[fieldbox= Windia Milkyway, Turquoise, solid]
Windia didn't realize how much time had passed by ever since she began conversing with Duke. She was thoroughly pleased when she heard Duke's main motivation to become a Huntsman and she even giggled a bit when he commented how sappy both of them were. Looks like the ruffian was performing a preemptive strike when it came to triggering her flags, although the Rook still had a long way to go before she could say that he had successfully managed to enter her route.
She honestly didn't expect someone like Duke to have family as his main motivation to take up this path but it was quite understandable. In fact, she was starting to see him in a better light after their exchange of words. Looks like his ruffian exterior was only a front and she had to admit that she had been judging the Drayce folk like one would judge a book by its cover.
"Family and those important to you huh. I guess that's part of my motivation too. You could say my current dream is the result of seeing my family's hardships and struggles at both Terra and Nysa." She replied in a slightly more melancholic tone.
No amount of gratitude would be enough to express how much Windia had been thankful to her parents for adopting her instead of leaving her to die in that conflict. That's why she wanted to create a world where Faunus and Humans can co-exist with one another without any discrimination and inequality.
Suddenly, several speakers blared up along with the appearance of a certain glasses-wearing, orange-haired man through multiple holographic projections all throughout the ship. By the way he stood, and how he was neatly dressed, Windia already had an idea who this guy was way before he introduced himself.
Apparently, Windia's hunch was correct, as the ginger introduced himself as Solomon Oran, the Headmaster of Eden Academy. And apparently, he just made it to the top 5 of her favorite persons list. After loosely explaining how all the students would arrive at the academy, form teams, and meet their partners, everyone around her started dropping like flies... quite literally so.
These people were the lucky ones since they were thoroughly briefed of the head honcho's little surprise. As for Ael, well she couldn't help but snicker when she realized one of the first screams she heard belong to him. Then, she burst out laughing when Duke tried to get another word out to her only to plunge straight down to the ground below. It reminded her of those goofy cartoons she used to watch with her siblings as a kid. Even after it was her turn to experience "Plan B", she could still feel herself gasping for air as she laughed hysterically.
By the time, she had gotten over what happened to Duke, only a several hundred feet of air separated her from the ground. Despite this, a grin could be seen on her face as she calmly aimed Zephyrus at a particularly large tree. Once she saw a suitable target, she fired a Grappling Bolt, which subsequently impaled itself into one of the large branches of the tree. Then, by pulling the trigger again, a whirring motion could be heard emanating from her crossbow as it reeled itself, along with its white-haired owner towards the tree's branch. Due to the rapid speed of her descent, coupled by the forced acceleration towards the tree's branch, she ended up swinging vertically multiple times at said branch as the hook's cable entangled itself around the branch before finally landing on top of it.
"Nailed it! Kukuku."
Since she didn't use her semblance at all to stick that landing, she had an even more triumphant look on her face. Ael probably wouldn't believe her when she tells him about this since that stubborn blonde was so fixated with the idea that she'll just float like a butterfly to safety using her semblance. Of course she wouldn't! That was the boring, and easy way one would only use for emergencies. Where's the fun and excitement in that? She'd much rather do the method she performed just now if she could help it.
After retrieving her Grappling Bolt, she noticed an oddly placed coat hanging off the same tree branch she landed on. Oddly still, she saw a swan at a lower branch of a different tree, seemingly gesturing towards said ribbon coat. Could that coat belong to that swan, perhaps? That was strange. It's the first time she's ever encountered a swan who wore clothing before... After connecting this and that together, Windia finally realized that the swan must have been one of the students who somehow transformed into a swan to avoid being flattened like a pancake.
With a swift motion, she snatched the coat from the branch and gracefully hopped down towards the swan. While she was in midair, she saw one particular blonde girl on the forest floor while another girl was scaling the tree from below as she approach the swan curiously. She remembered these two to be the tumbling duo from before. After landing on the branch, with coat in hand, she scrutinized the swan carefully before sighing in resignation and handing the coat over.
"Under different circumstances, I'd be curious what you'd look like without this coat. But I guess Principal Ginger just dropped us into No Man's Land so this counts as a survival situation now. Well, no matter. Since we're partners from now on, I'll have plenty of chances to peek at you from under your coat. Fufufu." Windia said to Liliya with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
"Relax! I'm kidding. I don't swing both ways, the last time I checked. See, I've already got this plan to create a reverse harem after all. Anyways, my name's Windia, and I guess we'll be partners from now on." Windia said reassuringly to the two she beamed at them.
"I guess you already have a partner huh? The funny blonde down there, I presume?" She asked Teanna with an inquisitive look on her face.
Afterwards, she addressed the swan again.
"Now I hope you're a fellow student, and not a legitimate swan. Cause I think I'll be screwed if my partner for the next four years is a real swan. Not that I have anything against real swans, but I simply don't know how a swan would help me when a Beowulf's trying to bite my bum." Liliya and Teanna could see Windia starting to panic now as she contemplated the pro's and cons of having a migratory bird as a partner.
"You can transform back to human form now. I won't peek. Promise!. Though I suggest you make it quick. We still have to rendezvous with other students after all. The more people we have, the safer we are from the Grimm. " She said in a more urgent voice as she turned away from the swan and faced Teanna again.
"And I assume you'll be coming with us as well. It's better to stick together in times like this and the more the merrier, right?" Widnia tried to sound more upbeat but her worried look betrayed what she had just said.
Liliya and the others could hear Windia murmuring the phrase
"Please be a student."repeatedly until Liliya managed to transform back into human form.
@C.T. @Gummi Bunnies
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[fieldbox= Aelius Cedomir, Gold, solid]
Ael's day started on a high note. As usual, he was already up and about by the crack of dawn and was eager to socialize with his peers once again. However, the Headmaster must have also gotten this accursed semblance of his, or a really effective alarm clock as he seemed to be already in working condition even before Ael had shook of the last traces of sleepiness from his eyes.
He had just gotten his hands on Solstice when he heard the headmaster explaining something about already arriving at the academy, woodlands surrounding it as a defense system, and that most people wouldn't even think of venturing within those woods but the students would be doing just that.
Dread already filled Ael as he connected the dots in the Headmaster's statement. And just when he realized what was about to happen, it happened.
"OH SHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTT!"
Most people on board probably heard his terrified screams as he began free falling towards the forestland below, Worse of all, neither his weapon nor semblance would help at all to soften his fall so it looks like he's going in hot.
"I could try cushioning the fall with my semblance... but I'll most likely be out cold by the time evening ar--" His thoughts were interrupted when a sudden black avian-like figure suddenly appeared, flying below him. He was falling way too fast to correct his trajectory so all he could do was brace for impact.
(Skip to 8 seconds for this vid placement to make sense)
Upon landing on the bird, he realized it was no ordinary bird, but a juvenile Nevermore instead. Both of them were falling now though Ael miraculously managed to stay on its back as it thrashed about and flapped its wings to regain altitude. Once he decided that a crash would be necessary to bring him down to sweet solid ground, Ael gripped his sword tightly and embedded the blade just behind the bird grimm's skull where it should have connected with the spine. It was the fastest way to kill it, after all and it seemed to be effective as he felt himself falling once again.
This time, he was towards in a heavily forested area, but unlike a while ago, he was now at a lower, safer altitude, and he has a partially disintegrating Grimm carcass to soften his blow. Or so he thought. Before he could hit any of the trees, the Nevermore's body fully vaporized and there was now nothing to protect him from the impending collision with the tree.
"OH FUCCCCK ITTTT!"
Tblonde knight's body began emanating a golden glow which snaked it way until it covered his sword. Then, when the first tree loomed in front of him, he swung his sword with all his might in order to cut through it. Fortunately, his semblance-aided strike was enough to cut through it cleanly like butter. Unfortunately, about half a dozen more trees lie in ambush in front of him.
Slash, strike, cut.
Ael repeated those three actions in an almost mechanical fashion as he smoothly got through every trunk that got on his way, and consequently turning them to oddly cut timber. He was now only less than a hundred feet from the ground when a gigantic tree appeared all of a sudden as he cut the 5th one down. There was simply no way he'd be able to cut through that tree without exhausting all of his aura, so he instead improvised. He had planned to originally perform a roll once he reaches a clearing in order to transfer the momentum from his fall. Now, all he could do was to embed his sword into the giant tree's trunk and slide down from it as Solstice slowly cut the tree in a lengthwise fashion.
The young knight practically began kissing the ground as soon as his boots touched the forest floor though mother nature probably hates him now after he cut down all those trees to break his fall. A loud crash could be heard coming from behind him as the trees he cut down fell to the ground in an almost simultaneous fashion the moment he hit the ground. Dismissing the fact that he couldn't believe he survived that fall when the odds were stacked against him. Before anything else, however, he deactivated his Semblance in order to conserve his Aura.
"I guess I have to thank Ingram for throwing me off a mountain all the time. That crazy old man's finally making sense now when he said it was a "necessary part of training." He mused.
After checking to make sure he was alright, he began scanning his surroundings. Lush, dense trees covered his surroundings as far as the eye could see. Immediately, he realized something was fundamentally wrong. This was supposed to be a forest filled with animals... and yet the entire forest seems to be devoid of animal life as his surroundings were eerily quiet. Though that didn't last for long. Like a knife, howls and growls near him cut through the deafening silence.
He remembered what the headmaster had said. This forest was supposed to be filled to the brim with the creatures of Grimm. And it looks like he landed in a particularly bad location. Great.
"Just my luck, I guess."
Strangely, the growls and howls seem to not get any closer to his location. If he had to make a guess, the Grimm found an unfortunate student to gang up on. His legs instinctively began moving to the source of the howls until he came across the girl talking with the masked guy from before surrounded by several Beowulves. She was getting ready to fight those in front of her, seemingly failing to notice that one particular Beowulf had snuck up on her blind side.
As it tried to pounce on her from behind, Ael intercepted the wolf grimm in midair with his sword, cleanly cutting through it until its remains vaporized.
"Hey, I don't suppose you've already gotten a partner, right?" Ael asked Hazel as he defended from any attacks coming from her rear. .
"Because if you already have, that person's quite rude to leave you to fend for yourself like this."
"In any case, I hope you don't mind me helping you in this pinch you've gotten yourself into. Us Hunters need to watch each other's backs, right?"
The knight assumed a defensive stance after saying those words. As he gripped Solstice tightly with one hand, he awaited either Hazel's response or the Beowulves' attack. Whichever came first.
@york @Minerva @Schnee Corp Lawyer
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