Inception Of A Grimm Soul - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

So, this isn't anything particularly special or anything and much like the adventures of Chad Ironwood, was something I worked on that kinda fell off and lost steam with. Basically, an AU of Grimm Souls covering Cobalt's time in Beacon, only this time he had a different semblance. Was basically made as a kind of branching timeline kind of thing, on how things could go vastly different just from the change of a semblance.

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Sword met mace in what probably felt like an epic clash to the fighters down on the arena.

"You're done for." Cardin Winchester sneered down at his opening, bit by bit overpowering the blonde he was facing, his large, crude mace pushing down on the simple, yet finely crafted blade it had impacted.

"Over my dead b-" Jaune Arc made to reply, as admirable as his resolve was, it was stupid, and the knee that caught him in the stomach winded him, allowing the mace to overpower his sword and slam him into the ground hard.

He groaned in pain as his white aura fizzled around his body, and up above the screen displaying both Cardin and Jaune's aura bars, the blonde's finally dipped into the red.

'Finally.' Cobalt resisted the urge to cheer out loud and only mentally applauded that it was finally over. This fight, even if it could only barely be called one, had went on for over five minutes. It should have been over in less than one, but Jaune Arc it seemed was born with a stupidly large amount of aura, to the point where a blow that would have taken nearly half of someone's bar of aura out, barely made a dent in his, and that was with his stupidly bad control over said aura.

Really, not that Winchester was much better as far as Cobalt was concerned. Arc seemed to be some un-trained pleb that got in on luck, probably through the combat test. But Winchester at least went to some hoity toity rich kid school, but even with that he was nearly as much of a weak pleb as Arc. He had decent reflexes, and decently above average physical strength, but he swung that mace around like a berserker, and relied on his expensive armour and above average aura to take any hits.

He was so shit even Arc had managed to dip his aura down by a quarter.

"Rah!" Cardin made to follow up and rushed the downed Arc, bringing his mace up above his head and Cobalt nearly rolled his eyes, the ginger boy was so slow he could have gotten up and danced around him when he was ten.

Just as his mace came down and Arc swung up his shield to cower behind it, the mace ricocheted off of thin air with a loud 'gong' like noise and Cardin stumbled backwards, his own strength reflected back at him.

"Now now, that's enough, Mr. Arc's aura is already in the red," Professor Goodwitch spoke up from where she was standing at the edge of the sparring ring, "The winner is Mr. Winchester."

'Her semblance is as overpowered as ever.' Cobalt noted drily. He might not actually be one to talk with how amazing his own semblance was, but really, Goodwitch's semblance could be purposed towards practically anything, and even he hadn't noticed her semblance being used there. It was absurdly powerful, absurdly versatile, and almost impossible to track without it already effecting something.

"It's been weeks now Mr. Arc, when will you learn to consult your scroll and gauge how much aura you have remaining?" Goodwitch admonished the blonde who had begun to spurt a chagrined expression, "We wouldn't want you to be gobbled up by a Beowolf now would we?"

Winchester snorted derisively, "Speak for yourself." he spat. He made no attempts to hide his dislike of the blonde, and neither did quite a few people in the crowd up in the bleachers, snorts and laughs abound.

Cobalt honestly didn't get what the big deal was, at least on that point. Sure, Arc was weak as shit and a shit fighter on top of that, but relying on a scroll to measure your aura? Now that was a hell of a crutch. Anyone worth their salt should be able to gauge how much aura they had left as they used it.

Not that he'd have to use his aura to kick around Either Winchester or Arc.

Cobalt tuned out most of what Professor Goodwitch said to Arc and Winchester both. Really, it was just basic bitch stuff that both of them should already know by this point, things he'd figured out as a child training himself.

Both were too up their own asses to listen to the advice though. Winchester, arrogant and stupid scoffed and walked off, ignoring the tightening of Goodwitch's green eyes in annoyance, while Arc more or less trudged off all sad and pathetic.

Really, they had no room to complain. So what, they got called out in front of their peers, boo fucking hoo. The basic shit Goodwitch had to repeat for them? He'd learned after dumpster diving for food, only for other street rats to jump him and kick his shit in and steal his loot.

Though, he was glad for it in a way now. He vastly preferred who he was, compared to those soft pair of little bitches.

"Now, we have just enough time for one more match," Professor Goodwitch mused once those two returned to their seats. She retrieved her scroll from her pocket and pressed something on it. A Second later, the screen showing Winchester and Arc's profiles and aura began rapidly shifting through faces. Goodwitch it seemed, liked to have the matches be randomized. A second later, Cobalt's own face appeared on the screen, opposite that of a beautiful white haired girls own picture, "Ah, Miss Schnee, Mr. Stone, it seems you two are up, please come on down."

The good thing about the randomized fights, was the fact that if you were lucky, or unlucky depending on your point of view, you could be called up to fight multiple times. Cobalt grinned, this would be his second fight today. He'd fought Dove Browniewedgie or something or other, from Winchester's team earlier in the class and demolished him in less than thirty seconds.

Standing up from where he was sitting alone in the bleachers, he made his way down the stairs to the sparring ring. A moment later, his opponent did as well, standing fifty feet opposite him.

Cobalt had to admit, Schnee was beautiful. He wouldn't say she was a wet dream walking like Nikos or Xiao Long, even though she could be considered so. It was just that, she had an ethereal beauty around her that made her look like the princess of an epic story.

She eyed him with gem like icy blue eyes and took a deep breath as she unsheathed the rapier from her waist, settling carefully into her stance, rapier pointed at the ready and one foot in front of the other.

Ever predictable.

She was blessed with money, looks, a powerful semblance and talent, but her experience was woefully lacking. She had yet to internalize her combat style fully, yet to fully ingrain it to muscle memory and instinct.

Her problem, unlike Arc's wasn't a lack of training, but rather a lack of true experience using that training.

Cobalt didn't bother shifting his weapons from their passive forms into their weapon forms, and merely crossed his arms.

The boy saw her eyes even from the distance between them narrow slightly, probably taking it as an insult. It wasn't, he just felt no need to use them against her. After all, who would hunt a rabbit with a rocket launcher?

"Begin!" Goodwitch called out once they were both ready.

Schnee exploded into action as soon as the match begun. A glyph formed under her feet and she shot forward towards Cobalt, her speed enhanced, crossing the fifty foot distance between them like a bullet.

A few moments later, Cobalt tilted his head to the side avoiding the point of the rapier aimed for his face and allowing it to pass by him, a glyph forming at the tip and firing a lance of flame.

So fast, so versatile, yet so predictable.

Weiss jerked her arm, making to slice her rapier down at his neck and Cobalt felt the flames from her glyph shaping and running down the length of the thin sword.

Her dust casting and shaping abilities truly were second to none. His bare hand shot up though and caught her wrist, stopping her counter in place. Her eyes widened slightly and she tried to jerk her hand free.

She clearly had no hand to hand combat training. It would be more viable to launch a kick at him or use her free hand to form a glyph or something.

Cobalt's free hand came up and his palm struck her in the stomach. The force of the blow lifted her up off her feet and sent her flying back through the air, unable to keep a hold of her weapon.

She landed over ten feet away, and would have gone farther had she not flipped backwards and stopped herself with another glyph. Still, she gingerly rubbed at her stomach and glared at you as her icy blue aura glowed around her body.

"You know," Cobalt began as he caught the dust rapier by the hilt, the flames around it fizzling out, "You should really work on a back up weapon or something, your combat style revolves around using dust alongside your semblance, but you don't carry any other dust besides the stuff in your rapier."

She dropped low into a runners stance, her eyes tightening, "I'll keep that in mind." the white haired beauty bit out.

A glyph formed at her feet once more. She was going to charge again, but before she could Cobalt snorted and ran his aura through her weapon, igniting one section of the dust within.

Her eyes widened and she jerked to the side, just narrowly avoiding Cobalt's attack as he swung her rapier and launched a wave of flame at her from her own weapon.

Just as she recovered and made to face him again though, a yelp left her when he was suddenly in her face, fist aiming for her nose. A glyph formed between them, blocking the blow, his fist smashing into it hard enough to send a blast of displaced air flying in all directions, but Weiss had no chance to react, he didn't stop moving, one leg flashing out underneath the glyph, sweeping her legs from underneath her, the only thing saving her from a pair of broken legs being her aura that sparked and fizzled form the force of the kick. Weiss had no time to think of a counter before he followed through with the momentum behind his leg sweep to launch himself into the air and spin around to catch her in the chest with a roundhouse kick that shattered her already conjured glyph like a pane of glass.

Once more Weiss went flying, landing in a heap at the other side of the sparring ring. It took her a few moments to recover, and only then because Cobalt didn't pursue her, she stumbled her way to her feet, her body aching even with her aura absorbing the vast majority of the blows she had taken.

'Calm yourself Weiss, just breathe!' she told herself. She may not have had her rapier, or dust, but she still had her semblance and there was more to it than simply using dust. The Schnee bloodline wasn't so weak!

Her eyes settled on the younger boy standing across from her, eyeing her almost boredly. To think, he was this strong. She knew objectively he was skilled of course, he got in a year early to Beacon, and passed the Initiation on his own without ever getting a partner, and he'd yet to be defeated in combat class in the entire month they'd been at the prestigious hunter academy, but she hadn't known he was this good! She thought he'd be on Ruby's level, her level...but not this.

"You're not bad y'know," he interrupted her racing thoughts on how to defeat him, "You're skilled, your semblance is amazing and your ability to manipulate dust is top notch, I mean I can only go full throttle with dust casting like I did a minute ago, but you can change your output and shape it on the fly, not many can do that."

Despite the situation, Weiss preened lightly as pride warmed her chest. She had worked hard to get where she was after all. "But your problem is, you don't know how to use all that training and skill properly. And your physical ability without your glyphs to boost you is abysmal."

"Excuse me?" she arched her brow, indignation replacing the warmth of pride. Yes she wasn't the strongest out there physically, or the most durable, but abysmal?

"You're definitely in the top ten best of this class, but that's not exactly a high bar to cross," the boy blatantly insulted the class itself without batting an eyelash, "And since I'm the best here, you should probably take my advice. Go into the Emerald Forest and fight as many grimm as you can, and spar with your team at least a few times a day, then maybe see about hitting up the gym and upping your muscles a bit."

Weiss was taken aback by the sheer....smug confidence that seemed to saturate the air around the boy, his heterochromic eyes not wavering in the least with his claim.

For just a moment, Weiss found herself taking a step back as if she was looking up at a giant. She gave herself a shake and glared at him, "The best in class, that's quite the claim to make, especially with Pyrrha Nikos herself as a member of this class and the current top ranked student, unlike yourself." she retorted.

"Only because she hasn't fought me yet," he shrugged, before smirking her way, "Anyway princess, like I said, you're good and have the potential to be amazing. But right now, the difference between our strength is as vast the distance between Heaven and Remnant."

...Is this what it was like dealing with her for her teammates? She may have to apologise to them, and possibly to Arc as well. She shook her head, and put that out of mind for now, she hadn't just been idle while he talked, she'd come up with a plan. "I'll take your advice into consideration," Weiss smirked at him, as much as she didn't want to admit it, his advice, however annoying to hear had merit to it, "Though, here's some advice from me to you. Don't get too big for your britches!"

She thrust her hands out, creating a pair of Glyphs, one above him and one below him. He grunted, eyes widened lightly as she increased the gravity around him with the glyph above him, while using gravity itself to keep his feet pressed to the ground.

Weiss grinned victoriously, cupping her hands just apart from each other and pushing them, increasing the output of the glyphs, "I've increased the gravity around you by ten times at both besides. There's no way you can win now, so either give up or I'll just crush you until your aura drops too low!" even Yang would struggle under this kind of pressure!

The ground beneath his feet began to crack and splinter as the gravity above him began pressing him down and down more.

Victory was he-

She was cut off by him laughing, "Not bad Weiss," he said, and she was confused to see an actual smile blossoming across his face, even as he hunched over, "...But I've not been using my aura at all."

'What!?' Weiss's eyes widened, and she stared gobsmacked as aura began to light up around his skin and to her near horror, he stood up straight even under the gravity both pressing down on him and pulling him, and began to walk forward, stepping out of her glyph.

She pulled her hands back, shifting her glyphs towards him again, but before they reached him he wound his arm back and tossed Myrtenaster, her dust rapier at her like a javelin.

She was forced to juke to the side to avoid it as it shot at her like a bullet, and pierced blade tip first into her previous position.

"Ready or not Weiss, here I come." Cobalt's smile became predatory and he shot towards her, dashing towards her at almost impossible speeds, faster even than her glyph enhanced speed!

A glyph formed under her feet and she shot back backwards with her own enhanced speed, then formed another in the air and jumped onto it to use as a platform. She stumbled as she did, not used to trying something like this, but she had to get some distance and think of a plan!

Cobalt launched himself into the air shooting towards her like a rapid fired cannon shell, and it was all she could do to form a trio of defensive glyphs to block the punch he threw. Two of her glyphs shattered like glass, and the third one cracked from the force of his blow.

Her eyes went to the sparring ring floor, where her weapon was pierced into the ground like a flag. If she could-

She never got the chance to finish her thoughts, as absurdly Cobalt latched onto her glyph, aura alight around his fingers and used to swing around and delivered a double booted kick straight into her side.

Weiss choked, but she couldn't even get the sweet release of being sent flying, because before she could get far, Cobalt's hand latched around one of her boots and he bodily pulled her up easily lifting her entire body weight as if she were a father and tossed her downwards.

Her back slammed into the sparring ring hard enough to create small crater, debris shooting up into the air, and she could only lock up in stare in fear as Cobalt used her glyph still up above to kick off and shoot down towards her, fist cocked back!

"That's enough!" Professor Goodwitch's voice rang out, Weiss caught sight of her raising her riding crop into the air, most likely to block Cobalt's punch, but even with the speed he was going at, crossing the distance down to her in just a few split moments, he angled his punch away and slammed it into the ground a metre or so away from her head, punching straight through the tiles and creating another crater as he landed in a crouched position over her.

'He really is as good as he said.' Weiss was forced to admit. The only one she could think of in class that could defeat her so thoroughly was Pyrrha. She didn't believe for a second he was strong as Pyrrha herself, but, she readily believed he was second only to her.

Still, that smugness would do him no favours when it came to making friends. And was probably the reason why it was well known the boy had already had a massive falling out with his team and was well known to have gotten a dorm room to himself after he got into some kind of physical alteration with all three of them during the first week after initiation.

Weiss blinked as he touched a hand gently to her cheek, cupping it and tilted her head to look him in the eyes, "That was fun, we should do it again sometime," he grinned down at her, his exotic, crimson red and emerald green eyes glinting down at her, "Feel free to look me up if you want my help getting stronger, Snow Angel." he gave her a wink, and then stood up and walked away.

Weiss found herself staring up at the ceiling, befuddled. She barely even heard as Professor Goodwitch began commenting on the fight, and then went on to explain that it wasn't that long until the students from other other hunter academies would be arriving and that the Vytal Festival was only a few months away.

Her cheeks felt oddly warm.