Beuce ran through the snow to catch up with them. Karina had barely set foot in the world before she trudged off. He was glad that she was being...Goal-Oriented, as he decided to put it. He just hoped that she wouldn't charge headlong into a trap. He arrived mere seconds behind the two of them, talking to what appeared to be a woman of dwarf-like stature brandishing a staff at them. "Hey, Hey. There's no need for that!" He said with a muffled voice. Looking down, he found the culprit. An enormous, fluffy white beard extending from his mouth down to the middle of his chest. Beuce sighed. "Ma'am. We've only just arrived moments ago. We'd just like to know what's going on."
Beuce didn't know the exact details of what Kaida went through in her training, but he could guess the gist of it from what she said. "That rough, huh...?" He said passing his AJ over to Quill. "Well, if it makes you feel any better you aren't insane. There's actually a bunch of AJs running around. Its his test, apparently. Not really sure we should interfere more than we already have..." He muttered to himself. "It seems like the spiritual training was pretty rough on the both of you. I can't say I'm looking forward to mine, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, you look like you need some rest."
Beuce squinted at Aj as he wrote down and muttered his exact actions. "Alright buddy, you're acting weird. Now is not the time for acting weird what with all the spies and red society stuff going on, so we're gonna find the others." Beuce ducked down and put his shoulder against AJ's stomach and his arm around his waist. With the boy in tow, he stood back up and scooped him onto his shoulder. "Come on." He began to stroll away with him until he came across an odd sight. Quill was seemingly supporting a barely able to stand...AJ? "Yo! What uh...do you know what's going on with him?"
Beuce as he was walking back, noticed someone skulking in the shadows. Beuce summoned his keyblade, only to dismiss it once he realized who it was. "Oh, sorry. I didn't realize it was you. What are you doing here AJ? Anything I can do for you?" The man asked, a bit concerned about the fact AJ would be hiding from him.
"So... learn anything of value?" “Well, I’ve never been much one for an extended fight...but I feel like I’ve got a bit more stamina now.” Beuce looked to the door where ventus had exited through. “Though, he’s gotten better way faster than I expected.” He watched as Ven departed. "Indeed... something unique about that boy I can't put my finger on... but back to you. This next test will be more of a battle of wits." "No heavy offense, just a test of your ability to react and adapt." Beuce straightened his posture and resumed eye contact with Orion. “I’m ready.” Orion smirked. "I see your very keen and focused when you need to be. You've reached a comfortable level where you can stay in control. Lets see what happens when i take that away.." he pointed his keyblade to Beuce. "Blackout." Beuce clutched his face as his sight was taken from him. He summoned Lofty Grasp and began to listen for any changes in the area around him. He didn’t know if the test would be another battle, but he needed to be alert no matter what. "Rule number one. Never show fear when caught off guard. Fear is weakness and will be exploited." He examined Beuces stance and back to his eye level. "Im going to attack you from the front now. Ready?" Inhaling through his nose, Beuce took up a stance and entered his blade aura, heightening the senses he had left. With only a moments pause, he spoke. “Ready.” Orion sunk into the ground through darkness A black hole of darkness appeared under Beuce and kept his ankles locked. Orion shot up behind him and pulled lofty grasp close to his neck, nearly choking him. "Rule number two. Never let your opponent dictate the rules." He left go and kicked Beuce's back so he'd fall over. Beuce felt the impact on his back and stumbled forward. “I should’ve expected that. Honestly, I really should have expected that” He pushes himself off the ground and readied himself for another attack. This time, he held onto his key blade with both hands, ready to change his stance at a moments notice. “Again.” Orion began with an overhead strike. Beuce shifted lofty grasp in time to knock his key blade to the side He struck to the side Beuce went to deflect the next strike, but without his sight he was unable to line his blade up in time. He winced in pain, but remained standing. “Again...” Orion summoned two knights made from light as they swung their swords, attacking both sides of him. Beuce heard attacks coming at him from both sides. Unable to block both of them at once, he waited until the attacks were just about to connect, and ducked underneath them. Not wasting a second he drove the red end of the key blade into one knight, and fired a blast of ice out the blue end to strike both of them at once The knights of light faded as did Beuce's blindness. Orion paid closer inspection to his arm. "What happened there?" Beuce looked down at the arm Orion asked about. "Toward the beginning of our journey, we had to fight against a pretty big horde of heartless. One of them was a lot stronger than the rest, and only got stronger by eating the others. I tried to take it on, but I lost. My arm was the cost. Lucky me, I had someone watching out for me, and I got a replacement." He grabbed the arm and examined it. "Where did you get the replacement?" "I have a lot of hearts resting in mine. Some of which are the gods of my world. They made it for me" "Hmm..." Orion murmured. He turned the wrist again before dropping. "Thats enough for today."
After some time had passed, Ven and Beuce were out of steam. Orion approached them, looking at the exhaustion of the two of them. "Care to call it a day?" He said to Beuce. Beuce took a few heavy breaths. He’d won as many as he could, but each match began to get harder and harder. “You learn fast. Keep that up, and you’ll be a master in no time.” Beuce then turned to the master. “Yeah. That’s about as much sparring as either of us can deal with.” "Good." He turned to Ventus. "You're excused Ventus... The rest of Beuce's lessons will be by himself. Perhaps you can further your training in the obstacle course?"
Beuce was taken aback when Orion told him to kill Ven. Though, after thinking about it, he shouldn't have been surprised. This was exactly what he'd known was in store. Beuce looked over to the boy on the ground, and back to Orion. "Why? I said I'd take out as many as I had to. I didn't say I'd take out whoever I had to. I'm willing to sacrifice my own well being for this, but I won't take out the other members of the SOS. That's fine isn't it? After all, you have Blade and there's someone you weren't willing to kill. It's only the number that matters, not who it belongs to, right? " Orion peered at him. "I've killed thousands to protect me people... You may have fought dark creatures, but I've taken lives. Human lives with families to get the blade I needed. Not out of pleasure mind you..." He looked down to Ventus. "What if it wasn't this boy you knew? What if it was a random criminal you had no affiliation with. Would you take his life?" Beuce grew silent for a moment. How far was he willing to go? He could very well lose himself in the violence. After all that, would the SOS even want him...? How would his people react knowing that this was their king? Beuce took a deep breath. "If I have to be the executioner, I may as well be the judge too. I'll decide which lives I do and don't take. I'll decide which ones I have to and which ones I don't." Orion blinked in surprise. He honestly didn't think he would take the high road. He thought for a moment to himself before looking down at Ventus. "Ventus, it seems your life has been spared. But out of curiosity, how fast do you think you can move?"
Beuce in response aimed his beam at the boy, causing the two beams of energy to clash. The energy met in the center between them, waxing and waning toward each of them. Beuce closed his eyes and concentrated. At his will, a white light enveloped him and his beam grew in power. With the increased strength, it gained headway against the other beam until finally it reached Ventus.
Beuce was satisfied that he felt his blade connect. A good hit meant that there could be much more left. Immediately following up, he spun it around and held aloft the blue end of it. "Faith!" He called out. Much to his surprise, it was in unison with Ventus who had cast a faith of his own. Twice the normal amount of light beams struck the ground all over the area.
Beuce never failed to be surprised by the boy's speed. Ventus had managed to dodge all three of his attacks and counter in the meantime. Beuce swung his blade to knock aside Ventus' strike but the fireball collided with his shoulder. Thankfully, it didn't do a whole lot of damage. Ventus' strength seemed to be in a multitude of small blows. Brandishing his keyblade, cherry petals began to float down around the area. After a moment, Beuce vanished and reappeared in an instant on the other side, leaving a flash of light and cutting everything in between.
Not a moment after they got back, Orion gave them their second task. Apparently they were to spar with one another. Beuce summoned his keyblade to his hand in a flash of red and blue. "Well, this'll be a good opportunity to see where you are as far as combat goes. Get ready." Beuce scraped the blue end of lofty grasp along the floor into an upward arc, causing a burst of ice to shatter forth at the boy. Adjusting his grip, he brought it back down to call forth a barrage of thunder. Once more adjusting his grip toward the red end, he thrust forward.
Beuce stumbled forward briefly from the missed grab, but was quick to change direction. Sprinting with all his might, he leaped up and planted a foot on the top of the chimney. One step forward to the other side, he leaped off and descended upon Ventus from above. It was just barely enough distance as he reached out to clap the boy on the shoulder. "got it. Man, you're slippery."
Well, Ven was a fair bit more elusive than he'd expected, but Beuce was hot on his tail. Though it was with a fair bit less grace, he managed to make the same jumps and maneuvers that Ven had. Finally, he arrived at the windowsill. Stepping up, he leaped out without a moment's hesitation. The slightest difference where ven had stopped to brace himself had allowed Beuce to close the distance. He reached out his arm, just slightly out of reach of the boy.
Beuce was a bit confused as to why they were suddenly required to play tag. To him, it didn't seem to line up with what orion had just told him, but he was hardly in a position to argue. He counted down the seconds after Ventus took off running, and after ten, Beuce darted after the boy. Ventus had certainly surprised Beuce with his speed, so he buckled down and ran as fast as he could after him.
Beuce watched as Aux bumbled out an apology. That...hadn't been quite how he pictured it happening, but it happened all the same. Ven seemed a bit off-put by this but quickly forgave Aux under the condition that he helped find his other friends. Beuce, deciding that Ventus was truly a good kid, spoke up for their first order of business. "Alright, well since we can't do regular aura training, I figured instead we could-" Beuce was blindsided by a wad of paper hitting his right temple. Reaching down and picking it up, he uncrumpled it to find that it was a note. "Meet me at the bell tower - <3 Sok" Beuce looked around but could find no trace of anyone who could've thrown the note. "Well, I guess we're going to the belltower now." He said, showing it to the others. "This could be something interesting." Beuce then turned to directly address Aux. "You've spent the most time here. Why don't you lead the way?"
Beuce raised an eyebrow at Shiro. He didn't seem to recognize blade as a primary aura. That was...unexpected. "Well, if you say so." Even further to his surprise, he wasn't the only one to be sitting out of today's training. Aux and Ventus as well. Before he could say anything though, Luna took her orb. "Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what your Aura is. It's light. And if I had to hazard a guess, that means you'll be hanging out with us today. For being opposites, Light and Darkness are pretty similar. I imagine you'll be sitting out for the same reason Aux is. Speaking of..." Beuce swung his arm in a gathering gesture at Aux and Ventus. "C'mon guys. We'll be in the way here. We can do our own training in the meantime until they figure out what to do with us. Ven needs a rundown of the basics anyway if I remember right." Beuce said, admittedly a bit disappointed that he wouldn't be unlocking his third level aura as quickly as he'd thought.
Beuce looked around at the others who showed up to see not a single other rested face among them. What the *kupo* did they do all night? Shaking his head disapprovingly, Beuce turned his attention to the lesson at hand. Seemingly, the first step was to determine which Aura they would even be progressing at all to the third tier. When finally an orb reached Beuce's hand, it instantly turned a dull metallic grey. Exactly what he'd expected. This was the aura he'd used to defeat Victor. "Shiro, what group would Blade fall under?"
Beuce would've said he was surprised as Karina came flying through the door, but he honestly didn't expect that nothing would go wrong. Though to his pleasant surprise, the issue was dealt with fairly quickly. Seeing as the issue was dealt with as quickly as it arrived, Beuce stood from his seat. "Well, that saved me the trouble of finding you. Here's the deal. Starting tomorrow, we're going to be going through some pretty intense training. We need to get stronger. Way stronger than any of us are right now. We're on a time crunch, but we can't jump into the fire without being prepared. For now, we need to get a good night's sleep." The man walked over to Karina and put an arm on her shoulder. "Hold on to that. You're gonna need it. For now, let's rest up." Beuce walked off to first, find any SOS members not present to deliver the same message. After that task was complete, he'd retire to a room. ~~The following morning~~ Beuce rose to sit on his bed and stretched his arm. The other followed the same motions but didn't stretch very well. He called lofty grasp to him and looked over it for just a moment. With a deep breath, he got out of bed and headed to the training grounds.
Listening in on the meeting, Beuce's mind wandered to the various possibilities. "We fought No Heart once. His strength is unreal. Even if we were newly named, he still beat some odd 13 keyblade masters at once without so much as breaking a sweat. If I had to guess, he's throwing worlds into darkness in an effort to force our hand. He wants the clash to happen as soon as possible because he knows he'll win." Beuce looked to Dawn. "The reason we can't just choose replacements is that honestly speaking, we just simply aren't strong enough yet. If it were just the apprentices, if it were just the red society, it'd be a different story. It wouldn't be easy, but we could pull through it. No heart is on a level all his own. If we rush in and lose, there's no one left after us. He'll have free reign to do whatever he wants, and with kingdom hearts in tow, no one will ever be able to do anything about it again." Beuce said grimly. He cleared his throat and straightened his back. "Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we'll never win. We just aren't in a position to do so yet. So the first order of business, if I may propose, should be getting the SOS stronger. Once we do that, we might be able to fill the remaining four slots from our ranks." He looked to DJ and Shiro. "You've been masters a lot longer than we have. You're more experienced. So, If I may, I believe you should train us. There has to be a greater level of power we could achieve that would give us an even playing field." Beuce said before growing silent. "What about...A greater form for our Auras? I've been on the cusp of mine but...I'm stuck. I can't figure out how to break through into the third."
Beuce relaxed, just a little bit, as it was confirmed that there was no one else on the world outside of an old man in a pod. That at the very least meant they wouldn't need to conquer their way through here. Still, though, it was unnerving how they would make such an incredible effort to capture the place, only to just up and leave it. A few theories raced through Beuce's head, but they were no more than blind speculation at this point, so he didn't feel they were worth sharing. As Beuce listened to Shiro as he said they needed to choose three representatives. Before he said anything, Karina piped up nominating him, Luna, and Aux. Aux was likely the most important of the three, given the information he had. Luna was a competent leader, and Beuce knew better than to doubt himself at this point. He quickly cycled through the other candidates just to be sure. He'd have suggested Kel if not for his unique circumstances. However, he was left with naught but the three listed nominees. "No complaints here."
