*Several Weeks Ago*

Mom, I can't believe you did that! Jeremy cried indignantly, shock concern and betrayal worn on his face as he faced the doe faunus that was his mother. The woman, age showing discrete signs on her otherwise slender and charming face, simply stood her ground in the face of her son's outburst.

I signed you up for the Vytal tournament for your own good! She said with a definitive 'humf' that Jeremy knew as a solid sign he wasn't going to change her mind. He just couldn't understand why she would do something like this!

You spent my entire childhood telling me not to stick out because 'HE' might find us here. I've avoided making friends, doing well in classes, everything to stay below the radar and you want to put my face on every scroll on the planet? Jeremy said exasperation clear in his voice. His mother seemed to take this as a sort of blow because her countenance changed sharply from that of a stubborn mother to that of a scorned child.

I'm sorry I asked you to do that Jeremiah, It was unfair of me to have you carry that burden because I was afraid your father might come here looking for you. It's been years nino, and you've grown up to be so strong. It is high time I let you be a child, make friends and find the adoration you deserve. She said, cupping his scarred face in his work worn hands, a teary eyed smile on her face as she looked down at her boy. Jeremy knew there was no point in fighting this further, whenever she called him 'Jeremiah' the conversation was pretty much over. So you're going to go into that ring, and beat the tar out of whoever comes out to fight you. Mothers orders.

*Now*

Jeremy took some time to double check his weapons and make sure all of his tattoos were fully charged, counting the moments before he would have to enter a literal global stage. He got the go ahead from one of the tournament staff, and with a heavy sigh, hauled himself to his feet. He was about broadcast his location to probably the one person he feared the most, but he knew it was a step he was going to have to take. The place where the dark hall of the tournament annex and the lights from the arena met was the most difficult threshold of his life to cross, but he put one foot in front of the other, coming out to the ruckus of a crowd of people eager to see a fight.

The roar was deafening, thousands of voices lighting in chorus, though Jeremy could swear he heard some whispers among the din. Whispers that spoke of the pale scars that decorated his dark skin, the small frame and tiny horns uncharacteristic of a bull faunus who were known to be quite large in stature. With that description alone he knew his father would be able to recognize the child to was stolen from him. Still, there was no going back now, Jeremy had fought and defeated what he considered the most difficult part of this whole affair. Whatever ferocious monstrosity came at him from across the ring would be hard pressed to instill half as much dread.


Estoques – 6 magazines total – 10 rounds each
00/60 rounds shot
Tattoos:
Earth – 2 tattoos – 5 charges each
Glass – 2 tattoos – 5 charges each
Fire – 1 tattoo – 5 charges
Gravity – 1 tattoo – 5 charges
Seal Tattoo – 0 uses

lilywilde

Jeremy could hear the patter of bare feet echoing from the hallway his opponent was coming from, though he had to admit it was coming along at the same rate as machine gun fire. Merely a moment later, a familiar face came zooming onto the arena floor, Lily Wilde, a very quick young lady that Jeremy had the pleasure of meeting only a short time ago as they sparred for class. Jeremy need not have been surprised, the matches were per-determined and posted for a little while now, he could have bothered to look up who he was up against, but he had chosen not to. He had thought it would be 'impolite' to look up his opponent before hand, somehow cheapening the fight if he was able to formulate a strategy or learn the ins and outs of their abilities. It seems that fate, as it is want to do, dashed the meagre plans of men and presented Jeremy with a foe with whom he had become relatively familiar with in terms of combat.

While mildly perturbed by this case of happenstance, Jeremy had to admit there was a fair chance of this happening. He had fought with a number of his classmates over his time at Vytal, mostly under the watchful eye of a combat instructor, so the odds that he'd meet one of them in the tournament weren't exactly slim. Besides that, he knew he was likely to see something new, something more striking and more dangerous than the last time they had clashed. He didn't know if she had garnered any new abilities or tactics, but 'fight class' was one thing, a tournament that was broadcast to the world (a concept that was still sending shiver's up the young bull faunus' spine) was the sort of thing to make fighters pull out ever stop. Jeremy didn't know if he was willing to scrape the bottom of his own combative reservoir, as that likely meant his semblance was going to make an appearance, but time would tell.

Hopefully not...[/i] He thought to himself as he put on a smile and waved to welcome his combatant to the ring. He nearly tossed the gun in his waving hand across the arena though as he caught sight of Lily, for the first time taking stock of her in detail. She looked horrible! The surprise and concern were plainly evident on Jeremy's face as he jogged over to her, eager to see if she was alright. She had dark, deep circles under her eyes, looking as if she hadn't had a peaceable nights' sleep in weeks. The scarring on her arm was definitely something he took careful note of as well, like somebody had put her arm in a wheat thresher! It was something Jeremy felt an almost remorseful kinship with as his whole body looked similarly mangled. He was so caught up with her clear and very distinct signs of unrest, that he didn't even notice the little leather pouches at her waist.

He came to a stop when she bowed to him, ending his jog in a trot that left him only a scant meter away from her. She had her hands together and bowed respectfully in the same way as when they first met, but Jeremy could tell there was something different beyond the physical changes. Back then, she felt fun, light, maybe even a little excited to fight him, now however she felt dark, tired and some sort of grim determination that Jeremy didn't enjoy the sensation of.

I wish you the best of luck, but I will not lose no matter what

The words she said seemed to almost confuse Jeremy, he just looked at her with an expression that read something along the lines of 'Losing? I'm more concerned about you keeling over from exhaustion' though his mind hadn't managed to parse such a thought fully. He revisited a line of thought that usually came along when he was at the start of a fight, the concept of forfeiting, just raising his hand and saying he wasn't interested in continuing. He didn't need this, this tournament wasn't his idea, he didn't like being in front of a dozen people, let alone hundreds of thousands! What's more, he didn't even like fighting, especially other people, it seemed senseless to him, pointless. He was training to fight creatures of Grimm, he was training so that he could protect his mother, and maybe, just maybe, punch his father in the face. Nowhere in his mind was fighting other people either enjoyable or really even an expected part of his life. As far as he was concerned, the purpose of this tournament was to show his dad that he wasn't afraid of him anymore, a feat achieved by simply walking into the ring. That's it, he was done, goal achieved, really the aftermath of entering a tournament ie, having to fight people, was an annoyance he didn't want to partake in. His shoulders slumped as he let out a sigh, holstering his guns, and taking a few steps over to where Lily was standing with her head bowed. Jeremy did his level best to mimic her hand in hand motion, bowing his head as well.

Good luck to you as well. And, uh, win or lose, you need to take care of yourself. I know we don't really know each other, but I'm happy to listen if you need to talk to somebody. He said, hoping his concern didn't come off as insulting. It was the only reason he was going to stay in this fight with her, she seemed to be the type that if he stopped and left without a challenge, she would be slighted. Let's, uh, l-let's both d-do our best. He said with a smile and slight pinkening of his cheeks. He raised his head and stood awkwardly for a moment, looking literally anywhere but at Lily while his brain tried to struggle through what it was perceiving as an incredibly unfavourable social interaction. When the gears in his head stopped grinding, he remembered he was in a tournament being shown to everybody all over the world, and he was standing there like an idiot. He turned on his heel and quickly jogged over to his starting position, nearly tripping over his own feet along the way. He turned and drew his weapons while a ripple of laughter worked it's way through the crowd, likely poking fun at the uncoordinated boy with horns.

With a great mental effort, he pushed the crowd away from his perception, true to his word, he was going to do his best, and that meant getting his head in the game. To him, the ring was the only thing there, nothing but undefined darkness past its' boundaries, Lily the only other soul in the world, and he needed to put his all into fighting her.

She's fast, I have to act fast to stand a chance. I have to do what I can to slow her down when the fight starts.[/i] He thought to himself, his brain working on what possible tools he had available to him that could keep her in his relative time zone. He put his right arm forward as the bell rung, firing off a volley from his Estoques, aiming to bifricate her up the middle with a few well placed shots. He felt confident that these rounds would sore unhindered to the other end of the ring without ever coming close to his opponent, but he had to give her something to think about. Meanwhile, his left arm lit up in a tawny amber glow as both of his glass dust tattoos became charged with aura. The bulk of his attention was there, forming what seemed to be a massive fury coat over his arm like a great wing. The truth of it was that it was millions of shards of glass, none thicker than a pine needle, though some barely as wide as a hair. The coat of shimmering shards were alive with Jeremy's aura and intent as he flung his arm in a great arc, scattering the shards in a great circle around himself. A great wall of glass shards so fine that the eye could hardly see them advanced outward in all directs with Jeremy at the centre, and while he hoped that Lily would be caught up in the initial volley, his true aim was a little more long term. He had aimed a bit low, firing to embed the aura infused glass into the concrete floor of the ring along its outer edge, trying to make the ring smaller by having the outer ring become inhospitable to those who wished to step there. By the end of his attempt, the ring's radius had been effectively cut by two meters, the glass shards easily sinking into the concrete. He always found that his classmates underestimated dust created glass, but when aura was infused in it, the glass was harder than most steels. When the aura faded from the glass, it was still more than strong enough to cut flesh or even pierce weak auras if made sharp enough.

Now, with the arena smaller, Lily would have a harder time dodging his gun fire without her semblance. If he could survive her ludicrous speed, he may be able to run down her aura without having to actually harm her much. He was hoping for a battle of attrition, use his aura as little as possible while forcing her to use hers as much as possible.

All I have to do is survive. Sounds easy enough.[/i] He thought to himself, wondering if such a thing was possible.


Estoques – 6 magazines total – 10 rounds each
04/60 rounds shot
Tattoos:
Earth – 2 tattoos – 5 charges each
Glass – 2 tattoos – 4 charges each
Fire – 1 tattoo – 5 charges
Gravity – 1 tattoo – 5 charges
Seal Tattoo – 0 uses

lilywilde

Jeremy barely registered that she had evaded his gun fire, it didn't matter, it had served it's purpose in buying him the time he needed to keep her from getting too far away. He had expected nothing less from her in this regard, her speed was certainly remarkable even without the semblance she boasted that seemed to drag her away from standard means of perception. Just as he had expected her to evade his fire, he had expected her to get in close, within arms reach, as she still seemed not to carry an conventional weaponry above and beyond her natural armament. It only took her a heart beat to be within striking range, and that did Jeremy just fine as the moment the glass had hit the ground he had flipped his Estoques around into their melee mode. The barrel of the twin pistols now faced down his arm, away from the feline target that was even now trying to swipe in at him.

Jeremy would often describe himself as a long distance fighter, he relied on his pistols to harm or corral his opponents from a distance. Even his tattoos, at least for the most part, he could use from a range to deal heavier blows against those he could aim for or hit reliably. All of this was because he was afraid that a person who was to close had a better chance of doing something incredibly dangerous to him. He didn't fear being hurt, pain was a very distinct and well known part of his life for the majority of his life, so getting a boo boo in a spar wasn't a concern. He was primarily concerned for the dust tattoo on his back, which he considered almost like a delicate and intricate clock work device. A strong enough sword strike or claw mark could render that device inoperable, or at the very least, less effective; this was something he could not risk. Because of the need to protect his back in the manner he does, he had always been very strict in his defensive fighting when in close with an opponent. It was for this reason that he was so good at fighting those who specialized in melee combat, and why he was more than happy to see Lily come in for such a close encounter.

Her claws are orange? She's infusing dust into her attacks.[/i] He noted as she attacked, coming in low to attack his leg. Glad to see she's started using dust, but it's far from game changing.[/i] He fired off his left hand weapon, propelling his fist downward to intercept the attack. He had never been a particularly strong young man, learning quickly to rely on his speed to out-pace his opponents, and while he was fast, Lily was unmistakably faster. With the addition of his Estoques pushing him along, he was more than capable of keeping up in at least short bursts. He could feel the heat from her claws dancing past his legs as his arm pushed her attack just to the side. It was certainly a close save as a set of singed claw marks were created on his dark jeans, but he wasn't quite as successful when the next attack came for his right shoulder. He did was he could to block the attack, but he only mitigated the worst of it as he felt the bite of her heated claws in his shoulder. As far as he was concerned, it was basically what he would have called a 'whoopsie' when he was five and being casually tossed out the window by his father.

Jeremy had to admit he was a little surprised by the 'shoulder check' from Lily, it was a very committed attack that needed most of your body weight to pull off effectively. It made such an attack hard to pull out of if you missed, and hard to redirect if needed. Jeremy side stepped quickly, getting out of the way of the brunt of the attack, though he brought up his leg to put her weight into his knee as it came up into her stomach. At the same time he turned his Estoques back around to start hitting her with gun fire from up close. From point blank even somebody as fast as Lily would have a hard time getting out of the way, especially since Jeremy was trying to stay around to Lily's back. He kept one of his weapons trained on her body, aiming for the centre of mass so she would have to move quite a bit to get out of the way. He also aimed at her head with the other gun, more wishful thinking than anything else, hoping to jar her with strong shots to the head.

Estoques – 6 magazines total – 10 rounds each
12/60 rounds shot
Tattoos:
Earth – 2 tattoos – 5 charges each
Glass – 2 tattoos – 4 charges each
Fire – 1 tattoo – 5 charges
Gravity – 1 tattoo – 5 charges
Seal Tattoo – 0 uses

@lilywidle

Jeremy had just enough time to note that she had gone into her semblance, and feel a little stupid for not expecting it and preparing for it a little better. He could have thought about the sort of damage she could do to him while he was functionally standing still with no manner of defense aside from his passive aura. He may have thought the risk of activating his semblance was worth it so that he could protect his main body, but he didn't. He was too concerned with getting his strikes in, abandoning the usual defensive tactics for a more decisive offense, which he was going to regret almost exactly a half second after his opponent entered her semblance in a flash of light.

He felt a flash of searing pain next, an amount of agony that should have blotted out all of his other senses as damaged skin and muscle screamed for his attention. He couldn't see, though he didn't know if that was because there was too much blood in his eyes, if his eyes themselves had been slashed, or if the pain he was in was truly just so extreme to be blinding. The only sound he could hear was the thumping of blood in his ears as his body tried desperately to stitch itself back together, the steady pumping spilling more blood onto the arena floor every moment. Still, there were a couple of things that let him actually function where a normal person would have curled up in a ball screaming in agony. The first thing was that this, what he was feeling, he would rate on a scale of 1 to 10 as a 'low 6' compared to what he endured as a child. His father had put him through worse than this on such a regular basis that he would likely only bother crying out in pain if dismembered by hand. Slowly. The second thing that kept his focus so keen was what he had felt the when she had entered her semblance, something so starkly contradictory to what he had experienced last time. The sensation of euphoria, delight and excitement is what he felt when last they fought despite the fact that her semblance was the cause of several aches and pains of his. This time however it felt... empty. He felt dirtier for having been near her and he was having a rather severe reaction in that the tattoo on his back was behaving oddly. He could be being actively skinned alive and how his back tattoo was reacting would still co-opt the majority of his attention.

The intricate tattoo on his back was made from every type of dust a person could legally get their hands on; this included a small amount of divine dust at the very heart of his tattoo. This small amount of divine dust was what was reacting so violently, and it was taking all of Jeremy's focus to try and keep things under control. He wasn't doing the very best job he it seemed as a dark outline began to form around his upper body, it was shadowy, translucent, but undeniably massive. The outlines of a Grimm like mask started to come into focus around Jeremy's face as thick, rope like muscle became more and more well defined over arms. He thrashed and stomped as he tried to regain control, he had to stop it, he couldn't let the Ignoble Shroud out, he wanted to win this fight, he didn't -

WANT TO RIP YOU IN HALF AND EAT YOU! He roared, a deep guttural roar that filled the arena in a way a boy his size simply couldn't. He ripped massive gouges in the ground where his still growing arms and claws swung, cracks in the cement where he stepped, the tattoo on his back casting dancing shadows on the walls. The anger he felt was intense, pure, seductive power married with the safety of letting go, letting something stronger than he was take over and protect him. The cold memory of the aftermath of the last time the Ignoble Shroud went wild though, it was enough for him to hold onto, something to cling to against this maelstrom of wrath. With another roar that echoed violently off the walls of the arena, the shadowy outline began to dissipate, the details of bestial claws becoming more unfocused before he was left standing in the centre of the arena floor, bleeding still, but otherwise the picture of calm.

I can't risk that happening again... sorry. He said, still unsure where Lily was, but knowing that if her semblance somehow caused his tattoo to stop working he couldn't risk her entering it again near him. He had to get rid of her as quickly as possible with as much certainty as possible. He poured all the aura he could into the two tattoos on the front of his torso, a stylized sunburst that circled his naval in red, and a set of interlocking black swirls that looked like a set of wings splayed across his chest. Under normal circumstances, he would use their power sparingly, he could often get five, maybe even six uses out of the tattoos before they were spent of dust, but he couldn't risk it. He needed Lily to be gone.

The dust on his chest was a very ample helping of gravity dust that spread it's power out over the entire arena floor, causing everything, spent casings, rubble, anything not nailed down aside from Jeremy began to float. He didn't know if it was strong enough to lift Lily fully, the further he spread his aura the weaker it got. He had been able to lift himself with little effort before, and even at a distance managed to give a watermelon the weight of a car but spread this thin at the very least she would be a whole lot lighter, which is where his second tattoo came into effect. The starburst was, very clearly, fire dust, and let out in a controlled fashion gave Jeremy access to everything from a candle flame, to a blow torch to even a flame thrower. Uncontrolled, just pushed out as far and fast as possible, it was an explosion with Jeremy at it's centre, aimed to push everything away from him. He sent this wall of heat, flame and force out to, and past, the edges of the ring. He hoped the shock wave was enough to throw Lily from the ring, end this fight before he lost control, though he may have to make due with severely burning her if she managed to stay grounded well enough.

After it was done, Jeremy opened his eyes against the crunch of blood dried solid from the heat of his outburst, most of his wounds closed similarly. The ground around him was burned black with ashy dust in a thin layer around his feet as his jeans only remained above the knee, tattered and smouldering. The glass at the outer edge of the ring had been melted and smoothed from the blast, parts still molten and glowing red under the char. He felt the steep drop in his aura, he hadn't done something like that, well, ever, it was a hail Mary, but it hadn't wiped him out. He didn't know how much he had left, but it wasn't much and he hoped he didn't have to expend it. He hoped it was over.


Estoques – 6 magazines total – 10 rounds each
12/60 rounds shot
Tattoos:
Earth – 2 tattoos – 5 charges each
Glass – 2 tattoos – 4 charges each
Fire – 1 tattoo – 0 charges
Gravity – 1 tattoo – 0 charges
Seal Tattoo – 1 uses