Ch 14: Morning at Beacon

The next morning Ray awoke just before 5am for training, the same as he did every day at home. Opening his eye, Ray yawned and tried to reach up to rub the sleep out of his eye. When he tried to move his arms, however, he found that someone was holding on to them. On his left, Yang was all over him, treating him like a body pillow, holding him in a death grip with her arms and legs. On his right, Ruby had her fingers interlaced with his and was cuddled up beside him, using his right bicep as a pillow.

[Well, what did I expect, sleeping between these two like this?] At home, as long as they were in the same room, Ruby and Yang would find their way into Ray's bed and sleep with him. Sometimes, even when they slept in separate rooms. Heck, one time, following a bad nightmare, Ruby had somehow snuck out of the girl's dorm at Signal Academy and into Ray's bed in the boy's dorm without anyone noticing. Though neither of them would ever admit to doing it intentionally and blamed sleepwalking, something their father could never disprove and Ray never even bothered to try. He liked sleeping with his sisters, even if it made getting up rather tricky some mornings.

Moving very slowly, Ray carefully slid his hand out of Ruby's and transferred her head from his bicep to his chest. One arm now free, he reached back and grabbed Ruby's pillow and, cradling his twin sister's head, gently moved her to lay down on it instead. With Ruby now taken care of, Ray turned his attention to his older sister, drooling on his chest and seeming intent on crushing him into her as she slept. Stroking the arm Yang had across his chest, Ray sent a gentle current of electricity into Yang's muscles, gently relaxing them. Once her arm was loose enough to move, Ray quickly sat up before her arm could reset and did the same to her legs that held his lower half captive. Finally free, he quietly scrambled out of her reach. Just in time to avoid her grasping hands as, still deeply asleep, Yang began to realize something was wrong.

"Nooo… baby brother… don't leave me… big sister isn't ready yet… don't leave me behind…" Yang murmured in her sleep, her hands searching for her missing brother. Ray looked at Yang's cute antics with love in his eyes before giving her his pillow to glomp onto, saving his twin, who lay defenseless just outside of her reach from her grasping claws. With a quick kiss on both his sister's foreheads, Ray grabbed his socks and shoes and went outside for his morning exercise.

Moving to the central courtyard that he had seen on his arrival at Beacon, Ray started his work out with some basic stretches to limber up. As he was stretching, he was surprised to see another person enter the courtyard at this ungodly early hour. It was a young woman with long red hair that she was currently pulling back into a ponytail as she walked. She was about 6 foot even with healthy tanned skin and tight, toned muscles that had just the right amount of mass to keep her looking soft and feminine instead of hard and bulky. With her emerald green eyes, light-green eyeshadow, and heroic facial features, she looked like every girl's dream woman. She sported long red sports pants, black running shoes, and a black sports bra.

"Morning." Ray called out to her.

"Hello." She replied, "I didn't expect to see anyone else up this early. Couldn't sleep?"

"Nah, I always get up this early to work out. I'm Rajeev Rose, by the way."

"Pyrrha Nikos. It's nice to meet you, Rajeev. Mind if I join you for your workout?" Pyrrha smiled.

"Be my guest. And please call me Ray, all my friends do."

"Ok, Ray." Pyrrha gave him a glowing smile, genuinely happy to have made an unexpected friend.

The two were quiet for a time as they each performed their own stretches and some partner stretches. As they reached the end of their warm-up, Ray began discussing his plans for this morning with her.

"So, I'm planning to start off with a 5k run around the school followed by 10 sets of 10 pull-ups, 10 sets of 50 sit-ups, and 15 sets of 20 push-ups. Today is Semblance day, so I'll follow that with 30 minutes of Semblance practice instead of shadow sparring and hopefully finish everything in time for some mediation as the sun rises. That okay with you?"

"Intervals?"

"13 minutes for the run, 1-2-1 for the sets. I would usually also do a 1k swim on 12 minutes before my run and a 10 min cooldown swim after, but I'm not sure where to swim around here yet." Pyrrha nodded at Ray's response.

"What about Aura?"

"Ahh, I do my Aura control training as I run." Pyrrha tilted her head in confusion, so Ray decided to elaborate. "Instead of normal Aura training where you focus on speed, density, and reach for shielding or healing yourself or empowering your attack. I train my ability to manipulate Aura... by doing this." Ray held out his hand, palm up, and a perfectly round bubble of azure-colored Aura floated out of it. The sphere then began to move around his hand, up his arm, and finally settled into an orbit around his body. A pyramid, a cube, and a pentahedral followed closely after.

"How are you doing that?" Pyrrha asked in awe. She had never seen Aura used like that before.

"Simply put, I am pushing a part of my Aura away from my body, then separating it from the rest of my Aura while retaining control over it. That's the first step and the hardest since you are basically cutting off a part of yourself, but the fact it is a part of you is exactly why it is possible to retain control over it. Next, I refine my control by trying to control its shape. Once I've got that down, I can try moving it around while maintaining the same shape. After that, it is just increasing the number, density, and complexity of the shapes and orbits. Once you can do it while running, you can start using it in battle."

"Hmmm, so something like this?" Pyrrha asked, holding out her hand, palm up, and trying to copy what Ray had just done. A blob of red Aura started to form above her palm. Pyrrha knitted her brows together as she tried to detach the lump of Aura from the rest of her Aura.

"I did it!" Pyrrha exclaimed as the last strand connecting the blob to her was severed. However, as soon as she spoke, her face quickly paled, and she started to fall backward.

"Easy there." Ray said, gently caching her by her shoulders from behind. "Not bad for your first time. Just take it nice and slow. This technique can be incredibly draining mentally initially. But don't worry. You will get used to it. It's just like training any other muscle."

Pyrrha nodded and just lay there in his arms for a bit until her mind stopped spinning, and her balance returned.

"Thank you. I'm ok now. Shall we start our run?"

Ray nodded, and they both took off. They started at a light jug, getting a feel for each other's pace. But their speed quickly increased. After about the first 250 meters, they had reached a steady pace that both were comfortable with that could easily match most other Huntsmen and Huntresses' sprinting speed. Now that they had found their rhythm, Ray let Pyrrha choose their direction and turned his attention to his Aura training. Soon, half a dozen different shapes were orbiting around Ray in different patterns as he ran. As Pyrrha watched him out of the corner of her eye, her shock grew. She had just gotten a small taste of how much mental energy was needed to control even a single indistinct blob of separated Aura. She couldn't imagine how much it would take to manage half a dozen in such well-defined shapes and move them each in a different pattern while running.

Pyrrha and Ray's workout continued uneventfully, not meeting anyone else. After a little over two hours of hard work, the sun began to peek over the horizon. As the dawning sun lit the world, warming it for the start of a new day, its rays touched a young man and woman, covered in sweat, moving around the courtyard at high speeds as they passed a metal ball back and forth between each other without touching it.

During the Semblance portion of their workout, they discovered that Pyrrha's Polarity Semblance, which allowed her to control the magnetism of any metal she touched, and Ray's Electromany Semblance shared many possible applications in common. So, Pyrrha had taken out a mass of metal, about the size of a baseball, that she often used for her Semblance training, and the two of them had started to play a game of catch. The rules of the game were simple:

1) You can't touch the ball and can only use your Semblance to manipulate the ball's magnetic field to control its movement.

2) Don't let the ball touch the ground or any obstacles.

3) Whoever gets hit by the ball the most loses.

The two had gotten so absorbed in their game that they had lost track of time, and Ray had missed the timing for his sunrise mediation, but he wasn't upset about it.

"That was.. a lot of fun.. Pyrrha.. Thanks." Ray panted, tossing a bottle of water at her.

"Not at all.. That was.. the most fun.. I've had.. working out.. in a long time." Pyrrha was also breathing heavily, a light sheen of sweat and a dazzling smile, making her face glow almost as bright as the rising sun.

"I better go make sure my sisters are up so that they can get in some training as well before the teams selection. Good luck today, Pyrrha. Same time tomorrow?" Ray called out as he left to return to the ballroom with a wave.

"It would be my pleasure." Pyrrha answered as she waved back. She rested for a few moments longer after her impromptu partner left before continuing to her Aura training.