"You're all here for combat class," Crimson started. "That means we don't talk. We don't solve math problems or debate intricacies. The leaders of your teams are free to discuss tactics and the like on their own time or with groups. Team leaders often attend tactics so they can learn how to manage their team. However, the class is extracurricular. Sign up for it if you want group fights and debates over new strategies. Here, however, we will more often do single fights or doubles with a weekly team battle." A sort of grin crossed Crimson's lips at the end.
"Of course, there is also the tournament." The few people that weren't paying attention to Crimson perked up at that. "Every semester at the team battles I advance the teams through a tournament set. The winners of the tournament, that is to say, the ones who never once lose during the semester, will recieve extra credit and a week where they don't have to attend combat class and instead have an early release." Excited murmurs spread across the room.
"Of course, we have team JAPR this year so holding a tournament is somewhat unnecessary." Chatter died down as people practically wilted in their seats as they looked at us. The four strongest first years on the same team. "So the four teams who only lose to them but still get to second place will get a free day off rather than a week." Cheers erupted and Crimson waited a moment for the cheers to die down.
Everyone in my team just sat awkwardly. "We aren't that intimidating, are we?" Pyrrha asked tentatively.
"The only person Abyss lost to in Signal was my uncle," Ruby said quietly back. "I only lost to my uncle and the older students and I wasn't even using my maiden powers until third year, where I claimed I got dust training from Abyss. Jaune is Jaune and people just assume you're a fantastic fighter by associating with us."
"What do you mean I'm me?" Jaune asked curiously.
"You held off the beast in initiation," Ruby replied. Jaune didn't get a chance to answer that since Crimson started talking again.
"Of course, since we aren't here to talk but fight that is how we will be starting the class. It is expected that you will not be sleeping or otherwise distracted while a fight is happening. Taking notes or a video of the fight is allowed. If you wish to challenge a classmate or teammate you can pull them aside and go to a practice arena with my permission. It is not mandatory but extremely recommended that you practice your fighting skills in your free time, as this class is more for taking notes and checking up on your progress in martial combat than to practice."
Crimson waited a moment to look over the class. "That all said, we will be starting our class off vigorously with two people who know what they're doing, if not how to hold back. Pyrrha Nikos and Abyss Mavros to the arena."
Pyrrha nearly took off at a run towards the lockers on the right side of the room, where the female changing rooms were, before slowing down and looking back towards me. I pointed towards the locker room and the armour and weapons she had appeared on the bench in the lockers. I teleported myself into the other locker room.
It barely took a minute for us to both get outside the lockers and in the arena. We had been waiting for this.
Pyrrha looked beyond excited, though it was less shown than before the fight. It was in her eyes, which tore me apart to see some sort of fighting style apparent in my gear. Her body was in the semi-casual wear she was wearing on the bullhead, the iron sand as prominent as it was before inside her clothes. Her weapons were naked in her hands, Milo and Akouo seeming just a little bit dull and unpolished. I'd guess that it's because she mostly uses the iron sand in her clothes.
All I had was my combat mesh clothes under high quality synthetic armor. I kept my halberd planted beside me for the moment. I'm not sure how Pyrrha fights now and I'd rather be on the defensive slinging spells and waves of lightning than up close on the offensive. I still had the inequalizers on my hands just in case I needed to ramp up my game. Holding back was probably not going to be an option judging by how excited Pyrrha seemed.
"Let's get this over with," I heard Glynda mutter from the side of the arena. Crimson said something in what was probably agreement but was too soft for me to hear.
"Alright then," Crimson said loudly. "Ready… Set…" Pyrrha and I locked eyes for a moment. I turned some of my attentions towards my prediction and instinctual skills just to be sure of my defense. "Begin!"
Pyrrha was right in front of me. I leaned right just out of the path of her javelin's stab at the perfect time. I had already known the attack was coming. I responded with a wide slash pushing her back, which was effortlessly blocked out of the way by Pyrrha's shield.
Already I was seeing discrepancies in this battle. Pyrrha was moving faster than she should be able to. As fast as Ruby was in a sprint if not faster. The answer was pretty obvious. She was using her semblance to accelerate herself to go faster using her clothing's metal mesh. I'd be shocked if she wasn't using the same technique on her weapons to hit harder. It sure felt like it.
I twired my halberd once more to swipe at her legs and felt resistance. Her semblance was slowing me down.
Let's fix that.
Void swept through my halberd and nothing else. Suddenly my haberd was free of Pyrrha's influence and, backed by motion magic, it slammed through her legs, making her fall down.
Or she would have fallen if she hadn't suddenly jerked away from me as if pulled by some giant hand. Her feet wret back under her and I raised my halberd defensively again.
I could already conclude several things, firstly, she can fly using magnetism to lift her clothes. Not exactly innovative and brilliant but it's effective. It's not perfect either. Perhaps her clothes are a little loose fitting and she hasn't learned to compensate. Or maybe she's a little lacking in control.
Secondly, she's far better in melee fights than I am. Not only because of her semblance in manipulating metal but because of her skill in making herself faster and stronger than she would be; and she was already far faster and stronger than most students were. I'd bet she could match Jaune in pure physicality. Even with her physical skills she's likely more skilled than I am. We didn't really get to display skill, though. More a few probing hits.
Pyrrha and I locked eyes, evaluating each other. I glanced at her shield and raised an eyebrow. She glanced at Milo and Akouo and sighed softly.
"You already know, don't you?"sShe said. I nodded. Pyrrha tsked and tossed Akouo out to the edge of the arena. Mutters broke out among the audience. Mistreating your weapons was unorthodox amongst huntsmen to say the least.
"Are we getting serious?" I asked. Pyrrha didn't say anything but flung a hand out at me.
I winced and was forced to take a step back. I glanced downwards and saw a slightly blackened part of my armor. My aura had taken almost all of the blow easily but…
"Huh?" I looked at Pyrrha with some intensity, seeing the proud expression on her face. Then it clicked. "Electromagnetism," I said in realization. I had thought of her being able to make electricity from magnetism but it hadn't seemed like something she would come up with.
Not that being able to use electricity would ever really hurt me. My affinity for storm made air, electricity, and water based attacks sort of useless to me. Given sufficient strength they hurt, but Pyrrha's lightning bolt was lackluster compared to a real one.
"Clever," I said to her. "But unoriginal and weak. Here." I shot a real lightning bolt towards Pyrrha. Her eyes widened as I waved my hand and little grains of the metal sand in her clothing raced out to form a shield in front of her.
It didn't help. My lightning boomed and she flew backwards. Iron sand flew across the arena like a dusty carpet. Pyrrha clumsily caught herself on all fours and stood up, looking a little dazed. Still, though, the iron sand flew towards her and coated her hands like gauntlets. She focused on me and grinned.
"Let's get serious," I said, my own smirk in place.
I teleported in front of her and slashed rapidly with my halberd. Void suffused it, making any use of a semblance on it useless. Pyrrha whirled with Milo, her semblance making her far faster than normal. Most would say she was light on her feet but I could see that she was actually making herself far lighter than normal, while not necessarily flying.
I caught a few glancing blows in our exchange and backed off a little. Pyrrha took the opportunity to toss a hand outwards. None of my skills were fast enough to let me avoid the unknown attack.
A screeching sound filled the air and I found myself thrown backwards. I recovered from my tumble at the other side of the arena and saw a massive tear through the floor not unlike Ruby's railgun at full power, though there was less fire and molten metal. I deduced that it was a large pulse of directed magnetism. The force of it was intense enough that I was thrown backwards. I noticed that a few of the lights in the area flickered. So it doubles as a weak EMP, most likely due to lack of control on Pyrrha's part.
I'm not sure by what process exactly Pyrrha made that bolt of lightning bolt but plenty of people know that electrical currents cause magnetic fields to form around them. Weak ones, sure, but Pyrrha seems to have worked something out.
I countered Pyrrha's attack by pointing a finger at her with my left hand and letting a sparse few bullets rush from my finger. The supersonic rounds left the small portal that spawned and the first few hit Pyrrha but the next few found themselves hitting the wall behind her. So she bastardized my spatial warping for magnetism. A shield impenetrable by bullets most likely.
I pulled out some heavy guns and used my dust system to let loose a wave of fire and air, making fire burning a blazing pale blue rush towards her. Pyrrha's metal dust once more shielded her and she used the cover from the fire to shoot spears made of the metal dust through the fire. I dodged the first and teleported out of the way of the second. Then a wide wave of tiny shards of metal shot towards me at high speeds. I teleported once more towards Pyrrha and received a strike from Milo to the shoulder the moment I appeared.
I gritted my teeth at the blow and clenched my hand briefly. Space and motion affinity hindered Pyrrha's movements and boosted mine, leaving Pyrrha' speed at a far more manageable level then before. I was slightly faster than her, actually. Pyrrha frowned at my trickery and I had to dodge several projectiles trying to skewer me from behind. I refrained from using mana in my affinities binding her, though. That would be a little unfair. As a result of my bindings I fell on my mana to throw my small scale attacks at her like lightning bolts and warps.
With how annoying those metal dust specks were I tried a different tactic than whittling down Pyrrha's aura, which was at about eighty four percent, and tried using ice affinity to freeze the metal dust to solid forms, making them heavier and far more manageable.
In response to my tactic Pyrrha grinned victoriously. A smile began to grow on my face as the ice bubbled and melted. I had thought she might be able to do that. Oscillating magnetic poles make friction and thus heat.
She didn't have to look so cheeky about her power, though.
I stayed on the defensive and attacked using a variety of powers. I shot lightning bolts, impeded her vision using miniature storms, warped space to confuse her and strike from awkward places while defending myself, shot blasts of heat at her, made the ground ice for her to slip on, made illusions of myself from light, changed my fighting styles, and at one point I even made a snowstorm from ice and storm magic.
It wasn't effective. I may be a force of nature but Pyrrha was always a step ahead of me. She made what could only be called lightning rods to block my bolts, somehow sensed me no matter the visual conditions, righted her balance through her semblance, defended the awkward angles with her metal dust acting as a shield, and through what could only be raw fighting experience, even when slowed by my motion affinity and with space itself resisting her every movement, fended off my attacks with halberd or shortsword.
The two of us were in a deadlock. I had a plethora of attacks and travelled the battlefield with ease, the elements parting for me and me only. My reserves were immense and my abilities warned me of any hint of danger. Direct hits were rare.
But Pyrrha was a goliath of skill. She danced past my attacks and always seemed to have some ability to counter my attacks. Her metal dust was too small to actually malform or warp permanently no matter how many of my hits it took. My melee attacks were parried or dodged, always met with a riposte or attack to push me back.
I owned the battlefield. I was nature incarnate. Pyrrha was a survivor, always in just the right place. If I was the storm she was a mountain, enduring whatever I threw at her. Though I could throw a lot more if I was allowed to destroy Beacon. I was held back by the environment as much as I was Pyrrha's skill at handling me.
In the end I had to resort to only a few attacks. Lasers were important. They were unblockable, going too fast to be avoided or otherwise shrugged off. However, they were energy inefficient. Light was versatile but as a beam of raw energy they were lackluster.
Heat was my second choice. It was more efficient than light and pulling heat from the environment made Pyrrha's metals more fragile and easier to break through. Pyrrha's metal dust was counterable if weakened and it was hard to move agilely with my storms pushing and pulling the dust every which way.
Finally, and most importantly, was my skill in manipulating space. I slung distortions of space at Pyrrha left and right after seeing it get to her. Dimensional blades were too lethal so I had to resort to shockwaves that blew her dust to the winds. Warps that made her strikes curve around me. Dropping out of space to avoid her strikes only to strike her myself. I even pushed Pyrrha through a portal once or twice, making her fall from the ceiling to the floor only to be met with whatever traps I could cook up.
There were numerous ways I could cheat the fight. Void was just one way. I could make a portal to one of several volcanoes I knew of or from the bottom of the ocean, where I could manipulate the water to not hinder my movement. I could teleport her to a pocket space and close the entrance only to fill it with whatever I chose, be it fire or water or grenades or anything. I could use void to hold back her semblance and use the gun part of the inequalizers to take her out in seconds. I could empty any of my better explosives into the arena and let the short timer tick down (though those explosives were mostly a tad too powerful for Beacon. Especially the ones with runes augmenting them).
If I REALLY wanted Pyrrha dead I could even push space together around her, squishing her between conflicting fields of space until her aura wears out. Using conflicting fields of force worked quicker, though. I was inspired by the mass effect games for that particular spell. I already had a warp spell but the technique really did tear through shields.
But why would I do any of that? I was having fun. And my myriad of tricks weren't honorable or in the spirit of fighting. They were tricks meant for people I don't like. Pyrrha probably knew this but she also knew my abilities were bullshit and was smart enough to focus on breaking her own limits rather than gape at my seemingly limitless ones. Besides, she hadn't broken out her railgun yet. That might mean that it was too powerful to use in a standard spar. She was holding back too. We could show off after this spar.
Nevertheless the fight eventually ended. My aura reserves were too massive to break through and with my mana backing it up I had an overwhelmingly unfair amount of endurance compared to the average huntsman. Pyrrha didn't even wear me down a hundred thousand points. By the end of the fight, had I not dumped some of the aura and mana out, I would be firmly at a hundred percent. My stats in aura and mana completely eclipsed her.
If I decided to let loose with my affinities I would probably annihilate Beacon. So holding back was not just a whim of competitiveness but a necessity of the environment.
I threw a wide swing of my sword one final time and teleported at the same time in front of Pyrrha. She managed to block my swing but a knife of force slammed into her stomach and her grip weakened. I overpowered her quickly and rested my sword at her throat.
For a moment we just panted in exertion. Weak grins were exchanged and we seperated.
"Abyss Mavros wins the match," a supremely angry, though slightly resigned voice said. We glanced towards our audience to see students hiding behind tables and makeshift barricades. Glynda Goodwitch stood looking pissed with Crimson rubbing her forehead beside her.
A glance around the arena showed exactly what we had done. Pyrrha's waves of magnetism that pushed me back had torn the floor to smithereens. Smithereens that were then charred by my occasional waves of fire and both our heat based attacks. It looked like a category ten earthquake had torn the floor to fissures before somebody roasted it.
The walls were just as bad. Plenty of bullet holes lined the reinforced concrete walls. They were coated with ice, metal, burn marks, what was probably water damage, explosions, and one part of the concrete wall that was somehow on fire. I realized that I had left consumption affinity in the fire, making it burn anything until it ran out of consumption affinity (when had I done that?) and pointed at it, snuffing it out.
I glanced at the ceiling for good measure. How in the name of those two asshole sibling gods did we manage to damage the roof?!
Oh. Some of Pyrrha's lightning rods directed lightning bolts upwards rather than into the ground after I put some water on the floor to conduct electricity and shock her. Right. Then there were some winds I made that carried shards of ice. That explains all the ice shards embedded up there. We probably melted most of the ones down here. A few of the supporting metal beams holding the roof up were clearly broken previously and messily fixed. It was probably Glynda's work with her semblance.
"Sorry," I said insincerely. Glynda gritted her teeth.
"You also went twenty minutes over the time limit. It's been thirty minutes of you two… frolicing."
"We weren't-" Pyrrha was cut off by Glynda with a swipe of her riding crop.
"Don't lie to me, Miss Nikos. You two were clearly enjoying yourselves more than you should during a fight, evidenced not only by the showing off you two were doing to each other but you two were smiling like loons the entire time! You seemed to almost be flirting!" I noticed Pyrrha's crimson blush at that. Sure we were showing off to each other but flirting is a bit much. I'd say it's more like two students comparing the scores they got on their tests.
"Next time take your fights more se-…" Glynda stopped and reconsidered her words, calming down a little in the process. "Next time, if there is one, do it outside or at least a mile away from Beacon."
I personally thought one mile was too little. I was so destructive that I found work as a one-man mass terraformer. One mile is weak stuff to me. I never really stretched my limits but I could make a global level hurricane I think. I might need to prepare a little though. And why would I make a global level hurricane? Ugh. I need more small scale affinities. Void is a fantastic start but I need something more like a dust effect I can use in public freely like my lightning. But lightning isn't quite versatile enough.
Perhaps I should tend my motion affinity more and pass it off as a newfound interest in gravity dust? It would synergize well with my fake space manipulation semblance. My spar with Pyrrha was rather eye opening on my weaknesses. I was too wide scale. My power wasn't concentrated enough for a single opponent.
"Next time-" Crimson growled, her hand lowering and her eyes glaring at me furiously. "-Teleport yourselves to a deserted island in the middle of nowhere if you ever want to spar in my class again."
That's more like it.
"… Ah." I glanced at the devastation Pyrrha and I had wrought. The urge to be a smartass was intense but I tried to hold myself back. "I understand. We did dent up the room a little bit." Crimson's lips drew into a silent snarl.
The urge overcame me and I did something stupid.
"I'll try less hard next time."
"Detention!" Glynda yelled.
[|||| =+= ||||]
"Little bro really cut loose."
"He didn't quite cut loose but yeah he was pretty intense there."
"Huh?"
"He has explosives in his pocket space."
"Of course he does. Of course he does."
"Um, Yang? Your brother is really…"
"Yeah."
"What'd you do to your team to make them so quiet, by the way?"
"She-"
"Ah ah ah! What did we say about talking?"
"…"
"Better. Sorry, Rubes. The knuckleheads need respect since they've got none. I'm working on it. I think I'm really nailing this team leader thing!"
"Huh… okie-dokie then."
"How do you hold your own in a spar with Abyss?"
"Practice. Practice and being fast enough to not get hit."
"Ooooooohhhhhhh… so that's why you dodge everything so well!"
"Uh-huh!"
"Say, how's Jaune compared to him? Big, blond, and muscled looks impressive. Is he as good as some people say he is?"
"Um, Jaune's pretty cool. We haven't really got to know each other in a fight yet. We're doing that today."
"Sweet! Mind if I join in with the knuckleheads?"
"I dunno. Ask Jaune. It'd be cool if you did though! But we kinda need to test some more team-personal stuff. Secret team maneuvers and all."
"After that you still have tricks up your sleeves?"
"Yup! You heard Miss Goodbitch! Abyss and Pyrrha were just flirting but they both suck at talking to people. Well, Abyss can do business stuff pretty well and he's pretty intimidating when he wants to be but talking with people other than me and Auntie is something he sucks at. Pyrrha's worse. I'm hoping Jaune can help me in hooking them up! Big bro needs cuddles! And it's probably going to happen eventually anyways."
"… Miss Good-… Ruby, what did you just say?"
[|||| =+= ||||]
"So what's so important?" I asked as I strolled into Ozpin's office. I left an avatar with Miss Goodwitch for detention. She doesn't seem to want anything to do with me so I'll just let the avatar sit there for a while until she releases 'me'.
"Ah. Mister Mavros." Ozpin sipped his coffee and leaned back a little. "Today a very disturbing magical signature was detected. A very prominent signature. Of course, my attentions turned to you to as you are typically the best informed person in the city.
Translation: What did you do? Tell me now.
"You want to know what happened?" I asked, completely unsurprised at the subtle question. Ozpin didn't respond and simply looked at me neutrally. "I'd also like to know how you managed to pair me with Jaune but then again…"
Ozpin sighed. "Time is surprisingly related to probability. Given sufficient magical power, which is a chore to gather as I am, I am capable of choosing the best possible outcome for an event from a number of timelines. I attempt to use this ability sparingly due to the many preparations for such a magical accomplishment. For the initiation specifically I had twelve thousand eight hundred ninety two timelines available. I do such a magical endeavor every initiation to ensure the team selection goes smoothly."
I almost scowled. That's a damn powerful abili-you know what? I can't talk. I can time travel through the void. I can channel an infinite amount of void affinity. I can travel across dimensions for dust's sake. Ozpin is fine. I'm the BS here.
"I see." I nodded at his explanation calmly. "Well you likely already figured this out but I managed to tap into the void between dimensions. It's surprisingly simple for such a powerful ability. For all its power, though, it's extremely limited."
Ozpin nodded. "In such a godly state a wizard is at their weakest and strongest. An archwizard using the mantle of fire would find themselves utterly overwhelmed by an archmagus using their mantle of water. Luckily such situations are rare as most magic users never manage to tap into a mantle. Those who do find themselves in such a state would be in the highest echelons of magical society. They were often called living gods for their power. Perhaps unluckily, however, they were often assassinated in their sleep. Then again, none of them were master runeworkers."
"I'm in no danger of being assassinated," I said plainly. "With that settled, may I go? Or was there something else you needed?"
Ozpin paused. "I've heard that most users of the mantle gain abilities specific to them. Or a singular ability in a few cases. One man I knew, who held a mantle of nature, was unkillable when cloaked in nature affinity, which he could generate infinitely. Another, the archwizard of fire, claimed he could detonate every volcano on the planet at will. Nobody dared to doubt him. Nobody disbelieved him either."
Instantly I recalled a few of what could be called unique abilities. World travelling. Hiding in the void and raining death from beyond this world. Time travel, if one was to be picky about things.
Ozpin apparently caught something show on my face. "Ah, so you have an inkling of your abilities. They are what separates a wizard from an archwizard. An ocean of power." He sipped from his cup and seemed almost saddened for a moment. "The mantles were requirements for becoming archwizards. Those that reached the ability to claim a mantle were rare to say the least. Those that could command the winds to their every whim were like gods to any user of wind magic, you see. But when one dons a mantle they are more than men. Affinity suffuses their soul. They became more their element than they were themselves. They didn't hold their element any more than it held them."
Ozpin took another small sip. "That is why I failed so many times in defeating Salem. So long as there are grimm she may possess them. You cannot kill her except destroying her soul, you see. If even that. I wonder sometimes if she is killable even then. And if her body is killed she may simply migrate to a grimm. She is the bearer of the mantle of corruption. Her potential for destruction is nigh-limitless."
"The books say nothing of this," I said quietly. It felt too… out there. No books ever mentioned any mantles. They described archwizards as near-godlike and walking elements and plenty of other things but never had they mentioned their mantles.
Ah, right. Salem told me about this when she lectured on the nature of aether. The books I have are edited by Ozpin. That's why I never learned why spells are different than shaped elemental manipulation or why these mantles don't exist in the books.
"No. They don't," Ozpin said plainly. He paused a moment longer. "Mister Mavros, please don't get ahead of yourself with your newfound power. I cannot dissuade you from whatever course you may choose but I can certainly ask that you wield your power responsibly."
"There is no obligation in power. Only privilege," I quoted. Ozpin's eyes darkened.
"I used to believe otherwise." He then ignored me and turned to his papers on his desk. I turned away and walked into a portal, leaving that short conversation behind me.
Of course I'll use it responsibility. It'd be pathetically easy to destroy a world for XP right now. I'm surprised I haven't tried it yet, though maybe I should find a world filled with generally horrible people and kill them all. I guess I just don't have any reason to do it so I just haven't. The idea of using my points is becoming more and more alluring, though. Perhaps it's time I just… stopped raising the stakes and cashed in, for lack of a better euphemism.
After all, mana can only do so much. It's skills and affinities that make the difference in battles, or so I've seen. I wouldn't be anywhere near as strong as I am right now if I didn't have my affinities or skills. You could give me a thousand times my mana capacity but if I had no affinities to use the mana with I'd be beyond screwed.
And with XP so easy to come by it might be for the best that I spend the points. While I still can. I'm not sure if Ozpin's warning of daggers in the night applies but for all I know it does.
[|||| =+= ||||]
"What do you mean you're ready to fight again?" Jaune looked incredulously at me and Pyrrha.
"I have a regenerative factor," I said with a shrug. "And my aura recovers fast."
"Abyss lent me some aura and healed me a little," Pyrrha chimed in happily. She's been acting that way ever since our fight.
"Magic. Of course it's magic. When is it not magic," Jaune muttered. Ruby giggled at his side.
"Is there anything else we need to do today?" I asked. I kind of wanted to go deal with the White Fang's laziness at Mountain Glen.
"Assess our capabilities as a team," Jaune said. "I need to know what everybody is capable of so we can make strategies.
"Cool!" Ruby chirped. "Like talking or fighting?"
"We already know what Pyrrha dn Abyss can do," Jaune started.
"No you don't," I said bluntly. "Neither of us did our most powerful techniques. Pyrrha didn't fly properly or use railguns. I'm fairly sure she can use the magnetic pulses she has to a more intense degree. I have several tricks up my sleeve."
"Oh. Great," Jaune griped.
"Want to use a pocket dimension so we don't destroy anything important?" I offered.
"Fine."
I didn't actually make a pocket dimension at first. I wanted to try something new. I stretched my aura into the greater void and used my affinity to search for an uninhabited dimension that's livable. I placed a teleport marker there and tried teleporting myself there.
I felt the spell work but raised an eyebrow at the feel of it. Normally the teleport mark spell leaves the markers at the edge of my consciousness. Feeling a marker was like focusing on a specific finger rather than the others. But the new teleport marker was more like feeling for a lightswitch in the dark. I knew it was there but it took a moment. I had a feeling it would take more mana to teleport there too.
Oh well. I have mana in spades anyways.
I focused on the marker and poked Pyrrha. In a blink she was suddenly gone. I checked the uninhabited dimension and saw her aura on the planet. She seemed shocked but fine. With that done I poked Jaune and then Ruby to teleport them too and finally myself.
The new world was a lovely place. The grass was green, the air refreshing and clean, and the sky was clear. I surveyed the world through mage sight and saw nothing too interesting. There were some trees that were clearly not native to Remnant and a small number of deer-like creatures a ways away, but other than that there was nothing.
I scared the deer creatures off with some fire near them and turned my attention to my team.
"This is better than your usual work!" Ruby said happily. She looked around the place I had found us in, a large plain near a forest. It looked remarkably like the place I had shown up in when I travelled to the DxD-verse.
"This is actually a different pre-existing dimension," I admitted. "I figured out how to traverse the dimensional gap today. Poledina was sitting on the answer and didn't know it."
"Different dimensions," Pyrrha muttered. "Sure. Why not. Magic is real and Abyss travels dimensions."
"There are plenty of inhabited dimensions," I continued. "A lot of them are quite interesting. I thought we could visit one during winter break as a team." Jaune looked like he was hesitant but considering the idea. Ruby and Pyrrha looked interested enough.
"Is this one inhabited?" Ruby asked.
"Only by some animals." I said with an uncaring shrug. "There's no grimm or anything. Just trees, grasses, and animals. No people. We can cause as much damage as we want and leave it without consequence."
Everyone was frozen. "No grimm," Jaune said slowly. I suddenly realized that nobody in Remnant had ever quite considered that there could ever be a world with no grimm.
"Most dimensions have no grimm," I said casually, hoping to play it off as no big deal. "There's actually an infinite amount of dimensions existing at any point in time. It's quite fascinating. I've held myself off from exploring the new dimensions since I had to meet with Ozpin. I'm more interested in the new people I can meet rather than all that other stuff."
"You could make a base in another dimension," Jaune said in a dazed tone. "Neither Salem or Ozpin would be able to touch you."
"Neither Salem or Ozpin could touch me before anyways," I said, trying to change the subject. "I have an air and light based spell that lets me survive in space. If I wanted to leave Salem or Ozpin I just had to make a base on the moon or another planet. With space magic being based on relativity it makes no difference either way." I ignored that making a base in another dimension was a hundred times easier and probably safer anyways.
"I… right," Jaune said dumbly. He closed his eyes for a moment and focused his thoughts before opening them again. "Right. Well, team exercises. Let's see what you can do."
I shrugged and pulled on my inequalizers from my soul space. I amplified my storm affinity as much as I could, reaching almost twenty million affinity. I reached to the sky, stirring it into a violent storm.
"Here. My most powerful affinity." The storm was there in seconds. The sunshine that had been there just a moment before was blackened behind the clouds. Far away I saw the animals go into a frenzy at the unnatural weather.
"… Where's the rain?" Jaune asked.
"Raindrops take about two minutes to hit the ground from the sky," I explained. "I can make them fall faster by pulling on them but that would weaken the overall strength of the storm. Oh, and don't worry about getting wet. I've made all the rain avoid this area in particular. Just watch."
I focused on my mana and slowly poured the mana into my affinity. The storm became a roaring hurricane and I slowly poured more mana into it. As soon as I hit the rate I was regenerating mana I stopped.
As it was, I was pouring almost two hundred fifty thousand points of mana into the storm per minute with no loss and using around twenty million affinity. In Remnant I had never been able to push myself like this. Hell, I WASN'T pushing myself! I could easily do this all day. There just wasn't any strain to it.
And it was wonderful. My storm affinity churned and roiled inside me, finally freed to unleash itself onto the world. I never used my powers. I always held back to not kill anyone. Never show magic to the world. Always holding back. Perhaps the best part was that I could feel all of it. I could see through the storm, feel it stretch across the land. Through the raindrops I could get a vision of the land. My affinity suffused the storm and everything it loomed over was sensed by me.
It wasn't a small storm either. I had made what could easily be called a hurricane by intensity and size. I had no way to measure its size but… perhaps I can see it from space?
I bent light like a periscope and stretched it out to almost like a mirror. It was simple, really. I was just reflecting light to show an image. I made a mirror-like construct of light in front of me that showed the image clearly for everyone.
"Abyss is that… your storm?" Pyrrha asked hesitantly. I smiled just a little bit at the image.
"Yes. Yes it is."
Almost a fifth of the planet was covered by a dark grey storm. There wasn't an eye, oddly enough, but it was a magical storm I made within a minute so some strangeness is to be expected.
All over the planet was green covered land. I saw six continents in all and a number of islands. There was something that looked remarkably like Florida and the gulf of Mexico just south of me and the team. The Caribbean looked more like a slanted Japan southwest of it, however. Well, it's a different planet. Who cares?
Suddenly, like a hammer falling, a wave of water crashed down on the ground around us, leaving a neat little bubble of dryness for us. The clouds had been indicative, of course, but the sudden sound of water against the ground was startling for almost everybody. I had felt it coming down so I was completely unaffected.
"So yes," I stated. "That's the range. I can vaguely sense everything in this range and freely teleport anywhere the rain falls. I can't really do this in Remnant though. It's too… much. I can probably hijack control of a storm and use it for my own ends though."
Everyone, even Ruby, just stared at me. I looked impassively at them while collecting the lightning from the storm. Around the world, roughly a hundred strikes of lightning happen per second. I remember reading that in an article some Remnant scientists cooked up.
For the moment I had more than three hundred fifty per second in my hurricane. That's what a massive affinity and huge reserves of mana will get you. I held all that electricity back and collected it to a huge core of electricity and plasma within it.
Pyrrha seemed to catch herself first. I eyed her curiously as she nervously looked to the sky. She shifted hesitantly in place. Ruby and Jaune brought themselves out of their stupor at her odd behaviour.
"What's wrong?" Her partner asked. Pyrrha bit her lip.
"Something's happening. I don't… lightning. There's a lot of lightning," Pyrrha said nervously. Neither Jaune or Ruby seemed to get what she was saying, but I did. She was sensing the large amounts of lightning collecting above us. To me it was like a siren going off since I could sense the lightning but to Ruby she didn't have the affinity I did. She barely had two thousand and I was doing work thousands of feet above us. She probably felt a tingle. Pyrrha likely felt some sort of magnetic fluctuations from the huge amount of electricity above us.
"Abyss, um, do you know what's going on? This is you, right?" Ruby asked a little nervously. I raised an eyebrow.
"Yes," I stated. "I'm making one of the largest blasts I can."
There was silence for a moment.
"That seems like a bad idea," Jaune said casually. He seemed a little more pale than usual as he glanced at the mirror I made to view the storm from space.
"I've never tested this before," I said with a smile. "Want to know what I'm doing?"
"Of course, but I don't want to feel it!" Ruby said, keeping both eyes above us.
"I've stopped every lightning strike," I said, looking at the sky. I could sense the huge amount of electricity piling up. Deciding to just throw more energy to the pot I was making I channeled my light affinity to the sky and drew light into the electrical stockpile. At this point it was getting hard to keep together. I had to either dissipate part of my storm, which was what was what was collecting the electricity in the first place, or find another solution.
I decided to channel my unity affinity through the inequalizers. It wasn't multiplied by thirty five like most of the affinities I used but with the general amplification of twenty five times rather than thirty seven point five times I had about one hundred sixty five thousand unity affinity. I used it to hold the massive ball of energy together for a little longer. The larger it got, after all, the harder it was to control and the more powerful it would be.
Speaking of power and control maybe I should add some chaos affinity to the power? Ah, perhaps not. I want results I can replicate. Perhaps later.
"Right at this moment the hundreds upon hundreds of lightning strikes that would strike the earth are being collected in a large deposit of energy right there." I pointed to the collection of energy. Ruby squinted for a moment and gasped, paling rapidly.
"Holy cookies..." she whimpered. "That's a lot of power."
"I'm also refracting light and trapping it there," I added. "I'm using my unity affinity to hold all the energy together. When I'm done I just have to point it down and release my control. It'd be more concentrated if I had a marker."
"Like metal?" Ruby suggested.
"No, actually," I said. "Metal makes lightning happen more often. Lightning is attracted to places with a large positive charge." I pointed up to the sky. "Up there is a large negative charge. A huge collection of electrons. Well, that and other things but that's all due to magic and my unity affinity makes that all moot. The other stuff will follow the lightning, and that means it'll go to the largest positive charge it can find."
"A collection of protons?" Pyrrha guessed.
"Exactly," I agreed. "That or positively charged ions. Salt water often attracts lightning strikes because of the salts in the water being positively charged, for example."
"Positive charge," Pyrrha mused. I saw her glance outside of our dry space. Her aura acted on her semblance and I raised an eyebrow quizzically. She glanced at me and smiled.
"I tried to make an area of polarity," she explained. "The way I make lightning is by moving the electrons quickly enough to be displaced. I make a positive charge in the direction I want the bolt to go and release it. More often than not the bolt travels to where I want it to go. I got the hang of it last year. I did it by accident trying to improve my railgun. Dad figured out the science of it." She looked sheepish for a moment. "I accidentally fried a squirrel that first time."
A faint smile went over Jaune and Ruby's face until they looked up again. A moment of silence passed.
"So how long is this going to take?" Ruby asked. "I mean, yeah, it's ominous and all knowing that you're making a death ray up there but just sitting here is sort of… I dunno. Boring?"
"I kind of like watching the rain fall," Jaune said. A particularly strong gust of wind passed through the trees at that moment, snapping branches off and throwing the thick waves rain through the forest. "It's not often that you can stand in the middle of this stuff and watch it."
"For most people," I added. Ruby snickered while Jaune and Pyrrha rolled their eyes in unison.
"I could dump a bunch of dust into the energy stockpile," I offered. "I'd rather not waste the dust though. I could also drain all my mana into my storm affinity to push this ahead of schedule. I'm only using mana as fast as I can make it myself. I could keep this up all day if I wouldn't lose control of the stockpile."
"So how long until you hit your limit?" Jaune asked.
"Maybe another minute or two," I said. "I can last longer if I shrink my storm. I'd use less affinity, that way I can focus more on the stockpile. So maybe eight minutes. And perhaps a little more if I drained my mana reserves."
"I think we've seen about enough," Jaune decided. Then he frowned. "We won't be blinded, right?"
"I'll be fine," I said dismissively. "Thanks for your concern." My eyes adjusted much more rapidly than normal human or faunus eyes anyways. I wouldn't suffer any cornea damage either because of my life affinity helping me out health-wise.
"Thanks for your concern, he says," Jaune said sullenly. I scoffed and handed three pairs of sunglasses to him. He passed the other two to Ruby and Pyrrha, who put the glasses on, looking only a little bit silly.
With the others getting a little impatient I funneled my mana into my affinities faster than I could produce it, growing the stockpile quickly. It was getting a little ridiculous at this point though, I had to admit.
"Aiming it," I said. I drew just a little strand of lightning from the greater stockpile and aimed it down to earth. I felt it aiming itself towards Pyrrha's marker, which was a bit too near us for comfort.
"I'm making a portal a few miles away at a hillside. It's not safe here. Pyrrha's marker works but it's too close." I waved my hand and a portal appeared. Everyone filed in and I looked over the plains we were just in. "Aiming now. Hold onto something." Jaune and Ruby sat down. Pyrrha quickly followed their example. Ruby flexed her earth affinity and a little bunker of earth was made around us. She reinforced it to about a meter thick, draining her mana in the process, and kept an eye out with the others.
First I led down a thin strand of electricity from the stockpile. I imagined it like a road. A path the greater source of energy would follow. It touched down and I heard exclamations from my team. Glancing at what I considered site zero I saw a line of electricity flickering as it danced on the ground. It was a little pretty but more foreboding considering what's to come.
Secondly I focused on the rest of my storm. I pulled it in and used the spell I had used on the dorm room, transmute. Instead of transmuting the the water to another element I transmuted it into raw electricity and energy. From around the planet I drew in the water vapour forming clouds and transmuted it with mana. So long as I had the affinity of the object I'm transmuting or the object I want to transmute the object to the spell worked fine, and my storm affinity made the transmute spell nearly effortless.
The stockpile was almost out of my control. It was a blazing star of energy and I fought to control it every step of the way. I may have a huge affinity in electricity and light keeping it together, and unity helped immensely in keeping everything together, but there was only so much I could do.
Finally, though, when I had my entire affinity focused on simply controlling the mass of energy, I stopped holding it back while putting all my affinities and remaining mana towards making sure our little bunker was safe.
And I shook the earth.
It wasn't a slow rumble. It wasn't like an explosion, of which I've been in many during my toyings with dust. It wasn't something like a boom and everything went black. It was more like a god striking the earth.
There wasn't a delay in before and after. The world flashed and the ground shook. It might as well have been a nuke but it was more instantaneous than that. Before there had been a violent storm in a once peaceful field. A moment later there was a ruinous calamity.
I felt it all happen. The energy slammed into the earth. A typical lightning strike would leave a blackened mark. This was several hundred thousands of lightning strikes at least from all the collected energy and a smattering of light coalesced into a somewhat strong laser. The earth didn't stand a chance.
I could feel from the metals shifting underneath our feet. I realized with a start that I had caused a minor earthquake from the concussive force. I could have amplified it with nature affinity but I left it as is.
The earth charred and split around the impact site, creating fissures with the assistance of the earthquake. It lit trees on fire for miles. It made a concussive blast so strong that there weren't going to be plains any more when I look outside again.
Perhaps the most destructive part was the heat. It lasted only a moment but my beam of energy was composed of so many strikes of energy that struck with five times the force of the sun. I easily eclipsed that completely, sterilizing the ground for miles upon miles and evaporating any water.
I waited thirty seconds for the effects to stop. The others were laid on the floor. My ears were bleeding, but a little life affinity fixed that. I had put up stilled air to make the impact silent but I guess that the sound was loud enough to break through my efforts. At least I suppressed it. I healed any damage the others had received. Mostly temporary blinding and ruptured eardrums as well as some internal issues due to the concussive blast. Nothing too bad. I doubt they felt it from the shock of the blast.
I was the first one to look outside. It was a wasteland. The earth was clean of any life whatsoever. All there was was blackened ashes. Literal ashes. I disintegrated the ground. I made the smallest, least harmful storm I could and spread it over the land. It was much easier than making a hurricane.
The devastation went for miles upon miles. Black ground, black rocks, and ashes. I looked farther and farther until I started seeing some faint life. A bit of charred wood, still on fire, was the first. Then some plants and mosses that survived by hiding in a cave that hadn't collapsed in the earthquake.
It took almost seven hundred miles for the devastation to stop completely. Forests that were mostly untouched, having only their leaves blown off. Life still lived there, being perfectly fine.
But the devastation wasn't completely gone. The area was soaked in storm affinity. I was already sensing storm dust and a little light dust begin to form in the ground naturally. I had seen similar formations before. This place would become like those SDC dust mines I visited. The one with the perpetual storms. Except storm was more powerful than just electricity. I had made an area that would be a perpetual hurricane. A magical hotspot.
A breeding ground for elementals. So long as there was so much ambient affinity there would be elementals spawning by the dozens.
Even now I looked and saw a sparse few elementals be birthed by the affinity in the air. They spread out, milling around and doing nothing. Storm elementals in particular looked like birds made of dark clouds with wings and features like eyes and beaks that arced with lightning. I called one over with my aura and it responded in joy.
"Creator!" It's primitive aura spoke with joy in it's 'voice'. It clearly practically worshipped me just like the elementals I created normally would. "Creator! Creator! Creator!" I ignored the infantile elemental. It was unimportant. It sensed my emotions and ran off to frolic or something. I didn't care. The bird-like elemental flew off.
"Holy shit," Jaune whispered. I glanced back at him and continued surveying the devastation.
"It goes on for about seven hundred miles," I said absently. "A little more or less in some places. It's not perfect, of course. It's not like a circular radius either. But the land is blackened, sterilized, and covered in ashes. The earthquake I caused reshaped the landscape. Not that you'd notice. We're inside the crater right now."
Jaune looked around. "We are?" My other two teammates came out and glanced around. Ruby had Eclipse Rose out just in case.
"It ends about two miles going north and six going south." I said. "Also, the area is going to be uninhabitable now."
"Well, yeah. Obviously," Ruby said, giving me a weird look.
"Open your mana sense," I said to her. She frowned and froze again. Then she just sighed.
"Oh…"
"Remember what happens when there's this much affinity in the air?" I reminded her.
"Elementals," she said sullenly.
"And dust. There's enough affinity that it's collecting into clumps. This crater in particular is going to be a lake that's constantly electrified. It'll be an utterly fascinating ecosystem in a few million years."
Everyone was silent for a moment.
"So what can you guys do?" I asked curiously. Ruby facepalmed.
[|||| =+= ||||]
"Arthur. Abyss was in the gap."
"… Hello Ophis. Please don't suddenly appear behind me and talk again. It's very… well, was there something you needed? "
"Abyss. He was in the dimensional gap."
"I see. Could he come back to our dimension now on his own power?"
"Yes."
"Hmph… he owes me a new gaming system."
"I want the silence back. It was much stronger this time. He drew on the gap's power."
"He drew… he drew the power of the dimensional gap?"
"Yes."
"What exactly would that entail?"
"Abyss would be capable of releasing an infinite amount of negative energy, void, into any dimension whenever he wants. Only some beings would survive. Like me and Great Red. Everyone else would die. He can also travel dimensions without restrictions. Any dimensional anchors on him were severely weakened. He belongs to the void now. Like me. If he felt like it he could wipe out entire dimensions at his whims."
"Ah… how lovely."
[|||| =+= ||||]
We left after a short primer on what we can all do. Pyrrha demonstrated her railgun, not taking nearly as long as I had. It was extremely strong and left a trail of flames in its wake. She could also fly, but melee fighting while flying was out of the question. She had to be standing on her metal dust (which was apparently extremely high grade magnetized steel) or flying by lifting her clothing. Either one was rather difficult, as lifting metal was hard.
Ruby could do smaller scale versions of my elemental powers but was easily the most experienced and versatile weapon user among us as well as the fastest (discounting teleportation). She had motion magic and her semblance, after all. She still used Eclipse Rose to make her go faster too if she disabled the recoil dampening runes. She just didn't do that too often.
Jaune was… well he was a tank. His aura was massive, his stamina near-limitless, and he was good at amplifying his defensive properties to the maximum. I blasted him with my strongest lightning bolt without mana or the inequalizers and he was down about a quarter of a single percentage of his aura when using his semblance.
He could also boost the rate at which he regenerated his aura, which made him a tank that could recover easily too. He could heal others, boost others, and was generally a paladin that took any hit. The only thing he lacked was the speed to cover us. We were all mobile fighters and he was not. If we needed to hunker down he was easily the most experienced and he drew attention with his shiny armor and large aura but more distracting than shiny armor was the person hitting you.
Not that Jaune didn't have some tricks. He could shoot blasts of fire, lightning, or any other dust type from Blanc Lumiere for a sort of slashing ranged attack. He also had some special boots that I hadn't noticed that used gravity dust to make him stick to the ground. Nobody could move him. Not even me and Ruby working together.
He had a pensive look when I described some esoteric abilities of mine. Elementals seemed to interest him for some reason. I didn't get it. He dismissed us as I teleported everyone back to our dorm.
I barely took a minute to take off to another dimension. I had nefarious plans to begin.
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