Playing For Keeps - Ch 43 (Adv.) - The Sting of Defeat (Patreon)

I pulsed [Detect Aura] immediately, but couldn’t feel Qrow in the half-kilometer I could sense.

[Detect Aura has increased by 1!]

Nope, still not in range. Instead I turned back to Bia and asked urgently, “Where’s Ninigi Park?”

Bia, thankfully, didn’t ask questions, simply taking off at a run and expecting me to keep up. I actually couldn’t at first, but [Cat’s Grace] and [Reinforcement] brought my effective DEX up over 250, and I simply leaned on [Parkour] to stay on her tail as we sprinted back down the mountain.

“What’s the situation?” she asked, as if we were still strolling arm-in-arm.

“Qrow spotted a person of interest to our mission, called me, then he cussed and the call cut,” I summarized, my attention on my [Status] window as I equipped the Family Sword on my arm and Dawn Cracker on my back.

“And the target?” She took the next corner at full speed, jumping onto the frontage and running along it for a few steps before returning to the street.

I caught a street sign and used it to change my direction.

“Tyrian Callows, serial killer; Scorpion faunus, tail and stinger; Aura breaking Semblance.” I wasn’t out of breath, but I was breathing in steady puffs to maximize my Stamina.

“Ninigi Park is just ahead,” she reported, and an instant later I could sense Qrow’s Aura in my passive range, flaring distinctively around the next corner. I could also hear a dramatic organ in the BGM that I was pretty sure I recognized.

“He’s fighting. Don’t get near Qrow; his Semblance might hurt you. Take this.” I unclipped Dawn Cracker and expanded it, then triggered [Aura] for yet another stat boost.

Bia glanced back as I poured on the speed, smoothly plucking the shotgun out of the air as I passed her.

“Five plus one shot, single heavy slug on the secondary trigger, yell if you need more,” I added before I turned the corner and leapt straight into the fray.

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Ninigi Park was a mostly open green space, screened from the city by stands of trees not unlike the ones we’d snuck through up at Haven. The last tree before the field had a deep, fresh slash in it, and there were gouges carved out of the turf here and there. Further away, there was a pair of soccer goals and a children’s playground, thankfully empty, and a small fountain with a statue of a robed man wearing a odd-shaped necklace, holding a short sword and a round shield.

More urgently, Qrow was locked in combat with the man we’d seen on the recordings. Tyrian was five or so centimeters shorter than Qrow and I, and leaner than Qrow as well, but the way he was twisting around Qrow’s sword told of remarkable flexibility. Tyrian’s jacket was off, leaving him in the sleeveless white vest and suspenders, and his tail was uncoiled and lashing out in time with the strikes of his weapons.

‹???›LV ???Tyrian CallowsHP: [----------84%------- ]

I wouldn’t say Tyrian had Qrow on the ropes, exactly, but the two were clearly more evenly matched than my mentor would have preferred. In the time it took me to take a step, Tyrian ducked under a swing of Qrow’s sword and tried to slashed at his heel, only to miss as Qrow lifted his foot and thrust it backward at Tyrian’s face, which was blocked by the side of his tail.

Qrow had a few nicks in his shirt and was bleeding slightly, but [Observe] showed he wasn’t poisoned. Interestingly, I couldn’t see most of Qrow’s details anymore either. Like Rumpole when we were fighting Amphivena.

‹???›LV ???Qrow BranwenHP: [----------95%--------- ]

Making a mental note to deal with that later as Qrow swung again and locked his blade with Tyrian’s, I took the last few steps to activate the rest of my animal buffs, except for CHA. Collectively I was putting a hair under 200 MP/min into buffs, which would let me fight at full strength for about twenty minutes.

With my DEX now over 300, my STR approaching 500 and my CON nearly 600, I forewent drawing the Family Sword at first and simply expanded the shield before putting my shoulder against it and bashing Tyrian with everything I had in me.

Wham!

The faunus went tumbling across the field and slammed into one of the soccer goals, losing another ten percent of his HP and shaking his head dazedly. Qrow and I both dashed after him, trying to capitalize, but Tyrian shook off the [Stunned] effect and somersaulted away from Qrow’s swing before kipping to his feet.

“Another playmate!?” he cackled. “And oh so young; didn’t anyone tell you that it’s dangerous to go out at night, boy?”

[BGM Unlocked! Image song: Tyrian Callows – “Dancing Mad” by Uematsu Nobuo]

Ah, hell…

My answer was a combination of slashes with the Family Sword that I’d learned from sparring with Indigo, on the occasions she remembered to use her training sword as a sword instead of a spear. A diagonal cut at the shoulder was deflected, then a low horizontal swing was hopped over. The usual third strike was a stab, but I raised my shield instead to catch the gunshot from Tyrian’s offhand. Then he jumped over me, and I kept the shield between us to ward off his stinger, which had the unfortunate side effect of giving him a platform to spring off to attack Qrow instead.

Qrow caught Tyrian’s attempted swing on the flat of his huge sword, and I put all my strength into a vertical strike aimed at Tyrian’s back. I expected him to block it and he did, grinning manically and sliding into a horse stance as soon as his feet touched the ground, catching my blow on his gauntlet while keeping Qrow’s sword locked with the other.

I caught Qrow’s eye, and at the same moment we both turned on our heels, keeping Tyrian’s weapons engaged with our swords as our simultaneous roundhouse kicks slammed into the faunus’ back and chest. At the same time, “Bad Luck Charm” faded in over “Dancing Mad”.

Tyrian wheezed, and his Aura flickered but didn’t quite break. His tail lashed out and this time I wasn’t fast enough to catch it with my shield. It skated along my Aura for an instant as [Steadfast] stopped it, but then Tyrian’s Semblance kicked in and the stinger sank into my thigh.

[Status inflicted: Poisoned]

A burning pain shot through my leg, and Tyrian started cackling again.

So I punched him in the face.

It was my left hand, and I wasn’t exactly ambidextrous, but I still had almost 500 STR, and he’d been expecting me to at least react to the pain of being stung. The Aura around his head cracked, overloaded by the hit, and then his nose did the same. Blood spurted against my fingers and Tyrian staggered back, raising his arms to fend off Qrow’s follow-up.

Confirming the Poisoned status was only Low, I promptly put it out of my mind. With all my buffs and Aura active, I was regenerating over 300 HP/min; meaning even after the hit my HP bar was still full. Qrow’s theme song faded out again, though I could still just barely hear the percussion.

Coming in low, I lunged past Qrow in a stab, forcing Tyrian to drop to one knee and interpose his tail to avoid being impaled. The Family Sword glanced off his chitin, but still sliced along his back, drawing blood and a furious hiss. Tyrian thrust at my face with his tail and I leaned away, though the stinger scratched both Qrow’s side and my cheek.

[Poisoned status is now Moderate.]

“Switch modes,” I told Qrow. “I’ve got short range covered.”

I swung at Tyrian again as we both surged to our feet, trying a combo I’d picked up from Pyrrha instead, which he blocked frantically. He was still under the effects of [Aura Shock], though it wouldn’t last much longer, and I wanted to capitalize. Spending half a minute’s worth of MP, I mentally selected a Grade III Freeze Dust crystal from my Inventory and activated [Elemental Weapon].

The Family Sword, already in its Awakening form, suddenly glowed with a pale light, leaving a trail of mist behind it as I swung down at his head. Tyrian’s tail blocked it again, but a layer of ice formed at the base of his stinger, slowly thickening as I slashed again and again.

“You-!” he snarled. I was keeping the pressure on his tail, and he had to keep blocking with his increasingly iced-over stinger to prevent me from hitting his head. He leveled his gauntlets at me and pulled the triggers, and I almost lifted my shield to block them before realizing I’d have to stop attacking if I did. Instead, I redoubled my assault and simply tanked the shots, trusting in [Steadfast] to block them.

That turned out to be a mistake, as just like his earlier sting, the bullets acted like my Aura wasn’t there. My HP dropped from each of the double-barrelled shots, the third one proccing [Reinforcement]’s drawback, and Tyrian cackled again, only for my next slash to take the tip off his left ear.

He screeched in agony and aimed at my head instead. I didn’t know for certain if [Gamer’s Body] would let me shrug off being shot in the face; I suspected it would, but then, it would almost certainly be a critical hit, and I didn’t know how much HP it would cost me. I hunkered behind my shield, and Tyrian took the opportunity to disengage.

The next moment Qrow shot back past me, his weapon now in the form of a scythe, which he twirled to deflect Tyrian’s shots and quickly closed in again. I took a deep breath, checked my bars — HP above two-thirds, MP above half — then renewed [Reinforcement] and [Elemental Weapon] and took off after them.

Tyrian seemed to have a slightly easier time with Qrow’s more mobile fighting style, the two of them trading blows across the soccer field and up onto the top of the swingset. “Bad Luck Charm” turned up again as Qrow tried to hook Tyrian’s legs with his scythe, but the faunus’ bright purple Aura glowed and he simply dropped into a backflip before planting his boots on the diagonal bar and sliding down it like a grind rail.

By the time he reached the ground I was there to meet him, the Awakening Family Sword aiming to bisect him. Not having time to jump off, Tyrian was forced to cross his arms and use the blades of both gauntlets to block it. Ice grew over the blades, freezing them together, but he used the change in momentum to kick off into a front flip over my head. Knowing what was coming, I tried to raise my shield, but it chose that exact moment to retract back into a sheath and his tail shot straight past it. The ice didn’t quite cover the whole thing, and the tip sank into my shoulder.

[Poisoned status is now High.]

Gritting my teeth, I reached out with the same hand and grabbed his braid, yanking him through the air and slamming his face into the bar he’d just slid down, shattering his Aura once more.

I wasn’t the only one who could fight through pain, though, as Tyrian planted his boots in my stomach and shoved us apart. I resisted the movement with [Steadfast], but Newton’s Laws still applied when Semblances weren’t overriding them, and he successfully pushed himself away from me, dodging the swipe of Qrow’s scythe and rolling back to his feet near the treeline, wrenching his hands apart until the ice broke.

Shaking off his obvious fury, Tyrian hitched on a manic grin and bowed dramatically. “I can tell when I’m not wanted, so I shall take my leave for tonight. Qrow, until we meet again. Boy…” He glared at me, eye twitching, before he smirked. “Heh heh… Well… after that many stings, we won’t be meeting again! Ahahahah-AAAGGH!”

Tyrian’s mad laughter was drowned out by a heavy-caliber gunshot that caused the frozen tip of his tail to explode in a shower of blood and ice fragments, and he screamed in agony as Bia slipped out from behind a tree, covering him with Dawn Cracker. “Thank you for the gun and the opening, Jaune.”

“You BITCH! I’LL KILL YOU!”

He took a furious step toward Bia, and the moment he turned away I charged him again. He seemed to have anticipated me, because he deflected my swing with one hand again, knocking me off balance. At the same time, his other hand forced the tip of Qrow’s scythe into the ground, and he whipped his bleeding tail at Bia. She flinched as blood splashed into her eyes, and his tail wrapped around Dawn Cracker, yanking it out of her grip and using the momentum to shove it into my stomach, knocking me on my ass.

I dropped the Family Sword in my [Inventory] to grab the pistol grip instead, but Tyrian had already sprinted into the trees and my buckshot just peppered the trunks. I scrambled to my feet and pulsed [Detect Aura] just in time for Tyrian to vanish out of my active range.

Hunting him down again would have to wait, though, because Qrow’s knees chose that moment to give out.

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Name: Jaune ArcLevel: 59 (Next: 67.87%)Title: Academy StudentRace: HumanAge: 18Job: Journeyman HuntsmanClass: PaladinSemblance: The GamerHP: 4308/7834MP: 1703/4369STR: 222 (100)CON: 274 (102)DEX: 160 (54)INT: 136 (51)WIS: 110 (52)CHA: 151 (52)Points: 102Money: 951,788LStatus: Cursed – Yellow Death [High]              Poisoned [High]

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A/N: If you’re enjoying this story, feel free to check out my discord server at https://discord.gg/H6V854Fvbg

Okay, the title isn’t quite accurate, but how could I resist that wordplay?

Reminder that Jaune’s [Aura] skill stops his MP regen while active (and instead adds that amount to his HP regen) — this is why he’s on a time limit for his buffs, though most fights tend to be over in just a minute or two, as this one was.

We see that Qrow can’t match Tyrian while defending RNJR, and can’t take him in a three-way fight either, so my estimate of them is that they’re pretty well matched. To head off the question of how Jaune was able to keep up with Tyrian if he’s on the same level as Qrow: He’s got (some of) the stats, but not the experience to back it up; this fight took every trick he had, including ignoring the poison to a degree Tyrian couldn’t possibly expect, and it only worked because Qrow was backing him up.

I don’t think we see Tyrian channel his Semblance through bullets in canon, but hey, maybe it’s something he keeps as an ace in the hole.

Qrow still gets stung (in the same place as canon, even) but Jaune isn’t going to let him slip into a coma. And Tyrian still loses his stinger; I wonder if he’ll blame Bia or Jaune for it?