The Games We Play

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishment at threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show...err read.

First Class

"So what were you thinking?" Adam asked later that day. "For this whole power armor business?"

We were in our first class—both of the day and of our time at Mistral—and it was every bit as dull as I'd expected it would be. I'd listened for about half a minutes, checked the teacher's notes, and had pretty much stopped listening. Well, that was a lie, since I listened to everything that happened around me and there was always that off chance that he'd tell me something I didn't already know, but I'd stopped giving him any particular focus. Thanks to my interest in Babel, I'd read dozens of history books, including the one for this class, and found the subject about as interesting as watching paint dry. Which, in fairness, I was also doing, thanks to my senses and the recent paintjob parts of the building had gotten, but that wasn't particularly interesting either.

So this was as good a time as any, I suppose.

Throwing up an illusion around us to go with Levant's sphere of altered sound, I picked up several pencils with my mind and began sketching a rough outline on the paper in front of me. I was fairly good at art thanks to a combination of skills, so it was easy enough to make an image of a man to begin with.

"I should specify that the power armor is a long term goal," I answered. "I don't think I have the skill to manage it yet, which is why I'll be grinding for a while yet—this is mostly just me planning for the future. For the time being, I'll still be making you a weapon of some kind; here are some of the things I've come up with so far."

The pencils rose from the sheet of paper to move into a new position on another page before lowering their tips to the surface and continuing to draw. I made the picture's detailed, confident that Adam—who I was pretty sure had built his own weapons—would be able to understand them. All of them were swords, favoring Adam's style; tachi, wakazachi, and such. I added a few other blades I knew had originated in Vacuo, such as Firangi, Talwar, Jian, and Dao, but tried to stick to weapons he would be comfortable using. Several of the designs incorporated guns, with images of the interiors drawn beside them, while others transformed into them or other weapons. A sword whose sheath could turn into another sword, one that, when sheathed, could turn into a rifle, that type of thing. It took several pages to complete all the designs, but I'd had plenty of hands to work with and it didn't take long since I'd already memorized them. When I was done, I tore out the pages with a thought and slid them over to Adam to look over later.

"But as for the armor," I continued, still drawing but this time adding a crystal to the original page. "I started thinking about it because I wanted to find a balance between the different uses of Dust. As is, each type has its upsides and downsides, which have caused a number of forms to fall out of use entirely. You have Dust in its raw, crystal form, which can release enormous amount of power, but which is extremely hard to control and which can even turn upon the wielder if used wrong. You have Dust Eating, wherein you take Dust into your own body in order to control its power, keeping it from turning upon you at least…if you do it right, that is. Done wrong, the power can run wild inside of you doing horrific damage if it doesn't kill you outright. Even if you do it properly, however, long term use can have some pretty enormous side effects—"

"Which you ignore entirely, I'm guessing," Adam said with a roll of his eyes.

"It's good to be awesome," I confirmed with a slight smile. "But even beyond what it can do to your body, Dust Eating is still had to use. It makes the user safer, but the power of it is still hard to control. So if you use a red crystal, for example, it should keep you from burning alive, but you might still burn down whatever it is you're trying to protect. It suffers in versatility, as well; while on one crystal, it can be hard to switch to another if the situation changes, just like it can be hard to turn off."

"Once you snort Dust, you ride the high until it's over, huh?" Adam stated, smirking as I frowned at him.

"More or less," I replied, a touch annoyed at the analogy. "It still provides an enormous amount of power and because you're channeling the Dust through your own body, there are a number of tricks you can do with it in terms of your Aura—but because of the costs, it was eventually shuffled out of popular use. Dust Weaving was a somewhat later invention, made by sewing the Dust into cloth and then channeling Aura through it to create an effect. This lowered its power significantly, but made it far easier to control, so it was very popular."

"It's not the size that matters, it's how you—" Adam began, still smirking widely. The boredom seemed to be getting to him already.

"I'm sure you'd know all about that, Adam," I cut him off with a nod. "But actually, yeah. Truth is, you can make up for a lot with proper control—being able to shoot a blast of fire the size of a bus is cool and all, but unless you're hitting a bus sized target, odds are good that most of the attack didn't hit anything, mean it was a lot of wasted energy. But let's say you take half that energy and focus it into an area the size of a marble; that attack is going to melt through just about anything you put in its path. What's the point of having a lot of energy if all you're going to do is waste it? For a while, Dust Weaving was considered the most powerful use of Dust, simply because you could focus what power you could into some extremely lethal forms."

Adam frowned for a moment before humming.

"Yeah, I get it," He answered. "I once fought a guy who was good at using ice Dust—he froze the entire battlefield and created a shitload of jagged spikes of ice, and I remembered thinking it was an amazing display of power rendered utterly worthless by the fact that it missed me entirely."

I nodded once at that.

"My power gives me a lot of bang for my buck, MP-wise," I said. "Because the cost tends to lower as I train skills more. Even then, there's a reason I favored my Magic Missile over Flare; it focused all of its power in a small area or on a single target. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to handle Gungnir just yet, but we'll see how it improves as it levels up. That's the downside of wide-area attack—their usefulness tends to decline as their area increases. City-destroying attacks sound cool and all, but how often do need to destroy a city? Isn't there anything more useful you could do with it? The Grimm, thankfully, are always good targets, but I'm not sure I'd use Gungnir anywhere near people."

Adam bobbed his head in understanding before pursing his lips.

"I get the idea; control over power. But…if Dust Weaving was considered so amazing," Adam mused. "Why do you barely see it anymore?"

"Because it had a fair number of downsides," I said with a shrug. "For a long time, it was something that had to be done by hand and even after it became possible to do it with machines, experts were still favored over mass production because it often had to customized to get the best results. Further, while it addresses the issue of control, it's entirely limited by what's sewn into the cloth beforehand and can't respond to any situation you didn't predict or prepare for; you can't just add more Dust to it on the fly if you need more power, nor can you suddenly switch between ice and fire. Add in the complications that can come from sewing errors or damages to the cloth and…well, they were eventually replaced by Dust rounds, which made up for their lack of individual power by being easy to use, trivial to switch between, simple to carry in large numbers, and compatible with a wide variety of weapons. In the end, Dust rounds and the powdered Dust used to make them became the most popular to use in battle, with a few specialists using other forms."

"But you have something in mind?" Adam guessed. "A way to add power back into that equation?"

"Maybe," I answered, glancing up as the professor called upon Adam. I used Levant to give the right answer in my friend's voice and focused on him again. I began sketching the design of the armor over the figure I'd drawn earlier. "Something that can balance versatility of Dust rounds, the control of Dust Weaving, the safety of Dust Eating, and the power of raw Dust. On top of that, it should be possible to enhance the capabilities of the wearer with Dust, both directly and indirectly. Color and direct the use of Aura as needed, support the user's body, switch between types of Dust on the fly, that type of thing."

"Interesting," Adam admitted, looking at the design I was slowly filling in—and yet, his frown was slowly deepening. "A best of all worlds' kind of deal. But…if this was possible, shouldn't someone have tried it already?"

At that, my smile dimmed.

"I'll bet you anything that something like this has been tried this before," I answered, shaking my head. "We use Dust to power our robots, after all, and with Dust armor, there'd just be a person inside operating it. We already have a few things like that, they're just bigger and they just don't use the Dust directly. There must be several problems with it and I can take a few guess at what. The first, of course, is going to be the cost, in terms of both money and Dust. The monetary cost is probably obvious, but the Dust is arguably more important. If it's just powering a robot or a machine, that's one thing, but if you're using the Dust itself to fight, you bare the risk of burning through in a fight—and if you run out in the middle of the battle, suddenly you're just being weighed down by a shitload of deadweight. You'd need a way to keep that from happening, first and foremost."

I shook my head.

"And while fuel economy has got to be a major issue," I said. "I think that combat potential has to be another. The result has to be worth the cost or there's no point, right? But there are a lot of things that need to be done to make it work. The armor is probably going to end up big enough that it's going to need at least some lightening, which will cost Dust. Then it'll need the auxiliary stuff, which could rack up costs quickly; if you want it to fly, if you want it to have computer systems to aid the user, on and on. Then there's the Dust itself and how it's going to be used in battle, making it versatile and easy to use—there's all sorts of things to take care of and they could all lead to roadblocks. I bet the guys up in Atlas has probably spent a fair amount of time thinking about it."

Adam considered that for a moment before nodding.

"Probably," He agreed. "Might even be related to that girl you mentioned they built. But you've brought up a whole lot of issues—do you have any solutions."

"Actually?" I replied, smile returning. "I just might. I think Cinder could be the key—I told you how her clothes had something like circuitry sewn into them and how I thought they worked like programs; input power, output results. Add in her own skill with Dust and she probably has a wide variety of tricks at her disposal for surprisingly little cost. I was thinking something similar might be possible with other forms of Dust; ways to both save power and bring out large amounts of it. If you could incorporate similar things into armor and set up the circuitry to make use of different kinds of Dust, it might be possible to get some real results. Mix in some of the other types, like rounds for weaponry, crystals in the power source, or even a few sections made out of Dust and…it might possible."

Adam lifted an eyebrow.

"Can you do that?" He asked, making me chuckle.

"No," I admitted before raising a finger. "Not yet, at least. Like I said, it'll take some work before I can even think about a project like this."

"Ah," He nodded in understanding. "Right. You're going to train this at night, then?"

"At night?" I repeated, lifting my own eyebrow. "I'm training it right now."

Adam blinked once at that, furrowing his eyebrows for a moment before catching on.

"Oh," He said, glancing at the pencils I was using to draw. "Of course."

"Sorry if I seem distracted," I continued, smirking. "My mind is busy elsewhere."

Adam's expression became one of disgust.

"Ugh," He groaned. "I didn't sign up for puns."

I chuckled and smiled as I looked down at my drawing. I'd meant it, though, at least in part. When we'd finished our training, I'd had us exit Naraka in the city, giving me a chance to gather all the supplies I needed to weave and craft. Even as I sat here in class, my mind was at work elsewhere, grinding my skills in our empty room—and in this room, really, as I was floating a millimeter above my chair.

There was too much to do to let this get in the way of my training.

Returning to my work, I could feel the forming cloth as if I were doing it by hand. If someone had managed to walk into my room without my knowing, they'd have found a complex web of thread and fabric held in the air and spread throughout the room. The web shifted constantly, as if being woven by invisible machines and gripped by unseen hands—which was exactly the case. Granted, the machines and hands were made out of focused thought rather than steel or flesh, but they moved in accordance to my will, spinning and sowing and shifting as I wished. One of the benefits of being Psychokinetic was that if you understood the processes, which I did, you could use it in place of even industrial machinery.

There were limits, of course. My mind could create things that were physical, giving the impression of conveyor belts and sewing machines and far more besides—but it could replace the need for the materials those machines worked. I'd stocked up, thankfully, and so that wasn't a concern so long as I remained focused, but though I had a number of flaws, a lack of attention to detail was not one of them.

Simply by focusing, I could turn our room into a factory, except more versatile, because the machines didn't run according to any designs or schedule except those I wished. I could change the entire process with a thought, switching out machines or materials or whatever else simply by willing it, and so things moved. It was simple enough to weave clothes together, just as it was simple to weave threads of Dust into them as I did. While some of my mental machinery was focused on fabrics and thread, the rest was devoted to several sets of hovering Dust crystals that I was slowly unravelling to lace and coat specific threads, sewing power into the forming clothes and lighting the room with eerie colors.

That wasn't how it was normally done, of course, because most people couldn't spin Dust into threads as they worked, coating specific segments as they went so that it would later create a greater whole. Usually, specially prepared threads would be sewn into something to give it power, added to already completed clothing—but this helped grind my Crafting, too, and helped me practice my Dust Weaving. If I chose, I could weave other threads into the pattern, creating a growing tapestry with some planning beforehand. Keeping Cinder's almost circuitry-like designs in mind, I connected the clothes as I worked, testing what I could do. When I got results I wanted, I remembered them and added them to the next work—when I didn't, I simply took it apart and went back to work.

But already, I'd made some progress. Being able to do it myself, to check the results and play with the possibilities, gave me a pretty good idea of what Cinder was doing. I'd been right about her designs; they were like both circuitry and programs. Circuitry in how they allowed power to flow through the garments, and programs in how directing that flow could generate results. Really, there were two layers to what Cinder did, with a central design that carried power surrounded by something to focus and color it—and having keened to that idea, I was eager to test it.

The circuitry aspects were simple to puzzle because…they really did work pretty much like a circuit, at least in some ways. It needed an energy supply—the user's Aura, generally, to minimize the cost to the Dust itself—and what amounted a closed circuit, made of patterns and lines throughout the cloth. The patterns needed to connect, somehow, so as to guide the Aura of the wearer without drawing too much upon the Dust's own power; the idea was for it to be the conductive material, rather than the power source. There were drawbacks to that, but depending on how the patterns in the cloth are designed, the energy that flows through it can be colored in different ways.

That was the 'programming' aspect of Dust Weaving. It was also part of why the effects were weaker than the rawer forms of Dust use—because you were actually trying to limit how much Dust was used, relying more on one's one power instead. At its most basic level, this could be used simply to aspect the Aura of the wearer towards the element of the Dust and allow them to project it in a useful way; to generate fire with red Dust, electricity with yellow Dust, and so on. With a more complex design, however, you could also generate a more complex effect. It was like my old Energy Bolt, which I could change into things like Fireballs and Cannonballs by adding in an Element; that would be the basic shift. Something bigger might allow for more complex techniques like Flares or Magic Missiles.

Of course, that was easier said than done. It depended, first and foremost, on the cloth itself—but also upon the wearer, who would still need to supply and guide the power, even if the cloth helped to shape it. Beyond which, actually writing the programs seemed to require…well, I guess it was sort of like a programming language. Getting a desired effect required the right patterns and the right Dust; without that, you'd be lucky to get something that didn't work at all. If you weren't lucky, you might get something that worked just fine…but not at all as it was intended to. I was betting that, historically speaking, there were a number of tried and true designs that I'd likely be able to hunt down, because experimentation might be harshly rewarded.

Thankfully, my senses gave me a number of advantages, not least of which was the ability to see the energy flow through the clothes and estimate what it was likely to do. Added to Observe, I could guess what something would do with a great deal of accuracy—and, more importantly, without actually seeing if it would or would not explode in my face. Once found, my power automatically logged the blueprints and filed them away.

From there, it was just a matter of figuring out what got the best results—both in terms of grinding and actual use. When it came to improving Crafting and Dust Weaving, I knew it'd be key to find something that not only generated a decent amount of experience, but which did so for relatively minor cost in terms of both time and resources. Rather than something I could only afford to make one of, crafting items at a steady rate was better, though my ability to recycle things helped quite a bit.

At the moment, I was sticking to the basics—clothes that were very fire or shock resistant, suits that lowered the amount of resistance one would face while swimming through water, and pants that would help soften a fall. Each took only minor amounts of the four basic kinds of Dust and incorporating the designs into clothes was fairly trivial. The experience rewards were fairly high relative to the cost and I'd already made several dozen of each, the results improving along with my skills.

Perhaps even more importantly, however, none of them were particularly dangerous, which meant I had the option of selling them if I felt so inclined. That was one of the upsides of Crafting, after all—you could always sell what you didn't want. Granted, life wasn't as simple as a game where any shop you came across would happily buy anything you felt like selling, but there were ways around that; I was certain that if I started manufacturing large amounts of Dust Woven clothes, my grandmother could find a buyer or else set up a proxy store.

Of course, I didn't really need money. I made a point to collect what the Grimm dropped, but there just wasn't a whole lot I really needed—and what little I did, my friends or allies generally provided freely. Even recouping the Dust I lost in Crafting wasn't a huge concern, simply because, as I was now, I was pretty sure I could mine Dust if I needed to. Between Ereb and my Psychokinesis, and with the information Raven and I had found concerning Dust deposits, I was fairly confident I could dig up…well, more than I was likely to ever need. I'd already made plans to help forestall the Dust crisis, if it became necessary, I was just more worried about the Riders and their Master, now that I knew of their existence. If it came up, I'd just go get some more Dust.

On the other hand, it might still be an interesting idea. The way things were headed, I'd be doing a lot of Crafting while in class—and the speed and quality of what I made was rising steadily. While I could just store the results in my Inventory and forget about them—because I didn't have much use for them myself—wouldn't it be better if somebody benefited from them? Even just some basic tricks could come in handy and I could already do more than that; I just wasn't really big on the whole sell powerful weapons to anyone capable of affording it.

But that wasn't the same as not being willing to sell them to anyone. I had no objections to making Hunters or the army safer or better equipped and my grandmother could make arrangements to see that it happened. It would take quite a while to produce enough to, say, supply an army, but my days were going to be pretty dull for a while anyway. Once things were in place, I could step up productions and make more powerful items as needed or even take requests. It would be something, at least.

I could use my Crafting to equip those close to me, too. My friends, family, and allies could use all the help they could get and it was easy enough for me to do while I had the time. And once I had enough time to Craft and Weave…well, I guess we'd see.

After all, I thought as the teacher continued to drone, it's not like I had anything better to do.

"Is this guy ever going to stop talking?" Adam complained, getting bored again moments after our conversation ended. "I can't believe I woke up for this shit."

"You should have just slept in class," I answered, pulling my thoughts away from my work for a moment. "I'd have covered for you."

"Goddamn it," Adam swore. "I can't believe I stayed awake for this shit."

I smiled a little at that, already drifting again. Watching my Dust crystals unravel and then bind to the threads I'd prepared, I remembered what my father had used his Telekinesis for. I'd continue to work on my Weaving for a while, but I needed to test what I could do with my Crafting, as well. That would require more materials, of course, but I could fetch them tonight.

"Well," I said. "Try to stay awake for a while longer. PT's next—and since it's the first day, maybe we'll get to duel someone. And if so…well, let's try to make a good impression."

"Sorry," He replied. "All I heard was 'beat the ever-loving crap out of them and establish the pecking order.'"

"Well…" I glanced at him, still smiling. "That's more or less what I meant, I suppose."