The Only Way to Bring On the New School Year (Private/Training/Fleur)

If anyone had any sort of doubt that summer was coming to a close, they did not have to look any farther than just the population of the academy grounds, which had grown quite a bit in the couple weeks leading up to the start of a brand new school year. With the increase in people also came an increase in energy. Liona wasn't bored out of her wits all day anymore. Instead, she had things to look forward to now and she could hardly wait for their time to finally come. It seemed as though break had taken three YEARS as opposed to three months.

Evidently, the school itself had also been exceptionally excited for the new school year, because it started to show it. All across campus, bulletin boards were lined with welcome back posters and club recruitments, Faculty and Professors sat in their offices making their yearly lesson plans, And special events were held to welcome students to the academy, whether they were returning or brand new to the place. It was actually one of these events that had grabbed Liona's attention, as well as the very reason she had made her way to the school's training facilities.

Now, though a student could pick from a handful of majors, of which Liona had picked Dust Studies, Combat training was a major part of the core curriculum that everyone had to be a part of. Everyone would graduate Syne as a hunter or huntress, after all. So even though Combat and Dust were generally the more, well, combat focused majors, it was still important that everyone got the proper training anyway. As such, a training event had been scheduled as a way to condition students before being thrown into the meat of their studies. To Liona, this would be a great way to spend her time. She felt the need for extra practice anyway. There was always room to improve.

So Liona found herself waiting for the last few people to arrive, sitting in a bench next to one of the little training battle fields wearing running shorts, tennis shoes, and a goldenrod t-shirt as well as her gauntlets and dust belt of course.

Whenever a decent amount of people had shown up, the supervisor for this particular event instructed that everyone take a partner for one on one sparring matches. Without getting up quite yet, Liona looked around to find friendly, faunus face that she could challenge. She was pretty excited. She had not had a good spar in a long while and she intended to take full advantage of it. However, that would only happen if she could find a partner. This was the difficult part. Before she knew it, all of the faunus had already found someone to train with, and in the time it took for Liona to realize this, all of the humans and possibly androids had paired up as well. "Well this is unfortunate." She muttered, speaking under her breath to herself.

Suddenly, she felt a chill and her ears twitched. She felt uneasy, as if someone were watching her. She turned to see who it was, finding an unpleasantly familiar face toward the entrance, staring back at the lion. Of course she did quickly turn away, as if to hide, but it was already too late. Liona could already see that it was the nervous human that she had met the other day. What, so the girl could not even stand to look at a faunus like Liona? Please, you know that's probably not the reason, Liona told herself, in an attempt to talk herself into approaching the human... Flower? Ah, Who cared about her name? It was clear that This girl was her only choice in partners. And sure, Liona COULD leave, but why destroy her plans for the sake of a human?

Thinking about it, this was actually a good thing for a couple of reasons. First of all, She already knew of this human. She would rather deal with this situation as opposed to one where she would have to meet yet another of their kind. Secondly, it probably would be a good way to let out a bit of unhealthy rage and hatred, sparring with a human. So Liona stood up and approached the girl, clear irritation on her face. "If it's all the same to you, I would like to get this over with as quick as possible."

One could swear that the human girl's anxious shaking would cause an earthquake, it was ridiculous. As Liona walked up to her, she noticed that the girl was so wobbly a draft could probably knock her over. The Faunus did not quite understand it. If there was one thing that Liona had seen time and time again from the human race, it was a stubborn pride. Pride that they used as a weapon. Pride that they used to take superiority by force, wether it belonged to them or not. However, Flower did not seem to have much of that pride, as far as Liona could tell. And a human without pride was by far the most annoying one of all.

In any case, when Liona spoke to the nervous girl, she seemed to get even more anxious. In Fact, she did not even bother to speak back. What? Liona was some sort of big scary animal monster? How insensitive! "Tch." Lion Turned on her heels and walked away, positioning herself onto her side of the battlefield before facing her opponent once more. This battle would either be really infuriating...

...or really satisfying.

With a flip of her hair,  she got into a pose for  battle. Her gauntlets remained inactive for the time being, and instead she had opted to pull a small vial of red dust from her belt. She could use Dust to her heart's content her, as the school's training arena provided it for practice. Why waste some hard earned dust on a mock fight, after all? Looking at her... Challengee? Technically? She noticed that she wasn't shaking anymore. Ahh, a strong on the field of battle type. How deceptive. Liona watched carefully, allowing her opponent to make the first move

As Liona had hoped, Flower was the first one to make a move, coming forward with a kick high enough that it would reach Liona's face. It was an impressive feat, on had to admit, especially given the slight height difference. Still, the Lion had watched such an attack come at her and countered accordingly. It would start with a step forward with her right foot as she ducked under the Human girl's incoming leg. This would flow seamlessly into a low pivot to the right on that very same leg,  Outstretching her left for a kick to the back of the girl's knee of the leg still on the ground in order to fell the human scum. As this happened, she would grab an earth dust vial with her free hand and toss it in front of her as her pivot ended. With this she would punch down on the little bottle and shatter it, causing a stubby pillar of rock to launch the Faunus girl some 5 meters away.

Now, this was not the end of it, oh no. That was simply the counter. Now it was Liona's turn to attack. As the rock sent her flying she popped open the cap on her fire vial, the one she had in her hand since the beginning. Upon landing she twirled around to face her opponent once more, letting loose the dust as she spun. The fire conglomerated together in the form of a mighty lion, about the size of a real one. This was Liona's favorite thing to do with her dust, and no one said she couldn't be flashy, right?