[Elena Thorne]

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[attr="class","puppycat"]868 words

[attr="class","lemonsoda"]

[attr="class","puppycat"]868 total words

Hour One.

Fortunately, it was still early enough in the morning for there to be a lot of shadows around to manipulate. Unfortunately, it was early as fuck in the morning and the whole ‘waking up’ thing wasn’t really accomplished until the whole ‘being hurtled towards the ground at speeds that are really unsafe’ happened. The combination of simultaneously waking up and realizing that if you didn’t act fast you were going to have your aura completely shattered to start off an entire day in a Grimm-infested forest was not ideal, but that was just how things went when the cruel school system refused to have the start to these events occur at any time other than ungodly early in the morning.

Her actual landing could have used a lot less aura if she had time to actually think about conserving it, but in the moment, it was honestly just panic and needing to make absolutely sure she didn’t splat against the ground. A trampoline made from panic pulling every shadow in her effective range wasn’t ideal, and neither was the fact that she was just bounced way high up in the air after hitting it and being forced to let it dissipate as she quickly flew out of range. The second go around was much easier, because she remembered that parachutes were a thing and just made one of those. From then on, things were much easier than they were previously, and she landed off in a small clearing with little difficulty after that.

Opening her scroll for a moment caused a groan, though, as her aura levels were down to fifty percent already due to her panic in the first landing and hard yanking every shadow in the same ZIP code for no reason. The bright side was that there was no Grimm immediately in her landing location, so she could actually take stock of her gear and make sure that nothing went missing during the fall. Her backpack, thankfully, wasn’t torn open or anything which was good. She packed heavier than most other students, for the sole reason that she figured someone would be unlucky enough to lose their supplies or dumb enough to pack poorly so that would be a good in road to an early group. She brought with her the standard food and water of course, but also matches and a compass and a first aid kit alongside an umbrella just in case.

Unlike some of the others, Elena wasn’t exactly super confident that she’d come out of the twenty-four hour period unscathed in an area that hadn’t been properly cleared out for literal months. There was no telling how many of the monsters were crawling around, or really how strong those monsters were. There was almost certainly a pack of Beowolves in the forest at a minimum, but months was enough to build a population of way more than just that. The only thing she really didn’t want to see were fliers, because she had enough of those for the semester. If there were Nevermores, Lancers, Griffons, Manticores, or other types of flying Grimm in the region it would be nice if someone else ran into them because holy hell were they annoying.

She was wearing the standard Haven Academy girl’s uniform, consisting of a black jacket with a light gray outline around the edges, a white undershirt and a white band around the student's left arm, and a gray and black checkered skirt. She figured that if clothes were going to be ruined, they might as well be school clothes, especially with the risk of bad weather or getting swarmed by bugs while asleep or continuous fights with Grimm wearing down your aura all day.

Her first objective would be to find another person, which would have been way easier had she been awake enough to actually pay attention to where people were dropping. Bags were under her eyes as her usual as she yawned and rubbed her eyes to try and maintain focus now that the adrenalin from the fall was starting to wear off. Taking a nap alone was a dumb course of action, so she needed to get into a group of two or three to make that a lot safer. She could take the ‘worst’ part of night watch from one of the dreaded morning people in exchange for … honestly, even a half hour of extra sleep would be a godsend. A full hour would be ideal, but she’d be willing to be talked down to a half hour.

Hefting her backpack up again and securing it, she went off in a completely random direction with her compass out to ensure that at the very least she wasn’t running around in circles. Once you did the whole circles for hours thing in an unfamiliar place once, most people learned to bring something along the next time to prevent that shit from happening again. Due to disorientation and lack of awareness before and during launch she was no idea where she was in relation to the others, but she could at least make sure she was headed somewhere rather than just staying put like an idiot.

MADE BY MIZO

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[Argent Steele]

I know you got hate in you. Most do. Trick is to use it, 'stead of it usin' you.
But you know this. Vengeance is a motivator, not the motive.

Don't hunt 'em 'cause you been wronged.
Hunt 'em 'cause what they did was wrong.
There's a world of difference there, kid.
One makes you selfish. The other makes you a hero.

And I see a hero in you.

❝

Ouroboros felt unfamiliar and new in his hands, despite the days spent training with it as soon as it had been forged. Argent had made sure to learn how to clean and maintain it, if nothing else, and had acclimatized to the bow form after a short delay of a few hours to account for the new weight and draw strength. The usage of swords, however, was not his specialty, and Kishka could only teach him so much in the form of close quarters combat until the day of the initiation had come. He could throw the blades just fine, but the whole point of swapping from Subtle Calamity to his newer weapon was to remedy the deficiency of his combat effectiveness in close quarters in the first place, and tossing out his new blades nilly willy as though he were Cotton would defeat the purpose.

Being launched from one of those panels was something quite different from airdropping into combat from a Bullhead, the only other thing he could really compare it to. On the Bullhead, there had been a chance to recon the area, know what they were walking into, and prepare accordingly. Here, he had been thrown in blind, and the environment had breezed past without much time to survey it, forcing the snake Faunus to focus solely on his landing strategy rather than the surrounding environment. In this aspect, it also reminded him of the internship mission - head towards a particularly tall piece of terrain, jam his weapon into it, and circle round it until he’d slowed his momentum enough to descend onto the ground. He’d messed up his descent then.

He didn’t mess up now.

Ouroboros cut through a large amount of foliage as he descended into the canopy, and then bit deep into the bark of a particularly tall and thick tree. Argent swung his body around with as much force as he could muster, leaning into the sudden jerk from the deceleration as his arms strained to maintain his position.‌ The twin blades carved deep swathes in a spiral pattern around the trunk as he descended, and finally dropped the last three to four meters to the ground, tucking into a roll to redirect the last of the momentum. Looking up at the mutilated tree, Argent felt a little guilty about savaging it - but at the same time, felt more than a little proud of himself. Here, then, was visible proof of his improvement in what had been a short few months - without dust to soften the landing, nor teammates to compromise, he’d pulled off what he’d failed the first time.

It was a good feeling.

Turning away, Argent paused to check his Scroll and take stock of his inventory. Only a minor Aura loss which could be recovered with a few minutes’ rest, which was good. His arrows, throwing knives, and dust were secure, as well as the backpack which contained food, water, medicine, as well as the ever important toilet paper. Perhaps others might have thought it unnecessary, but the snake Faunus had far too many experiences in the forest where a single roll of toilet paper would have been more precious and useful than gold. Those were not experiences he wanted to ever go through again, ever. Still, it was only a twenty four hour session, so he had packed light. Most of the space in his backpack - much smaller than the one he’d brought to the internships - was dedicated to water, with dense, calorie rich foods taking up a small portion of the remaining weight and a medical kit taking up most of the rest.

“Five secrets,” he muttered to himself, scratching at a scale on his cheek before he sighed and glanced around. The sun had been coming up on the right when he had landed, so he could use that to navigate his way around. The snake Faunus promptly set off at a steady walk, keeping his head on a swivel and his hand resting on Ouroboros’ hilt.

It was surprisingly scenic. Once or twice, he thought he caught sight of deer darting through the trees, and occasionally he heard birds call to each other. The sun shining through the trees made for a beautiful sight, but it also helped highlight the black and white Haven uniform that another was wearing in the distance - the very same uniform, in fact, that he was wearing at the moment. Said uniform, as it turned out, was worn by Thorne, who’d gone before him, and who appeared quite the worse for the wear despite it having been only a few minutes since they’d been launched.

“Thorne,” he called out, waving a hand at her as he approached. His pink strip had been tied around his left thigh so it didn’t flutter into his vision or mess up the drawing of his arrow at a crucial moment. Conversation came easier to him now, as compared to when they’d first met - the train, for the most part, had them mostly separated, so he didn’t really count that as a close interaction.

“You look terrible. Rough landing?”

WHISPER OF THE WYRM (SEMBLANCE): [RANK D]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: SPEED OF THE SCYLLA (SPEED) [RANK F]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: DANCE OF THE DRAGON (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: GLARE OF THE GORGON (MARKSMANSHIP) [RANK F]
OUROBOROS (WEAPON): [RANK F]

@ ● 854 words ● 854 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[Elena Thorne]

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[attr="class","puppycat"]809 words

[attr="class","lemonsoda"]

[attr="class","puppycat"]1677 total words

Dropping to fifty percent aura this early on was a significant disadvantage. That much of a drain would take hours to recharge, which frankly put her at a large disadvantage right at the start. A wound to aura was similar to a wound in the flesh, at least insofar as that it took a long time to heal and could be prevented from healing if you exerted yourself. If she sat down right now and did absolutely nothing and no Grimm found her during the time she was resting, she could recover to full aura in two to three hours. Sporadic fighting could easily double that time, which is about what she expected. It was likely that she was never going to get full aura in the entire twenty-four hour span due to those interruptions in recharging, which was unfortunate.

Thankfully, her objective had absolutely nothing to do with fighting this go around. If she was a Dandelion having an immediate drop like that would be really bad, but frankly it didn’t really matter for an Orchid. There was no rule against grouping and indeed if nothing else she could just find a few people as night fell to camp out and recover at least a good chunk of her aura even if they were attacked sporadically. She was better off than at least some of the others, at least, since she had gotten enough power in her semblance to reliably take out at least the lowest tier of Grimm in one strike by this point. Creeps, Lancers, and Beowolves were all nonissues and would take less than one percent aura to deal with individually. The next tier would be more of an issue, but more from aura expenditure than any personal risk. Baby Nevermores and Ursa Minors would pose issues in that regard, being weak enough to likely not be able to close into melee but strong enough to not die to a single strike. Anything bigger and stronger than that could be a legitimate issue, because everything above that level could come in close and pose existential risk rather than merely an annoyance or swarm risk.

Each student was allowed three doses of dust, and Elena had chosen one dose of three different types. The first choice was Ice Dust, which would make one getaway become a lot easier by making the enemy slower. This would also be very useful in the case of a swarm of anything, because it would slow the Grimm down for hopefully long enough to be taken out before they had ever closed the distance. The second choice was Gravity Dust, which was an insurance policy against being surprised and would allow her to effectively reset a fight at a distance that was much more advantageous for her. The last choice was lightning dust, because since there were three slots she might as well save one for just more damage in case she came up against something her semblance couldn’t take care of very quickly.

Luckily for her, however, the first encounter she’d have on this midterm wasn’t against Grimm. A familiar voice called out, and blue eyes looked over at her classmate with a smile. He had his pink bandana wrapped around his leg while Elena had hers wrapped around her upper left arm, but they were both Orchids and thus both had the same goal. That was a lucky coincidence, especially given her less than ideal landing strategy.

”No, that’s just my face.” she would respond drily to Argent’s remark about looking terrible, though the smile didn’t waver. ”Forcing someone who weaponizes darkness this early in the morning should be a crime, really. One of these days an exercise will be done around midnight and I won’t be half asleep for it.”

”Mind a group for a bit? My aura got shot with that landing and we both have the same objective anyway. We got to pry all the edgelords about their tragic backstories for the most points, yeah? Since they kind of have to come to us there’s no point in being stealthy or anything.” she’d suggest, as flippant as ever. Outside of clearly defined hierarchies like that of teacher and student, Elena tended to drop all pretense of ceremony because in her experience most of her peers couldn’t give less of a shit about it. Beating around the bush was a waste of time for everyone involved, and directness was the best way to get across information as quickly and efficiently as possible. She was willing to play that indirect game when she had to or when others expected it, but her own preference was to get the whole ‘talking for five minutes straight to say one thing’ just entirely removed from her life as much as possible.

They were training to be huntresses, after all, not politicians.

MADE BY MIZO

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[Argent Steele]

I know you got hate in you. Most do. Trick is to use it, 'stead of it usin' you.
But you know this. Vengeance is a motivator, not the motive.

Don't hunt 'em 'cause you been wronged.
Hunt 'em 'cause what they did was wrong.
There's a world of difference there, kid.
One makes you selfish. The other makes you a hero.

And I see a hero in you.

❝

Argent nodded in response to Elena’s declaration and then explanation, first in acknowledgement and then in sympathy. He’d always been used to sleeping and rising early as a farmer, but in the wilderness outside of the safe bastions of civilization, a proper sleeping schedule wasn’t really something that could be had at all. Shin and Jade had usually given him the earliest watch when they had to camp outside, but just as often as not, they simply took note of whoever was the most tired and gave them the lion’s share of the sleep throughout the night. He’d had to endure his own share of days where the fatigue dulled his head and senses and putting one foot in front of the other felt like a huge burden, so the other trainee’s irritation at feeling like that often was something he could empathize with.

“I don’t mind, no. Travelling in a group is always safer than going alone.”

The snake Faunus blinked once when she mentioned that the Roses would need to seek them out in order to fulfill their own objectives, thinking back to the number of people in the class. If he remembered correctly, the ratio of Roses to Dandelions was about one to one, whereas the number of Orchids were higher by quite a bit than either. Thinking about it, however, the fact that the Dandelions and Orchids were both self sufficient in the sense that they could complete their objectives within their own group, whereas the Roses had to find others to complete their own. It was a bit skewed against the Roses, but it was something he could definitely see the intent behind. Personality defects weren’t something that could be easily trained out of people as much as one could train skills into the incompetent and uninitiated, so it made sense to keep the requirements a little more strict than any of the other groups.

“That is true. Actually, if you don’t mind, it would be more efficient to remain as a team for the rest of the exercise. We can trade five pieces of information now, and fulfill the primary objective - then hunker down somewhere defensible and wait out the rest of the twenty four hour time period. We both have Semblances that favor a defensive fighting style, so it should be the best way to get this exercise done. And if any Roses come to join us, we can put our heads together so that the information we submit won’t cancel each other out.”

There was a pause, and then his tone turned sheepish, the snake Faunus having the good grace to look slightly embarrassed at going off on a tangent without having gotten the go ahead from Elena in the first place. He tended to do that a lot, and thought it had gotten better, but apparently he was still just as bad at it as he was before. Just that those little tangents had gotten slightly shorter before he realized he was going on one and caught himself - which was as much of an improvement he was willing to admit. Scratching at a scale by his temple, he focused his gaze back onto Elena and cleared his throat.

“If you’re okay with it, that is. If you have other plans with other students, I won’t intrude.”

WHISPER OF THE WYRM (SEMBLANCE): [RANK D]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: SPEED OF THE SCYLLA (SPEED) [RANK F]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: DANCE OF THE DRAGON (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: GLARE OF THE GORGON (MARKSMANSHIP) [RANK F]
OUROBOROS (WEAPON): [RANK F]

@ ● 555 words ● 1409 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[Wolfe]

XP Distribution

Argent: 14 x 200% (event bonus) = 28

115 + 28 = 143 XP new total

Wolfe: 16 x 200% (event bonus) = 32

1 + 32 = 33XP new total