The Games We Play

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.

The entire right side of the hallway shattered at my father's blow, but I paid it no heed as my tails reached out again, piercing through the floor to gain hold and pull me down. I landed on all fours, aura extending into feline limbs to make it comfortable, and threw myself towards my father again.

"Tag," I snarled, aiming a punch at his center of mass. The block shattered the floor beneath him as I pushed him back, sending us both intoand throughthe kitchen wall. "Now you're it"

His fist slammed into my face with enough force that the nearest window shattered and I was suddenly in the middle of the street again, face sliding across asphalt before I slammed into a tree and knocked it over, tearing roots and dirt alike from the ground. I rolled off the trunk and shook my head once as the pain faded, hearing my father's voice in the distance.

"Back to you, Jaune." I heard through the collapsing rubble and laughed a little before jumping across the street. This time, I took a different approach, tossing myself through the second story window and running as quietly as I could to what used to be Bianca's room, jumping to the ceiling, and then hurling myself through the floor to attack my father from above.

"Tag" I shouted as I fell amidst the debris, ten limbs reachinguntil a hand reached up to grasp my by the scruff of my neck and altered my fall to hurl me down into the basement. I bounced up like it was nothing, ripping through the floor behind my father. "Ta"

This time it was his hammer that greeted me and I abruptly found myself about ten meters below the basement and had to take a moment to heal myself.

"The nail that stands up gets etcetera, etcetera." My dad said, jumping away as the kitchen floor finally gave out completely and fell on me. "You done warming up, Jaune? Getting kind of bored here."

I snorted and climbed out of my hole, shaking myself like a dog to get rid of the dirt.

"Just a sec, Dad!" I called back. "I didn't want to give you any sudden surprises, what with how old you're getting and all!"

"Very considerate, son," My dad answered back and I could hear the smile in his voice. "No need to worry about me. If I fall asleep, just wake me up if something interesting happens."

"Will do!" I smiled fiercely, palming a red crystal before slamming it against my chest. There was a sudden, fleeting feeling like I was burning, so intensely real that it nearly bowed me, but then I was rising into the house within a tiger made of pure flames. Everything I touchedeverything I came nearignited, such that as I dove down the hall towards my father, the entire corridor was consumed. I saw his eyes widen but it didn't stop him from raising his hammer as I drew near.

Our eyes met and I smiled.

And then I unleashed the full power contained within the crystal and blew the house down.

This time, it was my father who went bouncing across the street, crashing through Mrs. Periwinkle's house and out the other end. I followed just a step behind, staying close as my Aura returned to normalonly to shift again as I drew out a blue crystal. There was a sudden feeling like I was submerged and drowning, but when it faded I was running in a tiger of water. Whatever space I passed through was filled with it in my wake, moving with all the speed I was. And with how fast I movedthat was a lot of water moving very, very fast.

And all of it was bearing down on my father who could do nothing but raise his hand against the oncoming tide.

"T" I shoutedand abruptly stopped moving in midair as he curled his fingers.

I looked around and saw that the loose water had curled around my tiger form, shaping itself into a massive fist.

"Talk to the hand, son, because the face ain't listening," My dad said, pulling himself to his feet. He lifted his other hand and more water congealed into huge reflection of it. Without hesitating, he swung it at me, intent on smacking me away.

I faced it and snorted before leaning forward and swimming through the water fist holding me. The surface tension my father's will and water's incompressibility made like steel faltered when I set my mind against it, parting under the power of Dust. I didn't even feel the slap of his second hand as I swam through the suspended water and rushed for my father, shaping the water around me with only a little help from Xihai. In moments, I was swimming through a suspended stream, running as easily inside it as I did on the ground.

My father frowned at me and released his second hand, allowing the water composing it to collapse as rubble and shrapnel rose into the air in the shape of

I frowned at my father, who was smiling brightly as he lifted a giant flyswatter.

Then he knocked me through several buildings again. Two wooden houses, specifically, and then through one of brick. My flight was stopped by a tree again, though this one I snapped in half before rolling to a halt.

I shook my head and brushed the pain away as I heard the sound of rampant destruction in my father's general direction and looked up to find him standing on a platform of broken wood, water, and stone, the pieces coming together in the shape of a misshapen throne as he took a seat. Above and around him, what I was guessing was several houses worth of debris were in the process of reshaping themselves into dozens of different forms.

Putting an elbow on an armrest, my father rested a cheek against his fist and smiled down at me. His other hand was making slight circular motions as a roughly spherical shape composed mostly of metal put itself together above his fingers. And then, something began to rise around my father's throne in carefully controlled streams. It was almost like mist except colored like

I traced it back to the cylinder my father had removed from his back, which was all but spewing the many-colored mist.

Fuck.

"Just so you know, if you're gonna use Dust, I'm gonna use Dust," My father said as the powder flowed into the sphere and it completed itself before dropping into his hand. He flung it at me like a ball even as I went to dodge, but there was a sudden wave ofsomething as it abruptly exploded. It wasn't pressure or light or even anything in the way of heat, just an odd sensation like hot water cooling on my skin.

And then, all of a sudden, my dad's production began to accelerate, putting together objects with blinding speed as if time was moving faster around him.

No, I thought. That wasn't right.

It was just that time had been slowed around me.

It was hard to describe how it felt. For me, time didn't appear to be passing any differently within the sphere my father's bomb had createdbut I could feel the world outside it, still, thanks to my Elementals. And the sudden flood of information, the hastened motions of the wind, everythingit made me sure that I was the one moving slowly.

I wasn't entirely certain how that worked, exactly. I mean, I knew about my father's Semblance, of course, and how it lent itself well to the construction of complex thingsI wasn't sure if that was a part of the Semblance or a natural expression of it, but I'd heard enough stories to be aware either way. I even knew about my father's skill with machinery and explosives and hiswell, history using them.

But I'd never considered that he'd be able to make a literal time bomb.

Maybe I should have, in hindsight. My father's ability fell under the broad category of telekinesis, except that it only applied, at its most basic level, to small thingsbut the limit was 'size' not 'amount,' so it was possible for him to control many, many, many small things, which could add up to something very large that he could control piecemeal. When my sisters and I had been younger, our whole family would take trips to the beach and dad would always build massive and elaborate sand castles for us to play on, which he'd support and rearrange with his Semblance, so I knew how skilled he was in controlling particulate matter, too.

So of course he'd be able to use it to manipulate Dust powder, as well. Given the type of things he needed to fight on a regular basis, what else would he make bombs with? And if he could control the precise quantity and mixture of many different kinds of Dust and arrange it just rightand obviously he couldthen the only limits were the amount and type of Dust he had available and his imagination.

And with the powder form being by far the cheapest and easiest to use type of Dust

I smiled widely. I guess this was to be expected, from my fatherhe didn't get where he was today because of luck.

I continued my rush towards the wall of the sphere, flying towards it with all my speedbut it flickered out of existence before I even touched it. From my perspective, it had lasted less than a second.

But given that my father had already completed his work, I was guessing at least a minute or two had passed from the perspective of the rest of reality. Using either his Semblance or his sheer raw power, my father had torn apart most of the neighborhood, ripping buildings to shreds to provide himself with more materials. What hadn't already been put to use flew in cloaking clouds around him, hiding whatever else he must have been making. Dust and smoke, splinters and pebbles, all of it was carefully arranged or else being put to use building larger and larger things. Without my mom's support, the creations were rather rough looking and incomplete, but

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."

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