Chapter 66: Practice Mode

Chapter 66: Practice Mode

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryugii. This has been pulled from his Spacebattle publishment. Anyway on with the show...errr read.

Practice Mode

I watched Blake go in silence, a little happy, a little worried. She'd seemed uncertain but alsocontent, maybe. I guess the whole White Fang thing must have been weighing her down for a long time, so leavingmaybe it was a relief for her. Even with everything that was happening with both the White Fang and Dust, I was happy about that, at least. I suppose there was nothing to do but wish her luck. I knew she wanted to help people, so becoming a Hunter was a good choice.

Even if

I closed my eyes for a moment and sighed before looking down the street.

It had only been a few weeks since we left Mistral but despite the world-altering revelations, things went back to normal pretty easily. Or maybe it was just me; my downtime generally consisted of training around the clock, so there wasn't a lot of room for alteration there, except in what I trainedwhich, in this case, was mostly my new skills. I just came home and mostly slipped back into things as if nothing had happened and since the rest of the world didn't know about Dustwell, life went on. It was a little odd, actually, but mostly because it didn't bother me.

And it wasn't completely unchanged, of course. My grandmother sent me copies of the Babel texts she obtained and I pursued them as I got them. Most of them seemed to be dead ends, stuff like tomb markings for such and such or a calendar; that type of thing. Maybe if I'd actually been able to read it all, it would have been more useful, but with the small summary my Observe gaze, I didn't get much for it.

Still, it was a place to start and I'd begun to make a map, marking the locations each had been drawn from. Perhaps if I went there in person, I'd see more; if nothing else, the placement and dating of the relics might tell us something. If we could nail down even just when the Grimm began to show up in such markings, it'd be useful.

For now though, my grandmother was still gathering and organizing everything while Raven was doing her own thing. As such, there wasn't much to do but keep living my life, so Gou, Autumn, and I spent a lot of our time together training.

Not today, though. Today, both were out with Mom in the city.

I had something else planned.

"Who was that?" My dad asked, coming up behind me with a cup in his hands. Despite my expectations, he'd kept both the house and himself in order, though he may have just cleaned up after himself. He'd claimed to have had a blast while we were away, whatever that meantI honestly wasn't sure if he'd give me a straight answer if I asked, which may have been just as well, because I also wasn't sure if I wanted to know.

"Oh, just a friend saying her goodbyes." I answered vaguely, turning to face him.

The Thunder, My Hammer

LV90

Jacques Arc

"Oh," He drew the word out. "Mysterious, aren't we? Might work better if you weren't trying it on me, kid. Let's seewas it Blake? Or was it Adam?"

I quirked an eyebrow at him, a tad surprised.

Then again, I suppose I didn't have many friends on this continent. Probably wasn't too hard to narrow down.

"Yeah," I answered. "It was Blake."

He clicked his tongue.

"I had that one; I shouldn't have hedged," He muttered to himself. "Is she doing okay?"

"Yeah," I mused, casting a glance back at the door. "I think she is. You can probably expect Adam to drop by, too, thoughor maybe he'll just send me a message, I don't know. Well, either way is fine, I guess. You ready, Dad?"

He stretched one last time and shrugged.

"Of course," He said easily, lifting his massive hammer to rest it against a shoulder. His armor gleamed, simple steel against brown leather. Besides his armor and weapon, he wore a belt with various pouches and carried a large, sleek looking cylinder over his shoulder. "It's been awhile since you and I got to hang out together, Jaune. Time for some good, old-fashioned male-bonding."

"Whatever, Dad," I said with a smile. "We want to go out into the woods for this?"

"Why bother?" He asked. "We might as well just do it here."

I looked around and shrugged. I guess it really didn't make much difference.

A snap of my fingers and we were in Naraka. Thanks to a few weeks of steady practice and my boosted MP regeneration within my barrier techniques, I'd gotten it to the point that it was a little less merciless, cost-wise, so it only ate about half of my MP instead of nearly all of it. All told, not too bad, in my opinion.

"So, when should we" I began before a sudden, monstrous impact slammed into my chest and threw me through the door, across the street, and into the Maple house. I knocked over the table and chairs as I flew into the kitchen and then dented the refrigerator before I stoppeda pretty light swing, all told.

"I always wanted to smash someone through that door," I heard my father muse as he casually walked to the doorway, resting an arm against the frame. "Opportunities don't come along as often as you might think."

I snorted as I rose, walking back into the street. My Elementals were already summoned, but they wouldn't participate much for now; they were establishing a perimeter of sorts, keeping the Grimm from getting involved. I'd call them if I needed them, but for now

"So," I said, brushing myself off as I looked up at my father. "It's like that, is it?"

"Yeah," He replied. "It is like that."

"I see," I nodded. "Well, if that's what you want"

The White Tiger of the West rose about me in a flash of white light and I Lunged at him from across street, closing the distance in the blink of an eye.

"Tag," I shouted, reaching for him. "You're it!"

"Yeah, no," He said at the same time, leaning his body lightly to the side as he took a step backjust enough so that instead if punching him in the face, my fist went just past his ear. Compared to the hundred meter dash I'd just done, he shifted a matter of centimeters, but it was enough to avoid the first blow and allow my momentum to carry me into his next swing.

I smiled widely, tails lashing out at either side of the doorway. They tore through the walls and doorframe like paper, curling around whatever they could to stop my forward advance, and though the force of my lunge meant they still tore through, it was enough to let me lean back and watch the swing go past my eyes.

Well, the bombs floating around me looked no less dangerous for the fact that they looked like they could go off at any second. In fact, the knowledge that it was only my father's will keeping them from going off made them seem all the more worrisome.

"You want to give up, kid?" My father drawled, playing tick-tack-toe against himself on a board he'd formed out of smoke, still reclining in his seat.

"Why would I do that?" I asked sincerely. "I'm having so much fun."

He smiled at that, tilting his head my way in acknowledgement.

"Don't hurt yourself, now," He told me before the bombs moved, one darting towards me as the others flashed away. I leapt away from it but it swerved in mid-air to keep on my tailhe was probably controlling it with the dust caked on its surface. Or perhaps the Dust within it? Well, whatever he was using, he could make them do what he wanted. Even so, I was still faster, but he had to realize that so

The bomb chasing me activated and there was a suddenand somewhat familiarpull as gravity shifted, dragging me backwards as it didn't so much explode as draw in. For an instant, I was able to see a purple-black sphere about the size of my fist, before it was concealed by the flood of junk towards it. Things too large for my father to control and not useful enough for him to break lifted into the air, flattening and warping around the sphere. Branches and chunks of walls, what was left of cars once my father had taken everything of value, and more flew towards it and were crushed into layers around it.

I planted my hands and feet on the air I stood upon, trying to solidify it into a firmer defense against the suction, but it slipped through my fingers as I was drawn back. I collided with the growing sphere and tried to rise against its pull, only to be smashed flat by about half a truck, followed by most of a roof, and then a brick wall. I pushed against it, resisting the enormous gravity with my massively enhanced strength, but more and more detritus settled into layers upon me

And then, as suddenly as it had started, the effect came to an end. The gravity vanished and the sphere fell from the sky with an enormous sound as normal gravity resumed and the weight of the massive shape shifted as it crashed to Earth.

I began tearing myself out of with prison the moment I was free to act, shredding the now immobile junk I was trapped under as I crawled out of the sphereand honestly, I really wasn't all that surprised to find that a bomb was waiting for me when I got there.

I sighed and was then flung high into the air on a sudden wave of heat and light. I tried to gain control of myself, to halt my unwanted flight, but just as I was about to, another bomb found itself beneath me and exploded, ruining my efforts as it tossed me awayright into another bomb. And then another. And then another.

It took me a moment to realize my father was juggling me with explosives.

Screw it, I thought, and reached out with my will as the next bomb approachedand exploded quite a ways away from me. But though the explosion hurled me away again, I stopped in midair almost instantly and then the other bombs began to explode, bursting one by one as flames ignited the Dust within.

I turned towards my father, held in the air by Levant's arms. To either side of me stood Suryasta and Vulturnus, eyes focused on my chosen target as I lifted a hand to eye level and slipped my Goliath mask out of my Inventory. Donning the garment, I felt my power growboth inside and out.

"Boys," I said. "If you would?"

Lances of fire and lightning flashed across the sky towards my father's throne, enough destructive power in each to erase a house

And they fizzled out as my father focused on them.

"Having problems there, son?" My father asked, making circling motions with a finger. "It feels like that was supposed to do something."

I frowned beneath my mask, looking at him and the gestures he was making.

Ah, I thought with a bit of chagrin as realization dawned. Of course; he was manipulating air molecules. That was another thing I should have considered, even if I'd never seen him do it before. In the end, it was still just tiny matter, but I hadn't

"I'm just having an off day," I said at last, glancing at both of my Elementals, who looked somewhat annoyed. "Don't worry about it."

"If you say so, kid," My dad replied, kicking up his feet as a leg rest formed beneath them and looking for all the world like he was relaxing in front of the TV.

I gave him another look.

"You're seriously just gonna sit there, huh?" I noted, trying not to sound amused.

"What, do you expect an old man like me to go chasing after you, son? Because that's just not happening," He shook his head. "Gotta give you a fair chance, anyway, so you can just come at me until you get tired, Jaune."

"I'll do that," I said, shifting in midair as Levant prepared herself in response to my mental command, looking at Vulturnus and Suryasta again. They didn't move or react in the slightest and they didn't have to.

I took a deep breath.

Fire and Lightning in Harmony, I thought to myself, feeling them against my Aura. I could hear two songs, like the one I felt from Crocea Mors so long ago, but it was impossible to sing both with one voice, no matter how hard I tried. But that didn't mean I couldn't make a new song, did it? After all, the basic types of Dust could be combinedwhy not the Elementals they represented? It was a simple idea I'd had for a long time but had never been able to make work.

Until Harmony had shown the way and opened up the possibilities of 'intermediate' elementalsthat is, Elements with two parts. If I thought of it like Dust, then there were many different ways to combine the four basic elements by putting together two, three, or all four types; presumably my power would allow something similar, eventually. I'd experimented with the possibilities of using two Elements and it had opened up a range of possibilities, some more useful than others. Of the ones I'd gotten practice with, thoughI think I liked this one the best.

I fired as I exhaled and now that I was looking for it, I felt my dad's reaction, a sudden shift in the airbut this wasn't fire or lightning anymore. I didn't even have a name for it yet, though mostly because I hadn't been able to decide on a good one for the effect yet. But when it hit my father's throne, it made things move, exciting them on a very, very small level as their energy was raised higher and higher. I saw my father rise, perhaps sensing it on some level, but

The throne exploded, flinging my father away. I was after him the moment I'd seen him move, flying through the air with Levant and Suryasta's aid even as my father stopped his fall abruptly, staggering against empty space. I didn't give a chance to recover, knowing I couldn't afford to, but instead rammed into him with all the force I could muster, hurling us both towards the ground. I grabbed at him with my four arms, trying to get a firm hold, but he grabbed my face in a massive hand and turned at the last moment, driving my face into the broken pavement. I didn't stop, though, tails rising to circle his throat as my soul-self rose from my body, trying to push him away even as it attacked.

It worked for a moment as he let go of my face to defend against Aura claws, but then he turned, hammer flying to his hand, and smashed it hard into the White Tiger. I tried to push myself up, to get away, but he took a step forward and stomped hard on my chest, driving me into the asphalt like it was fresh mud before heaving his hammer high and bringing it down with a mighty roaronly to stop on a dime inches in from of my face. Even so, the already broken road shattered around me, pulverized under the sheer force of the aborted stroke.

Then, he clicked the hammer's head against my adamant forehead.

"Dink," He said. "I win."

I smiled at him and nodded.

"Yeah," I said. "I still got you a few times, though. Got you out of your chair, too."

"You did," He agreed, returning my grin as he stepped away and offered me a hand up.

"So?" I asked, taking it. "Am I ready?"

He put a hand on my head, ruffling my hair hard enough to make my brain shake in its case.

"Yeah, kid; you're more than ready," He answered. "Let's go talk to Oz about you coming along on some missions with me."