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Chapter 10: Dodgeball

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“These two machines,” Instructor Braun explained, “will shoot and distribute balls a side of the court randomly. After training your endurance, strength, agility, and balance, here we will train dexterity in a game of dodgeball.”

All the kids' eyes lit up. Dodgeball was extremely fun. In addition, they were faunus, so many had a natural tendency for violence. Of course there were exceptions.

“But this won't be any game of dodgeball. Instead of two teams, there will be three. Black, white, and grey. The black and white teams will be on both sides, grabbing balls that they can find and throwing them at the gray team. The gray team will be in the middle of the court. They are forbidden to throw any balls. The gray team's job will be to gather balls that roll in your territory-- or catch them, whichever you prefer – and put them back into the machine.

All players will have 50 points to start off with. For the gray team, every time you catch a ball, you gain a point. Every time you get hit, you lose a point. Every time you put a ball into the machine, you gain a point.

For the black and white players you start with ten points. Every hit, you receive a point; every caught ball, you lose two points. Every time you get hit by a ball thrown by someone else, you lose a point.

After ten minutes, you will have a final score that I will keep track of. Everyone who hits zero will have to do push-ups. Then teams will rotate. Gray to black, black to white, and white to gray. Then we'll start a new game and scores will reset. Grab your ribbons and get to your sides.”

At this point, he went around splitting the students into the three groups by handing a colored ribbon to tie around their head. Blake and Adam were on the black side. Robin was on the grey. Ophelia and Conner was on the white.

= Great. So I'm gonna be bombarded with balls. Fantastic. Welp. At least I have my semblance, dodging shouldn't be too hard. =

He was completely wrong. Even though his Bloodlust passive gave him a tingly feeling in the area that was gonna be hit, reacting to it was difficult. Robin would dash farther than he needed to or not move far enough because he was too slow, making him get hit. Furthermore, the balls came from both sides; it was 20 vs 10. He needed to keep an eye on both areas.

Catching a ball was out of the question. Unless he caught it instantly without preparation, the other side would aim right at him when his back was turned. Just like this every student in the gray team got pummeled with foam balls.

Naturally, they were engrossed by the game itself to keep track of their score, but the instructor's eyes darted back and forth and continuously kept tallies on his clipboard.

But it wasn't all bad. Robin began reacting quicker and began being more cautious. At first he relied purely on his semblance, but he quickly realized that wasn't enough. Just because you can feel it coming, didn't mean you could dodge everything. Robin calmed down and began paying attention to both sides. He began dodging in smaller, efficient movements, and reacting quicker. Also, the balls themselves began to become more accurate as the students got more practice with the ball, making the game more difficult and interesting. Then a shout suddenly got his attention.

“Hey!”

It was Adam and Blake. Blake held two balls while Adam had one in his hand and the other hand behind his back. On the white team, Conner and Ophelia also walked up with two balls each.

= Oh great, so it's 1v4 huh? =

“Bring it on.”

The group smirked and 4 balls flew at once from 4 different directions. All of them aiming at his limbs. Robin quickly jumped sideways, but was greeted by two more balls coming from Ophelia and Blake. Stretching out his hands, he caught each of the balls. At this moment, Conner threw his remaining ball at Robin's legs. Robin jumped up smiling at his victory.

But then, a tingling sensation turned his attention to Adam. A huge amount of bloodlust came from his body. Turning his head, he saw Adam had hidden a ball behind his back. With a full power throw, Adam chucked it straight at his head.

= Shit! Gotta....move! =

In that moment time slowed down, and Robin tilted back into a back-flip midair. As he was flipping, the ball skimmed centimeters before his face before flying past and smacking Conner dead on and floored him. Completing his back-flip, Robin landed on his feet.

= ... That was totally awesome! Oh wait Conner! =

Robin turned to see Conner clutching his nose.

Holding his nose, Conner screeched at Adam.

“OW! Are you trying to kill me? Look, my nose is..huh? It's not bleeding?”

“Of course not Dinkleberg. Your aura protects you remember?”

With the sound of the whistle, the match ended.

“Switch!” The teams were shuffled and the match began again. After the third round, Instructor Braun gave the punishment. Apparently, everyone that participated on the gray team had zero points. This made sure that everyone had to do the ten push-ups. After the punishment and drinking up to satisfy their thirst, he rolled out a long table with a whit cloth over it.

“Listen up, now we're gonna begin the last part of the training section: training your form. What I have here--” He lifted the cloth, revealing a bunch of wooden sticks

“-- are wooden replicas of weapons. Now you will all choose a weapon to start training. You might like to use more than one weapon. That's completely fine, but for now I want you to choose something to start off with. After you've learned the basics, I'll let you learn more weapons. ”

Robin was unsure. He never really was interested in weapons in particular. He only fawned over the drawings and animation in anime or manga. Then he remembered his class.

= Screw it, why don't I just learn everything I feel like learning. I guess the ones I want to learn are two-handed sword, dual sword, axe, and dagger. First I'll start off with one sword. =

Robin grabbed a sword replica. He then glanced at the others. Adam had chosen a katana replica, while Blake also chose a single sword. Conner chose two daggers, and Ophelia chose a naginata, which was a long handle like a spear with a blade attached to it.

“Spread out and start swinging. I'll come by each of you and correct your postures.”

And so practice began. Each of them found a secluded spot in the giant gymnasium, and began swinging. By the end of the day, Robin had learned how to slash, pierce, and counter. At this point, a message popped up.

Acquired Sword Combat (+5)Whenever you equip a sword, you receive a bonus increase in Strength. Other weapon bonus are lost with the exception of Hand-to-Hand Combat. Upon mastery of the sword, 'Sword Combat' becomes 'Sword Mastery' and bonus is doubled.

The period was nearing the end, and the instructor gathered them.

“Today I've trained you in various ways. What do you think is the most important stat in battle?”

“Strength?” Adam questioned.

“No, it's Dexterity and Agility. When you are in a fight, a hit that cannot connect, cannot kill. Today I've heavily concentrated on training your ability to react to threats, because someone who dodges and runs away is better off than a slow person that constantly gets hurt. Of course, training your strength isn't a bad thing, but your life is more precious than the enemy's. Remember that.”

Everyone nodded.

“Good, now for me to bring up another thing. I bet you guys didn't even realize you were training your aura this entire time now did you?”

They were shocked. Glancing in the corner of his eye, Robin found his aura had definitely depleted. Before training, he had already recovered to full.

“After activating your aura, you have been constantly using it. Of course, normally this wouldn't decrease the value by even one point, but you were constantly using it all day: from training your mind, pushing your body to the limit, and playing that dodgeball game. During that dodgeball game, all of you subconsciously applied aura to your body parts and made yourselves move faster, dodge quicker, and throw harder.

This is what we want. We call this the threshold of normality. As your body gets stronger, you will be able to apply more aura naturally and comprehend things faster or slower. For example, when you hold a glass cup, you unconsciously will take away some aura to decrease the chance of crushing it with you hand. In another instance, you will see something fast and your eyes will follow it. While concentrating, you will apply aura to comprehend things faster.”

--Ding--Dong-----Ding--Dong

“In the morning, you practice using your aura consciously. Here, you'll practice applying them as a habit and in combat. Tomorrow we shall focus on your strength. Wednesday shall be agility. Thursday shall be endurance. Friday shall be dexterity and vitality. You may keep the weapons and practice at home. Dismissed!”

Robin said his goodbyes and left for home. Along the way, he had already come to a conclusion about his earlier debate.

= Screw laying low. This world is too much fun to just sit back and watch like last time. I'll go all out to improve myself, and having the village know I'm a genius isn't that bad. I get complimented unlike before. But there's no need to show off to strangers. Friends ok. Strangers no way. =

Walking into his home he opened the door.

“I'm back!”

“Welcome home Robin.”

His father was sitting on the couch watching the T.V.

“Where's mom?”

“Your mother off with the hunting group. It's her turn today, but she'll be back soon so just wash up and rest till it's time to eat.”

“Ok.”

Despite using the river to wash up in the morning, that was just for the sake of saving energy. All the trailers had showers and used filters to clean and recycle the water. Furthermore, a lot of the appliances inside the house ran off of the world's advanced solar energy technology. As he was relaxing in the shower, Robin once again appreciated the new life he was given.

= God I love Remnant. My family loves me. I have great friends..well Adam's an ass but a friend. It's like a video game and technology is way advanced. It makes me wonder why nomads even exist if the kingdom has even better living conditions.... Oh yeah! What's my status? =

-Robin S. Wolfheart-Race:Faunus (Wolf)*Class:MercenaryLevel:1Experience:8/10Semblance:Bloodlust

Health:70/70Aura:100/170

Strength:14(+7)Dexterity:9Agility:7Endurance:5Vitality:25

MercenaryYour aura has given insight to your true nature as a person. Thanks to your past experiences, you tend to doubt others and closely examine their purpose for getting close to you. Thanks to this, the only things you can trust is money and a few people whom you know very well. As a mercenary, you enjoy using all forms of weapons and can grasp how to use them very quickly and efficiently. This results in extra bonuses depending on the weapon. Furthermore, you are able to learn general skills of any kind.

Current Bonuses: (+2) Hand-to-Hand Combat, (+5 Inactive) Sword Combat

Current Skills: Identify, Enhance

Wolf:As a member of the wolf faunus, you fight stronger in a pack. The more members in your pack the stronger you are. Your strength increases +1 per member.Current strength: 14(+5)

= Sweet. My first step towards becoming stronger...Hm. It seems I still get the Hand-to-Hand Combat bonus even though I use weapons. Speaking of which, I should learn how to fight bare handed just in case, but I already started with the sword. Who could I ask to teach me? =

Pondering, Robin cleaned himself up, and as he was dressing, he remembered the words from that morning. Robin threw the dirty clothes into the laundry pile and walked towards the living room.

“Hey dad. Can I ask for a favor?”

“Sure thing son. What do you need?” Joseph looked over from the T.V.

“I wanna learn how to fight bare-handed, but I already started practicing with a sword first. Can you teach me?”

Nodding, he smiled at his son while saying, “Of course, I did that when I was younger too. It's a perfect way to efficiently use your time. How about this? You've already taken a shower now, but from now on we'll do our own little practice session after school. Yeah?”

“Yeah sounds perfect!”

At that moment, Christina came home. She was wearing a metal armor covering most of her body. On the armor there were patches of white fur on the shoulder and legs. In her hands were thin, blue, twin swords with a white Dust crystal in the middle of the handles.

“I'm back. Oh Robin, did you have fun at school?”

“Yep! I was just asking dad to teach me how to fight.”

“That's great honey. I'm gonna go wash up and I'll cook up dinner alright? Tell me all about it later.”

“Ok!”

Just like that, Robin spent another day enjoying his new chance given to him. He thought everything was perfect and wouldn't ever change. This world was different, he thought. Nobody he knew was there, he thought.

Oh how wrong he was.

Side note: It broke 800 average views! Like What! Totally didn't expect that. Thank you guys for reading my story :)