Exploring Issei's Gear!

"Alright now we're going to go into one of the known abilities of your particular Sacred Gear," Rias told Issei as he stood in the training field with her and Kiba a few days into the training. Really, only a good bit into the second day from the outside, but a few days on the inside. Gotta love time dilation. "No one has ever truly mastered all the abilities it can offer, but there are a few on record. The regular Boost is its bread and butter, but the one I'm referring to is called Explosion."

"Right, what's that do?" Issei asked, conjuring up his gauntlet.

"It's basically the same as a regular Boost, but on steroids. It drastically increases your power, but only for a short time. And once that time's up, you reset to your baseline. All Boosts, and the power from Explosion gone," Rias explained.

"...so, basically, it's meant as a last ditch effort," Issei nodded. "Got it."

"Try and use it, without any regular Boosts to stack on it, and then try fighting Kiba. I want you to get a feel for it," Rias told Issei, who nodded, and focused.

"Explosion!" he shouted, feeling the power surge. It was like gaining multiple Boosts at once. Imagine what it could do when stacked on having several already.

Kiba naturally rushed Issei, who was now actually able to track him and was able to block the wooden sword with a punch of his gauntlet. Supernatural metal met wood, and Issei could hear some splintering, but the weapon held. Kiba broke off, and tried to flank Issei, who managed to turn to block again, and this went on for a few more blow exchanges.

"Try using magic!" Rias called to Issei, who nodded, despite not being confident in the output, and extended his hand at Kiba... Before a massive, fiery blast erupted from his hand, much to his shock.

"Yikes!" Kiba yelped, barely dodging it. The blast took out several trees as a consolation prize.

"... unholy shit!" Issei gaped as Rias stated that that was enough for now, before asking for Kiba's assessment.

"...I reinforced the training weapon with magic, but he still almost broke it," Kiba admitted, showing the wooden sword, which did indeed look like it was only a couple more exchanges away from outright breaking. "If we kept going, unless I got in a hit, I would have lost my weapon, and been **** on the defensive. Of course, my own Sacred Gear lets me make any blade I can imagine, so if I was using it, I could have more than evened the playing field," he added, just to keep Issei from getting too big a head.

"Huh," Issei said as Explosion wore off, and he was hit by a good bit of fatigue. "...we should definitely explore your capabilities with that later..."

"...you know what? I'll take you up on that," Kiba agreed. "You're creative enough to potentially increase my capabilities with a good idea or two..."

"Still think you're the weakest of us?" Rias asked Issei with a grin. "Like I said, that's only partly true, but in a prolonged fight, you have the capability to be our greatest weapon. And you're improving. You're almost ready to receive the powers of your second Pawn piece. Keep growing at this rate, maybe even promote to a Queen during the Rating Game, and Riser will spend the next century trying to figure out what the hell hit him."

"Sweet!" Issei beamed as he dismissed his Gear. "Any other written abilities of my Boosted Gear?"

"There's also Transfer..." Rias nodded. "Some users were able to transfer the power of their Boosts to others. It helped build up the power of teammates by offloading the Boosts, which is one way to get more out of it without taking on more Boosts than your body can handle."

Issei nodded, already thinking of applications... Before he was struck by an idea, and slowly grinned.

"...I know that look," Kiba chuckled. "I'm starting to associate it with something that could help our chances."