirits.

"I did," she affirmed with a short nod, having settled back into something more akin to her usual mood and function. It seemed like the pep talk from Colton, such as it was, had the desired effect, though for completely different reasons than it was intended to. Still, as long as it worked, right?

"It was my choice, and I do not regret it. However, at the risk of sounding rude or arrogant, Colton Deraine, it is precisely because of the training I have received and the strength of my Semblance that I must strive for more."

She continued to step forward, keeping her head on a swivel and politely ignoring the fact that Deraine didn't seem to want to look at her.

"You and I have had the privilege of training at one of the best combat schools in the country, and you and I have had the privilege of being born with powerful Semblances. Sanctum was a starting point, one that trained our abilities to a level that could be considered as a starting base. With that said, even diminished, I should be stronger than the rest, who have not even had that much. Even if I am but at one percent of my strength, and am on par with the strongest of those who have had nothing, I would still consider myself weak."

Erytheia tilted her head at Deraine's weapons. She did not know if he had forged them himself, but she did get the feeling that he wouldn't trust anyone else to do so, knowing the young man was a decent blacksmith himself.

"You should understand, I believe. Quality materials make for a quality product. Those products must be judged by their own set of qualifications and criteria, not those of their lessers. Similarly, we are better than most of the others, and thus need to be held to a higher standard. Being judged by the criteria of those weaker obviously leads to a skewed perspective of strength. Keeping track of where my past abilities peaked shows me how much work I must put in into reclaiming them, and then surpassing them. Similarly, reviewing the combat tapes of team combat and the records of my own training sessions, it was clear to me that I was relying on my Semblance to handle portions of combat that I could have handled without it if I were at least at the level of skill that I had previously."

Again, she traced the scars under the leather with a thumb, safely out of Deraine's view.

"A Semblance is a tool," she said levelly, keeping pace with him. "It can be used in any situation to bludgeon something with brute force, but if there are better tools for the situation, such as my martial skills, there is no shame in using the right tool for the right job. Would you not say that would be a more efficient way to handle the situation?"

AIRTAFAE (SEMBLANCE): [RANK E]

PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: RADIX GLORIA (DURABILITY) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: ARBOR IMPERIUM (STRENGTH) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: RAMIS MILIA (MARTIAL ARTS) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: LAMINAE CHORUS (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]

IRKALLA ARALI (WEAPON): [RANK F]

@ ● 591 words ● 6511 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[Colton Deraine]

[googlefont=Open+Sans]

[attr="class","firstfriend"]

Bravery is believing in yourself, and that's one thing nobody can teach you.

Huh.

It was awkward the hear such a similar line of logic against his own spoken out loud, and even more awkward to be in the position of arguing against his own beliefs taken one step farther than he himself had ever taken them. The reason, most likely, was that Erytheia still thought that she could reach her own goal for herself and thought that it was possible. Colton, on the other hand, knew damned well that the level of power that he was striving for was simply unattainable for him. It was a disconnect that became clear to him as he listened to the girl, and he didn’t quite know what to make of that disconnect yet.

Getting back to a former level of skill was always easier than attaining it the first time. Surpassing how good she used to be was not only possible but expected of her by faculty as well as herself and wasn’t a lot to ask for. In fact, one could consider to be the bare minimum expected of her when she enrolled at Haven in the first place. It was an attainable goal, he realized, and that probably was why she felt so irritated that she hadn’t reached it yet.

”Fair enough.” he’d note, glancing back at Erytheia before continuing: ”You also have to keep in mind the scarcity of product to work with here. We’re in an intense huntsman shortage due to the lack of trainees available. We’re all there is, so right now I think it’s perfectly fair to compare ten percent of you to eighty percent of someone else and judge them against each other. It doesn’t really matter if there’s a perfect tool for the job if you don’t actually have access to that tool. When all you got is a hammer, it doesn’t really matter if a wrench would be better. You screw the damn bolt in with a hammer because that’s all you got.”

He’d shrug, then. ”In the same way that feeling bad that Shadecloak could have killed all of those Grimm without being touched and not using her semblance is pointless. She’s not here, we are. We did the best we could with the tools we had and won. It was sloppier, yeah, but that doesn’t change the end result that the Grimm died either way.”

He’d move his left hand to the hilt of his blade and click his sword out with his left thumb once before sheathing it once again. ”On the bright side, it seems like there’s jack shit left in this section of the forest.” Brown eyes had continued to scan the area as they walked and talked, but he wasn’t even seeing normal animals… let alone Grimm or anything else that even resembled something dangerous. Pulling out his scroll to check his own aura level, he saw the meter rise to around forty five percent despite walking around nearly the entire perimeter. Damn, that meant it would be a while longer before he got to fifty. There were some lucky fuckers who had their aura recharge insanely fast compared to their peers, but Colton was never one of them. His aura was insanely durable and tough to break, sure, but the damage that was done to it tended to stick for quite some time afterwards in what was an average at best recharge rate.

”You should be good to go for the rest of the day with this set up.” the brunette would start, ”Having a nice, secure area this early on means that you’ll get some mission experience in no time when you pass in a few hours. We dropped with what, twenty two? I can’t imagine we get more than three full team’s worth at best from this, so you’ll be getting all the training you need here soon enough.”

There was a pause, then, for a deep breath. ”Plus, you got that fan club running around that you could probably ask for sparring partners or whatever else you needed. Being pushed by someone else is always much easier than going at it alone, yeah?”

Hell, for the longest time at Haven Colton himself was bored out of his mind due to lack of challenges. The Huntsman Internships were great, but that was just a few days out of the months he had been there. Months of his life wasted away with a barbarian that possessed only a kindergarten level education and a lifetime of avoiding simple hygienic practices like bathing being the closest thing he had for a rival. Someone who the former champion defeated but defeated in such a humiliating fashion that there was nothing else left to say about it.

When Rosalia came, he finally had someone he could call a rival that would push him. She had almost won their second match due to Colton not being able to use dust and overestimating his own ability to hold his own in melee. She was someone that he could not just disrespect freely against and still expect to win, because her skill level demanded respect. It was a fresh wave of motivation to get better, because if he did not get better at the same rate that Rosalia did he would simply be left in the dust as the second strongest trainee rather than far and away the most powerful like he had been previously.

That’s what Erytheia needed, frankly, a rival who was just ever so slightly beneath her skill level that would light a fire under her ass to get better. It was what everyone needed, frankly, because without having a reason to go that extra mile or drag yourself out of bed on a weekend morning to train… well, nobody would do it. It really was just that simple.

※ 9302 total words ✎ 967 words ✉ C rank semblance, D rank martial arts, C rank durability, D rank weapon, E rank weapon enhancement, E rank stamina

MADE BY MIZO

[Erytheia Hellebore]

The noble warrior stood, and the people looked to her.

For she was a beacon - hope given form, yet still only human.
Within that truth there was great promise.
If one could stand against the night, then so too could anyone - everyone.

In her hand the warrior held a Rose. And her aura burned bright.

❝

Fair enough," she echoed back at him, a small smile on her lips as he shrugged. Erytheia Hellebore was no fool - she had seen the combat footage of Deraine's fights many times over now, especially when she had been preparing to fight him herself in the training scenario in the forest. That training scenario had gone south in a particularly nasty fashion, but that aside, she knew that Deraine, when he wasn't trying to make a point to someone he disliked either on sight or had a rivalry with for the longest time, tended very much to use as much force as he could with Polarity to crush the opponent as soon as possible. One of his common moves was to launch himself at speed by forcing his own armor into motion, which dragged him along hard enough to take a significant chunk of Aura, trading that for an immediate combat advantage. Conservation of Aura was no doubt far from his mind when these fights happened, but then again, in all fairness, Deraine's Aura was strong enough to take the hit. There were more efficient and safer ways to gain speed, but such a move was indeed indicative of Deraine's preference for function over utility, which was respectable in and of itself.

"Yes. It seems like most of the Grimm were eliminated in the fight itself, and the noise of battle scared off whatever wildlife was in the area," Erytheia responded, pausing to take a moment to scan the surrounding treeline and what she could see of the woods deeper within, as Deraine scanned his Scroll - presumably to check his Aura level. After a moment's hesitation, she did the same, glancing at her Scroll display before tucking it back into a pocket. Ninety eight percent. A few more minutes until she was back to full, and then, save for the slight fatigue and the burning underbrush around them, it would be like the battle had never happened. Deraine spoke again, and she gave him another of her smiles, small and polite.

"I certainly hope so. Nothing can quite compare to the experience gained from actual field missions, so it will be a bit of a relief to at least ensure that my freedom to take on such field missions will be less restricted, in that sense. And fan club... well, that might be pushing it too far, Deraine. I am quite sure I do not inspire nearly as much devotion as that term would imply," she said with a quiet laugh, thinking back to the other students. No, she was quite certain that fans was the wrong word to describe their relationship.

Erytheia took a few moments to marshal her thoughts, then extended a gloved hand to the other Sanctum graduate now that the patrol was over. It had been a formality more than anything else, but she was glad to have had the chance to talk to Deraine regardless.

"That being said, I will keep in mind what you have said so far. Thank you for your help today, Colton Deraine. I hope that the rest of your assessment goes well."

AIRTAFAE (SEMBLANCE): [RANK E]

PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: RADIX GLORIA (DURABILITY) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: ARBOR IMPERIUM (STRENGTH) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: RAMIS MILIA (MARTIAL ARTS) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: LAMINAE CHORUS (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]

IRKALLA ARALI (WEAPON): [RANK F]

@ ● 522 words ● 7033 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[Colton Deraine]

[googlefont=Open+Sans]

[attr="class","firstfriend"]

Bravery is believing in yourself, and that's one thing nobody can teach you.

Colton was glad that Erytheia decided to come to Haven. Level headed and well adjusted, she was a breath of fresh air after dealing with the suicidal, the psychotic, and the tweakers for so long. Everyone had their own mental blocks, and he was no exception. It was rare for the brunette to say an encouraging word to anyone, frankly, but saying a few to the blonde suited his interests more than anything else at the moment. If she left, one of the very few mentally stable and physically capable members of the class would be gone, and he’d be back to his original situation of having absolutely zero reliable people around him to lean on when things got tough.

When she argued with the usage of the term ‘fan club’, Colton just laughed. ”I think you underestimate yourself. Some of these kids look at you the same way I looked at Cress.” That was about the only way he could describe the naked admiration to the point of annoyance that he saw when he observed others interacting with the blonde, frankly. It was about the highest praise he could give someone’s effect on the class, frankly, and he gave it freely in this instance almost without realizing that he did it. Even saying her name verbally required a certain level of comfort, because it was no secret to anyone who even passively knew of Colton during his time in Sanctum how badly he took her death.

”No problem. Always a pleasure working with someone else from Sanctum.” would be the immediate and genuine reply when Erytheia held out her hand and thanked him for the help. The brunette would give the blonde a firm handshake and a smile before turning away and waving goodbye. ”I look forward to working with you again. Metal conducts electricity pretty well, so it’s not a bad combination.” he’d say over his shoulder, sauntering away in the direction toward where most of the others had landed a few hours ago.

He still needed to help out one other stranded trainee, after all. It didn’t really matter who it was, though Colton had a few off the top of his head that he would prefer to avoid. Aegle, for one, because he’d be forced to be her personal bodyguard for the rest of the exercise. Evangeline, for two, for the same exact reason. Qiu’li, despite his own dislike for the animal, wouldn’t be bad because there was no way that the barbarian would want to be around him a moment more than necessary and they could just part ways immediately and pretend like they never saw each other at all.

There were also the mentally unstable out there that he could encounter, though thankfully most of them were so anti-social it didn’t really matter. Nikolas wouldn’t force him to stick around like a coward might, because despite his latent psychosis one thing the guy wasn’t was a coward. Someone like Argent would be neat to meet up with, but his luck was probably done now that his first encounter was Erytheia. Rosalia was also a target, if only because she transferred seemingly the day before the midterm, so he hadn’t had a chance to properly talk with her yet.

It had been a long time since the Mistral Regional Tournament, frankly, so he had always assumed she went somewhere else. Probably Shade Academy, since she was from Vacuo and all. The fact that she waited so long to make a final decision was odd, though he supposed he couldn’t blame her if she decided to tour all four of the Huntsman Academies before making a final decision. It was a shrewd use of her position of immense leverage in her fifteen minutes of fame, and if that was the cause of the delay, he’d respect her more for it. It’s not every day someone gets a free trip to the capital of every nation on the planet without paying even a single lien for the privilege.

Fucking crazy how things worked out sometimes. It really was a small world, even when it didn’t really feel like it most of the time. Shadows from the past came back when you least expected them to, and at least in Colton’s case lately they were very positive ones.

※ 10022 total words ✎ 720 words ✉ C rank semblance, D rank martial arts, C rank durability, D rank weapon, E rank weapon enhancement, E rank stamina

MADE BY MIZO

[Wolfe]

XP Distribution:

Erytheia: 70 x 200% (event bonus) = 140

100 + 140 = 240 XP new total

Colton: 100 x 200% (event bonus) = 200

125 + 200 = 325 XP new total