Tuesday, the 28th of April, 79AGW.

Emerald Forest, Practical Combat, Beacon.

3:10 PM.

Lima ran over his list of targets again as he stared into the forest. He’d trimmed it down from his original list to account for the likelihood that others would be fighting amongst themselves as well.

The threat levels had all shuffled around with the belated rule of no weapon use. Yang and Ren remained up top for obvious reasons. Ruby was there as well for her speed and unknown hand-to-hand skills, Lux for her skill and tenacity.

Jupiter was there simply because he was the biggest guy in class—without having to swing the great sword around, he would most likely be a great deal faster as well. He’d didn’t even bother thinking about why Pyrrha was included because it was a forgone conclusion that she would be one of the biggest threats involved.

There were plenty of other threats, but he hadn’t been exposed to any of them enough to be able to accurately gauge their unarmed ability.

He’d been called halfway down the forest and sat roughly in the middle of the spread. Cymbal, the boy from team Grass with the twin wrist-mounted blades, was on his left. He’d seen how fast the guy could move and how sneaky he’d been—another person to watch out for.

Weiss, standing to his right, had her hands clenched at her side and looked worried every time he glanced over at her. From what he’d seen of her in class, she was extremely adept with her rapier, but he hadn’t seen her without it other than the very first time in Peter Port’s class where the boar had disarmed her—and she had immediately rushed to get it back.

Lima was warier of her semblance—it held some similarities to his own in a vague way. He’d seen her speed things up, slow them down, change direction in mid-air, and a bunch of other minor uses. It was also the exact same semblance that every single female member of her family possessed—that’s how he’d known about it at all.

It had the potential to interact strangely with his own, and it was probably safer to figure that out right away rather than wait for Ruby to somehow pull off her super-squad plan and have it happen while they were dogpiling everyone.

Lima’s scroll buzzed, and Goodwitch’s voice came through the speaker.

“Prepare yourselves, and keep track of your aura—apart from that, use anything you find within the forest and your hard-earned skills to secure victory,” Goodwitch said calmly and paused for a beat. “Go.”

Lima was swallowed by the forest as he ran, and as soon as he was inside, he angled to cut Weiss off before she could get too deep. He stayed low to the ground, using the trees as cover as he approached—her hair was easily the most discernible thing in range, bright white not having much camouflage potential amongst greens and brown.

Despite his attempt at a stealth approach, she still spotted him and spun, lashing out with a frantic kick that he dove under, taking her leg. Weiss yelped as he planted her solidly on her back in the dirt, she tried to get her leg high enough to leverage him off, but he targeted the limb instead.

He rolled them over and leg-locked her pulling tight—

“Wait!” Weiss squeaked, “I’ll pay you!”

Lima paused, genuinely surprised by the offer.

“You’ll pay me?” Lima said incredulous, not loosening his hold.

Weiss curled forward on the dirt to try and alleviate the tension.

“Yes! I’ve seen your project in class—you need more gravity dust!” Weiss gasped, “I can get it for you!”

Creepy that she had been watching him closely enough to notice, and he hesitated.

He did need more; he’d greatly underestimated how much push-pull he’d need to both fire and reel in the weighted cord—he could do what he’d done in class and use his semblance to cheat, but the entire point was to create a mobility tool and help conserve his aura pool, not force himself to use it more often.

“Free of charge?” Lima pondered, pulling back slightly.

“Ow—yes!” Weiss yelped.

He’d be dropping his leader-killing strategy in favor of becoming one himself… but on the other hand, Gravity dust was fucking expensive.

“You got yourself a deal,” Lima said firmly. “You hook me up with enough gravity dust to lift an island, and I’ll carry you through the test.”

Weiss was quick to announce the allied command, and the scrolls updated to show the Lima-Weiss coalition, with one point left between them. Lima let her leg go, and she scrambled back away from him, looking pretty mad.

“I knew you were going to come after me,” Weiss complained, “If I had Myrtenaster, that would have gone very differently.”

Lima dusted himself off as he got to his feet.

“Nah,” Lima said cheerfully, not even backing it up with anything concrete. “Come on then, there are a bunch of people I need to take down, or else Goodwitch is going to kick my ass.”

Weiss followed him as he jogged out of the clearing.

“Goodwitch?” Weiss said, frowning, easily keeping up. “What did you do this time? Or is this because of the mess you caused this morning?”

“Yeah, something like that—she said I need to stop messing around in class,” Lima said sadly, “I suppose you can blame her for your embarrassingly quick defeat.”

“Shut up!” Weiss said quickly, flushed. “You caught me off guard—that’s all.”

“I thought you said you knew I was going to come after you?” Lima laughed. “You’ve seen me in class—you weren’t prepared for how I fight?”

Weiss let out a strangled noise of frustration, and Lima held his hand up as he spotted a splash of pink through the trees. Weiss suddenly ducked, dragging him down with her as a hurricane of petals washed over them.

It tumbled to a stop behind them, reforming into what could only be Ruby Rose.

“Found you, Weiss!” Ruby said happily. “I already found Blake—oh, Lima, you’re here too.”

The requirement for a second ally was two points. Weiss had already used her point to join him, and if Ruby and Blake wanted to recruit both of them, she would need a total of five points. Blake and Ruby would only have one point between them. Lima and Weiss only had one point between them as well—which meant that a team-up was impossible.

Lima attacked, and Ruby yelped, diving to the side to evade him.

“Wait!” Ruby cried, “Let’s team up!”

“We can’t—you should have waited for a while after you recruited Blake and tried to recover some points.” Weiss sighed, “We don’t have enough points between our two teams—which means we have to fight.”

“Noooo!” Ruby wailed, attacking for the first time.

Lima cringed as the sloppy haymaker was deflected to the side; the front kick that followed was sidestepped, and he caught her by the ankle—Ruby hopped on one foot in alarm.

“Hey!” Ruby said worriedly, “Let go!”

Lima lifted his free hand, and she tensed, kicking off the ground into a tight spin, and tried to slam her free foot into his face. He caught hold of the other foot while she was still in mid-air, and Ruby slapped flat onto the ground, shoulders first with her cape pooling around her.

“It has become quite clear to me that you suck immensely,” Lima said gravely, “I am disappointed in you, and my day is ruined.”

“This isn’t fair!” Ruby cried, lamenting her twisted fate. “I want my scythe!”

“Just surrender, Ruby,” Weiss said embarrassedly, coming to stand beside them.

Ruby ended up giving in willingly before sitting cross-legged on the ground sadly. Their scrolls chimed, adding the additional point to their total. Weiss bent down to comfort the distraught girl.

“Where’s Blake? You said she was with you?” Weiss said curiously.

“I went on ahead cause I’m faster—she went looking for Yang,” Ruby pouted, looking away for a moment. “We weren’t sure where she ended up, though.”

Lima knew a blatant lie when he heard it.

“Yang was one of the last people to enter,” Lima frowned, staring down at the girl suspiciously. “She would be all the way on the south side of the forest. You were the first person to line up, and you were on the far north side if Blake was between you and us—”

Blake’s double-legged kick smashed into his hastily raised guard and sent him flying back into the trees. He slapped his palm against the trunk of a passing tree and curved his momentum, arcing him around the tree and back towards the clearing—His Aura had taken at least a 20% hit from that attack.

Lima arrived to find Blake exchanging a series of strikes with Weiss. Blake was clearly the better of the two when it came to hand to hand, but she was forced to break off as he re-entered the fight. Blake blocked the straight punch, but the leg kick struck her thigh, and then Lima was forced to circle round as a second Blake appeared out of thin air.

Her semblance at work, able to clone herself—he’d seen her use it before to take hits in class. Lima lunged past it and staggered as Weiss’s kick caught him on the shoulder.

“Watch where you’re going!” Weiss insisted, and he snorted.

He let her take lead of the engagement—it was pretty clear that they had a distinct lack of co-operation between them. To unfamiliar to each other to enable fluid teamwork at close range, and no natural synergy existed to make up for it.

Lima circled, watching the two trade blows, and once Weiss began slipping up again, he darted forward. Blake blocked the low kick this time, but the impact sent her spinning violently to the ground as his semblance washed over her.

Weiss’s own kick landed on the downed girl bouncing off her shoulder, and her Aura flickered into bright existence at the hit. Blake cloned herself three times to avoid the next assault, no longer willing to allow him to make physical contact, and she constantly rotated, always keeping Weiss in between them.

“Go, Blake!” Ruby cheered, having not even moved from the center of the clearing.

This fight had gone on for far too long, and they risked drawing more people into it the longer it continued, so Lima took drastic measures. He moved forward and planted his hand on Weiss’s back just before she struck out.

“What do you think—” Weiss said, alarmed before she cut herself off.

Blake blocked Weiss’s punch with the same reflexive guard she’d shown during the fight, but this time she was sent rocketing backward as he channeled his semblance through his temporary teammate. Blake clipped the trunk of a tree in passing and tumbled to a stop on the ground.

“Whoa!” Ruby said in alarm.

A moment later, her Aura shattered, and she cursed loud enough to be heard from where they were standing.

He heard the chime of their scrolls, indicating their point total raising to three.

“You alright?” Lima called out.

“I’m alive,” Blake murmured, sitting up. “That was cheap.”

Weiss looked conflicted, unsure if she should be annoyed at him, upset that she had hurt her teammate or proud that they had won the battle.

Lima pushed past his own pang of guilt, moving towards the trees. Goodwitch had already shown that this was the exact thing they were supposed to overcome—Blake wasn’t his teammate, but Weiss was clearly experiencing the lesson he had still yet to learn.

“Come on, my ass is still on the line,” Lima mumbled, shaking his head and raising his voice. “No time to dawdle, bait.”

“Bait!?” Weiss said, offended, her guilt washing away under her fury. “Excuse me—come back here!”

“I want a rematch!” Ruby cried, voicing echoing after them. “With weapons!”

“I think I’ll sit that one out,” Blake said dryly, remaining by the tree and staring up at the leaves above.

“We have three points now,” Weiss said, frowning, “The cost of one more ally is two points.”

“Is there likely anyone who is still without a team by now?” Lima wondered. “Only one I can think of who’d avoid a team in this situation is Lux.”

Weiss frowned, thinking over the problem.

“Probably not,” Weiss admitted, searching the trees. “If we have to recruit a team of two, it would be far more expensive—five points total. We would need to take down two others before we had enough to do it.”

The situation was harder to navigate than he had first thought—he’d already lost a fifth of his Aura to that last fight. There was nothing to say that he wouldn’t get ganked again while he was distracted—getting whittled down by the sneakers sucked.

“The other teams most likely have points of their own,” Lima reminded. “It’s possible we could luck out and just link up with one of the pairs if they have at least two points. The point requirements mean there’s unlikely to be any four-man squads yet—so we don’t have to worry about that at least.”

Weiss nodded thoughtfully.

“Avoid the teams of three and look for the pairs then. Who do we look for in particular? Weiss prompted, “We should figure out who is a potential recruit before we are tossed into the situation.”

Lima was impressed by her forethought; she seemed to do well when not being overwhelmed.

“There are a few people we should avoid at all if possible,” Lima said honestly, “Pyrrha is one. If we meet her and we don’t have the points to recruit whoever she’s with… it won’t be a cheap fight by any means.”

“If we avoid her now, then later on we will need to fight her anyway—but it’s more likely for her to have a larger team the longer we wait,” Weiss said quickly, wringing her hands together.

“Good point,” Lima admitted, “Then I suppose we seek her out first, get it over with?”

Weiss looked hesitant to make the decision, so he continued with the breakdown.

“The others to look out for are Yang and Lux,” Lima said to fill the silence. “I completely expect Lux will be fighting every single person she’s come across—but it’s possible she might have a teammate.”

Weiss nodded, well aware of the girl’s proclivities.

“Why do we avoid Yang?” Weiss frowned. “We could easily recruit her.”

“Because she is super popular and thus sought after,” Lima pointed out, “We can confirm that she hasn’t encountered any of your teammates yet because they’re eliminated, so she’s probably already interacted with several people by now. It’s very likely that she has a larger than average team because of that popularity, which means our chance of reaching the point total needed to take on any of her teammates is low, and we would need to fight them instead.”

“Isn’t that the same for Pyrrha?” Weiss argued, but she seemed to be thinking about it.

“I only ever see her hang out with her teammates,” Lima shrugged, “I think she tends to shy away from all the attention—maybe she’s annoyed after being in the spotlight for so long. I remember back at Sanctum that she would have people coming up to her all the time—a bunch of suck-ups. That’s what you do, as well, isn’t it?”

“Excuse me?” Weiss said coolly. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Lima blinked—why was she getting angry?

“Shy away from others—well actually, you tend to snap at everyone, and whenever someone tries to talk to you outside of your team, you’re mean to them,” Lima shrugged, “I thought it might be because you’ve had people sucking up to you because of the whole singing thing and it’s your attempt to distance yourself from the sycophants.”

Weiss looked pretty startled at the observations.

“I thought you didn’t know who I was?” Weiss said, narrowing her eyes.

Lima gave her a deadpanned stare.

“I didn’t—it’s been weeks, man,” Lima said incredulously. “I looked you up after you got ass-mad at me for the fiftieth time.”

“I am not ass-mad!” Weiss said, completely offended before she crossed her arms, “And I don’t snap at everyone.”

Lima just shook his head, fighting a smile.

“What?” Weiss snapped, “Why are you smiling!”

He didn’t answer, letting them fall back into silence, and continued his search. Lima hadn’t missed that she avoided confirming his guess, but she hadn’t denied it either.

Weiss Schee must have had it tough, in her own way—not every struggle occurred at the same level, but the hits must have still hurt, even if the fall was softened by all of her family’s wealth. Success and popularity brought with it a tonne of expectations—and a million people with a million reasons to tear you down, that was a lot of pressure no matter how resilient you thought yourself to be.

His brief investigation into Weiss’s foray into the realm of music had shown a community of people that were populated in equal parts by those who supported her and those who didn’t. Her family’s status and their business ventures had brought an easy avenue of attack for those who wished her ill.

It always baffled him how one could place the blame on a child for things that had happened long ago—likely before she’d even been able to walk. Weiss hadn’t created the SCD, and she was far too young to have any type of controlling power within the company.

None of the power, and all of the blame. Praise and scorn in equal measure from a faceless mass that couldn’t understand and likely wouldn’t bother trying.

Lima shook his head—no wonder she had run halfway across the world.