Destiny No More

Chapter 28

"Again."

Pyrrha took a deep breath, lowering herself slightly before punching forward with her fist as a large burst of flames shot forth. Before the fire had even finished burning she drew her hand in, sliding her right foot back she braced for the impending pain. After another deep breath she swiped up with her arm in an arc, small pellets of ice being thrown at and around her target as they embedded themselves several inches into the metal of the drone.

She felt her core twist awkwardly at the contradicting elements and thought for a moment that she might throw up; it slowly subsided however and she took several deep breaths to compose herself before resetting her stance and starting over.

After another half-hour she finally stopped, feeling the sweat pour from her brow as her body ached.

"Very good Miss Nikos." Professor Goodwitch said, her expression was as stern as ever but her voice carrying a softer tone to it. "We will need to work on your aim, but you have begun to grasp the more archaic natures of magic."

Pyrrha looked back to the drone she had been attacking and, while it was indeed scorched, dented, and pierced from where she had hit it, the area around it had sustained more damage than the drone itself. She flushed slightly, looking back to the professor sheepishly. "I'll do better next time, I promise."

Professor Goodwitch stepped closer, resting a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to reassure her. "You have already made great strides." The professor removed her hand, stepping away and walking over to a nearby desk where she had been brewing tea for the last hour. "Not just with your magic either, I see that you are spending more time with team CFVY."

Pyrrha followed closely behind, taking a cup when offered. "We made plans for the summer break, or, well, Coco made plans. The rest of us are just going along."

"Hmm," The professor hummed in what Pyrrha would almost call amusement. "Miss Adel is quite persistent. I believe that you have made an excellent choice in friends."

Lifting the cup to her lips, Pyrrha realised the tea had gone cold. She thought about refusing it, but an idea came to mind. Subtly tapping into her power, she began to heat up the cup, and after a moment the tea was warmed up enough for her to enjoy and she slowly allowed the heat from her hands to fade so as to not burn her hands on the cup once she was no longer protected by it.

"Impressive. Subtle control like that can be just as difficult to master as what we were just practicing." Professor Goodwitch said.

"That was a test too?"

The Professor smiled back at her, raising her cup and taking a drink of her own. When she was done, she set her cup down next to the kettle she had used. "I take it that your staying with team CFVY last night was only a temporary solution?"

Pyrrha nearly choked on her tea. "H-how did you know about that?"

The Professor's smile grew in the closest sense of resemblance she had never seen between the older Huntress and Yang. "You'll find that very little goes on in this school without me knowing. A student stumbling into another team's dorm in the middle of the night, while drunk nonetheless, is hard to miss." Pyrrha's face began to burn in embarrassment. "And Miss Adel has been talking about it all day."

"Dammit Coco." Pyrrha mumbled under her breath. Waking up in their dorm had been embarrassing enough, having to sit through Coco's interrogation after the fact had been even worse. What had started as a means to figure out what she had been up to, it had quickly evolved into asking why she hadn't invited her friends.

All the while Pyrrha had been forced to speak through the worst migraine she had ever experienced, excluding the ones from her afterlife. By the time Coco had finished Velvet had even joined in on the 'fun', though she had seemed to be edging Coco on more than anything else. Thankfully Yatsuhashi had been there to defend her and had managed to drag Coco off long enough for Pyrrha to escape.