Initiation III

<Celestia POV>

I knew it would be hard to keep calm if we came face to face with the Nevermore, but as we collectively ran away from it I could feel the cold sweat slowly begin to set in. Though as I glanced back to see if we made any headway, I saw something that irritated me enough to forget about the giant Grimm chasing us. 

I slowed down just enough to be next to Argento, and slightly flapping my wings to gain height I smacked the back of his head. It wasn't hard, and he definitely could've dodged it, but strangely enough he let it happen and then he glared at me.

"Hey! What was that for?!"

"We're running for our lives and you have the balls to pout that you can't fight that thing?!"

"Pout?" 

As he said this he made a confused look and reached up to mess with his face, and all I could do was sigh at that.

"Yes, pout. Do you have a death wish?"

A few seconds of silence went by as I looked forward, making sure I didn't end up tripping, until I heard him start chuckling to himself. Drawing my attention back to him, a smile undisturbed by the screeching of the Nevermore grew on his face.

"You sound just like this grumpy old man that trained me."

"Oh yeah? And what did he do whenever you made him say that?"

"He would always turn up our training difficulty and say 'If you have a death wish, I gotta make sure you can survive it'. I can't say I didn't deserve it."

I couldn't hold in the laughter that came out as a result of that, and though it was strange to laugh in such a situation it felt right. That was of course until Argento tugged my arm, pulled me into a princess carry, and leapt forward.

I would've been flustered, only because I was caught off guard, had there not been a familiar golden wall that appeared in place of where we just were. Upon which the Nevermore's feathers impacted, barely not shattering the wall but most definitely shattering whatever bubble had been forming around us, thrusting my brain back into action.

"You ready to start running again or are you just gonna get cozy in my arms?"

Coming out of my thoughts, I notice a light smirk on his annoyingly good-looking face. After his words processed the tips of my ears ever-so-slightly reddened. Pushing my arms and flapping my wings, I fluidly fled his arms without interrupting his running as I fell back in step beside him. 

"We do not speak of this. Ever."

"Hmm, no promises."

<Argento POV>

As Celestia gave me the stink eye, I couldn't help but give a little laugh. As she left my arms I had seen something very faint and half-covered by the back of her top, but I decided to not comment on it. 

If it was covered by her hair, mostly by her clothes, and normally by her wings, it must be something she wishes to either forget or not talk about.

"As fun as it would be to continue this, I think we should probably find somewhere to fight the Nevermore."

"Are you serious?! After all this, you still want to fight that thing?"

"Well that's part of it, but while you were otherwise distracted it's been slowly gaining on us."

As I saw her quickly look back with wide eyes, I yelled for Eugene to find us somewhere to fight the Nevermore. It seems he had also noticed as he just sent a thumbs up and quickly guided us toward what I assume is a clearing; I'll have to ask how he knows a forest he's never been to so well later.

Finally appearing in the clearing, because of our sprint at the end we finally put a bit of distance between us and the Nevermore, but it wouldn't last if we tried sprinting to the end. The clearing itself was several Nevermore wide, an amazing space to fight one in just the forest.

[Eugene] - "Alright, what's the plan?"

[Argento] - "I think we should start with a short rundown of weapons and Semblances. Nothing specific, only the parts that can help. Like for mine, my Semblance is almost no help in this situation, unless we get it to close-quarters, and my only ranged items are throwing knives."

[Dawn] - "I have higher caliber dust-pistols and my Semblance, Photokinesis, can be mid-range with attacking, but that's about all that's usable here."

[Eugene] - "My weapons are useless here, but my Semblance, Hemokinesis, can attack and restrain mid-range and below, though the closer it is the stronger it will be."

[Celestia] - "My weapon is capable of mid- and long-range, while my Semblance, Pulse, would be best used to disorient and distract."

As I took in the information around me, several plans formulated and fell apart as my mind began speeding up, causing the world to look slower around me. With each plan that fell another took its place, until one finally popped into my head that might just work.

[Argento] - "Celestia, I'm assuming you create pulses of force with your Semblance, so would you be able to create one behind a weapon as it is swinging to do more damage?"

[Celestia] - "Yeah, I often do that with my own weapons. How-"

[Argento] - "Later. For now, I have a plan. Celestia, think you can get its attention with your weapon and get it close enough to disrupt its flight with your Pulse?"

[Celestia] - "I can try, but when we're done you better tell us how you do these things."

With that cleared up I swiftly went over the rest of the plan and got a nod from each of them, telling me they were able and willing to do their parts. With that, the Nevermore finally reached firing range again and sent a massive volley of giant feathers, which caused us to have to scatter to not be hit.

While I dodged well before they reached me due to my higher aura sense, the others had to simply outrun and outspeed the feathers. Eugene easily outsped them all, while Dawn was just barely able to outspeed and dodge all of them.

Celestia, on the other hand, didn't quite outspeed the feathers but instead did something jaw-dropping to most individuals. Seemingly uncaring the feathers were there she began dancing, making the attack almost hit her each time, but to the well-trained eye, one could tell she was simply moving so gracefully around each attack that it looked like a dance.

As she finally reached the end of the attack her moves became sharp, springing out two PDWs that quickly became one smaller sniper that, as she began shooting, no doubt still held the power of a sniper. Each bullet seemed to be expertly placed to not do damage, but instead to draw the Nevermore's attention.

After a dozen or so well-placed sniper shots the Nevermore screeched in annoyance, finally diving downward onto the lone figure that kept annoying it. Once it got within mid-range though it suddenly felt like the wind became as turbulent as a heavy storm, causing it to tumble enough to lose its focus.

In that moment of lost focus several large swords made of hardened light lightly stabbed into it. Enough was sent around its body to make it not realize the large focus had been its left wing, which suddenly got much harder to control in a large cluster of focused pulses.

Finally, a much larger, lone spear of light sped toward the most injured part of its wing, and when the Nevermore was about to dodge it the speed suddenly rose to a monstrous degree, sending it straight through the wing.

With a loud shriek the Nevermore lost its stability, plummeting through the air as it tried to steady itself. It might have been successful, had a long, liquidy stream of scarlet not come into view as it wrapped around the head in a muzzle-type contraption, pulling it down hard.

With no further control, the Nevermore finally harshly fell to the ground, throwing dirt and chunks of the ground everywhere. As the dust began to settle, the Nevermore could be seen trying its best to screech but its head was tightly bound to the ground, keeping it from moving.

Attempting to flap through the pain to out-pull the force on its head, it failed to screech again as it felt several similar-sized spears impale through its wing, pinning its left wing into the ground.

[Celestia] - "Now Argento!"

With Celestia's yell, I sprinted from the edge of the clearing that the Nevermore's right side was relatively close to, leaping forward into the air. As I reached a height nowhere near high enough several golden disks came into being, all placed in front of me and going ever higher.

Quickly leaping from each disk, my aura began swiftly seeping into my drawn sword, causing a slight hum of power to be heard. With each step I pumped more aura in, causing the hum to increase in volume as my sword finally became slightly encased in a golden replica as the replica began growing longer and longer.

Only a few seconds passed since I began my climb, but I could see the strain Eugene and Dawn were under trying to keep the massive Nevermore pinned to the ground as it slowly began to raise its head.

Finally reaching the final disk, I took a mighty leap into the air as my blade reached the length I desired, now several meters longer than it was and easily bigger than the Nevermore's neck, my target.

As I swung down, eyes flickering with golden flames, I focused on the aura sword I created and made its time speed up, simultaneously hitting my aura reserves hard yet speeding the sword up massively. Once it began inching closer to the neck a Pulse from Celestia was felt near the end of my creation, pushing its speed so fast that as I yelled out the sword smoothly went through the entirety of the Nevermore's neck, beheading it.

Eugene and Dawn, finally able to undo their Semblances, looked up past the smoking body of the Nevermore with Celestia to see me standing atop a golden disk in the air. As they looked upon me, each one was very slightly in awe at the sight.

I stood upon the golden disk, holding the now fading golden aura sword as the wind lightly brushed around my long silver hair. The golden, sparkling remains of my aura disappeared among my fluttering black and red calf-long jacket as my eyes began losing the minor golden flames that had sprouted from them.

[A/N: Insert Reference Photo Here]

And though they were all in minor awe they noticed me slightly wobbling, assuming correctly that I had used too much aura in that attack to stay stable. With a quick gust of wind from takeoff, Celestia got to my side as I almost fell off the now cracking disk.

[Celestia] - "Grab on, I'll get you down."

Saving what little energy I could I dropped my sword and nodded, loosely and gently leaning into something similar to a hug as the disk below me shattered. Quickly but safely bringing us to the ground, which was much farther down than I thought it had been, Celestia made sure my feet were firmly on the ground before letting me go, and finally being on solid ground I slumped onto the ground, laying as I looked up into the afternoon sky.

The others sat down around me, letting me rest and be the first to do something once I was ready. Though it took me a few minutes, the silence felt comfortable; like we had no need to speak, and that made me smile. Though it seems my smile was noticed.

[Eugene] - "What're you smiling about? From how tired you look you should be the last of us to smile."

[Argento] - "Oh, it's nothing. Just happy to finally be fighting alongside teammates I would gladly call equals."

As Eugene smiled and shook his head, the girls seemed to pick up on something and hesitantly speak up after sharing a look.

[Dawn] - "Argento, I don't mean to burst your bubble but despite there being 4 people on a team I doubt there were so many matching relics just to match."

[Celestia] - "Yeah, if each team in Initiation was two, and there were matching relics, that means whoever has the other relic is their other half."

As she said this she brought out her metal card with a V on it, and feeling rested enough I finally sat up to give her a sly grin.

[Argento] - "Oh, did I never mention it?" Bringing out the matching relic I saw a smile bloom on Dawn's face. "I saw what relic you picked, and knowing Ozpin the matching relics would be teamed together for our time here at Beacon. Besides, nepotism can get you a long way if you strategically use it."

[Eugene] - "Nepotism? What do you mean by that?"

[Argento] - "Right, I never mentioned that either. Well, Ozpin is an old family friend - everything I have and am now can easily be said to be equal parts to him and my parents. So if it came to it, I could simply ask him to influence the teams just enough to pair us up."

Looking around I could see the three of them have different reactions; Eugene just wryly shook his head at me, Dawn was smiling widely and muttering something about mystery and me, and Celestia stared at me with both annoyance and joy. Then a look of interest and suspicion briefly flashed through her electric blue eyes before fading away.

[Celestia] - 'Even if he got into Beacon because Professor Ozpin, his skills alone show he's worthy of being here.' "So you knew from the moment I chose the relic we would be teammates. Couldn't you have said anything?"

[Argento] - "I wanted it to be a surprise."

While I smiled at her, the Huntsman Ozpin specially selected to watch over me slowly put away his scythe he had out the moment the Nevermore showed up. With a chuckle and a swig of his flask, just a moment later a dusty old crow could be seen flying away, knowing full well the bird it watched grow had officially and fully left the nest.