Claymores were an issue.
A brutal downward swing was sidestepped using her shield as the opposing side of a repulsing magnetic effect, accelerating her dash away from danger.
She spun quickly getting a slash against her opponent's Aura, the scent of strong citrus and droplets of cold morning dew flashing in the air as Milo began to mecha-shift into the rifle configuration, blasting out twin shots of 5.56.
Polarity delayed the pull of his blade just enough that while her opponent blocked the first, he could not adjust fast enough to the second shot.
A feat made easier by the larger blade.
However-
Pyrrha vaulted backwards at an angle, twisting in the air as her opponent fired a sniper round through the spine of his single-edged greatsword, feeling the high caliber Dust round ripple past her back. It missed her body, but she still felt the displaced air rip against her Aura.
His hand cycled the bolt built in near the base of the weapon, a South-Eastern Mistralian Zhan Madao rather than a more traditional Valean or Atlasean greatsword. A long large chopping blade designed for both cutting down cavalry back during the era of the Great War as well as Grimm. A bit thicker than traditional, however, and the handle was even lengthened by an extra half-hand to add more mass and balance the weapon.
Her eyes analyzed the weapon.
Normally the balance for such a weapon-
Pyrrha twisted into a deep side crouch, dodging another shot by watching the way the blade pointed.
-should have been pretty close to the guard. However with the second-gen rifling built in-
Pyrrha fired another two shots, deceptively slowing down his attempt to guard himself with Polarity guaranteeing they landed, the rounds grazing against the edge of his weapon, but still striking true.
-the balance should be a bit more forwards, requiring more weight by a much denser and longer hilt, slowing down its more originally agile design. It gave up its original speedier advantage for more power.
And Pyrrha was young and while her growth spurts had started earlier than other girls, she was still small compared to her opponent. She was light. She was fast.
Gan Jjang, her Semi-Finals opponent clearly realized that letting Pyrrha kite and fight at range was not in his favor, as the smaller, more agile girl dashed around near the edges of the arena, firing her rifle rounds at him.
Five, six, seven, eight shots total now.
Her rounds continued to splash against his form, his Aura having dropped already into the yellow, slowly turning orange in the large holographic screens above them as he rushed in to close the gap with dark light in his eyes.
"PYRRHA! PYRRHA! PYRRHA! PYRRHA!" the crowd roared out her name, making her blood run like fire.
She fired one last shot as she flipped Milo around, the rifle quickly mecha-shifting into a spear, performing another sideways high-vault to dodge a powerful diagonal swing, Polarity both lifting her up by her feet and faintly lowering the angle of the slicing weapon. Her spear rang out with the tenth and last shot in her wide box clip, the spear blade extending as she thrust mid air, striking her opponent across his cheek.
The Sniper-ZhanMadao flicked back, striking her into her sword-arm's armpit with the bladed edge, painfully pressing against her Aura, threatening to cut her in two.
Then it heated and vibrated intensely as the weapon fired out its sniper round, Aura rippling into the Dust round into pure concussive force, the additional almost tripled recoil ripping into her body past her Aura as she was flicked to the side. Her feet skid briefly on the ground as she performed a messy cartwheel as she bled the motion away.
She coughed, her throat feeling hot and wet, tasting of copper as the crowd roared in her ears.
She KNEW she shouldn't overextend with spear thrusts when excited!
She hadn't been hit until that moment, but her Aura had definitely already dipped heavily into the yellow. This was why greatswords were a problem. They hit hard and a Zhan Madao was originally meant to cleave through cavalry armor and Grimm bone plating alike. The additional cleaving force design with the addition of the excess mass from the sniper mechanisms and counterweight in the hilt also meant she bled off even more Aura than normal.
And she was still both young and small, her Aura not fully developed, her soul still young and weak. Despite mechanically the same as an adult's, it was more likely that the shock of a blow could blow past her Aura.
After all, even fully grown Huntsmen felt pain when struck through their Aura because the concussive force could never truly be absorbed in full. And she had been struck with a massive amount of additional concussive force.
She had to keep up the pressure now. She was struggling to breathe, the longer this went the worse it would become for her now.
Pyrrha dashed in, eliminating the created distance, her opponent reached out to cycle the bolt of his Huntsman weapon, but Polarity did not allow it, sticking in place as if his weapon had jammed.
"Fucking thing!" He cursed as he attempted to slam his fist against the receiver to loosen it and pulled at the bolt again to no avail.
Her feet carried her faster than it should have thanks to her metal plates in her sneakers, having no fear as with the delayed response of the jammed weapon as in truth it was fully controlled by Pyrrha herself.
Gan Jjiang was forced to attempt a thrust instead of a slash out of desperation to create an opening as he held the weapon by the hilt and the bolt.
And his weapon's thrusting power was weak. Especially when his built in firearm was no longer an issue.
As she deflected the thrust of the large weapon to the side with Akouo sparks flashing as she ran it down the length of his weapon and clocked him across the jaw with it.
Pyrrha then allowed Polarity to forcibly unstick the bolt as she struck his jaw, cycling the weapon. The sniper round casing ejected as the weapon jerked, giving a believably 'lucky' moment where the casing flew towards her opponent's eye, making him instinctively flinch, giving Pyrrha the opening she needed.
Her Milo thrust into his side with a blazing line (she wished she had a shot left to enhance the thrust), unaided by further recoil. Pyrrha spun around low to his side as she ducked under a wild, blind horizontal swing that was sent wide by Polarity. With a second full revolution of centrifugal force and a battlecry Akouo smashed against the side of his knee as Milo shrunk down into the xiphos state, slashing upwards twice in a cross cut against Gan Jjiang's back.
Spinning again, Akouo's hard edge smashed into the wrist with the increased force of her spin as she stopped her opponent's attempt at another swing, even riding the recoil of the impact up, rising to perfectly block a desperate headbutt to try to push her back enough to take advantage of his weapon's distance.
But nobody wins with a headbutt.
"MATCH OVER! VICTORY BY RED AURA! A BRUTAL FINISHER ENDED BY AN ACCIDENTAL SHOT IN THE FOOT BY CONTESTANT GAN JJIANG! HOWEVER THE WARRIOR FROM THE SOUTH EAST PLAINS OF MISTRAL COULD ONLY LAND BUT A SINGLE BLOW! WITH THIS DARK HORSE PYRRHA NIKKOS ENTERS THE WINNERS FINAAAAAALS! THIS IS WHAT WE'RE HERE TO SEE! LORDS AND LADIES! I! GIVE! YOU! YOUR! VICTOOOOR! MISS PYYRRRHAAA NIIIIIIIKOOOOOOOOOOOS!"
It was good that the announcer sounded so pleased with himself. Pyrrha was panting heavily, breathing hurt a bit, her ribs ached more than she'd ever felt, as if the bones themselves were still ringing from the blow of the one hit she'd taken. It felt like her mouth had been filled with copper, a metallic tang in the back of her throat.
Aura was almost perfect in how it protected the body, but, well, nothing was perfect. Had she taken a crippling blow? The adrenaline was beginning to wear off, and suddenly her right hand felt heavy, a sharp pain streaked down her arm and ribs.
She took a painful breath, and it hurt to breathe.
This… this wasn't good. Oh no, this was bad. Aura could only heal so much in a small time frame and she couldn't afford to visit a doctor; they'd confine her to bed rest and the next match, the Winner's Finals, was tomorrow.
She held a brave face as she nodded at her opponent. She tried to lift her right hand to shake, but now that the adrenaline was gone she realized she couldn't lift it.
Quickly she just turned to leave, filled with a sense of panic, not noticing that her opponent hadn't even tried to shake her hand either, rather seeming to smile at the result of his extra brutal strike.
At a distance nobody should be able to see her arm shake and tremble. The ribs of her right side were beginning to hurt so hard that she felt tears beginning to form in her eyes.
She waved mindlessly with her left hand where Akouo sat upon her vambrace, unable to smile, but trying to not let her pain show. As the crowd cheered and bodies leaned towards her direction, chanting her name.
At least that's what she thought they were chanting. She couldn't even hear what they were saying through the pain.
The moment the door closed behind her changing room, Milo fell lifelessly from her fingertips and Pyrrha began gasping for breath as she collapsed to her knees.
"Ah." Pyrrha let out a pant of pain. "Agh. Hu hu hu hu."
She breathed out ragged gasps of rough air through her teeth, trying to focus on anything but the pain.
One of the shadowy mice from Jaune rubbed up against her left hand, letting out a squeak to get her attention.
Pyrrha couldn't even respond with comprehensible words as she gasped.
The mouse just turned into a blurry blob of shadow, cool shade flashing against her hand as three round glass bottles with long necks filled with vibrant crimson liquid appeared.
"DRINK ME NOW!" The note read from the center bottle.
Her left hand rose, only for a pang of pain to send her reeling, luckily falling on her left, though the force of making contact with the ground sent a jolt of pain through her form.
"Gah." Her vision swam, "Urgh."
Her left hand reached out desperately for one of the bottles, the back of her thumb flicking upwards as a rubber stopper popped off of the top.
Glass passed her lips, a taste like watered down cough syrup, sour tomato, and bitter grass filled her taste buds.
It was awful and she almost spat it back out. But briefly there had been a cool numbness in her ribs.
Pyrrha grimaced, swallowing the ghastly mixture. Couldn't Jaune have made medicine like this taste good like his food?
She grit her teeth before chugging down the rest of the crimson liquid. Her ribs cooled then warmed, but not in the painfully hot way they were before.
"Blegh. It tastes awful." Pyrrha groaned as she tried to sit up, still feeling sore and tender, though considerably better than she had a moment ago when the pain was blinding to her senses. "You couldn't make this taste like apples? Strawberries? I'd even take cherry!"
But although shaky she could clench her right hand now, though there was still a bit of a muted pain.
Realizing that whatever medicine her new friend had sent was working she quickly chugged down the remaining two medicine bottles, clenching both of the long glass necks between her fingers so she could swallow it all down and get the awful taste over with.
"Bleurgh. Ahk, cough." Pyrrha stuck out her numbing tongue, followed by two short coughs. "That tasted awful. Sooooo bad. Eugh!"
She reached over to pet Jaune's mouse, feeling the cool smoothness of her friend's pet? Semblance?
Either way it gave her a squeak of what she hoped was reassurance.
"Thanks, little guy." She sighed, "Thanks."
She shakily stood up, feeling surprisingly normal again, lifting her arm and testing her range of motion, feeling still a bit sore and tender but it didn't hurt to breathe or move her right arm. She had the full range of motion back, more or less, even if her ribs still felt sort of numb. Like her bones were still vibrating.
Pyrrha wiped a tear from her cheek.
"I have to thank her." She quickly grabbed her bag, pulling out her pencil from its case and turning to scratch a still sort of shaky reply from her faintly trembling arm.
"Thank you. The medicine helped a lot. How," Pyrrha paused, "can I thank you?"
The mouse didn't take any of the empty bottles with it, for some odd reason.
"A good friend taught me that there are no transactions to friendship." Pyrrha read, feeling warm, feeling tears well up in her eyes, "Don't worry and enjoy your Katsudon."
The sour and bitter aftertaste of the medicine was washed away by the flavor of victory.
"As expected, you couldn't eliminate her."
"That crazy little bitch got lucky, master! My Keun Kal jammed! Then when it unjammed the fucking casing shot back at my eye!"
Juniper watched silently as Gan Jjiang, the fifteen year old boy that had tried to brutalize Pyrrha was struck across his face by a man in an azure blue kimono.
"Then that is an issue with your faulty weapons maintenance! Do not project your failures onto others, Jjaing! You are not being raised by the Isshin Clan to bring dishonor upon us in such a pitiful manner! Losing to a girl! You wished for a better life for your family and we Isshin provided it! We do not ask that you achieve impossible victory, but we expect better than you to shame yourself by attempting to absolve yourself of your own failings!"
"I just wanted to confirm something. Not see this." Juniper growled, feeling a warm comfort from within. "This isn't right."
Both he and his own Pyrrha had been furious when the young boy's Sniper-ZhanMadaou had rippled with Aura, manipulating the effect of Dust round within to maximize its concussive recoil to purposefully attempt to cause internal damage.
If Pyrrha had been older, her Aura more matured, such a trick would have only done some minor rattling. Shaved off her Aura plenty, been extra painful, maybe, but it wouldn't have done anything lasting.
But Pyrrha was barely twelve. Not only was her body younger and fragile, her Aura wasn't as robust. The Soul grew stronger as you experienced life and grew. The only exception seemed to be Ozma, as the power of his soul seemed to be limited by the host he occupied.
"You are lucky that you managed to at least land a strong blow to the side of her sword arm." The azure robed man growled as he adjusted his kimono into a perfect neatness, "At least we didn't waste our effort in training you to lose to a twelve year old female, no matter how talented she might be."
"And of course, somehow, this asshole is sexist as well." Juniper pinched his brow. "Go figure."
The boy bristled under his own blue gi, but did not explode again in anger.
"I… I gave it my all, master."
"I would hope you gave it your all! One blow! That was all you could manage! Better than the female the Nikkos girl fought before you, still, I suppose, despite it all. Bah! That alone is what saved you today! Do not think that your training will not intensify to wash away this shame!"
"Yes, master. I-I promise to make you proud."
"You should have already done as such from the beginning, useless apprentice!" The Isshin man slapped the boy across his face again, making Juniper feel a little bad and Pyrrha within simmered with muted rage. "At least with this, my little debt to the Spiders can be considered resolved…"
The elder man chewed at the nail of his thumb as he paced angrily.
"From our gathered intelligence, she cannot afford to be attended by Lord Nightingale or the Mikos of Mt. Seiya," The Isshin man spat to the side, "and so will be unable to properly attend tomorrow's match. You best hope she cannot recover enough to compete tomorrow."
"That bitch couldn't even raise her arm to shake my hand, master." Gan Jjiang grinned proudly, as if what he'd done wasn't a truly cruel act, "She just turned and left as fast as she could to protect her honorless pride!"
"Hmph." The Isshin man rubbed at his goatee, "Perhaps then we Isshin should extend out our hand and offer to pay reparations. Get the girl medical attention since she won't be able to continue performing in the Regional Circuit. She might be of a fallen house and her mother a dirty commoner, but it's clear the power of the noble bloodline Nikkos shines through the muddy blood. Yes, she'd make a good second wife for my son in a few years. Perhaps she might even give me a grandchild down the line that might be worth something."
"What the fuck is wrong with Mistral?" Juniper fumed, his prana bubbling from inside his Saint Graph. "Every time I think it can't get worse, it somehow does. Gods, no wonder you ran away to Beacon, Pyr."
Her warmth soothed him from within as she sent a few flashes of how even though she had been treated well enough, she'd become isolated at Sanctum due to how so many old values clashed against each other. It seemed that even in Argus the politics of nobles always caused strife for the exceptional, even if one was not tied with the Crime Families and the Noble Houses.
"Yeah, well, we have Jaune for her this time. I mean… it isn't me, and they won't end up having the exact same bond we share, but… she won't be alone."
They followed the Isshin man into another room, eavesdropping on his Scroll conversation as Pyrrha shared her reassuring warmth.
"Yes? H-hello, this is Naoto Isshin, yes. I have good news for you…"
"Miss Nikkos!"
Cameras flashed endlessly.
"How do you feel about making it to the Winner's Finals at such a record age? Are you confident about tomorrow's match?"
Pyrrha did her best to not squint under the flashing lights, maintaining a smile as she felt suffocated under the heat of the cameras.
"I feel very proud. I couldn't have gotten this far without the mobility that Nikkos sportswear provides! I only hope to perform well tomorrow!" She made a show of using her left hand to adjust her mic, letting her right arm hang at her side.
"Miss Nikkos! Mistral Messenger! Do you have anything to say on the rumors that multiple Noble Houses are sending letters of engagement to your family?"
Pyrrha blushed. What!? She was twelve!
"N-no comment! Next!"
"Miss Nikkos! Pelos Financial! How open are you to accepting sponsorships from other companies? From one of the Noble Houses?"
"Uh, I'll worry about that once my current Circuit is over." She fidgeted with her mic with her left hand. "Next question!"
"Miss Nikkos! Luna Troy, Argus Tribunal! You took a rather brutal hit today, dropping sixty percent of your Aura in a single blow! Will you be able to perform at your best tomorrow?"
Pyrrha gulped.
"I will do my best." She answered honestly and quietly, her voice shaking just remembering just how terrifying that hit had been. "N-no more questions. Thank you."
She stood up and began to turn to leave as the cameras began to flash like a flood of light once more.
"Miss Nikkos! Miss Nikkos!" A multitude of reporters shouted in her direction as she quickly stood up and fled back to her changing room, making sure to let her right arm hang loose at her side as she reached for the door with her left hand.
She thought back to Jaune's notes.
"I think somebody wanted to injure you here. Stop you before you can go further."
Her pulse beat angrily in her ears. Why? Who would do such a thing? Accidents were one thing, but nothing justified an intentional injury! Her notes on Contestant Gan Jjiang implied that he wasn't the nicest of people, but that was extreme!
"A LOT of money rides on a lot of the matches. The prize pool is nothing compared to the money that rides on the betting pools. Plus there are the Sponsors of other contestants trying to prove their superiority."
That was scary. That wasn't how the Circuit was supposed to be. This wasn't supposed to be how her first tournament was supposed to- well, maybe running away to compete in it wasn't how she'd envisioned her first tourney either, but ugh!
Pyrrha clenched her right hand.
If it wasn't for Jaune she might have had to bow out.
Or desperately fight with her non-dominant arm. She wasn't ambidextrous, but she'd practiced with her offhand for fun before this. It would have been hard but not impossible to at least perform well enough, but winning might have gone out the window with that alone.
Maybe Pyrrha would even have had to use Polarity in full force to force a victory and lose her biggest trump card for every tournament to come.
Luckily now she had another trump card to play instead. Thanks to Jaune's suggestion. She might have been hurt hard enough to want to cry and get a hug from her mom and dad, but it also gave her a short, powerful advantage for tomorrow.
She sipped at a cup of lavender tea, letting the soft warmth of it diffuse slowly through her as one of Jaune's mice curled into a ball on her lap as her right arm rested 'limply' at her side.
"I'm going to win. I'm going to win it all." She swore to herself, emerald eyes closed as her nostrils filled with the scent of sweet and warm lavender.
The mouse in her lap squeaked approvingly.
A pouting Trivia poked him in the cheek, pulling Jaune out of his thoughts.
"Ah sorry Neo." He smiled sheepishly. "I didn't mean to get distracted."
Honestly he had been distracted in thinking up some countermeasures to keep Pyrrha from being taken advantage of further, just in case, even though this was supposed to be time just for Trivia.
According to Big Brother Juniper, currently there wasn't much seemingly directly planned against her, as everyone believed her sword arm ruined, but it wouldn't hurt to send more mice to her changing room and have the mice sweep through it once or twice for anything weird.
They weren't smart, but they were good at sensing dangerous objects.
He hugged the older girl, who just let out a loud sniff of air she hugged back, her hair snaking up his back and around his head to stroke her thumbs against the insides of his rabbit ears at the base, making him shiver.
"H-hey! That's ticklish, Neo, quit it." He complained with a shudder, though there was no heat to his voice. "We're here to help pick out a Huntress outfit for you, not tease me!"
He side eyed the bored looking employee in the boutique, looking as if she just wanted to go home already. She saw him as a regular human because of Trivia's Semblance at the moment, but there was no reason to do anything to aggressively tip her off to the fact that what she was looking at wasn't what was happening in front of her.
"Come on, let's just make it quick since you've already decided on most of it. We still have other things that you wanted to get to, right?"
Trivia nodded, her hair an experimental split between the dark brown and pink of both her Trivia and Neapolitan selves. She spun around on one foot, daintily maintaining her balance as she swiveled gently like a ballerina, finishing with a cute lean to the side, her hips tilting in the other direction for balance, as she made a pinching motion with her index, middle finger, and thumb.
"Yeah, I have dinner ready too. We don't often get to meet up quite this early so I prepared something special. You'll love it, promise." Jaune grinned.
Because they usually met late at night, he'd never really had the opportunity to treat Trivia to any of his cooking aside from the occasional snack.
The boutique they were at did custom orders and had a multitude of display piece items that allowed you to customize what the colors of every part would come out in the end with a Scroll program specially designed for the store, and as a Maiden Trivia pretty much had free reign to choose whatever she wanted on Beacon's dime.
She'd expressed the desire to go overblown and see how much of a bill she could rack up, but Jaune had quickly pointed out that just making it needlessly expensive likely would be gaudy and not suit her tastes and Trivia was forced to poutingly concede.
Still, Trivia came built in with a second girl's opinion and she was a much faster shopper than any of his sisters.
Except Clarent who just made whatever she was in the mood for work with little care or effort. All rules had an exception.
Trivia had decided on a sleeveless black leotard with a high waist to start it all off. That was going to make using the bathroom difficult, but Trivia seemed to not care when he'd pointed that out, just throwing on a cropped jacket over that.
The jacket was currently a dull gray, but an edited photo from a Scroll showed how it was planned to look down the line as a white with pink interior, the cuffs of the sleeves rolled back as she was…
Well Trivia was short. Really short.
Even with a pair of combat heels, she only really reached up to about 147, maybe 148 centimeters. Jaune was actually pretty confident that he'd match up to her height in maybe a year or two. He was already pretty close now, only being maybe five to ten centimeters shorter than her.
Actually wasn't he pretty much the same height now when she wasn't wearing heels? He'd never really bothered measuring his own height. He wasn't short but he hadn't been hitting any big growth spurts either. At least he should be close.
Trivia turned to him, playing around with a pair of belts, layering a big pink loose one with a Huntress symbol placeholder buckle at an angle as a thinner, smaller white belt under it as it held up a pair of low-waisted, tight, dark brown pants made of a surprisingly tough but stretchy material that was pleasant to the touch. Her look asked for his opinion on it.
"Yeah, the double belts are a nice touch. Feels right y'know? I'm excited to see the Huntress symbol you've decided on. You still haven't shown it to me."
He rolled his eyes at the way she stuck her tongue out at him, telling him that he'd just have to wait to see it.
He did think that with the decently deep dip in the opening of her jacket, modesty only preserved by her shelf bra lined leotard that her neckline felt a bit bare as he could see her collarbones press out prominently against her pale skin, even if she wore her favorite silver leather choker with black spider web patterns, matching his shackles.
Actually on that note, it was lucky that his shackles adjusted their size as he grew, even if he couldn't take them off.
Unlike him, who was confined mostly to sneakers or very oversized boots to fit his Shackles of Spiderclimb under, Trivia had chosen a set of simple steel toed high heeled boots with sleek white knee-high spats. Doing up every single one of the buttons seemed… excessive, but Neo especially seemed to insist on it, both eyes flashing pink the moment the girl had laid eyes on it.
They finished placing their order alongside some spares, they left as Jaune insisted that she didn't need gloves as he'd already had that covered for her, which Trivia accepted without complaint.
They'd had another movie theater showing reserved out completely for a showing of Casinos Eleven, a big heist movie about robbing one of the large Vacuoan casinos in the fortified 'Gambler's Settlement' of Almurawij, which arguably was nowadays bigger than the capital city itself thanks to it's insane tourism pushes, assisted by suddenly saving loads of their vice gotten gains via solar tech and air conditioners instead of relying on an excess of Dust.
Maybe they should have chosen to watch the movie and have dinner separately though, as Trivia had pretty much stopped caring about the movie to focus entirely on the food, sitting sideways in his lap as she demanded he feed her every mouthful.
Just like the Belladonnas and Winter, Trivia really seemed to enjoy nigiri sushi, lacking entirely the nervousness that Winter had first had about raw fish, just trusting Jaune completely.
Rather she was occasionally angrily beating her small little fists into his chests as she pouted, raging that he'd never shown her his literally otherworldly cooking skills off to her before as he laughed.
Still, even without watching the cast 'put the team together' alongside a random and unnecessary near falling out of the group in the middle of the movie, they were able to still mindlessly enjoy the fun edited sequence of how two hackers and three Aura enhanced former Huntsmen and Huntresses were able to rob one of the major casinos of Almurawij.
In the end, it was all just good fun, even if he wouldn't be able to do any vigilante work with Trivia tonight as she'd need to meet with Qrow and Ozpin tonight.
But he did give Trivia a present to celebrate her getting into Beacon.
SR Rarity Equipment: Gloves of Dueling
Origin: The Stolen Lands of Golarion
Description: Part of a set meant originally for two, but this matching set is the only that remains of an adventurer that died in an attempt at reclaiming The Stolen Lands from the Stag Lord. These valuable magic gloves are enchanted to greatly protect against maneuvers that would sunder, disarm, or otherwise cause an effect to loosen the weapon from the hand of its master.
Even causing mundane or magical effects of panic or stunning will not cause the wearer of these gloves to drop their weapons. Should the wearer of the gloves have a proper mastery and weapon training in the wielded weapon of choice, it shall additionally impart moderate increase to its handling, accuracy, and damage.
As its magic effects were entirely passive, Trivia didn't even realize it had magical properties until she slipped on the slim black leather gloves, her eyes widening as she felt a subtle flow of magic from within, realizing just how important such objects were in a world currently without mana.
"Congrats on making it into Beacon, Trivia." Jaune smiled as her eyes flickered with flame, tears beginning to edge at the corner of her vision. "I'm super proud of you."
Trivia just cupped her hands around his cheeks and crushed her lips against his forehead again and again, making his heart beat and tail wag energetically in the fanfare of the movie's credits.
AN: Pyrrha didn't take such a debilitating blow in canon. Without anyone to rely on, she'd been much more on edge through her battles, but also hadn't performed quite as well on them either. That more nervous caution resulted in her at least having never given an opening big enough to take advantage of, unlike in this timeline vs Gan Jjiang.