Peace and Quiet

[Castor Achromos]

The last few weeks for Castor have been nothing but one shitshow after the other, losing his match in the tournament, failing to find the Grimm reaper and now his so-called friends in the underworld are starting to get on his ass about the botched job at the hotel. At the very least he could have some peace and quiet by himself in the training room. Or at least he tried to anyways…as he pressed away at the light screen in front of him trying to set up the next rounds of sparring practice for him, the flashes of those events kept burning themselves into his mind. With a quick press a timer soon popped up in the air, giving Castor but a few moments to drive out those intrusive thoughts and onto the task at hand.

The moment the time hit zero a quick alarm sounded, spread throughout the room was several training machines supplied by the Atlas academy for huntsman, save for the few dents and bumps gifted to them by Castor they were all in relatively pristine shape as the hobbled themselves back up. Some with melee weapons and others with ranged guns built into their forearms. There were about a dozen or so of these metal punching bags but since everyone else seems to be preoccupied with the tourney matches going on, Castor had all of them to himself.

Of course they didn’t waste a moment, as they soon charged towards him with their blunted swords while the ranged ones tried to move and flank hoping to secure line of sight on him. For your average huntsman in training this may be overwhelming, but for a fight junkie like Castor it was a breeze. Diving in towards ahead of the melee dummies, forcing them to swing their weapons in response. Castor dodge, bob and weave around their arcs just barely missing their weapons by the edge of his hair. Stepping between them Castor would throw a series of quick jabs to several of them as he continued to dance around their slow-moving limbs. Eventually positioning himself between the melee and ranged units waiting for the sounds of their guns to alert him.

[Phlox Fessenden]

Phlox had a difficult day, to say the least. He walked into the combat training room with a vexed look on his face, and his eyes betrayed the frustration he had been feeling all day. Earlier, a noisy and obnoxious bitc-..woman had confronted him about book choices in the library when he recommended her a sci-fi novel, insulting his intelligence and insisting that her way was the only correct way. He could have lost it (and he was going to) but managed to keep his cool and refrain from snapping back at her, relieved when one of the other librarians managed to redirect her attention elsewhere. He couldn't help but feel a sense of gratitude for that person, and he mentally wished them luck, if it even existed

Finally able to focus on combat training, Phlox felt a sense of relief. He knew he could channel his pent-up frustration into each strike and block, regardless of whether his opponent was a hologram, a Grimm, a human, or a faunus, though the actually skilled humans and faunuses had gone to a tournament that was going on, and even though he wished he could participate, he knew he needed more training first. He resolved to push himself harder in his combat training to improve his skills and be ready for the next tournament.

Phlox approached his locker and opened it, extracting out his gear one by one. He retrieved his trusty weapon, Requiem Avengement, his huntsman outfit, his numerous smoke bombs, and a playback device, just in case. As he equipped himself, he sat on a lonely bench, not even paying attention to the boy boxing away at the dummies. Instead, he pulled out his scroll and reviewed his past training sessions, trying to identify areas where he could improve. He was determined to become a better fighter and achieve his dream of participating in the tournament, to finally be strong enough to avenge the persecutedt. The thought of competing put a smile on his face, and he was ready to work hard to make it a reality.

Also, he need to make new gadgets, soon.