[Rose Phoenix]

❝I Was Lightning,

Before The Thunder❞

561 w./ 561 w. total

d strength| e stamina| f Acrobatics| f Dust

d semblance| F weapon| f martial arts

She heard the shrill scream of the woman. Felt her blade dig deep into her core and rend her still warm corpse asunder, casting it aside like a heap of trash. The Bandit Queen stalked inside the hut, ripping the blanket door aside violently as she scavenged for food and valuables. What a haul indeed! There was enough food to feed her camp for at least a week! And yet, as she stuffed her bags full, she heard a soft whimper. In the darkened corner, huddled like a filthy mongrel, was a small child. It cried as she approached, a dead expression as she clutched her blade.

"Nothing personal, kid. I'd rather betray the world than let the world betray me."

The heavy blade came down...and Rose woke up in the dark of her bed, drenched in a cold sweat. She breathed heavily, her chest heaving in constrictions as she cried. Her hands buried in her hands, gripping her face so savagely that her nails clawed at her forehead.

"No...no that's not me anymore. No no no NO!"

She brought her legs up to her chin and shakily hugged her legs to her chest, resting her chin on her knees.

"Not a bad girl...I'm not the bad girl." She whispered into the blackness of her dorm room. In her despair, the blonde eventually passed out in her huddled position and remembered no more.

The following morning, she awoke without a shower since she would be getting sweaty and filthy soon enough anyway. After the cluster fuck that was the midterms that almost ended with her death, Colt offered to teach her some kind of martial arts technique from his years of training. She would be a fool not to take him up on the offer and suggested first thing in the morning a couple days following the test. To get properly prepared, she slipped into a comfy pairs of form fitting shorts, sneakers with grips in the soles for added traction, and a loose white tank top over a sports bra.

Rose glanced in the mirror and saw the kid staring back at her. She let out a terrified gasp at it, but as soon as it appeared...it was gone. Only Rose stood there by her lonesome, shaking uncomfortably at herself. Shit...

She threw a towel over her shoulders and easily hefted Rebellion along her back with one arm, stomping along the halls to the training facility. On the way, the blond swiped a couple water bottles from the cafeteria and arrived early enough. Being late was a pain in the ass for her, but also being too early meant you were a tool. She wondered which one Colt was? The facility itself was one the former bandit was familiar with. Very spacious and durable with marks all along the walls and floor from previous scuffles.

Rose set her weapon gingerly against the wall and tossed both the towels and bottles onto a nearby bench for safe keeping while she ascended the stairs to the arena. Waiting for Colt to arrive, she lightly hopped up and down and stretched her muscles out to warm up before the exercise. It was good to get limber before combat and this way she could help her teacher get warmed up easy enough. It was all one step closer to her path of the warrior and it brought a smile to her face.

© SETHANIEL OF adox 2.0 + WW.

[Colton Deraine]

[googlefont=Open+Sans]

[attr="class","firstfriend"]

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

His new armor set wasn’t done, but bits and pieces of it were ready to go. Polarity made putting on metal armor much easier than it otherwise would have been, and today he was mostly going to test the limb armor to see how they felt while actually in combat. The metal covering his fingers up to his shoulders was noticeably thinner than the heavier metal that covered his feet up to his thighs. It was all gray metal, but there was a balance between protection and flexibility. On the boots leading up to the knee and the forearms there was noticeably more metal as the most likely places to eat a hit, but the teenager wore nothing on his head and also nothing protecting his chest. Frankly, the limbs were the only components he had completed at this point.

In the forearms there was an experimental little addition that he decided to put in just to try that allowed him to use Polarity to add a small serrated edge around the left and right edges of his forearm. They weren’t enormous blades, and in fact they were less than an inch when they popped out. The thought process behind them, though, was that anything that grabbed his arm would have hands big enough to completely cover his forearm and with the blades Colton could both escape and do damage at the same time by simply pulling his arm out of the grip. Against Grimm it would cause nasty injuries, and against people it would be an unexpected and enormous blow to their aura.

Since his flexibility in the armor was less than it was before, he also experimented with changing the location of his knives from his boots to compartments in the bottom of his forearms. With Polarity it was a quick and smooth opening and sliding of the hilts down to his hands that could be done in an instant, or even just opening the compartments and propelling them towards enemies. He didn’t actually bring Regret or Omen, his sword and shield, with him for this training session. He was testing how well he could move in the armor around his limbs and defaulting to his usual fighting style wouldn’t allow him to really do that.

Can’t really have melee combat training without melee, after all. Knives didn’t have nearly the range that Colton’s sabre did, so things were far riskier due to the omnipresent threat of getting successfully grappled and then being forced to expend a shit ton of aura or simply lose immediately. He always felt on edge in a fight without his signature weapons, and he was going to use that to keep him razor focused today. The former champion was normally one to show up early but fiddling with the armor a bit before heading out meant that he was a few minutes late to this one. Rosalia was already stretching in the arena proper, so he just ascended the same staircase she did and lazily extended his arms out in a much less complete stretch.

Frankly, he always hated stretching and always did the bare minimum. It tired him out before he actually did anything more than anything, and the brunette never considered it to be worth the effort besides the very bare minimum to not be stiff. ”We can go full force at first, then slower afterwards to get down some form.” he’d suggest, skipping hellos and good mornings to stroll with all the confidence in the world past the blonde to a starting position about ten meters away.

”I’m ready whenever you are. I’ll be using knives today along with some hand to hand, since I need to practice those to avoid being rusty for Vytal Festival anyway. I want the full speed first to see how I did in terms of weight distribution on the armor here – not finished, but I’d like to beef it up a bit more in some places if I can get away with it and feel flexible enough in the current set.”

With that, he’d turn and open the small compartment in the bottoms of his forearms up and out would slide two all metal, straight knives. The blades were only about seven inches long, but it was more than enough to serve their purpose today. One might consider showing up to a sparring match, requesting a full speed start, and also on top of that refusing to use the best weapons available to be something of a cocky start to the day. That consideration would in this case be completely correct, of course, but Colton was so self-assured that it almost seemed normal.

It would be awkward if he lost, sure, but if he played his cards right, he could eke out a win and prove his skill level up front and gather the credibility he needed in order to be listened to down the line. Just because he was most well known for his work with his sabre did not mean that he was any less skilled in a number of other weapons. As long as it was a standard martial weapon, Colton would be comfortable using it against almost anyone at a moment’s notice. Hell, he’d be supremely confident swapping weapons with anyone in the school and then beating the shit out of them with their own weapon while they tried to use his.

He was that good… and wasn’t afraid to flaunt it when it made sense to do so. Colton was casually dressed for this, with jeans underneath his leg armor and a gray unmarked hoodie covering his torso. Outwardly, he was calm as could be. Inwardly, he knew how awkward it would be if he lost after stacking the deck against himself and resolved to at least play to a draw that would also prove his point. ”Once you end up being able to win consistently against knives, we’ll upgrade to swords where you don’t have as much of a ranged advantage.” The words were a taunt, sure, but the tone wasn’t. It was like he was explaining the natural progression from breakfast to lunch more so than actually attempting to rile up the other party… because he wasn’t trying to do that.

He really needed practice up in true melee, because he was so rarely pushed to that point in Haven that he needed to shake off any rust that he had accumulated before Vytal or he was fucked. It really was as simple as that, because the enemies there would be too good to allow him to just sit back and win with Polarity alone. He’d have to finish the job up close, with his sword and shield being whizzed around with his semblance and unable to be in his hands. That left his hands, feet, knives, and scabbard left to play with. He had everything but the scabbard with him today, and that would have to be enough – because that would be all he had to work with when the Vytal Festival came along whether he liked the prospect or not.

※ 1185 total words ✎ 1185 words ✉ C rank semblance, D rank martial arts, C rank durability, D rank weapon, D rank weapon enhancement, E rank agility, E rank stamina

MADE BY MIZO

[Rose Phoenix]

❝I Was Lightning,

Before The Thunder❞

506 w./ 1067 w. total

d strength| e stamina| f Acrobatics| f Dust

d semblance| F weapon| f martial arts

Rose had just finished up her series of stretches in the middle of the training arena when she heard the door open up. In came Colt, decked out in some fancy armor but without his sword and shield. It brought a smile to her face knowing that he was looking to get something out of this exercise as well! Like he was learning alongside her. As equals. To be honest, he was the only person in this school she deemed her equal in talent so it was nice to see him take her just as seriously.

She raised her hand with a smile to greet her classmate, but he ignored her and skipped the formalities to jump straight to business. Her hand faltered and then dropped down to her side, the smile gone from her face with a twinge of regret and stupidity left upon her. So he was only here for training purposes? Not because she was a...friend? It hit her a little bit, but it wasn't surprising. Colt was aiming for the top just like Rose was, so she would offer him the same warrior's respect.

"Yeah, I'll go fast enough to try and knock your ass off balance. We'll see how well you hold up."

He was preparing for the festival too. They all were. Though unlike Rose who relied on brute strength and her sword, Colt was aiming to be multi functional in the off chance that his standard weaponry was put out of commission. Smart guy. But if Rose couldn't win with what she was familiar with, then she deserved to lose. The blonde took a brisk jog to retrieve her sword and hopped up the stairs to meet back up with Colt.

"Whatever you say, boss."

She knew the cockiness in his voice, but her own words were neutral. This wasn't a fight that involved winning or losing. This was just two fighters looking to improve themselves. He was looking to improve his knives and she needed to learn control with her swings. So, as she swung the blade in slow arcs to adjust the weight and balance with her strength, Rose squared her legs wide.

"This is sparring. So try whatever new tactics you'd like, Colt. I'm gonna do the same, yeah? Fast but try to exploit anything you see and don't hesitate to tell me what if I fuck up."

Rose raised the hilt up level with her shoulders, blade pointed straight at Colt. She charged at him with a forward stab but with hardly any strength behind it. It was her intent to keep a firm grip on the handle to manipulate the trajectory of the stab and work it into a swing in anticipation of Colt making a calculated duck or side step. With daggers, there was no way he could guard against the attack and the sword was long enough that he would have to dodge to close the gap.

So she would keep her distance and not give him the room to close in. It was all about footwork and spacial awareness.

© SETHANIEL OF adox 2.0 + WW.

[Colton Deraine]

[googlefont=Open+Sans]

[attr="class","firstfriend"]

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

The first strike was slow, too slow to be considered serious. Without her semblance activated, the skill level difference and the fluidity of movement on Colton’s side allowed him to basically do whatever he wanted. In this case, he slid to the right to put the flat of his left dagger held in reverse grip against the edge of Rosalia’s sword and would use Polarity to artificially boost his strength to the level that would cut wood and chopped downwards to try and knock the blade from her hands or at least knock it out of the way for long enough to lunge forward with his right hand in a stabbing motion towards the head and neck area of his opponent.

He wouldn’t connect it if the situation didn’t change, but he would speed up his movement with Polarity enhancing his speed to at least faster than his usual in an effort to force Rosalia to use her semblance. The flat of his left dagger would just slide along the sword unless the blonde used her great strength to force the issue or pulled it back to swing again – and if she did the latter Colton would just turn his fake lunge into a real one and attempt to back out of the swing afterwards. If she did the former, well, he would back off and try to slip out to reset the fight.

”If you’d prefer we start slow, we can.” he’d note as he went through the motions. ”Opening with a thrust at normal speed with your range advantage is okay, but it needs to be faster. With your current range and strength advantage, I should never be able to step forward and can only do so if you fuck up. I have to step forward to hurt you with these knives unless I throw them at you, and that would defeat the purpose of this spar.” A smile spread across his features as he said that last bit as he got to his point.

”So force me backwards, for as long as you can. You don’t need to talk, but I’m going to because I can and you asked for feedback. If I am able to get in close again, I’m going to do my best to end it immediately next time. Your goal is to end the fight before I am able to do that by forcing me to move away from you until you win.”

It gave her a clear objective, which was probably helpful. With a huge speed and strength advantage, there is zero reason why she couldn’t nullify Colton’s skill advantage when those physical advantages were combined with her range advantage. At worst, if she was able to hold him off it would be a solid start and more than almost anyone else in the class could do at that point. His durability was strong enough for him to boost his physical attributes to one step above his normal without penalty with Polarity, because his aura was used to the abuse, he had put it through. He would do this regularly to change the timing and tempo of his movements and introduce an element of uncertainty, even though his hands would glow dark gray every time he would activate his semblance and give away the fact his speed would change.

Nevertheless, Colton would be much more aggressive than his usual and would try to move forward at every opportunity. He would attempt to slip past attacks and keep one dagger held against Rosalia’s blade as much as possible to redirect force and move forward simultaneously. If he was allowed to get close enough, he would attempt to attack with a thrust to anywhere exposed or a Polarity-enhanced leg sweep that would equal or exceed Rosalia’s strength in order to knock her off her feet entirely. While it would burn through his aura to do it, the satisfaction of closing the distance and getting a takedown far exceeded the drawback of only being able to do it a certain number of times.

After all, when she got better at this, he wouldn’t be able to do it anymore… so it was time to enjoy this while it lasted.

※ 1889 total words ✎ 704 words ✉ C rank semblance, D rank martial arts, C rank durability, D rank weapon, D rank weapon enhancement, E rank agility, E rank stamina

MADE BY MIZO

[Wolfe]

Rose: 10

168 + 10 = 178

Colt: 19

153 + 18 = 171