Chapter 52

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My sword gleamed and light shined as a cry of pain rang out, marking the elimination of the girl's place in our fight. The hammer she had been about to swing dropped the the floor with a thump. That didn't matter in the scope of things so I moved onto the next opponent.

My sword flashed once more and sparks fell on me as she parried with her katana. When the attack failed I drew storm mana into the fingers of my left hand and flicked it at the opponent's stomach. The arena shook with the boom of thunder and the girl I was fighting crashed ingloriously into the arena walls, cracking the concrete slightly. Her aura was almost entirely exhausted and she was barely conscious. She must have knocked her head against the wall.

Quickly, I took the initiative and leapt towards my last opponent. She flicked her rapier and circles born of her semblance manifested around her and turned rich shades of green and yellow. I felt the disturbance of mana and identified the affinities as wind and lightning.

To avoid the attack I simply dropped out of space. The girl held her semblance and did not release the attack. A stalemate then. Fine.

I flickered back into existence for a moment and raised a gun. The bullet cracked and slammed into the girl's shoulder. It definitely left a hefty bruise. Her aura wasn't potent or focused on that spot enough to stop a bullet completely. To her credit she didn't make a sound but gritted her teeth at the pain. She angrily swept her hand out and all the circles aligned in front of her concentrically and released their charges.

If only it were that easy. I stretched the space between me and the attack to miles and the attack fell flat, the wind dispersing to a faint breeze and the lightning channeling itself into the floor. I snapped the space back and the air compressed, releasing a weak shockwave through the air. The girl didn't move but was forced to brace herself against the harsh wind. I was given enough time to land a hail of bullets on her body, only some of which she was able to block. The buzzer rang obnoxiously then, signalling the end of the match.

"Good job, Weiss," I said with a nod. "You might have landed a hit if you used all lightning dust rather than wind and lightning."

Weiss scowled at another match lost and took stock of her teammates. Nora was rubbing her stomach from the harsh blow I dealt her earlier while she sat on the bench for eliminated huntsmen. Ren was the first one I had knocked out of the match with a few assault rifle bullets to the forehead and was leaning against the wall beside Nora. Blake was trying to store Gambol shroud in its sheathe but was too twitchy after the lightning strike I gave her. I also had a suspicion that she had ringing ears from the thunder, but I didn't see any evidence of that.

"An acceptable job as always, Mister Mavros," Glynda acknowledged from the side. "Team SBVR, while the coordination between you all was acceptable, you still did not attack as a unit but rather planned as a unit. Miss Belladonna, instead of distracting Mister Mavros to allow Miss Schnee time to prepare an attack, I would have recommended that you disengaged after your initial attack. You have learned from experience that clashing blades with him results in a defeat not long after. As for you, Miss Valkyrie, you should not have let your anger for your comrade's defeat affect your combat form. Defense must always be considered no matter your emotions."

"He shot Rennie-bear!" she cried. "He must suffer a thousand years of torment!" In other words, I had to give her a jar of red sap or she'd pout at me for a few days. Ren put his hand over her mouth to quiet Nora, but immediately jerked back, his hand looking wet, as Nora laughed at him. I smiled slightly as Glynda pinched her nose at their antics.

It's good to be back at Beacon, strangely enough. Even if I was just gone for a weekend.

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Dear Mister Mavros,

It has come to our attention that Barty Crouch Jr., due to his status as a wanted terrorist as well as other minor crimes such as the identity theft of Alastor Moody, has been incarcerated due, in no small part, to your efforts. I personally write to you out of concern for the incident and to confer other matters of equal if not greater importance.

For example, there is the fact of the matter that you claimed to be a friend of my friend Alastor while he was captured, yet you also revealed Barty Crouch in the process and made no move to harm the students of Hogwarts. In fact, by the reports of the majority of the student body, you were a capable instructor and markedly improved the student's approach to personal defense and house solidarity. Though I may dislike your methods myself, I'll admit, I agree, as does Alastor, that they are potent if nothing else On a related note, students are no longer allowed to carry weapons in the halls. This is just one of the many, many issues we have to resolve.

I would be greatly amicable to clarifying your involvement in the matter of Barty Crouch Jr. as well as discussing why you approached such a problem as you did rather than informing the authorities of Crouch's actions.

To conclude this communication, I would like to assure you that I mean in no way to threaten your identity, as you seem averse to escaping relative anonymity, and that I did not take measures to discover your identity. The owls of Hogwarts were unable to find you, as a matter of fact. It may sound quite unbelievable, but Hogwarts itself appears to wish for your return. It is my hope that you might return so that we may discuss your actions during the incident and the associated motivations for said actions.

With good intent,

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore; Headmaster of Hogwarts

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"Concentrate," Salem ordered. "If your image isn't clear the grimm will emerge distorted."

I worked my aura like a blade, cutting through corruption to make a form from the chaotic mess of corruption the grimm pool emanated. However, I refocused the image of the grimm I wanted to create in my mind, pressing the image onto the corruption just like I did in my mental battles with Cinder. The corruption didn't resist but simply by the contact with my aura it spread thoughts of atrocities to me: tearing men apart like wood before fire, strangling children in their sleep, walking through a dying city and revelling in the carnage.

"Better," Salem said approvingly. "It appears ready. Infuse the affinity you chose." I nodded before immediately returning to my work in full. I made one more pass over the form I had sculpted and took control of my metal and fire affinities. I pushed fire in first, making a dense core of the affinity with a hint of mana to hold it together, though not enough mana to make the affinity crystallize into dust. The metal affinity I did crystallize into dust but I also made sure to merge it with the corruption deeply.

With the infusion done I pressed onto the three affinities from the outside, pushing them together. They seemed to click in a fashion and I smiled and opened my eyes.

Before me a large clawed hand grasped the outside of the grimm spawning pool. Another quickly followed. Unlike normal grimm, however, these claws were made of pure metals. Iron, titanium, and many others all designed to become the most efficient metal for killing. Preferably in a brutal and bloody fashion.

The beast drew itself out of its spawning pool slowly, muscles working hard to escape the viscous liquid of the spawning pits. It was seemingly reptilian, though it walked on six taloned legs. Its mask had dark orange lines through it like the most powerful grimm of Salem's, marking some sort of ability.

It was scaled, too. The metal affinity made a shell of dense metals surrounding it. I saw mostly hard ferrous metals, but there were also lines of gold, silver, and other soft metals on it's skin. None of them shined, seemingly blackened by corruption.

I couldn't help but feel pride at the beast as it drew back it's jaw almost relishing it's new form and revealing jagged gold and silver teeth. It huffed slightly and white hot flames escaped it's jaws. I could feel the heat from several meters away. The gold and silver teeth were apparently much more durable than their apparent composition suggested.

"Good," Salem said approvingly. She eyed the six legs the lizard-like grimm had curiously. "Why did you give it six legs?"

"Six legs are better for scaling cliffs. The talons are extra sharp and hard with the metal affinity, making this grimm perfect for climbing around rocky terrain," I explained.

"Indeed. It is a good first grimm." Salem nodded at the grimm and it preened for a moment before turning around and walking away, presumably to escape to a different continent and do as grimm do; sow carnage. I felt a little guilty at making a weapon against mankind, but Salem had promised earlier that the grimm I made would not go to Vale and I didn't really care about the other kingdoms.

"It may be somewhat vain, however," Salem muttered. I shrugged and checked the time.

"I have to go now. Beacon calls." Salem nodded.

"I will see you on Thursday then." I smiled politely and teleported away.

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"Something's going on."

"What do you mean, Blake?"

"The White Fang in Vale. Their comms are… wrong. Too empty. Hardly anyone is using them and I don't know why."

"Isn't less White Fang activity in Vale a good thing?"

"Not for the faunus."

"Ah, right. Well things are much better for faunus now."

"Yes. Well, a lack of comms means that either the Fang are downsizing here, which would have meant a burst of comms for a few days as the fang organized people, which never happened, or something's being hidden. Considering the recruitment drives lately, the Fang is active and strong in Vale right now. I don't know why I'm being left out of the loop though."

"So something's going on with the Fang and they don't want you to know."

"Yes."

"Do you have any idea why?"

"Well…"

"Yes?"

"It's probably because of you. Having a Schnee on the team is… it doesn't win me any favours."

"Oh. Well, we could investigate."

"Mhm…"

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"I want to try something new," Jaune announced at the end of a school day. We had just finished combat class, where Ruby had smacked around some third years and I had discussed dust manipulation with Pyrrha before we all went to our room to study. It was also, conveniently, one of those occasional days where I didn't wander the multiverse.

"I thought we weren't doing team orgies?" I said curiously. Pyrrha nearly stumbled but Jaune talked onwards regardless.

"No, not that. I think I thought of a way out of our team coordination problem."

"Really?!" Ruby asked excitedly.

"Really," Jaune said to Ruby with a shared grin. "We share auras, but not like the 'one body two minds' thing Abyss does. Dr. Peach mentioned brains earlier yesterday and it got me thinking on whether we could use our auras to communicate."

"We can," I confirmed. "It's how elementals talk."

"Can people do it?" Jaune asked, his excitement growing.

"With training, yes."

"What's it like?" Pyrrha asked.

"How long does it take to get a thought across?" Jaune asked before I could answer Pyrrha.

"It's instant, for one thing. Thoughts, images, words, and generally any thought are transmitted instantly along with the emotions to understand said image immediately. As for Pyrrha's question, it's somewhat like empathy to the extreme. You understand the other person's viewpoint and thought process completely. That old English teacher's adage, putting yourself in someone else's shoes, is probably the closest way of describing the process."

"I've done it a little," Ruby volunteered. "Mostly to talk with Pit occasionally. I kind of suck at it. I always get myself and the other person in question confused and it takes me a moment to re-order my thoughts."

'It's like this' I pulsed to my team. Pyrrha squeaked in surprise, her eyes wide, and Jaune winced at the foreignness of the mental message.

'With training you can even send abstract thoughts like this' I recalled the feeling of snow on my skin last winter, the faint but distant chill before I wiped it away with a flex of my heat affinity through my body and the satisfying and deep warmth of the affinity within me.

'Or images like this' I sent an image of the island bay I used during my Signal years with the subI class.

"How do you do that?" Jaune asked, eyes nearly sparkling.

"To start out you pulse your aura while focusing intensely on a strong memory. You have to sort of think it as loud as you can if that makes any sense." Jaune nodded and he and Pyrrha both closed their eyes.

"Ooh! I'm going to try!" Ruby said. She closed her eyes before a pulse washed over us.

I had a vision of sitting in my/Ruby's room holding a stuffed grimm. 'Rawr! I'm a scary beowolf!' I said to myself. I moved it to claw at my face and giggled. 'Never will you beat me, beast!' I giggled dramatically.

"No! Shoot! Wrong memory!" Ruby said panicked. "I meant that awesome one where I was fighting a bunch of grimm!" But it was too late. Jaune was snickering behind his fist while Pyrrha quickly repressed a laugh.

"Oh! Wait!" Jaune laughed. "I-"

I was waist deep in grimm. My blade sang as it flew from grimm to grimm, killing most of them and wounding others for later. My shield rang at every strike against me, keeping me safe from harm. My aura roared in me like a blaze, making me faster, stronger, and more deadly. My semblance and the markings on my skin only made me more so, pushing me beyond my limits.

"Jaune!" Coral cried out. I glanced her direction to see her fighting a large lizard-like grimm that spat acid at her. She was too busy with a beringal to retaliate and the lizard was too accurate. She was pinned, in other words.

I soaked the air dust in my sword with my aura and pulled away from my grimm to swing mightily at the lizard. Pressurized air whipped out and the lizard screeched as a deep gash appeared on its neck. I returned to my grimm and distantly heard a 'Thanks!' a moment later.

I smiled as I dove back into the fray.

"Good to see you making use of the sword I gave you," I said as the memory finished in my mind.

"Blanc lumiere," Jaune said by reflex.

"Could you send a little less next time?" Ruby groaned. "It's hard to seperate myself from big memories like that."

"I think I've got it," Pyrrha told us. "Here."

I smiled fiercely as Abyss threw lightning at me. My semblance grasped at the electrons and I threw the electricity right back at him only to discover that the lightning was a distraction and I was repressed by a hail of icicles sharper than any arrow.

I whipped the metal dust under my semblance and knocked one of the icicles out of it's path towards me. I adjusted my stance and nearly gasped as three of the icicles around me exploded into steam.

My skin was scalded and I nearly screamed under the burns. Icicles didn't explode! How was that fair?! A sharp pain at my neck revealed something I feared.

'You lose' Abyss said smugly. I was furious - dust damned teleportation - but felt a fierce warmth in my chest… and on my skin but that was likely the burns. He had beaten me soundly. He was one of the few able to. What I wanted to say wasn't what came out.

'Yes.' I smiled. I felt a faint sadness that I didn't say what I wanted to say. 'I guess I did.' He chuckled and his smugness diminished somewhat.

'Another round?' I blushed and hoped that the burn hid it.

'Yes. Could you heal these burns first please? Sorry.'

"I remember that match." I grinned. "You were so furious that I had exploding icicles. I told you that anything can explode if you try hard enough." Pyrrha nodded silently as her blush increased. Was she really that embarrassed? I might be missing something here.

"How long until this can be used in combat?" Jaune asked.

"Probably a month," I guessed. "It's not instantaneous. If anything it's a training aid until we understand each other enough to operate as a team without sharing thoughts, though sharing thoughts is sure to enhance our ability to work as a group. Soon enough we should be able to fight without it as easily as we will be able to with it. I never thought about communicating with our auras like this. It seems somewhat obvious looking back."

Jaune nodded dismissively. "Anything else?"

"It's hard to lie with your aura," I added on. "It's hard for people to hide emotions when they're communicating with them. That's like fighting with a weapon that looks good but is actually faulty. When tested it fails. Understanding each other as a team might be a bit… well there's a point where we can be too honest."

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"Ozpin!"

"Hm?"

"Team JSPR! You have to stop them!"

"Why?"

"They're fighting like a team now!"

"Oh good. I didn't expect that they would ever be able to do that."

"Nobody's a challenge! They need a mission."

"Hm… fine. Do you have a suggested-"

"A rank. Maybe S if there's a somewhat easier one."

"I see. Are you sure?"

"Mavros can teleport them out of danger if there is any."

"I see. Alright. There is an A ranked mission. However, it is based in Vacuo."

"Then give them an extra time limit and have their other teachers collect their work into a few packets."

"Missions are coming up soon. Fine. I'll give them a week before the typical mission assigning week to get to Vacuo. Tracking down and killing a dangerous and unique grimm should be to their liking."

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I was beginning to think that Pyrrha had a crush on me.

I glanced at her, looking up from my lunch, and she blushed. I focused on her aura and felt her embarrassment along with that strange warm feeling. I had felt something similar from Vera sometimes. Where Vera's warm feeling was more like a burning fire Pyrrha's feeling was like a warm caress. It made me uncomfortable.

I didn't really think of Pyrrha in that way. She was a friend that was fun to test my skills against. She was pretty, extremely so, actually, and she was nice as a person, not to mention driven…

She would be fantastic in bed. Her competitiveness would do it for just about anyone.

That wasn't really a factor to consider though. I was more concerned about her feelings. If we tried dating - because I was NOT having a casual relationship with Pyrrha - it would be awkward and strange not just because it would be both of our first times dating but I also consider her my friend and I've never thought of her as dating material.

Maybe I should try it just to see how it works out.

"Tomorrow. They're doing something tomorrow." I heard Blake say a few doors down from our own. She sounded shady and suspicious. Bella would be ashamed of her for being so obviously up to no good. I also faintly heard tapping from a scroll.

"You're sure?" Weiss asked. This sounded important and I paid attention.

"Yes!" Blake hissed. "Look, we'll bring it up with Ren and Nora later. In the middle of the hallway is hardly a safe place to discuss this." The two went quiet and one final tap was accompanied by the click of a lock disengaging and the two closed the door behind them.

"What's so interesting?" I jerked a little to see Pyrrha sitting on the floor a few feet from me making a mixture of a few different types of dust.

"Some students up to no good. It distracted me for a moment," I said vaguely. Pyrrha stared at me for a moment before shrugging and returning to her mixture.

"… You're using too much gravity dust. Use seven less milliliters per liter. It should make it more potent without compromising the stability," I chimed in after a moment of observation. Pyrrha sighed and grabbed a few vials of the other types of dust to dilute the mixture.

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"Poledina. I have another task for you. A rather tedious one."

"I'm kind of busy with, you know, the twenty other things you have for me."

"That's nice. I need you to tinker with my faunus traits. Pit wants a more human body so she can speak and such. However, she needs a body suitable for her innate affinity. So I want you to isolate the gene-"

"Boss, I got the genes that manage innate affinities months ago. Remember?"

"Did you do it for Pit? And can you splice the innate affinity genes onto a homunculi?"

"Theoretically. But it's more complicated than just splicing some genes onto a chromosome. Pit's from a different species. That would be like slapping the genes for a lizard brain onto the part of your DNA that makes your brain form properly. It makes a mess. This is going to take time."

"Be tedious, in other words."

"Yes. I'm going to have to reconfigure half of the whole gene. That's tens of thousands of nucleotides! Innate affinities are NOT a small gene, Abyss."

"How long will it take?"

"About a month of diligent work between three people, I'd guess, to make the gene applicable. Then more time to make the homunculi body. Some life affinity should speed up the growth process but we're still looking at about four to six months of time."

"I see. Fine. Splice the genes and make some cardiocytes with an innate affinity. I'll manage it from there."

"Are you doing the thing you did to make your current body?"

"Yes. It should work alright and save a few months of waiting."

"Alright then. I'll put Umber on it. She's the best geneticist we have right now. This should be somewhat fun for her."

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'Block-parry-intercept-push-magic-improvise-replan' Jaune's aura spoke. I saw the blur as he envisioned the battle before us. Jaune would parry Ruby's next attack and try to block Pyrrha from advancing. I would intercept them with some sort of magic to push them back and we would plan from there.

'Agreement' I sent through my aura.

Ruby advanced and twirled, Rose Eclipse spinning for Jaune's midsection. He knelt down and raised his shield, sending the scythe skidding off it in a shower of sparks. Pyrrha took the opportunity to charge him, as expected, with her shield raised. He swung at her and let loose a blast of wind dust from Blanc lumiere, negating her momentum. Perfect.

I molded my mana with lightning quickly, the components of my soul snapping into place with the ease of practice. My blade flicked out with a boom against Pyrrha. She yelled as the raw lightning slammed against her metal dust armour and she was thrown away from Jaune before catching herself. That was fine.

A tornado quickly sprung into existence with Pyrrha at the center, immediately pulling her upwards. Ruby, being light, was immediately pulled into it but she slammed her scythe into the ground while preparing her own air affinity to try to disrupt the tornado. I whipped out my rifle and forced her to pull up her scythe to block the bullets, making her fly away in the process.

'Shoot?' I posed the question to Jaune with an image of me firing at the helpless duo.

'Agreement' Jaune's aura pulsed. He stepped back and let me take potshots at the two for a moment.

"Okay fine! You win!" Ruby yelled. I instantly dropped the tornado and Ruby hooked her scythe around a tree branch, cutting halfway into it, and landing neatly on the ground. Pyrrha floated for a moment before descending.

"That was NOT fair!" Ruby said petulantly.

"That was tactics," Jaune said proudly.

"I couldn't fight back! It was either let Abyss shoot me or get blown into that tornado!"

"That was the point," I said amusedly.

"An excellent display of teamwork," Pyrrha said happily.

"This aura talking thing is really working well," Jaune agreed.

"You're at least vaguely understandable now..." I muttered halfheartedly.

"I'm working on it," he groaned.

"You also project to Ruby and Pyrrha half the time, letting them know everything!" I protested.

"Thanks for that!" Ruby chirped.

"It's called misinformation," Jaune said.

"It's not misinformation when it's actually the right information!"

"It is when we're not actually doing that plan though!"

"Because we have to scramble to make a new plan in half the time and hope you don't broadcast it!"

"Are they ever going to stop?" I heard Ruby whisper to Pyrrha.

"I think this is just how they communicate," she said quietly back.

I continued arguing with Jaune. Improvisation was a lifestyle and one I lived by most of the time. It was NOT a plan!

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"We've finished all the factories n' stuff."

"Already?"

"Well the SDC is good about setting up bases of operations quickly. They do it often with how often SDC mining facilities get attacked. Well, most of them. The ones in Menagerie were set up quickly out of pure enthusiasm for a chance to trade for the high tech goodies nobody has over there. Like scrolls. Did you know that only one in ten of those suckers has a scroll? Kinda sad."

"Hm… well what do you want me to do with this information? It's nice that you're done but…"

"I'd like a chance to relax. The company's fine and needs some time to rake in the lien and stabilize. Also, we're headed into a recession for a little while, or so the number jockeys say."

"Sure, sure. Go invade Vacuo if you ever want to do that."

"Not really."

"Good."

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"Ice! Ice, Cinder!" I berated her. Cinder gritted her teeth and waved her hand but nothing came out.

"It doesn't obey me!" she growled. I grabbed her hand and gripped her aura with my own and forced her ice affinity to act with a bit of mana. In an instant hard spikes of ice violently shot up from the ground in front of Cinder and she glared at them so fiercely that I wondered for a moment if she could direct such a potent glare into an attack.

"It. Doesn't. come." Cinder waved her hand again and still ice refused to come forth. "It's fine. I'll use fire."

I paused and thought for some sort of solution to her… problem. Oh. That might work.

"Fuse them," I said. Cinder frowned at me with narrowed eyes.

"What?" she questioned. I sighed and grabbed her hand again and gripped her fire and ice affinities. I rubbed the two together, for lack of a better description, and took hold of the strangely merged parts of the two affinities, expressing it in the world.

A ghostly yet dark blue fire appeared on the grass in front of us and Cinder blinked at it. "Where is the heat?" she murmured as she reached for it. I saw faint lines of hoarfrost appear on her glove as her hand was held near the flame.

"It's frostfire. A purely magical element. It can't exist without mana to sustain it, but ambient mana works fine. It emits cold rather than heat. It's not ice but it works well enough. Use earth for solid defenses. It's inferior but you can dodge."

Cinder's lips pressed together at the suggestion that she use anything 'inferior' but she didn't state her displeasure vocally. We had been practicing ice for almost a month now, after all, and she simply couldn't use it properly. The best she'd ever gotten was a scattering of icicles on tree branches when she was exceptionally calm one day.

"I like it," she said after a moment as she gazed at the frostfire. I could see the light from it flickering in her eyes. It was only then that I considered that I had just given an anarchist pyromaniac a new avenue of burning things. Cinder's lips quirked upwards just a tiny bit but it was the closest thing to an actual smile I'd ever seen on her. Her eyes briefly looked over to me and I wondered what exactly she was considering at the moment.

"Hmph," she grunted, still somehow sounding ladylike, before she waved her hand and extinguished the fire. "You never mentioned that there are artificial magical elements."

"It's relatively unimportant," I said casually. "They consume more mana than is practical for combat unless there's extenuating circumstances. Usually when you're putting an affinity to waste. I didn't have a fire affinity for quite some time so I had to make frostfire using consumption. It's more expensive than natural elements and shorter lasting, though it is sometimes more potent or exotic. There aren't many elements that radiate cold. Most magical reactions are exothermic in my experience. Negating energy is ironically harder to do than making it."

"What about other magical elements?" Cinder asked quizzically.

"There's plenty. Just take a physically based affinity and mesh it with an energy based one. For example, using ice and shadow you can create this." I took hold of my ice and shadow affinity and 'rubbed them together' and used mana to produce the element. A strange black ice formed in the palm of my hand. It looked smoother and less jagged than normal ice and light seemed to be sucked into it.

"I don't really have a name for it. I do know that it melts extremely quickly in the presence of light or fire and stays unnaturally cold and hard in shadows. Using motion and ice makes an ice that, when struck, explodes into shrapnel, life and consumption makes a sort of energy that saps the lifeforce of anything it touches, which, I might add, can also be used to create a literal lifesteal enchantment that heals you by sapping aura, and so on. Artificially made magical elements are, as a rule, though, impractical. That lifesteal enchantment loses power like a faucet, the ice melts in seconds on it's own in light and the enhancing effects of shadow are fairly unnoticeable, and so on.

"Worse, the weaknesses of each artificial element are made more potent the more powerful the affinities used so you can't slowly improve each artificial element by enhancing your own affinities. If you want to use a proper magical element then get an affinity for it. I know that you can acquire a frostfire affinity through meditation and I have my void affinity anyways. I don't believe the affinities come naturally in humans, however. Even so, using your ice affinity to make frostfire is better than leaving it useless."

Cinder was quiet for a moment. "I understand," she said finally. "I would like to see this list of yours. For now, though, perhaps we should attempt to refine this frostfire."

"Have fun doing that yourself," I said with a low chuckle. "I almost never use fire. Why would I when I have raw heat to make fire if I ever even need it?"

"Of course you don't use it," she muttered. "Power never comes easy, does it?"

"Give a five year old a railgun and say that again," I said half-teasingly. Cinder scowled in response. "Power is hard to acquire for yourself from yourself. Just like it's harder to make a railgun than have one handed to you."

"Are you saying," Cinder said slowly in a tone I had learned to associate with her attempts at humor, "that power comes from the power of friendship?"

I openly laughed at that. Cinder raised an eyebrow as though puzzled by my reaction, but her aura was mostly honest, showing a smothered sense of amusement at her joke. Not that she would ever admit to joking, of course.

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"Must you really?"

"But he wanted to meet with me awhile ago!"

"And now he trusts that he'll never have to deal with you because he and our mistress have an understanding."

"But I wanna!"

"No."

"I have free time though!"

"Truly? That's unacceptable. I'll alert Tyrian to double your training."

"Oookay then. Now I'm definitely coming."

"Ember, n-"

"I'llseeyousoonCindybyeeeeee!"

"DON'TYOUDARE-!"

"I'LLALSOSEEYOURFUTUREHUSBANDANDMESSWITHYOU!"

"NO-!"

*Beep*

"GAH!"

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School was passing really slowly. It had only been about a month and a half by the time that I was tiring of the whole Beacon charade. I still had to deal with the breach, which is scheduled to happen around early November right after the dance; only days after it actually. Cinder had decided against infiltrating the CCT tower during the dance and was instead going to be attempting to infiltrate during the breach. It was perfect, really. Every huntsman was gone at that point and swarming around the breach. Nobody would notice her sneaking in until it was too late.

I could infiltrate it myself easily but Cinder took it as a point of pride to contribute herself to her operation at least somewhat, though she made a point to compare me to Salem in that I shouldn't have to do much of anything except designate underlings. Funny, because that was all I ever seemed to do recently. I was getting bored again of just sitting around. That was bad. I'll get back to Hogwarts soon enough. I don't want to tie myself down with an actual job. Even if I only taught part time I would hate it.

That said, there were some benefits to being around Hogwarts.

"Yes!" I shouted triumphantly. I held out the book with a cackle as I re-read the title again just to make sure it was real.

Tha bineding ah souls an tha land wi'out severance by Earl Harkenheart Friedreich

"In other words, making horcruxes without the negatives!" I said gleefully. Of course, there were some negatives. A weak soul would be torn apart by the strain of stretching from one point to another. Also, spells that directly attacked souls like the killing curse (which was a spell designed to sever a soul from the world) would attack all of the pseudo-horcruxes thus preventing revival. Also, the caster of the spell would never be able to leave the land they bound their soul to, though they would be extremely powerful when inside their land.

The spell actually inspired the legends of druids and tree spirits, AKA spriggans, and was one of the early stages of horcruxes. Immense power with no mobility. Druids would have power over their forests, making the land defend them like the caster was their own part of the forest, but leaving meant death because their soul couldn't handle the strain of the space between the druid and the land their soul was bound to. Of course they also went crazy more often than not when they lost their body and had to deal with being a forest. It rarely ended well for the druid. It's why the practice went out of practice.

I didn't have the issues, though, if I ever wanted to use it, which I didn't. I had no reason to rely on a bunch of dirt. I could survive as a wandering soul without issue where most magical beings just died, their souls not fit to properly survive without a body.

This ritual wasn't for me though. It was for my affinities. My hope was that I could bind an affinity to a body and use my mind affinity to encourage a consciousness to form. Of course, we would share souls so we couldn't turn on each other. Horcruxes specifically didn't work since the ritual demanded that one soul breaks another, kind of like a hadron collider breaking apart a single atom. The sacrificial soul and dying soul without a body would then merge with the whole soul but would be too weak to sustain itself, leaving the formerly whole soul split and with some extra divinity to make sure that it can survive with half of it in it's new object, the horcrux, and the rest of it still in its body with no loss in magical potential due the added divinity from the sacrifice.

I had originally wanted to know how a soul was split without void, and it turns out that another soul has to split it. The ritual was still useful for a few things, though. Mainly soul fusions. What would happen if two souls were split and the halves switched? A split personality of sorts? I hadn't done experiments yet but I would when I was less busy with Beacon and researching things like making a guardian.

A guardian, Ozpin? How about I rip out a dragon's soul and stuff one of my spare affinities in there? Nature specifically. A giant magical dragon made from nature itself. Next is to see if I can bind it to nature like I was to void. Ozpin mentioned that example of a man who couldn't die in nature when we talked of mantles and my void mantle. A giant, immortal, regenerating dragon that manipulates nature with ease. Gods I'm a genius. There's no way this could go wrong. A dragon who can call upon the forces of nature, hurricanes and earthquakes and whatnot, will surely be a great protector for me so I don't have to protect myself.

If it goes right I'll finally be able to stop fighting physically! I would be able to just sling magic like I always wanted to. The bombardment mage lifestyle would be a sweet one.

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