Fandom RWBY (RP, closed)

[Grim Wraithe Stjerna]

Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Dust Lab - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos

Sean smiled pleasantly as he nibbled on his pastry and drank the sweet concoction that had once been strong black coffee and listened to his teammates offering up information on where they were from and how the city was much different from their homes. Which was nice to hear, since he had never been to a big city, not really anyways. He and his mother and uncle had made trips to get supplies and meet with family, but he had never been allowed to wander freely.

Downing the last of his cup, getting up and following Oceanos who seemed to know what the class schedule was and where they were supposed to be. Sean had not really bothered to look over the intake information on his scroll, figuring that there would be someone to help point him in the right direction.

Upon entering the lab room, Sean felt a mixture of relief and instant boredom. The intellectual side of his education had never been a strong suit for him, he often struggled with learning things that did not have a clear use in a fight or some sort of physical application. But the fact that this was the dust class offered him some hope of not utterly failing.

After getting his coat and standing behind a table next to Isern the young man started fidgeting with some of the item on the table while Professor Al'mas introduced herself. "A'leas dis'll bea gud tea kin." He muttered to Isern, a slightly excited smirk played across his face as soon as they started the practical portion of the class.

Ozilla Soviet Panda PixelSymphony

 

[PixelSymphony]

~Sumire Yamashita~
-- Arts and Sciences --​

Condition: Nominal
Wearing: School uniform
Location: Beacon Academy, Classrooms

---

As Sumire grabbed a lab coat and glasses and settled down at a bench, she gave a brief sigh of relief, a gesture she had not had the capability to doing for some time now. Dust experimentation had been a hallmark of her own self-teaching, though usually it was more in an artistic sense. Regardless, the principles remained the same, and if there was one thing that her family's money could provide her with great quantities of, it was dust. The contents of her suitcase back in the dorms was evidence enough of that, as was her weapon itself, tuned to dispense dust with great prejudice towards her enemies.

Her note taking was nothing particularly special, though anyone looking would notice her writing flowed from letter to letter in almost a continuous script, each word turning into a small piece of art itself which she would occasionally go back and idly color in portions of in various colors. Any mention of a specific element of dust would be noted by her in an appropriately chromatic ink, and her fingers themselves began to take on some of the various colors from the plethora of pens she used in her work.

Before long it was time to being her dust work, and with a quick click of her pen, she finished her notes and shoved her notebook aside, now delving into the lab portion proper. Dust was... well, kind of like a dust; though honestly in the granularity that tended to be used in classes and generalized uses like this, it could almost be compared more to a sand. If one was careful, multiple layers could be laid atop each other to remain in stratified portions. Some day Sumire wanted to try packing a Dust round in such a manner to see if she could get a time delayed elemental changing projectile, but she was still a good ways away from being able to produce anything other than bog standard single element rounds. She took a quick glance over to Oralious to see how the larger boy was doing; he'd made mention of coming from humble environs, so she was slightly concerned he might not be as familiar with dust handling procedures; the last thing they needed to do was blow a hole in the lab on their second day of classes.

---

Interaction: Ozilla

 

[Soviet Panda]

Isern, with lab coat and goggles on, scribbled frantically in his notebook. He was properly awake after downing a hearty breakfast, and he himself had never been good at the thinking part of a Huntsman's career. So he made it a point to write down everything his teachers said. This particular notebook was a green spiral, single subject, and it was quickly being filled by the narrow, spidery hand writing of it's owner, each letter looping into the next with just enough space in between to separate words. To most others it would take some time to decipher it, truth be told Isern had to collect himself before he could read it himself, but his cramped writing barely filled the page before they switched over to practical. He hadn't had to buy a spiraled notebook for two years, and there was still space left in it when he had been accepted into Beacon. But, instead of using that worn out notebook until every line was filled, he felt it had been appropriate to get a new one. Fresh starts and all that.

As the dust was brought out and set on the table, Isern gave it a wary look. Sean mumbled something to him that he didn't quite understand. Which gave him a slightly bad feeling. Who knew what Sean was thinking? What was he going to do? Hopefully nothing stupid, but if he was, could Isern stop him in time? Would he even know it was stupid before it happened? No, the answer was no, he wouldn't. So Isern did the only thing he could do, and braced for impact, whatever that impact may be.

 

[Ozilla]

Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Dining hall - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos


Apparently having regained her breath, Myosotis waved at two neighbors – her screaming must have been heard across the entire village –, then continued at an only slightly lower volume.
“NOW, my dear huntsman in training! As you seem to be so convinced of your own expertise that you don’t need a teacher, there you go! You will not train with Pardus or your chakrams for the next month!!”
Oceanos sucked in air and opened his mouth to answer full of indignation, then swallowed when he looked at his fuming mother and nodded silently. (3/3)

Oceanos bit the inside of his mouth to stop himself from grinning. He was fairly sure Sean had not been talking about some sort of tea but had no idea what the boy had said. He could not help feeling a bit relieved that Sean had been talking to Isern, not Oceanos.
A glance at Sumi made him smile when he saw her fingers that were covered in various colors from her pens which she was apparently using to distinguish her notes depending on which dust type they referred to.
“Um, wow. You do put a lot of effort into your notes, don’t you?”, he said to her, still smiling. The next moment, his smile vanished when he also noticed that her handwriting itself was already very artistic; she almost drew the words instead of just writing them. He stared down at his own notebook which was covered in readable, but by no means pretty letters. Writing had not been something which he – or most people in his village – had had much time or reason to do, which was strongly reflected in his, if anything, functional writing style which, next to Sumi’s, looked like the handwriting of a child. He tried to inconspicuously move his notebook a bit farther away from her.

The practical part was, while quite scientific, still interesting. They experimented with different doses of fire dust and measured the resulting heat, then compared the values to gain some insight into how much fire dust was needed to produce which size of flame or which temperature. Oceanos noticed that a student in the next bench scribbled into a notebook frantically the whole time. The fact that he looked slightly like a cliché mad scientist, with his gigantic glasses and rather disheveled hair, made Oceanos imagine that in some years, he would be constructing explosive after explosive, all the while cackling crazily and babbling numbers. He shook his head to dispel the silly image.

That afternoon, the students had – as on every school day of the week – combat practice. After they had quickly returned to their rooms to change out of their uniform and into more casual and combat-related clothing – Oceanos took a note to finally ask his team mates how to use his scroll as so far, one of the others had always had to unlock the door to their room -, they assembled in the amphitheater. Professor Goodwitch was already present. Wasting no time, she started with another lecture, but this one was fairly short. Next, she took out her scroll and apparently looked through the list of students in this class, as after a moment, she said: “Mr. Ren and Mr. Fírinne, if you would? Let’s start with a sparring round between the two of you.”
Even though it was not Oceanos she had called, he still felt a slight nervousness as one of his teammates was asked to the front stage. “Good luck!”, he quietly said to Sean as the boy got up. Nearby, another guy with long black hair and dark-green clothes also went to the front. He was preparing a set of weapons which seemed to be some type of bladed pistols. Oceanos prepared himself as well, as he had decided to try and learn as much about their other class mates as possible in case his team had to go through another team fight.

After both combatants were in position, Goodwitch raised her hand, then lowered it sharply. “Begin.”
Ren – was his first name Lie by any chance? – seemed to take a deep breath but did not move.


Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Amphitheater - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos

 

[Grim Wraithe Stjerna]

Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Dust Lab - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos​

Sean smirked an impish smile as he watched his teammate try to subtly brace for some sort of explosion or other similar dangerous reaction. However, Sean had a very good understanding of the various Dusts and the different reactivity they had with each other.
Despite his lack of any real note taking, the young man was able to easily combine, ignite and record the differing attributes. With very legible handwriting that did not look like how he spoke, Isern would have no trouble interrupting the data being recorded. By the end of the lesson, despite some creative uses of fire and certain chemicals, both young men retained their eyebrows.

Sean had been looking forward to this portion of the day, he has been a bit disappointed that he has missed the team combat training, as he would have liked to have seen how his teammates worked together and what their abilities were, but sparring was just as good to show his own skill. Not too mention in a one on one fight you didn't have to worry about someone coming up behind you.

He was grinning already when Professor Goodwitch said. “Mr. Ren and Mr. Fírinne, if you would? Let’s start with a sparring round between the two of you.” Rolling his shoulders and a quick flick of head right and left, followed by the sounds of cracking bone joints, Sean stood and moved to the ring. Giving Oceanos a wink and smile as he moved. His Boomstick casually slung on his left hip, like a sword, except is was a pump action shotgun by all appearances.

The young man looked across the ring to his fellow student, giving him a respectfull nod as he drew out Boomstick, pulling the action bar back and pushing it forward, making a chung chung! sound chambering an ice dust round with the very distinctive metallic mechanical sound echoing in the room.

He would wait for Ren to make the first aggressive move. Sean could feel the spike in his adrenaline and took a deep breath to help slow his heart rate.

Ozilla Soviet Panda PixelSymphony

 

[Ozilla]

Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Amphitheater - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos


Oceanos watched as both combatants stood opposite each other, each seeming to measure his opponent. None of them moved. After about 20 s, though, Ren sighed, then raised his weapons. He let lose a barrage of bullets in Sean’s direction, revealing that his pistols were fully automatic and capable of a high fire rate. Then, he began to move, running in a quarter circle around Sean, still shooting, before he quickly approached Sean, initiating close combat with two slashes of the blades attached to his pistols.


Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Amphitheater - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos

 

[Grim Wraithe Stjerna]

Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Amphitheater - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos

Sean smirked and tensed a little as Ren let automatic burst fly at him. But now was the time to act and not think.

Sean's legs flexed and pushed him forward as he curled into diving forward roll to his right. Once his feet were under him the young man started running towards Ren, weapon up not firing, ducking and weaving. His aura taking a few rounds.
As the two combatants closed to striking distance Sean brought Boomstick up to parry and redirect Ren's slashes to the right. Sean used his semblance to shift some of his weight to his left foot for added stability, transferring more to his right knee for added momentum. If the knee connected with Ren, it would feel more like being hit with a sledge hammer swung with enough force to crack concrete, then a regular knee strike.

Ozilla Soviet Panda PixelSymphony

 

[Ozilla]

Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Amphitheater - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos


Sean was quick on his feet. He managed to dodge a bunch of bullets with a side-way roll, then started to sprint toward Ren, both combatants now approaching each other. However, despite sidestepping, Sean was hit several times now, and Oceanos saw the large aurameter above the stage reacting by lowering his bar. Sean blocked Ren’s slashes, before retaliating with not his weapon, but his knee. He seemed to be packing quite a punch. Oceanos raised his eyebrows as the force of the attack was enough to throw Ren back and slightly into the air. However, the boy caught himself easily with a backflip before shooting another volley while closing in and resuming close combat. Ren seemed to rely not on raw power but speed and agility; his fighting style was quick, and he switched between slashes with his blades and hits and kicks with his limbs, dancing around Sean and attacking him from all sides. Oceanos barely noticed that he was clenching his fists.


Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Amphitheater - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos

 

[Grim Wraithe Stjerna]

Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Amphitheater - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos

Sean was impressed with the speed and agility of his opponent, but knew that if he could land one or two good heavy hits he could win. Fast opponents, like Ren, rarely had the constitution to shrug of hard hits.

The young man felt pressed in on all sides, doing his best to block and dodge the varied kicks, punches, and rapid shots. He went back on his heels, leaning backwards to avoid the hits and draw Ren in a little. When the timing seemed right, Sean shifted most of weight down to his feet and bent backwards at a very unnatural and unexpected angle. His body almost parallel with the floor, Boomstick came to bear, pointing first at Ren's stomach then his up his chest then his head. Firing three shotgun shots in quick succession, one shot for each point if aim.

Ozilla Soviet Panda PixelSymphony

 

[Ozilla]

Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Amphitheater - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos


Dodging and blocking most of Ren’s attacks, Sean still took some more damage to his aura level. After he had slowly retreated out of Ren’s barrage, he bent backwards and Oceanos’ eyes widened – how did Sean stay on his feet with his body almost in a lying position? Out of this unlikely pose, he then lifted his weapon, firing three shotgun bursts. With quick movements, Ren dodged two shots; the last hit him at point-blank range. Ren’s aura level immediately dropped by quite a bit, and Oceanos wondered if it was Sean’s weapon that packed such a punch or if Ren had an overall low aura capacity.

Ren flinched but immediately went in again. If anything, he seemed more determined now, raining down hits at Sean even faster than before. After some more back and forth, both combatants had reached about fifty percent of their aura. The fight would probably not take much more time now.


Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Amphitheater - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos

OOC: Feel free to finish the fight in your next post! It is up to you to decide who gets below 25 % aura first and therefore loses; Ren is fairly capable in combat I would think, but cannot take that much damage, so it depends on your estimation of Sean's skills Grim Wraithe Stjerna

 

[Grim Wraithe Stjerna]

Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Amphitheater - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos

Sean was impressed at the speed and grace with which Ren could move, even in such close proximity to be able to dodge gunshots that were effectively touch him. Grunting with exertion as well as mild annoyance at his aura dropping even further under the renewed barrage of shots, kicks, and slashes. Some of which he was able to deflect or dodge, but not all.

In a momentary respite as both fighters either planned their next attack or caught their breath, Sean's eyes quickly glanced at both of their meters. 'Shite! Gonn'eh hav'ta goo awl en!' The young man thought to himself.

With barely 10 feet separating the two combatants Sean leveled his weapon and fired the last three rounds in Ren's general direction, fully expecting his fellow student to dodge them. But as he started firing Sean charged in and after the final blast discharged and now only a few feet to go, Boomstick seemed to break into two pieces.
This was by design, Sean gripped the ends of the two pieces like Eskrima fighting sticks, stepping in and swinging his right hand low and arching upwards, aiming to knock the weapon from Ren's left hand. Sean's left hand came in overhead aiming to strike the area connecting Ren's shoulder to his neck. Whether either attack managed to connect or not the weapons would continue on predetermined archs following a kata of muscle memory and strikes. The right weapon would contiune the flow upwards then reverse in a blink to come striking back down at the right side of Ren's head. His left crossed over to his right side and also reversed quickly aiming to strike at Ren's hopefully exposed ribs. Sean shifted some of weight to both of his hands to lend the strikes additional momentum and power. Even if they would not connect with the other young man they would certainly diminish his aura.

Ren did in fact manage to dodge the three seemingly wild and desperate shotgun blasts, rushing in to meet the charging student. His own weapons firing short burst until they were within striking distance. He quickly shifted into a defensive seeing the two sticks coming to attack. Ren brought his left weapon in to block the strike he was expecting to aim at his ribs, however the weight of attack carried more power then he was anticipating. He did not lose the grip on his weapon, however it was diverted upward and across his face. His right hand had been coming in to slash across Sean's exposed left side and he was unable to shift away from the incoming downward stick. As the weapon connected solidly his aura meters dropped significantly. Not quite to 25% but getting closer. Ren's right hand slash did connect with Sean's side, his meter dropping a few ticks closer to 25% as well.

But as Sean's follow on strikes landed true, it felt like getting hit by an Ursa Major, Ren's aura dropped below 25% with a red flash. At that same time his left leg cocked back slightly and then shot straight out into Sean's stomach. Knocking the slightly larger student into the air slight and back a foot or so. Sean's aura meter also dropped to 25% as well.

Glynda stepped forward and swished The Disciplinarian through the air and both students were pushed away from each other, back to their starting positions. "Enough! This match is over, both of your aura's are below 25%." Looking first to both combatants then to the class. "Ensure to review this match and learn from it. Dismissed."

Sean looked across the ring to Ren and gave him a slight, but respectful nod, holding his left side and hunching forward ever so slightly as if he was catching his breath. A grimace played quickly across his face as he takes a deep breath and straightens, before moving towards Oceanus, Isern and Sumire.

Ren returned the respectful nod with a small bow before turning to rejoin his own team, a slight limp in his step.

Ozilla Soviet Panda PixelSymphony

 

[Ozilla]

Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Amphitheater - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos


The rest of the duel continued as a very close match. Quickly closing in with a couple of shots from his weapon, Sean revealed its transforming mechanism and held, a moment later, two separate baton-like stick weapons in his hands. Oceanos was curious whether this would allow him to fare better against Ren who was also dual wielding. The two combatants exchanged quick hits and slashes, and when Oceanos had another look at their aura levels, he found that the meters were now dropping almost continually. His fists clenched again as the gauges approached the threshold for combat exclusion. Then, with two especially strong attacks, Sean and Ren actually managed to get each other below 25 % at the same time, and Professor Goodwitch pulled them apart immediately. "Enough! This match is over, both of your aura's are below 25%. Ensure to review this match and learn from it. Dismissed."

Sean nodded to Ren, who responded with a formal bow, then the two went back to their respective teams. “Nice fight, Sean!”, Oceanos greeted his teammate. “I’m actually surprised just how evenly matched you two fought.”

The evening proceeded unspectacularly. After dinner, the four went to their dorm room, where Oceanos had to ask the others for some help with his scroll as he still had not touched it. Back in Sagisō, to the best of his knowledge, his mentor had been the only one in possession of such a device; technology had generally been a rarity in his little village. This was why he was feeling very unsure about how to handle anything more complicated than the light switches in their room. After his teammates had shown him the basics such as turning on and off the scroll – quite an essential skill -, doing phone calls, reading mail – and possibly sending it, if he could remember how to do that – and opening the dorm room door as well as calling his weapon locker from its idle position in the gym changing room, he felt that he was sufficiently prepared for the moment. Knowing that he would be able now to enter their room on his own, he excused himself for some exercise.

When he had arrived at his locker, he exhaled and leant against it. His head was spinning with all that had happened recently. His exhausting journey to Beacon had been followed by an initiation during which his first potential teammate had lost her life, he had still somehow been appointed leader, OSEI’s first fight against another full team had ended abysmally with him unable to do anything about it, and then another member of his team had been called away from Beacon and replaced by Sean. And then of course there were the events before all that, back at Sagisō…Oceanos shoved that thought aside and, with another deep breath, pushed himself off the locker. He opened it, took out Scylla and Charybdis and went over to the combat area. He might not be a brilliant team leader, but he could still work on his own martial skills.

The next morning, after too little sleep as Oceanos had snuck into OSSI’s room rather late after a long training session, he was slumped in front of a work bench next to Sumire, Sean and Isern. He had been silent during breakfast, too tired to participate much in conversation, but hoped that their first class for the day would energize him a little. They were waiting in a workshop-like classroom for their Weapon Crafting and Upkeep teacher, and Oceanos had definitely been looking forward to this lesson, what with his having been the apprentice of Sagisō’s blacksmith.
Idly, he tapped around on his scroll. Despite the fact that he was still somewhat afraid of pressing a wrong button and making the thing blow up, he had decided he would need to practice using it. It would not do to land in some kind of emergency and not knowing how to communicate with anyone.
Noticing that he had some mail, he opened his inbox and clicked on the first message.

Subject: PROFITABLE DUST INVESTMENT

Dearest Oceanos,

It is me, your cousin Ọlọla-bulu! I am sending you warm regards from Vacuo. As you know, I am prince. Recently, I have started investing in dust-in-the-depths mining and business is booming; we are making profits of up to 45,33 %. I would like to share with you 17,96 % of these riches. Due to regulations, you will have to send me 3,68 % of the sum first, which amounts to 10000 Ⱡ. Afterwards, I will be happy to send you the money back.

Yours truly, Mr. Ọlọla-bulu

Oceanos’ eyebrows rose. He assumed this was one of those spam mails that his teammates had warned him about. He deleted the mail, not being able to think of any Vacuan relatives, then opened the next one.

Subject: Thirsty girls in your area

LOOK NO FURTHER! A harem of hotties is waiting around the corner! Meet beauties such as Krasnastasya, Jade and Amoria by clicking on the link below! We are waiting for you

Snorting, Oceanos almost shook his head. This one was definitely a scam. But what was a link? He moved his finger across the screen to push the text up and almost dropped his scroll when the picture of a…scantily-clad…individual of the female gender appeared. In other words, she was buck-naked. He hurriedly deleted the email, throwing furtive glances left and right to check if someone had seen, his ears about to burst into flame. With a deep breath, he clicked on the next email.

Subject: Special offer

Dear sir,

Are you feeling particularly down? Is it difficult for you to get excited and combat-ready? Is your weapon refusing service? Does defeat seem more and more inevitable? Try blupill, the blue pill that packs a punch! Order now and receive our extra pack with not 100, but 150 pills for half the price, and watch your performance rise through the roof.

Blupill: Take one, and the pills will be the only round blue objects around you

Huh? This one confused Oceanos. He did not quite understand why half of the text was italicized, but it seemed this was some kind of combat-drug? Was that a thing? Would someone notice if he took a couple before OSSI’s next team fight? Maybe this stuff would make him such a good fighter he would not have to worry about his teammates and be able to just quickly defeat their four opponents himself?
Just to be sure, he leaned over to the other three on his team and asked: “Hey, does someone know what blue pills are?”

From the workbench behind his team, laughter erupted. Before Oceanos could ask what was so funny or get an answer from his teammates, however, their teacher arrived. Harold Mulberry was a short, stocky man with very muscular arms. His black hair was shoulder-length and somewhat unkempt and he was wearing a heavy apron over his clothes which appeared to be similarly practical. A jovial man, he explained to them that while keeping it simple in weapon crafting was definitely a possibility, inspiration was always good when deciding to make a new weapon. After showing the class his own weapon, a rather massive hammer which could also work as a grenade launcher, he had a look at the student list and stabbed what appeared to be a random name with his index finger.
“Miss Yamashita.” Mulberry searched through the room until his eyes identified Sumi. “Would you mind coming to the front and explaining your weapon to the others? Afterwards, we can all have a look at some basic maintenance steps to ensure that your weapons are always prepared for use”, he said with a kind smile.


Kingdom of Vale – Vale city – Beacon Academy – Workshop - Sean, Isern, Sumire, Oceanos