Shift

The Games We Play

Shift​

The pain faded after a moment, but I laid there breathing hard, body pushed to exhaustion. I could already feel Regeneration working to alleviate that, though, and I healed myself to hasten the process, clamoring to my feet just moments after going down. As long as I was alive, as long as I had power to fuel my skills, what happened to my body was almost irrelevant, so I pushed on through, looking at my opponent.

"You've gotten stronger," My mother praised, waiting patiently as I rose. We stood together in the clearing I'd made during my training back…wow, sometimes it was hard to remember that it was really not all that long ago. It was only a week or two ago that I'd been wasting away some time out here, training myself for the mission. I wasn't sure when she'd found this place, though it probably hadn't taken long after finding out I was missing. I wonder what she'd thought when she saw it? She must have known I came out here to practice, but what'd she think when she saw the pockmarks I'd left behind beside the disturbingly pristine trees I'd healed? Did she see something in the marks, go over them again and again trying to discern some hint as to my whereabouts?

I didn't know and it made me feel guilty again. But now I was…

Well, getting my ass kicked, honestly. She'd brought me out here to train, asking about my skills to begin with. I'd given her a rundown of what I could do, where I could give specifics—the MP costs, my MP and HP bars, how regain my SP and HP by healing myself, how I replenished HP and MP at a rate of one percent a minute prior to other modifiers, and the general stuff about the Gamer's Mind and Body—all of which she'd dutifully noted down in her notebook. I'd even listed my exact stats and given the general descriptions of most of my skills, though a lot of those things were more relative. As a result, I wasn't surprised in the slightest when she'd demanded a sparring match to test my strength. I wasn't surprised when she asked I show her my full power, either, though I'd warned her.

Not about any danger to her, of course, because that'd just be silly. I still couldn't see her level which meant she must have been…I wasn't sure, but at least level seventy-something. I had neither fear for her safety, nor any delusions of victory. What I'd warned her about had been, quite simply, about the costs of the White Tiger's Five Hundred Years and that just because the Gamer's Body and my various skills made it look like I was invincible didn't mean I wasn't taking damage. I didn't want her to splatter me on accident or something, so I made sure she knew my limits and that I might need to heal myself periodically.

She'd nodded in acceptance and told me it wouldn't be an issue.

It hadn't been. She'd just put me down hard and then let me scrape myself off the ground before going again. Even with my vastly enhanced speed, she kept up with me without a single wasted movement. Her eyes were alert and her face expressionless as she calmly parried each of my strikes with her sword—probably more to test my strength than anything else.

"You used your fists as your weapon on your mission?" She asked as we fell into what probably counted as a relaxed rhythm when your level was in the stratosphere.

I went to nod but aborted it to shake my head.

"I had gauntlets," I said, hands on the restored Crocea Mors as I tried with all my might to push her back. I wouldn't succeed, but that wasn't the point of the exercise.

"Even so," She said, take a step closer with no apparent effort, pushing my feet back along the ground. I couldn't use Observe on her, so I wasn't sure how her strength compared to Penny's, but she wielded it with an ease and grace that set her apart. There was strength and surety in every motion, a silent confident in her casual stride as she pushed back. "Is that your weapon of choice now?"

I half-shrugged, trying to stay upright and braced against the immense weight.

"I needed a fighting style that was different from my own," I explained distractedly. "Fell a little behind because I trained my martial arts so much, but the type of weapon doesn't really matter. I wanted to work on my swordsmanship some, though."

She hummed and made a gesture like she was shaking something off her sword.

I went flying again, barely managing to get my feet beneath me and bounce off the tree.

"Not that I don't enjoy this—because I do," I said honestly. "But you're not trying to show me that there are bigger fish or something, are you? Because boy, do I know. Half my plan was trying to avoid getting into fights against people I could lose again. I can use Observe, too, and see peoples levels and stats and such, so…well, I know where I stand with most of the people around me. Even if I can't see their levels and stuff, that just means they're out of my league. It's pretty hard to me to underestimate people, honestly. I mean, I'll fight them anyway if I have to, but…"

"Good," She said, coming to my side with that same casual serenity. She presumably passed through all the points between point A and B to get there, but I couldn't confirm that—I just reacted to my Danger Sense and brought up my shield in defense. Parrying even an absent attack sent shocks of pain through my arm and hammered me down hard enough that I felt dirt brush my ankles. "Knowing where you stand is vital to any battle. Knowing when you have to fight and when you can avoid it, perhaps even more so. Your ability makes such things easier for you than most and that's good. If you had fought the wrong person…"

I heard worry color her voice a moment before the pressure on me lightened. I didn't relax, still aware of the danger, but instead brought up my shield. She flicked her blade several meters away and threw me back.

"You did well, Jaune," She said, voice steady once more. "I know something of the opponents you had to fight, the odds you had to face, and you did very well. And I won't insult you by saying you got lucky—"

"Nah, luck had a fair amount to do with it," I shook my head. If I'd fought Penny anywhere but a Dust mining town…

"Because I can see how far you've come," She continued as if I hadn't said anything. "But it's precisely because you've come so far that this is necessary. You've decided, haven't you?"

I knew what she was asking and the answer was obvious—but I saw the gravity of her expression and knew how serious this question was, so I considered it silently for a moment. There were a lot of arguments to be made either way, but even so, the answer was still…

"Yes," I said at last. "I want to help people. Hunter, healer, it doesn't matter—but this is who I want to be. It's all I ever wanted."

She nodded, looking at once saddened and proud.

"Then, if your mind's made up, I will train you," She replied. "You don't need anyone to tell you that stronger opponents exist; you know that better than most your age. Your heart is in the right place and, though we'll discuss your actions later, I trust it and I trust you. Though you've made some choices I consider foolish, you made them for reasons I can see and understand and you took my words to heart when it came to the value of wisdom. Granted, if I had known how deeply such words would shape you…well, it doesn't matter, does it? You turned out well, Jaune. However…"

She turned her face away, looking up at the sky. I don't know what she saw there, but it probably wasn't just the stars.

"You probably know this, too," She said quietly. "But we live in an unforgiving world. It's cruel to the innocent and the weak—and crueler still to those who'd fight to defend them. If you make a mistake out there, I can't promise you'll ever get a chance to make another one…and the awful truth is that we all make mistakes. I…"

Her lips tried to form words but couldn't seem to give them breath. After a moment, she closed her mouth, apparently changing her mind.

"I'm glad that I got to see you grow up," She said. "All of you. I had friends who never got to do so for their children…and others who died too young to even consider having them. A lot of Hunters simply disappear one day; go out on a mission that no one knew was special and just…never come back. Sometimes they leave behind bodies, sometimes…sometimes we don't even know until a week becomes a month. Your father and I have avoided that thus far, as have your sisters, but…someday…"

"Yeah," I said quietly, looking at the ground, remembering a child's fears, a sister's words, lies we all hoped were true. "I…I know."

"I've seen a lot of good men and women go," She continued after a moment. "Some of them…maybe stronger than me. That I'm here and they aren't was only because of…luck? Skill? Maybe a mixture? I don't know. But…I do know that strength alone isn't always enough. Nor skill, nor even luck. The odds are against us, because we can win a thousand times, but we only have to lose once and it doesn't—"

She cut herself off for a moment, closing her eyes before continuing.

"Maybe that's why," She said, shaking her head. "I didn't…I didn't want this. I'm sorry, I told myself I wouldn't stop you and I won't—but I didn't want this life for any of you. But your sisters…one by one, they excelled. What I've seen others struggle with for years came to them so easily and they were each so different but from the moment they could answer it was like…"

She shook her head.

"They all wanted to be Huntresses. They never wanted to be anything else and everyone knew they would be great. One day, I knew they'd all surpass me. And some days I thought…God, some days I wondered if it was a punishment for…for living where others died, to send my children away to fight one by one. I'd never thought about it, even when I left home to do the same, but…and then you were born and I saw how much it hurt you every time you struggled and it was horrible of me, but at the same time I thought that maybe, if you…"

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"No," She said, shaking her head. "Don't be. I'm proud of you and I'm proud of them. But I'm also scared for you all. And when you didn't come back, I thought that maybe this was it. The first. But you came back."

"I did," I agreed awkwardly. "And we'll…they're all strong, so we'll…"

"Yes," She agreed. "They were all so strong…maybe it was inevitable that this would happen, too. I always expected it, really, that one day you'd find your way—and I wouldn't stand in it. But even if you're strong, strength isn't always enough to let you win. So I trained all of your sisters, when they decided what they really wanted. As best I could, I made sure they'd be safe."

"Is that why…?" I hesitated, unable to finish the question.

"Why they hate me?" She asked calmly.

"They don't hate you," I protested immediately, even though I'd raised the topic. "They just…don't like coming home…"

I trailed off lamely.

"They probably don't hate me, not really," She shook her head. "Though if they did, I wouldn't blame them. I certainly hated my teacher, even if I owe her my life. I trained them hard, even when things came so easily to them, and I didn't let up. I told them what I told you, about the risks they'd face as Hunters, and then I did my utmost to prepare them for it. I want to protect you all, but the truth is…I can't. So I'll make sure you can protect yourselves, even if you hate me for it. For you especially…I know what you can withstand and I wouldn't go easy on you, not when the things I teach you might save your life. Knowing that, is this still what you want?"

"Of course," I said instantly. "I'm not afraid. This body of mine will keep going no matter how badly I get hurt and I don't sleep and I barely get tired. I heal quickly no matter what happens and I learn fast. Whatever it is, I'm ready—but I want you to know, I won't hate you."

She looked me up and down, sighing slightly.

"We'll see," She said gently.

XxXXxX

Obscure historical trivia, yay...

The Games We Play

Shift (Cont.)​

Unsurprisingly, my mother chose to focus on training the skills she deemed most important, in addition to my more general training. Which was good, really; I had a fair number of skills I considered useful, but which were hard to train for whatever reason—Physically Endurance, for example, though undoubtedly usefully, was at once tedious to train and slow to improve, especially when I spent so much time training myself not to get hurt, if possible. Even with the training I'd underwent with Adam, and though I'd gotten a few extra levels in the stat during my fight with Penny, the stat was fairly low level in the mid-twenties.

However, my mom was pretty good at getting past a lot of those difficulties in her drive to help me improve.

Which is to say she'd started our training by lighting me on fire and it had steadily progressed downhill from there. Apparently content with the evidence I'd provided as to the effectiveness of the Gamer's Body, she'd shown no hesitation in hurting me badly and had quickly gotten creative.

I got hurt repeatedly. Incessantly, even, with only my healing ability letting me withstand it all. She'd experimented at first, asking me calm and probing questions even as she twisted the sometimes-literal knife. She was systematic about it, even drawing up a chart that took into account my MP regeneration, how much HP I had, and the cost of Soulforge Restoration to produce a very detailed chart of precisely when she could hurt me and how badly, periodically updating it as the skill's improved and almost absently testing if there was a relation between physical pain and the rate of improvement. After she'd had time to accurately test it, she quickly set a tightly controlled pace and forced me to abide by it.

I was cut, I healed, and was cut again—and it was almost frightening how tight of a grasp she obviously had over her own strength. Once she'd finished testing me, she hit me for exactly a thousand damage, with the next blow doing the exact same amount. Whenever I told her the skills had improved, she modified her blows accordingly without even needing to test it, probably keeping track of the trends in the skills mentally.

Over the course of twenty minutes, I had to heal myself over five hundred times, maintaining my Elementals all the while. When my MP was all but drained, she produced a blindfold, secured it tightly around my head, and sent me stumbling into the forest blindly with orders not to use my Elementals to see. She'd then proceeded to attack me more times than I could count, even as I was tripping over roots and walking into trees, all to improve my ability to Sense Danger and respond accurately too it.

When I failed to do so, I got stabbed. My reward for evading properly was not getting stabbed. She gave me more time to breath then when we'd trained, but I wasn't entirely sure whether it was to let me recover MP or to throw me off. There was no pattern to her attacks in timing, direction, or form, no rhythm to find and stick to—nothing to go off of but my remaining senses and my advanced warning of danger.

It wasn't much to go off of with no experience, especially with surroundings as confusing as a forest could be, but she made me adapt and keep going through literally thousands of attacks. They were just slow enough that if I reacted quickly, I could evade them, so I knew she was holding back tremendously, but if I messed up she wouldn't stop the attack. I couldn't improve my ability to sense bloodlust because she didn't want to hurt me—but she wouldn't keep from hurting me, either.

I knew what she was doing, of course. Physical Endurance and Sense Danger were two of my most useful skills, at least potentially, as well as the most likely to keep me alive if something happens. Reducing the amount of damage I took by a percentage…notifying me of threats…I knew exactly why she was helping me train them both. Before anything else, she trained me to survive and come back home, to endure the same things that had ended so many Huntsmen.

"We'll do this first thing, every day," She'd said when she removed my blindfold. "At least for the time being. Three hours of survival training before we get to work."

After that, we'd started training other things—focusing on my body, for now. It was basically what I'd been doing before, but more extreme. Mom led the way to one of the training rooms in the basement and set me to lifting weights and such, though that might have been underselling it.

"Since it's the first day, let's start with ten thousand reps." She said as she loaded more and more weight onto the bar—which had to be heavily reinforced to not bend under that much weight. Even so, she lifted it with one hand and passed it too me, an experience that nearly bowled me over. "That should be fine with a body like yours. I'll work on a more complete workout schedule in the coming days, but we'll focus on Strength for now."

I'd grunted an agreement as best I could beneath the massive load that had been set on the bar, getting to work without complaint. There were many times I thought I pulled things and even more where I felt things tear. Once, my arms pretty much gave out and I felt them break under the strain—but as she'd said, with my body this was nothing. The pain faded after a moment and left me unharmed, so I just healed the damage to my HP, and struggled my way back into position, continuing where I'd left off. She watched me silently for a while before moving over to a machine herself and we worked in silence but for my occasional grunts of effort and pain.

At least until dad interrupted.

"Hard at work, huh?" He said, a bag in one hand and a drink in the other. He sipped from it idly like an asshole as I struggled breathlessly with each rep. He must have seen the look I sent him because he smiled brilliantly and lifted it to brush condensation across his forehead, briefly closing his eyes in contentment. "I'd join you, but I'm already done for the day. Right, dear?"

"If you got what I asked for, leave it and go," She said without looking away from the ceiling. "Don't antagonize him."

"Just watching my lovely family trying their best, my love," He said, setting the bag down beside my bench and patting my head. He held the car above my face, little drops of water occasionally falling to my face, brushing little streaks of moisture across it with a thumb. "This was nothing compared to what I had to go through when you were gone, just so you know; I didn't get off with just a work out. That's why you're getting off so light—she vented all her rage at me."

"Jack," Mom said serenely, still not looking at him.

"It's really not that bad," I said, half to him and half to mom. "It's just hard, but for me…it's not a problem, as long as I don't die. What'd you get?"

"Swung out to pick up some stuff from a friend at the University," He said, reaching into the bag to draw out a book as he took a seat on the edge of the bench. "He said he'd ship most of them later, but these should keep you entertained for a few days."

His fingers covered a word—a name?—but I read the rest of the front cover upside-down.

"Theory of Games?" I spoke the incomplete title aloud. "Is that a textbook?"

"Yeah," He chuckled, thumbing through it. "I saw it and I knew I had to get you this one. It's not as fun as it sounds, though."

"Shocking," I said, tilting my head for a minute. "My Intelligence?"

"There's no point in just training your body if we can train your mind as well. You said you could increase it by studying, right?" My mom asked. "Then we'll make sure you have plenty to study. I'll set aside specific times for it later, but for now, you can just do so through the night."

I nodded in acceptance.

"What about school?" I asked. "I usually studied there, before…you know."

"Canceled, still," Dad said, closing the book and squinting at the back cover. "Because of Ziz. City's on alert in case it needs to evac, so school's closed until the situation drops a class or two. Probably have a week or two before Ozpin gets everything fixed."

I mulled over that for a bit before wondering aloud.

"Should I even bother going back?" I asked after a moment's hesitation. "It's kind of a waste of time now, isn't it? And I don't need to finish to get into Beacon, do I?"

"Not much point now," Dad agreed absently. "You'll be done with the material and then some soon, anyway."

"I already finished reading all my school books, actually," I said.

He snorted.

"Nerd," He drew the word out for several seconds, ruffling my hair. "I'll handle it and I rather doubt it'll matter once we get you some street cred."

"Please stop," I asked, smiling at him. "Another step closer, huh?"

"Mm," He replied nodding as he put the book away. "Keep taking steps like you have been and it won't be long now. How long do you plan on training him, dear?"

I followed his gaze to my mother, curious myself. She was silent for a minute before putting up the bar and looking our way.

"However long it takes until he needs to fight Grimm to advance further," She said. "What level do your stats need to be to learn Bai Hu's final technique?"

"Physicals at seventy, mentals at ninety," I answered promptly. "I can probably get the physical stuff up that high in a month or two. Should be able to raise my Intelligence to seventy or so in that time, as well, if I have enough books. Beyond that, though…I don't know how long it'll take to keep improving. I'll stick at it, but improving them gets harder and harder. Raising them to a hundred naturally could take most of a year."

"Then until his physical abilities and Intelligence are at seventy," She said calmly. "It'll take some time to get everything in order, but we'll train his physical abilities and important skills by day and he can study and practice on his own at night, until they reach that point. Improving Wisdom and raising Intelligence beyond that is likely better done through leveling up, so after that we'll start taking him hunting; he has thirty points already so he'd just need four levels."

"Sounds good," I said, starting to pant a little again. "I think I'll get something good once I raise my skills past a hundred, too, though."

"Eight levels, then" She corrected. "After that…we'll see."

Dad nodded.

"Two months or so for the basic stuff though, huh?" He mused and chuckled, ruffling my hair again just because he could. "Pretty lucky timing. If you get done on time…"

"What?" I asked, pausing for a moment as I brought the bar down. My dad smirked and opened his mouth to say something—probably not an answer but something—when my mom spoke again.

"Jack, don't distract him," She said. "Jaune, keep working."

"You heard her," Dad said cheerfully, already at the door. "Goodbye, my nerdy son and beautiful wife. Don't train too long or I'll order your favorite foods and come down here to eat them in front of you."

"You'd probably die doing that," I informed him though quick breaths, giving him a nod as he went. "I would have neither the ability nor desire to prevent your murder."

He chuckled and closed the door. I made a note to ask him about his words again later and went back to work. I did another hundred thirty reps before Mom spoke up.

"Jaune," She said. "You're father's right; the timing is good. If we get done in time…Ozpin asked me to look into something, as somewhat of an expert. If we get done in time and it's safe, would you like come with me back to my homeland?"

"To Mistral?" I asked and saw her nod out of the corner of my eye.

"It'd be just in time for the festivals," She said. "It's…I think you would like it. Do you…?"

"Of course," I said. "I'll make sure to work hard."

XxXXxX​