Episode Terra: Chapter 3: Quake

Chapter 3 of Terra's Episode

Two Months after the Initiation of Team BEAT

Beacon Amphitheater

 

 

Terra watched from the stands as some of her classmates continued to spar with each other.  She looked over and saw that her teammates were watching with great intent and interest, which made her roll her eyes.

            “Class a bit too boring for you Miss Violetta?” Professor Peach said calling out Terra.  Terra sighed, glaring at Professor Peach.

            “I’ve seen alley dogs fight better than some of these kids here” she said leaning back in her chair.  “Wake me up when you decide to send us out to the field with the rest of the toy soldiers of the academies so I can actually show what I can do?”

            “Your confidence from your experience is one thing,” Professor Peach said as she pressed a few buttons clearing the amphitheater ring.  “Care to put your words to the test?”

            “Fine by me” Terra said leaping down into the ring.  She prepared her rock gauntlets as Professor Peach called out to the class,
            “Do I have any volunteers?”  A few students raised their hands, some of them seemingly eager to try and face off against Terra.  But then Professor Peach noticed a hand raised that she decided to select.  Terra didn’t pay much attention as she was getting ready to knock down whoever she was going to fight in two moves.  She had it all planned out.  Her opponent would more than likely try to do a move the professors had taught in class, and she would easily counter it and show everyone what it meant to survive.  But then as she turned around to face her opponent, she was a bit surprised to see not a random student from another team, but Arri standing right in front of her with her pendulum scythe at the ready.

            “The heck?” Terra asked tilting her head in confusion.

            “Disappointed?” Arri replied with a smile.

            “More confused than anything else.  You’ve been preaching teamwork these last few weeks and decide now to just try and fight me one on one?”

            “More I think this is the only language you understand right now, so here we are.”  Arri took up her battle stance, ready to begin the bout.  Terra shrugged her shoulders and waited for Professor Peach’s signal.  As soon as she signaled the beginning of the match, Terra charged forward, looking to land a quick strike on Arri to knock her off balance.  She anticipated Arri using her Semblance and working around that, but Arri simply blocked Terra’s strike with her normal scythe, and instead used the vines wrapped around it to  try and reach into the cervices of Terra’s gauntlets and break them apart.  Terra quickly retreated but not without losing a few rocks from her gauntlets in the process.  Arri recalled the vines back to her scythe, and started spinning her scythe in a circle.  The Dust in her pendulum centers started charging with power, and she fired a round of Ice Dust at Terra with a swing.  Terra blocked this by transforming her gauntlets into a rock wall, and then salvaged what she could to reform her gauntlets.  But given a number of them were now frozen, it wasn’t as reinforced compared to when she began her fight.  Regardless, Terra still believed she could turn the tide.  She noticed some of the lose rocks that Arri had pried off her gauntlets earlier simply sitting near her feet.  So she channeled her Semblance and lifted those small rocks up, spinning them around Arri as tiny projectiles.  Arri used the vines on her staff to surround her body and try to deflect the projectiles to try and keep her Aura levels up.  Terra used this moment to charge forward once again and land a powerful strike in one of the openings between Arri’s vines.  This caused Arri to tumble back a few feet and reduce her Aura to about 50%.  Terra wanted to keep pressing the attack, so she charged forwards, trying to not allow Arri the chance to get back up.  But Arri was ready.  She used the vines to block another powerful punch from Terra.  Arri anticipated Terra would pull back and try another move, but she seemingly kept pressing on the vine trying to force her way through the wall.  Arri took this opportunity to cut the vines in front of her in one swing, causing Terra to fall through and crash on the ground as Arri sidestepped her.  Terra tried to recover, but before she could even try to raise a defensive wall, Arri struck her into the air with her scythe, causing Terra to fly upwards.  Arri then used the loose vines on the ground to coil up like springs and launch herself in the air and hook Terra in in her scythe.  Terra tried to use what few rocks she had left to defend herself, but it was too late as Arri brought Terra crashing back into the ground and reduced her Aura levels below 25%.  A buzzer sounded signaling the end of the match.  Terra wanted to keep fighting, but struggled to even stand back up after the shock of the hit she had just taken.  Arri walked over and offered Terra a hand up saying,
            “You did good.”  Terra saw the hand and smacked it away, pulling herself up and walking away.

            “I don’t need the sympathy of a spoiled brat” Terra said under her breath.

            “What was that?” Arri asked leaning forward.
            “Forget it” Terra said as she stormed out of class.  The rest of Team BEAT looked on in confusion, while Arri decided to go after Terra.

 

 

            Terra sat on the roof of the dorm building looking out over the entire campus as the students went about their daily routine.  She noticed the same few kids chatting by the trees near the courtyard, the same struggling student desperately trying to study by the amphitheater, and a few kids practicing battle techniques they had learned in class near the airship docks.  She just scratched her head and laid down on the roof, closing her eyes to try and nap.  That was quickly interrupted when she heard the sounds of something she had become accustomed to over the past few months.  A giant vine sprouting out of the ground and growing up to the rooftop.  Terra raised her head enough to see Arri pop up from the side of the roof and walk towards Terra.

            “Normally privacy is something people respect” Terra said laying her head back down on the roof.

            “If that privacy didn’t include running out on your teammates as a prerequisite, I would agree” Arri said with a sigh sitting down next to Terra.  “That was a good match.  You did well.”

            “The loser shouldn’t get told lies by the winner” Terra said with a snarl.

            “What makes you think I’m lying to you?”  Arri asked tilting her head in confusion.

            “I saw you crush the ankles of a Grimm without as much of a second thought.  And then I could feel it during our battle.  You refrained from using your vines to attack me directly and when you did, you made sure to keep them from doing more than messing up my weapons.”  Arri paused as Terra lined everything out about their fight.  She sighed and sat down next to her.

            “I didn’t use my vines on you for the same reason I don’t use them on any other being with a soul.  I’m afraid of what will happen.  I once caused an accident hurting someone with my vines, and I don’t want that to happen ever again.  Especially to one of my teammates.  That’s a big reason why I wanted to study here.  I want to learn how to control my power before I go out as a licensed Huntress.  If I’m supposed to keep people safe, then I have to make sure I’m ready for the real world.”

            “I’ve lived my entire life in the ‘real world’ you are so afraid of.” Terra said with a scoff.  “I’ve done worse things than just hurting somebody by accident.  When you’re face to face with an enemy, they don’t care how strong or weak you are.  All that matters is their own resolve compared to yours.  I’ve fought people stronger than even you.  The biggest difference is that unlike you, I know they wouldn’t hold back, so I didn’t either.  I didn’t come here to simply hold myself back just to make you and your famous cousin look even better in the eyes of the world.”

            “No, you’re just here because you apparently ticked off my grandma-in-law so much you decided to run straight here.”  Terra shot up in horror and grabbed Arri’s collar as soon as she said this.

            “How do you know about that?”

            “Do you have any idea how often my Aunt Yang has family over for dinners even when we’re supposed to be focusing on studying?”  Terra looked at Arri as if she was crazy, but eventually let go of her collar.  Arri adjusted her shirt and continued, “Aunt Yang will sometimes talk about her excursions with Raven out in Mistral, and given what you told us, I kind of pieced it together.”

            “Who all knows?”

            “Ember and I figured it out, but we haven’t told Bovia.  Figured that’s something for you to tell her if you want.  I haven’t told Aunt Yang or Uncle Nathan, and I didn’t tell either of my moms.  All they know about you is that you’re one of my teammates, I didn’t see any need to add any other facts if they weren’t necessary.”

            “Why not rat me out?” Terra asked as she sat back down on the roof laying her hands across her face in embarrassment.  “Why not just let them lock me up and throw away the key?  It’d be a bit more familiar compared to whatever this is.”

            “Kindness?”

            “Quiet.”  Terra then gestured out towards the campus.  “Look at everybody.  Going about their daily lives without people breathing down their necks, worrying about trivial things, just not worried about what the world will do to them.  The world I know is cruel, cold, and harsh.  It doesn’t care who you are, you just have to fight back.  Unlike you, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth by being born into the family of two of the most famous Huntresses in Remnant.  Nobody wanted me, so I made sure nobody forgot me.”  Arri looked at Terra, a bit of surprise on her face.

“You knew who Ember and I were based on our last names and you know about our parents, but you didn’t know that I was adopted?”  Terra looked up at Arri, a look of surprise forming on her face.  “So you do have more than just one face!” Arri said with a chuckle.  “Yeah, my sister Hera and I, we were both adopted by our parents years ago.  And I know, you might say ‘oh but you got adopted by famous people and didn’t have a care in the world’ and you’d be right.  I was very fortunate.  But don’t assume just because I have gotten to experience a life most would envy means that I am ignorant of the lives many of my former bunkmates at the orphanage lived or continue to live.  I know that feeling in the back of your mind that says nobody wants you, that you were not good enough for whatever reason when you were only just an infant.  But I found the people who care about me.  That’s not to say there aren’t people who try to take advantage of kindness, but you and I know how important that kindness can be; given we were denied it by those who gave birth to us.”  Arri sighed, and stood up, brushing off her pants.  “Peace is something most of our generation has gotten to enjoy.  It’s something that I’ve known all my life.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t always reach the darkest corners of our world.  The corners you’ve known all your life.  But seeing this,” Arri said gesturing out at the courtyard, “knowing the alternative, don’t you want to do everything you can to bring this to those you care about back where you came from?”  With that, Arri stepped off the roof and back onto her vine.  Before she descended back down to the ground below, Arri looked back at Terra one last time and smiled.  “I do want to try and get to know you better, and so does Ember and Bovia.  Whenever you’re ready to tell us about your life before coming here, we’ll be there.  Because despite what you may think of me and my admittedly very privileged lifestyle, I do care about you as my teammate.  With that, Arri descended from the roof while  Terra continued to lie there, not sure what to do next.  She just continued to watch as her classmates continued about their lives without a care in the world.

            “Bold to assume I would have anybody I care about.”  But as she said this, she felt a twinge of pain in her heart, a feeling she had not felt in a long time and did not know how to describe.  Perhaps if a word was to be ascribed, it would be empathy.

 

 

 

 

            The stars shone bright in the sky.  The sands of the desert still linger.  Terra looked down expecting to see the same smiling corpse she had seen every night for several years.  But he was gone.  The blood-stained sand was being swept away by the winds.  And from that wind came the growing bands of light from the horizon.  And as Terra looked out, a new figure stood in the distance, waving at her.

Author's Note

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