Thursday, the 7th of May, 79AGW.

Amphitheatre, Practical Combat, Beacon.

The fight between Yang and Nora raged on the Amphitheatre stage below, and Lima couldn’t help but feel grateful that he had stolen Nora’s hammer from her in their earlier bout. Nora was an overwhelming force, and her enthusiasm to hit things with her weapon took her all over the stage.

On the other hand, Yang was an example of pure, sustained damage output, always moving forward and chaining together debilitating hits. She had a smile on her face as she slipped another hammer strike, her own punch striking the shaft of the weapon with a crack.

Nora’s hammer exploded as she discharged something from the tip, and the weapon scythed through the air like it was seeking wheat in a field. Yang got her arm in the way in time to partially block the blow, but the power was enough to rip her off the ground and send her spinning before she rapid fired her shot-gauntlets to cut her rotation off.

The epic fight couldn’t hold his attention for long, and Lima kept finding his gaze searching out Jaune and Cardin in the bleachers, both surrounded by their respective teams. Cardin had a bandage wrapped around his head, while Jaune looked entirely unharmed, if somewhat ruffled.

Port’s hunting missions and Jaune throwing himself into the grinder that was Pyrrha Nikos every day might well have been the difference between disposing of the Ursa Major and becoming its next kill.

Lux slammed her hands down on the back of the seat in front of her and cheered as Yang landed a series of thundering punches against Nora’s weapon, sending the pink-haired girl sliding back across the stage under the ongoing assault. Teak struggled to get her to sit back down and somehow ended up in a headlock despite his best efforts.

“You okay, Lima?” Claire said quietly.

“Ugh,” Lima groaned, leaving the interpretation up to his teammate.

“Come on, it wasn’t your fault they were attacked,” Claire said reassuringly, “The area was supposed to be cleared already; we should have been fine to break off from the group.”

“Don’t enable me,” Lima sulked, closing his eyes.

Claire rolled her eyes as he slumped back in his chair, sinking lower until his shoulders were practically against the seat. She folded her arms over the armrest between them and rested her chin on top of her arms.

“Stop sooking,” Claire snickered, “Hey, I’ve been working on my visor, and it’s starting to come together—I thought we could take it for a test run in a couple of weeks? Can you come with me?”

“A test run where?” Lima mumbled.

“Emerald Forest? Forever Fall?” Claire shrugged. “Either is fine; I just want to do a trial run for night combat—thought I’d see if you wanted to come.”

“I can never enter a forest again for as long as I live,” Lima said sullenly. “It is my penance for being a very naughty boy.”

“Idiot,” Claire said, scrunching her face up. “There might be Grimm?”

“When?” Lima said, cracking one eye open.

“A couple of weeks?” Claire said, turning her cheek onto her forearm. “I’m still messing around with the shape at the moment; I want it to sit properly, even when I’m fighting, you know?”

“A nighttime stroll through a beautiful forest and the promise of Grimm to kill,” Lima said, batting his eyelashes at her. “Claire, I never knew you could be so romantic.”

“Uh-huh,” Claire snorted. “You’re in then?”

“It’s a date,” Lima agreed.

“Sorry to interrupt your date,” Weiss said, approaching them from the isle. “Lima, could I speak to you in private for a moment?”

Lima, still sprawled in his chair like a slug that had melted in the sun, flapped an arm upwards in an attempt to grab the chair in front of him. He missed it entirely and instead pulled on his semblance to lift himself upwards off the chair. The motion was awkwardly, practically clawing the air like some kind of deranged monster as he pulled himself up.

“Gross,” Weiss hissed in surprise. “Can’t you act normal for five minutes?”

Lima stumbled forward into an upright position and sent a look of complete superiority.

“Normal?” Lima scoffed, slicking his hair back with one hand. “I refuse to cram myself into the box society had decreed as normal; I’m so much more than that.”

“Yeah,” Claire nodded sagely, “Besides, you’d never be able to fit in that box with all the ego you’re carrying around.”

“Exactly,” Weiss said, nodding in agreement.

“Dick,” Lima complained. “I’ll take pride in not fitting in that box, ego or not.”

He tilted his head back until he was looking down his nose at them both to make sure they could see just how unimpressed he was.

“Come on then, Princess,” Lima taunted. “Society is calling, and they want there boring—uh, you suck or something.”

Lima quietly patted himself on the back for not calling her ‘Old Nanner’ again; that wouldn’t have gone over well.

“What were you just about to say?” Weiss said, glaring at him. “Whatever—let’s go.”

Lima clapped the hand that Claire held out for him as he passed her and slunk out into the aisle, following Weiss up the stairs to the top of the bleachers.

“What did I do this time, anyway?” Lima said curiously.

Weiss looked confused for a moment before shaking her head.

“You haven’t done anything—that I know of, anyway,” Weiss qualified before clearing her throat. “I’ve received the package of Gravity Dust that you requested, and I’m ready to discharge our deal.”

Lima blinked, having entirely forgotten about it.

“Gravity Dust—awesome,” Lima said, clapping his fist into his palm. “Well? Where are you hiding it, missy? Don’t be shy.”

“We’re in class, Lima—I haven’t got it on me,” Weiss said exasperated, “Did you expect me to carry it around the entire day?”

“I don’t think you know the gravity of the situation, princess,” Lima said, “What’s the plan then?”

“I’ll bring it with me to our next Weapon and Maintenance class,” Weiss said, scrunching her face up at the pun. “What are you using it for? Is it that cable firing abomination you brought to sparring?”

“Abomination?” Lima squawked. “It’s a work of art, thank you very much—and yes, some of it is going toward the reel-in mechanism, so when it activates, my own weight is reduced, and it’s less taxing on the system.”

“I see,” Weiss said, nodding. “And the rest?”

“Arrows mostly, and I’ll probably use some to strengthen the quiver for increased arrow pickup range,” Lima said, “I haven’t seen what you’re working on for Mulberry’s class; what’s your project?”

Weiss looked taken aback at the question and scratched her cheek with a finger, looking hesitant.

“I’m recreating a small drone the SDC once used for mapping out unexplored tunnels,” Weiss admitted before holding her index finger and thumb up, several inches apart. “The AI is simple, but it should be able to perform some basic tasks during combat.”

A combat drone? That was ambitious.

“You’re going to need some shielding to protect it; people will end up targeting it during fights,” Lima said curiously, “What materials are you sourcing for the shell?”

“The original model had a hard-light shield that was powered wirelessly, but it only had enough bandwidth to survive a two-second sustained attack from the Grimm lurking in the tunnels,” Weiss said, warming to the subject. “Wireless power has had some major advancements since then, so the bandwidth issue shouldn’t be as problematic; I’m also going to be making a portable power bank to keep it charged for longer battles.”

Lima was starting to get some drone-envy; his own cable-shot now seemed so rudimentary in comparison.

“That’s pretty awesome,” Lima said, impressed. “Hey, if you ever end up mass producing them, I call dibs on the first one.”

“Mass production?” Weiss said, taken aback.

“Sure, imagine how many people would be interested in buying a small personal drone that offered some personal protection,” Lima said thoughtfully, “Link the controls up to your scroll, and nobody would leave home without it.”

“I hadn’t thought about something like that,” Weiss murmured.

“You could branch off from the dust business, rebrand to the Schnee Defense Company, focus on personal protection tech.” Lima snickered, “Either way, thanks for coming through on the Dust; I was starting to worry you were going to skip town.”

“Schnee Defense Company—wait, what?” Weiss said, alarmed. “I would never run out on a deal like that! Exactly what do you think of me?!”

Wednesday, the 13th of May, 79AGW.

Workshop D, Weapons and Maintenance, Beacon.

Lima adjusted the panel on the side of his bracer for the fiftieth time, wishing he’d made it slightly larger. If it ever broke and he was forced to rebuild it, he had a bunch of little things he was going to change—although it would have been better if he’d figured them out before he’d gotten this far.

He’d followed the most common public design for a compactable bracer, and for the most part, it seemed to work well as a base. The main reason he’d chosen this one over the others—and there were a whole lot of them, which only served to dampen his enthusiasm—was because it could be equipped and unequipped with a sleight of hand.

The cable even retracted now, reeling in almost as fast as it could be fired—winding the damn thing up after every test shot had to be the most annoying thing to exist in the entire history of Remnant. The mechanism at the end of the cable that was responsible for adhering the cable to surfaces pretty much precluded him from using it within the city or the school proper. As it was, it worked by burying itself into a surface—which of course damaged that surface—and as far as he was aware, firing it off in the school buildings would probably get him in trouble again.

The Gravity Dust that Weiss had provided had been embedded in the topside of the bracer and threaded through channels across the entire thing. The weight of the entire system was basically nothing now; the natural properties of Gravity Dust that allowed islands to float unaided when focused on the bracer rendered it weightless.

If he could just get the damn panel to sit flat, he’d be pretty much finished—the problem was one of space. The cable was long enough that its casing was an inch tall, three-inch diameter raised cylinder that was clearly visible beneath the bracer.

He’d cut the panels to fit, but the last one barely overlapped with the coil by what had to be two millimetres, and for the life of him, he just couldn’t—it snapped into place with a crisp click that was far too loud.

Before he could mess up and pop the panel off again, he gripped it with one hand and then inserted the bolt, tightening it and locking it all into place. Lima let go of the bracer and sat back in his chair, admiring the finished product. He’d left the finger area as open as he could so he could still grapple and use his bow without it hindering him, and there was some cheap rubber lining that he’d probably wear through on the inside, so it didn’t press directly against his skin.

Lima grinned before picking it up and sliding it over his arm until his fingers passed through the other side and twisted it into place. He spent a moment making sure the fit was correct before hitting the internal control. An armour panel on the top side of the bracer lifted, revealing a barrel, and he nodded before hitting another of the controls.

The barrel sealed itself away again, and then the bracer folded into itself twice, leaving a thick bracelet with the cable coil dangling from it. He caught the cylinder in his hand, made sure it wouldn’t detach, and then let it hang loose.

“I am the greatest inventor the world has ever seen,” Lima declared, “Praise me, Mulberry!”

Professor Mulberry grunted at being addressed and waved him over. Lima swooped around Teak’s desk, where three hundred different parts of his hard light projector were scattered and moved towards the front of the class. Mulberry held his hand out, and Lima uncompacted the bracer before sliding it off his arm and handing it over.

“Weightless,” Mulberry said plainly, peering into the armhole. “Dust channels are a bit thick, and you’ve got about three times as much of it then what you’d need for something like this—I’d be careful if it ever gets damaged, could cause some damage to the area.”

“Noted,” Lima frowned, imagining gravity running havoc around him. “Don’t get blown up.”

“How long is this cable?” Mulberry said, shaking his head in disbelief. “That has to be what, sixty meters? Why so long?”

“It’s better to have too much rope than too little—and by rope, I mean cable,” Lima said sagely, literally quoting his guardian. “The cylinder is a bit bigger than I wanted, though.”

“True enough—could double the diameter of the cylinder and cut the depth easily enough,” Mulberry suggested, “It’s probably right on the border of getting in the way or snagging on something.”

Lima was already resigning himself to taking the panel back off and remaking the cylinder. Nothing he could do about slimming the dust channels down without remodelling everything, so that would be in version 2.0.

“I recognise the base; it’s an Atlas design from a decade ago, solid construction.” Mulberry hummed, “Pretty good work overall, easy pass, kid. Make sure you turn up for weapon maintenance and keep reading through the coursework.”

“Thanks!” Lima said happily.

Lima caught the bracer out of the air when the man tossed it towards him, and he slipped it back onto his arm. He turned around and scanned the class; some of the others were working in groups, but most were on their own.

He spotted Jaune with his face scrunched up in concentration, arm buried halfway inside what looked like a rectangular metal box of unknown properties. It had a single thick cable coming from the right-hand side of the box, about half a meter in length, with a strange circular connection that didn’t look like anything he’d seen in recent memory. There were callipers on what must have been the top of the box, welder, cleanly onto it.

Lima wondered what on earth he was making and sought out the guy’s teammates for any kind of visual clues. Nora had her own braided metal cable, even thicker than Jaune’s, and he could immediately identify what hers was for, given it was currently attached to the handle of her hammer.

Nora spotted him looking, and her expression turned gleeful, the light flickering in her eyes.

“Why does Nora look like she’s about to murder you?” Pyrrha said, bemused.

“I was about to ask you the same question,” Lima said, blanching at the look. “What’s that cable for?”

“It’s so she can pull her hammer back towards her,” Pyrrha said pleasantly.

Lima turned that sentence over in his head for a moment before turning to look at the girl beside him. Was this a countermeasure to stop him from yoinking it again in the future?

“Why would she need to pull her hammer back to her? It shouldn’t be leaving her hands, right?” Lima frowned. “A Warhammer is totally a melee weapon.”

“I said the same thing,” Pyrrha laughed, “Nora disagrees, heavily.”

Lima had a terrible, terrible feeling that Nora was going to be throwing her hammer at him in the near future.

Wednesday, the 13th of May, 79AGW.

Hallway, Student Dorms, Beacon.

“Who knocks eleven times?” Sakura Bloom said exasperated, sticking her head out of the door. “Who the heck are you?”

Lima gave her the flattest stare he could possibly imagine, narrowing his eyes to slits and holding up a sheet of paper.

“I don’t want to hear that from someone who can’t even fill out a form properly,” Lima said, shaking the form in her face. “Write down your damn year next time; you were almost disqualified before the tournament even started, idiot.”

Sakura took the sheet from him and scanned it quickly before blinking.

“Oh, how did I miss that?” Sakura said, blinking, “Do you have a pen?”

Lima held the pen he’d borrowed from Goodwitch and held it out between two fingers; after she’d taken it, he crossed his arms, continuing his disapproving stare the entire time.

“Turn around, would you?” Sakura asked, pushing on his shoulder until he spun and then used his back as a writing surface. “Thanks—you didn’t answer my question, by the way.”

“Lima Morta,” Lima said, annoyed.

“Do they really disqualify you if you don’t have your year down?” Sakura said curiously, taking her sweet time writing the year.

“It can’t be filed into the system without it, so yes.” Lima sighed. “How long does it take to write a single number?”

“Just one? No idea,” Sakura said slyly before palming the sheet of paper onto his shoulder. “Thanks for coming to find me; getting kicked out would have sucked.”

Lima took the sheet without looking it over and turned around.

“You know a guy called—Yatsuhashi?” Lima asked, hoping to get a head start on his next target.

“Yeah, he’s another second year,” Sakura said, pointing down the hall. “Should be that door there.”

“Thanks,” Lima said, waving her completed form in goodbye.

Lima heard the door click shut behind him and rubbed at his eyes for a moment—he still wasn’t getting enough sleep, despite cutting back on the late-night hunts. He felt like he was being stretched thin between team stuff, remodelling the Cableshot’s cylinder and class.

Being smashed together with others in such close proximity was also something he was still getting used to. Beacon was simply far more involved than Sanctum had been, more sparring, more socialising, more training, more learning in general.

Lima began knocking on the door in an endless rhythm, intent on beating his previous record.

He was looking forward to the summer break, and though he’d never say it out loud, visiting Sage and Midori in Mistral. Then he could spend half a week sleeping on the train to recover. A month and a half left, he’d last that long surely—Lima lowered his hand from the knocking position; he’d only made it to eight.

Velvet Scarlatina stared at him from the now open doorway, eyes wide before dropping her gaze to the floor.

“I—um.” Velvet murmured. “Yes?”

Velvet winced at her own words, and Lima looked away, the awkwardness getting to him a bit. Voices came from the room beyond, out of sight and pulled him back on track.

“Ah. I didn’t realise this was your room.” Lima said before holding up Yatsuhashi’s form. “I’m on an errand for Goodwitch, I need Yatsuhashi to finish filling out his form for the Vytal Festival Tournament, or your teams going to get disqualified.”

Velvet raised her head to look at the form before Lima handed it over, and she hesitated at the door for a moment, unsure whether to leave him there to get her teammate.

Lima took the choice out of her hand, spinning left and leaning against the hallway wall to stare at the door opposite. Velvet disappeared back into the room, and the door clicked shut, leaving him out in the hallway by himself.

Almost a minute later, the door opened, and the absolute demon of a girl who’d stolen his seat in class strode out, followed by a tall guy with dark hair.

“I’m sorry you had to come to find me,” Yatsuhashi said apologetically, holding out the form.

“I thought I sensed a dark presence nearby,” Lima said, ignoring him entirely. “Second years, huh? Can’t even fill out a form—can you see me shaking my head at you? So embarrassing for you guys.”

Yatsuhashi laughed awkwardly at the glaring that was going on between the two.

“You’re the guy who called me vile,” Coco said, scrunching her face up.

Lima snatched the form back from Yatsuhashi before placing it carefully with the others and tidying the pile.

“Steal any more chairs lately?” Lima accused.

Coco rolled her eyes at his childishness.

“I saw the video of you in the cafeteria,” Coco said, watching him.

Lima wasn’t touching that subject; it was awkward enough knowing that Velvet was on the other side of the door somewhere.

“How you can see anything while wearing sunglasses indoors like a lunatic is a mystery,” Lima said snootily. “Anyway, I’m not here to chat, Choochoo—either of you knows a guy called Onyx; he’s a third-year?”

“Choochoo?” Coco said, alarmed, “Have I become a train, Yatsu?”

“Not yet,” Yatsuhashi said, bemused. “Maybe soon?”

Velvet’s voice came from the doorway—Lima looked up and spotted her peeking through the door.

“Onyx is a girl,” Velvet said, opening the door slightly.

Because, of course, she was.

“I would have known that,” Lima declared, “If she’d bothered to fill out her form correctly—I need her signature as well; you guys know where her dorm is?”

The three of them pointed directly across the hall, and Lima sighed.