Chapter 202: Spying

Chapter 202: Spying

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.

Spying

Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one!

By raising Aureola to level 99, you have gained the skill 'Aurora.'

By raising Gungnir to level 99, you have gained the skill 'Longinus.'

By raising Karna to level 99, you have gained the skill 'Surya.'

Approximately seventeen minutes later, I was panting and out of breath. My form dimmed, flesh quickly growing into place over it as I fell to a knee for the eighth time. The exhaustion was a side effect of Sahasrara, one of what I considered to be 'hidden' costs. While the use of the skill technically required nothing more than a shift of HP to MP, I couldn't hold it for more than a short period of time without collapsing. Besides my HP and MP bars, I'd always known I had an invisible stamina bar, which I could refill in various ways; I'd figured that Sahasrara simply drew from that so extensively that I'd collapsed the moment I first opened my Chakras.

Butif that was the case, now that I'd improved enough to maintain it for more than a moment, there should have been no problem maintaining it indefinitely. Saying it that way sounded a bit weird, admittedly, but I could restore my Stamina by healing myself, so unless the cost was truly ludicrous, I should have been fine.

Yet here I was, on my knees again, despite healing myself constantly. Was the cost just that enormous? Or was it drawing from something else? Given the nature of the skill, it wouldn't surprise me if it was drawing from my Soul in some fashion, but I couldn't be sure.

"It's rare to see you looking worn out, Jaune," Adam noted casually, as if he wasn't standing guard over me as I tried to catch my breath. I'd pretty thoroughly cleared the area around us of Grimm, but I appreciated it anyway; as the Humbaba had proven, one of the more powerful creatures of Grimm could drop in on us at any time. My HP and MP returned as quickly as ever, butwell, I'd just as soon not be caught defenseless.

"You try being an angel," I replied. "It's not as easy as I make it look."

"Is that so?" Adam asked skeptically. "Because it looked to me like you were just shooting things in the face, same as you always do."

Beneath the words, I could hear a touch of honest concern. Because our levels were close to one another, he had been able to see what had happened to my HPand he was right, I was just massacring Grimm, if on a somewhat larger scale than normal. I made a point of not exhausting myself during our normal training, so seeing me like this must have been rather odd.

I gave him a tired smile, doing my best to make it look reassuring.

"I suppose it would look that way to you," I told him, a bit too tired to both making my voice smug. "But in case the million eyes and mouths didn't give it away, I'm trying something new."

Adam snorted.

"Whatever you say," He answered. "I was going to offer to let you be my wingman the next time we went to a bar, but since you can't keep it up for more than a minute or two, you'd just embarrass me."

"Puns and sex jokes?" I asked. "Really? Adam, you're a bull Faunus who uses a style specializing in quick draws and who's Semblance involves gathering energy to release in a sudden burst or to wrap around your sword in a protective coating. Do you really want to get into this kind of fight with me? Think about it."

He winced and laughed, raising a hand.

"Not too tired to be a smarmy dick, I see," He noted. "You should be fine then."

This time, I snorted, rolling my eyes at him.

"Like I said, I'm working on something new," I replied. "It's harder to maintain then I would have liked, but I'm making progress."

"Anything I should know about?" He asked.

"It's soul-based metaphysics again," I answered.

"Ah," He said. "Boring shit. Never mind, then."

I smiled at that, glancing up at him as I took another breath and straightened. Breathing itself didn't actually help me recover, but since I could use it to meditate, it seemed to smooth things along when I tired myself out. I was just glad the wait wasn't too bad.

"There's some stuff I'm hoping will serve as a trump card," I continued. "I'll tell you if anything comes of it, but we've got work to do now. Raven?"

"Oh, are you two done?" She asked, casting us an amused glance. Impressively, she didn't seem to have too much difficulty fighting while her mind was elsewhere, which had allowed her to keep watch over Cinder even as we continued to grind.

More interesting, however, were the words that had appeared above her head.

Memories of the World Tree

LV 174

Raven Branwen

Now that our levels were close enough to one another, I was able to see her titleand, more usefully, Observe her status. I trusted Raven enough that I can't say I was too concerned, especially as I'd been seeing her so much lately had hadn't pinged to anything, but I checked her overnonetheless, making sure she didn't have any unfortunate status effects or anything like that. I skimmed the rest of her profile in the process and her stats and skills were as impressive as I'd figured they would be. I politely turned a blind eye to the background section of her profile, giving her privacy. I was pretty sure I knew or could piece together most of it, but she was a friend and it was her story to tell.

"My apologies for keeping you waiting," I replied politely, moving to her side. "I simply wanted to make the most of what time we had together."

She huffed out a very slight laugh at that before raising a hand.Follow current novels at novelhall.com)

"Shall we withdraw for now, then?" She asked. "If you wish to keep an eye on Cinder, it might be better to be a bit closer, no?"

I paused for a moment to consider thatbut no, this was something that demanded my full attention. If something went wrong, which had begun to seem like more of an inevitability than a possibility, I'd like to be close enough to do something about it, even if it cut into my training time. Besides, now that I was getting a slightly better handle on Sahasrara, there wasn't much of an issue in focusing on other forms of training for a little while.

"Please," I asked, inclining my head. A moment later, a portal whirled to life before us and Raven walked in, leaving the rest of us to follow. I peered through it, scanning the area around the exit portal just to be safe, before doing so and emerging on one of the snow-covered cliffs surrounding Atlas.

"Good fuck its cold," Adam swore as he crossed through behind me before turning his Aura inwards and using it to warm himself. "God, I hate this place."

Raven bobbed her head once in concession.

"You met her during the White Whale incident?" She guessed, to which I nodded. "I take it you didn't part on good terms, then."

"You'd be surprised," I answered. "Penny is remarkably good at taking things in stride. I ripped her arms and legs off though, yes."

Raven blinked at me again, turning to look at the image and then back at me.

"I put them back, of course," I said defensively. "I wasn't going to leave a little girl quadriplegic in the wilderness."

"You go on adventures that are odd even by my standards," Raven told me, shaking her head slightly.

"Fascinating as the fucked-up shit Jaune gets up to when he doesn't have adult supervision is," Adam cut in. "Am I the only one who thinks that a pair of military scientists and a super robot probably only have so many places they might be going at this hour? And that it might fuck with our shit?"

"Don't be silly, Adam," I replied, not at all miffed by his words. "You really think you'd be the first person in our group to notice something? You're literally the only person here who doesn't have superhuman senses."

"Rub it in, you smug piece of shit," Adam scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, I am," I said, holding out a finger. "This is me playing the world's smallest violin. You just can't see it because your eyes suck."

"Yeah, yeah," Adam muttered, rolling his eyes again. He stopped, however, when I made an illusion in front of my finger, showing the same space but quickly zooming in to show a tiny, tiny, tiny violin, with a bow drawing slowly across it. "Did you actually make a tiny violin?"

I shot him a flat look and stored it back in my Inventory.

"What do you think?" I asked him seriously.

Adam shook his head, trying and failing to hide his smile.

"How long have you been waiting to make that joke?" He asked.

"Three weeks," I admitted. "I've been saving it."

"Boys," Raven interrupted, giving us both a look. "The airship?"

I shrugged a shoulder.

"I think we all know where this is probably going," I answered. "It seems Cinder's not the only one headed to that base. Given that it's only the three of them, Cinder probably hasn't tripped any alarms yet, so there's that. At this hourif I had to guess, I'd say it has something to do with upgrading Penny."

"At the same base that they make the Paladins at?" Adam asked.

"It's probably the other way around," I told him. "The Paladins are more like Penny's backup dancersand she's gotten stronger since the last time I saw her."

A Real Girl

LV 113

Penny Polendina

Adam considered that for a moment.

"How strong is she?" He asked and I thought about it for a moment.

"You might be able to win against her in a fight," I said at last. "Your Semblance is a pretty good match for her, so long as you keep your distance. Her physical stats are fairly ridiculous."

He whistled, impressed. For all the shit I gave him, we both knew how skilled he was.

The Blood Prince

LV 119

Adam Taurus

"Assuming you're correct," Raven mused, bringing us back on track. "It's likely that they will notice Cinder's presence. There's quite a bit ofdifference between robbing an empty building and stealing something out from under the nose of the owner. If nothing else, it's likely they will respond very quickly to the theft."

I nodded and Adam sighed.

"A part of me really wants to just hang her out to dry," He muttered. "But I'm guessing that's not possible."

"It's possible," I answered. "We'd just regret it. If possible, I don't want to see how Cinder reacts when she's forced into a corner. She probably won't kill Ironwood, given how central he seems to be to her plans, but it's hard to say what she'll do to the other two. Best case scenario, she sees them before they see her and chooses to withdraw and then makes me do it for her. Worst casethe Professor might die and Penny might get kidnapped. Either way, I'd rather we just avoided it entirely."

"How do you propose we do that?" Raven asked.

This time, I sighed, looking up at the sky for a long moment before shrugging.

"I guess it can't be helped," I said. "I suppose I'll go distract them."

"What?" Raven wondered, blinking and turning my waybut I was already shifting into Naraka. In the city, the shells of airships began to fall from the air, but I Lunged forward heedless of them, angling my leap precisely. As I reached the apex of my climb, I halted myself abruptly in midair and waited for a beat, timing myself before exiting Naraka.

I reappeared inside of the airship, claimed the fourth seat as my own, and waited.