The day had finally come. For a month now, students from all around the world of Remnant have been living within the walls of Vale in preparation of the tenth Vytal Festival since the war between the Humans and the Faunus. Since the great battle between the two races, Humans and Faunus alike have been reaching for a peaceful future. However, there are still many who resent the animal hybrid species, even in a time of peace.

The people of Vale, as well as other from across the kingdoms, have been readying themselves for the festivals, setting their best wares and preparing their best foods for others to enjoy. It was a festival of unity and prosperity, thanking the world for giving them what they have now. They were safe from the Grimm, and they were privileged enough to see the best and brightest students from each academy fight against one another in the spirit of friendship and competition.

The vendors had been ready far before the day actually began, waiting for people to enjoy their culture in its different forms. Some offered food, others clothes, and anything else that could be varied on location.

Bergen had left the room that her team was in long before the sun rose. Even on the day of the festival, there was no excuse for her to not train her hardest.

Now, the sun shone overhead, two of the professors from Beacon were busy talking to one another about the festival itself, as well as the competitors in this year's tournament.

Meanwhile, Burgundy was busy working on her seventh bowl of noodles, chowing down as if there were no tomorrow. She didn't know where her teammates were, but she was sure that they would find her before the competition started.

Bored, yet undeniably sharp emerald irises glinted within the annoying sunlight, as the one and only Daelon 'Eden' Verde treated his pale skin to the slightly frustrating heat of Vale's sunny atmosphere. The teenager wasn't yet sure if he preferred this weather to the more colder, brisker environment that was Mistral, but, regardless, it was certainly a change of scenery. Sat underneath the hastily-sewn tarp of a lemonade stand, Eden took a short sip of the sugary sweet drink, before leaning back in the oddly comfortable wooden chair, and releasing a low sigh. He wasn't lazy, for sure - well, that's what he told himself - but he had to admit...drinking lemonade and relaxing in the open air was a lot better than spending 24 hours training, perfecting a style that he has long since became an expert in. True, his marksmanship could probably use some polishing off, but what was the use of constantly stressing his body? Both body and mind needed the occasional rest, and despite the noisy, loud atmosphere of the festival and it's occupants, this was a nice place to rest. Hell, he could even feel his eyes drifting into the deep, dark abyss of sleep...And finally...relief. He was submerged in the darkness, his eyes closed.

Just then, he was quickly jolted awake by a slap across the back of his head by his teammate, Lapis and with the familiar call of...
"What's up, idiot?"

"The sun and the moon...and apparently, not my beauty rest..." He mumbled the last part, opening one eye to glare at the offending woman. A gloved hand rose from it's resting place to rub the slightly sore spot at the back of his head, ruffling feathery locks of black hair. "What do you need, Lapis?"

"Need? I need oxygen, I want to win the Vytal festival. Come on, Tori is waiting for us in the dorm." The girl responded, her arms crossed, and her feet making an impatient rhythm on the concrete ground.

Knowing that Lapis was an incredibly persistent daughter of a bitch, Eden mumbling an obscenity underneath his breath, stood, grabbing his backpack off of the table as he did. "Lead the way." The teen frowned, eyeing his abandoned lemonade forlornly.

The clock in the team's dorm room ticked away, each second swallowed up by the constantly moving hand of time. Victoria pressed her closed fist up against her punching bag. The fabric of the bag was lined with kevlar, and inside the bag was dozens and dozens of tightly compacted concrete. Normal punching bags often didn't even last a single punch or two with her before it swung wildly off of its hook and against the wall. As she activated her semblance, she felt warmth race up and down her arm, as her blue aura ignited and danced along her skin. Victoria inhaled deeply before pulling back her arm, in one sharp motion she suddenly exhaled, her fist impacting hard against the stone wrapped in kevlar. She felt the shock wave, but not the pain or shattered hands she would have felt if she did not have her semblance active. As the kinetic energy from her punch died down, she sensed the stone-like material cracking beneath the fabric.

"Over compensating much?" Joked, Lapis as the she entered the room. She took a seat on her bed, scratching her chin as she continued to speak.

Eden stopped at the doorway, leaning against the wall as he watched the two. Inside his mind, however, he was still mourning the loss of his lemonade. Vale really knew how to make the liquid just the perfect amount of sweet. His tongue salivated at the thought.

Staring at himself in the mirror, upon hearing the familiar muffled crack of concrete against her fist from inside the bathroom, Eminence gave a slight sigh when he noticed the brutality of her punch had actually caused the mirror to crack straight down the middle, having almost finished brushing his wet, thick and heavy set of purple coloured hair, just out of the bath, Eminence cleaned the grime off his body quickly, before putting on his garments, dressed and suited, ready for the occasion at hand.

Hand upon the bathroom door, the familiar frigid touch of metal, Eminence pulled on it, allowing the "Human" to walk into the main room of the dorm, where it appeared everyone else was standing.

"If you keep training like this, that's probably going to be the tenth dummy this week! And i don't think we have enough Lien to buy one every hour...! Or forty mirrors a day...!" The heir spoke politely, obviously only meaning this as a joke. He was glad he was in a group filled with such vibrant characters, however none of them knew of his ... actual features, with him hiding the fact he is actually a faunus. Still, he was glad he got to spend time with them, and he hoped one day he could trust them enough to look past who he really was, in time of course.

"Oh, relax, it's fine. My mom's the one who pays for the punching bags... Unless you want me to stop asking her for them and take their place." Victoria replied with a grin. "As for your mirrors, you can send her the bill too, I'll make sure it ends up where it belongs." Truthfully, she was talking about the trash. She deactivated her semblance, the flames disappeared instantly like a blown out candle.

"In any case...! We should probably go over our plans for the tournament, who'll be going into each round, what we should do to chain our attacks together, that sort of thing? Unless breakfast and lunch sound like a good idea first...?"

Lapis slumped back on her bed, stretching her arms out and staring at the ceiling.
"Breakfast does sound good" She murmered "But we should probably start training, we've not got a lot of time before it all starts" She bounced off of her bed, before flattening her hair with her hand and continuing. "That is unless comatose boy over here wants to catch some sleep first" she taunted, sticking a thumb out towards, Daelon.

Eden frown-smirked, something unique to him, before straightening up from his leaning position. "No, your bullshit woke me up. Let's go." He had previously scouted out the festival layout a while back, mostly for places where he could be alone to listen to music or sleep or whatever he wanted to do at the time, and had came upon a bit of a gem, as far as solitary training fields went. Turning around, Eden rose a hand in a 'Come hither' gesture as he made his way out of the building.

The festival was still active, but a lot more manageable, now that some time had passed since the grand opening. Eden paused as he exited their temporary shelter, turning around and walking backwards as he spoke. "It's a ways off...just gotta go through the sewers, and up through a different grate." He instinctively side-stepped a child as they ran past, still walking backwards. "Hidden away and all that." Turning around, Eden was about to continue leading, when he came face to face with a rather disturbing scene.

A red-haired chick pigging out on noodles, the broth flying everywhere.

He calmly flicked a flying piece of noodle out of the air, before it could impact his face. His eyes, usually cool and sharp, twitched slightly. He really hated ramen. It reminded him of worms.

He was deathly afraid of worms.

Eminence had almost jumped into action when the flying piece of noodle shot straight for him, though he had no need to rush since Eden had already deflected it with the tip of his finger. Lightly stumbling, Eminence straightened himself up and coughed, a little embarrassed at his preemptive actions.

"Sorry...! I was going to uh... nevermind, you handled that yourself! ... A waste of a noodle though!"

Lapis' face grew with glee as she saw the noodle stand, she could hardly even see the girl through her own unsatiable hunger. She almost leapt into the seat, slamming her hand down and ordering the patron to get her a bowl of noodles. A minute or so later and it had arrived, she slammed a not down and began chowing down into the noodles.

The thick purpled haired heir raised an eyebrow when he saw, Lapis lunge for the noodle stand like some form of insatiable grimm, and chuckled at the sight of her literally devouring her meal like a beast from a horror movie. Honestly he didn't know whether to be surprised or afraid. Possibly both. Though the scent of the noodles did make him hungry.

"I think i'll take a bowl myself...!" Eminence spoke, taking a few seats down from, Lapis, he smiled politely, ordering himself a bowl of noodles with PLENTY of meat, needing to sate his canines on something of a less "vegeterian" lifestyle, he tried his best to be polite as he ate, to keep proper form, though the desire to drill into his noodles like Lapis was all the more tempting, he decided to keep himself from doing so.

With a disgruntled frown, Eden collapsed into a nearby seat, propped his chin up on his fist, and watched his teammates eat the nasty worms. "Training my ass." He said under his breath.

And he still didn't have his damned lemonade.

Echo Marine, Albus Alliquam, Tawne Adagio

What started out as a mischievous smirk developed into a smug shuckle and finally culminated in a raucous guffaw.  Over the course of a few moments, Tawne proved less and less able to contain his mirth as what began as an experimental joke culminated into hijinks worth of a true master of the art of sabotage.  In fact, the sophomore could not even look at the screen without cracking up, however composed he managed to make himself.  Finally, he called out across the hotel room, "Albus!  Get over here and get a load of this!"  He span his laptop around neatly on the smooth wooden desk so that the faunus could get a good look.

Albus was finishing homework. Writing on two seperate sheets of paper that acted as notes. " Alright- Alright. " He chuckled, sliding of the chair and quickly jogged over to Tawne, " Awww~ Why are you doing this without me! " Albus pouted, his elbow resting against the chair. 

Leaning on his crossed arms, Tawne tapped the edge of the computer, inviting his friend to figure out the story for himself.  "There's no time to waste when it's time to evil-do!  The evil that I do do.  Check it out: you remember Star Colony, right?  Well, these new guys just made a little base on the server, and I dropped by to give 'em a little 'welcoming present', heheh!  It looks like a doormat, but it's really a pitfal trap full of dust bombs.  I've already killed two of the suckers!  You shoulda heard them over the voice chat.  So pissed off!"  He whirled the laptop around and set his dextrous fingers dancing across the keyboard, like an artist on his loom.  "What's next, do you think?  Falling anvils?  Tripwires?  Ooh, I know.  I'll lead a monster inside."

He intently looked at the screen, trying his hardest to focus, " Hmm...this is a hard one. I'd suggest rigging a bomb to a signal chest. Put something you least need in it. And bam! You have the most basic trap. " Albus couldn't think of anything else at the moment. Homework was more important to him at the time. 

An uncharacteristic surge of panic crossed Tawne's face.  His steady tapping of fingers on keys swelled to a fever pitch, and he cried in mock, "Wagh!  I've been found out!  One of the admins is running after me!  I mean, it's only been like, thirty minutes.  I'd figured he was either blind or ramming a few too many hotpockets into his piehole.  No, no, no...!  Aw, what a gem.  Kicked from the server for the day.  The fun police strikes again!"  A few clicks of the mouse exited out of the game and back to desktop.  Tawne leaned back in his chair, not at all perturbed by this turn of events.  Sunlight filtering through the blinds caught his eye, and with a start he realized he'd forgotten breakfast.

" Really? Again? Do I have to make more apologization emails to the server owners?" Albus laughed lightly, standing up straight and his hands sliding down into his pockets as he watched. There wasn't much he could do right now, his eyes were baggy from lack of sleep. Albus wanted to do more, but obviously his father wanted him to score the highest in Beacon. He couldn't fufill two wishes at a time, " I need to do my homewor- "

An abrupt slam of the bathroom door cut Albus off.  Echo appeared in casual clothing, her still-wet hair neatly poofed.  "What're you two bozos yakking about?  More bullying people online, you bully?"  She grabbed a yellow bandana and tied it with deft precision around her hair.  Tawne shrugged nonchalantly, casual as ever.  "Studio wouldn't have put pressure pads and retracting panels in if they didn't want 'em used.  Besides, if I were you, Ech, I'd be a lot more worried about your newest viral video.  Shower scenes are all the rage on Dank.com."  He grinned and rose to his feet.  Echo, who knew her teammate merely jibed her, rolled her eyes and pulled the bow tight.  "You'd know."

Sighing again, Albus rubbed his head and walked back to his desk on the other side of the room. More focused on his homework as...usual? His grades had been declining and Albus tried to focus but with such rowdy friends that was almost impossible. He couldn't have the fun he liked but at least he was with the people he cared about. "Echo! Don't-...do anything right now. I am busy and-...and I need to do my homework."

The bluenette cast Albus an incredulous look.  "I hope 'don't do anything' doesn't include breakfast.  Crunch numbers if ya like; I'm gonna go eat.  Finish quick.  Today's the big day.  If we're gonna pull off Plan Beat we need at least one more rehearsal, all four of us.  Ya with me, Tawne?"

She turned to look at him, but found the bespectacled lad only a few inches away.  With a laptop powered down, a chair pushed in, and a stomach a-rumbling, Tawne was the spitting image of ready.  "Nope.  I'll need at least two hours."

Albus frowned, and after a moment of intense thought piped up with, "I'll stay here."  No sooner than the words come out of his mouth, his teammates vanished, leaving Albus to the privacy of the hotel room.  Even such a mundane place held great promise on a day like this, though.  While they might not look it, no member of BEAT could be more amped about the chance to represent Atlas in the tournament of all tournaments, the Vytal Festival.  Albus took in the silence of the room...for once it was quiet. Though he had felt uncomfortable without the comfort of others nearby. He grabbed the books next to the computer and jumped onto his bottom half of his bed. 

Meanwhile, the two Atlesians met their first obstacle only moments into their trek for breakfast.  Tawne insisted that they patronize the nearby pancake house, Mad Stacks, while Echo argued that they'd be able to rendezvous with their team leader at a noodle shack.  "You nuts, Ech?  Burg's a big girl, she can handle herself for a little while out in the real world.  Knowing her she'd be too busy trying to eat her way into immobility to even acknowledge we exist.  Mad Stacks is where it's at."  He leaned against the hotel doorway, hands resting idly in his pockets with one of his feet stuck behind the other.  Still not adjusted to the full sunlight, he waited for Echo to stop glaring at him.

She obliged, though only after remarking through pursed lips, "We have pancakes all the time, doofus.  We still gotta wrap up the plan.  Noodles or no noodles, Burgundy will get it.  There's a lot ridin' on us today."  Regretting having to give up on pancakes but well aware of how productive an attempt to change his comrade's mind might be, Tawne pushed off the building at set off into the bustling festival grounds, Echo right alongside.  "No pressure though," he sneered to no-one in particular.

In short order, the pair arrived at the noodle stall, homing in on a waterfall of luxuriant scarlet hair.  Tawne and Echo seated themselves on either side of Burgundy, effectively trapping their leader between them.  Sure enough, the girl had already eaten enough to satisfy a family or two.  Naturally, Tawne wasted no time pointing this out.  "Geez, Burg.  I really am surprised you aren't a blimp by now.  Must have God's own metabolism."  He signalled a staff member.  "One udon.  Please."  He cast an eye down the stall, spotting a black-haired girl in gray nearly as gluttonous as Burgundy.  The three individuals around her also caught his attention, and a logical realization ensued.  Whistling, Tawne received his udon, and remarked to his friends, "Those four are too unique-looking to be normal.  Figure they're competitors?"

Halfway through a bite of soba, Echo followed his eyes.  Rather than spending time pondering or not, she slurped down her food and said aloud, "Hiya.  Hmm...group of four, cool threads?  Y'all competing in the Vytal Festival tournament?"  For the moment at least, these new faces interested her more than running over a plan with Burgundy, not that the redhead had finished stuffing her face.

Victoria sat there uninterested, waiting for her other two team mates to finish devouring their meals. She had never been a girl for ramen, or any other soup-based foods. She enjoyed different cuts of meat, especially well-done steak. Not to mention, she wasn't particularly hungry, having ate a few snacks before training, so ramen definitely wasn't on her list of priorities. She really wanted to train, though. "Training, my ass." whispered Daelon to himself. She turned to face him and gave him a sly smile.

With another glance towards her hungry team mates, Victoria turned her attention elsewhere, absent-mindedly zipping up front of her jacket - a nervous habit. Said habit was disrupted by the sudden approach of another group of teenagers around their age - students, most-likely, here to compete in the Vytal Tournament. The three seemed to know the girl with the red hair sitting near them as they sat with her and began talking amongst themselves. All of a sudden, one member of the other team spoke up. "Hiya. Hmm...group of four, cool threads?" Victoria snickered at that comment. "Y'all competing in the Vytal Festival tournament?"
Victoria turned and looked at the blue-haired stranger.

"Heh, no not competing. We're going to win the Vytal." she replied with an arrogant smirk. "How about you?"

"Training my ass" Spoke their team leader, making Eminence frown a little sadly at his words. He hoped he didn't mean that in spite, would have been a little bit rude of Daelon to do so. Eminence sighed apologetically, and with haste finished his meal, pushing the bowl to the slide. His eyes met Daelon's.

"I'm sorry we're not immediately beginning training, I never had anything to eat this morning and since someone else was going off to eat, I wouldn't be the type to just let them eat alone... Guess i'm just nice that way! Regardless, training on an empty stomach isn't exactly the best way to begin! So maybe you should loosen up and fill up before you start rumbling midway through practice! I don't carry snacks on me so... I wouldn't be able to give you a pick me up, Dee...!"

However before the heir could speak anymore, he sensed the approach of students unfamiliar to him, most likely another team competing in the festival given their talk about admiring their threads and asking if they were competing in the tournament themselves. The confident yet arrogant reply from Victoria made him smile, though he wasn't about to get ahead of himself, he needed a lot more training before he was going to be ready for anything. Eminence took note of their appearances, smiling affectionately at them.

"We'll try the best we can, as i'm sure you all will! Quite the garments yourselves! Seems like everyone in the tournament would be equally suited to a cosplay competition! Heh, perhaps once peace is brought to the world completely, we can have a Vytal festival that consists of less... aggressive displays of fun! ... Names Eminence. Eminence Manchester... What about yourselves?"

Burgundy had hardly noticed a group of four joining her at the noodle stand. She was able to see them in her peripheral vision, but did not fully register them all. In fact, the only one that she did take notice of was the one who had joined her in scarfing down noodles as if it were their last day alive. She could hear them talking, but their words were just noise to her, drowned out from the noise that she herself was making in the process of eating.

She had hardly even noticed her own teammates appearances until they began speaking. Even just as background noise to her, she knew their voices. She was well aware of what Tawne had said to her, but she wasn't going to pummel him just yet. First they had to win the first bracket of fights, send herself and not-Tawne to the second round, and them beat him to a pulp for calling her a blimp.

Echo spoke out about the other team and their clothing, asking if they were competing as well, which was responded to with a smarmy remark that would allow Burgundy to now hear clearly.

"Echsuuse me?!" She attempted to speak with a mouth full of food. "We ah goin' to win it!" She swallowed down all of the noodles occupying her mouth. Meanwhile, her sunny-haired teammate down the bar leaned forward, snickering, to get a good look at the girl who'd just guaranteed that BEAT wouldn't be taking it easy on her. "You're on your way to winnin' our hearts at least. Hope the others think like you do--if that can be called thinkin'. If nobody's competin', it should default to us, right?" He glanced questingly at Echo, expecting to get an exasperating glare. Instead, he found a look of unexpected agreement, though she didn't share it with Victoria. To her, she merely offered a grunt of affirmation.

Luckily, one of the other members of the other team seemed to more enjoyable company, not looking to fully indulge his partner's answer about the competition. While a non-combat related festival would be nice, Burgundy enjoyed the good fight. This idea didn't chime nearly so well with Tawne, though he could appreciate someone managing to keep their ego from throbbing out in the open. With a gregarious politeness Eminence bounced the compliment given by Echo back into BEAT's court, prompting Tawne to chuckle. "Thanks! I got 'em at Who Cares Emporium," he jibed before scratching his head, confused. "The hell's a cosplay?" he asked his teammates

Echo rested her chin on her fist in serious thought. "Hm. Cosplay's some kinda dress-up game, I think? Dress-up for nerds. Right up your alley, bro." At this, Tawne recoiled. After letting loose a derisive pfffff, he quickly spooned in a mouthful of udon, gulped it down, and then replied, "Yeah, my alley. I'd give you a nasty look, bro, but you've already got one." Echo snorted and leaned back, prompting Tawne to titter. He edged forward again to peer at Eminence, to whom he gave a short wave after he finished talking despite the alarming look that crossed the other boy's face.

"I'm Tawne. T-A-W-N-E. Y? Why not?" His little jape did not seem to make much of an impression, so he adjusted his glasses and continued. Echo, aware of his love for talking, let him introduce her. "The stunningly moderate chick is Burgundy. Sure, she's got a pretty face, but wait 'til you see her other one! And the broad at the end is Echo. We're pretty sure family tree's a cactus; everyone on it's a prick, and really, really tough." His eyes swept over Daelon, Victoria, Eminence, and Lapis in sequence, internalizing their faces. Not being much in the mood for a punch to the face, even with aura, he hoped the other realized as well as his friends that he was joking. By now, Burgundy and Echo knew his derision to be the medium for his affection, but the others might very well get offended for their sakes, too. "Nice to meet you, but it'll be nicer to beat you. Right, Ech?" The bluenette nodded, amused and interested to see how the others might respond.

The day has finally come. Today Mikoto would be leaving for the Vytal festival, to show what she has been working towards for the past year ever since she finished only third in the regional martial arts championship. Twelve months of soul crushing training later, she emerged as the best fighter on the academy with the promise of attending the most prestigious competition on the world. However the sudden summon by the Academy commander made her worry her plans have been changed.

Knocking on the door, the swan faunus waited to be admitted. Once the door clicked shut behind her, the commander took a while to rise from finishing a piece of bureaucracy. “Cadet Kage. Please, take a seat.” Mikoto thanked him and did so, waiting for him to start. “Let me congratulate you personally on your performance. We do not often see people like you here, being only third in the food chain after the Huntsman and Militaries. That, however, gives us another problem to work around for your attendance on the festival.”

Mikoto’s gaze dropped down: She knew what the problem was. No one else on this academy could stand up to a hunter, and while the officials of the festival might have had made an exception for her, there was an issue of her not having any team. “I see you understand. Fortunately, the headmaster of Beacon offered us his help. You will be assigned to one of Beacon’s incomplete teams. However, due to the secrecy involved in the program, not even Mr. Ozpin knows of your unit’s purpose. As such, you will be representing the hunter school for the time being.”

Mikoto pouted, but knew she should be glad she could participate in the first place and said nothing. “I want you to remain discrete. If at any point it becomes imperative to share your assignment, I want you to contact your CO first, and it will be handled on a per-person security clearance basis. Other than that, treat your time participating in the tournament as being off duty, but I advise you to pay attention. Participate in the classes, observe the others. Those will be the people that will potentially be your opponents. It is a unique opportunity to study them.”

“I understand. If I do well enough and make it to the one on ones, will I be able to represent our school? Despite Paddy- Commander Ryan’s efforts, I am still the only recruit in two years. It might help advertise us a little.” Mikoto asked.

The commander sighed, rubbing his eyes: “The festival was originally founded with only hunters in mind. However, I see what you hint at. I suppose we shall cross that bridge once we get to it. At that point you would also have your results as leverage, it is senseless to bring it up to the officials now.” Walking over to the secretary’s table, he pulled out some paperwork and handed it to her. “These will be your new credentials and instructions. I was briefed in haste on some of the details, but I think it will be best if you heard them from the headmaster himself. You may leave when you’re ready, they are waiting for you.”
With an affirmative and a salute, Mikoto grabbed up the files and left to finish packing.

Day after; Fairgrounds

Mikoto felt strange. The entirety of her past year was a routine. Wake up. Eat. Actually wake up. Go to class. Eat some more. Personal training with Paddy. Eat a lot more. Study. Snack time. Two hours of personal time. Eat again. Work out. A quick prayer to the Old Gods before sleep. Rinse and repeat.

Now she was in the middle of a mess of people in the middle of the week in the middle of the day, and she didn’t quite know what to do with her time. What she did know was that she wanted to change out of her fancy getup so she could let her wings loose. Right now they were crammed into the harness and Mikoto could swear they grown again with how much it made her ache. Perhaps she should just head to the dorms where she would be staying.

Then again, right there was a guy serving food, and she left so early she didn’t grab much of a breakfast. One particular stall attracted a particularly large group of people, so Mikoto had a look at the manu. To her disappointment, most of it was noodles. sighing, the swan went along in search of something with higher animal protein content.

She finally parked in front of a lottery stand - a guy with a cart selling meat on a stick. She recalled some of the health and hygiene inspectorate cadets telling frightening stories about where that meat - if it could be called such - came from, but her growling stomach made her go for it. “Ugh. I hope I don’t get defeated by food poisoning before the fighting even starts.” she hushed for herself, sitting down and taking a bite.

"Echsuuse me?!" Mumbled the red haired girl through a mouthful of food, barely preventing herself from spitting out pieces of noodle. "We ah goin' to win it!"
Victoria merely let out a quiet chortle in response, before giving her a mischievous smile. Her blond team mate poked out his head from behind the row and began speaking to Victoria.

"You're on your way to winnin' our hearts at least." Victoria rolled her eyes and stared ahead. "Oh boy..." she murmured to herself. "Hope the others think like you do--if that can be called thinkin'. If nobody's competin', it should default to us, right?" Victoria tilted her head slightly before responding with a hushed "Touché" accompanied by her trademark smirk. She brushed back the right side of her hair past her ears and was about to move on to say something else when Eminence began politely conversing with the other group. Victoria gave him a repulsed, horrified look, as if to say "What are you doing being nice to the enemy?!". Victoria zoned out again when they began talking about something called Cosplay, and resumed her habit of playing with her jacket zipper.

Eden had skillfully ignored Eminence's awkward apology. He had always been weirded out about how the boy could not understand when someone was just being sarcastic/cynical, but he assumed that it was some sort of...eh, he didn't know, and it hurted his head to even think about it, honestly. Instead, Eden sat back and watched his teammates converse with the other team, not really caring all that much about the missed training time. He did, in fact, care about how his damn lemonade was abandoned and alone, but there wasn't much he could do about that, now was there?

The blond member of Team BEAT spoke up again, introducing himself as Tawne before moving on to the rest of the team. "The stunningly moderate chick is Burgundy. Sure, she's got a pretty face, but wait 'til you see her other one! And the broad at the end is Echo. We're pretty sure family tree's a cactus; everyone on it's a prick, and really, really tough."
Victoria tapped Daelon on the shoulder and whispered. "Oh, I like him." with a snicker, while still fiddling with the jacket zipper.

Daelon's sensitive ears caught the distracting sound of metal quietly clinking, and he instinctively glanced over at Victoria, arching a slim black eyebrow at the girl's nervous habit. "Orphans die when you do that." he said, completely serious.

Victoria paused and stared Daelon dead in the eyes before continuing the habit, all the maintaining eye contact as if she was daring him to stop her. "Wait, aren't you an orphan? Oh yeah, you are." She once again continued the habit.

"Harsh." Eden smirked, turning his attention back to the other team, just in time to hear their final question. It would be nicer to beat them? Heh."I doubt it, but you'll try anyway. Good luck." He stood, brushing locks of hair out of his eyes. He really should cut it. "Let's go, Team DEVL." Turning around, the teen rose a hand in farewell, continuing on the path. Victoria was caught off guard by Daelon's sudden departure.
"Uh... Um... It was nice meeting you... I think? she said before she ran off to catch up.

---

Golden eyes glared out over the crowd of competitors, focusing somewhat intensely on one in particular with long purple hair. Silme had been coming over here with the express purpose of getting some noodles, but it seemed to be unexpectedly busy today an the last thing he wanted was to get dragged into a conversation with a bunch of fuckwads. However, as he looked them over, he caught the scent of a couple different Faunus on the wind, about 3 if his nose was right(and it always was), but to his confusion, he could only spot two. One was some form of wolf from what he could tell, and the other, while well hidden as she ate near one of the lottery stands, had definitely been the source of the more avian scent, but that left uncalled for. He'd strafed the area a bit, looking as if he had been trying to decide which of the many stands in the area had food worth getting(in truth, the noodle stand was the place to go for the safest food, as the guy kept his stuff pretty clean. The others . . .varied depending on how soon they'd be exoecting a visit from the health inspectors). It was only after the third pass that he finally had a good idea of who the third Faunus was, and he was currently struggling with himself on not confronting the fucker right then and there. The fact that he was hiding his Faunus features was just eating at Silme's patience, as such action was to fly in the face of everything that Faunus had accomplished in recent years, or even worse, just flagrant disregard to one's Faunus heritage in order to appease human society.

It was disgusting, and he wanted to fuckin' deck the fucker right then and there, his animalistic instincts doing nothing to lessen his anger, but he took a small breath, calming himself a little before he went over to the noodle stand, getting a greeting from the owner, who was currently indebted to Carver for helping him with a loan(by killing off the guy who the stand owner had owned moany to) and thus rewarded Carver by promising to give him and any of his men who happen to stop by a bowl of noodles every once and awhile on the house. Taking the bowl, he calmly and quietly by himself a short ways away from the group and watch the domesticated fuckwad. He wouldn't try to hide it, nor would he look away if he or any of his friends noticed, because honestly, he didn't think very highly of the humans that were on his team either, as they either didn't notice(making them idiots) or they were the reason for it(which made them even bigger fuckwads than they already were). It'd be obvious that he had some problem with the purple haired boy, if not by the fiercely disapproving and angered look in his eye, then by the light growling that could be heard if they got close enough. Either way, he'd just eat, going over in his head what he should do in this situation. He couldn't just assault him, that'd be a one stop ticket to jail, and just confronting him would draw the ire of his friends, which would eventually lead to a fight with how these kinds of things, this leading to the same result.

In the end, he decided to simply kick his bitch ass if he ever met him in the festival, as he was obviously a Hunter given the conversation his team was having with the other group. With that decided, he'd continue to eat his noodles, and if the fuckwad or his friends had a problem with his observation and came to him about it, he'd simply ignore them, as none of them were really worth his time, and he had no reason to kick their asses . . . yet.

@The_Written_John and any of his friends who notice.

"This is sure to be a fascinating day today! All of our contestants for today's Vytal Festival tournament have been handpicked from each of the four kingdoms, and are ready to do their homes proud while squaring off against other hunters and huntresses in training!" Like he always did, Professor Oobleck spoke at a thousand miles an hour. "This is also the first year in which each of the brackets are going to be held differently than before."

Professor Port nodded to the bespectacled man beside him in agreement. "Yes, this will be the first year where the tournament will start on the doubles round. Each of the teams competing will divide into two smaller teams to fight against another pair. The winning pair will proceed onto the next bracket. In the second round, the winners of the past round will all participate in a four-way battle against one another. Whoever competes against who is decided on random, which does make it possible for teammates to fight one another! Only one person from each fight in the second round can proceed, meaning that you will have to make a tough choice to move on, or let your teammate move on."

Port had been prepared to speak, but another voice rang out instead. "And the final round will be a singles round, pitting the remaining hunters and huntresses against each other." The voice came from one of the beacon professors alongside Oobleck and Port. She sat sideways on the chair, careful with her large tail.

"Oho!" Oobleck called out. "Professor Cross, I'm glad you've made it." He watched as the ebony skinned Faunus took her seat next to Oobleck and away from Port. He turned to the camera once again with a smile. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is our fellow teacher and huntress, Professor Cross. She teaches the science behind the weapons that our students wield, and is an accomplished huntress in her own right!"

"Hello everyone. As Professor Oobleck said, my name is Professor Ophelia Cross, and this will be the second time that I have joined these men in announcing the Vytal Festival while in Vale." She smiled to the camera. "And I'd like to give a shout out to me daughter, who is competing in the tournament today! Knock 'em dead Amari!"

Tawne witnessed with nonplussed disinterest the immodest and earnest contest emerging between Victoria and Daelon, her opposition of his objection an amalgamation of cruelty and camaraderie. Only a few moments later, the opposing entourage elected to exit, even as a gray-haired grouch seated himself nearby over a bowl of noodles to leer, seething, in the students’ general direction. Distracted for the moment from DEVL, Tawne cast a brief, unfazed look Silme’s way, finding that whatever surliness that excused such a milk-curdling grimace did not appear to be directed his way. Incorrectly assuming him to be an everyday idiot, Tawne finished his udon and stood up from the noodle stand just in time to see his brother-in-arms arriving.

He saluted Albus, saying ”Hi-de-ho. You know, you just missed meeting –in person!- the future champion team of the Vytal Festival. They were true winners, the stuff of legend! No doubt you will regret this momentous occasion for years to come. Hey, want to go try the festival games?” He turned partially around toward Burgundy, squinting in the manner of the esteemed philosopher. ”Might be just us, though. Berg’s won’t be done bloating for another hour or so.”

Slurping down the last of her soba, Echo span around on her stool and stood up. ”Not so fast. I’m up for a game or two before we get down to business.” She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand before crossing her arms. She only managed a single step forward, however, before a little TV screen hanging in the back of the noodle stand switched from boring news to a live feed from the stadium box. Both Echo and Tawne turned around to listen, the professors onscreen unfamiliar to them. When Oobleck mentioned a change in rules and Port began to explain, all of team BEAT froze. The only sound coming from any one of them was a thin stream of air from Tawne, hissed through his teeth: ’ffffffffffffff-

Halfway through the explanation, he burst. ”Fiddle! Sticks! What!? Who thought of this? We can’t do our super-special-secret-plan anymore!” He trailed off, however, when Professor Cross appeared on the screen. His expression changed instantly at the sight of a mature woman with an intriguing sense of style. Frowning comically with his eyebrows up, he waited patiently for her to finish before turning to his teammates. Theatrically rubbing his hands together, he remarked, ”I really must say, I’ve never seen a whale that’s such a fox! I might not mind bein’ knocked dead by a daughter of hers.”

Echo’s eyes nearly crossed in exasperation. ”You’re a real dolt. It’s even dumber since I know you’re not serious. I hope ya do get into the second round—I’ll have a real excuse to whoop ya myself.” She began to walk, leaving the noodle stand behind, and Tawne strode alongside her. ”D’you think that announcement means the fights are about to start?” Her teammate shook his head. A minute later she found herself steered toward an orange minigame tent, where the task appeared to be to hit a slowly-moving target with a baseball. The obvious ploy on Tawne’s part earned him a sour look, but the boy appeared unabashed as he lined up his shot. A moment later, the ball sailed from his fingertips, headed straight for the target’s bullseye. Before it hit, however, it curved upward and soundly missed, bouncing off the backboard. Tawne pretended to be upset. ”Impossibru! I was dead-on! How rigged can ya get?” Echo punched his arm as they left, while the confused and irked gamemaster replayed in his head the physically impossible shot. ”Show-off.”” Grinning, Tawne held his arms behind his back, and the two trekked on, discussing what could be done to make up for the now-unusable super-secret-plan.

Teàrlag Cirsium

The Vytal Festival. A biannual celebration of the ceasefire that ended the Great War seven decades ago. There's parades, food, cheap merchandise, and for some reason, a combat tournament, hence why I'm sitting here on a bench in the fairgrounds rather than in my dorm room back at Shade Academy. It's ironic how everybody's celebrating the end of a war with fighting of all things, but whoever came up with the idea sixty years ago must not have gotten the memo. And so here I am, representing Vacuo in some competition about unity or what-not so that glory, honour, fame and all that other meaningless stuff gets added to Shade's rep.

Not like it really matters. There's only like, what, four Huntsman academies anyway. Shade's never gonna face enrolment issues.

I didn't really want to be part of this entire competition thing, but the other three betrayed me. They sought to stand out and get good grades, nullifying my desire to just remain in Vacuo and laze about. Curse their ambition and motivation. I could have been avoiding all this instead of scoping out the competition. Not that I even know where the 'competition' is.

It's a big fairground. A big waste of money too.

At least it's reusable.

I sigh, leaning back against the wooden bench. Maybe I should get some food. Scoping out the competition's a pretty energy-intensive task, and I guess the real only good thing about this place is the Valic cooking. Noodles here are actually pretty great.

Not a lot of it in Vacuo.

And it's probably going to be overpriced stuff anyway. Have to feed off the wallets of the poor.

“Welcome Mrs. Acier.” A man said in a very-Vale tone of voice.

“Oh, darling are you proposing?” Noël said with an audible and somewhat demeaning laugh.

“Excuse me Mrs?” He said, most certainly in the tone of voice that confirmed the proletariat in his genes.

“There you go again, I swear there’s something in the water with you Valians. Ma’am will do quite fine thank you.” She said pulling out a clutch from her coat pocket and handing the man a bill. “I expect my bags in my room in two minutes.”

“Ma’am, I just hold the door.” The doorman complained.

“Look at the bill dear.” Noël chided.

“Right away ma’am.” The doorman said lunging towards the vehicle that took her from the dreaded airport in Vale to this godforsaken hotel.

Noël’s walk through the lobby of the hotel garnered looks from passersby. She laughed inwardly as she thought about the kind of looks the rest of her team would garner given the fact that she was by far the poorest of the three.

Noël opened the door to the penthouse suite with a sigh. They just didn’t make them like in Atlas anymore. She decided it didn’t really matter, she’d roughed it in worse conditions then the ones she currently bore. She immediately began walking towards the kitchen putting her hair into a messier bun than what was typically acceptable in common society – she found herself thanking god that wasn’t where she was. She examined the stove, oven, and other dispensaries and gave them a nod. They would do.

Before long her doorman-promoted bellhop arrived with her bags.

“Ma’am, if you don’t mind me asking, why are half of these food?” The simpleton asked her.

“If I don’t make them a nice dinner, I don’t know who will.” Noël said aloud – a hint of something genuine colouring her phrasing. “Thank you bellhop, you may make your exit.” And so he did.

Noël immediately reached into her bag of clothes and found her 'Don’t tell the chef to shut up.' Apron that Brennan had bought her when she finally made a steak he liked a couple months back.

Afterwards Noël quickly took the bags to the kitchen and took out her knives she made in her smithy. She pulled three pans out of one of the larger bags and placed them on the stove, igniting the contraption with a seemingly stone-aged dial.

She took a smaller sauce pan and retrieved a bottle of bourbon from the fridge pouring it into the sauce pan and letting it heat up. Watching the bourbon carefully, Noël knew when it as time and removed the sauce pan from the stove – took a match and struck it against the counter top. She carefully ignited the bourbon and let it flame for about thirty seconds. She then covered the sauce pan and took it off the stove.

Quickly three slabs of meat followed onto the pans each taking up nearly an entire pan, certainly no one pan could hold the two steaks. They sizzled as Noël hummed a tune to their melody as she quickly grabbed a small stick of butter and shaved a small amount off into Albert’s pan. He liked some butter, but not much. She reached into the same bag that had carried her slabs of steak and retrieved a pepper shaker and cracked some pepper onto the steak while it was cooking.

She quickly and skillfully diverted her attention to a group of red potatoes chopping them up quickly into fine yet not chip-sized portions. She threw them in with Kek’s steak in order for them to both fry and salivate with the steak. She produced quite a few more potatoes for Brennan, he always wanted more than everyone else. She chopped his up and added them to his pan as well. She dug a little deeper into her groceries in order to produce a few Portobello mushrooms – Kek’s topping of choice. But before dicing them she took Albert’s steak off the heat and quickly dipped into it with a knife in order to insure that it was as rare as he liked it.

Delighted at the sight of the blood, she placed his steak back on the stove and set the heat to very low, in order to keep it warm. She then turned back to the mushrooms. Dicing them up into perfectly sized portions she laid them out one by one atop Kek’s steak, his cooked the longest so she knew they would glaze into the meat perfectly by the time he would eat it.

She took Brennan’s slab of meat of the heater second and gulped. She knew that her partner was very particular about just how medium rare his steak was. It was the first time Brennan raised his voice at Noël. The moment when Noël truly dedicated herself to mastery – of the medium rare steak. She made the smallest incision on the side of the steak in order to check it’s perfection and was happy to find that she was right on the money.

Finally she took Kek’s medium-well done steak off the heater, his was the easiest and she knew she had perfected his first – so she didn’t bother checking. She also decidedly guessed a long while ago on one eve when she had messed up his order that he wouldn’t argue about it or raise any concerns, he was nice in that way.

Noël immediately began plating the dishes, she knew her team would be arriving any second now. She placed Brennan at the head of the table because otherwise he may implode rather violently, herself to his right as it was closest to the fridge to reach for condiments, refills and other needs. Across from herself was Albert, Brennan’s left hand man and at an easy vantage point to discuss things with both Brennan and herself. Across the table from Brennan was Kek, an intellectual member of the team and the happiest eater.

Before making sure everyone had their drinks Noël retrieved the bourbon sauce that she had created for Kek and lightly drizzled it onto the meat making sure to use everything that was available in the small pan. Content with her work she placed all of the cooking utensils and dishes in the dishwasher.

She quickly fetched three glasses from the kitchen. She filled one with milk, another with with a cocktail she had named the Tarik River Cocktail consisting of a 20 year old Atlesian whisky, Créme de Cacao and peach bitters, and finally for Albert a flute filled with the finest Schneelager – a lager filled with golden dust that enhances the taste.

She sent out a text and wiped her brow upon finally finishing her task.

From: Noël du Acier

To: Team B(etter than you)ANK

Dinner is served. In the penthouse – see you soon, lots of love. ヽ(≧ω≦)ﾉ

Burgundy was only allowed to slime ever so slightly at her wise cracking teammate. There were times when she wanted to just launch a fist to his face for his remarks, but she felt that a little uptalking and wisecrackery would do some good just before the tournament. She almost considered laughing at Tawne's little remark to their team name, but, as a dear and close friend, he shouldn't know that she actually found a few of his remarks remotely funny.

She shifted in her seat just ever so slightly, making herself as comfortable as she could without sitting all the way back in the chair. The newly named Team DEVL had done their business and left the stand, allowing her to continue eating in peace. Her hands, both equipped with silverware to devour the noodles before her, moved at mach five to deliver the food to her mouth, continuing her original plan. She wasn't a star, per-se, but she did do enough side work and other odds and ends to support herself. It only added to her superstar persona that people seemed to buy into, which, in a sense, she was glad about. It make people focus on her fighting, her deeds, and most importantly, her team. She wasn't allowed to fail, which she did whatever she could to keep from happening, and treated her teammates like she had known them all her life.

But none of that really matter. The more important item of focus was the food that somehow did not change her appearance in the least, despite the mass quantities being shoved into her mouth.

After finishing up his bowl of noodles, which were delicious as always, Silme got up to return the bowl to the stand, casting a look at the red haired girl who was ferociously devouring her own meal like she hadn't eaten in days. And people like to call us animals, sheesh, was she raised in a barn? He thought to himself as he shook his head in disgust, before he turned his attention back to the task at hand. Once the bowl had been returned, he made to walk away, to where he had no real idea, only to feel himself being surrounded.

Looking up, he saw the recognizably ugly mug of John Cameron, the lead thug of one of Carver's few rivals, who he only keeps around to help keep the law enforcement off his back. The man's boss was of some reputation as a former hunter himself, but John himself was a Beacon drop-out with hardly any idea of how to use his aura, et thinks that just because he got into beacon that he's the best around. He was annoying to deal with at the best of times, which this currently wasn't, as Silme was still pretty agitated by seeing that domesticated dog faunus, and thus wasn't in the mood for the meathead's bullshit.

"What do you want, John, I'm not in the mood."

"Too bad, Slime, I've been asked to invite you to a special gathering, and I'm afraid I can't take no for an answer. Isn't that right boys?" John smirked as he saw Silme's eye twitch, turning to address the 15 or so men he'd brought along to assist in the collection, his grin widening as they all shared a laugh at the silver haired boy's behalf. "I'm not quite sure why I needed so many men to bring in one boy, especially when he's just a good for nothing ani-." As John had been talking, Silme's ears had slowly began to press themselves against his head, the tips facing back, his tail slowly beginning to sway side to side as his anger began to climb. However, when John crossed the line by proceeding to call him an animal, Silme lost all semblance of control, his lips curling back into a visicious snarl as he grabbed the man by his shirt mid-sentence and proceed to silence him with a savage headbut straight into his nose. This caused it to break in a gout of blood, but Silme wasn't done yet, as he repeated the action 3 more times, before proceeding to toss the man high into the air. As he fell to the ground, Silme performed a spinning round house kick just as he came within range, sending him and the few of his unlucky goons that managed to get in the way into a nearby wall.

Luckily for them, Silme had gained enough control at that point to not use his full aura boosted strength, so they were all alive, though medical attention would probably be needed and John would be incapable of eating anything solid for a lot longer. Silme angrily looked at the other goons, who quickly decided that they weren't getting paid enough for this crap and decided to collect their wounded and scatter like the insects they were. He spat after them in disgust, reaching up to wipe John's blood of his face. He looked at his now bloodied sleeve distastefully, muttering something about how he'd just gotten it clean and that he'd find the bastard and make him pay for the cleaning bill later. Thanks to his aura, Silme was more or less unaffected by the repeated blows to the head, though he was sure that he'd be hearing about this sooner rather than later. He mumbled to himself as he continued to walk away from the scene, unaware that his actions had disturbed the piece, and more specifically, that he had unknowingly knocked over
Burgandy's noodle during the short skirmish, his kick having sent a goon into the table and launching the bowl into the air only to land with a crack against the pavement.

"I really need to work on my temper a little, maybe take another one of those anger management courses . . . actually, the last time I went to one of those, I ended up destroying a couple chairs . . . and walls . . . maybe broke a bone or two. . . *sigh* I have a problem."

@Raijinslayer

Mikoto's current feelings were something between a complete and utter debilitating boredom and a slight fright - she could have sworn some of that 'chicken' she just ate had whiskers. But she was hungry so she rolled the dice. All that was changing rapidly though as a fight broke out. Seeing one or two of the fighters actively use aura during the skirmish, her interest was piqued - not enough though to act just yet. Instead, she sent a text to Paddy, reporting what she was seeing and whether she should engage. His response wasn't quite what she hoped for:



Looking up to see the brawl concluded with negligible property damage, Mikoto slid her scroll back to her pocket with a pout, taking a good long look at the guy who started the exchange. Hopefully someone participating in the tournament, then perhaps she could deliver a little justice - he did assault the others, regardless of who they were or what they were talking about, the most that could account for would be an extenuating circumstance. Although most of all, I would have likely done the same bloody thing. she thought, thinking it wise not to mention that to her boss.

"I'm certain the occasional meltdown is healthy for the mind." she said after his self diagnosis, "You should be more careful though - one never knows when the police might be watching." she smirked, imagining this situation if she already had her badge. That would have gone quite differently, most likely with him being cuffed on the backseat of her cruiser on their way to the nearest precinct.

Burgundy was lost in her food, but she knew the moment that one of her forks didn't have any noodles with it that something was wrong. Her eyes flickered at high speeds, looking about to see who could have done such a thing to her food. Obviously it was the faceless goon right next to her, but who was the one who had thrown the thug?

Not even a second passed by since she lost her food and her eyes were already locked onto the man which she believed caused this mess. She twisted her torso to look at him, her arm swinging to gain momentum to throw the fork at his feet.

"Hey!" Burgundy called out tp the violent man. "You owe me for that bowl! You threw me off!"

@Crimmy

"Lot of fuss about nothing, huh?"

The question was more rhetorical than not, and was mostly to announce Umeko's presence to her comrade. The Atlesian had elected, apparently, to go for her signature style rather than something flashier. Not that she was ever exactly understated. Tsunami's all-ranger regarded the scene over sunglasses that looked suspiciously expensive, pushing them back up her nose once she'd had her fill of the view. Not very much was happening before the fights, but whether that was good or bad depended on your view. Regardless of her own, she seemed to have acquired two more bags on top of the one slung over her shoulders; nondescript, generic, in other words exactly what every vendor at the Festival was using to pack their sales. Apparently 'nothing' was enough to merit at least a little shopping.

She gestured vaguely towards the commotion at the noodle stand, rolling her eyes with exaggerated exasperation. Not everyone could wait for the fights to throw their temper tantrums. Looked like someone with a bad case of chronic meddler syndrome had decided to step in, too, probably to give Mr. Tantrum a stern warning to not do that again. There was a frustrated customer, too. Pretty standard, frankly. Whoever thought gathering the most competitive, hot-headed, and violent collection of do-gooders and thrillseekers Remnant had ever seen in one place on a regular basis was a good idea was an idiot. Wasn't even worth thinking about, honestly. It'd be pretty minor compared to what competitor and fan alike would do before the Festival was done.

Anyone who thought it was for the Grimm clearly had never seen a pissed off fan.

"None of the real vendors arrive til at least tomorrow." She complained, leaning against the back of Tear's seat. "They've all gotta wait for the first few rounds to be done. They only bother making merch for the favorites. Wonder what they'll make for me?"

"Did you see? There's a team DEVL? Swear to God, they're biting my style."

Silme turnrd to look at the commenter withma raised eyebrow, which was soon followed by a harsh bark of laughter at her intended warning.

"Oh yeah, because the police in this town are so damn intimidating. Maybe to lesser people, but as far as I'm concerned, the teachers and admin at Beacon are the ones I worry are watching me, not some inept buffoons with badges." He chuckled for a bit longer, probably about to say one more disrespectful remark, only to find the red-haired Cusinart from before standing in front of him, looking a little less than pleased.

At first, Silme merely ignored her, not in the mood for debling with another uppity human, but then he thought back on her words and turned arounf, passing her by again to head to the noodle cart.

"Hey Samuel, the hollow legged glutton over there has a point. I did wreck the bowl . . . and a few furnishings, so I shpukd pay you back for it. How much we talking here?"

Samuel, a middle-aged looking man with black hair that had been peppered with bits of gray, shook his head at Silme's rudeness and disregard for his best customer. "It'll be about $10 for the bow and $120 for the other damages. But more imoortantky, don't talk that way about my number 1 customer, Silme, having you start a fight is bad enough for business as it is."

"Yeah, yeah," Silme mumbled reaching into his pockets to pull out his wallet and taking out the needed funds. Carver was filthy rich, which meant he didn't give a damn about the amounts of money Silme usually took from him, especially since it rarely occured due to how much of a cheapskate Silme could be, only spending his money on the bare essential on most days. Hell, there were times that Carver took him out for 'bonding exercises', taking him out a number of pointless and stupid tasks that Silme might have enjoyed if not for Carver's presence. The man spent all of his time either insultung everyone around him or elegantky slobbering over women who catch his eye. Needless to say, these were sone of the dullest nights of his lifr, and he'll never be able to get those hours back.

I swear that the only reason he even does these things is that he thinks it'll get him more women to screw with at the end of the day. Well, that and he likes to watch me suffer.

Silme let out an annoyed sigh as he walked away, stopping infront of Burgundy with an bored expression on his face as he seized her up in his head, not overky impressed with what he saw. "Thanks for the reminded Red, hate to be a bother to Samuel. Also, if you want to start another incident than be my guest, but I'd rather we wait until the Festival. Last thing I need is to hear Amari's mouth if I get myself kicked out for fighting another competitor, though judging from the look of you, I'm not sure how much of a fight it'd be." Silme would wait for Burgundy's reaction with a silent anticipation. While he may seem uninterested by his facial expressions, his stance was completely on guard even if it appeared relaxed to a casual observer. His faunus feartures also gave away his anticipation, his ears reared back and his tail wagging lazily behind him in slow, circular movements. Contrary to what he said, Silme could tell that a fight with Burgandy would be a fun one, and he really was hoping to get a fight out of her. He honestly only joined the games to fi d people worth his time to fight, so he honestly didn't care if he got disqualified over a good fight.

@pyroman

@Forsythe