Saturday, 12th April, 79AGW.

Malachite’s Dorm, Beacon.

4:43 am.

Lima slipped out of bed noiselessly, being careful not to wake the others. They were all pretty worn down after the week they’d had, and he didn’t want to ruin their first sleep in. He picked out a few pieces of clothing and found his towel hanging from the hook before making his way to the showers.

He opened the door and paused when it creaked, slowly opening it enough to slip inside, and as he turned his body, he caught a pair of yellow eyes watching him from the bed closest to the door. He winced and mouthed ‘sorry’ to her before shutting the door behind him.

The shower situation was honestly pretty awkward, with only a series of wall dividers adding the bare minimum of privacy to each of the shower’s occupants—not even a door to share between them, so the solution had been to take it in turns.

He stripped his clothes off and tossed them onto the bench along the opposite wall, followed by his clean clothing. He hung his towel on the edge of the wall divider and stepped up to the showerhead—turning it on to maximum.

The hot water blasted down on him, and he sighed—If there was one thing Lima missed about home, it was a proper bath. He hadn’t had one since he snuck out of Argus, and the shower just wasn’t doing it for him.

He scrubbed himself clean, taking his time, and studied the rough scar tissue that crossed from his ribs up to his collarbone. A permanent memento of the worst day of his life, eagerly making sure that he never forgot, even for a single day. A constant reminder of the things that had been taken from him and the things that he needed to do because of it.

The door creaked as it opened, and he raised an eyebrow under the spray of water before ignoring it, and the shower on the other side of the divider turned on after a minute. He set about drenching his short hair in shampoo and massaging the thick liquid into his scalp, the motion as pleasant as it always was.

“Why are you up so early?” Lux asked quietly.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Lima admitted, “I’m too excited, I guess. Sorry, I woke you up.”

“I was already awake,” Lux said easily, “Hey, can I use your shampoo?”

Lima pouted, before blindly reaching out and taking the bottle, before holding it over the divider for her. He fumbled around in his wire hanging shower shelf until he located the matching conditioner and started on that.

“Thanks,” Lux said, pleased. “What time are you going to find Port?”

“Mission start is at 6:00, but I’ll probably turn up about 5:30.” Lima said quietly, “The duels don’t start until, uh, sometime later, right?”

“I got it wrong a while ago; they actually start at 9:00 am and go to 7:00 pm,” Lux laughed.

“That’s a big wait; what are you three going to do in the meantime?” Lima mumbled, “Yoga? Warm-ups? Or are you going back to bed?”

“I’m going for a run around campus,” Lux admitted, “I’ll try and get Teak and Claire on board; I don’t know how that will go, though. Conditioner?”

“You suck,” Lima whined but held the bottle over the divider for her. “You should have went for a run first, you water waster.”

“Nu-uh.” Lux singsonged. “It’s not like Beacon is going to run out.”

Lima could practically hear the smirk in her voice, and they fell into a silence that lasted for several minutes, with just the sound of water impacting the floor for company.

“Are you actually going to come to the duels?” Lux said quietly.

“I said I would,” Lima said easily, “When have I ever lied to you before?”

“I’ve known you for a week,” Lux said, amused, “You lie all the time; Like the time you told Teak that you personally knew the King of Argus—when there’s no such thing.”

That was a good one.

“Or the time you told Claire that everybody could actually see her when she’s using her semblance,” Lux added, “But we all just pretend so she doesn’t feel bad.”

Lima grinned to himself.

“There was also the time you told our entire class that you ‘bang like a cannon,’” Lux snorted, “Idiot.”

“Ouch,” Lima said, amused. “Alright, you’ve caught me.”

“So, are you going to come or not?” Lux said seriously.

“Why do you want me to be there so badly?” Lima sighed, “There’s literally an entire school of people for you to fight—hey!”

Lima barely managed to catch the two bottles that were tossed back over the divider before they smacked him in the face.

“You beat me without even trying,” Lux said, annoyed, “I lasted longer in a fight against ‘The Invincible Girl’ then I did against you—”

“A lot of girls have that problem,” Lima smirked. “Don’t be embarrassed—”

“Shut up,” Lux demanded, banging on the divider. “Stop trying to derail me!”

Lima sighed; she wasn’t going to let this go.

“Lux, you admitted it yourself, you’ve seen all of Pyrrha’s fights, you’ve studied her attack patterns, her combinations, her stance switches,” Lima said seriously, “You went into that fight with a solid idea on how to fight her—tell me, that first time we fought; what did you know about me?”

Lux didn’t reply for several seconds.

“I knew that you passed the exam to get in,” Lux said, quietly, “and I knew that you and Teak were the last pair to return from the Emerald Forest.”

“I’m going to take a guess here,” Lima said seriously, “You thought since we were so slow, that we were probably the worst pair that passed?”

“Yeah,” Lux admitted.

“So when we did our little free for all, you went into it thinking that none of us were going to stand a chance against you,” Lima ran her down the path, “You didn’t take it seriously, you didn’t attempt to safely figure out what any of us could do—”

“I knew what Claire could do,” Lux said quickly.

“Sure,” Lima allowed, “But you wrote Teak and I off and went into it half-assed—that’s why you lost so fast.”

“Okay, fine.” Lux said firmly, “I’ll admit that’s all true—now tell me why when we fought the second time, and I knew you were dangerous, I still lost in less than thirty seconds!”

“Oh!” Lima said, laughing, “That’s because you totally suck at fighting.”

Lux pulled herself to glare at him from over the top of the divider, hands clenched tightly around the material.

“You better be at the duels today.” Lux hissed. “Because I’m going to make you eat those words.”

“Stop peeking you, damn pervert!” Lima said incredulously, “My eyes are up here, lady!”

Friday, 11th April, 79AGW.

Emerald Forest, Beacon.

6:03 am.

“Welcome, welcome!” Professor Port said cheerfully, “I’m glad to see how many of you choose to accompany me!”

Lima nodded seriously at the man; there were more people than he expected to show up, about ten in total, including himself. A few were upper years, but he didn’t recognize any of them, but there were some that he did know—the entirety of Team Juniper, half of which looked still mostly asleep.

“Now, guidelines for today’s hunts,” Professor Port said seriously, “First-timers, you are required to stay within my sight until I give you dispensation to roam; Once I see that you are capable of handling yourself, you will be free to hunt unsupervised, the rest of you—you’re already connected, and free to go, happy hunting.”

The older students vanished in a few moments, heading out unsupervised and leaving Lima, Team Juniper, and a Faunus girl with rabbit ears behind. Slightly disappointing that he wouldn’t be heading off on his own, but Lima knew he would be able to prove himself quickly and get that dispensation.

“Now, scrolls out, you’ll receive a prompt—yes, there we are—connect to the Hunt group—fantastic—no hold on—turn on your connectivity Mr. Arc,” Professor Port laughed, waiting for them all to connect. “Perfect, that seems to be all of you—now, you’ll see today’s targets, that’s the minimum amount needed to keep the local Grimm population from becoming a serious threat; you are, of course, more than welcome to go beyond that quota! I would even encourage you too; the more, the better, honestly.”

The man was very quickly solidifying himself as his favorite instructor. Lima searched the list objectives, noting the species, amounts, and most likely locations to travel to find them.

“Your scrolls will be recording and tracking your own personal contributions; that information will only be reviewed by the teachers as an aid to track how much experience each of you has, so please don’t treat this as some kind of competition. You are free to share it with one another if you wish to.” Professor Port said, smiling widely, “Now, with all of that out of the way, do you have any questions?”

“How can I fast track my way to unsupervised hunting?” Lima said immediately.

“An enthusiastic bunch this year, I see!” Port laughed, “Is there anyone else who wishes to strike out on their own?”

Lima studied the faces of the group quickly—Pyrrha was watching Jaune, who looked nervous at the idea. Ren was as blank-faced as ever, while Nora wasn’t even paying attention; instead, she was tracking a butterfly through the air with an intent stare. The unknown brown haired girl looked down when he turned to her but stepped forward.

“I’m comfortable enough to go out on my own as well.” The girl said sheepishly.

“Very well,” Port said, pleased, “You two will be handling the bulk of the hunting for this trip; I’ll remain as an observer, Ms. Nikos, Mr. Arc. Mr. Ren, and Ms. Valkryie, you are all welcome to step in whenever you feel comfortable.”

“Uh, you’re not going to help, sir?” Jaune said weakly, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Lima turned to him with narrowed eyes as Jaune aligned himself with the side of evil.

“Jaune, I will snap my left foot off in your ass—twice,” Lima said seriously. “Don’t ruin this for me.”

Jaune gave him a weird look before turning to his teammates for assistance.

“We will be fine, Jaune, I promise,” Pyrrha said pleasantly.

“Ren!” Nora said awestruck, “It’s so pretty, look at the pattern on its wings!”

“Mm.” Ren agreed easily. “Very distinctive.”

Jaune didn’t look very reassured by the complete lack of attention the other two team members were paying to the situation.

“Okay, then,” Jaune said lamely, giving Lima the thumbs up. “You do you, buddy.”

Lima grinned.

“You have the helm, Ms. Scarlatina, Mr. Morta—whenever you are ready.” Professor Port said cheerfully.

Lima nodded seriously before checking his scroll for the girl’s given name; he found her aura bar listed amongst the hunt participants and nodded again.

“Velvet,” Lima greeted, “I like your ears; they look very soft—now let’s go kill some Grimm.”

“U-um, thank you?” Velvet said weakly.

Lima strode off into the trees, compacted bow in his hand, riding a high he hadn’t experienced since the attack on the train.

Lima kept an eye on the objectives and which of them were being filled fastest by the unsupervised students.

It seemed to him that the most common target was Beowulfs, followed by Boarbatusks. That left Nevermore—the standard sized ones, not the enormous variety—and Ursa. Nevermore were easier to miss and generally harder to hunt as they tended to stick to high areas when they weren’t flying around.

Ursa, however, were much easier to find and almost impossible to miss. Large, thick, limbed beasts with a solid white mask of bone—they had five razor-sharp claws, bone fragments protruding from their joints, and a series of bone spikes that ran the length of their spine.

Ursa were most commonly found in the north-east. However, there was a multitude of spots that had non-insignificant amounts as well. The thickest area was too far away to make without pouring on the speed, and he had others to think about. The third densest area was about five minutes away and much more realistic.

“Usra, as we’ve discussed in class,” Professor Port chirped, “Share many traits with those of Beowulfs; they are physically much larger, more durable, and have greater striking strength. Their jaws are more powerful as well, so avoid getting any limbs trapped, or you’ll have a hell of a time getting it back.”

“What’s the best way to fight them?” Jaune asked worriedly.

“Depends on the numbers,” Professor Port said cheerfully, “A single Ursa is slow enough that a hunter could get behind it without much trouble, theirs a lot of spikes protecting its spine, but both sides of its back are mostly uncovered—you can try to line up a shot at its neck from behind as well.”

“And if there’s more than one?” Jaune said slowly. “What do we do then?”

“Counter-pack tactics come into play,” Professor Port said at once, “You’ll need to move around a lot more, use obstacles or the Grimm themselves to block the others from getting towards you—to make the most of this method, you’ll need to bait out an opening from the front, have it commit to an attack and then counter towards its neck, or exposed limbs if you would rather whittle it down first—it goes without saying to target the unarmored portions of course!”

“Of course,” Jaune said weakly.

“Velvet,” Lima said seriously, “Two minor, twenty meters that way, you see them?”

“Yes,” Velvet said quietly, “I’ll take the one on the right.”

“Understood,” Lima agreed.

He sprinted off to the left, flanking wide and through the trees, keeping both of the Grimm in his sight. He spotted Velvet in the distance, moving in a straight path towards her own. He stepped into his own Grimms line of sight, and it immediately reacted, heading straight towards him, leaving its ally behind without a moment’s thought.

The Ursa charged towards him, and he threw himself up into the air, twisted until his unfolding bow was pointed below him, and put a spike directly through the back of its head and out the front of the mask, pinning it to the ground with a dull thud.

Lima watched with glee as the disgusting creature twitched and started to dissolve into motes of black dust.

Once it was finally gone, he turned to find Velvet standing over her own target, and a glowing blue hard light sword in her hand, that soon vanished into sparks, disappearing from view.

“Excuse me,” Velvet said hopefully, “Do you mind if I take your picture?”

Lima blinked at the question before shrugging; she already had a very advanced but enormous looking camera in her hands—the same device where the sword had no doubt been projected from. Was it used for scanning the weapons to make hard light replicas?

“Go for it,” Lima said idly, “How many hits do you get out of one of those hard light weapons?”

Velvet snapped a picture of him, and he waited until she was done before stowing the spike away and compacting the bow.

“It depends on the force used, but I usually get a few.” Velvet said embarrassedly, “I hope you don’t mind me copying your bow?”

“I don’t really care,” Lima admitted, “It’s going towards killing Grimm, so I’m happy. You should probably think about getting a backup weapon, though, just in case something damages your projector.”

Velvet let out a startled laugh before rushing to explain herself.

“My teammate tells me that all the time.” Velvet admitted quickly, “For a second, you sounded just like her.”

“What’s your usual response to the question?” Lima grinned.

“I can’t just choose one.” Velvet said sheepishly.

“Nice.” Lima laughed.

“Well done!” Professor Port said boisterously, “That was fantastic, both of you—but plenty more to deal with before we are done here.”

Lima nodded happily, and the group continued the hunt.

“Hey, Lima?” Jaune asked quietly as they watched Nora, Ren, and Pyrrha fight off a trio of Ursa.

“Hey man, what’s up?” Lima said, smiling.

“How did you get so good at all of this?” Jaune said quietly enough that no one else could overhear.

“I had a lot of motivation,” Lima said easily, watching him. “What’s your reason for being here?”

“At Beacon?” Jaune asking for clarification. “I want to be strong.”

“Then become strong,” Lima shrugged, “Nothings stopping you, buddy.”

“It’s not that simple,” Jaune frowned.

“Sure, it is. Just find someone strong to fight on the regular and then do it as often as possible.” Lima said simply, “The stronger they are, the better. The faster they are, the better. The harder they are to fight, the more you’ll learn from the struggle, the better strategies you’ll develop to deal with them. After years of hard work, you’ll realize that you are suddenly finding it hard to find a challenging opponent—You know what you do then?”

“What?” Jaune said seriously.

The guy looked like he was seconds away from writing it all down.

“You keep on looking, idiot.” Lima said, smiling, “You know how everyone always says that stupid line, about how there are no shortcuts to greatness?”

“Yeah,” Jaune said frowning.

“It’s a totally cringe line, and everybody that says it is an asshole,” Lima said confidently, “But they are also correct; you won’t get strong by looking for a special technique that will let you one-shot your enemy, and you won’t wake up one day with a sudden miraculous strength that lets your fight off a horde of Grimm without training to do it—you need to hone your body into a weapon, Jaune.”

“How do I—” Jaune said in frustration. “How exactly do I put that into practice?”

“You want more explicit advice?” Lima said curiously before shrugging again. “Alright, I got you fam; Every single day, challenge Pyrrha to a fight; your goal is to last thirty seconds while she is going all out. That’s it, after a few months of that—well, you’ll certainly be better off than you are now.”

“You want me to fight, Pyrrha?” Jaune said nervously, “You do know she’s called the Invincible girl for a reason, right?”

“You asked me for a working plan; I gave you a working plan.” Lima insisted, rapping his knuckles on the guy’s chest piece. “Just do it, you wuss.”

“Fine!” Jaune huffed, brushing the front of his armor. “What should I do when I get to thirty seconds?”

Lima started laughing.

“What?!” Jaune demanded. “It’s a serious question!”

“You’re so optimistic, Jaune,” Lima grinned, “That’s what I like about you, buddy.”

“That sounds like a compliment,” Jaune said suspiciously. “But it’s not, is it?”