[Walter]

Janna introduced herself to the other two, then went over to the jade figures, examining them. "Had to take one of these per pair, right?" She asked, looking over to her partner.

"If that's the case, I'll let you pick one, big guy." She said, before sitting down heavily in the grass. The fight with the Taijitu had taken a lot out of her in terms of aura, and even with her training, taking such heavy hits and that much running in her armor did its number. She was still ready to fight, but she needed a little rest.

[nathan67003]

After Janna's presentation, Brock answered the (relatively) shy girl's question with "...Well, I don't know about that guy,", pointing at the only other male present with his thumb, "but I'm with Janna over here. Brock, by the way."

He then responded to Janna's statement, saying "A'ight, thanks!" before turning towards the pedestals with jade thingies on them.

He truly had absolutely no sliver of an idea about which one to pick. They all looked so alien to him, they might've been identical. He settled with the one closest to his right hand. Damn, even the texture was strange. "These things are weeiiiiird." Turning towards his teammate, he asked "You okay?"

[Flooberoid]

Were they in pairs? I mean, Brock and Janna saw that, right? Did Hagane have a partner? "Um... I think I'm a bit of a special circumstance? I... had a partner, but I'm solo now. Long story. Again, tell ya on the move. Point is, I'm Hagane, and we're... tentative honorary partners until I can figure out what the hell is going on." Better to be honest than encouraging, Hagane always thought. He wondered how Diana would react to knowing that his last partner was dragged away in a ball of creepy crawly Deathstalkers.

What if she got carried away too? "Um... I'll carry the artifact, how about that?"


((Lemme know when/if we want to do the Beacon segment, I'll do a timeskip.))

[Vision]

Wait, he had a partner and now he doesn't? She frantically tried to convince herself that someone must have had a change of heart after getting into the woods, trying to ignore the more sinister explanations. She gave a quick nod and responded "Okay sounds good. Hopefully this won't cause problems when we're evaluated, right now I'm just glad to not be alone out here. I'm Diana." As Hagane offered to carry the artefact she simply said "Sure, I'll do my best to help cover you."

She got ready to move on but stopped on seeing the shield maiden resting. Whilst Brock was checking up on her Diana approached "If, you want I can help you recover some of your aura.. its my semblance." looking to Hagane she added "It would only take a couple seconds." Generally she would have been a bit more reluctant to use her semblance on a stranger who wasn't seriously wounded, however at the moment she desperately wanted to seem useful.

[Walter]

"Ah, I'm fine." Janna stood back up, huffing out a breath. "Been a while since I've gotten hit that hard, though." She gives a thumbs up, then looks to the girl.

"I would actually appreciate that quite a bit. Not sure how much I got left after all of that. Hoping we can get out of here without too much hassle now, though."

(I'm cool with a timeskip. Sorry for the wait.)

[nathan67003]

Brock honestly felt more relieved than he thought he'd be when he heard Janna's response. Still, his teammate was mostly fine, and that alone was a good thing.

When the girl - er, Diana - suggested help, he couldn't stop himself from displaying a massive, goofy frin. "Aura recovery, huh? Neeeaaat."

(Also fully okay with time skip.)

[Flooberoid]

"I don't know about these two, but you needn't trouble yourself with my aura. I still have plenty left over." Though he turned down the offer, Hagane was relieved that someone agreed. This gave him a chance to observe Diana's process, to learn the cost and time constraints for later, should they continue being teammates in the future.


The group traveled back to Beacon will little more in the way of interruptions. Aside from a few encounters with creeps and beowolves (all of whom were easily dispatched in a single blow), they spent the entire journey becoming acquainted with each other. Hagane listened intently to everyone's answers, especially about their combat abilities.

When finally they did arrive at Beacon, artifacts in hand, they were admitted into a bizarre ceremony for all initiates. All of the students were herded into the main hall, where there stood a nondescript middle-aged man; the Beacon headmaster was nowhere to be seen. The man himself, well, clearly didn't want to be here.

His instructions to the students were brief: "As some of you may know, we typically group students based on similarities with the relics they pick up. Well, you've probably noticed that these chunks of jade in your pockets seem to have no interesting qualities whatsoever. Within the next half hour, it will be up to you to determine who your teammates are based upon the pieces you each collected. Get to it." He left without even asking if the students had any questions.

Reactions among the crowd were largely stammering confusion, student pairs breaking apart as some ran around frantically asking random people what they thought while others sat staring intently at their own artifact. Having examined the thing earlier, however, Hagane thought the answer to the puzzle was rather obvious. How to locate his remaining partners in the chaos, though... that was another story.

[Vision]

OOC: ShowHide

Figured I would write the semblance here so you can see that and react if you want. Using the line to denote where the time skip is as well.

"It's not exactly recovery it's... not important right now." realizing that could be interpreted wrong she quickly added "Don't worry it's perfectly safe". Whilst her right hand touched the black breastplate of the shield maiden her left formed a fist to brace for the pain. To the others it seemed like nothing happened for a few seconds. In reality the twos auras briefly combined and a significant amount of Jannas aura was returned at the cost of Dianas. Her semblance drained energy not just from her aura but her body as well causing it to be rather painful. She did her best to hide it but the particularly observant could notice that her breathing was a bit too short and her eyes slightly misty.

Her task done she looked towards the others and prepared to leave.
 

Facing little opposition on the way back allowed Dianas mind to be free to reflect on the others, they all looked impressive enough, strong and confident, not to mention just how tall they were. Glad that she was no longer alone out here she still had a nagging feeling that she didn't really match the others.

As the unknown staff member finished his speech Diana was among the confused students, she had been so relieved to be out of the forest that she was completely unprepared for another test. Desperately she looked towards Hagane who still had the figure.

[Walter]

Janna nodded at the girl's words, and waited to see what her semblance did. Standing in front of her like this, she could tell quite easily that this was causing her pain, and frowned.

"You shouldn't strain yourself like that. You have a very honorable semblance, but... I think you shouldn't use it too much." Janna commented, patting the girl on the shoulder.


Janna had listened to the speech with her arms crossed, standing next to Brock, who would still have the artifact. She turned to him after it was done, placing a hand up to her chin, thinking.

"Hey, those edges... Kinda seem like they'd connect to something else, yea? Like a puzzle piece?" Janna suggested. It was all she could come up with, but she wasn't sure finding the matching piece was going to be easy.

[nathan67003]

Brock followed Janna's words with his own. "Yeah, don't strain yourself unless it's absolutely necessary. You never know when a semblance could save someone's life."


Brock listened to... well, whatever that was supposed to be. The only thing he managed to remember from that lax guy on stage was 'Weird piece. Figure it out yourselves.' Oh how incredibly, brilliantly, sarcastically pleasant.

He turned his head towards his partner as she spoke, listening. He then took the piece/relic/whatever out of his right pocket and more or less stared at it. "Yeah, you're probably right. The edges are too neat, too precise to be utterly random.

Problem is, how the hell are we gonna find the rest of the matching set?...", he said as he looked around and above the crowd. This was one of these moments where height was a definitive advantage. "Any ideas?", he continued as he turned his head towards the girl on his right again.

[Flooberoid]

Hagane glanced over and made his own interpretation of the look on Diana's face. "Ah... right. You see, I noticed before that there are several marks on this relic that seem to follow a pattern. You know, like they didn't form naturally. The jagged cuts around the side, for example, appear to be ground down smooth, like they were cut deliberately. But it isn't just that." He traced his hands over the polished surface, following some faint line. "Under the reflective coating, it's somewhat difficult to make out, but there are actually grooves in the surface of the jade that also seem to follow a pattern of their own. Do you follow me so far? I'm betting that if we can find another artifact with a similar pattern, or a continuation of ours, we'll have found our teammates." He offered the relic over to Diana in case she wanted to look it over. After scrutinizing it so closely, he almost didn't need to look at it any more; if need be he could summon up the whole pattern from memory and compare it to the other artifacts.

[Vision]

Diana carefully picked up the relic as Hagane offered it to her, running her finger across the grooves and marks he was describing

"But there multiple points on each side that could be continued on anther one, It'll take us ages to compare every side on every one of these." realizing that she was just describing issues rather than trying to solve them "I guess we could try to form a line or something, though I don't think the others will follow suit." Whilst she was still struggling to see how they could solve their task she felt a lot better thanks to Haganes confidence, happy to carry the relic and follow his lead.

[Walter]

Janna looked around. It didn't seem to her like many had figured out the whole puzzle deal. It would be somewhat problematic to find the pair they'd have to team up with...

The shield maiden smirked, turning to her partner. "Brock, I'd say you got a voice that's a bit more /powerful/ than mine. The more people understand what they ought to be doing, the better, right?" She said, thinking that if more people start looking for their partners, there will inevitably be less people that still need to find them. 

[nathan67003]

"Oh, uh, sure. Just, uh, cover your ears, I guess." He took a deep breath, turned to the high ceiling to avoid properly deafening everyone he was facing and yelled as loud as he could - which was really, really loud.

"HEY, YOU PUNKS! THIS IS A PUZZLE, THE RELICS FIT TOGETHER!" After that, he coughed a bit, his throat hurting from the shouting. With a slightly croaky voice, he asked his partner "How 'bout that?"

[Flooberoid]

At the boom of Brock's voice, the crowd around him scattered towards the walls of the chamber. When all was said and done, there was naught for noise but bewildered muttering amongst the initiates who were brave enough to speak. Hagane, who had miraculously been too lost in thought to even notice the shout, stood out like a sore thumb. Even now, he stood near the center of the room, oblivious to what was going on around him.