The Games We Play

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryugii. This has been pulled from his Spacebattle publishment. Anyway on with the show...errr read.

Silenced

Once I was outside my house and alone within an empty world of my own creation, I took a seat and gave a sigh, the last hints of my smile fading.

"This…" I mused aloud, going back over everything I'd said and done. "This should be enough."

The way I'd spoken of it, breezing past the international terrorism and horrific danger as blithely as I could even as I emphasized the new breadth of my power…it should keep them from worrying too much, at least for now. I'd told them the truth, but colored it with so much improbability and ridiculousness that it shouldn't seem as bad as it might otherwise. By pairing the risks to my life with talking dogs, the dangers with a casual call to the most powerful man in the world, and by keeping the news coming fast and hard, I changed the tone of the story to something more to my liking. Shocked as they were, I knew they'd recover soon and start asking questions, but this should keep them away from the painful answers. The difference between a comedy and a tragedy was in the telling, after all.

This was what Grandmother and I had decided to tell them. Unfortunately, it went without saying that we couldn't let them know about everything that was going on; both to spare them the pain and to avoid putting them in danger, there were things that needed to go unsaid. Learning about the Riders when they had no way of telling who around them was or wasn't infected, knowing that I'd had to fight and kill our father, hearing about the Dust crisis that they couldn't really do much to help against…all those things and more, I couldn't tell them about.

With the way things were now, forcing those things upon their shoulders and making them live with the knowledge wouldn't make their lives better. It wouldn't even really make them safer, not even the stuff about the Riders. No, all it would do is take away a lot of beautiful lies and give back a lot of painful truths. I couldn't do that to them, not without reason. Later, if there was a way for them to help without putting their lives in pointless danger, I'd tell them and ask for their assistance, but for now there was a reason we were keeping the news quiet and the word contained. It wasn't just a matter of trust, but one of cruelty and kindness.

So instead, I trusted them with some of my biggest, personal secrets—stuff that could put me in tremendous danger if word got out or even kill me, but which they could safely live with without too much alteration to their everyday lives. I did it and I did it fearlessly, because I knew they wouldn't let me down, not when they knew that I was acting with Ozpin and Grandmother's permission. That's why I'd brought it up, after all. However much I loved them—and however much I knew they loved me—I recognized the dangers in not doing so. Because even if I loved my sisters, that didn't change the fact that we hadn't seen each other in years. They'd grown up, had lives of their own, probably developed loves and loyalties far away from me. That wasn't a slight against them, it was just a fact of life, and I understood it; after all, I'd done the same thing, hadn't I? In less than half a year, look how much I'd changed, how much I'd done, how many people I'd met. I'd made a lot of friends, found purpose and direction, and even, to some extent, made a place for myself in the world.

And even if I tended to live a more…extreme life than most, they'd done the same thing. Everyone did, at some point, though we could go in vastly different directions—or directions that conflicted. In their case, they'd all passed through Beacon and then scattered through the world to find where they belonged as Hunters and defenders of all sorts. Sienna and Azure had even joined the military in Atlas, a place I'd robbed in several different ways, if for good reasons. I didn't want to make them have to choose between all of that and me, so…I'd found a solution. I'd told them—truthfully—that Ozpin already knew about it, that even everything had been done with his knowledge and permission. As people who'd been trained by him, they would be able to understand that, accept what I was doing with minimal conflict with their lives and without risk of later feeling betrayed, should they find out my secrets some other way. They'd know about me, about what I was doing, understand who I was if they met me in my other suit, and that…that was enough for now. I was as content with it as I really could be, given the situation.

I sighed and closed my eyes, my Elementals approaching and circling me silently both in an act of comfort and of preparation—but I didn't combine them just yet, because I still needed a moment to think. Everything was falling into place now; I still needed to meet with Ozpin and Raven and to finish up a few things, but then it would be off to Mistral to…continue planning and preparing, I suppose. But for now, that was pretty much all I could do, wasn't it? When I was more free to act, perhaps I'd find a way to move off the defensive, but I didn't know enough about the plans I was at the center of to do anything at the moment.

Except for this.

Calling up my status screen, I considered it quietly for a moment, weighing my options one last time. Even with the possibility that levels went over a hundred, it hadn't been easy to decide how to distribute my points—after all, possibility didn't necessarily mean ease and gaining levels got progressively more and more difficult, while the reward remained static. No, it was best to be careful with my points…but I'd decided.

Slowly, I began to raise my Intelligence. Even though the benefit of increasing my Wisdom again was hard to ignore, so was the synergy between my two mental stats and, if my vastly improved MP regeneration was anything to go by, it would be worth the cost.

I just hoped what was true in theory was also true in practice.

By raising INT above 150, you have gained two random abilities related to your advanced mental state.

The skill 'Extrasensory Perception' was created.

The skill 'The Mathematician's Answer' was created.

By raising INT above 150, you have gained the passive skill 'Quick Soul.'

By raising INT above 150, you have gained the passive skill 'Hyper Soul.'

By raising INT above 150, you have gained the passive skill 'Mana Reactor.'

I closed my eyes, shuddering slightly as I felt the changes sweep through me—and had to pause for a moment when closing my eyes ceased to do anything. I could still see the world around me, but in a way that was hard to truly explain. I could see my house, the street, trees, and also a general dimness that seemed to surround most of my body—

Without bothering to open my eyes, I tapped my status screen to remove my shirt and watched as my perceptions changed again, some of the darkness fading away. It took me a moment to truly wrap my head around it, but if I was seeing with my skin then the odd sensation I was feeling must have been light. Somehow, I could feel the light touching my skin and it made sense in a way that my brain could interpret as an image.

And it wasn't just light, I realized as I opened my eyes. I focused on a nearby tree and…and felt how course the bark was with my eyes. In a way that was difficult to explain, I switched my senses and tasted it instead, before focusing down the street. At a thought, Vulturnus pointed and a distant tree split with a startling crack—a crack I heard long before the sound reached me, because I could see it and as light carried the image to my brain, the sound seemed to follow it.

Somehow, it seemed my senses had…merge. I could taste, hear, smell, and touch anything I could see—or see what I could feel or see what I heard or any other combination. It took me a moment to focus my attention on my eyes, in fact, because with all five of my senses seemingly one, it took me a moment to separate my eyes from everything else.

And then a thought struck me. Was it just five of my senses? Because I had significantly more than that.

I shifted my sight into the infrared and heard it before snapping back to ultraviolet to feel it on my skin. It wasn't simply seeing with my skin—I felt it and saw it and everything else at once, hearing and feeling the wavelengths for the first time. If it was like this, then I bet I could even listen to songs on radio waves or watch TV by looking into the sky. It was…at once really, really weird and amazingly cool, so I brought up the skill I suspected to be responsible.

Extrasensory Perception (Active & Passive) LV1 EXP: 0.00%

The inborn ability to perceive the world through the broad senses of the mind, rather than the limited ones of the body. Takes many forms dependent on the mentality and natural abilities of the user, but can grow with time and training. The power of this skill increases with level, INT, and through related abilities.

Active effects:

Expands Clairvoyance to encompass low levels of Clairaudience, Clairalience, Clairsentience, and Clairgustance. Improve by increasing level and INT.

Low-ranked Clairsentience allows touch-range abilities may be used at a range of 5 meters. Improve by increasing level and INT.

Other abilities will be unlocked with higher levels.

I took a deep breath and considered that, letting my senses open up once more. As the world opened up into patterns of taste and sensation, I let my power flow out of me. As it said, I could feel the world in my immediate vicinity as if I were touching it with my hands, power ready to flow out of me and take shape beyond the reach of my skin, but somehow still contained within me. While I'd long been able to attack at range with Far Strike, this was something different and perhaps even more useful. Even just the ability to heal at range opened up many new options and that was far from the only skill I had that required touch—just taking into account my healing and my buffing skills meant that even a slight range increase opened up a world of possibility, and Longshot may well improve that further.

But that was what Intelligence did, wasn't it? If Wisdom let me make the right choice, Intelligence gave me more options to choose from. If this was what my new Extrasensory Perception was capable of at level one, I couldn't wait to see how it developed. Clairaudience, Clairalience, Clairsentience, and Clairgustance were the Clairvoyance equivalents for hearing, smell, touch, and taste and they all seemed to benefit from the strength and breadth of my enhanced sight—but if Clairsentience could let me 'touch' things at range, I wondered how the others would improve over time. Already, I could feel my senses sharpening, but only time would tell what would come from it and what other doors ESP might open.

And if this was just the effect of one of my random skills, what did my other skills do? I felt different, of course, not just in body but in soul—but I wasn't sure exactly what that meant. My Semblance had proven that it could change me in all sorts of ways, imposing things that others could only be born with, but simply standing here and feeling the change…the only way I could describe it was that I felt like a circuit, somehow, as if electricity were flowing through my veins instead of blood. Something powerful and quick, but oddly…not foreign, despite how alien the sensation of it was, yet I had no idea what such a thing meant.

I could fetch the answers with a thought, however.

Quick Soul (Passive) LV1 EXP: 0.00%

Denoting an inherent malleability of the soul, this skill allows the user to easily shape their Aura into useful forms, greatly lowering the charge time of other skills in the process. The effectiveness of this skill increases with user and skill level.

Reduce the casting time of all skills by 6.9 seconds. If this reduces the minimum charge time of a skill to zero, the skill may be cast instantly up to 6.9 seconds of charge; further charge time functions as normal.

MP costs are unaffected.

Hyper Soul (Passive) LV1 EXP: 0.00%

An ability given to those born with souls naturally able to contain and conduct great amounts of energy, this skill allows the user to channel great power into their other skills. By increasing the cost of a skill and charging it for a time, the user may greatly increase its power. The length and breadth of this skill increase with skill level and INT.

All skills without prolonged effects may now be charged. Both cost and effect increase with charge time.

Skills that already possess charge times increase their maximum charge time by the amount granted.

Current charge time granted: 5 seconds.

I stared at the screens for a moment, blinking once, twice—and then lifting my hands as that current inside me focused in an instant. After a moment's thought, I decide sticking with the MP base would be enough and in the next instant I held a Magic Missile in my right hand. Deciding on a target without turning my head, I pulled back my arm and hurled it with all my might, blowing a hole through a nearby tree's trunk and leaving it to fall with a heavy crash. Making back the MP I'd spent in a fraction of a second's time, another glowing lance appeared in my left hand and I sheered down another tree just as fast, before wrecking the ground floor of a nearby house with half a dozen more, only stopped as the building came crashing down with the sound of tearing wood and breaking glass.

This…this was another game changer. I'd all but expected it as it seemed to happen with every milestone my skills reached, but…this surprised even me. I'd long since abandoned any skill with a charge time, because in combat as high-paced as what I now had to deal with, it simply wasn't feasible. A six second charge may not seem like much, but it's the next best thing to forever when you're moving fast enough to leave the sound barrier in the dust—and in those six seconds, I could easily exchange hundreds of blows with my hands instead and do far more damage through sheer quantity. With the amount of strength and attack speed boosters I'd gained especially, things like my Magic Missile simply weren't practical and I couldn't afford to use them in a fight.

The downside of that was that it meant not taking full advantage of my Elemental powers. After a certain point, they needed a charge time—skills like Magic Missile, Far Slayer, and Flare drew upon too much power to be used any other way. As my Wisdom increased, I'd gained access to more Elements to choose from, but taking full advantage of them took too much time; I could do 'small' things like throw fire balls or even shoot a plasma bolt, but preparing something massive was simply unfeasible.

Except it wasn't any more. Sure, the cost was relatively high, both because of the charge and the low level, but that wasn't a concern—compared to my swiftly regenerating MP, my time was a far more valuable resource. Even with a base cost of eighty MP, I could easily use Magic Missile four times a second, which meant two hundred and forty times a minute, fourteen thousand four hundred times an hour, and three hundred forty-five thousand six hundred times a day, if I really wanted to train it. Far more than that, really, because the cost of the skill would swiftly drop if I cast it that frequently and the number of times I could use it would only increase as its level rose.

Suddenly, a wealth of new options had appeared before me. And with Hyper Soul backing it up…

I assumed that by 'prolonged effect,' it meant things like my buffs and barriers—which was a little unfortunate, but perhaps that would change over time. Even with that limitation, though, it was undeniably an extremely useful skill, which would greatly improve the effectiveness of the 'quick' skills I'd been using before, especially when paired with Quick Soul—to say nothing of what it would mean if it worked with things like Bai Hu's style. More than even those, however, what it could do to things like my healing…

It was something I was excited to test for myself, but before that, I wanted to consider the rest of my newfound options. Of the five skills I'd gotten, those two seemed almost designed to work together—which made sense, honestly, as they weren't random skills. But what of the third, then?

Mana Reactor (Passive) LV1 EXP: 0.00%

Given to those with souls capable of drawing upon great power in times of need, this skill greatly increases the user's MP regeneration when their power runs low.

Triple MP regeneration when MP is below 10%.

I did some quick math in my head and smiled at the results. That increased my MP to over a thousand MP per second, so long as my total MP was low. If it was that high, I could greatly increase the number of skills I could grind at once—maintaining Acceleration's first level on top of everything else wouldn't be too difficult with that much MP. If I supported it with the HP to MP conversion that the White Tiger of the West allowed, then even more so. I'd need to adjust the amount of power I supplied Aureola to help keep my MP below ten percent, but…

Yes. It had been a good idea to improve Intelligence again, opening up a slew of new options. At this rate…without a doubt, keeping INT and WIS balanced seemed like the way to go. Already, Summon Elemental was climbing towards level ninety-eight and Soulforge Restoration was in the upper nineties as well. I'd been worried about whether I had enough time to truly prepare for what I was getting into, but maybe…maybe I'd be okay. Three to six months in Mistral was time enough to improve in all sorts of ways. I'd have the freedom I needed to train and hunt Grimm, time to experiment, the chance to truly access Alexandria's library—

Maybe this would be enough, I thought. Maybe I'd figure it out.

But I had one skill left, didn't I? Curious, I brought up the profile of the Mathematician's Answer.

The Mathematician's Answer (Passive) LV1 EXP: 0.00%

A skill granted to those who have learned to wield their great intelligence as both a sword and shield, applying mathematic principles to real situations. Although greatly improving the user's ability to perform calculations as a side effect, this skills main purpose is to broaden the natural effects of INT, owing to the user's heightened thought processes. INT may be used to improve or replace DEX and LUCK for applicable purposes, such as enhancing attempts at evasion, greatly improving the accuracy of attacks, or improving the likelihood of Critical Hits.

I cooed slightly at the thought, lifting my gaze to a tree I'd left standing and quickly plotting out a number of different ways I could topple it, just to see if I could. With nothing but stationary targets around me, there wasn't any way to really check, but…I thought it felt a little easier to aim now. At the very least, I felt certain my attack would land exactly where I aimed it—so much so that I hadn't even thought about it when I tore down those trees before. It seemed as simple as breathing, something that didn't deserve or require thought. Regardless, while the skill itself wasn't applicable for what I was doing right this second, it would undoubtedly come in handy soon enough. I'd need to test it more, of course, but really, it was just amazing how gaining new superpowers can improve one's mood. Already, I was feeling a tad optimistic again.

Closing the various windows with a small smile, I stretched for a moment, cracked my neck, and looked at my Elementals.

"You guys must be tired of being Basic Elementals," I said. "And today's shaping up to be a pretty good day, all things considered. Let's see if we can't get Summon Elemental to ninety-nine to top it all off—and maybe we'll see what some of these new skills can do in the process, too."