A/N Hey guys it been a while. I've been super busy with school and the works. I also wanted to take a moment and answer all the review questions. If you have a question you want to ask or even a suggestion feel free to leave a review.

Ddragon21- There are lots more Grimm variation to come. The Grimm we see in the show are only what we see from Ruby's perspective and she doesn't travel much. I imagine there are probably 50 more types at least and they probably get deadlier by the minute as you leave populated hunter protected areas.

Also about David getting a special attack. Eventually. But special attacks are the type of thing you see a max level character have. Sure hes going to have preferences for a while and right now its high speed combat but eventually he'll switch into other things and I hope it comes across as fun.

I also wanted to note speed. I decided basically to have 'normal' trained warrior speed(before aura) be what a base hunter with aura would have. That means with David learning all these speed techniques he has to be really really fast otherwise it wouldn't be as fun for myself to write.

Also you mentioned barriers/instant dungeons for training like from The Gamer. I'm heavily on the fence about it. I want all the Gamer guru stuff to fit RWBY lore and to make that happen... *shrug*

This means Ruby is going to be wicked fast. How fast? Dunno yet. But her semblance is speed and that means as fast as she darn well wants.

kadehex Yep he isn't going to use the gun on his sword ever. Maybe. Probably not I mean it might come up one day... But in the mean time no new sword unless he starts crafting and i'm not sure if or when he'll do that... Or maybe a sword will drop from a boss Grimm some day? It's in my plans if he ever fights Grimm again...

Gostrow Thanks! I try to do high speed combat and make it intense. Its probably what I enjoy most about writing this fanfiction.

and another general thank you to all my other reviewers!

On a final note a big Thank You to Furybolt for helping be my Beta for this chapter. He had a bunch of great ideas to make the formatting better and I think it improved the readability a good bit!

Also I uploaded the wrong version the first time- woops.. This is now the right version.


Chapter 9 Game Changer


Chapter 9 Game Changer

After the fight was finished I left the arena and collapsed on the bench outside to rest.

Even if my HP/MP said full, my body will still get tired like a regular person. The gamer aspect causes a strange blend between feeling fit but also feeling weary.

It was only a short while before I felt something poking my side. I looked up to see a grinning Serena staring at me poking me with her sword hilt.

"What" I grumbled.

"You looked so peaceful there I had to wake you up."

I felt a vein bulge and huffed.

"I take it your good mood meant you won?"

"Of Course." She responded still grinning

"Still why are you THAT excited?" I responded pointing a finger at her

"Cause it was the guy who had mocked me the first day we arrived and said I'd never beat him in a million years. It felt so darn good to make him eat those words."

I made a mental note to never ever get on Serena's grudge list since she apparently holds those suckers hard.

"Well, it seems the third round won't be for several hours," Serena stated as a matter of fact.

"It seems all the fights besides us blew up parts of the arena. They are working on repairing them so the tournament can continue."

"Hmm… I think I left a pretty decent hole in the wall at our arena too. Still shouldn't take that long to fix it." I mused.

"Well… My fight left the arena intact, But my opponent… I played with him for over twenty minutes striking places that his aura was covering poorly and made sure he would remember me tomorrow. It was the least I could do in exchange for his cruel words."

I shivered slightly at the mental torture she had just inflicted on that student.

"Well at least on the bright side I can go back to sleep," I stated as I laid back down.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? This is a public space after all." She stated.

"Meh, it is probably fine."

Serena simply stared at him like he was an idiot. "You realize you just beat The Craven of The Craven Fan Club into the ground and they are going to want some payback right?"

I looked up at her. Frowned deeply "No… I did not realize that. Why is he so popular?"

"You really have no idea who Craven is?"

"All I know is he is James Ironwoods son."

"Well, Craven is super popular in the school. Not only is he James Ironwood's son, but he is also very powerful as a hunter, he has also been featured on several magazines in the city and is also the favorite to win the tournament."

I whistled loudly "Ok I guess that makes me the favorite to win now?"

"Not technically because of this being the preliminary rounds I hear that the headmaster often forces his son to hold back quite a bit in his fights. I doubt you have seen his best abilities yet."

"Seriously? What else could he possibly have?"

Serena shrugged and started to walk away. "You comin?" She called over her shoulder.

"Ya, I'm comin." I grudgingly walked after her. I really did not want to deal with crazy fan club members.

Serena and I swiftly returned to our room to sleep. The moment I hit the room I was on the bed asleep but not before activating Field. Leaving skills on while I slept was something new I'd managed to gain as a skill after many repeated attempts. I got the idea from some fantasy books I had read and figured with my semblance, in theory, it should allow me to leave skills on while I slept.

After probably an hour something very bad happened and Field immediately woke me up. The skill called 'Sleep Readiness' basically prioritizes information and if anything is dangerous it immediately wakes me up. It is a passive skill and technically does this even if I do not sleep, but Field naturally amplifies 'Sleep Readiness' abilities in a harmonious nature.

In this case, the reason it woke me was because a canister shaped object that seemed like a grenade rolled through the door with no pin inside it. Naturally that meant it was going to explode. A massive amount of adrenaline shot through my system and my eyes popped open.

My skill told me what was happening and I immediately activated my aura and dived at Serena as I flipped my bed into a makeshift shield. I figured any moron would count before rolling a grenade into the room and trying to pick it up would be about as smart as placing my hand into a blast furnace. At this point around a second had passed.

I grabbed Serena scooping her with one arm. Then I flash stepped out the window. Now the dorm building we are in is actually several stories and we are on the fifth floor. Thankfully Serena was awake by this point as I did not exactly have a fabulous landing strategy for us both. She was probably about to scream what the heck was I doing but then our room exploded. Shards of glass flew outwards at us and then suddenly I found us on the ground and Serena was breathing hard.

"Well, that's one way to land," I said cheerfully as if we hadn't nearly been blown up by a grenade.

"What was that!?"

"All I know is one moment I was sleeping the next my abilities woke me up because a grenade was in our room without a pin in it."

"How did it even get there!?"

"Maybe we should ask them?" I gestured up at our now burning room and saw two people looking out. "Somehow I do not think their motives are peaceful."

Serena gave me an 'are you serious look' and vanished. I saw her up there attacking those people and I used flash step to leap to my room.

The flames had already been put out by the fire suppression system and the attackers were trying to hit Serena who had somehow obtained her sword by this point and was brutally attacking them. Blood was flying. I wasn't too worried since their levels were all between 70 and 120 and there was only six of them. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to check their semblances otherwise I would have known the fires hadn't gone out naturally. I learned that when the weakest one released forth the most intense burst of flames I had ever felt. I quickly flash striked out of the flames and watched my abilities secondary benefit, the mobile ranged attack, slam the pyromancer in the face. Apparently his aura couldn't handle it and his nose seemed to cave in.

His buddy to his right yelled in anguish or rage I wasn't really sure which and charged me. I dodged a punch which looked pretty nasty as he wore some mean looking gauntlets and nimbly rolled right. I grabbed my sword that I located through 'Field' as I completed my roll. Then the level 120 took a swipe at me with his weapon as I recovered. He used a mace weapon and I deflected it with my sword hilt while I sliced his chest. With all my stacking attack skills, it penetrated his aura and cut him cleanly. He dropped like a rock, but I didn't have time to celebrate as the flame user renewed his assault and supported his gauntlet wielding friend. The fire unintentionally struck all my school books that had somehow survived the grenades and I saw red. all that lost money…

"You Fiend! I screamed," Then I vanished in another flash strike. The ranged attack struck the gauntlet wielder across the back and I saw blood spurt. The movement brought my sword through the fire user as I passed him. He went down pretty hard as I saw blood seeping from his side wound. The gauntlet user was about to reach his feet again when I flash stepped over to him and stabbed him in both legs. His aura defense was crud because I barely felt it repel my sword before I penetrated. I then knocked him out cold.

By the time I was finished, Serena had finished her three as well. I took a deep breath and looked around. The room was clearly uninhabitable now. Basically everything had been destroyed. I did manage to salvage my scroll but Serena's was not recoverable. At this point, I was getting angry again.

"Seriously?! It's been three minutes since the explosion where are the stupid moron teachers that should be keeping better tabs on their serial killer students!?" I raged

Serena just shrugged and looked depressed. I went over to the still open door and looked out. A few students were still around and had watched the fight, but they left when I came out. I made sure to memorize the names in case it became important later…

"Freaking cowards!" I called at them as they left. Then I called the headmaster's office on my scroll and explained what had happened. The secretary hung up on me as she laughed. I called her back. When she picked up I directed the scrolls video towards the bleeding students and the black room and kicked one. I was still running quite hot and being hung up on didn't help me calm down.

"What did you do?!" The secretary screamed.

"I already freaking told you! Get the headmaster if you are too stupid to do anything!' I shouted back turning the screen around to me as I glared at her. She hung up again and I couldn't reach their office anymore. I hoped that was a good thing…

A few minutes later I heard footsteps sprinting down the hall. During the time I had waited, I bandaged the still bleeding students so they wouldn't die on me. The last thing I wanted was a murder investigation. I walked out of the door to greet them and saw a few teachers. I greeted them openly until one of them did something and appeared in front of me and popped me in the chin hard enough that I was heavily dazed. The daze was quickly lessened thanks to my semblance, but it still cost me at least a second of awareness. During this time I was punched in the gut so hard, I felt my mouth fill with blood and I slumped forward. All the damage was quickly removed as my HP bar drained and I activated my aura. Then I felt an iron force clamp down on myself and I collapsed to the ground. I was covered in some sort of iron bindings.

"What are you doi-!" Serena was asking until she was similarly dispatched except her chin shot cleanly knocked her out.

"What are you doing?! We never even attacked you! We were the ones attacked!" I shouted angrily.

"Silence!" a man with the name Arnold floating over his head shouted. "We received the report directly from the headmaster's office that a student had attacked and nearly killed several other students."

"What?! I called them because no one was coming after someone BLEW UP OUR ROOM! We fought them for several minutes and no one STILL came!" I rebutted.

At this point, my mouth was firmly covered by some sort of iron plate. This did not stop me from glaring at him intensely. The remaining teachers quickly took the hurt students away and then escorted us through the school to the headmasters office.

The headmaster was not there yet. Therefore, they placed us in the room and only one teacher, Arnold, remained. After a while, another teacher arrived with the handcuffs that blocked semblances and aura. He placed it on us and it was like a clamp was placed over my body. Interestingly a ding appeared indicating a status effect debuff that said it reduces aura skills effectiveness by 75%. By this point, Serena awoke with some… Creative language and was promptly silenced with iron over the mouth like myself. And so we waited about an hour later James Ironwood walked in.

-Defender of Atlas-
James Ironwood
Level ?

Naturally I was relieved. If anyone could sort this out he would and if he wouldn't I would break these handcuffs and get me and Serena out of here somehow…

"Well, this was not how I wanted my day to end. When I imagined returning to my office after that horrendous meeting that discussed the details for the tournament I did not imagine coming back to find the man who defeated my son had assaulted six other students."

Then I mumbled something back still gagged.

"Oh yes. Arnold release their restraints please."

Arnold immediately did so and I was able to speak.

"Wait. You think we assaulted them!? They attacked us! It was our room!" I stated angrily

"That's not what they said. They said that you had made a large explosion sound and when they came to investigate you attacked them viciously. Their pyromancer ended up burning the room with his fires creating all the black we see after you caved his nose in."

I just sat there with my mouth hanging open. We had completely defended ourselves and they were still trying to frame us even now?

"That is not true," I stated. I then told the sequence of events from my perspective and informed him of exactly what happened. His face remained impassive the whole time and did not interrupt me.

After I was finished he responded "Well considering how neither of you is wearing combat attire I would assume that you were not planning to lure them as they suggested. However, despite this I cannot prove either story as the dorm was strangely void of witnesses."

I then gave him the names of those I saw watching and he said he would have one of the teachers look into it. It didn't take long to talk to them via scroll and they claimed they were nowhere near my room at the time. This was shaping up to be a masterful assassination attempt… Even more interestingly the cameras in the hallways were somehow blotted out during the attack.

At this James said, "Since the cameras were disabled it is quite clear now that a semblance was at work. Apparently it merely affected hallways in specific sequences and that seems to indicate movement. To be honest, there are many students with semblances who can block security cameras and it would be challenging to find the culprit. "

Before I could respond his secretary entered and told him he had a phone call that was urgent.

"I'll return shortly," He said and then departed.

Serena and I discussed our options for a while and we really just waited. Just as my patience was about to run out James finally returned.

"Well, all charges have been dropped by the families."

"...Why would they drop charges for attacking us? What if I want to press charges against them?" I asked

"I wouldn't do that… Those families are quite powerful and the only reason they dropped it in the first place is because I assured them that you would be removed from the school. Arnold, can you leave us now?"

Arnold nodded and then left the room.

"What's this about?" I asked.

"I discovered just now after a call from Serena's father, that the parents of those families had just lost a bit of money in a financial transaction because of him. Apparently he got one up on them and they were not pleased. Naturally I called them and mentioned that based on this and the circumstantial nature of events pressing charges would be disastrous and would force many things to light. Sadly they were quite adamant and I decided to compromise if I had both of you removed from the school. They readily agreed to this and here we are."

I just stared at him in disbelief. He had basically just sided completely with them and screwed us.

"However I only agreed because I do not believe it is safe in Atlas for either of you anymore. Apparently your heritage has come to light David and they were trying to have you removed just as much as Serena for being her father's daughter. I also have noticed some… Less than desirable qualities from some of my teachers that allowed their plan to come to pass. It has brought to light many things I have to work on in order to resolve this problem. My plan, therefore, is to have both of you sent to Vale. My friend is running the Academy, Beacon, there called Ozpin. You will be able to live there and train to become Hunters and Huntresses and then return after you graduate if you still wish to do so. This is the best I can do to ensure your safety at this time."

Part of me wanted to say no and stay here. Then the next group that attacked me I would end permanently and then see how those 'families' like it. But I knew that the moment I killed a student that was it for me. Completely regardless of the situation I would probably be thrown out or worse jailed.

"What about the rest of my team?" I asked solemnly

"I would recommend they also go to vale… Being affiliated with you will do them no favors and they won't even have a proper team for backup until next year. Besides you will need a team once you reach Beacon."

I nodded sagely. It would be best to have them along since we could maintain our previous training and wouldn't have to start over. But ultimately the decision rests with them.

"That is probably for the best." I agreed.

"Gather whatever remains of your things and otherwise group with your team and purchase what you require for the trip. Talk with Aaron and Jon and let me know if they are onboard with going to Beacon. Officially you would all be exchange students at beacon."

The only issue I saw is that if we are exchange students what about the Vytal festival? I still wanted to compete in it and I would hate for this to prevent that.

"Can we still compete in the Vytal festival for Beacon even if we are exchange students?" I queried

"Of course!" He confirmed "Your regular Beacon students with the 'exchange' label."

With that worry resolved. I couldn't think of anything else that was wrong besides the whole we were nearly assassinated earlier today bit.

"Thank you so much. If you hadn't come up with a solution here I'm not really sure what I would have been forced to do because I certainly wasn't going to jail for self-defense…"

He laughed a bit at that "Are you saying you thought you could have escaped from full-fledged hunters?"

"Naturally" I replied, "I'm a long distance speed type and Serena's a teleporter. Unless you have someone fast on hand I'm confident our running skills are up to the task."

"I see" he replied, "Yes most of my teachers have confinement and destruction based semblances. We do have quite the fast teacher with a speed semblance though. He would probably give you a run for your money."

"I'll race him the next time I come back then. I plan on being the fastest I can possibly be despite not having a speed semblance."

I wasn't mentioning the fact that my semblance lets me combine strength and speed in ways only masters could and that it was undoubtedly quite unfair to compare me with one particular type of hunter exclusively. Although Craven basically had me beat on all fronts until I managed to develop 'Flash Strike' mid-fight. So maybe I am not that unusual after all.

"Thank you again and I hope to see you at the Festival," I said.

"Of course. I will be there. I represent Atlas at the Festival after all."

After that, we briefly discussed minor details and he gave us the necessary paperwork. He also assisted with getting a new scroll for Serena which was a huge relief since Atlas uses them for everything.

"I wish you luck at the Festival. While I will always be rooting for my son foremost, I wish you could also prove that you are fine Hunters and Huntresses at the Festival and make the Atlas families regret this decision."

After that I thanked him again and off we went. Aaron and Jon had been training at the facility this whole time. Serena and I explained what had happened to us and they were both in complete shock and thought we were pulling a prank.

So we showed them the room. Their jaws dropped and well, they cried. Their precious 'picture books' were completely lost. After that, they were happy to listen and I explained what had happened to us and what the results were.

"So.," Jon said "Beacon eh? Might be fun. Certainly safer and we'd actually have a team name and a real shot at going somewhere. The whole lack of proper instruction here has been grating on my nerves for ages."

Besides that fact, that might have been the most Jon had ever spoken in our presence I was slightly shocked how well they were taking this.

"Soooo. Beacon? Well, we were going there anyways! Now it's just much sooner!" David piped in cheerfully.

"Thanks, guys… I know this is largely my fault or rather my family's fault, but I really appreciate that you all are willing to simply uproot and move." Serena stated sincerely

"Don't mention it" Aaron responded "We had a bad deal here anyways and it's largely David's fault for beating Craven as well. Not like there's anything left in this room to uproot either. Besides I couldn't get a single girl to look my way here! I'm hoping for much better at beacon."

The rest of us looked at him dryly and pretended he didn't exist as we discussed our plans and looked for what could be salvaged. Which was unsurprisingly very little. Thus shopping we went!

It took us awhile since we basically had to repurchase our entire wardrobe and other essentials. Serena apparently utilized her semblance to maximum effect here as she was teleporting from store to store. We didn't even try to keep up. After we were finished we returned to the Academy and the headmaster had prepared a temporary room for us. The plan was to leave on the soonest boat to vale in two days.

The two days passed slowly. We didn't train and we didn't split up or attend classes. I figured after everything the school owed me and I raided the library taking all the copies of books they could easily replace.

I decided to test if my semblance would allow my allies to learn from skill books just by being partied with myself and it turned out to be true. Apparently while partied my semblance affected them a fair bit. There wasn't much they were interested in learning except the base swiftness skills that they had no knowledge of. Flesh step wasn't useful for Serena and the twins didn't think it fit their style.

After that, the remaining time passed swiftly until we were on the boat. I had already contacted my mom and everyone else likewise had informed their parents. Everyone was perfectly fine with it especially since Beacon was a prestigious school and going there only increased our chances. I knew we had a long journey ahead of us. It takes roughly three days to reach vale using this boat and despite knowing the safer routes sometimes the Grimm attack anyways. That is why a hunter or several always on a boat depending on the route being taken.


Well that's it! Thanks for reading! Be sure to review! The more reviews the more motivated it makes me to write faster.